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An Ironton man attempted to take his own life in what appears to be a murder-suicide attempt Saturday night, according to Ironton officials.

Officers with the Ironton Police Department responded to a call regarding a murder-attempted suicide at about 8 p.m. Saturday inside an apartment on M Street.

According to Ironton Police Chief Johnny Matthews, at the apartment they discovered the body of Tammy Jones, along with a 31-year-old man named Corey Jones, who had a a gunshot injury.

Tammy Jones was declared dead at the scene by Iron County Coroner Tony Cole.

Iron County Sheriff Roger Medley said Corey Jones was unsuccessful in a suicide attempt and he was taken to Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis where he is expected to recover from his injuries.

We dont know exactly what happened at this time because the suspect is in the hospital right now, said Medley. Right now it looks like a murder-suicide, but before we say exactly what happened, we needed to talk to (Corey Jones), the husband who is shot and we plan on doing that (Monday).

Medley said he is in St. Louis and plans to make the trip himself to find out the extent of the mans injuries and attempt to find out what happened. He also added they have an autopsy scheduled Monday sometime on Tammy Jones.

Its been reported by sources that there were two children in the home at the time of the incident, but both children made it out of the home. Its also been reported that alcohol may have been a contributing factor.

Medley said the man shot his wife in the head. Its been reported that the incident occurred after an argument, then the man turned the gun to shoot himself.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol has been brought in to assist in the investigation. Ironton Police was also aided by the Pilot Knob Police Department and Iron County Sheriffs Office.
Kansas not planning to require COVID-19 vaccine to attend school

There is no plan to require the COVID-19 vaccine for school attendance in Kansas, as the CDC puts the shots on the childhood vaccination schedule.
Evangelist Joseph Lee who held crusades in American Samoa and Samoa last month, saw amazing historic things take place.

So much happened its hard to quantify it so many lives changed, healed, and delivered Mr Lee said.

A couple of highlights for me - were praying against the cyclone and seeing God miraculously lift the cyclone off Samoa. That was a big one. The cyclone was meant to hit on the last night of our crusade, and I even preached while parts of the roof were flying off!

But that night at 3am, the cyclone miraculously disappeared,

We met a meteorologist who said the cyclone is being studied in Hawaii because it has never happened before What happened was a strange wind came up from the ground in Samoa and pushed the cyclone up into the atmosphere where it disbanded. A potential Category 5 was downgraded to high winds and the meteorologist said its never been seen before!

Mr. Lee said that on their second night in Apia, they had a powerful example of Gods glory, where his wife Lesley sung prophetically and God bought a word about what he was bringing to Samoa.

The glory was so strong a deliverance anointing hit the building and we saw near 100 people delivered from demons or healed that night,

American Samoa was also an amazing experience, he said.

On the first night in American Samoa, Gods healing power broke out before the preaching even began and people came down to testify what the Lord did, he said.

On the 3rd night we were hit by rain again, but this time the people came out in greater numbers to sing and worship God in the driving rain,

It was a highlight for everyone to see 1,000 people worship God with no one leading them,

This went on for over an hour. Gods people were truly carrying the glory into the throne room.

I have honestly never seen hunger like this before and it was something I will never forget.

We had many miracles but one I remember is a little girl who had a skin condition, like psoriasis.

When she came up to testify she was crying as she showed her hands, this beautiful baby-soft skin where the disease had once been!

For their second night in American Samoa, the evangelist said said they saved so many souls, they ran out of salvation cards that they had printed.

A pastor told me they have not had a crusade in American Samoa since Bill Subritzky 24 years ago, and with the amazing unity seen by the pastors they truly felt like it was a nation-changing event.

We have so much video and audio to come in, but we have not had time to corollate it yet, so we will release some more things from the crusade at a later date.

When God said for us to do two crusades back to back, it was really a stretch of my faith and trying to manage a mission team with 30-odd people, having to hire out the national stadium in American Samoa and then having to change venues due to impeding cyclones ... we truly felt like the enemy tried everything he could to stop these meetings.

But when the enemy comes in like a flood the Lord lifts up a standard against him! And so we can declare like Moses Let my people GO!, and even in the midst of the storm we can say Peace be still.

Mr. Lee thanked everyone for their support during all this time.

A big thank you goes to all the people who helped out during the two weeks of crusade meetings. We had an amazing time in Samoa and American Samoa and saw some historic things take place.

To the local secular newspaper, Samoan Observer, for printing three articles in on week on the miracle crusade and print testimonies of the miracles  well you know youre breaking through when the local paper does a full page spread on a miracle from God.

Also we want to thank all those who gave financially to the crusade and those who heard from God and sowed generously. We pray for a massive harvest for youMy God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory.

He also thanked the mission team who gave their time, airplane tickets and their big hearts to come and be a part of this move of the Spirit in the Pacific.

God bless.
Elizabeth Schlicher has won in emphatic fashion the 2016 Oceania Gas Five Islands. The 34yr old Californian won all five races of the series by an average margin of four minutes per race in a total time of 7hrs 09mins 07secs for a total distance of 26kms in four days. In doing so Elizabeth has bettered last years record set by Christina Harris who finished second overall.

In her victory speech Elizabeth was grateful for the competition offered by the other swimmers and also the help of her partner Brian Tabor who was also her race support in the kayak.

We had a great four days of swimming and racing together and these two ladies were great fun to swim with, Elizabeth said.

I cant wait to come back and doing this again and that again and hopefully the big long crossing Upolu to Savaii, she added.

Elizabeth is hoping to do that next year in 2017. That race is on 4th April which is the day after her 35th birthday.

Finishing second was Christina Harris. She too was happy with her effort.

Going into the last race at Falefa Christina was less than a minute ahead of fellow Kiwi Sandra Boubee from Mt Maunganui. She put everything into the last race to finish more than four minutes ahead of her nearest rival in the overall series.

Christina has swum the Falefa Falls course three times previously and she used her local knowledge to reach the Falls first, even ahead of the Californian, choosing the river edge instead of the middle to advance toward the Falls.

Being the champion swimmer she is Elizabeth was able to easily peg back the deficit on the way back to the open sea. The swim then swept out to sea to Falefa Bay point where the second marker was situated. That was the half way point of the race and Elizabeth was not going to be overhauled for first place, nor was Christina for second place in this race and the series overall.

It was a fast time at Falefa for Elizabeth who finished the Falefa 6km swim in 1hr 32mins 45secs, well clear of Christina (1:40:15) and Sandra (1:44:48) by more than four minutes of Christina and Sandra. In the shorter 2.5km race from Falefa village to Le Uaina Resort Saoluafata Triathletes reigned supreme there.

Malaki Iulio was first in 44minutes, followed closely by Luaipou Pimoe and Ronnie Iosefatu.

The overseas swimmers and their support people will now take a tour of Samoa before heading back to their families and jobs.

All three women are aiming to return to conquer the Upolu to Savaii Swim, two of them next year, Christina Harris and Elizabeth. Sandra will return in two years to do that swim to celebrate turning 50. Christina is also returning in August for this years Samoa Swim Series (SSS) to contest the Pacific Open Water Challenge and SSS.
Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg encouraged graduating seniors at the University of California, Berkeley to persevere in life's challenging times, speaking publicly for the first time about her husband's death during a commencement speech.

Sandberg, whose husband, Dave Goldberg, died in a treadmill accident while on vacation last year in Mexico, said she was "swallowed up in the deep fog of grief."

"Dave's death changed me in very profound ways," she told 4,700 graduating seniors. "I learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss. But I also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface and breathe again."

Losing her husband helped her find deeper gratitude for the kindness of her friends, the love of her family and the laughter of her children. She realized that in the face of any challenge, one can choose joy and meaning, Sandberg told the crowd.

"It is the greatest irony of my life that losing my husband helped me find deeper gratitude," she said.

Sandberg encouraged UC Berkeley's 2016 graduating class to build resilience in themselves, their places of work and their communities. "When the challenges come, I hope you remember that anchored deep within you is the ability to learn and grow," she said.

-AP
Dear Editor,

May I start herewith congratulating our National Council of Churches (N.C.C.) for their 50th Anniversary celebrated last week on Thursday. It was quite unfortunate with the heavy rain that prevented most of the invited guests from attending. Nevertheless the celebration took place as planned, starting out with an ecclesiastical ceremony conducted by its most reverend Chairperson le Afioga Leaupepe Deacon Dr. Kasiano concluding with the Samoan customary presentation of gifts after a good meal.

His Highness, the Head of State together with Mr. Prime Minster were the only government representatives who made it.

And I was contented with couple of incidences on that morning which I wish to mention; first, with our Prime Minster friends key note address declaring that the government is currently considering amendments to our Countrys Constitution focusing on article 11 - Freedom of Religion.

For they are foreseeing possible terrorist uneasy situations with the number of refugees mainly in the Middle East due to ISIS Religious acts which are definitely non-Christian.

Secondly the revised method of the Samoan customary gifts presentation adopted by the council executive where I hope all the member churches will follow suit on their future similar situation.

Then with Mataafa Keni Lesas editorial - Friday 13th May to which I see him being positive as ever most definitely he was inspired by Legendary Vaimasenuu Zita Martels facebook blog post.

Again, a sure sign of power in the media but of course it can go either way the need of watchful uttered notion hence my wish herewith enlightening on our friend Mataafas concerns.

I do admire his metaphoric comparison of Samoa to a powerful (747 jet) machine capable of endless possibilities yet Pilot-less. However his following comments; quote So where do we get a pilot from? And how do we go about finding a pilot? The answer is simple. You are the pilot, I am the pilot, we are the pilots of our own destiny. As proud Samoan people, we need to stand up and get this beast off the ground and up to where it really should be. When we sit down and consider what is available, the challenges and the reality on the ground, you would agree with me that there is potential in this country. Socially, economically, spiritually, we have it all, end of quote, need enlightenment.

I also approve our friends notion regarding the much potential in Samoa and wondering how much priority he had in himself with his Matai Samoa status comparing to our Prime Minster friend.

Even more, of how much faithful is he compared to Mr. Prime Minister?

Sunday 15th May, marks the 2016 Anniversary of Gods Mystical Body since its inception, hope our editor friend and you all, Samoa are aware of such truth?

The day commemorated as when Christs Advocate arrived empowering his Apostles and its early followers as promised (Gospel John 14:15-30 then John 20:19-23). No doubt our sacred nation - Samoa, had inspired with its original and inspired katholikos kerygma since then and up to nowadays.

However I wouldnt expect a faithful person to wish for us Samoa to be proud - unnecessarily, instead we do it with thankful hearts out to our forefathers boldness declaring our nation to be founded on this living God  the Trinity one of course. That living God whom we have been told who willingly incarnated into this life and lived his life to the full.

Such fullness leads him to a freely inhumane suffering and worldly death on the cross. The same one whom we had been told of getting resurrected from the dead then ascended back into heaven after promising the Holy Spirits (his advocate) arrival to which we are celebrating his Anniversary today.

And we are now awaiting his Parousia. Believe it or not Samoa he had forever remained faithful to his wishful promise of being with us his entire created human race till end of times as evident with much potential we now witness on ground as rightly referred to by Mataafa.

In oneness with him as proclaimed in his Mystical Bodys teaching of the word this Pentecost Sunday wonder how you may feel with my recommendation to have our brother, friend and Lord Jesus Christ to be our Pilot? Should you agree then we will for sure command this beast to where it should be - fulfilling his divine wish via our individual - yet united, command through him. What do you think?

As to you all our Samoan Christian reverend friends, I wish we wait with prayerful and thankful hearts on the relevant amendment to our countrys constitution undertaken by our -100% Matai Samoa, government for they are rightly doing their part according to God our Countrys founders will.

Wonder whether you are aware of your obligation needed fulfilled, i.e. assuring the world that Jesus Christ (a sure genuine stuff as recently declared through our nations own daughter Toaipuapuaga - stigmata phenomena) had sent by/from Allah - our Daddy, by staying and seen in total unity with him in his readily available Peace and Harmony. Happy Jubilee Samoa.

M.P.M.

Atalii fanau le au a le loomatua Taufusi




Dear Editor,

The snake being discussed has been known to occur in Samoa for generations, it may have been introduced but it is naturally occurring in other parts of the southwestern Pacific.

It belongs to the Pacific boa genus Candoia and as such completely harmless and nonvenomous. It is possible it will take mice and small rats but lizards are its more likely prey. The species of Candoia bibroni.

It is reported from Savaii and Upolu and also Tau in American Samoa, maybe also Wallis & Futuna, and Rotuma although Tokelau records are doubted. It is also found on Fiji, the Loyalty islands of New Caledonia, and Vanuatu but it is replaced by related Candoia species in the Solomons, New Guinea and Palau.

Samoa has no venomous land snakes although sea kraits (Laticauda) and the Pelagic seasnake (Hydrophis platura) may occasionally be found on the coast.

The only terrestrial venomous snake in the entire region is Ogmodon vitianus, a small burrowing elapid found only on Viti Levu, Fiji, where it is endangered due to predation by pigs. A tiny snake, its mouth and fangs are too small to be a danger to humans, and it preys only on earthworms. The Fiji snake is considered unique being the only land-living venomous snake east of the Solomon Islands.

When people report venomous snakes they often do not stop to consider how the snake got there.

I have checked the photo in the Samoa Observer. It is clearly a boa; the markings are nothing like an Australian tiger snake, which incidentally are terrestrial, not arboreal.

The head is also completely different; the boas being long and angular, and the tiger snake has a bulbous rounded head.

I would be grateful if this information could be passed on to prevent more harmless, even beneficial and potentially endangered boas being killed by worried Samoans.

Regards,

Mark OShea




The Samoa Independent Seventh Day Adventist Church (S.I.S.D.A.C.) celebrated another milestone on Sunday.

It was the graduation of 16 Ministers from the S.I.S.D.A.C. Ministerial Seminary in Samoa. The occasion was attended by the Minister of Public Enterprises, Lautafi Fio Purcell.

Pastor Willie Papu congratulated the class of 2016.

Pastor Paulo Pelenato said there were 21 people who registered at the beginning but some had to drop out for work and family reasons.

Tuautu Solofa Toailoa spoke on behalf of the graduating class, thanking Pastor Paulo and Pastor Liutana Vaotuua for the time they spent to teach them the word of God.

He also thanked their leader Pastor Willie Papu for travelling from afar to witness the beginning of their journey as Church Ministers.

Pastor Faatuai Isaia who received a Certificate in Pastoral Care and Evangelism was in tears.

I thank God because if it wasnt for his love and care, we wouldnt be here today, he said.

Pastor Faatuai and his wife are now serving at Falealupo Savaii.

Pastor Sifuiva Naea Tamua was equally grateful. He and his wife are leaving for Australia where they will serve in Melbourne.
The Congregational Christian Church of Samoa has appointed a new General Secretary, as its annual conference at Malua gets underway.

Reverend Vavatau Taufao, who had previously been the Director of Education for the Church, won the vote yesterday.

He collected 383 votes as opposed to the other nominee, Reverend Talia Tapaleao who had 348 votes.

Rev. Taufao takes over from former Secretary General, Reverend Afereti Uili, who has been stood down by the Churchs Elders Committee over an allegation of a sexual nature against him.

Speaking to the Samoa Observer yesterday, Rev. Taufao said he is humbled and honoured to be elected as the new General Secretary for the Church.

To me, it was not an easy decision (to run), he said. But I guess this is Gods will through the church. Its an honour for me to be given this great opportunity to serve the Church in this capacity. I will do my best to work for the betterment of the church.

Rev. Taufao admitted that he had never really entertained the idea of becoming the Secretary General.

Never in my mind that I thought I would become a General Secretary at this time, he said. But Im grateful and I am honoured.

I would like to say that I thank the Church for trusting me and believing in my abilities to carry out this role. Looking ahead, Rev. Taufao said he is keen to continue the work that has already been started. That includes a couple of key building projects that are incomplete.

It all depends on the church and what they want me to do, he said. Whatever they say, Ill follow." The Churchs Deputy Chairman, Rev. Elder Tavita Roma, congratulated Rev. Taufao on his new appointment.

On behalf of the Church General Assembly, I would like to welcome you, Rev. Vavatau on your new role as General Secretary of the Church, Rev. Elder Roma said. We wish you all the best and may the Lord be with you always.

Rev. Vavatau Taufao hails from the village of Piu, Falealili. The 55-year-old is married to Roina and they have three children.
A hearing of more than ten criminal charges against the Minister of Police, Sala Fata Pinati, in connection with the General Election in March, has been adjourned until July.

The Minister had pleaded not guilty to 17 charges brought by another candidate of Gagaemauga No. 1, Sala Iose McCarthy.

In the District Court yesterday, the Ministers lawyer, Ruby Drake asked the Court to adjourn the hearing to give her enough time to inform the witnesses.

She added that documents served to the complainant were delivered late on Friday and did not allow her enough time to contact her witnesses.

Leuluaialii Tasi Malifa is representing Sala Iose.

The lawyer did not object to the application to adjourn the hearing, pointing out that it was a misunderstanding.

District Court Judge, Vaepule Vaemoa Vaai granted the application.

He, however, wanted to know how many witnesses the lawyers plan to call.

The Judge noted that the complainant has about 20 witnesses while the defendant will call a few less than that.

By consent the defendant is remanded on liberty until 11th July to 22nd July for hearing, said Vaepule.

He also ordered that the trial documents be served to the Court by Friday.



Tuala Iosefo hearing

On a separate matter, another candidate of the same constituency of Gagaemauga No. 1, Tuala Iosefo Ponifasio appeared in Court yesterday.

There are nine charges of bribery and treating against Tuala brought by several members of his constituency. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

From the last adjournment, Tuala told the Court he seeks leave to file an application to quash the charges against him.

But yesterday, Tuala said he could not file the application as he had just returned from overseas and needed more time.

I tried to but I was not able to do it in time, said the candidate.

He asked the Court for an extension of time to file his motion to quash the charges.

However, Mrs. Drake who represents two of the complainants objected.

She reminded Judge Vaepule that the defendant had made the application in April to quash and objects to the length of time given to the defendant.

The lawyer requested that the extension of time be given until Wednesday so that she can have an earlier knowledge of the grounds of the application before the matter is recalled on Friday.

Judge Vaepule granted the application of the motion to quash until Wednesday.
Think a minuteDuring the Korean War a South Korean civilian was arrested by the North Koreans and condemned to be executed.

But when the young North Korean leader learned that the prisoner was not a soldier but the head of an orphanage caring for young children, he decided to let him live.

However, he ordered that the prisoners son be executed in his place. So the prisoners 19-year-old boy was shot and killed in front of his father.

After the war ended the United Nations captured this young North Korean leader who had ordered such a terrible murder. He was put on trial for his war crimes and condemned to death.

But before he was executed, the South Korean father whose innocent son had been brutally killed, asked for mercy for the man who had ordered his sons horrible murder.

The father said that the North Korean leader had been young when he ordered his son to be killed and had not fully understand what he was doing. Give him to me, said the father, and I will try to teach him a kinder, better way to live.

The United Nations granted this rare, amazing request of the father to take the murderer of his son into his own home and care for him. This fathers love completely changed the heart of that young, murderous North Korean leader into a kind and compassionate man.

The greatest force in the world is real, unconditional love that forgives and shows mercy even to our worst enemies. In fact, it is the only kind of love that has the power to change our human heart.

A wise person said: The best way to defeat your enemy is to make him your friend. However, it is not natural for us humans to forgive like that, its supernatural. As the saying goes: To err is human, but to forgive is divine. The only way we humans can fully and freely forgive our enemies is if God controls and rules our hearts.

This is why that South Korean father, who was a true Christian and follower of Jesus, was able to forgive and love the North Korean leader who had murdered his son.

The power of forgiveness is almost irresistible. Almost! Because we can still refuse to ask and receive forgiveness. But then we pay the highest price for our pride and rejecting Gods forgiveness; because without it we cannot be freed from our guilt and live in a right relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Our Creator has already paid the penalty for our wrong heart and sinful living with His own sinless life.

You need to sincerely ask Jesus to forgive you for your sins and living your own way. Then, He can start changing you from the inside out. He will even empower and free you to forgive others as He has forgiven you. Just think a minute
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Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/16/2016 -- Castor oil is one of the most multipurpose plant oils, obtained by pressing the seed of the castor oil plant (Ricinus communis). It is well known source of a monounsaturated, ricinoleic and 18-carbon fatty acid. Owing to its unique chemical structure and rich properties, castor oil and its derivatives find uses in many industries such as cosmetics, food, lubricants, paints, agriculture, electronics & telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, perfumeries, plastics and rubber, inks & adhesives and textile chemicals. After plant oils, castor oil is considered to be the most required oil. However, growing concerns pertaining to biofuels specially biodiesel and biopolymer across the globe is pushing castor oil to play a much larger role in the world economy.



Castor Oil Derivatives: Drivers & Restraints



Growth of major end-use industries (includes lubricants, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals) and increasing demand for sustainable products & biodegradable, on account of reducing dependence on petrochemicals is anticipated to fuel the demand for castor oil derivatives market. Also regulatory support and rising prices of alternative renewable chemicals is expected to drive the global castor oil derivatives market. However, factors influencing its manufacturing cost includes raw material availability, weather uncertainties, shortage of working capital, techniques & methods used for extraction and availability of substitute oil are resulting in restraints for the castor oil derivative market.



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Castor Oil Derivatives: Segmentation



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Castor Oil Derivatives: Region-wise Outlook



The global castor oil derivatives market is expected to register a double digit CAGR for the forecast period, 2015?2025. Asia-Pacific is expected to continue its dominance on the global castor oil derivatives market. India accounts for largest production of castor oil derivatives worldwide, followed by China and Brazil. Higher demand from the US, Europe and China has resulted in the higher prices for castor as well as increase in demand for castor oil derivatives. The major castor producing countries are India, China, Brazil, Paraguay, Ethiopia, Philippines, Russia and Thailand.



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Deerfield Beach, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/16/2016 -- The Global and China Bluetooth Speaker Market 2016-2021 Industry Starting with a broad overview, the report narrows down to offer an overview of the Bluetooth Speaker Market 2016-2021 Industry globally as well as with a specific focus on China. By conducting a check of the current status of the Bluetooth Speaker Market 2016-2021 Industry, the report is able to then delve deeper into the various forces that directly and indirectly impact the Market.



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Table of Content



Chapter One Introduction of Bluetooth Speaker Market 2016-2021 Industry

1.1 Brief Introduction of Bluetooth Speaker Market 2016-2021

1.2 Development of Bluetooth Speaker Market 2016-2021 Industry

1.3 Status of Bluetooth Speaker Market 2016-2021 Industry



Chapter Two Manufacturing Technology of Bluetooth Speaker Market 2016-2021

2.1 Development of Bluetooth Speaker Market 2016-2021 Manufacturing Technology

2.2 Analysis of Bluetooth Speaker Market 2016-2021 Manufacturing Technology

2.3 Trends of Bluetooth Speaker Market 2016-2021 Manufacturing Technology



Chapter Three Analysis of Global Key Manufacturers

3.1 Company A

3.1.1 Company Profile

3.1.2 Product Information

3.1.3 2011-2016 Production



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Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/16/2016 -- Thailand's food and drink industry will grow steadily over 2016 despite the fact that household spending remains under pressure. As household spending gradually recovers and incomes rise, we expect consumers to embrace premiumisation, thus growing industry value. Furthermore, the tourism sector will continue to prop up premium segments.



Latest Updates & Industry Developments



Food sales (local currency) growth y-o-y in 2016: +8.3%; compound annual growth rate (CAGR) 2015-2020: +7.4%.



Per capita food sales (local currency) growth y-o-y in 2016: +8.0%; CAGR 2015-2020: +7.2%.



Non-alcoholic drinks sales (local currency) growth y-o-y in 2016 +7.5%; compound annual growth rate (CAGR) 2015-2020: +6.8%.



Rising incomes and the tourism sector will drive growth in the alcoholic drinks sector.



Convenience stores only store format to experience significant growth.



The Thailand Food & Drink Report features BMI Research's market assessment and independent forecasts for food and drink expenditure, consumption, sales, and imports/exports and forecasts for the mass grocery retail sector. The report also includes analyses of major regulatory developments, the background macroeconomic outlook and competitive landscape comparing national and multinational companies by leading products and services, sales, investments, partners and expansion strategies.



Get More Details on this Report and a Full Table of Contents at Thailand Food & Drink Report Q2 2016



BMI's Thailand Food & Drink Report provides industry professionals and strategists, sector analysts, business investors, trade associations and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on the food and drink industry and the mass grocery retail market in Thailand.



Key Benefits

Benchmark BMI's independent food and drink industry forecasts for Thailand to test other views - a key input for successful budgeting and strategic business planning in the Thai food and drink market.



Target business opportunities and risks in Thailand through our reviews of latest industry trends, regulatory changes and major deals, projects and investments.



Exploit latest competitive intelligence on your competitors, partners and clients via our Company Profiles (inc. SWOTs, KPIs and latest activity) and Competitive Landscape Tables.



Coverage



BMI Industry View



Summary of BMI?s key industry forecasts and views, covering food and drink manufacturing and consumption and the mass grocery retail market.



Industry SWOT Analysis



Analysis of the major strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within the food, drink and mass grocery retail sectors and within the broader political, economic and business environment.



BMI?s Food and Drink Risk Reward Index



BMI?s Risk Reward Index provides investors (food and drink manufacturers and mass grocery retailers) looking for opportunities in the region with a clear country-comparative assessment of a market?s risks and potential rewards. Each of the country markets are scored using a sophisticated model that includes more than 40 industry, economic and demographic points. These provide indices of highest to lowest appeal to investors, with each position explained.



Food Forecasts



BMI's food chapter is divided into sections such as meat, fish, confectionary, dairy and canned foods, and provides insight into each market?s food industry, centred on a forecast to end-2019 for the sector. The chapter includes the following elements:



Industry Forecast Scenario: Historical data series and a forecast to end-2019 for growth of key indicators within a market?s food industry. Indicators include food consumption, food consumption as % of GDP, canned food sales, confectionery sales and food and drink imports and exports, among others.



Industry Developments: A summary of corporate developments, including news on M&As, FDI, expansions, closures and financial results, in addition to analysis and explanation of the latest industry events and how these could influence further investment.



Market Overview: An overview of the structure of the market, introducing the key players and discussing underlying trends.



Drink Forecasts



Segmented the same way as BMI?s food chapter, the drink section provides insight into each market?s drink industry, centred on a forecast to end-2019 for the sector. Forecast indicators include alcoholic and soft drink sales by value, volume and sub-sector and tea and coffee sales, among others.



Mass Grocery Retail Forecasts



About Fast Market Research

Fast Market Research is a leading distributor of market research and business information. Representing the world's top research publishers and analysts, we provide quick and easy access to the best competitive intelligence available. Our unbiased, expert staff is always available to help you find the right research to fit your requirements and your budget. For more information about these or related research reports, please visit our website at http://www.fastmr.com or call us at 1.800.844.8156.



Browse all Food research reports at Fast Market Research



You may also be interested in these related reports:



-Slovenia Food & Drink Report Q2 2016

-Croatia Food & Drink Report Q2 2016

-Serbia Food & Drink Report Q2 2016

-Romania Food & Drink Report Q2 2016

-Belarus Food & Drink Report Q2 2016
China and Brazils activities in African agriculture go beyond simplistic narratives of South-South collaboration, which has implications for improving technology transfer, says a report.



A special issue of World Development, out this month, details how the two countries investments are impacting the African economy. It revealed a complex set of engagements, which contrast with existing patterns of western-led development and investment in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.



We will definitely not see massive expansion of Brazilian and Chinese agricultural concerns, aiming to feed the world, or China in particular, as some have predicted. Ian Scoones, University of Sussex

There has been much debate about the role of the rising powers in African economies, and agriculture has been highlighted as an important area of investment, says Ian Scoones, a fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. He notes that claims made about the Brazilian and Chinese presence range from accusations of land grabbing to the importation of huge numbers of workers.



Both Brazil and China have substantial experience in agricultural development, with top-quality expertise in agricultural technologies and agronomic techniques suited to tropical areas, he says. Both countries also have initiated high-profile aid and investment programmes in Africa, linked to an argument for South-South solidarity and mutual exchange.

Yet, not every technology generated in Brazil and China has landed easily in Africa, notes Scoones. There have been rejections, resistances, and also revisions and recastings, he says. Technology transfer, when it does occur, is context-specific, political, and negotiated.

We will definitely not see massive expansion of Brazilian and Chinese agricultural concerns, aiming to feed the world, or China in particular, as some have predicted, Scoones says. We can expect incremental, slow change, with successes most likely geared to sharing experience around smallholder agriculture, rather than transferring large-scale agricultural models.

The work, organised via the Future Agricultures Consortium, was supported with roughly US$1 million in UK Economic and Social Research Council funding. Case studies include the role that Chinese migrants are playing in the Ethiopian and Ghanaian agri-food sectors, an agricultural development programme to introduce the Brazilian cerrado model of savannah development to Mozambique and Chinas 23 technology demonstration centres on the continent.



Some of the papers specifically delve into the rhetoric of South-South cooperation, and how narratives influence what technologies are chosen, which investments are funded, and who gets trained, Scoones and his co-authors write in the opening paper.

Scoones describes the outcome of the project as one where no single story emerged, but rather a complex set of engagements.

Deborah Brautigam, professor of international political economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, United States, says the new studies are far more nuanced than narratives of large amounts of land being acquired and plans to export food home.

Brautigam noted that the studies centred on Chinese technology transfer are particularly useful for researchers working on food security issues, tech transfer and emerging economies.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets South Asia desk.
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[NAIROBI] Five African scientists who completed their doctorates through the Regional Initiative in Science and Education (RISE) scholarships have each won US$25,000 to create, expand and improve university-based research groups.



The winners of the RISE Competitive Fund were announced during a meeting in Kenya last month (19-22 April) to celebrate the accomplishments of RISE and mark its transition to a new phase as a fully Africa-owned initiative.



The five scientists and their nationalities are Adenike Olaseinde, Nigeria; Benjamin Kumwenda, Malawi; Jane Tanner, South Africa; Majuto Manyilizu, Tanzania and Jane Namukobe, Uganda.

This award is very important as it will enable us to do quality research and train students. Adenike Olaseinde, Federal University of Technology, Akure

RISE is a project of the Science Initiative Group (SIG), an organisation dedicated to fostering science in developing countries, and based at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States.



Sarah Rich, a program associate at SIG, tells SciDev.Net that the grants are aimed at enabling RISE scholars in African universities to develop sustainable research groups with the capacity to pursue collaborative projects with unique and impactful contribution to advance scientific and engineering knowledge.



The winners plan to generate research projects, raise funds and strategise to move beyond the one-year phase supported by RISE fund. RISE is funded by the US-based Carnegie Corporation of New York.



Olaseinde, a faculty member at the Federal University of Technology, Akure in Nigeria, says she has established a materials and electrical research engineering group in Africa. Members of her group are from Botswana, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.



We will study metals and non-metals like alloy to develop data and materials for applications in various settings in Africa, she tells SciDev.Net. This award is very important as it will enable us to do quality research and train students. RISE has opened new hopes for me and I cant imagine managing my PhD if it were not for it.



Olaseinde explains that her research group will develop materials from Africa for Africa such as those for use in construction and energy sectors, research that makes impacts on peoples lives.



Science is very key in African development and Africa-oriented science  needs to be done for better economies and lifestyles, she says.



According to Kumwenda, a lecturer at the University of Malawi College of Medicine, he will use the grant to develop bioinformatics groups in Malawi for application of computational technology to solve biological or medical problems.



They will also train graduate students in bioinformatics using the fund to support other projects including in multi-drug resistance in humans.

Manyilizu, a lecturer at Tanzania-based University of Dodoma, College of Informatics and Virtual Education, will develop computation and modelling research group that will be useful in data simulation studies.For Namukobe, a lecturer at Makerere University in Uganda, the fund will assist in setting up research group and capacity building in natural products. They will look at traditional medicines for infectious diseases such as malaria We want to validate the use of traditional plants by looking at their efficacy in Uganda, isolate their active compounds that can lead to development of new drugs, she tells SciDev.Net. In Uganda there are many herbal formulations that are not scientifically tested and cant be registered by the National Drug Authority due to lack of scientific validation.

Tanner, a researcher at Rhodes University, South Africa, says she aims at starting a new group for ground and surface water research in Africa.



I want to change the landscape from that of separation and working in silos to togetherness to scale up projects focused on specific key sciences and interactions between the two, Tanner adds.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Sub-Saharan Africa English desk.
The International Cartographic Association (ICA) is going to hold a competition for designing the best map for astronauts, who will be spending around a year on the surface of Mars, as a part of the Mars Mission in 2030s. The competition will reportedly give a chance to the layman, comprising of graphic artists, cartographers and even you, to create maps that will help astronauts survive in an alien landscape.

One of the most interesting aspects of the competition is to create a map that, in all possibility, will be displayed with technology that is still to be invented. "The field maps will most likely be digital dynamic maps, shown on display, VR glasses, projected onto the helmet or made visible by a yet-to-discover technology," as per the instructions of the contest. A NASA planetary scientist has described the project as being a blend of science, graphic arts, game design and sci-fi, which is somewhat akin to cartography.

Participants can use free mapping software with high-resolution surface images and information about resources and geology on the red planet. The competitors can choose one among the 47 exploration zones, each of which is 200 kilometers wide, and make a map according to what would be important for the astronauts staying there. Therefore, map competition enthusiasts will have to keep the requirements of the astronauts in mind, such as which areas would be best as a power plant, habitat or greenhouse; the ideal place for conducting researches like geological outcrops; areas with necessary resources for survival, including water, dirt and loose rocks for building roads; areas perfect for mining aluminum and iron; and navigational landmarks.

The task will need a lot of creativity and mapmaking skills, as it is not easy to imagine what it is like to inhabit and work on an entirely different world. A report published in the National Geographic offers helpful tips to eager participants. Enthusiasts can check out the Curiosity rover's view of Mars, and gain more knowledge about the planet's topography through the thousands of photos taken; especially those of its drilling activities considering humans on Mars have to do the same. The perspective of the Curiosity is also important because proximal humans, which incidentally is the name used by NASA for future inhabitants, will have rovers with them.

According to the report, prospective competitors can also gain ideas from the experiences of the Apollo astronauts who stepped on the Moon, because the situation would be quite similar when there is no familiar object in sight, like a house or a tree, and all rocks look similar in shape and size from a distance. Brushing up on science fiction that describes life on other planets can also be helpful.

According to a NASA representative, there are good chances that the elements and concepts from the submitted maps will be incorporated in the final products, that the astronauts will be taking along. The maps can also be examined much sooner on our planet itself, in places like the Mars Desert Research Station Utah which have simulated Martian environment. The contest will also award prizes to winners, apart from sending the prize winning maps to the researchers in charge of the exploration zone they mapped. Currently, the ICA is in trying to make the competition an official collaboration with NASA through a NASA Space Act agreement.

A helpful video for those who want to take part in the competition.
Republican presidential hopeful and billionaire mogul, Donald Trump said he likes NASA, but he thinks that Earthly issues should come first before space. He believes that spending on space exploration should be reduced which will happen should he win the US presidential election in November.

During his New Hampshire rally, he made it clear that Earth should be given a greater priority. "In the old days, it [NASA] was great. Right now, we have bigger problems, you understand that," Trump said. "We have to fix our potholes. We don't exactly have a lot of money." He explained that as of the moment, NASA receives about one half of 1 percent of the total federal budget every year which amounts to almost $18 billion allotted to the space agency for fiscal year 2015, mashable.com reported.

In a written interview for Aerospace America, the billionaire mogul and republican frontrunner seemed to be cool about committing large amounts of the government's money to the space program. And when asked about his thoughts on the existing budget for NASA, Trump made it clear most part of it will depend on the state of the country's economy.

According to The Telegraph, the presidential candidate said that what the country is spending in NASA is appropriate for the kind of work the space agency is asked to do. However, he also added saying, "We also have to balance our spending priorities based on our economic circumstances, and right now, those circumstances are quite challenging. Our first priority is to restore a strong economic base to this country. Then, we can have a discussion about spending." He was also mum about whether or not he would give plans to send astronauts to Mars a go.

Mr. Trump also mentioned that his administration's recommendation would highly depend on the country's economic state. "If we are growing with all of our people employed and our military readiness back to acceptable levels, then we can take a look at the timeline for sending more people into space."

The Obama administration has been looking to private partners to bolster its space program which has been dependent on the Russians to take astronauts up to the International Space Station. However the Russian service has been costly, with the US being charged around $60 million (42 million) per person for a seat on Soyuz.
NASA's ongoing Kepler missions have provided the space station with an astounding number of newly discovered planets. The Kepler mission brought in about 1,284 new planets in total, being the largest number of verified planets to date.

NASA Washington Headquarters chief scientist Ellen Stofan said on a report that "This announcement more than doubles the number of confirmed planets from Kepler, This gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth."

On an observation mid-2015, about 4,302 potential planets were discovered but was immediately trimmed down to 984 after tedious research and verification. Thus the discovery of 1,284 new planets is a huge percentage than first predicted, NY Times reported.

These space scientists also added that there's a complete uncertainty among the universe unless explored. Their research is somehow limited with only the use of the telescope. They then believed that materials that existed in space are mostly stars, but explorations like Kepler Mission has proven them wrong. Now they think that there are new planets to be discovered. Also, the same people said that there are more planets than stars, NASA reported.

Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters even said "This knowledge informs people of the future missions that have to be explored to take us ever-closer to finding out whether we are alone in the universe."

The Kepler mission began back in 2009, with the tasks to identify planets from stars through the signal it transmits. Throughout the mission, the Kepler has already discovered 2,325 new planets out of 3000 since 2009.

2016 is the breakout year in space history for verifying 1,284 planets. It has given hope with regards to the fact that there are more to be discovered farther into space.

The discovery of 1,284 new planets is just the beginning of the Kepler Mission transmission. This could push the exploration of discovering planets that are habitable and possible life outside of the Earth.
Albert Einstein's theory of relativity has been the subject of scrutiny ever since it came out in 1915. Scientists have been trying to hardest to prove Einstein wrong but have always came up short. Now, they have made a 3D map of 3,000 galaxies 13 billion light years from Earth and found that the theory still stands true.

Ever since it was discovered in the late 1900s that the universe is extending at a quickened rate, researchers have been exhausting their efforts at attempting to clarify why, and it has been the center of significant discussion. According to Nature World News, it could be a mysterious dark energy of the universe driving the increasing speed, or Einstein's theory of general relativity, which says gravity twists space and time, could be breaking down.

Scientists from the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics (Kavli IPMU) and the University of Tokyo in Japan used FastSound Survey data on more than 3,000 far off galaxies to break down their clustering and velocity in order to rest Einstein's hypothesis. The outcome revealed that even far into the universe, general relativity is legitimate. The theory received further backing that the universe's extension could be clarified by a cosmological consistent, as proposed by Einstein in his theory, financialexpress.com reported.

"Having started this project 12 years ago it gives me great pleasure to finally see this result come out," said Karl Glazebrook, Professor at the Swinburne University of Technology.

"We tested the theory of general relativity further than anyone else ever has. It's a privilege to be able to publish our results 100 years after Einstein proposed his theory," said Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics (Kavli IPMU) Project Researcher Teppei Okumura.

Nobody has possessed the capacity to investigate galaxies more than 10 billion light-years away, which is a great distance, yet the group figured out how to break this obstruction on account of the FMOS (Fiber Multi-Object Spectrograph) on the Subaru Telescope, which can dissect galaxies 12.4 to 14.7 billion light years away.
A rare beaked whale that washed up on the Waitpinga Beach in South Australia has reportedly left scientists scratching their heads. The whale was found to possess two mysterious extra teeth.

According to a report, the young female whale was dead by the time it was found on the Waitpinga Beach, which is located close to the tourist town of Victor Harbor. A team from the South Australian Museum in Adelaide reached the spot to examine the mammal.

"As we were doing the dissection, after we'd done our measurements and photos, we started to the look at the jaws because that's one of the distinctive parts of a beaked whale, "said Dr Catherine Kemper, senior research scientist. "They were very odd. I didn't know what it was, because these teeth were something I had never seen before. My mind was thinking, 'do we have something new here?'". Female whales do not generally have teeth erupted above the jaw line, but the newly found whale had two small and pointy fangs.

The scientists brought back the whale carcass to the museum's maceration center to analyze it in more depth. The skull of the marine mammal was stripped and cleaned by bacteria in vats of warm water. On closer observation of the teeth, the researchers made a surprising discovery; they had found a Hector's beaked whale, making it only the third such specimen collected in South Australia. However, the researchers could not find any plausible answers to explain the two mysterious vestigial teeth. The experts suggest that the extra teeth are not a deformity but actually an evolutionary throwback.

Currently, the beaked whale has been cleaned and catalogued by the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, and researchers are observing the specimen further to see if they can know more about the elusive species of whales. More information will also enable the scientists to figure out ways to conserve the species.
Kenneth Zhang, legal representative of PCCP, said the PCCP project, invested by Shandong Landbridge Group and its partners, consists of two parts: the construction of a up to 2.5m teu box terminal and the additional private lands with multipurpose possibilities, including LNG facilities or energy projects. The construction of the terminal will be executed by the Chinese giant CCCC Group and the design of the piers by Beijing-based Port Design Institute (PDI).

PCCP project is the first fresh investment from Beijing in Panama, said Zhang. Hong Kong-based Hutchison had won the concession of the terminals of Balboa and Cristobal in 1997 that are administrated by Hutchison subsidiary Panama Ports Co.

Panama Colon Container Port box terminal will feature four berths with a total quay line of 1,200 metres with a draught of 18 metres and capacity of up to 2.5m teu, in several phases.

We look at the project on long term and we feel pretty good with the investment, said Zhang. With the canal expansion, the future of Panama is bright, even though we know the maritime sector presently suffers a global crisis but we have a different reading for the future.

It will be the first terminal [in Panama] designed for new post-panamax vessels and PDI has a good experience for it, Zhang added.
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May 15, 2016 MARCOS, SUPPORTERS ATTEND MASS FOR TRUTH AND INTEGRITY OF THE ELECTIONS Hundreds of supporters today gathered at the Redemptorist Church in Baclaran, Paranaque City and joined Vice Presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr. in offering a mass for truth and for the integrity of the elections. Dubbed as "Buong Bayan Magkaisa, Isang Misa Para sa Katotohanan at Integridad ng Halalan", the mass was offered by Marcos supporters and volunteers to give thanks for the peaceful elections and to pray that truth would prevail allowing the will of the people to be reflected in the results of the elections. They were joined by Marcos who came with his wife Atty. Liza Araneta Marcos, son Sandro, mother, former First Lady and Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda Romualdez Marcos, his cousin, Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, other members of his family and close friends for the 12:30 p.m. mass officiated by Rev. Fr. Ben Sy. "May the Holy Spirit guide us through our trials and problems" Fr. Sy expressed in his homily on the celebration today of the Pentecost, commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. Anabel Isles, who came all the way from Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia said she immediately decided to attend the mass when she heard it from her friends through social media. Isles, who is on vacation from her work as a librarian at the Thamer International School in Jeddah said the entire Filipino community where she works are all for Marcos. "We all voted for him and I am sure of that which is the reason why we wonder why he is not leading in the quick count," Isles said. She added that the mass is a good opportunity for them to express their support and at the same time pray for his eventual victory in the Vice Presidential race. Erlinda Lepanto, 61 years old of Pasay City said they specifically attended the mass to ask Our Lady of Perpetual Help to embrace Marcos and assist him in overcoming his current trial. "Kasi si Senator Bongbong talaga ang ibinoto namin. Nagtaka naman kami, lahat kami sa pamilya ilan kaming botante, sa isang pamilya ko 22, Bongbong ho talaga. Noon pa hong panahon ng Tatay niya Marcos na po kami," she said. Lepanto, who came with her friends who are also supporters of the Senator, said the on-going controversy surrounding Marcos had opened her eyes on the importance of guarding the votes. "Hindi kami papaya na nawawala ang boto namin. Huwag naman kaming ganyanin. Kawawa naman po ang mga tao ngayon. Ang gusto namin makaupo si Bongbong para yung maiiwan naming mga anak pagdating ng panahon hindi na sila magiging katulad ng dinanas namin, magiginhawaan po sila, hindi po ba," she said. After the mass, Marcos was mobbed with repeated reverberating chants of "BBM!!!!", his name's acronym. Marcos, for his part, thanked them for their unwavering support as he promised them that he will continue to fight not only for his votes but for the integrity of the elections. "I am extremely thankful and humbled by the show of support. But this is not just about me. We are fighting about the very integrity our elections, the very sanctity of the ballot. We will never stop until all votes are counted as they should be, not one vote more, not one vote less," Marcos concluded.
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Oaklands City Council is on the verge of passing what it sees as reparations for a U.S. drug policy that disproportionately punished people of color  but its an effort that might quickly backfire.

As it looks to pass laws this week to regulate the medical marijuana trade within the city, the council is considering rules to make the industry more inclusive of African American and Latino entrepreneurs.

The city will begin to award marijuana permits to people who have or want to start businesses in a trade that is expected to flourish if California eventually legalizes recreational weed. But the citys ordinances would reserve half of those permits for applicants who fit a narrow set of criteria: Oakland residents who have lived for at least two years in a designated police beat in East Oakland that had a high number of marijuana arrests in 2013; or individuals who were incarcerated in Oakland for marijuana-related crimes within the last decade. Called equity applicants, these individuals must keep at least a 50 percent ownership stake in the business they seek to permit.

The council already gave initial approval to the ordinances and is scheduled to give final approval Tuesday. But the plan is drawing sharp criticism from people who say it actually would make it more difficult for black and brown people to operate cannabis businesses  and would undercut what could be a booming business in the city.

Leah Millis/The Chronicle

Its not actually addressing equity, and it may possibly be setting it back, said Alex Zavell, a senior regulatory analyst for Oakland cannabis attorney Robert Raich.

Last-minute provisions

Councilwoman Desley Brooks pushed for the equity system, tacking on last-minute amendments to marijuana ordinances that had taken the citys Cannabis Regulatory Commission 18 months to craft. Councilwoman Annie Campbell Washington added the provision for people with criminal records, characterizing it as a way to redress the racial injustices of the drug war.

A 2013 national report by the ACLU found that blacks were nearly four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as whites, even though they used the drug at roughly the same rates. That imbalance is apparent in Oakland, where marijuana arrests are concentrated most in African American neighborhoods. Meanwhile, people with visible leadership positions in the cannabis industry are white.

When you look at the cannabis industry around this country, its predominantly white, Brooks said at the May 3 council meeting when the council initially approved the ordinances.

Oaklands pot ordinances were designed to bring the city in line with new state laws that will regulate all aspects of the multibillion-dollar industry by 2018. For years, all but eight large dispensaries in Oakland have operated in a hazy gray market: Although they were required to register their businesses and pay 5 percent of their gross receipts to the city, they didnt have permits to sell cannabis.

Technically, we operate in the absence of a law, said Andrea Unsworth, owner of StashTwist, a boutique delivery service that hawks everything from pain salves to pot-infused gummy worms.

City officials tolerated that system on the belief that California would eventually move toward thorough cannabis regulation  which happened when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a suite of new marijuana bills in October.

Suddenly, Oakland had a chance to legitimize its pot trade, creating thousands of jobs, attracting out-of-state investment and generating a cash windfall for city coffers. The citys eight currently licensed dispensaries will be grandfathered into the new system.

But Zavell and other critics worry that the equity requirements are so narrow that Oaklands entire marijuana permitting system will grind to a halt while officials wait for a single qualified equity applicant to materialize. According to the proposed rules, the city will have to follow what Zavell calls a Noahs Ark model: If it has five regular pot licenses and five equity licenses, it cannot give out another regular license until it gives out an equity license.

While many residents and industry experts who spoke at the May 3 meeting agreed with the sentiments Brooks expressed, they warned that the proposed solutions will stifle innovation and open the door to graft. Some say the reparation attempt will sabotage a pot market thats not only a vital source of tax revenue, but also a key part of Oaklands cultural identity. This is, after all, the city that created an Oaksterdam district in its downtown corridor.

Michael Short/Special To The Chronicle

Critics said the proposed rules could force permit-seekers into shotgun marriages with East Oakland residents who live within the designated police beats. They also said the 50 percent ownership rule would restrict businesses from adding partners, expanding or liquidating assets.

Theyll be saddled with more stringent rules, said Matt Hummel, chair of Oaklands Cannabis Regulatory Commission, who believes the councils deployment of the term equity is misleading.

To target people of color, then restrict their freedom of movement, is disgusting to me, Hummel said.

Perhaps the biggest irony is that some African Americans and Latinos who already operate marijuana businesses in Oakland  and pay taxes  wouldnt qualify for the equity permits and would get caught in the same bottleneck as everybody else.

Not covered by preferences

Among them is Unsworth, the black owner of StashTwist delivery service. Unsworth, a former bond analyst, doesnt live in any of the six police beats that Brooks identified as having the citys most marijuana arrests.

Oakland has 57 police beats in all, so the cluster that Brooks chose represents only a small fraction of the city.

I agree with the intent, Unsworth said. But I think there are holes in it, and I dont feel like theyre capturing what they think theyre capturing. ... Im an African American woman who bootstrapped my business, and Ive never lived in any of those police beats.

Brooks did not return phone calls seeking comment.

As it stands, the ethnic and racial makeup of Oaklands pot economy mirrors disparities in the nation at large. Of the eight dispensaries licensed to operate in Oakland, only one  Purple Heart Patient Center  is majority black-owned. Although many African Americans and Latinos work in the industry, most run smaller mom-and-pop enterprises, like Unsworths delivery service.

Unsworth said the schism arose because people of color typically dont have the same economic resources as their white counterparts.

Backers needed

You cant get (traditional) business loans, so every company is bootstrapped  unless you happen to have an angel investor, which most black and brown people dont have, she said.

Steve DeAngelo, who owns Harborside Health Center, the Oakland dispensary thats also the nations largest, said racial disparities in the pot market could be a residual effect of the drug war.

Its important to remember that the brunt of that war has been directed at people of color, he said. Once arrested, African Americans were more likely convicted, and more severely sentenced, and that would naturally make them more reluctant to get into the industry.

Joe DeVries, the city staffer assigned to the Cannabis Regulatory Commission, said its too early to predict that the equity system will fail.

Ive heard a lot of what ifs, he said. I think its clear what the council is trying to do  lower the threshold and bring in people whove been historically locked out of this business.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com
The campaign rolls forth:

The day after Sen. Bernie Sanders visited The Chronicle, I learned via SFist and Hoodline that he had gone directly from here to Sightglass Coffee on Seventh Street. As a member of the Chronicle family, I was as mortified to hear that he left here longing for a cup of joe as I would have been to know that someone Id had for dinner at home went out for a slice of pizza afterward.

I was about to take management to task for lack of hospitality  all we served was bottled water, not even a plate of cookies  when a co-worker with a relative close to the campaign set me straight: The sites were wrong. The candidate had stopped at Sightglass for a coffee on the way to The Chronicle. Did he think hed need the caffeine to stay alert?

Further investigation revealed that a few hours before that, hed stopped at his new campaign headquarters in Oakland. And also at Beckys Chinese Restaurant in Oakland. Preparing to speak with the proprietor of that establishment, I discovered a minor controversy: A Yelp entry pictured a scrap of paper from Beckys with the following comment: This fortune cookie makes no sense.

A few hours later, I connected with Becky Truong (of Beckys fame). She said her restaurant is across the street from Sanders HQ in Oakland, and that when the street in between was closed off, and a crowd gathered, he ducked into the place, just to walk around. Sanders shook Truongs hand, but didnt linger for a candidates time-honored shaking-hands-with-the-kitchen-staff ritual.

Truong thinks that she will vote for Sanders, but he didnt eat anything, and she had no idea why he was in her restaurant. As the Yelper said, this fortune cookie makes no sense.

The couple waiting in line behind Bill Greig to get into a Sanders rally in Sacramento on May 9 were using the time to examine a voters pamphlet for the June 7 election. The woman left the line to use the portable facilities, but returned quickly, because there was no paper in the potty. Americans are resourceful: Give me the ballot and Ill use that, she said.

With art lovers attention on the greatly expanded San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, new home to the vast Fisher Collection, I talked with art historian and sociologist Sarah Thornton the other day about collecting in the current era. On Friday, May 20, at the de Young Museum, Thornton will speak in the Robert and Daphne Bransten Lecture series about the globalization of art.

Are todays buyers of contemporary art different from buyers of the past? I asked.

People are much more interested in emergent, contemporary art than they used to be, she said. People like to buy the art of their time, and even the younger art of the time. We live in the moment, we live in the present, times are so fast-changing. And people like art that orients them to this current mode.

Thornton says collectors often buy works created by artists in their own generation. Doris and Don Fisher, for example, collected many works by Gerhard Richter, roughly the same age as Don Fisher would have been had he lived to see the opening of the new museum. Some of the strongest holdings the Fishers have are by people who were the same age as they were when they bought it. (Richter was born in 1932; Don Fisher in 1928.)

The Fishers have one of the best collection of Richters in the world. Its worth going to the museum just to see the Richter collection. In the case of Alexander Calder, they actually collected from a previous generation. But I think Don had that sense of affinity with Calder because they both went to the same high school, Lowell. Calder (born in 1898) was more distant in time but was close in place.

Nowadays, many art lovers are starting to collect younger. As people are making their money at a younger age, theyre also beginning to collect art at a young age, by artists of their own age. And also younger. There are definitely collectors out there that like to buy young art, as a way of keeping their eyes refreshed.

Open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING

Dad, please dont let your air sitar impact your driving.
Love won that day and would win in the end.

The Chronicles front page from May 16, 2008, covers the state Supreme Courts ruling that affirmed the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.

The courts 4-3 decision echoes the Massachusetts Supreme Courts ruling legalizing gay marriage before the last presidential election in 2004, which led San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. President Bush seized on the issue and pledged to support a federal constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, a move analysts say helped his re-election by energizing religious conservatives, read the story by Zachary Coile of The Chronicles Washington Bureau. Republicans hope the California courts ruling could do the same for the partys presumptive nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has struggled to win over social conservatives.

The decision was applauded at San Francisco City Hall and across the Bay Area, and thousands of gay and lesbian couples would marry that year.

In May, the mood in San Francisco was joyful.

Cheers went up along Castro Street just after 10 a.m. when the California Supreme Courts ruling that same-sex marriage is constitutional was announced, The Chronicles Marisa Lagos reported in a story on Page A16. By late evening, more than a thousand people had gathered on Castro Street. ... People waved rainbow and California flags, danced to the picks of a disc jockey and crowded into neighborhood bars to celebrate.

In the aftermath of the celebration, Proposition 8 loomed, and state voters would pass it in November, dealing a blow to same-sex marriage rights. But after many ups-and-downs, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on June 26, 2015, that same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marry their chosen partner.

Signing off: Eight years ago, revered KTVU anchor Dennis Richmond was in his last week behind the desk at Channel 2. The 40-year veteran would retire to Grass Valley (Nevada County) as the most respected news anchor in Bay Area history.

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.

Chronicle Covers is a project that highlights 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
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In a move showing the value placed on prestigious, artisanal brands in the wine market, Jackson Family Wines is buying Copain Wines, a small and well-regarded winery in Healdsburg. The companies announced the deal Monday.

Santa Rosas Jackson Family Wines, the maker of Kendall-Jackson, owns more than 50 wineries around the world, from California and Oregon to Australia and South Africa. Founded in 1982 by Jess Jackson, it remains owned by the Jackson family and is managed by Jess widow, Barbara Banke. Jackson Family produces about 5.6 million cases of wine per year, according to Wine Business Monthly, and it has about 1,700 employees, putting it in the top 10 wine companies in the world. With the Copain buy, Jackson Family continues to stake a major claim in high-end Pinot Noir, barely a month after acquiring Oregon winery Penner-Ash.

Copain winemaker Wells Guthrie, who co-founded the business in 1999 with San Francisco holding company Murano Group, will become a Jackson Family employee and continue to make wine under the Copain name. Under the terms of the deal, Jackson Family will take over Copains leases on its Healdsburg winery and three vineyards in Anderson Valley.

The price for Copain, which produces approximately 20,000 cases of wine a year, was not disclosed. Last month, Constellation Brands paid $285 million for Prisoner Wine Co. in a brand-only deal; Prisoner produces 170,000 cases a year. In January, Crimson Wine Group paid $5.75 million for Washingtons Seven Hills Winery, which produces 25,000 cases a year. Prices vary widely in the wine business based on location, product type and whether the deal includes assets like wineries and vineyards.

For Jackson, Copains value is less in the cases than the cachet.

Not only does Copain complement our portfolio, but it also elevates it, Jackson Family Wines President Hugh Reimers said. Its stylistically very different from a lot of our wines. Wells is definitely making wine in that (In Pursuit of Balance) style, lower in alcohol. In Pursuit of Balance is a nonprofit association of wineries, of which Copain is a member. The group espouses higher-acid, lower-alcohol wines.

Guthrie started Copain after stints as a tasting coordinator with Wine Spectator magazine and as an intern with Rhone vintner Michel Chapoutier. The brands focus is on Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah from Mendocino Countys Anderson Valley and Yorkville Highlands areas. Although Copain does brisk business in its Healdsburg tasting room and with a successful mailing list, its value-priced Tous Ensemble wines have become fixtures on restaurant by-the-glass lists, especially in California.

Erik Castro/Special To The Chronicle

If its recent buying spree is any indication, Jackson Family, which built its reputation on brands like Kendall-Jackson and La Crema, appears to be betting big on boutique Pinot Noir brands heavy in single-vineyard bottlings. Copain, Penner-Ash and Siduri, which joined the Jackson Family portfolio last year, all fall into this category  and represent a significant departure from the La Crema set in price, style and target audience. Copains single-vineyard Pinots top out at $75 a bottle.

What can Jackson Family bring to these artisanal brands? Money, for one thing. We dont have the financial constraints that these small producers have, Reimers points out. And Jackson can use its in-house distribution muscle to get these wines into new markets.

Crucially, too, Jackson also brings more than 18,000 acres of vineyards across California  with considerable holdings in Anderson Valley, where Copain gets most of its grapes. This may have proved especially desirable because, though founded on vineyard-designated bottlings  wines sourced from a single vineyard, aimed at expressing the particular characteristics of that site  Copain and Siduri owned no vineyards of their own; Penner-Ash had just 15 acres. All or most of their fruit was purchased through contracts with growers.

We certainly have been focused on acquisitions of strong luxury Pinot Noir as a business, Reimers says. As fruit has become harder to get, a lot of these folks havent been able to find the fruit they need at the quality they need. And we have amazing estate vineyards.

In turn, Copain can provide Jackson Family entree into the In Pursuit of Balance world to which Reimers alludes, wines popular with younger drinkers. The most important thing is to maintain winemaking style, Reimers says. Wells is coming on with the acquisition, and wed love him to make the wines for as long as hell stick around. Hes really the heart and soul of that winery.

Erik Castro/Special To The Chronicle

Reimers says his company would like to grow Copains output, but emphasizes that the more important measure of growth to them is revenue, not volume. Were talking about how wed like to grow in the right distribution channels  restaurants and high-end retail.

Dont be surprised if you see more high-end brands jumping over to Jackson Family. Theres a lot of people coming to us, and I think its because a lot of people respect us out there, Reimers notes. When we buy brands, we stay true to what they have been over the years, and we respect what theyve been doing. The story needs to maintain consistency even though its changed ownership.

Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicles wine, beer and spirits writer. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob
The Constitution protects the right to buy and sell firearms as well as the right to own them, a federal appeals court said Monday in reviving a lawsuit challenging an Alameda County ordinance banning gun shops within 500 feet of a residential neighborhood or a school.

If the Second Amendment right to bear arms is to have any force, the people must have a right to acquire the very firearms they are entitled to keep and to bear, Judge Diarmuid OScannlain said in the 2-1 ruling.

The suit was filed by three businessmen who wanted to open a gun store in an unincorporated area of Alameda County, 446 feet away from the nearest home on the other side of Interstate 880. A federal judge ruled that the 500-foot buffer zone was a reasonable measure to protect neighborhoods from gun violence. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said more evidence was needed to justify restricting a constitutional right.

The court stopped short of invalidating the ordinance, but told U.S. District Judge William Orrick III to give it tougher scrutiny.

At the least, OScannlain said, the county must present some evidence that gun stores act as a magnet for crime. And if the practical effect of the law is to ban new gun stores  something the three businessmen claim, and the county denies  the county must show that such a prohibition is the only available means to reduce crime, OScannlain said.

In a brief but caustic dissent, Judge Barry Silverman said the ordinance hasnt interfered with anyones right to acquire firearms, with at least 10 gun shops operating in the affected areas.

When you clear away all the smoke, what were dealing with here is a mundane zoning dispute dressed up as a Second Amendment challenge, Silverman said.

The ruling is one of many attempts by lower federal courts to fill gaps in the Supreme Courts 2009 decision that declared an individual right, under the Second Amendment, to possess firearms for self-defense, but left the scope of permissible government regulation unclear.

Federal courts have upheld San Franciscos ban on high-capacity semiautomatic weapons and its requirement that handgun owners keep their weapons stored and locked. But a federal appeals court has struck down Chicagos ban on firing ranges in that city.

Brandon Combs, executive director of the Calguns Foundation, which joined the gun-shop applicants in challenging the Alameda County ordinance, praised Mondays ruling.

Given Californias legal requirements to use licensed dealers for firearms transfers and background checks, its important that retailers are able to open their doors  and keep them open, Combs said.

The county could seek a new hearing, from either the full appeals court or the Supreme Court, or present additional justifications for the law in Orricks court. County Counsel Donna Ziegler was not immediately available for comment.

Attorney Imran Khaliq, who represented the advocacy groups Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Youth Alive, said courts uphold such laws as part of a local governments authority to protect residents health and safety. He said Oakland, the most populous city in the county, has one of the nations highest rates of gun violence.

The county wasnt saying they couldnt open up a gun store, just that this location was not a suitable location, Khaliq said.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko

The ruling can be viewed here: http://1.usa.gov/22dRsnS
Since launching Cowgirl Creamery in 1997 in Point Reyes, Sue Conley and Peggy Smith have turned their small Bay Area dairy business into a nationally distributed artisan brand to be reckoned with. Now, just eight months shy of Cowgirls 20th anniversary, the two owners have told The Chronicle that the company will merge with the far larger Swiss dairy company Emmi.

Cowgirl Creamery is only the latest in a string of local artisan brands being bought out by big companies. Last fall, humane-focused meat supplier Niman Ranch was bought by Perdue. Around the same time, in early September, Petalumas Lagunitas Brewing Co. sold a 50 percent stake in the company to Dutch beverage behemoth Heineken.

The Cowgirl merger, which also includes its distribution arm, Tomales Bay Foods, comes six months after Emmis acquisition of Sebastopol goat dairy Redwood Hill Farm and Creamery. (Emmi also owns Arcatas Cypress Grove Chevre, which it bought in 2010.) The Swiss company, founded in 1907 and operated by a cooperative of dairy farmers, is the largest Swiss milk processor and exports cheese and other dairy products to approximately 60 countries. In 2015, Emmi posted net sales of nearly $3.3 billion.The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

When Conley and Smith launched Cowgirl in the mid-90s, there were only six cheesemaking operations in Marin and Sonoma counties. As the local craft food scene has boomed, so has Cowgirls business. Today, there are over two dozen cheesemaking companies in the region, and Cowgirl has helped bring many of their products to the attention of shoppers nationwide via Tomales Bay Foods. The company now has approximately 95 employees; a product line of nearly a dozen cheeses, including its flagship triple-cream Mount Tam; two retail outposts (a third location in Washington, D.C., closed in 2013); two cheesemaking facilities, plus a third in the works; and a Ferry Building restaurant, Sidekick.

Conley and Smith will continue to operate Cowgirl Creamery and Tomales Bay Foods; Smith will take on the title of president and Conley will be vice president.

For a smaller company like Cowgirl, the benefits of a merger or acquisition with a larger corporation may include capital infusions and increased distribution capacity  while allowing it to stay focused on its craft, says George Geis, faculty director for the mergers and acquisitions executive program at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

When a large company buys a small company that has a loyal customer base, they have to be very careful that the loyal customers don't get scared off, says Geis.

Conley and Smith have long been familiar with Emmi  and have carried several of its cheeses over the years. They looked closely at how it has worked with its other local acquisitions. Mary Keehn (Cypress Groves former owner) took a big chance when she merged with Emmi, said Smith. We talked with Mary a lot about this, and she has confirmed that they run their business exactly the same way they did before they started with Emmi.

The Cowgirl founders, both now in their 60s, said the decision to merge with the Swiss company has been a very considered one.

For us its been a little bit of a journey, Smith said. Getting older, Sue and I are looking at the future. We want Cowgirl Creamery to remain in Sonoma and Marin. This will help provide that platform for the future.

Conley said that partnering with Emmi will give them access to capital they need to open a facility in Petaluma that will enable them to increase production and bring back their cottage cheese, a fan favorite that has been unavailable for some time. They also envision developing other products.

We invented the way we make cheese without the benefit of engineers and dairy scientists. These are traditions that started in Europe, and now we will actually have experts who can help us refine some of our processes and help us create new cheeses, said Conley.

Conley and Smith said they also view Emmi as having a strong allegiance to dairy farmers, as well as respect for the value of organic production and sustainable agriculture.

I dont have a crystal ball, but I feel very secure, says Smith. Theyre a different kind of company. Were a different kind of company. This one fits our model much closer than anything weve seen.

Conley agrees, This company understands the craft and traditions of cheese making.

Some of the sophisticated cheeses sold by Cowgirl require a final stage of care known as affinage as they mature. For fans of the cheesemaker, they too will have to watch the combination of Emmi and Cowgirl ripen over time.

The whole trick is integration, said Geis. The worst thing that can happen is for the larger company to try to change the smaller one and take away its significance.

Sarah Fritsche is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sfritsche@sfchronicle.com
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BOSTON  A 64-year-old cancer patient has received the nations first penis transplant, a groundbreaking operation that may also help accident victims and some of the many U.S. veterans maimed by roadside bombs.

In a case that represents the latest frontier in the growing field of reconstructive transplants, Thomas Manning of Halifax, Mass., is faring well after the 15-hour operation last week, Massachusetts General Hospital said Monday.

His doctors said they are cautiously optimistic that Manning eventually will be able to urinate normally and function sexually again for the first time since aggressive penile cancer led to the amputation of his genitals in 2012.

Emotionally hes doing amazing. Im really impressed with how hes handling things. Hes just a positive person, Dr. Curtis Cetrulo, who was among the lead surgeons on a team of more than 50, said at a news conference. He wants to be whole again. He does not want to be in the shadows.

Manning, who is single, did not appear at the news conference but said in a statement: Today I begin a new chapter filled with personal hope and hope for others who have suffered genital injuries. In sharing this success with all of you, it is my hope we can usher in a bright future for this type of transplantation.

The identity of the deceased donor was not released.

The operation is highly experimental  only one other patient, in South Africa, has a transplanted penis. But four additional hospitals around the country have permission from the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nations transplant system, to attempt the delicate surgery.

The loss of a penis, whether from cancer, accident or war injury, is emotionally traumatic, affecting urination, sexual intimacy and the ability to conceive a child. Many patients suffer in silence because of the stigma their injuries sometimes carry; Cetrulo said many become isolated and despondent.

While a penis transplant may sound radical, it follows transplants of faces, hands and even the uterus.
Donald Trump plans to throw Bill Clintons infidelities in Hillary Clintons face on live television during the presidential debates this fall, questioning whether she enabled his behavior and sought to discredit the women involved.

Trump will try to hold her accountable for security lapses at the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and for the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens there.

And he intends to portray Hillary Clinton as fundamentally corrupt, invoking everything from her cattle futures trades in the late 1970s to the federal investigation into her email practices as secretary of state.

Drawing on psychological warfare tactics that Trump used to defeat Lyin Ted Cruz, Little Marco Rubio and Low-Energy Jeb Bush in the Republican primaries, the Trump campaign is mapping out character attacks on the Clintons to try to increase their negative poll ratings and bait them into making political mistakes, according to interviews with Trump and his advisers.

Another goal is to win over skeptical Republicans, since nothing unites the party quite like castigating the Clintons. Attacking them could also deflect attention from Trumps vulnerabilities, such as his treatment of women, some Trump allies say.

For Hillary Clinton, the coming battle is something of a paradox. She has decades of experience and qualifications, but it may not be merit that wins her the presidency  it may be how she handles the humiliations inflicted by Trump.

She would make history as the first woman to be a major-party nominee, yet she would also be viewed, in part, through the prism of her husbands flaws. Some political allies and friends, while disgusted with Trump, see a certain cosmic symmetry at work: After decades of fighting what she once called the politics of personal destruction, Hillary Clinton will reach the White House only if she survives one more crucible of sordid and scandalous accusations.

She is so prepared to be president, but holding her head high and staying dignified during the campaign is probably what will help her the most, said Melanne Verveer, a longtime friend and former chief of staff to Hillary Clinton. Trump is yet another way she will be tested personally  one of her greatest tests yet.

Hillary Clinton has often flourished in the wake of boorish behavior: her husbands affair with Monica Lewinsky, Kenneth Starrs investigation of her husband, the congressional impeachment proceedings. Women rallied to her side during her 2000 Senate race after her Republican opponent, Rep. Rick Lazio, invaded her personal space during one debate, and they helped her win the 2008 New Hampshire primary shortly after Barack Obama dismissively said she was likable enough.

Yet Trump said he was determined not to fall into those traps.

In a telephone interview, he noted that women did not like seeing Hillary Clinton insulted or bullied by men. He said he wanted to be more strategic, by calling into question Hillary Clintons judgment in her reaction to Bill Clintons affairs  people close to the couple have said she was involved in efforts to discredit the women  and in her response to crises like Benghazi.

Just getting nasty with Hillary wont work, Trump said. You really have to get people to look hard at her character, and to get women to ask themselves if Hillary is truly sincere and authentic. Because she has been really ugly in trying to destroy Bills mistresses.

Clinton, in turn, has begun attacking Trump over his refusal to release his tax returns, suggesting he has something to hide, and over his temperament and leadership abilities by describing him as a loose cannon. And political allies say that, in time, voters will see through Trumps criticisms.
Police are asking the public for help in tracking down two burglary suspects caught on camera breaking into a Chinese fast food joint in Santa Clara.

The suspects smashed through the glass front door at Joe Chinese Fast Food at 5350 Great American Parkway on the evening of April 21 and left with their hands full of loot, Santa Clara police said Monday.
At the start of the year, SFGATE readers fell in love with Daffodil, an abandoned chihuahua without front legs who became a speedy girl on the go with prosthetic wheels.

We recently checked in with Daffodil's owner, Oliva Kong, for an update on her determined dog.

Kong works as a case manager for the company OrthoPets, that made Daffodil's wheels, and has followed many dogs' progress adjusting to prosthetics.

"Daffodil is exceptional," Kong said. "We see a lot of patients where it takes a fair amount of time to learn how to negotiate the world. She's a spitfire and takes off running."

Daffodil is growing quickly, and she's already been through three different sets of wheels, but she always adapts to the larger ones within a day. "She's a quick study," Kong said.

The persistent pup easily rolls around on the sidewalk these days, and Kong says she's now taking her into the mountains to get her used to rough terrain.

In a past SFGATE article, we reported that a San Francisco local named Jene found Daffodil discarded in a soggy cardboard box on Market Street last fall and brought her home.

Jene quickly realized this tiny pup with a birth defect needed more help than he could offer and he took her to the San Francisco SPCA.

"I just couldn't believe what I was seeingwhy would anyone do that? Pick up the puppy, and then put her right back in the box?" Jene told the SF SPCA.

A team of veterinarians used a cast-making kit to fit the spunky pup with custom fiberglass prosthetic set of wheels that allow her to zip around.

In early December 2015 , Olivia Kong flew in from Denver to adopt Daffodil.

Kong had fallen in love with the determined dog through photos chronicling her progress.

Kong initially assumed the chihuahua was adopted shortly after receiving her new legs in November, and when she learned Daffodil still needed a home, she immediately submitted an adoption application.

She's hoping her story will encourage others to adopt animals with disabilities.

"I don't think of her as disabled," Kong said. "I think of her as differently abled."

She added: "She's an absolute joy. She really uplifts not only myself but also other people. People are always happy to see her. I have a wonderful life and she has really enriched it further."
SACRAMENTO  Supporters of a $2 per pack tax increase on cigarettes said Monday that they have gathered 1 million signatures in order to qualify the initiative for the November ballot.

California would raise its cigarette tax for the first time in nearly two decades under the ballot measure, going from 87 cents to $2.87 on top of the regular price of smokes. The signatures are being turned over to the secretary of states office, which will work to verify the 585,407 signatures needed for the measure to make the ballot.

This is going after the No. 1 cause of deaths in the United States, said billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, who is co-chair of the Save Lives California campaign, which is sponsoring the initiative.

If you raise the price, fewer young people will start smoking or ever get addicted to a substance that will ruin their health and cause them to die earlier. Thats the biggest selling point.

If passed, the initiative would add to antismoking legislation recently signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, which raised the age to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products from 18 to 21 years old and requires vaping products to be regulated like cigarettes. Those measure go into effect June 9.

The tax measure would join what is expected to be a crowded ballot, with several major initiatives already qualifying or supporters announcing they have enough signatures to make the ballot.

Five initiatives have qualified for the November ballot: One attempts to overturn a statewide plastic bag ban, a second requires condoms to be worn by porn actors, a third limits the price of prescription drugs, a fourth issues $9 billion in school construction bonds and a fifth requires public votes for revenue bonds. The latter is seen as a major threat to the controversial delta water tunnels project.

Last week, backers of a measure to extend higher personal income taxes on the wealthy under Prop. 30 said they have gathered 1 million signatures in order to qualify for the ballot.

Supporters of legalizing marijuana and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsoms gun control measure have also turned in signatures to the secretary of states office for validating.

In all, 65 ballot initiatives have successfully applied to gather signatures from voters in hopes of making the November ballot, although many of those are considered long shots, such as one to require lawmakers to vote by secret ballot and another to eliminate charter schools.

Steyer said that he doesnt think a lengthy ballot or attention to the presidential race will affect the cigarette tax measure.

It will be a crowded ballot and a crazy political system, but this is one of the issues that people have a gut reaction to, Steyer said.

The measure would increase cigarette taxes by $2 per pack as well as equivalent increases on other tobacco products and e-cigarettes that contain nicotine.

The tax is expected to generate $1.1 billion to $1.6 billion each year by 2017-18, with the money going toward health care and prevention programs, research on tobacco-related diseases, law enforcement, University of California physician training and dental disease prevention.

The tax is opposed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Your wealthy people wont be deterred one iota from buying cigarettes, said Jon Coupal, president of the antitax group. This is felt by the working class. And, the perverse nature of this tax is that the antismoking programs it funds will be reliant on revenue from an activity they are trying to stop.

A trade group for the vapor industry said it too will fight against the tax, saying its misleading to lump their products in with cigarette sin taxes.

The language of the initiative is misleading to voters by falsely implying that the harmful health effects of tobacco are similar to those of vapor products, Cynthia Cabrera, president of the Smoke-Free Alternative Trade Association, said in a statement.

Science has concluded that vapor products are considered more than 95 percent less harmful than combusted cigarettes, including a recent study from the Royal College of Physicians, one of the worlds leading medical associations, endorsing vaping as a harm reduction option.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez

Register to vote

There is one week left to register to vote in the June 7 primary.

Deadline is May 23

To register or update your information, visit www.registertovote.ca.gov

To check your registration status, visit www.sos.ca.gov/elections/registration-status
A San Francisco startup is betting that would-be tenants will jump at the chance to bid against other renters in order to secure an apartment in the Bay Area's superheated rental market.

Rentberry, an online price auction tool for long-term property rentals, aims to compete with Craigslist and other "Stone Age" rental services.

"Essentially, we offer a more efficient and transparent application process which has the elements of bidding and an auction," said CEO Alex Lubinsky.

As in an eBay auction, tenants would be able to see how many people are competing for the property and what the highest offer currently is. They can make multiple offers before the bidding ends, but landlords would not be compelled to accept the highest bid. For example, they might consider a higher-quality bidder with a lower offer more suitable.

The service, which plans to launch Tuesday in the Bay Area and New York, offers free listings for landlords. Lubinsky said hundreds have already signed up.

Rentberry intends to charge tenants a flat fee of $25 when the agreement is signed. After the business is established in six months or so, Rentberry may require landlords to make monthly payments of one quarter of the extra rental income that the service generated for them.

Let's say a property that was listed for $2,000 a month was auctioned off for $2,075. The landlord would have to pay Rentberry 25 percent of the $75 difference ($18.75) every month for as long as the tenant keeps the apartment.

So why would any apartment seeker struggling with the Bay Area's exorbitant rents  the median rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in San Francisco was about $3,100 per month in February  want to take on potentially more costs incurred by bidding up a rental?

Rentberry estimates that in hot markets like the Bay Area, the average tenant will save 7-10 hours searching for a place and at least $400 in rental application fees. And they won't pay anything for the service unless they sign a rental agreement.

Lubinsky explained that landlords advertising on Rentberry would hold an open house where they can meet and vet prospective tenants, who would be instructed to file applications via the service's platform in what the company calls a "fully closed loop application process."

Credit reports and scores, and background checks would be made free to applicants. Would-be tenants can then submit a bid on the property based on how much they're willing to spend and what their competition is bidding. The length of the bidding process would be up to the landlord.

Winning bidders accepted by the landlord would sign the rental agreement and pay rent and security deposits online through Rentberry.

Leases must be at least six-months and can be as long as two years. The company will not offer short Airbnb-type vacation rentals, Lubinsky said.

Landlords participating in Rentberry's application process can expect to see rental income increases of 5 percent on average, Lubinsky said, based on the company's research of Bay Area real estate metrics.

Some will say the last thing the San Francisco rental market needs is a middleman taking his slice when ordinary people are being priced out every day.

But Lubinsky sees it as a supply-and-demand issue. Why should a landlord who may have paid millions for a rental property not be allowed to maximize rents in order to defray the cost of his investment? he argues.

In addition, bids over asking are routinely received for San Francisco apartments, but competing tenants may not know they've been outbid and therefore do not submit counter offers. Rentberry's auction model makes the whole process more transparent, Lubinsky says.

Lubinsky says property managers, who naturally are looking to expand their cut while enhancing rents for their owners, have been especially receptive to Rentberry.

The company's auction model not only allows prospective tenants to outbid offers, but underbid asking prices in slow markets where landlords are looking to fill vacancies faster. Lubinsky says Rentberry plans to expand in two of those lagging markets  Dallas and Houston  in a few months.

Unfortunately for renters here, no market slowing is expected in the Bay Area anytime soon.
VIENNA  In a move fraught with risk, the United States and other world powers said Monday they would supply Libyas internationally recognized government with weapons to counter the Islamic State and other militant groups gaining footholds in the chaos-wracked countrys lawless regions.

Aiming at once to shore up the fragile government and prevent Islamic State fighters and rival militias from making further gains, the U.S., the four other permanent U.N. Security Council members and more than 15 other nations said they would approve exemptions to a U.N. arms embargo to allow military sales and aid to Libyas Government of National Accord.

In a joint communique, the nations said that while the broader embargo will remain in place, they are ready to respond to the Libyan governments requests for training and equipping government forces.

We will fully support these efforts while continuing to reinforce the UN arms embargo, the communique said.

With support from all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the plan is unlikely to face significant opposition from any quarter.

The communique was issued at the end of the talks that gathered U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and top officials from more than 20 other nations to discuss ways to strengthen Libyas fledgling government. The aim is to give the internationally recognized administration more muscle in fighting Islamic State radicals and end its rivalry with a group to the east claiming legitimacy.

The step will boost the governments efforts to consolidate power and regain control over Libyan state institutions like the central bank and national oil company. However, it also comes with risks, not least of which is that the arms may be captured or otherwise taken by the Islamic State or other groups.

Kerry called the plan a delicate balance.

But we are all of us here today supportive of the fact that if you have a legitimate government and that legitimate government is fighting terrorism, that legitimate government should not be victimized by (the embargo), he said.

Libyan Premier Fayez al-Sarraj said his government would soon submit a weapons wish list to the Security Council for approval.

We have a major challenge ahead of us, in fighting extremists, he said. We urge the international community to assist us.

The challenges are daunting.

Libya descended into chaos after the toppling and death of Moammar Khadafy five years ago and soon turned into a battleground of rival militias battling for powers. More recently, the power vacuum has allowed Islamic State radicals to expand their presence.
1 Syria fighting: Turkish shelling and air strikes by the U.S.-led military coalition killed 27 Islamic State militants in Syria, the state-run Anadolu agency reported Monday. Citing military sources, Anadolu said the militants were killed Sunday as they were about to fire rockets toward Turkey. The Turkish border town of Kilis has been pummeled in recent months by rocket fire from Islamic State-held territory in Syria. International coalition war planes began hitting Islamic State targets inside Syria in September 2014. Turkey allows coalition jets to use its Incirlik air base, but doesnt regularly participate in coalition air strikes.

2 Earthquake: A magnitude 5.6 earthquake shook Tokyo and other cities in eastern Japan on Monday. The Meteorological Agency said the quake was centered in southern Ibaraki prefecture, about 60 miles northeast of Tokyo. The agency said that the temblor struck about 24 miles underground and that there was no danger of a tsunami. There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage. The quake came a month after two strong earthquakes struck Kumamoto prefecture in southern Japan, leaving 49 people dead and destroying many houses. Thousands of people are still staying in schools and other shelters.
New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn wants to change how his department decides to spend some of the fines it collects from polluting companies. But his recent comments surprised some people most familiar with what happened in one small town in southern New Mexico.

Under draft changes to the policy, state environment department employees would not be allowed to propose ideas for what are known as supplemental environmental projects, or SEPs. Those are projects meant to benefit the community where the pollution occurred.

The new proposal would leave it up to violating companies to plan how the money will be spent. Projects proposed by entities like Molycorp and Helena Chemical Co. would then be evaluated and selected by state workers in the Air Quality Bureau.

In his recent interview with the Albuquerque Journal, Flynn called out his predecessor in the Richardson administration for using money for "political projects" or to benefit personal acquaintances.

According to the story, some of the money from fines the state levied against Helena Chemical Co. for environmental violations at its fertilizer plant in Mesquite went to three local organizations: $35,000 to the Mesquite Elementary School, $65,000 to the local volunteer fire department and $25,000 to the Mesquite Community Center.

Flynn went on to say that Cynthia Nava, the state senator representing Mesquite at the time, was the one to raise concerns about Helenas plant while she was dating Ron Curry, then at the helm of the environment department.

"Your motives start to be questioned," Flynn told the Journal. "Are you doing this because I am doing something wrong or because you are looking to fund a pet project?"

Ryan Flynn is New Mexico Environment Department Secretary

On Saturday, the Journal followed up its news story with an editorial that argued against several uses of penalty funds, including research on climate change. The paper wrote that it didn't see how the Mesquite funds "directly relate to the violations."

But Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, doesn't see it that's way. He was among the handful of elected officials approached by residents who were worried about the chemical company's proximity to homes and the elementary school in the town, which is 95 percent Hispanic and Latino. And he disputes Flynn's version of what happened there.

At the time, there were high-profile explosions with chemical plants in the country elsewhere, says Cervantes. That was part of the reason for the original concernsand it also explains why some of the SEP money, the bulk of it, was given to the Mesquite Fire Department.

As the now-defunct New Mexico Independent reported, when environment department staff visited Mesquite in 2004, their initial inspection set off years' worth of investigations into groundwater, air quality, and worker health and safety issues.

Over the next few years, the state fined Helena more than $472,000 for environmental violations.

Twelve years after first raising concerns about the fertilizer plant, Mesquite resident Arturo Uribe is frustrated that anyone would call money for SEPs donations.

Uribes home is about 30 yards from the plant, and beginning in 2004, he led the charge in bringing the department inspectors to Mesquite.

Nothing was ever given to this community by Helena, he says of the SEP money paid to the fire department, school, and community center.

Those were fines that were levied against the company for being out of compliance and violating the regulations that [the New Mexico Environment Department] had imposed upon them, he says. And when those fines came back into the community, it came back to benefit the quality of life for our residents, for the kids in our school, for children and for families.

One of the SEPs proposed by Helena in 2009 was $150,000 to install air conditioning at Garfield Elementary School in Hatch, an hour away from Mesquite. That project was rejected by the state at the time.

Helena still operates the Mesquite plant, which under Curry was required to obtain an air quality permit that establishes limits on its pollution and lays out remedies intended to keep the operation in compliance. Helena fought against that, but after seven days of hearings in 2010, the Environmental Improvement Board voted 4-1, upholding NMEDs decision to require that Helena have an air quality permit.

One year after Gov. Susana Martinez was sworn into office, in January 2012, New Mexico and Helena reached a settlement agreement. The company withdrew its appeal and the state now allows the company to operate without an air quality permit.

According to the Journal editorial, the New Mexico Environment Department negotiated $80.8 million in penalties between 2011 and 2016, $74 million of which must be paid by the US Department of Energy for problems at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and in Los Alamos. The state also reached a $4 million settlement last year with Chevron Molycorp for hazardous releases from its mine in Questa.

The department did not acknowledge SFR's request to interview Flynn for this story.

The Supplemental Environmental Projects revision is open for public comment until June 10. Send comments to ralph.gruebel@state.nm.us and include SEP Revisions Civil Penalty Policy in the email subject line.

Santa Fe Reporter
Latipay says New Zealand exporters stand to benefit from a trial that integrates its payment platform for Chinese consumers with Chinese e-wallet platforms Alibaba and WeChat.

Auckland-based Latipay's agreements with the two Chinese sites will allow Chinese customers to pay for New Zealand products in yuan while New Zealand sellers are paid in kiwi dollars. The company will begin beta-testing a button today which allows customers to click to pay in yuan via their chosen mobile payment platform or Chinese bank rather than using a credit card.

It's a vital step to facilitate more sales between Chinese consumers and local businesses, chief executive Leigh Flounders says, as only a quarter of China's population has a credit card and cards are used for just 12 percent of online purchases in China. Instead, mobile payment platforms such as Alibaba's AliPay, and WeChat's Tencent, are used for 40 percent of China's online transactions.

"It's critical for New Zealand businesses to understand there is no point offering a credit card facility to pay for your goods and services for Chinese consumers who want to interact with you but aren't carrying that credit card," Flounders said. "You explain this to exporters or education providers in New Zealand and they get it immediately, because there is so much dissatisfaction at a merchant level, it's so frustrating for them. It's solving a problem and opening up a market which is just dying to interact. For New Zealand merchants, it's about ensuring those Chinese payers can pay in their currency of choice, but also their payment platform of choice."

The platform is targeted at exporters, tourism and education businesses, due to Chinese compliance rules. It has just surpassed 800 registered and verified users, with merchants from those at the top end of the small-to-medium enterprise space to sole traders, Flounders said.

For education providers, the business can facilitate fee payments for foreign students, and has been doing that for a provider in Canterbury.

"When those students are looking to pay their fees currently the process is extremely difficult and it can be quite costly as well if you're looking at unapproved channels like remittance or foreign exchange," Flounders said. "Our platform allows that institution to invoice those students, and those students then pay through our platform in yuan and the institution is receiving those funds in trust in New Zealand dollars. Both parties can open up the platform and see those funds transacting."

Latipay guarantees transactions made over the platform so merchants can ship goods before the payment, which will take between two and three business days to clear, which Flounders said is vital in e-commerce as it means the customer can get the product as soon as possible.

The ability to pay in yuan, while the merchant is paid in New Zealand dollars, will be useful for consumers living in China but also Chinese consumers in New Zealand. That's because those consumers are likely to have an e-wallet or a Chinese bank account with one of the major traditional banks which Latipay is partnering with, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the China Construction Bank Corporation, Flounders said.

Alana Riley, who runs Nelson-based Oxygen Skincare which sells 40 percent of its products to China, has been using Latipay for about a month after a Chinese client suggested it. She said customers in China have had to go to the bank to pay for her products, and the ability to be paid in New Zealand dollars is hugely useful for her business.

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Eroad, the logistics and fleet management company, cut its 2016 earnings guidance for the second time to a loss in the range of $1.3 million to $1.6 million compared to a prospectus forecast of a $5.5 million profit.

Earlier guidance released to the market on Sept. 28 indicated a profit of about $500,000 in the 2016 financial year, the Auckland-based company said in a statement.

Eroad, which was the first company to roll out a national GPS-based road user system, raised $40 million in an IPO in August 2014. Its shares fell 1.1 percent to $2.60 today, below its $3 initial public offering price.

Chief executive Steve Newman said the company had to expense more research and development costs than was forecast which impacted on earnings. In addition, earnings were hurt by unrealised foreign exchange movements since the half year and other unforecast one-off costs.

Its full year preliminary results are due to be announced on May 26.

Newman said the New Zealand business has been performing strongly and group revenue is in line with its September guidance of $26.5 million, which is down from the $34 million forecast in its IPO prospectus.

In March, the California Department of Transportation selected Eroad as its heavy vehicle technology provider for the California Road Charge Pilot, the largest in the US to date, which is scheduled to run for nine months until July. Its investigating road charging options to possibly replace Californias fuel tax.

Eroad sells its weight-mile tax solution in Oregon, Washington and Idaho and its electronic road user charging in New Zealand.

In a market update earlier this year, Newman, who has been based in Oregon since October last year, said Eroad was continuing to deliver unit growth of over 58 percent year on year and the New Zealand and North American markets presented sizeable and on-going growth opportunities for the business.

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Livestock Improvement Corp, the farmer-owned cooperative that focuses on dairy herd genetics, farm software and automation, has proposed splitting into two businesses and allowing outside shareholders to invest for the first time.

LIC, as the business is known, will embark on a nationwide roadshow starting on June 7 to discuss proposed changes to its capital structure. The split would create a genetics/farm management cooperative, working with New Zealand's dairy farmers, and a new agri-technology company that would put LIC's existing agri-tech activities into a new corporate structure and "invest in new and innovative products, servicing customers in New Zealand and offshore."

The roadshow will also discuss "the potential for non-cooperative shareholders to invest in a portion of the agri-technology company," chairman Murray King said in a statement. "This would be subject to a shareholder vote in 2017 should the LIC board decide to proceed with this aspect of the proposal."

King said LIC has been talking to shareholders for some time about the need to review the capital structure,

"Our thinking has progressed to a point where we can now provide an update on plans to unlock opportunities and value in the business, and seek shareholder feedback on the proposed changes," he said.

LIC posted a 46 percent drop in first-half profit in February, reflecting the lower dairy payout and reduced spending by farmers, and the cooperative said it was focussing on reducing operating costs while maintaining services to its farmers.

Its shares, which can only currently be traded among cooperative members, have tumbled 61 percent in the past 12 months and recently traded at $2.11, valuing the compay at $62.3 million.

The NZAX-listed company had already warned about its performance last October and chairman Murray King is now more downbeat about the full-year results, saying he expects them to be closer to a break even position, after signalling in October that it would still exceed last year's figures.

Net profit in the first half fell to $15.9 million and revenue was $145 million, down 9 percent.

King said the result was a reflection of this season's lower forecast milk price creating challenging financial situations for many dairy farmers.

"We continue to actively manage and minimise costs, without impacting our service to farmers," King said. "It's times like this when service becomes even more important, so we are hugely focused on that. We have made significant reductions in our operating costs over the last six months and these will be sustained through the rest of the year".

Cash flows from operations were a negative $17 million, reflecting extended terms given to farmers, a turnaround from the $6 million positive cash flow in the same period a year earlier.

LIC dates back to 1909 and employs more than 800 people, with offices worldwide. All profits are reinvested in research and development or paid out to farmers/shareholders in dividends. Shares are currently priced at $3.80 and have fallen by a third when compared to a year ago.

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The Clear Grain Exchange was not as flexible as NZX had been told it was before acquiring the business, former chief executive Mark Weldon told Wellington's High Court this afternoon.

Weldon appeared for the first time in week three of the lawsuit between NZX and Ralec, the former owners of the grain exchange. The trial, which is expected to last nine weeks, is over NZX's purchase of Australia's Clear Grain Exchange in 2009. NZX is suing for between A$20.7 million and A$37.6 million, and Ralec has countered with a suit totalling A$14 million plus bonuses.

Ralec's QC Tim North has painted Weldon as having been fixated on building Clear into a global commodities powerhouse, ignoring Ralec's advice on the outlook for the business and keeping his own board in the dark, while NZX claims Grant Thomas and Dominic Pym, and their companies Ralec Commodities and Ralec Interactive, misled NZX when it bought the commodities trading platform with wildly inaccurate forecasts.

Weldon, speaking with a hoarse voice he blamed on flu, said basic changes to the grain exchange platform proved more difficult that expected since NZX had been given the impression it was a modular system.

For example, the initial price structure the grain exchange had been using had charged buyers A$2.50 per tonne traded through the exchange with no charge to the seller. He was concerned the structure was a disincentive to buyers but his initial proposal to unbundle the services provided by Clear couldn't be done without significant coding work and in the end a compromise had to be reached with buyers charged A$1.50 per tonne and sellers 50 Australian cents per tonne.

Weldon said that these "relatively simple changes", along with branding changes to ensure Clear was always referred to using the longer name, Clear Grain Exchange, "required a significant workload from the IT team" contrary to what he had been led to believe.

"I had been assured the system was flexible and modular at the time of acquisition," Weldon said.

Weldon added that NZX retained Thomas and Pym on annual salaries of between $500,000 and $600,000, which he said was high compared to other NZX executives, and reflected "both their seniority, their expertise, and the expectations [NZX had]."

That detail provoked objections from Ralec's North, who will likely cross-examine Weldon tomorrow.

Earlier in the day, Weldon, who is represented by Alan Galbraith QC, said Ralec had played up the relationship between the Clear Grain Exchange and Graincorp and concealed internal opposition within Australia's largest bulk grain handler to using the Clear platform.

Weldon told the court that Thomas and Pym had given NZX an annual forecast of 1.5 million tonnes of grain to be traded using the platform for 2010.

"It was very clear in meetings they expected Clear to achieve at least 1.5 million tonnes," Weldon said. "They referred to this several times including at dinner, and separately, Thomas said it was a conservative estimate."

Weldon said Thomas and Pym had characterised the relationship between Clear and Graincorp as positive and NZX wouldn't have gone ahead with the acquisition if that hadn't been the case. A due diligence document from Clear had said Graincorp was targeting volumes of 1 million tonnes to trade on the Clear Grain Exchange, he said.

"If there was one fact which, if we had not believed it to be true we would not have bought Clear, it was whether Graincorp would trade on the market," Weldon said. "All the projections and modelling assumed Graincorp themselves would be trading via Clear, and it was confidence in this, as stated specifically in the due diligence document, that led us to affirm our baseline tonnes traded target. Graincorp trading on the market was absolutely fundamental."

Weldon, who recently resigned his job as chief executive of MediaWorks, said NZX was not told about internal opposition within Graincorp towards trading using the Clear platform. Instead, communications from Clear both in written documents and in the language used in meetings was about the strength of the relationship and the support Graincorp had for Clear.

Weldon said he was told by Clear that there wouldn't be any increase in costs to achieve the forecast increase in trading volumes, and this was repeatedly explained at meetings.

Weldon also denied Thomas had told him, at a meeting on July 17, 2009, that NZX would need to invest A$5 million in marketing and development for Clear. And he said Thomas had emphasised Clear's positive relationships within the grain industry.

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Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce has announced an extra $15 million in funding for commercialisation of scientific research and supporting start-up companies.

Of that sum, $12 million will go to the Pre-Seed Accelerator Fund, taking the government's investment to $8.3 million per year over four years, while $3 million will go to Callaghan Innovation's Accelerator programmes after their successful three-year pilot.

Joyce said the funding, which has been announced ahead of the full 2016 Budget release next Thursday, was vital to support scientists and researchers and develop New Zealand's economy.

Encouraging the development of new export-oriented high-tech businesses is a key part of the innovation stream of the Governments Business Growth Agenda, Joyce said. We are seeing hundreds of very savvy hi-tech companies from New Zealand now competing and succeeding on the world stage. These programmes are all about filling the pipeline with the next generation of quality kiwi start-ups.

The Accelerator Fund, which supports scientists to turn their research into commercial products, spreads funding over five organisations who then allocate funding to specific projects. Joyce said a recent evaluation estimated projects supported by the fund have generated $188.2 million in revenue since 2003, and had the potential to generate export revenues of up to $3 billion. That evaluation showed 573 projects, from biodegradable polymers to advanced sonar technologies for scanning the seabed, had received $42.6 million in government pre-seed investment.

The Accelerator Programme, run by Callaghan Innovation through the Lightning Lab, supports digital start-ups. Joyce said the positive results from participants in the pilot was behind the government's decision to extend the funding.

(BusinessDesk receives assistance from Callaghan Innovation to cover the commercialisation of innovation)

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Tech. Sgt. Billy Sasser, 361st Training Squadron aerospace propulsion instructor and native of East Camden, Arkansas, has been in the Air Force for 14 and a half years and is the instructor of the week at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, for the week of Mar. 22-28, 2016.

Most significant accomplishments:

To date my most significant accomplishments are making technical sergeant last year, completing my airframe and power plant license in 2013 and completing a Bachelors Degree in Professional Aeronautics in 2012, Sasser said.

Airmans story:

Growing up in a small town in South Arkansas, I always knew I wanted to work on airplanes, he said. My dad was in the Air Force in the security forces career field. I joined the Air Force as a way out of the small town and to follow in my fathers footsteps. Taking care of my family is always my number one priority. I also enjoy donating to Goodwill to help those that are less fortunate.

Supervisor comments:

Technical Sergeant Sasser is always willing to go the extra mile to ensure that his students receive proper training and mentorship, said Timothy Robbins, instructor supervisor. He strives to produce the best propulsion technicians. Recently, Sergeant Sasser had a class that had fallen behind slightly in training. He took it upon himself to stay late for several days to provide additional training time for his students. His dedication to duty ensured the on-time graduation of eight Airmen. Additionally, Sergeant Sasser is the facility manager and is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of a $20 Million facility that produces approximately 1.5 thousand U.S. Air Force and international students annually.
Back in 2014, we pointed out that writing a negative review of a company could indeed result in you being sued. At the time, a couple had been sued for violating a non-disparagement clause; fortunately, they won their case.

Yet now, another couple is being sued, and it's calling a lot of attention to the impact that reviews can have, and whether controlling them means controlling the right to free speech.

Protecting Businesses and Bullying Customers

We've noted before that if you're going to leave a review, particularly a less-than-favorable one, honesty is the best policy. If you make a false claim against a business and they can prove it, it's a pretty solid case against you for libel.

However, if you have a legitimately negative experience with a business, you should still be able to report that in a review. That's what sites like Yelp are for, to report the good as well as the bad. The problem is that non-disparagement clauses are becoming more and more popular.

SEE ALSO: Store That Fined a Shopper for a Bad Review Now Must Pay $306K in Damages

Some businesses want to use these clauses as intended, to prevent customers from blindly bashing their company. Still, many other businesses are using these clauses as a way to strike back against any negative review written about them, no matter how true it might be. That could mean trying to make a deal in which the customer receives a refund for removing the review. Or, like in this case, if the review isn't removed, the customer is sued.

One Negative Review, Two Lawsuits

Earlier this year, Michelle Duchouquette and her husband Robert were sued by Prestigious Pets, a pet-sitting service in Dallas, Texas. Last fall, the Duchouquettes hired the company to watch their two dogs and a pet fish for a few days while they were out of town.

Michelle was not happy with the service, or with how certain aspects were handled after their return. And because of that, she did what most people these days do  she took her complaints to the internet. She left an in-depth 1-star review on Yelp, spelling out her misgivings and even acknowledging that the company had done some things right.

In response, Prestigious Pets owners wrote their own reply to her review on Yelp. Owner David McWhorter then sent Michelle a cease and desist directing her to remove the review. When it remained on the site, McWhorter decided to sue, citing the reason as "intentional misrepresentation and fraud by omission." The McWhorters were seeking just under $7,000, stating that Michelle had violated the non-disparagement clause in her contract. Yet after a local news report, the small claims court suit was dropped, and another larger suit was filed to take its place. Currently, Prestigious Pets is seeking damages up to $1 million.

It should also be noted that a large part of the Prestigious Pets non-disparagement clause was apparently copied and pasted from a company named Kleargear. When Kleargear tried to sue a couple for a negative review, the judge ruled in favor or the customers. Kleargear was ordered to pay $306,750 to them for damages.

Non-Disparagement Clauses Threaten Free Speech

Many of those fighting against these non-disparagement clauses are vehement that customers are having their right to free speech infringed upon. These companies are threatening customers with lawsuits and other measures if they write a negative review. Some even refer to it as a kind of online bullying.

"Yelp exists to empower and protect consumers, which is why you should know this business has issued legal threats and/or taken legal action against reviewers for exercising their free speech."

These non-disparagement clauses are being compared to gag orders. Senator Brian Schatz, who is a supporter of the Consumer Review Freedom Act, says that "non-disparagement clauses stifle consumer speech by silencing fair criticism in public forums, particularly on websites." The Consumer Review Freedom Act is purported to allow business owners to take legal action against reviewers who make dishonest claims, but it would also prohibit the kinds of dishonest business practices that lead to these kinds of lawsuits.

Yelp Stands With the Customers in This Case

Recently, Yelp began warning reviewers when businesses have threatened legal action in response to negative reviews. Business pages like that of Prestigious Pets now carry a "Consumer Alert: Legal Threats to Reviewers" box with a statement from Yelp.

The statement reads: "Yelp exists to empower and protect consumers, which is why you should know this business has issued legal threats and/or taken legal action against reviewers for exercising their free speech. If your review accurately describes your firsthand experience, you have a First Amendment right to express your opinion on Yelp."

Readers, have you come across a non-disparagement clause as a customer before? Do you feel that you can't be honest when reviewing businesses that have such clauses? Let us know in the comments below!
NEW DELHI: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday said he has set a target of raising defence exports to $2 billion in the next two years and the offsets clause will help in this.

Speaking at the Aerospace & Defence Summit organised by Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India, the minister said the target is not very difficult to achieve.

"I think the push in exports is showing results. It has reached $350 million, almost doubling the export," Parrikar said.

"In years to come, I have set a target for myself. In the next two years, the target is to touch $2 billion. It is not very impossible as offsets are the area from where exports, and expertise, both can come," he said.

The minister added that in next two years, $2 billion worth of offset obligations are to be fulfilled.

Parrikar also said that government wants to export indigenous light combat aircraft Tejas.

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WASHINGTONL: The US Chamber of Commerce has welcomed India's new Intellectual Property Rights policy, saying it hopes the move is a "precursor" to the "concrete, structural" changes necessary for implementation of a strong innovation model.

"We hope the announcement is a precursor to the concrete, structural changes that are necessary if India is to implement a strong IP-led innovation model," said Patrick Kilbride, Executive Director of International Intellectual Property of the US Chamber of Commerce'sGlobal Intellectual Property Center (GIPC) yesterday.

His remarks came on the day Indian government announced a comprehensive National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy. The move is aimed to incentivise entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation and curb manufacturing and sale of counterfeits.

"We welcome the government's understanding that India's innovative economy requires effective IP protection and hope this commitment will lead to decisive legal reforms," Kilbride said.

The policy, with a tagline of 'Creative India: Innovative India', called for updating various intellectual property laws to remove anomalies and inconsistencies in consultation with stakeholders.

India must provide enhanced certainty for the rights of innovators in line with international best practises, the US Chamber official said.

"We will be carefully reviewing this policy to determine whether this document creates the foundation for such steps. Regardless, IP will continue to be a central issue for any discussions between India and the international business community," Kilbride said.

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UJJAIN: Extolling Indian culture and traditions, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Saturday said that the values of sacrifice, integration and good-for-all run deep in Indian culture at Ujjain.

"We belong to a tradition where even a bhikshuk (beggar) says, 'may good happen to the person who gives me and also to the person who does not'," Modi said in his address at the International Convention on Universal Message of Simhasthon on the sidelines of Simhasth Kumbh.

"We are not stubborn and rigid, we are philosophical. We see divinity in trees and life in water," he added.

Flanked by Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, Modi said that a "holier than thou" attitude is taking people towards conflicts. "Let's look within and see how we can grow ourselves", he added.

Referring to the Simhastha Kumbh mela, a huge spiritual gathering on the banks of the Shipra river in Madhya Pradesh, Modi said, "What is happening here is the birth of a new effort, a modern edition of what would happen in the yesteryear."

He said that the "51 elixir points" of Simhasth declaration will start a new discourse not only in India but around the world.

Emphasising that Indians were always ready to sacrifice for others' sake, Modi cited the example of LPG subsidy.

"I just once asked my people, to those who are well off, to give up their LPG subsidy. And more than one crore people have already given it up, so that thousands of poor families can get LPG connection," Modi said.

He said that enabling rural and poor households to switch to LPG would benefit the environment as well as result in better health outcomes for women who previously cooked on wood or dung cakes fire.

Speaking of the arrangements, including connectivity, for hundreds of thousands of devotees, Modi said that Kumbh management is a great case study for the world institutions.

President Sirisena, who spoke earlier, referred to the long standing ties between India and Sri Lanka.

Sirisena said that his first overseas visit after being elected president last year was to India, and that Modi returned the bilateral visit later.

Sirisena is here on a two-day visit. He held bilateral talks with Modi in New Delhi on Friday evening.

The Ujjain conference spread over several sessions is part of the ongoing Simhasta Kumbh mela on the banks of Shipra river.

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WASHINGTONL: The United States has said that India meets the missile technology control regime requirements and is ready for entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). State Department Spokesman John Kirby said in Washington on Friday that US President Barack Obama, during his visit to India in 2015, had said same thing about India fulfilling the membership requirements.

Kirby's remarks came in as response to a question on reports that China and Pakistan have joined hands to oppose India in becoming a member of the NSG.

Defending its move to block India's entry into the NSG, China on Friday claimed that several members of the 48-nation bloc shared its view that signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is an important standard for the NSG's expansion.

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BENGALURU: The International Astronautical Federation (IAF) will honour eminent Indian space scientist U.R. Rao with its 2016 'Hall of Fame' award for his outstanding contribution to astronautics, the Indian space agency said on Friday.

"The IAF award is intended to reward personalities for their contributions to the progress of astronautics and the federation," state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement here.

Rao, 84, will receive the award and a certificate at the closing ceremony of the 67th International Astronautical Congress on September 30 at Guadalajara (Mexico).

"It is a true honour for IAF to attribute this award to Rao, who have been for many years an active participant to the success of space and of the federation," IAF president Kiyoshi Higuchi said in a letter to him.

The IAF Hall of Fame consists of a permanent gallery of famous personalities, including a citation, biographical information and a picture in a special part of the IAF web presence.

Udupi Ramachandra Rao was ISRO chairman and space secretary from 1985 to 1993. During his eight-year tenure, he accelerated the rocket technology development and guided his team of scientists to build rockets for launching two-tonne class of satellites into the polar orbit.

The Bengaluru-based Rao also initiated the development of the geostationary launch vehicle and cryogenic technology in 1991.

He is presently chairman of the governing council of the space agency's Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad and chancellor of the Indian Institute of Science and Technology at Thiruvananthapuram.

The Paris-based IAF is an international space advocacy body set up in 1951 to initiate a dialogue among scientists the world over for space cooperation. It has 300 members from 66 countries.

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India Well-Placed To Maintain High Growth Despite Drought, External Pressures: UN Analysts
Puerto Rico owes $72 Billion to various hedge funds and investors and its governor, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, has admitted that there is no way to pay it. The problem is that PR is a U.S. territory and not a state and hence has no recourse to filing for bankruptcy. On Jan 1 2016 when PR failed to make a scheduled interest payment, it had officially defaulted on its obligations. In May it missed $422 million in interest payments. There is another two billion dollars due in July.

No presidential candidate has come out strongly in support of allowing PR to file for bankruptcy and this is not surprising. If PR were to be allowed to obtain protection from its creditors by filing for bankruptcy, many large hedge funds would lose billons. These hedge funds have been lobbying hard with politicians from both parties to prevent such a scenario. Without bankruptcy as an option, the other possible option is a massive bailout and it is hard to imagine any candidate pushing for this. Memories of 2008 are still too vivid and no one wants to stand up and admit that they are paying off the big hedge funds for the risk they knowingly took that did not pan out.

Speaker Paul Ryan has drafted a bill that would form a five-member oversight board to decide for the island on how to find a way forward, including selectively allowing bankruptcy protection for certain entities. Unfortunately, an oversight board feels a lot like a colonial power imposing its views on a captive territory. This has not been well received by the islands elected officials nor its citizenry. The bill was supposed to have been passed a few weeks ago but has been delayed and will be submitted for consideration in the next few days.

PR has been in a recession for the last ten years. When the tax benefits given to pharmaceutical companies in the 1980s to encourage manufacturing on the island ended, most of those companies relocated their operations back to the mainland. As jobs left the island, the economy stagnated and the downward spiral began. It is estimated that over 500,000 educated Puerto Ricans left the island looking for work in the last few years. 45 percent of the islands remaining population lives in poverty. Unemployment is at 16 percent, about triple the rate of the mainland U.S.

What these structural problems mean is that even if some temporary relief on the debt were possible, PR will continue in its long term decline. The workforce does not exist to pull the economy out of its recession and provide a sustainable way to repay its obligations. If only we could get 100,000 hard working and enterprising youngsters to relocate to PR and restart the economic engine!

This is where skilled immigrants come in. We have the EB5 program that enables foreigners who are willing to invest $500,000 in an economically disadvantaged area (or $1,000,000 in a general area) and create ten jobs to get a green card (permanent residency). That is a great framework that can be applied to PR.

We should enable anyone willing to invest $100,000 and relocate to PR and reside there for a minimum of five years to be eligible for a green card. If we could attract 100,000 people with that program, PR will have enough money to honor its obligations for the next few years, while jumpstarting the economy with hungry engineers and doctors who want a shot at the American dream.Any foreigner who believes in democracy, peaceful co-existence, and basic American values should be eligible.

Puerto Ricans are a warm and welcoming people. For reasons, many beyond their control, they find themselves in this unfortunate situation where basic government services are being cut. Schools are being shut down, health services are being pared, and the security situation could quickly deteriorate. If that was not bad enough, the first case of the Zika virus just hit the island. Few leaders seem to care about this looming humanitarian crisis happening right on U.S. soil. Bold thinking is needed desperately.
WASHINGTON: Robert Gates, the former US Defence Secretary who has worked with eight presidents, today said that he has some "real" issues with the national security and foreign policy of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.



"I have some real issues with things he said about national security policy and some concerns. I think there are some contradictions," Gates said.



"You can't have a trade war with China and then turn around and ask them to help you on North Korea. I have no idea what his policy would be in terms of dealing with ISIS," he said when asked about the national security and foreign policy views of Trump.



Gates said that he worries about Trump's admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin.



However, Gates said these are issues that can always change in case Trump is elected as president of the country.



"They're policy positions, so they can always change. I have seen Presidents do that more than once. I guess one of the things that makes it challenging for me is that he seems to think that he has all the answers and that he doesn't need any advice from staff or anybody else, and that he knows more about these things than anybody else, and doesn't really feel the need to surround himself with informed advisers," he was quoted as saying by the CBS.



Gates has worked with eight US presidents.



"I worked for some very different presidents of those eight. People would say, how could you work for both Barack Obama and George W Bush? And I remind them, well, I worked for Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan," he said.



"The difference is, each one of those presidents, as strong-minded as each of them was, understood he did not have all the answers, and surrounded himself with experienced, thoughtful people who would give good advice, and they were willing to listen," Gates said.



They would often make their own "independent" judgments. They often would act contrary to the advice they were receiving. But, nonetheless, they only acted after they had listened to different points of view and then had the opportunity to make up their mind, he said

Read Also: Trump Not To Change His Campaigning Style: Aide

UK Not At Back Of Trade Queue If It Quits Eu: Trump

Source: PTI
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May 17: Takena Kiwanis breakfast meeting. Speaker: Bill Raschko, RE/MAX broker, talks about the real estate market. Time: 7 a.m., Elmers Restaurant, 2802 Santiam Highway S.E. Cost: Free.

May 17: Albany Area Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours: Stutzman Services. Time: 5:15 p.m., 4185 Spicer Dr. S.E., Cost: Free. Info: 541-926-1517.

May 19: Lebanon Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Center Business After Hours: American Bookkeeping and Tax Service, Inc. Time: 5 p.m., 430 Second Ave. S.E., Albany. Cost: Free.

May 24: Takena Kiwanis breakfast meeting. Speaker: Jill Weissbeck, business and employment specialist for the Oregon Employment Department. Time: 7 a.m., Elmers Restaurant, 2802 Santiam Highway S.E. Cost: Free.

May 25: Albany Area Chamber of Commerce Forum Luncheon: State of Small Businesses. Speaker: Ruth Miles, small business advocate. Time: 11:30 a.m., Linn County Fair & Expo Center, 3700 Knox Butte Road. Cost: $15 members, $20 non-members. Info: 541-926-1517.

May 27: Lebanon Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Center Forum Lunch: Speaker: Jim Brenau of Willamette Valley Vineyards. Time: 11:30 a.m., Lebanon Community Hospital Training Center, 525 N. Santiam Highway. Cost: $15, RSVP required. Info: 541-258-7164.

May 31: Takena Kiwanis breakfast meeting. Speakers: Fire Chief John Bradner and Police Chief Mario Lattanzio talk about new stations. Time: 7 a.m., Elmers Restaurant, 2802 Santiam Highway S.E. Cost: Free.

June 1: Albany Area Chamber of Commerce Women in Business Luncheon: A Womans Guide to Productivity. Speaker: Tara Robinson. Time: 11:30 a.m., Phoenix Inn Suites, 3410 Spicer Drive S.E. Cost: $16 for members, $25 for non-members. Info: 541-926-1517.
The ACT government has been forced to correct misleading data on the performance of Canberra's public hospitals, prompting the opposition to accuse it of "gross incompetence".

When contacted by The Canberra Times about the discrepancies, health minister Simon Corbell said the errors were unintentional and government reports would be corrected and reissued with a public notification later this week.

ACT Health Minister Simon Corbell has announced $5.3 million for an expansion of the Canberra Hospital's trauma service. Credit:Rohan Thomson

"I am very disappointed this has occurred and I have made this clear to my directorate who have put a number of new processes in place," he said. "These are clearly human and isolated errors."

But opposition leader Jeremy Hanson refused to rule out the intentional manipulation of data to mislead the public on a politically sensitive issue.
A tenner might not get you much in a Canberra cafe these days but it could help the city's homeless stave off the cold this winter, two Belconnen mums say.

Soudalay Thammavongsa and Emma Madsen are spreading the warmth this winter by buying thermal socks, beanies and gloves for those who are not fortunate enough to have a warm bed to curl up in on a cold Canberra night.

Canberra mothers Soudalay Thammavongsa, left, and Emma Madsen with hundreds of thermal socks for the homeless. Credit:Jay Cronan

Ms Thammavongsa said their crowdfunding campaign was inspired by an encounter she had during her lunch break a few weeks back.

"The reality hit hard when I walked past a woman and she had no shoes, no socks and she was shaking and shivering," Ms Thammavongsa said.
The ACT government has confirmed it spent $1.5 million renovating the Fyshwick Early Childhood Centre less than two years ago as parents say more should have been done to save the centre from closing next month.

The parents' frustration has been directed to the management of Community Services #1, formerly Southside Community Services, a community-based, not-for-profit, non-government organisation which runs the centre, along with six other childcare centres in the ACT.

Parents are upset they were not given more notice that the Fyshwick Early Childhood Centre will be closing next month - or the opportunity to help save it. Nicola Matthews, with her son Harry, nearly three, and Emily Watkins with her daughter Harper Heidke, also nearly three, say their children receive great care at the centre and are devastated it is closing. Credit:Jamila Toderas

The ACT government owns the building in which the centre is housed and the office of Chief Minister Andrew Barr confirmed it funded $1.5 million in renovations, finishing in 2014, partly to accommodate more childcare places.

The government has not ruled out the possibility of another childcare operator moving into the building, with at least five operators on ACT Property Group's waiting list for childcare centres.
Author Richard Begbie (left) and Max Oldfield interpret the fiendish complexities of an abandoned reaper and binder this year. Credit:Peter Campbell In fact, Begbie reports that "from this time on Ted rarely called Max by his name. It was always 'Son', semi-formal and impossible distant to a small boy". Although the Oldfield family were assisted by neighbours and family friends, the young boy had to endure long periods alone at the family's remote property at Naas, south of Tharwa. Out of the saddle for a jump at the 1948 Tharwa Show: About as far from a horse Max Oldfield ever was during those years. Credit:Betty Oldfield "Whether it was during this period that he began to develop the stammer which would become so characteristic of the man is uncertain, but it seems more likely than not," suggests Begbie.

The one bright light for Oldfield in this otherwise dark childhood was his natural affinity for animals, especially his love for horses. Begbie explains that "whether these abilities were innate, learnt or a combination of both, Max's uncanny way with horses would become legendary in the district". Max Oldfield reflects on his life as a mountain man and brumby runner. Credit:Peter Campbell At every opportunity the young boy would jump on a horse and "by the time he was ten or eleven Oldfield had come to admire the horsemen of the mountain country and by the age of twelve had broken in his first horse." One horseman who influenced him enormously was Jack Maxwell, a ranger for the ACT who took the young Oldfield under his wing. Before long the two riders would embark on brumby running trips, a high-risk activity usually reserved for only the most accomplished of adult riders. By his mid-teens Oldfield was driving stock alone in the mountains. Can you imagine that these days? Many parents don't let their school-aged children walk through the suburbs alone, let alone drive a mob of sheep solo through the rugged high country for days on end. At 15 Oldfield left school and worked for his father who remained hard on him, paying him just a pittance compared with other workers and much to the chagrin of his father, Oldfield at 19 even dabbled as a jockey in the "big smoke" of Queanbeyan; but his true love remained being in the mountains. It was also back in the mountain country that a year later he met his lifer partner, Betty Ashley, at a country dance. Ashley must have made an impact as Oldfield crashed his Buick on the way home from the dance.

"Despite trading in the smashed-up Buick for a Chev ute", according to Begbie "it was still horse and the culture of the farm and mountains that dominated the young man's life". If Oldfield thought his marriage to Ashley in 1952 was going to result in a turn in fortunes for him, he couldn't have been further from the truth. His father was a no-show at his wedding and when several years later, after an accident that exacerbated a war injury, Ted, now a semi-invalid, moved to Young, Begbie points out that "despite all he'd done and his love for the country, his dad decided to sell the property to someone else, forcing Oldfield and his young family out of the family home". "It was hard, campin' on the river at Naas, just across from me own home, on country I'd run all me life," laments Oldfield. In the late 1950s, after Oldfield and his expanding family moved into Ashfield, a newly built modest three-bedroom house on the river, just a short ride from Naas Homestead, life finally started to look rosier for the Oldfields. However, it wasn't long before they were dealt yet another blow, when on September 28, 1961, Daniel Norris Nicholls, an armed murderer on the run from police arrived at Ashfield wanting to shoot himself. Despite the Oldfields remaining calm, Nicholls suddenly changed his mind. "He told us he didn't have the guts to shoot himself, and he couldn't leave us there because we'd go to the police," recalls Oldfield.

Fearing for the safety of his young family (with his two daughters aged 5 and 8 eight hiding in their bedrooms), Oldfield lunged for the criminal's rifle and during an ensuing scuffle Nicholls sustained a serious neck wound. With no phone connected, Betty raced off for assistance while her husband watched over the cowering criminal, who some hours later was arrested by police. The Oldfields escaped the drama without physical injuries but their dreams of rural bliss were shattered forever. During the trial and subsequent appeal the Oldfields were forced to repeatedly relive every moment of that frightening night. "Although post-traumatic stress had not been identified then, the effects of that night would haunt them for years," writes Begbie. The Oldfields did their best to normalise life for their girls but several years later they moved away from Naas, initially into Tharwa, and then eventually to Young to be closer to Oldfield's ageing father. Even though Max Oldfield: The Story of his Ride focuses on the first 50 or so years of the brumby runner's life, Begbie also shares insights into his joint journey with Oldfield that began in 1971 when Begbie and his wife were part of a team that set up Caloola Farm, "a rural project for young people at life's crossroads" at the site of the Oldfields' Ashfield.

Self-confessed city slickers, the Begbies requested the Oldfields' assistance and guidance and "for the second time in his life, Max found himself visiting his own recent property as a stranger", writes Begbie, adding, "we found friends and mentors for life". "In practical matters he was a master teacher  the delicate art of making good lucerne hay, ways to drive stubborn sheep across a creek or into a woolshed, hidden routes through the dense bush  all these and a hundred other skills were passed on without a word." And then there were the horses. "Here, there were skills the learner could never come within cooee of acquiring but he could admire, as the crowd admires the perfect co-ordination of an Olympic gymnast," acclaims Begbie. Despite his emerging friendship with Oldfield, it was only after several years of close company that that Begbies noticed a strange phenomenon. "Whenever he was handling horses, he talked to them continually. It was like an internal dialogue, voiced especially for this horse he was saddling or teaching to lead, or shoeing  it was quiet, and somehow reassuring for the bystander as well as the horse", discloses Begbie, adding, "and the oddest thing  it came out freely and fluently, with no trace of the stammer that has been part of his speech as long as anyone can remember."

Although initially written by Begbie as a thank you to Oldfield and his family, this carefully crafted and beautifully designed biography, complete with historic images, is an absorbing piece of local mountain history that has wider appeal. As the search for the bounty in Tennant's Gold continues, the treasure in Max Oldfield: The Story of his Ride lies in the rich anecdotes of life from a time when horse was king and a diminutive brumby runner called Max Oldfield reigned supreme in the mountains to our south. Fact file The book: A limited number of copies of Richard Begbie's Max Oldfield: The Story of his Ride (Creative Resources Management Pty Ltd, 2016) are available at The Paper Chain (Manuka), the Tharwa Store, and Namadgi Visitors Centre for the RRP of $30. Brumby running: The traditional method of removal of wild horses from the Australian high country in which expert riders rope the horses and remove them to a new location.

Did you know? Oldfield's first brumby run was on the steep slopes of Mt Gingera, the ACT's second-highest mountain. The trek up Gingera's north-eastern face is a favourite for this column, but I'd think twice before clambering down the steep fall on the south-western side on foot, let alone on horseback. And to think Oldfield tamed it aged just 14. Extraordinary. Contact Tim: Email: timtheyowieman@bigpond.com or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie St, Fyshwick. You can see a selection of past columns at: canberratimes.com.au/act-news/by/Tim-the-Yowie-Man-hvf8o Where in Canberra? Where in Canberra? Credit:Ed Wensing Cryptic Clue: Learned chainsaws

Degree of difficulty: Medium Last week: Congratulations to Chris McGirr ,of Jeremadra, who was first to correctly identify last week's photo submitted by Rob Parnell as the long-defunct "talking toadstool" near the cafe at Red Hill Lookout. In 1973 seven of these coin-operated information devices, which played a recording describing the view to tourists, were placed at various Canberra landmarks. Where in Canberra last week? Credit:Rob Parnell McGirr just beat fellow south coast resident James Kositcin and Paul Ratcliffe, of Yarralumla, to the prize. Ratcliffe, a member of the Red Hill Regenerators landcare group, confesses to "leaning many times on the metallic toadstool after a long day weeding". Meanwhile Jim Smith via Twitter reports that students from the ANU once "hacked' into the toadstool, changing the tourist-friendly message to "Help, Help, let me out"! Until recently there was another surviving talking toadstool at the Vernon Circle lookout on City Hill. Unfortunately, as part of the current redevelopment of that site, the toadstool, along with the lookout plaque, have vanished. Have ANU students struck again or was it swindled by one of the capital's talking-toadstool collectors? I'd love to know.
The Canberra Metro consortium plans to employ 500 people on the tram build, half in a union-negotiated agreement and half as sub-contractors.

The Canberra Times also understands the consortium has rejected the controversial memorandum of understanding between the ACT government and unions as in conflict with federal workplace laws.

Canberra Metro consortium chairman Mark Lynch and Capital Metro Minister Simon Corbell. Credit:Jeffrey Chan

But that hasn't stopped it negotiating an enterprise agreement with the construction union to directly employ as many as 250 construction workers, a deal that has enraged Canberra's civil engineering industry and sparked a brawl with the Master Builders Association.

Association ACT executive director Kirk Coningham is calling on the government to delay signing the contract with the Pacific Partnerships-led consortium to build the tram, a contract it believes will be signed this week.
The Australian Medical Association's ACT branch has warned doctors their confidential responses to complaints can be accessed by the patients who complain about them.

The organisation has written to the national health practitioner regulatory body, raising concerns about the "vulnerable" position inn which doctors may find themselves.

The AMA ACT branch has written to the regulatory body, saying doctors may not be "fulsome" knowing patients can access their response. Credit:Andrew Quilty

The problem came to light after the Health Services commissioner decided to release a doctor's compulsory response to a complaint, to the patient.

That response is normally confidential, the AMA says, but, in the ACT, specific legislation means patients are entitled to ask for their "health record".
Police are searching for a man who used a propane blow torch to rob a service station in Tuggeranong on Saturday night.

The man ran from Woolworths Petrol, on Norman Lindsay Street in Conder, with a sum of cash after using the blow torch to threaten a staff member about 10pm.

The blow-torch appeared to be lit when the man entered the Woolworths Petrol station in Conder. Credit:ACT Policing

After the staffer handed over the cash the man ran towards a nature reserve on Tharwa Drive.
Doctor Moore retires

after 36 years

Doctor Robert Moore, an urologist who served the Albany-area since 1980, retired earlier this month.

The best part of medicine is patient interactions. I take pride in aiding patients during their most vulnerable times and helping them achieve better health, Moore said.

David Triebes, Samaritan General Hospital CEO, said that Moore was a skilled and practical physician who was liked and appreciated by his patients.

According to a Samaritan news release, Moore emphasized comfort and limiting the wait time for patients when they visited his office.

Moore took an interest in medicine and helping others at a young age. He started his career as a flight surgeon with the U.S. Air Force before coming to the mid-Willamette Valley.

Paid sick leave topic

of free seminar

A free seminar for Oregon employers on paid sick leave is scheduled for 5 p.m. Monday, May 23, at the Central Linn High School cafeteria, 32433 Highway 228 in Halsey.

The event, hosted by the Linn County Farm Bureau, is free.

Employers will be able to learn about how to comply with the new mandatory paid sick leave law.

Presentations will be given by representatives of the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industry and the Oregon Farm Bureau. The seminar is expected to last about three hours, including time for questions.

For more information, contact Hans Coon of the Linn County Farm Bureau at hans.coon@gmail.com.

Teen job fair canceled

A teen job fair, initially scheduled for Tuesday at the Boys & Girls Club of Albany, has been cancelled.

Josefine Fleetwood, workforce development director for the Albany Area Chamber of Commerce, said shell try to organize the event again next year.

The date set for the fair didnt work out as planned because this late in the spring is a hectic time already for many high school students, especially seniors who are graduating in a few weeks.
A record number of geologists and geoscientists are out of work, according to the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, with almost half of the unemployed having searched for work for at least a year.

Underscoring the impact of the mining industry downturn and ongoing commodity price volatility, the institute said the results from a March quarter employment survey of about 1000 of its members were the worst since it began surveying in 2009 and continued a trend of growing unemployment in the sector since September 2011.

A downer: Geoscientist employment in Australia has been in decline since September 2011. Credit:Erin Jonasson

AIG president Wayne Spilsbury and executive committee member Andrew Waltho both said the present downturn was the worst they could recall in careers spanning three to four decades.

"This is by far the longest and most protracted downturn we have ever seen, in my memory anyway," Mr Waltho said. "It is always a cyclical industry but the peaks and troughs tend to be a 12-to-18-month period, they don't normally drag on for three or more years."
"Last Friday passed without the usual warnings about avoiding risky behaviour on that fateful day," writes Allan Garrick, of Balmain. "Are we witnessing the death of Friday the 13th?" Yes. Column 8 witnessed its demise on our way to work last week. Friday the 13th was staring at its mobile, listening to loud rap music through headphones, walked under a ladder, tripped over a black cat, and fell under a bus.

"Our local McDonald's has a parking space reserved for 'Austerised' persons only," reports Bruce Hyland, of Woy Woy. "Is this some new kind of shorthand for a naturalised Australian citizen?"

"I've just purchased a pack of eight disposable razors blades from Aldi," writes Stephen Reynolds, of Byron Bay. "On the back of this $4.99 package is written: 'Blades made in the USA. Moulded and assembled in Mexico. Packed in China.' And also, obviously, then exported to Australia. If travel broadens the mind, I'm looking forward to many morning bathroom chats with these wise razors."

It's nice to know that we're exceptional. "Last week in Launceston, Tasmania, I wondered what I'd been reading for the last forty years," we're told by John McCarthy, of Kiama. "After asking at a newsagency if they had a Sydney Morning Herald, I was told 'No, we only have normal newspapers here'."

Many readers have asserted that the correct expression is "a damp squib", including Kathryn Elliott, of Dolans Bay, who "turned to my dictionary to find it is 'a damp squib' or firework  a situation or event which is much less impressive than expected". We did know that, but that was the whole point of the orgy scene TV review items that we've been running. It was one of those grand typos that turns out to be more amusing than what the writer intended. Whether a damp squib or a damp squid enhances one's orgy experience is a matter of personal taste.
Michell Fegan, Kingston Cameron Spence writes that we know that the CFMEU, via Unions ACT, have been involved in the tender process for light rail. Stephen Sasse, a former executive of CIMIC (part of the winning consortium) adds "there's kind of a cartel, kind of a notion between the union and [builders]." This then is the same cosy cabal which gifted $65 millions to CIMIC's Spanish workers, to build and ship from Europe 14 trams to Gungahlin, ignoring the Australian-built rival tender. Can the Minister for Capital Metro confirm to the hundreds of steelworker families in Whyalla (as they submit their applications for unemployment benefits) that these trams will at least travel on rails manufactured in Australia, and not imported?

David Dickson, Kaleen What do roos do? Here we go again, another 2000 kangaroos needlessly slaughtered in the bush capital over the coming months ("Activists vow to fight annual kangaroo cull", May 14, p1). It will be argued they have an impact on endangered eco systems. What a tired, predictable and worn out message. Unchecked livestock and weeds cause far more damage to the grasslands that support the Golden sun moth, Perunga grasshopper and grassland earless dragons than these soft footed native animals do. Chris Doyle, Gordon I was shocked and saddened to read of the ACT government's plans to kill 2000 kangaroos to "protect biodiversity", but even more upset to read further that their meat will be used as bait so that even more wild animals, including wild dogs and foxes, can be killed.

This is as shortsighted as the United States government's "Wildlife Services" which indiscriminately kills wild predators to satisfy ranching interests in the West. Don't these officials, yours as well as ours, realise that predators will help keep these so-called "pest" prey animals in check? Please let nature take its course and stop the killing! Laurel Gress, Wadsworth, Ohio, USA Membership no benefit I choked on my Weet-Bix as I read in this morning's Canberra Times ("Dunne used parliament stationary by mistake", May 14, p6) that Vicki Dunne is in London attending another meeting of that useless junket-generator, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I believe the Commonwealth government relinquished its membership of this irrelevant and self-serving collection of despots and hangers-on some time ago, presumably on the basis that it cost time and money, for no identifiable return. Just how do the taxpayers of the ACT get any benefit from this farce? The ACT government should end its pretentious membership of this useless and entirely inappropriate organisation immediately  not even Bronwyn Bishop would have the effrontery to waste taxpayers' money on such blatant jolly.

Steve Anderson, Forrest Staged proposal Grocon and GWS seem to be employing a tried and tested two-stage approach to progressing their development proposal for Manuka Oval. Stage one involves the release of an ambit claim to promote a public outcry. Stage two involves making minor changes to demonstrate how consultative and inclusive they are being. The beauty of stage two is that it directs attention from fundamental questions such as "is this development required at all" or "could another developer deliver a better outcome at a lower price". If Manuka Oval, and it's a very big if, requires such major redevelopment it should only occur after a rigorous planning process to determine exactly what is required to meet community aspirations. This would be followed by an open tender process to see which developer can deliver the best outcome for the community. The current process with its apparent behind-the-scenes involvement of former politicians and staffers does not inspire confidence especially after the recent revelation that the Chief Minister is also happy to spruik on behalf of certain developers.

Jim Derrick, Florey High hopes for Oval Your editorial ('Oval bid has the feel of a done deal', Times2, May 13, p2) repeats the "hope" expressed by the chief operating officer of the GWS-Grocon consortium, Richard Griffiths, that the consortium would spend $80 million to $100 million on stadium improvements. This important information, however, is not the same as the advice provided by Grocon and AFL representatives on the last day of their consultations. These officers confirmed that no more than $40 million would be spent on improvements. And they said these figures could be reduced depending on the government's own refurbishments now in train and on the eventual scope of the development. Canberrans need to know that they and the Barr Government are being taken for mugs. Paula Harris, Narrabundah

Corbell to thank for ACT's energy plan Tom Swann's article "Territory leads nation in race towards clean energy" (Times2, May 11,p5) highlights how the ACT is making the Federal Government look backward on this issue. Strangely, however, he does not mention the leader who has made this happen: ACT Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Simon Corbell, who has developed and implemented this policy with such spectacular success. It should also be noted that the ACT, through its 20 per cent weighting of assessment of bids on community engagement processes for proposed developments, is also leading State jurisdictions toward better consultation processes. Minister Corbell's community engagement policy is based on CSIRO research and successful European models whereas those of the State Governments are derived from top down models to service the mining industry at the expense of communities.

Tragically Minister Corbell is resigning  apparently due to local factional ALP issues. Hopefully a safe seat in Federal Parliament will later be provided so that he can help lead us nationally out of the coal-fired darkness. In any respect, political descendants in future will undoubtedly be following his path and hopefully will also recognise his achievement with a memorial or statue in a prominent public space. Frank Ross, Hackett Darker days ahead Am I the only person to think that the fluorescent lights that we have replaced the old incandescent lights with offer far less brightness of light?

I feel that the lesser intensity of the light from them will probably lead to people's eyesight deteriorating much more quickly than it used to and hence doctors finding that they have to prescribe glasses to more people at a younger age than they used to. Peter Tobler, Macgregor Will Turnbull's jobs and growth go the way of the gold mine? It would appear that that accomplished spinner, Malcolm Turnbull sold the promise of a Siberian Gold Mine to investors and walked away with a handsome return ("Ill-fated Star struck gold for Turnbull", BusinessDay, May 13, p10).

However the gold mine did not materialise and the investors lost. Now Mr Turnbull is selling another illusory 'gold mine' to Australian voters  the promise of "jobs and growth". He is likely to take away the gold trophy, namely the prime ministership, but "jobs and growth" is unlikely to materialise in a substantial way. Lorraine Perera, Oxley Contradiction I wonder if Scott Rashleigh (Letters, May 14) recognised the fundamental contradiction in his letter, in which he says Turnbull is the better choice to manage the economy, but that he will vote Labor in the Senate so Shorten can vote down the Coalition's proposed super changes. It appears that Mr Rashleigh's approach is to want Turnbull to make the hard economic decisions while putting Labor in a position to block them? That does seem strange, or perhaps it's just that Mr Rashleigh only wants tough economic decisions that don't affect him?

Kym MacMillan, O'Malley Scott Rashleigh is typical of those voting who are not interested in good government. Of course it's anyone's right to vote however they want to, but if everyone followed his suggestion of voting one way in the House of Representatives and another way in the Senate, they would be denying the 'winner' any chance of governing. Whether you vote Labor or Liberal, at least vote consistently in both the Lower and the Upper House and give the winner a chance to show what they are capable of. You can always vote them out next time. All Scott Rashleigh is going to do is create even more dysfunction where everything gets passed in the Lower House and gets blocked in the Upper. That's not good government  it's just pig-headedness and achieves nothing. Janet Fletcher, O'Connor Dribble-down effect

I find it hard to believe that in this election the Liberal/National conservatives are still "spruiking" supply-side economics. I am also surprised that the conservatives sought the advice of Arthur Laffer, a former adviser to President Regan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. (I am tempted to comment that the Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry might have been better off inviting Rowan Atkinson's character Mr Bean to present his economic modelling rather than Mr Laffer). Mr Laffer's Curve of 40 years ago, underpins what the Political Right want to hear  that if Government reduces taxes (which presumably mean reduced Government services), then the economy will benefit. This action will in turn produce a "trickle down" economic effect, giving tax relief to the wealthy, and this will result in greater investment and private consumption, thereby stimulating demand. In other words, "Jobs and Growth." Surely the conservatives have progressed beyond such simplistic economics. "Dribble down" economics, sorry, I mean "Trickle down" economics, no, on second thoughts I do mean "Dribble down "economics, is a redundant, out of date economic philosophy and not an effective economic model for the issues of the 21st century. Dribble down economics has not produced greater economic benefit to communities, in fact just the opposite is probably true, in that it has produced greater economic inequality within the western economies. Unfortunately, the trouble with any form of "dribble" is that it produces a mess that somebody always has to clean up afterwards. In short we need far better economic models than Mr Laffer's "napkins" model. In terms of building rigorous research based economic models, could somebody please point out to politicians that "correlation does not imply causation". Causation can never be proved statistically, although at best it may be very strongly suggested. However politicians seem to be quite cavalier and happy to "spruike" that as a consequence of their Government policy such and such will result; e.g. jobs and growth. Really, then show me. We really must demand, through our media and through competent journalists, greater analysis, research and synthesis. A sound research base on which to build our economic policy for the 21st century Australian economy is definitely not to be found by following the "noise" of some economic popularist.

Mike Flanagan, Farrer Too positive Excellent article by Sean Burges on the political coup against ousted Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff ('Early signs from Brazil's new President not promising', Forum, May 15, p7) highlighting the essentially elitist, undemocratic composition of the anti-Rousseff plotters. The plotters have of course been long supported by the ruling elites of the West who see Rousseff's real crime has been her enthusiastic and crucial embrace of the anti-New World Order partnership of BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa which has proved to be an increasingly effective bulwark against the US-NATO-Israel agenda for global hegemony. Rousseff has also been a strong long time critic of Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people. Of course such things can never be admitted, and so instead she is impeached on the hilarious charge of presenting overly positive statistics about the state of Brazil's economy as a ploy for getting re-elected!

Australia's politicians better hope we never get that kind of criminal law put in place! Greg Ellis, Murrumbateman, NSW Black day for arts Is there no end to the Turnbull government's penny-pinching. Last Friday was a black day for 62 arts companies which had their funding cut through the Australia Council. As a "man of culture", I thought Mr Turnbull would have been extremely interested in fostering all aspects of the arts to ensure a well rounded society. Obviously not. Perhaps we could cancel a few fighter jets to fund the arts. This government seems to specialise in "death by a thousand cuts".

Barbara Godfrey, Lyneham TO THE POINT MIDDLING MALCOLM Some people thought that Malcolm Turnbull had a vision of wanting to lead Australia into the future.

In reality, however, it seems that he has focused solely on leading the Liberal Party  a party which was briefly accorded the label: "The Abbott-Turnbull Government." The hopes of many have been shattered. Howard Spicer, Bondi Beach, NSW LIGHT ON THE SHRILL Thank you, Vince Patulnay (Letters, May 13) for your criticism of "econobabble such as growth and jobs". It cast a blinding ray of light on my previous understanding that Jobson Groath was an economist advising both major parties.

Bill Deane, Chapman WHY CROW GROW? Jobs and growth. Repeated ad nauseam. Jobs, yes; we all know what jobs are; we want and need them. But growth? What do we all want and need more of, personally? Surely not just a budgeted bottom line. And surely there must be a limit to growth. When? Malcolm Whyte, Weston

PLEASE EXPLAIN How is it that the rich get incentivised by receiving benefits from the government, but the poor get incentivised by having benefits taken away? How does that work? Anna Molan, Holder IT WASN'T BEN John Enders (Letters, May 13) was nearly right about the late-night visitor to the Niagara Cafe. It was actually John Curtin; the story is written on the wall.

Bob Gardiner, Isabella Plains I think, John Enders (Letters, May 13), we should go a little easy on Ian Warden for a while. He may be somewhat depressed. Norwich City were relegated from the Premier League. Robin Poke, Hughes MANUKA MISGIVINGS

While the sham, "unsolicited", GWS-Grocon project at Manuka appears to be a done deal (Editorial, "Oval bid has the feel of a done deal", Times2, May13, p2), it should be stopped in its tracks until it can be compared with the "design competitors" that David Waldren wishes us to compare it with. Murray Upton, Belconnen EXPLAIN THE RULES Will there be an MOU with the ACT government and the CFMEU for the Cotter Road duplication and the new pool planned at Molonglo, and if so, what are the details for we taxpayers? Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla
The federal government continues to push a sickness tax. If you are sick, you will pay more for being sick. No-one will be immune.

The decision by the Coalition to continue the freeze on Medicare rebates for general practitioners will have a huge impact on those who work at the front line. The vaccinators. The blood pressure takers. The mole and freckle checkers. The collectors of Pap smears. The very people you visit when you feel like hurting yourself or feel you can't go on.

But it will have an even bigger impact on you.

Every time you visit a GP, you will be forced to pay more so GPs can continue their excellent work. I'm sure you know, don't you, that you already pay for Medicare. In fact, the median income in Australia is $52,000 and anyone earning that, pays $780 towards Medicare. So, it's not as if you don't put in already.
I am deeply reluctant to call myself a feminist. This is not because I dislike the ideology, just the etymology. Or to put in another way: I hate the outdated "ism", which is millstoned with so many historic and retrograde connotations.

But now that footwear has become a feminist issue, I have no choice to use the "f" word and declare myself on the distaff side. To whit: a receptionist at London finance company PwC was sent home without pay for failing to wear heels "between two and four inches high". She countered that it was discriminatory because male colleagues were exempt, and is campaigning to have the law changed to make such demands illegal.

Meanwhile, in North America, photographs of a waitress's blood-soaked feet have gone viral. After serving in heels all day, she lost a toenail, but was told she was required to put the shoes on again the next day.

Is this a good thing? No, it is not. Is it sexist? Yes. Outrageously so.
Some of the chosen few, including Bond, were being fooled around by both the army and the then Department of Labour and National Service, as they waited in expectation for their paperwork. Later, the administrative arm threatened Bond with dire consequences should he not report for duty as ordered  only for hi mto respond that he already had been selected to undergo specialist training as a seaman officer on an RAN short service commission at Flinders Naval Depot.

It included one numbered marble for October 4. Selective service was very random, and one October 4 man duly registered in Adelaide and accepted his fate on being called up in the second ballot with others. He heard little more conclusive after his notice was served.

The national service scheme was re-introduced by the Menzies Government in November 1964. Young men of a certain age, born in 1945 and in successive years until its abolition in late 1972, were obliged to register for conscription. The second ballot of numbers drawn for those Australian men born between July 1 and December 31, 1945, was a lottery few 20 year olds wanted to win.

Commander James Bond, RAN, retired, was born in Adelaide on October 4, 1945. While his first given name was Graham, as his mother addressed him, he would default to his middle name James. Joining the Gunroom, HMAS Cerberus, on March 7 1966, he later volunteered to specialise in hydrography. Unusually for an officer, he sported a tattoo of an Australian flag on his forearm. The army might now learn that he did not join the navy to avoid Vietnam service, as he served aboard HMAS Stuart in Vietnam in late May 1967.

Mapping by James Bond for the Australian Hydrographic Service.

His naval career would default to the "white fleet", plying his trade in the small survey ships that continue to chart Australian waters. The hydrographers are a special breed, and it was their lot to be dispatched on long, lonely patrols doing arduous sounding in all sea states. They worked in trying conditions and often oppressive heat, including off the north-west of Australia.

Bond served in a succession of ships, which initially included Anzac, Sydney and Stuart. By 1969, he had married Linda Baxter and lived at Neutral Bay. Bond moved through the service, being promoted to sub-lieutenant (1969), lieutenant (1970), lieutenant-commander (1978) and commander (1986). Commensurate with the increasing responsibilities of his higher ranks, he also attained the highest hydrographic qualification at the charge grade. His career was rotated through HMA ships Moresby, Paluma and Flinders.

As expected, his shore time often alternated between the RAN Hydrographic School and the Hydrographic Office. Thanks to government cut-backs, the RAN was always a small navy and many knew of its 007, if only by anecdote. He was often wheeled out at premiers of the latest James Bond movies, a representational task in uniform that he accepted with due pride and quiet humility.
Labor leader Bill Shorten is in dangerous territory with his attacks on the personal wealth of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Voters want this election to be about policy not personality. Mr Shorten will need to appeal to all Australians should he prevail on July 2. And wealth jibes lose credibility when made by professional politicians who enjoy hefty salaries and have never worked outside unions or the political system.

Granted, some Australians enjoy chopping down tall poppies. Most of us call out arrogance and garish displays of wealth too. We do not appreciate people who have tickets on themselves. As such Mr Shorten and Labor might attract a few votes by highlighting Mr Turnbull's finances.

Voters will soon tire, however, of the little Aussie battler, underdog, chip-on-the-shoulder shtick.

As we argued last week, Mr Turnbull has made himself an easy target about his finances through silly comments that suggested well-off parents shell out for their children to help buy a home. Likewise, the budget's focus on tax cuts for the wealthy made it simple for Labor to appeal to "battlers over millionaires". And Labor is entitled to challenge the Coalition on fairness, as well as its shaky policy on housing affordability and associated scare campaigns.
The lead-up to the July 2 election has produced a familiar refrain. The Greens have indicated their willingness to form a coalition with Labor. Labor has expressed horror at the prospect, and the Liberals have warned that Labor cannot be taken at its word.

There is an air of unreality about this debate. While Labor and the Liberals express their disdain for the Greens, their tone will change if Australians vote for a hung parliament and the Greens hold the keys to the Lodge. If this happens, deals will be done, and the Greens will receive concessions in return for putting one of the major parties into power.

This is a basic, and inescapable, feature of our democratic system. A party wishing to govern must enjoy the support of a majority of the members of the House of Representatives. If a party has insufficient numbers, it must garner support from independent and minor party members.

This feature is not a failing of the system, but a reflection of community will. If the people do not support one party to govern alone, our politicians must respect this and seek to work with a broader group of elected representatives.
A head-on crash this morning between a passenger car and a pickup sent three people to St. Charles Medical Center in Bend, with critical injuries.

Expect delays along Highway 20 on the Santiam Pass summit until noon as the Oregon State Police investigates the two-vehicle accident, according to Lt. Bill Fugate with the OSP.

Two occupants in the passenger vehicle as well as the driver of the pickup were transported to the hospital in Bend. The emergency call was received by OSP at 6:54 a.m. on Monday.
The Powerhouse Museum may not move its entire collection to Parramatta, with a senior NSW bureaucrat suggesting the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences could find a site in Sydney's CBD for fashion and design exhibitions and programs.

The then secretary of the Department of Trade and Investment, Mark Paterson, told the museum's board of trustees that "there may be opportunities to negotiate a secondary site in the CBD", according to the minutes of a board meeting in March 2015.

Staying put?: It has been suggested the Powerhouse may keep popular fashion exhibitions such as the current Isabella Blow show in the city. Credit:Ben Rushton

This suggestion is backed by former trustee and arts patron, Gene Sherman, who told Fairfax Media in April that a "second modest site in a refurbished city building should be found to host fashion shows".
It is no surprise that a dystopian novel about climate change has won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards - there were three among the six shortlisted books.

But the winner, Merlinda Bobis, and her novel Locust Girl: A Lovesong, have had less attention until now than James Bradley's Clade and Mireille Juchau's The World Without Us, which both use the disappearance of the honeybee as a central symbol.

Author Merlinda Bobis, winner of the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Credit:Evana Ho

Philippines-born Bobis, who lives in Canberra, came to Australia as a student 25 years ago, taught creative writing at Wollongong University for 20 years, and is the author of novels, stories, poetry and radio dramas in English, Filipino and her native language, Bikol.

Locust Girl grew out of her concern for the people and nature in both her countries, which has led her to work with the International Water Project, leading a community in the Philippines to tell stories about the dying river that supplies their water.
A "whole new style of Aboriginal writing" is on the rise along with a growing Aboriginal readership, says Bruce Pascoe, whose ground-breaking history of pre-colonial agriculture, Dark Emu, was named book of the year in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards on Monday night.

Pascoe, 68, also shared the new biennial $30,000 Indigenous Writer's Prize with Ellen van Neerven, 25, for Heat and Light  "a work of fiction by a born novelist," said the judges.

Author Bruce Pascoe, winner of the book of the year and co-winner of the Indigenous Writer's Prize in the 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Credit:Lyn Harwood

"It's fantastic," Pascoe says, looking at the six shortlisted books of fiction, poetry, memoir and history. "We couldn't have had a shortlist like that 15 years ago. It's part of the evolution of the community; there are more people with a good education.

"Aboriginal people have always been storytellers, so it's a natural thing to do," he says of the decision to separate Indigenous writing from the Multicultural NSW Award, which went to Good Muslim Boy by Osamah Sami.
John Boyega has revealed the next instalment of the Star Wars saga will be "bigger and darker".

The British actor, who plays rebel stormtrooper Finn in the movie trilogy, said fans should expect something much different to last year's Star Wars: Episode VII  The Force Awakens.

Rian Johnson is at the helm of the next movie in the franchise, temporarily titled Star Wars: Episode VIII, and Boyega confirmed the offering will be an entirely different beast to its predecessor.

"Rian Johnson is great. It's a different take, darker, bigger. Someone will say, 'How do you get bigger than Force Awakens? But it's crazy," he told Variety while at Cannes Film Festival on Friday.
The lasting legacy of the Charlie Hebdo attack is that French humourists are now wearing bulletproof vests under their clothes, the ABC's Q&A heard on Monday.

In a special panel held in conjunction with the Sydney Writers' Festival, novelist Jean-Christophe Rufin  a diplomat and co-founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders)  said when he was in the green room on a similar show in France recently, one of his fellow panellists arrived wearing a bulletproof jacket under his clothes.

The offices of satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo were stormed by extremists in January 2015, who killed 11 people including five cartoonists and injured 11 others. In the wake of the attack, the newspaper moved to a new high-security building.

Responding to a question about satire from host Tony Jones, Dr Rufin said he would "start with a little story".
The weather at Yellowstone National Park on May 9 was fairly temperate: The low was 4C; the high was 10C. Credit:Karen Richardson/Washington Post

A father and son transported the bison calf in the trunk of a Toyota Sequoia to a ranger station in the park's northeast corner, according to a witness who spoke to the East Idaho News.

Idaho resident Karen Richardson, who was chaperoning a fifth-grade field trip to Yellowstone, told the website that the pair were "demanding to speak with a ranger."

"They were seriously worried that the calf was freezing and dying," she said.
Two dozen pilot whales have died after beaching themselves on the Baja California Peninsula, despite efforts to move them into deeper waters, Mexico's navy says.

In all 27 whales came ashore on a beach known as Playa Bufeo, near Ensenada on the western shore of Mexico's Gulf of California, at the weekend.

Mexican soldiers and villagers try in vain to move beached whales into deeper waters. Credit:AP

Naval personnel worked with soldiers, agents of the environmental ministry and fishermen in a bid to save the whales on Saturday and into Sunday, the navy said in a statement.

Some whales returned to the beach after being led into deeper water.
Mr Shorten has copied much from his comrade's play book  he too has shed the kilos and relaxed into his role.

Polling shows that Victorian voters have warmed to Mr Andrews  except for his decision to spend more than $1 billion to scrap the East West Link.

He is a recognisable political figure that most people think is doing an OK job and he is becoming a symbol of what a good Labor government can achieve.

And for those reasons, he is an asset for Mr Shorten, who is fighting to show federal voters that Labor is not the basket case it was when last in office in Canberra.

Geelong is an obvious, and traditional, place for the Premier to join Mr Shorten on the hustings with a message about jobs. It is a key marginal seat where unemployment is a pressing issue and, coincidently, a marginal state seat.
Labor's workplace relations spokesman has repeatedly refused to guarantee that weekend penalty rates would not be cut under a Shorten government, despite the opposition making the issue a key part of its campaign strategy.

In a fiery interview on Melbourne radio station 3AW on Monday, host Neil Mitchell castigated Brendan O'Connor for saying voters should await the final decision of the independent industrial umpire.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten later also refused to guarantee penalty rates would not fall under Labor, while saying only that his party could be trusted to protect the "penalty rates system".
Each of them was outfitted in high-viz jacket, each was at a manufacturing plant, each was at the other's throat.

Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten could barely have been more geographically distant - the Prime Minister in Perth, the Opposition Leader in Geelong.

They may as well have been tossed together in a single cage.
ALBANY POLICE

Meth-dealing arrest  7:07 p.m. Friday, Linn County Jail. Tina Louise Shinall, 44, of Salem, was arrested on charges of delivery and possession of methamphetamine and possession of a controlled substance schedule II. Her initial bail was set at $22,000, and she was scheduled to appear in court on Monday.

LEBANON POLICE

Burglary arrest  7:40 a.m. Saturday, Linn County Jail. Vincent Sears Wells, 36, of Lebanon, was arrested on charges of second-degree burglary, second-degree theft and third-degree criminal mischief. His initial bail was set at $9,500, and he was scheduled to appear in court on Monday.

LINN COUNTY SHERIFF

Injury wreck  Early Sunday, Quartzville Road, Milepost 21. A 35-year-old Lebanon man contacted deputies about 4 a.m. Sunday to report he had rolled his 2002 Ford Escort on Quartzville Road after failing to negotiate a left-hand turn. Michael Burton said he and his passenger were able to get out of the vehicle and walk to a nearby camp, where campers agreed to take them to Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital. Deputies took a report.
Malcolm Turnbull was in Perth for a good time, not a long time. In hi-vis vest and hard hat, the Prime Minister spent Monday morning touring the Austal shipbuilding yard south of Fremantle.

This seaside patch of industry, where up to 21 Pacific patrol boats will take shape, represented "exactly what we are seeking to achieve with our defence industry plan", the PM said.

But try though he did to stay on the subject of ships, the visit was marred by two conspicuous absences: the embattled premier, Colin Barnett, and the local Liberal candidate, who had been the subject of an embarrassing news report just hours earlier.
After a first week of the federal election campaign bereft of major announcements for the battleground state of Queensland, Labor has given the unsurprising hint that Cross River Rail will form part of its platform in the state.

Shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh, in Brisbane on Monday to campaign in the marginal Bowman, Blair and Bonner electorates, gave the hint during a sit-down interview with Fairfax Media.

Both Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten started their federal campaigns in Queensland last week, but with the election not to be held until July 2, major announcements were notably absent from their events.

Mr Leigh said last month's pre-campaign commitment for a $200 million investment into the Ipswich Motorway was the first of several infrastructure announcements Queenslanders could expect in the campaign.
Students saddled with thousands of dollars of course fees will have their public debt reversed, after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission successfully pursued one of the nation's largest college networks for $44 million.

On Monday, Careers Australia, which has campuses in the Sydney and Melbourne CBDs as well as Parramatta, admitted it had breached Australian consumer law and "engaged in unconscionable conduct" while it enrolled students in some of the poorest, most remote communities in Australia into thousands of dollars of debt.

According to the ACCC, the conduct included misrepresenting that the courses were free, that they would lead to employment, and offering inducements such as iPads.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said it was unacceptable that Careers Australia enrolled consumers from a remote Aboriginal community but did not alert them to the debts they would incur.
But just across the border that separates China from its special administrative region of Hong Kong, Bannister's situation might be very different.

Suspended death sentences in China are usually commuted to life imprisonment after a period of good behaviour; in Bannister's case, it is two years. He has been in detention since March 2014, when customs officials detected the ice stuffed in eight ladies' handbags in his luggage.

Beijing: Australian ex-jockey Anthony Bannister will appear in the Guangdong High Court on Tuesday to appeal a suspended death sentence handed down last June.

In a landmark Hong Kong court ruling in September, six westerners  including two Australians  were set free despite having been caught with commercial quantities of crystal methamphetamine while attempting to board flights to Australia. Prosecutors offered no evidence, effectively dropping their charges, after determining they were duped by sophisticated international crime syndicates into becoming unwitting drug mules.

Anthony Bannister appearing in Guangzhou People's Intermediate Court in 2014.

Of the 10 foreigners arrested in similar circumstances, a further two have since been released. The remaining two, Australians James Clifford and Kent Walsh, are hopeful of being exonerated as their cases progress in the coming months.

Back in Guangzhou, however, as many as a dozen Australians remain stranded on charges which could attract the death penalty despite  at least in those cases where details have come to light  credible evidence they have been caught up in similarly callous scams which have rendered them collateral damage in the ruthless ice trade between southern China and Australia.

Along with other Australians  including Peter Gardner, Ibrahim Jalloh and Bengali Sherrif  whose pleas of innocence have so far fallen on deaf ears, Bannister's chances of an overturned verdict appear slim. Mainland China's opaque and party-controlled judiciary sees conviction rates of close to 100 per cent once formal charges are laid. Though directly across the border from Guangzhou, Hong Kong has retained its independent judiciary since its return from British rule in 1997.
A Melbourne chiropractor accused of dangerously manipulating a newborn baby's spine in an "eye watering" video that went viral has been temporarily banned from treating children.

The Chiropractic Board of Australia has ordered Parkdale chiropractor Ian Rossborough not to treat patients under the age of 18 while it investigates his conduct.

In a statement on the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency's website, Dr Rossborough has entered an undertaking not to treat babies, children and teenagers during that time.

The ban, which stays in force until June 2, includes "assessment, undertaking a diagnosis/clinical impression, formulating and implementing a management plan, the provision of any manual therapy (including manipulation of the spine), monitoring or reviewing care and facilitating coordination or continuity of care".
A lawyer and businessman with links to the Liberal Party and the Obeid family is suing Fairfax Media for defamation over a series of articles that examined his role in the company Australian Water Holdings, the Wests Tigers and a coal mining deal.

Nicholas "Nick" Di Girolamo is suing the publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald for damages, claiming his reputation has been "completely destroyed" by the articles.

Nick Di Girolamo outside the Supreme Court. Credit:Steven Siewert

Fairfax Media is defending the case. It says the articles are not defamatory but, if they are found to have defamed Mr Di Girolamo, it has the defence of truth, contextual truth and/or qualified privilege.

In the NSW Supreme Court on Monday, the jury of four women were told the six articles were published between December 2012 and August 2013 and were written by Herald reporters Kate McClymont and Sean Nicholls, as well as Linton Besser, who now works at the ABC.
A man has been taken to hospital in a critical condition after an altercation with police in Sydney's north-west.

The 44-year-old man was initially pulled over while driving on Old Windsor Road, Glenwood, at about 2pm on Monday after officers saw significant damage to his car.

It's understood the man was bleeding in his black Jaguar sedan and had failed to stop at an earlier road accident.

When police approached the car, the man got out and started abusing officers.
More than two months after her friend Matt Leveson disappeared without a trace, Sally White arrived at the doorstep of his boyfriend's unit with takeaway Thai, a bottle of wine and wearing a listening device.

In a meandering dinner conversation, which circled around the quotidian  their jobs, the weather, their pets  Ms White repeatedly returned to her friend's disappearance on September 23, 2007.

"If you have anything that you want to talk to me about you know you can tell me anything and I'm never going to tell anybody," Ms White, who was given a pseudonym by the court, can be heard asking Michael Atkins on December 5, 2007.

"And if you've done something, and I'm not saying you have, you just better hope the police don't find anything," she added.
Death first came calling at the Heuston home in November 2009. And then again, six years later.

It all started with a family dinner. Chloe Heuston, 37, had invited her mentally ill brother Anthony Waterlow to her semi-detached house in Randwick in a bid to repair their fractured relationship. There, too, was their father, art curator Nicholas "Nick" Waterlow, and Chloe's three children, William, 4, Ruby, 2, and James, five months and still being breastfed.

Ruby Heuston, whose mother Chloe Heuston was killed by her mentally ill brother Anthony Waterlow, now has cancer.

The meal had barely started when Anthony, a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of violent behaviour, took a carving knife from the kitchen and killed his father and sister.

He then walked out of the front door and down Clovelly Road, his shirt covered with blood.
The word "optimistic" might not be the first that comes to mind when thinking of children's cancer wards. But that's how medical staff feel about them, Luciano Dalla-Pozza, the head of the Cancer Centre for Children at The Children's Hospital at Westmead, says.

"Cancer wards, for us, are very optimistic - we expect to cure patients," he said. "Our approach is, why would we fail? We're not going to fail."

Optimistic: Dr Luciano Dalla-Pozza, head of The Cancer Centre for Children at The Children's Hospital at Westmead. Credit:Michael Amendolia

But even with the best medical teams and facilities, not every patient can be saved. The heartbreak that hospital staff can experience on losing a young patient was poignantly described by a New York surgeon last week, in a post that prompted an outpouring of support.

The Humans of New York blog is sharing stories from the Paediatrics Department at the city's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, including that of chief paediatric surgeon Michael La Quaglia, who writes of his devastation when a child in his care dies.
The AMAG logo and its various descriptors is one of the most powerful national brand symbols in the world. Locally it enjoys an almost 100 percent recognition rate, with consumer trust at nearly 90 percent, according to Roy Morgan Research.

In order to build the brand and secure its future in an increasingly noisy marketplace, the Australian Made Campaign raised the bar for companies seeking to make country-of-origin claims. To use the certification trade mark, goods must meet the criteria set out in the Australian Consumer Law as well the more stringent Australian Made, Australian Grown Logo Code of Practice, and be reviewed and approved as genuinely Aussie by the Australian Made Campaign's compliance team.

Helping to spread the word and keep stakeholders abreast of key changes to country-of-origin labelling for all Australian products, the Australian Made Campaign has an active presence on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, while attracting approximately 100,000 visitors to its website each month.

The website features an online product directory which showcases more than 15,000 certified Australian products, along with a range of educational resources. It also provides consumers with access to the 'Aussie Made Club' for competitions and giveaways, while businesses can engage with an interactive resource hub, the 'Australian Made B2B Portal'.

The Australian Made Campaign also conducts regular surveys looking at consumer trends and sentiment. Over the past few years it has found Australians are increasingly concerned about the origins of the products they buy.
The algorithm by Simon Mackenzie and Haris Aziz for multiple cake-cutting agents is complex. Credit:arXiv.org "My piece didn't get any chocolate curls!" wails some over-entitled brat. It's not just size but the value you place on a slice that counts. Cake is a metaphor for any kind of divisible good, be it time, property settlement, or computing resources. And "envy-free"? By this, mathematicians mean no one prefers another person's share ahead of their own. Solving this problem for two people is simple and is at least as old as the Bible, where Lot and Abraham divided the lands of Canaan (Genesis 13).

One person cuts the cake into what they perceive as two equal slices. The other person chooses their preferred piece and the cutter takes the other. Simple. But add more people and it gets much trickier. In the 1960s, John Selfridge and John Conway independently developed a solution for envy-free cake cutting for three people. By this Selfridge-Conway protocol, if the envy-free allocation is not solved by an initial three-way division, then it takes just three more cuts to solve the problem. You can read about it here. And there it sat for years. However, in 2015 Dr Aziz and Mr Mackenzie at CSIRO's Data61 and UNSW published a solution for envy-free allocation among four agents. That can take between three and 203 cuts of the cake.

Not to rest on their laurels, Dr Aziz and PhD student Mr Mackenzie have published an algorithm for any number of agents. The paper is yet to be peer reviewed, however, Professor Brams told the Herald the "results look solid". In an associated field Professor Brams has developed an "adjusted winner" system of division that he has applied to problems as diverse as Donald Trump's divorce to his former wife Ivana and the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. "There could even be applications in your part of the world," the NYU professor said. "It could be applied to the Spratlys Island dispute in the South China Sea." Professor Brams said that while the Aziz-Mackenzie protocol is too complex for practical application, it is an important theoretical step forward.
It's true: Switching apps to paste a link can be a chore. So is trying to find that one line of text from a hundred chats ago. But one of the top reasons that convincing people to use the same app is hard is because there are already so many apps that can accomplish the same thing, such that settling on one can be difficult. And they all have their loyalists. Some people prefer email. Others use Evernote. Still others use Google's own products, like Google Docs or Spreadsheets.

That Google apparently believes the right way to fix this non-problem is with another app suggests that the search giant is still looking for The One Social Platform to Rule Them All, when the rest of the internet has already moved on. We're deep into the next generation of social networking, where general-purpose socialising has transitioned to more specific, siloed forms of socialising. Some of these silos happen to be owned by general-purpose social networks (in the way Facebook owns WhatsApp and Instagram, for instance). Still, rather than explicitly destroying those silos and integrating them into the parent product, the siloed brands have continued living with their own branding and personality.

Where Spaces appears to shine are its more technical accomplishments. Just like another product Google debuted recently, users of Spaces can search Google and YouTube straight from the app, and insert the results right into the chat stream without leaving it. That can potentially save a lot of time. And Spaces can also do image recognition  type in "skyline," and Spaces will show you images in your chat history that match that description, even if there are no keywords associated with it. With the growing sophistication of artificial intelligence, it's great to see the fruits of that labor make their way into more products.

But neither of those features will likely be enough to propel Spaces onto everyone's smartphones. If Google really wanted to drive adoption, it might consider putting that technology into Google Hangouts, which itself is closely integrated with Google's previous attempt at a social network, Google Plus.

Spaces is an app that's out of its time. And today's internet users probably won't have the time or the space to fit it on their already-crowded phones.
It's all over. The world's biggest plane has finally left WA, taking off from Perth Airport on Tuesday morning.

Hundreds braved the cold to get a final glimpse of the Ukraine-built Antonov An-225 Mriya as the massive aircraft took to the skies just after 6am.

Aviation enthusiast John was in the packed viewing area at the airport just as the monster was "cranking up its six engines".

"Can you hear it in the background?" an excited John told Radio 6PR down the phone, at which point Breakfast host Steve Mills said it sounded like someone drinking a choc milk.
Protesters headed to the family court to rally against enforced therapy. Credit:James Mooney The judge's options are to first to dismiss the PMH case, effectively meaning Oshin will have a palliative care regime with some limited chemotherapy; second to order the PMH-prescribed regime of high-dose radiotherapy; thirdly to order two extra rounds of intensive chemotherapy as an effort to shrink the tumour enough to buy Oshin some extra time - an option supported by Professor Kellie. The PMH doctor told the court that while the tumour had shown partial response to the intensive chemotherapy given so far, it had been insufficient to indicate chemotherapy on its own would give Oshin a chance at survival for five years - the point deemed a "cure". Oshin began chemotherapy days after his sixth birthday. Credit:Elle Borgward "At best we have made a slight dent in all that disease," he said.

He said if high-dose radiation commenced immediately Oshin was estimated to have a 30-40 per cent chance of the five-year survival. Without radiotherapy, he had perhaps six months to live. "Even with radiotherapy the odds are stacked against him," he said. He said if Oshin survived the radiotherapy, he would have "horrific, long-term side effects". These included a certainty of intellectual impairment, dysfunction of hormones including growth hormones, hearing loss and cataracts. While eye surgery, hearing aids and hormone therapy were all options, there was nothing that could be done about brain damage and while its extent could not be foreseen, the risk it would be extensive was high, given Oshin's young age and the high radiation dose needed to deliver any chance of survival.

Evidence was heard from Professor Kellie that suggested a possibility the tumour would respond to two further rounds of intensive chemotherapy; and that furthermore, had Oshin's parents been seen in his Westmead centre, they would have been granted the option of chemotherapy only and would not have been taken to court for refusing radiotherapy. He also said a "substantial minority" of parents he dealt with would opt to avoid radiation therapy altogether. The PMH doctor acknowledged 'deep respect' for his learned colleague but disagreed with the likelihood that there was any point in further chemotherapy without radiotherapy, given Oshin's tumour's response to the first two rounds. He said Dr Kellie placed his own value on the 'quality of survival' rather than just survival, and said he vehemently wanted to stay away from using such doses of radiation on such young children. He said it was a valid professional opinion that fit into a worldwide context, in which different countries had different standards on the use of radiotherapy on brains of children aged between three and eight.

"It is a matter of value judgement - quality of life versus life," he said, adding that his belief in going for survival was so great that he would push for it even if the odds were only 10 per cent. He said his patients who survived were "not rocket scientists" but he believed that they could still enjoy a good quality of life. The PMH doctor also said he believed further intensive chemotherapy had a negligible chance of success, and the best options were to either "go for it" with radiation to try to achieve five-year survival - or opt for palliative care with limited oral chemotherapy, which Oshin's parents indicated they would accept. They also said they would accept further intensive chemotherapy, if that was the only way the judge would consider it ethically supportable to avoid radiotherapy. Oshin's Legal Aid counsel said she had the opportunity to meet with Oshin's medical team and his parents as well as Oshin himself and she believed they were all sincere in having his best interests at heart.

She said it was clear the life itself could not be considered in isolation from the factors of quality of life, and pain and suffering. "Oshin's situation is very complex," she said. "It's accepted by both doctors that Oshin will suffer neurocognitive deficits of unknown extent. "But what we do know is the younger the child the more likely their severity. Oshin may never live independently ... drive a car ... be in a meaningful relationship or have children. "He might need ongoing day to day care.
London: If Britain leaves Europe in next month's referendum then the first effects could be felt in Australia within weeks, former deputy PM Tim Fischer has warned.

World-wide financial instability would follow in early July, the former trade minister and ambassador to the Vatican said from Rome, where he has been holding meetings with former contacts.

"Australia absolutely does not need this at this fragile time," Mr Fischer said.
Qasr al-Yahud: The proud dome of the Franciscan chapel is pockmarked with bullet holes and the windows which once looked over the spot of Jesus Christ's baptism were broken long ago.

Metal gates that used to fly open to welcome Catholic pilgrims are locked shut and a sign warns visitors of land-mines and unexploded artillery shells.

A landmine warning sign at Qasr al-Yahud. Credit:Avishai Teicher/CC

No one has set foot inside the church in nearly half a century but Israeli military records indicate its doors may be rigged with booby traps and improvised bombs. This is one of the holiest sites in the Christian faith - and it feels like a ghost town.
"We want our rights," said Abdul Rauf Safari, 35, a protester from Ghazni, a city in central Afghanistan with a large Hazara population. "We will no longer accept discrimination."

Protesters have been demanding that the planned route for the transmission line linking Turkmenistan with Kabul be changed to pass through two provinces with large Hazara populations, an option the government says would cost millions and delay the badly needed project by years.

Kabul: Thousands of demonstrators from Afghanistan's Hazara minority marched in protest through Kabul on Monday saying that they are missing out on a multi-million dollar power transmission line, posing a major challenge to the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

The transmission line, intended to provide secure power to 10 provinces, is part of the wider TUTAP project backed by the Asian Development Bank to link the energy-rich Central Asia republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Apart from isolated incidents, including reports that a television cameraman was beaten, the demonstration passed off peacefully. But it underscores the political tension facing the administration as it fights the Taliban-led insurgency and tries to get an economy shattered by decades of war back on its feet.

Monday's protest followed a rally in November against the murder of a group of Hazara people that became the biggest anti-government demonstration in Kabul for years.

Authorities, fearing a repeat of last year's violence, when demonstrators tried to scale the walls of the presidential palace, closed access, blocking streets into the main government area with stacked-up shipping containers.

The mainly Shiite Hazaras have long faced persecution but they are politically well organised and thousands gathered in a square away from the city centre chanting "TUTAP is our right!" but they dispersed peacefully.
Singapore: The Philippine terror group Abu Sayyaf has threatened to execute one of two foreign hostages on June 13 unless a ransom worth 600 million pesos ($17.7 million) is paid.

Canadian Robert Hall and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad who were abducted in September from a luxury resort in the Mindanao region. Last month Abu Sayyaf militants beheaded John Ridsdel, a Canadian kidnapped in the same raid.

Philippine National Police Director General Ricardo Marquez after reading a joint statement from the military and police on the beheading of Canadian hostage John Ridsdel. Credit:AP

"I appeal to my government and the Philippine government, as I have appealed before, for help," Hall said in a new video released on May 13 and posted on SITE, a US research group that tracks jihadist sites.

A four-decade Muslim insurgency in the southern province of Mindanao has left as many as 200,000 people dead. Kidnappers in the region, including the Abu Sayyaf, often take hostages for ransom to finance their operations.
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The proposed 2016-17 budget for the Greater Albany Public Schools district takes an important first step toward finding additional help for young students struggling with emotional and behavioral problems.

But more work needs to be done, in particular to make sure that teachers have as many tools as possible for dealing with these problems when they occur in the classroom.

And we need to remember something important about all of this: The additional help, although welcome, just treats one symptom of the nations broader issue with mental health  and how we have tended to ignore those.

Heres the background: Teachers in Albany have been reporting increasing numbers of students, particularly in kindergarten and first grades, with behavior issues so severe they disrupt class. Teachers districtwide report incidents in which younger students throw chairs, knock over desks, threaten classmates with sharp objects or just lie on the floor and scream. (And there's no doubt that teachers are seeing these kinds of behavioral problems throughout Oregon and the United States as well.)

In some cases, students have meltdowns that are so severe that they require the rest of the class to leave the room, with obviously disruptive results for everyone involved.

In November, Sue McGrory, president of the Greater Albany Education Association, brought a plea from union members to the school board: We need more training to help these emotionally troubled youngsters.

In response, Jim Golden, the districts superintendent, has proposed a budget for the 2016-17 school year that includes a program in which students will be placed with a consulting psychiatrist to help with treatment and diagnosis.

"We are looking at creating a program for intensive intervention for these behavior kids," he said. "The kids will be in a small structured setting that targets their behaviors and looks for replacement behaviors that are pro-social. There will also be some work done with the family to help support this teaching."

Golden also has proposed adding a full-time autism specialist and has budgeted $50,000 for professional clinical help to assess student needs. In addition, assistants will help train staff at the schools to which these students will return after their program is complete.

Its a promising start, but its just a start. The district also needs to find ways to get more help to the teachers who can be at ground zero of these meltdowns. How can teachers on the spot de-escalate these situations while protecting the rest of their class? That needs to be a top priority for this effort.

In McGrorys words: "We need to see this (training) throughout the year; different strategies. Teachers get caught in this very hard place of, they want to help this child who is hurting. They know the childs hurting or they wouldnt be acting out like this. But they also find themselves needing to protect those other 25 or 30 kids. They need the training and support to do this.

And, of course, this is just a bandage on the broader problem: We need to find ways to expand access to vital mental health services to everyone who needs them. We are just now beginning to understand the price we have paid for not tending to this essential need, in cities throughout the nation and especially in smaller and rural communities.

But a bandage has its uses, and can be an important step toward healing. The districts proposal is an excellent first step, as long as nobody is fooled into thinking that the journey is over. (mm)
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Director Immigration Udo Aron is under investigation on the request of the Minister of Justice. SMN News learnt Aron was in the Dominican Republic with members of the Prosecutors Office for a course on the issuance of visas.

According to a reliable source, Aron stayed longer in the Dominican Republic and upon his return on Thursday May 5th 2016, he came in with a female national from the Dominican Republic that did not possess a visa and instead of following procedures Aron chose to walk through with the female companion without even checking in with the immigration officers.

SMN News further learnt that a female immigration officer identified as Rosy Priest called out to Aron and informed him that he and the person that came with him have to follow proper procedures but instead of complying with the request Aron went to his best friend and acting Director August Emmanuel and reported the officer, who in turn went to the officer to reprimand her telling her she was not following direct orders from her superior.

SMN News further learnt that Priest did not let go of the matter, instead she called in her union and filed a complaint with them who in turn filed a complaint with the Minister of Justice Edison Kirindongo who met with the union last week. SMN News learnt that the moment the Minister learnt of the matter he ordered an investigation and demanded that a report reaches him before the end of last week. SMN News also learnt this is not the first time Aron abused his power and brought in aliens to St. Maarten with the assistance of his friend August Emmanuel.

In an invited comment, Minister Edison Kirindongo said that indeed the incident occurred and the moment he was informed he asked the Attorney General to order the Landsrecherche to conduct an investigation into the incident that occurred on May 5th 2016 at PJIAE. Minister Kirindongo said Aron is not yet suspended but the moment he receives the advice from the Landsrecherche he will do what is necessary. When asked if the Acting Director will be investigated also Minister Kirindongo said he does not know how far the Landsrecherche will go with the investigation. I do not want to speculate even though I know how the job goes I just want to stay out of this investigation and allow the investigators to do their jobs and the moment they gave me an advice I will act on it because the immigration officers are now looking to see what will happen and who will protect their interest on the job, he also confirmed that the union is fully informed of the incident.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Member of Parliament Maurice Lake has put all rumors to rest at a press conference on Sunday when he joined the leader and members of the United Peoples Party (USP) and announced that he will be contesting the September 26th elections on the USP slate. At the press conference which was held at the Yogesh building were President of the USP Cecil Nicolas, Paul Lloyd, leader of USP Frans Richardson, Maurice Lake and Mellissa Doncher.

USP President Cecil Nicolas told reporters that the USP strives to build a more inclusive St. Maarten from its birth, one that would brace and empower people in all levels in society. Nicolas said it has not been easy but they will continue to fight in order to strengthen the party to face any obstacle that they may face.

Leader of USP Frans Richardson in his presentation said that over the years he has been working with MP Maurice Lake, his colleague in Parliament. He said that MP Lake has been consistent and one that constantly says that St. Maarten needs to go back to basics in order to fight for its people and putting the people first.. As for the USP he said its a party of inclusion and they welcome MP Lake to be part of their team, a team with unity and one that believes in the people of St. Maarten.

The USP Leader said that he is very proud that MP Lake chose USP in order to continue on the track he started in his young political career. Richardson said being part of the USP will allow the MP to strengthen his career and his belief while accomplishing the things he want for the people of St. Maarten. He described MP Lake a true son of the soil that fights openly for his people.

Richardson said many is wondering why his party continues with the Ministry of Justice, but it was never about him or the party but instead about serving St. Maarten. He said that the Minister of Justice have been working rigorously in fixing a lot especially when it comes to benefits for workers of the Justice Ministry. He said within short the Minister of Justice will unveil the camera project they are working on and they also intend to finalize the purchase of the Soremar building in Cole bay that will house the shooting range for the Ministry of Justice.

When asked if MP Silvio Matser will be joining the USP to contest the upcoming elections, the USP leader said that it is the intention to have MP Matser on the USP slate but in due time the MP will come forward to make his announcement. He acknowledged that MP Matser has some legal issues to deal with but he is sure all of that will be taken care of. "Right now its up to MP Matser to make his statements as which, however, I must state that ever since 2014 he has been working closely with MP Matser and MP Lake.

MP Maurice Lake the incoming member of USP said that he will contesting the elections with USP. He expressed gratitude to the leader of USP Frans Richardson. He said prior to him leaving the UPP he discussed with MP Richardson and he made clear to him that he will not move unless he is assured that the current coalition is serious in working for the people of St. Maarten and not enriching themselves. He said he placed his trust and confidence in Richardson back then and since the current coalition is in office they have been putting the people first and the general interest of the community and not their own interest. MP Lake said that the one of the main things the people of St. Maarten wants is a piece of land in order to build their own homes. He called on politicians to raise the bar and putting the people first in order to move the country forward.

Asked if he held the press conference in order to put the rumors to rest, MP Lake said it is indeed so, but also a number of political parties contacted him and he felt it was necessary to make it known to all the other political parties that he already chose a party with which he will be contesting the upcoming elections. Another issue MP Lake made clear that even though he left the UPP he is still paying his dues to the party who had all its candidates sign a declaration that they will contribute NAF 500. from their salary to the UPP in order to cover their polical campaign expenses. Asked how they intend to curb the "ship jumping" MP Frans Richardson said that the coalition he is part of is busy finalizing a legislation that they hope will curb the "ship jumping."
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Voice of the Nation is back again JCI LIVE Soualiga (Junior Chamber International: Leaders Innovation Vibrant of Equality) will be hosting its second series of VoN forum to be held on the 21st of May 2016 from 7pm at the University of St. Martin (USM).

We are calling all concerned citizens. This is your unique opportunity to come face to face with 8 eight registered Political parties that will be given an equal platform to share their goals and objectives towards the Topic: Education and Economics Affairs.

The registered political parties contesting the elections have been invited to be a part of the discussion as the panellists. Only 8 parties have confirmed their participation. The moderator will be Mr. Elroy Hughes and the host of this prestigious event will be Mr. Nadia Dormoy.

Do you want to know how these parties intend to enhance Education and its Economic Affairs in our community? This an opportunity to be heard! It is completely free,

Your voice matter, so come on out and make it count. We are the Voice of the Nation! (JCI LIVE Soualiga)
Who did it best: Cast your vote for the high school football player of the week

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Identical twins Scott (left) and Mark Kelly pose for a photo at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on March 26, 2015, one day before Scott launched on a yearlong mission to the International Space Station.

The only twins ever to fly in space are about to get a lot of love from their hometown.

West Orange, New Jersey, will honor native sons Mark and Scott Kelly on Thursday (May 19), which the city has decreed Kelly Family Day. The former NASA astronauts, who are identical twins, will receive "Mayoral Medals," and the elementary school they attended  currently called Pleasantdale Elementary  will be renamed after them, West Orange officials said.

"Renaming the elementary school where it all began will personify how proud we are as a school district and community," West Orange Superintendent Jeffrey Rutzky said in a statement. "The Kelly brothers' achievements remind our children of the importance of passion, hard work and dedication. My hope is that many students are inspired by Mark and Scott's accomplishments." [Twins in Space: NASA's Twin Astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly (Photos)]

Mark Kelly flew four space shuttle missions during his astronaut career: the STS-108 flight of Endeavour in 2001, the STS-121 mission of Discovery in 2006, the STS-124 flight of Discovery in 2008 and the STS-134 mission of Endeavour in 2011 (which was the second-to-last flight of the space shuttle program). He served as commander of both STS-124 and STS-134.

Mark Kelly spent a total of 54 days in space before retiring from the astronaut corps in October 2011. He retired partly to help his wife, former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, recover from the injuries she suffered during a January 2011 assassination attempt. He is currently director of flight crew operations for World View Enterprises, an Arizona-based company that launches scientific payloads to the stratosphere using balloons, and that aims to loft paying customers soon as well.

Scott Kelly flew on the STS-103 flight of the shuttle Discovery in 1999 and the STS-118 mission of Endeavour in 2007. He also stayed aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for long stints twice, from October 2010 through March 2011 and from March 2015 through March 2016.

The one-year ISS mission, which Kelly conducted with cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, marked the longest stretch anyone had ever lived continuously aboard the ISS. The goal was to help pave the way for future crewed missions to Mars, which will require long journeys through deep space. Mark Kelly was part of the one-year mission as well, participating in experiments on the ground to provide a genetic control for Scott.

Scott Kelly holds the American record for most total days spent in space, with 540. He retired on April 1 of this year.

Both Kelly twins are former test pilots with the U.S. Navy. They are 52 years old.

Editor's note: Space.com and its partner collectSPACE.com are media supporters of the Pleasantdale Elementary School renaming ceremony to honor the Kelly astronaut brothers.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Petrolimex, Vietnams biggest oil importer and distributor, earned nearly VND1.4 trillion ($60 million) in the first quarter of this year, according to a financial report published by the company.

Data from Bloomberg showed that from January to mid-February, the global price of crude oil collapsed to under $30 per barrel before rallying to nearly $40 per barrel at the end of March.

Petrolimex, however, made a pre-tax profit of VND1.37 trillion ($61.6 million), of which oil products contributed 47.9 percent. Petrolimexs post-tax profit was VND1.1 trillion ($51 million), tripling 2015s figure.

The company also contributed VND8.2 trillion ($370 million) to the state budget, up 17 percent from the same period last year.

According to Vietnam Customs, the country imported 2.8 million tons of oil products in the first quarter of 2016, jumping 14.1 percent on-year. Import value, however, fell 31 percent to $935 million.
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Organic farming has become more mainstream in recent years as the demand for organic produce continues to rise.

The biggest thing holding back the growth of organic isnt the demand, it's the shortage, said organic producers at a workshop held in Ho Chi Minh City themed Brand Awareness of Vietnamese Organic Products.

Nguyen Ba Hung, executive director of Organik Da Lat, whose revenues range from $500,000 to $1 million per hectare, said the shortage of organic products was the reason his company has missed out on many business opportunities.

For instance, Organik Da Lat, which exports organic produce like baby carrots, cabbage and other crops, finds it difficult to fulfill a weekly order of eight containers of organic cilantro for the Japanese market.

Organic product sales have risen sharply as consumers increasingly prefer fruit, vegetables and meat that is raised or grown without pesticides, antibiotics or other banned chemical substances.

A private organic company, located in the southern province of Tay Ninh, runs an 1,500-hectare farm of organic fish and shrimp purely for the German market.

The organic market is growing, but farmers have not been able to keep up with the demand. Photo by Hong Chau

Meanwhile, Vien Phu Company in the southernmost province of Ca Mau, said it exports organic rice to several markets, mostly developed countries.

It added that although domestic demand for organic food still remains relatively low, domestic consumers are quickly catching up with the trend.

Organic producers in Vietnam work with partners from more developed countries such as Japan who can help by transferring technology, providing high-quality seeds and breeds and developing a stringent farming process.

We dont have enough to meet export demand. We want to expand organic farming but without the governments support, we just cant give it a big push, said a Vien Phu executive.

Land for organic farming covers 23,000 hectares in Vietnam, accounting for 0.2 percent of the countrys total agricultural land, said Tran Quoc Khanh, deputy minister of technology and science.

Official statistics show that the shortage of farm land, investment funds and government support make it difficult for organic farms to start production and expand quickly despite the huge market potential.
Shaheed El Hafed, May 16, 2016 (SPS)  The National Secretariat (SN) of the Polisario Front held, Sunday in Shaheed El-Hafed, its second ordinary session after the 14th Congress, Martyr Khalil Sidi Mohamed.

The session is chaired by Prime Minister Abdelkader Taleb Omar and discussed the report prepared by the SN permanent bureau on the situation at the national level and the latest developments related to the issue of Western Sahara on the international scene.

During the meeting, the Secretariat of the Political Organisation of the Polisario Front made a presentation on celebrating the major phases of the struggle of the Sahrawi people, the foundation of the Polisario Front, and outbreak of the armed struggle, Intifada of Independence, Martyrs Day, and Zemla uprising. (SPS)

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Shaheed El Hafed, May 16, 2016 (SPS) the National Secretariat (NS) of the Polisario Front has welcomed the consistent position of the African Union in favour of the decolonization of the last colony in Africa, Western Sahara.

In a statement sanctioning its second ordinary session, SN welcomed the position of the African Union, UN partner in the development and implementation of the settlement plan in Western Sahara and, in support for the decolonization of the last colony in Africa, which was confirmed by the recent meeting of President Joaquim Alberto Chissano with members of the Security Council.

SN praised the firm position of support of Algeria, people and government, under the leadership of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, to the Saharawi cause in all international forums and scenes.

It expressed gratitude to the movement of solidarity with the Saharawi issue throughout the world for its support and solidarity with the struggle of the Saharawi people for freedom and independence. (SPS)

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STAMFORD  Since buying a fully restored 1965 Pontiac GTO three years ago, George Klitsch, of Stamford, has become a mainstay at state car shows.

Originally built between 1964 and 1974, the GTOs three two-barrel carburetors made it one of the more powerful muscle cars of its generation. It was Klitschs dream car as a 15-year-old growing up in Stamford. He said its worth about $60,000.

Every generation has its car, and this could be my generations, he said at a car show Sunday at Wright Technical High School. It was one of the first times they put a big engine in a midsized car.

More than 200 classic car and motorcycle owners packed onto the school campus on Bridge Street on Sunday for the J.M. Wright Tech Car and Motorcycle Show. It was a fundraiser for the school, which reopened in 2014 and is part of the states technical high school system.

Student volunteers helped coordinate the show, and students in the culinary arts department ran concessions selling tacos, hamburgers and pulled-pork sandwiches to large crowds.

Amanda Marano, of the schools parent faculty organization, said the school remains largely unknown to the public, although the state spent tens of millions to renovate the facility as a showcase campus that offers technical instruction for careers in computers, culinary arts, nutrition and other fields.

In its third year, the school will add another incoming freshman class and reach an enrollment of 450 students, she said.

Some people from Stamford arent even aware that Wright is open again, said Marano, whose son, Daniel, is a sophomore. Were trying to get people to appreciate that it is here.

John Maloney Jr., of Stamford, came to show a souped-up 1930 Ford Model A he recently purchased. Maloney said he was happy to enjoy his hobby while supporting Wright through showing his car to the public.

This is a great show, and Im a local person who wants to support the school, Maloney said.

Chris Marrero, of Norwalk, is a sophomore at the school and studies automotive technology. He was enjoying looking at the inner workings of some older cars.

Marrero said he attended Fairfield College Preparatory School for a year, but that it didnt work out. He transferred to Wright to become part of the schools inaugural class of 2017.

Marrero said he has always been mechanically inclined, and at the age of 14 was frustrated by the idea of an office job. On weekends and some afternoons, Marrero works as a technician at Garavel Chrysler Jeep Dodge in Norwalk.

I love coming to school every day, and I feel like I am part of something important, growing a school from the start, Marrero said. I want to be out there, learning how things work and making a living.

Principal Eric Hilversum said that with growth of the schools student body next year, academic programs in languages, English and music and other non-technical areas will be expanded.

Next year, the four-year, 200,000-square-foot school will open to the public the Bridge Street Cafe restaurant, which will feature the work of student chefs providing a full lunch menu and a bakery shop, he said.

This is a flagship for the Connecticut technical high school system, Hilversum said. I like to say that our students are extraordinary because they complete all the requirements of high school as well as achieving technical credentials. It is about rigor and we tell kids they can come here and fulfill their dreams.

martin.cassidy@scni.com, 203-964-2264, twitter.com/martincassidyst
Martin B. Cassidy / Hearst Connecticut Media

NEW CANAAN  Emergency workers were at the scene of a crash on Smith Ridge Road on Sunday evening.

The crash was just south of the Country Club of New Canaan and occurred about 6:30 p.m.
H John Voorhees III / H John Voorhees III

STAMFORDResidents of a Guinea Road home escaped an early Monday morning unharmed thanks to a smoke detector alerting them to a kitchen fire. But fire officials are highlighting the incident as illustrating the gamble of a lack of multiple smoke detectors in a residence.

Firefighters responded to the fire at around 2 a.m. on Monday morning at the home at 151 Guinea Road with the homeowner reporting, a lot of smoke in the kitchen. The residents evacuated the home safely, according to the department.
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HARTFORD  Gov. Malloys Second Chance Society 2.0 legislation needs to gather more support in the House of Representatives if it is to come to a vote this year, Speaker of the House Brendan Sharkey said Monday.

Sharkey, D-Hamden, said that with 18 of 21 Democratic senators in favor of it, the bill seems destined for a tie, 18-18 vote that would be broken by Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman.

But in the House, where the budget passed last week by a slim 74-70 vote, it might be a tougher sell for Malloy, in an election year where some Democrats are concerned that they could be portrayed as soft on crime.

Sharkey said he supports the bill, which would make the state the first in the nation to gradually increase the age that teens are treated as juveniles in the criminal justice system from 17 to 20, except for serious felonies. The bill would also eliminate bail for non-violent low-risk offenders in an attempt to reduce some of the racial disparity in the prison population.

I think for anyone whos going to vote on it, they need to understand whats in the bill and fully appreciate all the implications of what the bill will call for, Sharkey said. I think having a little time to do that is a good thing.

Under the legislation, there would be a new definition of young adult, which would expand from 18 through 20 years of age in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively. They could be held in juvenile detention centers, but unlike the current Juvenile Court, the public would be allowed in to witness youthful offender proceedings.

House Majority Leader Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, agreed that the fate of the bill is still uncertain.

"I think there's a lot of discussions that still have to happen on that bill to ensure we have the votes to pass it," Aresimowicz said.

Malloys legislative team has been meeting with lawmakers to provide details and lobbying efforts. The bill initially got intense opposition from the state and national bail-bonds industry, but the legislation was revised to be less threatening to the bail bondsmen, while focusing on the elimination of money bail for non-violent misdemeanor defendants.

On Monday, Malloys office released current statistics on pre-trial detainees for misdemeanors and the amount of potential savings if they were not being held in jail at the daily cost of $168 per day per inmate. As many as 631 inmates could be held where the underlying offense was a misdemeanor. The estimated number of low-risk inmates who cannot make bail but are in pretrial detention is 346. The cost to taxpayers that

Malloy estimates that taxpayers could save $58,128 if Second Chance 2.0 were in effect on Monday.

The earliest the House could get back together is toward the end of the month, possibly right before the Memorial Day weekend. The Senate is expected to wait for House action, then take up the bill. While the House finished most of the budget-implementation legislation on Friday, it did not get to the states annual bill on school construction, which the Senate previously approved.

Last year, Malloys Second Chance Society legislation was aimed at reducing recidivism and providing job-training and housing opportunities for inmates leaving prison.

kdixon@ctpost.com;
Vietnam exported 2 million tons of rice in the first four months of this year, surging 8.5 percent on year, according to the latest data from Vietnam Customs.

Export value from rice rose to $892.5 million in the first four months, up 10.7 percent from January-April in 2015.

However, concerns are rising about oversupply in the international market after Thailands government announced a plan on April 25 to sell 11.4 million tons of stockpiled rice over the next two months with the aim of generating Baht100 billion ($2.81 billion).

Thailands Ministry of Commerce said the country has about 100,000 tons of "good grade" rice in state warehouses, 7.5 million tons of "sub-standard" rice, 1.5 million tons of rice earmarked for industrial use and 2.4 million tons of spoiled rice, Vietnam News Agency reported on April 26.

This massive sell-off would certainly have an impact on the global rice market in general, and on Vietnam's rice market in particular, Le Van Banh, director of the Vietnamese Department of Agro-Fisheries Processing and Salt Production, told VNA.

However, the impact on Vietnam's rice exports would not be significant, at least in the short term, Banh said. He added that Thailand's plan to sell 11.4 million tons of rice in just two months was not feasible.

The impact on rice exports is expected to be small in the second and third quarters of this year as most contracts were signed at the end of 2015, and there was still an estimated 1.4 million tons of rice remaining to be shipped abroad under existing contracts, the Vietnam Food Association has said.
A fire broke out in a three-storey house on Cau Go Street (Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi) at around noon today, causing panic in the area.

A massive cloud of black smoke was seen spreading from the third floor of a jewelry store on Cau Go Street, covering neighboring houses near Hoan Kiem Lake. The fire reportedly started at around 12.20pm while customers were having lunch in nearby restaurants, causing them to panic and flee.

Fire trucks and police arrived at the scene and used water cannon to control the fire. The owner of the house was away at the time, so one team had to break the door to get in while another team pumped water from the lake.

The fire was extinguished at 12.40pm the same day with no injuries reported. The third floor of the store was completely burnt out. Fortunately, the flames did not reach the first and second floors where the jewelry is stored.
B rexit worries have prompted signs of a slowdown in the property market in recent months as office tenants fret about signing on the dotted line ahead of the European Union referendum vote next month, developer British Land said today.

The firms 14.6 billion of offices and shopping centres are virtually full, and a shortage of space in the City is pushing up rents, but the firm added that take-up is likely to slow further in the short term as the country prepares to decide on its future in the EU.

Chief executive Chris Grigg said that a bounce-back after a Remain vote wouldnt be that surprising, but admitted that the market has slowed a bit.

In the autumn British Land is due to make a final decision whether to go ahead with the 100 Liverpool Street project, a speculative office building in the heart of the City and the very natural next step for its Broadgate campus.

But Grigg refused to say whether a vote to pull out of the EU would make British Land less likely to finally commit to the project. Well take the decision when we know the circumstances. I have learnt in this job over the last seven years that you just dont take decisions until you need to take them.

British Land, which hosts four of failed retailer BHSs stores, reported a 16% rise in annual profits to 363 million for the year to March 31. But shares eased 13p or 2% to 707p as it also reported signs that consumer confidence and spending have started to weaken.

Elsewhere in the property sector Stephen Stone, the boss of housebuilder Crest Nicholson, also said the inner London housing market was pretty much on pause ahead of the vote. The firm, which has projects in Putney and Southwark, is still on track to hit 1 billion in sales this year.

Stone also said builders could struggle to replace Eastern European labour in the event of a Brexit.
Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith is in Vietnam on his first foreign visit since his appointment from May 15 to 17, according to a statement posted on the Vietnamese government portal on May 15.

In a meeting in Hanoi on Sunday, Thongloun and his counterpart, Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, pledged to work closely to implement agreements to foster their bilateral political, diplomatic, security, defense, economic, trade and investment ties.

They have set a target of increasing two-way trade value to around $1.34 billion this year, an increase of 20 percent from 2015, according to the statement.

Both sides also said they will work with other countries and international organizations to manage and use Mekong River resources in a sustainable and effective manner.

Phuc said that Vietnam will collaborate closely with Laos to help the country fulfill its role as the rotating ASEAN chair in 2016. He also asked for coordination to ensure solidarity and maintain ASEANs common position on the East Sea to maintain peace, stability, security and safety of navigation and aviation in the East Sea, while implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea and working towards the early conclusion of the Code of Conduct in the East Sea.

Thongloun Sisoulith was appointed prime minister by Laos National Assembly on April 20.
F ashion tycoon and Ted Baker chief Ray Kelvin doesnt let talent stroll out of his Tedquarters lightly.

So when alumna Jia Ma departed his empire and later set up her own accessories line, you might think Kelvin would be disgruntled at going toe-to-toe with a former employee.

But instead, the retail guru is full of praise for the 36-year-old single mum, whose Jam Love London handbags are increasingly spotted on the shoulders of the well-heeled across the capital.

Kelvin tells the Standard he is proud she has found her own path, and praises her expertise and dedication. Kelvins endorsement has been complemented by a showing for her products in fashion bible Vogue.

Her snappy designs and clever marketing have helped her on the way to projected sales of 24,000 this year, with the figure predicted to double in 2017.

But Ma explains that the path to launching her own business was not an easy one.

Initially, all looked rosy. The fashion fan was born in China and moved with her family to Greenwich as a teenager.

She studied at Central St Martins art school and the London College of Fashion, specialising in product development. A job at Japanese clothing label Visvim followed, and then there was the two-year stint at Ted Baker.

She left the British fashion house in 2005 to move to Japan where she married, had two daughters and continued to work in international clothing design.

But Ma moved back to the UK with her daughters after separating from her husband. She registered the company name Jam Jar Project in 2013 and launched Jam Love London bags in May 2014.

I left all comforts behind. I had a good salary and constant work, travelling lots. But it did not make me happy and free, says the unassuming entrepreneur.

So I used around 20,000 of my savings to take the plunge and set up something I believed would make me happy, adds the casually dressed Ma over a cup of tea in her Swiss Cottage flat, where newly delivered boxes full of her latest designs cluster.

She has used her own lifestyle to inspire her products from my experiences of running around the world as both a businesswoman and a mother.

I saw there was a gap in the market for a range of tote bags that could be functional, strong and good for flying, but also attractive with high quality.

The result was a range of bags costing between 200 and 450. Each includes a section that holds a laptop, which can easily be pulled out when going through airport security, a section to hold passports, and over-the-shoulder handles.

The bags are made in factories in London and the Midlands, using waxed canvas from the Lake Como area of Italy, and delivered to Mas home office where she deals with online orders and distributes them directly. A number of products have also been sold in the Wolf & Badger boutiques in Mayfair and Notting Hill.

I quickly found that I was growing a big customer base through word of mouth, with lawyers, journalists and British chief executives all buying the products, Ma says.

She also believes great reviews and pictures on Twitter and Instagram have helped up its profile.

Its acolytes span far beyond these shores. I heard from one of my Austrian fans that they were first introduced to my tote bags after spotting a lady using one at an airport queue in Chicago, Ma says.

They asked her about it and ordered one online as soon as they were back in Austria. It is such an exciting and rewarding tale.

With the company due to break even this year and Ma pencilling in swift sales growth, she is confident that now is the right time to expand.

I am looking to invest more this year to grow the business. I want to hire two people to help me with social media and day-to-day admin, exhibit at more trade shows, and hopefully open my first dedicated Jam Love London shop in the capital, she reveals. In the longer term, she hopes to create and sell shoes.

Ma is already on her way to upping the brands profile. She is setting up shop in the Permanent Pop-Up in Soho, which was created to showcase independent fashion brands.

And the ultimate goal? It would be amazing to team up with Ray [Kelvin] and create a line of handbags.

That dream may one day become a reality, suggests Kelvin. The doors at Tedquarters are always open to exchange adventures, he says.

A trip back through those doors may not be far away.
G oldman Sachs has provided some welcome good news for the downtrodden oil industry, claiming the global supply glut that caused prices to tumble has ended for the time being.

Brent crude prices shot up 1.2% to $48.67 after the investment bank said that sustained strong demand as well as sharply declining production had likely led to a supply shortfall this month.

The oil market has gone from nearing storage saturation to being in deficit much earlier than we expected, it added.

Goldman predicted that, by the end of this year, there would be a shortage of more than 400 million barrels per day. The first half of 2017 would see a return to a surplus, however.

Energy giant BP, meanwhile, doubled its stake in the Culzean North Sea gas field, despite what it described as a challenging time for the industry.

It bought an extra 16% in the project, which is expected to produce enough gas to meet 5% of total UK demand by 2021, from JX Nippon as part of efforts to refresh its North Sea portfolio.

Production on the Maersk-operated field is expected to start in 2019 and continue into the 2030s.
L ong-suffering shareholders of Lonmin had reason to cheer today as the embattled platinum miner showed signs that its turnaround was on track.

Shares in the former FTSE 100 company, which carried out a highly dilutive $407 million (284 million) rescue rights issue in December to avoid extinction, spiked 23.25p or 14% today to 186p, taking gains this year to 125%.

The South African company revealed that revenues edged up in the six months to 31 March to $515 million, and it managed to drastically reduce its pre-tax loss from $118 million to just $21 million.

The results also soothed concerns about Lonmins debts as it finished the period with $114 million in cash, compared with last year when it had crippling debts of $282 million.

Shore Capitals Yuen Low said: The good ship Lonmin is showing signs of gradually being turned around, but it will be heavily dependent on having favourable PGM [platinum group metals] price and FX winds in its sails in order to go anywhere fast.

Elsewhere, traders were still in so-called risk-off mode as more gloomy Chinese data poured in, sending the FTSE 100 15.94 points south to 6122.56. However, that did not put investors off mining stocks, which were in favour.

A double upgrade from Bank of America Merrill Lynch to Buy propelled Anglo American to the top of the blue-chip table, up 34.5p or 6% at 612.7p.

Citigroups upbeat assessment of the challenger banks put them among the winners. Buy-rated Shawbrook and CYBG improved 3.08p to 259.28p and 3p to 225.75p respectively.

On the junior market, San Leon Energy, the oil firm of Irish businessman Oisin Fanning, confirmed plans to tap shareholders for $200 million  around eight times its current market value  to complete a deal with Nigerias Midwestern to buy Canadas Mart Resources, which produces oil in Nigeria.

The plan now is to buy all the $173 million loan notes from Toscafund, its 41% shareholder, as long as the placing completes. Shares remain suspended.

MX Oil dipped 1.5% to 0.68p even after Hong Kong media mogul Johnny Hon of Gate Ventures fame snapped up a 5% stake in the troubled oil minnow, which tanked last week after its Mexican joint venture collapsed.

Hon was executive producer of Lord Lloyd-Webbers Sunset Boulevard, which starred Glenn Close and recently finished a run at the Coliseum.
L ondons army of small businesses have put fixing the capitals business rates crisis at the top of their demands for new Mayor Sadiq Khan  and given him three months to do it.

A poll for the Standard by the Federation for Small Business (FSB) showed one in five of its members said a revamp of the antiquated system  a levy on a companys property  was a critical issue, and called for clarity on Khans plans in the first 100 days of his tenure.

Before his election earlier this month, Khan pledged to tackle rising rates bills as responsibility for them falls into the hands of councils from 2020. The capital pays around a third of the 24 billion paid to the Treasury in rates each year.

The FSBs London policy chairman Sue Terpilowski said: It is critical that fiscal devolution of business rates meets the needs of Londons small businesses.

Explainer: What are Sadiq Khan's plans for London?

Businesses also called for Khan to improve the affordability of commercial space, reduce congestion and improve the capitals broadband.

It emerged last week that the overworked Valuation Office Agency had received 999,000 challenges against its last revaluation, in 2010, and 29% had resulted in the businesses tax being revised.

The Evening Standard is calling for a reform of the business rates system.
T he Heathrow management has finally found a way of getting past the barriers to building a third runway by banning night flights [May 11]. But Heathrow has not earned its licence to operate with the local community and has repeatedly broken promises. Worse still, its emissions have greatly reduced the health and life expectancy of many people. Rarely do corporate entities truly change and Heathrow has shown little evidence of this over the past 20 years  its promises are all too little and much too late.

Dr Michael Cross

It is good that Heathrow has finally pledged to ban night flights. This should appease some of the fiercest local opposition, and I hope this means we are finally edging closer to having the new runway.

M Hannan

Heathrows owners have pledged that there will be no night flights, yet for several years they denied any aircraft at all landed from 4.30am. The Heathrow management is full of lofty ambitions to get its third runway, but can we trust them?

Jane Reed

Use your EU referendum vote

In usual circumstances, a fair amount of the public will vote out of a sense of civic duty, rather than a feeling that our vote is intrinsically worth something. After all, the chances that your single vote makes a difference in the final count of a general election are extremely unlikely.

However, in the case of the EU referendum, the result is expected to be close, and when people believe that one outcome is much more favourable than the other, a few people could change the course of the vote. Pollsters tell us the outcome is too close to call, with the vote likely to come out five points either side of 50/50, and the unique factor about voting in the EU referendum is that people believe the outcome will make a massive difference to the country either way  some believe exiting will impose a big cost on the UK while others are convinced it will help us reclaim our sovereignty.

The only way to find out how much your vote is worth and whether it will make a difference to the country is to seize this altruistic opportunity and cast your vote.

Victor Haghani

As a naive young man in 1975, I believed the politicians lies and voted to remain in the EU. More than 40 years later, it is clear I made a mistake.

There is a much greater risk that comes with staying in the EU than if we left. If we vote to remain, the EU will do what it likes, safe in the knowledge that our government and private-sector elites will comply, leaving areas such as immigration control and our assets at risk.

History has shown us what an undemocratic, wasteful and dangerous charade the EU is. The only way is Brexit.

Chris Lawrenson

The new Mayor has identified a number of key priorities which many Londoners will agree with, including building more affordable homes and freezing transport fares. But his immediate priority has to be to campaign vigorously to ensure the UK votes to remain in the EU.

Outside the EU, the future for London would be poorer and more uncertain. If London cant attract investment and generate wealth, many of the Mayors initiatives to improve social justice will never get off the ground.

Haroon Abbasi

Chris Grayling must surely know and appreciate that June 23 will not only decide the fate of our nation but that of the Conservative Party itself [Comment, May 11]. Ever since we joined Europe we have torn ourselves apart over the issue. The losing side within the party has to accept the verdict or go gracefully.

Grayling and other Tory Eurosceptics will rue the day they pointed the gun at successive party leaders and imposed this costly and tiresome exercise on the nation.

Justin Hinchcliffe, deputy chairman, Tottenham Conservatives

How to avoid the TV debate blues

The Prime Minister was right to reject a TV debate with Boris Johnson [May 11]. The danger with the EU referendum debate is that it descends into a blue-on-blue shoot-out, which might make intriguing viewing for Westminster obsessives but is unlikely to energise voters.

As the country faces such a vital decision, both sides should have the chance to appeal to progressive as well as conservative voters, and the public also deserves more than a Right-wing slugfest between David Cameron and Nigel Farage. I appeal to broadcasters to give an opportunity for progressive voices to make the positive case for Europe. And if Boris wants to debate with an unashamed pro-European, Im available any time.

Tim Farron MP, leader of the Lib-Dems

Heels demand is height of absurdity

I can scarcely believe employers demand that women wear high heels at work, which can actually cripple feet [May 11]. Imposing high heels at work surely goes beyond sexism, given that it concerns women only. This reminds me of the bound feet of China and of the corsets of Europe, which made life a misery for women not too long ago.

Christina Egan

Nicola Thorp should get every gong going for standing tall on flats. I cannot wear heels any more as they exacerbate my bunions. Does this make me and other similarly afflicted women unemployable, or are we simply expected to cripple ourselves in pursuit of a crust?

Judi Sheffrin

Nationals youth theatre festival is 21

When teachers and directors told the National Theatre that they wanted challenging new plays for young actors, we responded by launching Connections, our flagship youth theatre festival. Now, 21 years later, the NT has commissioned more than 150 plays, giving young people aged 13-19 access to the best new theatre. We want people who have taken part to join in the celebrations and tell us how it changed your life. Get in touch to help us celebrate the worlds biggest youth theatre festival.

Rufus Norris, director, National Theatre
London designer Jonathan Saunders has accepted a top job at US fashion giant Diane von Furstenberg.

Saunders who closed his eponymous label in December following twelve years in business, will be responsible for overall creative direction of the brand and will join founder Furstenberg in her quest to continue to attract a younger demographic to the brand she founded in 1972.

The announcement, made via a DVF spokesperson this afternoon, ends speculation surrounding Saunders next move and the rumour that the Glasgow School of Art graduate may be in line for the Dior job.

The creative union is set to delight fans of Saunders who will watch with interest to see what the print expert is able to do with the backing of a global super force.

Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 at NYFW 1 /28 Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 at NYFW Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Kendall Jenner, Alanna Arrington, Gigi Hadid, Irina Shayk, Jourdan Dunn, Lily Aldridge, Karlie Kloss and Elsa Hosk Andrew Kelly/Reuters Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Jourdan Dunn, Karlie Kloss and Irina Shayk Rex Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner Rex Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Models pose during the presentation Bebeto Matthews/AP Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Models pose during the presentation Bebeto Matthews/AP Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Lily Aldridge, Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, Jourdan Dunn, Diane Von Furstenberg, Jaime King, Karlie Kloss, Irina Shayk, Elsa Hosk and Alanna Arrington Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 A model poses during the presentation Bebeto Matthews/AP Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Irina Shayk poses during the presentation Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Models pose during the presentation Rex Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 A model poses during the presentation Rex Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 A model poses during the presentation Rex Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Models pose during the presentation Rex Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 A model poses during the presentation Rex Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Lineisy Montero poses during the presentation Rex Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Gigi Hadid poses during the presentation Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Gigi Hadid, Lily Aldridge, Alanna Arrington, Jourdan Dunn, Irina Shayk, Diane Von Furstenberg, Kendall Jenner, Karlie Kloss and Elsa Hosk Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Karlie Kloss poses during the presentation Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Models pose during the presentation Rex Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Elsa Hosk poses during the presentation Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Models pose during the presentation Rex Diane Von Furstenberg AW16 Kendall and Gigi Hadid created a Snapchat with Diane Von Furstenberg Karlie Kloss, Jourdan Dunn, Lily Aldridge and Irina Shayk

While Saunders own label was always well received on the red carpet and by critics, the designer was no stranger to the financial difficulties that plague the capitals independent design talents.

Jonathan's extraordinary passion for colours and prints, his effortless designs, and his desire to make women feel beautiful make him the perfect creative force to lead DVF into the future, said Diane von Furstenberg, Founder and Chairwoman of Diane von Furstenberg Studio, LLC.

I could not have found a cooler, more intelligent designer and I cannot wait to watch him shine as our chief creative officer.

Saunders, who is to relocate from Hackney to New York, added: "The spirit with which this brand was founded is incredibly relevant today."

"I am thrilled to be part of its next chapter, said Saunders. Diane has a unique ability to deeply connect with women.
A new craft beer bar will open in Hackney Wick next month, adding to the areas credentials as the brewing heart of the capital.

Mason and Company will be launched by Ed Mason, who also runs Five Points Brewery, along with Rachel Jones, the founder of street food business Capish?.

It will provide the first permanent site for the food stall, best-known for serving Italian-American sandwiches at Street Feast and Kerb markets, along with offering 20 taps of craft beer.

Mason reckons it can become one of the best craft beer bars in London, and he has previous in that department.

Back in 2010 he opened Mason and Taylor in Shoreditch, and also runs The Turks Head in Leeds, which specialises in independent beers and spirits.

Mason and Taylor was one of Londons very first craft beer pubs and I was really proud of it, says Mason. We opened around the same time that Kernel and Camden Town breweries started and we felt like we were very much part of the craft beer scene that was kicking off. I sold it in 2012 in order to focus on the launch of Five Points, but the plan was always to open a successor bar once the brewery was established  that time is now.

The bar will be light and bright with white walls and plenty of light wood, and will back on to the River Lea. Two of the 20 beer taps will be permanently dedicated to Five Points brews, while the other 18 will be rotating guest beers from London, the UK and beyond. In order to keep things fresh, just one keg at a time will be bought and when its gone, its gone.

It will launch on June 10 at Here East, a new foodie quarter in the former Olympic press centre, where several shops and restaurants are planned along with a Boxpark-style container park. Other food operators confirmed include Randys Wing Bar.

There are three other high profile beer stops just moments away  Crate Brewery, Howling Hops tank bar and Trumans Brewery  but Mason still reckons London could do with more craft beer.

Its becoming increasingly easy to drink well in London, but there still very few dedicated craft beer bars compared to cities like New York, Portland or Copenhagen, he says.

As well as beer, Mason and Company will serve coffee from London roasters Alchemy, along with a natural wines and spirits from small producers.

The best craft beer pubs in London 1 /26 The best craft beer pubs in London The Old Red Cow Smithfield A hefty range of interesting beers spans two bars at this Long Lane pub, with significantly more keg than cask on offer. Should the 10-15 on tap not suffice, there are countless more available in bottle. Decent pub grub also features, while the wine list is notably excellent by craft beer pub standards. theoldredcow.com The Queens Head Kings Cross Tucked away around the corner from the station, just off Grays Inn Road, this charming old pub does more than just good beer. On top of three rotating, interestingly stocked hand pumps and more taps it also offers more than 12 whiskies, several ciders, serves platters of cheeses and cured meats, and has board games galore. queensheadlondon.com The Earl of Essex Islington Around 18 beers feature at this pub near the Regents Canal, including many from local London breweries such as Beavertown and Redemption. The pub food menu, which comes with recommended beer pairings, is also decent. Theres a small but sweet beer garden to boot. earlofessex.net Crown and Anchor Brixton Set almost equal distance between Stockwell, Brixton and Oval, this pub offers 20-odd beers on keg and cask. The beers are eclectic, but south London brews feature particularly prominently. Its fairly bustling of an evening, and youll also find a decent roast dinner. crownandanchorbrixton.co.uk The Understudy South Bank This relative newcomer from the National Theatre is the South Banks best pub bar none. Its package includes in excess of 10 beers on tap, a tank of brewery fresh Meantime lager, a decent spirit, wine and cocktail offering, and some pretty sweet views over the Thames to boot. nationaltheatre.org.uk Cock Tavern Hackney Central Originally the home of Howling Hops brewery (before they outgrew the space and launched their own tank bar), this Hackney Central boozer is now home to Maregade Brew Co.. As well as serving their brews, it also specialises in great beer generally. More than 20 lines of it in fact, including a fair bit of Howling Hops stuff. Be aware that its cash only. thecocktavern.co.uk Old Fountain Old Street Theres usually upwards of 15 craft beers on the taps at this comfy (unless its rammed) Old Street boozer, and it has the added bonus of a rather nice terrace. A decent number of the beers available tend to be London brews, with Five Points, Hammerton and Kernel among the regulars. Looking for another point of difference? It has a fish tank. oldfountain.co.uk The Southampton Arms Kentish Town This pub set about equal distance between Gospel Oak, Tufnell Park and Kentish Town stations has resisted going too craft despite stocking around 20 varieties just that  it still feels like a local boozer. Theres a particular prevalence of brews from Londons smaller breweries as well as those from around the UK, while fans of craft cider are also well catered for with five or six on tap at all times. thesouthamptonarms.co.uk The Harp Covent Garden This characterful but cramped old pub a stones throw from Charing Cross station offers a rotating selection of 20 or so brews, main focusing on real ales. And as a regular CAMRA award winner, you can rest assured theyre in good condition. Only problem? It gets absolutely rammed. harpcoventgarden.com Mother Kellys Bethnal Green This Paradise Row beer bar from the team behind The Queens Head in Kings Cross has over 23 numbered taps which correspond to a changing selection of brews  like a Chinese restaurant for beer. Its inspired by a New York taproom, so dont expect a cosy pub  but if the weathers nice, you can count on an outdoor barbecue and plenty of atmosphere on the terrace. motherkellys.co.uk The Lyric Soho The best thing about this characterful pub near Piccadilly Circus is the way it merges the music, fun and frivolity youd expect from a Soho boozer with a surprisingly stunning selection of beers  theres never far off 20 on tap. Oh, and there are open fires. lyricsoho.co.uk Hack and Hop City The latest pub from the team behind The Dean Swift and The Old Red Cow (also in this list), this decent-sized venue just off Fleet Street has more than a decent beer list  more than 20 split between cask and keg. Theres also a gastropub-style food menu, though thats not what brings most people in. thehackandhop.com The White Horse Parsons Green This west London institution  affectionately(ish) known as The Sloaney Pony due to its location and clientele  serves a lot of great British beer, but really comes into its own when it comes to foreign imports  particularly from Belgium, Germany and the USA. Options include Pilsner Urquell tank beer alongside eight hand pumps and around 10 taps, plus more than 130 bottles. The gastropub food is good quality and it boasts a particularly sizeable beer garden along with a calendar packed with beer festivals. whitehorsesw6.com Euston Tap Euston Housed in a teeny stone building just in front of Euston station which was built in 1870 as a form of passenger information kiosk, the Euston Tap is not blessed when it comes to space. Neither is it in any way comfy. However, it does stock an impressive range of beers  20 keg, 8 cask and 150 by bottle, to be exact. Those with an affection for apples should also check out sister site Cider Tap across the road. eustontap.com Dean Swift Bermondsey A rotating selection of more than 15 cask and keg beers are almost always available at The Dean Swift. What makes the place particularly great is that despite this great beer selection, and some very good Sunday roasts served upstairs, it maintains a real local boozer vibe. thedeanswift.com The Fox Haggerston This east London longtimer offers a regularly-changing selection of between 15 and 20 beers on tap at all times, plus some very decent booze-absorbing pizzas. Brews from London makers such as Kernel, Beavertown and Pressure Drop tend to get top billing alongside plenty of international offers. Theres a beer garden out back, too. Cask Pub & Kitchen Pimlico Theres a constantly changing selection of 25 beers on tap at this tucked-away Pimlico pub, not to mention multiple fridges full of interesting bottles. Its the original from the group behind the Craft Beer Co chain, and we reckon its still the best. caskpubandkitchen.com Craft Beer Co Various locations The original Clerkenwell branch of this mini-chain was one of the first proponents of craft beer in London. Its still going strong, while there are now also sites in Brixton, Islington, Clapham, Covent Garden and the City. The Islington branch, which comes with a large beer garden and comfier seating, is a favourite. thecraftbeerco.com BrewDog Various locations Youll no these guys. They do beer for punks, apparently. Whatever you make of BrewDogs marketing gimmicks, they make some bloody good beer. Find it at their bars in Camden, Clapham Junction, Clerkenwell, Angel, Shepherds Bush, Shoreditch and Soho, along with plenty of guest beers from other brewers. The Shepherds Bush branch usually has the biggest selection of beers, totalling more than 30. brewdog.com Draft House Various locations The Draft House group is far removed from the kind of minimalist, vaguely uncomfortable craft beer pub where its all about beer. Expect quirky design, good music and burgers, hot dogs and pub staples served throughout the day. Find sites in Battersea, Fitzrovia, Hammersmith, Tower Bridge, the City and Bethnal Green. drafthouse.co.uk

Capish? will serve all its best-known dishes from its street appearances, including the Meatball Hero sub, Steak Braciole Sandwich and Fried Chicken Parm, along with new creations. A bar snack menu will feature panelle (Sicilian chickpea fritters) and panzerotti (mini deep-fried calzone), while sharing dishes such as lasagne will also be on offer.

Desserts will include tiramisu doughnuts, homemade gelato, including a buffalo milk stracciatella flavour, and a rather epic sounding ice cream sandwich made from maple and pine nut brittle gelato sandwiched between cannoli.

Sustenance: Meatball Hero sub from Capish?

There are also plans for a weekend brunch, while an emphasis will be put on matching certain dishes to the beers which are on tap.

Capish?s founder Rachel Jones said: Having a permanent site allows us to do a lot more than on the street where there are always limitations  from power to set-up time, space and weather. But she added: Capish? will definitely still be a regular on the street food scene  theres such a buzz at food markets, Im not giving that up.

As well as beer there will be coffee from London roasters Alchemy, along with a stock of natural wines and artisan spirits from small producers.

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B lockbuster movies such as Doctor Strange, Bridget Joness Baby and Wonder Woman helped the capitals TV and film-making industries generate a record 649 million last year, according to official figures.

Games, animation and visual effects companies also contributed to the sum, up from 567 million in 2014 and 467 million in 2013, said Film London.

The capital features prominently in the latest Bridget Jones movie, with Renee Zellweger and Colin Firth reprising their roles for the third instalment. London streets also doubled up as New York during filming for Marvel comic book adaptation Doctor Strange, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Mayor Sadiq Khan hailed the sectors contribution to the economy, which is estimated to generate 250 for every 1 of public money. He said: Londons screen industries are a global success story. They generate billions for the UK economy and create thousands of jobs, reinforcing Londons pre-eminent status as an international hub for both creativity and business.

Adrian Wootton, chief executive of Film London and the British Film Commission, said: Since 2004, weve been helping this city grow in stature and reputation against fierce global competition, to the extent that today we rank alongside New York and LA as one of the busiest and most popular places for film and television production. We have helped to double filming in the capital, and on any given day there will be some 50 film crews on Londons streets.

The news follows the announcement by Film London of the winners of this years Microwave scheme, who will receive 100,000 each to make their first features. Looted, a crime story by writer-director Rene Pannevis, and Sick(er) by Lucy Brydon, which tackles anorexia, will also receive development support.

@RashidRazaqES

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P op Brixton celebrates its first birthday in June, and its throwing an almighty feast to celebrate.

Pop Feast will take place at the shipping container park on Thursday June 2 and will comprise a vast and varied eight-course tasting menu, contributed to by all of Pops food venues  including Mamas Jerk, Made of Dough, Viet Box, Kricket and LAmuse Bouche.

The other container residents will also be getting in on the act. Container Records, Reprezent Radio and BoomBocs will be working together to spin the tunes. Restoration Brixton and Barnaby & Co will provide decorations. And servers will be kitted out in clothes from fashion businesses Make Do and Mend, Afroretro and Queen of the Harpies.

Brixton Brewery will be serving beers while wines will be on hand from The New Zealand Cellar.

Tickets cost 45 a head including all eight courses, allowing guests to try the entire Pop offering in one go. Visit popbrixton.org.

Street food in London 1 /12 Street food in London House of Dodo Lower Marsh Market, SE1; Crave, Merchant Square, W2; Tottenham Green Market, N15, @HOUSEofDODO

The steam rising from bubbling pans of creamy coconut beef almost obscures Rebecca Lloyd-Wrights joyously bright stand and adorable bird logo: before it went extinct, the dodo was indigenous to Mauritius, where her stews also hail from. Not that House of Dodo is likely to go away anytime soon. Lloyd-Wright quit her PR job last year and now serves the capitals first and only Mauritian street food. The mark of her success is that she has the approval of Mauritian Londoners. If you are feeling hardcore, ask for an authentic helping of chilli. Dumpling Shack Schoolyard Market, London Fields Primary School, Westgate Street, E8, @DumplingShack

The bearded, bike-wheeling and vintage-hatted of Hackney will happily queue for an hour to get their chopsticks on John Lis sheng jian baos (pan-fried soup dumplings): squidgy dough parcels drowning in spice, filled with minced pork and crab and an intense umami soup that gushes into your mouth upon biting. Theres even an Asian take on a scotch egg  the brunch dumpling is filled with homemade sage-and-onion sausage with a runny quails egg in the centre. STAKEhaus Kerb (various locations), Dalston Yard, Hartwell Street, E8, @STAKEhaus

Put the buns away and celebrate beef it in all its perfectly pink, seared glory, simply sliced straight from the grill onto a pile of rosemary-salted fries. An escapee from the corporate rat race, Lily Bovey jacked in her old job at just 22 for the sake of steak  and the satisfaction of London palates. Add some of the crisp courgette fries for one of your five a day and a nod to virtue. Kolkati Walthamstow Village Market, 67 High Street, E17; Tottenham Green Market, N15, @Kolkati

The only thing that beats a great curry is a great curry wrapped snugly in a blanket of rich egg-glazed paratha. Kate de Lord and Jack Hogarth discovered kati rolls whilst travelling in India and became addicted. After months of experimenting, and the creation of an outrageous date ketchup, theyve perfected the rolls over here: brilliant textures of soft masala chicken or paneer, crunchy onions and fresh tomato. Killa Dilla Dalston Yard, Hartwell Street, E8 (from June 3), @KIllaDillaLDN

When it comes to Mexican food, tacos are great but the quesadilla can be even better. Especially Will Leigh and Josh Whitings artisan cheese-loaded beasts. Think melting smoked short rib with kimchi, blue cheese, and avocado dip which is the stuff of dreams. Theyve even improved on the glory that is roast spuds: ramming them into a dilla with jalapenos, cheese, and Korean mayo. Oof. Decatur Druid Street Market, SE1, @DecaturLondon

Oysters for a hangover breakfast? It all makes sense once you neck one of Tom Brownes stunning New Orleans-style molluscs, chargrilled until sizzlingly golden with a hearty dollop of garlic pecorino butter and hot sauce. Then theres the delicious clouds that are his beignets: impossibly light and crunchy pillowy doughnuts, drowning in icing sugar. Lemlem Kitchen Netil Market, Westgate Street, E8, @lemlemkitchen

Eritrea does not have a street food scene  but Makda Harlow is so proud of the pungent, spicy flavours of her homeland that she and husband Jack decided to recreate them in London. In Afro-tacos, rounds of crumpet-like injera flatbread (made of teff, the health addicts fave grain) replace traditional tortilla, meaning that all the juice from the musky zigni (paprika and chilli) pulled lamb and anise chicken soaks in until youre left with a wonderfully meaty sponge of bread. Pizzas Dont Cry Find them at: Netil Market, Westgate Street, E8, @pizzasdontcry

Baker Henry Hatton Browns madcap creations are a far cry from your average cheesy slice  he pimps his pizzas with toppings like ripe pear and gorgonzola, fig and prosciutto, and ndjua tempered with pickled turnip tops to take the edge off the heat. They are all layered up on a crisp, soggy-proof bottom that Mary Berry would be proud of. Whats even more impressive is that its all made at what he claims is probably the smallest pizzeria in the world. Gourmet Goat Borough Market, SE1, @Gourmet_Goat

Moo off, beef  the hot meat in town is goat. When Nadia Stokess family lost everything in the Turkish invasion of Cyprus they had to live off their own land, and that meant eating a lot of kid goat. Forty years later she and husband Nick have put her goaty expertise to excellent use. Slow-roast kid shoulder and heavily spiced goat kofta come in fluffy pita bread with a punchy Mediterranean salad to slice through the richness.

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A ndy Oliver is a chef and the co-founder of the crowdfunded Som Saa restaurant in Shoreditch, which specalises in regional Thai dishes. Oliver started out working in telecomms before becoming a finalist on Masterchef in 2009, after which he spent two years cooking at Nahm London, six months at Bo.Lan in Bangkok, and later Naamyaa for Alan Yau and the Begging Bowl in Peckham. Over the years Oliver has visited Bangkok around 10 times, with his trips ranging from a few days stay to a six-month stint at Bo.Lan. His first visit was, similar to lots of people, during his gap year, when I was 19, arriving as a backpacker and here he give us his top food tips on the city he knows so well.

Do you have a favourite street food place in Bangkok?

For a popular one, the main strip (Thanon Yaowarat) in Bangkok's Chinatown is always a winner for street-side grilled seafood and Thai Chinese snacks, and one of my favourite dishes can be found there is or suan, which is a crispy, chewy oyster omelette.

And somewhere more under the radar?

Theres a little shop selling really great and really spicy southern Thai food on a street near where I used to live. I went back there recently and the food is still great. Its so under the radar it doesnt really have name but it can be found on Thanon Chan, opposite soi 16.

Andy Oliver

Where is good for great Thai food, drinks and people watching?

Or Tor Kor Market is the posh food market of Bangkok. It's very clean and full or amazing ingredients. It's got a good court where you can buy from various stalls and then sit and eat and watch well-off Bangkok residents shopping for the very best of Thai produce.

What about somewhere for a quiet glass of wine or a cocktail where no one will disturb you?

Studio Lam is a tiny music venue near Thonglor in Sukhumvit. They put on great nights there but if you go outside of the party hours it's also great spot for a quiet whisky or ya dong (infused thai rice spirit).

Where would you go for good cup of te and a snack?

The old Thai Chinese tea houses that can still be found all around Bangkok are great for this - they serve Chinese tea and sometimes snacks or dim sum.

Which shops do you like buying specialist food products from?

There are a few. There are always Chinese medicine shops, which sell excellent dry spices, or Or Tor Kor Market (as I mentioned above) for lots of great ingredients, including the spices we source for Som Saa.

Where do you like to stay there? Is there somewhere with great breakfasts?

I normally try and stay cheaply, but for a treat you should stay at The Metropolitan. It does great breakfasts but it also houses Nahm, one of if not the best Thai restaurants in the world - an amazing place to have so convenient for dinner!

Final tip?

I have two. One is go to Banglamphu and walk around and eat. It's the old town, its really atmospheric and its full of great street food and old shop houses. Second, go and eat at Bo.lan which is the restaurant where I worked in Bangkok. It serves really inspiring Thai food, as they are relentless in finding the best ingredients and techniques, and you can really taste that in the food.

Som Saa is open now at 43A Commercial Street, E1 6BD; @somsaa_london
U.S. President Barack Obama salutes as he steps from Marine One as he returns to the White House in Washington, U.S., May 15, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

The U.S. president will arrive in Hanoi on the morning of May 23 instead of May 22, Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

In his first visit to Vietnam, Obama will discuss five areas of importance with Vietnam, including expanding security co-operation and addressing serious tensions in South China Sea (Vietnam's East Sea).

He might weigh Vietnam's request to fully lift the embargo on arms trade.

The U.S. president is expected to support Vietnams ability to implement the Trans Pacific Parnership (TPP) as a founding member. He will have a "significant dialogue with the government of Vietnam on human rights" and deep interest in legal reform. He will also be interested in investing in young people, including the inaguration of Fulbright university in Vietnam, dealing with legacy of war including removing unexplored bombs, returning remains of soldiers and remediating sites contaminated by dioxin, according to a media briefing by the U.S. embassy last week.

Obama will also discuss with Vietnamese government on addressing effects of climate change as witnessed by the serious drought that the Mekong countries are experiencing and other global issues like health and infectious diseases as well as challenges of international terrorism.

The U.S. president will leave Vietnam on May 25 to attend his final G-7 Summit in Ise-Shima, Japan, according to a White House statement.
I f youre the type of person that regularly aims to fit a workout into your early morning schedule, but cant face the thought of dragging yourself out of bed when your alarm goes off, an innovative new design may be just the practical solution for you.

A fleet of London buses that have been fitted with mobile spinning studios are in the pipeline to be launched in London later this year, travelling across the most popular commuter routes in London to help busy workers to get the most out of their mornings.

The idea, which is the brainchild of boutique gym 1Rebel's founders James Balfour and Giles Dean, was born as a result of the popularity of their most over subscribed class, RIDE, and a desire to remove any hurdles that prevent busy Londoners from working out.

The buses will travel from four pick-up points in north, east, south and eest London, finishing up at the St Mary Axe 1Rebel studio in the City, where riders can pop in for a shower and a smoothie before work.

Early images of the bus show that the mobile studio will be fitted with rows of spinning bikes with tinted windows running across the sides of the vehicle.

1Rebel says it is currently in discussions with a number of bus companies and plans on launching the scheme, which has not yet been approved, just after the summer.

Inside the proposed spinning buses

The founders are hoping for as many people as possible to sign up for tickets on their website, so that they can bring the bus idea to fruition.

James Balfour said: "It is an absolute no brainer for us that we can create more efficiency in peoples routines by transforming their commute.

20 Instagrams for fitness motivation 1 /26 20 Instagrams for fitness motivation Fitness on Toast Yoga Girl Tracy Anderson Hannah Bronfman Amanda Bisk Ballet Beautiful Two Bad Bodies Nicole Winhoffer Lunges and Lycra Joe Wicks Jen Selter Base Body Babes Natalie Uhling Patrick Beach Lorna Jane Active My Name is Jessamyn Marie Purvis Richard Tidmarsh Tone It Up Kayla Itsines

"For those who want the components of a class, but perhaps dont have the time to commit during the day, this provides a great solution for them to maximise time they would otherwise be spending just travelling to work."

So forget Angry Birds and Candy Crush, because there may just be a new way to get the most out of your morning commute - just make sure youre prepared to get your sweat on.

Sign up here: ride2rebel.london

Follow us on Twitter: @eslifeandstyle
W hen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe finally saw her daughter Gabriella after 38 days apart, the pair simply clutched each other for 15 minutes without speaking. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British Iranian whos lived here since 2007, is being held in solitary confinement in an Iranian prison. Last week she was taken from her cell to a hotel to see 23-month-old Gabriella and her own parents for the first time since her arrest.

It was stage-managed, her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, tells me. But they had three hours together, lunch and a chance to play. The authorities gave Gabriella a doll. They told the family: Were not doing this for Nazanin, were doing it for Gabriella because shes not done anything wrong, so she can see her mother.

Ratcliffe sighs. He is trying to latch onto the positives, but his voice trembles and he blinks back tears: Nazanins mum got to see her. The first week she cried the whole time, knowing what it could mean.

Ratcliffe, 41, last spoke to his wife on April 2. The following morning, she and Gabriella were due to fly from Tehran  where they had been on holiday, visiting family  back to London. But as Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, went to check in, members of Irans Revolutionary Guard were waiting. There was a problem with her passport, they said. Both Zaghari-Ratcliffes passports, as well as Gabriellas British passport, were confiscated. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was taken away for questioning, after handing her daughter to her parents. They were advised to go home because it could take a few hours.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's daughter, Gabriella / Azadeh Fatehrad

Under Iranian law, people can be held for 24 hours. So a day later, her family went back to the airport to look for her. When they couldnt find her, they started to panic. After four days she called to say she was safe and helping the authorities with their investigations, adding: They think I should be out on Saturday.

She wasnt. It was manipulation, to buy more time, says Ratcliffe. Instead, the family were informed that his wife had been transferred to Kerman, about a thousand miles from Tehran.

Even now, Zaghari-Ratcliffe hasnt been charged, and has had no legal representation or consular access. Shes isolated, says Ratcliffe. The only human contact is with her interrogators. She has signed a confession, admitting to a small mistake, and her family have been told her arrest had to do with national security.

Ratcliffe can only guess why his wife is incarcerated. I suspect they will be linking the fact that she works for a charity connected to a media organisation, that shes married to a British husband and she will have friends on Facebook they dont like. Thats probably enough  if you see the world as a conspiracy.

Phone calls are irregular and the conversation, which is monitored, is always the same: Im safe, theyre treating me well, I had a nice lunch  some kind of kebab  and I hope it will be over soon. She only calls her parents; she isnt allowed to call Ratcliffe because he doesnt speak Farsi.

Ive met him in the flat of Tulip Siddiq, MP for Hampstead and Kilburn. The family are her constituents and she is lobbying the Government to petition for Zaghari-Ratcliffes release and Gabriellas return.

Ratcliffe says his emotions have shifted from utter disbelief to horror. Theyre an ordinary London family caught up in a nightmare. Nazanin works as a project co-ordinator for the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, Richard is an accountant and Gabriella goes to nursery on Carlton Hill in St Johns Wood. Weekends mean trips to the West Hampstead toy library or for ice cream at Oddonos (Gabriellas favourite haunt).

Ratcliffe is softly spoken and seems remarkably calm: I feel better now that its public and Im doing something. He describes his wife as very sociable, very kind and says shes always the last person at a family meal to finish eating because shes always chatting away: She draws strength from being with people, particularly her family. Shes very moral, so if she gets indignant, its when someones not treated her fairly.

She grew up in Iran and she went on to study English literature at university there. After graduating, she worked for the Red Cross, including as an interpreter during 2003s Bam earthquake. In September 2007 she came here to study communications management at London Met university. She met Ratcliffe and they married two years later in Winchester. She had planned to return to Iran. But then she met a boy and the boy said, Hmmm, Im not sure I fancy going to live in Iran, thanks. He corrects himself: Actually, we always thought it would be nice to live there with the kids for a while so they could learn Farsi.

The first time Ratcliffe himself went to Iran it was to present my credentials as a prospective son-in-law. It was intimidating! he chuckles at the memory. Her father said: Theres one religion, one God, one wife. Am I clear? One wife. He only had about 10 words of English but he made his point.

Together in 2014 a few weeks before her birth / Azadeh Feaehrad

Zaghari-Ratcliffe continued to visit Iran. It was always important to her to maintain her family links  shes traditional in that. The frequency of trips increased when Gabriella was born, Zaghari-Ratcliffe travelling there four times since the birth, with no problems until now.

Gabriella  who remains with her grandparents  has been struggling. Shes had to learn Farsi. Shes not sleeping properly and is very clingy with her grandmother.

Ratcliffe speaks to her on Skype but the connection is poor and with the attention span of a two-year-old, its right, Daddy, boring  Im off. So Nazanins mother has become almost a surrogate mother. After seeing her mother on Thursday, though, Gabriella was happier. She was running around, doing incy-wincy spider  much more bubbly than before.

His in-laws felt Zaghari-Ratcliffe looked stronger than they were expecting but he is worried about the toll solitary confinement will take on her. Itll have been killing her to be away from Gabriella. At the meeting, they were again told that the investigation is coming to an end.

Both his in-laws and the Foreign Office advised Ratcliffe against going public. However, he is now pleased he did. There are other cases, where the earlier you go public, the more you disrupt this legal process... He breaks off, correcting himself. Not legal. The process of investigating in order to essentially frame someone, to pick out facts from their past to say ah, here we go. The earlier you disrupt that, the better.

He wishes he had gone public even earlier. Within three days shes been able to see her baby. The media has done that. But Ive just left my wife for 38 days in solitary confinement. Thats awful.

On Wednesday, Ratcliffe will have his first face-to-face meeting with Foreign Office staff, a meeting he  rather than they  initiated: Most of the communication is me updating them. It will mark the 45th day of his wifes detainment.

Siddiq believes the Foreign Office response has been too slow. A lot could have been done a lot earlier. If they wont protect our most vulnerable citizens  in this case a 23-month-old child - what are they there for? I think its disgraceful nothing has been done. Siddiq is also pushing for a meeting with David Cameron.

It comes at a time when the Government is trying to forge new business links with Iran, sending out trade delegations now that the toughest sanctions have been lifted. But should we be trading with a country that holds our babies hostage? Siddiq asks.

One of the difficulties is that Iran doesnt recognise dual nationality: meaning that the British embassys requests for consular access to Zaghari-Ratcliffe have gone unanswered: They havent refused it, they just havent acknowledged the right, says Ratcliffe. Gabriellas case is different because shes just British. Iran is keeping a baby in the country  thats illegal under international law.

Irans intelligence services consider dual nationals with suspicion. I think this is about internal Iranian politics  and policing dual nationals  because thats where the change in Iran will come from, he says.

Currently, four citizens with joint British-Iranian nationality are believed to be detained in Iran. My sense is that its an ongoing phenomenon.

Nazanin is very sociable. She draws strength from being with people  particularly her family

Ratcliffe has been receiving support from Kamran Foroughi, whose 76-year-old father Kamal has been detained in Iran for five years. Two weeks ago, I didnt know Kamran at all, says Ratcliffe. Now were quite good pals.

Hes touched, too, about all those whove offered support to his family, including the 405,000 whove signed a Change.org petition calling on the Prime Minister to ensure his wifes swift release. A situation like this brings out the kindness of strangers. Ive been moved by the beautiful responses. Ratcliffe and Siddiq are planning to deliver the petition to No 10 themselves.

Ratcliffe wont stop fighting. The next tangible thing to try to do would be to get her allowed to call me. Then it would be to try to get her out on bail. Just to get her home,step by step. And were trying to make as much noise as possible.

To sign the petition for Nazanins release, go to change.org/p/david-cameron-mp-free-nazanin-ratcliffe

Follow Rosamund Urwin on Twitter: @RosamundUrwin
S quint a little and you could be in San Francisco. The brightly painted jelly bean row of crayon-coloured Victorian houses on the hills around St Johns Harbour often draws comparisons between the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador province and the Californian city.

Yet thats where the similarities end, as cultural crossovers are a little closer to home  from a distinct Irish brogue in the local accent to St Johns geographical location as the most easterly point in North America: closer to Europe than it is to parts of Canada.

Rugged and beautiful, the island of Newfoundland has become even easier to access from London thanks to Canadian budget airline WestJets new direct flights between Gatwick and St Johns  a five-hour journey.

The oldest city in North America might seem familiar but it marches to the beat of its own quirky drum. Newfoundland has a unique 30-minute time difference from the rest of Canada and the former British colony only joined the confederation in 1949. Throughout the province there is a proliferation of pink, white and green; the tricolours of an unofficial Republic of Newfoundland flag. Summer brings an abundance of whales and icebergs to St Johns, but they are just the tip of what this charming city has to offer.

Bed down: rock on

Opened last year, the downtown Jag hotel (001 844 564 1524; steelehotels.com) is named after Mick Jagger and features rocknroll memorabilia scattered tastefully throughout. Vinyl adorns the walls of the 84 minimalist bedrooms and framed photos dominate the restaurant: most pieces come from the local hotel chains owner John Steeles private collection. Little local touches in the rooms include Ossetras range of beauty products, which are made with iceberg water. Doubles from C$175 (100), room only.

Jag Hotel

Fed and watered: slow cooking and yellowbellies

Take a hike out to Quidi Vidi Village to try iceberg beer at Quidi Vidi Brewery (001 709 722 7373; quidividibrewery.ca) and then follow your nose to Mallard Cottage (001 709 237 7314; mallardcottage.ca). Restored by Newfoundlander chef Todd Perrin, the 250-year-old cottage is now home to his cosy restaurant, and he can often be found outside prodding the smoker as it bellows out mouth-watering smells of slow-cooking meat.

Fill up on fresh quiche for brunch or go nuts at the dessert table, then burn it off with a trek back downtown along the lake  or continue on the East Coast Trail to pick berries with locals. Look out for early summer bakeapples (wild cloudberries) and later plump blueberries, bitter partridge berries and wild cranberries that carpet the hillsides.

Back in town, Bacalao (001 709 579 6565; bacalaocuisine.ca) serves up fresh seafood and nouvelle Newfoundland cuisine, such as chef Matt McDonalds take on a traditional Jiggs Dinner  a deconstructed version of the islands meat-and-veg stew that comes with a pot liquor shooter. Get a berry fix with local fruit wine or a (non-alcoholic) local seasonal berry fizz.

Quidi Vidi Harbour / All Canada Photos / Alamy Stock Photo

Jeremy Charles is the local lad done good who has put St Johns on the culinary map. His fine-dining restaurant Raymonds attracted attention and his newest venture Merchant Tavern (001 709 722 5050; merchanttavern.ca) secured his celebrity when it opened last year.

Tuck into local scallops and snow crab from the raw bar menu, follow it up with an elevated French-flavoured comfort food such as duck confit and finish off the meal with the popular vinegar pie  an unlikely-sounding dessert developed during the 1920s when luxuries, like lemon curd, were harder to come by.

Nobody is going thirsty in St Johns  George Street lays claim to having the most pubs per mile in the world. Head underneath the Yellowbelly Brewery building (001 709 757 3784; yellowbellybrewery.com) to discover The UnderBelly: a speakeasy-style stone basement that was reconstructed in 1846 and survived the Great Fire in 1892.

Scour the shelves of whisky, port and rum or try the local screech rum, which originates from the days when cod was traded for booze in Jamaica and Newfoundlanders developed a taste for the spirit. Visit the pub upstairs to try Fighting Irish Red Ale; named after the 19th-century yellowbelly Irish immigrants from County Wexford, who wore yellow sashes and would brawl in the streets outside the pub.

In the bag: arts and crafts

Quidi Vidi is a picturesque fishing village around 45 minutes walk from downtown. Its home to the waterfront Quidi Vidi Village Plantation (qvvplantation.com; closed Mondays May-Oct): a modern artisan hub. Pick up a Japanese-inspired woodcut from Graham Blair and chat to him as he hand-carves the maple blocks that he uses to print his work, or take home a modern piece of Newfoundland in the form of a cool screenprinted whale cushion made by Anna Murphy. The resident artists all have an interesting yarn about how they ended up in St Johns, whether they come from afar or grew up in the city.

Cultural agenda: history lesson

Wander up Signal Hill, a strategic site where the first transatlantic communications were received, or visit Cabot Tower, named after John Cabot, who sailed here from Bristol and discovered the New World.

Standing proud on the hillside overlooking St Johns Harbour, The Rooms (001 709 757 8090; therooms.ca; closed Mondays until June 1) is an impressive archive, art gallery and museum that tells the story of the people who shaped the province, from First Nations and French visitors, to English fishermen and Irish settlers. With mesmerising views of the harbour, a buzzing cafe and quiet corners to sit and reflect, its easy to lose a couple of hours exploring the exhibits here.

DETAILS ST JOHN'S

St Johns, Newfoundland, is a direct five-hour flight from Heathrow with Air Canada (aircanada.com), or from Gatwick with WestJet (westjet.com).

destinationstjohns.com

newfoundlandlabrador.com
F inland's capital offers a lovely blend of design focused venues, innovative architecture and picturesque landscapes. Here's a guide to uncovering the city...

Where to stay

Hotel Lilla Roberts

The latest boutique hotel to open in Helsinki, Lilla Roberts is a charming retreat in the heart of the city. The building has an interesting history as a power plant in 1909 before becoming a police department. Following a three-year renovation project, it is now a smart and inviting space with nods to Art Deco design. The lobby area is popular with guests and locals, with a library style bar, oversized fireplace and grand decor.

The rooms have comfortable king-size beds, plush rugs, a statment armchair and quirky prints. Ranging from the small but functional Comfort to the grand Suite there are options for varying budgets. The Krog Roba restaurant, focused on the Nordic kitchen, is also a popular hangout. Make sure you at least pay it a visit for breakfast.

Rooms start from 165 per night in a Comfort on a B&B basis. Alternatively, a two night B&B stay including return flights from London Gatwick to Helsinki starts from 330 per person (0207 664 2241, best-served.co.uk).

Hotel Haven

The first member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World in Finland, Hotel Haven belongs to the same group (Kamp Collection) as Lilla Roberts. This is the more traditional option. It is worth booking the Lux Sea View rooms which overlook the Market Square and Harbour, a key attraction in Helsinki.

Each room has a sofa or separate sitting area and Elemis bathroom products add a luxury touch. Breakfast is served in Sundmans', the second oldest stone building in the city. Bar Haven is also a good place to unwind after dinner.

Rooms start from 170 per night in a Comfort on a B&B basis. Alternatively, a two night B&B stay including return flights from London Gatwick to Helsinki starts from 390 per person (0207 664 2241, best-served.co.uk).

Where to eat

Bronda

The fifth restaurant by Helsinkis culinary super duo Tomi Bjorck and Matti Wikberg is a fun, lively spot with cool decor. We wanted to create a restaurant where customers feel at home. We also wanted it to be a place that we enjoy, they say. Striking high ceilings with large windows make the venue feel bright and airy. Spanish meets Scandinavian interiors are a great balance of trendy and tasteful. The floor to ceiling wine cabinet makes a statement and social eating is the main ethos.

The menu includes well-known classics combined with the more experimental. Finnish ingredients combined with European influences make for some delicious dishes. Tasting menus with matching wines are a good way to sample what is on offer. Make sure the Baby Back Ribs and Eggplant and Smoked Tomato campanelle pasta are on your list of dishes to try. The lounge bar is open until late with a DJ on weekends and it is just the place for a pre or post dinner drink. On the corner of the main Etelaesplanadi promenade, the location is very convenient, ravintolabronda.fi.

Pastor

Billed as a place to 'drink and dine', this hangout mixes delicious food with a fun atmosphere. The menu is inspired by Nikkei cuisine which fuses Peruvian and Japanese flavours. Again, dishes are meant to be shared to enjoy multiple flavours. The friendly waiter will advise on how best to pick but don't leave without trying the Guacamole, Anticuchos (beer and lime marinated chicken skewers) and Albacora grilled swordfish fillet.

The dessert is also delicious, especially the Blanco, a roasted white chocolate namelaka with caramelized banana and toffee ice cream. The cocktails are moreish and there are 200 wines on offer selected by Pekka Koiranen. Helsinki based interior designer Eliisa Korpijarvi is behind the look. The little details such as patterened or painted tiles and a spotted door are complemented with metallic lighting and Peruvian inspired art prints, pastorrestaurant.fi.

Southpark

A sister restaurant to Pastor, Southpark is the go to place for brunch on a sunny day. With an outdoor terrace and beautiful outlook onto Sinebrychoff Park, the setting could not be prettier. The Cali health kick brunch includes make your own super seed muesli, a seasonal produce salad bar, warm buffet and sweet treats. Korpijarvi has also put her stamp on the venue, this time with deep blue walls, velvet seating and glass to ceiling windows, southparkrestaurant.fi.

Sandro

For a grittier option, head to Sandro. Restaurateur Richard McCormick runs the kitchen and is behind the overall vision for this laid-back venue in the uber hip Kallio district. The design is a mix of treasures from the Middle East and budget finds from Helsinki. The brunch is the favourite of many Helsinkians and vegan/ vegetarian customers have a wide range of plant based options, sandro.fi.

Cafe Aalto

A hidden architectural gem, located inside the Academic bookstore designed by Finland's architecture icon Alvar Aalto. The interiors are also his vision. Pop in for a coffee and soak up the surroundings, cafeaalto.fi.

A21 Decades

Scooping awards for the worlds best bar, this is a celebration of Finnish cocktails and drinking culture. Owner Tino is regularly behind the bar or mingling with his guests. He is super passionate about what he does and revives oldies from different decades for the best of collection from the 60s to 90s. The house signature cocktails use Nordic ingredients and are even served in Finnish inspired crockery. The menu has been carefully curated and presented. Plus, the vibrant atmosphere is a testament to a great team who really know their stuff when it comes to picking an interesting tipple, a21.fi.

Where to visit

Suomenlinna Maritime Fortress

Built during the Swedish era as a maritime fortress and a base for the Archipelago Fleet, it is only a 20 minute ferry journey from Helsinki Harbour. Suomenlinna fortress has served in the defence of three realms: Sweden, Russia and Finland and in 1991 it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List as a unique monument of military architecture. It is a breathtaking spot.

Temppeliaukio Church

Quarried out of the natural bedrock, this is one of Helsinki's most popular tourist attractions. You've got to see it to believe it.

Kamppi Chapel of Silence

A fine example of Finnish wooden architecture.

Senate Square

The Senate Square and its surroundings form a unique and cohesive example of Neoclassical architecture.

Alvar Aaalto's home

There are several buildings designed by the mastermind of functionalism. However, the most intimate are his home and studio which are open to public.

The Old Market Hall

Since 1889, merchants have gathered to sell cheese, fish, shellfish, vegetable, fruit and cakes. A good place for a quick lunch too.

The Visit Helsinki website is a handy resource for opening times and details on more attractions, visithelsinki.fi.

For more tips and packages visit specialist Scandinavian tour operator Best Served Scandinavia (0207 664 2241, best-served.co.uk)

Follow Amira Hashish on Twitter @amiranews and Instagram @thedesigneditor
D uring 10 days in Costa Rica, I cruised down a river populated with crocodiles in a rusty tug and swung through cloud forest on a zip wire; I sat in bubbling hot springs and tumbled down river rapids in a rubber ring. However, the closest I came to harm was falling out of my hammock on the first day  I was trying to take a selfie and hit my head, hard, on a wooden table.

Id been sceptical about an activities holiday, which summoned memories of a Duke of Edinburgh training weekend somewhere in rural Scotland, but somehow adventure is more appealing when the temperature is balmy, the wildlife exotic and the landscape visible rather than shrouded by drizzle.

After a 10-hour flight from Gatwick, I transferred straight to El Mangroove, a five-star eco retreat in Papagayo Bay on Costa Ricas Pacific coast, around an hours drive north-west from Liberia airport and close to the Nicaraguan border. In recent years, the bay has seen a proliferation of mid- and high-end resorts, including a Four Seasons and an Andaz.

El Mangrooves minimal rooms, crafted from wood and stone, complemented the vista of the beach that bordered them. When night fell, the landscapes between the different buildings were obscured by thick, sooty blackness, and the distance between Central America and the shimmery light pollution of a London evening felt immeasurable.

After a night of luxury, though, it was time to get active. I was joined by guide Arturo, who worked as both fixer and exhaustive resource on anything Costa Rican. On a boat tour, while his charges larked about on deck, he scanned the meandering Rio Frio towards the Nicaraguan border and found the species I wanted to WhatsApp home about: monkeys, sloths and vividly plumed birds. When a goat tumbled from the bank into the river, he guided the tugs captain towards it and pulled it, shaking and bucking, from the water, so it swerved death by crocodile; I took full advantage and Instagrammed the whole affair.

After floating lazily on the river for three hours, I broiled myself at the Tabacon hot springs, luxurious but natural baths that harness the heat of Arenal Volcano. One of Costa Ricas most photographed peaks, the volcano was active until 2010, frequently spewing out ash, steam and lava, but not before destroying the town of Tabacon in 1968.

In order to cool down there were bucket-sized cocktails to hand, best attempted after a caper around the various pools and waterfalls, some curtained by branches, where I was watched by the yellow eyes of large lizards. It is harder, and more painful, than it looks to sit in a waterfall.

Horse riding at Rincon de la Vieja / imageBROKER / Alamy Stock Photo

As well as wildlife and volcanos, Costa Rica is renowned for its arabica coffee beans. South of Arenal, on a coffee plantation tour of Don Juans ranch, I learned about the journey from bean to cup, while eating beans and sinking cups; by the end I was buzzing with energy. My guide explained that he drank eight cups of coffee a day. Dont you stay awake all night? I enquired. I have two girlfriends. I keep busy. Right-o.

The regions lush, fertile landscapes were further revealed on a horseback tour of Rincon de la Vieja National Park, which took in woodland, a dip in a waterfall and a gnarled, rocky paths. I insisted on a slow horse; my guide Jose assured me Muchacho was lazy, though he was also skittish, which led to some hairy altercations when Jose wielded a switch and cackled. Tubing  or, bouncing through river rapids and shunting into rocks in an inflatable ring  wasnt as terrifying nor as gap yah as it sounded; indeed, I suggest the surroundings are best appreciated while rotating, slowly, across the calm expanses between the swoops and dips.

Tabacon hot springs / Ken Welsh / Alamy Stock Photo

I affected unconcern about the prospect of zip-lining across Monteverde cloud forest, a type of tropical forest that occurs in mountainous terrain where the cloud cover is consistent and moisture drips from the canopy, creating a biodiverse ecosystem. However, I was having fear-fantasies about dislodging a significant clasp and tumbling through the air.

The course stretches over two miles, 18 viewing platforms and 15 cables; the longest stretch is more than a kilometre, the shortest a few hundred metres. You are accompanied by two guides, one of whom zips before you, with another bringing up the rear. You are taught how to speed up, slow down and stop; then you are sent careering down the wire.

Theres not much time to think before you see the canopy: lush, dense and quite disconcerting when you realise you can see the top of the very tall trees and therefore must be very, very high up. At its highest point, the zip line is 328 feet above the ground. The guides put the most nervous at ease by travelling with them in tandem. Most of the time I was screaming with pleasure, rather than terror.

Make a splash: the pool at luxury hotel El Mangroove

I finished my tour of Costa Ricas north-west in luxury again, at Dreams Las Mareas, on El Jobo, a beach north of Papagayo nudging Nicaragua. There, I sunbathed and thrilled the American guests who professed theyd never seen anyone swim lengths of a pool before; there is an on-site gym and scuba diving, though by that point Id had enough adventure  the bruising from my hammock wound had finally subsided.

Details: Costa Rica

Thomson (0871 230 2555; thomson.co.uk) offers seven-night holidays to Costa Rica staying at El Mangroove on a bed-and-breakfast basis from 1,035 per person. The price includes flights from Gatwick and transfers.

First Choice (0871 200 7799; firstchoice.co.uk) offers seven-night holidays to Costa Rica staying at Dreams Las Mareas Costa Rica on an all-inclusive basis from 1,079 per person, including flights from Gatwick and transfers.

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A former McDonalds worker from south London was today facing a life sentence in the US for an alleged plot to detonate a suitcase bomb at Heathrow.

Minh Pham, 33, was given almost 5,000 expenses to plan the alleged atrocity in the arrivals hall, and had been instructed to target passengers arriving from America and Israel, US court papers reveal.

The papers disclose that he was personally trained in bomb making techniques by an al-Qaeda leader

Anwar al-Awlaki, who was later killed by a US drone strike, gave Pham almost 5,000 and a clean laptop to plan the attack, and was ordered to tape metal bolts around the bomb to cause maximum casualties.

Pham, a Muslim convert from New Cross, faces a maximum life sentence by a New York court today after pleading guilty to travelling secretly to Yemen to join al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Details of the alleged Heathrow plot are contained in transcripts of FBI interviews with Pham filed by US prosecutors to a federal court in Manhattan last week before his sentencing.

Bomb plot target: Heathrow Airport (Picture: PA)

Pham, a former member of the banned al-Muhajiroun group, left behind his pregnant wife to join Awlaki in Yemen for eight months in December 2010. He was questioned by police after his return to Britain and extradited to America last year to face trial.

One FBI transcript based on Phams interrogation states: Pham approached Awlaki and offered to conduct a suicide attack and sacrifice himself on behalf of al-Qaeda upon his return to the United Kingdom.

Pham planned on using the money to rent a house in the UK to construct the explosive device and to purchase the chemicals and other materials needed for the attack.

It is believed that the airport bomb would have been made from TATP, a compound used by the Brussels attackers. The FBI transcript refers to acetone, a chemical found in nail polish remover, which Pham could have accessed through the nail shop that his sister operated. There is no suggestion of any involvement by the sister.

Pham denies that he planned to follow through with the Heathrow attack.

His defence lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, told the Manhattan court said he had agreed to go through with the plan as a ruse in order to escape Yemen and return home to the UK for treatment for scabies.

However, Pham has already pleaded guilty to three separate counts of terrorism, including providing material support to AQAP. The offences carry a minimum 30-year sentence.
A mbitious plans to halve the number of hospital outpatient appointments are being by pursued by London health chiefs seeking to transform the way the NHS operates, the Standard can reveal.

A radical change in the way people are referred by their GP for specialist hospital care in east London has begun with kidney patients, and the treatment of children by paediatricians is next in line. In addition, more pregnant women will be encouraged to have natural births and GPs will offer consultations via Skype.

Sir Sam Everington, the GP leading the plans, said: We want to empty outpatients by 50 per cent. When I trained 30 years ago, the stethoscope was my key instrument. Now its my iPad.

The changes are laid out in the Transforming Services Together plan, which seeks to avoid a projected 500 million NHS deficit by 2020 in eight boroughs, from the City of London to Havering. East London has a growing and ageing population, with 270,000 more residents, the equivalent of a new borough, expected to arrive in the next 15 years.

Annual outpatient appointments are expected to increase across the area from 1,406,000 in 2014/15 to 1,547,000 by 2020/21. Under the plans, 281,000  almost 20 per cent  will be carried out by phone or Skype. Sir Sam, chairman of Tower Hamlets clinical commissioning group, wants to repeat the success of a 2012 pilot scheme in Bristol where referral or admission to hospital was avoided in 56 per cent of cases.

He said the move heralded the end of the choose and book system of patient choice. Instead, a choose and consult system would enable patients to interact with consultants by Skype while still in the GPs surgery. Follow-up advice and prescriptions would be sent by email.

Sir Sam said: If you think of what you do with banking, what you should be doing with the NHS is the same. The idea is that we substantially reduce the number of people who have to go to hospital.

Unlike the NHS shake-up in north-west London, where 500 beds could be axed, all capacity would be retained. Bosses say if nothing is done then a new hospital would be required  virtually impossible with the NHS so cash-strapped.

With no extra capacity for more obstetric deliveries, the plan envisages a third of women choosing a midwife-assisted birth. One in four A&E patients will be treated in a GP-run urgent care unit.

Alwen Williams, chief executive of Barts Health NHS Trust, which runs Whipps Cross and Newham hospitals, said: This is about how we cope with the increased demand in a way that ensures the NHS and social care adapts to the need of that population.
" I want to show Londoners living in poverty that anything is possible when you have the willpower. This was the inspirational message of British mountaineer Kenton Cool as he gave his first interview since becoming the first foreigner to reach the summit of Everest in two years.

More than fitness or expertise, conquering Everest takes mind over matter, he said. Earlier, as the 42-year-old scaled the 8,848m peak, struggling to breathe in the rarefied atmosphere and battling temperatures of minus 20C, he unfurled a London Evening Standard banner that read: Kenton Cool supports the Dispossessed Fund.

Kenton, who has now summited Everest 12 times  a British record  used his moment at the highest place on earth to rouse Londoners who find themselves at a low ebb. He likened his challenge to Londoners growing up on sink estates who find the drive to rise above their circumstances and make a success of their lives.

That final push to the summit, youre in your tent in the death zone at Camp 4, knackered and dehydrated and its dark and freezing outside, yet you have to find the resolve to attach your oxygen mask and leave the flimsy shelter of the tent. Every instinct is screaming no, but you have to find the fortitude to get out there and put one foot in front of the other for the next 10 hours.

Intrepid: Kenton Cool climbing Everest / Kenton Cool

Explaining how he and his client Rob Lucas had, with perfect timing, beaten the other climbers, he said: We made our way up hoping to slipstream the Sherpas who were fixing the first ropes to the summit after some very high snowfalls delayed the climbing season. As we pitched our tent at the South Col, 8,000m above sea level, we waited to hear whether they had laid the ropes to the top. It was a risk because if they had failed, we would have to descend.

At 7pm, news came through. We left camp at 11.30pm and were blessed by almost no wind, but the going in the snow was heavy. As the sun broke the horizon at 4am the world appeared beneath our feet. A typical summit day would see up to 70 people but we had Everest to ourselves  almost unique. There we were, on the top of the world, just the four of us, in perfect conditions.

Before he flew to the Himalayas, Kenton told the Standard about his youth growing up in poverty. He had lived with his father, an unemployed photographer, and his mother, a grocer, in a small wooden bungalow in the corner of a field near Slough: We had no hot water, no flushing loos. I know what it is to stare into the face of poverty. Then at 22, a fall off a cliff in Wales left him confined to a wheelchair with two shattered heels. Doctors warned he would never climb again, but he proved them wrong.

Crowning achievement: Kenton Cool on Everest / Kenton Cool

He has pledged to lead an expedition this summer taking young Londoners supported by the Dispossessed Fund on a climbing adventure in Scotland, Wales or the Alps. Part of what you learn on the mountain is how to get yourself out of tight spots, he said. Climbing had given him the confidence, in his twenties, to swap his job as a window-cleaner of skyscrapers for that of mountain guide.

The father of two recalled climbing in Wales a few years ago with a group of Manchester welders when one youngster, a drug runner in a gang, had his eyes opened by the experience. On the mountain he saw his life could be different and although he later slipped back to his old ways, it made a lasting impression on me and gave a glimpse of how adventure and mountains can change lives.

Had he ever come close to death? In 2005 I was hit by a falling rock on summit day. It was dark and we were roped up at 8,000m and as I looked up, something entered my peripheral vision and I felt as if I had been hit by a truck and passed out. When I came round, another climber took a look at the gash on my head and said, Thats it for you, you got to go down. But we stemmed the blood by stuffing a pair of gloves between the wound and my balaclava. I decided to carry on and completed the summit.

I was in a daze and in great pain with eyesight temporarily gone in one eye, so in retrospect it was foolhardy. Back at Camp 2, the camp doctor gave me seven stitches and a bollocking for being so reckless. Knowing when to abort is critical, admitted Kenton. He fam-ously guided Sir Ranulph Fiennes on Everest in 2008 when Fiennes turned back just 500m from the summit. Ranulph told me he felt too tired to continue and if he did, he wouldnt have the energy to get down. I felt devastated because wed been working for years to get him to that point, but as they say on Everest, the goal is not the summit, its your front door. The next year Ran came up again and we made a few changes adding in an extra rest day and he summited.

He prides himself on having the highest success rate as a professional guide  over 80 per cent of his 20-odd clients have summited  and for nev-er having lost a client. For him Everest is business as well as pleasure: clients pay more than 120,000 for a one-year training programme taking in the Alps. This year 300 foreign climbers and their Sherpas will attempt Everest in the May window and since 1953, over 4,000 people have successfully followed the footsteps of Sir Ed-mund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

Kenton climbing the Khumbu icefall at about 5,500m / Kenton Cool

But arent guides like him part of the problem of over-commercialisation of Everest? Everest is a big mountain and the number of people on the mountain is not an issue, he insisted. I typically take up just one client. We develop a trusting relationship over the course of a year so that enhances our chances of success and minimizes the possibility of disaster.

Its also about simply doing what he loves: I got the bug as a 15-year-old boy scout after reading Sir Chris Boningtons book Everest The Hard Way and thinking, this looks like the most beautiful place on earth. The South Col at Camp 4 has the best sunsets you could ever imagine. And although its freezing and exhausting and undoubtedly dangerous, thats Everest.

I hope what I have done can inspire Londoners to set their own personal Everests and to think beyond the city limits. The great outdoors is the biggest resource we have, and its free. It can change their lives. It did mine.

The Standards Dispossessed Fund helps grassroots charities tackling poverty, inequality and exclusion in London. So far it has raised about 16 million and distributed over 10 million in grants.
A wheelchair user was rushed to hospital with serious head injuries after being hit by a bus at a busy junction in Brixton.

Emergency services were called to Brixton Hill around 11am today to reports of the collision.

An ambulance crew and the Air Ambulance attended the scene and treated the man for serious head injuries.

He was taken by priority to a major trauma centre, where he is said to be in a stable condition.

A Met Police spokesman said: "The man has gone to hospital and is not believed to be in a life-threatening condition.

"No arrests have been made at this time and enquiries are ongoing."

Both lanes of Brixton Hill were closed while the incident was being dealt with.
C ampaigners today stepped up their demands for a public inquiry into air pollution in London and other UK cities after a series of damning reports.

Toxic air is blamed for up to 9,400 deaths a year in the capital alone.

Following the storm over VW cheating emissions tests for many diesel cars, the Department for Transport has announced that diesel cars sold in the UK emit an average of six times more nitrogen oxide in real-world driving than the legal limit in official tests.

A DfT investigation found all of the 37 top-selling diesel cars tested exceed the legal limit required for laboratory tests when driven for 90 minutes on normal roads.

Ministers insist no laws have been broken by the manufacturers as they are only required to meet the lab test regulations. But the Commons environment, food and rural affairs committee demanded that the Government take more urgent action on a public health emergency.

The MPs called for a scrappage scheme for diesel cars more that about 10 years old, greater powers for councils to set up clean air zones and charge polluting vehicles to enter, as well as more support for farmers to reduce air pollutants from agriculture such as ammonia.

Mechanical engineer Dave Davies, who founded the Campaign for Air Pollution Public Inquiry, said: We have had these shocking reports and we need a public inquiry to discover the full truth. There is growing evidence of governments failure to act over this scandal.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington, said: I represent some of most polluted areas in London and the Governments promises of action to address this growing health nightmare have come to nothing. That is why I back a public inquiry.

Environment Secretary Liz Truss was forced last year to draw up a new plan to cut nitrogen dioxide levels after losing a Supreme Court battle against environmental lawyers ClientEarth.They are going back to court for a judicial review of the Governments latest blueprint, arguing it is still too weak.

Britain also risks huge fines with the European Commission threatening legal steps over the failure to clean up pollution blackspots more quickly.

A Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokeswoman said the Governments air quality plans, published in December, clearly set out how we will improve the UKs air quality through a new programme of Clean Air Zones, which alongside national action and continued investment in clean technologies will create cleaner, healthier air for all.
May 16, 2016 | 03:18 am PT

As parents and students all over Vietnam try to navigate through the ongoing education reform, VnExpress International would like to introduce the solution proposed by Dr. Arran Hamilton from the British Council, who advises against simply adopting models of "successful countries".

When the going gets tough and it feels like youve embarked on something that is never-ending, in Britain we often say its like painting the Forth Rail Bridge. The bridge in question is located around 14 miles west of Edinburgh and spans the Firth of Forth  an estuary that starts in Sterling and flows out to the North Sea. Completed in 1890, it was the first bridge in Britain to be built out of steel and 125 years later is still the second longest cantilever bridge in the world.

But as most school children know, steel is prone to rusting  especially in salt water environments. So, for most of the bridges lifespan, there has been a permanent team that spent its entire career dabbing red paint on the superstructure, to keep the rust at bay. Painting and re-painting the Forth Bridge seemed like a never-ending task.

By the late 1990s the annual cost of repainting the Forth Bridge had reached GBP 1 million per year and it was decided that more radical action was needed. In 2002, work started to literally burn off the preceding one-and-a-quarter centuries of paint and to apply a new super-paint, designed to last for at least 20 years. That project took almost a decade to complete and involved encasing the bridge in 4,000ft of scaffolding and painting over 230,000m of steel and all 6.5 million rivets in the structure. Assuming all has gone to plan, the painters will not be back until 2032; so anyone who says a never-ending task is like painting the Forth Rail Bridge is now a bit behind the times.

There are many parallels between the painting of the Forth Bridge and education reform. Senior officials in ministries of education around the world often lament that education reform seems never ending and that they must peddle [or paint] faster just to stand still. The challenge is that we have not yet stumbled on the educational equivalent of super-paint that allows the reformers the opportunity for respite.

Quite often the education reformers look to countries that are doing better. They make scrupulous studies of all the key differences between the policies and practice of the successful system and their own. Through a process that is more akin to an art than a science, they pick out what they think the reasons are that the other system is so successful. This often culminates in the launch of a new national education strategy with new policies such as: taking only the best graduates into teaching; increasing the duration of initial teacher training; hiring teaching assistants; giving primary students more homework; reducing class sizes; and increasing the length of the school day.

Fast forward five years and the reformers often lament that they feel like they are painting harder and with better paint but that the rust is building up at the same rate. Often the reality is that whilst the paint is different it isnt actually any better. In picking the reasons why other systems are more successful, often the reformers select all the irrelevant features and then implement these back home: the outcome is different looking paint but no greater rust protection.

So how do we find the relevant features to construct an educational super-paint? One strategy might be to use the data from Randomized Controlled Trials to divine the right path for education effectiveness. A trial is a type of scientific experiment, where the people being studied are randomly allocated to an experimental group that receives the medicine and a control group  which receives no treatment. Both groups are assessed before, during and after the trial to measure whether the treatment is actually having an effect.

The Randomized Controlled Trial methodology was originally devised by British scientists in the late 1940s to test the effectiveness of the, then, new wonder drug Streptomycin in the treatment of Tuberculosis. Since then it has gone on to become the gold standard for pharmaceutical trails of medicines, globally. Trials have also grown in popularity in the education sector, as a means of determining the policy and pedagogical interventions that are most likely to enhance student achievement. Since the early 1980s, there have been more than 500,000 large-scale trials involving more than 50 million students.

Of course, like any method, trials do have their limitations. Angus Deaton, the Scottish economist and Nobel Laureate, argues that whilst they might be able to tell you the essential features of a perfect lawnmower, that isnt much use if you live in a country without grass or if there is someone that keeps dumping rubbish on your lawn. In other words, they can tell you if your intervention in your system has worked but they are less good at telling you if it can be applied successfully elsewhere. This means that we need to sift the trials database carefully and select the interventions that have consistently shown the most promise globally.

With this in mind, the UK recently launched the government-backed Education Endowment Foundation to literally hoover up the findings of all the previous studies and to commission more trials to fill the gaps. This is the educational equivalent of mapping the human genome. Through this mapping process the foundation and other researchers have discovered that whilst only taking the best graduates into teaching; increasing the duration of initial teacher training; hiring teaching assistants; giving primary students more homework; reducing class sizes; and increasing the length of the school day are not bad things to do  there are other things that look far more effective. Often the more effective interventions are also cheaper, too.

Consistently the most effective reform strategies focus on the classroom and the micro-interactions between students and teacher. They involve emphasis on meta-cognition (teaching children how to learn); feedback; peer tutoring; more and better homework for secondary school students; and collaborative learning - where students work together on a collective task.

These types of reforms do not require costly investment in additional technology, buildings or recruitment of teaching assistants. They require an unrelenting focus on the teacher and an investment of time in their continued professional development. So, by focusing on teachers and their in-service training we can begin to create the mother of all super paints.

Dr. Arran Hamilton is Education Development Director (East Asia) at the British Council, the United Kingdoms organisation for education cooperation and cultural relations.
A n elderly Polish couple left clubbers stunned when they turned up to Fabric nightclub and danced until 5am.

The couple, from Warsaw, had been visiting their daughter in Watford and had read a review of the Farringdon club in a Polish newspaper before deciding to visit.

The pair, in their late 70s, bought tickets to the underground house and techno party WetYourSelf, which runs every Sunday, and arrived when the club opened at 10pm at the weekend.

Promoter and DJ Jacob Hansen, 35, who has run the night for 10 years, said he initially thought the couple were lost when he saw them walking down the stairs.

Mr Hansen, who goes by his DJ name Jacob Husley, told the Standard: "I was downstairs just opening and I saw her on her crutches going slowly down the stairs.

"I thought they were lost. They didn't speak English really.

The couple were greeted with tequila shots when they arrived at Fabric

"I thought they were maybe relatives of someone from the club, but then I spoke to the people on the door and they said they had tickets.

"I ran down to welcome them to the club, I said 'it's amazing you're here' and gave them a drink.

"They had two tequila shots and she gave me a high five.

"I was desperate to find someone who could speak to them and find out their story."

Mr Hansen said he managed to find a Polish-speaker, who discovered the couple were visiting their daughter, and enjoyed spending their Saturday nights back home visiting clubs.

They had decided they wanted to visit a club in London and after doing some research and reading a review of the top club in a newspaper, they booked the tickets online.

Mr Hansen said he asked the pair who had bought the tickets, and the wife grinned and said she had.

Ravers: the man stole a dance with clubber Abbie Leek / Abbie Leek

He told the Standard: "The thing I really, really loved was they had so much humour between them.

"Really good banter, I wish I spoke Polish and could have joined in."

The couple revealed they had planned their visit carefully - and told him they were going to take the Tube back to Watford at 6am.

Mr Hansen told them they could drink for free, and promised them a taxi home whenever they wished to leave, and then took them upstairs to the VIP area.

He told the Standard: "I took them upstairs to the balcony and brought them some tea - because they wanted to have tea.

"They were really sweet, they were on the balcony with their hands together ballroom dancing."

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hosted by BOTTLETOP co-founders Cameron Saul & Oliver Wayman, along with Arizona Muse, Richard Curtis & Livia Firth to launch the #TOGETHERBAND campaign at The Quadrant Arcad Dave Benett

Mr Hansen said he later went back to check on them - but found they had vanished.

He looked down and saw that they had joined the crowds below raving to techno.

"They wanted to join in the party," he said. "They weren't interested in upstairs.

"She was really slow so he went a bit more into the dancefloor and got some dances with the young girls.

"At 5am they came and said they'd like to leave so we got them a taxi.

"They were really happy, they loved the crowd, it was really, really great.

"In ten years of doing this every Sunday it's the best experience I've had - it's just amazing.

"My dad is 83 and came to see me play in Fabric as well, and stayed until 1.30, but they were there until the end, it's quite incredible."

Some commentators online suggested that the visit may have been a PR stunt, however most were captivated by the partying pensioners.

In 2014 the club was saved from the threat of closure after sniffer agreeing to hire sniffer dogs to check for drugs.

And last year Fabric won an appeal meaning it will not have to hire dogs or scan clubbers' IDs.

Do you know the couple? Contact the news desk on 02036152500 or email news@standard.co.uk.
A family who went missing from their Forest Gate home have been found safe and well in France.

Survoi Costa, 25, and her two children, 7-year-old Scarlett, 7, and her brother Scarleon, 3, were reported missing on Thursday, May 5 by social services.

They were last seen at their home in Green Street, E7 two days before.

Police launched an urgent appeal to find the family, and enlised the public to help with the search.

Officers said they may be with the childrens father Sumon Costa, 36, who was wanted by police for breaching court-imposed bail conditions.

Mr Costa was not reported missing.

Officers are currently liaising with the relevant authorities to arrange for the family to return to the UK.
L ondoners put on a heartwarming display of "community spirit" after a bus crashed into a shop in Harlesden yesterday.

Four children were among 17 people treated by paramedics at the scene in the centre of Harlesden, north-west London, at 2pm.

Three people, including the driver of the packed No 18 service, were taken to hospital with serious injuries.

The 11-ton bus knocked down traffic lights and careered off the road, leaving the shopkeeper diving for cover when the crowded bus slammed into his shopfront.

Shopkeeper Abdel Chentouf, 49, from Edgware, was with a customer and two friends inside his jewellery shop Waves when the bus came crashing through the glass.

He told the Standard: I saw the guy was driving towards the shop without any attempt to use the brakes. It was the building that stopped the bus.

We moved out the way. Luckily it wasnt speeding. People were screaming on the bus. It happened so quickly.

Part of the ceiling collapsed and its cracked on the stairway. It was shocking. Its the same as when people have a road accident  you feel demoralised and really down.

They are saying the buildings not safe. The driver was shocked and sweating.

The four men were trapped in the shop and had to be freed by fire fighters with ladders through a back window.

Video footage of the aftermath captured the walking wounded being helped away from the scene by the emergency services.

One man was seen limping away with his arms around two firefighters while a woman was taken away in a wheelchair. A police officer also walks past holding the hands of two small children.

Shane Lawrence, 42, a university student from Harlesden, said: I heard a really loud sound like the pavement was being torn up. I had my back to it but I heard the road being ripped up.

The shopkeeper had to dive for cover after the crash yesterday / Nigel Howard

The sound was deafening as he was coming to crash.

As I turned around the bus went into the shop. I was stunned. There were lots of people who walked around to the bus and everyone was helping people off the bus.

People went up to the top deck to help the older people off. The bus was absolutely packed. I saw somebody pull a little boy from the bottom deck.

You could see someone inside the shop trying to push their way out but they couldnt because the bus was blocking everything.

Emergency crews removed the bus from the shopfront yesterday / Nigel Howard

He couldnt get out. Anyone who was walking past that at the time, in front of the shop or window shopping, would have been hit.

I just helped anyone trying to step off the bus. Nobody hesitated everyone just ran over to help.

It was packed Id say there were 35 to 40 people on there. Most of them looked shaken and shocked.

But everyone got them off the bus really quickly there was a lot of help there. There is definitely a community spirit here. It just shows people do care about one another.

A man who lives in a flat above the shop said: The bus should have turned but instead it crashed into the shop.

It just came flying in. The engineers have to come and look and need to support it. They are relocating me for the night. He didnt use any brakes or anything it went straight into the shop. I felt the bang.

Smash: the bus careered into a shop front / @DjShortyBless

When I came downstairs the driver was there, shaken.

The air ambulance landed nearby and dozens of police officers, firefighters and paramedics attended the scene while the road was cordoned off between Acton Lane and Manor Park Road for several hours.

London Fire Brigade station manager Sam Kazmanli said the building was severely damaged and another 45 people were evacuated from neighbouring properties.

Smash: the bus crashed into the front of a shop / Hetty Los

Kevin Brown, of London Ambulance Service, said: We sent multiple resources to the scene including a single responder in a car and a number of ambulance crews.

We also sent our incident response and hazardous area response teams, alongside Londons Air Ambulance. We treated 17 patients at the scene.

We took three patients as a priority to hospital. A further nine adults and four children with minor injuries were also taken to hospital and one was treated and discharged at the scene.

Tony Akers, Transport for Londons head of bus operations, said: There will be a full investigation into the incident.

No arrests have been made.
L ondoners will be able to watch every second of the 29 million renovations of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament via a live stream of the repair works.

The Westminster Live studios, next to Lambeth Bridge on the south side of the river, has panoramic views of the Houses of Parliament as its backdrop.

Due to its one-off vantage point, staff are setting up a live feed to capture the works, which are due to begin in earnest early next year.

They will also be producing a time-lapse video from July when the cameras are installed. Managing director Neil Sean told the Standard: Were going to document the historic event of the renovations to the Elizabeth Tower.

"This is something that may well never happen again in our lifetimes so to me it is a very important task.

People will be able to tune in whenever they like and see what is happening. It seems like it will really take off  we have had people asking to host the live feed on their websites already.

Certain schools and education groups will also be allowed free access to the studio during the works.

The 29 million repairs are set to begin early 2017  with the clock falling silent for a majority of the time.

The 96-metre-high clock tower, which was completed in 1859 and officially named the Elizabeth Tower in 2012, needs work to repair cracks in the masonry and corrosion to the cast-iron roof and belfry and the frame holding the bells.

Over the years, the Westminster Live studio has been frequented by the countrys biggest political names including David Cameron, Tony Blair and the late Margaret Thatcher. President Obama has also visited since it opened in 2000.

Mr Sean said: This studio has had everyone who is everyone through its doors. Recently, Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan but Tony Blair, David Cameron, Princess Anne and Obama have all come in to film against the backdrop, as well as celebrities like Adele, Lady Gaga and Mariah Carey.

We also have American news outlets broadcasting from here. Now were doing something a bit different and it is very exciting.

The live feed of the repairs will be hosted at westminster-live.com
H undreds of London children are at risk of "harm and indoctrination" in up to 25 illegal schools, Ofsted's chief inspector has warned.

Since January, a new investigative team have found more than 100 often Jewish or Islamic sites nationwide which they believe to be unregistered, with around one quarter of them in the capital.

Last month, inspectors issued seven warning notices to suspected illegal schools across the country, including at least one in London.

In a letter to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, Sir Michael Wilshaw said investigators were "deeply alarmed" by what they found, warning the "sub-standard education" undermined Government efforts to ensure schools promote "British values".

He said: "What we have found so far is likely to represent only a small proportion of the illegal schools operating across the country. Inspectors are hearing about suspected new cases every week.

"I therefore remain extremely concerned about the number of children and young people attending these schools who may be at significant risk of harm and indoctrination."

An Ofsted taskforce found a series of problems with such schools, including serious fire hazards, unsafe facilities and a lack of checks carried out on staff.

Sir Michael warned: "They are exploiting weaknesses in the current legislation to operate on the cusp of the law. Many are charging parents thousands of pounds to send their children to these unregistered schools."

The Department for Education said it had given new resources to Ofsted to investigate unregistered schools and support prosecution by the Crown Prosecution Service.

A spokesman said: "We have consulted on new measures to protect children in out of schools settings offering intensive education.

"We received a large number of responses, which we are now considering, and will make a further announcement in due course."
A blindfolded mother whose son's sight was saved by Great Ormond Street staff has joined 7,500 other fun runners in a race to raise up top 1million for the hospital.

The RBC Race for the Kids yesterday saw pupils from 19 schools, workers from 660 companies and 446 patients run 5km around the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Among the inspirational competitors was Lucy Constable, whose four-year-old son Freddie has undergone eight operations since being diagnosed with bilateral congenital glaucoma.

Without treatment by staff at the hospital, the little boy could have been left blind.

Run: Thousands of people took part / Great Ormond Street Hospital

Also taking part was 11-year-old Gabriella Farrugia, who has been treated at the hospital for a rare auto immune disease known as JDM.

Five-year-old patient Olivia Alderson, who has a rare brain tumour, kicked-off the event from a platform above the starting line.

The run is expected to have raised around 1million towards redeveloping the hospitals' old, cramped wards into state-of-the-art facilities.

Tim Johnson, Chief Executive of the Great Ormond Street Hospital Childrens Charity, said: It is a fantastic event with so many families returning year upon year and so many newcomers. The money raised will help us make a huge difference to patients and their families."

The race was supported by title sponsors Royal Bank of Canada, which has already raised 1.9million for the hospital, with more than 1,800 members of staff and their friends and families taking part in the event.

Dave Thomas, CEO of RBC Capital Markets, Europe, said: GOSH is a wonderful organisation full of inspirational people.

"It has been our privilege to support them and we look forward to continuing our partnership for many years to come.
A bizarrely-decorated east London flat covered all the way through with the same dark blue tiles has been likened to "living in a swimming pool".

The "wipe-clean" Walthamstow basement flat, which has the appearance of a dingy hospital ward, has been advertised on the SpareRoom website at a monthly rent of 900.

It offers a separate double bedroom, toilet and open plan living room and kitchen, all with the same strange decoration.

Every wall is covered in the tiling and even the floor is similarly patterned with shiny blue squares. There also appears to be just one window in the flat, adding to its odd atmosphere.

"Oppressive": The flat has the same decoration throughout / SpareRoom

Matt Hutchinson, director of SpareRoom, said: "It's certainly not something you see every day.

"This wipe-clean Walthamstow pad might appeal to someone who doesn't like dust, but it could be tricky to shake the feeling you're living in a swimming pool."

Sharon Taylor from local business Viva Tiling, said the flat was highly unusual and would likely have set back the owner thousands of pounds to tile.

"Wipe-clean": The property could appeal to people who don't like cleaning / SpareRoom

She said: We usually get asked to decorate bathrooms or kitchens. If you do have something in the living room or a bedroom its usually a feature wall, using 3D tiling or something unusual.

To have the whole thing done is very strange.

She added: It might make it easy to clean but it must be quite oppressive as well.

It must make it quite claustrophobic to live in.
S adiq Khan and Boris Johnson clashed today as the new Mayor accused his predecessor of leaving the cupboard bare on affordable housing.

Mr Khan said the Tory MP had grossly let down Londoners and warned the housing crisis could not be turned round overnight.

But Mr Johnson defended his record, saying his successor had failed to come clean on the true number of affordable homes that had been built. A record 100,000 were completed in his two terms, with numbers only low last year because it was the start of a new Government spending round, he said.

The criticism is potentially damaging for Mr Johnson, who may rely on his London record to prove his credentials in any future Tory leadership contest.

Mr Khan, who described the mayoral race as a referendum on the housing crisis, said he had asked officials to carry out an urgent housing audit.

He told the Standard: One of the first things we did when we got to City Hall was open the books and look at what was already in the pipeline, and it seems the previous mayor has grossly let down Londoners by leaving the cupboard bare when it comes to delivering affordable housing.

Im determined to fix Londons housing crisis and ensure all Londoners have the opportunity to rent or buy a decent home at a price they can afford, but the scale of the challenge is now clearer than ever and were not going to be able to turn things around overnight.

There is no doubt we have our work cut out, but I plan to personally get to grips with the mess that has been left behind and will insist on far higher levels of affordable housing in new developments. On a site visit in Southwark, the Mayor said he wanted Transport for London to fast track surplus locations for development that had previously been sat on. Mr Khans audit showed that last year Mr Johnson delivered just 4,880 affordable homes, the fewest in decades, while only 13 per cent of the homes left in the planning system were affordable.

He criticised his predecessors flawed digital Domesday Book of public land which included sites  including 10 Downing Street, City Hall and the British Museum  that would never be built on. However, City Hall officials drew up the list to show all public land, not just sites available for development.

Explainer: What are Sadiq Khan's plans for London?

Mrt Khan appeared to row back from his campaign commitment to build at least 50,000 homes a year, telling re-porters it was more important to build the right sort of homes. Mr Johnsons spokesman said: Disappointingly the Mayor isnt coming clean on his housing numbers. He fails to mention 100,000 affordable homes were completed between 2008 and 2016  a record.

He also knows that last years completions were low for a reason  the start of a new Government investment round yet he fails to mention that the previous year saw a record 18,000 affordable homes completed, more than any point since 1981.

He knows well that this data is al-ready public and was published on the Greater London Authority website under the last mayor. Mr Khan also knows the GLA released all of its surplus land under Boris Johnson  414 hectares which will deliver about 50,000 homes  which will greatly benefit this Mayors housing numbers, if hed only bothered to check.
G eorge Osborne today teamed up with former enemies Ed Balls and Vince Cable to claim that quitting the European Union would cost Britain 200 billion in trade.

The Chancellor posed at Stansted airport in front of a Ryanair jet painted with the slogan Stronger, safer & better off in Europe to unveil a Treasury prediction of the economic cost of a Brexit. The plane was quickly dubbed Scare Force One by Brexiteers.

But the surprise of the day was the appearance of two men whom Mr Osborne had painted as reckless spenders and regulators during last years general election campaign  Labours former shadow chancellor Mr Balls and the Coalitions business secretary Mr Cable.

Despite having sour personal relationships during the last parliament, the trio walked on together in a show of European unity, but stood at microphones placed several feet apart.

We fought each other at the last general election with different economic arguments and weve clashed repeatedly in the House of Commons over the years, said Mr Osborne.

But theres one thing we all agree on. And its that it would be a huge mistake for Britain to leave the EU and to leave the single market.

At the end of his speech, the Chancellor said: Ill now hand over to Ed, giving Mr Balls his cue to argue that the cost of training shoes would rise by 17 per cent if Britain was outside the EU.

The gathering was seen as a major coup by the Stronger In campaign, which believes it has greater cross-party appeal than the Leave campaign. It came on the day David Cameron used the Daily Mirror to make an appeal to Labour supporters. Mr Balls said: Neither Vince or I are interested in the politics of this. Youre more likely to see us again on The Great British Bake Off or on Strictly Come Dancing, rather than back in the House of Commons.

Boris v Cameron: EU referendum campaigns intensify

He praised Mr Osborne for rejecting the temptation to join the Leave campaign. It would have been politically much easier for George Osborne to have gone along with the Brexiteers in his own party, but George hasnt done that, he said. Mr Cable, once derided by Osborne aides as a hairy-eared has-been, then said that the UK needed to be in the EU to enjoy the single market benefits. The alternative is taking a one-way ticket to a poorer Britain, he said.

Earlier, Labour MP Gisela Stuart said her partys backing for EU membership was the biggest recruiting agent for Ukip in urban areas.
D onald Trump today reignited a war of words with Sadiq Khan as he blasted the new Mayor's "rude" criticism of him.

The presumptive Republican Presidential candidate hit out Mr Khan after the Mayor criticised him over his "ignorant" view of Islam.

Appearing on ITV's Good Morning Britain, Mr Trump said of Mr Khan: "He doesn't know me, hasn't met me, doesn't know what I'm all about.

I think they were very rude statements and, frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements."

He added: "When he won I wished him well. Now, I don't care about him, I mean, it doesn't make any difference to me, let's see how he does, let's see if he's a good mayor."

War of words: Donald Trump / ITV/Good Morning Britain

Mr Trump is likely to go head to head against Democrat Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House later this year.

His policy of a blanket ban on Muslims entering the US has unified UK politicians in opposition, with the Prime Minister branding it divisive, stupid and wrong.

Planning a US visit: London Mayor Sadiq Khan / Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Asked how the stand-off could affect relations should he be elected, Mr Trump said: "It looks like we are not going to have a very good relationship. Who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him but he's not willing to address the problem either."

Mr Trump said he was "not stupid" and denied he was divisive. He said: "I'm a unifier, unlike our president now, I'm a unifier."

Last week, the London Mayor forced a climb-down after launching a furious attack on Mr Trump for his views on Muslims.

His comments led the billionaire tycoon to partially alter his call for a temporary ban on Muslims, saying there would be exceptions including for Mr Khan.

Donald Trump's most controversial comments

A spokesman for Mr Khan branded Mr Trump's views "ignorant, divisive and dangerous" after the Republican's intervention today.

He added that they play "straight into the extremist's hands and makes both our countries less safe".
Washington D.C.s proposed paid leave bill sounds like a winner, especially for women. Employees would be entitled to 12 weeks of paid leave when they became sick or had a baby. But in reality women would be the losers. Because they would be more likely to take time off, employers would be less willing to hire them, and it would be harder for them to find jobs. And Washington would be stuck with a tax that would send firms to the suburbs.

Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has expressed doubts about the bill, should veto it if it passes the D.C. Council.

The Universal Paid Leave Act of 2015 was proposed by D.C. Councilmembers David Grosso and Elissa Silverman on October 6 and revised in February to reduce the amount of paid leave from 16 weeks to 12 weeks. The bill would amend the D.C. Medical Leave Act of 1990 and enable all employees to take three months of paid leave for childbirth, to care for a family member, or for their own illnesses whenever they become eligible.

While residents of New Jersey, Rhode Island, and California are entitled to smaller amounts of paid sick leave, no U.S. law calls for three months of paid leave. New Jersey and California allow six weeks and Rhode Island allows four weeks.

On first glance, this scheme seems to be a means to help women at low cost. Who would be unwilling to give up one percent or less of their salary for four months of paid leave? However, not everyone takes maternity leave or sick leave. Those who do might not want three months. And everyone who works in the District of Columbia has to pay the cost.

Imposing a new tax, even disguised as a mandatory fund contribution, on D.C. firms would discourage them from locating in D.C. Companies would flee the District for neighboring suburbs, eroding the tax base. That is obviously why Mayor Bowser is unenthusiastic about the proposed law.

Currently women negotiate compensation packages with firms that may or may not include paid maternity leave. At the top end, female associates at some leading D.C. law firms receive five months paid leave and the option of working a paltry eight hours a day, three-quarters of normal law firm hours, after their babies are born. Some employees can save up sick leave and vacation time to have some paid maternity leave. Others, hourly workers, may not receive any paid leave and have to resort to savings to get them through the 12 weeks of unpaid family and medical leave.

Individual companies and employees manage by negotiating leave on their own. Everyone knows that in order to get a job that qualifies for paid sick leave and vacation, they need a certain level of skills that often can be achieved only with a college education. You want paid maternity leave? Make yourself valuable to your employer, like the female attorneys.

Requirements for paid leave come with higher federal and state taxes, if funded by the government, and higher costs for businesses, if funded by employers. Higher taxes discourage women from entering the workforce, because a larger share of their paycheck goes to the government. Higher business costs discourage women from being hired. If a firm can choose a man who does not come with the cost of four months paid leave, men are more likely to be hired.

The proposed law is a lose-lose for D.C. and for women. The District of Columbia is already having trouble paying its bills. It is asking Uncle Sam to help it with funds to repair the broken Metro system. It certainly does not need another law that would further erode its tax base. And women dont need a law that would encourage firms to hire men.

A version of this column appeared in MarketWatch on October 16, 2015.
M illions of Brits living abroad have been advised to register to vote in the upcoming EU referendum by the end of today.

British citizens living overseas should register on Monday to have their say by post whether the UK should remain in the European Union or leave it.

The Electoral Commission estimates up to 5.5 million British expats are potentially eligible to vote in the referendum on Thursday, June 23.

In February, the commission urged those living abroad to register early after just 106,000 overseas electors registered for last years General Election  a fraction of the total amount of Brits living abroad.

Expats who are registered must apply to vote by post or proxy to have their say from outside the UK.

Anyone who registers after Monday has been encouraged to vote by proxy.

Overseas citizens must have been registered to vote in the UK in the last 15 years and eligible in Parliamentary and European elections.

TODO: define component type apester

Younger voters can still be eligible if their parent or guardian is registered to vote in the UK on the grounds they left the UK no more than 15 years ago.

Ballot papers will be sent to all eligible overseas voters between Monday, May 23 and Friday, May 27.

EU referendum: Stay or leave?

Voters who apply to register at a later date will be sent ballot papers after registration is confirmed.

For more information visit Aboutmyvote.co.uk and to register online go to www.gov.uk/register-to-vote.
K en Livingstone today slapped down Boris Johnsons claim that the European Union was similar to Hitlers plans to dominate the Continent.

The former Labour mayor, who is himself facing a disciplinary process for making controversial remarks about the Nazi dictator, said the Tory had got his facts wrong.

What I said was perfectly true, claimed Mr Livingstone. But Boris is a lot better informed about Ancient Greece and Rome than about modern history.

There was never a plan for a United States of Europe under Hitler. What he wanted was actually a Greater Germany that absorbed neighbouring states, with Britain and France rendered subservient.

Mr Livingstone caused an anti-Semitism row by claiming that Hitler had a pact with Zionists in the Thirties.

Mr Johnson sparked uproar by claiming the EU was using different methods to the Nazis but shared the same ambition of a Greater Europe.

Former Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith said Mr Johnson was stating a historical fact of life. But Field Marshal Lord Bramall said Mr Johnsons remarks were simply laughable.

Ken Livingstone on Hitler on LBC

Mr Johnson dismissed the row as an artificial media twit storm.
A loss of nearly 150,000 people from the voter register across London has injected new turmoil into the Governments plan to redraw the boundaries of MPs constituencies.

An analysis of new data reveals that vanishing voters resulted in eight MPs who felt they were safe from a boundary review being moved on to a hit list.

Those whose seats are now deemed too small include Boris Johnson, whose Uxbridge constituency has seen the number of registered voters slump from 71,954 at the last review in 2011 to just 66,606 now  a loss of 5,348.

Another high-profile victim is Chuka Umunna because Streathams voter roll has gone down by 1,627, from 71,913 to 70,286. A senior London MP branded the boundaries review a farce. Emily Thornberry said the population in her north London seat was rising.

For many London MPs, the boundary review process is falling into complete disrepute, said Ms Thornberry, Labour MP for Islington South & Finsbury.

The number of residents we represent is going up every year yet, because many of them cant register to vote, the population in constituencies like mine is deemed to be getting smaller. Big names facing boundary reviews even before the new voter numbers include Jeremy Corbyn, Iain Duncan Smith, Justine Greening, John McDonnell, David Lammy and Heidi Alexander.

Its a farce, said Ms Thornberry. David Cameron says the review is designed to make our electoral system fairer and more democratic. These figures show it is doing the opposite.

The voting rolls fall follows a government decision to bring in individual registration. Previously, one member of a household could register all eligible voters but now each person has to do it themselves. Analysts say those in rented flats are less likely to register.

The Boundary Commission, which will redraw the map for the Government, said it was obliged by law to base its decisions on the December 2015 voting registers.

A spokesman said it was not allowed to consider claims that actual population levels had changed.

The Prime Minister ordered the re- view to even out constituency sizes.

The Cabinet Office said: Equalising their size means everyones vote will carry equal weight. The Government is delivering on its commitment to reduce the number of MPs to 600 to cut the cost of politics and is tackling the scope for electoral fraud.
A senior BBC figure wants more shows similar to Songs of Praise which would include coverage that would appeal to people of Muslim, Hindu and Sikh faiths.

Aaqil Ahmed, commissioning editor of religion and head of religion and ethics at the BBC, told MPs he has written a report answering criticism that non-Christian faiths were under-represented on the programme.

The Sunday Times reported Mr Ahmed told MPs Christianity is currently the cornerstone of our output, adding there were more hours dedicated to the faith than other religions.

He told MPs: We carry out checks to give us a better understanding of how we represent the different faiths."

The comments could pave the way for the BBC to broadcast Friday prayers from a mosque in a similar format to Songs of Praise, the Muslim Council of Britain told The Sun.

A BBC spokesman told the Standard: "We fully explained to the Sunday Times that we are actually intending to do more programming around Christianity and more on other faiths as well, so there is absolutely no question of an 'either or' on our output."
A mentally-ill man who stabbed an elderly motorist 39 times in a road rage row has been found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Matthew Daley, 35, repeatedly knifed 79 year-old Donald Lock after his Toyota crashed into the back of Daleys Ford Fusion at 16 mph, causing minor damage.

Witnesses reported that Mr Lock calmly got out of his car to ask Daley why he had braked so suddenly.

Daley, also appearing calm, launched at Mr Lock with a knife, allegedly telling him: die you f****** c***. A witness also head Mr Lock yell: Help, help, get off me.

Brighton and Hove Albion season ticket holder Mr Lock, who had recently been given the all-clear from prostate cancer, died at the scene in Worthing, Sussex, from a stab wound to the aorta.

The court heard Daley had suffered with mental health problems for 10 years.

Before the killing, Daleys family pleaded with clinicians to section him as his mental health declined.

Matthew Daley was found guilty of killing Donald Lock / PA

His father John Daley broke down as he claimed the killing on July 16 last year need not have happened if his son's mental health had been treated "properly".

He said: "All our nightmares had come to pass and just unnecessarily because I know that people with mental conditions like this can be treated, people can be sectioned, people can have injections and these things do not need to happen.

"I am thinking to myself, this poor man and his family will have to live with my son's actions for the rest of their lives.

Daley was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at Lewes Crown Court today.

Daley did not give evidence at the trial.

NHS chiefs have apologised to Daleys relatives for not doing more.
F our London police officers interrupted their holiday in Barcelona to watch the Spanish Grand Prix to rugby-tackle a suspected bag thief.

Richmond-based officers Andy Le Geyt, Colin Swan, Natalie Matthews and Milad Amini responded when a Russian tourist shouted for help near Placa de Sant Jaume, a square in the citys Gothic quarter.

Acting sergeant Mr Le Geyt hurled himself at a man who was believed to have snatched a bag while the officers were getting money from a cash machine.

He was helped by Pc Swan and the two police specials who apprehended the man after Mr Le Geyt knocked him off a bicycle.

Mr Le Geyt said: Obviously something had happened and someone was shouting for help. I jumped out into the road and saw a guy coming towards us with the victim chasing him down the road.

I rugby-tackled him off the bike on to the floor and the other officers came and tackled the man. He was trying to bite us and spitting at us.

We didn't know what had happened, it could have been anything. The guy (alleged victim) was pointing to him and chasing him, I just had to react quickly enough to stop him.

"When you are a police officer it doesn't matter where you are, if you hear that word (police) you will react.

"For all of us it's the first time we've had to deal with something abroad. When it does happen it's a bit of a shock. It's our duty to protect people no matter who they are."

The suspect was taken away by police after the group asked a local shopkeeper to speak to Spanish officers.

The officers were on holiday in Barcelona to watch the Spanish Grand Prix where British driver Lewis Hamilton crashed out after he collided with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.
T he private security firm responsible for the fake bomb fiasco at Old Trafford is facing being dumped by Manchester United.

Security Search Management & Solutions Ltd was used to help carry out theoretical and practical dog training exercises.

But they forgot to remove the dummy device at the end of the exercise leading to the stadium being evacuated yesterday and the match against Bournemouth cancelled.

The bomb was taped to the back of a toilet door and consisted a mobile phone wired to a piece of piping to make it look authentic.

Search: A sniffer dog in Old Trafford watched by fans during the security scare / Martin Rickett/PA Wire

It was discovered by a member of Uniteds staff in the lead up to kick-off. A bomb disposal unit then carried out a controlled explosion.

Old Trafford - Fake bomb leads to Man United match being abandoned

The company, which are registered in Kent, were hired by Uniteds usual dog trainers, Deacons Canines.

Ed Woodward, the United executive vice chairman, has ordered a full investigation into the blunder, with the company said to be at serious risk of having any potential future contracts cancelled.

Chris Reid, who owns the company, told the Standard he could not comment until Ive spoken to Manchester United some time this afternoon.

He added: I would love to, but until Ive heard from them about their position I cant say anything, Im sure you understand.
C olombia today hailed its biggest ever seizure of illegal drugs after police found eight tonnes of cocaine hidden in a banana plantation.

The cocaine, which has an estimated value of $240 million (167 million), was found in the coastal town of Turbo near the Panama border where it was ready to be shipped to Central America and on to the US.

Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos congratulated officers on Twitter, saying: Operation in Turbo seized the greatest amount in our history. He described the seizure as a hit against criminals.

Nearly 1.5 tonnes of the drugs was wrapped and ready to go out to the export market, defence minister Luis Carlos Villegas said.

The packages were found in an underground tank concealed by a layer of wooden planks. Entrances to the tank were hidden under a layer of cement.

Aviation police spotted the smuggler den and the banana farm was stormed by 50 commandos backed by two Black Hawk helicopters over the weekend. Four people were arrested and another three escaped.

Police said the drugs belonged to Clan Usuga  one of the countrys most ruthless crime groups. Clan Usuga, also known as Los Urabenos, is mainly engaged in drug trafficking but is also said to be involved in extortion, illegal mining, kidnapping and murder.

The gang has an estimated 2,000 active members. Security forces have captured 6,700 members over the past five years.

The US Justice Department calls Clan Usuga Colombias largest and most influential drug trafficking group, and has offered a $5 million (3.4 million) reward for the capture of its leader, Dairo Otoniel Usuga.

It says he leads a heavily armed, extremely violent criminal organisation comprised of former members of terrorist organisations that did not demobilise as part of the Colombian governments justice and peace process.

Colombias government had said it would launch air raids against drug-trafficking gangs.
A woman was admitted to hospital with a hungry shark still attached to her arm.

The 2ft nurse shark clamped its jaws onto the arm of a 23 year-old woman in Boca Raton, Florida, and refused to let go.

The woman went to her nearest lifeguard station with the shark attached just under her elbow around 1.20pm yesterday.

The pair were both taken to hospital after attempts to remove the shark failed, even after it had died and the woman had left the water.

Witness Shlomo Jacob told the Florida Sentinel: The shark wouldnt give up.

boca_shark_2.jpg, by Jamie Micklethwaite / Boca Raton Fire and Rescue

It was barely breathing but it wasnt letting go of her arm, like it was stuck to her or something.

Paramedics were forced to use a splint board to support the womans arm with the shark attached as she was removed from the beach yesterday on a stretcher and taken to an ambulance.

Boca Raton Fire and Rescue confirmed the woman was in a stable condition in hospital and was due to be released yesterday.

Nurse sharks are a common site in Florida and fully grown can reach up to 14 feet in length and weigh up to 300 pounds.

Their mouth is known for having 500 razor sharp teeth but they are not known to attack human unless they have been antagonised.
A Rolling Stones fan found you can occasionally get exactly what you want when he was surprised by the band at their London exhibition.

Alex Emanuel was browsing through Exhibitionism at the Saatchi Gallery when he was tapped on the shoulder by Sir Mick Jagger, and turned to see Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood as well.

He said: Its not every day you get to meet your idols. I said to Keith, Im a bass player  lets jam?

"And Keith said in his rasping voice, Well alright, lets jam. I really think Keith was ready to play.

The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism 1 /24 The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism All together now Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones attend a private view of 'The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism' at The Saatchi Gallery Pink carpet ready Keith Richards works the pink carpet outside the gallery Dave Benett Sign away Fans reach out to get autographs from the legendary rockers Dave Benett Hug me Mick Jagger looks on as Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood embrace Dave Benett Relax Keith Richards gives Ronnie Wood a massage as they work the red carpet Dave Benett All smiles Keith Richards attends a private view of The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism at The Saatchi Gallery Dave Benett Working the crowd Sir Mick Jagger waves to waiting fans REX Family support Ronnie Wood's son Jesse Wood arrives hand-in-hand with his wife Fearne Cotton PA Leather look James Bay arrives in his signature hat PA Date night Christian Horner and Geri Horner step out for the celebratory event PA Suzanne Wyman, Bill Wyman and daughters Matilda Wyman, Jessica Wyman and Katherine Wyman attend a private view of 'The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism' at The Saatchi Gallery Dave Benett Natalie Dormer attends a private view of 'The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism' at The Saatchi Gallery Dave Benett Nick Grimshaw attends a private view of 'The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism' at The Saatchi Gallery Dave Benett Georgia May Jagger attends a private view of 'The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism' at The Saatchi Gallery Dave Benett Pixie Geldof attends a private view of 'The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism' at The Saatchi Gallery Dave Benett Ronnie Wood and Sally Wood attend a private view of 'The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism' at The Saatchi Gallery Dave Benett Jeanne Marine and Sir Bob Geldof attend a private view of 'The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism' at The Saatchi Gallery Dave Benett Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones attend a private view of 'The Rolling Stones: Exhibitionism' at The Saatchi Gallery Dave Benett

New Yorker Emanuel had won a trip to the capital through tourism body Visitlondon.com.

His meeting with the Stones was part of a scheme called Fans of London, devised by VisitLondon with the GREAT Britain Campaign, British Airways and Hilton. Exhibitionism features more than 500 items including stage costumes and instruments and runs until September 4.

For a chance to win a similar trip to London, go to visitlondon.com/fans.
In this week's edition of Rewind Robert Smith takes readers back to 55 years ago when racing under the lights made its debut in Ontario at the London track. A number of old photos depicting the times are included. He is also asking for a bit of nostalgic participation by the reading audience.



An early scene from London's Western Fair Raceway An early scene from London's Western Fair Raceway

Fifty-five years ago this coming week, on the evening of May 17, 1961, night-time harness racing finally came to Ontario. After decades of debate along with political wrangling and posturing, the big decision was made. The group representing racing interests at London's Western Fair Raceway were granted permission to stage racing under the arc lights. It was indeed one "giant step" for Ontario harness racing. When Bill Herbert crossed the finish line a winner driving Adieu Herbert in the very first race, it was time to post the Official sign for another reason. This historic race meeting lasted a total of six weeks with racing held six nights per week.

In a headline story appearing in the Montreal Gazette issue of May 9, 1961, Dr. John Findley of Arnprior, Ont. stated the following:

"Night racing will mean bigger purses and that will attract better horses to make for better racing. In addition it may mean that we won't lose our top drivers to the U.S. Many have left the Province because our racing has remained at the country fair level far too long. The top drivers have gone elsewhere to earn their living; people such as Clint Hodgins, Bud Gilmour and Johnny Chapman are just a few. All are top men and would probably be living in Canada if we had good racing. There can't be good racing without night racing!"

Today as we look back to those days when night racing was prohibited in Ontario, it seems unbelievable that something so simple could have remained unchanged for all those years. I have assembled a few stories and old pictures from that bygone era to remind us of what it took to get where we are and to recall how far we have travelled.

In the fall of 1960, undoubtedly in preparation for the coming of night racing and more modern conditions, a milestone race meeting was held at that year's edition of the famous Western Fair. Each afternoon of the three-day meeting was well-attended, with excellent competition on display. For the first time in the Fair's long history, pari-mutuel wagering was introduced, replacing the old "book" method of betting which had existed forever.

The three-day session saw a total of $36,839 wagered with day one's handle at $10,968, day two was $12,314 and on the Saturday card the highest amount of $13,557 went through the wickets. By comparison the highest three-day betting total from the old system was recorded at approximately $7,600,thus a daily average of only about $2,500. Numerous horsemen who were participants at this three-day meeting returned the following year to be part of London's first ever action under the lights; many became regulars.

On the final afternoon the Invitational Pace was held with both heats annexed by the four-year-old mare Marjean Chief, owned by Jacob and Brown of Clinton, Ont. In the bike was the 18-year-old up and coming star Ron Feagan of Goderich, who was just beginning his meteoric rise in the sport. The highlight of the three days for those who were placing wagers was the win by Beatrice Hat on closing day when she paid $54.20 to win for a $2 investment. A popular winner of both of her heats was Argyle Florence handled by Duncan Campbell.

Midway through the first season of racing in 1961, a very special night of racing was held on June 8th, highlighted by the Ken MacDonald Memorial Pace for three-year-old pacers of both genders. The race was held to commemorate the passing of Mr. MacDonald, a horseman from Strathroy who had raced locally and whose family was well known in the sport. His brother Morris aka "Morrie", who became the first Canadian-born driver to win the Little Brown Jug in 1954, was on hand and did much of the arranging for the evening. Another brother Chester operated a tack store for many years.

While the horses in the event were all locally-owned, the drivers were at London at the invitation of the track management. The driver's list was made up of locally-born horsemen who had all gone further afield, namely to the U.S., and were returning this night to help start off night racing in their native Ontario. Invitees included (in alphabetical order) John Chapman, Bud Gilmour, Clint Hodgins, Joe Hodgins, Morrie MacDonald and Harold Wellwood. Also invited but unable to attend was Alix "Spider" Winger. A couple of other drivers also participated to round out the roster and are shown in an accompanying photo.

Despite the lack of cooperation from the weatherman a great evening of racing was presented as a talented group of three-year-old pacers went two heats in the $1,000 event. The colt's owners graciously allowed their horses to be driven by the visiting "celebrity" drivers in what may have been the first, or at least nearly the first time an event like this had ever been staged.

The winner based on her 2-1 finish was a nice Joe Dale filly named Dolly Dale B. from the barn of Floyd Belore of Salford, Ont. She was very capably driven by Clint Hodgins, who was a close friend of the Belore family. The second heat went to Argyle Albert, owned and driven by Duncan Campbell who finished last in the opening heat. Dolly Dale B. won 14 races as a three-year-old, earning just over $4,200 in 36 starts, many of the double heat variety.



Dolly Dale B. and owner Floyd Belore on the far left are joined by a group of well-known drivers who competed in the Ken MacDonald Memorial. From left: Harold Wellwood, Joe Hodgins, Morrie MacDonald, Duncan Campbell, Johnny Chapman, Ronnie Feagan, Bud Gilmour and Clint Hodgins. The two gentlemen in the back are unidentified. Dolly Dale B. and owner Floyd Belore on the far left are joined by a group of well-known drivers who competed in the Ken MacDonald Memorial. From left: Harold Wellwood, Joe Hodgins, Morrie MacDonald, Duncan Campbell, Johnny Chapman, Ronnie Feagan, Bud Gilmour and Clint Hodgins. The two gentlemen in the back are unidentified.

As we reflect on the past 55 years of London's history, many great memories emerge. Back in the days when nearly everyone stabled at the track, a "family" atmosphere prevailed. Numerous people who later became famous in the sport started their careers here. Despite where their travels took them, London was always considered 'home'. One man whose roots have always been close by is current Chief Executive Officer Hugh Mitchell. He vividly recalls the early days at WFR when he accompanied his father Dr. Jim Mitchell, who was the first Track Veterinarian.

Hugh later worked as a groom with the stables of Bert Madill, Morrie MacDonald and Ron Topping. In a story written at the time of the track's 50th anniversary Mitchell reflected on the time spent as a youngster listening to the older folks speak."I just remember those very fond times, and they were good people. Salt of the earth people, with strong rural backgrounds and good values and principles."

Now officially known as The Raceway at Western Fair District, most things have changed over the past half century plus, but to those who have been around for 'a day or two', it remains the same friendly and great place it was way back when.

Three Generations Trivia?

With the London track now in its 55th year of operation as a Raceway, countless well known racing families have been part of the growth and many changes this venerable spot has experienced through the years and now decades. In a number of instances, competing horsemen from the inaugural year at London now have second and even third generations from their families now racing there.

I think it would be interesting to name some of them who have at least three generations of participation in any number of categories such as owner, trainer, driver, groom or other. To start the list I will suggest a couple of easy ones that come to mind; there should be countless more with the required three generations. In year one (1961) the inaugural meeting's leading driver was Duncan Campbell. He easily reaches three with sons Jack and Ray and grandchildren John, Jim, Robert and JoAnne's husband Wm. McLinchy. I'll do a second starting with Gordon Lawrence, sons Bill and Charles and grandson Donald. Have fun suggesting many more. [I have a hunch that there may even be an odd few "four timers", in fact I have at least one in mind.]

Picture Gallery



Long before night racing was introduced at London the historic track hosted top notch racing each year during the Western Fair week. A couple of photographs shown above capture the action including the large crowds that were present. Check out the cars in the infield. Long before night racing was introduced at London the historic track hosted top notch racing each year during the Western Fair week. A couple of photographs shown above capture the action including the large crowds that were present. Check out the cars in the infield.



Jack Campbell is shown receiving an award as leading driver following the conclusion of the 1964 fall meeting. Chuck Butler, a representative from Carling Breweries, does the honours. Jack was part of one of the pioneering families that raced at London long before 1961 and were elated when night racing finally arrived. Jack Campbell is shown receiving an award as leading driver following the conclusion of the 1964 fall meeting. Chuck Butler, a representative from Carling Breweries, does the honours. Jack was part of one of the pioneering families that raced at London long before 1961 and were elated when night racing finally arrived.



At various times during its long history the London track has held many special events. Pictured above is a "Powder Puff Derby" from probably around the late 1970's. The drivers from left to right are Judy Arthurs Hodges, Sharon Lester, Laurie Poulin, Pat (Belore) Harris, Marlene Harrison, Kathy Miller and Kelly Bako. The two people presenting are not identified, perhaps if anyone recognizes them, names can be added. At various times during its long history the London track has held many special events. Pictured above is a "Powder Puff Derby" from probably around the late 1970's. The drivers from left to right are Judy Arthurs Hodges, Sharon Lester, Laurie Poulin, Pat (Belore) Harris, Marlene Harrison, Kathy Miller and Kelly Bako. The two people presenting are not identified, perhaps if anyone recognizes them, names can be added.



This venerable trio were an integral part of London's early years. This photo from 1964 was taken at the conclusion of that year's spring meeting with each one receiving an award. Drivers from left are Wes Coke, Neil McRann and "Jiggs" McFadden. The identity of the two presenters is not known. This venerable trio were an integral part of London's early years. This photo from 1964 was taken at the conclusion of that year's spring meeting with each one receiving an award. Drivers from left are Wes Coke, Neil McRann and "Jiggs" McFadden. The identity of the two presenters is not known.
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Monday, 16 May 2016 00:08:39 (GMT+3) | Sao Paulo

Brazil steelmaker ArcelorMittal has invested $14.2 million (BRL 50 million) in a new industrial line at its Sabara mill, in the city of same name in the state of Minas Gerais, to produce what it labeled as high quality steel bars, the company said Monday.





According to the Brazilian producer, the so-called multibar product consists of high quality bars that pass through a process of removal of the overweight through machining, whose process allow the bar to be free of surface defects.





ArcelorMittal said the new production line involves top-notch equipment to produce multibar in three different versions.





The company said it plans to offer the market higher value-added solutions as well as meeting the demands of niche markets.




Monday, 16 May 2016 00:06:27 (GMT+3) | Sao Paulo

Brazil s federal police (PF) has indicted several Gerdau executives, including the companys CEO, Andre Gerdau Johannpeter, during a corruption probe known as the Zelotes Operation, the police said on Monday.





The operation has indicted 19 people for both passive and active corruption, money laundering and influence peddling, also including a company administration council member, Expedito Luz, and 16 company directors. Jose Ricardo da Silva, a former counselor at Brazil s board of tax appeals, Carf, was indicted as well.





Since the start of the probe in March last year, Gerdau has denied any wrongdoing. In February this year police raided several offices of Brazil s largest steelmaker and issued an arrest warrant for Johannpeter.





As a result of the probe, Gerdau then postponed its Q4 conference call to March 15, 2016.





Media reports on Monday said Vale avoided BRL 1.5 billion in taxes by using lobbyists to pay bribes to the Carf members.


Monday, 16 May 2016 11:02:37 (GMT+3) | Shanghai

Hebei Province-based Chinese steelmaker Hebei Iron and Steel Group Co. (Hebei Steel Group) has announced that it will cut its iron-making capacity by 2.60 million mt and its steelmaking capacity by 5.02 million mt in 2016-17 amid efforts to reduce emissions.





In particular, Hebei Steel Group will demolish five 450 m3 blast furnaces, two 55-mt converters, one 80-mt converter and two 120-mt converters in order to eliminate outdated and excess capacity.
Monday, 16 May 2016 11:16:55 (GMT+3) | Istanbul

SteelOrbis has been informed that Turkish producer Icdas ' 12-32 mm rebar prices in Turkey's Marmara region are now at TRY 1,424/mt ($481/mt) + VAT ex-works, while its rebar prices in Biga, Canakkale in northwestern Turkey are at TRY 1,407/mt ($475/mt) + VAT ex-works.The mill's list prices have moved down by TRY 84.5/mt + VAT as compared to its previous price list issued on May 5, while due to currency fluctuations prices have decreased by $32/mt on US dollar basis.$1 = TRY 2.96
At the Suffolk Beauty Academy in the suburbs of central Virginia, Jasmine Cumbo was schooled on the ins and outs of hair styling. Basic course work included shampooing and conditioning; intermediate classes focused on subjects like braiding and braid extension. Ten months after enrolling in 2013, she walked out with a diploma in cosmetology. Ready to start cutting hair for a living? Not even close.

Cumbo still needed a state license. And that, it turned out, would take her another two years to earn. "I feel like I lost out on a lot of things," the 22-year-old says  time, and money, and clients. The license needs to be renewed every two years and only allows her to cut hair within the confines of Virginia. Neighboring Maryland and Washington D.C., for instance, need separate permits.

So do many states, for many professions. Licensing has spread inexorably through the U.S. labor market  a trend in some ways the direct opposite of the freelancing, anything-goes economy exemplified by Uber. In the 1950s, only about 5 percent of workers needed permission from federal, state or local authorities to practice their occupation. Now it's almost a third  not just doctors or airline pilots, but florists, exotic dancers, tour guides, auctioneers and bartenders.

From the administration of President Barack Obama to conservative-leaning think-tanks, a rare consensus is emerging on the need to fix a system originally intended to protect consumers and ensure public safety. Critics say it's turned into something less benign, draining the job market's dynamism and shielding well-off workers from competition while blocking the prospects of those lower down the wage scale.

"These are very high fences," said Morris Kleiner, a professor of labor economics at the University of Minnesota who's studied the issue for more than four decades. "It's good for the people who become licensed," but for society overall, "the costs are greater than the benefits." Among those costs, he says, are 2.8 million missing jobs, as well as higher prices.

While Obama ordered up a report and set aside money in last year's budget to address the problem, it's not one that can be solved in Washington alone: The restrictions are mostly imposed at the state level with the encouragement of the licensed workers themselves, who vigorously defend the system they helped create.

The result is a "weird patchwork quilt of licenses," said Brink Lindsey of the Cato Institute, a pro-market research center in Washington. Many rules have never undergone detailed scrutiny, and the authorities are "all over the map in terms of what they regulate and how they regulate," he said.

There have been a few recent attempts to halt the licensing creep. The Supreme Court effectively ruled last year that it wasn't necessary to be a licensed dentist in order to sell teeth-whitening services in North Carolina. Idaho's governor vetoed a bill that would have required permits for sign-language interpreters, and Louisiana courts overturned a ban on Benedictine monks selling coffins, imposed because they weren't official funeral directors.

That monastic victory was won with help from the Institute for Justice, a Virginia-based nonprofit libertarian law firm at the forefront of many such efforts. In the past two months it's successfully defended the rights of casket sellers in Alabama and hair-braiders in Kentucky to operate without licenses. But the institute was less successful in a 2012 attempt to eliminate licenses for interior designers in Florida, one of only three states where such paperwork is necessary. If the American Society of Interior Designers gets its way, the other 47 will require it too.

"By and large, it is protectionism," said Cato's Lindsey.

That protection helps lift earnings for licensed workers by about 15 percent, according to research by Kleiner and Princeton University economist Alan Krueger. It's typically an expensive journey with plenty of obstacles. Would-be licensees must pass final tests within a specified period, so many Americans who invest the time and money upfront could still miss out on the reward.

That's what almost happened to Cumbo. After spending more than $18,000 and clocking 1,500 hours of lessons at the beauty academy, financial constraints and family problems  including her father's death  delayed her efforts to then acquire the license, which costs $300 and involves written and practical tests. She got it just days before the two-year deadline. Many classmates still aren't licensed, she says: Students often take a breather after the academy training, and "when they take that little break, things happen."

Cumbo spent the intervening two years working various jobs  cleaning at campgrounds, helping out at a center for disabled children. Now, fully qualified, she's finding that prospective employers prefer candidates who bring their own customers. Cumbo used to have some, from the on-the-job training at the end of her course, but no longer: "I pretty much have to rebuild my contacts."

Under one of the fixes advocated by Kleiner, she could have enjoyed a much smoother transition into a career. The economist, the leading researcher in the licensing field, recommends easing requirements for some professions, so that certificates issued by training bodies  like Cumbo's diploma from the academy  would be enough to start work straightaway.

To be sure, some of the growth in licensing reflects a shift from manufacturing, where more workers had unions to protect their interests, into services. What's important is to strike a "balance between protecting consumers against incompetent, negligent or corrupt professionals, and the need to have a competitive market," said Richard Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. And he thinks the balance is out of whack now: For people trying to move up, licensing is "effectively putting a brake on the escalator."

As for consumers, innovative technologies may offer new safeguards, Cato's Lindsey said, citing websites like Yelp and Angie's List that provide feedback on the quality of services. Businesses like Uber are set to give a new twist to the debate. Uber drivers are rated by customers and peers and can often get by with personal licenses rather than the occupational ones that taxis need, though that's changing in some cities.

Whatever the high-tech future holds, Kleiner says that for now the permit system is more reminiscent of medieval guilds  gatekeepers for their professions, who wielded plenty of political clout. That's the case today too, another reason why authorities are unwilling to cut back on the licenses.

Ultimately, the resistance to change comes from the licensed employees themselves, according to Dick Carpenter, the Institute for Justice's director of strategic research. In defending their exclusive status, and the investment they've made to get it, they "want to push the fence out further and further."

Like Cumbo. If anyone's thinking about scrapping licenses in her field, "they'd better cut me a check," she says. "I went through so much to get this license. Now if they told me they were going to end it, I'd be really ticked off."
Updated at 1:55 p.m.

TRENTON, N.J.  Pfizer is fortifying its key immunology and inflammation drug business, snapping up a small maker of skin disorder treatments for about $5.2 billion, weeks after the U.S. Treasury Department torpedoed Pfizer's planned $160 billion deal for Allergan PLC.

Pfizer Inc.'s agreement Monday to acquire Anacor Pharmaceuticals Inc., a money-losing developer of topical skin treatments, is the biggest U.S.-based drugmaker's latest move in a yearslong struggle to accelerate growth.

Pfizer, known for Viagra and pneumonia vaccine Prevnar 13, had been counting on acquiring Dublin-based Allergan and moving its headquarters  on paper  from New York to Ireland to reduce its tax bill. However, Treasury on April 5 issued new rules governing "tax-inversion" deals, removing the financial incentives for buying Allergan.

With Palo Alto, California-based Anacor, Pfizer gains an experimental eczema treatment that could be approved by the Food and Drug Administration by next January, plus U.S. rights to topical toenail fungus treatment Kerydin and a portfolio of other drugs in early testing.

If approved, its topical eczema medicine, crisaborole, would be the first new medication type in 15 years for eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis. About 18 million to 25 million people in the U.S. have the chronic inflammatory skin disorder, which causes inflammation and itching, often in skin folds and lasting for two weeks or more. It's particularly common in infants and children.

Pfizer, which sells blockbuster Enbrel for plaque psoriasis and other immune disorders, said peak annual sales of crisaborole could reach or exceed $2 billion.

Albert Bourla, group president of Pfizer's vaccines, oncology and consumer health care businesses, called the buyout "attractive," saying in a statement that there are currently few safe topical treatments for eczema.

Anacor had only $17.5 million in revenue in the first quarter, when it lost $16.1 million.

Its shares soared 55 percent, or $35.50, to $99.53, in afternoon trading Monday. Pfizer shares rose 16 cents to $33.35.

Pfizer will pay $99.25 per Anacor share, 55 percent above its Friday closing price of $64.03.

Anacor holds rights to Kerydin, which is marketed in the U.S. by Sandoz, the generics division of Swiss drug giant Novartis AG. Pfizer said it could repurchase all Kerydin rights from Sandoz at the end of 2017.

In addition, Anacor has licensed rights to three experimental drugs it developed to other companies  agreements that would transfer to Pfizer when the acquisition closes, Pfizer said.

Credit Suisse analyst Vamil Divan wrote to investors that the deal fits Pfizer's strategy of acquiring drugs that are approved or in late-stage patient testing.

"Given the size of this transaction, we believe (Pfizer) still has plenty of firepower and we would not be surprised to see them announce additional deals in the coming months," Divan added.

Pfizer expects the transaction to add to its adjusted earnings per share starting in 2018 and increase after that. The company does not expect the acquisition to impact its current 2016 financial outlook.

Boards of both companies have approved the deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter.

Moody's Investors Service revised Pfizer's rating outlook to negative from stable, saying "the deal will reduce Pfizer's U.S. cash levels, increasing the likelihood of future debt issuance for dividend payments, share repurchases or acquisitions."
The fire was still smoking on Sunday. KIKE PARA

The huge fire that began on Friday at Spains largest tire dump was most likely started deliberately, say Civil Guard investigators.

Video footage taken shortly before the blaze at the dump, in the new town of Sesena, some 35 kilometers southwest of Madrid, shows three different fires along the side of the site.

Police sources say that despite several days of rain, which had filled many of the tires, the flames spread very quickly, suggesting that the arsonists used some kind of fuel.

Police sources say that those responsible for the blaze knew the area, accessing the dump via a side entrance that was not covered by closed circuit cameras

The video, filmed by a worker at a nearby gas station who gave the alarm at 1.30am on Friday morning, shows flames erupting in three different areas.

Burning a tire is not easy. But once it has caught fire, putting it out is very difficult, because it behaves like oil, says a Spanish fire extinction expert.

Residents watch as the tire dump burns.

Civil Guard investigators are now assuming that the arsonists used some kind of fuel such as gasoline to set afire the five million or so tires stored on the 11-hectare site, which sits close to hundreds of homes.

Police sources say that those responsible for the blaze knew the area, and accessed the dump via a side entrance that was not covered by closed-circuit cameras. How is it possible that it was pouring rain just two hours before the fire, and then this happens?, asked the mayor of Sesena, Carlos Velazquez of the Popular Party.

The problem the investigators will now face is that any evidence that might indicate how the blaze started will have been destroyed in the fire and by the tons of water poured onto it over the weekend.

During a visit on Friday afternoon to the site of the blaze, Francisco Hernando, known popularly as El Pocero, the property developer behind the huge housing development facing the tire dump, offered to pay all legal expenses of any suits brought by residents.

The town of Sesena was already notorious for a massive residential development that stood empty for years and came to symbolize the excesses of the Spanish real estate boom. Meanwhile, the tire dump was declared illegal in 2003 for failing to meet environmental requirements.

English version by Nick Lyne.
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KARACHI, Pakistan  Her hand sheathed in a black glove, Saira Nizamuddin gathered the fabric of her abaya as she stepped across an alley strewn with rocks and trash.

Nizamuddin, 19, a health worker, walked alone, the mid-morning sun pressing down on the dirt streets and soaking into the black fabric covering her from head to toe. It was better to be covered. In the past, for security reasons, police officers had followed her as she visited houses to administer the polio vaccine to children.

Now, she and 10 vaccinators, all area women, were working unguarded. The low-profile approach was meant to assuage fear among area residents that the vaccine was unsafe, forbidden by Islam or a cover for Western espionage  rumors that have given the crippling virus, eradicated nearly everywhere else in the world, a foothold in conservative Pakistan.

This is my neighborhood, Nizamuddin said. Were fine without the police.

On the third day of a weeklong anti-polio drive last month in Karachi, Nizamuddin turned left down an unmarked road. Two colleagues were waiting outside a residence. A metal gate opened slightly, and the women slipped inside.

Two hours later, however, the campaign was suspended across the city. Nizamuddin and her team were instructed to go home immediately. A few miles away, in a rough-and-tumble district called Orangi Town, seven police officers providing security for a polio team had been shot to death by gunmen riding motorcycles.

Pakistans long struggle against the disease was interrupted once again.

POLIO STRONGHOLDS

The militant violence that has claimed tens of thousands of Pakistani lives in the past decade also has stood in the way of a multibillion-dollar global campaign to wipe out what once was among the worlds most feared afflictions.

From 1988, when the world reported more than 350,000 new polio cases, the number dropped to just 74 last year: 54 in Pakistan, the rest in Afghanistan. Those are the only countries where the virus hangs on, finding sanctuary in the remote, mountainous border region and in the open sewers of hot, crowded neighborhoods in Karachi, a melting pot of 22 million-plus inhabitants.

India was declared polio-free in 2014, five years after it accounted for half the cases in the world. Nigeria, formerly a reservoir for the disease in Africa, hasnt reported a new case in nearly two years.

It feels like all the fingers are pointing at us, said Aziz Memon, chairman of Rotary Internationals PolioPlus campaign in Pakistan.

Polio invades the central nervous system, can trigger life-threatening paralysis and is easily transmitted among humans in places with poor sanitation. There is no cure, but the virus can be eliminated from a population through mass immunizations. In the United States, that has meant injecting young children with the vaccine introduced by Jonas Salk in the 1950s.

But in countries such as Pakistan, where children are more vulnerable to infections and there are fewer trained health workers, community-wide resistance to the disease has been improved with a less-expensive oral vaccine  a couple of drops on a childs tongue, administered multiple times before age 5.

Workers go door-to-door throughout the year in an effort to reach every child, a painstaking mission underwritten by international donors at a cost of $1 billion every year. The U.S. has spent more than $1.3 billion on global anti-polio efforts since 2009.

NEIGHBORHOOD TIES

But health officials and international experts think Pakistan could finally stop the spread of the disease this year. One of their reasons for optimism is people such as Nizamuddin, who is part of a new strategy to employ area women to administer the vaccine and make regular house visits in some of the highest-risk areas.

That includes her neighborhood in Gulshan, a warren of low-slung concrete blocks in eastern Karachi that is home to a large population of migrants from the Afghan border region, and the remote province of Baluchistan, both polio hotbeds. A 17-month-old boy was diagnosed with the virus here in December, the seventh case in the city last year.

Reports said the boys family had refused the vaccine. For years, Pakistani Taliban militants waged a propaganda war against the immunizations, describing them as a Western plot to sterilize Muslims and issuing a fatwa, or religious decree, against female health workers.

In 2012, militant leaders in the border area banned vaccinations in protest of U.S. drone strikes, leaving half a million children out of reach. The same year, immunization teams came under attack after it emerged that the CIA previously had enlisted a Pakistani doctor to snoop on Osama bin Ladens hideout using the cover of a fake anti-hepatitis campaign.

Attacks blamed on extremists since have killed more than 100 health workers and security forces assigned to protect them. Male vaccinators in particular were suspected as spies, making them reluctant to travel without escort.

People would ask me, Are you a real health worker or a fake one?  said Nizamuddin, who has worked on polio drives for four years. Or parents would refuse on religious grounds.

From 2012, when Pakistan recorded just 58 new polio cases  and none in Karachi  the number jumped to 306 in 2014, by far the most of any country.

Over the past two years, a security crackdown against militants in the border area and inside Karachi has allowed polio workers back into many former no-go zones. By late 2015, only about 30,000 children remained inaccessible, and transmission had slowed considerably: In the first four months of this year, Pakistan had eight new polio cases, down from 22 over the comparable period last year.

But the Global Polio Eradication Initiatives Independent Monitoring Board warned that without successful vaccination campaigns this spring, the disease would reemerge in the heat of summer.

We were very close in the last decade, said Memon, the PolioPlus campaign chairman in Pakistan. This time, we hope were not going to miss the opportunity.

MOTHERS TO MOTHERS

From the parking lot of a government health clinic in Gulshan, pairs of female health workers, covered from head to toe in headscarves and black abayas, set off into the neighborhood carrying vials of polio vaccines in unmarked thermos bottles.

Three paramilitary Rangers in drab uniforms watched from a parked pickup, then drove off to patrol the periphery of the neighborhood. The women didnt see them again for hours.

Theres no need for security, said Sikander Ali, a local health department official, who added that the presence of gun-toting police often scared residents. People view the female health workers as locals.

In the monochrome crowd, Nizamuddin, a team leader, stood out with a glittery blue headband, oversized purple watch and yellow trousers peeking out from under her abaya.

She comes from a family of polio workers. Her two elder sisters volunteered until they got married; her mother worked for eight years until she had to drop out this year because she couldnt read, and the World Health Organization sought to recruit more educated women.

She feels bad, Nizamuddin said of her mother. But she is happy that I can still help the cause.

The WHO increased funding for female health workers, who earn full-time salaries of $150 a month. Attendance and morale have improved over the earlier system, which employed part-timers, including men, whose $5 daily wages were paid by the government, and often delayed.

The men werent as dedicated, Nizamuddin said. And families used to refuse male workers. The interaction we have is totally different.

One of her team members, Nagma, a mother of four, said few families reject the immunizations now. In one case, she persuaded a reluctant mother to allow the vaccine to be given by showing her cellphone pictures of her own children, who had been vaccinated multiple times.

In more difficult cases, the women called on Surat Khan Osman, a genial local cleric with a black beard that shone like lacquer and a battered cellphone that flashed with text messages notifying him of families who declined vaccinations.

Officials say clerics have become key partners. That morning, Osman and a team of female vaccinators visited two houses where parents claimed the vaccine would cause infertility. He won them over with a copy of a 2014 fatwa from religious scholars that said the vaccine was fully permissible under Islamic law and that parents were obligated to protect their children from polio.

We are part of the community, Osman said, so people cannot refuse us.

LOWER PROFILE

The morning after last months shooting death of the officers, shaken health workers resumed the drive across the city. Rangers beefed up their presence in some areas; plainclothes security forces shadowed teams in others.

In Nizamuddins neighborhood of Sachal Goth, the women opted for an even lower profile. They avoided being seen in groups and varied their schedules. For the rest of the week, they tried to complete their rounds before lunch.

By weeks end, the teams in Sachal Goth inoculated 2,117 children  two dozen more than had been counted in a pre-campaign survey days earlier. One of Nizamuddins teams found a child whose family was visiting from outside the city and wasnt on their list, but took the opportunity to administer the polio drops because he was scheduled to be vaccinated.

The female teams are now covering nearly 40 percent of Karachis 2.2 million children younger than 5, and the initiative soon could be expanded further. International officials describe its success as part of an overall improvement in Pakistans management of the crisis.

The results are very promising, said Huma Khan, a UNICEF polio specialist who has worked in the field for seven years. It looks like were getting close to eradication. Ive never been so hopeful that this can be done.
A former airman at Scott Air Force Base pleaded guilty Monday to possession of child pornography after federal authorities found thousands of images of children on a hard drive he owned.

Many of the files possessed by Ronald W. McNair Jr., 25, were pornographic images of prepubescent children, authorities said. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison an a fine of up to $250,000.

The investigation began after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children got three tips from Microsoft saying McNair had uploaded images of suspected child pornography to a Microsoft file hosting service in March and April 2014, according to federal prosecutors.

The uploads were traced to McNair, who was stationed at Scott but lived in Belleville.

The Department of Homeland Security got a warrant to search McNair's home and found an external hard drive that contained 4,522 images and 144 videos of child pornography, prosecutors said.

Belleville police and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations also participated in the investigation.

McNair was scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 6 at the federal courthouse in Benton, Ill.
UPDATED at 5:30 p.m. with clarified statement from Chief Sam Dotson.

ST. LOUIS  A former St. Louis police officer has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder for the on-duty shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith  an incident that led to one of the largest wrongful-death settlements stemming from a police shooting in the citys history, the Post-Dispatch has learned.

Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyces office on Monday charged Jason Stockley, 35, of Houston. St. Louis police and U.S. marshals arrested Stockley on Monday at his home in the 6300 block of Chevy Chase Drive in Houston.

St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Mullen ordered Stockley held without bail. He is in custody in Harris County, Texas.

Im disappointed because I know what fine public servants the vast majority of police officers are, and this kind of conduct on the part of this former officer doesnt reflect the excellent work I see from them every day, Joyce said. So its disappointing in that regard, but its important that people understand that if you commit a crime, and we have the evidence to prove it, it doesnt matter to us what you do for a living. Our job is to hold people accountable if we have the evidence. And in this case, we do.

Dotson said Joyce's decision to charge Stockley was the "culmination of years of investigative work," in a prepared statement he issued Tuesday.

The department spent countless hours on this case, all in an effort to ascertain the true facts of what occurred on December 20, 2011," he said. "I hold my officers to the highest standards. Stockleys actions were in no way representative of the dedicated service of the men and women who serve on this department."

Dotson defined those actions as violations of the department's pursuit policy and using an unauthorized personally-owned AK47 on duty.

Stockley shot Smith, 24, in December 2011 after a suspected drug transaction and high-speed chase. State and federal prosecutors had filed no charges.

After shooting at Smiths car, Stockley and his partner, Officer Brian Bianchi, chased the victim at speeds over 80 mph. While in pursuit, the police SUV crashed, backed up and continued following Smiths vehicle.

During the chase, Stockley says, going to kill this (expletive deleted), dont you know it, according to court documents filed Monday. As Smiths car was slowing to a stop, Stockley tells Bianchi to hit him right now, at which point the driver slams the police SUV into Smiths car. Court documents did not disclose the source of the quotes.

Stockley then approached Smiths car on the drivers side and shot five times into the car, striking Smith with each shot. A gun was recovered from the victims car, but lab analysis revealed the presence of only Stockleys DNA, according to the documents.

Wrongful death

In 2013, the Board of Police Commissioners settled a federal wrongful-death lawsuit for $900,000 in connection with the shooting, according to information obtained by the Post-Dispatch.

The suit was filed on behalf of Smiths daughter, Autumn B. Smith, then 1 year old. A confidentiality agreement prevented attorney Albert Watkins from confirming the amount, but he said, Id be hard-pressed to find any other verdict or settlement that gave rise to a higher payout.

The murder charge follows a public call by activists in late April demanding that Stockley, who is white, be charged with the murder of Smith, who is black. The Post-Dispatch and activists filed requests under Missouris Sunshine Law seeking documents, video and audio evidence associated with the case.

Investigative materials regarding the shooting have been sealed under a protective order that city and state attorneys sought in 2012 as part of the settlement of the civil suit. The Post-Dispatch filed a motion in federal court Thursday to have the protective order lifted. Watkins agreed, but Attorney General Chris Kosters office, who represented the police board and Stockley in the case, has not responded.

The police board, which is now represented by the city due to a law change, said it would not oppose the Post-Dispatchs request.

Police said the events unfolded when Stockley and his partner, Bianchi, spotted Smith in a suspected drug transaction in a Churchs Chicken parking lot at Thekla Avenue and Riverview Boulevard. As the officers approached Smiths vehicle, Stockley carried his personal AK-47  a violation of department policy that forbids officers from carrying their own weapons.

Police have said that Smith allegedly reached for something inside his car and Stockley fired his department-issued Beretta when Smith drove toward the officers. No one was wounded at that point.

The pursuit began, and it ended in a crash about a mile away. Stockley said Smith reached for something, and Stockley shot him in the car. In addition to the revolver found in Smiths vehicle, police said they also found heroin.

Prosecutors pass

The shooting occurred under Chief Dan Isoms administration, and while the police department was under the states control. In 2012, Joyce said, the police department sent its investigation into Smiths shooting to her office for an informal review after U.S. Attorney Richard Callahans office declined to prosecute the case.

Isom also put Stockley on desk duty.

Callahan said that his office reviewed the case from January through

October 2012 with an FBI investigation that included some grand jury matters.

He said he then forwarded the case to the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division for a review and has not received a response.

Meanwhile, Sam Dotson became police chief. He ordered a $5,500 forensic analysis of the in-car video and audio, which became part of the investigation. While awaiting a response from the Justice Department, Dotson suspended Stockley for 30 days. Stockley resigned Aug. 16, 2013.

As of Monday, local authorities still were awaiting word from the Justice Department.

Dena Iverson, a Justice Department spokeswoman, wrote in a statement Monday, The matter remains open, and the department declines to comment further.

Activists were critical of the Justice Department during their news conference in April.

The Department of Justice has had the information on this and has not moved, the Rev. Phillip Duvall said.

Neither had Joyces office, until recently.

Dotson said he had conversations with Joyce regarding the case shortly after he became chief in 2013. Dotson declined to comment further, citing a pending investigation.

Duvall lauded Joyce in a statement Monday and said activists still want the Justice Department to look more closely at the case.

Joyce said in an interview Monday that Isoms administration never formally presented her office with the case, and that Callahans office called her prosecutors to informally review the case at the end of 2012.

The video alone is not sufficient for charges, but its very concerning, Joyce said, adding that she would not release the evidence because of the pending case.

As troubling as this case was, there was not sufficient evidence to file charges at that time, she said.

One of the first cases Joyce prosecuted was a second-degree murder charge against a former city police officer for the 1999 beating death of a burglary suspect on the roof of a pawnshop. A jury acquitted the officer, Robert Dodson.

The conviction rate on these cases nationally is 10 percent, and very rarely are they charged because of how laws are set up, and its rare to get a guilty verdict, Joyce said.

She said she had not personally seen the video until about three weeks ago, and was also unaware, until then, that forensic scientists found only Stockleys DNA on the gun recovered from Smiths car.

I feel like this case has gone as fast as it could have, Joyce said.

She said new protocols instituted by Dotson should ensure that such delays wont play out in future police shootings because the departments Force Investigation Unit consults directly with her office on every shooting.

She declined to comment on whether Stockleys partner, Bianchi, would face any charges. His attorney could not be reached for comment.

Jason Stockley

Stockley graduated from Althoff Catholic High School in Belleville in 1998, and went on to West Point. He then went on to be awarded an Army Bronze Star in combat in Iraq. He joined the police department in 2007.

An online resume shows he last worked as a regional project manager for TH Hill Associates. In that role, he worked to reduce non-productive time associated with oil drilling operations in the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

The company confirmed his employment ended Jan. 7 of this year but would not say whether he resigned or was fired.

St. Louis Police Officers Association Business Manager Jeff Roorda referred questions to Stockleys attorney, Neil Bruntrager, who could not be reached for comment.

Anthony Lamar Smith

Smiths childhood history is unclear. Activist Anthony Shahid shielded Smiths mother, Annie Smith, from interviews during the press conference in April, saying she was too emotionally distraught to talk to a reporter.

He said she believed Stockley had been in jail. Its not clear why she believed that. When she found out Stockley wasnt in jail, she asked Shahid for help, he said.

Court records show Smith had a history of unlawful use of a weapon, stealing, drug possession and driving with a revoked license. He was on probation at the time of his death for a stealing case stemming from an incident in Ferguson in 2010.

An autopsy report obtained by the Post-Dispatch showed Smith had marijuana in his system at the time of his death and had been shot multiple times.

Stockleys father, Jerry Stockley Sr., who lives in Metro East, said in a phone interview that his son graduated from Althoff, where he was a standout wrestler and football player. He said he was proud when he attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and that he served a 15-month tour in Iraq with the Army.

He didnt do this, said Jerry Stockley. He is a police officer. He stopped a criminal who challenged the law and lost. He was guilty. They cleared him last time, so why go back?

He attributed the sudden charges against his son to a change in the country, which is frightening.

Hes a very bright young man, a very, very good boy, Jerry Stockley said. I never had an ounce of trouble out of either (Jason Stockley or his older brother, Jerry Jr.). He did what was right and respects the law.

Joel Currier and Robert Patrick of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
EAST ST. LOUIS  A prison inmate who has turned a long-term grudge against authorities into two separate prison sentences has been found guilty of assaulting a deputy U.S. marshal, prosecutors said Friday.

William J. Mabie, now 55, had been brought to U.S. District Court in East St. Louis for a hearing on another case and was in the custody of the U.S. Marshals on March 12, 2015, when he spat on and rushed at a deputy, court documents say.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on the charge of assault on a federal officer June 9.

Mabie is currently scheduled to be released from federal prison in 2028 after being convicted of federal offenses in both Missouri and Illinois.

He was sentenced to more than seven years in prison in federal court in St. Louis in 2010 for mailing threats to the mother of his former boss and two prosecutors.

In 2015, he was sentenced in federal court in East St. Louis to 15 more years after being convicted of three counts of mailing a threatening communication. Mabie had sent two letters to the wife of a St. Louis police lieutenant and one to Bond County Sheriff Jeffrey Brown.

Mabie's ire has its roots in a 2007 theft. Mabie, who worked in auto body and repair and lived in Festus, felt that police did not adequately investigate the theft of what he claimed was tens of thousands of dollars worth of tools.

My office will always take swift and decisive action to deter those who think they can prey on our men and women in law enforcement," said Acting U.S. Attorney James Porter in a statement. "This verdict was especially pleasing as it occurred during National Police Week, a time when all of us should take a moment to reflect and thank the men and women of law enforcement for the tremendous job they do of keeping us all safe.
ST. LOUIS  A woman was found shot to death in the street Sunday night after a large fight near her home.

Janay Noldon, 26, was shot in the back and shoulder just after 9:30 p.m. Sunday in front of a home at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Dakota Street.

Police believe she was shot from one of two vehicles as the occupants left after an altercation at the address.

Police were first called to the area with the report of a large fight. Before officers could get there, another call came in reporting the shooting.

Noldon was found in the street and taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. She lived nearby, in the 4400 block of Pennsylvania, police said.

Homicide detectives are handling the investigation. Police did not have any suspect information.

The location is in St. Louis' Mount Pleasant neighborhood, near South Broadway and Interstate 55.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond. AFOLABI SOTUNDE (REUTERS)

Last week, an official flight carrying British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond to Gibraltar was diverted over Portuguese airspace after being denied permission to fly over Spanish territory.

Spanish diplomatic sources said that the decision to deny access was not in retaliation for the ministers visit. There are regulations in place so that no state flight in or out of Gibraltar can pass through Spanish airspace.

There are regulations in place so that no state flight in or out of the colony can pass through Spanish airspace

The measures do not apply to civil flights, but they do apply to those made by the British Air Force, which frequently performs exercises at the airport on the Rock of Gibraltar. The airport is located on an isthmus that Spain claims was never ceded in the 1784 Treaty of Utrecht that handed Gibraltar to Britain.

These restrictions also prevent aircraft and vessels departing from Gibraltar from entering a Spanish port or airport immediately after. All NATO partners are aware of them, especially Hammond, who was formerly the Secretary of State for Defence, added the same sources.

Hammonds visit, the first to Gibraltar by a British Foreign Secretary since 2009, was not well received by Madrid.

During his visit, primarily to campaign against Brexit, Hammond said London would not begin any negotiations with Spain on the future of the overseas territory without the explicit approval of the Gibraltar government. He also reaffirmed the importance of establishing a tripartite forum for regular dialogue between Britain, Spain and Gibraltar.

English version by Amanda Kelly.
UPDATED at 8:40 a.m. with order lifted.

CHESTERFIELD  A boil order has been lifted in West County.

Brian Russell, a spokesman for Missouri American Water, said the boil order was lifted at 7:45 a.m. Monday.

Residents in parts of Chesterfield and Ballwin had been asked on Sunday to boil their water before drinking. Police said the order mainly affected the areas near Schoettler, Clayton, and Baxter roads.

Russell said the problem started Saturday when the company's central plant lost power, which meant insufficient pressure could allow bacteria to grow. However, Russell said tests revealed the water was safe to drink.
WILDWOOD  A Superfund site in Wildwood has cost the Environmental Protection Agency more than $18 million in the past four decades, and now the agency is trying to start getting that site off its hands.

But city officials are looking at what they can do to stop the process until contamination at the site that even the EPA has acknowledged is cleaned up.

Wildwood and the EPA are still struggling to put to rest the legacy of Russell Bliss, an infamous waste hauler who dumped toxic waste across Eastern Missouri in the 1970s, including at the former city of Times Beach and a part of Wildwood and Ellisville called the Ellisville Superfund site.

In March, the EPA announced it is going to remove a part of the site called the Callahan subsite from its National Priorities List, essentially saying that section is no longer a safety concern.

The EPA has assured the city that it can still return to the site if contamination is discovered after it is delisted. The agency maintains that not just the Callahan property, but the entire Ellisville site has been adequately surveyed and is safe for nearby residents.

Jean Callahan, who owned the property and had hinted at an interest in having it developed into more homes, requested the delisting. Her husband, Grover Callahan, had worked for Bliss and had toxic waste drums buried near his own barn.

Its a beautiful property. Theres nothing wrong with it, said Connie Smit, the Callahan familys real estate agent. Its just city politics, is what it comes down to.

But many Wildwood officials and residents fear that adding more homes might expose more families to contamination they think still remains on the property.

At best, theres a lot of unknowns, and at worst, we know they didnt do a thorough job, said Tammy Shea, a former Wildwood councilwoman who has long researched and criticized the EPAs actions. Now, with a new term and a new mayor, Wildwood officials say theyre looking at ways, including legal action, to pressure the EPA to get the site clean beyond a doubt.

The EPA removed much of the waste drums and contaminated soil from the Ellisville site in the 1980s and 90s. Even though it was, and still is, an active Superfund site, subdivisions cropped up alongside it, with many of their residents oblivious to the fact that the site existed.

In late 2007, developer Wesley Byrne got Wildwoods approval to build a subdivision called Strecker Forest on the site. But in December of that year, a woman named Kelly Kramer convinced the City Council to reverse its decision, saying the site was still toxic and had killed her sons friends, who died young of rare cancers.

Byrne sued the city in 2008 for holding up his development. That case is still on hold. Wildwood has spent about $620,000 on litigation for Byrnes suit and to hire its own environmental consultants to investigate the site.

Since then, the EPA has returned twice to clean up hundreds of waste drums and thousands of tons of contaminated soil left after previous cleanups.

Concerns remain after cleanup

In 2012, EPA officials removed 2,056 tons of contaminated soil and drum debris that had been missed at Callahan.

That was after at least two investigations of the site  one by a firm hired by an interested developer in 1999, another by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources in 2005  had failed to conclude that there was enough contamination left to require another cleanup.

After the cleanup, an environmental consulting firm hired by the city, Mundell and Associates, outlined a list of concerns about that cleanups comprehensiveness.

For instance, the firm said the EPA only seemed to test soil near the surface, potentially missing deeper contamination that could be dug up during home construction.

The EPA has insisted the site is clean, but the city was unsatisfied with a letter the agency sent regarding that report, which officials believe was wholly unresponsive and vague.

The EPAs most recent cleanup at Ellisville was in 2014, when the agency removed contaminated soil from the Bliss property  which is separate from Callahan  and a corner of the Strecker Forest property, at a cost of $1.5 million.

The fruit of the cleanup efforts: a pinch of dioxin, a carcinogenic chemical that was associated with Bliss waste, that had the mass of two nickels. Minuscule amounts can cause severe health effects, like developmental problems and cancer.

But at the end of that 2014 cleanup, the EPA left behind dioxin in at least two spots that have concentrations up to eight times higher than levels it had deemed to be safe.

Those concentrations  7,172.86 and 3,383.55 parts per trillion  were found in a creek bed in the northeastern part of the Bliss site.

The agency wasnt supposed to leave anything higher than 820 parts per trillion within the top foot of ground surface, and no more than 2,460 parts per trillion for depths of more than a foot below the surface.

The city has taken issue with even those standards, because they are based on the assumption that people will only use that area for recreational, not residential, purposes. The city points out that several homes are within 50 feet of the site. Whitley, meanwhile, says those levels are not considered to pose a meaningful risk to health.

David Williams, an EPA engineer for the site, says that environmental covenants, essentially developer restrictions, will ensure that the part of Strecker Forest that still has dioxin wont be developed into homes.

William DeFur, an environmental consultant hired by the city, doesnt think thats enough to protect people. Theyre deed restrictions, not a fence, he said.

Do dangerous chemicals remain?

As for the two contaminated spots remaining in the creek, the EPA says it topped those areas with a couple feet of cleaner soil, but it didnt clean up that dioxin. That area was close to the edge of the Superfund site, and the EPA had to stop somewhere, Williams said.

At that point, there would be perhaps acres, if not tens of acres, of additional material wed encounter at a foot deep of dioxin, for millions of additional dollars, he said.

The Ellisville site has cost the EPA about $18.6 million to date. Spokesman Chris Whitley said the agency doesnt want to do more cleanups partly because it thinks cleanups for seemingly small amounts of dioxin are not worth the money.

You end up spending a lot of money, expending a great deal of effort, and you end up gaining not a lot of health protection at the end of the process, he said.

City officials, Wildwood residents and the environmental consultants the city hired suspect the EPA missed other dangerous contamination.

For instance, in its cleanups, the EPA didnt look for chemicals other than dioxin, assuming that if there were any other chemicals, they would be with the dioxin.

The EPA also concedes that there is groundwater contamination in the Bliss property, but says it poses no health risk.

The most recent testing, done by the Department of Natural Resources in February 2015, came up with groundwater that had a medium solvent odor, a strong sulfur/sewage odor or a turbid, gray appearance.

In 2006, the EPA presented a report that showed the groundwater had unsafe levels of volatile organic compounds, also a dangerous type of chemical, said Tom Bastian, DNR spokesman.

The contamination the department knows of is embedded in limestone and cant be removed or travel as easily as in soil, since there is little water movement in limestone, Bastian said. But Wildwood officials have wondered whether any contamination in groundwater could spread, and any contamination in the creek could eventually flow to the Missouri River.

Even after the EPA declares its done cleaning up a Superfund site, if nothing else, sites still get a federally mandated checkup by the EPA called a five-year review.

But the EPA has said there will be no five-year reviews for the Ellisville site. Neither Williams nor Whitley can explain why or produce any records of that decision, which they say was made in the 90s.

Buyers remorse

For all their distrust of the EPA, some residents still avoid discussing the site.

Wildwood, after all, is predominantly residential and known for its many-bedroomed houses, lush forests, white fences and quiet subdivisions. Some people worry that talk about toxic soil will scare away potential homebuyers and developers.

If this is mishandled, then it could actually tarnish the image of Wildwood as a whole, said Councilman Greg Stine, who has been vocal about getting the Superfund site clean.

Agents at three major real estate companies in the area say they tell every potential buyer if a house is next to the Superfund site.

JT Monschein of The Kristi and JT Monschein Team said his agents have had no problem selling in that area. He said he thinks people dont know what to believe about the site.

Robert Frisella, a real estate agent for RE/MAX, said he expects potential buyers to do their own due diligence and research things like environmental safety and crime around the home theyre considering.

I think it was an issue around five, six years ago, but I think the EPA did a bunch of stuff around there and it doesnt seem to be a concern anymore, Frisella said.

But many nearby residents say they were never told about the site before buying their homes.

I know of many individuals that have bought homes that, within weeks of moving in, discovered what the legacy of the area was and were really having buyers remorse and were just beside themselves, Stine said. Certainly nobody would intentionally buy a house right next to an active Superfund site.
The Missouri Legislatures 2016 session was chock-full of items clearly designed for elected officials to wave on the campaign stump and claim they stood up for what voters want. In other words, election-year politics weighed heavily. In many cases, bills collapsed under the weight of their own illogic and insensitivity, while others sailed through. Below, we offer our grades of major bills that dominated this newspapers attention during the session. Our overall grade: D+.

Ethics reform

D  New House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, opened the session in January vowing to pass a full slate of ethics reforms. He got the House to comply; the Senate was less interested. What passed was a better-than-nothing six-month waiting period before a lawmaker can cash in by becoming a lobbyist. Lawmakers can't serve as political consultants any more. But they can still accept unlimited gifts from lobbyists. And the most vital reform of all  limiting campaign contributions  never got a sniff.

Prescription painkiller registry

F  Missouri is the only state in the country without a prescription drug registry to help doctors and pharmacies fight the growing opioid-addiction epidemic. The Legislature ignored the dangers and rejected a registry bill, House Bill 1892. Addicts will continue to be able to doctor shop for prescriptions that feed their habits. Since opioid addicts are the biggest contributor to heroin trafficking, expect Missouri crime rates to continue their upward climb.

K-12 education funding

D  In a singularly dishonest move, the Legislature went far out of its way to make the gap in school funding disappear  not by adding the $425 million needed to bring K-12 spending up to what the Legislature's own formula says is adequate, but by declaring that the gap no longer exists. Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed SB 586, and the Legislature overrode his veto. It won't make schools any worse, but it sure won't make them  or Missouri's future  any better.

Gasoline tax

F  Missouri's roads and bridges are in terrible shape. At 17 cents per gallon, the state's motor fuel tax is the lowest in the nation. With the worldwide oil glut holding gasoline prices down, the timing was ideal to ask voters for a tax increase of 5.9 cents a gallon. Too bad. Though SB 623 passed the Senate, the House never gave it a vote. The reflexive anti-tax sentiment defies common sense. Legislators know that better roads are vital for safety and economic development.

Abortion Rights

C  Legislators tried hard to further restrict women's constitutional rights to abortions but ultimately failed. House Joint Resolution 98 would have amended the state constitution to grant personhood to unborn children. Bills attempting to further restrict the use of fetal tissue for research also failed, as did HB 1370, requiring two-parent consent for a minor to receive an abortion. The $27 billion state budget that lawmakers approved includes the defunding of Planned Parenthood by giving up $8 million in federal funds for the health care organization. Nixon has said he wants to find alternative funding sources for the 13 Planned Parenthood clinics around the state.

Utility rates

B  Ameren Missouri and the state's two other investor-owned electric utilities will have to put up with full Public Service Commission regulation for at least another year. Despite intense industry lobbying, legislators didn't let SB 1028 come to a vote in either house. The bill effectively would have tied rate increases to performance measures, reducing PSC rate-setting oversight. Our biggest concern was that this bill made it to the floor without proper vetting in committee. If it comes back next year, as we expect, the bill must receive the full and complete hearing process it didn't get this session.

Voter ID

D  Lawmakers passed a referendum, which probably will appear on the November ballot, to require Missouri voters either to show a photo ID or sign a statement confirming their identity and providing non-photo identification. In our book, nothing good comes from measures that restrict voter access to the polls or makes it harder to participate in democracy. This bill was a compromise by Republican legislators who wanted a strict voter-ID law passed, which they claim would fight voter fraud. A solution in search of a statistically nonexistent problem.

Zoo tax

A  Legislators did not approve a proposal for the St. Louis Zoo to ask voters in St. Louis city and Franklin, St. Charles, Jefferson and St. Louis counties to approve a one-eighth of a cent sales tax to generate revenue to pay for the zoo's operations and expansion. Zoo leaders did not provide a convincing case about their funding needs and circumvented vetting of their plan through the routine committee-hearing process.

Juvenile sentencing guidelines

C  By approving Senate Bill 590, the Legislature brings Missouri in line with federal court guidelines for juveniles convicted of first-degree murder. Previously, offenders under age 18 could be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole or probation eligibility  provisions that the Supreme Court has struck down as unconstitutional. The new sentencing guidelines, which include parole eligibility after 50 years' imprisonment for 16- and 17-year-olds and 35 years for kids under 16, remain way too harsh. But this is an improvement.

Stand your ground gun laws

D  Missouris gun laws dont need to be loosened any more than they already have been. With Senate Bill 656, the Legislature bowed to special-interest lobbying and approved a permitless-carry Constitutional carry provision. It also extends castle doctrine definitions to include not only householders protecting their property but anyone who is lawfully present on someone elses property and confronting someone perceived to pose a threat. The National Rifle Association might be thrilled, but we believe the bill was unnecessary and will ensure the presence of more guns and gun casualties around the state.

Police body cameras

D  The Legislature opted against Senate Bill 628, requiring cities of 100,000 or more population to equip their police officers with body cameras. We remain convinced that video recordings of encounters with members of the public would do more to protect police than harm them when accusations of abuse surface. The measure would have helped provide a visual record to protect members of the public from abusive police practices but also would have given officers a strong point of defense when they believe their conduct was correct. Lawmakers also voted to restrict public access to some police videos, which makes for even less accountability and transparency.
LONDON MARKET CLOSE: Stocks climb as Sunak wins keys to Number 10

Monday, October 24, 2022 - 17:23

Stocks took confidence from Rishi Sunak being named the new UK prime minister on Monday, amid hope that a period of haphazard and market-spooking policymaking has ended.

"Markets have signalled Rishi Sunak will be given time to deliver, with gilt yields falling and the British economy getting a tentative second chance to get back on track. But there's no getting away from the scale of the challenge that faces the new prime minister. The last few weeks have left the UK economy badly bruised, and the volatility of the pound today lays bare the huge task ahead," said AJ Bell analyst Danni Hewson.

The FTSE 100 index closed up 44.26 points, or 0.6% at 7,013.99 on Monday. The FTSE 250 ended up 131.00 points, or 0.8%, at 17,337.55. The AIM All-Share closed up 2.14 points, or 0.3%, at 787.54.

The Cboe UK 100 ended up 0.8% at 701.69, the Cboe UK 250 closed up 0.8% at 14,815.98, and the Cboe Small Companies ended up 0.8% at 12,233.81.

Sunak replaces former leadership rival Truss, who announced her resignation on Thursday last week.

Market and political turmoil overshadowed Truss's stint as PM. The pound and bond markets were pummelled last month after a poorly received mini-budget.

On Monday, however, the pound spent much of the day above the $1.13 mark, before fading back in afternoon dealings.

The pound was quoted at $1.1295 at the London equities close Monday, up from $1.1203 at the close on Friday.

Elsewhere, new figures did little to calm fears of a recession.

A survey found UK private sector output has fallen for the third straight month, fuelling fear that the country is headed for a "deep" recession.

The S&P Global/CIPS flash UK purchasing managers' index composite output measure fell to a 21-month low of 47.2 points in October, from 49.1 in September.

In the FTSE 100, Pearson ended the best blue-chip performer, ending 7.3% higher on Monday.

The London-based education publisher said its trading in the nine months to September 30 was "strong", with underlying sales up 7% year-on-year.

Looking ahead, Pearson said it is on track to deliver at least 100 million of cost efficiencies next year, and it remains on track to deliver group sales and adjusted operating profit in line with consensus expectations for 2022.

Pearson Chief Executive Officer Andy Bird said: "We believe Pearson is well positioned for the future, and we are confident of being able to navigate the challenging macroeconomic environment."

Auto Trader rose 2.0% after selling its Webzone subsidiary, which operates under the Carzone brand in the Republic of Ireland, for 30 million.

Auto Trader noted that Carzone is the second-largest automotive marketplace for Irish retailers and consumers.

The Dublin-based operation brought in revenue of 4.9 million in the year ended March 31 and operating profit of 1.3 million.

In the FTSE 250, Bank of Georgia closed up 4.0% as Chair & Chief Executive Officer Irakli Gilauri renewed his contract for two more years until the end of 2025.

Senior Independent Director David Morrison said: "Irakli has led Georgia Capital since its demerger from BGEO [Group PLC] in 2018 and during this time he has developed the company into a unique institutional investment business in Georgia."

China-focused investment firms had a rough session on Monday, with traders fretting after Xi Jinping secured a rare third term as leader of ruling Communist party in China, signalling his grip on power has no end in sight.

Fidelity China Special Situations dropped 9.8%, JPMorgan China Growth & Income fell 9.9% and Baillie Gifford China Growth Trust declined8.6%.

Investors are fearful that Xi and his allies will continue with gruelling Covid lockdowns and other policies that have punished the world's second-largest economy.

Despite these fears, China's economy grew 3.9% year-on-year in the third quarter, according to official data released Monday, beating forecasts.

Beijing last week delayed the release of the third-quarter growth figures - along with a host of other economic indicators  as the country's leaders gathered in Beijing for the five-yearly Communist Party Congress.

China had been expected to announce some of its weakest quarterly growth figures since 2020, with its economy hobbled by Covid-19 restrictions and a real estate crisis.

Nonetheless, many economists continue to think China will struggle to attain its 2022 growth target of around 5.5%, and the International Monetary Fund has lowered its GDP growth forecast to 3.2% for 2022 and 4.4% for next year.

In European equities on Monday, the CAC 40 in Paris and the DAX 40 in Frankfurt both closed up 1.6%.

The euro stood at $0.9877 at the European equities close Monday, up against $0.9802 at the same time on Friday.

Private sector output in the eurozone remained in sharp decline in October, flash data showed Monday, as energy intensive sectors are hit by higher bills.

The S&P Global flash eurozone composite purchasing managers' index fell to 47.1 points in October from 48.8 points in September.

Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JP148.82 late Monday, higher compared to JP148.03 late Friday.

Japan's services and manufacturing sectors are expected to improve in October, flash data showed, as activity and order book levels were boosted by the recent easing in international border restrictions and the launching of the Nationwide Travel Discount Programme.

The au Jibun Bank flash Japan services business activity index improved to 53.0 in October from 52.2 in September, indicating a second successive month of expansion and the strongest performance in four months.

Stocks in New York were in the green at the London equities close, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 1.2%, the S&P 500 index up 1.0%, and the Nasdaq Composite up 0.4%.

Inflation concerns and challenging demand conditions weighed on the US private sector in October, the latest flash data from S&P Global showed on Monday.

The headline flash US PMI composite output index registered 47.3 in October, down from 49.5 in September. Consensus, as cited by FXStreet, had expected a reading of 49.1.

Brent oil was quoted at $90.88 a barrel at the London equities close Monday, down from $92.84 late Friday.

Gold was quoted at $1,648.76 an ounce at the London equities close Monday, higher against $1,643.70 at the close on Friday.

In Tuesday's UK corporate calendar, HSBC will publish its third-quarter results and Whitbread will post its half-year results.

In the economic calendar, there is a US consumer confidence reading at 1400 BST after Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill speaks at 0900 BST.

Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
These are the responsibility of the editor and convey the newspaper's view on current affairs-both domestic and international

President Nicolas Maduros decision to declare a state of emergency suspending constitutional guarantees, a move that simultaneously gives him carte blanche to exercise authoritarian rule, is a serious violation of the rules of democracy. It pushes Venezuela to the brink of internal conflict, with unpredictable and possibly tragic consequences.

The use of the armed forces, which are to hold maneuvers on Saturday, is just the latest and worrying move by a leader who has fallen out of favor with the electorate, as evidenced by the legislative elections of December 6 that gave a major vote of confidence to the opposition. Maduro first refused to recognize the outcome, and then, at the insistence of the military, has since denied the legitimacy of the new, opposition-controlled National Assembly.

Maduro and his circle are not prepared to accept anything that challenges their power

The ridiculous excuse of the threat of outside military intervention in Venezuela to push through further authoritarian measures simply confirms the worst predictions about where the South American country is headed, but Maduro and his circle are not prepared to accept anything that challenges their power. Regardless of what Maduro says, nobody is about to invade Venezuela or declare economic war on it. Instead, the current situation is the result of disastrous economic policies that are converting a country rich in resources into a failed state now characterized by political repression and suicidal isolationism.

The difference between Maduro and the democratic opposition is that while the latter respects the law, the president uses it as it suits his interests. The opposition approved an amnesty on April 29 to free political prisoners (among them Leopoldo Lopez, who has been held in solitary confinement for the last two years in a military prison). Maduro has used the Supreme Court, which answers to the ruling party, to stall the measure.

The opposition has since tried to use a mechanism created by deceased former president Hugo Chavez to improve transparency: a recall referendum. On May 2, the opposition handed in a petition to the electoral commission with nine times the number of signatures required to convene a recall election to decide if Maduro should stand down. But the state of emergency decreed by the president now puts that in doubt.

Rather than listening to the calls from within and without the country to begin a serious dialogue with the opposition to facilitate a democratic transition, Maduro has instead opted to dig in and ignore the poverty that the majority of Venezuelans are trying to survive. The opposition must now resist falling into the trap of a confrontation with a regime that has shown itself prepared to take increasingly desperate measures to hold on to power.

English version by Nick Lyne.
Images of Franco and Himmler projected onto the walls of Guadamur.

A sound and light show that included the projection of giant images of General Francisco Franco alongside Nazi henchman Heinrich Himmler has been cancelled after complaints.

The images were shown as part of Lux Gothorum, a celebration of Spains Visigoth heritage staged by the local council of Guadamur, a small community some five kilometers southwest of the historic town of Toledo, in central Spain.

They were projected against the medieval walls of Guadamur as part of a spectacle staged on Saturday evening as part of an event to show how Spain recovered the treasure of Guarrazar, a collection of Visigoth gold work sold to France in the late 19th century, explained Sagrario Gutierrez, the mayor of Guadamar.

The images were shown as part of Lux Gothorum, a celebration of Spains Visigoth heritage staged by the local council of Guadamur

The treasure was returned to Spain after France capitulated to Germany in 1940 as part of negotiations between the Franco government and the Vichy regime, which ran half of France for the Germans. There was no intention to praise anybody involved in the negotiations, nor what they did, nor their governments, said Gutierrez.

I also felt bad when I saw the images, she added, explaining that the video, which has since been removed from YouTube, was made by two local residents who have helped out with similar events in the past.

The authorities in Toledo have suspended their involvement in the Visigoth heritage week until the matter is cleared up. It is not clear whether offense was caused by showing an image of General Franco, or whether by him being accompanied by Heinrich Himmler.

The Visigoths were a Germanic tribe who created an empire in what is today France, Spain and Portugal after the collapse of the Roman empire in the fourth century, until the seventh century, when the Arabs invaded and occupied much of the region.

English version by Nick Lyne.
AT the end of May, Stratford-upon-Avons Picturehouse cinema will celebrate the Bank Holiday weekend by welcoming back the annual pop-up event with an excellent line-up of films.

Following the success of previous years, the screenings will all take place in a marquee on the Riverside Lawn at Avon Boathouse, beginning from 9pm, or as soon as it becomes dark.

Celebrating 30 years since its release, they will show the 1986 classic Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer on Saturday, 28th May.

Also celebrating its 30th anniversary will be John Hughes rebellious comedy Ferris Buellers Day Off, showing on Sunday, 29th May.

On Monday, 30th May, is the classic tale of youthful defiance, Rebel Without A Cause, starring James Dean.

The facilities will open at 7pm and while cinema-goers wait for darkness and the screening, they can enjoy a drink from the pop-up bar or rent a boat from Avon Boating at a discounted rate.

Snacks, soft drinks and alcohol will be served throughout the evening. So grab your cushions, rugs and blankets, watch three wonderful evenings of films beside the River Avon.

Tickets can be booked in advance via the Picturehouse website, call 0871 902 5741, or in person on the day.

Screen Shot 2016-05-12 at 14.19.36

"WHAT more could you ask for on a Bank Holiday weekend, than to sit by the side of the river with a pint and a good film? One of the films that Im really excited about is Rebel Without a Cause, one of the most iconic, classic films that came out of Hollywood in the 1950s. One of the reasons I love this film so much is that it is still so poignant now as it was when it was released 60 odd years ago, and captures the angst of teenage life perfectly. Unfortunately, James Dean died before the release of the film, coincidentally through an incident highlighted in the film which only makes the film more evocative. If you can only make it to one of the three excellent films that we are showing, I would whole-heartedly recommend Rebel."
IBB Consulting Virtual Reality Survey: Movies And TV Have Widest Appeal Across Age Groups For Consumers Interested In VR

New report details how consumer plans regarding VR device spending, content access and interests will shape business opportunities

PHILADELPHIA( )

Interactive Broadband Consulting Group, LLC (IBB Consulting), a premier consulting firm guiding emerging business and technology innovation at the convergence of mobility, cable and broadband, and media, today published results and analysis of research into the consumer virtual reality (VR) market opportunity beyond gaming.

IBB conducted a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. online consumers that expressed an interest in VR. The research was conducted to further understand preferences around VR head-mounted displays (HMD), content, distribution and willingness to spend on devices. Key insights included:

A majority (54%) of consumers that are interested in VR think it is here to stay, not a fad.

Less than one third (31%) of people interested in VR have actually tried it.

More than three quarters (77%) say they are willing to spend on VR gear, with 18% saying theyd pay more than $250.

Overall, men expressed nearly 2x more interest in VR than females, however, this interest balanced out among middle-aged respondents (35-54).

Movies and TV had about 50% interest in almost all age groups - no other content category attracted a higher level of widespread appeal.

Men are more interested in movies and TV, live events, gaming and user-generated VR content, but women are 35% more interested than men in travel-themed VR experiences.

42% would watch virtual reality ads in exchange for free content and 38% would watch ads as long as they are cool and relevant. About one third (34%) would not watch ads.

The content distribution market is up for grabs with respondents planning to access across internet video providers (55%), gaming platforms (41%), wireless providers (29%), app stores (28%), cable or satellite providers (26%) and social networks (17%).

The full Consumer Virtual Reality Views report, available for free at www.ibbconsulting.com/insights/VRreport, leverages IBBs consumer product launch experience, convergence expertise, consumer VR research and industry predictions to offer a current perspetive on market opportunities and launch strategies. Also included is a demographic breakdown of consumers interested in VR, a review of device limitations impacting potential content rollouts, a review of viable business models and perspective on virtual realitys long-term future.

VR is on the radar of almost every mobile, cable and media client we work with and the most frequent question we get is whether this makes sense for their business right now, said Jefferson Wang, senior partner at IBB Consulting.

IBB Consulting sees an immediate opportunity to reduce the friction points involved with experiencing VR to convert those in the not interested camp. The firm advocates that ecosystem players able to leverage a retail presence will have an advantage as they can simplify getting consumers started via in-store demos, existing billing relationships, physical and online distribution, sales staff and post-sale support.

Initially, IBB predicts that the VR market winners will be companies that can break down the barriers to entry with an end-to-end play, said Wang.

Wang leads IBBs innovation and end-to-end product development for virtual reality and augmented reality offerings, which includes active work with tier-one operators, global device makers, content providers and the startup community on VR / AR rollouts that will condition the market, drive adoption and transition computing power from being held in the palm to worn on the body.

To gain insight into the consumer VR market, IBB initially surveyed 8,471 U.S. consumers during the week of April 25, 2016. Of this group, 1,025 consumers expressed an interest in virtual reality and completed the full survey, which was conducted online.

For more information, visit www.ibbconsulting.com/VRreport.

About IBB Consulting Group, LLC

Interactive Broadband Consulting Group, LLC (IBB) is a premier consulting firm serving top companies in cable and broadband, wireless / mobile, and media / content. Founded in 2001, IBBs team of senior industry experts leverages its extensive business planning, strategy and execution experience to help clients pioneer new products and services, develop innovative business models, and successfully execute business operations. IBB has worked with leading companies to conceive and grow some of the most significant strategic, marketing and operational and technology initiatives in the industry. The firm has U.S. offices in Philadelphia, and international offices in Amsterdam, Beijing and Sydney. More information about IBB is available at www.ibbconsulting.com.
The Quaker Oats Company, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, Inc., (NYSE: PEP0 today announced a voluntary recall of a small quantity of Quaker Quinoa Granola Bars after an ingredient supplier was found to have distributed sunflower kernels that may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes (L.mono). There have been no reported illnesses to date. However, Quaker is initiating the voluntary recall in an abundance of caution to protect public health.

L.mono is an organism, which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.

While the vast majority of potentially affected Quaker products were withheld from ever reaching retail shelves, the products being recalled were distributed nationwide and are as follows:

6.1 ounce boxes of Quaker Quinoa Granola Bars Chocolate Nut Medley with UPC code 10030000322410000 and Best Before Dates of: 10/16/2016, 10/17/2016

6.1 ounce boxes of Quaker Quinoa Granola Bars Yogurt, Fruit & Nut with UPC 10030000322434000 and Best Before Dates of: 10/10/2016, 10/11/2016

Pictures of the products listed above will be available on www.quakeroats.com.

At this time there are no other Quaker products involved in this situation. The company is working closely with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to further investigate this issue, but in the meantime is taking these actions out of commitment to and concern for consumers.

Consumers who have purchased either of the above products are urged to dispose of or return them to the place of purchase for a full refund. They can also direct any questions to 800-856-5781, Monday  Friday, 8:30 a.m.  6:00 p.m. (EST), or find more information at www.quakeroats.com.
Donald Trump in 1991, a time when he posed as his own spokesman. Luiz Ribeiro (AP)

Insults against women, accusations of sexual assault, along with stories of a former butlers hate campaign against Barack Obama: Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump finally goes on the defensive after a number of articles published last week dragged a few skeletons out of the closet.

Trump is not bashful about attacking women who question his authority. Since launching his presidential campaign in June 2015, he has targeted Megyn Kelly, a Fox News TV presenter, Carly Fiorina, the only female candidate in the Republican race, and Heidi Cruz, the wife of his toughest rival in the primary, Senator Ted Cruz. Trump is also famous for making fun of contestants in the Miss Universe contest he ran for a while. Now The New York Times has published an article suggesting his playboy approach to women dates back decades. The story is old news: the press has been publishing accounts of alleged sexual assaults and verbal attacks against women for years. But the picture created by the NYT story is disturbing.

Trump is not bashful about attacking women who question his authority

The New York property magnate says his ideal woman is his mother. She did not work, always understood and accommodated a husband who worked nonstop and who could disappear anytime work called. Yet Trump has appointed women in top posts within his organizations, including his ex-wife, Ivana Trump. But his treatment of them was condescending and degrading, reports the NYT. In his 1997 book The Art of the Comeback, Trump says: My big mistake with Ivana was taking her out of the role of wife and allowing her to run one of my casinos... The problem was, work was all she wanted to talk about. I will never again give a wife responsibility within my business. Trump has responded to the article via Twitter saying the NYT failed to interview any of the women he helped. Why doesn't the failing New York Times write the real story on the Clintons and women? The media is TOTALLY dishonest! he added.

Its none of your business, Trump likes to say when asked to release his income tax details. Presidential candidates traditionally publish last years return during the primaries campaign. Democratic contenders Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have already done so. Trump claims he cannot release his because he is currently being audited, a claim that has already raised a few eyebrows. And his refusal provide any information about how much tax he pays has drawn criticism, especially for a man who cites his wealth as an indication of his business savvy, a quality he believes useful in a president.

There was a time when Donald Trump was just a millionaire businessman with no political aspirations. Yet even in those days, in the 1980s and 1990s, he was making headlines over his expensive divorces. Like any good mogul, Trump has always been surrounded by a team to manage his image. But according to The Washington Post, Trump spoke to the press on several occasions while posing as one of his spokesmen, giving the names John Miller or John Barron. The Post published the recording of a 1991 phone interview with People magazine during which a man identifies himself as John Miller, though the newspaper says the voice is unmistakably Trumps. The Republican presumptive nominee has vehemently denied the claim. No, I don't know anything about it. I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice and you can imagine that. This sounds like one of these scams, Trump told NBC.

Like any wealthy man with a high opinion of himself, Trump says he could not live without a butler. Anthony Senecal served him in this capacity for 17 years. After retiring from the post, he became the in-house historian at the Trump estate, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida. Though Trump has criticized President Barack Obama harshly throughout his campaign, his former butler has managed to surpass him. The 84-year-old Senecal has repeatedly published posts on his Facebook page expressing his wish to see someone kill the president, whom he calls a zero. He admitted to Mother Jones magazine that he was indeed the author of those posts saying: I cant stand that bastard. I dont believe hes an American citizen. His boss was one of the so-called birthers who demanded that the president release his birth certificate for verification during the 2008 presidential campaign. The Secret Service has said it will investigate the case. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has distanced itself from this once faithful associate.

English version by Dyane Jean Francois.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At its annual meeting, Ann Arbor SPARK celebrated 11 years of making the Ann Arbor region an area of innovation. The event featured a keynote by University of Michigan president Dr. Mark S. Schlissel and a recap of economic development milestones in the last year.

When we look at the bigger economic picture, the signs of our progress are undeniable, said Paul Krutko, president and CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK. The creation of jobs and investment are clear indicators of growth, but the truly exciting story lies in our future potential. Collaboration around the American Center for Mobility puts us on the leading edge of automotive technology research and development. Regional business leaders have come together to imagine Ann Arbor in 2030 and are committed to making that vision a reality. Startups and established businesses alike have established roots and are growing in Ann Arbor, and SPARK will continue support their growth.

Ann Arbor SPARKs work in 2015 continued to boost the regions economy through business growth and success:

Business attraction and retention of 37 successful projects, resulting in $130 million in new investment commitments and 891 announced jobs

Assistance to 266 startups, and incubation of 77 startup companies

Ann Arbor SPARK also presented its annual chair awards:

Entrepreneurial Services Company of the Year Sakti3, which is developing advanced, all solid-state batteries to replace existing storage technology in a wide range of products. Recently acquired by Dyson, Sakti3 is committed to its workforce, and continues to expand in the Ann Arbor region. A video detailing Sakti3s successes is online: https://youtu.be/aQE67WzZCBY.

Volunteer Leader of the Year Tim Marshall, president and CEO of Bank of Ann Arbor, who was a founding member of Ann Arbor SPARK and has been a constant source of strong leadership and guidance. His commitment to the Ann Arbor regions growth has had a significant impact on our economy. A video detailing Tims volunteerism is online: https://youtu.be/Wa1s9HxnSB8.

Project of the Year First Martin winners Google Ann Arbor, LLamasoft, McKinley, and TD Ameritrade. The award celebrated First Martins development of the new Google campus on the north side of Ann Arbor, which opened up space downtown at McKinley Towne Centre for LLamasoft and TD Ameritrade. A video of the Project of the Year is online: https://youtu.be/2ZswwMy06RU.

The Comcast Virtual Business Advisor Award was presented to George Pariseau, founder of Brainstream Creative, LLC. Pariseau used the Virtual Business Advisor to completely revamp his sales and marketing efforts, including forming a strategic partnership with one of his existing clients. A video highlighting Pariseaus success with the Virtual Business Advisor is online: https://youtu.be/QDqDVXObpNc.

Ann Arbor SPARKs annual meeting was made possible through support from sponsors, including premier sponsor Comcast Business.

About Ann Arbor SPARK

Ann Arbor SPARK, a non-profit organization, is advancing the region by encouraging and supporting business acceleration, attraction and retention. The organization identifies and meets the needs of business at every stage, from start-ups to large organizations. Ann Arbor SPARK collaborates with business, academic, government, and community investor partners including the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, Washtenaw Community College, Washtenaw County, Livingston County, the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti SmartZone (LDFA), Washtenaw County /Michigan Works!, the City of Ann Arbor, Bank of Ann Arbor and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. For more information, please call (734) 761-9317 or visit www.AnnArborUSA.org.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516006426/en/

Ann Arbor SPARK

Jenn Cornell, 734-765-0174

[email protected]

Source: Ann Arbor SPARK
MESA, Ariz. (PRWEB) May 16, 2016

Author Jerry D. Walker creates a truly inspiring read in "One Mans Spiritual Journey" (published by AuthorHouse). In this beautifully written book of faith the author shows how God influenced him to lead a truly meaningful life.

"One Mans Spiritual Journey" includes a series of thoughts derived from quiet times, in scriptural study and other times of contemplation regarding God's Word and application ideals and is dedicated to his wife and lifelong companion, Mary Ellen Walker, the mother of his two children. This book shows how God's great influence on the author's life. The book was inspired by the author's many interactions with God and compels him to show people God's great wisdom and influence them to have their own personal relationship with God.

This book is a tool and a form of a personal journal to inspire the reader to evaluate and apply the contents in a way that will help to develop favor with both God and man.

"One Mans Spiritual Journey"

By Jerry D. Walker

Hardcover | 6x9 in | 222 pages | ISBN 9781504982528

Softcover | 6x9 in | 222 pages | ISBN9781504982511

E-Book | 222 pages | ISBN 9781504982504

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author

Jerry D. Walker was in the US Navy 28 and a half years serving as a combat medic (navy corpsman) in Vietnam and public health officer in Kurdish Iraq and has participated in ministries in several countries. He served as the public health educator for the Gila River Indian Reservation and as a member of the Maricopa County Community College governing board and as a chaplain in clinical settings for hospitalized patients and community ministries. His academic achievements include undergraduate degrees in environmental health, sociology and psychology; master's degrees in counseling/psychology at the University of Central Arkansas; and Christian education. He was blessed with being able to leave the seeds for three churches in Kurdish Iraq and has been involved in ministries in both the Conservative and Southern Baptist churches. His education in Christian ministries includes training with the navigators and master's work at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, completing the Master of Arts in Christian education.

AuthorHouse, an Author Solutions, Inc. self-publishing imprint, is a leading provider of book publishing, marketing, and bookselling services for authors around the globe and offers the industry's only suite of Hollywood book-to-film services. Committed to providing the highest level of customer service, AuthorHouse assigns each author personal publishing and marketing consultants who provide guidance throughout the process. Headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, AuthorHouse celebrated 15 years of service to authors in Sept. 2011.For more information or to publish a book visit authorhouse.com or call 1-888-519-5121. For the latest, follow @authorhouse on Twitter.

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/OneMansSpiritualJourney/JerryDWalker/prweb13416757.htm
A customer counts Chinese Yuan banknotes as she purchases vegetables at a market in Beijing, China, May 9, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's economy will operate within a reasonable range in the near term which will fundamentally help stabilize cross border capital flows, the country's foreign exchange regulator said on Monday.

Capital outflow pressure eased in April, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said in a statement on its website.

Earlier on Monday, data showed China's commercial banks sold $23.7 billion of foreign exchange in April, down from net sales of $36.4 billion in March.

The drop showed that domestic companies were paying their foreign debts at a slower pace, SAFE said in a statement, adding that companies were less willing to hold foreign exchange in April.

(Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish court sentenced on Monday a 61-year-old man to life in prison for genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the second such case brought by the Nordic country over crimes during the conflict.

The Stockholm District Court said Claver Berinkindi, a Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda, was convicted of genocide and gross crime under international law consisting of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping in Rwanda.

"This relates to participation in a large number of massacres during the 1994 genocide where the defendant had an informal role as a leader," the court said in a statement.

Under Swedish law, courts can try Swedish citizens and other nationals for crimes committed abroad.

The court said fifteen crime victims had been awarded damages ranging from 3 million Rwandan francs ($3,781) to 10 million francs ($12,602). It was the first time a Swedish court had awarded damages to victims of genocide.

An estimated 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi ethnic minority but also moderates of the ethnic group Hutu, were killed by Hutus over three months in 1994 after years of civil war. The massacres raised questions about the ability or will of international organizations or states to intervene to halt mass killings of civilians.

According to the Stockholm court verdict, Berinkindi, who arrived in Sweden in 2002 and became a Swedish citizen in 2012, was convicted in absentia of genocide-related crimes by a Rwandan Gacaca community court in 2007.

He was charged in Sweden in September 2015.

The district court ruling can be appealed.

A number of Rwandan genocide-related crimes have been tried in recent years in Rwanda and other countries.

In 2013, a Swedish court sentenced another man to life in prison for genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It was the first time a person in Sweden had been convicted of genocide.

Last month, a Rwandan court handed a life sentence to a former senior politician for hate speech aimed at stirring up killings of Tutsis during the genocide.

($1 = 793.5000 Rwandan francs)

(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom; editing by Ralph Boulton)
Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyod

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans who travel to North Korea despite ongoing warnings risk "unduly harsh sentences" for actions that would not be considered a crime in the United States, the U.S. State Department said in its latest travel warning on Monday.

The department, in a detailed warning against such travel, cautioned that at least 14 U.S. citizens have been detained in North Korea in the past 10 years and that American travelers should be aware that possessing any media criticizing the country could considered a crime.

Its strong advice came after two Americans were sentenced in recent weeks in North Korea and when international tensions are increasingly high with the reclusive country over its nuclear weapons program.

Last month, North Korea's Supreme Court sentenced Korean-American Kim Dong Chul, 62, to 10 years hard labor after he admitted to committing "unpardonable espionage" including stealing military secrets, according to North Korean media.

American student Otto Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, North Korean media reported.

Washington has condemned the punishments, saying North Korea is using U.S. citizens to push its own political agenda. In the past, North Korea has used detained Americans to push for high-profile visits from the United States, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.

U.S. officials have long warned Americans against traveling to North Korea, and on Monday it outlined a dozen specific actions that "whether done knowingly or unknowingly - 'have been treated as crimes" in an attempt to further caution travelers.

Showing disrespect toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un or former leaders, criticizing the government, having an unauthorized interaction with residents, taking unapproved photographs and shopping at certain stores have all been considered crimes, the department said.

Americans traveling there should not expect protection from tour groups or guides or have expectation of privacy, it added.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Megan Cassella; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
Former MediaWorks and NZX CEO Mark Weldon, leaves the Wellington High Court during the lunch time adjournment.

Mark Weldon has begun outlining the troubled acquisition of an Australian grain trading business, denying he was told it needed at least $5 million to prosper.

Describing himself as the operator of a Central Otago wine business along with his wife, and with an increasingly hoarse voice because of the flu, Weldon spent most of Monday in the witness box of the Wellington High Court.

His evidence could last most of this week.

The former Olympian, who quit as chief executive of MediaWorks earlier in May, is a central figure in a long running court battle between Wellington-headquartered NZX and Ralec, the former owners of the Clear Grain Exchange.

READ MORE: NZX Ralec grain firm battle finally in court

Weldon headed the NZX for a decade until 2012, and led the bourse's purchase of Melbourne-based Clear in 2009, a deal which subsequently went sour.

In what is expected to be a nine-week trial, NZX is suing Ralec claiming they misrepresented Clear's position in the Australian grain market, leading to a loss of earnings.

Meanwhile Ralec is suing NZX, claiming it failed to properly resource the business, torpedoing its chances of growing to the point where NZX would be liable for A$14 million (NZ$15.1m) in performance target payments.

Both sides are seeking more than $20m from the other, while Ralec successfully applied for Weldon to personally be added as a party to the proceedings, alongside his former employer.

At the start of the third week of the proceedings, but the first time he has been in court, Weldon began delivering his brief of evidence, with questioning from his lawyer, Alan Galbraith QC.

Weldon told Justice Robert Dobson that the purchase of Clear was part of a strategy for NZX to develop a speciality in soft commodity trading, which has dubbed "Agri Bloomberg".

Because Ralec had a limited trading history, Weldon said NZX was aware it would be reliant on the information provided to it, but was given confidence because of claims about Ralec's relationships with the Australian grain industry, which had recently been deregulated.

Describing an early meeting with Ralec's director's, former AFL coach Grant Thomas and IT specialist Dominic Pym, Weldon said he had "no recollection" of being told it needed a cash injection of $5m.

Throughout 2009, NZX and Clear developed an agreement where Ralec would be entitled to millions more than the initial sales process if they achieved 1.5 million tonnes of volume in the first year.

According to Weldon, Thomas told him the target was a "conservative estimate which was likely to be exceeded."

Initially NZX had been attracted to Ralec because of the strength of the relationship with Grain Corp, a major grain bulk handler, but Weldon later learned that traders at the business were opposed to using the electronic platform, preferring direct contact with growers.

"We were absolutely not told of any opposition to Clear from Grain Corp," Weldon said.

Ralec has earlier argued that NZX relied on its own large due diligence team's assessment of Clear, rather than representations from its former shareholders. It claims NZX failed to properly resource the business, meaning it did not perform as it could have.

Weldon claimed ahead of the acquisition closing there had been no plans for added capital expenditure, at Clear, with its former directors insisting the platform was scalable without increasing costs.

Tim North QC, Ralec's lead counsel, is expected to begin cross examining Weldon on Tuesday, once his evidence is concluded.
Amber and Victor Vito share their food philosophy and what it takes to fuel an All Black.

All Black Victor Vito and his wife Amber are raising their son with the same food philosophy they subscribe to - everything in moderation.

Professional sportspeople are human too, and like the rest of us they indulge every now and again but Amber Vito says it's all about balance.

"Health's important to us but we also have a philosophy of everything in moderation," she says.

ROBERT KITCHIN/FAIRFAX NZ All Black Victor Vito and his wife Amber are looking forward to making a new home for themselves in France - where Vito has signed a deal with rugby club La Rochelle.

The Wellington couple's 17-month-old son Karlos is a foodie.

READ MORE:

* All Black wives launch new cooking book

* Victor Vito to join French club La Rochelle after Super Rugby season

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* Oh, oh ladies - Vito's off the market

* The coolest kitchen products on the planet

He loves being in the kitchen, hiding cooking utensils in his play tent and he eats whatever his parents eat.

ROBERT KITCHIN/FAIRFAX NZ The pair subscribe to the food philosophy "everything in moderation", something they're putting into practice with their 17-month-old son Karlos.

"I always said I don't want fussy children," Amber says.

"He has to eat what we eat. Basically I prepare a meal that we all eat."

The Vitos have taught their son to eat what's put in front of him by giving him his vegetables first and rewarding him with the meat and other yummy things once he's tried the healthy stuff.

Victor says they don't want to be uptight about what they feed their son.

"At the same time we are health conscious because we know better now.

"I think that's just the difference between the generations passed and now. We just know better, it'd kind of be silly of us not to use that to our advantage and make sure that we're giving the best start to our boy."

Usually the only difference between what he and his son eat is the quantity, Victor says.

Dinner time is family time for the Vitos - when Victor gets home from rugby he and Amber take turns cooking and looking after Karlos.

A very special @allblacks captains run! @victorvito1103  #allblacks #bledisloe #family A photo posted by Amber Rose Vito (@realrosy) on Aug 13, 2015 at 9:11pm PDT

Amber, a lover of food and cooking, used to do most of the cooking in the house but Victor has upped his game in the kitchen - and even cooked a risotto when we visited him at his Wellington home on Monday.

The pair, who were made available as part of their new deal representing Thermomix in NZ, say the new-age kitchen appliance has helped them cut down cooking time while still creating healthy, tasty meals.

Mmm delicious pizza recipe is up now on The Rugby Pantry (check it out on FB!)  A photo posted by Amber Rose Vito (@realrosy) on May 28, 2014 at 3:58am PDT

The growing family has a lot of favourite dishes, from Moroccan lamb stew to beetroot salad, but both Victor and Amber love to give a nod to their cultures in their cooking.

Amber's family is Maltese and Victor's parents are Samoan so the couple enjoy incorporating traditional dishes into their everyday cuisine.

Victor's favourite is koko alaisa, a chocolate rice pudding and Amber likes the Samoan raw fish salad Oka - a recipe she learned from Victor's mum.

"That's the thing, all your food understanding is from your cultural experiences and things like that. So we're going to be open to a whole new world in France," Amber says.

Ice cream buddies 4 life  #truelove #happy A photo posted by Amber Rose Vito (@realrosy) on Nov 30, 2013 at 6:11pm PST

While the couple aren't so sure about the snails and frogs awaiting them on the other side of the world when Victor takes up his contract with French club La Rochelle, they're looking forward to embracing the local cuisine.

A hearty serving of wine, cheese and fresh pastries is already on the menu.

It was this love of wine and cheese that led to Amber's bond with Israel Dagg's wife Daisy Aitken.

The pair released the cookbook The Rugby Pantry last year and Amber says another cookbook, with a bit of a French influence, could be on the cards.

The move to La Rochelle will be Victor's first time living away from Wellington, and while he's a bit nervous about the change, the family is looking forward to putting down roots in a new part of the world as the couple prepare to welcome their second child.
Dark skies hang over Wellington on Monday evening, as a storm moves up the country.

Ominous skies are hovering over the capital as dark weather shoots up the country.

Flights delayed in and out of Wellington Airport were due to weather affecting other parts of the country, an airport spokesman said.

"The delays aren't due to the weather in Wellington, they're due to the weather everywhere else," he said.

Many incoming flights either side of 5pm from Nelson, Picton and Blenheim had been delayed due to foul weather at takeoff, he said.

Time between lightning and thunder in seconds x 3 = Distance in km. Dark skies over Welly ^TA pic.twitter.com/6idGz3g8r9  MetService (@MetService) May 16, 2016

READ MORE: Wet and windy with a cold southerly on the way

Departing flights to Auckland, Nelson, Christchurch, Napier, Blenheim and Christchurch between 3.55pm and 4.35pm had been delayed.

Many others scheduled departing flights including those to Auckland, Rotorua, Blenheim and Tauranga have been delayed.

No flights had been cancelled, to his knowledge.

According to MetService, the thunderstorms have passed Wellington and are moving toward Taranaki.

A severe weather warning remains in place for the Tararua range tonight, where up to 100mm of rain could fall in the 12 hours from 3pm on Monday.

Peak intensities could reach 30mm an hour on Monday night and early Tuesday morning, with thunderstorms possible.

This amount of rain will cause rivers and streams that are already high in the area to rise rapidly. It may cause slips and make conditions dangerous for trampers.

No ferry services from Bluebridge or the Interislander have been affected at this stage.
Waikato DHB has launched a virtual app which allows patients to chat with their doctor via a video link.

No longer will hospital patients need to travel five hours to see doctors to have them say everything is fine, see you again in three months.

In fact, they no longer need to change from their pyjamas or take a day off work, thanks to an app launched by the Waikato District Health Board.

HealthTap can be downloaded on to any smart phone and allows patients to video conference their doctor for what would otherwise be an outpatient appointment at Waikato Hospital.

GEORGE HEARD/FAIRFAX NZ Damian Tomic demonstrates how the app is used.

Doctors from Waikato, Te Kuiti, Tokoroa, Thames and Taumarunui hospitals will be signing up to use the app and there are ongoing talks with general practitioners about how the app can be used in primary care.

READ MORE:

* The future of health care in the Waikato is virtual health

* Questions raised about rural health services

Waikato DHB chief executive Nigel Murray said 60 per cent of the DHB's population lives rurally, so virtual care is important.

"Everybody has a smartphone and we want to take advantage of that technology, where we can talk to patients, they can ask questions and get health advice. Even our community units can advise patients directly - they don't have to come and see us," Murray said.

"We get lots of complaints about people having to travel to see us. Sometimes we bring people all the way here just to tell them that everything is fine and they can go back home now.

"While the patient is delighted everything is fine, they've just spent three or five hours getting here plus waiting in the waiting room. So we can beam into people's living rooms, we can help people on their work breaks. It's far more consumer oriented."

Director of Primary and Integrated Care and GP Damian Tomic said instead of "doctor Google", people can use the app to get health information and instant access to their medical notes.

"We get daily calls from our population - they're worried about shellfish, can they eat it? They're worried about whether there's fluoride in the water, should there be? Or they can get access to the latest measles information," Tomic said.

"The other exciting bit for me as a GP is that I spend a lot of my time putting reasonably simple plans together for my patients.The evidence shows only a third will follow what I want them to do, but through our technology we can send patients reminders and checklists, we can ask them if they've taken their night-time medication, because some of our population really need that support."

Residents can sign up to the service from June 1 by taking a photo ID along to the inquiry desk at Waikato,Thames, Te Kuiti, Tokoroa or Taumarunui hospitals. To be eligible, people need to be over the age of 18 and be covered by the Waikato District Health Board services.

The Virtual DHB will be onsite at the Fieldays event at Mystery Creek from 15 to 18 June. Eligible people who bring their ID will be able to sign up to the service to be in to win a free Samsung tablet, courtesy of Spark. There will also be opportunities to talk to a doctor over a video chat on the day.
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Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

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There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

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Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments

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Some of the ceramics found by Seabed Explorations on whatis believed to be the oldest shipwreck ever found in Southeast Asia.

A treasure hunter has lost his appeal against paying nearly $100,000 owed after he and his wife defaulted on their mortgage.

Tilman Walterfang, whose company Seabed Explorations has discovered, desalinated and sold off millions of dollars worth of ancient artefacts, appealed against a Nelson District Court decision which held the Walterfangs liable for outstanding debt on the couple's Nelson properties.

Westpac sold two adjoining Princes Drive properties owned by the Walterfangs for $1.2 million in December 2014 after they failed to meet their mortgage repayments.

After the sales the Walterfangs were left owing $95,917.89 to Westpac, an amount they have since disputed in court.

Their lawyer, Philip Bellamy, said Westpac should not have accepted an offer of $1.2m for the two properties when its own valuers had recently indicated the properties' worth was closer to $1.4m.

In the Nelson District Court case last August, Judge Chris Tuohy found there was "nothing which might support a claim that Westpac breached its duty" under the Property Law Act (2007) to pursue the best price reasonably obtainable at the time of sale.

Justice Collins upheld that decision in the High Court last Friday, ordering the Walterfangs to pay Westpac $99,917.89.

The Walterfangs argued that the bank had not taken reasonable care to obtain the best price for the properties. Through their lawyer they argued that Westpac should have at least made a counter-offer to the purchasers on the $1.2m price for the properties, particularly when the updated valuation was taken into account.

However, Justice Collins said the evidence demonstrated Westpac accepted the highest offer made for the properties after an extensive period of marketing.

He said there was no evidence the eventual buyers were "bluffing" when they said $1.2m was their final offer.

"The reality facing Westpac was that it had to either accept the offer or risk losing the prospect of selling the property for $1.2 million," the judge said.

Tilman Walterfang financed the discovery and excavation of three shipwrecks in Indonesian waters between 1997 and 1998 through Seabed Explorations.

These included a 9th Century Arab ship, the Batu Hitam, on which 60,000 ceramics, coins and glasswares known internationally as the "Tang treasure" were found.

Seabed Explorations paid the Indonesian government about NZ$5.47m for a share of the treasure in 2003.

German newspaper Der Speigel reported in 2005 that Walterfang sold most of the recovered ceramics in his possession to the Singapore government for NZ$51m, sending gold pieces to his German homeland and the remaining ceramics to Nelson.
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Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

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Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

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There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

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The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces

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STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN

This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan

Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments

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A new lease of life but a heavy burden too Dr. Maithrie M. Rajapakse who underwent a kidney transplant four years ago writes on the socio-economic problems faced by a majority of patients in Sri Lanka View(s): View(s):

The main function of the kidney is to remove most of the waste products and the excess water from the body. Helping to produce haemoglobin which is essential to carry oxygen in the body is another of its important functions.

When the kidneys fail and an individual cannot maintain life, it is called End Stage Renal Failure (ESRF). The treatment modalities of ESRF is either Dialysis or Renal Transpant. Dialysis is removal of waste products and excess water from the patients body which can be done in two ways.

One method is by connecting a main blood vessel of the body to a machine which removes the waste products from the body and the purified blood is returned to the body through a tubing system. This method is called Haemodialysis. The other method is to remove the waste products from the lining of the abdominal cavity referred to as the peritoneum and this method is thus known as Peritoneal Dialysis. Both these methods have specific complications and limitations and can be uncomfortable and intrusive to the patients.These procedures need to be carried out throughout life a few times a week and it limits the mobility of these patients.

Transplant surgery may be the ideal treatment modality from the quality of life point of view but it too carries many risks and limitations and the patients have to take many precautions through-out life once surgery is performed.

I am a retired Consultant Anaesthetist who underwent kidney transplant surgery four years ago and have come to appreciate the social and economical implications this surgery has on patients and their relatives especially in their day-to-day life.

I realised that these problems pose a challenge for those who have no adequate resources, the means, and the know-how to overcome these problems. This prompted me to speak to over 100 patients attending the post transplant clinic in the Nephrology Unit of the General Hospital Kandy, a majority of whom were from the lower income group. The purpose of this survey is to find out the problems faced by these patients and to identify ways to help them with via Goverment, private organisations or through individuals willing to help.

Following are some of the problems that surfaced during the survey.

Finding a kidney:

The first and most crucial hurdle is finding a kidney for transplantation. It is not finding a kidney but finding a compatible one that is difficult. Ideally a kidney from a blood relation is the best but some patients do not have relatives who could donate or they may not be compatible. As regards compatibility, a donor kidney from a close relative such as a parent or a sibling is the ideal. Yet this carries surgical risks on two members of the same family which can be an additional burden on the family. Sometimes the donors may be friends or unknown people but this is at a huge cost and the financial burden is beyond some patients. Buddhist priests come forward to donate kidneys to fulfil what is called Paramitha which is a kind of donation and a sacrifice they make during their life. However this trend has significantly decreased due to the declining number of Buddhist priests and the increased number of patients seeking transplants.

My story and my hope I underwent renal transplant surgery four years ago receiving a compatible kidney from my own brother without any financial involvement. Out of 20 or more donors that I tested, my brother was the most compatible donor. Despite his ripe old age and the doubts as to how long the kidney would work it has lasted four and a half years and is serving me well. My surgery was conducted in Colombo as most of my family members live there.The post-operative period was spent with my brother who lived very close to hospital and I was able to attend the clinic regularly. At present I am being treated efficiently and promptly when I attend the transplant clinic in Kandy. My desire is to highlight the socio-economic problems of my fellow transplant patients so that there would be a greater public awareness and support to help the victims of this rapidly spreading deadly disease.

Another source of donor kidneys are from patients who are on life support, and are thought to be brain dead while the rest of the organs remain healthy. This situation is seen for example after road traffic accidents where the patients brain is critically injured and permanently damaged.They are kept alive by means of artificial methods in Intensive Care Units. In order to obtain kidneys from such patients a streamlined pre-arranged programme should be made available between major hospitals.

It would be sensible to develop and maintain a central station  A Kidney Bank where there can be clear records of those needing urgent transplants and a list of willing donors. An attempt was made by a dedicated individual to organise such a facility in the past but it could not succeed due to various obstacles in our administrative system. For cadaver transplants there needs to be a way of coordinating between the major hospitals and the transplant centres when a cadaveric organ is available. A mode for rapid transport of the responsible teams should be made available.

Laboratory tests:

Medical laboratories in major goverment hospitals where renal transplants are carried out have the staff and equipment needed to deal with most of the investigations needed both before and after transplant surgery. A special test called Human Leucocyte Anigen (HLA) essential to find a matching donor is available only at the National Blood Bank in Colombo. This trip to Colombo by the donors as well as the recipient from out stations is expensive and exhausting and may have to be repeated a few times by the recipient with each of the new donors.

*Establish and develop the laboratories in transplant centres like Kandy to carry out advanced tests like HLA etc.

Immediate post operative period

After transplant surgery it is crucial that the patient is followed up very closely by the doctors concerned. They are seen by doctors approximately twice a week during the first three months. This vigilance is important to detect and prevent major complications such as rejection of the new kidney, infections, bleeding or any other complications. When patients from outstations other than Kandy undergo surgery it is not easy nor advisable for them to travel long distances so often to visit clinics.They cannot reach the hospital on time in case of emergencies.

It is also exhausting and expensive and they run the risk of being exposed to infections as most use public transport.Therefore these patients make alternate arrangements to stay close to the hospital. Some fortunately have relatives in close proximity to the hospital and are able to stay with them. Others who cannot find such places are compelled to rent a room or a house nearby. The rental for a house varies from Rs. 5000 to Rs. 20,000 per month. The total cost for house rent plus other expenses such as for food, blood tests, travelling etc add up to a few lakhs of rupees during their stay. Another factor is the uncertainty of the cleanliness and hygienic state of these rented dwellings.

These financial demands are difficult for poor patients and they are obliged to either borrow or sell their belongings, businesses and/or land to find the money. Often they are helped by their relatives, friends and well wishers. A common method they employ to find money is to sell tickets in public places. But I realised that the money they earn in this way is very little.

********

The management of the Kandy hospital with the help of The Kandy Kidney Protection Society is planning to build a ward so that these deserving patients can find accommodation during the immediate post operative period. The foundation stone for this building was laid by the Director of the Kandy hospital on March 10, which is International Kidney Day. This building which is being built close to the hospital will serve as a clean, safe hostel for these patients to stay. It will also provide overnight accommodation for those patients coming for dialysis from distant places. I truly hope this building will come up soon. Until then these patients need financial support.

Loss of employment and income

Some of these patients such as farmers, masons and construction workers, work in environments which expose them to infections. It is a risk for them to continue in that type of environment after transplant surgery and they should try to find employment indoors. I gathered from my study that most of them have secured indoor work and some have commenced their own small scale businesses.The younger patients with the know-how have become computer shop owners or repairers. Those who did indoor jobs such as clerks and teachers continue in their same posts.There are others who depend entirely on their children or parents to look after them.

It would be useful if a self-employment scheme can be organised for deserving patients.

Interruption of education

School-going children and University students face the additional, crucial problem of interruption of their education. In such situations some students have had to postpone exams while others have changed the study course to a less strenuous one. It is encouraging to observe that most have developed the courage and mental strength to continue their studies even under these trying conditions. Those university students who have postponed their exams have later completed the course and obtained their degrees. It is not easy for a post transplant patient to live an undergraduates life in this country due to the difficulties of transport,unhealthy accommodation and exposure to large crowds in the lecture halls. School children were not included in this survey.

The Kandy Kidney Protection Society The Kandy Kidney Protection Society is a voluntary organisation affliated to the Kidney transplant unit of the General Hospital (Teaching) of Kandy. It carries out a number of welfare activities for the benefit of patients with renal diseases. This organisation is given support and cooperation by the Director of the hospital. Information about the Kandy Kidney Protection Society is available from 081-3993003,or email: kidneysociety@gmail.com

******Provide special facilities for transport, accomodation and special classes.They need encouragement and psychological support.This I was able to provide to a certain extent for those who needed it when speaking to them.

Transport difficulties

Patients travelling from distant places like Badulla, Puttalam, Wellawaya, Embilipitiya etc have to start the journey to Kandy in the wee hours of the morning around 4 a.m. It is a long, exhausting journey by public transport. They need to arrive early to complete the blood tests, consult the doctor and obtain their medications during clinic hours which are from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. It is a tiring process for these patients as they have to return home on the same day. To avoid delays or disappointments some patients arrive the day before and sleep on the cement floors of the corridors of the hospital undergoing many hardships.

**********One important step is to improve and establish Nephrology units in the major outstation hospitals.Appointing Nephrologists and trained staff members too is a necessity. Facilities such as laboratories and drug supplies to these new units is another important requirement. It should be the long term plan and already arrangements are being made to open Nephrology units in most of the major hospitals.

Drug supply

The anti-rejection drugs given to these patients after surgery have to be continued without interruption throughout life. At certain times the drugs do not arrive on time due to the breakdown of the supply line. In such situations it is difficult for the pharmacies to issue the full supply of drugs for one month. When drugs are in short supply the patients have to buy the drugs from private pharmacies, and this is expensive. The price of drugs that need to be taken regularly varies from Rs. 100 to Rs 200 per tablet or even more and these patients need to take about three or two tablets of each of the drugs per day. This is too much of a financial burden for most of the patients.

The solution for this shortage is to regularise the drug supply. At the moment the drug supply is somewhat satisfactory.When the drugs are in short supply arrangement should be made to provide financial assistance for the patients to buy the drugs.

Financial assistance by the state

The Goverment has passed legislation to provide financial help to the patients who have undergone transplant surgery. Each of the deserving patients was to receive Rs. 3000 per month but this aid does not reach most of the patients for reasons unknown. It is given by the local Pradeshiya sabha and needs further attention by the Govt. The Social Department too offers some financial assistance but the amount is very small.

Married life

It was observed in my survey that males who had transplants got married and had children, but females showed some reluctance to get married. Those who were already married were hesitant to bear children.

**********These patients need counselling and advice by trained counsellors, Obstetricians and Nephrologists.

Mental status of patients

The other factor that I observed was that these patients are under mental stress as they develop complications, face financial difficulties and some are worried about the uncertainty of their future.

These are some of the problems that I observed when talking to these patients. My interest is to highlight the socio-economic problems faced by patients who have undergone kidney transplant surgery.

The transplant unit of Kandy hospital performs about 75 to 100 transplants per year and the number of patients attending the Nephrology clinics per day is over 100 and four or more clinics are held per week.

Despite the shortcomings in our hospital system, the nursing staff and the doctors in the Nephrology Clinic Kandy are doing an excellent job by attending to the ever-increasing number of patients efficiently. Most patients that I spoke to are very happy and satisfied with the service they receive.
Tauranga is under threat from the formerly seismically sleepy Waikato, according to new research.

The region has been moved into the front row of major earthquake threats because of new research indicating the Hauraki Plains will get an earthquake as big as Christchurchs  sometime in the next few thousand years.
Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce today announced $15 million of additional funding over four years for two schemes that speed up the commercialisation of new clever technologies developed by scientists and entrepreneurs around New Zealand.

Encouraging the development of new export-oriented high-tech businesses is a key part of the innovation stream of the Governments Business Growth Agenda, Mr Joyce says.

We are seeing hundreds of very savvy hi-tech companies from New Zealand now competing and succeeding on the world stage. These programmes are all about filling the pipeline with the next generation of quality kiwi start-ups.

Funding for the Pre-Seed Accelerator Fund will increase by $12 million over four years, taking the Governments total investment through the scheme to $8.3 million per year.

In addition, funding for the development of new Accelerator programmes will be extended following the schemes initial three-year pilot, with new investment of $3 million over the next four years. Both initiatives will form part of Governments investment in the Business Growth Agenda in Budget 2016.

The Pre-Seed Accelerator Fund supports innovative scientists to turn the results of their cutting-edge research into commercially viable products and businesses.

A recent evaluation estimated that Pre-Seed projects have so far generated $188.2 million in revenue, have resulted in many new companies being formed, and have the potential to generate export revenues of up to $3 billion.

Making the most of some of the excellent ideas that emerge every day from our scientists and researchers is vital for growing a more high-tech, diverse New Zealand economy. The Pre-Seed fund is one important way of helping that transition, and one which will help generate really high returns for the country.

Callaghan Innovations Accelerator Programme is one of a suite of services to support start-up companies to be investment ready.

The pilot programme has supported the rapid formation of early stage digital technology start-ups and is typically run over three months.

Of the 38 teams that completed the first four Accelerator programmes, run by Lightning Lab, 18 have so far secured a total of more than $8 million in private investment following the programmes investment events.

After seeing positive results from the pilot Accelerator programmes over the last three years, I am pleased to announce that we have decided to extend the funding, Mr Joyce says.

These programmes help entrepreneurs develop innovative companies more quickly and fast-track their business ideas.

High growth start-ups are key contributors to the Governments goals for growing business R&D and exports and making the most of the digital economy.

The New Zealand economy is rapidly becoming more diverse and more focused on hi-tech innovation. Mr Joyce says. Our software industry, for example, is growing at 9 per cent a year, with exports growing at 14 per cent annually.

Last month Statistics New Zealand released their 2015 Business Operations Survey, showing that business spending on R&D grew by more than 15 per cent in one year, from $1.25 billion in 2014, to $1.44 billion last year.

Also last month, the Angel Association reported that angel investors had invested a record $61.2 million into 94 New Zealand start-ups in 2015  a 9 per cent increase on the previous record set in 2014.

More information on the Pre-Seed Accelerator Fund is available here.

More information about the Accelerator programme is available here.

Source: Office of Steven Joyce.
Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited today confirmed it will pay part of its forecast final dividend earlier, to support farmers during a time of extremely tight on-farm cash flows.

Chairman John Wilson says a solid performance during the nine months to April 30 in the current financial year enables the Co-operative to declare the 10 cents per share dividend today.
UPDATED: Mobil Oil New Zealand has been fined $288,000 for an oil spill in the Tauranga Harbour last year.

Representatives of the company appeared in Tauranga District Court today for the companys sentencing after it pleaded guilty on December 22 to spilling about 1.5 tonnes of heavy fuel oil into Tauranga Harbour on April 27, 2015.

A reporter in court says 90 per cent of the $288,000 has been ordered to go to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

EARLIER:

Mobil Oil New Zealand is in Tauranga District Court today to be sentenced in relation to an oil spill in Tauranga Harbour last year.

A reporter in court says the judge is hearing from both the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and Mobil, before he moves onto sentencing the company.

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council laid charges against Mobil following the fuel oil discharge to Tauranga Harbour in April 2015.

Mobil Oil NZ pleaded guilty on December 22 to spilling about 1.5 tonnes of heavy fuel oil into Tauranga Harbour on April 27, 2015.

A small hole in a spur line off the main under-wharf bunker line leaked oil on ANZAC weekend.

Carried by wind and the tide, the slick polluted the Tauranga Bridge Marina, as well as the upper harbour at Maungatapu.

Clean up costs are said to be $1.79 million. Mobil took responsibility for the spill after a visual inspection of a corroded pipe indicated that the fuel oil leak occurred from two holes in a 150mm diameter lateral pipeline.

Mobil apologises for the incident and for the impact it had on the community and the local environment, says Mobil country manager Andrew McNaught.

Our priority has always been to minimise the impacts to the local environment and to ensure a thorough clean up and restoration of affected areas in Tauranga Harbour, he said.

The company worked cooperatively with the BOPRC to actively assist in the response and investigation.

Mobil has paid $1.8 million in reimbursements and other costs, including reimbursing BOPRC almost $1.2 million for costs incurred in the clean-up.

Mobil learns from all incidents and uses the information to reinforce our commitment to continued improvement. We have already made changes to further improve our operations at Mt Maunganui, says Andrew.

The effects of the spill took months to clean up with teams of overall clad workers a common sight as they cleared contaminated vegetation from the upper harbour, and then painstakingly hand cleaning every oil covered rock in the Tauranga Bridge Marina intertidal zone.

Oil residue was still being cleared from the Bridge Marina pontoons in August.

The oil worked its way into the seagrass growing between the floats, the pontoon sections. Each berth had to be boomed off in both directions and the gaps water blasted.

The bridge marina and associated Bridge Marina Travel lift were the two businesses that took the direct impact of the stream of heavy fuel oil that flowed southwards from under the Mount Maunganui wharf.

Between 100 and 130 boats had to be cleaned and berth holders fouled mooring lines replaced.

The Anzac weekend oil spill is the largest Tier 2 oil spill in New Zealand, because of the time its taken to clean it up, and the escalating cost of that clean-up, says Tauranga NZ First MP, Clayton Mitchell.

In fact, the size of the spill, the time taken to clean and the associated costs are all so much, that we could correctly classify the spill as a Tier 3, says Clayton.
A motorcyclist who led police on a chase to the top of the Kaimai Range and back on Saturday evening has had his bike seized.

The rider was arrested when he fell from his bike at the intersection of Carmichael and Bethlehem roads around 6pm.
A joint Customs and Police investigation has resulted in the largest-ever seizure of ephedrine in New Zealand, which had the potential to make up to $150 million of meth.

In late April, 200kg of ephedrine was stopped by Customs at the border, when officers identified a suspicious consignment of eighty boxes of paper sent from China.
Police are talking to two men who they believe fled the scene of a crash on Haukore Street this afternoon.

Western Bay of Plenty road policing manager Senior Sergeant Ian Campion says the incident, which happen just before 2pm, involved a Holden Commodore crashing into a power pole.

Police say the driver of the vehicle drove away before emergency services arrived at the scene.

Ian says police are talking to two men who went to Tauranga Hospital for treatment.

Investigations into how the crash happened are continuing.

There have been no reports of power outages in the area.
The coroner looking into the death of eight forestry workers, including one Bay of Plenty man, has safety concerns at the high rate of deaths still happening within the industry.

A report by Coroner Wallace Bain says the circumstances of the deaths raised important public issues and concern to the high rate of deaths in the industry.

Wallace says its concerning there have already been four forestry industry deaths this year, despite safety improvements.

"Its of concern that there is this rash of deaths this year, especially after all the publicity and education in the sector.

Clearly there is still a lot to do if New Zealand is to reduce its workplace forestry deaths permanently."

Rotoruas Robert Arapeta Ruri-Epapara was one of eight forestry workers whose inquests were grouped together deliberately because they were killed while working in the industry.

His inquest was joined with George Mahanga, David Wayne McMurtrie, Reece Joseph Reid, Eramiha Eruera Pairama, Robert Ian Thompson, Charles Harrison Finlay and David Charles Beamsley.

Robert was one of 10 forestry workers who died in 2013.

The 23-year-old died at Waione Forest, near Lake Rotoiti on March 2013.

His death was caused by massive head and spinal injuries after being struck by a felled tree.

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment brought a prosecution against the employee in charge of the crew, for failing to take all practical steps to ensure his workers safety.

Since 2013, there has been a significant improvement in safety in the industry, largely driven by the Council of Trade Unions, the coroner says.

He says the industry was now a safer place to work.

However, the 2016 deaths show there needs to be constant vigilance in the sector.

His recommendations are there need to be more specificity in the workplace environment and the court endorses the inclusion of the Independent Forestry Safety Review and the import of the new Work Place Safety Legislation.
Last years ANZAC Day oil spill was an accident waiting to happen says Judge Jeff Smith in Tauranga District Court today.

Mobil was fined $288,000 for the April 27, oil spill, in which between three and six tonnes of heavy fuel oil flowed into Tauranga harbour from under the Mount Maunganui wharf.
Mr Flavell, along with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Guangzhou Vice Mayor Wang Dong and Auckland Mayor Len Brown, came together at the Tripartite Economic Summit in Auckland which celebrates the relationships between the three sister cities.

Mr Flavell says the summit is a timely and welcome way to build on the relationships Maori-owned businesses are building in Guangzhou and Los Angeles.

The Summits theme Making Connections fits very well with Maori culture, he says.

For Maori, relationships are about mana. We are a people whose connections manifest through practices such as hongi where we like to hear your heart, not just slick words.

Mana enhancing relationships are all about trust, honesty, respect, and dignity, and that is gauged by connections of the heart.

We must also look after people, then we will all flourish, he says.

Mr Flavell says that more than ever, Maori are focussed on economic development.

The Maori economy has a blueprint to be a productive, innovative, export-oriented and internationally connected powerhouse.

The government strategy is called He kai kei aku ringa, a metaphor for the self-determination of our people which literally means growing food by our own hands, he says.

The Maori economy is substantial within New Zealand totalling around $42 billion and growing across a range of industries, including a considerable share or the forestry, fishing, farming and horticulture sectors.

Mr Flavell says one in four Maori live and work in Auckland, making the city a crucial economic engine for the Maori economy.

And as important sister cities, Los Angeles and Guangzhou are key economic partners as we spread our wings internationally.

With combined economies totalling $1 trillion annually, iwi and Maori have a considerable opportunity to contribute.

Maori companies have the strengths of relationship building and storytelling to build rapport with global consumers.



Source: Office of Te Ururoa Flavell.
More than 30,000 lightning strikes were recorded over New Zealand the surrounding seas as thunderstorms lashed the country.

Yesterday, the MetService issued thunderstorm warnings for Auckland, Southern Northland, Waikato, Waitomo and further south as an active front swept across New Zealand.
Daniel Hull

Daniel Hull

(Provided by New York State Police)

ALEXANDRIA, N.Y. -- A Jefferson County man was sent to jail this weekend after state police charged him with raping a child.

Daniel H. Hull, 18, of Barnes Settlement Road in Alexandria Bay, was charged Saturday with first-degree rape and first-degree criminal sexual act, both felonies. He is accused of having sexual intercourse by forcible compulsion with a girl younger than 17 years old Saturday in the town of Alexandria, state police said.

Hull was arraigned in Orleans Town Court and sent to the Jefferson County Public Safety Building on $15,000 bail or $30,000 bond.
Dwight Delee

Dwight Delee

(Provided by Syracuse Police)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A Syracuse man is accused of swinging a broken table leg at a woman and striking her in the head early Sunday, city police said.

Dwight Delee, 49, of 20 Centennial Drive, Apt. 2E, was charged with second-degree assault, a felony, and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a misdemeanor.

Syracuse police met the 44-year-old victim and Delee at Upstate University Hospital's Community Campus after the incident was reported at 3:30 a.m. Sunday, city police Sgt. Richard Helterline said. The victim, who was treated at the hospital for a minor head injury and pain, told police she wanted Delee arrested, Helterline said.

Police say Delee injured the woman at his home. Delee was sent to the Onondaga County Justice Center after police arrested him at the hospital. He is scheduled to appear Monday in Syracuse City Court.
Syracuse, NY -- Former Syracuse police Sgt. Thomas Connellan billed the state hundreds of times for a part-time job that he didn't do, state Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott said today.

Connellan, 50, police department spokesman and leader of the gang task force, falsified hundreds of timesheets claiming he was working for the state when, in fact, he was on-duty as a cop, Scott said in a news release.

In total, he stole more than $32,500 from the state from Jan. 1, 2011 to June 30, 2015 as part of the scheme. That's all the could be charged within the 5-year statute of limitations, but prosecutors say there could have been more abuses before then.

Connellan pleaded guilty to felony grand larceny today and paid back all of the stolen money.

Connellan was supposed to be inspecting ATMs while working for the state's Division of Financial Services.

But Connellan never told his bosses at the police department that he had a part-time job with the state, as required by police department policy, Scott said.

Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said that Connellan eventually stopped checking ATMs altogether during the day. (He still checked them at night, as he claimed.)

Catherine Leahy Scott was appointed New York state inspector general by Gov. Andrew Cuomo on May 2, 2013.

Fitzpatrick and Scott called on the state Comptroller's Office to recalculate Connellan's pension benefits "based on him rarely showing up for his state banking job for at least the past four years," the news release stated.

"He has now reimbursed the state for his unearned income and I will work to assure New York taxpayers are not burdened with public pension payments based on any credits he did not truly deserve," Scott said in the news release. "I will also continue using all of the resources at my disposal to vigorously pursue anyone who defrauds the state and steals from taxpayers."

Scott provided the following account of Connellan's responsibilities:

Connellan was hired to do daytime and nighttime ATM safety inspections on machines located throughout Central New York.

During the daytime, he was required to review bank surveillance video to ensure it was properly capturing the area around the ATM. In addition, he was supposed to ensure that the bank was maintaining the video as required by state law.

For each job, he was required to submit an ATM inspection report to the state which included the date, time, bank representative name, and inspection results.

But Connellan faked the inspection reports and did not actually show up at the banks, the IG's office said.

Often, he was working as a cop at the same time he claimed to be inspecting the bank's ATMs, the IG said.
Ara Papian: It was a great concession to agree to the meeting with Aliyev (video)

Director of Modus Vivendi Centre, Ara Papian, thinks that tensions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border will continue in the future. He says the Karabakh issue is just a pretext for Azerbaijan. They want Armenia to withdraw its troops from the border. Everything is very clear: either we destroy Azerbaijan or Azerbaijan destroys us. Even if you give Azerbaijan the entire Karabakh, it will not calm down and will want to take Zangezur, Mr, Papian said on Monday. The political analyst says Azerbaijan should be deprived of the opportunity to unleash a new aggression against us. It is necessary to pay attention to the issue of oil and gas exports and work with national minorities living in Azerbaijan, he stressed. While Mr Papian thinks that the planned meeting of Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev will be held [in Vienna], he does not expect major breakthroughs after the meeting. Anyway, it was a great concession to agree to the meeting, he said. Under the present circumstances, Mr Papian says it is necessary to make ssignificant changes in the country [Armenia] in order to ease the situation. I think Serzh Sagsyan wil have to make those changes. Any defeat in Karabakh means an end of Serzh Sargsyan's power and many other things. Should the army retreat, it will not stand on the other line, but will go directly to the Presidential Palace at Baghramyan 26. Serzh Sargsyan should improve the situation in the army, clean it and punish the guilty ones. The dismissal of military officials is not enough. Those people have robbed the army and they should be made liable for their actions, Mr. Papian said in conclusion.
massgeneral2.jpg

Massachusetts General Hospital

(Massachusetts General)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A Massachusetts man has received the first penis transplant in the United States.

The New York Times reported today Thomas Manning, 64, a bank courier from Halifax, underwent the 15-hour operation May 8 and 9 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The organ came from a deceased donor. Manning's penis was removed because of cancer.

The experimental surgery is part of a research program designed to help combat veterans with severe pelvic injuries, as well as cancer patients and accident victims. From 2001 to 2013, 1,367 men in the military suffered so-called genitourinary injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense. Nearly all were under 35 and had been hurt by homemade bombs, commonly called improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.s. Some lost part or all of their penises.

Dr. Curtis L. Cetrulo, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and a leader of the surgical team, said normal urination should be possible for Manning within a few weeks, and sexual function in weeks to months

Surgeons at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine are also planning to perform penis transplants, and have had a combat veteran, injured in Afghanistan, on the waiting list for several months.

Worldwide, only two other penis transplants have been reported: a failed one in China in 2006 and a successful one in South Africa in 2014, in which the recipient later fathered a child.

Contact James T. Mulder anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-470-2245
2016-01-28-mjg-CityAddress2.JPG

Mayor Stephanie Miner delivers her State of the City Address at the Southwest Community Center, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016.

(Michael Greenlar | mgreenlar@syracuse.com)

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner was in the nation's capital today to bring attention to one of her favorite subjects: Infrastructure.

Miner visited Washington as part of Infrastructure Week, a campaign dedicated to education and advocacy about American infrastructure. At the kickoff event, Miner had a chance to highlight some steps Syracuse has take to address its aging infrastructure.

Miner spoke as part of a panel called "Leading the Way: Achievements and Lessons from America's Cities" along with the mayors of Kansas City, Missouri and Spokane, Washington. During the event, she touted the work of the Office of Innovation, which is pursuing cost-effective, data-driven solutions to infrastructure problems.

"The new technologies mean a dollar can go much further than it used to go," Miner said in regards to some of the new gear the City of Syracuse is pursuing.

Throughout the week, Miner's administration will focus its attention on infrastructure -- a subject central to her tenure as mayor.

Watch Miner's Monday morning address:
To the Editor:

I read at Syracuse.com that Vice President Joe Biden told the Syracuse University College of Law class of 2016 they were part of "the most tolerant generation ever." Really? While Vice President Biden is known for his gaffes, this was a maybe his worst ever.

According to the Foundation for the Individual Rights in Education so far this year they have identified 18 instances where college students or faculty have tried to intimidate speakers invited to speak, at least 11 have been prevented from speaking because they are deemed too controversial. Just recently at a college in Massachusetts a group was holding an event to discuss the effect political correctness has on limiting free speech and divergent ideas, only to have "politically correct" students come shout and disrupt the meeting to the point where the speakers at the event could not be heard and the event was cut short. Colleges are setting up safe zones and enforcing speech codes, making sure there are no "micro aggressions" and "trigger warnings" to make sure a student does not hear something that may offend them. It seems that today's students tolerate only what they want to hear and try to prevent all others from speaking.

One of the complaints we all have is problems cannot be solved because politician are in their own ideological box not willing to listen to other ideas. If our esteemed colleges and universities will not allow, better yet encourage, differing point of view to be heard and exchanged on our campuses, how will we ever fix our problems? Until the last few years we as a society have had the freest and most open exchange of ideas the world has ever known. We have all benefited from allowing this marketplace of ideas improve our society.

For the sake of our free society I implore our colleges to prepare our young to challenge the future by making sure differing ideas are heard on campus, no matter how uncomfortable they may make your students.



John Buckley

East Syracuse


Robert Antonacci.jpg

Onondaga County Comptroller Robert Antonacci.

(Sam Maller / The Post-Standard)

Robert Antonacci is Onondaga County comptroller. He ran for state comptroller in 2014.

By Robert Antonacci

The morning after in newly merged Onondaga/Syracuse: Consolidation will not deliver savings anticipated.

The Consensus draft report suggests the way forward is a consolidation of local government focused on merging the county and city.

This plan has been touted as a way to make the area more competitive. My review of the report leads me to the conclusion its solutions will fail to live up to the community's expectations. No matter the entity name, Syradaga or Ononcuse, or the new government structure, I believe we will be disappointed, not because of the efforts of a volunteer group of concerned citizens, but because too much government spending, taxation and regulation is outside our local control.

Contrary to the assertion of consolidation proponents, the problem is not the exaggerated claim of "10,000 local governments,'' but rather the one state government.

In Onondaga County, our single biggest cost driver is Medicaid. I am hesitant to use the trite term "unfunded mandate," but there is no other way to describe what New York state forces upon counties, cities and school districts. A review of Medicaid spending across the country shows New York spends a disproportionate amount on this one program, and you may have heard it before, New York spends more than Florida and Texas combined and spends nearly as much as California, a state roughly twice our population.

While there has been some relief of late, Medicaid comprises about $110 million of our $140 million property tax levy because the state forces approximately 25 percent of this cost onto county government. New York spends more per capita on Medicaid than the ten most populous states.

 Graphic: Medicaid spending

Our local tax bills are also filled with other unfunded mandates, so even if we follow each and every recommendation of the Consensus report, the newly combined entity will still have to deal with the New York state rules and regulations which mandate spending in certain areas.

Consensus does not suggest areas in which we can cut services. Our roads will still need to be plowed, our garbage picked up, and our streets patrolled. Regardless of the entity cutting the paycheck or the name on the sides of the trucks, these tasks must be accomplished. My suggestion for a way forward is to look at how other areas conduct their local affairs. Unlike Consensus though, I believe the focus of such a review needs to be on the actual functions of government, not the structure.

If we do not address the cost drivers of government, and the rules by which we govern, we will only have a larger inefficient government with just as much tax and spending the day after the merger. In comparing ourselves to the "uni-govs," we must examine the rules by which they operate. Does Jacksonville collect trash from the curb cheaper than us? Can Louisville build a public building less expensively than us? Does Indianapolis provide fire protection at a lower cost? If the answer to these questions is yes, then how so? Are the savings found in the structure or in the state laws governing how local governments function?

Of course local governments must do their part and locally our CSI (Consolidation, Shared Services, Integration) Tax Force has assisted towns, villages and fire districts in being more efficient. However this discussion on spending is much older than Consensus. A headline from Nov. 21, 1988 in the The Post-Standard said, "New York near tops in Taxes, Spending, Census Bureau Says." In nearly 30 years since, it is sad to say our state leaders have failed to change that fact.
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John Darzen, 44, 1300 block of Southwest Sultan Drive, Port St. Lucie; out-of-county warrant, St. Lucie County, battery, prior conviction.

Matthew Muth, 57, no street address, Stuart; criminal mischief.

Raymond Papendick, 56, Tamassee, S.C.; resisting an officer with violence.

Ray Ritchie, 19, 2100 block of Southeast Harrison Street, Stuart; possession of a controlled substance (hash oil).

Jose Nieves, 20, 4200 block of Southeast Cove Lake Circle, Stuart; possession of a controlled substance (hash oil).

Shawn Bernard, 47, 9700 block of Southeast Highbourn Way, Hobe Sound; dealing in stolen property; giving false verification of ownership to a pawnbroker.

Joshua Sutton, 23, Monroe; resisting an officer without violence.

Adam Mack, 32, 5600 block of Southeast Lamay Drive, Stuart; grand theft of a motor vehicle.

Surguy Yakovlev, 24, Sunny Isles Beach; criminal use of personal I.D. information.

Denise Kelly, 44, Hollywood; warrants for dealing in stolen property, giving false ownership information on pawned items.
By Will Greenlee of TCPalm

PORT ST. LUCIE  Paul Winant was a free spirit and a hard worker who loved his 8-year-old daughter.

Winant, 31, lost his parents when he was young, and struggled with substance abuse issues.

That's how Winant's family members recalled him Monday, three days after he died after a shooting incident in a home on Southwest Chapman Avenue.

Master Sgt. Frank Sabol, Port St. Lucie police spokesman, said an autopsy needed for police to progress in the case was delayed. No arrests have been made in the case.

"Everybody that knew the inside of him knew that he was a gentle soul, he was a good soul and he didn't know how to communicate his feelings," said Winant's cousin, Gregory Truppner.

According to police, Winant on Friday was a guest at the home of 54-year-old James Quaglia and Barbara Evans, 50.

An argument broke out and Quaglia pulled out a handgun, police have said. Winant at some point got possession of the gun. Evans became involved, and Winant got shot in the torso. Emergency officials were called shortly before noon and Winant was taken to a hospital and died less than two hours later.

Marlene Truppner, Winant's aunt, said Winant's parents died when he was 5 and 8.

"He was raised by my mother and me," Marlene Truppner said. "He had a lot of things in his head about his parents and couldn't understand it."

Marlene Truppner said Winant was a hard worker, who was good with his hands. She said he had a girlfriend but no siblings.

She said he loved his 8-year-old daughter, and that his daughter is the same age as Winant was when one of his parents died. Winant, she said, died at the same age as his father.

Gregory Truppner, 30, said Winant had substance abuse issues and was living in the woods.

Sabol said Winant has been arrested more than 10 times since 2003.

Marlene Truppner said she didn't know what Winant was doing at the home on Southwest Chapman Avenue. A man who answered the door there Monday declined comment.

Marlene Truppner said Winant was a little shy and avoided trouble when he could.

"He was a free spirit. He loved life," Gregory Truppner said. "He loved peace and tranquility, to be out on a boat and barbecuing, drinking beer, whatever."

Gregory Truppner was arrested Friday on a misdemeanor resisting arrest without violence charge after police say he approached the shooting scene on Southwest Chapman Avenue with a small club in his hand.

"We've been through everything together," Gregory Truppner said. "Through adolescence, through going to jail, through adventures from here to New York."
Tthe C-44 Canal reservoir in Martin County slices through the countryside. (TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS FILE PHOTO)

By Ledyard King, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON  Environmental projects in Florida got a significant boost from the Senate this past week, with votes approving more than $100 million for Everglades restoration along with additional recovery money for the Indian River Lagoon and other distressed estuaries.

Lawmakers voted 90-8 on Thursday to pass a $37.5 billion Energy and Water Appropriations bill that includes roughly $6 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers. A similar bill is expected to reach the House floor in the coming weeks.

Congress can't explicitly tell the agency where to spend the money. It would be up to the corps to allocate the money to individual projects.

But the agency lists Everglades projects among its top priorities for fiscal 2017, which begins Oct. 1.

The $37.5 billion spending bill includes $106 million for the South Florida Ecosystem, the multiyear program to restore the Everglades, partly by redirecting water flow from Lake Okeechobee south instead of east and west. Of that amount, $75 million would be allocated for projects under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, including $59.5 million to continue work on the Indian River Lagoon.

The bulk of that  $53.3 million  would be used to continue building the C-44 Reservoir and Stormwater Treatment Area in western Martin County. The reservoir is designed to store and treat nutrient-laden water drawn from farmland so it doesn't pollute the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon.

There's also $500,000 for construction oversight of the C-43 canal, which is designed to reduce water flows from the lake that carry farm-related nutrients into the Caloosahatchee River and befoul beaches in southwest Florida.

The corps also plans to spend nearly $5 million continuing work restoring natural water flow across the Picayune Strand, an 85-square-mile swath in western Collier County that was drained in the early 1960s in anticipation of extensive residential development.

The agency also says it wants to spend about $50 million to fix the decades-old Herbert Hoover Dike, a 143-mile earthen dam surrounding Lake Okeechobee that's designed to reduce flooding from high lake levels but is increasingly prone to seepage.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said the bill is good news for Florida.

"It provides needed funding for several key Florida projects, such as critical Everglades restoration, the Herbert Hoover Dike and the operation and maintenance of our harbors and waterways," he said in a statement. "This is the first time in several years the Senate has advanced a stand-alone Energy and Water Appropriations bill, and as these projects are incredibly important to the state of Florida."

The Indian River Lagoon also could receive some much-needed relief from a bill the Senate also passed Thursday night. The measure, whose chief sponsors included Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, and Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, now heads to President Obama for his signature.

The bill would authorize $26.5 million to help the nation's 28 estuaries, and would provide extra funding to those in the worst shape. That would probably apply to the lagoon, a $3.7 billion annual economic engine being harmed in part by releases from Lake Okeechobee.

Scientists say low levels of dissolved oxygen suffocated thousands of fish. More than 30 species died in the kill-off. The same scientists believe the recent "brown tide" of algae blooming in the lagoon is responsible for the low oxygen levels.

"This common-sense plan will help provide critical funding for our nation's estuaries, and make available additional funding to estuaries that are experiencing urgent and challenging ecological problems, including our own Indian River Lagoon," Posey said.

The bill only reauthorizes the program. Congress still has to approve the money for it.

Contributing: Jim Waymer, Florida Today

Contact Ledyard King at lking@gannett.com; Twitter: @ledgeking
Resumption of war is the most likely scenario - says political analyst (video)

Political analyst Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan says during the meeting of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Vienna the parties will discuss the preconditions posed to Azerbaijan by Armenia. The meeting will be a mere discussion. I think at this stage there is no chance to reach an agreement. No one is talking about the resumption of negotiations at this moment. However, I think this is a good opportunity for us to make our approaches more comprehensible to the world, since the three Foreign Ministers are there [in Vienna], the political analyst said. Mr. Melik-Shahnazaryan says the position of the international community contributes to the ongoing tensions on the border. Their statements became another factor contributing to further escalation of the situation, he stressed. The political analyst says as a result of the four-day war unleashed by Azerbaijan, hostility between generations in Armenia and Azerbaijan will continue for 10-15 years. I think the resumption of war is the most likely scenario, given the border tensions, he said in conclusion.
A shoreline restoration project in Brevard/Indian River counties and an oyster restoration program in Volusia County will receive $100,000 through the sale of the Indian River Lagoon license plate.

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By Janet Begley, Special to Treasure Coast Newspapers

Martin and St. Lucie counties, along with the cities of Sebastian and Vero Beach, will share more than $750,000 in funding next year from the new Indian River Lagoon Council.

Ten projects totaling $762,781 will be funded in 2016-17, according to council spokeswoman Kathleen Hill. Funds will come from pooled resources from the council members.

Indian River County, which declined to join the council when it was formed in 2015, will not receive any funds for 2016-17. Three cities in the county joined the council instead.

Sebastian will receive $100,000 to give property owners near Indian River Drive financial incentives to convert from septic tanks to the county's sewer system. Similarly, Vero Beach will receive $122,000 for its Vero Isles neighborhood stormwater management project.

In Martin County, Phase 1 of the Savannahs Regional Restoration Project will receive $100,000.

Three projects in St. Lucie County were approved, including $200,000 in drainage improvements for San Lucie; $25,000 for the Indian Hills Habitat Restoration; and $15,000 for the Wesley Island native planting project.

Other projects totaling $625,000, including environmental education, oyster reef restoration and an Indian River Lagoon Health/Report card, will be funded by the National Estuary Program. And a shoreline restoration project in Brevard/Indian River counties and an oyster restoration program in Volusia County will receive $100,000 through the sale of the Indian River Lagoon license plate.

Projects in Volusia and Brevard counties will receive funding from the lagoon council beginning in October.

The council runs the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program and includes Brevard, Volusia, St. Lucie and Martin counties, the St. Johns and South Florida water management districts and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. A year ago, the council voted to add Sebastian, Fellsmere and Vero Beach in place of Indian River County.
U.S. Sugar Corp. in April launched a second media blitz to sell its positions on controversial Treasure Coast water issues. The companys latest campaign includes a series of full-page newspaper ads, as well as spots on television and websites. (TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)

By Tyler Treadway of TCPalm

U.S. Sugar Corp. in April launched a second media blitz  not to sell sugar, but to sell its positions on controversial Treasure Coast water issues.

The company's latest campaign includes a series of full-page newspaper ads, as well as spots on television and websites.

The ads have run in Treasure Coast Newspapers, whose coverage area includes the St. Lucie River Estuary where excess Lake Okeechobee water is discharged. Similar ads have run in the Fort Myers News-Press, whose coverage area includes the Caloosahatchee River Estuary, which also receives Lake O discharges.

The ads are a response to "blatant distortion of the facts being spread by certain environmental critics," company spokeswoman Judy Sanchez said in a prepared statement.

Fact check

The ads purport to give "the facts" about the company's relationship to Lake O, proposals to end lake discharges by moving excess water south, and the sources of water entering the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon.

Most of their statements are factual, but some are inaccurate, misleading or don't tell the whole or relevant story.

Here's Our Indian River Lagoon team's analysis of six statements we're not buying.

First statement: "What are some of the causes (of lake discharges)? An antiquated, 60-year-old flood control system, an aging dike that limits Lake Okeechobee's capacity to hold water, lack of funding of planned projects that would redirect, hold and treat water both north and south of the lake."

The pitch: U.S. Sugar says it and the other farmers south of Lake O don't cause the discharges.

Our analysis: True, they aren't a cause of the problem, but they aren't part of the solution, either. Growing crops throughout the Everglades Agricultural Area stymies the flow of excess lake water to Everglades National Park. So the water has to be discharged east to the St. Lucie and west to the Caloosahatchee.

It's also true South Florida's plumbing system was designed to stop flooding, not protect the environment.

It remains to be seen if ongoing repairs to the Herbert Hoover Dike is a solution, as the Army Corps of Engineers has said it won't necessarily mean the lake will hold more water.

But in a Florida Senate-commissioned study, the University of Florida Water Institute stated on Page 130 of its March 2015 report "existing and currently authorized storage and treatment projects are insufficient" to prevent discharges.

U.S. Sugar's response: "We agree with the University of Florida," which also states: "To provide substantial improvement to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, accelerate the funding and completion of existing federally authorized CERP projects designed specifically to provide relief to St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee basins."

Second statement: "Will buying expensive farm land south of Lake Okeechobee solve the problem?"

The pitch: It won't, the ad goes on to imply, without specifically saying so. It echoes critics' common refrain that there's already enough publicly owned land south of the lake that could be used to stop discharges. And it counters the calls from environmental groups for the government to buy land in the Everglades Agricultural Area to store excess lake water and send it slowly to the Everglades to stop discharges.

Our analysis: Much of that publicly owned land is used primarily to clean water coming off private farmland south of the lake. Again, we turn to Page 133 of the UF report: "Achieving substantial reduction in lake-triggered discharges to the estuaries ... will require between 11,000 and 129,000 acres of additional land between the lake and the (Everglades), depending on the mix of storage and treatment options."

U.S. Sugar's response: "Spending a lot of public money on buying active farmland ... will only distract government from completing the mission started nearly 20 years ago through the development of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan."

The company also recommends increasing water storage capacity on land already in public ownership.

Third statement: Water "leaves our farms far cleaner than when it left (Lake Okeechobee). Last year alone, water that left our farms was twice as clean as water from Lake O."

The pitch: Sugar farmers appear more environmentally responsible  part of the solution, not the problem  if they can show they remove pollutants rather than add them.

Our analysis: Whether that's true or not depends on the year. Lake water is cleaner some years, but the ad portrays only a good year.

True, water coming off the lake contained 133 parts per billion of phosphorus compared to farmland's 47 in the last water year (May 1, 2014, to April 30, 2015), according to a 2016 South Florida Water Management District report. Some years the opposite is true: in 2013, for example, lake water contained about 90 parts per billion of phosphorus and farmland runoff was about 140 parts per billion. Overall, it was a virtual dead heat for the five years ending April 2014, with farmland water containing 111 parts per billion compared to the lake's 110.

Also, taxpayers paid more than a billion dollars to build the state's stormwater treatment and water conservation areas that clean farmland water to strict federal standards before it can be released into Everglades National Park.

U.S. Sugar's response: The company claims "a longer view" indicates EAA was cleaner than Lake O water in 17 out of the last 20 years.

"Regardless of the period of record, it is indisputable that the growers in the Everglades Agricultural Area have reduced phosphorus runoff from their property by an astonishing 56 percent since the inception of the source control program in the mid 1990s."

Fourth statement: "Over the past five years, 21 percent of Lake O water is discharged to the St. Lucie River ... (the rest) actually came from rainfall, irrigation and runoff across Martin and St. Lucie counties."

The pitch: U.S. Sugar often evokes an "our water" vs. "your water" mentality, which minimizes the effects of discharges and maximizes that of so-called "local" waterways.

Our analysis: It's misleading because those five years (2011-15) aren't typical of the source and amount of water that enters the estuary, and they include two rare years of no discharges (2001 and 2014). For a broader range of time (1995-2015), lake water entering the estuary was 29 percent, not 21 percent as the ad says. And natural basin water entering the estuary  the ad calls it "coastal basin," emphasizing the "your water" mentality  was 17 percent, not 31 percent as the ad says. Also, lake discharges exceeded 100 billion gallons in seven of those 21 years; that's one third. The ad shows only one year of lake discharges exceeding 100 billion gallons; that's only one-fifth. It was the "Lost Summer" of 2013.

Fifth statement: "The rainfall, runoff and irrigation drains into local canals like Ten Mile Creek, the C-24 and C-23, and then into the North Fork of the St. Lucie River."

The pitch: It's a common refrain that Treasure Coast residents who complain that discharges are ruining the river and lagoon need to "take care of their own local water," often repeated not only by U.S. Sugar officials, but some South Florida Water Management District board members.

Our analysis: To call the C-23, C-24 and C-44 canals "local" is misleading. The first two were dug into far western Martin and St. Lucie counties to drain agri fields and citrus groves. Together with the C-44, which was cut to connect the lake to the river, they enlarged the river's natural basin by 250,000 acres.

The canals dump freshwater laden with nitrogen and phosphorus  that naturally wouldn't be there  into the St. Lucie River estuary.

The South Florida water district is responsible for managing the water, not Treasure Coast cities and counties.

U.S. Sugar's response: "We use the term 'local' to distinguish them from the water that's being discharged out of Lake Okeechobee. ... Except for the connection to Lake Okeechobee, these canals typically drain today where they did historically, and the C-23, C-24, C-25 and C-44 basins primarily flowed east to the estuary."

Sixth statement: "95 percent of all water that flows into Lake Okeechobee comes from the north  from Orlando and the Kissimmee (River) Basin."

The pitch: That bolsters U.S. Sugar's argument that the focus should be on creating water storage and cleaning projects north of the lake, not in its territory.

Our analysis: It's true that only 3 percent of lake water comes from infrequent "back pumping" from farmland south of the lake, but it's inaccurate to say the rest comes from north of the lake. Only 58 percent of lake water enters from the Kissimmee basin, which stretches to the Orlando area, and north of the lake via Taylor Creek and Nubbin Slough. Another 35 percent comes from west and northwest. About 4 percent comes from east of the lake. The ad's map of the Kissimmee basin inaccurately wraps around the east and west sides of the lake, even south of the C-44 Canal that leads east from the lake to the St. Lucie River and the C-43 Canal leading west to the Caloosahatchee River. Land south of those canals clearly isn't in the Kissimmee basin.

U.S. Sugar's response: "Since misleading comments printed in (The Stuart News) have placed the blame for the water, the discharges and just about everything on sugar cane farmers South of the Lake, our point was that 95 percent of the inflow comes from areas other than the south (specifically, the Everglades Agricultural Area)."
Firefighters put out a car fire early Monday afternoon in Stuart. (MARTIN COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE)

SHARE Firefighters put out a car fire early Monday afternoon in Stuart. (PHOTO PROVIDED BY STUART POLICE DEPARTMENT) Firefighters put out a car fire early Monday afternoon in Stuart. (PHOTO PROVIDED BY STUART POLICE DEPARTMENT)

By Laurie K. Blandford of TCPalm

MARTIN COUNTY  A car caught fire early Monday afternoon at a 7-Eleven in Stuart after it ran over a loose mattress, according to officials.

Martin County and Stuart firefighters went to the 7-Eleven at 3991 S. Kanner Highway near Indian Street about 12:05 p.m. Monday after getting a report of a car on fire in the parking lot, said Martin County Fire Rescue spokesman Doug Killane and Stuart Fire Rescue spokesman Frank Lasaga. No one was injured.

The car fire wasn't near the gas pumps or the building, and firefighters put out the fire within 10 minutes.

It appeared to be accidental, Lasaga said. A mattress came off a truck, became wedged under a car and ruptured a tank, causing the fire, he said.
By Isadora Rangel of TCPalm

Federal campaign finance regulators should investigate whether U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy illegally enriched a Super PAC that supports his U.S. Senate bid by funneling money from his father's company in which he owns stock, a complaint filed Friday by a conservative group.

In question is $500,000 Murphy's father, Thomas, and Coastal Construction Group gave to Floridians for a Strong Middle Class, a pro-Murphy Super PAC. Murphy, D-Jupiter, owns between $1 million and $5 million in shares of his family-owned company.

The nonprofit Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust alleges Murphy violated federal campaign laws that prohibit Super PACs from cooperating with a candidate. Super PACs can raise unlimited amounts of money and run their own political propaganda and have become known for running attack ads.

"It is simply unrealistic to believe that Murphy's business and his father are funding the Super PAC without coordinating in any way with Murphy and his campaign," the complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission states.

Murphy's campaign declined to comment to Treasure Coast Newspapers, but referred to an April Miami Herald article in which Coastal Construction Vice Chairman Dan Whiteman was asked whether family shareholders such as Murphy helped decide to whom the company gives money. Whiteman told the newspaper Murphy's father "personally directed the contribution."

Murphy has spoken critically on the influence of Super PACs, yet his father also helped fund a Super PAC that launched attack ads against his son's 2012 GOP opponent Allen West in District 18. Republicans and Murphy's Senate primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, have been criticizing Murphy for his family's cash.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust complaint also mentions Thomas Murphy's links to California U.S. Rep. Ami Bera's father, who pleaded guilty to charges of illegally funneling money into his son's campaign last week in a case that didn't involve the Murphys.

The Murphys and Beras donated $5,200 to their own sons' campaigns in 2013, the maximum allowable amount at the time. About a month later, Murphy's mother, Leslie, contributed $5,200 to Bera's campaign, and 14 days later each of Bera's parents donated $5,200 to Murphy's campaign, federal records show. Although experts said this is likely not illegal, Republicans have claimed the Beras and the Murphys schemed to skirt campaign contribution caps by swapping donations.
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in a mosquito cage at a laboratory in Cucuta, Colombia. (AP FILE PHOTO)

SHARE If mosquitoes are carrying Zika in the United States, the red areas show where those mosquitoes, the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, are most likely to occur in the greatest numbers. Yellow areas are less likely to have them. SOURCE: NASA

By Erin Kelly And Ledyard King, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON  After more than three months of fighting between the White House and Congress over emergency funding to combat the Zika virus, the Senate appears poised Tuesday to approve $1.1 billion for prevention and treatment programs to combat the mosquito-borne illness, which has hit Florida harder than any other state.

But the Senate compromise, which falls short of the $1.9 billion the White House is seeking, could be quickly derailed in the House. Republican House leaders introduced legislation Monday that would provide $622 million to combat Zika  about $1.3 billion less than federal health officials say they need. The House is expected to take up its bill this week.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida said she was "extraordinarily disappointed and frustrated" in the House proposal.

"More than 100 Floridians and more than 900 Puerto Ricans have already contracted this disease, and its devastating effects are undeniable," she said. "We need this money to invest in effective mosquito control techniques, vaccine research, and to equip our local health centers to best detect and treat patients who have contracted the virus."

On Monday, the state Department of Health reported its 113th case: a person in Miami-Dade County who contracted the disease outside the continental U.S. before arriving in Florida.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the disagreement over funding levels means that Zika most likely will hit the U.S. mainland while Congress is still haggling over money.

So far, Americans living in the continental U.S. have acquired the virus only by traveling overseas to Caribbean and South American countries. More than 20% of the cases have been reported in the Sunshine State.

"This is beyond reckless," Reid said on the Senate floor Monday.

Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the money House Republicans are offering is enough to take immediate action to stop the spread of Zika.

"This legislation will make dollars available to fight the disease now, prioritizing critical activities that must begin immediately, such as vaccine development and mosquito control," Rogers said in a statement Monday. "The legislation funds these efforts in a responsible way, using existing resources  including excess funding left over from the Ebola outbreak  to pay for it."

The Senate is expected to act first, voting on at least three Zika amendments Tuesday. The first one to win 60 votes will be added to a package of two unrelated spending bills that Senate leaders are trying to pass quickly.

An amendment by Florida Sens. Marco Rubio, a Republican, and Bill Nelson, a Democrat, would provide the full $1.9 billion that President Obama wants, but it is unlikely to win enough Republican votes to pass. Another proposal, by Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, would provide $1.1 billion that would be offset by cuts to Obamacare's Prevention and Public Health Fund  an option that Democrats are sure to reject. A third amendment, by Sens.Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., would provide $1.1 billion without cutting any other programs. It is the most likely to pass.

"I hope we'll have good news before the end of this week," Rubio told reporters Monday during a media availability with Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs in Orlando. "We're getting into the summer months, which (are) the months where you'll see the mosquito season really kick off."

Florida Gov. Rick Scott came to Capitol Hill last week to lobby for quick approval of a Zika action plan, saying foot-dragging would not only put Floridians at risk but threaten to squeeze its biggest economic engine: tourism.

"I understand the need to watch how you spend money," Scott told reporters Wednesday. "But this is an emergency. We want the funding as fast as possible."

The Zika virus poses the biggest threat to pregnant women or women who are planning to become pregnant. It has been linked to birth defects, including microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads and incomplete brain development.

Four out of five people infected by Zika have no symptoms. Others typically have mild symptoms such as fever, a rash, headaches, joint pain, lack of energy and pink eye. However, a man in his 70s who was infected with Zika died in Puerto Rico in April of complications from the virus, making him the first U.S. death from the disease, health officials said.

The Obama administration, at the urging of congressional Republicans, is already using $589 million in unspent Ebola funds to fight Zika. However, public health officials have said much more is needed to pay for mosquito control efforts, public education programs, vaccine research and improving health care for low-income pregnant women.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Obama administration still believes that the full $1.9 billion in funding is needed to combat the Zika virus effectively, but he stopped short of saying that the president would veto a bill at the $1.1 billion level that the Senate is most likely to approve.

"The $1.9 billion number was not chosen at random  it actually reflects the sum total of efforts that our public health professionals say they can and should take over the long term to protect the American people from Zika," Earnest told reporters Friday. "So if there are some public health professionals in the United States Congress that have looked at this carefully enough to offer up their own alternative, they can do that. But $1.9 billion is what our public health professionals say that we need; $1.9 billion is what our bipartisan governors from all across the country believe that Congress should provide so that they can fight Zika in their communities."
St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara (left) and Fort Pierce City Commissioner Reggie Sessions. (FILE PHOTOS)

By Editorial Board

Far from calming community tensions, last week's letter from St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara to Fort Pierce City Commissioner Reggie Sessions served to inflame emotions after the April 23 shooting death of 21-year-old Demarcus Semer.

In the May 9 letter, Mascara was critical of Sessions' call for an outside agency to investigate the shooting, which involved two Fort Pierce Police officers.

Mascara noted that in 16 years as sheriff his agency has always cooperated with local governments and their law enforcement agencies. He reminded Sessions that his assistance in the Semer case was requested by Police Chief Diane Hobley-Burney immediately after the shooting.

Mascara stated in the letter, "my intent was, and is, to provide a thorough, professional, factual investigation into the circumstances leading up to and including this death.

"If the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, United States Department of Justice, or some other law enforcement agency wants to conduct their own concurrent investigation, they surely may do so," Mascara wrote.

But Mascara insisted he will continue to oversee the investigation until it is turned over to the State Attorney's Office in preparation for a grand jury.

While Mascara has the right to disagree with any elected representative, he gets personal in his criticism of Sessions. He refers to the commissioner's comments as "misguided" and full of "innuendo."

The sheriff went too far by openly doubting Sessions' credibility and the level of popular support he enjoys in the community.

The Treasure Coast Newspapers Editorial Board reiterates its belief that choosing an out-of-county law enforcement agency to probe the circumstances of Semer's death would have been preferable.

Our board stresses it has no reservations about the ability of the sheriff's office to undertake such an investigation. It remains skeptical, however, that the two agencies are distant enough for that investigation to instill public confidence in its impartiality.

Mascara ends his letter this way:

"Your comments from the dais, and those of a select few whose motives I question, do not in my opinion reflect the vast majority of citizens, black and white, in St. Lucie County, but instead serve to further divide us at this most difficult and trying time."

It was Mascara's letter that was divisive. The sheriff was out of line in sending it.
Inwater Research Group complete a health assessment on a loggerhead turtle that was sucked into an intake pipe at Florida Power & Light St. Lucie Plant on April 8 on Hutchinson Island near Fort Pierce. (LEAH VOSS/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)

By Randy Labauve

At Florida Power & Light, our sea turtle conservation program has been helping researchers study and protect these special animals for 40 years. Almost every day, sea turtles enter the intake pipes that run from the ocean to a canal outside our St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant, where they can be retrieved and examined by biologists.

In a recent report, Treasure Coast Newspapers described this as turtles being "sucked into the plant." However, the intake pipe draws water in at less than 1 mph.

The vast majority of the turtles that enter the intake are healthy, and they are quickly returned to the ocean. When a turtle is found to be sick or injured, it gets taken to a rehabilitation facility for treatment. For perspective, during 2014, the most recent year cited by Treasure Coast Newspapers, about 400 sea turtles entered the intake  and not one was injured or killed by the plant's operations. In fact, we were able to rescue 15 turtles that entered the intake pipes either sick with disease or injured by hazards such as shark bites and boat collisions.

We wish we could save every single turtle that enters the plant's intake pipes, but a very small number  less than 1 percent  die before we can remove them from the canal. Independent wildlife experts agree that this low mortality rate is outstanding. The number that die is also far lower than the number of sea turtles that FPL's efforts help save.

Sadly, thousands of sea turtles die each year from human-related causes, including commercial fishing and illegal poaching. Many of the turtles we retrieve are sick or starving because of ingesting a small amount of human trash such as a plastic grocery bag, which looks like a jellyfish to a hungry turtle.

We work hand-in-hand with researchers, universities and wildlife experts to help the population of these endangered animals recover, and we are thrilled to be seeing their numbers grow. Led by a dedicated team of marine biologists from Inwater Research Group, our program has compiled one of the largest databases of wild captured sea turtles in the world. By studying the turtles that enter the St. Lucie plant intake, our research partners are learning valuable information with the goal of protecting even more of these amazing creatures in the future.

We also work year after year to educate the public about why protecting sea turtles matters. Every summer, hundreds of people enjoy our special FPL Turtle Walks.

On Friday and Saturday nights in June and July, you can join us on the beach near our plant to see turtles up close. (These walks are hugely popular but limited by permit to only 40 people each, so reservations are required. There's no charge, just call 1-888-646-6396 to reserve your space before they fill up.)

FPL is honored to be part of the Treasure Coast community, and we take pride in our commitment to our customers and the environment we all share. We encourage everyone who cares about sea turtles as much as we do to learn about what you can do to help.

For tips and other information, please visit our friends at Loggerhead MarineLife Center at www.marinelife.org.

Randy LaBauve is vice president of environmental services for Florida Power & Light Co., leading environmental strategy, licensing, compliance and environmental relations efforts.
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As has been recently reported in the Press Journal, an explicitly racist flyer denigrating African Americans was circulated at the Freshman Learning Center in Vero Beach. It included an image of the Confederate flag, mention of the KKK and slurs aimed at African Americans.

The students involved were appropriately disciplined  and that's an important thing.

But sadly, in addition to this shameful and racist incident, a few Confederate flags have regularly been seen prominently flying on pick-up trucks and cars in the parking lots of Vero Beach and Sebastian River high schools.

In response to these and other instances involving this symbol, the Indian River County NAACP  after having received many citizen complaints  has requested that the Indian River School Board and Superintendent Mark Rendell change the Indian River County Schools Code of Conduct. They seek to ban the display of the Confederate Flag on school property as an inappropriate and incendiary racist symbol intended to intimidate African American students.

Both the School Board and Superintendent Mark Rendell have thus far declined to take official action to rid our schools of this controversial and provocative symbol.

Many people do not understand that what is today called "the Confederate flag" was only one of several flags flown by the various state armies of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Specifically, it was a flag used only by the Army of Northern Virginia.

Many people also do not know that this battle flag was not widely flown in the Southern states (including Florida) until the Civil Rights Movement began in the 1960s.

As one historian puts it, "It was a flag of defiance against the federal government and flown in opposition to the civil rights and racial equality of the African American population in the South."

So, in fact, the "Confederate flag" is not a long-standing and innocent banner of Southern heritage and pride, as some claim, but rather a recent and shameful exhibit of racism.

African-American students, teachers and parents in the Indian River school system fully understand it's unfortunate history, and are rightly insulted and alarmed by its presence on school property.

For this reason, a coalition of concerned citizens of Indian River County  both black and white  are working to eradicate the image from our schools. Now, because of First Amendment and free speech concerns that have long been articulated by the ACLU and others, we realize the ban may not be legally possible.

But we are morally urging all students, teachers, administrators, parents, and school visitors to personally "do the right thing" and refrain from displaying this disruptive and hostile symbol in or around our schools.

Here is our letter that we hope many citizens of Indian River County  including members of the Indian River County School Board and administration  will sign:

"The Confederate Flag Has No Legitimate (or Positive) Place in Our Indian River Schools

We, the undersigned citizens of Indian River County  fully aware of how the "Confederate Flag" has (since the Civil rights movement of the 1960's) been flown a symbol of resistance to the civil rights and racial equality for African Americans  respectfully asks that all citizens of our community morally do the right thing and refrain from displaying this divisive and hostile symbol in or near our public schools. While school officials (citing first Amendment and free speech considerations) might not choose to officially ban this symbol, we as citizens, one with another, are urging all citizens to show respect and restraint for people of all racial backgrounds and not display this negative symbol in or near our public schools. The "Confederate Flag" has no positive role to play in the life of our community or our schools."

If you wish to lend your signature to this public document, please send an email, with your name in the body of the email to: noconfederateflag@gmail.com

Rev. Scott Alexander is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Vero Beach and has been a minister, author and educator for over 40 years. He is an avid cyclist and outdoor enthusiast who loves living in Vero Beach.
A group of 24 Pembroke students have completed a gruelling 85-mile bike ride between Oxford and Cambridge to raise money to allow a refugee to study for an MPhil at Cambridge University.

The group has thus far raised 5,368 on a JustGiving page for their event, which took them between nine and ten hours to complete in inhospitable weather, and donations continue to flow in. The page attracted individual donations ranging from 5 to 100. A further 1,893.32 has been contributed from elsewhere, raising their total to 7231.32, more than 1,000 in excess of what is required to provide one studentship.

They cycled from St Martins Church in Carfax to Cambridges St Marys Church. Despite a handful of mishaps, including a slipped chain, one fall, and a puncture, every rider was able to reach the final destination.

On its Facebook page, Pembroke College praised its students amazing feat. Many donors also left messages of support, calling it brilliant work and a great cause. One of the participants, PhD student Annie Thwaite, urged the other colleges of Cambridge to organise their own events, saying If we could get all the 31 colleges involved in it, it would be amazing.
Smartphones appear to be losing their luster, and the king of smartphones  Apple  clearly is not having a good year. Suddenly, Im hearing that there is an upswing in flip phones, making this feel a bit like a Game of Thrones episode, when a believed-dead king returns to seize the throne by surprise. (We are still talking small numbers, so you Apple folks dont have to jump out of windows yet.)

Clearly, the market is looking for the next big thing. There was a lot to love about the flip phone, and phones have been a rather fluid environment for a time. Palm and RIM (now BlackBerry) took the market from Motorola, and Apple took the market from Palm and BlackBerry, only to face a largely successful attack by Google. Microsoft, long thought to be invincible, turned out not to be.

Ill share some thoughts about what it would take to bring the flip phone back as a power and then close with my product of the week: some earplugs that could save your marriage.

Flipping the Market

Apple flipped the market most dramatically when it largely copied a design from LG  called the LG Prada  that fell into a class of smartphones not selling well. Apple showcased how to fix that. The issue was that the Prada, and devices like it, were expensive and relatively hard to use. There were features packaged as apps, and the model in play was similar to Microsofts now failed initiative, putting a limited PC in your pocket.

The reason that designs like Palms and RIMs (BlackBerry) worked better was that they simply were more useful. Their keyboards made them vastly better for email than screen phones, and folks who had used Palm Pilots and RIM BlackBerry pagers migrated to them in droves.

However, what everyone missed was that phones were more personal devices than they were work machines, and Apple created a device that was better looking and more fun to use, while still doing most everything a Palm or RIM phone did.

In addition, anticipating that its entire iPod base was likely to migrate to such a phone, Apple cannibalized its iPod line, turning the vast majority of iPod users into iPhone users. That prevented what could have been a catastrophic market loss if RIM or Palm had picked up music and other media first.

The funny thing is, Palm actually had designed an iPhone-like product, but executive management (read the now-branded-idiot CEO) concluded there was no market for an iPhone-like product; people bought those things for business only.

Now, with Apple pivoting to more of a business focus in an increasingly desperate effort to expand its market, there is a growing opportunity to flip the market back again.

Flip Phone Advantages

The flip phone had a number of advantages over a typical smartphone. It was smaller and more portable. It was far easier to balance on your shoulder when talking hands free. It was more robust (the screen was naturally protected by the flip feature).

You measured battery life in days, not hours; its keyboard let you dial faster; and it typically cost around a fourth of what a smartphone cost, so you didnt have as big a problem if you lost or broke it.

Flip Phone Disadvantages

On the other hand, the flip phone wasnt a smartphone, so in terms of doing most of the things you now use a phone for  other than talking on it  it largely sucked. Texting was ugly, browsing (if it even worked) was painful, and there were no real apps (no common platform).

It had a proprietary power plug (you were screwed if you forgot or lost your charger), and the old Star Trek-like look wasnt really that trendy by the time it died.

Building an iPhone Killer

Here is how I think you could challenge the iPhone. First, youd take a page out of Steve Jobs book and build it so it did a few things really well  including playing music and tethering. In fact, I think tethering is the key.

You see, weve grown phones into phablets, but most of us also have tablets with larger screens. If you had the phone do mostly just the core communications transport but left the Web browsing, app running, video playing stuff to the tablet or laptop, youd have a solution that would allow you to be more connected, more of the time, with all of your devices.

Youd have devices optimized for what you were doing rather than trying to balance between a too-big phone with crappy battery life and a too-small tablet or crippled PC-like device.

The two or three products then would work more symbiotically, without as much overlap, and you could do things like device alerting, so that when any one of the paired devices got out of range youd know it. That would make it less likely for you to leave one of them behind.

Again, the key would be not only to make tethering far easier than it is now, but also to ensure that the switch-off between the phone and tablet/PC was also natural and easy.

In a use case, youd have the phone on your shoulder talking and the tablet in front of you for video conferencing or sharing. (You also could use a headset, leaving the phone in your pocket or purse.)

Even if the tablet/PC ran out of power, youd still be able to make and receive calls and do limited Web work. Youd want a creative charging solution so you werent up to your armpits in wall warts, making wireless charging interesting if not necessary.

Youd need to up the design, and maybe think about whether you could turn this into some kind of unique wearable. In the end, the flip part isnt critical. If you could come up with something that would even work better hands-free and use the current crop of digital assistants better (Cortana, Siri, Alexa), youd likely have a hit.

In fact, it might not be a bad idea to see if you could make Amazons Echo into a phone/mobile wireless router.

Wrapping Up

Im convinced that the market is looking aggressively for what comes after the iPhone, and that this opportunity is waiting for the next Apple to make that gamble. No one says it couldnt actually be Apple that does this  but it is doubtful, given how badly it screwed up the Apple Watch. (Calling it Apple Watch is a big clue to its problems.)

In the end, it will take a combination of the functionality of a tablet or PC, the mobility and connectivity of a current-generation phone, and the voice capability of Echo to make this happen. That means everyone from Apple to Microsoft could be in the hunt, but it might take a new company thinking entirely out of the box with sufficient funding to create the next big thing.

I snore. Now Im not convinced it is that bad, but my wife thinks I sound like the sound youd hear just before the world ends. In short, she isnt a fan. So, she wears earplugs  but like most passive devices, they really dont block out the sound.

More advanced solutions, like active noise cancellation, are really expensive and typically arent comfortable enough to sleep through. So why not fight bad noise with good noise? A rumbling stream, a forest, rain, frogs croaking. (This last would not be for me, as Id likely wake up wanting to shoot a bunch of frogs.)

The Hush Earplugs play back looping sounds to cover up noises wherever you are, whether youre listening to crying babies or laundry machines running in the middle of the night.

Funny story  when I was young, my parents had a water bed and at night I used to wonder why they were washing clothes in the bedroom. I clearly wasnt the sharpest tack in the box. The sloshing water sound had nothing to do with clothes washing  oh crap, now I have to get that image out of my head again.

Hush Smart Earplugs

In any case, the Hush Earplugs are US$150 on the Hush site, and while not cheap, they are affordable  and what is the value of a good nights sleep?

Anything that preserves my well-deserved sleep  and prevents that late-night love tap with whatever is handy (Kindle, hammer, cat) to stop the melodic sounds coming from my mouth  is worth a mention. Its reason enough to make the Hush Earplugs my product of the week.
argomall puts consumers at the front and center of its business and strives to deliver the best possible online service in the Philippines

We help our consumers in the Philippines to find, choose and buy their next smartphone. We carry all the brands of smartphones and all of them are under official warranty. We aim to make new smartphone shopping journey as easy and comfortable as possible

there's even an Advanced Search that allows you to get a list of models that fit your technical specs requirements

This is how the package looked when I got it. (argomall works with a courier company called 'Rush' for their deliveries.) I handed the delivery guy my exact payment after I checked what's inside the pack and unboxed the smartphone to see if it's A-OK.

argomall made sure that my gadget are properly protected - using a lot of bubble wrap - during shipment.

They also included this sheet, which gives me merchant information about the smartphone I purchased as well as argomall's contact details should I require after-sales service.

In terms of warranty, purchasing a smartphone or any gadget at argomall is exactly like buying it from a concept store in a mall or an authorized retail outlet as you 100% parts and service warranty from the brand itself

The main advantage, of course, is that you can make a purchase from the comfort of your own home or office and that argomall can pick-up and deliver your device back to you should it require after-sales support.

There's a new online gadget store in the Philippines -- and it does what most other electronics outlets in the internet currently fail to do, which isA member of the giantTo quote the amazing people behind argomall , "."A few weeks ago, after I overheard a bunch of my techy friends talking about the new website, I visited argomall just to check it out and see for myself what the whole buzz was all about.Upon checking the homepage, I was immediately smitten with how well-organized it is and with how easy it was to look for a specific smartphone model.If you check the site, you'll see that all the handsets are neatly arranged per brand and. For instance, if you're looking for a 5.5-inch Android smartphone with a Quad Core processor and 3GB of RAM, you simply have to fill in those fields and argomall will send you a list of devices that have all of those features. You can tell the good folks behind this online gadget store are quite techy themselves.Impressed with the quality of the website and hearing great things about the company, I decided to purchase ahandset from argomall a couple of weeks ago just to experience their service and see if it's as good as the design of the webpage.Allow me to share the entire process with you.1. I created a free argomall account by filling out all the fields - including shipping address and billing address - and by giving them my email address. It's really fast and convenient.2. I looked for the smartphone that I wanted to purchase using the search bar beside the logo. Since I already knew the exact model that I wanted to get, I didn't have to do an Advanced Search.3. I simply clicked on, read the product description, checked the price, and added the unit to my cart by clicking the button.4. You can add multiple items to your cart and just checkout in one go. I was good with SGS7Edge-Gold so I just ticked the '' option for Metro Manila buyers - for an additional Php 190 - and proceeded to check out.5. argomall supports a number of payment options, namely, Dragonpay, Credit Card, Online Banking, Over-The-Counter Banking and ATM, Over-The-Counter Non-Bank (via SM, LBC, Cebuana Lhuillier, among others), and Cash-On-Delivery. I opted for COD.6. After which, I checked the cost breakdown and the total amount, then clicked on the 'Place Order' button.7. argomall confirmed receipt of my order and gave me my order number for easy tracking. It was super fast and convenient; I didn't have to call or chat with their customer support team.8. I received my package exactly 24 hours after placing my order, which is amazing considering that there's a 2-day allowance for their rush delivery.Well, anyway. After I received my package, argomall invited me to write a quick review about the service, which I'm doing now.Overall, my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge purchase experience at argomall was smooth, convenient, and fast.I don't regret paying the full amount for the product as I value having peace of mind in knowing that my new handset comes with full service and parts warranty for one year from Samsung itself. Also, not having to go to the mall and leave my home office to buy the device also allowed me to work on my deliverables for my clients faster on that day, so I instantly felt the benefits of argomall's proposition as a nimble online gadget store.
The European Commission's investigation into Google's alleged abuse of its dominant market position has dragged on for over six years, but the case may be about to reach a conclusion. According to a report in The Telegraph, the commission is planning to hit the search giant with a record fine of around $3.4 billion.

The EU antitrust regulator had formally charged Google with manipulating search results in order to promote its own comparison shopping services when users were searching for things to buy. The commission accepted a third settlement proposal from Google in 2014 but changed its mind later in the year after deciding it wasn't sufficient enough.

In November last year, Google issued a 130-page response to the monopolistic practices charges. One reason put forward in its defense was that the company can't take advantage of customers as it offers a free service.

It seems, however, that Google's report hasn't swayed the commission, which will reportedly make an announcement on the matter as early as June. If the company does receive a $3.4 billion fine, which represents 10 percent of its annual sales, it will be the largest ever payout in an EU antitrust case, surpassing the $1.45 billion imposed on Intel in 2009 for its anticompetitive practices.

In addition to the fine, Google will be ordered to stop pushing its own services to the top of certain search results at the expense of its competitors.

Reuters reports that after enduring over half a decade of investigations and several attempts to settle the case, Google is now prepared to face whatever punishment the European Commission hands out, though the company still denies any wrongdoings.

Paying the huge fine won't mean an end to Google's EU problems; it faces separate antitrust charges that claim it required phone manufacturers to pre-install Google apps on their handsets. Moreover, several European countries are demanding the Mountain View-based firm pays billions of dollars in back taxes.
Three farmers and an agronomist in Nebraska have filed suit against agrochemical company Monsanto for including a potentially cancer-causing ingredient in its popular herbicide Roundup.

The plaintiffs alleged that Monsanto misled consumers about the safety of Roundup, which includes an active ingredient known as glyphosate. The compound has been declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a potential carcinogen last year.

The four Nebraska residents have been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of cancer typically associated with glyphosate.

According to the suit, Monsanto made use of falsified data to support the use of Roundup and even attacked studies that identified the dangers associated with its herbicide. The agrochemical company allegedly promoted wrong information regarding Roundup in order to convince farmers, regulatory agencies and the public as a whole that it is safe to use.

The plaintiffs also asserted that Monsanto concealed research that revealed the dangers of Roundup or systematically tried to discredit such findings.

Monsanto, however, contested allegations that its herbicide is a potential carcinogen, stating that it goes against the consensus science organizations and regulatory agencies including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

"'Probable' does not mean that glyphosate causes cancer; even at 100 times the exposure that occurs during normal labeled use glyphosate is not a human health risk," Monsanto said on its website.

Glyphosate is known to inhibit an enzyme in plants, effectively preventing their growth and development. Monsanto pointed out that since animals and humans do not have this particular enzyme, they would not be affected by the chemical especially when it is used as stated in the directions label.

Several countries around the world, including France, Sri Lanka, Bermuda and the Netherlands, have either restricted or outright banned the sale of glyphosate after having been tagged as a cancer-causing ingredient by the WHO.

In 2010, a report by the New York Times revealed that as much as 90 percent of soybeans and 70 percent of cotton and corn cultivated in the United States are produced through the use of Monsanto's Roundup Ready seeds.

Photo: Mike Mozart | Flickr

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
New reports out of Asia claim that Sony is not only ditching its Xperia Z line, but also the Xperia C and Xperia M series, as part of a new chapter.

Sony reportedly wants to focus solely on the Xperia X, which means the company will offer a single smartphone series to cover all segments, from the entry level to the high end and everything in between.

Leaked slides from a Sony presentation surfaced on Chinese website ePrice and the Marco Kao blog on Pixnet, seemingly showing a timeline for the company's plans broken down into chapters.

According to these presentation slides, Chapter 1 was between 2010 and 2012, focusing on an "open OS for web communication." The highlight of this chapter was the Xperia X10, Sony's first Android phone, launched back in 2009.

Chapter 2, stretched between 2013 and 2015, was all about the "best of Sony," with the Xperia Z series front and center.

Sony is now up to Chapter 3, from 2016 to 2018, which will be the golden era of the "Xperia for new communication." Xperia X shines here as Sony's new brand communication ambassador and identity. Sony will aggressively use its "X" logo in all of its TV ads and promotional prints, and will focus heavily on marketing the Xperia X line.

This indicates that, at least until 2018, Sony will bank on its Xperia X series exclusively, pushing it as a single brand for all of its future smartphones. While Sony has yet to confirm such plans, this move does fall in line with the company's previous announcement that it will not launch an Xperia Z6 this year.

At the same time, this could also mean that the recently leaked Sony Xperia C6 Ultra may in fact launch as the Xperia X Ultra, or something along those lines.

The new brand identity does not mean that Sony will compromise on specifications, or offer fewer models. It simply means that instead of releasing handsets under multiple lines, such as the Xperia C, Xperia M or Xperia Z, it will push all smartphones under one big Xperia X umbrella.

It remains to be seen just how Sony will deal with names, however, as multiple Xperia X handset names are bound to cause some confusion if not handled properly.

Sony has yet to make a statement regarding this, so it's all based on leaks at this point. If the presentation slides turn out to be the real deal, however, the company should make a formal announcement soon enough.

Until then, you know the drill: take all leaks with a dose of skepticism.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Google is purportedly facing a European Union antitrust fine of about 3 billion euros, or about $3.4 billion, in the succeeding weeks for allegedly abusing its search dominance.

A report from The Telegraph claims that officials in Brussels are presently putting "finishing touches" to the investigation over Google reportedly promoting its shopping service in Internet searches and denying traffic to rival services.

"Sources close to the situation said officials aimed to make an announcement before the summer break and could make their move as early as next month," reads The Telegraph's report.

Since the terms have not yet been finalized, according to sources, a possibility exists that the fine and other terms will still be amended in the coming weeks.

The European Commission can fine Google up to 6.6 billion euros, or around $7.5 billion. This figure is equivalent to 10 percent of the firm's yearly sales.

The Telegraph also reports that Competition Commissioner Margarethe Vestager recently said there's a possibility Google will face further charges in other web search markets, such as maps and travel information.

On top of that, the newspaper also says Google will be banned to keep on manipulating search results to harm competitors and favor itself.

A report from Reuters says Google and the Commission refused to comment on this rumor.

Reuters' sources, in the meantime, earlier said that Google has no plans of trying to settle the accusations "unless the EU watchdog changed its stance."

At the moment, the biggest antitrust fine is 1.1 billion euros, or about $1.2 billion, which was imposed on semiconductor maker Intel.

If the report holds true, the Commission's move will reject Google's argument that it is not anti-competitive, with the company citing the success of eBay and Amazon as proof that it is fair to its competitors.

The company is also facing other antitrust probes in the region, which involve its Android mobile operating system.

At any rate, since there is no official word yet from Google and the Commission, it is wise to take this story with a grain of salt. We will be sure to keep you updated, though, as new information becomes available.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Space nerds, rejoice: NASA has selected eight unbelievably futuristic proposals that could someday turn our dreams of traveling to Mars into reality.

As part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) project, the space agency awards funding to plans that could potentially revolutionize aerospace missions, present new technologies, and greatly boost current methods of aerospace system development.

Under the program's phase II, funding can be worth as high as $500,000 for a 24-month research. Moving onto phase II allows scientists to further test ideas already sponsored by NASA during phase I studies, with the condition that the study yields feasible and beneficial initial results.

On Friday, NASA announced that it has given the green light to eight concepts to push through the next phase. The projects are still in their infancy, and there is an off chance that they fail in the next 10 years, but these proposals are worth the time.

Cryogenic Chambers

Scientists estimate that it would take about nine months  coincidentally the same number of months for pregnancy  for humans to travel to Mars.

The tedious trip would require more supplies to get the crew there and back, and it would have to ensure that the astronauts' stay at the red planet will have enough cargo.

What's the solution? If astronauts could sleep during the whole trip, a lot of cargo weight and unnecessary time will be saved.

That is what the proposal by Atlanta-based aerospace company SpaceWorks suggests in its research called "Torpor Inducing Transfer Habitat For Human Stasis To Mars."

Astronauts will be placed in a condition of advanced hypothermia, with their core body temperatures lowered by about negative 12 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit) in order to lower their metabolic rate. The sleeping astronauts will be fed intravenously.

SpaceWorks also created spacecraft module designs [PDF] for the journey. If this project succeeds, astronauts could travel beyond our own solar system.

Magnetoshells

Spacecraft sent to Mars rely on the red planet's atmosphere to decelerate before landing. The friction between the spacecraft and the Martian atmosphere can be quite dangerous and requires protection that can add to the weight of the craft.

In fact, every extra pound of weight in spaceflight can equate to thousands of dollars in mission cost.

What's the solution? David Kirtley, nuclear engineer and founder of Helion Energy, proposed that wrapping the spacecraft in a shell of plasma could perform the aerobraking in a more restrained manner.

If successful, this magnetoshell could reduce thousands of pounds and at least $1.8 billion dollars from Martian manned missions. It could also potentially protect astronomers from radiation.

Laser Propulsion System

Physicist Philip Lubin of University of Califonia, Santa Barbara proposed that a breakthrough laser propulsion system could shorten the time it takes for tiny spacecraft to travel to Mars.

This project, which received funding from billionaire Yuri Milner, will not be ready for launch in the next three decades but as soon as it is, scientists believe the small starships could reach Alpha Centauri after 20 years.

Growable Space Habitat

There is not much details about this project, but it relies on a concept called tensegrity. According to creator Robert Skelton, tensegrity is an adaptable, flexible, and malleable structure comprised of continuous sticks and strings. Skelton says this is based on the molecular structure of the fiber of a spider and can shape-shift by changing the string tension.

NIAC's Goals

Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of the Space Technology Mission Directorate, says NIAC is one of the ways in which the space agency engages the scientific and engineering community in the United States. The program challenges developers to create visionary and life-changing aerospace concepts.

"This year's Phase II fellows have clearly met this challenge," says Jurczyk.

The complete list of chosen projects can be viewed on NASA's website.

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What role does rapid eye movement (REM) sleep play in forming human memories?

Just as getting deep sleep is integral to better mental and physical health, the REM stage of sleep helps the brain turn everyday experiences into emotional and contextual memories, a new study revealed.

But sufficient and uninterrupted REM sleep is so vital that research involving REM sleep deprivation would be deemed unethical. Studies have shown that lack of deep sleep could result to increased irritability, anxiety, lack of focus and stress.

Because of this, scientists resort to performing studies on lab animals. Although the results cannot be as simply translated to humans, it can provide insight on the beginnings of memories.

Formation Of Emotional And Contextual Memories

Emotional memories are long-lasting. They can either enrich or deepen our lives or haunt us with a paralyzing effect. These memories are often linked to strong emotions such as nurturance and fear.

Contextual or spatial memories, meanwhile, help us identify people, objects, places and remember their significance. Merging these two kinds of memories is extremely important to navigating our social and physical worlds.

In the new study, a team of researchers from Switzerland and Canada applied optogenetics to examine the process of how these two types of memories are consolidated in mice during REM sleep. Optogenetics is the use of light and chemicals to switch certain neurons on or off.

For humans, slipping into REM sleep could take more than an hour. It is characterized by the rapid twitching of the eyes under our lids, which scientists say is the loss of voluntary muscle movement and an apparent sign of vivid dreaming.

Inside the brain, REM sleep is marked by subtle changes. In the brain regions central to memory, learning and emotions  neocortex, hippocampus and amygdala  specific neurons start to synchronize in a distinct pattern. This theta rhythm might possibly be the key to memory consolidation.

Scientists used optogenetics to disrupt the hum of theta rhythm in sleeping mice while being careful not to wake them up. They focused on several neurons located in the medial septum that act as pacing mechanisms to begin and halt the theta rhythm during REM sleep.

After selectively switching these neurons off, the brains of the mice were prevented from entering the REM stage, but they were still asleep.

How Lack Of REM Sleep Affected Mice

Among mice, the emotional and contextual memories are laid down in a survival manner.

The lab mice received a foot shock whenever it stepped on a specific spot. Researchers then tried to see whether the mice, which has committed its dread and fright of another shock to memory, will avoid the spot.

Scientists also took advantage of the mice's impulse to explore a new object or a familiar object placed in a new spot in order to test contextual memories. If one of the lab mice fails to favor a newly placed object over a familiar one for exploration, researchers assume that the mice did not make a contextual memory.

In the end, the research team found that although the REM sleep-deprived mice were well-rested, they were less likely to have formed memories of conditioning experiments they went before sleeping.

These REM sleep-deprived mice were less likely to avoid the place where they experienced shock and unlikely to demonstrate any memory that they have seen an object before.

What's interesting, researchers said, is that it was only during REM sleep that the memories of the lab mice were impacted. When they tried to impair theta rhythm outside of REM, the memories were not affected.

The findings of the study featured in the journal Science need to be replicated in a human trial in the future for further affirmation. It was conducted by scientists from McGill University and Inselspital University Hospital.

Photo: Andrew Roberts | Flickr

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A cannon from the World War I  stolen earlier this month from a veterans hall  has found its way back to its Bay Area, California home.

The Richmond police was contacted by a Martinez man to return the prized artillery piece weighing a ton, as he saw a news item about it and realized he had bought the stolen item for $1,200 a couple of days ago.

The 105-mm cannon stood in the Veterans Memorial Hall in Richmond for almost seven decades before it was stolen pre-dawn on May 1.

This gentleman was more than helpful and felt absolutely horrible he had inadvertently bought a stolen piece of American history, the police said, decrying the stealing as an act taking away from war veterans who fought bravely for the country and its freedom.

Surveillance video shows there were two men who broke the cannon free using a bolt cutter and a pickup truck for towing. The man who bought it contacted the police  who also received several other tips  after the story aired on a local NBC station, saying he had no idea it was a stolen piece.

Richmond police spokesperson Lt. Felix Tan shared they are currently following up on how and why the person was able to purchase the 20th-century relic, which is worth about $1,500 if the materials were to be recycled, but deemed priceless as a historical artifact.

They are also now hunting down the suspects in the theft.

The police thanked the Bay Area community and called the recovered a wonderful case of community policing, with the police, media, and community all working in harmony.

In April, a moon rover prototype costing $38 million to create ended up in an Alabama scrapyard and was expected to fetch around $125,000 in an auction as a fascinating slice of history. However, unlike the WWI-era cannon, it wasnt a case of theft, but of failing to tag the moon rover, which was sold for scrap before NASA could reclaim it.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Microsoft has dragged its mobile phone business for long enough with poor results, so the company is reportedly letting go of manufacturing feature phones.

Microsoft and Nokia struck a deal in 2014 and the terms of acquisition read that the Windows developer owns full rights for the Nokia brand for smartphones until 2024. Now, Microsoft looks into licensing the Nokia brand to Foxconn.

The decision purportedly comes due to the unexpected bleak results for the first quarter of 2016, when Microsoft managed to sell a mere 15 million handsets.

The [translated] report from VTech claims that the company aims to discontinue the Microsoft Mobile business, which fans know as the department behind the building of Lumia handsets. The Lumia smartphone business will reportely joi the Surface line. This sounds as bad as it seems for Microsoft's employees, a part of which expect to get the boot during the restructuring. About 50 percent of the Microsoft Mobile members will be looking for new jobs, the report notes.

The rest of them are likely to join the Surface team, and rumors already permeated the media about a possible Surface Phone in tow. For one thing, Microsoft owns the site www.surfacephone.com. For another, the company is aware that the handset market is consistent and diverse, with developing countries being a gold mine for affordable smartphone manufacturers.

Since Microsoft took over Nokia's phone division and turned it into Microsoft Mobile in 2014, 18,000 employees lost their jobs. Should the information from VTech hold true, the figure will increase.

The rumor should be taken with a grain of salt, albeit the background of the decision is solid. For some time now, Microsoft has changed its focus from the consumer segment to the business and enterprise area, pushing the Windows Mobile delivery towards ventures more than individual clients.

When comparing the earnings from Windows Phone commerce with the revenue gained from licensing Android patents, the latter clearly comes on top. This would back the venture's decision to focus on making money out of software, although the Surface Pro tablet was highly commended by experts and users alike.

Would you consider purchasing a Nokia phone that is being crafted by Foxconn? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Moto G4 leaks again, one day prior to the official unveiling of the much anticipated Motorola device.

A press render that presents the frontal side of the upcoming device recently landed thanks to Evan Blass, more famous for his Twitter handle @evleaks.

Blass posted the image paired with a catch-phrase that caused some confusion among his followers. The quote read "Say hello to your little bro," and the tipster linked the image to one of his previous Moto G leaks. Although the Moto G leak hinted at the fact that the recent image was from the same neighborhood, some reporters and tweeters interpreted the "little bro" image as belonging to the Moto E series.

The tipster eventually made it clear that the recent image is of the Motorola Moto G4, and stated that the "Little bro" reference was a way of bringing the bigger Motorola Moto G4 Pro in the picture. Both devices will be unveiled at a public event on May 17.

Surprised there was so much confusion here. Thought quoting the G4 Plus leak would make it obvious that it's the G4. https://t.co/dVa8wcR0oT  Evan Blass (@evleaks) May 15, 2016

Motorola announced that two media events will take place tomorrow in both Mexico and New Delhi, where the Motorola Moto G4 Plus and Moto G4 will be showcased. In the previous weeks, plenty of leaks surfaced in the media with details about the two handsets. We are happy to report that the Moto G4 Plus will likely come with a fingerprint scanner in its home button.

It should be mentioned that the naming strategy of Motorola is a tad confusing: there were no G2 or G3 models, so why the manufacturer went for the G4 is hard to tell. The only reasoning behind it could be the fact that Motorola did indeed release three versions of Moto phones prior to the G4.

Another Motorola device that will come equipped with a fingerprint sensor is the Moto X4 that also leaked recently. The phone seems to pack the ShatterShield screen protection tech that was first seen in Motorola Droid Turbo 2.

Some might see a strong resemblance between the newly leaked Moto G4 and the Nexus 4 design, but we will have a full image tomorrow, after the events.

We will keep you posted on all the details Motorola reveals at its upcoming events.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
In an effort to start monetizing its delivery service concept, Line has launched a new segment called Line Man in partnership with Lalamove, a logistics startup.

After previewing it for weeks, the chat app finally pushed Line Man live last week for Android and iOS. App shoppers can have products delivered to them by a driver on a motorbike, like a personal butler.

Ariya Banomyong, the managing director of Line Thailand, spoke about the launch with Post and Parcel in an interview on May 16. He stated that the goal of Line Man is to help more local businesses leverage digital tools to provide on-demand delivery services to Thai residents.

Santit Jirawongkraisorn, co-founder and managing director of Lalamove Thailand, added that small- and medium-sized businesses will be the primary targets this year for Line Man.

Line Man, which will initially stay in Thailand for its pilot run, gives locals the opportunity to order food from restaurants in the database app, Wongnai. Then, products are delivered through Lalamove's fleet of motorcycles. As of now, cash payments are being accepted for the service.

However, Line Man isn't limited to just restaurants  it's marketed as a delivery service for parcel transport and grocery orders, too. The drivers who hop on the motorcycles for delivery are decked out in bright green jackets with Line's emoji characters on their backs.

On average, about 215 million of Line's registered users are active each month. Line's executives claim that the company reeled in $1.1 billion in sales in 2015.

In the U.S., Line may not be one of the most talked-about or used apps. However, the Tokyo-based app is booming across Asia. Despite just launching five years ago, Line has more than one billion global registered users.

On May 13, new research showed that Line has beaten its rivals in sales of applications available in the Google Play Store for the fourth year in a row. In terms of downloads, Facebook still ranked number one, followed by WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram.

Line also announced in April that it would be looking to launch its own smartphone call center using an artificial intelligence bot later in 2016.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Apple Deletes the $1 App That Informed Users If Their iPhone is Hacked

Apple indulged in worst form of censorship and has removed the $1 App which informed iPhone users whether they were ever hacked and if their iPhone was being spied on.

The $1 app called System and Security Info which was available iTunes store has since been removed by Apple. The App was developed by a German IT security researcher Stefan Esser after he found that there is no single App which could inform the iPhone owner whether he/she has ever been hacked.

The System and Security Info App could inform users if their iPhone has been secretly hacked, jailbroken or being spied by malicious actors. However, it seems like Apple didnt like the idea of information for all and deleted the app. The official stereotype reply for the deletion, given by Apple, is that its review team found the System and Security info app isnt in compliance with the App store review guidelines.

And as a thank you for pointing this out out app is thrown out of the AppStore. ?  Stefan Esser (@i0n1c) May 15, 2016

Here. It basically says: we do not want our users to have the impression iOS could have security holes. go away. pic.twitter.com/7II1q96ZMt  Stefan Esser (@i0n1c) May 14, 2016

According to an email sent by Apple, Esser was told that his app provides inaccurate and misleading information to iOS users which may mislead or confuse users. Esser also tweeted that the App was found unfit after 4 bug related reviews.

Esser also denied that he would release a jailbreak version just to get back at Apple.
Google to make HTML5 by default for Chrome instead of Flash by Fall

Google has just announced that it is beginning to phase out Flash support in its Chrome browser as default. The Google developers in a Google Groups thread named Intent to implement: HTML5 by Default, have announced initial plans to implement a new feature in the Chromium core that will disable the playback of Flash content by default and use HTML5 instead, if available.

The feature is scheduled to ship with Chromium builds from the 4th quarter of 2016, which is when Chrome will stop advertising support for the Flash player.

If a site offers an HTML5 experience, this change will make that the primary experience, Anthony LaForge, Technical Program Manager at Google, has explained. We will continue to ship Flash Player with Chrome, and if a site truly requires Flash, a prompt will appear at the top of the page when the user first visits that site, giving them the option of allowing it to run for that site.

However, Chrome will load the newer technology by default for sites where HTML5 video is offered alongside Flash. Where Flash Player is the only option for viewing content on a site, users will need to actively switch it on for individual sites. Enterprise Chrome users will also have the option of switching Flash off altogether.

But, there will be a few exceptions to this policy, with Google planning to leave Flash enabled by default on the top 10 domains that depend on the plugin. This list includes YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and Amazon. Even this reprieve is temporary. The list will be reviewed on a regular basis, and is set to expire after 12 months.

It is not a surprise to know that Google is distancing from Flash. Infact, Adobe itself has been moving away from Flash, while Microsofts Edge browser has started freezing Flash within its browser.

A spokesperson for Adobe said it was working with Google in its goal of an industry-wide transition to Open Web standards, including the adoption of HTML5.

At the same time, given that Flash continues to be used in areas such as education, web gaming and premium video, the responsible thing for Adobe to do is to continue to support Flash with updates and fixes, as we help the industry transition, Adobe added. Looking ahead, we encourage content creators to build with new web standards.
Some of the most weird Things Swallowed By People

While it is expected babies and little kids at times try to eat things that are not meant to be eaten, but how about when adults too end up swallowing things that isnt food or medicine. We picked up five cases of people who have swallowed weird objects, which have been discovered in their stomach. Lets go through five strange things people have swallowed.

Cellphone

A 29-year-old prisoner in Ireland was rushed to the emergency room after he claime to have swallowed a cellphone. The X-ray taken confirmed that the phone was in the mans stomach. As the phone didnt pass through the digestive system on its own, doctors tried to remove it using medical tools to pull the device up through the esophagus. However, the doctors were not able to arrange the phone correctly to get it out of the stomach without possibly damaging the esophagus. Finally, the doctors had to make a make a surgical incision into the mans stomach to get the phone out.

SpongeBob

Doctors were in for a surprise when an X-ray of a 16-month-old boys throat whom they treated revealed SpongeBob SquarePants in it. The child happened to swallow a pendant featuring the cartoon character that belonged to his sister. The doctors were able to remove the pendant without any difficulties.

A fitness tracker

A 13-year-old South Korean girl swallowed her Misfit Shine activity tracker by mistake after she put it in her mouth while swimming. The device continued to remain in the girls stomach even after waiting for 30 hours for the device to pass on its own. Ultimately, the doctors decided to try and remove it. They were able to use a snare-like tool to noose the tracker, and remove it out. The Shine still worked, and the girl recovered fast.

Dental instrument

While undergoing a root canal, a 4-year-old boy in India suddenly moved his head, and ended up swallowing a sharp dental instrument called a pro taper file, which is used for root canals and looks like a small screwdriver. In the beginning, doctors were not sure if the boy had inhaled the file or swallowed it, but an X-ray suggested the instrument was in his stomach. As the boy did not complain of pain, the doctors waited to see if the instrument would pass through the digestive tract on its own. X-rays taken later showed that the instrument was moving, and 41 hours later it passed out through his digestive tract.

Cigarette Lighter

A Croatian man was reported to have intentionally swallowed a cigarette lighter when he was at a police station where he was being questioned about possibly smuggling drugs, according to a 2012 report of the case. The said lighter was in his stomach for 17 months. The man wasnt exposed to the toxic chemicals in the lighter, even after all that time, as he had wrapped the lighter in cellophane. Doctors were able to successfully remove the lighter pulling it out through the mans esophagus using a snare-like medical tool.
Teen student from Japan says that he DDoSed 444 school websites to make teachers aware of how incompetent they were

A 16 year-old student from Japan DDoSed websites of 444 elementary, junior high, and high schools in the area just to remind teachers they are incompetent.

The teenager has been arrested on May 11 and Osaka Police have filed a case of obstruction of business charges against him. The police say the teen launched a denial-of-service (DoS) attack against the Osaka Board of Educations server which holds the webpages of 444 elementary, junior high, and high schools in the area.

Although in high school now, at the time of the attacks last November, the student was in junior high school. According to police, he said his own school environment is what motivated his actions.

I hate how the teachers talk down to us and never let us express ourselves. So, I thought I would remind them of their own incompetence. It felt good to see them have problems. I did it several times, the boy said.

Police seized the students computer and some books about hacking. It is believed that he downloaded a DDoS tool which sent large volumes of data to the Board of Education servers, rendering access impossible for periods of about an hour. He would then confirm the take-down by monitoring the websites with his smartphone.

He also told police that he had wanted to join the hacking group Anonymous and that he didnt know schools other than his own would be affected in the attack.

This incident would mark the first time in the history of Japan that a cyberattack was launched against a local government, and punishments for such a crime include a maximum three-year-prison sentence or 500,000 yen fine.
A 40 anos de Malvinas

"Revisar el pasado es pensar el futuro". La frase de la presidenta de Telam, Bernarda Llorente, resume el espiritu del documental coproducido entre la agencia de noticias y el canal publico de TV sobre la cobertura que los medios de comunicacion hicieron del conflicto, plagada de censura y mentiras. Una autocritica necesaria para mirar hacia adelante en un (ya viejo) contexto de fake news y negocio informativo.
Wounded soldier to be taken to Germany in three days

Armenian soldier Arman Lazgiyan, who was wounded during the April skirmishes on the Karabakh frontline, will be transferred to Germany on May 19 to continue treatment there. We are arranging our documents now. My wife and a doctor will fly to Germany with us, Armans father, Mikael Lazgiyan, told A1+. The 19 year-old soldier was taken to the Erebuni medical centre after receiving a severe wound in Talish in Karabakhs Martakert region during the start of hostilities early in April. The enemys bullet hit him in the throat. Arman has undergone four operations at the medical centre. He has several health problems and the German side has been informed about them. The father says German doctors promised to cure his son. He has problems with his lungs, esophagus, trachea, spine and spinal cord, says the father. The treatment will cost large sums of money. We have already transferred 20000 euros to Germany but we shall need for money to cover all expenses, Mikael Lazgiyan said. He also thanks all those who regularly transfer money to the bank accounts opened in the name of his son. All those wishing to help the wounded soldier can transfer money to the following accounts; HSBC Bank: AMD 006057517001 RUB 006057517103 EUR 006057517102 USD 006057517101 Recipient: Arman Lazgiyan
Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) has a seven-point lead over President Jair Bolsonaro ahead of the October 30 runoff, according to a poll released Monday by... | Read More
There is uncertainty before Vienna meeting (video)

There is uncertainty before the meeting of Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev which is due to be held in Vienna, Austria, later on Monday. We do not possess any information about the upcoming meeting. Nor can we guess what kind of proposals will be made to the sides, ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan said today. The society that showed unprecedented consolidation and unity during the April war should define the boundary which the authorities cannot step during the talks. Our order to the person who has gone to participate in talks in Vienna is not to give in. But we do not know Armenias positions in this situation, she said. Political analyst Manvel Sargsyan reminds that for many years Armenia has been pursuing imprudent foreign policy, neglecting its own interests in many cases. For example, in 1991 when joining the CIS, we recognized Azerbaijan. People did not realize then that by recognizing the sovereignty and territorial integrity of that country they were giving the country the right to use legal weapons to protect its sovereignty and borders, he said. Mr Sargsyan says the same superficiality continues today. Even after being embroiled in a war Armenia did not recognize the Artsakh independence. Our authorities are afraid that they might be punished if they recognize Artsakh. It is time to change this mentality. The participates of the forum organized by the Helsinki Committee of Armenia agreed that winners are the countries that fully realize their rights and force others to respect these rights.
With the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Japanese manufacturers are looking even more favorably on the ASEAN region and especially Vietnam as a base of operations.

Some 43.8% of respondents to a survey by the Mizuho Research Institute cited the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as the region where they plan to devote their greatest efforts moving forward.

Thailand, where auto industry growth is slowing, was cited by 59.7% of companies, but that is a dip of 2.2 points from last year. Interest in Indonesia waned 4.7 points to 41.5%.

That is an increase of 2.3 percentage points over the survey conducted last year and the fourth year in a row that ASEAN topped the list.

The think tank conducted the survey in February, targeting Japanese manufacturers capitalized at 10 million yen ($92,000) or more. The institute received valid responses from 1,100 companies.

Increasing interest in Vietnam was clear from the responses. Asked to list the ASEAN countries in which they plan to focus, 53.5% of manufacturers cited Vietnam, up 4.9 percentage points over last year.

With the signing of the TPP this February, Vietnam has gained attention as an export base for textiles and other products.

Source: Japan manufacturers eye Vietnam as export base- Nikkei Asian Review
Authorities have imposed a fine of VND30 million (US$1,344) against national broadcaster Vietnam Television for a controversial news story about dishonest farming practices that it admitted had been staged.

Hoang Vinh Bao, head of the Information and Communications Ministrys Radio and Television Bureau, announced the punitive measure late last week. The report was aired on May 3 and has since upset many farmers.

In the story, a local farmer in Thanh Hoa Province was shown using a large broom to sweep over green plants. The absurd practice was meant to create marks and holes on the leaves, to trick consumers into thinking that the farmer did not use any chemicals to kill pests and worms, the report claimed.

After the story was aired, farmers at the same village criticized the broadcaster for being unethical.

They said the reporter, Pham Thi Phuong, staged the whole thing and created a fake news story that has damaged the reputation and business of the village.

"She came to us and said she would help us introduce our good farming practices to viewers across the country," said a representative. "She then gave us a broom, asking us to clean our vegetables with it so that she could film us."

The broadcaster issued an official statement last week, confirming that the story was completely made up. It also apologized to the farmers affected by the report.

Phuong, the reporter, has been suspended.
Zalora, one of Southeast Asias biggest online fashion marketplaces, has completed a deal to sell its Vietnamese operations electronics retailer Nguyen Kim, news website VnExpress reported Sunday, quoting Zalora Group.

The subsidiary of Germany's Rocket Internet has also sold its unit in Thailand to Thai retail giant Central Group, the website said, adding that the value of the deals has not been revealed.

Last month news website TechCrunch cited multiple sources as saying that Central Group would acquire them for US$10 million each.

Central owns a 49 percent stake in Nguyen Kim, which has 21 stores around Vietnam, through its subsidiary Power Buy.

The selloff in Vietnam and Thailand is part of Rocket's efforts to reduce costs and focus on other markets where Zalora has a better chance to make profits, according to TechCrunch.

With a presence in 11 countries across the Asia Pacific, including Australia and Indonesia, Zaloras revenues rose 78 percent last year to around $234 million, but its net loss increased 36 percent to $105 million, it said.

Last month, the German company, which has been struggling to cash on the Southeast Asian market, sold more than half of its stake in Lazada, which it founded in 2012 to target the regional e-commerce market, to China's Alibaba for $137 million. Rocket retains an 8.8 percent stake.

In December Rocket sold off food ordering website Food Panda for an undisclosed price to local competitor Vietnammm after three years of operations, citing financial issues.
US President Barack Obama will arrive in Hanoi on May 23 and leave for Japan on the afternoon of May 25, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported Monday.

He was originally scheduled to arrive in the Vietnamese capital city on May 22 for his first official visit to the country.

Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted a source from Vietnams Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying that the US president will have an official working day in Hanoi on May 23 and fly to Ho Chi Minh City on the afternoon of May 24.

US Secretary of State John Kerry will accompany him, the newspaper said.

According to the White House, Obama will hold official meetings with Vietnam's leadership to discuss ways for the US-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership to advance cooperation across a wide range of areas, including economic, security and human rights.

During meetings and events in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, he will discuss the importance of approving the Trans-Pacific Partnership this year.

Obama is set to meet with members of civil society, the Young Southeast Asian Leadership Initiative, entrepreneurs and the business community, the White House said.

The Vietnam visit will be followed by a stop in Japan, where he will attend his final G7 Summit.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc left today for a five-day official visit to Russia where he will also attend the Commemorative Summit marking the 20th anniversary of the ASEAN-Russia Dialogue Relationship.

His first foreign trip as prime minister comes at the invitations of Russian President Vladimir Putin and PM Dmitry Medvedev, the government website reported.

The visit marks the aspiration and determination of the two sides to take their comprehensive strategic partnership to the next level, the website reported.

Phuc is accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh, Minister-Head of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung, Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh and others.

He is scheduled to hold talks with Medvedev and meet Putin and Duma leaders to exchange views and seek measures to beef up bilateral ties, particularly in trade, investment, military technologies, energy, education and training.

He will attend the Commemorative Summit in Sochi on May 19-20.

In 2008 Vietnam and Russia set up an annual strategic diplomatic-defense-security dialogue mechanism at the foreign ministers level.

Bilateral trade was worth US$2.2 billion last year.

Russia has invested $2 billion in Vietnam while in the other direction investment flows have been worth $2.93 billion.
Artsakhpress.am: Stepanakert urges Talish refugees to return to their homes

As a result of the 4-day war, a part of the population of Talish (NKR;Artsakh), have re-settled in different settlements of Armenia. Talish, the village in Martakert region was one of the most damaged areas during the Azerbaijani aggression. NKR Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Samvel Avanesyan said the Government of Nagorno Karabakh is focusing on their return and care. According to him, the NKR ministry is in constant contact with Armenian Governorates, the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development and the Representation of NKR in Yerevan, who give daily updates regarding the relocated families. The minister said a working group visited those families in Armenia. He said the process of providing accommodation and other conditions for the refugees will begin in the coming days. The minister urged the residents of Talish, who have taken refuge in Armenia, to return. He said the Government of Nagorno Karabakh will provide all necessary conditions in safe areas for them. The minister also noted that the areas which had been evacuated in April are being intensively resettled.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (L) during talks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow

The Vietnamese premier's visit to Russia is a symbol of the two nations' trust and comprehensive partnership, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc, in his first trip abroad, arrived in Moscow on Monday, where he held talks with his Russian counterpart Medvedev, the news agency VNA reported.

The two leaders said they believed Phuc's visit to Russia will create a new momentum for the two countries comprehensive cooperation. They agreed to beef up bilateral trade, which is standing at US$4 billion.

Medvedev said Russia is willing to cooperate with Vietnam in various fields, including telecommunications, banking, automobile assembly, finance, machine manufacturing, shipbuilding, mineral mining and agriculture.

The two government leaders concurred to pushing ahead with cooperation programmes and projects in energy, oil and gas, breeding and farm produce, the report also quoted Phuc as saying.

The two countries will continue "close and effective cooperation in defence," the report said.

With regard to recent complex developments in the East Sea, the PMs shared the view that disputes in the waters need to be solved through peaceful measures on the basis of international law and efforts to push for a code of conduct in the waters.

After their talks, Phuc and Medvedev witnessed the signing ceremony of cooperation agreements between the two countries economic groups operating in the fields of oil and gas, investment, and official training, the report said.

During his five-day trip, Phuc is scheduled to meet with President Vladimir Putin and Duma leaders. He will also attend the Commemorative Summit marking the 20th anniversary of the ASEAN-Russia Dialogue Relationship.
An Australian court sentenced Friday a Vietnamese elderly maths tutor to 24 years in jail for abusing children as young as three, ABC News reported.

The man known as Peter Hoang, 68, committed the crimes while teaching five children between the ages of three and seven, from three separate Vietnamese families in Sydney's south west, between January 2007 and July 2014.

He was convicted of five counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10 and five counts of indecent assault.

The court heard the abuse continued until Hoang was arrested just less than two years ago.

He was given a non-parole period of 18 years.

In sentencing, District Court Judge Karen Traill said Hoang was a sexual predator who took advantage of his trust as a teacher and elder in the Vietnamese community to sexually abuse young children, ABC reported.

"The community needs to be protected from such devious offenders and a significant punishment is called for," she said.

The prosecution was calling for a life sentence for Hoang.
Vincent Leopold Marcel Pascal, 51, brings a dog out for a walk near his home in District 2, Ho Chi Minh City. The Ouistreham-born man was a tattooist and a bartender before he accepted a business offer and moved to Cambodia, where he met his Vietnamese wife. He then moved to Vietnam.

He saves most of the space in the rented house for nearly 60 cats and a few dogs he picked up on the streets. Some sick animals are separated and live at the back.

He and his wife used to live and take care of abandoned cats at their barbers shop in the backpackers area in District 1. They have separated.

His current place is around 15 square meters. He has for himself a bed, a desk and a laptop which he uses to operate an animal support website called Vietnam Animals Cruelty. The website tells the stories of each animal he brought home and is also available on Facebook.

He has established two hotlines, in Vietnamese, English and French, to take calls about cats or dogs in need. He spends his savings on buying food for his pets and bringing them to vets, and also calls for donations.

He holds a dog for a vaccine shot.

Pascal said he is keeping more cats than dogs as Vietnamese people prefer dogs as pets and he can gift the dogs to loving families.

He takes care of the cats because there are not many people who love to have a pet cat in the city, he said.

Pascal prepares some fish for the cats.

The cats wait for their meal.

He said their food costs him more than VND300,000 (US$14) a day, but luckily, he receives regular food donations.

Pascal cleans up the food bowls.

He strongly opposes cat and dog theft for meat. He said people have a lot of options other than stealing someones pets to eat.

Pascal cleans the cats room three times a day.
A German man signals vehicles to slow down on the slippery Ta Hien street in Hanoi after the heavy rain on June 13, 2015, next to a sign he made with a local. File photo

A German tourist in Hanoi has won a lot of hearts, at least on social media, by standing on a slippery road after a storm on Saturday to signal to motorists to slow down.

The young man, identified only as Maxx, was initially seen walking over to motorists on Ta Hien Street in the old quarter, waving his arms at them.

Several did not know what he meant, kept driving and skidded and fell.

So he then made a bilingual sign with the help of a young Vietnamese there to help drivers understand.

People in the area said oil from restaurants overflowed on the street after the heavy wind and rain that afternoon.
The elephants that have threatened many residents in Dak Lak Province since last week. Photo: Thanh Nien

A herd of 20 wild elephants foraging for food and water near residential areas in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak is threatening the safety of local residents.

Huynh Trung Luan, director of the Dak Lak Elephant Conservation Center, said the elephants have destroyed crops and irrigation systems in several villages in Ea Sup District.

They are apparently moving from the Yok Don National Park to the Ea Sup Thuong Reservoir for water.

While there have been cases of elephants searching for food near residential areas in the past, this is the first time they have appeared during the day, he said.

Many residents said they are worried after the giant animals uprooted several mature cashew trees.

Experts from the Dak Lak Elephant Conservation Center are keeping track of the elephants and have instructed local residents in how to chase them away to ensure both their and the animals safety.

The elephants are among the last wild elephants in Dak Lak, which is home to the largest wild elephant population in Vietnam with about 60 individuals.

The number has fallen from 2,000 in the 1980s, mostly due to poaching and habitat loss.
A Colombian police officer stands guard over eight tons of seized cocaine in Turbo, Antioquia department, on May 15, 2016

Colombian police have seized eight tons of cocaine from the country's main organized crime ring, the largest ever haul in the nation's history, the president said Sunday.

"Congratulations @PoliciaColombia: operation in Turbo have seized the largest amount in our history. A crushing blow to the criminals," President Juan Manuel Santos said on Twitter.

Police said in a statement that they found the cache "of approximately eight tons of cocaine belonging to the Usuga Clan" hidden in a banana plantation in Turbo near the Panamanian border.

Soon after sunrise Sunday, 50 police commandos supported by two Black Hawk helicopters burst into the plantation.

There they found 359 canvas sacks loaded with packs of cocaine hidden in a small cubicle under a cement cover 2.5 meters underground.

Police said that the drugs belonged to one Colombia's most notorious criminals: Roberto Vargas Gutierrez, alias Gavilan (meaning "hawk" in English), the clan's number two man.

Three suspects were arrested and another three escaped, the statement read.

Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said that nearly 1.5 tons of cocaine were wrapped "and ready to go out to the export market."

He said the drugs had "a New York street value" of $250 million.

Villegas confirmed this was the largest seizure ever of cocaine on Colombian territory, though there may have been slightly larger seizures at sea.

Authorities say the Usuga Clan, which emerged after the mass demobilization of right-wing paramilitaries a decade ago, ships tons of cocaine from Colombia to Central America and on to the United States.

The Uraba border region where the latest haul was seized has a long history of smuggling and drug trafficking.

Santos, who has launched a crackdown on the country's criminal gangs, announced in early May "record" seizures of 87.5 tons of cocaine in the first few months of 2016.

Santos has authorized "all of the state's forces" to fight groups like the Usaga Clan, including through the use of aerial bombardments.

Colombia is the world's leading producer of coca, the raw material from which cocaine is processed.

According to the UN, Colombia exported some 442 tons of cocaine in 2014.
Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Eugene, Oregon, U.S., May 6, 2016.

Donald Trump has said he is unlikely to have a good relationship with David Cameron because the British prime minister cast the U.S. presidential candidate as "divisive, stupid and wrong" for proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

After Trump's call for an entry ban on Muslims, Cameron criticized Trump in the British parliament and suggested that Trump, who is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, would unite Britain against him if he visited.

"It looks like we're not going to have a very good relationship, who knows," Trump told Britain's ITV television station in an interview aired on Monday when asked how ties would be if he won power in the Nov. 8 presidential election.

"I hope to have a good relationship with him but it sounds like he's not willing to address the problem either," Trump said, although earlier in the interview he said he didn't care about the Cameron comments.

The United States is Britain's closest ally and political leaders from both nations often speak of how the countries' enjoy a special relationship.

Cameron earlier this month refused to retract his "divisive, stupid and wrong" comment but said that Trump deserved respect for making it through the grueling Republican primary process.

"We have a tremendous problem with radical Islamic terror," Trump told ITV when asked about the proposed ban on Muslims. "The world is blowing up and its not people from Sweden that's doing the damage okay. So we have a real problem."

Trump, who had initially wished newly elected London Mayor Sadiq Khan well, said he was offended by Khan's criticism that he was ignorant about Islam.

"He doesn't know me, never met me, doesn't know what I am all about. I think they are very rude statements. Frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements," Trump said. "It is ignorant for him to say that."

After Khan's election, Trump had told the New York Times that he could make an exception for Khan, who is a Muslim, to visit the United States.

When asked about Britain's membership of the EU, Trump said: "I've dealt with the European Union, it's very, very bureaucratic, it's very, very difficult. In terms of Britain I would say 'what do you need it for'? But again, let people make up their own mind."
"The UKs actions in Libya were part of an ill-conceived intervention, the results of which are still playing out today."
A Chinese paramilitary policeman guards a base at the Mekong river port of Mouang Mom on the Laos side of the Golden Triangle, near the border between Laos, Myanmar and Thailand March 2, 2016.

The Lao People's Army patrol boat was custom-made in China with night-vision capability and two of the most powerful engines on this remote stretch of the Mekong River.

Today, like most days, it sits idle for lack of gasoline, guarded by a single Laotian soldier in flip-flops.

Even occasional patrols by boats like these, supplied by China to the Laotian army and Myanmar police, have successfully subdued the pirates who once robbed the Mekong's cargo ships with impunity since Chinese-led joint patrols began in 2011.

But there has been little progress on another objective - stemming the flood of illicit drugs - exposing the limits of China's hard power in mainland Southeast Asia even as Beijing accelerates its militarization of disputed islands in the South China Sea.

While attacks on Mekong shipping have tailed off, drug production and trafficking in the untamed region, known as the Golden Triangle, is booming - despite the presence of Chinese gunboats and units of Chinese armed police along the Mekong.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that Southeast Asia's trade in heroin and methamphetamine was worth $31 billion in 2013.

"That's bigger than the economies of some Southeast Asian countries," says Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC's Asia-Pacific chief. "It's like having an undeclared sovereign state in your midst with no borders and lots of money."

Enter another Mekong boat, looking at first glance like a pleasure cruiser filled with middle-aged tourists. In fact, they are senior police and drugs experts from four countries, among them one of China's top anti-narcotics officials, Wei Xiaojun.

Arranged by the UNODC and lent further clout by Wei's involvement, their recent voyage down the Mekong was aimed at mustering the regional collaboration needed to tame the Golden Triangle.

Reuters was invited to join the four-day trip from the Chinese port of Jinghong through the heart of the Golden Triangle.

Wei, who is deputy secretary general of China's National Narcotics Control Commission (NNCC), called drugs the "main threat" along the Mekong.

"All other types of organized crime are rooted in the drug business, like human trafficking, money laundering and the illegal wildlife trade," he said.

Crazy medicine

China is a favorite destination for Myanmar's drugs, which are flowing through Asia in unprecedented quantities.

More than 250 million methamphetamine pills, better known by their Thai name "ya ba" or "crazy medicine", were seized in East and Southeast Asia in 2013, an eight-fold increase from 2008.

Seizures of "crystal meth" or "ice" - a potent, crystalline form of methamphetamine dubbed "the poor man's cocaine" - doubled during the same period.

In 2015, China seized a record 36.5 tons of methamphetamine, said the UNODC, with most of the drug in pill form coming from Myanmar. Myanmar is the world's second largest producer of opium, the bulk of which ends up in China as heroin.

A recent report from the NNCC raised concerns about the involvement of some Chinese military personnel in drug trafficking, and said the number of registered drug users in China rose to more than 2.3 million in 2015.

Increasingly Myanmar too has a drug problem, with police last year making record-breaking busts of both ya ba and ice.

This could severely test the new government of Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party has yet to formulate drug policies, say experts.

"Off the grid"

Many factors combine to help the Golden Triangle's drug industry prosper.

The Myanmar-Laos border, which the Mekong delineates, is mostly unguarded. The terrain is rugged and hostile, with rebel armies holding sway in some areas and drugs and money-laundering flourishing in lawless enclaves on both sides of the river.

Regional law enforcement agencies are often underfunded and ill-trained, and the intelligence they gather is not effectively shared with neighboring countries.

In October 2011, a gang led by a Mekong pirate called Naw Kham murdered 13 Chinese sailors. He was hunted down in Laos, then taken back to China to be tried and executed.

Afterwards, Chinese gunboats began patrolling further downriver, extending China's security reach far beyond its borders.

This includes a riverside facility in Muang Mom in Laos, which Reuters visited, run and guarded by a 25-strong unit of Chinese People's Armed Police.

China conducts monthly joint patrols with its Laotian and Myanmar counterparts, who - gasoline permitting - do additional patrols by themselves.

There have been successes. In 2013, a Chinese-Laotian patrol found 580 kg (1,280 lbs) of ya ba, worth more than 100 million yuan ($15 million), hidden in a cargo ship.

But more patrols were needed, said the UNODC's Douglas, and Mekong countries also needed to coordinate and share intelligence to interdict more drugs.

Black holes

Some areas remain intelligence black holes. Hsop Lwe, for example, is Myanmar's busiest port on the Mekong, but its government has no control over it.

The port belongs to Special Region 4, a semi-autonomous enclave famous for gambling, prostitution and narcotics. To the north is Special Region 2, also controlled by heavily armed rebels.

The Special Regions were "off the political grid," said Douglas, although he hoped Suu Kyi's new government would engage with and secure better access to them.

The UNODC boat could not get permission to stop at Hsop Lwe, where a Chinese cargo ship was unloading SUVs as it passed.

Reuters reporters also spotted unofficial Mekong ports in Laos, which this year chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Landlocked and impoverished, Laos shares a border with all the Mekong countries, which also include Vietnam and Thailand, making it an important smuggling hub for both narcotics and the chemicals that make them.

From Vietnam, for example, comes tons of caffeine, used in methamphetamine production and spirited through Laos and across the Mekong in rice bags.

Other lawless areas were being created by the Mekong itself.

The ever-shifting river created islands where drug shipments were hidden, said Colonel Patpong Ngasantheir of the Royal Thai Army. But according to a treaty negotiated while Laos was still a French colony, these islands were deemed neutral.

"We're not allowed to search them," he said.
A giant logo of Volkswagen is pictured on the wall of its production facility in Wolfsburg, Germany, April 28, 2016.

Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, said on Sunday it plans to join the class-action lawsuits filed against Volkswagen AG over the German automaker's emissions scandal.

"Norges Bank Investment Management intends to join a legal action against Volkswagen arising out of that the company provided incorrect emissions data," Marthe Skaar, the fund's spokeswoman, said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

"We have been advised by our lawyers that the company's conduct gives rise to legal claims under German law. As an investor, it is our responsibility to safeguard the fund's holding in Volkswagen," Skaar added.

The legal action would take place in Germany, a separate fund spokesman told Reuters, declining to give details as to when it would happen.

The Financial Times on Sunday first reported the sovereign fund's plan to sue Volkswagen.

The $850 billion oil fund is expected in the coming weeks to join the class-action lawsuits filed against Volkswagen in German courts in the coming weeks, the newspaper said. (bit.ly/1TccjaL)

Volkswagen, which admitted last year that it had used sophisticated secret software in its cars to cheat exhaust emissions tests, was unavailable for comment outside regular business hours.

Norway's wealth fund said last year that Volkswagen's actions had contributed to a loss of 4.9 billion crowns in the fund's second quarter. The carmaker reached a nearly $10 billion deal with the U.S. government last month to buy back or fix about a half million of its diesel cars and set up environmental and consumer compensation funds.

Norway's wealth fund also recently turned up the heat on U.S. oil companies Exxon Mobil and Chevron to do more to report on the risks of climate change.

The fund, itself built from Norway's oil and gas wealth, had also made similar demands of oil firms worldwide.
More than 270,000 people have been killed in Syria and millions more driven from their homes since the conflict began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011

Fighting raging between rival Islamist rebel factions to control a key opposition stronghold near Damascus since late last month has killed more than 300 fighters, a monitor said on Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes in Eastern Ghouta pitted the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam faction, which has been taking part in peace talks in Geneva, against the Faylaq al-Rahman and Jaish al-Fustat groups, both led by Al-Nusra Front, Syria's Al-Qaeda affiliate.

"More than 300 fighters have been killed as Islamist rebel factions battle for influence in the Eastern Ghouta," since April 28, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

He said most of the rebels killed belonged to Jaish al-Islam or Al-Nusra.

Abdel Rahman said the clashes broke out after several attacks launched by Faylaq al-Rahman on positions held by Jaish al-Islam in Eastern Ghouta, a belt of countryside and small towns east of the capital that seen heavy fighting throughout Syria's five-year-old civil war.

Ten civilians have also been killed, he added, including a doctor and a child.

Most of the rebels killed since late last month in Eastern Ghouta clashes are believed to be from Jaish al-Islam or Al-Nusra.

The doctor, identified as Nabil al-Daas, was the only specialist gynaecologist still practising in Eastern Ghouta. His death was also reported by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

Residents and local officials have tried to mediate an end to the clashes and have staged protests urging the rival forces to stop the bloodletting to no avail, according to the Observatory.

Fighting has continued intermittently with both sides setting up roadblocks and building defences across Eastern Ghouta, said the Britain-based monitoring group which relies on a network of sources on the ground for its reports.

Jaish al-Islam is the dominant rebel group in Eastern Ghouta. One of its leaders -- Mohammed Alloush -- was named as the opposition's chief negotiator at peace talks in Geneva.

Syria's fractured armed opposition movement has been ravaged by infighting, particularly between jihadist groups and their rivals.

More than 270,000 people have been killed and millions more been driven from their homes since the conflict began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011.
South Korean Army launch rockets during a joint live firing drill with the US at the Seungjin Fire Training Field in Pocheon in August of last year. The U.S., Japan and South Korea will participate in drills in waters near Hawaii in late June. Photographer: Jung Yeon Je/AFP via Getty Images

In a sign of increasing defense cooperation, the U.S., Japan and South Korea will next month hold their first joint military exercises aimed at tracking North Korean missiles.

The three nations will send Aegis destroyers to participate in the drills in waters near Hawaii in late June, South Koreas Defense Ministry said Monday in a text message. The U.S. plans separate international naval drills in the Pacific this summer.

The U.S. has more than 75,000 troops based in Japan and South Korea, and has encouraged its two allies to put aside historical tensions and cooperate more closely. While the drills wont include actual missile interceptions, they show progress has been made among the nations since they signed an intelligence-sharing pact in 2014.

The U.S. is also in talks with South Korea on deploying its Thaad missile defense system on the Korean peninsula -- a move that came after North Korea detonated a nuclear device and launched a long-range rocket earlier this year. China sees Thaad deployment in South Korea as a threat to its national security.

North Korea continues to test an array of ballistic missiles, including one launched from a submarine. The country is banned from developing ballistic missiles under United Nations Security Council resolutions.
A Canberra lawyer has been banned from practising law after he admitted misusing more than $47,000 of clients' money.

The ACT Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal recommended the name of the lawyer, which has been suppressed, be struck from the Supreme Court roll due to professional misconduct.

The man's name was struck from the Supreme Court roll. Credit:Graham Tidy

The lawyer sold his legal practice in 2013 to another business, run by two lawyers, where he worked as a consultant.

The next year the pair lodged a complaint with the ACT Law Society alleging the lawyer had misappropriated $7000 in legal fees paid by a client which should have been paid to them under the sales agreement.
Serzh Sargsyan presents situation at Line of Contact to Federica Mogherini (video)

Today, in Vienna, Serzh Sargsyan met with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini. At the meeting discussed were issues related to the regional developments and current challenges which undermine security. With this regard, the parties spoke in detail about the escalation resulting from the blatant violation of the ceasefire at the NK Line of Contact and possibilities to de-escalate the situation. Presenting the position of the Armenian side regarding the re-start of the negotiations, Serzh Sargsyan stressed the importance of the unequivocal implementation of the provisions of the 1994 ceasefire agreement and 1995 agreement on the consolidation of the measures to strengthen the ceasefire regime as the first step aimed at the creation of favorable conditions for the resolution of the issue. F. Mogherini reiterated support of the EU to the efforts of the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and expressed readiness to assist in the implementation of the confidence building measures in the conflict zone. With this regard, the Armenian side stressed the importance of the visit by the representatives of the EU to the regions which suffered during the conflict. The parties expressed hope that meetings to be held today in Vienna and initiated by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the countries-Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minks Group will help overcome the existing situation and establish peace and stability in the region. At the meeting, the parties spoke also about the Armenia-EU bilateral agenda, including cooperation in certain areas.
Queensland's resources sector has warned that a law designed to make Clive Palmer pay for the environmental clean-up at his failed Yabulu nickel refinery is hurting investor confidence.

The Palaszczuk government's Chain of Responsibility legislation is supposed to ensure company directors or associated entities, rather than taxpayers, bear the cost of cleaning up a failed resources project.

The Queensland Resources Council says the Chain of Responsibility law has gone too far Credit:Michael Chambers

The laws were drafted in response to concerns the complicated corporate structure behind Mr Palmer's Queensland Nickel operations would allow him to shirk responsibility for the environmental clean-up at Yabulu.

But the Queensland Resources Council says the law has gone too far and is causing enormous angst and uncertainty in the business community.
A law firm representing 100 exploited workers at 7-Eleven is seeking further commitments from the convenience store chain to ensure the confidentiality of workers who have filed back pay claims.

Maurice Blackburn is still considering legal action over the sacking of the independent panel set up to assess back pay claims for thousands of workers.

The original panel, headed by former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Allan Fels and co-chaired by David Cousins, was set up after an investigation by Fairfax Media and Four Corners revealed systemic wage abuse at the company's stores where workers were being paid as little as $5 per hour and franchisees provided false records of who had worked at their stores.

Professor Fels, who was sacked on Wednesday after disagreeing with the new terms of reference, described the new panel as "bogus" and designed to reduce claims.
A protester holds up a sign against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump outside of the Hyatt Regency hotel where Trump was speaking in Burlingame, California. Credit:AP I've walked away from a lot of conversations with my mum and dad. It's been easier to avoid their ignorance than to try to reason with them. So I've shrugged it off, said, "That's just my parents," and put it back in the closet. Problem is, it's not just my parents. A lot of people share Trump's philosophies. My mother was interviewed on Fox News saying, "He sounds like us, he talks like us  I'm all Trump, only Trump, always Trump, forever Trump!" He sounds like us? He talks like us? I was reminded of the Imperial Wizard of the KKK who said, "The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes in, we believe in." Which brings me to this. My husband is black. We have a daughter together. My parents' support of a candidate who could not decide if he should accept the endorsement of the KKK is completely intolerable in our home and, ultimately, in our world.

I commented on my mum's tweet and asked her if she'd really written those words. Her response: "(American Flag emoji) You don't share my beliefs, and you don't have to. (smiley face emoji)" I was shocked. I told her so. Publicly. Finally. I wrote back, "Your Twitter feed makes me disappointed and embarrassed of you as a person, a supposed critical thinker, and my mother. Shocked." And then I found the video clips of her on Fox News interviewed at the Trump rally in Burlingame, in April. "I'm all Trump, only Trump, always Trump, forever Trump," replayed over and over in my head. And I felt responsible. I was overwhelmed with shame for my years of silence for not opposing her ideologies sooner. Look where it got me. Look where it got my family. Look where it got us as a nation, a country of closet racists and enablers. I took the subject to Facebook and posted publicly on my wall about my parents' fervent support of Trump. I posted the videos of my mother's interview on Fox News. I posted screenshots of the hateful tweets she'd made about Hillary. I wrote about the way my mother talked at home about her Mexican students, the contempt she had for them, and the derogatory terms she used to describe them.

I wrote about what racism looks like behind closed doors, where it's fed. I knew I'd be condemned by those who respect their elders and don't air dirty laundry in public, but it was time to stop keeping this private. It was beyond time. My mother's response has been to halt communication with me and block me on social media. Painful, but, expected. My father deleted me long ago. But he emails. He emailed me recently to give me some threatening advice: "I know you have never said anything you might not like to be made public," he wrote, "so if you want to continue this attack mode, please remember all things have consequences." So there's that. What there isn't any more is a relationship with them. My husband and I found no other way to be honest with ourselves, to be moral, and to protect our daughter than to sever all ties with my parents as long as they promote these ideologies of hate and xenophobia. It's a decision I don't take lightly, one with repercussions that will be felt long after this election, and one that affects my daughter, too, who isn't old enough to make this choice herself. My mother is in her 60s, my dad in his 70s. They won't be around forever. But the hate they sow could be. By ignoring racism, xenophobia, and misogyny within our families, we are accepting it within our culture. To ignore is to accept. As my daughter plays on the floor in front of me while I type this, I think about her ancestry. I think about the suffering that has been endured so that she can live in a free and just world, and I feel a responsibility to the continuity of that humanity. If I don't oppose my parents' behaviour and objectives, if I don't reject Trump and all that he stands for, if I don't change my family's vocabulary so that my daughter never knows the hateful words I heard growing up, I'm undoing the progress that generations before me have fought and died for. And that, I won't accept.
We might poke fun at Malcolm Turnbull's recent remark that wealthy parents should assist their adult children to buy a home. But his quip reflects the reality that is taking hold in Sydney today.

Housing has become unaffordable to all but the highest paid. Help from our parents is certainly the only way that my partner and I could afford the house we're living in now  and we're on higher wages than most. As Tim Williams, from the Committee for Sydney, recently argued, inheritance is becoming the main road to home ownership in Sydney.

Only for some: Huge areas across Sydney have an entry-level housing price of $1 million, making them unaffordable for thousands of young families.

The statistics keep on coming. Last year one study reported in the Herald showed that a nurse could not afford to purchase a home in 95 per cent of Sydney's suburbs. Another showed that in financial year 2014-15 there were 64 suburbs where not a single dwelling sold for less than $1 million.

Things get even worse for those on lower incomes. An Anglicare report showed less than 1 per cent of available rentals were affordable for people on government income support payments.
My mother left us suddenly. She had breakfast and was gone a few hours later. In her last hours, around her bed, there were more than 50 family members, including most of her 24 grandchildren and some of her 10 great grandchildren. To the outside world she was just another mother and grandmother. Within the world of the people her life touched, she was exceptional and deeply loved.

In life, you meet a handful of people who are exceptional and inspiring, and whom you deeply admire. For me, I truly admire people who go beyond the familiar and known. Stepping into the unknown they rise above the struggle, and their lives shine brighter, radiating more light and love all around them.

For me, one such exceptional person whom I deeply admire  is my mother, Olga. Let me share why I feel this way.

The story started in Sri Lanka when Olga was 18 years old  she married a man from Sinhd - distant land near Karachi, the land of Sufi and Quwwali tradition  a young Catholic girl was joining a Hindu, a rarity that took her outside her familiarity.

This journey took her into many unknown worlds. Our father worked in the British Indian Army and was regularly transferred. In the space of eight years Olga had five children: the first in Sri Lanka, second in India, third back in Sri Lanka, and then the fourth and fifth in India, all in different towns. When Olga is aged 27 with five children under 10 years old, our father was transferred once again from Bangalore in the south of India to the snowy mountains of Kashmir in the north, for a period of two years.

Without him, Olga travelled back to Sri Lanka with her five children, the youngest 18 months old. The journey took more than three days and included catching multiple Indian trains, a precarious ferry ride between India and Sri Lanka and a lengthy Ceylon Railways train back to Colombo  all with her five children.
As a society, do we want the government to focus on using military spending as a way of creating jobs? Defence spending has been "decoupled" from the fiscal restraint of the rest of the Australian economy, with generous increases in funding. It is now on target to reach 2 per cent of GDP by 2021, significantly earlier than initially planned.

Preparing for war should not be regarded as a job-creation scheme. The consequences of building massive weapons systems that could only conceivably be used in a major war go far beyond the jobs they create. They undermine peace in our region as nations compete for bigger and more costly weapons systems. It is in no one's interest to have a regional arms race.

The increases in our military spending are all the more remarkable in light of this year's Defence White Paper which reported that "there is no more than a remote prospect of a military attack by another country on Australian territory in the foreseeable future". Why then are we spending many tens of billions of dollars on submarines and on the even more controversial Joint Strike Fighter planes? Could it have something to do with President Obama urging allies to spend at least 2 per cent of GDP on defence?

There are more jobs in health, education and renewable energies, for the same amount of investment, than there are in the military sector. Professor Hugh Gusterson of George Washington University, writing in 2011, found that "$1 million spent on the military creates 8.3 jobs, whereas $1 million spent on education creates 15.5 jobs, and $1 million spent on healthcare creates 14.3 jobs".
When Donald Trump appeared on the scene as a presidential contender in mid-2015, he seemed easy to place on the political spectrum. With his vow to ban Muslims and deport Mexicans, to throw up high barriers to immigration and trade, Trump emerged as a right-winger in the mould of Marine Le Pen or Pauline Hanson. The only question was whether he was a right-wing nationalist, populist or fascist.

But as Trump has fleshed out his a policy platform over the past year, his place in United States politics has become much less clear. On everything from taxes to trade to transgender rights, he has forged a politics that defies easy classification as conservative or liberal. Indeed, his electoral success indicates that the seismic shock rattling American politics may have knocked the political system clean off the left-right axis.

Illustration: Andrew Dyson.

Trump's positions can be hard to pin down. They change with such frequency that he has started to refer to them as "suggestions" or "opening bids". His consistent policies, such as a temporary ban on visas for Muslims and a wall on the Mexican border, make clear that he's no liberal. But his policy instincts are far from conservative, as is evident in the stiff resistance he faces from the right.

Consider his views on the conservative movement's most central policy positions, taxes and government. Since the 1970s, the various strains of US conservatism have been united by a common commitment to lower taxes and smaller government. These commitments were at times more rhetorical than actual, but they have been the linchpin holding together libertarians, the religious right, and economic conservatives.
We pay fair price to farmers William Darvall (Letters, 14/5) if you want to buy milk that returns a fair price to farmers, consider Aussie Farmers Direct. We work with a Victorian dairy in Camperdown and are committed to paying a fair price to farmers. Our dairy wants a sustainable industry and, unlike the big guys, has no plans to drop the price it pays farmers. Keith Louie, CEO, Aussie Farmers Direct Kennett has a cheek It is bitterly ironic to hear Jeff Kennett now warn of the danger Transurban poses. In early 1994, Schroders Australia Corporate Finance was financial adviser to VicRoads on the CityLink project. That March my colleague David Lennon and I were invited to present a paper on road financing at an infrastructure symposium. It was attended by, among others, road authorities from three eastern states. We advised that it was commercially naive to think private tolling concessions would run their term and that the roads would then revert to government. We said incumbents would renegotiate to progressively extend tolling concessions, thus creating permanent private monopolies. We also explained how a tolling regime could be established that did not involve selling control of the toll revenue stream.

The response was swift and unambiguous. Shortly after the paper was delivered, Schroders' Melbourne office was informed that its advisory mandate was being split into two "phases", the first was to end immediately. The "second phase" was to be re-tendered; needless to say it was awarded to another firm. "Independent" advisers cannot protect the public interest; they can only tinker at the edges of schemes that are favoured by politicians or bureaucrats. The privatisation of our roads has led to the needless waste of billions of dollars; money that is desperately needed elsewhere. Unless it is stopped, countless more billions will be wasted. Stephen Morris, Coorparoo, Queensland So much for discipline When Jeff Kennett and his like began privatising public utilities and offering infrastructure projects to the private sector it was to apply "the discipline of the market". We all know what has happened since: prices have gone up excessively, apprentices are no longer trained, services are arguably poorer and a huge bureaucracy of highly paid rent-seekers has emerged.

Another consequence has been a shift in the role of government: from implementing the wishes of electors for the benefit of all to featherbedding the private sector. Once government has given certain corporations the most profitable tidbits, these corporations work to ensure this continues. Governments of both persuasions respond willingly. Apart from the lost revenue, and the handing over of infrastructure planning to private interests, the crucial question concerns the kind of society we want. Government is supposed to take a society-wide view, companies consider only their profit. The government must take back power over infrastructure planning, and cancel projects of the type so beloved by Transurban and its ilk. Greg Bailey, St Andrews Clean up own house It goes without saying that senior Catholic bishops have the right to issue edicts in an attempt to influence voters at the impending election ("Bishops warn on same sex marriage", 16/5). However, one would hope only "rusted-on" Catholics will take any notice. I continue to find it appallingly hypocritical when Catholic Church leaders attempt to claim the moral high ground on any social or welfare issues. Adapting a key paragraph in the edict, I would say: Any church is ultimately judged not only on how well it manages its finances but also on how well it treats its own "thrown-away" people  the innocent victims and their families who are suffering as a direct result of physical and sexual abuse by its priests. The Catholic Church needs to clean up its own house before it can speak with any credibility on what might constitute a "healthy" society.

Reinhard Beissbarth, Beechworth Early years are critical Had such a program as that provided by the Safe Schools Coalition been available to my daughter, perhaps she wouldn't have spent 15 years of her life battling debilitating depression, anxiety and eating disorders  to name a few effects of gender dysphoria. All those critical years of social development and education wasted, where she could have been developing a real notion of herself. By the age of 31, after some failed, heart-breaking heterosexual relationships, teenage infatuation with other females, self harm and brain-flattening medication, she has found herself identifying as neither strongly a woman nor a man. She no longer needs medication and endless psychology appointments and is finally happy. Contrary to pious opinion from the far right, humans can fall anywhere on the spectrum from male to female. We not only have "gays" and "straights" but myriad non gender-binary traits; they are all genuine conditions. The Safe Schools program is not "indoctrination". It lends life-saving support to young people who question their "appointed" gender.

Name and address withheld Knowledge is vital Professor Amir Attaran's warning in the Harvard Public Health Review that the Olympics are likely to be the catalyst for a global spread of the Zika virus comes at a time when Australia is reducing its research capacity through the cuts to CSIRO. While the CSIRO doesn't work on the Zika virus it has the expertise to do so. CSIRO works on related mosquito-borne diseases of Dengue fever, Murray Valley encephalitis and West Nile virus. This work is vital as the climate warms and mosquitoes spread further south. The more than $100 million cuts to CSIRO from the Abbott government's 2014 budget have not been reversed and the nearly 300 jobs cuts proposed will further destroy CSIRO research capacity. At a time when the global challenges of climate change and global epidemics threaten, we must increase, not reduce, our research capacity. Friends of CSIRO have asked the major parties to commit to reversing the cuts. We are awaiting a response.

Kathryn Kelly, national coordinator, Friends of CSIRO Sloppy record-keeping The Australian Electoral Commission urges voters to update their details when they move house. I did so, but when I received the confirmation email I found the AEC had wrongly recorded my apartment number. Now, in the busy weeks leading up to an election, I have to try to get the AEC to correct my address. I hope this isn't indicative of the AEC's level of attention to detail. Caitlin Stone, Moonee Ponds Practical dress code

Uniform codes tell a parent everything about the school's expectations around gender, particularly around physical activity. In trying to impose dresses for my (very unwilling) daughter, the principal said that "she can wear bike shorts" in case her dress flies up when playing sport. I wondered how enthusiastic boys would be if every time they kicked a ball their pants fell down to reveal their underpants, such that they would need to wear bike shorts. The matter was eventually resolved in favour of pants for all students following a complaint to the Commonwealth Human Rights Commission, backed up with the threat of an injunction from VCAT. And my daughter? Now an armed tactical officer in the police force  and no expectations of dresses. Janine Truter, The Basin Are the Libs for real? I don't know if the state Liberals are just going through the motions objecting to the restoration of the Trades Hall building, or whether they really believe it's a "waste of taxpayers"' money. If they could just forget the building's union links and see it for what it is. A lovely old building seriously in need of repair. Last year I attended a book launch there. I was keen to get a look at this old building that I had been passing for many, many years. I was shocked. I am disabled and the rigmarole I had to go through to get upstairs was truly 19th century. I had to walk all the way around the back to get to the lift, passing through numerous dilapidated meeting rooms that looked like they were still in their original condition.

Second, this is a heritage listed building, built in 1859. That in itself is enough reason for it to be conserved. We are losing far too many of these wonderful old buildings. Jill Burn, Ivanhoe Riders, beware Uber taxis In 20 years of bike riding, I've done the equivalent of about five times around world without incident. I'm very cautious. But I now have a fractured spine following a dooring incident. What got me was a passenger suddenly getting out of a car in traffic: the car being an "Uber" car. Standard taxis are obvious due to their lights; Uber cars are camouflaged taxis. Furthermore, Uber passengers exit quickly (as there is no lengthy wait to pay the driver); they can jump out of the car anywhere (unlike taxi drivers who usually indicate and pull over to conduct the payment transaction. Uber also takes no responsibility in helping those injured in doorings, as it states it is simply a software company. Finally, tracking an Uber driver is difficult as the name and number plate are removed from the passenger's email trail immediately after the trip. So no record is kept.
So what about predictions. A Sunday seat-by-seat wrap of betting markets by the blog Mark the Ballot had the Coalition ahead in 78 seats. Although it currently holds 90, and this would represent a big setback for Turnbull, it's still enough to handily beat Labor's postulated 68. That's even if the four independents joined the Opposition, and there's no reason to be certain they would. And finally, although the betting markets claim they accurately predict the result, they actually don't this far out. So let's look at what the parties are doing.

Shorten's assault is traditional Labor, right down to that most ancient technique of all, the campaign bus, passing through every electorate right from the tip of Cape York heading on down the road to Canberra. Is this really the best the strategists can come up with? Is this innovation really so exciting it rates as a news story? If so, the Opposition has a problem. Labor doesn't have a lot of freedom to manoeuvre. Without the luxury of any budget surplus that can be raided to fund new promises the terrain is simple. Shorten needs to convince us that he can manage the country better than Turnbull. By emphasising he's got his ear to the ground and is in touch with ordinary people he provides a constant visual reinforcement of that simple message. But is it enough?

Shorten knows he's got to get the upper hand well before the last fortnight of the campaign, because that's when the saturation negative bombardment will begin: his critical, decisive role in plotting the fall of first Rudd, then Gillard; Labor's failure to stop the boats; its squandering of the budget surplus; deals to hang onto power; its failure to even make a decision about which submarine to buy.

Labor's biggest problem is that Turnbull's the Clayton's candidate: the Labor prime minister you have when you're not having a Labor PM. So far none of the mud that's been thrown is sticking and the worst assaults he's faced are from his own side. The problem is that both candidates are seeking a mandate but neither are levelling with us about the imminent cataclysm that's facing the country. Australia's economy currently depends on growth, yet look around the world and you can see that the big long boom since the 1950s is finally coming to a halt. Jobs will vanish and climate change is upon us . . . but you won't hear that from either of our so-called leaders.

No, don't even bother attempting to engage with the campaign at this point; do yourself a favour and take a break. There'll be plenty of time to worry about politics in a month or so's time.
Countries such as India, China and South Korea could follow Australia's lead by participating in finals of the Eurovision Song Contest, the managing director of SBS says.

Michael Ebeid said the network had "proven the haters wrong" with the success of former X Factor winner Dami Im, who was awarded top place by the jury in this year's contest and came second in the overall rankings with her song Sound of Silence.

Im dominated media coverage in Sweden, which hosted the contest this year, and her single is now charting across Europe.
A woman was taken to hospital in Florida with a small nurse shark attached to her arm in an incident one witness described as like nothing he had ever seen before.

The 23-year-old woman was swimming at a beach at Red Reef Park in Boca Raton with a group of friends when the shark, about 60 centimetres long, latched onto her right forearm on Sunday afternoon, local time.

Photographs show the woman sitting on the beach as a number of people surround her, examining the wound to her arm and holding up the shark to support its weight.

Robert Lemons, from Boca Raton Fire Rescue, said in a statement that the shark was dead before the fire department arrived "but was still attached to her arm".
But the punters are not always right. Last time they called 12 seats wrong - and in nine of those they backed the Coalition to win seats it lost. They picked only two of the five victories by crossbenchers. They might be making the same mistakes now.

First, the polls are less optimistic for the Coalition than the punters. For example, the punters tip the Coalition to hold Brisbane, Forde and Bonner, yet on the swings the polls report in Queensland, all three would fall. The punters tip Labor to win just eight of the 30 seats in Queensland, yet the polls give it up to 49 per cent of the state's two-party vote.

The punters think Labor will gain Eden-Monaro and Macarthur in NSW (as well as gaining Barton, Dobell and Paterson from the redistribution); Deakin in Victoria; Capricornia and Petrie in Queensland; Hasluck, Swan and the new seat of Burt in Western Australia; Hindmarsh in South Australia; Lyons in Tasmania; and Solomon, the Darwin seat.

Second, Sportsbet estimates that the 17 next closest contests would all be in seats held by the Coalition. It has a lot of seats at risk. By contrast, punters expect it to take no seats from Labor: its best prospects are seen as a one in three chance in the territory's outback seat of Lingiari, and less than that in McEwen, on Melbourne's northern fringe.

But in inner northern Melbourne, the punters might be erring in Labor's favour. They give the Greens at best a one in three chance of taking Batman, less than that in Anthony Albanese's seat of Grayndler, and barely a one in five chance in the other seat in Melbourne's inner north, Wills.
"I think it can be hard for many young people to grasp the importance of enrolling, given the apparent insignificance of their one vote," Ms Butler said.

Ms Butler said at the last federal election, about a quarter of Australians aged 18 to 24 eligible to vote weren't on the electoral roll.

Instead, 19-year-old Kate Butler and Gina Zheng, who founded Enrol 4 Change, said it's a misconception about the power of their vote which stops many young people from making it to the polls.

Two teenagers behind an initiative to get more young people involved in the political process say Gen Y isn't as politically apathetic as many like to believe.

"However, in order for the political issues concerning young people to be taken seriously, I believe it is crucial for them to have their say about the issues they care about, which they can do by stating their preferences when they cast their vote. Moreover, as one of the Senate seats for the ACT is a marginal seat, each vote does truly count."

The pair are holding talks at university colleges and using a social media competition to make their peers realise the value of their vote ahead of the closure of the electoral rolls on May 23.

But despite popular perception, Ms Butler said today's youth aren't nearly as indifferent towards politics as many older Australians believe.

"In fact, I think the opposite is true. There are many political issues that concern young people and we feel passionately about so many of them, such as climate change, housing affordability, the surplus and the cost and availability of higher education," Ms Butler said.

"However, as people from older generations dominate Australian politics, it can be difficult for young people to actively connect with political issues. All too often there is a lack of interest in and attention paid to engaging youth in the political process. It would be fantastic to see a shift in attitude so that politicians seek to reach out to young voters and discuss with us the issues that matter to Australia's youth."
Labor's position may be procedurally sound but so what? This is an election campaign where binary choices rule the roost and where nuance bespeaks weakness feeling more like political shiftiness than serious intent.

The workers' party has refused to offer an iron-clad guarantee that weekend penalty rates would not be cut under a Shorten government. This, despite Labor's decision to campaign on the issue as a key policy difference.

What's the penalty rate for political dissembling during an election campaign? Bill Shorten and his industrial relations spokesman, Brendan O'Connor may be about to pay it. An each-way bet on weekend penalty rates could invite fire from each way as well.

Labor's policy suffers this from very affliction. Its headline statement communicates conviction via implacable opposition to reducing the Sunday rate to equal Saturday, but the fine print carries the caveat that the Fair Work Commission could so order them cut, without any legislative response even if Labor were elected.

Putting on a brave face: under pressure Opposition Leader Bill Shorten meets with Nino, during a street walk with ALP candidate for Corangamite, Libby Coker in Geelong on Monday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The FWC may well consign the more generous Sunday rate for hospitality and retail to the dustbin. Some weeks back, Shorten had raised eyebrows when he said Labor believed weekend penalties should stay, but also conceded that Labor would respect the umpire's decision. In truth, Labor believes the tribunal will retain the Sunday rate because it is required to consider such things as the unsociability of some hours.

Labor set up the FWC so can hardly propose to flatly disrespect it. It is also relevant that Labor made a submission to the wage case in question, arguing forcefully for the retention of the Sunday rate in the interests of countless Sunday employees who rely on the extra bread from waiting tables to put bread on their own tables.

The government's argument, and that of employers, is that lower Sunday rates would see many more jobs created as businesses choose to trade and expand into an under-tapped Sunday market.
Australia is joining a "regional arms race" and risks putting itself in the middle of a "proxy war" between the United States and China, Greens leader Richard Di Natale says in his first major foreign policy speech.

Senator Di Natale will tell the Lowy Institute on Tuesday that Australia should stop orientating its world view around the US alliance given "the horrific consequences of US foreign policy".

Greens leader Richard Di Natale will tell the Lowy Institute that Australia should stop orientating its world view around the US alliance. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

In a sustained attack on the alliance, Senator Di Natale says that by consistently backing Washington, "Australia is complicit in the terrible consequences US foreign policy has wrought".

According to speech notes provided by his office, he says Australia is "throwing enormous sums of money" at maintaining the alliance through the increased spending in the Defence white paper which includes the construction of a new fleet of 12 submarines.
Ginger & Smart have long been the toast of the fashion world but now, thanks to their resort 2017 collection, sun-smart advocates should praise the brand for championing oversized hats for the warmer months.

The label, a creation of sisters Genevieve and Alexandra Smart, kicked off day two of Fashion Week Australia with hats that would upstage The Flying Nun. In hotels you can activate a "do not disturb" sign and, come spring, Australians can do the same by pulling on a wide-brimmed design by Hatmaker by Jonathan Howard.

The milliner was recruited by Ginger & Smart for its showing of new season resort wear and, if the floppy fedora trend takes off, Flemington may have to expand The Birdcage and hat-loving Jay Kay of Jamiroquai may be coerced out of retirement.

Under the hats were ornate lace swimsuits, light-weight bomber jackets and raffia slides. Sheer pants and colour-popping dresses looked ready-made for the sun decks of Capri and streets of Seminyak.
Immigration has hired local transport outfit CBD Chauffeured Transport to ferry the bureaucrats between the old Customs headquarters in Civic and Immigration's long-term office accommodation 9 kilometres north in Belconnen.

Immigration has hired local transport outfit CBD Chauffeured Transport to ferry the bureaucrats between the old Customs headquarters in Civic and Immigration's long-term office accommodation 9 kilometres north in Belconnen.

The $370,000, two year arrangement looks like it is here to stay after the politically-driven decision to keep the expanded department's workforce in two separate locations in the capital.

Taxpayers are paying more than $3500-a-week on a shuttle bus to drive Immigration and Border Force public servants around Canberra.

A spokesman confirmed the bus was needed to take officials between the two sites as they go about their daily business.

"The department currently uses a shuttle bus service to enable staff to transit between the city and Belconnen to assist in the delivery of daily work requirements," the spokesman said.

"This service is currently the most effective and cost-efficient method available when compared to other modes of transport."

When Immigration and Customs first merged to form Australian Border Force, the expanded department put out the call for a giant new 80,000 square meter building, no further than 10 kilometres from Parliament House.

The tender was seen as a boon to the struggling Canberra commercial real estate market with several developers around town vying for Immigration's signature as it moved towards its stated goal of bringing its 5500 Canberra-based public servants together in a single location.
8/11

THE BAD: I'm torn up because Dannii Minogue looks amazing, and there's so much to love about this dress. Alas, the pros don't outweigh the cons. And by cons I mean the fact it looks like her pubus area is molting, and the tufty collections of hair are cascading down her skirt. It's like she Veeted up pre-event and forgot about the actual removal phase. (Seriously though, does anybody use stuff like Veet anymore? The evil cream smells like Jamie Lannister's arm stump would have when he was locked in that makeshift prison with no access to bathing water. Oh sorry, spoiler alert.) Credit:Getty
70/71

Cast members Corey Stoll (L), Blake Lively (2nd L) Kristen Steward(3th R), Jesse Eisenberg (2nd R), director Woody Allen (3th L) and Cannes Film Festival President Pierre Lescure (R) arrive for the screening of 'Cafe Society' and the Opening Ceremony of the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival in Cannes on May 11, 2016. Credit:Anadolu Agency
Crown prosecutors are awaiting expert medical reports into the alleged one-punch death of Brisbane athlete Cole Miller before the case can proceed in court.

Daniel Maxwell and Armstrong Renata, both 21, remain in custody, charged over the alleged coward punch death of the young water polo player in early January.

Mr Miller died of massive head injuries in hospital the day after he was allegedly felled by a single blow inflicted by Mr Renata, in an alleged unprovoked attack started by Mr Maxwell.

Both men have been charged with unlawful striking causing death.
A teenager has been charged over a brawl that saw five staff injured at Queensland's biggest hospital.

The 16-year-old boy was arrested after police were called to a disturbance about 3pm on Sunday.

Metro North Hospital and Health Service chief executive Ken Whelan said five staff members were assaulted in the fight.

It's understood four nurses and a security guard were injured, with the security guard's elbow broken and two nurses not returning to work on Monday.
It is not enough that Chennupati Jagadish has used his education to leverage himself out of a small Indian village to forge a global reputation as a nanotechnology pioneer.

The esteemed Australian National University academic and his wife Vidya have ploughed $140,000 of their own money to help other students to do the same.

Professor Chennupati Jagadish with wife Vidya and students Bhagyashree Soni, Sameer Anil Sonar, Atish Kumar Awasthi and Abhilash Chakraborty who were funded by a Jagadish family endowment to study in Australia. Credit:Elesa Kurtz

This week, the couple  much loved across the ANU campus  welcomed their first four students to complete 10-week intensive internships at Professor Jagadish's Research School of Physics and Engineering.

Rather fittingly, all four have come from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, and this is their first overseas trip.
A man accused of raping a disabled boy who was in his care hugged his alleged victim in a chance meeting more than eight years later, a trial has heard.

Neville George Pell is accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy when the teenager stayed at his carer's home on the night of August 16, 2002, and afterwards threatening to kill him if he told anyone.

Neville Pell leaving court in 2015. He denies child sex charges. Credit:Justin McManus

Mr Pell, 70, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape and two of committing an indecent act in the presence of a child. His lawyer told the jury the alleged offending did not happen.

Prosecutor Anne Hassan told a County Court jury on Monday the boy felt disgusted and scared when Mr Pell put him on his bed and raped him. She said the boy never gave consent.
Two-out-of-three mental health experts believed deaf and mute woman Georgia Fields - accused of taking part in the murder of a profoundly deaf man pushed over a second-floor balcony - was unfit to stand trial because of her low intelligence, a court has been told.

A special fitness-to-plead hearing held before a Supreme Court jury on Monday was told two psychologists had assessed Ms Fields as being on the borderline range of intellectual capacity.

Psychologists assessed Georgia Fields as being on the borderline range of intellectual capacity. Credit:Eddie Jim

They found she had an IQ of 75, and concluded she would be unable to understand or participate in any future trial.

Crown prosecutor Karen Argiropoulos told the jury on Monday that, despite a differing opinion from psychiatrist Dr Lester Walton who assessed Ms Fields and found she was fit to stand trial, the Crown agreed with the defence that Ms Fields should not stand trial.
Ms Cariss said her daughter would be "rapt" to hear the news, but said that despite their triumph she still wanted to see change across the board.

"There should be choice for girls to wear pants at all schools," she said. "I think it's important that schools are as gender neutral as possible."

School principal Anne Doherty said she would wait for the committee's recommendations before announcing any uniform policy reform, but flagged that it was unlikely that the school would impose gender neutral uniforms, but rather offer students more choice.

"We certainly won't go gender neutral  that would mean saying girls have to wear trousers  giving [students] an option here is the best way forward," she said.

According to education department policy, government schools should enforce a dress code that is similar for both sexes. Uniforms should not discriminate students based on their "personal characteristics" and different uniform options should be available to all students.
A graffitist wanted for allegedly assaulting a Fitzroy man who tried to stop him defacing shopfronts in Brunswick Street has gone to ground, as it emerged that he may have painted several Melbourne walls with a duo dubbed the "Bonnie and Clyde" of world graffiti in the weeks before the incident.

Nokier, an Australian man whose true identity is not believed to be known by police, travelled the world with Jim Clay Harper and Danielle Bremner, who paint as Ether and Utah.

An image from the Utah Ether website. Credit:UTAHETHER.COM

Mr Harper and Ms Bremner amassed a devout online following since leaving their native US in 2011. Nokier joined them in Tunisia and India, among other countries.

But the collaboration came to an end on May 4 when single father Luke* wrestled Mr Harper to the ground in a headlock on Brunswick Street after the graffitist allegedly assaulted him and tried to steal his phone. Luke* had taken footage of Mr Harper and Nokier allegedly defacing shops with graffiti and stickers before the pair lashed out.
The teenager accused of killing a Melbourne mother in a monkeybike crash has been granted bail, despite again breaching his conditions.

A teary-eyed Caleb Jakobsson, 19, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday for a dressing-down from magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg.

Caleb Jakobsson breached his bail conditions, but remained at liberty. Credit:Eddie Jim

He was granted bail by a Supreme Court judge last year, after three weeks in custody, on charges over the death of Andrea Lehane.

Ms Lehane was hit by a monkeybike outside a Carrum Downs shopping centre on September 23 last year.
A former manager at a law firm who is accused of rape "was on a mission" to have sex with a then colleague when he left Hawthorn bar The Geebung Polo Club and went to her home, a trial has heard.

But a lawyer for Dale Cooney, Arnold Bloch Leibler's one-time director of finance, said it was far-fetched that a man of good character, who was non-violent and good towards women would rape a woman in her home.

Dale Cooney.

"As if he's going to write that script," defence counsel Peter Morrissey, SC, told a County Court jury in his closing address on Monday.

Prosecutors allege Mr Cooney raped the woman in her bed in the early hours of July 14, 2001 after the woman opened her door to his loud banging and he went inside.
The ferry's maiden voyage left the Wyndham Harbour housing estate at 6.40am, while it was still dark and when the traffic was already beginning to thicken on the Princes Freeway.

The journey marked the start of an eight-week trial, which could evolve into a permanent service, and possibly be expanded to other parts of the CBD if speed limits are eased along the Yarra.

The Port Phillip Ferries catamaran quietly departed from Werribee South for Docklands before dawn on Monday.

The sun has risen on Melbourne's first modern commuter ferry.

Commuters enjoyed a speculator sunrise over Melbourne. Credit:Luis Ascui

Thirty commuters plus about 30 officials and staff enjoyed a speculator sunrise over a silhouetted city  complete with hot air balloons gliding among the skyscrapers. There were 30 passengers on the 5.40pm return trip to Wyndham.

The ferry is an initiative of former Essendon chairman Paul Little and his company, Little Group.

Little Group operations director Murray Rance said, in the future, two or three return services could run between the western suburbs and Docklands each morning and afternoon.

The journey currently takes about 70 to 74 minutes, but Port Phillip Ferries is seeking permission to travel faster through the mouth of the Yarra River, cutting down journey times.
A tram driver who was hit and killed by a garbage truck while on his way to work in Melbourne's north on Monday has been remembered as a devoted family man.

Jay Perera, 63, was crossing Moreland Road near the busy intersection with Nicholson Street in Coburg when he was struck by the truck just before 7am.

Paramedics took the Jacana man to the Royal Melbourne Hospital where he died shortly afterwards.

It is understood Mr Perera was on his way to work and had stepped out of a car before he was hit by the garbage truck, which was turning onto Moreland Road.
A 117-tonne generator the size of a small bedroom has made its way from the Czech Republic to the WA country town of Collie, via the largest plane in the world.

The complex 14,000 kilometre global operation, which saw the world's largest aircraft land in Perth, culminated on Monday afternoon with the delivery of the generator to South32's Worsley Alumina refinery, 200 kilometres south of Perth.

A spokesperson for Worsley said the generator arrived at Worsley at about 2pm after a five-hour journey by road and was transported via truck down Forrest Highway, and up Coalfields Highway to it's final destination.

Thousands of onlookers witnessed the arrival of the Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo plane on Sunday morning, with roads surrounding Perth Airport jammed with traffic.
Passengers who missed their flights or were forced to walk up to four kilometres to get to Perth Airport on Sunday have vented their frustration online after the arrival of the world's biggest plane caused traffic chaos.

An estimated 16,000 aviation enthusiasts headed to the international terminal on Sunday to witness the 600-tonne Antonov An-225 landing just before midday, leading to traffic being banked up for kilometres around the airport.

The unexpected gridlock caused passengers trying to catch flights to miss their plane or abandon their lift to the airport to walk or run the final kilometres of their journey.

One musician posted on his Facebook that he and another band member were forced to "run one kilometre to the airport with a sh*t tonne of music gear weighing us down" only to make their flight with "no time to spare".
Perth Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi could be jetting off to a city in China that was part of the 45 travel and gift breaches found by the Department of Local Government.

Ms Scaffidi will face the State Administrative Tribunal over allegations she committed "serious breaches" of obligations to disclose travel-related gifts and contributions revealed in a report handed down by the Department of Local Government last week.

The probe was conducted by the department following the publishing in October of a damning Corruption and Crime Commission report report on Ms Scaffidi's travel regime.

Now the City of Perth's Economic Development Principal officer Steven McDougall wants councillors to approve a trip for the lord mayor to fly to Nanjing and Chengdu in China from June 21 to 25, which will cost taxpayers $4400.
Scammers pretending to represent Telstra, Optus and Microsoft have ripped off Western Australians to the tune of $400,000 since the beginning of the year.

That's a 500 per cent increase on 2015, suggesting people on the west coast are regarded as easy pickings for the so-called "tech support scammers".

Scammers are nameless, faceless thieves. Credit:123rf.com

Consumer Protection's WA ScamNet has received complains from 36 victims who had lost a total of $397,151 up until the end of April, a big boost on last year when 25 victims reported losing a total of $78,386 during the same time period.

By the end of 2015, 70 victims were scammed out of a total of $188,478.
Mr Juca didn't write those words, e-farsas said. He did post the photo and the words "participating in my first ministerial meeting", the rest was photoshopped into a saved screengrab. But the outcry remains. With or without the minister's post, the reality is that Ms Rousseff's gains for the sisterhood have taken a significant hit with one sweep of the executive's pen. Michel Temer (right) hugs former presidential candidate Senator Aecio Neves at the signing ceremony for new government ministers. Senator Neves was narrowly defeated by Dilma Rousseff in 2014. Credit:Getty Images When new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced his new cabinet in November last year, he was asked why 50 per cent of the portfolios were held by women. His answer: "Because it's 2015." Well, it could as well be 1955 in Brazil.

Then Vice-President Michel Temer and his wife Marcela Temer, stand for the national anthem on the inauguration of Rousseff's second term in 2015. Credit:AP Ms Rousseff's first ministry in 2010 put nine women in charge of a third of all ministerial portfolios. By the time she was suspended, 15 women had been in charge of various ministries  one was also black, another aspect missing from the current cabinet. So it was with much concern voters  more than 70 per cent of whom were in favour of Ms Rousseff's impeachment  were greeted with Mr Temer's first team made up entirely of white older men, almost all from the much-maligned political elite of yore. [In fact, seven, or a third, as well as Mr Temer himself have been named in connection with the country's largest corruption investigation to date, Operation Carwash.] People protest the interim government of Michel Temer in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Sunday, where some of the signs read "Women will fight" and "Never Temer" (Temer is also Portuguese for 'fear'.) Credit:Bloomberg

Miriam Leitao, journalist and anchor with Brazil's largest media empire Globo, put it bluntly: "The absence of women is a regression. It will turn back decades if this rule is maintained. "After the [Workers' Party] governments where there was more diversity of women and blacks, a Temer government is so far one without diversity. If this is confirmed, it starts [the future] looking like the past." Political scientist Maria Celina D'Araujo said the Brazilian population is 51 per cent female and about 50 per cent of African descent, but "we agree, bald, greying and hair-dyed men are well represented", Globo reported. That is not the only cross against a Temer administration as far as women's rights go. Contrast Ms Rousseff, economist, socialist, divorced mother-of-one, former armed youth guerilla boss, arrested and tortured during the dictatorship for fighting for democracy and human rights; with the new interim first lady of Brazil: Marcela Temer.

Mrs Temer, 46 years younger than the president, adorned the cover of mass weekly magazine Veja last month under the words "Beautiful, demure and domestic". The magazine said 75-year-old Mr Temer was a "lucky man" to be married to the twice runner-up beauty pageant contestant  such a devoted, unassuming housewife, who wears knee-level skirts and dreams of giving him a second child ("Little Michel", as their first-born is affectionately known, is seven years old). She is also his "social media thermometer" according to the profile article, so it's likely she saw when Brazilians flooded social media with outrage and ridicule in thousands of memes featuring women from all walks of life, most of them not demure at all, under the same headline and hashtag #belarecatadaedolar.
Miss California 2009 Carrie Prejean was surprised to find Trump took a personal interest in contestants. Credit:Instagram Their accounts reveal unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, a shrewd reliance on ambitious women, and unsettling workplace conduct, according to the interviews, as well as court records and written recollections. What emerges from the interviews is a complex, at times contradictory portrait of a provocative man and the women around him, one that defies simple categorisation. Barbara Res, former head of construction for Trump's real estate company. Credit:CNN Pressed on the women's claims, Trump disputed many of the details, such as asking Lane to put on a swimsuit. "A lot of things get made up over the years," he said. "I have always treated women with great respect. And women will tell you that."

But in many cases there was an unmistakable dynamic at play: Trump had the power, and the women did not. Brooke Lee in the 1997 Miss USA pageant. Credit:YouTube For Lane, her introduction to Trump at Mar-a-Lago was the start of a whirlwind romance - a heady blur of helicopter rides and high-end hotel rooms and flashing cameras. "It was intimidating," she said. "He was Donald Trump, obviously." Ivana Trump aboard the Trump Princess in New York circa 1988. Credit:Getty Images

The company of women With his purchase of the Miss Universe Organisation, Trump was in the business of young, beautiful women. Ivana Trump in 2006. Credit:AP Temple Taggart, the 21-year-old Miss Utah, was startled by how forward he was with young contestants like her in 1997, his first year as the owner of Miss USA, a branch of the beauty pageant . As she recalls it, he introduced himself in an unusually intimate manner.

"He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, 'Oh my God, gross,'" Taggart said. "He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like 'Wow, that's inappropriate.'" Ivanka Trump in 2012. Credit:AP Trump disputes this, saying he is reluctant to kiss strangers on the lips. His level of involvement in the pageants was unexpected, and his judgments, the contestants said, could be harsh. Carrie Prejean, who was 21 when she participated in the Miss USA contest in 2009 as Miss California, was surprised to find Trump personally evaluating the women at rehearsal. "We were told to put on our opening number outfits - they were nearly as revealing as our swimsuits - and line up for him onstage," she wrote in her memoir, Still Standing.

"Donald Trump walked out with his entourage and inspected us closer than any general ever inspected a platoon. He would stop in front of a girl, look her up and down, and say, 'Hmmm'. Then he would go on and do the same thing to the next girl. He took notes on a little pad as he went along," Prejean wrote. "It became clear that the point of the whole exercise was for him to divide the room between girls he personally found attractive and those he did not. Many of the girls found the exercise humiliating. Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after he left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began to impress 'The Donald'." Trump, in an interview, said he would "never do that:". Such behaviour, he said, would bruise egos and hurt feelings. "I wouldn't hurt people," he said. "That's hurtful to people." A preoccupation with bodies Inside the Trump Organisation, the company that manages his various businesses, Trump occasionally interrupted routine discussions of business to opine on women's figures. Barbara A. Res, Trump's former head of construction, remembered a meeting in which she and Trump interviewed an architect for a project in the Los Angeles area. Out of the blue, she said, Trump evaluated the fitness of women in Marina del Rey, California. "They take care of their asses," he said.

"The architect and I didn't know where he was coming from," Res said. Years later, after she had gained a significant amount of weight, Res endured a stinging workplace observation about her own body from Trump. "You like your candy," she recalled him telling her. "It was him reminding me that I was overweight." Her colleague Louise Sunshine experienced similar observations from Trump when she gained weight. But she saw it as friendly encouragement, not a cruel insult. "He thought I looked much better thin," she said. "He would remind me of how beautiful I was." Trump frequently sought assurances - at times from strangers - that the women in his life were beautiful. During the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant, he sat in the audience as his teenage daughter, Ivanka, helped to host the event from onstage. He turned to Brook Antoinette Mahealani Lee, Miss Universe at the time, and asked for her opinion of his daughter's body. "Don't you think my daughter's hot? She's hot, right?," Lee recalled him saying. "I was like, 'really?'. That's just weird. She was 16. That's creepy." Women as trusted colleagues

To build his business, Trump turned to women for a simple reason: They worked hard - often harder than men, he told them. When Trump hired Res to oversee the construction of Trump Tower, he invited her to his apartment on Fifth Avenue and explained that he wanted her to be his "Donna Trump" on the project, she said. Few women had reached such stature in the industry. "He said: 'I know you're a woman in a man's world. And while men tend to be better than women, a good woman is better than 10 good men,'" Res said. "He thought he was really complimenting me." Trump entrusted several women in his company with enormous responsibility - once they had proven themselves worthy and loyal. Sunshine had little experience in real estate, but as a top campaign fundraiser for then Governor Hugh Carey of New York, she had fulfilled a lifelong wish for Trump: She secured him a vanity licence plate with his initials, DJT, which adorned his limousine for years. Sunshine worked for Trump for 15 years, becoming a major New York real estate figure in her own right. Res remained at the company for 12 years, left after a disagreement over a project and then returned as a consultant for six more years. Both expressed gratitude for the chances Trump had taken on them.

In a rough-and-tumble industry thoroughly dominated by men, Trump's office stood out for its diversity, recalled Alan Lapidus, an influential architect who designed the Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City. "He is a lot more complicated than the cartoon character. The top people in his company were women, like Barbara Res," Lapidus said. "For any company to hire a woman as chief of construction was actually startling. I don't know of a single other developer who had a woman in that position. The respect for women was always there. That's why, in spite of the comments he makes now - and God knows why he says these things - when he was building his empire, the backbone was women." Wife and partner, and regret No single figure better encapsulated the paradoxes of Trump's treatment of women in the workplace than his first wife, Ivana. He entrusted her with major pieces of a corporate empire and gave her the titles to match. She was the president of Trump's Castle, a major casino in Atlantic City, and the Plaza Hotel, the storied complex on Central Park South in Manhattan. "She ran that hotel," Res said. "And she ran it well."

But he compensated her as a spouse, not a high-level employee, paying her an annual salary of $US1 for the Trump's Castle job, according to her tax documents. And he grew to resent her outsize role. By the end of their marriage, Trump wrote in his 1997 book, The Art of the Comeback, he regretted having allowed her to run his businesses. "My big mistake with Ivana was taking her out of the role of wife and allowing her to run one of my casinos in Atlantic City, then the Plaza Hotel," Trump wrote. "The problem was, work was all she wanted to talk about. When I got home at night, rather than talking about the softer subjects of life, she wanted to tell me how well the Plaza was doing, or what a great day the casino had. "I will never again give a wife responsibility within my business." He seems to have kept his word. His current wife, Melania, has marketed her own lines of beauty products and jewellery. But Trump remains mostly uninvolved in her work. After calling it "very successful," he struggled to describe it. "What is it, on television with the sales?," he asked. Accusations and denials

Once his first marriage started to collapse, Trump faced his most serious allegations of aggression toward women. When Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump by journalist Harry Hurt III was released in 1993, it included a description of a night in which Trump was said to have raped Ivana in a fit of rage. It also included a statement from Ivana that Trump's lawyers insisted be placed in the front of the book. In the statement, she described an occasion of "marital relations" during which "I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited toward me, was absent." "During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me," the statement said. "I referred to this as a 'rape', but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense." Trump denied raping Ivana, and she did not respond to a request for comment. After the allegation re-emerged in the news media last year, Ivana said in a statement, "The story is totally without merit." In the early 1990s, Jill Harth and her boyfriend at the time, George Houraney, worked with Trump on a beauty pageant in Atlantic City, and later accused Trump of inappropriate behaviour toward Harth during their business dealings. In a 1996 deposition, Harth described their initial meeting with Trump at Trump Tower.

"Donald Trump stared at me throughout that meeting. He stared at me even while George was giving his presentation," Harth said. "In the middle of it he says to George, 'Are you sleeping with her?' Meaning me. And George looked a little shocked and he said, 'Well, yeah.' And he goes, 'Well, for the weekend or what?'" Houraney said in a recent interview that he was shocked by Trump's response after he made clear that he and Harth were monogamous. "He said: 'Well, there's always a first time. I am going after her,'" Houraney recalled, adding: "I thought the man was joking. I laughed. He said, 'I am serious'." By the time the three of them were having dinner at the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel the next night, Trump's advances had turned physical, Harth said in the deposition. "Basically he name-dropped throughout that dinner, when he wasn't groping me under the table," she testified. "Let me just say, this was a very traumatic thing working for him."

Harth, who declined to comment, gave the deposition in connection with a lawsuit that alleged Trump had failed to meet his obligations in a business partnership. Trump settled that case but denied wrongdoing. Harth withdrew her own lawsuit against Trump alleging unwanted advances, but she has stood by her original claims. Trump said it was Harth who had pursued him, and his office shared email messages in which Harth, over the past year, thanked Trump for helping her personally and professionally and expressed support for his presidential candidacy. Defending his record Trump says the world misunderstands his relationship with women. He sees himself as a promoter of women - a man whose business deals have given them untold opportunities for employment and advancement. "Hundreds and hundreds of women, thousands of women, are the better for it," he said.
BEDFORD, Texas, April 29, 2016 -- Today, Adam Smith's Texas Harley-Davidson in Bedford, Texas, kicked off the grand opening of its new 72,000-plus square-foot store with a massive three-day-long celebration. The new Texas Harley-Davidson, which sits on six acres, is larger than 90 percent of Harley-Davidson dealerships in the country. The $10 million-plus store has 40,000-plus-square-feet more than the previous site and two full showrooms, one located on the second level with the capacity to showcase more than 500 bikes. Texas Harley-Davidson is the number one store in Texas, and in the top ten in the nation, for the past two years. The dealership's unique features include an interactive parts bar, the world's largest Harley-Davidson Bar & Shield, an outdoor covered area for events and a ride-in service department. Texas Harley-Davidson is located at 1921 Shoalmont Road in Bedford and is part of Calculated Risk Motorcycle Group's family of five Harley-Davidson dealerships in Texas.

"Bedford is proud to be home to Texas Harley-Davidson. We have a lot to offer riders in our City, which draws people from all over DFW and North Texas," said Mayor Jim Griffin. "We appreciate Texas Harley-Davidson's business contributions to our city, as a major sales tax generator, and we also value them as a community partner because of their longstanding support of several City events and charitable organizations."

"The new Flagship is 'home' for our Texas Harley-Davidson family," said Owner Adam Smith. "This new store gives us room to showcase our extensive collection of bikes and gear but also gives us room to grow our family of riders and team members. Our riders come back week after week for the Texas Harley-Davidson lifestyle of organized weekly rides, events like Bike Nights and to hang out in our two customer lounges. Our growth and success are a result of our team and our riders, and the experience they give and get!"

The dealership's unique features include its Parts Bar, which removes the traditional transaction interaction and simulates the experience of friends customizing bikes together in the garage. Its service department allows the convenience of riding directly inside and up to its service desks. Texas Harley-Davidson's "signature scent," called Grit  a combination of grease, tires, leather and burning gasoline  infuses the store via its aroma injection system. Visually, the store has the look of an old manufacturing building, with exposed steel, brickwork and elevated walkways. Every company engaged in the new dealership process is local, from its architect and general contractor to its uniform provider. The store will employ 100 team members when fully staffed.

"The Harley-Davidson Motor Company is delighted to see the vision of Adam Smith and his team come to fruition. This store will certainly bring a unique flavor to the Harley experience; encompassing all aspects of the brand within a truly stunning retail environment. It will appeal to anyone with an affinity for the brand; both riders and non-riders alike. I am excited to see the new addition to our family flourish and congratulate our partners at Texas Harley-Davidson on the opening of their new store," said Christian Walters, Managing Director, United States for Harley-Davidson Motor Company.

The three-day grand opening celebration began with a Friday afternoon chain-cutting ceremony with the mayor of the city which was attended by several city council members and the city manager. It included presentations from the Keller Independent School District's Air Force Junior ROTC and Keller Central High School's Drumline. Representatives from the Bedford fire and police departments attended and a four-legged (and adoptable) representative from Bedford Animal Services proudly attended wearing the latest Harley fashion. Friday's celebration ends with a late-night concert by Memphis Soul.

Saturday's all-day celebration includes four live bands with headliner Grady Spencer & and The Work; a motorcycle and go-cart "drill team" demonstrations by Shriners Hella Motor Patrol and Moslah Mystic Wheels; veterans from the organization 22 Kill rappelling from the roof of the building; and a fireworks show, heavy with orange and silver pyrotechnics. Sunday's Family Day event includes music from School of Rock Fort Worth and School of Rock Southlake Dean's List bands, a Trick Cowboy and a rock-climbing wall.

"With this new space, we've taken our quality of service and calendar of community events, like rider education, bike nights and organized rides, to a higher level," said Texas Harley-Davidson Partner Neil Noble. "We planned every section of the store with great detail and we are excited for everyone to come to the grand opening festivities so they can enjoy it, as well."

Smith has owned Texas Harley-Davidson since 2011. He joined the Harley-Davidson business in 1991. In 1996, he opened his first Harley-Davidson dealership in Grand Prairie, making him the youngest person to own and operate a Harley dealership at the age of 22.

About Adam Smith's Calculated Risk Motorcycle Group

Calculated Risk's family of authorized Adam Smith Harley-Davidson dealerships includes Adam Smith's Texas Harley-Davidson at 1921 Shoalmont Rd., Bedford, 76021; Adam Smith's Texoma Harley-Davidson at 4000 N. US Hwy 75, Sherman, 75090; Adam Smith's Harley-Davidson of Waco at 4201 S. Jack Kultgen Expy Waco, 76706; Adam Smith's Roughneck Harley-Davidson, 3400 N. 4th St., Longview, 75605; and Adam Smith's Lumberjack Harley-Davidson, 2518 N. Stallings, Nacogdoches, 75964. The Adam Smith Harley team is committed to promoting the Harley lifestyle in everything they do by providing a one-of-a-kind experience that is fun, memorable and long lasting. With an Adam Smith's Harley-Davidson, you'll never ride alone. For more information about Adam Smith's Harley-Davidson dealerships, visit the websites.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/texas-harley-davidson-celebrates-opening-of-flagship-with-worlds-largest-harley-bar--shield-300260060.html

SOURCE Texas Harley-Davidson

CONTACT: Margulies Communications, Katherine Long, 972-261-8486, Katherine@prexperts.net, Or Jamie Hawkes, cell: 469-867-7289, jhawkes@prexperts.net, Office: 214-368-0909; Sarah Oakley, Marketing Director, Adam Smith's Texas Harley-Davidson, Office: 817-267-2646, cell: 843:360-0130, sarah@calculatedrisk.com; Photos available.

RELATED LINKShttp://www.texasharley.com
WESTLAKE, OhioTravelCenters of America LLC, (TravelCenters), operator of TA and Petro Stopping Centers branded travel centers, has partnered with Blue Tiger USA to benefit professional drivers through the St. Christopher Truckers Development and Relief Fund (SCF) with donations from sales of specially designed Blue Tiger Elite headsets. Beginning today, through December 31, 2016, $10 from the sale of each Elite headset, designed in the signature SCF color blue, sold exclusively at participating TA and Petro Stopping Centers Travel Stores, will be donated to SCF.

TravelCenters, a long-time supporter of SCF will donate $5 from the sale of each headset to the charity, and Blue Tiger USA will contribute an additional $5. Combined donations from the Blue Tiger Elite Blue headset campaign are expected to be in excess of $40,000 through the end of the year.

We are excited and pleased to partner with Blue Tiger USA for this wonderful cause, said Rodney Bresnahan, Senior Vice President of Stores at TravelCenters. We know that every dollar donated goes toward helping a driver and their family in need and we are always honored and happy to continue to support an organization where wishes are granted every day.

Since 2010, the Band Together for SCF annual campaigns and other fundraisers have generated more than $1.7 million in donations to help professional drivers and their families with financial support when drivers are off the road due to medical issues.

We are honored to be a part of this fundraising campaign with TA and Petro. This is a great opportunity for our company to give back to the trucking community, said Fieras Saah, President of Blue Tiger.

Donna Kennedy, Executive Director of SCF, shared, I am thrilled about this campaign from TravelCenters and Blue Tiger. Its amazing the initiative both companies took to develop the Elite Blue headset and entire campaign to benefit our organization and professional drivers. Drivers are going to love purchasing this as a way to help their fellow drivers.

The Blue Tiger Blue Elite headset retails for $139.99, but will be offered at a promotional price of $119.99 today through June 30, 2016. The headset provides drivers with 34 hours of talk time and 600 hours standby. The multimedia works with music and GPS. The VOXPRO chip also provides drivers with advanced noise cancellation.

Founded on November 16, 2009, Blue Tiger USA is a consumer electronics manufacturer specializing in premium Bluetooth headsets, Bluetooth wireless speakers, and dash cameras. They have been voted Truck Drivers Favorite Bluetooth Headset.

About TravelCenters of America LLC

TravelCenters of America LLC (TravelCenters), headquartered in Westlake, Ohio, conducts business in 43 states and Canada, principally under the TA and Petro Stopping Centers travel center brands and the Minit Mart convenience store brand. For more information on TravelCenters, TA, and Petro Stopping Centers, please visit www.ta-petro.com. For more information on Minit Mart, please visit www.minitmart.com.

About St. Christopher Truckers Development and Relief Fund

The St. Christopher Truckers Development and Relief Fund (SCF) is a 501(c) (3), nonprofit organization that provides financial assistance to professional truck drivers who have medical problems and are in need. For more information, please visit www.truckersfund.org or call (865) 202-9428.

Contacts

TravelCenters of America

Tom Liutkus, 440-808-7364

tliutkus@ta-petro.com
First Motorcycle Assembly Plant in Nigeria Marks Second Foray into African Continent

LAGOS, Nigeria and IWATA, Japan - May 16, 2016: Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. announced today that CFAO Yamaha Motor Nigeria Ltd., a joint venture between Yamaha Motor and CFAO S.A., opened its first motorcycle assembly plant in Africa within the Amuwo Odofin Industrial Scheme area of Lagos, Nigeria on May 13. The facility includes a showroom that showcases Yamaha Motor's wide-ranging lineup for land and water-transport products.

This marks Yamaha Motor's second foray into Nigeria, as well as the entire African continent, following the cessation of its motorcycle production in Nigeria in 2005.

The plant and showroom will help meet local needs for land and water transportation, including government initiatives to develop Nigeria's aquatic agriculture sector. Production is expected to reach 70,000 motorcycles by 2018.

Visitors to the showroom will be able to view and purchase diverse products from the Yamaha Motor lineup, such as outboard engines, personal watercraft, all-terrain vehicles, generators and Yamalube lubricants, all of which are distributed in Nigeria exclusively by CFAO Yamaha Motor Nigeria.

Yamaha Motor also announced two initiatives for the local motoring public: the Yamaha Technical Academy, which will provide technical training and support services, and the Yamaha Riding Academy, which will promote motorcycle riding safety.

Attendees in the opening ceremony included Lagos Governor Akinwumi Ambode, Yamaha Motor President, CEO and Representative Director Hiroyuki Yanagi, and CFAO Group Chairman Richard Bielle.

CFAO, a Paris-based member of Japan's Toyota Tsusho group, distributes products of major international brands in Africa. The company has been in business for more than 110 years, during which time it has built a vast distribution network in Nigeria.

About CFAO Yamaha Motor Nigeria Ltd.

CFAO Yamaha Motor Nigeria Ltd. is a registered subsidiary of the CFAO group and Yamaha Motor. It was incorporated on April 9, 2015. The company is the exclusive distributor of Yamaha Motor products in Nigeria.
America's Car Museum Prepares For Its Annual Wheels & Heels Gala







 America's Car Museum "Doubles Down" on 2016 Wheels & Heels Annual Gala

 Casino Royale-themed event will feature a live and silent auction to support automotive education programs on June 4

TACOMA, WA - May 16, 2016: The theme of this year's Wheels & Heels Annual Gala proves that America's Car Museum (ACM) likes its events shaken, not stirred. "Casino Royale: High Stakes & Hot Cars" will help ACM continue to provide visitors with high-quality educational programs and support the collector car community through the Hagerty Education Program at America's Car Museum (HEP).

Now in its fifth year, Wheels & Heels has become a high-profile fundraising event by providing an elegant setting for ACM and HEP supporters to mingle and cast bids in both a silent and live auction. Guests will recognize Casino Royale-themed items throughout the Museum, including a James Bond-inspired Aston Martin and the 1977 McLaren M23 that won at the Monaco Gran Prix.

"We went all-in when planning this year's Wheels & Heels Annual Gala," said ACM CEO David Madeira. "The event continues to grow year-after-year with help from our generous sponsors, including Emerald Queen Casino, Ascent, U.S. Bank and Hagerty."

Included in the auction block:

 An all-new 2016 BMW M4 GTS (provided by BMW North America)

 4-star trip to Monaco with 4-star accommodations in Monte Carlo and two tickets to the world-renowned 2017 Monte Carlo Gran Prix

 4-star trip to Monaco with 4-star accommodations in Monte Carlo

Available for the first time in the U.S., the limited edition GTS is an exclusive high-performance version of the M4 - it is the fastest production BMW road car ever made and showcases new technology, including water-injection and OLED taillights.

"We wanted to treat bidders with the BMW M4 GTS because it's an extremely rare car, one of only 300 produced for North America that is likely to end up in a museum like ACM one day," said Northwest Area Manager, BMW North America Richard Kumar. "Judging by past Wheels & Heels auctions " this car will go fast!"

Wheels & Heels is one of four annual ACM Signature Events. Proceeds will benefit ACM's educational initiatives such as HEP, which provides funding for scholarships, apprenticeships and internships for young adults looking toward careers in automotive restoration.

To purchase tickets for Wheels & Heels Annual Gala Casino Royale: High Stakes & Hot Cars or for more information, visit americascarmuseum.org/gala.

About LeMay " America's Car Museum

America's Car Museum (ACM) is an international destination for families and auto enthusiasts to celebrate America's love affair with the automobile and learn how it shaped our society. Based in Tacoma, Wash., the stunning 165,000-sq.-ft. facility has been recognized as one of MSN's 10 Best Automotive Museums worldwide, USA Today's 10 Best Museums in Seattle and KING5's 2015 Best Museum in Western Washington. ACM serves as an educational center for students of all ages, features 12 rotating exhibits and hosts five annual Signature Events. For more information, visit americascarmuseum.org.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 16/05/2016 (2352 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Summer cannot come soon enough for the Steinbach high school students that will lend a hand in Ecuador.

This has been the case, surely, for the more than 100 teenagers and young adults who have made the yearly educational trip spearheaded by Mark Reimer since 2011, but there is an added importance to their pending July visitthis time they will help earthquake survivors rebuild.

This April, a devastating earthquake resulted in the deaths of 650 people and injured a another 16,000. One of the hard-hit locales was Puerto Lopez, the fishing village that has welcomed the assistance of local youth with open arms and sent a handful of their own for a semester of high school in Steinbach as part of the Manitoba to Ecuador project.

IAN FROESE | THE CARILLON The next visit of the Manitoba to Ecuador project to Puerto Lopez will be focused on helping survivors rebuild after a deadly earthquake killed more than 600 people and injured thousands more. A part of this years team of 20 include, from left, Claudia Giesbrecht, Bobbie Nickel, Olivia Letkeman and SRSS teacher Mark Reimer.

Im just anxious to go, just to be able to help in any way that I can and to see everyone again, said Bobbie Nickel, 19, who graduated from Steinbach Regional Secondary School last year and initially visited the country in 2014.

I want to go more because now I can help them, said Olivia Letkeman, 17, who is also making a return trip. Ill be able to help whichever way Im capable of. When both Nickel and Letkeman heard of the 7.8 magnitude quake, they reached out to the friends they made, ensuring they were safe, which was thankfully the case.

I talked to some of them and they said they were very scared, said Nickel.

The tragedy prompted Reimer, director of the Manitoba to Ecuador project, to shift the attention of this years trip to disaster relief.

There will be time for daycare visits and reading to children like there always is but on this occasion they will assist wherever they are needed. The organization they have previously connected with is coordinating relief efforts and they will tell their Manitoba helpers where to go.

Were bringing down 20 pairs of hands, said Reimer, whose team will spend about three weeks in Ecuador.

If he has his say, there will not be free space in anyones luggage. He wants to cram each bag with as much donated clothing and medicine they can fill. Previously, they would have only packed childrens clothes, but now attire for all ages will be taken.

In terms of homes, three people that we know had their homes destroyedtwo of them have the capacity to reconstruct their lodgings, one of them does not, said Reimer.

The family that cannot rebuild is a family of 26 that has no place else. The Manitoba visitors hope to make their friends home livable again.

Claudia Giesbrecht, 17, agreed to make her first visit months before Ecuadorian earthquake. She says her resolve to help has grown since the quake struck.

The more you hear about whats going on there, like personal stories and seeing the pictures and videos, it just makes it so much more real, she said. It will be good to go there and help out.

To afford their plan of raising thousands for medicine and construction equipment, a series of fundraisers are underway. Tomorrow night, Corny Rempel will perform in Elvis for Ecuador, a concert fundraiser that will include Latin snacks and stories about Ecuador. Tickets can be purchased at the SRSS library and Lecoka Cafe and costs $10 for adults and $5 for kids. Doors open at 7 p.m.

A collection held two weeks ago at the SRSS raised more than $1,300. A fundraising dinner will be arranged this fall to raise money for a dedicated construction crew planning a trip in the future.

You can contact Reimer for more details on how to donate at 204-346-1942 or marreimer@hsd.ca.
This week was a bizarre one for former Celebrity Apprentice host Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

First, Trump met with House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday to mend fences with the leader of the Republican establishment. Ryan later said he was encouraged by their meeting, and even went so far as to call The Donald a very warm and genuine person.

John Oliver remains unconvinced.

The host of HBOs Last Week Tonight, whod previously unloaded on Drumpf for being a racist, first referred to Trump as Rome burning in man form before addressing Ryans specious claims.

OK, stop, because I understand the genuine part in the sense that Miller Genuine Draft is genuineyou know, it is the shitty thing that it isbut the only way that Trump could be described as warm is if youre feeling leftover tanning bed heat radiating from his skin, joked Oliver.

He then proceeded to compare the reluctant truce between Trump and the Republican establishment to the teenage Christian couple who have made an abstinence pledge: They are going to have sex, it is just a matter of time, but they still need to make a big show of resisting it for anyone who might be paying attention.

But the most insane story this week involving Trump was reported by The Washington Post, which published a lengthy recorded conversation of Trump acting as his own publicistshamelessly bragging about his exploits under the alias John Millerin the 90s. This was reportedly a regular practice for Trump, whod phone reporters under the alter egos John Miller and John Barron to boast about all things Trump.Perhaps the weirdest thing involving Trump this week was the release of tapes suggesting that, in the 90s, he had for some reason invented a publicist for himself named John Miller and pretended to be him on the phone, said Oliver.Last Week Tonight then ran a portion of the audio of Trump as Miller, with the real estate magnate turned politician saying, I basically worked for different firms. I worked for a couple of different firms, and Im somebody that he knows and, I think, somebody that he trusts and likes.That is so perfectly Donald Trump: Even his imaginary alter ego reflexively brags about himself, cracked Oliver.

Trump-as-Miller even claimed on the tapes that Madonna called and wanted to date him, saying, Actressespeople that you write aboutthey just call to see if they can go out with [Trump].

Now, much like his candidacy, that claim is sadbut not implausible, said Oliver. Remember, there were rumors that in the 90s Madonna got together with Vanilla Ice, Jose Canseco, and Willem Dafoe, and what is Donald Trump if not the authenticity of Vanilla Ice, the likability of Jose Canseco, and the terrifying facial expressions of Willem Dafoe?

Perhaps the craziest thing about this whole ridiculous affair is that Trump admitted to being his own publicist, aka John Miller, back in 1991. Its right here in a People magazine story on Trumps relationship with Marla Maples. Not convinced? Trump also admitted to using the alias John Barron to gab to reporters under oath.Of course, Trump denied that the voice in the recordingwhich audio forensics experts have said is definitely Trumpwas his, telling Todays Savannah Guthrie, It was not me on the phone.

Yes, it does! Its clearly you! exclaimed Oliver. Look, there is only one way to settle this: Tonight, Id like to extend an invitation to John Miller, publicist to appear on this program. Now, to be clear, this is not an invitation to Donald Trumpwho has never and will never be invited here for an interviewbut if John Miller wants to sit down with us, we would love to have him.Oliver then pointed to a special interview area hed set up with all the things John Miller presumably enjoys, included an overcooked Trump steak, low-grade pornographic magazines, and a hand mirror.

Its an open invitation, Oliver continued, so please come on by, John Miller, theres literally nothing stopping you other than the fact you obviously dont exist.
MARSEILLE, France  Young men from the northern districts of this most Muslim city in France are expected be among the first to be called up when the government in Paris kicks off its Orwellian new plan to fight the so-called Islamic State.

The idea is to herd suspected extremists into mysterious deradicalization centers all over the country. There are an estimated 9,000 radicalizedor potentially radicalizedjihadis believed to be in France, officials say. Another 2,000 French nationals are thought to have gone to Syria or Iraq to fight for the Islamic State.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said last week that France will establish as many as 13 centers all over the countrypicture an odd mix of halfway house, prison, and sleepover campwhere Islamist radicals or those who show signs of wanting to join the jihad in Syria and Iraq will be housed and re-educated. Oh, and theyll be monitored day and night for 10 months while wearing special uniforms, Valls said.

But will Vallss centers help stem the rising tide of radicalism in France or will they become, as one Muslim leader in southern France put it, a French Guantanamo?

Some say it would be better to help French Muslim religious leaders police their own. Several are quietly teaching their adherents how best to fight ISIS. But since some of them adhere to fundamentalist Salafi doctrine, they often are labeled as Islamist political extremists.

The core, critical difference is that followers of ISIS are takfiris intent on waging their murderous version of jihad against those who do not share their beliefs down to the letter, including fellow Muslims.

Most Muslims, even the very devout and conservative, do not agree. Indeed, they see the takfiris as deeply dangerous and divisive for the global community of believers. But these are hard distinctions for an aggressively secular French government to make.

My combat against Daesh [ISIS] is very well known but it doesnt make the papers, Sheikh Abdel Hadi, the Algerian-born imam at the Es-Sunnah mosque in a gritty area of Marseille, told The Daily Beast. We know our people better than the politicians in France do.

Abdel Hadi, 54, has been giving courses to young people all over France, Italy, and Spain about how best to explain to Muslims and non-Muslims that ISISs ideology has nothing to do with Islam, and he has shown them how to prevent ISIS from recruiting.

In contrast, Vallss plan calls for specially trained psychological counselors and teachers who will administer a treatment program for men and women between the ages of 18 and 30 who havent been convicted of committing actual crimes but whom judges deem a threat to the republic.

Each era has its challenges, Valls said at a Paris press conference last Monday. The fight against jihad is undoubtedly the big challenge of our generation. Radicalization and terrorism are linked. We are faced with a stubborn phenomenon that has widely spread through society and which threatens it because it could expand massively.

Asiem el Difraoui, a political scientist known for his studies on jihadists, told Le Parisien newspaper that he was against what he called these jihadist academies because the group setting might foster radicalism much the way the French prison system does, not discourage it.

Some radicals are masters are dissimulation, he said. All you need is one leader in there to take over the group.

Valls did not explain how officials will maneuver or force young people into the re-education centers, where they will be mostly semi-confined but also allowed out for local work internships, evening strolls, or family visits.

Theres already an uproar surrounding the first planned center, scheduled to open next month in bucolic Beaumont-en-Veron in the Loire Valley southwest of Paris, where residents are aghast at the idea of 30 young Islamists wandering their neighborhood while being re-educated. The locals have organized several petitions calling for the plan to be scrapped, at least in their backyard.

Only in France would the first such center not only be established in the royal valley of the Loire castles but on the grounds of a majestic estate built by the noble family of Marie Alphonse Greban de Pontourny, known for centuries for their Christian works, as Le Figaro reported.

Vallss plan is part of a broader $45 million initiative to fight terrorism that builds on the 30 measures France adopted in April 2014 and after the Charlie Hebdo attacks last year.

The idea is absurd from beginning to end, says Salim Mahmoud, 26, who lives in one of Marseilles tougher neighborhoods and belongs to the Es-Sunnah mosque. Manuel Valls doesnt know how to recognize the symptoms that lead to terrorism or how to deradicalize those symptoms. This is all purely politically motivated on his part, and the people who will end up being penalized are innocent Muslims.

Ali Bouzar, 24, of Nice, who traveled recently to Bergamo, Italy, to attend one of Abdel Hadis seminars, said he thinks Valls is using his plan for the deradicalization centers to advance his political agenda because he hopes to run for president.

What this is going to do is encourage French people to turn on Muslims and turn them in, Bouzar said. This is Vallss way of making it seem as if Orthodox Islam and ISIS are one and the same. These centers are going to be unfairly filled up with young people who are very conservative Muslims but who arent terrorists. Its going to make them very bitter and it could backfire badly.

Mhammed Henniche, a Muslim association leader in Seine-Saint-Denis just north of Paris, said he did not oppose Vallss plan in principle because France has become so vulnerable to terrorism. We need to take steps.

But Henniche also said that the proposed re-education centers wont solve the problem at it roots and could prove very dangerous unless France makes sure the only people it puts in the centers are those trying to go to Syria and Iraq, or those returning from there.

Otherwise well be faced with the problem of someones neighbor turning him in because he has a beard and prays five times a day, Henniche said.

Two other Muslim leaders in Paris declined to speak publicly on the topic.

Were damned if we say something and damned if we dont, explained one.

But Moustapha Dali, 59, the outspoken rector at the main mosque in Cannes, compared Vallss plan to Guantanamo.

And how did that succeed? Dali said. Not too well. This is a politician exploiting French fears and trying to make himself look good at the expense of 5 million [Muslim] people. This is going to turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For Hillary Clinton and the Democrats to defeat Donald Trump, they are going need massive voter turnout from women, African Americans, and Latinos. And waiting for Trump to fall apart is not enough: We can see where that strategy has gotten the GOP. So, heres one surefire way to unite and energize this electorate and destabilize the GOP: Support a constitutional right to vote.

Many conservative leaders have already admitted how voter ID laws and other voting restrictionswhich negatively impact African Americans, and other minorities who primarily vote Democraticbenefit conservative candidates. Since 2011, 22 GOP-controlled states have passed new voting restrictions that will be in place for the 2016 races. Ari Berman of The Nation argues that Trump has almost no chance of winning the presidency without the help of voter suppression.

Countless groups have worked to counter these new laws and regulations, but these groups are forced to fight with one arm tied behind their back because the Constitution does not actually give Americans the right to vote.

The Constitution stipulates reasons why a persons right to vote cannot be removed such as due to race, gender, age or a poll tax, but it does not say that the ability to vote is a constitutional right that should be protected for all Americans. Therefore, if a state legislature concocts a new method for disenfranchising voters that does not violate their state or federal constitution, this method of disenfranchisement stands. The courts can place a greater weight on a states claims limiting a citizens right to vote because that right has actually not been explicitly given.

As the Republicans have grown bolder in their voter suppression efforts, the Democrats too have become more audacious in their attempts to expand voting rights. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffes recent executive order to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 Virginians who have completed their felony sentences indicates the new lengths the Democrats are willing to take to expand voting rights to all American citizens. And to the surprise of no one, Republican legislators in Virginia are threatening to sue.

McAuliffes executive order also shows that similar bold decisions may now become mainstream within the Democratic establishment. His close ties with the Clintonshe was co-chairman of Bill Clintons 1996 re-election campaign and was a chairman of Hillary Clintons 2008 presidential campaignindicate that Hillary could be in favor of action to expand and protect the voting rights of Americans.

Itd be nice to have the Clintons on board here. But Hillary Clinton should not be the main advocate of this cause. Bernie Sanders should be.

He is the progressive, revolutionary socialist Democrat who has consistently pulled Clinton to the left. And he has also struggled to find an issue that can engage African-American and minority voters. Additionally, his civil rights era activism would make him a natural candidate to campaign on this issue. Fighting to ensure that Americans have a constitutional right to vote would enliven Sanderss campaign down the home stretch and could make him more relatable to the voters he has failed to connect with.

But the best reason of all? Sanders is from Vermont. Vermonts constitution explicitly gives residents the right to vote, and the only act that can strip a resident of this right is voter fraud. Therefore, not only can felons vote in Vermont, but so can the incarcerated. Vermont has no voter ID regulations. Also, last month, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed a bill to automatically register to vote any eligible Vermonter who visits a DMV. This new policy is expected to add upwards of 50,000 new voters within four years. And last year Sanders introduced a bill in Congress to make automatic voter registration the law of the land.

Sanders is the only mainstream politician with the infrastructure, political freedom, and record to make this topic into a national issue that could not only impact the presidential race, but also the congressional races. Championing this cause will probably not result in him winning the Democratic nomination, and if he does challenge Clinton on this issue she will most certainly support his position. He would have again pulled her further to the left, while also finding a way to stay relevant by collaborating with the Democratic establishment instead of antagonizing it.

Additionally, if Sanders loses the nomination he could return to the Senate and introduce a constitutional amendment guaranteeing every Americans right to vote. Surely, hed also get the support of Democratic congress members, especially Reps. Keith Ellison and Mark Pocan, who introduced similar legislation (PDF) in 2013.

How would this obstructionist GOP-led Congress confront this issue? Would they decide to not hold a vote about guaranteeing the right to vote? Doing nothing or voting no to the amendment certainly would not benefit Republican congressmen in an election year. Being an elected official who does not approve of the right to vote is indefensible. But of course they will vote no or delay a vote indefinitely because that is what this GOP Congress does. They are willing to break Congress to ensure that Americans cannot vote.

The GOP is in free fall. They have a presumptive presidential nominee who is not only enraging and dividing the party establishment and electorate, but is also polling so low that his main path to victory may focus around preventing large swaths of his opposition from voting. Additionally, the GOP controls our unpopular do-nothing Congress that is holding onto power by the skin of their teeth.

This is the time for Sanders, Clinton, and the Democrats to call their bluff, introduce a constitutional amendment guaranteeing Americans the right to vote, and challenge the Republicans on their voter suppression policies. This could be the revolution that Sanders supporters and other Democratic voters have been waiting for.
When America views this years general election debates, it will be easy to miss the scandal brewing just off stage. For decades, corporations have used debate sponsorships as a way to skirt the clear purpose of campaign finance lawsand to influence presidential campaigns. That evasion will happen again this year, as corporations work with the debate commission to effectively assure that any independent presidential candidate will be shut out.

Campaign finance law prohibits corporations from contributing to federal election campaigns. That prohibition is meant to limit corporate influence in Washington while avoiding any appearance of quid pro quo corruption.

The law, however, permits corporations to support nonpartisan activity, so long as that activity is designed to encourage individuals to vote or to register to vote.

The FEC has interpreted this law to permits corporate sponsorship of presidential candidate debatesbecause, in the FECs view, these debates are nonpartisan.

But that is just nonsense. The Commission for Presidential Debates (CPD) may well be bipartisan, but it is plainly a partisan commission, keen to exclude anyone who doesnt toe one of just two party lines.

Formed in 1998, the CPD was created by, and is controlled by, the Republican and Democratic parties. The commission is co-chaired by Frank Fahrenkopf, former head of the Republican Party and lobbyist for the gaming industry, and by Michael McCurry, a prominent Democratic insider who left the Clinton administration to lobby for corporate interests in Washington. Fahrenkopf is closely connected to his partys candidates, campaigns on their behalf, and contributes large sums of money to their campaigns. The same is true of McCurry. And the commissions staff is teeming with high-ranking partisan operatives, including party officials, lobbyists, and donors.

Before the CPD, presidential debates were staged by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters. Their neutralityincluding their openness to third-party candidatesmade it nearly impossible to recruit corporate sponsors. But when the CPD took control of the debates, the money began to flow from corporations like Philip Morris, Anheuser Busch, J.P. Morgan, AT&T, and IBM. Why would these companies want to contribute now when they didnt before? It is very hard to believe that change has nothing to do with their believing they now get something valuable in return that they didnt get before.

First, the CPD gives these corporations an easy way to influence both the Republican and Democratic parties with just one donation. This secures their seat at the table, regardless of which party is in power.

Second, CPD sponsorship gives corporations direct access to the presidential campaigns themselves. As Charles Lewis, founder and former executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, has observed, CPD sponsors get close access to both [parties] presidential candidates [I]ts another way to curry favor with the powers that be. One former CPD director conceded during an interview with longtime CPD critic George Farrah that corporations contribute to the CPD precisely to obtain such access.

Third, because the CPD claims to be nonpartisan, these donations are exempt from the FECs disclosure requirements. This allows the CPD to conceal both the identity and the amount contributedan easy way for corporations to have influence without the public even recognizing that influence. (And to add insult to injury, the public subsidizes this influence because these charitable contributions are tax deductible).

Thus just at the moment that Americans have become most weary of both the Republican and Democratic parties, the CPD has crafted a system of rules and financial influence that make it practically impossible for an independent to participate in the debates. Even Ross Perot couldnt meet the current standardswhich is precisely CPDs purpose in crafting the rules as they have.

Some corporations have objected to these practices. Philips, for example, pulled its support for the CPD because rather than being nonpartisan, its work may appear to support bi-partisan politics.

Yet too few outside of Washington have taken notice of how here again, money gets used to entrench the status quo. If America were happy with that status quo, that might be a fine thing. But in an America in which more than 40 percent affiliate with none of the above, yet another institution devoted to entrenching a polarized bipartisan squabble is just what we dont need.

Updated 5/16/16 at 2pm to clarify Charles Lewiss title.
There is a lot of flour used by Jessie Mueller and the rest of the cast in the musical Waitress. So, when the air conditioning at Broadways Brooks Atkinson Theater plays up, the results can be messy.

One recent evening, the air-con was coming in, not out, meaning Mueller and her colleaguesgently blowing flour from their palms out to the audiencewere lightly coated in the stuff, and carried on performing, trying to be dreamy with it.

When we speak by phone, Mueller apologizes for her slightly clotted voice: allergies, she says. Im about to boil some garlic and ginger to get the inflammation down.

Of how she keeps her voice healthy for the demands of eight shows as week, she says, I keep talking to a minimum. I nap on two-show days. I dont really drink much, its very drying. I get a lot of sleep. For me, that is the only thing that reboots my voice. If I havent had enough sleep, there is nothing I can do to repair that damage.

Mueller, 33, has been nominated for a second Tony for her role as Jenna, a waitress in a diner stuck in an abusive relationship, but dreaming of a better life away from her awful husband Earl (Nick Cordero).

Mueller won her first Tony for her role as Carole King in the musical, Beautiful, in 2014, and in Waitress must navigate the tricky transitions of singing happily about pie-making, while conveying Jennas desperation to escape her unhappy marriage, as well as falling in love with her gynecologist (Drew Gehling).

The musical, based on the 2007 movie of the same name and with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, sees Jenna and her waitress buddies at the dinerBecky (Keana Settle) and Dawn (Kimiko Glenn)deal with both matters of the heart and the baking oven. Dawns eccentric paramour, Ogie (Christopher Fitzgerald), steals every scene he is in, winningly and shamelessly.

Despite Fitzgerald's audacious act of stage piracy, Waitress is notable for having an all-female lead production team, as well as a female focus.

I never thought of myself as a feminist, says Mueller. Im from a generation that were the daughters of feminists. To me, if that term is polarizing its not serving us. The term had to be created at a time because there needed to be a term to define something different.

Today Mueller prefers the term human-ist, but if feminism still has currency and a need to exist, she says, as long its not polarizing people, then yeah Im a feminist.

In the musical, to segue from happy to sad, intense to light, says Mueller, is to simply remain truthful to the spirit of each scenethe comic, as well as the serious.

The show has also re-awoken her pie-making skills. I used to bake with my mom a lot when I was little. I liked to get my hands dirty and help when I could. The crust is the hardest thing: thats what keeps me from making pies. My stirring skills have gotten really good though.

Some of the pies are real in the show, some are models, and one is baked in the foyer every evening to send enticing smells into the audienceit is later fed to cast and crew.

Was there pressure on Mueller being back on Broadway, with a Tony already to her name?

I think early on I did feel little bit of pressure, Mueller, who seems extremely modest and down-to-earth, says. I think it was self-inducedjust the sense that I had been so blessed with the success of Beautiful that it gave me a little bit of choice, and what I did next was really important.

Becoming a celebrity was another puzzle. For Mueller, its something that means something to someone else, I dont know what that thing means to me. I understand the responsibility of it: My name is on a marquee, people are depending on me.

But celebrity in itself doesnt help her do her job. Its definition is all in the perception of others, though Mueller is grateful if it means that people are into what Im doing, and if that means I am able to do really great things. Thats what I love about it.

She wanted to top Beautiful professionally, just as she always hopes to be doing her best workand while both the latter and Waitress feature two female characters struggling to express themselves, the musical challenges of the two shows are very different.

Mueller wanted to be an actress from a young age, growing up in Evanston, Illinois: her parents and siblings are all actors. I was taken with theater from the beginning, it was the coolest thing for me. I was entranced, and it was the most natural thing because it was what my parents did.

Performances of Sherman Edwards 1776 and Stephen Sondheims Gypsy that she saw at age 4 or 5 stayed in her mind, particularly the strippers in the latter: They had the best songs and outfits.

As to what was fascinating her young mind, it was the magic of becoming someone else, the music, and I was fascinated with the actresses coming out of the stage door with their lashes still onit seemed otherworldly to me.

Mueller didnt start performing herself until high school (Evanston Township), which had a brilliant theater department and still does.

When she was contemplating college life, the idea of training to be an actor struck Mueller with trepidation: Her parents being actors meant she knew a little bit about the pressures of the actors life. Her mother encouraged her to do what she wanted, and I didnt have biochemistry as a fallback, says Mueller, laughing gently. Acting it was.

A family of actors does not mean a lot of collective competing with each other, Mueller says: parents and siblings all go to each others shows, schedules permitting.

Its a built-in support system and understanding. My brothers and sister and I have such respect for each other, and were so different.

Coming to Broadway was not an all-consuming ambition of hers, Mueller insists.

It really wasnt. Because of where I grew up, I was part of a theater community. I wasnt one of those kids who wanted to be on Broadway. I wasnt acquainted with New York and Broadway: that, to me, was Guys and Dolls. I didnt have an understanding of what Broadway is, and the amazing community and platform that it is.

A breakthrough role came in the 2011 revival of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, for which she scored a Tony nomination, and then, the following year, Into The Woods.

I was kind of terrified, Mueller recalls of coming to New York. I was thrilled, but On a Clear Day closed soon after it opened. I would never give anything back of that experience, but I did think afterwards, What am I doing? There were a couple of crazy dark moments. I wasnt sure what was to come, then Into The Woods came up, and so I thought, Cool, Ill stay and do this.

The Tonys win for Beautiful in 2014 changed her professional life: of that day, she recalls rehearsing for the ceremony, doing a regular performance of Beautiful, returning for the ceremony, another stage performance within the ceremony, then the announcement of her as the winner.

She laughs that she had been most proud that she and her fellow Beautiful cast had managed all the to-and-fro of the day, and so the moment of winning itself remains otherworldly, a buzz of people high-fiving you and giving you hugs, then the show must go on.

It was a huge honor, and it certainly opened professional doors for Mueller, she says. Of the actor and writer Andy Truschinski, her boyfriend of six years, she adds, I couldnt do any of this without him. Weve been together 6 years. He is the most loving, grounded person and force in my life. Any of this really wouldnt be worth it if he wasnt around. He is so understanding. He gets it.

As to the future, Mueller says Beautiful and Waitress both came out of nowhere, and so she cannot say what her desired roles are: She hopes the most interesting parts will present themselves.

This years Tony nominations, featuring black actors and actresses in many categories, have been favorably compared to Oscars So White.

Im very excited about it, Mueller says of Broadway today. People are talking about how honest and powerful shows are. If there is the room for truth and honesty and inclusiveness at the heart of everything, and people are coming to Broadway and feeling they are represented and relating to the stories in front of them, I think were in a really good place.
Its not just Merrick Garlandthis Senate isnt confirming anybody.

Thats the takeaway from a variety of new data that has emerged in the wake of the Garland stalemate, showing that his non-confirmation (and non-hearing) is the rule, rather than the exception, for the Republican-led Senate.

Its absolutely absurd, Marge Baker, executive vice president of liberal group People for the American Way (PFAW), told The Daily Beast. PFAW has been tracking the issue closely and released new findings this week. And its qualitatively different from anything that has gone before.

For example, Mike DeBonis at The Washington Post compared the confirmation rates of the Democrat-led Senate in 2007-08, the last year of George W. Bushs presidency, with those of the Republican-led Senate in 2015-16. The results are startling, and go far beyond Judge Garland.

Over the past 16 months, the Senate has confirmed 17 lifetime-appointment judges. In the same period in 2007-08, the Democrat-led Senate confirmed 45; in 1991-92, when Democrats controlled the Senate and George H.W. Bush was president, it confirmed 82. In other words, the GOP Senate is confirming just 38 percent as many judges as the Democratic 2008 Senate, and 21 percentof the Democratic 1992 one.

And its not just judges. The Congressional Research Service found that President Obama has had the fewest presidential nominees confirmed in decades: 198, compared with 345 for George W. Bush, and 268 for Bill Clinton.

For judicial confirmations, Baker lay the blame squarely on Sen. Charles Grassley, the chair of the Judiciary Committee whoin part because of the Garland fiascois now locked in a fierce re-election battle.

Sen. [Patrick] Leahy [D-VT] worked hard in the last two years of Bushs presidency to continue processing nominees, she said. Grassley is not. He is not just the judiciary chair for the Republican Partyhes the judiciary chair for the whole country. Its indefensible.

PFAWs own analysis, released this week, revealed that under Grassleys leadership, the judicial confirmation rate has been 25 percent. Leahys was 58 percent. A recent PFAW press release dubbed Grassley the Do-Nothing Chairman.

While the publics (wavering) attention is on the unprecedented refusal to consider Judge Garlands nomination, Baker told The Daily Beast that the truly shocking inaction is on lower court nominations.

Ive been following this issue for 13 years, she said. District court vacancies were never in playthey were routine. But now, the obstructionism has gotten down to the district court level.

A similar point was made in a New York Times op-ed by the recently retired Judge Shira Scheindlin, famous for ending New Yorks controversial Stop & Frisk program. Scheindlin noted that since 2014, Republicans have confirmed only 15 of President Obamas district court nominees, compared with 57 confirmed in 2007-08again, when the Democrats controlled the Senate but a Republican was in the White House.

The Senate majoritys policy of delaying qualified district-court nominations on purely political grounds undermines public trust in the impartiality and legitimacy of the judiciary, Scheindlin wrote.

Baker noted that while the Supreme Court hears around 100 cases per year, district courts across the country hear 350,000and 90 percent of the time, they have the final word.

Not having these courts adequately staffed creates a real impediment for average Americansbusiness people, everybody to get justice in the courts, she said.

Indeed, the number of Judicial Emergenciesa formal designation by the federal court system for when the per-judge caseload is so high that it endangers access to justicehas nearly tripled in the last two years, from 12 in January 2014, to 32 in April 2016.

By way of comparison, there were 19 such judicial emergencies at this point in George W. Bushs second termand the number had gone down since the Democrats took control of the Senate.

Republican senators are blocking nominations in such a cavalier fashion that its really distressing, said Baker.

Yet Baker sees a silver lining in the Garland cloud. As I suggested in these pages last week, the Garland non-confirmation is shining an unusual light on the Supreme Court confirmation processusually a non-issue in elections, but, perhaps, less so this year.

Baker went even further.

This issue is a tangible part of presidential and Senate campaigns in a way that it hasnt been before, she said. Indeed, Baker hoped that the high-profile obstruction of Judge Garlands nomination could call attention to the obstruction of nominees throughout the judicial system.

If people are paying attention, that is. Already, as Dahlia Lithwick complained in Slate, its hard to maintain attention on the Garland nomination, let alone more obscure ones down the line. Especially with two high-profile and highly polarizing presidential candidates this year, theres reason to doubt anyone is paying attention to district court nomination battles.

Still, Baker remained optimistic. At the end of the day, she said, the polling is miserable for [Republicans]. The American public does not support this.
When your time at Live! is over, it is over. The sword of Kelly Ripa is unforgiving. There was to be no drawn-out waiting for the new autumn season to get a fresh set of titles done. The message of Monday mornings show was Michael Strahan doesnt live here any more.

The show is now called Live! with Kelly. The de-Strahaned titles of ABCs morning show feature just Ripa emerging from New York cabs, and getting her makeup done. The coffee mugs and logos have also all been de-Strahaned.

The show clearly wanted to eradicate all trace of the drawn-out soap opera of Strahans departure to Good Morning America, Ripas temporary self-imposed exile from the show, and the hasty jettisoning of Strahan from Live! when everybody concerned had judged the whole thing had become a far-too public, visible mess.

Fridays farewell, as The Daily Beast put it, was distinctly dry-eyed.

These are sensitive waters: Aliya S. King wrote recently that Ripas reaction to Strahans departure could be read as a racial micro-aggression.

All would have had stayed safely wiped clean had Ripa and executive producer Michael Gelman not chosen to have her incredible friend Jimmy Kimmel be her first new era co-hostthat is, before they choose a permanent co-host.

The rock anthem Go Big or Go Home (by American Authorsthis mornings musical guests) set the toneRipa even gallantly held out Kimmels chair for him, as Strahan would do for her. Her desk now, you see.

There was a thunderous standing ovation.

Wheres Michael? Kimmel asked his buddy.

You dont read newspapers, Ripa mugged.

Everything all right, everything good? he persisted.

Lets start at the beginningwhat happened? he asked of Strahan.

Howard Stern, whom Kimmel had spoken to earlier, had given him a list of about 75 questions to ask. Gelman confessed to feeling sweaty, so Kimmel turned to him instead.

Will you ever talk to Michael Strahan again?

Im sure I will, Gelman said.

Will he return to the show as a guest?

At some point its possible.

There was not much enthusiasm to these responses: the viewer could only think, Wow, things got really bad there.

Perhaps it was Kimmels friendship with Ripa that stopped him from putting her on the spot with those openers.

Next from the cheerfully smutty Kimmel: Does Kelly do the show without panties ever?Oh, that was for you, he added, turning to Ripa.

Kimmel is a friend of Ripas, and this was said in good humor, but she was also being sexually humiliatedalbeit with in-joke smiles on faceson her troubled morning show.

She always wore underwear, Ripa replied, and today she was wearing two pairs.

Was the farewell hugging and kissing on Fridays show between Ripa and Strahan genuine, asked Kimmel.

Yeah, we dont fake hug and kiss, Ripa insisted seriously.

It wasnt like air-kissing, it was genuine. Her expression and manner suggested her heart would go on.

Kimmel had read that pictures of Strahan had been removed backstage, but it wasnt true, he noted. We havent gotten around to it yet, said Ripa.

Kimmel then produced a marker pen for each temporary co-host to write their name under hers. The travel trivia game wheel descended to reveal Kimmels selection of permanent co-host ideas: Kylie Jenner, Jon Bon Jovi, Jojo The Bachelorette, Derek Jeter, Pippa Middleton (Ripa and Pippa sounded good, said Kimmel), Becky with the good hair, and a party-sized summer sausage.

Dare I dream? Kelly wondered of the latter option.

The wheel was spun, the sausage won. But then Kimmel mugged getting a call in his ear: The sausage had just agreed to join Good Morning America.

The rest of the hour showed just how brilliant a morning talk show with Jimmy Kimmel could be: He was rejecting of all the safe, smiley chit-chattiness of the genre.

The dancer for the shows travel trivia gamea gentleman in sunglasses from Greenwich, Connecticutwas observed with a horrified expression; Kimmel also castigated Ripa for the poison of Botox she injected into her forehead.

Youre so fertile, Kimmel said to guest Gordon Ramsay about the chef and his wife Tana expecting their fifth child, and accused him of lying when he said he got on with fellow British chef Jamie Oliver.

Ripa tried to calm the wildness down, but Ramsay must have sworn, because bleeped-out silence reigned for a few seconds.

At the end of the hour, Kimmel presented Ripa with half a sausage to get acquainted with, and wrote tomorrows co-hosts, Jussie Smolletts, name on a mug.

We hope Jimmy Kimmel comes back.
ROME  Giovanna Gio Arrivoli, an aspiring Neapolitan Camorra crime boss, was a female who identified as a male. And, as it would happen, he was murdered like one, too.

The 41-year-old, who had reportedly not yet completed full gender reassignment surgery, was tortured and shot last week, allegedly by rival Camorra gang members. The killers employed the usual devices saved for male murders, including days of torture, the breaking of Arrivolis jaw (presumably to get the victim to talk) and three fatal gunshots: two to the heart and one to the brain. Then Arrivoli was buried head first in the ground, a sign that the killing was likely a vengeance act for betrayal, according to local media reports quoting police sources.

Local police are working on two different theories for the motive of the murder, neither of which have to do with Arrivolis transgender status. The first is that Arrivoli had racked up an enormous debt for drugs not yet sold, which perhaps led to a confrontation about the debt. Police are working on the theory that perhaps Arrivoli was given three days to come up with the money, or die.

Arrivolis live-in girlfriend alerted police after two days, which investigators say may mean she also tried to raise funds. She is not yet cooperating with the investigation.

The second theory is that one of Arrivolis brothers-in-law had recently betrayed the clan with Arrivolis knowledge, which amounted to the ultimate betrayal.

What this means, other than the fact that Camorra violence is on the rise again, is that the Camorra is surprisingly open when it comes to accepting trans individuals among their ranks and rivals. In fact, former anti-mafia prosecutor Raffaele Cantone recently spoke of an emerging trans boss who was leading one of the Camorras drug clans. Whether Arrivoli was that person is not yet known.

Mafia thugs do kill women, and children, too, but the rituals are generally different, and they almost never physically torture them, according to Roberto Saviano, a Mafia author who is living under police protection for his book Gomorrah, about the Neapolitan Camorra.

It would appear that the Camorra clans also respected Arrivolis gender reassignment, which is something trans Italians struggle with in almost every other sector of society. Arrivoli reportedly ran a lucrative drug trade out of a coffee bar called the Blue Moon on the outskirts of Scampia, near Naples, easily the most dangerous of all the Camorra strongholds. Arrivoli apparently used the business as a power center for Camorra clan boss Amato Paganos activities, which ranged from torching cars and knee-capping rivals to drugs and extortion, according to press reports. The bar was also apparently a center for aspiring Camorristi who wanted to be accepted into a clan.

Police apparently noted Arrivolis transformation and the Camorras acceptance, documenting how other Camorra gang members for years referred to him as a mascuolona, which is a derogatory term used to describe effeminate men, but had more recently started referring to Arrivoli as a full male, according to Naples newspaper Il Mattino.

No one may ever know for sure just why Arrivoli died, but for now it seems clear that it certainly wasnt because of his gender.
Henry Westons cider launches TV campaign

Henry Westons Vintage, the UKs largest traditional premium cider brand*, is launching its first TV campaign, which kicked off nationally last week, as well as an on-pack promotion. The campaign will run throughout the summer and heroes Henry Weston, the man behind the cider, who is also Westons founder. This f orms part of a 1m investment into the Henry Westons Vintage brand this year.

The Cider with Character TV ad will air throughout May and June and will include a second burst of air-time during August and September. The ad will reach 12 million of Henry Westons core target audience, and will feature across a number of prime-time TV channels.

The TV ad, which includes a 20-second and 10-second version, uses an animated style and opens on a wide shot of a beautiful orchard with the Malvern Hills beyond. It then shows a Heath Robinson-style machine, which is a giant automated apple picker with a long mechanical arm and one giant, white-gloved hand. The hand efficiently drops the apples onto a small conveyor belt.

The ad then cuts to Henry, sipping from a ladle, testing the cider. The giant white hand on the machine soon gives a big thumbs-up to show Henrys approval. The narrator tells the audience that Henry Westons Vintage is made from the finest Herefordshire apples from a single year aged in oak vats very slowly for a magnificent taste to savour. Henry Westons Vintage. Cider with Character.

The on-pack promotion will feature on 3.2 million bottles nationally during May and June, giving consumers the chance to win a trip to New York, the Big Apple. Drinkers need simply go onto the Henry Westons Jazz website and fill out the last four digits of the bottles bar code to be entered into the competition.

Westons Cider is now run by the fourth generation of the Weston family, which has been producing traditional English cider in the Herefordshire village of Much Marcle since 1880. Westons makes a broad range of ciders for the premium cider sector with its other key brands including Stowford Press, Wyld Wood Organic Cider, Old Rosie, Mortimers Orchard and Caple Rd Cider, the UKs first craft cider in a can.

*The Henry Westons Vintage brand is now growing at 15% and is worth 29.6m, IRI 52 weeks ending 26th March 2016.

16 May 2016 - Felicity Murray The Drinks Report, editor
VICTORIA  Michael Allen woke up on a recent Monday to messages from old Army buddies saying they had lost another one.

Six veterans in his unit have committed suicide after returning home from war, including the chaplain and chaplain's assistant.

The combat soldiers in this unit were deployed to Iraq in 2008. Allen was a platoon sergeant.

"You go from somebody watching your back 24/7 and then it's not there," he told The Victoria Advocate.

An often-cited and alarming statistic states 22 U.S. service veterans take their lives every single day.

For many veterans, it's difficult to transition back into civilian life after seeing war.

"I try not to lose any more," Allen said in his office, which is in the Crossroads Area Veterans Center.

The veteran service center in the Dr. Pattie Dodson Public Health Center opened in November.

Allen points out a photo on a bookshelf of him and a friend whom he lost to suicide a couple of years ago.

He said it wasn't until after his friend's death that he found out they both had the same deep, dark thoughts.

"For me to try to deal with it all, I just try to stay busy," he said.

Allen retired after 20 years in the U.S. Army.

"The big thing is knowing they have to find a new identity," he said.

In the military, there's a pecking order, and you know where you stand, he said.

But veterans in their 20s are told they can't work and they are disabled, he says.

"You have to do something to make yourself feel just as important as you were in the military," Allen said.

Raised in Seadrift, he said he returned home and people had changed, or maybe they didn't.

He's seen a psychiatrist probably 75 times since he retired in 2011, he said.

He's been through divorce and at one time owned a bar until he found his current position as a peer counselor.

As a volunteer coordinator for the Military Veteran Peer Network, he works to help connect veterans with services such as benefits, housing, employment and counseling.

His work encouraging veterans to meet for social outings proves to be therapeutic because it is a safe way for them to get out of isolation.

Victoria has veterans' yoga, equine therapy, cigar nights, kickball and weekly group meetings at the mall.

Allen said the veterans at these events don't always swap war stories.

Veterans of all military branches and eras are able to come together for camaraderie knowing everyone there understands what they are going through.

One recent week when he talked to his friends from that unit, they agreed they should check up on each other more often  before someone else dies.

Often suicide leaves friends and family members wondering what they could have done to prevent the death.

"I think the solution is having more people in peer positions," Allen said.

But of course, a combination of individual, relational, community and societal factors contributes to the risk.

Suicide touches all ages and backgrounds and all racial and ethnic groups in all parts of the country.

Yet, some populations are at an even higher risk.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates 90 percent of those who die by suicide have an underlying mental illness.

Those at risk also include those who have lost a loved one to suicide, don't have access to mental health care and have easy access to lethal weapons.

"It's a widespread problem. It's preventable death," said Alicia Vasquez, a registered nurse who works for Gulf Bend Center in Victoria.

Vasquez oversees the center's Zero Suicide initiative  a state training program aimed to prepare health center staff with the specific tools and strategies to improve identification, treatment and support services in suicide care.

"Basically the theory is that no death by suicide is acceptable," she said.

When a person expresses a plan to commit suicide, they are hospitalized.

While this helps the person in an immediate crisis situation, she said, it doesn't treat the underlying problem.

Part of the challenge of addressing the topic of suicide is the stigma, she said.

Vasquez said feelings of isolation are a big risk factor.

Many people have friends and family whom they can call and talk to about things that trouble them, she said.

"If somebody doesn't have that, they're more likely to act on destructive behaviors," she said.

There's also research that shows media coverage of suicides has a role in causing clusters of copycat suicides among young adults.

For ages 10-34, suicide is the second leading cause of death according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hege Riise, director of counseling, health and wellness at University of Houston-Victoria, said more students are coming forward for counseling services and reporting suicidal attempts and ideation.

Riise said this is considered a positive trend because more students are seeking help.

In fall 2015, 21.5 percent of their clients reported they had attempted suicide at least once in their lifetime, and 3.5 percent reported that suicide attempt was within the past month.

The university received a Garrett Lee Smith Suicide Prevention grant funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in 2014.

The funding allowed the department to proactively address the issue of suicide with a task force and funded a full-time position.

One of the Jags For Life project goals is to train faculty, staff and students to respond to student crises effectively.

She said they should be able to ask a person whether they are thinking about dying without judgment and then refer them to get help.

More than 400 people on campus, employees and students, have been trained.

"We're by no means done training," she said.

There had been attempts on campus, but no completions, Riise said.

"We want to save lives," she said. "Getting treatment is important."

She said among her students, she's seen how counseling and an adequate dosage of medication helps.

There is always a counselor on duty for after-hours phone calls involving mental health crises, she said.

"These are our students," she said. "We have a responsibility to them."

She said sometimes they find out about one attempt a semester, and other times it's twice in one day.

The counselors also work to normalize the grief process for students coping with a loss.

"There's never one reason for why someone attempts suicide," she said. "It's much more complex than that."
Natalie Bennett has announced she will be stepping down as leader of the UK Green Party and will not stand for a third term when the leadership elections take place this summer.

Natalie, who has been in the top job for four years (two terms) has seen membership to the Green Party increase five-fold under her watch. She says: "We're the only party with a platform that recognises the essential interrelationship between economic and environmental justice - that we must have a society in which no one fears hunger or homelessness, while we collectively live within the environmental limits of our one fragile planet.

"The Green Party offers a genuine alternative to the tired status quo and I am proud that Greens do politics differently."

UK environmentalist and author, Tony Junpier, paid tribute to Natalie's achievements but added that a new leadership could be the perfect time to reinvent the message of the Greens to fit better with the world in which we now live.

"Whoever takes on the leadership will have much to thank Natalie for but also a big job of reinvention. This could be a hugely exciting time for Green politics in Britain and I hope the party will select someone up to the task."

Greg Neale, the new Editor-in-Chief of The Resurgence Trust which owns The Ecologist website, as well as Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, says: "During Natalie's leadership the party has now established itself in many areas beyond its original centres, while the Green Party in Scotland has grown vigorously.

"At the recent elections for the Scottish Parliament and for the Mayor of London, the Green vote showed that more and more people are beginning to turn towards new solutions to our problems: this is another of Natalie's legacies."
Greater Burlington leaders hope for more hotel, housing construction

Burlington and West Burlington leaders shared opportunities for growth and quality of life improvements in their respective cities.
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NORWALK  When Alexis Blais and Mike Garvey first returned to Norwalk after college, they felt like they knew everyone in town.

Three years later, a night out is filled with more strangers faces than familiar ones.

Theres just a lot more young people from out of town, a lot more transplants, Blais said. Not even 10 years ago all of those people would have gone to Stamford.

Millennials now make up roughly 23 percent of Norwalks population, according to the 2014 town profile provided by the Connecticut Economic Resource Center.

Between April 2010 and July 2014, Norwalks population grew by an estimated 2.9 percent to 88,145, with the majority of that population growth stemming from people under 35 years old.

And with recent estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau showing millennials have surpassed the baby boomers as the nations largest living generation, that population growth isnt expected to slow. As a result, the question isnt if millennials will come  but to where and for how long?

Now the citys private and public sectors are turning their attention not only to attracting millennials - people born between 1981 and 1997 - but also retaining them.

Competing for Millennials

When Blais, 28, returned to Norwalk to live with her boyfriend, Garvey, also 28, she was relocating from New York City, where everything is within walking distance and any variety of food can be ordered at all hours of the night.

The pair had a similar lifestyle in mind when they started searching for apartments in Norwalk, and they found it at the SoNo Ironworks development in South Norwalk.

I still wanted to maintain that urban lifestyle, but you get a lot more bang for your buck in Norwalk, Blais said. Being in a city center youre not confined to driving  a lot of what we like to do is available within walking distance. We stay busy.

Betty Bondi, owner/broker of Bondi Realty Group in Norwalk, said many of her clients are Millennials coming from New York City in search of a first home after getting married and having a child.

They tell us that theyre renting in Manhattan and theyre looking to get more space, and theyre also tired of paying rent. Their rents are so outrageous that it doesnt make any sense to be there anymore, Bondi said. Theyre looking to put down roots, start families and Norwalk is where they want to be.

Bondi said such home buyers get more for their money, in terms of square footage, and like being near a train station to commute to their jobs in New York City.

They dont want to be more than 10 minutes from Metro-North (Railroad). Thats very important, Bondi said.

Elizabeth L. Stocker, Norwalk's director of economic development, said many millennials find small cities attractive because they dont find themselves disappearing into the population. But Norwalk is not alone in the competition for millennials  neighboring cities and towns such as Stamford and Fairfield also provide ample opportunity for millennials settling outside New York City.

Certainly, were aware of the competition among cities and our branding is something that were probably going to use to promote ourselves more-so because of that potential competition, Stocker said.

Geoff and Elyse Williams, both 29, recently purchased a house in Norwalk after getting married a year ago. When they first started looking, Norwalk wasnt even on their radar.

We were mostly looking in Fairfield and Stamford, Elyse Williams said. Fairfield ended up being a little too far to commute, and everythings really expensive around here so when we were comparing staying in the area and the commute to work, we found we got a lot more for our money in Norwalk.

Marketing to Millennials

While Blais and Garvey had the advantage of being Norwalk natives, other millennials have struggled to get acquainted with the city.

Stamford long ago was accepted as the place to go for Fairfield County millennials, the Williams were never at a loss for something to do during their five years in that city. When they made the move to Norwalk in December, they knew there was a vibrant city culture, but finding it has been another story.

We came here because its nice to still be close to action and things going on, Williams said. There was definitely the possibility of moving to Wilton or Cheshire. We may not have known where the action was (in Norwalk), but we wanted to be around young people and we werent ready to settle down.

Thats an issue Shruti Chalamani, 26, was hoping to combat when she got involved with the Norwalk Arts Commission.

Last month Chalamani and the commission launched a social media campaign in conjunction with the city and local businesses called #LiveLoveNorwalkCT. By utilizing a hashtag and aggregating events hosted throughout Norwalk in a central location on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, Chalamani said she hopes to provide a better place for millennials to learn whats happening in the city.

Theres a lot happening in Norwalk but theres not a lot of awareness because its flowing through a lot of different channels, and theyre channels that arent directed at young people, Chalamani said. I was finding out about a lot of events that I would have loved to attend after the fact because they werent reaching this huge population of people from their 20s to mid-30s  my goal is that if this takes off, its the type of thing realtors will tell people looking to buy a house in Norwalk to check out  they can got to the hashtag and really get a sense of what the city is about.

In addition to the #LiveLoveNorwalkCT campaign, city officials unveiled in April "The Sound of Norwalk" as the citys new brand mark.

The message aims to capitalize on Norwalk's waterfront location and diverse attractions, including arts and music, all of which have been identified as qualities that attract millennials.

Education a big draw

A good number of local Millennials are students at Norwalk Community College (NCC). The college has 6,500 students and a range of credit and non-credit degrees and certification programs. Credits transfer to four-year colleges and universities. Add to that technology-oriented learning and more than 40 clubs and the school offers a lot of bang for the buck, school officials say.

I think whats very attractive to Millennials here is the cost and the quality of the education that theyre going to get for the cost, said Kelly DelMazio, a counselor at NCC. I think we really offer the same services that our four-year institutions are offering.

While not diminishing NCCs role in the community, Norwalk Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Timothy T. Sheehan said a four-year college  if only a satellite campus  would attract still more Millennials.

Im not saying we can do it, said Sheehan of the prospect. Im saying that that would be a huge attraction to Millennials as well.

Communities with four-year learning institutions topped the list of destinations for where young college graduates wanted to live and work in 2015-16, according to the American Institute for Economic Research.

Ranking top among metropolitan areas with populations of less than 250,000 were Iowa City, Iowa, Ithaca, N.Y., Lawrence, Kan., Champaign-Urbana, Ill., Bloomington, Ind., and Columbia, Mo. In the northeast, Burlington, Vt., came in eighth place.

The report considered economic factors such as the labor market, earnings, rent and professional competition as well as quality-of-life issues such as education, car dependency, places to eat and drink, and racial and ethnic diversity.

Areas for improvements

Sheehan said more public transit options, an expanded bicycle path network, better pedestrian ways, a public WiFi network and broader living options also would go far to attract millennials to Norwalk.

While hundreds of new apartments are under construction in Norwalk, many of them average 800 square feet to 1,000 square feet in size and rent for more than $2,000 a month. Sheehan said theres a market for smaller, less-expensive studio apartments.

If you could have some units that are smaller in scale and you begin to get down closer to a $1,200 range as opposed to a $2,000 range, theres a big market for that, Sheehan said.
The "Get to know m.e." campaign announced six individual $2,000 scholarships will be awarded to six students, two from each of the host sponsor Universities of the "Get to know m.e." campaign: Lindenwood University in Belleville, Ill., McKendree University in Lebanon, Ill. and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in Edwardsville, Ill.

Project manager of the campaign, Carol Bartle, says, Were thrilled to bring the scholarship program back in the second year of the Get to know m.e. campaign. It was an enormous success in its first year, and we have great expectations for its return in 2016-2017.

All students applying for the Get to know m.e. Scholarship must meet all the following non-negotiable conditions:

1 All recipients of this scholarship must be a resident of the Metro-East at the time of application and already enrolled as a full time student (minimum 12 credit hours) in good standing at one of the Universities listed on this application.

2. Student must submit a GTKME application and required essay to the mailing address or website listed below before deadline date to be eligible for the Scholarship. The Scholarship will be applied during the academic semester immediately following the application submission. Awarded for Spring Semester 2017 ONLY.

3. Students must be deemed in good standing within the University guidelines to which they are applying.

4. This Scholarship award must be used for the specified semester as indicated on this application. There is no exception, this will be evaluated at time of awarding.

5. This Scholarship award may be superseded by any other tuition-only grant or scholarships received by the student.

6. This Scholarship award pays tuition, fees and books only.

7. All Scholarship materials must be received (post marked) no later than October 15th, 2016.

8. Students must intend to complete a degree or certificate at one of the Universities listed on his application to receive the GTKME Scholarship award.

This campaign was launched to give something positive back to the community. We are dedicated to education and offering scholarships to students is another way for us to show our commitment to these students and the quality education they receive at these universities in the Metro-east, said Bartle. This is a great opportunity for us to dedicate what resources we have to help improve the educational experience for students in the Metro-East,added Bartle.

Applications and more information about the Get to know m.e. scholarship can be found online at http://www.get2knowthemetroeast.com/projects/scholarship-2016.

The Get to know m.e. campaign was launched to help everyone in the Metro-East get to know their community better, embracing the people who live and work here and the many attractions that we all share and enjoy. It also serves to educate those living outside of the Metro-East about all this area has to offer in terms of attractions, quality housing, workforce and more.

If you have ideas on how this campaign can help the Metro-East as a whole, either through a community-wide event, public awareness efforts or through a project, we want to hear from you. Visit Get to know m.e. online at http://www.GetToKnowTheMetroEast.com, or visit our social media pages and leave your ideas so we can help everyone get to know the Metro-East better.
The stopgap funding given to state universities is providing a bridge to keep the Southern Illinois University system operational over the summer, but more funding is drastically needed.

The General Assembly recently authorized $600 million of stopgap funding to the states universities, community colleges and MAP grant amid the ongoing budget impasse. Of the funding, SIU will receive $54.5 million.

In his weekly communication, Southern Illinois University President Randy Dunn said the university has already received portions of the money.

The $54.5 million share coming to the SIU system - a chunk of which, including the fall 2015 semester of MAP reimbursement, has already been pushed out to us - releases pressure on cash flow and does provide that necessary summer bridge funding for u s to keep university operations sustained and viable through that period.

The funds provided only make up about 30 percent of the normal annual appropriation to the university. However, Chicago State University was given nearly 60 percent of its annual appropriation.

But with uncertainty about when a budget will be final, Dunn said the stopgap funding provides some breathing room but doesnt fix the problems. This is the first state funding SIUE has received since July of 2015.

SIU-Edwardsville Interim Chancellor Stephen Hansen said the money received does help.

The stopgap funding relieved the burden of borrowing money from ourselves, he said. It has relieved this burden, but it is clearly not enough.

Hansen said SIUE is regarded by the Illinois Board of Higher Education as one of the most efficient state universities in Illinois.

Our efficiency is based on the cost per student and the ratio of overhead costs versus instructional costs, he said. We can only be this efficient with continued support from the state.

Dunn said SIU officials will continue to monitor financial projections through the end of the fiscal year.

I no longer anticipate having to move forward anytime this summer with a declaration of financial emergency, whether it be for a single campus or the whole system, Dunn said in his System Connection newsletter.

SB2059 has allowed us to take that consideration off the table temporarily. But well have to be right back in Springfield to get the rest of the loaf, and this is my intention all the through the scheduled end of session on May 31.

Hansen said initiatives moving through the General Assembly are gaining some traction.

Weve heard we may receive another appropriation that would bring us up to 60 percent of our funding, he said.

The chancellor added that higher education is vital to the economy and well being of the entire state.

Funding higher education should be an investment in the future and not a cost burden, he said. Its what attracts and retains people and businesses to the state.

Under a new plan that recently cleared a Senate committee, all universities, except Chicago State, would split an additional $312 million. The plan would bring all schools up to a 60 percent funding level.

Community colleges would get another $90 million, and an additional $46 million would be set aside for MAP grants for low-income students.
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Linkedin Aichiro Suryo Prabowo (The Jakarta Post) Chicago  Mon, May 16, 2016

If there is one thing that our government could most usefully learn from Uber, it would not be how to magically connect service providers (drivers) and customers (passengers) via an app, but rather, the use of a built-in rating feature that gives incentives to service providers to always work in customers best interests  even when supervision is minimal.



The way Ubers ratings work is pretty straightforward. Every time a customer completes a trip, the app will ask her to give a candid assessment of the driver, on a scale of one to five  one being the worst and five being the best. Ratings are reported as averages, and drivers cannot see individual ratings left for particular trips.



A passenger whose pick-up request is accepted can see the prospective drivers rating before she gets in the vehicle, but more importantly, Uber management can easily monitor a drivers performance. Drivers need to maintain a minimum rating of 4.5 to keep their account in good standing; those whose rating is below that threshold may be warned, or even delisted. Its no wonder some Uber drivers go the extra mile, offering bottled water or phone chargers, for example, to boost passenger satisfaction.



Now, think of places or activities where the government acts as a service provider: community health centers, markets, passport application process and drivers license renewal, to name a few. They all entail non-trivial matters for citizens whose interests, however small, are at stake. With close and continuous supervision from the top, public servants are likely to deliver well. Unfortunately, such controls are costly and, therefore, might not always be possible. Maybe it is time for the government to try something different  like Uber-rescue ratings for public services.



Lets take drivers license renewal services in Jakarta for example. The authority  the police  has made it easier for people to renew their soon-to-expire drivers license by opening more police stations that offer the service. To access the service, people simply need to go to the nearest station at their convenience. Once, however, I got my drivers license settled in a mall, and it was a better experience, at least without the smoky waiting room typical of government buildings. Whether or not public servants at police stations work to the expected level, however, is worth assessing.



To ensure that station officers work in the peoples best interest, their director at the police department needs to carry out close supervision. Exhaustive monitoring might be effective but it would be too expensive. Imagine installing extra CCTV cameras or deploying additional supervisors at every station. Regardless, there would no guarantee that supervisors would not slip up in their own standards and behavior.



Ratings, on the other hand, incur less cost and are potentially more effective. The police force only needs to provide an app or website where people can rate the quality of service they received at a station immediately after accessing the service. The ratings will distinguish between well-performing and under-performing stations. As quality control, a senior director should review the ratings on a regular basis. Station officers would be notified if their rating fell below a pre-determined acceptable level. If a bad performance seemed to be an ongoing issue, corrective action could be taken.



Ratings, as illustrated above, are applicable not only to drivers license services in Jakarta but also to other government-run services regularly accessed by the public. This approach, however, has limitations. If the upper echelons within the relevant institution do not care about people's satisfaction, then the rating would not be an effective tool for overcoming poor services. Ubers rating system is only effective because its top management takes it very seriously.



The current administration has in fact taken a similar approach through LAPOR at the national level, or Qlue in Jakarta province. These two systems enable people to file complaints via the system websites or mobile applications. But such mechanisms are prone to biased assessments. People on the margins  who are neither fully satisfied nor extremely disgruntled by a service  are unlikely to take the time to put a rating in. Furthermore, those who are satisfied may not report their positive experience. With this in mind, there is a risk of assessments being based on just on a vocal few, and the rating system ending up similar to what already happens.



The idea is to put transparency and accountability in place by publishing public ratings for particular public services. People would find it super easy to give feedback  it would be just a click away. Public servants would consider it rewarding (or worrying) as their professionalism (or lack of it) would be immediately recognized by customers and subsequently management. With this added information equilibrium, public services could be better taken care of.



Uber provides an opportunity for idle drivers and hopeful passengers to make a mutually beneficial arrangement. At the same time, it also gives our government the chance to learn from its nontraditional approach  in this case, ratings. Maybe its time for our government to take (or at least, try) such an approach.

***

The writer is undertaking a Masters in public policy at the University of Chicago.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Soe Tjen Marching (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

Several high-ranking officials and public figures have quickly expressed outrage and proposed solutions following belated reports of the gang-rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl by 14 young men and boys in Bengkulu.



Among many others, member of the Regional Representatives Council ( DPD ) Fahira Idris, who has a large online following, blamed alcohol as the cause of the crime. However, such arguments unwittingly support the patriarchal excuse that protects men who abuse women. It is not mens fault if they become abusive, it is alcohol. Yes, alcohol may trigger aggression by changing normal brain functions.



However, many people who drink are never violent and some men tend to use drinking to justify their behavior. If, as people claim, the perpetrators of the gang-rape of Yuyun, were blinded by tuak ( palm wine ) and thus their behavior was unconscious, they were definitely conscious enough to try to eliminate the traces of their crime. Her body was only found two days after she went missing.



Moreover, Fahira may not be aware that South Africa, where consuming alcohol is legal for people over 18 years old, has never been a country in the worlds top 20 for alcohol consumption, but very often is at the very top of lists of countries in terms of incidence of rape and sexual crimes.



We should also not use the countries that are very strict on alcohol and seem to have low reported rape rates such as Saudi Arabia as an example. Rape incidents there often go unreported because of extreme inequality between men and women.



Rape victims often get blamed and even punished. Last year a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a 19 year-old woman who was gang-raped by seven men, to 200 lashes and a jail term just because she was found guilty of speaking about the crime to the media. Our migrant workers have too often been reported to have suffered from sexual harassment and rape in Saudi Arabia, a country that strictly bans alcohol.



Fahira seems to be supported by the Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa, who claims that alcohol and pornography caused the crime against Yuyun.



Both Fahira and Khofifah, however, cannot be bothered to discuss the dominant patriarchal system that supports abundant limitations on women but not on men  such as their clothing and careers. The system that promotes women as objects of beauty or sex by continually commenting on parts of their bodies or faces while demanding that females guard their virginity.



Other reports have emerged including the rape of an 8-year-old in Nagan Raya, Aceh province. Several of these news articles comment on the physical appearance of the child as having a beautiful face  again placing the victim as an object to be viewed.



Nevertheless, Womens Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Yohana Yembise also agrees that alcohol was the cause of this rape. Angered by the low penalties given to rapists, she suggested that the Bengkulu rapists face the death penalty.



Yet, she does not realize that by killing the rapists, the perpetrators of the crime may seem to be eradicated, but not the crime itself. Rape is often related to social problems as a whole, especially since the age of the criminals are still young.



Indeed, Yohanas support for a bill on sexual violence needs to be appreciated. Nevertheless, she has not mentioned other horrific rape cases that have not yet been resolved. The rapes of so many women in the 1965 political conflict are still ignored; similarly the rapes against women in Aceh and Papua seem to be forgotten as well.



And soon, we will have the 18th commemoration of the May 1998 riots, in which hundreds of ethnic Chinese women were raped. Will these people who have been so loud in commenting on Yuyuns case also draw attention to these unresolved atrocities?



Will Yohana suggest heavy punishment for the perpetrators of all these horrific crimes? Will the other high officials do something? Or will it be like the previous years, when we only witness complete silence from high officials and our President  because they would rather protect themselves by pleasing the still powerful New Order cronies than think about the wellbeing and safety of their own people.

***

The writer is the founder of Yayasan Bhinneka Nusantara foundation and the British Coordinator of the International Peoples Tribunal for1965 in London.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Masajeng Rahmiasri (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

There are times when we have many thoughts inside our heads but do not know how to express them. Not letting out our inner feelings and emotions can have negative results, including depression.

In fact, there could be one in three people around us with mental health issues. We need to erase the stigma about this. Mental health is just as important as physical health. Just like how we have antibodies for physical health, we also have that for mental health," Get Happy cofounder Caecilia Dee Tedjapawitra said during a doodling workshop in South Jakarta on Saturday. Dubbed Zen Doodling, the three-hour event was attended by approximately 60 people.

A participant concentrates on her drawing.(JP/Masajeng Rahmiasri)

Get Happy is a non-profit group concerned with mental health.

(Read also: Can smoking drive you mad? Study suggests it might)

Dee said there were many ways to channel emotions and maintain mental health and it did not always have to involve psychiatrists or medication.

"Doodling is one of them, and it is easy enough to do even at home," she added.

Zen Doodling workshop participants create their pictures.(JP/Masajeng Rahmiasri)

Doodle Art Indonesia founder Azalia "Anya" Paramatatya, who introduced simple doodling methods to the event participants, explained how doodling could help a persons mental state and provide an alternative to turn happiness, sadness, or even destructive thoughts into a productive art piece.

Anya said doodling or scribbling could help people release inner stress. As there is no wrong or right in doodling, there is no pressure to create something perfect. Sketchers can even leave their work halfway through if it is too burdensome.

(Read also: Moleskine's latest notebook lets users digitize doodles)

"Channeling our emotions is undeniably a must. Emotions bottled up inside can do much more harm to a person than what we might think. Plus, when we have a distraction from our negative thoughts, we can do many things," she said.

Doodles at the workshop were made by combining various techniques.(JP/Masajeng Rahmiasri)

Three simple doodling techniques were introduced to the participants during the event. The first was the straight-line method, which required drawing five pieces, starting with a doodle using single lines, followed by two lines, and so on until five lines. The second method was the curved-line doodle, with steps similar to the straight-line method. Last but not least was the freestyle doodle, with a word at the center of the piece. The word could be anything, from the artists name to a phrase they chose.

(Read also: Air pollution is damaging to mental health)

Muhammad Ivan Chasera, one of the participants, said he attended the event to release his stress. Working as a private auditor, Ivan felt he needed to remove himself from the stress accumulated in his working life.

Muhammad Ivan Chasera shows his drawing.(JP/Masajeng Rahmiasri)

Meanwhile, Hana, an art teacher from a special needs school, revealed a bigger goal. I find doodling is calming and I think is important for my students as some of them are hyper. I hope this can help them concentrate for a longer time because normally they are very easily distracted. (kes)
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Linkedin Jona Kallgren (Associated Press) Berlin  Mon, May 16, 2016

During the height of the migrant crisis in Europe last fall, Lasse Landt came to a startling realization.

Thousands of migrants were pouring into Germany every day, but the 36-year-old startup consultant from Berlin hadn't met a single one of them.

"It was all over the media, every day on the talk shows you had people talking about the refugee crisis. I had never seen a refugee," said Landt. "I just wanted to find out if it was real."

His experience is typical for most Germans, and many have volunteered with charitable groups in part to meet the migrants they're hearing so much about. But Landt went further  and the result is a kind of dating website for Germans and migrants, albeit without the romantic aspect.

Together with Khaled Alaswad, a 25-year-old Syrian he met at a computer coding class for migrants in Berlin, Landt started a project to help refugees and locals meet up. Called Let's integrate! , it allows users to pick a time and location and set up a "date."

(Read also: Australian wins World Press Photo for migrants image)

The idea is to set as low a hurdle as possible for the meeting. No preparation is needed  people just need to show up and hopefully have a good conversation. Or if the language barrier is too high, have a conversation with hand signals.

Alaswad said his friendship with Landt has helped him land on his feet in Germany.

"If the refugees never talk face to face with a local person, they will never know anything about the culture here," he said. "There is just such a big difference between our culture and the German culture."

Germany registered around 1.1 million irregular migrants in 2015, most of them refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But with the closure of the Balkans migration route from Greece to Germany, the number of migrants coming in has dropped dramatically this year. So attention has now shifted to integrating the refugees, who will most likely spend several years, if not their whole lives, in Germany.

The authorities are focusing on having migrants learn the language and get jobs. The German government has promised to introduce subsidized workplaces earmarked for refugees.

"In Germany, we have a very technocratic view of integration," said Landt. "It is basically, you do a language class, you get a job and then you are integrated. But really, it is very much about social contact. Something you can achieve before you wait six months for your language class and another year before you are somewhat fluent."

(Read also: Pope washes feet of Muslim migrants)

Let's integrate! was launched May 1 and so far at least a dozen meetings have taken place. More Germans have signed up than migrants, so organizers are putting up posters in refugee homes to try to even out the numbers.

The service is free but only available in Berlin, though there are plans to expand it to other German cities soon, including those where migrants have received a less-than-enthusiastic reception. Fears about migrants have been stoked by far-right and nationalist groups, who have staged hundreds of rallies near refugee homes or planned shelters.

To identify each other at the meeting point, people are asked to hold up their index finger and thumb to make an L and I  for Let's integrate  a bit like a secret hand signal.

One of the first meetings was between two Syrians and two Germans. Abdul Wahab, an 18-year-old Syrian, said he simply did an Internet search for "Integration Germany" and found the page. Ahmed Haj Ali, a 23-year-old refugee from Damascus, found the website on Facebook.

"I want to stay here for a long time," Haj Ali said. "This will help me adapt to their culture and help me learn German."

Haj Ali and Wahab met with Cindy and Paul Spieker, two siblings from Berlin who were also involved in building the website. After meeting at a shopping street in Berlin, the group traveled to a park, where the Germans drank beer and the Syrians enjoyed orange juice.

"We all fear what we don't know," said Paul Spieker. "The refugees are worried about us and we are worried about the refugees."

"When you meet, you realize that they are people like us and there is no need to be worried," he added.
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Linkedin Dian Arthen (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

Following the success of Disneys Beauty and The Beast musical last year, the Ciputra Artpreneur Theater is once again entertaining audiences with the Broadway production of Shrek the Musical, which runs from May 5-22.

The 140-minute show is divided into two acts, with a 10-minute break. The first act begins with a little ogre called Shrek whose parents sit him down on his seventh birthday and tell him to leave home and never come back.

He sets off to a patch of swampland and calls it home. Years pass and Shrek becomes a huge ogre who lives alone happily, until a group of mythical creatures, including Peter Pan, the Sugar Plum Fairy and Pinocchio are dumped in the swamp after they are banished from the Duloc kingdom by Lord Farquaad.

Distraught at the change, Shrek decides to pay a visit to Lord Farquaad and demand he reinstate his peaceful swamp. On the journey to Duloc, he meets with the hilarious and chatty Donkey, who begs Shrek to take him as a traveling companion.

(Read also: Broadway makes its bow in Indonesia)

Arriving at Duloc, the sassy Lord Farquaad agrees to hand the swamp back to Shrek on one condition: Shrek must rescue Princess Fiona, who has been locked up in a tower, and bring her back to Duloc.

Shrek is a popular fairytale penned by illustrator William Steig. The rather unconventional story caught the eye of DreamWorks Animations Jeffrey Katzenberg, who introduced it to the public on the silver screen before taking it to Broadway.

Kyle Timson plays Shrek while Lindsay Estelle Dunn, whose credits include Grease and Spamalot, stars as Princess Fiona. Shrek the Musical is the first international debut for both actors.

Spencer Stevens, who stars as Peter Pan and is an understudy for Pinocchio, said cast members had only 45 seconds to change clothes backstage before returning to the stage. "It was like a beehive back there, he said during a discussion session after the show.

(Read also: Josh Groban to make Broadway debut next year in a musical)

Each character of this show has two backups; we also have cast who know every single line of every character in this production, added Christina Carlucci, who plays the Sugar Plum Fairy and is an understudy for the Princess Fiona character.

The hardest part is maintenance, making sure we stay looking as good as we were when the show first opened. In addition to performing in the studio, we also need to exercise, Carlucci said when asked about the hardest part of performing internationally.

Just being away from your family, from your home, and sometimes you have to deal with the laundry as well," joked Stevens.

I love the weather [in Jakarta]. Its beautiful, but the traffic here is a bit he added. (kes)
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Linkedin (Associated Press) London  Mon, May 16, 2016

A British bookmaker has suspended betting on British actor Tom Hiddleston to be the next James Bond.

Coral says a flurry of bets in recent days made "The Night Manager" star the 2-1 favorite to replace Daniel Craig to be the next 007. But after a particularly large wager, the odds plummeted and betting was suspended.

(Read also: Bond producers hope to 'hang on' to Daniel Craig as 007)

The bets came after Hiddleston had been reportedly spotted meeting with Bond movie director Sam Mendes and producer Barbara Broccoli.

Coral says Luther star Idris Elba and Homeland actor Damian Lewis had been Bond front runners in previous months. But Coral spokeswoman Nicola McGeady, says while earlier in the year "there was a gamble" on those two, nothing has "come close to the recent gamble on Hiddleston."
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Linkedin (Associated Press) San Francisco, United States  Mon, May 16, 2016

YouTube is testing a messaging feature in its smartphone app so people can share and discuss videos without resorting to other ways to connect with their friends and family.

The messaging option announced Friday initially is only being offered to a small group of people with YouTube's app installed on an iPhone or device running on Google's Android software. If all goes well, messaging will be included in a future app update available to everyone with an iPhone or an Android phone.

(Read also: YouTube Gaming now available in Indonesia)

YouTube, part of Alphabet Inc.'s Google, is examining whether the messaging feature will encourage its audience to spend even more time inside its popular video app. Currently, people typically copy links to YouTube and paste them into text messages or other messaging apps such as Snapchat, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

By removing a reason for its audience to switch over to another app, YouTube can generate more opportunities to show ads to the more than 1 billion people who watch video on its service.

(Read also: YouTube offers 360-degree live streams, spatial audio)

WhatsApp, owned by Facebook Inc., has more than 1 billion users, while Facebook's own Messenger app has more than 900 million users, posing a threat to other digital services vying for people's attention. Snapchat is smaller, with about 100 million daily users, but growing rapidly, particularly among teenagers and young adults who tend to watch a lot of video on their smartphones.
A gay man from the conservative town of Jombang in East Java is happily married amid the public upheaval surrounding sexual orientation.

The 44-year-old devoted Muslim stands on his decision to open up about his relationship with the love of his life, whom he has spent a committed relationship with for over a decade.

The plan to tell the truth to his father laid heavy on Gunawan Wibisono's shoulders.

Gunawan had just spoken on the phone to his father earlier. That was when his father had invited him to bring his best friend, Dutchman Hans de Waal, to their family home in Surabaya, East Java.

This was not going to be a simple task.

For the conservative Muslim society in the regency of Jombang, his case was an unusual one. That is because the friend, Hans, is also his partner.

A million thoughts ran through his head, and his stomach was in knots throughout that one hour flight from Jakarta to Surabaya, as he wondered how the meeting would go.

"I was so nervous. So anxious about it," Gunawan said while looking down and shaking his head as he recalled that moment all those years ago.

Little did he know that his father would say something that would sweep away the burden he had been carrying for years, ever since Gunawan became aware that he was only attracted to men.

"Ive known you since you were a kid. You are so lucky you have somebody that you can love and who loves you in return," Gunawan says, quoting his father with gleaming eyes.

"I cried at that time. I cried at that time," he says choking up.

Such a reaction from his father had not crossed his mind. Growing up in a devoted Muslim family in Jombang, known for its conservative Muslim majority, Gunawan felt his fathers acceptance was all he ever wanted to hear.

Just a week earlier, Gunawan came out to his mother, Ngainten, a 75-year-old woman who used to own a modest food stall in Surabaya. He had invited his mother to Jakarta to open up about his relationship with de Waal that had been going on for eight years at that time.

Ngainten had known de Waal as Gunawan's best friend.

To Ngainten, Gunawan finally said that de Waal was not only a best friend but a partner, after which she questioned what "partner" meant.

"Im in love with him, I said to my mother." He burst into laughter as he spoke.

Ngainten's reaction was funny, Gunawan says, as she simply asked him why he was just telling her then and not a long time ago.

The acceptance, however, did not come easy, Ngainten told thejakartapost.com.

Hearing the truth come out of Gunawan's mouth was shocking even though she had figured out her son's sexual orientation herself.

"How could my strong and handsome son become like this? What mistakes did I make? But nonetheless, he is my son. I won't hit him or shout at him because being homosexual was not his choice," Ngainten says during a telephone conversation.

Embracing her fifth child's sexuality was the only right thing Ngainten felt there was to do, fearing that if she pushed him away she would risk losing her son.

"Gunawan is my most obedient son. I accept who he is just like my other children. I gave birth to him," the woman says, adding that she also feels glad her husband has shown the same acceptance as she has.

Ngainten says she also ordered all her children to accept their brother without any discrimination.

Relieved and happy was how Gunawan felt after coming out to Ngainten, the woman who had given birth to him and his seven siblings.

However, happiness had not always been Gunawan's best friend.

He had kept his sexual identity a secret until coming out to other gay people when he was 26 years old, around the same time he met his future husband.

Coming from a Muslim family in Jombang, Gunawan had been hesitant to open up about his feelings.

Asked about any discrimination he had received, Gunawan rolled his eyes. "Oh my God," he said, followed with a loud laugh that felt like just a disguise for a somewhat painful experience he had gone through.

He recalls being attracted to his seatmate in junior high school and that started all of the questions he had for himself. A 13-year-old Gunawan could not comprehend why he would have a crush on his male friend.

He was bullied by his friends all through junior high school and high school for having effeminate traits and spending more time with girls. From a young age, Gunawan says he felt more comfortable befriending girls than boys, adding that he even considered boys as something alien to him.

He called the experience painful.

The bullying caused trauma, forcing him to let out all of his confusion by crying alone as he had no one to talk to.

"I was afraid if I told my mother she would reject me and if I told my teachers they would blame me. I tried to handle it myself," said the businessman who also volunteers at an NGO called Kemitraan where he helps to advocate on human rights issues.

The bullying stopped, luckily, during his university years although he had still not opened up about his sexuality.

Gunawan remembers that during high school and university he repressed his sexual attraction to men and hid his sexuality altogether. His close friends at university taught him to act like a masculine man and how to walk in a manly manner.

He thought he was cured; a defunct homosexual.

That was until he fell in love again, with another man when he was 25. Confusion re-appeared and flashbacks of what had happened to his younger self flooded his mind.

To his hometown then, Gunawan returned. To seek enlightenment, he went to local clerics as he had no-one to talk to. No institution or professionals that he knew of could help him.

"It forced me to go to my village in Jombang to learn more about my religion; to know what my religion's perspective on homosexuality was," Gunawan says.

Homosexuality is wrong. That was the only answer he received from the clerics.

Nevertheless, hearing that answer first hand did not erase the affections he had for the man.

Gunawan then turned himself to books. He read books on psychology and human behavior to find the answer to the question that had lingered in his mind since he was a teenager.

Then, to feed his curiosity when he was 26 years old, he started to join internet chat-rooms for the gay community.

This provided a new perspective for Gunawan. He found out that he was not alone. There were people like him who also felt attracted to people of the same sex. It was the first time he felt truly comfortable with himself, leading him to come out to the friends he met through the chat-rooms.

Through online chatting as well, Gunawan met de Waal in 1998.

What started as casual conversations quickly turned into a battle of wits. Gunawan remembers vividly how he did not immediately get along with the Dutchman.

He explains how at first they felt they were too different to each other, not only because of their cultural backgrounds but also their tastes and points of view. Deciding they were better off as friends, it wasn't until over a year later that they took their friendship to the next level and became lovers.

The pair spent 16 years in a committed relationship before deciding it was time for them to make things official as a couple.

With a bashful laugh, Gunawan talks about his wedding to de Waal in the land of clogs and cheese on August 1, 2014.

Smiles and happy tears adorned the intimate moment the pair shared with their loved ones.

Gunawan later uploaded one of the happiest moments of his life to his Youtube channel. The slideshow of photos shows the longtime couple in similar blue shirts and trousers with subtle gold patterns, completed with batik fabrics worn round their hips: the traditional-meets-modern Indonesian groom attire.

He says it was never his intention to provoke the Muslim-majority Indonesian public to follow his ways.

"We have no other purpose other than to share our happiness with our family and friends," he said.

Gunawan admits at first he set the video to private viewing only for his friends and relatives across the two continents. However, an unknown person downloaded the video and shared it anonymously at de Waal's office in Jakarta, leading to the couple receiving threats.

Nevertheless, the pair found meaning in the incident. After hiring a lawyer to help them consider taking legal action, Gunawan decided, after some consideration, to instead make the video public.

The video, titled "Hans & Gunn Wedding", uploaded to his Youtube channel Gunawan Wibosono on Oct. 24, 2014, contains the couples wedding photos and has so far garnered more than 12,000 views.

"I want to show people that even as LGBT people, we can find love, we can find long-term relationships and we can get married," he said, with heartfelt gratitude evident in his voice.

"But probably, I'm one of the minority who was fortunate enough to be able to marry abroad."

Public uproar on LGBT rights

Despite Gunawan's confidence in outing himself and sharing his personal life, discrimination against LGBT people in Indonesia has been growing louder recently.

Government officials and religious leaders have publicly stated they are against sexual orientations that they say deviate from the morals and values of the national identity and religious norms.

Although homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, it remains a sensitive issue.

Supporters of rights for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning (LGBTIQ) people protest at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle on May 17, 2015. The protest, which was held to celebrate International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, called for an end to violence and discrimination toward the LGBTIQ community. (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)

Heated debate about the LGBT community exploded into the limelight earlier this year following a remark from Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir saying LGBT people should be banned from university campuses.

He was reacting to the presence of a community-based organization at the state-run University of Indonesia called Support Group and Research Center for Sexual Studies, known as SGRC UI.

The minister suggested the LGBT community's presence was "corrupting the nation's morals", which inspired a slew of statements in response.

Other ministers joined in, making hostile statements against the minority group, calling them a threat to the state's religious life and even suggesting LGBT people be provided therapy to cure them.

Two cents on LGBT community

Indonesia's Islamic administrative body, the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), condemned LGBT people, issuing a fatwa that declared their activities haram, (against Islamic law) back in 2014. Recently the body went as far as calling for legislation to ban LGBT activities.

MUI chairman Ma'ruf Amin said the council supported criminal punishment of anyone that engaged in LGBT sexual activities, or encouraged, promoted or financed activities connected with the LGBT community.

Read also: MUI wants law to ban LGBT activities

Although MUI's fatwa is not legally binding, it is considered a strong recommendation by conservative Muslim groups in Indonesia that often do what a fatwa states.

A group opposing the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community prepares to confront a pro-LGBT group planning on staging a counter protest at Tugu Monument in Yogyakarta on Feb. 23.

(Antara/Andreas Fitri Atmoko)

Many hard-liners have shut down discussions on LGBT issues, including forcing authorities to close the Al Fatah Islamic School for transgender people, established in 2008 in Yogyakarta, in March.

Read also: Authorities shut down Yogyakarta transgender Islamic school

Popular South Korean-based mobile chat application Line also conceded to government warnings and removed stickers featuring same-sex couples, also issuing an official apology.

Moreover, the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) has enacted a rule that discriminates against LGBT people. The KPI said it discouraged broadcasters and television and radio stations from running programs that promoted the activities of the LGBT community and banned effeminate men from being portrayed on national television to, they claimed, protect children and teenagers from exposure to that lifestyle.

In the latest attempt to suppress the LGBT community, the Islamic United Development Party (PPP) lawmaker Hasrul Azwar announced a plan in April to propose a bill in the House of Representatives to regulate what he called LGBT propaganda.

The PPPs bill was first proposed by the Indonesian Muslim Brotherhood (Parmusi), one of the organizations that helped establish the Islamist party. The party deemed LGBT groups a danger to social relationships and stated that related practices were prohibited by religion.

The leading Indonesian psychiatric body has also classified homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism as mental disorders, which it claims can be cured through proper treatment.

Arus Pelangi, KSM and PLUSH in 2013 produced a research study titled 'Unveiling Stigma, Violence and Discrimination toward the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community in Indonesia', based on information from 335 LGBT people in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Makassar. (JP info-graphic/Budhi Button)

Suzy Yusna Dewi, member of Indonesian Psychiatrists Association (PDSKJI), said the aforementioned sexual identities were often triggered by external factors such as a person's social environment, and therefore, they could be healed through psychiatric treatment.

Read also: Indonesian psychiatrists label LGBT as mental disorders

The PDSKJI defines homosexuals and bisexuals as people with psychiatric problems while transgender people have mental disorders. The classifications are in stark contrast to those of the World Health Organization (WHO), which removed homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders on May 17, 1990.

LGBT support group

The controversy surrounding LGBT issues in Indonesia thrust UIs SGRC into the media spotlight at the beginning of the year following the remarks Minister Nasirs made when he was first informed about the organization's existence.

Nasir's banning of LGBT groups from university campuses, because such institutions were the safeguard of the countrys moral values, soon put SGRC in the headlines.

Members of SGRC, consisting of students, alumni and lecturers of the most prominent state university in the country, particularly felt the heat at the time.

SGRC head of studies 20-year-old Fathul Purnomo says the group focuses on sexuality studies such as feminism and gender and minority issues. The group also provides counselling to support LBGTIQ students.

Every two weeks the group holds an academic discussion event called "Arisan". Also, those who want to get counseling can register and the committee will get them in touch with a counselor who can help them, he added.

"We'll refer them to a counselor to help to relieve their pain, relieve the pressure they feel from society, relieve pressure such as that caused by the minister of higher education, about their sexual preference and being excluded from society," the philosophy-major student said.

Fathul joined the group as one of its first members in its early days after it had just been launched on May 17, 2014.

The members of SGRC  both committee and regular participants  are not limited to LGBT people, Fathul says.

In fact, he says, there is a diversity of backgrounds, including people who are liberal, conservative and also religiously devout people.

Fathul expresses disappointment in the media's misrepresentation of the group, with local headlines recently labeling SGRC a dating platform for LGBT people.

The stories raised many eyebrows and attracted criticism, especially from those who oppose the LGBT community.

Some members of the SGRC still feel the trauma of that experience today.

Some were ex-communicated from their families due to embarrassment about their affiliation with the group, while others felt such heavy pressure that they had suicidal thoughts.

The media madness brought on some trouble for the group, including the university cutting them off its list of student organizations.

Previously named SGRC-UI, the group has now dropped the "UI" from their official title.

One person who has been helped by the group is 26-year-old Riris Carolina, who is on an ongoing journey to fulfill an academic curiosity.

Currently working on her masters thesis in transnational law at UI, Riris has always been open with her friends about her homosexuality, who have embraced her for who she is. Or so she thought.

Riris was perplexed by her friends reaction when all of a sudden they took a step back and decided to distance themselves from her amid controversies surrounding the SGRC and LGBT communities. The negative reactions didn't only come from her friends but also from complete strangers in her day-to-day environment.

She shared her experience of what would usually be an ordinary trip for lunch at a warteg: a local term for a cheap-end, home-style dining spot.

It was then that people whom she had never spoken to but were aware of her sexual orientation audibly commented, "Just kill her off"  as if she wasn't even human. They also seemed offended by her tomboyish nature.

Riris was one of the first organizing-committee members of SGRC in 2014. She joined SGRC in October of that year, soon after she'd enrolled in her masters degree in law.

"What I learn from being part of SGRC is that you don't have to be gay to support gay rights," she says, adding that the community had helped her learn about the realities of the LGBT community in general.

"I would think through it thoroughly before dating another SGRC member. We're all academics here, and that's what this place is for."

SGRC has been a learning community for Riris, as the group discusses many sexuality-related issues from a scientific viewpoint. Even so, it is a discussion topic that Indonesia sees as uncomfortable, even among family and schools.

The group's consultation facilities also help those who are confused about their sexuality to learn more about themselves  a therapeutic option for young people who are sometimes subjected to social pressures that put them at risk.

"So the fact that we have this forum gives us an opportunity we wouldn't otherwise have," Riris added.

The group is something that Gunawan wanted when he was growing up, confused about his sexuality. He feels that it is important not to view LGBT people in any exclusive context, and important not to play the victim.

The more people point out differences while calling for equality, the less the movement achieves, he believes. It makes it harder to obtain that desired equality, he said.

"I oppose exclusivity for LGBT campaigning. That LGBT groups should [only] work on LGBT issues. I object to that. We have to think beyond that," he said sternly.

"We are all human beings that can contribute to our society." (rin)
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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Palu, South Sulawesi  Sat, May 14 2016

The green turtle population continues to decrease around Pasoso Island, Donggala regency, a three-hour drive, or 108 kilometers, from Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi.

According to Ahmad, whom works as a guard on the island, during recent spawning seasons only 19 turtles have been known to lay eggs at the beach.

Previously there were hundreds of them, Ahmad told The Jakarta Post by phone on Thursday.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, May 14 2016

Vendors on Jl. Wolter Monginsidi, South Jakarta, are complaining of drastic declines in income because the ongoing construction of an overpass has heavily affected their businesses.

My gross revenue has sharply decreased to Rp 4 million [US$300] a month from Rp 8 million before the construction began last year, said Yanti, the owner of a warteg (low-cost food stall).

She said that the construction had significantly impacted her income because motorists such as taxi drivers were reluctant to use the street to avoid traffic jams.

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Linkedin Donna Gordon Blankinship (Associated Press) Washington  Mon, May 16, 2016

Authorities cleared the railroad tracks of protesters and arrested 52 climate activists Sunday morning in Washington state, after a two-day shutdown.

About 150 people spent the night in tents and sleeping bags on the tracks near two refineries in northwest Washington, according to BNSF Railway spokesman Gus Melonas.

They were asked to leave at about 5 a.m. and most gathered their belongings and left the area near Anacortes, Melonas said.

"It was peaceful," he said. "Eighty percent removed their belongings and cleared out."

The 52 people arrested were cited for trespassing, according to the Skagit County Department of Emergency Management. One person was also cited for resisting arrest.

Skagit County Sheriff Will Reichardt said that before anyone was arrested, officers advised protesters that they could move to another designated location and demonstrate.

A spokeswoman for the protesters said she expected everyone arrested would be processed and released from police custody.

Emily Johnston said protests would continue around Anacortes on Sunday, but she didn't expect people to return to the railroad tracks.

Johnston, who had participated in a blockade of the Seattle harbor to protest Shell Oil's plans to drill for oil in the Arctic, said the success of protests like the one in Anacortes can mostly be seen in the way they inspire people to speak out about climate change.

"People power matters," Johnston said.

She also spoke about the contrast between arresting people for protesting about saving the planet and the lack of government action against the fossil fuel industry.

"We really need to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable," Johnston said.

The rail line has been closed since Friday because of the protests, and trains will begin running again Sunday afternoon after a cleanup and safety sweep of the tracks, he said.

Protesters in kayaks, canoes, on bikes and on foot also took place in demonstrations near Anacortes, about 70 miles north of Seattle, to demand action on climate and an equitable transition away from fossil fuels such as oil and coal.

Hundreds marched to the refineries Saturday and a smaller group blocked the railroad, all demanding energy policy changes. The railroad knew about the protest in advance and rerouted rail traffic to avoid the area.

The railroad spur provides rail transportation for the nearby Shell and Tesoro oil refineries, as well as animal feed and other products.

The protests are part of a series of global actions calling on people to "break free" from dependence on fossil fuels. Similar demonstrations were held around the country during the weekend.

In upstate New York, climate activists gathered Saturday at a crude-oil shipment hub on the Hudson River in an action targeting crude-by-rail trains and oil barges at the Port of Albany. A group of activists sat on tracks used by crude oil trains headed to the port. Albany is a key hub for crude-by-rail shipments from North Dakota's Bakken Shale region.

In Washington state, organizers targeted two refineries that are among the top sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the state. Tesoro has started shipping Bakken crude oil to its refinery, and Shell is proposing an expansion project that would similarly bring in Bakken crude oil by train.

Officials with Shell and Tesoro said in earlier statements that they respect the right of people to demonstrate peacefully, and that safety is their highest priority.

Crowd estimates of Saturday's march ranged from several hundred to about 1,000 people, Skagit County spokeswoman Bronlea Mishler said.

Bud Ullman, 67, who lives on Guemes Island, participated in the march, which he described as good-spirited, peaceful.

"The scientists are right. We have to get away from our dependence on fossil fuels, and it has to be done in a way that takes into serious consideration the impact on workers, families and communities," he said.

Many of the nearly 40 groups involved in organizing the event also participated in large on-water kayak protests against Shell's Arctic oil drilling rig when it parked last year at a Seattle port. (ags)
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Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

Islamic finance could help address the sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, it has to be maximized due to its limited contribution in achieving the SDGs in previous years.

The issue was brought up at the annual meeting of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) held in Jakarta recently. It is the second time that the bank, which was founded in 1973, has launched its annual meeting in Indonesia after the 1995 meeting.

Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro, during his opening remarks on "The Role of Islamic Finance in Achieving the SDGs", said many aspects of the SDGs were covered by Islamic finance.

"Islamic finance can reduce inequality within and among countries, in line with the SDGs that attempt to reduce inequality by empowering the bottom percentile of income earners," Bambang said in Jakarta on Monday.

Bambang highlighted that the world had made progress in eradicating poverty as mandated by the millennium development goals (MDGs). Referring to UN data, he said the target of halving extreme poverty had been accomplished five years ahead of the 2015 deadline.

As world leaders agreed to move further than the MDGs, he warned that the challenges to achieving sustainable development had become more and more dynamic.

"The 2030 agenda comprises 17 development goals that aim to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice and tackle climate change," Bambang said.

"Islamic micro-finance, Sukuk and Islamic social finance fit with the SDGs," he went on to say, arguing that most customers served by Islamic micro-finance were poor people who were not in the banking system.

In addition, the Islamic financial sector broadly aligns with traditional Islamic philanthropy programs such as zakat (alms), sadaqah (charity) and wakaf (donation). These are in line with and able to support the SDGs.

Bank Indonesia Governor Agus Martowardojo added that achieving the SDGs would require a significant financial commitment from various sources given the fact that 1 billion people live in poverty. All funds must be optimized to support the achievement of SDGs, including Islamic finance, he argued.

He expressed his expectation that Islamic finance would contribute to the 2030 agenda and promote sustainable development in the world, not only in Muslim-majority countries.

"However, challenges remain," he went on to say.

Although the Islamic finance industry has performed well of late, growing from US$1 trillion in 2009 to almost $2 trillion in 2014, data shows that Islamic finance can only provide a limited contribution to achieving the SDGs.

"The size of Islamic finance is still very small, representing only 1 percent of total global finance. We acknowledge that some strategic steps have been taken by some authorities to accelerate the development of Islamic finance. However, much more needs to be done," he said.

He said three challenges prevented Islamic finance from helping to achieve the SDGs: the slow pace of Islamic product innovation, the lack of Islamic financial expertise and an inadequate commitment to implementation. (ags)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

The Jakarta administration has warned that it will impose harsher punishment on civil servants and contract workers if their behavior goes against the citys goal of clean governance.

The city administration will not hesitant to dismiss, demote or cut the performance allowances of civil servants if they engaged in illicit behavior, Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama said on Monday, adding that the warning also applied for the city's daily contract workers.

The warning followed revelations that several sub-district chiefs had allegedly ordered officials from the Public Facility Maintenance Office to extort money from residents.

Based on the reports, a sub-district chief had been caught asking for a sum between Rp 3 million (US$ 225) to Rp 4 million from residents in exchange for cutting trees on their properties, Ahok told journalists.

Moreover, a subdistrict chief also allegedly misused public monitoring application Qlue, by asking the Public Facilities officers to file a complaint through the application so that the chief would get positive feedback from the city administration. Civil servants who often skip work will also face dismissal, Ahok said.

The administration has a complete records of the officials, Ahok said, refusing to disclose the identities of the civil servants or where they work. Still, the former East Belitung regent thoroughly rebuked them over their misconduct.

"If there are civil servants who keep 'playing' in their areas, we will clean them by replacing all of the structural officials," Ahok said adding that he strongly urged all civil servants to report any misconduct by their superiors.

Replacing people who were dismissed would not be a issue for the city administration, he added, as up to 900 people had recently taken part in the test for district and sub-district chief positions. (rin)
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Linkedin Grace D. Amianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16 2016

Ideas exchange: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) undersecretary-general for partnerships Tan Sri Jemilah Mahmood (left), Islamic Development Bank (IDB) governor for Yemen, Mohammed Abdul-Wahed Al-Maitami (second left), Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Center for Islamic Countries director general Musa Kulaklikaya (second right) and National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) deputy chief for prevention and preparedness B. Wisnu Widjaja take part in a panel discussion on Sunday as part of the IDBs 41st annual meeting in Jakarta. The seminar covered how governments and communities build resilience to risks related to poverty, crises and conflict. (JP/DON)

Global multilateral agency the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and Bank Indonesia (BI) are endorsing an advanced mechanism for Islamic-based social financing aimed at alleviating poverty and improving welfare.



Both parties expect that IDB member countries, which have potentially masses of Islamic social aid in the form of zakat (alms) and waqaf (endowments), will work together to support better management and channeling of those funds as alternative resources for supporting global development.



Speaking during a discussion on the first day of the IDBs annual meeting in Jakarta, a number of panelists expressed their view that certain global crises, including the Syrian civil war refugee crisis and those triggered by climate change, had rung a loud bell, signalling a critical need for improved global resilience.



They agreed that Islamic social aid should play more of a role in reducing the negative impacts of those crises, which affect vulnerable societies in almost all Islamic countries.



Tan Sri Jemilah Mahmood, under-secretary-general for partnerships at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), cited data that suggested global Islamic social aid was potentially worth roughly US$600 billion, but said only around 1 percent of that was currently being collected.



She said Indonesia, the worlds largest Muslim-majority country with thus a large potential pool of alms, was expected to set a good example for the mobilization of Islamic social aid, with the help of the IDB.



According to data at the National Alms Agency (Baznas), which records the amount of money raised by regional alms agencies (Bazis) and private foundations, the country collected Rp 3.2 trillion ($239.9 million) in alms in 2014, up from Rp 68.4 billion in 2002.



However, the amount of alms raised in 2014 was equal to only 1.5 percent of the potential Rp 217 trillion that could have been raised, according to a joint report from the IDB, Baznas and the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB).



Dadang Muljawan, BIs deputy director for Islamic finance and economic development, said the central bank had been involved in an international working group with the IDB, Baznas and other stakeholders in a number of countries aimed at improving the management of Islamic social aid.



In the Indonesian context, he said the main idea was to establish a special body that would manage the aid with good governance, accountability and improved channeling, possibly including the creation of sukuk (Islamic bonds) to support the fund management.



The IDB is holding its 41st annual meeting along with seminars and exhibitions from May 15 to 19 in Jakarta, gathering together government officials and various member-country stakeholders to look for development solutions amid a weak global economy and various crises.



Countries involved in the meeting, including Egypt, Morocco and Turkey, have signed off on $22.3 million of aid and a number of partnerships, all ready to be utilized for developing Islamic countries through various sectors, such as science, agriculture and natural-disaster management.

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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

A footbridge above a toll road connecting Bumi Serpong Damai in South Tangerang with Jakarta has collapsed after the driver of a heavy-duty truck carrying heavy equipment lost control and hit the structure on Sunday evening.

The incident occurred on the eighth kilometer of the road at around 9:52 p.m., creating traffic congestion in both directions until Monday morning.

Jasa Marga Traffic Information Center spokesperson Riko said the route from BSD to Jakarta and vice versa was closed because of the ongoing removal of debris. Jasa Marga field officers redirected traffic to Bintaro and Pondok Aren to reduce the congestion.

"From the reports that we have received, the removal is still in process. We still don't have information on how long the removal will take," Riko told thejakartapost.com on Sunday.

Drivers heading to BSD from Jakarta or Pondok Indah should take the Pondok Ranji exit, while those heading to Jakarta from BSD should take the Bintaro or Pondok Ranji exits, Riko added. (ags)
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Linkedin Prima Wirayani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16 2016

The government needs to look for another solution if it wishes to save the state budget from a widening deficit, as its proposed tax amnesty bill has become a double-edged sword for the progress of this years tax-revenue collection.

The bill, if passed into law by the House of Representatives, will provide reduced tax bills and pardons to tax evaders who report and repatriate their assets by the end of this year.

The Finance Ministrys taxation directorate general will impose relatively small penalties of between 1 and 6 percent on repatriated assets and unreported domestic assets, far lower than the 30 percent tax rate applied to many wealthy individual taxpayers.

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Linkedin Sudibyo M. Wiradji (The Jakarta Post)  Mon, May 16 2016

Pollution-free air: A wet rice field in Nyambu Village, Tabanan, Bali, is an attractive form of local ecotourism. Strong commitments from the locals have protected the green asset. (Courtesy of British Council Indonesia)

Environmentally friendly Nyambu Village in Tabanan, Bali, was recently launched as an ecotourism destination, with support pouring in from various stakeholders.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16 2016

JAKARTA: Indonesia, Southeast Asias biggest economy, saw national motorcycle sales decline by 15.1 percent in April, compared to Marchs figure. The number of units sold in April was 478,036, according to the latest data released by the Indonesian Motorcycle Industry Association (AISI).

April sales also fell by 9 percent from the same month last year.

AISI previously aimed to sell 6.5 million motorcycles this year, after selling only 6.4 million in 2015, a drop from 7.8 million in 2014.

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Linkedin Hamza Hendawi (Associated Press) Cairo  Mon, May 16, 2016

Egyptian courts have in a single day convicted 152 protesters for breaking a law that effectively bans demonstrations, sentencing them to up to five years in prison in a series of short mass trials.

The cases against the 152 convicted Saturday are rooted in events on April 25, when police stifled planned demonstrations called to protest the government's surrender to Saudi Arabia of two Red Sea islands under a deal negotiated in near total secrecy.

Police arrested more than 1,200 people during the run-up to April 25 and on the day, but released most of them without charge. However, nearly 300 were referred to trial for breaking the 2013 protest law decried by rights groups at home and abroad.

On Saturday, a Cairo court convicted and sentenced 51 people to prison for two years for their part in the protests.

Later that day, a judge presiding over two other trials of protesters convicted 101 defendants of breaking the same law and sentenced them to five years in prison, according to officials and defense lawyers.

They said 79 of them were fined $10,000 each and 72 of the 152 were tried in absentia.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The verdict on the case of 51 protesters was announced after just two hearings, defense lawyer Sarah Rabee of the Al-Haqaniya rights group said.

She added that the judge evicted the press, denied families access to the defendants, and turned down a request by the defense to access footage from security cameras in downtown Cairo, which they said would show that there were no real demonstrations in the area that day.

In the case of the 101 defendants, the judge issued his verdict in the second hearing, according to defense lawyer Ahmed Othman.

On Saturday, he heard the defense arguments for eight hours before he held a 15-minute recess and returned to the bench to announce the verdict, said Othman, who attended both hearings. The verdict was announced in a courtroom housed inside a police base on Cairo's outskirts.

It is not uncommon for Egyptian courts to convict large numbers of defendants in mass trials, or to use courtrooms located inside police bases.

Hundreds of supporters of Egypt's former president, Mohammed Morsi, were sentenced to death or life imprisonment in a series of trials held in the nearly three years since the Islamist leader was ousted by the military, then led by Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the current president.

Scores of young pro-democracy activists have also been imprisoned since Morsi's ouster.

El-Sissi often speaks in defense of the judiciary, saying it is independent. Rights activists argue that the judiciary is beholden to the country's executive.

The deal over the islands has sparked mounting criticism of el-Sissi by activists and an array of politicians, with many asserting that it amounted to a sell-off to oil-rich Saudi Arabia in return for a multibillion dollar aid package to Egypt announced by the Saudis last month.

El-Sissi insists the islands belong to the Saudis and has angrily demanded an end to public criticism of the deal.

The Egyptian president has in recent weeks repeatedly stated that he has a duty to balance safeguarding human rights with the fight against a resilient insurgency by Islamic militants in the Sinai Peninsula and efforts to revive the economy.

His stance continues to enjoy the support of a majority of Egyptians, who are fatigued by five years of political and economic turmoil. However, the islands deal and a steep rise in prices, primarily food and utilities, are cutting into his popularity. (ags)
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Linkedin Gunilla Olsson (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16 2016

Children in Indonesia can experience vastly different realities.

Imagine a Jakarta boy named Budi, just born in the Bantar Gebang slum. With a healthy start in life, he could reach age 5 in 2020 and be a successful high school student by 2030. Grace, a young girl from rural Papua would be turning 13 today and coming of age with a high school diploma in 2020. She could head a green technology start-up by 2030 on her way to becoming one of the leaders of her country.

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Linkedin thejakartapost.com (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

The family of dead suspected terrorist Siyono has filed a report against two Densus 88 members, accusing the officers of murdering Siyono. The report was filed by Suratmi, Siyonos wife, with the Klaton Police on Sunday, Siyono's family lawyer, Trisno Raharjo, said.

"Siyono's family want to report this case in order to find out the parties responsible for Siyono's death," Trisno said as quoted by kompas.com.

Trisno, a legal attorney from the Humanitarian Defense Team (TPK), a subset of the Advocacy Coalition for Siyono (KASUS), made up of people from Muhammadiyah, the Legal Aid Institute (LBH), the NGO Forum of Yogyakarta and PAHAM DIY, accompanied Suratmi when she filed the report.

According to Trisno, the report claims that two Densus 88 members, identified as T and H, who together drove and sat beside Siyono when they escorted him by car, are responsible for Siyono's death.

The family also accuses the female members of Densus 88 of attempting to impede law enforcement by secretly giving Rp 100 million (US$7,619) to Siyonos family following the return of Siyono's body.

The family also reported the forensic doctor at the National Police hospital, Arif Wahyono, for allegedly filing false information from the results of Siyono's autopsy.

An independent autopsy initiated by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), Muhammadiyahs youth wing and the Forensics and Physicians Organization, revealed that Siyono had passed away after a broken rib pierced his heart, contrary to an initial conclusion reached by the National Police.

Suratmi filed the report following the result of an ethics hearing conducted by the Police's Internal Affairs Division (Propam). The hearing rejected the allegation that the officers involved in the arrest of Siyono had engaged in torture or violence, leading to Siyonos death.

The ruling said the agents had only breached procedural rules by transporting the suspect without handcuffs. Furthermore, Propam concluded that more agents should have escorted Siyono instead of just two. The officers will be demoted and are required to apologize to their superiors.

Siyono's family wants Komnas HAM to be more assertive and form a team to keep probing possible human rights violations during Siyonos arrest, Trisno added.

Meanwhile, National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said the police would follow-up on Suratmi's report, saying there would be an investigation on the matter.

"Lets leave it to the investigation," Badrodin said. (afr/dan)
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Linkedin Elly Burhaini Faizal (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

It was not anticipated that a vibrant celebration of 2016 World Press Freedom Day in Yogyakarta on May 3 would lead to chaotic scenes and scuffles between journalists and security authorities.

The breaking up of the celebration was blamed on protests by a group that reportedly disagreed with a screening of Pulau Buru: Tanah Air Beta (Buru Island: My Homeland), a documentary movie on the 1965 tragedy by Rahung Nasution, at the event.

The Yogyakarta Police forcefully dispersed the gathering following pressure from people claiming to act on behalf of the Communication Forum of Indonesian Veterans' Children (FKPPI). They raided the venue on Jl. Pakel Baru, Umbulharjo, Yogyakarta, accusing the now-defunct Indonesia Communist Party (PKI) of being behind the event.

The FKPPI also claimed the movie could trigger conflict as it featured communist ideas. A truck carrying fully armed police personnel approached the location following heightening tensions.

Around 100 journalists and civil society group activists attending the event resisted the dispersal. The police forced them to leave, however, claiming they did not have an event permit. The owner of a house used by the Yogyakarta chapter of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) as an office and the movie screening venue forced the group to move elsewhere.

The disbandment of the World Press Freedom Day event in Yogyakarta represented a violation of freedom of expression, many examples of which have occurred in Indonesia recently. The incident tested the implementation of citizens rights to exercise freedom of expression.

Almost two decades after the Reform Era, some say Indonesia still lacks respect for peoples rights to freedom of expression. The country also shows slow progress in healing its scars from past political turmoil.

The recent seizure of books suspected to contain communist teachings from stores across Indonesia illustrated the countrys failure to move on from the trauma of the 1965-1966 political crisis caused by the failed G30S coup blamed on the PKI.

In mid-May, officers from the Grobogan Police in Central Java confiscated several books containing stories on the history of the PKI and its leaders. The titles were Siapa Dalang G30S PKI (Who Masterminded the PKI G30S); The Missing Link G30S PKI; Fakta dan Rekayasa G30S PKI (PKI G30S Fact Engineering); Komunisme Ala Aidit (Communism a la Aidit); Musso, Peristiwa 1 Oktober (October 1 Incident); and Nyoto Peniup Saxofon di Tengah Prahara (Nyoto, A Saxophonist in the Middle of Hurricane). The books were on sale in a supermarket.

Separately, officers from the Sukoharjo Police in Central Java seized four copies of a book entitled The Missing Link G30S: Misteri Sjam Kamaruzzaman dan Biro Chusus PKI (The G30S Missing Link: The Mystery of Sjam Kamaruzzaman and PKI Special Bureau) from a supermarket in Baki, Sukoharjo.

Indonesian Police chief Badrodin Haiti has called on police personnel to stop searching for books with communism-related content. He asserted that communism-themed books in book stores, libraries and universities should not be confiscated.

Badrodin said those the police had taken action against were people or groups who had intentionally spread communism. He referred to the recent seizure of T-shirts emblazoned with the communist hammer-and-sickle emblem from stores and markets.

As reported in mass media, a resident from Tanjung Riau, Sekupang, Batam, was arrested on May 3 for wearing a hammer-and-sickle T-shirt. On May 8, a joint force comprising personnel from the Jakarta Police and the Jakarta Military Area Commands (Kodam Jaya) intelligence division arrested the owner of a shop selling similar T-shirts in Blok M, Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta. On May 9, two young men identified with the initials UR and RD were arrested by military personnel in Lampung for wearing the same type of T-shirts.

Badrodin said the symbol was prohibited in public as it could be considered an effort to spread communist teachings. He claimed that President Joko Jokowi Widodo himself had ordered all security authorities, including the Attorney Generals Office (AGO) and the National Intelligence Agency (BIN), to tackle the distribution of communist symbols, such as the hammer-and-sickle emblem.

Badrodin said the measures taken by security authorities were based on the Provisional Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPRS) Decree No. XXV/1966 on the disbandment of the PKI and the prohibition of the spread of communism, Leninism and Marxism.

Separately, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasona Laoly said the use of PKI attributes was clearly prohibited in Indonesia. It was the decision of the MPRS. This ideology [communism] is not allowed to exist anymore in Indonesia, he said on May 10.

President Jokowi said recently that he supported efforts to eradicate communism in Indonesia; however, he added that law enforcers should not act excessively in carrying out the task. He made the statement in response to widespread criticism on the governments anticommunism measures, which have been deemed excessive. In Bantul, Yogyakarta, police officers confiscated a Lou Han fish because it had scaly pattern similar to the hammer-and-sickle-logo on its body.

Violations of freedom of expression, which have also affected events aimed at discussing the 1965 tragedy, contradict the governments initiative to resolve past human rights violations. The government in April held its first symposium on the events of 1965.

The recent cases of violations of freedom of expression, including the disbandment of the World Press Freedom Day celebration, show that security authorities and President Jokowi are walking in opposite directions in terms of resolving wounds from the nations past. Political chaos resulting from such instability will slow all aspects of the countrys development.
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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16 2016

Publicly listed tire maker PT Gajah Tunggal is aiming to boost its proportion of export sales this year, pouncing on the opportunity provided by its competitive prices and the US governments decision to impose high tariffs on Chinese tires.



The company, known by its brand GT Radial, expects to export more than 50 percent of its production output by the end of this year, up from 43 percent shipped overseas last year. Apart from selling to the US, the destination for some 70 percent of the firms exported product, Gajah Tunggal supplies tires to countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.



Gajah Tunggal president director Christopher Chan said he was upbeat about the projection as the company sold tires at highly competitive prices that were produced from 100 percent local rubber.



We have to learn to find opportunities in the global market too, he said on Friday.



After the US imposed a 35 percent tariff on Chinese tires in 2009, imports of tires from China declined while imports from Indonesia, Mexico and Thailand rose sharply.



The policy was made in response to efforts by workers in the American tire industry to prevent jobs from moving to China.



With global market opportunities in hand and a recent hike in sales, Gajah Tunggal is optimistic it can fulfil its sales growth goal of 10 to 15 percent this year after suffering 1.3 percent drop in its annual

sales in 2015 due to the economic slowdown.



The companys quarterly report shows revenue of Rp 3.4 trillion (US$255.6 million) for the first three month of this year, up 13 percent from the Rp 3 trillion recorded in the same period last year.



We hope to see this kind of growth sustained for the coming quarters throughout this year, Christopher said, adding, however, that the firm remained cautious of the possible slow recovery of commodity prices that would affect the overall economy.



The company managed to book Rp 337.8 billion in net profit from January to March; a vast improvement on its Rp 290.2 billion net loss in the corresponding period last year.



The leap in profit was mostly caused by the foreign exchange gain of 165 percent, taking it to Rp 234.6 billion, that came from lower bond paybacks along with a strengthening rupiah against the US dollar, Christian said. The company has $500 million worth of bonds maturing in 2018.



When the rupiah strengthens, we get a foreign exchange gain, he said.



The firm will also allocate $80 million to capital expenditure (capex) this year, with $50 million going to maintenance and the remaining $30 million to research and development for producing more Radial brand bus and truck tires.



With the capex, Gajah Tunggal is also targeting an increase in its production utility rate from a current 75 percent to 80 percent by year-end. The firms production facilities, for example, have the capacity to produce up to 90,000 motorcycle tires and 55,000 radial tires daily.



According to Industry Ministry data, 14 tire companies in the country produce a total of 77 million tires annually for cars, trucks and buses as well as 64 million for motorcycles. From the total output, 70 percent is exported, going to countries including the US, Japan and some Asian countries.



Previously, the Indonesian Tire Producers Association (APBI) estimated that the tire industry would grow by 5 to 6 percent this year, a recovery from the huge plunge of between 9 and 14 percent last year.



Indonesias automobile sales, meanwhile, rebounded by 3.7 percent in April, year-on-year, the sectors first sales growth in 13 months, according to the latest data from the Association of Indonesian Automotive Manufacturers (Gaikindo).

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Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

The Tourism Ministry plans to develop West Sumatra as a halal tourist destination to attract more tourists from Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries, such as Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Minister Arief Yahya said at a coordination meeting with 19 regents and mayors in Padang, West Sumatra, on May 12, that the province had many advantages in the tourism sector, including being home to the most delicious dish in the world, rendang (beef simmered in coconut milk and spices), according to a poll held by CNN International years ago.

Marine tourism in Mandeh in West Sumatra, is among the potential destinations to be developed in the region.

Mandeh has tremendous potential. It is like the Raja Ampat in Papua. It can be developed for marine tourism, the ministry's priority tourist destination development task force head, Hiramsyah S. Thaib, said, adding that the ministry was constructing direct access from Minangkabau International Airport in Ketaping, Padang to Mandeh.

The ministry also plans to open more direct flight routes from airports in neighboring countries Malaysia and Singapore to Padang.

The government aims to attract 5 million Muslim tourists from the Middle East and other parts of the world in the next three years, more than double the 2 million expected this year, Arief said previously.

He added that Indonesia, which has become a top tourist destination for travelers from OIC countries, would provide more halal tourist destinations to further lure more tourists from the region. (vny/dmr)
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Linkedin thejakartapost.com (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

The Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry will involve local clerics to help monitor the trillions of rupiah in village funds disbursed by the central government and to prevent the funds being misused.

Clerics and religious leaders will play a key role in the government's national development plans, including supervising the usage of village funds in their respective areas, Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Minister Marwan Jafar said over the weekend.

The clerics will play an active role in village discussions, especially in the formulation of mid-term village development plans, activities, budgets and expenses.

"In the village discussions, clerics as people's role models can give input relating to development plans in the villages," Marwan said at an event in Gedongan, Cirebon regency, West Java, on Saturday, as reported by kompas.com on Monday.

The government expects the clerics' involvement will be effective in improving the use of village funds.

The government increased village funds to Rp 47 trillion (US$3.5 billion) this year, double last year's budget of Rp 20.8 trillion, for more than 74,000 villages across the country.

The budget increase aims to bolster and accelerate development in villages in terms of economics, productivity and human resources, which would also support national development, Marwan added.

However, the hefty budget is prone to graft, with several cases of village funds being misused by village chiefs. (rin)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Tangerang  Mon, May 16 2016

The Jakarta Police have taken two men into custody over their alleged involvement in the death of EF, 18, who was found dead on Friday.

The men identified, only as RK and IP, were taken into custody on Sunday at around 4 a.m. at two different places. The two were brought to Jakarta Police headquarters for questioning. They havent been named suspects. We are still investigating evidence found at the crime scene, said Tangerang Police spokesman Comr. Triyani Handayani as quoted by kompas.com.

EF was found dead in a room of the employee dormitory of PT Polyta Global Mandiri on Jl. Raya Perancis Pergudangan 8, Dadap, Tangerang, on Friday. Since the suspect was absent from work, three of her friends went to visit her. They found the room locked from the outside, said Teluk Naga Police precinct head Comr. Supriyanto.

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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has praised Bank Indonesia's (BI) efforts to create guidelines on international zakat principles, which will be launched at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul on May 23.

The study, involving the National Zakat Agency (Baznas) and the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI), aimed to create clearer standards for the alms and to unify zakat channeling into a better economic tool for the welfare of society.

According to IDB director Elmansour Feten, zakat should be dispersed directly to neighborhoods, and only spent on the eight types of recipients mentioned in the Koran.

"Unleashing the power of zakat is a good initiative from BI together with the IRTI, our research and training institute. This new work by BI is setting a standard and regulatory framework to help people donate efficiently. No one should be left behind and no one should work alone," he told thejakartapost.com in Jakarta on Sunday.

BI sharia economic development director Dadang Muljawan explained that the framework would help Indonesia accelerate poverty alleviation and create a self-sustaining society.

"By launching this framework, we expect that social financing will be more properly managed. BI is pushing for the governance of social finance. Society should be able to help itself," he said.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) special representative to the Palestinian people, Roberto Valent, added that more guidance for zakat would help the world fulfill humanitarian needs, amid widespread conflicts and disease, especially in Muslim-majority countries.

"You see the latent potential of Islamic social financing including zakat, wakaf [charity] is enormous. As of today, more than US$25 billion is needed for humanitarian aid in the world and less than $15 billion has been disbursed," he said.

A regulatory process for zakat was needed as part of efforts to optimize the potential of the alms both at the national level of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries and at the global level, he said. (ags)
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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

Amid reports that avian influenza (bird flu) is on the rise, the fight against bird flu appears to be failing more than a decade after the virus was first detected.

There were 148 cases of bird flu reported in the first four months of 2016 alone, a sharp increase from the 123 cases reported throughout 2015, according to Agriculture Ministry data.

"Lack of public awareness has been the main contributing factor to the continued circulation of the virus, especially among poultry farmers who dont implement the right measures to control the spread of the disease," said the Agriculture Ministry's director of animal health services I Ketut Diarmita in a press conference on Monday.

Extreme weather changes related to the El Nino effect have left the poultry population more vulnerable to the virus due to declining immunity, he added.

West Java and Lampung have consistently reported the highest number of cases since the beginning of 2015.

The Ministry recorded 56 cases in West Java from January to April this year, while 26 cases were recorded in Lampung during the first four months of 2016.

Other areas to have reported cases of bird flu this year include South Sulawesi (20), North Kalimantan (14), Central Java (7), East Java (6) and Banten (5).

"Notably, Java remains as the region with the highest number of recorded cases, with ducks and layers the predominantly those to have been infected," Diarmita said.

Government monitoring indicates that the rise occurred during the rainy season, he added, citing humidity as the reason for the increase.

The ministry issued a circular on Feb. 12 to increase awareness of the disease, listing measures to be taken to control the HPAI, Highly Pathogenic Asian Avian Influenza A (H5N1), virus.

The government had hoped to raise key action pointers to address the issue, he added. Pointers included urging the community to perform three rapid actions (detect, report and respond), proper vaccination of flocks and to implement effective biosecurity at farm-level as well as along the poultry market chain.

One of the biggest challenges faced by the government is the fact that many commercial and backyard poultry farmers lack knowledge of proper maintenance in livestock farming and transporting, Diarmita continued.

The highest recorded number of bird flu infected poultry in Indonesia was in 2007 with 2,751 cases. This number was followed by 2,293 cases in 2009 and 1,502 cases in 2010.

James McGrane, the team leader of The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)'s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) Indonesia applauded Indonesia's progress.

However, he urged the public to remain alert and emphasized the importance of applying the necessary measures recommended by the government, including implementing biosecurity and proper vaccination.

Ministry data confirmed that 199 people were infected with bird flu from 2005 to 2016. According to the data, 167 of those cases proved to be fatal.

In 2015, two cases of human infection were detected and both people died as a result of the infection. (rin)
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Linkedin Yohana Susana Yembise, Annette Sachs Robertson and Casper Klynge (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16 2016

When investing in women and girls, everybody wins. That is the resounding message expected to come out of the Danish capital this week when Copenhagen hosts the largest international conference on womens and girls rights, health and well-being yet to be held this millennium.

World leaders, academics, policymakers, activists, media, royalty, civil society and private sector representatives will gather in Copenhagen to put the spotlight on how to implement the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development so it matters most for girls and women.

As Womens Empowerment and Child Protection Minister, Yohana Susana Yembise will represent Indonesia together with more than 30 other delegates from the legislature, media, academia, civil society as well as youth delegates. Together, they will engage representatives from the rest of the world in discussions on issues ranging from health to gender equality, education and economic empowerment.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Batam  Mon, May 16 2016

Patrol boats from the Dabo naval base in Singkep, Riau Islands, intercepted on Sunday the MV Bintang Terang 8, which was believed to be transporting second-hand goods to be smuggled into Tembilahan, Riau.

The Indonesian-flagged vessel was carrying the goods from Batupahat, Malaysia.

Tanjung Pinang main naval base commander Commodore S. Irawan told The Jakarta Post on Sunday the seizure was carried out by the Western Fleet Quick Response Team (WFQR) after suspicions were aroused about the movements of the wooden vessel when it entered Indonesian waters.

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Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

The Jakarta administration is optimistic that the odd-even license plate regulation will effectively ease road congestion in the capital following the revocation of the three-in-one traffic policy.

Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama said on Monday that the odd-even policy, under which cars with odd- and even- numbered license plates will be banned on particular dates and vice versa, would be effectively implemented in the capital once it was assisted by CCTV cameras set up throughout the capital.

With the cameras, he added, the officials would likely monitor the odd-even plates and, therefore, force drivers to not access roads with prohibited plates.

He further said that the cameras would also help officials determine vehicles with fake plates.

"The supervision is not difficult as we have CCTV cameras," Ahok said. "With the cameras, do you [drivers] still dare to access the capital's roads with prohibited or fake plates? Officials will randomly check your license plates at traffic stops."

However, he said, it also needed assistance from the Jakarta Police to enforce the regulation. Hence, the administration was coordinating with the Jakarta Police to deliberate the policy.

The plan, he added, was carried out as an initial measure before the administration was able to limit vehicle number through electronic pricing road (ERP) system, which is to be realized at the beginning of 2017.(dmr)
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Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo is set to seal seven business commitments during a working visit to South Korea.

The seven memorandums of understanding (MoUs) cover maritime issues, the creative industry, anticorruption, peatland forest restoration, defense technology, special economic zones and the development of energy and mineral research for clean energy.

President Jokowi's visit to the country is important both economically and culturally, according to a press statement released on Sunday.

South Korea is a strategic partner for Indonesia, as its sixth biggest partner in exports and fourth biggest for imports. The country was also the fifth largest investor in Indonesia last year.

In terms of culture, people-to-people relations between the two countries have expanded in recent years with an increase of Indonesians living in South Korea. The country's movies, fashion and music are also favored by Indonesians.

After traveling for seven hours from Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali, Jokowi and his entourage landed at Seongnam Air Base in Seoul on Sunday at 5:05 p.m. local time.
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Linkedin Madjedi Hasan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16 2016

The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) recently reported that several oil and gas production sharing contractors (PSCs) had inflated the reimbursement of their operating cost claims, known as cost recovery.

The amount totaled Rp 4 trillion (US$300 million), which occurred in seven PSCs and Pertamina EP. As the BPK sees it, many of these costs were not in accordance with Government Regulation No. 79/2010 and regulations from the ministries of energy and finance related to expatriates and employees benefit allowances, investment credit claims, interest on cost recovery, value added tax on imported goods and so forth.

The cost recovery irregularities in Pertamina EP (Rp 365.62 billion) involved costs for canceled drilling, purchases of capital assets without appropriate capitalization and insurance costs and cost overruns by its partners in the Kerja Sama Operasi (KSO) contract.

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Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

The police have named three suspects for the murder of EP, a worker at a plastic factory in Kosambi, Tangerang, Banten province.

The suspects are RA, 15, R, 20, and IH, 24.

They all admitted what roles they played during the reenactment at the crime scene last night, Tangerang Police detective chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Sutarmo said Monday.

Before murdering the 18-year-old girl, the three suspects gang raped her, he said.

We found semen spilled all over the victims room, he was quoted by tempo.co as saying.

According to the police investigators, the suspects had admitted that they strangled the victim with a pillow until she nearly fainted and took turns to rape her. Reportedly, one of the suspects then took a hoe and stuck its handle into the womans private parts and then kicked the wooden handle so it penetrated deeper. At that time, the victim was still alive. Sutarmo said.

The sadistic murder allegedly started when RA, who is the victims boyfriend, came to the boarding house for factory workers where EP lives on Thursday evening at 11:30 p.m.. RA, who had only been acquainted with EP for one month, reportedly asked EP to have sex, but she declined his request. Irked, RA went out the room and met two of his friends R and IH.

The three friends allegedly forced their way into the room and committed the offense.

EPs body was discovered by her friends at PT Polyta Global Mandiri, Eroh, Tikroh and Nopi on Friday. They found that EPs room was locked from outside and they decided to break into the room.

Jakarta police spokesman Sr. Comr. Awi Setiyono said police investigators had questioned eight witnesses as part of the investigation into the murder.
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Linkedin Mohammad Nuryazidi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16 2016

It has been more than two years since Bank Indonesia (BI) handed over microprudential supervision to the Financial Services Authority (OJK) in early 2014. This transfer has structurally changed the financial sector in Indonesia. There are three key institutions that now play an important role in maintaining the stability of the financial system, namely BI, the OJK and the Indonesia Deposit Insurance Corporation (LPS).

Interaction between macroprudential policies represented by BI and microprudential policy represented by the OJK has been continuously developed in order to establish a good collaboration. Furthermore, the LPS has played an important role in insuring depositors funds and actively participates in maintaining the stability of the financial system.

However, the role of each authority is not legally clear, especially in the stage of crisis. The Bank Century case has traumatized decisionmakers in taking action when they deal with a crisis condition.

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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan  Mon, May 16 2016

Six months after a mayoral election was delayed in Pematangsiantar, North Sumatra, the government still has yet to hold the vote, to the concern of local residents.

A resident of West Siantar, Leo Sitohang, said the delay could cause apathy among voters.

Its been six months that residents have waited for the poll, but there has yet to be certainty over the schedule, Leo told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

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Linkedin Hans Nicholas Jong and Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16 2016

Indonesia has rejected claims by the Singapore government that the latter did not receive an official complaint over plan to prosecute Indonesian businessmen for their alleged involvement in the annual problem of air pollution caused by fires in Sumatra.



Singapores National Environment Agency (NEA) recently obtained a court warrant against the director of an Indonesian company who failed to turn up for an interview with Singaporean authorities despite being served a legal notice when in that country.



The businessperson, who has since left Singapore, may be detained for the purpose of investigations if he or she tries to reenter the country, an NEA spokesman said, without naming the executive or the company.



The Indonesian ambassador has conveyed [a protest] to the Singaporean environment minister, Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said on Sunday.



The spokesman disclosed last week that the government had conveyed an official protest to Singapore. Another senior Indonesian diplomat said the Indonesian ambassador conveyed the protest on May 6.



However, a spokesperson for the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied receiving any such protest. Mr Arrmanathas remarks are puzzling. He reportedly said that the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore had strongly protested against the NEAs actions. We have, however, not yet received any representation from the Indonesian Embassy, the spokesperson insisted last week.



Singapore argues it is entitled to take such legal action as a result of the Trans boundary Haze Pollution Act (THPA) that its parliament passed in 2014.



The law enables regulators to sue individuals or companies in neighboring countries that cause severe air pollution in Singapore through slash-and-burn agricultural practices.



It was first proposed in 2013 after a huge rise in the number of forest fires on the neighboring Indonesian province of Riau caused thick smoke that blanketed Singapore in a choking haze.



Arrmanatha said the government had strongly protested against what it considered to be an encroachment on Indonesian sovereignty.



[We protested at] the way they interviewed or interrogated the Indonesian executive because we regarded it as inappropriate, Arrmanatha said.



While it is Singapores prerogative to enact its own laws, Indonesia could not allow its own citizens to be adversely affected, he asserted.



However, the Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs has defended the move.



The THPA is consistent with international law, which allows a country to take appropriate action to protect itself from external acts that cause harm within the country. It does not encroach upon the sovereignty of any specific country, the ministry said in a statement on Friday.



Singapore argues the THPA adds to the collective efforts to hold errant companies accountable for their irresponsible actions that have been detrimental to the well-being of people in the region, including the people of Indonesia who have been the worst affected.



We are therefore puzzled as to why Indonesia does not welcome these efforts, said the ministry.

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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16 2016

PT Semen Indonesia (SI), Indonesias largest cement maker, is allocating Rp 7 trillion (US$526.3 million) in capital spending this year to build two new factories to cater to increasing overseas demand for cement.



The publicly listed state-run firm expects 6 million tons of additional production capacity per year from its Rembang factory in Central Java and its Indarung factory in South Sumatra. That will add to the 31 million ton capacity it currently boasts from its 14 existing factories in Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi and Vietnam.



The additional capacity will be exported to Bangladesh, Myanmar and Australia in 2017, in addition to being used to cater to domestic demand, which has been sluggish recently as Indonesias economic growth has slowed down.



Bangladesh and Myanmar have a vast need for cement but limited factories. Australia, meanwhile, plans to limit cement factories due to environment concerns, so well have good opportunities to export there, said SIs new president director Rizkan Chandra.



The company will also boost exports to existing markets, including Bangladesh, Srilanka, Maldives, East Timor and Mauritius.



In the January-March period of this year, the company saw export sales increase by 9 percent year-on-year (yoy) to 270,000 tons despite a 1.7 percent drop in its domestic sales to 6.34 million tons.



Overall, sales declined by 1.3 percent yoy to 6.61 million tons, leading to a 5 percent decrease in revenues to Rp 6.02 trillion and a 13 percent drop in net profits to Rp 1.19 trillion.



In strengthening its export portfolio, Semen Indonesia will register a new holding company called Semen Indonesia International that will handle its international trade deals.



In just a few months, the new holding company will be officially launched. It will focus on improving our international portfolio, said Rizkan.



The Rembang and Indarung plants are expected to be completed in September this year. Apart from the two plants, SI is also building a waste-heat recovery power generator (WHRPG) in Tuban, East Java.



The Rp 7 trillion allocated for the projects will be funded by the companys internal funds, a possible bond issuance in the future, as well as existing loans, including Rp 1 trillion each from state lenders Bank Mandiri and Bank Negara Indonesia.



Rizkan said that the expansion plans would help the company sustain its business in the long run as the new factories would produce cement with lower costs. Furthermore, power generated from the WHRPG, which is scheduled for completion in December, will save on energy costs.



The more factories built in various areas, the shorter and cheaper the distribution chains, Rizkan said.



With the expansion and efficiency plans, SI is upbeat it will see its sales volume pick up to 5 percent this year after seeing it drop by 0.91 percent last year, especially on the back of the governments infrastructure push and economic stimulus packages.



The infrastructure projects will affect the private sector and that will affect us in a positive way, Rizkan said, adding that most, or 65 percent, of the companys projects are privately owned and the remaining 35 percent are government programs.

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Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

Sukuk has played a significant role in promoting resilient infrastructure and sustainable economic development, and therefore should be boosted in the future, Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro has said.

In his opening remarks at a seminar during the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group annual meeting at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) on Monday, Bambang said it was important for Islamic finance to contribute to the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

"Sukuk naturally controls the needs of financing, which are based on underlying assets. It also provides a protective mechanism and natural hedging, making the industry more sustainable," Bambang said.

He further said that sukuk had played a significant role in infrastructure financing. Aside from issuing sukuk for general financing, the government has issued sukuk to finance infrastructure projects, such as railways and toll roads.

"This kind of project financing assures the effectiveness of sukuk," he went on.

Bank Indonesia (BI) Governor Agus Martowardojo added that sukuk had been growing rapidly in the last few years. However, Islamic financing instruments must be developed.

Indonesia has been active in sukuk markets since it laid the groundwork for sukuk issuance in 2007. This year, Rp 110.9 trillion (US$ 8.33 billion) in sukuk was issued in the domestic and international markets, according to ministry data.

Sukuk made up 15 percent of total outstanding government securities as of April 29. It comprises six instruments across a wide range of tenors, sizes, coupons and investors. (ags)
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Linkedin Elly Burhaini Faizal (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

The recent cases of sexual violence against children that have emerged in several areas across Indonesia, has raised a question in our mind: What has happened to Indonesias morals?

It was the recent gang rape and murder of Yn, a 14-year-old student from Rejang Lebong, Bengkulu that brought the serious threat of sexual violence against children into our consciousness. The tragic incident of Yn, who was brutally raped and killed by 14 men on her way home from school, has led mourning parents and deeply upset rights activists on a search for effective measures to prevent sexual violence against women and children. This may be just the tip of the iceberg. It is likely that many cases of sexual violence against children are never reported to the public.

In the latest case, a 13-year-old girl, a junior high school student, was reportedly gang raped in Surabaya, East Java. The most alarming fact is, according to the Surabaya Police report, eight perpetrators of the crime are all still underage. Five perpetrators are reportedly junior high school students while the three others are elementary school children.

During their questioning at the police station, it was revealed that the sexual abuse had started nine years ago. Both the victim and the perpetrators were living in an area in Gubeng, Surabaya.

It was AS, the victims childhood friend, who reportedly first molested the ill-fated girl when she was 4 years old. In his testimony to the police, AS said he molested the girl almost every day. AS later reportedly had often forced the girl to take a kind of ecstasy pill called Double L from the time she entered the sixth grade, making her addicted to sex and drugs until the present. Knowing that she was addicted to sex, in April this year AS started to invite his friends to rape and molest the victim in a group. The eight suspects had repeatedly molested the victim, the police said.

The gang rape cases in Bengkulu and Surabaya have been widely condemned by all sections of Indonesian society. In a trial on May 10, the Curup District Court in Bengkulu sentenced seven teenagers involved in the rape and murder to 10 years in prison. The courts panel of judges said the perpetrators, who were aged between 16 to 17 years, were found guilty of raping and murdering Yn.

The Curup Prosecutors Office in Rejang Lebong, Bengkulu, called on all Indonesian people to honor the courts ruling. Community leaders in Rejang Lebong also called on all parties to accept wholeheartedly the courts verdict. The seven perpetrators should have been given a heavier sentence; but, as they are still underage, a 10-year-imprisonment for each perpetrator could be considered optimal.

The imprisonment of children found guilty of criminal offenses has been long debated. In a statement earlier this year, the Indonesian Planned Parenthood Association (PKBI) said that following the enactment of Law No.11/2012 on the Juvenile Justice System, there should have been no more imprisonment of children found guilty of criminal offenses. The association claimed that arrest, detention and imprisonment of children would potentially curb their rights to freedom and could affect their behavior in the future.

The 2012 Juvenile Justice System Law calls for diversion, or a shifting of the settlement of cases involving child perpetrators from criminal trials to out-of-court settlement. Based on data released by the Law and Human Rights Ministrys directorate general of correctional institution, the number of cases implicating children reached 3,000 in 2013, a drastic increase from 500 in 2010.

The Indonesian government has made addressing violence against children a priority in its policy agenda. It is also committed to making significant progress in protecting Indonesian children from all forms of violence.

As one of its key measures, Indonesia has adopted the National Strategy to End Violence against Children and the Child Protection National Action Plan, which gives a comprehensive framework to prevent and respond to violent incidents. UNICEF says this framework is critical to ensure the protection of children whether they are at school, home or in public spaces. It is expected that the framework will help Indonesia achieve its Sustainable Development Goals, especially Goal 16.2: Ending violence against children by 2030.

UNICEF has also praised Indonesias commitment to join the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children, as a pioneer country. The Global Partnership has been designed to become technical and funding sources for the implementation of the national strategy to end violence against children while at the same time, it gives a forum for sharing ideas and learning from each other, UNICEF said in a recent statement.

Based on UNICEF data, violence against children is common in Indonesia. A 2007 study found 40 percent of children aged 13-15 years reported having been attacked at school. However, several areas were not included in the study, including domestic and sexual violence. Therefore, the UN body said, it was highly important to collect comprehensive data to discover the extent of violence against children in Indonesia.

The two gang rape cases in Bengkulu and Surabaya have also shown that many factors can trigger sexual violence against children. These include excessive exposure to pornography, the absence of proper sex education for children, deep-rooted poverty and widespread use of alcohol. Stricter alcohol rules and tougher sanctions for sex crime perpetrators might be crucial in preventing sexual violence against children.

A school curriculum that neglects moral and character building has also been singled out as one of the causes of the crimes. Hence, it is not too much to say the Bengkulu and Surabaya rape cases have rung the bell, telling the government it is time to start developing an education system that builds the good character of students.
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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16, 2016

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and Indonesias Industry Ministry have proposed supporting the tempe (fermented soybean) and seaweed industries to help undernourished people in marginalized areas and elevate their economic condition.

The programs are two out of eight programs being proposed by UNIDO and Indonesia under the UNIDO-Indonesia Country Program 2016-2020 to donor countries and institutions including Austria, China, Finland, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Switzerland, the United States, the World Bank, the European Union, the Global Environment Facility and the Montreal Protocol.

Achmad Sigit Dwiwahjono, the ministrys director general for international industrial access development and security, said the seaweed development would be carried out in Sumenep, East Java.

We have the natural resources but their processed products are not internationally certified yet so we need to do this for the seaweed industry so they can go international by improving their business and linking up with good traders, he said on the sidelines of the UNIDO-Indonesia Country Program 2016-2020 document signing ceremony at the Industry Ministry in Jakarta on Monday.

The development of tempe, meanwhile, will be encouraged in various marginalized areas nation-wide to improve the nutrition of residents.

Besides seaweed and tempe, there are six other projects related to green industrial practices that are also being proposed.

All the projects are set to run until 2020 with committed funds of US$40 million from UN countries.

UNIDO seeks to ensure that industrial development in the world goes hand-in-hand with poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. (dmr)
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Linkedin David Sharp (Associated Press) Bath  Mon, May 16, 2016

The U.S. Navy is ready to take ownership of the Zumwalt, its largest and most technologically sophisticated destroyer.

Sailors' uniforms and personal effects, supplies and spare parts are being moved aboard the 610-foot warship in anticipation of crew members taking on their new charge, said Capt. James Kirk, the destroyer's skipper.

The Zumwalt is the first new class of warship built at Bath Iron Works since the Arleigh Burke slid into the Kennebec River in 1989. The shipyard is expected to turn the destroyer over to the Navy this week.

"We've overcome lots of obstacles to get to this point," said electrician John Upham, of Litchfield. "I think everybody in the shipyard is proud of the work we've done."

The ship features an angular shape that makes it 50 times more difficult to detect on radar; it's powered by electricity produced by turbines similar to those in a Boeing 777; new guns are designed to pummel targets from nearly 100 miles away. Advanced automation will allow the big ship to operate with a much smaller crew than on current generation of destroyers.

The final cost of the Zumwalt is expected to be at least $4.4 billion.

The original concept for the land-attack destroyer was floated more than 15 years ago then underwent several permutations. The final design called for a destroyer with a stealthy shape and advanced gun system that can fire rocket-propelled projectiles with pinpoint accuracy.

But the growing cost forced the Navy to reduce what was originally envisioned as a 32-ship program to just three ships. The loss of economies of scale drove up the cost of the individual ships.

The slow-going and rising costs were little surprise after the General Accounting Office warned that the Navy was trying to incorporate too many new technologies into the ship.

"Zumwalt was a challenge to assemble because of all the new technologies, but sea trials show it is a world-class warship with unique capabilities," said Loren Thompson, senior defense analyst with the Virginia-based Lexington Institute.

Some of the ship's 143 crew members have been in Bath for more than two years to prepare for the day they take control of it. The sailors will continue training to prepare the ship to be formally commissioned into service as USS Zumwalt at a ceremony in October in Baltimore, Kirk said. From there, the ship will travel to its homeport in San Diego for further tests and trials.

Shipbuilders in Bath are busy on the second ship in the class, the Michael Monsoor, which will be christened next month. Work also is underway on the third and final ship, the Lyndon B. Johnson.

Jay Wadleigh, president of the largest union at the shipyard, said Bath Iron Works was selected for the job because the Navy knew it would be done right.

"I think the way the Zumwalt performed on the three different sea trials was better than anybody expected  us, the Navy and the company," he said. (ags)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 16 2016

For those who lost loved ones in the bloody riots of 1998 prior to the downfall of Soehartos New Order regime, May has always been the month when old wounds reopen.

With nobody held responsible for the tragedy  in which dozens went missing, almost a hundred fell victim to sex attacks and thousands were injured in the capital and other regions across the country  the incident is a ghost from the past that haunts families every year.

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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Singapore  Mon, May 16 2016

Translated: Mayapada group owner Dato Sri Tahir (left) poses with former Indonesian presidents BJ Habibie (center) and Susilo SBY Bambang Yudhoyono at the recent launch of the Chinese translation of his autobiography Living Sacrifice at Singapore Management University in Singapore. (JP/Stefani Ribka)



It is a rare occasion when two former Indonesian presidents sit down together, especially at a private function and in a foreign country. But this tycoon and philanthropist made it happen.

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Linkedin Lisa Lerer & Catherin Lucey (Associated Press) Hopkinsville, Kentucky  Tue, May 17, 2016

The notion of a 2-for-1 Clinton presidency is back.

Recalling sunnier days of growth, low unemployment and budget surpluses under her husband, Hillary Clinton is telling Americans that Bill Clinton will be "in charge of revitalizing the economy" if she wins the White House.

What his work would be remains unclear: not a cabinet post, she indicated. But, as she has been saying for months, she expects him to play a leading role.

Bill Clinton reigned over a strong economy, especially in the final years of his presidency, yet his economic legacy is mixed.

The late 1990s were the last period to see sustained income gains for the typical American household. Middle-income wages have stagnated since then.

But his refusal to step up regulation of exotic financial instruments known as derivatives was blamed in large measure for the collapse of the financial sector years later. The tech bubble of his time burst. And his agenda was driven by support for free trade deals, including one that gave China better access to the U.S. market, that are held responsible by elements of both parties for driving jobs out of the country.

Still, in those pre-9/11 days, it's a stretch of peace and prosperity like Americans haven't seen since and with her latest remarks, in Kentucky, Hillary Clinton is more firmly laying out how important he would be to her agenda.

The situation is highly unusual: Not only would Clinton be the first president to have a "First Dude," she'd also be the first to have a former president in the East Wing.

Now, facing a two-front fight against Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, she's stressing that Bill Clinton would be an asset in her administration, particularly with the kind of Southern white voters who once backed him but now are drawn to Trump.

"Tell me anybody else who's been here as much or knows us as well," said Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, of Bill Clinton, during a campaign event in West Virginia. Hillary Clinton lost that primary  a state her husband won by double digits  earlier this month to Sanders.

The GOP front-runner and his team are making a different political bet. They see Bill Clinton's history of scandal as ripe for exploitation.

Still, in recent weeks, Clinton has begun sketching out a bit more of a role for her husband, though there is great ambiguity. She told West Virginians that he'd focus on helping economically distressed communities, like those in coal county, reinvent themselves in a changing economy.

"You'll get sick of seeing him," she said earlier this month. "This gets him really, really excited."

Spokesman Nick Merrill said Monday that despite the candidate's description of her husband's in-charge role, Clinton would be getting ahead of herself to talk about "any sort of formalized role for anyone." But, he added, Bill Clinton "has a lot to offer and it would be foolish not to use that in some capacity."

More any other political couple in recent American history, the Clintons have long viewed themselves as a joint package. Shortly after entering the White House, Clinton appointed his wife to head the administration's effort to pass a major health care bill. The failed measure became known as "Hillarycare."

But as the party has shifted to the left during the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton repeatedly found herself forced to repudiate key pieces of her husband's legacy during her primary campaign. She's distanced herself from the North American Free Trade Agreement, the federal law that defined marriage as between one man and one woman, and the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that banned gays and lesbians from military service. Hillary Clinton has also faced criticism for backing the 1994 crime bill, which led to tougher sentencing for drug offenses.

Her campaign is calculating that in the general election, Bill Clinton's strong economic record outweighs the criticism. Over the next 10 days, Bill Clinton is scheduled to campaign in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, New Mexico, California, South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana.

Late in Clinton's presidency, unemployment dropped to 3.9 percent, its lowest level since 1970. It's 5 percent now  and he set a record in monthly job growth in the post-World War II era. Growth averaged 3.8 percent, better than the record under Ronald Reagan and a far cry from the 0.5 percent of the last quarter or the 1.4 percent of the quarter before. But Clinton also came to office when a recession was ending; Barack Obama stepped into a worsening one that would be unrivaled since the Depression.

Broadly-shared prosperity is what President Clinton is known for, so I am thrilled Hillary is deploying my old boss," said former Clinton aide Paul Begala. "Wherever two or more are gathered, there, too, should he be."

Campaigning in a smoky diner in Paducah, Kentucky, on Monday, Clinton was surrounded by people who affectionately recalled previous visits by the Clintons. Bill Clinton campaigned in the town right before the 1992 election that made him president.

Joanne Clark, 54, exclaimed that she had shaken hands with Bill Clinton all those years ago. "He's gotta get out of retirement!" replied Hillary Clinton.

Associated Press writers Julie Bykowicz and Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report.
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Linkedin (Associated Press) Brisbane  Mon, May 16, 2016

Australian firebrand preacher deported from the Philippines and four other suspected jihadists appeared in a northern Australian court on Monday charged with planning to head for Syria in a 7-meter (23-foot) boat to fight for the Islamic State group.

Philippine authorities said Robert Cerantonio, also known as Musa Cerantonio, was deported in 2014 because of his suspected links to terrorists based on YouTube videos allegedly showing him advocating jihad and urging local Muslims to support militants in the Middle East.

On Monday, the Cairns Magistrates Court ordered the extradition of Cerantonio and his four co-accused from Queensland state to their hometown of Melbourne to face a federal charge outlawing Australian foreign fighters. Entering or preparing to enter a foreign country to engage in hostile activity is a crime in Australia punishable by life imprisonment.

Cerantonio and co-accused Shayden Thorne, Kadir Kaya, Antonio Grenata and Paul Dacre have not entered pleas.

Police allege that the defendants, aged 21 to 33, towed a half-cabin fiberglass power boat with a car 3,100 kilometers (1,900 miles) from Melbourne to Laura in Australia's tropical north before they were arrested last Tuesday.

Police say they planned to travel by boat through Indonesia to the Philippines. Police have not specified how they allegedly planned to get from the Philippines to Syria.

All had their passports canceled to prevent them leaving the country to fight for extremist groups such as the Islamic State.

Philippine authorities said Cerantonio was deported in 2014 for being an "undocumented foreign national" after the Australian government canceled his passport. He was arrested two weeks earlier in the Philippines' central Cebu province's Lapu-Lapu city but faced no formal charges.

Philippine police alleged Cerantonio had called for jihad on YouTube and lectured Filipino Muslims to support the Islamic State group.

Australian police said at the time that Cerantonio's social media postings were "offensive and disturbing," but did not violate Australia's law.

Authorities allege Cerantonio bought the boat in the first suspected attempt by would-be foreign fighters to leave Australia by sea.

Security officials estimate 110 Australians are fighting for the Islamic State group in the Middle East.
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Linkedin (Associated Press) Beijing  Mon, May 16, 2016

China says landlocked Afghanistan has expressed support for Beijing's stance on the South China Sea and its fight against extremists in its far west.

The Foreign Ministry said Afghanistan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah made the statements in a meeting Monday with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing.

The ministry said Li in return said China wants to help with Afghanistan's national reconciliation process, provide assistance for projects including the construction of low-cost housing and boost imports of Afghan agricultural projects.

China has been seeking support from friendly nations for its bilateral approach to settling South China Sea territorial disputes. That's partly to counter efforts by the US, Philippines and others to challenge China's claim to virtually the entire sea and creation of new islands out of coral reefs.
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Linkedin Yee Xiang Yun (The Star/ANN) Segamat, Malaysia  Mon, May 16, 2016

SEGAMAT: Hundreds of thousands of Malaysians who travel daily to Singapore to work have been urged to take extra preventive measures in view of the first Zika case reported in the republic.

Malaysian Health Minister S. Subramaniam advised those who commute to the republic to wear long sleeves and apply adequate mosquito repellents to protect themselves from the Aedes mosquitoes.

While it would take two to three weeks for the Singapore authorities to establish where the patient contracted the disease, theres nothing wrong with early preventive measures, he told reporters Sunday.

Subramaniam added that the ministry had also instructed the Public Health Department in Johor Baru to step up efforts to fight Aedes mosquitoes, which was the vector for both dengue and Zika.

He said the thousands of daily commuters could put Johor at risk due to the states geographical location but the risk could be minimized with proper mitigation efforts.

Those showing symptoms like fever and rashes should seek immediate medical help, he added.

The first imported case of the Zika virus infection was reported in Singapore on Friday.

The patient was a 48-year-old male Singapore permanent resident who had travelled to Sao Paulo, Brazil, from March 27 to May 7.

The patient developed fever and rash from Tuesday and was admitted to Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital on Thursday and was isolated.
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Linkedin Frances Mangosing (Inquirer.net/ANN)  Mon, May 16, 2016

The Philippine Navy welcomed its first landing dock vessel on Monday at Pier 13 in Manila.

The strategic sealift vessel Tarlac (LD- 601) can transport more than a battalion size of troops, two rigid-hill inflatable boats, landing craft units and three helicopters.

With the evolving and increasing requirements for both maritime security and environmental challenges, what has been a mere plan and concept in paper has been pushed through to become a reality, said Rear Admiral Ronald Joseph Mercado, the commander of the Philippine Navy Fleet.

SSV Tarlac is one of the two vessels acquired by the Philippines from PT PAL in Indonesia at P3.8 billion (US$209.7 million). Once it is commissioned to service, it will be called BRP (Barkong Republika ng Pilipinas) Tarlac.

The sister ship of SSV Tarlac will be delivered in May 2017.

A crew of 121 Philippine Navy officers and enlisted personnel arrived with the vessels, as some of their families waited for them.

SSV Tarlac was named after one of the eight provinces that fought against the Spaniards to assert the independence of the Philippines.

The arrival of the SSV Tarlac gives the sailors and marines of our Navy the impetus to serve our countrymen more with the knowledge that we know have additional capability to serve our maritime nation, Mercado said.

SSV Tarlac has a tonnage of 7,300 tons, overall length of 120 meters, breadth of 21 meters, draft of five meters and carry a payload of 2,800 tons. It has a cruising speed of 13 knots and maximum speed of 16 knots, and a minimum operating range of 7,500 nautical miles.
City Council members tried in vain Friday, during budget hearings, to learn more about the Rivington House fiasco.

Lisette Camilo, commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) testified before the government operations committee. Her agency signed off on a deed change, allowing the owner of the former nursing home to sell the property to luxury condo developers for $116 million. The decision is now the subject of multiple investigations.

Because we want to protect the integrity of the investigation, were not going to be able to speak to specifics, Camilo told Council members. Camilo has only been in charge of DCAS since January. The deed change was approved by her predecessor, Stacey Cumberbatch, in November of last year. Camilo was formerly in charge of the citys office of contract services, which also signed off on the removal of the deed restrictions.

During her testimony, Camilo said DCAS has put all pending deed change applications on hold while the investigations are conducted. There are 13 or 14 active requests, according to the commissioner. In its story, the Wall Street Journal highlighted the concerns of Council members, including committee chairman Ben Kallos:

Mr. Kallos said the Rivington deal was disturbing, in part because it allowed a building once designated for a nonprofit to be turned into condos when the city could have used the space for other needs. We need schools like you wouldnt believe. We also need homeless shelters. And affordable housing, he said. Ms. Camilo said agency officials shared council members concerns about the Rivington deal. No one was happy with the outcome, she said.

Fridays hearing was held jointly with the finance committee. That panels chair, Julissa Ferreras-Copeland, asked the agency to provide information on all deed restrictions in the past five years. Camilo agreed.

On Friday, the New York Times reported on a deed change in Harlem that was also mishandled by DCAS.

The Council is anticipating a hearing next month specific to the Rivington House matter. Those detail have not yet been released.
Would you vote to join the European Union we see today? That is the question, knowing everything you know, that you ought to ask yourself on the way to the polling station on the 23rd June.

One thing is for sure, the EU we see today is a far cry from the free-trade, common market vision passionately sold to our parents and grandparents back in the 1970s.

Forty-one years ago, that was the concept on the ballot paper, and today, we stand on the precipice of the most significant vote the British people will have in a generation.

For people in their teens and their twenties, this is a choice about what kind of a United Kingdom we grow up in. And, as an internationalist, it is my firm belief that a future in an anti-democratic, diminishing, protectionist European Union is no future at all for our young people.

This choice is fundamental. Do we want to be an independent, self-governing nation, standing tall in the world and true to our internationalist history and traditions, or a middle-ranking province of a European Superstate.

On the 23rd June, we will go to the polls with the chance to take back control of our country  and stop being told what to do by unelected and unaccountable foreign bureaucrats.

This is a club that doesnt serve our interests or listen to our demands. On 72 occasions since 1996, we have opposed EU policy in the Council of Ministers, raising fundamental issues of national concern. On all 72 occasions, we have been outvoted. This statistic proves what pitiful influence we have as a member of the EU.

The message from the 'Leave' campaign is very simple: we will be safer, stronger, and more prosperous, outside of the EU, and able to determine our own destiny.

We want to bring back control of our borders and create a fairer immigration system that treats people equally, regardless of where they come from in the world. We dont want open borders with 500 million EU citizens, nor do we want to discriminate against Commonwealth citizens, or those from other parts of the world, who find it difficult to come here because of our discriminatory migration policy.

We are a nation that believes in a sense of 'fair play', right and wrong, and the importance of common sense. I see an impassioned sense of fairness in our young people. So, instead, we need an Australian style points based system so we can control who comes and who goes at our ports, whilst at the same time determining our own immigration requirements and having the same rules for everyone.

We also want to stop sending 350 million a week to Brussels  and instead put that money towards supporting our schools and colleges, as well as skills, technology and job creation, to name just a few. British taxpayers' cash should be spent, or saved, in a way that is decided by elected Britons  and on our own priorities.

You will hear much scaremongering between now and polling day about why young people will be putting their futures at risk if they vote to 'Leave'. We will be told that our universities will lose out on millions of pounds worth of funding from the EU. But, the 'Stay' campaign will not tell us that money is part of the 20 billion we give to Brussels, only for them to hand a small portion of it back.

We will be told that our freedom to study abroad under the Erasmus programme will end if there is a Brexit. But the 'Stay' campaign will not tell us that the involvement of UK universities in Erasmus does not depend on our EU membership. Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Turkey and Macedonia all take part without being EU member states.

And, we will be told that our planned interrailing trip will be scuppered if we leave the EU. But the 'Stay' campaign will not tell us that non-EU countries like Norway and Switzerland are still part of the interrailing network.

As someone who was elected to serve as a Member of Parliament for the first time last year, I am clear that I want us to be able to make our own laws in our own Parliament. The British people should be able to elect a government that has the power to make, amend, and scrap legislation. That same population should have the power to vote in a good Government, and vote out a bad one.

This is the definition of a parliamentary democracy - a concept we have proudly exported across the globe and which has traditionally been the envy of the world. But, without doubt, it is under threat: while we remain a member of this unreformed European Union, 75 percent of our laws will be made abroad, where unelected officials have the sole power to propose and scrap legislation.

In the same vein, we should also have the power to sign our own trade deals - trade deals that would boost jobs and investment in the United Kingdom, whilst establishing trade links and relationships the world over; good for young people looking for their first job, or who want to explore the world and all the opportunities it has to offer.

The customs union also makes it harder for developing nations to be able to develop strong and highly beneficial trading relationships with countries such as the UK - holding them back, and keeping often desperately poor people, poor. There is nothing progressive about that.

So, the time has come for us to rejoin the wider world and have a truly global outlook. We are the fifth largest global economy, the second most important defence player within NATO; a country with an incredible history and a fantastic future. A UK outside of the EU would still be a permanent member of the UN Security Council, be Americas strongest and closest ally, retain our seat in the G7 and the G20, and remain at the forefront of the Commonwealth of nations.

Far from being a leap into the dark, as the Stay' campaign would have us believe, the United Kingdom leaving the European Union would be a leap into the light  into a more prosperous, brighter, global future, much more in line with the free-trade vision sold to the British people forty-one years ago.

I believe we are good enough, strong enough, significant enough. And, I believe for people my age, a vote to 'Leave' will be a vote for fairness, opportunity, and a prosperous future.
In just under 6 weeks the nation will be deciding whether it wishes to leave or remain in the European Union. It seemed like an easy enough question to me initially, someone politically uninitiated. A simple choice between a pan European identity that includes perks like visa-free travel across 28 countries and affordable year abroad programs, or a road trip of retrograde nationalism in the backseat of Uncle Nigels car , where something as mild as M4 traffic could trigger a rant about immigration and our bloody borders.

I admit I was guilty of reducing the whole debate to these things; I was assessing the proponents of the argument instead of assessing the argument on its own merits. So what are its merits?

Brexit seems to be mainly drawn around the issues of sovereignty and democracy, immigration and identity. On sovereignty and democracy, those who would like to leave the union argue that it is undemocratic. Who are the demos of the EU? Have you as a member of this international organisation ever felt like your voice mattered, or that your views were represented? This to me is the key argument for Brexit; the EU has continuously become disdainful towards democratic rule and accountability, and it is led by a commission of bureaucrats who have a vision for Europe they have not consulted its population about.

This is where the European parliament comes in  or at least should come in. The European parliament consists of representatives for every member state. These representatives are directly elected by the people and are part of the decision making process in most areas of EU activity.

However the parliament, unfortunately, does not have much power and is increasingly becoming an avenue for protest candidates who are avowed Eurosceptics. Voter turnout in the UK for the 2014s European parliament election was around 36% and has been consistently lower than the EU average since 1979. In order to reap the benefits of democracy one must first participate in it. Then the case can be made for remaining in the EU as an engaged populace, one that seeks the passage of new EU laws through its Citizens Initiative and is concerned about its political direction.

An argument can be made for the lack of autonomy because of EU laws, but complete autonomy is not possible as a state in an increasingly globalised world. There are many international unions that restrict and control the behaviour of its members: NATO has its minimum defence spending requirements of 2% of GDP, the WTO has its rules of trade and restrictions on tariffs and subsidies. Of course NATO and the WTO are extremely beneficial, but so is the EU.

Already there have been predictions by both sides about the economic costs of leaving or staying on individual families, but these are ridiculous claims. It is widely accepted that the British economy would suffer to some extent in the short term, but there is no reason to think it wouldnt get better. But again this economic leap of faith is unnecessary with a reformed EU.

Valid criticism can be laid against the EU because of its tilt towards big business  its no surprise that David Cameron and the rest of the political establishment support remaining in the union, but I do not believe leaving will solve any of our problems. The same political engagement that laid rest to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)  which was fraught with criticism for its secrecy and its possible violations of civil liberties of internet users  is what is needed to reform the EU; the fact that MEPs overwhelmingly rejected ACTA was a testament to the will of the populace. Remaining in the EU and banding together across national lines is what is needed to combat trans-national threats to democracy.

The immigration debate is on the surface, the crucial buttress for the proponents of leaving. It is, unfortunately, one of the most divisive issues of our time and an easy political instrument, especially at a time when Europe is under constant threat from terrorism. The phrase we have lost control of our borders has been repeated so many times youd be forgiven if you forgot that Britain was an island.

It is true that being a member of the EU means the UK must allow for the free movement of peoples. It is one of the four freedoms fundamental to the single market that allows for free trade across European countries. The EU has made it clear that even non-member states that want to take part in this single market must also accept the free movement of peoples. Norway and Switzerland who arent part of the EU still have to accept EU migration as a caveat for access to the single market and migration from non EU countries is higher than that from within the EU.

Brexit, I fear, will not solve immigration woes. There is research consistently indicating that immigrants contribute more in taxes than they receive in benefits. According to a study analysing the period of 2001 to 2011; recent EU migrants contribute 1.34 for every 1 they take out. Regardless, immigration has and will always be an easy scapegoat for any complex national issue.

In the context of the ongoing refugee crisis, it is also said that the EUs management of the situation has been a complete disaster; the open borders approach has been routinely rejected by member states such as Hungary and Poland, but membership of the EU does not absolve Britains responsibility to assist in what is a genuine global calamity. This is when Euroscepticism can dissolve from being a valid criticism of an overly pro-corporatist organisation into a miasma of fear-induced anti-immigration sentiment and bandwagon rhetoric. There is also the valid fear that Brexit could lead to a cascading abandonment of the EU, which would bolster reactionary forces around Europe such as the National Front and AfD.

The idea behind the EU appeals to many people because it signals a forward march of progress for humanity; it loosens barriers and unites people across national identities. The same way in which nation states were formed to unite people from various backgrounds and localities, there is no reason to think the same cannot be done across nationalities to create an institution  United in Diversity  as the motto goes.

This view can be seen as naive by some because they view fundamental cultural differences as irreconcilable or even catastrophic; they feel it would involve the abandonment of their identities and history, but I do not see it that way.

This process to me is not one that is forced or put upon nation states, but one that is fostered carefully and slowly by promoting cultural exchange, by learning history and languages from one another, by allowing free trade and ease of mobility. The EU does need reform; it needs to become more representative of the peoples will and transparency needs to become second nature to it. These are reforms that we should take on from within rather than abandoning the whole project.

Ultimately it is up to each person to decide for themselves their vision for Britain in an increasingly globalised world. Despite all my EU cheerleading, I am still undecided with a tilt towards remaining, and this referendum will be a rare moment of direct democracy for the people.

We have the opportunity to fully participate in a crucial and momentous decision for the country. The task for each person is to try to separate facts from ideological propaganda and try to interrogate preconceived positions. A low voter turnout will most definitely signal Brexit  so whatever your allegiances get out and vote.
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Do you use Facebook adverts?

In this new column we will work towards connecting hospitality businesses with the right customers through social media channels. Its a brave new world for business and we will do our best to equip you for it!

Monday 16 May 2016, 11:32AM

Currently, there are more businesses using Facebook advertisements than ever before, which is great! Facebook ads are definitely a way to reach potential customers. Though it may sound a bit creepy, Facebook knows a lot about us as individuals  age, nationality, gender, email, interests, location, if you are a tourist, expat or a local, and even what type of device you use.

If you are connected with their apps on your phone, chances are that they probably even know your phone number. From a Facebook users point of view it may seem a little intrusive, but what does it mean for your business? It means more opportunities to reach potential clients and even opportunities to help develop your relationship with current clients.

However, there are different ways to target your audience with Facebook and each type of advert has a different objective, whether it be to drive traffic to your website, to promote your page, or to create more awareness for your posts and generate leads. To be effective with these types of ads you really must test different approaches with each.

The advantage of these ads is that you can change or even stop using them if theyre not giving you the results you desire. Set your budget, but be sure to keep an eye on different metrics such as engagement, cost per click or click through ratio to be sure your ads are performing well.

A helpful tip  dont use the boost a post option that Facebook offers you on every post you put out there. It may seem like the easiest way to promote your posts, but it doesnt mean the exposure will convey itself into customers, and youll end up wasting money.

The best way to create an advertisment is through the Power Editor. For instance, if youre a restaurant and your main clientele are tourists, you can select the option people who are traveling in this location and only people connected with WIFI. By selecting these options Facebook will narrow your advert audience to tourists only. There are many more options to select a specific audience available, you just need to play around with the settings and see what best suits your businesss needs.

Daniel Villota is the Managing Director of E-Media Asia, the number one social media consulting agency in Southern Thailand! He can be contacted at email daniel@e-media.asia or visit his website: www.e-media.asia
Indebted Khru Noi shuts child shelter in tears

BANGKOK: Well-known child welfare activist Nualnoi Kru Noi Timkul yesterday (May 15) tearfully announced she had shut down her financially troubled childrens charity home, ending 35 years of helping the poor.



By Bangkok Post

Monday 16 May 2016, 12:48PM

Nualnoi Timkul, affectionately known as Khru Noi, and some of her kids cant hold back the tears as they say a final farewell to her home for the poor. Photo: Thanarak Khunton

Ms Nualnoi decided to shut down the Baan Khru Noi home for poor children for good after she amassed a debt of about B800,000 with loan sharks to try to cover the shelters expenses of about B200,000 per month.

Besides financial problems, the 73-year-old cited her health and age as obstacles to running her charity home that looked after 64 children and teens, eight of whom are handicapped, although she was helped by seven staff.

In an emotional farewell ceremony, Ms Nualnoi addressed the children and their parents to officially close the shelter. The children then sang a farewell song and each took turns to give her a flower and bid an emotional farewell. The session brought Ms Nualnoi, most children and parents to tears.

Ms Nualnoi told the media she would sell the 117-square-wah charity home for nine million baht to settle the debt and buy a little house to live in with her husband.

All my children have graduated so I dont have to worry about them, she said.

She admitted her poor financial management skills were to blame for the accumulated debt which had forced her to declare a shutdown of the home twice in 2010 and last year. She denied an allegation that she used donations for her own personal purposes and challenged those accusing her to present proof and file a complaint with police.

The farewell ceremony was attended by Social Development and Human Security Minister Adul Sangsingkeo and deputy police chief Gen Pongsapat Pongcharoen.

Gen Adul said he and ministry officials came to give moral support to Ms Nualnoi and the children.

The officials would assess the impact of Baan Khru Nois closure and determine each childs needs to plan both short-term and long-term assistance, especially in respect of their education.

Gen Adul gave handouts worth between B1,000 and B3,000 to the families of the affected children as initial aid.

The minister has instructed Gen Pongsapat to help mediate talks between Ms Nualnoi and eight loan sharks.

Gen Pongsapat said he would find out how much principal and interest were due to the loan sharks by Ms Nualnoi and negotiate with them to compound the debts. He stressed that state funds would not be used to help settle Ms Nualnois debts.

Gen Pongsapat previously helped to negotiate a debt repayment for the activist last year and in 2010 and raised funds from public donations to alleviate her problem.

Ms Nualnoi turned her private house on Bangkoks Soi Rat Burana 26 into Baan Khru Noi home for under-privileged children and orphans in 1980. The facility ran on public donations but the funds could not cover monthly expenses in recent years due to high operating costs, according to Ms Nualnoi.

Read original story here.
Major Buddhist holiday brings alcohol ban to Phuket

PHUKET: Visakha Bucha Day is around the corner which means most of government offices will be closed on this auspicious day and because it is a holy day, shops, bars and restaurants are barred from selling alcohol for 24 hours from midnight on Thursday night.

tourismreligionculturealcohol

By The Phuket News

Monday 16 May 2016, 08:56AM

Click on image to see larger version.

Visakha Bucha Day falls on Friday, May 20 this year, when Buddhists all over the world commemorate three great events on this full moon of the sixth lunar month: The birth, enlightenment and the passing away of Gautama Buddha.

Devout Buddhists will rise early and go to temples to make merit and listen to sermons on the Buddhas teachings. After sunset, candle-lit processions will take place at major temples throughout the country. The devout Buddhists walk three times around the principle chapel clockwise, each clasping three incense sticks, a lighted candle and lotus buds. The air is filled with burning incense and smoke from the candles as the faithful complete this most sacred of Buddhist celebrations.

On this day, most government offices on the island will be closed, including Phuket Immigration Office, the Employment Office, the Land Transport Office and the islands three District Offices .

All main bank branches will be closed, but branches in shopping centres will remain open.

All Royal Thai Police and Tourist Police stations will remain open and some local consulates will be open to serve their respective citizens.

Visakha Bucha is a Buddhist holiday, so across the country, alcohol sales is prohibited except at duty-free shops at the airport.

According to an announcement by the Prime Ministers Office on January 22, 2015, the sale of alcohol is prohibited on five specific religious days: Makha Bucha, Visakha Bucha, Asanha Bucha Day, Khao Pansa and Wan Org Pansa days. (See story here.)
Phuket officials bust B10mn recycled boat engine scheme

PHUKET: Customs officers and Marine Police have seized 44 boat engines and generators with an estimated value of B10 million after busting a scheme to sell old engines from foreign-flagged boats in Phuket without paying import duty.

marinecrimepolice

By Darawan Naknakhon

Monday 16 May 2016, 06:18PM

Phuket Customs officials and Marine Police seized B10 million of boat engines and generators in the raid at Rassada Pier today (May 16). Photo: Darawan Naknakhon

Phuket Customs officials and Marine Police seized B10 million of boat engines and generators in the raid at Rassada Pier today (May 16). Photo: Darawan Naknakhon

Phuket Customs officials and Marine Police seized B10 million of boat engines and generators in the raid at Rassada Pier today (May 16). Photo: Darawan Naknakhon

Phuket Customs officials and Marine Police seized B10 million of boat engines and generators in the raid at Rassada Pier today (May 16). Photo: Darawan Naknakhon

The engines and generators were seized at Rassada Pier today (May 16), where officers also took into custody Chanwit Piyapanon, 43.

The operation was a joint-investigation by the Phuket Customs Office and Marine Police, explained Phuket Marine Police Chief Lt Col Panya Chaichana.

Mr Chanwit has admitted that the items seized were in his possession, Col Panya said.

He now faces charges of illegally importing items without obtaining Customs clearance and avoiding paying import duties.

The arrest and raid today followed two months of investigation, said Lt Col Prasert Srikhunrat, Chief of Region 8 Marine Police.

Foreign-registered boats were brought to Phuket to work in the fishing fleet, but after years of service, many old boats were left abandon at and near local fishing ports, he explained.

But they took the engines out, reconditioned them, removed the serial numbers and sold them, he said.

As the engines sold were from foreign-registered boats, at the point of sale, the engines became illegally imported, Col Prasert added.

Nearly all engines seized were from tuna fishing boats,  Col Prasert said.

Mr Chanwit taken to Phuket Customs House for further questioning.

If found guilty, he faces a fine of up to four times the deemed value of the goods seized or up to 10 years in jail, or both.
Senior Finance and Administrat

THB 50K

Monday 16 May 2016, 05:06PM

Captain Hook Smoke House is a new company focused on producing the worlds finest Cold-Smoked Products in Phuket Thailand. We are establishing a new company and factory. Seeking executive level person for the position of Senior Finance and Administration.

Responsibilities reporting to the CEO:

The position will be head of this department and as of now is a single spot on the organization chart.

The person who takes this position must be able to recruit talent required to grow these departments in the company and those individuals will report directly to you.

Weekly Miscellaneous cash and bank ledger reporting

Projected spending for next 3 months updated weekly

Balance Sheet update monthly

P & L Updated Monthly

Cash Flow Updated Monthly

Social Security filings for employees monthly

AR

AP

Yearly AGM report attendance and sign off

Must have BA degree in accounting.

Must have at least 3 years in Finance and applicants will be required to take a test to gauge knowledge for the position.

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Noem campaign accuses Smith campaign of campaign finance violation

Gov. Kristi Noem's campaign has accused Rep. Jamie Smith's campaign of violating campaign finance laws after the recent report released Monday.
Sam Curry, currysam@grinnell.edu

The Democratic candidates that rolled through Iowa this February probably generated enough wind talking about climate change to power most of the windmills in the state, but long after those politicians are gone the need for more environmentally-conscious energy sources remains. A few individuals and companies in the town of Grinnell have answered the call and installed solar panels on their homes and businesses, including Professor Liz Queathem, Biology, and the Grinnell Veterinary Clinic.

In both cases, outside support was integral to their decision to install solar panels. Queathem is currently the president of Imagine Grinnell, a local non-profit organization focused on sustainable development of the town, and representatives from Ideal Energy Solar of Fairfield, Iowa, reached out to the organization to see if they were aware of anyone who would be interested in installing solar panels. Queathem, in an act of happy circumstance, volunteered herself without really knowing what the installation process would be like.

They [said] they would donate a certain amount of money to our foundation [if we found people], and I was really excited because I wanted solar panels but I didnt really know how to go about installing them, Queathem said.

The Grinnell Veterinary Clinic was similarly aided by an outside organization, Alliant Energy, the practices energy service. Alliant was offering a rebate to any company that was interested in installing solar panels at their facilities, and Al Frischmeyer, a veterinarian who works at the clinic, thought these panels would be a perfect fit from an economic standpoint.

[When] you add up the state taxes, federal taxes and the rebate  the return on investment was good, Frischmeyer said.

Although Alliant Energy wanted their customers to take their offer to install and use solar panels, they did not intend for the panels to cover all of the veterinary clinics energy needs. Instead, they aimed for the panels to provide for up to 75 percent of the clinics energy costs because Alliant did not want the clinic to produce an overabundance of energy which the company would then have to buy back. But ultimately, the vet clinic produces an overabundance of solar energy in the summer and uses this accumulated credit to receive energy in the winter.

We take back our credit in the winter months when were not making as much  We make excess during the peak months of the year and we take it back during the low points of the year, Frischmeyer said.

Similarly, solar panels cover 85 percent of Queathems energy needs, but she has no problems getting an adequate supply of energy from the panels at any point of the year because of the serendipity of Iowa weather.

In Iowa, because air conditioning uses so much electricity, our biggest electrical needs are actually in the summer, and fortunately thats also when we have the most hours of sunlight, Queathem said.

Although the financial benefits of solar panels are sizable for those who can afford them or have sufficient assistance, their main draw is still the ethic of sustainability that they promote. Installing solar panels is only one part of Queathems plan to make her life more sustainable, she explained.

Depending on how we decide to retire, I would consider installing more  If our furnace heating needs to be replaced, [we would] put in electrical heat because natural gas burns really cleanly but fracking is releasing a lot of methane into the air  Weve also talked about getting an electrical car that would run off of our own solar panels, Queathem said.

Frischmeyer also encourages businesses to try solar panels not only for financial but also for environmental reasons.

If it makes financial sense, if youre able to get a satisfactory return on investment, I would encourage it  [but] theres [also] a feeling of pride knowing that youre producing a renewable resource, Frischmeyer said.
President Tran Dai Quang receives visiting Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith. (Source: VNA)



President Quang warmly welcomed the Lao PM and his entourage, saying that the PMs selecting Vietnam for the first official visit after taking the position demonstrates the deep and faithful bond of Laos and Vietnam.

The President affirmed Vietnam gives whole-hearted support for the reform and national construction and defence of Laos.

On his part, Thongloun Sisoulith expressed his pleasure at visiting Vietnam and conveyed to President Quang an invitation to visit Laos from Lao Party General Secretary and President Bounnhang Volachith. President Quang accepted the invitation.

The Lao PM briefed President Quang on the result of his meeting with PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc, saying that the two sides exchanged measures to realise high-ranking agreements between Vietnam and Laos. The two PMs also agreed to do their best to implement the content of the Vietnam-Laos Joint Statement issued during the Vietnam visit of Lao Party General Secretary and President Bounnhang Volachith.

The two sides voiced their joy at the strong and effective development of the Vietnam-Laos special relationship across political, economic, trade, security, defence, cultural and social fields.

President Tran Dai Quang recommended the two governments continue enhancing the quality of comprehensive cooperation in all fields and strive for a 20-percent increase of two-way trade value; effectively implementing agreements from annual summits and creating conditions for Lao and Vietnamese enterprises to expand their operations and investments.

The two sides shared the view that the traditional friendship and fraternity of the two countries is an invaluable asset, associating with both countries survival, so the Parties, States and people of the two countries must always treasure the relationship.

As Vietnam and Laos will celebrate the 55th year of diplomatic ties and the 40th anniversary of signing the Friendship and Cooperation Treaty in 2017, the two sides agreed that the two countries need to intensify public communications campaigns on the tradition of the Vietnam-Lao relationship as well as coordinate to organise celebrations of the anniversaries.

President Quang also took the occasion to thank the Lao Party, State and people for helping Vietnam overcome adverse impacts of drought and saline intrusion in the Mekong Delta./.
Photo: VNA

Covering 400 square meters, the 1.76m in height-sandstone statue of General Vo Nguyen Giap is located in the central of the park, demonstrating the Generals majestic and decisive appearance.

A bow-shaped ceramic wall introduces 300 documentary photos relating to General Giaps life and career, battle fields and victories in the last two resistance wars of the nation.

Speaking at the event, Rear Admiral Ngo Si Quyet, Vice Commander of Vietnam People's Navy, stressed that this cultural, historical and social General Vo Nguyen Giap Park project manifests the deep whole-hearted sentiment of soldiers in Spratly islands in particular and the Vietnam Peoples Army in general to General Vo Nguyen Giap - the elder brother of the Vietnamese People's Army.

The park was built to educate the resilient fighting spirit of the Vietnamese people and soldiers in the national liberation and protection of homeland sovereignty.

It also reaffirmed that the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos are inseparable parts of Vietnam's territory./.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Lao counterpart Thongloun Sisoulith (Source: VNA)



PM Phuc said the Lao government heads choosing Vietnam as the first country to visit after taking the position reflects the importance that Laos attaches to the friendship and cooperation with Vietnam.

He said the visit creates a new driving force for bilateral ties, while expressing his belief that the fraternal Lao people will successfully realise the resolution adopted by the 10th National Party Congress and the 2016-2020 socio-economic development plan.

Both sides expressed satisfaction at the development of the special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries, including the realization of many goals set by the Vietnam-Laos strategy on economic, cultural, scientific and technological cooperation for 2011-2020. Their governmental cooperation treaty for 2011-2015 was also a success, helping deepen and expand bilateral ties.

The two sides affirmed the resolve of the two Parties, States and peoples to continue fostering the loyal and special solidarity between Vietnam and Laos, considering it as an invaluable asset of the two nations which needs to be passed on to later generations.

Both sides stated they will work together to implement agreements sealed by high-ranking leaders of the two countries in terms of politics, diplomacy, defence-security, trade and investment.

The two PMs pledged to direct ministries, agencies and local authorities to carry out the cooperation plan between the two governments for 2016 and the Vietnam-Laos cooperation pact for 2016-2020.

The intergovernmental committee on bilateral collaboration should be further strengthened to operate more effectively, they said.

The two PMs agreed to coordinate for the effective implementation of agreements signed between the two countries last year, including a trade agreement, a border trade pact, and a memorandum of understanding on transport cooperation for 2016-2025.

They agreed to facilitate operations of Vietnamese firms investing in Laos and expand the model of one stop-one check at border gates, while striving for the goal of raising bilateral trade revenue by 20 percent in 2016 compared to 2015.

The two sides affirmed to effectively implement the protocol on defence-security cooperation for 2016-2020, focusing on developing a peaceful borderline that can serve as an example in the region.

They also agreed to boost engagement in human resources training and cultural exchange as well as jointly organize activities to mark the 55 th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations in 2017.

Both sides were pleased with their mutual support at regional and international forums, such as the cooperation mechanisms of Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam (CLV) and Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam-Myanmar (CLMV), the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS), the Asia-Europe Meeting and the United Nations.

Laos supports Vietnam in hosting the ACMECS 7th and CLMV 8th Summits in October, PM Thongloun Sisoulith said.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc appreciated the effective collaboration of Laos as Chair of the ASEAN, affirming Vietnam will continue to support the neighboring country in successfully undertaking the role of the ASEAN Chair in 2016.

He asked Laos to continue its coordination in order to ensure the ASEANs solidarity and common stance in the East Sea issue, contributing to maintaining peace, stability, security and safety of navigation and aviation, fully and effectively observing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and early reaching a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

The Vietnamese government leader thanked Laos for increasing water discharge from hydropower dams on the Mekong River as well as for its support for Vietnam in overcoming consequences of the prolonged drought and saline intrusion in the countrys southern areas.

The two sides agreed to continue coordinating with related countries and international organisations in managing and using the Mekong Rivers water in a sustainable and effective manner.

PM Thongloun Sisoulith invited his Vietnamese counterpart to pay an official visit to Laos. PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc accepted the invitation, and the visit will be arranged through the diplomatic channel.

Following their talks, the two leaders witnessed the signing of some cooperation agreements for 2016 between the two countries ministries and localities in areas of investment, agriculture and education.

On the occasion, the Vietinbank presented an aid worth USD200,000 for the Lao Government to promote welfare activity./.
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Members of Bangladesh Police Detective Branch escort a man, center, whom they have identified as Shariful Islam Shihab, a former member of the banned Islamic group Harkatul Jihad, in front of the media in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday. Police said Sunday that they have arrested Shihab, a suspected Muslim militant for his alleged involvement in the killing last month of a gay rights activist and his friend in the capital. (AP Photo)
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[COMMUNICATED CONTENT]

This summer, Breslev Israel will be launching The Ultimate You summer tour, featuring Rav Lazer Brody shlita. This emuna tour will be an exciting launch in a new direction for those who have seen Rav Brody previously.

The tour will launch in Monsey on May 29. It will continue to Brooklyn, Cleveland, Columbus, Miami, Chicago, Deal, Teaneck, and Lakewood.

Joining forces with world-renowned psychotherapist Dr. Zev Ballen, Rav Brody will be hosting interactive style lectures that will focus on revealing the hidden elements that are preventing us from reaching our potentials, from career to marriage and beyond.

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Rebitzen Berland on Erev Shabbos was permitted by authorities in Johannesburg to bring Shabbos food to Rabbi Eliezer Berland. Chassidim tried to bring Rabbi Berland food during the week, albeit without success as authorities would not give the green light. However, when his wife arrived with homemade food the green was given, permitting the rav to enjoy his rebitzens food on Shabbos, albeit in jail.

Back in Israel, police representatives have met with members of the Shuvu Banim kehilla in the hope of getting a handle on what to expect when the rav is extradited and arrives back in Israel to face charges of assaulting women. Police are trying to prevent rioting or illegal activities by followers of the rav.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A bill initiated by MKs Eli Cohen (Kulanu) and David Amsellem (Likud) calls for one long weekend monthly, a weekend that includes both Shabbos and Sunday. MK (Yesh Atid) Dr. Aliza Lavie praises the initiative which she feels brings a measure of equality to the shomer Shabbos tzibur but explains before moving ahead with the bill, Shabbos must first be defined under the law.

Lavie explains the current status demands clarification as to who is permitted not to work on Shabbos. Dr. Lavie explains that currently, if an employer wants an employee to work he has to declare he is shomer Shabbos to get off. She insists this is a golden and necessary opportunity to clarify the status of Shabbos under the law and to clearly define the rights and responsibilities of employees.

MK )Bayit Yehudi) Nissim Slomiansky, Chairman of the Knesset Law Committee, stated in the merit of this initiative the religious tzibur would have additional leisure time and enjoy our land by traveling around and spending quality time with the children other than on Shabbos. One who has not had sufficient time to study Torah on Shabbos may also do so then.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Machane Tzioni party leader Yitzchak Herzog is under mounting pressure from party members who are calling on him to abandon talks aimed at reaching agreement to enter the coalition government.

The daily Maariv reports that Herzog and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have reached agreement on all but one issue, with the latter pertaining to a total freeze of all construction throughout Yehuda and Shomron. Herzog is also demanding an immediate renewal of talks between Israel and the PA (Palestinian Authority) towards reaching a final status agreement, which most believe will include the establishment of the State of Palestine.

On motzei Shabbos, members of Machane Tzionis young division gathered outside Herzogs home to protest, sending him a clear message not to enter the coalition government.

Some fear Herzog may break from the party with some colleagues and enter the coalition launching a new party.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
One person was lightly wounded in a stabbing attack on HaNeviim Street in Yerushalayim a short time ago. The terrorist was neutralized.

According to an Ichud Hatzalah report, the attack occurred near Mandelbaum, opposite the Choma Shlishis neighborhood. One person was lightly wounded in the upper torso. He is conscious and alert.

MDA reports a male victim in his 30s is being transported to Shaare Zedek Hospital in light condition.

Police report the terrorist, a 20-year-old PA (Palestinian Authority) resident is in custody.



(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photos:   via Media Resource Group)
It will be an evening to remember at the 94th Anniversary Dinner of Agudath Israel of America which will pay tribute to Camp Agudah, now celebrating its 75th year.

The dinner, taking place on Sunday, June 5th at the Hilton NY, will pay tribute to a distinguished group of individuals who helped shape Camp Agudah into the premier Orthodox Jewish camping experience, setting the standard for the many other camps who have followed in its illustrious footsteps.

The Rabbi Moshe Sherer Memorial Award will be presented to Camp Agudah and will be accepted by Meir Frischman marking his 40 years as camp director. Memorial awards will be bestowed, posthumously, to Reb Elimelech Gavriel Tress zl, Rabbi Boruch B. Borchardt zl and Rabbi Syshe Heschel zl, to be accepted by family members.

Another highlight of the evening will be representation of every decade of Camp Agudah, from the 1940s through today, by well known camp personalities including the Young family on behalf of Charlie Young zl, Charlie Grandovsky, Joseph Helmreich, Yanky Adler on behalf of the camps first director Emil Adler zl, Chaim and Benny Wielgus, Yaakov Bojman, Eli Neiman, Yitzy Bald, Yoily Edelstein, Shimie Lax, Shloime Leshkowitz, Alty Pearl and Zevi Seidenfeld.

A special, premiere, audio-visual presentation entitled Camp Agudah Thru the Decades will show remarkable footage of the camp and the many young men whose summers at Camp Agudah helped them become the shining lights of the Torah world that they are today. Others who contributed to the success of Agudah camping over the past three-quarters-of-a-century will also be highlighted, including Rabbi Yaakov Teitelbaum, ztl, and Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, ztl.

Shrage Goldschmidt, a member of Agudath Israels board of trustees and a leading member of Camp Agudahs steering committee, will be serving as the dinner chairman.

This years dinner, marking the diamond anniversary of Agudah camping in America, promises to be an extraordinary demonstration of Agudath Israels mission in molding our youth to become future Torah leaders said Rabbi Yosef C. Golding, Chief Operating Officer of Agudath Israel of America. No one who ever benefited from Camp Agudah or its offshoots should miss this historical and exciting event.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
[PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

Israels Fire Service had a second difficult day as the heat-wave which sent temperatures soaring resulted in hundreds of fires around the nation. One fire in the area of Route 44 led to the closure of the roadway between Nachshon Junction and Tauz Junction. There were no injuries reported.

The extremely dry conditions led the fire service to ban lighting any fires outdoors between the hours of 9:00AM  7:00PM.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Jerusalem Fire Service Spokesman)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday 8 Iyar summoned Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon for a clarification meeting after the two went head-to-head in a public forum on Sunday.

Speaking to the IDFs most senior command, Yaalon urged his officers to Continue acting in line with human conscience and compass and not follow the direction the wind is blowing.

As Yaalon was addressing the officers in the Defense Ministry on Sunday, the Prime Ministers Office released a statement that PM Netanyahu gives his full backing to the IDF, its commanders and its soldiers. The statement then continued to once again condemn remarks made on the eve of Independence Day by Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan, remarks connected to the Holocaust they drew fire from many. Golan stated that some of the processes that occurred in Germany in the 1920s and 190s he sees taking place in Israel today. Despite the PMs condemnation, DM Yaalon defended his senior commander.

The PM and DM also were at odds pertaining to the manslaughter case involving the IDF soldier who shot a wounded terrorist to death in Hebron on Purim. Yaalon called for placing him on trial by the PMs Office was more sympathetic.

On Sunday night Yaalon added A good army permits its commanders, senior and junior alike, to speak their minds at all times, aware they will not suffer for doing so. He added during recent months we have been fighting an extremist minority that acts both on the ground as well as on social media. Part of this fringe group has made its way to mainstream undercover, as it tries to influence the values of the IDF. The Defense Minister called for keeping the IDF out of the political arena.

PM Netanyahu on Monday called Yaalon for a clarification meeting which lasted about an hour. Analysts feel that the move was nothing more than Mr. Netanyahu seeking a measure of political gain following the recent events involving DM Yaalon.

A few hours after the meeting they issued a statement that they have worked out their differences.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Donald Trump says he plans to win the White House largely on the strength of his personality, brushing off the need for a heavy investment in what he calls the overrated use of data to shape campaign strategy and get out the vote.

Should he hold to that approach, which he outlined last week in an interview with The Associated Press, Trump will flout all conventions of what it takes to win a modern presidential campaign.

By doing so, critics in both parties argue, hed give up what could be a strategic advantage over Hillary Clinton, his expected Democratic opponent.

Its a big risk, said Chris Wilson, who ran an expansive data operation for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trumps stiffest competition in the Republican primaries. Jeremy Bird, who worked for President Barack Obamas data-rich campaign, said: Flying blind is nuts.

A few days after the AP interview, Trump aide Rick Wiley said the campaign would indeed give priority to data and digital operations, looking first to tap the resources of the Republican National Committee and the heavy investment it has made in data over several years.

The use of data has evolved over the past several presidential campaigns into a shorthand for using information  starting with simple lists of potential voters, then mated with extensive details about their habits and beliefs  to guide a campaign toward its ultimate goal: the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

Campaigns use the information in all sorts of ways, from deciding where to send a candidate to making sure supporters cast a ballot.

In his AP interview, Trump discounted the value of data: The candidate is by far the most important thing, he said. He said he plans a limited use of data in his general election campaign and suggested Obamas victories  universally viewed by political professionals as groundbreaking in the way data steered the campaign to voters  are misunderstood.

Obama got the votes much more so than his data processing machine, and I think the same is true with me, Trump said, explaining that he will continue to focus on his signature rallies, free television exposure and his personal social media accounts to win voters over.

Buzz Jacobs, who was on the losing end of Obamas success in 2008 as an aide to GOP nominee John McCain, said Trump oversimplifies the presidents victories.

We lost in large part because Obamas ability to use data was so much better than ours, Jacobs said.

According to South Carolinas Republican chairman, Matt Moore: Elections to a great degree are won on  that last 1 or 2 percent that shows up or stays home. That group on either edge turns out because of data and digital. Thats a known fact.

Republicans and Democrats with experience running campaigns question why Trump would give up a chance to reinforce with data his ubiquitous presence on television and inarguable success with large-scale rallies  a platform of personality that Clinton has yet to match.

Bird, whose consulting firm now works for the Clinton campaign, said Trump is giving himself a false choice.

At a big picture level, sure, Barack Obama got the votes  his bio, his policies, his ability to communicate, Bird said. But we wanted to do everything we could to get him and get his message to the right people.

Jacobs, who worked this year for a former Trump rival, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, said Trump is an outlier in being uninterested in data. The RNC and private groups, such as the billionaire conservative activist brothers Charles and David Koch, have spent hundreds of millions on their data programs since Obamas election.

It would be silly to leave those on the sidelines, Jacobs said.

To be sure, Trump has not wholly abandoned data. His campaign spending disclosures show payments to multiple data firms, and the campaign maintains contact information collected when voters register for tickets to his rallies.

Wiley, a recent addition to the Trump team who previously worked for the national party, said he is working with the RNC, putting together a state-of-the-art program. He predicted it would be able to match what Obama was able to do in 2008.

But Trumps in-house data shop is thin, and the candidate has said that he does not give priority to the ground game. Trumps most significant loss of the primary season came in the leadoff Iowa caucuses, a victory for Cruz that was largely credited to the Texas senators sophisticated campaign effort to turn out voters.

Wilson said he used the Cruz campaigns data to run nightly models leading up to the caucuses, which predicted turnout and outcomes and allowed the campaign to adjust its approach every day.

That means if Wiley and Trumps other campaign staffers are able to persuade him to pay attention to the data, theyll also need to persuade him to raise and spend the money to use it effectively in competitive states.

He has to be convinced, South Carolina chairman Moore said. Then again, he said, Weve all been wrong about Trump for pretty much this entire campaign.

(AP)
BURBERRY BLUES Burberry could face a 7 per cent fall in profits this week due to a slowdown in Chinese spending.

Its earnings are expected to tumbled to 415million for the year to the end of March.

Chinese consumers account for 40 per cent of its turnover and it has suffered a 20 per cent-plus fall in sales in Hong Kong.

CRUNCH BID British crisp brand Tyrrells has bought German organic crisp maker Aroma Snack Foods.

The purchase makes Germany Tyrrells biggest European market. It will also boost the companys annual sales by 10 per cent. Tyrrells exports to over 37 countries.

PHONE NUMBERS Fierce competition in Europe is likely to cause mobile phone giant Vodafone to post full-year earnings down 1.7 per cent to 11.7billion tomorrow, as strong growth in emerging markets offsets disappointing European sales.

Vodafone is also expected to give an update on Februarys deal to merge its Dutch business with Liberty Global.

INTERNET BREACH Google faces a 2.4bililon fine next month for breaching EU competition rules. The internet giant is being investigated by the European Commission over monopoly abuse.

The maximum possible fine is around 5billion, or a tenth of Googles total annual sales.

CHEAPER OVERDRAFTS Banks are to be forced to help customers find cheaper overdrafts and loans as part of a crackdown on the big four.

The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) is expected to demand this week that banks fund a price-comparison service. The big four lenders control about 77 per cent of personal current accounts.
A 3.5billion gas development to the west of the Shetland Islands by French giant Total is a welcome boost to the struggling North Sea industry.

The Shetland Gas Plant will officially open today, with peak production expected to be 500million cubic feet of gas each day  the equivalent of 90,000 barrels of oil.

During the peak of its construction, the project employed more than 2,500 workers. There will be 80 permanent jobs on the plant, helping the beleaguered Shetland economy.

Jobs boost: An aerial view of the Shetland Gas Plant which is due to officially open today

The new project comes amid turmoil in the North Sea oil sector as the weak oil price has led to thousands of jobs being culled.

The biggest oil giants are delaying investments, cutting spending, selling off assets and reducing jobs.

It is estimated that more than 5,500 jobs have been cut already since the oil price fell 60 per cent from a high of $115 a barrel in the summer of 2014 to $48 today.

It is also estimated that more than 65,000 indirect service jobs that were reliant on the oil industry have also been lost.

The Shetland plant processes gas from Laggan-Tormore  two gas fields deep under the sea which are more than 77 miles from the UK mainland. These are two of the biggest deepwater fields in the North Sea.

Now production has begun at the site it will produce about 8 per cent of the UKs gas, supplying energy to around two million British households.

Total estimates that around one fifth of the UKs remaining gas reserves lie in the area to the west of Shetland.

The area where the development lies  under 600 metres of water  was once deemed too difficult to operate from due to weather conditions.

The project itself was delayed by more than a year due to the weather which added millions on to its costs. Construction involved removing a peat bog where the plant was built.

The Laggan field was discovered in 1986 and the Tormore field was found in 2007. Total got the licence to Laggan in 1995 and drilling in the area began in 2004.

The gas from these fields will be piped to the plant on Shetland for processing before being piped to the UK mainland into the national gas grid.
BANK LOSSES

HSBC is scrapping 840 UK jobs and moving the roles abroad.

It means British IT workers will be replaced by staff in lower-wage countries including India, China and Poland.

Most staff are expected to leave by the end of the year, trade union Unite said, and all jobs are due to have been transferred by March.

Moving roles abroad: It means British IT workers will be replaced by staff in lower-wage countries including India, China and Poland

SWEDISH CHILL

H&M disappointed stock markets with a slower than expected growth in sales in April. Sales rose 5 per cent, below the 8-9 per cent expected by analysts. The Swedish fashion retailer had already suffered a slowdown in March due to the colder than normal weather and said the cold spring which continued into April had an unfavourable impact on sales.

OIL STAKE

BP has increased its stake in a 2bn gas project in the North Sea from 16 per cent to nearly a third. The Culzean field development is expected to produce enough gas to meet 5 per cent of total UK demand at peak production by 2021.

During the construction, operator Maersk will employ up to 6,000 and it should create more than 400 UK jobs. BP bought its stake from Japanese energy giant JX Nippon, which retains an 18 per cent stake.

DEVELOPERS GROW

Fears of a dip in property prices has not dented the performance of office and retail developer British Land and housebuilder Crest Nicholson.

British Land said office occupancy rose to 99 per cent during the year to April. Net asset value  the measure of performance in the property sector  rose 11 per cent to 919p a share.

Crest Nicholson said it is on track to reach its target of 1bn of sales in the year to the end of October. Total forward sales were up 22 per cent year-on-year to 409m in the six months to the end of April.

EMISSIONS ROW

The South Korean Government has accused Nissan of cheating emissions targets with cars made in Britain.

South Korea will fine the car maker and recall its Qashqai diesel sport utility vehicles made in Sunderland. Nissan denied any wrongdoing.

BEAN COUNTER
The chairman of AIM-listed Caledonia Mining was left red-faced and around 17,000 out of pocket yesterday after his broker sold his entire shareholding in the firm without his knowledge.

American Leigh Wilson, 70, who first joined the Toronto and London-listed firm in 2008, was forced to announce that his broker had sold 75,200 shares  his entire stake  for around 33,000 between February 26 and March 2.

The average sale price of the shares was around 63 cents a share. But to add further to his embarrassment shares in the firm that operates a gold mine in Zimbabwe have risen more than 45 per cent since then, meaning Wilson has missed the chance of making an extra 17,000.

In the driving seat: Leigh Wilson was forced to announce that his broker had sold his entire shareholding

And to add to his woe Wilson will have to buy back shares in the open market to build up his stake.

It is seen as bad form for a member of the board to have sold shares in a business as it sparks concerns from shareholders that they are no longer committed to the company but Caledonia said Wilson was not aware of the sale of all his shares until last Friday.

Wilson has held a series of jobs in the financial sector including at Union Bank of Switzerland, running Paribas Groups North America division in the 1980s, and is chief executive of New Century Home Health Care.

He received the Mutual Fund Trustee of the Year Award from Institutional Investor Magazine ten years ago.

He rejoined Caledonia as a non-executive in 2012 and became chairman in 2013.

Caledonia reported a 5.4 per cent first quarter rise in gross profits last week and production rose more than 8 per cent to 10,822 ounces. It plans to produce 50,000 ounces this year, a 16 per cent rise on the previous year.
Up to 15million life insurance holders could have their payouts halved because insurers did their sums wrong.

Major insurance firms are telling faithful customers who have paid their annual or monthly premiums for up to 20 years to either double their premiums - or face eye-watering reductions to their cover.

'Death payments' are being slashed by an average of 50 per cent and cut back by 70 per cent in the worst cases, with experts claiming companies miscalculated customers' policies.

Up to 15million life insurance holders could have their payouts halved because insurers did their sums wrong

Customers that were struck by the cutbacks were 'whole of life' insurance policyholders - which is typically bought by people wanting to cover their families and mortgage in case they die.

With 'whole of life' insurance, premiums are reviewed usually after 10, 15 and 20 years, when the level of cover can be altered.

Reports have emerged that thousands of affected customers have had their complaints rejected by the Financial Ombudsman on grounds that their policies are 'too old'.

One rejected customer had paid their premiums to insurance firm Sun Life of Canada since the 80s to safeguard his mortgage.

He was told his cover would be cut by a shocking 70 per cent - taking him from 113,500 to 36,950, an investigation by the Sunday Telegraph reported.

A spokesman for Sun Life of Canada said other policyholders were in a similar situation, being told their cover would be reduced by a similar amount.

'Death payments' are being slashed by an average of 50 per cent and being cut back by 70 per cent in the worst cases

Critics branded the cutbacks 'outrageous' and blamed insurers for being 'over-optimistic' with their calculations.

Alan Steel, chairman of Steel Asset Management, a financial adviser, said: 'The whole business is absolutely outrageous.

'The truth is many of these contracts paid a high commission and that is why they were sold.'

Danny Cox, head of financial planning at the financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown, said: 'The main reason this has gone so wrong is that underwriters assumed the investments underlying these policies would make double-digit returns, but in fact they have performed far worse.'

The Financial Ombudsman has had over 10,000 complaints about whole-of-life cover plans in the last six years and upheld only around 20 per cent of cases.

Some customers even claimed they have never been informed about the reviews, while others claimed the reviewing system was not explained clearly enough so that they understood how severely the terms could change.

A spokesman for the Ombudsman said: 'Complaints about these contracts are consistently high and usually linked to the review dates.

'Most complaints we see about whole-of-life policies are from people who don't understand how the policies work.
Credit: Claude GassianIt's not every day that a fan gets to meet his idols, but diehard Rolling Stones superfan Alex Emmanuel got the surprise of his life meeting the band at their career-spanning exhibit, Exhibitionism, in London.

"I suppose I can die now," said a shocked Emmanuel after pressing hands with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood. "For a moment I felt like I was a member of The Rolling Stones." A video the meet-and-greet, which Rolling Stone reports was posted to YouTube.

Although the meet-up was a surprise to Alex, he was flown to London from New York as part of the city's tourism promotion campaign.

Exhibitionism, a retrospective of 54 years of the Rolling Stones,is on display in London's Saatchi Gallery until September 4. As previously reported, the exhibit, which stretches over two floors, features stage clothing, instruments, classic album artwork, posters, vintage gear, photography, stage designs, personal diaries, behind-the-scenes footage and a recreation of the band's first apartment.

The exhibit will hit other cities after it closes in London.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Reporter: Qiu Xueying

Camera man: Zhang Zhou

Video Editor: Fan Zichuan

GMW.CN: China has become Canadas largest trading partner in Asia, and with trade relations maturing, both governments have recently expressed the hope working towards a free trade agreement. What is your take on this issue? What might we expect in terms of future collaboration in fields of clean energy, infrastructure, finance and agriculture, for instance?

Guy Saint-Jacques:Well, this is a very good question, and I think we have a very good basis where we start from. I know that in 2015, trade was pretty good, because China increased its exports to Canada by 11%, for total about 65 billion dollars. This happened at a time where the overall exports of China went down by 2 or 3%, so it was a contrary to the trend elsewhere. In Canada, China increased its exports and similarly we increased our exports to China by 4.5% at a time where Chinas imports reduced by 11%. And this happened despite the fact that the price of commodities such as iron or copper went down affecting Canadas commodities exports to China. So despite the fact that the prices went down, still the value of our exports went up. In terms of investment, Canada is the third destination for Chinese investment. We calculate that there is now some 70 billion dollars worth of Chinese investment in Canada. We welcome this kind of investment. In my view Canada is a great destination, with the best investment environment among G7 countries, because of the fact that Canada has the best banking system in the world, we have a well-educated workforce, we have also the lowest corporate taxes among G7 countries. In Canada, its 17.5%; in the US, its 35%; in Germany its 30%, so much cheaper in terms of taxes for Chinese companies.

Canada is a country with a stable government, rule of law, but also with a welcoming multicultural society, so I think foreigners feel welcome. For all those reasons, I think that we hope that well continue to see more Chinese investment. I would add to this that last year we established the first Renminbi training hub in North America which is a good development because it allow companies to use Renminbi to settle trade, and can help to lower the costs of doing business. Also last year, the Foreign Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement (FIPA) came into force, offering more reassurance to companies that want to invest in each others country. So if I look ahead in the field you mentioned, I think Canada can help to make a contribution, we all know the emphasis put by the Chinese government to fight pollution. While we have a number of Canadian companies involved in clean technology  whether to remove pollutants from emissions, or to treat waste water or to handle contaminated soils  we also have developed renewable energy: we are a leader in solar energy, hydropower, and nuclear energy. And in all areas we can help China to meet its energy needs and to lessen its dependence on coal and more on renewable energy so I think if we work hard, we can develop our links. Furthermore, I am encouraging Canadian companies to look at the One Belt, One Road project, because we have expertise in large infrastructure projects which hopefully Canadian companies could come in a complimentary fashion. We understand of course that China already has a lot of very good companies that have developed infrastructure projects but there are probably some areas where Canadian companies can come in to help. Canada is a big country so we have developed some expertise in transportation. You probably know the company Bombardier which has substantial operation in China in terms of rail and air, parts of their aircrafts are manufactured in China. We have a good, large engineering companies that also can help China. But also we have expertise in PPP--public private partnerships and I think that expertise can be very useful as well.

Furthermore, in Canada, we have some large pension funds that are interested in investing in large infrastructure projects. For instance, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board manages the funds that provide money for Canadians in retirement. In Canada we have a population about 35 million people and they manage the funds for about 12 million people who either are retired or are contributing to the regime, so they are always looking for good investments. So far, they have invested about 12 billion dollars in China but they want to make China a substantial part of their portfolio. There is also the Ontario Teacher's Fund which is very large fund that manages the retirement money of teachers in the province of Ontario. So again, there is expertise there and these are groups are looking for partners to invest in larger projects together.

In terms of where the future trade relationship could go, I can confirm that there are lots of conversations taking place now in Canada about how to expand this relationship and I think that there may be some important announcements that will take place at the time of high-level visits in the future. But what we want to do is to have a very ambitious arrangement with China  one that will benefit both sides and that will also reflect the strong public consensus in Canada and that will be mutually beneficial. With this, we think we can get a strong forward-looking relationship with China. And on this, to be frank, I think its also important for China to move towards establishing a more level playing field because many of our companies have difficulties doing business in China. To give you an example, the use of non-tariff barriers can be an impediment to trade and create unnecessary challenges to foreign imports. So we hope that we will be able to make progress on all those issues and, again, from my perspective, there is a lot of untapped potential in the relationship. When I look at the two economies, there is lots of complementarity and we could do a lot more together.

GMW.CN: And what about its bilateral policy towards China? How do you see current relations between Canada and China? Will Prime Minister Trudeau want to create stronger ties, and if so in what areas?

Guy Saint-Jacques:Obviously, Canada will want to deepen its engagement with China. Shortly after he was elected the Prime Minister travelled to Turkey for the G20 summit where he met with President Xi Jinping in November. The two leaders had a very good conversation, our Prime Minister also spoke with Premier Li Keqiang. Our ministers of Trade and Foreign Affairs have spoken with their counterparts in China as well. And further, if you look at the mandate letter that was given by the Prime Minister to Minister Chrystia Freeland, our International Trade Minister, for instance, the letter very specifically tasked her with deepening economic and trade relations with China. So, I expect that there will be some announcements that will be made in the near future.

As you know, also this year, China is the host of the G20 summit. We will have a steady flow of Canadian ministers coming to China to attend G20 ministerial meetings in June and July. I think we will have at least seven ministers visiting for the G20 meeting including in early June our Agriculture Minister. Then later in the same month, our Energy Minister, and Industry Minister will also be coming to China. Then in early July our minister of International Trade will be coming to Shanghai. The Minister responsible for Labour and Employment will come for the G20 ministerial and then there will be the third meeting of Finance Ministers and our Finance Minister will attend that meeting in Chengdu in July. Our Citizenship and Immigration Minster will also probably want to come over the summer and of course all this will culminate with the G20 Leaders Summit in Hangzhou on September 4th and 5th.. We hope that maybe around that our Prime Minister, Justine Trudeau, will make an official visit to China. We are in discussions right now with China on this. We have also invited Premier Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping to visit Canada and we hope that maybe Premier Li could come at some point in the fall. These visits are very important to send the message that we want on both sides to re-engage to expand the relationship, and this, of course includes the trade and investment side, but also we want to engage China a lot more on the political side. In our view, the more successful China is, the more successful Canada will be as well.

We start from a very good basis. We have established relations 46 years ago, we celebrated 45th year of diplomatic relations last year. We have had many very successful collaborations in many areas. Our developing agency CIDA has operated for more than 30 years and had a very substantial program in China to help develop the education sector, the agriculture sector especially the dairy industry and helped to improve the pork industry. We helped to create the Ministry of Environmental Protection and I see a lot of unfinished business and untapped potential; so now I think it's time for us to try to bring the relationship to the level where it should be.

GMW.CN: Since Prime Minister Trudeau was sworn into office, Canada has been talking about a return to multilateralism in its diplomatic engagements, and rebuilding Canada image as a world peace defender. What will Canada undertake in this regard?

Guy Saint-Jacques:Well, I think that we have already seen a number of changes. Mr. Trudeau wants to get back to the years when Canada was a more active player on the international scene. We saw this at the Paris Climate Conference that took place last December where Canada played a greater role and I think you can expect that Canada will be a lot more active in multilateral organizations. For instance, at the UN we have indicated we will want to be more involved in peace operations and peace keeping activities. Canada is the 9th largest contributor to these budgets. And you may have heard that Canada announce will run for election to the UN Security Council. We will be seeking a non-permanent seat for the year 2021, 2022. The election will take place in a few years from now. And so, we hope we will get a lot of support from this. Also, Canada has come back to climate change when the Prime Minister went to Paris in December, where he announced that Canada will contribute 2.65 billion dollars over 5 years to help developing countries adapt to climate change, especially the most vulnerable ones. And also in the middle east, Canada has contributed a lot of money to help. In the case of Syria, if I add up everything we have given, its getting very close to 1 billion dollars. One of the promises of the liberal government when they ran in the last election was that Canada would receive 25,000 refugees from Syria. This was completed in February. The government has since indicated that it will welcome 10,000 more Syrian refugees. So, I think you can expect that there will be more activities like this. Also, for Canadian womens rights, the fight against discrimination, and rule of law are all very important subjects. And we are very glad to have been elected to the UN Commission of the Status of Women where Canada will play an important role. I think you can expect that Canada will want play a more visible role in the multilateral organizations where we have traditionally played a key role. Canada is a small country in terms of population. We live beside a giant, the United States, and for this reason we know that its important to have good international rules and thats why traditionally we have been very active in multilateral organizations, so I am very encouraged by the position taken by the new Prime Minister.

GMW.CN: What do you consider to be the major challenges in your role as Canadas Ambassador to China over the past few years? How do you view your achievements as the Ambassador?

Guy Saint-Jacques:I would hope to have better access to senior Chinese leaders and find ways to discuss some difficult issues. In fact, I was at a meeting with premier Li two weeks ago when we had the visit of our former Prime Minister, Mr. Jean Chretien. At the end of the meeting Premier Li said there will always be some issues where we have different views and we have to find ways to discuss them. I agree entirely with him, but I think we have to find mechanism to do that. But I am very optimistic in this regard because as part of our renewed engagement strategy with China, we will want to make full use of new mechanisms that have not been used yet. For instance, there has been an agreement that there would be an annual dialogue between foreign affairs ministers. And we hope that the first meeting will take place. Similarly, there will be a new dialogue on economic and strategic financial issues again, a great forum to discuss all kind of issues.

Canada could have had a more consistent approach over the last years. I am confident that this is what we will see in the future with a new government it will be, there is a lot of interest in Ottawa to develop the relationship with China and I think you will see a regular flow of visitor. People interested to really look at this untapped potential that we have in the relationship and hopefully this will translate in very good results for both countries.
By Bob Harris

For decades residents of Queens have complained about the noise of airplane takeoffs from JFK and La Guardia airports. I remember attending meetings called by the late Congressman Ben Rosenthal at a hotel near La Guardia Airport. The only thing we remember about those meetings were people from Nassau County saying that they should not have airplane noise over their homes because they paid a lot of money for their homes.

Today, the airplane noise is still there when planes take off from our two local airports in a fan-like pattern over our houses every minute or so for about an hour. The current solution to controlling the airplane noise is to create a roundtable consisting of community members, local legislative members, industry members, the Federal Aviation Authority, Port Authority representatives, and people from Nassau who will find solutions to the problem. Airports around the country have had such organizations for years.

There are problems. Groups from LaGuardia and JFK each wanted their own roundtable. It was realized that areas across the United States only have one roundtable, so it was decided to have only one in Queens, but people representing each airport keep pressing for their own roundtable to solve their own needs. This has led to squabbling, which takes up valuable time needed to write by-laws and get the Queens roundtable functioning. It is understandable but frustrating.

Reading the newspaper reports and listening to reports given at the Queens Civic Congress, I heard about loud sounds and their health implications on people living near the airports, but I dont remember hearing or reading about the health hazards of airplane fuel released by the airplanes. Years ago I read about residents near the airports complaining about a layer of aviation gasoline on cars, houses and the land nearby airports. Is this still a problem? If so, it should be solved.

One way to gather statistics about airplane noise is to place noise monitors around the airports. These noise monitors leave a permanent record of airplane noise. Since the southern area of Flushing around Fresh Meadows, is where the LaGuardia planes streak into the sky at the Whitestone Climb, the FAA has just placed one in my backyard.

I hope it stays longer than the one placed there about 15 years ago. It was recording all those take-offs, then one day someone called my house to ask about noise and my wife Edna made the smart remark, Do you think there is a noise problem if I can read the serial numbers on the plane? They took it away a few days later.

Congresswoman Grace Meng is busy introducing legislation to help solve the problem. We need the roundtable fully implemented so it can give her official input and she can introduce bills in Congress which will work to solve the problem. Actually, the activist members on the roundtable have been fighting for years and they do visit their legislators, the Queens Civic Congress and member civics.
Supporters of ethnic minority groups demanding changes in Nepal\s new constitution clashed with police Monday and blocked main streets near the prime minister\s office, as their newly started protests entered their second day.

About 500 demonstrators gathered, chanting anti-government slogans and attempting to push through a police barricade. Riot police using batons and demonstrators with sticks briefly clashed, but no serious injuries were reported on either side.

Security was stepped up around Singha Durbar, a fortified complex in Kathmandu that houses the prime minister\s office and government offices, with hundreds of riot police guarding the streets.

On Sunday, hundreds of protesters scuffled with police and blocked a main street leading to the prime minister\s office, but no injuries were reported.

The Madhesi minority group, which is leading the protests, wants a bigger state than assigned in the constitution adopted last year. At least three other minority groups that joined the protests want separate states for their populations as well.

Nepal, with a population of only 28 million, has more than 100 ethnic groups.

Madhesi-led protests from September to February left more than 50 people dead and blocked key border points with India that resulted in severe shortages of fuel, medicine and other supplies.

Several rounds of talks with the government have failed to reach any agreement.

SOURCE: AP
The US and Russia urged the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to restore a truce when they met on Monday for the first time since fighting erupted over Nagorny Karabakh.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry met Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian.

The US, Russia and France form the "Minsk Group", created to deal with the two-decade old battle for the disputed region, and called the talks in a bid to prevent renewed bloodshed.

"This is a solvable conflict, there are some conflicts out there that simply have to be managed. But this is one that can be solved," a senior US official told reporters.

"This could be a win-win for both sides," the State Department official said, adding that unlike for example on the issue of Syria, Washington and Moscow are in agreement.

Fighting erupted in Nagorny Karabakh in early April, killing at least 110 people and wounding scores more.

The conflict has long festered, with dozens killed every year, but April\s outbreak was the worst since a 1994 ceasefire, now monitored by just six envoys from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

A truce hammered out by Moscow halted the latest bloodshed but the situation remains on a knife-edge, with both sides accusing the other of violating the agreement.

A French envoy was also in the Austrian capital for the talks. Kerry met both presidents separately before all sides gathered for a formal dialogue.

Kerry also met Lavrov before the official gathering.

"This is an issue where we see eye-to-eye with the Russians. We have no differences of opinion," the US official said.

The negotiations were to focus on a reaffirmation of the ceasefire and a resumption of negotiations, a senior US state department official told AFP.

But another senior American envoy cautioned not to expect an immediate breakthrough in what would be the rival presidents\ first encounter since December.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have feuded over Nagorny Karabakh since Armenian separatists seized the landlocked territory in a war that claimed some 30,000 lives in the early 1990s.

With peace efforts stuttering to a halt in recent years, both sides in the conflict began rearming heavily, with energy-rich Azerbaijan spending vast sums on new weaponry.

And yet, despite increasingly feverish rhetoric from the rivals, the recent flare-up still appeared to catch the international community by surprise.

While the two sides accused each other of starting the fighting, analysts said it seemed Azerbaijan  suffering from falling oil prices  launched the initial attack.

In the first shift in the frontline since 1994, Azeri forces seized key positions, some of which they managed to cling on to despite a fierce Armenian counterattack.

The agreement by the two leaders to hold direct talks in Vienna appears a positive sign, but few expect there to be any major progress at Monday\s encounter.

Moscow, which has sold weapons to both sides but has a military treaty with its close ally Armenia, is seen as central to stopping a conflict that some fear could spread.

Turkey  at loggerheads with Moscow since Ankara downed a Russian jet near its border with Syria last year  has pledged to support its ally Azerbaijan.

Despite the international pressure being applied, commentators on both sides feel that unless there is a conclusive resolution there will be more violence.

SOURCE: AFP
By Rattana Lao

BANGKOK  It was sometimes ago that the New Yorker featured a cartoon that went something like this: With the internet, you can be a dog behind a computer and nobody knows.

That\s my thought on the internet in general and social media in particular. Behind the masks of perfectly manicured life or perfect make up, there are multiple truth, reality, flaws and imperfection.

I joined Facebook when I was doing my Masters of Science in Development Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science  far away from my hometown glory of Bangkok, Thailand. Although I have known about Facebook from my highschool roommate when it was only accessible for IVY League students, I was not quite excited about it. I thought to myself who in their right mind published their lives to the public?

During the same time, the One Laptop Per Child policy was popular. I remember attending several public forums whereby tech savvy professionals tried to convince low-tech Development experts that the internet is powerful and through it we can end world poverty. Something like that.

Being an outgoing and outspoken introvert, if that makes sense, I signed up for FB with an ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, I wanted to keep in touch with my friends and family from afar  to let them know how I was, what I ate, where I travelled to. On the other hand, I was scared and anxious of the unintended consequences. Well, given that my BFF called me the most intense meaning making machine, I was not sure I could cope with the outflow of comments from strangers about my life.

As a writer, I travelled a lot and carried multiple devices: cellphone, iPads and computers. I have several notebooks in my bag for different thought and things. I lived in 4 cities in 10 years for school and work: London, New York, Hong Kong and Bangkok, so FB was my tool to store my pictures, poems and proses. I posted some on public, mostly I kept them private. In another word, FB was my cloud.

My posts had rarely been LIVE. I posted multiple things: narcissist selfie, obnoxious jokes, sentimental poems and love songs. Sometimes I rapped, some other time I put my stream of consciousness out there as if I was meditating. A lot of time, I created a dialogue as if I was writing an Opera or Broadway. I was thinking of Pavarotti and Philip Grass.

You see, I am a messed: Fifty Cent x Evita, Phantom x Avenue Q.

Despite my skeptism about privacy bleached, I was also very naive about the danger of FB. I did believe, at one point, technology can empower lives, internet can end poverty. Well, if you read Jeffrey Sachs The End of Poverty and Amartyas Sen Development as Freedom without criticality, that\s what you get: go-getter, saving the world and innocent lamb lost in the Wonderland. Or you better try with prof. Anis Bajrektarevic, who on the topic offers a first rate (post-industrial) Hegelian thought: Highly mesmerizing, although (for the sake of magic) disguised in the Matrix movies Keanu Reeves post-punk character of Neo  modern, fast, lethal, decisive.

My nativity is best manifested through my five years experience of art project in Thailand. Being a fresh of the boat returnee from oversea education, I thought of putting development theories into practice. I did think that Thailand, given its excessive interest on children and education, everybody would be on board with me.

Together with students from around the country, we carried out 15 art projects in various parts of Thailand for different groups and audience. We went to the most remote area of Thailand such as Loei, Lampoon and Lopburi. We brought art supplies and created free space for students to express themselves. Last year, we went to four regions and asked students to paint Happy Birthday Our Princess cards to wish our princess a healthy and happy life.

Some of these were funded, mostly were self-funded. All of us in the team called UNITE Thailand sacrificed things that we have to create garage sale so that we are financially independent from donors.

It is what a degree in Development Studies at the LSE has taught me.

Since I have friends from all over the world, I was optimistic that if I posted these beautiful Thai silk from Surin, cotton from Lampoon and leather bags, someone out there would purchase them. Good try. Not quite. Only one highschool friend from Nepal, Salina Giri, bought my mother\s Prada bag for 500 USD. Although it was the only act of kindness, that meant the world to me and 300 other children in Loei.

The ramification of sharing my ideas online was worst. Day after day, I woke up and saw the quotes I put on to promote the projects being hijacked for political, personal and private purposes.

Again, being Buddhist, forgiveness.

I had hated FB for quite sometime for that it interrupted my peace. It allowed strangers to send me hate speech and there was a point, I got several messages that could have put me behind bar. Not British bars. Jail to be exact. Some people have mistood my Coco necklace with Communism and they misunderstood my initial R with Radical.

Perhaps my political sarcasm had gone too far, perhaps my English vocabulary has confused many. I have gone through the missteps again and again in my head and finally I had the epiphany. It was me who was stupid.

No one in their right mind would type Chekov The Story of Nobody right after Anna K story  Nobody  would put Evita right next to Alicia.

Well, I did.

If all the degrees I hold did not prevent me from self-destruction and public humiliation, I would like to dedicate this piece to all the children out there toDO NOT BE LIKE ME, who think they can SHARE their works, who believe that FB LIKES are REAL and who wait for INBOX from somebody to take them to the Empire State.

No one knows that behind the happy hello kitty profile picture of a go-getter oversized cheerleader, I had just survived the worst Asthma attack and breathing in tears, in the depth of the Thai forest.

If Development is Freedom and if Sen was right, allow me to free myself from the chained cruelty of Facebook. I didn\t deactivate it, I threw my phone in the river and said final goodbye.

Rattana Lao  is a lecturer at Thai Studies, Pridi Banomyong International College, Thammasat University. She is also the author of A critical Studies of Thailand Higher Education Reform: The Culture of Borrowing, which was published with Routledge in 2015.









The views expressed in this article are the author\s own and do not necessarily reflect The Times Of Earth\s editorial policy.
Donald Trump warned Monday he may end up having a bad relationship with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who branded the presumptive Republican presidential nominee\s proposal to stop Muslim immigration to the US "stupid".

"It looks like we are not going to have a very good relationship," Trump told Britain\s ITV television.

"Who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him but he\s not willing to address the problem either."

In December, Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country\s representatives can figure out what is going on", citing "great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population".

Cameron branded the tycoon\s stance as "divisive, stupid and wrong" and has refused to retract his comments, though he said on May 5 that anyone who comes through the US presidential primaries deserves "respect".

The prime minister\s Downing Street office said Monday that Cameron "has made his views clear".

Trump insisted he was "not stupid just the opposite", and denied he was divisive, calling himself "a unifier".

He said his campaign trail policies were just "suggestions", but said there was a "tremendous" problem with Islamic extremism.

The tycoon rejected claims he was anti-Muslim.

"Absolutely not. I am anti-terror," he said.

Trump said he had "many Muslim friends", one of whom told him: "\Donald you have done us such a favour: you have brought out a problem that nobody wants to talk about\."

Trump also blasted the new London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim elected to run a Western capital city.

Khan, who took office on May 9, has branded Trump "ignorant" on Islam and claimed the tycoon was making the world more dangerous by alienating mainstream Muslims.

Trump said he was offended by Khan\s denouncement.

"I think they were very rude statements and, frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements," Trump said.

"When he won I wished him well. Now, I don\t care about him.

"Let\s see how he does, let\s see if he\s a good mayor."

A spokesman for Khan on Monday branded Trump\s views "ignorant, divisive and dangerous".

"It\s the politics of fear at its worst and will be rejected at the ballot box," the spokesman said.

SOURCE: AFP
Heavy rainfall in the North Texas area over the weekend has again brought Lake Arrowhead to maximum capacity and sent water over the spillways. More rain in the forecast may keep lakes full for days to come.

SHARE

By Claire Kowalick of the Times Record News

It is going to cost more than expected, but the city of Wichita Falls is moving forward with a water rights application for the future Lake Ringgold.

The city entered into an agreement with Freese and Nichols on March 17, 2015, to prepare and enter the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality application needed for this proposed water source. The initial contract was for $168,000 for this part of the process, however after the application was submitted, it was discovered that there were five additional studies and plans needed for approval of the application. The resolution up for approval Tuesday at the city council meeting is an amendment to include up to $360,000 more for preparation of these studies so the application can be declared complete.

The studies needed for the Lake Ringgold application include a habitat assessment, stream assessment, conceptual mitigation plan, updated water availability modeling and accounting plan.

City staff, Freese and Nichols representatives and Brad Castleberry met with TCEQ members March 24 and TCEQ gave verbal approval to continue with the studies. Staff reports that completion of these studies along with the previous application should be adequate for an approvable water rights permit submission. Total cost of the TCEQ application process will be $528,000.

The idea of creating another water supply source has been batted around for decades, but concrete plans only came to fruition in the past few years. City council considered several long-range water supply plans earlier in 2015 and chose to pursue the development of Lake Ringgold.

The city began adding a budget item for $1 million to sock away each year toward this long-range project.

The city owns about 6,500 acres northeast of Henrietta and is acquiring the several thousand more acres needed for a lake sufficient to shore up the city's water needs.

The finished lake will be larger than Lake Arrowhead and is estimated to take about 15 to 20 years at a cost of more than $300 million.
SHARE

It started with bedrooms. Now it involves bathrooms. What is it about other people's private lives that make some people go nuts?

What causes legislators to create laws to solve problems that don't exist? Why do some people hate government action  except when it suits their purposes, immoral though those may be?

We are talking about the ridiculous new law in North Carolina that says that transgender men and women must use public bathrooms of the sex stated on their birth certificates, not the sex with which they identify.

For once, Donald Trump said something sane. To wit, Caitlyn Jenner may use whatever bathroom she wants to use in Trump Tower.

Ted Cruz, who to our great relief exited the race for president, tried to stir people up about the North Carolina law. "It is simply crazy  that grown men would be allowed alone in a bathroom with little girls  you don't need to be a behavioral psychologist to realize bad things can happen."

Being transgender has nothing to do with pedophilia, for heaven's sake. And bathroom stalls have doors for a reason: privacy.

Does federal law, especially the Civil Rights Act, bar discrimination against transgender men and women? Yes, says the federal government. No, says the state of North Carolina.

Consequently, we are proud of Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who gave a brilliant defense of the Obama administration's position that North Carolina's law is no better than Jim Crow laws that discriminated against black Americans. America is moving haltingly but inexorably toward fairness, inclusion and equality, she said.

She said that North Carolina's bathroom law provides no boon to society.

All it does is strip individuals of their dignity and respect, she said. States cannot legislate people's identity.

She asked us to write a different story from the past chapters of intolerance: America must never again rob its people of their innate dignity or treat them as second-class citizens.

That is the America we should all want, not a country that permits some states to write laws that cruelly discriminate against people for something beyond their control, for behavior that hurts nobody.

States should not be able to pass laws that humiliate and discriminate against someone because of their color, their religion or their gender.

Whether or not you are a Christian conservative or a committed religious believer of any other sort, you should not be able to demand that you should be able to throw stones, humiliate or destroy the life of someone just because you don't understand the path he or she walks.

That is what the Taliban does. That is what the Islamic State does.

This is a country that does not impose religious beliefs on others. At least, that was the intent of the founding fathers. And mothers, bless their unsung hearts.

So North Carolina's absurd bathroom law is going to the courts. North Carolina insists it has the right to pass whatever laws it wants.

The federal government insists North Carolina may not pass laws that inherently discriminate, and, if push comes to shove, it may withhold billions of dollars it gives North Carolina each year in benefits.

The courts will not rule to uphold discrimination. Meanwhile, businesses and entertainers by the score are warning North Carolina that they will not do business in a state that attempts to legalize impermissible discrimination and hatred by embarrassing laws that can't and won't be enforced.

The physically beautiful state of North Carolina, now personified by the egregiously bigoted state legislature and its governor, Pat McCrory, is being ridiculed around the world and for very good reason. What they are doing is evil.

Lynch noted correctly that change is discomforting and that people fear what they do not know or understand.

But that does not give them the right to impose pain and suffering, humiliation and denial of civil rights and lack of respect on others.

It is distressing that with all our problems, causing misery and inciting anger and hatred are still front and center in U.S. politics.

As Lynch pledged to the transgender community: "We see you. We stand with you. And we will do everything we can to protect you going forward. History is on your side.  It may not be easy. We will get there together."

Ann McFeatters is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. Readers may send her email at amcfeatters@nationalpress.com.
Albany

A 50-year-old man who left St. Peter's Hospital against doctors' advice Saturday has been found safe, police said Monday.

Kenneth Crippen was spotted on Central Avenue Monday by a city police officer, said Officer Steven Smith, a police department spokesman.

Smith said authorities had "medical reasons" to be concerned for Crippen, who left the hospital in a motorized wheelchair.

jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com  518-454-5445  @JCEvangelist_TU
ALBANY  City police are searching for an Albany man who left St. Peter's Hospital Saturday against the advice of staff.

Police said Kenneth Crippen, 50, left St. Peter's at around 4 p.m. Saturday.
Albany

As activists proceeded through Manhattan's Central Park Sunday for the 31st annual AIDS Walk, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced legislative proposals intended to advance his administration's goal of ending the state's HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2020.

The proposals seek to increase access to HIV testing and break down barriers to treatment as part of an effort to reduce the number of new HIV infections from an estimated 3,000 annually to 750 in the next four years. It's a signature health initiative of the Cuomo administration.

Members of the Senate and Assembly must sponsor the bills in order for them to move forward.

HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.

The bills would:

Allow information about whether HIV patients are receiving care or not to be shared with medical providers and care coordinators, in an effort to increase the number of infected people receiving care.

Streamline HIV testing and extend the upper age limit of the state's HIV Testing Law beyond the current age of 64. These changes are intended to reduce the number of infected people who are not being treated for the virus. Almost half of all new infections may be spread by people unaware they have HIV.

Make clear that minors have the right to obtain life-saving HIV treatment and preventive services confidentially and without parental consent.

Expand screening for sexually transmitted diseases and access to post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to prevent infection. PEP involves taking antiretroviral medications as soon as possible after potential exposure to the virus.

chughes@timesunion.com  518-454-5417  @hughesclaire
2,197 students received bachelor's degrees in 56 different majors at University at Albany's commencement on Sunday at the university campus.
Analysis of the Total Telecommunications Services Market in Colombia to 2020 - Research and Markets

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Analysis of the Total Telecommunications Services Market in Colombia" report to their offering.

This research service on the Colombian total telecommunication services market provides detailed market forecasts, drivers and restraints as well as competitive analyses of participants from 2014 to 2020. It covers the 5 top services in the Colombian telecommunications market: Fixed telephony, mobile telephony, pay TV, broadband and data communications.

Additionally, it provides LIS and revenue forecasts and market trends for each of this markets. In this market research, Frost & Sullivan's (News - Alert) expert analysts examine market trends, competitive environment, among others.

Key Questions This Study Will Answer

- Is the market grwing, how long will it continue to grow, and at what rate?







- Which telecommunications services present the highest growth opportunities from 2015 to 2020?

- What are the trends in the market regarding technology, competition, consumer demands, and the economy?

- What are the most important regulatory issues impacting telecommunications services in Colombia?

- What are the main industry challenges that operators will face through 2020?

- Are the existing competitors structured correctly to meet customer needs?

Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Summary

2. Market Overview

3. Industry Challenges-Total Telecommunications Services Market

4. Forecasts and Trends-Total Telecommunications Services Market

5. Market Share and Competitive Analysis-Total Telecommunications Services Market

6. Fixed Telephony Services Market Breakdown

7. Mobile Telephony Services Market Breakdown

8. Fixed Broadband Services Market Breakdown

9. Pay-TV Services Market Breakdown

10. Data Communications (News - Alert) Services Market Breakdown

11. The Last Word

12. Appendix

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/3vjxbf/analysis_of_the

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[May 16, 2016] Edward-Elmhurst Health Invests $7MM in Smart Choice MRI

Integrated health system Edward-Elmhurst Health is investing $7 million in Mequon, Wisconsin-based Smart Choice MRI, the first MRI provider in the country to offer every MRI for an all-inclusive fee of $600 or less, it was announced today by both companies. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516006017/en/ Smart Choice MRI clinic, Skokie, IL (Photo: Business Wire) "This new partnership is in line with our mission to always advance the health of our communities," said Pam Davis, System CEO, Edward-Elmhurst Health. "With our commitment to improvement, collaboration and innovation, this investment in Smart Choice MRI will provide greater service and choice to our patients as well as improved efficiency within our System." The Edward-Elmhurst Health investment will fuel the groundbreaking of five new Smart Choice MRI clinics in the Chicago area, beginning in the fall with Bolingbrook, Oswego and Lombard, as well as an expansion into Minneapolis. Edward-Elmhurst Health doctors will continue to make MRI referrals based on the most appropriate location for patient care. Smart Choice MRI currently has three Chicago area clinics, in Schaumburg, Glenview and Skokie, and another due in downtown Chicago in July. Smart Choice MRI also supports six Wisconsin clinics. "A major market shift is occurring in the health care industry that's driving more value-based medicine and consumerism, safe and effective care at a reasonable cost that also recognizes patient choice. The most forward-thinking hospital systems are responding to that shift by forging unique partnerships that better serve people," aid Rick Anderson, CEO of Smart Choice MRI. "We're proud to partner with Edward-Elmhurst. They understand that offering a high quality health care choice to its community benefits everyone."



In addition, Bill Kottmann, recently announced as President & CEO of Edward Hospital, effective July 1, is joining Smart Choice MRI's Board of Directors to represent Edward-Elmhurst's system interest in the partnership. Edward-Elmhurst Health is the second healthcare system to invest in Smart Choice MRI. ThedaCare, the largest healthcare system in Northeast Wisconsin, announced an investment of $3 million in February. Capital raised to fund a national expansion totals $14.5 million to date.

Smart Choice MRI uses state-of-the-art GE technology and all scans are interpreted by sub-specialty, board-certified radiologists at the Cleveland Clinic. The price is always an all-inclusive $600 or less, which includes the scan as well as its reading. About Edward-Elmhurst Health Edward-Elmhurst Health, a three-hospital system that includes Edward Hospital, Elmhurst Hospital and Linden Oaks Behavioral Health, has combined revenues of more than $1 billion, more than 50 locations across a service area of 1.7 million residents, nearly 7,400 employees and nearly 1,900 physicians on its medical staff. For more information, visit www.EEHealth.org. About Smart Choice MRI Smart Choice MRI is the first MRI provider in the country to offer high quality magnetic resonance imaging to every patient for an all-inclusive fee of $600 or less, which includes the cost of the scan as well as its reading by top radiologists from the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic. Accredited by the American College of Radiology, Smart Choice MRI is in network for most major insurers, including United Health Care, Anthem and Humana. Headquartered in Mequon, WI, Smart Choice MRI currently has six clinics in Wisconsin: Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Richfield, Waukesha, Kenosha and Appleton, as well as three in the suburbs of Chicago: Schaumburg, Glenview and Skokie. A Chicago clinic is scheduled to open in July 2016. For more information, visit Smart Choice MRI and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516006017/en/

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[May 16, 2016] HEC Completes Finance Related to TINA Acquisition

Hydrogen Engine Center, Inc. (HEC) (OTC PK:HYEG) announced today that it had completed another phase of financing with TINA Energy Systems (TINA). Effective April 5, 2016, HEC has issued 2,930,232 shares to TINA upon TINA's cashless exercise of a Warrant to purchase up to 7 million shares at $0.15 per share. As of the same date, 4,069,768 additional shares were issued to TINA at $0.15 per share in a transaction approved by the Board of Directors in order to obtain much needed cash for operations and to recognize the significant contributions of TINA and its founder Pedro Blach to the company in the form of assets and services. TINA has completed the purchase of 5.88 million shares at $0.25 per share for an aggregate amount of $1,470,784 pursuant to the 2015 Asset and Stock Purchase Agreement between TINA and HEC. 785,200 of these shares were issued as of May 6, 2016 upon payment of $196,300. TINA remains obligated to purchase an additional 116,864 shares at $0.25 per share for a purchase price of $29,216 under the 2015 Agreement. President Ted Hollinger states, "The TINA electrolyzer technology is the best possible solution because it provides high efficiency and high pressure without a compressor. HEC-TINA has a demonstration unit running in Greeneville, Tennessee. We are producing hydrogen from solar and wind energy every day." The cash is being used to build two improved versions of the system. Blach is leading a team that is doubling the current density and doubling the hydrogen output. This will make the new electrolyzer very cost competitive. The elimination of the need for a compressor is a huge advantage. Compressrs increase cost, reduce efficiency and according to a recent DOE report have the highest failure rate of any part in the electrolyzer system.



Another aspect of the agreement is to bring HEC back to full transparency. HEC has been working with an outside accounting firm on getting all back tax filings done. HEC does not owe any taxes, but lacked funds in 2009 and 2010 to pay for the filings. HEC expects to be current in its tax filings in July this year. An audit is expected to follow and then the company intends to commence regular SEC (News - Alert) filings. Hollinger states, "It has been a long journey back to being the company I expected. I look forward to the day when I can see 10Ks and 10Qs posted and announce that HEC is once again in full compliance. I believe the HEC team is now strong enough to compete and grow the company into a competitive energy company. We can now supply 'turn-key' systems that can generate and store hydrogen for nearly any application."

HEC has concentrated on "Time of Use" energy needs. We can supply power when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow and do it without harming the environment. 175 nations so far have signed the Paris Climate Agreement. HEC can now help them all. HEC is looking at Southeast Asia, West Africa and US Military as the first three markets it could support. About Hydrogen Engine Center, Inc.

Hydrogen Engine Center, Inc. (HEC) designs, manufactures and distributes alternative-fueled internal combustion engine powered gensets and turn-key hydrogen power systems for energy storage and vehicle fueling. HEC builds its engines and does not use automotive engines. Power systems range from 5kW to over a Megawatt. HEC trades on the Bulletin Board under the symbol "HYEG.PK". Principle offices are located at 1623B Industrial Road, Greeneville, Tennessee 37745. Visit www.hydrogenenginecenter.com for more information. This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, the timely availability of needed capital, acceptance of the Company's products, increased levels of competition for the Company, new products and technological changes, the company's dependence on third-party suppliers, and other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's periodic reports filed with the Security Exchange Commission. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516006625/en/

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[May 16, 2016] LEGO Education announces the first LEGO Education Model School as Jesse S. Bobo Elementary School

LEGO Education is proud to announce the designation of Jesse S. Bobo Elementary School in Spartanburg, South Carolina as its first distinguished Model School. To celebrate, a symposium was held with local educators, administrators, and community members and showcased how they use LEGO Education solutions. The LEGO Education Model Schools Program recognizes exemplary elementary schools across the United States who ensure that creative problem solving and 21st-century skills development are an essential part of the school day. These schools incorporate the LEGO brick, curriculum, and software into their classrooms to achieve learning outcomes across subjects while engaging with playful learning experiences. "We are proud to announce that we are the first-ever LEGO Education Model School in the nation. This is a huge honor for our students, staff, and community. It is amazing to see the use of laptops and robotics throughout the building and how hand-on learning really engages everyone! The progress in our school is evident, and we cannot wait to see what the future holds for our students with this type of learning," said Thomas Webster, Principal of Jesse S. Bobo Elementary. The Model Schools title is awarded by LEGO Education to a select number of schools. The designation honors well-rounded, high-impact learning environments that celebrate creative problem solving and ignite learning for every student. "Troughout our partnership, the leadership and staff of Jesse S. Bobo has demonstrated success in infusing hands-on learning throughout their curriculum while providing a strong vision to deliver the best possible outcomes for all students," said Colin Gillespie, President of LEGO Education North America. "We look forward to embarking on this endeavor with educators, parents, students and community of the school to increase student outcomes and to create the next generation of creative thinkers and problem solvers. As one of the first two Model Schools in the United States, we believe Jesse S. Bobo will set the way for all the future LEGO Model Schools moving forward."



About Jesse S. Bobo Elementary:

Established in 1972, Jesse S. Bobo Elementary School (JSBES) serves 500 K4 - 5th grade school in Spartanburg County School District Six. Located in the City of Spartanburg, JSBES has garnered broad recognition for innovative faculty members and student achievement. The school recently received a Palmetto Silver Award for Closing the Achievement Gap and a Palmetto Gold Award for student achievement. The school's mission is "to provide a positive atmosphere, a challenging curriculum, and engaging learning for all students" and has given form to that vision by maintaining a strong Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program and an enduring partnership with LEGO Education. As the school's motto says, JSBES is, "Building Knowledge that Lasts a Lifetime!" About LEGO Education:

LEGO Education offers playful learning experiences and teaching solutions based on the LEGO system of bricks, curriculum-relevant material, and physical and digital resources to preschool, elementary, middle school, and after school. In partnership with educators for more than 35 years, we support teaching in an inspiring, engaging, and effective way. Our educational solutions, which range from humanities to science, enable every student to succeed by encouraging them to become active, collaborative learners, build skills for future challenges, and establish a positive mind-set toward learning.

LEGO and the LEGO logo are trademarks of the LEGO Group. 2016 The LEGO Group. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516006255/en/

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[May 16, 2016] New Wolters Kluwer Webinar Addresses Chief Compliance and Legal Officer Liability

Today, more chief compliance and legal officers are being held liable by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the failure to identify and correct fraud within their area of responsibility. As the SEC (News - Alert) continues to enforce supervisory liability, what can compliance and legal professionals do to avoid the types of actions and activities that may result in personal liability? To address this issue, Wolters Kluwer today announced that leading industry expert, David Thetford, principal analyst of Securities Compliance at Wolters Kluwer, will moderate a webinar to provide insight into this growing issue and offer effective ways to avoid unnecessary liability risk. The webinar, "CCO Liability: Effective Ways to Reduce Your Exposure" is being held Tuesday, May 24 at 2:00 p.m. EDT. Thetford will moderate a panel of industry leaders that includes John Walsh, partner at Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan; and J. Christopher Jackson, senior vice president and general counsel, Calamos Investments. During the webinar, panelists will offer pactical guidance on how to operate in a world of risk control and mitigation.



"Recently, chief compliance and legal officers have increasingly become the target of regulatory action for failure to implement or adequately monitor their organizations' compliance programs," noted Thetford. "This webinar will help those compliance and legal professionals gain greater insight into the SEC's latest enforcement actions and learn what they can do to protect themselves from significant risk." Thetford is a former examiner for the National Association of Securities Dealers, now known as FINRA. He has also served as a compliance manager for two large securities brokerages and is a former chief compliance officer. In his role at Wolters Kluwer, Thetford brings his retail compliance background to aid in the development of new content and technology that enables clients to meet regulatory requirements.

To register for the webinar, please visit our website. About Wolters Kluwer Governance, Risk & Compliance

Wolters Kluwer Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) is a division of Wolters Kluwer which provides legal, finance, risk and compliance professionals and small business owners with a broad spectrum of solutions, services and expertise needed to help manage myriad governance, risk and compliance needs in dynamic markets and regulatory environments. The division's prominent brands include: AppOne, AuthenticWeb, Bankers Systems, BizFilings, Capital Changes, CASH Suite, CT Corporation, CT Lien Solutions, Corsearch, TyMetrix 360, Passport, LegalVIEW, GainsKeeper, OneSumX, Uniform Forms, VMP Mortgage Solutions and Wiz. Wolters Kluwer N.V. (AEX: WKL) is a global leader in information services and solutions for professionals in the health, tax and accounting, risk and compliance, finance and legal sectors. Wolters Kluwer reported 2015 annual revenues of 4.2 billion. The company, headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries and employs 19,000 people worldwide. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516005173/en/

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[May 16, 2016] PeopleAdmin Honors Colorado Teacher for Showing the Power of Diversity as Part of Inspired2Educate Recognition Program

PeopleAdmin, a leader in talent management software for education, today announced that a Colorado high school teacher has received this month's Inspired2Educate award for her story about a fourth-grade teacher who inspired her to turn her difficult journey as a Latino immigrant into a dream come true of becoming an educator. Elizabeth Ramos Torres, a math teacher at Colorado Early Colleges in Parker, Colorado, attributes her teaching success today to her fourth-grade history teacher, Mrs. Vasquez. Ms. Torres says Mrs. Vasquez taught her the power of diversity and to take pride in her culture and herself. "She spoke both Spanish and English, which was amazing, because I realized that there were other people who were bilingual like myself," Ms. Torres said in her story. "Mrs. Vasquez essentially helped me to stop hating myself. She also planted the seed of education into my soul." PeopleAdmin CEO Kermit S. Randa presented Ms. Torres with an award on Friday at a school assembly held in her honor. An award also went directly to Colorado Early Colleges. "Ms. Torres has an incredibly powerful story that highlights a journey to overcome feelings of insecurity about being different - feelings we can all relate to having at a young age and throughout life," Randa said. "Her experience with Mrs. Vasquez, a Hispanic teacher who she could both identify with and look up to, showcases how one person can provide an example, engender trust, and light a path so we can shine as our best selves." PeopleAdmin's Inspired2Educate awareness program is designed to honor and celebrate our nation's educators while inspiring young people to considering a career in education. The program calls for current educators to share stories of a K-20 teacher, administrator, or school staff member who inspired them to pursue education as their life's work. "Being an immigrant in this country has been a difficult journey," begins Ms. Torres' story. "I grew up in a small town where there were very few other Latinos. Racism and xenophobia was a normal part of everyday life. It was through being a tudent with Mrs. Vasquez that I realized that I had a rich cultural heritage and history to celebrate. She helped me to realize that I was Native American and Spanish. She also helped me to gain pride in my family, my heritage, and myself. It was from those days on that I began to dream that one day I could become a teacher."



John Etzell, Head of School for Colorado Early Colleges Douglas County, said he believes it's more important today than ever for Ms. Torres to tell her story. "She has worked very hard to get where she is in her life and she works very hard with her students," he said. "She is definitely a role model to young students." PeopleAdmin believes that developing, finding and hiring the right educators is the best way to ensure the academic success for the next generation. Inspired2Educate is its way of recognizing some of those great educators and ensuring that our nation's students get the education they deserve.

"An educator who has the experience, insight and empathy to connect with students and inspire them to embrace the beauty of diversity - both as it relates to their classmates and themselves - is a national treasure," Randa said. "We are honored to play a part in making those connections happen in school districts across the country." Throughout the remainder of the year, PeopleAdmin will continue to name an Inspired2Educate award recipient each month from among those educators who have submitted a written or video story. The criteria for selection includes, but is not limited to, the degree of impact on the person's life, creativity, emotional impact and community benefits. For more information about the Inspired2Educate program and instructions on how to participate, please visit www.PeopleAdmin.com/Inspired2Educate. Follow along with the latest conversation and updates by using the #Inspired2Educate hashtag on Twitter and Facebook (News - Alert). About PeopleAdmin PeopleAdmin is the leading provider of cloud-based talent management solutions for education and government. Its software enables clients to streamline the hiring process, onboard new employees, efficiently manage positions and employee performance, develop compliant and defensible audit trails, and use industry-leading reporting and metrics. PeopleAdmin's integrated talent management suite includes applicant tracking, faculty search committee management, position management, onboarding, and performance management. PeopleAdmin solutions are rapidly deployed, easy to use and supported through a world-class customer service organization. Visit www.peopleadmin.com for more information. About Colorado Early Colleges Colorado Early Colleges Parker (CECP) is a tuition-free charter high school that provides its students an opportunity to take college classes and earn a degree. Colorado Early Colleges Parker High School (CECP) provides students in grades nine through 12 the opportunity to start working on college-level courses as soon as they are ready. CECP students can earn a combination of high school and college credits as they pursue a high school diploma and an associate degree or higher - all at no cost to Denver Metro families. CECP pays for tuition, fees, and textbooks. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516006039/en/

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[May 16, 2016] Epson Pro L25000U Wins NewBay Media's Best of Show Award

LONG BEACH, Calif., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Epson today announced its new Pro L25000U laser projector is the recipient of one of the industry's most prestigious technology honors, NewBay Media's Best of Show Award, presented at the 2016 NAB Show in Las Vegas by Sound & Video Contractor. NewBay Media's Best of Show Awards are evaluated by a panel of engineers and industry experts, and are selected based on innovation, feature set, cost efficiency, and performance in serving the industry. "Epson continuously strives to create and deliver the best projection technology  from spectacular home theater and collaborative interactive displays to the most innovative and reliable professional projectors," said Phong Phanel, product manager of large venue projectors, Epson America, Inc. "NewBay Media's recognition of the Pro L25000U laser projector is an honor and demonstrates our commitment to becoming number one in the laser-phosphor market." "Recognition with an award at the NAB Show from NewBay Media's Broadcast & Video Group is a strong vote of confidence and admiration from our leading industry publications," said NewBay Media Broadcast and Video Group Vice President and Group Publisher, Eric Trabb. Winners receive an award for display and will be featured in Sound & Video Contractor, the definitive technical resource for integrators, contractors, dealers, and consultants. All nominated products also are featured in the special Best of Show Awards Program Guide, to be distributed in digital edition form to more than 100,000 readers of Sound & Video Contractor, Video Edge, TV Technology, Digital Video, Radio World, Radio magazine, and Pro Sound News after the convention. About Epson Pro L25000U

Desgned for Rental and Staging applications, as well as large venue permanent installations, the Pro L25000U is the world's first projector to leverage a sealed optical engine with laser light source and 3LCD technology to deliver 25,000 lumens of color brightness and 25,000 lumens of white brightness1 and WUXGA resolution with 4K Enhancement2. The projector integrates an inorganic phosphor wheel in combination with inorganic LCD panels for up to 20,000 hours of virtually maintenance-free operation, including 24/7 use for applications that require continuous projection3. In addition, the Pro L25000U is a compact-size solution for its class and leverages 4K-ready lenses, making it an attractive and competitive choice.



For additional information about Epson's large venue projection solutions, visit www.epson.com/largevenue. About Epson

Epson is a global technology leader dedicated to connecting people, things and information with its original efficient, compact and precision technologies. With a lineup that ranges from inkjet printers and digital printing systems to 3LCD projectors, smart glasses, sensing systems and industrial robots, the company is focused on driving innovations and exceeding customer expectations in inkjet, visual communications, wearables and robotics.

Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corporation, the Epson Group comprises more than 67,000 employees in 90 companies around the world, and is proud of its contributions to the communities in which it operates and its ongoing efforts to reduce environmental impacts.



Epson America, Inc., based in Long Beach, Calif., is Epson's regional headquarters for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. To learn more about Epson, please visit: epson.com. You may also connect with Epson America on Facebook (facebook.com/Epson), Twitter (twitter.com/EpsonAmerica), YouTube (youtube.com/EpsonAmerica), and Instagram (instagram.com/EpsonAmerica). 1Color brightness (color light output) and white brightness (white light output) will vary depending on usage conditions. Color light output measured in accordance with IDMS 15.4; white light output measured in accordance with ISO 21118. 24K Enhancement Technology shifts each pixel diagonally by 0.5 pixels to double the resolution to 3840 x 2400 and surpass Full HD image quality. 320,000 hours is the estimated projector life when used in Normal Mode. Actual hours may vary depending on mode and usage environment. The projector comes with a limited warranty of three years or 20,000 hours, whichever comes first. Note: EPSON is a registered trademarks and EPSON Exceed Your Vision is a registered logomark of Seiko Epson Corporation. All other product brand names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Epson disclaims any and all rights in these marks. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121130/LA21891LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/epson-pro-l25000u-wins-newbay-medias-best-of-show-award-300268673.html SOURCE Epson America, Inc.

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[May 16, 2016] Flytxt Big Data Analytics Solutions Receive Two Prestigious Accolades at Pipeline's Innovation Awards

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Flytxt, a leading mobile consumer analytics solution provider for enterprises, announces that it has bagged two prestigious awards at the 'Pipeline's Innovation Award' program for 2016. Flytxt won the winner's trophy in 'Innovation in Big Data and Analytics' category and the runner-up trophy in the 'Editor's Choice' category at Pipeline's red-carpet Innovation Awards Reception event, held on May 9th, at Le Negresco in Nice, France. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140527/10098680 ) "Big Data Analytics has emerged as a key business driver for service providers and enterprises as they transform into the digital era. This was one of the most fiercely contested categories and we had a challenging yet exciting time evaluating submissions from some of the most innovative companies in this space," said Scott St. John, Managing Editor, Pipeline magazine. "Flytxt set itself apart with its mobile consumer analytics solutions, which help telcos leverage their increasing volume of consumer data to improve customer experience and generate new revenue streams. Further, Flytxt's focus around extending these in-depth mobile consumer insights to help enterprises in otherverticals realise higher business value impressed the esteemed judging panel which included key technical executives from companies such as Vodafone, BT, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast," he added.



Commenting on the occasion, Abhay Doshi, SVP - Product and Marketing Flytxt, said, "We are deeply honored to receive these twin recognitions at such a global platform. This is a testament to our expertise in deriving measurable economic value for customers through Big Data Analytics. Our solutions help enterprises to gain a 360-degree-view of customers as well as to make smarter and faster decisions. It helps them to offer better lifestyle experience to consumers by collaborating with one another." Flytxt has consistently delivered up to 7% economic impact to its customers with its comprehensive data monetisation solution stack, combining big data technology, packaged analytics, business applications, and enabling services.

About Pipeline Pipeline magazine provides communications service providers with critical industry information relevant to driving profitability and delivering the latest generation of communication services. Pipeline covers news and commentary on market demands, government mandates, technical advances, and industry trends. For more information, read Pipeline at http://www.pipelinepub.com. About Flytxt Flytxt partners with enterprises in their digital transformation journey, enabling them to generate measurable economic value from data through mobile consumer analytics. Flytxt's comprehensive data monetisation solutions help enterprises to personalise customer experience across digital touch points as well as increase revenue, optimise margins, and enhance loyalty. The company has deployed its platforms at more than 50 customer locations across 30 countries, analysing data of more than 500 million mobile consumers. Flytxt has consistently delivered 2 to 7% economic impact to its customers with its full solution stack combining technology, packaged analytics, business applications, and enabling services. The company has its headquarters in The Netherlands, corporate office in Dubai and presence in Paris, London, Trivandrum, Mumbai, Singapore, Johannesburg, Nairobi, and Mexico City. For more information, please visit http://www.flytxt.com.

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[May 16, 2016] N Brown Group Selects Sopra Steria to Support its Transformation into a Digital-first Retailer

LONDON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sopra Steria, a European leader in digital transformation, has today announced a new partnership with N Brown Group, a leading multichannel retailer, to help support its strategic direction of becoming a digital-first retailer. A leading multi-brand fashion retailer, N Brown is undergoing the biggest business transformation in its 140 year history, refashioning itself from a direct mail-led to digital-first retailer. Following a competitive process, Sopra Steria was chosen as a partner to assist in the creation of a unique platform to help N Brown drive technology change and business transformation. Sopra Steria will run a core applications and infrastructure support service responsible for the management of IT service sub-contractors, data centres, servers and mainframes. The company will also provide technical support across a number of N Brown locations including its national headquarters, call centres, stores, UK warehouses and other remote locations. In delivering an agile, cost-effective, digitally focussed IT department, N Brown was keen to ensure its new partner had a close cultural affinity to minimise any impact on colleagues whilst transforming their risk position. "Sopra Steria was a natural partner with an impressive track record in delivering similar projects at scale, and whose culture and approach neatly matched our own," said Andy Haywood, COO at N Brown./b>



"Together with Sopra Steria, N Brown will have the ability to become more agile, responsive and, most importantly, focused on customer experience and satisfaction. We will move towards being a technology company that sells fashion, rather than just a fashion company using technology. Undergoing a large organisational change, N Brown not only needed to create a strategic partnership to help them leverage new technologies, but also had to maximise the retention of existing customers with an unnoticeable change in service. Twelve weeks prior to the contract's start, Sopra Steria began knowledge transfer with N Brown and took on all services during this time. This led to a seamless handover with no downtime in service.

Barry Fazackerley, Executive Director at Sopra Steria said, "We are delighted that N Brown chose us to be their strategic partner and help deliver their vision for the future of the company. In such a fast-paced and competitive market, the efficient and effective delivery of this transformation is vital to N Brown's business. We are proud to be helping to deliver the desired changes to their core business and realise their strategic vision to be a digital-first retailer." About Sopra Steria Sopra Steria, a European leader in digital transformation, provides one of the most comprehensive portfolios of end-to-end service offerings on the market: consulting, systems integration, software development, infrastructure management and business process services. Sopra Steria is trusted by leading private and public-sector organisations to deliver successful transformation programmes that address their most complex and critical business challenges. Combining high quality and performance services, added value and innovation, Sopra Steria enables its clients to make the best use of digital technology. With over 38,000 employees in more than 20 countries, Sopra Steria had revenue of 3.6 billion in 2015. For more information, visit us at http://www.soprasteria.com Info ComFI: Sopra Steria Group (SOP) is listed on Euronext Paris (Compartment A) - ISIN: FR0000050809 N Brown Group N Brown Group is a leading multi-channel specialist fashion fit retailer headquartered in Manchester employing over 3.200 people. The company's strategy has been to focus each of the brands in its portfolio towards niche markets which are poorly served on the high street, such as the plus size and more mature customer segments. The Group has total sales of 818m for year ended Feb 2015, and online sales were 62% of revenue in Q1. Current brands include Simply Be, Jacamo, Fashion World, JD Williams, Marisota, House of Bath, Figleaves and High and Mighty.

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[May 16, 2016] Business Environment Council Hosts EnviroSeries Conference on "A Resilient and Low Carbon Hong Kong -- Transforming Awareness into Actions"

HONG KONG, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Business Environment Council Limited ("BEC") will host EnviroSeries Conference at JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong on Thursday, 19 May 2016. Setting the theme on "A Resilient and Low Carbon Hong Kong -- Transforming Awareness into Actions", the Conference will serve as a platform for policy makers, industry experts, business leaders and academics to exchange views to develop strategies and plans, which will help transform Hong Kong into a low carbon city and support a global shift to net zero emissions. The strong panel of speakers attending the Conference will include Ms Christine Loh, JP, Under Secretary for the Environment of the HKSAR Government; Mr Chi-ming Shun, JP, Director of the Hong Kong Observatory; Ir Edwin Tong, JP, Director of Drainage Services; and Mr Eric Chong, BEC Board Director cum Chair of BEC Climate Change Business Forum Advisory Group and President & CEO of Siemens Limited. Mr Richard Lancaster, BEC Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CLP Holdings Limited will also be present at the event. In the morning session, Ms Christine Loh will deliver the Keynote Presentation to share the Government's policy directions in combating climate change and reducing carbon emissions, following the opening remarks by Mr Eric Chong. Distinguished speakers, including Mr Chi-ming Shun, will discuss topics such as climate change impacts, future fuel mix for energ generation in Hong Kong and China's policy on climate change. In addition, Ms Loh and Mr Chong will join a panel discussion with business executives and industry experts to share views on the role of business sector to improve Hong Kong's fuel mix.



The luncheon presentation will be given by Ir Edwin Tong, talking about Hong Kong's drainage system to adapt to the effect of climate change. The afternoon session will focus on the reduction of energy usage of buildings and infrastructures. Panellists comprising architectural and sustainable development professionals as well as academics will discuss how business can lead Hong Kong to become a low carbon city. Staged twice a year, EnviroSeries Conference is BEC's flagship event that aims to provide a cross-sector forum for stakeholders to discuss and address key issues related to Hong Kong's environmental sustainability, and serves as a key initiative of BEC to enhance the exchange of knowledge and views. For more information about BEC EnviroSeries Conference, please visit BEC website at http://bec.org.hk/events-current/bec-enviroseries-conference-2016.

About Business Environment Council Limited Business Environment Council Limited ("BEC") is an independent, charitable membership organisation, established by the business sector in Hong Kong. Since its establishment in 1992, BEC has been at the forefront of promoting environmental excellence by advocating the uptake of clean technologies and practices which reduce waste, conserve resources, prevent pollution and improve corporate environmental and social responsibility. BEC offers sustainable solutions and professional services covering advisory, research, assessment, training and award programs for government, business and the community, thus enabling environmental protection and contributing to the transition to a low carbon economy. For more information on BEC, please visit www.bec.org.hk. About BEC EnviroSeries Conference Since 1992, the BEC EnviroSeries Conferences have become a central stage for a diverse combination of stakeholders to address and discuss key issues related to Hong Kong's sustainable development. The EnviroSeries Conferences have brought together distinguished local and international speakers to share their insights on critical challenges, innovative solutions and priorities for society as a whole, in addition to identifying effective models where government, business and community sectors could collaborate to create a sustainable future.

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[May 16, 2016] Leju Reports First Quarter 2016 Results

BEIJING, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Leju Holdings Limited ("Leju" or the "Company") (NYSE: LEJU), a leading online-to-offline ("O2O") real estate services provider in China, today announced its unaudited financial results for the fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2016. First Quarter 2016 Financial Highlights Total revenues increased by 21% year-on-year to $113.0 million Revenues from e-commerce services increased by 28% year-on-year to $86.1 million Revenues from online advertising services decreased by 3% year-on-year to $21.8 million Revenues from listing services increased by 34% year-on-year to $5.1 million

Non-GAAP [1] loss from operations was $7.4 million

from operations was Non-GAAP net loss attributable to Leju shareholders was $5.3 million , or $0.04 loss per diluted American depositary share ("ADS")







[1] Leju uses in this press release the following non-GAAP financial measures: (1) income (loss) from operations, (2) net income (loss), (3) net income (loss) attributable to Leju shareholders, (4) net income (loss) attributable to Leju shareholders per basic ADS, and (5) net income (loss) attributable to Leju shareholders per diluted ADS, each of which excludes share-based compensation expense and amortization of intangible assets resulting from business acquisitions. See "About Non-GAAP Financial Measures" and "Unaudited Reconciliation of GAAP and Non-GAAP Results" below for more information about the non-GAAP financial measures included in this press release.

"We are pleased that Leju continued its steady growth for this quarter," said Mr. Geoffrey He, Leju's chief executive officer. "We maintained our leading position in media marketing and e-commerce services in the primary market and further expanded our listing services business. We introduced a number of innovative products in the primary market and expanded our partnership with other leading mobile platforms to enhance our media influence and users' home hunting experience. Our listings services business now covers 53 cities with 36 new local websites launched to provide more comprehensive secondary housing information for home buyers across the country." "Our home furnishing advertising business also continued its market leadership position while our contractor platform Qiang Gong Zhang (7gz.com) achieved positive growth momentum," Mr. He continued. "7gz.com is an efficient online platform that connects home furnishing contractors directly with consumers, and through a series of marketing and branding activities we have been able to attract a lot of new users to this platform. We will continue to invest in 7gz.com and build it into a sustainable and profitable business." First Quarter 2016 Results Total revenues were $113.0 million, an increase of 21% from $93.4 million for the same quarter of 2015, mainly driven by the growth of revenues from e-commerce services and listing services, partially offset by the decrease in the revenues from online advertising services. Revenues from e-commerce services were $86.1 million, an increase of 28% from $67.1 million for the same quarter of 2015, primarily due to increases in both the number of discount coupons redeemed and in the average price per discount coupon redeemed. Revenues from online advertising services were $21.8 million, a decrease of 3% from $22.5 million for the same quarter of 2015, primarily due to a decrease in property developers' online advertising demand. Revenues from listing services were $5.1 million, an increase of 34% from $3.8 million for the same quarter of 2015, primarily due to growth in secondary home sales. Cost of revenues was $13.6 million, a decrease of 9% from $14.9 million for the same quarter of 2015, primarily due to decreased editorial department headcount and decreased amortization of intangible assets consisting of exclusive rights that expired in December 2015. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $113.3 million, an increase of 31% from $86.3 million for the same quarter of 2015, primarily due to the growth of the Company's e-commerce business as a result of its efforts to maintain its market share in the increasingly competitive market as well as increased marketing expenses related to the promotion of the Company's listing business and home furnishing business. Loss from operations was $13.8 million, compared to $7.5 million for the same quarter of 2015. Non-GAAP loss from operations was $7.4 million, compared to $0.4 million for the same quarter of 2015. Net loss was $11.1 million, compared to $5.5 million for the same quarter of 2015. Non-GAAP net loss was $5.4 million, compared to non-GAAP net income of $0.9 million for the same quarter of 2015. Net loss attributable to Leju shareholders was $11.0 million, or $0.08 loss per diluted ADS, compared to $5.3 million, or $0.04 loss per diluted ADS, for the same quarter of 2015. Non-GAAP net loss attributable to Leju shareholders was $5.3 million, or $0.04 loss per diluted ADS, compared to non-GAAP net income attributable to Leju shareholders of $1.0 million, or $0.01 per diluted ADS, for the same quarter of 2015. Cash Flow As of March 31, 2016, the Company's cash and cash equivalents balance was $258.5 million. First quarter 2016 net cash provided by operating activities was $1.3 million, mainly attributable to a decrease in unbilled accounts receivable of $6.3 million, a decrease in customer deposits of $9.4 million, an increase in other current liabilities of $6.5 million, and a decrease in prepaid expenses and other current assets of $2.7 million, which were partially offset by non-GAAP net loss of $5.4 million, a decrease in income tax payable of $8.8 million and a decrease in accrued payable and welfare expenses of $9.5 million. Net cash used in investing activities was $0.5 million, mainly comprised of a payment of $0.3 million for property, plant and equipment. Net cash used in financing activities was $3.2 million, mainly comprised of a payment of $3.4 million to acquire non-controlling interests, which were made in 2014. Business Outlook The Company maintains its fiscal 2016 total revenue guidance of approximately $660 million to $690 million, which would represent an increase of approximately 15% to 20% from $575.8 million in 2015. This forecast reflects the Company's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change. Conference Call Information Leju's management will host an earnings conference call on May 16, 2016 at 7 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time (7 p.m. Beijing/Hong Kong time). Dial-in details for the earnings conference call are as follows: U.S./International: +1-855-298-3404 Hong Kong: +852-5808-3202 Mainland China: +400-120-0539 Please dial in 10 minutes before the call is scheduled to begin and provide the passcode to join the call. The passcode is "Leju earnings call." A replay of the conference call may be accessed by phone at the following number until May 23, 2016: U.S./International: +1-866-846-0868 Hong Kong: +800-966-697 Mainland China: +400-1842-240 Passcode: 9444319 Additionally, a live and archived webcast will be available at http://ir.leju.com. About Leju Leju Holdings Limited("Leju") (NYSE: LEJU) is a leading online-to-offline, or O2O, real estate services provider in China, offering real estate e-commerce, online advertising and online listing services. Leju's integrated online platform comprises various mobile applications along with local websites covering more than 260 cities, enhanced by complementary offline services to facilitate residential property transactions. In addition to the Company's own websites, Leju operates the real estate and home furnishing websites of SINA Corporation, and maintains a strategic partnership with Tencent Holdings Limited. For more information about Leju, please visit http://ir.leju.com. Safe Harbor: Forward-Looking Statements This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "target," "going forward," "outlook" and similar statements. Leju may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its reports filed or furnished with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about Leju's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements that involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained, either expressly or impliedly, in any of the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to, fluctuations in China's real estate market; the highly regulated nature of, and government measures affecting, the real estate and internet industries in China; Leju's ability to compete successfully against current and future competitors; its ability to continue to develop and expand its content, service offerings and features, and to develop or incorporate the technologies that support them; its limited operating history and lack of experience as a stand-alone public company, given its recent carve-out from E-House and prior reliance on E-House for various corporate services; its reliance on SINA, Baidu and others with which it has developed, or may develop in the future, strategic partnerships; substantial revenue contribution from a limited number of real estate markets; complexities resulting from its ongoing relationships with E-House, due to E-House's controlling interest in Leju; and relevant government policies and regulations relating to the corporate structure, business and industry of Leju. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release is current as of the date of the press release, and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law. About Non-GAAP Financial Measures To supplement Leju's consolidated financial results presented in accordance with United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ("GAAP"), Leju uses in this press release the following non-GAAP financial measures: (1) income (loss) from operations, (2) net income (loss), (3) net income (loss) attributable to Leju shareholders, (4) net income (loss) attributable to Leju shareholders per basic ADS, and (5) net income (loss) attributable to Leju shareholders per diluted ADS, each of which excludes share-based compensation expense and amortization of intangible assets resulting from business acquisitions. The presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. For more information on these non-GAAP financial measures, please see the table captioned "Unaudited Reconciliation of GAAP and Non-GAAP Results" set forth at the end of this press release. Leju believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information to investors regarding its operating performance by excluding share-based compensation expense, and amortization of intangible assets resulting from business acquisitions, which may not be indicative of Leju's operating performance. These non-GAAP financial measures also facilitate management's internal comparisons to Leju's historical performance and assist its financial and operational decision making. A limitation of using these non-GAAP financial measures is that share-based compensation expense and amortization of intangible assets resulting from business acquisitions may continue to exist in Leju's business for the foreseeable future. Management compensates for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from each non-GAAP measure. The accompanying tables provide more details on the reconciliation between non-GAAP financial measures and their most comparable GAAP financial measures. For investor and media inquiries please contact: Ms. Melody Liu

Leju Holdings Limited

Phone: +86 (10) 5895-1062

E-mail: [email protected] Ms. Annie Huang

Leju Holdings Limited

Phone: +86 (10) 5895-1062

E-mail: [email protected]

LEJU HOLDINGS LIMITED UNAUDITED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (In thousands of U.S. dollars)

















December 31,

March 31,







2015





2016

ASSETS

















Current assets

















Cash and cash equivalents





260,296





258,475

Accounts receivable, net





113,991





103,388

Deferred tax assets, net





31,074





31,230

Prepaid expenses and other current assets





20,881





18,293

Customer deposits





58,833





49,402

Amounts due from related parties





9





23

Total current assets





485,084





460,811

Property and equipment, net





6,801





6,443

Intangible assets, net





90,737





87,644

Investment in affiliates





669





612

Goodwill





39,807





39,869

Other non-current assets





3,740





3,650

Total assets





626,838





599,029





















LIABILITIES AND EQUITY

















Current liabilities

















Accounts payable





327





1,563

Accrued payroll and welfare expenses





45,692





36,086

Income tax payable





66,815





57,988

Other tax payable





31,930





29,132

Amounts due to related parties





10,214





6,379

Advance from customers and deferred revenue





5,703





6,284

Accrued marketing and advertising expenses





3,915





9,871

Consideration payable of acquiring non-controlling

interest





7,339





3,971

Other current liabilities





7,672





8,206

Total current liabilities





179,607





159,480

Deferred tax liabilities





22,998





23,113

Total liabilities





202,605





182,593

Equity

















Ordinary shares ($0.001 par value): 500,000,000

shares authorized, 134,930,870 and 135,245,866

shares issued and outstanding, as of December

31, 2015 and March 31, 2016, respectively





135





135

Additional paid-in capital





773,766





776,687

Accumulated deficit





(343,658)





(354,898)

Subscription receivables





(9)





-

Accumulated other comprehensive income





(5,522)





(4,730)

Total Leju equity





424,712





417,194

Non-controlling interests





(479)





(758)

Total equity





424,233





416,436

TOTAL LIABILITIES AND EQUITY





626,838





599,029





















LEJU HOLDINGS LIMITED UNAUDITED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (In thousands of U.S. dollars, except share data and per share data)











Three months ended





March 31,







2015





2016

Revenues















E-commerce



67,056





86,088

Online advertising



22,542





21,781

Listing



3,833





5,119

Total revenues



93,431





112,988

Cost of revenues



(14,864)





(13,597)

Selling, general and administrative expenses



(86,279)





(113,312)

Other operating income



224





102

Loss from operations



(7,488)





(13,819)

Interest income



389





222

Other income (loss), net



179





(15)

Investment loss



-





(193)

Loss before taxes and equity in affiliates



(6,920)





(13,805)

Income tax expense



1,541





2,804

Loss before equity in affiliates



(5,379)





(11,001)

Loss from equity in affiliates



(78)





(60)

Net Loss



(5,457)





(11,061)

Less: net loss attributable to non-controlling interests



(134)





(97)

Loss attributable to Leju shareholders



(5,323)





(10,964)



















Loss per share:















Basic



(0.04)





(0.08)

Diluted



(0.04)





(0.08)

Shares used in computation:















Basic



134,108,003





134,976,346

Diluted



134,108,003





134,976,346



















Note 1 The conversion of Renminbi ("RMB") amounts into USD amounts is based on the rate

of USD1 = RMB6.4612 on March 31, 2016 and USD1 = RMB6.5129 for the three

months ended March 31, 2016 LEJU HOLDINGS LIMITED UNAUDITED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (In thousands of U.S. dollars)





Three months ended

March 31,



2015





2016

















Net loss

(5,457)





(11,061)

Other comprehensive income (loss), net of tax of nil













Foreign currency translation adjustment

(477)





790

















Comprehensive loss

(5,934)





(10,271)

















Less: Comprehensive loss attributable to non-controlling

interest

(137)





(98)

















Comprehensive loss attributable to Leju shareholders

(5,797)





(10,173)

LEJU HOLDINGS LIMITED Unaudited Reconciliation of GAAP and Non-GAAP Results (In thousands of U.S. dollars, except share data and per ADS data)

















Three months ended







March 31,





2015





2016





















GAAP loss from operations





(7,488)





(13,819)

Share-based compensation expense





3,955





3,363

Amortization of intangible assets resulting from

business acquisitions





3,175





3,084

Non-GAAP loss from operations





(358)





(7,372)





















GAAP net loss





(5,457)





(11,061)

Share-based compensation expense (net of tax)





3,955





3,363

Amortization of intangible assets resulting from

business acquisitions (net of tax)





2,381





2,313

Non-GAAP net income (loss)





879





(5,385)





















Net loss attributable to Leju shareholders





(5,323)





(10,964)

Share-based compensation expense (net of tax and

non-controlling interests)





3,955





3,355

Amortization of intangible assets resulting from

business acquisitions (net of tax and

non-controlling interests)





2,381





2,313

Non-GAAP net income (loss) attributable to Leju

shareholders





1,013





(5,296)





















GAAP net loss per ADS  basic





(0.04)





(0.08)





















GAAP net loss per ADS  diluted





(0.04)





(0.08)





















Non-GAAP net income (loss) per ADS  basic





0.01





(0.04)





















Non-GAAP net income (loss) per ADS  diluted





0.01





(0.04)





















Shares used in calculating basic GAAP / non-GAAP

net loss attributable to Leju shareholders per ADS





134,108,003





134,976,346

Shares used in calculating diluted GAAP net loss

attributable to Leju shareholders per ADS





134,108,003





134,976,346

Shares used in calculating diluted non-GAAP net

income (loss) attributable to Leju shareholders per

ADS





136,887,974





134,976,346























LEJU HOLDINGS LIMITED SELECTED OPERATING DATA









Three months ended



March 31,



2015

2016 Operating data for e-commerce services















Number of discount coupons issued to prospective

purchasers (number of transactions)



40,765





59,302

Number of discount coupons redeemed (number of

transactions)



32,111





34,243

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/leju-reports-first-quarter-2016-results-300268891.html SOURCE Leju Holdings Limited

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[May 16, 2016] Winners Announced In Tech Competition To Fight Labor Trafficking In Global Supply Chains

SAN FRANCISCO, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Partnership for Freedom announced today Sustainability Incubator and Trace Register as the grand prize winning team in Rethink Supply Chains: The Tech Challenge to Fight Labor Trafficking, an innovation competition seeking technological solutions to help identify and address labor trafficking in global supply chains for goods and services. Labor trafficking in global seafood supply chains has been well-documented in recent years. Sustainability Incubator, an advisory firm that helps seafood companies advance sustainability and solve human rights challenges, and Trace Register, a traceability software company, have teamed up to develop a solution to help companies better understand and address the risks of labor trafficking. The team will receive a $250,000 grant to support the Labor Safe Digital Certificate, a digital risk assessment tool that will be integrated into Trace Register's widely used traceability software to help seafood suppliers and major retailers better screen for risks of forced labor and address high-risk zones within their supply chains. "The presence of forced labor in corporate supply chains is a systemic problem that has been difficult to address," said Catherine Chen, director of investments of Humanity United , which coordinates the Partnership for Freedom . "It is our hope that these technologies will give businesses, workers, and governments helpful tools for greater transparency and visibility." "This support from Humanity United will make it possible to help combat modern slavery and suffering around the world," said Phil Werdal, CEO of Trace Register. "We look forward to working with Humanity United and Sustainability Incubator, as well as many producers, suppliers, and retailers who ae committed to eliminating forced labor from the seafood supply chain."



"The challenge has validated our efforts to rethink the opportunities for traceability to help combat modern slavery in seafood supply chains," said Katrina Nakamura of Sustainability Incubator. "We now have the resources needed to develop the technology to combine product tracking and slavery risk identification."

Good World Solutions was named the runner-up winner and will receive a $50,000 grant to advance their LaborLink mobile technology for improving visibility of trafficked workers by capturing and analyzing worker feedback.

"The Rethink Supply Chains" competition has catalyzed our Laborlink team around the issue of trafficking and offered invaluable insights on how to adapt our tools to help companies surface risk of forced labor within their supply chains," said Heather Franzese, co-founder and Executive Director of Good World Solutions. "Funding from the challenge will enable us to launch a dedicated survey and new community-based methodology to survey workers." The winners will spend the next year developing their proposed solutions, and will deploy the solutions and share associated learnings by mid-2017. The challenge, which launched in October 2015, called on innovators to submit technological solutions to help combat labor trafficking in global supply chains. After the open call for submissions, Sustainability Incubator and Trace Register and Good World Solutions, along with three additional teams, were selected as finalists to participate in an accelerator program. In addition, each finalist received $20,000 and support from subject matter experts to further develop their solutions. The five finalists convened in Washington, D.C. for a "boot camp" in February 2016 where they participated in expert sessions, user-testing and prototyping exercises, and discussion panels to gain additional insights. To learn more about the challenge and the winning ideas, please visit www.rethinksupplychains.org. The Partnership for Freedom is a public-private partnership led by Humanity United, in collaboration with the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of State, the Department of Labor, Steven Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation, the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Initiative, and the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Family Fund. Learn more at www.partnershipforfreedom.org or follow #RethinkSupplyChains on Facebook and Twitter. About Humanity United

Humanity United is a foundation dedicated to bringing new approaches to global problems that have long been considered intractable. We build, lead, and support efforts to change the systems that contribute to problems like human trafficking, mass atrocities, and violent conflict. HU is part of the Omidyar Group, which represents the philanthropic, personal, and professional interests of the Omidyar family. Learn more at www.humanityunited.org, @HumanityUnited and Facebook.com/humanityunited. Humanity United is part of The Omidyar Group: www.omidyargroup.com. CONTACT:

Tania Stewart, [email protected], 202-478-6174 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151027/281265LOGO

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151027/281266LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/winners-announced-in-tech-competition-to-fight-labor-trafficking-in-global-supply-chains-300266159.html SOURCE Partnership for Freedom

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[May 16, 2016] Miami Children's Health Foundation Launches New Digital Initiative

MIAMI, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Miami Children's Health Foundation (MCH Foundation)  part of Miami Children's Health System  is excited to announce the launch of a brand new digital initiative called the #2gether4thechildren campaign. This outreach program is designed to support MCH Foundation's Together for the Children campaign across social media. The profile filter is a heart logo designed by, and in the iconic style of Miami Children's Health Foundation's Together Celebrity Ambassador, Romero Britto. The campaign aims to drive awareness by encouraging community members to change their profile pictures to show support. It also includes the embedding of inspirational videos that highlight the Foundation's Patient of the Month initiative and offer an instant donation option. Each story is told to inspire and highlight the incredible work at MCH Foundation and Nicklaus Children's Hospital. The #2gether4thechildren digital campaign aims to expand the influence of the Hospital in South Florida and around the globe. "We encourage the community to show support for Miami Children's Health Foundation and Nicklaus Children's Hospital by changing their social media profiles," said Lucy Morillo, President & CEO for Miami Children's Health Foundation. "Our digital campaign aims to inspire and educate the communiy about the wonderful work we do every day for children in South Florida and beyond," added Morillo.



The #2gether4thechildren profile filter can be added by visiting www.mchf.org/2gether4thechildren Login with your Facebook information. Click "Continue" after previewing your photo with the filter. Copy & paste the provided message into the comment section. Click the "Post on Facebook" button. Click the "Share" button to share an inspiring story about one of the hospital's Patients of the Month. Nicklaus Children's Hospital is a world leader in pediatric healthcare and is South Florida's only licensed specialty hospital exclusively for children. The digital campaign highlights its success and by sharing compelling stories, the community can help drive awareness of the foundation and hospital.

About Miami Children's Health Foundation

Miami Children's Health Foundation (MCH Foundation) is a not-for profit 501(c)(3) organization established to support the creation of a world-class pediatric hospital so no child needs to leave South Florida for superior medical care. "Funding World-Class Care" and following the principle that all children deserve state-of-the-art pediatric care, MCH Foundation, now a part of the Miami Children's Health System, has helped the 289-bed Nicklaus Children's Hospital become a leader in pediatric healthcare with more than 650 attending physicians and over 130 pediatric sub-specialists. Currently, MCH Foundation is dedicating all its resources to Together For The Children, The Campaign For Miami Children's, which aims to raise $150 million by 2017 and help fund priorities such as the expansion of the Emergency Department, construction of a new Advanced Pediatric Care Pavilion, enhancements to its three centers of excellence, and expanding global/telehealth endeavors. Other campaign priorities include research, pediatric outreach and special programs. Media Contact: Lisbet Fernandez-Vina

Miami Children's Health Foundation

786.268.1845 /[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/miami-childrens-health-foundation-launches-new-digital-initiative-300268678.html SOURCE Miami Children's Health Foundation

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[May 16, 2016] Proterra Announces Advancements in Battery Technology for Heavy Duty Transit

BURLINGAME, Calif., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Proterra, the market leader of zero-emission, battery-electric buses in North America, today announced a new battery design for the Proterra Catalyst XR transit vehicle at the American Public Transportation Association Bus and Paratransit Conference (APTA), a gathering for U.S. transit agencies to showcase the best innovations in mass transit. Within the same energy storage footprint as the original Catalyst XR, the battery-enhanced vehicle now holds 28 percent more energy at 330 kWh and a best-in-market lightweight vehicle body. All current Catalyst XR customers will receive a complimentary upgrade to the higher energy level. "Our goal is to enable a complete replacement of fossil-fueled transit vehicles," said Ryan Popple, CEO of Proterra. "By steadily improving the range and charging capability of our purpose-built EV transit vehicles, we're broadening the market for EV transit very quickly, enabling more cities and more routes to go Zero Emission sooner." Since establishing its state-of-the-art battery-engineering lab in Silicon Valley, Proterra has attracted world-class engineers from leading technology companies to design batteries specifically for heavy-duty EV transit. With extensive background in mechanical, electrical and battery systems engineering, the team architected a newCatalyst XR battery pack for optimal efficiency which now delivers additional range while remaining the lightest vehicle in its class.



"By increasing the battery's energy density, the team was able to utilize the Catalyst vehicle's purpose-built design and maintain its light weight," said Gary Horvat, chief technology officer at Proterra. "The improved Catalyst XR marks another step toward Proterra's goal of providing a high-performance bus that can serve any transit route in the United States." The award-winning bus has already achieved the best efficiency rating ever for a 40' transit bus at 22 MPGe. Nearly six times more efficient than a diesel or CNG bus, the Catalyst is also significantly more energy efficient per mile than the closest competitors' electric bus. Other performance benefits of the Catalyst XR2 include:

Longest nominal range: capable of traveling a maximum of 194 miles on a single charge, based on Altoona efficiency measures. Actual mileage will vary with route conditions.

capable of traveling a maximum of 194 miles on a single charge, based on Altoona efficiency measures. Actual mileage will vary with route conditions. Lightest weight: at least 2,000 lbs. lighter than any other 40' battery electric bus on the market, while being more efficient.

at least 2,000 lbs. lighter than any other 40' battery electric bus on the market, while being more efficient. Designed for safety: Catalyst vehicles are purpose-built and engineered for the safest location of batteriesoutside of the passenger compartment. The batteries are temperature-controlled and incorporate both active and passive safety systems, with ruggedized, reinforced battery packs that are further separated from passengers by a heavy-duty structural barrier. Transit agencies interested in assessing route-specific range along with the cost savings, performance and environmental benefits of the updated Catalyst XR, can now receive accurate system-level data with the new Proterra EV Simulator, which will be on display at booth 631 during the APTA conference. About Proterra

Proterra is a leader in the design and manufacture of zero-emission vehicles that enable bus fleet operators to significantly reduce operating costs while delivering clean, quiet transportation to the community. Proterra has sold more than 155 vehicles to 16 different transit agencies throughout North America. Proterra's configurable EV platform, battery and charging options make its buses well-suited for a wide range of transit and campus routes. With unmatched durability and energy efficiency based on rigorous U.S. certification testing, Proterra products are proudly designed, engineered and manufactured in America, with offices in Silicon Valley, Southern California and South Carolina. For more information visit: http://www.proterra.com/ and follow us on Twitter @Proterra_Inc. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151009/275882LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/proterra-announces-advancements-in-battery-technology-for-heavy-duty-transit-300268794.html SOURCE Proterra

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[May 16, 2016] YouTube star Hannah Hart's new web series encourages you to feed your passion

NORTHBROOK, Ill., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hannah Hart, YouTuber, creator of My Drunk Kitchen and New York Times bestselling author, knows how to have a good time over a good meal better than anyone. As the host of the new web series, While the Water Boils, now live on YouTube and PassionForPasta.com, Hart is once again doing what she does best with the help of cultural icons like Bill Nye and others who embody distinct passions. Experience the interactive Multimedia News Release here:

http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7835551-barilla-passion-for-pasta-series/ In each episode, Hart welcomes a different celebrity guest into her kitchen and delves into their passions  art, science, comedy, fashion and lots more. Season one showcases intimate interviews with Bill Nye, famously known as 'The Science Guy'; Rachel Zoe, designer, editor, stylist, best-selling author and entrepreneur; and Hebru Brantley, Chicago-born artist, as they talk with Hannah about what drives them  all in the time it takes a pot of water to boil. In this timeframe, Hannah gets an inside, hands-on look at what her guests have learned in the pursuit of their passions. For example, while the water boils, Bill Nye explains that "everything you do in the kitchenfrom boiling water to experimenting with the perfect pasta pairingsis science." This is the boiling point that defines the entire series  Hart spotlights accomplished professionals who have followed their passion and, in turn, their life stories inspire others to follow suit and make the most of however much time they've got. "Cooking allows me to be who I am," Hart says. "For me, food is passionate, especially ingredients like pasta, because it permits me to be creative and innovative. At the same time, it is something I can share, so it also gives me the opportunity to see what makes others tick." Hart was chosen to be the host of the series because her passion is at the intersection of food, friends, and fun, as showcased on her wildly popular YouTube channel MyHarto. "The path taken by each of my While the Water Boils guests is so unique and different from one another" Hart says. "It proves this truth: no matter where you start, if you trust yourself, honor those around you, and pursue what you love, anything can happen." The While the Water Boils series consists of two three-episode seasons, both of which will be available for viewing on Barilla's US YouTube page and PassionForPasta.com. The second season, which premieres in October 2016, features a different set of passionate people sharing their experiences and creating personal recipes with Hannah. Comedian and actress Wanda Sykes, actor and performer Theo Rossi and professional skateboarder Lizzie Armanto bring even more fresh and fun perspectives to the series. "The celebrities featured in this video series are compelling because they were able to take their passions and turn them into acareer," Hart notes.



For more information about the series, visit YouTube and PassionForPasta.com.

Contact: Shelby Montgomery

+1 (312) 240-2813

[email protected]

Passion for Pasta

Pasta and passion go together. That's why Barilla created Passion For Pasta, an initiative that celebrates pasta's ability to bring people together, inspire creativity, and ignite passion even in the smallest moments. The new centerpiece of that initiative is "While the Water Boils," a web series where well-loved cultural icons dish about life, pasta and the pursuit of passionall in about the time it takes to cook pasta.

For more information, please visit: passionforpasta.com The Barilla Group

Founded in 1877 from a bread and pasta shop in Parma, Italian family-owned Barilla is an international group and top global food company. A world leader in the markets of pasta and readytouse sauces in continental Europe, bakery products in Italy, and the crispbread business in Scandinavia, the Barilla Group owns 29 production sites (14 in Italy and 15 abroad) and exports to more than 100 countries. Every year, its plants turn out approximately 1.7 million tons of food products that are consumed on tables all over the world, under the following brand names: Barilla, Mulino Bianco, Harrys, Pavesi, Wasa, Filiz, Yemina e Vesta, Misko, Voiello and Academia Barilla. The Barilla Group has one way of doing business: "Good for You, Good for the Planet." "Good for You" means constantly improving its products, motivating people to adopt healthy lifestyles and improving food access and social inclusion. "Good for the Planet" means promoting sustainable supply chains and reducing the C02 emissions and water consumption that occur during the production process. For more information, please visit: barillagroup.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/youtube-star-hannah-harts-new-web-series-encourages-you-to-feed-your-passion-300268768.html SOURCE Barilla USA

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[May 16, 2016] Nokia Bell Labs achieves world's first 10 Gbps symmetrical data speeds over traditional cable access networks

ESPOO, Finland, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Nokia today announced a significant breakthrough in the effort to meet surging data demand from consumers and businesses. In a world-first, the company showed it is possible to achieve 10 Gbps symmetrical data speeds using traditional Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) cable plant. Using a prototype technology called XG-CABLE that is based on unique access technology innovations and applications developed by Nokia Bell Labs, the test demonstrates how existing cable systems can be used to deliver symmetrical ultra-broadband access services. Achieving 'symmetrical' services  where the network can simultaneously support 10 Gbps data speeds for both uploading and downloading content  is a major breakthrough for the cable industry. With the need for high-speed upload services growing due to demand for HD video uploads, real-time gaming, live streaming video and virtual or augmented reality, Nokia Bell Labs started to explore the feasibility of delivering symmetrical service over HFC cable plants in 2014. Demonstrating for the first time that the concept is valid and achievable, the XG-CABLE test used point-to-point cable topologies to deliver 10 Gbps symmetric data speeds over coaxial cable using 1.2 Ghz of spectrum. Still considered a proof of concept, XG-CABLE can easily integrate into the CableLabs new Full Duplex DOSCIS 3.1 concept, which is focused on providing cable operators with technology innovations that can transform the industry. By leveraging the XG-CABLE technology, operators can effectively use existing HFC cables over the last 200 meters to provide upstream speeds never before achievable due to the limited spectrum available. This will enable operators to more effectively bring ultra-broadband services to consumer locations that ere not physically or economically viable unless fiber was brought all the way to the residence. XG-CABLE will also provide operators with greater agility in how they use and manage their spectrum.



Federico Guillen, President of Fixed Networks, Nokia, said "The XG-CABLE proof of concept is a great example of our ongoing effort and commitment to provide the cable industry with the latest innovations and technology needed to effectively address the growing demand for gigabit services. The proof of concept demonstrates that providing 10 Gbps symmetrical services over HFC networks is a real possibility for operators; it is an important achievement that will define the future capabilities and ultra-broadband services cable providers are able to deliver." Dr. Robert Howald, Vice President, Network Architecture at Comcast Cable, said: "While it is still early in the development of full duplex, Nokia's XG Cable proof of concept shows that multi-Gigabit symmetrical speeds over HFC, as targeted in the CableLabs FDX initiative, are achievable. As we continue our DOCSIS 3.1 deployments this year, this development further illustrates the power and flexibility of the DOCSIS 3.1 as a tool to deliver next-generation broadband performance."

Click to Tweet: XG-CABLE proof of concept by @Nokianetworks brings world record speeds to cable industry demonstrating 10Gbps symmetrical speeds Technical background information The XG-CABLE test used two different cable scenarios: Leveraging a point-to-point 100m coaxial drop cable, XG-CABLE was able to deliver 10 Gbps symmetric data speeds with 1.2 Ghz of spectrum Using HFC network topologies that utilize a Fiber-to-the-Last-Amplifier (point-to-multipoint coax drop) approach, XG-CABLE was able to deliver 7.5 Gbps of symmetrical data speeds.

Nokia Bell Lab's XG-CABLE utilizes innovative echo canceling technologies developed by Bell Labs to achieve full duplex transmission of 10 Gbps upstream and 10 Gbps downstream simultaneously. About Nokia Nokia is a global leader in the technologies that connect people and things. Powered by the innovation of Nokia Bell Labs and Nokia Technologies, the company is at the forefront of creating and licensing the technologies that are increasingly at the heart of our connected lives. With state-of-the-art software, hardware and services for any type of network, Nokia is uniquely positioned to help communication service providers, governments, and large enterprises deliver on the promise of 5G, the Cloud and the Internet of Things. http://nokia.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nokia-bell-labs-achieves-worlds-first-10-gbps-symmetrical-data-speeds-over-traditional-cable-access-networks-300268838.html SOURCE Nokia

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[May 16, 2016] Indiana Health Information Exchange Names Valita Fredland as Vice President, General Counsel and Privacy Officer

The Indiana Health Information Exchange today announced that Valita Fredland has been named Vice President, General Counsel and Privacy Officer effective today, May 16th. She brings with her comprehensive experience in healthcare law, privacy, security and ethical considerations. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516005084/en/ Valita Fredland joins the Indiana Health Information Exchange as VP, General Counsel and Privacy Officer (Photo: Business Wire) Before joining IHIE, she was the Chief Privacy Officer at one of the nation's largest academic healthcare systems. With IHIE's unique coalition of 150 hospitals, payers and other types of healthcare related entities, along with its management of over nine billion pieces of clinical data, Fredland is responsible for overseeing and ensuring the privacy of patient data, and using this perspective to help inform the organization's business strategy and governance and compliance policies, among other duties. "Bar none, there is no one better than Valita to help us continue to navigate the most important aspect of our business, and that is maintaining patient privacy," said IHIE President and CEO John Kansky. "As part of our leadership team, her perspective ill help inform our strategic direction with our focus on novel ways to support interoperability between our system and the wide ranging EMR systems that are in use by our customers, and the health of patients here in Indiana and the region surrounding us."



Fourteen years ago, Fredland began a multidisciplinary Privacy and Security Council that includes a cross section of business and clinical representatives to discuss healthcare industry trends and to predict and respond to risks related to sensitive data. This group has broad job function participation - from clinical and IT, to social workers and policy writers. In addition, Fredland is member of the board of the Indiana Security and Privacy Network, a local professional group that works to provide continuing education on data privacy and security across industries in Indiana. Fredland feels that her bioethics training helps inform the way she practices her profession, "It is important to ask what is the right thing to do with respect to data, especially when potential uses arise ahead of clear policy guidance. As a privacy professional, my goal is to respect individual privacy expectations while supporting efforts to use data to improve population health and envision the healthcare system of the future."

Most recently, Fredland served as Chief Privacy Officer and Counsel at IU Health. She also served as a Senior Affiliate Faculty member with the Charles Warren Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics, where she served as a content expert for the Fellowship in Clinical Ethics. Additionally, Fredland is an adjunct faculty member at Indiana University (News - Alert)/Purdue University, most recently teaching a graduate level course on HIPAA/HITECH and data privacy laws in the Department of Biohealth Informatics (News - Alert). She has given numerous presentations around the country related to healthcare privacy. Fredland is a member of the Indiana and New York State Bar Associations. She earned her undergraduate degree in economics from Mount Holyoke College, her law degree from Cornell University, and a master's degree in clinical bio-medical ethics from the University of Virginia. Valita Fredland bio can be found here. About the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE) IHIE operates the nation's largest health information exchange, providing a secure, robust and interoperable health information technology network that connects over 150 hospitals, long-term care facilities, rehabilitation centers, community health clinics and other healthcare providers. IHIE provides the nation's largest implementation of clinical results delivery in the country (DOCS4DOCS Service). The organization supports the Indiana Network for Patient Care, a clinical data repository accessed via IHIE's CareWeb application. IHIE also provides Public Health, Transitions of Care and Population Health Management services. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516005084/en/

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[May 16, 2016] Stanford Professor Bradford Parkinson, Father of GPS, to Receive the 2016 Marconi Prize

Dr. Bradford Parkinson, a Stanford professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, will receive the 2016 Marconi Prize, a pinnacle honor in the field of information and communication science. The $100,000 prize, given annually, recognizes major advances in the field which benefit humanity. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516005486/en/ Prof. Bradford Parkinson, winner of the 2016 Marconi Prize (Photo: Business Wire) Parkinson's contributions to the development of GPS helped create a vast global utility that provides positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) information to the world and is a vital part of today's global information infrastructure. GPS has been transformative in virtually every aspect of how people work and live, and in their use of time and spatial information. But its development was very nearly derailed and the Air Force would have abandoned its development had they not been forced to fund it. Despite that opposition, they ended up selecting someone to lead the project who was uniquely qualified to make it a success. A Lt. General Kenneth Schultz, the Space and Missile System Office (SAMSO) Commander, had ordered Colonel Parkinson to his office in November 1972. The General's purpose was to discuss working on the floundering USAF program, called 621B, that was attempting to create a global navigation service using satellites. Parkinson wasn't interested - with good reason. "I already had a super job with a hundred million dollars of play money every year that I could spend on anything that related to ballistic missile re-entry," he says. Meanwhile, the incipient GPS program was mired in technical challenges and in competition with other ideas within the Dept. of Defense. The General was insistent, but Parkinson, a rising star and perhaps the top military expert on inertial navigation, had just one question: if he accepted the assignment, would he be in charge of it? When the General said, "I can't promise that," Parkinson said, "Then I don't volunteer." Fortunately, Schultz recognized Parkinson was perfect for the job. Parkinson's entire career had prepared him for this project, from his study of navigation at the U.S. Naval Academy to his Master of Science study at MIT (News - Alert)-just when Charles Draper was making his mark on inertial navigation-to his subsequent PhD research at Stanford University. Parkinson even had taught future astronauts about satellite design and operations, and he understood navigation from the inside, as a Mission Commander flying combat missions in Southeast Asia. By the time he was ten feet out the door, the General had called personnel and initiated his transfer-giving the young colonel the authority he had requested. But with sinking heart, Parkinson realized he had inherited a lot of good underlying thinking, but so much infighting that any progress had ground to a halt. Enter what Parkinson calls "an amazing coincidence." Dr. Mal Currie, the senior-most person in the entire Dept. of Defense for development, had just been appointed and was moving to Washington from Los Angeles. Howeer, he needed to travel back and forth to Los Angeles for several weekends to organize his family's move. To make it official, he would stop by the SAMSO (Space and Missile Systems Organization) for a briefing, since all USAF ICBMs and Satellites were developed there. So for several weekends he arrived at the Los Angeles Air Force Station to get such a briefing. General Schultz, the SAMSO Commander, soon ran out of top level discussion topics - so someone had the bright idea to send Dr. Currie down to discuss 621B with Parkinson, suspecting that would take up the rest of the day.



"Here I am, a brand new Colonel, given uninterrupted time with the senior-most development leader in the whole Defense Department, about five levels above me, and I have all afternoon. He is brilliant; he is a nuclear physicist. We soon got down to technical stuff. I brought out this big stack of charts and a small projector, using the wall as a screen," Parkinson remembers. By the end of the afternoon, Parkinson had convinced him GPS was a great idea-but the system needed tweaking. Having built some support, Parkinson kept plugging. He asked for-and got-some of the brightest minds in the Air Force to help him, using General Schultz's pipeline in Military Personnel. He encountered opposition everywhere; even some veiled threats. Finally, in August of 1973 he stood before a sea of DoD General officers and Officials in Washington. He presented the Air Force position on GPS-the somewhat-flawed one he had inherited-for a thumbs up or down vote. It was thumbs down; the Air Force preferred to build more planes.

Envisioning his career in ruins, he was alarmed when Dr. Currie, who had chaired the meeting, called him to his office immediately afterward. "You and I know you inherited this program, but there are some improvements you can make. I'd like you to make those improvements and come right back to another decision meeting," Currie said. Parkinson took the challenge. He called a meeting of a small group of his brightest team members, the ones he had hand-picked. It was not to be held in LA, where everyone was entrenched in the original thinking, but in Washington DC. In the deserted Pentagon, over Labor Day weekend, the only occupants of the largest office building in the world would be Parkinson's band of brothers in the 5th floor conference room. They worked nonstop to change the proposal. The 621B fundamentals were sound, but several technical details had to be modulated to make it the GPS we know today. The team working that weekend confirmed the use of the then-unique digital signal structure called Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) that had been tested by 621B. This allowed the signals used by all the satellites to broadcast on the same frequency and insured that location precision (eventually to millimeters) could be achieved. Equally important, they decided every satellite had to carry redundant atomic clocks, so that signal timing was accurate even when on the other side of the world. Use of such clocks had been advocated by both 621B and the Navy. They also confirmed the over-all GPS system concept from 621B: The user would measure the range to four satellites, with knowledge of the exact time they broadcast their signal and their location, then the user could triangulate the receiver's position as well as determine time to nanoseconds. GPS was built on this premise. Parkinson went back to Currie with his revised proposal in December 1973, and this time it was thumbs up. Just 44 months after contract award they launched the first satellite-probably a record for any military program. Today, there are 30 operational Global Positioning satellites circling the planet. We can thank Parkinson for far more than the technology itself. Every decision he made; every argument he won, ensured that ultimately, people everywhere in the world would benefit from an astounding range of applications, from communications and navigation to power grids, air traffic control, financial networks and more. He testified to Congress on the importance of open access. He is proud that his team had designed GPS to be used by civilians, world-wide, from the start. After retiring from military service as an Air Force Colonel, Parkinson inspired a new generation of GPS scientists at Stanford, where he is a now a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and other leading engineering schools, helping push hundreds of enhancements and new applications. At his Research Center, he and his allied faculty and students developed the concept and first demonstration of the FAA's now-operational GPS integrity system, called WAAS. With his students (and sponsored by John Deere) they demonstrated the first GPS auto-guided Farm Tractor, now an $800M world-wide GPS farming business. In 1992 they demonstrated the first ever completely blind landing of a commercial airline (and repeated it for 110 landings!). "With immense dedication, Dr. Parkinson overcame technical and bureaucratic obstacles in order to champion the early development, and later enhancement through modernization, of GPS," said Dr. Charles Elachi, Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We now take for granted GPS technology, whether our phone is providing turn-by-turn directions or enjoying GPS-time-synchronized communications. However, the concept of using an orbiting spacecraft's transmitting radio signals as a solution for all-weather global navigation (positioning and timing) faced enormous obstacles during its development phase in the 1970s. As the program director for the Air Force, Dr. Parkinson and his fellow engineers were pushing the state of the art." "Today, there are billions of GPS receivers in the world," says Marconi Society Chairman Sir David Payne, "GPS is one of the most under-rated advances in the history of information science. It's taken for granted, but Parkinson was on the ground floor of enabling air, space and terrestrial guidance and navigation with GPS. His vision for the use of timing signals resulted in cellular telephone improvements, better Internet traffic control, power grid management and a myriad of important financial applications. Dr. Parkinson's achievements have been game-changing." Parkinson will receive the Marconi Prize at a private ceremony at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA (News - Alert), on November 2, 2016. Additional information about the Marconi Society and the Marconi Fellows can be found at www.marconisociety.org. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516005486/en/

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[May 16, 2016] SecureSet and STEMsCO Win Federal Grant to Bring Cybersecurity Summer Camps to Colorado Springs

DENVER, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SecureSet, the nation's first cybersecurity academy and accelerator, worked with STEMsCO to win a $100,000 grant from Generation Cyber (GenCyber), a program spearheaded by the National Security Agency and National Science Foundation to address the growing shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals in the United States. SecureSet will bring cybersecurity 'bootcamps' to Colorado Springs this summer aimed at both high-school students, and middle-school and high-school teachers, particularly in the Peyton, Widefield and Falcon districts. The summer camps, which are free of charge to attendees and will take place the weeks of July 11 for teachers and July 18 for students, will provide a new level of cybersecurity education, including hands-on training related to network security, systems security, detection and logs, and applied cryptography. Up to 25 students will be admitted into the camp based on an application process that reviews campers' interest and commitment to STEM and cybersecurity. "Our camps will help provide cybersecurity education to students and teachers from all backgrounds so they can learn these important skills and have an opportunity to turn it into career," said Bret Fund, co-founder of SecureSet and director of the company's academy. "Cybersecurity professionals are in high-demand in business and government and our goal is help educate a generation of people who can fill these critical jobs."



"The chance for our Peyton School District students to attend an NSA GenCyber Camp this summer, free of charge, is an amazing opportunity," said Tim Kistler, superintendent of Peyton School District. "Expanding that to our educators, so even more of students can benefit from this event, is outstanding. The advantage of rural students having access to reliable, free transportation to and from the camp is critical to getting the participation we desire. We deeply appreciate STEMsCO and SecureSet writing this grant with the Peyton School District in mind. We are aggressively pursuing such offerings, and are quite pleased that this is falling into our lap." To apply for the SecureSet, STEMsCO summer camp please visit https://www.stemsco.org/stemsco/home/gencyber-camp/. To learn more about SecureSet, including the adult cybersecurity education the company offers, please visit www.secureset.com

About SecureSet

SecureSet is the nation's first cybersecurity accelerator and academy. Headquartered in Denver and supported by experienced and prestigious leaders in government, business, military and higher education, SecureSet is bringing an array of cybersecurity resources together to help innovate the next generation of cybersecurity technology, and educate thousands to fill the nation's cybersecurity job gap. Learn more at www.secureset.com About STEMsCO

STEMsCO leverages community partnerships to equip educators and learners with the information, resources, tools and opportunities needed to propel pre-K through 12 students toward STEM excellence. STEMsCO fulfills its mission by establishing strong, mutually beneficial partnerships within and between pre-K through 20 education, Industry, the Nonprofit sector and the community at large. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/secureset-and-stemsco-win-federal-grant-to-bring-cybersecurity-summer-camps-to-colorado-springs-300268025.html SOURCE SecureSet

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[May 16, 2016] Netafim Takes Major Step in Increasing Investment in China

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Netafim, the global leader in smart irrigation solutions for a sustainable future, recently inaugurated its first production plant in China. Israel's Ambassador to China Matan Vilnai, Ningxia Vice Governor Zeng Yichun, and Director of the Ningxia Water Bureau Wu Hongxiang were among those attending the inauguration ceremony. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160516/367822LOGO)

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160516/367803) Located in Yinchuan, capital of the northwest Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (Ningxia), the facility will leverage Netafim's latest patented technology to produce the world's most advanced drip lines along with full irrigation solutions. Underscoring Netafim's greater commitment to China, the new plant will serve the country's fast-growing water-saving irrigation industry; more and more farmers are investing in high-quality systems that enhance crop yield and quality, while reducing water, fertilizer and labor costs. The Chinese market maintains huge potential given that government policies favor agricultural and water-saving irrigation technologies - which are at the core of Netafim's expertise - that aim to meet the population's increasing demand for high-quality food. Incorporating Netafim's state-of-the-art technology, the ISO-certified Ningxia plant includes a training center for irrigation design and agronomy, as well as a quality laboratory to ensure tat its products meet the highest international standards.



With low annual rainfall of 200mm on the one hand, and easy access to the Yellow River on the other, Ningxia is a key target for government investments in water-saving technologies. Reflecting this policy, Ningxia officials visited Netafim in 2014 to discuss its agricultural vision for the region. Based on these discussions and subsequent studies of the region, Netafim built the cutting-edge manufacturing plant in Ningxia, which will serve as the company's initial base for investments in the region and in North West China. Ningxia is home to a promising wine industry that is rapidly gaining an international reputation, and has received massive investments in an effort to create a solid base for producing high-quality wines. Given the importance of first-rate and well-managed irrigation and fertigation technology in producing quality wines, together with Netafim's exceedingly high share of the global wine irrigation market, the company's decision to invest in Ningxia is a natural step. Netafim has already collaborated with the US winery Domaine Chandon in building a high-end vineyard in Ningxia, and is partnering with a regional wine producer that serves Chinese embassies worldwide.

"The opening of this top-of-the-line facility is testimony to Netafim's commitment to investing in China, one of our strategically important markets with significant growth potential," said Netafim CEO Ran Maidan. "We greatly appreciate the support given by the Ningxia government, and hope to contribute to its efforts in carrying out its ambitious agricultural development plans." "Our new plant provides a solid foundation for Netafim's current and future activities in China," said Netafim Head of APAC Division and China Chairman Stephan Titze. "Now we can supply high-quality, industry-standard full irrigation solutions that deliver significant water savings to farmers and governmental customers throughout Ningxia and North West China." "The launching of Netafim's plant provides us with superior technological support in dry farming, water-saving irrigation and related equipment," said Li Jianhua, Ningxia Party Secretary, at an official government meeting with Ambassador Vilnai. "We hope to enhance our cooperation with Netafim by importing new technology, offering education and training, and strengthening our skills as we continue to expand in this field." "Israel and Ningxia have created a solid foundation for scientific and technical cooperation in agriculture," Ambassador Vilnai said. "Netafim's new plant is yet another milestone in this partnership. We look forward to continue supporting one another, and focusing on projects that will bring Israeli irrigation technology to other areas throughout China." About Netafim Netafim is the global leader in smart irrigation solutions for a sustainable future. With 28 subsidiaries, 17 manufacturing plants and 4,300 employees worldwide, Netafim delivers innovative solutions to growers of all sizes, from smallholders to large-scale agricultural producers, in over 110 countries. Founded in 1965, Netafim pioneered the drip revolution, creating a paradigm shift toward low-flow agricultural irrigation. Today, Netafim provides diverse solutions - from state-of-the-art drippers to advanced automated systems - for agriculture, greenhouses, landscaping and mining, accompanied by expert agronomic, technical and operational support. Specializing in end-to-end solutions from the water source to the root zone, Netafim delivers turnkey irrigation and greenhouse projects, supported by engineering, project management and financing services. Netafim's market-leading solutions are helping the world grow more with less. For more information, visit http://www.netafim.com. Contact: Rachel Shaul

Head of Corporate Marketing & External Affairs

Tel: +972-52-5014827

[email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20160516/8521603144LOGO

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[May 16, 2016] Jeff Mize Named CEO of PostProcess Technologies

BUFFALO, N.Y., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- PostProcess Technologies, the only provider of automated and intelligent post-processing solutions for 3D printed parts, announced Jeff Mize as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. Mize is a seasoned executive with a proven track record of driving consistent triple-digit growth with emerging technologies in new markets. PostProcess has attracted interest from automotive to defense to medical markets for its ability to replace labor-intensive manual processes that produce inconsistent results. "The market has shown such strong interest in our proven technology that our immediate priority is organizing for rapid growh. Jeff brings expertise in driving fast global growth in early stage markets," said Daniel Hutchinson, Founder, President and Chief Technology Officer, PostProcess. "Our technology drives a fundamental shift in the scalability of 3D printing and Jeff is an expert at pioneering new markets by building world class teams that deliver exceptional customer satisfaction".



"PostProcess has patent-pending technology that will further accelerate the growth of the 3D printing market," said Jeff Mize, CEO, PostProcess. "Additive Manufacturing operations are experiencing a bottleneck in the third step of 3D printing - post-processing. Our comprehensive and automated solutions drive a substantial increase in throughput, tremendous consistency and a significant reduction in labor costs. Also, as industrial 3D printing expands from prototyping into volume production around the world, automating these processes becomes essential". Mize was previously the commercial leader behind the rapid growth of both Climate Corporation (digital agricultural platform) and NAVTEQ Corporation (digital maps), which sold for $1.1B to Monsanto and $8.1B to Nokia, respectively. Earlier in his career, Jeff was with Honeywell where he held various application engineering, sales and marketing leadership roles.

Jeff holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Champaign. About PostProcess Technologies: PostProcess Technologies is the only provider of automated and intelligent post-processing solutions for 3D printed parts. PostProcess Technologies removes the bottleneck in the third step of 3D printing  post-processing. Through patent-pending technology, PostProcess Technologies delivers consistency and scalability in addition to delivering an increase in productivity. Customers span many industries including aerospace, automotive, consumer goods, defense and medical. For more information, visit www.postprocess.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160515/367747LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jeff-mize-named-ceo-of-postprocess-technologies-300268852.html SOURCE PostProcess Technologies

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[May 16, 2016] Electronic Warfare Market Worth 25.36 Billion USD by 2021

PUNE, India, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The report "Electronic Warfare Market by Category (Electronic Support, Electronic Attack, Electronic Protection), Platform (Airborne, Naval, Land, Unmanned), Product, Technology, Portable, and Region - Global Forecast to 2021", published by MarketsandMarkets, the global market is projected to reach USD 25.36 Billion by 2021, growing at a CAGR of 4.29% during the forecast period. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 ) Browse 73 market data Tables and 80 Figures spread through 187 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Electronic Warfare Market" http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/electronic-warfare-market-1301.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization On this report. This growth is mainly attributed to the increasing number of wars and transnational disputes, emergence of cognitive electronic warfare technology, increased system reliability and efficiency due to the introduction of TWT (travelling-wave tube)-based solutions. Electronic support segment to dominate the electronic warfare category market, among all the electronic warfare categories Electronic support is the largest share-contributing segment in the Electronic Warfare Market. It plays a vital role in immediate threat recognition. ESM is used for intelligence gathering in tactical environments. Due to this, the segment dominates the overall electronic warfare category market, and is expected to continue its dominance over the next five years. Ground-based platform to capture the largest market share in the electronic warfare platform market The electronic warfare market has been segmented and analyzed on the basis of four platforms namely, air, naval, ground, and unmanned. The ground-based platform segment dominates the overall market, as of 2016. However, the unmanned segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This growth is mainly attributed to the increased proliferation of UAVs, due to which they are increasingly being used by the defense industry. Asia-Pacific is projected to grow at the highest CAGR in the electronic warfare market from 2016 to 2021 The Nort America region dominates the electronic warfare market, as of 2016. Whereas, the Asia-Pacific region is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This is mainly attributed to huge population base, booming economy, increasing funding/investments towards the development of EW products, growing focus of both, international and domestic players on the APAC EW market, and a large number of R&D activities.



Top players in the electronic warfare market In 2015, the electronic warfare market was dominated by BAE Systems Plc. (U.K.), The Raytheon Company (U.S.), Thales Group (France), Lockheed Martin Corporation (U.S.), and Saab AB (Sweden).

Inquiry Before Buying : http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=1301 The report segments and analyzes the electronic warfare market on the basis of electronic warfare category (Electronic Support, Electronic Warfare, and Electronic Protection), Platform (Air, Land, Naval, and Unmanned), Product (Directed Energy, Integrated Suits, Jammers, Radar Warning Receivers, DIRCM, Antennas, and Airborne Decoys) and maps these segments across six major regions, namely, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. Browse Related Reports C4ISR Market by Application (Communication-SATCOM, SDR, Man portable communication, battle management, Command & Control, EW-ESM, ECM, ECCM, SIGNIT, Computer-Data Analytics, H/W, S/W, MFD), Platform (Air, Land, Naval), Technology & Geography - Analysis & Forecast to 2014 - 2020

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/c4isr-market-1315.html Global Telemetry Market by Application (Healthcare, Telematics, Energy Utilities, Retail, Automation, Logistics, Oil & Gas, Aerospace & Defense, Agriculture, Wildlife, Hydrography, Oceanography), Technology (Wire Link, Wireless, Data Loggers), Sensors, Components, & Geography - Forecasts & Analysis (2014-2020)

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/global-telemetry-market-88563522.html About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is the world's No. 2 firms in terms of annual published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical info graphics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository. Contact:

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[May 16, 2016] Protera Technologies Launches Protera FlexBridge(SM) HANA & S/4 HANA Migration Accelerator Services

WESTCHESTER, Illinois, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Protera Technologies, Inc. (Protera), a global leader in business critical managed enterprise cloud and hosting services, announced it has launched its Protera FlexBridge? HANA & S/4 HANA Migration Accelerator Services (FlexBridge). FlexBridge is a powerful migration tool that streamlines the path to HANA & S/4 HANA. Built from the ground up by incorporating years of Protera's migration experience and best practices, FlexBridge utilizes machine learning to continuously improve migration execution and provides automatic error identification and correction. Protera has automated its SAP migration experiences into a powerful tool and methodology that integrates existing SAP process and tools. FlexBridge provides a content rich project management console for end-to-end project visibility that helps take the time, cost and risk out of complex data conversions. Video - http://youtu.be/JQ-CfCAHy58 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160516/367863LOGO Migrations performed with Protera FlexBridge? HANA & S/4 HANA Migration Accelerator Services typically realize up to a 45% reduction in the project timeline, data quality increases by up to 50%, and project cost reductions of more than 50%. Patrick Osterhaus, Protera's President  CTO, conveyed, "Protera is extremely committed to the SAP community and ecosystem. When companies modernize their SAP information management software and infrastructure to HANA & S/4 HANA, a proven data migration solution is essential. Protera FlexBridge? conquers the complexity of traditional migration approaches by using smart automation to reduce cost, complexity and risk."



Protera FlexBridge? offers the flexibility to migrate any SAP workload to HANA & S/4 HANA on any dedicated hardware or Cloud infrastructure. Hence unlocking the power of HANA & S/4 HANA for your business. It provides tools and automations that guarantee SAP recommended best practices at each phase of the migration project, regardless of the complexity of the pre and post migration environment. The challenge of every migration project is cost, risk and time. Conventional wisdom says you have to sacrifice one of the three. The automated power of Protera FlexBridge? bucks conventional thinking and gives you success in all three areas. To find out more about how the Protera FlexBridge? Migration Accelerator Services is the perfect SAP migration solution, go to http://flexbridge-dev.protera.com/ ; visit Protera at booth #473 / SAPPHIRE 2016; or join Patrick Osterhaus, Protera's President & CTO at SUSE booth #655 / SAPPHIRE 2016 for a presentation on Migrating SAP Applications to HANA on AWS - Wednesday May 18, 2016 11:00 AM-12:00 PM Eastern Time (US & Canada).

About Protera

Protera Technologies, Inc., a global business critical managed enterprise cloud and hosting services provider, was formed in the mid-90s to provide comprehensive end-to-end IT solutions for its customers. Protera Technologies has capitalized on its strong expertise with SAP solutions to evolve into a pioneer of end-to-end total IT global business critical managed enterprise cloud and hosting solutions that cover all IT needs of an organization. Protera has built an on-demand operations platform -- AppCare -- to deliver total IT outsourcing services. The AppCare platform brings together the comprehensiveness of a total IT solution along with the flexibility, robustness and cost effectiveness of on-demand cloud innovations. Protera's services focus on total customer satisfaction with dedicated points of contact and experts that know customers' environments in depth. SAP, SAP HANA and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. CONTACT: Dean Adamopoulos, [email protected], (630) 517-2728

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[May 16, 2016] Tampa Microwave Expands Business Development Staff

Tampa Microwave (News - Alert), LLC, based in St. Petersburg, Florida, announced a business development expansion that will accelerate their growth into Department of Defense (DoD) and international SATCOM terminal markets. Michael Munn has been promoted to Director, NATO Business Development. In this capacity, he will be responsible for European business for NATO and DoD in European theatre countries. Leveraging his previous role as Tampa Microwave's Manager for Special Operations US business, Mr. Munn's knowledge and experience in military SATCOM markets will help position Tampa Microwave for growth in allied countries that desire to upgrade their SATCOM solutions to take advantage of the company's complete family of small size, weight and power terminals. Mr. Munn served a total of 28 years in the US Army both as an active duty soldier and as a civil servant. Key assignments during his Army career included the 82nd Airborne Division, the 75th Ranger Regiment, the 1st SFOD-D (Delta Force), the Joint Communications Unit, and concluding as a project manager in the Joint Special Operations Command's J6-Development branch.



Tampa Microwave also announced the hiring of Harry Xenitelis, Colonel US Army (Retired) to fill the position of Director, USSOCOM Business Development. In this role, Mr. Xenitelis will coordinate all business within US Special Operations Command. Colonel Xenitelis retired from the Army in March of this year, after 30 years of service. His list of assignments included senior leadership positions in the Army Space & Missile Defense Command, Special Operations Command - Pacific, Special Operations Command - Central, and various operational Army units, including the elite Delta Force and the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne). Mr. Xenitelis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rowan University. Obie Johnson, Tampa Microwave's VP, Business Development said, "Mike and Harry both bring exceptional experience and drive to their new positions. Their capabilities, combined with the Tampa Microwave modular family of terminals, will insure that we continue to grow by supporting state-of-the-art satellite communications within the DoD, NATO, and key domestic and international government agencies. I look forward to serving with both of them in their new roles."

About Tampa Microwave: Tampa Microwave, a Thales (News - Alert) company, designs and manufactures Satellite Communication Terminals for US and international customers. Their family of modular SATCOM terminals includes both parabolic and flat panel terminals from 12" x 12" inches square to 1.3 meters in diameter. All terminals use the same building block modules and can run for extended periods of time on standard issue lithium ion batteries. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516006432/en/

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What you need to know about Powerball and the $610 million jackpot
Oculus announced a new program called VR For Good that seeks to empower filmmakers with the tools they need to create immersive video content that tell stories with an impact.

Everyone is talking about all the great games that you can play in VR, but games are far from the only application for the new medium. Immersive video content has striking ability to elicit a strong emotional connection, such as empathy for the subject of the film. Documentary film makers have started to embrace this power to evoke empathy and are creating powerful films that have a real effect on the way we perceive other peoples struggles.

Chris Milk, a pioneer in 360-degree filmmaking, presented a TED talk in March 2015 titled, How virtual reality can create the ultimate empathy machine. Milk spoke of his experience creating an immersive video about refugees from Syria and their daily struggle. Clouds Over Sidra is another short 360-degree film about Syrian refugees in Jordan. Its impact is credited in helping UNICEF raise $3.8 billion for the cause. We're also beginning to see 360-degree stories, such as this one about a Personal Energy Transportation (PET) project in Zambia from VR journalism startup StoryUp and IM360.

Oculus wants other filmmakers to showcase other important causes. It's rolling the "VR for Good" project out with two pilot programs. The first program, the 360 Filmmakers Challenge for Students, is designed to teach high school students the production skills needed to work with immersive video content. And the second program, the 360 Bootcamp for Nonprofits, will pair 10 professional filmmakers with 10 non-profit organizations that have important social messages to share.

Students

Oculus said that it partnered with nine San Francisco high schools for the pilot 360 Filmmakers Challenge for Students. The company will provide the equipment needed, including Samsung Gear VR HMDs, Galaxy S6 phones and Ricoh Theta S 360 cameras. Oculus will also help pair each school with professional filmmakers who will help the students create 3-5 minute clips about their communities. The films created in the six-week-long student challenge will be hosted on Facebook and Oculus Video once the pilot program is complete.

Non-Profits

The 360 Bootcamp for Nonprofits will launch in late July. Ten nonprofit organizations with a variety of social missions will be selected to work with professional filmmakers to create 360-degree films that will debut at Sundance 2017. Oculus said that selected non-profits will be sent to Facebook HQ for a two-day bootcamp where they will be provided with professional grade equipment to tell their stories. Each team will get Nokia OZO cameras and a budget for travel expenses. Oculus will also provide film industry veterans who can offer one-on-one mentorship and support in post-production.

Oculus will be accepting nominations of nonprofit organizations and applications from filmmakers who want to be part of the "VR for Good" program on May 30 (opens in new tab).

Update, 5/17/16, 1:52pm PT: Added credit for IM360's contribution in StoryUP's video.

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The announcement of the full festivities for Vivid Sydney has of course brought with it once again the full musical lineup set to rock the the citys famous Opera House as part of Vivid LIVE, which this year includes New Order, Bon Iver, and more.

This year will also see performances from local favourites Ta-ku and Hiatus Kaiyote, as well as internationally acclaimed composer Max Richter, wholl be bringing his innovative and unique Sleep project to Australia.

Now that were edging ever closer to the event, this is the time punters get their plans in order and tickets really start drying up. So to help you decide what to catch (and whether you can still catch it) weve curated a tidy little list for you, check it below.

Anohni: Antony & The Johnsons + Oneohtrix Point Never

When: 27th May  30th May

Where: Joan Sutherland Theatre

After releasing quite simply one of the strongest contenders for album of the year Hopelessness, Anohni (previously known as Antony & The Johnsons) will be performing alongside Hopelessness producer Oneohtrix Point Never for a string of unforgettable shows. Genre defying, but wholley consuming, being able to catch Hopelessness in a live setting is an opportunity no Sydney music fan should give up.

Tickets



Deafheaven

When: 2nd June

Where: Joan Sutherland Theatre

Copping acclaim and controversy in equal measure since their hour-long genre defying opus Sunbather, post hardcore crew Deafheaven recently dropped their darkly cinematic New Bermuda which sees the band drawing upon the colossal force of black metal, post-rock and shoegaze.

Treading the tightrope between harrowing metal screams and the celestial beauty found in Sigur Ros and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Deafheaven are pushing the boundaries of what noise, hardcore, and ambient music can be. Pack some earplugs and catch em live.

Tickets



Max Richter In Conversation

When: 2nd June

Where: Playhouse.

Building on from Vivid LIVEs extraordinary and challenging program of sound, performance and visual art, the team will be bringing in composer, pianist and the mind behind eight-hour opus Sleep  Max Richter.

Richter, who has garnered a reputation for building the bridge between between classical and the experimental, and the art of performance itself, hell be having a one on one conversation with Paul Morley to open minds and shed light on just what music can be.

Tickets



Song Exploder: In Conversation with Hiatus Kaiyote

When: 30th May

Where: Playhouse

Hrishikesh Hirway, the American musician, composer, podcaster and man behind Song Exploder will be interviewing local heroes Hiatus Kaiyote as they take dissect one of their Grammy-nominated songs, piece by piece, in a live session with the band for a live podcast which reveals how music is made and the personal stories behind the lyrics and melodies. A fascinating look insde just how great musical minds work.

Tickets & info (FREE)



New Order + Joy Divisions Photo/ Art Exhibitions

When: 27th May  5th June

Where: Concert Hall Northern Foyers

To celebrate New Orders visit to Australia for Vivid, the team behind Vivid live will be hosting two very exciting exhibitions focussed on the band. One will feature the artwork of Peter Saville, who came to fame for the many record sleeves he designed for Factory Records.

The other is a photography exhibition by Kevin Cummins. Cummins captured the burgeoning punk scene in Manchester, taking some of the most iconic photographs of the bands of that era and spent 10 years as the chief photographer for the NME, going onto a prestigious and influential career in photography that continues to this day.

Tickets & info (FREE)



Deep Purple Pool Hall

When: 5th June

Where: Concert Hall, Bar Level, Northern Foyers

A space so nice, theyre hosting it twice: The low-lit cue-shooting favourite from last year, The Deep Purple Pool Hall is coming back to life for ten nights only at Vivid LIVE.

Crafted by the team behind Tios and The Cliff Dive return in a perfect haze as they reassemble the part pool club and part Twin Peaks saloon. Grab your mates, pop in and have a drink before it disappears once again.

Tickets & info
Adrian Slattery, best known as the frontman of Melbourne band Big Smoke, tragically passed away this weekend after a year-long battle with cancer.

The Smith Street Band frontman Will Wagner is among the many musicians, labels, and news outlets to pay tribute to the late Slattery, taking to The Smith Street Bands official Facebook page to pay his respects.

Many years ago when I was 18 I made this record with some friends of mine. One of those friends was Adrian Slattery. He played guitar and sang on this album and was a huge part of getting this band off the ground, Wagner wrote.

But even more importantly than that he was one of the first people who really believed in me and gave me the confidence to write songs and play shows. Adrian passed away over the weekend and will be sorely missed by everyone who he crossed paths with.

He lives on through his music, Big Smoke and Major Major are two of Melbournes finest bands, and through the countless other people he inspired. Its very hard to put these things into words. Rest in peace, mate. Thanks for everything.

Melbourne-based lo-fi music blog The Craft also paid tribute to Slattery, as well as the band Suicide Swans, and musician Rob Draper, who in a tribute on Facebook called Slattery One of Melbournes best songwriters.

UPDATE: Adrians label, Barely Dressed Records, have confirmed the musicians death in a statement to Tone Deaf.

Our good friend Adrian passed away this weekend. Adrian was diagnosed with terminal cancer last year but faced it with grace and strength, working on his music throughout, they write.

Big Smoke completed recording their debut album during this time, and we will be releasing it later this year with the help of Adrians loved ones and members of the band. We love him and will miss him dearly.
"The bill recognizes an unborn child as a person with a "right to life which cannot be deprived by state or private action without due process and equal protection of law." It also says fertilized eggs "have a natural right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."





But Sarah Rossi, director of advocacy and policy for ACLU Missouri, warns the bill takes away a woman's rights."

Life and other considerations in Missouri could earn a bit of debate this week . . .Read more:
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The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group and the World Bank Group have jointly produced a global report on Islamic finance.



Director General of the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI), Prof Mohamed Azmi Omar, announced this in Jakarta, Indonesia, today (May 16) while launching a synopsis of the report, during the 11th IDB Global Forum on Islamic Finance.



The forum was organised jointly by IRTI and Bank Indonesia, in conjunction with the 41st IDB Group Annual Meeting, to deliberate on the role of Islamic Finance in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).



Prof Omar said the Global Report on Islamic Finance aims to develop understanding of the theoretical foundation of Islamic finance and shared prosperity, review recent trends in Islamic finance, and identify policy tools to leverage Islamic finance in curbing poverty and fostering equitable wealth distribution.



The full report, titled Islamic Finance: A Catalyst for Shared Prosperity?, will be launched during the World Bank/IMF Annual Meeting later in the year. The synopsis launched today provides an overview of the main report, its objectives and scope, as well as summary of the policy recommendations.



Some of the key recommendations include having adequate policy interventions and financial infrastructure to enable Islamic finance serve as a catalyst for poverty alleviation and inclusive prosperity.



For the capital market sector, the report recommends creating a level playing field for debt and equity instruments by, among others, allowing tax-free transfer of assets in asset-backed sukuk.



It also urges Islamic non-bank financial institutions to provide Islamic financial services in countries where establishing Islamic banks is not possible due to legal and regulatory restrictions.



The report further recommends creating institutions and governance systems to support orderly function of the Islamic social finance sector.



Prof Omar explained that the IDB Groups collaboration with the World Bank Group on the report was initiated to produce a comprehensive document that will serve as a useful guide for all industry stakeholders. - TradeArabia News Service
Assarain Concrete Products & Trading (ACP), a leading producer of concrete products, recently hosted a first-of-its-kind symposium in Oman for the sultanate's construction industry majors.



The symposium on 'the advances in concrete technology in context of Omans construction practices' was organised under the auspices of the Said Salem Al Wahaibi (SSW) Group of Companies.



ACP, Muscat and Modern Concrete Products (MCP), Sohar (members of SSW Group of Companies, formerly Assarain Group of companies) are one of the largest producers of innovative concrete products in Oman, supplying concrete products and other beautification/landscaping and construction chemical solutions.



Addressing the gathering, Khalid Said Al Wahaibi, the managing director of Assarain, said: "With the diversification of economies in the region and the growth in the infrastructure industry, it is vital to stay updated on the latest technologies."



"As leaders in concrete products, Assarain has gathered leading experts to share their knowledge and discuss issues that are specific to conditions in Oman," he stated.



The event, which was presided over by Hilal bin Mohammed Al Busaidi, the chief executive of the Public Authority for Mining, Oman, was attended by leading figures of the sultanate's construction industry including top government officials, CEOs, consultants, architects and academics.



The top speakers include Dr David A Lange, vice president at the American Concrete Institute, who spoke on materials science of corrosion control and durability of reinforced concrete structures; Dr Surendra P Shah, founding director of US-based Centre of Advanced Cement Based Materials, who explained how scientific research had led to the significant improvements in concrete.



Dr SK Manjrekar, the chairman and managing director of Sunanda Specialty Coatings and principal convener and past president of American Concrete Institute-India Chapter spoke on the latest innovative material solutions for increasing the service life of structures in the aggressive climatic conditions of Oman.-TradeArabia News Service
A Moroccan bank has signed a partnership deal with a Chinese bank worth MAD1.2 billion ($124.05 million) for the manufacturing of a new generation of electric buses in Morocco, said a report.



The relationship between Morocco and China is steadily developing following the signing of strategic partnership and the many economic and cultural agreements by King Mohamed VI and the Chinese president Xi Jinping, added the Morocco World News report.



Moroccos Banque Populaire (Popular Bank) recently signed an important partnership with the Chinese industrial company Yangxi and Energy Investment Company, it said.



The communique of the Popular Bank carried by MAP explains that the bank aims through this partnership, which was signed on the occasion of King Mohamed VIs official visit to China, to promote the label Made in Morocco.
Japan is considering partnering with India to develop the strategically located Chabahar Port project in Iran, said a report.



Diplomatic sources havent confirmed the report yet, said the Iran Daily News, citing an India Times report.



Last year, prior to the lifting of Western sanctions on Iran, Japans ambassador to Iran Koji Haneda had visited the port city on the Gulf of Oman and spoke how the project could turn into a global trade hub, added the report.



Apart from looking at developing the port jointly with India, Japan is also said to be considering building an industrial complex in Chabahar, it said.



For the first time in almost 38 years, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to visit Iran in August this year. The visit is likely to see Japan announcing investments into some major infrastructure projects in Iran.
Qatar-based Milaha, a marine transport and logistics conglomerate, and Denmarks DSV, provider of global transport and logistics, have signed an agreement through which Milaha will become the exclusive agent for DSV in Qatar, said a report.



The agreement will significantly expand Milahas presence on the global logistics scene and will provide access to over 1,000 offices, terminals and warehouse facilities in more than 80 countries, said a statement from the company.



Abdulrahman Essa Al-Mannai, president and CEO, Milaha, said: We are pleased to have the opportunity to partner with DSV. Our company will greatly benefit from the wider network access that this agreement gives us and which will allow us to enhance our service offerings to our clients in Qatar and elsewhere.



Michael Carstensen, DSV Middle East regional director and UAE managing director, said: As a customer-focused organisation, the cooperation with Milaha will enable us to reach our customers in one of the fastest developing economies in the Middle East.



We are looking forward to the synergies that will result from this agreement, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
Algerias state-owned Sonatrach has awarded contracts worth $206 million to a number of US for oil drilling and other services, a report said.



Schlumberger obtained a $75 million contract, while Weatherford received $11 million in new business, added the Morocco World News report.



Baker Hughes secured a $50 million contract through its subsidiary BJSP, 51 per cent of which is owned by Sonatrach.






The telecoms, media and technology (TMT) sector in the Middle East could see the strongest levels of M&A activity in 2016, with 27 companies currently up for sale or likely to come to market, a report said.



The Global M&A Heat Chart released by Mergermarket, the worlds leading news and intelligence service for mergers & acquisitions, indicates potential future M&A activity based on companies that may be targeted for mergers or acquisitions.



The UAE is likely to be the hottest regional market for TMT deals, with media houses and software development companies the most likely to be sold. The Heat Chart also shows that, in spite of low levels of Energy sector M&A in the region this year, there are a number of potential assets in the market that could drive more deals in 2016, albeit at low valuations.



Kirsty Wilson, global research editor at Mergermarket, said: Our data currently suggests that TMT in the UAE will lead regional M&A activity in 2016.



Based on the last six months of research, we consider this to be a hot sector, so it is no surprise that the highest valued UAE deal of Q1 was the $292 million acquisition of e-commerce platform Souq.com by Standard Chartered Private Equity limited, Baillie Gifford and International Finance Corporation. Were also expecting a relatively high level of activity in the Energy, Mining & Utilities sector, with 15 potential mergers and acquisitions in the pipeline, she added.



Lower performing sectors identified by Mergermarkets Heat Chart included Transportation, in which only 6 potential deals have been identified, Construction, with only 4 potential deals anticipated, and Real Estate, with just 1 potential deal expected in 2016. Financial Services, along with pharma, medical & biotech are projected to perform moderately, with 10 potential deals apiece.



EY, strategic partner at Mergermarkets Middle Eastern M&A and Private Equity Forum, launched its 2016 Capital Confidence Barometer (CCB), which found that low oil prices have had little impact on M&A strategy as Mena companies fill their pipelines.



Phil Gandier, Mena Transactions Advisory Leader, EY, said: According to our CCB, which gauges corporate confidence and how companies manage their capital agendas, 37 per cent of Mena executives expect to actively pursue acquisitions over the next 12 months.



Although low oil prices are having a varying impact on Mena countries economically, they are having little impact on M&A strategy as Mena executives continue their steadfast pursuit of deal-making. We expect disruptive trends, such as changes in consumer behaviour and transformational deals that enable Mena companies to adapt to shifting customer sentiment, to dominate M&A activity in 2016, he added.



On the subject of cross-border M&A in the Middle East, Jayshree Gupta, Partner at Baker & McKenzie, said: Over the past six months, we have seen a noticeable uptick in cross-border mandates involving the Middle East with the most prominent sectors being TMT, consumer/food and industrials. Most transactions involve more than two Middle East countries. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have been the busiest for the GCC, and its exciting to also see more complex technology projects and more know-how come into the region. Client sentiment appears to be strengthening, which bodes well for the remainder of 2016.



Mergermarkets 2016 Middle Eastern M&A and Private Equity Forum was attended by leading Mena transaction professionals, who examined deal trends in the region and shared ideas on the outlook for M&A in the Middle East. The forum was hosted in strategic partnership with Baker & McKenzie, EY, Standard Bank and Instinctif Partners.



The forum is followed by Mergermarkets inaugural Middle Eastern M&A Awards, which recognise transaction advisory achievements across a range of sectors including consumer, mining & utilities, industrials & chemicals, medical & biotech, real estate, and financial services.  TradeArabia News Service
Amazon.com will launch new lines of its private-label brands in the coming weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.



The new brands with names like Happy Belly, Wickedly Prime and Mama Bear will include nuts, spices, tea, coffee, baby food and vitamins, as well as household items such as diapers and laundry detergents, the newspaper reported.



Amazon will only offer these labels to its Prime subscribers, the Wall Street Journal reported, adding the first of the brands could begin appearing at the end of May or early June.



Amazon.com was unavailable for comment outside regular US business hours.



Last week, Amazon launched Amazon Video Direct for users to post videos and earn royalties with them, setting it up directly against Alphabet Inc's YouTube.  Reuters
The C-Hotel is anchored off the Coral Bay resort.

Bahrains first floating hotel was officially opened yesterday (May 15) at the Coral Bay on the Al Fateh Corniche.

The five-star C Hotel is the culmination of several phases of expansion and improvements at the Coral Bay resort, which boasts a range of facilities including restaurants, a spa, beaches and water sports.

The hotel is floating, but anchored, allowing guests to feel they are on a cruise ship, but yet having the ability to enjoy the facilities on shore. An automatic gliding bridge connects the hotel to the Coral Bays luxury facilities.

The boutique hotel is part of the Hotel des Charmes group, which specialises in luxury boutique hotels around the world.

Shaikh Khaled bin Humood Al Khalifa, chief executive officer of Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA), and several leading businessmen attended the event.

Shaikh Khaled praised the efforts of Akram Miknas, promoter of Seven Leisure Group and a leading media personality of the region, in bringing the unique idea into fruition.

He said the government had to amend existing laws to make way for the facility, which has been built to highest standards.

The hotel, which represents an investment of $4 million, has been built to highest specifications with superior materials and furnishings, said Miknas.

He thanked Shaikh Khaled for the support extended to the project by the government.

Miknas said the hotel, which is receiving guests for the last two months, offers 12 rooms and two suites. The basement level has eight rooms, while the top deck has four rooms and the Admiralty and Royal suites.

The hotel is currently experiencing an occupancy level of almost 80 per cent, he said.

The hotel guests can enjoy all the facilities and amenities of the Coral Bay resort.

The C Hotel was built from the locally well-known Al-Khaleejia house boat, following a three-year conversion work. The boat was redesigned with the help of Italian engineers and interior designers. -TradeArabia News Service
Oman Air won four prestigious awards at the first Oman Tech Awards, held in Muscat earlier this month.



The national carrier of Oman won the E-Commerce award in the Websites category, the Travel and Tourism award in the Apps category, and the Government award in the Social Media category, in recognition of Oman Airs Facebook page. The airline also won a Special Award for Best Social Media Campaign of the Year, following the success of its National Day campaign in November 2015.



Mohammed Al Shikely, vice president marketing for Oman Air, said: We are thrilled to receive these prestigious accolades, especially in the face of such strong competition. Oman Air pursues a vibrant and engaging digital communications strategy, and it is extremely satisfying to receive acknowledgement from such a respected body as the Oman Tech Awards.



As customers increasingly seek information, communicate and make purchases using technology, it is vital that businesses make effective use of websites, social media and apps. That is why Oman Air has redesigned its website and made it available in both English and Arabic. We have launched Oman Air apps which enable customers to book flights, manage their bookings and purchase additional products and services. And we manage a thriving range of social media platforms, via which we are able to engage with our customers, keep them informed of the latest developments and seek their views about every aspect of our operations.



Furthermore, digital communications are playing an increasingly important part in the passenger experience. Customers can book their tickets online and check-in online up to 36 hours before departure. They can even stay connected at 35,000 feet, thanks to Oman Airs pioneering mobile phone and wi-fi connectivity service, WY-FI.



The four awards that Oman Air has received at the Oman Tech Awards demonstrate that we are not just responding to technological change: we are helping to lead the way. On behalf of all my colleagues at Oman Air, I would like to thank the judges, the organisers of the Oman Tech Awards and the Information Technology Authority, under whose auspices this wonderful event was held.



The Oman Tech Awards aim to identify nationwide talent both within the Omani and expatriate communities, and to reward the best talents working in the areas of websites and portals, apps, blogs and e-campaigns/social media. They also aim to provide an opportunity to share information and experiences drawn from the technology sector, and to encourage young people to participate in the field of e-technology.



The Oman Tech Awards is the first event of its kind to be held in the sultanate and is already regarded as Omans leading technology event of the year. The awards were established with the intent of providing a focus for the realisation of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Saids vision of transforming Oman into a sustainable knowledge based economy and setting an economic vision towards 2020. - TradeArabia News Service


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Almost without exception, all news stories covering the US Attorney Generals suit against North Carolina omits the rather significant fact that when North Carolina took federal money tied to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and Title IX, they signed a contract with the federal government explicitly agreeing to not discriminate on the basis of gender identity. Unlike what you may have heard, this breach of contract is why North Carolina is being sued.

While the media has sensationalized this story by focusing on the North Carolina Governors talking points of federal overreach and federal bullying while blaming liberals in Houston, Texas for his actions against the trans citizens of North Carolina, the actual story doesnt leave much room for the media to pander to the transgender debate trope. The actual story doesnt allow the media to make the US Attorney Generals suit ambiguous, about morality, or even what gender identity means. The reason for this is that the Republican Congress defined what gender identity meant in 2013. Moreover, the Republican Congress set the very gender identity nondiscrimination standards under which North Carolina is being sued.

Its telling that the media seems unwilling or unable to tell the public what the Department of Justice (DOJ) told them during the press conference in which the DOJ suit against North Carolina was announced:

We also bring a claim in the Violence Against Women Act, a more recent statute specifically designed to prevent discrimination against transgender people by entities that accept certain federal funds. As with Title IX, entities that accept federal funds under VAWA, including UNS and the NCDPS, pledged that they would not discriminate against sex or gender identity. Our complaint seeks to enforce that pledge and hold those entities accountable for the kind of discrimination required by HB2.  Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice

Heres why the US Attorney General said Vanita Guptas division was filing suit against North Carolina:

With respect to federal funding, the statutes we brought this lawsuit under do provide the opportunity to curtail federal funding under Title IX in the Violence Against Women Act.

The Violence Against Women Act specifically targets gender identity. The law and the case law around Title VII, Title IX, and the Violence Against Women Act clearly indicates HB2 is in violation of federal law.

North Carolina is being sued by the DOJ because North Carolina willingly signed a contract with the federal government agreeing to not discriminate on the basis of gender identity and then announced that they were going to discriminate on the basis of gender identity.

Even though VAWA and Title IX funding comes with explicit prohibitions regarding discrimination on the basis of gender identity, the North Carolina Governor has claimed numerous times that Congress needs to figure out what gender identity means since theyve not addressed it. Apparently, Governor McCrory doesnt know that in the very Congressional Act he took money from the VAWA the act spells all of this out.

Remember, a Republican Congress passed the following language and furthermore, a Republican Congress explicitly approved banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity (as defined in paragraph 249(c)(4) of title 18, United States Code), sexual orientation, or disability, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity funded in whole or in part with funds made available under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (title IV of Public Law 103322 ; 108 Stat. 1902), the Violence Against Women Act of 2000 (division B of Public Law 106386; 114 Stat. 1491), the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 (title IX of Public Law 109162 ; 119 Stat. 3080), the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 , and any other program or activity funded in whole or in part with funds appropriated for grants, cooperative agreements, and other assistance administered by the Office on Violence Against Women.

Even if a Republican Congress hadnt passed the above language in 2013 (286 to 138), the VAWA explicitly states exactly who has the power to say who must be served with VAWA funding as an underserved population:

[U]nderserved populations means populations who face barriers in accessing and using victim services, and includes populations underserved because of geographic location, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, underserved racial and ethnic populations, populations underserved because of special needs (such as language barriers, disabilities, alienage status, or age), and any other population determined to be underserved by the Attorney General or by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as appropriate.

These are the rules Congressional Republicans set up and these are the rules North Carolina contractually agreed to play by when they took VAWA funding. When North Carolina declared that theyd refuse to honor their contractual obligations, the DOJ announced they would sue North Carolina.

With regard to Title IX, when the University of North Carolina took Title IX funding, they signed a contract stating that they wouldnt discriminate based upon gender identity. In keeping with Title IX policy, the University of North Carolina has a Title IX coordinator. Her name is Elizabeth Hall. Heres what the Department of Educations 2015 Title IX Resource Guide for Title IX coordinators states:

Title IX protects students, employees, applicants for admission and employment, and other persons from all forms of sex discrimination, including discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity. All students (as well as other persons) at recipient institutions are protected by Title IXregardless of their sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, part- or full-time status, disability, race, or national originin all aspects of a recipients educational programs and activities.  Page 1

And

The Title IX coordinator should also help ensure that transgender students are treated consistent with their gender identity in the context of single-sex classes.  Page 22

Again, North Carolina knew exactly what it was agreeing to when it entered into a contract with the Department of Education to receive Title IX funding. The only actual story here is that North Carolina wants the special right to receive funding under federal contracts theyve declared theyve no intention of honoring.

If defaulting on federal contracts North Carolina knowingly signed is the actual story behind the DOJs suit, why is the media only interested in talking about dueling lawsuits, the transgender debate, or how theres ambiguity to the DOJs suit? If gender identity was codified into law passed by a Republican Congress, why is the media perpetuating the myth that Congress hasnt addressed the issue of gender identity discrimination yet?

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Boston, Mass.  Azores Airlines is offering round-trip, direct flights from Boston to Lisbon this fall, Portugal starting from $684 per person, all taxes and fees included. The deal is for selected dates between September 7 and December 13, 2016.



(TRAVPR.COM) USA - May 16th, 2016 - Boston, Mass.  Azores Airlines is offering round-trip, direct flights from Boston to Lisbon this fall, Portugal starting from $684 per person, all taxes and fees included. The deal is for selected dates between September 7 and December 13, 2016. Tickets need to be purchased between May 17 and 31, 2016.

Lisbon welcomes visitors with a wide variety of restaurants, museums, cultural venues and hotels. As Portugals capital and largest city, Lisbon is regarded as the warmest and most western capital in Europe. The city is located on the north bank of the Tejo River, where the river meets the Atlantic  just about five and a half hours from Boston.

Azores Airlines is part of the SATA Group, which connects the Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal, with the world. For more information and reservations, contact Azores Airlines at 800-762-9995, www.AzoresAirlines.pt

###
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Kernel agroholding, a large agricultural company in Ukraine, has said that the raid conducted by representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in its central office in Kyiv on May 12 negates the multiple efforts by the countrys senior management to attract foreign capital to Ukraine.

"Kernel serves as an international marker of Ukraines agriculture sector investment attractiveness and Ukraines overall reputational reliability," the company said in an open letter signed by Board of Directors and sent to Ukraines top officials.

The company said that this situation clearly sends a negative and threatening signal to current and potential international investors.

"Without changing the style and philosophy of law enforcement agencies approach to the business community, any statements on the improvement of the investment climate will be empty declarations," Kernel said.

The company's shares have been listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) since 2007. Its current capitalization level is the largest among all Ukrainian companies listed on the western markets and exceeds $1 billion.

The company said that during the raid, 350 employees of the company were locked in the building from 13.00 to 19.00.

"Without assessing the format of the search, we want to note that all 15 company documents seized by the Security Service of Ukraine could have been handed over willingly within 10 minutes as Kernel repeatedly offered to the representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine. We believe that the representatives of the Security Service could have spent those six hours more efficiently, given the high level of corruption in Ukraine and ongoing terrorist threat," the company said.

Kernel said that the company is confident in our legal position and will prove it in the courts.

"In our opinion, the case used to conduct the search was initiated based on distorted facts and has no prospects. We have repeatedly proved our position in courts, regardless of changes in political power and rotations in law enforcement agencies. This situation will be no exception," the company said.

Kernel said that at the moment, Kernels headquarters and all other divisions are operating as usual.

Kernel, the largest producer and exporter of agricultural products from Ukraine to the world markets, employs more than 14 thousand Ukrainians. Its tax payments to Ukraines national budget exceeded UAH 1 billion in 2015. Over the past five years, the company invested in excess of UAH 18 billion into the countrys agricultural industry. The companys shareholders include the largest pension and investment funds in Europe and the United States, while the worlds largest banks are among our partners.

"We are ready to contribute as much as possible to any of your efforts to establish a transparent, responsible, and mutually beneficial relationship between business and government. As a public company, we are always ready to support you in this matter and to work toward strengthening the international economic reputation of Ukraine," the company said.

Kernel is a vertically integrated company which has been operating in the Ukrainian agribusiness sector since 1994. The group produces sugar and sunflower oil, distributes bottled oil under the brand names Schedry Dar, Stozhar and Chumak Zolota, exports oil and grain and provides elevator storage services for grain and oilseeds.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has vetoed a bill amending Article 13 of the law on foreign economic activities to curb the shortage of scrap ferrous metal on the domestic market and returned it to parliament with his proposals, the press service of the head of state has reported.

The bill passed by the Verkhovna Rada on April 21, says that the exports duty of scrap ferrous metal is temporarily, for three years, increased from current EUR 10 per tonne to EUR 30 per tonne.

Poroshenko said that he took into consideration of the proposals of Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers as it organizes and provides for the implementation of foreign economic activities of Ukraine, customs affairs as it is prescribed in the Constitution of Ukraine.

He said that the increase of exports duty on scrap ferrous metal does not meet the provisions of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement ratified on September 16, 2014.

The Agreement envisages liabilities of the parties not to introduce or not to leave in effect any duties, taxes or other equivalent measures imposed on exports of goods. Existing duties or equivalent measures applied in Ukraine are to be gradually annulled during the transition period in line with the schedule attached to the Agreement. If amendments are made to Ukrainian customs laws, liabilities taken in line with the schedule stay in effect.

The General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) allows any party to temporarily set and apply bans or restrictions of exports to warn or relax the critical shortage of goods that are of great importance for the exporting country. Nothing in this agreement should be interpreted as obstacle for any party in taking any steps the country believes necessary to safeguard the interests of its security. The restrictive measures cannot apply in the way that means the hidden restriction of international trade.

The president said that thus, the application of the increased exports duty on scarp ferrous metal for three years cannot be backed.

The president said that the situation with scrap metal should be taken from the point of the temporarily occupation of Crimea and some areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The increase of scrap ferrous metal and the fall in scrap metal production results in the sharp fall of ferrous metal stocks and the shortage of scrap metal in the country, especially in the past two years. These stocks have a strategic important for the Ukrainian metal sector, the president said.

The president proposed that the title of the law is adopted in new wording: amending some Ukrainian laws regarding the reduction of scrap ferrous metal shortage on the domestic market. Article 13 of the law on foreign economic activities is expanded with the new provisions, according to which exports transactions with scrap metal are carried our in line with the law, taking into account the specifics spelled out in the law on scrap metal and the law on the exports duty on scrap ferrous metal.

Poroshenko proposed that the exports duty on scrap ferrous metal is temporarily set at EUR 30 per tonne for on calendar year.
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, May 16

In a surprise checking, jail officials seized five more mobile phones which were found abandoned at various places on the Amritsar Central Jail premises.

The Cantonment police have registered a case of fraud under Section 420, IPC, and Section 42 of the Prisoners Act against unidentified persons, following a complaint submitted by the Jail Superintendent of Amritsar Central Jail.

According to the complaint, the jail staff confiscated three mobile phones of Samsung brand which were without SIM cards, a mobile phone without battery and an outdated mobile phone. This was the second surprise checking conducted by the jail authorities within a few days.

Earlier, the police seized a mobile phone from a prisoner, identified as Buta Singh.

The jail authorities were on their toes since the massive raid conducted by the city police along with district administration officials. During the raid, the police had recovered around 21 mobile phones from the premises, which not only alarmed the senior Punjab Police authorities, but also the government as the high- security Amritsar Central Jail houses notorious drug smugglers and peddlers, gangsters and foreigners, including Pakistani nationals. Following the raid, the state government suspended DSP, Amritsar jail, and the Patti sub-jail.

It has been learnt that senior police authorities had directed the jail officials to conduct surprise checking more often to curb the problem and usage of mobile phones.
Bharat Khanna

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, May 15

Annoyed over the application filed by the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) in the Supreme Court on Thursday, demanding to allow them to resume the SGPC House elected in 2011 for the next five years, the organisers of Sarbat Khalsa along with the leaders of SAD (A), United Akali Dal (UAD) and other Sikh bodies have decided to file a petition against the SGPC application.

The Sarbat Khalsa organisers want to hold fresh SGPC elections whereas the members elected in 2011 SGPC elections, which could not function following the court orders, want to get an extension of five years. The SGPC 15-member committee had filed an application in the Supreme Court with a request to resume the House elected in 2011 for a five-year term. However, the SC will hear the application of the SGPC on July 7.

Counsel for Sikh bodies and Sarbat Khalsa organisers, advocate Shinderpal Singh Brar, said, We have applied for a copy of the application moved by the SGPC and will file a petition against their application. We will demand fresh elections as the new generation has also become eligible. The Supreme Court will open in July and we will file an appeal to hold fresh SGPC elections.

The SGPC move has irked Sikh bodies. Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal is befooling the Sikhs by being in league with the Congress. They are responsible for the Sutlej-Yamuna link canal and the 1984 Golden Temple siege. A House elected five years back cannot represent the Sikhs now. Through our advocate, we will counter the application of the SGPC in the Supreme Court, said SAD (A) general secretary Jaskaran Singh.

UAD leader Gurdeep Singh Bathinda said, We prefer the peoples mandate and a fresh elections should be held immediately. In a democracy, if a House remains suspended for a long time, it could not resume. Fresh elections should be held and for that, we have filed a appeal in the court.

It is noteworthy that these Sikh bodies had earlier supported the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) for the amendment in Sikh Gurudwara Act to debar Shejdhari Sikhs from voting rights in the SGPC elections.

The Central government in 2003 issued a notification debarring voting rights to Sehajdharis. The SGPC elections held in September 2011 gave SAD (Badal) and Sant Smaj alliance 157 seats out a total of 170 seats but later in December 2011, the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the notification.

However, Mohan Singh Bangi, one of the 15 members of the SGPC committee, said, We have filed an application that the court should give its decision over the pending Sehajdhari issue as now, the law has also been passed. We have not demanded the extension for the 2011 House but according to law, they should get their term. Whatever would be the courts decision, we would abide by it.

Mitthu Singh Kahneke, SGPC member from Mansa, who was elected in 2011, said, The House elected in 2011 is valid now after the Parliament has amended the Bill and barred voting rights of Sehajdharis in the SGPC elections but our House could not function due to legal hurdles. We should get our due period of five years to work.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 16

Power corporation employees held statewide protests today to oppose the sacking of 7,472 contractual and several other regular workers by the state government. The employees were shown the door following May 11 strike which disrupted power supply in several parts of the state.

Kurukshetra: Employees of the power department held symbolic protests at their respective offices in the district on Monday. They demanded reinstatement of employees suspended for participating in a mass protest last week. However, no report of disruption in power supply was reported in the district.

Rohtak: Protesting against the move to privatise power sector subdivisions, employees of the UHBVN staged a protest demonstration at the local headquarters of the power corporation today. They also gheraoed the office of the Superintending Engineer and staged a dharna.

Fatehabad: The workers of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam today began an indefinite strike in Fatehabad. Reports of protests and hunger fast have also been received from Bhattu, Badopal, Ratia, Tohana and Bhuna towns of the district.

Ambala: To express their resentment power corporation employees staged a dharna and sat on indefinite fast at sub unit II in Ambala. Rupesh Sharma, unit president of the Haryana State Electricity Board Works Union, said the state governments dictatorial attitude was not acceptable.

Karnal: Employees of the UHBVN protested at the Circle Office on Monday to oppose the suspension of six regular employees and termination of the services of 16 employees working on DC rate here.

Panipat: All members of the Haryana State Electricity Board (HSEB) Workers Union and the All Haryana Power Corporation (AHPC) Workers Union protested jointly at Model Town sub-division today. The protest was led by Avinash Kalra, circle president HSEB Workers Union and Ishwar Sharma, circle president of AHPC Worker Union. The employees of Smalkha, city and sub urban division also took part in the protest.

Yamunanagar: Power utilities employees held a demonstration outside the office of Superintending Engineer here today. They demanded immediate reinstatement of the employees suspended by the department.
French actress Madeleine Lebeau, the last surviving cast member of the classic 1942 film Casablanca, has died. She was 92. Lebeau died on May 1 in Estepona, Spain, after breaking her thigh bone, her stepson, documentary filmmaker and environmentalist Carlo Alberto Pinelli told hollywoodreporter.com. In Casablanca, Lebeau played late actor Humphrey Bogart's spurned lover. Born in 1923 near Paris, she fled Nazi-occupied France with her then husband, prominent actor Marcel Dalio, in 1940. Following Casablanca and her divorce from Dalio in 1942, Lebeau had a prominent role in the film Paris After Dark (1943) and then appeared in Music for Millions (1944). She returned to Europe after the war and worked in films such as The Royalists (1947), Cage of Gold (1950), Sins of Madeleine (1951) and La Parisienne (1957). Lebeau was also married to Tullio Pinelli, a screenwriter who earned Oscar nominations for 8 1/2 and I Vitelloni (1953), La Strada (1954) and La Dolce Vita (1960). They were married from 1988 until his death in March 2009 at age 100.  IANS
Mohit Khanna

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, May 15

Two bicycle industry giants are headed for a bitter legal battle on the issue of infringement of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Leading manufacturer Hero Cycles Limited has filed a suit against Avon Cycles, alleging piracy of its registered design.

The suit was filed a month after Hero Cycles issued a notice to Avon, cautioning it against IPR violation practices, stated a communique. The case pertains to Hero Cycles product Hero RX-1 the design of which is registered under the Designs Act, 2000 (No 270519).

The communique stated that the design was well-known and enjoyed unparalleled reputation in the market. It further stated that Avon Cycles product X-Track was identical to the registered design of Hero Cycles RX- I, clearly an infringement of the Intellectual Property Rights.

The chief managing-director of Avon Cycles, Omkar Singh Pahwa, was not available for comment. His son Rishi Pahwa termed the filing of the case as unfortunate.

Claiming the move was against business ethics, Rishi said: After we received the notice, we arranged a meeting with Hero Cycles. They had some objection regarding the X-Track model. We agreed to make changes and sought time till April 30 to clear our stocks. We remained in touch with their officials. Shockingly, the legal notice was served on the company when my father was away to Shanghai in China. The next hearing is on May 31 and we will give a reply. On infringement of IPR, I would say that the cycle will remain a cycle at the end of the day.
Lucknow, May 15

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday said he was saddened by the killing of a journalist in his state and promised swift action against the guilty as he came under attack from the BJP and the LJP.

Whatever is happening in Bihar has saddened me. I assure the people of state that whoever is guilty will not be spared, Nitish Kumar told reporters here.

LJP supremo Ram Vilas Paswan didnt mince any words as he pointed to the murder of a teenager and a journalist within a week.

It is appropriate time for imposition of Presidents rule in Bihar. The teenager Aditya Sachdeva in Gaya and journalist Rajdeo Ranjan in Siwan were murdered within a week.

It reflects complete breakdown of law and order, he said.

Sachdeva was shot dead allegedly by the son of JD(U) MLC Manorama Devi in Gaya on May 7 in a road rage case, while Ranjan was gunned down in Chatra on May 13.

BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi also hit out at Nitish Kumar for visiting Uttar Pradesh at a time when his state was gripped by violence.

It is regrettable that neither the Chief Minister nor his ministers have time to visit the families of the slain teenager in Gaya and that of a journalist in Siwan district, he said in a statement resenting Kumars visit to Varanasi and Lucknow.

Referring to the Rajdeo Ranjan murder case, Modi alleged that fingers were being pointed at incarcerated former RJD MP Mohammed Shahabuddin.

Ranjan, 45, was instrumental in the release of a video in which Shahabuddin was seen meeting RJD minister Abdul Gafoor and another leader a couple of months back.

Claiming that the Bihar Police was clueless about finding the killers even two days after the incident, the former deputy chief minister of Bihar demanded a CBI probe, and said the local police was incapable of carrying out an impartial probe in the matter.

Nitish Kumar condemning the murder of Siwan bureau chief of Hindi daily Hindustan said the probe would be expedited.

During his day-long visit here, senior office bearers of some journalist unions met him and handed over a memorandum demanding immediate action against the guilty.

Demanding Rs 25 lakh as compensation to the kin of the slain journalist, an Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ) delegation said one of the family members should be given a government job.

Three persons have been detained for questioning in connection with the murder on May 13 night and preliminary probe suggested that the killers were disturbed by the news stories of Ranjan.  PTI
Kathmandu, May 16

Madhesis and other minority groups seeking more rights and representation in Nepals new Constitution clashed with the police near the Prime Ministers office here as their fresh protests entered the second day today.

Some 1,000 protesters raising anti-government slogans picketed near the PMs office. They tried to break the police barricade, triggering a clash with the police. They raised slogans: Down with incompetent government, Prime Minister KP Oli leave the country and We want our demands to be fulfilled.

The police used batons to disperse the demonstrators. Three Madhesi cadres sustained minor injuries during the clash, according to the agitating Federal Alliance, the grouping of seven Madhesh-based political parties and 22 other ethnic groups.

Security was stepped up around the Singha Durbar secretariat complex that houses the PMs office and government offices. Hundreds of riot policemen were deployed in the area to prevent an untoward incident.

Federal Alliance spokesperson Parashu Ram Tamang said police personnel stopped hundreds of leaders and cadres heading to join the protest, interrogated them, seized flags and banners and frisked them unnecessarily.

The major demands of Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, include re-demarcation of the seven-province model of federal structure, inclusiveness and proportionate representation of marginalised groups in all state bodies.  PTI
The largest low-cost airline in Europe, Ryanair, is holding talks with Lviv on the flights to the city, Ryanair Chief Commercial Officer David O'Brien has said in an interview with Forbes Ukraine.

"I dont think that we will discuss flights to Odesa. Ukraine today can be considered only as am additional route to our key markets. They are Italy, Spain, Britain, Ireland and Germany where there are many popular routes closer than Ukraine. Broadly speaking, our business model is that each additional flight increases our production cost per passenger and we expects that this investment is returned. There is demand in Ukraine on flights to many countries. These are mostly flights to the east and north where Ryanair does not have the right to fly," he said.

O'Brien also said that Ukraine is too large, and its airports are physically located far from each other and can be independent.

"Ukraine should not create private monopoly at airports. It is important that the country does not make a mistake when first government monopoly is created and then via so-called privatization of airports they are transferred to private monopoly," he said.

O'Brien said that Ukraine should not allow the privatization of airports by affiliated companies to avoid private monopoly.
Our Correspondent

Jaipur, May 16

Three more newborn girls have died on their referral treatment at Neo-natal ward of Ajmers Jawahar Lal Nehru (JLN) Hospital raising the death toll to eight since Saturday evening.

Five newborn boys and three girls, all less than 28 days, have died, Additional Superintendent of JLN Hospital Dr Vikrant Sharma said.

The newborns, referred to JLN hospital from Nasirabad, Beawar, Pisangan of Ajmer district, Merta in Nagaur district and Bhilwara, were suffering from neo-natal diseases, including Hyperthermia, Septicemia and pneumonia, an official of the state Medical and Health Department said.

A three-member committee headed by Dr S C Barjatya, Additional Principal of Ajmers JLN Medical College, has submitted its report to the government.

Rajasthan Medical and Health Minister R S Rathore said ill-fated children were referred from the nearby towns and cities in a very critical condition. Sufficient medical care was provided to them. It would be probed why the senior doctors were not there, and only resident doctors (as complained by bereaved parents) attended to them.

Parents took the bodies not preferring to conduct any postmortem.

Meanwhile, former chief minister Ashok Gehlot expressed grief on the deaths and demanded the Raje government to give compensation to the bereaved mothers.

While PCC President Sachin Pilot said the state government was trying to save the senior doctors who were not present during treatment.
London, May 16

Britain's senior-most Indian-origin minister Priti Patel today congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the second anniversary of his election victory and praised him for setting a "new level of ambition" for India-UK ties.

Patel, who sits on the UK Cabinet as Employment Minister and is also British Prime Minister David Cameron's Indian Diaspora Champion, in a statement said, "I would like to congratulate Prime Minister Modi on the second anniversary of his election victory. He set out an ambitious vision for India - one of inclusive, sustainable development."

She said, "We remain committed to supporting the Prime Minister's vision for India's transformation and to taking the UK-India relationship to new heights."

The 44-year-old senior Conservative party MP said as the world's oldest democracy and largest democracy, the UK and India share a long-standing friendship anchored in democratic values, shared history and common interests.

"Prime Minister Modi has set a new level of ambition for our growing partnership," she said.

Patel, herself of Gujarati-origin, has been a vocal supporter of Modi in the UK since he was the chief minister of Gujarat.  PTI
Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 16

Amid speculations that the Congress leadership is willing to re-induct some of its rebels in case they are interested in ghar wapsi(homecoming), it seems the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also in two minds over what to offer the legislators on whose back it took the big Uttarakhand gamble and lost eventually.

Two days after Congress rebels from Uttarakhand were apparently told by BJP president Amit Shah that they would have to join the saffron party without any conditions, the party office was today abuzz with news that induction would happen.

However, sources indicate differences within the party, not only in the state leadership (which is brimming with prospective CM candidates) but also the central unit.

The BJP leadership is also concerned over the price it may have to pay in case a similar scenario develops elsewhere, like Andhra Pradesh where the party seems to have opened up channels with YSR Congress leader YS Jaganmohan Reddy.

A Rajya Sabha seat or a central ministership for everyone is out of question. At best the party can offer a ticket in the polls. However, it is also not possible to woo outsiders without a substantial promise, they say on how far the BJP will be willing to accommodate newcomers or new allies like in Andhra where the saffron party is said to be looking for an alternative to the TDP.

For now the party is keeping its options open over the YSRC issue.

The party also held an internal meeting today over the issue, they say.
Sibolangit, May 16

Rescuers today found the bodies of 17 persons who were among 20 university students and two guides who went missing in rain-triggered floods and landslides at a popular waterfall in Indonesia.

One student was found alive and was being treated at a hospital, said Darwin Surbakti, an official from the local Disaster Management Agency. The search for the four persons still missing was to be resumed tomorrow.

Rescuers have discovered 17 bodies, of which 14 have been recovered while three others are still under the rubble, Surbakti said.

The disaster occurred yesterday as more than 70 students were visiting the Dua Warna waterfall in Sibolangit in North Sumatra province.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency, said 300 rescuers including teams from the National Search and Rescue Agency had been mobilised to search for the victims.  AP
Istanbul, May 16

Turkish and US-led coalition forces struck Islamic State targets north of the Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday, killing 27 fighters, state-run Anadolu Agency and other media reported.

Turkish artillery and rocket launchers fired into Syria, while warplanes from the US-led coalition carried out three separate air campaigns, Anadolu said on Monday, citing military sources.

Five fortified defence posts and two gun posts were destroyed, while 27 fighters were killed in areas less than 10 km (6.2 miles) from Turkeys Syria border.

Turkish and coalition forces have carried out a series of such strikes recently to prevent further attacks on the Turkish border town of Kilis, which lies just across the frontier from Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria, and has been regularly struck by rockets in recent weeks.

The US and Turkey have for months discussing a military plan to drive Islamic State from the border.  Reuters
Dhaka, May 15

Bangladesh police today arrested an Islamic militant from a banned terror group over the hacking to death of the country's first gay magazine editor and his friend amidst a string of brutal murders of secular bloggers, writers and minorities in the Muslim-majority nation.

The 37-year-old suspect, Shariful Islam alias Shihab, was arrested from Kushtia early today. He is a member of the banned Ansarullah Bangla Team, Monirul Islam, chief of counter-terrorism unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police said.

During initial interrogation, Shihab confessed that he had been a member of another banned Islamist outfit Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami, Bangladesh (Huji) before he joined Ansarullah Bangla Team, Islam said.

The killers were well trained and they had planned the killing two months ago, he said while describing the arrest as a breakthrough in the case.

"They killed the gay rights activists because they were creating confusion about Islam," Islam said.

He was produced before the court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaisarul Islam, which placed him on three-day remand this afternoon. Detectives sought a ten-day remand for him.

Police said Shihab owned one of two guns that were used in the twin murders. Police seized four mobile phone sets, a tab and a USB flash drive from his possession, Islam said.

On the evening of April 25, assailants barged into the apartment of Xulhaz Mannan, a programme officer with the USAID and an editor of Bangladesh's first LGBT magazine.

Xulhaz and his theatre activist friend Tonoy were hacked with meat cleavers on their head and neck, which forensic experts said was to ensure instant death.

Militant outfit 'Ansar Al Islam', which claims to be the Bangladesh affiliate of Al-Qaida, had claimed responsibility for the killings as well as six other previous killings of bloggers-online activists and the publisher.

Witnesses said five to seven people, clad in T-shirts and jeans, were involved in the killings and fled the scene after firing from guns, shouting Allahu Akbar.

The US had condemned the killings of Tonoy and Mannan, who worked for US government aid organisation USAID.

There have been systematic assaults in Bangladesh in recent weeks especially targeting minorities, secular bloggers, intellectuals and foreigners.  PTI
Manila, May 16

Presumptive Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte said today he will reimpose the death penalty, offer Cabinet posts to communist rebels, and move to amend the constitution to give more power to the provinces, in some of his first policy pronouncements since winning last week's election based on an unofficial count.

In his first formal news conference since the May 9 vote, Duterte also said he will launch a major military offensive to destroy Abu Sayyaf extremists on southern Jolo Island, even if their human rights are trampled in the process.

The announcements, a sharp departure from current government policy, reflect his brash campaign pledge to end crime and corruption in the impoverished nation in three to six months. Police officials have said the plan is undoable, and that crime remains prevalent in Davao city, where Duterte has served as mayor for more than 22 years.

The military have been fighting a decades-long Marxist insurgency in the countryside. Duterte said he would likely offer the Cabinet posts of environment and natural resources, agrarian reform, social welfare, and labour to the communist rebels.

In a populist move, Duterte said he would sell the presidential yacht and use the money to buy medical equipment for military and police personnel.  AP
Kabul, May 16

Tens of thousands of minority Shia Hazaras today marched through the streets of the Afghan capital to protest at the proposed route for a major power transmission line, in a brewing political crisis for the beleaguered government.

Security forces locked down central Kabul, blocking key intersections with stacked shipping containers as the protesters marched on the presidential palace, demanding that the line linking energy-rich Central Asia pass through a central Hazara-dominated area in Afghanistan.

The demonstration highlights the war-torn nation's turbulent politics. It follows one of the biggest anti-government rallies for years last November, which was sparked by the beheading of a group of Hazaras.

Some protesters threw stones at officials and banged on the sides of containers but the demonstration was largely peaceful.

"(President) Ashraf Ghani is hiding himself behind blast walls," Dawood Naji, a Hazara leader, told flag-waving demonstrators, drawing rousing applause.

"We can break down these containers if we want but we are here to protest in a civilised way for our rights." Authorities shut down roads to the presidential palace, fearing a repeat of the violence in November when protesters tried to storm the compound.

The 500-kilovolt TUTAP power line, which would connect the Central Asian nations of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with electricity-starved Afghanistan and Pakistan, is seen as a crucial infrastructure project.

But it has been mired in controversy, with leaders from the minority group demanding that the line be routed through Bamiyan which has a large Hazara population.

The line was originally set to pass through the central province but the government decided to reroute it through the mountainous Salang pass north of Kabul, saying the shorter route would speed up the project and save millions of dollars.

Hazara leaders in the ethnically divisive nation lashed out at the Pashtun president, saying the decision to reroute the line was a sign of discriminatory policies, a charge that Ghani denies.

Bamiyan has seen no development in 15 years (since the Taliban were toppled from power), Hazara lawmaker Arif Rahmani said.

The rally comes in the midst of the Taliban's annual spring offensive launched last month.  AFP
Kabul, May 16

Thousands of demonstrators from Afghanistans Hazara minority marched in protest through Kabul on Monday saying that they are missing out on a multi-million dollar power transmission line, posing a major challenge to the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Protesters have been demanding that the planned route for the 500 kV transmission line linking Turkmenistan with Kabul be changed to pass through two provinces with large Hazara populations, an option the government says would cost millions and delay the badly needed project by years.

We want our rights, said Abdul Rauf Safari, 35, a protester from Ghazni, a city in central Afghanistan with a large Hazara population. We will no longer accept discrimination.

The transmission line, intended to provide secure power to 10 provinces, is part of the wider TUTAP project backed by the Asian Development Bank to link the energy-rich Central Asia republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Apart from isolated incidents, including reports that a television cameraman was beaten, the demonstration passed off peacefully. But it underscores the political tension facing the administration as it fights the Taliban-led insurgency and tries to get an economy shattered by decades of war back on its feet.

Mondays protest followed a rally in November against the murder of a group of Hazara people that became the biggest anti-government demonstration in Kabul for years.

Authorities, fearing a repeat of last years violence, when demonstrators tried to scale the walls of the presidential palace, closed access, blocking streets into the main government area with stacked-up shipping containers.

The mainly Shiite Hazaras have long faced persecution but they are politically well organised and thousands gathered in a square away from the city centre chanting TUTAP is our right! but they dispersed peacefully.

Our movement will continue, Hazara leader Mohammad Karim Khalili told the crowd.

Only around 30 percent of Afghanistan is connected to electricity and modernising the creaking power system, which is subject to frequent blackouts, has been a top priority.

Under current plans, due to be implemented by 2018, the line would pass from a converter station in the northern town of Pul-e-Khumri through the mountainous Salang pass to Kabul.

Demonstrators want an earlier version of the plan that would see a longer route from Pul-e-Khumri through the provinces of Bamyan and Wardak to the west of Kabul.  Reuters
London, May 16

Donald Trump has said he is unlikely to have a good relationship with David Cameron because the British Prime Minister cast the US presidential candidate as divisive, stupid and wrong for proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US.

After Trumps call for an entry ban on Muslims, Cameron criticised Trump in the British Parliament and suggested that Trump, who is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, would unite Britain against him if he visited.

It looks like were not going to have a very good relationship, who knows, Trump told Britains ITV television station in an interview aired on Monday when asked how ties would be if he won power in the November 8 presidential election.

I hope to have a good relationship with him but it sounds like hes not willing to address the problem either, Trump said, although earlier in the interview he said he didnt care about the Cameron comments.

The United States is Britains closest ally and political leaders from both nations often speak of how the countries enjoy a special relationship.

Cameron earlier this month refused to retract his divisive, stupid and wrong comment but said that Trump deserved respect for making it through the gruelling Republican primary process.

We have a tremendous problem with radical Islamic terror, Trump told ITV when asked about the proposed ban on Muslims.

The world is blowing up and its not people from Sweden thats doing the damage okay. So we have a real problem. Trump, who had initially wished newly elected London Mayor Sadiq Khan well, said he was offended by Khans criticism that he was ignorant about Islam.

He doesnt know me, never met me, doesnt know what I am all about. I think they are very rude statements. Frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements, Trump said. It is ignorant for him to say that. After Khans election, Trump had told the New York Times that he could make an exception for Khan, who is a Muslim, to visit the United States.

When asked about Britains membership of the EU, Trump said: Ive dealt with the European Union, its very, very bureaucratic, its very, very difficult. In terms of Britain I would say what do you need it for? But again, let people make up their own mind.  Reuters
A fact-finding mission made of members of the European Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee will visit Ukraine on May 16-19.

"A delegation of four members of European Parliament will visit Ukraine from 16 till 19 May for a fact-finding mission into the EU financial assistance provided since Maidan revolution to support Ukraine's stabilization and reform process," the European Union's Delegation in Ukraine reported on its website.

According to the report, members of the Budgetary Control Committee responsible for controlling the spending of EU money will visit Ukraine to see how the aid is being used on the ground. "They also want to know how Ukraine is coping with corruption and whether it affects the EU funds," the delegation said.

The program of the visit is split into two parts. First the MEPs will visit Lviv region, where they will monitor EU funded projects and trans-border cooperation with the EU.

Then they will visit Kyiv, where they will meet with the central authorities - the Verkhovna Rada and the newly sworn members of the government.

The delegates will also meet with the anti-corruption bodies created after the Maidan revolution. They are also schedule to meet with the civil society representatives, anti-corruption watchdogs and investigative journalists.
At present the main task for Ukraine is the resumption of program of cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt has said.

"Number one priority right now, of course, is the implementation of the IMF program," he said at an investment conference in Kyiv.

There are important steps that now need to be approved by the Verkhovna Rada, he said.

"And I think the most important single risk factor for Ukraine over the next couple of weeks is the attitude of the Rada and the ability of the president, the prime minister, former Prime Minister [Arseniy] Yatseniuk to continue and maintain discipline inside the Rada for the parliament to take the difficult steps that are part of capitalizing on the progress that has been made over the past 18 months in order to sustain the green shoots of economic recovery, which are already visible in the Ukrainian macro-economy," Pyatt added.

The diplomat alluded to the issue of corruption, which is probably the single greatest impediment to unlocking greater foreign investment in Ukraine, which over the long term is going to be the driver of rapid growth, getting investors to come back into Ukraine.

He also mentioned a couple of other key leading indicators.

"Privatization is obviously one. Privatization is important both in order to improve an investment climate and also eliminate the use of state assets as sources of illicit profits for key oligarchic and political groups inside the Ukrainian political system. So how this privatization process goes forward is a key indicator to watch. We will be particularly focused on the upcoming privatization of Odesa port-side plant, the largest fertilizer plant in Europe, and that will help, I think, set either a positive or a negative tone for the larger process of privatization that lies ahead," the official stressed.
WASHINGTON  In 1906, Leonor Loree, an accomplished railroad executive, examined the dilapidated Kansas City Southern Railroad that he had been hired to rehabilitate. Dismayed, he permanently enriched American slang by exclaiming: This is a helluva way to run a railroad! Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nations second-most important court, recently said, with judicial decorousness, essentially the same thing about Amtrak.

She was not referring to its 46 consecutive years of operating losses, which include $306 million last year, and more than $16 billion since 1970, when Congress created Amtrak as a federally chartered, for-profit corporation. Rather, Brown was referring to how Congress, by piling anomaly on top of anomaly, has made Amtrak into a wholly unique statutory creature  one empowered to regulate its competitors. Amtrak illustrates the administrative states routine drift into constitutional impropriety.

In 2008, Congress passed the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, which endowed Amtrak with the powers of a regulatory agency that makes decisions, in conjunction with the Department of Transportation, about scheduling, uses of available tracks, maintenance and other metrics and standards that compel certain behavior by the entire U.S. rail industry. Freight rail entities, which actually are private, understandably objected, and the law agreed with them that was an unconstitutional delegation of governmental regulatory power to a private entity.

In 2015, however, the Supreme Court issued a through-the-looking-glass ruling worthy of Lewis Carrolls Humpty Dumpty (When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean  neither more nor less). The court acknowledged that Congress has designated Amtrak a private corporation directed to maximize revenues in order to minimize the need for government subsidies. So, Amtrak is required to be self-interested. Yet the court held that because Amtrak is indirectly controlled by Congress, however remotely, it can also be considered a government entity.

Passive courts, accommodating the administrative states activities, are permissive about agencies regulatory behavior that blurs the line between legislation and regulation. But the Supreme Court returned freight operators challenge to the D.C. Circuit for answers to some remaining questions, including this one implicating the Fifth Amendments due process guarantee: May an economically self-interested entity exercise regulatory authority over competitors?

Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Brown rejected a simple way to resolve this case, refusing to adopt the naive hypothesis that Amtraks political accountability  remote as it is  removes the taint of any potential for bias. Instead, Brown wrote: Our Constitutions ingenious system of checks and balances assumes government officials will act self-interestedly. She cited Alexander Hamilton from the first Federalist Paper: It would be nice if government officials decisions would always be unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good, but this is something more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected.

Regarding Amtrak, Brown noted, Congress delegated its legislative power to an entity that it designed to be the opposite of presumptively disinterested. Among the chief concerns of the Framers of the Constitution were questions of who should be permitted to exercise the awesome and coercive power of the government. The Due Process Clause, wrote Brown, puts Congress to a choice: its chartered entities may either compete, as market participants, or regulate, as official bodies.

The obvious way to avoid such dangerous jumbles of public and private responsibilities is to never have such government-chartered entities as Amtrak (and Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and others). Indeed, Brown warns, governments increasing reliance on public-private partnerships portends an even more ill-fitting accommodation between the exercise of regulatory power and concerns about fairness and accountability.

This reliance is another unpleasant feature of Americas predictable future. For almost eight years, Barack Obama has had the courage of Woodrow Wilsons anti-constitutional conviction that the separation of powers is an anachronistic inconvenience. It supposedly denies Americans the blessings of what Professor Woodrow Wilson of Bryn Mawr College called administrators with large powers and unhampered discretion. It will be at least four years before even the possibility of a president who thinks otherwise.

There might never be another such president, now that the Republican Party is embracing a candidate for chief executive who embraces Wilsons enthusiasm for unbounded executive power. Now that both parties regard constitutional conservatism as an inconvenient anachronism, Amtrak is a harbinger of future bipartisanship: There will be the steady permeation of ostensibly, but not really, private entities with governments presence, which for a century has been progressives consistent goal.
The opposition is calling for public disclosure of the legal advice given to former Attorney General Faris Al Rawi relating to the indemnity agreement with Vincent Nelson.

Speaking at the UNCs weekly Sunday media conference this morning, MP Saddam Hosein also criticized what he sees as the law associations delayed and weak response to the entire matter.
Following comments about Waleed Alys win at the Logies, Media Watch last night set its sights on an abundance of Caucasian faces reading primetime news around the country.

Excluding SBS, it could only find a handful of presenters not of Caucasian appearance.

Turn on prime-time TV News in Sydneyapart from SBSand this is who youll see: all white, except for the ABCs Jeremy Fernandez, host Paul Barry said.

Its the same story in Canberra.

And if you switch the dial to Melbourne the pictures much the same.

Moving over to Hobart  theres still not a brown or black face in sight.

Nor is there one in Adelaide.

In Perth, Ten has an indigenous newsreader, but all the others are white.

Darwins ABC has a newsreader of Greek parentage, and the rest are white.

And in Brisbane, the ABCs Karina Carvalho was born in Sri Lanka.

So, put all those 40 faces together and as you can see its a sea of white.
HBO telemovie Confirmation airs on Sunday, pulling back the curtain on the 1991 Supreme Court nomination hearings of Clarence Thomas.

Kerry Washington, Wendell Pierce and Greg Kinnear star in the drama of a man whose Supreme Court nomination came under fire when a former employee, Anita Hill, accused him of sexual harassment.

Written by Susannah Grant (Oscar nominee for Erin Brockovich) and directed by Rick Famuyiwa (Dope), Confirmation details the explosive 1991 Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings, which brought the country to a standstill and became a pivotal moment in American culture, forever changing how we perceive and experience workplace equality and gender politics.

A highly-charged drama involving a plethora of real-life figures from Americas recent political past, the film is set 25 years ago, when the country was riveted by the televised nomination hearings of Thomas (Wendell Pierce), a District of Columbia judge whose nomination was stalled after a former employee, Anita Hill (Kerry Washington), asserted he had sexually harassed her when she worked under him at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Confirmation brings viewers behind the scenes as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by chairman Joe Biden (Greg Kinnear), argued whether or not to extend the hearings, while supporters of Hill and Thomas attacked and parried from the sidelines. Eventually the Senate decided to hear Hill and Thomas testimony before the full Senate voted on his confirmation. The film recreates the riveting drama that unfolded in public and behind closed doors, focusing on Thomas and Hill and their support teams as well as key Committee members and advisors including Senator Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, Arlen Specter, Orrin Hatch, Alan Simpson, John Danforth, Ken Duberstein, and others. Eventually, and after not calling a second woman, Angela Wright (Jennifer Hudson), to testify regarding her sexual harassment claims against Thomas, the full senate voted 52-48 to confirm the nomination  but not before irreparable damage had been done, both to the accused and his accuser.

8:30pm Sunday May 22 on Showcase.
So whats the difference between Who Do You Think You Are? and DNA Nation, I hear you ask?

While the former is a personal journey of genealogy, the latter is one of science. Three famous Australians -Ian Thorpe, Julia Zemiro and Ernie Dingo- all participate in this three part documentary produced by Blackfella Films (Redfern Now, First Contact).

Like First Contact and Go Back to Where You Came From, this adopts a similar embedded experience where the participants have next to know forewarning of the destinations or situations they will find themselves -all while the cameras are rolling.

Their emotions underpin the storytelling of this intriguing premise that asks Who are we and where do we come from?

It begins with its subjects scraping the inside of their mouth for saliva. Human geneticist Dr John Mitchell explains that a simple swab can provide DNA that can be traced back over 200,000 years.

The three stars in this unlikely group share a mix of excitement and apprehension about where the documentary will take them. Ernie Dingo knows his Indigenous history well, but nothing before that, while Julia Zemiro admits to ..a sneaking suspicion Im going to come back a vegetarian. I dont know why.

Before they know it they are taken to Tanzania, where a tribe of hunter gatherers still lives according to the basic lifestyle adopted by humans thousands of years ago. The Hadza people create fire with sticks, something Dingo is keen to show he too has mastered.

The guy is just like us. He knows how to make fire, an interpreter advises.

They will also join the tribe on a search for honey, with former Olympian Ian Thorpe watching in awe as the local men scale trees and smoke out bee hives. While Thorpe & Dingo will also join the men hunting for prey, Zemiro will gather vegetables with the women. Throughout there is a lovely union and cultural exchange between modern and primitive subjects. With no documentary host at their side, the three also emote and explain their actions for the camera.

I feel like a fake, Zemiro later confides. I felt good having you there as an Indigenous person because they related to you.

Skin colour is nothing. Its how you relate, Dingo replies.

Via laptop Dr John Mitchell occasionally steps in as tour guide, to advise the team they are now headed off on the next step in their journey: an archeological dig in Turkana Basin, Kenya. There with scientist Jason Lewis they will dig for artefacts and bones as part of an epic global question, Why did mankind leave Africa? Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey will also try to answer questions such as Thorpes Why is it so important for us to know about our past?

The filming of this documentary is cleverly personal, allowing us to watch the participants up close. There are drone shots making the most of exotic backdrops and music wrapped around the drama. Colin Friels provides sparse narration in a project where the visuals do much of the storytelling. I also enjoyed watching the three Aussies undertake the experience together, at least initially, as opposed to the solo experience of Who Do You Think You Are?.

It also goes without saying there is none of the feuding and internal conflict associated with Go Back to Where You Came From or First Contact. DNA Nation perfectly reminds us we have more in common than those that divide us.

Subsequent episodes suggest a mix of joy and tears for the participants, but above all else a sense of wonderment.

DNA Nation begins 8:30pm Sunday on SBS.
Production is underway in Sydney on the second season of LifeStyle FOODs new hit, The Great Australian Bake Off.

12 new home bakers are facing up to 30 challenges over 10 episodes, designed to test their baking prowess, creativity and skill.

Claire Hooper and Mel Buttle are back as hosts with Maggie Beer and Matt Moran returning as judges.

The 10 part series will premiere on LifeStyle FOOD later this year.

Foxtels first series of The Great Australian Bake Off premiered on LifeStyle FOOD in October last year and achieved record numbers for the channel. The launch was the highest rating program on FOOD ever, with subsequent episodes continuing to break viewing records.

The Great Australian Bake Off is a FremantleMedia Australia production for Foxtel based on a format created by Love Productions and broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom.
Actress Rebel Wilson is suing Bauer Media for defamation after print and online articles claim she lied about her age and background, using a fake name and creating stories to make it in Hollywood.

Wilson, who has appeared in recent years in Pitch Perfect, Bridesmaids and her sitcom Super Fun Night, claims she missed out on roles, and others were terminated because of the articles in Womans Day, The Australian Womens Weekly, NW and OK Magazine.

Wilson says the stories last year accused her of:

 lying about her age

 lying about her background

 using a fake name

 creating stories to make it in Hollywood.

Womans Day claimed she lied about her age, her real name, her upbringing and the fact she had lived in Zimbabwe for a year, while Womens Weekly claimed she lied when she told David Letterman that she grew up in a disadvantaged part of NSW, when she instead grew up in the Sydney suburb of Cherrybrook.

Bauer Media did not contact her prior to writing the articles, or make adequate inquiries as to the facts, she attests.

Points raised in the articles were even republished in the US including the LA Times.

Last May website Mamma Mia also suggested Wilson had been lying about her age.

OMG I'm actually a 100 year old mermaid formerly known as "CC Chalice" .thanks shady Australian press for your tall poppy syndrome x  Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) May 18, 2015

She has previously told Julia Zemiros Home Delivery, The reality is, when you work in America, you have to show your passport and your visa for every single job. So its not like you can hide how old you are.

Source: The Australian, Fairfax,
Ukraine, Poland will sign agreement on joint maintenance of three near-border bridges

Ukraine and Poland intend to jointly maintain three near-border bridges, the press service of the State Agency of Automobile Roads of Ukraine (Ukravtodor) has stated.

According to its data, Ukravtodor has recently discussed the issue with representatives of the Polish delegation.

It was about the finalization of a draft agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the government of Poland concerning the joint maintenance of road bridge objects on the Ukrainian-Polish border.

Preparation of the draft agreement is needed to ensure the adequate operational and technical condition of the bridges.

The new agreement will be signed instead of the one signed in the Soviet times. After Ukravtodor is authorized by the government of Ukraine, the date of signing the revised agreement will be set.

The state agency hopes the document will be signed in autumn, ratified and come into force by the nd of the year.
Kendra Brumfield and John Wambui, doctoral students in the urban affairs and public policy program in the University of Delawares School of Public Policy and Administration, have been invited to participate in the American Society for Public Administrations International Young Scholars Workshop.

The workshop is hosted by a different country every year and this years meeting will take place in Cape Town, South Africa. Previous International Young Scholars Workshops have been held in Xiamen and Beijing, China, and in Mexico City, Mexico.

Brumfield and Wambui are among a group of 23 invited participants that includes doctoral students and early-service professors. The 2016 cohort of young scholars are representing institutions including Rutgers University, Indiana University, Bloomington, and the University of Georgia.

Both Brumfield and Wambui have specific research interests in African policy and administration. Brumfield will be presenting research that explores youth development initiatives in Dakar, Senegal. Wambuis research for the workshop examines ways to use a strengths-based approach to researching modern urban slums in Africa.

This intensive four-day workshop  which will take place July 20-23  was modeled after conferences held at the Ronald Coase Institute. Participants under this model present their research twice, each time receiving feedback from senior scholars on potential areas of improvement. Using this feedback, young scholars improve their papers through an iterative process of oral presentations.

This workshop style enables the young scholars to participate in an academically rigorous platform for the presentation and evaluation of their research, scholarly exchange and social networking.

The theme for the 2016 International Young Scholars Workshop is advancing the understanding of global disparities in public policy, public administration, nongovernmental organizations and the communities they serve. Given the political and social changes in the last 20 years, Cape Town offers a rich context to discuss research concerned with equity and disparities.
The Russian-backed militants violated ceasefire in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone, eastern Ukraine, 36 times over the past day, the ATO press service reports.

Over the past twenty-four hours the enemy opened fire 36 times at the Ukrainian positions. Also, one militant collision took place, reads the report.

The pro-Russian illegal formations were spotted near Donetsk. They shelled the Ukrainian positions near Avdiivka and Krasnohorivka, using small arms, grenade launchers, 82mm and 120mm mortars. Also, grenade launchers of various systems and smalls arms were used by the militants to fire at the Ukrainian positions near Mariynka, the ATO press service reports.

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On May 16-17, 2016, Vienna Trade Fair will be held in Austria with support from the Embassy of Ukraine. Within the framework of this event, representatives of Ukrainian and Austrian business will hold negotiations on Ukrainian food exports, the Embassy of Ukraine in Austria told Ukrinform.

Representatives of the largest Austrian retailer chains Rewe/Billa, Spar, Metro and Ukrainian manufacturers of sweets, fish products, beverages, honey, dairy and other food products and mass consumer goods are expected to participate, the diplomatic mission said in the report.

This event is designed for holding negotiations and signing export contracts for Ukrainian food products upon their results.

It will be another step towards the practical implementation of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) between Ukraine and the European Union, which came into effect on January 1, 2016, the Embassy of Ukraine in Austria said.

Currently, 12 Ukrainian companies have confirmed their participation in this event.

On the part of Austrian business, high representatives of Austrian buyers, who cover over 75% of the regional retail market, confirmed their participation in Vienna Trade Fair, the diplomatic mission added.

According to the Embassy of Ukraine, Austrias share in Ukrainian import and export makes up less than 1%. Following the results of 2015, Ukrainian exports to Austria amounted to $347.2 million and dropped by 34.6% in contrast to the same period of the previous year. Most export deliveries consist of iron ore and wood. In terms of food products, Austrian consumers can buy Ukrainian honey and apple juice concentrate.

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Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman will travel on a working visit to Odesa Region on Tuesday, Odesa official Yury Zharov told Ukrinform.

"The program for the premiers working visit includes familiarization with the process of repaving the M-28 Odesa  Yuzhne state highway, participation in the opening ceremony of the laboratory and production facility at Interkhim JSC," said Zharov.

Groysman also plans to hold a meeting on developing the domestic pharmaceutical industry and he will visit the construction site of a new customs terminal at Odesa seaport.

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The EU Council for Justice and Home Affairs will review and may approve the abolition of visa requirements for citizens of Ukraine at its meeting on 10 June, an EU agency official told Ukrinforms own correspondent in Brussels, Belgium.

"This issue will likely be considered at a meeting that will be held on 10 June. We will have a confirmation for it next week, when the agenda is formed at the meeting of European Ministers of Justice and Interior," the official source told Ukrinform.

He noted that the EU Council is also waiting for the position on the issue of lifting the visa regime for Ukrainians from the European Parliament.

Meanwhile, the EU legislatures committee on civil Liberties, justice and home affairs may consider the matter at its next meeting only on 23-24 May. Its agenda also has not been formed yet.
Sweden has offered Ukraine help in preparations for holding the Eurovision Song Contest in 2017.

The minister congratulated Ukraine on the victory at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest and offered its comprehensive assistance with the organization of the contest at appropriate level, which is to be held in Ukraine in line with the rules, reads the report.

The officials also discussed a range of current issues, particularly, regarding the ministrys functions and modernization.

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Militants attacked Ukrainian army positions 36 times over the past day, using, in particular, weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements, the anti-terrorist operation staff's press center has said.

"Pro-Russian armed gangs have markedly intensified its activity in the Donetsk area. Our positions near Avdiyivka and Krasnohorivka came under intense fire from its outskirts and suburbs, by use of small arms, grenade launchers and 82mm and 120mm mortars," the press center wrote on Facebook on Monday.

According to the report, militants fired various types of grenade launchers and small arms on Ukrainian army strongholds.

A sabotage-and-reconnaissance group attempted an incursion into the Ukrainian army's rear near Opytne in the Donetsk airport area with the support from grenade launchers, anti-aircraft guns and 82mm mortars. "The saboteurs were timely detected. There was a clash, and the attackers retreated," the press center said.

The hostiles attacked Ukrainian army positions near Zaitseve in the Horlivka-Svitlodarsk bulge, using automatic mounted grenade launchers and 82mm mortars. Militants fired small arms and grenade launchers on Ukrainian army strongholds near Luhanske, Donetsk region.

On Sunday, the staff observed at least three attacks on Ukrainian army positions in the Mariupol sector, using various types of grenade launchers, large-caliber machineguns and small arms.

Militants also became active in Luhansk region. According to the report, they were firing on Ukrainian army positions near Schastia, using automatic mounted grenade launchers and large-caliber machineguns.

The press center reported the ongoing attacks of the militia on Monday, after midnight. Militants used weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements, including 120mm mortars, 122mm artillery systems and tanks, near Avdiyivka.

Besides, the hostiles shelled Ukrainian army positions near Novotroitske, Taramchuk and Hranitne in the Mariupol sector. They were also using 82m and 120mm mortars in those areas.
Rights activist shot and killed in car in Odesa

Unknown individuals have opened fire on a Lexus in Chervonykh Zir Street in Odesa, Daryna Yarchuk, chief specialist of the communications department of the Main Department of the National Police in Odesa region, told reporters.

She said a human rights activist has died of gunshot wounds. Yarchuk did not give the victim's name.

There is information that the attackers were two men, who opened fire on the car using firearms.

The criminals left the accident site.
Georgia has invited Azerbaijan and Turkey to cooperate in programs and projects conducted in Georgia with NATO's assistance at a trilateral meeting of the defense ministers in the Azerbaijani city of Gabala.

"It was the question of holding trilateral exercises. Georgia expressed a wish to host several exercises of the kind in 2017, especially given the opportunities provided by cooperation with NATO. I think we can offer a worthy partnership to the Turkish side in organizing top-notch exercises. Consent was given, so we will be preparing for spring 2017," the Georgian Defense Ministry press service quoted Defense Minister Tinatin Khidasheli as saying.

According to Khidasheli, the trilateral meeting focused on a memorandum on mutual understanding to be concluded among the three sides.

The ministers agreed to hold their next trilateral meeting in Batumi in summer of this year, she said.
A student organization in Alabama has issued an apology Friday after finding T-shirts that showed a black man eating watermelon had been produced by a sorority, which claimed members were unable to spot the racist interpretation initially.

In an email to students and faculty, Samford University President Andy Westmoreland noted that the image was repulsive and he didn't have words to describe his frustration.

A review overseen by the administrators could influence a disciplinary action against the Alpha Delta Pi chapter at Samford, where the shaming revelation came as students and faculty were celebrating graduations at the Birmingham campus Friday, May 13.

Samford University apologizes after images of sorority shirt with offensive images surfaces https://t.co/wWy0ef6jEj  WIAT 42 (@WIAT42) May 13, 2016

The T-shirt displayed a black person eating watermelon - an image widely treated a repulsive racial stereotype. The shirts also showed a map of Alabama marked with a slew of images.

According to University spokesman Philip Poole, the shirts were ordered as keepsakes for the sorority's spring formal, reports ABC News.

The T-shirts are now to be burned citing complaints on the campus as well as an apology from the Alpha Delta Pi student sorority. Officials at Samford University have issued an apology too. The group found itself in hot water right after the controversy broke, but the group claimed it had not looked into all the details of the design.

In a statement, Lauren Hammond, president of the sorority's Samford chapter acknowledged that the group failed to pay attention on the specific images in the design. Hammond also noted that the sorority members have been instructed not to wear the shirts, which were being collected in order to be destroyed.

Karina Shaver, a media representative for Alpha Delta Pi noted that chapter members actually found the map image via a Google search.

Poole said a staff member of the campus Greek Life office discovered the T-shirts had been delivered and warned administrators Thursday afternoon.

According to reports on CBS News, Samford officials divulged in a statement that the sorority ordered the repulsing T-shirts despite their design been rejected when submitted to the university for permission.

A statement from Alpha Delta Pi's national headquarters noted that the t-shirt design does not reflect "the values of respect and dignity" the organization proudly stands for. The organization also pointed out that it neither approves any design with racial stereotypes nor tolerates any other "offensive images or language."
University of Alabama interim course will encompass work of fantasy author Terry Pratchett, a writer who is still unknown to many.

Andrea Barton, an instructor in the University of Alabama English department is teaching an interim course of Terry Pratchett's work, dubbed "Special Topics in Literature: Discworld."

Pratchett, an English author of fantasy novels, specifically comical works, is renowned for his Discworld series of 41 novels.

Interim is a three-week period amid the spring and summer semesters. During this period, educators conduct courses that either revolve around personal interest, or those that work in a condensed setting. Interim courses encompass an array of subjects including everything from archaeological digs to glass-blowing to the upsurging interest with zombies.

With topics such as history, arts of knitting, history, event planning with a mock wedding for the final as well as how television's "Mad Men" de-glamorize representation of 1960's American culture, this year won't be any different at the University Of Alabama, according to reports on TuscaloosaNews.

Barton did not rule out the possibility of most Americans not recognizing Terry Pratchett, an author who earned appreciation for his Discworld series of 41 novels and who sold more than a staggering 85 million copies of his books across 37 languages in his career that spanned five decades. He was appointed as an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire).

In 2001, Pratchett won the annual Carnegie Medal for his first Discworld book for children dubbed, "The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents" and in 2010, he received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.

Barton admitted it's strange that not many Americans actually recognize Pratchett, despite his work being so accessible to readers. He presented a very smart blue-collar personality. Barton also pointed out that "It's interesting that the higher you go in academia, the more likely they are to recognize his work."

Pratchett undermined fantasy concepts to express human absurdity as well as eccentricity about gender, war, technology, religion, xenophobia, racism and more. He created a world of characters readers would want to know and people who seemed genuine, Barton added.

Pratchett died on March 12 last year following a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's. He was 66.
American students were threatened after a video posted in social media app, Yeti, alerted Ohio University.

The police confirmed that the death threat video was anonymously posted in the location-based app and Ohio University has quickly learned about it despite saying it is not credible. There were six school districts in the southeast area dismissed closed due to the threat, News Max has learned.

At 5 a.m the threat was found by the officials but they did not explain further how it got into it. The person that posted video threat addressed to the campus community was still unclear. After notifying the officials, the threat has been investigated since then. FBI also took care of the issue and alerted school districts to be closed on Friday. The areas included Nelsonville York Local, Athens City, Trimble Local, Tri-Country and Alexander Local, according to Fox8 News.

The Ohio University Police also tweeted a statement regarding the anonymous threat.

See attached statement regarding anonymous social media threat posted to Ohio University group on Yeti. pic.twitter.com/va74FysG0c  OhioUniversityPolice (@oupolice) April 29, 2016

The university also sent audio message, notifying parents that there would be a respond to the threat to American students, but within a short term range, as announced by Tom Gibbs, Athens School superintendent.

The message said that the police was aware of the threat made against students despite unable to share any more news regarding the issue because when the threat was revealed, the police felt the need to tell parents even before looking further into it. The official assured to keep the guard up for the safety of all, as reported by the Inquistr.

The university still held the graduation ceremony on Friday and Saturday albeit threat to American students; with thousands of graduates went through extra security check that involved the FBI. The law enforcement worked together with FBI to further investigate the video threat. The campus community has many foreign students and teachers and with the scheduled graduation ceremony, the death threat seems not to greatly impact the university.
Aug. 19, 2022

Fitness. When the average citizen thinks of being fit, it is easy for cardio and strength training to come to mind. That is not the case for those serving in the Air Force and Space Force. Comprehensive Airman Fitness teaches that to have overarching fitness and resilience, one must work on his or
Works on engineering and technical maintenance of the Ukrainian-Russian border ("The Wall" project) has started in Luhansk region, the Deputy Prime Minister for the temporarily occupied territories and internally displaced persons, Ex-governor of Luhansk Regional Military and Civil Administration, current Deputy Minister for Occupied Territories Heorhiy Tuka said.

"I want to say that the works have already been started. Expert teams of geologists, surveyors have arrived. We are currently working on research of soil constitution, preparatory works for the Assignment Specification implementation. Two powerful groups are working, which are moving along the border moving towards each other from opposite directions," Tuka said on 112 TV channel on Saturday.

He stated with regret that specialists had found two pieces of land that local farmers had planted with grain crops in spite of all the warnings.

"In my opinion, if there is the right fundraising, it is absolutely realistic to build all the planned facilities," the deputy minister responded to the presenter's question whether it is real to build "The Wall" in the scheduled date until 2018.

He also said it was not about the wall itself. "There will be a border mesh in some areas to prevent border crossing by people or livestock. Antitank ditches will be built in some extremely dangerous sites to guard against tank attacks," Tuka said.

In September 2014 former Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatseniuk announced the beginning of the project "The Wall".

In late 2015 head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Viktor Nazarenko informed that the project "The Wall" implementation was at that time focused on the territory of Chernihiv and Kharkiv regions.
UTSA to serve as home of new UT System partnership with Mexicos national science and technology council

UTSA President Ricardo Romo, UT System Chancellor William H. McRaven, CONACYT Director Enrique Cabrero at the agreement signing

(May 16, 2016) -- The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) will lead an effort by the University of Texas System to enhance ties with Mexicos National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) by administering new academic and research exchange programs for the mutual benefit of the United States and Mexico.

The UT System Board of Regents has approved the allocation of $5 million to support the initiative. CONACYT will also provide significant funding  approximately a three-to-one match  of UT Systems investment.

UTSA expects to launch an office to oversee the UT System-CONACYT exchange programs in the fall and to begin recruiting and promoting the various programs. The following year, the university will welcome the first cohorts of doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty researchers and students from Mexico to UT System institutions.

This is an incredible opportunity for collaboration between two exceptional organizations, said UTSA President Ricardo Romo. I believe that we are about to launch one of the most exciting educational student exchanges in the country. This agreement allows UTSA to be a key player in strengthening the ties between Texas and Mexico, and to support the bilateral agenda of these two countries.

The funding approved by the UT System and by CONACYT will support:

 30 Mexican doctoral students per year at UT System institutions, creating a total cohort of 150 Ph.D. students over five years;

 collaborative research projects designed to increase and enhance exchanges between faculty from UT institutions and Mexican universities. These projects will serve as seed grants to facilitate the pursuit larger grants;

 funding for nine postdoctoral fellows and six faculty fellows a year -- fellows from Mexico conducting research at a UT System institution, or fellows from UT System institutions at Mexican universities;

 short fellowship visits by non-degree students, allowing Mexican masters and Ph.D. students to engage in research experiences at UT System institution either for six months or 12-month periods.

Since 1982, CONACYT has supported 530 Mexican fellows at various UT System institutions, including 22 fellows at UTSA. Since 2012, it has supported approximately 35 new fellows each year.

UTSA currently has 26 exchange agreements with universities and organizations in Mexico.

Mexico is more than just our friend, UT System Chancellor William H. McRaven said while signing the agreement. Each one of our academic and health institutions benefits from our proximity to and relationship with Mexico, and the same can be said of Texas itself. Our partnership with CONACYT is essential to building a knowledge exchange to make new discoveries in science, health care and technology.

McRaven and Romo laid the groundwork for the UT Systems partnership with CONACYT, Mexicos peer to the U.S. National Science Foundation, when they signed a memorandum of understanding with the agency in August 2015. That agreement enabled the UT Systems 14 institutions to develop a wide variety of STEM-related research and academic programs for faculty and students in areas such as applied math and modeling; biology and chemistry; biochemistry and agricultural sciences; earth, coastal and marine sciences; energy; environment; industrial manufacturing technologies; information technology and telecommunications; materials; medicine and health; nanotechnology; and space sciences and technologies.

The opportunity to oversee the UT Systems programs with CONACYT will expand UTSAs visibility and presence with our neighbors to the south, and sends a positive signal to our friends in Latin America of our desire to partner and recruit their top talent, added Rene Zenteno, UTSA vice provost for international initiatives.

----------------------------

Learn more about UTSAs international partners.

Learn more about CONACYT.

Connect online at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and UTSA Today.
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During the visit to the Kingdom of Sweden the Culture Minister of Ukraine Yevhen Nyshchuk has held a meeting with the Minister for Culture and Democracy Alice Bah Kuhnke, the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine reports.

"Now, when we have an opportunity to reform the Ministry, it is important to emphasize a number of markers for cooperation. We conducted, among other things, joint workshops and brainstorming sessions on decentralization cooperation. Our partners from Sweden already have a great experience in this," parliamentary press service quotes Nyshchuk.

According to the report, the Swedish Minister confirmed her willingness to cooperate and said that Sweden was ready to send its experts to Ukraine to implement the Swedish innovations in Ukrainian reality that had already received positive feedback in Sweden.

The functioning, development and support of such creative industries in Ukraine, such as fashion, photography and contemporary art, were touched upon during our talks,. the report says.

During the talks ministers also discussed protection issues involving UNESCO World Heritage Sites, freedom of expression and of the press, as well as gender equality. They also discussed areas of cooperation and support for a function Ukraine institute in Sweden. Kuhnke also expressed her concern about events in Donbas.

According to the report, the minister greeted Ukraine on winning the Eurovision-2016 song contest and offered multifaceted assistance in organizing the Eurovision 2017 competition, which Ukraine will host next year.
Member of Parliament Ihor Hryniv has unanimously been elected head of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc parliamentary faction, MP from the PPB faction Oleksiy Honcharenko has said.

"Ihor Hryniv has unanimously been elected as head of the PPB faction," he wrote on Facebook on Monday.

The same information was confirmed by MP Viktor Pynzenyk.

As was reported, Ukraine's parliament on May 12, 2016, voted to green-light President Petro Poroshenko's nominee Yuriy Lutsenko, who headed the BBP faction then, to the position of Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

Poroshenko signed Lutsenko's appointment shortly after the voting, after which the parliament stripped him of deputy immunity.

Hryniv, born in Lviv in 1961, is a Ukrainian politician, political strategist, parliamentarian for five terms. He is an executive director of Fund for Support of Economic Research (since 1994). He also heads the Serednioyevropeiske Agenstvo law firm (since 1996).
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/ARASH AFSHARI A B-25 PBJ-1J designed for use by the Marine Corps during World War II takes off from Camarillo Airport on Sunday for the first time in 23 years, having been completely restored by the Commemorative Air Force Southern California Wing.

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By Staff Reports

A World War II-era B-25 aircraft specifically designed for the Marine Corps flew for the first time in 23 years on Sunday after undergoing a complete restoration in Camarillo.

The B-25 PBJ-1J is believed to be the only Marine Corps version of the B-25 flying in the United States, said Pat Brown, public information officer with the Commemorative Air Force Southern California Wing, which has been restoring the aircraft since 1993.

The aircraft was manufactured in 1945. The Marine Corps version was equipped with radar and carried depth charges instead of bombs and later became training aircraft for navigators, radio personnel and gunners, according to CAF literature.
On Tuesday, May 17, at 10.30, the press centre of the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency will host a press conference "Ten Tips for Kyiv City Space Development". Participating will be architect and head of international business at London-based firm Leslie Jones Architecture Simon Scott, real estate expert and founder of Kyiv-based Urban Experts Company Vitaliy Boiko (Kyiv) (8/5a Reitarska Street). Accreditation is required by phone: (044) 337 7677, (093) 531 7121.
FILE PHOTO

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By Tom Kisken of the Ventura County Star

A California law that kicks in Monday makes immigrant children without legal documentation eligible for comprehensive, government-paid health care.

No one knows exactly how many people are impacted or the exact cost to taxpayers for the new care.

California Department of Health Care Services officials contend at least 2,917 Ventura County residents ages 18 and younger qualify for full-scope Medi-Cal under a Health 4 All Kids signed into law last year. That number matches the undocumented people currently covered by restricted Medi-Cal, meaning they're covered for emergency care.

How to enroll

People who meet income and other Medi-Cal requirements can enroll by calling 1-888-472-4463. Or go to www.vchsa.org.

For more information on the coverage expansion, go to http://health4allkids.org/.

State leaders projected about 170,000 people across the state will qualify for full Medi-Cal. That estimate increased to about 185,000 in Gov. Jerry Brown's revised budget plan released Friday.

Leaders of the California Endowment are spearheading efforts to publicize the new law. They predict 6,700 children and young adults in Ventura County, and more than 300,000 people statewide, will qualify for health care coverage.

They cite the 2014 expansion of Medi-Cal as part of the Affordable Care Act. It brought predictions that no more than 1.4 million new Californians would be covered through the government program over the first two years.

Instead, about 4.3 million people joined Medi-Cal. The flood included 84,000 people in Ventura County, where enrollment increased more than 70 percent.

Others contend even the California Endowment's projection is low for Ventura County.

"This is just my gut. I really feel it's upwards of 10,000 people," said Dee Pupa, a deputy director of the Ventura County Health Care Agency. She cited fears about deportation that persuade some families not to apply for emergency Medi-Cal or to use discounted care programs.

"You have a population that is afraid to come forward," she said.

The other uncertainty is the price tag.

The expansion will cost the state and federal government about $177.7 million a year, with projections that $142.8 million will come from California taxes, said Rene Mollow, deputy director of health care benefits and eligibility for the Department of Health Care Services.

But if more people than expected enroll, costs will increase.

The law allows people currently covered only for emergency care  the most expensive treatment  to receive preventive care, said Daniel Zingale, senior vice president for the California Endowment.

It means the government saves in the long run. Taxpayers will pay more for preventive care for diabetes and less for the dialysis needed when the disease brings kidney failure, he said.

"We can't afford not to," said Zingale of providing care to immigrants in the country illegally. "We're either going to recognize the value or we're going to get buried in health care bills down the road."

People wary of the new law's impact cited California's economic health.

"The state is seeing news that tax receipts are lower than expected," said Richard Thomson, board president of the Ventura County Taxpayers Association. "We're seeing increasing numbers of companies leaving the state. This is no time to be increasing expenditures."

Immigrants ages 18 and younger currently in restricted Medi-Cal are set to be automatically moved to full-scope coverage on Monday. Outreach efforts are aimed at making sure other people who qualify for the program know how to enroll.

Electronic enrollment kiosks have been set up at several clinics affiliated with the county health care agency. Letters about the new coverage have been sent to the 4,500 people in the county's discounted self-pay program, virtually all of them uninsured.

Clinicas del Camino Real, a nonprofit countywide health system, has hired three pediatricians to accommodate the expected surge of new patients. Like the county, the system has 4,500 people in its discounted care program.

The numbers make Clinicas chief operations officer Tony Alatorre think some predictions of new Medi-Cal eligibility in Ventura County are low.

"It's going to be over 10,000," he said.
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By Arlene Martinez, amartinez@vcstar.com

Ventura's elected officials continue to explore pursuing a half-cent sales tax increase on their own or a full-cent joint tax with the school district.

The Ventura Unified School District's board continues to weigh whether to join the city or try to extend its parcel tax, set to expire at year's end.

The Ventura County Transportation Commission, planning its own half-cent sales tax increase proposal, would prefer neither, but if it has to be one, the commission prefers the parcel tax.

So wrote Commission Chair Keith Millhouse to the school board in a letter dated May 10.

"All of the experts agree that competing sales tax measures on the ballot hurt each measure's chances of being successful," he wrote. "That is why we spent two years communicating with the cities about the need for a concerted and coordinated effort for a regional measure timed for November of 2016."

City Manager Mark Watkins is recommending the City Council throw its support behind a joint sales tax measure when it meets Monday.

"The benefit of this approach is that it would comprehensively address a broader array of community needs," Watkins wrote in his staff report.

If voters were to approve a half-cent sales tax increase, the city would receive $10.8 million. It would get roughly double that if it joined with the district on a one-cent sales tax increase. Either would require 50 percent of the vote plus one.

A parcel tax would bring the school district roughly $2.6 million, officials said. That requires two-thirds of voters to support it.

Voters tend to more easily approve parcel tax extensions, and have tended to support local schools. A polling firm hired by the city found greatest support for the joint tax, based on several related indicators.

Meanwhile, the commission on April 22 approved putting a half-cent sales tax on the November ballot. If it passes, and it needs two-thirds of voters to do so, it will need help, Millhouse wrote.

The county is the only one in Southern California without a dedicated transportation tax, he noted.

A transportation tax would provide "critical funding" for all 10 cities and the county for projects that benefit everyone, including those reliant on public transportation, he wrote.

The district is holding a special meeting May 19 to discuss the options. Watkins said the board was interested in knowing the city's level of support for the joint tax.

If the council backs the joint tax on Monday, it will formally vote on it May 23.

Monday's meeting starts at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 501 Poli St.
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Re: Joan Edwards letter posted May 10, Another mailer:

The accusation that the California Dental Associations Independent Expenditure PAC received funds from Chevron to support state Senate candidate Janice Kamenir-Reznik is absolutely false.

Public records show that CDAs political action committees are funded by CDA member contributions, and we have not accepted any funds from Chevron. We believe voters in Senate District 27 will not believe this false claim about a candidate like Ms. Kamenir-Reznik, who is endorsed by dozens of progressive environmental champions, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Regardless of whom you support in this race, this election should be based on facts, not false accusations.

Robert J. Hanlon, Sacramento

Editor: The author is chairman of the California Dental Political Action Committee.
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Every time I drive from my home in Ojai to Los Angeles, I am reminded why I am a supporter of Steve Bennett for county supervisor. Our county is blessed with greenbelts between our cities, which keep them distinct entities and provide scenic open space and agricultural areas to soothe the travelers mind and spirit. Upon crossing the border into Los Angeles County, there is an abrupt change to unending sprawl and unappealing development. Congestion and ugliness reign supreme.

Steve and other forward-thinking individuals wrote the original SOAR initiative, which assures that our agriculture and open space will remain intact until 2020; hopefully it will be renewed by the voters and be in place until 2050.

The environment is a fragile and precarious entity. There is no going back after development has taken its toll. Each beautiful pocket of green space is enormously important to the emotional and physical health of Ventura County residents. When its gone, its gone forever. Our grandchildren will be forced to pay the price with a lesser quality of life than we enjoy now.

Hard choices will have to be made in the coming years as we deal with the ongoing drought and pressure from business interests that hope to gain financially by plundering the environment. Steve Bennett has shown over the past 15 years that he can make the correct choices for the environmental future of our county. I hope others will join me in voting for Steve Bennett for county supervisor.

Kathy Broesamle, Ojai
CEO Dustin Ball talked to VIR about how BIDV MetLife was helping Vietnamese families plan for and protect their futures, and the company's performance since starting up just over one year ago.

What are BIDV MetLifes goals with this expansion? Did you meet any challenges in the process?

Expanding our geographic coverage was BIDV MetLifes focus in the first quarter. We aimed to make our products available in over 98 BIDV branches across the country, covering all large cities in the northern, southern, and central regions. By May 2016, our products were available in every one of BIDVs 180 branches covering all 63 provinces of Vietnam. This is a core part of our strategy to become the leading bancassurance company in Vietnam. Covering the entire country so quickly after setting foot in the country was a huge undertaking. We had to mobilise significant resources across the country to support the training and licensing of new sales representatives and establish operations to support this expansion.

Why did BIDV MetLife decide to place your educational product as the initial focus? How important is educational insurance for families?

Based on our research and understanding, childrens education is one of the primary concerns for families in Vietnam. The number of students attending university is increasing, according to statistics from UNESCO. We expect this trend to continue.

On the other hand, the cost of education continues to increase for primary and secondary schools as well as universities, which poses a challenge to families to provide for their childrens education.

Additionally, we understand that it takes more than just savings to prepare students for a successful academic career. We know that parents want their children to engage in extracurricular activities to develop their skills, starting from a very young age. Our education savings product Gia An Toan My will help parents save up for their childrens education, guarantees that the funds will be there when needed, and provides protection and access to exclusive benefits at institutions specialising in education and development.

We will take a similar approach to launching products in the future, where we will research and strive to understand our clients needs to bring unique products and services that meet those needs.

Does BIDV MetLife plan to launch new products this year?

BIDV MetLife is working on bringing new products to the market that are designed to meet customers unique needs. This year will see the introduction of not only a retirement savings product, but new protection products as well. All of these products have been researched and designed to meet specific customer needs and provide exceptional value.

While Vietnam is still a relatively young country, we know that proper retirement planning has to start early. And with Vietnams exceptional economic growth and rapidly rising living standards, life expectancy will continue to increase. This means that people will need to have enough money to fund longer retirements than in the past. And having a properly funded retirement will allow people to truly relax and enjoy life without worries and concerns.

How do you think the Vietnamese insurance market measures up to the Asia-Pacific region?

The Vietnamese insurance sector is one of the fastest growing markets in Asia due to the continuously improving economy and strong support from the Vietnamese government and the Ministry of Finance. However, the penetration of life insurance packages is still below other countries, standing at 1 per cent versus the GDP, compared to 3 per cent in Malaysia, 2 per cent in Indonesia, and 4 per cent in Thailand. This means that there is still a lot of potential for the market to grow and we expect the growth that we have seen over the last few years to continue.

As Vietnam matures, we also expect that a much larger share of sales will come from the banking channel, due to the strong relationship customers have with their banks and the relative ease of purchasing all of their financial products at one institution. By partnering with BIDV, BIDV MetLife will be able to benefit from that trend, as we have access to BIDVs nearly 8 million customers and its nationwide network of bank branches and locations.

What is BIDV MetLifes strategy and business plan a year after launching in Vietnam?

Our strategy remains the same as when we started: to become the leading bancassurance company and break into the Top-5 companies overall. We will do that by developing products and services that focus on meeting customers needs and using advanced digital technologies to support our sales and make our services seamless, as well as through leveraging the distribution power of BIDV to reach customers across the country.

We are very pleased with our results in 2015, our first full year of operations. In our very first year, our market share overtook a number of companies that have been present for years. Our strong performance, ranking 13th out of 18 companies in the market, proves that our business model and strategy are right for this market.

Over the next few years we will launch new products and new sales channels. This, combined with our focus on delivering unique products that provide significant value to our customers, will enable us to become a leader in life insurance in Vietnam.
Local banks will have to adapt to meet the changing needs of customers in the globally-integrated marketplace

During the 17th Asian Banker Summit held in Hanoi last week, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc noted that the local banking sector has always been vital for the countrys growth, and that the sector itself has undergone massive reforms in recent years in a bid to meet the demand of a rapidly growing economy.

Vietnam warmly welcomes and fully supports the theme of the conference  The New Breakthrough, which truly reflects a long-term vision and commitment for innovative changes, moving towards an effective and dynamic banking and financial market within the nation, said Phuc.

The local banking sector, according to State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Governor Le Minh Hung, will continue adapting and addressing challenges to integrate into the regional and global financial system.

We yearn to see participation from foreign investors in our banking restructuring process and I believe such a process will benefit us all, said the newly-appointed governor.

Before foreign investors can flock to the sector, the Vietnamese banking industry needs to identify the key pressures being faced and determine what will in fact drive the industry forward.

According to experts, the sector is facing significant pressure from both the government and customers, and in the future, it could well be the banks customers who decide the industrys fate and where local banks will be.

From a macro-economic view, Vietnam is in a rather stable development phase, with a good economic growth achievement of 6.68 per cent last year and possibly the same for 2016.

Nevertheless, while a number of favours that are working towards the local financial markets advantages, such as reasonable asset quality and reliable liquidity, according to Alex Kwiatkowski, senior marketing strategist for Banking & Digital Channels at Misys, challenges remain within the financial market, particularly in the banking sector.

Things that are perhaps the challenges, yet to be overcome, at the macro level, which are around the capital levels and the provisioning for loan losses, which I think still causing some concerns among the rating agencies, said Kwiatkowski, in an interview at the Asian Banker Summit held in Hanoi last week.

Kwiatkowski went on to say that the SBV currently has so-called control over how the system needs to operate, relative to how the economy needs to grow. SBV thus leaves it to competent banks to decide on how they would respond to market opportunities, how they are going to reduce the loan loss provisions, and how they will engage with customers through a range of challenges.

Local banks will have to juggle cost reductions, expansion into new areas, and figure out how to protect themselves from existing institutions. Competition could come from banks outside of Vietnam, through mergers and acquisitions, or start-ups. Financial services arent exclusively preserved for banking, and they can also come through other forces or agencies, for example, the telco operation offering mobile money, added the London-based senior strategist.

Meanwhile, according to Brian Edmondson, global head of Trade and Working Capital Finance at Misys, the pressure on the banking industry could be coming from bank customers.

It would be driven by their customers Misys. As the [local] economy travels from being domestic orientated customers requirements will become more sophisticated, said Edmondson.

I think where we are in Vietnam now is Vietnam-based companies are taking the first one or two steps to set up operations and business abroad. It would be a natural place for them to look to the banks who serve them domestically to provide support as they expend internationally, he noted.

According to Edmondson, as the market expands internationally, Vietnamese bank customers will expect different kind of supports from local banks, in terms of advice, cash and liquidity and treasury services (due to currency volatility). Banks, as a result, will depend on what their customers demand and that will be shaping future of the banking industry in the years to come.

Local regulators, meanwhile, can give a hand in shaping the future of the banking sector, via enhancing transparency within the system and let bank customers have a say on what they really want with their banks.

Some regulators have taken the step of issuing new banking licenses to start-up banks to foster accelerated delivery of digital financial services to consumers, said Rick Woodham, chief technology officer for Asia Pacific at provider of banking and payments technologies FIS.
Photo : nasa.gov

The US space agency had already pushed back the launch by a day to Tuesday.

If technicians are able to finish their repairs as planned, Discovery and its six American astronauts will now launch from Florida's Kennedy Space Center at 3:52 pm (1952 GMT) Wednesday, NASA test director Jeff Spaulding said.

The flight to the orbiting International Space Station is the fourth and final shuttle flight of the year, and the last scheduled for Discovery, the oldest in the three-shuttle fleet that is being retired in 2011.
On Wednesday, May 18, at 10.30, the press centre of the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency will host a press conference on new development in Viktor Yanukovych case. The press conference participants will present a testimony by Yanukovych concerning the shootings on Maidan, as well as a video recording of this testimony, and comment on the current stage of interaction between the defense team and investigation agencies. The participants will include Yanukovych defense lawyer, partner at AVER LEX law firm Vitaliy Serdiuk, and a defense lawyer for former officers of Berkut riot police, partner at GORO legal law firm, Oleksandr Horoshynsky (8/5a Reitarska Street). Accreditation is required by phone: (044) 300 1151, (063) 409 4455 (Anastasia Sych).
The local telecommunications market is the scene of fierce 3G competition

The prime minister last week gave in-principle approval to FPT Group and FPT Telecom being strategic investors of EVN Telecom.

EVN Telecom will this month announce its strategic investors after its negotiations with FPT and its affiliate FPT Telecom are finalised.

An EVN Telecom source revealed that the stake to be sold to FPT and FPT Telecom would be more than 50 per cent.

FPT Telecom was already licenced to be a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) and is piloting LTE TDD technology.

Mobile business is what we want in our business portfolio and we are enthusiastic in our negotiations with partners. Our investment capital will be 10-times the amount we previously planned to invest in EVN Telecom, said FPT deputy general director Phan Duc Trung Trung.

FPT previously planned to invest VND400 billion ($21 million) in EVN Telecom as the former wanted to use the latters facility to provide mobile service.

The upcoming involvement of FPT and FPT Telecom in EVN Telecom means there would be no chance for foreign entities to be the mobile operators strategic partners.

Previously, EVN Telecom, which is expected to be the first mobile operator to be equitised in Vietnam, announced its plan to sell a 30 per cent stake to a foreign strategic investor. Details of the plan were not revealed then, except that the strategic investor would be a Singaporean or Malaysian firm.

EVN Telecom then also said the foreign strategic investors name would be made public after the company completed its equitisation process in September, this year.

Meanwhile, MobiFones long-awaited equitisation has seen many delays. The company was converted into a one-member company in early July and is still waiting for new government directions. The company planned to sell a 30 per cent stake to investors, including 15 per cent to strategic partners.

Viettel Telecom does not have a clear equitisation plan, as it is trying to complete a restructuring proposal by expanding into other business segments such as mobile handset production.

The long-awaited VinaPhone equitisation is still distant, as VNPT Groups restructuring proposal has not yet been approved by the Ministry of Information and Communications.
FrieslandCampina has always stressed its commitment to sustainable investment worldwide. How does this principle apply to Vietnam?

FrieslandCampina is guided by a clear purpose: Nourishing by Nature. We are committed to providing a good living for our farmers and better nutrition worldwide, now and for generations to come.

In recent years, FrieslandCampina has been performing well in several attractive market positions. In order to remain successful, we must remain focused on sustainable growth and value creation. In 2015, FrieslandCampinas route2020 strategy was updated, based on global developments, in dairy farming, and within FrieslandCampina itself.

The same motto has been deployed across all our operating countries, including Vietnam. Nourishing by Nature is at the heart of everything we do and is about creating shared value throughout our operations  as well as with our customers  to support our social license to operate.

We control the entire chain  from grass to glass  which means we can provide high quality, nutritious products to our customers in Vietnam. Measures are also in place to address environmental factors in the supply chain. Our aim is to reduce our environmental footprint by lowering our carbon dioxide emissions, water usage, and water wastage.

FrieslandCampina is helping Vietnam develop a sustainable dairy industry. What makes this programme unique and creative?

FrieslandCampina is contributing towards the development of local dairy farming in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Nigeria through its Dairy Development Programme (DDP)  an exchange programme in which dairy farmers work with local operatives to improve the quality and volume of milk in these locations.

An important element of DDP is the Farmer2Farmer project. A group of 15 Dutch dairy farmers were selected to train and advise dairy farmers in Asia, including Vietnam, on all aspects of dairy farming such as feeding and watering, calf-rearing, milking hygiene, milking machine maintenance, hoof care, and housing and barn design. The main goal of the Farmer2Farmer programme is to improve milk quality and increase milk production on farms in Asian countries.

In Vietnam, the 3-Access method (Access to Knowledge, Access to Finance, Access to Market) provides smallholder dairy farmers with the support needed to run their businesses optimally and raise the quality and quantity of their production. The programme also aims to make dairy farming more attractive to the next generation of farmers, thereby making the sector more sustainable in Vietnam and providing nutritious food for the growing population.

How does FrieslandCampina maintain its corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in Vietnam?

FrieslandCampinas CSR policy focuses on three pillars. Firstly, we supply better nutrition to the Vietnamese people. FrieslandCampina is focused on tackling obesity by distributing information about healthy eating and better lifestyle habits, emphasising the importance of sport and exercise and with responsible marketing and clear food labelling.

Secondly, we provide a good living for our farmers. We ensure that we create value for our farmers by maximising the profitability of the products. We improve milk quality and quantity through skills and knowledge we share with smallholder farmers via DDP.

And thirdly, FrieslandCampina strives for climate-neutral growth and wants to contribute towards Vietnams reduction of CO2 emissions. We are joining hands with the government to reduce green house emissions by conducting sustainable dairy farming in collaboration with farmers, and by using state-of-the-art technology. FrieslandCampina is working on the innovation-driven creation of greater sustainability in both production chains and dairy farming.

How has environmental sustainability been promoted during FrieslandCampinas development in Vietnam over the past 20 years?

FrieslandCampina wants to contribute towards feeding Vietnams growing population through the provision of safe and healthy food, by reducing its own environmental impact, and by investing in innovative and sustainable solutions.

We run our business in an environmentally sound manner and contribute to sustainable development for the benefits of present and future generations. This means we seek a balance between our need to perform as a business and our commitment to society and the environment.

FrieslandCampina Vietnam received the Vietnam Environmental Award for excellent achievements in environmental protection from 2011 to 2015. We have signed a collaborative agreement with the Vietnam Environment Administration to develop a three-year educational programme called the Green Innovation Award. This initiative is aimed at raising awareness for environmental protection in Vietnam through contests and extracurricular activities.
Photo source: internet

According to license No. 9211668888 recently issued by the Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment, Vietnamobiles total investment capital is $1.24 billion, of which the capital to carry out the project is $428.6 million. The contributions of three investors, namely Hanoi Telecommunication Joint Stock Company, Hutchison Telecommunications (Vietnam) S.A.R.L, and Trinh Minh Chau, were $214.797 million, $210.501 million, and $4.295 million, respectively.

Vietnamobile JSC has a debt of $818.4 million towards its investors, financial institutions, and other legal sources. The sum borrowed only from Hutchison is $364 million. This is due to the transformation agreement between Hanoi Telecom and Hutchison Telecommunication (Vietnam) S.A.R.L, which shifted the company out of the business cooperation contract (BCC) format.

Meanwhile, the sum borrowed from financial institutions and equipment and assets bought on credit from foreign equipment providers is $454.4 million. The sum was borrowed according to the needs of the project.

According to its website, Hanoi Telecom was established in May 2001, with a chartered capital of VND1.6 trillion ($71.7 million). It was licensed to set up a network and to provide landline and mobile telecommunication services, internet, VoIP, and long distance domestic and international calling, like all other telecom companies in Vietnam.

According to Hanel Co., Ltd.s prospectus, at the time of its IPO in April 2016, Hanoi Telecoms chartered capital was VND1.6 trillion ($71.7 million), with Hanel holding 1.13 per cent of equity. Trinh Minh Chau was Hanels general director in 2000-2006 and is now general director of Hanoi Telecom.

At the end of April, Hanoi Telecom celebrated its 15th anniversary and the prime ministers approval for Vietnamobile to change from a BCC entity to a joint stock company.

Pham Ngoc Lang, chairman of Hanoi Telecom, said that Hanoi Telecom targeted a 20-30 per cent growth in revenue per year until 2020.

Vietnamobile will provide 3G services in all 63 cities and provinces by the end of 2016, with a view to upgrading the infrastructure to provide 4G upon demand. CEO of Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. Dennis Lui said that the Vietnamese government could do more to ensure fair competition between small network providers, like Vietnamobile, and bigger ones, such as Vinaphone, MobiFone, and Viettel.
The market acquisition of foreign retailers will boost the sale of foreign goods in Vietnam -Photo: Le Toan

Recently, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) filed documents with Big C Vietnam proposing that the Thai-owned retailer lower the discount rate for VASEP members.

From March to April this year, several retailers issued notice of a discount rate increase to seafood producers.

The highest rising margin was set by Big C Vietnam  the distribution company operating 32 outlets across the country, at 4.25 per cent to 5.5 per cent. This is unbearable for the suppliers, VASEP deputy chairman Nguyen Hoai Nam told VIR.

The association estimates that its members are being charged 17-20 per cent on average, with the lowest rate at 15 per cent and highest at 25 per cent.

Local retailers propose a much smaller margin of increase. For example, the Saigon Co.opmart hike was only 1 per cent on average.

VASEP members believe that the main reason behind the increase stems from the recent merger and acquisition activities of many big retail players, which challenges their human and marketing management. Big Cs chain of supermarkets is the latest with its announced transfer to the Thai giant Central Group, from the French Casino Group.

As many find the current discount rate too high to make any profit, some suppliers have requested that Big C lower it by 15 per cent or less. To date, they have yet to receive a response from the distributor.

Many suppliers are said to have ceased trading with Big C due to the recent tough policies.

Nguyen Anh Tuan, director of a Ho Chi Minh City-based company, specialising in the production of fish sauce and canned foods, told VIR that Besides the high discount rates, Big C applied additional fees, for example, customer discount fees, and establishment celebration fees, among many others.

Tuan said that the total cost of his firm rose to 25 per cent of its revenue from the 10-15 per cent level two years ago, when he first signed contracts with Big C, forcing him to withdraw his goods from the distribution system.

Earlier, the Ho Chi Minh City Union of Business Association (HUBA), sent proposals to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on the same issue. Extremely high discount rates charged by foreign retailers are barriers to local producers selling their products through these outlets, stated HUBA chairman Huynh Van Minh.

HUBA estimates that over 50 per cent of the modern retail market (with distribution via supermarkets) has been acquired by foreign firms. The association is also urging authorities to come up with measures to support local producers.

Given that the import tariff levied on various Japanese and Thai goods has been reduced to 0 per cent since April 2015 and January 2016, respectively, the cost of imports has significantly dropped. Big C Vietnam, however, assures that 90-95 per cent of goods sold are still supplied by Vietnamese producers.

Government authorities said that they would not intervene unless suppliers have evidence of foreign retailers discrimination against particular products.

Selling contracts are based on the market principle of price and demand, its not a problem, said the Ministry of Industry and Trades head of Domestic Market Department Vo Van Quyen.
Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters went undercover as patients at the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital of Dermato Venereology and were approached by some brokers the moment they reached the infirmary.

The hospital does not accept patients at this time of the day, a man said before pointing toward a nearby private clinic.

You do not have to wait for long at that clinic. You only have to pay some VND10,000 [US$0.45] to VND20,000 [$0.9] higher as examination fees, he elaborated.

Similar situations could also be observed at the entrance of the Hoa Hao clinic in District 10.

Having to pay only an extra VND150,000 ($6.72) to an intermediary, patients can have access to services there without having to wait in a queue.

After all necessary payments had been carried out, the correspondents disguising themselves as patients were brought to the examination room in just a few minutes, despite the fact that there were tens of people waiting outside.

I know the activities of these mediators are illicit. However, I can save a lot of time getting diagnosis or treatment at the infirmary by paying some additional charges, Huu Danh, a resident in Tan Binh District, said.

Not all people are blessed with such luck when dealing with these middlemen as several have reported being scammed.

Do Van Tinh, a Hanoi resident who has lived with a giant tumor on his face since he was just a young boy, decided to spend all the money he had getting treatment at the K Hospital in the capital.

Tinh and his brother, Do Van Tam, came to the infirmary last month when a man, about 30, offered help, saying that he could provide Tinh with access to treatment at private clinics run by top doctors from the hospital.

The brothers were introduced to a nearby clinic, where Tinh underwent an X-ray test, ultrasound, ENT endoscopy, and blood test before being diagnosed with neurofibromatosis.

The doctor there concluded that Tinhs disease could not be treated at his facility and charged him VND1.9 million ($85.14) for the medical examination, roughly all the money Tinh had.

A middleman who gestures approaches a patient in front of the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital of Dermato Venereology in District 3. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Authorities could do nothing

Several employees at hospitals have been working with the intermediaries, introducing patients to services outside of the infirmaries to earn commissions for themselves.

A recent tip-off from a female patient at the K Hospital to Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien showed that a doctor had scammed her with such a method, resulting in Minister Tien ordering a probe and penalizing the practitioner.

According to Bui Dieu, director of the hospital, the doctor has been transferred to another facility while warnings have been issued to the entire staff at the infirmary.

Meanwhile, Phan Thanh Hai, director of the Hoa Hao clinic, stated that the middlemens operations have become subtler.

The mediators may cooperate with hospital staffers, Hai said, adding that they could also disguise themselves as patients to look for prey inside infirmaries, introducing them to pharmacies and private clinics without proper certification.

These activities could affect the heath of patients, the director said, stating that there had not been any permanent solution to the situation.

According to a representative of the Ministry of Health, the agency will order all hospitals to sign an agreement with local police to clear all brokers inside and outside such facilities.

Health officials are also expected to perform more regular inspections and imposed more severe punishment upon offenders.
File photo of lightning. (AFP/DPA/File - Patrick Pleul)

DHAKA: Lightning strikes have killed an unprecedented 59 people in Bangladesh in three days as tropical thunderstorms hit the country before the annual monsoon, an official said Sunday (May 15).

Thirty-four people were killed on Thursday in different locations and another 25 over the next two days around the country, disaster management department chief Reaz Ahmed told AFP.

"We've not seen such a huge number of deaths due to lightning before," Ahmed said, adding most of the victims were farmers struck while working in their rice paddy fields.

Lightning in the course of tropical storms usually strikes Bangladesh during the pre-monsoon and the monsoon season, which runs from June to September. According to the disaster management department, 200 people have died on average every year from lightning strikes since 2011.

Weather expert Shah Alam said deforestation was to blame for the increased number of deaths, especially the cutting down of taller trees like palms that used to attract lightning bolts.

Alam, a former head of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department, said farmers and other labourers were also carrying more metal objects such as cellphones than before. Many were also working through the storms rather than traditionally waiting until they had passed.

Authorities said they plan to launch an awareness campaign from Monday on the dangers.

"We'll ask the people not to work in open spaces such as farmland, avoid the use of electronic gadgets such as mobile phones and not to stand under metal electric poles or big trees during lightning," Ahmed said.

Ahmed said authorities would also conduct research to determine whether the ferocity of the lightning storms was linked to warmer temperatures from climate change.

The meteorological department has already trained 20,000 school students on preventive measures during lightning.
Volkswagen logo. (AFP/Odd Andersen)

LONDON: Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, is to sue German carmaker Volkswagen over an emissions-cheating scandal that caused it huge losses, the Financial Times reported on Sunday (May 15).

"We have been advised by our lawyers that the company's conduct gives rise to legal claims under German law. As an investor it is our responsibility to safeguard the fund's holding in Volkswagen," Peter Johnsen, the chief executive of the fund's manager Norges Bank Investment Management, told the newspaper.

The German automobile giant is already facing a slew of lawsuits from shareholders seeking damages after deep falls in its share price, as well as from angry car owners.

Volkswagen's admission that illegal software was installed on 11 million diesel engines to cheat emissions tests sparked a global scandal and forced it to recall vehicles from around the world.

The carmaker has set aside 16.2 billion (US$19 billion) in provisions to cover potential fines, lawsuits and recall costs, resulting in its first annual loss since 1993.

Volkswagen did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Norges Bank Investment Management could not be reached for comment.
Local pharmaceutical firms are hesitant to raise their foreign ownership levels as it may limit their distribution rights

Hau Giang Pharmaceutical JSC (DHG), Vietnams biggest publicly-traded drug maker, declared at its shareholders recent annual meeting that it would keep the foreign ownership limit (FOL) unchanged at 49 per cent.

Hoang Nguyen Hoc, chairman of DHGs Board of Directors, said at the event that Pharma is a sensitive industry. Although the government allows foreign investors to hold over 49 per cent chartered capital of a domestic pharma firm, it still lacks detailed guidelines for the issue. Therefore, the board would take no further steps at the moment.

Imexpharm (IMP) and Traphaco (TRA), which are two of the four biggest domestic drug makers, also decided to make no move related to the FOL at their shareholders recent annual meetings. IMP and TRAs piece for foreign investors remained only 0.009 per cent and 3.266 per cent respectively, as of September 2015.

In fact, raising the FOL in the pharmaceutical industry is not a new issue. It has been discussed by shareholders at general meetings for years. Experts blame a long hesitation among the pharma firms, firstly, for delayed issuance of a full list of conditional businesses for foreign investors, and secondly, harbouring fears of losing distribution rights.

Under the current rules, if a pharma firm lifts its FOL to 100 per cent, it must divest from its distribution business.

Raising the FOL at pharma firms is controversial because if a Vietnamese pharma firms foreign partners hold a 51 per cent stake, this could cause the firm to be labelled as a foreign-invested enterprise, thus depriving it of its profitable rights to distribute medicines, Tran Thi Hong Tuoi, analyst at BIDV Securities, told VIR.

With no new move from DHG, IMP, and TRA, Domesco remains the first drug maker to remove the FOL.

Lifting the FOL in the pharmaceutical industry would send another positive signal to foreign investors. A clear path in converting partnerships into majority ownership would provide companies with much stronger arguments to convince their global headquarters to invest in Vietnam, said EuroChams Pharma Group.

With the potential of Vietnams domestic pharmaceutical market, which is home to more than 90 million people and valued at $3.5 billion, the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community, and the signing of several landmark free trade agreements (FTAs), including the EU-Vietnam FTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Vietnam has a competitive advantage in the region in terms of attracting foreign investors. The country seems to be well on its way to becoming a regional hub for innovative pharmaceutical manufacturing in the not-too-distant future.
Photo source AFP

Vietnams Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) and the White House officially announced last week that US President Barack Obama will make his first visit to Vietnam from May 23-25.

A press release from the White House said that President Obama will hold official meetings with Vietnams leadership to discuss ways for the US-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership to advance co-operation across a wide range of areas, including economic, people-to-people, security, human rights, and global and regional issues.

In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Obama will deliver speeches on US-Vietnam relations, while during meetings, he will discuss the importance of approving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) this year. He will also meet with members of civil society, the Young Southeast Asian Leadership Initiative, and the business community.

According to the MoFA, Obama will hold bilateral talks with State President Tran Dai Quang, in addition to meetings with Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. Obama is also expected to meet with National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

A joint statement will be released, highlighting the two countries long-term co-operation in trade, investment, science and technology, education and training, and climate change.

It is expected that during this visit, Obama may declare the lifting of a lethal weapon embargo on Vietnam. Last October, Obama eased the ban on lethal arms sales to Vietnam. This visit is also expected to see the licencing of the construction of the Fulbright University in Vietnam.

Leaders from both sides are hopeful that the two countries can further cement their co-operation in education and training. Currently, about 28,000 Vietnamese students are studying in the US.

Several co-operation deals are expected to be made during this visit, including lucrative deals between VietJet and Boeing, and between General Electric and a Vietnamese partner.

Obamas visit to Vietnam has received positive feedback from US firms in Vietnam. Sesto Vecchi, managing partner of US law firm Russin & Vecchi, also told VIR that Obama's visit will be a further marker for Americans to understand that Vietnam is a welcoming destination for investment and travel.

Nguyen Viet Ha, managing director of US-backed investment consultant BowerGroupAsia Inc., said this visit will help strengthen American firms confidence in Vietnam.

For example, the licensing for the construction of the Fulbright University will help

attract more US education developers to enter Vietnam, Ha told VIR.

Eric Yeo, country general manager of IBM Vietnam, also told VIR that This visit creates the certainty of Vietnams importance on the global stage, and that The positive climate of this visit will certainly spur more confidence and investment not only from American firms, but also from many other firms around the world.

I would expect that the discussions on bilateral trade will accelerate Vietnams actions towards relaxing foreign investment rules and attract more foreign investment, Yeo said, adding that discussions on the implementation of the TPP would also create a positive climate for investment in Vietnam.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), in addition to discussing new agricultural, oil, and gas projects, Vietnam and Russia will also discuss the implementation of the Ninh Thuan 1 Nuclear Plant, which is expected to begin construction in Vietnams south-central province of Ninh Thuan in the next few years.

Phuc will attend a bilateral business forum, as well as the ground-breaking ceremony for a $2.7 billion hi-tech concentrated dairy and fresh milk production project based in Russias Moscow and Kaluga oblasts.

Financed by the locally-owned TH Group with consultancy provided by the domestic BAC A BANK, the 140,000-hectare project will be Vietnams largest agricultural and foodstuff project in Russia. It will use state-of-the-art technology imported from Israel, Germany, Sweden, and the US.

To expand their investment and trade ties, Vietnam and Russia have advanced a list of collaborative investment projects worth up to $20 billion, ten times the current level of Russian investment in Vietnam.

A bilateral task force in charge of deploying future high-priority investment projects has also been established.

Within the framework of this task forces activities, the two sides have agreed on 17 common investment projects worth over $20 billion in the sectors of machinery manufacturing, energy, mineral exploitation, and light industry, said Russian Ambassador to Vietnam Konstantin Vnukov.

Still, the sectors on the list and the investment capital may be revised up. Russian ministries will discuss the projects this year, he said.

Currently, Russia has 114 valid investment projects in Vietnam, with $2 billion registered. Vietnam has 20 valid investment projects in Russia, registered at $2.93 billion.

The two nations currently have four joint-venture companies operating in the oil and gas industry.

Bilateral trade turnover between Vietnam and Russia hit $2.2 billion last year, and $591 million in this years first quarter.

However, co-operation in investment and trade between the countries is expected to rocket upwards in the time to come, fueled by the Vietnam-Eurasian Economic Union Free Trade Agreement, signed one year ago between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia).

Customs duties will be reduced to 88 per cent of their current levels, with 59 per cent of the duties reduced immediately and 29 per cent gradually, within 5-10 years.

According to Russias Ministry of Economic Development, Russia-Vietnam bilateral trade is expected to hit $10 billion by 2020.

Prime Minister Phucs visit to Russia will be his first overseas, and is aimed at further strengthening the Vietnam-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership, and boosting the implementation of major projects between the two countries, according to the MoFA.

Phuc will hold bilateral talks with his counterpart Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, and meet with President Vladimir Putin, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, and Chairman of State Duma Sergei Naryshkin.

Also during his stay in Russia, Phuc will attend the ASEAN-Russia Summit commemorating the 20th anniversary of ASEAN-Russia relations.
AUCKLAND, New Zealand, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Two of the major cities of China and New Zealand on Monday launched a project to drive high-tech start-up collaborations between the two countries.

The cooperation will see the InnoHub innovation incubator, based in Guangzhou, capital of southern China's Guangdong province, invest up to 20 million NZ dollars (13.52 million U.S. dollars) into its counterpart in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city and home to a third of the population.

The investment would help Auckland's GridAKL support Chinese-New Zealand start-up companies in the information technology (IT) sector, Auckland Mayor Len Brown told Xinhua in an exclusive interview at the Tripartite Economic Summit of leaders from Guangzhou, Auckland and the U.S. city of Los Angeles Monday.

"Primarily most of it is there as a fund to encourage IT companies who are engaged in business between Auckland and Guangzhou, so it's to encourage the ability to commercialize new ideas and new technology coming out of Auckland and Guangzhou, to build a high-tech relationship between the two cities," Brown said.

"One of the big growers in Auckland is film animation and we're global leaders in the industry."

He cited Auckland-based Flux Animation, which has signed a series of agreements with companies in Guangzhou, as indicative of the possibilities of the cooperation.

However, he said, no companies had yet emerged from the cooperation as it was still too new.
Ky Co Beach is nestled snugly in Nhon Ly Commune, 25 kilometers northeast of Quy Nhon City, the provincial capital and home to the International Center of Interdisciplinary Science Education edifice that in turn houses the science and education program Rencontre du Vietnam (Meet Vietnam).

The beach has lured an increasing number of tourists in recent years thanks to its untouched charm and picturesque seascapes, delectable fresh seafood and locals sincerity and hospitality.

Surrounded by mountains, cliffs, and lagoons on three sides and facing the East Vietnam Sea on the other, Ky Co pampers tourists with its Eden-like allure, turquoise seawater and silky, golden sand.

The beach, isolated from the fishing villages in Nhon Ly, is accessible to tourists only by renting speedboats or sampans from locals who ride them all the way from Eo Gio Strait to their destination on the half-hour journey.

An under-construction road meandering from Suoi Ca Mountain to the south of Phuong Mai Mountain is just one of the tourism projects in the area that promises easier access to Ky Co.

The restricted access helps retain Ky Cos immaculate beauty that might otherwise be spoiled by unsustainable tourism activity if access were easier, Nguyen Van Long, Secretary of Nhon Ly Commune Party Committee, said.

Worthwhile holidaying

In late April, as most central provinces were writhing in the broiling heat, Ky Co Beach turned into a tourist magnet thanks to its breezy ambiance and low temperatures, which dropped as low as 27 degrees Celsius in the context of sultry Vietnam, where 30-33 degrees are the norm.

Le Van Be and 17 family members and friends from the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai greatly delighted in their one-day vacation at the gorgeous beach.

The trip cost them each a mere VND210,000 (US$9.4) plus a small sampan hiring fee.

Never have we enjoyed such delicious seafood and the locals are really kind and honest. They even lent us fishing nets so that we could catch some small fish ourselves, Be remarked.

Vo Ngoc Hieu, a veteran fisherman in his 50s, shared he has done good business over the past few years since fixing-up his old sampan and buying new gear for tourism activities.

He now carries tourists to Ky Co and serves them food and drinks on a daily basis.

Most food safety-conscious travelers insist they be served food free of spices or preservatives. We often provide fresh grilled seafood or let them prepare it their own way, Hieu stressed.

As Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters discovered, it was the fishermen in Nhon Ly Commune that woke up Ky Cos tourism potential three or four years ago.

Hieu revealed that many of his colleagues took out bank loans to buy speedboats and learned how to properly cook seafood at eateries in Quy Nhon City before launching their own package tours.

We offer affordable prices, make handsome profit, and the job is considerably less arduous than multi-day fishing trips, Long, Secretary of the Nhon Ly Commune Party Committee, said.

Ky Co Beach boasts picturesque charm with turquoise seawater and eerily-shaped cliffs. Photo: Tuoi Tre

He also noticed a marked change in locals words and manners, as the coarse, candid fishermen have now turned more genteel and considerate.

Foreign vacationers have also fallen for Ky Co Beach.

Phuong and her husband, two other local anglers, told the reporters that they had just seen off a group of students from Monaco after the group spent more than 10 days in Ky Co and Bai Xep, another immaculate beach secluded in Tuy An District in the neighboring province of Phu Yen.

Bai Xep is among the settings for an acclaimed movie, Toi Thay Hoa Vang Tren Co Xanh (Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass), by expat Vietnamese director Victor Vu.

The students and their friends marveled at Ky Cos splendor, and promised to come back, Phuong said.

She added that the group was in Vietnam for a charitable program in which they taught free English and French to needy children.

While waiting for classes to begin, the youths rode their motorbikes all the way from Ho Chi Minh City to Bai Xep, where they pitched tents by the sea for two nights.

Learning of Ky Co through locals, the foreign students stayed at the stunning beach for more than one week, during which they followed fishermen to the sea to fish by day and returned to cook their catch together in the evening.

Long, Secretary of the Nhon Ly Commune Party Committee, said the local government has requested that locals keep their prices affordable and the area clean and tidy to attract even more domestic and foreign tourists.

However, Long stressed that Ky Co needs more services apart from sea baths, diving for coral reefs, burying oneself in the silky sand and relishing seafood so that visitors will stay for more than one day, which they do now.

Undeniably it is an upbeat note that we have gone this far already. Well attempt more when locals have enough capital for further investment, he added.
Where are the tax havens?

Countries, states or territories mentioned in the Panama Papers are often considered tax havens. However, tax havens exist not only in faraway autonomous territories like Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, and Macau; but also in developed countries such as Delaware and Puerto Rico (the US), Jersey and Isle of Man (the UK), Switzerland, Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Even Singapore is included in this list.

There are currently 50 countries, states, or territories that are regarded as tax havens, depending on different definitions. These places do not impose any taxes, or very few taxes, on companies that are registered there. Even firms with no business activity in the country or who earn their main income from outside the country can avail. Other terms and conditions may apply but firms registered in Panama can always maximise the benefits from these tax reductions.

Tax havens and SPVs

Most tax havens have incredibly simple business registration and regulations, such as:

(i) Anyone with a passport or proof of residence (electricity bills, bank transactions) anywhere in the world can register their business, without even setting foot in the territory;

(ii) The registered headquarters do not require any property leasing or staff;

(iii) No proof of financial capacity or investment time frame is required. The business only needs to register the authorised capital to calculate the annual registration fee;

(iv) Annual financial reports are not compulsory and no auditing is required;

(v) Annual business reports only need to state that the firm has conducted business outside the registration area and has obeyed the laws of that territory;

Most tax havens consider business registration costs as the main source of income for their territory. This includes registration fees (first-time and annual), costs for lawyers and business registration processes, corporate services, leasing services, and retaining the original corporate file (mandatory in Cayman Islands). Services for making annual financial reports and leasing board members are also available.

The businesses registered in these tax havens are often called Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV). SPVs only require between $800 and $1500 of registration costs and from $1,000 to $4,000 for corporate services costs. As long as the business is conducted outside the tax haven; all sectors are eligible, especially industries that have no human resources or technology requirements.

Some common purposes of SPVs include carrying out transactions of securities, assets or investment plans in another country, in order to (i) separate those transactions and accounts; (ii) significantly reduce time and fees for registration, management and reports compared to the original country of that business; (iii) divest from the SPV anytime without spending time and fees to conduct due diligence (which includes evaluating the SPVs business, finance and hidden risks).

Specifically, in financial support programmes for large-scale transactions (such as funding infrastructure and energy projects or purchasing airplanes), the investor often requires project owners to separate their business and clean up their past. This can only be achieved via an SPV.

It should be noted that the tax havens themselves are not illegal or immoral. However, its unfortunate that due to their lenient rules, these tax havens are often misused for economic crimes, creating a morally grey area.

SPVs and offshore funds

In terms of raising money on a global scale, an SPV is a common tool to attract capital from professional investment funds or wealthy individuals. So why not register the funds in Vietnam? The answer is obvious due to the above-mentioned reasons.

A more important reason, in my opinion, is similarities in the legal system (at least in the Enterprise Law) between tax havens and investors countries. This can be proven through by the fact that most foreign investment funds in Vietnam are registered in these tax havens.

SPV and Vietnam-bound investment

When investing in Vietnam, an SPV is a useful tool in minimising the differences between Vietnamese law and the SPV owners countries. In the case of some multinational companies in Vietnam failing to pay taxes, it is not necessarily due to SPVs, but rather transfer pricing or their accounting methods (if these corporations reap more profits than they report).

For example, (i) the Vietnamese Enterprise Law does not allow classification of shares based on different rights and responsibilities (for instance Group A are only responsible for A investment plans, Group B can only claim rights and duties for B business sector, and Group C can buy treasury stocks);

(ii) To hold a general meeting or first-time member meeting, Vietnamese law requires the attendance of at least 51 per cent of shareholders, while the requirement is only 20 per cent in some countries;

(iii) The board of Vietnamese public firms must include at least three members, while some other countries need only one member;

(iv) Vietnam does not fully realise all agreements made between members or shareholders; while some countries do;

Meanwhile, direct or indirect investments through SPVs must pay taxes, according to Vietnamese law, before transferring profits overseas, with strict foreign exchange rules imposed on direct or indirect capital accounts.

The Vietnamese authorities require figures and statistics from multinational companies that invest in Vietnam via their SPVs. As such, this is not a cause for concern here.

SPV and $9.3 billion in outflows from Vietnam

In the globalisation age, Vietnamese businesspeople have started using SPVs as a useful and legal tool for their international business purposes, as stated above.

Setting up an SPV requires less than $5,000, which is below the limit on foreign exchange cash that a person can freely carry outside of Vietnam. Payment via credit card is also possible. As a result, Vietnamese people do not need to report to the government the money they use to set up SPVs overseas when the amount is less than $5,000. However, any amount above that sum is heavily regulated.

Due to this limit, SPVs are not a vital tool in the transference of foreign exchange overseas. Therefore, we can not blame SPVs if a percentage of the $9.3 billion of outflows from Vietnam are found to be illegally traded.

The price of globalisation on taxes

Its undeniable that tax havens and SPVs have been used by many individuals and organisations to reduce taxes paid (or evade taxes altogether).

This is the flip side of globalisation. If we consider this matter from the perspective of a specific country, for example, the US, where the tax system is among the strictest in the world, we can find numerous tax evading geniuses, such as Facebook, Google, or Apple. These corporate giants have taken advantage of legal loopholes in one country to evade taxes in another.

For example, Google evaded $2.4 billion in global taxes in 2014 by transferring $12 billion of made-in-the-US revenue to a Bermuda-based firm, according to recent reports by the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce.

It is interesting that these tax evading geniuses are immune to investigation from the governments in the US, UK, and other countries. Why? Its simply because they dont violate any rules of the countries they operate or record profits in. According to the Guardian newspaper, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and the US are the top tax havens for wealthy people.

A double-edged sword

A businessperson named in the Panama Papers has likened SPVs to a double-edged sword  a tool that depends on the users intentions.

Regarding the legal system, Vietnam should have effective rules on foreign exchange, inbound and outbound investment, and transfer pricing, so that SPVs owned by Vietnamese businesspeople are used for legal purposes and illicit actions are minimised.

However, if some Vietnamese businesspeople indeed use SPVs for illegal activities (transferring money overseas through fake contracts or carrying out transactions overseas for assets and services based in Vietnam), the authorities must assess why this trend is spreading  especially when these SPVs are set in countries with higher tax levels than Vietnam.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his backers hit back at a New York Times article that detailed the billionaire's complex and contradictory history with women. (AFP/Jessica Kourkounis)

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the race for the White House, on Sunday (May 15) fought to stem several controversies including his relationship with women and his refusal to release his tax returns.

The billionaire real estate mogul and his backers hit back at a New York Times article that detailed Trump's complex and contradictory history with women.

The paper conducted more than 50 interviews with women associated with Trump and was told of unwelcome advances and plenty of crude commentary on female bodies.

One contestant in the Miss USA pageant, which Trump owned from 1997 to 2015, said that in 1997, the New York tycoon introduced himself and kissed her and other contestants on the lips. He was married to actress Marla Maples at the time.

But Trump also nurtured the careers of several women within his business organisation.

One former female Trump executive, Louise Sunshine, had glowing words for her ex-boss. "He was never a boss. He was a leader," Sunshine, who worked for Trump for a decade, told CNN. "He taught me. He mentored me."

Trump also hired Barbara Res as his head of construction in the 1980s, at a time when there were few women in such positions at major construction firms. She said her boss wanted her to be a "Donna Trump."

Trump took to Twitter to blast the article. "The failing @nytimes wrote yet another hit piece on me. All are impressed with how nicely I have treated women, they found nothing. A joke!" read one tweet.

Speaking on Sunday morning talk shows, Republican Party chief Reince Priebus defended his party's presumptive presidential nominee.

"I don't think Donald Trump in his personal life is something that people are looking at and saying, 'Well, I'm surprised that he has had girlfriends in the past.' That's not what people look at Donald Trump for. So I think the traditional playbook and analysis really don't apply," he told Fox News Sunday.

Trump's team faced questioning over why he was continuing to refuse to release his tax returns, which is normally expected of presidential candidates. Trump has said his returns are being audited and he was unable to release the documents until they are finalised.

The audits cover eight years of returns, Trump convention manager Paul Manafort said. "This is an issue that the media is interested in, not an interest for middle America," Manafort told CNN's "State of the Union." "Donald Trump will comply when the audit is done."

He also defended his boss after the Washington Post published last week a 1991 recording of an interview between a People magazine reporter and a supposed spokesman for Trump named John Miller, whose voice closely resembles that of the New York developer. "Donald Trump says it's not him, I believe it's not him," Manafort said.

However, in 1990, Trump himself acknowledged that he had sometimes posed as his own spokesman.
The Hoa Binh sugar facility in Hoa Binh Province has said that it will pay over VND1.4 billion (US$62,734) as compensation to those households whose fish farms on the Buoi River had been damaged by the contamination brought about by the firms wastewater.

Bui Thi Muoi, Party Committee Secretary of Thach Thanh District, Thanh Hoa Province, confirmed on Thursday that the Hoa Binh sugar facility had dispatched representatives to pay VND80,000 ($3.58) per kilo as compensation to 15 affected households in Thanh Vinh Commune.

Muoi also said that the Thach Thanh Peoples Committee had supported 34 households running floating fish cages with VND2 million ($89.62) and 20 kilos of rice per family.

From March 15 to April 25, the sugar facility, located in the Lac Son industrial complex in Lac Son District, dumped 250-300 cubic meters of untreated water directly into the river a day, which heavily contaminated the water current, according to official reports.

The mass deaths hit fish farms in as many as 15 communes in Thach Thanh and Lac Son Districts, whereas wild fish and shrimp in the river also died in large numbers, according to a report submitted to the provincial administration.

Seventeen metric tons of fish, raised in 71 floating fish cages of 32 households in Thach Thanh died due to the water pollution. In Thanh Vinh alone, there were ten metric tons of dead fish found from 28 affected farms, the report said.

Local authorities then checked the wastewater discharge system of the plants along the river to determine the cause of the fish deaths.

They later found that the Hoa Binh sugar factory had discharged untreated water directly into the river.

The facility operator admitted on May 7 that they release some 300 cubic meters of wastewater into the Buoi River on an annual basis.
Photo by ASSOCIATED PRESS

Andy Murray holds the trophy as Novak Djokovic, left, salutes tennis legend Stan Smith, after the final match of the Italian Open tennis tournament in Rome, Sunday. Murray won, 6-3, 6-3.
On more than one issue, GOP's Trump sounds like a Democrat
The ribbon is cut at Bellissimos Beauty and Spa on St. Croix.
Nasa has announced a new round of funding for a series of futuristic projects to get humans into deep space.

Many sound like they come straight from the pages of a science fiction novel.

From 'magnetoshells' that can give probes a soft landing to a space habitat that puts astronauts in a deep sleep, the projects aim to increase the space agency's ability to fly farther and faster.

Nasa has announced a new round of funding for a series of futuristic projects to get humans into deep space. From 'magnetoshells' that can give probes a soft landing to a spacecraft that puts astronauts in a deep sleep, the projects aim to increase the space agency's ability to fly farther and faster

The eight technology projects are part of Nasa's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program, with each receiving as much as $500,000 for a two-year study.

'The NIAC program is one of the ways Nasa engages the U.S. scientific and engineering communities,' said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of Nasa's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington.

'[This] including agency civil servants, by challenging them to come up with some of the most visionary aerospace concepts,' said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator at Nasa.

'This year's Phase II fellows have clearly met this challenge.'

Included as part of the portfolio is an interplanetary habitat configured to induce deep sleep for astronauts on long-duration missions.

Engineers are developing a dual aircraft platform that may be able to stay aloft for weeks or even months at a time. The work is being led by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and consists of two glider-like unmanned aircraft which are connected via a thin, ultra-strong cable


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[Editors Note: David P. Chandler first visited Cambodia in 1960 as a member of the United States Foreign Service. He has spent more than half a century studying Cambodia, and became one of the foremost historians on the country and its people. From the comprehensive A History of Cambodia to his dissection of the Khmer Rouges main torture center in Voices from S-21, Chandler has charted more of the countrys turbulent and often bloody past than any other scholar. Now 83 years old, Chandler sat down with VOA Khmers Ten Soksreinith in Bethesda, Maryland, last month to look back on the countrys history and forward into its future. The discussion ranged from the merits of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, to opposition leader Sam Rainsy, to succession in the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]

Why is the Khmer Rouge Tribunal important for Cambodia?

[There are] maybe three reasons. One is that there is an enormous amount of documentary materials about the Khmer Rouge period, which would not have been available to ordinary scholars. Its got material that wasnt available at [the Documentation Center of Cambodia]. Its got oral material that has expanded the whole documentary evidence about the Khmer Rouge.

Reason Two is: I didnt think that the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge should be allowed to die in peace without any kind of justice being done to them. And these are the people who went on trial at the tribunal. They couldnt have escaped immunity for what they were alleged to have done, and certainly did do.

The third reason: I think when the trial was going onmaybe its dying down nowbut certainly when I was there last in 2012, there was quite a lot of interest among the Cambodians. They would show up every day. Several hundred people would be trucked in, to increase of the whole educational knowledge of the Khmer Rouge period. People had experiences of what they had had themselves, but then they didnt have any idea of what was happening nationally.

The leadership of Cambodia doesnt seem interested in doing anymorethey werent interested in the tribunal in the first place. Hun Sen never wanted it. An indication of how much he didnt want it was he made sure that Duchs defense lawyer was his own personal lawyer. This is how he was handling the outcomes as best he could.

I think the trial might have been improved had they, in the last year or the year before, been able to pursue some of the second-level people they wanted to go after. But this is where Hun Sen put his foot down and said, No more trials because, for one thing, the next bunch down were in touch with a lot of the people, like Chea Sim, the top surviving ones who got off. [Hun Sen] didnt want the possibility of light shining on those other people. But that would have been interesting, but it didnt happen, so I think what we got is OK.

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, how optimistic were you about Cambodias transition? And how did Cambodia get from there to where it is now?

When the Khmer Rouge fell, I was actually quite happy. A foreign occupation is not always a good idea. But I think the Vietnamesewho are not given much credit at all by any Cambodians for thisstopped the Khmer Rouge. They fought the Khmer Rouge and they kept the Khmer Rouge from coming back. They fought them on the Thai border. They lost several thousand people. I mean Im not pro-Vietnamese, but this is extraordinary. The Cambodians didnt lose any people fighting another country. Its not their style.

"I am not optimistic about the Cambodian political leadership, and I am not optimistic about electoral politics running against them. I dont think its going to happen."

Now of course in that 10 years when the Vietnamese were there, human rights was not very well taken care of, political opposition was nonexistent, isolation from the world was quite harmful to [Cambodias] economy, there are all sorts of things you can criticize But the main thing they did was they kept the Khmer Rouge from coming back into power, militarily, by resisting them.

Then you had the U.N. and the Paris Peace Accords. The U.N. operation had its flaws, but its big success was bringing 300,000 Cambodians who had been living in refugee camps back into Cambodia. Instituting human rights organizations, Sihanouk did this. They are [still] not in Vietnam and they are not in Laos. Im thinking of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watchthey are not allowed in those countries.

Opening up the country for foreign investment is very important, the U.N. period did that. Now there were inefficiencies again. The U.N. was constantly criticized. I was there for a bit of the time, and people were making far too much money for doing far too little work in many ways. They also didnt take any hold on the government. Hun Sen was basically still behind the scenes, governing the country with his CPP.

1997 was very unstable, but then [Hun Sen] got a grip on things, and things got calmed down. The investment came in, the factories grew up, and the education started to roll along better. People living overseas started to come back. And then there were a bunch of elections that didnt mean much, until the 2013 election. I didnt think that Sam Rainsy was really a credible opposition leader, if were talking politically, hes too inexperienced and tied in with a lot of foreigners. He kept coming to America and being treated like sort of a king in exile by the Republicans.

"But I think a lot of people at your age are kind of optimistic. People your age are quite educated and alert, but, I think, worried about where its going."

Hes an intelligent guy. He is physically brave in a wayhe faced up to that bomb attack and so onbut he wasnt going to be an effective leader. Hun Sen has been able to take charge: arrest him, release him, arrest himplay games with him, in other words. He does that and [Rainsys] people dont have any guns. Im never going to say on your program or anywhere else that Hun Sen should be overthrown by force, but he is not going to be overthrown any other way.

Hes worried about being overthrown in an election. But hes not going to allow that to happen. Its been close. I think in 13, and my verdict at the time was that they announced the results so fast that the real results had to be different. They could have waited two or three days. But they announced this gain of quite a lot of seats [for the opposition CNRP]. And then of course, Sam Rainsy, and his friend Kem Sokha said, We won the elections! They had no evidence theyd won the election. The government said, Youve won this many.

I think they had probably won five or six more seats, but we dont know which ones. But the government [] because they didnt want [CNRP] to get close to a majority, where they could cause a lot of trouble in the National Assembly. But Hun Sen had to make sure that the National Assembly does not have any power.

I am not optimistic about the Cambodian political leadership, and I am not optimistic about electoral politics running against them. I dont think its going to happen. I am not optimistic about Hun Sens changing his ways of governing or changing the king for life [role] that he thinks he is. He is not going to change.

But then you have to be optimistic about developments that are happening all over the place, like universities that teach serious courses. You dont buy your diploma. Schools are better, I mean some of the private schools, people are getting a good education. People go overseas for training and come back. Theres a pool of [qualified] people. Civil service salaries are getting almosttheyre [still] not livable, but theyre much better. It was $60 a month for many years[that was] hopeless. How can you not be corrupt for $60 dollars a month? you cant live for a week in Phnom Penh for $60 really with a family. That was for a month, toward a house and everything else. So thats all changed, a bit.

Those are optimistic, some of those developments. But I dont like the Chinese dams on the Mekong, thats another bad development for the future. I dont like the whole position of China as a kind of overseer over the government, I dont think its very healthy. I dont think Hun Sen and people have thought through what that means. When the Chinese ever want to put a little muscle to it, the Cambodians wont have any resistance to it. I dont want there to be a client state of China, but they might get to that position. Thats grounds for pessimism.

"I am not optimistic. If being optimistic means political change that would produce a more liberal government where the National Assembly has the power as it is supposed to have under the ConstitutionI dont see that happening as long as [Hun Sens] alive."

But I think a lot of people at your age are kind of optimistic. People your age are quite educated and alert, but, I think, worried about where its going. Maybe people are not optimistic politically, but they are trying to do different things. And they are not in the way of Hun Sen, they are not taking active political roles against him, so they are not in danger of going to jail or getting shot.

So what happens after a dictator dies? What do you see for the future after observing Cambodia for so long?

That will certainly be a cause of change. They say [Hun Sen] is selecting his son to succeed. One of the models was Singapore, the Lee Kuan Yew model. How smoothly that would happen? I dont know. I mean his son would have to start making deals and arrangements now, to make sure that he is friends with people who are floating Hun Sen. Thats the Oknha, the various big business people, tycoons of various kinds, big interests, make sure that: When my father dies and I come in that you guys wont object to this because your financial arrangements will not be bothered. They keep saying there are rivals in the CPP, but I dont know. I dont think they are. I dont think anybody who is allowed to come up with any kind of vigor. I think that the CPP is quite happy to have the kind of income that they all have, the kind of lives they all have.

So if he dies, its a start. Once those Oknha arrangements are in place, then the question will be whether the son would be interested in reforming the country at all. [That would mean] setting up a viable tax system, which is not really political, getting rid of a lot of people from the armyyou dont need an army 100,000 people, they are not fighting anybody. There are lots of things that can be done if he wants to reform. But the first thing hed doand hes probably doing it nowis not making the sort of noises that suggest to these powerful people that he is going to be a problem when he comes in, because they want to stay. Theyre rather like the very rich people that support the [U.S.] Republican party and are very distressed by Trump right now because they might not be able to get their money. I never would have said that before, but really its true now.

I am not optimistic. If being optimistic means political change that would produce a more liberal government where the National Assembly has the power as it is supposed to have under the ConstitutionI dont see that happening as long as [Hun Sens] alive. I dont see where a successor could come from who couldnt manage that support system because the support system would just smother them. They would just kill them. They might do that. Just a car accidentthats enough of that guy, coming in and trying to reform everything. Im sure those arrangements are all in place. And China, it cant be unhappy.

Since you mention foreign backing, is Cambodia important at all in geopolitics these days?

No. Cambodians have always thought their country is more important than it is. They have every right to do that, but they just have to look and see how many people theyve got, where they stand, what natural resources they have and so on. Theyre just not a power to be reckoned with. I think the international community was stung in the Vietnam War and other places where they just did too much intervention. The Khmer Rouge period, the allies and the Lon Nol period, and the French before that, so they are not coming back into Cambodia to rescue anything, to save anything, theyre not going to do that.

What do you think young Cambodians can learn from History?

Cambodians dont think history is very important. They think other things are more important than history, which there are. But I don't think it is wise not to know where youve been, because you can exaggerate where you are going, and you think you make more difference in the world than you do. Or you can think that foreigners are always going to build you a house, which theyre not. Or you can think that the Khmer Rouge were not a Cambodian phenomenon, which they were. Its painful thought, but they were. They were not foreigners. Ive had people ask me if Pol Pol was Vietnamese. No, he was very Khmer. But they have to be aware of that.

"Don't get involve with confrontational politics, because that's the kind of politics Hun Sen understands perfectly. He's got the power. You guys don't. Its as simple as that."

You have to be thoughtful to see what you could do when things go wrong and what you could do when things go right, and what your resources are. I think young people are the resource right now, so lets see how they cooperate. That's not a big Cambodian word. When they had Paris Peace Accords, when they were putting up the Cambodian text of the Accord, they couldnt find the Cambodian word for consensus, because there is no Cambodian word for consensus. They just kind of agree or disagree or they fight all the time. You've got to remember that, if you want to get anywhere youve got to cooperate with people. Or you just use violence, thats the other way to get ahead. Just use violence, get people scared, and thats what Hun Sen has done. But I think hes scary.

Why is that?

He can do whatever he wants to do. Look at some of the stuff he had done them already. He says that. Somebody asked himthis is long ago, in 97they said, Were you responsible for the coup?which, of course, he was. But he said, If Id been responsible, theyd all be dead. Thats what he said. Theyd all be dead. There would be no surviving Funcinpec.

I think people realize it now as all over the world that the big topic is inequity [between] the big rich guys and the little guys. If people start realizing its not just American problem, its very much a Chinese problem, a Cambodian problem [as well].

But it was a Cambodian problem, and that was the point of the Khmer Rouge, because they could say, Who eats the rice you grow? Where is the money coming to you? Who drives those cars? How do they get those cars? I don't know. You're poor. They're rich. What's going on? Let's do something about itThats the basis of revolution. I don't say it's the same situation, but it gets people to think that it wasnt just some bunch of monsters. It was Cambodians who were upset enough and got angry about inequity, so they went after the city people, the rich people, and so on. It wasnt a good thing, Im not recommending that, but its the same thing as the Russian Revolution or the Chinese Revolution. It is injustice, and youre the victim. Trump is pulling this now in America. Its not the same deal, but its You are the victims of the bad things going on.

But Id like to see people realizing that that kind of situation can get incendiary. A fire can start eventually, if you get too much of that. If the workers really start getting angrywell, you wouldnt get the country changed, but youd get a lot of workers killed if they got themselves really organizing and demonstrating more and more and more.

What would you ask Cambodias younger generation to be cautious about?

Confrontational politics. Don't get involve with confrontational politics, because that's the kind of politics Hun Sen understands perfectly. He's got the power. You guys don't. Its as simple as that. Unless youre somebody like Mu Sochuashes got American husband and I think that saves her in a way. She's very brave, she's courageous, but most people don't have that kind of backing. You know, putting her in jail with her American husband is just not a good thing to do, and she's brave. But I dont think people are going to be brave by themselves.

Cambodians dont get organized themselves very well, and it is hard to. So I think confrontational politics is a thing to avoid until, as I said before, maybe until Hun Sen dies and somebody else comes in. [Then] you could start dialogue. He started this dialogue a few years ago but he just didn't believe in it. It's not his style. Monologue is his style. And it was Sihanouks style, and Jayavarman VIIs style. Those guys dont do dialogue.

[editor's note: Mr. Scott Leiper, Mu Sochua's husband, passed away in March in New York after battling pancreatic cancer. He was an international aid worker in Cambodia over three decades].
The spokesman of South Africas ruling party has accused the U.S. government of trying to undermine the (countrys) democratically elected government - though representatives from both governments dismissed the claims and say their relationship is strong.

African National Congress spokesman Zizi Kodwas comments follow a story in the British Sunday Times that said the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency helped South Africas apartheid government arrest Nelson Mandela in 1962.

That report quotes a now-dead retired CIA agent who said the U.S. saw Mandela as a communist sympathizer.

Mandela spent 27 years in prison for his opposition to the racist apartheid regime. He was elected South Africas first black president in 1994, after the fall of apartheid, and upon his death in 2013 was mourned across South Africa and the world as a champion for peace and equality.

Kodwa said the CIA allegation is "a serious indictment" - and that the intelligence agency is still operating in South Africa.

"We have recently observed that there are efforts to undermine the democratically elected ANC government," he said in local media. "They never stopped operating here. It is still happening now - the CIA is still collaborating with those who want regime change."



Kodwa did not respond to numerous calls from VOA seeking comment on Monday.

Those are not our views

But South Africas Foreign Ministry was quick to dismiss his comments.

Those are not our views as government, spokesman Clayson Monyela told VOA. From governments point of view, our relations with the United States are strong, theyre warm, and cordial, he said.

The two nations are also major trading partners, with trade totaling about $21 billion, according to U.S. government figures. However, that relationship was threatened late last year when the two governments nearly failed to resolve outstanding trade issues. The situation prompted President Barack Obama to threaten to suspend South Africas membership in a lucrative U.S. trade agreement that allowed the country to export goods duty free.



And the two nations have also traded barbs.

In February, the secretary-general of the ANC, Gwede Mantashe, also accused the U.S. government of pushing regime change, saying: We are aware of the meetings taking place regularly in the American embassy. These meetings in the embassy are about nothing else other than mobilization for regime change.

At the time, U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard laughed off the allegations, taking to Twitter to joke that "I always imagined that if I organized a coup it would look like Mardi Gras -- food, music, dance."

This time around, no one is laughing in Pretoria.

South Africa is a strategic partner and friend of the United States, U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Cindy Harvey said in a statement sent to VOA. The United States does not regard the democratically elected government of South Africa, and its strong democratic institutions, as a regime. Claims that we seek to undermine South African democracy run contrary to the spirit of the proud and longstanding relationship we have with South Africa.

Harvey said the U.S. Embassy has no information on alleged CIA operations in South Africa in the 1960s.

Diplomatic consequences?



Back in the present day, both diplomats said their governments are committed to a strong relationship, though political watchers say that these harsh words may one day have real diplomatic consequences.

Political columnist Ranjeni Munusamy noted that the longtime politician is up for the coveted spot of ANC deputy president. Because of the ANCs lock on power in South Africas parliamentary system, the ANC president and deputy president usually end up as national leaders.



Who knows, she mused, where his ambitions might lead him after that and whether at some point, he might be directing South Africas foreign policy?
Thailands economic outlook, long a victim of political turbulence, faces fresh uncertainties ahead of a national referendum on a military-backed draft constitution in August.

Economists say local and foreign investors remain on the sidelines waiting on the outcome amid fears of rising political tensions in the months ahead.

The draft constitution, a sharp departure from previous charters, curbs the powers of elected parties and proposes a military appointed 250-member senate that includes senior representatives of the military, police and security forces.

Debate over proposed constitution's effect

Thailands military leaders say the charter is aimed at ending political corruption and setting a path of reform with national elections due in 2017.

But the charter has been roundly criticized by Thailands major political groups, including the leading Pheu Thai and Democrat parties who are worried over an erosion of democracy in the country if the military backed constitution takes effect.

Stability vs. freedom of expression

Democrat Party member and former foreign minister Kasit Piromya calls the draft charter ill-liberal and a setback to the democratic process of Thailand.

I have come to the conclusion that the military authorities and some of the conservative bureaucrats and intellectuals and academicians would like to see more stability in the political life of the Thai Kingdom than a more robust expression of differences inside the parliament or on the street or through the media, Kasit told foreign journalists.

The governments priority is political stability, but it has come at the cost of economic policy, said Pavida Pananond, from Thammasat Universitys international business school.

The policy direction on the economy would not be the priority of the government at the moment. So I think the economic impact before the referendum would be uncertain. Once we see the result of the referendum it is pretty certain now that political conditions afterward would be contentious, Pavida said.



And that, Pavida added, would have negative implications for an economy already running on auto-pilot as political volatility has long set back economic policy.

What kind of government is best for economy?

Singapore-based analysts Capital Economics, in a May 16 commentary on the Thai economy, said the draft constitution, with its steps to reduce the authority of elected politicians in any new government, has led to political temperatures rising, with several arrests as the military led government moves to clamp down on criticism.

Economists say Thailands long term public and private sector investment continues to lag due to the political uncertainties.

Capital Economics noted Thai investment growth at 3 percent a years between 2006 and 2015 is well below rates elsewhere, including Vietnam, which is at close to 8 percent a year.

Investors waiting to see which way Thailand will go.

Thai professor of Economics, Somphob Manarangsan, says local and foreign investors are now waiting on the outcome of the referendum before going ahead with investment plans.

They are waiting to see what the circumstances in Thailand [will be] particularly the political landscape is going to move on. If [the government] can manage it smoothly it can restore more confidence among the investors  but if it is more chaotic that will be a different story, Somphob said.

Investors don't want protests and violence

The Capital Economics report said any outbreak of widespread protests and violent conflicts would deal a significant blow to the economy.

It added that the tourism sector, currently a key driver of growth and accounting for almost 10 percent of national output, or GDP, is also vulnerable to political conflict. Business and consumer sentiment would also be hit.

Polls and surveys point to widespread uncertainty over whether people will back the draft constitution.

In the northern provinces, a stronghold of the Pheu Thai Party, political scientist Titipol Phakdeewanich said open debate on the charter has been curtailed, with voters expressing disappointment over the charters contents.

Many people are talking about [the draft]. [But] there is actually no good options at all and no good alternative because the constitution itself has been strongly criticized by both [political] parties, Titipol said. Many people still think that at least if it does go through we might have elections [in 2017] but that is not an ideal choice for people.

Senior Thai military officers, including Army chief Theerachai Nakwanich, have criticized the political parties opposition to the charter, saying it marks a first step toward democracy, as well as reforms in curbing political corruption.

Thai economic future is uncertain

Positive economic news came Monday with official data showing the Thai economy accelerating to 3.2 percent in the March quarter, marked by export growth, tourism and private consumption.

But Capital Economics, in its report, said despite the economic uptick, the referendum on August 7 remains a potential flashpoint in Thailands divisive political atmosphere.

Even if unrest is avoided later this year, there is no clear end in sight to Thailands long-running political crisis, it added. As a result, sluggish growth of around 2.5 percent is expected over the medium term.
Cameroon has arrested and jailed more than a dozen government administrators and project managers in a crackdown on corruption. But many think President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 34 years, is just silencing his opponents.

Among the 14 senior state officials arrested and detained within the past two weeks is Joseph Andre Eyebe Eyebe, the highest ranking government official in the western town of Bangante.

Cameroon's Justice Ministry says he and 13 others were charged by the country's special criminal tribunal for corruption cases and taken to prison in Yaounde, the capital.

A lawyer who consults for the Justice ministry, Etienne Dika, says the 14 men are accused of embezzling $9 million that was to be paid as compensation for people evicted from land used for the construction of a deep sea port in Kribi.

Dika says Cameroonians who have been advocating for transparency should assist the government in its fight against corruption instead of complaining of political witch hunting. He said charging the accused will help establish the truth.

At least two dozen former officials, including immediate past prime minister Ephraim Inoni, and heads of state corporations have been arrested in what the government says is a campaign against corruption.

President for life?

Among them is former senior government minister Marafa Hamidou Yaya, who insists they are victims of President Paul Biya's desire to stay in power for life.



In a letter to journalists, Yaya states that in 2008 he advised Biya not to change the constitution that limited his mandate, but that the president ignored his calls, changed the constitution, ran for president and was declared the winner.



Etienne Haman of Cameroon's non-governmental organization "Peoples' Rights" says it looks like the anti-corruption campaign targets Biya's opponents.

He says people think the detention of corrupt officials has political undertones because corruption has continued, despite the mass arrests and detention of suspects. He says many Cameroonians are indifferent about the arrests that were originally intended to discourage the theft of public funds.

The communications secretary for Cameroon's main opposition Social Democratic Front, Beatrice Animbom, says Biya should instead ask the suspects to pay back the money.

"First, there were ministers and persons of that rank who were embezzlers in this country. Now, it is the turn of DOs and SDs (local administrative leaders). Cameroonians are asking that these monies embezzled be returned to the treasury to help build roads and provide water and electricity. That is what Cameroonians want," Biya said.

The government has complained about lengthy judicial processes and difficulties tracing embezzled funds in foreign banks, but last year Cameroon said it had recovered $4 million in public funds.

The state estimates $152 million in public funds has been stolen.

Cameroon law states corruption suspects can be detained and their travel documents seized during investigations.
Senior European Union and Turkish officials are meeting to rescue the EU visa deal. Since the ousting of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the deal has started to unravel, with increasingly harsh rhetoric from both sides.

An international students' meeting Sunday was the latest venue for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to slam Brussels, declaring Turkey has received three million refugees, while the European Union has just looked on.

Friday, he said the European Union cares more about dogs and gay rights than the plight of Syrian refugees.

The relentless rhetoric comes as the European Union insists Turkey harmonize its anti-terror laws in order to secure visa free travel to European countries.

Visa free travel, a long time wish of Turkeys AKP government, was promised by Brussels in exchange for Turkey taking back migrants who entered Europe from its territory. The agreement heralded as a new chapter in Turkish-EU relations is in deep trouble says political consultant Atilla Yesilada of Global Source partners.

"The drive to reintegrate with the EU is over. He [Erdogan] is not going to amend the anti-terror law to get the visa waiver. In fact, we may anticipate a crisis, because one of the leading members of the AKP, Burhan Kuzu, said we should send all the Syrian refugees to Europe. So I anticipate a crisis with Europe," said Yesilada.

One pro-government Turkish newspaper told migrants to "get your suitcases ready."

Erdogan insists rather than curtailing the anti-terror laws they need to be expanded with Turkey facing twin terror threats of Kurdish rebels and Islamic State.

But Political columnist Kadri Gursel of Cumhuriyet newspaper and Al-Monitor website, said the EU deal is a victim of tensions between the president and his former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

"They [EU] did their best to offer Davutoglu a success story in the deal with this refugee crisis. And now as Erdogan does not like any success scored by others than himself, he is now trying to kill it in a political legitimate way," said Gursel.

Erdogan ousted his prime minister earlier this month and Davutoglu is to be replaced by an AKP party congress this month.

Observers say EU officials' praise of Davutoglu while criticizing Erdogan only further irked the Turkish president, sealing the prime ministers fate. Pro-president newspaper columnists have been attacking the migrant deal and accusing the European Union of tricking Davutoglu.

EU officials are trying hard to resolve the impasse. Since the migrant deal was agreed to there has been a 90 percent drop in migrants entering Greece from Turkey.

Leverage on migrant issue



Analysts said Erdogan believes the leverage on the migrant issue means he can dictate terms. But consultant Yesilada warns that leverage maybe short-lived,

"The Europeans, even though this is denied by the German Foreign Ministry, are planning to intern Syrian refugees on the Greek islands and then process them there. They are going to reroute the six billion euro [$6.7 billion] aid to Greece, and we are going to see another freeze on accession talks and probably we are going to see Europe coming down very hard on human rights abuses and Turkey slowly mutating into a pariah in the Western world," said Yesilada.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of the architects of the migrant deal and its main supporter, is expected to meet with her Turkish counterpart while attending next weeks U.N. Humanitarian summit in Istanbul. Observers say the meeting could offer the last chance to save the migrant deal, an agreement critics are increasingly accusing Brussels of sacrificing its human rights principles for.
What Was China's Cultural Revolution?

Monday marks the 50th anniversary of the start of the violent political movement in China known as the Cultural Revolution.

Who was behind the policy? Communist leader Mao Zedong

What was it? A socio-political campaign ostensibly started to reignite revolutionary fervor among China's masses. The hardline political campaign spurred class war, leading students to violently revolt against their teachers, and neighbors, co-workers and even family members to turn against each other. Students were sent to the countryside to learn from peasants, and across the country, millions of people were subjected to public humiliations.

When did it end? The end of the campaign is considered to be Mao's death on September 9, 1976, and the subsequent arrest of the Gang of Four.

What was the Gang of Four? A group of Communist Party activists led by Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, that acted under Mao's authority. The four were largely responsible for propelling the Cultural Revolution, and the country, into utter chaos. They issued political directives and wrote criticisms of Communist Party leaders and others who were targeted during the movement.

Cultural Revolution outcome?

* During the 10-year period, millions were persecuted, an untold number of people were killed and the economy was destroyed.

* The Gang of Four -- Jiang, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan -- was tried in 1981. Jiang and Zhang received death sentences that were later commuted to life terms. Wang received a life sentence and Yao received a 20-year sentence. Yao was the last member to die, in 2005.

* While the Communist Party largely ignores the period, the official party line is that Mao was "70 percent right and 30 percent wrong." It also proclaimed the campaign "an appalling catastrophe" and "the most severe setback to the socialist cause since 1949."
Provinces with greater resources asked to take more students from poor regions

The Ministry of Education has told parents its efforts to ensure more children from poor backgrounds get a college education will not hurt the chances of students from more affluent parts of China.

The ministry said its changes to this year's gaokaothe national higher education entrance examwill not mean children from developed parts of China lose out.

The comments follow a heated discussion in China about the ramifications of changes to the gaokao. A recent directive from the ministry means there will be a redistribution of cross-provincial quotas for some provinces. Universities and colleges in some more developed provinces with rich tertiary education resources, such as Jiangsu and Hubei province, will this year have to take a larger number of students from less developed regions, such as Tibet and Xinjiang, who have passed the gaokao.

For instance, universities in Hubei province will enroll 40,000 students from less developed regions this year. Jiangsu will take 38,000. The quantities are understood to be significantly larger than previous years, but there are no hard numbers available.

The directive created a public outcry from parents in the two provinces, with some protesting in front of local education bureaus last week, claiming the redistribution will mean fewer local students will go to colleges and universities.

But the ministry said this will not happen because fewer students in the two provinces are taking the entrance exam these days, so there will be plenty of places to fill with students from poorer provinces.

In Jiangsu, 390,000 students registered to take the gaokao in 2015, with a pass rate of 89 percent. This year, 360,000 students registered for the exam. With far fewer local students taking the test, the ministry said it will be possible to take more students from poorer provinces without affecting the prospects of local students who want to attend a university.

However, not all parents bought the explanation.

One man, who declined to be named, in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, whose child is studying at a high school in the city's Jiangning district, said the decision was totally "unacceptable".

"The competition to gain admission to college, especially to some of the prestigious universities, was fierce enough, even before the quota was changed," he said. "I can't imagine what will happen if fewer places are offered to the children of Jiangsu."

But Xiong Bingqi, vice-president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said parents should not be worried.

"Because the number of students taking the gaokao in provinces like Jiangsu and Hubei has been falling during the past several years, it's normal that the education ministry would plan for fewer students to be recruited in these provinces and regions," he said.

Xiong said the chances of students in Hubei and Jiangsu being accepted into colleges and universities will remain the same.

The ministry explained that it made the change to the gaokao to further boost equal access to higher education and narrow the gap between developed provinces and their poorer counterparts.

The university entrance exam is seen by millions of students and parents in China as one of the most important milestones in life.
Fifty years ago today, the Chinese Communist Party started the country down a path to the Cultural Revolution, which it said would bring about a more just society, but in practice led to complete social and economic disaster.

This seemingly momentous anniversary was all but ignored and met with virtual silence from Chinas state-run media.

On May 16, 1966, Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong began the campaign by purging several top party officials and announcing his agenda that ostensibly sought to return power to the working class that had been usurped by the bourgeois.

What followed wasnt the communist utopia Mao had planned, but a brutal period of violence, food shortage and economic hardship that led to the persecution and death of millions of people.

Now it seems as if the Chinese government would rather forget the Cultural Revolution entirely. There were no official events being held Monday and no newspapers on mainland China made mention of the anniversary.

Instead, the front pages of Chinas largest papers featured stories regarding Donald Trump and Boris Johnson comparing the EU to Hitlers Third Reich, the Chinese governments anger over a recent Pentagon report, and a story about attempts by police to locate missing children.

'Uncomfortable facts'

Roderick MacFarquhar, a Cultural Revolution expert at Harvard University, told The Guardian, Chinas current president, Xi Jinping, is looking to avoid any uncomfortable facts about the revolution.

The really uncomfortable fact which Xi Jinping in particular cannot really stomach is Maos role [in the Cultural Revolution]. Mao actually gloried in the chaos. He loved the idea of civil war.  The last thing Xi Jinping wants to do is raise anything to do with the Cultural Revolution because it inevitably affects Maos reputation, MacFarquhar told the British newspaper.

Mao recruited Chinese youths to join his Red Guard paramilitary group and encouraged them to attack the Four Olds of Chinese society: Customs, culture, habits and ideas.

These gangs of students publicly humiliated and tortured teachers and other school officials and even turned in their own parents for expressing counterrevolutionary ideas. Thousands of people were beaten to death, and even more driven to suicide.

It wasnt until 10 years later, when Mao died, that the violence and hardship began to turn around, but it took another five years, until 1981, that Chinas government officially acknowledged that Maos policies led to domestic turmoil and brought catastrophe to the Party, the state and the whole people.

Maos legacy is still a polarizing subject in China.

Despite the disastrous economic and social effects of his policies, Maos ideas have seen a resurgence in recent years, particularly among the old and poor members of society who hold a certain nostalgia for the time when the state provided for them and society was more equal  glossing over the death and destruction.

"Either it's because people have forgotten the Cultural Revolution or are increasingly dissatisfied with social conditions, but since the mid-1990s these kinds of ideas have been gaining currency," Xu Youyu, a former Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher, told The Associated Press.

Risk of repeating

The only media reports about the Cultural Revolution in China came out of Hong Kong, which is a semiautonomous region in China with greater economic and speech freedoms than the mainland.

The South China Morning Post published an opinion piece by senior writer Cary Huang last week calling on the nation to remember its past, or risk repeating it.

While many Western universities run courses and research programmes on the Cultural Revolution, Beijing has banned public discussion and academic study of the topic, fearing that revisiting the dark period and reflecting on the past would lead to a reassessment of the partys role in modern China, Cary wrote.

Cary said the political fallout from the Cultural Revolution continues to affect Chinese politics, and questioned whether the party can have a proper vision moving with the system built by Mao still blocking efforts to embrace modernity.

If the party fears disclosing the truth about its own past and refuses to learn from it, how can it have a clear vision of the right direction for the future? he said.
Colombian police Sunday said they had seized eight tons of cocaine from the countrys most active criminal syndicate, the Usuga clan.

In a statement, police said they found the drugs hidden on a banana plantation near the border with Panama, in Colombias northwest Uraba region.

"The biggest seizure of drugs in history. A hit against criminals," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Twitter.

Police said they arrested three people in the operation, but another three escaped. Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said nearly 1.5 tons of the cocaine was packaged and ready to go out.

Each year, police said, the Usuga clan sends tons of cocaine into the United States. U.S. authorities have offered a $5 million reward for the capture of the gangs leader.

Colombia is the leading coca growing country in the world, and produces 442 tons of cocaine from the crop each year, according to the United Nations.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed economic issues as they tried to win over voters in Oregon and Kentucky, who are casting ballots Tuesday in Democratic presidential primaries.

Located almost on opposite sides of the country, the two states are very different but have a similar number of delegates at stake with 74 in Oregon and 61 in Kentucky.

Coal an issue

Sanders easily won last week's primary in West Virginia, a neighbor of Kentucky. Those states have major coal mining industries and while Clinton has proposed a program to move away from the coal economy into other industries, she has driven away voters who are unhappy with her characterization of putting coal miners out of business.

The Democratic system of awarding delegates proportionally based on the vote means both Clinton and Sanders will gain delegates as they try to reach the majority 2,383 needed to clinch the party's nomination. Heading into Tuesday, Clinton has 1,716 and Sanders 1,433 from all of the states that have already held their primary or caucus.

Super Delegates

But hanging over the race are the hundreds of so-called super delegates, who are party officials free to back any candidate. More than 500 have pledged to support Clinton, while 40 are backing Sanders. That leaves Clinton needing only about 150 more delegates to clinch the nomination, which she could get by winning as few as 15 percent of those remaining.

Sanders would thus need to win more than 85 percent unless he is successful in his campaign to get the super delegates to switch their allegiance, which they are free to do. Under an extreme scenario, with all of the super delegates deciding to back Sanders, Clinton could still win the nomination through pledged delegates alone if she won about 35 percent of those still remaining.

Sanders plans to stay in the race through the final voting next month that includes June 7 contests in California and New Jersey. The self-described democratic socialist's message has resonated particularly with young voters who have helped him win 19 states so far.

Trump clinches Republican race

The longevity of the Democratic contest is in contrast to the Republican race, where every candidate except businessman Donald Trump has dropped out, leaving him as the presumptive nominee two months ahead of the party's nominating convention.

After Tuesday, the Democrats have no more contests this month, with only voting in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico before the big slates scheduled for June 7. While the eventual nominee will have to likely wait three more weeks to fully focus on the general election, Clinton and Sanders can take some solace in the multiple polls that show either of them leading Trump in a hypothetical November vote.

Trump has focused his general election criticisms at Clinton, but while he has at times praised Sanders for his campaign against the front-runner, Trump still sometimes goes after Sanders, too.

"If Crooked Hillary Clinton can't close the deal on Crazy Bernie, how is she going to take on China, Russia, ISIS and all of the others?" Trump tweeted last week.
The land is dry, as are the rivers in southern Africa, where crops are scarce and 28 million people are hungry. The children show more life than the adults during this El Nino-induced drought in Mudzi district about 250 kilometers east of Harare, one of the hardest hit areas in Zimbabwe.

Elhadj As Sy, secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, went to southern Africa to assess the food insecurity situation.

"What is touching is proud fathers and mothers, like me and you, who would care for themselves and their children now depending on either cash transfer programs or food handouts we are giving to them, and see their dignity eroded, Sy said of his visits to Malawi and Zimbabwe, the countries most devastated by the drought. That is very touching. What is touching is to see children go to bed hungry. Children that may not go to school and a mother that has to listen to children crying and having no food to give to them. That is profoundly, profoundly touching and that is totally unacceptable.

We cannot describe enough how dire the situation is and that is not the most important thing. What is important is what is it that you are going to do about it? And that is what we are concentrating on right now."

On Tuesday, Sy is expected to launch an appeal for $150 million to avert hunger in southern Africa.

Sixty-year-old Mabel Nyamono of Mudzi is looking forward to an increase in funding in Zimbabwe.

Here, there is real hunger, Nyamono said. Most of the days, kids go to school on an empty stomach and may go for three or four days without a decent meal.

Families get worried, she adds, when the Red Cross takes time before giving cash handouts. The government might be trying, she said, but it is not reaching everyone [who needs assistance].

In Mudzi district, the Zimbabwe Red Cross gives cash handouts of $40 a month to 1,222 families.

For many other families, no assistance is given. Such is the case of 61-year-old Virgilance Tsabora, who is not in the Red Cross or U.N. assistance programs. Tsabora looks after her 89-year-old mother, who cannot walk, talk, see or hear properly. Neither has a source of income.

Tsabora says she depends on fellow villagers for help, but hopes the Red Cross's Sy can ease their struggle.

It is the dire stories of people like Tsabora and her mother that need to be told at the World Humanitarian Summit next month in Istanbul, according to Sy. At that meeting, U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon and international aid groups will work to create a plan that builds resilience in countries in southern Africa and around the globe that are facing catastrophe.
The biggest source of the world's fine particulate air pollution is not cars, or factories, or power plants. It's farms.

A new study explains that when ammonia from fertilizers and animal waste combines with nitrogen oxides and sulfates from exhaust pollution, microscopic solid particles, so-called aerosols, are created.

Aerosols can reach deep into the lungs, causing heart or pulmonary disease. It's estimated fine particulate air pollution is responsible for more than 3 million death each year around the world.

The authors of the study in Geophysical Research Letters stress that their work is not meant to discourage the use of fertilizer. Atmospheric scientist Susanne Bauer, the lead author, said, "We expect population to go up, and to produce more food, we will need more fertilizer."

Bauer points out, however, that since agricultural emissions must combine with other pollutants to create aerosols, having cleaner sources of energy and more efficient cars in the future will greatly reduce those other ingredients. So, even if ammonia emissions hold steady or increase, air quality would not decline.

Johannes Lelieveld, lead author of a 2015 report on aerosols, warns that assessment will hold true only if societies successfully curb industrial emissions.
Seventeen female former French government ministers, including current International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, said they will no longer remain silent about sexual harassment in French politics.

Writing Sunday in the French weekly Journal du Dimanche, the women vowed to publicize "all sexist remarks," as well as "inappropriate gestures and behavior" from contemporaries in the halls of French political power.

Sunday's op-ed was published just days after nine women complained of alleged sexual harassment by Denis Baupin, the deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament.

Baupin, who resigned his post, has denied the allegations and has promised to fight them.

Former Justice Ministry official Monique Pelletier, 89, was among the 17 signatories. She recently revealed that she had been sexually assaulted by an unnamed senator in 1979, and said she was ashamed of her own silence.

"We will no longer keep quiet," the women wrote. "We encourage all victims of sexual aggression to speak out and complain.

"We went into politics for different reasons and we defend different ideas, but we share the belief that sexism has no place in our society," they said.

Sexual misconduct in French politics was highlighted in 2011, when international news outlets described the New York City arrest of then IMF chief and French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of attempted rape and assault of a hotel worker.

Strauss-Kahn resigned as head of the IMF following his arrest, and returned to France after U.S. charges in that case were dropped. He later apologized for his actions and withdrew his name from presidential consideration, while insisting his encounter with the maid was consensual.

In a separate case that year, a French writer threatened and then dropped a civil case against Strauss-Kahn after French prosecutors dropped rape charges against him.
Federal law enforcement authorities are trying to figure out why there has been a recent spike in homicides in more than two dozen U.S. cities.

Data released recently by the Major Cities Chiefs Association show first-quarter homicides increased in about half of the 63 police departments represented in the report over the same period a year ago. The other law enforcement agencies said homicide rates remain unchanged or below last year's levels.

There were sharp increases in homicides in Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Authorities had no definitive explanation for the uptick.

"I don't know what the answer is, but holy cow, we do have a problem," FBI Director James Comey told reporters Wednesday in Washington.

Ferguson effect, or not?

Comey suggested the homicide increases may be due to what has become known as the "Ferguson effect," a term that spread after a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed African-American man  18-year-old Michael Brown  in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.

The killing, and the protests that followed, helped usher in a new era of police scrutiny, which Comey believes has made police less aggressive.

Darrel Stephens, executive director of the group that released the report, acknowledged that Comey is "not the only one that has that perspective." But, he added, "it's not one that I share."

The FBI director's remarks also drew reaction from White House press secretary Josh Earnest, who, during a briefing with reporters Friday, said, "This administration makes policy decisions that are rooted in evidence, that are rooted in science."

Earnest said that while homicides have undoubtedly increased in some U.S. cities, "There's no evidence at this point to link that surge in violent crime to the so-called viral video effect, or the Ferguson effect."

Other explanations

Other law enforcement officials and criminologists are unsure as to why there were sharp spikes in homicides in some cities, but say they believe contributing factors include a rise in heroin addiction and the accessibility of illegal guns by gang members.

Still, other experts have maintained that conclusions cannot be reached because the data represent only the first three months of 2016 and, despite the recent increase, homicides remain at historic lows.

Stephens emphasized that the numbers do not provide a nationwide snapshot of homicides because the information was compiled from 63 police agencies that represent only the largest cities and counties in the United States.

In the cities that saw the greatest surges in homicides, many were concentrated in certain neighborhoods and, thus "a problem most of America can drive around," Comey said. "It's happening in certain parts of the cities, and the people dying are almost entirely black and Latino men, and we can't drive around that problem."
Islamic State militants have returned to using vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices for a bombing campaign in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.

The terror group staged five attacks Sunday, including one at a natural gas facility north of the capital killing at least 15 people, Iraqi security officials say. The five attacks left more than 100 Iraqis dead.

For most of this year, the militants had been using bombers wearing suicide vests to trigger blasts, but since April, IS has again started to trigger massive car bombs, and the resurgence suggests a weakening ability of the Iraqi Security Forces, distracted by political protests, to protect the greater Baghdad area.

According to Patrick Martin, an analyst with the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, the blasts are aimed at further roiling Iraqi politics and undermining an increasingly fragile government.

These explosive attacks will play a major factor in the ongoing political dynamics in Baghdad and aggravate already tense relations between the government and protesters, if the government fails to guarantee basic security in the city, he said.

As far as Iraqi officials are concerned, the attacks are a sign of IS desperation, retaliation for the recent battlefield setbacks the group has suffered in Iraq and neighboring Syria. Last Wednesday, three separate car bombings in Baghdad killed at least 93 people in one of the deadliest days in Iraq this year.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has acknowledged IS is seeking to take advantage of the country's political crisis over the pace of political reform and the overhaul of a quota-based governing system.

Militants desperate, deadly

U.S. officials also have been hammering the argument the series of increasingly deadly attacks in Iraq should be seen as the militants' effort to make up for the loss of territory in their self-styled caliphate. At a news conference Sunday in Baghdad, Brett McGurk, President Obamas envoy to the 66-member international anti-IS coalition, said, This perverse caliphate is shrinking.

IS, however, is showing it remains a vicious and unpredictable foe that is quick to exploit any weaknesses shown by enemies.

The terrorist-style attacks in Iraq have focused on softer, civilian targets. The bombing near Latifiyah was at a shopping area. Elsewhere in Baghdad, three separate bomb attacks targeted commercial areas, killing at least eight civilians and wounding 28 others, Iraqi officials said.

The attack on the state-run natural gas plant at Taji in Baghdad's northern outskirts forced two power stations to suspend electricity production. That coordinated attack began when a vehicle exploded at the entrance to the gas facility - allowing another one carrying six bombers with explosive vests to enter the plant. When Iraqi reinforcements arrived, the militants set off a vehicle parked nearby.

IS has also been launching new ground offensives.

Attack, counterattack

In Syria, a re-grouping of militant forces near the ancient city of Palmyra, which saw IS severing a major supply route last week from the city of Homs, has prompted a fierce military response from the government of Bashar al-Assad, say local activists.

Russian and Syrian warplanes have been launching airstrikes on the militants, who have made major advances in the al-Mazar Mountains northwest of Palmyra, which Syrian government troops recaptured in March.

IS fighters are now within 10 kilometers of Palmyra and surrounding the city on three sides. Additionally, the group has launched a concerted assault on government strongholds in the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor.

U.S. envoy McGurk said the coalition will not let up pressure on IS. He said significant intelligence gathered by U.S. Special Forces in a raid in eastern Syria last year has assisted the coalition in better targeting militant leaders.

We will be beginning over the coming weeks and months a pressure campaign on Raqqa in all its aspects, he said, referring to the de facto IS capital in Syria.

And in Iraq, McGurk said, We are doing precision strikes in Mosul almost every day. There is constant synchronized pressure.


For the third Monday in a month, hundreds of protesters gathered in Nairobi to demand major reforms in the countrys electoral commission, starting with the resignation of the commission members. Protests also took place in western Kenya.

The protesters, most of whom are supporters of the opposition CORD coalition, accuse the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, IEBC, of favoring the ruling Jubilee coalition. They say the commission is unable to conduct free, fair, and transparent elections.



James Orengo, a Kenyan senator with CORD who led the crowd in chanting, no reforms, no elections, says a fair vote cannot be held with the current electoral commission in place.



But, we are determined to make sure that if theres going to be an election at all, then the elections must be held in terms set out by the Kenyan constitution, which says that the elections must be free and fair, said Orengo. An election where every vote counts, and [where] everybody has been given an opportunity to register as a voter.



The demonstration Monday never proceeded to speeches, as police began using tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters.



Orengo says one demonstrator, whom he accompanied to a hospital, was shot by police with a live bullet.

Ali Hassan owns a restaurant in the building where the IEBC is based and says he was victimized by both protesters and the police.

The protesters broke into my restaurant, they have vandalized everything, Hassan said. The police also have thrown live tear gas, into the restaurant, into the kitchen. 



Orengo disputes the protesters were unruly.

No, that is propaganda, that is propaganda, said Orengo. All our protesters, all our people were carrying twigs, they were told to carry twigs or carry handkerchiefs.



The protests will continue every Monday, said Orengo, until the government decides to sit down with the opposition and engage in meaningful dialogue about the electoral process.



Kenya is scheduled to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in August 2017.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett appears to be giving the slumping Apple stock a vote of confidence.

The company he runs, Berkshire Hathaway, bought just over 9.8 million shares in the tech giant, according to regulatory papers released Monday.

The average price paid was $109 a share.

Apple shares are down 14 percent so far this year, and Buffett himself has already taken a loss on the purchase as shares are currently valued at just over $90.

The shares did get a 2 percent bump in early trading Monday on the Buffett news.

The billionaire investor has typically eschewed tech stocks, opting instead for blue chip companies like Kraft Heinz, Wells Fargo and Coca-Cola, among others.

Despite the purchase valued at nearly $1 billion, Buffetts exposure to Apple is relatively small by his standards.

He also has holdings of IBM, which he has been accumulating over the past several years, and he is reportedly backing a bid to buy Yahoo.

Buffetts move is the opposite of investor Carl Icahn, who recently sold his firms entire stake in Apple. Icahn was reportedly concerned about the company facing stiff competition in Chinas growing market.

The big purchase and subsequent stock boost make Apple, at least temporarily, the most valuable company in the world, displacing Alphabet, which is the parent company of Google.
A giant panda cub in southwest China's Wolong National Nature Reserve opens the fence and climbs over the wall with his bamboo backpack.
The worlds largest airplane touched down in Perth, Australia, Monday, to deliver a 117-ton generator.

The Ukraine-made Antonov An-225 Mriya is 84 meters long and weighs a whopping 175 tons, excluding cargo and fuel. It's powered by six engines, and its landing gear has 32 wheels.

Over 25,000 aircraft enthusiasts reportedly lined the roads to catch a glimpse of the huge plane.

Its a monster, yelled airplane fan John Norcic, who was on hand to watch the arrival, according to Yahoo News in Australia. The kids think Im crazy coming out here so early in the morning, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The massive plane was designed in the former Soviet Union as a way to transport that countrys fledgling space shuttle program.

The one-of-a-kind aircraft was built in 1988. However, it spent eight years mothballed before being upgraded and returned to service, where it has been contracted out to various companies and governments.

The trip to Australia began in Prague, where the generator was loaded, and then made stops in the Middle East and Asia before arriving in Perth.
The London-based Global Witness organization has released a new report in which it alleges that over $950,000 in bribes and other suspicious payments were made to top Liberian officials by the United Kingdom-based Sable Mining company and its Liberian lawyer, Varney Sherman.

According to the report entitled  The Deceivers  Sable wanted to get the concession rights to Liberias Wologizi iron ore.

Lawyer/Unity Party Chairman charged in the report

Sherman, who is also chairman of President Ellen Johnson Sirleafs ruling Unity Party, allegedly told Sable Mining that in order to get the contract, the company must first offer bribes to senior officials to change Liberias concession laws.

Sherman was not immediately available for comment. But he reportedly told the local Liberian print media that the report was a reckless disregard for the truth.

Sherman also said he and his law firm are prohibited by law and the Liberian constitution from divulging to anyone what they did for Sable Mining when they served as the companys lawyers in Liberia in 2010.

Our code of professional ethics and the Liberian Constitution prohibits us from making any such disclosures and we will subscribe to those tenets even if we were to be taken to the gallows to be hanged, Sherman said.

Global Witness defends report

However Jonathan Gant, senior campaigner on Liberia for Global Witness, said his organization stands by the report.

We have proof that payments were made; we have proof that the intention of the payments was to first get the law changed in order to second get the iron ore deal. And that was the advice given to the company by Sherman, their lawyer, that they should get the law changed in order to get the contract, he said.

Gant said the report is a collection of evidence based upon leaked emails both from the company and from the lawyer himself which included the attachments listing the bribes and payments.

Gant said prior to publishing the report, Global Witness contacted Sherman on two or three times, but he said Sherman usually refused to comment on the substance of the questions.

Report includes names of officials

The report says the officials who allegedly received bribes include Speaker of the Liberian House of Representatives Alex Tyler: $75,000 for consulting fees and Richard Tolbert, chairman of the National Investment Committee: $50,000 for consulting fees.

Morris Saytumah, Minister of State for Finance, Economic and Legal Affairs, now a senator, also allegedly received $50,000 for consulting fees, and Willie Belleh, Chairman of Public Procurement and Concessions Commission allegedly received $10,000 for consulting fees.

Two of the biggest payments went to persons identified in the report as Bigboy 01 and Bigboy 02, each receiving $250,000 with no explanation of why the payments were made.

Gant said Global Witness knows the payments were made, but it cannot say who the individuals were.

We didnt put the names of those two individuals, just the names that were on the payment list that we had which is Bigboy 01, Bigboy 02 because we dont right now have the evidence to be able to state who those people actually are. But we know the payments were made to one and two, he said.

He said Global Witness is going through its evidence to see if the names are publishable.

President's son among those named

The report also alleges that President Sirleafs son, Fombah Sirleaf, who is director of Liberia's National Security Agency also benefited with a $7,598 hunting trip to South Africa paid for by Sable.

Others mentioned in the report include Senator Sumo Kupee and Cletus Wotorson, both allegedly receiving $5,000 each for consulting fees.

At least 3 officials deny allegations

It said Tolbert, Belleh, Kupee, and Wotorson all denied taking bribes from Sable.

The Liberian government said it has asked Global Witness to make available all evidence connected with this report.

Government claims it will investigate and prosecute

Minister of Information Eugene Nagbe says the allegations in the report reflect badly on the image of Liberia, and the government wants to investigate and prosecute those who would be found culpable.

Gant said Global Witness wrote the Liberian government before publishing the report and plans to cooperate fully with the government.

He said his organization has confidence the Liberian government will thoroughly investigate Sable, Sherman and the other Liberian officials mentioned in the report.

If it is found that they broke the law, Liberian government officials should be removed from office and prosecuted, while Sherman should be disbarred and also face criminal charges, Gant said.
Security was tight as mourners packed a Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall on Sunday evening for a memorial for megastar Prince, who worshipped there before he died last month.

Traffic cones lined the streets in front of the church in the Minneapolis suburb of Minnetonka, and media and fans were kept well back from the invitation-only event. City spokeswoman Kari Spreeman said last week that police were preparing for up to 500 people, including up to 50 high-profile guests.

Some people who weren't able to get inside before the church filled up were able to obtain programs, which they shared with reporters outside.



The program said the service was to begin with the song He Will Call, followed by an opening prayer. It also included an interview: with Larry Graham, the former Sly and the Family Stone bassist who was Prince's spiritual mentor and introduced him to the Jehovah's Witnesses faith. The program was to conclude with the song See Yourself When All Is New and a closing prayer.



On the back was a quote from the Prince song, Beautiful, Loved and Blessed, from his 2006 album 3121. It read, If I were to ever write down my life story, I could truly say with all the fame and glory, I was just a piece of clay in need of the potter's hand.



In an interview with The Associated Press two weeks ago, Graham said it was important to Prince to give his fans joy with his music. But the most important thing to Prince was being able to share scripture, he said.



His joy - his biggest joy - was sharing the hope of everlasting life, Graham said.



Prince was known at the Kingdom Hall as Brother Nelson. He was found dead at age 57 in his Paisley Park recording complex in Chanhassen on April 21. Authorities are still investigating.



The artist's two ex-wives held a star-studded memorial in Los Angeles on Wednesday night.
The re-election of Lobsang Sangay as prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile has renewed hopes among some that dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Chinas central government, which stopped in 2010, will begin again.

On the day of his election, Sangay vowed to push for autonomy for the Tibetan people and restart talks with the Chinese government.

We remain fully committed to the Middle Way Approach, which clearly seeks genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people within China. It is hoped the leaders in Beijing will see reason with the Middle Way Approach, instead of distorting it, and step forward to engage in dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama's envoys, he said.

No talks since 2010

Representatives of the Dalai Lama held several rounds of talks with China until they were stalled in 2010 by protests and a subsequent crackdown in Tibet.

Tsering Passang, Chair of the Tibetan Community in Britain, said whether or not talks restart is in Beijings hands.

Its really up to the Chinese, and due to the current reality, the geopolitical situation, as well as the economic situation, China has the upper hand, so its going to be a challenge for the Tibetan leadership, he said.

Sangay defeated challenger Penpa Tsering

Sangay ran against the speaker of the Tibetan Parliament, Penpa Tsering and received 58 percent of nearly 60,000 votes cast. About 90,000 exiled Tibetans are registered to vote in 40 countries.

However, China has largely ignored the elections, with the foreign ministry only making terse remarks on the ballot results when pressed to comment at a recent briefing. Spokesman Hong Lei said the voting was nothing but a "farce" staged by an "illegal" organization that is not recognized by any country in the world.

Robert Barnett, the director of modern Tibet studies at Columbia University, is not very optimistic about the resumption of talks.

Its quite disheartening at the moment because there are no signs from the Chinese side of any concession at all, in fact very much the opposite. But of course the Chinese side would not disclose if it was going to make a move. It would be in its interest to move very quickly at a time of its own choosing, he said.

China claims control of Tibet for centuries

China says it has maintained control of the Tibetan region since the 13th century, and the Communist Party says it has liberated the Tibetan people through removing monks from power who the party says presided over a feudal system.

But many Tibetans argue they were independent until Communist forces invaded in 1950. Nine years later the Dalai Lama fled into exile after a failed uprising against the government.

While the Dalai Lama remains the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, he gave up political authority in 2011, and called for democratic elections to choose a prime minister to lead the parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, India.

With the current Dalai Lama now in his 80s, the issue of who will select the next Dalai Lama is gaining in importance.

But P.K. Gautam, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in India, said any political talks that may develop should not be confused with discussions over who will select the next Dalai Lama.

So who selects the Dalai Lama is a very separate process, but the political negotiations, for the autonomous region, the way it is desired, that can be taken on by this central administration. So its a long term process; its just one of these steps that may lead to a solution so that the Tibet autonomous region regains its pillars, he said.

Many Tibetans hope Sangays election is also a step towards easing discontent throughout the Tibetan community. More than 100 Tibetans have self-immolated in protest against the Chinese government since 2009.
A second federal judge in Mexico has approved a U.S. extradition request for drug lord Joaquin Guzman, better known as "El Chapo."

The request approved Monday is from a U.S. federal court in Texas, where Guzman faces drug trafficking, money laundering and murder charges.

Another Mexican judge approved a separate California extradition request last week, where Guzman has been charged with cocaine trafficking.

It could still be a while before Guzman is sent to the United States.

Mexico's foreign ministry has 20 days to approve the extradition requests and Guzman's lawyers would then have 30 days to appeal.

Guzman is Mexico's most powerful drug lord and was one of the world's most wanted criminals.

He is in a Mexican prison in Ciudad Juarez, along the U.S. border in Texas. Authorities arrested him in January after his embarrassing escape last year from a maximum security prison, where he crawled through a hole in a shower that led to a long tunnel.
Sister Loraine stood outside the U.S. Supreme Court last March and rejected the Obama administration's offer of compromise.

The Mother Provincial for the Little Sisters of the Poor joined several other religious nonprofits across the country to tell the world she refused to fill out a form that would release her from the obligation to pay for insurance coverage of employees' contraceptive use. She said the form was not  as the government claimed  an accommodation of her religious beliefs, but rather a compromise of her conscience.

The highest court in the land sought yet another opportunity for compromise Monday, sending the Little Sisters' case back to the lower courts for a decision that could ultimately satisfy both sides in a divisive election year battle.

"It's a compromise and a non-decision," said Steve Vladeck, professor of Law at the American University Washington College of Law. "It's a result of an evenly divided court on the merits and so the justices found a way to basically make the case go away without endorsing the other side's position," he said.

The court's opinion in Zubik v. Burwell, a consolidation of cases filed by religious nonprofits that objected to the Obama administration's mandate for contraceptive funding under the Affordable Care Act, was just the latest development in a long-running battle.

"The government is requiring us to include services in our religious health care plan that violate some of our deepest held religious beliefs," Sister Loraine wrote in a statement earlier this year.

She was objecting not only to the coverage, but also to the accommodation created by the administration that would have allowed religious organizations to file a form saying contraceptive coverage violated their religious beliefs. This option would have opened the door for the government and insurance companies to separately arrange for coverage of the employee's contraceptive use. Sister Loraine and other religious organizations continued with their lawsuits, saying their religious freedom was still being violated due to the fact that employees were receiving coverage of contraceptives.

Lower court compromise?

The court's unsigned opinion declined to consider the case on its merits, but the move was still analyzed for possible signs of victory  or defeat  on both sides.

"We're seeing the Supreme Court knock it back to the lower courts because in some way the idea is that we need to reach an accommodation with these businesses," said Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, an organization that supports women's rights to follow their conscience in matters of sexuality and reproductive health.

O'Brien was disappointed by the court's failure to "stand up for the individual, conscience-based rights of workers." He said that "the idea that an employer can have a say in what benefits you can or cannot get, based upon their personal views on sex, sexuality or religion, I think that ultimately that is a very slippery and a very dangerous slope to go down."

But compromise in the heated battle over reproductive rights could be a victory.

"The court is calming things down and using a common sense approach," said Chad Pecknold, an associate professor at the Catholic University of America, who studies the intersections between religion and culture.

Pecknold said the return to the lower courts could favor the case brought by the Little Sisters and other religious organizations. He said changes in the way the government has argued its case necessitated the return to the lower courts so that new compromises could be considered.

"It's a prudential win for religious liberty," he said.

Ultimately, the move back to the lower courts may push the government to "work out some kind of arrangement with insurance companies so that the employees of these religious groups can be covered by the contraceptive mandate without any involvement from their employers," Vladeck said.

He added, "If that can happen, then I think these cases will all be dismissed."

House Speaker Paul Ryan called for an end to the battle in a statement released in response to the court's opinion.

"The Sisters deserve relief from this mandate, and an end to this ordeal," Ryan said. "The administration should resolve this as soon as possible."

Divided court

The court's opinion was noticeably impacted by the absence of a ninth Supreme Court justice, due to the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. While the case will answer key questions about the debate over religious freedom and women's health in this country, it also highlights the stalemate of election year politics.

"I don't think there's any question that if Justice Scalia had been involved in this case, the matter would have gone to the merit and we would be talking about a very important ruling one way or another on religious freedom," Vladeck said.

Scalia was a strong conservative voice on the court and could have tipped the balance for a 5-4 decision in favor of the religious organizations. The court could be reluctant to rule on controversial cultural issues of this import without a full group of justices. If the lower courts do not reach a satisfactory decision for both sides, the lawsuits would not make their way back to the Supreme Court until well after the fall presidential election, which will likely resolve the impasse on the appointment of a ninth justice.

"Here's yet another indication of what happens when a Supreme Court is evenly divided," Vladeck said.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has kept a lower public profile in recent days, but remains a focal point of the nations political discussion. But despite having cut back on campaign events and speaking engagements, he continues to dominate Americas political and media landscape.

From impersonations on late-night comedy shows to political talk shows, viewers cannot escape Trump on U.S. television or fail to hear him mentioned at almost any political event.

Democratic presidential contenders take aim at the New York businessman at every turn.

I am looking forward to debating Donald Trump come the fall, Hillary Clinton, leading Democratic presidential candidate, said at a recent rally.



Clintons rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, admitted that on the topic of Trump he is in agreement with the former secretary of state.



While we may have many disagreements with secretary Clinton, there is one area [where] we agree. And that is, we must defeat Donald Trump, said Sanders, also speaking at a rally.



Meanwhile, almost every elected Republican in the country is being asked the same question, "Do you support Trump?"

Last weeks private meeting between Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan generated a media frenzy, but no clear-cut answers.

We had a very encouraging meeting, said Ryan of his meeting with the real estate tycoon-turned politician, but he remained tight-lipped on substance.

Look, it is no secret that Donald Trump and I have had our differences. We talked about those differences today, he said.



Ryan did concede the fascination with Trump is no surprise.

He has gotten more votes than any Republican primary nominee, right, in the history of our country. And this is not even over yet. He has not gone to California yet, Ryan said of the pace at which Trump was picking up votes in state-by-state nominating contests.

The White House had a different take. Spokesman Josh Earnest took issue with the fact that the spectacle surrounding Trumps persona took away attention from other important matters.



Right now, we see Republicans much more focused on their relationship with the presumptive nominee than they are on things like passing a budget or passing funding for the Zika virus to avert a public health disaster, Earnest said.

Political analysts say it was Trumps dominance of the media landscape that has helped him defeat more than a dozen other Republican presidential contenders earlier this year. That dominance continues today as Trump focuses on his likely Democratic opponent, Clinton, saying that he is the last person she wants to run against in the November election.
A former Uganda Supreme Court justice says the government and police need to explain a treason charge against jailed opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who was arrested last week.

Besigye, runner-up in the February 18 presidential election to longtime incumbent Yoweri Museveni, was arrested Wednesday in Kampala after eluding the round-the-clock blockade and surveillance of his home on the city's outskirts. He was then flown to Moroto town in the northeastern subregion of Karamoja.

Museveni, whom the country's Electoral Commission declared the winner in the February election, was sworn in for a fifth presidential term Thursday. He has been in office since 1986.

However, on Wednesday, a video purportedly showing Besigye being sworn in as the new president of Uganda was placed on YouTube and being shared on Facebook and other social media platforms.

Charge questioned

George Kanyeihamba, a former Uganda Supreme Court justice, said given the information, he knows of no treasonable offense that Besigye has committed.

Just before President Museveni was sworn in, something came on Twitter. We dont know how true it was or what, saying that Kizza Besigye had gone through a form of swearing in. The picture showed a number of other people, Ugandans who had attended that presumably phantom ceremony," Kanyeihamba said.

"You would have expected if they genuinely committed treason the government of Uganda or the people of Uganda, that they will also be arrested, he added.

Kanyeihamba said Ugandan authorities singled Besigye out from that purported Twitter picture and charged him with treason.

We have not been given any details of particulars of what the charge is made of because the police have not come up with any particulars or detail of why, if it is true, he has been charged with treason, he said.

Kanyeihamba said the government and the police need to explain the case.

A team of lawyers and officials from the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party was to travel to Moroto to meet with Besigye.

Feared for life

Meanwhile, in an interview with Uganda Daily Monitor from his jail cell, Besigye questioned why authorities did not charge him in Kampala where he was arrested.

He told the newspaper he feared for his life at one point because the cell where they first kept him had three doors, one of which was not closed.

I called one of the guards and asked him why they dont close that door, but the guard said it was a directive from the district police commander," Besigye said.

Besigye described the case against him as abnormal and said he refused to give a statement to the police officers who came to get a statement from him Thursday.

He told me that [there were] two charges [against me]: terrorism, because they got 20 pangas [machetes] from our party headquarters, and the second charge was treason because I had declared myself president of Uganda," he told the paper.

"So, I told him [the police detective] that since these are capital offenses, I will make my statement in the presence of my lawyers, Besigye reportedly said.
Libya's new government and its security challenges are the focus for diplomats Monday as they gather in Vienna to discuss the situation in the country which has been grappling to overcome the chaos that followed the 2011 ouster and killing of leader Moammar Gadhafi.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni are co-hosting the session aimed at supporting the Government of National Accord that Western powers hope can unite Libya.

The internationally recognized government is facing challenges from rival factions.

The new government is also being challenged by Islamic State-affiliated militants who have established a base in the central city of Sirte and have used that base to launch attacks in neighboring Tunisia.

All of the participants in Mondays ministerial meeting would likely agree that Islamic State is a huge problem for Libya and the region, said a senior State Department official.

Libya is a keystone for access to the Sahel, the Maghreb, the Near East and the Mediterranean and Europe and to have Daesh have a foothold in Libya is bad for everybody, said the official in a Friday briefing.

Nagorno-Karabakh

Another focal point for Kerry Monday is a multinational effort to help stabilize Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan that was the scene of intense fighting in April.

The two countries accused each other of violating a cease-fire. The flare-up was partly fueled by a worsening economic situation in Azerbaijan because of the fall of oil prices.

The U.S., Russia and France serve as co-chairs of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) Minsk Group, which has been working to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Additionally, separate talks will be held with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Ongoing concerns

The talks in Vienna follow Kerry's visit to Saudi Arabia where he sought that government's support in strengthening a cessation of hostilities agreement between Syrian government forces and rebels ahead of broader talks on Syria.

Tuesday, the 17-nation International Syria Support Group (ISSG) will convene in Vienna to discuss the stalled political talks, difficulties in maintaining the February cease-fire and the U.N.'s uneven results in delivering humanitarian aid.

Not all of the trend lines in Syria are going in the right direction, said State Department spokesman John Kirby on Friday.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has indicated he will await the results of the ISSG meeting before setting a date for the next round of proximity talks between the government and the opposition.

In addition to Vienna, Kerry will attend a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels and then will travel to Burma in a show of U.S. support for the countrys newly elected government.

In the following week, Kerry will join President Barack Obama in Vietnam.
The five-year-old war in Syria is the focus of diplomats Tuesday in Vienna where the 17-nation International Syria Support Group is meeting to discuss stalled political talks, difficulties in maintaining a cease-fire deal and uneven U.N. results in delivering humanitarian aid.

The cease-fire, which went into effect at the end of February, brought a dramatic drop in overall violence in Syria, but that progress has slowly eroded. The United States and Russia are trying to use their influence to convince competing sides to stand by the agreement as they also try to support peace talks that have so far made little progress.

The cease-fire was also meant to make it easier to get aid deliveries to Syrians who are badly in need of help, especially those in areas besieged by either rebels or government forces. But the U.N. and humanitarian groups have reported attacks on their convoys as well as thefts of supplies.

Since 2012, the U.N. has pushed a goal of finding a negotiated political settlement to the conflict that has left hundreds of thousands of people dead and millions more either as refugees or displaced within Syria. One major sticking point that remains as the ISSG group holds its latest meeting is the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom the U.S. and other Western powers want to step down while Assad and his ally Russia have resisted the idea.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has indicated he will await the results of Tuesday's talks before setting a date for the next round of proximity talks between the Syrian government and opposition.

Supporting Libya

On Monday, the focus in Vienna was on Libya with world powers saying they will back the country's new government in its bid to lift a U.N. arms embargo. The move could help the government combat internal security threats and fight Islamic State.

Secretary of State John Kerry announced the decision following a multi-nation meeting chaired by the United States and Italy.

The United States and the international community stand ready, to provide humanitarian, economic and security support to the new Libyan government, Kerry said. But he said world powers are not talking about troops or boots on the ground" in Libya.

The internationally recognized Government of National Accord is facing challenges from rival factions and Islamic State-affiliated militants who have established a base in the central city of Sirte and have used that base to launch attacks in neighboring Tunisia.



In a joint news conference Friday, Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj described the situation in his country as bad in terms of the economy and security.



He urged world powers to provide additional training and equipment for Libyan forces, saying Libyas neighbors would not be spared if terrorism grows inside the country.



"Libya is a keystone for access to the Sahel, the Maghreb, the Near East and the Mediterranean and Europe and to have Daesh have a foothold in Libya is bad for everybody," he said.



Libya has been grappling to overcome the chaos that followed the 2011 ouster and killing of leader Moammar Gadhafi. World powers are hoping the Government of National Accord can unite the country.



Representatives from 19 other countries in the region joined the talks, along with the United Nations, African Union, EU and Arab League.

Effort to help stabilize Nagorno-Karabakh



Another focal point was a multi-national effort to help stabilize Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan that was the scene of intense fighting in April.

The two countries accused each other of violating a cease-fire. The flare-up was partly fueled by a worsening economic situation in Azerbaijan because of the fall of oil prices.



Mondays sessions are the first time the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan have met since the flare-up.



A senior State Department official said the United States wants both countries to re-commit to a 1994 cease-fire agreement and a negotiating process that will lead to a comprehensive settlement.



We would like to see an outcome where the presidents agree to certain steps that can reduce tensions along the line of contact, the official said Monday.



The official, who spoke before the talks, also said the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe needed enhanced monitoring for violations in the disputed region. The U.S., Russia and France serve as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, which has been working to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Ongoing concerns about Syria's stability



The talks in Vienna follow Kerry's visit to Saudi Arabia, where he sought that government's support in strengthening a ceasefire agreement between Syrian government forces and rebels before broader talks on Syria.



Tuesday, the 17-nation International Syria Support Group will convene in Vienna to discuss the stalled political talks, difficulties in maintaining the February cease-fire and uneven U.N. results in delivering humanitarian aid. U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has indicated he will await the results of the meeting before setting a date for the next round of proximity talks between the government and the opposition.

Kerry will also attend a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels and then will travel to Burma in a show of U.S. support for the country's newly elected government.



In the following week, Kerry will join President Barack Obama in Vietnam.
New born baby rescued after being kidnapped at hospital in NE China

A baby boy was kidnapped at a Maternal and Child Care Service Centre in Huanan County of Jiamusi City, Northeast Chinas Heilongjiang Province on the evening of May 15. Fortunately, the baby was found safe hours after the abduction and the suspect was arrested by local police on early morning the next day.

According the China News Service, the abduction happened when the mother went downstairs to fetch boiled water. At the time, the baby was just 30 hours old. After found the baby missing, the mother called the police.

A woman in yellow was identified as the suspect, who was later arrested at around 2 am, May 16. The baby was found safe and in good condition.

The case is still under investigation.
The big prize for the two U.S. Democratic Party presidential hopefuls is still three weeks away, but there are four primary contests beforehand that could help decide the race.

Up for grabs are 213 delegates in those four contests ahead of the big California primary, which itself offers 546 delegates.

While former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leads Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders by nearly 300 pledged delegates going into this Tuesday's primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, Sanders continues to win contests and has pledged to stay in the race until the July party convention in Philadelphia.

With Donald Trump set as the presumptive Republican nominee, Clinton's team would like to turn its attention to the general election contest, but her campaign still can't fully make that shift.

Clinton's delegate total, including so-called superdelegates pledged to support her, is about 50 short of what she would need to clinch the nomination. Sanders is more than 900 short.

A win in at least one of the two contests this week would give Clinton momentum heading into the primaries in California and New Jersey next month.

Oregon, Kentucky

Oregon is likely to go for Sanders, but Clinton's campaign thinks the race is competitive in Kentucky, where she was spending Sunday and Monday courting voters.

On Sunday, she dropped in at Louisville churches and had two get-out-the-vote rallies on her schedule.

"It will be close, but either way, as with all the contests this month, we will gain additional delegates and move that much closer to clinching the nomination," spokesman Brian Fallon said in an email to reporters.



Clinton has avoided calling on Sanders to drop out of the race. But observers worry that Sanders could damage her chances by staying in.

Meanwhile, Trump adviser Paul Manafort told CNN's State of the Union program Sunday that the campaign is hoping to appeal to Sanders' supporters in the general election.

"You see Democrat support for Bernie Sanders that is potential Trump support, when it's indicated that they will never vote for Hillary Clinton, and when you analyze who those people are that are saying it, they're the very demographic that Trump is appealing to in independents and crossover Democrats," Manafort said.
Gutu villagers slam President Mugabe for donating Cassava and bananas instead of the staple maize.

War vets in Masvingo say they will not participate in the so-called one million-men-march in support of President Mugabe, but instead they say they will continue fighting to bring back the party from opportunists.

Zimbabwes consumer prices decline by 1.64 percent year-on-year on April.

And Lloyd Mutasa who over at troubled PSL champions, Dynamos, apologizes to fans for the teams defeat promising better times to come.

Stay tuned for these stories and more coming up on Studio 7 at 7:30 pm on 9-0-9 Medium Wave and on the 4-9-3-0, 5-9-4-0 and 1-5-4-6-0 shortwave frequencies. We also broadcast on www.channelzim.net. Please check us out on Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter.

This evening on Livetalk our hosts of Gibbs Dube and Blessing Zulu will be talking with listeners and experts about the consumer prices that have dipped. Participate by sending your messages on our WhatsApp number 001 202 465 0318. You can also post comments on this Facebook wall or send us your number so we can call you back. The number again 001 202 465 0318. Stay tuned!!!!!!
Donald Trump's treatment of women through the years  the executives he's hired by day for his real estate development business and the beautiful women he's pursued at night  is getting a new look by U.S. media now that he is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Two of the country's most prominent news outlets  The Washington Post and The New York Times  both published stories in recent days looking in detail at Trump's past connections with women.

They comprise the majority of the U.S. electorate Trump would face in November's national presidential election against the likely Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is seeking to become the country's first female president.

Trump as his own publicist?

The Post reported that for years in the 1990s Trump masqueraded as his own publicist, often calling himself "John Miller" or "John Barron" in calls with reporters as he bragged about his exploits with women while he was married to the first of his three wives, Ivana Trump.

In one taped interview, a man claiming to be Trump's spokesman but with a voice sounding like Trump, said, "Actresses just call to see if they can go out with him and things."

The publicist assured the reporter that Trump treated his wife well as would he his new girlfriend, Marla Maples, who became his second wife.

In the interview, Miller referred to Trump as "he," but lapsed into the first person, too, as he talked about one Trump conquest.

"I think it's somebody that  you know, she's beautiful. I saw her once, quickly and beautiful...," he said before continuing the conversation in the third person.

Trump denied that the voice on the tape was his, but he testified in a 1990 court case that he used the alter ego Miller "on occasion."

The Times said that more than 50 interviews it conducted with women Trump has encountered through the years "reveal unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, a shrewd reliance on ambitious women, and unsettling workplace conduct."

Complex assessment

"What emerges from the interviews is a complex, at times contradictory portrait of a wealthy, well-known and provocative man and the women around him, one that defies simple categorization," the article said. "Some women found him gracious and encouraging. He promoted several to the loftiest heights of his company, a daring move for a major real estate developer at the time."

The newspaper said, "He simultaneously nurtured womens careers and mocked their physical appearance."

One beauty contest entrant recalled Trump introducing himself to her and abruptly kissing her "directly on the lips. I thought, 'Oh my God, gross.'"

A New York public official, a woman, remembered Trump cutting short a meeting as he announced, "I have this great date tonight with a model for Victoria's Secret," a lingerie retailer.

As he surged to the top of the once-crowded field of 17 Republican presidential contenders, Trump often has described himself as a champion of women's rights. He has branded Clinton as an "enabler" of infidelities committed by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

After the Times story was published Sunday, Trump tweeted, "Everyone continues to pile onto Donald, but they can NEVER take away our votes."

In another tweet, he said, "The failing NYTimes wrote yet another hit piece on me. All are impressed with how nicely I have treated women, they found nothing. A joke!"

Party chairman

Asked about Trump's relations with women, the Republican national chairman, Reince Preibus, told ABC on Sunday, "These are things that he's going to have to answer for."

But Priebus said voters are more interested in what he would do as a possible president.

"I dont think Donald Trump is being judged based on his personal life," Priebus said. "I think people are judging Donald Trump as to whether or not hes someone thats going to go to Washington and shake things up. And thats why hes doing so well."

Six months ahead of the national election, political surveys show Clinton with about a 6 percentage-point edge over Trump.

The winner will succeed President Barack Obama when he leaves office next January after eight years in the White House.
Some war veterans say they will not take part in the so-called one-million-men-march set for next week organized by Zanu PF youth to show their support for President Robert Mugabe.

The former freedom fighters, numbering more than 500, gathered in Chinhoyi, Mashonaland West province, Saturday and stressed that they were unhappy about the tension between the Zanu PF Youth League and war veterans.

The war veterans said a party group calling itself Generation 40 or G40, said to be sympathetic to First Lady Grace Mugabe, has allegedly finally realized that she cannot lead a faction in Zimbabwe.

Secretary general of the Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association, Victor Matemadanda, said members of the G40, who have no history of the liberation struggle, took advantage of the communication breakdown between the former fighters and first family before they met with President Mugabe last month, to divide the party.



Matemadanda claimed that Mrs. Mugabe, touted by G40 as President Mugabes successor, has realized that she cannot lead a faction when she is the mother of the nation. The other faction is allegedly led by Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who like Mrs. Mugabe, has denied having any presidential ambitions.

Matemadanda said the war veterans are not going to be part of what he described as a poorly mobilized one-million-men march because they dont want to be associated with failure.

He said some elements within the G40 faction want to use them in a last minute effort to save the much-publicized event.

The war veterans, whose meeting was punctuated with a lot of Down with G40 slogans, said some power hungry Zanu PF members are trying to cause confusion in the party by claiming that certain individuals want to assassinate the president.

They added that the people making those claims should be arrested and forced to release the names of the alleged culprits.

Sanyati lawmaker and national war veterans secretary for business development, Runesu Blessed Geza, claimed that Zanu PF supporters, who are spreading lies to the nation that there are people who want to kill the president, must provide tangible evidence to the police or risk being arrested themselves for causing alarm in the country.

War Veterans Associations consultative committee member for Kadoma, Jimaya Muduvuri, who is on whirlwind tour of provinces, said it is now clear that Mnangagwa and Mrs. Mugabe dont lead any ruling party factions.

Jamaya, who is claiming to have been sent by Mnangagwa to articulate his views, stressed that the vice president wont try to take over the Zanu PF leadership when President Mugabe is still alive.

I asked the vice president about this talk that he wants to wrestle power from the president while he is still around until 2023 but the vice president said he is not interested in that since he has been with President Mugabe for a long time. In fact, he told me that he respects the president, said Jamaya, who claimed to be a relative of the vice president.

Geza said there is nothing wrong with Mnangagwa succeeding President Mugabe as long as that post is vacant.

The war veterans further urged G40 members such as lawmaker Sarah Mahoka, who once told Mnangagwa to come out clean on allegations that he wanted to allegedly topple President Mugabe, to step down.

Contacted for comment, Mahoka said the war vets are misrepresenting facts and challenged them to come and contest her if they think they are more popular than her in Hurungwe.

Mai (Mrs.) Mahoka wont be intimidated by anyone. I want real men to come and challenge me and see what will happen.
Official campaigning for Zambias August 11 presidential, parliamentary and local elections begins Monday, says the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ).

Electoral commission chairman Justice Esau E. Chulu has launched the inspection of the provisional voter list. During this process, prospective voters are required to verify their information in the provisional voter register before a final list is compiled for the elections.

The electoral body says this period is the last chance voters have to ensure their information is accurate on the voters list. All participating political parties registered with the ECZ including the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) and main opposition (UPND) United Party for National Development are to monitor the verification phase.

We expect that all the registration centers that would be polling stations for this years general election have also opened for the inspection of the provisional roll by voters in their respective constituency. This process will go on until the 21st of May, and we are not extending, because at the conclusion of the exercise, we are having an audit undertaken of the voters register before we finally certify it on the 31st of July, says Priscilla Isaac, director of elections at the Electoral Commission of Zambia.

Everybody is supposed to inspect and some organizations have asked for accreditation to enable them sit in the registration centers to observe what is going on. So, each and every one who registered as a voter, whether it was last year or during the 2005-2006 exercise, they are all expected to come in and inspect their particulars, to ensure that their individual particulars are correct, and also to make sure that they have not been inadvertently omitted from the voters roll.

Voter education

Isaac says the Electoral Commission of Zambia has intensified voter education using print, television and radio stations across the country, as well as social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter to encourage voters to be part of the electoral process. She says political parties and civil society groups have been urged to help in an effort to reduce voter apathy.

Isaac says political parties are being urged to call their supporters to refrain from violence during the campaign begins and elections.

The ruling PF and the opposition UPND planned to hold their campaign rallies at the same venue on Saturday, which would have been against the electoral commissions calendar of events.

Weve asked [the political parties] to submit their campaign programs to the local police and the local district election officer so that at least when they give their notification or when they are going to hold their rallies and public meetings, there can be proper coordination so that we minimize complaints of people not being allowed to assemble as they has asked because of possible clashes with respective party programs, said Isaac.

As a commission we advised them not to and they heeded to our advice, and so everybody would be starting to campaign on the 16th".

Incumbent President Edgar Lungu faces a stiff challenge from main opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema in the presidential election on August 11.
Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa has revised downwards the countrys economic growth forecast to 1.4% from the initial projection of 2, 7%.

The new projection brings the target in line with the projections of the two Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

A statement released on Monday by the ministry of finance read in part, "Despite the headwinds facing the economy, growth in 2016 is projected to remain positive at 1.4 percent. This is notwithstanding the budget projection of 2.7 percent."

Deflation

The downward projection also comes after the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency or Zimstats Monday said the countrys consumer prices declined 1.64% year-on-year in April, after contracting 2.31% in March.

On a month-on-month basis, prices fell 0.21% compared with a 0.12% dip in the previous month, Zimstats said.

Chief Economist Prosper Chitambara of the Labor and Economic Development Research Institute told Voice of America that economy is on the decline.

Poverty Datum Line

Zimstat says the Total Consumption Poverty Line (TCPL) for an average of five persons per household stood at $482.00 in March 2016. The poverty datum line (PDL) represents the cost of a given standard of living that must be attained if a person is deemed not to be poor.

The food poverty datum line (FPL) represents the minimum consumption expenditure necessary to ensure that each household member can (if all expenditures were devoted to food) consume a minimum food basket representing 2,100 calories.
Olympic Staidums in Rio de Janeiro

Olympic village and media village of 2016 Olympic Games

As the next Olympic Games approach, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this August, Chinese air conditioner brand Gree has equipped a number of Olympic venues with its products. The equipped spaces include the main stadiums, hotels, Olympic Village, media village, airport and more.

Gree was the victor in a fierce competition with other brands for this privilege; it was only after proving the brands superiority in energy savings and reliability that Gree became the major air conditioner brand for Rio Olympic facilities.

Gree air conditioners are set and tested in Olympic venues.

Energy savings and corrosion resistance are the two advantages that helped Gree win the campaign. Gree has won Brazils Presidential Medal of Energy Saving for 11 consecutive years. And since Rio de Janeiro is located in a tropical area close to the sea, it has a hot, damp climate with high salinity that calls for great corrosion resistance in air conditioners. Despite the higher cost, Gree uses copper pipes in its condensers instead of aluminum tubing, which greatly improves the lifespan of its units.

Gree set up its first factory in Brazil in 2001. Dong Mingzhu, CEO of Gree, said during the 2015 China-Brazil Business Summit that in order to conquer the cultural difference and difficulties in foreign lands, Chinese brands must gain a foothold internationally. Chinese brands now are changing the worlds preconceived and outdated notions about products made in China. Brands like Gree now offer high quality new technology and superior service. These attributes will carry Chinese brands forward.
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Although Russia does not possess fifth generation warplanes, its bombers were particularly effective during their six-month campaign in Syria.

However, after Russia and the United States agreed to a ceasefire from the 27th February 2016, President Vladimir Putin ordered the withdrawal of forty-six of the fifty-four or fifty-six Su-24, Su-25, Su-30, Su-34 and Su-35 deployed at the Khmeimim airbase. The withdrawal was ill-advised. Indeed, in violation of their engagements, the United States have continued to deliver sophisticated weaponry to the jihadists, including combatants from Al-Qaeda and Daesh [1]. As a result, after the liberation of Palmyra, the Syrian Arab Army was unable to pursue its offensive against the Islamic State in Al-Raqqah and Deir ez-Zor [2], and suffered heavy losses in fighting against the Al-Nusra Front (a branch of Al-Qaida in Syria) in the region of Aleppo.

Besides that, in the space of one month, the Syrian aviation lost three combat planes (MiG-21, MiG-23 and Su-22), shot down in the north of Syria by Islamists using portable ground-to-air missile-launchers which had been introduced into the country in large quantities after the effective date of the ceasefire. This is why the Syrian Air Force does not attack more than 10 Islamist targets per day, which is insufficient when dealing with ground troops. The Syrian Arab Army finds itself in a delicate situation, and yet the Russian Army was constrained by the order from President Putin to withdraw the bombers from Syria, for budgetary and economic reasons. In addition, it seems that the proposition by the Commander of the Russian Air Forces, General Viktor Bondarev - to test the new Yak-130 light attack/training fighters in Syria on ground attack missions - has not been accepted by the Kremlin [3].

The only option which has met with approval is the deployment of the aircraft-carrier Admiral Kuznetsov in the Mediterraean, near the Syrian coast. The problem is that this aircraft-carrier entered a phase of repair and modernisation in 2015, in the Sevmash shipyards at Severodvinsk, and was scheduled to return to active duty only at the end of 2016. The modernisation involves adapting the aircraft-carrier to make it capable of functioning with the new MiG-29 K/KUB, instead of the old Su-33. The carrier pilots trained last year with the MiG-29 K/KUB for take-off and landing on specially-built strips (Nitka) which reproduce the decks of the aircraft-carrier, at Saki (Yevpatoriya  vestul Crimeii) and Yeisk (on the coast of the Sea of Azov).

The aircraft-carrier Admiral Kuznetsov (Projet 1143) is driven by gas turbines, has a displacement of 65,000 tonnes, and was launched in December 1990 at naval shipyard n 444 South at Nikolaev, which was then in the Soviet Republic of Ukraine. It was built to carry between 52 to 55 planes and helicopters. The Admiral Kuznetsov is armed with eight AK-630-type AA artillery systems (2x30mm), eighteen 3K95 Kinzhal-type AA missile launchers, twelve ship-to-ship P-700 Granit missile launchers (range of 620 km, speed Mach 2,5) and two UDAW-1 anti-submarine missile launchers.

The Minister of Defence for the Russian Federation has declared that the completion of repairs for the aircraft-carrier has been advanced to the 1st July 2016. This is why it will not carry only MiG-29 K/KUB, but will also keep some Su-33. Its new configuration will include twelve Su-33 multi-role aircraft, twenty-eight multi-role MiG 29 K/KUB, four Su-25UTG/UBP training and ground attack planes, and eight Ka-27 anti-submarine combat helicopters.

The Su-33 and MiG-29 K/KUB taking off from the aircraft-carrier will only be armed with 30% to 40% of their potential maximum load of arms and fuel (6-9 tonnes). However, this restriction will not prevent them from having the same effect on their targets as the Su-24 and Su-34 bombers which operated in Syria. The Su-24 and Su-34 were each armed with two 250 kg KAB-250 S/LG bombs or two 500 kg KAB-500 L/Kr or KAB-1500 L/Kr bombs, all guided by laser, camera or GPS, or two Kh-29 L/T and Kh-25T-type air-ground missiles, guided by laser or camera. Conceived for hunting missions, the Su-33 and MiG-29 K/KUB will also carry short and medium-range air-air missiles.

The small Russian aircraft-carrier is enough to damage the jihadists operating in Syria, who would be unable to fight back, and would have the same effect as one of the 11 nuclear-powered US aircraft-carriers which have a displacement of more than 100,000 tonnes, with more than seventy-eight planes on board (F/A-18E/F, EA-18G, E-2), and twelve SH-60F helicopters. The Admiral Kuznetsov is not the only aircraft-carrier which can operate with the MiG-29 K/KUB. The old Russian aircraft-carrier Admiral Gorskov, with a displacement of 43,000 tonnes, was rebuilt and modernised in the shipyards of Severodvinsk, and was endowed to the Indian Navy in 2014 under the name of Vikramaditya. It carries only thirty-six planes  twenty-six 26 MiG-29 K/KUB and ten Kamov Ka-28/31 helicopters.
At the same time, Washington celebrated its victory as well: the White House had managed the Germans to dance to the U.S. tune. However, it has become known this January that black markets in Northern Iraq openly sell German weapons. Berlin demanded that the Kurdish leadership account for using supplied armory. The report revealed that a part of the weapons delivered by Germany to the Kurds fell into the hands of terrorists. Inside Syria Media Center focused on this issue deciding to find out the way military cargos were delivered to Iraqi Kurdistan.

Very Important Person

Our activists in Erbil found out that Dilshad Barzani (a brother of Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan) was responsible for organization of weapons supplies from Germany. He has been living in Germany for a long time and now he represents the Kurdish government and the Kurdistan Democratic Party in that country. The biggest Kurdish diaspora in Europe which includes about 1,000,000 people is under his control in fact. Dilshad Barzani has close trust-based relationships with Angela Merkel and he often visits various events of the ruling Christian Democratic Union party as VIP.

The main Kurd of Germany has an armored car and the agents of Federal Intelligence Service (BND) usually escort his vehicle. He also enjoys encrypted communications equipment that enables him to get in touch with the Federal Chancellor or any government member at any time.Dilshad Barzani is certainly a very powerful person in Germany.

Germany  Bulgaria  Kurdistan

Now, lets have a look at the way the arms are delivered from Germany to the Middle East.

Sure, Germany cannot supply Kurdistan with arms in a direct way because this does not comply with the International Law. But the West or its special services have never had a trouble with launching a specific cargo delivery at any corner of the world via mediate countries.

As Germans and Bulgarians have agreed to send some amount of Soviet-made weapons stocked at the Bulgarian depots to the Kurds, it would be reasonable to transfer all weaponry through the same country. For the record, details of this traffic had been studied since the beginning of 2015, though Berlin was realizing this was not a perfect deal. As Bulgaria is a NATO member country, its not convenient to conduct the operations like that.So, they considered another way, via Ukraine, that looks the most appropriate in the context of secret traffic of semi-legal cargos. In 2015, Kurds representatives came to Kiev several times in order to work out an alternative traffic way. Major General Sirwan Barzani, Iraqi Kurdistan presidents nephew, and Brigadier General Hazhar Ismail were among the delegates.

Nevertheless, the situation has dramatically changed. After Russia launched operations in Syria, Kiev and Ankara began closing their positions. In particular, this is characterized by widening of bilateral military and technical cooperation as well as by intensified exchange of intelligence information. As Peshmerga leaders worried that secret data about weapons delivery to the Kurds could be handed to the Turkish special services, the idea to supply arms via Ukraine was rejected.

Finally, they opted for Bulgaria as a main mediator of the military cargos delivery to Kurdistan while the American side took responsibility to provide security and control of the whole operation. Since August 2015, German AFs cargo planes with weapons have conducted regular flights from the U.S. Ramstein Air Base near Kaiserslautern to the city of Plovdiv in Bulgaria. From there, the cargo accompanied by the US embassy officials and Bulgarian special services agents is transferred to the Varna port. The goods are registered to an unknown company Eleko. Unfortunately, we were unable to find any information about this company or contact it.

From Varna German weapons are delivered by sea to Basra port in Iraq. According to the Marine Traffic website, such sea trips have been conducted on a regular basis since last August. From Basra, the cargo guarded by American troops, is transferred to Kurdistan. A peculiar fact is that weapons for Peshmerga are delivered through Bosporus, literally under the nose of Turkey, which is trying by all means to undermine Kurds enforcement and fears that they may use German arms to fight against the Turkish army. However, the agreements with the EU on migrants and Western money subsidiaries compel Ankara to put up with it.

According to the terms set by the German side, Kurds should acquire an end-user certificate for the supplied weapons in Baghdad. This document envisages that the recipient takes full responsibility for the usage of the cargo and is not planning to transfer it to another party. The key figure responsible for acquiring the certificate is Hoshyar Zebari, uncle of Iraqi Kurdistans acting president and the Finance Minister of Iraq.

However, it is worth mentioning the Iraqi authorities obviously dont hail the fact that third countries arm the Iraqi Kurds without any supervision from Baghdad. In an attempt to affect the process, the Iraqi government is deliberately delaying the conformance of certificates or simply refuses to release them. In such cases, Barzani uses his off-shore companies to acquire these certificates in a tiny African state Swaziland for $1 million per a document.

So this may be a reason why German weapons had merged on arms market? Obviously, the Kurds have to recoup such unexpected expenditures. And of course, selling the goods at the black market is a fine way to cut the losses. And here again questions to German leaders rise. Is Merkel really aware of the fact that German weapons are sometimes officially supplied to Swaziland? Moreover, sometimes the German Federal Ministry of Defense turns the blind eye to compliance with any formalities. It often sends military cargo straight to Erbil by air.

Following this scheme, a plane from Germany heads for Baghdad, but on its way it makes a forced landing in the capital of the Kurdistan Region under the veil of technical malfunctions or a need to provide members of the crew with an emergency aid. The weaponry is unloaded during such a not planned stop and then an empty plane arrives in Bagdad. In this case Iraqi government is helpless and has no possibility to find out the nature and the purpose of the secret cargo.

Grey zone of Angela Merkel

Nowadays we have a well-developed and effective traffic of contraband weapons to the heart of one of the most hostile regions. The regional policy of Washington and Berlin gave birth to an ideal grey zone where oil, people, drugs and weapons are sold without any control. By casting the north of Iraq and Syria into chaos the USA play its own game and try to promote its own interests. Why does Angela Merkel who is more likely to be a puppet than a leader of the European country actively help them? These are the Germans who are to answer this question.

Germany is planning to supply the Kurds with 200 anti-tank guided missiles MILAN, 4 thousand assault rifles G36, and 6 million ammo for them, as well as 5 Dingo armored cars in June. Although there is absolutely no guarantee that these weapons wont fall into the hands of the Islamic State. German government and personally Angela Merkel should assume responsibility for the fact that weapons supplied by Germany fall into the hands of terrorists
Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen. Photo: HBO

Thanks to modern technology, its now possible to fake nude scenes by digitally pasting an actors head on top of a doubles body, leaving pervy viewers unclear about whose breasts theyre actually seeing. But after Emilia Clarkes climactic nude scene on Sundays episode of Game of Thrones  which saw Clarkes Daenerys Targaryen burn down a Dothraki temple with a dozen khals inside, then emerge from the wreckage like a fiery version of Botticellis Venus  the actress wants to be clear that no digital trickery was used. This is all me, all proud, all strong, Clarke told EW. Im just feeling genuinely happy I said Yes. That aint no body double!

As Clarke notes, though Game of Thrones has a reputation for being a show about tits and dragons, she herself hadnt done a nude scene on the show for three years. Clarkes part of Sundays scene was shot on a closed set in Northern Ireland, which was then edited together with wider angles shot at the Vaes Dothrak set in Spain. Taking off my clothes is not the easiest thing, but with the magic of the effects, I dont have to do a season one and go on a cliff and do it, she explains. Im in control of it.

Thats a point Clarke also emphasized last year, when tabloids erroneously reported that she couldnt stand her Thrones sex scenes. In drama, if a nude scene forwards a story or is shot in a way that adds insight into characters, Im perfectly fine with it, she clarified on Instagram afterward. If its gratuitous[] then I will discuss with a director on how to make it more subtle. In either case, like a good Mother of Dragons, Im always in control.
(Global Times) 11:05, May 16, 2016

The US Defense Department submitted its annual report to Congress on Chinese military activities on Friday. The US has published similar reports on the former Soviet Union, Iran and North Korea before, but now China report has garnered the most attention.

No matter how the Americans want to justify this report, the hostility it conveys is obvious. It adds fuel to the already strategic distrust between Beijing and Washington and exacerbates the negative view that China and the US will eventually become embroiled in a military clash.

How Sino-US relations develop is mostly determined by the interactions between public opinion in both countries. The Pentagon is keeping a close eye on China and considers containing the People's Liberation Army in the East China Sea, the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea as its primary strategic tasks.

The Chinese people did not misinterpret the Pentagon. The annual US reports on the Chinese military in the past few years have shaped the view of US society toward the "China threat" and pushed forward the formation of US strategies such as the pivot to the Asia-Pacific. They also hyped up the "China threat" theory across the world.

However, the pressure from these reports has not been able to prevent China from developing its national defense capability. As the buildup of the Chinese military has not gone beyond the need of a major power's strategic defense and coordinates with the thriving Chinese economy, it has won wide support from society.

The international opinion pressure created by Washington did not turn into the obstruction of the Chinese system. Nor did it serve as a driving force for some international forces to carry out confrontations to disturb China's development of its national defense.

While this year's report plays up the "China threat," it admits that China will not jeopardize regional peace and will avoid a direct confrontation with the US in Asia. The US impression of China's "aggressiveness" merely comes from its subjective imagination and its sensitivity that originates from its difficulty in maintaining global hegemony.

In the South China Sea, the US military has the advantage to mobilize its maritime strength and entice the Philippines and Vietnam to impose pressure on China. However, China's construction of islands is legitimate in international law and the rhetoric campaign of the US and its allies is just bubbles in the air.

The US will continue its war of words toward China. But it is most important for China to know that they cannot forcibly disrupt China's development. The biggest insurance for China's national security and independence comes from its overall strength. The military buildup is a must, especially nowadays.

China has the right to strengthen its military power to safeguard its national interests. In offshore areas, our target is to be absolutely confident about defending against any US military intervention. The US is wrong to view China's justified national defense buildup as a threat. Whether the US can readjust its thinking will underscore international relations in the 21st century.
Lets have a minor appreciation for Selim, the sensitive soul from the hardscrabble housing district of Felix Pyat. Like every other actor on this woefully misguided waterfront casino development of a Netflix show, Nassim Si Ahmed is saddled with laughably basic dialogue and paper-thin motivations. (Just one example: The minute Salim falls for Julia Taro, he goes to bat campaigning for her father in the ghetto even though the people who run the place have already strong-armed a voting bloc for Barres). Yet, Si Ahmeds open-hearted performance somehow gives us a reason to invest in the immigrants fate. Hes a brief flash of integrity in this godless swamp, even after a preposterous stabbing sends him to an untimely end in this episode.

You see, the brawl comes about after a standoff over a single vote at a polling place in les quartiers nord that seems to invite open corruption, with gang leaders voting by proxy for the dead. And the only reason Selim is only at the Farid-sanctioned polling station because the mob henchmen physically sealed off the other station with cinder blocks and metal bars. (The second layer seemed unnecessary, non?) So listen up, American conservatives: Cartoon-level voter fraud does exist, but you have to go to the slums of France to find it.

Marseilles sudden attempt to show us the real dark underbelly of local politics  rather than a roll call of whomever Benoit Magimel is banging/betraying  makes this episode feel like a course-correction thats too late. The ship is already half-submerged. The title of this episode is even a play on Frances national motto, with Fraternite subbed out for Sans pitie  a message of patriotic brotherhood subverted by the need to be merciless. Cette ironie me degoute.

If I didnt know any better, Id be convinced that the shows continued structural incompetence is really just an elaborate metaphor for Marseille itself, a city it depicts as crumbling from the inside. In truth, the shows editors probably didnt know what they were doing when they transitioned in rapid succession from the image of Julia and Tarim making out to them having sex on the stairs to Papa Taro snorting his latest round of cocaine, blurring one awkwardly-staged type of climax with another and conferring uncomfortable daddy-daughter subliminal messaging. But here we are, with Gerard Depardieus hulking figure bent once more over the drug stash in his office, attempting to relieve the stress of his absurdly underwritten wife challenging his secrets.

As expected, Taro and Barres each ascend to the second round of voting so that Marseille has a reason to continue for the final two episodes. Taros invoices scandal once again threatens to backfire on him  but honestly, the particulars of where party officials loyalties lie have become too buried to be of much use. It should be obvious by this point that no one is a hero and that Marseille, like most cities, is propped up by a teetering foundation of corruption and lies. The only difference? This city seems to be worse at making such criminal building blocks look elegant; in a secret meeting, the conspiring parties talk to each other in clumsy food metaphors. Politics needs some seasoning, you say? Well, no matter the spices that Marseille is currently using, its time to up the dosage and lets see how crazy-bad this show can get.

Baguette Bits:
Bette Davis and Joan Crawford between scenes on the film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Photo: Archive Photos/Getty Images

Earlier this month, FX announced that veteran TV producer Ryan Murphy will be doing a new anthology series for the network, Feud, which, in its first season, will detail the rivalry between Hollywood legends Bette Davis and Joan Crawford when they co-starred in the 1962 horror film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? The news has been met with a lot of buzz, and for good reason. It sits perfectly in Murphys wheelhouse, with its campy potential and powerful female leads, and the cast is already capturing peoples imaginations: Jessica Lange is re-teaming with Murphy to bring Crawford to life while Susan Sarandon will co-star as Davis. Stanley Tucci will play infamous Warner Bros. head Jack Warner, with whom Davis had her own feud, Judy Davis stars as the influential gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, and Alfred Molina plays director of Baby Jane Robert Aldrich. But is Ryan Murphy the right man to bring these dynamic women to the screen?

There was near-unanimous praise for his latest anthology series, The People v. O.J. Simpson, which many pointed to as a sign of his growth and maturity as a creator and showrunner of television. But its important to keep in mind that while Murphy executive-produced O.J. and directed four episodes, he wasnt a writer. It was created by the team of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who developed and co-wrote the series*. That doesnt mean Murphy doesnt deserve credit for the series success, but attributing it primarily to him or taking it to mean hes outgrown many of his issues as a writer is premature.

On the surface, Murphy seems interested in the interior lives of women. He often casts amazing older actresses who no longer get the film roles they deserve, like Lange, who headlined three seasons of American Horror Story, Angela Bassett, and Kathy Bates. But taking a closer look at Murphys treatment of women makes me nervous about how hell handle Crawford and Davis. The shows Murphy has a direct hand in writing can lean on sexual violence, and often make the older women seem like emptily campy figures meant to be funny rather than empathized with. American Horror Story: Coven, which misunderstands the fear of aging and the way it affects womens relationships with themselves and one another is perhaps the greatest example of Murphys shortcomings when it comes to writing women. Maybe the fact that Feud is based on a true story will offset these tendencies. But Davis and Crawford, especially the latter (thanks to Mommie Dearest, which greatly warped her legacy), are frequently used as camp punch lines, and the camp factor is undoubtedly a draw for Murphy here. To understand why Murphys involvement raises an eyebrow, you have to know the history of the feud between Crawford and Davis.

At the top of their game, Davis and Crawford ruled Hollywood. Both were professionals: brave, fiery, and keen artists known for very different things. Crawford was an excellent businesswoman who understood how to shift her looks to reflect the modern woman in her four-decade career. Shes known for being beautiful rather than a great actress, even though she was one  just check out her 1945 Oscar-winning performance for Mildred Pierce. If Crawford was praised for her sex appeal, physicality, and beauty, Davis was revered for her skills as an actress, while her looks were wrongly disparaged. Davis was the first person to be nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning two in her career, and one of the most entrancing actors Hollywood has even seen.

So was this feud sparked by professional jealousy, considering each woman was praised for the same thing the other was criticized for? The reasons are complicated, but it all started in the mid-1930s due to a more prosaic one: a man.

The man in question was actor Franchot Tone, who is a debonair legend in his own right. As a stage actor from New York, he was more interested in theater than in film. In 1935, Davis co-starred with Tone in the drama Dangerous and she quickly fell for him. I fell in love with Franchot, professionally and privately, she once said. Everything about him reflected his elegance, from his name to his manners. But its Crawford whom Tone fell for. He was madly in love with her, Davis admitted. They met each day for lunch  he would return to the set, his face covered in lipstick  He was honoured this great star was in love with him. I was jealous of course.

Crawford and Tone married right after Dangerous wrapped, and although their marriage lasted only a few years, they stayed in each others lives. If Tone was the only thing to come between them, I dont think Crawford and Daviss feud would have lasted such a long time or become so venomous. Both women put their careers first, and, like any actress (especially those who actually get to the top), struggled to find their equilibrium in an industry that didnt always respect them. Maybe they would have continued coolly sniping at each other in the press, trading insults like this one Crawford aimed at Davis: Miss Davis was always partial to covering up her face in motion pictures. She called it art. Others might call it camouflage  a cover-up for the absence of any real beauty. Or the one Davis famously said: [Crawford] slept with every male star at MGM, except Lassie. Its when the rivalry translated over into their careers that the real drama began.

At the beginning, because Davis and Crawford were at different studios they werent exactly fighting for the same roles, given that actors worked primarily in-house for their parent companies. (Which doesnt mean professional rivalries didnt flare up between actors working at competing studios.) Crawford came up the ranks at Hollywoods glitziest studio, MGM. During their early incarnations (which ended in the 1960s), studios were enclosed universes that owned their stars with draconian contracts. Bette Davis was a Warner Brothers star. Unlike Crawford, she wasnt afraid to take up issues with the studio when she felt she wasnt getting the roles she deserved.

But in 1943, Crawford left MGM and signed with Warner Brothers, putting the women in direct competition. Two years later, Crawford starred in Mildred Pierce  a role Davis turned down  and won an Oscar for her performance, no doubt adding fuel to the fire.

While they continued to work and produce great performances, Hollywood has never been kind to women who age. Davis ended her tenure with Warner Brothers with the overheated Beyond the Forest, which received scathing reviews. Each woman went freelance as the studio system turned to rot and a genre they excelled in  the womens picture  more or less ceased to be. They were still excellent in 1950s films like All About Eve, The Star, Sudden Fear, and Autumn Leaves. But their options were dwindling, which is when Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? entered the picture.

The 1962 film spawned the hagsploitation genre, which gave older actresses the opportunity to play dramatically different roles, framed within a horror-film context. On one hand, this allowed actresses to be unencumbered by having to be beautiful or tame or even likable. Theres a thrill in seeing these women shriek and slash their way across the screen. On the other, the films seem to look down upon these women, sometimes even condescendingly framing them as repulsive, even if the performances themselves brought a sense of empathy.

In Baby Jane, Crawford and Davis play sisters isolated from the world in their Hollywood mansion. Crawford plays the wheelchair-bound Blanche, whose career as an actress flourished while her sisters life and career fell apart. Davis plays the Medusa-like figure of Jane  caked with makeup, dressed up as a demented doll. Shes unable to let go of her childhood, when she had fame as a vaudeville performer only to grow up and watch her sister find the success she wanted so desperately. (The film works partially because of the meta quality Crawford and Davis bring to it.)

Behind the scenes on Jane, the two found nasty ways to get under each others skin. Crawford was married to the CEO of Pepsi at the time, so Davis had a Coca-Cola machine installed in her dressing room. Crawford put rocks in her pockets when Davis was required to drag her across the floor onscreen. Davis gleefully speaks of enjoying pushing Crawford down the stairs for a scene. They proudly slung barbs at each other in the press.

But underneath all this, they were also artists who loved the work they did, showed up on time, and didnt let their rivalry derail the film. In her memoir This N That, Davis writes, Joan was a pro. [] I always thank her for giving me the opportunity to play the part of Baby Jane Hudson. It was Crawford who came up to Davis backstage after her performance in the 1961 Broadway play Night of the Iguana with the idea to adapt the novel on which Baby Jane is based. These women may not have liked or even truly respected each other, but they knew a meaty role when they saw it. Crawford approaching Davis underscores how smart she was as a businesswoman and a star, knowing the buzz that would surround seeing these two women legitimately attack each other onscreen, given their history.

The film was a financial and critical hit that revitalized their careers, and Davis earned her last Academy Award nomination for the film. Crawford was not nominated and responded in perhaps the most underhanded, petty way possible: She contacted the other nominees and offered to accept the award for them if they won. For whatever reason, they agreed. Davis may have been certain shed win, but it was Anne Bancrofts name that was called, and Crawford who accepted the Oscar on her behalf. Davis was livid, later saying, I almost dropped dead! I was paralyzed with shock. To deliberately upstage me like that  her behavior was despicable.

Davis and Crawford were set to star in another, Aldrich-directed hagsploitation film, Hush  Hush Sweet Charlotte. But Crawford dropped out and the role was given to Daviss longtime friend and legend in her own right (with her own storied feud), Olivia de Havilland. In the end, Davis got the last word when Crawford died first, in 1977. You should never say bad things about the dead, only good, she said. Joan Crawford is dead  Good!

This is the popular image of Davis and Crawford. But we also have pictures of the two of them on the set of Baby Jane or during the pre-production of Hush  Hush that show them laughing together. Theyre striking for how human they appear, when theyre typically framed as anything but. And if you look at the context surrounding their petty warring, the more interesting story is the one about how women are cast aside when they age, and the ways artistic women are undone by their own ambition. Their rivalry asks interesting questions about stardom and the value of older women in a culture that doesnt see their humanity. There has never been a star quite like Crawford. There will never again be an actress who understands female anger and transformation like Davis. Given the blunt, campy, and often emotionally void way Murphy handles the story lines he gives the many great older actresses he casts, will he be able to go beyond the gossip and camp factor to see the women underneath the legends?

* An earlier version of this piece stated that Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewksi wrote all ten episodes of The People v. O.J. Simpson. In fact, they wrote five episodes.
Spoilers ahead for Sunday nights episode of Game of Thrones.

Sansa, Brienne, and Podrick finally made it to Castle Black, where they meet up with Jon Snow (!) and enlist his help. Now, shes going to have to start making some plans, stop being a pawn, and finally become a player. With Bran up in the Far North and Rickon a prisoner, shes the acting head of House Stark, and it falls on her shoulders to protect (and avenge) her family and unite her people, as she impresses upon Jon. Heres what should be on her to-do list, in no particular order.

Dissolve her marriages. Even if Margaery beats her on the actual marriages, Sansa Stark appears to hold the record for the most betrothals and marriages combined. Her engagements include Joffrey, the closeted Loras Tyrell, and her cousin, Robin Arryn. Due to the Tyrell plot, she got snatched up by the Lannisters, who married her off to Tyrion, and in escaping the Lannisters, she was married off to Ramsay. Before you know it, Sansas committed bigamy!

Most of this was not by choice. Sansas been a political prisoner  her various guardians were more interested in exploiting her as a key to the North, and consent wasnt an issue per se. But she said her vows, and shes left with a tangled marital history. What would her married name even be at this point  Sansa Stark-Lannister-Bolton? Its a problem, considering that marriage is one of the ways she could make political alliances, and this avenue is closed off as long as shes a wife twice-over.

Clearly, Sansa needs to dissolve a marriage or two. Her marriage to Ramsay might be foremost on her mind, but now that shes keeping company with Brienne and Podrick, its bound to come up that Pod was once Tyrions squire. Some assumed Sansas marriage to Tyrion would be voided because Tyrion was about to be executed  but he wasnt. Others thought her marriage to Tyrion could be voided because they never consummated it, but that alone doesnt automatically annul it, at least not in Westeros. Neither party appealed to a High Septon or a Council of the Faith to get an annulment approved, so that would have to be the next step.

The marriage to Ramsay is a little trickier. That was consummated (although we would call it rape). Remember the debate about how that scene was shot, and the focus on Theon/Reeks face? He was there to bear witness, in lieu of the more traditional bedding ceremony. Annulment, then, is not likely to be granted, and divorce doesnt exist in Westeros. But killing your spouse? Thats a tried-and-true method. To do that, though, Sansas going to need to go to war.

Build Team Sansa. Sansas got more potential allies (and relatives) than she realizes, and if she makes the rounds, she can probably command a decent-sized force. As she pointed out to Jon Snow, he does have a lot of wildling support  plus the giant Wun Wun is great at bashing in gates. Then there is cousin/former fiance Robin Arryn, who has the Knights of the Vale, one of the few armies not exhausted by Westeross civil wars. Littlefinger, who called them some of the best fighters in Westeros, has enlisted their help on Sansas behalf, and hopefully she gets word of that soon. Then, there are the long-forgotten Tullys: Edmure Tully (Sansas uncle, and the groom at the Red Wedding) is still a prisoner of the Freys, but Brynden The Blackfish Tully (Sansas great-uncle) is still at large, and could rally the Riverlands.

Beyond immediate family, there are the Stark loyalists. Although it appears that both the Umbers and the Karstarks are Team Bolton, there are other Northern lords who could stand with the Starks. House Mormont, for one, has been a staunch supporter. Also likely to be sympathetic to her cause would be House Reed (home of Howland Reed, first glimpsed in the Tower of Joy flashback), House Hornwood, House Glover, House Cerwyn, and House Manderly. Lord Wyman Manderly (a role that was cast for season six) lost his son at the Red Wedding and should want to fight both Freys and Boltons. The North remembers, but Sansa needs to spread the word that some of the Starks survived.

Make a choice. If Sansa wants to be Queen in the North, shes going to have to decide what kind of queen she would be. Luckily, shes learned some skills at the feet of some of the best politicians in Westeros, as well as some of the worst. Shes seen the results of both honorable and conniving decisions. Its pretty extensive, what shes seen, actress Sophie Turner said. Right from the beginning, even when she was a prisoner with the Lannisters, she was constantly watching and absorbing. She had a front row seat watching master manipulators who knew how to get exactly what they wanted. And Cersei, unknowingly, gave her so much advice with her intimidation tactics. Weve seen glimpses of Sansa practicing what shes learned, but harder tests are in front of her. Will she be a force of justice or vengeance?

So far, shes stood by when other people were attacked or killed right in front of her, and shes even lied to help them get away with it. Although she objected to Roose Bolton being a murderer, she didnt judge Littlefinger for the murders he committed. Granted, in some situations, she was powerless, and the choices she made were mostly for survivals sake. Where she could, she sometimes helped others, but a leader has to do more than that. She has to be able to wield her influence for a larger cause, to be worthy of fealty. As practice, Sansa could try to prevent the blow-up that might occur between her sworn shield and the onion knight and red priestess. If Sansa can diffuse the situation, and get Brienne, Davos, and Melisandre to all be on the same side, now that would be magic.
If you were hoping that Lin-Manuel Miranda would drop a few rhymes during his commencement address at UPenn, you will be sorely disappointed to learn that the only bars came from University Provost Vincent Price. (This is not to slight Price, his rhymes are actually pretty good.) But if you were hoping for some heartfelt life advice, Miranda is here for you. Every story you choose to tell by necessity omits others from the larger narrative, he told the graduates. That was mostly an apology for leaving the great state of Philadelphia out of Hamilton, but its also good advice in general, like when you have to face down bad advice from a producer on your Broadway show In the Heights. Oh, wait? Is that not relatable? Then maybe you can take Mirandas other suggestion, which is that you should break up with your college girlfriend. Yeah, dont be the Roy to your girlfriends Pam. Listen to the certified genius. (Mirandas appearance begins around 2 hours and 30 minutes into the video above.)
Annie Baby, a famous novelist, recently topped the ranking of the 2016 Top Web Celebrities, released by search engine Baidu.

"Web celebrity" is now a popular concept, since Furong Jiejie (Sister Lotus), a famous female blogger, shot to fame in 2004. Now, being an Internet celebrity seems one of the fastest ways to become famous and earn money, which is the reason it attracts more and more young people to the industry.

Among the people who pay close Followers to web celebrities, around 86 percent are under 25 years old, according to Baidu. Moreover, more than 70 percent of those people are female. "How do web celebrities make money?" and "How to become a web celebrity?" have become hot topics.

Numerous ordinary people have become famous due to their talents or beauty. However, a number of them stand out for various scandals. Some of them have millions of fans on Weibo, the Chinese version of twitter.

Let's take a look at the top 10 web celebrities in China:

Nima Wang

Nima Wang [File photo]

Followers:2.44 million

Born in 1990, Nima Wang is the Editor in Chief of Rage Comic (Baozoumanhua) and the host of Rage (Baozou) Big News Events. Bao Zou Big News Events is a popular show covering news, literature, history, psychology, politics, chemistry and biology. The host wears a headgear with a comic face during the show and uses humorous words to report ridiculous news events.
The Northwest Waco Rotary Club is having an Aim High for Education Skeet Shoot fundraiser June 4 at the Waco Skeet and Trap Club, 7209 Karl May Drive.

The event, sponsored by Redwoods Inc., is the Northwest Waco Rotary Clubs major fundraiser for the year.

The top shooter will win a Browning BPS pump-action shotgun valued at $600.

Register online by May 27 at http://bit.ly/1qsLLFt, call Michelle Holland at 366-5361 or email michelle_holland@baylor.edu.

WHS class of 1956

The Waco High School class of 1956 will have a class reunion Friday through Sunday.

Cost is $75.

For more information, including location, call 772-3650.

Senior lunch program

Lake Shore United Methodist Church, 3311 Park Lake Drive, will host a free lunch and speaker program for senior citizens at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Bryan Stone with the Audubon Society will speak about Bird Watching in Waco.

Reservations are required by Monday.

For reservations, call 776-8439.

Toastmasters info

Centex Clearly Speaking Toastmasters will have an Open House Meeting at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at Crestview Community Center, 7129 Delhi Road in Woodway.

Guests can meet with club members and learn more about Toastmasters, a public speaking club that allows participants to improve speaking and leadership skills at their own pace.

For more information, visit http://centexclearlyspeaking.toastmastersclubs.org or call Mary Margaret Croft at 300-7909.

Food distribution

Capital Area Food Bank of Texas and The Shepherds Heart will have a free food-distribution event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday in the parking lot of Texas State Technical Colleges Industrial Technology Center, at the corner of Crest and Airline drives.

Participants will receive a variety of food, including meat, beans, canned vegetables and fruit, soup, cereal, potatoes, rice, pasta and more.

Clients must provide a box, basket or container to carry their food.

For more information, call 799-8810 or 716-7064.

Womens workshop

The Foundation for Wellness Professionals is having a Womens Wellness Workshop from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at True Vine Worship Center, 2401 Colonial Ave.

Speakers and topics will include Dr. Marilyn Goodman on Healthy Adaptations to Stress and Dr. Shamonica Trunell on Balancing Hormones From PMS to Menopause.

Cost is $10, with proceeds to benefit the church.
A McGregor cigar lounge will soon offer to pair its hand-rolled cigars with craft beers, whiskey or the right wine as it looks to expand the smoking experience.

TJs Cigar Lounge, off Main Street, is transforming the back side of its lounge to allow a bartender to serve drinks to patrons and plans to officially sell its first beer in June.

Owner David Livingston said enjoying a cigar is about relaxation, camaraderie, atmosphere and often, celebration.

If youre a bar, that comes with connotations. It could be loud, cheap beer, just depends on what your idea of a bar is, Livingston said. With us, were a cigar lounge first and foremost. Everything in our lounge is designed around smoking cigars. Having some alcohol or a drink is only one part of that experience.

Trey Jansing, who will work behind the bar, said they will offer to pair the cigars with craft beer, good whiskey and unique mixed drinks, which is a service no one in the area undertakes. Jansing said the effort will help broaden peoples taste, and he plans to host pairing and tasting events regularly.

Im just ecstatic to educate and teach people the difference and what comes from where and why and what to look for, said Jansing, former co-owner of Barnetts Pub in downtown Waco. Its all toward paying tribute to the cigar.

McGregor City Council recently amended an ordinance to make selling beer at the cigar lounge possible.

Currently, the city only permits beer and wine sales in a grocery store or by a location with a club license, which TJs has.

City Manager Kevin Evans said there is also a provision that prohibits the sale of alcohol within 300 feet of a church, school or hospital. That provision prohibited TJs from selling alcohol, but it has allowed patrons to bring their own beer.

Two businesses, TJs Cigar Lounge and a grocery store, approached the city requesting a variance that would allow them to sell alcoholic beverages.

Evans said the city wasnt interested in providing individual waivers, so it adopted a policy that the sale of alcoholic beverages could be made as long as it occurs in the business district on Main Street from Highway 84 to West 11th Street.

Wet, dry counties

Most municipalities in the state arent considered completely wet  where the sale of alcoholic beverages is allowed  or completely dry  where the sale of alcohol is prohibited. Most fall somewhere in the middle.

As of November, there were 53 completely wet Texas counties and seven completely dry counties, according to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. The Alcoholic Beverage Code allows for alcohol sales to be decided on a countywide basis, in entire cities or within individual justice of the peace precincts. The city of McGregor found a variance to existing laws.

Higher level of service

Livingston said theres a distinct difference between a bar someone can smoke in and a cigar lounge where you can enjoy a drink. Though the lounge already allows customers to bring their own beer into the establishment, customers are looking for a higher level of service, where a server brings drinks out and caters to their orders, he said.

Livingston said cigars, like wine, vary based on several factors and are influenced by what they are paired with.

The act of taste is mostly smell, he said. Thats why when you go to a bar and they put stuff in the drink, the rosemary or the orange, when you bring it up to your mouth to take the drink, youre smelling those, enhancing the drink. Thats why its important when you have a beer to have a head, all of those bubbles are releasing those aromas of the beer. Your nostrils are getting the full aroma of that beer. Its a whole experience.

A full Nicaraguan puro cigar, for instance, which is generally a little spicy and hearty, with dark, earthy notes, would pair well with a good bourbon or a single malt Scotch, Jansing said.

The process, the style of tobacco, everything that goes into this, its an art. Its a beautiful art, Jansing said. At the end of the day, my taste may be different than yours. Thats the beautiful thing about it. I can give you a billion suggestions and the one I dont give you may be your favorite, and thats OK.

Jansing said McGregor city leaders have made strides through the years to boost the growing town, attracting new businesses and those thinking outside the box.
Parents will have additional help in preparing their toddler for kindergarten through a new Prosper Waco initiative that provides daily activities for families.

Starting this week, businesses across town are passing out fliers and spreading the word about Vroom, a smartphone app that provides interactive brain games parents can do with their toddlers.

The app provides suggestions of daily activities for children up to 5 years old using household items and then explains how those activities prepare children for school, said Anna Burton, chairwoman of the Prosper Waco kindergarten readiness work group.

Burton said the ideas include activities such as filling a water bottle with beans to make music, doing the dishes together or simply reading with your child.

Something thats great about it is it also gives you a little bit about the brain research. It talks a little bit about how its helping your child get ready for kindergarten, she said.

Prosper Waco is a nonprofit anti-poverty initiative that helps connect city leaders, other nonprofit groups and activists to help bridge gaps between services.

This is one of the first educational campaigns that has come from Prosper Wacos kindergarten readiness work group, which is tasked with increasing the number of children ready for kindergarten by 50 percent above the current base line. Burton said the base line hasnt been identified yet.

Work group members said they decided to start parent outreach with the app because its free and could reach the highest number of families because of how accessible it is.

For parents without smartphones, Prosper Waco is printing the activities on cards in both English and Spanish and will have them available at key family access points around town. Cameron Park Zoo, the Mayborn Museum and local health clinics are a few of the locations the free cards are available.

Julie Talbert, child care manager for the Heart of Texas Workforce Development Board Inc., said she began promoting Vroom last year with families that come through her office.

Talbert said parents responses to the app have been positive.

If what we can do is begin by increasing the awareness about the importance of getting to kindergarten ready to learn, making sure everyone in the community knows, not just parents of young children, but everyone, about the amazing brain development that happens in the first four years of life, then everything we do after this gets easier, Talbert said.

Prosper Waco chose kindergarten readiness as one of its educational goals because of how it contributes to future student success. Prosper Wacos website states that students who enter school already behind their peers have difficulty catching up in later grades.

A 2010 study by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago also links the likelihood of students graduating from high school within five years of starting to whether they read at grade level by third grade.

Of the 26,000 students the study followed through the Chicago Public School system, 15 percent more students graduated high school within five years if they read at grade level by third grade. Only 45 percent of students graduated within five years if they were behind at third grade, compared to the 60 percent of students who graduated within five years and read at grade level in third grade.

The app helps families prepare by creating opportunities for parents to talk to their children and increase their vocabulary, said Mary Konrad, early childhood education coordinator for Waco Independent School District.

By the end of pre-kindergarten, the state recommends students should know at least 20 uppercase letters, 20 lowercase letters and 20 sounds, Konrad said. Students also learn to identify rhyming words, how many words are in a sentence and how to identify syllables before kindergarten, she said.

When a parent does those activities with the child, there are going to be conversations going on and vocabulary development, just through interaction, Konrad said.
Waco police arrested four people on charges of engaging in organized crime early Sunday morning and hailed the event as an example of cooperation between residents and officers.

The charges sprang from a series of motor vehicle burglaries in the vicinity of Lasker Avenue on Saturday night.

A release by Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said a man in the 3700 block of Lasker Avenue called police shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday after he saw four men breaking into a car and confronted them, fleeing after one of them displayed a gun.

The man described the clothes some of the four were wearing, and responding officers and others called to assist spotted four suspects.

The suspects fled, and we were able to catch one of them, Swanton said. This led to officers being able to eventually identify and arrest the others. The suspects admitted to breaking into cars in the area from 39th Street and Lasker, down to 20th Street and Gorman Avenue.

He said police recovered some property and are seeking the owners. They think the suspects dumped or hid a duffel bag that may contain other stolen property at some point during their flight.

Swanton said, We were constantly being called by witnesses saying they saw the suspects looking into cars and pulling on door handles. This is an excellent example of how our citizens working in partnership with their police department can help solve crime and hold those accountable who break the law.

Police had not identified the suspects by Sunday evening.

Swanton said Sunday afternoon that investigators were trying to determine the number of vehicles burglarized and asked anyone with information about that or the duffel bag to call police at 254-750-7500.
The Ministry of Public Security launches the online missing children information distribution platform in Beijing on May 15, 2016. [Photo: mps.gov.cn]

An online missing children information distribution platform has been launched in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Security and China's tech giant Alibaba Group.

Anti-human trafficking police across China will release information immediately after a child is reported missing on the platform. And the information will then be distributed via mobile applications such as navigation maps and the platform's Weibo account, the Chinese version of Twitter.

The aim is to ensure that the public have access to the necessary information needed to help police and other authorities find missing children as soon as possible.

Liu Zhenfei is the Chief Risk Officer with Alibaba.

"We are going to work with the criminal investigation department under the Ministry of Public Security to make their work more accurate and efficient. Imagine one day if a child went missing - the information would be released immediately at nearby bus stations, railway stations and airports. With the help of surveillance cameras, we would be able to identify the missing child. This is where technical support is needed."

A statement from the criminal investigation bureau of the Ministry of Public Security says more than 5,000 anti-trafficking police will provide updates to the app as soon as they get reports of missing children.

The scope of these push notifications will be expanded over time.

Chen Shiqu, from the criminal investigation department of the Ministry of Public Security, explains more.

"Once a child goes missing and the local public security department releases the information to the public, the information will reach every application user within a radius of hundreds of kilometers in just a few seconds. Those who have receive the information will then be alerted to be on the look-out for abnormal situations around them, and call the police if they see the suspects."

Chen reveals that the Ministry has established an information distribution mechanism in cooperation with Sina Weibo and AutoNavi, a Chinese digital mapping service.

He added that the Ministry is aiming to find more partners to join the police in developing the information distribution platform.
More organ transplant hospitals on the way

China is to increase the number of organ transplant hospitals from 169 to about 300 by 2020, according to the chairman of the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee.

Huang Jiefu said the increase will enable the nation to become the world leader in terms of the number of lifesaving procedures performed.

Huang, the former deputy minister of health, was speaking on Sunday at an annual awareness-raising event held by the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the Red Cross Society of China in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province.

In 2010, the two organizations set up China's public organ donation system in an attempt to end long-term dependence on death row inmates as major organ donors for transplants.

By February, 6,238 Chinese citizens had donated organs after death, saving 16,827 patients, according to the Red Cross.

"China has achieved a transition from relying on executed prisoners as a major source of organ donations," Huang said. "To improve access to the procedure, we're opening more transplant centers, and will have about 300 by 2020."

China currently has 169 organ transplant centers, performing about 10,000 surgeries annually. However, there are 30,000 patients awaiting transplants each year.

In contrast, the United States has more than 300 transplant centers, performing the most transplants worldwide.

Ye Qifa, director of the transplant center at Central South University in Wuhan, said Chinese organ transplant surgeons are highly capable but in short supply.

Huang said more surgeons are being trained, and with increasing organ donation awareness, "we'll open more centers to save more lives".

The number of organ donations will be made public on the website of the China Organ Transplant Development Foundation.

"Fairness and transparency are crucial to encouraging and sustaining public organ donations," Huang said.

But he also said cost is a major barrier for people wanting access to transplants. As a result, the health authority is carrying out research to initially cover kidney transplants under health insurance.

He said that in China a kidney transplant costs more than 300,000 yuan (about $46,000) and a liver transplant about 630,000 yuan.
Italian Dr. Canavero, initiator of head transplant surgery [Photo: xinmin.cn]

It's reported that a Chinese patient is likely to undergo the world's first full head transplant at the end of 2017.

The Times of India says it has spoken to an Italian Doctor, Sergio Canavero, the initiator of the head transplant surgery procedure, who said that a medical team had been assembled and that the surgery would take place in China.

Canavero said the team had mastered the techniques, and what they now needed was public support and finance.

The Italian surgeon said he planned to unveil his team, consisting of doctors from China, South Korea and Russia, to the public this June, in Maryland in the United States.

The surgery would take place at a room temperature of 12 degree Celsius, connecting the head of the patient to a recently deceased body.

It's anticipated the patient would be in comma for several weeks, during which time it's hoped muscles and nerves will grow and connect to each other. After a year's treatment, Sergio Canavero said the patient should be able to walk for themselves.

Some experts have argued that, even if the patient survived such a transplant, they would most likely suffer from paralysis in the future.

In 1970, the first head transplant was performed on a monkey, but the animal was unable to move as the spinal cords were not connected. The monkey died after eight days because the body rejected the head.
On Sunday May 15th, at a little before 2pm local time, the worlds last known surviving PBJ-1J Mitchell took to the skies over Camarillo, California again, following a decades-long, down-to-the-last-rivet restoration with the Southern California (SoCal) Wing of the Commemorative Air Forces. As is typical on such test flights, a chase plane shadowed the Mitchell for much of the hour-long flight, sitting off her wingtip right up until the old bomber alit once more on terra firms. The flight seemed to go smoothly, and many supporters were on hand to see her soar again and cheer her home. A local tv news channel even covered the proceedings as well.

As many readers will know, the PBJ was the navalized version of the B-25 which served almost exclusively with the US Marine Corps during WWII. WarbirdsNews published an extensive article HERE on the lengthy restoration about a year ago, featuring dozens of terrific photographs by contributor Dan Newcomb. This PBJ came off the North Americans Kansas City production line as B-25J 44-30988 in early 1945. Following her conversion and acceptance by the Navy, the newly-minted naval patrol bomber became Bu.No.35857. The aircraft never saw combat, but was one of just a handful of PBJs to make it onto the civilian registry.

The SoCal Wing has painted their Mitchell to represent PBJ-1J Bu.No. 35243. Marked as MB 11, this aircraft flew with Marine Bombing Squadron VMB-611 in the Pacific Theatre. Sadly, 1st. Lt. Doit L. Fish and his seven man crew were lost in MB 11 during a strike on the Kibawe Trail near Davao on May 30th, 1945. Interestingly, Lt.Fishs son David is a volunteer with the CAFs SoCal wing, so it seems more than appropriate that the PBJ serves as a tribute to his fathers crew, as a way of memorializing all those Marines who flew the Mitchell.

With the PBJ flying once more, she will undoubtedly become a regular performer on the air show circuit. WarbirdsNews wishes to offer the SoCal Wing volunteers our heartfelt appreciation for persevering with such dedication on this difficult project and that the aircraft enjoys many years of successful flying ahead!

Many thanks to AirshowVid.com for providing the images!
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There are luxury hotels, and there is The Temple House.

This might come across as a rather bold statement, especially for someone who is more used to sleeping in tents at festivals then in five-star accommodations but I'm not one to exaggerate.

And my first ever trip to China was made all the more special thanks to my stay at the hotel groups impressive and newest branch in Chengdu.

Studio 70: The Temple House Chengdu's spacious studio rooms offer a relaxing space to work, sleep and enjoy stunning views of the city from the comfort of your luxury bed

As well as Mi Xun, an urban day spa beside a private courtyard, guests can swim in an indoor pool. Nearby, the gym features a selection of equipment and free weights

Upon arriving at the vibrant hotel, around 30 minutes drive from the airport,- I was warmly greeted by the staff, taken up to the room, a studio 70, and given a full tour of what it had to offer.

It took a while, because it offers so much. If theres a bed bigger than a super king size then that was what I was met by, complemented by a view of the city from the comfort of its soft white sheets.

The spacious suite came with a cosy seating area adorned with a desk and chair, free mini bar, espresso machine, tea set, yoga mat, giant bath and wet room, his and hers sinks with a TV built into the mirror and every type of toiletry and hotel essential that would have Ross from Friends filling his suitcase to the brim. There was also a complimentary maxi bar with a coffee machine, tea set, soft drinks, beers and a mixture of sweets readily available in each room and replenished twice daily

The blinds, lights and TV controls were easy to access from my bed, and after placing my dirty travelling clothes in the laundry bag ready for housekeeping to collect in the morning, it didnt take me long to fall down for the luxurious count.
David Goldberg - CEO of SurveyMonkey - died unexpectedly last year while he and Sandberg were on holiday in Mexico. Credit:Facebook

"I pored over his medical records asking what I could have - or should have - done."

Sandberg circled back to some of those challenges on Saturday, recalling how she struggled with her children's grief and initially blamed herself for her husband's death

"When life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface and breathe again," said Sandberg, pictured here with her late husband. Credit:Facebook

"Before, I did not quite get it," she wrote. "I did not really get how hard it is to succeed at work when you are overwhelmed at home. I did not understand how often I would look at my son's or daughter's crying face and not know how to stop the tears. How often situations would come up that Dave and I had never talked about and that I did not know how to handle on my own. What would Dave do if he were here?"

She said she eventually realised that not taking failures personally allows people to recover and even thrive.

Her husband's death, she said, was one of many challenges she has endured in life, many of which left her feeling like a "massive failure." Sandberg recalled being unprepared during her first job out of college and worrying about being fired. She discussed failed relationships that crushed her, including her first marriage, which ended in divorce.

"One day my friend Adam Grant, a psychologist, suggested that I think about how much worse things could be," Sandberg told the graduates. "This was completely counter-intuitive; it seemed like the way to recover was to try to find positive thoughts. 'Worse?' I said. 'Are you kidding me? How could things be worse?'"

Sandberg added: "His answer cut straight through me: 'Dave could have had that same cardiac arrhythmia while he was driving your children.' Wow. The moment he said it, I was overwhelmingly grateful that the rest of my family was alive and healthy."

Sandberg said the "greatest irony" of her life is that losing my husband helped her appreciate life. She pointed out that she is not without "a huge reservoir of sadness," one that is with her at all times.
Only a few months ago, there was widespread gloom and despondency on Opposition benches. Many Labor MPs were preparing for political oblivion. Bill Shorten's prospects had been written off and his leadership regarded as no more than a joke. The knives were being sharpened.

There was, of course, much truth in the criticisms. Shorten had the great misfortune of leading Labor after the disastrous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era. He was not very good at attracting positive press. The polls showed he was the most unpopular opposition leader since the notoriously useless, though honourable, Brendan Nelson. The royal commission into corrupt unions was supposed to sound the death knell for the embattled former head of the AWU.

Yet such is the magic of politics, here we are seven weeks before the federal election and Shorten could be our sixth prime minister in as many years. The Labor leader gave Turnbull such a good thumping in their first TV debate on Friday night, you almost expected the moderator David Speers from Sky News to step in to end the bout on grounds of compassion. While the PM was dull and dithering, ill at ease with answering questions from ordinary Australians about hip-pocket issues, Shorten was sound in style and substance. An audience of undecided voters gave it to the challenger by 42 to 29. Add to this the latest Newspoll that shows Labor leading the Coalition 51-49 on a two-party-preferred basis and the election is suddenly up for grabs.
A war veteran and PTSD sufferer wowed The Voice last night, making it through to the next round of the competition while revealing her struggle with returning to ordinary life after being on tour in Afghanistan.

Chrissy Ashcroft, 49, took to the stage in the show's blind audition rounds last night to sing a heartfelt rendition of Cold Chisel's When the War is Over.

Breaking down in her pre-performance interview, Ashcroft said even receiving an audition was an achievement, adding that her song choice symbolised her decision that she did not want to live "like this" anymore.

"This morning, getting myself here to this stage of sitting with you, it's been a hard road," Ashcroft said on the program. "So many times I've said, 'I can't do this.' I struggle every day."
This, Tempest declared, showed the "barbarities of the inequality that we live under" - which was not the nicest thing ever said by way of placing a Q&A appearance in its broader context, but possibly not the worst either.

"A f---ing panel show": this was the drive-by description applied by one guest, the British rapper and poet Kate Tempest, in the course of an answer not intended as a criticism of the show but as her way of illustrating the trivial activities allowed to her - crossing hemispheres to be here for this - even as the wider world was in "a state of war".

For the second week running, television's prime lightning rod was hit by a bolt from the blue on Monday night - and though Q&A's latest jolt to the body politic was in the artistic rather than real-life realm, the burns were there to be nursed afterwards.

Q&A is, of course, just "a f---ing panel show" in the same way that Christmas is just another holiday - all well and good, until the furies start flying and then God only knows where the tears will start falling. It is best with both gatherings to assume the first-aid kit might be called on before proceedings are complete, as the nation had been reminded anew after a week of figurative fisticuffs occasioned by the previous week's episode.

Poet Kate Tempest didn't mince her words on Q&A on Monday night. Credit:ABC

The details of this controversy are well known - man asks question, minister flubs answer, man's life is dragged through the dirt on the dubious grounds that he, a voter, had flagrantly inserted himself into the middle of an election campaign. The essentials can be summarised briefly as such, or they could be summarised not at all - the option taken by Q&A, which left the Duncan Storrar story completely untouched.

This was wise, both in the specific and broader sense, given this follow-up program was a one-off special: a politics-and-politician free zone comprising star guests from the Sydney Writers Festival. For Storrar, this fluke of timing was no doubt a mercy - sparing him a second spin on the national rotisserie; and there seemed little point inviting an all-foreign panel to weigh in on a drama that plumbed such specific nooks and crannies of Australia's election-year psyche.

Instead the panel explored psychological terrain more obviously shared by citizens elsewhere - most potently, the West's relationship with Islam, Islam's relationship with itself, and the manner in which we either can or cannot debate the implications of both.
"My happiness," she says. "I spend more time at the office than I do at home, so the idea of spending more than three years at a company where I'm not happy simply scares me. Life is too short to spend most of it being unhappy." Alex Louey and Nick Bell, co-founders of Appscore, a mobile-first digital agency now in its sixth year of operation and turning over $6 million a year, have learnt the hard way when it comes to employing Gen Y. "What hasn't worked for us: Putting the wrong people in the wrong positions through promoting too soon," Louey says. "This can have a ripple effect throughout the team and company. In hindsight, we should have offered more training and development opportunities in our early days, but we grew too fast and missed the chance." The two co-founders have learnt from that experience and now conduct weekly training sessions for all of their departments, which is proving to be extremely beneficial, as it gives their employees the opportunity to learn about other areas of the business. "We've also found it beneficial to move employees across departments to encourage their growth in the company, and that it pays to be mates with your staff members," Louey says. "It naturally engenders loyalty and respect."

Bell believes that there is a two-year window for Gen Y and if they are not happy, then they will start to look around. "Sometimes, their expectations aren't realistic," he says. "They expect the offices to be like Google's or Facebook's. In our industry, this is often perceived as a gimmick to draw people in, but we've found that it rarely results in increased focus or productivity levels. "You need to strike the right balance between fun and focus on the business and, crucially, the clients." Bell and Louey agree that letting Gen Y champion their own projects is a good way to keep them interested. "We give our Gen Y-ers challenges that they can run with and take full ownership of," Bell says. "We then ensure we reward and recognise accordingly.

"Employers that offer opportunities for professional development will always stand out as an employer of choice." But providing the ideal salary package and work environment may not be enough to keep Gen Y satisfied on any front if a recent survey is anything to go by. Upwork, a freelance talent marketplace, conducted a survey looking into Gen Y and work. They found that traditional approaches to hiring are not working for Australia's growing Gen Y workforce and their increasing demand for flexibility, creativity and freedom in their careers. The report revealed that 85 per cent of Gen Y would consider quitting their job to work for themselves, while 56 per cent believe that loyalty is an outdated concept and a further 55 per cent believe they have a more entrepreneurial attitude than the previous generation. Two-fifths of those surveyed believed that culture, people and choice were more important than earnings potential, while one-third believe they will be working for themselves within 10 years.
Yutaka Yokoi,Japanese ambassador to China.

The new Japanese Ambassador to China, Yutaka Yokoi, a China expert who previously worked in the country in other roles for more than five years, arrived in Beijing on Sunday.

Yokoi, 61, takes the post as Sino-Japanese ties have been overshadowed by the high profile adopted by Tokyo over the South China Sea issue, in addition to long-standing historical and territorial issues.

Yang Bo-jiang, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Japan Studies, said he hopes that Yokoi will play a key role in improving communication and promoting understanding between the two countries.

"But more, instead of fewer, sources of disputes between the nations are expected. Japan may interfere deeply in the South China Sea issue thanks to the implementation of its security legislation," Yang said.

Liu Jiangyong, deputy dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University, expects Yokoi to take advantage of his previous experience in China.

"The most difficult issue for the two countries is the Diaoyu Islands issue. They need to have in-depth negotiations on this topic," Liu said.

Daisuke Kondo, an editor at a Japanese magazine who once worked in China, told Hongkong-based Phoenix TV in March that Yokoi likes Peking Opera and the Chinese comedian and crosstalk performer Guo Degang.

On Friday in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with Yokoi and Masato Kitera, his predecessor, at the Prime Minister's residence, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported.

At a farewell ceremony attended by Kitera and Cheng Yonghua, the Chinese ambassador to Japan, in the Japanese capital the same day, Yokoi said he feels honored but has a great deal of responsibility in coming to China amid the present state of relations between the two countries.

With Japan being "outstanding" in technology and China having a very promising market and a population of 1.3 billion, it is imperative for the two nations to build relations in a new age, he said.

Asked by China Daily last month for any advice he would offer his successor, Kitera said the diplomat who replaced him should do things differently.

Kitera will soon take up his new post as Japan's top envoy to France.

About 5 million Chinese visited Japan last year and the number of Chinese visitors to the country each month continues to set records. According to Kitera, the number of Japanese visitors to China shows signs of growing.
We may like to think we're a party nation but Australians have the earliest bedtime of any country, according to a new study of global sleep patterns.

The University of Michigan research found cultural factors affected when people went to bed and for how long they slept. Spaniards were the latest to bed, the Dutch got the most sleep, and people in Singapore and Japan were the most sleep-deprived.

Australians are the first to turn in, heading to bed just after 10.45pm  about an hour earlier than the Spanish, who have the world's latest bedtime. Credit:Stocksy

The study used a free smartphone app aimed at reducing jetlag to collect sleep data from more than 5400 people in 100 countries.

It found that social and cultural pressures can override natural circadian rhythms, particularly in the evening, leading to delayed bedtimes. However, those who went to bed later didn't necessarily sleep later, meaning they tended to lose out on sleep.
Australia's highest court has dealt a major blow to the Western Australia government after ruling invalid legislation that would have propelled it to the top of the creditors list for the late Alan Bond's failed Bell Group.

The bill passed state parliament in November and amendments were rushed through last month in a bid to head off High Court challenges by parties including creditor Bell Group liquidator Garry Trevor, who argued the laws were unconstitutional.

The late Alan Bond, founder of the failed Bell Group, in his office in Perth in 1086. Credit:Robert Pearce

On Monday, the High Court of Australia deemed the legislation invalid in its entirety because it was inconsistent with two tax acts.

"The rights and obligations which arose and had accrued to the commonwealth as a creditor of the WA Bell Companies in liquidation and to the Commissioner of Taxation, ... are altered, impaired or detracted from by the Bell Act," the court said.
Los Angeles: An Australian backlash against Chinese property investors has driven some to look to the more open US real estate market, according to a new study.

Chinese investors, described as relative newcomers to the US market, have rapidly increased purchases of US residential properties from $US11.2 billion ($A15.45 billion) in 2010 to $US28.6 billion in 2015, according to the Asia Society and Rosen Consulting Group report.

The report examines how Chinese buying in Vancouver, Canada, and in Sydney and Melbourne has "caused intense public outcry" at what locals believe is "speculative real estate investment by wealthy Chinese that is contributing to bubble-like conditions of inflated home prices and pricing out many local residents".

Making it more difficult for Chinese to obtain loans from Australian banks and new Australian regulations has resulted in some to switch to the US.
Bangkok: Criminals could be hanged in public in the Philippines within months.

President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to re-introduce the death penalty for a range of crimes including drugs, rape, murder and robbery.

In his first press conference since winning election in landslide on May 9 Mr Duterte declared he preferred death by hanging to a firing squad because he did not want to waste bullets, and because he believed snapping a spine with a noose was more humane.
Rome: Pope Francis has criticised Western powers for trying to export their own brand of democracy to countries such as Iraq and Libya without respecting indigenous political cultures, according to an interview published on Monday.

Speaking to France's Catholic newspaper, La Croix, Francis also said Europe should better integrate migrants and praised the election of the new Muslim mayor of London as an example of where this had been successful.

"Faced with current Islamist terrorism, we should question the way a model of democracy that was too Western was exported to countries where there was a strong power, as in Iraq, or Libya, where there was a tribal structure," he said.

"We cannot advance without taking these cultures into account," the Pope said.
The Hague-based arbitration tribunal will soon announce the final results of its arbitration on the South China Sea issue. China has repeated on many occasions its non-acceptance of the unilaterally requested arbitration. That stance, which has surprised some members of the international community, is in fact quite reasonable.

Arbitration is beyond the jurisdiction of UNCLOS

The South China Sea issue boils down to territorial and maritime demarcation, which is beyond the scope of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Therefore, the dispute settlement procedure described in UNCLOS cannot be applied to this case. Mandatory arbitration is not legal and the International Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction over the issue.

As contracting states of UNCLOS, China and the Philippines should abide by the convention.

China made statement of optional exception before the Philippines filed arbitration

According to UNCLOS, contracting states are entitled to reject arbitration over disputes related to maritime demarcations, historic bays, ownership, military activities and law enforcement. Countries are not permitted to apply for arbitration over these disputes, nor does the International Court of Arbitration have jurisdiction over them.

The goals of the Philippines for this arbitration include defining the legal position of the islands and reefs, as well as maritime interests. These goals unequivocally constitute maritime demarcation. Thus, as a contracting party of UNCLOS, China has the right to reject the arbitration. China made a statement of optional exception on issues related to maritime demarcation in 2006 under Article 298 of UNCLOS, so the Philippines is in no position to apply for arbitration over that issue. By doing so, they ignored the convention.

Philippines betrayed the consensus with China

Articles 280 and 281 of UNCLOS entitle contracting states to independently choose a path to settle disputes. According to the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea signed by China and the Philippines in 2002, disputes over territory should be addressed through friendly negotiations in a peaceful manner by the countries directly concerned.

On the other hand, resolving disputes through international arbitration was ruled out by both countries.

Neutrality is not a priority for the arbitration tribunal

Whats more, four of the five arbitrators are European. They do not represent diverse global perspectives, nor do they offer the perspectives of different legal systems. Four were appointed by Shunji Yanai, a biased former president of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Meanwhile, the tribunal not only rejected China's historical practice in the South China Sea, they also deliberately neglected China's legal interests. In fact, the tribunal is nothing more than a temporary team established at the request of the Philippines. So its clear that neutrality is not a priority.

The single-sided arbitration is a violation of international laws and an abuse of power, which will only escalate conflicts in the region. It makes perfect sense that China chooses not to accept the arbitration.

This article was edited and translated from  Source: People's Daily
Miao people, an ethnic minority of China, celebrate its traditional festival "Siyueba" (the eighth day of the fourth lunar month) in Guiyang, southwest Chinas Guizhou province on May 14, 2016. (Photo/people.cn)
(File photo)

According to data released by Japan's Ministry of Finance on May 12, Japan realized its first trade surplus in five years.

The data shows that thanks to falling oil prices and a growing numbers of foreign visitors, Japan's 2015 fiscal year surplus reached 17.98 trillion yentwice as much as in the 2014 fiscal year.

According to the Tourism Bureau of Japan, in the 2015 fiscal year, a record-breaking 21.36 million foreign tourists visited Japan, which is a 45.6 percent growth from 2014. In addition, the unfavorable balance of service trades like tourism, passenger transport and freight transport has narrowed to 1.21 trillion yen.

About 5 million Chinese tourists visited Japan in 2015, for a year on year growth of 107 percent. Although Chinese tourists only accounted for one quarter of the total visitors to Japan, spending by Chinese tourists made up 41 percent of the total spending of all foreign visitors. There is even a new Japanese word, bakugai, to describe the shopping habits of Chinese tourists. Bakugai was chosen as one of the hottest words in Japan in 2015.
One arrested, two to the hospital after hit-and-run crash on I-24 in Christian County
A Chinese farmer named Zhang Xiaowen from western China's Gansu province has become a successful businesswoman who makes paintings using wheat straws, chinanews.com reported.

Zhang first discovered the craft in 1997, when she was working in Beijing. Though she never received much of an education, Zhang has a true gift for painting. In 2008, she quit her job and returned home to study wheat straw painting full time.

Within six months, she became quite skillful. Now a master in the field, the works she completes are all extremely vivid. Even individual feathers on birds are distinct.

After five years, through online and in-person sales, the sales volume of Zhangs work has continually increased. She has even hired several employees and is teaching her fellow villagers to paint for free so that they, too, can earn extra money.

Zhangs hometown in Wushan County is famous for grass-weaving. She plans to build a showroom for grass-weaving in Wushan in order to promote the local industry.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

May. 16, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 16, 2016 | 07:16 AM | PADUCAH, KY

A Calvert City man was arrested on multiple drug and other charges after a traffic stop in McCracken County Monday morning.



According to the McCracken County Sheriff's Department, shortly before 2 am on Monday, a deputy saw a pick-up truck driving along the 1100 block of Oaks Road with expired registration plates.



Deputies pulled over the truck and the driver, David Martin of Calvert City, allegedly told deputies that his drivers license was suspended for a prior DUI.



Deputies say Martin had placed a registration sticker on the vehicle that did not belong to it. Martin allegedly told deputies that he got it from a friend and that he did believe it was in fact stolen.



Deputies say Martin had an active Warrant for his arrest. Martin was arrested at which point he advised deputies that he did have a small bag of marijuana in his pocket. Search of the vehicle revealed 12 alprazolam pills, 5 individually wrapped baggies of crystal meth like substance weighing 6.1 grams that field tested positive for methamphetamine, spoon containing drug residue, digital scales, one hypodermic needle, and several other items of paraphernalia.



Martin has been charged with no registration plates, no registration receipt, failure of owner to maintain required insurance, driving on Dui suspended license- 1st offense, theft of a motor vehicle registration decal, trafficking in controlled substance, 1st degree, 1st offense- (> or 2 gms methamphetamine), possession of controlled substance, 3rd degree- drug unspecified, possession of marijuana, drug paraphernalia- deliver/manufacture.




By The Associated Press May. 15, 2016 | 04:16 PM | HARRISBURG, IL

Illinois State Police said that the man hiding in a remote area of Pope County and suspected in a police shooting was shot and killed in an early morning shootout with authorities.

At a press conference Sunday, ISP announced that Dracy "Clint" Pendleton was killed in an early-morning shootout inside an abandoned house in the Lusk Creek wilderness area. During the exchange an FBI agent was shot and wounded. The name and condition of the agent was not disclosed, but he is expected to recover.



Pendleton was reportedly spotted by police late Saturday night near the Sulphur Springs cemetery, and pursued to a nearby abandoned house.

Pendleton was charged with attempted murder in the May 7 shooting of a Mahomet, Illinois police officer during a traffic stop. A state trooper pursuing Pendleton struck and killed a 26-year-old woman who was driving her van about 45 miles away.

The manhunt continued for more than one week, with authorities closing a portion of the national forest.
By Paul Schaumburg, Graves County Schools May. 15, 2016 | 09:37 PM | MAYFIELD, KY

The Graves County High School Army Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program recently underwent its first inspection from Ft. Knox, where Cadet Command Headquarters is located.

The inspector inspected the Eagle Cadets on Platoon Drill and Color Guard. The inspector also received two mandatory briefings from Cadets on their service learning project and their continuous improvement program. The inspector also reviewed portfolios from Cadets at all levels and the Cadre (LTC Jason Caldwell and SFC Bruce Kernodle). The last item inspected was the year activity report that outlined all the various events in which the Cadets participated during the school year.

The Graves County program scored a 97.5 percent out of a possible 100 percent. That placed the program in the highest category possible, known as an Honor Unit with Distinction. Each Cadet in the program now is authorized to wear on their dress uniform the Gold Star above their name tag, signifying they are members of a HUD JROTC unit.

LTC Caldwell said, "This is a major accomplishment for the Cadets and their program. The Cadets worked long and hard to prepare for the inspection; as a result, they scored well in all categories. All JROTC programs strive to reach the HUD category and it's special to reach this category on our first inspection. We will be inspected again in three years; so due to hard work from our current senior class, our freshmen have some big shoes to fill."
By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 15, 2016 | 09:46 PM | WESTERN KENTUCKY

According to a Monday press release, Kentucky State Police will be conducting DUI checkpoints throughout the Post 1 district over the next few weeks.Officers are requesting that drivers encountering these checkpoints have their license, vehicle registration receipt and proof of insurance readily accessible.Listed below are the approved Post 1 traffic safety checkpoint locations:

BALLARD COUNTY

US 51  at old KSP/CVE Scale Facility

US 60  at Crystal Lake Road

US 60  at KY 2532 (Apperson Road)

US 60 at Bill Corner Road

CALLOWAY COUNTY

US 641S  at Barber Drive

KY 94E  at KY 280

KY 121S  MP 3.187 to MP 3.690

KY 280  at Cohoon Road

CARLISLE COUNTY

US 51  at KY 80 Arlington

KY 80  at KY 307

FULTON COUNTY

KY 125  at KY 166

KY 129  at Fulton/Hickman County line

GRAVES COUNTY

US 45S  at KY 339 Wingo

US 45S  at KY 1748

KY 94  at KY 381 Lynnville

KY 849  at KY 1684

KY 303  at KY 339 (4-way stop)

HICKMAN COUNTY

US 51  at KY 1529

KY 58  at KY 307

KY 123  at KY 239

LIVINGSTON COUNTY

US 60  at or about former Ledbetter Elementary School (between MP 5.5-MP5.8)

US 60  from MP 29 to MP 29.059 at or about Livingston/Crittenden County line

KY 866  at Coon Chapel Road

LYON COUNTY

US 62  at KY 810 (South)

KY 93 South  at KY 293 & 1055 intersection

USFS Woodlands Trace  at or about entrance to LBL

MARSHALL COUNTY

US 68  at KY 95

US 641  at KY 1422

KY 348  between MP 4.7  MP 5.0 (near Meadowbrook Circle)

KY 402  at KY 1364

MCCRACKEN COUNTY

US 60  at US 62 (Ledbetter Bridge intersection)

KY 286  at KY 726 (McKendree Church Road)

KY 450  at Puryear Highway

KY 994 (Old Mayfield Road)  at KY 1014 (Houser Road)

TRIGG COUNTY

US 68X (Bypass)  West of Howard Anderson Bridge

KY 139N  at Bush Road

KY 274  West of John Woodruff Bridge (near entrance to boat ramp)
By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 15, 2016 | 01:49 PM | MURRAY, KY

Murray State University's May 2016 commencement ceremony was celebrated Saturday in the CFSB Center on the Murray campus.

The Class of 2016 featured recipients of 1,565 degrees and certificates including eight associate, 1,142 baccalaureate, 400 master/specialist and 11 doctoral program degrees, as well as four graduate certificates. A total of 29 states and 23 countries were represented among students who participated in the 90th commencement since the university's first graduating class in 1926.

During the commencement program, the university awarded an honorary doctorate degree to alumnus Dr. Walter G. Bumphus, recognized the achievements of the 2016 Outstanding Students, and acknowledged the many accomplishments of the 2016 Distinguished Faculty.



The ceremony formally began with the Presentation of Colors by the Murray State University ROTC Color Guard. Murray State President Dr. Robert Davies presided over the ceremony with a message for graduates and a Residential College Investiture. He and Acting Provost Dr. Renae Duncan administered the awarding of degrees.

In addressing the graduates, Davies said, "You will always have a home here, at the finest place we know...As you go forward, you will never be alone. There will always be a Murray State graduate in your midst...Love life, live your dreams, use your power to make a difference in the lives of others. Do this one moment, one person, one community, one world, at a time."

Dr. Bumphus delivered the Commencement Address and received an honorary doctorate from the university. Bumphus encouraged graduates by saying, "There are going to be many opportunities presented for you as a graduate of this very fine University...I want you today to start to dream, and dream big. Think about how you can back those dreams up with hard work and dedication."

The Mace Bearer was Dr. Daniel Wann, Murray State's Distinguished Professor and a faculty member in the Department of Psychology in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts.

Outstanding Seniors Madison Embry and Landon Gibbs led the candidates for degrees and also gave the valedictions. Madison Embry received a Bachelor of Arts in accounting. Landon Gibbs graduated from the Honors College, receiving the Honors Diploma with a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture with an emphasis in horticulture/agronomy, along with a minor in photography.

Embry recognized the University for its dedicated faculty who have greatly impacted the college careers of all graduates, while Gibbs encouraged his fellow graduates to remember the love shown to them by family and friends.

Faculty Marshals assisting with the ceremony were Dr. Reika Ebert, Dr. Susana Bloomdahl, Dr. Michael Kemp, Dr. Robert Lyons, Matt Shultz and Gill Welsch.

Faculty were led in by the recipients of The Regents Teaching Awards for Excellence: Dr. Heath Keller, Jeffrey Wylie, Dr. Jana Hackathorn, Dr. Danielle Nielsen, Dr. David Fender, Dr. Christopher Mecklin and Elizabeth Price.

They were joined by Presidential Research Fellows Dr. James Duane Bolin and Dr. Bommanna Loganathan, Distinguished Researcher Dr. Howard Whiteman, University Distinguished Mentor Dr. David Pizzo, University Emerging Scholars Dr. Randall Bunker and Dr. Joshua Ridley, Faculty Advisor of the Year Dr. Michelle Santiago and the recipient of the Faculty Distinguished Service award, Dr. Dina Byers.
By Joe Jackson May. 16, 2016 | 12:54 PM | MAYFIELD, KY

As the cleanup continues in Graves County following last week's severe weather, one county official is wondering out loud why he hasn't heard from the governor's office.

Tuesday marked the one-week anniversary of the tornado that ripped through Mayfield and Graves County that left multiple homes and businesses destroyed and injured 10 people. Graves County Judge-Executive Jesse Perry says he finds it strange that he hasn't heard from Governor Matt Bevin or anyone from his office.

If I was the governor of Kentucky, I would sure be wanting to know what's going on in my state, Perry said.

Perry, a Democrat, said the governor's office hasn't contacted him, Graves County Sheriff Dewayne Redmon or EMS Director Davant Ramage. Perry said he's hoping to hear from the governor's office soon.



"If they can help, we will take their help but we are going to be alright if they don't," Perry said. "That's how I feel about them if they don't have time to check on us down here. We are a part of Kentucky just as much as Frankfort."

Stephanie Robey, Assistant Director with Kentucky Emergency Management, said they deployed staff immediately into Graves County after the tornado hit and were constantly reporting back to the governor's office.



"When we activate, we are in constant communication with the governor's office, apprising the governor and his staff as to what all is occurring and what are efforts are and what they needs are in the impacted area," Robey said. "So, I can assure you the governor was fully aware of what was going on and was assessing the information as it was flowing in to him and his staff."



Late Monday afternoon, Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton, accompanied by State Rep. Richard Heath, surveyed the damage at Grandpa's Attic on Hwy 121 North in Graves County. Hampton was in Graves County Monday for an unrelated event.

The National Weather Service has classified the tornado that tore through Mayfield on May 10 as an EF-3, with an estimated 140 mile-per-hour winds.
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Old Trafford was the scene of a major security alert on Sunday, with Manchester Uniteds final day clash with Bournemouth postponed after a suspicious device was found at the stadium. However, on Sunday evening, police confirmed that the package was nothing more than a dummy device left behind after a training exercise.

The training exercise took place on Wednesday and was run by a private company, who erroneously left one of their dummy bombs in Old Trafford. The device was ultimately destroyed by the Bomb Squad, but the whole incident has left the local constabulary with egg on their face.

Greater Manchesters Mayor and Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd vowed to oversee a full enquiry after saying that the whole situation was unacceptable. He added:

This fiasco caused massive inconvenience to supporters who had come from far and wide to watch the match, wasted the time of huge numbers of police officers and the armys bomb squad, and unnecessarily put people in danger, as evacuating tens of thousands of people from a football stadium is not without risk. The Premier League has since rescheduled the game for 8pm on Tuesday while Manchester United will be refunding tickets for the game while theyll also be allowing ticket holders in to the game, which will reportedly cost the club around 3million.

What a drama. And what an embarrassment! Although fair dues to the stadium security on the day for successfully dealing with the situation.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/05/2016 (2353 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HALIFAX  The Nova Scotia Nature Trust is hoping to bring gannet back to a small Bay of Fundy island named for the seabird.

The conservation organization says it has added Gannet Rock to the network of bird habitats it protects after purchasing it for less than $1000 at a tax sale.

This one actually was a little bit unusual in that it was the local people whove been really passionate about the birds, executive director Bonnie Sutherland said in a phone interview Sunday.

Volunteers have been really trying hard to bring back the gannet I think they have renewed hope.

Gannet Rock is a remote island off the southern tip of Nova Scotia, roughly 20 kilometres south of Yarmouth.

Sutherland says that while the barren island may not seem like an ecological gem, it is a critical stop for migrating birds along the Atlantic coast.

Earlier this month, the Nature Trust teamed up with the Nova Scotia Bird Society to ensure the nearby Bald Islands are protected.

Sutherland says the organization plans to use the land to research migration patterns, protect nesting habitats and restore historic populations, such as the Northern Gannet.

There are so few opportunities for these birds, Sutherland said. All through their range, theyre facing increasing threats.

Until the 1880s, Gannet Rock was a breeding site for the white birds with spear-like bills and spiky tails, with as many as 150 nests on its cliffs.

But the gannets were decimated after their eggs were collected for food.

The Nature Trust is now hoping to entice gannets to nest once again on the island, which is also frequented by birds such as black guillemots, Artic tern, common eider, great cormorants and the American black duck.

Seabird populations are in rapid decline, Sutherland says, but she maintains hope they will be restored.

She says its wonderful that Nova Scotians are starting to take action themselves.

With all these islands  its passionate birders who stepped forward and said, Heres a real opportunity, she said.
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OTTAWA  Finance Minister Bill Morneau met Monday for the first time with his group of hand-picked advisers who will help the federal government create a plan to boost Canadas long-term growth.

The advisory council, which also met with several of Morneaus cabinet colleagues, is made up of 14 leaders with backgrounds in business, academia and the administration of public pension funds.

Much of the discussion at the meeting north of Ottawa was dedicated to exploring how the government can work together with institutional investors, such as public pension plans, to help pay for infrastructure projects, Morneau told CBC in an interview.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau poses with members of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth at Willson House in Chelsea, Que., on Monday, May 16, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

He said he deliberately sought out the expertise of public pension funds by inviting the heads of two major plans to join his council  Mark Wiseman of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Michael Sabia of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec.

We can keep the money here, it will help Canadian retirees, so were thinking about, how can we amplify the federal investment by finding ways to work together with institutional investors? Morneau told CBC.

Were actively engaged in that discussion. That was a significant part of our day today because, as I said, we want to think about the long term and how we have the biggest impact  and theyll be part of that.

The Liberal government has committed to doubling infrastructure spending over the next decade, which will raise the overall federal investment to $120 billion.

They say increasing infrastructure spending will improve productivity and create jobs.

That extra infrastructure spending, however, will contribute to five straight budgetary shortfalls that could inflate Canadas public debt by another $110 billion.

Ottawa is seeking other sources of cash that could allow the government to expand the number of infrastructure projects while helping prevent the country from sinking even deeper into deficit.

Morneau has said investors like Canadas pension funds have international expertise investing in big infrastructure projects.

Senior Liberals, including Morneau, have been praising a funding model for a $5.5-billion light-rail proposal for Montreal. The partnership would include investments from Ottawa, the Quebec government and the Caisse pension fund.

Last week, Morneau said Ottawa is studying the Caisses plan with lots of interest.

The Finance Department said council members were joined Monday by Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains, International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi and Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk at the meeting in Chelsea, Que.

The group is also expected to look for solutions that will address concerns such as helping more graduates find jobs out of university and managing the looming economic challenges posed by the aging population.

The government said one of its primary goals is to find ways to improve the economy over the very long term by, among other things, exploring how Canada can take advantage of its skilled workforce, available resources and strong fiscal position.
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Winnipeg is viewed by some as the new Canadian hot spot for investing in commercial real estate, and hundreds of industry officials are gathering in the city this week to find out why  and to see how they can get in on the action.

Ive heard investors from Toronto say Winnipeg is the new Calgary, said Arni Thorsteinson, president of Winnipeg-based Shelter Canadian Properties Ltd. and chairman of Tuesdays fourth biannual Winnipeg Real Estate Investment Forum.

For the last 20 years, they couldnt invest enough in Calgary, but thats come to a screeching halt, Thorsteinson said. With the severe recession in Alberta, a lot of people have ceased investing (there). And to balance their portfolios, a lot of them are turning to Manitoba and are interested in lending or investing in Manitoba.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES

That view is shared by George Przybylowski, vice-president of construction and real estate at Informa Canada, which organizes the biennial Winnipeg event and 18 other real estate forums in Canada.

You look for the quality in the asset, but in this day and age, you also measure risk and you analyze risk, he said. Youre looking for stable returns that you can count on and can put away in the vault, and I think Winnipeg comes into the picture a lot in that regard. If theres one thing (you can say) about Winnipeg, its steady as she goes.

Przybylowski recalled being approached numerous times in the first half of the last decade by local real estate officials who wanted him to hold a forum in Winnipeg. He repeatedly turned them down because real estate investors in the rest of Canada showed little or no interest in attending such an event.

But that changed during the 2008-09 global economic recession, when Winnipeg was one of only three major cities in Canada still showing positive economic growth.

Przybylowski said when he contacted many of the same people in 2009 to see if theyd attend a forum about the Winnipeg real estate market, the response was absolutely! Ill be there for sure.

And when the inaugural forum in 2010 sold out, he knew there was enough interest in the Winnipeg market for it to become a regular event.

Interest is even stronger than ever, he said, with a record 650 people booked for this years event, including more than 225 from outside the province.

And we have space already put aside for 2018.

Forum participants will include real estate managers, brokers, developers and investors, as well as people involved in the financing, leasing and marketing of office, retail, industrial and multi-family residential properties.

Newly minted Premier Brian Pallister will give the opening address, followed by presentations and panel discussions about the main drivers behind Winnipegs economic growth, the major trends in the office, industrial, retail and apartment markets, availability and cost of investment capital and the type of development activities and opportunities in Winnipeg.

While the forum is a one-day event, with a chairmans reception a night earlier at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Thorsteinson said most of the out-of-town delegates will likely stay most of the week, visiting properties and discussing investment opportunities.

That should generate spinoff economic benefits for hotels, restaurants and other local businesses.

But an even bigger benefit, he said, is many of these out-of-province delegates represent major lenders and institutional investors who have billions of dollars to invest and are looking for a safe, reliable market.

There is kind of a greater concern about risk, he said.

So theyre saying, Maybe our next bet, because we dont want to take on too much risk, is to take a close look at Manitoba because its a very diversified, safe economy. We might not make 15 per cent a year like we did in Alberta, but were not going to lose our shirt. Were quite happy to earn returns of eight or nine per cent.

Know of any newsworthy or interesting trends or developments in the local office, retail or industrial retail sectors? Let real estate reporter Murray McNeill know at the email address below or at 204-697-7254.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
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BRIDGEPORT, N.S.  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an unannounced trip to Cape Breton Monday to attend the funeral of the mother of a longtime friend and senior aide.

Trudeau attended the service for Rita Butts at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Bridgeport, N.S., Monday morning.

Her son Gerald Butts has been friends with the Prime Minister for two decades, and currently serves as his principal secretary.

The Cape Breton Post posted photos of Trudeau entering the church, and of a jet with Government of Canada markings at the airport in nearby Sydney. The newspaper noted the prime minister was accompanied by a heavy security presence.

Rita Butts, a nurse and one of 11 children, died in Glace Bay last week.

The day after her death, Gerald Butts tweeted a picture of his mother kissing a child. He said that was how he wanted to remember her.

Hours after the funeral Monday, Butts wrote that he was back at work, because thats how we deal in Cape Breton.

In her obituary, Rita Butts was praised as someone who spent her life in service of helping others.

Her eagerness to help others, to a fault, was second to none. She fought hard in everything she did; playing cards like a pro and making breaded pork chops that were unparalleled, it said.

She encouraged her children to go above and beyond what was expected of them and NEVER do less than their best. She made us believe that the world held for us boundless possibilities and we were to take on every challenge with conviction.

 By Adina Bresge in Halifax
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A Winnipeg man responsible for a notorious kidnapping case has been labelled a sexual offender.

Kevin Maryk pleaded guilty Monday to repeatedly raping a woman from January 2002 to May 2006. The victim didnt disclose the attacks until recently. She cant be identified under a publication ban.

Maryk remains in custody without bail and will be sentenced Sept. 27. Lawyers told court they will make a joint recommendation for a four-year prison term, which will work out to just under two years once credit for time already served is accounted for.

The Canadian Press files Its expected Kevin Maryk will get a four-year prison term.

Maryk made headlines after he abducted his two children from their mother  who has legal custody  and fled with them to Mexico. The seven-year-old boy and five-year-old girl vanished while on a court-authorized visit with Maryk in August 2008. They werent found until May 2012 in Guadalajara.

Maryk was given a four-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2014. That penalty has since expired, as it included nearly three years of pre-trial custody.

Crown attorney Debbie Buors told court at the time that his two children were kept in deplorable conditions. They spoke of being given tequila wine, partying with young Mexican girls who worked in the sex trade and being exposed to criminal activity while being taught by Maryk that police are corrupt and can be paid off.

Provincial court Judge Ted Lismer called Maryks crime one of supreme selfishness that deprived the children and their mother of precious years together.

He gravely abused them, mainly psychologically in depriving them for four years of normal school education, association with other persons and children of their youth and depriving them of four years of personal education and betterment, Lismer said.

Defence lawyer Todd Bourcier presented a different story, saying Maryk fled with his children because he believed their mother was exposing them to risk through a high-risk lifestyle, which included previous drug use and sex-trade work.

The Court of Queens Bench family division disagreed and awarded the mother full custody weeks before the abduction.

The mother told court about the emotional trauma the children suffered, including how difficult it was to adjust to returning to her home.

Both children were denied education, medical and dental care and even friends while living under bogus identities in Mexico, repeatedly moving and being kept in homes surrounded by barbed wire and guard dogs, the Crown stated.

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A suspended Manitoba doctor has pleaded guilty to defrauding Manitoba Health by prescribing OxyContin to a pair of drug-addicted women he met in a massage parlour.

Randy Allan resolved his case Monday just as a trial was set to begin. He will be sentenced on Oct. 21, which allows lawyers time to get a pre-sentence report and forensic report completed.

Allan remains free on bail.

Dr. Randy Raymond Allan

The criminal charge surfaced after Allan was disciplined by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba in 2012 for the same indiscretions. He was handed an 18-month suspension after pleading guilty to professional misconduct.

The colleges published ruling says Allan admitted he met the two women when he visited massage parlours for the purpose of having casual sex. His relationship with those women was that he was initially a customer for prostitution services in the massage parlour.

The college found Allan failed to maintain appropriate boundaries with two female patients, and specifically that he had personal and sexual relations with them during the same periods that he was providing medical care to them.

Allan provided one woman with four prescriptions for OxyContin in 2009 and 23 prescriptions for another woman in 2010, the college said.

The college said Allan did not create complete medical records for the two women, who became patients as soon as he prescribed for them, and billed Manitoba Health for reported house calls he made for the purposes of personal and sexual relations with the women.

It is necessary to state in the strongest possible terms, that Dr. Allans actions and behaviour were reprehensible. He exploited the circumstances of two women, who, by virtue of their addictions, were particularly vulnerable, the report read.

There were also elements of financial gain and sexual gratification involved in Dr. Allans actions, all of which make his conduct particularly repugnant and wholly unacceptable.

Court documents show the date of the fraud Allan has now pleaded guilty to occurred between June 2009 and May 2010.

No financial amount was provided on Monday, although much more detailed submissions are expected in the fall.

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This article was published 15/05/2016 (2353 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The rubber hits the road for Brian Pallisters new Progressive Conservative government Monday as the first session of the 41st legislature kicks off with the throne speech.

The PCs, who last ruled Manitoba in 1999, were elected on a promise to deliver lower taxes, reduced health-care wait times and sound fiscal management.

But Pallisters pledge to slow the growth of government spending while maintaining frontline services is easier said than done, with child welfare agencies labouring to protect kids and the cost of health care and education continually rising.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Premier-designate Brian Pallister holds a news conference in the Legislative Assembly Committee Room in the Manitoba Legislative Building Wednesday. At right is a portrait of former Premier Gary Filmon. Kristin Annable / Larry Kusch story April 27 2016

Pallister has promised a budget in two weeks and a relatively light legislative agenda at first, while his ministers seek efficiencies in all government departments.

I think theyve probably got an easy time of it for one to two years because these (opposition) parties have to replace leaders and until a permanent leader is found, the parties will have difficulty getting their act together in terms of focusing their attacks on and challenges to the new government, said Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba.

This afternoons throne speech  the second to be read by Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon in the last six months  is expected largely to be a rewrite of the Tories election campaign playbook.

A week before the April 19 vote, Pallister listed 15 priorities for his first 100 days in government. He said most of his priorities wouldnt require spending and the vast majority dont require legislation.

The PCs promised to abolish a relatively new annual subsidy to political parties that provides them with operating funds based on the number of votes they receive. The Tories have never accepted the subsidy, calling it a vote tax.

The PCs are also expected to introduce legislation almost immediately to restore public plebiscites before Manitobans are saddled with major tax increases, such as an increase in the PST.

They will likely announce their intention to introduce several government reviews, audits and task forces, including a task force on health care wait times that is expected to produce recommendations on how to obtain quicker service in emergency rooms as well as for orthopedic surgeries.

Weve got wait times that are unacceptably long, Pallister said during the election campaign.

A budget will follow near the end of May, and Pallister has indicated it will include measures to reduce ambulance fees across the province and boost funding for tourism.

The PCs didnt promise voters the world to get elected. In fact, they tried to temper expectations while they work to slay a government deficit that has grown to more than $700 million.

A new budget in two weeks could show that the province was even further in the red last year than was previously thought.

The Tories plan to join the New West Partnership trade agreement that Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia established in 2010.

The Tories have also promised to improve the troubled child-welfare system by ensuring government departments and service agencies share information.

We asked for a mandate to act on three major, broad initiatives. Those being lower taxes better services and of course a stronger economy, Pallister said last week.

Pallister has promised to work toward a balanced budget, following a string of NDP deficits that started in 2009, but has not committed to a deadline.

He said last week his party was still trying to get a handle on the amount of red ink.

The NDP estimated the deficit at $773 million in March, but Pallister said it has grown since then.

After Pallisters PCs swept the province, taking 40 of 57 seats in the largest Tory victory in Manitoba history, Greg Selinger immediately announced he was stepping down as NDP leader.

Rana Bokhari flirted briefly with the idea of staying on as Liberal leader, but has since said she will step down. Bokhari, who has never held a seat, came in third in Fort Rouge on April 19.

There will be no shortage of drama, beginning today, as the new government gets its feet wet.

I think theyve probably got an easy time of it for one to two years because these (opposition) parties have to replace leaders and until a permanent leader is found, the parties will have difficulty getting their act together Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba

How effective will the opposition parties be in holding the new government to account?

Even interim NDP Leader Flor Marcelino acknowledged she isnt a strong public speaker.

Several members of her supporting cast, such as former cabinet ministers Andrew Swan (Minto), James Allum (Fort Garry-Riverview) and Kevin Chief (Point Douglas) are expected to carry a heavy load, as are experienced MLAs Jim Maloway (Elmwood), Matt Wiebe (Concordia) and newcomers Nahanni Fontaine (St. Johns) and Wab Kinew (Fort Rouge).

Marcelino underwent surgery for a brain tumour in 2002. Since then, she said, she processes questions and answers more slowly.

Im more comfortable writing. If I need to speak, Im a little challenged and handicapped if you ask me to speak right away, she said in a recent interview.

Selinger has received a relatively light assignment as critic for climate change and francophone affairs, but he may be eager to rise to ask the tough questions that used to be aimed at him.

If any of Pallisters cabinet ministers prove shaky in their new roles, there are more than twice as many Tories outside of cabinet who are eager to take their spot.

Until Finance Minister Cameron Friesen introduces his budget in a couple of weeks, the opposition parties wont have a lot to chew on during question period.

With only three MLAs, the Liberals fell one seat short of official party status.

Official status offers higher research funds and speaking rights in the House.

Newcomers Judy Klassen (Kewatinook) and Cindy Lamoureux (Burrows), along with veteran Jon Gerrard (River Heights), will have to prove the Liberal partys mettle.

MLAs will elect a Speaker before the ceremonies surrounding the opening of the legislature begins.

Veteran Charleswood Tory MLA Myrna Driedger is expected to win handily in a competition against the NDPs Mohinder Saran (the Maples).

Lt.-Gov. Filmon will leave Government House at 1 p.m. and, upon her arrival at the front stairs of the Legislative Building, will receive full military honours.

Capt. Blake Grimea will lead members of the 26th Field Artillery Regiment from Brandon and Portage la Prairie as they fire a 15-gun salute. During the salute, the lieutenant-governor will inspect a 100-person guard of honour made up of members of 17 Wing Winnipeg led by Maj. Yann Boudreau. The Royal Canadian Air Force band will provide the musical pageantry for the ceremony.

 with files from The Canadian Press

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.canick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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Premier Brian Pallister has discovered carbon pricing  but how he defines that is still anyones guess.

The only element to Mondays throne speech that Pallister had not discussed during the election campaign was to develop a made-in-Manitoba climate action plan that will include carbon pricing that fosters emissions reduction, retains investment capital, and stimulates new innovation in clean energy, businesses, and jobs.

But he refused to brainstorm those ideas Monday.

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS 105 MM howitzer guns from the 38th Canadian Brigade Group Artillery Tactical group fire Monday at the Manitoba Legislature to salute the throne speech. "To be frank, I envision a process where we come to a Manitoba position that benefits Manitobans," Pallister told reporters in a pre-speech briefing. "Im not going to brainstorm here today  we will be unveiling some positions and there is some real discussion that is going to happen among the provinces."

Cross-government cost review

The rest of the five-page speech, read by Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon in the legislative assembly Monday afternoon, reiterated many of Pallisters campaign pledges, including a commitment to conduct a value-for-money review across government. It also included previous campaign promises to establish a Premiers Enterprise Team to recommend how to grow the economy and a promise to join the New West Partnership Trade Agreement with Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

The speech touched on the Tories commitment to building tourism in the north, promising to launch the Yes! North tourism program Pallister pledged during the campaign. In terms of health and education, the speech reaffirmed his commitment to build a long-term literacy plan for children, establish a Wait Times Reduction Task Force, and immediately take steps to reduce ambulance fees.

The abolishment of the so-called "vote tax", an annual subsidy to political parties that provides them with funds based on the number of votes they receive, made it into the speech. As did a promise to restore public plebiscites before Manitobans are saddled with major tax increases, such as an increase in the PST.

Several changes that will affect the labour community were also mentioned, including a promise to restore the right to a secret-ballot union vote in workplaces and to allow all Manitobans, whether they are in a union or not, to bid on publicly-tendered projects.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Premier Brian Pallister talks to the media ahead of the throne speech Monday.

Mandate letters coming

Faced with an onslaught of questions about his governments plans, Pallister promised during a pre-speech briefing that he will release sometime this week the mandate letters he gave each new minister, telling them how theyre to do their jobs.

The mandate letters will show you the key priorities for each of the ministers, he said.

Also to be released are mandate letters Pallister gave legislative assistants.

Pallister said Finance Minister Cameron Friesen will release an update on the provinces books on Wednesday. While Pallister wasnt talking numbers Monday, its expected Friesen will say the province is in worse financial shape than the NDP claimed before leaving office. He also announced the Tories first budget will be tabled May 31.

Theres a legislative agenda to be released soon, said Pallister.

A warning

The premier warned they wont keep every promise the NDP made to Manitobans  people understood those were election promises the New Democrats didnt intend to keep, he said  and will start working on undoing damage the NDP had done. These are course corrections that wont happen overnight, Pallister said.

If it wasnt clear enough from the boards Pallister appointed to Manitoba Hydro, MPI, and liquor and lotteries, business will play a predominant role in his government.

The Premiers Enterprise Team advising Pallister on jobs and growth will be comprised of business leaders  there is no mention of labour members or of anyone from academia or community organizations.

Similarly, Pallister envisions jobs and growth in sustainable development of natural resources, including forestry and mining, but no word yet on where that may occur, and whether development within provincial parks is on the table.

A former teacher, Pallister continues to place a major emphasis on improving early years literacy, starting immediately by talking with frontliners in education. But the premier made no mention of Manitoba childrens poor performances in national and international math tests, over which there has been province-wide concern.

Pallister has already begun drawing the business community and postsecondary schools together in search of private money for scholarships and bursaries, and increased investment by the private-sector creators of Manitoba jobs.

There are no hints yet whether Pallister will use that new financial aid to remove the cap limiting tuition increases to the rate of provincial growth.

Mayor Brian Bowman and NDP Leader Flor Marcelino are expected to address the throne speech later in the afternoon.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

kristin.annable@freepress.mb.ca

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Opinion

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Gone is the green.

When Premier Brian Pallister or any of his cabinet ministers make government announcements, you will see a new podium sign with a new slogan and new colours. Gone are the green signs featuring with the words Steady Growth, Good Jobs which became a hallmark of the NDP government. In its place, you will see a two-toned blue sign that says, Manitobas New Government: Better Together.

The new podium sign is a direct steal from the Progressive Conservative election campaign, which promised a Better Plan for a Better Manitoba. Its not hard to see why the Tories would want to keep that theme going; voters responded by giving Pallister a resounding majority government.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Progressive Conservative leader Brian Pallister is sworn in as premier May 11.

Will the new slogan be extended to other government advertisements and marketing vehicles? Its already being used as the backdrop on electronic monitors at news conferences, and the Twitter feed from central communications and cabinet ministers now features the hashtag #BetterTogether.

However, according to government officials, there are no plans to launch an official re-branding or a new slogan for the province. At least not yet. But if the new PC government were to make greater use of the two-toned blue sign and Better Together slogan, it would be well within the parameters of political tradition.

After 16 years of NDP government, it was difficult to figure out where election branding ended and government branding began. Election slogans like Much Accomplished, More to Do and Building Together morphed easily into government slogans such as Steady Growth, Good Jobs. There was nothing remarkable about that process; parties that triumph in elections and are offered the chance to form government do not suddenly or easily give up on the hyperbole used in the heat of electoral battle.

And while it remains to be seen whether Pallister will expand the use of the double blue and new slogan  remember, the PCs have pledged to dramatically reduce spending on government ads  you can be sure that in Mondays speech from the throne, there will be lots of references to Manitobas New Government and its plans for a better Manitoba by working together.

Throne speeches do not only signal the beginning of a legislative session. They also allow the government of the day to establish the broad themes that it will pursue through programs and fiscal policy. This throne speech is a particularly important political event, an opportunity for the premier and his ministers to re-assure both those who voted for the Tories, and those who did not, that there are positive changes coming.

There will be some specific pledges mentioned in the speech. Every government tries to deliver on some low-hanging fruit to show it has the capacity to act on its promises. In this instance, you can be sure that Lt. Gov. Janice Filmon, who has the honour of annunciating the governments plans in the throne speech, will deliver a few tantalizing nuggets dredged up from the Tory campaign platform.

However, Manitobans should prepare themselves for a pretty Spartan plan going forward. The throne speech comes at a time when Pallister has precious little in the way of time or fiscal room to make big changes right away.

Pallister has said repeatedly he has a mandate from Manitobans to lower taxes, improve government services and boost the economy. Although that is a fair description of the themes in the Tory election campaign, it is not necessarily a list of things he will accomplish in the first year of government. They are, in all fairness, goals that will take years to realize. And there are other complicating factors.

First, the province is currently operating without a budget plan for the current fiscal year. The NDP elected to bypass a formal budget and deliver instead a fiscal and economic outlook document that relied on broad strokes to describe the state of the treasury and government services. By now, most political insiders know this was done, in large part, to avoid having to reveal the full extent of the deficit.

Pallisters government will get its chance to reveal just how bad things are when it delivers a budget in late May that will create an opportunity to formally deliver on some of the aforementioned low-hanging fruit. The throne speech will probably serve as a look ahead to that budget, with the mention of some modest tax measures, probably the promise to index income tax brackets. But otherwise, the speech and budget will spend more time focusing on the shortcomings of the former government than the vision of the new government. The deficit will be large, the economic outlook will be modest, and the demands on the Pallister government will be enormous.

It will be important to remember that Pallisters rhetoric around beginning a new era of government, and sparking a better overall economic performance, is now wholly dependent on macro-economic conditions. That is not to say the Tories cannot be better at governing; all new governments should aspire to improve upon all aspects and outcomes of the previous governments. However, these are difficult times and proof of a Better Manitoba could be hard to come by if the economy, and thus government revenues, do not surge.

Monday is historic by any measure. It is the launch of a new government with a new focus and an expressed interest in doing things better. We should all hope Pallister is successful at making meaningful improvements in government performance and outcomes. Otherwise, all well have is a lot more blue where once there was green.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
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Manitobas new minister responsible for Child and Family Services says its unacceptable hundreds of children in care are moved seven or more times in a single year.

Responding to a troubling report from Manitobas childrens advocate last week, Families Minister Scott Fielding said he found it extremely disheartening to learn some apprehended children are moved dozens of times in a 12-month period and, in 2014, two were moved an astounding 105 times.

This is something thats got to transcend politics. We need to fix the system, Fielding said in his first lengthy interview since being sworn in May 3.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Families Minister Scott Fielding says he wants to learn from Saskatchewan, which is similar to Manitoba in population and demographics, but has fewer kids in care.

The former Winnipeg city councillor, who defeated NDP health minister Sharon Blady in Kirkfield Park April 19, said a measure promised by the Progressive Conservatives during the election campaign could begin to address the problem.

The proposed Protecting Children Act would make it easier for government departments, CFS agencies and authorities, and law enforcement to share information and collaborate when dealing with at-risk children.

Fielding said the bill is being drafted and will be presented in the legislature in the governments first 100 days, as promised.

We truly think that you need to have agency organizations, stakeholders, all talking together, he said.

We think that youve got to break down some of these silos and have information-sharing that will help prevent people from going into protective care and have kids going back and reuniting with the family

Fielding promised the PCs will try to release more information than the NDP government did on cases where there is significant public interest.

He said, for instance, he has already twice asked his staff about what information can be made public on matters such as the death of 21-month-old Kierra Elektra Star Williams on the Peguis First Nation in July 2014.

Little information has been released about Kierras death  a case that has been likened to that of Phoenix Sinclair, whose 2005 slaying, while in the care of a CFS agency, was the subject of a public inquiry. Phoenix was killed by her mother and stepfather.

Three people have been charged in connection with Kierras death.

I think we need to be as open and transparent as we can, and if there is a way to provide that information, while protecting childrens rights, I think thats important, Fielding said.

Fielding, a father of three with a B.A. in economics and political science from the University of Manitoba, said hed like to see the number of children in care decline, but he realizes there are no quick fixes to a problem that has been decades in the making.

He spent his first 10 days as minister being briefed by departmental staff. He said he wants to meet soon with officials from CFS agencies, supervising authorities, frontline workers and indigenous leaders. Ninety per cent of the more than 10,000 kids in care across the province are aboriginal. Hes in the process of arranging a meeting with childrens advocate Darlene MacDonald.

This is something thats gotto transcend politics.We need to fix the system Families Minister Scott Fielding, on the problems that led to the 2005 death of Phoenix Sinclair and create havoc for other children in care

The consultation piece is immensely important, he said.

The NDP had tabled two bills related to family services that died when the election was called. One would have expanded the mandate of the childrens advocate, while the other would have provided a legislative framework for customary care, in which indigenous communities would collaborate with CFS agencies to develop care plans for kids.

Fielding said there are elements of the NDPs customary care bill that are very positive, but he wants to consult with communities before his government would introduce similar legislation. He said there wasnt total agreement about the bill, and he would want to make sure indigenous leaders are on board before introducing any new measure.

We do want to make sure that everyone is consulted  and not just agencies and organizations but also frontline workers, he said.

Apart from passing legislation that would make it easier for those in child welfare to share information, the PCs do not have a big legislative agenda in the area of CFS in the near term, said Fielding, who worked in the provinces children and youth secretariat for about 21/2 years in the late 1990s where he studied early intervention models in support of children. The secretariat evolved into the provinces healthy child initiative.

The Tories have made no secret of their interest in trying to learn from the experience in Saskatchewan, which has a population similar in size and demographics to Manitoba but with far fewer children in care.

Fielding has had discussions with his counterpart in Saskatchewan.

Were going to look at models that work. We want to reduce the number of kids in care. I dont think thats a secret, he said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 16/05/2016 (2352 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Coun. Russ Wyatt says city hall is selling itself short with its latest proposal for an eastern bus transit corridor to Transcona.

Wyatt said now is the time Winnipeg should be building an east-west link across the city using electric light trains (LRT) instead of traditional diesel buses.

Instead of building an eastern corridor we should be building an east-to-west corridor that connects the industrial and commercial areas of Transcona through St. Boniface and downtown all the way to the airport, Red River College and CenterPort, Wyatt said. Our city government is built based on a plan that is 30 years old when what is needed is a plan for the next 30 years.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Coun. Russ Wyatt said Tuesday he thinks the city's public-works department could approve more street work to be conducted this summer because other tenders have come in under budget.

Bus rapid transit is the 30-year-old plan. We need a plan that will take us 30 years into the future.

Wyatt was responding to city halls announcement on Friday for a request for proposals for engineering design teams to propose possible routes to link the downtown to Transcona as the citys second bus rapid transit corridor.

The study will be financed using a $2.5-million fund council approved in the 2016 capital budget for future transit corridor planning and design. Submissions close August 10 and the city expects to award the contract by Oct. 5.

Construction of an eastern corridor is the recommendation of Winnipegs Transportation Master Plan, which envisions a total of four bus rapid transit routes constructed by 2031 and another two corridors sometime after that.

Wyatt, who lost a council debate to convert the southwest transit corridor to LRT, said its time to revisit the council decision of 10 years ago when BRT was chosen over LRT. Winnipeg experienced unexpected strong growth over the past 10 years, he said, and if that pattern continues, the rapid transit system should be LRT.

In a province like Manitoba that prides itself on its hydroelectric capacity, LRT makes perfect sense, Wyatt said. With the new federal government investing in public transit throughout Canada, it would be foolish of us to not take advantage of this and build the best transit system for Winnipegs future.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca
The woman whose body was found early Saturday morning outside Lewiston was identified Sunday, with the man in custody and suspected of killing her scheduled to make his first court appearance Monday.

The body of Tasha Lynn Hanson, 24, of Lewiston was found in a wooded area about three-quarters of a mile east of Lewiston early Saturday after an hours-long search triggered by a tip to law enforcement.

Hours later, Kyle Benjamin Allers, 23, was arrested and is being held in the Winona County Jail on on probable cause of murder in the second degree (intentional murder) in Hansons death. He is expected to make his first appearance in Winona County District Court Monday morning.

Hanson and Allers had two children together, according to birth records, a 3-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter. Allers, whose last recorded residence is in Rushford, has a 2011 conviction for domestic assault in Wabasha County.

Hansons body was taken to the Southern Minnesota Regional Medical Examiners Office in Rochester for identification and an autopsy. No further information about the circumstances surrounding her death, or what caused her death, have been released.

This is an active and ongoing investigation, Winona County Sheriff Ron Ganrude said Sunday.

The investigation began at 6:22 p.m. Friday after an caller provided information to Winona County law enforcement about a possible homicide. Based on information developed during the course of the investigation, law enforcement personnel from several agencies began a search for the woman around 8 p.m. Friday. Hansons body was discovered at approximately 12:35 a.m. Saturday.

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents and crime scene personnel are assisting the Winona County Sheriffs Department with the investigation.
On Tuesday, anchoring CNN coverage of the West Virginia primary, host Don Lemon asked his panel of pundits, yours truly included: How could anyone vote for somebody just because they happen to have an R or D after their name?

Good question. Thats the question every Republican has to answer today. And its playing out in prime time. One by one, loyal, lifelong and leading Republicans are being forced to ask themselves what has never been in question before: Will they support their partys presidential nominee this year or not?

Ironically, we all remember, its the very first question of the very first presidential debate of the primary, on Fox News, Aug. 7, 2015, when all Republican candidates were asked to raise their hand if they were unwilling to pledge their support to the eventual nominee of the party. Only Donald Trump raised his hand. But now that Trumps the nominee, all but two of the other candidates on stage, Ben Carson and Chris Christie, have broken the pledge. At least so far.

The list of those who say they will support Donald Trump does include some heavy-hitters, in addition to Christie and Carson: Dick Cheney, Bob Dole, Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and John McCain of Arizona. Also John Boehner, Newt Gingrich, Govs. Paul LePage of Maine and Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, and Party Chair Reince Priebus. Without endorsing Trump, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio simply say they will support their partys nominee.

But the list of those who say they do not yet or will never support Trump is a lot longer, and growing stronger every day. It includes: Speaker Paul Ryan (even after his one-on-one with Trump), former Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dean Heller of Nevada, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner. Ted Cruz and John Kasich are still sitting on the sidelines.

So whats a loyal, card-carrying Republican supposed to do? In theory, since theres no third-party candidate, there are only three options: Hold their nose and vote for Trump; vote for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders; or just dont vote for president. But in practice, theres only one real option: reject Donald Trump. Dont even consider voting for him. And there are three good reasons for every Republican not to do so.

First, dont be fooled by the R after his name. Trumps bad for the party. Hes only been a Republican since 2009. Hes donated money to many Democrats, including Teddy Kennedy, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Hes broken with Republicans on many leading issues, including trade, health care, immigration, minimum wage and the Iraq War. And, if he loses as badly as expected in November, he could cause Republicans to lose the whole enchilada: the White House, the Senate, the House and the next seat on the Supreme Court. The more distance between them and Donald Trump, the better.

Second, hes bad for the country. He is, without doubt, the least qualified, least experienced, least knowledgeable candidate for president since Pat Paulsen. To this date, we dont really know where Trump stands on, or what he knows about, most issues  and what we do know is frightening. He says he has a foolproof plan to defeat ISIS, but wont say what it is, except to brag: ISIS will be gone quickly, very quickly. He also supports allowing Japan and South Korea to acquire nuclear weapons and wont rule out dropping a nuclear bomb in the Middle East or in Western Europe in response to a terrorist attack.

Seriously, Republican or Democrat, do we really want this mans finger even close to the button? As President Barack Obama reminded White House reporters last week, We are in serious times and this is a really serious job. This is not a reality show.

Third, rejecting Trump is not only the correct political choice, more and more Republicans recognize its the correct moral choice. Its becoming obvious that supporting or not supporting Trump isnt a political choice, tweeted top Mitt Romney adviser Stuart Stevens, Its a moral choice. The man is evil. To support Trump is to support the hate and racism he embodies.

By rejecting their nominee, Republicans will guarantee they lose in November. But they can rebuild their party in 2020. For now, its more important to save the country from Donald Trump.
WAUPUN  Ralland Klumpers will be honored as VFW Post 6709 Vet of the Year at the Memorial Day ceremony at Shaler Park on May 30.

Klumpers was drafted into the Army on February, 1953. He was in communications, and learned how to put up telephone wires while stationed in Japan.

While I was there I saw Hiroshima, or what was left of the city, Klumpers said. In the epicenter of the atomic bomb explosion they had a city block set off as a memorial. But already the city was being rebuilt around it. There was lots of activity.

On Aug. 6,1945, America dropped the first atomic on Hiroshima. Three days later they dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. By Aug. 15, Japan surrendered, and the war was over.

From Japan, Klumpers, a 1950 graduate from Brandon High School, went to Korea, but by the time he got there the Korean Conflict was over, so he was put on guard duty along the demilitarized zone.

There were six of us there day and night, he said.

After a year in Korea, he was shipped to Hawaii, where he was a switchboard operator.

Upon returning home, he married Berdine.

We knew each other before he left, but we didnt really like each other, Berdine said. But after he returned , well, wed both grown up.

The couple have four children, 14 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren.

Klumpers spent his career in construction, working for companies such as Visser Brothers, Daniels Construction and Westra Construction. He was part of the crew that installed new windows in one wing of the Capitol.

I still keep busy. I built my daughters home 10 years ago, and I still put siding on, Klumpers said.

Klumpers said one experience hell never forget is going on the Honor Flight in 2014.

It was great. Everyone should go, he said.
A community candlelight vigil for loved ones lost to substance abuse will be held on Saturday at the Girl Scout House, 800 Denning Ave., from 6 to 8:30 p.m.

C.A.R.E. for Dodge County is holding the vigil which will have four musical selections, a poem, moment of silence, a personal story by Cindy Hartt, message of hope by the Rev. Paul Bawden from Harvest Church in Beaver Dam, a community message by Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt and closing message by the Rev. Mike Erwin from St. Katharine Drexel Church, Beaver Dam.

The vigil is in memory of those who have lost their lives due to drug and alcohol related incidents, and those suffering from the debilitating disease of addiction, said Brenda Tratar, a board member at C.A.R.E. for Dodge County. We have brought together community leaders and spiritual leaders, resources and support groups.

Tratar said she is looking forward to people hearing Hartts message and the musical selections.

Were blessed to have a courageous mother willing to share her personal story and three very talented high school students who have volunteered their beautiful gift of music, Tratar said. Several families have shared pictures and stories and weve put them together with music in a video so that the memories of our children, our relatives and our friends who have passed, will live on in our hearts, forever honored and memorialized. Please come light a candle and join us in our efforts to bring attention to the evil forces of drug abuse.

CARE for Dodge County President Wendy Borner said Dodge County had 22 confirmed overdose fatalities in 2015.

We hope to bring a message of hope to all those who are suffering due to a loved ones life controlling addiction, Borner said. We bring awareness and education to others in order to take the stigma out of the disease of addiction.

Addiction is not a disgrace, it is a disease. We are hoping to open the doors to recovery by eliminating the stigma that has been tied to the disease of addiction. And as a community, support the families that have lost a loved one so they know that we care as a community and they do not need to grieve in silence anymore.

The community is welcome to come together to support those who have lost a loved one and or have been touched by addiction. There will be some resource tables and counselors on hand.

For more information about the vigil or any of the other work that CARE for Dodge County does, call Borner at 920-219-0341 or email carefordodgecounty@yahoo.com.
A Union Center man is charged with abusing an infant.

Jeremy R. Clark, 32, is charged with physical abuse of a child  repeater. The sentence carries a maximum sentence of not more than $10,000 in fines and 3 years and six months imprisonment. The repeater charge comes from Clarks previous conviction in Marquette County for neglecting a child.

According to the criminal complaint, on Nov. 9, a baby less than two months old was brought to St Josephs Hospital in Hillsboro. The child was transferred to Gunderson Health System in La Crosse and then UW Health in Madison due to breathing issues and uncharacteristic lethargy.

An MRI of the child revealed two subdural and subarachnoid hemorrhages. One had occurred within the previous week, while the other was from a period of more than two weeks before the MRI. Bruising was observed on the left side of the forehead and knee of the child.

Juneau County Sheriffs Department detectives later interviewed a relative of Clark about the child. The relative said when she was at the house of Clark and his wife, Christina Clark, she witnessed a suspicious incident. The relative heard a loud noise and then heard Christina Clark ask, What the _____ is wrong with you?

Christina Clark then told the relative to talk to Jeremy Clark because he had knocked the childs bassinet into the wall.

When police interviewed Christina Clark Nov. 23 she told them she didnt see how Jeremy Clark could have hurt the child, unless he bounced his head when moving the bassinet.

Detectives investigated the medical files reports related to the childs injuries and found many issues.

The child had not been ill and seemed fine at his initial one month visit. A CT scan showed the multiple brain injuries, and said, IMPRESSION: Concern for abusive head trauma.

A consultation of a doctor at Gunderson said, IMPRESSION: Concern for abusive head trauma.

Another doctor at Gunderson said the issue was, Non-accidental traumatic injury to child.

The UW Health doctors said, It has to be relatively significant traumatic injury to cause this type of injury that there are two types of hemorrhages in there. There is one that is at least a few weeks old.

Another UW Health doctor said the child was noted to have seizure activity. Per Healthlink review, the seizures were considered secondary to the subdural hemorrhages.

The doctor continued to say the victim presents bleeding in both the subdural and subarachnoid areas of the brain, and imaging does show that the area of bleeding in the spaces are of different ages. This suggests at least two separate incidences of injury leading to bleeding in the subdural space of the head. There is no reported history for how either of these episodes of bleeding have occurred.

Sheriffs deputies also spoke with an inmate who was in jail with Jeremy Clark. He said Clark told him he hurt the child while dragging the bassinet out of the room and it tipped over. He also said Christina Clark had previously dropped the baby.

A summon has been filed for Jeremy Clark to appear in Juneau County Court at 9 a.m. June 22. He is not currently in the Juneau County Jail.

He has had multiple convictions in Wisconsin  including drug and battery charges.
Attorneys challenging a series of Wisconsin voting laws implemented over the last five years argued Monday that lawmakers intended to discriminate against non-white voters by passing them.

The trial began with a former Republican legislative staffer testifying that not only was that the intent, but some state senators were "giddy" to do so.

Todd Allbaugh, who served as chief of staff to then-Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, when the state's voter ID law was passed in 2011, said there initially wasn't much enthusiasm among Senate Republicans to pass the bill.

Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, argued on the bill's behalf to her colleagues in a closed caucus meeting, Allbaugh testified.

"She got up out of her chair and she hit her finger on the table and said, 'Hey, we've got to think about what this could mean for the neighborhoods around Milwaukee and the college campuses around the state,'" Allbaugh said.

Schultz, who did not seek re-election in 2014, voiced some opposition to the bill and what it might do to voting rights, Allbaugh said. His opposition was met by a spirited defense from then-Sen. Glenn Grothman, now a member of Congress.

"At that point, Sen. Grothman cut him off and said, 'What Im concerned about is winning. You know as well as I do the Democrats would do this if they had power  so we better get this done while we have the opportunity,'" Allbaugh said.

Allbaugh said Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa, and then-Sen. Randy Hopper, R-Fond du Lac, were "giddy" and "politically frothing at the mouth" over the bill.

He said several other senators  Neal Kedzie, who resigned in 2014, Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay, and Luther Olsen, R-Ripon  appeared "ashen faced."

Others, he said, didn't show any reaction.

Requests for comment from several senators named in Allbaugh's testimony were not immediately returned.

"Restricting access to the ballot box was not simply a consequence, but the very purpose of these laws," lawyer Josh Kaul told the court, asking not only to have the laws struck down, but for a judge to find they were passed with discriminatory intent.

Assistant Attorney General Clay Kawski countered those claims, arguing the plaintiffs are using anecdotal, "one-in-a-million" cases as an argument to strike down the laws.

Kawski noted the state's increased turnout in elections that have occurred since the state's voter ID law was passed in 2011. He also emphasized that the state Department of Motor Vehicles provides free IDs to those who need them.

"Wisconsin elections are fair, easy to navigate and open to all," Kawski said.

The lawsuit, filed a year ago, contends that voting policies signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker between 2011 and 2015 violate the Voting Rights Act and several portions of the U.S. Constitution.

Plaintiffs include One Wisconsin Institute, Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund and six individuals. Arguments, heard by U.S. District Judge James Peterson, started Monday and are expected to last nine days.

The new lawsuit challenges not only the voter ID provision, but several other changes to voting practices including restrictions on early voting and the elimination of straight-ticket voting. Plaintiffs say those changes disproportionately burden African-Americans, Latinos and young voters.

Kawski said the challengers are using a "scattershot" approach by challenging a collection of laws.

Walker approved the voter ID law, which requires certain forms of photo identification to be shown at the polls in order to vote, in 2011. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty filed a lawsuit that year challenging the law. The measure was in place for the February 2012 primary, but was then blocked by orders from judges in state and federal court.

After a series of legal challenges, the requirement was in place for the first time in the Feb. 16 spring primary, and then for the April 5 presidential primary election.

This trial comes about a month after a federal court sent another case back to a district judge to determine whether the voter ID law applies to those who face significant burdens obtaining a photo ID.

The judges on that panel noted that some voters might be told they can't obtain a photo ID without a Social Security card, only to find they can't receive a Social Security card without a photo ID. Other examples of significant hurdles included people whose birth certificates were destroyed in fires and people whose names don't match their birth certificates.

The current lawsuit argues the system voters use to obtain a free ID  the ID petition process, or IDPP  isn't effective and is failing minority groups in particular.

Kaul called the IDPP "almost cartoonishly unconstitutional," noting that the majority of IDPP applications that have been denied have been for non-white applicants.

But Kawski said those denials pale in comparison to the number of free IDs that have been issued.

According to the state, 420,000 free state ID cards have been issued since July 2011, 127,000 of which were new IDs, while 1,289 IDPP petitions were filed.

Last week, Walker approved an emergency rule that would allow people who have a hard time getting a photo ID to vote with a receipt from the DMV. The rule took effect May 13.

Under the emergency rule, the DMV will issue receipts to would-be voters who are in the process of obtaining a photo ID but aren't able to provide the necessary documents in time for an election. Voters will be able to cast ballots with those temporary receipts.

Kaul argued that rule is "nothing more than a Band-Aid" designed to mask problems just long enough for the voter ID law to survive litigation.

"The state is trying to help people get ID cards. Thats whats going on," Kawski said.
Information is taken from the records of the Portage Police Department and does not represent a comprehensive list of police activity. Each individual named in this report is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Between 6:02 a.m. Friday and 5:16 a.m. Monday police responded to 121 calls.

On Friday police issued four citations for parental responsibility for juvenile misconduct resulting in three municipal citations in less than 12 months. Citations were issued to a 34-year-old Portage man, a 39-year-old Cottage Grove woman, a 34-year-old Portage woman and a 34-year-old Madison woman.

Police issued three citations for habitual truancy of students from Wayne Bartels Middle School and two citations for truancy from Portage High School

West Highway 33 and Caledonia Street: Police on Friday at 8:15 p.m. stopped Brenda Klabacka, 48, of Madison for driving with a defective tail light. She was then cited for operating a vehicle without a license as a fifth offense.

Oneida Street: Police on Saturday at 11:47 a.m. issued a warrant for the arrest of a 17-year-old Portage male who was later taken into custody for domestic-related disorderly conduct and damage to property.

MacFarlane Road and West Wisconsin Street: Police on Saturday at 2:04 p.m. responded to a report of an auto accident in which a vehicle struck a concrete barrier followed by an unresponsive driver at a stop light. Samuel Orth, 28, of Madison, was arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated as a first offense, later registering a blood alcohol content of 0.43.

Highway 16 and Interstate-39: Police on Monday at 2:23 a.m. stopped a vehicle for driving with a non-functioning plate lamp. The driver, Darrian R. Rahn, 48, of Montello, was arrested for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated as a first offense, registering a blood alcohol content of 0.114.

Slifer Street: Police on Monday at 5:05 a.m. responded to a reported disturbance where a 19-year-old female, of Portage, was arrested for domestic-related disorderly conduct, battery and bail jumping. A 20-year-old male, of Portage, was referred for domestic disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property.
Halloween at the country school was a much anticipated event

It was hard for a young student to concentrate when a Halloween party was looming at the end of the school day.
Debate around sex work in South Africa tilts towards decriminalisation

South Africa may become the first African country to decriminalise sex work.

If it does, it will be one of a handful of countries that have fully decriminalised sex work (including New Zealand and New South Wales in Australia), and the first African country to do so. Currently only Senegal makes some provision for legal sex work and subjects it to regulation.

The issue of decriminalisation has become hotly contested, with lobby groups on all sides pressing government for action. While moral conservatives call for the status quo to remain, others describe prostitution as non-consensual and advocate for partial decriminalisation and exit strategies for women. Lined up against them are calls for full decriminalisation based on respect for sex worker rights and public health grounds. The balance at present seems to be weighted towards decriminalisation, but major differences remain that reflect wider debates within the global feminist movement on sex work and decriminalisation.

Under South Africas successive colonial and apartheid regimes, sex work was largely tolerated. It was regulated only for its public nuisance aspects. Stricter legal controls were enacted for purposes of public health (fear of contagion) or to impose racial boundaries on sex and sexuality.

It is little surprise to learn that Apartheids Sexual Offences Act of 1957 (the successor to the infamous Immorality Act) not only prohibited sex between all races, but also all aspects of sex work and the creation and management of brothels.

On democracy in 1994, sex work was completely criminalised, with some uncertainty about the status of the client. This was clarified in 2007 when clients were explicitly criminalised by an amendment to the Sexual Offences Act. Many find it troubling that in a democracy committed to gender equality and womens rights, sex workers remain criminalised and generally unable to exercise their constitutional rights.

Legal reviews

Twenty years ago the future seemed different. In the wake of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1994, South Africas Department of Justice agreed to review sexual offences laws. This was with a view to decriminalising sex work so as to address the vulnerability and rights violations experienced by sex workers. This was referred to the South African Law Reform Commission, where it was overtaken by other projects addressing sexual violence.

The commission concluded its investigation with the submission of a report to the Department of Justice in 2014. This report has not yet been made public. There is, however, some speculation that the commissions depiction of prostitution in its annual report suggests a view of sex work that supports some form of criminalisation.

The departments implicit acceptance in the mid-1990s that the criminalisation of sex work violates womens rights has been taken up by gender rights and sex worker organisations who have consistently argued for legal reform. At the heart of this argument is the idea that women choose to engage in the work of sex work to make a living. The criminalisation of this work renders them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and to HIV infection. It also denies them access to much-needed services.

Sex work without interference

Decriminalisation would help reduce these multiple rights violations. It would enhance the ability of sex workers to work without interference. It will make it easier for them to seek services and redress. This view is advocated by organisations such as the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce and Sonke Gender Justice, as well as the Commission for Gender Equality. Even the African National Congress Womens League has nailed its colours to this mast.

Opposing these views are radical feminist claims that prostitution is never a choice, but rather an instance of exploitation of women. Womens lack of agency in engaging in sex work should be recognised. Proponents of this view argue that women should be assisted to exit sex work.

This has resulted in the so-called Swedish model, which seeks to eliminate demand for sex work by criminalising clients, but not sex workers. Prominent among South African advocates of this position is the lobby group, Embrace Dignity.

Call on parliament to act

Recent events have generated new possibilities of law reform on this contested issue. With no movement on the Law Reform Commission Report, Embrace Dignity turned to parliament to present a petition to its select committee on petitions. At a meeting on March 2 2016, Embrace Dignity called for an end [to] all forms of oppression against women, prostitutes and sex-trafficking. It asked that a multi-party committee examine the legal options for sex work, with the explicit purpose of eliminating the oppression of prostitution, addressing demand and implementing exit programmes.

This call was partly supported by the Commission for Gender Equality, which agreed with an investigation into forced prostitution and sex trafficking, but argued that the Law Reform Commission has already explored the legal options for sex work and called for its report to be released publicly.

In contrast to Embrace Dignity, the Commission for Gender Equality explicitly calls for the decriminalisation of adult sex work as the only viable option to promote and protect the human rights of sex workers.

Human rights for all

At about the same time as these opposing views on law reform squared up in South Africas parliament, further support for decriminalisation emerged with the release of another long-awaited document, the National Sex Worker Sector Plan of the South African National AIDS Council.

The plan was introduced by Deputy President Cyril Ramophosa in March 2016, with a clear statement of the humanity and inalienable rights of people who engage in sex work.

Citing research that found HIV prevalence rates three to four times higher among female sex workers than in women in the general population of their age group, he pledged an end to discrimination and violence against sex workers. He called for sound policies and  progressive laws that promote the human rights of all. The plan itself identifies the negative effects of criminalisation and places law reform squarely on the political agenda.

If history is to be our guide, then public health arguments are powerful motivators for reform. Many hope that the combination of public health and human rights in Ramaphosas address will underpin progressive law reform in this area to accelerate the decriminalisation of sex work.

Cathi Albertyn, Professor of Law, University of the Witwatersrand. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Protests surge as gap widens between reality and the Africa rising narrative

Self-congratulatory rhetoric keeps springing from the lips of World Economic Forum elites  at the expense of reality.

Software executive Brett Parker claims that Africa will probably remain natural resources-driven for the next two decades at least. African Leadership Universitys Fred Swaniker says, the Africa Rising narrative presents the most compelling argument for the continents prosperity.

Their statements come at a time when commodity prices have crashed to record lows. This has left societies like Nigeria in profound crisis. And in spite of petroleum falling below US$30 per barrel earlier this year and hovering at $40 today, Standard Chartered Bank economist Razia Khan argues that Uganda should keep pumping scarce investment funds into oil exploration. Production in the country will cost an estimated $70 per barrel.

The 2016 World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa, hosted in Kigali, claimed the fourth industrial revolution  the use of cyberphysical systems like artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology and biotech  as Africas future. This is because the continent is the worlds fastest-growing digital consumer market. Yet fewer than a third of sub-Saharan Africans have electricity in their homes. The summit merely reinforced extractive-industry and high-tech myths.

But there is widespread social resistance under way in Africa. Grassroots protesters are questioning the logic of export-led growth and renewed fiscal austerity. They are demanding that policies meet their basic needs instead.

Since 2011 the continent has witnessed a dramatic spike in social protests, as recorded by the African Development Bank. The wave has not receded. The bank said in its 2015 African Economic Outlook that there were five times more protests annually between 2011 and 2014 than in 2000. And after the dramatic Arab Spring  the 2011 North African democratic uprising that was especially acute in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Morocco  protesters picked up the pace in Algeria, Angola, Chad, Gabon, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and many other countries.

The power of protests

Press reports collated by the bank confirm that almost all protests since 2011 have been about inadequate wages and working conditions, the low quality of public service delivery, social divides, state repression and a lack of political reform. A few examples illustrate the impressive results of recent protests.

In Mozambique, water and food price hikes in September 2010 catalysed consumers. Text messages proposed a mass strike. This paralysed Maputo for a weekend. The protesters were met by lethal police violence. But they won: a price freeze was imposed and new state service subsidies were introduced.

In Senegal, sustained demonstrations in 2011-12 prevented authoritarian neoliberal president Abdoulaye Wade from serving a third term.

In Nigeria, the International Monetary Fund imposed the doubling of local petrol prices in January 2012. This caused an uprising that, in the subsequent fortnight, nearly overthrew the government before the increase was reversed.

In 2014 the most spectacular protest was in Burkina Faso. In the spirit of 1980s revolutionary Thomas Sankara, mass demonstrations overthrew president Blaise Compaore. The protests had begun in 2011 with vigorous Burkinabe food riots. These were put down by lethal police force that left more than a dozen people dead. Compaores attempt at a comeback in 2015 was similarly foiled.

In October 2015 South African students and low-paid university workers won the battle for a 0% fee increase for 2016 and insourcing of casual employment.

Some social turmoil is localised, taking place in the vicinity of mines and oil wealth. This is correlated in recent mappings by the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research, based on data gathered by University of Sussex researchers, and on more than 200 studies in the Environmental Justice Liabilities and Trade research projects EJ Atlas.

Labour also regularly protests in Africa. The WEFs Global Competitiveness Report authors ask businesses in 140 countries each year how they rate labour-employer relations in terms of cooperation versus confrontation. Of the third most militant countries in the world, African countries typically account for 40%, far higher than any other region.

Since 2012  the year in which 34 miners were killed in the Marikana Massacre  the South African working class has been ranked angriest. The 2015 WEF rankings for the other most confrontational workers include those from Algeria, Tunisia, Mozambique, Guinea, Chad, Liberia, Mauritania, Lesotho, Morocco, Cape Verde, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Seychelles, Ethiopia, Kenya, Cameroon and Gabon.

Financial outflows

The pressures on many African societies relate to the continents fiscal stresses, since declining commodity prices lower state revenues. These stresses also reflect the massive outflow of funds by multinational corporations via tax dodges and other illicit routes. The African Union Panel on Illicit Financial Flows last month raised the estimate to $80 billion lost each year.

There is also the matter of licit financial outflows: the profits and dividends taken offshore legally by multinationals thanks to deregulated exchange controls, which must be paid in hard currency. In South Africa, these have driven the past 15 years of current account deficits  the trade deficit plus the outflow of profits  which in turn led to a huge increase in the countrys foreign debt: from $32 billion in 2000 to $140 billion today.

What to do next? The IMFs April 2016 Regional Economic Outlook for Africa suggests that

a substantial policy reset is critical in many cases  Because the reduction in revenue from the extractive sector is expected to persist, many affected countries also critically need to contain fiscal deficits and build a sustainable tax base from the rest of the economy.

Precisely this neoliberalism  a policy reset that in reality is more of the same  is one reason for what US academics Adam Branch and Zachariah Mampilly term Africa Uprising.

Even if it is ignored in Kigali, or repressed on the ground, the popular risings against the WEFs dubious Africa Rising rhetoric await the solidarity of those with a more patriotic perspective on the continents prospects.

Patrick Bond, Professor of Political Economy, University of the Witwatersrand. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Toshiba terminates obsolete agreements with CB&I

16 May 2016

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Toshiba and CB&I have agreed to terminate a number of agreements originally signed between Shaw Group and Toshiba related to construction of two Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWRs) at the South Texas Project (STP). Since the agreements were signed in 2010, Shaw was acquired by CB&I, which later sold the reactor construction business to Westinghouse, itself a Toshiba company.

In November 2010, Shaw Group and Japan's Toshiba announced a global strategic partnership giving Shaw exclusive rights to provide engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for Toshiba ABWRs, including a contract for the planned STP reactors. Through that agreement, Shaw was to become the exclusive EPC contractor for Toshiba ABWRs in all countries except Japan and Vietnam for the next 20 years.

Shaw and its affiliate, Stone & Webster, was acquired by CB&I in 2013. Subsequently, Westinghouse - part of Toshiba - acquired CB&I Stone & Webster in December 2015.

Toshiba said it recognizes that, following the sale of its CB&I Stone & Webster unit, CB&I's business strategy is "now focused on sectors other than nuclear new build projects". As a result, it has reached agreement with CB&I to terminate the earlier agreements related to construction of ABWRs.

Meanwhile, Toshiba America Nuclear Energy (TANE), a wholly-owned US subsidiary of Toshiba, CB&I and Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA) - owner of the STP units 3 and 4 project - have also agreed that CB&I will be relieved of any future obligations related to the project.

Toshiba noted that terminating the agreements with CB&I "will improve the STP investment environment for future investors". However, it said that due to "current economic drivers in Texas and other related issues, it understands that NINA "does not plan to immediately commence construction of STP units 3 and 4".

TANE now becomes the sole EPC contractor of the STP units and will select an architect engineering company when the project moves to construction.

NINA was set up in 2008 by Toshiba and US utility NRG Energy, and applied for a combined construction and operation licence through the STP Nuclear Operating Company. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted those licence in February this year.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

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UK regulator advised on Areva-supplied forgings

16 May 2016

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Paperwork related to the manufacture of components for use in UK nuclear power plants by Areva's Le Creusot forge may contain "inconsistencies, modifications or omissions", the French nuclear regulator has advised its British counterpart. The Sizewell B reactor is the only UK reactor to feature such parts.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation announced on 13 May that it is "engaged" with the ASN (Autorite de Surete Nucleaire) and EDF "concerning the reports of anomalies and inconsistencies in quality documentation".

Earlier this month, the ASN said an ongoing quality audit at the Le Creusot forge - which Areva bought in 2006 - had identified "irregularities" in paperwork on some 400 plant components produced there since 1965. The issues "comprise inconsistencies, modifications or omissions in the production files, concerning manufacturing parameters and test results". About 50 of these parts are thought to be in service at French nuclear power plants, according to Areva.

The ASN asked Areva to provide a list of the parts concerned as soon as possible, "along with its assessment of the consequences for the safety of the facilities, jointly with the licensees concerned". Areva said in early May, "At this preliminary stage, no information has come to light that would jeopardize the mechanical integrity of the parts."

The ONR said, "Areva is in the process of completing the characterization of these historical irregularities and their consequences, and has committed to contact affected foreign customers by 31 May".

The British regulator added, "We will await the conclusion of the Areva review before deciding whether there is a need for any specific intervention in the UK."

The ONR said it believes the irregulaties in paperwork occurred before any procurement of forged parts for the two EPR reactors planned for Hinkley Point C.

However, it noted that the Sizewell B reactor is the only one in the UK that has a small number of reactor components supplied by the Areva facility. The 1198 MWe plant, which started up in 1995, is currently the UK's only operating pressurized water reactor.

"This reactor is currently shut down for its scheduled outage and we will be seeking the necessary assurances for the reactor components before we permission the restart of the Sizewell B reactor," the ONR said.

Areva's Creusot Forge and Creusot Mecanique subsidiaries are specialized in the supply of big forgings and castings destined mainly for the nuclear industry. Creusot Forge is one of a few facilities that can produce the heavy nuclear-grade forgings required for large components such as steam generators, reactor pressure vessels and primary pumps. Creusot Mecanique, meanwhile, carries out precision finish machining on large components.

The upper and bottom heads of the reactor pressure vessel for the EPR under construction as Flamanville 3 EPR were manufactured at the Le Creusot facility in September 2006 and January 2007, respectively. A high carbon content in those parts prompted Areva to review the company's quality process in 2015.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

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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
Ruby Rose

By: Mahesh Sarin

A popular actress of Australia, was kicked out of a restaurant in Louisiana, after being accused of throwing French fries at employees.

Ruby Rose, who played Stella in Orange is the New Black, was kicked out of the Rebellion Bar and Urban Kitchen on Friday.

Rose also works as an Australian model, actor and DJ. Seung Hong, who is the owner of the restaurant in New Orleans, said that Rose was having a tantrum like a little child.

As Rose was throwing the French fries around, she cursed the employees of the restaurant. Rose was in New Orleans this week, to perform at the Metropolitan Nightclub.

Rose went crazy after it took too long for waiters to bring the food that she ordered. After getting violent, she was told to leave the restaurant.

My assistant, tour manager and myself arrived at an establishment last night for dinner before my show in New Orleans.

aWe waited 60 minutes for fries and over 90 minutes for food that never actually arrived. When I asked about the food, the bartender offered us drinks. I explained Im sober, but thank you.

aHe then made some really rude and vulgar comments to us at the table. When someone makes repeated derogatory jokes about the sobriety I worked so hard to achieve, its hard not to react emotionally. So I threw a singular fry at him.

aThen he came back as we were getting ready to leave and continued making awful comments, so I continued with the fries,a Rose wrote on Facebook.
Car Destroyed & House Damaged in Early Morning Arson Attack in Gresford

This article is old - Published: Monday, May 16th, 2016

A car has been destroyed and a house has been damaged following an arson attack in the early hours of this morning.

Earlier this morning one resident contacted Wrexham.com regarding a fire on Chester Road, Gresford  which took place just across the way from Texaco Garage in the early hours of this morning.

A spokesperson for North Wales Fire and Rescue Service confirmed they were were called to a car fire on Chester Road at 12:45am this morning.

Two appliances from Wrexham attended the vehicle fire, which also spread to a nearby property and shed.

A thermal imaging camera and two hose reel jets were used to extinguish the blaze.

The vehicle was left with 100% smoke damage  while exterior damage was caused to the nearby house and shed.

A spokesperson for North Wales Fire and Rescue Service confirmed the fire was started deliberately.
Rail Services Between North Wales & Manchester Airport to Increase From Today

This article is old - Published: Monday, May 16th, 2016

Rail services between North Wales and Manchester Airport are to increase from today  providing an additional 40 services between the two locations for passengers.

On Friday, news finally came through to Arriva Trains Wales that the Office for Road and Rail  which had been scrutinising their application to increase rail services  had given their approval for new services to be run.

Arriva Trains Wales will now run six new services to and from the airport from Chester on weekdays and 10 return services on Saturdays.

The news has been welcomed by Wrexham MP Ian Lucas who has been part of the long-running campaign for better rail links between Wrexham and Manchester Airport.

He has met with Arriva Trains  who will be providing the services  with Manchester Airport staff, with fellow MPs  and even raised the issue directly with the Prime Minister in the Commons.

Mr Lucas said: I am absolutely delighted that this campaign has paid off. It has been long-running and hard-fought, but we have got there  and what a result.

The approval from the ORR means that Arriva can put their plans into action immediately. That will mean new services linking North Wales directly into Manchester Airport are now up and running  and that is good news for businesses and holidaymakers alike.

It had looked at times as though these services would not get the go-ahead. That is one of the reasons why I was so persistent in making the case for them  to regulators, to transport bosses, and even to the Prime Minister.

That campaign has paid off and the new train service is underway. This is excellent news.

Across North Wales the number of services to and from Manchester Airport will increase from 17 to 57.

Manchester Airport spokesman added: There are more than 22 million people within Manchester Airports two hour catchment area, including a significant number from North Wales.

We are supportive of any move to improve connectivity to the UKs third biggest airport and the addition of 40 direct services a week will deliver a significant boost to both leisure and business travellers.

This will mean more people than ever before from North Wales will be able to access our network of flights to more than 210 destinations.
In a demonstration of the backwardness and reactionary character of Australian capitalist law, a 12-year-old child from the regional city of Rockhampton was forced to apply to Queenslands state Supreme Court recently for the right to an abortion.

The girl, named by the Court as Q, was nine weeks pregnant to a 12-year-old boy, who was reported by the court to have no knowledge of the pregnancy. Q had a history of mental ill health and self-harm and was seen by her parents, social workers, doctors, obstetricians and psychiatrists as being at grave risk should the pregnancy proceed.

Despite that, the girl was forced to take her case to court, due to the continued presence of antiquated laws criminalising abortion. Ultimately, after an anguishing month-long delay, the court allowed the abortion to go ahead, agreeing the child was mature enough to grant consent to the termination.

Queensland public health officials took the matter to court after doctors, the girl and her parents all agreed that continuing the pregnancy could cause her physical and emotional harm.

In a judgment delivered on April 20, Justice Duncan McMeekin ordered that she be allowed to take the drugs Mifepristone and Misoprostol to terminate the pregnancy by April 23. If the drugs failed to cause the abortion, the court ordered that the pregnancy be terminated by surgery.

Earlier this year, according to an affidavit, Q had run away from home, attempted suicide and found pregnancy very stressful emotionally. Her mother told the court there was a very real risk of self-harm and or suicidal behaviour, if the pregnancy was to continue.

In the state of Queensland abortion remains a crime under the Criminal Code for both the woman having the procedure and doctors performing it. It can result in a sentence of up to seven years imprisonment for the woman and 14 years for the doctors involved. Abortion can only be considered lawful if a doctor believes the mothers mental or physical health was in serious danger if she continued the pregnancy.

Justice McMeekin stated: Qs consent to the procedures does not of course make them lawful  [sections] 224 and 225 [of Queenslands Criminal Code] still make those actions unlawful unless authorised or justified by law. However, he said the risk of harm to the girl meant the court could legally order the abortion.

Yet, in effect, abortion is readily available to those who can afford itin privately-run clinics. The cost of an abortion in Queensland is between $480 and $1,370. Even if the woman qualifies for a rebate under the Medicare health insurance scheme, the cost can be up to $800. That is nearly double the fortnightly income of someone on Newstart unemployment benefits.

This highlights the class nature of abortion law. Wealthy women have long been able to have abortions, but working-class women and girls can be denied the procedure in public hospitals, potentially leaving them in the hands of backyard operators.

Governments, both Labor and Liberal-National, pander to right-wing forces that denounce access to abortion, which is a basic democratic right. The Australian Christian Lobby spoke out publicly against granting the girl an abortion, saying she should give birth and put the baby up for adoption. It also raised the issue of informing the father of the pregnancy.

A similar case was heard in the Queensland Supreme Court in 2008 when a 12-year-old girl with a mental capacity of a six-year-old, sought to have a pregnancy terminated in a public hospital. In that case too, the court ordered that doctors be allowed to end the girls pregnancy, because it was in her best interests.

State government lawyers, representing the girls doctors, brought the matter before court. The court heard that because of the girls age and mental capacity, neither she nor her parents were legally able to give consent for a termination and a court order was required. The court ordered doctors to use the drug Misoprostol to induce labour, because there was a high risk that other methods could seriously harm the girl.

Abortion is still the subject of criminal law in all Australian states and territories, except the Australian Capital Territory, where it is legal, provided that it is performed in a medical facility, by a registered medical practitioner.

Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory have legislation defining when an abortion is lawful. In these states, common law interpretations of the Crimes Act or Criminal Code have had the effect of making lawful abortion generally available, but the time limits for seeking the procedure differ, ranging from 14 weeks gestation to 24 weeks.

In the Northern Territory, abortion is only legal up to 14 weeks, if two doctors agree a womans physical or mental health will be endangered by the pregnancy or the unborn child were to be born with a serious disability. There is further provision for an abortion to be performed up to 23 weeks gestation in an emergency to prevent grave injury to the woman.

In Queensland, due to a torturous history of prosecutions and the retention of ambiguous legislation by successive governments, many public health facilities are unwilling to carry out abortions, for fear of criminal sanctions.

In a historically significant case, Doctors Peter Bayliss and Dawn Cullen, a doctor and anesthetist from a clinic at Greenslopes in Brisbane, the Queensland state capital, were charged with providing unlawful abortions in 1985, following police raids on the clinic.

After months of public outcry, they were both acquitted when the case came to trial in early 1986. Due to the courts verdict, an abortion is considered lawful in Queensland, if carried out to prevent serious danger to the womans physical and mental health from the continuance of the pregnancy. This ruling, however, did not specifically refer to abortion, only surgical procedures, leaving particularly unclear the issue of abortions procured by the prescription of medications that result in miscarriage.

Another significant case regarding Queenslands abortion law involved a young couple in the northern city of Cairns, Tegan Leach and Sergie Brennan. They were tried for procuring an abortion in 2010, and only acquitted after months of protests. This prosecution, which occurred under Premier Anna Blighs state Labor government, involved the use of miscarriage-inducing medications to cause miscarriage.

In 2009, Blighs government enacted section 282 of the states Criminal Code to define a lawful medical procedure, but avoided specifically mentioning abortion. This led to the expansion of expensive private abortion clinics, but many public health facilities will not perform procedures without court orders, leaving access patchy for working-class women.

Hence, the shocking ordeal suffered by the 12-year-old girl from Rockhampton.

The author also recommends:

Dangerous Remedy: Bertram Wainer and the struggle for abortion rights

[3 December 2012]

Australia: Howard government seeks to provoke abortion debate

[16 December 2004]

Forty years after Roe v. Wade: Abortion rights under sustained attack

[28 January 2013]
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong last week announced a dramatic expansion of Singaporean military training in Australian facilities, as well as a strengthening of economic relations. Despite official denials by both governments, the agreement is clearly directed against China, amid rising US-generated tensions over the South China Sea.

The ruling elites of both countries are boosting their militaries and strategic ties as part of Washingtons pivot to Asia geo-political strategy to encircle China, while trying to protect their own predatory interests in the Asia-Pacific region.

The military agreement will begin to operate in 2017. It will more than double the number of Singapores troops training in Australia each year, from 6,000 to 14,000. Singapore will spend $US1.7 billion to expand facilities at the Shoalwater Bay Training Area and the Townsville Field Training Area in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland.

Singaporean troops have been training in the area since 1990. Under the new arrangement, Singapores military will have access to the bases from February to May, and August to November, for unilateral land training. Singapore and the US are the only two countries building such facilities in Australia, and both are expanding them substantially.

A Wall Street Journal article noted: Under the deal, the Southeast Asian city-state will follow the US in beefing up military ties with Canberra and using Australias vast training areas to carry out military exercises. The US Marines and US Air Force have been expanding their footprints in the northern Australian port of Darwin as part of Washingtons rebalance of forces to the Asia-Pacific region.

Singapore stands abreast the sea routes carrying one third of all global maritime trade annually. The island state is vital to the Pentagons anti-China military strategy, originally labelled the AirSea Battle plan. This plan involves shutting off Chinas energy and trade routes to the Middle East, Europe and Africa, in cooperation with Singapore and Australia as part of a broader anti-China alliance involving Japan and India.

Prime Minister Turnbull described the agreement as a landmark deal and a massive upgrading of our relationship with Singapore. Questioned by journalists, he sought to downplay the anti-China character of the agreement, anxious to keep the military implications buried during the campaign for Australias July 2 federal election. Weve had a close strategic relationship with Singapore for many years and this will be seen around the region as a natural development from the strong relationship we have, Turnbull said.

Singaporean ministers, however, were more blunt. Prime Minister Lee emphasised: Defence cooperation will be stepped up. Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said the deal would set economic and military ties with Australia on a completely new trajectory, accompanied by greater sharing of intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation. It showed the alignment in the way both countries viewed the world.

Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said greater access to Australias training areas was a wish come true! The agreement would sharpen Singapores armed forces into one of the most well-trained and proficient militaries in the region. Last month, he told parliament that rising nationalism was driving Singapores increased defence spending. He pointed to this troubled peace around us, a reference to disputes in the South China Sea.

To any imperialist power operating in the East Asian-Indian Ocean area, Singapore has always been vital. When the island, Britains bastion in the Far East, was lost in February 1942 to Japan, it signalled the end of Britains empire. Today, Singapore has the biggest military budget in South East Asia, spending $9.4 billion last year.

The small island, effectively a one-party state dominated by Lees Peoples Action Party, with a population of just 5.67 million, has 72,000 regular armed force members, of whom 45,800 are conscripts, and 950,000 active reserves.

Encouraged by the US, Singapore has been ramping up its military spending, from about $8 billion in 2011 to an expected $10.7 billion within five years, funding new warplanes, attack submarines, patrol ships and helicopters, as well as naval military transports, thus projecting a regional military presence.

Singapore has granted Washington the right to base four naval frigates, designed for operations in the South China Sea, and to fly P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft from the island, thus covering the entire area in which the Pentagon is challenging Beijings territorial claims.

Peter Jennings, executive director of the government-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the very positive agreement was motivated on Singapores side by concerns that the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) was struggling to respond to the heightened frictions in the South China Sea. They wouldnt say this publicly but they are concerned about ASEANs inability to come up with a coherent and consistent response to China, he said.

Washington has provoked these tensions by encouraging ASEAN members, particularly, Vietnam and the Philippines, to confront China over its claims in the South China Sea, and by reestablishing US bases in the Philippines. Indonesia has begun to expand its maritime and military forces and Malaysia has increased military cooperation with the US. In every case, Washington is urging higher military spending in its determination to stop China developing as strategic rival to US hegemony in East Asia.

The uncertain outcome of the American presidential elections and its possible effect on US foreign policy have given added impetus to regional powers seeking to protect their interests with bilateral security deals. Global economic stagnation is further fueling the geo-political anxieties.

At the centre of the Turnbull governments election campaign economic plan is a military industry plan of building submarines and warships. Altogether, annual defence expenditure will rise to $A59 billion by 202526, with an emphasis on the navy and air force. Total military spending will be at least $A495 billion over the next decade. This will enable Australia to play a key role in the AirSea Battle plan and, in the event of war, block vital trade routes to China, including those through Indonesias Sunda and Lombok straits.

Regardless of whether Turnbulls Liberal-National Coalition or the Labor Party heads the next government, this expansion is to be paid for by sweeping cuts to public education, health care, wages and social welfare. It was the previous Labor government, with the support of the Greens, which agreed to US basing rights in northern Australia, the rotation of US marines in Darwin and the flying of strategic US bombers out of the northern city.

In announcing the Singapore deal, Turnbull cynically focused on the supposed construction boom to be provided by the city-states spending on the military bases in the Townsville region. This is all part of our economic plan that builds on the Coalitions Northern Australia Policy and the Defence White Paper, he declared.

The collapse of the mining boom has produced severe job losses in Townsville and throughout Queensland, where the government is desperate to cling onto parliamentary seats in the July 2 election.

The reality, which is being hidden from public view as much as possible, is that the expansion of the Queensland bases is another expression of the increasing transformation of the Asia-Pacific region by the US and its allies into a militarised tinderbox.
Canadas Liberal government unveiled a public review earlier this month of the operations of the state-controlled Canada Post. The review is designed to provide cover for the government to restructure Canadas postal service to make it a more profitable concern at the expense of postal workers.

During last years federal election, the Liberals made much of their opposition to the Conservative-backed plan to end home delivery by 2018, but it is clear that their alternative agenda offers nothing to Canadas approximately 50,000 postal workers other than further job cuts and attacks on working conditions.

Even in the event the Liberals ultimately decide to retain home delivery, Public Services and Procurement Minister Judy Foote made clear that it would be bound up with a continuation of the assault on working conditions and service cuts. She told a recent press conference, Theres a potential here for restoring home mail delivery. The question is, is it restored on a two-day a week, three-day a week, five-day a weekwe need to hear from Canadians what they need.

More fundamentally, the Liberals have set themselves the explicit goal of making Canada Post a more profitable concern, a task that can only be enforced at the expense of postal workers.

None of this stopped the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), and its self-styled left president Mike Palecek, from hailing in an unrestrained manner the Liberals review. This government has a historic opportunity to reinvent Canada Post. Were glad privatization isnt on the table. We need to get out of the rut of endless cuts, and start getting excited about the possibilities, Palecek enthused in a press release greeting the Liberal announcement.

Palecek and CUPW fully accept the reactionary premise that Canada Post be run as a profit-making business, and have consciously separated postal workers opposition to service and job cuts from a broader struggle in defence of public services. To this end, they advocate Canada Posts expansion into postal banking operations, which the World Socialist Web Site has previously characterized as a reactionary pipe dream.

CUPWs hailing of the Liberals phony consultation pledge reflects a broader reorientation of the union bureaucracy in the wake of the Liberals and Justin Trudeaus ascension to power. The unions spearheaded an anybody but Harper campaign during last years election modelled on a similar 2014 initiative in Ontario, which saw union bureaucrats back a right-wing Liberal government of austerity and privatization. A leading role in the federal pro-Liberal campaign was played by Palecek, who only months before was a prominent leader in the pseudo-left Fightback group.

Fightback maintained a studious silence on the evolution of one of its former members into a leading union bureaucrat, even when Palecek and the union top brass consummated their pro-Liberal agitation by attending a closed-door meeting with Trudeau, a week after he was sworn in as prime minister, to pledge their readiness to work in collaboration with the new government. Such pledges were aimed at securing the privileged positions of the union bureaucracy and reassuring the ruling elite of their steadfast support in the intensification of attacks on the working class under conditions of deepening economic crisis.

Paleceks latest statement proves that the unions will not shy away from flat-out lies to cement their cozy working relationship with the Liberals. His assertion that privatization is not on the table is a deliberate effort to deceive postal workers. In truth, while the public services minister stated that full-scale privatization was off the table, Foote made a point of noting in her announcement that nothing has been ruled out prior to the review.

The composition of the panel of four experts appointed by the government to oversee the process gives an indication of its potential outcome. One figure is Krystyna Hoeg, a board of directors member at Shoppers Home Health Care, one of Canadas largest pharmacy chains where many franchised, i.e., privatized, post offices are now based. The retail workers who man such outlets typically earn around half of what postal workers paid by Canada Post do.

CUPWs endorsement of the Liberals phony public consultation is the logical consequence of its pro-capitalist outlook and a years-long record of right-wing betrayals of postal workers struggles. In 2011, in the immediate aftermath of the election of a majority Conservative government fully committed to backing an assault on postal workers wages and working conditions, CUPW called a series of toothless rotating strikes aimed at allowing the increasingly angry postal workers to let off steam, while causing as little inconvenience as possible for the postal service. The Conservatives first encouraged Canada Post to impose a lockout, then implemented legislation to force postal workers back to work, which met with the approval of the Liberals who vowed to do nothing to prevent the laws passage.

For its part, the official opposition at the time, the New Democratic Party (NDP), mounted a fraudulent pose of opposition and filibustered the bill for a brief period. The filibuster was a manoeuvre worked out in close collaboration with the CUPW leadership to send postal workers back to their jobs and avert a serious struggle. CUPW soon told the NDP to end its filibustering activity and acquiesced to the back-to-work order without a fight. It subsequently agreed a sell-out contract with Canada Post, citing the governments threat to impose an arbitrator to justify its acceptance of sweeping concessions.

Five years later, the Ontario Superior Court belatedly ruled late last month that the Conservatives reactionary 2011 law, which banned workers from taking job action by threatening them with the imposition of exorbitant financial penalties, was unconstitutional.

Palecek and the CUPW could hardly contain their excitement, with the CUPW president declaring, This is a win for workers everywhere.

In truth, the ruling changes little for postal workers. It left untouched the concessions contract agreed to by CUPW and Canada Post. Palecek claimed it could have an impact on current talks between the two sides on a new collective agreement, suggesting that it would restrain the company. The spreading of such fatal illusions in the capitalist courts, which have time and again enforced anti-worker strikebreaking legislation, is designed to prevent the workers from taking the struggle into their own hands.

Canada Post has already requested the Liberal government appoint conciliators to help broker a deal, and Palecek has responded by threatening strike action. Strike ballots are to be organized by CUPW in late May and June. Striking a hardline pose, Palecek declared his determination to lead a strike if bargaining breaks down, stating, Were telling people to get ready for that eventuality. If they want to go that route, well see them on the picket lines.

Paleceks attempt to lay the blame for the defeat of the 2011 strike at the door of the Conservatives reactionary anti-strike law, and present its overturn as a new dawn for a successful struggle by postal workers, is thoroughly dishonest. In truth, former prime minister Stephen Harper was only able to succeed with his right-wing project, which marked the beginning of a much broader assault on the right to strike, because of the hostility of the CUPW bureaucracy and the unions as a whole to waging any genuine struggle to oppose him.

Palecek emerged at the head of CUPW when workers, angered by the repeated betrayals, threw out the old leadership in May 2015. But he has made explicit ever since that he has no intention of changing course. In an interview on the eve of becoming CUPW president, he foisted the blame for the unwillingness of the unions to challenge Harpers anti-strike laws onto the workers themselves in an interview with the RankandFile.ca web site.

He declared, The rest of the labour movement must be ready to stand up to the government, and rank and file workers have to be ready to go the distance.  I have a good idea of what it takes to force a government to back down, and have promised our members I am willing to lead them as far as they are willing to go.

To defend their jobs and working conditions, postal workers must break with all illusions in the viability of a struggle waged by the reactionary trade union bureaucracy. Only an uncompromising fight against the right-wing policies advanced by the CUPW and Palecek and the creation of rank-and-file action committees independent of the trade unions can provide the basis for the development of a struggle among postal workers in conjunction with workers confronting similar attacks in other sectors of the economy.

Postal workers must reject the pro-capitalist premises of the campaign for a postal bank and take up the fight for the creation of a workers government to organize the postal service, and all other essential public services, as public utilities serving human need and not the profit interests of the ruling class. Accomplishing this requires the adoption of a socialist and internationalist programme.
The Nevada state Democratic Convention broke up in chaos Saturday after the pro-Clinton chairwoman, Roberta Lange, declared Clinton had a narrow majority of delegates. The announcement came after 58 prospective Sanders delegates were ruled ineligible, enough to tip the balance against him.

Armed sheriffs deputies dispersed the convention delegates, numbering several thousand people, after Sanders supporters refused to vacate the Paris Las Vegas Hotel ballroom, where the convention had assembled Saturday morning.

Clinton won the party caucuses in February by a 53 to 47 percent margin, but faced the likelihood of losing her majority among delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia because of a higher Sanders turnout at county conventions, particularly Clark County (Las Vegas), which accounts for more than half of the states population.

The same thing happened to Clinton in 2008, when better-organized Obama supporters converted a narrow loss in precinct caucuses into a victory at the state convention. This year, Clinton supporters in the Nevada Democratic leadership intervened to make sure that did not happen again.

A total of 58 Sanders delegates were ruled ineligible because they were not registered Democrats on May 1 or because their personal information was incomplete, a purely technical violation of party rules. Only eight Clinton delegates were disqualified under the same rules. After these delegates were stripped of voting privileges, Lange announced that Clinton had 1,695 delegates to 1,662 for Sanders.

The narrow majority for Clinton meant that the Democratic frontrunner would gain two additional delegates from Nevada, with the states 35 elected delegates divided 20-15 instead of 18-17. There are eight other super-delegates from Nevada. Only one is publicly backing Sanders, while four have pledged to back Clinton and three are nominally uncommitted.

The tensions between the two camps were palpable in the course of the debate over delegate qualifications. When Senator Barbara Boxer of California, a leading Clinton supporter, called for unity, she was booed by Sanders delegates. She then replied, Go ahead, boo yourselves out of this election.

The main representative of the national Sanders campaign, former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner, urged delegates to remain calm but committed and not disrupt the convention. I do understand that you are disappointed. I get it, she said. But the best way to fight our disappointment is to make sure that we stay here and make sure that Senator Bernie Sanders wins today.

As the proceedings became increasingly contentious, Lange declared the convention adjourned and fled the stage. Several dozen sheriffs deputies then marched in and ordered the delegates to disperse, telling them, Leave in an orderly fashion. We dont want to arrest people. Then the lights were turned off and the delegates left the premises.

According to reports in the Las Vegas press, the Sanders campaign had elected about 400 more delegates at county conventions than the Clinton campaign and expected to prevail at the state convention, which would have slightly narrowed Clintons margin in the delegation to Julys national convention.

The Nevada convention only underscores the rising dissatisfaction among Sanders supporters with the heavy-handed approach of the Democratic Party leadership in steering the outcome of the nomination campaign and the running of the national convention in Philadelphia in favor of Clinton, the overwhelming favorite of the party establishment.

Sanders protested last week over the decision of the Democratic National Committee to pack the conventions three main committees with Clinton supporters. While the bulk of the committee members will be chosen proportionally from the two campaigns, the DNC itself selects 25 delegates for each committee, and those it selected included only a handful of Sanders supporters.

The manipulation of the outcome continues in the primary elections to be held Tuesday, May 17 in Oregon and Kentucky. Both are closed primaries, with only registered Democrats permitted to vote, a plus for Clinton, who has won the majority of registered Democrats in most primaries, but has trailed Sanders heavily among registered independents when they have been allowed to cast a primary ballot.

While taking a hard line against the supporters of her self-identified democratic socialist opponent for the nomination, Clinton has adopted a much more welcoming approach to conservative Republicans dissatisfied with the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Her campaign has churned out email announcements to the media trumpeting almost every criticism of Trump by conservative Republicans, particularly over foreign policy, where Clinton seeks to become the consensus choice of the foreign policy establishment in both parties and the military-intelligence apparatus as a whole.

Clinton called attention to the remarks of former secretary of defense Robert Gates, who appeared on the CBS Sunday interview program Face the Nation, praising Clintons performance as secretary of state in the Obama administration while criticizing Trump for his unduly soft approach to Russian President Vladimir Putin. I have some real issues with things hes said about national security policy, and some concerns, Gates said. I have no idea what his policy would be in terms of dealing with ISIS. I worry a little bit about his admiration for Vladimir Putin.

Another email noted that at the Wisconsin state Republican Convention, Governor Scott Walker, the notorious right-winger who attacked state public employees and pushed through restrictions on the right to vote, made no mention of Trump in his keynote speech.

Yet another email, from former Bill Clinton and Obama economic aide Gene Sperling, attacked Trump for undermining the confidence of financial markets in the US government by suggesting that a Trump administration might not repay US federal debt at its current market value. Sperling wrote that there was also no shortage of Republicans who were also left wondering how much damage would have been done to the economy and markets if it had been a President Trumpspeculating how he might strategically seek to avoid paying full value on our debt.

Clinton is also positioning herself to be the favored candidate of Wall Street, where Trump is viewed by some as unpredictable and, in his personal business dealings, a poor credit risk. According to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Clinton has collected 70 percent of the money donated by employees of the six largest US banks, while the financial sector as a whole is the largest single donor to Clintons super PAC, Priorities USA Action, accounting for $26 million.
Enda Kenny, the leader of Fine Gael in the Irish Republic, formed a minority government May 6 after securing a guarantee by Fianna Fail that they would abstain from voting against him as Taoiseach (prime minister).

After weeks of negotiations with independent members of parliament (TDs), and a pledge by Kennys negotiating team that his programme for government would address the continuing social crisis of homelessness, poverty, and lack of hospital beds, he was elected prime minister with 59 votes in favour and 49 votes against, in the fourth attempt in 10 weeks to elect a government.

Since the beginning of March, pressure had been built up by the establishment press for Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, both right-wing bourgeois parties, to come together in a coalition.

The two parties origins can be traced back to the Irish Civil War and the treaty settlement of 1922, which ratified partition. This has made for tribal loyalties spanning generations, particularly outside Dublin that militates against a formal coalition. But the major obstacle is based upon contemporary political calculations.

A coalition means that the two-party system that allows for one unpopular government to be replaced, only for the new regime to continue the essential policies of its predecessor, would have broken down irrevocably. This is particularly true when the agenda to be pursued is one of savage austerity measures against the working class.

Kenny, after losing a second vote on April 6 even made a direct appeal to Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin for a grand coalition, saying, Ending civil war politics is the best thing for our country now. But this poisoned chalice was rejected.

In the February 26 general election, the former coalition government of Fine Gael and Labour and Fianna Fail collectively polled just 56 percent of the vote. Fine Gael took 50 out of 158 seats in the Dail, or parliament. The Labour Party, under the leadership of Joan Burton who has just resigned as leader, had cooperated with brutal social attacks and ended up losing 30 seats, returning just seven TDs.

While Fianna Fail recovered slightly with 43 seats, it remained under 25 percent of the vote, down from almost 40 percent before the economic and banking crash of 2008. This left Kenny needing the support of eight independents and, most importantly, a guarantee from Fianna Fails 43 TDs that they would not oppose his appointment.

The stumbling block to such an arrangement, according to Fianna Fails Micheal Martin, was the widely-hated water charges which almost 50 percent of the population have refused to pay.

Mass opposition to water charges has seen large marches and other protests, together with the arrest of 188 people in the past year by the Gardai (police).

The previous Fianna Fail/Green coalition had planned to introduce water charges, and drafted legislation just two weeks before the European Union/International Monetary Fund bailout of Brian Cowens government in 2010. Fianna Fail this time around called for a five-year suspension of Irish Water, while insisting that those who refused to pay are breaking the law and could still be prosecuted.

The deal agreed between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael kept the utility in existence, while suspending the charges and penalties for non-payment for just nine months. The programme for installing domestic water meters is under review.

Fine Gael also plans to set up a commission to examine the whole issue of Irish Water, which would then be brought to a Dail committee. Other measures in the agreement include an increase in rent supplement by 15 percent, recruitment of thousands more police and modest measures to alleviate child poverty.

This thin gruel provides Fianna Fail with cover for its agreement to prop up Fine Gael, but does nothing substantially to alleviate the suffering of millions of working people. There is every possibility that water charges will still go ahead, possibly in an amended form.

Despite the absence of a formal coalition, the pact between Irelands two main parties effectively disenfranchises the working class. There is a de facto coalition between the two parties that will enable the government to continue with policies that were decisively rejected in February. And whatever vain efforts are made by Fianna Fail to distance itself from Fine Gael, both will be held responsible for the attacks on the working class that are set to continue.

Irelands ruling elite face growing opposition from the working class to the impoverishment of whole sections of the population. Repayment of the 67 billion bailout, which was led by the International Monetary Fund, has torn apart the very fabric of society. This has taken the form of a chronic housing shortage, rising rents, mortgage debt, rack renting landlordism, and a crisis in the health and other public services such as special care needs. Fine Gael also regards the exit by Britain from the European Union as a strategic threat to the Republic, with damaging consequences for trade and even the political settlement in Northern Ireland.

There is also growing opposition by workers to the pay freezes and wage cuts imposed by the Haddington and Lansdowne Road Agreements, under various governments in cooperation with the trade unions. Dublin Luas Transport drivers are to strike on six occasions over the next weeks and anger is building among shop workers and health workers.

The electoral benefactors from the anger and frustration of working people over years of austerity have been Sinn Fein, who gained nine extra seats in the new Dail and the Anti-Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit (AAA/PBP), an electoral stitch-up between the pseudo-left Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party, which took six.

Sinn Fein benefited from years of being cultivated by the pseudo-left and portrayed as a left and progressive alternative. The SWP and its PBP front even formed the Right2Change electoral pact with Sinn Fein before the February election. In the elections, given its record of colluding with the Democratic Unionist Party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Socialist Party and its AAA front felt obliged to make some faint criticisms of Sinn Fein, which it said verbalised the anger felt by those whove suffered under austerity, but accepted the economic parameters of the establishment and proposed quite minimal reforms.

The truth is, however, that the majority of the mild economic policy adjustments proposed by Sinn Fein differ little in substance from those of the AAA/PBP, which also accept the economic parameters of the establishment.

While the crisis-ridden system has bitten hard into the working class, the unprincipled hype which AAA/PBP feed to workers is a million miles away from having any actual socialist content and also contains policies on taxation with which the main bourgeois parties are in full agreement. AAA/PBP spokespeople Richard Boyd Barrett and Brid Smyth of the SWP, for instance, have argued consistently for the same 12.5 percent rate of corporate tax agreed by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail in their negotiations on the new minority government, demanding only that it is properly collected.
In remarks delivered from the US-Nordic Leaders Summit Friday in Washington, US President Barack Obama denounced the Russian government in belligerent tones, warning that members of the NATO alliance remain united in our concern about Russias growing aggressive military presence and posture in the Baltic-Nordic region.

The US President lavished praise on the Scandinavian regimes, expressing his gratitude for their significant contributions in the fight against ISIS, including deployment of special forces and logistical aid in support of US-led operations in Iraq.

He expressed special thanks for the fact that Denmark and Norway will be joining the United States in contributing to an enhanced allied forward presence to bolster our collective defense in Europe.

The American president vowed to continue to support Ukraine, and maintain sanctions against Russia. Obamas comments were closely echoed by the Swedish prime minister, Stefan Lofven, who declared: We will not recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea, or accept Russian aggression in Ukraine.

The US media presented Obamas sharp remarks as a response to warnings issued by Putin earlier in the day, in which the Russian leader attacked the establishment of the new US-NATO Aegis Ashore missile base at Deveselu, in Romania.

US leaders have sought to defend the system by claiming that it is directed against Iran and other rogue nations. The real purpose of the missile deployments, part of the preparation for an offensive and nuclear war against Russia, was made clear by US Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, who said the system is geared for the central and northern arc of NATO, i.e., Russias western and Arctic flanks.

They arent defensive systems, they are part of the US strategic nuclear potential deployed on the periphery, in eastern Europe, Putin bluntly noted in his own remarks Friday. In an official statement, Russias foreign ministry condemned the new base for gravely undermining the INF Treaty, referring to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty between Washington and Moscow.

The sharpness of Putins response to the NATO escalation is an index of the historic levels of geopolitical tensions building up under the impact of Washingtons relentless war drive.

While deeply anxious over the immense pressures being imposed by the US and NATO, Russias capitalist class sees no alternative but to pursue conciliation with the far more powerful American and European imperialists.

Following this usual pattern, Putin moderated his criticisms with appeals for compromise, affirmed that Russia and NATO ultimately share common interests, and pleaded for rationality by Western leaders.

He expressed frustration over the insistence of NATO, which he referred to as our partners, on continuing to expand their missile infrastructure, despite the signing of the nuclear deal with Iran. The threat is gone, but the creation of the missile defense system is continuing, Putin complained.

While Putins overtures are premised on the assumption that more rational Western leaders might choose to de-escalate in order to avoid an all-out war, the entire history of the imperialist epoch has proven that there can be no lasting peace with, or between, the major imperialist powers. Instead, the current standoff between NATO and Russia, coming after decades of intensifying world crisis, has brought geopolitical tensions to their highest pitch since the 1930s.

Russia, a vast and resource-rich territory with the largest land area of any state, once the core of the Soviet Union, represents the choicest of prizes in the eyes of the American and European elites. They see no way out from their own crisis apart from a mad scramble to dismember and subjugate the Russian Federation, along with China and the ex-colonial nations of Africa and Asia.

The predatory designs of the US and NATO powers are stated openly in policy documents. Official NATO doctrines promulgated earlier this year define Russia as a resurgent and aggressive power and call for a qualitative escalation of NATOs military posture towards Moscow, in their jargon, from assurance to deterrence.

Recent months have seen NATO match deeds with words, deploying new forces and hardware throughout areas bordering Russia, including new intelligence and command outposts and large amounts of pre-positioned heavy weaponry in every major Baltic and East European country.

Last week, NATO officials quietly informed the media that 4,000 additional NATO forces are being deployed to the Baltic states and Poland, to be reinforced at the start of 2017 by a further 4,200 NATO troops. US military officials told the Wall Street Journal last week that they plan for an increased rotational presence in the East, including more regular exercises and presence in both Romania and Bulgaria.

The announcements came amid large-scale war drills in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, still ongoing, including more than 1,000 US, British and Georgian soldiers, held provocatively in a geopolitical flashpoint that nearly brought Washington and Moscow to blows in 2008.

The drills, hailed by Georgian officials as the biggest our country has ever hosted, with the biggest number of troops on the ground, and the largest concentration of military equipment, include a full company of US mechanized combat troops, complete with M1A1 battle tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles.

The growing momentum of NATOs push against Russia is evident from the deepening ties between the Western powers and the fanatically anti-Russia regimes in the Baltic states, Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region, which are enthusiastically embracing the transformation of their territories into armed camps.

At a groundbreaking ceremony for new air force facilities in Poland last week, President Andrzej Duda boasted, Although we joined NATO years ago, now we are seeing that NATO is truly entering Poland.

Recent weeks have seen the Ukrainian government and NATO members Romania and Turkey demand NATO escalation in the Black Sea, including formation of a multinational naval force which would patrol the waters surrounding Russias only warm-water port, Sevastopol in Crimea, on a permanent basis. NATO officials told the Wall Street Journal last week that plans for such a fleet are already well advanced.
The United States has reversed an earlier decision to finance a large portion of Pakistans planned purchase of eight F-16 multi-role fighter jets.

The State Department claimed that the decision to cancel the funding approved in February is the outcome of the US Congress refusal to allow the use of the Foreign Military Financing program to finance the deal. But Washingtons move is clearly a sign of fraying relations between the two countries.

Given congressional objections, we have told the Pakistanis that they should put forward national funds for that purpose, State Department spokesman John Kirby said announcing the decision to the public on May 2. The $700 million price tag for the jets, of which Islamabad was to pay only $270 million, means that the deal is dead in the water.

Pakistan reacted immediately but cautiously to the announcement. The adviser to Pakistans prime minister on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, said the government is looking for an alternative source of financing to continue with the purchase, but added that otherwise obviously we will have to look for planes from somewhere else. Reports have indicated that the other supplier countries would be China and Russia.

Reuters noted in its May 2 report that the congressional objections reflected deep unhappiness among both Democrats and Republicans over Islamabads policy of supporting sections of the Taliban and the Haqqani network that are carrying out increasingly bold attacks on the US puppet government in Afghanistan. According to Reuters, the possibility of the fighter jets being used against India was also raised as an argument against funding the deal.

While the State Department downplayed the significance of Islamabads reaction by calling these obviously sovereign decisions that Pakistan has to make, and saying its relationship with Islamabad is an important one, a growing rupture in relations is evident.

Anonymous Western diplomats told the London-based Financial Times that the US demand for more action against the Afghan Taliban and other Islamist groups operating from Pakistan and the countrys development of tactical nuclear weapons for use against India have been the two main causes of increasing tensions between the two countries during the past year.

A third factor in tensions between the two countries which the FT doesnt make any reference to is Pakistans growing economic and military ties to China, which reached a significant milestone when Beijing approved the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. Since its launch in April 2015, Pakistans military and the intelligence apparatus have dedicated considerable resources to its defence. If it ever succeeds, the CPECs network of infrastructure connecting the Arabian Sea port Gwadar to the Chinese mainland would provide China the means to potentially bypass the US Indian Ocean chokepoint strategy to blockade Chinese supply routes in case of a war or war crisis.

It is increasingly clear that US efforts to strategically reconfigure in the aftermath of the withdrawal of the majority of occupational forces from Afghanistan, in which Pakistan was supposed to play a pivotal role, are in disarray. While no prospect is publicly known for bringing the Taliban to the table to negotiate a deal with the US puppet regime in Kabul, the past several months have seen the drastic escalation of tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan as Taliban attacks on Kabul have become more frequent and deadlier.

Following the collapse of the jet fighter deal, the bitter sentiments felt in Islamabad were expressed by a former Pakistan Air Force general speaking to the FT. First the Americans gave us F-16s in the 1980s when Pakistan was a close ally and suspended their sale in 1990 only to resume the sale after the 9/11 attacks, he said. Even if this immediate matter is resolved, no one in Islamabad will trust the Americans. I fear the feeling in Pakistans policy circles is increasingly to go to the Russians and the Chinese for other planes that come with a more reliable supply assurance, he added.

The banner of combatting terrorismused by Pakistan to justify the massive bill it pays for jet fighters and to continually fund the reactionary military alliance with the USis fraudulent. In fact, the CIA operation along with Pakistani and Saudi Arabian intelligence in the 1980s, which nurtured the mujahedeen fighters in order to overthrow the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul, gave rise to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

After forcing Islamabad to sever its historic associations to support the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 2001, the US demanded Pakistan deploy its military to suppress anti-occupation Islamist militant groups that sprang up in the historically autonomous and predominantly Pashtun tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan. The US arrogated to itself the right to carry out an indiscriminate and illegal drone war on both sides of the border, killing thousands of civilians including women and children.

The period since 2001 has seen the rise of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), affiliated to the Taliban in Afghanistan but an organizationally distinct umbrella group of militants who demand the imposition of Islamic Sharia law in Pakistan.

Islamabad is currently carrying out a massive offensive against the TTP in the North Waziristan tribal agency and adjoining areas. The military operation launched in 2014 was the venal Pakistani ruling elites response to the long-standing demand of Washington for a major military offensive to root out opposition to its occupation of Afghanistan in the tribal region.

The developing crisis in Afghanistan is only one major factor in tensions in relations between the US and Pakistan. It is not clear to which extent Indias unrestrained opposition to the F-16 sale played a role in Washingtons decision. In February a disappointed India said in a statement it disagree[d] with their rationale that such arms transfers help to combat terrorism.

A number of congressmen have raised concerns of heightening tensions between India and Pakistan and that Pakistan will use the fighter jets against India in a conflict. In an April hearing of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Matt Salmon hypocritically questioned the deal, which he claimed would disrupt the balance of power between India and Pakistan.

Such comments are emerging from Washington with increasing frequency while the US has taken significant steps to incorporate India into its preparations for war against China.

Washingtons defence cooperation with New Delhi includes supporting Indias plans to build a blue-water navy, providing access to advanced weapons systems and joint defence production initiatives. A civilian nuclear deal Washington offered to India has also freed up its nuclear resources to concentrate on its indigenous nuclear weapons program. At the same time Washington has ignored repeated warnings from Pakistan that its strategic partnership with India is overturning the balance of power between the two-nuclear armed neighbours.

While under the incumbent government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, New Delhis reactionary alliance with US imperialism has deepened, while the Modi government has adopted an increasingly bellicose policy towards Islamabad. This is in line with the Indian bourgeoisies ambitions to assert regional power status in the Indian Ocean region.

On the occasion of the Modi governments first year in office, Bruce Riedel, a specialist on South Asia for the Brookings Institution and former high-level CIA strategist, said the bipolar alliance system in South Asia has hardened. He claimed in May 2015, While the alliance system remains completely informal, the United States and India are closer to each other, and China and Pakistan have come much closer.

The hardening has continued. Pakistan is reportedly assessing Chinese made J-10 and J-20 fighter jets to renovate its current fleet. Western defence officials told IHS Janes Defence Weekly that Moscow has informed Islamabad about its willingness to sell a batch of advanced Sukhoi Su-35 fighters.

The increasingly complicated geo-political situation in the region is a product of the predatory intervention of US imperialism. The historical India-Pakistan rivalry is increasingly intersecting with the US anti-China pivot and adding an incendiary charge to an increasingly dangerous flashpoint in the region.
Supporters of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in France held a public meeting in Paris on Sunday on the growing war danger in Sri Lanka and Asia and the bankruptcy of the Tamil bourgeois nationalist parties. The meeting was attended by Tamil, Sinhala and French workers and youth.

Deepal Jayasekera, assistant secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka), the ICFIs Sri Lankan section, gave the opening address. He explained how US imperialism played the key role in installing President Maithripala Sirisena in elections last January, with the aim of aligning Sri Lanka more closely with the US pivot to Asia and preparations for war against China.

Jayasekera added that the Tamil bourgeois parties, including the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and pseudo-left parties like the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) and the United Socialist Party (USP), backed the US-sponsored regime-change operation. The TNA and the pseudo-left groups hailed Sirisena as the democratic alternative to the previous government of President Mahinda Rajapakse.

In fact, Sirisena has deepened many of the reactionary policies of his predecessor, violating basic democratic rights and launching unprecedented attacks on the working class. Jayasekera pointed out that the Sirisena regime is covering up the war crimes committed by Rajapakse, opposing the release of political prisoners held without trial, and cracking down on opposition to its austerity agenda from workers, students and farmers.

Jayasekera said that the events in Sri Lanka have vindicated the work of the ICFI and the SEP, which alone waged a principled campaign in the elections based on a socialist struggle of the working class against imperialism and war.

V. Gnana, a leading supporter of the ICFI in France, spoke on the way that the Tamil nationalist parties have functioned as a tool of imperialism. Gnana said that the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009 was the final, bloody outcome of the bankruptcy of the Tamil separatist perspective proclaimed 40 years ago in the 1976 Vaddukoddai resolution of the Tamil United Liberation Front.

Since 2009, the Tamil nationalist parties have openly oriented to US and European imperialism, supporting the war drive against China. They backed Sirisenas election and then his austerity measures, the continued jailing of political prisoners and the growing resort to police violence to terrorise the population.

The final speaker was Alex Lantier. He explained that Sri Lankan immigrant workers in Europe face the same problems as their class brothers and sisters in Europethe spread of war, austerity, the promotion of nationalism and attacks on democratic rightsand the need to unite with them in struggle. This requires building a section of the ICFI in France, to give leadership and offer a Trotskyist political and historical perspective to workers of all nationalities in France.

Lantier attacked pseudo-left parties, like the New Anti-capitalist Party and the Left Front, who have for decades aligned themselves with the Socialist Party in France as it implemented policies of war and austerity. They are today complicit in the fomenting of nationalist and xenophobic sentiment.

The role of these organisations is to pave the way for war, austerity and police-state dictatorship in France, Lantier said. Their hostility to the workers is as fundamental as that of the Tamil nationalist parties. It is rooted in the class struggle, in the hostility of the bourgeoisie and its petty-bourgeois allies to the working class. And the dangers they pose to workers in France are no less serious than those faced by workers and the oppressed masses in Sri Lanka.

Afterwards, attendees remained for a long discussion period and asked a range of questions on the US pivot to Asia, Indias role in the war drive in Asia, the character of the Sri Lankan civil war and how to develop a socialist movement in the international working class.

A Sinhala worker who has read the WSWS for many years said he thought its analysis was correct and asked why it did not already have broad support in the working class.

The speakers replied that support for the WSWS is growing rapidly, as it speaks for broad opposition to the entire social and political system.

They also explained that the level of its support had to be understood historically. Marxism has been under attack for generations, particularly since the Stalinist bureaucracy waged political genocide against Marxists in the 1930s, culminating in the murder of Leon Trotsky in 1940. This attack has come not only from the bourgeoisie and the Soviet bureaucracy but also, most perniciously in recent decades, by pseudo-left forces. Conditions are now ripe for the ICFI to emerge in the leadership of mass revolutionary struggles of the proletariat.

One Tamil worker attending the meeting asked whether the SEP characterises the final months of war in 2009 as a genocide of Tamils.

The speakers explained that the mass murder of LTTE fighters and Tamils in LTTE-held areas at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war was undoubtedly a horrific crime. However, simply applying a label of genocide to itas Tamil nationalist parties seek to doresolves none of the complex political issues involved in drawing the lessons of this terrible event and fighting against the danger of war in the Indian subcontinent and internationally.

They stressed that the central political issue was the struggle for the unity and political independence of the working class. Successive Sri Lankan regimes waged war not only against Tamils but also against Sinhala workers, while encouraging anti-Tamil sentiment to divide the working class. In the 1970s, the government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike, backed by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Stalinist Communist Party, crushed a JVP uprising, killing an estimated 15,000 rural youth.

They added that the Tamil Nationalist forces that criticised the Sri Lankan governments war crimes are now aligned with the Sirisena government, many of whose top officials were directly implicated in the crimes carried out under Rajapakse.
In a front-page article published on May 15, the New York Times calls attention to a significant milestone in the presidency of Barack Obama: He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president. Obama overtook his predecessor on May 6. But with eight months still to go in the White House, he is on target to set yet another record. The Times writes: If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obamas terma near-certainty given the presidents recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syriahe will leave behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war.

On the way to setting his record, Mr. Obama has overseen lethal military actions in a total of seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The list is expanding rapidly, as the United States escalates its military operations in Africa. The efforts to suppress the Boko Haram insurgency involve a buildup of US forces in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

Mark Landler, the author of the Times article, notes Obamas status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2009 without any sense of irony. Rather, he portrays the president as trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate Obama has wrestled with this immutable reality [of war] from his first year in the White House

Landler informs his readers that Obama went for a walk among the tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan. Landler recalls a passage from his 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize in which Obama wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile two seemingly irreconcilable truthsthat war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly.

During the Obama years, folly has clearly held the upper hand. But there is nothing that Landlers hero can do. Obama has found his wars maddeningly hard to end.

The recent death of Special Warfare Operator First Class Charles Keating IV in a firefight with ISIS forces has contradicted Obamas account of what the US forces are doing in Iraq. The Times, choosing its words carefully, writes that Keatings death made the administrations argument that the Americans were only advising and assisting Iraqi forces seem ever less plausible. To state the matter bluntly, Obama has been lying to the American people.

Aside from its intrinsic dishonesty, the Times portrayal of Obama lacks the essential element required by genuine tragedy: the identification of the objective forces, beyond his control, that determined the actions of the president. If Mr. Landler wants his readers to shed a tear for this peace-loving man who, upon becoming president, made drone killings his personal specialty and turned into something akin to a moral monster, the Times correspondent should have attempted to identify the historical circumstances that determined Obamas tragic fate.

But this is a challenge the Times avoids. It fails to relate Obamas war-making record to the entire course of American foreign policy over the past quarter-century. Even before Obama entered office in 2009, the United States had been at war on an almost continuous basis since the first US-Iraq War of 1990-91.

The pretext for the first Gulf War was Iraqs annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. But the violent US reaction to Iraqi President Saddam Husseins dispute with the emir of Kuwait was determined by broader global conditions and considerations. The historical context of the US military operation was the imminent dissolution of the Soviet Union, which was finally carried out in December 1991. The first President Bush declared the beginning of a New World Order.

The product of the first socialist revolution in 1917, the Soviet Union had functionedespecially following the conclusion of World War II in 1945as a restraint on the deployment of American military power. Moreover, the victory of the Chinese Revolution in 1949which, in historical terms, was bound up with the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russiaplaced further obstacles in the path of US imperialism.

The Stalinist regimes pursued essentially nationalistic policies, and systematically undermined and betrayed working-class and anti-imperialist movements all over the world. But to the extent that the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China provided limited political and material support to anti-imperialist movements in the Third World, it denied the US ruling class a free hand in the pursuit of its own interests. These limitations were demonstratedto cite the most notable examplesin the US defeats in Korea and Vietnam, the compromise settlement of the Cuban missile crisis, and the acceptance of Soviet domination of the Baltic region and Eastern Europe.

In the final analysis, the existence of the Soviet Union and an anti-capitalist regime in China deprived the United States of the possibility of unrestricted access to and exploitation of the human labor, raw materials and potential markets of a large portion of the globeincluding, and especially, much of the Eurasian land mass. It also compelled the United States to compromise to a degree greater than it would have preferred in negotiations over economic and strategic issues with its major allies in Europe and Asia, as well as with smaller countries that exploited the tactical opportunities provided by the US-Soviet Cold War.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union, combined with the unrestrained restoration of capitalism in China following the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989, was seen by the American ruling class as an opportunity to carry out a massive restructuring of global geopolitics with the aim of establishing the hegemony of the United States. The overwhelming support for this operation within the elites arose from the belief that the United States could reverse the protracted erosion of its global economic position through the ruthless utilization of its overwhelming military power.

The Defense Policy Guidance drafted by the Department of Defense in February 1992 unambiguously asserted the hegemonic ambitions of US imperialism: There are other potential nations or coalitions that could, in the further future, develop strategic aims and a defense posture of region-wide or global domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor.

The 1990s saw a persistent use of US military power, most notably in the dissolution of Yugoslavia. The brutal restructuring of the Balkan states, which provoked a fratricidal civil war, culminated in the US-led 1999 bombing campaign to compel Serbia to accept the secession of the province of Kosovo. Other major military operations during that decade included the intervention in Somalia (which ended in disaster), the military occupation of Haiti, the bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan, and repeated episodes of bombing attacks on Iraq.

The events of September 11, 2001 provided the opportunity for the launching of the War on Terror, a propaganda slogan that provided an all-purpose justification for military operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and, with increasing frequency, Africa. The military strategy of the United States was revised in line with the new doctrine of preventive warfare, adopted by the US in 2002. This doctrine, which violated existing international law, decreed that the United States could attack any country in the world that was judged to pose a potential threatnot only of a military, but also an economic characterto American interests.

The administration of the second President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001. In speeches that followed 9/11, Bush used the phrase wars of the twenty-first century. In this case, Bush spoke with great precision. The War on Terror was, from the beginning, conceived as an unending series of military operations all over the globe. One war would necessarily and inevitably lead to another. Afghanistan proved to be a dress rehearsal for the invasion of Iraq. The scope of military operations continuously widened. New wars were started while the old ones continued. The cynical invocation of human rights was used to wage war against Libya and overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. The same hypocritical pretext was employed to organize a proxy war in Syria. The consequences of these wars, in terms of human lives and suffering, are incalculable.

The strategic logic of the US drive for global hegemony has led to conflicts that extend beyond bloody neocolonial operations in the Middle East and Africa. The geopolitical ambitions of the United States have led to increasingly dangerous confrontations with China and Russia. In fact, the ongoing regional wars are becoming transformed into component elements of the rapidly escalating conflict of the United States and its European and Asian allies with Russia and China.

The New York Times provides not so much as a hint of the deeper objective causes, lodged in the contradictions of American and world imperialism, that made the Obama presidency a time of unending war. Nor does it forewarn its readers that the next administration, regardless of who occupies the White Housewhether the presidents name is Clinton, Trump or, for that matter, Sanderswill offer not only more of the same, but much worse. The issue of war remains the great unmentionable in this election year.

But this silence must be broken. The alarm must be sounded. The working class and youth within the United States and throughout the world must be told the truth. If war is to be stopped and a global catastrophe averted, a new and powerful mass international movement, based on a socialist program and strategically guided by the principles of revolutionary class struggle, must be built.
Jayaram Jayalalithaa, the chief minister of South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, has invoked the issue of the Sri Lankan Tamils during her partys campaign for today's state assembly elections to boost her electoral fortunes. She was seeking to exploit widespread anger among Tamils in South India over the fate of Sri Lankan Tamils under the oppressive policies of successive governments in Colombo.

The election manifesto issued by Jayalalithaas ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnethra Kazhagam (AIADMK) called for appropriate action against those responsible for the genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils and further actions including Sri Lankan Tamils to live with full freedom and dignity. She also called for action to achieve a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka and for the Indian central government to grant dual citizenship right for Sri Lankan Tamils who have been living inside and outside of camps for many years in Tamil Nadu.

In an election rally in Tiruchirappalli last month, Jayalalithaa said that her party would take continuous steps to create a separate Eelam in Sri Lanka.

Jayalalithaas and her AIADMKs promises on Sri Lankan Tamils have nothing to do with any concern about the fate of island Tamils at the hands of successive Colombo governments and Sri Lankan Tamil refugees living in Tamil Nadu.

It is a fraud aiming to throw dust in eyes of workers and the poor in Tamil Nadu, as her record in office makes clear. Jayalalithaa has served as chief minister of Tamil Nadu in three termsin 1991-1996, 2001-2006 and 2011 up to now.

Yet the vast majority of the tens of thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils who had to flee to India due to the anti-Tamil communal pogroms of July 1983 and the quarter-century-long Sri Lankan civil war that followed still live in Tamil Nadu under abysmal conditions. They face continuous harassment from Indian intelligence. Jayalalithaas AIADMK or its rival DMK, which have shared state office in Tamil Nadu between them, failed to improve conditions of Sri Lankan refugees.

Jayalalithaa is particularly notorious for her public backing for successive Colombo governments' reactionary war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). She is well known for her hostility to the oppressed Tamil masses in Sri Lanka and India.

After the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, then the leader and prime ministerial candidate of the Congress, the traditional ruling party of the Indian bourgeoisie, by the LTTE, she demanded the central government ban the LTTE. She used draconian anti-terrorist acts, like the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) and Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), against LTTE sympathizers and her political opponents in Tamil Nadu.

Jayalalithaa continued to support the anti-Tamil racialist war in Sri Lanka after President Mahinda Rajapakse resumed it in 2006. Even during the final phase of war, where thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands of innocent Tamils were displaced, she cynically justified Tamil civilian casualties, claiming that civilian deaths are inevitable in a war.

A few weeks before the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009, Jayalalithaa changed her tune and became a defender of Sri Lankan Tamils. At an election rally, she declared: We will fight to attain that independent, separate Eelam. Till today, I have never said that a separate Eelam is the only solution. I have spoken about a political solution, this and that. But, now I emphatically say a separate Eelam is the only permanent solution to the Sri Lankan conflict.

Having continued to support the anti-Tamil war in Sri Lanka, Jayalalithaa made this call for a separate Tamil Eelam at the 11th hour, only to whip up communalism in Tamil Nadu to boost her electoral fortunes. She is also doing this today.

The LTTEs political wing leader B. Nadesan welcomed Jayalalithaas demagogic speech and hailed the AIADMK-led alliance in Tamil Nadu as friends of Tamil Eelam.

A few days later, the entire LTTE leadership including Nadesan were massacred by the Rajapakse governments military in Mullivaikkal in Sri Lanka. After the Indian parliamentary elections in 2009, Jayalalithaa dropped the issue of Tamils in Sri Lanka, throwing everything in the dustbin.

She is now trying to retrieve the issue from the dustbin where she had put it, in time for another cynical electoral manoeuvre. One can safely predict that, as in the past, she will drop it once the elections are over.

Jayalalithaa does not support a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka, fearing that it would encourage scores of similar ethnic and religious separatist movements in Indiawhere dozens of minorities face racial oppression, including Kashmir and Northeast India. It would threaten to undermine the Indian bourgeois state, which Jayalalithaa has defended for decades.

It must also be stressed is that demand for a separate Tamil Eelam does not carry any progressive content. Such a state would be ruled by the Tamil bourgeoisie, under which Tamil workers would be subjected to brutal exploitation by global and local Tamil capital. The democratic rights of Tamil workers and youth will be secured not in such a state, but only in a Sri Lanka-Eelam Socialist Republic, established through a unified revolutionary movement of Sinhala and Tamil workers in Sri Lanka, as a part of Union of Socialist Republics of South Asia.

Jayalalithaa is advocating Tamil Eelam under conditions where her AIADMK government confronts growing social anger of the working peoples in Tamil Nadu.

The vast majority of the population is struggling to survive on less than US$2 per day. Food prices and unemployment are unprecedentedly mounting across India. Last October and November, tens of thousands of workers and rural poor suffered devastation due to floods in the state capital, Chennai, as well as other parts of Tamil Nadu, creating enormous anger against Jayalalithaas government. These conditions drove her to cynically exploit the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils to whip up Tamil communalism in an attempt to get votes based on empty promises.
Nearly 40,000 workers at Verizon Communications have been on strike for one month in one of the largest strikes in the US in years. The struggle is at the crossroads, with the Communications Workers of America and the major labor federations isolating the strike and the Obama administration backing the telecom giants strikebreaking operation.

Jerry White, the Socialist Equality Partys candidate for US president, will host an online conference on Tuesday, May 17, at 7 p.m. (EST), to discuss the way forward for Verizon workers. The SEP and the World Socialist Web Site Verizon Strike Newsletter call for rank-and-file workers to take the conduct of the strike into their own hands and fight for the broadest mobilization of the working class against Verizons government-backed attack.

To participate in the online conference, call 213-416-1560, and enter the PIN: 581 991 086#.
CRAWFORDVILLE, FL (WTXL) - The Wakulla County Sheriff released documents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the State Attorney's Office saying he has been cleared in an incident where a sex offender was allowed to attend a Wakulla County High School graduation event.

Wakulla County NAACP Chapter President Anginita Rosier filed the complaint with FDLE claiming that Sheriff Charlie Creel allowed an inmate to attend a Project Graduation event at Wakulla Springs in June of 2014, even though he knew he was a sex offender.

Shain Shappard was serving time in the Wakulla County Jail when he was allowed to attend the Project Graduation event, according to FDLE.

Investigators say that while several staff members were aware that Shappard was a sex offender, they were not aware that he wasn't allowed to visit schools, child care facilities, parks and playgrounds without permission from his probation officer.

FDLE says Sheriff Creel had WCSO staff give the inmate civilian clothes, as Rosier's allegations said, but it so Shappard wouldn't alarm the students attending the event.

Creel was interviewed by FDLE as part of the investigation.

FDLE documents say, "Sheriff Creel advised he saw Shappard there, but did not direct him to be at the event. Sheriff Creel stated he believed that Sheppard was in jail for a minor infraction, which would have allowed him to work as a trustee at the WCHS Project Graduation event. Sheriff Creel stated that he was not advised Sheppard was under any probationary restriction which prohibited him to work at the WCHS Project Graduation event."

Assistant State Attorney Eddie Evans reviewed FDLE's report. Evans says because Creel did not know that attending the Project Graduation event was a violation of Shappard's probation and since Creel did not assign Shappard to the work duty himself, Creel did not violate any laws.

"As the elected Sheriff of Wakulla County, Sheriff Creel ultimately bears responsibility for the actions of his office and his employees. One of his employees did allow this sexual offender to be at Project Graduation contrary to the court's order. However, for there to be criminal conduct, Sheriff Creel must have knowingly violated the court's order... While the failures by the Sheriff's Office led to this sexual offender being present at Project Graduation contrary to the court's order, they do not show criminal conduct by Sheriff Creel," says Evans.

FDLE's investigation into Creel did result in a second investigation into a Sheriff's Office employee, Major Jared Miller.

According to FDLE, Miller gave jail documents regarding Shappard to Rosier that she then used to file the FDLE complaint about Sheriff Creel.

Those documents included Shappard's social security number and other information about his incarceration.

In this investigation, the State Attorney's Office concluded that Miller did not violate Florida law because he was not aware that releasing documents that included the social security number was a violation of public record laws.

"As the Sheriff of Wakulla County ultimately bears responsibility to ensure there are no further public records violations by his office or employees, he should be given notice of this letter and the results of FDLE's investigation in this matter," said Assistant State Attorney Evans in his report.

With the release of the documents, Sheriff Creel released the below statement:

The allegations against me by Anginita Rosier, President of the Wakulla County Chapter of the NAACP was nothing more than part of a smear campaign! While the FDLE did their investigation on the allegations they in turn opened their own investigation against Jared Miller.

I have been completely cleared by the FDLE as I did not approve this inmate to attend Project Graduation and in fact did not know he was a registered sex offender until months later. I don't approve which inmate is granted trustee status. This is the responsibility of the jail administrator.

Any questions regarding the investigation on Jared Miller should be addressed to the FDLE and Willie Meggs, State Attorney.

It is time for these allegations against myself to be put behind as I have a job that I was elected to do, and that I intend to do.
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Letters reflect the opinion of the writer. The Yakima Herald-Republic cannot verify the accuracy of all statements made in letters.

Writers are limited to one published letter per calendar month.
BOGOTA- Colombian national police confiscated 8 tonnes of cocaine along the border with Panama, the government said on Sunday, in what may be one of the largest seizures in the country in recent years.

The haul, with an estimated value of $240 million, was discovered in an underground hideaway on a banana plantation in the municipality of Turbo in Antioquia department, officials said.

"The biggest seizure of drugs in history. A hit against criminals," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Twitter.
The Premier of the Canadian province of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, arrived in Israel at the head of a delegation of over 100 Canadian politicians and business leaders on Sunday.

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Included in the delegation is Ontario Minister of Health and Long-Term Care Hon. Dr. Eric Hoskins, and Ontario Minister of and Development Reza Moridi, amongst others.

Ontario is the most populous province in Canada, and is also home to Toronto, the most populous city in Canada. Ten of the world's largest tech companies have their research and development centers in the province, and the information technology sector provides over 250,000 jobs.

Ontario Primier Kathleen Wynne (Photo: Government of Ontario)

Teva Pharmaceuticals even has a production facility an hour outside of Toronto, and many Israelis have set up hi tech and med tech companies in the province.

Israel-Canada relations

In a preliminary visit to Canada, Canadian representatives explained to the Israelis present why the relationship between the two countries is so important, and why they want to strengthen it.

"Israel may be small, but there is definitely a market there," the Canadians said, adding that Israel punches above its weight.

Premier Wynne added that "before I was a politician, I was an educator and worked at a Jewish school. We worked on subjects such as conflict resolution, something which was very important to me, and something which led me into politics."

Teva Pharmaceuticals facility outside of Toronto (Photo: Government of Ontario)

One of the prime examples of development and entrepreneurship Ontario has to offer is the Mars Building situated in the heart of Toronto. The building, a former hospital, has been turned into a complex for hi tech medical sciences and information technology. The companies based there have been chosen to receive government support due to their commercial viability.

Earl Miller, a Mars Building representative, explained the rationale behind the Canadian project.

"We provide assistance to companies which want to develop in the bio-tech and info-tech sectors. It's difficult to commercialize a product, so while the various institutions and companies do the research, we assist with the commercialization."

Gal Sela of Synaptive Medical Inc which operates in the building is an Israeli who lived most of his life in Canada.

"I started the company with three others in 2012, and today, we've grown to 210 employees. We started by dealing with medical physics, and we have seven products which have already been approved for use. One of our products assists with neurosurgery. It's like a GPS for the brain  forms a map of the brain and tells the surgeon exactly where to operate. We are also focusing on the US market, and our products have already been used in over 700 surgeries."








A stabbing attack occurred on Hanevi'im Street in Jerusalem Monday morning. The terrorist was neutralized. Magen David Adom reported that an Israeli man Yehoshua Frank, 26, was stabbed in his ribs and shoulder. and is in light and stable condition.

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A paramedic who was on the scene was quoted as saying "immediately after we arrived on the scene we saw a 26 year old man with stab wounds to his upper body. He was fully conscious, and reported that he was walking with his family when he was suddenly attacked. He was wounded while he was fending off the attacker."

Knife from the stabbing attack (Photo: Jerusalem police)

According to the spokesperson for the Jerusalem Police, "Jerusalem Police forces and Israel Border Police heard shouting on HaNevi'im Street close to the Damascus gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. They hurried to the scene of a suspected stabbing attack. The attacker fled the scene towards Ben Shadad street, and while running, was observed tossing a knife to the side."

The spokesperson continued, saying "the police pursued the suspect and arrested him. The injured man was evacuated to Shaare Zedek Medical Center."

Frank recalled the incident, saying "I was with my wife on Hanevi'im Street with our twins who were in the stroller, and we were waiting for someone who was supposed to show us a new apartment in the area. All of a sudden, a young man stopped by us. He hesitated for a moment, and I saw that he was taking out a knife. I immediately ran up to him, and he yelled and jumped on me, and stabbed me in the shoulder and ribs. I fought him and pushed him away. Then he threw his knife at me and ran."

"It was a miracle that I noticed him," Frank continued. "My first thought was that G-d forbid he would hurt my kids and my wife. When I went up to him, he focused on me. It's a miracle that I looked around and paid attention to who was stopping next to me."

Scene of the stabbing attack in Jerusalem (Photo: Yahonatan Cohen)

The terrorist is a 20 year old resident of the West Bank, and has been taken in for questioning.

The Kedem-Jerusalem District Police commander said "the quick response of the police resulted in the immediate arrest of the terrorist, put a stop to the event, and prevented further harm to innocent people."
Senior Hezbollah spokesmen recently contacted senior journalists in Lebanon and members of the foreign press with an unusual request: Don't mention Israel as being involved in the assassination of senior Hezbollah member Mustafa Badereddine

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The editor of a Beirut daily told Yedioth Ahronoth on Sunday that his paper's reporters called Hezbollah spokespeople right after the publication of Baderaddine's death, asking for comment. Hezbollah's first statement on the matter pointed a finger at Israel, but a second statement was sent hours later clearing the Jewish state of any involvement. "Don't insert Israel's name into the matter," the editor quoted Hezbollah's people.

This is interesting, because it's a contrast to the organization's behavior following three previous assassination cases  those of Imad Mughniyeh Samir Kuntar , and Jihad Mughniyeh (Imad's son). Following those incidents, Hezbollah was quick to blame Israel and threaten that its revenge will come "in the time and place of our choosing."

"No one is buying (Hezbollah) throwing responsibility (for Badereddine's assassination) onto the rebels in Syria," the editor said, "and the insistence to clear Israel also sounds strange." French journalist George Malbrunot of the Le Figaro newspaper said Sunday that "Senior Hezbollah members contacted foreign press outlets and foreign journalists with the same request: Don't involve Israel's name as the one that carried out the assassination."

One estimate in Beirut is that Hezbollah's leadership decided to avoid opening a new front against Israel, and prevent the possibility of being dragged into a position in which they have to vow their revenge. "Hezbollah is deeply involved in a war in Syria which is taking great effort and causing it casualties, and Iran beleves that Hezbollah's fighters will not be able to handle two fronts," said sources in the Lebanese capital.

Mustafa Badreddine.(Photo: AFP)

Syrian opposition members claimed Sunday that the assassination was an inside job by Hezbollah members who oppose the organization's involvement in Syria.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah has begun dealing with the question of Badreddine's heir. One of the leading candidates in the race to replace him as head of Hezbollah's military operations in Syria is Ibrahim Aqil, a close friend and aid of the late Imad Moghniyeh (who was assassinated in Damascus in 2008). Aqil was responsible for intelligence coordination between Hezbollah and Syria during the Second Lebanon War, and if appointed, he'll be working under Talal Hamiyah, head of Hezbollah's foreign operations.

Ever since news of the assassination went public, Lebanese leaders have had a hard time hiding their schadenfreude regarding Hezbollah's troubles. They also mocked the Assad regime for choosing to remain silent on the matter, waiting until Hezbollah made official statements, even though the assassination happened in territory controlled by Assad's forces. Hazbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah is expected to address the circumstances of Badreddine's death in a speech given on Friday.
TEHRAN- Iranian authorities have announced a new crackdown on models who post images of themselves online without their hair covered.

State television reported Monday that officials particularly targeted the picture-sharing application Instagram as part of an operation it called Spider II.

It said authorities arrested eight people out of some 170 people identified as being involved in modeling on social networks including 58 models, 59 photographers and makeup artists.

Instagram, owned by Facebook, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
ATHENS- A United Nations envoy for human rights has criticized the European Union's response to the refugee crisis as showing a "lack of vision," operating under legal ambiguity, and backing the detention of newly arrived migrants in Greece.

Envoy Francois Crepeau said the March agreement between the EU and Turkey to send back migrants reaching Europe required "much stronger legal instruments to ensure legal accountability."

Greece has been detaining migrants and refugees who arrived after March 20, while some 50,000 people are stranded in the country since European countries, including Austria and Balkan states, closed their borders to migrants earlier this year.
President Reuven Rivlin held a working meeting with Ivory Coast Foreign Minister Dr Abdallah Albert Toikeusse Mabri, who was visiting Israel on Monday.

President Rivlin welcomed the Foreign Minister and his delegation and said, "Ivory Coast is a long standing friend of Israel, and I am delighted to welcome you here in our capital Jerusalem." He stressed the outstanding cooperation between the two nations which had grown and strengthened in recent years. The two spoke of the importance of cooperation especially in relation to the current security challenges in the Middle East, and throughout the world. The President added that Israel was keen to once again serve as an observer nation in the African Union, which would help deepen the dialogue between Israel and the countries of the African continent.

The Foreign Minister thanked the President for his warm welcome, and said, "Thank you for the honor you have given us, and for your hospitality. The relationship between our countries is indeed very old, and is becoming stronger. This is a relationship of trust and mutual appreciation between our peoples and leaders."
DAVAO - Philippines President-Elect Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday he would pursue peace talks with Marxist guerrillas and as an olive branch would offer government roles to the Communist Party of the Philippines, including its exiled founder.

The mayor and self-styled sheriff of Davao City said it was time to put an end to hostilities with the CPP and its armed wing, the New People's Army, which has been embroiled in decades of on-off fighting with government troops in the south and east of the country that has killed 40,000 people.

Duterte's peace offer would include a ministerial post to Jose Maria Sison, the CPP figurehead who lives in the Netherlands and was once listed by the United States as a "person supporting terrorism".
On a podium decorated as a bunker from the Iran-Iraq war, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad woos a crowd of hundreds with an anti-Western speech reminiscent of his fiery addresses as Iran's president.

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At the end of the event in Jiroft in southeast Iran, held partly to honor victims of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, some of the crowd chant: "The slogan of any man is that Ahmadinejad is coming back."

After nearly three years out of the public eye following two terms as president, Ahmadinejad has made a handful of appearances in the past few weeks, including his speech last week in Jiroft, which have stoked talk of a political comeback.

Ahmadinejad in a recent public appearance (Photo: AP)

The 59-year-old conservative and populist has made no announcement about his future or addressed speculation that he plans to stand in the next presidential election, due in 2017.

But if he does run, he could cause problems for his pragmatic successor, Hassan Rouhani, who gained popularity after the deal with world powers that led to most sanctions on Iran being lifted in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

"In the presidency it's the individual that is important. Political groups are not important. In reality, an individual can start a wave," Massoud Mirkazemi, a former oil minister under Ahmadinejad, told the Asr-e-Iran website in an interview published on Wednesday.

"Whoever can start this wave will get votes. Ahmadinejad has started, and can start this wave," he said, predicting his political ally would defeat Rouhani if he runs.

Ahmadinejad's chances of success are hard to assess.

He did not run in the last presidential election, in June 2013, because of Iranian constitutional limits, and conservatives suffered setbacks in March elections to parliament and the Assembly of Experts which will select Iran's next supreme leader, the country's highest authority.

Ahmadinejad (Photo: AP)

But Ahmadinejad could be the conservatives' best hope of bouncing back in next year's election although his relations with some of them are strained.

"Hardliners recognize Ahmadinejad is the only person that can stand up to the reformists and their candidates," said Saeed Leylaz, a Tehran-based political analyst who worked as an advisor to former President Mohammad Khatami.

"His activity has grown very, very much. And he's caused a stir in various places."

Online battle

As president for eight years, Ahmadinejad frequently enraged the international community with his fierce rhetoric against the United States and Israel, his defiant stand on Iran's disputed nuclear program and persistent questioning of the Holocaust.

Supporters praise him for defending traditional values and standing up to the West. Opponents criticize him for his economic record and over allegations of high-level corruption while he was president.

Although largely about freedom and democracy, last week's speech in Jiroft hit a familiar theme by condemning "oppressors" in a dig at the West, and the United States in particular.

Ahmadinejad speaking at the UN in New York in 2007 (Photo: AP)

"I say why did you start a military campaign in Iraq and Afghanistan and kill 1 million people? They say we want to bring freedom there," he told the crowd. "Democracy means a population has the right to choose their own freedom. They kill people for freedom and congratulate themselves."

Ahmadinejad was first elected president in 2005. His disputed win in the 2009 election prompted the Islamic Republic's biggest protests and a security crackdown in which several people were killed and hundreds were arrested.

As Ahmadinejad has become more visible again, supporters have used the Internet to highlight his accomplishments.

A pro-Ahmadinejad blog has published statistics that portray him in a good light, suggesting, for example, that more rural roads were paved while he was in power than have been under Rouhani, but without citing a source for the data.

Ahmadinejad's critics have also been active online. A satirical photograph posted on the Telegram messaging app shows him posing as a school teacher and presenting a lesson, saying: "Through demagoguery we'll make them forget the memories of eight years of misery."

Opponents have also drawn attention to legal charges Ahmadinejad faces. The nature of the charges has not been announced but local media say they are over government procedures not being followed properly. The former president was summoned to court in 2013 but did not show up.

Opponents cite the legal case as an obstacle to be overcome before Ahmadinejad can think about contesting an election.

"Ahmadinejad must first be tried, then introduce himself as a candidate for the elections," Ali Mottahari, a moderate conservative member of parliament, was quoted as saying by state media.

Support of supreme leader?

Before he can run in an election, Ahmadinejad would be likely to need at least the tacit approval of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The support of the Revolutionary Guard, Iran's most powerful military and economic force, would also be a significant boost.

Ahmadinejad long had the backing of Khamenei but clashed with him more than once in his final years in office. In 2011, he boycotted government meetings for 10 days after Khamenei reinstated an intelligence minister Ahmadinejad had dismissed.

The Revolutionary Guard have sent some signals of support.

In March, during the Iranian Nowruz New Year holiday, Rouhani took a trip to the resort island of Kish while Ahmadinejad visited Shalamcheh, scene of a battle in the Iran-Iraq war. The Basij News site, which is affiliated with the Guard, praised Ahmadinejad and questioned why Rouhani had not shown respect for the families of war victims.

Ahmadinejad with current president and possible future rival, Hassan Rouhani (Photo: AFP)

Ali Tajernia, a reformist former member of parliament, said in an interview with the Arman-e-Emrouz newspaper last week that "influential people with a role in the power structure" had sent messages to Rouhani urging him not to seek re-election.

If Ahmadinejad does mount a comeback, he is likely to revert to populist rhetoric to tap support.

"Ahmadinejad has his own special base of social media support that he can mobilize," Amir Mohebian, a conservative Tehran-based political strategist and analyst who has advised top politicians, said in response to a question from Reuters.

With the economy set to be a campaign issue, Rouhani will try to show the lifting of sanctions is bringing economic gains. If he fails to do so, Ahmadinejad is likely to repeat promises to spread the country's wealth to the poor and disenfranchised.

Rouhani could hit back by making the allegations of corruption during Ahmadinejad's rule a campaign issue. Rouhani came to power on promises to root out corruption, and in March a businessman allegedly linked to top officials from Ahmadinejad's time in office was sentenced to death.
The Shin Bet, Israeli Navy and Israel Police arrested a Palestinian fisherman who was smuggling rocket materials into the Gaza Strip, it was cleared for publication on Monday afternoon.

Salim Gamal Hassan Na'aman, 39, from the Shati Refugee Camp, was arrested after sailing beyond the allowed fishing zone off the coast of the Strip.

During his interrogation, security forces learned that he was involved in smuggling arms and materials used in the production of rockets for Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip.

Investigation also uncovered information on Hamas's planned naval operations, in which the terror group planned to use fishermen to hide its activities.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided on Monday to appoint MK David Bitan as the chairman of the coalition instead of MK Tzachi Hanegbi, who will be appointed a minister without portfolio.

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Despite Netanyahu's decision, in private conversations Hanegbi has rejected the possibility of being appointed a minister without portfolio.

Bitan will continue to serve as the chair of the Knesset's House Committee until the end of the summer session, and will then be replaced by MK Yoav Kish. MK Avi Dichter will replace Hanegbi as the chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

David Bitan and Tzachi Hanegbi (Photos: Alex Kolomoisky, Knesset spokesman)

Netanyahu updated Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon of the appointments and the latter expressed no objection.

Senior officials in the Likud party said that "no one is pressuring for a portfolio, so the prime minister has no reason to make a whole series of appointments right now. Other than Hanegbi and Bitan, he has no intention of manning the other ministries any time soon, unless that is done as part of the expansion of the government."

In addition to being the prime minister, Netanyahu is also the communications minister, the foreign minister, the economy minister and the minister of regional cooperation.

Netanyahu is holding talks with opposition leader Isaac Herzog, who heads the Labor party, over forming a unity government. On Sunday, the prime minister also called on Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman to join the government.

Lieberman was not impressed by the prime minister's call, saying "Don't be tempted by cheap spins. Bibi (Netanyahu) wants Bougie (Herzog) and the rest is just nonsense. When a proper, serious offer is made to Yisrael Beytenu, we'll consider it."

Lieberman accused the Netanyahu government of "not building in Jerusalem or the settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, returning terrorists' bodies, and in short - any connection between the government and the national camp is purely coincidental."
Even though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon have "settled their differences" on Monday following Ya'alon's comments the night before urging the IDF's top brass to continue "speaking their mind," several senior officers in reserves came out in support of the defense minister.

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The controversy was prompted by comments this month by IDF deputy chief, Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan, who compared recent trends in Israeli society to the atmosphere in Nazi-era Germany. Netanyahu called Golan's statement, made in a speech marking Holocaust memorial day, as "outrageous" - while Ya'alon supported the general's right to speak.

On Sunday, Ya'alon encouraged top military generals to continue speaking their mind in public, even if their comments contradict government sentiments.

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Gadi Shamni, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Avi Mizrachi andShabtai Shavit.

"Do not be afraid. Do not hesitate," Ya'alon said. "A good army is an army whose commanders, junior and senior alike, feel confident in their ability to speak their mind at all times. Continue to act in keeping with your human conscience and compass, and not to follow the way the wind is blowing."

An outraged Netanyahu countered that military officials can speak freely in closed circles, but should not delve into political disputes in public. Ministers in his Cabinet largely lined up behind him on Monday.

Following their meeting, Netanyahu and Ya'alon issued a joint statement denying any dispute and asserting that "officers are free to express their opinions in the relevant forums."

Meanwhile, former GOC Central Command Maj.-Gen. (res.) Gadi Shamni told Ynet that "it's a good thing that the defense minister urged officers must speak their minds. An army of 'Yes-Men' is dangerous for Israel."

Shamni went on to say that "there's a direct link between the courage to say things that could cost one a personal pricebecause they challenge one's commandersto the courage to take initiative on the battle field. Speaking on morals and ethics is the duty of every commander."

Maj.-Gen. (res). Avi Mizrahi, also a former GOC Central Command, noted that "there is a great chasm between what officers say and the politicians, and you must say what you think in the right forum, time, and context."

He argued that IDF deputy chief Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan's comments "were not contaminated with politics - so there is no problem with them."

Mizrahi noted that Ya'alon made similar comments when he was the chief of staff as well. "When you need to state your opinion, even a professional one, do so at the right forum.

"That's what I think Bogie (Ya'alon) meant. Bogie didn't mean to say that (IDF chief Gadi) Eisenkot or (GOC Central Command) Roni Numa or (deputy IDF chief) Yair Golan should get up and say 'we think Israel needs to withdraw from the territories' and talk to the media about it. That is not their job, and if they think so - they should say so in the right forums."

The head of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, asserted that "it is the duty of officers and commanders in the IDF to express their positions and assessments with professional integrity, and the duty of the political leadership to safeguard the top military brass's freedom of thought and expression.

Ya'alon speaking at the Kirya in Tel Aviv (Photo: Dana Shraga, Defense Ministry)

Commanders for Israel's Security, a movement that brings together some 200 senior security officials in reserves, also backed Ya'alon.

"Senior officers are supposed to express their opinions both on matters of national security and on the IDF's values," the movement said. "The defense minister did well to see the difference between independence of thought and obeying decisions. Ya'alon provides a faithful expression of these values, which were formulated by (first PM) David Ben-Gurion."

Former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit asserted that "the IDFwhich constitutes the most important asset we havemust be completely above and outside of politics. Recently, politicians, among them the decision-makers, have been pushing the military into the political playground, and I don't think the State of Israel can afford this 'pleasure.'"

He criticized the prime minister's decision to summon the defense minister to his office to rebuke him, and said "the right time to handle this issue was when it first began. If the prime minister felt the need to reprimand the deputy IDF chief, he should've done so in a private conversation and not in front of the media and the public, and explain why he thought (Golan's) comments were inappropriate."

Shavit said the defense minister "could not have just stood by without responding to the lashing out (against Golan), both by the heads of state and by thousands of ignorant people on social media."
Gazans who endured a border blockade by neighboring Egypt and Israel for almost a decade thought they were finally catching a break when Israel slightly eased restrictions on travel from the Hamas-ruled territory in recent months.

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But now Jordan appears to be emerging as an obstacle, routinely denying transit permits for Gazans and effectively preventing patients, university students and others with business abroad from leaving the territory.

With the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing -- Gaza's main gateway to the outside world -- all but shuttered, Jordan has emerged as a key player in enabling Gazans to travel abroad. Over the past year or so, Israel has begun to allow growing numbers of Gazans to cross through its territory and the West Bank into Jordan, where they can catch flights to their final destinations.

Gazans at a rally, Photo:EPA

But Gazans can only cross through Israel if they have a special visa from Jordan known as a "no objection" letter. And travelers and human rights groups say that Gazans are experiencing difficulties receiving these permits like never before.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has urged Jordan to facilitate travel for Palestinians from Gaza to third countries.

"Those seeking transit from Gaza are seeking just that -- transit," Ken Roth, executive director of the New York-based rights watchdog, wrote in a letter to Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour in April.

Roth said that before last summer, Jordan would "routinely grant" these transit permits. Then, beginning last August, individuals, lawyers and human rights organizations began to observe "wide scale refusal" by the Jordanians, he wrote.

Human Rights Watch said it has not received a response from Jordan.

But Jordanian government spokesman Mohammed Momani told The Associated Press that there has been no change in the government's visa policy and that his country, which has a large population of people of Palestinian origin, will do everything it can to facilitate the movement of Gazans.

He called on "other countries to share their responsibilities when it comes to facilitating Palestinians' right of travel" -- an apparent reference to Egypt.

Egypt has kept the Rafah crossing largely closed since 2013, when ties with Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, worsened after the ouster of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. Last week, Egypt opened the crossing for the first time in nearly three months.

During the two-day opening, just 750 of the more than 30,000 people waiting to leave Gaza managed to exit.

Israel, which has maintained a land, air and naval blockade of Gaza since Hamas took power in 2007, says the measures are needed to prevent the Islamic group from smuggling in weapons.

Jordanian officials refused to say how many applications they receive for transit visas from residents in Gaza, or how many are approved or rejected. The Gaza company that helps residents submit applications to Jordan, named "Friends for Express Transportation," also declined comment.

Speaking to foreign journalists in the West Bank on Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said his government was working with Jordan to find a solution.

The restrictions are just another source of frustration for Gaza's 1.8 million residents, who complain of feeling imprisoned in a densely populated territory, with few jobs or opportunities.

In 2014, Mohammed Al-Majayda and his two-year-old son, Majd, traveled to the Netherlands and sought asylum. After he settled there, he managed to get a visa for his wife Heba to join them.

She said she submitted a visa application to Jordan in March, but has not received an answer yet. She said she called the Jordanian representative office in the West Bank, but an agent refused to discuss her case.

"My husband is not with me. I'm lost without him," said the 29-year-old mother.

"I miss my son," she added, bursting into tears. "He needs me and I need him. He is growing up and needs follow up."

For Mohammed al-Hissi, 25, time is running out. He must be in Italy by June 1 to start a master's program in physics. He has an Italian visa, scholarship documents and travel insurance but said he has not heard back about the status of his Jordanian transit visa since March.

Trying to find another way around, al-Hissi said he received an admission letter from a Jordanian university last week that he can use to enter Jordan. Although he said he does not intend to study there, he said the admission letter is his "last option" for arranging travel to Italy.

"I will try to persuade the university in Italy to wait for me and give me a new chance to arrive by early July," he said.
This has been a long time in the making, but in our continuing pursuit to bring only the best of firearms, 2nd Amendment and defence related news to our readers, we are very excited to announce the next step in our evolution as a company.

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A report in the Australian Financial Review has claimed that foreign borrowers are purchasing fraudulent bank income and spending statements for as little as $200.

According to the AFR, recent instances of fraud include a ludicrously obviously fake loan application from Chinese investors hoping to borrow $960,000 to purchase an apartment in Sydney.

The revelation of the black market documents seemingly justifies the recent decisions from a range of Australian lenders to restrict their lending to foreign borrowers or people relying on foreign income or currency.

Major lenders ANZ and Westpac, among those who have pulled back their foreign lending, have also announced they are investigating mortgages they have written that were likely backed by fraudulent foreign-income documentation.

While the issue of mortgage fraud by foreign borrowers had been in the headlines already, Ken Sayer, chief executive of non-bank Mortgage House, told the AFR the latest developments likely mean the issue is more widespread than many first thought.

This is huge, Sayer told the AFR

It is much bigger than everyone is making it out to be. The numbers could be astronomical, he told the AFR.

But not everybody believes the issue is a prevalent as Sayer does, with Finance Brokers Association of Australia (FBAA) spokesperson claiming mortgage fraud involving foreign investors is not a systemic problem.

White said any fraud involving foreign investors is likely quarantined to the actions of a small subset of people in the mortgage industry.

Ninety nine per cent of brokers are doing the right thing but unfortunately, like in any industry, there is a tiny element who cross the line, particularly when it comes to the repayment of loans that rely on foreign income from certain countries, White said.

Whites sentiment is echoed by Gavin Norris, head of Australia for Juwai.com, an online platform that markets foreign real estate to Chinese buyers, who said concerns about the apparent danger of lending to foreigners may be overblown.

It is true [some lenders] found some loans backed by questionable documentation, but it appears those loans are still safer and less likely to default than loans made to Australian citizens, Norris told Your Investment Property.
Preliminary figures from CoreLogic RP Data currently have the national clearance rate at 68.9% from last weeks 1,824 auctions.

The previous week saw the national clearance rate finalise at 67.7% from 2,230 auctions, while the corresponding week 12 months ago saw a clearance rate of 77.5% recorded from 2,232 auctions.

Sydney was easily the strongest performing market last week, with the harbour city returning a preliminary clearance rate of 75.6% from its total of 614 auctions.

That result is an improvement on the previous weeks result of 71.8%, however it is still significantly lower than the clearance rat of 85% recorded from 885 auctions one year ago.

Ryde was Sydneys strongest performing sub region, with its preliminary clearance rate coming in at 91.3%.

While it could not match Sydneys clearance rate last week, Melbourne was the busiest market with 859 homes going under the hammer.

The preliminary clearance rate in the Victorian capital currently sits at 70.6%, slightly down from the 73.2% recorded from 1,150 auctions last week.

The busiest Melbourne sub-region last week was the Inner region, with 160 auctions and a preliminary clearance rate of 76.3% recorded, while the West region currently holds the highest clearance rate at 80.3%.

After holding 195 auctions a fortnight ago, the highest volume count in seven weeks, Brisbane held 153 auctions last week.

Last weeks preliminary clearance rate currently sits at 51.2%, up from the previous weeks 41.2%.

Adelaide also looks to have seen an increase in its clearance rate, with the preliminary result in the South Australian capital at 67.9% compared to the previous weeks 59.8%.

Adelaide held 100 auctions last week compared to 94 over the previous week.

Canberras preliminary clearance rate was 58.6% last week, up from 54.3% over the previous week.

Auction volumes were relatively steady in Canberra over the week with 49 held last week compared to 50 the week before.

Across Perth, 41 auctions were held this week with 20% selling, based on the 15 reported results.

In Tasmania eight auctions were held over the week and of the seven reported results, two sales have been recorded.
As a homeowner, you probably already know that you should be working to maintain your home. But, chances are, you Read More
The Global and United States Hydrobike Market Report has been published by QY Research recently. Hydrobike Market Analysis and Insights This report focuses on...
Gaya: In yet another development related to the recent Gaya road rage incident, Teni Yadav, a key accused in the case and the cousin of Rocky Yadav, surrendered before the district court here on Monday.

The court then sent Teni Yadav, the third accused in case, to 14 days judicial custody.

Teni Yadav is a cousin of Rocky Yadav, the main accused in the Gaya road rage case and the son of absconding Janata Dal United MLC Manorama Devi. In his statement to police, Teni Yadav has claimed that he was not present in the car along with Rocky when the latter shot dead teenager Aditya Sachdeva after his car overtook his vehicle.

Earlier today, the Gaya court deferred hearing on the anticipatory bail plea of suspended JD(U) MLC Manorama Devi. The Gaya court also asked for case diary and record of the lower court in this regard.

"The hearing took place today. The judge has asked for the case diary. Her name is not there in the FIR. We have not got any next date. We said that she has been falsely trapped," Devi's lawyer Kaisar Sarfuddin told ANI.

Devi had filed an anticipatory bail in the court on May 13 after an arrest warrant was issued against her over liquor prohibition.

The Gaya police had last week sealed the house of the suspended JD (U) legislator, who is said to be on the run after an arrest warrant was issued against her under the new state excise law.

Devi's son Rakesh Ranjan Yadav, alias Rocky, and her husband Bindi Yadav are already in jail over the killing of Aditya Sachdeva, a businessman's son, in a case of road rage last week.
Gaya: A court in Gaya will hear the anticipatory bail plea of suspended JD (U) MLC Manorama Devi on May 19.

Earlier today, the hearing of the bail plea was deferred by the court, after it asked for case diary and record of the lower court.

"The hearing took place today. The judge has asked for the case diary. Her name is not there in the FIR. We have not got any next date. We said that she has been falsely trapped," Devi's lawyer Kaisar Sarfuddin was quoted as saying by ANI.

Devi had filed an anticipatory bail in the court on May 13 after an arrest warrant was issued against her over liquor prohibition.

The Gaya Police had last week sealed the house of the suspended JD (U) legislator, who is said to be on the run after an arrest warrant was issued against her under the new state excise law.

Devi's son Rakesh Ranjan Yadav, alias Rocky, and her husband Bindi Yadav are already in jail over the killing of Aditya Sachdeva, a businessman's son, in a case of road rage last week.
New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Monday registered a case of rioting against the supporters of Baba Asaram hours after they clashed with cops at the Parliament Street Police Station.

Seven police personnel, including those from the para-military forces, were injured when the mob pelted stones and tried to storm the station last night.

Carrying placards and banners, the supporters were demanding the release of Asaram Bapu when the scuffle broke out. They even pelted stones at the policemen and vandalised a police vehicle.

Asaram was arrested from his ashram at Indore in Madhya Pradesh and brought to Jodhpur on September 1, 2013. He is lodged in the Jodhpur Central Jail since then.

A 16-year-old girl had lodged a police complaint accusing Asaram of sexually assaulting her at his ashram near Jodhpur.

Asaram's bail applications had earlier been rejected by the Rajasthan High Court and the Supreme Court.
New Delhi: The Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi is spending close to Rs 16 lakh per day on advertising in the print media, a reply to an RTI inquiry has revealed.

The reply says over the last 91 days, the AAP government had spent Rs 14.45 crore on advertising - excluding broadcast.

The list of publications which have received money from the Delhi government includes three Malayali and one Kannada newspaper - popular in Kerala and Karnataka.

Justifying the spending, the AAP government claims these advertisements are aimed at spreading awareness about public policies.

In a reply to Lok Sabha, the AAP admitted to spending about Rs. 5 crore for publicising the two rounds of the odd-even scheme, implemented for 15 days each in January and April.

The RTI was filed by advocate Aman Panwar of the Congress party, which had faced severe criticism for spending Rs 23 crore in 2010 during the Commonwealth Games under the Sheila Dikshit government.

The AAP government had spent Rs 80 crore in its first year in power. Last year, it came under fire for allocating Rs 500 crore for advertisements in the state budget.

This year, the Congress filed a case in court, alleging that a chunk of the advertising money was spent on media blitz as the AAP completed its first year in power.

The petition had alleged that a large number of the advertisements were published or broadcast in towns and cities across India.

"These outstation ads are of no use to the Delhi taxpayers or for the residents of towns and cities like Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru etc," the petition had said.

Meanwhile, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken slammed the AAP government and said,"On one hand we don't have money to pay to 'safai karmacharis' for salaries. On one hand we don't have money to pay for pensions. On the other hand, they are spending more than the previous year on their self-publicity."
New Delhi: A Delhi Police head constable who was posted at Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti`s New Delhi residence on Sunday allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself with his service gun.

According to reports, the incident took place around 10.30 P.M., when Brijpal (head constable) reached Bharti`s residence where he was deployed, got out of his car and suddenly shot himself.

Following the event Brijpal was rushed to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, where he was declared brought dead by the doctors.Head Constable Brijpal was a member of Delhi Police`s security unit.
New Delhi: In a rare case, a 23-year-old woman bitten by a shark in Boca Raton, Florida, was taken to the hospital on Sunday with the animal still attached to her arm, CBS affiliate WPEC reported.

It is said that the baby nurse shark died before the fire rescue team arrived on the scene, but still remained attached to the woman's arm.

Boca Raton Fire Rescue says a 2-foot long nurse shark latched to 23-year-old female's arm. https://t.co/UUGtruFNXs pic.twitter.com/mcqkHOXLjp  WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) May 15, 2016

A spokesperson for the Boca Raton Ocean Rescue told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that the woman remained calm and there was a little blood. A splint board was used to support the woman's arm and the shark as she lay on the stretcher.

The woman, whose name has not been revealed, was in stable condition.
Delhi: Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on Monday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss a host of issues in the state, including the drought situation. The Western Indian state will go to polls next year.

According to a report, the Bharatya Janata Party (BJP) may change her leadership ahead of the Assembly elections in the state.

Citing sources, the NDTV reported that the party may replace her ahead of the assembly elections in an effort to counter anti-incumbency sentiments.

The BJP leadership in Delhi is worried about internal problems in the state BJP and may make her the governor, the report said.

It said that Nitin Bhai Patel may be named as the new chief minister of Gujarat.

It is being speculated that Anandiben Patel may be made the Punjab Governor.

A report on the measures has been submitted to PM Modi, NDTV said citing a former chief minister of the state.
New Delhi: Prime Minster Narendra Modi will meet Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel in Delhi on Monday to discuss drought and water scarcity situation in the state.

According to reports, the Chief Minster will be on a two day visit to the national capital from today.

This visit is a part of Prime Minister's meeting to the Chief Ministers of the drought and scarcity hit states of the country.

The state government official press release said that Patel would not meet any visitors in the state secretariat today and tomorrow due to her pre-occupation.

Earlier on May 7, the Prime Minister met the Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka and discussed and reviewed the drought and water scarcity situation in the states.

Prime Minister Modi also met Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to review the situation in 11 drought-hit states.

On May 14, the Prime Minister met Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia and chaired high-level meetings on the drought and water scarcity situation in the states.

The Centre asked states to take measures for optimally utilising and storing rainwater and also taking measures for water conservation.

Several states have raised issues like construction of farm ponds, community ponds, check dams and demanded early release of funds to take up the water harvesting measures on a priority basis.

Earlier, in a letter to the Chief Secretaries of the states, the Cabinet Secretary had asked them to take full advantage of the upcoming monsoon session to conserve the water that would be received as rainfall during this period.
Chandigarh: The Haryana government has released Rs.65.38 crore in compensation, including interim and final payment, to those whose properties were damaged in the violence during the Jat agitation for job quotas in the state.

"Apart from this, private and government insurance companies have so far made payments amounting to about Rs.12.86 crore to people whose insured properties were damaged," a state government spokesman said on Monday.

He said the government had so far received 2,078 claims for compensation, including 1,826 from urban and 238 from rural areas.

As per the claims filed, 1,789 properties, including 1,500 in urban and 289 in rural areas, were damaged.

"Rs.22.37 crore was paid as interim assistance in 1,818 cases. This included payment of Rs.20.83 crore in 1,616 cases in urban areas and Rs.1.54 crore in 202 cases in rural areas," he said.

Industry body Assocham had pegged losses due to the violence during the agitation at around Rs.20,000 crore in the state.

A total of 30 persons died and 320 people were injured, including 72 personnel belonging to police and other security forces, during the agitation that affected over 10 districts in south and central Haryana.


Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said the killing of a senior journalist was an attack on him and that he will recommend a CBI probe if the grieving family insisted.

Saying he was saddened by the murder of Rajdeo Ranjan, the chief minister told the media: "The killing of the journalist is an attack on me."

He said he had full faith in Bihar Police and its investigation.

"We have not left any stone unturned. The investigation is being carried out with highest diligence. Those who committed this crime (will get the strictest punishment)."

Nitish Kumar said he told the police chief on Sunday night to meet the victim's family and ask if they were satisfied with the action taken thus far.

"If they are not satisfied, we will ask for a CBI probe," he added.

Nitish Kumar said: "I have said earlier too. Anyone can commit a crime. But the law has to take its own course."

Ranjan, 46, the Siwan bureau chief of Hindustan, was shot dead at a busy market near the Station Road on Friday night.

Siwan Superintendent of Police Saurav Kumar Shah said nearly a dozen suspects, including Munshi Mian, had been detained in connection with the case.

According to police, Munshi Mian was detained from Pratappur, the village of jailed former MP Mohammad Shahabuddin.


New Delhi: Under attack from the Opposition over journalist Rajdeo Ranjan 's murder in the Siwan district, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday announced to hand over the probe to CBI following requests from the deceased's family members.

While addressing a press conference in Patna, the Bihar CM said that any attack on the journalists is like an attack on the government itself.

"We believe that any attack on the journalist is like an attack on the government. I have full faith in the state police but following a request from Rajdeo Ranjan's family, we have decided to hand over the probe to CBI," said Nitish Kumar.

The chief minister also said that the investigation is being carried out with "highest diligence" and police will file a charge sheet at the earliest.

Assuring punishment to the perpetrators, Nitish Kumar said: "The person who has committed the crime will get the strictest punishment under law."

Nitish Kumar's remarks came after people across the state took out protests against the murder of the reporter.

Senior journalist Rajdev Ranjan was on Friday shot dead by unidentified gunmen.

Rajdeo Ranjan, Siwan district chief of Hindi daily "Hindustan", was fired at in Siwan district on Friday late evening when he was going on his motorcycle near the fruit market on Station Road under Town police station at around 7:45 pm.

Ranjan, 45, died on the way to the hospital.

Ranjan has been writing for a long time against law-breakers of the area. The killing triggered a wave of protests by mediapersons in Bihar.
New Delhi: The Jamnagar BJP MP Poonamben Madam was rushed to a local hospital with injuries after she fell into a 10-feet deep sewer hole on Monday.

The incident took place at Jalla Ram Nagar when she was instructing officials during an anti-encroachment drive in the area.

The video shows, the BJP MP instructing the officials to be soft and be careful towards the locals before falling into the manhole. It is believed that the sewer was covered by an iron sheet so the sewer was not visible.

Two other officials, who were standing near the MP, also fell into the drain.

Madam is said to be out of danger but doctors have advised her to avoid meeting with people and take rest.
Delhi: Assam, Tamil Nadu and Kerala appears to have voted for change, with West Bengal all set to maintain status quo, as per various exit polls conducted at the end of five-state elections on Monday evening.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared poised to win in Assam for the first time, ending 15 long years of Congress rule, in more bad news for the Congress, the grand old party was projected to lose Kerala.

According to exit polls, only West Bengal seemed to have bucked the trend.

Trinamool Congress led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is predicted to hold on to power by defeating the Left-Congress alliance convincingly for a second consecutive term, the polls showed.

On the other hand, verdict was split over Tamil Nadu, with advantage to the DMK. The DMK was also tipped to win in Puducherry.

Projections by various exit polls:

The BJP-led alliance could bag 79 to 93 seats in the 126-member Assam assembly, three exit polls said.

A fourth survey gave the BJP and its two allies - Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and Bodoland People's Front (BPF) - 57 seats, close to the critical half-way mark.

The India Today-Axis exit poll gave 79-93 seats to the BJP combine, 26-33 to the Congress and 6-10 to the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).

ABP-Nielsen predicted 81 seats to the BJP coalition, 33 to the Congress and 10 to the AIUDF.

The NewsX Chanakya poll gave 90 seats to the BJP combine, 27 to the Congress and nine to the AIUDF. According to TimesNow C-Voter exit poll, the BJP and allies would get 57 seats, the Congress 41, AIUDF 18 and others 10.

According to ABP-Nielsen, the Trinamool would win 163 of the 294 Assembly seats. The CPI-M-led Left Front and the Congress combine would get 126 with a solitary seat going to the BJP. Others would get four seats.

But it warned that in 25 constituencies the margin of victory was set to be less than five percent, and the final outcome could drastically change depending on the results in these seats, as per IANS.

C-Voter also predicted 167 seats for the Trinamool, 75 for the Left, 45 for the Congress, four to the BJP and three to others.

NewsX-Today's Chanakya predicted a whopping 210 (plus or minus 14) seats for the Trinamool, 70 (plus or minus nine) for the Left-Congress and 14 rpt 14 (plus or minus five) seats for the BJP.

The exit polls were divided over Tamil Nadu.

Three surveys predicted a defeat for Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's AIADMK. But a fourth said she would retain power comfortably, winning 139 of the 234 seats.

The News Nation TV exit poll gave 95-99 seats to the AIADMK and 114-118 to the DMK-Congress alliance. The People Welfare Front (PWF), made up of six parties, could get 14 seats and the BJP four seats. Nine seats could go to others.

The Axis-My India exit poll predicted 124-140 seats to the DMK-Congress alliance, 89-110 to the AIADMK, 0-3 to the BJP and 4-8 to others.

NewsX-Today's Chanakya predicted that DMK-Congress alliance would get 140 (plus or minus 11) seats and AIADMK winning 90 (plus or minus) nine seats.

C-Voter, however, gave 139 seats to the AIADMK and 78 to the DMK coalition.

In Kerala, however, the Left could return to power.

The India Today-Axis exit poll gave 88 to 101 seats to the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the 140-member house and 38-48 to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). The BJP could get zero to three seats while one to four seats may go to others.

The India TV C-Voter exit poll predicted 74-82 seats to the LDF, which is led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

The NewsX-Today's Chanakya poll predicted 75 (plus or minus nine) seats for LDF and 57 (plus or minus nine) seats for the UDF. The BJP, it said, could get 8 (plus or minus four seats).

Exit polls predicted a win for the DMK-Congress alliance in Puducherry too, ousting the ruling All India NR Congress.

Reactions:

Brushing aside the early exit polls predictions of a big win for BJP in Assam, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi expressed confidence over his victory, saying people are aware of the work done by the Congress government in the state.

"I have a full trust and confidence in our own people of Assam. People of Assam have seen how much change we have brought in.Everyone has seen the performance of the government," Gogoi told ANI.

Meanwhile, TMC expressed happiness at being given a clear majority in the state Assembly elections by most of the exit polls.

"We will wait for May 19 and the actual results. The people of Bengal will bless Trinamool abundantly. Mamata Banerejee government's peace and communal harmony will win the hearts and minds of the people of Bengal," TMC spokesperson Derek O'Brien said, as per PTI.

On the other hand, the Opposition combine of the Left Front and Congress is hopeful that the formation of an alliance government is only a matter of time.

CPI-M MP Ritabrata Banerjee and Congress leader Abdul Mannan said that whatever might be the exit poll prediction, the formation of the alliance government was "imminent."

Mannan claimed people had voted in favour of the alliance.

Counting of votes will take place on May 19.

(With Agency inputs)
Delhi: Assam, Tamil Nadu and Kerala appears to have voted for change, with West Bengal all set to maintain status quo, as per various exit polls conducted at the end of five-state elections on Monday evening.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared poised to win in Assam for the first time, ending 15 long years of Congress rule, in more bad news for the Congress, the grand old party was projected to lose Kerala.

According to exit polls, only West Bengal seemed to have bucked the trend.

Trinamool Congress led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is predicted to hold on to power by defeating the Left-Congress alliance convincingly for a second consecutive term, the polls showed.

On the other hand, verdict was split over Tamil Nadu, with advantage to the DMK. The DMK was also tipped to win in Puducherry.



Projections by various exit polls:

The BJP-led alliance could bag 79 to 93 seats in the 126-member Assam assembly, three exit polls said.

A fourth survey gave the BJP and its two allies - Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and Bodoland People's Front (BPF) - 57 seats, close to the critical half-way mark.



The India Today-Axis exit poll gave 79-93 seats to the BJP combine, 26-33 to the Congress and 6-10 to the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).

ABP-Nielsen predicted 81 seats to the BJP coalition, 33 to the Congress and 10 to the AIUDF.



The NewsX Chanakya poll gave 90 seats to the BJP combine, 27 to the Congress and nine to the AIUDF. According to TimesNow C-Voter exit poll, the BJP and allies would get 57 seats, the Congress 41, AIUDF 18 and others 10.



According to ABP-Nielsen, the Trinamool would win 163 of the 294 Assembly seats. The CPI-M-led Left Front and the Congress combine would get 126 with a solitary seat going to the BJP. Others would get four seats.



But it warned that in 25 constituencies the margin of victory was set to be less than five percent, and the final outcome could drastically change depending on the results in these seats, as per IANS.



C-Voter also predicted 167 seats for the Trinamool, 75 for the Left, 45 for the Congress, four to the BJP and three to others.

NewsX-Today's Chanakya predicted a whopping 210 (plus or minus 14) seats for the Trinamool, 70 (plus or minus nine) for the Left-Congress and 14 rpt 14 (plus or minus five) seats for the BJP.



The exit polls were divided over Tamil Nadu.



Three surveys predicted a defeat for Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's AIADMK. But a fourth said she would retain power comfortably, winning 139 of the 234 seats.



The News Nation TV exit poll gave 95-99 seats to the AIADMK and 114-118 to the DMK-Congress alliance. The People Welfare Front (PWF), made up of six parties, could get 14 seats and the BJP four seats. Nine seats could go to others.



The Axis-My India exit poll predicted 124-140 seats to the DMK-Congress alliance, 89-110 to the AIADMK, 0-3 to the BJP and 4-8 to others.



NewsX-Today's Chanakya predicted that DMK-Congress alliance would get 140 (plus or minus 11) seats and AIADMK winning 90 (plus or minus) nine seats.



C-Voter, however, gave 139 seats to the AIADMK and 78 to the DMK coalition.



In Kerala, however, the Left could return to power.



The India Today-Axis exit poll gave 88 to 101 seats to the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the 140-member house and 38-48 to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). The BJP could get zero to three seats while one to four seats may go to others.



The India TV C-Voter exit poll predicted 74-82 seats to the LDF, which is led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).



The NewsX-Today's Chanakya poll predicted 75 (plus or minus nine) seats for LDF and 57 (plus or minus nine) seats for the UDF. The BJP, it said, could get 8 (plus or minus four seats).



Exit polls predicted a win for the DMK-Congress alliance in Puducherry too, ousting the ruling All India NR Congress.

Reactions:

Brushing aside the early exit polls predictions of a big win for BJP in Assam, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi expressed confidence over his victory, saying people are aware of the work done by the Congress government in the state.

"I have a full trust and confidence in our own people of Assam. People of Assam have seen how much change we have brought in.Everyone has seen the performance of the government," Gogoi told ANI.

Meanwhile, TMC expressed happiness at being given a clear majority in the state Assembly elections by most of the exit polls.

"We will wait for May 19 and the actual results. The people of Bengal will bless Trinamool abundantly. Mamata Banerejee government's peace and communal harmony will win the hearts and minds of the people of Bengal," TMC spokesperson Derek O'Brien said, as per PTI.

On the other hand, the Opposition combine of the Left Front and Congress is hopeful that the formation of an alliance government is only a matter of time.

CPI-M MP Ritabrata Banerjee and Congress leader Abdul Mannan said that whatever might be the exit poll prediction, the formation of the alliance government was "imminent."

Mannan claimed people had voted in favour of the alliance.

Counting of votes will take place on May 19.

(With Agency inputs)
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has wished a speedy recovery to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who is down with high fever, Health Minister J P Nadda said on Monday.

"Got to know that Sh Rahul Gandhi is not well from Hon'ble PM who was quite concerned about his health. In view of the concerns of Hon?ble PM, I enquired about his health and wished a speedy recovery for him," Nadda tweeted.

Rahul Gandhi had last week cancelled his two-day election visit to Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, saying he was down with high fever.

Congress sources said Gandhi is still suffering from high viral fever and the doctors have advised him to take rest.
New Delhi: Union Health Minister JP Nadda on Monday met health ministers of states over the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) issue.

In the meeting, the health ministers shared their views on holding NEET this year.

JP Nadda after meeting said that he has noted their (health ministers) many concerns about NEET this year and the government will soon formulate further course of action.

I have noted their many concerns about NEET this year. Will soon formulate further course of action.  Jagat Prakash Nadda (@JPNadda) May 16, 2016

Noteworthy, as several parliamentarians are opposed to the common medical entrance test, the Centre has decided to hold consultations with state health ministers to formulate a strategy regarding the issue.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had ruled that starting this academic session, students would have to appear for NEET to seek admission to any medical or dental colleges in the country.

Last week, the apex court also turned down a batch of appeals by states seeking to conduct their own medical admission tests and ruled that "only NEET would enable students to get admission to MBBS or BDS studies".
Mumbai: In a major development with regard to National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis on Monday assured the concerned parents that he will meet PM Narendra Modi over the NEET issue.

"Have assured parents that I will meet PM Modi on NEET issue; we are trying our best to solve the issue," Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis said.

Will meet Hon PM @narendramodi Ji to raise concerns of #NEET students &will demand solution from GoI:CM @Dev_Fadnavis while addressing media  CMO Maharashtra (@CMOMaharashtra) May 16, 2016

Earlier, the Supreme Court had ruled that starting this academic session, students would have to appear for NEET to seek admission to any medical or dental colleges in the country.

Last week, the apex court also turned down a batch of appeals by states seeking to conduct their own medical admission tests and ruled that "only NEET would enable students to get admission to MBBS or BDS studies".
New Delhi: Even as speculations are rife over the exit of Gujarat CM Anandiben Patel's exit, a name has been doing the rounds for next CM of the state.

Nitinbhai Patel has emerged as front-runner for the CM's post as speculations over Anandiben's successor have already started.

Noteworthy, the speculations gained momentum after Anandiben Patel on Monday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss a host of issues in the state. Gujarat will go to polls next year.

Who is Nitinbhai Patel?

- Currently, Nitinbhai is Health, Medical Education, Family Welfare, Road and Building, Capital Project Minister in Gujarat

- He was formerly a minister for water supply, Water Resources, (excluding Kalpsar Division), Urban Development and Urban Housing.

- Nitinbhai was first elected as an MLA in 1990.

- Currently, he is an MLA from Mehsana, elected in 2012.

- Reportedly, Nitinbhai was the head of the committee which was involved in negotiation with Patel agitation leaders.

Sources say one of the major reasons behind Anandiben's exit is poor handling of Hardik Patel-led quota agitation in Gujarat.

It is being speculated that Anandiben Patel may be made the Punjab Governor.
New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of acting like a political campaigner instead of behaving as the premier of the country.

Tharoor also ridiculed a press meet of BJP chief Amit Shah where he had flashed a magazine, which reportedly featured a Sri Lankan baby on its cover page, in support of Modi's statement regarding health of infants among Scheduled Tribes in Kerala.

"It's bad enough that it's Somalia in Kerala but it's even worse that it's Sri Lankan baby in Somalian Kerala," the MP from Thiruvananthapuram said, adding that when the PM goes to any state, people want to hear good things from him and want to feel acknowledged and admired.

"Instead you have the Prime Minister coming and behaving like a political campaigner, that doesn't play well," he said.

He was speaking to a news channel on the sidelines of the polling in Kerala.

On a lighter note, Tharoor said men will be unhappy with the new liquor policy in the state but it is popular among women.

"I suspect that the men who drink would be unhappy to vote for a government that's gonna take away their drinks from them. It remains hugely popular with women and with community leaders, including all the faith leaders," he said.

The former Union Minister expressed hope that United Democratic Front (UDF) will retain power in the state amidst the controversies and scams, saying development has actually got off the ground.

"Public is particularly impressed with the UDF's message which is whatever the other charges in media controversies maybe about, the courts and the investigating agencies will deal with it, but has it affected your life," he asked.

"These were all scandals relating to private scams involving private individuals. As far as the state's action is concerned, as far as the government's responsibilities are concerned, has your life improved in the last five years, have you seen progress on the ground.

"Are there development projects that have actually got off the ground, instead of years of sloganeering and talk by the other parties?" he said, adding that the UDF will retain power in the state.

"I believe that this pattern by which every five years a government is changed by the voters, will be reversed for the first time in four or five decades now," Tharoor said.
Chandigarh: Nearly 15,000 Aam Aadmi Party activists on Monday marched towards Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's residence here to protest but Chandigarh Police stopped them at the city's border with Mohali town of Punjab.

Later, a delegation of AAP leaders, including Sanjay Singh, in charge of the party's affairs in Punjab, state convenor Sucha Singh Chottepur, MP Bhagwant Mann and actor-comedian Gurpreet Ghuggi, was escorted by police to meet acting Punjab Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki to submit a memorandum against the Badal government.

The protestors are seeking a high-level probe into the Rs.12,000-crore scam of 'missing' food grain.

Security in and around Chandigarh was tightened on Monday ahead of the AAP protest against the Punjab government's alleged failure to probe the food grain scam and curb the menace of drugs, mafia and corruption.

The area around the official residences of the chief minister and his son and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal in the upscale Sector 2 was barricaded by Chandigarh Police. Scores of police personnel, many of them in anti-riot gear, were also deployed.

Chandigarh Police personnel were also deployed around the Haryana Raj Bhavan, the official residence of Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, in Sector 6.

Security was also increased at all entry points to Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, to stop the AAP activists from moving in close to the VIP residences.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had cancelled all his official engagements for Monday to receive AAP leaders who wished to protest outside his official residence.

In the past, Badal stayed at his official residence to meet Congress leaders protesting outside.

Elections to the Punjab assembly are likely to be held in February next year.
New Delhi: A day after a local court here summoned environmentalist RK Pachauri, accused of sexually harassing a colleague, the former chief of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) claimed on Monday that he is innocent.

Terming the contents of the chargesheet as 'allegations leveled by complainant', Pachauri said he has full faith in Indian judiciary system.

Court only took cognizance of allegations in chargesheet. It's nowhere stated that there is sufficient evidence against me, he said in a statement.

The former TERI chief further said, Contents of charge sheet are allegations leveled by complainant & nothing has been substantiated after yearlong investigation.

Have complete faith in countrys justice delivery system. I have done no wrong & this fact shall be proved in court of law, he added, as per ANI.

Earlier on Saturday, after taking cognisance of a chargesheet against Pachauri the apex court had said that there is enough material to proceed against him under charges dealing with stalking, words, gestures or acts intended to insult a woman's modesty.

Metropolitan Magistrate Shivani Chauhan had considered the chargesheet and said that there is sufficient material to proceed against the former TERI chief under the Indian Penal Code's sections 354A (advances involving unwelcome and explicit sexual overtures), 354B (using criminal force against a woman), 354D (stalking), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 341 (wrongful restraint).

The court, however, dropped charges under section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC.

The court had fixed July 11 for further hearing. It had also said that a set of copy of the chargesheet will be supplied to Pachauri at the next hearing.

Police have cited around 23 prosecution witnesses and several text messages, e-mails and WhatsApp messages exchanged between the accused and victim as evidence to support its case.

Pachauri was accused of sexually harassing a female colleague in 2015. He stepped down as chairperson of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in February last year and proceeded on leave from TERI, where he was the director general.

In November, the woman researcher who accused him of sexual harassment quit her job at TERI, alleging she was treated badly. TERI denied the charge.

On February 8, Pachauri was appointed executive vice chairman of the organisation. Following severe criticism, on February 12, he went on indefinite leave from the organisation.
Beijing: Accusing the US of "sowing discord" between China and India, Beijing on Monday said the two neighbours are wise enough to resolve their boundary dispute peacefully through talks and asked America to respect their efforts.

Dismissing as groundless a Pentagon report that claimed the Communist giant was deploying more troops along the Sino-India borders, China said that it was a misrepresentation of its military development.

"Maintaining peace and tranquility along the China-India border areas is an important consensus reached between the leaders of the two countries," the Chinese Defence Ministry said in written response to PTI here about the US report.

"Currently, the border forces of China and India are actively carrying out exchanges, working towards establishing hotline between the two militaries, and are in close communication through the mechanism of border personnel meetings," it said.

"The situation in the China-India border is overall peaceful and stable. The relevant statements by US defence officials are clearly unsubstantiated and intended to sow discord," between India and China, the ministry said.

Earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry in a written response said the US must respect India-China efforts to resolve the boundary dispute peacefully through negotiations.

India and China last month held the 19th round of talks to resolve the border dispute stretching along the 3488 km long Line of Actual Control (LAC).

While China says that the boundary dispute is confined to 2,000 kms, mainly in Arunachal Pradesh in eastern sector which it claims as part of southern Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covered the whole of the LAC including the Aksai Chin.

"The Chinese side is committed to safeguarding peace and tranquility of the border areas between China and India, and resolving the boundary question through negotiation with India," the Foreign Ministry said in written response to PTI.

"China and India are wise and capable enough to deal with this issue. It is hoped that other country would respect efforts made by China and India for the peaceful settlement of dispute, rather than the opposite," the Foreign Ministry said, without directly referring to United States.

The US report also warned of increasing Chinese military presence in various parts of the world, particularly Pakistan.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia Abraham M Denmark told media in Washington on May 14 that "we have noticed an increase in capability and force posture by the Chinese military in areas close to the border with India."

"It is difficult to conclude on the real intention behind this," Denmark said after submitting Pentagon's annual 2016 report to the US Congress.

"It is difficult to say how much of this is driven by internal considerations to maintain internal stability and how much of it is an external consideration," he said when asked about China's military command in Tibet.
Srinagar: A 16-year-old teenager, whose alleged molestation triggered a massive protest in Handwara and to other parts of Kashmir in April, claimed on Monday that she was forced by the local police to record a statement in their custody.

Alleging exploitation by the police, the girl claimed that "they forced me to say things that they recorded and put up on the internet."

The girl made these revelations in a press conference today.

''Police told me not give my original statement, they said that will be safe for my family, '' the 16-year-old girl alleged.

The girl further alleged that she was kept against her will in the police station.

"They made me sign on blank papers. I can't write in Urdu. They made me write in Urdu and took our signature," she said, flanked by her parents.

The girl was under protective custody for 27 days and was released only after court intervention.

Her parents said she was pressurised to change her original version.

The teen complained that she was isolated by her classmates, who accused her of "suppressing reality."

Five people were killed in clashes between protesters and security forces after the girl, who stays in Handwara, alleged that she had been molested by a soldier.

Later, in a controversial video shot inside the police station, the girl was shown saying that she had been harassed by local boys on her way home from school.
Jammu: A militant was killed while two others were apprehended near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district on Monday in a search by the army after reports of an infiltration bid, defence officials said.

"One militant was killed while other two were apprehended by personnel of the counter-insurgency Rashtriya Rifles (RR) in Sabjia Mandi area of Poonch district near the LoC today (Monday)," defence sources told IANS.

Noting there was information about the infiltration of militants in Sabjia Mandi area, a source said that on basis of this information, a search was launched in the area and militants spotted hiding in a dry watercourse.

"Seeing the army, they tried to flee from there, but were chased by alert troops and two were captured. While the third one was trying to escape, he fell down from a height and died," said the source, adding that there was no bullet injury on his body which confirms death due to falling.

"The dead militant has been identified as Bilal Khan while the names of the two apprehended militants are are being ascertained," the source added.
Ranchi: Jharkhand police have arrested two persons in connection with the killing of TV journalist in Chatra district of the state, police officials said.

Talking to IANS, Chatra superintendent of police Anjani Jha said, We have arrested two people as part of our investigation into the murder of the journalist. We are interrogating and will later disclose the details onmotive behind the murder.

Indradev Yadav alias Akhilesh Singh, a local television reporter in Chatra district, was shot dead on Thursday while he was returning home.

Journalists associations across the country have condemned the killings and demanded immediate arrest of the culprits.

Akhilesh Singh is the fourth journalist to be killed since the creation of Jharkhand in November 2000, according to the records kept by media watchdog agencies like the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Thiruvananthapuram: Over 12 percent of the total voters cast their ballots in the first two hours of polling on Monday in the ongoing Kerala state legislative assembly elections.

Polling began at 7.00 am across the state and will end at 6.00 pm, to elect 140 new legislators to the 14th Kerala Legislative Assembly.

Alappuzha district topped the list with 12.95 percent turnout followed by Malappuram with 12.71 percent, with the state capital district - Thiruvananthapuram, last with just 8.12 percent votes.

As per election officials, the state has 2,60,19,284 voters comprising 1,25,10,589 males, 1,35,08,693 females and two voters belonging to the third gender.

Overall, there are 21,498 regular polling booths and 148 auxiliary polling booths, of which there are 1,233 categorised as critical and including 119 booths that are in Maoist-influenced areas.

A total of 1,203 contestants, including 109 women, are in the fray.

Despite rains and the cloudy weather across the state, people were seen queuing up in front of most polling booths.

The electoral battle is principally between the traditional rival fronts -- the Congress-led UDF and the CPI-M-led LDF, while the BJP-led NDA alliance is hoping a major victory.
Thiruvananthapuram: Former defence minister AK Antony on Monday casted his vote and said that he is confident that United Democratic Front (UDF) will have a clean swipe in Kerala where polling for electing a new state assembly is under way, while adding that the Bharatiya Janata Party in spite of the hectic campaign by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be able to open an account in the state.

Antony told ANI, "I am very happy today. I am 100 percent sure that these elections will mark a new history for Kerala. Once again UDF is going to come back again. We will win hands down this election. LDF will once again sit in the opposition for next five years," he said.

"The BJP in spite of the hectic campaign by the Prime Minister will not be able to open an account in Kerala assembly. I am sure Kerala will vote for peace, communal harmony, stability and progress. I am very sure that we will get more seats than we got in last elections," he added.

The Congress leader asserted that the Prime Minister's speech where he compared Kerala with Somalia would really dent BJP's chances in Kerala as the statement had hurt the pride of every Malayali in the state.

Kerala would see polling for its 140 seats assembly.

The polling started at 7 am and would end at 6 pm.

All non-sensitive booths would have a policeman each for providing security and central paramilitary force personnel would give security cover for the sensitive and hypersensitive booths.

Meanwhile, the election authorities are bracing for the possibility of unusual rains today.

The Election Commission has made additional efforts in the polling booths to provide cover for the voters to come and exercise their franchise without getting drenched in the possible rain.

The Kerala Government has made elaborate arrangements for smooth and peaceful conduct of polls.
Mumbai: 'Bhumata Brigade' chief and noted women's right activist Trupti Desai will now begin a campaign to press for a liquor ban in state of Maharashtra.

According to ANI, Desai will travel across the state to create awareness about total liquor prohibition.

The 'Bhumata Brigade' chief is also expected to meet Maharashtra Chief Minister Devender Fadnavis in this regard soon.

Desai had earlier successfully championed the cause of women's entry inside the sanctum sanctorum of popular Hindu temples and had even targeted the male-dominated right-wing Hindu organisation the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

The RSS chief had reportedly agreed to meet her in the coming weeks after Desai wrote a letter to Mohan Bhagwat demanding women's entry in the Hindu body.

Desai had written the letter to the RSS chief in April demanding that women be admitted in RSS and sought a meeting with him.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear next week a plea seeking stoppage of water supply to the liquor industry in Maharashtra in the wake of acute water scarcity in the state.

The apex court`s vacation bench headed by Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre agreed to hear the plea next week after an advocate mentioned the matter before the bench and sought an early hearing.

The petitioner told the court that the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court had earlier directed 60 percent cut in the water supply to the liquor industry and 25 percent to other industries in the drought-hit Marathwada region from May 10 till June end.

The petitioners, who are activists, wanted that even this 40 percent supply of water to the liquor industry should be stopped.

The plea assumes significance as the Supreme Court had earlier upheld the Bombay High Court order banning the hosting of IPL matches, including in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur.
California: Internet giant Google faces a record anti-trust fine of around three billion euros(USD 3.4 billion) for promoting its shopping service in Internet searches at the expense of rival services.

According to British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph, Google will also be banned from continuing to manipulate search results to favour itself and harm rivals.

The Commission can fine firms up to 10 percent of their annual sales, which in Google's case would be a maximum possible sanction of more than six billion euros, report Reuters.

The biggest antitrust fine till date was a 1.1 billion-euro fine imposed on chip-maker Intel in 2009.
Chennai: Polling to 232 Assembly seats in Tamil Nadu that will decide the fate of over 3700 candidates, including chief minister J Jayalalithaa and DMK chief M Karunanidhi, commenced today at 7 AM.

Electronic Voting Machines across 65,000-odd polling booths were opened for around 5.50 crore voters to cast their votes.

Over one lakh security personnel have been deployed to ensure peaceful elections.

Though Tamil Nadu has 234 assembly seats across 32 districts, polling is being held only for 232 as the Election Commission has postponed it for May 23 in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur segments following complaints of voters being bribed.

Besides Jayalalithaa (RK Nagar) and Karunanidhi (Thiruvarur), a host of leaders including DMDK founder Vijayakant and PMK's Anbumani Ramadoss, both Chief Ministerial candidates, MK Stalin (DMK), H Raja and Tamilisai Sounderrajan of the BJP are in fray.

A total of 1,11,958 police personnel, including 21,780 para military personnel, would be involved in the election duty.
Jaipur: Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh on Monday directed vice chancellors of all government universities to hoist tricolour on their premises.

In the guidelines, the governor said every university will have its own anthem reflecting its objective and it will be played on various occasions, a release said.

He also directed the universities to set up research chairs on great personalities of the country for studying their works and achievements which can be disseminated in the society.

These arrangements will promote patriotism among the students, teachers and other staffers, a release said.

The progress of this matter will be reviewed in the vice chancellors coordination meeting to be held at Raj Bhawan on June 21.
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday asked Parliament to set up a committee to probe all those whose names figure in the 'Panama Papers' after his family was accused of stashing money in offshore entities.

Sharif asked the Speaker to thrash out a detailed procedure to probe those mentioned in the Panama Papers, in consultation with the opposition.

He addressed parliament after the opposition had demanded that he should face the house to clear his name after his family members were mentioned in the Panama Papers.

Sharif dwelt at length on the issue of his family business which he said was established much before Partition.

He rejected the charge of money laundering and said his family did not transfer any money from Pakistan but used proceeds from the family business in UAE and Saudi Arabia to buy properties in the UK.

He said he was ready for accountability but demanded that all others involved in corruption should also face probes.

"The speaker should set up a committee of parliament in consultation with all parties to prepare terms of reference and detailed procedure for probe into Panama Papers," he said.

However, his offer was rejected by opposition parties which staged a walk out after Sharif's address.

Sharif also claimed that he had set up his business first and subsequently joined politics unlike those who make money through politics.

The opposition has been demanding Sharif face parliament and respond to various questions regarding how his family transferred money from Pakistan to set up businesses abroad.

Sharif's two sons Hussain and Hassan own businesses in UK and Saudi Arabia.

His critics want him to reveal the channels through which the funds were transferred from Pakistan along with the exact amount and whether any taxes were paid or not.

But pressure has eased on Sharif after Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaaf chief Imran Khan admitted having an offshore company while several other leaders were also found owning such entities, including Moonis Elahi, son of former deputy premier Pervaiz Elahi, and Pakistan People's Party senator and ex-interior minister Rehman Malik besides others.
Kabul: A top commander of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group in Afghanistan was killed in an Afghan Air Force air strike.

Khamma Press quoted the Ministry of Defense (MoD), as saying that the air strike was carried out in Wata Pur district of eastern Kunar province.

The 201st Silab Corps of the Afghan National Army in a statement said the airstrike was carried out by the U.S. forces using an unmanned aerial vehicle.

A statement said Shafiq Abbas was a commander of the Taliban group and was involved in major terrorist activities in Wata Pur district.

Following major blows in some of their strongholds in eastern Nangarhar province, the insurgent group have recently started operations in the restive Kunar province.

On Sunday, at least eight ISIS loyalists were killed in an airstrike in Achin district.

The Afghan forces have stepped up operations to eliminate the insurgent groups amid concerns that it is attempting to expand foothold in the country.
Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: In order to make their stay more comfortable in deep space, NASA is investing in eight technology proposals to develop Magnetoshells to growable habitats that will make the journey of astronauts in deep space a bit comfortable.

These proposals has the potential to transform the future aerospace missions by building efficient aerospace system.

Awards under Phase II of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) can be worth as much as $500,000 for a two-year study, and allow proposers to further develop concepts funded by NASA for Phase I studies that successfully demonstrated initial feasibility and benefit.

In Phase II study awardees will have to refine their futuristic projects and explore the areas where they can implement this technology.

This years Phase II portfolio addresses a range of leading-edge concepts, including: an interplanetary habitat configured to induce deep sleep for astronauts on long-duration missions; a highly efficient dual aircraft platform that may be able to stay aloft for weeks or even months at a time; and a method to produce solar white coatings for scattering sunlight and cooling fuel tanks in space down to 300 F below zero, with no energy input needed.

Phase II decisions are always challenging, but we were especially challenged this year with so many successful Phase I studies applying to move forward with their cutting-edge technologies, said Jason Derleth, the NIAC program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

All projects are in prototype stage and requires 10 years or more for concept maturation and technology development before use on a NASA mission.

(Source: NASA)
Madurai: Polling began on a dull note in the southern districts with incessant rains preventing the voters from coming out, officials said.

There was not much queue in most of the polling booth, officials said but expressed hope that the polling would pick up once the rains stopped.

There were reports of polling machines going out of order in Tirunelveli and Theni districts but they were replaced and the polling began.

In Madurai a voter, who was more than 100 years old voted with the help of his grand sons.

A minor skirmish was reported between the DMK and ADMK cadres in Viralimalai constituency where the AIADMK leader Vijayabaskar was pitted against Palaniappan.

The polling booths had been given three tier security with the para military forces monitoring the booths.

A report from Rameswaram said that fishermen in hamlet stood on long queue despite rains to vote.

Officials had provided pandal in most of the booths to enable the voters stand queue during the rains.
Dehradun: Noting that Uttarakhand had incurred huge losses due to forest fires, drought and prolonged political uncertainty, Chief Minister Harish Rawat today said it needs at least Rs 3000 crore to make a recovery.

"There should be no bad blood between the state and the Centre. I want that the Centre should lend a helping hand to the state like it has done in the case of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra," Rawat said.

He said he was trying to convey his feelings to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will have to play the role of an elder brother to bail out Uttarakhand which is reeling under drought like conditions, battling the after effects of a huge forest fire and also struggling hard to make up for the losses due to nearly two months of political uncertainty.

"The state needs at least Rs 3000 crore to overcome the losses suffered by it due to a multiplicity of factors including a drought, forest fires and prolonged political uncertainty," he said.

The Chief Minister said there was nothing unconstitutional about the Cabinet withdrawing a notification issued during President's rule recommending CBI investigation into a sting CD on him.
Burdwan/Shantipur: Eighteen bodies, including those of four children, have so far been fished out from Bhagirathi river in which an overcrowded boat bank on Saturday night.

Nadia district magistrate Vijay Bharti told PTI that 17 bodies have been identified.

"The 17 bodies identified are those of people from Shantipur while one is likely to be from Burdwan.... We are still trying to identify it," Bharti said.

The boat was ferrying around 55 people, much above its capacity, and overturned in the river on Saturday night when it was on its way back to Shantipur in Nadia district carrying passengers from a fair at Kalna in Burdwan district on the opposite bank.

The accident had sparked violent protest in Nadia district yesterday during which several boats were torched and police fired tear gas shells and rubber bullets to quell the mob.

Burdwan district magistrate Saumitra Mohan said the bodies were found within 1 km to 1.5 km radius of the spot where the boat had capsized on Saturday night.

The search operation was still on, Burdwan SP Gaurab Sharma said. "We are still not sure if there are some more bodies in the river or not ... Search operation will go on and we are also trying to pull out the boat."

Families of the deceased in the mishap would get a compensation of Rs two lakh each, Bharti said.

On the alleged delay in rescue operations, Mohan had said the river current, depth of the river and the muddy water had made the job of the divers "very difficult".

The Burdwan DM had said "overloading" was one of the suspected causes which led to the incident.
Kolkata: Overall 83.65 percent students have cleared the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education ( WBCHSE) examination this year.

The results were announced this morning in Kolkata. Compared to the last year, 1.27 percent more students have passed this time.

Swagatam Haldar of Panchasayar Shiksha Niketan has topped the merit list with 495 marks.

Among the girls, Nilanjana Saha of Arambagh Balika Vidyalaya in Arambagh has bagged the top honour.

She has also bagged the overall third place among the boys and girls with 490 marks.

In all, 2, 42, 740 students have passed in first division.

51 percent of the total examinees were girls.

The district with the highest number of candidates clearing the exam is East Midnapore, where 90 percent of the candidates have passed.

Over 7, 97,000 students appeared in the exam held in February.
Kolkata: The anxiety of many students who are nervous about their West Bengal WBCHSE HS Exam Result 2016 is going to be over on Monday, i.e. May 16, 2016.

As per the latest notification of West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE), the WBCHSE Result 2016 will be declared today at 10 am.

Students, who are waiting for their WBCHSE HS Result 2016, can check it on the official website: wbchse.nic.in and wbresults.nic.in

Follow these simple steps to check your results of WBCHSE Class 12th:

1: Access the boards official website: wbresults.nic.in OR wbchse.nic.in

3: Enter your details such as roll number and other required details in the respected fields.

4: Click on Submit

5: Your results will appear on the screen

About West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE)

The WBCHSE conducted the 12th class examination during the month of February with the last paper being conducted on 29th February. Practical exams for physical sciences and H.S. Music and Visual Arts, H.S. Health & Physical Education were held earlier in the year. In other words, students have been waiting for the WBCHSE Results for almost two months now.

WBCHSE 12th Result 2016 is deemed to be one of the biggest landmarks in the academic career of students. Keeping the criticality of WB 12th Result 2016 in mind, the Board has taken special steps to ensure that results are announced on time, without any delay.

Zee Media wishes all the students best of luck.
Kolkata: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Dilip Ghosh, who kicked up a storm by making certain controversial remarks about women at Kolkata's Jadavpur University recently, on Monday said he has no regrets for his comments made over the weekends.

According to Ghosh, who heads BJP in West Bengal, the young women who complained of harassment at Jadavpur University were women of low standards who fall over men and then complain of harassment.

According to NDTV report, Ghosh said that he has no regrets over the comments he made about the women on Jadavpur University molestation case.

Last week, students at Jadavpur University clashed over the screening of Anupam Kher-starrer Buddha In A Traffic Jam. Students from ABVP and left backed students union fought with each other over the campus screening of the controversial film. Later, several women students complained about being molestated by four organisers affiliated to ABVP.
Kabul: At least 29 militants were killed in two airstrikes in Afghanistan on Monday, authorities said.

An unmanned plane of the coalition forces struck a Taliban hideout in Mullah Quli locality of Dasht-i-Archi district in Kunduz province and killed 16 militants on Monday, district governor Nasruddin Nazari told Xinhua.

In neighbouring Baghlan province, 13 militants were killed following an airstrike in Surkhkotal area, the Afghan army said.

A heavy machine gun was also destroyed in the attack which occurred on Monday afternoon.
New Delhi: A doctors' body on Monday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that their retirement age be raised to 65 years and that the number of post graduate and under graduate seats in medical institutions be increased.

The delegation of National Medicos Organisation also met Health Minister J P Nadda later and spoke in favour of holding the National Eligibility Entrance Test. They sought the test to be held also in vernacular languages and wanted parity in the syllabus of all states.

The delegation included the organisation's president Manu Bhai Patel, former president Bharat Prabhudas Amin and Deepak Dhukla, a member of its advisory body, among others.

The delegation told the Prime Minister that there is a shortage of practising doctors as well faculty members in medical colleges and an increase in retirement age will help bridge the gap.

They also batted for increasing the seats in PG and undergraduate courses, saying the present ratio of patients to doctors is very poor.
Havana: Colombia's Marxist FARC rebel group has agreed to remove child soldiers from its ranks as part of the peace deal it is close to signing with the government.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) agreed to "implement departure of those under 15 years of age as soon as terms are agreed upon," the parties said yesterday in a statement in Cuba, which is hosting peace negotiations.

Among the terms that must be decided is how the children will be transitioned and reintegrated back into society.

News of the agreement comes as the FARC and Colombia work on terms of a bilateral and definitive ceasefire, one of the last major points before a peace deal can be struck to end Latin America's longest-running and last civil war.

The two sides did not immediately state how many minors would be exiting FARC's ranks.

After progress this week in talks, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Friday that he hoped the war with FARC would end "very soon."

Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo said on Wednesday that peace talks were in the "home stretch" and that Colombia plans to hold a referendum on the deal by September.

The Colombian conflict has drawn in several leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.

It has left 260,000 people dead and 45,000 missing, while another 6.6 million have been uprooted. Human rights groups say atrocities have been committed on all sides.
District of Columbia: The full cache of secret documents from former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden is being opened to journalists and organizations willing to work with the news organization holding the archive.

The Intercept, the news site launched by journalist Glenn Greenwald -- who was part of the team that first interviewed Snowden in 2013 -- announced on Monday that it would "invite outside journalists, including from foreign media outlets, to work with us to explore the full Snowden archive."

The move could vastly increase the disclosures from Snowden, who fled the United States with a trove of documents detailing vast surveillance programs by the NSA and other intelligence agencies from around the world.

"From the start of our reporting on the archive, a major component of our approach has been to partner with foreign (and other American) media outlets rather than try to keep all the material for ourselves," Greenwald said.

"We have collectively shared documents with more than two dozen media outlets, and teams of journalists in numerous countries have thus worked with and reported on Snowden documents," in addition to other media outlets with some documents such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, ProPublica and the Guardian.

Greenwald said that under an agreement with Snowden, the journalists reporting on these documents must agree to certain rules.

"There are still many documents of legitimate interest to the public that can and should be disclosed," he said.

"There are also documents in the archive that we do not believe should be published because of the severe harm they would cause innocent people."

Greenwald said The Intercept has already begun to provide archive access to French daily Le Monde and other media outlets, and added that "we are excited by the reporting this new arrangement will generate."The Intercept also on Monday released dozens of internal newsletters from the National Security Agency including one highlighting the secret agency`s role in interrogation of Guantanamo prisoners.

The report said the NSA`s role had not been previously disclosed in the interrogation of prisons rounded up and held at US naval base in Cuba suspected of collaboration in attacks on the United States.

The documents showed the NSA had a liaison official "responsible for interfacing with the... interrogators on a daily basis in order to assess and exploit information sourced from detainees."

The US administration of George W. Bush began bringing prisoners to Guantanamo in 2002 following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Intercept released 166 copies of the NSA`s Signals Intelligence Directorate newsletter called SIDtoday, with some redactions, and promised to publish more covering nine years of editions from the archive.

"The SIDtoday documents run a wide gamut: from serious, detailed reports on top secret NSA surveillance programs to breezy, trivial meanderings of analysts` trips and vacations, with much in between," Greenwald said.

"Many are self-serving and boastful, designed to justify budgets or impress supervisors. Others contain obvious errors or mindless parroting of public source material. But some SIDtoday articles have been the basis of significant revelations from the archive."

The NSA did not respond to an AFP query about the latest release.

Snowden, who is charged with espionage and the theft of state secrets, has been living in Moscow since the release of the documents.
Oslo: Governments began work on Monday on a rule book to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming, with the United Nations urging stronger action after a string of record-smashing monthly temperatures.

NASA said at the weekend that last month was the warmest April in statistics dating back to the 19th century, the seventh month in a row to break temperature records.

The meeting of government experts is the first since 195 nations reached a deal in Paris in December to limit climate change by shifting from fossil fuels to green energies by 2100. It will begin to work out the detail of the plan.

"The Paris Agreement represents the foundations ... Now we have to raise the walls, the roof of a common home," French Environment Minister Segolene Royal told a news conference.

The agreement sets targets for shifting the world to green energies by 2100 but is vague, for instance, about how governments will report and monitor their national plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Many government delegates at the start of the May 16-26 U.N. talks, in Bonn, Germany, expressed concern about rising temperatures and extremes events such as damage to tropical coral reefs, wildfires in Canada or drought in India.

"We have no other option but to accelerate" action to limit warming, Christiana Figueres, the U.N. climate chief, told a news conference, asked about the NASA data.

She said record temperatures were partly caused by a natural warming effect of an El Nino weather event in the Pacific Ocean, magnified by the build-up of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

She said national promises for curbing greenhouse gases put the world on track for a rise in temperatures of between 2.5 and 3 degrees Celsius (4.5 to 5.4 Fahrenheit), well above an agreed ceiling in the Paris text of "well below" 2C (3.6F) with a target of 1.5C (2.7F).

"Certainly we are not yet on the path" for the Paris temperature targets, she said.

Last month, the Paris Agreement was signed by 175 governments at a New York ceremony, the most ever for an opening day of a U.N. deal, and including top emitters China and the United States.

The agreement will enter into force once 55 nations representing 55 percent of world emissions have formally ratified. Royal said she would submit a bill on Tuesday to the French National Assembly seeking ratification.
Vienna: Military training and arms, not military intervention are what the Libyan unity government wants and Italy and other countries are open to this request, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Monday.

"We will rapidly consider the request of the Libyan unity government concerning the training of troops and are prepared to meet these," Gentiloni told journalists in Vienna.

A military embargo put in place by the United Nations five years ago would not be abolished but would be subject to "limitations", he said after a meeting of diplomats from 20 countries including the US pledged to consider training and arming the Libyan government in the fight to stop the Islamic State jihadist group from expanding in the chaos-wracked country.

"Stabilising Libya is key to the fight against terrorism and to its development, " Gentiloni stated.

Speaking at a press conference after the Vienna meeting, which was co-chaired by Italy, US Secretary of State John Kerry said IS was a "new threat" to Libya and it was "imperative " it was stopped.

Besides countering IS, the government of national unity should take full control of Libyan ministries backed by the international community, he said.

But Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj warned major challenges lay ahead.

"The situation in Libya is extremely bad," he said, adding the international community would not be spared" if IS was not eradicated from the country.

IS controls the coastal oil hub of Sirte and has launched a series of suicide bombings and attacks on oil facilities in the country.

The UN-backed Serraj government earlier in May announced the formation of a military task force to fight IS but is does not have the support of the rival government in the east of the country, which is quarrelling over the allocation of the country's oil and financial resources.

Libya, a major transit point for migrants has been in turmoil since NATO-backed forces overthrew long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011.

Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler, has an extra stkte in the North African country due to the threat of uncontrolled migration across the southern Mediterranean.

Gentiloni invited ministers from several sub-Saharan African countries to the Vienna meeting as well as Malta.
London: Former London mayor Boris Johnson's comparing the EU to Adolf Hitler highlights how Britain's in/out referendum campaign is growing increasingly bitter, with six weeks to go and polls suggesting a dead heat, experts said Monday.

The comments by Johnson, a leading campaigner for Britain to leave the European Union, are also linked to securing support for his ultimate ambition -- succeeding David Cameron as prime minister after the June 23 vote, they added.

The row started when Johnson -- whose remarks have drawn comparisons to US presidential hopeful Donald Trump -- said European history had featured repeated efforts to create a single government on the continent.

"Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods," he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

Pro-EU campaigners quickly lined up to fight back.

The main opposition Labour party said Johnson`s comments showed the "Leave" campaign was "losing its moral compass", while Johnson was branded a "tin-pot imitation Churchill" by former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown.

But as the dust settled, commentators suggested that, while Johnson may have been out of line, his remarks were part of a pattern of hyperbole on both sides of the campaign.

"Britain deserves better than the shrill point-scoring into which this debate has descended," The Times newspaper said in an editorial Monday. "Leave Hitler out of it."It was not the first time that Johnson -- known for his witty soundbites and historical references -- has walked into a high-profile referendum row.

Last month, as Barack Obama urged Britons to stay in the EU, Johnson suggested the US president had moved a bust of World War II leader Winston Churchill out of the Oval Office because of his "part-Kenyan" heritage.

While few would expect such a high-stakes campaign to be without controversy, the "Remain" in EU camp -- dubbed "Project Fear" by opponents -- has also drawn flak for some of the Brexit scenarios it has presented.

Last week, Cameron was accused of suggesting a new world war could be triggered by Britain leaving the 28-nation bloc when he said he would never assume that "peace and stability on our continent are assured".

Apparently stung by the criticism, finance minister George Osborne hit out at "Leave" campaigners who accuse the "Remain" advocates of spinning the economic case for EU membership with interventions from the likes of Obama and the IMF.

"The next thing we know, the `Leave` camp will be accusing us of faking the moon landings... and covering up the existence of the Loch Ness Monster," Osborne said Monday.

The closeness of the opinion polls is part of the reason why the debate is moving towards a bitter climax, experts say.

Excluding undecideds, "Remain" and "Leave" each have 50 percent support, according to an average of the last six opinion surveys by the What UK Thinks academic project.

"It`s very close," said Steven Fielding, professor of political history at Nottingham University. "It`s core message time. That means extreme presentation of views."

Paul Taggart, a politics professor at Sussex University, added that the complexity of the debate may also be a factor.

"Both sides are having to simplify a complex story to make palatable what`s quite an unpalatable dish," he said.

For Fielding, Johnson specifically has his mind on life after the referendum, when Cameron is expected to face a leadership challenge in the Conservative Party if he loses.

References to World War II and Hitler are popular with older party members whose support will be key if Johnson is to make it to Downing Street, he said.

"The more fuss there is about it, the more his message is getting through," Fielding added.
Lagos: Nigeria is set to establish a Deoxyribonucleic Acid DNA data-bank with a view to deploying it in tracking criminal elements, especially terrorists in the country, Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama has said.

The Nigerian official disclosed this in Abuja, the West African country`s capital city on Saturday on the sidelines of the ongoing 2nd Regional Security Summit, Xinhua reported.

"We have within the country nearly 2 million internally displaced persons, a real tragedy which we have to address," he told reporters.

"We also have about 6,000 children under the age of five who are separated from their parents and homes. We have to look at how to address that human catastrophe," he added.

"What we are looking at is the use of DNA to try and match those children with parents. The DNA data-bank is really what we are looking at. And we could ultimately extend the data-bank to the whole country because we know that for a lot of countries, it is through their comprehensive DNA data-bank that they use in tracking terrorists and that is also going to help us in intelligence gathering," the minister said.

He added that the summit would also institute a post-conflict development programme, and as well put in place mechanisms that would ensure that the military gains in the north east are consolidated through civil programs by winning the hearts of the people through reconstruction, rehabilitation and resettlement of the IDPs.

Boko Haram`s insurgency has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions. Nigeria is heading up a multinational joint task force along with Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin which was set up in March 2015.

Earlier this month, Nigerian troops have commenced large scale operations to flush out Boko Haram terrorists from their Sambisa forest hideout in restive Borno, north-eastern Nigeria.
Vatican City: Pope Francis called for "severe punishment" for paedophiles on Sunday after new details emerged in Italy of the 2014 death of a six-year-old girl who is alleged to have been thrown from an eighth-storey balcony by her abuser.

"This is a tragedy. We should not tolerate the abuse of minors," Francis said, departing from prepared remarks at his weekly Sunday message and blessing to tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square.

"We must protect minors and severely punish abusers," he said.

Though the Catholic Church itself has been rocked by its own abuse scandals, he did not mention them on Sunday as he has in the past.

Italians have been shocked as details emerged in the case of six-year-old Fortuna who died in June 2014 after a fall from an eighth-storey balcony in Naples.

After re-opening the case, police charged a 43-year-old man with having thrown the girl to her death in a housing block in a rough area of the city after raping her. Police said they suspected he killed her so she would not talk.

The man, who has also been accused of molesting other children and is now in prison in Rome, has denied the charges.

On Saturday Italian President Sergio Mattarella called for an "ample, rapid and severe" judicial process concerning the case, which has dominated newspapers` front pages for days.

Child abuse by priests has plagued the Roman Catholic Church itself for decades.

While some cases of sexual abuse in the Church were exposed piecemeal, such as in the U.S. state of Louisiana in the 1980s, the scandal exploded in 2002, when it was discovered that U.S. bishops in the Boston area moved abusers from parish to parish instead of defrocking them.

Similar scandals have since been discovered around the world and tens of millions of dollars have been paid in compensation.

While the pope has vowed "zero tolerance" for abusers in the Church, victims groups have accused him of not doing enough. They say he should do much more to make bishops more accountable for covering up abuse or not preventing it.

A commission he set up to advise him on how to root out abuse in the Church has struggled to find its stride.

In February, Peter Saunders of Britain, a prominent and outspoken member, was forced to take a leave of absence from the group after being fiercely critical of the Vatican`s handling of abuse scandals.

In March, Cardinal George Pell, under fire for his handling of sexual abuse of children by priests in Australia decades ago, gave four days of evidence to an Australian government commission, which again put the Church`s problem with abuse on the world stage.
Johannesburg: The South African presidency on Sunday denied the imminent arrest of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

The presidency has noted the story in the Sunday Times alleging an imminent arrest of Gordhan, presidential spokesperson Bongani Ngqulunga said.

The newspaper claimed that Gordhan could soon be arrested after anti-crime unit, the Hawks, reportedly handed a docket over to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for his involvement in the SA Revenue Service`s (SARS`) "rogue unit" which was allegedly spying on taxpayers during his time as SARS` commissioner during 1999 and 2009, according to Xinhua.

"We have also noted the response of law enforcement agencies which have swiftly denied the rumour," Ngqulunga said.

It is clear therefore that the story is the work of dangerous information peddlers who wish to cause confusion and mayhem in the country, he said.

Zuma and the whole of government are focused on the goal of reigniting economic growth, preserving existing jobs and creating more jobs through working together with business and labour, Ngqulunga said.

Meanwhile, spokesperson for the NPA, Luvuyo Mfaku, also claimed that no decision has been made to prosecute Gordhan and that the matter remained under investigation.

Gordhan has said the so-called "rogue unit" was lawfully established to perform very important functions for and on behalf of SARS.

This was in line with tax laws which have always vested SARS with wide powers for the investigation of tax matters, including the investigation of crimes with tax implications, said Gordhan.

Gordhan was appointed by Zuma in early December last year to replace his predecessor Nhlanhla Nene.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. The head of the Armenian National Committee of Sweden Arshak Gavafyna says the Armenian National Committee of Sweden will be consistent with giving proper assessment to the Azerbaijani actions.

The four-day war has changed the emphasis of our activities. The issue of the international recognition of the Nagorno Karabakh has always been on the agenda of the Armenian National Committees. Today, this process should not only take a new path, but we should conduct works in different directions. In particular, we focus our attention to the assessments by the international community to the Karabakh events. Since these statements and assessments are directed to the both sides, we should change this approach and try to remove the equal sign of these assessments, Gavafyan stated. Moreover, he stated that the efforts should be increased to condemn the Azerbaijani hostilities by the international community.

These hostilities recall the signature of the extremist Islamists, as well as the massacres of the 1915 Armenian Genocide or Sumgait. It was obvious that the events of the four-day war were the continuation of the previous hostilities. The decapitation of the Armenian soldier, targeting the civilian people, cutting the ears of the elderly people: the international community should respond to these hostilities, Gavafyan said. He stated that in this regard they will sent official letters to the respective agencies of Sweden. He said the Europe has principles which are not always being respected.

They admit the rights of the Nagorno Karabakh, however, they do not respond to this and put equal sign between the two sides. The reason is the interest. Of course, we are not disappointed and continue to work and increase our efforts, but I think that one thing should be clear for everyone: our guarantee is our army. Even if Azerbaijan will sign a document tomorrow, it is not a guarantee, and we cannot trust it. I repeat, our major guarantee is the army, which means that we should strengthen our army, Arshak Gavafyan said adding that they stressed the issue of strengthening the army during the convention of the Armenian National Committees in the Nagorno Karabakh.

He emphasized the need to mobilize the existing potential for strengthening the army. He said steps should be taken also in Armenia to increase the efficiency of the budget expenditure. Moreover, donation is being carried out in Sweden these days to help the Nagorno Karabakh.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Rodi Osman, the Syrian Kurdistan envoy to Russia says the Syrian Kurds have not yet received an invitation to take part in the next round of talks in Geneva, Armenpress reports citing TASS.

"The isolation of the Kurds from discussing the countrys future and their exclusion from the talks does not help to resolve the Syrian crisis," Osman said. "It is impossible to solve the Syrian crisis and achieve success at talks in Geneva without the participation of representatives of all social groups of the country, including the Kurds," he stressed.

"The Syrian Kurds are ready to back international and Russias efforts aimed at solving the Syrian political crisis through dialogue," Osman said, adding that he values the position of Moscow that insists on the participation of the Kurds and all the Syrian sides in discussing Syrias future.

Syria has two options of development - either the continuation of the conflict and the division of the country or the creation of a secular democratic system where all the representatives of the Syrian people will live in conditions of freedom and respect.

Photo by TASS




YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Armenian Parliament gave a negative conclusion for the bill on recognizing the independence of Nagorno Karabakh. The bill had been presented by MPs Zaruhi Postanjyan and Hrant Bagratyan.

Head of the Heritage faction Zaruhi Postanjyan said the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh meets all preconditions of international law for a sovereign state. She added that the law will allow Armenia along with Nagorno Karabakh and other interested countries to assist in eliminating the consequences in the conflict zone in the post-conflict period, resettlement of territories and return of refugees.

Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan said the adoption of the bill is not appropriate in the moment. Ensuring the security of Nagorno Karabakh and its population is the main goal of Armenia in the settlement issue of the conflict. This is our main goal, and the most important component of security is the status. That is, the independence of Nagorno Karabakh is a necessary condition for this security, but not enough. I only mention this. We look at the recognition issue in this context, and in this case, looking at it from this context, the Government concluded that it is not appropriate, the Deputy FM said.

After lengthy discussions Chairman of the Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs Artak Zakaryan said it will be very difficult for him to vote against the bill, because during his entire career his goal was the international recognition of Nagorno Karabakh. I cannot vote in favor of this bill. I dont know, maybe the day after tomorrow we will vote in favor, therefore, I wont even take part in the voting, Zakaryan said.

Afterwards the Chairman began the voting. The majority of the Committee members did not take part.

MP of the Heritage faction Tevan Poghosyan and RPA faction MP Hamlet Harutyunyan took part in the voting. Poghosyan voted in favor of the bill, while Harutyunyan against. Therefore, the conclusion of the Committee was negative. The Committee did not endorse the bill. The issue of including the bill in the agenda of the plenary session will be discussed later.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. The Investigative Committee of Armenia filed a criminal lawsuit on the murder of serviceman Aram V. Ohanyan by Azerbaijani forces.

On 14.05.2016, at 19:40, serviceman Aram Ohanyan sustained a gunshot wound to the abdominal area by Azerbaijani fire in a military unit.

Later at 21:00 Ohanyan died in the hospital of Vayk.

Criminal charges are filed (committing murder on religious, racial, ethnic hatred), investigation is underway.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. The National Assembly of Armenia rejected to include the draft law on the recognition of the NKR independence into the agenda of the 9th session of the 5th convocation. As Armenpress reports, 12 MPs voted for including the draft law into the agenda of the 9th session of the 5th convocation. The remaining MPs did not take part in the voting. National Assembly Deputy Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov announced that the decision was not accepted.

Before the vote, the Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Artak Zakaryan spoke about the procedure of the order. He said the NKR is already an established state, which is an established fact. However, the issue is still in the development stage, and we should not take unilateral steps which will put us on an awkward situation, and our partner states will not be allowed to participate to the process of the international recognition of the NKR independence, Zakaryan stated.

Head of the National Assembly Prosperous Armenia faction Naira Zohrabyan stated that the public well understands the price of the issue, If we today can be sure that the recognition of the NKR independence will contribute to its international recognition, it is an issue of a minute. If we can be sure that recognizing the NKR independence, we would not provoke a large-scale war, we would not danger the safety of the soldier in the borders, we will do it. But before to take such a step, we should be guided by the principle of do not harm. Prosperous Armenia party will not take part in the voting", Zohrabyan stated.

In her turn, head of the Country of Law (Orinats Yerkir) faction Heghine Bisharyan said the faction also will not take part in the voting. Head of the Armenian National Congress faction Levon Zurabyan stated that the ANC can only vote for the draft law on the recognition of the NKR independence, however, only in case, when they can be sure that it will support the international recognition of it, rather than to hinder that process. Since at this moment we are not sure whether with such a step we will contribute to the international recognition of the NKR independence, we will not take part in the voting too, Zurabyan stated.

Head of the National Assembly RPA faction Vahram Baghdasaryan emphasized that the recognition of the NKR independence is the long-standing goal of all Armenians. I just simply will urge my partners to refrain from such initiatives at this moment. When the time comes, I am more than confident that this issue will be discussed. And that time not only Armenia, but also the whole international community must recognize the independence of the Nagorno Karabakh. But the moment is not appropriate, and I will urge not to danger the long-standing goal. Thats why the RPA will not take part in the voting. I assure you, when time comes, it is an issue of half an hour in order to gather in the National Assembly and give final solution to it, Baghdasaryan concluded.

Earlier the draft law on the recognition of the NKR independence was discussed in session of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs. The conclusion of the Committee was negative with regard to the draft law.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Minister-Chief of the Armenian Government Staff Davit Harutyunyan hopes the consensus will take place over the Electoral Code, Armenrpress reports, he said this during the briefing in the National Assembly.

I hope that we can reach a consensus on this issue. Both sides should make efforts on it, Harutyunyan stated.

He recalled that he publicly announced during the session that if the consensus would not take place, the Government will convoke an extraordinary session to reflect the agreements on the Electoral Code.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan will meet the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini on May 16 in Vienna. As Armenpress reports, Mogherini posted a note in her Twitter microblog. Today evening I will hold meetings with the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Mogherini stated.

According to the Armenia TV channel, the meeting of the Armenian President and US Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled in Vienna.

President Serzh Sargsyan has arrived in Vienna. On May 16, the President will take part in a number of working meetings initiated by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs.

Foreign Ministers of the Co-Chairing countries (Russia, France and USA) are also in Vienna.

The Minsk Group Co-Chairs had issued an announcement earlier on May 12.

The announcement read: In the light of the recent violence and the necessity of de-escalating the tension in the contact line, we believe the time has come for Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to meet. Their main goal will be strengthening the ceasefire regime and achieving agreement on trust measures, which will create favorable conditions for the resumption of talks for achieving a comprehensive settlement, based on the discussed principles and basic elements.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan received the delegation headed by the Chief Commercial Officer of Qatar Airways Hugh Dunleavy.

Abrahamyan welcomed the entrance of Qatar Airways to the Armenian market and said it will contribute to the economic relations of Armenia and Qatar, including the development of tourism.

The PM said the Government has reviewed the legislative sphere of aviation with more than 20 states, and will soon finalize the agreement with China. Discussions are underway for joining the EU aviation zone.

Hugh Dunleavy thanked the Armenian Government for assistance and said Qatar Airways is willing to conduct four Doha-Yerevan-Doha flights weekly, connecting Armenia with more than 150 cities worldwide.

According to the Chief Commercial Officer, Qatar Airways is planning to expand the directions of its activities, which will contribute to the development and strengthening of long-term mutually beneficial cooperation.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Jewish historian, head of the Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication of The Open University of Israel Yair Auron attended a meeting in Romania from May 10-15 at the invitation of the Romanian Commission on Coordination of the events dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. He had a dialogue-discussion with Romanian historian Sorin Antohi, participant of the second Global Forum held in Yerevan. They touched upon the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust drawing parallels between them and outlining the similarities and differences of the two tragedies, as well as the peculiarities of their political-historical realities. They also referred to modern era genocides (Rwanda, Sudan, and Middle East).

Armenpress reports member of the Romanian Senate, Chairman of the Armenians Union of Romania Varuzhan Voskanyan delivered an opening speech. The meeting was headlines Oblivion, revenge and pardon. I believe as long as the Armenian Genocide is not recognized, the 20th century, with its bitter lessons, will not end, he said.

Yair Auron, who is also a professor associate at the American University of Armenia, assessed the recognition of the Armenian Genocide as a universal issue. The recognition of the Armenian Genocide is important for the humanity, and particularly, for the Jewish people, as its non-recognition, or a worse thing, denial, is equivalent to contempt for human lives and values. It is contempt for the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, the Jewish historian announced. Referring to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Israel, he expressed an opinion that as for now it is only possible on the level of the Knesset, moreover, if there are favorable conditions.

Yair Auron brought numerous examples how Armenians in Europe saved Jews during the Holocaust by hiding and providing them with shelter.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. MPs representing the Left Party of the German Bundestag (Die Linke) visited Yerevan State University (YSU) on May 16. Member of the delegation Martin Dolzer stated in a meeting with the Armenian students that the recognition of the Armenian Genocide is not enough for them to consider their mission over. It is also very important how the atrocities committed by the Ottoman Empire will be formulated, press service of the YSU informed Armenpress.

It must be clearly mentioned in the resolution that what happened was a genocide. Moreover, accusing and condemning only the Turkish Government is not enough. Germany must also admit its guilt as it silently followed and even sometimes participated in those atrocities. And there was only one aim for that, to preserve Turkey as an ally during the war years, Bundestag MP Martin Dolzer said.

Hasan Burgujuoghlu of Turkish decent highlighted the role of meetings with students, as the younger generation is able to correct the mistakes of their ancestors.

Its not the right way to accuse only the government, there is a necessity to start working with the public. Believe, todays Turkish youth is quite different from their older generation, they are ready to face the history, there is just a necessity of true information and guidance, Hasan Burgujuoghlu mentioned.

The draft resolution on the Armenian Genocide will be discussed at the German Bundestag on June 2. Back in 2005 the German parliament adopted a resolution on the mass slaughters, ethnic cleanings, and deportation of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915, but the word genocide was not mentioned.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijani youth activists Bayram Mammadov and Giyas Ibrahimov were arrested on 10 May in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, for alleged drug possession after they painted political graffiti on the former Presidents statue. According to their lawyer, they have been beaten and otherwise ill-treated in detention, Armenpress reports, citing the official website of Amnesty International.

Bayram Mammadov is a member of the pro-democracy youth movement NIDA. Both activists are 22 years old. Giyas Ibrahimov and Bayram Mammadov told their lawyer that the drugs had been planted on them by police, and then discovered in the presence of witnesses who work for the police. On 12 May, the judge at Khatai District Court in Baku approved their pre-trial detention for four months. They are held at the Baku Detention Facility at the Kurdakhany Settlement. If convicted, the activists could face up to 12 years in prison.

The arrest happened a day after Bayram Mammadov posted a photo of the graffiti which Giyas Ibrahimov and he had painted on 9 May over the statue of Heydar Aliyev. Heydar Aliyev is Azerbaijans late former president and the father of the current president, Ilham Aliyev. The activists used obscene language in the graffiti as a message of political protest. During questioning by the police, Bayram Mammadov and Giyas Ibrahimov were asked questions about the graffiti, not about the drugs. Police officers repeatedly demanded that the activists publicly apologize for insulting Heydar Aliyev and subjected them to beatings when they refused. They also forced the activists to clean the police stations toilets while filming it, in order to humiliate them.

Their lawyer told Amnesty International that during a meeting with Bayram Mammadov and Giyas Ibrahimov on 12 May he saw the bruises resulting from the beatings. The activists have not been examined by an independent doctor and have not been allowed to contact their family members to date. The lawyer filed a complaint about their ill-treatment with the Office of the Prosecutor General of Azerbaijan.

According to the lawyer of Bayram Mammadov and Giyas Ibrahimov, the Azerbaijani authorities claim that police discovered around eight grams of heroin in possession of the activists on 9 May. The lawyer claims that the drug charges were fabricated and that the real reason for their arrest was the painting of the graffiti.

The lawyer also told Amnesty International that the witnesses who testified about the drugs found were not independent as they work for the Azerbaijani police. Amnesty International documented similar practice that has been used in Azerbaijan to fabricate evidence in other cases against activists and human rights defenders.

Amnesty International has longstanding concerns about the Azerbaijani authorities' failure to respect their international obligations to protect the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Dissenting voices in the country frequently face trumped-up criminal charges, physical assault, harassment, blackmail and other reprisals from the authorities and groups associated with them. Law-enforcement officials regularly use torture and other ill-treatment against detained civil society activists, with impunity.

Most prominent NGOs working on human rights, corruption or election monitoring in Azerbaijan have criminal cases pending against them, their accounts frozen and/or registration revoked. Independent monitoring of human rights in Azerbaijan is increasingly difficult. Several international human rights organizations and international media were barred from entering Azerbaijan in 2015. Amnesty Internationals delegation was refused entry into Azerbaijan and deported from the Baku Heydar Aliyev International Airport on 7 October 2015.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. The longer the confrontation in Nagorno Karabakh goes on and the more intensively the conflicting parties upgrade their arms stocks, the higher are the risks for escalation and even war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced before meeting with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs.

The fierce clashes that occurred on the contact line 6 weeks ago show that long-term status quo is vulnerable. The longer the confrontation goes on and the more intensively the conflicting parties upgrade their arms stocks, the higher are the risks for escalation and even war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Armenpress reports, citing Ria Novosti, Steinmeier said. In his words, the OSCE plays a key role in the settlement of the conflict.

France, Russia and the USA, as OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries, have tried for years to reinforce the ceasefire regime and resume the political process. Germany, as a country presiding over the OSCE, supports their efforts, Steinmeier added.

According to the German Foreign Minister, the main aim must be the following, The ceasefire regime must be established and reinforced, confidence mechanisms must be agreed upon and the negotiation process must resume. It will take some time, there will be no urgent decisions, the German Foreign minister stated.

President Serzh Sargsyan has already arrived in Vienna. On May 16, the President will take part in a number of working meetings initiated by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

Foreign Ministers of the co-chairing countries (Russia, France and USA) are also in Vienna.

The Minsk Group co-chairs had issued an announcement earlier on May 12.

The announcement read: In the light of the recent violence and the necessity of de-escalating the tension in the contact line, we believe the time has come for Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to meet. Their main goal will be strengthening the ceasefire regime and achieving agreement on trust measures, which will create favorable conditions for the resumption of talks for achieving a comprehensive settlement, based on the discussed principles and basic elements.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Relations Artak Zakaryan met with MEP Javier Nart on May 16 and discussed Armenia-EU cooperation, as well as issues referring to cooperation with the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the National Assembly of Armenia, the meeting also addressed issues of Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Artak Zakaryan introduced the situation in Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone after the large-scale aggression by Azerbaijan, as well as referred to the negotiation process.

The interlocutors discussed issues of domestic and external policy of Armenia.

MEP Javier Nart mentioned that he plans to visit Armenia again, and will try to be helpful in terms of to presenting Armenian issues at the EP objectively.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan who is in Vienna on a working visit, met with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of Armenias President Office, the sides discussed v\ discussed ways to overcome the situation resulted by the gross ceasefire violation in early April. Attaching great importance to the statement issued by the Minsk Group Co-chairs on May 12, President Sargsyan mentioned that it is necessary to ensure the full implementation of the 1994 ceasefire agreement and the 1995 ceasefire reinforcement agreement, as well as the rapid installation of ceasefire violation monitoring mechanisms for the resumption of the negotiation process.

Stating that the meeting was initiated by the Foreign Ministers of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries, the President of the Republic hoped that they will also foster the creation of favorable conditions for the resumption of talks by their consistent addressed positions and concrete steps.

The sides once again reaffirmed that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict has no military solution, and it is necessary to find mechanisms of mutually acceptable terms for the solution based in the fundamental principles.
YEREVAN, MAY 17, ARMENPRESS. During the meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev, attended by the representatives of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries in Vienna, an agreement was reached to respects the ceasefire regime established by the agreements of 1994-1995, Russian Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told in a briefing after the meeting. An agreement was reached according to which the OSCE will launch the works of installing investigative mechanisms on the contact line. Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents will clarify the timetable and place of the next meeting within the coming months to continue talks over reaching a final solution for Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Lavrov announced.

To the question of a reporter if mutual concessions are possible, Lavrov answered, It is always possible to compromise. If there was no such an opportunity, Russia, France and the USA would not make efforts for it. We will continue working for a comprehensive and multilevel solution; we will progress step by step.

The Vienna talks took place by the US initiative. Russia and the USA were represented in the meeting by their foreign ministers, while France was represented by first deputy foreign minister.
Science fiction has been predicting the popularization of the flying car for decades: from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, George Jetsons flying-saucer shaped aerocar, to airspeeders in the Star Wars franchise.

And a German startup is the latest company hoping to bring that dream to reality.

Lilum is promising to rollout its fully electric, ultralight, two-seater, personal jet by January 2018.

The egg-shaped plane is said to combine the benefits of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, in that it will be able to take off and land from almost anywhere, because it will require an open and flat area of just 15 metres by 15 metres.

Our goal is to develop an aircraft for use in everyday life, Daniel Wiegand, one of the companys four founders and CEO, said in a press release.

We are going for a plane that can take off and land vertically, and does not need the complex and expensive infrastructure of an airport.

Although the Lilum Jet takes off and lands like a helicopter, it uses swiveling engines to reach speeds of up to 400 kilometres an hour. It also has a range of 500 km.

The electric aircraft under development by ESA BIC Bavaria start-up Lilium needs only an open flat area of about 15x15 m for vertical takeoff and landing. The environmentally friendly aircraft is planned to be available from 2018.

The company hopes the aircraft can open up the traffic bottlenecks created by airports, especially from short-haul flights.

Unlike conventional aircraft, the Lilum Jet can be used in an urban environment, because it doesnt require a massive landing tarmac and its electric, ducted fan engines produce less noise pollution.

In comparison, the company said helicopters are very noisy, difficult to fly and have no backup in case of rotor failure, which makes them expensive to build and maintain.

Lilum said its crafts batteries, engines and controllers are all redundant, making it a much safer option.

The Lilum Jet is also classified as a light sport aircraft, meaning the pilots licence requires 20 hours training, which it compares to acquiring a drivers permit.

The company promises the aircraft is easy to fly thanks to its fully computer-assisted control system, which aids the pilot during takeoff and landing.

Story continues

Its battery can also be recharged from any wall plug.

However, the craft isnt without its limitations.

Its designed only to be flown in good weather conditions in uncongested airspace in the daylight.

The Lilium two-seater electric powered aircraft will be able to travel at up to 400 km/h and have a range of 500km. The plane is intended for recreational flying during daylight, in good weather conditions and in uncongested airspace up to 3 km altitude.

The startup, which was founded in February 2015 by four engineers from the Technical University of Munich, has already created several scale, 25-kilogram prototypes.

The venture initially received funding by the European Union and has received support through the European Space Agencys business incubation centre in Bavaria, Germany.

The half-size prototype is already flying and now under test. The full-size unmanned prototype is planned for this summer, said Thorsten Rudolph, CEO of AZO, which manages the ESAs Bavaria incubator.

We are helping the Lilium team to turn their idea into a viable business. They are the aircraft experts, and we provide the expertise on how to make a business out of their dream.

The company, which has also received backing from a venture-capital investor, is planning its first manned flight in 2017, and hopes initial production on the aircraft will be begin in 2018, with serial production to follow after.

The goal is to offer the Lilum Jet at a price-point that will make it an affordable transportation option for a wide range of consumers. It hopes to offer the vehicle at a much lower price than similar-sized aircraft, with reduced running costs.

In the longer term, our target is to build an aircraft that not only the super-rich can afford, and that can make private air transportation possible for a much wider number of people, said Wiegand.

With the concept of taking off and landing almost everywhere, we could see that one day our plane will be used for quick and daily transportation almost like a car today.
By Tife Owolabi YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - An explosion rocked a Chevron oil pipeline in Nigeria's restive Delta region on Friday, a security source said, the second blast at a facility of the U.S. oil major within a week, feeding concern over a revived militant campaign in the area. The swamps of the southern Delta have been hit by a series of militant attacks on pipelines and other oil and gas facilities that have reduced Nigeria's output by 300,000 barrels a day and closed a major export port and two refineries. Last week, militants calling themselves the Niger Delta Avengers claimed an attack on a Chevron Platform in the Delta. The group has warned oil firms to leave the region within two weeks and says it is fighting for independence for Delta. It had earlier said it wanted a greater share of oil revenues and an end to oil pollution. The attacks have driven Nigerian oil output to near a 22-year low and, if the violence escalates into another insurgency, it could cripple output in a country facing a growing economic crisis. On Friday, a new blast occurred at a Chevron oil well at the Marakaba pipeline in Warri, a security source told Reuters. No more details were immediately known. Chevron had no immediate comment, while Nigeria's army, which has stepped up its presence in the region, could not immediately be reached for comment. A day before, the "Avengers" had warned Chevron on their website against repairing the last week's damage. "We made it clear that no repair works should be done until our demands are fully met," the group said in a statement. "We are ready to destroy more pipelines, we won't only destroy pipelines, but will bring the fight to your tank farm and your (local) headquarters in Lekki, Lagos." The group has staged sophisticated attacks that have closed Shell's 250,000 bpd Forcados terminal and two local refineries. Shell and Chevron have both evacuated staff, according to labour unions. Little is known about the radical group, and efforts by Reuters to reach it have been unsuccessful. Crude sales from the Delta account for around 70 percent of national income in Africa's biggest economy but residents, some of whom sympathize with the militants, have long complained of poverty and neglect. President Muhammadu Buhari has extended a multi-million dollar amnesty signed with militants in 2009 but upset them by ending generous pipeline protection contracts. (Reporting by Tife Owolabi; additional reporting by Terri Wade; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Hugh Lawson)
By Ginger Gibson and Amanda Becker WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump pulled even with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Wednesday, in a dramatic early sign that the Nov. 8 presidential election might be more hotly contested than first thought. While much can change in the six months until the election, the results of the online survey are a red flag for the Clinton campaign that the billionaire's unorthodox bid for the White House cannot be brushed aside. Trump's numbers surged after he effectively won the Republican nomination last week by knocking out his two remaining rivals, according to the poll. The national survey found 41 percent of likely voters supporting Clinton and 40 percent backing Trump, with 19 percent undecided. The survey of 1,289 people was conducted over five days and has a credibility interval of 3 percentage points. "Very happy to see these numbers," Trump said in a written comment to Reuters. "Good direction." A spokesman for Clinton's campaign did not respond to requests for comment on the poll. A Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted in the five days to May 4 had the former secretary of state at 48 percent and the New York magnate at 35 percent. Republican strategist Dave Carney said the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed the vulnerability of Clinton, who is still battling U.S. Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination. She has been in the public eye for decades, served in high office, and now shes in a dead heat with Trump, in a race that everyone thought she would win easily, said Carney, who has been critical of Trump. Everyone thought it would be a romp. REPUBLICAN RELUCTANCE Trump has his own problems, though. He is struggling to bring some senior Republicans behind his campaign after primary election battles in which his fiery rhetoric rankled party elites. Several Republican leaders -- including House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan -- are withholding their support. "After a tough primary, that's going to take some effort," Ryan said about unifying the party. "We are committed to putting that effort in." The former reality TV star will face pressure to tone down his rhetoric and clarify his policy positions when he visits Republican lawmakers, including Ryan, on Thursday. Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney criticized Trump on Wednesday for not releasing his tax returns, saying the only explanation was that the documents contained a "bombshell." Trump has said that he will make public his tax returns on the completion of an audit. Clinton and Trump both poll well with voters of their respective parties, but independent voters continue to express uncertainty about who they will support, with 38 percent in the Reuters/Ipsos poll saying they are unsure or would vote for someone else. With the party's primary season winding down, the two likely nominees have turned their attention to attacking each other, both on policy and personality. Clinton took aim at Trump's tax reform plan at a rally in New Jersey on Wednesday. With a typical American family earning $54,000 per year, Clinton said, "It would take that family 24 years of work to earn what Donald Trumps tax plan will hand out to people like him in just one year. That is no way to create good job with rising incomes for the vast majority of Americans, is it?" Trump has taunted Clinton in recent days for failing to "close the deal" against Sanders. University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato said Trump - who has promised to force Mexico to pay for a border wall to halt illegal immigration and called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country - could also face a wall of opposition among minority voters. "This is an election that will be determined as much by the demographic composition of the American electorate as anything else - and that didnt change in a week," he said. Clinton's loss in the Democratic primary election in West Virginia on Tuesday also signaled possible trouble for her in industrial states in November, underscoring how she still needs to court working-class voters in the Rust Belt. Roughly six in 10 voters in West Virginia, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in country, said they were very worried about the direction of the U.S. economy in the next few years, according to a preliminary ABC News exit poll. The same proportion cited the economy and jobs as the most important issue in the election. (Additional reporting by Alana Wise, Megan Cassella, Emily Stephenson Timothy Ahmann and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Alistair Bell)
France is one significant step closer to banning work emails outside of office hours, after the French government passed a bill that could see the idea established as law.

Authorities in France are concerned that being on-call around the clock raises stress levels to a potentially dangerous degree.

Under the proposed guidelines, companies with more than 50 employees would have to draw up a charter including times in the evenings and weekends where employees would be banned from sending and receiving emails.

The bill still has to make it through the French Senate and the National Assembly before being passed into law.

Critics argue that the government should not be able to dictate when people do their work, and that the after-work ban would simply not be realistic for some firms.

If the bill does become law in France, it opens up the possibility that other countries, including the UK, could follow its lead.

Image credit: Monkey Business Images/REX/Shutterstock


Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

Trend:

The longer the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict lasts, the more intensively the conflict sides arm themselves and the higher is the risk of new escalation, including a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, RIA Novosti quoted Germany's Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier as saying May 16.

He made the remarks in Vienna before a meeting of the OSCE Minsk Group.

The fierce fighting on the line of contact six weeks ago showed that the long-standing status quo is untenable in the long term, said Steinmeier.

He pointed out that the OSCE plays an important role in the conflict's settlement.

France, Russia and the US have been throughout many years trying as the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to consolidate the ceasefire agreement and resume the political process, said Steinmeier, adding that as the OSCE chair, Germany supports that.

"We believe that establishing and strengthening ceasefire, agreeing on strengthening trust and starting the negotiation process should be the goal," he said. "It will take some time."

On the night of April 2, 2016, all the frontier positions of Azerbaijan were subjected to heavy fire from the Armenian side, which used large-caliber weapons, mortars and grenade launchers. The armed clashes resulted in deaths and injuries among the Azerbaijani population. Azerbaijan responded with a counter-attack, which led to liberation of several strategic heights and settlements.

Military operations were stopped on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian armies on Apr. 5 at 12:00 (UTC/GMT + 4 hours) with the consent of the sides, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry earlier said. Ignoring the agreement, the Armenian side again started violating the ceasefire.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
By Francesco Canepa FRANKFURT (Reuters) - SWIFT's payment network was not hacked in the $81 million heist on the Bangladesh central bank earlier this year, SWIFT's chief executive said on Thursday, adding it was unlikely to be the last such attack on a bank. Gottfried Leibbrandt said SWIFT's network, used by firms and institutions across the world to exchange information about financial transactions, had not been violated during the cyber attack, in which funds were stolen from a Bangladesh central bank account at the New York Fed in February. Security researchers at British defence contractor BAE Systems said last month the hackers had manipulated SWIFT's Alliance Access server software, which banks use to interface with SWIFT's messaging platform, in a bid to cover up the fraudulent transfers they had ordered. [nL2N17S0JX] "At the end of the day we werent breached, it was from our perspective a customer fraud," Leibbrandt said at a financial conference in Frankfurt. "I dont think it was the first, I dont think it will be the last." The SWIFT messaging network is used by commercial and central banks including the Fed and the ECB. [nL2N1881QR] SWIFT, a cooperative owned by 3,000 financial institutions, has rejected allegations by officials in Bangladesh that its technicians made the Asian country's central bank more vulnerable to hacking before the heist, one of the biggest ever cyber swindles. Bangladeshi police and a central bank official told Reuters the SWIFT technicians introduced security loopholes when connecting the messaging network to Bangladesh's first real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system. Reuters has not been able to independently verify the allegations. In a letter to users dated May 3, SWIFT told its bank customers that they were responsible for securing computers used to send messages over its network. Representatives from SWIFT, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bangladesh Bank met in Basel on Tuesday and promised to cooperate to recover the stolen funds, following weeks of accusations over who is to blame. (Reporting by Francesco Canepa; editing by Andrew Roche)
By Michelle Conlin NEW YORK (Reuters) - Supporters of billionaire Donald Trump appear unfazed by his decision to accept money from outside donors, despite his earlier vow to self-fund his presidential campaign and his criticism of rivals as puppets of wealthy special interests. The vow has been a cornerstone of Trump's election strategy to present himself as an outsider who is not in the pocket of rich donors, even though he has accepted more than $12 million in contributions so far. The strategy paid off last week when the New York businessman emerged as the Republican party's presumptive presidential nominee, after sweeping a series of state nominating contests. Since then, Trump has said he would no longer self-finance and would work with the party to raise more than $1 billion to help him fight his eventual Democratic Party challenger. Critics accused him of flip flopping, but some supporters don't agree. Three dozen of the 40 pro-Trump voters Reuters interviewed said they were not concerned about his reversal. Only four indicated the switch made them uneasy, though all of them said they would still support him. Most of those interviewed applauded the way the celebrity businessman billed himself as a "blue-collar billionaire" who didn't need other people's money, but said they understood Trump would need far more resources to compete in the general election. They would have no problem donating to the billionaire, albeit in the same kind of small increments that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has used to build his nearly $200 million fundraising juggernaut. "Even though I'm on welfare, I would donate to Trump," said Pamela Thompson, a 46-year-old mother of three school-age kids from Tulsa, Oklahoma. "And my kids would run a lemonade stand to help elect him." The supporters interviewed said Trump's pledge to self-finance his campaign was less important to them than his promises to crack down on undocumented workers and ease the pain of mostly white, blue collar towns that have seen manufacturing jobs lost to developing countries. Sharon Jones, a 53-year old Wal-Mart cashier from Coleman County, Alabama, says her anger over undocumented immigrants shopping at her store on welfare benefits is animating her support for Trump, who has promised to deport undocumented workers and build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. "They are doing better than I am on my $9.45 an hour," Jones said. The majority of supporters interviewed said they thought Trump's decision to fundraise was strategically wise given that Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, has raised more than $250 million so far. In the 2012 election, Republican nominee Mitt Romney and his Democratic opponent, President Barack Obama, each raised $1 billion. "You gotta fight fire with fire. Bring it on," said Cheryl Ressler Halvorson, a cattle rancher from Williston, North Dakota whose support for Trump stems mainly from her ire over having to pay $1,100 a month for health insurance with a $13,000 deductible due to the government mandate known as Obamacare. Halvorson is not an outlier. Most Trump supporters have stayed loyal despite the candidate frequently reversing or updating policy positions on key economic and social issues. Trump is not the first U.S. presidential candidate to change his mind about financing his election campaign. In the 2008 election, Obama also did an about-face. He said he would forego public financing of his general election campaign against Republican John McCain. This was a reversal of his earlier stance and it allowed him to pursue a record fund-raising effort. Supporters were unfazed by the shift and Obama went on to win the election. (Additional reporting by Grant Smith and Chris Kahn, editing by Ross Colvin)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives will try next week to pass emergency funds to address a potential Zika virus outbreak in the United States, although they have not yet settled on a key component: how much money to spend. "Hope to be on the floor next week," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers said when asked by Reuters whether he was making progress toward a bill. However, an aide said the Republican-led committee still has not settled on a dollar amount to be appropriated, other than that it will be less than what the Senate is contemplating. The Senate is expected to cast initial votes on Zika funding on Tuesday as it debates competing measures that range from $1.1 billion to President Barack Obama's request for $1.9 billion. Any bill the House produces next week will require that the money being spent on Zika be offset with cuts to other programs, which have not yet been identified, the aide said. Under the House plan, the money would be available to the Obama administration through Sept. 30, the end of this fiscal year, with the expectation that more money would be contained in legislation still to be written funding government programs in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. Many Republicans in Congress have expressed reservations with Obama's $1.9 billion request for emergency funds, questioning whether that much was needed and arguing that the spending must be offset by savings elsewhere. Health experts have urged quick action by Congress, fearing the onset of warmer weather in North America will bring a wave of mosquitoes harboring the Zika virus that already has spread through large areas of the hemisphere. The virus is associated with the birth defect microcephaly and other severe brain abnormalities, as well as being suspected of causing Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder that can result in paralysis. (Reporting By Richard Cowan; Editing by Bernard Orr)
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is standing by its procedures for wiring funds after facing scrutiny in the wake of the $81 million cyber heist at the Bangladesh central bank, a letter released by a congresswoman on Friday showed. The New York Fed was responding to criticism lobbed by U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney, who had called for a probe of the fund transfers triggered by the February cyber attack on Bangladesh Bank. Criminals tried to withdraw $951 million from Bangladesh Bank's U.S. bank account in what ranked as one of the largest cyber heists in history. They succeeded in transferring $81 million. In the April 14 letter Thomas Baxter, general counsel and executive vice president at the New York Fed, said the correct procedures were followed in approving five transfers of money on Feb. 4 and in blocking 30. Baxter said the New York Fed's procedures for checking transfers included catching those to people subject to sanctions but would not stop a transfer if it had passed the authentication process on the SWIFT messaging network. "The vast majority of authenticated instructions received from foreign official account holders are not flagged for manual review by the automated systems," Baxter wrote in the letter. Authorities in Bangladesh and elsewhere are still trying to figure out how hackers carried out the attack and what happened to the money, which was routed from the Bangladesh Bank's account at the New York Fed to accounts in the Philippines. Maloney said in a statement on Friday that while Baxter's letter provided key information about the incident, she remained "concerned that there are critical security gaps in the international payment system." Maloney said she would urge the New York Fed to review its security protocols to make sure such a heist does not recur. (Reporting by Nathan Layne in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
Networking & Wireless

Los Angeles Joins CENIC Network

The City of Los Angeles has joined the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), a 100 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) research and education network, providing California schools, colleges and universities with high-speed access to the city's data and services.

Los Angeles publishes more than 1,000 datasets on two open data portals. Los Angeles Open Data includes hundreds of datasets about the city's economy, public safety, environment, city services, city budget, events and culture, parks and libraries and transportation. Los Angeles GeoHub provides access to location-based open data related to business, area boundaries, health, infrastructure, recreation, safety, schools, transportation and other datasets. The GeoHub platform also lets researchers explore, visualize, analyze and combine data layers using maps.

While Los Angeles Open Data and GeoHub are available to the general public, California educational institutions and researchers will now have 1,000 times faster access to those resources, facilitating their ability to share and analyze data, and exchange best practices and new applications, according to a news release.

"This peering partnership between CENIC and the City of Los Angeles represents a unique opportunity to pair the sophisticated research and analysis being done at California's great universities with the massive data being generated in one of our country's most progressive Smart Cities, Los Angeles," said William Clebsch, associate vice president for IT Services at Stanford University, and chair of the CENIC Board of Directors, in a prepared statement. "This will lead to advances in urban living that have not been possible before."

Some of the California institutions that can use CENIC for high-speed access the city's digital resources include Los Angeles Unified School District, Caltech, UCLA, University of Southern California, California State University, LA and the Los Angeles Community Colleges.

CENIC plans to connect additional cities' open data initiatives to CENIC's research community in the future.
MONDAY, May 16, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Areas with more bars have about eight times more ambulance calls than places where booze flows less freely, according to a new study.

Dr. Joel Ray, a physician at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, examined trends in EMS calls and the density of alcohol-serving establishments in certain areas near the city.

Neighborhoods with the most establishments licensed to sell alcohol have a 7.8 times higher risk for 911 calls related to trauma compared to areas with the fewest of these places, the study found.

EMS calls for trauma ranged from 45.3 per 1,000 calls in areas with no on-premise places licensed to sell alcohol to 381 per 1,000 calls in areas with the highest density of these places, the study showed.

Trauma risk was particularly high among young men who frequent bars, night clubs, pool halls and similar spots focused on serving drinks, Ray said.

The study also showed that EMS calls in response to assaults near bars or restaurants peak around last call, or 2 a.m.

Ray also noted that EMS calls nearly triple at the end of the month when many people get paid, suggesting alcohol consumption is related to how much money people have, not just the cost.

"We reiterate that public policies that raise prices of alcohol are an effective means to reduce drinking," Ray said in a hospital news release. "Given the province of Ontario's actions to liberally increasing access to alcohol, such as through grocery stores, it is imperative that pricing remains high."

The study's findings likely apply to areas other than Ontario, Ray said. He said local governments should consider limiting the number of liquor licenses in areas that already have lots of bars, or in areas with a very high number of emergency calls for public drunkenness, assault or other trauma.

He also suggested that EMS personnel should have a checklist to help determine if people should be taken directly to a detoxification center.

"It is time to take a more active stance about a substance that is legal, widely available yet harmful," Ray said.

The study finding were published May 13 in the journal Medicine.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism discusses how alcohol affects the body.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

Trend:

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Vienna to take part in the discussions on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and in a meeting of the International Syria Support Group, RIA Novosti reported May 16.

Lavrov will participate in the talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict together with the US Secretary of State John Kerry and France's Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault as the representatives of the OSCE Minsk Group's co-chairing countries.

The meeting of the International Syria Support Group will be held in Vienna on May 17.

On the night of April 2, 2016, all the frontier positions of Azerbaijan were subjected to heavy fire from the Armenian side, which used large-caliber weapons, mortars and grenade launchers. The armed clashes resulted in deaths and injuries among the Azerbaijani population. Azerbaijan responded with a counter-attack, which led to liberation of several strategic heights and settlements.

Military operations were stopped on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian armies on Apr. 5 at 12:00 (UTC/GMT + 4 hours) with the consent of the sides, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry earlier said. Ignoring the agreement, the Armenian side again started violating the ceasefire.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
MONDAY, May 16, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists say they now have more evidence that sleep apnea might worsen heart disease.

Sleep apnea leads to interrupted breathing during sleep. In their study, the researchers found that patients with the condition who had a form of the heart procedure called angioplasty were much more likely to suffer heart attacks or strokes after their procedure.

The big difference held up even when the researchers adjusted their findings so they wouldn't be thrown off by factors like obesity and high blood pressure, which are common in these patients.

While the study did not prove sleep apnea caused heart disease to worsen, the authors think the first one probably exacerbates the second one.

"For cardiologists inserting stents for coronary artery disease, it is important to screen the patients for obstructive sleep apnea," said study author Dr. Lee Chi-Hang.

"And patients who have been diagnosed with sleep apnea should know about the strong relationship between sleep apnea and heart disease," added Chi-Hang, a senior consultant in the department of cardiology at the National University of Singapore Heart Center.

For the study, the researchers tracked just over 1,300 patients from Brazil, China, India, Myanmar and Singapore who had undergone angioplasty with stents. In these procedures, surgeons thread catheters through vessels and clear blockages by implanting stents designed to keep arteries open.

Almost 60 percent of the patients were overweight or obese, and 45 percent were diagnosed with sleep apnea.

The researchers followed the patients for a median of two years. Of the patients, 141 (11 percent) suffered a stroke, heart attack or needed another procedure. Out of those patients, 24 died.

But, these problems only occurred in 8 percent of patients without sleep apnea.

Chi-Hang said sleep apnea appears to be the culprit, especially in light of the "ample data" in studies over the past two decades that has linked it to heart disease.

Sleep apnea appears to contribute to cardiac illness by robbing people of oxygen, Chi-Hang said, a process that can lead to surges in blood pressure and inflammation. These, in turn, can harm the lining of blood vessels, thicken blood and make the heart struggle, he explained.

Chi-Hang said doctors should screen angioplasty-with-stent patients for sleep apnea. Patients with the sleep condition who have daytime sleepiness should get treatment via CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) breathing machines, he said.

However, only 1 percent of those diagnosed with sleep apnea were being treated via CPAP by the end of the study, as many patients won't accept treatment with the breathing machines, he added.

Moving forward, the National University Heart Center Singapore is planning a study to provide insight into whether certain heart patients should undergo testing for sleep apnea, Chi-Hang said.

Dr. Sanja Jelic, an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, said "the mystery remains whether treatment of sleep apnea reduces cardiovascular risk."

The research has been limited because only about 30 percent to 40 percent of patients who try the breathing devices keep using them after a year, she explained.

Jelic said it may be possible to better understand the connection with a controlled clinical trial. But, it would be dangerous to assign some sleep apnea patients with daytime sleepiness to not undergo treatment just to compare them to those who do get treatment.

Meanwhile, Jelic said, "every patient with cardiovascular disease should be screened for sleep apnea by answering questions during the doctor's visit."

The findings were to be presented Monday at the American Thoracic Society annual meeting in San Francisco. Studies released at conferences should be considered preliminary until they are published in medical journals after peer review.

More information

For more about sleep apnea and cardiac disease, try the American Heart Association.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China plans to relax minimum population requirements for cities that wish to build subway systems, opening up opportunities for a fresh bonanza of infrastructure investment, the state-owned Economic Information Daily reported on Monday. Citing unidentified authorities, the newspaper said that cities with an urban population of more than 1.5 million people would be allowed to build metro projects. Previously, only cities with a population of more than 3 million people and annual revenues of 10 billion yuan ($1.53 billion) were eligible. The relaxation underscores China's continued reliance on investment-led growth to support the slowing economy, which is credited by analysts as being behind recent signs of improvement in activity but also as creating a risk as debt levels rise. The newspaper said China's economic development had reached a new stage in which the fast expansion of cities was spurring traffic demand, and that population size should no longer be a key determinant of urban rail transit construction. Last week, China's transport ministry said the country will invest around 4.7 trillion yuan in transport infrastructure projects over the next three years. [nL3N18914G] So far, 26 Chinese cities have built metro systems while another 39 have projects approved, the National Development and Reform Commission said in January. ($1 = 6.5252 yuan) (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by John Ruwitch and Kim Coghill)
Latvian English

Olaine, 2016-05-16 15:41 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

April 2016, consolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Changes to April, 2015 Share in total sales Russia 2 969 -15% 34% Latvia 2 160 7% 24% Ukraine 1 285 31% 15% Belarus 669 -9% 8% Uzbekistan 426 191% 5% Italy 284 388% 3% Turkmenistan 172 77% 2% Kazakhstan 98 -51% 1% Lithuania 88 69% 1% Kyrgyzstan 78 -39% 1% Other 593 -51% 7% Total 8 823 -4% 100%

Sales of chain of pharmacies of SIA Latvijas aptieka, fully owned by AS Olainfarm was 1.58 million euros, which represents an increase by 13% compared to April of 2015. Sixty-one pharmacies were operating during this period. Sales of SIA Silvanols during April were .39 million euros, which represents an increase by 18% compared to April of last year. During April of this year, SIA Silvanols sold its products in six European countries, and, with a help of AS Olainfarm, also to Albania, Kosovo and Azerbaijan.

In four months of 2016, according to preliminary consolidated results, consolidated sales of AS Olainfarm were 35.05 million euros, which represents a reduction by 5% compared to the same period of 2015. The biggest sales increase was achieved in Italy, where sales grew by 328%. Sales to Uzbekistan grew by 158%, sales to Turkmenistan grew by 133% while sales to Belarus grew by 51%. Major sales markets in four months of 2016 were Russia, Latvia, Ukraine and Belarus.

4 months of 2016, consolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Changes to 4 months of 2015 Share in total sales Russia 9 274 -32% 26% Latvia 8 780 11% 25% Ukraine 6 274 44% 18% Belarus 3 696 51% 11% UK 939 12% 3% Uzbekistan 904 158% 3% Kazakhstan 667 -24% 2% Turkmenistan 654 133% 2% Italy 530 328% 2% The Netherlands 473 -83% 1% Other 2 856 -9% 8% Total 35 047 -5% 100%

During 4 months of 2016, sales of pharmacy chain of SIA Latvijas Aptieka was 6.6 million euros, which represents an increase by 18% compared to the same period of 2015. Sales of SIA Silvanols during this 4 months period was 1.6 million euros, which represents an increase by 14% compared to 2015, when its sales during four months were 1.4 million euros. Products of SIA Silvanols were sold to nine European countries and with the help from AS Olainfarm to Albania, Kosovo, Azerbaijan and Belarus.

According to unconsolidated preliminary results, sales of AS Olainfarm during April 2016 reached 7.67 million euros, which represents a reduction by 5% compared to the same period of last year. The biggest sales increase was achieved in Italy, where sales increased by 388%. Sales to Uzbekistan increased by 191%, but sales to Turkmenistan increased by 77%. The major sales markets were Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus and Uzbekistan. During April 2016, AS Olainfarm sold its products to 27 countries in three continents.

April 2016, unconsolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Changes to April, 2015 Share in total sales Russia 2 969 -15% 39% Ukraine 1 285 31% 17% Latvia 1 103 2% 14% Belarus 669 -9% 9% Uzbekistan 426 191% 6% Italy 284 388% 4% Turkmenistan 172 77% 2% Kazakhstan 98 -51% 1% Kyrgyzstan 78 -39% 1% Moldova 72 31% 1% Other 508 -51% 7% Total 7 665 -5% 100%

According to unconsolidated preliminary results sales of AS Olainfarm in four months of 2016 were 30.39 million euros, which represents a reduction by 7% compared to the same period of 2015. The biggest sales increase was achieved in Italy, where sales grew by 328%. Sales to Uzbekistan grew by 158%; sales to Turkmenistan grew by 133%, while sales to Belarus grew by 51%. Major sales markets of AS Olainfarm in four months of 2016 were Russia, Ukraine, Latvia and Belarus. In total, during four months of 2016 products of AS Olainfarm were sold to 37 countries in three continents.

4 months of 2016, unconsolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Changes to 4 months of 2015 Share in total sales Russia 9 274 -32% 31% Ukraine 6 190 42% 20% Latvia 4 650 9% 15% Belarus 3 696 51% 12% UK 939 12% 3% Uzbekistan 904 158% 3% Kazakhstan 667 -24% 2% Turkmenistan 654 133% 2% Italy 530 328% 2% The Netherlands 473 -83% 2% Other 241 -6% 8% Total 30 387 -7% 100%

According to preliminary estimates of AS Olainfarm, unconsolidated sales of company in 2016 could reach 90 million euros, while consolidated sales are expected to reach 103 million euros. According to preliminary sales figures published here, in four months of 2016, the Company has attained 34% of its target for unconsolidated sales and 34% of its target for consolidated sales.

JSC Olainfarm is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Latvia with more than 40 years of experience in production of medication and chemical and pharmaceutical products. A basic principle of company's operations is to produce reliable and effective top quality products for Latvia and the rest of the world. Products made by the Group are being exported to more than 35 countries of the world, including the Baltics, Russia, other CIS, Europe, Asia, North America and Australia.
English Lithuanian

Elektrenai, Lithuania, 2016-05-16 16:00 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba, AB (legal entity code 302648707, registered headquarters address Elektrines Str. 21, Elektrenai, hereinafter referred to as the Company) hereby announces preliminary pre-audited financial indicators of the Company in Q1 2016:

According to preliminary pre-audited data, in Q1 2016 the sales revenue of the Company comprised EUR 33.46 million and was 10.1 per cent lower than the sales revenue in Q1 2015 (EUR 37.23 million).

of the Company comprised EUR 33.46 million and was 10.1 per cent lower than the sales revenue in Q1 2015 (EUR 37.23 million). In Q1 2016, preliminary pre-audited earnings of the Company before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation ( EBITDA ) comprised EUR 9.56 million and were 48.1 per cent lower than in Q1 2015 (EUR 18.41 million).

) comprised EUR 9.56 million and were 48.1 per cent lower than in Q1 2015 (EUR 18.41 million). Preliminary pre-audited net profit of the Company amounted to EUR 13.96 million in Q1 2016, while in Q1 2015 net profit amounted to EUR 14.82 million.

Q1 2016 was active for the Company: approximately 25 per cent more electricity was generated in comparison with the same period last year (305 GWh and 247 GWh respectively). Power plants managed by the Company ensured the steady supply of electricity and contributed to the stabilisation of electricity prices when at the exchange they were increasing because of particularly cold weather and the disconnection of the cross-system power link to Sweden NordBalt, which operates in trial mode.

The generation results of all three power plants in Q1 2016 were better than last year. As a result of higher water levels, generation at Kaunas Algirdas Brazauskas' Hydroelectric Power Plant (Kaunas HPP) increased the most (by 22.6 per cent, up to 118 GWh). Generation of Kruonis Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Plant (Kruonis PSHP) stayed at a similar level (153 GWh generated), while the competitively operating combined cycle unit generated 34 GWh. During Q1 2015, no electricity was generated in Elektrenai.

However, a part of the results of the Companys commercial activity, according to the decision of the National Commission for Energy Control and Prices (NCC), was allocated for reducing the revenue of public service obligations (PSO) allocated to the Company: it is estimated that, without the influence of the NCC decisions, EUR 5.8 million would be added to the Companys EBITDA. Most of this amount (EUR 4.8 million) is a share of profits generated by the commercial activity of Kruonis PSHP and Kaunas HPP, which, according to the NCC decision, is currently used to cover the fixed costs incurred by the Company as a PSO provider.

As a reminder, the influence of the NCC decisions was not recorded a year ago, in the reports of Q1 2015. In accordance with these decisions on the results of inspecting the Companys activity in 20102012 and on recognising the Company as a particularly important company on the market of electricity generation, proceeds from funds of public service obligations (PSO) allocated to the Company and power reserve securing services are decreasing, i.e. the share of proceeds from regulated activity is not recognised. The Company does not include these proceeds in the financial reports in compliance with the auditors recommendations; however, it continues actively defending its position regarding the recognition and seeks to cancel the aforementioned decisions of the NCC in court.

The result of selling the wholesale electricity trade business share had a major positive impact on the net result of the Company in Q1 2016. As a reminder, Energijos tiekimas UAB, which purchased this business share, will pay the Company EUR 13.1 million in cash in instalments till 31 March 2017. Additionally, EUR 8 million (EUR 2 million per year) may be paid depending on the results of the sold activity during the period of time till 2019. The overall final transaction sum, if all conditions provided for in the contract are fulfilled, may amount to EUR 21.1 million. However, the sale of the wholesale electricity trade business share negatively influenced the Companys EBITDA because after the sale of this business share on 1 January 2016 the Company no longer receives proceeds from the trade in financial derivatives.

Interim financial statements and the interim report of the Company for Q1 2016 will be published on 31 May 2016.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

Trend:

US Secretary of State John Kerry is interested in examining ways with the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to reduce the violence in Nagorno-Karabakh, Department of State spokesperson John Kirby said during a briefing on Monday.

"The secretary [Kerry] definitely wants to discuss... how we can better lower the tensions there [Nagorno-Karabakh] and deescalate the violence that has sadly continued," Kirby stated. "He wants to explore ways in which we can ratchet down the tension."

The US role in the process, Kirby added, was not about "arbitration or mediation", but is simply driven by a desire to see both sides engage in dialogue, abide by the ceasefire and work towards a comprehensive settlement.

Kerry was scheduled to meet with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan later in the day, Kirby noted, to discuss the fragile security situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Lithuanian English

"Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius" AB, identification code 304151376, registered office placed at Aguonu str. 24, Vilnius, Republic of Lithuania. The total number of registered ordinary shares issued by company is 894 630 333; ISIN code LT0000130023.

Electricity and natural gas distribution company Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius AB (hereinafter - ESO), which started it operations since January 1, 2016 after a reorganization merging LESTO AB (hereinafter - LESTO) and joint-stock company Lietuvos Dujos (hereinafter  Lietuvos Dujos), during the first quarter of 2016, based on preliminary unaudited financial statements, earned EUR 30.798 million net profit.

Compared with first quarter of 2015 LESTO and Lietuvos Dujos consolidated net profit, which amounted to EUR 35.859 million, this is 14 % less. ESO net profit declined due to 14 percent decline in 2016 regulated services determined electricity purchase prices compared to 2015.

In January-March 2016 ESO EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) amounted to EUR 48.865 million  7.8 % less compared to the same period of 2015, when LESTO and Lietuvos Dujos consolidated EBITDA was equal to EUR 52.971million.

ESO revenue during January-March of 2016 amounted to EUR 182.451 million and, compared to the same period of 2015, increased by 3.3 %, when LESTO and Lietuvos Dujos consolidated revenue was EUR 176.541 million. Revenue increased due to higher electricity and natural gas distribution volumes.

"Successful merger of LESTO and Lietuvos Dujos to ESO has opened up new opportunities for the company and customers. During the first three months of operation, we improved our service quality and reliability indicators, mapped out strategic directions for further improvement and development. Due to colder weather we distributed more electricity and gas; as a result our revenue increased by 3 percent. We hope that gas consumption volumes will continue to grow gradually, because we already noticing a rapid interest among residents and business due to cheaper natural gas, "- commenting on the 2016 first quarter preliminary results ESO said Chairman of the Board and CEO Liudas Liutkevicius.

ESO interim report for the three months of 2016 is due to be published on 31 May.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Anakhanum Idayatova - Trend:

Relations between the EU and Azerbaijan are developing intensively, Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev, Azerbaijani deputy foreign minister, said.

He made the remarks May 16 at an event dedicated to the Europe Day in Baku.

Mammad-Guliyev congratulated the EU ambassador and all the EU nations on the Europe Day.

"Azerbaijan is a member of the Eastern Partnership and we hope to strengthen our cooperation," noted the deputy minister.

"We believe the EU will contribute to the solution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," he added.

Mammad-Guliyev thanked the EU for its support for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

A groundbreaking ceremony for Trans Adriatic Pipeline will be held on May 17 in Thessaloniki, Greece, said the deputy FM, adding "we will continue to invest to ensure Europe's energy security."

"We continue the work on a new agreement on strategic cooperation and we hope Europe will soon express its stance on it and the sides will begin negotiations," added Mammad-Guliyev.

He also noted that Azerbaijan is waiting for a mandate for the negotiations on new strategic cooperation with the EU.

"The EU representatives came here, we exchanged views, then a video conference was held, and then they sent a number of written questions," said the deputy FM, adding it happened for the first time in the EU history that a country submits proposals to the EU, not the other way around.

"Therefore, it takes time," added Mammad-Guliyev. "I think the mandate will be issued soon and negotiations will begin."

Edited by EA

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Anakhanum Idayatova - Trend:

The European Union and Azerbaijan will continue to cooperate actively, said Malena Mard, head of the EU delegation to Azerbaijan.

She was addressing an event dedicated to the Europe Day in Baku May 16.

Mard noted that 2016 is a special year as it marks 25 years of cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan.

"We cooperate in many areas," she said. "We are proud that we are the biggest partner and investor."

Mard also informed that a business forum on further expanding the trade and economic cooperation between the parties will be held May 18.

"We also continue a high-level dialogue," she said. "The Southern Gas Corridor project is another priority in our relations."

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

Trend:

Invited by BHOS Rector Elmar Gasimov, Dr. Thomas John Glass Hochstettler, President of Abu Dhabi Petroleum Institute, the United Arab Emirates, shared his view on cooperation perspectives between two higher schools, relations in the field of education, visit in Azerbaijan and his impressions about our country.

Born 23 July 1947, Dr. Thomas J. Hochstettler was educated in the United States and Germany at the University of Michigan, the University of California/Berkeley, and the University of Wurzburg, in the fields of history, economics, and business administration.

He has held faculty appointments at the University of Michigan, at Bowdoin College, where he was also Dean for Administration, and at Stanford University. He subsequently served as a senior economic advisor in Finance and Administration at Stanford University, as Associate Provost at Rice University, as founding Vice President for Academic Affairs at Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany, and as President of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Since 2009, Dr. Hochstettler has worked in the UAE, first as Provost and later as Acting Chancellor at the American University of Sharjah, and now as the President of the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. Dr. Hochstettler has sat on many boards and served formerly as chair of the Oregon World Affairs Council. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the International Student Exchange Program in Washington, D.C., which he chaired from 2012 to 2015. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the Abu Dhabi International Research & Development Conference and Exhibition (ADRAC) and on the Executive Steering Committee of the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference (ADIPEC).

Mr. Hochstettler, what do you think about the relations in the field of education between Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates?

I think this area is open for exploration and it is full of potentials. We spent the last two days having some in-depth conversation on potential linkages and I think we have found many details in the area we know we can collaborate, the areas we have complimentary programmes and benefit each other. Now our institute is 15 years old and I think we have a little more experience in the areas particularly graduate education, master's programmes, potential doctorate programmes than you do. I think they are rich and critical fields in which we can collaborate.

What perspectives do you expect to come from the signed Memorandum of Understanding?

Well, Memorandum of Understanding is an agreement to agree. It does provide solid basis for collaboration, conversation between faculties and administrators. It provides basis for building programmes bringing students of Abu Dhabi Petroleum Institute to Baku, Azerbaijan and bringing students of Baku Higher Oil School to Abu Dhabi Petroleum Institute. In fact, we have had very fruitful conversation with the students who want to visit Abu Dhabi Petroleum Institute this summer and we can facilitate it very well. That is the advantage of the Memorandum of Understanding. It allows us to find the areas of collaboration.

You have said you met with BHOS students? What are your impressions relating to them?

I am very impressed by BHOS students. You know, students are the most exciting part of educator's life. I had no idea that I would meet so many students. I think they are very forthcoming students and they are very articulate. I noticed that their communication skills are superb. They were asking very pointed and right questions. I realize that they are some higher scoring students in the country in terms of their academic qualifications. It is natural, you can see the intelligence on their faces. It was wonderful opportunity to meet with them. I am sure they will do very well and some of them will be able to come to the Petroleum Institute.

Could you elaborate on similarities existing between BHOS and the Petroleum Institute?

I think similarities are many. We are both institutions serving the purposes of the national oil companies of the respected countries. Actually, the said companies founded both institutions. That makes us look similar: the kinds of skills we provide students with, the kinds of research coming forward from the faculties of the Petroleum Institute and from BHOS are serving the purposes of SOCAR and ADNOC, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, UAE.

You are representative of western culture, could you tell us what kind of challenges you face being the head of the university situated in the oriental country?

You know, I lived in seven different countries. I taught in three continents, worked as administrator in Europe, Asia and USA and the one thing that I have learned that there is no right way to do anything. For instance, I come from particular tradition. It is not the best one however in many ways it is good tradition. We have very much our own way of doing things. For example, we start training children at the very early age, at preschool. When they turn 12 we send them to high school, and these are common high schools we have few specialized schools on art, science and technologies. Most US high schools are very much the same. Then we expect them to be admitted to the undergraduate degree programme. In fact, during first 2-3 years this degree programme is general one. It becomes specialized on the 4th year. It is that kind of education that has been incorporated to the Petroleum Institute. The first 2 years of undergraduate programme of the Petroleum Institute is coming from tradition other than engineering. So we have the humanity, the social sciences, physical sciences we also have Islamic studies. All our students are required to take courses in these areas. Before the students begin to specialize, before even they decide on their majors within engineering we think of keeping students alive to different traditions of knowledge as long as possible. I think that is the difference from Russian and even European model envisaging immediate specialization of the students right after secondary education. If you study engineering in German university you don't take courses on history or sociology or philosophy as there is a certain prejudice against that. I think it is not bad at all to allow student to explore. It is advantage and peculiarity in American system to invite students to investigate other ways of knowledge. When I was in charge at American University we introduced the theatre programme and music performance. This was purely engineering school by the way. So, when you want your students to do the theatre and music you just get them do it and you will really enjoyed that. I play piano myself and I believe that human brain improves in almost anything that it does. That is my personal belief. Allowing students to become musical not professional but simply explore music, explore theatre, explore poetry, explore other knowledge traditions is not bad at all. There is a German word 'Fach idiot' which literary means 'discipline idiot' - someone who knows only his discipline and nothing outside it. Many things that any of us do in educating young people is to produce 'Fach idiots'. At the same time, we want our students to be well-rounded, analytical, creative and curious individuals who know how to ask questions, who are not afraid of asking questions, who are not afraid of finding right solutions.

You have mentioned music by the way who is your favorite composer?

Johan Sebastian Bach. I love many musical traditions. My elder son learned to play many instruments. He plays saxophone. Now he is learning to play 'ud', musical instrument of Middle East. It is hard to play as it has many strings but he is teaching himself.

You have tough schedule. How do you spend your leisure?

I play the piano and I do read a lot. I read all the time. We need to teach young people enjoy the literature. It is just so wonderful to read what comes from other people's mind on pages. We need to encourage young people to do it. In electronic age it becomes very difficult, students do not have enough patience and for many students siting down and reading 300 page book is a challenge. We graduate students who have never read 300 page book and I think it is a tragedy. It is a lost opportunity. We should encourage young people to become engaged with a written work.

Our last questions concern our country, Azerbaijan. What impressions are you leaving our country with?

In America my knowledge was limited by the Caspian Sea, that is I knew where the Caspian Sea was but I have never heard about Azerbaijan. When I was a student in Vienne I took a course on political science. Professor who taught this course once started talking about Azerbaijan and how important it is, what a wonderful crossroad of cultures your country is. More than 30 years have passed when I finally came there. I was existed because everything he said was true. This country is the crossroad of many cultures. People here are so warm. I tried to figure out why, and found out that you have to be warm because you are in touch with all the countries around you, from the west, from the east, people from Asia, from Europe. This is the gathering point. It is wonderful experience. I will certainly come back and bring my family here. All what I said about warmth is true and I am very grateful for that.

Thank you very much.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Samir Ali - Trend:

Cassation appeal of journalist in custody, Khadija Ismayilova, against the decision by the Baku Court of Appeal will be considered May 25 in Azerbaijan, the journalist's lawyer Fakhraddin Mehdiyev told Trend.

The Baku Court of Grave Crimes sentenced Khadija Ismayilova to 7.5 years in prison on Sept. 1.

Ismayilova was charged under the articles 179.3.2 (large-scale misappropriation and embezzlement), 192.2.2 (illegal entrepreneurship), 213.1 (tax evasion) and 308.2 (abuse of official duties) under the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan.

An appeal was made against the verdict, but the Baku Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the first instance court. Ismayilova's lawyers filed a cassation appeal against this decision.

In her cassation appeal Ismayilova asks to be released from prison, Mehdiyev said.

The cassation appeal by Ismayilova will be considered by the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan (chaired by Judge Ali Sayfaliyev).
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 16

By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend:

A roundtable meeting devoted to attraction of investments to the construction project of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline will take place within the framework of the VII International Gas Congress of Turkmenistan to be held May 20-21 in the Avaza national tourist zone, according to the government's message May 16.

TAPI gas pipeline will make it possible to deliver gas from Turkmenistan, which ranks fourth in the world on biggest gas reserves, to large and promising markets of South and Southeast Asia. The pipeline is to run from Galkynysh - the largest gas field in Turkmenistan - through the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar, and finally reach the Fazilka settlement located near the India-Pakistan border. The main document for the TAPI, called the Ashgabat Interstate Agreement, was signed in 2010.

The groundbreaking ceremony for TAPI's Turkmen section was held in mid-December of 2015.

The estimated cost of the project will exceed $10 billion. The annual capacity of the gas pipeline will reach 33 billion cubic meters. It is planned that the total length of the TAPI pipeline will be 1,814 kilometers. Some 214 kilometers will pass through the territory of Turkmenistan, 774 kilometers - Afghanistan, 826 kilometers - Pakistan.

Representatives of Turkmen state structures, international organizations, relevant ministries and institutions, as well as oil and gas companies from 37 countries are expected to participate in the VII International Gas Congress of Turkmenistan.

Such topics as expansion of mutually beneficial international cooperation in energy sector, diversification of export routes of Turkmen energy resources, construction of interstate gas pipelines will be submitted to agenda of the congress.

At the last meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov emphasized the fact that the VII International Gas Congress will contribute to expansion of mutually beneficial dialogue, identification of further ways of effective cooperation with foreign partners.

The Turkmen president added that his country, which has enormous hydrocarbon potential, pays great attention to achieving balanced solutions for strengthening energy security as an important factor of regional and global sustainable development.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Azad Hasanli - Trend:

Greece can assist Azerbaijan in developing tourism and information technologies, Rahman Mustafayev, Azerbaijani ambassador to Greece, said.

"Today the main tasks for the Azerbaijani economy are to diversify and reduce dependence on oil and gas production, create jobs at new enterprises," Mustafayev said in an interview with Greek media. "There is a need for an education reform as the specialists are required in the districts where the country's government plans to increase economic activity."

"Among other priorities are the reduction of dependence on imports, the growth of exports, IT-sector development, the creation of tourism industry," he said.

"Greek companies have experience and knowledge in all these areas," the ambassador said, adding that this creates additional opportunities for the development of mutually beneficial cooperation."

Mustafayev also reminded of the fourth meeting of the Azerbaijan-Greece Intergovernmental Commission on Economic, Industrial and Technological Cooperation, to be held in Athens on May 26-27.

The diplomat said that among the main topics of the meeting is the revival of trade between Azerbaijan and Greece, which dropped up to a very low level.

According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, the Azerbaijan-Greece trade turnover hit $162 million in 2015.

"Azerbaijan and Greece will also discuss the cooperation in such priority sectors as energy, health protection, agriculture, tourism, transport, IT, development of small and medium business, education, culture, science, sport," Mustafayev added.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Anakhanum Idayatova - Trend:

It is planned to open a direct flight between Baku and Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh city in early June, Fathy Attia, commercial director at Egypt's Air Cairo carrier, said May 16 in Baku.

He made the remarks during a press conference on a new stage of cooperation between Egypt and Azerbaijan in the sphere of tourism services.

"At the initial stage, we will begin with one flight from Baku to Sharm el-Sheikh a week," said Attia, adding that it is planned to open flights from Azerbaijan to other Egyptian cities as well.

Egypt's ambassador to Azerbaijan Suzanne Mohamed Jamil noted that tourism is of strategic importance for the two countries and this cooperation will promote the development of relations in other spheres as well.

Ahmed Shoukry, the Egyptian Tourism Promotion Authority international tourism sector head, said he considers Azerbaijan one of the important countries for Cairo.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:

The Dutch logistics service company Royal Wagenborg is considering the possibility of entering the Azerbaijani market, Fabio Giurato, director of the company's branch in Kazakhstan, said in an exclusive interview with Trend May 16.

Giurato is visiting Baku at an invitation from Giovanni Bella, head of the Italian logistics company Bella Giovanni Shipping & Trading SRL, which operates in the Azerbaijani market.

Giurato said Wagenborg is willing to expand its presence in the Caspian Sea region, which, since 1998, is mostly related to the sea's northern part.

"We believe that combining the expertise of our several divisions operating worldwide, including the shipping division operating 180 cargo vessels, offshore division operating supply vessels, anchor handling tugs, barges and others, we can support the Azerbaijani industry with the state-of-the-art equipment and turnkey solutions," he explained.

"In this very moment we are just exploring the market through meetings with local operators in order to identify, in the short term, the most adequate business development strategy," noted Giurato. "Indeed we recognize the potential that the Azerbaijani market represents for Royal Wagenborg Group."

He also said the company is already partially working with Azerbaijan in the field of shipping.

"We worked for [the Dutch company] Boskalis in Azerbaijan for few months at the Shah Deniz project with our shallow draft tug Kasymborg," said Giurato. "We often send our units to shipyards in Azerbaijan for dry docking and upgrading works. We recently installed spud-poles on our flat-top barge WB107 at Azerbaijan's Baku Shipyard shipbuilding plant."

Giurato also noted that Royal Wagenborg is interested in fostering its relations with Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR.

"We are looking with interest to the Alat free-trade zone as one of the most interesting opportunity to develop our shipping activity in the Caspian Sea through our modern fleet of cargo vessels," he added.

Wagenborg is a 100-percent family owned company with its head office in Delfzijl, the Netherlands.

As of today, Royal Wagenborg is one of the largest Dutch shipping companies.

Edited by EA

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Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:

Fuad Sadikhov has been appointed the director of insurance market supervisory department of Azerbaijan's Financial Market Supervisory Body, a source on the country's insurance market told Trend May 16.

The source said that Sadikhov will supervise life insurance, types of insurance differing from life insurance and work with insurance brokers.

Heads of two of these three structures - on work with insurance brokers and on types of insurance differing from life insurance - have already been appointed, added the source.

Head the Board of Directors of the Financial Market Supervisory Body Rufat Aslanli held a meeting with heads of Azerbaijan's insurance companies last week, where the problems of the country's insurance market were discussed.

During the meeting, Aslanli noted insurance system's importance in the country's economy.

Currently, 25 insurance companies operate in Azerbaijan.

Edited by SI

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Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
About a decade ago we bought our first house and first dining room set. Was an affordable set purchased locally with wedding money, and though not very expensive, it's held up well. We still like the style and in fact matched our living room and entryway pieces to it (the whole main floor had a nice unity), so we're sort of "invested" in this style if you will. However we recently bought a new house with a larger dedicated formal dining room space. We'd like to buy a sideboard/buffet piece for storage, but our dining room set is no longer made by the manufacturer! We're willing to make the sideboard/buffet a different style, but am not sure how to match a different piece to an existing style -- I'm kind of a "buy the matching piece" guy, but that's not an option. Or is there a place where people find these sorts of things (discontinued furniture) for people like us? You can google up Steve Silver Lexington dining room and you'll see what we already have -- this is a pretty good pic, the chairs and table are the same, maybe a little lighter on the chair seat fabric color (ours is more ivory than tan) and our china hutch is a little differently configured, but you can see it here. Thank you for any advice and help.
Eugene Robinson

Eugene Robinson is an Associate Editor and twice-weekly columnist for The Washington Post. His column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. In a 25-year career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper's award-winning Style section. In 2005, he started writing a column for the Op-Ed page. He is the author of "Coal to Cream: A Black Man's Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race" (1999) and "Last Dance in Havana" (2004). Robinson is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and has received numerous journalism awards.
Rousseff Steps Down: Why Brazil Shouldn't Celebrate Just Yet

(Continued from Prior Part)

Latin Americafocused funds

Several Latin Americafocused funds have posted high double-digit returns so far in 2016. Those invested majorly in Brazilian stocks have outperformed those focused on Mexico (ELAAX) (EWW), the other major Latin American economy.

Among all funds, whether actively or passively managed, financials is the sector in which there is the most investment. Three of the eight LatAm-focused mutual funds (JLTAX) (PRLAX) (SLANX) have over 40% of their assets invested in the sector. If youre interested in a fund-by-fund analysis of the eight actively managed LatAmfocused funds, you can read Why LatAm Mutual Funds Rose in the First 4 Months of 2016.

Comparison with the Ibovespa

Four (ALEAX) (PRLAX) (SLANX) (UBPIX) of the eight mutual funds investing in Latin American stocks have outperformed Brazils benchmark equity Bovespa Index. Of them, one (UBPIX) is a leverage fund.

Passively managed funds such as the iShares Latin America 40 ETF (ILF) and the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Latin America ETF (EEML) have underperformed the index. However, the passively managed iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF (EWZ) has outshone them all except for UBPIX.

Passive versus active

While the returns of the eight mutual funds range from 11% to 35.5% on a year-to-date basis, the ILF and EEML, which invest across Latin America, have returned in the range of 18.5%19.5%. On the other hand, the Brazil-focused EWZ has returned 34.4% in the period.

Given that the recent rally in Brazilian stocks (VIV) (TSU) (BBDO) is more emotional than rational, investors may wish to invest in passively managed funds, which are quicker to liquidate than mutual funds. While Brazil may have future potential, investing in mutual funds now would require long-term patience for desired results.

In the next article, well look at the views of fund managers who are positive on Brazilian equities.

Story continues

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
NYC Bans Hands-Free Devices for Its Fleet

New York City will bar the use of hands-free phone devices by city fleet operators, except for emergency responders.

New York City officials recently announced two safety measures for the city's fleet of more than 28,000 vehicles -- more life-saving truck side guards and a ban on hands-free phone devices except for emergencies. They also announced a new electric car initiative that will help the city's fleet achieve the goal of reducing municipal fleet emissions 50 percent by 2025.

"Once again, New York City is leading by example, this time introducing cutting-edge measures to boost safety and sustainability for the largest fleet in the nation," said Mayor Bill de Blasio. "These progressive requirements will ensure that drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians alike will be safer on our streets, all while decreasing the city's carbon emissions footprint."

De Blasio was joined by Department of Citywide Administrative Services Commissioner Lisette Camilo for the announcement during the City Fleet and Equipment Show in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

New York City will bar the use of hands-free phone devices by city fleet operators, except for emergency responders. New York State law currently prohibits vehicle operation while using a cell phone or texting but offers an exemption for the use of hands-free devices. Camilo's department has concluded that the use of hands-free devices can lead to equally dangerous levels of distraction, however.

The fleet has installed truck side guards on 370 trucks so far, with 650 installs to be completed by the end of FY2017, and has partnered with Action Carting and Fresh Direct to share the technology with those private companies. De Blasio announced in December 2015 the NYC Clean Fleet plan, which calls for the city to implement at least 2,000 electric cars. The first new orders for 225 electric fleet units are in place  including 185 new electric cars that are expected to be delivered by June 30, 2016. And in FY2017, all cars purchased by the city will be plug-in electric units, excluding emergency services.

"Climate change will continue to require smart actions to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions," said Daniel Zarrilli, New York City's senior director of Climate Policy and Programs. "That's why today's announcement of a cleaner, safer fleet is so critical to our OneNYC efforts and puts us on the path to having the largest municipal EV fleet in the country."
USPS: Houston Tops for Dog Attacks in 2015

USPS released 2015 data that showed 6,549 of its employees were attacked by dogs last year, and that four Texas cities ranked in the top 10 among U.S. cities for dog attacks.

The U.S. Postal Service is marking National Dog Bite Prevention Week (May 15-21) along with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Humane Association, American Veterinary Medical Association, Insurance Information Institute, and State Farm Insurance. Ahead of the event, USPS released 2015 data that showed 6,549 of its employees were attacked by dogs last year, and that four Texas cities ranked in the top 10 among U.S. cities for dog attacks.

USPS also is putting two new safety initiatives in place to help protect its employees. The first went into effect May 13 on usps.com's Package Pickup application -- customers are asked to indicate whether there is a dog at their address when they schedule a package pickup. The second goes into effect later this spring, when the Mobile Delivery Devices that letter carriers use to scan packages to confirm delivery will include a feature that allows carriers to indicate the presence of a dog at an individual address, helping substitutes who fill in for letter carriers on their days off, said USPS Safety Director Linda DeCarlo. She spoke May 11 at a news conference in Houston, where postal employees suffered 77 attacks, more than any other city in 2015.

"Dogs are protective in nature and may view our letter carriers handing mail to their owner as a threat," she said. The news conference emphasized that dog bites are a national issue and education can help prevent dog attacks to people of all ages. Of the 4.5 million Americans bitten by dogs annually, half are children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

DeCarlo urged the public to follow these tips:

If a letter carrier delivers mail or packages to your front door, place your dog in a separate room and close that door before opening the front door. Dogs have been known to burst through screen doors or plate-glass windows to get at strangers.

Dog owners should keep the family dog secured.

Parents should remind their children not to take mail directly from letter carriers in the presence of the family pet because the dog may view the letter carrier handing mail to a child as a threatening gesture.

USPS notes that, if a letter carrier feels threatened by a vicious dog or if a dog is running loose, the owner may be asked to pick up the mail at the Post Office until the carrier is assured the pet has been restrained, and if a dog is roaming a neighborhood, the pet owner's neighbors may be asked to pick up their mail at the Post Office, as well.

The cities ranking highest in 2015 for dog attacks on USPS personnel were Houston, San Diego, Cleveland, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Louisville, Kansas City (MO), Philadelphia, Columbus (OH), Portland (OR), Fort Worth, and San Antonio.
On back of weak regional economic outlook.

Lady Luck may not be on Genting Singapores (GS) sides, as the companys net profits for the first quarter of 2016 tumbled 83% YoY to $10.8m.

According to a report by OCBC, the crash is on back of a 5% revenue slip to $608m, which in turn a result of the subdued regional economic outlook and slowdown in Chinas growth momentum.

Meanwhile, GS management asserts that Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) saw an 11% QoQ growth in adjusted earnings before interest, tax, dividends and amortisation (EBITDA). This is thanks to growth in the regional gaming volume for VIP and premium mass, as well as raised VIP rolling win percentage.

GS non-gaming business also performed well, with 1.6m visitorship to its attractions, while Universal Studios Singapore posted its best Q1 performance since opening, both in terms of revenue and attendance.

The company asserts that going forward, it will retain its focus on the premium mass segment. GS has already seen encouraging progress in this segment thanks to the implementation of new marketing schemes to grow the foreign premium mass market.

GS also anticipates the mass gaming market to perform well after the strong electronics gaming machines performance in 1Q16.

As for its VIP business, GS will continue to exercise caution. Besides being prudent in granting credit, it has also slashed the credit period from 90 to 30 days.

Separately, GS updates that the construction of the IR in Jeju, South Korea is progressing well. The residential plots construction is now at an advanced stage, and it has commenced sale of some units in April 2016, with targets to sell just below $1b. The whole resort is posed to see a soft opening by 4Q17.





More From Singapore Business Review


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
Georgian deputy prime minister, minister of energy Kakha Kaladze noted the importance of the East-West Energy Corridor intended for export of Azerbaijani oil to the global markets, Sputnik news agency reported.

Georgia and Azerbaijan mark the 20th anniversary of the East-West Energy Corridor, the base of which was laid by Baku-Supsa oil pipeline. Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Artur Rasizade and Energy Minister Natig Aliyev came to Tbilisi for that purpose.



"This is not just an investment worth $550 million," Kaladze said at the meeting with Azerbaijani guests. "It was the beginning of a strategic and successful cooperation between Georgia and Azerbaijan, which intensifies from year to year."



This agreement helped to return Georgia a role of a transit country, the deputy prime minister said.

The deal to launch the Baku-Supsa pipeline project was signed March 8, 1996. The oil pipeline was commissioned in 1999 to deliver oil to the terminal on the Black Sea coast of Georgia. The pipeline has a total length of 830km and it transits about 7 million tons of oil annually (about 140,000 barrels per day).
The human gut is a complex and amazing system, and the more we learn about it, the more amazed we are. It turns out
Networking & Wireless

CENIC Network Adds City of Los Angeles

The City of Los Angeles has joined the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), a 100 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) research and education network, in an effort to provide California schools, colleges and universities with high-speed access to the city's data and services.

Los Angeles publishes more than 1,000 datasets on two open data portals. Los Angeles Open Data includes hundreds of datasets about the city's economy, public safety, environment, city services, city budget, events and culture, parks and libraries and transportation. Los Angeles GeoHub provides access to location-based open data related to business, area boundaries, health, infrastructure, recreation, safety, schools, transportation and other datasets. The GeoHub platform also lets researchers explore, visualize, analyze and combine data layers using maps.

While Los Angeles Open Data and GeoHub are available to the general public, California educational institutions and researchers will now have 1,000 times faster access to those resources, facilitating their ability to share and analyze data, and exchange best practices and new applications, according to a news release.

"This peering partnership between CENIC and the City of Los Angeles represents a unique opportunity to pair the sophisticated research and analysis being done at California's great universities with the massive data being generated in one of our country's most progressive Smart Cities, Los Angeles," said William Clebsch, associate vice president for IT Services at Stanford University, and chair of the CENIC Board of Directors, in a prepared statement. "This will lead to advances in urban living that have not been possible before."

Some of the California institutions that can use CENIC for high-speed access the city's digital resources include Los Angeles Unified School District, Caltech, UCLA, University of Southern California, California State University, LA and the Los Angeles Community Colleges.

CENIC plans to connect additional cities' open data initiatives to CENIC's research community in the future.
Virtual Reality, STEM

Oculus Launches Virtual Reality Program in High Schools

The new initiative provides students with VR equipment to create short films on social issues.

Oculus has announced a new pilot program for high school students to use virtual reality as a tool for social change.

As part of the VR for Good initiative, the 360 Filmmaker Challenge will connect nine San Francisco Bay Area high schools with professional filmmakers to create three- to five- minute 360 degree films about their communities. Students will receive a Samsung Gear VR, a Galaxy S6, Ricoh Theta S 360 cameras and access to editing software to make their films, according to Oculus.

Through the use of the VR technology, the 360 Filmmaker Challenge aims to teach students to develop new technology and production skills and explore STEM careers and higher education opportunities, according to the company. At the end of the six-week program, the student videos will be available on Facebook and in Oculus Video.
Research

Researchers: Forget Internet Abstinence; Teens Need some Online Risk

If adults want to help teenagers learn how to handle the big risks of Internet usage, the best thing they can do is to let them get used to handling smaller risks situations. That's the conclusion from a Pennsylvania State University research project that examined adolescent online safety. This approach includes an important role for teachers as "trusted confidantes" and "educated advisors."

In the study, researchers worked with teens who spent two months reflecting on their weekly online experiences. The teens were asked to keep an online diary to report on four broad types of online risks:

Information breaches, in which personal information or photos were shared or used online without teens' permission or were shared by the teen and later regretted;

Online harassment, including cyberbullying and other online interactions that made the recipients feel threatened, embarrassed or unsafe;

Sexual solicitations, including "sexting" or any requests received by a stranger, acquaintance or friend that was sexual in nature; and

Exposure to explicit content, including voluntary or accidental viewing of pornographic or extremely violent or other disturbing material.

When teens reported one of the risk types in their diaries, they were given five follow-up questions to answer:

What happened?

Did you intend for this event to happen?

How did it make you feel?

What actions did you take when this happened, and did those actions help?

Do you feel like this was resolved? If so, how?

Because the teens were minors, the researchers obtained parental consent, and the parents were also asked to report their own perceptions of risks experienced by their teens each week. There was no requirement that parents and teens discuss their respective diary entries with each other. Both groups were notified that if an imminent risk or a situation of potential child abuse arose, the researchers would report that to appropriate authorities. That ended up not being necessary for the most part, because parents or other authorities were already aware of the high-risk situations.

The results, "Dear Diary: Teens Reflect on Their Weekly Online Risk Experiences," were published by the Association for Computing Machinery and presented at the organization's recent Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

The respondents in the project were "incentivized" to participate with gift cards to Amazon and Walmart. Nearly three-quarters (74 percent) were recruited from Pennsylvania; however, people from 12 other states also participated.

Of those 95 parent-teen pairs who initially registered for the study, 68 did enough of the diary reporting to be included in the analysis. Among those teens, 82 percent reported at least one "risk event." On average they reported about three risk events during the study; the range was from zero to 15. The most common type  reported by 74 percent of participants  was exposure to explicit content, which in two-thirds of the incidents occurred accidentally. Fifteen percent reported online harassment, 24 percent information breaches and 28 percent at least one sexual solicitation.

The most troublesome incident involved a 14-year-old girl who had sent a boy a naked picture of herself at his request; he shared it with others at her school; as a result she was harassed online and expressed suicidal thoughts, according to the researchers. In that instance the researchers immediately notified the parent.

The teen participants seemed to cope with their online problems fairly well by ignoring the content (40 percent of the time) or leaving the site, confronting the offender or fixing it themselves (47 percent). They were most likely to communicate with someone else regarding an online harassment incident and least likely to communicate about exposure to explicit content. For online harassment, specifically, 77 percent of the reports said that teens told their mothers, 11 percent told their best friends, and 11 percent reported it to the social media website. Nearly half of the reports (49 percent) were considered resolved by the time the teen recorded their diary entries; 17 percent were considered "so insignificant" to the teens that they felt no resolution was required.

Although the researchers said they were concerned about how teens "appeared to be desensitized to their online risk experiences," they also noted that it was "good" that their participants also didn't seem to be "adversely affected" and, in fact, showed resilience in dealing with problems as a matter of routine.

The amount of information teens share online was also a point of discussion for the project. While studies about online safety for young people often focus on prevention  stopping them from sharing or curtailing their online activities  this research suggested that a better approach would be to allow them to experience the misery of making mistakes and learning from those blunders (such as when they post photos they later regret because of subsequent negative reactions from friends).

"Our stance is that teens will inevitably be exposed to some level of online risk; thus, they need to learn how to deal with it before the risk becomes too great," the researchers wrote in their paper, "Resilience theory suggests that lower level risk experiences may actually help inoculate teens from higher risk situations by teaching them to avoid or cope with future risk experiences."

So where does that leave educators? Primary author Pamela Wisniewski, formerly a post-doctoral scholar in information sciences and technology at Penn State and now an assistant professor in computer science at the University of Central Florida, suggested that they can play a role in helping build teen resilience in two ways: by being a trusted confidant when a teen is experiencing problems and by being an informed and educated advisor.

"Often, as adults, we tend to overreact to some online situations since we didn't have the same experiences the current-day teens have online," Wisniewski told Campus Technology. "By overreacting to less serious situations, this closes the door on us being considered trustworthy when teens face even more serious online threats."

Teens frequently dismiss the notion of asking adults how to deal with the problems they're having online because we often come across as clueless, she noted. "Sometimes this is due to lack of technology savvy, and others relevant to the culture and realities of modern youth. So, it is important for us to stay on top of the latest social media trends, understand complex topics like online privacy settings and terms of service. That way, when a teen has a question, we can be a resource for helping them solve the issues that they face."
Tehran, Iran, May 16

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

Central Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan Governor Elman Rustamov met his Iranian counterpart Valiollah Seif in Tehran.

The two sides explored the possible ways to enhance bilateral cooperation in their respective field, Central Bank of Iran Public Relations department told Trend May 16.

During the meeting, Seif reiterated Iran's proposal to launch a joint monetary and banking committee to render closer bilateral cooperation.

He also proposed that Iran and Azerbaijan introduce to each other some of their banks in order to open branches in each country.

"Opening accounts in each other country's central bank and using it for trade transactions with a regular clearing timetable could also be a great help to bilateral trade," Seif also proposed.

Rustamov, for his part, said that establishing an independent bank will be a good idea to boost Iran-Azerbaijan ties, adding the joint committee will investigate the grounds for doing so.

"The main purpose is to expand economic and banking ties, and then in the next step to open branches of Azerbaijani banks in Iran. We also welcome the idea of opening a joint account, but through the International Bank of Azerbaijan," he added.
(Repeats story published on Friday)

* Delta swamps home to much of Nigeria's oil wealth

* New (KOSDAQ: 160550.KQ - news) militant group threatens to launch new insurgency

* Pipeline attacks have reduced oil output by 300,000 bpd

* Little is known about the "Niger Delta Avengers"

By Tife Owolabi and Ulf Laessing

YENAGOA/ABUJA, Nigeria, May 13 (Reuters) - They call themselves the Niger Delta Avengers. Little is known about the new radical group that has claimed a series of pipeline bombings in Nigeria's oil-producing region this year and evaded gunboats and soldiers trawling swamps and villages.

Their attacks have driven Nigerian oil output to near a 22-year low and, if the violence escalates into another insurgency in the restive area, it could cripple production in a country facing a growing economic crisis.

President Muhammadu Buhari has said he will crush the militants, but a wide-scale conflict could stretch security forces already battling a northern rebellion by hardline Sunni Muslim group Boko Haram.

Militancy has been rife over the past decade in the Delta, a southern region which is one of the country's poorest areas despite generating 70 percent of state income.

Violence has increased sharply this year - most of it claimed by the "Avengers" - after Buhari scaled back an amnesty deal with rebel groups, which had ended a 2004-2009 insurgency.

Under the deal, more state cash was channelled to the region for job training and militant groups were handed contracts to protect the pipelines they once bombed. But Buhari cut the budget allocated to the plan by about 70 percent and cancelled the contracts, citing corruption and mismanagement of funds.

The "Avengers" have carried out a string of attacks since February that reduced Nigerian oil output by at least 300,000 barrels a day of output, and shut down two refineries and a major export terminal.

On Thursday the group emailed journalists a statement saying it was fighting for an independent Delta and would step up its attacks unless oil firms left the region within two weeks.

Story continues

"If at the end of the ultimatum you are still operating, we will blow up all the locations," it said. "It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) will be bloody. So just shut down your operations and leave."

"To international oil companies, this is just the beginning and you have not seen anything yet. We will make you suffer," it said.

Authorities have no hard facts about the group - such as its size, bases or leadership, Nigeria-based diplomats say.

Diplomats and security experts say it has shown a level of sophistication not seen since the peak of the 2004-2009 insurgency, which halved Nigeria's oil output. They say it must be getting help from sympathetic oil workers in identifying the pipelines to cause maximum damage.

"Its scary. Their demands are impossible to meet so there will be probably more attacks," said a security expert, asking not to be named.

GUNBOATS

In February the group claimed an attack on an undersea pipeline that forced Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) to shut a 250,000 barrels a day Forcados terminal. Last week, it took credit for blasting a Chevron (Euronext: CHTEX.NX - news) platform, shutting the Warri and Kaduna refineries. Power outages across Nigeria worsened as gas supplies were also affected.

There have been other smaller attacks and this week another explosion, which bore the hallmarks of the group, closed Shell's Bonny Light export programme.

Reuters, like other media, has been unable to reach the group, which mainly communicates via Twitter (Xetra: A1W6XZ - news) , with the location tracker switched off, and on its website.

Its members describe themselves there as "young, well travelled" and mostly educated in eastern Europe.

Given the lack of intelligence about the militants, the army launched a wide-ranging hunt across the Delta this week, sending gunboats into mosquito-infested creeks and searching villages in the middle of the night.

But some residents say such a heavy-handed military approach stokes dissent in the Delta where many complain of poverty despite sitting on much of Nigeria's energy wealth. They say some villagers help militants to hide in the hard-to-access swamps.

"The military came at 12.30 am with two gunboats ... they went from house to house. Many ran into the bush," said Godspower Gbenekemam, chief of the Gbaramatu area.

"The military stayed on until about 5.30 am, during which nobody was able to move out," he said. "We are not part of the people blowing up pipelines. We do not know them so the military should leave our community alone."

Alagoa Morris, an environmental activist based in the Delta, said unless soldiers acted with restraint, more people would join the militants, with a risk of "the Niger Delta returning to another round of full-scale militancy".

Even (Taiwan OTC: 6436.TWO - news) oil majors, which have long pressed for better pipeline protection, worry the tactics could backfire.

Executives met Vice President Yemi Osinbajo this week and one of them warned the government was being "too direct and blunt" and needed to find some balance, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

ULTIMATUM

The military has not said how many soldiers have been involved in the sweep. The army searched several villages around Gbaramatu because that part of the Delta is home to former militant leader Government Ekpemupolo, better known as Tompolo.

Some officials have linked Tompolo to the "Avengers", pointing to the fact that the attacks began after authorities issued an arrest warrant for Tompolo on graft charges in January.

Tompolo has denied any ties, saying he himself is a victim as the group had asked him to apologise for criticising it.

For Buhari, the campaign against former militants is a part of his election promise to fix a country gripped by graft and mismanagement, but many locals in the Christian south see him, a Muslim northerner, as an oppressor.

Buhari's cutting of the amnesty plan's budget has also caused widespread resentment in the Delta, as it helps fund job training for the unemployed.

Tapping into such anger, the "Avengers" point out that the former military ruler has never visited the Delta, where many roads are pot-holed and some villages are polluted from oil spills.

In a flurry of statements, the militants have published a list of demands, from cleaning up oil spills to keeping the amnesty plan, leading up to Thursday's ultimatum.

Diplomats say some of Tompolo's followers have probably joined the "Avengers" and that the group's ranks could be swelled by an army of unemployed willing to work for anyone.

But, adding to the confusion surrounding the group, some former rebels have denied knowledge of the militants and say they have brought unwanted military attention to the area.

"Niger Delta Avengers are not fighting for the sake of Niger Delta," said Eris Paul, a former leader of the now-defunct Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which was one of the most powerful militant groups. "We don't know them." (Additional reporting by Anamesere Igboeroteonwu, Ron Bousso and Libbby George; Editing by Pravin Char)
The SWIFT logo is pictured in this photo illustration taken April 26, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/Illustration/File Photo

By Jim Finkle and Sanjeev Miglani

NEW YORK/DHAKA (Reuters) - Investigators probing the cyber heist of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank connected it on Friday to the hack at Sony Corp's film studio in 2014, while global financial network SWIFT disclosed a previously unreported attack on a commercial bank.

SWIFT did not say which commercial bank it was or whether it had lost money, but cyber-security firm BAE Systems said a Vietnamese bank, which it did not name, had been a target. It was not clear if they were referring to the same attack and there was no immediate comment from authorities in Hanoi.

SWIFT, the linchpin of the global financial system, said forensic experts believed the second case showed that the Bangladesh heist was not a single occurrence, but part of a wider campaign targeting banks.

In both cases, SWIFT said, insiders or cyber attackers had succeeded in penetrating the targeted banks' systems, obtaining user credentials and submitting fraudulent SWIFT messages that correspond with transfers of money.

The cooperative has maintained that its core messaging service has not been compromised. But confirmation of a second attack on a bank will likely increase scrutiny on the security of a network used by 11,000 financial institutions globally.

In Bangladesh, cyber-security experts hired by the central bank said in a report that hackers were still inside the bank's network, monitoring the investigation into one of the biggest cyber heists in the world. Reuters reviewed parts of the report, but the source who shared the document declined to provide access to its full contents, saying the release of some details could hamper a multinational effort to catch the criminals.

Asked about the report, a Bangladesh Bank spokesman said: "We have engaged forensic experts to investigate the whole thing, including this." He did not elaborate.

Investigators have determined that one team of hackers, dubbed Group Zero in the report, was responsible for the heist and remained inside the network. Group Zero may be seeking to monitor the ongoing cyber investigations or cause other damage, but is unlikely to be able to order fraudulent fund transfers, the investigators wrote.

Story continues

"NATION-STATE ACTOR"

Two other groups are also inside the bank's network, which is linked to the SWIFT international transaction system, the report found. One of the two is a "nation-state actor" engaged in stealing information in attacks that are stealthy but "not known to be destructive", it said.

A spokeswoman for SWIFT said she was unable to comment.

The report said investigators knew little about a third group of hackers found inside the network, referred to as Group Two, except that they were using mostly commodity, or off-the-shelf, hacking tools.

The report, which was submitted earlier this month, did not further identify any of the groups.

BAE Systems, Europe's largest weapons maker, which also has a large cyber-security business, said it had uncovered evidence linking malicious software used in the Bangladesh heist to the high-profile attack on Sony's Hollywood studio in 2014 and other cases.

"What initially looked to be an isolated incident at one Asian bank turned out to be part of a wider campaign," BAE's cyber-security team said in a report it released on Friday.

BAE also said it uncovered malware that was recently used to target a Vietnamese commercial bank using fraudulent messages on the SWIFT money-transfer network. The malware operated "in a similar fashion" to the Bangladesh Bank hack, BAE said.

SWIFT also did not name the victim, and neither firm said whether any funds had been stolen.

Reuters was not able to independently confirm the findings of BAE's determination about similarities between the Bangladesh and Sony attacks. The U.S. government has blamed North Korea for the attack on Sony's film studio, a charge Pyongyang has rejected.

BAE's head of threat intelligence, Adrian Nish, told Reuters that the company was only focused on the technical evidence that links the attacks, not determining who was behind them.

The report said the malware used against Bangladesh Bank exhibits "the same unique characteristics" as software used in "Operation Blockbuster", a campaign documented by a coalition of security firms that dates back to at least 2009 and includes the Sony hack.

BAE asserted the Operation Blockbuster connection after analyzing tens of millions of malicious file samples, but the report acknowledged there could be alternate explanations for the similarities.

It is possible that multiple programmers shared the same code, or even that it was painstakingly recreated to confuse investigators, according to BAE.

(Additional reporting by Serajul Quadir in Dhaka, Nathan Layne in Chicago and Joseph Menn in San Francisco; editing by David Greising and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
May 16 (Reuters) - Britain is set to receive the Berge Arzew liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker arriving from Algeria on May 22 at the Isle of Grain import terminal, according to shipping data on Thomson Reuters (Dusseldorf: TOC.DU - news) .

The vessel, with a carrying capacity of 138,000 cubic metres, is currently docked at Algeria's Arzew export facility, the data shows.

Algerian LNG exports to Britain are rare and this delivery may reflect slim opportunities for the exporter to divert shipments to higher-paying markets in Asia given slim price differences between the two regions.

(Reporting by Oleg Vukmanovic in Milan; editing by Adrian Croft)
Norway's sovereign wealth fund is to join German legal action to sue Volkswagen (LSE: 0P6N.L - news) after it provided incorrect emissions data.

The 595bn fund invests the money made from the state oil company and is a shareholder in the carmaker.

Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages the fund, says that after several meetings with VW representatives it sees little evidence of reform.

Fund spokeswoman Marthe Skaar said: "It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) is the board's responsibility to ensure accurate and timely information is disclosed to the shareholders.

"We have been advised by our lawyers that the company's conduct gives rise to legal claims under German law.

"As an investor it's our responsibility to safeguard the fund's holding in Volkswagen.

"We've had several meetings with company representatives since the incorrect disclosure was known.

"At this time we see little evidence of governance reform.

"We expect VW to conform to acceptable corporate governance standards, including an adequate provision of fully independent directors, and commitment to equitable treatment of shareholders."

The fund confirmed it would join the class-action case after Volkswagen admitted it had used secret car software to cheat exhaust emissions tests last year.

Norges said it lost more than 400m in the second quarter of 2015.

VW bought back or fixed about half a million of its diesel cars from the US government last month and set up compensation funds, spending just under 7bn.

The Norwegian wealth fund recently called for US oil firms Exxon Mobil (Swiss: XOM.SW - news) and Chevron (Euronext: CHTEX.NX - news) to speak out on climate change risks (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) .
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:

Heads of railway authorities of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia have agreed to increase the volume of cargo traffic via the Trans Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), Nadir Azmammadov, spokesman of Azerbaijan Railways CJSC, told Trend May 16.

Azmammadov said that Baku hosted the trilateral meeting of the President of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (Kazakhstan's national railway company) Askar Mamin, Chairman of Azerbaijan Railways Javid Gurbanov and the CEO of JSC Georgian Railway Mamuka Bakhtadze.

The parties considered possibilities of increasing the volume of cargo transportation via the TITR.

In particular, they discussed the definition of competitive tariffs, increasing the efficiency of the ferries, which operate on the route Aktau-Kuryk-Alat-Aktau-Kuryk, development of cooperation in the field of production and the supply of railway engineering products.

"The parties spoke for the increase of cargo traffic through TITR using also an overland route through the territories of Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, both for the wagon and container traffic," said Azmammadov.

He added that special tariffs have been introduced for several types of Kazakhstan's export cargos in the above-mentioned territories.

During the discussions, the sides noted the need to discuss with the Russian railroadmen tariffs and organizational issues related to goods passing through overland route.

Azmammadov said also that the meeting of the Coordination Committee on the development of Trans Caspian International Transport Route will be held in Tbilisi, Georgia, on May 17.

The agreement to create the International Trans-Caspian Transportation Consortium was signed in April in Baku by the railway authorities of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan.

Azerbaijani companies ADY Express and ACSC Logistics, Kazakhstan's KTZ Express and Georgia's Trans Caucasus Terminals LLC are the consortium members.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
By James Mackenzie and Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) - Thousands of members of Afghanistan's Hazara minority are expected to join protests in Kabul on Monday over a multi-million-dollar power line development that risks becoming a major political battleground for the government. The planned demonstration follows one of the largest rallies in Kabul in years last November over the murder of a group of Hazara, which focused widespread public discontent with the government. The line between Turkmenistan and Kabul is intended to provide electricity for up to 10 million people in 10 provinces including Kabul from 2018, but a dispute has broken out over what route it should follow. Hazara leaders, including second vice President Mohammad Sarwar Danish and Mohammad Mohaqiq, deputy to government Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, want the line to be routed through two provinces with large Hazara populations. President Ashraf Ghani's government says that option would cause years of delay and add millions in extra costs for little additional benefit. With only 30 percent of Afghanistan connected to electricity and blackouts a regular problem, strengthening the power system has been a top priority as the government tries to rebuild an economy shattered by decades of war. But the dispute threatens to overshadow the project, part of the TUTAP plan backed by the Asian Development Bank to link the energy-rich Central Asian republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan. The latest version of the plan would see the line bring electricity from Turkmenistan via a converter station in the northern town of Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul through the mountainous Salang pass north of the Afghan capital. Hazara leaders want to stick with an earlier version that foresaw a longer route from Pul-e-Khumri through the Bamyan and Wardak provinces, west of Kabul. The government and national power company Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) say the current plan ensures robust supplies to Bamyan and Wardak and changing it would delay the project by up to three years. "The issue is now purely political," said Mirwais Alami, acting chief executive of DABS. He said protest leaders were disregarding technical and economic arguments against changing the planned route. Hazara protesters heckled Ghani during a visit to London last week and on Sunday, hundreds demonstrated in Ghazni, a city with a big Hazara population, chanting "TUTAP must pass through Bamyan". The mainly Shia Hazara have long faced persecution with thousands massacred by the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the 1990s. More recently, they have been regular targets for kidnapping and murders. The government, wary of further turbulence, has tried to reassure protesters, saying representatives would be invited to join a commission considering the decision. "This is a technical issue, but given that there are protests and dissatisfaction, these must be reviewed," Ghani's deputy spokesman Zafar Hashimi said. (Additional reporting Mustafa Andalib in Ghazni; editing by John Stonestreet)
By Amanda Becker and Jonathan Allen WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton on Tuesday in West Virginia's primary, winning over voters deeply sceptical about the economy and signalling the difficulty Clinton may have in industrial states in the general election. The loss slows Clinton's march to the nomination, but she is still heavily favoured to become the Democratic candidate in the Nov. 8 election. In a November match-up with Donald Trump, Clinton will need to win over working-class voters in the U.S. Rust Belt, which includes key states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. Trump, 69, won contests in West Virginia and Nebraska handily on Tuesday. The presumptive Republican nominee is set to meet with party leaders in the U.S. Congress on Thursday, including U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan. After Ryan said last week that he was not yet ready to endorse Trump, Trump said on Sunday that he would have to decide whether he still wanted Ryan to preside over the party's July convention. Trump said in a Fox interview on Tuesday night that he would like Ryan to chair the convention as planned. "He's a very good man, he wants what's good for the party," the New York billionaire said. Trump has zeroed in on Clinton's protracted battle with Sanders, a 74-year-old U.S. senator from Vermont. He has taunted Clinton in recent days by saying she "can't close the deal" by beating Sanders, her only rival for the Democratic Party's nomination since Feb. 1. Clinton, 68, has said she will ignore Trump's personal insults, including his repeated use of his new nickname for her, "Crooked Hillary," and instead will criticize his policy pronouncements. TOP CONCERNS: ECONOMY AND JOBS Deep concerns about the economy underscored West Virginia's Democratic primary. Roughly six in 10 voters said they were very worried about the direction of the U.S. economy in the next few years. The same proportion cited the economy and jobs was their most important voting issue, according to a preliminary ABC News exit poll. A remark Clinton made at an Ohio town hall in March that the country would "put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business" at an Ohio town hall in a comment may have hurt her with voters in coal-mining states such as West Virginia. During Clinton's visit to West Virginia and Ohio last week she repeatedly apologised to displaced coal and steel workers for her comment, which she said had been taken out of context, and discussed her plan to help retrain coal workers for clean energy jobs. To secure the Democratic nomination, a candidate needs 2,383 delegates. Going into West Virginia, Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state, had 2,228 delegates, including 523 so-called superdelegates, elite party members who are free to support any candidate. Sanders had 1,454 delegates, including 39 superdelegates. Another 29 delegates will be apportioned based on West Virginia's results. Clinton and Sanders will compete in another primary contest on May 17. Both candidates are also looking ahead to the June 7 contests, the last in the long nominating season, in which nearly 700 delegates are at stake, including 475 in California, where Sanders is now focusing his efforts. Sanders has vowed to take his campaign all the way to the Democrats' July 25-28 convention in Philadelphia, and wants a say in shaping the party's platform. Sanders has repeatedly told supporters at packed rallies that most opinion polls indicate he would beat Trump in a general election match-up by a larger margin than polls show Clinton defeating Trump. Trump, shifting into general election mode, has already begun to consider running mates. He told Fox on Tuesday night that he has narrowed his list to five people. He did not rule out picking New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a former rival who ended his presidential bid in February. Christie, who endorsed Trump and then campaigned for him, on Monday was named to head Trump's White House transition team. (This story has been refiled to add first name of Republican candidate Donald Trump in second paragraph) (Additional reporting by Alana Wise, Megan Cassella, Timothy Ahmann and Susan Cornwell in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell and Leslie Adler)
By Sanjeev Miglani and Serajul Quadir DHAKA (Reuters) - Three hacking groups "are still lurking" in the network of Bangladesh's central bank, putting the bank at risk of further attacks about three months after it lost $81 million (56 million pounds) in a cyber heist, according to a report by U.S. computer security firms investigating the theft. "There are some residual risks that the governor and board should understand, namely that Bangladesh Bank network is still not secure, and there exists a possibility of malicious acts by hackers," said the report from the experts hired by Bangladesh Bank, parts of which were seen by Reuters. The source who shared the document declined to provide access to its full contents, saying that the release of some details could hamper a multinational effort to catch the criminals and recover funds stolen in the February cyber attack. Bangladesh Bank has declined comment on pending investigations into the heist. Asked about the report, a spokesman said: "We have engaged forensic experts to investigate the whole thing, including this." He did not elaborate. Investigators have determined that one team of hackers, dubbed Group Zero in the report, was responsible for the heist and remained inside the network, the report stated. Group Zero may be seeking to monitor the ongoing cyber investigations or cause other damage, but is unlikely to be able to order fraudulent fund transfers, the investigators wrote. Two other groups are also inside the bank's network, which is linked to the SWIFT international transaction system, the report found. One of the two is a "nation-state actor" engaged in stealing information in attacks that are stealthy but "not known to be destructive", the report said. The report, which was submitted earlier this month, did not further identify any of the groups. A spokeswoman for SWIFT said she was unable to comment on the report. SWIFT warned on Thursday of a malware attack on a commercial bank it did not name, similar to the hack at Bangladesh Bank. In February, hackers ordered fraudulent fund transfers from Bangladesh Bank's account at the New York Federal Reserve via the SWIFT system, but the cooperative, owned by member banks and used by 11,000 financial institutions globally, has maintained that the messaging system it controls has not been compromised. "Group Zero is the identified hacker group that has conducted the cyber attack" against Bangladesh Bank, the investigators said in the report, which they said was based on primary findings. U.S.-based cyber-security firms World Informatix and FireEye Inc. have been hired by Bangladesh's central bank to investigate the theft. A spokesman for FireEye said the firm will not comment on the ongoing investigation. World Informatix could not immediately be reached for comment. In the attack, the hackers sought to transfer $951 million from Bangladesh Bank's account at the New York Fed. Most of the transfers were blocked, but $81 million was sent to bank accounts in the Philippines in one of the largest cyber-heists in history. The money was quickly transferred through a remittance firm to casinos and casino agents and most remains missing. In the report, the investigators said Group Zero mounted attacks on other banks, but did not elaborate. The report said investigators knew little about a third group of hackers found inside the network, referred to as Group Two, except that they were using mostly commodity, or off-the-shelf hacking tools. "Their motivations and activities are unknown, but could be unpredictable with media spotlight," the report said, without elaborating further. Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that investigators had found evidence that two of the three hacker groups in the Bangladesh attack were from Pakistan and North Korea, citing people briefed on the bank's investigation. (Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in New York; editing by David Greising and Raju Gopalakrishnan.)
Tehran, Iran, May 16

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

Iran is seeking foreign tankers to carry its crude overseas now that its export has doubled in just a few months.

During the sanctions period, 90 percent of the country's crude used to be carried by Iranian tankers, but now 50 percent of the export is carried on board foreign tankers, Head of the Archives and Information Office of Kharg Oil Export Terminal Ebrahim Hosseini told Mehr news agency on May 16.

Iran's crude export shrunk from 2.3 mbpd to 1 mbpd after the European Union sanctions were imposed on Iran in 2011 and 2012. The country was freed from the sanctions in January. Now it is exporting at 2 mbpd.

Hosseini said that the tankers come mostly from Spain, Romania, Norway, China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Turkey.

Iran has dismissed an oil freeze plan that has been raised by key OPEC and non-OPEC producers, requiring the global production of oil to remain at January levels. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh termed the freeze call "a new set of sanctions" arrived just in time to cover for the previous ones.

Iran has 55-60 oil tankers in its fleet, a recent report says. But the country faces a struggle to increase oil exports because many of its tankers are tied up storing crude, some are not seaworthy, and foreign shipowners remain reluctant to carry its cargoes.

Eight foreign tankers, carrying a total of around 8 million barrels of oil, have shipped Iranian crude to European destinations since sanctions were lifted in January.
Marcela Temer, wife of Brazil's Vice President Michel Temer, walks at the inauguration ceremony for Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, January 1, 2011. REUTERS/Bruno Domingos

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian police have arrested three people on charges of hacking the Internet account of the wife of Brazil's interim president and attempting to extort money after stealing intimate photographs, the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper said on Thursday. The newspaper said that police had arrested the hacker, his wife and his sister-in-law on Wednesday. A police spokesman declined to comment, saying that the case was ongoing. Marcela Temer, a 32-year-old former beauty queen, is the wife of Brazil Vice President Michel Temer, 75, who took the helm of Latin America's largest country on Thursday after President Dilma Rousseff was suspended from office for up to six months while the Senate tries her for breaking budgetary laws. The alleged hacker, who worked as a roofer, gained access to Marcela's cell phone and Internet accounts 30 days ago, the newspaper said. He, his wife and sister-in-law had attempted to extort money from the Temers, Folha reported. It did not name them. (This version of the story fixes typo in headline) (Reporting by Tatiana Ramil and Reese Ewing)
By Lisa Barrington BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hezbollah said on Saturday its top military commander, whose death it announced on Friday, was killed in Syria by Sunni Islamist artillery fire and not by an Israeli air strike as one member of the Lebanese Shi'ite movement had said. "Investigations have showed that the explosion, which targeted one of our bases near Damascus International Airport, and which led to the martyrdom of commander Mustafa Badreddine, was the result of artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri (hardline Sunni) groups in the area," Hezbollah said in a statement. The Shi'ite Muslim group is fighting in Syria, backing President Bashar al-Assad against a range of Sunni groups including Islamic State and the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front. But a war monitoring group cast doubt on its version of Badreddine's death, saying there had been no shelling by rebels in that area for more than a week. Damascus airport and its surroundings are controlled by the Syrian government and allied forces. Between it and government-held central Damascus, rebels control a portion of the Eastern Ghouta suburb, which has experienced fighting for most of the conflict now in its sixth year. "There has been no recorded shelling or firing from the Eastern Ghouta area onto Damascus International Airport for more than a week," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters. Hezbollah's statement did not say when the attack took place or when Badreddine died. Badreddine was given a military funeral in Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut on Friday. "The outcome of the investigation (into Badreddine's death) will increase our determination ... to continue the fight against these criminal gangs and defeat them," Hezbollah said. Iran-backed Hezbollah, considered a terrorist group by the United States and Gulf Arab states, wields enormous political influence in Lebanon alongside its powerful military wing. Around 1,200 Hezbollah fighters are estimated to have been killed in the Syrian conflict. ENEMIES Badreddine had many enemies. He was sentenced to death in Kuwait for his role in bomb attacks there in 1983 and escaped from a Kuwaiti jail after Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded in 1990. His release from jail in Kuwait was one of the demands made by the hijackers of a TWA flight in 1985, and of the hijackers of a Kuwait Airways flight in 1988. For years, Badreddine masterminded military operations against Israel from Lebanon and overseas and managed to escape capture by Arab and Western governments. "The martyred commander spent years of his life on the front line of the jihad (struggle) against the Zionist entity," Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani said in a telegram to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah reported by the group's media outlet Al Manar. Israel declined to comment on speculation it was behind Badreddine's death, but a former Israeli official said his country would be glad of the news. Badreddine was one of five Hezbollah members indicted by the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the 2005 killing of statesman Rafik al-Hariri, one of Lebanon's most prominent Sunni Muslim figures. Hezbollah denied any involvement and said the charges were politically motivated. A Special Tribunal prosecutor described Badreddine as an elusive character who passed as an "unnoticed and virtually untraceable ghost through Lebanon". (Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
PARIS (Reuters) - A slim majority of French people are in favour of protests against a deeply contested labour reform the ruling Socialist Party is pushing through parliament, a poll showed on Sunday. The government faces strikes and new waves of protests after opting last week to use a rarely used constitutional clause to pass the legislation in the face of opposition from rebel Socialist lawmakers and other leftists. Some 54 percent of those surveyed said they supported the protests against the law to free up France's rigid labour market while 45 percent did not, according to the BVA poll of 1,160 people on May 12 and 13 for Orange and Itele. Support had fallen only slightly from the 56 percent seen when the poll was first conducted in early April. Protesters' anger is focussed on the government's plans to make hiring and firing easier in an attempt to get stubbornly high unemployment falling, with presidential elections a year away. Street protests have been called for next week while unions have called on railway workers, dockers, truckers, airport and refinery workers to hold strikes. Opposition to the reform has also spawned a series of protests by youths that have grown into a broader anti-establishment movement. However, as those protests have become increasingly violent in clashes with riot police, their public support has fallen, down 11 percentage points over one month to 49 percent, according to an Odoxa poll of 993 people on May 12 and 13 for Le Parisien newspaper. In a visit to the western city of Rennes to support riot police enforcing a protest ban after violent clashes, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 1,300 people had been arrested across France since the start of the protests two months ago. "Maintaining order is harder than ever," he said, vowing to keep cracking down on any cases of "extreme violence". Police said that up to 2,000 people gathered on Sunday to demonstrate and hold concerts at Paris' Place de la Republique, where the youth protests first sprung up with all-night protests. (Reporting by Leigh Thomas and Emmanuel Jarry; Editing by Ros Russell)
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

Trend:

Youth Speak forum, which was held with the support of Nar, AIESEC Azerbaijan and Youth Foundation to make contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, was successfully completed.

The forum, which is one of the main projects carried out by AIESEC in Azerbaijan, was organized in Baku Higher Oil School on May 15, 2016. The large scale event, attended by many young participants, was of great importance in terms of exchange of experience.

It is noteworthy that main purpose of the forum is to encourage Azerbaijani youth towards achieving sustainable development goals and joining Youth for Global Goals campaign, as was declared by the United Nations for sustainable development and better future in 2030. Raising young people's positive impact on society and social entrepreneurship as well as increasing knowledge and experience in the fields of management, innovation, entrepreneurship and supporting to start their activities and social projects are the main goals of the forum.



As a partner of Youth Speak forum always supporting youth and education, Nar attaches great importance to the various communication platforms. Adhering to corporate social responsibility (CSR) principles, the mobile operator showed one more successful initiative by supporting this prestigious event.
By James Pearson PYONGYANG (Reuters) - North Korea may be the world's most closely controlled society, but security during a week when thousands of Workers' Party delegates were in town along with 128 foreign journalists was even tighter than usual. North Korea's Guard Command, an elite corps charged with protecting leader Kim Jong Un, and members from the feared state security apparatus put journalists through layers of intensive checks to gain access to events at the rare party congress. It was the first such congress to be held since 1980, before Kim was born, and an opportunity for the 33-year-old to cement his grip on power and project his authority to the outside world. At the events journalists were allowed to attend, it took them between three and four hours from the time they left their hotel to getting in. Even when Kim was not there, such as at an evening of performances where other top officials were in attendance, protection was extensive. A guard with a portable radio detector scanned bodies, looking for concealed wireless devices. Another stood at the top of a staircase, his right arm bent around a Kalashnikov assault rifle bulking under his jacket. Mobile phones, satellite and GPS devices were forbidden, and anything deemed a potential threat was taken, including a hand sanitizer. By comparison, when Kim appeared at the opening of a military museum three years ago, foreign journalists in the North Korean capital were briefly able to get close enough to touch the leader of the reclusive country. One even lobbed a question at Kim, who did not answer. YOUNG RED GUARDS It was not immediately clear why security was stepped up this week compared with events three years ago to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean war, or last October at celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the ruling party. Kim seems far more comfortable in public than his late father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, and often travels within the country in a private jet. But his tenure has also been marked by a series of purges and executions, including of his powerful uncle Jang Song Thaek in 2013. The stricter checks may also have been part of the show, said Jang Jin-sung, a North Korean defector who previously worked in the propaganda unit of the Workers' Party and wrote a 2014 memoir, "Dear Leader: My Escape from North Korea." The title refers the name by which Kim Jong Il is known. "While justifying it as a security measure, there may be an element of trying to show off the highest level of authority to the outside," Jang, who now lives in Seoul, told Reuters. Jang said he would not be surprised if senior officials were forced to go through similar security procedures. "But it'd be like, whereas they would check the contents of your pockets every time, they would check theirs may be five out of 10 times," he said. The North Korean capital was locked down even before the congress, which bestowed the title of party chairman on Kim, who assumed power in 2011 after his father's sudden death. Members of the Young Red Guards, a student militia, stood watch at key intersections south of the city. On parade day on Tuesday, every bridge across the Taedong River that flows through the city was closed, according to residents of the city. FEAR OF FLYING - AND MORE Nuclear-armed North Korea's ruling ethos is based in large part on protecting the country from attack by enemies led by the United States, which state propaganda frequently characterizes as imminent. But the North's security apparatus is geared to shielding the leader from internal threats, whether from a disgruntled senior bureaucrat or an unknown element in the public that might incite violence, a former bodyguard who defected from the North has said. Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011 of a heart attack on a train while traveling to give field guidance, according to state media, was especially obsessed with his own safety, according to the bodyguard, Lee Yong-guk. That fear may have been exacerbated by a huge 2004 explosion that destroyed a railway station hours after Kim Jong Il's special train passed while returning from China. Kim Jong Il, who was famous for his fear of flying and almost never spoke at large public events, would obscure his movements by sending trains, ships and motorcades in different directions, Lee told Reuters in a 2006 interview. (Additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Mike Collett-White)
By David Brunnstrom LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Europe's top banks they have nothing to fear from resuming business with Iran, as long as they make proper checks on trade partners and pursue "legitimate business". European banks, some of which have been punished for breaking sanctions imposed on Iran, are sceptical it is now safe for them to restore trade ties with the country and have largely held back since the lifting of some restrictions in January. "We want to make it clear that legitimate business, which is clear under the definition of the agreement, is available to banks," Kerry said on Thursday during what is likely to be his last trip to London before November's U.S. election. Nine executives from leading European banks took part in the meeting, along with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, secretary of state for business Sajid Javid and Norman Lamont, trade envoy to Iran, a British official told Reuters. Deutsche Bank Chief Executive John Cryan, HSBC's UK head Antonio Simoes and Credit Suisse Chief Financial Officer David Mathers were among the senior bankers who attended. Representatives from Standard Chartered and BNP Paribas , which have both been fined billions of dollars for breaking sanctions in the past, also attended along with executives from Santander , Royal Bank of Scotland , Barclays and Lloyds . The United States and Europe lifted sanctions in January under a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear programme, but other U.S. sanctions remain, including a ban on Iran-linked transactions in dollars being processed through the U.S. financial system. That has left Europe's banks nervous of resuming trade, despite encouraging words from the U.S. And there was little immediate sign Kerry had provided sufficient additional reassurance during the meeting on Thursday. Standard Chartered said after the meeting that it "will not accept any new clients who reside in Iran, or which are an entity owned or controlled by a person there, nor will we undertake any new transactions involving Iran or any party in Iran". French bank Societe Generale said given "remaining uncertainties" it had no plans to resume commercial activities with Iran, adding: "Differences between European and U.S. systems generate significant operating risks for financial establishments". Other banking and finance sources said uncertainty about the outcome of U.S. presidential elections in November heightened their reservations. A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Wednesday showed Republican Donald Trump pulling even with likely Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. "What if Trump wins? Do you want to get involved with contracts now that perhaps in six months would be unenforceable?" a banking source following Iran said. "There is a distinct reluctance to do anything among the banks." NO LETTER OF COMFORT Another source familiar with European banks' thinking said there was still little clarity on what trade could be done. "The assurances given by Kerry are still vague and that goes for the whole U.S. approach - there is no letter of comfort for the banks," the source told Reuters. Hammond said the strategic objective was to draw Iran back into the international community, and this meant overcoming "the reality of what the European banks are finding in practise". "Were trying to bridge that gap ... to allow these European and global banks to support European businesses in resuming normal trade and investment patterns with Iran," Hammond said. Banks' fears are exacerbated by the differing tone of rhetoric between federal U.S. officials and State laws, many of which still ban pension groups and funds from investing in overseas companies that do business in Iran, Tom Stocker, a Pinsent Masons lawyer with expertise in trade sanctions, said. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Arno Schuetze, Lawrence White, Kate Holton, Jonathan Saul and Maya Nikolaeva, Editing by Tom Heneghan and Alexander Smith)
HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam's state television issued a warning to the public on Sunday to shun calls by "reactionary forces" to join protests over an environmental disaster it said was being exploited to try to overthrow the government. An 11-minute prime-time report on Vietnam Television (VTV) disclosed names and images of well-known dissidents and bloggers it said were trying to dupe the public and violently undermine the government, with support and funding from overseas groups. Although communist Vietnam has long sought to silence and discredit its critics the warning by the country's biggest broadcaster of possible seditious activity was highly detailed and of an unusually long duration. It was carried by several other major state-run channels. "Their intention to abuse and disturb was revealed when many subjects called for using knives and petrol bombs to attack the functional forces and to overthrow the authorities," the narrator of the VTV report said. "Many people may ask what kind of peaceful marches are they ... Is this possibly a preparation for a riot and overthrow?" the voice-over asked. The warning came as protesters had tried to rally for a third successive Sunday to vent their anger at the government and a unit of Taiwan's Formosa Plastics, a firm they blame for causing an environmental disaster and the death of large numbers of fish in central coast provinces in April. Tight security in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City prevented major rallies taking place, however, although some social media postings showed small groups of demonstrators gathering. A government investigation into the fish deaths is underway but its preliminary probe found no links to Formosa's $10.6 billion coastal steel plant in Ha Tinh province. Experts said either a "red tide", when algae blooms and produces toxins, or a release of dangerous chemicals by humans, could have been to blame. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has promised a thorough investigation and to bring to justice those found to be responsible. (Reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:

Kazakhstan plans to attract 147 million euros sponsorship funds for organizing the EXPO 2017 exhibition in Astana, says Akhmetzhan Yessimov, head of the board of the Astana EXPO 2017 company.

He made the remarks during a meeting of the EXPO 2017 public council on May 16, read a message from the press service of the Astana EXPO 2017.

Yessimov noted that to date the Kazakh and foreign companies have signed 100 million euros worth agreements and memorandums. Moreover, the investments worth 244 billion tenges (329.11 tenges = $1) have been raised, he added.

To date, 84 countries and 14 international organizations have approved their participation in the exhibition, according to Yessimov.

EXPO will be held in Kazakhstan for the first time in 2017. The event will last from June 10 until Sept. 10.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Armenpress news agency presents the upcoming news for 16.05.2016.

The UN General Assembly declared May 15 the International Day of Families in 1993. The major goal is to focus the attention of various societies on family issues. In this regard, numerous ceremonies are being held in different countries in the world, including Armenia. Today, on May 16 UNFPA Armenia Assistant representative Garik Hayrapetyan, parents, artists will speak about issues related to the family role, returning children to the family and childbirth.

Qatar Airways will carry out regular flights to Yerevan. The directorate of the Qatar Airways company and Armenia International Airports company will present the details of the upcoming flights. Qatar Airways first flight will take place on May 16.

The Armenian public waits the gas and power tariff reductions. The Executive Director of the Public Defenders Association Aram Grigoryan will speak about the price changes in all sectors of the economy after the reduction of tariffs and what kind of mechanisms should be used for real deflation.

The Economist Vahagn Khachatryan will present the priorities for Armenias economy in the context of the four-day war.

This week two ceremonies are expected to be held: the International Museum Day, Museums Night. Armenian representatives dealing with cultural issues will present the upcoming programs and what ceremonies will be held on that day.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Yerevan State Chamber Choir. In this regard, concerts will be held in the Yerevan State Chamber Choir. Famous musicians Marine Deinyan, Christine Sahakyan, Hovhannes Nersisyan, Perch Karazyan, and, of course, prominent pianist Tigran Hamasyan came to congratulate the Choir.

Follow us on TWITTER and FACEBOOK.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Al Qaedas top leadership in Pakistan, badly weakened after a decade of C.I.A. drone strikes, has decided that the terror groups future lies in Syria and has secretly dispatched more than a dozen of its most seasoned veterans there, according to senior American and European intelligence and counterterrorism officials, reports New York Times.

The movement of the senior Qaeda jihadists reflects Syrias growing importance to the terrorist organization and most likely foreshadows an escalation of the groups bloody rivalry with the Islamic State, Western officials say.

The operatives have been told to start the process of creating an alternate headquarters in Syria and lay the groundwork for possibly establishing an emirate through Al Qaedas Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, to compete with the Islamic State, from which Nusra broke in 2013. This would be a significant shift for Al Qaeda and its affiliate, which have resisted creating an emirate, or formal sovereign state, until they deem conditions on the ground are ready. Such an entity could also pose a heightened terrorist threat to the United States and Europe.

Qaeda operatives have moved in and out of Syria for years. Ayman al-Zawahri, the groups supreme leader in Pakistan, dispatched senior jihadists to bolster the Nusra Front in 2013. A year later, Zawahri sent to Syria a shadowy Qaeda cell called Khorasan that American officials say has been plotting attacks against the West.

But establishing a more enduring presence in Syria would present the group with an invaluable opportunity, Western analysts said. A Syria-based Qaeda state would not only be within closer striking distance of Europe but also benefit from the recruiting and logistical support of fighters from Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.

Zawahri released his first audio statement in several months in early May, and it seemed to clear the way for the Qaeda figures to use the Nusra Front to form an emirate in Syria with his blessing. Some Nusra leaders, however, oppose the timing of such a move, so the affiliate has not yet taken that step.

The combination of an Al Qaeda emirate and a revitalized Al Qaeda central leadership in northern Syria would represent a confidence boost for the jihadi organizations global brand, Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, wrote this month in Foreign Policy.

Al Qaeda would present itself as the smart, methodical and persistent jihadi movement that, in contrast to the Islamic State, had adopted a strategy more aligned with everyday Sunni Muslims, Mr. Lister wrote.

Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have the same ultimate objective to create an Islamic state, but they have used different tactics, Mr. Lister and other scholars said. The Islamic State moved quickly to impose harsh, unilateral control over territory in Iraq and Syria and declare its independence. The Nusra Front has painstakingly sought to build influence over areas it wants to control and with other Syrian rebel groups opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

American officials say the Islamic State has largely eclipsed Al Qaeda in the global jihadist hierarchy, with Al Qaeda hemorrhaging members to its more brutal and media-savvy rival. Many of the Khorasan operatives, including their leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, have been killed in eight American airstrikes in northwest Syria since September 2014.

The Islamic State has between 19,000 and 25,000 fighters, roughly divided between Iraq and Syria, American intelligence analysts estimate. The Nusra Front has about 5,000 to 10,000 fighters, all in Syria. An emirate would differ from the Islamic State caliphate in the scale of its ambition, in that a Nusra emirate would not claim to be a government for all the worlds Muslims.

Some senior American and European intelligence and law enforcement officials say the small but steady movement of important Qaeda operatives and planners to Syria is a desperate dash to a haven situated perilously in the middle of the countrys chaos. These officials say Qaeda operatives in Syria are determined but largely contained.

Theres always been a steady trickle, and it remains, said Col. Steve Warren, a military spokesman in Baghdad for the American-led campaign in Iraq and Syria.

Nonetheless, the presence of a senior cadre of experienced Qaeda leaders in Syria  some with multimillion-dollar American bounties on their heads  has raised alarms in Washington as well as in the allied capitals of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

We have destroyed a large part of Al Qaeda, John O. Brennan, the director of the C.I.A., said this month on NBCs Meet the Press. It is not completely eliminated, so we have to stay focused on what it can do.

The evolving assessment about Al Qaeda and the Nusra Front in Syria comes from interviews with nearly a dozen American and European intelligence and counterterrorism officials and independent analysts, most of whom have been briefed on confidential information gleaned from spies and electronic eavesdropping. They also analyzed the public statements and social media commentary among Qaeda and Nusra Front members.

Many of the Syrian rebel groups that are fighting alongside Nusra against Assads government reject the idea of forming an emirate, fearing it would further splinter the opposition to Assad.

From Al Qaedas religious perspective, the declaration of a state or of an emirate should only happen in a context where it is possible to govern effectively, said Firas Abi Ali, a senior principal analyst with IHS Country Risk in London. It would be ironic for Al Qaeda to declare an emirate while theres a caliphate that it rejects.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Hillary Clinton has always made known that she wants Bill Clinton to have some kind of role in the White House should she become president, but over the past few weeks she's begun to reveal more about what exactly that would be, Armenpress reports citing the ABC News.

During a campaign event in Fort Mitchell on May 15, the Democratic presidential candidate was more blunt than ever about what her husband's role could be in a future Clinton administration  saying she plans to put the former president "in charge of economic revitalization."

"My husband, who I'm going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy, cause you know he knows how to do it," Clinton told the crowd at an outdoor organizing rally. "And especially in places like coal country and inner cities and other parts of our country that have really been left out."

Clinton made similar remarks earlier this month during her first visit to Kentucky, a state where Bill Clinton remains popular among the largely white, working class voters.

"I've told my husband he's got to come out of retirement and be in charge of this because you know hes got more ideas a minute than anybody I know," she said, while talking about manufacturing and jobs.

Over the course of the campaign, Clinton has repeatedly said she would seek her husband's advice if she takes office.

Last month on ABC's "The View," she had this to say when asked about how she sees his role: "I think he'll, I hope he'll have a lot of involvement in starting the economy to really take off."

And last year, in an interview on MSNBC, she said this: "He's a great adviser and he knows as much about the economy and job creation as anyone I could talk to."
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Ambassador of Azerbaijan in the Russian Federation Polad Bulbuloglu made a provocative statement against Armenia trying to destroy the centuries friendship between Armenian and Russian people, Armenpress reports, he gave an interview to the Azerbaijani ANS TV Channel.

Referring to the justified campaigns of the Armenian public in front of the Russian Embassy in Armenia on the issue of Russias selling weapons to Azerbaijan, Bulbuloglu stated that everyone has understood in Russia who is their friend, and who the enemy.

April events showed many moments. We can conclude from the anti-Russian campaigns in front of the Russian Embassy in Yerevan who is Russias friend, and who is its enemy, who is a trustful friend, and who can be more trusted. Thats why the relations between Azerbaijan and Russia are gradually developing, he stated.

Moreover, he once more stated that Azerbaijan and its people are ready to solve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict with military means.

It can be seen that trying to continue the anti-Armenian policy of his own country, Polad Bulbuloglu decided with such provocative statements against the Armenian people to act the role of patriot in front of the Azerbaijani people forgetting about anti-Russian aggressive protests, brutal rallies which were instigated by the Azerbaijani authorities during 24 years.

We would like to remind that the protest related to the April events in Yerevan was not directed against the Russian people, but against Russias selling weapons to Azerbaijan which Azerbaijanis use against the civilian people of the Nagorno Karabakh. And the Russian people know for centuries who is the real friend of Russia, and who the hidden enemy and backstabber.












YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. The Defense Ministry of Armenia reports Azerbaijani forces opening irregular fire from various caliber weapons and sniper rifles overnight in the direction of the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border.

The ministrys announcement reads: Overnight May 15-16 the Azerbaijani forces once again opened irregular fire from various caliber weapons and sniper rifles in the northeastern direction of the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border.

The Armenian Armed Forces are confidently monitoring the border.

According to information received from the Defense Army of Nagorno Karabakh, overnight the situation was relatively calm in the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact.

Azerbaijan continued violating the ceasefire agreement by using various caliber weapons.

The Armed Forces of Nagorno Karabakh adhered to the ceasefire agreement and continued confidently protecting the military positions. 
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Donald Trump has faced criticism from Sadiq Khan, the new mayor of London, who called Trump's views on Islam "ignorant" and warned they could make "both our countries less safe", Armenpress reports citing the ITV.

Asked about the Sadiq Khan's comments in his Good Morning Britain interview, Trump said he "didn't care" about the London mayor and thought his statements were "very rude".

"Tell him I will remember those statements," he said. "They're very nasty statements."

Earlier Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim mayor of in the history of the Great Britain, criticized the proposal made by Trump to put a ban on Muslims entering the United States, TASS reported.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Despite the pressures by the Turkish side, with the joint initiative of the Christian Democratic Union/ Christian Social Union and the Social Democratic Party parliamentarian factions, the resolution on the Armenian Genocide with a clear genocide term has been included in the Bundestag agenda, Armenpress reports citing the Bundestag official website. The discussion of the draft resolution on the Genocides and memory of Armenians and other Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire 101 years ago is scheduled on June 2. The coalition, as well as opposition factions stand for the draft resolution.

It is quite possible that there are problems with Ankara, but the Bundestag cannot be subjected to blackmail by Erdogan dictator. In case of the corresponding decision by the Bundestag, it will be more difficult for Turkey to deny the Armenian Genocide, Chairman of the Alliance 90/The Greens Cem Ozdemir said thing during an interview to Bild.

In his turn, Chairman of the Social Democratic Party Thomas Oppermann stated that Germany as an ally of the Ottoman Empire also bears responsibility for what happened with Armenians. This does not depend on the current political processes, including also the crisis situation over refugees. We should not admit any false decision, he stated.

Head of Bundestag CDU/CSU faction Volker Kauder said the adoption of the resolution can contribute to the settlement of the Armenia-Turkey relations. We with such a step want to help building a bridge between Armenia and Turkey, Kauder said.

The discussions in the Bundestag on the adoption of the Armenian Genocide resolution on February 25, 2016 did not lead to voting. Alliance '90/The Greens party, which initiated the adoption of the resolution, recalled the draft for further processing because of contradicting positions. In 2005, Germany's parliament adopted a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. However, in the Bundestags decision, the term Armenian Genocide was avoided, and instead "massacres of Armenians" was used. "On April 24, before the Bundestag hearings, Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced that he supports those MPs, who are in favor of calling the mass killings of Armenians Genocide. On April 23, during the ceremony in the Berlin Cathedral dedicated to the memory of the Armenian Genocide, German President Joachim Gauck used the term Genocide in his speech. In March of 2015, the President of the German Parliament Norbert Lammert said: "what happened in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War in front of the whole world, was genocide. And it was not the last genocide of the 20th century. During the session the leaders of various party fractions also came with their pro-Armenian statements admitting what had happened.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. President Serzh Sargsyan has arrived in Vienna. On May 16, the President will take part in a number of working meetings initiated by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

Foreign Ministers of the co-chairing countries (Russia, France and USA) are also in Vienna.

The Minsk Group co-chairs had issued an announcement earlier on May 12.

The announcement read: In the light of the recent violence and the necessity of de-escalating the tension in the contact line, we believe the time has come for Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to meet. Their main goal will be strengthening the ceasefire regime and achieving agreement on trust measures, which will create favorable conditions for the resumption of talks for achieving a comprehensive settlement, based on the discussed principles and basic elements.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 16

By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend:

Work is underway in Turkmenistan for entering the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Turkmen government's message said.

This work is aimed at the opportunity not only to actively participate in global processes, but also use own competitive advantages in the best way, which will contribute to enhancing the economic status of the country in the international arena, the inflow of loans and investment, the message said.

Phased improvement of the legislation, in particular, the normative legal acts regulating foreign trade relations is being carried out in Turkmenistan for a more active integration into the global economy.

Turkmenistan also actively participates in consultations and meetings held by international financial and economic organizations, monitors the international commodity market.

With a view of studying the issue of Turkmenistan's joining the WTO, a working group was created. The working group analyzes such issues as study of multilateral agreements on trade in goods, which include the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures, Agreement on Import Licensing Procedures.

The Agreement on Safeguards, General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Including Trade in Counterfeit Goods, the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes are also being studied.

The procedure for the countries' joining the WTO is multidimensional and defined by Article XII of Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization. The accession process takes nearly seven years.

The EU proposed Turkmenistan to join WTO in January 2011. Fuel-energy complex, high-technological industrial spheres, transport, communications, banking and financial sector are among the promising areas of cooperation between Turkmenistan and the EU.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. As a result of the 4-day war, a part of the population of Talish (Nagorno Karabakh), have re-settled in different settlements of Armenia. Talish, the village in Martakert region was one of the most damaged areas during the Azerbaijani aggression. NKR Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Samvel Avanesyan said the Government of Nagorno Karabakh is focusing on their return and care.

According to him, the NKR ministry is in constant contact with Armenian Governorates, the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development and the Representation of NKR in Yerevan, who give daily updates regarding the relocated families.

The minister said a working group visited those families in Armenia.

He said the process of providing accommodation and other conditions for the refugees will begin in the coming days. The minister urged the residents of Talish, who have taken refuge in Armenia, to return.

He said the Government of Nagorno Karabakh will provide all necessary conditions in safe areas for them.

The minister also noted that the areas which had been evacuated in April are being intensively resettled.
STPANAKERT, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan summoned a working consultation on May 16 to discuss issues relating to the armys activity and implementation of operational tasks by state agencies in this sphere.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of Artsakh Presidents Office, representatives of the Defense Army supreme command staff and heads of corresponding structures delivered reports. The President gave concrete instructions towards proper fulfillment of the discussed issues.

NKR National Assembly chairman Ashot Ghoulyan, PM Arayik Haroutyunyan, Defense Minister Levon Mnatsakanyan and other officials attended the consultation.
YEREVAN, MAY 17, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev participated in a meeting initiated by the foreign ministers of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries. The meeting was attended by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, US Secretary of State John Kerry and French Secretary of State for European Affairs Harlem Desir. Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan Edward Nalbandian and Elmar Mammadyarov, Ambassadors Igor Popov of Russia, James Warlick of the USA and Pierre Andrieu of France were also present at the meeting.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of Armenian Presidents Office, the tense situation resulted by the gross ceasefire violations in early April of 2016 and ways to overcome it were discussed at the meeting. The representatives of the Co-chair countries insisted on the necessity of unconditionally respecting the 1994 ceasefire agreement and the 1995 ceasefire strengthening agreement. An agreement was reached to take measures for creating monitoring mechanisms investigating border incidents, increasing the scope of responsibilities of the team of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and for possible resumption of negotiation process.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15

By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:

While planning to boost its economic ties with neighboring Iran, Oman is considering a plan to offer a special visa package to Iranian merchants as well as a port to Iranian goods.

Oman's Ambassador to Tehran Saud bin Ahmed bin Khalid al-Barwani has said that Muscat for the first time is planning to offer a port to Iran, Tasnim news agency reported.

Saud bin Ahmed bin Khalid al-Barwani underlined close and friendly ties between Tehran and Muscat and said that Oman has never provided any countries with such conditions.

The annual trade turnover between Iran and Oman has recently stood at about $400 million.

Oman played a key role in bringing Iran and the US together for nuclear talks, which ended in lifting economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Modified On May 16, 2016 02:45 PM By Alshaar

The automobile quarters in China have been buzzing with plenty of significant news of late. After LeEco hogging on all the limelight last month, Ubers major rival in China, Didi Chuxing has received a mind-boggling $1 billion (Rs 66,77,500 crores approx.)-worth funding from Apple recently.

We are making the investment for a number of strategic reasons, including a chance to learn more about certain segments of the China market, Cook said in an interview with Reuters and added, Of course, we believe it will deliver a strong return for our invested capital over time as well.

The move comes in after the iPhone manufacturer reported a 26 percent fall in revenue in its latest investment report in the region. The negative figures even led to billionaire investor Carl Icahn selling his stake in the company.

The Cupertino-based companys move to fund Didi Chuxing thus comes in as a bid to consolidate its position in the region. For many of us who are not too familiar with the Chinese company and Apples decision to break the bank for it, heres a lowdown...

Its bigger than Uber in China

The Beijing-based companys largest rival in China is Uber, one of the most valuable start-ups globally. However, Didi Chuxing claims that it has got around 87 percent share in the countrys private-hailing car market.

The Beijing-based service has also served more total rides than Uber. Didi Chuxing says that it completed 143 crore total trips in 2015, while Uber announced in December that it had completed its 100 croreth trip on New Years Eve last year.

More than just a taxi service

Despite its expected Uber comparisons, Didi Chixung is also venturing out almost everywhere else. Didi Bus, launched as a WeChat-based trial, provided almost 1,500 daily rides to around 5 lakh commuters by the time of its official launch in October 2015.

Instead of competing with existing public bus infrastructure, major companies such as Lenovo and Huawei are using tailored versions of Didi Bus service to transport employees.

Apart from these Wi-Fi equipped buses, DCs services are also catering to hitchhikers and taxi-hailers.

If you dont have Apple, you still have funding

Apple is not the first big name to back the Didi Chuxing. Among notable ones are Alibaba, Tencent Holdings, China Investment Corp., and Capital International Private Investment Funds. The company has raised a total of more than $4 billion in funding, according to data from CrunchBase.

Reports also suggest that the company has broken even and is also close to being profitable.

Could be major leap for Apple

Reports have also pointed to Apples plans to build an autonomous electric vehicle following its latest move. But what is interesting to note is its Chinese partners stance on the futuristic technology.

The next phase for us is really to invest more in artificial intelligence and machine learning, Didi Chuxing president Jean Liu said in an interview. While Apple leeching Teslas engineers (and vice versa) for its secretive Titan project might be an open secret, combining these brains with its ambitious partner could be signs of the things to come from the Californian company.
Modified On May 16, 2016 06:13 PM By Nabeel for Toyota Fortuner 2016-2021

The popularity of the age-old Fortuner is decreasing. A big reason for this is the arrival of new-generation SUVs like the all-new Ford Endeavour, which have better features and overall performance. This, as we had predicted, ate away customers from the Toyota Fortuner. However, the Japanese carmaker is ready to regain its turf with the all-new Fortuner.

The new-generation Toyota Fortuner is bigger, looks more aggressive and, best of all, has an updated cabin. The current-generation Fortuner has been criticised for its interiors and the new Fortuner has turned the tables, with a touchscreen in the centre and stylish leather all around. The instrument panel also gets a new multi-information screen in the middle of the two dials.

From the outside too, the car has received a complete makeover. Features like thick chrome bands and LED daytime running lights have been added to the car. The rear now features sharp, elongated tail lamps that make their way on to the boot gate to make it look fresh and new. The eighteen-inch alloys give the car a proper SUV stance as well.

This Fortuner will use the same 2.4 and 2.8-litre engines as the Innova Crysta and has scored a 5-star safety rating in the NCAP crash test. It will be priced slightly higher than the current-gen SUV, which will make it cost almost as much as the Endeavour. This, then, will be a fair battle and the better SUV can be decided. Check out our Ford Endeavour 2.2 AT (4x2) expert review.

Last month, while Toyota managed to sell 509 units of the Fortuner in India, Ford sold 560 units of the Endeavour. This is indicative of a big churning in the premium SUV space as the dominance of the Fortuner has finally been challenged.

Month Toyota Fortuner (Units Sold) Ford Endeavour (Units Sold) January 2016 825 480 February 2016 914 410 March 2016 481 385 April 2016 509 560

As there is a generation gap between the two, the Endeavour comes better loaded for passenger comfort. It is a more comfortable cabin to be in and a better vehicle to drive. It has a two-zone climate control over Fortuners single zone, and has a ten-speaker sound system. Do go through our detailed comparison of the two SUVs to understand the nitty-gritty. All these features give the Endeavour an edge over the Fortuner, which has added some urgency to the need for the next generation of the latter.

Also Read: Ford Endeavour Vs Chevrolet Trailblazer And Toyota Fortuner

Read More on : Fortuner price
Modified On May 17, 2016 04:16 PM By Raunak for Mitsubishi Pajero

Nissan has now become the largest shareholder in the Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) and it seems like Carlos Ghosn is a man on a mission to resurrect the Japanese brand globally  India will benefit from the same

Making alliances, sharing technologies and, more importantly, engines and platforms is the way now to thrive in the global auto biz. The best example would be the Franco-Japanese Renault-Nissan strategic merger, an alliance that keeps on breaking new barriers year after year. Mitsubishi is the newest member of this conglomerate. Amidst Mitsubishis emission scandals, Nissan declared that it has bought 34 per cent equity stake in Mitsubishi for 237 billion yen (nearly INR 14,000 crore) a few days ago.

How will it affect Mitsubishi in India? That is what we will figure out in this article. Mitsubishi in India has a very patchy history. The automaker entered the market in the late 90s with the Lancer, which went on to become its bread-and-butter product for years. The next-generation Lancer  or the Cedia, as it was popularly called  did not do as well as expected despite having a very good engine and handling package, as well as good looks. Besides the Lancer, it is only the Pajero range that has still survived in the country from Mitsubishi.

The Outlander, despite being a very potent product, did not do well since it lacked a diesel option. The Japanese automaker has tied up with Hindustan Motor since its inception but, sadly enough, the manufacturer did not support MMC much, apart from providing it a plant to assemble vehicles. But with Nissan being roped in, the situation might turn around since the automaker has fairly decent operations in the country compared to Mitsubishi.

What could possibly work in Mitsubishis favour in India?

Renault-Nissans Plant

The Renault-Nissan alliances Chennai plant was its first joint facility in the world and is capable of producing Renault and Nissan vehicles in the same line. The plant has a production capacity of 400,000 units annually and was opened in March 2010.

Now, Nissan and Mitsubishi have agreed to cooperate in areas including common vehicle platforms, technology-sharing and joint plant utilization. It is very obvious that the two, including Nissans French partner Renault, will share platforms, engines and tech with each other. So don't be surprised to see Mitsubishi's future vehicles being produced at Renault-Nissans Chennai plant instead at a Hindustan Motors facility! This will in turn help Mitsubishi launch more products in the country besides the Pajero Sport in the near future.

Downsized turbo petrol engines and 1.5-litre dCi for Mitsubishi

The Renault-Nissan alliance hasnt launched downsized turbocharged petrol motors in the country, which are presently offered in other markets. However, the Indian market is ready for these type of motors, with engines like VWs 1.2 TSI and Fords 1.0-litre EcoBoost already available and the 1.0-litre Boosterjet coming soon from Suzuki. This makes us hopeful that the alliance will introduce similar engines soon. If introduced, the engines will certainly find their way into Mitsubishi cars, including a Mitsubishi version of Renault-Nissans popular 1.5-litre diesel engine.

Onslaught of crossovers

It is pretty obvious that crossovers/compact SUVs will soon come to dominate the automobile market worldwide. Their reign has already started. And last year there were reports that Mitsubishi will focus on crossovers and SUVs henceforth. Also, the Renault-Nissan alliance also has a dominant presence in the crossover market globally. We believe that all three together can make it rain crossovers in the world market, including in India.

Service Support

The Nissan backing in India will also mean much better service support for Mitsubishi cars in India once they actually start sharing platforms and tech. The joint approach could also mean a resurgence of the brand in India since after-sales service is one of the most important factors that govern the decision of most Indian buyers while considering a new car.

All in all, the acquisition of Mitsubishi by the Renault-Nissan alliance is a good thing for India and for the world as all three brands bring a plethora of car-making knowledge  both conventional and modern/eco-friendly tech  to the table. Expect a lot of hybrids and smart tech from this automotive conglomerate in the near future.

Also Read: 2016 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport / Challenger Finally Unveiled

Read More on : Pajero Sport india
Tehran, Iran, May 14

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

Russian companies are pursuing a more active role in the Iranian energy sector as the country is now free of sanctions and open to international cooperation.

Gazprom is visiting Iran in the near future to discuss among other things cooperation on Iranian gas projects as well as R&D programs, Iranian Oil Ministry's public relations superintendent Jafar Pourfarjoudi told Trend May 14.

He said the visit comes as part of negotiations between Iran and Russia on energy which started a year ago.

Gazprom is reportedly going to send a 30-strong delegation to Tehran.

Elsewhere, it has been said that the Russian company Uralmash,a heavy machine production facility of the Russian engineering corporation OMZ, is going to build drilling rigs in Iran.

Uralmash will be doing so with Demico, a privately-held Iranian engineering company, Pourfarjudi stated.

For the time being the two companies plan to build 24 rigs. The Iranian company will provide at least 25 percent of the equipment in the first phase of the cooperation which comprise of 12 rigs. The company will then improve its share in the second phase, building the 12 remaining rigs.

Pourfarjudi said the Oil Ministry always endorses Iranian companies' cooperation with foreign partners which would be willing to bring their technology and knowhow to Iran.
Boris Johnson, a leading campaigner for Britain to leave the European Union at a June 23 referendum, said in an interview that the EU was following the path of Adolf Hitler and Napoleon by trying to create a European superstate.



The former London mayor, a member of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives, told The Sunday Telegraph newspaper that the EU lacked democracy and a unifying authority and was doomed to fail.

"Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically," Johnson was quoted as saying in an interview.

"The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods. But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void."

While fellow pro-Brexit Conservative colleagues supported Johnson's comments, he drew criticism from the "In" camp.

Hilary Benn, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, said Johnson had lost his moral compass.

"After the horror of the Second World War, the EU helped to bring an end to centuries of conflict in Europe and for Boris Johnson to make this comparison is both offensive and desperate," Benn said in a statement.
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which is headquartered at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, calls itself the primary global standard-setter for the prudential regulation of banks and provides a forum for cooperation on banking supervisory matters. Many countries around the world have adopted Basel Committee standards for banks, and sometimes also for credit unions, because of the Committees supposed expertise regarding banking regulation. Although credit union supervisors like the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) have occasionally looked to Basel standards to inspire their credit union rulessuch as NCUAs Basel III-derived Risk-Based Capital 2 (RBC2) regulation, for exampleuntil recently the Basel Committee had never issued guidance targeted at credit unions specifically.

That changed a few months ago: In a recent proposal, Guidance on the Application of the Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision to the Regulation and Supervision of Institutions Relevant to Financial Inclusion, the Basel Committee had a lot to say about credit unions. Unfortunately, despite years of outreach, meetings and written comments to the Committee by World Council of Credit Unions (World Council), many of the Committees proposed statements betray a fundamental lack of knowledge and understanding about credit unions. World Council submitted detailed comments in response to this proposal and we and our member associations continue to advocate for the Committee to retract its inaccurate claims about credit unions. Whether or not the Basel Committee revises these statements in the final version of the guidance, however, credit unions and their regulators should take this opportunity to understand how little expertise the Basel Committee really has on the subject of credit union regulation.

As a threshold matter, the Basel Committee proposal seeks to define credit unions as non-bank financial institutions rather than as depository institutions. Non-bank is a term that the World Bank, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), the European Commission and others define as applying only to non-depository financial institutions like insurance companies, securities broker-dealers, mortgage companies, pawnbrokers, hedge funds and shadow banking institutions. But according to the Basel Committees logic, a credit union is not a bank so therefore it is a non-bank. The proposal also states that, in general, non-banks should not be permitted to accept deposits.

In addition, the Basel Committee proposes that credit unions should be prohibited from accepting new members if they are not well capitalized: Financial cooperatives may also require specific corrective and sanctioning actions, due to their membership-based structure . . . For instance, the supervisor may consider restricting new membership in financial cooperatives during the implementation of a corrective measure . . . In reality, restricting new membership for credit unions during implementation of corrective measures like a Net Worth Restoration Plan would be self-defeating because it could cause a run on the institution and would diminish the ability of the credit union to raise new capital in the form of retained earnings.

The Basel Committees proposal also makes claims about credit union corporate governance that ignore similar problems at banks and are not consistent with credit unions legal and regulatory structure. Specifically, the Basel Committee proposal states that certain weaknesses in the Board structure and functioning are more common in financial cooperatives and microlending institutions than in banks . . . In small institutions, the chief executive is often also chair of the Board and it is not uncommon for the internal auditor to lack independence. Governance in financial cooperatives poses additional challenges given their membership-based structure, which gives room for conflicts of interest that may lead to poor oversight, excessive risk-taking and frauds.

Many joint-stock banks, large and small, have suffered extensively from poor oversight, excessive risk-taking and frauds and, contrary to the Basel Committees claims, credit unions generally have a lower-risk and less-complex business model than similarly sized banks. Unlike large banks such as Bank of America, at a credit union the CEO and board chairman roles are rarely combined because of the Federal Credit Union Acts legal requirement (and similar requirements in other credit union acts) that only one board member can be compensated as an officer of the credit union. At credit unions the internal audit function is typically performed by the member-elected Supervisory Committee, and the Supervisory Committee is not only independent of management but, unlike a banks internal auditor, also has legal authority to suspend the credit unions officers and board members.

So if the Basel Committee is completely misinformed about credit unions, why are NCUA and other agencies adopting Basel-inspired regulations like the RBC2 rules? The Basel Committees credibility as a standard setting body is premised on its supposed technocratic expertise. Yet, based on this proposal, the Basel Committee has little understanding of the credit union model. The credit union movement should remember the Basel Committees inaccurate claims about credit unions the next time that regulators want to import financial rules from Switzerland . . . watches or cheese would be better choices.
Ahead of a NAFCU-sought hearing Wednesday on the effects of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act on consumers and businesses, NAFCU shared with leaders of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee the concerns it has conveyed to the Federal Communications Commission on the issue.

Last July, FCC released a declaratory ruling and order that provides limited robocall exemptions under the TCPA for financial institutions making free autodialed calls to consumers. NAFCU is concerned that the order could lead credit unions to cease important communications with members about their accounts over fear of inadvertently violating the rule.

After FCC released the order, NAFCU wrote the commission outlining its concerns, noting the ruling raises more questions than answers. This letter was sent to leaders of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Friday.

Most recently, NAFCU Executive Vice President of Government Affairs and General Counsel Carrie Hunt urged the FCC to develop a common sense interpretation of residential phone line under the TCPA to ensure consumers receive information from their financial institutions on both their mobile and residential phone lines.
WOOSTER, Ohio  A group of Ohio county commissioners is considering ways that water quality trading plans might help solve some of the states water quality issues.

Members of the Joint Water Quality Taskforce and the Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee met May 13, at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, where they learned about two voluntary efforts between farmers and industry, that led to water quality improvements in Ohios Sugar Creek Watershed.

Deana Hudgins, a research associate with Ohio State Universitys School of Environment and Natural Resources, told commissioners about how local farmers worked together in the early 2000s to improve the 357-square-mile Sugar Creek Watershed, which runs from the Smithville area in Wayne County, southward into Tuscarawas County and the Tuscarawas Watershed.

Second opinion

Hudgins said it started in 1998, when the Ohio EPA declared the watershed the second most impaired in the state. At the time, farmers werent sure they trusted the EPAs findings, and approached researchers at OSU to test the EPAs findings, and see if they were accurate.

It turns out our findings did support the EPAs data, Hudgins said. The watershed was definitely impaired.

At that point, farmers began working with conservationists and experts on practices they could install to fix the issue. A big thing was installing buffers, such as trees and grasses, between fields and water bodies.

This group of farmers took it upon themselves to become educated on what they could do on their own property, Hudgins said.

The farmers worked together on a grass-roots basis, at first funding their own projects. They became known as the Sugar Creek Partners, and are still active in conservation.

Water quality trading

One of the projects that came from the Sugar Creek model was the Alpine Cheese Co. Water Quality Trading Plan. In 2007, when a private cheese processor was facing an EPA order to reduce emissions, it partnered with area farmers and the Holmes Soil and Water Conservation District to form a water quality trading effort.

By paying for improvements to its own cheese plant, and paying farmers for specific conservation practices, the Alpine Cheese company was able to meet the EPAs load reduction requirements, and improve conservation across the watershed.

The company provided about $250,000 to area farmers, and additional funding to Holmes SWCD, and OSU, for administrative work and for stream sampling. Farmers were paid for their conservation efforts, and credits were awarded on a 3-1 ratio, meaning three times as many nutrients had to be removed, to be rewarded for one credit.

Michelle Wood, Holmes SWCD administrator, said some of the farmers in her county were reluctant to take government handouts, due to their Amish beliefs, but because the money came from a local business, and one where their milk goes, they were willing to participate.

Other watersheds

Wood and several county commissioners at the meeting would like to see water quality trading in other places of the state, including the Western Lake Erie Basin.

I cant see why it wouldnt work out there, said Matt Peart, a Wayne SWCD supervisor.

One of the differences is the size. The western basin includes three states and about 4.2 million acres of farmland. But water quality trading has the potential to make a difference, at least in the areas where it is implemented.

One of the key features of water quality trading is treating each watershed at the local level.

Each stream and each community needs to be treated as unique, Hudgins said. We believe that nutrient trading has the possibility to succeed in all the different environments that you experience here in the state.

Finding answers

Farmers and taxpayers both want answers to the states water quality problems, which have cost millions of dollars and now cover the whole state, including water that drains south into the Ohio River and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.

But farmers also want to know what theyre doing will solve the problem, and not create another one.

The agriculture community is ready to put in some practices, but they also want to know that theyre the right practices, said Wayne County Commissioner Ann Obrecht, a dairy farmer who helped organize the meeting.

Edge of field studies

No one is looking for answers more, arguably, than the groups last speaker, OSU Field Specialist Greg LaBarge. Hes part of a team of researchers helping to coordinate 20 different edge-of-field plots in Ohio, that measure nutrient flow leaving individual farm fields.

Each plot is divided into two fields, to compare different farming practices. Researchers have been studying those fields for the past four or five years, to gather base data, and are now beginning to run experiments.

Both surface and tile runoff is being analyzed, and so far about half of the plots have an acceptable phosphorus runoff level, LaBarge said. But its the fields with higher concentrations that make up the difference.

He said researchers are in the process of comparing runoff from fields that receive manure, versus commercial fertilizer. And theyre comparing fields that have cover crops to fields that do not.

Farming practices

Many other practices are also being tested, including surface application of nutrients, versus subsurface application.

LaBarge said there has been some debate that maybe field tile itself is the issue. But he said not having field tile would usually be much worse, because it would increase surface runoff, and prevent the nutrients from filtering through the soil profile.

One thing is evidently clear, he said. Managing nutrients from a soil test level standpoint is critical.
Salinas, CA, May 10, 2016  New reports spotlight pesticides used in the food system and the harmful effects they are having on the nations children, including in the Monterey Bay region. In particular, the reports find that Latino children living or attending school near California agricultural fields face some of the greatest risks of exposure from pesticides linked to cancers and the developing brain. The reports are "Right without a Remedy: How the EPA Failed to Protect the Civil Rights of Latino Schoolchildren" (see PDF) by the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment (CRPE), and just released today, "Kids on the Frontline: Rural children & pesticide health harms" (see PDF) by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN).

CRPEs Right without a Remedy discloses for the first time internal U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documents that reveal EPAs persistent unwillingness to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, regarding Latino schoolchildrens exposure to dangerous pesticides. The report shows through emails and internal memoranda how EPA allowed its Office of Pesticide Programs to limit EPAs enforcement of the Civil Rights Act and denied the children relief from on-going pesticide exposures.The CRPE report focuses on material from Angelita C., et al. v. California Department of Pesticide Regulation (1999), named after the mother of an Ohlone Elementary schoolchild, who filed the lawsuit with several Monterey Bay and other California families. The EPA investigated the impacts from one pesticide  the soil fumigant methyl bromide  between 1995 and 2001, comparing the effects on majority Latino and majority white schools in California. While the Office of Civil Rights found a preliminary prima facie violation of Title VI as a result of an unintentional adverse disparate impact upon Latino schoolchildren, regarding methyl bromide, the EPA did not consider the effects of the dangerous soil fumigants that replaced methyl bromide after 2001. In 2011, EPA and California Department of Pesticide Regulation agreed to a settlement without providing any limits on pesticide use near California schools or allowing the parents to participate in the negotiations.The CRPE report provides further evidence that regulators have known about the greater pesticide health threats Latino children face, yet have done nothing to protect them at the same level as white children. This is environmental racism. Its illegal. Its outrageous, said Dr. Ann Lopez, Executive Director of the Center for Farmworker Families.PANs Kids on the Frontline echoes the concern about racially disparate health threats of pesticide applications and provides a rigorous assessment of dozens of independent studies, reviewed by leading academic experts in the field. The report finds that the research has grown increasingly strong surrounding the links between pesticides used in food production and cancersparticularly leukemia and brain tumors as well as the risk of developmental disorders or delays, including autism spectrum disorders, and that in California, Latino children are most likely to face these health risks.Children in agricultural communities are on the frontline of exposure to pesticides that dont respect boundaries, said Emily Marquez, PhD, an endocrinologist and staff scientist at PAN, as well as one of the authors of the report. Pesticides linked to cancer and neurological harm travel through air, water and dust and end up in homes and schools, and eventually in childrens bodies.Many of the poorest zip codes and counties in California, by median income, are agricultural and majority Latino. According to a 2014 report by the California Department of Public Health, Latino children in agricultural counties are nearly twice as likely as their white counterparts to attend school in close proximity to hazardous pesticide use. The same study found that in Monterey County, Latino school children are 320% more likely to attend such schools near harmful pesticides.We face a growing epidemic of cancer and other threats to childrens health and cognition, said public health nurse and co-chair of Safe Ag Safe Schools, Carole Erickson. And children in agricultural communities face multiple routes of exposure to pesticides, made worse by existing economic and social stressors. The best prescription to protect children is to reduce pesticide use in the first place, and phase out the worst of them.One UC Davis study of more than 1,600 children in Californias Central Valley found that women who lived within a mile of agricultural fields where organophosphate insecticides were applied during pregnancy had a 60 percent increased risk of having children with autism spectrum disorder. Similarly, UC Berkeley researchers studies in the Salinas Valley found that when a mother is exposed to increasing amounts of these pesticides during pregnancy, the risk of her child being diagnosed with ADHD or neurological damage increases as well.Childrens developing bodies take in more of everything and pesticides can have a more profound impact during critical windows of development. Relative to their size, kids eat, breathe and drink much more than adults. An infant takes in about 15 times more water than an adult per pound of body weight, and up to age 12, a child inhales roughly twice as much air.Many pesticides applied in fields are difficult-to-control, including highly volatile gasses called fumigants that are injected into the soil. Others are still sprayed by planes or applied by air blasters pulled by tractors. And many of them are applied in close proximity to children at homes and schools, and are sometimes tracked into homes on shoes or clothes. Childrens health advocates are calling on policymakers to respond to the increased information about the harms of pesticides by adopting greater protections as well as identify solutions to ensure farmers are supported in transitioning to more kid- and environmentally-friendly farming practices.California officials must provide clear and comprehensive rules for pesticides used near children, said Casimira Salazar, a migrant education specialist in the Pajaro Valley School District. Children need specific protections that account for their unique vulnerabilities. These health risks are unacceptable and demand immediate action.In the Monterey Bay area, Safe Ag Safe Schools (SASS), a coalition of pesticide reform advocates, is pressing for permanent one mile no-spray buffer zones around schools, as well as better notification around proposed applications to parents and teachers.CPR is a statewide coalition of more than 190 organizations, founded in 1996 to fundamentally shift the way pesticides are used in California. CPR's mission is to protect public health, improve environmental quality and expand a sustainable and just agriculture system by building a diverse movement across California to change statewide and local pesticide policies and practices.PAN North America is one of five regional centers worldwide. We link local and international consumer, labor, health, environment and agriculture groups into an international citizens action network. Together, we challenge the global proliferation of pesticides, defend basic rights to health and environmental quality, and work to ensure the transition to a just and viable food system.Californians for Pesticide Reform
Nigeria is one of the African countries with a great cultural heritage which is proudly kept and protected by her people.

From the south to the west, east and northern parts of the country, Nigerians are a proud set of people who are always prepared to go any length to preserve their cultural heritage.

For this reason, Legit.ng visited the Osun/Osogbo grove, where the dreaded Osun goddess, known as Yeye Osun resides and where the annual Osun/Osogbo festival takes place.

The festival is always being attended by other African nations, as people also come into Nigeria from far away Brazil, Peru, Cuba, America, Germany UK, among other countries of the world, a sign that Osun is one of the most cherished states in the origin of the Yorubas especially.

During the visit to Osogbo, the Osun state capital, our correspondents met the Chief priestess Chief (Mrs) Adedoyin Talabi Faniyi, the adopted daughter of Madam Susanne Wenger (the late Iya Orisa of the grove), who gave a good account of how things work in the grove.

Before our entrance to the courtyard, the Chief priestess was seen appeasing the gods of the river.

"Yeye ooo, Omi ooo," she said in Yoruba, meaning "My mother, water" just as a way of reverencing the goddess that resides in the water.

On entering the courtyard, we were made to put away our shoes as it nobody was allowed to wear shoes inside the sacred grove, as our cameras were barred from entering the Osun shrine where sacrifices and requests are being made.

Apart from the unseen 'powers that be' in the shrine, our correspondents gathered that the forest is a dangerous one at night because of the wild animals that come outside to 'play' when the people have left.

Even the chief custodian of the river who 'feeds' the Yeye Osun told our correspondent in Yoruba that, "I cannot stay inside this place beyond 4pm. Ask people around, anything that happens to you after this period is totally your business."

The Osun goddess is also known to be a mother of many children as the "Osun Olomoyoyo" image inside the shrine depicts.

Many barren women have reportedly visited to have the river goddess help them with child bearing with several promises made to bring something back for the deity.

While many of them have remembered to fulfill their promises, some others forgot in transit and have been dealt with by the Yeye Osun.

"And until they trace their steps back here to pay their vows before the Yeye, they shall continue to have problems with their children, regardless of where they reside," Chief Faniyi explained to our correspondent.

During our visit, a woman and her husband were seen with the chief priestess, going towards the river to appease the goddess of many children.

And after whatever sacrifice that is made to appease the goddess of the river, our correspondents gathered that nobody is allowed to look back as anyone who does will live with whatever consequences that follows.

Oro yeye oooo

This sculpture represents Osun, the deity in charge of water and fertility. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

The main entrance to the Osun-Osogbo shrine inside the Osun-Osogbo grove. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

This is Arugba's path to the shrine; Arugba is a virgin maid chosen from a royal family to carry the 'authority' of the Osun deity on the day of Osun-Osogbo festival. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

A shrine inside the Osun-Osogbo grove. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

This sculpture represents Osun Olomoyoyo meaning mother of many children. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

An open shrine inside Osun-Osogbo sacred grove. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

The main shrine which houses the temple of Osun inside Osun-Osogbo sacred grove. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

Sculpture of a deity inside inside Osun grove. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

Another sculpture representing a deity inside Osun sacred grove in Osogbo, Osun state. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

Chief priestess of Osun-Osogbo sacred grove leading Ifa devotees to the Osun river for sacrifice. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

Chief priestess Adeyoyin Talabi Faniyi, coming out from the Osun temple. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

A sculpture representing a deity at the bank of Osun river inside Osun-Osogbo sacred grove in Osogbo, Osun state. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

This sculpture here represents the Osun deity welcoming everyone to the Osun sacred grove, in Osogbo, Osun state. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi.

Main entrance to Osun courtyard in Osun-Osogbo sacred grove, Osogbo, Osun state. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

Monkeys living inside Osun-Osogbo sacred grove in Osogbo, Osun state. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

A shrine inside Osun-Osogbo sacred grove in Osun state. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

This building belongs to late Susanne Wenger, the Adunni Olorisha in Osogbo, Osun state. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

Visitors' information centre at the Osun-Osogbo sacred grove in Osogbo, Osun state. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi

Source: Legit.ng
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16



By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:



Iran seeks to export its gas to the Europe through Iraq and Syria, an Iranian gas official said.



Hamid-Reza Araghi, the managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) has said that talks are underway to discuss exporting Iran's gas to Europe through Iraq and Syria, Fars news agency reported.



He said that the talks are pursuing long-term goals and the negotiations are unlikely to reach results short term.



He further added that currently Iran is only looking to deliver its gas to power plants in Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Basra.



He also said that Iran prefers to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe, and supplying gas there through a pipeline is also possible.



Iran and Iraq have a deal over the exports of natural gas from South Pars energy hub to Baghdad.



According to the agreement, 25 cubic meters of gas per day will be delivered to Baghdad power plants through a 270-kilometer pipeline. The volume of gas supplied to Iraq can reach 35 cubic meters in the hot days.



The project is estimated to earn Iran $3.7 billion a year in revenues.
Tehran, Iran, May 16

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

Tose'e Etemad Mobin, major shareholder of the Iran Telecommunication Company, signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan's Kazakhtelecom for cooperation in a variety of fields.

The MoU was signed on the World Communications Day and includes agreement to cooperation on international data transit, development of international fiber optic network, education, and health, Fars news agency reported May 16.

Mehdi Safari, CEO of the Iranian company, said on the sidelines of the signing ceremony that there are grounds for stretching fiber optic cable from Kazakhstan to Iran and Europe.

He also announced that his company is ready to export engineering services to Kazakhstan.

In a similar move last June, an Iran-Pakistan optical fiber project was inaugurated in Iran's south eastern city of Zahedan to provide Pakistan with needed Internet bandwidth.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15



By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:



Iranian police has announced that a suspect terrorist linked to a 1981 deadly bomb attack on the building of the Islamic Republic Party of Iran has been arrested in Albania.



The operation was carried out with collaboration from Interpol.



Iranian police spokesman Saeed Montazerolmahdi has said that the alleged assailant is a member of a foreign based opposition organization, TASNIM news agency reported.



Back in 1981, a powerful bomb went off at the building of Iran's Islamic Republic Party in Tehran claiming 72 lives including high-ranking officials.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16



By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:



On the eve of the official visit of Croatia's President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic to Iran, a high ranking delegation has left Zagreb for Tehran for talks on the expansion of bilateral ties.



Representatives from 72 Croatian companies alongside with several ministers are expected to attend talks with senior Iranian officials, IRNA news agency reported.



The Croatian delegation is also slated to hold several meetings with the members of Iranian private sector to discuss bilateral cooperation.



Earlier commenting on the visit, Total Croatia News said that for Iran, which has large gas reserves and could take over an important gas producer, Croatia is located at an extremely important geopolitical location and could become a distributor of Iranian gas to many European countries.



Iranians are interested in investing in an LNG terminal, shipbuilding, petrochemical industry and tourism, while Croatian companies want to invest in infrastructure and energy.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16



By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:



Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for European and Americas' Affairs Majid Takht-e Ravanchi has expressed dissatisfaction with the US over the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA/ nuclear deal).



Ravanchi made the remarks speaking at a meeting of joint trade between Iranian and Italian sides.



Ravanchi blamed the US for the fact that some European banks are still uncertain in doing business with Iran, Fars news agency reported.



Although nuclear related sanctions on Iran were lifted in January following the implementation of the JCPOA, European banks remain uncertain about US punitive measures against possible deals with Tehran.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Umid Niayesh - Trend:

Iran is accusing its Baha'i citizens of working for foreign intelligence agencies.

Iran's Judiciary Chief Sadeq Amoli Larijani said the leaders of the Baha'i community are linked to foreign countries and receive security related orders from them, IRIB news agency reported May 16.

He expressed regret over the support from certain figures in Iran to the Baha'is, and accused them of violating the norms.

Amoli Larijani's remarks come after Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, recently met with Fariba Kamalabadi, a female leader of the Baha'i community, who had been allowed out of prison on a five-day break.

Kamalabadi was arrested eight years ago with six other leaders of the Baha'i community and sentenced to 20 years in prison for charges including espionage.

Faezeh Hashemi's meeting with Kamalabadi sparked serious controversy in the country, and both Faezeh and his moderate father have become a target of serious criticism by conservative factions in the country.

Rafsanjani himself has said his daughter had made a mistake that needs to be corrected.

Amoli Larijani further warned that defending Bahaism in Iran is meaningless, adding "it is a fake faith, forged by foreigners and colonizers."

However, he added that the members of the Baha'i community are jailed in Iran not for their beliefs, but for violating the country's security.

Amoli Larijani also warned Rafsanjani's daughter that she maybe pursued legally if her "norms violation" initiative reaches a criminal level.
Actress Beth Behrs, most recognized as Caroline on the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls and for her crazy pipes, is shifting from tales of women breaking out of Brooklyn diners to teens struggling in dystopian California. Co-written by The Book of Mormon actor Matt Doyle and illustrated by Sid Kotian, Dents posits a future where global warming and a virus warp the earth into ruins. A vaccination for the virus develops, but produces twins with special powers when administered to pregnant women. The ominous Ministry outlaws this new population, with the comic following Eleanor, a 14-year-old who expresses her dismay with this unsettling status quo in explosive ways.

The first three chapters of Dents released last Friday, with subsequent entries set to debut every Friday via LINE Webtoons. Thus far, the tale unspools a heady mix of worldbuilding, environmental sensitivity and teen angst set amongst the wreckage of San Francisco. Paste emailed with Behr to discover her transition from acting to comics and her plans for this ambitious new series.

Paste: What was your introduction to the comic book medium? Your mom was a first grade teacher; parents in the 80s tended to be incredibly pro- or anti-comic. Did she have a guiding hand at all?

Beth Behrs: Haha, my mom is not a comic book fan as far as I know! I was introduced to comics by my partner, Matt Doyle. Hes been a comic fan since childhood, but its only in the past few years that Ive become a fan myself. I read Y: The Last Man, Saga, Stumptown, etc. and was immediately hooked.

Paste: Before segueing to film and TV, you were active in theater. When crafting Dents narrative alongside Matt, are there any tools from that era you use to relay acting to artist Sid Kotian? Do you rehearse the dialogue at all?

Behrs: Its a challenge to keep dialogue concise enough for the storytelling, but still honest and natural. Its an area where approaching it as an actor has been extremely helpful. We absolutely say the dialogue out loud to see if it works and feels right. Sid has managed to understand our writing so clearly. Its like were working with the perfect Director of Photography who completely understands our vision.



Dents Cover Art by Sid Kotian

Paste: This series pays homage to the Bay Area where you and Matt grew up. How does that era/location lend itself to the story? Was Californias current water crisis a factor?

Behrs: We deal with familiar Northern Californian landmarks pretty heavily throughout the story. It is the setting of most of the journey in these first 26 chapters. The reader will find themselves in a sunken redwood forest, alongside a deteriorated Route 1 and in a camp located above a sunken Bolinas. Its been fun recreating our childhood in this apocalyptic setting.

Paste: How much do you share in common with Eleanor, the mutant with latent powers who makes a pretty explosive debut in the first chapter?

Behrs: I WISH I had the strength and inner guts to take a standno matter whatthe way Eleanor does. I share her compassion and her deeply intricate emotional life to an extent. Shes an old soul and wise beyond her years. Ive definitely been told I am an old soul, especially when I was Eleanors age.



Dents Interior Art by Sid Kotian

Paste: You and Matt cite the X-Men and its social activism as an inspiration behind Dents. That series has tackled an array of sociological conflicts through its history: Civil Rights, homophobia, etc. Are there any current issues youre looking to address through your series?

Behrs: Identity, acceptance, equality. Theres a great deal of hatred and fear of whats different in our country right now and we address this as a driving part of our story in Dents. We also address global warming and climate change, another issue Matt and I feel very strongly about. I am very connected to the outdoors. Being in nature is like church for me. And its very important to me that Dents helps to continue and further the dialogue towards what steps we can take to combat global warming. The powers the Dents possess connect them to the earth, and the world weve created in Dents is a direct result of a post-apocalyptic world destroyed by global warming.
With its immediately obvious combination of Dog Day Afternoon and Network, Money Monster is probably meant to usher in the next wave of post-bubble screeds against the financial elite. But, while its constantly picking at the boogeymen of Wall Street, Jodie Fosters film feels too hopelessly broad, not an acute shock to the system a movie like this should be today.

George Clooney stars as Lee Gates, a Jim Kramer-style egomaniac whos barely kept on the leash by Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts), a long-time producer of his show, Money Monster. After years together, Fenn and Gates have the cannibalized shorthand of an old married couple, communicating everything with terse exposition and a safe word, Sacagawea. Gates preys daily on the working class with proclamations about how to make money rain from the sky, but hes finally put on trial when a disgruntled viewer, Kyle Budwell (Jack OConnell), loses his life savings based on Gates advice, and proceeds to hold the entire TV station hostage until Gates atones.

Taking place in real-time, Money Monster divides its duration between Gates and Budwells on-set tension, the producers booth, a covert police operation to extract the hostages, random bystanders watching the stand-off, and a global conspiracy involving a shady companyIBISwhich inexplicably lost $800 million over night thanks to a computer glitch. Juggling all of these scenarios, Money Monster could go in just as many tonal directions, and in many ways it does. Early on, Foster seems like she might have the knives out for these characters, especially after she finds a way to undermine a potentially triumphant moment (complete with a mounting string climax and everything). Shortly after, a routine scene where a significant other tries to talk sense into Budwell transforms into a unflinching, foul-mouthed reaming.

Moments like these pile on the sadism, unafraid to humiliate its leads, contextualizing them as two people with nothing to lose. OConnell, especially, has become adept in his still-new career at shifting deftly between rabid anger and shrunken emasculation. For a while, Foster also knows how to subvert Clooneys usual smarm in political contexts, reversing the stentorian grace of his voice into something defeated and toxically narcissistic. But Money Monster is less about probing into the nature of political grandstanding than offering a showcase for the type of smug lecture thats become associated with politically engaged actors like Clooney.

Its especially disappointing in light of Fosters last film, The Beaver, a messy exercise in celebrity exorcism that nonetheless felt deeply personal. Money Monster again relies on an understanding of the public personas of its lead players, but it never moves beyond surface, tabloid-accessible perception.

Foster and cinematographer Matthew Libatique build a decent facsimile of a television studio, articulating the machinations of the camerawork, and drawing attention to placement of audio equipment. The best moments of the film reinforce the context of the television studio as Fenn and Gates bicker back and forth on their earpiece, and she begins to actively direct the hostage situation. In a moment reminiscent of Nightcrawler, Fenns initial reaction when a gunman enters the set is less panic than Lets see what happens. And theres a caustically funny aspect to Fenn saying things like, Can you move over a few feet for better lighting?

In its second half, though, Money Monster nearly completely discards its acidic cynicism to push the plot forward care of some truly goofy contrivances. Every narrative detail involving South Africa is laughably underdeveloped, even as it becomes the lynchpin for the entire conspiracy storyline, and too many plot details revolve around character beats which are either unearned or non-sensical. Its clear the script is built on a faulty foundation.

Even when the film seems aware of the hypocrisy of its characters, poking holes in Gates and Budwells crusades for truth as opportunistic and shallow, the movie bulldozes right through those misgivings. Money Monster wants to offer us a risky look into the flames rising up around us in this corrupt economy, but it hits with the equivalent of a kick me sign rather than a firebomb.

Director: Jodie Foster

Writers: Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore, Jim Kouf

Starring: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack OConnell, Caitriona Balfe, Dominic West, Giancarlo Esposito

Release Date: May 13, 2016
When my daughter was nine or 10 she went totally nuts for Greek mythology  a situation that has never entirely cleared up, but thats another story. At 10, she demanded to be taken to the Ancient Lands (Rick Riordan, you started this, can we borrow some drachmas, big guy?). I said Id be happy to take her to Delos and Athens, on one condition. For context, she had to also go to Rome.

Oh, please, Mom. Rome? Everyone knows they just ripped off the Greeks.

It is a lot more complicated than that. The Romans ripped off everyone, not just the Greeks; and lets face it, we kind of owe Rome for stuff like sewer systems and roads. But Italy eclipsed Greece as a winemaking powerhouse a long, long time ago, so its easy to forget that the Greek wine scene was sophisticated and rich with tradition back when Italy was in diapers and France was still Gaul and was considered the armpit of the Empire. Many Italian wines have Greek roots. Greco di Tufo? Tufo is Sandstone. Greco is QED. Aglianico comes from the same root as Hellenic. Vin Santo? It does not mean holy wine, but wine from Santorini. See where Im going with this? Greece has been romancing the grape for over six thousand years. Lets just say theres some expertise there.

Yet Greek wines dont get seen in this country as much as those produced by their neighbors to the north and west. And it is just possible that they rank among the most underrated wines on Earth. Why? My daughter would tell you its the Octavians fault, and his expansion of the Roman Empire. Im less clear on that. What is clear is that underrated wines steeped in tradition equals very exciting price point to yum-factor ratios. Here are some Greek bottles to look out for.

This refreshing white (though Moschoflero is a pink grape from which a vin gris can also be made) is a perfect picnic wine. The very aromatic nose is heavy on white flowers, citrus and roses, all of which are characteristic of this native Peloponnesian grape. The fruit comes from Arcadia, an ancient part of the Peloponnese said to be the home of Pan, one of the most ancient Greek gods and the patron deity of wilderness  and wine. This one is crisp and fresh thanks to late ripening in a cool microclimate, and expresses some similar characteristics to dry Gewurtztraminer and muscat. Its definitely a warm-weather food wine, and can even stand up to notoriously hard to pair veggies like spinach and those assertive greens that show up in a lot of Greek dishes. (SRP $17)



Photo via Gerovassiliou

This winery stands literally in the shadow of Mt. Olympus, on the Aegean and surrounded by wetlands. If youre actually headed to Greece, the property apparently has an impressive art collection and a wine museum. If youre visiting virtually by cork-popping, not to worry, youll have plenty to keep you interested. Malagousia is a native grape of Western Greece that has recently been brought back from the brink of extinction and I for one am glad it was saved! Malagousia wines are pale green-gold in color, full-bodied and soft. This one is dry, rounded, and quite nicely structured, with pear and basil on the nose and an elegant little touch of mango. This is also a wine that stands up to wine-killing veggies. Think artichokes. It also handles pasta dishes nicely and is practically begging for braised leeks and salmon. (SRP $23)

It comes from the heart of Dionysus-worshipping Mount Pangeon, and its organic. Whats not to love? One of Northern Greeces only 100% Assyrtiko wines, which come from a white grape native to Santorini and often used as a blending grape. Assyrtico is a lover of volcanic, ashy soils, and tends to express a pronounced minerality with a hefty acidity. The southern slopes of Mt. Pangeon offer richer soils that result in a lean, elegant wine filled with hints of almond and citrus. Perhaps because of its island roots, this wine begs to be paired with seafood. (SRP $23)

Made from a blend of Roditis and Viognier from the western Peloponnese, this is a dry white with an intense bouquet and a supple finish. Notes of neroli, peach (for which you can probably thank the 10% Viognier in the blend), green apple and honeysuckle. If your menu involves creamy sauces or any kind of cheese, this is your guy. Its delicious. ($15)

The only red on my Big Fat List is something of an oddball, and in a good way. Primarily made from Kotsifali, a grape from Crete with a rich flavor profile that generally yields a medium bodied, higher-alcohol wine. It is often blended with Mandilaria (as in this case), which gives a lighter body and a stronger color. This concoction is vibrant ruby, with a quite musky nose; palate is all red fruit, especially strawberries. Little bit of tobacco, tiny hint of vanilla, lingering finish. ($19)

Greek wine. Explore. It could get well, epic. On which note, I leave you with the words of Homer:

It is the wine that leads me on,

the wild wine

that sets the wisest man to sing

at the top of his lungs,

laugh like a fool  it drives the

man to dancing it even

tempts him to blurt out stories

better never told.

Is there really such a thing as a story thats better never told? Maybe, but you wont find one in any of these bottles.
Twenty-five years ago this month, Madonnas self-celebrating documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare was released. The film, which joins Madonna on her blockbuster 1990 Blonde Ambition tour, promised a backstage look at the world-famous pop star as she really is, but with its staged confessions and cheekily pretentious, black-and-white art-house style (likely an homage to D.A. Pennebakers famous Bob Dylan study Dont Look Back), Madonna: Truth or Dare challenged expectations.

It did not introduce audiences to a more down-to-earth star. It did not present a likable Madonna. Instead, Truth or Dare provided a portrait of Madonna the constant performer, at times abrasive and demanding, in control of every aspect of her career. Criticized upon its release for being contrived and manipulated by its subjectfor its failure to reveal what audiences conceived to be a hidden real Madonnathe film is often gleefully phony. It is fascinating to watch for precisely the reason it was criticizedit is Madonnas story told completely on Madonnas terms, and challenges the idea of what is acceptably real when it comes to female celebrities.

What is real, and why is it something we expect of our pop icons?

Particularly when applied to female celebrities, its usually shorthand for down-to-earth and humble, describing an average person thrust into stardom, not one who instigates it. Kelly Clarkson is real because she was just a small-time Texas girl who won American Idol, while Lana del Rey is fake because she changed her image and gave herself a stage name in order to further her musical career. Personal crises also serve to make stars seem real by this definitionjust look at the popularity of Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Garner, two stars who suffered through public divorces and displayed emotional vulnerability in the press.

Being real usually translates to being likable, something against which Madonna has spent her career fighting. Yet, she still faces pressure to prove she is real, as do her successors in pop stardom, women like Beyonce and Taylor Swift. What makes Madonna: Truth or Dare so compelling 25 years later is the way it subtly mocks this definition of real, extending a defiant middle finger into the face of likability.

Its hard to remember now just how captivating a figure Madonna was in 1991, at the height of her music-bred fame, branching out into acting and keeping tabloid editors busy with her divorce from Sean Penn and subsequent romance with Warren Beatty. Known for unapologetically pushing boundaries of sexuality and exhibitionism, she was a woman constantly under a microscope. So, she decided to take that to its logical conclusion: Why not have cameras follow her around 24/7, recording her every dance rehearsal and bawdy backstage joke?

Madonna: Truth or Dare chronicles an especially grueling five-month tour at the height of Madonnas international stardom (i.e., in her ice-blond, fake ponytail, underwear-over-clothing era). The film finds her at 32 years old, already a seasoned veteran of the music business and the pop-star lifeshes bossy, bitchy and funny, totally unafraid to show it. In Truth or Dare, we see Madonna as she sees herself, and the documentary highlights what she feels is important, not what someone else wants to reveal about her. In turn, director Alek Kesheshian takes an obviously hands-off approach, capturing a Madonna that is ultimately in charge of her image, her team and the documentary itself, bossing him around when hes not actively deferring to her. In even the films final shot, Madonna hollers, Cut it, Alek, goddamn it!

Mixing on stage performances with backstage dramaMadonna bonding with her exuberant team of male dancers, joking with her brother Christopher, yelling at various members of the tech crew, lounging in glamorous robes and speaking directly to the camera in confessional portionsMadonna doesnt hesitate to incorporate her personal life into all she does. Whether shes dragging a recalcitrant Warren Beatty before the camera, meeting somewhat awkwardly with her father, or dishing with friend Sandra Bernhard, she rarely comes across as particularly nice or likable, preferring to be provocative above all. Madonnas flippant attitude toward personal matters is captured in an exchange with Bernhard:

Madonna: I had those dreams when my mother died. For like a five-year period after that, thats all I dreamed aboutthat people were jumping on me and strangling me. And I was constantly screaming for my father, and no sound would come out.

Bernhard: What happened when you woke up? You were crying?

Madonna: Id be sweating and afraid and have to go sleep with my father.

Bernhard: Was that before he got remarried? How was that when you slept with him?

Madonna: Fine. I went right to sleep after he fucked me. [Laughter] Im just kidding!

She cant resist disrupting a moment of sincerity, upending the expectation that she recount her childhood trauma on camera. She does this throughout Truth or Dare, joking about deeply personal matters and then attempting to refocus the films attention on the rigors of the tour, which is clearly what she believes to be more important.

Truth or Dares central concern, then, is not to accurately depict Madonnas personal relationships, but to showcase the pop star as the boss, a role that, in 1991, many did not see her inhabiting.

She was still often characterized as a provocateur with little substance, a performer whose creative output was the product of producers and hired professionals. In Truth or Dare shes still very much the provocateur, but shes also the prickly professional, demanding and exacting, sweating it out on stage night after night alongside a crew that obviously looks to her as their leader. Roger Ebert, who gave the film a positive review, praised its focus on the work of pop stardom, writing, The organizing subject of the whole film is work. We learn a lot about how hard Madonna works, about her methods for working with her dancers and her backstage support team, about how brutally hard it is to do a world concert tour. The films emphasis on Madonnas intentionality is plainly stated on camera by one of her dancers: She knows what shes doing and she knows how to work it and thats whats important. Thats why shes such a big star.

But seeing Madonna as hardworking curator of her tour, image and brand was not what audiences had hoped for. Many critics expressed disappointment with the absence of what they considered the real Madonna (presumably a Madonna with her guard down, which still sounds like an oxymoron 25 years later). Most seemed to agree that the documentarys contrived or performative nature was its major flaw. The Washington Post asked, where does Madonna-faux end and Madonna-real begin? Is there a real Madonna? , while The New York Times conceded, The image of her that emerges here, however contrived and sometimes poisonous, is in the end as seductive as she means it to be.

The film inspired a particularly vitriolic reading by Bill Wyman of the Chicago Reader, who wrote, Far from candid, the film is actually carefully contrived, its star so obsessively in control that you wish someone had made an actual documentary (The Making of Truth or Dare) that laid bare the manipulations. Madonnas control of her own documentary, her presentation of herself as she wants to be seen, renders it somehow not real, as though we need to see someone elses take on Madonna to get to the heart of who she is. The real Madonna many desired to seea less calculating, softer, more vulnerable creaturemay very well not exist, but its a role shes expected to play.

In 2016, we are perhaps more open to celebrating ambition and business acumen in female celebrities, but the problem of the c word persists. Theres a mythic moment in a womans career when the scale tips from hardworking to calculating, typically resulting in a negative turn in press coverage. Earlier this year, in Chuck Klostermans revealing GQ interview with Taylor Swiftcertainly a pop star/mogul in the Madonna veinthe writer gets closer than most to addressing Swifts complicated relationship to authenticity. Noting that a source in the industry has referred to Swift as calculating, he writes:

She really, really hates the word calculating. She despises how it has become tethered to her iconography and believes the person I met has been the singular voice regurgitating this categorization. [] Am I shooting from the hip? she asks rhetorically. Would any of this have happened if I was? In that sense, I do think about things before they happen. But here was someone taking a positive thingthe fact that I think about things and that I care about my workand trying to make that into an insinuation about my personal life. Highly offensive. You can be accidentally successful for three or four years. Accidents happen. But careers take hard work.

Swift is offended at the implication that because she is in control of her career she is also a cold and controlling person in all aspects of her life. This is not only the same accusation still leveled at Madonna, but at other famous women as well. In this election year, the most notable target of such judgment is Hillary Clinton, who has been characterized for years in conservative media as a power-hungry, career-obsessed harridan. For a politician, its an endless high-wire act to balance likeability with intelligence, vision and competencefor a female celebrity in the realm of entertainment, however, a choice is usually made, and likeability almost always wins.

Which may seem harmlessuntil it comes to the issue of equal pay for women. Reigning Americas Sweetheart Jennifer Lawrence stated as much last year in her widely circulated essay for Lenny entitled Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co-Stars? She writes, I would be lying if I didnt say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight. I didnt want to seem difficult or spoiled. While the reaction to her letter was mainly positive, she was also harshly criticized, particularly by conservative media outlets. When redstate.com condescendingly labelled her essay a bratty display from a wealthy youngster, Lawrence fired back: Thank you for proving my point. Would you have called a man a brat?

While for female celebrities, being likeable or real is still often shorthand for easygoing, modest and often emotionally vulnerable, we have arrived at a cultural moment in which we are more comfortable in seeing that hustle Madonna exhibits, in both the creative and business realms. A case in point is Beyonce, whose work ethic and meticulous management of her career are generally viewed as assets. As Spencer Kornhaber wrote in The Atlantic in 2013, The idea that great pop takes work should be a no-brainer. But even before the mini-scandal over her lip syncing of the national anthem at President Obamas inauguration, stars like Beyonce have been criticized as talentless, prepackagedfake. He goes on to suggest that Beyonces 2013 Super Bowl performance then made its ambition, difficulty and effort plain, which served to humanize that pop cultural entity dubbed Queen Bey by showing that she is a person of creative talent and agency.

For Beyonce, the work is everything, and what little we know of her personality comes through her music. She goes to great lengths to avoid personal engagement with the press, and skillfully strategizes ways to demonstrate her humanity and authenticity without the kind of open engagement key to Taylor Swifts career. Her documentary Life is But a Dream, which promised to strip away the veneer of stardom, seemed calibrated to offer fans and the media just enough to keep them interested without really revealing anything. Like Truth or Dare, Life is But a Dream was criticized for providing too little insight into Beyonce, though her misstep was the opposite of Madonnas: Knowles-Carter focused almost entirely on the quasi-personal rather than the professional or creative. Jody Rosen of The New Yorker called it vague, determined not to offend, and a torrent of banalities, noting that theres no question that Beyonce is a terrible judge of what is interesting about Beyonce.

But with Lemonade, it seems like Beyonce has finally struck that elusive balance which allows her to be perceived as both real and in control. Beyonce was widely praised for this years Super Bowl performance of Formation, which plainly focused on racial issues in America. The media did not hesitate to credit Beyonce herself with the impressive concept, mainly because it seemed personal, a controversial, risky performance of the kind not usually programmed by executives. Similarly, the visual album Lemonade reels fans in with the personal, raising questions about her famous marriage and feelings about race and identity while still maintaining her image as a strong, independent woman. Shes maybe revealing her deepest vulnerabilities through her artmaybe. Shes established such a pattern of withholding that Lemonade feels like an opening of the floodgates, a window into a stars soul.

In reality? Its just as controlled as any of Madonnas confessions in Truth or Dare. Both films are examples of art that tease intimacy. Will fans ever know the real Madonna? Will we ever find out if Jay-Z really cheated on Beyonce? No and its highly unlikely, respectively. Like Swift said, careers take hard work, and she, like her fellow superstars, has stayed on top in part because of her adeptness at both integrating and separating art, business and personal life.

Being calculating is not just unavoidableits absolutely essential to career longevity. Madonna: Truth or Dare was far ahead of its time in its recognition of this fact, and its willingness to tackle these questions of authenticity and work and female-ness. Twenty-five years on, the film still feels refreshing, boldly refusing to perpetuate the image of yet another vulnerable female star tossed on the turbulent seas of fame and steadied by the hands of so many managers and handlers. In Truth or Dare, Madonna refuses to diminish herself for our affection. She doesnt care that shell be called calculatingin fact, shed probably take it as a compliment.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16



By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:



The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has launched an operation dubbed "Spider II" to tackle unauthorized modeling networks on social media in particular Facebook-owned photo sharing giant Instagram application.



Mostafa Alizadeh, spokesman of the IRGC's center for organized crimes in cyberspace told state-run IRINN TV channel that about 170 individuals have been identified in connection with the online crime.



According to media reports, as part of the operation at least eight people have been arrested and dozens have been summoned for interrogation.



The operation has mostly targeted female models who failed to observe Islamic dress code in photographs shared on social media.



Alongside with female models, a number of photographers and makeup artists have also been summoned with some barred from continuing their professions.



Meanwhile Gerdab website, run by the IRGC, has announced that the IRGC has carried out operations abroad and in the neighboring countries to confront those involved in the crimes.
Swatting mosquitoes and dodging other biting bugs is nearly a year-round chore in the Southeast, but such pests are swarming across the country with the advent of summer weather. And with warnings about West Nile virus and other insect-borne diseases out, keeping the pests away has taken on new urgency.

A traditional folk remedy, known among people in Mississippis hill country for at least a century, may provide some relief without all the worries of DEET and other harsh chemicals. Scientists at the United States Department of Agriculture-Agriculture Research Service housed at the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi have isolated compounds in the American beautyberry plant, Callicarpa americana, that may keep chomping insects away.

My grandfather would cut branches with the leaves still on them and crush the leaves, then he and his brothers would stick the branches between the harness and the horse to keep deerflies, horseflies and mosquitoes away, said Charles T. Bryson, an ARS botanist in Stoneville, Miss. I was a small child, maybe 7 or 8 years old, when he told me about the plant the first time. For almost 40 years, Ive grabbed a handful of leaves, crushed them and rubbed them on my skin with the same results.

Bryson told his supervisor about the folklore repellent, and in 2004 the USDA-ARS at the UM natural products research center began investigating the beautyberry plant as a potential natural insect repellent.

Charles Cantrell, an ARS chemist in Oxford, and Jerry Klun, an ARS entomologist in Beltsville, Md., confirmed that the natural remedy wards off biting insects, such as ticks, ants and mosquitoes: Ive rubbed the leaves on my arms, and it works, Cantrell said.

Traditional folklore remedies many times are found to lead nowhere following scientific research, he continued. The beautyberry plant and its ability to repel mosquitoes is an exception. We actually identified naturally occurring chemicals in the plant responsible for this activity."

Three repellent chemicals were extracted during the 12-month study: callicarpenal, intermedeol and spathulenol. The research concluded that all three chemicals repulse mosquitoes known to transmit yellow fever and malaria. Mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus were not tested as part of the study, but the USDA-ARS has since filed a patent application to use callicarpenal as an anthropod repellent.

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There are barriers, however, to producing the repellent for mass consumption. The product must be registered with the Environmental Protection Agency, which may cost millions of dollars, and a cost-effective manufacturing procedure must be determined.

Its difficult to bring a repellent onto the market, Cantrell said. We still have many unanswered questions: both the toxicity levels and evaporation rates are unknown. Were still in the early stages.

Cantrell also said, Its quite unusual to find a plant producing this type of compound, but its synthesizing it for some reason. Perhaps, its naturally defending itself against insect attack.

The National Center for Natural Products Research is the nations only university research center devoted to improving human health and agricultural productivity through the discovery, development and commercialization of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals derived from plants, marine organisms and other natural products. University of Mississippi researchers at the center are studying hundreds of natural products that show promise to help treat a broad range of human illnesses, including cancer, AIDS, malaria, fungal infections, tuberculosis and emerging tropical diseases.

Other studies by both university and USDA scientists at the center may yield better products to control weeds, insects, fungal diseases in food crops and algae growth in commercial catfish ponds.

For more information about research at NCNPR, go to http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/pharmacy/ncnpr/
Home-based pulmonary rehabilitation may be equally effective in improving fitness and quality of life as a traditional center-based program for COPD patients, according to new research presented at the ATS 2016 International Conference.

"We know that pulmonary rehab is a highly effective treatment for COPD because it improves exercise capacity and symptoms and keeps people out of the hospital," said Anne Holland, PhD, professor of physiotherapy at Alfred Health and La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. "But less than 10 percent of all COPD patients in developed countries enter a pulmonary rehab program."

According to Dr. Holland, a number of factors contribute to that fact, including lack of programs and inadequate or no medical reimbursement. Another factor, she said, is that for people who are short of breath, traveling to a hospital or other medical facility for rehabilitation on a regular basis "may seem impossible."

Dr. Holland and her colleagues created a unique 8-week at-home program and compared the results with their hospital's traditional outpatient program in a randomized controlled trial of 166 patients.

After an initial visit from a physiotherapist, those in the home program decided on their own exercise program and reviewed their fitness goals and progress on a weekly call with a health care professional. The caller was trained to motivate patients by asking questions that helped patients focus on what improvements were important to them. Those in the traditional program attended twice weekly sessions at the hospital. Each session included group exercise and education.

At the end of the pulmonary rehabilitation and a year later, blinded assessors measured change in six-minute walk distance (6MWD), the primary outcome. Patients also completed validated questionnaires to measure changes in dyspnea-related quality of life (Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire) and self-efficacy (Pulmonary Rehabilitation Adapted Index of Self-Efficacy, or PRAISE).

Results on all measures were comparable between participants in the two study arms immediately following program completion. Among home-based participants, 6MWD increased by 28 meters, compared to 29 meters for center-based participants. Neither group, however, retained primary or secondary gains 12 months later--a finding consistent with previous studies. Researchers also tracked hospital admissions and health care utilization and are currently analyzing that data.

The costs of the two pulmonary rehabilitation programs were similar: $219 (USD) for in-center; $209 (USD) for at-home. The low cost of at-home pulmonary rehabilitation makes it a viable option, said Dr. Holland, if clinical guidelines incorporate at-home pulmonary rehabilitation into their treatment recommendations.

"We would need appropriate funding models that recognize a telephone call from a health care professional can be a treatment," she said. "We're not there yet in Australia, and I suspect in most countries around the world."
Lay people can help scientists conserve the protected Florida fox squirrel and endangered species just by collecting data, a new University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences study shows.

So-called citizen scientists did a commendable job collecting information on the fox squirrel, according to the study.

Until this study, the conservation and management of fox squirrels in Florida was constrained by a lack of reliable information on the factors influencing its distribution. But with this research, which combines sightings and photos of fox squirrels by everyday citizens and professional ecologists, scientists now know they can get help from citizen scientists in conserving the fox squirrel population.

"When citizens are used in research to find animals across large scales, such as the state of Florida, they provide lots of information that is generally useful for conservation efforts," said Bob McCleery, a UF/IFAS associate professor of wildlife ecology and conservation. "We showed that data collected by citizens has a considerable amount of biases, but it is equal, if not better, than data collected by trained professionals. Additionally, regardless of its bias, citizen-collected data provided reliable predictions of fox squirrel occurrence and helped understand fox squirrel habitat relationships."

McCleery supervised a thesis conducted by Courtney Tye, a now-deceased master's student in the UF/IFAS wildlife ecology and conservation department. For the study, Tye and her colleagues put up a website, http://bit.ly/1SPcfs6, for citizen scientists and professional ecologists to post where they had spotted Sherman fox squirrels and to post photos of the animals.

They collected 4,222 sightings of fox squirrels from 66 of 67 counties in 194 days in 2011 to 2012. Of those locations, 73 percent came from citizens and 27 percent from natural resource professionals.

"Generating this amount of data would have taken an extraordinary effort in the field," the study said.

Researchers examined their findings in four data sets, including citizens only and professionals only, to check for bias. Citizen science is increasingly used in ecology and conservation, yet researchers remain concerned about the value of such data, the study says. The UF/IFAS researchers say their results illustrate that citizen science data do not show sample bias to lower the predictive ability of their models.

"It is these kinds of synergies between citizens and professionals that are going to be increasingly necessary to generate the information we need to develop conservation strategies for the planet's growing biodiversity crisis," the study said.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the fox squirrel may be found throughout Florida in open woods and mangrove swamps. Of the four subspecies in Florida, two are listed as protected: Sherman's Fox Squirrel and the Big Cypress Fox Squirrel.

The findings are published online in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Mexican authorities must immediately and indefinitely close all fisheries within the habitat of Mexico's critically endangered vaquita porpoise -- or we will lose the species forever.

The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of Mexico, referring to data from the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA), said on Friday that only around 60 vaquitas remained in the upper Gulf of California -- the only place the species exists -- as of December 2015. This is a nearly 40 per cent decline from the 97 vaquitas that remained in 2014.

"We can still save the vaquita, but this is our last chance," said Omar Vidal, CEO of WWF-Mexico. "The Mexican government must ban all fishing within the vaquita's habitat now and until the species shows signs of recovery. Anything else is just wishful thinking."

The vaquita is the world's smallest cetacean -- the group of mammals that includes porpoises, dolphins and whales. It is also the world's most endangered marine mammal species.

The biggest threat to the vaquita is the use of fishing nets that inadvertently catch and drown them, most notably gillnets used to illegally catch the critically endangered totoaba fish. The totoaba's swim bladder is a highly-prized delicacy in Asia that follows an illegal trade route from Mexico, through the United States, to China.

"Despite all the best efforts, we are losing the battle to stop totoaba fishing and save the vaquita," said Vidal. "In addition to a fishing ban, Mexico, the United States, and China need to take urgent and coordinated action to stop the illegal fishing, trafficking and consumption of totoaba."

Having declined over 90 per cent in just 20 years, the vaquita continues to plummet toward extinction despite a two-year ban on gillnet fishing that began in May 2015, as well as surveillance efforts by Mexico's government, environmental authorities and military.

Millions of dollars have been spent compensating local fishermen for not fishing and to increase efforts to implement vaquita-safe fishing gear. Such equipment is critical to protecting the species and bringing sustainable livelihoods to impoverished fishing communities.

A surge in illegal totoaba fishing, undermining of compensation schemes and resistance to the use of the smart fishing gear are all contributing to the vaquita's demise and create the need for a fisheries closure with stringent, year-round enforcement.

"We are on the brink of driving the fifth marine mammal species to extinction in modern times," said Vidal. "For years, WWF has supported efforts to save the vaquita by working with the Mexican and US governments, local fishing communities, and other partners to implement sustainable fishing options. We will continue to do all we can to save this unique porpoise."

Fishermen affected by any closure must be compensated accordingly and efforts must continue to develop fishing gear to ensure that fishermen and their families can have a more sustainable way of life. Once the vaquita is shown to be on a path to recovery, and sustainable vaquita-safe fishing methods can be fully adopted and enforced, fisheries should be reopened only to vaquita-safe gear.
Researchers from the University of Cincinnati recently studied the sources of methane at three sites across the nation in order to better understand this greenhouse gas, which is much more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than is carbon dioxide.

The UC team, led by Amy Townsend-Small, assistant professor of geology, identified sources for methane in Carroll County, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; and Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, by means of an analysis technique that consists of measuring carbon and hydrogen stable isotopes (isotopic composition). This approach provides a signature indicating whether methane is coming from, say, natural gas extraction (fracking), organic/biologic decay, or the natural digestive processes of cattle.

Said Townsend-Small, "This is an analysis technique that provides answers regarding key questions as to specific sources for methane emissions. With isotopic composition analysis, it's possible to tell whether the source is fracking or biogenic processes (like bacterial decomposition in landfills or algae-filled water). It's a laborious technique to implement, but its use makes it possible to trace and attribute the source of methane production."

In findings to be presented at the May 18-21 regional American Chemical Society Conference held in Covington, Ky., Townsend-Small will present research results achieved with a team consisting of Claire Botner, recent UC graduate student; Paul Feezel of Carroll County Concerned Citizens; Don Blake, professor of chemistry, University of California-Irvine, and Josette Marrero, former UC-Irvine doctoral student.

As part of the ACS program, she will report on a 2012-15 study examining methane levels and origins of methane in groundwater in the Utica Shale region of eastern Ohio:

Monitoring groundwater supplies near Ohio fracking sites

The UC Groundwater Research of Ohio program first launched in 2012 in Carroll County, Ohio, when there were only three fracking (hydraulic fracturing) wells in the county. The goal of the research was to establish a baseline for methane levels and origins of methane in private wells and springs before, during and after the onset of fracking. By the time the study was complete, there were 354 fracking wells in the county.

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Results from this study, where 23 wells were tested three to four times each year and a total of 191 samples examined, found that methane levels in these groundwater wells came from decay of organic matter (decomposition of plants) biological processes occurring in subsurface coal formations. In less than a handful of cases, the natural methane levels were relatively high (above 10 milligrams per liter). However, most of the wells carried low levels of methane.

The water wells varied in their distance from active natural gas wells, from 1 kilometer to more than 10 kilometers.

Monitoring fracking in Colorado and Texas

In the Denver Basin, which encompasses the city of Denver and the surrounding region, Townsend-Small and her team examined about 200 methane samples in 2014, collecting airborne measurements via aircraft as well as measuring methane levels on the ground, site by site.

Collection efforts focused on both atmospheric data and ground-level, site-specific samples in order to help ensure accuracy via cross checking of results.

In the Denver region, the isotopic composition signatures of the samples collected demonstrated that up to 50 percent of methane emissions in the region were from agricultural practices (cattle) and/or landfill sources, with the other half (about 50 percent) coming from fracking for natural gas.

Similar testing in the Barnett Shale region of Dallas/Fort Worth, involving the collection and analysis of 120 samples in 2013, found that 64 percent of the methane emissions came from fracking while 36 percent came from landfills and cattle.
Bullet the buffalo has been inside Karen Schoeve's home several times before, and she's never relieved herself indoors.

It's an impressive feat - but unsurprising when one learns that Bullet, who is 7 years old, came housebroken from her previous owners, whom Schoeve adopted her from.

Dodo Shows Foster Diaries This Pregnant Pittie Foster Story Is The Happiest Thing Ever

Despite her massive size - a whopping 1,100 pounds - Bullet is surprisingly elegant and hyper-aware of her surroundings while indoors, Schoeve told Inside Edition.

This browser does not support the video tag. YouTube/The Dallas Morning News

According to Schoeve, Bullet had never broken or scratched an item. She also enjoys air conditioning and the view the fish tank has to offer. On Schoeve's ranch in Argyle, Texas, Bullet shared a home with 30 horses, but after five years of ownership, Schoeve sadly had to part ways with her beloved big girl, due to the demands of her full-time job, she told Dallas News.

This browser does not support the video tag. YouTube/The Dallas Morning News

Although Schoeve got plenty of offers at much higher prices than she initially set out in her ad, she told CNN that money was not a factor. Rather, it was all about getting Bullet to the right home where she would have plenty of space and a family who would be able to provide for her all the human interaction she needed, since that's all she's ever known since birth. "Bullet's a dog," Schoeve told Dallas News. "She doesn't have a mean bone in her body." When asked if Bullet was scary at all, Schoeve said there was no cause for concern. "She's got a great personality," she told the local news outlet.

After months of searching, Schoeve was finally able to find the perfect, new forever home for Bullet just a few miles away. On Saturday, the buffalo moved into her new home where she has a huge pasture to roam around in and two cows to help keep her company when her humans are away.

This browser does not support the video tag. YouTube/The Dallas Morning News
It's hard to say how much this shark had been harassed by swimmers before he decided to take drastic action. But the 2-foot-long nurse shark certainly made his point. On Sunday afternoon, a 23-year-old woman emerged from a Boca Raton, Florida, beach with the shark clamped down firmly on her right arm - so firmly, in fact, not even death could pry him loose.

"The shark wouldn't give up," beachgoer Shlomo Jacob told the Sun Sentinel. "It was barely breathing but it wasn't letting go of her arm, like it was stuck to her or something." The shark, according to the newspaper, not only held steadfast to her arm while she was being loaded onto a stretcher, but also accompanied her to the hospital.

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Doctors finally managed to remove the shark, but sadly he didn't survive the ordeal. "It's a shark that's been in our park for sometime," Clint Tracy of the Boca Raton Fire and Rescue told reporters. "And although we have compassion for the victim, we're also sad that the shark is not going to be there anymore." Indeed, nurse sharks are hardly known for violence. Although these slow-moving and mostly nocturnal animals can grow to be up to 14-feet long, they're a staple on lists of sharks whom humans can swim with.

Overall, shark attacks on humans are very rare - just 98 attacks occurred worldwide in 2015, according to the International Shark Attack File. Even in the oceans, the odds are stacked exponentially higher against sharks than they are against humans. National Geographic notes about two million sharks are killed by humans for every human killed by a shark. When it comes to attacks on humans, few animals have a more exaggerated reputation than sharks. Unless, of course, those humans refuse to leave them alone cas reportedly was the case on that Boca beach. We've seen countless cases of humans being real heroes to sharks, as well as villains.
The growing popularity of e-cigarettes has put more kids at risk of nicotine poisoning, leading to hospitalizations, coma and in one case, death, according to a national study.

The study, published in Pediatrics, analyzed calls to poison centres and found that the number of e-cigarette calls increased 15-fold by the end of the 40-month study. The monthly number of calls involving e-cigarettes increased from 14 to 223, between 2012 and 2015.

That by any definition is an epidemic, said Dr. Gary Smith, the lead author of the study and Director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Childrens Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

In Central Florida, the number of calls for e-cigarette exposure increased from three in 2011 to 11 in 2015, said Adam Wood, clinical toxicologist at Nemours Childrens Hospital. Statewide, that number rose from eight to 105 during that period.

Its been known for decades that nicotine is a toxic substance, particularly for kids, but the rapid growth of the e-cigarette industry has made it more accessible to small children at home.

There are now more than 400 brands and 7,700 flavours of liquid nicotine, since e-cigarettes entered the U.S. market in 2007. Many of the e-cigarettes and refill containers are not child proof.

And while cigarettes are more difficult to digest, liquid nicotine is easily absorbed and in high concentrations can quickly poison small children.

Smiths study showed that kids under 6 who were exposed to e-cigarettes and liquid nicotine were five times as likely to end up in the hospital compared with kids who were exposed to cigarettes. They were also nearly three times as likely to have severe outcomes.

The study comes at the heels two new initiatives to curb this trend.

The Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act will take effect this summer and will require child-resistant packaging on liquid nicotine containers.

Also, the Food and Drug Administration released long-awaited rules last week, requiring e-cigarette companies to undergo federal review to stay on the market and add health warnings to their products. The new regulations, which take effect in August, also ban the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18.

The announcement was welcomed by many health and consumer advocacy groups, but was criticized by the vapour industry.

Todays action by the FDA will do nothing to improve our nations public health objectives, said Tony Abboud, Vapor Technology Associations national legislative director, in a statement. To the contrary, todays action will yank responsibly manufactured vapour products from the hands of adult smokers and replace them with the tobacco cigarettes they had been trying to give up.

This trend bears a resemblance to the spike in kids poisoning from laundry detergent packs. A 7-month-old Osceola boy died in 2013 after eating one of the packs and Smiths group has published several studies on the trend.

Liquid nicotine is another example of a highly toxic product that was put into the marketplace without consideration for safety of children, Smith said. Its as if were treating our children as canaries in the coal mine. We wait until theres a dramatic event and then do something.

Keep e-cigarettes away from kids and when youre done using them, put them away, said Smith.

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CALGARYA man accused of stabbing five young people at an end-of-school house party is to go to trial Monday in what police have said is Calgarys worst mass killing.

Matthew de Grood, 24, faces five counts of first-degree murder. Hes been in custody since shortly after the attack on April 15, 2014.

Police were called to a four-bedroom home on a tree-lined street in the citys northwest after things went horribly wrong at the party, which was being held to mark the end of the university school year.

Three men were found dead at the scene. A fourth man found stabbed on the front lawn and a woman who was stabbed inside the home died in hospital.

Lawrence Hong, 27; Josh Hunter, 23; Kaitlin Perras, 23; Zackariah Rathwell, 21; and Jordan Segura, 22, were all killed.

Police have not said what they believe may have motivated the attack. They have revealed de Grood was invited to the party and mingled with guests before violence broke out.

The trial is scheduled for two weeks. It is being heard by an out-of-town judge at the request of both the prosecution and defence, because de Groods father is a high-ranking city police officer and could be called to testify.

A psychiatric review determined de Grood was fit to stand trial, because he understands the charges against him and is able to communicate with his lawyer.

He has been undergoing treatment at the Southern Alberta Forensic Psychiatry Centre since his arrest.

Allan Fay, who represents de Grood, hasnt ruled out a defence of not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder.

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FORT MCMURRAY, ALTA. A harsh reminder of the perils still at play in the Alberta wildfires emerged Monday afternoon as employees at work camps north of Fort McMurray were moved out as part of a precautionary evacuation.

High winds spurred the quickly spreading wildfire as tinder-dry conditions persist in the region.

Heavy smoke ... does make it unsafe to fly in some spots, but we are able to still work the flanks and hope to pinch it off, said Alberta wildfire manager Chad Morrison.

When you have this kind of extreme fire behaviour it doesn't matter what tankers you put in front of it, it doesn't matter how many helicopters, Mother Nature is going to want to continue to move that fire forward.

The fire itself was about 20 kilometres away from the work camps as of Monday evening, but non-essential personnel left while others stayed to conduct work on the plant and engage in firefighting.

There are about 4,000 workers at 12 camps in the area, including many at Suncor and Syncrude.

Officials said another 500 to 600 people in four small camps along Aostra Road were under a mandatory evacuation.

Scott Long of the Alberta Management Agency said there was no panic and the evacuations were being done in an orderly manner.

We're very hopeful that we'll be able to hold the line, but if not, we want to make sure that people's lives are taken care of.

The big factor obviously for the folks on site is that they will see very, very, heavy, dark smoke, said Morrison.

The Rural Municipality of Wood Buffalo said the fire was moving 30 to 40 metres per minute and was expected to burn six kilometres in two hours.

This controlled, precautionary evacuation is an example why it is not safe to be in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo at this time, the municipality said late Monday afternoon in a news release.

Syncrude Canada tweeted that buses were transporting workers to a safe location as part of its emergency plan.

The facilities are not at risk, said Sneh Seetal of Suncor Energy. However, we felt it was important to take these steps in the interest of putting people first.

We are just responding to the northern edge of the fire. The wind is changing towards the north, said Kirk Duffee, president of oil and gasfield services for Clean Harbours, a company that operates a work camp at Ruth Lake.

We are in the process of relocating folks out of harm's way and working with the emergency operations command to evacuate facilities as required.

The entire population of Fort McMurray, more than 80,000 residents, are now entering their third week away from home. Many of the work camps were used to house evacuated residents who fled north when fire broke through into the city the afternoon of May 3.

Those residents were taken to points south, including Edmonton and Calgary, several days ago and workers were moved back in to begin ramping up oilsands production again.

About 2,400 structures were destroyed in Fort McMurray, but essential infrastructure, including the hospital, water treatment plant and the airport, remain intact.

Crews continued to battle hot spots on the edge of the city Monday while the fire still raged out of control deeper in the forest.

The original fire does provide a very good fire guard for firefighters to work from, said Morrison. They have done a very, very good job of holding the line there and with the extra fire guard I believe that they will be quite successful.

Earlier Monday, officials warned the air quality in the Fort McMurray area was dangerously poor.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said the air quality health index is normally one to 10, with 10 being the worst, but the reading this morning was at 38.

Notley said the conditions were hampering efforts to get residents back to their homes.

Alberta Health Services has recommended that members of the public who had been previously arranging to return to the area under various requests not return until those conditions improve, Notley said. This is something that could potentially delay recovery work and a return to the community.

Karen Grimsrud, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, said they expect the air quality readings to remain in the extreme range for the next couple of days.

She said workers in the area should be wearing respirators.

More on thestar.com:

Thousands of Fort McMurray evacuees take part in telephone town halls

Fort McMurray region mayor keeps wildfire challenges in perspective

Justin Trudeau taken aback by scenes of devastation in Fort McMurray

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Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is to visit Vienna to attend a session of the 'Friends of Syria' group.

Zarif will leave Tehran to Vienna this evening, IRINN reported.

According to the report, foreign ministers from 17 countries will gather in Vienna May 17 to discuss the latest developments regarding Syria.

The 'Friends of Syria' group is expected to discuss establishing truce, supplying humanitarian aid to civilians and Syria's political future during its upcoming session.

At least 250,000 people have been killed in the Syrian crisis with hundreds of thousands displaced over the past five years since the crisis sparked in the Arab country.
OTTAWAQuebec engineer and doctor David Saint-Jacques says hes not entirely sure why he was chosen to become the next Canadian to work aboard the International Space Station  but hell gladly accept the mission.

They had to pick one of us, Saint-Jacques said when asked why he believed he was chosen over his co-astronaut-in-training Jeremy Hansen.

I guess the important (thing) is that there are two space flights coming up for Canada. This is the first one and Im looking forward for (Hansen) getting the next shot.

Saint-Jacques, 46, is scheduled to travel to space aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket for a six-month mission in November 2018.

I promise to live up to your expectations, Saint-Jacques told a group of schoolchildren gathered Monday at an Ottawa museum, where Minister of Science and Innovation Navdeep Bains announced the assignment.

A mission like this makes Canada much bigger.

Training for Saint-Jacques, who is a medical, engineering and astrophysics specialist, begins this summer in Canada, Russia, Japan and the United States.

Saint-Jacques said he was inspired to be an astronaut by the many Canadians who flew out of Earths atmosphere before him.

I stand on the shoulders of giants, he said. The astronauts who have preceded me, they were my childhood inspiration, my colleagues and my mentors.

Hell become the ninth Canadian to travel to space, six of whom worked at the International Space Station. In all, Canadians have made 16 space flights to date.

These men and women have captured our imagination, motivated us to work and study harder, and inspired us to be our best, said Bains.

Chris Hadfield, who was commander of the International Space Station in 2013, was the most recent Canadian in space, and won global notoriety by using his must-follow Twitter feed to routinely post photos, comments and videos, including several of himself singing and strumming his guitar. His rendition of David Bowies Space Oddity was a sensation around the world.

Last year, the federal government announced that two Canadian astronauts would be going to the space station in the next decade  one by 2019 and one by 2024  but didnt specify who would be next.

Saint-Jacques and Hansen are the only two active members of the Canadian Astronaut Corps.

Both were sent to train at NASAs space centre in Houston, Texas shortly after being chosen for astronaut school in 2009.

Born in Quebec City, Saint-Jacques is a married father of two children with a taste for adventure as an avid mountain climber, cyclist and skier. He holds a commercial pilot licence and speaks five languages.

Saint-Jacques also holds several university degrees, including a PhD in astrophysics from Cambridge University.

Before joining the space program, he practiced medicine in a remote Inuit community on Hudson Bay.

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OTTAWADeadlines can focus the mind and sharpen our work. For some, however, the ticking of the deadline clock can overwhelm the substance of our work.

This week the Liberal government is expected to hand in its homework on two pieces of legislation that were expedited by deadlines imposed by the Supreme Court of Canada. They have let the clock get the better of their political instincts.

They inherited unfinished business in both cases from the former Conservative government and the two bills are radically different and their impact on our daily lives cannot be compared.

C-14 will establish the legislative parameters for assisted death while C-7 will provide the framework for a first union agreement for the RCMP.

In both cases, the Liberals asked the court for six months more to craft legislation and in both cases the court gave them four months.

In both cases, the Liberals limited debate, sped through committee hearings that largely ignored substantive opposition amendments and emerged with both bills flawed.

The assisted dying legislation crafted by Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould falls short of responding to the historic court decision which tossed the issue back to the government, according to most respected judicial opinions.

The RCMP union bill misses an opportunity to try a fresh approach to workplace harassment, at a time when the issue has been rightfully thrust into the spotlight through the legal travails of Jian Ghomeshi and the sexual harassment cases in the RCMP itself.

Neither of these issues may pack the emotional froth of Sophie Gregoire Trudeaus potential need for a bigger staff which we so love to debate, but they substantively speak to the legislative craftsmanship of a young government.

On assisted death, legal experts and some thoughtful Parliamentarians do not believe it would allow assisted death for Kay Carter, the courageous plaintiff who brought the case to the highest court. They believe this legislation will almost immediately be subject to court challenges, adding more suffering in the legal forum for those already suffering from grievous illnesses.

It is now entangled in unseemly partisan wrangling in the Commons and a June 6 court deadline looms.

On the other piece of legislation, the Liberals have already missed the Monday deadline.

Collective bargaining is an opportunity to tackle an old problem in a new way and many unions in Canada give workers the right to negotiate discipline and education when it comes to workplace harassment.

According to internal polling, the RCMP members wanted that right but it would be denied to the union under C-7.

I think the RCMP is really missing an opportunity to change its image, says Winnipeg New Democrat Daniel Blaikie, who fought for the right of unionized members to have a role in dealing with harassment.

Their (RCMP) rejection of that says they are first and foremost committed to doing things the way they always have.

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson has argued that any effort to negotiate on harassment would hurt his ability in dealing with the harassment problem as he is now, hampering a direct path to external review. The Liberals have bought that argument.

Paulson has said cultural change at the RCMP will not come over night and the number of misconduct investigations spiked 158 per cent in 2015 over the year previous. Paulson says internal action has been expedited and the rise in the number of cases could be attributed to greater awareness of harassment in the workplace.

Still, a prohibition on workers having a greater say on workplace harassment in the force is an image failure, at very least.

Happily, the story is not finished on either piece of legislation and there is promise for those who like sagas rich in irony.

The government ignored the work of senators who teamed with MPs on an assisted dying committee.

On this issue, there is obvious discomfort and opposition to the government bill in the Senate and a determination to properly study the legislation sent its way.

On the RCMP union bill, this is a Senate that has fought against previous anti-labour legislation sent its way by the Stephen Harper Conservatives.

Liberals do not have a majority in the Senate and Justin Trudeau has worked hard to remove partisanship from the chamber. Of course, government legislation carrying a June 6 deadline for assisted dying is an argument for traditional partisanship.

The Senate has been granted its independence. Well see if it is sufficiently independent to fix a couple of flawed bills.

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca Twitter:@nutgraf1

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Carrie Pryce mourned her brother Ian Pryce three times.

The first time was when she learned he had been shot and killed by members of the Toronto Police Service. The second time was when the Special Investigation Unit cleared both the officers of any wrongdoing.

The third time was slower, and took place during the coroners inquest into Ians death.

I had a sense a few days into the inquest that there was not going to be any change, Pryce said.

Coroners inquests are called to do two main things: figure out how and why a person died, and whether anything can be done to prevent similar deaths in the future.

But whether these inquests effect any actual change is still in question.

A Toronto Star analysis of coroners inquests of police-involved shootings shows the recommendations in the Pryce inquest have been made before  often more than once, some as far back as 15 years ago.

Sometimes, the recommendations get responses from the organizations theyre addressed to. But even then, they reappear in subsequent inquests, raising questions as to whether anything really changes after a coroners inquest makes a recommendation.

Advocates say repeated recommendations show a need to revamp the inquest system.

We either have to fundamentally change what inquests do, or we have to look for another forum, said Jennifer Chambers, executive director of Empowerment Council, an advocacy group for clients of addictions or mental-illness services, funded through the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

The inquest process itself doesnt have teeth, she said.

Inquests are painful events for families of the deceased, and not just at Pryces inquest. At the inquest into the death of Jermaine Carby, Carbys cousin La Tanya Grant said she didnt expect any of the recommendations made at the inquest to effect change.

This is just pointless and were just going through the motions, because theyre never going to implement these into the police training. Theres no point in making recommendations that are not going to be implemented, she said.

Often, the odds are stacked against the family from the beginning, according to lawyer Peter Rosenthal. He represented Ian Pryces mother during his inquest, and he has represented the families  often mothers  of victims in other inquests. The inquest process can be hard to endure, he said.

The mother, for example, is not necessarily treated very well by the Special Investigation Unit and the inquest process, he said.

One of the reasons for that is the imbalance in representation, Rosenthal said. In police matters especially, the police will be represented by several lawyers. One will represent the service, another the Police Services Board, another the chief, and so on. Families are not given automatic representation.

Theres no funding generally thats available for the family of the deceased. They have to either come up with a chunk of money for a lawyer or convince a lawyer to do it pro bono, Rosenthal said.

Thats the first change he would like to see.

There should be public funding available for a lawyer representing the family and community interest groups, he said.

That still leaves the problem of unenforced recommendations.

The main issue, according to Rosenthal, is that recommendations in a coroners inquest are not binding on police or any parties involved.

Theres no way to force them to implement any recommendations, other than pressure from the chief coroner and the public.

In Pryces inquest, several recommendations made had already been accepted or rejected by Toronto Police, from the previous inquest into the deaths of Reyal Jardine Douglas, Sylvia Klibingaitis and Michael Eligon. For example, Pryces inquest recommended studying emerging less-lethal technology. The Douglas-Klibingaitis-Eligon inquest recommended studies into conducted-energy weapons, commonly known as Tasers. TPS did not agree with those recommendations, and didnt implement them.

Pryces inquest also recommended formal training in basic negotiations for all police officers. The Douglas-Klibingaitis-Eligon inquest recommended a study on how training emphasizes communication strategies and de-escalation strategies. That recommendation was implemented, according to the TPS report in response to the inquest.

Even recommendations that are implemented can be interpreted differently by organizations, or stop being effective after a few years, which may be one reason they reappear, Chambers said. For example, an extra day of training was added for new members of the Toronto police, Chambers said, but theres still resistance.

We can train people all we want, but some people are very resistant. You can tell it in the classroom. Theyre hostile, theyre resistant, theyre derogatory. A lot of them are appreciative and involved and engaging, but theres some who arent, she said.

Chambers has her own recommendations. She thinks inquests should be allowed to look at bigger patterns such as the influence of race. In police shootings especially, she said, those bigger patterns need to be looked at.

Race has never been allowed to be discussed at any inquest Ive been a part of, because you can never show that race played a factor in the death, said Chambers.

She also wants community groups to get representation in inquests. Those groups can push conversations that focus on bigger issues such as race and mental health, she said. Already, community groups like Black Lives Matter are having an effect on whether inquests are even called.

You need the different perspectives public interest groups can bring, Chambers said.

Pryce is pessimistic about meaningful change happening in the inquest process in the near term. She was happy with the jurys recommendations, but said the systemic problems that killed her brother are that ones that will prevent any meaningful change.

He was a black man with a mental health problem. What chance did he stand in society?

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Bill Davis walked onto the stage in a Brampton banquet hall to introduce the citys new mayor, as wide-eyed supporters waited to hear their new leaders vision to rehabilitate an aching city. Linda Jeffrey had just put an end to four painful years under Susan Fennell.

As they circled the dance floor to bhangra music and noshed on samosas, the euphoric crowd could not imagine the painful 18 months that were about to unfold.

It was election night, Oct. 27, 2014.

Her landslide victory over Fennell sent a clear message that (voters) want a better Brampton . . . We needed real leadership, Jeffrey said that night, as Davis, the revered former Ontario premier  who knows a thing or two about leadership  looked on.

Brampton had just experienced four years of scandal emanating from the mayors office. A series of Star investigations revealed a history of reckless spending by Fennell and her staff; that a private gala in her name raised hundreds of thousands of dollars annually without financial disclosure  including tens of thousands that came from city coffers without councils knowledge; and that hundreds of city contracts awarded to a close friend of Fennell.

Controversies ground council activity to a standstill while crucial city-building issues were neglected. Meanwhile, a $28.5-million lawsuit against the city alleging widespread staff misconduct in a $500-million downtown redevelopment project made it difficult for councillors to work with key bureaucrats. (The city denies all the allegations against it in the ongoing lawsuit.)

As council was consumed by scandal and infighting, Bramptons reputation beyond city hall continued to sink. In 2014 the Conference Board of Canada gave it the lowest possible grade in its rating of the best Canadian cities to move to, based on economic and social conditions, describing Brampton as struggling.

While Mississauga, to the south, has become a model for post-suburban growth, Bramptons downtown is on life support; the citys growth is dominated by residential sprawl dictated by developers with little council oversight, and its workforce of mostly blue-collar employees continues to suffer as manufacturing has stalled.

Brampton councillors voted for pay raises that placed them among the highest paid city councils in Canada, and elevated Fennells salary to make her the highest paid mayor. Additional perks given to themselves included an unparalleled severance payout of up to 18 months salary.

It was almost like a comedy series, said Chris Bejnar, a resident who voted for Jeffrey and is a co-chair of the group Citizens For a Better Brampton, created in response to the controversial downtown development deal. But it might actually be worse, now.

Fast forward to 2016 and city hall under Mayor Linda Jeffrey. Critics say a new form of dysfunction is again paralyzing council. Some recent examples:

Two councillors offices were relocated after one of them claimed to be a victim of bullying and intimidation by colleagues.

At least two recent meetings were dominated by heated discussion about the disappearance of a Twitter account that two councillors shared, with one councillor calling for an investigation.

After the former chief administrative officer left 14 months ago  sources at the time said his job was terminated  the acting top bureaucrat has been absent from work for over two months. City staff say she is dealing with a personal matter.

Councillors have filed a series of formal complaints against each other over alleged violations of the code of conduct, and the husband of Councillor Gael Miles, Larry Zacher, used vulgar language in an email sent to Councillor John Sprovieri. The email followed councils decision not to cover over $90,000 in debt racked up by Brampton Safe City, the non-profit group Zacher ran. During a council meeting, Sprovieri called for a police investigation into the now defunct community groups use of the money. In a recent internal email to councillors and senior staff leaked to the public, Miles accused some fellow members of cruel, malicious, underhanded and deceitful actions, deal making, vote trading, including personal attacks on other members of council and staff.

The poisoned atmosphere on council has become a disturbing narrative, pushing aside significant issues for Bramptons future  landing its first university, job creation, planning for 400,000 new residents in coming decades, revitalizing a dreary downtown, and a possible battle with Mississauga over the future of regional government.

Im looking forward to the future, Jeffrey said, when asked about the council dysfunction.

All councils disagree at times, but our job is to represent the residents and to move forward and to be professional. There are some very big issues on the horizon, and as mayor its my job to be focused on where were going, how to get there.

I cant make council get along with each other.

She has tried.

Her recent plan for an off-site getaway specifically so council could heal its wounds failed miserably, according to internal emails between councillors reported on in the media. Members traded vicious, schoolyard style attacks while rejecting the push for reconciliation.

Bejnar and others keeping a close eye on city hall blame the mayors own actions for the widening divide.

The way she handled, and is continuing to handle, the LRT issue is doing a significant amount of damage to this city, Bejnar said.

A proposed LRT route along Main St. was defeated in a 10-1 vote by the previous council, with no agreed alternative.

After Jeffrey gained control of the mayors office she took an intractable stance in support of the provinces preferred Main St. route. The LRT debate quickly divided councillors and city hall players into two camps: those aligned with Jeffrey and those pushing for a made in Brampton route they felt would better serve the city.

Veteran Councillor Elaine Moore fell squarely into the latter group. She is seen by many of the mayors supporters as the leader of a majority faction predisposed to disagreeing with Jeffrey.

In October the mayors rivals won the LRT vote, removing the Main St. route as an option and spoiling months of intense effort by Jeffrey, who had packed council meetings with supporters that mischaracterized her opponents as being anti-LRT.

The issue has continued to polarize council. Jeffrey has since refused to support any of the alternative LRT routes that council voted to study.

Asked about the council gridlock, Moore said, The election of Linda Jeffrey was welcomed and celebrated.

The two had been council allies before Jeffrey departed for Queens Park in 2003. In 2007, Moore served as Jeffreys campaign manager, helping her win re-election to the legislature.

Every one of us, without exception, were eager to get behind our new mayor, roll up our sleeves and start doing the heavy lifting we needed to do to get this city moving forward on things that had been neglected under the former regime, Moore said.

Instead we find ourselves in a different kind of dysfunction  the kind that happens when the mayor and some members of council choose to undermine and criticize the democratic decisions made by a clear majority of council.

Davis, who remains passionate about his hometown, said the council divide is part of politics, but hes wary of another wasted term. Youre dealing with personalities, Davis said of the current dynamics on council. Im not excusing anyone  theyre going to be there for another two years.

Davis said he still has faith in Jeffrey. In 2000, when he threw his support behind Fennell, helping her defeat three-term incumbent Peter Robertson, he had high hopes for her, too. But Fennell, by Daviss admission, turned out to be little more than a loud cheerleader who spent a lot of time and energy building her own brand.

Jeffrey is almost the antithesis. She often doesnt speak on key issues in council debates, letting surrogates handle the messaging.

After winning the election she immediately reduced her salary by $50,000. Jeffrey also quickly took steps such as implementing a lobbyist registry, to reduce the influence of developers.

She has been the driving progressive voice on several issues, criticizing Moore and those who gave themselves a 7 per cent pay hike along with other lavish perks, while Jeffrey refused a much larger increase proposed for her  though she did push through a 10 per cent increase last year for labour expenditures for her own staffing costs.

Jeffrey has taken the lead to make city hall and other public institutions, such as Peel police, more reflective and accommodating of the citys diverse population, which is about 70 per cent visible minorities.

She has taken steps to offer city documents in various languages and successfully pushed to remove the reading of the Lords Prayer from council meetings.

Her refusal to accept the Main St. LRT decision, viewed by council opponents as an autocratic approach learned during her ministerial posts at Queens Park, is consistent with her promise to get things done, even if its on her own terms.

Mayor Jeffrey is right to continue to speak out for what she thinks Brampton should do to move forward, said Kevin Montgomery, co-founder of the group Fight Gridlock in Brampton, a vocal advocate for Jeffrey and her continued push for the Main St. LRT. Mayors across Canada dont give up on their vision, and I dont see Mayor Jeffrey giving up on city-building.

Jeffrey suggests shes going to continue with that approach and that the city cant afford to have her bogged down by personal differences.

Im going to keep trying to elevate the conversation. I try to do it in these chambers, I try to do it one-on-one, I try to do it in camera. We in council are a work in progress. Of councils 11 members, she points out, seven are new this term  a big turnover.

Its hard to develop a team overnight. I think the Leafs have struggled with it for a long time, as have the Raptors and everybody else.

Davis remains patient, but points out that the citys failed leadership is evident when you look south of Highway 407 to the towering success of Mississauga, compared with the lack of progress north of the highway in Brampton.

You have to get to the very basis of the problem here, he said, reflecting on the obstacle immediately ahead. Theres a major difference between the mayor and . . . the balance of council, and youre not going to rectify that overnight.

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WHOS WHO ON BRAMPTON COUNCIL

John Sprovieri: He has served since 1988, is the loudest critic of the controversial $500-million downtown development deal and has voted against the mayor on key issues.

Jeff Bowman: Elected in 2014, he has established himself as someone who does his homework. He has opposed the mayor on most, but not all, major issues.

Doug Whillans: The council rookie  son of popular former mayor Ken Whillans  is part of the group that challenges the mayor on most controversial decisions.

Elaine Moore: On council since 2000, after serving as a school trustee, she was former mayor Susan Fennells most effective critic and has taken on the same role toward the current mayor.

Grant Gibson: The son of a former councillor, he has served since 1991. He was often opposed to Susan Fennell and has challenged Linda Jeffrey at times.

Michael Palleschi: The son of a retired former councillor, he won the seat formerly held by his father, Paul, in 2014. Has generally voted against the mayor on key issues.

Gael Miles: She has served since 1988 and was Susan Fennells loudest supporter. She often focuses on issues close to her, such as the community group she and her husband ran.

Pat Fortini: Another rookie, he supported the mayor early on but has since wavered. He has been a critic of the city hall expansion project, questioning how the process was handled.

Gurpreet Dhillon: Elected in 2014, he is a strong supporter of the mayor. He often handles the messaging for her on key issues during council meetings.

Martin Medeiros: The rookie serves as the mayors principal surrogate on council, in lockstep with her on all major issues.

Mayor Linda Jeffrey: She served on council from 1991 to 2003, then left after winning a seat in the provincial legislature. She easily defeated Susan Fennell in the 2014 mayoral election.

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Queens Park is introducing debit cards for disabled people on welfare who dont have bank accounts and are often forced to rely on cheque-cashing outlets to get their money, the Star has learned.

More than 46,000 individuals on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) who still get paper cheques will benefit from the measure, provincial officials say. This includes almost 13,000 in Toronto.

The reloadable payment card is one way we are moving social assistance into the 21st century and providing better service to our most vulnerable clients, said Social Services Minister Helena Jaczek. This is a safer option for clients who dont have bank accounts.

The card, being issued by the Royal Bank, is modeled on a similar program introduced three years ago in Toronto for people on Ontario Works, a welfare program for people without disabilities administered by municipalities.

Under the provincial ODSP plan, funds will be downloaded monthly to the cards of eligible clients, who will be able to withdraw the money through any ATM or use the card for in-store or online purchases.

To ensure client privacy, the cards will not be monitored and will not identify the cardholder as someone receiving social assistance, government officials said.

First announced in March 2015, the ODSP debit card is being introduced on a trial basis with volunteers who will test the card to see what kind of support is needed to ensure clients arent hit with unnecessary fees by using out-of-network ATM fees. (Clients will get four free withdrawals per month at Royal Bank ATMs. Subsequent withdrawals will cost $2 each.)

This summer, all ODSP clients who are unable to open or maintain a bank account will receive the card, except those who have limited access to an RBC bank machine. If successful, the card will be offered to all municipalities for use with Ontario Works, a government official said.

It will cost about $3.1 million to implement the card. But it will ultimately save up to $1.7 million annually when the government no longer has to issue paper cheques.

Jennefer Laidley of the Income Security Advocacy Centre, a legal-aid clinic that serves people on social assistance, welcomed the move.

People on ODSP still receiving cheques are some of the most marginal people on social assistance, those with mental health challenges and living in shelters, she said in an interview. This could be a great benefit to them.

The reloadable payment card will allow people on ODSP to avoid paying fees to cheque cashing services, said Pedro Barata at United Way Toronto.

The test phase will be critical in identifying and addressing potential barriers such as avoiding fees and determining what additional financial literacy supports and tools are required, he added.

Police chiefs also applaud the move.

Reducing ODSP clients reliance on cash lowers their risk of being targeted by predators, said Ron Bain, executive director of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police.

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Welfare by the numbers

900,000 People on social assistance in Ontario

465,000 People on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP)

446,000 Individuals on Ontario Works (OW)

46,000: People on ODSP, including 13,000 in Toronto, who still receive paper cheques

86%: Percentage of people on ODSP who receive money through direct bank deposit

$3.1 million: Cost to implement ODSP debit card

$1.7 million: Annual saving to replace paper cheques with debit cards

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Journalist Bronwen Dickey is the proud owner of a pit bull, little Nola, whom she rescued from an animal shelter. Pit bulls are banned in Ontario and many American cities because they are deemed a vicious breed. Dickey takes exception to this and has written an investigation into this much-criticized dog: Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon. Our conversation has been condensed.

Jennifer: Why would anyone want to own a dog that is so feared by many members of her community? Why not buy a poodle?

Bronwen: For me it was really a connection I felt from the individual dog. I had done a fair amount of research and I looked at the science that had come out. My reaction was a rejection of the fear of pit bulls that arose in the 1980s.

There was a very strong culture of guard dogs in America in the late 1960s, when crime rates started rising sharply. It was before alarm systems. People rushed out to get Doberman pinschers and German shepherds. That was entrenched before the pit bull scare that snowballed in the 1980s.

That scare was associated with drug dealers and urban crime. People involved in illicit activities have always turned to guard dogs. For me it was the statistics, especially how things like dog bites are so rare. In the U.S., we have a population of 323 million and 80 million dogs. But only 35 people are killed by any type of dog in any given year.

I read studies by the American Veterinary Medical Association and other groups that said this is not what science says about pit bulls. I put my trust in the experts.

Jennifer: The pit bull was a celebrated breed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was owned by famous people such as Helen Keller and president Theodore Roosevelt. It was memorialized in books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie). It fought alongside American troops in many wars, and starred in films. What happened to its reputation?

Bronwen: It started in the 1970s. It was a bit of a messaging misfire by the Humane Society when a group of very well-intentioned people decided to put dog fighting at the front of their agenda. In order to make dog fighting a federal crime, the humane groups partnered with the media to make dog fighting a big issue. Instead of making the crime of dog fighting seem horrible, the people made the dogs, usually pit bulls, seem like monsters. They used phrases like land shark; they portrayed them like they were willing participants in their own abuse. The pit bulls got caught in the net.

Jennifer: I am, admittedly, a wimp about Doberman pinschers, Rottweilers, pit bulls, any dog that is muscular and appears mean. Its subjective. Much of the fear stems from a childhood experience with a boxer, but I am a dog owner now and understand more about them. Still, the anxiety lingers. Tell me why I shouldnt be afraid of pit bulls.

Bronwen: When people ask me things like that, I always say, Dont apologize for being afraid. All the statistics in the world cant eradicate anyones fear. It is nothing to be ashamed of. Being afraid is one thing  we all have our fears. If you wanted to confront that fear, I would say it is important to realize that all dogs are individuals and there is an enormous behavioural spectrum within any breed. The biggest determinant of a dogs behaviour is the relationship between a dog and its owner or handler.

Jennifer: The province where I live, Ontario, has banned pit bull breeds for over 10 years. The newspaper I work for supports that law. The province bans the importation or breeding of pit bulls, and requires that pit bulls grandfathered under the law be muzzled in public and sterilized. Studies have shown that pit bull bites in Toronto have really decreased since the law was imposed, from 168 in 2004 to 13 in 2013. There are also bans in U.S. cities. This dog has caused a lot of debate.

Bronwen: All the research shows bites are caused by many factors: how the dogs are raised, how they are handled. There are very few pedigreed pit bulls in Canada to begin with. It is a little strange when you look at fatalities. Only one person was killed by a pit bull in all of Canada, so you wonder why all these resources are diverted into something that is not a large issue. We could be putting those resources into more helpful things, like helping those in poverty keep their dogs healthy.

Jennifer: Some of the pit bull owners that you describe create more anxiety in me. Diane Jessup, for example. She is a woman who throws raw meat to her dogs and has many warnings on her property, like My Pit Bull Will F------ Kill You. Yikes!

Bronwen: She is extreme, absolutely. Had I not personally spent time with her I would have felt the same way. There was all her chest thumping around the culture of the dog, but when I met Diane Jessup and spent time with her, I learned she is a generous and agreeable person.

My goal in writing the book wasnt to show that pit bulls are wonderful all the time or there has never been any kind of problem. I wanted to explore the entire culture of the dog, including interviewing people I didnt agree with. I didnt think it would be intellectually honest to show a cuddly version of the dog. I really wanted to go to see places where pit bulls are raised and kept, and have conversations with the people who have a passion for these dogs.

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Mike Homewood is a busy Toronto restaurateur who has spent the last few years as part-owner of several successful establishments, including Boots & Bourbon Saloon, Baby Huey bar, Queen Wests trendy Beverley Hotel, and the cottage country concert venue, the Kee to Bala.

By outward appearances, this burly former Hamilton Tiger-Cats lineman makes a good living. He leases an $85,000 2015 Cadillac Escalade SUV, and a 2015 Nautique G23 speed boat worth $136,000.

Homewoods Instagram account, where he goes by the handle @bighomewood, is peppered with shots of concerts at the Kee to Bala in Muskoka, packed evenings at Baby Huey and booze-soaked parties at Boots & Bourbon.

A less successful endeavour was Homewoods investment in the now-shuttered Leslieville Rock Lobster restaurant, which was part of the three-restaurant franchise aimed at bringing lobster and seafood to hipsters.

The restaurant, at the corner of Queen St. East and Curzon St., went out of business last year.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Labour ordered the restaurant, of which Homewood was the president according to incorporation documents, to pay a former employee more than $5,500 in unpaid wages, vacation pay, public holiday pay and termination pay.

When that didnt happen, the ministry went after Homewood personally and ordered him to pay the employee $3,400 in unpaid wages and vacation pay. (Under the Employment Standards Act, directors of companies are not liable for termination pay).

That former employee is Matt Allen, who was Rock Lobsters general manager. Allen made a complaint to the labour ministry after being laid off last summer, alleging he was unfairly let go.

The Star made 10 attempts to discuss the case with Homewood via phone calls, emails and visits to his businesses and Leslieville home, but received no response.

Two Star reporters visited the Homewoods Eastwood Rd. office listed on provincial incorporation documents only to find it empty, save for a bag of uncollected mail hanging over a door knob. A neighbour said the office had been vacant for several weeks.

If Homewood doesnt pay, its unlikely hell face any consequence. The Ministry of Finance, which acts as the Ministry of Labours collection agency, has been able to enforce less than a third of orders to pay across all job sectors since 2014. The ministry was unable to give results specific to the restaurant industry.

For more than a year, Allen said he put in 50-hour work weeks earning between just $16 and $20 an hour, as kitchen manager, and then, later, general manager.

Allen said he watched as the restaurant, one of three locations featuring the well-known seafood brand name, struggled to break even.

Thats when he said Homewood told him he needed to become an independent contractor. Allens work duties would be the same, but now Homewood wouldnt have to make WSIB or CPP contributions, Allen said.

At first, Allen was reluctant but decided he would rather keep his job, especially since he worked with his girlfriend and other friends and was having a good time. He said Homewood suggested he could write off his cellphone and a portion of his rent as business expenses.

So he went along with the plan.

As he went on with his job, Allen said he would dig into his own pockets to buy booze and pay suppliers when the restaurant ran out of petty cash, which was often. He thought that kind of loyalty would be appreciated.

Two months later, Allen described being taken aback when Homewood took him aside last summer and told him the restaurant could no longer afford him.

On his last day, Allen said Homewood handed him a cheque for the previous work week and told him to come by the restaurants office the following week to pick up his final paycheque and termination pay. Homewood also promised to provide a Record of Employment, noting Allen had been let go due to a shortage of work, so he could collect EI, Allen said.

When Allen showed up at the office to drop off Rock Lobsters cash receipts from the week before, as he normally did, he got his employment record as promised and his final paycheque. But his termination pay, which he was counting on to pay rent, wasnt included.

Incensed, Allen refused to hand over the restaurants receipts, which he says amounted to about $770, until he was paid in full.

Soon after, Allen got a call from the police, saying they received a report from Rock Lobster claiming he had made off with $1,400 in receipts. Allen disputed that claim and returned the $770. Obviously, that was kind of terrifying, he said.

The saga still wasnt over a week later when Allen got a letter from Homewoods lawyer. It contained a corrected employment record, which noted Allen quit to become self employed, effectively making Allen ineligible for EI.

The final blow came when Allen checked his bank account to find Homewood had cancelled his last two paycheques.

Thats when Allen made his Ministry of Labour claim.

The ministry concluded that Allen was owed the money and was an employee, not an independent contractor.

Rock Lobster contended that it cancelled Allens final two paycheques because Allen did not perform services during his final two weeks of employment. To support its claim, the restaurant provided a sworn statement from an assistant manager who said Allen popped in twice in that period.

Since Rock Lobster failed to submit evidence, such as timesheets that supported its claim, the ministry sided with Allen, noting it was questionable that the restaurant would issue the two cheques in the first place if Allen hadnt done any work.

I poured a year and a bit of my life into keeping this place afloat. It was my everyday anxiety, said Allen, who said he had to borrow $2,000 from his mom to pay his rent when he didnt get paid, which is a humbling experience at 29.

It sent me into a pretty massive depression.

More on thestar.com:

Restaurant owners dont pay employees, suppliers despite ministry orders

Monk Kitchen chef alleges hes owed more than $100K in lawsuit

Former cook spends five years to get her pay  and shes still owed money

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It was one of the hottest reservations in the city; a swank restaurant that attracted local and international A-listers seeking an intimate and private dining experience.

The chefs table at Monk Kitchen, tucked away in the basement of Adelaide St. W.s Templar Hotel, was also where acclaimed chef Roberto Fracchioni, 42, made a name for himself cooking up elaborate eight-course tasting menus  and serving them, personally, to his guests with the bravado of a Broadway actor.

But his culinary theatre at that restaurant took its final bow in September 2014.

The Templar Hotel Corporation, which had been hemorrhaging money for some time, declared bankruptcy in May 2015 with more than $40 million in liabilities, bankruptcy documents show, leaving a trail of unpaid suppliers and employees.

The companies that owned or were associated with the Templar Hotel, or their directors, are named in 20 lawsuits filed by trades people, suppliers and others since 2001; several have resulted in judgments against the former owners (The Templar Hotel is under new ownership and its new restaurant is called Parcae).

Fracchioni is behind one of the lawsuits. He alleges Del Terrelonge and John Wee Tom, both listed on Templar ownership documents, have yet to pay him $144,206.48 for about six months of unpaid base salary, bonus, vacation pay and out of pocket expenses he incurred for ingredients and alcohol, according to a statement of claim filed late last year in Superior Court.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

I let the food and my love; my passion for my career blind me, Fracchioni, who now works at another restaurant, told the Star. You just dont think people are going to take advantage of you like that.

Inspired after travelling to some of the worlds finest hotels, Terrelonge and Wee Tom aspired to create an exclusive getaway in the heart of the city catering to only the most discerning and wealthiest clientele.

In an interview with the Star, the business partners lamented the loss of their boutique hotel  a long-held dream that began to take shape in the late 1990s.

It was to be a vertical villa, Terrelonge said, where guests could meander through any part of it and it could be a home away from home.

Each of the 27 rooms in the sleek glass and metal building featured teak and stone flooring, oversized soaker tubs, custom Poliform wardrobes with built-in mini bars and organic mattresses. Guests were whisked to and from the airport in a Porsche Panamera, the automakers four-door hatchback. Room rates reportedly started at $395 a night.

In 2011, Wallpaper magazine named the Templar a runner-up in its annual list of best business hotels.

You put 15 years of your life . . . to try and build something . . . to the point where you deplete your own personal resources and you mortgage your familys future, said Wee Tom. That is literally what I did. I should have walked away from that hotel a long time ago . . . and I wouldnt be in the position that I am in now.

Peoples lives got ruined here, said Terrelonge.

In a later email to the Star, Terrelonge wrote: Monk Kitchen is a separate corporate entity which owned and operated the restaurant. Several months ago. Roberto Fracchioni issued a claim against The Templar Hotel Corporation which also included the corporations directors. The claim was defended and subsequently not pursued by Roberto Fracchioni as the allegations contained in the claim had no merit.

Fracchionis lawyer, Tatha Swann of Levitt & Grosman LLP, told the Star that is not the case and the lawsuit will be vigorously pursued.

Terrelonge and Wee Tom hired Fracchioni to run and manage the dining experience because they knew they didnt have the expertise. They found Fracchioni very engaging, which in itself is rare among chefs, Wee Tom said.

If all went well, Wee Tom said, Fracchioni was to become a partner.

But that didnt happen, and Terrelonge and Wee Tom blame Fracchioni, in part, for the failure of the restaurant.

Fracchioni, who traded a career as an engineer to follow his heart and cook for a living, takes that as an insult.

In his lawsuit, Fracchioni alleges that by mid-2013 his bosses stopped paying him regularly and reimbursing him for out-of-pocket expenses he incurred to buy ingredients and wine, often until moments before diners arrived.

When he asked for his money Terrelonge and Wee Tom would assure him the hotels cash-flow problems were temporary and would soon be resolved, his statement of claim alleges.

But by early 2014, his paycheques were several months in arrears and he was already owed almost $9,000 for expenses, he alleges.

I felt a loyalty because I dont fail at what I do. And if I walked away, I would be admitting defeat. I stayed because I loved what I did, Fracchioni told the Star.

He wonders why his bosses couldnt just sell one of their many personal assets to pay his wages.

Terrelonge, an interior designer, lives in a large Forest Hill-area home and leases three cars financial documents show: a custom made 1989 Intermeccanica, which is a replica of a 1959 Porsche Convertible D, a 2014 Toyota FJ Cruiser, and a 1998 BMW convertible roadster similar to the one driven by actor Pierce Brosnan in the 1995 James Bond movie GoldenEye.

Wee Tom, who once co-curated a designer toy exhibit at the Design Exchange along with cultural icon Pharrell Williams, lives in a sprawling modern home in Port Credit  one of Mississaugas priciest addresses. Near his kitchen stands a roughly five-foot-high green plastic blow-up of a toy modern solider, from renowned artist Douglas Couplands Toy Soldier series, a piece that could be worth tens of thousands of dollars, according to art world insiders the Star spoke with.

Fracchionis lawsuit against Wee Tom is stayed because Wee Tom declared personal bankruptcy in 2015 with $2.5 million in liabilities.

Terrelonge and Wee Tom were taken aback at the suggestion that they should sell their personal belongings to pay back Fracchioni.

When the hotels finances went south, the men said, they triaged wherever they could, even dipping into their own pockets to pay employees and save the downtown space.

We have also started to feel wronged, Wee Tom said. The amount of sacrifice that we gave for this project; we kept people employed for a long time. We did what we saw as a good thing and to end up where we are, you know, its ironic. Its an ugly irony.

Its a corporation, Terrelonge said. What happens in a corporation happens in a corporation. So we did not put this hotel in our personal names. We invested a lot of money here.

By mid-2014, Fracchioni had been pushed to the brink.

Not getting paid for so long forced him to sell his house and move his wife and newborn into a smaller rental apartment, he said.

He took a leave of absence, he said, working odd jobs to make money.

Terrelonge and Wee Tom begged him to come back to Monk Kitchen for a few more weeks during the Toronto International Film Festival, the statement of claim alleges. Fracchioni said he obliged out of a feeling of loyalty.

His former bosses said they would pay him $3,000 cash up front, but Fracchioni only received $1,200, he alleges in his statement of claim.

To put up with that was the biggest mistake of my life, he said. Its horrible.

More on thestar.com:

Restaurant owners dont pay employees, suppliers despite ministry orders

Former worker who poured a year into shuttered Rock Lobster still waiting for pay

Former cook spends five years to get her pay  and shes still owed money

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He was known as a partier; a Corvette-driving wild man who loved to show off for friends and ingratiate himself with celebrities at King St. E. hot spot Kultura.

When Frank Nyilas ride ended, workers and suppliers at Kultura were left with no choice but to fight for their pay. His former employees say Nyilas, 47, seemed more concerned with the vanity of owning a restaurant than the responsibilities of owning a business.

One former chef was given two chandeliers in lieu of money. One went to small claims court.

And 14 more former workers complained to the Ministry of Labour, alleging they were owed wages, vacation pay or were fired without cause. In 12 of those cases, the ministry ordered Nyilass restaurant to pay up. It has not.

A Star investigation has found Nyilas is not the only restaurateur who has escaped his financial obligations with seeming impunity. Restaurateurs get away without paying employees what they are owed because enforcement by the provincial government is inadequate, victims say.

Ministry of Labour statistics obtained by the Star show that more than 9,300 claims from fast food and restaurant workers were filed in the last five years. Of those, the ministry made 2,592 orders to pay against employers, but could not tell the Star how many of those orders resulted in employees getting their money.

The remaining claims were withdrawn, denied, settled between the parties or resolved when employers paid up voluntarily.

The Ministry of Finance, which acts as the collection agency for the Labour Ministry, was unable to break its collection statistics down by industry. Overall, it has been able to collect on only 29 per cent of orders across all industries in Ontario since 2014.

In 24 cases the Star looked at, including Kultura, employees and suppliers went unpaid for a variety of reasons. Corporations went broke, shut down and disappeared. Or, those owing simply ignored their obligations.

In an interview with the Star, Nyilas blames two stealing former employees for the restaurants demise, and said he feels no obligation to obey orders from the Ministry of Labour.

Now I know the labour board are crooked and snakes, too, and theyre not even listening to a proper claim. But everybody knows that. Doesnt matter what happens, Nyilas said.

You try to run a restaurant and you are being robbed blind, and thieved from every different angle . . . and then employees are supposed to get their wages when they are robbing straight from you for months and months and months and you catch them red-handed and you prove all these facts and theyre still supposed to get their pay?

In 2013, two of Kulturas former employees, Bernadette Calpito and Emily Holmes, made a complaint about Nyilas to the Ministry of Labour and were awarded a collective $10,000 for unpaid wages, vacation pay and termination pay.

They still havent been paid.

Calpito, Kulturas former executive chef, and Holmes, the restaurants then-general manager, told the Star Nyilas put them through hell, accusing them of stealing money, giving themselves unapproved raises, napping on the job, and even having sex with each other in the restaurant.

Nyilas also made those allegations to the Ministry of Labour, government documents show.

The women say the allegations are ludicrous and that they kept the restaurant running as best they could  no easy task when their boss would take money out of the till and replace it with IOUs. On several occasions, Calpito and Holmes say, people claiming to be Nyilass friends would party at the restaurant, racking up huge drink tabs, only to say that Frank had them covered when it came time to pay the bill.

The women say they took it upon themselves to act as buffers between Nyilas and angry suppliers waiting on overdue accounts. Every time they paid a supplier, the women say Nyilas would get angry and accuse them of stealing.

On June 7, 2013, the women noticed their paycheques for the previous two weeks didnt show up in their bank accounts. When they confronted Nyilas, he told Calpito she was fired for stealing, she said. Holmes said Nyilas told her she was fired because she was in a relationship with Calpito and must know about the stealing.

After making their complaint to the Ministry of Labour, there was a two-year adjudication process. The ministry extended the deadlines for Nyilas to produce evidence of his accusations.

Later, the ministry would deem Nyilass evidence not credible.

Calpito and Holmes say they were forced to move into a smaller apartment when they didnt get paid. Calpito had to borrow money from family and friends, she said.

It was a hard time, Calpito told the Star. Why is no one telling Frank, You need to sell your car, your house, your underwear and anything else you have or else youre going to jail. 

While the women waited for a resolution to their case, Kultura, which once hosted parties for UFC fighters and Hollywood celebrities, such as Entourages Adrian Grenier, foundered.

For a while, it operated as a Spanish-themed establishment called Ole Ole Restaurant & Tequila Wine Bar before a bailiff locked out Nyilas in early 2014 and the landlord terminated his lease for rent in arrears, the landlord says.

Nyilas then filed for personal bankruptcy, effectively absolving him of responsibility to pay his former employees.

Among his more than $1.5 million in liabilities, bankruptcy filings show, he owes $20,000 to the Ministry of Labour.

Nyilas said he does not feel any responsibility to pay the orders against him even though he was listed as the only director of Kultura on incorporation documents.

He told the Star he didnt know his name was listed on official business documents and therefore he shouldnt be on the hook for anything.

Its so unfair, Nyilas said.

Nyilas still lives in the same large suburban home he purchased in 2004. He added his wifes name, Katrina Sikorski-Nyilas, to the ownership two years ago.

A black BMW 5 Series luxury sedan in their driveway is listed to a numbered company of which Nyilas is the sole director and president, according to incorporation documents.

Among others who had trouble getting paid by Nyilas was a PR consultant named Jennifer Williams.

She took Nyilas to small claims court for $10,000 after he failed to pay her for some of her public relations contract to promote Kultura.

Nyilas failed to show up to several settlement conferences, but when he did on one occasion, Williams settled with him immediately.

She told the Star she believes the system is designed to protect the person doing the wrong. It makes it easier for people like Nyilas to avoid their debt.

At the end of the day you take what you can get, she said. You start to see youre not their first debt and youre not going to be their last

Why is it easy for restaurateurs to avoid paying workers?

Ontarios labour laws make it easy for some employers to ignore their obligations to pay workers after theyve been ordered by the province to fork over the money.

Employers are expected to pay the orders voluntarily. To get around their obligations, they can disappear, shut down their companies, put their assets in someone elses name or file for bankruptcy.

And they can open up another company without having to pay debts on the old one.

Since Feb. 2014, when the Ministry of Finance became responsible for collecting on Ministry of Labour orders to pay, only about 2,000 out of 7,000 orders have been collected on.

Thats across all industries, not just the food sector.

With sky-high rents, rising food costs and changing consumer tastes, restaurants go out of business almost as often they spring up.

Federal bankruptcy statistics reveal that the food sector has the highest rates of insolvency in Canada.

In Ontario, since 2013, a total of 385 food businesses  including 267 full service restaurants  have either filed for bankruptcy or didnt have enough cash to pay their debts.

Canadian restaurants file for bankruptcy more often than any other industry except construction.

It is often those who work for minimum wage, such as dishwashers, servers, cooks, who end up fighting for the money they are owed.

Collections is a huge problem, Mary Gellatly, community legal worker in the Workers Rights Division at Parkdale Legal Clinic, told the Star. These types of employers are very good at shielding themselves.

In New York state, failure to pay restaurant employees what they are owed is a criminal offence that comes with harsh penalties, says Jay Holland, government affairs co-ordinator for the New York state Restaurant Association.

Last year, the owner of nine Papa Johns pizzerias in New York state was sentenced to two months in jail for wage theft totalling $230,000. He was ordered to pay it back in addition to damages of $230,000 and a $50,000 penalty.

According to the New York City Restaurant Owner Manual, first-time offenders face maximum penalties of up to $20,000 and a year in prison and second-time offences are punishable as felonies.

As well, New York authorities can investigate and sue employers, the manual says. Those found liable could be on the hook for 200 per cent of what the employee is owed. And the state will not only go after those individuals listed on official documents, but also corporate shareholders and managers, in addition to owners.

That is not the case in Ontario.

When the Ministry of Labour receives a complaint from an employee, officials try to figure out who the employer is in a number of ways, including scrutinizing the structure of the business and checking incorporation documents.

Often, employers are not technically flesh and blood but numbered companies. Directors of these companies  the actual people  have limited personal liability, according to ministry spokesperson Janet Deline.

They are not on the hook for everything, such as termination pay.

If the employer doesnt pay up within a month or two after the ministry makes an order, it becomes a matter for Ministry of Finance, which can attempt to seize funds and garnish bank accounts  if any exist  or put a lien on property if the company or director owns any.

Far down the road, a court could bring a motion for contempt and a deadbeat employer could be threatened with jail  but that would be an extraordinary and exceptional result, according to Toby Young, legal director at The Human Rights Legal Support Centre, which helps victims collect money awarded by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

(Employers) should be paying voluntarily but a lot of people dont, he said. It happens quite frequently. It is the system.

Michele Henry can be reached at 416-312-5605 or mhenry@thestar.ca . Kenyon Wallace can be reached at 416-869-4734 or kwallace@thestar.ca .

Data analysis by Andy Bailey

More on thestar.com:

Former worker who poured a year into shuttered Rock Lobster still waiting for pay

Monk Kitchen chef alleges hes owed more than $100K in lawsuit

Former cook spends five years to get her pay  and shes still owed money

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BALTIMOREIn one of the most wired cities in America, closed-circuit television cameras captured Freddie Grays arrest and the police transport vans drive from the Gilmor Homes housing project to the Western District station.

But there are gaps in the footage that has been released publicly. Eighteen cameras are listed as evidence by Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn Mosby, but police have released 16 to the public. Investigators obtained footage from other cameras along the vans route south of Gilmor, but those were never released to the public, nor are they listed as evidence.

Some of the footage that has been released doesnt include critical time periods, and one camera periodically freezes. Three cameras in the area werent working April 12, 2015, the day of Grays arrest.

Footage from the CitiWatch cameras as well as citizen cellphone videos are expected to be key evidence in the trials of six police officers charged in Grays arrest and death. The trial of officer Edward Nero, who is charged with second-degree assault, two counts of misconduct in office and reckless endangerment, began last week. All of the officers have pleaded not guilty.

Tod Burke, a former Maryland police officer who is now a criminal justice professor at Radford University, said police may have released only some of the video because investigators are trying to balance the need to respond to the public with the need to protect information that could affect witness interrogations, privacy or due process of the accused officers.

Some of the footage before Grays initial encounter with police was played at officer William Porters trial, which ended with a deadlocked jury and mistrial. It hasnt been released publicly.

But forensic video expert Ed Primeau, who has analyzed closed-circuit television, or CCTV, in several criminal cases, said the poor quality of the video released by police raises questions about its reliability.

Its important to be consistent, and if not, that such irregularities be explained, he said.

Sierria Warren, a Gilmor resident who witnessed much of the police vans stop at Mount and Baker Sts., where officers pulled Gray out and put him in shackles, said glitches and gaps in CitiWatch video raise questions about police efforts to be transparent. Warrens statement is listed as evidence in the cases against the officers.

These CCTV cameras  they work, but they work for police, she said.

Police used CCTV cameras in 633 arrests in 2015, including nine in Gilmor Homes, according to public records obtained by The Baltimore Sun.

Among the issues with CCTV cameras, the Sun found through public records requests and interviews:

Three cameras in the area of Grays pursuit and arrest were inoperative because of a power issue reported to the city a month before, according to a report from the Mayors Office of Information Technology, which is responsible for maintaining the cameras.

Footage from two cameras in the area where Gray was initially confronted by officers on North Avenue and Mount Street only covers the time after 9 a.m., even though the initial encounter with police was at 8:39 a.m., according to the police report. As a result, the video only shows moments when the van driver Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. returned to the area to pick up another passenger.

Police released only one minute from one of three cameras overseeing Grays arrest and detention, which lasted five minutes, according to a police timeline. Police released 30 minutes from a second camera on that corner and 30 minutes from a third. Both of those cameras miss parts of the pursuit and arrest because the cameras, which are on an automatic circular rotation, werent trained on the scene at crucial moments.

Two cameras oversaw the Mount and Baker stop. Released footage from one camera at that corner appears to freeze during several automatic rotations. At the time of its release, police reported technical glitches in uploading the video online after a Sun inquiry. Footage from another camera near that corner is missing three of six minutes the van was parked at the corner.

Baltimore police spokesman T.J. Smith noted that the camera footage was released to the public before Mosby filed criminal charges against the police officers. He declined to respond to questions about specific cameras, citing the ongoing criminal trials that are subject to a gag order.

Mosby declined a public records request for all videos related to the case, including those not released to the public, saying it could interfere with the proceedings.

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Tehran, Iran, May 16

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

Ali Akbar Nateq Nuri, an outstanding conservative Iranian politician, along with a number of government ministers recently met reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami to receive his favorable opinion on keeping Ali Larijani as the Parliament speaker as a new parliamentary term is about to begin.

Despite their request, Khatami insisted on his endorsement of reform-minded Mohammad Reza Aref, according to Ali Sufi, ex-minister of cooperative in the Khatami administration, ILNA news agency reported May 16.

Aref will be the official representative of the Supreme Reform Policy-Making Council for the speakership of the next parliament, Sufi announced.

He added that Expediency Council chief Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani also supports the reform representative and has already held meetings with conservative President Hassan Rouhani to acquire the favorable regards of government-supporters.

Larijani has been speaker for the past two terms, but now faces the ex-vice president Aref as a great rival. Aref served as the first vice president during the second Khatami administration.

In the meantime, some analysts believe that for Aref to run for the speaker will entail great risks, including "great dispersion and disunion" if he fails, according to prominent reformist journalist Abbas Abdi.

This, he believes, will weaken the leadership of the reform front in the parliament.

Meanwhile, Aref himself has said, "I personally do not have the right to disregard people's request and will surely act upon the demand of the majority of the society that sought a change in the parliament."

The next parliament term will begin on May 27.
Until the bombings in March that killed 35 people in Brussels, there hadnt been a terror attack with mass casualties on a transportation hub in a western nation in a decade.

But it wasnt for lack of trying.

A Bloomberg News review of a terrorism database reveals scores of attempted bombings, shootings and other attacks on airlines, railroads and bus lines in the U.S., Canada and western Europe in recent years. The record demonstrates the enduring lure that transportation holds for terror groups  and is a grim marker of what to expect in the future, according to experts.

I have great fears about the way were going, said John Halinski, a former deputy administrator at the U.S. Transportation Security Administration who is now a security consultant. Nobody is really getting attention to the number of attacks.

The lack of recent deaths in terrorist assaults on transportation in those Western nations  only four from 2006 through 2014  might lead the public to believe the risks were minimal, Halinski said. But there were 57 such attacks during that period, according to the Global Terrorism Database, a listing of every such incident around the world.

Only by a combination of luck, the actions of law enforcement and the occasional ineptitude of the terrorists were there not more deaths in those countries during that time.

The database, maintained by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, College Park, scours news sources for attacks. It defines a terrorist act as one with a political goal, a real threat of violence and perpetrators who arent part of a government. Data from 2015 isnt available yet.

In addition to well-known plots  such as the so-called underwear bomber, who detonated explosives on a flight approaching Detroit in 2009 without blowing up the plane, and the gunman who was subdued last August on a French train  there were dozens more that got less attention:

 Left-wing radicals planted 18 fire bombs in Berlins rail system in 2011.

 A bomb with at least 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of explosives destroyed a Madrid airport parking garage and damaged a terminal in 2006, killing two.

 A gunman in Los Angeles killed a TSA screener and terrorized an airport terminal in 2013.

 Police near Philadelphia in 2011 found an improvised explosive device adjacent to tracks for Amtrak and Septa, a commuter railroad.

Those cases dont include plans to bomb subway systems in New York and Washington in recent years because plotters were arrested before actually planting explosives and, as a result, didnt meet the criteria for inclusion in the database.

One man pleaded guilty and two more were convicted of being part of an Al Qaeda plot in 2009 to plant explosives in backpacks on the New York subway. Then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the conspiracy one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation since September 11, 2001.

A Virginia man who was born in Pakistan was arrested in 2010 and later pleaded guilty to planning to set off bombs in Washingtons Metro system.

To be sure, some of the attacks on transportation facilities listed in the database appeared to have had less risk of widespread casualties than the twin bombings in Belgiums capital on March 22, in which suicide bombers aligned with the Islamic State, sometimes known as ISIS, blasted crowds in an airport terminal and a subway station.

For example, of the 18 fire bombs planted in Berlins rail system in October 2011, only two ignited. The left-wing group that took credit for the plot issued a statement afterward saying it intended only to disrupt the system, not to harm anyone.

Similarly, many of the attacks were linked to local regional strife, such as in Ireland or the Basque region of Spain, and werent the work of terrorists in Islamic State or Al Qaeda-affiliated groups.

Still, some incidents carried out by alleged Islamic terrorists could easily have produced a high death count had all gone according to plan.

On Dec. 10, 2012, a bomb hidden in a gym bag was left on a busy platform at Bonns central train station. Its timer triggered before passersby could report it to authorities.

Luckily, it never exploded. The man charged with planting the device, who was also accused of plotting with others to assassinate the leader of an anti-Muslim group, botched its construction, according to authorities. With no one injured, the 2012 case quickly faded from the headlines.

Such attacks follow a long-standing trend of terrorists being drawn to transportation as a target, and also show how vulnerable it can be, according to analysts.

Its very accessible, Erin Miller, program manager for the the terrorism database, said in an interview. Its difficult for law enforcement to provide security for the transportation sector in a way that allows free flow of people.

Transportation targets also are appealing for their symbolism and economic importance, said Halinski, the former TSA official.

Transportation is considered the 100 per cent goal of hardcore terrorist groups like ISIS and AQAP, said Halinski, referring to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of the original Al Qaeda group. They favour those targets quite frankly because if they can complete a successful attack there, it looks like they have defeated the enemy.

Halinski said he was particularly worried about a tactic used in the Brussels attack: hitting the lightly protected portion of the terminal where travelers check in before airport screening.

There are precedents for such attacks in the database. Two men identified as Islamic terrorists drove a Jeep into the Glasgow, Scotland, airport terminal and ignited improvised explosives made from gasoline and propane tanks in 2007. The only person killed was one of the terrorists, who died later from burns.

Attacks on transportation are hardly the only way to inflict mass casualties, as demonstrated by the Nov. 13 wave of terror bombings and shootings in Paris that killed 130 people, plus seven terrorists. In that case, Islamic State gunmen shot diners, killed concert-goers and detonated suicide bombs citywide.

There have been 2,598 terrorist attacks in the U.S., Canada and Europe since 2000 and only 113 involved transportation facilities. But largely owing to the 2,996 people who died in the Sept. 11 hijackings, 91 per cent of the 3,570 deaths in that period were transportation-related.

Even without the Sept. 11 toll, deaths in transportation far outweigh other attacks. In the years since 2001 covered by the database, more than half of the 485 terror deaths were linked to transportation even though those attacks represented less than 5 per cent of all cases.

The bulk of those deaths were the 191 people who died in simultaneous bombings in Madrids commuter rail line on March 11, 2004, and 56 deaths on July 7, 2005, in London in coordinated attacks in trains and a bus.

Going back to 1968 to the dawn of modern terrorism, terrorists have always targeted transportation, Bruce Hoffman, director of Georgetown Universitys Center for Security Studies, said in an interview.

The massive increase in spending on transportation security prompted by the Sept. 11 attacks doesnt seem to have stemmed the desire to hit those type of targets, Hoffman said.

To me, this is very worrisome that they are completely undeterred and they are constantly searching for ways to obviate or to overcome or defeat those defenses, Hoffman said. I suppose we should be surprised that we dont see more of it.

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The Philippine terror group Abu Sayyaf has threatened to execute another Canadian hostage on June 13 unless a ransom worth 600 million pesos ($17 million Cdn) is paid.

Canadian Robert Hall and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad have been held by Abu Sayyaf since September, when they were abducted from a luxury resort in the Mindanao region managed by Sekkingstad. Last month Abu Sayyaf militants beheaded John Ridsdel, another Canadian kidnapped in the same raid.

I appeal to my government and the Philippine government, as I have appealed before, for help, said Hall in a new video released on May 13 and posted on SITE, a U.S. research group that tracks jihadist sites.

A four-decade Muslim insurgency in the southern island of Mindanao has left as many as 200,000 people dead. Kidnappers in the region, including Abu Sayyaf, often take hostages for ransom to finance their operations. The violence has hampered development in a region that holds half of the countrys mineral reserves.

The military hasnt confirmed the latest video, military spokesman Brigadier General Restituto Padilla told reporters in Manila Monday. Efforts to rescue the remaining hostages continue, he said.

President-elect Rodrigo Duterte, who hails from Mindanao and has served more than two decades as mayor of Davao City, has pledged to revive peace talks after he takes office on June 30. Congress failed to pass a peace deal signed by outgoing President Benigno Aquino with the leading separatist group that would have granted more autonomy to the region in return for peace.

To the whole Moros in the Philippines, I extend my hand in peace, Duterte said.

Abu Sayyaf was not party to the peace agreement, and Duterte has called for the group to lay down its arms.

We dont go to war with our own people but at one time, I would ask them to release the hostages, Duterte told reporters in Davao City early Monday, referring to Abu Sayyaf. The abductions in Mindanao must stop because its hurting the countrys image and there has to be a time when they have to surrender and account for what they did, he said.

Implementing a peace plan would add to pressure on Abu Sayyaf to end its campaign. The peace pact reached with the main militant group provides a road map for a new autonomous entity called Bangsamoro, whose structure would be defined by Congress. Under the deal the Moro Islamic Liberation Front must abandon its pursuit of a separate state in return for more power, control of natural resources and territory.

Duterte has also signaled that he wants exiled communist leaders to return to the Philippines and play key roles in peace talks with their militants. Duterte on Monday offered cabinet positions to leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines, including its founder Jose Maria Sison, who lives in exile in the Netherlands. Duterte has pledged to guarantee his safe return and that of Luis Jalandoni, chief negotiator of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, if they would return to participate in peace talks.

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Media supremo Paul Godfrey wants the federal government to subsidize the flagging newspaper industry. Its not a new idea. Ottawa has been in the business of quietly helping Canadian publications for more than a century.

But it raises two questions. First, is it a good idea for the press to go hat in hand to Ottawa? Second, would the proposed new subsidies work?

Godfrey heads Postmedia, the biggest newspaper chain in the country. Its a chain thats unapologetically conservative in its politics.

Postmedia editorials routinely excoriate governments  and particularly Liberal governments  for wasteful spending.

So when Godfrey made his pitch Thursday to the Commons heritage committee, there were some  such as Toronto Liberal MP Adam Vaughan  who found it mildly ironic.

Still, Godfrey was well within the traditions of Canadian newspapering. Historically, publishers have had a complicated relationship with politicians.

On the one hand, many newspapers have been openly partisan. Indeed some, such as the Toronto Globe and its erstwhile rival, the Mail, were set up explicitly as political organs.

But at the same time, newspapers value their editorial independence. By the 20th century, when mass audiences were the goal, it was both insulting and bad for business to be seen as governments pawn.

In his book Making National News, Ryerson University historian Gene Allen details the agonizing debates among publishers over the federal governments handsome subsidy to their wire service co-operative, Canadian Press.

The subsidy was required in part because some Canadian publishers were unwilling or unable to pay the high rates charged by telegraph companies for transmitting news over the wire.

During the First World War, publishers also convinced Ottawa that a government-subsidized Canadian wire service would act as a pro-British antidote to news routed through the U.S.-based Associated Press.

At one point, Canadas wire service was subsidized by both the British and Canadian governments.

Eventually, the subsidies ended. But the love-hate relationship between the press and government did not. Government was simply too useful to the business side of newspapering to be ignored.

In the early years, Ottawa rewarded friendly newspapers by contracting out government printing to them. Later, publishers lobbied for and won reduced rate postage for newspapers. At a time when many readers received their papers through the mail, this was a significant bonus.

Still later, publishers persuaded Ottawa to change the income tax system to favour domestic publications. Those businesses that advertised in Canadian newspapers and magazines could write the cost off. Those that advertised in foreign publications could not.

Known informally as the Macleans law, this rule proved of particular benefit to the newsmagazine of that name.

So when Godfrey suggested Thursday that governments tweak the tax system to favour Canadian publications over Facebook and Google, he wasnt suggesting anything new.

He also called on the government to advertise more in Canadian newspapers, whether online or in print. And he urged Ottawa to set up a tax credit to subsidize newspapers that invest more in digital technology.

More than a small amount of self-interest was involved in the Godfrey pitch. Postmedia is burdened by almost $670 million in debt, including debt owed to the U.S. hedge funds that effectively own the chain.

It has engaged in savage cost-cutting. Godfrey warned there could be more.

But no newspaper is exempt from the wrenching changes linked to the growth of Internet giants, such as Google and Facebook. Torstar, which owns this newspaper, reported a $53.5 million net loss in the first quarter of 2016.

Would the Godfrey solution do anything to alleviate the diminution of local news, the topic the Commons committee was studying? Im not sure it would.

Postmedia, which owns most small community newspapers in the country is already centralizing operations to cut costs. Southwestern Ontarios weekly Lucknow Sentinel, for instance, no longer has an editor.

As far as Postmedia is concerned, the benefits of a new tax break might go directly to the hedge funds rather than local news.

Still, the suggestion that government step in and help out the news media is hardly alien in Canada. Much as we journalists may hate to admit it, this is part of our history.

Thomas Walkoms column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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A Toronto public school has scrubbed and scoured up its sex-education curriculum to please religious parents, which subverts the purpose of a public education system, leaves young children less able to describe what a pedophile did to them, creates body shame and makes teachers and parents look silly.

Other than that, Im fine with it.

It at least gets most of the children in Thorncliffe Park elementary school, in an area with a large Muslim population, back into class, which is the least one can ask of students. As for the benighted parents, one can ask very little of them apparently.

Star education specialist Kristin Rushowy reports that in Grade 1, when children across Ontario will be taught penis and vagina, some of the Thorncliffe children will be taught the phrase private parts. Why not gated communities?

As Rushowy writes, about 60 per cent of the 300 Grade 1 students will learn the correct words  as the principal patiently noted, most of them already knew them  and 40 per cent will not. Its a brisk way of separating the cool kids from the losers and speeding up the bullying, if thats the aim and it might as well be. Without a quiet chat, the lower 40 may grow up keeping their sexuality hidden from themselves, and that never ends well.

All this makes me laugh because private parts is a catchphrase at our house, a way of mocking the prissy people who cant bear their Down Theres or their Filthy Bits, as well as me who detests clinical Grade 1 words like penis and vagina. I prefer ----, ----, -----, ---- or the generic wing-wang. Im hoping at least one of those gets through the Stars filth filter.

Private parts, the school says, are those that are always covered with clothes, nobody touches it and you dont show anybody. In my case, that would be my elbows.

The thing is, in Grade 1, people do see your District of Shame. You dont let a child that age bathe alone. One little thing goes wrong and they drown while youre making dinner.

So you sit on the floor chatting and spinning mental cobwebs, photographing them in water goggles because they find that hilarious, timing how long they can stay underwater and applauding to build self-esteem, doing elaborate facecloth constructions so they dont get soap in their eyes when you wash their hair, and telling them grown-up things neo-liberalism has torqued our view of capitalism  because face it, theyre tiny and trapped and youre not.

Certain Grade 1s will have been taught not to allow nudity in front of parents, so they will have to bathe in their swimsuits, which rather defeats the hygiene purpose, though good luck explaining that one if you cant even mention a kids southerly constituents.

Teaching the phrase private parts implies that bodies are shameful. It is itself a shame because humans rightly have a lot of respect for our friends the genitals. You try going to the bathroom without them.

Same goes for wearing dark glasses in a bathroom stall at school so you dont see your Unspeakables. The only washrooms where this is considered normal are in Holt Renfrew, I have no idea why.

Sexual health educator Lyba Spring told the Star that the most common ages for sexual abuse are between 5 and 9 years old (and I have known men who did this to children earlier). She says the Thorncliffe move subverts the curriculum. What happens later in classes where they talk about sexual intercourse and prevention of sexually transmitted infections and consent? she asked.

She says parents will try and subvert and disrespect the curriculum. So why did schools back down in the first place? Its a crime to keep your children out of school.

Body shame comes from parents and I will say here that Scots do it just as well as any religious parent would. Anything below the waist is a No Fun Zone, as it is above the waist now that I think about it. Modern schools are supposed to rescue you from parents like that.

Accommodating body-shaming parents is a betrayal of Canadian multiculturalism. Live as you wish but there are certain basic things  equal rights for girls, protecting and respecting yourself sexually, respect for homosexuality and differences in gender identity  that remain.

Its interesting that in the U.S. benighted religionist Republicans are enacting bathroom laws in a panic, while we are coddling another panic over genitals in Ontario. Meanwhile, the German government has open a sexual information website for migrants, teaching German norms, health, law, respecting gays and lesbians, and presumably public nudity.

I admire the patience of Education Minister Liz Sandals and every school administrator stuck with this problem. But we are Canadians and our children need to know whats going on down there.

Thats not a great slogan, and Ill work on a better one. But my point is that I shouldnt have to.

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Call it Hells Kitchen. Working in restaurants in Toronto can mean being insulted, getting stiffed on pay cheques, and then not being able to collect back wages or vacation and termination pay  even when the Ministry of Labour orders it.

At the same time, some restaurant owners who refuse to pay their former employees appear to be living the life of Riley. For example, 14 former workers complained to Ontarios labour ministry that they were owed back wages, vacation pay or were fired without cause by the former owner of Kultura. But Frank Nyilas is refusing to pay what the ministry says he owes to 12 of those ex-employees, even though he is living in a large suburban home with a luxury car in the driveway.

And his former employees are not alone in their fight to get money owed to them. As reported in a series of stories by the Stars Michele Henry and Kenyon Wallace, Ministry of Labour statistics show that more than 9,300 claims from fast-food and restaurant workers were filed in the past five years. Of those, the ministry made 2,592 orders to pay against employers, but could not tell the Star how many of those orders resulted in employees actually getting their money.

Still, if an earlier investigation by the Star is any indication, getting restaurateurs to pay employees is just part of a much larger problem. In Ontario, workers in all fields of work file thousands of successful claims against bosses who owe them millions of dollars in unpaid wages and entitlements. But when the ministry orders employers to pay up, the overwhelming majority do not.

That impotence on the ministrys part is reprehensible. What is the purpose of an order to pay if not to ensure that the employee receives money? Indeed, what exactly, then, is the purpose of the Orwellian Ministry of Labour?

Current and former restaurant owners should be forced to pay employees what they are owed.

On that score, Ontario could learn a lot from New York State. There, a failure to pay restaurant employees is a criminal offence that comes with harsh penalties. For example, one owner of a pizzeria chain was sentenced to two months in jail for wage theft totaling $230,000. He also had to pay back the money, along with a $50,000 penalty.

Further, the state not only goes after owners, but corporate shareholders and managers on behalf of employees.

Here, the Ministry of Labour, which appears to be understaffed and underfinanced on this front, seems unable to enforce the smallest of penalties. For example, one restaurant still owes cook Julie-Lynn Costigane $4,000 two years after the ministry ordered it to pay. Not surprisingly, Costigane calls some ministry orders as useful as an IOU from a toddler.

Part of the problem with collecting may be the sheer bureaucracy involved. In Ontario, a claim first starts with the Ministry of Labour. If it orders a payment that is not made within a couple of months, the case then moves to the Ministry of Finance for collection. That ministry can attempt to seize funds and garnish bank accounts  if it can find any  or put a lien on a property if the company or director owns any, among other measures at its disposal.

If the finance ministry has no success collecting, and the former employee is persistent, the case can actually end up in court where employers can be threatened with jail time. But that sadly is not the norm, leaving negligent restaurant owners  and employers in other fields  to act, critics say, with impunity.

Ontario is not the only level of government that could force negligent restaurant owners to pay their employees. Toronto, too, could get in on the act by creating a bylaw that outlines rules restaurateurs must follow to keep their licence. No. 1 on the list of regulations could be that they must pay their staff the money that is owed them.

Restaurant employees, who are often at the bottom of the food chain for salaries, should not be forced to chase down owners for the wages they are owed. The city and province should amp up the penalties for mistreatment of employees  and enforce them.

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Theres good reason to require parents who irrationally opt not to immunize their kids to listen as a public health expert explains the dangers theyre running. Understanding the benefits of vaccination can help ward off a world of pain and save lives.

To promote these highly desirable goals, Ontario parents will need to complete an education session, delivered by their local public health unit, before they can skip routine immunization of their children on grounds of conscience or religious belief.

The welcome new rule is included in amendments to the Immunization of School Pupils Act introduced in the legislature this past week. Details on the information sessions are to be determined through consultations with Ontarios public health units. So time is of the essence if the new system is to be ready by September.

Action is required to counteract a flood of misinformation by alternative medicine quacks and misguided celebrities, such as the notorious Jenny McCarthy, who are urging people to avoid vaccinating their kids. Too many parents are listening to their bogus claims of harm  ironically, putting youngsters at increased risk by failing to shield them from contagious disease.

Dangers posed by diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, rubella and other illnesses can be greatly reduced or eliminated through comprehensive vaccination. The consequences of failing to act can be severe. Complications from measles alone include ear infections, deafness, pneumonia, brain damage and even death.

Despite such risks, Ontarios overall immunization rate is less than ideal, and a Star investigation last fall found some Toronto schools had shockingly low vaccination levels. Fewer than half of kids attending ALPHA Alternative Junior School, for example, were protected. Given whats at stake, its reasonable to require parents considering the option of rejecting vaccination to at least listen as a public health expert explains the potential harm they could be doing to their child.

Several U.S. jurisdictions have imposed this requirement and theres good evidence that it results in more kids being protected. Since the beginning of last year, for example, parents in Michigan have had to attend an information session at their local health department to obtain a non-medical immunization waiver.

In these sessions, lasting 15 to 30 minutes, parents and guardians were given the facts about vaccines and an opportunity to ask questions. The result was an impressive 39-per-cent drop in kids opting out of vaccination. According to Michigan health officials, almost 8,000 fewer such waivers were issued for children entering school, as of November last year.

The benefits are obvious. And it doesnt just protect the children getting their shots. By reducing the likelihood of society-wide outbreaks, it also shields people with cancer, impaired immune systems and other conditions that make them unable to receive vaccination.

In short, a great deal of good can result from sharing expert knowledge with parents who havent quite grasped the benefits of immunization. The province is right to make that happen.

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In March, Stephane Dion gave a speech on his diplomatic philosophy. The foreign affairs minister called his approach responsible conviction, pragmatism in service of principled goals. This signalled a break from the moral posturing of the Harper era. We might not like the human rights records of Iran or Russia, Dion suggested, but cutting off ties with those countries, as Stephen Harper did, helps no one.

He was right. And his foreign policy promises to be a significant improvement over that of his predecessor. But after six months as Canadas top diplomat, Dion is starting to give the impression that his pragmatism knows no bounds. Theres reason to worry hes erring in the opposite direction: too much responsible, not enough conviction.

Take the case of the so-called Magnitsky law. The legislation, which would impose sanctions on Russian officials believed to be guilty of gross human rights violations, was part of the Liberal election platform. But Dion has avoided pursuing the sanctions, and last week he came out against a Tory-sponsored private members bill that seeks to impose them.

Why the about-face? The timing is wrong, Dion says: Canada is trying to rebuild relations with Russia after the acrimony of the Harper years, and the Magnitsky law would only undermine those efforts.

The legislation in question is named for Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who blew the whistle on a major oligarch-perpetrated tax fraud and was imprisoned and beaten to death after he refused to recant. The United States imposed sanctions on those thought to be responsible for the murder, as did Europe. In Canada, many parliamentarians across all parties support the bill.

Its not just that our foreign minister is an outlier, but also that his position raises questions about whether he has allowed practical considerations to blot out principle entirely. As former Liberal leader Bob Rae said, we must not confuse engagement for appeasement. Reengagement and moral clarity are not mutually exclusive.

Dions approach to Canadas controversial arms deal with Saudi Arabia raises similar concerns. He promised in his March speech that his government would assess whether the weapons we have promised to provide are likely to be used in a manner that is consistent with international law, with human rights. Yet, in the face of recent evidence that the Saudis have regularly employed similar machines to stifle dissent among their own citizens, we have heard little from Dion. Clearly theres a moral dilemma here. Some public grappling from our foreign minister would be reassuring.

Yes, in diplomacy it is sometimes wiser to remain circumspect in public. And this may enable a strong moral stand in private. But it is also important for the country and for the world to see, at least occasionally, what we stand for. Simplistic moralizing can undermine our objectives, but so too can the appearance of a moral vacuum.

Our foreign policy during Dions brief tenure has been largely laudable. We have shown leadership on climate change and a renewed interest in engagement and repairing damaged relationships. But as we retake the international stage, the foreign minister needs to assure Canadians and the world that there are limits to his pragmatism, that there is a threshold beyond which moral values trump more practical considerations. Because pragmatism without principle  or responsibility without conviction  cant do much good.

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Re: Ontario tweaks controversial daycare regulations, May 10

Ontario tweaks controversial daycare regulations, May 10

Ontario has chosen yet another band-aid solution to assuage concerns about childcare in Ontario. Regulation changes  which were retracted after widely voiced criticism  have simply been tweaked and presented in a new light as a pilot project.

From my perspective, as an early childhood student, the problem with the tweaks is less the age grouping than the group size. A room with 24 children between the ages of 2 and 5 is absurd. With the staffs attention being pulled in so many directions, children will not receive the attention and responsive care that is a cornerstone of quality early childhood education and care, not to mention the implications for health and safety.

Ontario needs to focus on creating policy and regulations that ensure universal, high-quality early childhood education care, not a quick fix to downplay concerns.

Emily Harrison Smith, Toronto

I am dismayed by the misstep the Ministry of Education is making by tweaking the previously proposed childcare regulations instead of overhauling its childcare policy altogether. By hastily including a pilot project in the regulations, the province is sacrificing sound analysis and a rigorous policy making process for the sake of expediency and at the expense of quality.

In a province where an unregulated childcare provider was recently sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter in a toddlers death, the Ministry of Education should be even more concerned with getting it right.

Enough tweaking; we need to start building a high quality, universal childcare system.

Bethany Grady, registered early childhood educator, Toronto

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Sanofi (SNY) is reportedly following through with its plans to nominate eight people to Medivation's (MDVN) board.

Sanofi previously threatened to launch a hostile takeover after the San Francisco-based drugmaker refused to sit down and discuss Sanofi's $9.3 billion offer, which was made on April 28.

"They're doing what they said they would do," analyst David Nierengarten of Wedbush Securities said in an interview.

Sanofi and Medivation declined comment and would not confirm CNBC's initial report on the news.

Despite the news, Sanofi's share prices were virtually unchanged, while Medivation's jumped just one percent.

As for the takeover? Analysts say Sanofi needs to up their offer if they want to make any progress with Medivation.

"Ultimately I think they need to sweeten their bid before they execute on this transaction," Nierengarten said. "Their bid needs to be higher."

Analyst Damien Conover of Morningstar Inc. said he could see why Sanofi is bidding so low.

"I think the aggressive bidding by Sanofi is kind of understood because there's other interest," Conover said.

Rumors have been swirling that Pfizer (PFE) will make a bid for the company, although these have yet to be confirmed. Other potential bidders, as previously identified by TheStreet's sister publication, The Deal, are Astellas and Astrazeneca (AZN) , among other large cap pharma companies.

According to analysts, the valuation of Medivation should be much higher than the what Sanofi has offered.

Nierengarten noted that his price target is $63 per share. Medivation closed Friday at $61.17, 38 cents higher than its opening price. The company's share price has jumped 9% since April 28, when Sanofi made its initial offer for the company.

"You can think of ways to increase the valuation to Sanofi since they're a foreign company," Nierengarten said. "They'd be lowering the tax rate."

He added that the CEO of Medivation said the company would consider bids starting at $65.

"He drew the his line in the sand," Nierengarten said. "I think it's likely to be a price around which any bid has traction."

He added that if he were a shareholder, he would not vote in Sanofi's favor, based on the low offer price.

However, it's the company's low price that could entice other bidders to get involved.

"I think it would have to be a friendly bid from Astellas since they are a partner," Nierengarten said. "Obviously people talk about Pfizer and Amgen too."

Sanofi, which has a market cap of $101.1 billion, closed at $39.16 per share Friday -- down just 8 cents.

(Pfizer is a holding in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells PFE? Learn more now.)
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says a military solution to the conflict in Syria is nothing but an "illusion", Press TV reported.

Zarif made the remarks after arriving in Vienna late on Monday to take part in an upcoming International Syria Support Group (ISSG) meeting.

"We are going to continue to insist on the need for a comprehensive ceasefire, of course excluding terrorist groups," Zarif told a Press TV correspondent.

He stressed that a political solution is the only way to solve the crisis in Syria, which has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011.

"Unfortunately there seems to be a persistence by some that they want to pursue a military solution, that illusion has to come to an end and they should look for a political solution."

Iran, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia as well as representatives from the European Union and the Arab League are among the countries participating in the ISSG meeting on Tuesday. The 17-nation ISSG aims to discuss the stalled negotiations, challenges in maintaining the February ceasefire and the delivery of UN humanitarian aid to various areas across the war-ravaged country.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi-Ansari and Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi have also traveled to the Austrian capital.
Jim Cramer shares his views every day on RealMoney.Click here for a real-time look at his insights and musings.

Cramer: To Win, Stay With Staying Power

Posted at 3:03 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 11, 2016



Staying power is a remarkable thing. Some companies have it. Others don't.

Staying power is dramatically underrated by traders even as it is the lifeblood of long-term shareholders. Increasingly, if you want to make money in a market that's not certain, you have to go with companies that have the wherewithal and the talent to go the distance in a world where trends no longer are adopted glacially. They are adopted with the speed of light.

There's only one problem. On a given day we don't know who is really stuck in a downward spiral or who is just pausing while gathering strength, who is overrun by new forces and who is adapting to them or has the franchises and the balance sheets to withstand them over time.

Let's just use some of Wednesday's action to highlight the differences between those who get it or can at least fathom it and those who don't.

Why don't we start with Disney (DIS) ? Right now, Disney is in the grips of a discussion about the possible falloff of ESPN, a most crucial earnings stream, because of a change in the way people watch television. There are cord cutters, there are people who won't pay up anymore for ESPN, and there are those who simply feel they don't need SportsCenter and other marque programming because they can call up anything on their handheld devices.

At the same time Disney's broadcast numbers weren't strong -- certainly not as strong as its competition, the likes of CBS (CBS) -- and it also closed its Infinity console games business and took a $147 million charge on the unit.

These are all subpar. I am not excusing them.

However, I think they mask a much bigger longer-term picture. First, the company did grow 11% on an earnings-per-share basis even if it missed consensus numbers.

Second, management is running the company for the long term, not the short term. Disney has bought enough studio intellectual property to produce a blockbuster every quarter from now until kingdom come. I know I have been tabbed at times as Rev. Jim Bob, the preacher of the Church of Whatever's Working Now. I have always loved the title because it was bestowed upon me from my now-deceased old friend Mark Haines, the anchorman who brought me to CNBC.

But sometimes the church is wrong because there's so much in the pipe at Disney that you just can't grade it on revenue lost by a broadcast network that can get hot or from subs at ESPN that will, in the end, continue to generate fortunes for years to come. I care about Shanghai Disney, which is about to open, but I care about Mickey Mouse. I care about "Captain America," which I believe will have a huge weekend again, but I care about "Snow White." I care about "Frozen" 2, 3 and 4 and "Star Wars" 8, 9 and 10, but also I care about "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the Jungle Cruise and so many other rides at Disney World and Disneyland that my children's kids will love as much as they did.

I guess it's Rev. Jim Bob from the Church of the Future.

But I can't feel the same about Macy's (M) , the department store that reported horrendous earnings this morning and then guided down severely, leaving people to wonder what the future really holds.

I can't think about the Church of the Future here because I can buy pretty much anything I want at Macy's through Amazon (AMZN) , often for cheaper. When I moved to Summit, N.J., more than 20 years ago, I prided myself that I was less than two miles from the Mall at Short Hills and could pick up what I needed at the blink of an eye.

That's now way too far to shop at Macy's. I know it seems like an institution. But so did Gimbel's when my father sold gabardines, which is a form of pants by the way, and my mom hawked women's lingerie at Lit's. If you were to tell me that either stalwart of downtown Philadelphia would go away, let along Wanamaker's and Strawbridge's, I would have told you that you were out of your mind.

Now you can only Google them to learn who they were.

And that was before Amazon. As pop would always say, there's no God-given right for a store to stay open, and more than 90% of my father's retail clients were wiped out by Wal-Mart (WMT) , for heaven's sakes. I remember when one of my father's shirt-store customers -- he sold boxes and bags to retailers -- closed up shop, and it really crushed our year. Why did it happen? Because he realized that Wal-Mart was offering the shirts at prices that were below the price he paid the manufacturer. He had no ability to mark-up. Now, Macy's has no ability to mark-up because of Amazon, and marking up is the essence of retail.

And I am not even talking about the Staples (SPLS) -Office Depot (ODP) tie-up that got unknotted by a judge last night. The two were trying to combine to fight Amazon. Now, they are left to their own devices. One look at either stock tells you exactly what happens in the future. Doomsday.

But now let's compare that to Apple (AAPL) . (APPLE is a holding in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. See how Cramer rates the stock here. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells AAPL? Learn more now.)

Here's a company that has changed a billion lives. That's about how many people have Apple devices, and given Apple's customer satisfaction numbers, it's safe to say the change is for the positive. We've all altered our behavior because of Apple's cellphones, whether it be because of the need to wear make-up when you go outside because of that high-resolution screen that brings out the unmasked blemishes, the ability to watch Netflix (NFLX) on a iPad Pro because it looks better than TV, the way we pay at the register or how we back-up our myriad photos.

Right now, though, Apple missed a quarter. And like Apple board member Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, we've decided that Apple CEO Tim Cook has lost his way, and there's no innovation. It doesn't matter what's been accomplished or what's in the works -- it's over.

I can't go there. I see the loyalty, the revenue streams including the bountiful service revenue. I also know when I can't see things, namely the products I will kill for but only after I know they exist.

Apple, again like Disney, has got an amazing balance sheet -- best in the world -- and a fantastic buyback and a roadmap for the future. But it's not hot, so it's regarded as a false idol.

Here's a news flash: There's no idol. Just CEOs and businesses, and both Disney and Apple are well-run fabulous businesses.

The analysis can extend to any industry. It wasn't so long ago that the market just couldn't get enough of the oil companies that had the vision to split into exploration and production companies, such as Marathon (MRO) and Conoco (COP) , and it shunned the integrates that kept the downstream refining and marketing.

Now the managements at those two companies wonder what the heck they were thinking. Every day they have to pray that the oil glut goes away.

But Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) ? They are just sitting pretty, printing money downstream as their exploration and production businesses cause problems, but nothing life-threatening. There will come a moment when both companies can buy any assets they want from those companies that are just E&Ps. Not yet. But it will happen.

So blast away at Disney and blow out of Apple. Take profits -- and you might actually have profits -- in Exxon and Chevron. All I know is that they are resting. The others?

If things go extremely well, they might get you back to a better level than now. And if things go awry?

Let's just call them terminated.

Action Alerts PLUS, which Jim Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, is long AAPL.

Cramer: FANG Stocks Are Staying Sharp



Posted at 11:34 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Boy, this FANG is hard to kill. Here we are on a day where the market's ramping and the money's flowing right back to the once-loved growth names including good old FANG -- Facebook (FB) , Amazon (AMZN) , Netflix (NFLX) and Google (GOOGL) , now Alphabet.

(FACEBOOK and GOOGLE are holdings in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. See how Cramer rates the stock here. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells FB or GOOGL? Learn more now. Amazon is part of TheStreet's Growth Seeker portfolio.)

The F and A are the standouts. Facebook's still digesting what was one of the best quarters of 2016, a top- and bottom-line beat that was so huge you could see how it's become the ultimate growth stock. The sales are growing faster than ever and the costs are totally under control and actually going down vs. the speed of the sales growth. That's called leverage, the good leverage, not the bad indebted kind. Facebook's become a necessity for some, with the Instagram division every bit as important. The mobile platform seems made for the company and the advertisers are flocking to it like no other medium.

I know there's some chatter out there that Facebook suppressed some conservative viewpoints on its site. I find that farfetched, although I will say Facebook is a friendly place, and I think that if someone was scatological or gratuitously personal, I would hope it would be blocked, from any ideology. Either way, it's a nonstory when it comes to earnings, which are what matter.

Today a prominent research firm slapped a $1,000 price on Amazon's stock, taking it to an all-time high of $700. The reasoning behind the Bernstein report? The company's buildout is so far along that it will have a much higher profit than anyone thinks possible. The analyst admits his estimates are "massively" above Street consensus and that when others move up to his level, the stock will power much higher. Part of the reason for the aggressive price tag? Amazon Web Services, the backbone of its cloud-based business that it lets other merchants use, a division that Bob Peck over at SunTrust (STI) values at over $100 billion, a little less than one-third of the entire valuation.

I question the rationale here. I think Amazon's Jeff Bezos will always find something, some growth opportunity worth spending on. For example, just today it introduced a competitive product to Google's YouTube. Maybe there's room for both, but it shows you Amazon never rests on its laurels or its cash.

Netflix is a real quandary here. Its most recent quarter was universally panned. Sign-ups seem to have slowed. But the costs have gone higher. The stock's down 20% for the year. Has it been overly punished? I think the risk/reward is good here for this $38 billion company. If numbers pick up, the stock can take off. If the numbers stay softer, I don't know if it matters that much.

Google's the one that's most intriguing. I know the company's stock seems vulnerable, as it missed on both the top and bottom lines. I still think there's so much low-hanging fruit here, though, and a weaker dollar and a gigantic cash position could mean the company's numbers could go higher, being augmented by a buyback or a purchase of something that gives them faster growth. In the meantime, we wait for its moonshots to deliver. It's tough to value a stock with a company that failed to make estimates like Netflix, but does anyone doubt that this one could come roaring back with a dose of spending discipline and an acceleration of advertising? Both could be in store for shareholders when the next quarter's reported.

It's amazing that ever since I came up with the term FANG, not much has been able to grow faster or have a bigger moat around their businesses than these four companies. Only Google is classically cheap on near-term numbers. Netflix's stock is very expensive. Amazon? Depends on if the Bernstein analyst is right. And Facebook? The estimates may turn out to be so low that the stock ends up being much cheaper than it looks.

FANG. What an amazing phenomenon.

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, is long FB and GOOGL.

Action Alerts PLUS

, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, is long FB, GOOGL and AAPL.
Alphabet (GOOGL) is reportedly facing a record fine of $3.4 billion from European Union regulators who continue to scrutinize the company's operations in Europe, according to British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph.

The EU is in the midst of concluding a seven-year monopoly abuse investigation into the company, according to the Telegraph, and could announce the fine as early as next month. The maximum fine the international regulatory agency can level is about $7.5 billion, or 10% of Google's annual revenue.

The EU is accusing Google of promoting its shopping service in Internet searches over competitors, an accusation that the EU has been levying against Google since 2010. Along with the fine, Google would also be barred from manipulating the search results to place its services higher.

Google has defended its algorithms in the past, saying the core of its business is the algorithms that direct consumers to ancillary products in its portfolio.

This past weekend's report follows up a Statement of Objections the EU commission sent to Google in April regarding the company's practices concerning its ubiquitous mobile devices. "We found that Google pursues an overall strategy on mobile devices to protect and expand its dominant position in Internet search. It does so by imposing unjustified restrictions and conditions on manufacturers of devices running its Android mobile operating system as well as on mobile network operators," the statement reads. "The impact of Google's practices is highly relevant for today's users, as over half of Internet traffic takes place on mobile devices -- and this share is growing."

Around two-thirds of European mobile phone users rely on Android, with some 27% using fellow Action Alerts PLUS portfolio holding Apple's (AAPL) iOS, according to StatCounter data quoted by Reuters.

In April, Action Alerts PLUS portfolio co-managers Jim Cramer and Jack Mohr said of the EU's letter, "While this is a formal step by the EU, there is no deadline to impose any types of sanctions nor is the commission obligated to do so. In addition, the EU antitrust commissioner recently commented that she isn't yet in the territory of fining Google and remains open to a settlement."

Four weeks later, it appears the EU is closer to bringing its threats to fruition. The cash from the fine is not as consequential to Alphabet as any change to its core operations as a result of the EU's regulation. So the market waits with bated breath to see whether the Telegraph reports are true.

Alphabet is a holding in the Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells GOOGL? Learn more now.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held TK positions in the stocks mentioned.
Crew members work on the Flying Scotsman train at the Boness and Kinneil Railway station in Boness, Scotland, near Edinburgh. Watched by hundreds of steam-train enthusasts, the Flying Scotsman arrived at the Edinburgh Waverley station on Saturday on its first trip to Scotland since the 93-year-old locomotive underwent a decade-long restoration. In 1934, the Flying Scotsman pulled the first train to break the 100-mph barrier. (Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)

UNIONS

Verizon, strikers to resume negotiations

Verizon and union officials representing about 39,000 striking landline and cable workers agreed to restart negotiations on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said he met with both sides on Sunday in Washington.

The parties had an open, frank and constructive dialogue about finding a comprehensive way forward to resolve disputed issues and get people back to work, Perez said.

The two striking unions  the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers  represent installers, customer service employees, repairmen and other service workers in nine eastern states and the District for Verizons wireline business, which provides fixed-line phone services and FiOS Internet service.

Workers walked off the job April 13. They had been working without a contract since August.

The unions say that theyre striking because Verizon wants to freeze pensions, make layoffs easier and rely more on contract workers.

The telecom giant says health-care issues need to be addressed for retirees and workers as medical costs have grown.

 Associated Press

CYBERSECURITY

Ukrainian hacker pleads guilty in U.S.

A Ukrainian hacker pleaded guilty Monday to his role in an international scheme that used stolen unpublished news releases to make $30 million in profits.

Vadym Iermolovych, 28, entered the plea in Newark, N.J., to a complaint charging him with aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and computer hacking. The Kiev man is to be sentenced Aug. 22.

Iermolovych was among several people arrested in August in the United States and Ukraine. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged them and 23 other people and companies in the United States and Europe.

The U.S. attorneys office said that from 2010 to 2015, the group gained access to more than 150,000 press releases that were about to be issued by Marketwired, PR Newswire in New York and Business Wire of San Francisco. The press releases contained earnings figures and other corporate information.

The defendants then used roughly 800 of those news releases to make trades before the information came out, exploiting a time gap ranging from hours to three days, prosecutors said.

 Associated Press

Also in Business

 From news services

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Megyn Kelly, seen at Fox News corporate headquarters in New York on May 12, will interview Donald Trump on Megyn Kelly Presents at 8 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday on Fox. (Chris Sorensen/For The Washington Post)

Over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign, Megyn Kelly has been called a few choice names by Donald Trump. A one-sided feud began last summer when the Fox News Channel host asked him a sharp debate question about his temperament and history of disparaging remarks about women. The next day, the real estate mogul groused in an interview that Kelly had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. He continued with a similar line of disparaging commentary for months.

Kellys tough queries and the verbal backlash from Team Trump had a dual effect on the cable news star: She drew violent and misogynistic threats from his fans, and she catapulted to a new level of fame.

Looking to quash the drama and, no doubt, score high television ratings along the way, Kelly recently invited Trump to sit down with her as part of a television special that will air Tuesday on Foxs broadcast network. Megyn Kelly Presents will feature her one-on-one interview with the presumptive Republican nominee, along with conversations with three other newsmakers.

Over a Caesar salad lunch at a cafe on Manhattans West Side, she chatted about her upcoming show, the dark days that followed Trumps put-downs and why she rejects the term feminist. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Donald Trump certainly isn't the first person Megyn Kelly has asked tough questions. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Tell us about the morning last month when you went to Trump Towers to meet with Donald Trump. Were you going to see whether he would sit for an interview with you?

I had reached out to him to ask for a meeting. First he said no, then he said yes. I had proposed coming to him wherever he was. I didnt think it needed to be on neutral ground. [So] I went over there. I woke up early and it was an unusual morning in that I felt somewhat anxious. I didnt know what to expect. I hadnt spoken with him in nine or 10 months. Certainly, I had seen what he had said about me on Twitter and elsewhere, but I dont know if we can really refer to that as communication. [laughs] I didnt know whether he would use the opportunity to try to embarrass me or make me feel uncomfortable. I anticipated it would go well because I didnt think he would accept the meeting if he was angry and wanted to embarrass me.

Did he apologize?

He didnt. Nor was an apology required or requested and, for the record, I did not apologize either. We probably both knew instinctually it was better not to go there on our first meeting. . . . I asked him for an interview. The entire year I understood that if he would sit with me we would get an enormous number, but it just never felt like the right moment to ask him because he stayed angry for so long, so I not only believed he would say no, I also believed that if he said yes it would not be a good exchange. I didnt want to sit for some hand-to-hand combat. I was already in the midst of that with him  on his end, let me stress. On his end. Not on my end. I never responded to any of his attacks on me. We had finally gotten to the point in April where he had quieted down. . . . Anyway, the meeting went very well, and I walked out of there feeling hopeful that we could return to normalcy.

He agreed to sit for the interview.

Yes, and there were no restrictions on it.



Megyn Kelly, center, with fellow moderators Chris Wallace, left, and Bret Baier at the first GOP debate of the 2016 race in August 2015, where her sharp questioning of Donald Trump drew the ire of his supporters. (Aaron Josefczyk/Reuters)

Youve teased the interview with a clip of you asking him whether he really stayed angry with you all those months, and he replies that he had great respect for you requesting the meeting with him. Aside from crazy high ratings, what were you hoping to elicit from the conversation with him?

Just to correct the record, the first thing he said when I asked whether the anger was real or if this was strategy was that he is a real person, and when hes angry at somebody he doesnt just turn around the next day and say, Oh youre my best friend. So his answer I read as being: It was real. I was angry. And then, he turned the page and said, But I had great respect for you reaching out to me.

And that was fine. The nature of the relationship, as you know, between journalist and subject is one of pursuit. We get paid to call people up and ask them to sit with us, so its not like a romantic suitorship. We have to call up these people and seek time with them. . . . Some people have said, How could you? Thats my job. Thats what I get paid to do.

I really wanted to talk to him about temperament. I think if there is a theme for this interview it is going to be temperament. The policy discussions with Trump have been done to death and will be done to death again. Im not worried about anybody accusing me of not asking Trump tough questions. I think Ive proven Im not afraid to do that, but this is a chance to go to a different place. To do more of an interview as opposed to a debate, to get to know Trump the man, to try to understand him a little better. And then we do get into what happened between the two of us over the past nine months.

I want to ask you about that  being made a player in the 2016 campaign by Trumps feud with you. You were subject to vitriol from some Trump supporters who saw you as the enemy. You were also on the cover of Vanity Fair with a glowing article. Whats this last year been like for you, with his attacks boosting your profile?

Let me put it to you this way. If I could go back and undo all that followed that August 6th debate question, I would. I wouldnt take back the debate question  ever, under any circumstances. I stand by that question 100 percent. For the record, it was a great question.

The good things that have happened to me as a result of the dust-up with Trump  sure, I suppose you could include the Vanity Fair cover in there, although I had been on magazine covers before Trump, and certainly I have received a lot of love from many people, which has really been uplifting and it has shored me up. But the truth is 85 percent of the experience has been quite dark and unpleasant.

[From 2013: Megyn Kelly, Fox Newss (quickly) budding star]

And, look, I have done my level best to not make this story about me. I could have gone out there every time he attacked me and said something in response. I could have milked it for ratings on the Kelly File night after night. I could have talked about the security threats I was getting week in and week out. I chose not to do that. But that doesnt change the reality of what happened.

So, no, you ask me now that I hope were past it, now that hes secured the nomination, you ask me what has the year been like and the answer is: Its been a difficult year.

During that debate last August, you never really got an answer to your question from Mr. Trump, on the issue of how he would answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who was likely to be the Democratic nominee, that he was part of the war on women. Did you get the chance to get an answer from him?

He said what he has said many times since in this campaign, which is, What I say is what I say, and if you dont like it, too bad. And weve gotten too politically correct in this country. I understand that. I am somebody who has railed publicly against the PC culture. But of course, as with anything, there are limits on how far we want to take that. Somebody can be speaking in a non-PC way and it feels like a breath of fresh air until it isnt. That is one of the complexities of the Trump campaign.

[Megyn Kelly schools Trump on Trump U., and his flip-flops]



Kelly arrives at the Met costume gala in New York on May 2. Her clashes with Trump boosted her already surging fame this year, which included an appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Kelly says she doesnt regret her tough questions, just everything that followed. I have done my level best to not make this story about me. (Chris Sorensen/For The Washington Post)

Lets talk about your television special. You made a name for yourself by hosting a news show in a way that really pressured guests, turned up the tension. Now youre working with Bill Geddie, who has been Barbara Walterss partner in many of her specials. Hows this going to be different?

In cable news, you have to get up and down in a segment very quickly. If you have four minutes, thats a lot on the Kelly File. Theres no time for cocktails, as I say. You gotta get right to it. [claps hands] And if its a controversial subject . . . youve got to go right to the place that hurts. Its my job, I have to.

In print journalism and long-form interviews like Im doing for the special, its very different. You have a chance to establish a relationship. You have a chance to put your subject at ease. You have a chance to allow them to be introspective in their answers, which is a lovely change from the way I have to do it on my normal program.

One of your guests on the special is attorney Robert Shapiro.

Yes!

The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story was a TV hit. You were in law school during the trial. That was such a divisive moment for the country  especially along racial lines. Where were you when the verdict came down, and what was your reaction?

He talks about that, how divisive racially it was and what he experienced on the trial team, and there was some of that even amongst the lawyers.

Trump was an interesting exchange for all the obvious reasons, but the Shapiro interview I was riveted to because I was learning new things about the trial of the century, a case I watched gavel-to-gavel while in law school. I was a third-year law student . . . in the student lounge 24/7. We would sit and we would argue amongst ourselves about what we were seeing  the rules of evidence and how bad Judge [Lance] Ito was. [Alan] Dershowitz swooped in and he was incredibly impressive. Marcia Clark was not. At the time I was hoping to become a criminal prosecutor, so I was looking at her thinking, Could this be me? Could I do this?

You dont identify as a feminist or take on that label, but youve been pulled into some women-empowering events and hailed by some feminists following the sexist treatment you received. What has that been like for you to be embraced as a kind of banner woman in this way?

I am grateful for the support I have received, in particular from women. Never have I felt the sisterhood so much as I have over these past 10 months, and I have felt buoyed by it. But that word feminist is controversial. I think its a charged word because it connotes a social-issues platform that, as a journalist, I should not be associating myself with. Basically, it means that youre pro-choice, and whether I am or I am not is none of anybodys business. I certainly shouldnt be taking a position on it as a news anchor.

One of the advantages of working at Fox News is you do have a fair bit of exposure to conservative guests, because we do put them on all the time. . . . So I understand completely how the pro-life women feel. So they may be feminists at heart if feminism stands for female empowerment and standing shoulder-to-shoulder to support each other when it comes to equal rights and equal voices, but you add that issue in and its just so divisive. . . .

You know I have been booed for rejecting the word feminism, which is ridiculous. Wouldnt you rather live the life of a feminist and reject the word than say youre a feminist and boo someone who is actually living it? Thats ridiculous.

Where did that happen?

[Stephen] Colbert. I almost stopped the interview and said, Hey, stop that! Thats not how we get ahead. Its not the terminology thats important.

I heard youre working on a memoir. Whats the focus? If you had to give it a title or lay out the theme, what would you say ?

We are going to unveil the cover on the special.

So youre done writing the book then?

Oh, Im not done. This month could not be busier. Its going to be marketed as a memoir and it is about my life, but it is also about my values, and I address the subject of feminism in there and expand on some of these feelings. The book will be in stores November 15th, and it is intentionally timed for after the election because I dont want to do anything that would influence the election one way or another. It is the only place that I will speak openly and freely about what this last year has been like for me.
The White House is working to contain the damage caused by a magazine profile of one of President Barack Obama's top aides, Ben Rhodes. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

A senior White House official has made his feelings about the reporters who cover the White House perfectly clear: He doesnt think much of them.

In return, reporters who cover the White House say they arent all that thrilled with him.

Ben Rhodes, President Obamas deputy national security adviser, asserted that cutbacks in the news business had weakened the depth and range of White House reporting. All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus. Now they dont, he said in a story published earlier this month in the New York Times magazine . They call us to explain to them whats happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington.

Rhodes dug in deeper, adding, The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. Thats a sea change. They literally know nothing.

White House reporters are used to criticism from readers and viewers, but such a public lashing from one of the people they cover is rare. Rhodes, 38, works closely with the White House press corps; he is a frequent source on foreign-policy stories, though he is often identified only as a senior administration official under ground rules the White House uses with the news media.

While some denizens of the press room acknowledged that parts of Rhodess critique were accurate, they bristled at what the magazine article described as Rhodess brutal contempt for their profession.

Its demonstrably true that news organizations have cut back on their foreign bureaus, but its a little uncharitable to make that point, said Andrew Beatty, a White House correspondent for Agence France-Presse, a globe-spanning wire service. Ive been a foreign correspondent all my life and I still find it difficult to understand the world. The world really is a difficult place to understand.

Besides, Beatty said, if you look at the situation in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, the South China Sea, Venezuela . . . the degree of confidence in the White Houses ability to understand whats going on around the world is not always high, either. So the hubris looks a bit misplaced.

Veteran New York Times reporter Peter Baker, who has covered the White House for two decades, said he wasnt entirely surprised by Rhodess remarks. I think every White House has contempt for the people who cover it, he said. It comes with the territory. If they loved us, we wouldnt be doing our job. So in a way its not really surprising that after seven years they would scorn us.

The White House Correspondents Association  which represents reporters in access and logistics negotiations with the White House and hosts a widely covered annual dinner  rejected a board members proposal to make a statement in response to Rhodess comments.

It is not our role or part of our mission to weigh in when someone says something mean or inaccurate about reporters who cover the president, said the associations president, Carol Lee of the Wall Street Journal.

But others in the press corps stood up for their colleagues.

Obviously, there are lot of White House correspondents who are young and have come up in journalism in a very different way than some of us older folks, said Mark Landler, another New York Times reporter. But at the same time, many of my colleagues have had overseas postings and experience of the world, in some cases more experience than the White House aides were trying to get information from.

Landler, the author of a new book,Alter Egos: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Twilight Struggle Over American Power, which quotes Rhodes as a source, said Rhodes probably wishes he could take some of what he said [in the magazine article] back.

One White House reporter, Jon Decker of Fox News Radio, responded humorously to the kerfuffle on Thursday by bringing doughnuts to the White House press room with a note that said, To the 27-year-olds in the White House Press Corps who literally know nothing. Enjoy!! [signed] Ben Rhodes. The note added, Just kidding . . . courtesy of Jon Decker.

The stunt was partially in response to a gesture by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and press secretary Josh Earnest, who delivered doughnuts to the press room on Wednesday.

Earnest said the doughnuts werent an attempt to smooth over any hard feelings about Rhodess comments.

Still, when McDonough told the reporters, We appreciate what you do, one reportedly replied, You should have brought Ben Rhodes.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:

Armenia's Metsamor power plant is an historical anomaly, and arguably should never have been placed on a seismic fault line, William Arthurs, member of the British Institute of Energy Economics and Ziba Norman, director of the UK Transatlantic & Caucasus Studies Institute, told Trend May 16.

Armenia has a nuclear power plant, Metsamor, built in 1970. The power plant was closed after a devastating earthquake in Spitak in 1988. But despite the international protests, the power plant's operation was resumed in 1995. Moreover, a second reactor was launched there.

"Its placement is more to do with Soviet concepts of progress than a careful and considered approach to Armenia's energy needs," the UK experts added. "If such a plant were being designed today, in accordance with safety regulations, it would never be placed in such a location."

The accidents at Fukushima and Chernobyl, in different ways, mirror the possible risks borne by those living in the vicinity of Metsamor, according to the experts.

Arthurs and Norman noted that both Metsamor and Fukushima nuclear power plants are located on an area of intense seismic activity - 1988 being the most recent example, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake, the epicentre of which was only 100 kilometers from Metsamor.

"Thus, even if Metsamor were to be upgraded with an additional containment structure, of the type in operation at Fukushima, Metsamor would remain vulnerable to a Fukushima level 7 nuclear accident," said the experts.

The risks posed by the Metsamor power plant are not therefore theoretical and, like Chernobyl, the spread of radioactive materials in the event of an accident would cross national borders, they added.

Arthurs and Norman pointed out that Yerevan itself is a capital city only 20 kilometers from the aged plant, while Turkey is a mere 15 kilometers away from that power plant and there are fertile agricultural lands in this region.

"It is almost inconceivable that a plant as aged as Metsamor (commissioned in 1976) is still being used to provide a major source of energy for Armenia," said the experts. "To continue attempted upgrades, whilst fully aware of the unacceptable risks it poses to Armenia itself and the region is beyond shortsighted and could be considered negligent."

They noted that the international community do have important interests at stake, as the fallout (as in the case of Chernobyl) does not respect national borders.

Arthurs and Norman pointed out that the main question the decision takers should be asking themselves is: would such a plant be commissioned in this location today?

"If the answer is "no", then a continued attempt to keep Metsamor in use is a dangerously poor decision," they added.

The experts said that Armenia is a small area geographically, which could be rendered uninhabitable if an accident at the power plant were to occur.

In a region as energy-rich as the Caucasus it seems a cruel irony that Armenia might stake its very existence, simply for a failure to acknowledge the need for alternative energy supplies, they added.

Furthermore, a sustainable approach to Armenia's energy needs would enhance cooperation in the region, and is therefore win-win; keep Armenia and her people safe, and aid long-term economic prosperity in the region, according to Arthurs and Norman.

"None of this will be possible without an acknowledgement that energy self-sufficiency based on nuclear power may simply not be a realistic option in this region," the experts added.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
The Talbot Boys monument in Easton, Md., pays tribute to Talbot County residents who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. The statue has caused considerable debate over whether it should be removed. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun)

For more than a century, the soldier has stood before the Talbot County Courthouse, a half-furled Confederate flag draped over his left shoulder like a cape.

The Talbot Boys monument, named for the 84 local Confederate veterans of the Civil War whose names are etched into its base, has weathered decades of debate.

Now, amid a national reexamination of Americas slaveholding and segregationist past  prompted by the shooting deaths of nine worshipers last year at a historically black church in Charleston, S.C., allegedly by a white supremacist  the statue has reemerged as a flash point in this Eastern Shore county.

The county branch of the NAACP asked the Talbot County Council last year to take the monument down. A group called Save the Talbot Boys formed and gathered more than 1,200 signatures for a petition supporting the memorial, and the County Council voted to leave it where it is.

It didnt end there. The NAACP and the ACLU challenged the decision process, which included a closed-door administrative meeting, to the state Open Meetings Compliance Board. The board ruled this month that the meeting should have been open to the public and had violated state law.

The Talbot Boys monument has stood on the Talbot County Courthouse lawn for more than 100 years. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun)

The council acknowledged the boards ruling last week. But council President Corey W. Pack, who is black, said it wouldnt change the decision.

We were not going to remove the Talbot Boys statue, said Pack, a Republican from Baltimore who has served on the County Council since 2007. We felt it would be disrespectful to the family members of those Confederate relatives still alive in Talbot County.

Richard Potter, president of the county NAACP branch, said a memorial to Confederate veterans doesnt belong on the grounds of a public courthouse.

That monument is commemorating individuals who wanted to keep a group of people, African American people especially, enslaved, Potter said.

The courthouse is supposed to be a place where we can all go seeking a just and fair trial, but then we have a statue that resembles hate to a certain group of people. How just of a trial can I get when I have my government officials agreeing to leave a statue that represents such?

Dylann Roof, the suspect in the shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, shared photographs of himself with Confederate battle flags and white supremacist symbols, and reportedly told investigators of his desire to ignite a race war.

What he got was wide condemnation, and a national discussion that has brought change.

Within weeks of the shootings last June, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) signed legislation to remove the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol grounds. The National Park Service removed Confederate flags, T-shirts and other memorabilia from gift shops at Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Md., and other Civil War sites across the country.

In Maryland, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan ordered the state Motor Vehicle Administration to stop issuing license plates bearing the Confederate battle flag. State lawmakers called for the removal of the statue of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, author of the Dred Scott decision, from the State House grounds. Baltimore County officials voted to rename Robert E. Lee Park to Lake Roland Park.

In Baltimore, a task force commissioned by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) recommended removing two of the citys four Confederate-era monuments. The mayor is awaiting a final report to make a decision.

The Talbot Boys memorial, erected in 1916, more than 50 years after the end of the Civil War, has long been controversial. The current debate has revived the bitter feelings from a decade ago, when the county considered placing a statue of Frederick Douglass across the lawn from the statue.

The abolitionist is Talbot Countys most famous native son. But veterans groups called the courthouse lawn sacred ground that should be reserved for memorials to veterans. (It also holds a monument to Vietnam veterans.)

Supporters of the Douglass statue accused opponents of racism. Opponents labeled the supporters unpatriotic.

The council voted 3 to 2 in 2004 to approve the statue. Advocates said it would help offset the Talbot Boys memorial.

Taking a smoke break on a bench near the courthouse recently, Courtney Marshall and Amanda Price agreed that it has achieved that effect.

Both being up there balances it out, said Marshall, 24, of St. Michaels.

Price, 25, of Easton, said the controversy over the Talbot Boys monument is a crock.

I dont think it hurts anybody, she said. They should worry about other things besides a statue.

I think it should stay, Marshall said. Its part of history.

Joel Marcus Johnson, retired bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Chesapeake, said the area was once a slave market.

The whole idea that that statue stands upon that particular patch of soil where slaves were bought and sold is, to me, the height of hypocrisy, Johnson said.

Philip C. Foster, who served on the County Council from 1998 to 2010, said the Talbot Boys memorial is an important commemoration of Civil War veterans, including Adm. Franklin Buchanan, the first superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy.

The statue is not a statue to slavery, said Foster, an Easton attorney. Its a recognition of the individuals that are on it.

Johnson said that viewing the statue as a monument to the Confederate veterans without taking into account historical context is misguided. When the statue was erected in 1916, Jim Crow laws were in place and blacks were still being lynched on the Eastern Shore.

We have to interpret that statue through the lens of the time in which it was erected, said Johnson, who is president of the Oaks of Mamre Interfaith Library and Graduate Center in Easton.

The Talbot Association of Clergy and Laity, which Johnson leads, hosted one of two public discussions on the fate of the statue. A debate included those who thought it should be removed and Confederate descendants who said it is part of their heritage.

The group has also organized a Conversations on Race series of suppers in Easton and St. Michaels to bring people of different races together to discuss challenges in the county.

We can talk about equity and profiling and all of these abstract intellectual conversations until were blue in the face, Johnson said. But what it requires is that we come to know each other in the heart and in the soul and we do that by understanding each others history and each others culture.

The NAACP had asked the county to replace the Talbot Boys statue with a Civil War monument that would recognize both Union and Confederate veterans.

The council wont budge on the Talbot Boys, Pack said. But he said members are open to suggestions for erecting a second monument to Union veterans.

He acknowledged that Talbot County was home to far more Union soldiers than Confederates.

We agree that the Confederate statue alone does not accurately depict Talbot Countys role in the Civil War, Pack said. If the NAACP of Talbot County or any other group wants to petition the county for a Union statue . . . well be more than happy to look at that.
Like a lot of pregnant women, Christine Kaineg carries a bag of supplies to get her through the day: Kind granola bars for hunger, a big bottle of Tums and a new staple  mosquito repellent.

At almost eight months pregnant, the mom-to-be has read about the babies being born with severe brain abnormalities in Brazil and other countries, where birth defects have been linked to the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

With mosquito season underway in the Washington region, Kaineg isnt taking any chances.

I know its not in the area, said Kaineg, who lives in Alexandria, Va., and works for a federal contractor. But I also dont want to be Patient A at such a critical time in my life.

Apparently a lot of Washington-area residents are taking precautions. Mosquito-control companies across the region say that business is booming.

JChase Bernetich, technician with Mosquito Joe, applies a mosquito barrier to a residential property in Rockville on May 10. (Bonnie Jo Mount/Washington Post)

Al Tardiff, operations manager for Capitol Mosquito Control on Capitol Hill, said that calls to his office this spring have doubled from last year. The company recently bought a fifth vehicle and hired another full-time technician.

They tell me theyre pregnant or they plan on getting pregnant so they want to know how effective our products are, Tardiff said.

Kevin Wilson, chief executive of Mosquito Joe, said the companys locations in the South, where mosquito season started this winter, have reported more than a 50 percent jump in new customers compared with last spring. Mosquito Joe franchises in the Washington area have seen a 32 percent increase.

The real sign will be in June and July, when the kids are out of school and start getting bit, Wilson said. Thats when well see the uptick in volume. I cant image it this year, when the kids are getting bit, and all people are thinking about now is Zika.

Public health officials say that there is a good reason for concern. The Asian tiger mosquito, the most common species in the region, has been found to carry Zika in other countries. Moreover, experts say, local mosquitoes are revving up just as summer vacations are set to begin, and the Washington area typically sees robust travel to the Caribbean and Latin America  all places with locally transmitted Zika.

Although there have been no confirmed cases of mosquito-transmitted Zika in the continental United States, officials say, the start of the mosquito season this month has significantly increased the chances in the Washington area. Also, the record-breaking string of rainy days has left behind soggy yards  prime environments for mosquitoes to lay hundreds of eggs.

[Graphic: What you need to know about Zika]

With days of rain drenching the D.C. area, fears of zika-carrying mosquitoes are growing among many. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says it's only a matter of time before the U.S. experiences outbreaks. (WUSA9)

Local health officials say they do not want to spread alarm, but they are urging pregnant women and everyone else to help prevent Zika by ridding their yards of standing water and wearing mosquito repellent daily.

We dont know if it will ever come to our local mosquito population, but we do know if it does come, bad things can happen  so we want to prepare for the worst, said David Goodfriend, director of the Loudoun County Health Department. If all that comes out of it is fewer people get bitten, thats a good thing. And if it does come here, [prevention efforts] will be critical.

As of May 11, the continental United States had 503 confirmed Zika cases, including four in the District, 16 in Maryland and 15 in Virginia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All have been people who traveled to Zika-affected countries.

[Tips on how to fight mosquitoes and potentially, Zika]

Until this month, the Washington-area cases were not considered a public health threat because there were so few mosquitoes to spread the virus. Now that the Asian tiger mosquito has taken flight, concern is mounting, particularly for pregnant women.

Ulder Tillman, Montgomery Countys health officer, said that the Washington region has the set-up for the likelihood of local transmission.

People shouldnt panic, but they should follow our recommendations, Tillman said. Our only defense here is prevention.

Tillman noted that there is no vaccine for Zika, and it can be transmitted sexually. Another complicating factor: About 80 percent of people with the virus do not feel sick, and those who get the most common symptoms  fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis (pinkeye)  may not link them to Zika.

Rita Driggers, director of maternal fetal medicine at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, said she sees women every day who have traveled to a Zika-affected country seeking ultrasounds to rule out abnormalities in their fetuses. She said many of her patients took babymoons  a last-hurrah big trip as a couple  in the fall, before many Americans were paying much attention to Zika.

I have no doubt well be seeing cases of locally transmitted Zika virus with this mosquito season, said Driggers, who co-wrote a recent paper about Zika-related fetal brain abnormalities. All its going to take is for one person with active Zika in their blood to get bitten by a mosquito, and that can start the spread.

Driggers said she is particularly concerned that theres just a lot we dont know about Zika, including how accurate tests are for the virus in asymptomatic people and the risks to the fetus at different stages of development.

Based on how similar viruses have spread, health experts say, Hawaii, Texas and Florida are at the highest risk of experiencing Zika spread by local mosquitoes.

[Zika funding battle steals states public health emergency money]

The key to how far or how quickly the virus could spreadin local mosquitoes would depend on the number of pests, experts say. Washington-area jurisdictions are urging residents to empty anything that holds water in their yards  flower pots, toys, folds in tarps  because the Asian tiger mosquito is known as a container breeder that lays its eggs close to its sources of blood in humans and their pets.

In addition, the Maryland Department of Agriculture has hired eight new staffers to scout out mosquito breeding grounds around the state. In Northern Virginia, some moviegoers will soon see a mosquito-prevention video amid the previews. In Montgomery County, obstetricians are giving patients state-supplied Zika prevention kits that include educational materials and mosquito repellent. D.C. health officials are holding Fight the Bite open houses at recreation centers and handing out prevention kits with mosquito repellent and condoms.

The concern really comes in that we dont really know how this virus is going to exhibit itself in Maryland, said Daniel Schamberger, acting program manager for the mosquito control section of the Maryland Department of Agriculture. We know we have this [Asian tiger] mosquito population, but were not exactly sure how the virus would move within Maryland. We know we need to be very vigilant.

[U.S. officials: The more we know about Zika, the scarier it is]

The message  or at least the mounting concern  is getting through.

Some pregnant women say that they are taking precautions against Zika while trying not to become unduly anxious. Some have canceled trips down South and have stopped biking or walking to work to limit their time outdoors.

Kyra DeBlaker-Gebhard, who is eight months pregnant with her third child, said her doctor told her not to worry about Zika. But DeBlaker-Gebhard, an interior designer who lives on Capitol Hill, said that she is checking her window screens, wearing mosquito repellent and scouring her yard for standing water.

Im suddenly aware of any bug flying around the house, thinking, Is that a mosquito?  DeBlaker-Gebhard said. It concerns me that people are coming back from traveling [to Zika-affected countries], and now mosquitoes are around. What if a mosquito bites them and then bites me? It seems plausible.

Jackie Ross, five months pregnant, said she and her Capitol Hill neighbors plan to hire a mosquito control company to spray all of their yards. She said she also will wear long sleeves and pants all summer.

Usually we have people over and hang out outside, Ross said, but I dont think well be doing that this summer.


Lorenzo Gibson, a graduating senior in American Studies at Columbia University in upper Manhattan, heads to grab a bite to eat after attending his final class. He is the first in his family to attend an Ivy League institution. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

 To reach the Ivy League after growing up poor seems like hitting the jackpot. Students get a world-class education from schools that promise to meet full financial needs without making them take out loans. But the reality of a full ride isnt always what they had dreamed it would be.

Here at Columbia University, money pressures lead many to cut corners on textbook purchases and skip city excursions routine for affluent classmates. Some borrow thousands of dollars a year to pay bills. Some feel obliged to send money home occasionally to help their families. Others spend less on university meal plans, slipping extra food into their backpacks when they leave a dining hall and hunting for free grub through a Facebook network called CU Meal Share.

Lizzette Delgadillo is a junior at Columbia University and the first person in her family to attend an Ivy League school. She describes how she struggles financially, despite a full scholarship. (The Washington Post)

[Financial aid in the Ivy League, by the numbers]

If you want to have some sort of social life, you have to pay for that, too, said Lizzette Delgadillo, 20, a junior from Los Angeles. Her father is a trumpet player in a mariachi band, her mother a housekeeper. New Yorks very expensive. Im happy. But financially, its pretty hard.

Such challenges are widespread in higher education, and at many schools far more severe. But awareness of them has grown in recent years at top colleges seeking to diversify what were once bastions of exclusivity and privilege. The more they recruit from impoverished and working-class neighborhoods, the more these schools confront what it takes to help those students thrive after they arrive on campus.

[A college admissions edge for the wealthy: Early decision]



Lizzette Delgadillo, a junior at Columbia University, is the first in her family to attend an Ivy League institution. Her father is a trumpet player in a mariachi band. Things that you dont think about are extremely expensive, she said. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

Students have vented concerns about food insecurity and the stigma of poverty at several prominent schools through online forums called Class Confessions. Cornell University learned last year from an undergraduate survey that 22 percent said they had skipped meals or had not had enough to eat at least occasionally because of financial constraints. A movement of first-generation students called 1vyG, spanning the eight Ivy schools and beyond, drew hundreds in February to a conference at Harvard University calling for an agenda for change.

[A first-generation college student explains why students like her need a strong support network.]

Too often, elite colleges fail to level with students from poor families about pressures they could face even when loans are not included in their financial aid, said Sara Goldrick-Rab, a sociologist and higher-education analyst at the University of Wisconsin.

They purport to take money off the table by saying they have a no-loans policy, Goldrick-Rab said. Thats sort of whitewashing away the many ways in which money can still matter. Among them, she said, are the cost of living during breaks and the cost of keeping up with the Joneses  students whose wealth is evident on the first day they move into dorms.

[This is real college: Some students struggle to pay for food, housing]

Although high school graduation rates are rising and there are more private and federal grants available, most low-income students have a tough time attending and staying in college. Here are nine facts about poor students and the college experience. (Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

University officials acknowledge that some students wrestle with money worries even when their education costs are covered. I dont think its possible to eliminate it entirely, but its incumbent upon us to address it, said James Valentini, vice president for undergraduate education at Columbia and dean of Columbia College. We want to try to eliminate all of those things that prevent them from being successful once they are here.

Anthony Abraham Jack, a Harvard graduate student, wrote his dissertation on the experiences of low-income students at elite schools. He can relate because he was one himself in the Class of 2007 at Amherst College  the son of a single mother in Miami who was a school security guard.

Jack recalled seeking help during spring break at Amherst when dining halls were closed, rich classmates were traveling and he was staying on campus because he couldnt afford to leave. Its kind of gross to live off peanut butter and jelly for a week, he said.

The college arranged for meals through a local cafe, Jack said. In 2014, he helped push Harvard to take steps to feed students on campus during vacations. Now Harvard distributes meal vouchers for those who need them during winter and spring breaks, according to a profile of Jack last month in the Harvard Gazette.



Lorenzo Gibson, shown with classmate Anne Scotti, comes from a New Jersey family with significant financial need. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

Gibson wades through the books stashed across his dormitory room, which overlooks the Columbia campus. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

These actions show that even at one of the wealthiest universities in the world, with an endowment estimated at $36 billion, hunger is hardly unknown.

Disadvantaged students admitted to Harvard dont just get catapulted into the middle class, said Ted White, 21, who is active in a first-generation-student union at the university. His dad is a bus driver in Boston. There are still family hardships and things going on in their personal lives.

[How financial need sways graduation rates]

Columbia has long prided itself on providing opportunity to strivers. Alexander Hamilton studied here in the 18th century at what was then known as Kings College as he climbed from humble immigrant origins to become one of the nations founders.

On the Morningside Heights campus in Upper Manhattan, half of the 6,000 students in Columbias undergraduate college and engineering school receive financial aid. Eighteen percent of freshmen have parents who did not earn bachelors degrees. That appears to be on par with, or a bit higher than, the first-generation share at other Ivy schools. Sixteen percent of Brown University undergraduates, for example, are first-generation students. Not all of these students come from poverty, but many do.

More than 700 Columbia students  12 percent of undergraduates  have enough financial need that the university does not ask their parents to pay anything toward the cost of education.

[Why this student tracks hunger questions at Barnard and Columbia]

Most of the nations private colleges and many public ones expect students in those circumstances to take out loans to help finance their education. That is not true for the Ivy League and a select group of other elite colleges and universities. Columbia dropped loans in 2008 from student aid packages.

Diversity is really important to us, Valentini said. Mixing students from varied backgrounds helps all of them  including the affluent  learn valuable interpersonal skills, he said. Financial aid provides us a way to make this possible.

No-loan packages are not without obligations. Generally, Columbia asks incoming freshmen to contribute $2,400 through summer jobs or other sources. That total can rise to more than $3,000 in subsequent years. In addition, students on financial aid are often asked to earn a few thousand dollars by working during the school year.

The universitys annual cost of attendance, more than $72,000, assumes $2,062 for personal expenses and $1,223 for books and supplies, in addition to $68,975 for tuition, fees, room and board. Travel costs also are included, depending on where a student lives.

[An inside look at financial aid offers from a private college]



Lizbeth Pena, 20, was born in Mexico and came to the United States when she was 7. When she leaves a dining hall, she often takes an apple, a pear or a couple of bananas with her. The fruit becomes a starting point for a future meal. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

To Lizbeth Pena, Columbias offer three years ago was like a dream come true.

Valedictorian at her high school in Gwinnett County, Ga., outside Atlanta, Pena is the third of four siblings in an immigrant family. She was born in Mexico, came to the United States at age 7 and is now a permanent U.S. resident. Her father is a landscaper.

Pena, 20, a civil-engineering major, is finishing her junior year. Money has been on her mind since she arrived. She never buys new textbooks if she can avoid it. She never goes to Starbucks. She has gone to the movies twice in three years, once when a friend treated her and the second time with a free ticket from the student government. She goes to museums for free with her student ID, but not to Broadway shows. She once spent a long weekend in New York getting by on little more than Nutella and a loaf of bread when dining halls were closed. On her first Thanksgiving break, she surprised her parents with a visit home  not flying but taking a 16-hour bus ride to Georgia with a round-trip ticket that she recalls cost $120. Compared to $400, it was a deal, she said.

Leery of debt, Pena had assumed at first that she would not have to borrow. But she took out $2,200 in loans because finances got too tight. She also has been whittling costs where she can.

The easiest solution is to cut back on meal spending. All first-year students are required to buy a plan that provides breakfast, lunch and dinner at one of Columbias bountiful dining halls. But in subsequent years they can choose less-costly plans, with fewer dining-hall visits, and cook for themselves the rest of the time. Or forage.



Lizbeth Pena, daughter of a landscaper, said she once survived on little more than Nutella and a loaf of bread on a long weekend when dining halls were closed. She always thinks ahead about food. It never leaves my mind, she said. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

This spring Pena bought a plan that effectively allows one dining-hall entry a day. That saved her $700 compared with a plan she bought last fall permitting an average of nearly two entries per day. When she leaves a dining hall, she often takes an apple, a pear or a couple of bananas with her. The fruit becomes a starting point for a future meal. She always thinks ahead about food. It never leaves my mind, she said.

Pena said she is accustomed to the small burdens she goes through every day. Theres a lot that struggle more than I do, she said. I cant be ungrateful.

Rafael Ramirez, 21, a junior in economics and political science from the Bronx, said he frequently makes trade-offs unknown to affluent classmates.

Ive sometimes had to choose  all right, am I buying a textbook or getting something to eat? Ramirez said. I always choose food.

Recently, Ramirez took screen shots of a textbook with more than 500 pages so that he could avoid buying it, a mind-numbing maneuver that can take hours on a computer. He has done it more than once. Its not bad, he said. You get into a rhythm.

Ramirez, whose mother works as a home health aide, said he sometimes helps her with rent or other expenses. In his time at school he has worked at campus libraries and other jobs 10 or more hours a week.

When he decided to come to Columbia, Ramirez said, he didnt realize all the things he might need to pay for out of pocket. Playing rugby cost about $100 per semester, but fortunately he got financial aid from the team. There was a Latin dance team with dues of $30 to $40 a semester. Not huge, Ramirez said. But it starts adding up. An expense he deemed most worthwhile was joining a fraternity, which cost $1,300.

As of April, Ramirez said he was carrying about $600 in credit card debt and had taken out nearly $15,000 in loans. Its a significant amount, he said. Im sure Ill figure it out.

Christia Mercer, a veteran philosophy professor, said she worries about the financial stress borne by students at Columbia. Mercer said she has heard numerous troubling anecdotes, including cases in which students sought sexual relationships with older men through sugar daddy websites to earn money to pay their bills. The Washington Post contacted one of these students, but she declined to be interviewed.

Another student told Mercer of the shame he felt riding a crosstown bus to fill out paperwork for government food-stamp assistance  an account he confirmed in an interview with The Post. As of mid-April, he said, he had exhausted his meal plan for the semester. The 19-year-old, who declined to be named, is finishing his sophomore year.

For months, Mercer said, she has pushed university officials to do more to relieve such pressures.

Columbia should not bring these people to campus and treat them this way, Mercer said. These low-income students do not feel attended to.

Valentini said Mercers account of students engaged in sex work to pay bills was deeply troubling. The university urges those in difficult straits to reach out for help from deans, advisers or other campus resources, he said.

The dean said Columbia has taken several steps in recent years to ease financial pressures, including an emergency fund enabling students to get vouchers for six free meals a semester, an open dining hall during spring break and Thanksgiving holiday, and, starting next school year, the elimination of course fees for those on financial aid. He said Columbia also has raised travel allocations, given students more flexibility in the use of outside scholarships and limited the rate of growth of the expected student contribution.

If even a single student is having a problem at Columbia, then we feel bad about that, Valentini said. We try to address it.

Among Delgadillos challenges this spring was a broken laptop, a significant hurdle for an engineering student heading into finals. She planned to wait until she was home for the summer to find a low-cost repair shop. Delgadillo has managed to stay debt-free. But she wishes she had known more about finances before coming to Columbia.

Things that you dont think about are extremely expensive, she said. Its not a full ride.
THE DISTRICT

Monument scheduled to reopen Tuesday

The Washington Monument is scheduled to reopen Tuesday morning after an elevator issue shuttered the stone structure during the weekend, a National Park Service spokesman said.

Mike Litterst said technicians traced the source of the problem to a faulty computer chip on the elevator control board. He said the chip was replaced and reprogrammed.

The monument closed Saturday because of power problems. And just a month ago, an elevator malfunction shut it down twice in one week.

Technicians completed repairs Monday, and Litterst said it will reopen 9 a.m. Tuesday.

 Victoria St. Martin

MARYLAND

Police: Man shot, burned his brother

A Hillcrest Heights man was arrested in connection with the slaying of his brother, who was found shot and burned in March.

Jacobi Williams, 29, was charged with first- and second-degree murder in the death of Rashaad Tate, 32, Prince Georges County police said Monday.

Police said Tate and Williams had an ongoing dispute, which they did not detail, before the fatal shooting March 23.

Officers found Tates body at about 5:20 a.m. in the 5000 block of Hil Mar Drive in Forestville. Williams gave a false alibi to detectives but told his father that he killed Tate, according to court records.

An investigation also revealed Williams was suspected in multiple shootings in the District, and that casings fired during his brothers slaying were from the gun used in the D.C. incidents, charging documents state. Cellphone records also connected Williams to his brothers death, court documents state.

Williams is being held without bond in a Prince Georges County jail.

 Lynh Bui

Police seek man

in fatal shooting

Prince Georges County police are looking for a man suspected of fatally shooting a customer inside a restaurant in Camp Springs after the victim allegedly stared at him in an intimidating manner, according to witnesses, police said.

Rasheed Edwards, 21, was a customer at an Americas Best Wings in Temple Hills on May 4 about 9:45 p.m. when he shot another customer, Darryl Hairston, inside the restaurant, police said.

Hairston, 20, was taken to a hospital, where he later died, police said.

Edwards is from Clinton and also goes by Thaddeus Cornell Edwards, police said. Authorities are asking anyone with information about Edwards to call 1-866-411-TIPS (8477).

 Lynh Bui

Fatal fall from cellphone tower

A person died Monday after falling from a cellphone tower in Maryland, authorities said.

At about 3 p.m. Monday, the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service received a call that a person had apparently fallen from the tower in Damascus, a spokesman for the service said. Montgomery police said they are investigating the death as a workplace accident.

No information about the circumstances of the fall was available, and authorities did not identify the victim.

 Justin Wm. Moyer

VIRGINIA

Womans body found in water in Centreville

Police in Virginia are investigating after the body of a woman was found floating in water near an apartment complex in Centreville.

Fairfax County police said they received a report of a body in water near Lakeside Apartments at 12:12 p.m. Monday.

A dive team recovered the body of a woman, police said. The woman has not been identified.

 Justin Wm. Moyer

Former transit

CEO pleads guilty

The former head of Virginia Regional Transit pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Alexandria to his role in a bribery scheme that cost the federal government nearly $400,000.

Mark W. McGregor was chief executive of VRT, a nonprofit organization that provides transportation services throughout Northern Virginia. Federal prosecutors said McGregor and Thomas Ahalt, president of Mobile Auto Track Repair, were involved in the scheme.

From January 2007 until December 2015, McGregor approved false invoices for labor charges for repairs made to VRT vehicles by Ahalts company for about $380,000. In exchange, McGregor received kickbacks totaling roughly $190,000, according to plea papers. A portion of the money VRT paid to Ahalts auto repair company came from a program run by the Federal Transit Administration.

On April 6, Ahalt pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery concerning federal program funds. He is scheduled to be sentenced June 2, and McGregor is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 9.

The case was handled in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
BLOOD DONATIONS

BLOOD DRIVES Tuesday 1:30-5:30 p.m., Loudoun School Administration Building, 21000 Education Ct., Ashburn, 866-256-6372; Tuesday 3-7 p.m., Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd., Ashburn, 866-256-6372; Saturday 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Leesburg Public Safety Center, 65 Plaza St., Leesburg, 800-733-2767; May 24, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Loudoun Government Center, 1 Harrison St., Leesburg, 866-256-6372; May 24, 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Leesburg town offices, 25 W. Market St., Leesburg, 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 Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Medical Office Building, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. $85. 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 at 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 and 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.

BABY CARE ESSENTIALS Thursday 6-8:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Family Birthing Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. $25. Register.

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 A nonprofit organization that 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.

HELP FOR HEARING LOSS Thursday 10 a.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. Learn about resources available for hearing impairment. 571-258-3280.

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 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 CAREGIVER SUPPORT GROUP Fourth Thursdays 3-4 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 540-903-6831 or alz.org.

ALZHEIMERS SUPPORT First Tuesdays 10-11 a.m. Spring Arbor Assisted Living, 237 Fairview St. NW, Leesburg. 540-338-6520.

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 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.

FAMILIES OVERCOMING DRUG ADDICTION SUPPORT First and third Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-9221 or email myfodafamily@gmail.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.

LYME DISEASE SUPPORT First Tuesdays 7-8:30 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. Email charphealy@yahoo.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

ALZHEIMERS ASSOCIATION WORKSHOP The Basics: Memory Loss, Dementia and Alzheimers Disease May 24, 7:30 p.m. Potomac Green, 44499 Oakmont Manor Sq., Ashburn. 800-272-3900. Free. Register.

BECOMING AN EMPOWERED CAREGIVER TO PREVENT ABUSE AND NEGLECT Joe Musso will discuss what families and caregivers can do to ensure that older adults and people with disabilities who reside in long-term-care facilities receive proper care and attention. Thursday from 1-4 p.m. Loudoun County Area Agency on Aging, 20145 Ashbrook Pl., Suite 170, Ashburn. Call 703-737-8283 or email apstraining@loudoun.gov. Free. Registration required.

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.

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.

COMMUNITY LECTURE Managing Your Diabetes, a presentation with Geraldine Stile-Killian, a nurse practitioner. 540-316-3588. Free. Register.

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 Sunday, noon-4 p.m. Ashburn Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department open house, 20688 Ashburn Rd., Ashburn; Monday 9-11:30 a.m. William Watters House, 22365 Enterprise St., Sterling; May 24, 9 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling; May 25, 10 a.m.-noon, Lansdowne Woods, 19400 Leisure World Blvd., Leesburg; May 26, 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 May 27 from 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.

MUSIC THERAPY Panel discussion and performance by the Different Strokes for Different Folks stroke choir. Wednesday 5:30-7 p.m. Middleburg Community Center, 300 W. Washington St., Middleburg. The educational program is hosted by Inova Loudoun Hospital Foundation and Middleburg Community Center. 703-289-2078 or email leigh.wolf@inova.org. Free. Reservations required.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA LONG-TERM CARE OMBUDSMAN Call for help in resolving complaints related to long-term-care facilities. 703-324-5861.

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.

TICK AND LYME PRESENTATION Age 18 and older. Stephen Hood, a senior health educator from the Loudoun County Health Department, will discuss the dangerous diseases ticks can carry and how to protect yourself. May 25, 1-1:45 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400. Free.

TREE OF LIFE FOOD PANTRY Serving western Loudoun County. Food is delivered Wednesdays and Saturdays. 703-554-3595.

 Compiled by Sandy Mauck

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Email: ldliving@washpost.com

Fax: 703-777-8437

Mail: Health Calendar, The Washington Post, 104 Dry Mill Rd. SW, Suite 101, Leesburg, Va. 20175

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
Gov. Larry Hogan addresses a crowd outside the Government House, the governors mansion he moved into after taking office. He continued collecting a residency tax break on his previous residence in Edgewater, Md. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) received a $3,200 primary-residence tax break in 2015 for a house he doesnt live in, thanks to exemptions available for governors and federal employees.

Maryland homeowners are eligible for a credit to keep down the costs of rising assessments values, provided they live in the house at least six months out of the year. As governor, Hogan is required to live in Annapolis, the state capital. He moved out of his waterfront home in Edgewater, Md., and into the governors mansion when he took office in January 2015.

But the governor still subtracted a $3,200 homestead tax credit from his $12,800 property tax bill in 2016, Anne Arundel county tax records show.

[OMalleys discounted governors mansion furniture purchases draws scrutiny]

The agency managing the homestead credit says this is legal because governors fall under an exemption to the residency requirement for people who cant live in their house because of an illness or need of special care.

Governors move into Government House, across from the Capitol, so they can have easy access to a protective detail and other security measures, which the State Department of Assessments and Taxation considers a form of special care.

While the phrase need of special care is not defined in the law, the agency director says it could apply to people who leave their homes for care such as drug rehabilitation or assisted living for people with disabilities.

I feel any governor would qualify under the special-care provision, said Sean Powell, director of the Department of Assessments and Taxation. This is based on the need for 24-hour protection detail and all the accessory security measures put in place for a governor.

Powell said Martin OMalley, Hogans Democratic predecessor, also claimed this credit before selling his Baltimore home during his first year in office. Hogans home is currently on the market, listed for $1.595 million.

The law also has an exemption for federal government employees stationed outside Maryland, including for military and diplomatic service. Private-sector employees who are stationed outside Maryland, however, cannot continue collecting the tax break on a house in which they do not live.

Doug Mayer, a spokesman for Hogan, said the governor is in a unique position by virtue of a legal mandate to live in Annapolis, but would be open to expanding homestead tax credits for private citizens who move out of their homes temporarily for work.

The governor is a well-known and long-standing proponent of tax relief, and this is certainly something well take a look at it, Mayer said.
Sunday, May 15

Mental health support group Open to all, but focus is on families with dependent children 26 and younger, sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. 4-6 p.m., Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, Conference Room D, 2300 Opitz Blvd., Woodbridge. Free. 571-437-4579 or nami-pw.org.

Al-Anon Family Group 8 p.m., Haymarket Baptist Church, parish hall, 14800 Washington St., Haymarket. 703-969-2726.

Monday, May 16

Potomac Mills Walkers Club Registration is 8-9 a.m. weekdays. Walk is 8-10 a.m. Monday-Saturday, Potomac Mills, 2700 Potomac Mills Cir., Woodbridge. Free. 703-496-9301.

Al-Anon Family Group Noon and 8:30 p.m. Mondays, 7 p.m. Tuesdays, 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays, 10:30 a.m. Thursdays, noon Fridays, Bethel Lutheran Church, 8712 Plantation Lane, Manassas. Free. 888-425-2666. al-anon.info.

Mental health support group 6 p.m. Monday, 8 p.m. Friday, Trillium Drop-In Center, 13184 Centerpointe Way, Woodbridge. Free. 703-763-3865. trilliumdropincenter.org.

Breasst cancer support group 6:15 p.m., Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, 2300 Opitz Blvd., Woodbridge. Free; registration required. 703-523-1599.

Al-Anon Family Group 7 p.m., St. Paul United Methodist Church, 1400 G St., Woodbridge. 703-534-4357.

Overeaters Anonymous/HOW 7 p.m., Bethel Lutheran Church, 8712 Plantation Lane, Manassas.703-823-6682. oanova.org.

Tuesday, May 17

Overeaters Anonymous sunrise meeting 7 a.m., St. Benedict Monastery, 9535 Linton Hall Rd., Bristow. Free. 202-437-5070. oanova.org.

Aging Expo the Prince William Area Agency on Aging and the Prince William Chamber of Commerce hosts Transitions-Resources for Aging Gracefully. 2-7 p.m., Freedom Aquatic and Fitness Center, 9100 Freedom Center Blvd., Manassas. Free. 703-792-6405. pwcgov.org.

Wednesday, May 18

Breastfeeding support group The Gathering Place meetings are facilitated by a lactation consultant. Bring a blanket for your baby. 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m., Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, 2300 Opitz Blvd., Woodbridge. Free. 703-670-1236.

Weight loss support group 11 a.m., Spirit and Life United Methodist Church, 4223 Dale Blvd., Woodbridge. Free. 703-878-7779.

Healing with Meditation Learn stress management through sound, visualization, breath and focused meditation. 6 p.m., Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, Worship Room, 2300 Opitz Blvd., Woodbridge. Free; registration required. 703-670-1236.

Womens mental health support group 7 p.m., Trillium Drop-In Center, 13184 Centerpointe Way, Woodbridge. Free. 703-763-3865. trilliumdropincenter.org.

Thursday, May 19

Overeaters Anonymous Meditation and Writing meeting 7 a.m., St. Benedict Monastery, 9535 Linton Hall Rd., Bristow. Free. 703-361-0106 or 703-754-9237. oanova.org.

Celebrate Reovery meeting A 12-step, Christ-centered recovery program for those with hurts, habits and hangups. 6 p.m., Park Valley Church, 4500 Waverly Farm Dr., Haymarket. Free. 571-261-2136.

Yoga for Cancer The focus is on breathing and body awareness. Bring a mat and water. 6-7:30 p.m., Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, 2300 Opitz Blvd., Woodbridge. Free; registration required. 800-736-8272.

Families Anonymous A 12-step program for adults with family members with substance-abuse problems. 8 p.m., Manassas Presbyterian Church, 8201 Ashton Ave., Manassas. Free. 703-928-9385. familiesanonymousva.com.

Friday, May 20

Alzheimers Association support group Facilitated by a trained group leader. 11 a.m., Westminster at Lake Ridge Retirement Community, 12191 Clipper Dr., Lake Ridge. Free; registration required. 800-272-3900. alz.org/nca.

Saturday, May 21

Overeaters Anonymous A Literature Study meeting. 9 a.m., Trinity Episcopal Church, 9325 West St., Manassas. Free. 703-794-9774. oanova.org.

Anxiety support group Recovery Inc., for people who have anxiety, depression, fear or other emotional problems. 10 a.m.-noon, Cokesbury United Methodist Church, 14806 Blackburn Rd., Woodbridge.703-441-0840.

Al-Anon Family Group 7 p.m., Trinity Episcopal Church, 9325 West St., Manassas.703-969-2726. al-anon.info.
Edward Nero, left, a Baltimore police officer who was involved in Freddie Gray's arrest, exits the Baltimore City Circuit Court with his attorney, Marc Zayon, after the first day of his trial on May 12. (Mark Makela/Getty Images)

The state of Maryland rested its case Monday against Baltimore police officer Edward M. Nero, who is facing four misdemeanor charges, including assault and reckless endangerment, in connection with the arrest of Freddie Gray last year.

In the trials most anticipated moment, the prosecution called as its final witness one of the other officers charged in the case, Garrett E. Miller. It was the first time that one of the defendants has testified against a fellow officer also facing charges.

Miller and Nero were among the first police officers to come in contact with Gray as the 25-year-old was chased through his West Baltimore neighborhood on April 12, 2015. In his testimony Monday, Miller said Nero didnt touch Gray during the initial arrest, although he did later help load Gray into a police wagon.

Nero is the second of six Baltimore officers to face trial in connection with the arrest, which ended with Gray unconscious in a police van where he had been placed with his hands cuffed behind his back and his legs shackled. Gray died a week later without regaining consciousness, sparking protests and rioting across the city.

Over the course of 2 days, prosecutors called 14 witnesses in an effort to show that even though Gray ran from police, Nero did not have probable cause to arrest him and, thus, the arrest constituted assault. Prosecutors also argued that Nero later endangered Gray by not seat-belting him when he was placed in the police van.

But Neros attorneys pushed back, saying that their client had acted reasonably and within the law. After the prosecution rested its case in front of a packed courtroom that included members of Grays family, defense attorney Marc Zayon requested an immediate acquittal by Judge Barry G. Williams, who will decide Neros fate because the officer opted for a bench trial rather than face a jury. The judge denied Zayons request.

Miller, who was on bike patrol with Nero that day, was forced to testify by prosecutors, with approval from the court. His testimony in Neros trial cannot be used against him when he faces trial on the same charges in July.

During nearly two hours of testimony, Miller told the court that he and Nero became involved when they heard orders from Lt. Brian W. Rice, who is also charged in the case, to begin a chase although neither officer knew why Rice had ordered it.

Miller said he and Gray were startled when they came face to face in an alley. The officer said he chased Gray, holding out his stun gun and shouting Taser, Taser, Taser, get on the ground.

When he and Nero caught up to Gray, he said, the suspect did not resist.

When he heard Taser and saw the other officer, he just gave up, Miller told police investigators in an interview he read from the witness stand.

Prosecutors pressed Miller about Neros involvement in Grays arrest, but Miller testified that he alone arrested and handcuffed Gray although Nero was standing nearby. Neros attorneys had said in opening statements that Nero didnt touch Gray until he asked for his inhaler.

People pass a mural in Baltimore depicting Freddie Gray a year after the protests that were sparked by Gray's death in police custody. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

Courtroom observers differ as to whether the prosecution has been effective in laying out its case to convict Nero.

Miller did more to help the defense today than the state, said Warren S. Alperstein, a former Baltimore City prosecutor who is now a defense attorney and has been closely following the case. He testified unequivocally that Officer Nero played absolutely no role in handcuffing or detaining Freddie Gray.

Alperstein believes that defense attorneys will try to make the case that Nero acted in the same way that any reasonable Baltimore Police Department officer would if they were in Neros shoes.

But University of Maryland law professor Doug Colbert argued that the governments case isnt as weak as some critics have made it out to be.

I think theres a strong legal basis for the prosecution to make a strong argument for conviction, Colbert said. Whats at stake here is that police make many arrests without probable cause and this case allows the potential for reform of the police decision to arrest. You cant just say that because youre a black guy running away in a high-crime area that youre a danger.

During his testimony, Miller responded to questions about how Gray was transported. He acknowledged to lead prosecutor Michael Schatzow that he told police investigators on the day of the arrest that he thought Gray was put on the vans bench.

Miller testified that the police van drove a block away and made a stop. There, he said, he and Rice pulled Gray from the van by his feet. Miller replaced the handcuffs that Gray was wearing with flex cuffs and placed Gray in leg irons.

When Nero and Rice attempted to put Gray back in the van, his body was limp, Miller said.

He was acting like a dead fish? Schatzow asked.

Yes, Miller answered.

Earlier in the day, Joseph McGowan, a bioengineering consultant, testified that Gray died from a diving injury, his body continuing to move forward after his head has hit a hard surface.

The injury was caused either when Gray was lying on the ground and the van stopped suddenly or when he rose to his feet, lost his balance and hit his head against the van wall, according to McGowans analysis.

He testified that it would not have occurred had Gray been restrained in a seat belt.

Williams asked McGowan whether Gray could have suffered his injuries after being seated on the bench, still handcuffed and with his legs shackled.

In his trial last fall, Officer William G. Porter testified that when he checked on Gray partway through the ride, he lifted Gray off the floor and placed him on the bench.

I cant rule out that he could get that injury, McGowan said.

The ambiguity is important, because if Gray was injured after Porter moved him, his defense attorneys can argue that Neros role in placing him face down in the van is irrelevant.

Former Baltimore police commander Timothy Longo, who was the first witness called by the defense, said on the stand that Neros conduct was objectively reasonable based on the circumstances with which he was confronted.

But although Longo said that officers can use discretion and good judgment when it comes to any general order issued by the police commissioner, including an order to seat-belt all detainees, he agreed with Schatzow that it would not be appropriate to ignore those rules.
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will meet this week with prominent conservatives in the media, a spokesman said on Sunday, to address allegations of political bias at the popular social networking site, Reuters reported.

Some 12 "conservative thought leaders" will join the meeting with Zuckerberg on Wednesday, a Facebook spokesman said. Among the invitees are media personality Glenn Beck, Fox News Channel's "The Five" co-host Dana Perino and Zac Moffatt, co-founder of Targeted Victory, a technology company that aims to bring transparency to media buying.

Facebook came under fire last week when an unnamed former employee told technology news website Gizmodo that workers often omitted conservative political stories from the company's "trending" list of topics.

Zuckerberg said Facebook has "found no evidence that this report is true," but would continue to investigate. A U.S. Senate committee has also opened an inquiry into Facebook's practices.

Beck, a former Fox News host, took to Facebook early Sunday to say he is going to the meeting in Menlo Park, California, and "it would be interesting to look him (Zuckerberg) in the eye as he explains."

"While they are a private business and I support their right to run it any way they desire without government interference," Beck said, "it would be wonderful if a tool like face book [sic] INDEPENDENTLY CHOSE to hold up Freedom of speech and freedom of association as a corporate principle."

On Friday, Facebook outlined its "Trending Topics" guidelines in its media relations section and stated that reviewers are neither allowed nor advised to discriminate against sources.

Facebook, now valued at around $350 billion, has become a bigger source of news for its more than 1 billion daily active users. Sixty-three percent of users, or 41 percent of all U.S. adults, say they get news from the site, according to a study last year by the Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation.
Two people were shot and killed in separate incidents Monday afternoon near the center of the Districts Ward 7, an area where this years homicide toll has increased more than threefold from last year at this time.

In the first of Mondays homicides, a man was slain about 1 p.m. in the 4800 block of Texas Avenue SE. Three hours later, a woman was fatally shot a few blocks away in the 100 block of 49th Street SE. Police said they think the two may be connected.

In response to the outbreak of violence, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier went to the ward Monday night to speak and to respond to questions from the news media.

We are horrified by what we saw today, Bowser said, referring to the two Ward 7 homicides and three other shootings elsewhere.

She said that level of violence was not acceptable, and that all the citys resources will be devoted to quelling it.

Also at the session, D.C. Council member Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 7) said, addressing Lanier, that it was necessary to come up with a plan of action.

Our concerns have to be addressed, she said.

Lanier said police had already increased deployments in parts of Ward 7 and were moving resources around rapidly Monday in response to events.

The two homicides, which were no more than five or six blocks apart, occurred near one of the busiest spots in Ward 7, which is almost entirely east of the Anacostia River and includes parts of Northeast and Southeast.

Both killings were near East Capitol Street, Benning Road and the Benning Road Metro station. At least two schools are nearby. One was placed on lockdown.

The Texas Avenue homicide occurred on a driveway between a Valero gas station and an apartment building. Police Cmdr. David Taylor, who heads the Sixth District station, which serves much of Ward 7, said shots were fired during an argument.

A man who said he saw part of the shooting and spoke on the condition of anonymity said he saw two men arguing, heard gunshots, then saw people run out of the alley. He said that he saw the victim on his knees, firing toward Benning Road, before he collapsed and that another man picked up that gun and ran.

The slain man was not identified. He was described only as young.

After the gunfire, tensions rose at the scene. Several people scuffled in a nearby parking lot.

A woman screamed: Thats my baby! Thats my baby laying there! Police set up a blue tarp around the covered body to shield it from view.

The woman killed on 49th Street was shot on the front lawn of a two-story duplex.

Mondays killings were the 19th and 20th homicides in Ward 7 this year, up from six in the ward at this time in 2015. They were the second and third homicides since Friday.

Other incidents of gunfire were reported in the city Monday, but they were not described as fatal.

One of the other shootings Monday occurred in Northwest about 2:40 p.m. when a man was grazed by a bullet outside the Georgia Avenue-Petworth Metro station, police said. The victim ran into the station to get help, and trains briefly bypassed the station during the investigation.

About 3:30 p.m., two men were shot and wounded two blocks apart  in the 1400 block of 22nd Street SE and in the 2000 block of Fairlawn Avenue SE.

The shootings occurred a few blocks from the boundaries of Ward 7. Both victims are expected to survive, police said. A possible fourth nonfatal shooting was being investigated late Monday, according to police.

Justin Wm. Moyer contributed to this report.
Prince Georges County Police released video showing a dump truck that was driven into two police cruisers on Wednesday in the Glenarden area. The driver was arrested after the incident and no officers were injured. (Prince George's County Police)

Prince Georges County Police released video showing a dump truck that was driven into two police cruisers on Wednesday in the Glenarden area. The driver was arrested after the incident and no officers were injured. (Prince George's County Police)

A man who barreled toward police officers in a dump truck after he mistakenly thought they had killed his brother will receive treatment at a mental-health facility instead of going to jail.

Gene Thomas Brandon Jr., 32, pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted first-degree murder last week for the incident in which he is captured on video driving the truck toward two Prince Georges County police officers before smashing their cruisers.

Brandon, who authorities say has a history of mental illness, was found not criminally responsible for his actions, Marylands equivalent of an insanity defense, according to a statement from the Prince Georges states attorneys office.

[Man who attacked officers with dump truck has mental issues, Pr. Georges police say]

We are pleased that Mr. Brandon has been held accountable for his actions and that he will remain off our streets while also receiving the mental-health treatment he needs, Prince Georges County States Attorney Angela Alsobrooks said in a statement.

Brandons attorney, David Simpson, said that keeping his client out of jail was absolutely the appropriate result in this case.

He was just suffering from a situation where he believed his brother was killed when his brother wasnt even harmed at all, Simpson said. The Maryland state hospital determined that, given his history, Brandon was not able to conform his behavior to what society believes is necessary.

[Police: Dump truck driver in custody after intentionally hitting 2 cruisers in Md.]

Brandon, of Aquasco, Md., was in the parking lot of a shopping center in Glenarden when he pulled up to Officers Jeffrey Brag and Rodney Lauchman. Brandon told the officers they killed his brother, but the officers said that wasnt the case and asked him to move his truck to avoid blocking traffic.

After a second confrontation, Brandon made a U-turn in the parking lot, accelerated and drove toward the officers, who ran to avoid being struck before the truck crashed into the cruisers.

The officers detained Brandon without incident after the truck stopped.
Prince Georges County police are investigating the fatal shooting of a man in Temple Hills as a homicide.

Officers responded to a reported shooting about 3:15 p.m. Monday in the 7100 block of Temple Hills Road and found a man who had been shot, police said.

The man, whose identity has not been released, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police have not discussed a motive or released information on possible suspects.

Authorities are asking anyone with information about the case to call 1-866-411-TIPS. A $25,000 reward is available for information leading to an arrest and indictment, and callers can remain anonymous.
Asian tiger mosquitoes  the most common species of mosquito in the D.C. area and a species found to carry Zika in other countries  stay within 150 feet of where they hatch and prefer to stick close to homes, where they can feed on humans and pets. They are most active during the day.

[Onset of mosquito season in D.C. region prompts fears of Zika]

Here is what experts recommend to protect yourself from mosquitoes and prevent the spread of Zika:

 Pay close attention to standing water outside. Empty rain water from flower pots, toys, folds in tarps, even upturned garbage can lids. Mosquitoes can lay more than 100 eggs in as little as a bottle cap of water.

 Rid gutters and downspout extenders of standing water. Mosquito dunks  small disks carried by hardware stores  will kill mosquito larvae in areas where it is difficult to remove all of the water, such as the bend in downspouts.

 Make sure windows and doors have screens, and check them for holes.

 Talk to neighbors within 150 feet about paying close attention to standing water outdoors. Their mosquitoes could become your mosquitoes.

 Pregnant women should stay in air-conditioned places as much as possible and wear long sleeves and pants outside.

 Everyone, including pregnant women, should wear mosquito repellent regularly, particularly during the day when the Asian tiger mosquito is most active.

For other tips, including how to prevent sexual transmission of Zika, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website at: cdc.gov/zika/prevention.

Katherine Shaver

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Washington-area health agencies
A gender neutral sign is posted outside a bathroom in Durham, N.C., where a new law is intended to dictate which bathrooms transgender people can use. (Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)

Tyler is 9 years old, and he cant fathom the transgender bathroom debate raging across the country.

There are lots of other problems in the world, the Maryland third-grader said. Like world pollution. War. People who are hungry. I think its mostly stupid to care about where I go to the bathroom.

Tyler was born a girl but started insisting he was a boy at age 2. He has used the boys bathroom at school for years now. If he were to go to North Carolina, hed be required to use the bathroom matching the sex on his birth certificate or hed be breaking the law.

But I dont use the girls bathroom, he explained.

Ive been writing about Tyler  using his middle name to protect his identity  since he was 5.

[Transgender at five]

For transgender kids like Tyler and for their families, the breakneck social progress theyve made in the past few years feels like it just hit a brick wall with this bathroom furor.

I was kind of shocked by this, said Tylers mother, Jean. I had no idea that in some places, this would be an issue. Now I have to check the laws before we travel.

And just when she was about to loosen the grip on her safe file, the folder of all her sons paperwork, including the doctors diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the prescription for Tylers issues: Let him live like a boy.

She carried that file everywhere they went because there was always the fear that some innocent action, such as using a bathroom, could turn into a social services case. Now the safe file wont protect them in some states.

Still, the world has become far more accepting of Tyler in the four years since he announced his new gender to his Sunday School class. There have been hundreds of articles, news segments, magazine covers and even television shows about transgender people.

The people at the doctors office dont even blink now when Jean checks Tyler in, and she explains that hes trans when the insurance card says hes a girl.

He goes to public school now. His parents have stopped worrying about what to tell families at playdates. The monthly support group for transgender children they founded has ballooned to more than 30 families.

The bathroom? Its no biggie. Tyler has been using the boys bathroom and the boys locker room for years and simply uses a stall, like any shy kid would.

Every year, his parents sit him down for The Talk.

Are you sure everything is okay? Youre happy? We switched once, we can switch back if youre uncomfortable, they say.

Tyler rolls his eyes. What are you talking about? he asks them. Im a boy.

[Transgender at 8: Tyler remains certain hes a boy]

He doesnt even want to talk about being transgender. Can he go play Minecraft now? he demands.

Really, at this point, its become such a small part of who he is, Jean said.

So its deeply disappointing that where their child pees has become an issue in the presidential election.

I feel like all the talk about bathrooms has made some people downright hateful, Jean said.

Those who object to transgender people using the bathroom of their choice frame it as a privacy and safety issue. But Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch sees it differently. Last week she announced that the Justice Department would sue her home state of North Carolina for stigmatizing the transgendered, who are already the frequent targets of hate crimes.

Youve been told that this law protects vulnerable populations from harm  but that just is not the case, Lynch said. Instead, what this law does is inflict further indignity on a population that has already suffered far more than its fair share. This law provides no benefit to society  all it does is harm innocent Americans.

Lynch put the issue in perspective, reminding people that state-sanctioned discrimination never looks good in hindsight.

Tylers family is hoping that those are the words people remember.

Im sort of glad this debate is happening now, when hes still at home, and I can protect him a little more, Jean said. And in some ways, its helped us. Intelligent people who were on the fence about this probably came over to our side because this law seems so ridiculous and hateful.

Listen to Tyler, people. There are more important issues this election season than debating which bathroom he should use.

Twitter: @petulad
NATIONAL SECURITY

2 extradited in shooting of ICE agents

Two men accused of killing one U.S. immigration agent and wounding another in Mexico have been extradited to the United States, bringing the total charged in the 2011 incident to seven, U.S. authorities announced Monday.

Jesus Ivan Quezada Pina, 28, a.k.a. Loco, and Alfredo Gaston Mendoza Hernandez, 33, a.k.a. Camaron and Burger, both of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, made their first appearance in federal court in Washington as officials unsealed charges of murder and attempted murder in a four-count indictment from May 2013 in the death of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata, U.S. officials said.

Zapata was fatally shot during an ambush on a highway near San Luis Potosi in north-central Mexico on Feb. 15, 2011. Another ICE special agent, Victor Avila, was wounded but survived.

Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the defendants held without bail pending further hearings.

U.S. authorities in May 2013 announced guilty pleas by Zetas cartel commander Julian Zapata Espinoza, 35, known as El Piolin, for leading the attack, and three other members of two alleged drug-cartel hit squads on related charges. All face up to life in prison and await sentencing.

 Spencer S. Hsu

MISSISSIPPI

Schools told to merge to achieve integration

A federal judge has ordered Mississippis Cleveland school district to merge its high schools and middle schools to achieve racial desegregation.

U.S. District Judge Debra Brown handed down the ruling late Friday, nearly a year after she held a week-long hearing on the subject.

The Justice Department had sought the merger, saying Cleveland was illegally maintaining high schools and middle schools that were racially identifiable as black or white.

Local leaders opposed combining the schools, saying they feared white parents in the Mississippi Delta district would flee to private schools.

 Associated Press

4 killed in Miss. plane crash: Four people died Monday when a small plane crashed near Tupelo Regional Airport in Mississippi. The pilot and three passengers all died when the single-engine plane crashed in a field adjoining the Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo. Lee County officials did not immediately release the names of the dead.

Human intrusion leads to bison calfs death at Yellowstone park: Yellowstone National Park managers on Monday warned visitors to leave wildlife alone after two tourists put a newborn bison calf in their car, touching off a string of events that led to the animals death. The visitors came across the baby bison alone last week and decided to drive the calf to a park facility, unaware that interference with newborn animals could cause their mothers to reject them, park managers said. Yellowstone rangers repeatedly tried to reunite the calf with the herd but those efforts failed. Ultimately, the abandoned calf was euthanized because it repeatedly approached people and cars along the roadway, raising safety concerns, officials said.

Former Honduran presidents son pleads guilty to drug charge: The son of former Honduran president Porfirio Lobo pleaded guilty Monday to a cocaine trafficking conspiracy charge, admitting that he teamed up with drug traffickers and Honduran police to try to ship cocaine into the United States. Fabio Lobo, 44, confessed in Manhattan federal court to a conspiracy that stretched from 2009 to 2014, nearly matching the years when his father served as president from 2010 to 2014. Lobos sentencing was set for Sept. 15.

 From news services
Colombian national police confiscated 8 metric tons of cocaine along the border with Panama, the government said on Sunday, in what may be one of the largest seizures in the country in recent years, Reuters reported.

The haul, with an estimated value of $240 million, was discovered in an underground hideaway on a banana plantation in the municipality of Turbo in Antioquia department, officials said.

"The biggest seizure of drugs in history. A hit against criminals," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Twitter.

Three people were arrested in the operation.

Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said the drugs belonged to the Clan Usuga crime gang. The United States has offered a $5 million reward for the capture of the gang's leader.

Colombia produces some 442 tonnes of cocaine annually, according to the United Nations. Colombian authorities seized 252 tonnes of the narcotic in 2015.
IRAQ

Attack on gas plant, bombings kill 29

The Islamic State militant group launched a coordinated assault on a natural gas plant north of Baghdad that killed at least 14 people, while bombings in or close to the capital killed 15 others, Iraqi officials said.

The attack on the gas plant started at dawn with a suicide car bomber hitting the facilitys main gate in the town of Taji. Then several other attackers broke into the plant and clashed with security forces, an official said, adding that 27 troops were wounded.

Closed-circuit television images showed the moment when an explosion hit inside the facility. As flames engulfed the plant and nearby palm trees, pedestrians were seen running for cover. Sections of the plant were left in ruins.

In a statement, Deputy Oil Minister Hamid Younis said firefighters managed to control and extinguish the fire.

Elsewhere, four bombings left 15 people dead and 46 wounded in the fifth straight day of Islamic State attacks in and around the capital. Since Wednesday, more than 140 people have been killed in bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere.

The wave of attacks comes as Iraqi ground forces have achieved key territorial victories against the Islamic State.

 Associated Press

YEMEN

Suicide attack outside police base kills 25

A suicide bomber on Sunday detonated his explosives among police officers standing in line outside a police base in the southern Yemeni city of Mukalla, killing 25, security and health officials said. At least 17 people were injured.

The Yemeni affiliate of the Islamic State asserted responsibility for the attack in a statement posted online by the extremist groups sympathizers.

The police officers killed Sunday were returning to work for the first time since last months recapture of Mukalla by forces loyal to the internationally recognized government. The port city had been held for more than a year by Yemens al-Qaeda affiliate.

The victims also included young men applying for jobs with the local police, according to the officials.

The Islamic State has been trying to gain a foothold in Yemen, where a war pitting Houthi Shiite rebels against President Abed Rabbo Mansours government, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition, has left a security vacuum in parts of the country.

The U.N. special envoy to Yemen said Sunday that the warring parties agreed to an exchange of 50 percent of prisoners and detainees held by both sides before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, expected around June 6.

 Associated Press

SYRIA

Students leave besieged areas to take exams

The Syrian government allowed hundreds of students to leave two besieged areas near Damascus to take their year-end exams over the weekend, even as other suburbs of the capital came under fierce attack.

On Saturday and Sunday, government forces allowed about 360 students from the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Moadamiya and 68 students from the rebel-held town of Madaya to travel to government areas for their high school exams, according to activists and state media.

Both Moadamiya and Madaya are besieged by government forces, who have allowed relief groups only limited access  despite reports that civilians have died from starvation and lack of medical care.

But even as besieged Moadamiya was permitted to send students to take exams, neighboring Darayya  another suburb under siege  was attacked with missiles presumed to be from government forces, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

 Associated Press

Alberta releases fire damage surveillance app: Albertas provincial government has released an app that will give residents of Canadas wildfire-ravaged Fort McMurray a good look at their properties. Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Danielle Larivee said the app is intended to provide satellite overviews of the city in the wake of the massive wildfire, which ignited almost two weeks ago, forcing more than 80,000 residents to evacuate and destroying more than 2,400 structures in Fort McMurray.

Bangladesh makes arrest in gay activists killing: Police in Bangladesh said they have arrested a suspected Muslim militant in the killing last month of a gay rights activist and his friend. Police identified the suspect as a former member of the banned Islamist group Harkat ul-Jihad. They said he joined another militant group in mid-2015. The victim, Xulhaz Mannan, was a gay rights activist who worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Atheists, moderates and foreigners have been the targets of several recent attacks in Bangladesh.

Supporters of ethnic minority protest in Nepal: Hundreds of supporters of a minority ethnic group scuffled with police in Nepals capital, restarting protests against the government and the nations new constitution. The protesters blocked a main street leading to the prime ministers office in Kathmandu and chanted slogans. The demonstrators, led by the Madhesi minority group, are demanding changes in the constitution adopted last year, including more local autonomy. Their protests from September to February resulted in the deaths of more than 50 people, and their blocking of key points along the border with India caused severe supply shortages.

24 pilot whales die after beaching in Baja California: Two dozen pilot whales have died after beaching themselves on Mexicos Baja California Peninsula despite efforts to move them into deeper waters. Mexicos navy said in a statement that its personnel worked with soldiers, agents of the Environment Ministry and local fishermen in an attempt to save the whales on the western shore of the Gulf of California. It said that only three of the 27 that came ashore were saved. Some returned to the beach after being led into deeper waters. The statement speculates that the mammals were disoriented.

 From news services
COLOMBIA

Cocaine seizure said

to be countrys largest

Authorities in Colombia said this week that they have made the biggest cocaine seizure in the history of their country, long plagued by traffic in the drug.

Police said 50 commandos backed by helicopters seized about eight tons of cocaine on a banana plantation in the northwestern state of Antioquia.

It said the drug belonged to a gang known as the Clan Usuga and was apparently destined for the United States by way of the Caribbean.

President Juan Manuel Santos sent a tweet congratulating police on what he called the largest cocaine seizure in the history of Colombia, one of the worlds biggest producers of the narcotic. Colombian police said they have seized more than 86 tons this year.

Seizures of that size are rare but not unprecedented on a global scale. In March 2007, the U.S. Coast Guard seized nearly 20 tons of cocaine found on a cargo ship headed from the Panama Canal to the Mexican port of Topolobampo.

Six years earlier, the Coast Guard found 13 tons of the drug aboard a Belize-flagged fishing boat.

 Associated Press

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Incumbent poised to win, early results show

Dominican President Danilo Medina appeared to be heading toward a second straight term as preliminary returns showed him with a strong enough lead to avoid a runoff with his closest rival.

The Central Electoral Commission reported Monday that the incumbent led with about 62 percent of the vote. His nearest opponent, businessman Luis Abinader, had 35 percent. The numbers were based on an electronic tabulation from nearly 60 percent of polling stations.

Participation in Sundays election topped 60 percent, with voters in the country and at expatriate polling sites choosing all 222 seats in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies as well as local offices.

Polls going into the election had pointed to Medina as the likely winner in the presidential race. His Dominican Labor Party has won four of the past five presidential elections and has controlled Congress for a decade.

The incumbent benefited from a weak and divided opposition and an economy that grew 7 percent last year, better than any other country in Latin America or the Caribbean.

 Associated Press

IRAN

Models posing without headscarves targeted

Police in Iran have arrested eight people in a crackdown targeting un-Islamic acts online such as female models posting images of themselves without their hair covered, state media reported Monday, part of a larger cultural struggle in the country over its future.

The arrests follow the detentions of artists, poets, journalists and activists as moderate President Hassan Rouhanis administration secured a landmark nuclear deal with world powers in July.

The arrests signal that hard-liners in the police force and the judiciary, who were unable to stop the accord, still hold significant power in the country.

State television said the latest operation particularly targeted users of the Instagram picture-sharing application.

The TV report said police identified about 170 people in the operation through social media activity as being involved in modeling, including 58 models and 59 photographers.

It said those targeted saw their businesses shut down, as well as their pages on Instagram and Facebook removed.

The model crackdown is just the latest move by authorities to control online expression in Iran. In May 2014, authorities arrested a group of young Iranian men and women over an online video of them dancing to Pharrell Williamss song Happy.

 Associated Press

2nd Mexican judge approves El Chapo extradition: A second Mexican judge has ruled that the extradition of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman to the United States can go forward. The process still awaits approval of Mexicos Foreign Ministry, and it can be appealed. The judges decision was in response to an extradition request from a federal court in Texas. Last week, another judge made the same determination on an extradition request from a federal court in California. Guzman faces charges from seven U.S. federal prosecutors.

27 reported killed in strikes on Islamic State: A Turkish news agency said Turkish shelling and airstrikes by the U.S.-led military coalition killed 27 Islamic State militants in Syria. Citing military sources, the state-run Anadolu Agency said the militants were killed as they were about to fire rockets toward Turkey. The Turkish border town of Kilis has been pummeled in recent months by rocket fire from Islamic State-held territory in Syria.

17 killed, 4 missing in Indonesia floods: Rescuers found the bodies of 17 people who were among 20 university students and two guides who went missing in rain-triggered floods and landslides at a popular waterfall in western Indonesia, an official said. One student was found alive, said an official from the local disaster management agency. The disaster occurred Sunday as more than 70 students were visiting the Dua Warna waterfall in Sibolangit in North Sumatra province.

Jamaica convicts U.S. tourist on gun charges: Police in Jamaica said an American tourist has been convicted of gun charges after an undeclared pistol was found in her luggage. Police identified the woman as Nikki Adams, a 33-year-old from Georgia. She has been ordered to pay roughly $9,000 in fines or do 18 months of hard labor in a Jamaican lockup. Customs officials at an island airport found a Taurus pistol in her suitcase.

 From news services
In February, when Rep. David Jolly introduced his quixotic plan to ban members of Congress from soliciting campaign contributions, the Florida Republican had only six co-sponsors.

Then, three weeks ago, 60 Minutes did a sympathetic piece on Jollys idea, giving national attention to the scandal of lawmakers spending 30 or more hours a week dialing for dollars.

And now? The number of co-sponsors on Jollys bill has jumped from six all the way up to  um, eight. No senator has come forward with similar legislation.

Jolly, appearing Monday morning at the National Press Club with his lead Democratic co-sponsor, Rep. Rick Nolan (Minn.), was not surprised. Weve got six more co-sponsors than I thought we might have, he said. Its a heartbreaking reflection on what the priorities of the Congress are. . . . A members political survival depends on raising money  thats the reality.

Jolly speaks the truth. Lawmakers know what needs to be done to clean up the corrupt system  but nothing happens.

Democrats talk about overturning the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision allowing corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums on politics. But that ultimate fix isnt happening soon. In the House, Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) has recruited 160 co-sponsors for his system of public financing of elections  another good idea  but so far he has only one Republican, gadfly Walter Jones (N.C.). Republicans remain reflexively opposed to reform, including the idea of disclosure, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) once championed.

This is why Jollys idea deserves a look. He calls it congressional reform, not campaign-finance reform. The goal: to get lawmakers to spend more time lawmaking. Were here three days a week, and half your time is spent raising money, he said. In the face of growing crises around the globe, youve got a part-time Congress. This, he said, is a first-rate scandal.

Ive argued for other ways to get lawmakers to spend more time working  returning to the five-day week, cutting travel allowances, ending the corrosive practice of members targeting each other for defeat through party committees. Jolly, now a Senate candidate in Florida, offers another tack.

The Republican Party is predictably opposed. The National Republican Congressional Committee, in a letter to CBS after the 60 Minutes segment, accused Jolly of peddling fiction when he said party officials told him he had to raise $18,000 a day.

Unfortunately, liberals have piled on. Campaign-finance reformer Fred Wertheimer told me the idea is not going to solve the problem, because those working for the members could still solicit funds. Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor, wrote a piece in the Orlando Sentinel calling Jollys bill a cynical example of fraudulent reform because all that would change is that congressmen wouldnt have to do the dirty work.

But while Jolly can be accused of election-year gimmickry, he voluntarily refused to solicit contributions for his Senate run. And though the bill wouldnt by itself solve the campaign-finance mess, it could help to improve the woeful political culture in other ways.

Jollys Democratic sidekick, Nolan, said that when he first served in Congress in the 1970s, lawmakers worked full weeks, giving them time to develop respect for one another and to find common ground.

Republican David Jolly won a tightly fought race for Florida's 13th Congressional District on Tuesday. Here's why he eked out a winner over Democrat Alex Sink. (Jeff Simon/The Washington Post)

If youve already consumed 40, 50 hours of the week in travel and fundraising, theres not a lot of time left over for governing, and were seeing the results of that, he said. Were looking at the last couple of sessions of the Congress of the United States as being the most unproductive in the history of the country. Why? Well, if everybodys busy campaigning and raising money, theres no time for governing.

The little support Jolly has gained for the idea comes largely from Florida, home to three of his eight co-sponsors, including Democrat Alan Grayson, also a Senate candidate. A Democratic congressional candidate in Florida, businessman Randy Perkins, went one step further, announcing he would stop soliciting or accepting financial contributions.

But Jolly, a former lobbyist and longtime staffer to the late congressman C.W. Bill Young, continues to agitate. He said hes not paying his $400,000 in dues to the NRCC, and he said I dont buy the notion that he needs more sponsors before House leadership grants a hearing on his bill.

Jolly is a potential ally of Democrats on campaign-finance reform, saying that Citizens United could be revisited and that we can do better. Until then, surely more lawmakers on both sides can see the virtue of his cause. You think you get elected to represent 700,000 people, he said. But you actually got elected to be one more marble on our side of the aisle to keep the majority, and to do that youve got to go raise $2 million  and that makes members angry.

Or at least it should.

Twitter: @Milbank

Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Blaming President Obama for the rise of Donald Trump is popular among Republican leaders. They dont want to take responsibility for the choices made by their own voters or their complicity in tolerating and even encouraging the extremism Trump represents.

They also dont want to face the fact that many Trump ballots were aimed at them.

It should be said that many conservatives are resisting the Blame-Obama-First temptation by trying to come to terms with what has happened to their cause. National Reviews Ramesh Ponnuru offered an admirably sober assessment of his sides role in Trumps emergence that included this observation: We have come to reward the expression of resentment and anger more than the mastery of public policy.

This is an accurate and powerful critique of a movement that once claimed to have all the new ideas.

Now their main insight is that Obama is wrong about everything. The Wall Street Journal drew on dialectical thinking to editorialize on the Obama-leads-to-Trump concept: Every thesis creates its antithesis.

Just last Friday, Barry Sternlicht, a big-time investor, said on CNBCs Squawk Box that Obama basically apologized for us on the world stage, and that Americans are tired of apologizing. Trump, he explained, has tapped into a deep vein, the desire of the United States to win.

Now, its true that every president ends up with responsibility in some way for everything that goes awry on his (or, someday soon perhaps, her) watch. And you can make a case that Democrats, in the brief period under Obama when they held a filibuster-proof Senate majority  they lost it, remember, in January 2010, after Ted Kennedys death  should have done more to stimulate the economy, lift working-class incomes and thus reduce the level of anger in parts of the electorate.

But whats maddening here is not just the incongruity of indicting Obama for the success of the man who denied his very right to be president. Its also that Obama has consistently stood for the things that conservatives say they want liberals to stand for  starting with a robust patriotism.

No one who heard Obamas 2015 speech in Selma, Ala., could doubt his belief that the United States is a special place, strong enough to be self-critical and thus capable of extraordinary moments of self-improvement and self-correction.

But it goes beyond this. Obamas commencement address this month at Howard University, which has received less attention than it deserved, was a compendium of arguments that conservatives have wanted to hear.

Conservatives worry that liberals, on university campuses and elsewhere, are inclined to shut down speech they disagree with. Well, Obama is worried, too.

Theres been a trend around the country of trying to get colleges to disinvite speakers with a different point of view, or disrupt a politicians rally, Obama said. Dont do that  no matter how ridiculous or offensive you might find the things that come out of their mouths. . . . If the other side has a point, learn from them. If theyre wrong, rebut them. Teach them. Beat them on the battlefield of ideas.

President Obama delivered the commencement address for Rutgers University on Sunday, May 15. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)

Dont conservatives want to argue that to deny racial progress is to ignore whats happened over the past 50 years? Obama thinks this, too.

Let me say something that may be controversial, and that is this: America is a better place today than it was when I graduated from college. . . . If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, young, gifted, and black in America, you would choose right now.

To deny how far weve come would do a disservice to the cause of justice, to the legions of foot soldiers . . . your mothers and your dads, and grandparents and great-grandparents, who marched and toiled and suffered and overcame to make this day possible.

Conservatives regularly criticize self-righteous moralism on the part of progressives. Well, Obama insisted that change requires more than righteous anger. It requires a program, and it requires organizing. . . . In particular, it requires listening to those with whom you disagree, and being prepared to compromise.

Listening to those with whom you disagree. Now there is a bracing idea at a moment when the politician getting all the media attention is famous for attaching nasty adjectives to the names of his opponents and urging his followers to strong-arm dissident voices out of his rallies.

Blaming Obama for that guy is like condemning someone whos trying to stop the fight for starting it. Its sad. Very weak, too.

Read more from E.J. Dionnes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Monday is the 100th anniversary of something called the Sykes-Picot agreement, an occasion that has touched off a small frenzy of Washington think-tank conferences and journal articles  not to mention Islamic State manifestos. Mark Sykes and Francois Georges Picot were diplomats from Britain and France, respectively, who agreed on a secret plan to partition the collapsing Ottoman Empire. The result, after a few more years of imperialist machinations, was the creation of Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon  the heart of what is now the bloody chaos of the modern Middle East.

The anniversary has become an occasion for debate about what could or should be made of that mess, once the Islamic State  for which Sykes-Picot has become an unlikely rhetorical touchstone  is militarily defeated. Should Iraq and Syria retain their current borders and centralized political systems, which have the effect of lumping together Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and smaller ethnic groups that have been at war with each other off and on for centuries? What about Lebanon, whose elaborate power-sharing arrangements have produced a seemingly intractable political gridlock?

Not surprisingly, reasonable people differ on these questions. One broad current of opinion says Iraq and Syria must be preserved as nation-states. The two countries, it is said, were distinct and often competing entities long before Sykes-Picot; their people have developed national allegiances over the past century that transcend sect; and anyway, attempting to redraw the borders would create more problems that it would solve. There is no way to divide borders and create homogenous states, writes American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin. To even try is to conduct ethnic and sectarian cleansing.

Another school says its folly to suppose that either country can be patched back together. The leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan appear determined to push toward independence, though they differ on whether to do it slowly or quickly. Iraq is a conceptual failure, compelling peoples with little in common to share an uncertain future, wrote the head of Kurdistans security council, Masrour Barzani, in a recent op-ed in The Post. For its part, the Islamic State has made the erasure of the border between Syria and Iraq  which divides two majority-Sunni regions  one of its central ideological tenets.

Some Arab leaders and thinkers say the West should stay out of this debate  Mr. Sykes and Mr. Picot and their colonializing descendants, up to and including George W. Bush, have done more than enough damage, they say. Others contend the region can be stabilized only by a foreign intervention  not another Western invasion, but maybe a U.N. trusteeship, like those that managed several pieces of postwar Yugoslavia. The traditional solutions for this region will not work, argues the Egyptian human rights activist Bahey eldin Hassan. Some states are not qualified for now for their own people to run the country.

The Obama administration, for its part, has embraced the keep out imperative. Its mind-set is to define our interests very narrowly and focus very aggressively on achieving those interests, Obamas envoy to the region, Brett McGurk, recently told Robin Wright of the New Yorker. In Iraq that has meant investing heavily in the survival of the central government and its weak prime minister, Haider al-Abadi. The hope is that Abadi will provide just enough political cover for the U.S.-led reconstruction of just enough of the Iraqi army to retake Mosul, Iraqs second-largest city, with the help of the Kurds.

In Syria, Secretary of State John F. Kerry indefatigably pursues the mirage of a transitional government that would somehow unite the genocidal Assad regime with its victims. The diplomacy is a fig leaf that Obama uses to rationalize a refusal to support more consequential action to remove Bashar al-Assad while patching together an ad hoc Arab-Kurdish force to advance toward Raqqa, the Islamic State capital.

The problem with this minimalist approach is that it has obstructed the emergence of a genuinely workable consensus about the future of the two countries. Though the U.S.-orchestrated military campaign could, within the next year or so, effectively destroy the Islamic State by recapturing Mosul and Raqqa, theres no realistic plan for the borders of political structures that would replace it. That, in turn, makes some potential contributors to the offensive, such as the Kurds, reluctant to go forward. Obamas refusal to engage politically thus makes even his narrow objectives unachievable.

Outside the administration, not many people believe Iraq and Syria can survive in their present form. At a minimum, they will have to become loose federations, like Bosnia after the Yugoslav wars. Who will devise those solutions, and how will they be brought into being? On that, this U.S. president is punting  which means the would-be successors to Sykes and Picot must wait for another year.

Read more from Jackson Diehls archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Regarding the May 9 editorial Dangerous rocks:

Huangyan Dao, or Scarborough Shoal, is Chinese territory and was not seized from another country. The 1898 Treaty of Paris, the 1900 Treaty of Washington and the 1930 Convention Between the United States and Great Britain give the western limit of Philippine territory as 118 east longitude, reaffirmed by the Philippine Constitution in 1935. Chinas islands and reefs in the South China Sea, including Huangyan Dao, are all west of that line.

By not accepting or participating in the arbitration unilaterally initiated by the Philippines, China is acting in accordance with international law. In 2006, the Chinese government exercised its right under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and made a declaration that excludes compulsory arbitration. More than 30 countries have made similar declarations.

China supports and advocates for the dual track approach initiated by Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries to handle the South China Sea issue. China and ASEAN will work together to maintain peace and stability in the region while disputes are resolved through negotiations and consultations between states concerned.

The United States has no territorial claim in the South China Sea and should not become a dangerous rock in the region. We hope the United States will help foster a favorable environment for dialogue and negotiation. U.S. alliances should not infringe on Chinas sovereignty and legitimate rights.

Encouraging the United States to flex its muscles is dangerous and counterproductive. It will be viewed by some countries as a blank check to embolden their own provocative actions, undermining diplomatic efforts and further escalating tension.

Zhu Haiquan, Washington

The writer is press counselor and spokesman for the Chinese Embassy.

 Beijing scrambles fighter jets after U.S. warship nears island [news, May 11] stated, Two years ago, Fiery Cross Reef was little more than a cluster of rocks. The reef was the first of the Spratly Islands occupied by China, which went on to occupy about nine islets; Vietnam holds more than 20.

In the 1988 battle for Fiery Cross Reef between China and Vietnam, about 75 Vietnamese personnel were killed or reported missing, and three Vietnamese ships were set ablaze. Chinese casualties were not reported. Given this history, the U.S. navigational challenge near Fiery Cross Reef is probably viewed more provocatively by China than transit near another of its outposts. Western powers, including the United States, used warships and gunboat diplomacy to carve up imperial China in the 19th century. The Chinese remain especially sensitive to naval threats.

When China ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1996, it declared that its provisions concerning innocent passage would not prejudice Chinas right to require advance approval or prior notification for foreign warships. Several other countries made similar declarations, maintaining that a warship by its very nature has no right of innocent passage. The United States, which has not ratified the convention, views innocent passage as a customary right of warships under international law. Also, aircraft have no right of innocent passage. They may not fly over another countrys territory or territorial sea. The historical and legal issues in the South China Sea are more complex than suggested.

Daniel Dzurek, Washington
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Anakhanum Idayatova - Trend:

The EU-Turkey negotiations on the visa-free regime are extremely rocky, Theodore Karasik, analyst on the Middle East and senior advisor at Gulf State Analytics,Washington DC, told Trend May 16.

Karasik said that while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees progress in the issue, the EU is noting Turkey's own domestic situation, which is frightening the investors.

"The EU doesn't need a 'sick man of Europe', so Brussels is trying to work a deal with Ankara," said the expert.

Karasik also believes that the EU-Ankara talks on the visa-free regime will be a continuous disappointment.

Earlier, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU may introduce a visa-free regime with Turkey in the autumn 2016 if Ankara implements all the necessary requirements.

Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that a full membership in the EU continues to remain a priority for Turkey.

An association agreement between the EU and Turkey was signed in 1963. Ankara filed an application for the EU membership in 1987, but the negotiations on Ankara's accession to the EU started only in 2005.

----

Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
In 1995, two individuals alleged sexual abuse by Father Robert Hopkins in the 1970s.

In 1999, an individual alleged sexual abuse by Father Timothy Murphy in the late 1960s to early 1970s.

In 2002, an individual alleged sexual abuse in the mid-1970s by Dennis Pecore, who was then a religious brother.

ON AND ON it goes. These accounts, and several dozen others like them, now appear on the website of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, which recently published a list  or rather, republished one from 2002 with 14 additional names  of clergy alleged to have abused children. Similar lists have been published by other dioceses, which in recent years have taken steps to atone for years of sweeping such cases under the rug by adopting more forthcoming policies and providing counseling to victims of abusive priests.

The church says the publication of these names will provide acknowledgment to victims that they are not alone. By seeing their abusers publicly identified and shamed, victims may be empowered to find out that other people have alleged against the same person, according to Sean Caine, spokesman for the archdiocese.

Thats a fair point but an inadequate one. For while the archdiocese is extending one sort of validation to victims, its simultaneously pressing to deny most of them another sort: the opportunity to seek redress in the courts.

For years, even as it acknowledged having systematically enabled and covered up the abuse of children by priests, the church has also fought aggressively to maintain tight deadlines that limit the time in which survivors may file lawsuits against abusers and superiors who looked the other way.

In Maryland, the church, fearing the financial fallout of such suits, has lobbied so effectively that bills to extend the deadline, known as the statute of limitations, have not even been accorded a vote in the legislature. The result for the great majority of victims is that by the time they speak up about the abuse they suffered  typically, many years after the fact, as the examples at the top of this editorial illustrate  they no longer have the option of filing a lawsuit, which now ends at age 25. Youthful victims of abuse, whether in schools, churches or teams, must be given more leeway to seek justice, including compensation for the harm they have suffered.

The church argues that abusers are ill-equipped to defend themselves when alleged victims level their accusations many years after the fact; it cites fading memories, unreliable witnesses and fragile evidence. Yet Maryland, like most states, has no such deadline limiting when abusers can be criminally prosecuted. Just as in criminal cases, civil juries are qualified to judge the strength of a victims allegations and a defendants response.

Its possible that the stigma of abuse may start to fade as a result of the publicity to which clergy sex abuse has been exposed. If victims come forward more quickly, owing to the Academy Award-winning film Spotlight and intensified public discussion of abuse, that would be a good thing. In the meantime, justice for victims must include the option of litigation  even if that proves costly for the Catholic Church and other institutions.
Mount Vernon Woods Elementary School kindergarten teacher Cynthia Walker guides her future charges during the orientation for incoming students and their families on May 5, 2015. (Tin Nguyen/Fairfax County Times)

John King is U.S. education secretary.

One of my top priorities as education secretary is to help our public schools serve the needs of our increasingly diverse students so that they have the opportunity to pursue the American dream and use their talents to help our nation tackle some of its most difficult problems.

To achieve this goal, we need a teaching force that is as diverse as our students. More and more research shows that diversity isnt just a nicety  its a real contributor to better outcomes in our schools, workplaces and communities. But while students of color are now a majority in our schools, teachers of color make up only 18 percent of their faculties. Unless we do something as a country, demographic projections show that this mismatch is likely to get worse.

To address this, we need to encourage a wider array of young people to consider teaching as a career, prepare them to meet the learning needs of their diverse students and actively recruit and hire them. But we also must do more to ensure that, once hired, they will stay.

Research conducted recently by the American Federation of Teachers found that, while more teachers of color are being hired than in the past, they also are leaving the profession more quickly than white teachers.

Improved compensation and working conditions can help address this, of course. But one factor in teachers decisions to leave deserves special attention: the invisible tax.

According to some African American male teachers, the invisible tax is imposed on them when they are the only or one of only a few nonwhite male educators in the building. It is paid, for example, when these teachers, who make up only 2 percent of the teaching force nationally, are expected to serve as school disciplinarians based on an assumption that they will be better able to communicate with African American boys with behavior issues.

It is also paid when they have to be on high alert to prepare their students for racism outside of school. Every time I take my students to an engineering competition, or to speak with industry partners, or to tour colleges, I have to have the code-switching talk, explained Harry Preston, an African American physics teacher in Baltimore. That is a mental tax I personally pay as an educator.

And it is paid when teachers of color are seen as the experts on any question of cultural diversity.

The tax takes a toll on teachers time. Building and maintaining relationships with students across an entire school adds to their already busy schedules as teachers. It also takes an emotional toll. Often, the students whom black male teachers are expected to help have serious needs beyond what any individual teacher can remedy. That leads to burnout.

John B. King Jr. thanks President Obama after being named U.S. secretary of education. (The White House/ Youtube)

Sharif El-Mekki, principal of the Mastery Charter Schools Shoemaker campus in Philadelphia, has noted that the African American teachers he speaks with are of two minds about these extra duties. They feel honored and appreciated that they are asked, he said, but when so many different people are asking them for help, it becomes a burden.

Such conversations prompted El-Mekki to found the Fellowship, which seeks to inspire more men of color in Philadelphia to see teaching as a means of achieving social justice. The Fellowship has hosted several Black Male Educator Convening events to provide peer support and guidance.

At these gatherings, teachers express a desire to be seen as experts for their mastery of subjects they teach or for their innovative teaching, as well as for any special connection they might have to students. They want to be seen as a resource for white colleagues to learn how to better support their African American students. If everyone was asked to improve their relationships with these students . . . it would feel empowering, El-Mekki said.

I encourage school and district leaders to work with their teachers and other staff members to develop a vision for how to make their campuses more inclusive by adopting proactive hiring processes, providing professional support, using a multicultural curriculum and offering cultural competence workshops for everyone. The burden to end this tax shouldnt fall only to the people already paying it.

We have strong evidence that students of color benefit from having teachers who are positive role models, as well as from the changes in classroom dynamics that result. Teachers of color often have higher expectations for students of color, are more likely to use culturally relevant teaching practices, are more likely to confront racism in their lessons and, yes, also serve as advocates.

But its also important for our white students to see teachers of color in leadership roles in their classrooms and communities. Breaking down negative stereotypes helps all students learn to live and work in a multiracial society.

Ultimately, the work we can do together to create opportunity for all students will determine not only the kind of economy we have and the kind of people we will be, but also whether we will become the nation we ought to be.
Allowing biological men to use womens restrooms and changing rooms  what could possibly go wrong?

Plenty.

As a compassionate society, we believe that transgendered people should be protected from discrimination. We also believe that women and children should be protected from sexual exploitation and assault. Creating a new right for biological men to use women-only facilities is an open invitation to sex predators pretending to be transgender in order to get access to vitcims at their most vulnerable.

It is happening already even without an invitation. Take the case of Taylor Buehler, a man who was arrested in 2012 after entering a womens bathroom at Everett Community College in Washington state dressed in a bra and wig. He claimed that he was just there to use the facilities, but under police questioning, Buehler admitted to officers that he was the suspect in an earlier voyeurism incident  [in which] he took a shower in the girls locker room for sexual gratification.

Or take the case of Norwood Smith Burnes, a 51-year-old Rome, Ga., man who was arrested for undressing in front of children in a Walmart womens room. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution , Burnes was wearing a short skirt, high heels, red nail, polish, and green eye shadow and was found in stages of undress . . . in the presence of several young children. After his arrest, the paper said, police discovered that he had a long record of indecent exposure and was on probation for public indecency.

Under the new norm that the Obama administration wants to establish, all either man would have had to say to avoid arrest was that he identified as a woman and was exercising his civil right to use the facility corresponding to his preferred gender. Moreover, each of these alleged predators was caught because women complained that there was a man dressed as a woman in the womens room. If the Obama administration had its way, the women might never have complained for fear they would be accused of being bigots or violating civil rights.

Dont believe it? Just look to our neighbor up north, where in 2012, the province of Ontario changed its Human Rights Code to bar discrimination against anyone because of gender identity or gender expression  giving anyone who claimed to be transgender the legal right to use women-only facilities. That allowed Christopher Hambrook to dress like a woman and sign into several Toronto area womens shelters, where he sexually assaulted women seeking refuge from domestic violence. Police later discovered that he had been convicted in Montreal of sexually assaulting a 5-year-old girl and a mentally challenged 27-year-old woman. He was not transgender; he was a sex predator pretending to be transgender. But nobody dared to question him, because to do so would have been a violation of his human rights.

It used to be that authorities judged who belonged in which bathroom by an objective criteria: their anatomy. But in its recent guidance  to public educational institutions, the Obama administration declared that gender identity is determined by an individuals internal sense of gender. Its all about how you feel. And no one can question those feelings. Indeed, the Obama administration said, doing so is unlawful. The Justice and Education departments declared that in public educational institutions there is no medical diagnosis or treatment requirement that students must meet as a prerequisite to being treated consistent with their gender identity and that requiring students to produce such identification documents . . . may violate Title IX.

Moreover, how you feel can change  because, we are told, gender is fluid. According to CNN , For some people . . . how one identifies can change every day or even every few hours. For sex predators, that is awfully convenient. If gender identities can change by the day or hour, then what is to stop pedophiles and voyeurs from simply saying that their gender is fluid  and they were feeling like a woman that day? And how are police supposed to discern who is actually transgender and who is pretending to be transgender?

Last year, after Washington state passed a law opening public bathrooms to transgender people, a man walked into the womens changing room at a Seattle public pool and began undressing while young girls were changing for swim practice. He wasnt even dressed like a woman. When staff asked the man to leave, he told them the law has changed and I have a right to be here. The flummoxed staff did not even call police.

By all means, schools should be required to provide access to bathrooms and changing areas where transgender people can feel safe. And there is a simple solution. As one transgender young man put it in The Post this weekend, Imagine a room with a toilet, a sink and a door with a lock. Suddenly everyones problems go away. But that is not good enough for the Obama administration, which insists that biological males who identify as women have a fundamental right to access to womens facilities. That is a recipe for disaster.

Sex predators are devious; they will use any excuse to gain access to their victims. Government should not be opening the bathroom door for them. Yes, we should find ways to protect transgender people  but we must do so without endangering everyone else.

Read more from Marc Thiessens archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes a selfie with campaign supporters during a campaign stop in Louisville. (John Sommers II/Getty Images)

Hillary Clinton is putting up an unexpected fight in Kentucky, a state that her campaign had thought until quite recently might be out of reach in her primary race against Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

In advance of Tuesdays Democratic primary, Sanders also campaigned heavily in Kentucky over the weekend, and Clinton planned two additional days there, a sign that she thinks she has a chance to stop Sanders from racking up an unbroken string of victories between now and the end of primary voting in June.

Oregons primary will also be held Tuesday, by mail-in ballot. Republicans held their primary in Kentucky in March. Republicans will vote in Oregon Tuesday, even though Donald Trump was declared the presumptive nominee after his victory in Indiana two weeks ago.

There is little recent public polling in Kentucky, but the Clinton campaign hopes to benefit from a different political environment than the one that greeted her in nearby West Virginia, a state she lost last week by 15 points.

For instance, Kentucky will hold a closed primary, shutting out independents who have heavily favored Sanders in other contests.

The states moderate Democratic leanings also may favor Clinton. She has consistently performed well among Democrats  even in West Virginia, where she lost overall to Sanders but won 49 percent to 45 percent among those registered as Democrats.

Shes a little more conservative, Sherry Baucom, 47, of Louisville said, then paused to correct herself. Not conservative  a little less liberal than Bernie.

She added, Thats how shes going to win the state.

Kentucky Democrats are still reeling from conservative Republican Matt Bevins victory in the governors race last year. Bevin succeeded Democrat Steve Beshear, who was prohibited by term limits from seeking a third term.

[Even supporters agree: Clinton is a weak candidate. What can she do? ]

Beshears legacy  especially his efforts to implement the Affordable Care Act in a Southern state  is closely tied to the pitch Clinton has made to voters: that she would continue President Obamas policies.

The thing Im most proud of is right now in our state, for the first time in history, every single Kentuckian has access to affordable health care  the only Southern state to do it, Beshear said at a campaign event Sunday in Fort Mitchell. But we did it right. Were the model for the nation, and by golly, were not going to let it go away, either.

Folks, those are the priories of Hillary Clinton, he added.

Campaigning over the weekend, Sanders made a point of distancing his vision of implementing a single-payer for all system from Bevins efforts to undermine Obamas health-care law.

Let me begin by making a very short statement so the people of Kentucky will understand what kind of president I will be. And that is I understand your new governor, Governor Bevin, is busy cutting health care and cutting education, Sanders said Saturday in Bowling Green. So if you can imagine the kind of governor Governor Bevin is, think about Bernie Sanders as a president doing exactly the opposite.

Sanders drew thousands from across the state to his weekend rallies in Paducah and Bowling Green, while Clinton drew several hundred to events in Louisville and Fort Mitchell.

Despite Clintons efforts, upcoming primaries are likely to reinforce the continued support her rival has among Democrats across the country.

Over the weekend, for example, Sanders supporters in Nevada put up a fight to win a small delegate edge at the chaotic state convention, perhaps foreshadowing a similar battle at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July.

Clinton also faces significant challenges here. She is still answering for a gaffe she made in March, when she said that her renewable energy plan would put the coal industry out of business. West Virginia voters got an apology from Clinton ahead of their primary, and she has said the remark was taken out of context. But the effects of that comment still sting in Kentucky, where mining is a smaller but still important industry in parts of the state.

I think she got hurt by the comments about coal, said Stephanie Lewis, 40, of Louisville, who supports Clinton. Im originally from Eastern Kentucky, and when I was back home for Mothers Day, I heard about it a lot. . . . Thats kind of Bernie country.

Clinton and Sanders have virtually the same position on clean-energy jobs, but her articulation of the position has hurt her in coal-producing states.

Sanders is expected to find support among those voters who are still smarting from job losses.

He stated it differently, said Bill Garmer, a former chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party, explaining why Sanders has not been hurt by his position on coal. He stated that hes concerned, that he recognizes that coal jobs are being lost.

Last week, former president Bill Clinton traveled to Eastern Kentucky to campaign for his wife and to do some damage control. The visit drew protesters, but Clinton sought to remind them of his wifes commitment to $30 billion in aid for coal country.

Im the only candidate who has put on the table a plan for coal country, Hillary Clinton said Sunday in Louisville. Because I dont think we should leave behind the people who turn on the lights and power the factories in the United States.

It is unclear whether that effort will pay off, but Sanders is expected to benefit from Clintons troubles.

People see it as a cultural attack, said Dale Emmons, a longtime Democratic political consultant in Kentucky. I think the fact that Hillary Clinton is seen as the inevitable Democratic nominee, there will be some who will cast votes for Senator Sanders in protest of Secretary Clintons position.

There are several reasons the Clinton campaign has begun to feel optimistic that it can close the gap.

The campaigns last-minute work in the state featured signs of her typical outreach to her most faithful voters  starting with the states relatively small but reliable African American voting population.

[Hillary Clinton gets more specific about what Bill Clintons White House job could be ]

At two church services Sunday morning, Clinton was introduced to predominantly African American congregations as the next president of the United States.

African Americans make up more than 20 percent of the population in vote-rich cities such as Louisville, in Jefferson County. Unlike eight years ago, when Clinton lost the county to Barack Obama, she could show unexpected strength against Sanders in one of the states liberal enclaves.

The campaign also dispatched Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to turn out African American voters on Clintons behalf.

Some pro-Donald Trump Democrats are likely to be in Kentucky, as there were in West Virginia, and those voters may support Sanders.

But Emmons, the Kentucky political strategist, said that what is likely to be the most unpredictable factor in this primary is turnout, which is expected to be modest at best.

I really do believe that this campaign has been so long that many people are weary of the presidential campaign because it has been front and center. . . . People are just worn out with it, Emmons said.

Emmons said Sanders still has the upper hand in Kentucky, but he noted, Low-turnout elections will often hand you surprises.
On May 16, the Supreme Court declined to decide challenges to an Affordable Care Act requirement about providing contraceptive coverage. Heres what you need to know about the courts move. (Gillian Brockell,Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

On May 16, the Supreme Court declined to decide challenges to an Affordable Care Act requirement about providing contraceptive coverage. Heres what you need to know about the courts move. (Gillian Brockell,Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

A short-handed Supreme Court on Monday sent back to the lower courts several challenges to the Affordable Care Acts contraceptive-coverage requirement, saying there was a possible compromise between religious objectors and the Obama administration.

The unsigned and unanimous three-page decision was unusual  and largely a punt by a court equally divided along ideological lines after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February.

[Reality of a split court: A chance of deadlock and a search for compromises]

Both sides in the lawsuits had made concessions since the case was argued in March, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said in announcing the decision from the bench.

A pause will provide an opportunity for them to arrive at an approach going forward that accommodates petitioners religious exercise while at the same time ensuring that women covered by petitioners health plans receive full and equal health coverage, including contraceptive coverage, the opinion said.

The carefully balanced and narrow decision  the court went out of its way to say it was not deciding the merits of the case  is indicative of the cautious approach the justices have taken since Scalias death. They have said they are trying to avoid deadlock when possible. More narrow decisions are likely, and the court has slowed its pace of accepting controversial cases for next term.

The contraceptive case was supposed to have been one of the big ones this term. It asked how to make good on Obamacares promise that women will receive the health-care coverage they are entitled to when they work for religiously affiliated organizations that believe providing the coverage implicates them in sin.

The next steps are unclear, although the opinion revives challenges to the law filed all across the country and seems to envision some sort of negotiation between the objecting organizations and the administration.

This is a very short order that raises lots of questions, said Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which sided with the administration.

On the one hand, the decision vacated a series of lower-court rulings that said the Obama administration had done enough to accommodate the objections of religiously affiliated organizations such as hospitals, charities and universities. Eight of nine appeals courts that considered the issue ruled for the administration.

For the challengers, vacating those decisions was key. I think anyone would recognize that as a win, said Mark L. Rienzi, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents a charity of nuns called Little Sisters of the Poor.

On the other hand, the court ruled that nothing in this opinion, or in the opinions or orders of the courts below, is to affect the ability of the government to ensure that women covered by petitioners health plans obtain, without cost, the full range of FDA-approved contraceptives.

In an interview with BuzzFeed on Monday afternoon, President Obama emphasized that the practical effect is right now, women will still be able to get contraception if they are getting health insurance, and we are properly accommodating religious institutions that are opposed to providing it.

[Court appears divided in contraceptive coverage case]

The case represents the fourth time the court has examined the Affordable Care Act, Obamas chief domestic achievement.

At oral argument, the courts four liberals seemed to agree that the administration had offered an acceptable compromise for religiously affiliated organizations that want to be freed from the obligation, which they say violates their religious beliefs.

The accommodation requires the groups to tell the government they object, then allows the government to work with the groups insurers to provide the coverage without the organizations involvement or financial support.

But the groups said they should be exempt from the provision, just as churches are. And the courts four conservatives at the March arguments sounded as if they agreed with the challengers that the government was trying to hijack their insurance plans to provide contraceptive coverage, rather than finding a way to provide the coverage without involving the groups at all.

Days later, the court took the highly unusual step of offering its own vision of a compromise. The justices directed both sides to file briefs addressing how employees could receive contraceptive coverage through their employers plans, but in a way that does not require any involvement from the employers beyond their decision to provide health insurance.

In Mondays decision, the court said those briefs showed that such an option is feasible.

The court said the religious groups agree that they do not object to their employees receiving contraceptive coverage from the groups insurance companies if the employers themselves do nothing more than contract for a plan that does not include coverage for some or all forms of contraception. The cost would be borne by the insurance company or the government.

The court said the government agreed that such a plan could work while still ensuring that the affected women receive contraceptive coverage seamlessly, together with the rest of their health coverage.

The details, the justices said, should not be worked out at the Supreme Court but in the lower courts. Presumably, any conflicts would not be back at the Supreme Court before a new justice is confirmed.

Rienzi said the groups have no objection to women receiving the contraceptives. All weve ever said is: Not our plan, he said.

The court went to great lengths to be balanced in its opinion, saying that it does not decide whether petitioners religious exercise has been substantially burdened, whether the Government has a compelling interest, or whether the current regulations are the least restrictive means of serving that interest.

The opinion said that the administration can understand that the groups that brought the challenge have formally declared their opposition, and that it can move forward in providing coverage to the groups employees.

It also said the groups cannot be fined for failing to provide the coverage.

[Issue of contraceptive coverage returns to Supreme Court]

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a concurring opinion that said lower courts should not take the action as an endorsement of a proposal put forward by the religious organizations that women receive contraceptive coverage through a separate policy.

Requiring standalone contraceptive-only coverage would leave in limbo all of the women now guaranteed seamless preventive-care coverage under the Affordable Care Act, Sotomayor wrote.

Womens rights groups, which had won the vast majority of cases in the lower courts, worried that the Supreme Courts action was a setback.

We are disappointed that the court did not resolve once and for all whether the religious beliefs of religiously affiliated nonprofit employers can block womens seamless access to birth control, said Gretchen Borchelt, vice president of the National Womens Law Center. Eight of nine circuit courts of appeals have already upheld womens access to birth control no matter where they work. We are confident that the governments birth control accommodation once again will prevail.

Lawyers representing the challengers saw the decision as a positive sign.

The Supreme Court was right to protect the Christian colleges and other groups from not having to pay fines or fill out forms authorizing the objectionable coverage, said David Cortman, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom. The government has many other ways to ensure women are able to obtain these drugs without forcing people of faith to participate in acts that violate their deepest convictions. We look forward to addressing the remaining details as we advance these cases in the lower courts.

The combined cases are known as Zubik v. Burwell.

Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a man who sued a digital company for posting inaccurate information about him must do more to show he was actually harmed by the mistakes.

The court voted 6 to 2 to send Thomas Robinss complaint about the people search engine Spokeo back to a lower court to determine whether Robins suffered the kind of injury that lawsuits are made of.

It was a narrow ruling and the third in a series of cases at the Supreme Court about class-action suits this term that did little  to the chagrin of business interests  to make such suits harder to file and win.

[Supreme Court seems split in case about faulty information online]

The case was of great interest to the business community, especially technology firms such as Facebook and Twitter that worry about lawsuits arising from faulty information posted online.

Spokeo.com allows a user to type in someones name and get a report. Robins said the facts about him were all wrong.

His profile, he asserts, states that he is married, has children, is in his 50s, has a job, is relatively affluent, and holds a graduate degree, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in the courts opinion. According to Robins complaint, all of this information is incorrect.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) of 1970, which Alito pointed out was written before the advent of the Internet, requires credit-reporting agencies to adopt reasonable procedures to protect against inaccuracies and says victims can collect from $100 to $1,000 for each violation.

Robins filed a suit on behalf of himself and others, and said all he had to show was that what was written about him was inaccurate.

A district judge threw out his case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reinstated it, and the Supreme Courts decision Monday remands the case back to the appeals court for more work.

Alito said that Robins must show that he has suffered a concrete injury before courts can find that he has the legal standing to pursue his case.

In passing FCRA, Alito wrote, Congress plainly sought to curb the dissemination of false information by adopting procedures designed to decrease that risk.

On the other hand, Robins cannot satisfy the Constitutions definition of who may bring a lawsuit by alleging a bare procedural violation, Alito wrote. A violation of one of the FCRAs procedural requirements may result in no harm.

For instance, Alito said, suppose the incorrect information supplied was a Zip code. It is difficult to imagine how the dissemination of an incorrect zip code, without more, could work any concrete harm, Alito wrote.

At oral argument in Spokeo v. Robins, the case seemed to divide the court along ideological lines. But liberal Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the courts conservatives in sending the case back.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor would have allowed Robinss lawsuit to proceed.

Robins already has shown the violation could cost him, Ginsburg wrote.

Robins complains of misinformation about his education, family situation, and economic status, inaccurate representations that could affect his fortune in the job market, she wrote.

Cases about class-action suits often provoke disagreements between conservative justices, who worry about the unwarranted costs to businesses, and liberal justices, who say the court is shutting down consumer access to justice.

The court this term did not change the law much, despite the urging of business groups.

In a 6-to-2 ruling in a case called Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo, the court rejected Tysons contention that the more than 3,300 workers at a meatpacking plant should not have been able to use statistical averages to prove that they were not paid what they were due.

Earlier, the court had ruled in Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez that a company cannot legally thwart a potential class-action suit simply by offering the lead plaintiff all that the plaintiff has sought. Had this ruling gone the other way, mounting such lawsuits would have become harder, because a defendant could moot a proceeding by removing the plaintiffs one at a time.
Hillary Clinton is seen aboard the campaign bus in Cleveland on the third day of a bus tour through Pennsylvania and Ohio.

July 31, 2016 Hillary Clinton is seen aboard the campaign bus in Cleveland on the third day of a bus tour through Pennsylvania and Ohio. Melina Mara/The Washington Post

The former secretary of state, senator and first lady is the Democratic nominee for president.

The former secretary of state visits key states in her quest to become the Democratic nominee for president.

The former secretary of state visits key states in her quest to become the Democratic nominee for president.

Hillary Clintons declining personal image, ongoing battle to break free of the challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders and struggle to adapt to an anti-establishment mood among voters this year have become caution signs for her campaign and the focus of new efforts to fortify her position as she prepares for a bruising general election.

More than a dozen Clinton allies identified weaknesses in her candidacy that may erode her prospects of defeating Donald Trump, including poor showings with young women, untrustworthiness, unlikability and a lackluster style on the stump. Supporters also worry that she is a conventional candidate in an unconventional election in which voters clearly favor renegades.

I bring it down to one thing and one thing only, and that is likability, said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who has conducted a series of focus groups for the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

To counter these challenges, Clinton is relying primarily on the prospect that her likely Republican opponents weaknesses are even greater. But advisers also are working to soften her stiff public image by highlighting her compassion and to combat perceptions about trustworthiness and authenticity by playing up her problem-solving abilities.

Hillary Clinton is in a stronger position than Donald Trump, but it will be competitive, said Joel Benenson, Clintons senior strategist and pollster. All these races are.

None of these Democrats said they expected Clinton to lose  but many said she could. For the most part, it is her qualities as a candidate that keep her allies up at night, not her fitness to be president, which they categorically do not question. They also lament how exposed these flaws have become during a long primary contest against Sanders, who has profited from suspicion and dislike of Clinton among ranks she now must win over.

Although Clinton has never trailed Sanders in the delegate count and is all but assured of securing the nomination in June, she is widely expected to lose more Democratic primaries this month, which could amplify her weaknesses.

When Democrats assess Clinton, they tend to zero in on her communication skills: She is scripted and thin-skinned, they say. And with a sigh, they acknowledge the persistent feeling among a lot of Americans that they just dont like her. Polls long have shown that many voters do not trust Clinton and that a majority view her unfavorably.

Hart said being seen as likable is about the lowest bar for a candidate, and yet Clinton has lower likability numbers today than she did when the campaign began.

It is cold comfort that Trumps are worse, several Democrats said.

[Inside the GOP effort to draft an independent candidate to derail Trump]

Among other potential problems identified by supporters: Clintons unpopularity with white men, questions about whether her family philanthropic foundation helped donors and friends, and lingering clouds from her tenure at the State Department, including her private email system, the Benghazi attacks in which four Americans were killed and her support for military intervention in Libya.

Aides say Clinton will continue to speak of her State Department years as evidence of her national security credentials. They point to 11 hours of congressional testimony about Libya and Benghazi, and a willingness to acknowledge mistakes, as proof that she is dealing with those issues forthrightly.

There are also concerns particular to an election against Trump. How, several Democrats asked, should Clinton deal with such an unpredictable antagonist? Supporters see potential problems for her in Trumps omnipresence in American media, while she neither likes nor excels at media interviews.

They said there are upsides and downsides to Trumps insults and taunts, including those having to do with her husbands past infidelities.

If Trump continues to call Clinton an enabler of her husbands behavior, her supporters see an opportunity to outclass her opponent.

I couldnt believe it! Clinton supporter Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said last week of Trumps attacks. You blame the woman for male infidelity? I mean, to me, it was kind of bizarre. You would visit the sins of one on the other? I dont think theres any woman in America who doesnt understand that is wrong.

Bill Clinton himself is a double-edged sword, longtime supporters said. Hillary Clinton has no better advocate, and one who is now working at a furious pace to rally Democrats in the last primary contests. But with his own prodigious political talents, the former president also shows up his wifes shortcomings on the stump, even if inadvertently, and is perhaps even more prone than she to going off script when someone gets under his skin.

Another challenge, two people who know her well said, will be to show how Hillary Clinton can tackle issues people care about without letting her wallow in weedy policy details. Clinton is a self-identified wonk, a believer in the power of government and what she sometimes calls evidence-based approaches to solve problems. This does not often make for good political theater.

Shes horrible at running, but shes fantastic at governing, a longtime friend and supporter said. She will roll up her sleeves. Thats not just a campaign talking point.

[To fend off Trump, Clinton moves to defend Rust Belt blue states]

The campaign is making an effort to highlight Clintons compassion. For example, an ad shows her consoling a 10-year-old who is worried about her family being deported. You let me do the worrying, Clinton says, hugging the girl.

Similarly, the campaign has sought to address qualms over Clintons trustworthiness and what voters have termed her authenticity by portraying her as the candidate with the best interests of individual Americans and the country at heart.

A vice-presidential pick who is a rousing speaker and possesses strong populist Democratic credentials is one potential antidote to Clintons to-do-list style on the stump, Democrats said. Some of the names mentioned, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sen. Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia and Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez, fit those bills. A campaign aide said Clinton is open to an unconventional candidate and does not rule out an all-woman ticket.

President Obama, whose Yes, we can mantra perfectly captured the 2008 political moment, is another potential solution to Clintons message problem and lack of mass appeal. Obama is expected to begin campaigning for Clinton in earnest as early as June, when she is expected to lock up the nomination.

Others said there is only so much Clinton can do to address her skills on the stump or to alter perceptions that have formed over nearly three decades in the public eye. Sexism and unfair expectations play a role, several of her partisans said, as the country adjusts to having a woman at the top of a national ticket  and so does the fact that nearly every American already has an opinion about the woman in question.

Theyre dealing with 20 years, almost 30 years now, of public narratives about her, said Dan Pfeiffer, former White House senior adviser in the Obama administration. I dont think thats fixable in the next six months. You have to turn it from a referendum on her trustworthiness to a contrast.

Clinton has said that it pains her to hear that people dont like her but that all she can do is make her case that she would be a good president. Some of her allies said she should focus on things she can control rather than on the subjective measure of likability.

What I want to happen are things that will never happen, said one longtime Clinton family supporter and donor who requested anonymity to express criticism of something he said Clinton probably could not change even if she wanted to. I mean, we cant give her an injection to make her an energetic candidate.

Some strategists, including Benenson, argue that as the primaries end and Democrats begin to unify behind their nominee, her ratings will begin to improve.

Several other veterans of past campaigns said that, although Clinton will suffer from an authenticity gap against Trump, in the end voters will choose a more guarded personality to occupy the Oval Office.

When the true Hillary Clinton and the real Donald Trump are revealed to Americans, there is no way the American people are going to pick the petulant 12-year-old, said Bill Burton, a former senior Obama strategist.

Attacking Trump will be a big part of Clintons fall strategy. Numerous allies noted that Clinton is at her political best when fighting and at her most sympathetic when seen as vulnerable or a victim. One campaign strategy to address perceptions that she is remote or robotic is to let er rip, as one supporter said. Another will be to draw contrasts with what her allies describe as Trumps nastiness and narcissism.

At a rally Tuesday in Louisville, Clinton accused Trump of running the most divisive campaign she has ever seen and said she looks forward to debating him.

People say, Well, maybe he doesnt really mean it,  she said. If you are running for and serving as president, you better mean what you say.

Also last week, Clinton, with obvious relish, compared herself with Trump on the subject of who had been more transparent in the release of tax records. She and her husband have placed 33 years worth in the public domain, she crowed.

Were going to find out why Trump hasnt released any returns, she said.

Benenson said the tax returns are emblematic of the downside of Trumps outsider candidacy. Voters can extrapolate many things from Trumps refusal or reluctance to release the records, including that he thinks regular political rules dont apply to him, Benenson said.

His unconventional candidacy is a challenge for Clinton, but it creates problems for him, too, Benenson said. The American people know they are electing the commander in chief. Hes an unconventional candidate, but hes also a risky, dangerous candidate when it comes to peoples economic lives and safety and security abroad.
Rep. Chaka Fattah concedes his bid for reelection for a 12th term in the U.S. House to Dwight Evans. (Steven M. Falk/AP)

Federal prosecutors on Monday began laying out a complicated criminal corruption case against Rep. Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania, telling jurors that the longtime Democratic legislator abused his office over and over again for personal gain and enlisted those who worked for him to cover his tracks.

Defense attorneys fired back that the only corrupt people in the case were those who had cut plea deals to serve as government witnesses and that Fattah had nothing to do with any of it.

Fattah, 59, and four allies were charged in a 29-count indictment in July with a medley of corrupt dealings that federal authorities said were meant to boost the veteran congressmans political career and benefit him and his family financially. The racketeering and other allegations probably cost Fattah his legislative seat  he was bested in the Democratic primary last month by state Rep. Dwight Evans  and now he and his associates are fighting for exoneration from criminal charges.

Their trial began in earnest with Mondays opening statements.

[Pa. Congressman Fattah indicted on corruption charges from 2007 mayors race]

Those charged, flanked by their lawyers, sat side by side against one wall of the courtroom, their chairs arranged in an L-shape so all could fit. Dozens of spectators filled four rows of seats behind them. Fattah smiled and mingled casually with supporters before the proceedings began, then watched the prosecutor and jurors during opening statements. His office seemed to function as normal Monday, even issuing a statement on a slain Philadelphia police officer who was awarded a Medal of Valor.

The trial marks a remarkable downfall for Fattah, who  despite his loss in the 2007 mayoral election  seemed to be a staple of Philadelphia politics, having held his congressional seat for more than two decades. Allegations had long swirled around him, but as recently as two years ago he had no primary challenger and easily defeated a Republican opponent.

Many of the corrupt dealings alleged by prosecutors stemmed from Fattahs unsuccessful bid to become Philadelphias mayor. Prosecutors said Fattah and his associates arranged an illegal $1 million loan to support Fattahs mayoral campaign and stole charitable and federal grant funds to repay a portion of it. Fattah promised to get federal funds earmarked to a nonexistent nonprofit organization to pay off another mayoral campaign debt, prosecutors charged.

They also alleged that Fattah used campaign funds to pay personal expenses, including his sons college tuition, and that he helped a lobbyist try to win a job as an ambassador or trade representative in exchange for cash and other gratuities. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Gray said Fattah used the lobbyist as a human ATM.

The congressman abused his office and his authority over and over again by taking bribes and committing fraud to serve his own interests and not the interests of the people he was elected to serve, Gray told jurors.

[How Chaka Fattah became the first person booted from Congress in 2016]

Fattah denied the charges when he was indicted. Defense attorney Mark Lee told jurors that while they may be presented with evidence they would find distasteful, none of it indicated Fattah was guilty of criminal corruption.

Its important to understand that unless those things cross a certain line  and the government has a burden of proof to show they do  theyre not crimes, Lee said.

On Monday, FBI Special Agent Eric Ruona began describing for jurors the financial deals that form the basis of the governments case. Gray told jurors that prosecutors would present them with bank records, emails and other documents to help prove the allegations and that insiders who had already pleaded guilty would help them understand the sometimes complicated schemes. One of those insiders is Tom Lindenfeld, a former close adviser to D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D). Lindenfeld admitted to a political corruption charge in the Fattah case in 2014.

Lee pointed the finger squarely at Lindenfeld and another cooperator, Gregory Naylor, saying that their corrupt actions had nothing whatsoever to do with Congressman Fattah.

The others charged in the case and facing trial are Herbert Vederman, a lobbyist and former deputy mayor of Philadelphia; Robert Brand, a businessman and the spouse of a former Fattah congressional staffer; Karen Nicholas, the chief executive of a Fattah-

founded nonprofit group that is deeply enmeshed in the criminal allegations; and Bonnie Bowser, Fattahs district chief of staff in Philadelphia, who served as treasurer for his congressional and mayoral campaigns. Each has pleaded not guilty.
Senegal, a predominately Muslim country, has been praised for its tolerance in a region where increasing extremism has threatened its peaceful atmosphere. (Jane Hahn/For The Washnington Post)

In a city where nightclubs and mosques coexist peacefully, Islamist violence long felt like a foreign problem  something residents watched on news clips from the Middle East or other parts of Africa.

We just didnt worry very much about it, said Abdullaye Diene, the deputy imam of the countrys largest mosque. Here you can spend your nights drinking at the disco and then shake the hand of the imam.

But Senegal and its neighbors are facing a new threat from extremists moving far from their traditional strongholds in northwest Africa. Since November, militant groups have killed dozens of people in assaults on hotels, cafes and a beachside resort in West Africa, passing through porous borders with impunity.

The attacks have occurred in countries that had been rebounding from political turbulence, such as Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso. Now fears of such bloodshed are growing in this pro-Western democracy, which serves as a regional hub for international organizations.

Its getting closer and closer to Senegal, said Aminata Toure, the countrys former prime minister and an adviser to the current president.





The violence is a sign of the rapidly expanding reach of radical Islamist armed groups on the continent. In East Africa, al-

Shabab militants with bases in Somalia have carried out massacres in neighboring Kenya, killing more than 200 people and devastating its tourism industry. Nigerias Boko Haram militants have moved into Niger, Chad and Cameroon. In North Africa, the Islamic State and its affiliates have seized territory in Libya and launched attacks in Tunisia and Egypt.

Senegal, a former French colony that has never suffered a major terrorist incident, is now taking unprecedented security measures. It recently hosted a U.S.-led training exercise for the third time in recent years; this time it had a special focus on counterterrorism. Authorities have called for a ban on the full-face Islamic veil, with President Macky Sall saying it raises concerns in instances when women cannot be identified. The garb is not part of our culture, he said.

For years, fighters with al-

Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have lurked in the deserts of northern Mali and Algeria, part of an ungoverned swath of land in northwest Africa known as the Sahel. But AQIM and its affiliates appear to have shifted their strategy. Rather than simply fighting Malian, French or U.N. troops in northern Mali, they have launched attacks hundreds of miles from their power base, in some of the regions most peaceful, religiously tolerant cities.

There is perhaps no better example of a peaceful, religiously tolerant West African city than Dakar, the capital of Senegal. The country has never had a coup. Its population of 14 million is about 90 percent Muslim, but Christians are widely accepted, hosting public Christmas celebrations. A recent week here saw an international arts festival and a series of public concerts; a flood of amateur surfers took to a local shore break.

Extremists make a comeback

AQIM had its origins in the fight against Algerias secular government in the 1990s, after the cancellation of elections that seemed likely to bring Islamists to power. The group expanded to parts of Mali, Mauritania and Niger after formally establishing itself as an al-Qaeda affiliate in 2007. Smaller, more localized groups joined as well, and many refer to AQIM as more of a franchise than a single entity.

In 2012, AQIM seized vast tracts of land across Mali, also a former French colony, and implemented a harsh version of sharia law. French troops intervened in 2013, displacing the militants.

But AQIM and its affiliates have recently regrouped, according to experts. In November, the militants killed 19 people during an attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Malis capital, hundreds of miles from AQIMs traditional base. Afterward, Yahya Abu el-Hammam, a senior AQIM leader, released a statement directed at France, declaring that the group will not spare any effort to fight you and strike your interests, wherever they may be.

Guards search visitors outside Sea Plaza shopping mall in Dakar. As attacks on French and foreign interests in West Africa have escalated in recent months, countries such as Senegal are taking unprecedented security measures. (Jane Hahn/For The Washnington Post)

Experts say AQIMs comeback is due in part to its ability to recruit young men in areas of northern and central Mali ignored by the central government.

There are places in Mali where jihadists are either filling the void left by the absence of the state or gaining popularity as a result of government abuse or neglect, said Corinne Dufka, the West Africa director for Human Rights Watch.

Militants also have gotten weapons from Libya, where the 2011 fall of leader Moammar Gaddafi has produced chaos.

In January, militants attacked the Splendid Hotel and Cappuccino Cafe in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, killing 28. And in March, gunmen went on a shooting spree in Grand Bassam, a popular beach town in Ivory Coast, leaving 19 dead. Most of the militants who carried out those two attacks were originally from Mali, according to Jean Felix-

Paganon, the French ambassador to Senegal.

Many experts and officials believe that AQIM is trying to reassert itself after the French military action in Mali, while also showing that it can conduct Islamic State-like attacks.

Theres an element of competition between the two groups, Felix-Paganon said.

Its menacing everyone

Senegals leaders have responded to the new threats by increasing security measures and strengthening ties with the United States. This month, the foreign minister signed a defense partnership that would allow the U.S. military to use Senegal as a staging ground in the case of a humanitarian or security problem.

It makes our people feel safer to have this connection with the most powerful country in the world, Mankeur Ndiaye, the foreign minister, said in an interview.

AQIM isnt the only threat. Senegalese citizens have joined Boko Haram and the Islamic State, according to security officials. Earlier this year, four imams were arrested in the western Senegalese city of Kaolack for alleged connections to Boko Haram. Other Senegalese  roughly a dozen or two  are known to be fighting in Libya and Syria with the Islamic State, officials said.

Dakars prominence as a cultural capital and logistics hub in the region has made it a potential target, experts say. In other parts of Africa, sites seen as Western-oriented have been attacked  for instance, an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi and a seaside resort in Tunisia. Senegals profile is further elevated because it contributes troops to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali.

Senegal will never be safe if there is no security in Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and throughout the [West African] region and beyond in the Sahel, said Ndiaye, the foreign minister.

Hotels, malls and government buildings in Dakar now have metal detectors and guards, though security isnt as robust as in Nairobi or Tunis. This month, authorities nearly canceled a famous jazz festival in the city of Saint-Louis over security concerns.

Mariama Traore, the prefect for the region, blamed the vulnerability of the municipality of Saint-Louis and the refusal of the organizers to engage in the security efforts.

Its menacing everyone, Youssou Ndour, Senegals most well-known musician, said in an interview.

On one recent day, standing between racks of imported mens suits and leather dress shoes, Mouhamed Gueye watched broad-shouldered security guards wearing sunglasses and earpieces stroll past his store in a Dakar mall.

Its something, but its not enough, Gueye said.

Gueye fields calls from his friends and family nearly every day urging him to quit his job or sell his store, whose clients include Western businessmen and members of the Senegalese elite, the demographic most frequently targeted by terrorists in this part of Africa.

But what can I do? he said. Im just waiting and hoping nothing happens.

Read more

The growing U.N. scandal over sex abuse and peacekeeper babies

They were freed from Boko Harams rape camps. But their nightmare isnt over.

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank began its operations in January this year. (Photo : Getty Images)

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) led by China eyes to hold its first annual meeting in June in Beijing, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.



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Slated on the 25th and 26th of the month, the gathering will include "governors and representatives from 57 members, along with invited observers from international partners."



Though the official statement did not reveal further details, AIIB President Jin Liqun shared in Hong Kong last April that the bank's board members would hold a meeting next month to discuss new membership.



Jin is optimistic that Hong Kong could be a member of the bank this year, hoping the institution could tap "the city's financial strength in raising and managing funds."



Meanwhile, Taiwan remained firm in its remark that it will not join the lender. The news came after Jin emphasized that the island must follow the footsteps of Hong Kong and have China mainland's Ministry of Finance apply for membership on its behalf.



Though this move is in line with the bank charter, Taiwan said that this condition "violates dignity."



Currently, AIIB has 57 members with 30 more nations indicating their strong intent to join the financial institution. Jin hopes that the membership of the bank will eventually reach 100.



The AIIB is seen as a potential rival to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, which are dominated by the U.S. and Japan. The two nations previously declined to apply for bank membership.



Jin revealed that the bank targets to have an asset portfolio worth $1.5 billion in its first year. The bank aims to potentially reach at least $4 billion of lending in the next five years



After holding a high-profile inaugural ceremony, the AIIB officially commenced its operations on Jan. 16 of this year.



Earlier, the bank also announced that it has agreed with the World Bank to co-finance a dozen of projects, which are predicted to comprise a majority of the lender's business transactions this 2016.




In a Mogao cave, lit by the flashlight of a guide, a Buddha statue surrounded by disciples dating from the Tang Dynasty. Dunhuang grotto art is a combination of architecture, painted sculpture and murals. (Gilles Sabrie/For The Washington Post)

At the heart of the ancient Silk Road, on the edge of the Gobi Desert, lies a centuries-old place of pilgrimage: hundreds of caves hewn from a sandstone cliff containing some of the most exquisite Buddhist frescoes and figures in the world.

Abandoned for centuries, the Mogao Grottoes somehow survived everything that nature and man could throw at them, including earthquakes, floods and sandstorms. Marauding Muslim rebels, plundering European explorers and White Russian soldiers all left their mark. Rampaging Red Guards were turned away at the height of Chinas Cultural Revolution.

Today, the caves outside Dunhuang, in western China, enjoy a new stature, at the heart of Communist Chinas efforts to revitalize and rebuild the Silk Road as a testament to its growing power in Asia. They also stand as a symbol of Sino-American cooperation in Chinas cultural preservation, thanks to pioneering work by the Getty Conservation Institute.

But the fragile wall paintings, some of which date to the 4th century and show stories from Buddhas life and visions of the afterlife, face another threat  from a new army of tourists and the lure of profit.

In the past 100 years, most of the damage has been done by nature, but visits by more tourists will break the original balance inside the caves, said Wang Xudong, president of Dunhuang Academy, which runs, preserves and restores the site. Constant entrance and exit changes the temperature and humidity inside the caves. Human bodies also carry microorganisms, and if they start to grow inside the caves, it would be very scary.



Tourists visit the Crescent Lake, one of Dunhuangs major tourist sites along with the Mogao caves. (Gilles Sabrie/For The Washington Post)



A couple pose during a wedding photo shoot in front of the nine-story tower built around cave 96. (Gilles Sabrie/For The Washington Post)

More than 1.1 million tourists visited the caves in 2015, a rise of 40 percent in just a year and a roughly 20-fold jump in the past two decades.

The vast majority are Chinese, as the countrys growing wealth fuels a huge boom in domestic tourism and as interest is renewed in Chinas Buddhist past.

With advice from Gettys experts, the Dunhuang Academy initially tried to cap the number of tourists at 3,000 a day but later realized that limit just would not stop people from coming, Wang said. The limit was then raised to 6,000 a day, but demand regularly exceeds that in the peak July-to-October season.





To relieve the pressure, tourists are asked to register in advance and, before visiting the site, watch two 20-minute movies in a sweeping new visitor center on the history of Dunhuang and the caves themselves.

Later, they are guided through a selection of the 40 caves that are open to the public, forbidden to take photographs in case their camera flash damages the frescoes.

Register too late, above the 6,000 cutoff, and youll miss the movies and get to see only four caves. By giving these latecomers a very bad experience, Wang said he hopes to encourage more people to come during the low season, when ticket prices are halved.

The question is whether Wang can stem the tide. Beside the visitor center, nine miles from the caves, construction workers are building a privately funded tourist complex, including a theater and hotels.

In the city of Dunhuang, a $250 million conference center and a bigger, 2,000-seat theater are being built to house an annual Silk Road Cultural Expo. The large modern airport is being expanded, with a $150 million upgrade.

There is enormous commercial pressure, said Neville Agnew, who has been visiting and working in the caves for 28 years for the Getty Conservation Institute. The growth of the city of Dunhuang depends ultimately on the Mogao Grottoes. They are going to have their work cut out to control visitation, and, of course, I think youd find many people who are interested in development of the region want more visitors.



A worker at the construction site of a tourist complex, which will include a theatre, hotels and a mall. (Gilles Sabrie/For The Washington Post)

Yet there is also state-of-the-art restoration work going on here, thanks to a long-standing collaboration between the Dunhuang Academy, Getty and other foreign experts.

Painstakingly, the restorers start in each cave by taking hundreds of high-resolution photographs, in color and black and white. Then the frescoes are examined to see what materials were used  and the causes of deterioration diagnosed  before experts decide on the best materials and methods to restore them.

A technician working at the restoration of wall paintings in cave 98 of the Mogao grottoes. (Gilles Sabrie/For The Washington Post)

Some of the paintings, rendered on a base of mud and grass, are partly detached from the rock face, and enormously vulnerable to humidity or earthquakes. Different kinds of grout were extensively tested before one was chosen to fill the gaps.

The project has produced guidelines that have been applied to other grottoes across China as well as principles that have helped the country better manage its heritage sites. It has also spawned a major new exhibition at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles that runs from May until September and includes full-size replicas of three of the caves.

It is a much happier example of Sino-Western collaboration than the caves experienced a century ago. In 1907, Hungarian British archaeologist Aurel Stein persuaded a local monk to sell him 24 trunks packed with ancient Buddhist scriptures and five trunks of paintings, embroideries and other artworks that had only recently been discovered in a small walled-up cave. He paid the equivalent of 130 pounds.

French, Japanese and Russian explorers took thousands more priceless documents in subsequent years before American Langdon Warner showed up in 1923 to find the portable treasures gone. Determined not to leave empty-handed, he took some of the sculptures and used adhesive glue to rip a dozen paintings off the walls.

The official history calls them the despicable treasure hunters.

Others who werent seeking relics inflicted their own sorts of damage. In 1870, Muslim rebels turned up at the caves, burning down many of the wooden ladders that gave access. They may also have been responsible for scratching the faces off some of the paintings.



A view of the desert at the Mogao caves. (Gilles Sabrie/For The Washington Post)

In 1921, White Russian soldiers who had retreated into China during the war against the Bolsheviks were detained by the Chinese government and temporarily jailed in the caves. The damage from their fires, and their graffiti, is still visible in several caves.

But history was kinder during Chinas Cultural Revolution, when, on orders from Premier Zhou Enlai, Peoples Liberation Army soldiers and police were dispatched to protect the caves from gangs of Red Guards intent on destroying them.

Today, 735 caves remain, hewn from the cliff over a period of 1,000 years. Nearly 500 have paintings on the walls  undecorated caves were for meditation  while more than 2,000 sculptures have survived.

With partners all over the world, the Dunhuang Academy is working on a major digital archiving project, photographing the caves and everything that was once contained within them. Wang said that more than 40,000 artworks or scriptures are scattered around the world but that this is a way to unite them and preserve them forever.

Of course, we hope that when the world truly becomes a big family, they can come back to Mogao caves and unite with the other relics here, he said. But reality is quite cruel sometimes. If we can get them back to the Internet family through digitalization, that is a target we can achieve for now.

Gu Jinglu contributed to this report.

Read more:

Chinese to British media: Learn some manners, you narcissistic barbarians

Concert spoils Chinas plans to bury Cultural Revolution anniversary

How China fell for a Rothschild. No, not one of those Rothschilds.

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Afghan protesters chant anti-government slogans during a demonstration in Kabul on Monday, forcing a widespread security lockdown in the capital. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images)

Afghan authorities put Kabul under widespread security lockdown Monday after thousands of protesters joined rallies to demand better electrical services, marking another challenge for the Western-backed government.

The sweeping response to the mostly peaceful demonstration underscored the fears of unrest spreading in the capital as President Ashraf Ghanis government struggles on multiple fronts, including battling the Taliban insurgency and seeking to pull Afghanistan out of an economic free fall.

The protest also pointed to the hardships in several parts of the country that have left many Afghans frustrated with Ghanis government, a key partner of the U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan.

[Pentagon: Al-Qaeda finding common ground with Taliban]

Afghan forces reacted to the demonstration by shutting down most of Kabul, leaving large swaths of the city of nearly 4 million people eerily quiet for most of the day. Police with rifles were deployed at nearly every intersection in central Kabul.

The protesters  led by members of an ethnic minority known as the Hazara  oppose a decision to move a major power line route away from Bamian province, northwest of Kabul.

Intersections in Kabul were blocked off by huge storage containers. Helicopters swirled overhead as the demonstrators tried marching to the presidential palace but were stopped short by the barricades about two miles away.

[A literal problem with boots on the ground in Afghanistan]

Demonstrators claim that the decision to shift the power line route toward northern Afghanistan showed a lack of regard for Hazaras, who are Shiite Muslims. Hazaras often accuse the countrys dominant Pashtun ethnic group of ignoring the concerns of minorities.

The power line will transfer electricity from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan, connecting communities to power grids along the way.

Excluding us from national projects will have more serious consequences than what the government thinks, Asadullah Saadati, a Hazara member of parliament, told a cheering crowd waving placards calling for justice.

In a Twitter message after the protest, Ghani praised Afghan security forces and thanked Kabul residents for their patience during the clampdown. He also reiterated promises to bring equal development to all parts of the country.

The demonstration rolled on for several hours, but there were few problems. At one point, protesters were doused by a water cannon after they attempted to climb over one of the police barricades.

In another incident, a group of local journalists was attacked by protesters, but there were no serious injuries, according to NAI, a group in Kabul advocating for independent media.

Read more

This is how bad the situation is in Afghanistan

These are the 11,000 soldiers who might save Afghanistan

What does Afghanistan need? Some major rebranding, says its ambassador.

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Diplomats from 25 countries and international organizations, including the United States, said Monday that they are considering arming and training the new unity government in Libya so it can fight the spread of terrorist groups in the country and counter the smuggling of migrants to Europe.

In a joint communique after a lengthy meeting on ways to rein in chaos in Libya, the diplomats said they would support Libyas request to be exempted from a U.N. embargo that was put in place five years ago to keep arms out of the hands of Islamist militants and rival militias locked in a power struggle.

Other parts of the embargo would be reinforced, the communique said, so that arms go only to the forces being established by the government of national accord that returned to Libya six weeks ago when Prime Minister Fayez Serraj arrived on a boat with his allies.

The statement was signed by the United States and 20 other nations, including four other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, and by four organizations: the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League and the African Union. It said the signatories are ready to respond to the Libyan governments requests for training and equipping security forces that are part of the new government.

[U.S. escalates campaign against Islamic State in Libya]

Secretary of State John F. Kerry said it was imperative that the international community should support the Serraj government, which is the only legitimate one in Libya and which must now start to work.

Kerry told reporters at a news conference that the signatories are waiting for an official request so it can be discussed and voted on at the United Nations. He said the arms embargo specifically grants exceptions if they are requested by an accepted government that wants weapons to secure the country and combat the Islamic State. Kerry said they also wanted some parts of the embargo strengthened to deter arms transfers to groups not controlled by the recognized government.

Its a delicate balance, he added. We are, all of us here today, supportive of the fact that if you have a legitimate government, and the legitimate government is struggling against terrorism, that legitimate government should not be made the prisoner, or should not be victimized by virtue of the U.N. action that has been taken and has always awaited a legitimate government.

[As oil output falls, Libya teeters on brink of economic collapse]

Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told reporters that the key to fighting terrorism and waves of migration is to stabilize Libya.

With stabilization, we can fight terrorism, he said. We can assure development to a country with rich potentialities but with a strong humanitarian crisis now. We can tackle the migration issue. We can develop the resources of Libya. Without stabilization, we risk tensions, divisions and intra-Libyan fights.

Serraj called the situation in Libya extremely bad and warned that if no action is taken, other nations would not be spared further attacks by the forces of terrorism that are lying in wait in Libya.

The dark warning came near the beginning of a week that Kerry will spend in the Middle East and Europe for discussions about crises in Syria, Libya and Central Asia. The United States and other Western countries have grown alarmed as the conflicts in Libya and Syria in particular have worsened. They are seeking political solutions as a first step so that more military force can be trained on the Islamic State and other extremist groups that have expanded their presence amid the chaos.

On Sunday, Kerry was in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, to discuss ways to firm up a shaky truce in Syria, particularly around the northern city of Aleppo. The 17 nations in a group urging peace talks aimed at establishing some kind of transitional government in Syria plan to meet Tuesday in Vienna, where State Department officials say much of the focus is expected to be on providing greater access for humanitarian deliveries of food and medicine.

[Why Libyas transition to democracy has failed]

Monday was primarily devoted to concerns about Libya in a meeting co-hosted by Kerry and Gentiloni. Italys history as a colonial power in Libya and its proximity to the country have led Rome to consider sending troops if it were asked. Italy, the United States, Britain and France have all inserted small groups of Special Operations forces into the country to counter the spread of the Islamic State.

Although the Serraj government has exerted control over a number of significant ministries and institutions, including the central bank, it still does not have the backing of a majority in the national parliament. A rival government and military are operating in the eastern part of the country, and the two administrations are beset by infighting over the countrys cash reserves and its oil industry.

The West is desperately seeking ways to provide more support to the government of national accord in Tripoli so that it can direct its efforts toward the Islamic State extremists, who have doubled in number over the past year and are now an estimated 6,000 strong. Western governments also want Libyan authorities to better patrol the coastline and stem the flow of refugees toward Italy.

U.S. Special Operations troops have been stationed at two outposts in eastern and western Libya since late 2015 and are tasked with lining up local partners before a possible offensive against the Islamic State, U.S. officials said last week, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive mission.

[Islamic State sets its sights on Tunisia]

A U.S. airstrike in February on a suspected Islamic State camp killed at least 40 people, including a senior operative, Noureddine Chouchane, who was linked to attacks against Western tourists in neighboring Tunisia.

Libya has been in a downward spiral of violence since strongman Moammar Gaddafi was ousted in 2011. The Libyan conflict is feared to be bleeding into Tunisia, a country considered the only successful young democracy to emerge from the 2011 Arab Spring revolts.

The joint communique ended on an optimistic note. The countries represented all said they were willing to reopen their diplomatic missions in Libya once the security situation improves.

Later Monday, Kerry met with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, in an attempt to defuse escalating violence over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the scene of separatist warfare. He was joined by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

The small breakaway region, an enclave of mostly ethnic Armenians, declared independence from Azerbaijan in 1992 but has not been recognized by any country. A 1994 cease-fire has often been breached, and tensions escalated over four days in early April, leaving 350 people dead.

According to a statement issued after the meeting, Armenian President Serge Sarkisian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev reiterated their commitment to the cease-fire and the peaceful settlement of the conflict.

Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.
Ohio government officials have rejected East Clevelands request to be allowed to file for bankruptcy, saying that city council, not the mayor, must request permission to file for bankruptcy.

The letter sent by the Ohio Tax Commissioners office was in response to a request by East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton to allow the city to file for federal bankruptcy. Under Ohio law, a city must first get state approval before filing for bankruptcy.

In the April 27 letter sent by Norton, he describes the city, a suburb of Cleveland, as suffering from decades-long economic decline and precipitous decrease in revenue. Further on, he states that the city is insolvent and predicts that the city will remain so throughout 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

If not allowed to file for bankruptcy, Norton warns, the city will be unable to sustain basic Fire, Police, EMS or rubbish collection services. Currently the city is struggling to make its payroll of $250,000 every two weeks.

Ohio government officials decision to reject the citys request is not, however, limited to a technicality. Last year, in a reference to East Clevelands financial problems, Ohios Auditor David Yost wrote to Governor John Kasich that bankruptcy would hurt Ohios bond rating.

Bankruptcy is a failure, either political or economic or both, Yost wrote. Neither is conducive to attracting new investment or even to preserving economic stability.

Kasich, a fiscal and social conservative and part of the Republican Party establishment, was one of the last Republicans seeking the partys presidential nomination to withdraw from the race.

Those opposing bankruptcy are demanding that the city further cut services and raise taxes on an already impoverished population. East Cleveland has been in a state of fiscal emergency since 2012 and has already drastically cut services. Some streets are so badly maintained that people say you could drive a Volkswagen into the potholes.

East Cleveland has suffered a long economic decline like many Rust Belt cities in the Midwest and Northeast. Once a very prosperous city benefiting from the regions steel and auto industry, less than a third of the citys adult population is now employed. In 2011, the citys largest employer, the local hospital, shut down.

According to US Census figures, the population of East Cleveland has declined from over 40,000 in the 1970s to just over 17,000 today. Median household income is just $20,600, less than half the national average.

Forty-two percent of the population lives in poverty. More than six out of 10 children, 62 percent, are growing up in poverty. The average value of a home is about $37,000, less than one-third the statewide average.

Detroit was the last major US city to declare bankruptcy, and the bankruptcy court was used to cut pensions from city employees, lay off workers and cut services from entire neighborhoods.

If allowed to go through, East Clevelands bankruptcy would be used to make similar attacks on services and city workers. The city has also been in off-and-on negotiations to merge with Cleveland, which took over the citys water department in 2008. Bankruptcy is also seen as necessary to proceed with plans to merge the city into Cleveland.
The WSWS urges Verizon workers to sign up for the Verizon Strike Newsletter to receive the latest updates by email.

Officials from the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in Brooklyn called the police to prevent striking workers from speaking to reporters from the World Socialist Web Site Friday. The effort by the CWA to silence its critics and intimidate militant workers occurred just days after a New York Police Department lieutenant, driving a van load of scabs, ran down a striking Verizon worker on a picket line in the neighboring borough of Queens.

About 60 striking workers were standing and sitting behind the ubiquitous police barricades near a Verizon call center near downtown Brooklyn at noon on Friday when two reporters from the WSWS Verizon Strike Newsletter approached them, seeking interviews and commentary on the one-month-long strike.

In the face of a virtual blackout of the strike by the corporate-controlled news media, the WSWS has been the only publication that has consistently reported on the strike since it began on April 13. Hundreds of strikers, looking for a way to break the isolation of the strike by the CWA and other unions, have signed up for the WSWS Verizon Strike Newsletter. WSWS reporters have repeatedly interviewed strikers at the Brooklyn location over the last few weeks, as well as during the 2011 strike.

The incident happened after a WSWS reporter identified himself to a striker, handed her a copy of a WSWS article, and asked her if she would like to comment on the latest developments in the strike. In particular, he asked her about the running down of striker James Smith on May 9 by an NYPD cop, as well as the injury of another picket, Joseph Rooney, by a scab driving a car on May 12 in Westborough, Massachusetts.

The striking worker gave her permission to the WSWS reporter and the interview began. Within a few moments, however, a woman approached the two and said, The interview is over. When asked, she said she was a CWA shop steward. The reporter explained that the WSWS wanted to hear and publicize the views of rank-and-file workers but the union official insisted that comments could only be gotten from top officials in the union headquarters.

The reporter moved on and began interviewing another striker. A man came up who identified himself as the picket captain and told him that there would be no more interviews. The worker being interviewed replied that she could speak for herself but the picket captain persisted. You have to go, he said to the WSWS reporter. Without the slightest substantiation, the picket captain claimed that there had been complaints about the reporters.

The CWA picket captain then spoke to two nearby police officers. The reporter went outside the barricade and was approached by the cops, who said, You cant stay here. They dont want you here. The reporter asked who it was that didnt want the WSWS there and the officer replied that it was the union.

In the meantime, another union official told the other WSWS reporters, You know you cant get interviews. If you continue I will call the police and have you arrested. When the reporters insisted that the workers had a democratic right to talk, the official replied, I dont have time to debate the Constitution with you. When the official was asked his name he walked away in silence.

The attack on the democratic rights both of the WSWS and of strikers themselves underscores the role of the CWA and other unions as a labor police force. The same union bureaucrats had no problem parading Bernie Sanders, Hillary and Bill Clinton around the picket lines, even though the Obama administration and the Democratic Party are fully backing the strikebreaking operation by Verizon. Just last week a federal judge issued an injunction in response to a request by Obamas National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to ban strikers from picketing hotels where Verizon is housing strikebreakers. Bill de Blasio, another Democrat praised by the CWA, is overseeing the operations of the NYPD, which is conducting a scab escorting service for Verizon.

The effort to muzzle its critics is the surest sign that the CWA, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the other unions are preparing a miserable sellout of the strike. This is underscored by the meeting the CWA and the IBEW had with Obamas Labor Secretary, Thomas Perez. The Obama administration, with the full backing of the AFL-CIO and other unions, wants to shut down the strike as soon as possible, on managements terms. If it goes on much longer, the Democrats and unions fear workers could rebel and trigger a far broader mobilization of the working class, which would lead to political confrontation with the Obama administration.

In order to prevent another sellout like the 2011 strike, the WSWS has called on rank-and-file workers to take the conduct of the struggle out of the hands of the unions by organizing independent strike committees. The Socialist Equality Partys presidential candidate, Jerry White, has denounced the Obama administrations strikebreaking intervention and called for the mobilization of the entire working class to defend the Verizon workers.

Despite the efforts to silence them, Verizon strikers continue to express their views to the WSWS. Joe, a customer service representative in New York City, said, The public is being misled by the media. Mayor de Blasio is giving a police escort to the strikebreakers and every week the company is taking out more and more ads to make us look like the bad guys.

I have been working here for 35 years, and every few years they do this. We have had to fight for everything we have. I was here in 1989 when Gerry Horgan was killed on the picket line, and we had to stay out for four months.

It is wrong to freeze workers pensions at 30 years. I have stayed this long with the company and worked all those years, worked loyally and produced everything they have. Why should my pension be taken away now that I have given my loyalty already? This is when the company president makes $20 million a year and gets free lifetime health care. They never said they didnt have the money, because they do. But they want to spend it on buying AOL, which they did last year, and Yahoo, which they are planning to buy now.

I dont understand how the judge could rule for Obamas NLRB to stop our picketing at the scab hotels. The company wrote us a letter before the strike admitting it was legal to follow any truck or van as long as we dont interfere with what they are doing. This is the same thing. It is not a secondary picket, and Verizon told us it was legal. We are allowed to picket the Verizon Wireless stores even though they are not on strike or part of the union. This is not a secondary boycott. I think this is being done just to block us and make it harder to get our message across.

I am surprised that Obama is calling for this injunction. I thought he was more balanced and would allow these things to be done. But the Democrats go where the money is. It is both parties, really. They promise everything to get elected; then when they are elected they wont do what they said they would.

The WSWS Verizon Strike Newsletter calls on workers to denounce this undemocratic attack on the WSWS and Verizon workers. We urge all strikers to attend its online conference call on Tuesday, May 17, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time: One month on strike: The way forward for Verizon workers. Participating in the call will be the Socialist Equality Party presidential candidate and WSWS US labor editor, Jerry White. To take part, dial 213-416-1560 and enter PIN: 581 991 086 # or sign up for the Verizon Strike Newsletter to receive an email invitation.
The World Health Organization (WHO) still classifies transgender individuals as mentally ill. It's currently working to revise that definition, but has been taking its sweet time since 2014. Denmark has "run out of patience," the Telegraph reported, and is addressing the problem on its own. By Jan. 1, 2017, Denmark will be the first country that does not categorize being transgender as having a mental disorder.

"The WHO is currently working on a new system for registering diagnoses," Flemming Moller Mortensen, Social Democrat and health spokesperson, reportedly said. "It has been working on it for a very, very long time. Now we've run out of patience, and want to send out a signal saying that if the system is not changed by October, then we in Denmark will go it alone."

Denmark to remove transgender diagnoses from the mental health section of the diagnosis register. Sweden, come on! #LGBT #trans

"It's incredibly discriminatory to put transgender people in a box with mental and behavioral illnesses," he added, calling the WHO's definition stigmatizing. Because indeed, the most recent version (see F64) of the Internal Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) does file "transsexualism" under gender identity disorders, a subset of mental and behavioral disorders.

The Danish government hopes its declaration will spur WHO to action, yielding a more accurate description of what it means to be transgender, before the end of 2016. According to the Local, Linda Thor Pederson, trans issue spokesperson for LGBT Denmark, called the country's resolution "a big step forward."

As of next year the world may see the first country fully end #trans pathologization and the (mis)treatment of trans people #Denmark #lgbt

"Being transgender is a natural variation, like being left-handed," she said. "We are not sick, and therefore don't belong in the chapter on mental illness. Some people still think we are mentally ill, because our diagnosis is in the psychiatric chapter. This proposal can make a big difference toward changing that."

Meanwhile, in the United States, people in certain areas are asked to bring a birth certificate with them to the bathroom or pay the price ($500), in order to protect "women and children" safe from a perceived trans threat.
Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, which has helped independent filmmakers raise money for thousands of movies, is going proactive. Instead of waiting for projects to come to it, Kickstarter is in Cannes actively pitching directors, producers and sales agents on the benefits of using fan funding to get their movies made.

"It started when Spike Lee wanted to go on Kickstarter to fund his [2014] film Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, and he actually emailed our helpline asking to talk to a real human being," says Dan Schoenbrun, senior film outreach lead at Kickstarter. "We thought, if Spike Lee wants to talk to us, maybe we should have someone he can talk to."

Read More: Spike Lee Reaches $1.25 Million Kickstarter Goal

While Kickstarter has a reputation as a site for first-time directors, Schoenbrun says the company is increasingly looking to bring in established filmmakers. He points to Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa, which started with a Kickstarter campaign, or the successful $6 million campaign to fund a new season of cult TV Mystery Science Theater 3000, a project that began with rights holder Shout Factory at Berlin's European Film Market last year.

"Mainstream projects are actually the ones we are least interested in - we find that projects from filmmakers with a really distinct vision do best on our site," Schoenbrun says, mentioning Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose latest film, Endless Poetry, premiered this year in Cannes. "He couldn't make a mainstream film if he tried," says the Kickstarter executive. "He's perfect for us."

Read More: Kickstarter Reaches 1 Million Documentary Backers (Exclusive)

Kickstarter has co-operations in place with both the Sundance Institute and the Berlinale Talents section of the Berlin International Film Festival to support projects that come out of their programs. It also recently partnered with Kodak, whereby the company will provide donations of free film stock equivalent to 20 percent of the money raised on a Kickstarter campaign, up to a maximum of $100,000.

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In addition to narrative features, Kickstarter is a major backer of documentaries. The company recently reached a milestone, with more than 1 million backers donating to doc campaigns, representing some $120 million in pledged support.

In the past, there has been pushback from Kickstarter users against established filmmakers using the site. Zach Braff came under fire from some quarters after he raised $2.6 million in fan donations in 2013 for his sophomore feature Wish I Was Here. But Schoenbrun says fans in general don't have an issue with successful directors so long as "they aren't coming to us for the money, but to really engage with their audience."

Read More: Cannes: Zach Braff's Kickstarter Film Lands Full Financing (Exclusive)
Sales agent Protagonist Pictures has boarded Where Hands Touch, the latest movie project from director Amma Asante, who won a BAFTA for most promising newcomer for A Way of Life, impressed with her second film Belle, and has just finished editing A United Kingdom, which stars David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike. Actress, musician and activist Amandla Stenberg, who appeared in action-thriller Colombiana and The Hunger Games, has been confirmed as the female lead in Where Hands Touch.

The film, which has been developed through the BFI and is produced by Asantes Tantrum Films and Pinewood Pictures, is set in Germany during World War II and is about the relationship between a 16-17 year-old German mixed-race girl and a 19-year-old German soldier. Its really about two teenagers who are coming of age against a back-drop of utter madness teenagers who are witnessing horrible, sad, devastating elements of our humanity, Asante says.

Asante, who was born and grew up in Britain, but whose parents came from Ghana, had become keenly interested in how black and mixed-race people survived, or didnt, in Nazi Germany. Im always involved in my head in stories that are to do with identity, and how we fit in, and where do we find belonging, and how do we define ourselves, Asante says.

Casting the lead female role had been a focus of concern for her. My worry had always been: how was I going to find a young enough actress who was also emotionally broad enough to be able to take on some of the aspects? Its a really complex and nuanced story and where was I going to find the actress who was going to carry this film?

Asante first came across Stenberg when the latter was at school and sent a message via Twitter asking for an interview for a project she was doing on feminism. Some years later Asantes eye was caught by a tweet sent by Stenberg. It just grabbed my attention. Here was this young, smart woman who was so on the money with her observations, socially and politically; she is so understanding of the intersection what it is to be a black female, Asante says.

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Another aspect of the film is the relationships the teenagers have with their parents. Its an emotional piece, and it is as much a father-son and a mother-daughter story as it is any kind of love story. I never liked a single straight up love story. This is much more a story about two children whose parents are trying to get them through the war with ten fingers and ten toes intact, when they are all living in a world where it seems that may not be possible, Asante says.

She is now casting for the lead male role, a young man who is bearing witness to the madness, and who is having the scales fall from his eyes as he comes of age, and the difficulty in understanding the choices his country is making in order to, apparently, make a better future for him, which is the kind of rhetoric that these children were exposed to.

Asante would like to start shooting the film in September in Wales, where she shot her first film, and on location in either the Czech Republic or Belgium to be able to create our Berlin streets and interiors.

Mike Goodridge, Protagonist CEO, said of the film: Its a unique perspective on the Nazi persecution and we believe it will be a powerful and beautiful film that will further mark her out as a great storyteller.

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(Corrects Citadel headquarters as Chicago)

By Michelle Price and Samuel Shen

SHANGHAI, May 16 (Reuters) - Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund with around $150 billion in assets under management, has set up an investment management unit in Shanghai, according to a Chinese government website filing, signalling that the firm is looking to expand its bets on China.

The move comes as some hedge fund managers around the world including Jim Chanos and Kyle Bass have piled into short trades against Chinese assets, amid fears the country's overleveraged economy and ballooning bad bank loans are set to derail the world's second-largest economy.

Bridgewater's China unit was set up in Shanghai's Free Trade Zone on March 7, with registered capital of 50 million yuan ($7.67 million), the website of China's State Administration for Industry & Commerce (SAIC) showed.

The SAIC filing cites Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, famous for anticipating the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, as the registered legal representative. Bridgewater operates a global macro investing style based on economic trends.

"The move stands in stark contrast to the belligerently loud claims among Ray Dalio's hedge fund contemporaries, all of whom are now crowded like sardines into the same China short trade," wrote analysts at Z-Ben Advisors, the Shanghai-based investment consultancy, in a client research note published on Monday and seen by Reuters.

Calls to Bridgewater's U.S. office to seek comment went unanswered outside normal working hours. A U.S-based spokesman for Bridgewater did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment out of business hours.

Bridgewater has set-up a Wholly Owned Foreign Entity, or WOFE, a legal structure used by hundreds of U.S. hedge funds, including Chicago-headquartered Citadel, that allows foreign companies to set-up shop in China without having to partner with a local firm.

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The Bridgewater entity is licensed to perform investment management and investment advisory, according to the registration filing. Z-Ben predicted the hedge fund will use the platform to launch onshore yuan fixed-income strategies.

Bridgewater's clients, large institutional investors, have very little exposure to the yuan, "so this positions Bridgewater to move at speed once global demand for RMB does finally materialize," according to Z-Ben.

The U.S. hedge fund managed to secure its WOFE application just ahead of a government clampdown on such entities following last year's summer stock market crash, and a series of lending scandals, which have raised fears the investment structure has been abused.

($1=6.5195 yuan) (Reporting by Samuel Shen in Shanghai and Michelle Price in Hong Kong; Editing by John Ruwitch, Clarence Fernandez and Kim Coghill)
China is intensifying its efforts to safeguard the environment by giving more power to the environmental protection ministry. (Photo : Getty Images)

China's Ministry of Environmental Protection has been given more power to inspect all provinces, making it the country's second highest authority allowed to send inspection teams and hold meetings with provincial leaders after the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, China Daily reported.



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According to Liu Changgen, head of the National Environmental Protection Inspection Office, 14 more provinces will now be subject to the inspection of the central government this year.



The news came after a pilot mission in Hebei Province was successfully completed. Insiders, however, noted that there is no final date yet when the ministry will begin its inspection, adding that plans for follow-up inspections are still subject to the approval of national authorities.



Disclosed on Wednesday, the Hebei inspection showed that the province is facing wide-ranging environmental problems, from ineffective law and regulation implementation to rapid ecological degradation.



Liu noted that central-level authorities worked hand in hand with top provincial officials during the month-long investigation in the province, currently regarded as one of China's heavily polluted areas. Hebei accounts for around 25 percent of China's steel output.



The environment ministry noted that Hebei has five of China's top 10 cities with the worst air pollution.



To efficiently address provincial-level issues, Liu said that the ministry has already laid out plans as to how inspection teams will be utilized. He stated that the teams will prioritize assessing how local officials "have met their promises and solved problems the inspectors find."



The ministry has formed a group of 120 individuals dedicated to carrying out inspections. The group aims to cover all provincial areas every two years.



According to Zhang Xiaode, director of the Ecological Civilization Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Governance, "there has always been less enthusiasm about environmental protection at local . . . because many government officials are mainly assessed on the GDP growth rate of the area they serve," China Daily noted.



"We need to set up a fundamental system to supervise environmental protection," Zhang said, adding that "central government inspections will help spur local authorities to devote more efforts to environmental protection."


Japanese cafe chain Kyushu Pancake has just opened its first Singapore outlet on 11 May. Find out more about what makes its pancakes so unique; plus 10 more foodie spots to visit for this savoury-sweet dish.

By Hong Xinying

Image: Kyushu Pancake Singapore/ Facebook

Good news, for lovers of pancakes. Japanese cafe chain Kyushu Pancake has just opened its first outlet here on May 11.

The 42-seater cafe at Thomson Road is also the brands first outlet in Southeast Asia. Existing Kyushu Pancake outlets can be found in Tokyo and Kyushu in Japan as well as Taipei in Taiwan.

The cafe chains mixed grain batter is what makes its pancakes so unique. This pancake mix includes wheat, sprouted brown rice and pressed barley among the seven grains it uses; all of which are found and produced in Kyushu.

It took cafe chain founder Koji Muraoka up to 18 months to come up with the recipe for this pancake mix, reported local newspaper Straits Times. These grains give the pancakes a natural, sweet fragrance and taste, said Muraoka to Straits Times.

These pancakes are paired with homemade jams, as well as sweet and savoury toppings such as fruits, eggs benedict as well as marshmallows and ice-cream. The cafe also serves French toast and waffles made from the same pancake mix. Prices range from $20 to $23 for a main dish and a drink.

Hankering for more pancake options? Check out these 10 other foodie spots in town.

Atlas Coffeehouse

Where: 6 Dukes Road, Tel: 6314 2674

Image: Atlas Coffeehouse/ Instagram

This cafe serves pancakes made with ricotta (Italian whey cheese), which creates a moist and creamy centre. Its popular Atlas butterscotch banana pancake ($18) comes topped with caramelised bananas, as well as an ice cream made of butterscotch and honeycomb.

Clinton Street Baking Co.

Where: 31 Purvis Street, Tel: 6684 4845

Image: Clinton Street Baking Co. Singapore

The bakery-cafe from New York opened its first Singapore branch last September and pancakes ($18) are among its most popular dishes. These pancakes are served in a stack of three and paired with maple syrup and butter. Choose between three toppings: the banana walnut, wild blueberries or chunks of chocolate.

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Dean & Deluca

Where: 47 Pekin Street, Far East Square, #01-01, Tel: 6536 2460 and 4 Hillview Rise, HillV2, #01-01, Tel: 6710 7282

Image: Dean & Deluca Singapore/ Facebook

Still cant get enough of American-style pancakes? Try the ones at this New York gourmet grocer and cafe, which has currently two outlets here. It serves flapjacks (buttermilk pancakes, $21) with fresh cream, berries and maple syrup.

Dutch Baby Cafe

Where: The Paragon, #B1-13, 290 Orchard Road, Tel: 6836 9488

Image: Dutch Baby Cafe

This new cafe bakes its pancakes on skillets to create a thin, crepe-like edge and a soft centre. Which does mean that you have to eat it fast, before it cools and caves in. Get the set (from $15.80 to $16.80), which features a pancake and a drink.

Food for Thought

Where: Multiple locations including 8 Queen Street, Tel: 6338 0873

Image: Food for Thought/ Facebook

This cafes soft and chewy pancakes make for such good comfort food. Priced at $14 per serving, youll get to choose toppings of banana and walnuts or dark chocolate and berries on top of your pancakes.

Hoshino Coffee Singapore

Where: Multiple outlets in Singapore at malls including ION Orchard, Capitol Piazza.

Image: Hoshino Coffee/ Facebook

These fluffy pancakes are among the cafes bestselling dishes. Thicker than your usual pancakes, which makes it all the better for the syrup to be soaked in. Order the pancake souffle style ($9.80 to $12), with a choice between the maple or honey syrup and additional puree or ice-cream toppings.

Paddington House of Pancakes

Where: 180 Kitchener Road, #02-35/36, City Square Mall, Tel: 6612 9029

Image: Paddington House of Pancakes/ Facebook

You cant complain for the lack of variety; this Malaysian pancake chain serves up to 100 pancakes and crepes, inspired by culinary styles from all over the world. Fun options to try include the pannekoek (a cross between a pancake and a crepe, available from $11 to $20) and the classic buckleberry ($13) pancakes, which are made with blueberries and cream cheese.

Paddy Hills

Where: 38 South Buona Vista Road

Image: Paddy Hills/ Facebook

This photogenic dish is more than just a pretty sight to behold. The berry ricotta hotcake ($19) comes with a crispy exterior and a soft, muffin-like centre thats filled with ricotta cheese. Its plated with flower petals, pine nuts, a ring of berries and a touch of maple syrup.

Slappy Cakes

Where: The Grandstand, 200 Turf Club Road, #01-20/21, Tel: 6465 1814 and 26 Sentosa Gateway, Resorts World Sentosa, #01-29, Tel: 6795 0779

Image: Slappy Cakes/ Facebook

If the joy of making your own pancakes (minus the mess to clean up) is more your cup of tea, head to this American pancake joint. Get to choose from five types of batter  buttermilk, whole grain, peanut butter, chocolate and pandan  as well as the various sweet and savoury toppings to add onto your pancake creation.

Strictly Pancakes

Where: 44A Prinsep Street, Tel: 6333 4202

Image: Strictly Pancakes/ Facebook

Who says you cant have pancakes as a full and hearty meal? Pair your stacks of hotcakes with heavily sides such as beef skewers, bacon and chunks of chicken. Prices start from $5.50 for a stack of two pancakes to $15 for a stack of three pancakes with garlic buttered prawns.
Warren Buffet

Good morning. Here's everything you need to know in the world of advertising today.

1. Advertisers love Snapchat's priciest ad format  and that ought to worry its social media rivals. Snapchat has run more than 50 Sponsored Lenses campaigns in the seven months since launch.

2. How Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reinvented The Washington Post, the 140-year-old newspaper he bought for $250 million. In less than three years, its readership has exploded, and its content has become more suitable for the digital world.

3. 17 surprising products or services Google bans from advertising. Using Google's AdWords policies, we gathered 17 products and services that Google thinks are too dangerous of deceptive to be shown to its users.

4. A Whole Foods executive says he's tired of hearing one rumor about the brand. Whole Foods is opening a new, cheaper store called 365, but it won't have a tattoo parlor.

5. Advertising veteran Sir John Hegarty reveals the secret to being more creative than your rivals. The BBH cofounder has three pieces of advice.

6. Google hired graffiti artists to paint some crazy designs on its building in Belgium. Google has paired up four artists with Google engineers to create a series of stunning designs, with plans to extend the efforts to its other data centers around the world.

7. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is getting in the bidding war for Yahoo. Buffett and Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert are part of a group that's bidding for Yahoo's internet assets.

8. This is how Hillary Clinton's former political adviser plans to take over the ad industry. Mark Penn wants to create a more digitally-focused advertising group, made up of companies that do not overlap in function, using his private equity fund Stagwell Group LLC.

9. The real story behind McDonalds mysterious "Gold Card."How to get the ticket to unlimited free fast food that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have in their wallets.

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10. The Guardian's former editor Alan Rusbridger has been forced out as chairman of the newspaper's owner. In a letter to staff, Rusbridger explained that The Guardian CEO David Pemsel and current Guardian editor Kath Viner no longer wanted him to take up the role at The Scott Trust.

NOW WATCH: We asked an astronaut if aliens exist  and his answer was spot on





More From Business Insider


If you long for a flawless lawn that tickles bare feet and amazes the neighbors, you can easily bring your fantasy to fruition. Growing an immaculate lawn doesn't have to take hours of toiling in the sun, nor does it require you to ransack your bank account.

To get a country-club perfect lawn without stressing or overspending, follow these 10 tips for budget-friendly lawn care:

[See: 10 Oddly Practical Things You Can Rent.]

1. Don't be afraid to get a little dirty.

Hiring a landscaping company or contractor to look after your yard can cost as much as $1,000 per season. On the other hand, maintaining your lawn yourself won't cost much more than the price of a mower and supplies. If you aren't afraid of getting a little dirty, you may find that DIY lawn care isn't only affordable -- it's fun!

2. Go for a push reel mower.

While rotary mowers shred grass and leave lawns vulnerable to insects and disease, reel mowers cut cleanly. Neatly trimmed grass not only heals faster, it looks nicer. Push mowers run on human power versus fuel, meaning you won't ever need to pay for gasoline to give your lawn a trim. And while gas-powered motors can cost hundreds of dollars, you can often score push mowers for as low as $80. Best of all, these are kinder on the environment than gas mowers, which can produce more pollution than a car in just one hour of use.

3. Fertilize in the spring and fall.

A healthy, growing lawn needs nourishment. While soil can provide lawns with certain nutrients, earth alone can't sustain grass all season. To promote growth, heal damage and control weeds, you'll need to fertilize your lawn in the late spring and early fall. Keep in mind you typically shouldn't have to fertilize more than twice a year -- fertilizing too frequently is not only an unnecessary expense and hassle, it can weaken your lawn.

[See: 10 Summer Savings Tips.]

4. Make your own fertilizer.

One 20-pound bag of artificial fertilizer can set you back $25. Save yourself the money and trip to the store by making your own fertilizer. You can concoct nutritious fertilizer using a few household ingredients. A popular recipe includes mixing one bottle of beer with a can of soda, a half-cup of dish soap, a half-cup of mouthwash and a half-cup of ammonia. An alternative recipe includes a combination of composted kitchen scraps and yard debris.

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5. Make your herbicides.

Pesky weeds wrestle with your grass for water, nutrients and fertilizer. But you don't need the toxic chemicals in store-bought herbicides to slay these stubborn intruders. Instead, try spraying your lawn with mixture of white vinegar, table salt and a touch of liquid dish detergent.

[See: 10 Ways to Save While Gardening.]

6. Make your own insect spray.

Skip the pesticides you buy in stores, which often contain harsh chemicals that can be harmful to humans, pets and the environment. You can keep away mites, white flies, aphids and other creepy crawlies with a mixture of soap and water. To repel cabbage loopers and beetles, a combination of fresh garlic, water and cayenne pepper can do the trick. Use a spray bottle to shower your lawn with these all-natural insect repellents.

7. Aerate in the spring and fall.

Much like fertilization, aeration should be performed yearly in the spring and fall. Aerating your lawn provides air to the roots, improves water penetration and facilitates food absorption. You can aerate your lawn for less by teaming up with your neighbors to split the cost of an aerating machine rental.

8. Avoid overwatering.

One of the secrets to maintaining a lush lawn is to water deeply but infrequently. Daily watering can suffocate and kill the roots, making the grass stressed and more susceptible to damage. Flooding your lawn with water can tack hundreds of dollars onto your water bill over the year. Typically, healthy grass needs about 1 inch of water per week. To gauge your water usage, place a bucket under your sprinkler and crank off the hose once the water level hits 1 inch.

9. Avoid over-mowing.

By cutting your grass too short, you make it vulnerable to weeds, drought and heat. If you allow your grass to grow a little taller, your lawn will hold moisture better and resist weeds. Aim to keep your grass around 2 inches tall. Note that target height may vary depending on the species, so be sure to do a little homework to find out the ideal condition for your particular breed.

10. Leave those clippings alone.

After dedicating time to mowing your lawn, you may be relieved to learn you don't have to worry about bagging up those lawn clippings. Lawn clippings can serve as a source of fertilizer and natural mulch, promoting green growth and helping the soil retain moisture.

Maria Lalonde honed her deal-hunting skills while traveling through South America and Southeast Asia, combing colorful local markets for unique finds. Her love of blogging and thirst for deals brought her to Offers.com, where she blogs about savings tips.





More From US News & World Report


From Popular Mechanics

Earlier this week, the U.S. Air Force rolled out dozens of A-10s and F-16s in an "elephant walk"-a military demonstration that involves taxing entire squadrons of aircraft down the runway to train for the type of en masse takeoffs that would be necessary in wartime. An elephant walk also serves as a reminder to surrounding nations of the United States' military capabilities.

This elephant walk was held on a runway at the Exercise Beverly Herd 16-01 at Osan Air Base in South Korea. The A-10s are from the 25th Fighter Squadron "Draggins," and the F-16s are from the 36th Fighter Squadron "Fiends" of the 51st Fighter Wing. You can see them all in the video below.

The U.S. Air Force recently decided that the A-10 Thunderbolt II, affectionately nicknamed the Warthog, is just too useful to be retired. Originally designed to take out Soviet tanks, the armored attack plane continues to prove its worth. Likewise, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, referred to as the Viper by many airmen, has proven its competence in battle, and with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program lagging, it's safe to say the Viper isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

It's no secret that tensions are high between the United States and China in the Pacific region, particularly in the South China Sea where China is building airstrips on atolls that they claim are for civilian research, but look suspiciously like military facilities. China claims sovereignty for 12 nautical miles around these manmade islands. The United States doesn't recognize that sovereignty.

Who knows if these A-10s and F-16s will be needed, but the U.S. wants the entire Pacific region to know that they are "ready to fly tonight."

Source: Pacific Air Forces
Photo credit: Car and Driver

From Car and Driver

What It Is: A whisper, a moon shadow, a feverish daydream, meditations in the key of A minor, and maybe a highly connected electric car from the worlds most celebrated consumer-electronics company.

Why It Matters: Google the word apple and a link to the fruit weve consumed for thousands of years doesnt appear until page four. Thats how important Apple Inc. is. Still, to grow the company, Apple CEO Tim Cook has to explore new businesses. And vehicles, especially automated ones, are a sturdy platform for mobile connectivity and the data harvesting that would ensue. Not much is known about this black-ops joint venture with BMW, which is being developed in deep secrecy, but we have this from an inside source: Apple is so rich that its willing to spend a billion dollars on the project and then simply walk away if it sees no future.

Platform: Whether BMW is a partner or just a supplier, Apple would likely leverage the automakers knowledge of composite structures, and the result could be a BMW i3like city car of its own design to appeal to the scarf wearers who form the core of Apples fan base. Trademark Apple cues could include textured metal surfaces and a completely fresh take on the driver interface, which will serve as a seamless gateway to the companys online universe.

Powertrain: If Apples heavy recruitment of battery engineers is any indication, it will likely carry a battery-electric drivetrain. Automation will come when its ready.

Competition: Given how folks form Soviet-era lines for new iPhones, any vehicle bearing an Apple logo should stake out a formidable sales position. This company got rich figuring out how to make big profits in formerly low-margin businesses, so all the automakers should be worried.

What Might Go Wrong: Apple has never collaborated with another company before, so its an open question as to who will own the customer-and the accompanying data. And dealer-franchise laws, the millstone around Teslas neck, make for a huge distribution quandary. Project leader Steve Zadesky, a former Ford engineer, is leaving Apple amid rumors that design chief Jonathan Ive is unhappy with the project. So thats not good.

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Estimated Arrival and Price: Dont get in line before 2020, as nothing has been shown and no production site has been identified. Upscale features and new tech would likely drive the price well above $30,000-much higher if you want it in 18-karat gold.

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Holly Brockwell is happy to report that she isn't expecting kids  not now, and not ever. She just won a four-year legal battle with the National Health Service for the right to be sterilized.

Brockwell first asked her doctor about getting her tubes tied when she was 26 and was met with a series of patronizing comments from healthcare providers, according to The Telegraph. One doctor reportedly suggested that Brockwell's boyfriend get a vasectomy because she was "too young" to think about such a permanent birth control decision.

After speaking publicly about her choice, Brockwell was bombarded with online harassment and violent threats.

These are the messages I referred to in my Mail article, by the way, from an NHS paramedicpic.twitter.com/xTTEp9puTe https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CimKOJzW0AAK0LP.jpg:large

Following her operation at St Thomas's Hospital in Central London, Brockwell published a column in the Daily Mail where she described feeling "euphoric" about finally knowing she won't have an unwanted pregnancy.

"I've been patronized, ignored, harassed, judged and demonized," Brockwell wrote. "But I've never wavered in my determination to be sterilized." (Brockwell did not return Mic's request for comment at press time.)

It's common for women around the world to face discrimination when they seek out permanent birth control. In 2015, 31-year-old, Virginia-based Reddit user riveramblnc shared her experience with condescending doctors and spending months on a waiting list before she could get permanent birth control.

"Forcing [women] to go through all these steps and then watch a patronizing video that pretty much implies if we're under 40 we'll regret our decisions is archaic at best," she wrote.

Tell my doctor told me I'm too young and I don't have enough kids to get my tubes tied

I asked for the 10 year IUD, paraguard. They refused.

It's not unheard of for doctors to require women to jump through all sorts of hoops to get their tubes tied (otherwise known as a tubal ligation), particularly if they think they're "too young" to undergo the procedure.

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A Reddit user in her early thirties, known only as gfjq23, recounted her own experience, in which a male doctor required that she undergo a year of weekly counseling before he would consider performing the procedure. "This is the first case I've had in a decade of someone saying I'm too young to make a decision about my own body," she wrote.

Even women who already have children are often told they are too young to get their tubes tied, B public legal battle is just one step in a an ongoing fight for healthcare professionals to recognize a woman's right to make lasting choices about her own reproductive health.

h/t Telegraph
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The map, created by a team led by astronomers in Japan, shows the density of the galaxies, the star formation rate and also the total number of stars in each galaxy. It serves as a visual depiction of Albert Einstein's theory that the universe is constantly expanding.

This is the deepest 3-D map of the universe to ever be created, thanks to the use of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's Subaru Telescope's Fiber Multi-Object Spectrograph. The FMOS can look at the universe from as far away as 14.7 billion lightyears.

Source: YouTube

"It's a privilege to be able to publish our results 100 years after Einstein proposed his theory," researcher Teppei Okumura told ScienceDaily. The visuals build on a 2010 study from Princeton University that essentially confirmed Einstein's theory.

In his Theory of Relativity, Einstein developed the notion of the space-time continuum, in which "events that occur at the same time for one observer could occur at different times for another," according to Space.com.

The map is a part of the space-surveying FastSound Project, and researchers hope to one day look at 5,000 galaxies to answer exactly why and how the universe is expanding.

Lose yourself in the journey below:
Tourism Is a New Point of Contention Between China and Taiwan

China has been open about disliking Taiwanese President-elect Tsai Ing-wen, leading to the two nations' numerous points of contention. (Photo : Getty Images)

With the decline of Chinese visitors to Taiwan, China and the self-ruled island have been playing the blaming game, adding tourism as another point of contention between the two governments, Reuters reported.



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The two nations have been trading accusations on various issues since Taiwan's pro-independence opposition took over the island's January elections.



China has been openly stating its dislike of incoming President Tsai Ing-wen as well as her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which is a staunch advocate of independence.



According to Taiwan's Tourism Bureau, the number of Chinese tourists who visited the island last year reached 4.2 million. The figure slipped by 10 percent to 363,878 in March.



Various companies who service the visitors, including bus firms that offer shuttle tour groups, revealed that "they are feeling the pinch.



Lu Shiao-ya, head of the National Joint Association of Tourist Buses, noted that during this period in 2015, Chinese tourists took around 4,000 tour buses a month. However, the statistic only averaged 2,800 this year.



"China is using its tourists as a bargaining chip against Taiwan's new government," he said.



Many fear that China could make a further decline on tourist numbers if Tsai's upcoming inauguration speech would upset Beijing. Tsai is scheduled to assume office on May 20.



Until now, China claims Taiwan as its territory "after the defeated Nationalists fled there at the end of the civil war in 1949," Reuters said.



For Tung Chen-yuan, spokesman for Taiwan's upcoming government, "this kind of political interference would only result in hurt feelings for people on either side of the Taiwan Strait."



With this news, the island's industry has been feeling nervous. Golden Kou, vice president of EVA Airways, Taiwan's second biggest carrier, shared, "Everyone is waiting to see how China will react to the inauguration speech."



At least two tour agents have also revealed that they were instructed to restrict the number of tourists they send to Taiwan since the polls.



"The National Tourism Administration told us in February and March to cut the number of tourists we send to Taiwan," an agent from Xiamen City told Reuters. "From Xiamen the number of tourists has fallen sharply, down more than 50 percent."



Another source who has knowledge on China's Taiwan tourism policy shared that there had been "technical problems in some provinces." For instance, in Henan, the application forms for Taiwan tourist permits had run out.



The Taiwan Affairs Office and the concerned office at the China National Tourism Administration declined to comment.



Meanwhile, the Communist Party's official People's Daily stated that the cause of the decline in tourist number is the island's "fiddling with the quota system."


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* Aboitiz Power awaiting Chevron's bid terms

* Chevron's Asian geothermal assets worth $3 bln

* Aboitiz talking to potential bid partner

MANILA, May 16 (Reuters) - Aboitiz Power Corp, one of the Philippines' biggest power producers, said it is interested in acquiring Chevron Corp's Indonesia and Philippine geothermal assets that are up for sale but wants to see the terms before making offers.

Chevron's geothermal energy blocks valued - at about $3 billion - have attracted French utility Engie and Japan's Marubeni Corp, and some Southeast Asian companies.

Speaking openly for the first time about a possible bid, Aboitiz Power CEO Erramon Aboitiz told reporters in Manila on Monday that his company is just waiting for a formal notice from Chevron and will study the terms.

Chevron is selling assets, cutting jobs globally and slashing capital spending to save cash and preserve dividends amid weak oil prices.

"There's no formal documentation yet so we don't know the terms," Aboitiz Power President Antonio Moraza told reporters separately after a stockholders' meeting.

"When it comes out we will study it carefully, and we will most likely want to participate."

It remains unclear whether or not Chevron would offer its Indonesian and Philippine geothermal assets to bidders in separate blocks.

"We've heard some rumours that it might be separate," Moraza said. "I think for Indonesia it will be prudent on our part to have a partner."

Asked if a potential bidder has approached Aboitiz Power for a partnership, Moraza said, "Definitely we're talking."

He declined to elaborate.

Aboitiz Power, along with its partners, currently has 44 generation facilities with capacity of about 2,400 megawatts (MW). Geothermal accounts for 12 percent of that.

Geothermal energy is created by the heat of the earth. It generates reliable power and emits almost no greenhouse gases.

Two Chevron subsidiaries operate geothermal projects in Salak and Darajat fields in west Java with capacity of nearly 650 MW.

Chevron has a 40 percent interest in Philippine Geothermal Production Co, which produces steam energy for third party-owned geothermal power plants and have a combined capacity of 692 MW.

(Reporting by Enrico dela Cruz; Editing by Richard Pullin)
Thank you, Marie. And thank you esteemed members of the faculty, proud parents, devoted friends, squirming siblings. Congratulations to all of youand especially to the magnificent Berkeley graduating class of 2016! It is a privilege to be here at Berkeley, which has produced so many Nobel Prize winners, Turing Award winners, astronauts, members of Congress, Olympic gold medalists. and that's just the women!Berkeley has always been ahead of the times. In the 1960s, you led the Free Speech Movement. Back in those days, people used to say that with all the long hair, how do we even tell the boys from the girls? We now know the answer: manbuns. Early on, Berkeley opened its doors to the entire population. When this campus opened in 1873, the class included 167 men and 222 women. It took my alma mater another ninety years to award a single degree to a single woman. One of the women who came here in search of opportunity was Rosalind Nuss. Roz grew up scrubbing floors in the Brooklyn boardinghouse where she lived. She was pulled out of high school by her parents to help support their family. One of her teachers insisted that her parents put her back into school-and in 1937, she sat where you are sitting today and received a Berkeley degree. Roz was my grandmother. She was a huge inspiration to me and I'm so grateful that Berkeley recognized her potential. I want to take a moment to offer a special congratulations to the many here today who are the first generation in their families to graduate from college. What a remarkable achievement.Today is a day of celebration. A day to celebrate all the hard work that got you to this moment. Today is a day of thanks. A day to thank those who helped you get here-nurtured you, taught you, cheered you on, and dried your tears. Or at least the ones who didn't draw on you with a Sharpie when you fell asleep at a party.Today is a day of reflection. Because today marks the end of one era of your life and the beginning of something new. A commencement address is meant to be a dance between youth and wisdom. You have the youth. Someone comes in to be the voice of wisdom-that's supposed to be me. I stand up here and tell you all the things I have learned in life, you throw your cap in the air, you let your family take a million photosdon't forget to post them on Instagram-and everyone goes home happy. Today will be a bit different. We will still do the caps and you still have to do the photos. But I am not here to tell you all the things I've learned in life. Today I will try to tell you what I learned in death.I have never spoken publicly about this before. It's hard. But I will do my very best not to blow my nose on this beautiful Berkeley robe.One year and thirteen days ago, I lost my husband, Dave. His death was sudden and unexpected. We were at a friend's fiftieth birthday party in Mexico. I took a nap. Dave went to work out. What followed was the unthinkable-walking into a gym to find him lying on the floor. Flying home to tell my children that their father was gone. Watching his casket being lowered into the ground. For many months afterward, and at many times since, I was swallowed up in the deep fog of grief-what I think of as the void-an emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even to breathe. Dave's death changed me in very profound ways. I learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss. But I also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface, and breathe again. I learned that in the face of the void-or in the face of any challenge-you can choose joy and meaning. I'm sharing this with you in the hopes that today, as you take the next step in your life, you can learn the lessons that I only learned in death. Lessons about hope, strength, and the light within us that will not be extinguished.Everyone who has made it through Cal has already experienced some disappointment. You wanted an A but you got a B. OK, let's be honest-you got an A- but you're still mad. You applied for an internship at Facebook, but you only got one from Google. She was the love of your life but then she swiped left. Game of Thrones the show has diverged way too much from the books-and you're mad because you read four thousand three hundred and fifty-two pages.You will almost certainly face more and deeper adversity. There's loss of opportunity: the job that doesn't work out, the illness or accident that changes everything in an instant. There's loss of dignity: the sharp sting of prejudice when it happens. There's loss of love: the broken relationships that can't be fixed. And sometimes there's loss of life itself. Some of you have already experienced the kind of tragedy and hardship that leave an indelible mark. Last year, Radhika, the winner of the University Medal, spoke so beautifully about the sudden loss of her mother. The question is not if some of these things will happen to you. They will. Today I want to talk about what happens next. About the things you can do to overcome adversity, no matter what form it takes or when it hits you. The easy days ahead of you will be easy. It is the hard days-the times that challenge you to your very core-that will determine who you are. You will be defined not just by what you achieve, but by how you survive.A few weeks after Dave died, I was talking to my friend Phil about a father-son activity that Dave was not here to do. We came up with a plan to fill in for Dave. I cried to him, "But I want Dave." Phil put his arm around me and said, "Option A is not available. So let's just kick the shit out of option B." We all at some point live some form of option B. The question is: What do we do then? As a representative of Silicon Valley, I'm pleased to tell you there is data to learn from. After spending decades studying how people deal with setbacks, psychologist Martin Seligman found that there are three P's-personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence-that are critical to how we bounce back from hardship. The seeds of resilience are planted in the way we process the negative events in our lives.The first P is personalization-the belief that we are at fault. This is different from taking responsibility, which you should always do. This is the lesson that not everything that happens to us happens because of us. When Dave died, I had a very common reaction, which was to blame myself. He died in seconds from a cardiac arrhythmia. I poured over his medical records asking what I could have-or should have-done. It wasn't until I learned about the three P's that I accepted that I could not have prevented his death. His doctors had not identified his coronary artery disease. I was an economics major; how could I have? Studies show that getting past personalization can actually make you stronger. Teachers who knew they could do better after students failed adjusted their methods and saw future classes go on to excel. College swimmers who underperformed but believed they were capable of swimming faster did. Not taking failures personally allows us to recover-and even to thrive. The second P is pervasiveness-the belief that an event will affect all areas of your life. You know that song "Everything is awesome?" This is the flip: "Everything is awful." There's no place to run or hide from the all-consuming sadness.The child psychologists I spoke to encouraged me to get my kids back to their routine as soon as possible. So ten days after Dave died, they went back to school and I went back to work. I remember sitting in my first Facebook meeting in a deep, deep haze. All I could think was, "What is everyone talking about and how could this possibly matter?" But then I got drawn into the discussion and for a second-a brief split second-I forgot about death.That brief second helped me see that there were other things in my life that were not awful. My children and I were healthy. My friends and family were so loving and they carried us-quite literally at times. The loss of a partner often has severe negative financial consequences, especially for women. So many single mothers-and fathers-struggle to make ends meet or have jobs that don't allow them the time they need to care for their children. I had financial security, the ability to take the time off I needed, and a job that I did not just believe in, but where it's actually OK to spend all day on Facebook. Gradually, my children started sleeping through the night, crying less, playing more. The third P is permanence-the belief that the sorrow will last forever. For months, no matter what I did, it felt like the crushing grief would always be there. We often project our current feelings out indefinitely-and experience what I think of as the second derivative of those feelings. We feel anxious-and then we feel anxious that we're anxious. We feel sad-and then we feel sad that we're sad. Instead, we should accept our feelings-but recognize that they will not last forever. My rabbi told me that time would heal but for now I should "lean in to the suck." It was good advice, but not really what I meant by "lean in." None of you need me to explain the fourth Pwhich is, of course, pizza from Cheese Board. But I wish I had known about the three P's when I was your age. There were so many times these lessons would have helped. Day one of my first job out of college, my boss found out that I didn't know how to enter data into Lotus 1-2-3. That's a spreadsheet-ask your parents. His mouth dropped open and he said, 'I can't believe you got this job without knowing that"-and then walked out of the room. I went home convinced that I was going to be fired. I thought I was terrible at everything but it turns out I was only terrible at spreadsheets. Understanding pervasiveness would have saved me a lot of anxiety that week.I wish I had known about permanence when I broke up with boyfriends. It would've been a comfort to know that feeling was not going to last forever, and if I was being honest with myself neither were any of those relationships. And I wish I had understood personalization when boyfriends broke up with me. Sometimes it's not you-it really is them. I mean, that dude never showered. And all three P's ganged up on me in my twenties after my first marriage ended in divorce. I thought at the time that no matter what I accomplished, I was a massive failure. The three P's are common emotional reactions to so many things that happen to us-in our careers, our personal lives, and our relationships. You're probably feeling one of them right now about something in your life. But if you can recognize you are falling into these traps, you can catch yourself. Just as our bodies have a physiological immune system, our brains have a psychological immune system-and there are steps you can take to help kick it into gear. One day, my friend Adam Grant, a psychologist, suggested that I think about how much worse things could be. This was completely counterintuitive; it seemed like the way to recover was to try to find positive thoughts. "Worse?" I said. "Are you kidding me? How could things be worse?" His answer cut straight through me: "Dave could have had that same cardiac arrhythmia while he was driving your children." Wow. The moment he said it, I was overwhelmingly grateful that the rest of my family was alive and healthy. That gratitude overtook some of the grief.Finding gratitude and appreciation is key to resilience. People who take the time to list things they are grateful for are happier and healthier. It turns out that counting your blessings can actually increase your blessings. My New Year's resolution this year is to write down three moments of joy before I go to bed each night. This simple practice has changed my life. Because no matter what happens each day, I go to sleep thinking of something cheerful. Try it. Start tonight when you have so many fun moments to list- although maybe do it before you hit Kip's and can still remember what they are. Last month, eleven days before the anniversary of Dave's death, I broke down crying to a friend of mine. We were sitting-of all places-on a bathroom floor. I said: "Eleven days. One year ago, he had eleven days left. And we had no idea." We looked at each other through tears, and asked how we would live if we knew we had eleven days left. As you graduate, can you ask yourselves to live as if you had eleven days left? I don't mean blow everything off and party all the time- although tonight is an exception. I mean live with the understanding of how precious every single day would be. How precious every day actually is.A few years ago, my mom had to have her hip replaced. When she was younger, she always walked without pain. But as her hip disintegrated, each step became painful. Now, even years after her operation, she is grateful for every step she takes without pain-something that never would have occurred to her before. As I stand here today, a year after the worst day of my life, two things are true. I have a huge reservoir of sadness that is with me always-right here where I can touch it. I never knew I could cry so often-or so much. But I am also aware that I am walking without pain. For the first time, I am grateful for each breath in and out-grateful for the gift of life itself. I used to celebrate my birthday every five years and friends' birthdays sometimes. Now I celebrate always. I used to go to sleep worrying about all the things I messed up that day-and trust me that list was often quite long. Now I try really hard to focus on each day's moments of joy. It is the greatest irony of my life that losing my husband helped me find deeper gratitude-gratitude for the kindness of my friends, the love of my family, the laughter of my children. My hope for you is that you can find that gratitude-not just on the good days, like today, but on the hard ones, when you will really need it. There are so many moments of joy ahead of you. That trip you always wanted to take. A first kiss with someone you really like. The day you get a job doing something you truly believe in. Beating Stanford. (Go Bears!) All of these things will happen to you. Enjoy each and every one. I hope that you live your life-each precious day of it-with joy and meaning. I hope that you walk without pain-and that you are grateful for each step.And when the challenges come, I hope you remember that anchored deep within you is the ability to learn and grow. You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. Like a muscle, you can build it up, draw on it when you need it. In that process you will figure out who you really are-and you just might become the very best version of yourself. Class of 2016, as you leave Berkeley, build resilience. Build resilience in yourselves. When tragedy or disappointment strike, know that you have the ability to get through absolutely anything. I promise you do. As the saying goes, we are more vulnerable than we ever thought, but we are stronger than we ever imagined. Build resilient organizations. If anyone can do it, you can, because Berkeley is filled with people who want to make the world a better place. Never stop working to do so-whether it's a boardroom that is not representative or a campus that's not safe. Speak up, especially at institutions like this one, which you hold so dear. My favorite poster at work reads, "Nothing at Facebook is someone else's problem." When you see something that's broken, go fix it. Build resilient communities. We find our humanity-our will to live and our ability to love-in our connections to one another. Be there for your family and friends. And I mean in person. Not just in a message with a heart emoji. Lift each other up, help each other kick the shit out of option B-and celebrate each and every moment of joy.You have the whole world in front of you. I can't wait to see what you do with itCongratulations, and Go Bears!
Adele released her most recent album, 25, back in November, but it is a testament to her popularity that shes able to generate excitement for releasing another music video from the record. At the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday, May 22, Adele will debut the second video from her latest LP for her new single, Send My Love (To Your New Lover).

While Adele is currently on a sold out tour of Europe, she will still be able to have a presence at the Billboard Music Awards thanks to this new clip. A brief glimpse of the video has been released on Twitter, although all you see is Adele wearing a fancy gown standing in an all black room, and we only hear a small portion of her singing.

Of course, considering that Adeles album has been out for months, and it was the No. 1 album in the country for 10 consecutive weeks, so most people tuning in are probably already well-acquainted with Send My Love (To Your New Lover). This is her third official single off the album, after When We Were Young and the smash hit Hello. While it may just be a music video for a song a lot of people have already heard, and the glimpse we saw on Twitter didnt offer much, if weve learned anything from the Internet, its that Adele sends people through the roof. So just steady yourselves, people, Adele is coming.

(Via Rolling Stone)
Johannesburg (AFP) - South African university authorities said Monday that the firebombing of an auditorium in Johannesburg was part of an "organised set of attacks" targeting educational institutions.

The overnight arson attack at the University of Johannesburg caused about 100 million rand ($640,000) damage, destroying an auditorium, computer laboratories and equipment.

No arrests have yet been made over the attack, which follows months of sporadic violence, protests and clashes at universities around South Africa.

A statement from the university said arsonists had "fire bombed" the 1,000-seater auditorium as well as computer laboratories full of equipment.

"This is just the latest in a set of criminal acts directed at our country's basic and higher education institutions," Vice-Chancellor Ihron Rensburg said.

"We are calling on the police, the intelligence services and the judiciary to re-double their efforts in getting to the bottom of this organised set of attacks."

South African universities were rocked last year by violent student protests over tuition fees, with many campuses temporarily shut down.

The protests by students, many of them so-called "born frees" who grew up after apartheid, forced the government to abandon planned tuition fee hikes.

Violence has also erupted at student demonstrations this year, with buildings in February torched at the North West University's Mafikeng campus.

Other campus unrest has focused on allegations of racism and a dispute over the use of the Afrikaans language.

In recent weeks, teaching has been suspended in the Vuwani district of the northern province of Limpopo after about 20 schools were burnt down by local residents.

The community was demonstrating over a change in municipal boundaries
From ELLE DECOR

Alan Cumming bid farewell to his notorious character, political consultant Eli Gold, as "The Good Wife" completed its last season this week. Now, the Scottish actor is going for the gold in real estate, hoping to make a profit on a four-bedroom Manhattan apartment overlooking Tompkins Square Park.

Cumming and his husband Grant Shaffer purchased the East Village co-op in 2005 for $1.695 million, and are now asking for $2.2 million on the sale, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The four-bedroom, one bath apartment is on the third floor of a redbrick row house, built around 1846. While the couple implemented a few upgrades, Cumming and Shaffer aimed to maintain the apartment's historic details.

"We like those old traditional buildings," Cumming told The Wall Street Journal. "We're not big on sliding glass doors."

According to the property listing, the sunny apartment features oversized windows, wide-plank hardwood floors, a formal entry foyer, and a master suite with ornate crown molding.

"It's a truly happy apartment," listing agent Noble Black told ELLEDecor.com. "There are leafy green views from every window, fantastic light throughout, and a beautiful wood-burning fireplace. It's rich with prewar architectural details."

While the couple aimed to maintain the apartment's original details, Cumming has been busy with other renovations. In 2013, he and his husband purchased a $4.65 million townhouse around the corner and have spent the last few years restoring it. Now that the townhouse is slated for completion in September, Cumming said it was the right time to put the co-op on the market, according to The Wall Street Journal. The couple also has a home in upstate New York.

Cumming was nominated for an Emmy three times for his performance on "The Good Wife." Now, he is shooting the Billie Jean King biopic, "Battle of the Sexes."

Check out photos of the apartment below.

Story continues

h/t: The Wall Street Journal
Alicia Vikander may be the new ambassador of French cool-girl beauty  never mind that shes Swedish. During the past four years, the Academy Award winner has stood out in Hollywood by nailing the attainable-meets-aspirational look  and ignoring the rules of red-carpet beauty. Where other stars step and repeat with statement lips, smoky eyes, and other high-glam staples, Vikander turns it up with lightly coated lashes and rose-bitten lips. She bypasses high-plane highlighting and wows us with dewy, lit-from-within skin (secret weapon: RMS Living Luminizer). Her brows arent perfectly groomed  or even fastidiously plucked, for that matter. And her hair is real  no extensions, no falls, just a little second-day texture, often worn neatly tucked behind her ears.

Not since Lupita Nyong'o have we been so enamoured with a Hollywood newcomers beauty look; Vikanders is so different from what we expect from high-glam Hollywood. But the best part of Alicias beauty is that its perfectly attainable  and a little messy. This is the antithesis of the #flawless painted face. Get inspired with her best beauty moments, ahead.

This 2012 look knocks everyday beauty out of the park, thanks to the feathered brows and chic flyaways. Photo: Jeff Vespa/Getty Images.

Graphic liner makes a rare appearance on the actress at the 2013 British Academy Film Awards. Though it's a departure from her standard style, she keeps the rest of her features within her makeup comfort zone with lightly coated lashes and rose-bitten lips. Photo: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images.

The Swedish beautys sweet makeup look is toughened up with strong, defined brows. Photo: Getty Images.

Though we love when Alicias hair is neatly tucked behind the ears, this free-falling look, worn at the BAFTAs in 2014, creates extra allure. Photo: Samir Hussein/Getty Images.

We told you in June 2015 that Vikander was bound to blow up. And not just thanks to her myriad movie releases, but also due to her outstanding beauty looks, including this slicked-back hairstyle worn at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Photo: Tony Barson/Getty Images.

The contrast of super-slick and fluffy textures make this '70s-inspired hair look  which is secured at the sides with exposed bobby pins  a keeper. (The monochrome makeup ain't bad either.) Photo: Walter McBride/Getty Images.

We called it back in the fall of 2015: The lash envy is real with this clumpy look. To create it yourself, layer mascara onto lash tips and keep the rest of the face clean and simple, says Chanel makeup artist Rachel Goodwin. Photo: Jeff Vespa/Getty Images.

Its rare to see the Ex Machina star without her signature soft-hued lips. But were loving the play on pink worn here at a 2016 event in Palm Springs. Photo: Jeff Vespa/Getty Images.

Here, Vikander nails French-girl beauty with understated lips and lashes, and less-than-perfect brows and hair. Photo: Mike Windle/BAFTA LA/Getty Images.

We were stoked to get a behind-the-scenes peek at this makeup look created by Charlotte Tilbury for the 2016 Golden Globes. Also inspiring: her twisted hairstyle, which was pinned into an easy bun at the nape of the neck. Photo: Larry Busacca/NBC/Getty Images.

Vikander scored loads of attention with her sequinned Louis Vuitton dress here. But for us, the actress's beauty look shone even brighter: Straight hair tucked behind the ears and gold-kissed lids are an easy way to pull off the golden-goddess vibe. Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images.

Most celebs would pair this edgy leather dress with a strong smoky eye. But Vikander does the unexpected by wearing minimal mascara and a touch of liner instead. Photo: Karwai Tang/Getty Images.

At a Los Angeles event in February 2016, Vikander punched up her typically low-key beauty look with bright, berry lips and wavy tresses. Photo: Karwai Tang/Getty Images.

If theres ever a time to go for all-out glam, its when youre nominated for an Academy Award. But The Danish Girl actress stayed true to her beauty roots, wearing complexion-lifting makeup in barely there shades, a look that was recognised as one of the freshest of the evening. Photo: Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Miley Cyrus Shares An Important Lesson After Dyeing Her Hair Herself

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Grimes Cutting Her Own Hair Is All Of Us Cutting Our Own Hair
Disgruntled Americans of all political leanings have said it: "I'm moving to Canada." The Great White North particularly appeals to those left-of-center, as many liberal Americans are practically drooling with envy over the new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, in addition to some public policies they would like to see emulated in the U.S.

Let's set aside, for the moment, the fact that immigrating to another country is a complicated and expensive endeavor. If Donald Trump is elected president, there are a lot of people saying they want to get the heck out of the U.S. as fast as possible  logistics aside.

If you're one of them, and you're a homeowner, selling your home will be on your to-do list, and there are a few people willing to help you with that. A Texas real estate agent's Facebook page went viral over the weekend after she advertised her business as an option for helping people sell their homes if they decided to flee the U.S. in the event of a Trump presidency, BuzzFeed reports.

Michelle Blackwell's Facebook page had 173 fans when she posted the ad. She now has more than 5,000, and the ad was shared tens of thousands of times before she took it down (her firm reportedly asked her to.)

Another Texas real estate agent, Elena Dinaburg, posted a similar ad, but only within a private Facebook group, rather than on the public platform.

"There's so much media [attention] with Trump, and so much for and against him," Dinaburg told BuzzFeed News, saying it seemed like the perfect time to post the ad.

Sure, the presidential election is several months away, but if you're planning a transnational move, you've got a lot to do in that short period of time. Locking in a good real estate agent to sell your home is probably the least of your problems, given that you have to search for a home in Canada, where you have no credit. (You can see where your credit in the U.S. stands by viewing your two free credit scores, updated each month, on Credit.com.) You'll also need a job or some sort of reason for Canada to let you in the country to stay. Best of luck with that search.



More from Credit.com


(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc will launch new lines of its private-label brands in the coming weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The new brands with names like Happy Belly, Wickedly Prime and Mama Bear will include nuts, spices, tea, coffee, baby food and vitamins, as well as household items such as diapers and laundry detergents, the newspaper reported. (http://on.wsj.com/1qm9A15) Amazon will only offer these labels to its Prime subscribers, the Wall Street Journal reported, adding the first of the brands could begin appearing at the end of May or early June. Amazon.com was unavailable for comment outside regular U.S. business hours. Last week, Amazon launched Amazon Video Direct for users to post videos and earn royalties with them, setting it up directly against Alphabet Inc's YouTube. (Reporting by Parikshit Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Crosby)
For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  May 16, 2016  Zacks.com releases the list of companies likely to issue earnings surprises. This weeks list includes Amazon (AMZN), Wal-Mart (WMT), Home Depot (HD), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Apple (AAPL).

To see more earnings analysis, visit https://at.zacks.com/?id=3207.

Every day, Zacks.com makes their Bull Stock of the Day available, free of charge. To see it, click here .

Retails Amazon Problem

The focus in the Q1 earnings season lately has been on the Retail sector, particularly the department store space, with every notable industry player coming out with disappointing results. Apparel is apparently the weakest category for these operators, with management teams appearing clueless as to what has happened to apparel demand.

But thats hardly the only issue facing these operators  they are dealing with a secular shift in consumer preferences, with consumers increasingly comfortable spending their money online at Amazon (AMZN) instead of going to the mall. It isnt a consumer spending issue, it is more tied to evolving consumer spending habits. In other words, the question isnt how much consumers are spending, but where they are spending it.



The proof of this came in the largely positive monthly April Retail Sales report, with the reports internals showing a lot of momentum. Of particularly relevance to the disappointing earnings results from the department stores lately, the April Retail Sales reports sub-category about non-store retailers (includes operators like Amazon and other on-line and catalog vendors) had the strongest gain of all categories. What this means is that consumer spending is steadily shifting from the traditional avenues to online platforms.



These traditional retailers likely still have plenty of pain to endure, but they can start putting their house in order by aligning their businesses with evolving consumer preferences. It is hard to envision the industry surviving in its current format given Amazons operating momentum.



Retail Sectors Q1 Scorecard



A number of major retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT) and Home Depot (HD) and others are on the docket to report results this week, but we have already seen Q1 results from 55.8% of the Retailers is in the S&P 500 index. Total earnings for these retailers are up +3.2% from the same period last year on +9.7% higher revenues, with 75% beating EPS estimates and 50% beating revenue expectations.



Positive surprises are more numerous even for the Retail sector.

Story continues

The growth picture emerging doesnt look so bad, with earnings growth in positive territory and revenue gains tracking above historical periods. But a lot of that momentum is a function of non-department store results that came out earlier in this cycle, particularly from online vendors like Amazon. The sectors growth comparisons dont look so good on an ex-Amazon basis.



Overall Take on the Q1 Earnings Season



We have been pointing out these trends since the start of this reporting cycle, which include widespread growth challenges, more numerous positive surprises and fewer negative revisions to current-quarter estimates. The abundance of positive surprises is primarily a function of the levels to which estimates had fallen ahead of the start of this reporting cycle. The recent pullback in the exchange value of the U.S. dollar is likely helping on the margin side as well, though low expectations made all the difference.



The more notable development on the earnings front is the deceleration in negative estimate revisions to current-period estimates (estimates for 2016 Q2). While estimates for Q2 are coming down, following the well-trodden path of previous quarters.



As negative as this revisions trend looks, it is nevertheless an improvement over what we had seen in the comparable period in the preceding earnings cycle. The improved commodity-price backdrop and the reduced dollar drag are some of the more plausible explanations for this development. But it is also likely that Q2 estimates had already fallen enough at the time when Q1 estimates were coming down and there is simply not that much need for further downward adjustments.



Whatever the reason for the lower negative revisions trend for Q2 estimates, it is nevertheless a potentially positive development, particularly if sustained over the coming months. We will have to wait till July to get a better read on this development after companies start reporting June quarter results and guide towards Q3 estimates. Current estimates for Q3 are showing essentially flat growth from the year-earlier level.



Q1 Earnings Scorecard (As of Friday, May 13th)

We now have Q1 results from 459 S&P 500 members or 91.8% of the indexs total membership. Total earnings for these index members are down -7.3% from the same period last year on -1.4% lower revenues, with 71.0% beating EPS estimates and 55.3% beating revenue estimates. The percentage of companies that are able to beat both EPS and revenue estimates is tracking 45.8% at this stage.



The Q1 earnings season has come to an end for 10 of the 16 Zacks sectors, while another 3 sectors are past the 90% mark in their reporting tallies. The Retail sector has the most still to come at this stage with only 55.8% reported so far.



The last column of the above table, titled price impact, shows the average price impact of the earnings releases. The most positive reaction has been to the Transportation, Utilities, Construction and Consumer Staples sectors while the reaction to the Tech sector results has been the most negative of the major sectors.



As referred to earlier, the two key takeaways from the results thus far are:



First , the growth challenge is not only very obvious, but also widespread. The Energy sector is no doubt dragging the reported growth pace quite a bit, but the growth comparison still remains unfavorable even if we exclude the reported Energy sector reports from the sample of reported results.



Second , positive surprises are more numerous, particularly on the revenues side. The big driver of this is the low levels to which estimates had fallen ahead of the start of this earnings season. But as indicated earlier, the improving dollar is helping matters to some extent as well.



This incidence of more numerous positive surprises is visible in the blended beats comparisons as well; blended beats refer to companies that beat both revenues as well EPS estimates. At present, 45.8% of the 459 S&P 500 members that have reported results are beating both EPS and revenue estimates, which is better than what we saw from the same group of companies in the preceding quarter as well as the 4-quarter and 12-quarter averages.



Even the beleaguered Basic Materials and Industrial Products sectors have beat EPS and revenue estimates more often this time around compared to other recent periods. The proportion of Basic Material sector companies that have beat both EPS and revenue estimates in Q1 is 35.0%, which compares to 4-quarter and 12-quarter averages of 10% and 22.1%, respectively. The highest blended beat % are for the Construction, Conglomerates, and Aerospace sectors while the lowest is for Utilities.



Tech Sector Results



Market participants found the Tech sectors Q1 earnings performance to be disappointing, with a number of the bellwethers like Googles parentAlphabet (GOOGL), Apple (AAPL) and others coming up short of estimates in their results and/or guidance.



Including all of the Tech sector reports that have come out already, we have Q1 results from 89.7% of the sectors total market capitalization in the S&P 500 index. Total earnings for these Tech companies are down -5.6% on +0.8% higher revenues, with 70% beating EPS estimates and 52% beating revenue estimates. Excluding the Apple drag, total earnings for the rest of the sector would be up +0.8%.



This is weak performance from these Tech companies relative to what we have seen from the same group of companies in other recent periods.



What this shows is that not only growth remains challenged, but fewer are able to beat expectations. In fact, positive revenue surprises are tracking more than 5 percentage points below the 4-quarter average and 10 percentage points below the 12-quarter average. Please note that the sectors weak growth pace is primarily a function of tough comparisons at Apple. Excluding Apple, the sectors Q1 earnings growth would be +0.8%.



Q1 Estimates As a Whole



Combining the actual results from the 459 S&P 500 members that have reported results with estimates for the still-to-come 41 members, total Q1 earnings are currently expected to be down -6.9% from the same period last year on -1.1% lower revenues. This will be the 4th quarter in a row of earnings declines for the index.



Energy is the big drag in Q1, as it has been in other recent periods, with total earnings for the sector expected to be down -107.8% from the same period last year on -31.5% lower revenues. Excluding the Energy sector, earnings growth for the remainder of the index would still be in the negative  down -1.6%. In total, 9 of the 16 Zacks sectors are on track for negative earnings growth in Q1, including Finance and Technology, the two biggest sectors in the index.

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Guam is home to two American military facilities: the Andersen Air Force Base and the Apra Naval Base. (Photo : Getty Images)

China has put Guam in its missile range as part of its extensive efforts to neutralize the ability of the United States to help its allies in the Asia-Pacific Region, Defense News reported.



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According to a report issued by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), neutralizing the U.S. territory "makes perfect sense from a Chinese military perspective."



Guam hosts two American military facilities--the Andersen Air Force Base and the Apra Naval Base--with a combined personnel of 6,000. Additionally, the island supports the rotations B-1, B-2 and B-52 bomber aircraft and F-15, F-16, and F-22 fighter aircraft.



Guam's storage facilities also have 100,000 bombs and 66 million gallons of aviation fuel.



For USCC policy analyst and report's author Jordan Wilson, the move puts the bases and assets in Guam at risk.



He explained: "Besides potentially depriving the United States of specific strike assets, such attacks could disrupt its region-wide response effort--closing runways, reducing aerial and naval basing capacity, complicating the operating environment for U.S. ships, and shutting down key logistics and repair infrastructure."



Wilson particularly mentioned the new DF-26 IRBM that China has paraded for the first time during the Beijing military parade in Sept. 2015. The missile can strike aircraft carriers in Guam's surrounding areas.



Dubbed as the "Guam Killer" and "Guam Express," the missile has a 3,000- to 4,000-kilometer range and is equipped with anti-ship, nuclear and conventional variants.



The missile's "modular design" also permits interchangeability where the launch vehicle can be filled with "two types of nuclear warhead and several types of conventional warhead which use different destructive mechanisms to attack specific targets," Wilson pointed out.



Apart from this, the policy analyst also stressed the vital role cruise missiles play in holding Guam at risk. These missiles include the air-launched ACMs, the supersonic YJ-12 ASCM, the new YJ-18 ASCM and the unidentified sea-launched LACM.



These technologies are capable of doing simulated attack on Guam and of posing massive challenges for the island's shipboard defenses. The YJ-12 was also once described as "the most dangerous anti-ship missile China has produced thus far."


The man allegedly responsible for the brutal slayings of two LGBT activists in Bangladesh has been apprehended by authorities there. Thats the good news for a government accused of not doing enough to stem a recent tide of Islamist violence. The bad news is that the attacker appears to be a home-grown militant, which means the bloodshed wracking the country wont end anytime soon.

The suspect, Shariful Islam, is a Bangladeshi citizen who is reportedly a member of the Ansarullah Bangla Team, a banned group that published a hit list in 2013 of bloggers around the world who they planned to kill. Some experts think the group has ties to al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, which claimed responsibility for the attacks on the gay activists.

The two slain activists, Xulhaz Mannan and Tanay Mojumdar had come out publicly in an attempt to raise awareness and encourage others to do the same. Mannan edited Bangladeshs only LGBT magazine, Roopbaan. He also helped plan the Rainbow Rally, a parade on New Years to encourage the acceptance of LGBT people in Bangladesh, where homosexuality is still technically illegal.

In the aftermath of their slayings, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina blamed Mannan and Mojumdars deaths on opposition parties, who she said were involved with these secret killings as they want to destabilize the government and the country.

But human rights advocates say the government itself bears part of the blame. Hasina responded to the uptick in killings by promising to prosecute the bloggers themselves for hurting peoples religious sentiments.

The government needs to protect activists and to call a halt to the impunity that links this chain of vicious murders, Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement following Mannans and Mojumdars deaths.

The Islamic State took credit for the killing of an English professor days before Mannan and Mojumdar were slain. Rezaul Karim Siddique, 58, was attacked with machetes on his way to catch a bus. The group accused him of calling to atheism in a statement after his death.

In the meantime, the extremist violence shows no sign of abating: Last Friday, an elderly Buddhist monk was found with his throat slit in a temple in the Bandarban district.

Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images
Medivation's Earnings Disappointed, so Why Did the Stock Rise?

(Continued from Prior Part)

Medivations share price estimates

The above table shows 16 brokerage firms and their estimated target prices for Medivation (MDVN). The consensus 12-month target price for the company is $62.5. This target translates to a ~3.8% return compared to Medivations closing price of $60.25 on May 6.

According to a Bloomberg consensus of 21 brokerage firms dated May 9, 57.9% rated Medivation a buy and 42.1% rated it a hold.

For a better understanding of Medivations valuation, please see How Does Medivations Cancer Drug Xtandi Affect Its Valuation? and Why Is Medivation at a Premium on an EV-to-EBITDA Basis?

What do analysts recommend for Medivations peers?

According to a Bloomberg survey of four analysts dated May 9, 2016, 75% of analysts issued a buy rating for Roche holding (RHHBY) and 25% rated the stock a hold. None of the analysts issued a sell rating.

As per ratings from 25 analysts in a Bloomberg on May 9, 64% rated Pfizer (PFE) a buy and 36% suggested a hold.

Bloomberg consensus of five analysts on May 9 indicated that 60% issued a buy rating for Sanofi (SNY) and 40% recommended a hold.

The pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry is quite volatile and is currently undergoing a correction under pricing pressure from the US government. So any concentrated position in a particular stock is risky. To mitigate this kind of risk, you can invest in funds like the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI). XBI invests 2.1% of its total holdings in Medivation.

Browse this series on Market Realist:
Ingredions 1Q16 Results Reflect Another Good Quarter

(Continued from Prior Part)

Analysts recommendations

As of May 3, 2016, Ingredion (INGR) was trading at $114.23. Analysts recommendations remained the same with an update in the target price after its 1Q16 earnings results. Nearly 50% of the analysts still rate Ingredion a buy. Around 38% of the analysts rate it a hold and 12% rate it a sell.

Target prices

The average broker target price for Ingredion increased from $106.16 to $119. This price is 4% higher than the stocks closing price of $114.23 on May 3. In comparison, Kellogg (K), Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), and General Mills (GIS) have average broker target prices of $77.82, $36.0, and $59.56, respectively. These figures imply returns of -1.2%, 8.6%, 3.5%, respectively, over the next 12 months.

Kellogg is part of the PowerShares S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility Portfolio (SPHD) and the PowerShares S&P 500 Low Volatility Portfolio (SPLV).

Ingredions individual recommendations

Specifically, Jefferies, Credit Suisse, and Stephens updated the target price for Ingredion to $130, $130, and $120. This is ~12% and 5% higher than the stocks closing price of $114.23 on May 3, 2016. Each agency rated the stock a strong buy.

In contrast, BMO Capital Markets also updated the target price for Ingredion to $110. This is 4% lower than the stocks closing price on May 3. BMO Capital Markets rated the stock a hold.

Goldman Sachs was consistent with its rating. It updated the target price for Ingredion after the earnings. However, Goldman Sachs assigned Ingredion the low target price of $94 nearly 21% lower than the stocks closing price of $114.23 on May 3. It rated Ingredion a strong sell. BB&T Capital Markets and Morningstar didnt provide target prices. They both rated Ingredion a hold.

In the next part, well analyze the moving averages.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
FireEye Posts Fiscal 1Q16 Results: Why Did the Stock Fall 19%?

(Continued from Prior Part)

Wall Street analysts views on FireEye

In this series, weve looked at FireEyes (FEYE) fiscal 1Q16 earnings, new CEO (chief executive officer) announcement, and lowered guidance for fiscal 2016. We also discussed their impact on FEYE stock. In the cybersecurity space, FireEye, Symantec (SYMC), Palo Alto Networks (PANW), Barracuda (CUDA), and Fortinet (FTNT) are prominent players. Cisco (CSCO) dominates the security appliance market. Lets take a look now at select market-centric views and metrics for FireEye.

Of the 33 analyst recommendations for FireEye stock, there were no sell recommendations. As we can see in the graph below, more than half of analyst recommendations for FireEye stock were hold. The remainder were buy recommendations.

FireEyes price performance

FireEyes stock price movement during the past month has been negative. As of May 6, 2016, FEYE stock has fallen ~7.7%. In last one year, the stock has fallen ~60.2%.

Analysts target prices

The Wall Street analyst consensus target price for FireEye is $25 per share as of May 6, 2016. On that day, the median target price was $23, and the closing price was $15.98.

Goldman Sachs has initiated coverage on FireEye with a neutral rating and a price target of $20. Piper Jaffray reiterated its overweight rating but reduced its price target to $20 from $24. Nomura also cut FireEyes price target to $26 from $30. However, it has a buy rating on the stock.

Investors who want to gain exposure to FireEye can consider investing in the iShares US Technology ETF (IYW). IYW invests ~49% of its holdings in the application software space. It invests ~0.06% of its holdings in FireEye.

Browse this series on Market Realist:
London (AFP) - UN special envoy Angelina Jolie Pitt urged the international community on Monday to respond to Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War II with generosity and not the "politics of fear".

In a speech in London, the Oscar-winning Hollywood actress said there was a "duty that falls on all of us" to help those fleeing their homes, warning the alternative was "chaos".

The American star also had criticism for US presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has proposed building a wall to stop Mexican immigrants and called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

"It is hard to hear that this is coming from somebody who is pressing to be an American president," she said in a question and answer session after her speech.

"America is built on people coming together for freedom, especially freedom of religion."

Conflicts, including the five-year war in Syria, have fuelled a global refugee crisis, with 60 million refugees and displaced people across the world.

Jolie Pitt, a United Nations special envoy for refugees, said she recognised that some people felt "angry" about the numbers of people on the move, and no longer had faith that institutions could deal with the issue.

"It has given space to a false air of legitimacy to those who promote the politics of fear and separation," she said.

"It has created the risk of a race to the bottom, with countries competing to be the toughest in the hope of protecting themselves whatever the cost or challenge to their neighbours, and despite their international responsibilities."

However, she warned: "If your neighbour's house is on fire you are not safe if you lock your doors. Strength lies in being unafraid."

Jolie Pitt called on the international community to be more generous towards refugees, who were each "a person with an equal right to stand in dignity on this planet".

Story continues

"This is a duty that falls on all of us, to the next UN secretary-general, to all governments, to civil society, to everyone of us," she said.

"Whether we succeed will help define this century. The alternative is chaos."

The UN set out a plan last week that aims to resettle at least 10 percent of the global refugee population every year, as it tries to tackle the crisis.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hopes the new "global compact on responsibility-sharing" will lift some of the burden on developing countries.
She's not with him. Angelina Jolie joined the ever-growing list of celebrities who've publicly lashed out at presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and the celebrity activist gave a very pointed reason for why she opposes the mogul on Monday, May 16.

PHOTOS: Brangelina's Surprising BFFs!

Jolie, 40, the special envoy of the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Refugees, was speaking at a migration event coordinated by BBC in London, when she shared her thoughts about the controversial candidate. According to CNN, Jolie "closed her eyes and shook her head in disapproval" when she was asked about Trump's comments about Muslims. (The mogul suggested a temporary ban on allowing Muslims, including those women and children fleeing war-ravaged Syria, from entering the United States.)



"To me, America is built on people from around the world coming together for freedoms, especially freedom of religion," the Maleficent actress replied. "So it's hard to hear this is coming from someone who is pressing to be an American president. (Jolie has yet to endorse a candidate.)

PHOTOS: Celebrities' Political Affiliations

In her chat, the Unbroken director also discussed the unsubstantiated fear about allowing immigrants into the country. "It has created the risk of a race to the bottom, with countries competing to be the toughest," the mom of six told the audience, according to the Associated Press.



Jolie also compared the ongoing refugee crisis to World War II, and suggested countries around the world coordinate and work together to help support the startling 60 million displaced people around the world.

"I have been very, very disheartened by my own country's response to the situation," she said.

PHOTOS: Celebrity Activists!

The star's interest in humanitarian issues has been spotlighted since she first visited Cambodia well over a decade ago, where she adopted her eldest son, Maddox, now 14. Now she's lending her voice in hopes to influence the political landscape too.



Story continues

Us Weekly exclusively revealed in early May that Jolie, luckily, has found good people to help her grow politically. A source told Us that the beloved actress and wife of Brad Pitt has "struck up a close friendship" with a mentor, British House of Lords member Baroness Arminka Helic, who was an aide to foreign secretary William Hague.

Jolie, Pitt and their six kids moved to London this past February.




By Humeyra Pamuk KILIS, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish shopkeeper Mehmet Baykal knew he had less than 10 seconds to dive under his desk when he heard another rocket being fired from Islamic State-held territory across the border in Syria. Once a safe haven for tens of thousands of Syrian refugees, this tiny Turkish border town has now become a frontline in its war. So frequent is the rocket fire across what is in effect also NATO's front line that residents know instinctively how long they have to take cover. "It feels like a powerful earthquake. The ground shakes with pressure and then it is dust everywhere," Baykal, 45, who has lived all his life in Kilis, said as he stood on its main shopping street, several of its stores shuttered. "Kilis never knew what terror was. We opened our homes to those who fled war. But now the war is at our doorstep." The town has been hit by rockets from a patch of Syria controlled by Islamic State more than 70 times since January, killing 21 people including children, in what security officials say has gone from accidental spillover to deliberate targeting. Some houses have been reduced to rubble. Others, their rooms exposed to the open air where walls have collapsed, are still inhabited. Streets are largely deserted and schools are on an informal break as families refuse to send their children. "I say goodbye to my wife every night before I go to bed, in case I don't make it to the morning," said Resul Sezer, whose five-year old granddaughter was killed two weeks ago when a rocket struck the house she was standing outside. "The talk in the tea house every day is where the rocket might fall today," he said. "We want the state to do something." Turkey, a NATO member, EU aspirant and part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, has stepped up retaliatory fire into northern Syria in recent weeks. But security sources say it is difficult to hit the militants, sometimes firing from the back of vehicles, with the heavy artillery stationed on the border. Coalition air strikes have increasingly targeted militant positions close to the Turkish border and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last month that U.S. mobile rocket launchers would soon arrive. But so far there has been no concrete sign of the assistance arriving. In Kilis, frustration with President Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AK Party is starting to boil over. Police used tear gas to disperse dozens of residents protesting last month after a rocket attack killed one person and wounded 26. "Where is the state?" said Omer Ciloglu, an AKP supporter and party member, standing in what was left of his third-floor apartment after the building was hit by a rocket. "Nobody from the state called me. Nobody told me 'do not leave your hometown, we are with you'. Instead they say do not gather, do not protest," he said. EVEN PRISONERS WANT OUT Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu say Turkey is taking every necessary measure to secure its border, a promise echoed by Kilis mayor Hasan Kara. "This is hardly Turkey's problem alone," Kara told Reuters in his office in Kilis. "Unless this bog of terrorism is dried up...this problem will continue to hit Kilis but it will also strike other capitals in Europe too," he said. Turkey has long pushed for creation of a safe zone in northern Syria but the idea has found little support from Western allies. The United States and Turkey have for months been discussing a military plan to drive Islamic State from the border but there has been little concrete sign of progress. Earlier in Syria's war, Turkey, eager to see President Bashar al-Assad toppled, faced criticism from Western allies for failing to prevent foreign fighters crossing its border and joining what would become Islamic State. But, as well as the threat to its border, Turkey has been hit by a spate of suicide bombings blamed on the militant group this year. Erdogan said last week Turkey was making necessary preparations to clear the area across the border from Kilis and that it would not refrain from taking steps on its own if it was unable to get the support it wants from allies. Lawmakers from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) have warned of 'serious security lapses and breaches of the border' in Kilis and the surrounding area, calling for the town to be declared part of a 'terror zone'. "For the first time, the war is spilling over to Turkey with Kilis coming under attack," said CHP MP Ozturk Yilmaz, who was abducted by Islamic State with other officials when he was Turkey's Consul General in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014. "If this continues, we could see Gaziantep, Urfa or other cities going through this with Turkey's national security seriously at stake." Hundreds of Syrians are thought to be among the tens of thousands of people who have fled Kilis over the past few months. "We already lived through this once and now it's happening again," said Mohammed, a 23-year old refugee from Aleppo who is planning to leave to join relatives in the central Turkish city of Konya, far from the border. (Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker in Ankara; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Ralph Boulton)
PureWow

It looks like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle thought their Archewell website needed a little bit of a facelift. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been keeping quite busy these days, what with a Netflix docuseries, podcasts, oh, and two young kids to take care of. However, we just noticed that the couple changed the photo on the homepage of their website, trading out the old pic for a brand-new portrait courtesy of Misan Harriman. Archewell Foundation/Misan Harriman The pic was snapped during t
Consumers check the new Hyundai SUV at the 2016 Beijing Auto Show. (Photo : Reuters)

South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors are set to launch three low-cost sport utility vehicles (SUVs) in China next year, people privy to the plans told Reuters.



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The report said that it was the first time that the South Korean automakers will be making cheaper cars to attract Chinese consumers after their attempt to sell older models was weakened by the surge of local brands.



According to company data, the rise of Chinese rivals such as Great Wall Motor has caused the market share of Hyundai and Kia to drop to a seven-year low of 8.9 percent last year, from 10.4 percent in 2014. Data from IHS Automotive showed that it was the biggest drop in annual sales among China's top 10 automakers.



Hyundai and Kia rank third among automakers in China, with Volkswagen and General Motors leading the pack.



Chinese brands, however, are now taking their share after learning from Hyundai and making sleek, smaller but affordable models. The drop in oil prices has shifted the competition from sedans to SUVs, the report said.



Hyundai will start building a compact SUV at its factory in Changzhou in Nov. 2017 and a subcompact SUV at its new Chongqing factory in 2018, while Kia will produce its mid-sized SUV in China next year.



Another source also said that the two companies will try to lower their costs by getting Chinese suppliers for cheaper and low-spec parts. They also plan to step up local engineering in a joint research and development center in Yantai.



In a statement emailed to Reuters, the two automakers said that they are "internally examining from various sides to develop differentiated SUVs that give customers a more practical value by continuing in our cost-cutting efforts," and plans to "realign its line-up to range from lower-priced models to high-end cars to respond to demands from diverse customer bases."



The two automakers, however, were cautioned by some industry experts on making low-end SUVs that could damage their brand reputation in the long-term.



Hyundai said that together with KIA, they will increase the production capacity through the planned Chinese plants by nearly 30 percent to 2.7 million vehicles a year in 2018.


By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Monday revived a lawsuit by prospective gun shop owners who were banned by Alameda County, California, from opening within 500 feet of a residential district, ruling that local officials had failed to justify their law in the face of a constitutional right to bear arms. A three-member panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not strike down the local ordinance, but voted 2-1 to overturn a federal judge who threw the gun store owners' lawsuit out of court. Gun rights groups quickly hailed the decision as an important protection of the Second Amendment. "Were very happy to see the Court take a very principled and reasoned approach to protecting the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms," Brandon Combs, executive director of the Calguns Foundation, said in a written statement. The Ninth Circuit panel ordered that judge to take up the case again and said that if Alameda County wanted to enforce the gun-control ordinance, officials there would have to prove that there was a basis for the restrictions. "Alameda County's ordinance may very well be permissible. Thus far, however, the county has failed to justify the burden it has placed on the right of law-abiding citizens to purchase guns," Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain wrote in a 34-page opinion for the majority. "The Second Amendment (of the U.S. Constitution) requires something more rigorous than the unsubstantiated assertions offered to the district court," O'Scannlain wrote. Representatives for the Alameda County Board of Supervisors could not immediately be reached for comment. In tossing the lawsuit out of court, the lower-court judge found that Alameda County's gun restrictions were permissible to achieve such "important governmental objectives" as protecting public safety, preserving the character of residential areas and guarding against "secondary effects" of gun stores. But the Ninth Circuit majority said that Alameda County had not provided any evidence that such objectives would be achieved. The plaintiffs also asserted that no parcels in Alameda County would fit within the regulations, which meant that gun sales were effectively banned there. In dissenting from the majority, Judge Barry Silverman said that the ordinance did not infringe upon anyone's right to bear arms and that "what we're dealing with here is a mundane zoning dispute dressed up as a Second Amendment challenge." (Editing by Matthew Lewis)
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI, May 16 (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook will visit India this week and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, two sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.

His visit comes at a crucial time as Apple seeks new growth markets such as India after posting its first-ever decline in iPhone sales.

Cook, who is visiting China after announcing a $1 billion investment in Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, will fly to India on Tuesday in his first official visit to the country as the head of the U.S. technology company, one of the sources said.

The sources declined to be named as the plan is not public yet.

Apple declined to provide details of Cook's schedule in India.

Apple is looking to set up its first retail outlet in India, where it only has about a 2 percent market share. But its sales there surged 56 percent in the first three months of this year, driven mainly by cheaper older-generation devices such as the iPhone 5S.

(Reporting by Himank Sharma and Rupam Jain; Editing by Nick Macfie)
By Himank Sharma and Rupam Jain

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook will visit India this week and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the second leg of his Asian tour, two sources familiar with the matter said, as the company seeks to revive sluggish iPhone sales.

Cook's visit, following a trip to China, comes at a crucial time as Apple looks for new growth markets after posting its first ever decline in iPhone sales, and as India has denied it permission to sell refurbished phones - a move seen as key to appealing to price-sensitive local consumers.

The visit is Cook's first to India as the head of the U.S. technology company, one of the sources said. It was not immediately clear whether he would discuss importing refurbished iPhones with officials in New Delhi.

A second source said India was keen to know if Apple had plans to set up production facilities for the local market, which would be a boost for Modi's "Make in India" manufacturing push.

"If they can make in China to cater to the Chinese market then they can make for Indian markets here," said the source.

India's Maharashtra state, also run by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, is already in talks with Apple product maker Foxconn Technology over it setting up an iPhone plant there.

Apart from meeting Modi, probably on Tuesday, Cook will also meet employees and partners, the sources said.

The sources declined to be named as the plan is not public. Apple declined to provide details of Cook's schedule in India.

Cook is visiting China after announcing a $1 billion investment in Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing.

His visit there comes at a time when Apple is facing some challenges in its most important overseas market, including weakening smartphone sales, the loss of an iPhone trademark dispute and the suspension of some of its online entertainment services.

In India, Apple is looking to set up its first retail outlet, as it only has about a 2 percent market share. But its sales there surged 56 percent in the first three months of this year, driven mainly by cheaper older-generation devices such as the iPhone 5S.

Story continues

More than 100 million smartphones were sold in India last year and the market is expected to grow by 25 percent this year, making India one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the world.

Since his election in 2014, Modi has courted U.S. tech companies as part of his strategy to bring jobs to India. He met Cook last year during a visit to Silicon Valley.

(Reporting by Himank Sharma and Rupam Jain; Editing by Miyoung Kim and Mark Potter)
By Himank Sharma and Rupam Jain MUMBAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook will visit India this week and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the second leg of his Asian tour, two sources familiar with the matter said, as the company seeks to revive sluggish iPhone sales. Cook's visit, following a trip to China, comes at a crucial time as Apple looks for new growth markets after posting its first ever decline in iPhone sales, and as India has denied it permission to sell refurbished phones - a move seen as key to appealing to price-sensitive local consumers. The visit is Cook's first to India as the head of the U.S. technology company, one of the sources said. It was not immediately clear whether he would discuss importing refurbished iPhones with officials in New Delhi. A second source said India was keen to know if Apple had plans to set up production facilities for the local market, which would be a boost for Modi's "Make in India" manufacturing push. "If they can make in China to cater to the Chinese market then they can make for Indian markets here," said the source. India's Maharashtra state, also run by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, is already in talks with Apple product maker Foxconn Technology over it setting up an iPhone plant there. Apart from meeting Modi, probably on Tuesday, Cook will also meet employees and partners, the sources said. The sources declined to be named as the plan is not public. Apple declined to provide details of Cook's schedule in India. Cook is visiting China after announcing a $1 billion investment in Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing. His visit there comes at a time when Apple is facing some challenges in its most important overseas market, including weakening smartphone sales, the loss of an iPhone trademark dispute and the suspension of some of its online entertainment services. In India, Apple is looking to set up its first retail outlet, as it only has about a 2 percent market share. But its sales there surged 56 percent in the first three months of this year, driven mainly by cheaper older-generation devices such as the iPhone 5S. More than 100 million smartphones were sold in India last year and the market is expected to grow by 25 percent this year, making India one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the world. Since his election in 2014, Modi has courted U.S. tech companies as part of his strategy to bring jobs to India. He met Cook last year during a visit to Silicon Valley. (Reporting by Himank Sharma and Rupam Jain; Editing by Miyoung Kim and Mark Potter)
From Esquire

"No," Michael Ian Black replies when asked if he's good at giving advice. "But for the purpose of this interview, let's say that I am. I think a lot of people in their hearts know the answers to these questions, but they just want me to tell them. Sometimes people need a firm but loving hand."

The comedian, who has a new comedy special Michael Ian Black: Noted Expert premiering on EPIX May 13, is more than willing to offer that firm hand. (His favorite advice is, apparently, "Don't be an idiot.") He's less serious in his special, which is his first stand-up special since 2011's I'm a Wonderful Man. "I wanted to remind people that I'm a funny stand-up comedian," he notes. "Because nobody remembers that. I do funny stand-up. I'm good at it. I tell good jokes about shit. Well, not about shit, but you know what I mean."

He also has the second season of Comedy Central's Another Period arriving in June, in which Black plays an uptight butler named Peepers. "Things are going pretty good for him," the comedian confirms. "He's everything you want in a butler. And I think he might be a highly skilled assassin. That's never in the scripts or said or alluded to, but every actor should have a secret about their character, and that's my secret." But the comedian knows the job he's here to fill, and he's fine with doing just that: being a comedian first. "Ultimately, who gives a shit what I'm working on?" he says. "People aren't reading this to see what I'm up to. They just want to laugh. But if you enjoy the advice, watch my special."

I'm in love with a man who is engaged. How do I tell him not to get married?-Ashley, New York, NY

You just shut the fuck up. That's not your business. Get over yourself-he's engaged. That's the end of it. If you have a more compelling reason than "I'm in love with you," then present your case.

Story continues

My dad and I don't agree on politics at all, and this election is causing a lot of fights between us. In fact, every time I talk to my dad, we argue about the election and the state of the U.S. It's seriously ruining our relationship. What should I do?-Ben, Denver, CO

I feel like this is probably a question that's coming up in a lot of families this election season. It really depends. If you, the son, are a Democrat and support either a Hillary or a Bernie Sanders, I think you're best bet is to find common ground with your father. Find certain principles you agree on. Do you agree that the middle class is suffering? Do you agree that we can improve our health care delivery system? That education needs to be looked at? Those are three possible examples. And then slowly, step by step, use a fact-based approach to meeting somewhere in the middle. And maybe your dad is a little more flexible than you thought. Now, if you are a Trump supporter, on the other hand, just stop.

Why are you living in the most expensive city in the world with the least available real estate? You don't need to live in Brooklyn to be an artist-you can live anywhere.

I moved to NYC to become an artist. Should I quit my full time job to go pursue being an artist?-Liv, Brooklyn, NY

Well, you could move out of Brooklyn and move to a cheap city like Detroit. Go be an artist there where you can do it for a fraction of the cost. Why are you living in the most expensive city in the world with the least available real estate? You don't need to live in Brooklyn to be an artist-you can live anywhere. Go some place you can actually afford to be an artist and work a part-time job. Stop being an idiot. At the very least, go to Queens.

I'm currently researching and writing an article on Chinese security policy and how it affects trade. Now I've reached a common problem: I have writer's block. What should I do?-Scott, Washington, DC

You keep writing. That's what you do when you have writer's block: You sit down and you keep writing. And give yourself permission to write badly. You can always make it better later. But for right now, you're just going to write badly. You can also look more deeply into the topic; maybe you've run out of things to talk about, in which case you need to do more research.

My wife and I are recently married and are still yet to live in the same country as a married couple (we have lived together in sin). I'm worried that our expectations for how much happier we'll be when we don't have to Skype to see one another are much higher than is realistic. Is there some way to moderate this?-David, Fort St. John, BC

Well, look, one of the best relationships in history was between John Adams and his wife Abigail. They spent years apart. Some people think that it's because they spent years apart that they were still in love with each other. Speaking as somebody who has been married now for 17 years-despite the fact that I'm only 26 years old-I can confirm that it's great to get away from one's spouse. Now, do I want to live in a different country from my spouse? No. But if you look at the silver lining of it, legally you're probably not married if you live in different countries, so you can do whatever you want. If you're feeling lonely, do whatever you want.

If Trump becomes president, what country should I move to?--ames, Los Angeles, CA

I'm currently looking into Costa Rica. And it's not just because I've been buying up real estate there in hopes of a Trump victory, but I think the climate and political system are really going to be great for Americans. So I'm recommending either Costa Rica or the beautiful city of Copenhagen in Denmark. Copenhagen is a little more pricey, but for us one-percenters, we have our choices in front of us. I'll probably stay, though, because I suspect a Trump presidency will be good for my business.

I have a lot of anxiety around sex. I occasionally get drunk and sleep with a guy, but most of the time it freaks me out and I feel like there's so much pressure to be good at it, look hot, etc. How much are men judging the women they sleep with, and is there a way to feel better about this?-Betsy, Austin, TX

Let's put it on a scale. The scale goes from one to 1,000, one being men not judging you at all and 1,000 being the most judgment you can get. In my experience, men judge their sexual partners on this scale from one to 1,000 at a zero. Men are so thrilled that you're willing to sleep with them that they don't judge. They're very happy that you would give of yourself in that way to them. I'm making some assumptions, like that you shower on at least a weekly basis (because that's enough) and that you brush your teeth on a weekly basis (because, again, that's enough). After that, nobody cares. Men are just as insecure as you are, if not more so, because men generally are expected to do the heavy lifting. They worry probably more than the ladies do that they're doing something wrong. And nobody is doing anything wrong. Do whatever feels good.

I'll probably stay in America, because I suspect a Trump presidency will be good for my business.

I have jury duty next month and I really don't want to do it. They won't let me postpone the service any more so I need a good excuse once I'm there. Do you have any suggestions for how I can get excused in the courtroom?-Matt, Pasadena, CA

My real advice is to do your jury duty. That's the right thing to do. And it very well may be very interesting for you. You may walk away with a heightened appreciation for our justice system. But if you really want to get out of it I have an idea. There's consequences to this, but I suspect it will be effective. Just paint a little swastika on your forehead. It will work.

Can you give me a good one-liner for my Tinder profile?-Jim, Jersey City, NJ

Yes: "Very famous celebrity Michael Ian Black wrote this Tinder profile for me."

I recently moved in with my girlfriend, and she hates everything I own. She wants me to throw away all my furniture, including my amazing futon, and she hates that I collect action figures. How much should I compromise on this?-Finn, San Diego, CA

The mistake has been made, which is that you agreed to move in with this person. I would say all the warning signs are there for a miserable relationship because what she's trying to do is change who you are. I don't know how gross your futon is-I'm assuming standard gross-but if you like your futon and you want to keep your futon, keep the futon. If you want to keep your action figures, keep your action figures. Don't allow her to change the things you like about you. This is not a good way to start a cohabitating relationship. That being said, there's always room for compromise in a relationship. Maybe she can get rid of some of her shit too. I don't even like her shit. Her shit is ugly. She thinks she has good taste, but she doesn't.

I don't know anything about wine, but this girl I'm dating is really into it. What wine would you suggest I order for her to really impress her?-Frank, Miami, FL

Red wine.

Thank you for offering to help with what I hope is a solvable problem-that of laziness. Those that have it are often judged and mocked by society, and I'm sick of it. I would like to cover for my high degree of laziness by contracting a disease that will make people sympathetic and not judgmental of me. I have done a lot of research and I think Lyme disease is a good fit. I have been rolling around in long grass but I can't get any ticks to bite me except for one time and even then I didn't get the disease. Can you advise me on the best way to find ticks that will a) bite me and b) transmit to me a non-deadly strain of Lyme disease?-Brendan, New York, NY

I live in the wilds of Connecticut, which is the Lyme disease capital of the world. You can come visit me and hang out for a while and we can go on long hikes in the woods barefoot and in shorts. I can pretty much guarantee you'll get bitten by a Lyme disease-ridden deer tick very quickly. That being said, another option for you might be Epstein-Barr Syndrome, otherwise known as "yuppie flu." It presents all of the same issues as Lyme disease with none of the debilitating joint pain. The final option, which is the one I've come to embrace, is just to accept that you don't want to do anything and be OK with it. I'm getting more and more fine with not wanting to do anything. Many, many days now are spent sitting on my couch looking at Twitter and napping, and I've never been happier.

Michael Ian Black: Noted Expert premieres Friday, May 13 at 10/9c on EPIX and EPIX.com during the network's Free Preview Weekend.
Vienna (AFP) - The US and Russia urged the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to restore a truce when they met on Monday for the first time since fighting erupted over Nagorny Karabakh.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry met Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian.

The US, Russia and France form the "Minsk Group", created to deal with the two-decade old battle for the disputed region, and called the talks in a bid to prevent renewed bloodshed.

"This is a solvable conflict, there are some conflicts out there that simply have to be managed. But this is one that can be solved," a senior US official told reporters.

"This could be a win-win for both sides," the State Department official said, adding that unlike for example on the issue of Syria, Washington and Moscow are in agreement.

Fighting erupted in Nagorny Karabakh in early April, killing at least 110 people and wounding scores more.

The conflict has long festered, with dozens killed every year, but April's outbreak was the worst since a 1994 ceasefire, now monitored by just six envoys from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

A truce hammered out by Moscow halted the latest bloodshed but the situation remains on a knife-edge, with both sides accusing the other of violating the agreement.

A French envoy was also in the Austrian capital for the talks. Kerry met both presidents separately before all sides gathered for a formal dialogue.

Kerry also met Lavrov before the official gathering.

"This is an issue where we see eye-to-eye with the Russians. We have no differences of opinion," the US official said.

The negotiations were to focus on a reaffirmation of the ceasefire and a resumption of negotiations, a senior US state department official told AFP.

But another senior American envoy cautioned not to expect an immediate breakthrough in what would be the rival presidents' first encounter since December.

Story continues

Azerbaijan and Armenia have feuded over Nagorny Karabakh since Armenian separatists seized the landlocked territory in a war that claimed some 30,000 lives in the early 1990s.

With peace efforts stuttering to a halt in recent years, both sides in the conflict began rearming heavily, with energy-rich Azerbaijan spending vast sums on new weaponry.

And yet, despite increasingly feverish rhetoric from the rivals, the recent flare-up still appeared to catch the international community by surprise.

- 'Patriotic surge' -

While the two sides accused each other of starting the fighting, analysts said it seemed Azerbaijan -- suffering from falling oil prices -- launched the initial attack.

In the first shift in the frontline since 1994, Azeri forces seized key positions, some of which they managed to cling on to despite a fierce Armenian counterattack.

The agreement by the two leaders to hold direct talks in Vienna appears a positive sign, but few expect there to be any major progress at Monday's encounter.

Moscow, which has sold weapons to both sides but has a military treaty with its close ally Armenia, is seen as central to stopping a conflict that some fear could spread.

Turkey -- at loggerheads with Moscow since Ankara downed a Russian jet near its border with Syria last year -- has pledged to support its ally Azerbaijan.

Despite the international pressure being applied, commentators on both sides feel that unless there is a conclusive resolution there will be more violence.
Barclays PLCs BCS African division has attracted the attention of Dubai-based private equity firm, The Abraaj Group. The equity firm along with other investors including a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund plans to bid for a minority stake of approximately 35% in Barclays Africa, according to people familiar with the matter. This news was first reported by Bloomberg.



The current value of this stake is likely to be nearly $2.6 billion. Nevertheless, the talks are still at a nascent stage with chances of falling apart.



While Abraaj is showing interest in Barclays Africa, South Africas central bank is against a full takeover of the unit by a private equity bidder. Earlier this month, Deputy Reserve Bank Governor Kuben Naidoo said, As a regulator we wont be comfortable with a private equity play for any of the banks.



Earlier this month, Barclays had reduced its stake in Barclays Africa Group. The U.K. based bank sold roughly 12.2% interest (103.6 million shares of Barclays Africa) for over ZAR13 billion ($874.1 million) to approximately 100 institutions lowering its stake to nearly 50.1%. Notably, Barclays is, however, restricted from selling further stake in Africa unit by a 90-day lock-up period.



Apart from Abraaj, Barclays Africa unit attracted attention from several potential buyers. Barclays former CEO Bob Diamond is interested in the unit, as his company  Altas Merchant Capital venture  has joined forces with The Carlyle Group LP CG and other investors to bid for the Africa unit.



Notably,in Mar 2016, Barclays had announced its plan to divest its stake in the Africa unit. Barclays Africa was moved to discontinued operation as it fulfilled the requirements for the same. Barclays plans to lower its stake to below 20% and intends to keep a minority interest in the unit.



Barclays is speeding up efforts to sell or close its noncore operations and this will surely strengthen its balance sheet and improve overall efficiency.



Currently, Barclays carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Other foreign banks worth a look include Grupo Financiero Galicia S.A. GGAL and Shinhan Financial Group Company Limited SHG. Both these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).



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Margarethe Vestager (Photo : Twitter)

Google is facing record-breaking anti-trust fines in Europe for monopoly abuse related to the company's popular search engine. European Union (EU) officials in Brussels are wrapping up a seven-year investigation of the Alphabet company.



Within weeks the European Commission will hit Google with a fine of about $3.4 billion. That penalty would easily break the current all-time highest anti-trust fine of $1.2 billion handed to chip giant Intel.



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The maximum possible penalty would be about $7.5 billion, which is a one-tenth of Google's yearly sales.



EU officials reportedly hope to announce the Google fines before the summer break, according to The Telegraph. They could be made public next month.



The record-breaking fine would be an historical event in US tech companies' competition fights with Brussels. Google has already been charged with advertising its price-comparison search in the general results of the search engine, and down-grading services of small companies.



European officials are also investigating Google for other monopoly abuse. It involves software for Android smartphones.



Legal experts shared that the fine Google faces over shopping comparison could factor in the fact that the tech giant has abused its web search monopoly for several years. Google also changed its search algorithms during the EU's investigation, which made it tougher for rival companies.



In addition, Google will be banned from tweaking search results to benefit itself and harm competing companies. It offered to redesign its search results' presentation but the idea was rejected.



Google argued that since Amazon and eBay are succeeding online competitive is healthy. However, the fines of Competition Commission Margarethe Vestager oppose Google's arguments.



In related news, Google is battling Oracle over its Android OS written in the language Java created by Sun Microsystems. When Oracle bought Sun it also secured Java and its copyrighted application program interfaces (API).



Oracle claims Google has no legal rights to use Java APIs for Android. However, the Alphabet company argues that Java APIs used for Android are fair use since Java is open. In fact, Google's lawyer referred to it as a "gift" to the world from Sun, according to The Next Web.



Meanwhile, Oracle's lawyers are arguing Google has made "fair use" of the APIs confusing.




Jeremy Clarkson Top Gear

The BBC has reportedly been encouraged by the UK government to launch an online subscription service that could rival Netflix and Amazon Prime.

The publicly-funded British broadcaster has held talks with competitors, including ITV and NBC Universal, about collaborating to build the new service, according to reports in The Telegraph and The Guardian.

This suggests that the online streaming service, which is reported to have the working title "Britflix," would also include content not produced by the BBC, making it a direct competitor with Netflix.

The BBC and ITV declined to comment, while NBC were not immediately available for a response.

UK culture secretary John Whittingdale told The Telegraph: "Were moving into a different world where more and more content is going to be made available on demand. Collaboration with other broadcasters and other production companies we think is important. If they want to explore that kind of thing, wed encourage them."

"Britflix" is also expected to charge viewers to watch a back catalog of programs that were broadcast more than 30 days previously. Currently programs that were aired within the last 30 days are free to watch on the BBC's catch-up service iPlayer.

The new service may also include original content. However, existing shows are not expected to be put behind a pay wall. At this stage, there are no details for how the premium streaming service will look.

netflix uk chart

BBC talks with ITV and NBC have been ongoing since at least March, when The Guardian first picked up on it. However, last Thursday Whittingdale announced a raft of proposed changes to how the BBC is governed.

Within the whitepaper, the government said it welcomes "the BBCs commitment to develop and test some form of additional subscription services."

Story continues

"Licence fee payers will not be asked to pay for top-up services for anything they currently get," according to the proposal.

NOW WATCH: Humans are defying the law of evolution





More From Business Insider


Brit pubcaster BBC has been given the green light to launch a new paid-for subscription service to rival Netflix and Amazon, according to a report from The Daily Telegraph.

The project, which is understood to have the working title Britflix, could see the Beeb potentially partner with rival ITV and a number of production companies to launch the service, including NBC Universal, which owns programs such as Downton Abbey. The project is believed to still be in the early stages of development.

The long-awaited White Paper on the future of the BBC was unveiled on May 12 and in it, the corporation was called to develop some form of additional subscription service, paving the way for the corporation to provide a mixed-model of licence fee funding. Under the new charter renewal, which unspools in 2017, culture secretary John Whittingdale said that the BBC would for the first time be able to charge a fee to viewers who shun TVs, but watch its programs on its popular online catch-up service iPlayer.

According to the Telegraph, Whittingdale said it was the Beeb that had requested new powers to levy subscriptions and that the new online service, expected to be delivered over the iPlayer, would serve as a rival to U.S. giants Netflix and Amazon.

The Guardian first reported in March that BBC and ITV were looking at developing a subscription service that would likely provide older, archive TV content as well as a certain amount of original commissions.

Whittingdale told the Telegraph: Were moving into a different world where more and more content is going to be made available on demand. Collaboration with other broadcasters and other production companies we think is important. If they want to explore that kind of thing, wed encourage them. There may come a moment in the future where all television is delivered online, and if you do that it becomes a more realistic, practical possibility if you wanted to move towards an element of voluntary subscription.

Story continues

Both the Beeb and commercial broadcaster ITV make their content available to audiences digitally for 30 days. Britons pay 145.50 ($207.95) per year for access to BBC content, including the BBCiPlayer and after content moves off the service, it can be accessed through pay-TV service UKTV, online outlet BBC Store or DVDs and Netflix, the latter of which houses shows like Top Gear.

ITV management has talked about ways to exploit its extensive program archive, which includes shows such as Mr Selfridge, Come Dine With Me, Coronation Street and Hells Kitchen, and has noted the success of VoD and streaming services such as Netflix in extending the commercial life of content.

The channel has grown its production arm, ITV Studios, through a series of acquisitions which led to a revenue hike of a third last year to 1.2 billion ($1.7 billion) and a profit increase of 27% to 206 million ($294 million). ITV chief Adam Croizer said earlier this month at the companys annual results announcement that ITV would continue to build on its ability to monetise our content online as well as on pay channels.

Reps for both parties declined to comment on the story.

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Warren Buffett

Berkshire Hathaway owned $1 billion worth of Apple shares as of the end of the first quarter.

A regulatory filing out Monday from the company headed by Warren Buffett showed the stake totaled 9.81 million shares at the time.

It ranked Berkshire as the 56th-largest Apple shareholder, according to Bloomberg.

Apple shares climbed more than 3% in trading Monday after the news crossed.

They fell near a two-year low last week. Amid the share-price decline, Alphabet (owner of Google) briefly overtook Apple as the world's most valuable company by market cap.

On Friday, a regulatory filing from Appaloosa Management showed that the hedge fund founded by David Tepper had dumped its entire stake in Apple. And on Monday, Leon Cooperman's Omega Advisors disclosed that it took a $24.7 million position totaling 227,000 shares.

These announced Apple stakes were held as of March 31; the firms could have since adjusted the size of their holdings.

Apple's first-quarter results showed that its revenues fell year-on-year for the first time since 2003. That added to investor concerns about the company amid a slowdown largely attributed to weakness in China.

Berkshire's filing also showed that Buffett increased his stakes in Phillips 66 and IBM. He sold Walmart shares.

NOW WATCH: How to invest like Warren Buffett





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Bernardo Bertolucci will head the jury of the Film4Climate Global Video Competition, a new festival dedicated to shorts intended to raise climate-change awareness around the world.

The fest, which is an initiative of the World Banks Connect4Climate program, will be unveiled this May 16 in Cannes at the Plage Royale.

The venerable Italian auteur, whose The Last Emperor won nine Oscars, will preside over a large group of prominent jurors which includes U.S. producer Lawrence Bender (Pulp Fiction); British-American documaker Robert Stone (Pandoras Promise); Finnish filmmaker Mika Kaurismaki (Zombie and the Ghost Train); Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who is the only Pakistani to have won two Oscars (Saving Face, and short A Girl in the River); Argentine director Pablo Trapero (The Clan); and Carole Tomko, director of productions at Paul Allens Vulcan Prods.

Vulcan Prods, known for making pics such as Ivory Rising, about the illegal ivory trade, is the exclusive production partner of the fest. Italian clean energy utility Enel is an official sponsor.

The competition is open to filmmakers between 14 and 35. All entries must be under five minutes to qualify.

It calls on filmmakers to explore Climate Action, which is the 13th goal under the UN Sustainable Development Goals, exploring what people and communities around the world are doing to promote action, offer solutions and inspire positive change to combat climate change and its impacts. Filmmakers are encouraged to use personal narratives that explore fundamental questions such as: What does climate change mean to me? What actions am I taking to mitigate the advance of global warming? What is my Climate Action message to the world?

Winners will be announced at an official awards event at the COP 22 climate summit in Marrakech, Morocco in November 2016.

Connect4Climate has also partnered with the Cannes Film Market to underscore the power of documentaries to raise Climate Change awareness during the marts first ever Doc Day conference on May 17, at Cinema Olympia 1 in Cannes. The confab is hosted by the Marche du Film in tandem with the Ford Foundations JustFilms. Lucia Grenna, who is Connect4Climate Program Manager, will deliver the Doc Day closing keynote address, focusing on the interaction between creative industries and climate action.

Story continues

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Looking to maintain your golden locks but just dont know where to head? We know the frustration of finding a good salon to treat your tresses right, even more so, finding a hairstylist that can maintain those honey hues if you are a Caucasian living in Singapore. Some local stylists cant even tell the difference between ash blonde, honey blonde and platinum blonde.

From picking the right shade of blonde to recommending the best colouring technique of lowlights or highlights to make your features pop, we bring you a list of hairstylists who are experienced in blonde hair colouring (some of them have worked in New York and London) to transform you into a blonde beauty.

Sandra is possibly the most illustrious stylist weve seen so far. Having spent 20 years in some of New York and Beverly Hills top colouring salons, Korean stylist Sandra has styled for A-list celebrities and personalities such as Jessica Alba, American Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton and coloured hair for close friends of A-list celebrities. Her celebrity client list doesnt stop there; Sandra has also assisted in colouring Lady Gagas Hair! Sandra is also fluent in English so you dont have to worry about miscommunication.

However, you may have to wait long as Pro Trim Korean Salon @ JEM can be quite crowded!

Price: $120  $160

Location: Jurong East JEM

Read more about Pro Trim Korean Salon @ Jurong East JEM.

Izumi spent many years in New York which has allowed her to hone her skills in dealing with blonde hair and she is exceptionally good with sunkissed highlights. Located at Clarke Quay Central, her salon is easily accessible and offers quality Japanese service  Izumi will only attend to one customer at a time, which means your hair will be treated to undivided attention!

Price: From $155 for single hair colour and $175 for highlights

Location: Clarke Quay Central

Story continues

Read more about Izumi Salon here.

Kenaris is a favourite among Caucasian expats due to their highly skilled hairstylists, proficiency in English, good service and convenient location. We highly recommend both Jimmy and Vanessa.

Jimmy is especially popular as he is a Redken ambassador who is experienced in blonde hair colouring for Caucasian ladies and is involved in multiple magazine photoshoots here in Singapore.

Vanessa, on the other hand, is an Australian stylist with over 20 years of experience in managing a successful inner city salon at Albert Park, Melbourne! Were pretty sure youll be happy with your hair no matter who you choose but do note that both their schedules tend to be quite busy, so do remember to make your bookings in advance!



Price: $178 to $228 (if you do not require pre-lightening)

Location: Wheelock Place, Orchard

Read more about Kenaris Hair Salon.

4. Serene from Chez Vous Hair Salon @ Ngee Ann City Takashimaya

Chez Vous in-house colouring expert, Serene, is highly sought after by many expats living in Singapore due to her impressive experience in dealing with Caucasian hair. The personalized service at Chez Vous Hair Salon will also leave you feeling like royalty!

Price: $250 to $500 depending on amount of pre-lightening required

Location: Ngee Ann City, Takashimaya (Orchard)

Read more about Chez Vous Hair Salon.

COVO is a Japanese salon, but rest assured your blonde tresses will be left in good hands. Their hairstylists are pretty great at haircuts and perms. We highly recommend Yoshi for highlights! He is a favourite among Caucasian customers as his years of working as a hairstylist in New York makes him really good at blonde colouring and highlights. Of course, it also helps that he is rather fluent in English.

Price: Start from $160 for half head highlights includes bleaching

Location: Keong Saik Rd / Katong (Marine Parade)

Read more about COVO Japanese Hair Salon.

Previously from Toni & Guy Korea and later T&G Singapore, Shua is possibly one of the most skilled all-round hairstylists weve seen. She may be most known for her haircut and volume rebonding but her experience in T&G has also made her familiar with colouring for Caucasian customers as well.

Although a little pricier, we love it that Shua doesnt over-promise on the salons hair services and will share with you exactly what can be done on your hair. Thats why she is a favourite among top female executives in various fields.

Price: $120 to $180 (Half Head Highlights) or $120 to $200 (Colouring)

Location: Pacific Plaza, Scotts Orchard

Read more about Koinonia Salon @ Pacific Plaza.

Popular among Caucasian ladies, Annie has worked in a hair salon in Manchester, UK for more than two years. This makes her really good with different blonde colours and highlights. On top of that, shes also good at helping you subdue your natural curls with a good cut.

The salon is located in town at Wisma Atria, a convenient location if you work in the CBD area and wish to fix an hair appointment for after work.

Price: Full head highlight: $280-$320, Half head highlight: $200  $220, T section highlight: $120-$150

Location: Wisma Atria, Orchard

Read more about Gene by Ginrich Hair Salon @ Wisma Atria.

Emi spent two years in London working as a hairstylist and taking up a makeup course at the same time! This makes her adept at blonde hair colours and highlights.



Besides Emis two year experience in London and familiarity in dealing with Caucasian hair, we hear that Rubik Hair Salon is also ideal for straightening treatments that are suitable for the Caucasian hair.

Price: Starting from $180

Location: Raffles Hotel, City Hall

Read more about Rubik Hair Salon @ Raffles Hotel.

Its no surprise that Salon Vim is an expert when it comes to colouring hair, especially when the salon is raved about by bloggers and customers alike. However, if you are looking for hairstylists who are more accustomed to dealing with Caucasian hair, look out for Eric or Steve.



Be warned though that the waiting time can be long, as expected when it comes to a salon that is hugely popular for their hair colouring services.

Price: Starting from $160 for both colouring and bleaching

Location: Bugis Village

Read more about Salon Vim @ Bugis Village here.





Takuya may not have worked in the US or the UK but his skill in hair colouring, understanding Caucasian hair and charismatic personality makes him a popular choice for Caucasian expats. He is able to communicate effectively in English so you dont have to worry too much about miscommunication! The service here is also rather attentive  you wont have to wait too long before Takuya attends to you.

Price: $300 to $600 depending on length and design

Location: Clarke Quay The Central

Read more about CLEO Hair & Make.

Previously from Toni & Guy, Tom is used to cutting and colouring hair for Caucasian customers! Needless to say, hes the go-to hairstylist at The Cottage @ Devonshire Selected Beauty Salons when it comes to blonde hair. You can be sure to expect warm and genuine Japanese customer service when you step into the salon to get your roots done.

Price: $120 to $180 for colour / highlights

Location: Devonshire Rd, Somerset

Read more about The Cottage @ Devonshire Selected Hair Salons.

Visit beautyundercover.sg for hair and beauty tips!
By Anjali Athavaley and Charlotte Greenfield NEW YORK/WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Erik Duhaime is a passive stock market investor, but he isnt afraid to short Donald Trump or go long on Hillary Clinton. The 28-year-old from Cambridge, Massachusetts, trades on PredictIt, an online political stock market that allows users to wager small amounts of money on "yes" or "no" predictions about whether an event will occur. That includes who will win the U.S. presidential election in November. "This is probably one of the ways I restrain myself from being active in the stock market," said Duhaime, a PhD student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, who checks the site a few times a week for fun. PredictIt, which was launched in 2014, now has more than 30,000 traders registered, up from 19,000 at the end of 2015, and has received shout-outs from pundits and presidential campaign advisors alike. Users must be U.S. residents and registered voters. PredictIt says it is not like an online gambling site because it mainly exists to supply its data to universities for academic research, one of the main reasons the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission allows it to operate legally, according to a letter issued by the regulator in 2014. It is jointly run by Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, and a Washington-based political consulting firm Aristotle International Inc. Unlike mainstream financial markets, bets are not big: The CFTC caps each participant's position at $850 per market, and the average deposit when people sign up is just $100. The regulator hasn't been as friendly to such betting sites in the past. In 2012, the CFTC filed a civil complaint against the now defunct Intrade for violating a ban on off-exchange options trading. The Ireland-based market also allowed people to wager money on yes or no questions, but it wasnt tied to an academic institution and didnt have a cap on the maximum amount that could be traded. MARKET BEATS POLLING Predictions markets like PredictIt and a similar venue run by the University of Iowa have emerged as an alternative to polling for election forecasters. PredictIt is bigger than the Iowa Electronic Markets, which has only about 2,000 active traders with access to its political markets. "Polling is very expensive," said David Rothschild, an economist at Microsoft Research who runs a predictions-market aggregator called PredictWise, which draws heavily from PredictIt. "It's a slow process. It's not very flexible." Knowledge of polls does also feed into betting decisions on PredictIt. "Predictions markets translate this and other information into probability," said Rajiv Sethi, professor of economics at Barnard College. "The basic intuition is that it's a 'wisdom of crowds' effect." For example, Trumps chances of securing the Republican nomination for the presidential election swung dramatically on the site over the past three months as the primary season progressed. A Trump share shot from 30 cents in early February when he lost to rival Ted Cruz in the Iowa primary to 80 cents a month later when Trump dominated on Super Tuesday. They then lost half their value by early April as Cruz appeared to regain momentum with a big win in Wisconsin. With Cruz and another rival, John Kasich, now out of the race, Trump had risen to 94 cents by Monday. For graphic showing Trump's ascendancy on PredictIt during primary season, see http://tmsnrt.rs/1WmRq For November's election, though, Trump is trailing on PredictIt with 40 cents against Clinton's 59 cents. While PredictIt's precision has yet to be closely examined by academics, other predictions markets such as the Iowa Electronic Markets, have proven to be just as accurate as polls, experts who have studied them said. PredictIt markets go beyond topics related to U.S. elections. Users also put the probability of a North Korea hydrogen bomb test this year at only 29 cents, and a British exit from the European Union by 2017 at just 30 cents. The idea for PredictIt was first thought up in the mid-1990s by Lew Evans, professor of economics at the University of Victoria. It took until 2008, for the market, called "iPredict" in New Zealand, to get up and running. Early on, it focused primarily on New Zealand politics, and research showed iPredict out-performed the majority of polls in predicting the results in two of New Zealand's last three general elections. However, new anti-money laundering laws in New Zealand put an end to iPredict last year after the cost of verifying users' identities to comply with the rules threatened to blow through iPredict's shoe-string budget. PRIMARY PARTY PredictIt attracts everyone from campaign volunteers to political junkies. In mid-April, about 30 PredictIt traders gathered at a bar in New York to watch the state's primary results roll in. "I think it's a good source of collective wisdom," said Brian Hegarty, who was at the event. Hegarty, who worked for Kasich's campaign, reads political news, but also relied on picking up information through his campaign experience. That didnt always translate to a bet in favor of Kasich. He said he put money on Republican candidate Marco Rubio to win the Minnesota caucus because he had overheard someone who was working for the Florida senator express confidence about Rubio's chances. It turned out to be one of the few states Rubio won before dropping out in mid-March. Duhaime, the MIT student, said he usually bets against candidates he believes are likely to flame out. "For me, Trump was one of those people," he said. "I shorted Trump way back in July, and it hasn't been fun watching." After Trump's win in Indiana in early May, Duhaime was down nearly $1,000, about a third of the money he put into PredictIt. "I still think it was a one in a hundred thing," Duhaime, who doesn't identify as a Democrat but is a fan of President Barack Obama, said of the Trump phenomenon. "Obviously I'm bummed, but I'm sort of more concerned for other reasons." (This version of the story corrects the spelling of Lew Evans) (Reporting by Anjali Athavaley in New York and Charlotte Greenfield in New Zealand; Editing by Martin Howell)
The situation in Nigeria is the biggest upside risk in the oil markets, strategist Helima Croft said Monday.

The country's oil output has fallen to its lowest in decades following several acts of sabotage by militants.

"If Nigeria goes offline, it's sticky. These armed militants are very intent on shutting down production. They have the capacity to do so," Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said in an interview with CNBC's " Power Lunch ."

"I don't think we should write them off because they are armed to the teeth."

Oil prices surged Monday on the growing Nigerian oil output disruptions and a new outlook by Goldman Sachs that said the market had ended almost two years of oversupply and flipped to a deficit.

U.S. crude futures (New York Mercantile Exchange: @CL.1) settled up $1.51 at $47.72 a barrel, at their highest since Nov. 3, when they closed at $47.90.

Brent crude futures (Intercontinental Exchange Europe: @LCO.1) were trading at $48.99 per barrel, up $1.13, or 2.36 percent.

Supply disruptions around the world of as much as 3.75 million barrels per day have wiped out a glut that pulled down oil prices by as much as 70 percent between 2014 and early 2016.

However, despite the recent drop in supply, oil expert John Kilduff isn't necessarily convinced levels will stay low.

"This is going to be the test. Does this run at $50 right now bring on additional U.S. tight oil production? Does the rig count stabilize and even go back up? I think there's a lot of desperation out there. I think you are going to see these folks try to lock in $48, $50 barrel oil here and go for it," the founding partner of Again Capital said in an interview with "Power Lunch."

Crude production in the U.S. has fallen to 8.8 million BPD, 8.4 percent below 2015 peaks, as the sector suffers a wave of bankruptcies. The latest victims are SandRidge Energy and the master limited partnership Breitburn Energy Partners, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday.

Story continues

Kilduff also believes the market is vulnerable because the events in Nigeria are transitory, noting that Libya has been on and off the market and the Iranians came back online much quicker than many anticipated.

In addition, he questions the importance of the Nigerian outage.

"For the past year or so, a lot of their own went unsold for points of time. There were scores of cargo sitting out there with nowhere to go," he said.

But Croft thinks that is exactly why Nigeria is important.

"We said the Nigerian barrels are the homeless barrels that are choking the market, so if we cleared off Nigeria. That was your path to higher markets."

Oil stocks have moved higher since crude's February lows, but analyst Mike Kelly cautions investors to not get greedy.

That's because U.S. producers will "come back with a vengeance" once oil hits $55, the managing director and senior analyst at Seaport Global Securities told "Power Lunch."

"I still think the wind's at your back here in the short term. You get to that $55, pushing $60 level, you've got to take chips off the table," said Kelly.

He specifically likes Newfield Exploration (NYSE: NFX), Continental Resources (NYSE: CLR), Energen (NYSE: EGN) and Cimarex Energy (NYSE: XEC).

 CNBC's Jennet Chin and Reuters contributed to this report.

Disclosures: Kelly, his family and his firm do not own shares of NFX, CLR, EGN. XEC is an investment banking client.

Disclaimer





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Beirut (AFP) - Powerful blasts rocked a key gas field in central Syria on Monday, with a monitor saying they were caused by the Islamic State group blowing up pumping stations.

The Shaer gas field -- one of the biggest in the central province of Homs -- has been the site of fierce fighting between IS jihadists and Syrian government loyalists.

"There were three huge explosions there carried out by IS on Monday," said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Abdel Rahman said IS was believed to have blown up several of Shaer's pumping stations. He had no immediate word on casualties.

The explosions reportedly even shook Palmyra, the ancient oasis city about 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of Shaer, according to reports posted on Twitter.

Syria's army recaptured Palmyra from IS on March 27, after about 10 months of jihadist rule over the city.

IS seized the Shaer field last week, but Syrian armed forces and pro-government militias have fought hard to get it back.

Syrian state news agency SANA on Monday evening said government forces had seized a hilltop just west of the field.

The agency did not mention the blasts.

IS has targeted oil and gas facilities in Iraq and Syria to fund its self-proclaimed Islamic "caliphate".

More than 270,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad.
By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A century after Britain and France secretly mapped out a Middle East they would control upon defeating the Ottomans in World War One, its borders have been blurred by sectarian bloodshed - and some in the region see opportunity in the chaos. These include Israelis or Kurds who seek to carve out their own turf, and Arab nationalists or Islamists nursing rancour at Western imperialism. Though diffuse in terms of their clout and aims, they pose a headache for today's global crisis managers. Nowhere is this more felt than over Syria and Iraq, whose territories diplomats Mark Sykes of Britain and Francois Georges-Picot of France broadly demarcated with pen strokes in the May 16, 1916 pact, and which are now riven by the advances of Islamic State insurgents and Sunni-Shi'ite infighting. The Sykes-Picot centennial has occasioned conferences and policy papers in Israel. Its premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, argues that Israel's annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, which it captured in the 1967 war, should be recognised internationally - in part, because Damascus may no longer wield enough central authority to negotiate for a return of the strategic plateau. Ceding the Golan would put Israel's interior within range of Islamic State weapons, said senior Israeli diplomat Dore Gold. "The meltdown of borders with the 'Arab Spring' and 'Islamic Winter' has created a reality that points out a number of precautions that Israel has to have in the future," Gold told Reuters in an interview. "Irredentist movements are emerging which challenge boundaries established a long time ago." Gold said Israel's diplomatic campaign was prompted by the U.N. Syria peace envoy's inclusion in March of the Golan in proposals to reunite a country fragmented by five years of civil war. Russia, the big power most invested in backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against rebel and militant groups, agrees, with its officials saying the Israeli-occupied Golan should remain part of Syria. "This raises, in my view, the image of some secret meeting in the basement of one of the chancelleries of Europe, where a 21st century Sykes and Picot are sitting with maps and cartographers and trying to reconfigure the borders of the Middle East, Gold said. "You have to put down your flag." Gold was being hyperbolic - there is no suggestion such meetings are going on - but Israel's need to stake a claim remains. KURDS EYE INDEPENDENCE The Kurds, a stateless people numbering in the tens of millions, have seized on disarray to expand oil-rich areas under the autonomous rule in northern Iraq that they have enjoyed since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. In northern Syria, Kurds controlling three provinces aim to finalize plans later this year for an autonomous political federation Mindful of U.S. calls to keep Iraq and Syria intact, the Kurds have avoided declaring independence. But some Kurdish authorities are sounding more assertive. Under the hashtag "SykesPicot," Masrour Barzani, chancellor of Iraq's Kurdistan Region Security Council, tweeted: "One hundred years of failure & bloodshed is enough reason to try a new path. For #Kurdistan it's time to undo the injustice." "Some say now isn't the right time for an independent Kurdistan. I believe it's time for our people to finally determine their own future," he wrote. These are unwelcome sentiments in Baghdad or other Arab capitals struggling to contain regional ruptures. But there is popular support among many Arabs for deeming Sykes-Picot dead. Secular nationalists want to solemnise the end of often arbitrary Western-imposed boundaries. Islamists hope to unite co-religionists in a Muslim caliphate. "Sykes-Picot partitioned the Arab world and prepared the ground to absorb the Zionist entity and execute the plot to set it up and to keep Arabs weak," said Jamil Abu Bakr, a leading member of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, in reference to the 1948 creation of Israel in what had been British-ruled Palestine. Palestinians worry the pan-Arab sectarian furies may detract from their goal of statehood in Israeli-occupied territory. Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, lamented the "perfidy and betrayal" of colonial deals like Sykes-Picot, but said the resulting Arab nation-states should be preserved lest partition bring more suffering. Referring to the Golan, she said Israel was "exploiting the situation in order to attempt to consecrate, to make an illegal occupation of Arab land permanent - including in the West Bank". (Additonal reporting by Isabel Coles in Erbil and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Mark Heinrich)
'Pokemon Sun and Moon' are the next new games in the Pokemon franchise. (Photo : YouTube/HoodlumScrafty)

Following the reveal of Starter Pokemon in "Pokemon Sun and Moon," avid fans have speculated what the evolutionary line would be like. A new sneak peek may have revealed the typings of the evolutionary line for the upcoming game starters.



YouTuber pdwinnall spotted some code in the Japanese Pokemon website where some of the likely typings surfaced for the evolutions of the starters. However, this is mere rumor and there is no official confirmation from The Pokemon Company concerning the evolutions and their typings.



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Based on the released clip, the "Pokemon Sun and Moon" Japanese website has fields left blank in the code as the YouTuber inspected the resources. The first two fields show the typings Grass and Flying, which connote Rowlet's typing.



The third field is left blank with the fourth one being Fire (Litten's typing). Field 5 is the Water typing that refers to Popplio's typing, but the sixth field is blank as well.



However, when pdwinnall changed the URL of the site, the typings that are actual PNG images and not text showed up. The images revealed that the third Field is Ground typing while Field 6 is the Fighting typing.



The YouTuber continues to speculate that Litten will become a Fire/Ground type while Popplio will transform into a Water/Fighting type. However, the hypothesis will change since with Field 3 being blank, one would believe that would refer to the primary typing of Litten, although conventional typings give the Starter Pokemon Grass, Fire, or Water as the main typing.



The main concern is whether that Litten's evolution will gain the Ground typing as the primary typing, something that is unlikely, according of iDigital Times. Pdwinnall made a possible error in the clip, which he corrected later in an annotation at the end, where he went back and said that the Ground typing could actually refer to the Rowlett line instead.



As a result, Rowlett will change from Grass/Fire type to a Grass/Ground type. This would as well mean Litten remains a Fire type only in the entire evolution process.



As aforementioned, this is mere speculation and there is no confirmation. However, it does lead to an interesting discussion as to what the Starters of "Pokemon Sun and Moon" will become. Watch the footage below for more information:






MAGNOLIA, TX / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / CEO John Kemp is pleased to announce today that Michael Shoemaker and Charles Brister have agreed to serve on the Board of Directors of Blue Earth Resources, Inc. (OTC Pink: BERI). John Lai and Jeff Mills have given their resignations and I would like to thank them for their services to Blue Earth Resources Inc.

Michael Shoemaker is a trusted insurance professional with Humana Insurance that specializes in the senior market. For the last 12 years he has advised thousands of clients helping them prepare for their retirement years. After graduating from Texas A&M University in 1988 with a BBA in Business Management, he worked for Columbia Industries where he was the Assistant to the VP of International Sales. In this role he was responsible for sales and marketing in foreign countries. He spent the next 10 years in management positions in the car rental business for both Enterprise and Alamo Rentals where he was responsible for profits and growth for these companies.

Charles Brister is an 18 year veteran with FedEx as an Operations Manager in Austin, Texas. Mr. Brister is responsible for over 200 employees to make sure FedEx Customers packages get to their destination on time. He is also responsible for the monthly audit to ensure that FedEx complies with OSHA, State and Governmental laws and also compiles this information to send it to the FedEx district office. Mr. Brister works to ensure that everyone has the same goal which is growth, profit and service for FedEx and their customers and to go above and beyond to ensure they are getting the service satisfaction they have paid for. I believe as CEO that both these new directors will help me move Blue Earth Resources Inc. into a powerful company in the near future.

The first action for the new BERI board members was to review a name change from the newly acquired 51% of Eco Source Cleaners. The decision was made to change the current name to Blue Earth Cleaners to represent and to best serve Blue Earth Resources Inc. and its shareholders.

John Kemp stated, "With Michael and Charles becoming board members for BERI and its shareholders. I believe that Blue Earth Resources could look to acquire any type of businesses and turn them around to be big assets for the shareholders of "BERI".

About Blue Earth Resources Inc.:

Blue Earth Resources, Inc. is trading on the OTCPINK under the symbol BERI. The Company is an independent holding and acquisition company engaged in the acquisition, development and production of many types of businesses. The Company seeks to deliver strong shareholder returns through an effective acquisition and development program that incorporates sound business practices with the strong experience of our management team. The goal is to steadily increase proven business models and to be able to participate with business owners who are specialist in their own business's which, in turn, will lead to enhanced cash flows and earnings per share. The foregoing material may contain forward-looking statements. We caution that such statements may be subject to uncertainties and that actual results could differ materially from the fore-going statements. Readers accordingly should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which do not reflect unknown or unanticipated events or circumstances occurring after the date of these forward-looking statements.

Blue Earth Resources Inc.

John Kemp CEO

Contact: 832-988-5199

Email: jkemp@blueearthresources.com

SOURCE: Blue Earth Resources Inc.
boeing 787 dreamliner united

The 787 Dreamliner is the first new plane Boeing has designed and built from scratch in 20 years, but its entry into service has been far from smooth.

The program has been beset by engine and production issues.

In 2013, the worldwide Dreamliner fleet was grounded after the lithium-ion battery packs on several aircraft caught fire.

With more than $30 billion invested in the plane, Boeing has a lot riding on the state-of-the-art composite airliner.

Fortunately for Boeing, not only has the Dreamliner been a hot seller for the company, with 1,154 orders to date, but its teething troubles seem to have been worked out.

But Boeing may be on the brink of a new problem with the Dreamliner  sales of the innovative jet look to be drying up. At least for the time being.

According to Alwyn Scott of Reuters:

Now the company's flagship plane is facing a new challenge: slowing sales. Boeing needs to sell dozens of 787s to help recover nearly $30 billion it has spent on production and not yet accounted for in its earnings. But the industry is in a sales slump. Sales of Boeing and Airbus wide body jets have fallen 51 percent since 2013, and some analysts and investors predict that without more 787 sales in the near term, Boeing will have to take a sizable charge to write off some of the 787's deferred costs.

Much of the slowdown can be attributed to the dramatic fall in oil prices over the past two years. The Dreamliner was never a cheap aircraft to buy, but 787's greatest selling point is its phenomenal fuel efficiency.

The 787 offers more than 20% better fuel economy than Boeing's previous generation 767 jets. With Brent crude prices cratering from $110 a barrel in 2014 to less than $30 earlier this year, airlines are reluctant to invest in Boeing's fuel miser.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner Norwegian

Also, Boeing designed the Dreamliner to offer airlines the ability to bypass major hubs and operate cost-efficient point-to-point flights. But few of the airplane's customers have taken advantage of this capability. As a result, airlines have opted to go for older and cheaper technology, such as the Airbus A330ceo.

Story continues

Finally, airlines that see the Dreamliner as an integral part of its future strategy have already bought in bulk. During the early days of Boeing's Dreamliner sales drive in the mid 2000s, the company regularly booked 200 to 300 sales a year. Thus, most new customers of the airplane will have to be swayed into committing to the plane.

According to Scott, the 1,154 orders fall short of the 1,300 Dreamliners Boeing is using as a basis for deferring the charges in its accounting.

boeing 787

In addition, Boeing needs to rack up 120 Dreamliner orders this year for sales to keep up with the rate of production, Scott added.

Thus far, Boeing has sold just 16 Dreamliners this year and 149 combined over 2014 and 2015.

But things are not all bad for the Boeing 787. The Dreamliner program has a backlog of more than 750 jets, and the price of crude has rebounded to nearly $50 a barrel. Even if it doesn't reach its previous heights, increasing fuel prices could once again drive airlines to Boeing's fuel-sipping jet.

NOW WATCH: Take a tour of the $367 million jet that will soon be called Air Force One





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The Pittsburgh Pirates closed a sub-par stretch within their own division on a high note, making it a bit easier to step away for the next three weeks.

The MLB-worst Atlanta Braves should make for an easy transition.

The Pirates open a 24-game run outside of the NL Central with Monday night's opener of a four-game series against the Braves, who are trudging through their latest slump.

Pittsburgh (19-17) avoided a sweep at the hands of the Central-leading Chicago Cubs with Sunday's 2-1 victory, capping a 6-8 stretch within the division.

That span ended with a 4-4 trip, but the Pirates open a 10-game stay at PNC Park hoping to snap a four-game skid there. They are 12-11 against Central foes but won't face another until hosting St. Louis from June 10-12.

The Cubs pounded Pittsburgh for 17 runs in the first two games of their weekend set, but ace Gerrit Cole gave up just three hits in eight scoreless innings Sunday.

Jonathon Niese looks to take that momentum and turn it into the club's ninth win in 12 games against Atlanta (9-27), which enters riding a 2-8 slump.

Niese (3-2, 5.63 ERA) had coughed up 15 runs over 15 1/3 innings in three outings before settling in with his second quality start last Monday in Cincinnati. The left-hander gave up seven hits and three runs in 6 2/3 innings of a 3-2 loss. All the runs came on solo homers - the fourth time this season Niese has given up more than one.

"There's too many positives in this outing to dwell on the negatives," he told MLB's official website. "The biggest negative was we lost. But there were a lot of positives. I'm going to take those and run with them and build off them for my next start."

Niese faced Atlanta plenty during eight years with the New York Mets and netted mostly positive results. He is 9-6 with a 3.08 ERA in 22 starts against the Braves, and in his last nine he is 3-2 with a 2.30 ERA.

Jeff Francoeur and Kelly Johnson are each 4 for 11 in the matchup, but Freddie Freeman is the Atlanta batter with the most experience against Niese. The slugging first baseman is 11 for 49 against him with two doubles, two home runs and seven RBIs.

Story continues

The Braves counter with Williams Perez, who looks to continue making his pitch to remain in the starting rotation.

Perez (1-0, 3.54) failed to last five innings in his first three starts and was subsequently demoted to Triple-A Gwinnett. But after getting recalled Wednesday to replace the traded Jhoulys Chacin, the right-hander delivered one of the best starts of his young career in a 5-1 win over Philadelphia.

Perez matched a career high with eight innings and held the Phillies to two hits and a solo homer in an efficient 85-pitch outing. He became the third Braves pitcher since 2000 to throw 85 or fewer in eight innings, joining Greg Maddux (twice) and Tom Glavine.

With Chacin shipped to the Los Angeles Angels that afternoon, Perez didn't make it to the ballpark until a few hours before first pitch.

"That's pretty incredible," Freeman told MLB's official website. "They seem to do that throughout history, when you just don't know what's going to happen and you get called and you come to the big leagues, and next thing you know, you throw eight innings of one-run ball."

During his rookie 2015 campaign, Perez faced the Pirates twice with poor results, giving up nine hits and six runs in 9 2/3 innings while walking and striking out seven.

The Pirates will be without left fielder Starling Marte, who was placed on the paternity list Monday and could miss up to three days. Marte went 12 for 33 on the just-completed road trip, lifting his average to .326 overall.
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 16 (Reuters) - Brazil's Environment Minister, Jose Sarney Filho said on Monday he will not allow Samarco Mineracao SA to reopen its iron ore mine without assurances that the causes and damages of a deadly tailings dam collapse were fixed.

Sarney Filho, appointed last week, made the comments during an official visit to Mariana, Brazil, the township most affected by the November tragedy that is considered the worst environmental disaster in the country's history.

After flying over the region devastated by a tsunami of muddy mine waste, he refused to sign a statement during an event from the local government that would commit the government to allowing the mine to reopen.

The mine, a 50-50 joint venture between Brazil's Vale SA and Australia's BHP Billiton Ltd , would still need to secure the necessary permits to resume operations.

"I don't yet feel comfortable participating in any act that agrees with facilitating the return of (mining) activity," he said after meeting with Mariana's mayor.

Samarco is one of the largest employers in the region and the cornerstone of Mariana's economy. Samarco, Vale, BHP and the Brazilian government, including the environment ministry, signed a 20-billion-real ($5.71 billion) accord in March to clean up the disaster area and compensate victims.

At the time, government and company officials said the mine could reopen by the end of the year. The mine would likely produce at a rate of 19 million tonnes a year, 63 percent of its pre-disaster level.

Sarney Filho, who was previously environment minister from 1999-2002 under former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso is also the son of former Brazilian president Jose Sarney. ($1 = 3.50 reais) (Reporting by Marta Nogueira; Additional reporting by Jeb Blount; Writing by Jeb Blount; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Rousseff Steps Down: Why Brazil Shouldn't Celebrate Just Yet

A turn of fortune

Dilma Rousseff was the first female elected to the office of the president of Brazil in January 2011. When she was re-elected in 2015, her margin of victory was much lower than in her previous term, but she still attained over half of the votes.

In the small hours of May 12, 2016, Rousseff was forced to step down from her position by the senate, which voted 5522 in favor of impeachment proceedings to begin against her. Inside of two terms, she has gone from a leader who was expected to carry on with previous president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvas policies to being politically and economically undesirable.

Economic undesirability key

Rousseffs economic policies became the key reason behind her demise. Problems for Brazil began as China started showing signs of economic sourness as early as the first year of Rousseffs initial term. Since China bought a significant amount of commodities from Brazil (EWZ) (VWO) (EEM), a fall in demand from the country in the years to follow impacted the governments export revenue. The fall in commodity prices served to exacerbate the countrys financial situation.

Dilma Rousseff has been accused of tampering with the financial figures of the government by means of loans that made it seem that the countrys budget balance was in better shape than it was. Budget balance targets in Brazil are set in the congress. This tampering was deemed illegal by a court and formed the basis of the impeachment proceedings against Rousseff.

In this series, well take a look at Brazils economic state, market participants views regarding its financial markets, what could this mean for products investing in the country (FLFAX) (MDLTX), and whats next for the nation.

Before we do that, lets look at a bit of historical context. This isnt the first time impeachment proceedings have been initiated in Brazil. In the next article, well tell you about a situation in Brazil when an earlier impeachment took place and draw parallels with the present day.

Story continues

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) - Working mothers may be more likely to breastfeed their babies for the recommended minimum of at least six months if they can work less than 20 hours a week, an Australian study suggests. Researchers analyzed data on 2,300 mothers who worked before their babies arrived. By the time the infants were six months old, about 60 percent of mothers working no more than 19 hours a week were still breastfeeding some of the time. But longer hours added up to lower odds of breastfeeding. Just 47 percent of women working 20 to 34 hours a week and 39 percent of women working at least 35 hours a week were still breastfeeding even some of the time. As long as mothers who return to work keep their working hours within 19 hours per week, they appear as likely as stay-at-home mothers to maintain predominant breastfeeding at 16 weeks and any breastfeeding at six months, lead study author Ning Xiang, a researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia, said by email. Pediatricians recommend that mothers exclusively breastfeed infants until at least six months of age because it can reduce babies risk of ear and respiratory infections, sudden infant death syndrome, allergies, childhood obesity and diabetes. Mothers can benefit too, with longer periods of breastfeeding linked to lower risks of depression, bone deterioration and certain cancers. To see how working influences breastfeeding, Xiang and colleagues reviewed survey data collected from about one year before babies were born until roughly one year after they arrived. They excluded women who typically worked less than one day a week pre-baby and mothers who never started breastfeeding their infants. When babies were born, the mothers were around 33 years old on average and about half of them had a university education. Overall, 49 percent of the mothers said they primarily breastfed babies at four months of age. By six months, 58 percent were still giving infants at least some breast milk, researchers report in the journal Pediatrics. At four months, about 54 percent of women who didnt work at all were still predominantly breastfeeding, as were roughly 53 percent of women working no more than 19 hours a week, the study found. But only about 42 percent of women working 20 to 34 hours a week were still mainly breastfeeding at that point, as were only about 38 percent of those working 35 hours a week or more. One limitation of the study is its focus only on women employed before babies arrived, a group that may not have the same experiences as other mothers, the authors note. Researchers also relied on mothers to accurately recall how breastfeeding went in surveys done about a year after delivery. Even so, the findings add to a substantial body of evidence linking more time at home with longer periods of breastfeeding, said Melanie Lutenbacher, a researcher at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Nashville who wasnt involved in the study. Breastfeeding is time consuming, often cumbersome for some employed women, and still not intentionally supported in many work sites, Lutenbacher said by email. Less time at work provides more opportunity for a woman to continue her breastfeeding effort in her own personal space; more time at work means a greater need for work time, space and privacy to pump and then a place to store her milk, Lutenbacher added. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1R429Bo Pediatrics, online May 16, 2016.
On June 23, Britain will vote on whether to exit or remain part of the European Union (EU). The country remains divided almost evenly. While phone polls find that more Brits are in favor of staying, online polls show more want to leave, according to The Guardian.



Britain joined the EU in 1973 but has maintained a somewhat estranged relationship with the union. Great Britain opted out of the single Euro currency and does not comply with the Schengen Agreement, which allows EU citizens passport-free travel around the continent. If Britain exits (or Brexit), they will no longer have to pay nearly $12 billion a year to the EU (the EU has a common budget and the UK is a net contributor). Another selling point for some is being able to further limit the number of migrants entering the country each year-- about 3 million EU nationals live in Britain while only 1.3 million Britons live elsewhere in the union.



But former Prime Minister Tony Blair (1997-2007) believes the negatives of a potential Brexit outweigh the positives. Were part of the single market in Europe, which is the largest commercial market in the world, he tells Yahoo Finance. Half of our goods get sold into that market. If we leave, we will then spend the next years in the uncertain position of having to renegotiate our way back into the single market.



The single market is a tariff-free trade agreement among the 28 member states of the EU. Some say that without EU trade regulations Britain will be able to negotiate better trade deals with the other 27 member countries. Others believe that the negotiation process will be arduous and that some countries will want to punish the UK in order to discourage other members from leaving.



The things people dont like about the single market, like the free movement of people and immigration, these are the very things wed have to negotiate back in order to have the advantage of the market which we need for our businesses, Blair says.



Blair sees a benefit to being a part of the biggest political alliance in the world. To stay out of that alliance, which just so happens to be at the UKs doorstep, would be destructive and foolish, he says.



Scottish Independence



In September 2014, Scotland issued a referendum on independence. While the country ultimately voted to remain a part of the United Kingdom, the Scottish National Party received a great boost of support. Blair fears that if Britain were to leave the EU, it would lose Scotland for good.



The case for Scottish independence today is, in my view, a pretty weak case, he says. If Scotland had left the UK, the change in the oil prices would have made all of the projections of a Scottish economy way out of whack so you would have ended up with a serious economic problem in Scotland. But if Britain votes to leave Europe those problems start to change, says Blair. Scotland would have a case to say it wants to be a part of the single market and the EU political alliance.



The argument also changes in respect to Northern Ireland, he says. Northern Ireland has the ability to vote on an independence referendum, though there is no current plan to do so. So this is a situation where youre going to end up with years of political and economic uncertainty and then waves of additional insecurity because of the wave on the rest of the UK voting to leave.
By Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - A British exit from the European Union could hurt the credit ratings of other EU countries with close trade or financial ties to Britain, including Germany, France, Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands, Fitch said on Monday.

The ratings agency has already said it will review Britain's rating, currently AA+ with a stable outlook, if the "Out" campaign wins June 23's referendum, something it stressed was not its "base case" scenario.

If it does happen though, it would create widespread uncertainty for the whole European bloc as governments and businesses try to get to grips with the breakaway process.

"We would not expect to take any immediate negative rating actions on other EU sovereigns if the UK left," Fitch said in a report published on Monday.

"But negative actions would become more likely in the medium term if the economic impact were severe or significant political risks materialised."

The economic damage caused by Brexit would be lower for the EU than for the UK, but it would still be palpable, it added.

In pure trade terms, the most exposed countries would be Ireland, Malta, Belgium, the Netherlands, Cyprus and Luxembourg, for which exports of goods and services to Britain account for at least 8 percent of GDP.

Strong links between their own and the British banking systems could mean Germany, France and Spain are also hit hard.

The magnitude of the impact would depend primarily on what post-exit trading arrangements are made between Britain and the EU and on the potential political repercussions elsewhere in the 28-country bloc.

"Brexit would create a precedent for countries leaving the EU," Fitch said. "If the UK were to thrive outside of the EU, it might encourage other countries to follow suit."

An "Out" vote could precipitate Scotland leaving the UK, Fitch said, which might intensify secessionist pressures in regions like Catalonia in Spain.

Fears that more countries might leave could widen bond spreads for peripheral countries, potentially increasing the average cost of debt and making it more challenging to reduce governments' debt-to-GDP ratios, the rating agency added.

Story continues

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who heads the Eurogroup of finance minister told Reuters last week some countries might deliberately try to make Brexit negotiations messy, to make it "very, very difficult and unattractive for others to contemplate going down the same road".

"I'm sure that there will be some that would argue that, OK, this is a matter of fact, let's deal with it, and others that will be very concerned about what happens in other EU countries," Dijsselbloem, who is Dutch finance minister, said.

Fitch said that if Britain leaves the bloc it joined in 1973, political risks would increase in the EU.

"It is not predictable exactly how these would play out, but tail risks could be material and potentially lead to negative rating action," the rating agency said.

(Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Gambia has charged six women with offences including rioting, unlawful assembly and inciting violence for demonstrating against the prosecution of dozens of opposition activists, a defence lawyer and court official said on Saturday.

Police arrested the women on May 9 outside a courthouse in the capital Banjul where about 45 members of the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) were standing trial for staging protests against President Yahya Jammeh.

The demonstrations are a rare act of defiance in Gambia, where Jammeh has dealt swiftly and severely with dissent since seizing power in a 1994 coup.

This week's demonstration involved many women, some of whom carried cooking spoons -- a traditional symbol of protest in the West African nation.

UDP officials say 25 of their members were arrested outside the courthouse. It was not clear whether the other 19 protesters remained in custody or if they would face charges.

The six women were due to appear in court on Monday.

Jammeh has garnered international attention for his eccentric proclamations, including a claim to have invented a cure for HIV/AIDS, and his recent surprise decision to make Gambia an Islamic republic.

But he is also regularly denounced by rights groups and foreign governments for ruthlessly stamping out political dissent in the nation of two million people, which is a popular beach destination for budget-conscious European tourists.

Having scrapped constitutional term limits, Jammeh, who once told a report he could rule Gambia for "a billion years", is expected to win re-election again in December.

The ECOWAS regional bloc refused to send observers to the last elections in 2011, citing intimidation of the opposition and the electorate.

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LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron stands by his description of Donald Trump's proposal for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States as "divisive, stupid and wrong", a spokesman said on Monday. Trump, when asked about Cameron's criticism, said such comments indicate he is unlikely to have a good relationship with the British prime minister. "The prime minister has made his views on Donald Trump's comments very clear. He disagrees with them," the spokesman said. "He continues to believe that preventing Muslims from entering the U.S. is divisive, stupid and wrong. He stands by his comments." Asked who Cameron would prefer to be the next president, the spokesman said he would not comment on another country's election but said the British leader had been clear he would work with whoever won. "He is committed to maintaining the special relationship," he said. The spokesman said no meeting or call between Cameron and Republican candidate Trump was currently planned, but if one were proposed the prime minister would consider it. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan, writing by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Stephen Addison)
New York (AFP) - Billionaire Warren Buffett is willing to back one of the bidders for troubled Internet pioneer Yahoo, CNBC television reported Monday.

The report said Buffett had agreed to work with Quicken Loans founder and chairman Dan Gilbert on a bid for the core assets of Yahoo, which has been evaluating the potential for a sale.

Gilbert is also known as the owner of the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers team.

"I'm an enormous admirer of Dan and what he has accomplished in Quicken Loans," Buffett said in an email to CNBC.

"Yahoo is not the type of thing I'd ever be an equity partner in. I don't know the business and wouldn't know how to evaluate it, but if Dan needed financing, with proper terms and protections, we would be a possible financing help."

Yahoo, which has fallen behind rivals such as Google and Facebook, has said it is studying the possibility of a sale as it pursues its efforts to revive growth, focusing on mobile users.

US telecom giant Verizon is also believed to be among the bidders for Yahoo, which has not commented on details of the bidding process.

Yahoo shares rose 2.8 percent to $37.51 after the news report involving Buffett.

Gilbert is among those having signed the "Giving Pledge," an initiative launched by Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates asking wealthy people to donate the majority of their assets to charity.
Here are some of the stocks the Yahoo Finance team will be watching for you today. We start with a deal in the drug space.

Anacor Pharmaceuticals (ANAC) shares soared in early trading. Pfizer (PFE) is buying the drug firm for $5.2 billion in cash and debt, or $99.25 a share. The deal will give Pfizer access to Anacor's eczema treatment which is under review by the FDA. Pfizer scrapped its deal with Allergan (AGN) last month after the Treasury Department issued new rules aimed at blocking the deal's tax benefits.

Tribune Publishing (TPUB) surged this morning after Gannett (GCI) raised its bid to buy the owner of The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune by 22% to about $864 million, or $15 a share. This comes after Tribune rejected Gannett's initial offer saying it was not in the best interest of its shareholders and undervalues the company.

Yahoo (YHOO), parent company of Yahoo Finance, is on investors' radars. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC this morning that he is willing back a consortium that includes Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert in a bid to buy Yahoo with financing, under the right terms.

Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App

Apple (AAPL) shares are getting a nice pop in early trading following news that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owns a $1 billion stake or 9.8 million shares in the tech giant as at the end of the first quarter according to a regulatory filing.

Amazon (AMZN) is gearing up to launch its own brand of items. The new labels  which will be called Happy Belly, Wickedly Prime, and Mama Bear  may come out within the next three weeks according to the Wall Street Journal. The brands will include nuts, coffee, baby food and other household items.
Barclays junior bankers associate training Rise New York

"Does anyone know on average what it costs to build a drone?" a young man asked a group of twenty-somethings gathered in a colorful coworking space in Manhattan's Flatiron District.

He was using an erasable marker to jot down notes on a conference-room window as the group outlined a plan to bring access to water and energy to remote communities around the world, using crowdfunding and internet-of-things technology.

This sort of scene is not unusual at Barclays' Rise New York facility, where entrepreneurs regularly come together to brainstorm business ideas or participate in a 13-week accelerator program.

But on this Tuesday afternoon, the young problem-solvers were not startup founders; they were junior bankers from Barclays, working on a team-building exercise as part of their associate-level training.

The half-day "ideation workshop" was a new event designed to provide freshly-promoted associates an unusual setting for developing problem solving, presentation, and teamwork skills.

It also showed how seriously investment banks like Barclays are looking for creative ways to remain attractive career choices for millennial employees, who tend to seek a sense of purpose in the workplace.

Battle for talent

When it comes to the battle for top young talent, Silicon Valley is shaping the conversation.

Bright-eyed business school grads are increasingly looking to build careers as entrepreneurs, rather than on Wall Street  and investment banks are sitting up and paying attention.

Citigroup, for example, is giving junior staff the opportunity to take a year off and do charitable work while still earning 60% of their pay. A second initiative will let junior bankers spend four weeks in Kenya running a micro-finance project.

Barclays junior bankers associate training Rise New York

The banks are also rewarding top performers by fast-tracking them to promotions, and encouraging mobility between departments and cities. In the past six months, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, Citi, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have rolled out programs in that vein.

Story continues

They're all trying to fix the same problem: Investment banking is becoming a less attractive career choice for millennials, who want to do meaningful work.

"Feeling like they're working for a place that has positive impact on the world  where they have an opportunity, if they want, to engage in volunteerism  is important," Michelle Bucaria, JPMorgan's head of campus recruiting, told Business Insider. "Students are looking for places where there is a breadth of opportunity."

Barclays, for its part, is responding by letting junior bankers play entrepreneur for a day.

Social innovation

At the Rise center, the associate class was split into groups and each assigned a "social innovation challenge" related to infrastructure, refugees, or resource scarcity.

They were then tasked with finding "commercial and sustainable solutions" for the challenges.

"It's just a really new way for us to think about how we can start to drive some of that social innovation-thinking into these individuals at the early stage of their careers," Mark Thain, a director at Barclays who runs the firm's social innovation fund, told Business Insider.

Barclays junior banker training day Rise

The young bankers came from Barclays offices around the world for a week of post-promotion training, the rest of which would take place at the bank's midtown offices.

"It's always nice to take a step back, hang around with some smart people who you have a daily interaction with but on a completely different topic, and just sort of pick away at an idea," Dominic Harper, an associate in equity capital markets based in London, told Business Insider.

He was among the group tasked with bringing water and energy to communities that lack access. Their conversation during the brainstorming session ranged from drone regulation and international air law to the cost of solar panels and other technologies.

The mood was light, and associates were even dressed more casually than a typical banker's uniform  the men had left behind their ties for the day and the women sported summer dresses.

They were visibly excited by the challenge they'd been set, and one associate gushed, "We're like an episode of Silicon Valley right now," referring to the HBO comedy series about a group of tech startup founders.

The junior bankers cobbled together two-minute pitches to present to a panel of judges that included Barclays' global head of loan capital markets, Claire O'Connor, the global head of mergers and acquisitions, Gary Posternack, and Sandeep Patel, a managing director in the consumer retail group.

Claire OConnor - Barclays junior bankers associate training Rise New York

Most of the solutions were little a half-baked and relied on expensive technology that would be tough to scale and incorporate into a sustainable business model. T

he judges pushed back, for example, on the resource scarcity group's ambitious plan to place solar panels on the backs of drones in the air rather than on the ground.

But Barclays clearly took the event seriously  the presence of a handful of other senior bankers in addition to the three judges was a testament to that.

And while it was unlikely their projects would ever come to fruition, the junior staffers certainly enjoyed themselves  even if just for an afternoon.

"I can't remember the last time I sat down and had a blue box thinking session," said Harper, the equity capital markets associate. "That was definitely enjoyable."

For Barclays, that counts as a success.

NOW WATCH: How Merrill Lynch changed the way people are paid on Wall Street





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Burlington College is the latest casualty in a growing list of private liberal arts colleges that have collapsed under financial struggles and lagging student enrollment. The school announced its closure in a statement Monday, blaming the move, in part, on the crushing weight of debt it incurred after a 2010 real estate purchase arranged by then-president Jane Sanders, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Jane Sanders served as president from 2004 to 2011 and left her post after a dispute with the colleges board over her decision to buy 30-plus acres of lakefront property from the Archdiocese of Burlington to expand the campus and attract new students. The move was unsuccessful.

At the end of Janes run, the school reported 19.4% of pupils were in default on their student loans three years after graduating, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. That rate fell to 7% in 2012, the year after Sanders departed (and the latest year for which data is available). According to a February report by Politico, only one-third of Burlington College graduates earned more than someone with a high school diploma. The cost of attendance (tuition and room and board) runs nearly $38,000 per year.



In July 2014, the school was in such dire financial straits it was put on probation by its accrediting agency with a two-year window of time to get its act together. With that window closing soon and news in April that the colleges lender, Peoples United Bank, was pulling its line of credit, college leaders decided to throw in the towel. These hurdles are insurmountable at this time, the college said in a statement. The school will officially close on May 27. The 245 students currently enrolled will have to transfer to other schools.

Burlingtons closure is not unique in the world of private liberal arts colleges, a sector of higher education that has particularly suffered in the years since the 2008 financial crisis. According to data released Monday by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), revenue at private colleges has slowed to 1.8%, down from 2.2% during the 2013-2014 school year. More than one-third of institutions reported declining enrollments.

Story continues

Unlike public institutions, which are heavily subsidized by federal and state funding, and elite private schools, with billion-dollar endowment funds, small private schools depend almost exclusively on tuition and room and board fees for revenue.

In March 2015, the board of the 114-year-old Sweet Briar College in Virginia abruptly shut the school down, quickly followed by news that private Christian school Tennessee Temple University would merge with another private Christian school. (Sweet Briar College was eventually rescued by a crew of alumni who raised $12.5 million.)

One of the more popular ways these schools have tried to attract new students is by offering seemingly huge tuition discounts  that is, offering more grant-based aid up front, in order to reduce the sticker price families pay for tuition. The average discount for the 2015-1216 academic year was 48.6% for incoming freshman, according to NACUBO.

These discounts, however, arent the incredible bargain they appear to be, as Yahoo Finance illustrated in an in-depth report on the practice last fall. For example, Rosemont College, in Rosemont, Pa., said recently it would cut the sticker price for tuition and room and board by 34% for the incoming class of 2016. But looking at the change in the net price  how much families pay out of pocket after factoring in grant-based aid  the discount was a much more modest 7%.

Bernie Sanders spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
BuzzFeeds interview with President Obama on Monday  which the media company had touted as the first interview with the president on Facebook Live  cut out on Facebook before the commander in chief had even taken his seat.

From its Facebook page, BuzzFeed pointed users to the live interview on YouTube, where the half-hour conversation was broadcast in full. That was after the Facebook Live feed dropped out less than two minutes into the live stream.

The interview was conducted live from the White Houses Roosevelt Room by BuzzFeed News legal editor Chris Geidner, starting at 2:50 p.m. Eastern. In the interview, Obama discussed his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.

Reps for BuzzFeed and Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the glitch.

After the Obama interview was over, BuzzFeed posted the interview at a new link on Facebook (labeling it live although the video at that point was prerecorded).

Facebook has been actively courting media companies, celebrities and sports leagues to take advantage of its live-streaming Facebook Live platform, as the No. 1 social service looks to drive more engagement and usage from among its global monthly user base of 1.6 billion people.

BuzzFeed last month used Facebook Live to broadcast video of staffers exploding a watermelon using rubber bands. That drew over 800,000 concurrent viewers and has generated more than 10 million views overall, which BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti boasted was the first time weve had a number thats comparable to TV. However, TV ratings are reported on the basis of average audience per minute, so the video was not comparable in terms of audience (never mind the fact that BuzzFeed did not have any advertising in the live video to make money on the stunt).

The technical difficulties BuzzFeed experienced with Facebook Live on the Obama interview indicate that Facebook is still ironing out the process of bringing live-streaming video to users, as it also continues to explore ways to let partners monetize those broadcasts.

Story continues

In the BuzzFeed interview, Obama defended his choice of Garland for the Supreme Court seat left open after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February, arguing that Republicans should not politicize the pick in an election year when even members of the GOP have questioned the qualifications of the partys presumptive nominee, Donald Trump. It seems to me (Republicans would) be better off going ahead and giving a hearing and a vote to somebody that they themselves in the past have said is well-qualified, is fair, and to treat the Supreme Court with the seriousness and the sense that its beyond politics, that it deserves, Obama said.

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Montreal (AFP) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced legislation Monday to protect transgender people from hate speech and discrimination, as debate rages in the United States over laws restricting their rights.

"Even today, despite all the obstacles we have overcome, the battles we have won, and the victories we have celebrated, we are still witnesses, and in some cases, victims of injustices," Trudeau said in a speech at a Montreal event hosted by gay rights group Fondation Emergence.

"We must continue to demand true equality," he said. "We must carry on the legacy of those who fought for justice by being bold and ambitious in our actions."

The bill is to be officially unveiled by Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould on Tuesday, the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.

It will add "gender identity" alongside race, religion, age, sex and sexual orientation as prohibited grounds for discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act, and add transgender persons to a list of groups protected from hate-mongering under the Criminal Code, according to Wilson-Raybould's mandate letter from the prime minister.

The Canadian parliament's previous attempts to pass similar legislation failed. But this time, due to a Liberal majority in the House, the measures are expected to pass easily.

Trudeau's father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was Canada's justice minister when Ottawa introduced a Criminal Code amendment to decriminalize homosexuality. He famously commented at the time (two years before it became law): "There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation."

In July, Justin Trudeau will be the first sitting prime minister to participate in a gay pride parade, in Montreal.

Following his speech, Fondation Emergence honoured him with an award for his promotion of gay rights, including allowing sexually active gay men to donate blood, and pardoning gay men who were convicted of gross indecency before homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969.

Story continues

South of the border, meanwhile, a debate on equal rights in the United States has been raging over a flurry of initiatives targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities since a historic Supreme Court decision last year legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

Last week, the US federal government and North Carolina's governor launched dueling lawsuits over a state law restricting transgender Americans' use of public restrooms.

The North Carolina law, passed on March 23, requires transgender people to use public restrooms corresponding to the gender listed on their birth certificate.

It provoked a public outcry and led several high-profile entertainers and big companies to join activists in denouncing the measure, pulling the plug on events and investments in the state.
Ottawa (AFP) - Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques will travel to the International Space Station (ISS) for a six-month mission in late 2018, Science Minister Navdeep Bains announced Monday.

Saint-Jacques is scheduled to take off aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket in November 2018 on what will be his first assignment in space.

The 46-year-old will start training for the mission this summer in Russia, Japan, the United States and Canada.

An astrophysicist and doctor-in-training, Saint-Jacques will become the ninth Canadian to go into space and seventh to work aboard the ISS.

During his mission, he will conduct a series of scientific experiments, robotics tasks and technology demonstrations, details of which will be announced later this year, the Canadian Space Agency said.

Canada said last year that it would send two astronauts into space by 2024, but did not specify which would go first. The second candidate, selected for the space program in 2009, is Jeremy Hansen.

The last Canadian in space, Chris Hadfield, commanded the ISS for five months in 2013, wowing people back on Earth with his guitar version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," recorded in microgravity, and photographs of the Pale Blue Dot from orbit.

The Canadian government renewed its commitment to space exploration in its latest budget, earmarking $294 million for the ISS over eight years.
BARCELONA Co-produced by Barcelonas Filmax International and Lisbons MGN Filmes, 100 Meters has been sold to Germany, Yugoslavia, and Hong-Kong, among other territories.

Directed and penned by first-timer Marcel Barrena, Meters is an inspiring dramedy, channeling echoes of The Intouchables, which explores with humor peoples capacity to overcome the seemingly impossible.

In a flurry of early Cannes Film Market deals, 100 Meters closed with German-Swiss distrib Ascot Elite for German-speaking Europe, with Zagrebs Blitz Film & Video Distribution Blitz for former-Yugoslavia, Taipeis Caichang for Taiwan, Edko for Hong Kong, Seouls Korea Screen for South Korea and Warsaws Monolith for Poland.

Meters is based on Bilbao-born Ramon Arroyo true story. An athlete diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 16 years ago, he was told that he wouldnt be able to walk 100 meters in matter of days. Having decided to prove doctors wrong, he finally managed to complete a super-hero sport discipline triathlon two years ago.

Meters stars Maria de Medeiros (Pulp Fiction), and local thesps Dani Rovira and Karra Elejalde whose popularity sky-rocketed after Emilio Martinez Lazaro Spanish romcom hit Spanish Affair, which they starred in, set a best-ever gross for a local film in Spain, punching 55.4 million ($62.6 million) in 2014.

A spin-off, Spanish Affair 2 (2015) grossed $40 million, becoming he fifth highest-grossing Spanish film in history, behind Spanish Affair, The Impossible, The Others and The Orphanage.

Meters cast also includes Alexandra Jimenez, David Verdaguer, Clara Segura and Andres Velencoso. It is in post and is scheduled to be released in Spain next November via mini-major Filmax.

The buyers were touched by the story and were sure 100 Meters is set to be one of the most moving, feel-good European films of the year, which will touch the hearts of the public the world over, said Filmax head of international, Ivan Diaz.

Story continues

Related stories

Cannes Film Review: 'Apprentice'

Cannes Adds Bernard-Henri Levy's 'Peshmerga' to Official Selection

Cannes Film Review: 'Loving'
The Hollywood Reporter has released its sixth and final Cannes Film Festival daily issue, which includes a look at the influx of social media stars at the fest, news of a secret screening of the controversial documentary Vaxxed and a chat with Spike Lee.

Influencer Invasion

A new wave of social media mavens are making their mark at Cannes. Cannes has been kind to the "celebrity" set for years - socialites like Paris Hilton and Lady Victoria Hervey have walked the Palais steps for years - but the new phenomenon is a clear indication that the fest and the luxury brands that set up shop here have embraced the power and attention that these players bring to the Croisette.

Secret Screening

THR has learned that the controversial documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe is getting a secret Cannes screening on May 25. The film, which sparked outrage on both side of the vaccination debate after it was added to the Tribeca Film Festival lineup in March 2016 only to be ousted days later, is being sold by L.A.-based distribution and sales company Cinema Libre in international territories, where it is doing brisk business.

Speaking With Spike

It was 28 years ago that Spike Lee brought his trailblazing film Do the Right Thing to Cannes, marking one of the most controversial debuts in the festival's 70 years. He's back in Cannes in a conversation with longtime collaborator Roger Guenveur Smith, and to moderate a Q&A with Elton John following the premiere of John's The Cut. The outspoken filmmaker spoke with THR to discuss the Netflix backlash in France, his festival memories and the real reason why Donald Trump should be impeached.

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The United States and other world powers say they are ready to supply Libya's internationally recognized government with weapons to counter the Islamic State and other militant groups gaining footholds in its lawless regions.

The world powers aim to push for exemptions to a U.N. arms embargo imposed on Libya to keep lethal arms away from Islamic extremists and rival militias vying for power. But in a communique obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S., four other permanent U.N. Security Council members and the more than 15 other nations participating at the talks say they are "ready to respond to the Libyan government's requests for training and equipping" government forces.

"The Government of National Accord has voiced its intention to submit appropriate arms embargo exemption requests to the UN Libya Sanctions Committee to procure necessary lethal arms and materiel to counter UN-designated terrorist groups and to combat Da'esh throughout the country," said the communique, using an alternate name for the Islamic State. "We will fully support these efforts while continuing to reinforce the UN arms embargo."

The communique was to be issued at the end of the Libya talks Monday. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and top officials from more than 20 other nations have been conferring on ways to strengthen Libya's fledgling government. The aim is to give the internationally recognized administration more muscle in fighting Islamic State radicals and end its rivalry with a group to the east claiming legitimacy.

Before the meeting, however, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned against undue optimism.

"The key question is whether Libya remains a place where terrorism, criminal human smuggling and instability continues to expand, or if we are able, together with the government of national unity to recover stability," he told reporters ahead of the meeting. "That, at present, is an open question."

The challenges are daunting.

Libya descended into chaos after the toppling and death of Muammar Ghaddafi five years ago and soon turned into a battleground of rival militias battling for powers. More recently, the power vacuum has allowed Islamic State radicals to expand their presence, giving them a potential base in a country separated from Europe only by a relatively small stretch of the Mediterranean Sea.

Also worrying for Europe is the potential threat of a mass influx of refugees amassing in Libya, now that the earlier route from Turkey into Greece has been essentially shut down.

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Cannes (France) (AFP) - The last thing rich and famous visitors to Cannes want is a cheeky seagull swooping in to nibble their peanuts or steal their steak.

So the Grand Hyatt Cannes Hotel Martinez has deployed a team of trained hawks to chase away opportunistic gulls who may be hovering a little too close to its outdoor dining areas.

In the middle of the world's premier film festival in the French Riviera town, a five-year-old Harris's Hawk named Tsunga is ready to swoop in and save the day.

"If a gull that weighs a kilo lands on a table, knocking over glasses -- keeping in mind that celebrities walking the red carpet are wearing unique dresses -- if a drink spills on a dress, it's all over," said professional hawker Christophe Puzin.

"We basically send our birds of prey to attack seagulls. During the day, when we serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we're watching to make sure no seagulls land on the tables."

Tsunga is one of five hawks on the hotel's feathered security team.

To the hotel the hawks provide an environmentally friendly solution to the gulls who are so used to humans that they don't hesitate to come and help themselves.

"We have seen a gull try to take a guest's steak before. And others come to get peanuts or other things," said Alessandro Cresta, general manager of the hotel.

"Of course, it is also partly the guests' fault. They have started taming them by feeding them regularly. After a while, birds get used to the presence of humans and lose their fear."

The birds are trained to fly above the hotel at an altitude of about 150 metres (490 feet).

"The gulls can see their natural predator and understand that there is a new presence here... so that makes them stay away."

Puzin said the hawks pose no threat to the hotel's guests.

"A falcon would never attack or be aggressive towards a person because for them we're friends. We feed them, we take care of them, and we are prey that would be a bit too big for them."

The Cannes film festival runs for 12 days and has brought some of Hollywood's biggest stars to town -- like Julia Roberts, George Clooney and Kristen Stewart -- as well as thousands of visitors who come to soak up the glamour.
Jeff Nichols was handed the ultimate threat when he was first given the opportunity to direct Loving.

"My wife said, 'I love you, but if you don't make this movie, I am going to divorce you," he told the media ahead of the world premiere of the awards favorite in Cannes on Monday.

The film, based on a true story, stars Joel Edgerton as Richard Loving, whose interracial marriage to Mildred (Ruth Negga) caused them to be sentenced to prison in Virginia in 1958. Their case was taken up by the American Civil Liberties Union and eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court, resulting in the end of America's miscegenation laws.

"It is a story both triumphant and very shameful," said Edgerton. "It celebrates some struggles that shouldn't have had to exist."

Already tipped as an Oscar contender - with Negga and Edgerton certain to attract awards attention for their quiet, powerful performances - Loving has also launched itself to the top of the pack in the competition for this year's Palme d'Or.

Read More: Cannes: Interracial Marriage Drama 'Loving' Throws Hat in Oscar Ring

Speaking at the press conference for the film in Cannes, Nichols, Edgerton and Negga politely dodged questions about next year's Academy Awards - "I'm practicing my acceptance speech," Edgerton joked - but they did speak to the broader importance of the film in the debate on race and equality in the U.S.

"I hope this is the quiet film of the year, and I hope it puts people at the center of these issues, of these debates," said Nichols. "You can sit at your armchair at home and espouse all these issues, but they affect people."

Negga called Loving "the most important film I've ever made, and it is one of the most important films in history. I'm overwhelmed."

Read More: Hollywood's Next Big Thing: 'Preacher' Breakout Ruth Negga Heads to Cannes With New Jeff Nichols Film

Story continues

Edgerton praised Nichols for his decision to stay true to the facts of Richard and Mildred Loving's mostly quiet and ordinary life together, and not pump up the drama for effect.

"It is very un-Hollywood," the Australian actor said. "Many others have tried to rearrange the story, have [the Lovings] high-fiving themselves after the [Supreme Court] ruling or, and having a party or something. But there is something very simple about the truth, and that was a guideline into the story."

"I didn't want to make a courtroom drama. I wanted to make a story about two people in love," said Nichols, about the Lovings. "I truly believe this is about one of the most pure love stories in American history."

The Irish-Ethiopian Negga said she hopes the issue addressed in the film will become part of a broader discussion.

"The great thing about this film is that it humanizes us, that these aren't just broad political ideas. They are about individuals and humans. It can only lead to a broader decision about being kind to each other," she said. "A conversation is always good. I think it is how we learn, through dialogue and discourse. I think that is happening now. People are becoming less afraid to have controversial discussions."

Loving was picked up by Focus Features in Berlin and will be released Nov 4.
Three years after tearing up the Croisette with his ultra-violent, shocking and divisive Only God Forgives, Nicolas Winding Refn is back in competition in Cannes with The Neon Demon, a horror film set in Los Angeles' fashion world.

It's the second film the Dane has shot in L.A., following his breakthrough feature Drive, which won Refn best director honors in Cannes in 2011. But this time, the focus has shifted from the macho figures of his previous work to a female protagonist: Jesse, played by Elle Fanning, an aspiring model who moves to L.A. only to be assaulted by beauty-obsessed women who want, literally, to devour her youth.

Refn, 45, who is married to Danish actress-director Liv Corfixen, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about his love for '70s disco, his search to find "the 16-year-old girl inside of me" and why, after Only God Forgives, he considers himself to be the "Sex Pistols of cinema."

Read More: Cannes: Nicolas Winding Refn's 'Neon Demon' Gets U.S. Release Date

What was behind your impulse to make The Neon Demon?

I think someone made me aware that on Drive, I'd reached the ultimate fetishized masculinity - that there was a homoeroticism between myself and Ryan [Gosling]. So I wanted my next film, Only God Forgives, to be the exact opposite. A bit like Lou Reed going from Transformer to Metal Machine. It was about distortion, deconstruction and about a man crawling back into the womb of his mother, because he was chained to her ... the very opposite of the fetishized masculinity of Drive.

And now that I was inside the womb again, what would be next? Of course, I really believe there is a 16-year-old girl inside of every man, and I wanted to make The Neon Demon about the 16-year-old girl inside of me.

And that is what got me obsessive moving towards to wanting to make this film. And there were some practicalities involved, like my wife would only move to L.A.. So I had to figure out a story set in L.A. I had done some really endurable fashion campaigns, so I was very interested in that world. And actually I've been trying to make a horror film for many years and had written down many ideas. I took them out and I could see a pattern that I could use. And that became The Neon Demon. In the end I wanted to make a teenage horror film.

Story continues

Is the fashion world a particularly apt setting for a horror film?

Not necessarily. I think the fashion industry is horribly entertaining.

Is Elle Fanning's character in this film your alter ego, as Ryan Gosling and Mads Mikkelsen's characters have been in your previous films?

Oh, absolutely. It can only work that way. Anything I do has to lead back to me. I'm very self-absorbed in that way. I like to collaborate. But everything that is happening has to lead back to me. It's a way of cleansing my inner demons.

Was the experience different, working from a female perspective and with a mainly female cast?

No, no. It was just very enjoyable. Going to film every day where everyone looks glamorous and everything is very melodramatic. It's fun. There is nothing better than women in this world.

This is your second film, after Drive, set in L.A. How do you view the city?

I love L.A. I absolutely love it. It is one of my favorite places in the world. It is a very magical landscape. It is like the last place the settlers decided to say, "OK, we're done, we can't go any further." There is something very "final frontier" about Los Angeles. This is the end of the West. It is a city very much built on illusions. It's built on a desert, usually considered desert land, but you have this whole metropolitan megacity created on that basis. It is a city of dreams. (Laughs.)

Read More: Cannes Dealmaking Finally Kicks Into High Gear

How does that setting feed into the themes of The Neon Demon?

There is a whole, sub mini-genre of virginity coming to the big city. They've been making that movie for a long time. It was also my own situation coming here to do Drive. It was this whole stepping into this world of mega-dreams.

Have you gotten the city out of your system with this film, or would you revisit L.A.? Maybe a sequel to Drive?

I am not doing a sequel to Drive, I'll give you that much. Though I should be careful. I always said I was never going to do a sequel to my first Pusher film, and look what happened. [Refn shot two sequels to Pusher.] But no, I would love to do more movies in L.A. And I will do more movies here, because I love being here.

Is there a particular film or helmer that you think has been especially influential on your directing style?

Well, I like all kinds of movies, so it is hard to pick out something specific, but when I was making The Neon Demon, I was listening to a lot of [pioneering disco producer] Giorgio Moroder. I think that was the biggest influence. His late 1970s, early '80s work ... he was very inventive in that period, had a certain beat. That late '70s disco beat that started to get electronic. I think I played him 24 hours a day, driving everyone completely insane. But it was a great inspiration.

How much influence does music have on how you make your films?

Oh, it's everything. I play music when I write it. I play music in preproduction. I play music when we are shooting. It is very much a part of the anatomy. And Cliff Martinez, who does the soundtrack, he is very, very instrumental in how the film turns out. I always know he is going to come in to do the soundtrack. I am very involved, but he is the composer. Cliff is just amazing. He's very integrated into our lives. He did the music for my wife's documentary. We are very close.

Your wife's film, My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, explored the making of Only God Forgives up to its premiere in Cannes, where it was one of the most controversial and divisive films of the festival.

We all knew it should have gotten the Palme d'Or, but OK, it didn't. But with that film, I became the Sex Pistols of cinema, you know? It was so polarizing that it became a much bigger financial success. All this controversy makes it a very lucrative investment for my investors. Of course it was overwhelming at first, with all the harsh reactions. I was sitting on a yacht with Cliff Martinez in Cannes, a day after the premiere. And we were talking about all the, well, operatic reviews that were coming in. But all the kids online were loving it.

If you can evoke so many emotions with something so simple in 90 minutes, obviously it really penetrated the mind. And then it's sort of irrelevant if it is good or bad. Because art isn't really based on good or bad. It's not why you enjoy it or create it. It's rather: Does it touch you? And how does it touch you? That, I think, is much more interesting. So as long as your movies make money, you are always going to be able to make more movies and so far that has been my situation. So, despite what anybody thinks, knock on wood, I've been very lucky.

You sound very confident, but in your wife's documentary, you seem a lot more questioning and anxious about whether the film will work.

But that's the same on every movie. It's the same thing on Drive, the same thing on Only God Forgives, the same thing on Bronson [and] on this film. You love it, then you doubt it and you're nervous. Then you love it, then doubt it and you're nervous. And what it all comes down to is: Will the movie make its money back, so the investors will give me money to make my next movie? And that's the only single thing that I really do concern myself with. Because I want to make films. I need to make films.

But as far as the process, it's the same thing on every movie. But I can't say it to anyone because I can never show weakness or doubt or paranoia. Because if I'm paranoid, everyone else is going to get paranoid. I can only say it to my wife. And then she made a movie about it. Which is really about her and what she has to deal with. And if she should divorce me or not.

Actually, speaking as a husband, it's more terrifying than any of the movies you've made.

Yes, it was.

Read More: Skin Flicks at Cannes: What's Up With All the Cannibal Movies?

Why did you go with Amazon for this movie?

The Amazon deal came in a wonderful way, because I didn't expect it. I suddenly got a call from [Amazon Studios' marketing and distribution head] Bob Berney, and he said, "I'm with Amazon now." And he and [Amazon executives] Ted [Hope] and Scott [Foundas] came to Copenhagen and saw the movie, and we made a deal ... the best offer I have ever gotten in my life.

I think what Amazon is doing, for a person like me, is just the best-case scenario. They give their films a strong theatrical push, because they believe the cinema is the best place to see a film. It's also a very strong push into the world of streaming, which is the future of cinema. For a company to be on both sides of the fence and to be creative in understanding and utilizing both tools - it's the best possible way. I have never been in a better situation than that.

You have been connected with studio films before, including Logan's Run and The Equalizer, but have never made a film with them. Are your methods incompatible with the way the studios work?

I love the studios. I love meeting with people from the studios. There have been some great opportunities. Hopefully something with come up. But for a person like me, Amazon is just a really great partner. I think they very much represent the future of film and television. And I'm from the future, so I know what I'm talking about.

See More: Cannes: THR's Photo Portfolio With Steven Spielberg, Anna Kendrick, Jodie Foster and More
The 4 Oilfield Service Giants: Which Ones Stand the Tallest?

(Continued from Prior Part)

Which company had the lowest capex fall?

In this part of the series, well compare capex (capital expenditure) growth of the four oilfield services and equipment (or OFS) companies in our analysis. Schlumberger (SLB) recorded a 9.4% fiscal 1Q16 fall in capex compared to the year-ago quarter. This is the lowest capex decline among our select four companies. In fiscal 1Q16, SLB spent $549 million on capex compared to $606 million a year ago. In fiscal 2016, SLB plans to spend $2.0 billion, which is 17% lower than its fiscal 2015 capex. SLB is 1.2% of the iShares S&P 500 Value ETF (IVE).

NOV and HAL reduce capex

National Oilwell Varco (NOV) recorded a 35% fiscal 1Q16 capex reduction compared to the year-ago quarter. In fiscal 1Q16, NOV spent $84 million on capex compared to $130 million a year ago. NOVs offshore rig equipment contracts involve significant down payments, which minimize its working capital investments.

Halliburton (HAL) recorded a 67% fiscal 1Q16 decline in capex compared to the year-ago quarter. In fiscal 1Q16, HAL spent $234 million on capex compared to $704 million a year ago. HAL now plans to reduce capex further in fiscal 2016 by 61%, to $850 million compared to fiscal 2015. For more about this, you can read Market Realists series Halliburtons Q1 Earnings Beat Estimates.

Now lets look at Baker Hughes (BHI).

BHI cut capex the most

Baker Hughes (BHI) reduced capex by ~73% in fiscal 1Q16 over fiscal 1Q15. This is the highest capex cut among our four OFS companies. In fiscal 1Q16, BHI spent $86 million in capex compared to $315 million a year ago. BHI plans to reduce capex by 48% in fiscal 2016 compared to fiscal 2015.

Next, well look at these companies free cash flow growth.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
* Thailand attracting Chinese solar, rubber, auto parts firms

* Beijing encouraging manufacturers to move capacity overseas

* Thailand and China have drawn closer since 2014 coup

* Chinese visitors largest group of tourists in Thailand

* Many buying property for leisure, business base

By Orathai Sriring and Satawasin Staporncharnchai

RAYONG, Thailand, May 17 (Reuters) - Everywhere you look on Thailand's Amata industrial estate in Rayong you see signs in Chinese. It's a similar story just along the coast in the tourist resort of Pattaya, where Mandarin is increasingly visible alongside English and Russian.

As China's economy slows, its investors are looking abroad for growth and Thailand, home to one of the world's largest ethnic Chinese minorities and a gateway to Southeast Asia's 600 million consumers, is a hot investment destination in everything from industry to condominiums.

"Thailand is usually the first stop for Chinese tourists and investors," said Xu Gen Luo, who runs the Thai-Chinese Rayong Industrial Zone, about 200 km (120 miles) south east of Bangkok. Dozens of new Chinese-owned solar, rubber and industrial manufacturing plants have opened in the zone since 2012.

"Thailand's investment environment, especially its investment promotion policies, are among the best worldwide," he said, adding that labour costs were higher in China.

Since a May 2014 coup, Thailand and China have drawn closer diplomatically and militarily as the ruling generals seek to counterbalance the country's cooling ties with Washington.

Chinese investors have found a warm welcome in an economy that has seen investment crimped by a decade of political turmoil, and where the junta has struggled to revive exports and domestic demand in the two years since seizing power.

Investment pledges from China jumped fivefold in the first quarter from a year earlier to 5.7 billion baht ($163 million), from just 1.1 billion baht, giving China the third largest investment slate during the period as Chinese firms raced to meet a tax break deadline and U.S. investors held back.

Story continues

That was still some way behind Japan, which pledged 15.6 billion baht. Japan and China jostle for influence in Southeast Asia and Tokyo has long been Thailand's largest investor, with several large car plants accounting for much of the investment.

"LOST IN THAILAND"

But Chinese investment is growing strongly, in part due to Beijing's policy of encouraging manufacturers to shift production abroad to deal with industrial overcapacity at home.

"What we've seen so far in Chinese investment into Thailand is small compared to what's coming," said Joe Horn-Phathanothai, chief executive of Strategy613, a strategic advisor focused on Chinese and Thai corporate investments.

"Hand-in-hand with the slowdown in China we'll see an increase in the number of deals the Chinese do abroad."

Last year China was the fourth biggest foreign investor in Thailand, behind Japan, the United States and Singapore.

Tourist numbers have also jumped, helped by the huge success in China of the 2012 slapstick comedy "Lost in Thailand". About 7.9 million Chinese visited the "Land of Smiles" last year, up 71 percent from 2014, when unrest in Bangkok that preceded the coup scared tourists away, and Thailand expects more this year.

There has been no slowdown in the number of tourists due to the economic deceleration in China, helped by the growth of budget airlines, tour operators say.

"Our products are relatively cheap. We have good food and culture and no political problems with their government, unlike Japan and Taiwan," Ronnarong Chewinsiriamnuai, president of the Thai-Chinese Tourism Alliance Association.

Thailand is expecting a record 33 million tourists in 2016, with China providing the bulk of the increase from the record set in 2015 of just below 30 million.

"ONE BELT, ONE ROAD"

Xu expects the number of Chinese firms at his park - jointly developed by China's Holley Group and Thai industrial estate developer Amata Corp - to increase to about 100 this year, from 75 currently, and to 500 in the next five years.

In March, China's Trina Solar, the world's No. 1 solar panel maker, opened a manufacturing facility there.

Moving to Thailand can also help companies in industries such as solar and chemicals sidestep anti-dumping measures, industry experts said.

"China is facing trade barriers from many countries, particularly on solar, so many Chinese firms are coming to invest in Thailand," said Visnu Limwibul, chairman of a Thai electronics and telecommunications industry group.

State-owned Gang Yan Diamond Tools (Thailand), which makes precision manufacturing blades, followed Beijing's "One Belt, One Road" policy to rebuild ancient Silk Road trade links with Asia and Europe and set up in Thailand in 2014.

"When we first came, we were concerned about the political situation and social instability. We are still concerned now," said board chairman Zhao Gang, but added the strength of the Chinese business community in Thailand helped overcome those concerns.

China and Thailand are discussing cooperation on the Thai section of a rail project under the "One Belt, One Road" plan that would eventually connect Kunming in southwest China with Singapore, but have to date failed to agree on terms.

As the expatriate Chinese community grows and more Chinese look for holiday homes in Thailand, real estate investment is on the rise.

Bundit Sirithunyhong runs the Suttangrak Group, which has just joined with Chinese firms to develop housing projects worth 5 billion baht ($140 million) to sell as time-shares to Chinese buyers.

"I think they are not just investing in real estate, but starting to use Thailand as a base for business in Southeast Asia," he said. "Here they can stay and work as their second homes. It's a step further in business expansion." ($1 = 35.45 baht)

(Additional reporting by Pairat Temphairojana, Jutarat Skulpichetrat and Simon Webb in BANGKOK and Kevin Yao in BEIJING; Editing by Simon Webb and Alex Richardson)
By Orathai Sriring and Satawasin Staporncharnchai

RAYONG, Thailand (Reuters) - Everywhere you look on Thailand's Amata industrial estate in Rayong you see signs in Chinese. It's a similar story just along the coast in the tourist resort of Pattaya, where Mandarin is increasingly visible alongside English and Russian.

As China's economy slows, its investors are looking abroad for growth and Thailand, home to one of the world's largest ethnic Chinese minorities and a gateway to Southeast Asia's 600 million consumers, is a hot investment destination in everything from industry to condominiums.

"Thailand is usually the first stop for Chinese tourists and investors," said Xu Gen Luo, who runs the Thai-Chinese Rayong Industrial Zone, about 200 km (120 miles) south east of Bangkok. Dozens of new Chinese-owned solar, rubber and industrial manufacturing plants have opened in the zone since 2012.

"Thailand's investment environment, especially its investment promotion policies, are among the best worldwide," he said, adding that labour costs were higher in China.

Since a May 2014 coup, Thailand and China have drawn closer diplomatically and militarily as the ruling generals seek to counterbalance the country's cooling ties with Washington.

Chinese investors have found a warm welcome in an economy that has seen investment crimped by a decade of political turmoil, and where the junta has struggled to revive exports and domestic demand in the two years since seizing power.

Investment pledges from China jumped fivefold in the first quarter from a year earlier to 5.7 billion baht (113 million), from just 1.1 billion baht, giving China the third largest investment slate during the period as Chinese firms raced to meet a tax break deadline and U.S. investors held back.

That was still some way behind Japan, which pledged 15.6 billion baht. Japan and China jostle for influence in Southeast Asia and Tokyo has long been Thailand's largest investor, with several large car plants accounting for much of the investment.

Story continues

"LOST IN THAILAND"

But Chinese investment is growing strongly, in part due to Beijing's policy of encouraging manufacturers to shift production abroad to deal with industrial overcapacity at home.

"What we've seen so far in Chinese investment into Thailand is small compared to what's coming," said Joe Horn-Phathanothai, chief executive of Strategy613, a strategic advisor focussed on Chinese and Thai corporate investments.

"Hand-in-hand with the slowdown in China we'll see an increase in the number of deals the Chinese do abroad."

Last year China was the fourth biggest foreign investor in Thailand, behind Japan, the United States and Singapore.

Tourist numbers have also jumped, helped by the huge success in China of the 2012 slapstick comedy "Lost in Thailand". About 7.9 million Chinese visited the "Land of Smiles" last year, up 71 percent from 2014, when unrest in Bangkok that preceded the coup scared tourists away, and Thailand expects more this year.

There has been no slowdown in the number of tourists due to the economic deceleration in China, helped by the growth of budget airlines, tour operators say.

"Our products are relatively cheap. We have good food and culture and no political problems with their government, unlike Japan and Taiwan," Ronnarong Chewinsiriamnuai, president of the Thai-Chinese Tourism Alliance Association.

Thailand is expecting a record 33 million tourists in 2016, with China providing the bulk of the increase from the record set in 2015 of just below 30 million.

"ONE BELT, ONE ROAD"

Xu expects the number of Chinese firms at his park - jointly developed by China's Holley Group and Thai industrial estate developer Amata Corp (AMATA.BK) - to increase to about 100 this year, from 75 currently, and to 500 in the next five years.

In March, China's Trina Solar (TSL.N), the world's No. 1 solar panel maker, opened a manufacturing facility there.

Moving to Thailand can also help companies in industries such as solar and chemicals sidestep anti-dumping measures, industry experts said.

"China is facing trade barriers from many countries, particularly on solar, so many Chinese firms are coming to invest in Thailand," said Visnu Limwibul, chairman of a Thai electronics and telecommunications industry group.

State-owned Gang Yan Diamond Tools (Thailand), which makes precision manufacturing blades, followed Beijing's "One Belt, One Road" policy to rebuild ancient Silk Road trade links with Asia and Europe and set up in Thailand in 2014.

"When we first came, we were concerned about the political situation and social instability. We are still concerned now," said board chairman Zhao Gang, but added the strength of the Chinese business community in Thailand helped overcome those concerns.

China and Thailand are discussing cooperation on the Thai section of a rail project under the "One Belt, One Road" plan that would eventually connect Kunming in southwest China with Singapore, but have to date failed to agree on terms.

As the expatriate Chinese community grows and more Chinese look for holiday homes in Thailand, real estate investment is on the rise.

Bundit Sirithunyhong runs the Suttangrak Group, which has just joined with Chinese firms to develop housing projects worth 5 billion baht ($140 million) to sell as time-shares to Chinese buyers.

"I think they are not just investing in real estate, but starting to use Thailand as a base for business in Southeast Asia," he said. "Here they can stay and work as their second homes. It's a step further in business expansion."

(Additional reporting by Pairat Temphairojana, Jutarat Skulpichetrat and Simon Webb in BANGKOK and Kevin Yao in BEIJING; Editing by Simon Webb and Alex Richardson)
LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Carlyle Group on Monday announced it had invested in Tunisia-focused oil and gas explorer Mazarine Energy which will also receive $500 million for further acquisitions in Europe and north Africa.

Mazarine, headed by Edward van Kersbergen, will focus on investments in "low-risk, near-term, conventional exploration, development and production opportunities in Europe, Africa and the broader Mediterranean region."

Carlyle International Energy Partners, the private equity firm's overseas oil and gas investment fund, has created two companies to invest in assets in the North Sea and Southeast Asia in recent years.

(Reporting by Ron Bousso; editing by Jason Neely)
By Ron Bousso

LONDON (Reuters) - Carlyle Group (CG.O) on Monday announced an investment in Tunisia-focused oil and gas explorer Mazarine Energy which will also receive $500 million to make bolt-on acquisitions in Europe and North Africa.

The deal is the first investment in over a year for Carlyle International Energy Partners, the private equity firm's overseas oil and gas investment fund, which has more than $2.5 billion (1.73 billion pound) at its disposal, CIEP head Marcel van Poecke said.

The size of the investment in Mazarine was not disclosed.

Private equity funds including Carlyle, Riverstone and CVC Partners have built up significant firepower in recent years to invest in the oil and gas sector which has struggled following the collapse in oil prices since mid-2014.

"I think we will see more deals this year. Very slowly the M&A (merger and acquisition) space is starting to pick up," van Poecke told Reuters.

Mazarine will seek investments in "low cost, low-risk opportunities" in onshore exploration and production assets, Chairman and founder Edward van Kersbergen told Reuters.

The company will focus on onshore fields in Romania, where CIEP acquired assets in March 2015 from Sterling Resources (SLG.V), as well as North Africa.

"We want resources that we can develop in a relatively short space of time at a low technical cost," van Kersbergen said.

In Tunisia, Mazarine expects to start production of 1,500 to 2,000 barrels per day next year, according to van Kersbergen.

CIEP has in recent years created two companies to invest in assets in the North Sea and the Indian subcontinent.

Neptune, the North Sea vehicle set up by CIEP and CVC Partners a year ago which is headed by former Centrica boss Sam Laidlaw, was expected to make an investment over the next 12 months, van Poecke said.

(Reporting by Ron Bousso; editing by Jason Neely and David Evans)
The application reportedly teaches children the Arabic alphabet by giving examples of violence-related objects that stand for each letter

Egypt's Dar Al-Ifta, the authority that issues Islamic edicts, warned on Monday against a reported android application that is made by the Islamic State militant group and is geared towards children.

A Dar Al-Ifta statement said the application, named Hurouf (letters), aims to recruit children from an early age. It teaches children the Arabic alphabet and gives examples of violence-related objects or topics that stand for each letter.

Some of the objects used are bullets, rocket, rifle, sword, as well as other things that symbolise violence, murder and war.

The application, according to the statement, also has songs with the Islamic State group's black flag in the background and pictures of children wearing black masks, which "set them as examples to be followed."

The statement called on parents to be vigilant in monitoring their children's online activity so they won't be "easy targets" to Islamic State group's "brain washing propaganda."

Ahram Online couldn't independently verify if the application was on the Google Play Store.

Google had previously removed an application in its store by Taliban that promotes its propaganda and videos in the Pashto language.

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* Carlyle invests in Tunisia-focused Mazarine Energy

* Fund sees investment opportunities rising this year (Adds details, quotes)

By Ron Bousso

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Carlyle Group on Monday announced an investment in Tunisia-focused oil and gas explorer Mazarine Energy which will also receive $500 million to make bolt-on acquisitions in Europe and North Africa.

The deal is the first investment in over a year for Carlyle International Energy Partners, the private equity firm's overseas oil and gas investment fund, which has more than $2.5 billion at its disposal, CIEP head Marcel van Poecke said.

The size of the investment in Mazarine was not disclosed.

Private equity funds including Carlyle, Riverstone and CVC Partners have built up significant firepower in recent years to invest in the oil and gas sector which has struggled following the collapse in oil prices since mid-2014.

"I think we will see more deals this year. Very slowly the M&A (merger and acquisition) space is starting to pick up," van Poecke told Reuters.

Mazarine will seek investments in "low cost, low-risk opportunities" in onshore exploration and production assets, Chairman and founder Edward van Kersbergen told Reuters.

The company will focus on onshore fields in Romania, where CIEP acquired assets in March 2015 from Sterling Resources , as well as North Africa.

"We want resources that we can develop in a relatively short space of time at a low technical cost," van Kersbergen said.

In Tunisia, Mazarine expects to start production of 1,500 to 2,000 barrels per day next year, according to van Kersbergen.

CIEP has in recent years created two companies to invest in assets in the North Sea and the Indian subcontinent.

Neptune, the North Sea vehicle set up by CIEP and CVC Partners a year ago which is headed by former Centrica boss Sam Laidlaw, was expected to make an investment over the next 12 months, van Poecke said.

(Reporting by Ron Bousso; editing by Jason Neely and David Evans)
* Zloty gains might be limited * Moody's cuts outlook on A2 rating to negative from stable * Polish bonds firm modestly, bourse index up By Radu-Sorin Marinas and Jakub Iglewski BUCHAREST/WARSAW, May 16 (Reuters) - The Polish zloty firmed 1.0 percent and government bond prices gained early in the session on Monday after Moody's kept the country's rating unchanged but shifted its outlook to negative from stable on Saturday as expected.

By 0820 GMT the zloty rose as high as 4.3650. A Warsaw-based bond dealer said yields fell by 4 basis points along the curve, and Warsaw's bluechip stock index rose 1.82 percent to a one-week high.

Moody's Investor's Services confirmed Poland's rating but cut its outlook, citing rising fiscal risks and the conservative government's shift to more unpredictable policies and legislation.

Just over half the analysts polled by Reuters expected the move after Standard and Poor's rattled investors with a downgrade in January, saying the new government's policies eroded the independence of institutions such as the top court.

"We perceive the Moody's decision as a signal, that the agency has identified the risk factors in Poland and an escalation of these risks will become a reason for a (future) rating cut," mBank said in a note.

Among the risks is a possible Swiss franc conversion plan, a retirement age cut and the constitutional court dispute.

"Perception of these risks will likely limit the scale of a post-Moody's rebound. Uncertainty over the presidential Swiss franc bill proposal and any political signals about the retirement age cut will still affect the market," mBank said.

There have also been some fears among market players that government spending plans and other political measures could have prompted a Moody's downgrade.

"I expect the market to be trading the Moody's decision today but when investors recall the recent weak data we may see some gains at the short end of the curve, as there are still chances for rate cuts," said PKO BP bond dealer Marcin Grzywacz.

Story continues

Polish debt yields have been on a sliding path over the past days with most players eyeing no ratings downgrade, however traders say their potential for further gains might be limited.

Elsewhere, the Romanian leu edged up 1.1 percent to 4.4875 and the Czech crown was flat at 27.02 per euro. Hungarian markets are closed.

CEE SNAPSHOT AT 1020 CET MARKETS CURRENCIES Latest Previous Daily Change bid close change in 2016 Czech Hungary % Polish % Romanian % Croatian % Serbian % Note: calcula previous close at 1800 daily ted CET change from STOCKS Latest Previous Daily Change close change in 2016 Prague 873.41 873.87 -0.05% -8.67% Budapest 26556.35 26850.53 -1.10% +11.02 % Warsaw % Buchares 6462.14 6462.97 -0.01% -7.74% t Ljubljan Zagreb Belgrade Sofia % BONDS Yield Yield Spread Daily (bid) change vs change Bund in Czech spread Republic 2-year ps 5-year ps ps Poland 2-year ! 5-year ! ! FORWARD RATE AGREEMENT 3x6 6x9 9x12 3M interba nk Czech (PRIBO R=) Hungary (BUBOR =) Poland (WIBOR =) Note: are for FRA ask quotes prices ****************************************************** ******** (Editing by Alison Williams)
By Antonio De la Jara

SANTIAGO, May 16 (Reuters) - Chilean forestry group Masisa , one of Latin America's largest wood panel manufacturers, is strengthening its business in Mexico, and may be willing to invest more in Argentina, the company's president said on Monday.

The company expects to start up a new plant in Durango, Mexico, with an annual production of 240,000 cubic meters in a month's time, Masisa President Roberto Salas told Reuters on the sidelines of a business forum in Santiago.

"Mexico is our obsession now," Salas said. "It's the fundamental focus of the company's results in the coming years."

He added that the company was also monitoring developments in Argentina, where recently elected President Mauricio Macri has initiated a string of business-friendly reforms and Masisa owns 47,639 hectares (117,719 acres) of forest and one plant.

"We must still be cautious (on investment). We're going to wait until the end of the year to see how things are going ... we would be willing to increase investments once we see the (economic reform) process taking shape."

Masisa, headquartered in Santiago, also has operations in Chile, Venezuela, and Brazil, as well as a distribution network throughout Latin America.

In economically moribund Venezuela and Brazil, which represent nearly 20 percent of the company's income, Salas said the company was looking more to the medium and long term, but was confident of eventual economic recovery in those countries.

(Reporting by Antonio de la Jara; Writing by Gram Slattery; Editing by Sandra Maler)
By Ruby Lian and David Stanway

BEIJING (Reuters) - Massive overcapacity in China's steel industry is not yet falling, a vice minister said on Monday, as the country's leading steel companies conceded that current output was unsustainable and blamed the restart of mills previously shut.

China is facing anger and calls for trade penalties to block its exports by global rivals, who say it is dumping cheap exports after a slowdown in demand at home.

The world's biggest steel producer has vowed to cut production capacity by 100 to 150 million tonnes over five years from around 1.1 billion tonnes, although its efforts have been complicated by a recovery in domestic steel prices.

"Prices have been improving since the end of last year but there hasn't been any fundamental change in the underlying conditions of the market and no improvement in overcapacity," Vice Minister of Industry Xin Guobin told a conference, adding that protectionism by other countries was not the answer.

China's steel production fell in April from March, but average daily production actually increased from 2.279 million tonnes to 2.314 million tonnes, a record high, according to Reuters calculations based on official data released on May 14.

France and Germany last week urged fellow EU members to tighten trade defences to protect the bloc's companies against imports, such as a recent surge of Chinese steel products.

While China's crude steel output dipped 2.3 percent in 2015, production rebounded in March and April this year. China has rejected suggestions the jump was mostly due to so-called "zombie" enterprises returning to the market in order to profit from the higher market prices.

"In my understanding, the capacity that has recovered production is regular capacity, and not that marked for closure," Zhao Chenxin, a spokesman for China's National Development and Reform Commission, said last week.

"Enterprises stopping and resuming production is mainly a reaction to market changes - adjusting production is normal behaviour," Zhao said.

Story continues

However, the chairman of Angang Steel (Ansteel) said: "China really needs to pay close attention to those mills that are supposed to be eliminated but have restarted."

Tang Fuping said Ansteel had closed down uncompetitive mills located in China's southwest and there was no chance of reopening them or increasing capacity.

OUTPUT "UNSUSTAINABLE"

Chen Derong, the general manager of top producer Baosteel Group , said the recent increase in Chinese output was "unsustainable" and would prove temporary.

Hebei province, China's biggest steel producing region, has explicitly banned the reopening of capacity that has already been scheduled for elimination.

But industry experts say that closing mills in some provinces that have not produced a tonne of steel in years, but have clung to life in order to qualify for compensation from the central government won't have any impact on market supply or on prices.

India's Jindal Steel and Power (JNSP.NS) said that Chinese and even European steel makers should consider relocating their excess capacity to India where demand is still increasing.

"Many new plants are lying unutilised in China and could be relocated to India," Jindal's chairman Naveen Jindal told the Beijing conference, adding that India could almost double its steel production capacity to 200 million tonnes by 2025.

(Writing by Nicholas Heath and Ed Davies; Editing by Richard Pullin)
A group of Taiwanese fraud suspects deported from Malaysia to China have confessed and will be tried on the mainland, according to Chinese authorities, despite an angry Taipei demanding they face justice at home.

The expulsion of the 32 suspects from Malaysia in April came after another group of Taiwanese fraud suspects were sent to China from Kenya, a move described by Taiwan as "abduction".

The deportations are seen by observers as a means of exerting pressure on self-ruling Taiwan's new president Tsai Ing-wen, who takes office on Friday and has a far more sceptical approach to relations with Beijing than her China-friendly predecessor did.

Taiwan has lodged formal complaints with China over the deportations and has insisted its nationals face investigation and trial on the island.

Beijing says it wants to try the suspects deported from Malaysia on the mainland because they were part of a telecom fraud ring that targeted Chinese victims. China's Ministry of Public Security said they will undergo proceedings under the "mainland judiciary".

"The 32 Taiwanese suspects confessed to committing fraud and have been detained according to law," mainland police said, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The report quoted a 72-year-old cancer patient who was tricked into depositing two million yuan ($152,835) into a "safety account" as part of the fraud scheme.

"This is my medical savings and it's all been cheated," said the woman surnamed Guo.

"I hope Taiwan will hand these crooks over to the mainland so they can be punished by law," she said.

Taiwan's Ministry of Justice, which has been leading negotiations with the mainland over its detained nationals, was not immediately available for comment.

Taiwan sent a delegation to meet mainland police and discuss the Malaysia case over the weekend.

Twenty other Taiwanese suspects arrested in the Malaysia raids were deported back to Taiwan last month and are currently under investigation.

Chinese state media has also said previously that the Kenya suspects have admitted their guilt and will be tried on the mainland.

Taiwan is self-ruling after splitting with the mainland in 1949, following a civil war, but China still sees it as part of its territory waiting to be reunified.
BEIJING (Reuters) - A recent increase in steel output in China is temporary, with the overall trend still showing a decline in production, the general manager of Baosteel Group said on Monday.

Chen Derong also told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Beijing that high steel output from China was unsustainable.

China's April steel production fell from March, although average daily production rates increased from 2.279 million tonnes to 2.314 million tonnes, according to Reuters calculations based on data released from the National Bureau of Statistics on May 14.

China is facing calls for trade penalties to block its exports from steel producers around the world, who say it is dumping cheap exports after a slowdown in demand at home.

(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Richard Pullin)
By Laurie Goering LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Cities around the world are failing to plan for fast-increasing risks from extreme weather and other hazards, particularly as population growth and surging migration put more people in the path of those threats, the World Bank said on Monday. By 2050, 1.3 billion people and $158 trillion in assets will be menaced by worsening river and coastal floods alone, warned a new report from the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), managed by the World Bank. "Cities and coastal areas are woefully unprepared for the kind of climate and disaster risk now facing our world," said John Roome, the World Bank Groups senior director for climate change. But as cities expand and revamp, they have the opportunity to lower that risk by putting in place more resilient infrastructure and preventive policies, he said. Those could include everything from restrictions on using too much groundwater  one of the reasons cities from Tokyo to Jakarta are sinking  to planning for more green space, and new schools and apartments set above flood-prone zones. The problem is that many city officials have no clear idea of the range of disaster risks they face and how serious they could be. Argentina, for instance, has no volcanoes but is affected at times by ash from eruptions in Chile. And when Malawi was hit by an earthquake in 2009, it came as a surprise. "Not many people think about the African continent and its potential for earthquakes," said Alanna Simpson, a risk management specialist with the GFDRR. NO PHD? HELP AT HAND A new open-source disaster risk management tool, called ThinkHazard!, aims to make planning for such threats easier by pulling together information on all potential disaster risks in a country or region, and how they compare. It looks at hazards including floods, cyclones, droughts, heat waves, fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and landslides. The tool, aimed at national and city planners, project developers and others, also offers advice on what might work to reduce the risks. While information on disaster risks already exists, it tends to be in scattered locations and jargon-heavy language, Simpson said. For an average planner, "you need a PhD to understand if a country has risk and how it might affect your project", she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The new tool, developed by the GFDRR, brings the information together and simplifies it, so that the developer of a road or school in Kenya, for instance, can get a sense of the level of risks their project faces - including threats they may not know about. Those can be substantial, the disaster experts noted. In Indonesia, the risk of flooding from overflowing rivers is expected to grow 166 percent over the next 30 years, while coastal flooding risk could rise 445 percent, the report said. Nepal's capital Kathmandu is expected to see a 50 percent rise in earthquake risk by 2045 as more slums and informal buildings go up. A combination of sea-level rise and sinking of coastal cities  including from excessive extraction of the groundwater beneath them  could drive disaster losses in 136 coastal cities from $6 billion a year in 2010 to $1 trillion a year by 2070, the report said. But planning now for more big typhoons in Manila, for example, by ensuring new homes are not built on flood plains and keeping drainage canals clear, will pay off, the experts said. "The decisions we make today are defining the disasters of tomorrow," said Francis Ghesquiere, head of the GFDRR secretariat. "We have a huge challenge  but also a huge opportunity  to try to make sure the trillions of dollars that will go into new housing, new infrastructure, the extension of cities... do not increase risk exposure but rather reduce it." (Reporting by Laurie Goering; editing by Megan Rowling; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)
Veteran journalists say the law, which is awaiting final approval from parliament, guarantees oversight and legal accountability while preserving basic rights and freedoms

Egypt's cabinet endorsed on Monday a draft bill governing media and press operations, with the legislation awaiting final approval from parliament, Minister of Planning Ashraf El-Arabi told reporters.

Veteran journalists say the law is much-needed to keep media "chaos" at bay by guaranteeing oversight and legal accountability while preserving basic rights and freedoms.

According to El-Arabi, the legislation, which the cabinet has endorsed, will be put forward to the State Council, a judicial advisory body, before being referred to parliament for final consent.

The 227-article bill establishes a higher media council and two separate national authorities governing public and private media organisations.

The bill includes provisions guaranteeing press independence and others banning monopolies on TV channels and newspapers, setting a maximum share of 10 percent for individuals.

The law sets fines over violations committed by news organisations, and subjects both private and public media to legal governance.

Completed in August 2015 after months in the making, the unified law was drawn up by a 50-member committee of press leaders and law professors to regulate the work of the media.

While some of those who co-wrote the law had expressed fears that the government would impose changes affecting rights granted to journalists and media personnel, a press union leader has said the law was passed unscathed.

"The law has seen minor amendments that have not affected its essence," Gamal Abdel-Rehim, the press syndicate's secretary-general, was quoted as saying by state news agency MENA.

The same 50-member assembly that penned the bill has drafted another law that would establish the first union for media personnel working in TV, radio and online outlets.

TV and radio staffers have for decades operated without a union to safeguard their occupational rights or monitor performance.

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(Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard said on Sunday it had called off its search for a woman believed to have fallen overboard from the Carnival Liberty cruise ship off the coast of Galveston, Texas, two days earlier.

The cruise ship alerted the Coast Guard on Friday that Samantha Broberg, 33, was missing and might have fallen overboard about 195 miles (315 km) from the Texas coast.

The Coast Guard said in a statement that its 8th District command center had coordinated 20 hours of aerial searching with a combined search area of more than 4,300 square miles.

Earlier, it said the cruise ship had a video of a woman falling overboard early on Friday morning and had conducted a search for all passengers on board, with Broberg found to be missing.

The Carnival Liberty cruise ship departed Galveston, Texas, on a four-day Mexico cruise on Thursday.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Paul Tait)
By Anastasia Moloney LA HORMIGA, Colombia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When gunfire and cylinder bombs erupted around their farmhouse, nestled in the jungle in Colombia's southern Putumayo province, Jesus Alebio Portillo and his family took refuge under a bed and, trembling with fear, waited until the fighting stopped. A decade ago, battles between paramilitary groups and their most bitter enemies, the Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), took place almost every week as the two sides fought for territorial control. The unrelenting violence prompted an exodus of thousands of villagers from the farmlands around the town of La Hormiga and across Putumayo during the peak of violence in early 2000s. "We were caught in the middle of the crossfire," Portillo, a farmer and father of two children, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "Once the FARC told us we had to leave as there would be a confrontation with the paramilitaries. They gave us two hours to leave. The whole village left, 80 to 100 people," he said, recalling the first of four times his family had to flee. More than five decades of conflict have forced 6.7 million Colombians to flee their homes, many of them poor farmers like Portillo, making the country home to the second biggest internally displaced population after Syria. Some of the land left behind was abandoned, left idle for years as farmers sought refuge in nearby towns. Other land was seized by paramilitary forces with farmers often pressured by the armed groups to sell out at cut-rate prices. The government itself estimates that 6.5 to 10 million hectares of land - up to 15 percent of Colombian territory - have been abandoned or illegally acquired through violence, extortion and fraud. HOMECOMING Portillo is one of the lucky ones, back on his land as part of a 10-year government program launched in 2011 to return millions of hectares of land, address unequal land distribution and reduce rural poverty. The national effort to restore ownership and tenure is unfolding as peace talks, now in their third year, continue between the government and the FARC, the country's largest guerrilla group, in Cuba. How Colombia ensures those who were displaced can return safely to their lands and rebuild their lives is a measure of state territorial control and prospects for lasting peace in war-torn provinces like Putumayo, experts said. Under a historic land restitution law passed five years ago, the government of Juan Manuel Santos has handed back 200,000 hectares of land, together with land titles awarded by judges, benefiting about 20,000 Colombians. But this accounts for just a fraction of the millions of hectares of land stolen and abandoned. Of the 80,000 land claims lodged so far with the government authorities less than half are currently being processed, hampered by bureaucratic red tape and sorting out who legally owns disputed and abandoned land. For Portillo, returning to his plot of land means the promise of a better future. Under the land restitution scheme, he has received a grant, fertilizer and seeds, and an agronomist visits the pepper farm every month to provide technical support. "When we came back everything was covered by the jungle. We lost everything. We had to start all over again," said Portillo, as he and his wife tend to rows of pepper trees surrounded by dense jungle where parrots and monkeys chatter. "The land is how I breathe, live and survive. Working the land is the only thing I know how to do. I can't survive in the city. I can only beg for food there." Portillo, 56, hopes the hip-high pepper trees will bear their first harvest in eight months time, bringing in an income of about 990,000 Colombian pesos ($335) a month, nearly double the monthly minimum wage. LINGERING FEAR The trickle of families returning to their small vegetable and cattle farms around La Hormiga is a showcase of government efforts to help displaced families rebuild their lives. A 2003 peace accord led to around 35,000 paramilitary fighters handing in their weapons, largely bringing an end to battles between rebel and paramilitary forces. Attacks by the FARC have also largely stopped in recent months after rebel commanders declared a unilateral ceasefire last July as part of ongoing peace talks, encouraging more displaced farmers to return to their lands as violence has ebbed. But many are still too afraid to return to deserted villages surrounding La Hormiga as the shadow of violence lingers. Bullet holes and faded graffiti scrawled by armed fighters remain on some of the facades of abandoned brick homes. "Some neighbors haven't come back. It's too painful for them to return. Many innocent people, women and children, were killed," Portillo said. ROOT OF CONFLICT Unequal land distribution was a key reason why the FARC took up arms back in 1964 as a Marxist-inspired agrarian movement that fought to defend the rights of landless peasants. Today just over one percent of Colombia's landowners hold more than half of the country's agricultural land, making land distribution in Colombia among the most unequal in the world, according to the United Nations Development Programme. It is an issue at the center of the peace talks. The FARC and the government have agreed to promote rural development and create a land bank through which farmland would be redistributed. If a peace accord is signed, it would likely pave the way for a deluge of new land claimants and encourage more displaced farmers to return home. Another successful land claimant, Andrea Gomez, who was displaced three times, hopes her new one-hectare pepper farm will bear its first produce next year. Reached by a narrow dirt path cut through humid jungle, her wooden hut on stilts is surrounded by pepper plants irrigated by a drainage canal, along with orange, plantain and cacao trees. "It's changed my life and that of my family. The land gives me everything I need, all my food. Without it I don't have anything," Gomez said. Gomez, 30, says she felt emboldened after she received a land title in her name in 2013. "Having a land title makes me feel important. I feel valued. I now have rights. I can decide about the future of my farm. No one can take it away from me," she said. Returning land in the cases of Portillo and Gomez was relatively easy because it involved unoccupied farmland and there was no one to dispute their ownership. But other land claims involve plots snatched by organized crime networks and guerrilla groups, bent on maintaining control of their fiefdoms, cocaine-smuggling routes and illegal mining. DEATH THREATS In recent months, renewed violence against land rights campaigners threatens to undermine gains made in Colombia's land restitution efforts. While paramilitary groups have demobilized, thousands of former paramilitary fighters morphed into new drug gangs, known as BACRIM, which the government now regards as Colombia's biggest security threat. These groups "are still systematically violating human rights ... and interfering with the restitution of (stolen) land," Todd Howland, the U.N.'s human rights representative to Colombia, said in March. Last year 105 community leaders, including land rights activists, were killed in Colombia - a 35 percent rise compared to 2014 - according to the Conflict Analysis Resource Centre, a Bogota-based think tank. Around 3,000 community leaders, including land campaigners who have received death threats, receive protection from the government, ranging from bodyguards to bullet-proof vests. In Putumayo, returning land is also slow and difficult because parts of the province remain under guerrilla control, and the region's vast coca fields - the raw ingredient used to make cocaine - are controlled by criminal gangs and FARC rebels. Heavily armed police standing behind sand-barricade checkpoints and army tanks stationed along the partly unpaved main road that reaches Colombia's border with Ecuador, are signs of the government's tenuous control here. Another is the sight of several plain-clothed guerrillas belonging to the FARC's network of thousands of urban-based informants hanging around on a street corner, less than a kilometer away from the nearest police checkpoint. "It hasn't been easy. In some areas it's not possible for the state to enter because the FARC still have a very strong presence," said David Narvaez, who heads the Putumayo office of the government's land restitution agency. "The president decided to start this land restitution process in the middle of the conflict and despite the fact that the war isn't over, which is why we've come across many difficulties and what makes this process unique in the world." (Reporting by Anastasia Moloney, editing by Paola Totaro.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org; and place.trust.org)
Comcast currently doesnt plan to follow its satellite-TV rivals  AT&Ts DirecTV and Dish Network  into the business of selling broadband-delivered television packages across the U.S., chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said.

The world always changes, Roberts told reporters on the floor of the INTX trade show Monday in Boston. But for now, he said, Comcast does not have an over-the-top video service in the works that would be aimed at consumers outside regions where it offers cable TV today.

In the first quarter of 2016 Comcast had the best video-subscriber additions in nine years, Roberts noted. The No. 1 U.S. cable operator added 53,000 video customers in the period, to stand at 22.4 million as of the end of March. Something is working, he said. Im not sure you need to change it.

Comcasts decision for now to not cut the cord on video stands in contrast to Dish, which last year launched the Sling TV OTT skinny bundle, and DirecTV, which is eyeing a launch of three different Internet-video packages later in 2016. On Monday, AT&T announced the acquisition of Quickplay Media to bolster its video-delivery infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Hulu  which is owned by Comcasts NBCU, along with Disney and 21st Century Fox  has announced plans to deliver a package of live broadcast and cable TV channels in 2017.

Roberts, asked about the trend toward OTT and skinny bundles, asserted that the evolution in the market is part of competition Comcast has faced for years. As for whether Comcast is planning to roll out new skinny bundles on top of the broadband-focused packages it has launched to date, Roberts offered few specifics: Its a conversation thats evolving with each of our programming partners, he said. We all have a legacy business and we all want to grow that.

Roberts used his keynote earlier during the INTX general session to promote NBCUniversals copious coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio, and touting new ways Comcasts X1 set-top platform will deliver that content.

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All told, NBCU will deliver 6,000 hours of Olympics video on 11 NBCU networks over the course of 17 days this August, including 306 events  all streamed live and available on multiple devices, he said.

It would take you 250 days to watch all this content, Roberts said.

Roberts highlighted new features for X1 to watch the Olympics. The next-generation cable TV service will include a dedicated destination combining live television, online streaming and on-demand content, as well as athlete profiles, and up-to-the-minute stats.

Currently, about 35% of Comcasts video subscribers have X1, and the company is adding about 40,000 subscribers to the X1 platform daily. By the time the Rio Olympics arrives, the operator will have nearly 50% of video subs on X1, Roberts said. He also said Comcast has distributed about 7 million voice-enabled X1 remote controls (which let customers speak commands and search for TV programming, a la Apples Siri).

Roberts was talking up X1 and NBCUs Olympics plans at the same time the Peacock was holding its upfront for advertisers in New York City on Monday.

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Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat. Photo: Reuters/Nicky Loh

Why does it seem as if we are already speaking of Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat, who collapsed in a Cabinet meeting due to a stroke last Thursday (12 May), in the past tense?

And why has his illness, as grave as it is, seemingly taken on the dimensions of a national crisis?

The day after his collapse, nine representatives from the Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO) conducted prayers for Hengs recovery. As far as I can recall, they did not do this when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was stricken with prostate cancer in early 2015. After all, PM Lee carries far more political weight, having been in the Cabinet for almost three decades, while Heng became a full-fledged minister only after the 2011 General Elections.

At a community event on Sunday, where Heng had been scheduled to be the guest-of-honour, organisers Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society went one step further. They did not invite another guest to replace the 54-year-old. Instead, they set up a guest book for well-wishers to pen messages to the former Education Minister.

Society chairman Lee Kim Siang was even quoted by The Straits Times as saying, We want to show that we respect our guest-of-honour. Its not right that just because Mr Heng is now unable to come, we get another person to replace him.

The national broadsheet ran a large picture - measuring almost a third of a page - of 300 guests at the event silently praying for him. No one doubts the sincerity of the well-wishers, but it looked more like a respectfully observed minute of silence.

I have never met Heng, nor have I covered many stories related to his education and finance ministries. But colleagues and friends who have encountered him testify to his humble and sincere nature. God willing, Heng, who is currently recovering from neurosurgery and is still hospitalised at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, will return to serve Singapore again.

Minister for Community development, Culture and Youth Lawrence Wong and Heng Swee Keat, co-chairmen of the SG50 steering committee. Yahoo file photo



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As my colleague P. N Balji pointed out, Heng was likely a frontrunner to succeed PM Lee. His unfortunate sidelining might have thrown a spanner in the works of Singapores leadership succession, given that a stroke is no minor ailment.

Nevertheless, the heroic portrayal of Heng on social media and in media reports feels over the top.

At least eight current and former Cabinet members have spoken at length about Heng, including Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who called him one of Singapores finest sons, and a leader with much promise. Granted, Tharman has known Heng for 20 years, while many of the Cabinet members would have been deeply affected when they saw one of their own collapsed before their very eyes.

PM Lee even released a letter of appreciation to the Singapore Civil Defence Force, praising the paramedics who responded to the 995 call when Heng became unwell. All credit to the paramedics, but given that their colleagues also save the lives of ordinary Singaporeans on a daily basis, it renders the impression that they were singled out because of who they were attending to.

Why the effusiveness?

Heng Swee Keat, speaking at a political rally in 2015. Yahoo file photo.

Perhaps it has something to do with the social media age, where everyone feels the urge to express their feelings about major events at once. Public figures like our Ministers are almost obliged to pen something on Facebook or Twitter, no matter if they are merely platitudes. If not, they may be criticised as insensitive or for lacking openness.

Ordinary netizens then take their cue from our politicians. In this case, the dramatic nature of Hengs collapse also made it a big story that everyone wanted to have their say on.

And perhaps it also reveals the importance of the Finance Ministry portfolio, where Ministers typically serve long tenures. For example, before Heng, Tharman occupied the hot seat for eight years. His predecessors Lee Hsien Loong and Richard Hu served for six years and 16 years, respectively. By comparison, the Transport Ministry has seen three different Ministers in the last decade.

By all means, let us continue to keep Heng in our thoughts and prayers. But perhaps we could all tone down our responses. After all, surely a man as modest as Heng would prefer the fuss to be kept to a minimum?
From Popular Mechanics

Cold fusion is rising again, thanks to allegedly successful experiments and demonstrations. Now interest in the field, also known as low energy nuclear reactions (LENR), has reached the highest levels, as the House Committee on Armed Services has asked the Secretary of Defense to provide "a briefing on the military utility of recent U.S. industrial base LENR advancements" by September 22.

The Committee quotes a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that says if cold fusion works, it would be a disruptive technology that could revolutionize energy production and storage. That is putting it mildly. Commercial cold fusion as claimed by Andrea Rossi and others, outlined in our April article, would remove dependence on oil or other fossil fuels, domestic or imported. In military terms, it would enable ships, aircraft, and tanks to continue indefinitely (or at least for months) without refueling, with abundant power for lasers or other directed-energy weapons.

The biggest advantage would probably happen for unmanned systems, which are better suited to long-endurance missions. The Committee also mentions the DIA's view that at "Japan and Italy are leaders in the field and that Russia, China, Israel, and India are now devoting significant resources to LENR development."

The Secretary's report to the House might be a dismissive one-liner. It might state that cold fusion is a crazy idea and always has been, and that its proponents are either misinterpreting experimental results or are the victims of fraud. That would certainly reflect the view of most mainstream scientists.

Yet even in the military there are some who suspect there may be more to it than smoke and mirrors. This is especially true of the Navy, which quietly permitted cold fusion research for some time. A 2015 presentation by Louis DeChiaro of US Naval Sea Systems Command concludes that "Low Energy Nuclear Reactions appear to be real; are probably attributable to something like nuclear fusion." DeChiaro lists ten entrepreneurs active in this field, including Rossi.

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There is another wild card that might appear in the report. In 2011 Andrea Rossi staged what he described as a public demonstration of a one-megawatt E-Cat cold fusion reactor. Supposedly this was for a secret U.S. military customer, who was supposedly satisfied with the demonstration (unlike many other observers who complained there was no way of telling whether the device was getting power from an external source). Of course, there is no way of verifying whether the customer even existed, one of the many ghosts shadows in this case.

If the device was really bought by DARPA or by the U.S. Navy-who have long wanted a portable, fuel-free energy source for their Expeditionary Power system-they should be able to say whether LENR really works, or whether they were scammed out of a million dollars (Rossi's price for the E-Cat) by a clever con artist and an idea that is just as crazy as the scientists say.

It should be one interesting report.
A New Jersey man suspected of being a white supremacist was arrested in the woods with a large cache of ammunition, an AK-47 and a handgun, police said.

Bruce Brus Post III, who was sporting a Hitler-style mustache and German combat gear, was taken into custody Sunday by a multi-agency task force patrolling the Glenwood Forest Wildlife Management Area on Sunday, according to Lacey Township Police Chief David Paprota.

Read: White Supremacist Groups Claim Donald Trump's Rhetoric is Helping Recruitment Efforts

The suspect gave indications of possible white-supremacist involvement, Paprota said.

Post was with an unidentified man, who was detained but not arrested, police said.

Officers discovered an AK-47, a Walther P38 9-mm handgun, eight 30-round high-capacity magazines and one 100-round drum magazine, Paprota said, according to NJ Advance Media.

Post was charged with first-degree unlawful possession of weapons by a felon, possession of prohibited weapons and devices (high-capacity magazines), and unlawful possession of a handgun and assault weapon by a felon.

Post was sentenced in 1997 to five years in prison for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and he also served more than two years in connection with the 1995 murder of Andrew Whited Jr., whose body was dumped along Interstate 195 after being stabbed nearly 30 times, the media site said, citing court records.

Read: SNL's 'Racists For Trump' Spoof Lampoons Candidate's Questionable Supporters

Posts brother, Joseph Post is serving a life sentence for that slaying, according to the media site. Authorities said Bruce Post helped destroy evidence in the case.

Because of Posts well-publicized past history, he was ordered held on $400,000 cash bail without a 10 percent option and the public was asked to come forward with any information about Bruce Post, Paprota said.

It was not clear if Post had entered a plea.

Story continues

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(Corrects May 1 story to make clear in paragraph 14 that Peter Saunders has not resigned from Vatican sex abuse commission) By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis called for "severe punishment" for pedophiles on Sunday after new details emerged in Italy of the 2014 death of a six-year-old girl who is alleged to have been thrown from an eighth-storey balcony by her abuser. "This is a tragedy. We should not tolerate the abuse of minors," Francis said, departing from prepared remarks at his weekly Sunday message and blessing to tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square. "We must protect minors and severely punish abusers," he said. Though the Catholic Church itself has been rocked by its own abuse scandals, he did not mention them on Sunday as he has in the past. Italians have been shocked as details emerged in the case of six-year-old Fortuna who died in June 2014 after a fall from an eighth-storey balcony in Naples. After re-opening the case, police charged a 43-year-old man with having thrown the girl to her death in a housing block in a rough area of the city after raping her. Police said they suspected he killed her so she would not talk. The man, who has also been accused of molesting other children and is now in prison in Rome, has denied the charges. On Saturday Italian President Sergio Mattarella called for an "ample, rapid and severe" judicial process concerning the case, which has dominated newspapers' front pages for days. Child abuse by priests has plagued the Roman Catholic Church itself for decades. While some cases of sexual abuse in the Church were exposed piecemeal, such as in the U.S. state of Louisiana in the 1980s, the scandal exploded in 2002, when it was discovered that U.S. bishops in the Boston area moved abusers from parish to parish instead of defrocking them. Similar scandals have since been discovered around the world and tens of millions of dollars have been paid in compensation. While the pope has vowed "zero tolerance" for abusers in the Church, victims groups have accused him of not doing enough. They say he should do much more to make bishops more accountable for covering up abuse or not preventing it. A commission he set up to advise him on how to root out abuse in the Church has struggled to find its stride. In February, Peter Saunders of Britain, a prominent and outspoken member, was forced to take a leave of absence from the group after being fiercely critical of the Vatican's handling of abuse scandals. In March, Cardinal George Pell, under fire for his handling of sexual abuse of children by priests in Australia decades ago, gave four days of evidence to an Australian government commission, which again put the Church's problem with abuse on the world stage. (Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Two US embassy delegations visited Egypt's parliament on Sunday and Monday to discuss cooperation in security, military and economic areas

Kamal Amer, chairman of the Egyptian parliament's Defence and National Security Committee, told reporters on Monday that Egyptian-American relations have largely improved in recent months, adding that "we are ready to hold meetings with all foreign officials, including Israelis, as long as these meetings serve our interests."

"We know that these relations have suffered a setback since 30 June [when former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi was ousted from office in an uprising in 2013]," said Amer.

"We hope that what happened was just a summer cloud and that relations between us" are normalised.

Amer's press statement came after he met with the US embassy's advisor for political affairs on Monday to discuss cooperation between the two countries in security and military areas. 

The meeting came upon the request of the advisor, according to Amer.

Amer said that parliament's Defence and National Security Committee is ready to hold meetings with foreign officials from all countries "as long as they do not go against parliament's rules, have the speaker's prior approval, and help serve the national security of Egypt."

Amer, a former chairman of Egypt's military intelligence, said he hopes his meeting with the US embassy advisor will reinforce strategic cooperation between Egypt and America.

Amer said that he told the US official that there is high potential for cooperation between Egypt and the US in exchanging intelligence, delegations and documents in the areas of security and combating terrorism.

"I also told him that the parliaments in the two countries can cooperate in the area of drafting anti-terror laws," said Amer.

Many Egyptian MPs said they strongly support president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's new policy aimed at diversifying Egypt's sources of armament.

Also, many MPs, a number of whom were members of former president Hosni Mubarak's ruling party, are hostile to US President Barack Obama's administration.

One of these MPs told Ahram Online that the last few years clearly showed that it is highly risky to depend on one source for armaments.

"As the Obama administration proved to be highly hostile to Egypt in the last two years, it was necessary for President El-Sisi to turn to other sources such as Russia, China and France," said the MP, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Egypt's parliament approved last February a defence loan agreement with France, helping Egypt buy French military equipment at a record value of 5.9 billion euros.

Egyptian MPs also believe that the Obama administration was highly supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

"Not only did this administration gave support for this group to take office in Egypt after the removal of former president Hosni Mubarak from office, but it still refuses to designate this group as a terrorist organisation," said one MP. 

He said that he and many Egyptian MPs have high hopes that the US Congress will pass a law declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group.

"We saw how many Republican presidential candidates and congressmen accused the Obama administration in recent months of helping this group take power in Egypt, and we hope that this will be reflected in a law imposing a ban on its activities in the US," said the independent MP.

Many US congressional delegations have visited Egypt in recent weeks, the most important of which was one led by speaker of the US House of Representatives Paul Ryan in April.

Republican senator and former presidential candidate Lindsey Graham said in a visit to Egypt last April that he wants a Marshall Plan for the Middle East that would drastically increase US military aid to Egypt and Arab Gulf states. 

Graham is the chairman of the US Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. He is also a member of the Committee on Armed Services.

On Sunday, a US embassy economic delegation met with the head of the Egyptian parliament's Economic Affairs Committee, Ali El-Moselhi. The delegation was led by the US embassy's minister plenipotentiary for economic affairs.

A statement by the committee said the meeting involved a review of the economic laws expected to be discussed by Egypt's parliament in the coming period.

"The US embassy minister plenipotentiary also reviewed the prospects of cooperation between Egypt on one side and US-based international finance institutions such as the World Bank in the area of economic development," said the statement. 

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Chief film critics Owen Gleiberman and Peter Debruge share their thoughts on the 69th Cannes Film Festival thus far.

Gleiberman: Well, Peter, were six days into the festival, and as always the holy grail Im searching for is a movie that wows me as a work of art, but that also looks like it can wield a significant impact in the world beyond Cannes. Last year, two such movies played early on in the festival: Todd Haynes Carol and Mad Mad: Fury Road. This year, I dont think theres been anything comparable  Woody Allens Cafe Society, for instance, which was the opening-night film, is one of his suavely crafted but minor ersatz-romantic baubles. For me, though, the closest thing to the ideal Im talking about has probably been Ken Loachs I, Daniel Blake. Its the story of a Newcastle carpenter whos falling between the cracks of the British welfare state, but its really about something more global: the fraying of the social safety net in our time. It may be the first Loach film that, I think, can speak to a relatively wide audience in a crowd-pleasing, populist way.

Debruge: Its funny to encounter a movie like I, Daniel Blake at Cannes  not surprising, mind you, since Loach (now 79) has sort of a standing invitation to premiere whatever he makes in competition, but funny in that Cristi Puiu (the great Romanian director of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) essentially told the same story  about how a decent man is let down by the System  better 11 years ago, but is now here with a new and far more challenging work, Sieranevada. Loach, like Allen, seems to have slipped backwards into easy, Hallmark-caliber treacle. Sieranevada is one of a trio of films in competition whose running time veers dangerously close to three hours, and in its own way feels like a riff on a film by a more nuanced British realist. That would be Mike Leighs Secrets and Lies. At any rate, its my least favorite of the three slice-of-life epics on offer, the other two being Maren Ades Toni Erdmann and Andrea Arnolds American Honey.

Gleiberman: I, Daniel Blake is moving in an old-school way, but only at Cannes would that make it treacle! I guess we can agree to disagree on that one. I found Sieranevada sourly gripping at times, yet its like being locked in a room with a dozen characters who hate each other and also hate you. The running time feels like a penance. American Honey, on the other hand, is an electrifying movie that has eye-opening things to say about whats happening to middle-class America  that is, a certain attitude of reckless indifference thats starting to bedevil the lives of young people. Its about a group of kids  runaways, basically  who drive from city to city, surviving by selling magazine subscriptions, but its really about a new spirit of live-for-the-moment identity thats fueled by no hope, no money, no future, no dream. If the Dardenne brothers had made this film (and the way Arnold has shot and edited it, it looks like they did)  though I doubt they would have made such mesmerizing use of hip-hop), it would be acclaimed as a masterpiece. As it is, Id say that American Honey is Arnolds most powerful film, and that it establishes her as a major artist. Shes even gotten a pinpoint performance out of a rat-tailed Shia LaBeouf! But the movie is so rigorous and austere (not to mention endless) that Im not sure who, if anyone, is going to see it.

Debruge: Its a fair question  and one that Cannes sometimes allows filmmakers to overlook, because this is cinema for cinemas sake, dammit, free from commercial considerations. And yet, the festival also makes room for films such as The Nice Guys and The BFG, which I adored, even if Spielbergs CG-heavy adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic is engineered to delight. Its literally the Big Friendly Giant of the festival, though here  and only here  are Ade and Arnolds unsettling micro-studies not dwarfed by such a film. Their films may run long, but still feel oh so fragile and small  like the many insects (nods to her Oscar-winning short Wasp perhaps?) that flit on the edges of Arnolds post-grunge, yet still-plenty-grubby portrait of todays lost kids (in the Harmony Korine sense). Its easier to attract flies with American Honey than vinegar, as the saying goes, though Arnolds movie has an acrid bite that sticks with me a day later. Where Spielbergs The BFG still believes in dreams, the generation Arnold depicts doesnt seem to have any, hooking up and whoring themselves out with no sign of self-respect. After nearly three hours, I wanted the story to go somewhere, but that likely would have been an artificial imposition on the festivals most authentic film so far.

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His father killed himself in prison after being branded a counter-revolutionary, but during the Cultural Revolution Huang Nubo became a Red Guard himself, humiliating and beating others. It was the making of him and his generation, says the billionaire -- yet he dreads a repetition.

One of China's richest men, who climbs mountains to relax and has summitted Everest three times, Huang is best known overseas for a controversial and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to buy a swathe of Iceland.

But under the pseudonym Luo Ying, he has written two volumes of poetry describing his experiences during Mao Zedong's decade of social upheaval known as the Cultural Revolution that began 50 years ago on Monday.

His father Huang Junfu -- a colonel who fought for Communist forces in China's civil war -- fell victim to one of Mao's earlier purges, and was jailed and abused. He saved up medicine to take a fatal overdose when his son was only three.

"When they buried him in the dunes, his eyes were still staring," Huang describes in verse.

"An enemy got no gravestone, so he rotted like a nameless dog."

Despite enduring years of stigma from villagers in the northern region of Ningxia, during the Cultural Revolution Huang became an enthusiastic Red Guard. One poem describes him punching a landowner -- who later died -- with his "steel fists".

Later he was one of some 20 million youngsters "sent down" by Mao to toil alongside farmers in the countryside and correct their elitist ways.

With neighbour pitted against neighbour, individuals condemned by their colleagues at "struggle sessions", and children denouncing parents, the era was a complex web of victimhood and complicity.

"I am a victim, a participant and a perpetrator; I denounced others and was denounced," Huang told AFP.

The last line of his second book -- banned on the mainland -- reads: "For people who lived through the Cultural Revolution, its no use trying to figure out whos a human and whos a ghoul.

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"We're all demons. Myself included," he said at Peking University, where he has funded a poetry research centre.

- Wolf in poet's clothing -

China's rise in recent decades -- triggered by the Communist party's repudiation of Mao's ideas and the introduction of market forces -- was built on the foundations of the period's most destructive legacy, Huang believes.

"The Cultural Revolution taught this generation of mine that you must act like a wolf in order to survive," he explained.

It destroyed old value systems and replaced them with the belief "that winner takes all, that if you can beat someone, then you're a hero, that if you're rich, you're in the right."

Huang's own life followed a similar trajectory to the ruling party: he left a job in its propaganda department to set out on the capitalist road to riches with his Zhongkun real estate and tourism conglomerate.

Now 59, his fortune is estimated at $1.3 billion by Chinese wealth publisher Hurun.

But he has never found the bones of his father, settling instead for carving his name in the mountainside tomb he built for his mother once he became rich.

In 1981 the Communist Party officially pronounced the Cultural Revolution a grave error that "led to domestic turmoil and brought catastrophe to the Party, the state and the whole people".

It ascribed chief responsibility to Mao, avoiding the question of the party's own culpability, and now it limits discussion of the period to prevent undermining the legitimacy of its rule.

Huang's first book, "Diary of a Sent-Down Youth", is also less directly critical and is freely available on the mainland.

But censors barred "Memories of the Cultural Revolution", which is filled with visceral recollections: corpses torn open, female bodies floating downriver with sticks in their genitals as testament to their rape, and the execution of an elderly woman for singing the wrong lyrics to a patriotic song.

- Turn to brutality -

As many of the era's horrors are slowly forgotten, nostalgia for some aspects persists in certain quarters: television shows romanticise the lives of sent-down youths, and there are more than 50 museums about them around the country.

Six of the seven members of the party's Politburo Standing Committee, the most powerful organ in China, were sent to the countryside during the period, including President Xi Jinping.

An anniversary concert earlier this month at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing stirred controversy for an uncritical presentation of the period's anthems and propaganda imagery.

Huang decries the whitewashing of history.

"If we continue on like this and don't reflect on this past, there will be another Cultural Revolution," he said.

"If the impression left behind is that the Cultural Revolution was so romantic... people won't be afraid to turn once again to brutality."

As a poet he feels a responsibility to record what he witnessed.

"When at the end you look at your current position in society, you'll think back and wonder whether the nightmare you lived through was in fact right or not," he said.

"But the harm it's brought to your heart can never be got rid of in a lifetime."
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in China. Beginning in 1966, Mao Zedong, who had withdrawn somewhat into the background of the Chinese leadership in the previous years, marshaled the youth of China in a new campaign against supposed party deviationists and class enemies. Eventually, the terror destroyed the lives and careers of perhaps millions of Chinese people, including anyone whose life or career showed any traces of western influence, including classical musicians. The terror developed a momentum of its own, especially in the countryside, and did not abate until after Maos death in 1976.

Seen in retrospect, these events have an even greater world-historical significance. Together with the terror wrought at the same time by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the Cultural Revolution was the last outburst of 20th-century totalitarianism, a phenomenon that also included Stalins Russia and Hitlers Germany, and was captured for all time in one of the classics of 20th century literature, George Orwells 1984.

The classic totalitarian regimes all shared a few characteristics. They attempted to control every aspect of the lives of their people, enlisting everyone in a common struggle against designated enemies, foreign and domestic, and forcing them all to adopt official ideology. In Stalins Russia and Maos China the key enemies were class enemies: capitalists, landlords, richer peasants and foreign agents of all kinds. In Nazi Germany they included all those not belonging to the national community, including socialists and communists, Jews, and any other ethnic minorities. All these regimes created a single party that stood outside of, but also largely dominated, the traditional state. All of them murdered or imprisoned millions of their citizens. All of them organized young men and women into various kinds of uniformed organizations and militias to turn their energies in approved political directions. In China and the USSR, they also took over the national economy. And they maintained an absolute monopoly over all forms of public expression, never permitting dissent to emerge. What distinguished them most of all from other authoritarian regimes was their active mobilization of their whole people in a struggle against designated enemies.

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Like any successful historical phenomenon, these regimes drew on very real aspects of human nature. To submerge ones self in a common struggle can be oddly liberating and exhilarating, and nations of all kinds have drawn upon this during wars. Yet the problem all these regimes encountered was that such passions can only be sustained for so long.

Eventually both the elites and the rest of the population become weary of struggle and want to settle down to enjoy a more peaceful life. That shift, however, will weaken their allegiance to the regime and its goals. The leadership generally responds with a new campaign against its enemiesbut by this time, most of its real enemies are dead or long since driven into exile. Thus it has to turn either against innocent people or against its own party structure. That is what Stalin did in the 1930s, when he eviscerated the leadership of both the party and the army, and what Mao decided to do 50 years ago. And Orwell, writing when Stalinism remained at its height and when Mao was winning his civil war, captured the atmosphere of endless struggle against imaginary enemies perfectly in 1984, where no one is safe against the suspicions of his neighbors or his children, and party members periodically vanish.

We must not however lose sight of another key aspects of these regimes. While they successfully unleashed popular passions and undertook campaigns of terror, they claimed to be based upon science and reason and presented themselves as the summit of human enlightenment. Stalin and Mao claimed to be implementing Karl Marxs scientific socialism, while Hitler thought racial purity would allow him and the Nazis to create a better type of human being. And indeed, all these regimes achieved extraordinary feats of organization, in infrastructure and industrial (in the USSR and Germany at least), and war. None of them, however, managed to make their regimes endure. War brought down the Nazis after only 12 years, and natural human forces led to the collapse of the USSR and Communism after 72 years, in 1989.

Although the Communist Party still rules China, 67 years after Mao first took power, by no stretch of the imagination could that country now be described as a totalitarian state. The same can be said of Vietnam. A milder form of totalitarianism has survived for 57 years in Cuba, but the opening of relations with the U.S. will probably bring about more changes there soon as well. North Korea is now the only remaining example of 20th century totalitarianism.

MORE: Read a Harrowing Memoir From Chinas Cultural Revolution

But that doesnt mean totalitarianism is gone.

During the 1990s, after the fall of the USSR, many predicted an enduring triumph of democracy. But just as the Cultural Revolution was coming to an end in China, a different kind of totalitarianism began to take its placeone based not on the Enlightenment, but on religion. The Khomeini regime in Iran, which came to power in 1979, sought to regulate every aspect of Iranian life according to a strict interpretation of Islam. While many traditional monarchies had enforced religious orthodoxy in the past, this was the first 20th-century regime to use a modern national government to impose strict religious observance and conduct. Just a year after taking power, the regime also had to mobilize its people for an all-out war with Iraq that lasted for eight years. The Iranian regime is now 37 years old, and like the USSR in 1954 or Communist China in 1986, it has seen a cooling of its ideological fervor.

The Iranian regime has had imitators. ISIS has now created a new totalitarian movement based on its own interpretation of Islam. Though the group is not recognized internationally as a state, it bears the markers of totalitarian government: regimenting the lives of all the people under its control, terrorizing and murdering non-Muslims and committing itself to an endless struggle to seize the whole Middle East and create a Caliphate.

The impulse to regiment the lives of a whole people is always the basis of totalitarianism. While the new movements are nowhere near as large or as dangerous as Communism or Nazism, they pose as least at great an ideological challenge to the modern world. While both the Nazis and Communists argued that all their works were based upon reason and science, ISIS rejects both and appeals specifically to faith. They have restarted a war between faith and reason that seemed to have been won only a few decades ago.

The Long View

Historians explain how the past informs the present

David Kaiser, a historian, has taught at Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Williams College, and the Naval War College. He is the author of seven books, including, most recently, No End Save Victory: How FDR Led the Nation into War. He lives in Watertown, Mass.
Birchbox

Subscription models are incredibly popular.

Look no further than Netflix, Amazon Prime, Dollar Shave Club, and Carnivore Club. It seems easy; sign up, and you have a product each month for a fixed price.

But at the same time, many subscription-based retailers are being accused of not having clear disclosures about their billing practices.

And some companies, despite seemingly being transparent about the fact that they are subscription-based, make canceling their memberships difficult for customers.

Most recently, the nonprofit ad watchdog Truth in Advertising filed complaints last week with the Federal Trade Commission, the New York attorney general's office, and the Santa Clara, California, district attorney's office against the startup lingerie company Adore Me. The points largely relate to Adore Me's subscription model, which the startup calls a VIP Membership, through which "members" pay $39.95 to receive a set of lingerie each month.

The company's members get the lingerie only if they log on and choose the products they want. Adore Me lets customers skip billing cycles, but they have to make sure they select to "shop" or "skip" by the fifth of each month. Members who don't make a selection will see their credit cards get charged; in turn they get store credit to use at any time.

Adore Me has added a policy in which members can get an automatic refund for the most recent month's charges  without having to go through customer service  if they fail to select shop or skip. Adore Me CEO Morgan Hermand-Waiche highlighted this policy to Business Insider in January.

The policy, however, could be hurting the company. Bloomberg recently reported that Adore Me had a 30% spike in refunds with a 15% dip in subscriptions.

Upon cancellation, which, according to reviews on the Better Business Bureau, is an arduous process, members lose their credits. (One commenter on The Lingerie Addict said she was able to cancel her VIP Membership but had $200 in credit, all of which disappeared once the cancellation took effect.) That's one of Truth in Advertising's primary complaints with the company.

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"I think what really focused us on Adore Me was one particular provision in their terms and conditions which I found to be absolutely outrageous," Bonnie Patten, Truth in Advertising's executive director, told Business Insider on Monday, "which was that when a consumer attempts to cancel this membership, that the company takes any unused credit from the consumer."

Truth in Advertising's complaint comes on the heels of many consumers' frustrations; Adore Me has an F rating with the Better Business Bureau and more than 680 consumer complaints.

Some members don't even know they're becoming VIP Members from the start. The company, however, says it makes the details clear to consumers who are shopping on its website  the VIP Membership price is the more heavily flaunted and advertised one. But it's also the default selection.

Adore Me Screenshot

Hermand-Waiche maintains that the retailer is transparent and discloses everything through consistent emails, SMS messages, push notifications, and a pamphlet that members receive with their first package. He stressed this to Business Insider in January.

Adore Me, however, isn't the only subscription company to come under scrutiny recently. In the fall, JustFab (which houses Kate Hudson's athleisure line, Fabletics) found itself enmeshed in a scandal after customers called it a scam; they claimed the fine print was exceedingly difficult to discern.

BuzzFeed reported that consumers didn't realize they were being signed up for a membership. Moreover, after finding unwanted charges on their credit cards, they said they had to call customer service to put an end to their billing cycle. The company has amassed over a thousand complaints with the Better Business Bureau.

In late October, Bloomberg reported that the company would be audited. Bloomberg also reported that JustFab was looking into changing its policies; it was going to consider offering members the ability to unsubscribe online. Not being able to cancel memberships online was a huge issue with the company that BuzzFeed outlined in an initial report regarding the scandal.

Still, some experts think that JustFab uses this model to optimize success, even if it's misleading.

"It's a model that allows [JustFab] to make more money ... Unfortunately, misleading marketing works," Patten of Truth and Advertising told Bloomberg. "And that's what this company is, in some part, using to be so successful."

kate hudson fabletics

That's not to say subscriptions are entirely faulty.

At the end of 2013, Entrepreneur suggested that the subscription-service model was a hot e-commerce trend for the following year.

And there has been no shortage of boxes for consumers to choose from  whether grooming and beauty boxes or boxes with artisanal beer or boxes for dogs.

But the core product that many of these boxes sell is the box and the subscription, as opposed to selling the product, with the membership sneaking up afterward. Birchbox is ostensibly a box of makeup samples; Adore Me markets itself as a lingerie company with fast-fashion prices. That's a reason some people might feel duped.

Still, Hermand-Waiche, the Adore Me CEO, chalks up the complaints, which he told Business Insider paled in comparison to positive reviews (which do exists on sites like SiteJabber), to the fact that some people don't know how subscription services operate.

"I think that the membership and subscription shipping concepts are extremely innovative and disruptive, and used by companies such as Amazon, Dollar Shave Club, Birchbox, and Adore Me," Hermand-Waiche wrote to Business Insider in January. "But sometime there are shoppers who aren't familiar with subscription-based services and memberships and as a result are unsatisfied with their experience."

NOW WATCH: Inside Apples plan to turn the iPhone into a subscription service





More From Business Insider


Monday marks the 100 years since the signing of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the secret Anglo-French pact reached during the First World War that proposed splitting the Middle East up into zones of foreign control. The Middle East has been frequently afflicted with war since then, but the situation nowwith ISIS holding territory in Iraq and across the Fertile Crescent, civil war in Syria, government paralysis in Lebanon, growing autocracy and violence in Turkey, and talk of an intifada in Israel and the occupied territorieshas inspired particular debate on the century-old agreements legacy. Laments about Sykes-Picot drew arbitrary divisions that bedevil the Middle East even now have met with just-as-impassioned insistence that the secret agreements influence is overstated.

But wait a second: secret agreement? How did a confidential document become a hotly contested matter of the public record not long after it was signed? The answer is a tale of intrigue that serves as a reminder of how unstable closed-door diplomacy is, and how fast quiet handshakes can cause public backlash, even in the age before Wikileaks.

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The agreement was negotiated, on the British side, by Mark Sykes, an aristocrat and soldier. A veteran of the Boer War and member of Parliament, he was plucked from the reservesand saved from the front linesby Lord Kitchener, the secretary of war, at the start of World War I and became a leading Middle East hand. He barely outlived the war: Sykes died of Spanish influenza in February 1919 while attending the Paris Peace Conference that would formalize the terms of the settlement. Francois Georges-Picot, who negotiated on behalf of the French, was somewhat older, a career diplomat who had been stationed in Beirut and Cairo.

European governments had long viewed Ottoman Empire as weak. But the French and British, the Ottomans opponents in World War I, decided the empire couldnt outlast the war, and in 1915 moved toward splitting up the Levantine territories under Ottoman control. Sykes and Georges-Picot were charged with figuring out how. The agreement they came towith the assent of their ally Russiagranted Russian control over present-day eastern Turkey. The French would influence or control southern Turkey, Lebanon, present-day Syria, and Northern Iraq. The British would dominate a corridor running from Egypt west through the Negev Desert, present-day Jordan, and most of what is now Iraq and Kuwait. Present-day northern Israel and the West Bank would become an international zone, though Britain would control the port of Haifa.

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The map above tells most of the story. (Heres a full version.) The agreement itself is rather drab to read, cloaked in diplomatic nicetiesalthough the heavy focus on railroad-building rights harkens back to a time when rails, rather than oil, were the most important geopolitical infrastructure in the Fertile Crescent. Today, those train lines have atrophied.

The agreement was concluded in secret partly because it represented a betrayal of promises the British government had already made to Hussein bin Ali, the sharif of Mecca. During the war, in an effort to foment an Arab rebellion against the Ottomans, the British sought Husseins support by agreeing to back the creation of an independent Arab state, with a few caveats. In what is known as the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Britain laid out the conditions: It wanted to maintain rights in Baghdad and Basra, and it wanted to set aside pieces of present-day Syria, which it said were not fully Arab. The Arabs duly revolted against the Ottomans, with the help of the British military officer T.E. Lawrence. But after the war, the British would maintain that the correspondence did not represent a formal treaty, though Hussein and his family insisted it did. In any case, the promises made to Hussein were in irreconcilable conflict with the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

A further British promise incompatible with Sykes-Picot came later, on November 2, 1917, when U.K. Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour wrote to British Jewish leader Walter Rothschild, stating that the British government viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object. That seemed in conflict with the international zone Sykes-Picot envisioned in the Levant.

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In the meantime, Tsar Nicholas II had been overthrown in Russia. First, a provisional government ruled, but in November 1917the same month the Balfour Declaration was sentit was overthrown, and the Bolsheviks took power. They came across the text of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and on November 23, 556 days after the deal was signed, published it in Pravda and Izvestia. Three days after that, The Manchester Guardian also published the text. The publication of the secret agreement was an embarrassment to the Allies, showing them carving up the Middle East, and in particular showing Britain making incompatible promises to Hussein and the Arabs as well as to the Zionists.

The extent to which Sykes-Picot remained in force even at the time is a matter of debate. Once the agreement was revealed, Britain and France scrambled to contain the fallout. In 1918, the Anglo-French Declaration decreed support for indigenous Governments and administrations in Syria and Mesopotamia. The international mandate system set up by the League of Nations to govern formerly Ottoman territories also superseded the agreementthough the outlines of those mandates roughly coincided with those set out in Sykes-Picot.

Dead and buried or undead and haunting the Middle East today, the Sykes-Picot Agreement has echoes that still resonate. Despite the controversy when the text was revealed, the British and French were not deterred from signing another secret agreement in 1956, five years after Georges-Picots death. That deal, which also included Israel, set in motion a plot to topple Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser over his seizure of the Suez Canal. The British, French, and Israelis were militarily successful in ensuing war but were forced to retreat under pressure from the Americans andwho else?the Soviet Union. The secret protocol was revealed, and U.K. Prime Minister Anthony Eden was forced to resign.

Today, the United Kingdom and United States governments, along with a cast of allies, are trying to contain ISIS in Iraq and Syria, while also eventually bringing about the end of Syrian President Bashar al-Assads regime. Its a complicated process, involving both public and secret diplomacy, as well as military operations both covert and announced. But those efforts have been confounded by the intervention of Russia, which has staunchly backed Assad and attacked rebel groups allied with the U.S. and U.K. Lazy commentators like to trace Middle East strife to the spurious explanation of ancient hatreds, ethnic and sectarian conflicts running back centuries in the region. As Russias continuing role in confounding Anglo-American efforts shows, however, one of the most intractable geopolitical conflicts in the Levant is just turning 100 this year.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
A suicide bomber killed at least 25 Yemeni police recruits in the southeastern port city of Mukalla on Sunday, medics said, the second attack this week claimed by the Islamic State group.

The bomber detonated an explosives belt as he joined a line of men at a police recruitment centre on the southwestern outskirts of the city that government forces recaptured last month after a year of Al-Qaeda rule, a provincial official said.

Sixty people were also wounded in the attack in Fuwah district, a medical source said.

An IS group statement posted online claimed the attack, the second but rare intervention by the militant group in an area known as a stronghold of rival Al-Qaeda.

"Brother Abu al-Bara al-Ansari... detonated his explosives belt at a gathering of the apostates of the security forces," it said.

On Thursday, 15 Yemeni troops were killed in militant attacks on army positions outside Mukalla. IS group said one of its militants blew up a vehicle packed with explosives in an army base in Khalf district on the city's eastern outskirts.

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At Tesla, we aspire to operate on the principles of hard work and exceptional performance, but always tempered by fairness, justice and kindness. There are times when mistakes are made, but those are the standards to which we hold ourselves. With respect to the person at the center of this weekends article in the Mercury News, those standards were not met. We are taking action to address this individual's situation and to put in place additional oversight to ensure that our workplace rules are followed even by sub-subcontractors to prevent such a thing from happening again.

Gregor Lesnik was brought to the Tesla factory by a company called ISM Vuzem, a sub-contractor brought in by Eisenmann, the firm that we hired to construct our new, high-volume paint shop. We contracted with Eisenmann for the simple reason that we do not know how to build paint shops and they are regarded as one of the best, if not the best, in the world. In our dealings with them, we have found them to be an excellent company, run by good people.

The article describes how Mr. Lesnik came to this country, the conditions under which Vuzem employed him and others to do their work, and how Mr. Lesnik ended up being injured while on the job. Assuming the article is correct, we need to do right by Mr. Lesnik and his colleagues from Vuzem. This is not a legal issue, it is a moral issue. As far as the law goes, Tesla did everything correctly. We hired a contractor to do a turnkey project at our factory and, as we always do in these situations, contractually obligated our contractor to comply with all laws in bringing in the resources they felt were needed to do the job.

Regarding the accident that resulted in Mr. Lesnik being injured, Cal/OSHA (the government regulator that investigates workplace accidents like these) came to our factory, investigated the incident and found that Tesla was not responsible. When Mr. Lesnik brought a workers compensation case, Tesla was dismissed from the case because the judge concluded that we had no legal responsibility for what occurred.

All of that is fine legally, but there is a larger point. Morally, we need to give Mr. Lesnik the benefit of the doubt and we need to take care of him. We will make sure this happens. We do not condone people coming to work at a Tesla facility, whether they work for us, one of our contractors or even a sub-subcontractor, under the circumstances described in the article. If Mr. Lesnik or his colleagues were really being paid $5 an hour, that is totally unacceptable. Tesla is one of the highest paying hourly employers in the US automotive industry. We do this out of choice, because we think it is right. Nobody is making us do so.

Tesla will be working with Eisenmann and Vuzem to investigate this thoroughly. If the claims are true, Tesla will take action to ensure that the right thing happens and all are treated fairly.

Creating a new car company is extremely difficult and fraught with risk, but we will never be a company that by our action does, or by our inaction allows, the wrong thing to happen just to save money.
The allegation that hundreds of American tech workers at Walt Disney World trained immigrants who would take their jobs makes for an unflattering headline. But according to Disney and the IT consulting firm it works with, there's no conspiracy and they've properly complied with the H-1B visa process.

Leo Perrero, who formerly worked at Disney, is leading a putative class action that alleges that his former employer and HCL colluded with each other when telling the Department of Labor that the hiring of foreigners on visas wouldn't adversely affect the working conditions of U.S. workers. The complaint filed in Florida federal court claims that workers were indeed displaced and that Perrero and others were told to train their replacements or lose severance.

On Friday, both Disney and HCL filed motions to dismiss the complaint.

According to Disney, the lawsuit is defective thanks to the absence of any allegation it was conspiring with HCL to break the law. Yes, the companies had a contract with each other, but Disney argues that's hardly the same thing as saying that Disney knew HCL would be makingstatements to the federal government.

"Even accepting as true the Complaint's inaccurate allegations regarding the contract between HCL and WDPR, Plaintiff nowhere alleges (and could not allege) that it is inherently unlawful to agree to provide IT services using a workforce that includes H-1B visaholders," states Disney's court papers.

And then there's the issue of whether HCL really did makestatements. Perhaps immigration law allows for what happened?

In its own court papers, HCL interprets immigration law as meaning that it had to attest that foreigners on H-1B visas would not adversely affect the working conditions of other HCL employees, not Disney employees. HCL also says that "working conditions" don't mean job displacement, that it really means such matters as hours, shifts, vacation periods and benefits.

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There's another form that some employers have to fill out that specifically attests to U.S. workers not being displaced, but HCL says it only applies to non-exempt employees, and as such, it wasn't under any requirement to make such a certification and so it didn't.

"As plaintiff concedes, HCL hired only exempt employees who earned at least $60,000 per year or held a master's or higher degree in a relevant field," states HCL. "That concession is by itself a sufficient basis to reject Plaintiff's allegations regarding a supposed misstatement concerning displacement."

The H-1B visa system has become controversial of late thanks in part to what was happening at Walt Disney World. Bernie Sanders wants to reform the system to prevent employers from abusing the system while Donald Trump has made it a campaign platform to increase the prevailing wage for H-1Bs so as to discourage companies from outsourcing to lower wage foreign workers. Hillary Clinton has remained mostly silent, though she's been quoted in a 2007 speech as supporting an increase in the H-1B cap.

Here's Perrero's complaint, Disney's motion and HCL's motion.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A congressional committee on Monday put off plans to debate legislation on how to address Puerto Rico's economic crisis, the latest sign of ongoing struggle by lawmakers to find a solution for the American territory's crippling $70 billion debt. For months the Natural Resources Committee of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has been weighing whether and how to rescue Puerto Rico from a crippling debt without spending any U.S. taxpayer money. A committee spokesman said the panel will unveil a new draft proposal soon and then consider that plan in a work session next week. House Speaker Paul Ryan has rejected any bailout of creditors and instead has been mulling the creation of an oversight board that would reschedule the U.S. territory's debt payments. The committee repeatedly has had to hold off on such a work session because of a lack of agreement. Some of the panel's 26 Republicans oppose any debt restructuring, while some of its 18 Democrats want limitations on the oversight board, and object to some side issues included in the bill, such as one having to do with the Caribbean island's minimum wage law. On May 1, Puerto Rico, which is suffering from a 45 percent poverty rate, defaulted on some of its debt when it missed paying the Government Development Bank around $400 million. It faces another debt payment, of nearly $2 billion, on July 1. The Republican-led U.S. Senate has been awaiting action by the House before debating a Puerto Rico debt bill. (Reporting By Richard Cowan; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
(CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo.)  Missouri doctors managed to deliver a baby whose mother was killed in a crash on her way to a hospital to give birth.

Sarah Iler and the babys father, Matt Rider, were headed Wednesday from Cape Girardeau, where they lived, to a hospital in Poplar Bluff, a city about 60 miles southwest where she grew up, when his SUV was struck by a tractor trailer, the Southeast Missourian reported.

The collision pushed the SUV into the median, and Iler and Rider were ejected, Cape Girardeau police Sgt. Adam Glueck said Monday. Upon arriving at the scene, officers began performing CPR on Iler in an attempt to save her and the baby, but Iler was declared dead upon arrival at a Cape Girardeau hospital, he said.

Doctors, though, performed an emergency cesarean section and delivered her daughter, Maddyson.

The newborn, who weighed 4 pounds and 15 ounces and was full-term when she was born, was immediately put on a ventilator. She was able to come off of it on Friday.

Ilers sister, Kasandra Iler, said Maddyson opened her eyes and grabbed a nurses finger. Still, doctors dont yet know if she suffered brain damage due to lack of oxygen after her mothers death, relatives said. A hospital spokeswoman would say only that the baby is in fair condition.

Matt Rider suffered extensive injuries but is recovering. He was flown to a St. Louis hospital with several broken bones. He has been upgraded from critical to fair condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Ilers family has set up a gofundme.com account to raise $5,000 for her funeral expense. More than $4,200 had been raised as of Monday morning.

She had her whole life ahead of her, Ilers mother, Patricia Knight, told the newspaper. And now the baby has to grow up without her mother.
Rousseff Steps Down: Why Brazil Shouldn't Celebrate Just Yet

(Continued from Prior Part)

Impeachment is good news for Brazilian stocks

Brazilian stocks (GGB) (VIV) (VALE) have had a tremendous 2016 so far. Prior to what has turned out to be a difficult May, the Bovespa Index rose 24% in Brazilian real terms until April 2016. Even though commodity prices significantly impact Brazilian stocks, the rise has been driven by news in favor of Dilma Rousseffs impeachment trial. Any news of stalled progress on that front would be detrimental to equities.

The energy (EBR) (ELP) and financial sectors, especially banks (ITUB) (BSBR), have led the rally. However, some stocks have fallen so far in 2016. Among those companies whose shares are listed on US exchanges, Embraer (ERJ), Braskem (BAK), and Fibria Celulose (FBR) have had a terrible year so far.

Domestic investors are getting in on the action

While foreign investors have been pouring money into Brazilian stocks and have helped equities to rise, domestic investors have just begun partaking in the action. According to a monthly report by BM&F Bovespa, 8.2% of the total value traded in April 2016 was by individual investors.

While Rousseff has stepped down from office, the ouster is only temporary for now. It will take up to six months for the impeachment trial to determine whether or not she will be impeached. Until such time, the focus will return to the governance of Brazil. If Rousseffs impeachment goes through, it will provide another pop to Brazilian equities, though the impact may be smaller than the one that led up to the impeachment vote on May 12.

This rally has also had an impact on fund investment (ELAAX) (SLANX) in Brazil. Lets briefly look at that in the next article.

Continue to Next Part

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The Uber driver behind the lawsuit that threatened the company's business model is now objecting to settling the case.

In April, Uber announced that it had reached a $100 million settlement agreement in a court case that had gone on for three years. Douglas O'Connor filed suit against the company in 2013, claiming that Uber had misclassified its drivers as independent contractors and that they should be employees.

The culmination of the case was announced in April with a $100 million settlement for drivers in California and Massachusetts.

But in a court filing on Monday, O'Connor is now objecting to the settlement that bears his name, saying that it shortchanges drivers of billions.

O'Connor said:

I am compelled to submit this declaration objecting to the class action settlement on behalf of myself and on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of other Uber Drivers in the State of Californiaand throughout the Countrywho were at first given hope and a voice by the lawsuit bearing my name but now feel utterly betrayed and sold-out by an unjust settlement result that only benefits Uber.

In his objection, O'Connor claims that he never saw a copy of the settlement before Uber announced it in April. After it was announced, he claims that he was pressured into quickly signing the 100-page document.

After reviewing the settlement, O'Connor doesn't believe that the agreement is in the best interests of Uber drivers.

He wrote:

Having now had the full opportunity to review the O'Connor settlement agreement, it is apparent that under the agreement, Uber drivers are being sold out and shortchanged by billions of dollars while sacrificing the determination of their classification as employees.

Uber drivers are being sold out and shortchanged by billions of dollars while sacrificing the determination of their classification as employees.

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He initiated the case against Uber three years ago because he felt that the company misclassifying its drivers was "the most significant hazard to the economy and public safety," he says. The settlement doesn't answer that question.

O'Connor says in the objection:

Unfortunately, the magnitude of this generational threat was given short shrift in the OConnor class action as almost no meaningful discovery or depositions were taken, but where the average Uber driver will now receive an offensive settlement worth less than a tank of gas. I cannot in good conscience support this disastrous settlement agreement.

Uber declined to comment on the objection. Shannon Liss-Riordan, his former attorney, said that the things O'Connor is saying "are simply not true."

Liss-Riordan wrote in an e-mail to Business Insider:

The case was at risk of being gutted by the Ninth Circuit and we made the choice we did, in consultation with our clients. Mr. O'Connor was not a lead plaintiff, and had not been certified to represent the class, but I kept him in the loop because the case bore his name. I believe the settlement was in the best interests of the class, in light of the risk we faced if having the case pulled out from under us by the Ninth Circuit. But if the court disagrees and thinks the settlement should not go forward for some reason, I would be more than happy to plow forward with it and do what I need to do.

NOW WATCH: Uber drivers reveal 5 ways to get a better passenger rating





More From Business Insider


From Road & Track

"The tale of this '10 Chevrolet Camaro SS," says Hot Rod Magazine about this 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS in Red Jewel Tintcoat, "begins in a bad neighborhood in Dallas, Texas."

Nathan knew. Oh, he knew, alright, that this engine-less, transmission-less salvage-title Camaro bought from an insurance auction would meet all his requirements. See, he wanted to drop in a 6.6-liter Duramax diesel for the sole reason of being able to do so.

The Duramax came from a Chevrolet Kodiak shuttle bus, probably from an airport somewhere. Avis decals still glued on the sliding doors. Shenanigans ensued. Convoluted machinations, intense fabrication, sneaky attention to detail, as befitting "a Minnesota man of action." The subframe was lowered three inches to allow the stock Camaro hood to close. Custom spacers were fabricated to preserve the ride height. The firewall was left intact as a rule, as was the transmission tunnel to fit the Allison five-speed. New engine mounts were fabricated. The ill-fitting Allison was swapped for a 6L90E six-speed automatic from another donor Kodiak. A 65mm Stage 2 turbocharger, intercooler sourced from eBay, custom EFI programming and electrical harness, and four-inch exhaust round out the rest, as do a pair of Duramax badges.

The result is 896 lb-ft of torque: "getting this Camaro sideways is no problem at all," says Hot Rod. Yeah babe!Even the stock differential hasn't exploded yet from handling the orbit-altering torque. Nathan was pleased. He slapped a "Built Not Bought" plaque underneath the hood. Then, he put another diesel in a Dodge Charger.

Is it a Cummins diesel? You bet your brand loyalty it is a Cummins.

Hot Rod will proudly tell you that the engine swap lifestyle is the best lifestyle. Here's hoping there's a Powerstroke Mustang in Nathan Mueller's future.

From: Hot Rod Magazine

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A suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group and a second blast killed 47 police Sunday in the Yemeni port of Mukalla where a year of Al-Qaeda rule ended last month, medics said.

It was the second attack in days claimed by IS group in the city of 200,000 people that was recaptured by government forces from the rival militants of Al-Qaeda with US backing.

The suicide bomber killed at least 41 police recruits on the southwestern outskirts of the city, the capital of Hadramawt province, medics said after earlier giving a toll of 31 dead.

The bomber detonated an explosives belt after joining a line of men at a police recruiting centre, a provincial official said.

More than 50 people were also wounded in the attack in Fuwah district, a medical source said.

Hadramawt's security chief, General Mubarak al-Oubthani, was at the recruitment centre at the time of the attack but was not hurt.

However, he was the target of a second bombing afterwards as he was preparing to head into central Mukalla, a security official said.

The bomb exploded as Oubthani walked out of his office, killing six of his guards but leaving him with only minor injuries, the official said.

An IS statement posted online claimed the suicide attack, a second rare operation by the militant group in an area known to be a stronghold of its Al-Qaeda rivals.

"Brother Abu al-Bara al-Ansari... detonated his explosives belt at a gathering of the apostates of the security forces," it said.

On Thursday, 15 soldiers were killed in militant attacks outside Mukalla. IS said one of its militants blew up a vehicle packed with explosives in an army base in Khalf district on the city's eastern outskirts.

The attacks included a suicide bombing that targeted the residence of the commander of Hadramawt's second military region, General Faraj Salmeen, but he escaped unharmed, officials said.



On Sunday, troops guarding an army post in Khalf opened fire on a vehicle after they suspected its driver of being a suicide bomber, a security official said, adding the vehicle sped away.

The general boasted on Friday that his forces had captured some 250 Al-Qaeda members since they retook Mukalla and nearby coastal towns, including its commander for the city of Shihr, some 60 kilometres (35 miles) to the east.

Al-Qaeda was driven out of the area last month with the backing of Emirati and Saudi special forces.

The Pentagon revealed last week that a "very small number" of US military personnel had also been deployed around Mukalla in support of the operation.

The US Navy has several ships nearby, including an amphibious assault vessel, USS Boxer, and two destroyers.

The offensive against Al-Qaeda comes amid a truce and peace talks between the government and Iran-backed rebels it has been fighting with support from a Saudi-led coalition since March last year.

Speaking in Kuwait, the UN special envoy to Yemen said he was optimistic despite unresolved "difficult matters".

"Now, we have an opportunity to reach a peaceful settlement... the progress we have made on some points makes us optimistic," Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told a news conference.

"But there remains some difficult matters... the problem is reaching a clear political agreement."

Militants from both Al-Qaeda and IS took advantage of the conflict in the country to expand their presence in Hadramawt and other areas of the south, including second city Aden where the government has its base.

IS group has claimed several attacks on government and coalition targets in Aden in recent months.

Washington regards Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based branch as its most dangerous and has stepped up a longstanding drone war against it in recent weeks.

But the militants retain a strong presence and still control several towns in the interior valley of Wadi Hadramawt.

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By Siva Govindasamy

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Eight Asian low-cost carriers including subsidiaries of Japan's ANA Holdings Inc and Singapore Airlines Ltd (SIA) (SIAL.SI) have formed a landmark alliance allowing travellers to book flights across their platforms for the first time.

In a statement on Monday, the group Value Alliance said passengers will be able to book over 160 destinations via the websites of ANA's Vanilla Air, SIA's Scoot and Tiger Airways, Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd's (VAH.AX) Tiger Airways Australia, Thailand's Nok Airlines PCL (NOK.BK) and NokScoot, Cebu Air Inc's (CEB.PS) Cebu Pacific, and South Korea's Jeju Air Co .

The alliance, which excludes bigger budget carriers like AirAsia Bhd (AIRA.KL), will increase the geographical reach of its members by using the strength of each partner's website in its home market, Campbell Wilson, chief executive officer of the medium-haul airline Scoot, told reporters in Singapore.

"We are doing this for our own strategic reasons," Wilson said, when asked if AirAsia and Jetstar from Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd (QAN.AX) were invited. "The fact that you don't see the others here speaks for itself."

Value Alliance also excludes Indonesia's Lion Air and India's IndiGo.

The goal, instead, is to bring together smaller airlines as an alternative to the AirAsia and Jetstar branded groups across the region, according to people in the industry.

In a single transaction, travellers can select seats, meals and baggage allowances across the websites.

But the cooperation will not be as extensive as full-service partnerships such as Star Alliance, Oneworld and SkyTeam. Those programmes feature extensive codes haring agreements, access to a network of waiting lounges and the ability to redeem points on partner flights.

Deeper partnerships including cooperation across frequent flyer programmes, joint sales and marketing, and coordination on network and prices requires regulatory approval, and are not on the cards, Wilson said.

Story continues

Asian budget carriers are looking to take advantage of a travel boom in the region, placing orders for several hundred aircraft from Airbus Group SE (AIR.PA) and Boeing Co (BA.N).

Boeing's 2015 global market outlook showed Asian low-cost carriers generated average annual growth of 24.5 percent over the previous decade. By comparison, European peers grew 13.4 percent.

The U.S. planemaker also forecast 100 million new passengers entering the Asian market annually for the foreseeable future, creating demand in the next 20 years for 10,370 single-aisle planes such as Boeing's 737 and Airbus' A320.

(Reporting by Siva Govindasamy; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Ryan woo)
(Adds details of alliance, outlook for Asia)

By Siva Govindasamy

SINGAPORE, May 16 (Reuters) - Eight Asian low-cost carriers including subsidiaries of Japan's ANA Holdings Inc and Singapore Airlines Ltd (SIA) have formed a landmark alliance allowing travellers to book flights across their platforms for the first time.

In a statement on Monday, the group Value Alliance said passengers will be able to book over 160 destinations via the websites of ANA's Vanilla Air, SIA's Scoot and Tiger Airways, Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd's Tiger Airways Australia, Thailand's Nok Airlines PCL and NokScoot, Cebu Air Inc's Cebu Pacific, and South Korea's Jeju Air Co.

The alliance, which excludes bigger budget carriers like AirAsia Bhd, will increase the geographical reach of its members by using the strength of each partner's website in its home market, Campbell Wilson, chief executive officer of the medium-haul airline Scoot, told reporters in Singapore.

"We are doing this for our own strategic reasons," Wilson said, when asked if AirAsia and Jetstar from Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd were invited. "The fact that you don't see the others here speaks for itself."

Value Alliance also excludes Indonesia's Lion Air and India's IndiGo.

The goal, instead, is to bring together smaller airlines as an alternative to the AirAsia and Jetstar branded groups across the region, according to people in the industry.

In a single transaction, travellers can select seats, meals and baggage allowances across the websites.

But the cooperation will not be as extensive as full-service partnerships such as Star Alliance, Oneworld and SkyTeam. Those programmes feature extensive codes haring agreements, access to a network of waiting lounges and the ability to redeem points on partner flights.

Deeper partnerships including cooperation across frequent flyer programmes, joint sales and marketing, and coordination on network and prices requires regulatory approval, and are not on the cards, Wilson said.

Story continues

Asian budget carriers are looking to take advantage of a travel boom in the region, placing orders for several hundred aircraft from Airbus Group SE and Boeing Co.

Boeing's 2015 global market outlook showed Asian low-cost carriers generated average annual growth of 24.5 percent over the previous decade. By comparison, European peers grew 13.4 percent.

The U.S. planemaker also forecast 100 million new passengers entering the Asian market annually for the foreseeable future, creating demand in the next 20 years for 10,370 single-aisle planes such as Boeing's 737 and Airbus' A320. (Reporting by Siva Govindasamy; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Ryan woo)
From Town & Country

You know it isn't your typical black tie event at the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue when the House of Xtravaganza (above), an LGBT dance troupe comprised mostly of black and Latino members known for their rhythmic moves and daring outfits, performs.

But originality was the theme at El Museo del Barrio's annual gala to celebrate-and raise money-for New York city's only Latino museum. The cultural landmark in Spanish (or East) Harlem brought together a who's who of the art, fashion, business, and design world.

This year in particular, fashion was at the fore, as the gala drew inspiration from the upcoming exhibition "Future Funk Fashion, "the Museo's first to focus exclusively on the sartorial. It focuses on the work of the late Puerto Rican fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez, whose images appeared in Vogue, Elle, and Harper's Bazaar.

Pat Cleveland, renowned as one of the first black supermodels in the '60s and '70s, was there to pay homage. "I had to represent Antonio Lopez. He is really the person who put me on the map," said Cleveland, looking regal in Zac Posen. (Her memoir, Walking with the Muses, comes out next month.)

Spanish baroness and fashion designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, who has attended the Museo del Barrio gala ten times, wore one of her own designs: a metallic dress with a large red hoop that rested on her shoulders. 'I didn't want to show my arms," said the Madrid-based Ruiz de la Prada, who has a store in Tribeca.

In this crowd, art and fashion are in constant conversation. "Being of Cuban descent has made me curious to seek out the work of Cuban artists, such as Carmen Herrera. Her work is profoundly inspiring to me and I based a collection on some of her graphic shapes," said designer Narciso Rodriguez, one of the gala chairs. Herrera, the 100-year-old artist who showed at El Museo del Barrio in 1998, had a conflict that evening and couldn't attend. She will have a show at the Whitney this fall, making her one of the first female Cuban artists to have a full retrospective at the museum.

"I am also a huge fan of Teresita Fernandez, an equally remarkable young Cuban artist. I have one of her pieces and have visited her installation in Madison Park more times than I could count," said Rodriguez, who has dressed, among others, Michelle Obama. (Of the first lady, Rodriguez said this: "She such a keen eye as well as appreciation for the power of fashion in delivering a message.")

Venezuelan-born art advisor Maria Brito, who has worked with Gwyneth Paltrow and Sean (Puffy) Combs, was there taking over El Museo's Instagram account for the evening, snapping shots of everyone from Kelley Talamas, editor-in-chief of Vogue Mexico, looking chic in a black and white fringe dress, to actress Debi Mazar.

"I'm so inspired by Antonio's work. I'm a big fan of '70s and '80s work, which is why I chose this dress," said Brito, whose kaleidoscope frock was reminiscent of a Lopez drawing. "Tonight I'm one of Antonio's Girls," she posted on the social network.

Christian Juul Nielsen, design director for Oscar de La Renta, who hails from the Dominican Republic, left a fitting early to make it to the gala. Asked what trend he would like to see more of in coming seasons, Juul Nielson replied, "evening sleeves. And more one-shoulder gowns."

Jean Shafiroff, author of the recently published Successful Philanthropy: How to make a Life by What You Give, made a splash wearing a custom red dress with a foot-long train by the Argentine designer Victor de Souza. One attendee called Shafiroff "the best-dressed woman in New York." "What makes a well-dressed woman is creativity," she said when asked about that distinction. But Shafiroff was quick to turn her attention back to the real reason everyone had gathered. "The museum is very important for our city and for our country," she said.
(Adds analyst comment, context, background)

By Nicole Mordant

VANCOUVER, May 16 (Reuters) - Eldorado Gold Corp will exit China after 11 years, selling its stakes in two mines and one development project there to Yintai Resources Co Ltd for $600 million in cash, the Canadian miner said on Monday.

Eldorado, the largest foreign gold producer in China, has been looking for the past two years at ways to increase the market's valuation of its Chinese assets, including listing them in Hong Kong or selling them.

Eldorado said it would sell its 95 percent interest in the White Mountain mine, its 90 percent stake in the Tanjianshan mine and its 75 percent holding in the Eastern Dragon project to Shenzhen-listed Yintai, a nonferrous metals mining company that controls the Huaaobaote polymetallic mine in Inner Mongolia.

The deal came less than three weeks after Eldorado agreed to sell another Chinese asset, its Jinfeng mine, to China National Gold Group for $300 million.

Shares of Eldorado rose as much as 5 percent to C$6.65 on the Toronto Stock Exchange after the transaction was announced. They were last off their highs at C$6.44, up 11 Canadian cents.

The $600 million sale price represented "good value" for Eldorado as it was at a premium to his value for the assets of $375 million, Mackie Research analyst Barry Allan said in a note.

Eldorado, which has gold mines and projects in Turkey, Greece, Romania and Brazil, said it planned to use the proceeds from the sale to Yintai to expand its business "based on long-lived, low-cost assets."

Eldorado entered China in 2005 with the purchase of Afcan Mining, giving the company the Tanjianshan mine in northern China that began production in November 2006. In 2009 it bought Sino Gold, giving it the Jinfeng and White Mountain mines.

The transaction is expected to close in the third or fourth quarter.

BMO Capital Markets and Cutfield Freeman & Co are financial advisors to Vancouver-based Eldorado on the transaction.

(Reporting by Nicole Mordant in Vancouver; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Meredith Mazzilli)
chance-elton-chueng-tedy-jackson-coloring-book

By Alex Siber

Of all the players that make music tick, engineers are among the least celebrated. Our favorite songs simply wouldnt sound so good without them. Mixing/mastering engineer Elton L10 Chueng has worked with Chance the Rapper for years, handling much of 2013s Acid Rap before working on several songs on the recently released Coloring Book. Given the nature of his role, Chueng intimately witnesses how records really come to fruition.

The Chicagoan first crossed paths with Chance around the time of 10 Day in 2012 as an intern at Classick Studios, a staple destination in the Windy City thats seen the likes of Mick Jenkins, Saba, Vic Mensa, Tyler, the Creator, and many more walk through its doors. His journey most recently brought him to the historic Chicago Recording Company (CRC), where a team of collaborators logged thousands of hours alongside Chance to realize his ultimate vision.

Behind every great album or mixtape is a great engineer (or, in this case, several). L10 took the time to speak with us about working 23 hour days to finish Coloring Book, his reaction on hearing Futures guest feature, and the most important thing Chance ever told him.

Related: The Story Behind Chance The Rappers Mixtape Covers

What songs did you work on for Coloring Book?

Ahh, I wish I had more but I only ended up with Smoke Break, and Finish Line/Drown. I actually have mixes of half of Coloring Book that didnt end up on the final because a few of the songs were arranged differently from Chances vision, other ones got cut, and the rest he never got the time to listen to because there was so much going on. Jeff Lane was the head engineer of this project so the majority of the time Chance was working with him to get a lot of the recording/mixes done.

Do you have a memory of working on Coloring Book that stands out?

Bro, when they told me Future was going to be the feature for Smoke Break I was like, This man Chance, cannot be stopped. I hounded Pat [Chances Manager] several times to see when that verse was coming in. When it did and I heard it instantly I had to run it back. I really connected with the song and think its really well written.

Story continues

In what ways did you see Chance grow as an artist during the making of this project?

Let me start off by saying that this man Chance brought in the Chicago Childrens Choir, another choir, and an orchestra to record on this album. Compared to Acid Rapwhat?! Thats crazy.

Aside from being a great artist, hes a great producer and I feel like hes dabbling in that realm similar to how Ye, Quincy Jones or even Puff executive produces.

Whats the oldest song on the project? How much time went into recording Coloring Book? Did Chance begin after Surf or was he juggling other things?

I believe Drown is the oldest song on Coloring Book, it was initially created by Cam Obi & Donnie Trumpet right after Acid Rap for Surf. From what I hear the song took many twists and turns before landing on Coloring Book. Those Pro Tools sessions were insane but we made it work. The entire recording process was an ongoing thing leading all the way up to the last few days before turning it in for master.

In what ways did you see yourself growing as an engineer?

I learned a couple of cool things to add to my workflow. However the most important thing was simply learning how to be honest and point out dope and wack shit! Its a very important skill because its about the art. When you put that first, you win. You never want yes men on your team, thats how you fail.

You never want yes men on your team, thats how you fail.

What guest features were you in the studio for?

Jeremih came through a few times, dude is insanely talented and very underrated. Yall need to put some respek to that mans name, for real.

Speaking of names, Noname! She slid through with the bars on Drown, but by the time we were finalizing that record, I think Chance was getting sick. However, when he heard Nonames verse for the first time his eyes LIT UP and we ran it back like ten times.

He wanted to make some minor changes so we instantly went upstairs to another studio room to get that done. Chance was in his Quincy Jones mode and directed a lot of the background vocals with Peter CottonTale. That session was definitely a highlight because of the great energy in the studio.

How would you compare the creation of Acid Rap to that of Coloring Book?

I dont know how public this was made but we had a studio lock-in for this album, and that shit was crazy. I personally logged over 225 hours in a little over two weeks. It was an intense experience, but we made it fun. CRC [Studios] has some stupid-strong coffee, I swear they sprinkle Adderall in that shit. I ran a 23 hour day without noticing because theres no windows in the room I was working in, so shoutout to that coffee.

Acid Rap was pretty chill in comparison, it felt like a jam session between close friends throughout the entire process which was raw as hell.

chance-l10-coloring-book-studio

Working in CRC Studios/Image via Elton Chueng

What is the story behind the title Coloring Book?

Well damnThis is awkward, no one ever explained to me the significance of the album title! GET CHANCE ON THE PHONE!

Whats the most important thing Chance ever told you?

During one of our sessions for Acid Rap he came through and we were hungry as hell. We ordered a couple of pizzas from Lou Malnatis and he tried to write but wasnt feeling it. We basically spent the entire session eating pizza while chopping it up about where he was at with his career and how he got to such a pivotal point.

He told me it was because he gave himself no choice but to go out and make it happen, from passing out mixtapes to random people to playing shows when nobody was fucking with him. I took what he told me and applied it to my career as an engineer, and now were here three years later with a No. 1 album/mixtape on iTunes over Drake, and over Kanye.

[Chance] gave himself no choice but to go out and make it happen, from passing out mixtapes to random people to playing shows when nobody was fucking with him.

How would you describe your relationship and workflow with Cam OBi?

Cam is my musical soul brother! Honestly, hes one of the most genuine people Ive ever met. Ever since working on Acid Rap together, we just clicked. I understand what he looks for in a mix because I understand where hes coming from as a producer and thats hella important. Its very similar to how I work with Monte Booker, they let me do me on the mix because they trust that I understand the vision.

They just listen to it in the end and we fine tune from there. Im really looking forward to working on Cams project in the near future, that shit is gonna be fuego! If you was rockin with Grown Ass Kid, youll be in for a treat on Cams album.

When did your journey as an engineer begin? Whats your backstory?

This is a crazy long story so Ill try to summarize as much as possible.

I couldnt stand school, and wasnt physically or mentally able to apply myself to shit I wasnt interested in. Music was the only thing I was passionate about so I dropped out of college after not being able to decide on a major and interned at Classick Studios. I had been friends with Chris Classick and Stefan Ponce for a little while prior to that.

Somehow I lucked up and started to work with Chance as an intern there cuz Stefan brought him through the Classick Studios crib for some overnight sessions. This was right after 10 Day dropped. I think one of the first sessions I worked on with Chano landed on Childish Gambinos Royalty mixtape for They Dont Like Me. That shit was raw and the rest is history. I appreciate Classick and Stefan for all the little things theyve done for me, because Ive been able to turn those things around to make a much bigger impact. Im just super grateful to turn absolutely nothing into a career.

When youre mixing a song, what are you most comfortable with? What are you actively trying to learn next?

Vocals, vocals, vocals! Got to make them sound natural, never harsh. I want to explore the analog world a lot more, its a never ending learning process in the world of audio. Im constantly researching to find new things to incorporate in my workflow. I wanna be the very best, that no one ever was. Shoutout Ash Ketchum.

What have you learned working with an artist like Chance that you can apply to someone like Smino?

You snapped with this question! They are two very different artists and my relationship between them are really different.

Smino is like my brother and we work together all the time. Im like the MixedByAli to his Kendrick Lamar. This album is the first Ive worked with Chance since Acid Rap, so my answer to this question is actually reverse. Ive actually learned a lot from Smino to apply to a Chance album. And thats not to take anything away from Chano.

Ideally I would want to craft his sound as much as I craft Sminos sound and I believe there will be a time and place for that but ultimately that will be up to him. I hear what hes doing and I feel like I know exactly what to do to take it to the next level if given the opportunity. Im way better than I was during Acid Rap, and I let that show a little for two songs on Coloring Book. It will definitely show for Sminos upcoming project. It would be crazy to get them in the studio again to work on another song but I digress

Shoutout Chance and the gang, Pat the Manager for calling me in to help on the project, Cam Obi, Chris Classick for the words of encouragement and the fans for listening! All of you are amazing.

The 'C3'/'Coloring Book' masters / Image via Elton Chueng

The masters / Image via Elton Chueng

The post Engineer Elton Chueng Talks Working On Chance The Rappers Acid Rap and Coloring Book appeared first on Pigeons & Planes.

More from Pigeons & Planes
(Adds background)

May 15 (Reuters) - Energy Transfer Equity LP on Sunday accused its buyout target Williams Companies Inc of filing a third lawsuit against it in an attempt to gain leverage in any future deal talks between the two pipeline companies.

Williams filed its latest lawsuit in a Delaware court on Friday to prevent ETE, which has said the economics of its takeover of Williams have been altered by the fall in oil prices, from terminating that deal..

"...We believe Williams' latest lawsuit is an attempt to gain undue leverage in and undermine future discussions regarding the pending merger and will only result in further delay," ETE Chief Executive Kelcy Warren said in a statement on Sunday.

Williams on Sunday declined to comment. The company has alleged that ETE is looking into ways to walk away from the tie-up even though the terms of the deal would not allow that before June 28.

Dallas-based ETE said it is asking the Williams board to reconsider whether it still recommends its shareholders approve the deal given material changes since they reached agreement on Sept. 28 for ETE to acquire Williams in a transaction originally valued at nearly $33 billion.

ETE said last month that its lawyers may not be able to deliver an important tax opinion for its takeover of Williams, throwing the agreed acquisition into doubt.

The company said that before the suit was filed, it was making progress towards clearing all comments by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and finalizing a prospectus for Williams' shareholders.

ETE also said that Williams has prevented it from reaching out to its board and did not respond to its requests before filing the lawsuit.

ETE slashed its expectations from the Williams deal in March saying that cost savings could be all but wiped out by low oil prices and higher capital costs.

ETE had said, in a SEC filing, that it expects the base case for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization from commercial synergies from the deal to be about $170 million a year by 2020, compared with previous forecasts of more than $2 billion.

Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Williams had also filed a suit earlier against ETE in Delaware to stop a controversial offering of preferred shares to its top shareholders. It has also sued Warren in Texas over the same offering.

(Reporting by Parikshit Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
A Look Behind MLPs' 0.5% Rise Last Week

(Continued from Prior Part)

Ethane prices

Mont Belvieu ethane prices rose 2.6% to $0.19 per gallon in the week ending May 13, 2016. Ethane prices fell 8.4% to $0.189 per gallon in the previous week. Ethane prices have fallen significantly over the years.

Low ethane prices and higher costs for storing and transporting ethane have resulted in ethane rejection. This means that producers leave ethane in the natural gas stream. Extracting ethane isnt always economical when prices are low. The costs of storing and transporting ethane are higher than the related costs for hydrocarbon gas liquids products. Read What is ethane rejection and why is it important for energy MLPs? to learn more about ethane rejection.

The above graph shows weekly ethane prices over the past six weeks. Enable Midstream Partners (ENBL), Tallgrass Energy Partners (TEP), and Summit Midstream Partners (SMLP) are a few of the MLPs engaged in natural gas gathering and processing.

Key developments

Recent developments in the ethane market are expected to have a positive impact on the MLPs involved in ethane projects. These MLPs include Sunoco Logistics Partners (SXL), Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), DCP Midstream Partners (DPM), and Enterprise Products Partners (EPD). Enterprise Products Partners forms 0.50% of the Multi-Asset Diversified Income ETF (MDIV).

One of these recent developments is higher ethane use by petrochemical companies. Lower ethane prices have resulted in petrochemical companies using ethane more as a feedstock in place of naphtha.

According to Wouter van Kempen, DPMs CEO, There are billions of dollars of investments in petchem facilities that are expected to come online in 2017 and 2018, and those crackers crack only one thing. That is ethane.

He continued, These expansions, along with [BDH] facilities and exports, are anticipated to need ethane in excess of what is currently being rejected by the industry. And to give you some perspective, over 650,000 barrels per day of ethane are currently being rejected.

Story continues

Ethane infrastructure

Ethane-related infrastructure, including plants to convert ethane to ethylene, has been developing in the United States. This development supports the rising demand for petrochemical companies. This is positive for ethane demand. Eventually, it will be positive for prices.

Some companies are investing in export terminals for ethane. There are attractive export markets for ethane in Canada, Asia, and Europe.

Continue to Next Part

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The Turkish military killed 16 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters in an operation backed by air power near the Iranian border and another six militants elsewhere in southeast Turkey, the armed forces said on Monday.

The air force-backed operation was carried out in Yuksekova while the other six fighters were killed in fighting near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, the military said in a statement. All the clashes occurred on Sunday, it said.

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* FTSEurofirst 300 down 0.7 percent

* H&M drops as sales disappoint

* All sectors lower except miners, oil

* Telecom Italia, Lonmin as cost plans please (ADVISORY- Reuters plans to replace intra-day European and UK stock market reports with a Live Markets blog on Eikon (see cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets for site in development). Adds details, updates prices)

By Danilo Masoni

MILAN, May 16 (Reuters) - European shares were lower on Monday with Hennes & Mauritz among the main losers after disappointing sales growth figures, while Telecom Italia shone after lifting its cost cutting goal.

By 0746 GMT, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was down 0.66 percent. Volumes were likely to remain with the German market closed for a public holiday.

The FTSEurofirst is down by around 9 percent so far in 2016, with global stock markets affected by concerns about weakness in China, the world's second-biggest economy.

Doubts about whether China's economy is stabilising resurfaced over the weekend when data showed investment, factory output and retail sales in the country all grew more slowly than expected in April.

JCI Capital portfolio manager Alessandro Balsotti said in a note the renewed concerns over the Chinese economy could affect markets this week amid the absence of any other key macroeconomic data to focus on.

Hennes & Mauritz fell 1.5 percent, making it one of the top losers on the FTSEurofirst, after the Swedish budget fashion retailer reported a 5 percent increase in April sales, below the 9 percent expected by analysts polled by Reuters.

Prudential Plc also fell 1.3 percent, after Morgan Stanley cut its price target on the stock, although the investment bank kept an "overweight" rating on Prudential.

Telecom Italia rose 3.7 percent. Italy's biggest telecoms group more than doubled the cost cutting target in its new business plan after reporting a larger-than-expected 16 percent drop in first-quarter core profit, hit by one-offs and persistent weakness in its key Brazilian market.

Story continues

"The positive surprise on cost savings would justify a double-digit share price performance," said Banca Akros analyst Andrea De Vita.

Basic resources stocks and oils stocks were the only two sectoral gainers with a rise of 1.4 percent and 0.2 percent respectively.

South Africa-focused platinum producer Lonmin soared 14 percent. Its first-half core profit was $36 million, up from a loss of $6 million the same time a year ago following cost savings, which were well ahead of schedule.

Today's European research round-up

ADVISORY- Reuters plans to replace intra-day European and UK stock market reports with a Live Markets blog on Eikon (see cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets for site in development). In a real-time, multimedia format from 0600 London time through the 1630 closing bell, it will include the best of our market reporting, Stocks Buzz service, Eikon graphics, Reuters pictures, eye-catching research and market zeitgeist. Breaking news and dramatic market moves will continue to be alerted to all clients and we will continue to provide a short opening story and comprehensive closing reports.

If you have any thoughts, suggestions or feedback on this, please email mike.dolan@thomsonreuters.com.

Mike Dolan, Markets Editor EMEA.

(Reporting by Danilo Masoni; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Tom Heneghan)
* Eutelsat and Drax slump after broker downgrades

* But cost cutting plans lift Telecom Italia shares

* Morgan Stanley raises "defensive" stocks to overweight (ADVISORY- Reuters plans to replace intra-day European and UK stock market reports with a Live Markets blog on Eikon (see cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets for site in development). Adds details, updates prices)

By Danilo Masoni

MILAN, May 16 (Reuters) - European shares fell on Monday with satellite operator Eutelsat and power station company Drax slumping after broker downgrades.

Leading investment bank Morgan Stanley also advised investors to stick with "defensive" stocks, namely those with solid dividends and cashflow, given signs that the market environment would remain difficult for this year.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was down 0.4 percent. Volumes were thin with the German and Swiss markets closed for a public holiday.

Eutelsat, which plunged 27.6 percent on May 13 after the company cut its outlook, dropped a further 7 percent on Monday after Morgan Stanley cut its rating on the stock to "underweight" from "equal weight".

Drax also fell sharply after Bernstein issued a similar downgrade on the stock.

The FTSEurofirst is down by around 9 percent so far in 2016, with global stock markets affected by concerns about weakness in China, the world's second-biggest economy.

Doubts about whether China's economy is stabilising resurfaced over the weekend when data showed investment, factory output and retail sales in the country all grew more slowly than expected in April.

Morgan Stanley said in a note that the uncertain outlook meant it was a good time to favour defensive stocks.

"Although we have been cautious on European equities for the last six months, we have not been positive on 'Defensives' as we found them both overbought and expensive," said Morgan Stanley's strategists.

"Although the latter issue has not improved materially, the group's underperformance creates a more attractive entry point, we believe, in the face of a tricky market environment this year," they added.

Story continues

JCI Capital portfolio manager Alessandro Balsotti also said the renewed concerns over China could affect markets this week.

In spite of the weaker market backdrop, Telecom Italia rose 3.5 percent, as investors welcomed a move by Italy's biggest telecoms group to more than double the cost cutting target in its new business plan.

"The positive surprise on cost savings would justify a double-digit share price performance," said Banca Akros analyst Andrea De Vita.

Today's European research round-up

ADVISORY- Reuters plans to replace intra-day European and UK stock market reports with a Live Markets blog on Eikon (see cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets for site in development). In a real-time, multimedia format from 0600 London time through the 1630 closing bell, it will include the best of our market reporting, Stocks Buzz service, Eikon graphics, Reuters pictures, eye-catching research and market zeitgeist. Breaking news and dramatic market moves will continue to be alerted to all clients and we will continue to provide a short opening story and comprehensive closing reports.

If you have any thoughts, suggestions or feedback on this, please email mike.dolan@thomsonreuters.com.

Mike Dolan, Markets Editor EMEA.

(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Toby Chopra)
By Mike Stone

(Reuters) - U.S. property and casualty insurance company Hanover Insurance Group Inc (THG.N) has hired former health insurer Aetna Inc (AET.N) chief financial officer Joseph Zubretsky as its new chief executive officer, people familiar with the matter said.

Zubretsky's appointment comes as the Worcester, Massachusetts-based company has been raising prices to maintain its profitability in the face of lower investment returns in its portfolio and a rise in claims in certain sectors.

Hanover Insurance could announce Zubretsky's new role as early as Monday, the people said on Sunday, asking not to be identified because the matter is still not public. Hanover Insurance offered no immediate comment.

With a market capitalisation of $3.7 billion (2.6 billion pounds), Hanover Insurance offers insurance protection for homes, automobiles, and other personal items to consumers and businesses. Hanover Insurance also underwrites business at Lloyd's of London in the marine, casualty and energy sectors.

Hanover Insurance's previous CEO, Fred Eppinger, announced in September he would step down to pursue other interests once a successor had been named. In October, Hanover Insurance CFO David Greenfield passed away suddenly.

Executive headhunting firm Heidrick & Struggles International Inc (HSII.O) was brought in November to help with the new CEO search.

Having taken over as CEO in 2003, Eppinger transformed Hanover Insurance from a regional life insurer to one of the largest, and much more diversified, U.S. casualty and property insurance companies. Zubretsky now faces the challenge of once again reinventing the company in a much more competitive landscape.

Zubretsky, 59, left Aetna last year after nine years with the company in several senior roles, including CFO and leader of Healthagen, a division that combined the health management and information technology companies that Aetna had acquired in recent years.

Hanover Insurance's board was looking for a CEO who can grow the company further through acquisitions, according to one of the sources. Several of Hanover Insurance's larger peers have agreed to merge recently.

Story continues

Swiss insurance giant ACE Ltd (ACE.N) acquired U.S. property insurer Chubb Corp in January for 29.5 billion, while Tokio Marine Holdings Inc , Japan's biggest insurer by market value, bought HCC Insurance Holdings last year for $7.5 billion.

Prior to joining Aetna, Zubretsky was the CFO of Unum Group (UNM.N), a Chattanooga, Tennessee-based insurer that provides disability, life, accident and critical illness coverage.

(Reporting by Mike Stone in New York; Editing by Chris Reese & Shri Navaratnam)
By Mike Stone (Reuters) - U.S. property and casualty insurance company Hanover Insurance Group Inc has hired former health insurer Aetna Inc chief financial officer Joseph Zubretsky as its new chief executive officer, people familiar with the matter said. Zubretsky's appointment comes as the Worcester, Massachusetts-based company has been raising prices to maintain its profitability in the face of lower investment returns in its portfolio and a rise in claims in certain sectors. Hanover Insurance could announce Zubretsky's new role as early as Monday, the people said on Sunday, asking not to be identified because the matter is still not public. Hanover Insurance offered no immediate comment. With a market capitalization of $3.7 billion, Hanover Insurance offers insurance protection for homes, automobiles, and other personal items to consumers and businesses. Hanover Insurance also underwrites business at Lloyd's of London in the marine, casualty and energy sectors. Hanover Insurance's previous CEO, Fred Eppinger, announced in September he would step down to pursue other interests once a successor had been named. In October, Hanover Insurance CFO David Greenfield passed away suddenly. Executive headhunting firm Heidrick & Struggles International Inc was brought in November to help with the new CEO search. Having taken over as CEO in 2003, Eppinger transformed Hanover Insurance from a regional life insurer to one of the largest, and much more diversified, U.S. casualty and property insurance companies. Zubretsky now faces the challenge of once again reinventing the company in a much more competitive landscape. Zubretsky, 59, left Aetna last year after nine years with the company in several senior roles, including CFO and leader of Healthagen, a division that combined the health management and information technology companies that Aetna had acquired in recent years. Hanover Insurance's board was looking for a CEO who can grow the company further through acquisitions, according to one of the sources. Several of Hanover Insurance's larger peers have agreed to merge recently. Swiss insurance giant ACE Ltd acquired U.S. property insurer Chubb Corp in January for 29.5 billion, while Tokio Marine Holdings Inc <8766.T>, Japan's biggest insurer by market value, bought HCC Insurance Holdings last year for $7.5 billion. Prior to joining Aetna, Zubretsky was the CFO of Unum Group , a Chattanooga, Tennessee-based insurer that provides disability, life, accident and critical illness coverage. (Reporting by Mike Stone in New York; Editing by Chris Reese & Shri Navaratnam)
By Norihiko Shirouzu

BEIJING (Reuters) - After poaching Bentley's design chief last year, Hyundai Motor Co said on Monday that it has also secured the services of the luxury marque's exterior designer.

Hyundai issued a statement saying Sangyup Lee will start work next month as its head of design, after Reuters reported the hiring of the Korean designer by the South Korean auto giant.

Lee is being brought in to work with Luc Donckerwolke, a Peruvian-born Belgian, to lead Hyundai's development of its Genesis premium car brand - a project driven by Chung Euisun, heir-apparent to the Hyundai Group.

"Lee will help...enhance the design competitiveness of both the Hyundai and Genesis brands with his abundant experience in designing high-end luxury vehicles," Hyundai said in its statement.

"His challenging and innovative design languages fit well with the DNA of Hyundai Motor."

Hyundai Motor, which sells some 8 million cars a year, sees limited growth unless it breaks into new markets, a person close to the automaker told Reuters. For the South Korean firm, that means premium cars and maybe pick-up trucks and parts of Southeast Asia.

Lee said he has joined Hyundai Motor as a vice president in charge of Hyundai and Genesis design, reporting to Donckerwolke, who will head up Hyundai's new Prestige Design Division, as well as being global head of Hyundai design - a reporting arrangement that Hyundai also confirmed on Monday.

Bentley spokesman Andrew Roberts confirmed Lee "has resigned from Bentley to take a position at another brand."

Lee, 46, ran Bentley's exterior design since 2012 having previously worked at Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) group's design centre in California, and General Motors (GM.N). He played a lead role in designing the Chevrolet Corvette, Stingray and Camaro - which featured in the "Transformers" movies - and Bentley's Bentayga SUV.

"CLEAN SHEET"

Lee told Reuters the ex-Bentley design duo aim to make Genesis a recognised global premium brand as new disruptive technologies such as autonomous, connected cars and alternative propulsion systems alter the auto design landscape.

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"Because of these technologies, the car industry is about to hit a crossroads. The future is truly open," he said. "It's difficult to say if all the prestigious brands today will still be around in 10-20 years."

Lee, who says he was first approached by Hyundai two years ago, said he and Donckerwolke plan to design Genesis cars from a "clean sheet of paper".

"For decades, luxury brands such as Bentley, Aston Martin and Maserati have been about possession," he said. "In the future, as disruptive technologies kick in, luxury is going to be about experience. People are going to look for a special experience rather than something special to own."

GLOBAL LEGACY

As "mobility on demand" - the once futuristic concept of calling up a robot-car by smartphone - takes hold, Hyundai predicts many households in the United States, its biggest market, will no longer own two, or three cars, but spend more on one car, said the person close to the company.

"That means upscale cars," he said, adding "profitability-wise, the luxury segment is much better, too."

That fits with Chung's aspiration to not just drive the Genesis brand but elevate the Hyundai name to an elite global corporate league alongside the likes of BMW (BMWG.DE), Boeing (BA.N) and Apple (AAPL.O).

"That's his legacy. ES (Euisun) wants to make Hyundai a truly globally recognised and respected company," the person said.

Chung was involved with hiring both Donckerwolke and Lee, as well as Manfred Fitzgerald, former brand and design director at Lamborghini who was named earlier this year as head of Genesis, said another person with knowledge of the matter.

(Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu; Editing by Ian Geoghegan and Ryan Woo)
Kyle Richards dished to ET about her current relationship with Real Housewives of Beverly Hills co-star Yolanda Foster after Foster's Lyme disease diagnosis came into question during the show's sixth season.

Foster was clearly hurt by her co-stars' skepticism concerning her 2012 diagnosis, after some of the women suspected she was making her illness appear worse than it was. Despite the controversy, Richards told ET's Katie Krause that her relationship with Foster seems to have survived unscathed.

WATCH: Kyle Richards Says 'RHOBH' Co-Stars Are Questioning 'Exactly How Sick' Yolanda Foster Is

"We're fine," Richards said. "We didn't have any major problems...we're OK."

In fact, Richards shared that she's on good terms with all of the housewives now, but revealed that during filming, it was Lisa Rinna who hurt her feelings the most. Tensions reached a new high when Rinna lashed out at Richards' sister, Kim, this past season, tossing water on the former child star after Kim threatened to reveal a secret about Rinna's husband, Harry Hamlin.

"I told [Rinna], 'You're making it difficult for me to maintain a friendship with you by doing that,' but she did feel bad and apologized, so we kind of moved on from that," Richards recalled. "And I'm one to move on and let go of things, so I'm fine."

WATCH: What Fueled Lisa Rinna's 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' Blow-Up?

As for whether Richards will return for another season, she told us no deals have been finalized.

"I don't know yet!" she said. "Nothing's confirmed yet."

Kyle and her daughter, Portia Umansky, attended KIIS FM's Wango Tango concert and ET caught up with the adorable mother-daughter duo at the event on Saturday.

"Do I get the cool mom card?" Richards asked.

"If you want it," Umansky replied.

PICS: Nicky Hilton Rothschild Has Luxurious Baby Shower at Hotel Bel-Air

When ET spoke to Richards, she was fresh off niece Nicky Hilton Rothschild's baby shower. The celebration at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles on Friday confirmed that the 32-year-old socialite and her husband are having a girl!

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"It was beautiful. It was really exciting," Richards gushed. "Two of my nieces are having babies -- Nicky and Brooke, Kim's daughter and Kathy's daughter. It's just an exciting time. Our family is growing and to see all my nieces and my daughters there all together was just a beautiful day."

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Ryan Seacrest has yet another high-profile gig on his hands.

ET caught up with the busy 41-year-old television personality at 102.7 KIIS FM's Wango Tango in Carson, California, on Saturday, where he revealed that he'll be one of Kelly Ripa's guest co-hosts on Live! next month.

"I'm sitting there for one day in June and can't wait to do that," Seacrest exclusively told ET's Katie Krause. "She's asked me to come on for a day right at the beginning of June, and so I'm looking forward to hugging her and seeing her."

WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Seacrest Reflects on His Moving University of Georgia Commencement Speech: 'I Was Scared to Death!'

"I've known Kelly forever," he added. "She's phenomenal, so to get a chance to sit by her for a day is a blessing."

Although, the experienced host doesn't think there's a chance for the stint to become permanent, given his already full plate.

"I think that would be impossible since I have to work here every day," he said, referring to his daily radio show, On Air With Ryan Seacrest. "That decision isn't mine to make. I think I have to get up here every day and go on the air!"

Other upcoming Live! guest co-hosts include Empire's Jussie Smollett on Tuesday, comedian Cedric the Entertainer on Wednesday, ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir on Thursday, and Hawaii Five-O actor Daniel Dae Kim on Friday. On Monday, Jimmy Kimmel got the honor of being the first guest co-host since Michael Strahan's drama-filled exit, and he wasted no time grilling Ripa about his very last Live! episode this past Friday.

"Everything on Friday's show was hugging and kissing. Was that genuine hugging and kissing?" Kimmel bluntly asked.

"Yes, we don't fake hug and kiss," Ripa, 45, assured Kimmel. "It wasn't air kissing."

WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan Found 'Peace' Before His Controversial 'Live!' Exit

Watch below:

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College dropout no more!

Ryan Seacrest was awarded an honorary doctorate degree and gave a rousing commencement speech at The University of Georgia on Friday. The speech was a mix of sincerity and self-deprecation, with advice from the successful television and radio host and producer. And, because it is 2016, there was a selfie stick involved!

WATCH: 17 Most Incredible Lessons From Matthew McConaughey's Bonkers Commencement Speech

ET's Katie Krause caught up with Seacrest on Saturday at 102.7 KIIS FM's Wango Tango 2016 to reflect on the special moment.

"I was scared to death because I wanted to get it right for the students who have worked for years to be there," Seacrest told ET. "I was up all night trying to figure out what to say to them. We finally came up with something I put on paper and hopefully they appreciated it. It was an honor to do that. I never did that before. Fifty thousand people in the stadium and I was really happy to be there."

As for calling the former American Idol host "Dr. Seacrest," the title is not required.

"I don't think anybody would," he said. "I think people would throw stuff at me if I called myself that, but technically, [it's accurate]."

WATCH: All the Clues 'American Idol' Might Be Coming Back: Ryan Seacrest's Non-Goodbye, Simon Fuller's 'Next Generation' Comments & More!

Before graduation, Seacrest spent hours on campus meeting students and even worked out with a few in the gym.

"It was amazing being face to face with someone who my family welcomed into our home for years. Having him as my graduation speaker was like life coming full circle. His speech was amazing and everyone around me really enjoyed it, " UGA Class of 2016 graduate Teman Worku told ET, "This was the best graduation I could have ever dreamed of!

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NEWS: Robert De Niro Gives Blunt Commencement Speech: 'You're F***ed'

University of Georgia alum Meredith Dean also witnessed Seacrest's generosity during a private lunch with students from the Grady College of Journalism students, the school Seacrest attended during his time at the university.

"Ryan Seacrest was everything I thought he would be and more. It's a pretty amazing thing that a man who has so much success gives back so full-heartedly to his alma mater," Dean told ET. "This man had done so much research on every single student that they were absolutely floored with his thought-provoking and insightful questions for each of them. This is a man who is truly inspiring and will not be forgotten by any of the graduates of the University of Georgia from the Class of 2016."

WATCH: Judge Judy Gives Powerful Advice in Tear-Jerking Commencement Speech

Seacrest attended the university 24 years ago for just a year, before dropping out to pursue his broadcasting career in Hollywood. During his speech, Seacrest reflected on his decision to leave school and the naysayers who weren't so sure he'd make it.

"I was never more sure of anything in my life. When you try something new, when you take a risk, or chance your course, there will be naysayers and well-meaning skeptics. But thank them for their advice. But whatever you do, don't let them silence you or your intuition," he declared. "And just like me, know that trusting your gut is the best decision that you could make. Decades from now, to your own amazement, because you trusted your gut, you might end up asking the most famous person in the world, 'Who are you wearing?'"

Last year, ET took a look back at 2015's most memorable commencement speeches. See the celebs' best advice here.

WATCH: 13 Best Pieces of Advice From 2015 Celebrity Commencement Speeches

Related Articles
Taylor Kinney has one simple request for his wedding to Lady Gaga.

"Just food. Just good food," the Chicago Fire actor told ET's Leanne Aguilera

on Monday at the NBC Universal Upfronts in New York City.

Kinney, 34, then specifically noted that the "good food" he was referring to was pizza.

WATCH: Lady Gaga Celebrates Her 30th Birthday With Taylor Swift, Kate Hudson and Celeb Pals

What's more, Kinney quipped that -- in addition to the cheesy treat -- all he really needs on the couple's big day is the blushing bride and his family.

"Mum is the word," he added, opting to stay quiet on any more of the wedding plans. "I'm pretty quiet and easy. So, I really... I'm not picky."

Kinney popped the question to Gaga with a stunning heart-shaped engagement ring on Valentine's Day in 2015.

He admitted later in the year to ET that the duo is not in any rush to walk down the aisle.

WATCH: Taylor Kinney on Wedding Planning With Lady Gaga: 'We're Going to Take Our Time'

"Were going to take our time and do it right," he said at the premiere of his film, Rock the Kasbah.

"I told her I don't mind doing the little white chapel thing," Kinney shared. "She wants what she wants. I want to make sure that it's right what she wants."For more from the groom-to-be, watch below:



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NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP party should win power this week in the northeastern state of Assam for the first time, exit polls showed on Monday, but trail regional groups in four other areas that have held polls. Voting in stages over the past month ended on Monday in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala states and the union territory of Puducherry. Results are due on Thursday. A victory in Assam, a tinderbox of ethnic and religious animosities, would testify to the continuing appeal of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while defeat elsewhere would reflect Modi's difficulties in making inroads against popular regional parties. An exit poll by India Today-Axis My India predicted victory for the BJP in Assam, which borders Bhutan and Bangladesh. "Our historic victory in Assam will open new frontiers for the BJP in the northeast," BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav said. Modi waged a polarizing election campaign in a bid to form the party's first government there. In campaign rallies, he vowed to disenfranchise millions of Muslim immigrants in a response to rising discontent among the state's Hindus. The results should be a snapshot of Modi's performance as he approaches the half-way mark of his five-year tenure. Modi, 65, swept to power in 2014 with a promise of jobs and growth, playing down his roots in the powerful Hindu-nationalist umbrella group to which his party is affiliated. A separate poll by ABP Ananda showed the party will be defeated in the eastern state of West Bengal and two southern states, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Victory in these states could have given Modi greater control over the upper house of parliament, which would put him in better position to push through key policies. A majority of his key economic reforms are stalled, his push to turn the country into a manufacturing powerhouse has floundered and sizeable minority groups blame him and his party for pushing a Hindu nationalist agenda at their expense. Yet his government has made progress elsewhere, most notably in the power sector where change is reaching distressed rural communities in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state. Modi must win in the Uttar Pradesh state poll next year to sustain his hope of one day gaining full control of parliament and a second term in 2019. Opinion and exit polls have a patchy track record in India and surveys get carried out with sample sizes ranging from a few hundred to several thousand voters. (Reporting by Rupam Jain; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Dubai airport has become a transit point for smugglers bringing high-value narcotics into Europe, the Italian police said on Monday.

Two smugglers have been arrested in recent days at Rome's Fiumicino airport after arriving via Dubai, they said.

One was an 19-year-old Slovak with two kilos (4.4 pounds) of cocaine stashed in a false bottom of his suitcase who had departed from Rio de Janeiro, while the other was a Nigerian who hid vials of cocaine in his socks.

The street value of the two seizures was put at around half a million dollars (441,000 euros).

The smugglers do not leave Dubai's transit lounge, as this would expose them to customs checks, the police said in a press release.

Instead, they use the Dubai-Europe leg and the tough anti-drug reputation of the United Arab Emirates to mask the country where they began their trip.

"The trick aims at providing the smuggler with an itinerary that looks unsuspicious to police officers," they said.

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Short link:


Sydney (AFP) - Australia's Olympians will be issued with free super-strength condoms in Rio to minimise any infection from the Zika virus, officials said Monday.

Brazil has been the epicentre of the outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease, which is blamed for birth defects in babies born to women infected with the virus.

While condoms will be available in dispensing machines in the Olympic village, Australia is taking no chances, providing extra protection by supplying their own extra-strong variety "for peace of mind".

They have teamed up with manufacturer Starpharma, which says its condoms contain a lubricant that protects against sexually-transmitted diseases and has "near-complete anti-viral protection against Zika virus in laboratory studies".

"The health and well-being of the team comes first," said the Olympic team's chef de mission Kitty Chiller.

"Our association with Starpharma will provide extra protection for everyone on the team, and is a commonsense approach to a very serious problem we are facing in Rio."

There has been widespread anxiety globally surrounding the threat of Zika, which is rampant in Brazil.

As well as causing the birth defect microcephaly in babies born to women infected with the virus, it has also been linked to the rare but serious neurological disorder Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

Last week, the World Health Organisation advised pregnant women not to travel to Rio and urged athletes and visitors to take precautions to avoid infection by Zika.
NEW YORK (AP) - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he wants to invite "leading conservatives and people from across the political spectrum" to discuss recent reports that its "Trending Topics" feature is biased against conservatives.

The social media giant on Thursday revealed details of how the "Trending Topics" feature works after the tech blog Gizmodo reported that Facebook downplays conservative news subjects. Facebook denied the report, which relied on a single anonymous source with self-described conservative leanings.

Zuckerberg said the company is investigating the claims, but has yet to find evidence to support them.

"If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it," he wrote.

In a separate blog post, the company said a series of checks and balances - involving both software formulas and humans - ensures that stories displayed in the "Trending Topics" section aren't biased. The post linked to a 28-page internal document Facebook uses to determine trending topics, after the Guardian published a similar document that was leaked to it.

Facebook vp global operations and media partnerships Justin Osofsky said the guidelines ensure that stories in trending topics represent "the most important popular stories, regardless of where they fall on the ideological spectrum."

"The guidelines do not permit reviewers to add or suppress political perspectives," he said in a statement.

In a Facebook post this weekend, conservative pundit Glenn Beck said, "I was contacted by Mark Zuckerberg's office this morning about going out to see him in Menlo Park Wednesday. They have had the same problem that many in media and Silicon Valley face: suppression of conservative voices and ideas." He added that Ted Cruz and his Blaze website were specifically targeted and he is rearranging his schedule to meet with Zuckerberg.

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"It would be interesting to look him in the eye as he explains and a win for all voices if we can come to a place of real trust with this powerful tool," said Beck.

Zuckerberg also took to Facebook on Thursday evening, saying the social media company stands for "giving everyone a voice" and said he plans to talk with leading conservatives in coming weeks.

"I want to have a direct conversation about what Facebook stands for and how we can be sure our platform stays as open as possible," his post said.

Facebook hasn't said how many people are responsible for the trending topics team. A Guardian report on Thursday said the team was as few as 12 people, citing leaked documents. Facebook didn't comment on that number.

The trending feature was introduced in 2014 and appears to the right of the Facebook newsfeed. According to Facebook, potential trending topics are first determined by a software formula, or algorithm, that identifies topics that have spiked in popularity on the site.

Staffers then review potential topics and confirm that they are tied to a current news event; write a topic description with information corroborated by at least three of 1,000 news outlets; apply a category label to the topic; and check to see whether the topic is covered by most or all of 10 major media outlets (including The New York Times, Fox News, BuzzFeed and others). Stories covered by those outlets gain an importance level that may make them more likely to be seen.

(Facebook's list of 1,000 news outlets contains several popular conservative sites, including Fox, the Drudge Report, Beck's site The Blaze, the Daily Caller and the Washington Times.)

Each Facebook user's trending topics are then personalized via an algorithm that relies on information about the user such as "Likes" and their location.
The gang finally made it to Mexico on Fear the Walking Dead, and everyone was hoping for tequila shots and guacamole, but instead, they had to settle for head-stabbing zombies and ceaseless infighting.

Upon arriving in Mexico, the gang immediately had to fight a church congregation of zombies. The congregation had been poisoned by Thomas Abigails mother, Celia. While the group was fighting for their lives, Chris did nothing to help Madison; it looks like Chris has finally made the move from stupid kid to psychopath. In fact, Chris planned on stabbing Madison and Alicia to death while they slept. (Un?)Fortunately he wasnt successful, as a gunshot woke the women up, and they made him leave.

We also learned that the villas matriarch, Celia, believes that the zombies are an evolution of life and that they have every right to exist. That is why she poisoned the churchgoers, because they killed zombies. She also keeps all her friends and family who turn into zombies in some type of cellar-dungeon and feeds them live dogs.

With Thomas dying at the end of the episode, it looks like Celias people and the crew of the Abigail are going to be at odds.



Fear the Walking Dead airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.

See the crew of the Abigail toughen up a little in last weeks episode.

Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Cynthia LuCiette, on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.


FTWD-Feature

AMC

Fear the Walking Dead bounced back from last weeks disappointing episode with Sicut Cervus, which was either a good episode or a mixed bag, depending on how things shake out next week. Thats because one plotline concerning a new character, Celia, is either recycled from The Walking Dead or, hopefully, has an interesting twist that could dramatically improve next weeks midseason finale.

The episode was also a heartbreaking one that saw the death of Thomas Abigail and, in the process, gave depth to the Strand character, who put aside his mysterious stoicism and, in demonstrating his love for Thomas, displayed some of that acting talent for which Colman Domingo is known in the theater world.

The tragedy and the psycho at the center set up an intriguing midseason finale. Before we get there, however, here are 11 questions we need answered:

Why did the parishioners want to kill Celia?

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 5.48.50 AM

AMC

When Thomas arrived, the parishioners were preparing themselves to attack Celias compound and kill her, but Celia got to them first by poisoning the communion wafers. The preacher and the parishioners knew what was happening inside Celias compound: The work of someone testing their faith in God, someone trying to lure them into evil.

Is Celia Fears version of Hershel and the barn, or is there something else going on?

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 5.51.53 AM

AMC

I believe, perhaps too hopefully, that it was more than another Hershels barn situation. I think as the parishioners thought: That Celia is more than in denial about the zombies; shes genuinely evil, not in the mean, cruel way, but in the demonic sense. She has no fears or concerns about friends and family members turning into zombies because she believes its just the next part of life. I think shes part of a weird death cult where she believes that the zombies are somehow majestic, otherworldly creatures. Hershel believed that he could somehow find a cure for the zombies and bring them back to life. The way Celia reacted to the death of her own son, Luis, suggested that she believes zombies are connected to God, or at least to the cult in which she believes.

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In fact, I think Celia is killing off members of her own family in a Jonestown sort of way, because it brings them closer to her God/Devil.

Why did Daniel throw away his own medallion?

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 5.53.36 AM

AMC

Because Daniel saw the owl on the medallion. He was spooked by it. He understands the significance of owls in Mexican culture, and that the medallion is probably connected to a death cult or even Santa Muerte. Daniel wasnt being cruel. He was like the preacher in the opening of the episode: He understood the evil that the medallion represents.

Will Nick become a zombie sympathizer?

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 6.26.26 AM

AMC

Madison was right about Nick: He is impressionable and fragile, and it does appear that hes bought into Celias belief system. It didnt take long to brainwash him into believing that zombies are undead angels, and he thinks he can be their spiritual leader. Oh, Nick. This particular development, however, is what gives me hope that the Celia situation is not exactly the same as the Hershel situation.

Whats the state of the apocalypse in Mexico?

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 5.59.33 AM

AMC

Im not sure, but its apparently in better shape than the United States. Theyre still using money (Luis was going to bribe Mexican police with gold bars). They still have a police force guarding the borders, and there was an entire church of people who had not been infected (until Celia poisoned them). Mexico  or at least Baja  seems as though it had been somewhat spared from the worst of the zombie epidemic until now.

Is Chris turning into a full-blown psychopath?

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 6.09.58 AM

AMC

Yes! The show might want to suggest some ambiguity  that Chris killed Reed because he was turning, or that he was in Alicias room grabbing a knife for a reason unrelated to wanting to kill her and Madison  but it seems fairly obvious that Chris is sick in the head. The death of his mother pushed him over. With the survivalists, he got a taste for killing. Seeing the man with the broken back in the airplane wreckage completely broke his brain. Reed further got into his head by suggesting that Chris wanted to have sex with his stepsister. Chris is gone. Chris is Lizzying. Chris is dangerous.

How will Chris mental illness affect Travis and Madisons relationship?

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 6.12.16 AM

AMC

Chris will have to be put down. The question is: Will Travis have the courage to pull a Carol and kill his own son for the good of everyone else? Or will Madison have to do it? Because this is not a situation similar to that of Nicks addiction. Nick was a danger to himself. Chris is a murderer-in-the-making. If Madison is forced to kill Chris to save Alicia (and everyone else), will that sever the relationship between Travis and Madison? I dont see how the inevitable death of Chris wont profoundly affect Travis in some way. Ultimately, Travis may be a casualty of his sons illness, as well.

What is Daniels crisis?

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 6.14.08 AM

AMC

Daniel is suffering from PTSD. He cant kill children. Hes terrified of Celia and, as Ofelia has suggested, Daniel has lost his way when it comes to his faith. Daniel, however, is still the strongest member of the group. He may be shaken, but he has not lost his wits. If anyone is going to, it will be Daniel who either leads the rest of the group out of Celias compound or he will help them to take it over from Celia.

How will Celia react to Strands decision not to take his own life?

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 6.19.29 AM

AMC

This is where next weeks episode gets interesting because Celia will probably be disappointed in Strand for not taking his own life and entering the next stage along with Thomas Abigail. However, she will probably be furious with Strand for putting a bullet in Thomas head and preventing him from entering the next stage. It will validate all of her previous feelings of dislike for Strand. She wont trust him any longer. She wont trust any of Strands group. Without Thomas, theres no longer any connection. Celia will be coming for the rest of them, and I dont think she plans on zombiefying them. She wants to kill them dead dead. A battle is brewing between Celia and her people and Daniel and his people. Will Daniel, Strand et. al escape? Or will they fight? The most likely scenario is what happened with Hershels barn: The caged zombies are set free, killing everyone who fails to escape. The Mexican villa location is toast, and everyone heads back on the boat.

Who will die next week?

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 6.22.32 AM

AMC

Chris is beyond help. Best case scenario, he dies protecting Madison or Alicia, proving that he wasnt as bad as they thought he was. Worst case? Madison or Travis put a bullet in his head. Celia will also have to die in the midseason finale. Nurse Ratchet above is also not going to make it.

What the hell is happening in the sneak peak for next weeks episode?

Heres a sneak peak of next weeks episode. I can only assume its a dream sequence meant to fake us out. Thats kind of lame.
In this May 13, 2015, file photo, a group of Cleveland, Miss., public school students ride the bus on their way home following classes. According to a new report on child welfare, twelve percent of teens from Mississippi and Louisiana were neither in school nor working. A new report on child welfare that found more U.S. children living in poverty than before the Great Recession belies the fanfare of the nation's economic turnaround. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

A federal court ordered middle and high schools in Cleveland, Mississippi to merge to satisfy the ruling on a decades-long legal battle to desegregate schools, according to a press release from The Department of Justice.

The order comes more than sixty years after the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that school segregation was unconstitutional in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

Six decades after the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education declared that separate but equal has no place in public schools, this decision serves as a reminder to districts that delaying desegregation obligations is both unacceptable and unconstitutional, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division, said according to the press release.

The ruling means that "virtually all-black" D.M. Smith Middle school and East Side High School and "historically white" Margaret Green Junior High School and Cleveland High School, will merge, respectively, into two schools.

US District Judge Debra Brown ruled the district must create a plan for for immediate integration of the schools no later than 21 days from the issuance of her opinion on Friday, May 13, according to The Clarion-Ledger.

Cleveland School District had 3,723 students enrolled as of 2015, where 66.7% were African American, 28.8% were white, and 4.5% were other races, according to US v. Bolivar County Board of Education, et al., the lawsuit that determined the case.

Troops from the 327th Regiment, 101st Airborne escorting the Little Rock Nine African-American students up the steps of Central High.

But as of May 2015, one of the schools in the district, D.M. Smith, had a school population that was 99.6% African American and 0.4% were of other races, according to the suit.

East Side high school was similarly stratified, with 99.7% African American students and 0.3% were other races, and at Cleveland High, 47.4% of students were African American, 45.4% were white, and 7.2% were of other races.

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For comparison, Margaret Green, the historically white middle school, had a demographic breakdown where 50.9% of students were African American, 42.5% were white, and 6.6% were of another race.

Officials from Cleveland School District argued that they had worked to desegregate schools because a large number of African American students attended Margaret Green and Cleveland High, The Associated Press reported.

The ruling, however, proved their efforts were "inadequate" to satisfy desegregation standards, according to DOJ's press release.

"The attendance zones, as defined by the former railroad tracks in Cleveland, perpetuate vestiges of racial segregation," United States District Judge Glen H. Davidson, said in an order in 2013.

African American students primarily live to the east of the railroad tracks, on the southeast side of town. White students primarily live to the west of the railroad tracks, on the southwest side of town.

NOW WATCH: Humans are defying the law of evolution





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For just shy of half a century, Morley Safer has been one of the most multifarious journalists on CBS 60 Minutes, filing nearly a thousand dispatches on a dizzying array of subjects  from race relations in the U.S. to the tango in Finland  and from all corners of the planet. Certainly hes the most enduring  he joined as a correspondent in 1970, in the shows third season.

He retired this week at the age of 84, his departure commemorated by 60 Minutes on Sunday night with an hour-long biographical tribute. Much of his career has been storied, but there are several moments especially worthy of remembering:

1. Cam Ne. In 1965, after working for CBS News in London, Safer opened the organizations bureau in Saigon amid the fervor and uncertainty of the Vietnam War. That August, he reported from the village of Cam Ne, where U.S. Marines used flamethrowers to torch civilian homes. So incendiary was the report  it was among the first to suggest that all was not well in Indochina  that President Lyndon B. Johnson called CBS and accused Safer of having shat on the American flag. The Canadian-born reporter later said that the Johnson Administration wanted him fired, and that there were allegations that he was a Soviet KGB agent. The broadcast is remembered today as a revolutionary journalistic feat.

2. Lenell Geter. He was a young engineer in Texas wrongfully sentenced to a life sentence in prison for the armed robbery of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. In 1983, Safer thought the story smelled to high heaven, and so he and the team at 60 Minutes dug into it. A week after the special aired, Geter was released from prison. He later said that Safer saved his life.

3. The art world. What is art? In 1993, Safer, an art enthusiast, decided to ask that question in an unmerciful look at an art world he deemed pretentious and mostly asinine. He began the report by describing works of art that had sold for six figures  including a vacuum cleaner and a pair of urinals  before launching into a dissection of big-name celebrity artists like Jeff Koons and Cy Twombly. Koons and Twombly made it out alive, but the art world apparently never forgave Safer. They dont like him for it, Jeff Fager, 60 Minutes executive producer, said on Sundays special.

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Safer says he happily stands by everything he said.

4. Anna Wintour. The editor in chief of Vogue might be best known for her reputation as an allegedly authoritarian figure, in large part because the successful novel (and then film) The Devil Wears Prada was reportedly inspired by her supposed style of newsroom leadership. But Safer didnt seem fazed when he sat down with Wintour in 2009  her first extensive interview on U.S. television  chatting genially with her about her persona (If Im such a bitch, they must be gluttons for punishment, because theyre still here, she said of her employees) and the oversize sunglasses perennially on her face, which Wintour described as seriously useful.

I can sit in a [fashion] show and f Im bored out of my mind, nobody will notice, she said.

5. Ruth and Andrew Madoff. Three years after Bernie Madoff was sentenced to a century and a half in prison for orchestrating the largest financial fraud in American history, his wife and son sat down with Safer for a heart-wrenchingly frank conversation about bearing witness to the crime. Ruth confessed to Safer in the 60 Minutes special that after news of the scam made headlines, she and her husband had attempted suicide by swallowing pills.
A Florida woman was hospitalized Sunday when a small nurse shark bit her arm and would not let go after people on the beach had reportedly been antagonizing the animal in the water.

Brought ashore, someone allegedly killed the shark while the 23-year-old woman was on the beach, and paramedics had to transport her to the hospital because it still held a tight grip of the womans forearm in its jaw. There was not very much blood, and the woman was in stable condition for release later Sunday afternoon, the AP reports.

Eleven-year-old Nate Pachter was snorkeling in the area, he told the Sun-Sentinel, when he saw a group of people in the water holding the shark by its tail. They were messing with it.

The National Park Service provides information about nurse sharks on its website. Attacks on humans are rare but not unknown, and a clamping bite typically results from a diver or fisherman antagonizing the shark with hook, spear, net, or hand. The bite reflex is such that it may be some minutes before a quietly re-immersed nurse shark will relax and release its tormenter, the website says. Leaving sharks alone is the best tactic
Myanmar police said Monday said they have begun legal action against five protesters over a weekend rally intended to promote religious tolerance.

The move came as rights groups raise concerns about efforts by the new pro-democracy government to amend draconian laws on demonstrations.

Dozens of activists and students marched through Yangon on Saturday in a rare gesture of religious solidarity in the diverse nation, where rising Buddhist nationalism has stoked anti-Muslim sentiment and sporadic bouts of bloodshed in recent years.

Police said they decided to take action against five rally leaders -- believed to be three women and two men of several faiths -- because the campaigners had deviated from the agreed protest route.

They now face a charge that could land them in jail for up to six months under a controversial law, currently being reviewed by the new government led by political prisoner-turned-politician Aung San Suu Kyi.

"We have started legal action against five protest leaders under Section 19 of the Peaceful Assembly Act," police Lieutenant Major Win Tin from Kyauktada township told AFP.

Suu Kyi's party is stacked with former dissidents who served prison time for their opposition to Myanmar's military governments during decades of repressive rule.

They are now in government following a landslide November election victory.

Since taking the helm the administration has freed scores of activists and political prisoners and signalled its determination to repeal oppressive laws.

But rights groups have raised the alarm over a number of provisions in a draft amendment to the Peaceful Assembly Act. They fear these will continue to penalise non-violent demonstrations, albeit with shorter jail terms.

"You don't need these punishments in your draft. If you remove these three or four things then it's pretty good and you won't be condemning another generation of peaceful protesters for breaking a flawed law," said David Mathieson of Human Rights Watch.

He said the revised law would still give "carte blanche to abusive local officials" to prosecute activists and urged a rethink.

The proposed draft would mean protesters must still give local police 48 hours' notice of the place and time of any rally, as well as details of planned speeches and slogans.

Those who protest without giving prior notice could be imprisoned for three months, while repeat offenders could face a year behind bars.

Parliament is due to debate the law in the coming days.

Yangon police have also begun legal action against seven leaders of an unauthorised protest by Buddhist nationalists outside the US embassy last month.

They were demonstrating against the US use of the term "Rohingya" to refer to the persecuted Muslim minority in the western state of Rakhine.

Hardline Buddhists label the group "Bengalis" and view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though many can trace their ancestry back generations.

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(Reuters) - Four people died when a small private plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Tupelo Regional Airport in northeastern Mississippi on Monday, officials said.

"The plane was burning in the field when officers arrived. Chief of Police Bart Aguirre confirmed that three passengers and the pilot were deceased," said Leesha Faulkner, director of communications for the city.

The identities of the plane's passengers and details about the plane and flight plan were not confirmed, Faulkner said.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were investigating the incident, Faulkner said.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Fox made its presentation of the networks fall TV schedule to advertisers on Monday, and the network has released trailers of its new shows. Lets look at them with a sharp eye. Note: All judgments are based solely on the clips, and are not reviews of entire episodes, which are not yet available.

Related: Judging the Fall Season: NBCs 3 New Shows

Lethal Weapon



This is a fun-looking show, starring Damon Wayans and Clayne Crawford as Murtaugh and Riggs, the characters played by Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in the movies. You know the premise: old-pro cop (Wayans) paired with cocky daredevil (Crawford). It helps a lot that theyre both so winning: Wayans is funny in a gruff way, and Crawford demonstrates the charm he had to keep in check in the Sundance channels terrific Rectify. (Its a big week for Rectify fans, what with Abigail Spencer starring in NBCs Timeless.) But the challenge for the show like this is to come up with cases that are as interesting or as amusing as the actors, and thats a big challenge indeed.



The Exorcist



Another movie adaptation (by way of William Peter Blattys source novel, of course), The Exorcist looks as though its going to play it for jump-out-of-your-seat scares. That amusement-park approach to TV can wear out its welcome fast, and Geena Daviss presence as concerned mom who hears voices in the walls doesnt fill me with confidence that this is a character well want to yelp along with as her possessed daughter (Hannah Kasulka) undergoes the tortures of hell. Im a fan of British actor Ben Daniels (House of Cards, The Paradise), who plays exorcist Father Marcus, so well see if the show can make him a worthy adversary for Satan.

Son of Zorn



I thought this was a pretty darn funny clip that succeeded in selling its premise: ordinary suburban family (headed up by Curb Your Enthusiasms Cheryl Hines) copes with the return of the father whos been absent for years  an animated warrior voiced by Jason Sudeikis. Indeed, I thought the clip got funnier as it went along, which suggests that creators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The LEGO Movie; Last Man on Earth) know what theyre planning to do with the outlandish concept. I also like the fact that Zorn is a variation on the kind of stiff, cheap-looking animation deployed for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Wedged between The Simpsons and Family Guy on Sunday nights, this could be fun.


International tensions are rising over the shipping lanes and land formations in the South China Sea. Last week, the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force scrambled fighter jets in response to a U.S. Navy ship sailing near the disputed Fiery Cross Reef. Sometime very soon, possibly this month, the United Nations is expected to resolve South China Sea claims by the Philippines, where the President-elect, Rodrigo Duterte, is making offers to broker peace in the region. How much has the status quo changed and what will it mean for the counties involved? The ChinaFile Editors

Julian G. Ku, Professor of Law, Hofstra University:

Like the two other recent U.S. freedom of navigation operations (FONOP) in the South China Sea, the most recent U.S. FONOP was designed to avoid any conflict with Chinas sovereignty claims. Instead, by conducting the operations under the rules of innocent passage, the U.S. Navy assumed China might have sovereign rights, but simply challenged Chinas domestic law requirement that foreign warships give prior notification before entering what China claims is its territorial sea.

Despite this very limited challenge, Chinas reaction to the U.S. FONOP has also been largely the same. Fighter jets were scrambled, and naval assets were deployed to shadow the U.S. ship during its passage. But two new aspects to Chinas rhetorical response are worth noting. The shift in Chinas rhetoric also reveals the limits of the U.S. reliance on FONOPs as a tool to deter Chinese expansionism in the region.

First, the Chinese defense ministry has begun to suggest that the continuation of U.S. FONOPs justifies its construction of defensive facilities in the South China Sea. Since the most recent round of U.S. FONOPs in the region began in October 2015 (after a four-year hiatus) and the Chinese land reclamation has been going on for almost two full years, this post-hoc justification for Chinese militarization of the region is hard to swallow.

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Second, the Chinese foreign ministry has started directly engaging with the narrower U.S. legal argument against a prior notification requirement for warships. In fact, it tried to isolate the U.S. legal position. Drawing a distinction between commercial and military vessels, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman stated that no country, except the United States believes in military vessels sailing wherever they want, which is against international law. The spokesman went on to say the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows innocent passage by foreign vessels through others territorial waters, but there is no specific term stating that military vessels have such a right. China then pointed out that several other countries agree with China on this interpretation of UNCLOS.

The Chinese government is correct that some countries have continued to argue that the rights of innocent passage guaranteed by Article 19 of UNCLOS does not apply to warships. The plain language of Article 19 (ships of all States) suggests otherwise since the Convention specifies warships in other contexts when naval vessels have special treatment. But the disagreement has persisted over the years.

Chinas shift from complaining about U.S. violations of its sovereignty to dueling interpretations of UNCLOS reflects a possible shift in its rhetorical and diplomatic strategy. While complaining about U.S. threats to sovereignty would only highlight the aggressiveness of Chinas territorial claims, complaining about expansive U.S. naval operations is an issue with which other nations can find common ground with China. Indeed, Chinas diplomatic corps has been working overtime to line up sympathetic nations to its non-acceptance of the pending UNCLOS arbitral tribunal case brought by the Philippines. Shifting focus toward arcane interpretations of international law is better and more solid ground for China.

The United States has the better and more persuasive interpretation of UNCLOS. But if China is able to drag the United States into the technical arguments over UNCLOS, some of the political force of the U.S. FONOPs will inevitably erode. While it should not abandon FONOPs, the United States needs to come up with different ways to challenge Chinas land reclamations and expansionism. FONOPs are not going to be enough.

M. Taylor Fravel, Associate Professor of Political Science, MIT:

I agree with Julian about the limits of FONOPs for deterring China in the South China Sea, but for a different reason.

Put simply, FONOPs were never intended to be used as a tool in territorial or maritime jurisdictional disputes involving third parties. The purpose of the program is limited to asserting navigational freedoms that excessive claims to maritime jurisdiction by other states would restrict or constrict in ways that are inconsistent with high seas freedoms in UNCLOS. They are operational assertions using military vessels to reinforce U.S. declaratory policy on freedom of navigation, not actions to deter how states pursue their claims in maritime disputes. By definition, FONOPs are usually a reaction to claims already made by third parties, to demonstrate that the United States does not recognize them.

In the South China Sea, FONOPs can be used to challenge excessive claims from the various land features under dispute. Recently, as Julian notes, FONOPs have been used only to challenge restrictions on the transit of military vessels through a 12 nautical mile territorial sea, such as prior permission or prior notification. Looking forward, they could be used to challenge claims to maritime jurisdiction from some artificial islands that China has created, at least four of which would not be entitled to even a territorial sea because they are artificial structures built upon a low-tide elevation.

The recent FONOPs in the South China Sea have been publicized extensively. Paradoxically, such publicity may limit further the effect of FONOPs in a third partys maritime disputes. Because they are considered to be a military operation, the Department of Defense almost never reveals the details or occurrence of particular FONOPS. Instead, they usually occur out of the public eye. The target of the operation is demarched to explain the excessive claim being challenged and a military vessel then challenges with a predetermined operation. At the end of the year, the U.S. Department of Defense publishes a report listing the countries and excessive claims that are being challenged but does not release information about individual operations.

The uncommon and unusual publicity attached to the last three FONOPs in the South China Sea represents a departure from past U.S. practice. Moreover, regarding the dynamics of the disputes in the South China Sea, such publicity may backfire, for two reasons.

First, the publicity given to these operations, widely seen as designed to challenge China, invites China to respond. From Beijings perspective, FONOPs are viewed (incorrectly) as direct challenges to Chinas sovereignty claims and as indirect challenges to China more generally. If Chinas leaders do not respond, they risk being viewed domestically as weak or yielding to the United States. Although Chinas responses have been measured and largely symbolic, the rhetoric contributes to the hardening of positions and escalation of disputes. Traditional FONOPs conducted out of the public eye would remove these incentives without weakening the content of the operational assertion.

Second, the publicity given to these recent FONOPs create strong incentives for China to emphasize its interpretations of the convention that Julian has described. Traditional FONOPs conducted out of the public eye would also remove these incentives without weakening the content of the operational assertion.

The United States should continue to perform FONOPs in the South China Sea  regularly but privately.

Malcolm Cook, Senior Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute:

Julian Ku is certainly right that U.S. freedom of navigation operations conducted under the rules of innocent passage will not be enough to challenge Chinas increasingly assertive actions on and around the disputed land features in the South China Sea. And tensions could escalate soon. If reports are correct, Chinas artificial island building could soon extend to Scarborough Shoal located 123 nautical miles from the main island of the Philippines, 250 nautical miles from the disputed Spratly and Paracel land features, and 530 nautical miles from Chinas Hainan Island. This would be a serious escalation on Chinas part that would likely sink the incoming Philippine administrations desire to reduce bilateral tensions over this issue, and lead to more pressure on the United States from concerned states in the region to push back against China.

Yet, the biggest shortcoming of U.S. FONOPs as a Chinese behavior-changing effort has nothing to do with the United States. The biggest problem is that the United States alone is willing to conduct these operations and suffer Chinas predicted and predictable backlashes. The maritime Southeast Asian states Japan and Australia arguably have more at stake in the South China Sea but are unwilling to conduct their own operations. Maritime Southeast Asian backing for the recent U.S. operations has been ambivalent at best, and offered more in private than in public or in diplomatic forums with China present.

This, more than the widely criticized decision by the Obama administration to limit their operations to innocent passage ones, undermines the strength of the FONOPs message sent to China. The lack of active or rhetorical support from other nations undermines these operations effectiveness in reflecting that the maritime Southeast Asian states and Japan share with the United States the conviction that Chinas claims to maritime rights in the South China Sea are excessive and its artificial island building activities are destabilizing. By leaving the United States alone operationally and often publicly lacking support, it allows China to dismiss these operations as simply part of U.S. efforts to contain China.

Future U.S. FONOPs in the disputed waters of the South China Sea may benefit from relaxing the innocent passage restriction, particularly in relation to Chinas recently constructed artificial islands. The pending ruling by the Arbitration Tribunal on the 2013 case filed by the Philippines under UNCLOS could rule that some or all of these artificial islands are constructed on low water features with no attendant territorial sea rights. However, the U.S. position in relation to the South China Sea disputes, and those of the maritime Southeast Asian states, Japan and Australia, would benefit more if the United States was not alone in conducting FONOPs. Or, at least, if support for U.S. FONOPs by these like-concerned states was more frequent, more public, and more convincing.

Getty Images
Paris (AFP) - Two French groups say they have filed a suit against Twitter, YouTube and Facebook for allegedly failing to uphold requirements to delete content deemed racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic or defending terrorism.

The lawsuit was filed on Sunday by the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) and SOS-Racisme, the organisations said in a press release.

They referred to a survey carried out between March 31 and May 10 by their members and those of a third association, SOS Homophobie.

In this "first mass test of social networks," the groups uncovered 586 instances of content that was "racist, anti-Semitic, denied the Holocaust, homophobic (or) defended terrorism or crimes against humanity," the joint statement said.

Only a fraction of these postings were deleted by the host organisations within a "reasonable time," as required under a 2004 French law: four percent on Twitter, seven percent on YouTube and 34 percent on Facebook.

"It's a mystery whether moderating teams in social media are actually working," said Sacha Reingewirtz, president of the UEJF.

Dominique Sopo, head of SOS-Racisme, said the social media giants were hypocritical.

"These platforms seem more shocked about content with bare breasts, which is swiftly censored, than about incitement to hatred," Sopo said.

"Our legal step aims at getting the authorities to apply the law so that these organisation submit to it in full."

The suit has been filed under an article of the French legal code which requires a judge to issue a fast-track preliminary ruling in a complaint.

The ruling may be the first step in a full judgement in the case, which can take months or years.
By Kit Rees

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's top share index ended higher on Monday, with a rally in basic resources stocks on the back of stronger metals prices supporting the broader equities market.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 index (.FTSE) closed 0.2 percent stronger at 6,151.40 points after gaining in the previous session. However, the benchmark index is still down about 1.5 percent so far this year.

The UK mining index rose 2 percent after metals prices rose following a softer dollar and data showing an improvement in China's property sector, offsetting several softer gauges of the country's economy that had raised concerns over the demand prospects for industrial metals.

"Miners are rallying on stronger metals prices and brokers too are generally turning somewhat positive," Jawaid Afsar, senior trader at Securequity, said.

"A weaker dollar could support the market further, but a further strong rally in the near term seems challenging given the pace of economic growth in top metals consumer China."

Anglo American (AAL.L) gained 5.4 percent after a double upgrade from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which raised its target price and its rating on the stock to "buy" from "underperform". Shares in Antofagasta (ANTO.L), Glencore (GLEN.L) and BHP Billiton (BLT.L) were up 1.9 to 3.4 percent.

Among small caps, miner Lonmin (LMI.L) surged nearly 20 percent after reporting a first-half core profit of $36 million, up from a loss of $6 million the same time a year ago following cost savings.

"Lonmins results continue to provide fuel for the idea that the mining sector is past the worst, even if much of the improvement has come from cost-cutting, with platinum prices so far stubbornly refusing to respond," Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst at IG, said.

On the downside, property developer British Land (BLND.L) fell 0.7 percent after reporting results. While the company posted a rise in its full-year portfolio value, investors voiced concerns about the impact on the sector of Britain's June 23 referendum on whether to leave the EU.

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"Despite a positive overall outlook, the group cites recent slowdown in office occupational demand, likely due to the EU referendum, as well as weaker consumer confidence and retail sales since the beginning of the year," analysts at Liberum said in a note.

"This is the first sign of occupational weakness in the sector and we would expect it to weigh on the shares."

(Additional reporting by Atul Prakash; Editing by Gareth Jones)
hangover headache bed

Anybody who has ever had a headache knows how debilitating they can be.

Magnify that, toss in some nausea and light sensitivity, and you've got a migraine.

About 37 million Americans experience migraines, some of them daily. For those who get them frequently, the pain can seriously cut down on productivity, and sometimes even keep them going to work. But a new device that got FDA approval in January and just became available by prescription wants to help fix that.

The device is an inhaler  or rather, an exhaler, as you breath out into the device  that contains the prescription drug sumatriptan (a longtime staple for migraine treatment). It goes by the name Onzetra Xsail and uses about 80% less medication than the typical oral dose of 100 mg. Unlike pills that are swallowed and need to have their medication absorbed through the stomach, the inhaler sends the medication right into the bloodstream via the soft tissue lining the mucous membrane of the sinus cavity. That can be a huge benefit for people who are nauseated (one side effect of migraines) or have trouble taking pills.

Treating migraines

Up until now, people with migraines that needed more than over-the-counter painkillers could take prescription sumatriptan (best known by its brand name Imitrex) via a pill. According to the NIH, sumatriptan works by doing the following: narrowing the blood vessels in your head, prohibiting pain signals from being sent to your brain, and stopping natural substances that cause pain, nausea, and other symptoms of migraine from getting released.

If sumatriptan doesn't work for you, injections and nasal sprays are the next courses of action. Avanir Pharmaceuticals, the company that makes the new migraine device, wants to be a simpler alternative to needles and potentially gross-tasting nasal sprays.

"The one thing you hear consistently in the migraine category, from both the physicians and the patients, it's not that the drug's active ingredients are bad or they don't work, the issue is the delivery systems are not great," Avanir CEO Rohan Palekar told Business Insider.

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So when Avanir heard about a device made by OptiNose that might be able to deliver migraine medicine more directly, their only thought was why hadn't anybody thought of this earlier?

Here's how it works

Unlike the typical inhaler that gets breathed into the lungs, people using the Onzetra Xsail breathe out into the tube with the nose piece inserted into a nostril. That keeps the medication stays at the back of your nose rather and away from your throat and stomach, said Palekar. It's the same mechanism as blowing up a balloon: The back of the throat closes so you're able to push air into the balloon.

Avanir Migraine_Device skitch

Why the nose?

Dr. Roger Cady, the director of the Headache Care Center and someone who was heavily involved in developing the new medication, is excited about its potential. Cady has been working with sumatriptan since the early '90s, and hopes it could one day be an alternative to injections which work quickly but can come with some serious side effects.

"If you get to the right area of the nose, it's a perfect area to target," Cady told Business Insider.

While the front of the nose might be great at keeping unfamiliar objects out of the body, toward the back of the nose in the sinus cavity there's thin layer of soft tissue where drugs can be absorbed into the bloodstream.

Because it's so direct, this method doesn't require as much medication to get the same pain relieving effect. That has the potential to be incredibly helpful in preventing medication overuse headache (essentially, if headache medication is used too frequently it may lead to more frequent headaches in the future). There's some speculation that a lower dose can help prevent these headaches, but so far there hasn't been any data to confirm that.

NOW WATCH: NASA is looking for ways to dispose of dead bodies in space  and it's getting weird





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Thanks to a new government crackdown on universities in the UK, companies like Facebook, Google and Apple might begin to open educational institutions. The new measures, which will ostensibly raise teaching standards, imply higher tuition fees for students.

In a White Paper announced today, new rules will demand universities to release data on the amount of class and lecture time students receive, as well as listing the jobs their graduates gain and how much they earn in a bid to stamp out sub-standard courses.

The paper, put together by the higher education department is set to publish a new White Paper titled "Success as a Knowledge Economy" that looks to decrease "low-value" degrees which in the long term, offer little to students by way of employability.

What this paper implies is that "challenger institutions" (read as companies with enough money) will be able to award degrees if they meet national standards. Ministers predict that this will pave the way for the likes of Facebook and Google to open universities.

Alarmingly, it's likely that institutions that score highly will be able to charge more than the current 9,000 tuition fee cap, sparking increased anxiety about the already rising percentage of graduates with huge amounts of debt.

Sorana Vieru, National Unions of Students (NUS) vice president for higher education, told The Press Association, My concern is that these institutions could be short lived and that students who have been promised the opportunity of getting a degree could end up in institutions that end up folding because they are a business enterprise  an experiment.

While on the surface, a report like this would seem a positive step in the face of a high demand for skilled graduates that's currently going unfulfilled, critics will no doubt see this as a massive step towards the privatisation of education, and as an avenue for big business to run a profit off the back of the UK's education system.

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Dakar (AFP) - Provocative comments by Gambian President Yahya Jammeh on Sunday threatened to overshadow talks with Senegal aimed at resolving a three-month border blockade.

Hours before the two countries' foreign ministers sat down to talks in Dakar, Jammeh laid out his views on the dispute in forthright comments broadcast on state television on Saturday.

"I have no intention of going to settle the issue of the border because our border is opened," the president said. "They closed the border and I will not negotiate with someone that closed the border."

The border blockade, which has created shortages of essential daily items on both sides of the frontier, followed The Gambia's decision to slap a hundred-fold hike on fees for trucks entering its territory -- which is completely surrounded by Senegal.

The hike, which came without warning in February and was later reversed -- has infuriated Senegalese drivers who are still blockading the border.

After mediation by Guinea's leader Alpha Conde, a Gambian delegation agreed to meet in the Senegalese capital Dakar with the aim of re-opening their shared border to Senegalese commercial vehicles.

Jammeh is not present in Dakar having remained in Banjul to host Conde.

The Gambia's landmass is completely surrounded by Senegal, and reliant on its larger neighbour to import many essentials.

Jammeh also claimed that it was Senegal's population that had suffered as a result of the closure, despite reports of widespread blackouts in the Gambian capital.

"If the people in Senegal are suffering, they should blame their government and not me because they are the ones that closed the border. People are suffering and that is the truth," he said.

In Dakar, Gambian foreign minister Neneh Mcdouall-Geye told journalists she hoped to find "lasting solutions to our issues".

Senegal's foreign minister Mankeur Ndiaye echoed his counterpart's comments but said "frank exchanges" would be required "on the all the questions at hand", including the long-delayed construction of a bridge across the river that makes up much of the Gambia's territory.

Senegal's militant transport trade unionists told AFP last week the blockade would continue until they had 24-hour passage across the border and clear progress on the bridge.
Game of Thrones begins where last season left off: with the dead body of Jon Snow. Those still loyal to Jon retreat and regroup while the mutineers, led by Alliser Thorne, threaten to kill them all if they dont surrender by nightfall.

Meanwhile, the priestess Melisandre realizes she may not be as powerful as she once thought. With Stannis and Jon dead, her faith in the Lord of Light is shaken. She removes her amulet and reveals that without her powers, she is nothing but an old crone.



Ramsay Bolton discovers the corpse of his friend Myranda, who was killed by Sansa and Theon at the end of last season. Rather than give her an honorable funeral, he feeds her to his hounds.

As punishment for attempting to kill their Lord Commander, Jon sentences Thorne and the mutineers to hang. He then resigns from his post as Lord Commander, declaring that since he has died, his watch has ended.

Ramsay is approached by Smalljon Umber and asked for help with the armies of wildlings Jon Snow has been allowing through the Wall. To show his loyalty to Ramsay, he presents a gift to him: Rickon Stark and Osha, along with the head of Rickons direwolf.

Theon, however, is too overcome with guilt over betraying the Starks to continue the journey to Castle Black with Sansa. He parts ways with her, declaring his intention to return to his home in the Iron Islands.

Arya undergoes more tests, learning to mix potions and fight without her eyesight. She is repeatedly asked what her name is, and she replies, A girl has no name. She is rewarded with the return of her vision and is fully admitted into the ranks of the Faceless Men.

First, he sees a vision of his father, Ned, training with his aunt and uncle, Lyanna and Benjen. During this first vision, he discovers Hodors true name: Wylis.
In every society traditional dishes have their own special stories to tell

On special occasions when I visit my home village in the governorate of Daqahliya, in the heart of Egypt's countryside, it is the creamy, oven-baked dishes of roz muammar that take pride of place on the table.

Roz muammar literally translated means "rich rice", with the word muammar denoting generousity, wealth and abundance.

Roz muammar's combination of rice, fresh cream, milk and a dab of samn (ghee) make this dish one of the Egyptian Delta region's favourite specialities.

It is a luxurious evolution of regular cooked rice, which in its turn is a staple of Egyptian culinary culture.

Rice was not known in Ancient Egypt. There are indications that it was probably introduced to Egypt and the surrounding region, through the expeditions of Alexander the Great who imported the grain from India in the 4th century BC.

Today the rice yield per feddan in Egypt's Delta region is among the highest in the region. Rice for the Egyptian farmer is one of the most important staple crops that he grows and sells for a good profit in the market.

It is planted in October and harvested in the months of May and June.

Rice is also stored for yearly household consumption from one rice season to the next.

And while the Egyptian farmer's repast has traditionally been quite frugal, constituted of corn bread, old cheese and pulses, over the past four decades rice has become a culinary mainstay of the rural household.

But even in the days of frugality, roz muammar was always a traditional treat. The ingredients needed for its preparation are readily available in farmers' houses, the majority of whom breed cows, and process milk into cottage cheese, butter and fresh cream.

Roz muammar, which is typically cooked and served in a clay dish called a beram, is characterised by a subtle smoked taste resulting from the oven-induced burning of its outer cream crust.

Due to increasing urbanization, women in the Egyptian countryside now cook on gas stoves or ovens, but when it comes to roz muammar, the traditional clay oven is still used.

Straw and wood are used as fuel in clay ovens, which are usually built in an outer yard of the house.

Elaborate new recipes of roz muammar that include meat or poulty are not typical Egyptian dishes, but rather a derivative of Arab and Gulf-style cooking

Below is a modification of the traditional Egyptian roz muammar recipe that uses samn as well as fresh cream, in addition to full milk.

For those who prefer a lighter version, the recipe reduces the amount of milk and omits the samn/ghee.

Roz Muammar

Ingredients

Two 8oz cups short-grain Egyptian rice

One 8oz cup full-cream milk

One 8oz cup water

250 grams fresh cream

1 tablespoon salt

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

In a glazed clay or glass oven dish, blend the rice and salt well.

Add the cold milk and water to the rice.

Add the cream on top of the mixture without blending.

Place the dish uncovered in the oven.

When the rice absorbs the liquid and the crust begins to brown, slightly reduce the heat and cover the dish until the rice is done.

Total cooking time is 45 minutes.



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If this Game of Thrones fan theory is true, one of our favorite dead characters is coming back

If this Game of Thrones fan theory is true, one of our favorite dead characters is coming back

[Warning: This post contains some spoilers through Season 6, episode 3 of Game of Thrones.]

Its a golden time for Game of Thrones fans: Jon Snow is alive once again, and Bran and Rickon are once again getting screen time. YES! And if this one GoT fan theory is correct, there might be another character coming back from the dead: the Hound.

No, its not too good to be true: According to the theory of The Cleganebowl, brothers Gregor Clegane  the Mountain, aka Cerseis devoted zombie protector  and the Hound, Sandor Clegane, will fight to decide Cerseis fate by the faith militant in an epic trial by combat.

Lets recall: In true Game of Thrones style, no one has actually seen The Hound die, despite his many wounds at the hands of Brienne, so its very possible that he could come back. A big yay moment, if youve been missing that character and his road-tripping banter with Arya.

Two clues in last weeks episode served as tips that the Hound might still be alive: One, Arya mentions that she didnt actually want Sandor to die, so she didnt spear him with her sword and, two, the Lannisters bring up the topic of a trial by combat.

Cinemablend points out that Season 6 seems to be on a role when it comes to finally giving people some closure, so weve certainly got our fingers crossed that this insane battle scene will play out. If Jon Snow can come back from the dead, anything seems possible.

Will the Mountain and the Hound finally work out their brotherly disputes? Well have to keep watching to find out.

The post If this Game of Thrones fan theory is true, one of our favorite dead characters is coming back appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Need to catch up? Check out last weeks Game of Thrones recap here.

As a resident of New York City, I often stand on subway platforms and marvel at the resiliency of rats and roaches. (Well, maybe try to avoid at all costs rather than marvel, but you get the point: I stare from afar.)

These vile creatures always survive, no matter what nastiness comes their way. Train derailment? Flooded tunnel? Complete lack of sunlight and/or natural food source? No worries  theyre cool.

I thought similar things upon seeing Peter Littlefinger Baelish show up in Westeros for the first time this season in Sundays episode. Not only does that slippery man survive circumstances that have ended so many others, he thrives. And this weeks episode is full of other characters that should  under normal circumstances  have been dead and gone long ago, but they follow the Matthew McConaughey school of life and Just. Keep. Livin.

Read on for the highlights of Book of the Stranger.

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THE MEN OF THE WALL | Dolorous Edd is with Jon as he prepares to leave. Hes going south, he says. What are you going to do? Edd asks. Get warm, Jon jokes weakly. Theyre just about to argue when the horn sounds: Someones at the gate.

And glory be to the old gods and the new, Sansa rides into Castle Black, flanked by Brienne and Pod. Lady Stark sees her half brother from across the courtyard, and theres a moment where they just stare at each other, but then they leap into each others arms. No, YOUR direwolf is crying!

We never shouldve left Winterfell, he says later as they sit by the fire. She agrees, then apologizes for being awful when they were younger. Theyre laughing and smiling and goodness, this is the most levity weve had all season so far. Where will you go? she asks. Where will we go? he responds. Guys! She asserts that they have to go back to Winterfell and fight the Boltons for it. Ive fought, and I lost, he says, sounding tired. I want you to help me, but Ill do it myself if I have to, Sansa counters, and I have never been so proud of her.

Story continues

In the courtyard, Melisandre tells Davos that she serves Jon now. What about Stannis, he asks? Oh right, about that She starts to mention the great battle, but as Davos asks worriedly about Shireen, Brienne pops up and reintroduces herself to Seaworth as the knight who executed his boss. Meanwhile, Melisandre slinks away.

Later, Torumund is ogling Brienne across the table at a meal (I loved that little moment) when Jon gets a lette from Ramsay: Your brother, Rickon, is in my dungeon I want my bride back. Guess who its from? Northern families will fight for you, Sansa reminds Jon, who is  as she notes  the son of the last true Warden of the North. Looks like were heading for Winterfell, kids!

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HOUSE BAELISH | Petyr Baelish shows up during one of his nephew Robins archery lessons, gives the boy a falcon and accuses Lord Royce of setting the Boltons upon him and Sansa during their journey. Robin wants to toss Royce through the moon door  though Id wager that Robin wants to toss everyone and everything through the moon door  but Littlefinger steps in at the last moment and buys Royces loyalty by steering the simple teen away from that outcome. That taken care of, Littlefinger says to gather the men of the Vale, because its time to jump into the fray.

Game-of-thrones-season-6-episode-4-f

HOUSE TARGARYEN

| Tyrion meets with the masters of Slavers Bay to try to achieve peace via diplomatic means rather than military ones; Missandei and Grey Worm think this is a hell of a bad idea. You dont need slaves to make money, Tyrion points out, adding that Kings Landing hasnt had slavery in years, and I grew up richer than all of you. He has a point.

His deal: The masters will end slavery in seven years time, they will be compensated for their losses, and they will cut off support for the Sons of the Harpy. Then he offers them some whores to seal the agreement, because Tyrion. But the meeting with the masters angers the freed slaves; thanks to some apt words from Misandei and Grey Worm, the situation cools a bit. Still, Daenerys advisers are far from being on the same page. Tyrion is all, Its cool! Well use their contempt for us to our advantage! But Grey Worm points out that the masters will come out on top by using them: That is what they do.

So Daenerys goes to the meeting where the Dothraki men are to decide her fate. She talks some smack and then burns them alive inside the Dosh Khaleen house. And just like she did in Season 1, khaleesi walks out of that inferno like shes stepping out of a massage room at a very liberal day spa: naked and looking completely relaxed. As the Dothraki in the city bow before her, Daario and Jorah approach and then do the same thing. Girl knows how to PUT ON A SHOW.

RELATEDExclusive: Offed Game of Thrones Star Reflects on [Spoiler]s Surprise Death: A Lot of People Are Going to Be Very Happy

HOUSE MORMONT | Daario and Jorah bicker as they search for Daenerys, eventually creeping up on a hill where they can spy on the city containing the dosh khaleen. So the pair leave all their weapons on the hillside  its forbidden to bring them into the sacred town  and in doing so, Daario sees Jorahs greyscale-infected wrist. You know what happens? the younger man asks. I know what happens, Mormont says.

That night, the two men sneak into the Dothraki community, searching for their missing queen. But they soon run afoul of a couple of locals; the only reason Jorah survives is because Daario smuggled a knife in, and he uses it to kill Mormonts attacker. Meanwhile, Daenerys bonds with one her young fellow captives on an evening stroll when they run into Jorah and Daario, who want to make a run for it. Though initially hesitant, the mother of dragons looks to the younger khaleesi and asks her to trust her.

HOUSE TYRELL | Margaery, still held in the High Sparrows cell, is hauled before the man himself. He gives her a brief overview of his life as the materialistic son of a cobbler who had a come-to-the-seven-gods moment after a particularly debaucherous night during his youth. The people I was trying to climb away from, the beggars in the street, the poor, they were closer to the truth than I was, he reminisces.

The holy man surprises her by taking her to see Loras, whos doing a really good impression of a burlap sack on the floor of his cell. He cries when he sees her, but she encourages him to buck up. If either of us give in to what they want, then they win, she says, sounding like the queen I remember.

HOUSE LANNISTER | After Cersei throws Maester Pycelle out of Tommens quarters, the boy king warns his mother not to antagonize the High Sparrow, because hes dangerous. Shes like, Um, does Walk of Atonement ring a bell? Poor Tommen, whos just trying to do the right thing, says he has something to confess about what the High Sparrow told him during their meeting.

Cut to the Lannister twins storming into a meeting with Kevan Lannister and Margaerys grandmother: The High Sparrow is planning to have Margaery walk her own shame parade in a few days, and everyone in the room agrees that is a BAD idea. So, a plan: The Tyrell armies will be there to help prevent it, and hopefully the many that will die wont include the people everyone in the room cares about.

HOUSE GREYJOY | Theon enters his familys home to find Yara sitting before the fire  but her anger at her brother burns even hotter. Men died trying to rescue him, she points out, and he betrayed her. Though Theon cries and looks utterly wrecked, she assumes hes there to slip into a place of power now that their father is dead. Tell me what you want! she demands, grabbing him. You should rule the Iron Islands, he answers quietly, tears streaking his face. Let me help you.

HOUSE BOLTON | Either Osha isnt afraid of Ramsay when shes brought before him, or she talks a really good game. Now that he has Rickon, what use have I for you? he asks. She plays pretty much her only remaining card and straddles him, trying to distract him while she reaches for his knife, but he whispers that Theon told him the Stark boys were dead then he sticks a knife into her throat and she falls to the floor, dead. Ugh.

Now its your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!

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Gannett Company isnt giving up on its ambitions to buy Tribune.

The newspaper giant raised its offer to acquire the company behind the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune on Monday, after its initial bid was rejected by Tribunes board of directors.

Gannett, which counts USA Today, The Des Moines Register and the Detroit Free Press among its holdings, said it is prepared to offer $15 per share, up from its earlier $12.25 bid. The pitch values Tribune at just under $480 million, and would include the assumption of approximately $385 million of the publishers debt. That raises the value of the potential pact to $864 million. Gannett said the revised offer is a 99% premium on Tribunes closing price of $7.52 per share on April 22, the last trading day before the company publicly announced its initial offer for Tribune.

The richer offer will put pressure on Tribunes leadership. In rejecting the proposal, Tribune CEO Justin Dearborn called the Gannetts pitch opportunistic and said the company was in the early stages of executing a plan to make itself more global and digital, and consequently more profitable. However, some shareholders, such as Southern California-based Oaktree, have urged Tribune to at least explore a sale.

A spokesman for Tribune did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Gannett Bid for L.A. Times, Rest of Tribune Publishing, May Be Hard to Reject (Analysis)
Updated with Tribune Publishing response: Gannett apparently still believes that Tribune Publishings shareholders can pressure it to make a deal  even after the company adopted a poison pill takeover defense. The owner of USA Today this morning raised its offer for the owner of the Los Angeles Times by 22.5% to $15 a share, equal to $864 million including debt.

The new offer is a 30.9% premium over Tribunes closing price on Friday, and up 99.5% vs its price before April 25, when Gannett disclosed its initial bid.

The news lifted Tribune shares more than 19% in early trading, suggesting that investors believe something will happen.

It is evident from our discussions with Tribune shareholders that there is overwhelming support for the companies to engage immediately regarding our proposed transaction, says Gannett Chairman John Jeffry Louis. The company wants Tribune holders to withhold their votes for directors at its June 2 annual meeting to demonstrate that they want the board to negotiate with Gannett.

Tribunes No. 2 shareholder, Oaktree Capital, has said that it wants the publisher to talk to Gannett.

Tribune confirmed this morning that it received the offer and says it will thoroughly review the new terms.

Before this morning, Tribune said its shareholders will fare even better if they give its new management time to pursue a growth plan. CEO Justin Dearborns strategy would accelerate digital initiatives, expand the Los Angeles Times overseas, and develop a new endeavor  called Tronc  that would pool Tribune resources.

These plans would more than offset revenue pressure in the traditional publishing business, Tribune said last week. It added that it has a clear vision  innovative technologies as well as the experience necessary to execute that strategy.

The company also says Gannett is taking advantage of a dip in Tribunes stock due to the elimination of the dividend and disclosure of a material accounting weakness.

Story continues

Gannett CEO Robert Dickey says today that by not engaging constructively with Gannett and continuing to pursue an unproven strategy based on its Tronc platform, we believe Tribune is jeopardizing its shareholders investment and disregarding their best interests.

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Tribune Publishing Adopts Poison Pill To Block Gannett Buyout Effort

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CONYERS, GA / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. (Pink Sheets: GOSY | http://www.geckosystems.com/) announced today that two long time Japanese partners, iXs, Ltd., (iXs) and Fubright Communications Corp. (FCC), demonstrated the company's BaseBot(tm) mobile robot known as "Lou" to IC Corp., Ltd. (ICCL) senior management last week. For over eighteen years GeckoSystems has dedicated itself to development of "AI Mobile Robot Solutions for Safety, Security and Service(TM)."

The demonstration of GeckoSystems' "loose crowd" level of mobile robot autonomously self-ambulating to the seven CEO's and senior management of these international robotics firms was an unqualified success. They represent, in total, over seventy years of experience in complex robotics systems design, deployment and support. While the demo was done at FCC's R&D lab, "Lou" is being relocated to ICCL's new, three times larger, facility this week.

An earlier third party verification of GeckoSystems' AI centric, human quick sense and avoidance of moving and/or unmapped obstacles by one of their mobile robots can be viewed here: http://t.co/NqqM22TbKN.

GeckoSystems' CEO is traveling to Japan Friday of this week to sign one or more AI software licensing deals as a result of their long time Japanese agent's (Mr. Fujii Katsuji) representation in Japan. The increased interest from Japan in the company's AI mobile robot solutions is due, in part, to the translation of the Company's Worst Case Execution Time (WCET, aka "reflex" or "reaction" time) white paper from English to Japanese late last year by Dr. Ru Wang, a physicist. That paper explains the importance of GeckoSystems' breakthrough, proprietary, and exclusive AI software and why this premier Japanese robotics company, ICCL, desires to enter a contractual joint venture relationship with GeckoSystems.

"Certainly I am pleased to be going on my second trip to Japan in the last eighteen months. Not only will I be strengthening existing relationships, but consummating at least one, if not two or more, significant licensing agreements," reflected Martin Spencer, CEO, GeckoSystems Intl. Corp.

Story continues

Last year, on July 8th, FCC published this press release: "Pepper Application R&D About Collaborative R&D of Autonomous Self-Driving Service Robot" http://tinyurl.com/hlqz6bw.

Here are the noteworthy excerpts from this press release:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Fubright Communications Co., Ltd., Tokyo Japan and GeckoSystems Intl. Corp., the Service Robot Development company of the United States have agreed to do collaboration in R&D and marketing of the advanced safe autonomous self-traveling service robot.

"Fubright Communications Inc. a well-known specialist of nursing care service system will aim at the area especially elderly care / watch field and develop a service robot that reduces the burden of the elderly / nursing care workers using advanced AI technologies which GeckoSystems, Inc. has been developing over the years.

"Both companies are confident that their advanced safe service robot will contribute to the Japan rapidly aging society helping elderlies live safer and easier."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Having the support of both iXs and FCC, and now ICCL, further confirms GeckoSystems' expertise to potential joint venture partners and licensees in the Pacific Rim.

"We are very much looking forward to meet with Mr. Spencer and discuss the large Japanese market for 'welfare robots,'" stated Mr. Takashi Nabeta, CEO, ICCL.

GeckoSystems has had their safety clause Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with iXs Research Corp. since April of 2013 and with Fubright Communications, Ltd. since April of 2015. IC Corp. Ltd. has been under NDA since December of 2015. GeckoSystems effectuated a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with iXs in May of 2013: http://tinyurl.com/hhsc5c8 The MOU is significant due to iXs' stature as an exporter of several robotic systems and subsystem products that are sold globally. Further, iXs designs and manufactures its own line of humanoid robots in addition to components for their domestic Japanese robot industry.

The Japanese government is very concerned about their "Silver Tsunami." At this time, there are approximately 2,200,000 million Japanese over 65 living alone. Their greatest fear is to die alone and that their demise not be known to others for a few days. For this reason and many others, the Japanese government pays 90% of the cost of personal robots used for eldercare such that concern would be well addressed. Consequently, the Japanese government is paying 75% of the R&D costs to develop robotic healthcare solutions for greater productivity to provide more economic care giving for their extraordinarily large senior population. This recent article further underscores Japan's commitment to eldercare capable, 'welfare' robots: "Japan govt to urge nursing care robot development" http://tinyurl.com/oehxdba.

In order for any companion robot to be utilitarian for family care, it must be a "three legged milk stool." For any mobile robot to move in close proximity to humans, it must have:

(1) Human quick reflex time to avoid moving and/or unmapped obstacles, (GeckoNav(tm): http://tinyurl.com/le8a39r) (See the importance of Worst Case Execution Time (WCET) discussion below.)

(2) Verbal interaction (GeckoChat(tm): http://tinyurl.com/nnupuw7) with a sense of date and time (GeckoScheduler(tm): http://tinyurl.com/kojzgbx), and

(3) Ability to automatically find and follow designated parties (GeckoTrak(tm): http://tinyurl.com/mton9uh) such that verbal interaction can occur routinely with video and audio monitoring of the care receiver uninterrupted.

Spencer recently met with local representatives of the Japan Export Trade Organization (JETRO) in Atlanta, GA. JETRO was founded in 1951 by the Japanese government to facilitate international trade with Japan. As a result of that meeting, Messrs. Nabeta, Fujii and Spencer will be meeting with JETRO representatives in Tokyo on Tuesday May 31st to discuss the JETRO subsidies available for Japanese eldercare robot product development.

"Certainly, on both sides of the Pacific, we are doing as much as is prudent to maximize the benefit of the monetary costs and time in going to Japan. This new JV continues to progress robustly, such that GeckoSystems will enjoy additional licensing revenues that will enable us to further increase shareholder value. After many years of patience by our current 1300+ stockholders, they can continue to be completely confident that this new, multi-million-dollar licensing agreement to be signed while I am in Japan further substantiates and delineates the reality that GeckoSystems will enjoy additional licensing revenues to further increase shareholder value," concluded Spencer.

The safety requirement for human quick WCET reflex time in all forms of mobile robots:

In order to understand the importance of GeckoSystems' breakthrough, proprietary, and exclusive AI software and why another Japanese robotics company desires a business relationship with GeckoSystems, it's key to acknowledge some basic realities for all forms of automatic, non-human intervention, vehicular locomotion and steering.

1. Laws of Physics such as Conservation of Energy, inertia, and momentum, limit a vehicle's ability to stop or maneuver. If, for instance, a car's braking system design cannot generate enough friction for a given road surface to stop the car in 100 feet after brake application, that's a real limitation. If a car cannot corner at more than .9g due to a combination of suspension design and road conditions, that, also, is reality. Regardless how talented a NASCAR driver may be, if his race car is inadequate, he's not going to win races.

2. At the same time, if a car driver (or pilot) is tired, drugged, distracted, etc. their reflex time becomes too slow to react in a timely fashion to unexpected direction changes of moving obstacles, or the sudden appearance of fixed obstacles. Many car "accidents" result from drunk driving due to reflex time and/or judgment impairment. Average reflex time takes between 150 & 300ms. http://tinyurl.com/nsrx75n.

3. In robotic systems, "human reflex time" is known as Worst Case Execution Time (WCET). Historically, in computer systems engineering, WCET of a computational task is the maximum length of time the task could take to execute on a specific hardware platform. In big data, this is the time to load up the data to be processed, processed, and then outputted into useful distillations, summaries, or common sense insights. GeckoSystems' basic AI self-guidance navigation system processes 147 megabytes of data per second using low cost, Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Single Board Computers (SBC's).

4. Highly trained and skilled jet fighter pilots have a reflex time (WCET) of less than 120ms. Their "eye to hand" coordination time is a fundamental criterion for them to be successful jet fighter pilots. The same holds true for all high performance forms of transportation that are sufficiently pushing the limits of the Laws of Physics to require the quickest possible reaction time for safe human control and/or usage.

5. GeckoSystems' WCET is less than 100ms, or as quick, or quicker than most gifted jet fighter pilots, NASCAR race car drivers, etc. while using low cost COTS and SBC's.

6. In mobile robotic guidance systems, WCET has 3 fundamental components.

a. Sufficient Field of View (FOV) with appropriate granularity, accuracy, and update rate.

b. Rapid processing of that contextual data such that common sense responses are generated.

c. Timely physical execution of those common sense responses.

About GeckoSystems:

GeckoSystems has been developing innovative robotic technologies for fifteen years. It is CEO Martin Spencer's dream to make people's lives better through robotic technology.

An overview of GeckoSystems' progress containing over 700 pictures and 120 videos can be found at http://www.geckosystems.com/timeline/ .

These videos illustrate the development of the technology that makes GeckoSystems a world leader in Service Robotics development. Early CareBot prototypes were slower and frequently pivoted in order to avoid a static or dynamic obstacle; later prototypes avoided obstacles without pivoting. Current CareBots avoid obstacles with a graceful "bicycle smooth" motion. The latest videos also depict the CareBot's ability to automatically go faster or slower depending on the amount of clutter (number of obstacles) within its field of view. This is especially important when avoiding moving obstacles in "loose crowd" situations like a mall or an exhibit area.

In addition to the timeline videos, GeckoSystems has numerous YouTube videos. The most popular of which are the ones showing room-to-room automatic self-navigation of the CareBot through narrow doorways and a hallway of an old 1954 home. You will see the CareBot slow down when going through the doorways because of their narrow width and then speed up as it goes across the relatively open kitchen area. There are also videos of the SafePath(tm) wheelchair, which is a migration of the CareBot AI centric navigation system to a standard power wheelchair, and recently developed cost effective depth cameras were used in this recent configuration. SafePath(tm) navigation is now available to OEM licensees and these videos show the versatility of GeckoSystems' fully autonomous navigation solution.

GeckoSystems, Star Wars Technology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYwQBUXXc3g

The company has successfully completed an Alpha trial of its CareBot personal assistance robot for the elderly. It was tested in a home care setting and received enthusiastic support from both caregivers and care receivers. The company believes that the CareBot will increase the safety and well being of its elderly charges while decreasing stress on the caregiver and the family.

GeckoSystems is preparing for Beta testing of the CareBot prior to full-scale production and marketing. CareBot has recently incorporated Microsoft Kinect depth cameras that result in a significant cost reduction.

Kinect Enabled Personal Robot video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn93BS44Das

Above, the CareBot demonstrates static and dynamic obstacle avoidance as it backs in and out of a narrow and cluttered alley. There is no joystick control or programmed path; movements are smoother that those achieved using a joystick control. GeckoNav creates three low levels of obstacle avoidance: reactive, proactive, and contemplative. Subsumptive AI behavior within GeckoNav enables the CareBot to reach its target destination after engaging in obstacle avoidance.

More information on the CareBot personal assistance robot:

http://www.geckosystems.com/markets/CareBot.php

GeckoSystems stock is quoted in the U.S. over-the-counter (OTC) markets under the ticker symbol GOSY.

http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GOSY/quote

Here is a stock message board devoted to GOSY recommended by us:

http://investorshangout.com/board/62282/Geckosystems+Intl+Co-GOSY

GeckoSystems uses http://www.LinkedIn.com as its primary social media site for investor updates. Here is Spencer's LinkedIn.com profile:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/martin-spencer/11/b2a/580

Telephone:

Main number: +1 678-413-9236

Fax: +1 678-413-9247

Website: http://www.geckosystems.com/

Safe Harbor:

Statements regarding financial matters in this press release other than historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company intends that such statements about the Company's future expectations, including future revenues and earnings, technology efficacy and all other forward-looking statements be subject to the Safe Harbors created thereby. The Company is a development stage firm that continues to be dependent upon outside capital to sustain its existence. Since these statements (future operational results and sales) involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time, the Company's actual results may differ materially from expected results.

SOURCE: GeckoSystems Intl. Corp.
(This version of the May 12 story has been refiled to add dropped words in paragraph 8, making clear Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany) By Joseph Nasr BERLIN (Reuters) - Three days after an emotional reunion with his younger son in Berlin, a 71-year-old Syrian handed a bar of olive oil and laurel soap, a hand-made wall hanging and a box of pistachio sweets to a 56-year-old German he had never met before. The gifts were from Aleppo, the city devastated by five years of war which he and his elder son had been able to leave thanks to the German, engineer and father of four, Martin Figur. Figur is one of the "Godfathers for Refugees", matched with the family by a non-profit organization of the same name that seeks sponsors to help Syrians already in Germany to bring their relatives here. "During the war, the Germans - government and people - have shown they are closer friends of the Syrian people than the Arabs," the Syrian father told Figur at their meeting, which was witnessed by Reuters. He declined to give his name to protect relatives still living in the fiercely contested city. Tight border controls across Europe, stricter asylum rules, and an EU-Turkey deal to clamp down on migrant sea crossings to Greece have left many Syrians in Germany struggling for ways to help relatives still in their homeland make it to safety. The arrival of more than a million migrants into Germany last year prompted the German government to tighten asylum rules, including a two-year ban on family reunions for those granted limited refugee status, making the situation worse.Martin Keune, the owner of an advertising agency, founded Godfathers for Refugees last year after two Syrian asylum seekers he was housing begged him to help them bring in their parents. Keune was inspired by the story of his wife's Jewish uncle, who survived the Holocaust thanks to a British couple who adopted him while the rest of his family were sent from Berlin to the Nazi death camp in Krakow, in Nazi-occupied Poland, where they perished. At Berlin's Schoenefeld airport on Saturday, the Syrian father's younger son Mohannad, who has been in Germany since 2006, held back tears as he greeted his father and brother. "You look exhausted, but healthy and you are breathing and that is the most important thing," he said, pressing his hand on his father's arm. DESPERATE Mohannad, 36, came to Germany ten years ago on a cultural exchange program and had been trying to reunite his family since 2012. "When I started looking into laws on family reunions, I became desperate," he said. His net monthly salary at a Berlin-based charity for refugees is less than the minimum of 2,160 euros ($2,460.24) the authorities say a sponsor must earn to bring in just one family member. That is about the average net salary in Germany. Since March 2015, the Godfathers' group has found sponsors for 103 Syrians, two-thirds of whom are already with family members in Berlin. The rest are waiting to receive two-year residency permits at German consulates in Lebanon and Turkey. The association can only sponsor Syrians who have at least one close family member, such as a spouse, a child, a parent or a sibling, who has been in Germany for at least one year. It relies on crowd funding and donations from its 2,200 members to raise the 800 euros a month it needs for each Syrian. This covers rent, health insurance, and a 400-euro stipend, equal to what the government pays unemployed Germans. The godfathers do not fund the Syrian newcomers directly but take on legal liability for their living costs for five years even if in the meantime they apply for asylum and are granted full refugee status. Figur signed a "Declaration of Commitment" at the Foreigners' Registration Office in Berlin accepting liability for Mohannad's father, brother as well his mother, who is still in Aleppo. Germany took in some 1.1 million migrants last year, and of the more than 470,000 asylum applications filed over that period the largest group were Syrians, making up 35 percent. The influx has fueled the rise of the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which entered three state parliaments in elections in March by luring voters angry with Chancellor Angela Merkel's welcoming approach toward refugees. "I can only encourage people to make contact with refugees, because only then will their attitudes change," said Figur, a Catholic, commending Merkel's courage in the refugee crisis. A ceasefire in Aleppo, Syria's largest city and its main commercial center before the war, has held since last week, making it easier for father and son to leave by land to Lebanon and on to Germany, a 20-hour journey. They know they are lucky and hope mother, daughter and grandson - who have stayed behind at the wish of the son-in-law - will be able to join them soon in Berlin. They described the gifts to Figur as a gesture of gratitude for "helping strangers". "Martin Figur helped us even though he did not know us," said Mohannad's brother, 38, pointing at his "godfather" with a smile. "And this is what I want to do in the future, help others." ($1 = 0.8705 euros) (Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Last week a new cultural project -- promising to revive and cherish Egypt's oldest wind instruments -- celebrated its launch at the premises of Doum Cultural foundation in downtown Cairo.

As the first class to be graduated from the cultural development diploma of Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, the group of four students picked ancient Egyptian wind instruments as their proto type.

"We aim to document, archive and revive the instruments that are divided into four authentic types and that are barely in fashion nowadays," explained Ramy Riad, a co-founder of the project who also works at the women and memory forum.

The project is supported by Pro-Helvita (Swiss Funding body that supports cultural projects.)

"Our project has six phases that shall also promote the learning and usage of such instruments, via establishing a website to connect, we also aim to promote more exhibitions and performances of such instruments, in order to revive them," Riad added.

The event included an interesting photography exhibition of the renowned American photographer Dominik Huber, who documented the process of making such instruments between 2007 and 2008 in several Delta governorates.

There are four main types of wind instruments:

Arghoul is made up of two pipes but of different sizes tied by a waxed thread and two attached tips, so that the player can place both in his mouth although only one pipe has an opening.

The Mizmar is similar but with a wider end and the holes in the pipe are created in accordance to the music tones needed.

The Kawala, on the other hand is one pipe, similar to the flute, but with no opening on the back and it comes in nine different sizes, according to the music note being composed.

The Magruna is a type of flute with two identical pipes, with each having five or six openings, with the number of openings denoting the maqamat.

"We picked the most famous wind instrument players that are displayed in the photo gallery- they are the Shahin Family in Menoufiya Governorate," explained Menna Sabri, the co-founder of the project.

Most of those players have inherited this instrument from their fathers and most of them know how to make it themselves, for its very personal to the player," she added.

"The best mismars nowadays are made from apricot and olive trees," explained Shahat Farag Ghanem, a mismark artist and a member of Shubra El-Kheima troupe, who have just ended their tour of France. Ghanem and Micheal Adel (A music student at the Higher Institute of Music) played in celebration of the revival project of Mizmar.

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Say what? Even the world's highest paid supermodel, Gisele Bundchen, has dealt with her share of bullying and self-doubt. The Brazilian-born beauty revealed to The New York Times in a new interview on Sunday, May 15, that she was taunted as a child for her figure and face, and even throughout her successful modeling history.

PHOTOS: Tom and Gisele's Most Romantic Moments

My career was never based on pretty, Bundchen, 35, recalled to the Times' Style section. "Even before I got into the business, I was used to being bullied because I was always tall and skinny and stuck out. I got really red all the time from playing volleyball, red like a pepper. So I thought bullying was just the way life is."



That followed Bundchen into adulthood as she slowly took over runways in the 90s and eclipsed her peers. In the beginning, you know, everyone told me, Your eyes are too small, the nose is too big, you can never be on a magazine cover, the model, who is married Tom Brady, recalled. But, you know what? The big nose is coming with a big personality.

PHOTOS: Biggest Magazine Cover Controversies Ever

Bundchen revealed that those physical insecurities, however, forced her to build something sustainable. I always knew that, even if I was not the most beautiful girl, Id be the most energetic and hard-working, she shared. If you want to know the truth, thats the reason for my success.



The star's upbringing also contributed heavily to her success. "When I was a kid, I never even thought about fashion, Bundchen recalled. I had one pair of jeans. She was also raised in a family of six girls. Im a twin, Im a Cancer, Im always taking care of other people, Bundchen told the Times. Ive always been the fixer in the family, the responsible one. Ive always been a hard worker, never late for a job in my life. Really, ask anyone.



PHOTOS: Stars' Funniest First Jobs

"This opportunity was given to me when I left home at 14 and I was not going to come back empty-handed, she recalled of being discovered at a mall food court. What else can a 14-year-old do to make money? I was determined to make it work.



Two years later, iconic fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier cast a then-unknown Bundchen for a Harper's Bazaar editorial. "Some people on the sitting were saying, Oh, shes not too pretty, she has a big nose, Demarchelier recalled to the Times. But I said, No, no, I like her. She was smart and outgoing, always happy, and clearly already knew what she was doing. Immediately, right away, you could see that the girl was special. She got 20 pages right away."




Oil prices were up 2% on Monday after U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs predicted a positive shift in the market in the coming months.

Goldman Sachs said Monday the oil market is making its way out of oversupply due to disruptions that have lessened production levels across the market. In Nigeria, for example, Reuters reports oil output has fallen to its lowest level in decades due to a series of attacks on facilities. An ongoing wildfire in Canada has also impacted output.

The oil market has gone from nearing storage saturation to being in deficit much earlier than we expected, Goldman Sach said, according to Reuters. The market likely shifted into deficit in May  driven by both sustained strong demand as well as sharply declining production.



The investment bank is also forecasting a switch in the second half of 2016, with supplies shrinking at a slower pace.

[Reuters]
donald trump

Following Donald Trump's success in the primaries, many Republican Senate candidates seeking reelection in 2016 have been faced with a dilemma: Do they endorse Trump or run away from him?

Many are instead trying a third option. Republicans are developing some creative ways to distance themselves from the presumptive nominee without alienating his fervent supporters.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is one of the most vulnerable senators up for reelection. Johnson, speaking with Wisconsin radio host Mike Daly on Sunday, asserted that while he tepidly supported Trump, he could rescind his support if the real-estate mogul "crosses a line."

"To me, support versus endorse are two totally different things," Johnson said.

"Any individual that would be running for office, if they would say something that crosses a line that's so significant, so major that you couldn't support them, I'd have to withdraw support from any individual," he added.

Johnson wasn't the only senator to draw a distinction between "supporting" the former reality-television star and "endorsing" him. In fact, it has become a popular theme among GOP candidates.

Earlier this month, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte's reelection campaign released a statement saying that the senator would support Trump, but not endorse him.

"As she's said from the beginning, Kelly plans to support the nominee. As a candidate herself, she hasn't and isn't planning to endorse anyone this cycle," communications director Liz Johnson said in the statement.

Other candidates have acknowledged Trump's appeal while maintaining distance from the presumptive nominee.

Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey  who has supported his tough reelection campaign by highlighting his bipartisan accomplishments on issues like gun control  said last week that, as a Republican, he was "inclined" to support the party's nominee, but found the presumptive nominee's candidacy "highly problematic."

In an interview earlier this month, Toomey said that a Trump-Clinton matchup was "not the choice I had hoped to be presented with, but I guess this is where we are."

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Opponents of the Republican senators have jumped on the rhetorical gymnastics.

"I guess calling women dogs, proposing to ban all Muslims, and suggesting that Mexican immigrants are rapists doesn't cross the line for Sen. Johnson," a Democratic official told Business Insider.

A representative for Johnson's campaign didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Marcy Stech, a spokeswoman for the proabortion-rights Democratic group EMILY's List, asserted that voters wouldn't buy the Republicans' rhetorical "tap dancing."

"None of these Republican candidates have had the spine to stand up to Donald Trump so far," Stech said in an email earlier this month.

She continued:

He's called Mexicans rapists, Muslims terrorists, and women dogs  and it's all been met with silence from Republicans. Trump's words and his policies are toxic for any Republican on the ballot, and no amount of rhetorical tap dancing will be able to get around that.

Still, those endorsing Trump outright have given Democrats fresh ammunition.

In Illinois, the state's Democratic Party and Rep. Tammy Duckworth's campaign have repeatedly found creative ways to highlight Sen. Mark Kirk's stated support for Trump. For instance, the party has Photoshopped an image of the senator with Trump's trademark hair and a red "Make America Great Again" hat.

And in Arizona, Senate Democratic candidate Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick and left-leaning groups like People for the American Way are already hammering Sen. John McCain with negative ads over his endorsement of Trump.

McCain has illustrated in private comments the difficulty that Trump's candidacy poses to Republicans. He said at a private event, according to audio obtained by Politico:

If Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, here in Arizona, with over 30% of the vote being the Hispanic vote, no doubt that this may be the race of my life. If you listen or watch Hispanic media in the state and in the country, you will see that it is all anti-Trump. The Hispanic community is roused and angry in a way that I've never seen in 30 years.

NOW WATCH: FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Why I won't vote for Donald Trump





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United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Britain's former prime minister Gordon Brown on Monday launched a new global fund to help 30 million refugee children stay in school.

The "Education Cannot Wait Fund" will seek to raise $3.85 billion over five years from leading governments, companies and philanthropists.

It will be formally launched next week at the World Humanitarian Summit to be held in Istanbul.

Sending Syrian children living in camps in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon to school would cost about $800 million per year, Brown told reporters.

The goal is to provide hope to a "lost generation" of children stranded in camps without access to schools, he said.

The fund is aimed at sustaining school-age children for up to five years and marks a shift from providing short-term emergency humanitarian aid.

Some 75 million children worldwide have seen their education severely disrupted by wars, natural disasters and other crises.
By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Governments began work on Monday on a rule book to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming, with the United Nations urging stronger action after a string of record-smashing monthly temperatures. NASA said at the weekend that last month was the warmest April in statistics dating back to the 19th century, the seventh month in a row to break temperature records. The meeting of government experts is the first since 195 nations reached a deal in Paris in December to limit climate change by shifting from fossil fuels to green energies by 2100. It will begin to work out the detail of the plan. "The Paris Agreement represents the foundations ... Now we have to raise the walls, the roof of a common home," French Environment Minister Segolene Royal told a news conference. The agreement sets targets for shifting the world to green energies by 2100 but is vague, for instance, about how governments will report and monitor their national plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Many government delegates at the start of the May 16-26 U.N. talks, in Bonn, Germany, expressed concern about rising temperatures and extremes events such as damage to tropical coral reefs, wildfires in Canada or drought in India. "We have no other option but to accelerate" action to limit warming, Christiana Figueres, the U.N. climate chief, told a news conference, asked about the NASA data. She said record temperatures were partly caused by a natural warming effect of an El Nino weather event in the Pacific Ocean, magnified by the build-up of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. She said national promises for curbing greenhouse gases put the world on track for a rise in temperatures of between 2.5 and 3 degrees Celsius (4.5 to 5.4 Fahrenheit), well above an agreed ceiling in the Paris text of "well below" 2C (3.6F) with a target of 1.5C (2.7F). "Certainly we are not yet on the path" for the Paris temperature targets, she said. Last month, the Paris Agreement was signed by 175 governments at a New York ceremony, the most ever for an opening day of a U.N. deal, and including top emitters China and the United States. The agreement will enter into force once 55 nations representing 55 percent of world emissions have formally ratified. Royal said she would submit a bill on Tuesday to the French National Assembly seeking ratification. (Reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Alison Williams)
ATHENS, May 16 (Reuters) - Greece's parliament will vote on a new package of tax hikes and reforms demanded by its international lenders on Sunday, two days before euro zone finance ministers assess whether Athens qualifies for much-needed bailout loans.

The bill would increase value added tax by 1 percentage point to 24 percent, raise tax on fuel, tobacco and alcohol, liberalise the sale of banks' non-performing loans and detail the set-up a new privatisation fund, government officials said.

It will also include details on a contingency mechanism to impose tighter austerity measures, which will be activated only if Greece misses its fiscal targets, the officials said on Monday.

The vote is expected to test Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' left-led government, which has a thin majority of 153 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament. Athens says that if activated, the contingency measures will not hurt the poor.

Passing the reforms before the Eurogroup meeting on May 24, is a demand of international lenders to wrap up the review which will unlock the next tranche of funds that Athens will use to pay IMF loans, state arrears and ECB bonds maturing in July.

Talks between Greece and the lenders -- the European Stability Mechanism, European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- over the reforms have dragged on for months.

The delays have been mainly due to a rift between EU and IMF lenders over Greece's fiscal progress and the sustainability of its debt. The IMF believes that without debt relief or additional measures Athens will miss a bailout targets for 3.5 percent of GDP primary surplus in 2018.

Euro zone finance ministers have offered to grant Greece debt relief if the country delivers on all reforms agreed under its latest bailout.

Athens, which aims to tap markets in 2017, hopes that substantial debt relief will help attract investors and convince Greeks that their sacrifices are paying off after seven years of belt-tightening.

The conclusion of the review will also lead to the reinstatement of the European Central Bank's waiver for the country's banks. The ECB ditched its waiver on a minimum credit rating requirement on Greek debt last year, cutting off Greek banks from cheap lending.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Lefteris Papadimas; Editing by Alison Williams)
During a press conference held in Cannes, the president of Luxor African Film Festival announced the details of the 6th edition to be held in March 2017

At Cannes Film Festival in the Egyptian pavilion, the president of Luxor African Film Festival (LAFF) Sayed Fouad announced that Morocco, and director Spike Lee, would be the sixth editions guests of honour.

During the festivals next edition there will also be tributes to actress Nelly Karim, late director Yousry Nasrallah, and Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako, according to Fouad.

During the announcement, Fouad said that Moroccos high quality and extensive film production widely supports African cinema.

A special tribute will spotlight Egyptian actress Nelly Karim for her distinctive work tackling important issues, including her role in the film Clash, currently featured in Cannes Un Certain Regard section.

Renowned Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah will also have a tribute in his name, and LAFF will also feature a tribute to Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako, honouring his works that have contributed to globally raising the standards of African cinema.

Renowned director Spike Lee will be the festivals guest of honour for his interest and support of African humanitarian issues.

As announced by Attiea Dardeer, the head of the LAFF viewing committee, the Egyptian festival will continue its collaboration with Cannes by holding screenings of the French festivals short films competition.

For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

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The New Website Features Safe and Effective Products that Address a Host of Skincare Issues

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / Green Ventures Health, a website that is devoted to offering high quality health and skincare products, is pleased to announce the launch of their new and user-friendly site. The website, which was recently launched by Greenbush Ventures LLC, not only features a variety of popular products, it also includes in-depth information about why and how they work.

The new website recently caught the eye of the reviewers on SupplementHunter.com. In this recent online review of Green Ventures Health, the team from the Supplement Hunter website offered their praise for the new site.

"The company's line of safe yet powerful products provide visible solutions to common skincare complaints," the review noted, adding that Green Ventures Health is devoted to selling only those products that they know will produce positive results.

For example, even though the Green Ventures Health site has not been live for that long, it is already creating quite a buzz with shoppers who are looking for natural skin care products. For example, their Pure Moroccan Argan Oil is easy to use and can be mixed with moisturizing lotion or added to water that is then sprayed on the skin.

"In addition to encouraging new cell growth, the oil also reduces inflammation as it moisturizes skin and hair," the review noted.

Greenbush Ventures Advanced Eye Gel is also rapidly gaining in popularity with visitors to the new website. It contains DuPont Glypure glycolic acid that can help to exfoliate the skin and renew cells along with Syn-Coll, a synthetic peptide that stimulates the skin's natural collagen production.

"The active ingredients of the Advanced Eye Gel remove dead, dull skin cells and replace them with smooth, radiant new skin," noted the review, adding that no matter what skin issues people have, Greenbush Ventures LLC and their new Green Ventures Health website have a solution.

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"Although Greenbush Ventures LLC products deliver results quickly, don't expect them to fade; high-quality, cutting-edge ingredients make these results last."

Anybody who would like to learn more about Green Ventures Health is welcome to visit the new website at any time; there, they can read more about their line of health products.

About Greenbush Ventures LLC:

The mission behind Greenbush Ventures LLC is to provide the finest health and beauty products available on the market. For more information please go to: http://greenventureshealth.com/

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admin@rocketfactor.com

(949) 555-2861



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Guatemala City (AFP) - Guatemala and Belize will hold talks in Turkey this weekend on a border dispute that veered toward crisis last month after Belizean soldiers killed a Guatemalan boy.

Belize Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington will meet Saturday in Istanbul with his Guatemalan counterpart, Carlos Raul Morales, the two sides said.

The two Central American countries have a 150-year-old dispute centered on the Sarstoon River, which runs between them.

"Both sides have agreed that notwithstanding those positions which neither side will relinquish, a mechanism must be found to guarantee peaceful use, stability, and navigational security at the Sarstoon River," Belize's foreign ministry said.

Prior to announcing that talks, the Guatemalan foreign minister called on Belize's military to be "less aggressive" in a press conference.

Guatemala has made claims over more than half of Belize's territory dating back to when its small neighbor was a British colony known as British Honduras.

The tension turned explosive on April 20, when a Belizean patrol shot and killed a 13-year-old Guatemalan boy and wounded his brother and father.

Each country said the incident happened on its side of the border.

The two sides met earlier this month in Washington at the invitation of Secretary General Luis Almagro of the Organization of American States.

If the Istanbul talks fail to reach a consensus, the two sides will continue negotiations in Washington, they said.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / David H. Brett, President & CEO, reports that GWR Resources Inc. (former trading symbol GWQ) has changed its name to Engold Mines Ltd. (TSXV: EGM) to better reflect the Company's focus on the Aurizon Gold prospect within its 100% owned Lac La Hache property in British Columbia's Cariboo region. Effective the opening of trading on Monday, May 16, 2016, Engold will commence trading on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol EGM. No other change has been made to the Company's capital. Shareholders approved the name change at the Company's AGM held in Prince George on April 22nd, 2016, along with all other resolutions before the meeting.

"The name Engold better reflects the company's new strategic direction that is focused on the high grade Aurizon Gold prospect," said Engold President & CEO David Brett. "Management believes Aurizon Gold, which lies within Engold's larger Lac La Hache Property in BC's Cariboo region, has the potential to host an economic, high grade, underground gold mine."

Engold Mines Ltd.

Per/

David Brett

President & CEO

For further information, please contact:

David Brett, Telephone: 604-682-2421

This news release may contain "forward-looking statements". Readers are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual development or results may vary materially from those in these "forward looking statements."

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: GWR Resources Inc.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin might be chickens when it comes to riding rollercoasters, but the exes aren't afraid to spend time together! Paltrow posted a selfie with her ex to Instagram on Sunday while celebrating their daughter Apple's 12th birthday together in Disneyland.

RELATED: Beyonce and Gwyneth Paltrow's Daughters Are Too Cute During Apple's Birthday Sleepover -- See the Pics!

"When your parents can't handle #thundermountain anymore so they wait for you at the bottom.#disneyland #thehappiestplaceonearth#birthdayweekend," the Oscar winner captioned the cute pic with her former hubby.

The proud parents were spotted out with their two kids, Apple and Moses, and their friends at the California theme park. Martin was also photographed on some of the rides with his daughter.

The pair, who split in March 2014 after more than 10 years of marriage, still remain close and co-parent their kids Apple and Moses together.

MORE: Gwyneth Paltrow Put Her 'S**t Aside' During Chris Martin Split, Says They 'Still Love Each Other'

"We loved each other very much and we still do love each other and we have these two beautiful children together," Paltrow recently told Red magazine of her relationship with Martin. "It's also almost about having to press the 'override' button whenever you feel angry or jealous or whatever, broken-hearted. You have to press the button - I'm going back to the baseline of I love this person, he's the father of my children, he's a wonderful man. I'm just going to put my s**t aside for right now."

In addition to Apple's Disneyland outing, she also had a fun birthday sleepover and brunch with pals, including Beyonce's daughter, Blue Ivy, earlier in the weekend.

"Birthday brunch squad," Paltrow captioned a cute photo from the event, using the hashtag "#godsistersandbesties."

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Thousands of people from the Hazara ethnic minority took the streets of the Afghan capital of Kabul on May 16 to voice their opposition to a power-line project. The planned power line, between Turkmenistan and Kabul, would provide power to millions. Hazaras are disputing a decision to reroute the line away from Bamiyan province, where they predominate.

Protesters chanted slogans against the government, accusing the leaders for discrimination and injustice, according to local reports.

Police blocked the main access roads to Kabul center, preventing protesters from getting near the Presidential Palace, according to local news reports.

The construction of the power line was suspended by President Ashraf Ghani at the weekend, pending a review. Credit: Twitter/Mohammad Reza
Thousands of people from the Hazara ethnic minority took the streets of the Afghan capital of Kabul on May 16 to voice their opposition to a power-line project. The planned power line, between Turkmenistan and Kabul, would provide power to millions. Hazaras are disputing a decision to reroute the line away from Bamiyan province, where they predominate.

Protesters chanted slogans against the government, accusing the leaders for discrimination and injustice, according to local reports.

Police blocked the main access roads to Kabul center, preventing protesters from getting near the Presidential Palace, according to local news reports.

Local reports said that journalists were attacked during the protest.

The construction of the power line was suspended by President Ashraf Ghani at the weekend, pending a review. Credit: Twitter/@EjazMalikzada
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's new documentary on Hissene Habre's grim legacy, which premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, is a sober and sobering account of the enduring suffering the Chadian dictator inflicted on his people

The former Chadian strongman is sometimes referred to as Africa's Pinochet due to the atrocities committed during his turbulent eight-year rule (1982-90). But unlike the late Chilean dictator, who died without ever going to trial, Habre is being prosecuted for crimes against humanity by a Senegalese court set up at the behest of the African Union  in a test case for African justice. The landmark proceedings, which opened amid riotous scenes in a Dakar tribunal last year, follow a 25-year campaign to bring him to court.

The extraordinary footage of the former rebel-turned-despot being forcibly carried into the courtroom, kicking and screaming, forms the closing scene of Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's documentary Hissein Habre: A Chadian Tragedy, which opens in Cannes' Special Screenings segment on Monday.

A past winner of the festival's jury prize for A Screaming Man (2010), Haroun has spearheaded the renaissance of Chadian cinema after decades of war. His new work will help raise awareness of his country's troubled past, a subject that remains little known outside French-speaking Africa.

'Broken both physically and mentally'

Haroun conveys his country's tragedy with visual and narrative economy, focusing his camera on Habre's traumatised victims. There is no archival footage or attempt to reconstruct the history of his regime and its crimes. Haroun's narrator provides just enough context to grasp the essential features of a brutal dictatorship supported by France and the US as a bulwark against Colonel Gaddafi's Libya.

This includes references to Washington's suspected role in funding, arming and training Habre's dreaded political police, which a Chadian truth and reconciliation commission has accused of murdering up to 40,000 people and torturing many more.

The horror is portrayed through the mangled bodies, parched eyes and broken voices of those who survived the ordeal. We hear of limbs crushed with hammers, skulls squeezed in between sticks tied by ropes, eyes sprayed with insecticide. One man says he counted 2,053 dead in Habre's jails and prayed for everyone of them.



Another confesses he once wished more would die to make room in his overcrowded cell. Corpses were used as pillows. The worst bit is how banal death had become, says Clement Abaifouta, 58, describing himself as a half-man, broken both physically and mentally.

Abaifouta spent four years in Habre's jails and has fought for justice ever since. Throughout the film, he serves as both a lucid guide and a patient listener, his soothing words contrasting with the horror described by fellow victims. His gentle touch (emphasised in a marvellous scene of him washing the frail body of an elderly man who may be his father) and steely determination give the film a heartening undertone. And there is beauty in Haroun's powerful close-ups of faces scarred by pain but thirsting for justice.

The root of evil

The film's Cannes premiere follows the screening on Friday of Exile, the latest work by Cambodian helmer Rithy Panh, who has spent a lifetime probing the hidden wounds of his country's genocide under the Khmer Rouge. Both Panh's and Haroun's works lay bare the everyday trials of societies that have been forced to draw a clean slate over a terrible past, in which the victims are deprived of justice and closure, living side by side with their tormentors of yesteryear.

A Chadian Tragedy exposes this shocking adjacency in a surreal confrontation between a man crippled by torture and his former jailor. I was just a dog obeying orders, says the latter, struggling to express believable regret. I didn't think you would take it personally.

While Haroun's documentary ends on a positive note with the start of Habre's trial, it does so without naivete. The pain, and the evil that caused it, will not simply vanish if the African Pinochet is found guilty when a verdict is due later this year. We can tell where the evil comes from, says a doctor earlier in the film, upon looking at the results of an MRI scan carried out on a patient crippled by torture. Indeed science can explain why the patient is unable to stand upright after years of starvation in Habre's jails. But there is no answer to the filmmaker's underlying question: why did we inflict such evil upon ourselves?

*The spelling of Habre's first name in the title of the film is different from the one used by FRANCE 24.

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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Why Have Active Japan-Focused Funds Done Better Than ETFs?

(Continued from Prior Part)

Performance evaluation of MJFOX

The Matthews Japan Fund  Investor Class (MJFOX) rose 0.3% in the first four months of 2016, placing it third among the nine funds in this review. In the past one year, the fund has risen 2.5%, which ranked it as the second best among its peers. From the end of December 2015 until May 10, 2016, the fund has risen 3.8%. Below, weve graphed its performance against two ETFs: the iShares MSCI Japan ETF (EWJ) and the iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Japan ETF (HEWJ).

Lets look at what has contributed to the funds superior performance in the first trimester of 2016.

Portfolio composition and contribution to returns

The healthcare sector contributed the most to MJFOXs small rise in the first four months of 2016. Staying invested in M3 proved beneficial since the stock contributed the lions share of the sectors total positive contribution to the fund. However, the full impact of positive contributors was reduced to some extent by a negative contribution from Rohto Pharmaceutical.

Fund managers astute picks from the financial sector meant the sector contributed positively to the funds returns. Financials have tormented nearly all active funds, but not MJFOX. Choosing Financial Products Group over more traditional stock choices from the sector proved to be a boon. The stock did great for the fund in the first trimester of 2016. Nihon M&A Center played a similar role. Meanwhile, more traditional choices such as Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) and Tokio Marine Holdings (TKOMY) dragged on the sectors returns.

While Toyota Motor (TM) contributed negatively in the period, Nidec (NJ) contributed positively.

Investor takeaways

MJFOX has emerged among the top three funds in terms of point-to-point returns for most periods except April, which was a bad month for the fund. It has easily beaten passively managed EWJ. Except for the information technology sector, its stock picks from all other sectors did better than those comprising EWJ.

Story continues

Fund managers have shown the ability to make smart stock picks, which is an important skill for an active fund manager. For investors looking to invest for the medium to long term, MJFOX might be on the shortlist of funds investing in Japan.

In the next article, well take a look at the Nuveen Tradewinds Japan Fund  Class A (NTJAX).

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
Miami (AFP) - When it comes to maintaining health in one's older years, age means little and obesity may not be so bad after all, according to a US study released Monday.

Factors such as loneliness, depression and having broken a bone recently are more likely to predict a person's risk of dying in the next five years, researchers at the University of Chicago found.

"The healthiest people were obese and robust," said the study in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, which found that 22 percent of older Americans fit that definition of good health despite higher obesity and blood pressure.

They had fewer organ system diseases, better mobility, sensory function and psychological health than others.

They were also the least likely to die or become incapacitated five years into the study, which involved 3,000 people aged 57 to 85.

Researchers also uncovered new classes of people at twice the risk of dying or becoming incapacitated in five years.

They include those of normal weight who face one key health problem such as thyroid disease, anemia or ulcers, those who had broken a bone since age 45, and those with poor mental health.

The most unhealthy are those with uncontrolled diabetes and high blood pressure, and who often face challenges getting around and performing daily tasks.

"Instead of policies focused on reducing obesity as a much lamented health condition, greater support for reducing loneliness among isolated older adults or restoring sensory functions would be more effective in enhancing health and wellbeing in the older population," said co-author Edward Laumann of the University of Chicago.

Although cancer caused 24 percent of deaths among people over 55, it "seemed to develop randomly with respect to other organ system diseases," the study said.

- Challenging current wisdom -

Obesity had long been considered a leading risk factor for dangerous conditions such as heart attack and stroke.

Story continues

More than a third of Americans -- nearly 79 million people -- are considered obese, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, a number of recent studies have suggested that obesity may not be as bad as once thought, and may even offer protective benefits against certain diseases, a phenomenon known as "the obesity paradox."

Still, current medical wisdom holds that people are healthy if they can avoid heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.

But authors of the new study described a different approach, known as the "comprehensive model" of health and aging, that includes factors such as psychological well-being, sensory function and mobility as essential factors of overall health.

Using this new lens, about half of those considered healthy under the current medical model actually have "significant vulnerabilities that affect the chances that they die or become incapacitated within five years," the study said.

"At the same time, some people with chronic disease are revealed as having many strengths that lead to their reclassification as quite healthy, with low risks of death and incapacity."

The findings suggest that "from a health system perspective, a shift of attention is needed from disease-focused management, such as medications for hypertension or high cholesterol, to overall well-being across many areas," co-author William Dale said.
From Esquire

You can now see Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin locking lips in a highly provocative mural by Lithuanian artist Mindaugas Bonanu. Painted on the side of a local barbecue restaurant Keule Ruke, Lithuanian for "Smoking Pig," the mural references the famous 1979 photograph of East Germany's Erich Honecker and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev kissing, which was a traditional manner of Socialist leader greeting at the time.

The commissioned work appears to be an attempt at casting the two as lovers and is - yes - questionably homophobic. Written next to the Putin-Trump mural is, "Make everything great again," a play on Trump's campaign slogan.

On Friday, the restaurant's owner Dominykas Ceckauskas, who commissioned the piece, told the AFP, "...[W]e have a new Cold War, and America may have a president who seeks friendship with Russia. We see many similarities between these two 'heroes' (Putin and Trump). They both have huge egos, and it's amusing to see they are getting along well."

While it remains to be seen what impact this work will have and while the intentions behind it are not entirely clear, street art has been a powerful form of commentary over the years. Here's a look at some famous murals from recent times.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., May 5, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Via Dave Lutz at JonesTrading, here's a super quick guide to what traders are talking about right now:

Good Morning! US Futures are mixed despite commodities higher and a few large deals early (RRC for MRD / PFE for ANAC). Overseas, very light trading as Austria, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland are closed for Holiday today. EuroStoxx is off 60bp and FTSE 40bp, but volumes are almost 50% light to recent averages. Pretty decent pullback of Bond Proxies, with Telecom and Staples getting hit for 1%+ across the continent, while a bounce in the miners help London offset broad weakness in the banking sector. Over in Asia, China shrugged off weaker April data to gain 80bp and Aussie climbed 60bp. While Nikkei gained 30bp, our desk in Kauai noted a bit of retail panic as the small cap Mothers index tanked 6.7% following weak earnings.

The DXY is mixed, losing ground to Euro and commodity currencies liker the A$, but making some upside against Yen. In Japan, 10Y JGB yields hit -11bp as PPI collapsed to 6+Y lows  keeping Treasuries and Bunds just off Fridays peaks. Ore climbed 1.3%, but Rebar was slammed for 4% in China, continuing last weeks record selloff  Silver has jumped 1.4%, dragging gold nearly 1% higher and back over $1280/oz. Oil prices have climbed to a 7-month high this morning  GS upgrades and Wildfires in Canada and militant activity in Nigeria have disrupted supply from two of the worlds largest oil producers. Softs are mixed, with Sugar losing 1% as net longs jump to 3Y highs

Ahead of us today, we get the NAHB Housing Market Index at 10. At 1pm the EIA releases its monthly drilling productivity report. At 2pm we get weekly Trade dta from Brazil. At 4pm the US Treasury releases Net Long-term TIC Flows  and tonight Fed's Kashkari Holds a Town Hall on TBTF in Minneapolis at 7pm. Pretty quiet in Washington  at 9:30 the Supreme Court issues orders, including list of new cases; at 10am, court issues opinions; Major outstanding cases include cases on consumer lawsuits, Puerto Rican debt, affirmative action, Obamacare contraceptive coverage, abortion, Obama immigration plan. Homeland Security Sec kicks off U.S. Chamber of Commerce Infrastructure Week 2016 with a speech at 9:50.

Story continues

NOW WATCH: FORMER GREEK FINANCE MINISTER: The single largest threat to the global economy





More From Business Insider


Junk Bond Issuance Paused Last Week, Market Sentiment Is Positive

(Continued from Prior Part)

Investor flows into high-yield bond funds

Investor flows into high-yield bond funds were positive last week. According to Lipper, net inflows from high-yield bond funds totaled $296 million in the week ending April 27. In the previous week, high-yield bond funds saw net inflows of $410 million. With the inflows last week, high-yield bond funds have witnessed YTD (year-to-date) inflows of $9.7 billion.

Yields and spreads analysis

Yields on high-yield debt and spreads between high-yield debt and Treasuries fell over the week ending April 29, 2016. Yields have been hardening while spreads have been constantly tightening since mid-February. That means that investors are willing to accept lower compensation for credit risk as the US economy shows signs of improvement.

High-yield debt yields, as represented by the BofA Merrill Lynch U.S. High Yield Master II Effective Yield, fell to 7.6% on April 28the lowest since November 6, 2015. Meanwhile, they fell 13 basis points from a week ago and ended at 7.6% on April 29, 2016.

Like yields, the Option-Adjusted Spread fell in the week. The BofA Merrill Lynch U.S. High Yield Master II Option-Adjusted Spread fell to 6.2% on April 28the lowest since November 18, 2015. It fell five basis points from last week. It ended at 6.2% on April 29.

Returns on high-yield debt indices, mutual funds, and ETFs

Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions. With yields falling, returns on high-yield debt rose in the week ending April 29. The BofA Merrill Lynch U.S. High Yield Master II Index rose 0.8% over the week. The returns in 2016 were positive. The index has risen by 7.7% YTD.

Mutual funds such as the American Funds American High-Income Trust  Class A (AHITX) and the PIMCO High Yield Fund  Class A (PHDAX) provide exposure to high-yield debt. AHITX and PHDAXs weekly returns rose by 0.6% and 0.1%, respectively.

Story continues

Popular ETFs providing exposure to high-yield debt rose over the week. The prices of the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) and the SPDR Barclays Capital High Yield Bond ETF (JNK) rose 0.5% and 0.7%, respectively, over the week ending April 29.

In the primary market, Ardagh Holdingsa subsidiary of Ardagh Group SA, United Rentals (URI), PQ Corporation, and Kaiser Aluminum (KALU) were some of the issuers of high-yield bonds. You can read more about the primary market activity in Part 3 of this series.

In the next part, well analyze primary market activity in leveraged loans.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
Oil isnt the only reason American boots keep leaving imprints in the Arabian dust. But its certainly the biggest one.

The United States has fought two wars in Iraq during the last 30 years, and its now embroiled in a low-visibility war with Islamic State terrorists in northern Iraq and Syria. The day may be coming, however, when the United States can meet its own oil needs with no reliance on the despots and faux-democrats of the Middle East.

Put Canada, Mexico and the United States together and you have solved our energy security issues, famed oilman T. Boone Pickens tells Yahoo Finance in the video above. You dont need a damn barrel from the Middle East.

Pickens idea is to form a sort of North American cartel in which the United States and its northern and southern neighbors provide all the petroleum products anybody on the continent needs. The numbers roughly line up: The three nations combined produce about 22 million barrels of gasoline, heating oil and other petroleum products per day, while consuming about 24 million barrels. American assistance and technology could probably help Mexico significantly ramp up its oil output, and bring total North American production in line with consumption.

The problem is that all three nations trade petroleum products worldwide instead of limiting oil trading to North America. The United States, for instance, imports about 9.5 million barrels of oil per day, from more than 80 countries. And it exports nearly 5 million barrels of petroleum products per day to many of the same countries. The United States exports very little raw crude, which was only recently allowed. Most oil exports from the United States are refined products such as fuels and lubricants.

Creating a North American oil-trading block would require some kind of three-nation pact, similar, say, to the North American Free Trade Agreement. It would also have to be phased in slowly, to allow a smooth transition from the multilateral oil trade that prevails today to one focused on North America. The whole scheme may seem implausible, given that the U.S. Congress can barely approve treats for dogs, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is more interested in building walls to keep Mexicans out of the U.S. than in mutually beneficial agreements.

Story continues

On the other hand, the whole oil economy is in a state of upheaval because of the surge in U.S. oil production caused by new fracking techniques and a worldwide oversupply of petroleum. Oil giant Saudi Arabia recently dismissed its long-serving oil minister and announced a plan to diversify its economy, to become less dependent on oil. Russia, another huge producer, is in a severe recession due to the plunge in oil prices and a huge decline in trade. Venezuela, with the worlds largest oil reserves, ought to be rich but instead is enduring an economic collapse.

There have been oil busts, before, and the petrostates have largely bounced back. But Pickens thinks the United States should exploit its new power as an oil producer to develop muscular new energy policies, downsize the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, and deploy the resources someplace else. We ought to get out of there, because we dont need their oil, he says. There are certainly other reasons to stay involved in the Middle East, but U.S. policy toward the region would be a lot simpler if oil werent part of the equation.

Rick Newmans latest book is Liberty for All: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Financial and Political Freedom. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.
Daniel Bradbury of the U.K. found himself in hot water at school when he showed up with pink hair  which he dyed to show support for a gravely ill pal. (Photo: Aaron Chown/SWNS)

A teenager who went to school with his hair dyed pink was disciplined on Friday  and his subtle fuchsia fringe wasnt even a fashion statement, but a show of support for a friend who is battling a rare blood disease.

Daniel Bradbury, 15, of the U.K., is a student at the Fairfax School in the county of West Midlands. He is reportedly one of at least 30 people who have dyed their hair, shaved their heads, or written on their arms in pink makeup to help show public support for their friend Kallum Aish, 13, who is suffering from the rare aplastic anemia and undergoing a bone-marrow transplant, with his 11-year-old brother as the donor.

Daniel isnt the only one to have been placed in isolation (similar to suspension) at school, though its not clear if all the teens attend the same academy. On a Facebook page thats been created in support of Kallum, someone posted on Monday about a friend who had to go pick her daughter up at school. He reported, They have made her stand outside reception since she got there this morning  all the other pupils who have dyed their hair have been isolated in a classroom  there were a few [who did this] to help show support, and the way they are treating her daughter is shocking and a disgrace  go team pink.

The wide array of pink beauty touches in honor of Kallum Aish. (Photo: Facebook)

Daniels father, Dennis, told SWNS that he was disgusted by the schools reaction to his sons pink hair and that its been done to raise awareness. He added, Im livid. Were talking about a few days, what difference would that make? Daniel hasnt had a day off school in five years. Dyeing his hair isnt going to harm his work, keeping him in isolation will. The students mother, Michelle, said she called the school to explain why Daniel had dyed his hair but that it didnt do any good.

Story continues

This is not the first time school administrators have been unaccepting of students creative hairstyles  whether done for reasons of greater good or straight-up self-expression. In 2014, a Michigan teen was barred from competing in his schools track meet because he had cut his hair into a Mohawk and dyed it pink in honor of his mother, a three-time breast-cancer survivor. That same year, a Colorado girl, 9, shaved her head in a brave show of support for her friend, who was undergoing chemotherapy for neuroblastoma; the school suspended her but let her return to classes following a massive public outcry.

More pink hair in honor of Kallum. (Photo: Facebook)

And within the past few months, hair-based controversies have occurred at middle schools in Georgia and Florida, where two girls faced suspension for having dyed their locks magenta and bright blue, respectively.

But anyone who remembers their teenage years should be aware that hair can serve as a hugely important statement and form of self-expression. For the kids its really a wonderful way of testing out different looks  its about separating and individuating, and exploring different identities, Connecticut-based teen and adolescent psychologist Barbara Greenberg tells Yahoo Beauty. Teens feel they have so little control over anything because of whats going on with their bodies and because theyre between childhood and adulthood. This is a type of expression thats harmless, and its not permanent. This is an area where parents can really pick their battles.

As for schools refusing to let distracting hair slide, Greenberg says, Schools like to keep things as uniform and constant as possible. And they see the hair [in certain styles] as an act of rebellion. I dont think it should be viewed that way at all. But even if a hairstyle is meant to be a rebellious act, she says, Its a lot better than hurting someone else or getting into drugs  and at least the kids are going to school. Youre supposed to be distracting as a teen.

Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Parents holding signs that read "oppose reduced enrollment, education equality" protest outside the provincial education department in Nanjing, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, on May 14

(Beijing)  Education authorities say a recent change to admission rules in rich cities that require universities to take in a greater number of non-local students will not put students in the home province at a disadvantage.

Following protests by parents, the Education Department in the eastern Jiangsu Province said on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, on May 13 that the college acceptance rate for local students "will not be lower than the previous year" because the number of test-takers in the province declined each year.

In April, the Ministry of Education and the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planner, released a jointed directive, which required 12 "cities and provinces with abundant higher education resources where (students) face less pressure to enter college in 2016" to admit 160,000 students from 10 other regions, most of which are poorer such as the southwestern provinces of Guizhou and Yunnan.

Parents who fear the change will make it more difficult for students to find a place at schools in their home province staged a series of protests in front of local education department offices in several provinces.

Elite universities in the country are concentrated in a few provinces and allocate higher admission quotas to local residents.

The government said changes to the admission policy aim to bridge the regional education gap.

The central province of Hubei will admit 40,000 students, the highest among the 12 regions, and Jiangsu will set aside 38,000 spots, the second most, the directive said.

However, Beijing, which is home to 37 top-tier universities  the highest among all Chinese cities  according to ranking website Gaokaopai.com, was exempted from the change. The directive also excluded the northern city of Tianjin that has 13 elite institutions.

However, Beijing admits a larger number of students whose families have a household registration, or hukou, in the capital compared to some of the regions where admission rules are to be changes, an expert said. For example, only about one in 100 students in Jiangsu can go to the top-tier provincial universities, while almost a quarter of the students in Beijing can go to the best schools in the city, said Xiong Bingqi, vice president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, an educational think tank.

Parents quoted by the news website The Paper said they felt angry and confused as to why the policy did not require the Beijing government to admit more non-local students. Parents in Jiangsu told the website, there was already fierce competition to enter universities in their province and the policy might put local students at a disadvantage.

Although government documents show that quotas for students from less developed regions have been in place since 2008, the numbers this year "are understood to be significantly larger than those in previous years," state-run newspaper China Daily said.

However, the provincial education department in Jiangsu said the admission rate for local students entering top-tier provincial universities has increased in the past three years and the trend will continue this year.

Liu Chuantie, director of the Hubei Education Department, told media on May 13 that officials will make sure the number of local students enrolled in universities in the province and the acceptance rate will not be lower than in 2015.

(Rewritten by Chen Na)
By Norihiko Shirouzu

BEIJING (Reuters) - After poaching Bentley's design chief last year, Hyundai Motor Co said on Monday that it has also secured the services of the luxury marquee's exterior designer.

Hyundai issued a statement saying Sangyup Lee will start work next month as its head of design, after Reuters reported the hiring of the Korean designer by the South Korean auto giant.

Lee is being brought in to work with Luc Donckerwolke, a Peruvian-born Belgian, to lead Hyundai's development of its Genesis premium car brand - a project driven by Chung Euisun, heir-apparent to the Hyundai Group.

"Lee will help...enhance the design competitiveness of both the Hyundai and Genesis brands with his abundant experience in designing high-end luxury vehicles," Hyundai said in its statement.

"His challenging and innovative design languages fit well with the DNA of Hyundai Motor."

Hyundai Motor, which sells some 8 million cars a year, sees limited growth unless it breaks into new markets, a person close to the automaker told Reuters. For the South Korean firm, that means premium cars and maybe pick-up trucks and parts of Southeast Asia.

Lee said he has joined Hyundai Motor as a vice president in charge of Hyundai and Genesis design, reporting to Donckerwolke, who will head up Hyundai's new Prestige Design Division, as well as being global head of Hyundai design - a reporting arrangement that Hyundai also confirmed on Monday.

Bentley spokesman Andrew Roberts confirmed Lee "has resigned from Bentley to take a position at another brand."

Lee, 46, ran Bentley's exterior design since 2012 having previously worked at Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) group's design center in California, and General Motors (GM.N). He played a lead role in designing the Chevrolet Corvette, Stingray and Camaro - which featured in the "Transformers" movies - and Bentley's Bentayga SUV.

"CLEAN SHEET"

Lee told Reuters the ex-Bentley design duo aim to make Genesis a recognized global premium brand as new disruptive technologies such as autonomous, connected cars and alternative propulsion systems alter the auto design landscape.

Story continues

"Because of these technologies, the car industry is about to hit a crossroads. The future is truly open," he said. "It's difficult to say if all the prestigious brands today will still be around in 10-20 years."

Lee, who says he was first approached by Hyundai two years ago, said he and Donckerwolke plan to design Genesis cars from a "clean sheet of paper".

"For decades, luxury brands such as Bentley, Aston Martin and Maserati have been about possession," he said. "In the future, as disruptive technologies kick in, luxury is going to be about experience. People are going to look for a special experience rather than something special to own."

GLOBAL LEGACY

As "mobility on demand" - the once futuristic concept of calling up a robot-car by smartphone - takes hold, Hyundai predicts many households in the United States, its biggest market, will no longer own two, or three cars, but spend more on one car, said the person close to the company.

"That means upscale cars," he said, adding "profitability-wise, the luxury segment is much better, too."

That fits with Chung's aspiration to not just drive the Genesis brand but elevate the Hyundai name to an elite global corporate league alongside the likes of BMW (BMWG.DE), Boeing (BA.N) and Apple (AAPL.O).

"That's his legacy. ES (Euisun) wants to make Hyundai a truly globally recognized and respected company," the person said.

Chung was involved with hiring both Donckerwolke and Lee, as well as Manfred Fitzgerald, former brand and design director at Lamborghini who was named earlier this year as head of Genesis, said another person with knowledge of the matter.

(Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu; Editing by Ian Geoghegan and Ryan Woo)
IDEX CORPORATION (NYSE: IEX) revealed Monday that its subsidiary, LUKAS Hydraulik GmbH, has reached a definitive agreement to buy AWG Fittings GmbH ("AWG") for a cash consideration of 46.0 million. The acquired firm is a leader in manufacturing of safety equipment in the Europe. The company expects the transaction to close in about 45 days, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

Talking about the transaction, IDEX Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Andy Silvernail, commented, "We are pleased to announce the AWG transaction, and look forward to welcoming them to the IDEX family. AWG brings excellent brands and products to our expanding Fire Suppression platform. This addition, coupled with our recent acquisition of Akron Brass, further supports our global customers with best in class life safety and fire suppression solutions."

IDEX said AWG produces engineered products for the safety and emergency response markets, including valves, monitors and nozzles, operating under the AWG, Alco, ZR, and Lancier brand names. The German-based firm generated about 36 million revenue for the year 2015. The company said that it would operate within its Fire and Safety/Diversified products division.

The stock traded 1.38 percent higher on Monday.

See more from Benzinga

 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
By Marja Novak

LJUBLJANA, May 16 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Monday that Slovenia, which narrowly avoided having to ask for an international bailout in 2013, needs to encourage private investment and swiftly privatise its banks.

In a report, the IMF also urged the government, which is struggling to reduce the budget deficit and public debt, to agree a deal with unions that would keep a lid on wages.

"To sustain the reasonable growth rates from 2014-15 given the expected drop in public investment, private investment needs to play a much stronger role than at present," the IMF said.

After injecting more than 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) of state money into the banking sector in 2013 to prevent banks collapsing under the weight of massive bad loans, Slovenia managed to return to growth in 2014, with GDP at 3 percent.

Last year growth eased to 2.9 percent while the IMF sees it at 1.9 percent in 2016, mainly because European Union funds have diminished, hitting public investment.

It urged fast bank privatisation in the country where successive governments had refused to sell banks in the name of the national interest. As a consequence the government still controls about 50 percent of the banking sector.

"Continued state control of banks creates risks of interference in their lending decisions," the IMF said, noting that the government should reconsider its plan to limit potential investors' stakes.

Last week Slovenia said it planned to float its largest bank, Nova Ljubljanska Banka, but stuck to an earlier decision that the government would keep a 25-percent stake and no other investor would be allowed to have a bigger stake than that.

The IMF also criticised the government's plan not to sell Slovenia's second largest bank, Abanka, until July 2019, saying that was "an unnecessary delay that would miss an opportunity to restore a fully competitive market for bank services and may negatively affect the bank's performance".

Story continues

The IMF warned that the budget deficit and debt, both due to shrink this year, "will start rising again in 2017 under current policies", adding that a wage deal and reforms in the public health and education sectors were necessary to prevent that.

The government expects the deficit to fall to 2.2 percent of GDP this year from 2.9 percent in 2015, while debt is expected to be drop to about 80 percent from 83 percent of GDP last year.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / Khang & Khang LLP announces that it is investigating claims of potential misrepresentations by Code Rebel Corporation ("Code Rebel" or the "Company") (CDRB). The investigation focuses on whether the Company and its officers violated securities laws by issuing misleading information to investors.

If you purchased shares of Code Rebel during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by email at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

The investigation concerns whether the Company violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Specifically, the investigation will focus on the Securities and Exchange Commission's May 6, 2016, order suspending trading of the Company's shares.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have any questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by email at joon@khanglaw.com.

This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.

Contact:

KHANG & KHANG LLP

Joon M. Khang, Esq.

Telephone: 949-419-3834

Facsimile: 949-225-4474

joon@khanglaw.com

SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
The Japanese star moves into English-language pics with Silence, Rita Hayworth

NEW HORIZONS

After appearing in numerous TV roles in the 1990s, Japanese actor Yosuke Kubozukas stardom skyrocketed when he scored the lead in the 2001 Japanese Academy Award-winning drama Go. His star continued to climb with roles in Pingu-Pongu, Laundry and Ichi. This year, hes tapping into English-language films, starring in a Martin Scorsese-directed drama and filming the war drama Rita Hayworth With a Hand Grenade.

CULTURE SHOCK

Kubozukas first Hollywood production is certainly a high-profile one: he stars alongside Liam Neeson and Adam Driver in Silence, Martin Scorseses historical drama that follows two Jesuit priests efforts to spread Christianity. The role required him to develop his English language skills, lose weight and study 17th century history.

LEARNING CURVE

The 36-year-old actor had to devote a significant amount of time to the films extended shooting schedule. There was a silver lining to the projects prolonged time frame though, the actor says. No matter how long the wait was in-between takes, I treasured each moment because the wait was worth it  the wait to work with people who all shared the same passion of wanting to make a great film, Kubozuka says.

LESSONS FROM A LEGEND

Reflecting on his early encounters with Scorsese, Kubozuka praises the storied filmmakers hands-on approach to directing, recalling a Silence scene that was filmed in a dirty staircase. As Scorsese directed me on my physical actions, he himself performed what needed to be done, falling on the ground and getting his clothes dirty. And he didnt care, Kubozuka says.

SOUL SEARCHING

Kubozukas pursuit of the craft was driven by a fascination with the theatrics of acting and as his career developed, that drive became influenced by storytelling and a zest for new experiences. Even though I have one soul, I am able to live and experience many souls [as an actor], he says.

Story continues

CANNES TIME

Kubozuka plays opposite Elizabeth Banks in  Rita Hayworth With a Hand Grenade. Banks plays as a WWII photojournalist shot down over the Pacific and stranded on an island, where the only other inhabitant is a marooned Japanese soldier (Kubozuka). Pic is being sold at Cannes by Radiant Films Intl.

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DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has launched a new crackdown on social media, arresting fashion models active on photo-sharing websites and a blog website manager after Tehran's top leader declared war on un-Islamic thoughts on the Internet. Eight members of a modeling network were arrested and accused of publishing photos of women without the obligatory hijab headscarf on the picture-sharing application Instagram, Tasnim news agency said on Sunday. State television also broadcast live "confessions" of a model who explained she posted photos of herself on Instagram wearing certain clothes or beauty products to earn money through advertisements. The semi-official student news agency ISNA also reported on Monday the arrest of Mehdi Butorabi, 53, the manager of the popular Persian Blog launched in 2001 as the Iranian equivalent of the Blogger weblog publishing tool. It provided a vibrant, diverse platform for thousands of young Iranians to express their thoughts. The Center for Investigation of Organised Crime, a branch of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), monitors social media to hunt for evidence of immorality or subversion. Iran blocks access to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube but millions of Iranians easily get around that by using virtual private networks (VPNs). However, that does not make them immune from state surveillance. Last year, three men and three women who posted a video of themselves singing and dancing along with a Western pop song were arrested. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday the Internet was promoting un-Islamic thoughts that should be promptly dealt with. "This is a real battlefield. The clerics and seminary students should prepare to enter this field and fight against deviations and erroneous thoughts," Khamenei was quoted as saying by his website. (Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
D routine in Padua, Italy, on Saturday, one of the country's most famous politicians, Beppe Grillo, made a poorly-received joke about the newly-elected Muslim London mayor, Sadiq Khan, suggesting the mayor is a suicide bomber.

"Now I want to see when he blows himself up in front of Westminster [government buildings]," Grillo said.

The Italian politician, leader of a major populist opposition party, the Five Star Movement, or M5S, also described Khan as "Bangladeshi"  the London mayor has Pakistani ethnic origins.

Beppe Grillo, Italian politician and stand-up comedian, performs.

One of the main problems with these comments, many political commentators contend, is the potential d it could do to Virginia Raggi, an M5S candidate currently leading the polls for mayor of Rome, the elections for which will be held on June 5 and 6. If Raggi were to win, it would be the most high-profile political office held by the party.

As of now, M5S has a stronghold in the Italian political landscape, closely trailing the ruling Democratic Party. But comments such as these may well loosen their position.

Raggi's opposition, Democratic Party mayoral candidate Roberto Giachetti, used Twitter to condemn Grillo's Islamophobic comments, "Didn't make me laugh."

Beppe Grillo: "Voglio vedere quando il sindaco musulmano di Londra si fara saltare in aria a Westminister". Non mi ha fatto ridere.

The twitterati echoed Giachetti's sentiment with a flurry of outraged tweets.

The way many on the right are talking about Sadiq Khan is disgraceful. Beppe Grillo is yet another to show their intolerance.

This mean we can all now start with the Italian jokes about their record on, war loyalty, dictators, racism, nazism?https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/15/beppe-grillo-sparks-explosion-of-outrage-with-sadiq-khan-joke?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=172338&subid=9213338&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2 ...

Oh Beppe! "Racist and misogynist humour is not uncommon within extreme parties in Italian politics" #BeppeGrillohttp://buff.ly/1Xtbg6g

Italy's Five Stars leader Grillo on Sadiq Khan 'a Bangladeshi who will blow himself up in Westminster' #ignorance

Ugh. Italian politician @beppe_grillo 'jokes' that London Mayor @SadiqKhan might blow himself up outside Westminsterhttp://gu.com/p/4j8fj/stw

If nothing else, for the sake of protecting his party, it might be time for Grillo hang up his comedian hat.
It takes a rare talent to clock up a volume of impressive performances in a career thats only a decade old. But British actor Jack OConnell has done just that, coming a long way since his solid debut aged 15 in Shane Meadows This Is England. In the last few years alone, his work leading Starred Up and 71 brought him British Independent Film Awards nominations, and he came to Hollywoods attention when Angelina Jolie cast him as Louis Zamperini in her movie Unbroken.

It could be because OConnell doesnt fit as the prototypical movie star that he has proved so attractive to directors. He feelsand isreal, and his natural ability in front of the camera makes him adaptable. Theres a common ground of intensity in the performances cited hereand thats particularly true of his latest role in Jodie Fosters Money Monster alongside George Clooney and Julia Roberts. But the characters themselves are poles apart, and OConnell makes finding them look effortless.

In Money Monster he plays Kyle Budwell, a struggling blue-collar New Yorker who takes Clooneys Lee Gatesa stocks-and-shares TV starhostage when he loses $60,000 on a bad investment tip. Played out in real time, the sparring match between Budwell and Gates is never less than thrilling, and OConnell more than holds his own against the veteran Clooney.

Here, OConnell shares his interest in the project and the design of his blossoming career; why Hollywoods voracious appetite for his talent wont stop him from working at home in Britain.

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By Julien Pretot CANNES, France (Reuters) - Amid the glitz and glamor of the Cannes Film Festival, American director Jim Jarmusch is once again offering an ode to quiet contemplation and domesticity with "Paterson", competing for the Palme d'Or. Paterson, played by Adam Driver, is a bus driver who lives with his wife Laura in Paterson, New Jersey. He follows a precise, mundane daily routine but also writes poems. Laura (Iranian-French actress Golshifteh Farahani) obsessively repaints objects and furniture in their home black and white. The movie's "story" - if it can be called that - unfolds over seven days. Paterson drives his bus around the city, walks his dog Marvin, drinks a single beer in the bar and then returns to Laura. "She's not a cliched housewife, she's very illuminated and interested and very active within just the confines of her house," Jarmusch said at a news conference. "She's very creative and expresses and chooses who she is. "And the same with Paterson. He's a man who drives a bus every day but he chooses to be also a poet and to be both these things it's his choices and his destiny." As well as "Paterson", Jarmusch's documentary "Gimme Danger", on the rock band The Stooges, will also be released in Cannes. "They're both about the idea that you in your life can choose your path, you can choose what you do in your life," the director said. Paterson, one of the 21 films in the main competition, premieres in Cannes on Monday. The 63-year-old Jarmusch, one of the gurus of independent American cinema, won the Grand Prix - for the most original film - in Cannes with "Broken Flowers" in 2005, and the Camera d'Or for best first feature film for "Stranger than Paradise" in 1984. (Editing by Andrew Roche)
The show must go on, and Kelly Ripa has emerged with Jimmy Kimmel as her first guest co-host after Michael Strahans departure from Live!

As soon as Kimmel sat down, he joked: Where is Michael? I haven't been paying attention. Everything all right?



Ripa smiled and replied: Everything's great!

Read: Kelly Ripa Honors Michael Strahan On His Last Day: 'I'm So Proud Of You'

Kimmel couldn't resist making mischief of the behind-the-scenes drama.

I'm so curious to know everything, he said. Let's start from the beginning, what happened?

Strahan bid the show a final farewell Friday after co-hosting the show for four years. After the show, cameras captured Ripa and Strahan sharing a long bear hug.

Kimmel asked: On Fridays show, was that genuine hugging and kissing?

She replied: "Yeah! We dont fake hug and kiss."

Kimmel, who was among Ripas replacement hosts in 2011 when Regis Philbin left and before Strahan signed on full time, made a crack about how he is always being called to help her out.

I'm like the ex-boyfriend you go back to for sex after you break up with your husband," Kimmel quipped.

Kimmel appeared on Howard Sterns SiriusXM show Monday prior to co-hosting with Ripa.

Kimmel said the shock jock had about 75 questions to ask about what has been going on at Live!

The late night host asked Live! producer Michael Gelman is Strahan will ever be allowed back on as a guest.

At some point, its possible, Gelman replied.

Read: Who Will Join Kelly Ripa on 'Live!' After Michael Strahan's Exit?

The opening graphics of the show have already been altered to say Live! with Kelly. Strahans name has been removed from show, as well as the new mugs Ripa and her cohosts will drink from.

And even the mugs weren't safe from a Kimmel gag, as he took a black marker and scribbled his name to say Live! with Kelly and Jimmy.

Story continues

Strahan left Live! to join Good Morning America full time. His stint with GMA will begin in September.

Watch: Michael Strahan Leaving 'Live!' To Join 'GMA'

Related Articles:
Michael Strahan may be gone from ABC's Live but he was far from forgotten on Monday's show.

Kelly Ripa and guest co-host Jimmy Kimmel had barely taken their seats and greeted the crowd when Kimmel quipped, "Where's Michael?"

With that, the ABC late night host jokingly grilled Ripa and executive producer Michael Gelman for the next few minutes about what really happened behind the scenes with Strahan, who left the show Friday just weeks after announcing he'd be leaving the daytime show for Good Morning America.

Ripa laughed in response to his "Where's Michael?" question and joked back, "That's right you don't read newspapers, I forgot."

Read More: Kelly Ripa Throws Subtle Shade During Michael Strahan's Final Show, Says Body-Language Expert

Kimmel: "I don't pay attention. Everything OK?"

Ripa: "Yeah, everything's great."

But he wasn't done there. Ripa said that having Kimmel as her first guest co-host is "tradition whenever we re-launch the show," to which he chimed in, "I'm like an ex-boyfriend that you go back to for sex after you break up with your husband."

Then he went after the dirt: "Let's start from the beginning. What happened?"

Ripa laughed uproariously but Kimmel did ask a few questions, which he said came from Howard Stern, whose SiriusXM radio show he'd appeared on earlier on Monday, and he directed most of them at Gelman after Ripa pointed out that he was sweating.

Question one: "Will you ever talk to Michael Strahan again?"

Gelman: "I'm sure I will."

Read More: Michael Strahan's "Bittersweet" Last 'Live With Kelly and Michael' Features Laughs, Tributes

Question two: "Will he back on the show as a guest?"

Gelman: "At some point. It's possible."

Kimmel then turned to Ripa and asked her if the best wishes, hugs and kisses she gave to Strahan during his last show were genuine.

Story continues

"Yeah we don't fake hug and kiss," she said. "It wasn't like air-kissing. It was a genuine, 'I'm going to miss you. Good luck.' "

Luckily for Ripa, Gelman and the daytime talk show audience, Kimmel didn't go nearly as far as Stern and Co. suggested with their NSFW questions.

Kimmel also asked Ripa about a newspaper report that pictures of Strahan would be taken down, after noticing "a million pictures" of the former co-host backstage.

"We haven't gotten around to it yet," said Ripa.

Read More: Who Should Replace Michael Strahan as Kelly Ripa's 'Live' Co-Host? (Poll)

Indeed, the show has been re-branded as Live With Kelly, the moniker it used after Regis Philbin retired and Ripa searched for her co-host four years ago. And Kimmel even suggested that each guest co-host could write his name on his Live With Kelly mug.

After Philbin left, it took the Live team months to pick Strahan as Ripa's co-host.

Kimmel wanted the show to have a shorter search this time and settle the question of who'll replace Strahan that day.

So he commissioned the wheel of prizes used during Live's trivia contest, which he'd filled out with seven possible co-hosts: Kylie Jenner, Jon Bon Jovi, Jojo (the Bachelorette), Derek Jeter, Pippa Middleton ("Ripa and Pippa is a nice sounding thing," Kimmel said), Becky With the Good Hair and a party-size summer sausage.

The sausage won, something Ripa and the audience were excited about. But Kimmel quickly revealed he had bad news.

"The sausage is leaving to go to Good Morning America," he said.

Ripa said, "Oh my gosh, again?!"

Read More: A Look Back at 'Live! With Kelly and Michael's' Recent Drama
- By Kyle Ferguson





John Buckingham (Trades, Portfolio), CEO of Al Frank Asset Management and editor of the Prudent Speculator newsletter, purchased a stake in Bank of America (BAC) during the first quarter.





Bank of America is one of the worlds largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, large corporations and governments with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services.

Bank of America has a market cap of $4.57 billion, a P/E ratio of .95, an enterprise value of $45.5 billion, a P/B ratio of .6, and a dividend yield of .44.

According to GuruFocus, Bank of America has a 6/ financial strength rating and a 5/ profitability and growth rating. It is possible that Buckingham decided to purchase 64,46 shares of Bank of America at the end of the first quarter because the company has increased its EBITDA growth by 5.% over the previous five years, which indicates a healthy situation for the company moving forward.

Bank of America also has a $.5 Graham Number according to GuruFocus. The Graham number was used by the father of value investing Benjamin Graham, who was able to mentor the most successful investor of all time, Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio). Buffett is currently ranked as the third richest person in the world according to Forbes.com with an estimated net worth of $66.4 billion dollars. The Graham number gives Buckingham a healthy margin of safety because he purchased his stake in Bank of America at $.88 per share. Below is a Peter Lynch Chart for Bank of America.

464545.png

Cheers to your investment success.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






The rumors that Jonathan Saunders would be filling the gaping hole left by Raf Simons when he parted ways with Dior have been officially laid to rest.

Diane Von Furstenberg has tapped the British designer as her label's first-ever chief creative officer. In this role, Saunders will have complete control over the creative direction of the brand and report directly to CEO Paolo Riva.

"Jonathan's extraordinary passion for colors and prints, his effortless designs, and his desire to make women feel beautiful make him the perfect creative force to lead DVF into the future," said Von Furstenberg in a release. "I could not have found a cooler, more intelligent designer and I cannot wait to watch him shine as our chief creative officer."

With the help of Riva, who joined DVF in 2015, Von Furstenberg has been working to modernize the brand she launched in 1970 - most notably by forgoing a traditional runway show in February of this year, instead opting to show her spring collection in a social media-friendly showroom concept.

Read More: Street Style: Cannes Edition

"The spirit with which this brand was founded is incredibly relevant today," said Saunders in a release. "I am thrilled to be part of its next chapter."

Saunders joins DVF after shuttering his 12-year-old eponymous label - which was a favorite of style stars from Lady Gaga to Kate Middleton to Olivia Palermo - in December 2015. At the time, the British designer cited personal reasons as the motivation for closing his line, however the move makes a bit more sense in light of his new gig.

In addition to his own label, Saunders worked as a consultant for Chloe and Pucci. Immediately following his graduation from Central Saint Martins in 2002, the designer was commissioned to create a bird of paradise print for Alexander McQueen. He has since garnered praise for his use of prints and silk screen printing techniques.
Cast: Lee Jin Wook, Moon Chae Won, Kim Kang Woo, Song Jae Rim

Genre: Action, Romance

Synopsis: With his days numbered, will Ji Won uncover the secret behind Swans parents death and snatch back what he deserves?

Cast: Kang Min Kyung, Ha Hee Ra, Jung Chan, Kang Tae Oh, Kwak Hee Sung

Genre: Family, Romance

Synopsis: After Go Heung Jas deeds are finally exposed, will the families finally be able to live a peaceful lives with their new family members?

Suspicious Vacation - Chile

Guest: Oh Min Suk, Jun Suk Ho

Genre: Travel, Variety

Synopsis: 2 best friends, Oh Min Suk and Jun Suk Ho head to Chile and experience the beauty of South America. Will it all be just be fun and drinks or is there a greater challenge awaiting them?

Guest: BTS

Genre: Variety

Synopsis: To celebrate their 300th episode, Running Man invites top K-pop star BTS to join in the celebration. Can the 7 Running Man members beat their 300-strong competitor?
By Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators from Afghanistan's Hazara minority marched in protest through Kabul on Monday, accusing President Ashraf Ghani's government of cutting them out of a multi-million dollar power transmission line project. Protesters demanded that the planned route for the 500 kV transmission line linking Turkmenistan with Kabul be changed to pass through two provinces with large Hazara populations, an option the government says would cost millions of dollars and delay the badly needed project by years. It says the current plan ensures that the two provinces of Bamyan and Wardak will get ample electricity even if the main transmission line does not pass through them directly. The line, intended to provide power to 10 provinces, is part of a wider TUTAP project backed by the Asian Development Bank linking the energy-rich Central Asia republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Despite fears of violence, the demonstration passed largely peacefully, with only isolated reports of trouble and Ghani thanked the protesters. A commission to review the plan will report within 10 days. However, the demonstration underscored the political tension facing the administration as it fights the Taliban-led insurgency and tries to get the shattered economy to its feet. The protest followed a rally in November against the murder by militants of a group of Hazara that became the biggest anti-government demonstration in Kabul for years. Authorities, fearing a repeat of last year's violence, when demonstrators tried to scale the walls of the presidential palace, blocked streets into the main government area with stacked-up shipping containers. The mainly Shi'ite Hazaras have long faced persecution but they are politically well organized and thousands gathered in a square away from the city center chanting "TUTAP is our right!" but they dispersed peacefully. Only about 30 percent of Afghanistan is connected to electricity and modernizing the creaking power system, which is subject to frequent blackouts, has been a top priority. Under current plans, due to be implemented by 2018, the line would pass from a converter station in the northern town of Pul-e-Khumri through the mountainous Salang pass to Kabul. Demonstrators want an earlier version of the plan that would see a longer route from Pul-e-Khumri through Bamyan and Wardak, to the west of Kabul. The government says that switching the route would delay the project by as much as three years, leaving millions without secure electricity. (Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)
Kabul (AFP) - Afghanistan's capital was under lockdown Monday as thousands of minority Shiite Hazaras launched protests over a multi-million-dollar power transmission line, in what could snowball into a political crisis for the beleaguered government.

Security forces blocked key intersections with stacked-up shipping containers in Kabul as the protesters sought to march on the presidential palace, demanding that the electricity line linking energy-rich central Asia pass through a central Hazara-dominated area.

The protest spotlights the turbulent politics in the war-torn nation and follows a massive rally last November galvanised by the beheadings of a group of Hazaras, which symbolised growing public discontent with President Ashraf Ghani's regime.

"Tens of thousands of people are expected to join the massive protest and march towards the presidential palace," Hazara lawmaker Arif Rahmani told AFP.

"We want the power line to cross through Bamiyan, which has seen no development in 15 years. We are demanding justice, not charity."

The 500 kilovolt TUTAP power line, which would connect the Central Asian nations of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is regarded a crucial infrastructure project in the electricity-starved region.

But it has been mired in controversy, with leaders from the minority group demanding that the line be routed through Bamiyan, which has a large Hazara population.

The line was originally set to pass through the central province but the government decided to reroute it through the mountainous Salang pass north of Kabul, saying the shorter route would expedite the project and save millions of dollars in costs.

Hazara leaders in the ethnically divisive nation lashed out at the Pashtun president, saying the decision to reroute the line was a sign of the government's discriminatory policies.

- Potential for violence -

The rally, so far peaceful, comes in the midst of the Taliban's annual spring offensive launched last month and authorities have warned that it could be targeted by insurgents.

Story continues

"Staging peaceful protests is the civil right of every Afghan citizen," the interior ministry said in a statement.

"We respectfully request that our countrymen not allow the enemy (to) misuse this opportunity and disrupt public security."

The dispute, which highlights the challenges of modernising the war-torn country, threatens to overshadow TUTAP, which could help ease nationwide power blackouts.

Hazara protesters repeatedly heckled Ghani during an anti-corruption summit in London last week.

The president faces rising unpopularity amid endemic corruption, rampant unemployment and growing insecurity in Afghanistan.

The three million-strong Afghan Hazara community has been persecuted for decades, with thousands killed in the late 1990s by Al-Qaeda and the mainly Pashtun Sunni Taliban.

There has been a surge in violence against the community, with a series of kidnappings and killings in recent months that have triggered a wave of fury on social media.

In November, thousands of protesters marched coffins containing the decapitated bodies of seven Shiite Hazaras through the Afghan capital.

Their bodies were found in southern Zabul province, which is under Taliban control and has been the scene of clashes between rival militant factions.

Ghani called the killings "the shared pain of a nation", and accused the militants of trying to divide Afghanistan.
By Alex Bregman

On May 13, Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman joined Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric on Yahoo News Live to discuss a growing epidemic in the United States: addiction to prescription painkillers and heroin, known as opioids. He also weighed in on his partys presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, whom Portman met with on Thursday during Trumps visit to Capitol Hill.

Opioid abuse has become a key issue on the campaign trail for Portman in Ohio, where he faces a tough reelection fight against former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland. Portmans home state has been hit particularly hard by the epidemic. Its the No. 1 cause of death in my state of Ohio, but probably around the country thats now true, exceeding car accidents, he said. The stories are just heart-wrenching.

This week the House of Representatives passed a round of legislation intended to address the growing opioid abuse epidemic: The rate of overdose deaths involving opioids has increased 200 percent between 2000 and 2014. The House bills were passed after Portmans own bill, known as the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), passed in the Senate by a vote of 94 to 1 in March. About three years ago, we started a process to put together a comprehensive approach to this problem that focuses on prevention, but also treatment and recovery, Portman said. Thats called CARA: the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery [Act]. After three years and five conferences in Washington bringing the best experts in from around the country, getting best practices.

So why is this epidemic now a priority in Congress? I think because its affecting every single state and every congressional district in America, Portman said.

Speaking of the potential differences between the House and Senate legislation, he said: The difference between the CARA legislation we passed [in] the Senate and the 18 or 19 bills that passed the House is relatively small, so Im hopeful we can now go into conference and come out with a comprehensive approach, get it to the presidents desk and get it to our communities to begin helping more.

Story continues

One criticism the Democrats and the White House have of both the Senate and House approaches is whether the bills have been properly funded. Portman said: This legislation does have about $100 million in additional funding not just for this year, but going forward for next year and the year after and the year after and so on. But it also directs the money to what we think is the most effective way to get good treatment and get people into the long-term recovery that works. But I think even additional funding may be necessary, even in the short term.

Moving on to presidential politics, Portman described his meeting with Trump on Thursday as a listening session. It was a very good discussion, he said. I thought both sides listened well, which is the first step toward understanding where somebody else stands.



He also explained why he backs Trump. I think theres a desperate need for change, and so I am supporting Donald Trump, and I think these meetings yesterday were sort of a first step toward coming together with some common ground on some of these tough issues, Portman said.



Portman also described his policy differences with Trump, which include disagreements over Trumps immigration plan, his idea of a temporary ban on Muslim immigration and his suggestion that the U.S. could print more money to avoid default. I guess what I would say is if you were to give me the list of Hillary Clintons positions that you would find even more disagreements, and that I do agree with him entirely on some other issues, he said.

Does he think Trump will help him more than hurt him in his reelection effort in Ohio? Portman was not sure. Well, who knows? Im running my own campaign and would have done that regardless of who is at the top of the ticket, he said.



Finally, Portmans name has also been floated as a potential running mate for Trump, but he didnt seem to be into the idea when Couric asked him about it. Im happy representing Ohio, so Im not interested, Portman said. I really think its crucial right now to keep Ohio as one of the Republican states to keep that majority because it may determine the majority in the Senate.

When further pressed about whether he would like to be on Trumps short or long list of potential vice presidential picks, Portman said: Id like to stay off the list and continue to do what I do best, which is to reach across the aisle and get stuff done.


By George Obulutsa NAIROBI (Reuters) - About 300 opposition protesters rallied on Monday to demand the scrapping of an election oversight body they say is biased and its replacement with a new one. Police used teargas and water cannon to disperse two similar rallies in the past month. On Monday police backed by trucks with water cannon flanked the protesters gathered outside the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). Kenya does not hold its next presidential and parliamentary polls until August 2017, but politicians are already trying to galvanise their supporters in a nation where violence erupted after the 2007 vote and the opposition disputed the 2013 result. The opposition CORD coalition, led by Raila Odinga who lost the 2013 vote and unsuccessfully challenged the result in court, has accused the IEBC of bias and said its members should quit. IEBC officials have dismissed the charge and say they will stay. "For free and fair election, IEBC must go," read a banner held aloft by one demonstrator on Monday. Last week, police fired teargas and water cannon at hundreds of protesters, some of whom threw stones. Police also used teargas to disperse a protest last month. President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is expected to seek re-election next year for a second and final term, has urged opponents not to take to the streets. Despite the 2013 legal challenge, that vote proceeded smoothly and Odinga accepted the court ruling in a nation where ethnic loyalties usually trump policy among voters. After the disputed 2007 vote, about 1,200 were killed in ethnic fighting. Western diplomats have urged the authorities to work carefully with citizens to ensure peaceful elections in 2017. (Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Washington (AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry is unavailable the day a Paris meeting to relaunch negotiations over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is set to occur, the State Department said Monday.

However the United States and France are looking into a possible alternative date for the ministerial discussions, which fall on the US Memorial Day holiday honoring members of the armed forces who died in combat.

"We've made it clear that the May 30 date originally proposed by the French would not work for the secretary and for his schedule," State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

"We're in discussions right now with the French about any possible alternative date that might better work for the secretary," he added.

Kerry's agenda in May is already "jammed," Kirby said. The secretary of state is currently in Europe before heading to Asia until May 27, and is expected in China again in early June.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault was in Jerusalem and Ramallah on Sunday to present the French peace initiative to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

He received support from the Palestinians but objections from Israel, with Netanyahu questioning French "impartiality" after Paris voted in favor of making Palestine a UNESCO member five years ago.

Ayrault said he is ready to shift the May 30 date several days to enable Kerry to attend.

However, Kirby said no decision had been reached "one way or another."

A staunch ally of Israel, Washington has traditionally brokered direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians and played down multilateral initiatives, especially within the United Nations.

The United States has regularly called for a "two-state solution" to the Middle East crisis since the last US-brokered talks collapsed in April 2014.
(Adds background, quote from attorney for drivers)

By Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO, May 16 (Reuters) - A key plaintiff in a driver class action against Uber said he does not support a proposed settlement in which thousands of drivers would receive up to $100 million, but remain independent contractors instead of employees.

Uber and smaller rival, Lyft, are attempting to settle lawsuits by drivers who contend they should be classified as employees and therefore entitled to reimbursement for expenses, including gasoline and vehicle maintenance. Drivers currently pay those costs themselves.

In a court filing on Monday, plaintiff Douglas O'Connor said the deal "is not in my interest or in the interest of any Uber driver."

The lawsuit had often been informally referred to among lawyers as the "O'Connor" case, and his opposition to the agreement could increase pressure on the San Francisco federal judge overseeing the deal to reject it.

Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney for the drivers, has defended the deal since it was announced last month, saying the hardest working drivers could receive thousands of dollars each. Drivers also risked getting nothing if the case proceeded, she said.

However, several drivers and attorneys have criticized the settlement as too small, particularly because the total potential damages in the case reached $852 million.

O'Connor asked that celebrity Los Angeles lawyer Mark Geragos represent him instead of Liss-Riordan, according to the court filing. Geragos filed an objection to the settlement last week.

In a statement, Liss-Riordan said O'Connor had not been officially certified as a lead plaintiff, though was kept in the loop on the case.

Liss-Riordan said the attorneys seeking to represent O'Connor "may have a history of jumping on big cases and making some noise so they can try to get a piece of it."

A hearing on the settlement is scheduled for June 2.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Chris Reese and Alan Crosby)
Finding a therapy that works for you is an important step in taking care of your mental health. If that means painting ponies, then even better. Thats why were fascinated to learn about ponypaint, a type of Art and Therapy service at a place called Equine Therapy Wales in the UK.

Teaching kids Parts of the Horse is one of my favorite lessons. Also, WillStars ponies are total saints. #partsofthehorse #willstarridingacademy #ponypaint A photo posted by Casey Schuld (@caseyschuld) on Aug 12, 2015 at 7:56pm PDT

Ponypaint involves using nontoxic paint made up of natural dyes and chalks so children can express themselves through art, explained horse owner Michelle Inch, who introduced the therapy at the center. In other words, its pretty much like having your own My Little Pony IRL.



In the world of dog grooming, theyve always done the creative coloring, the nail polish and everything, so Ive tried to introduce it into the horse world, Michelle explained to ITV. You get people saying that its cruel, but everything thats made is completely non-toxic. Its made for horses, and they dont care. They just want to be pampered.



Although Equine Therapy Wales only recently introduced ponypaint into their program, Instagram proves that the idea itself isnt all that new. Theres already a business called Paint My Pony in the UK and rands like Equidivine focus on natural art products to help facilitate this bond between humans and their horses. The website for Chicks Saddlery even sells ponypaint alongside glitter hoof polish.

A photo posted by @horse_and_life_boutique on Nov 20, 2015 at 10:38am PST

There are all kinds of creative ways to decorate a horses skin:

A photo posted by Equidivine (@equidivine) on May 7, 2016 at 7:51am PDT

Or even dye her tail a funky ombre:

Created with pony paint A photo posted by Equidivine (@equidivine) on May 1, 2016 at 7:40pm PDT

Really, the possibilities for ponypaint are endless!

Created with pony paint available to purchase from www.equidivine.co.uk A photo posted by Equidivine (@equidivine) on Apr 10, 2016 at 10:09am PDT

The best part about ponypaint? Its effective. According to ITV, children like Jordan, who suffers from ADHD, have found peace in this particular type of therapy. Day to day its a nightmare. We dont know when its going to kick off next, Jordans mother said. By people down here it does help. Before he was was really really quiet, he wouldnt open up at all.

This doesnt mean the practice is without controversy. Britains RSPCA (similar to the ASPCA in the United States) is concerned that the therapy will cause people to see horses as accessories.

However, if Instagram is to be believed, ponypaint has only made the bond between owner and horse even stronger  and that much more glamorous.
There's nothing quite like putting one's unique stamp on a graduation ceremony  whether that means dunking on your principal or making a political statement covered by news outlets across the country.

In 2016, several Latino graduates are celebrating their achievements and their identities using intricately decorated graduation caps.

They look absolutely incredible. Instagram user and Latina Rebels blogger Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez told the Huffington Post that she started the hashtag #LatinxGradCaps a little more than a week ago as a way for graduates to share these images.

The results provide a unique look at being "young, brown and woke" in America today.

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 6, 2016 at 1:54pm PDT

Whether they've just completed high school, college, graduate school or any other level of education, these scholars aren't the only ones decorating their caps, but they are using the opportunity to show the world how being Latinx  a gender-neutral term for "Latino"  has shaped their educational journeys.

Some are thanking their immigrant parents for the sacrifices they've made so their children could succeed. Others are simply expressing pride and joy in their identities.

"This is our future, they are the ones who will pave the way," Rodriguez, who is Nicaraguan, told the Huffington Post about the campaign. "It wasn't even a brilliant idea that was thought out. I sort of just wanted to celebrate them  all of them."

Each graduation cap has its own remarkable story  filled with challenges, heartbreak and, ultimately, triumph.

Here's a sampling of the #LatinxGradCaps posts:

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 6, 2016 at 9:20am PDT

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 6, 2016 at 11:23am PDT

Capti

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 6, 2016 at 1:52pm PDT

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 6, 2016 at 3:54pm PDT

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 7, 2016 at 2:22am PDT

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 6, 2016 at 7:35pm PDT

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 7, 2016 at 9:43am PDT

Caption: "Always honor your roots."

Story continues

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 7, 2016 at 9:44am PDT

Caption: "Chingona como mi madre" [Badass like my mom].

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 7, 2016 at 2:35pm PDT

Caption: "I graduated today as first in my family. The flowers represent the Salvadoran and Mexican flags."

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 7, 2016 at 6:53pm PDT

Caption: "Beautiful."

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 8, 2016 at 4:05pm PDT

Caption: "YESSSSSSSS! graduate!"

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 8, 2016 at 4:06pm PDT

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 9, 2016 at 5:04am PDT

Caption: "I'm the first of my family to attend and graduate college! It took 6 years with my parents not know anything that came with applying and attending college. But without their support idk what I would have done without them!"

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 10, 2016 at 10:17am PDT

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 15, 2016 at 2:44pm PDT

Caption: "I used to hate my skin tone and I used to hate being 'just Mexican,' but college changed that. I am proud to be Mexican, I am in love with my perfectly imperfect brown skin, but more than anything I am proud of my struggle because it's makes this moment mean so much more."

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 15, 2016 at 2:50pm PDT

A photo posted by Latina Rebels (@latinarebels) on May 13, 2016 at 12:32pm PDT

Caption: "My papi was on his death bed on April 11, 2015 due to a traumatic brain injury. The doctors told us he had a slim chance. I was angry. Why did I take so long in school? He is supposed to be there to his his little girl receive her bachelor's degree. Here we are a year later and my papi will be in the stands like a seed who has risen with new life. Like all of us, the children of immigrants, la raza ... we rise against all odds. My papi taught me that. This is political. This is personal. This is all of us."

Congratulations, class of 2016!

h/t Huffington Post
London (AFP) - Former London mayor Boris Johnson's comparing the EU to Adolf Hitler highlights how Britain's in/out referendum campaign is growing increasingly bitter, with six weeks to go and polls suggesting a dead heat, experts said Monday.

The comments by Johnson, a leading campaigner for Britain to leave the European Union, are also linked to securing support for his ultimate ambition -- succeeding David Cameron as prime minister after the June 23 vote, they added.

The row started when Johnson -- whose remarks have drawn comparisons to US presidential hopeful Donald Trump -- said European history had featured repeated efforts to create a single government on the continent.

"Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods," he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

Pro-EU campaigners quickly lined up to fight back.

The main opposition Labour party said Johnson's comments showed the "Leave" campaign was "losing its moral compass", while Johnson was branded a "tin-pot imitation Churchill" by former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown.

But as the dust settled, commentators suggested that, while Johnson may have been out of line, his remarks were part of a pattern of hyperbole on both sides of the campaign.

"Britain deserves better than the shrill point-scoring into which this debate has descended," The Times newspaper said in an editorial Monday. "Leave Hitler out of it."

- Moon landings and Nessie -

It was not the first time that Johnson -- known for his witty soundbites and historical references -- has walked into a high-profile referendum row.

Last month, as Barack Obama urged Britons to stay in the EU, Johnson suggested the US president had moved a bust of World War II leader Winston Churchill out of the Oval Office because of his "part-Kenyan" heritage.

While few would expect such a high-stakes campaign to be without controversy, the "Remain" in EU camp -- dubbed "Project Fear" by opponents -- has also drawn flak for some of the Brexit scenarios it has presented.

Story continues

Last week, Cameron was accused of suggesting a new world war could be triggered by Britain leaving the 28-nation bloc when he said he would never assume that "peace and stability on our continent are assured".

Apparently stung by the criticism, finance minister George Osborne hit out at "Leave" campaigners who accuse the "Remain" advocates of spinning the economic case for EU membership with interventions from the likes of Obama and the IMF.

"The next thing we know, the 'Leave' camp will be accusing us of faking the moon landings... and covering up the existence of the Loch Ness Monster," Osborne said Monday.

The closeness of the opinion polls is part of the reason why the debate is moving towards a bitter climax, experts say.

Excluding undecideds, "Remain" and "Leave" each have 50 percent support, according to an average of the last six opinion surveys by the What UK Thinks academic project.

"It's very close," said Steven Fielding, professor of political history at Nottingham University. "It's core message time. That means extreme presentation of views."

Paul Taggart, a politics professor at Sussex University, added that the complexity of the debate may also be a factor.

"Both sides are having to simplify a complex story to make palatable what's quite an unpalatable dish," he said.

For Fielding, Johnson specifically has his mind on life after the referendum, when Cameron is expected to face a leadership challenge in the Conservative Party if he loses.

References to World War II and Hitler are popular with older party members whose support will be key if Johnson is to make it to Downing Street, he said.

"The more fuss there is about it, the more his message is getting through," Fielding added.
Vice Presidential candidate Leni Robredo, fourth from left, attends a thanksgiving mass for the peaceful elections with her children, from left, Aika, Tricia and Jillian Sunday, May 15, 2016 at the Ateneo De Manila campus at suburban Quezon city northeast of Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)



Liberal Party (LP) bet Leni Robredo has declared victory amid alleged irregularities in the canvassing of votes, The Philippines Star reported.



Robredo, who told her supporters she had already won, claimed victory although the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has yet to tally 15 remaining certificates of canvass (COCs) of about a million votes.



The policy head of Robredos campaign team however says it would be mathematically impossible for Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to surpass her lead, even if he receives all votes from the areas yet to send COCs.

Marcos has claimed he has received reports that the poll results have been changed through a tweak of a computer command. But Comelec and technology provider Smartmatic insist that the change in the hash code previously reported did not affect the election results, calling it a cosmetic change.


On May 14, Los Angeles TV weather presenter Liberte Chan was told to wear a sweater to cover herself up during her broadcast. The clip went viral and sparked immediate online backlash, with social media users accusing the network of slut-shaming and being sexist.

The video from @KTLA. They handed her a sweater LIVE ON THE AIR because they were "getting a lot of emails." #KTLApic.twitter.com/ADPb0poVDS

Chan quickly went online to say she wasn't offended by being asked to don the sweater. "I was not ordered by KTLA to put on the sweater. I was simply playing along with my co-anchor's joke," she wrote on her blog. "If you've ever watched the morning show, you know we poke fun at each other all the time."

Yet Chan's sparkly dress controversy highlights the way th . "Sometimes what to wear is the biggest stress of my job," Weather Channel veteran Jen Carfagno told Slate in an interview.

The trend of sexualizing female weather presenters has its roots in the history of American broadcast news. Networks were hired as a "g " alongside other media ploys like puppets, as early broadcasters struggled to keep audiences tuned in during weather reports.

In 1952, 26-year-old Carol Reed became one of the first weather girls, despite the fact that she had "no qualifications" aside from her beauty and perkiness. These women weren't supposed to remind viewers of stuffy scientists; they were supposed to appear relatable and charming.

Story continues

"The clear emphasis on looks and style among many 'weather girls' coincided with public skepticism of women's scientific skills and with programmers' eagerness to trivialize the weather cast," author Robert Henson wrote in his history of broadcasting meteorology.

Over the next few decades, networks kept hiring "weather girls." The comely weather girl is now the industry norm around the world, from France to Mexico. The end of this TMZ ode to Mexican weather presenter Mayte Carranco, which concludes with the kicker, "no one cares what you're saying," proves that little has changed since the early 1950s.

Although Carol Reed and many of the pioneering women broadcasters of early television didn't hold degrees in meteorology, today women make up at , depending on the program. Those numbers have not translated into an equal number of female weather reporters: women currently deliver only 33% of on-air weather news, according to a 2014 report by the Women's Media Center.

Today, female meteorologists are still constantly criticized for their appearance and can lose their jobs if they speak out against the pressure. In 2012, for instance, African-American meteorologist Rhonda Lee was fired for defending her natural hair on Facebook.

Weather girls also tend to be subject to age discrimination, as they're usually only featured on-air as long as they look young. Former weather presenter Marny who had 16 years of experience under her belt, filed a lawsuit against the Weather Channel claiming the network fired her in 2003 because it wanted to hire sexy young anchors instead.

It's not hard to see why viewers were so outraged by Chan being forced to put on a sweater: it highlights the stark double standard that female broadcasters face. Male broadcasters aren't teased about needing to "cover up." You'd never hear, say, Al Roker say that choosing his outfit is one of the most stressful parts of his job. If the gender gap in broadcast media is going to close, female meteorologists need to not be treated like life-size Barbie dolls and instead, be treated like like, you know, actual professionals.
Anandpur (India) (AFP) - Ram Kishore searched long and hard to find a suitable wife for his son, but his efforts only paid off when electricity finally came to his village in rural north India this year.

It was not until the power pylons were installed as part of a government scheme to connect thousands of villages to the national grid that Kishore could persuade a prospective bride's parents to part with their daughter.

Now he is all smiles as he sits under a glowing light bulb in his single-room home in Anandpur village. Just 145 miles (230 kilometres) from the capital New Delhi, it has never had electricity -- until now.

"I will personally invite my daughter-in-law's family to visit us and look at the electricity meter," the 60-year-old former labourer told AFP proudly after his house was connected.

Anandpur is just one beneficiary of an ambitious plan Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in his Independence Day speech last August to bring electricity to 18,452 Indian villages.

Government figures released last year showed that more than 300 million people in India -- the world's fastest-growing major economy -- still had no access to electricity.

Per-capital electricity consumption is barely one third of the global average.

Speaking from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi, Modi said those villagers had been "deprived of the rays of development," promising to finish the job within 1,000 days and saying the country was "not ready to wait for 10 years".

It has not been an easy task.

Dinesh Arora, who runs the scheme for the power ministry, says the communities targeted are the "the toughest villages in most extreme corners of the country".

Many cannot be reached by road or are in areas riven by violence.

Two of Arora's engineers were kidnapped and roughed up by Maoist guerrillas, while another team had to swim across a river to reach their destination.

Even once they reached the villages, some were given a hostile reception by residents suspicious of local governments that had given them little help in the past.

Story continues

India's federal structure has added to the challenges, with electricity provision usually handled at the state level.

Each state has its own, often loss-making power providers, which are not always eager to extend provision to the poorest villages where revenues are unlikely to justify the cost.

Nonetheless, since Modi launched the scheme, over 7,700 villages have been connected to the grid.

- 'Everything will change' -

As the main power line to Anandpur is switched on, the local men who had gathered excitedly round the visiting officials to watch the run screaming towards their mostly mud and brick houses yelling, "did it come?".

"My husband has promised that we will now buy a fan and sleep peacefully at night, without mosquitoes," said Urmila Devi, who lived in a village with electricity before she married and has had to get used to kerosene lamps in Anandpur.

Each of the village's 120 residents has a different take -- some women are looking forward to being able to cook indoors even after dark, which has been impossible without electric lighting.

For young men like farm labourer Neeraj Singh, electricity means have a mobile phone that works.

"Having to use a solar cell to charge was time consuming and my phone battery would stay flat for days every month," he says.

For the children of the village, most of whom children cannot read or write and have never been to school, electricity means being able to carry on playing even after sunset.

"I had once watched television at my aunt's place and really enjoyed it," said Lakshmi.

"Now, I will ask my father to get us one."

Only 18 of the 25 households in Anandpur agreed to get connected and have the free electricity metre installed -- the other seven were unsure they could afford the monthly bill of between $1 and $2.

But 55-year-old Devi is certain that the arrival of electricity is a boon for her village.

"Everything will change now," she said.
Donald Trump hasnt held a public campaign event in nine days, and his schedule for the week remains clear. Instead the presumptive GOP nominee and top aides are making the rounds of television shows as they seek to continue his most unconventional campaign. But the limits of that strategy are emerging, as Trump faces tougher questions about his taxes, shifting policy positions and treatment of women. In addition, the candidate found himself on defense this weekend over a leaked audiotape of a man, who sounded awfully like Trump, promoting Trumps personal and professional conquests. Trumps free-media first strategy worked well when he was one in a field of 17, now it will be tested when hes the undisputed GOP nominee. Trump has tried to seed that coverage by leaning into the process media stories about who is running which aspects of his campaign and the members of his VP shortlist. But the appetite for Trump news is growing, potentially beyond the candidates control.

Hillary Clinton still needs to contest the upcoming Democratic primaries, even though her nomination is assured. Just two weeks away from locking in the required delegates, Clinton has no choice but to grin and bear Sanders futile challenge, or risk alienating the very supporters she will need come November against Trump. But the extended primary fight comes at a cost, preventing Clinton from fully focusing on Trump and costing her precious resources before what will be an expensive general election campaign. Additionally, Sanders continued criticism of Clinton only prolongs the partys divide and makes unification more difficult. But Sanders has managed to shift Clinton to the left on policy issuesand his demand for influence over the partys platform will be difficult to ignore.

President Obama weighs into the 2016 fray with an assault on Trump. Another president offers Clinton a boost. And John Boehner is back.

Story continues

Here are your must-reads:

Must Reads

Starry, Starry Fight: The Pentagons General Bloat

Senate pushes for 25% cut in those wearing stars, TIMEs Mark Thompson reports

Obama Assails Trumps Wall in Rutgers Commencement Speech

The president steps into the 2016 fray [Washington Post]

Clinton Caught in End-of-the-Primary Trap

The Democratic front-runner needs to start focusing on Donald Trump. But she cant do that without alienating Bernie Sanders supporters [Politico]

On More Than One Issue, GOPs Trump Sounds Like a Democrat

But the conservative embrace continues [Associated Press]

Hillary Clinton Outlines Economic Plans, Which Include Her Husband

The First Husband may get a jobs role [New York Times]

Sound Off

Look, I mean, these are things that he is going to have to answer for.  RNC Chairman Reince Priebus on questions about presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trumps treatment of women

They can try to hijack another party and get on the ballot, but, look, its a suicide mission for our country because what it means is that youre throwing down not just eight years of the White House but potentially 100 years on the Supreme Court and wrecking this country for many generations.  Priebus on some GOP efforts to mount a third-party challenge to Clinton and Trump

Bits and Bites

Feds Promise Action to Fight Long Airport Wait Times [TIME]

Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private [New York Times]

Benghazi Committee Chairman Accused of Ignoring Statement by GOP Lawyer [Associated Press]

Is Ben Carson the Worst or the Best Surrogate of All Time? Yes. [Washington Post]

The Return of John Boehner [Politico]

Donald Trump Wouldnt Have Had the Ready Cash to Self-Finance Entire Campaign [Wall Street Journal]

Nevada Democrats Convention Turns Unruly [Associated Press]
Film Londons Production Finance Market, which connects film producers with financiers, has said it will make structural changes and has announced its 2016 dates.

The 10th edition of the U.K.s only film finance market will run Oct. 11-13. The event, which is staged in association with the BFI London Film Festival, is open to producers seeking to pitch projects budgeted at 1million ($1.13 million) and above to financiers.

Last years PFM attracted projects with a collective production value of over 264 million ($298 million), and since its inception over 80 projects have been completed. This years event aims to connect more than 80 producers with as many financiers, and is set to facilitate more than 1,500 meetings.

This year sees Micro Market, PFMs strand for films budgeted up to 1 million ($1.13 million), fully integrated within the PFM program, offering greater business and networking opportunities than ever before. Micro Market also broadens its international reach and is seeking to ensure 50% of producers and financiers in attendance come from mainland Europe.

This offers filmmakers the opportunity to build relationships with financiers, distributors and sales agents, but also provides them with an invaluable package of training and mentoring in the run-up to the event, covering everything from script and budget advice through to guidance on how to make the perfect pitch.

Films securing funding via PFM include The Human Capital, The Future, Ginger & Rosa and The Last Station, while films to benefit from PFMs Micro Market strand include Daphne, Man From Unkle, Departure and Dartmoor Killing.

Adrian Wootton, chief executive of Film London and the British Film Commission, said: For 10 years the PFM has been forging connections between those with great ideas and those with the ability to bring them to the big screen. Every year we seek to improve the experience and make it even more valuable for filmmakers and financiers, and 2016 is set to be no different.

Story continues

From streamlining the online application process and working with a wide range of high-profile international partners to opening Micro Market up more fully to mainland Europe and providing more networking opportunities than ever before, this years PFM is set to be a standout.

As ever the application process is sure to be extremely competitive, so I advise filmmakers and financiers alike to work hard to hone those applications for the U.K.s one and only finance market.

PFM is supported by Creative Europe, the Mayor of London, Creative Skillset, BFI and U.K. Trade and Investment. The market is sponsored by Air New Zealand, Compact and Schedule 2.

The PFM has partnerships with the Rome Film Festivals New Cinema Network, the Melbourne Film Festivals 37 South Market, the Ile de France Film Commission, the Toronto Film Festivals International Financing Forum, the Nordic Co-Production Market at the Norwegian Film Festival in Haugesund and the Trieste Film Festivals co-production market When East Meets West.

Related stories

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Cannes Film Review: 'Loving'
Washington (AFP) - The Islamic State group has continued losing control over territory across Iraq and Syria, a Pentagon spokesman said, including almost half of what it had once held in Iraq.

The Defense Department had previously estimated that IS fighters had lost control of about 40 percent of the territory they claimed in Iraq and about 10 percent of the land they held in Syria.

Those tallies had gone up in recent weeks, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said.

"The number right now in Iraq is about 45 percent of the territory they once held has been recovered," Cook said.

"The number in Syria is anywhere between 16 to 20 percent."

IS jihadists stormed across large parts of Iraq and Syria in early 2014, meeting little resistance from Iraqi security forces and exploiting the chaos in civil-war-torn Syria.

Since August 2014, the United States has led an international coalition fighting back against the IS group, using a combination of air strikes and training and equipping local partners.

IS fighters have lost control of Ramadi and Heet in Iraq, but still control other important cities including Mosul and Fallujah.

In Syria, the group maintains control of Raqa, the capital of their so-called caliphate.
(Corrects 1st bullet, 1st line to 'fresh fruit bunches' from 'palm oil', also shows that 17 pct drop is for year so far)

* CEO says Felda crude palm fresh fruit bunch yield down 17 pct

* Production hit by dry weather from El Nino

* Says CPO prices to rise about 10 pct by Aug

* Says should not expect immediate deal on Eagle High

By Emily Chow

KUALA LUMPUR, May 16 (Reuters) - Malaysia's Felda Global Ventures Berhad, the world's third largest palm plantations operator, said its output of palm fresh fruit bunches has dropped 17 percent so far this year as dry conditions from the El Nino weather pattern hit crops.

A broad decline in harvests around the key-producing region of Southeast Asia will boost crude palm oil prices by up to 10 percent by August and then by as much as 20 percent further down the road, Felda's newly-appointed chief executive Zakaria Arshad said on Monday.

"Lower yields are due to the El Nino effect," Zakaria said at a media briefing. The El Nino weather phenomenon dries fields across swathes of Asia.

Zakaria said crude palm oil prices would climb to between 2,600 ringgit ($644.50) and 2,800 ringgit per tonne by August this year. They stood around 2,566 ringgit on Monday.

Arshad, a Felda Group veteran of 32 years, was appointed as the company's head in a surprise move in April.

He takes over as the palm industry comes under increasing pressure from environmental groups, who blame it for chronic deforestation, as well as for a polluting haze that often engulfs chunks of Southeast Asia.

Zakaria said a long-pending transaction to take a 37-percent stake in Indonesian firm PT Eagle High Plantations Tbk for $680 million was still under negotiation. But he added that there would not be a deal in the immediate future.

"Growth will be in our existing business, not M&As, for now. We want to stop for a while - maybe until (the end of) this year - and then we will look at it again," he said.

The deal was earlier criticised by shareholders for being too expensive.

The production of palm oil, used in everything from processed foods to cosmetics, is key to the economy of Malaysia, as well as its neighbour Indonesia. ($1 = 4.0340 ringgit) (Reporting by Emily Chow; Editing by Joseph Radford)
A male news anchor told a female meteorologist to cover up on live television and people can barely believe it

A male news anchor told a female meteorologist to cover up on live television and people can barely believe it

While delivering the weather report on KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles, meteorologist Liberte Chan frequently wears dresses  dresses that are perfectly suitable for a work environment. Usually, this isnt newsworthy, because why should it be? But the other day, one of her colleagues came under hot water for making negative comments about her dress and handing her a sweater on the air so she could cover up.

While Chan was reading the weather report (on live television) in a black dress, news anchor Chris Burrous suddenly handed her a sweater. It was most awkward, because you could just see his arm and the sweater, seemingly coming out of nowhere (off-screen), and for no apparent reason. Understandably, Chan was confused, and asked him, Whats going on? You want me to put this on? Because its  cold? Burrous flatly replied, Were getting a lot of emails. Clearly stunned, Chan obliged and put the sweater on, commenting that she looked like a librarian (which, incidentally, people on the internet did not all take kindly to).

Burrous then tweeted this picture of Chan wearing the sweater

Problem solved! Half the emails love dress, half not so much. Here's our compromise. @KTLA @KTLAMorningNews pic.twitter.com/l6OWowqHWO  Chris Burrous (@chrisburrous) May 14, 2016

 and of course, problem NOT solved! The internet went up in flames. People were mad because, even though he thought hed solved a problem, he had publicly shamed his coworker. There was no going back. Burrous issued this apology.

@hoseph_ @KTLA no shame. Just kidding, offering up sweater. Good friends kid each other. Sorry I offended. We have a good time  Chris Burrous (@chrisburrous) May 14, 2016

The apology did nothing, and the replies were even angrier and more emotional.

Story continues

@chrisburrous @hoseph_ @KTLA Nobody buys your excuse. You humiliated her on air. Shame on you.  moror of crawes (@crowsight) May 15, 2016

Burrous responded to some of the tweets and asked for another chance, meanwhile, Chan tweeted her own apology  even though she really had nothing to apologize for.

Apologies! Didn't mean to offend https://t.co/AtA3x7R2Kx  Liberte Chan (@libertechan) May 14, 2016

Then, Chan posted a Snapchat of Burrous reading some of the infamous emails out loud, where people label Libertes dress, a New Years Eve cocktail dress and a display of very poor judgement. Burrous and her colleagues keep a sense of humor throughout the video, and even reveal that Burrous was wearing shorts at the anchor desk. Naturally, Chan called him on it. Talk about inappropriate! Way to bounce back, girl.

Heres the clip that sparked all of the outrage:

Wow! Male @KTLA anchor humiliates meteorologist, forces her to cover her dress: "Were getting a lot of emails" pic.twitter.com/xU7hbCiwer  Pop Crave (@PopCrave) May 15, 2016

We hope this will be a learning moment. Its not okay to publicly shame someone for how theyre dressed and were glad this ended in an apology and that Chan was able to maintain a good attitude about the whole situation.

The post A male news anchor told a female meteorologist to cover up on live television and people can barely believe it appeared first on HelloGiggles.
After being impeached, President Andrew Johnson survived his 1868 Senate trial by just one vote. And to this day, how that vote was cast on May 16, 1868 remains shrouded in controversy.

Johnson succeeded the presidency in 1865 after Abraham Lincolns assassination. A former Democrat who ran as a candidate alongside Lincoln, President Johnsons relationship with the GOP leadership quickly crumbled.

A faction called the Radical Republicans, led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, dominated the GOP.

On February 24, 1868, President Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives. The House charged Johnson with violating the Tenure of Office Act.

The alleged violation stemmed from Johnsons decision to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a prominent Radical Republican left over from the Lincoln Cabinet. To block Johnson from removing Cabinet members without its approval, the House passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867.

Johnson challenged the act by firing Stanton and appointing an interim replacement. The House quickly filed 11 impeachment charges, sending the case to the Senate for disposition.

Two-thirds of the Senate was needed to convict Johnson, and the Republicans made up more than two-thirds of its members. Chief Justice Salmon Chase presided over the trial, which started in March and ended in late May. Thaddeus Stevens was one of the House prosecutors.

In the end, however, seven Republican senators voted against impeachment.

The dramatic scene would have fit right in with the movie Lincoln, with the outcome seemingly in doubt until the last undecided vote was cast.

It is a singular fact that not one of the actors in that high scene was sure in his own mind how his one senator was going to vote, except, perhaps, himself, said historian David Miller Dewitt.

The key day in the trial was May 16. The anti-Johnson forces were counting on a guilty vote on 11th and last article of impeachment. It was the first order of business and a summary of the other 10 articles. If President Johnson was found guilty in the first vote, he was out of office.

Story continues

Senator Edmund Ross of Kansas cast the deciding vote, and for all purposes, he was expected to vote against Johnson, up until the night before the final roll call.

The chamber was stunned when Ross said Not guilty. The Radical Republicans asked for an adjournment until May 26, partly because of an upcoming party conventions, but also because they had no plan of attack after assuming Johnson wouldnt survive the first vote. After failing at two other attempts on May 26, two more articles failed, and the trial ended.

The controversy, to this day, is why did Ross change his mind?

There were two serious constitutional issues involved in the trial. One was that some people didnt think the Tenure of Office Act was constitutional. The other was that the Constitution, at that point, didnt specify who became vice president when the president died or couldnt serve.

If Johnson had been impeached, the Senate president pro tempore, Benjamin Wade, would have assumed the duties of the office until the next election. Wade had his own enemies within the Republican Party, including Ross (who saw Wade taking away his patronage powers in Kansas).

One theory is that Ross didnt follow his constitutional consciencehe followed the cash. Ross may have been the beneficiary of a $150,000 slush fund set up by Johnsons supporters.

In a 1999 article for Slate, writer David Greenberg pointed out another fact: Rosss vote may not have been needed.

At least four other senators were prepared to oppose conviction had their votes been neededa fact that has been forgotten, maybe, because it doesnt square with the High Noon portrait of Ross as the man of principle facing down the mob, Greenberg said.

In later years, Ross was portrayed as a hero in John F. Kennedys book Profiles in Courage. Others, like historian David O. Stewart, paint a less flattering portrait of Ross when it comes to allegations of bribery and patronage spoils.

Ross lost re-election after the Senate trial and later switched to the Democratic party. He blamed the Senate trial vote for hurting his political career.

Then in 1885, the first Democratic president to take office since the Civil War, Grover Cleveland, named Ross as the governor of the New Mexico territory.

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The Hague (AFP) - The effects of a deliberate campaign of mass rapes in the Central African Republic by the forces of former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba a decade ago will be felt for generations, war crimes judges heard Monday.

Research among scores of victims from the 2002-2003 violence showed "alarmingly high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder," US expert Daryn Reicherter told the International Criminal Court (ICC).

War crimes judges in The Hague are holding three days of hearings to determine their sentence on Bemba after he was convicted of five charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The five months of brutality unleashed by Bemba's Liberation Movement (MLC) in a bid to put down an attempted coup in CAR had caused "appalling" and "almost certainly long-lasting damage" to the population, Reicherter said.

"A single individual rape can be felt across multiple generations," he insisted, appearing for the prosecution.

The stress of such an ordeal can cause actual biological changes in a victim's brain, leaving them more vulnerable to PTSD and serious psychological problems.

There were also often several tragic outcomes including the breakdown of marriages, potentially leaving victims struggling on their own to care for their families.

Child rape victims suffered even greater damage, he warned.

Bemba's case is the first before the ICC to focus on sexual violence as a weapon of war, as well as to stress a military commander's responsibility for the action of his troops.

In their March verdict, the judges listed a chilling litany of rapes, murders and atrocities committed in CAR by MLC troops.

- 'Terror and torture' -

Men, women and children were all raped -- in one case three generations of the same family were gang-raped by MLC soldiers who held them at gun point and forced relatives to watch.

"This was not about sexual gratification, this was about terror and torture," the expert from Stanford University, California, said.

Story continues

It was "more about humilation and control of a population," he added.

After a lengthy trial which opened in November 2010, the judges found Bemba guilty on all charges in March.

The three judges found the notorious rebel leader had retained "effective command and control" over the 1,500 MLC troops he sent to CAR to quell an attempted coup against then president Ange-Felix Patasse.

Catholic Bishop Fridolin Ambongo, appearing earlier for the defence as a character witness, sought to show that Bemba and the MLC had played a role in bringing "peace and stability" to the northwestern Equateur province of Democratic Republic of Congo.

While he said he had no knowledge of what had happened in neighbouring CAR, in his DR Congo province the MLC forces had "made it possible for the population to feel peace finally, because the MLC came to re-establish everything that had been destroyed."

The judges will pass sentence at an as yet unscheduled date, after also hearing this week from two victims.

But Bemba could face up to 30 years in jail -- or even a life sentence, if the court considers such a term is "justified by the extreme gravity of the crime".

A wealthy businessman-turned-warlord, Bemba became one of four vice presidents in the transitional government of DR Congo President Joseph Kabila.

In 2006, he lost to Kabila in a presidential election run-off and fled to Europe. He was arrested in 2008 in Brussels and handed over to the ICC.

His MLC militia has since morphed into a political party and is currently the second-largest opposition group in the National Assembly.
McKesson Corporation (NYSE: MCK) and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) disclosed that they have signed a sourcing agreement for generic pharmaceuticals. The two firms also said that they have struck an expanded long-term distribution agreement. As a result, the two organizations would collaborate on sourcing generic pharmaceuticals for their respective American operations, adding scale and value for both companies.

Wal-Mart's SVP and President for Health and Wellness, George Riedl, said, "Walmart and McKesson have built a strong business relationship over the past 30 years by working together to help lower the cost of health care. The dynamics of health care continue to change, and we're changing with it. It's why we are taking our relationship with McKesson to the next level, using our combined size and scale to drive efficiencies, something that is core to our business."

Similarly, McKesson U.S. Pharmaceutical President, Mark Walchirk, said, "McKesson and Walmart have worked together for decades and throughout our relationship both companies have engaged in an on-going dialogue about how we can work together to bring more efficiency and value to the health care supply chain. Expanding our relationship to include a sourcing partnership for generics makes economic and strategic sense for both of usby bringing together our respective scale and sourcing expertise, we will make our businesses stronger and create more value for our customers and patients."

The two firms said this was a logical next step having created history of working together to cut down the pharmaceutical care costs. The new sourcing deal leverages McKesson's demonstrated strength, as well as, expertise in the global pharmaceutical industry and Walmart's proven commitment to delivering leading health and wellness services at an everyday low price to its customers.

McKesson shares traded 3.9 percent higher.

See more from Benzinga

 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
(Adds market details, quotes from MCX CEO)

May 16 (Reuters) - Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a developer of mobile payment technology whose strategy has been thrown into question by big retailers developing their own mobile wallets, said on Monday that it was postponing the nationwide rollout of its service and had cut 30 jobs.

MCX Chief Executive Officer Brian Mooney said in a statement the consortium of retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Target Corp, would focus on partnering with banks and other businesses after scrapping the planned retail launch.

The postponement comes the same day that Wal-Mart launched its own mobile payment system, first unveiled late last year, in nearly 600 stores in Texas and Arkansas. Target Corp is also developing its own mobile wallet, sources have told Reuters.

The service, CurrentC, lets shoppers pay for items with their mobile phones and pulls up a scannable code to initiate transactions. It has been in development for three years and recently started a pilot in stores in Columbus, Ohio.

With the backing of many of the largest U.S. retailers, CurrentC had been seen as a rival to Apple Inc's Apple Pay and one of several promising entrants in the crowded mobile payments space. But the recent rollout of Walmart Pay and the moves of Target and others have raised questions about its strategy of focusing on the retail industry.

In October MCX signed a deal with JPMorgan Chase & Co to accept payment through the bank's technology.

"Utilizing unique feedback from the marketplace and our Columbus pilot, MCX has made a decision to concentrate more heavily in the immediate term on other aspects of our business, including working with financial institutions," Mooney said in the statement.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Alan Crosby)
DENVER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / Medicine Man Technologies Inc. (MDCL), one of the country's leading cannabis branding and consulting companies, announced today that it has entered into licensing agreements with three Pennsylvania companies representing four counties and anticipates several more additions before no longer accepting clients.

"There has been a growing interest in Pennsylvania's potential medical cannabis marketplace as businesses contemplate how best to fit it in. Medicine Man Technologies plans to limit its support to those groups that we believe are well founded, understand the nature of the business they are entering into, and intend to locate in certain separate geographical locations we designate," said Brett Roper, COO and Co-Founder of Medicine Man Technology, Inc.

Andy Williams, the Company's CEO and Co-Founder added, "As we search for acquisition and growth opportunities, we firmly believe that the need for access to cannabis is increasing nationwide and that's why we are very interested in working in Pennsylvania with groups that are well founded. We are encouraged and cautiously optimistic about these exciting developments we anticipate occurring within the industry as a whole in the very near future."

Medicine Man Technologies will be traveling to Philadelphia to participate in the Marijuana Policy Project's Pennsylvania Canna-Business Seminar to be held on May 21st at the Logan Hotel where they will provide guidance as to the existing senate bill's structure as well as anticipated business development elements through participation on one of the events panels.

About Medicine Man Technologies

Established in March 2014, the Company secured its first client/licensee in April 2014. To date, they have provided guidance for several clients (Colorado, Nevada, and Illinois) that have successfully secured licenses to operate cannabis businesses within their state. They currently have twenty-four active clients in 13 states, focusing on working with licensees and clients to 1) utilize its experience, technology, and training to help secure a license, 2) deploy the Company's highly effective variable capacity constant harvest cultivation practices and eliminate the liability of single grower dependence, 3) avoid the costly mistakes generally made in start-up, and 4) stay engaged with an ever expanding team of licensees all focused on quality and safety that will 'share' the ever improving experience and knowledge of the network.

Story continues

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release may contain forward looking statements which are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that involve risks as well as uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from those anticipated or expected, including statements related to the amount and timing of expected revenues as well as any payment of dividends on our common and preferred stock, statements related to our financial performance, expected income, distributions, and future growth for upcoming quarterly and annual periods. These risks and uncertainties are further defined in filings and reports by the Company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Actual results and the timing of certain events could differ materially from those projected in or contemplated by the forward-looking statements due to a number of factors detailed from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Among other matters, the Company may not be able to sustain growth or achieve profitability based upon many factors including but not limited to general stock market conditions. Reference is hereby made to cautionary statements set forth in the Company's most recent SEC filings. We have incurred and will continue to incur significant expenses in our expansion of our existing as well as new service lines noting there is no assurance that we will generate enough revenues to offset those costs in both the near and long term. Additional service offerings may expose us to additional legal and regulatory costs and unknown exposure(s) based upon the various geopolitical locations we will be providing services in, the impact of which cannot be predicted at this time.

Contact Information:

Attention Brett Roper via info@medicinemantechnologies.com

Telephone (303) 371-0387

SOURCE: Medicine Man Technologies Inc.
DENVER (AP) -- For the second day in a row, the New York Mets found themselves on the wrong end of a questionable call against the Colorado Rockies.

''Move on,'' manager Terry Collins said.

His team was itching to do the same.

Yoenis Cespedes homered Sunday but the defending NL champions wasted a strong start by Jacob deGrom in a 4-3 loss to the Rockies, who completed a three-game sweep.

New York finished 4-7 on its NL West road trip. Two tough calls over the weekend made it feel even worse.

''It was a long trip, a terrible finish to it,'' Collins said. ''We'll pick up the pieces. We've got a long, long, long way to go.''

The Mets tried to rally in the eighth inning Sunday, but Juan Lagares was called for running out of the baseline on Lucas Duda's roller to third baseman Nolan Arenado. Colorado was awarded a double play that ended the inning.

Collins ran out and briefly pleaded his case to second base umpire Rob Drake, but the call stood.

It was the second straight game in which the Mets were upset by an umpire's decision at a key moment. During their loss Saturday, it was a foul-tip call instead of strike three that preceded a two-run double to break open a close game in Colorado's five-run third inning.

Collins was in no mood to talk about the latest one.

''Look, he made the call,'' the manager said. ''Doesn't matter what it's going to do. You don't challenge it. So it's over, let's go, move on.''

Earlier, the Mets took a 3-1 lead by scoring twice in the third inning on RBI singles by deGrom and Michael Conforto.

The right-hander allowed just three hits until Carlos Gonzalez homered with two outs in the sixth. DJ LeMahieu led off the seventh with a 12-pitch walk against deGrom, who left one out later.

Jim Henderson (0-2) came on and pinch-hitter Ryan Raburn drove a 2-2 pitch into the Rockies' bullpen for a two-run homer and a 4-3 lead.

Story continues

That took away a potential win from deGrom, who yielded three runs and four hits in 6 1/3 innings.

''I still don't feel very comfortable on the mound. Front side still is not getting up where I want it to,'' deGrom said. ''But I kept us in the ballgame - that was my main goal.''

Tyler Chatwood (5-3) pitched seven solid innings for the Rockies, who swept New York for the first time since April 2013. Jake McGee worked the ninth for his 12th save.

The good news for the Mets? They have Monday off after playing 17 games in as many days.

''We knew the schedule going into it,'' second baseman Neil Walker said. ''We knew this was going to be a grind-it-out kind of road trip.

''We had opportunities, especially these last three days. There's definitely no excuses. We've got to play better across the board,'' he added.

NO PRESSURE

The Mets open a three-game series against NL East-leading Washington on Tuesday night at Citi Field. Collins said before Sunday's game that he is not putting too much emphasis on the first three of 19 games against the Nationals this season.

''Is it the biggest series of the year? It's yet to be determined,'' Collins said. ''It's the big leagues. It's supposed to be like this. When you play another good team and it's in your division and you're playing for something important, it's always fun.''

TRAINER'S ROOM

Collins said he is waiting to make any decision on pitcher Steven Matz until after the lefty sees a doctor about his sore elbow. Matz missed his scheduled start Saturday but could be back for this week's series against Washington. ''If they give him the OK, he could conceivably throw a little bit on Monday and pitch Thursday,'' Collins said. ''We'll just wait to see. Until I get the report from the doctor, we're going to let it hang out there.''

UP NEXT

Mets RHP Noah Syndergaard (3-2, 2.53 ERA) gets the nod for the opener against Washington on Tuesday. Syndergaard is 1-0 with a 1.80 ERA in three career starts against the Nationals.
Mexico City (AFP) - A Mexican judge has approved a second US extraditionrequest for drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, officials said, giving the government about a month to confirm the decision.

A Mexico City judge ruled in favor of the request, based on drug trafficking, money laundering and murder charges lodged in a US federal court in Texas, the Judicial Council said in a statement.

The foreign ministry now has 20 working days to decide whether to extradite the Sinaloa drug cartel kingpin, and his lawyers would then have 30 days to file an appeal.

Earlier this month, a judge endorsed an extradition request based on cocaine charges in California, but the foreign ministry has yet to issue a decision on that ruling.

A foreign ministry spokesman had no immediate comment on the status of the two extradition requests.

Guzman's lawyer, Jose Refugio Rodriguez, told AFP that he would file an appeal if the foreign ministry decides to extradite his client.

Refugio has vowed to fight extradition unless US authorities negotiate good prison conditions for Guzman.

But a US government official has told AFP that there would be no deals made with Guzman and that US authorities expect the extradition to happen in several months, or by the end of the year.

Guzman, who has escaped twice from maximum-security prisons, was unexpectedly transferred on May 7 from a lockup near Mexico City to a penitentiary in Ciudad Juarez, at the US border.

His transfer raised speculation that his extradition was imminent, but Mexican authorities said it was due to security upgrades at the Altiplano prison, from where Guzman had escaped in July 2015 before his recapture in January.

- Dirty cell -

Refugio has filed two motions for Guzman to be returned to the Altiplano, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Mexico City.

The lawyer says Guzman should remain close to the courts in Mexico City and nearby Toluca that are reviewing his criminal cases. Ciudad Juarez is nearly 1,800 kilometers away.

Story continues

The drug lord has also complained about his new cell being dirty.

Refugio said Guzman is isolated and complains that his "cell does not have the best health conditions. Joaquin has asked that they give him products to clean it, such as chlorine."

The prison in Ciudad Juarez was ranked last among 20 federal prisons in a 2015 report by the National Human Rights Commission, but officials say the jail has since improved and that Guzman is in a maximum-security wing.

Last Thursday, authorities transferred 81 inmates out of the Juarez prison as part of a regular rotation of prisoners.

But a federal official told AFP that some were moved "to avoid any upheaval" because they are members of a gang opposed to the Sinaloa cartel.

Guzman's group fought a terrifying turf war for control of drug trafficking through Ciudad Juarez in recent years.

Guzman first escaped from prison in 2001. He was detained after a long manhunt in February 2014.

He escaped from the Altiplano prison in July 2015, when he snuck out through a 1.5-kilometer (one-mile) tunnel leading to his cell's shower.

Guzman was recaptured in January and sent back to Altiplano, which is still considered the highest security prison despite his escape.
From Town & Country

You know his initials from all the shoes, belts, and handbags that you see on the street. Or maybe you know his stock ticker, KORS, up 40 percent this year. But among philanthropists, the fashion designer Michael Kors is famous for his work combating hunger in New York and around the world. In April the World Food Program USA, which raises funds for the United Nation's World Food Programme, the largest humanitarian agency dedicated to feeding the hungry, gave Kors the McGovern-Dole Leadership Award for his role in setting up school meal programs around the globe.

And last June in New York City, Kors's hometown, God's Love We Deliver, which takes roughly 5,500 meals each weekday to clients too sick to cook for themselves, recognized the fashion designer's decades-long involvement in the pioneering charity by naming its new 48,500-square-foot headquarters in Soho the Michael Kors Building. T&C caught up with the philanthropist days before he received his award from WFP USA in Washington, DC.

Who or what inspired your vigorous approach to philanthropy?

Passionate people who are willing to get in the trenches, like my friend Blaine Trump. When she sees something that needs changing, she really rolls up her sleeves. She has been involved with God's Love We Deliver for years. And Donna Karan. When the AIDS crisis was at its height, she said, "How can we designers make a difference? What do we all have? We have product!" Right there Seventh on Sale was born. A lot of times it's the women who are very passionate, who get the job done. Someone like Bette Midler, who has remade the look of so many New York neighborhoods with her Million Trees NYC project. That started with her picking up garbage on the side of the road.

When I visited the God's Love We Deliver Michael Kors Building, I was touched by the commemorative tiles on the kitchen walls. In fact, someone pointed out a tile dedicated to some of your neighbors on Long Island.

When the AIDS crisis exploded in New York in the '80s, everywhere I looked there were friends and co-workers who were ill or dying. I felt helpless. Then I heard about God's Love We Deliver, which was founded in 1985 by a woman who began by delivering food on her bicycle to a man dying of AIDS. I started by volunteering in the kitchen, in the old building, which had tiles that people would dedicate to loved ones they had lost. I had gone to high school with David Benov-he and his brother died of AIDS. When we built the new building I wanted to be sure all those tiles would be preserved. Because people have to remember.

Story continues

You're also very active in the World Food Program USA, donating meals to schools globally. How did hunger come to be a focus?

New York City is one of the wealthiest cities in the world-how could there be hunger here? But there are thousands of people who can't leave their homes and get nutritious food-not just homeless people but many of our neighbors. And they feel isolated. I wanted to find a way to effect change in their lives. The minute I was able to walk into someone's home and deliver a nutritious meal, I saw this tremendous, immediate change in their attitude and, quite honestly, in their day-to-day life. I liken it to fashion.

I feel good when one of our customers puts the right thing on and they feel different about themselves and they have a spring in their step. And I see that with God's Love We Deliver and with all the work we do with the United Nations World Food Programme. In some places-Cambodia, Nicaragua, Uganda, Mozambique-the free lunch we provide is the only reason parents send their kids to school. So it's not just a meal that we're offering; we're helping end the cycle of poverty, because education has now become part of these children's lives.

I heard that on one of your God's Love deliveries in New York City, you met a 100-year-old woman who had been involved in fashion.

Yes! Her name was Natalie. She was not physically well, but her mind was sharp as a tack. And she said, "I'm sure you can't imagine by looking at me, but I was in the fashion business too." She started telling wonderful stories about stores and businesses that are no longer around. And I looked at her and thought, This is someone with an incredible life, all this experience. She needs nutrition, but she also needs human interaction. She was someone we visited quite often.

Something I've always loved about God's Love is that, in addition to everything else they do, they deliver an inscribed birthday cake to all their clients. Chuck Piekarski, in the bakery, personally decorates each one, and everyone was blown away to see him write "Happy 100th Birthday, Natalie."
Japanese banking giant Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. MTU and Hitachi, Ltd. have entered into a business alliance to boost their operations. The deal is likely to be closed in Aug 2016.



Mitsubishi UFJ and its unit Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance Company Limited are set to acquire 23% and 4.2% of Hitachi Capital Corporation from parent Hitachi, respectively. The transfer price has been settled at 108.1billion. Hitachi Capital separately revealed that it will purchase 3% of Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance Company.



Mitsubishi UFJs latest move comes in line with its focus on financing deals in several areas of infrastructure development including electric power and railroads, given its experience in global project finance. Notably, last month the company established Infrastructure Business Office in order to strengthen social infrastructure business worldwide through its expertise and know-how gained from business model evolution.



In its release, Mitsubishi UFJ highlighted the competitive environment in the global infrastructure market with respect to order placement amid persistent scale expansion. While large-scale and long-term infrastructure projects with a financing wing as a tie-up are gaining influence, it has become difficult for manufacturers seeking financial assistance to tap such business opportunities.



Being major players in the social infrastructure space, the alliance of Mitsubishi UFJ and Hitachi seeks to build a financial platform to offer support to infrastructure industry.



Currently, Mitsubishi UFJ carries a Zack Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the foreign banks space include Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Limited ANZBY, Grupo Financiero Galicia S.A. GGAL and Shinhan Financial Group Company Limited SHG, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).



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From Road & Track

Occasionally, the founder of Our Modest Car Collection enjoyed a sporting moment in the American Southwest. And what better vehicle to tackle the wild and rugged landscape of Scottsdale, Arizona, than behind the wheel of this rare, limited piece of Americana: the Wrekkr dune buggy.

In the mid-1970s, the Wrekkr was just a dream in the twinkle in the eye of a one Mr. Tannis Rumpelstiltskin, a self-described "beach bro" and "female body inspector" who spent his time in Needles, California with nothing better to do than to partake in his favorite habits: vision quests, tax evasion, and occasional experiments in fiberglass. Life was simpler back then. Back then, Rumpelstiltskin had precious little to worry about other than the occasional restraining order. His life was of the carefree one, filled with acoustic guitar music and casual sexism, devoid of such modern complications such as health insurance and empathy for his fellow man. We shall all strive to be so content.

But it was one faithful day, while in his fiberglass shop, attempting to create-in his words-"the world's largest goddamn 'glass bong you f*****s ever did see," that he stumbled upon the brilliant idea: why not mount this cylindrical shape atop the chassis of his roommate's car, and use it to deliver edibles across the dunes that surrounded his pool house?

And thus, a classic was born. (The roommate in question eventually settled with Rumplestiltskin to the tune of $3.8 million and a pair of free Wrekkrs.) The Wrekkr was a nearly-indestructible, nearly-cheap, go-nearly-anywhere desert runabout that captured America's inexplicable infatuation with the dune buggy that emerged for a brief period during the Seventies. For just $25 and a six-pack of Hamm's, postmarked to Needles General Delivery, you could build your very own tough, macho sand basher with just a handful of parts, some weekend wrenching, and the entire chassis and running gear of a brand-new Cadillac Eldorado. Give a man a set of tools, a respirator, and a stack of pre-signed waivers, and one could have a Wrekkr up and running poorly in no time.

Story continues

Such was the ingenuity of the Wrekkr manly, do-it-yourself ethos. The other was in the advertising. "DRIVE SOMETHING WITH BALLS!" read an advertisement in the March 1975 issue of Good Housekeeping. "YOU WON'T NEED A PRESCRIPTION FOR THIS ERECTION," read another in National Geographic. "PUT HAIR ON YOUR EVERYWHERE," said another crudely-pasted advertisement that ran once in the Saturday Evening Post. To hear noted crank Rumpelstiltskin himself tell it, what with the state of masculinity declining ever since the first Earth Day, it was more than fair to drive a home-built vehicle with a mid-mounted big-block V8 packing 707 horsepower, shift-on-the-fly six-wheel drive, and raised exhaust stacks that went up and over the driver's elbows that could spray smoky bits of coal soot directly into the faces of aging hippies and school crossing guards.

Give a man a set of tools, a respirator, and a stack of pre-signed waivers, and one could have a Wrekkr up and running poorly in no time.

This 1976 "Baja Blast" Edition is possibly the rarest and most sought-after model. It is distinguished from lesser Wrekkr limited editions with a cologne dispenser, a unique horn that sounded the opening bars to Thin Lizzy's thoroughly non-seminal "The Boys Are Back In Town," its twelve pairs of dangling brass ball bearings scattered throughout the bodywork, and a pair of big-block V8s, one on either side of the driver's seat, driving all six black-and-chrome wheels. Notable first? It was one of the first vehicles ever created that could be driven while performing a keg stand.

Rumpelstiltskin built the Wrekker from his pool house for just three years before the state of California shut it down for grotesque EPA violations. (The former Wrekkr factory, museum, and bar and grille is now the state's 14th most prominent Superfund site.) But for the company's founder, things ended on a good note. After a mere three nights in jail, Tannis Rumpelstiltskin went on to co-found the influential ska punk band Sublime.

The Wrekkr predates America's obsession with go-anywhere SUVs by at least 30 years. But unlike today's hoity-toity SUVs, what it lacks in creature comforts, side-impact protection, reliability or political consciousness, it more than made up for in macho, go-anywhere, ground-humping abilities. It's no surprise that for the three scant years Wrekkr was a solvent business, it cheekily employed the brazen slogan, "STICK YOUR JUNK IN MOTHER NATURE!"
Rabat (AFP) - Former Moroccan Salafist prisoners protested on Monday outside parliament to demand the reopening of an investigation into bombings in Casablanca in 2003, and accused the government of "shirking its responsibilities".

Some 150 former prisoners and their families answered a call by the "joint committee for the defence of Islamist detainees" to demand that the probe into the bombings that they called "the biggest lie Moroccans have ever known".

Salafists adhere to a strict Sunni interpretation of Islam.

Monday's demonstration comes 13 years to the day after the wave of suicide bombings in the country's commercial capital killed 33 people.

In the wake of the attacks, the authorities arrested more than 8,000 people and more than 1,000 were later sentenced, including 17 given the death penalty.

"We demand a transparent and impartial investigation into the events of May 16, 2003," committee coordinator Osama Boutahir told AFP.

"We ask Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane to meet this demand that he himself expressed while in opposition."

Some who attended the protest accused the government of "shirking its responsibilities" towards the former prisoners.

Other Moroccans convicted after the attacks are still languishing in jail.

"We are still waiting for our husbands and sons to be released," some of whom are in prisons hundreds of kilometres (miles) from their families, a spokesman for the committee said.
From Good Housekeeping

We already know Emma and Noah were the most popular baby names in the United States in 2015. But if after hearing those picks your first response was "no way, Jose," then perhaps they weren't common in the part of the country you're from. Good thing the U.S. Social Security Administration just revealed the most popular names by state, huh?

For boys, of course there was Noah (we see you across those southern and western states). But it turns out William was a southern favorite and Liam popped up in just about every single region. However, three states proved they don't follow country-wide trends: Oklahoma with Elijah, Pennsylvania with Mason, and Massachusetts with Benjamin.

Take a look:

For girls, Emma expectedly trickling from the northeast, through the midwest, and even part of the pacific northwest. But Ava conquer a strip across the south and Florida and North Dakota went rogue with Isabella and Harper, respectively.

Take a closer look at which girl names you can expect to fill up every classroom in the next few years - and the board room after that!

[via Business Insider]
By Alan Baldwin LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Formula One world champions Mercedes will not rein in Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg after they collided and put each other out of Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix, team boss Toto Wolff said. "We have moved on from Spa in 2014 and it was a completely different situation in the team back then," the Austrian told reporters, referring to a collision between the two at the Belgian Grand Prix. "By continuing to let them race (each other) it was clear that eventually this could happen. And we will continue to let them race." The second lap collision in 2014 led to a freeze in relations between the drivers, who had been friends and rivals since their teenage years. In that incident, Rosberg finished second behind Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo while Hamilton ultimately retired with collision damage. The Briton said later that the German, who was blamed by the team, had declared he had done it on purpose. Sunday's incident put both out of the race, with the two drivers lining up on the front row of the grid and crashing into each other as they fought for the lead through the third corner of the opening lap. The collision ended Rosberg's run of seven wins in succession including the first four of the year and the team's hopes of a one-two finish. Wolff said the collision, which the stewards deemed a racing incident, was the result of a number of unfortunate coincidences. Neither driver was totally to blame. "I think what matters more is how we come out of the incident as a team," he said. "We've had a really great spirit in the team in the last couple of races through many ups and downs. "We never threw the toys out of the pram and I think that is another challenge for us, to demonstrate as a team that we can move on from difficult circumstances." Hamilton suffered power unit problems in qualifying for the two races before Barcelona, starting at the back in China and from 10th place in Russia, but retained his composure. The champion, still 43 points behind Rosberg with 16 races to go, said on Sunday that his first thoughts were for the team. "That was the most gutting thing when I stopped, just thinking about all these guys that work so hard in this team to give me the opportunity to race today. To not deliver for them ... is a very painful experience for all of us." Wolff said both drivers knew what was expected and he was "100 percent sure" it would not influence the way they worked as a team. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Richard Balmforth)
By Alan Baldwin BARCELONA, May 16 (Reuters) - Red Bull are hoping that engine and chassis upgrades will help them beat Ferrari and Formula One champions Mercedes more often after Max Verstappen's Spanish Grand Prix victory on Sunday. Apart from becoming the sport's youngest race winner, the 18-year-old Dutch driver secured the former world champions their first triumph since the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix. It was also the first win since that August afternoon for engine suppliers Renault, even if the Red Bull cars now carry the name of Swiss watch company Tag Heuer after relations with the French manufacturer frayed almost to breaking point last year. Red Bull have been busy mending fences since then, a necessary move given that nobody else was willing to take Renault's place, and team principal Christian Horner continued that process on Sunday. "I have to pay compliments to our Tag Heuer engine partners who have done a great job in making progress," he said to laughter from reporters. "I think that with what's in the pipeline for coming races there's a lot of reason for optimism. If we get what's advertised then it's going to put us in a position at least to race Ferraris every weekend," he added. "Then, hopefully, we can get into trying to close that gap with Mercedes at certain circuits." Renault will be testing an upgraded power unit at the Barcelona circuit this week with plans to introduce it at next month's Canadian Grand Prix for Red Bull and their own Renault factory team. Mercedes had won 36 of the previous 42 races until Sunday, with Ferrari the only team to beat them last year. They have dominated the sport since the V6 turbo hybrid power units replaced the V8s in 2014. Monaco, the slowest of street circuits with its tight and twisty layout, is next up with outright power less important than driveability. Until Barcelona, Red Bull had considered that classic race their best chance of winning this season. "If we can find a few tenths on the power unit side, it's certainly going to be gratefully received," said Horner, when asked whether Renault might bring the upgrade forward for Monaco. "Let's see how the test goes but if there was any opportunity to be even more competitive in Monaco we'd take it. But that's a decision for the guys from Renault," he said. "We'll do the testing and then they will look at the numbers." (Editing by Ed Osmond)
(Adds Credit Suisse, Deloitte, Freedom 3 Capital)

May 16 (Reuters) - The following financial services industry appointments were announced on Monday. To inform us of other job changes, email moves@thomsonreuters.com.

CREDIT SUISSE

The Swiss bank has hired Ray Raimondi, formerly of Barclays , to lead its global mergers and acquisitions team for deals in the industrials sector.

DELOITTE & TOUCHE LLP

The consultancy firm named Fredrick Curry III as Deloitte Advisory anti-money laundering (AML) and economic sanctions practice leader. The company also named Michael Shepard as Deloitte Global AML, economic sanctions and financial crimes leader.

MITSUBISHI UFJ SECURITIES INTERNATIONAL PLC

Sarwat Faruqui will join the unit of Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc in London as head of its Europe, Middle East and Africa syndicate and co-head of international syndicate, IFR reported.

AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP LTD

The Australian bank appointed Shayne Collins managing director for markets.

BLACKROCK INC

The investment management firm named Takeshi Fukushima managing director and chief investment officer of BlackRock Japan, effective immediately.

NIKKO ASSET MANAGEMENT CO LTD

The Tokyo-based asset manager named Yuichi Alex Takayama global head of sales.

INFLEXION PRIVATE EQUITY PARTNERS LLP

The private equity firm appointed Josh Kaufman investment director in its partnership capital team.

SARASIN & PARTNERS LLP

The London-based asset management group named Alex Robins senior relationship and business development manager, effective immediately.

FREEDOM 3 CAPITAL

Fred Buffone has joined the New York-based private credit investor, sources told Thomson Reuters LPC. Buffone, who joined Freedom 3 at the end of April, is a principal.

(Compiled by Arunima Banerjee in Benagluru)
(Refiles to reach additional subscribers)

By Laura Benitez and Helene Durand

LONDON, May 16 (IFR) - Sarwat Faruqui will join Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International in London as head of Europe, Middle East and Africa syndicate and co-head of international syndicate.

IFR reported last week that Faruqui had left her position as head of corporate bond syndicate at Citigroup..

Faruqui will join the bank in August and work alongside co-head of international syndicate Brian Cogliandro, based in the New York, and will report to Paul Young, international head of capital markets, and Anthony Barklam, co-head of capital markets, EMEA.

"Sarwat's long-standing issuer, investor and syndicate desk relationships, combined with her extensive transaction experience, will be invaluable as we continue to source new growth opportunities," said Young.

Her appointment follows the departure of Fergus Edwards earlier this year.

(Reporting By Laura Benitez, editing by Helene Durand, Julian Baker)
By Heide Brandes

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Jury selection began on Monday in the trial of two men accused of committing six murders in a raid on a drug house, including the killing of a former prostitute featured on the HBO reality television show Cathouse.

Denny Phillips, 38, and Russell Hogshooter, 38, are accused of shooting four people in the 2009 attack in Oklahoma City, including Brooke Phillips, 22, who was featured in the reality show about Nevadas legal brothel Moonlite BunnyRanch and was pregnant at the time of her death.

The other victims were Casey Barrientos 32, Jennifer Ermey, 25 and Milagros Millie Barrera, 22, who was also pregnant at the time.

If convicted, both men, who police said have ties to criminal gangs, could face the death penalty.

The plan was to rob Barrientos, who police said was a local drug dealer, while no one was home. But the attackers changed plans and set out to kill anyone they found inside the home, they said.

Prosecutors said the women were killed to silence them as witnesses. Since two women were pregnant, Oklahoma law allows for the suspects to be charged with murder for the deaths of the fetuses.

Two other men who took part in the attack reached plea deals and are likely to testify against the two men on trial. Both are in prison, with one serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole and the other a sentence of 25 years.

Phillips was shot in the head, had her throat slit and was stabbed in her abdomen, according to a police affidavit.

According to court officials, the trial is expected to last up to a month.

(Reporting by Heide Brandes; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Alistair Bell)
On May 13, we issued an updated research report on Salt Lake City, UT-based molecular diagnostics provider Myriad Genetics, Inc. MYGN. The company currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Myriad ended the third quarter of fiscal 2016 on a promising note, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate on both top and bottom-line fronts. Strong growth delivered by its recently launched Prolaris and Vectra DA tests buoy optimism.

Myriads international contribution to total revenues is below 5% as of the reported quarter, which the company aims to raise to 10% by fiscal 2020. In particular, Myriad made substantial progress in the overseas markets on account of its breast cancer prognostic product  EndoPredict  in the third quarter.

In terms of reimbursement for its Prolaris prostate cancer test, Myriad made significant progress in the third quarter, with private payers having signed multiple additional private health plans. These plans, in aggregate, now represent approximately 28 million covered lives or 16% of all private payer covered lives.

Moreover, Myriad signed two private insurance contracts for its Vectra DA test for the first time in the third quarter, representing coverage of 2 million lives. Further, the French government recently approved provisional reimbursement rate of $2,000 for Myriads EndoPredict breast cancer test, which opened up a market of approximately 25,000 patients per year for the company.

The companys strong expansion in the pipeline of tests, which currently represent a global addressable market opportunity worth $20 billion and a reimburse market of more than $1 billion, also encourages us.

On the flip side, unfavorable currency translation continues to be a major dampener for the stock. Management fears that in the event of further strengthening of dollar against foreign currencies might lead to deteriorating operating results for Myriad which may not be significantly outweighed through increased revenues.

Story continues

Moreover, management does not currently utilize hedging strategies to mitigate foreign currency risk, which is also a matter of concern in case dollar strengthens in further. Intensifying competition as well as the possibility that Myriads new test might not generate meaningful profits to outweigh the costs associated with their developments, continue to pose threats to the stock.

Key Picks in the Sector

Better-ranked medical stocks are Baxter International Inc. BAX, Boston Scientific Corporation BSX and LeMaitre Vascular, Inc. LMAT. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >>



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By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two former New York stockbrokers must pay $1.9 million (1.3 million) after a U.S. jury found them liable for having engaged in insider trading based on confidential tips about an IBM Corp (IBM.N) acquisition, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan ordered ex-Euro Pacific Capital Inc brokers Daryl Payton and Benjamin Durant to pay $546,459 and $1.36 million, respectively, following a trial in a lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Rakoff ruled that a civil penalty was appropriate given the jury's verdict in February. He rejected arguments by Durant that he should be forced to pay only $53,000, saying to accept his arguments would grant him "a significant undeserved windfall."

But Rakoff declined to adopt even steeper penalties sought by the SEC, which asked to have Payton pay $1.03 million and Durant pay $2.57 million, citing their "challenging financial circumstances."

Both men are now expected to challenge their liability on appeal amid ongoing litigation over what constitutes insider trading, an issue the U.S. Supreme Court in January said it would review.

Matthew Fishbein, Payton's lawyer, said, "There is every reason to believe that the SEC failed to prove the elements of its claim." Scott Morvillo, Durant's lawyer, said he was "confident that Mr. Durant will be vindicated on appeal."

An SEC spokesman declined to comment.

The SEC alleged that in 2009, an attorney at IBM Corp's (IBM.N) law firm told his friend, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS.L) analyst Trent Martin, that he was working on IBM's $1.2 billion acquisition of SPSS Inc.

While the lawyer expected Martin not to tell anyone, Martin bought SPSS stock and told his roommate, Thomas Conradt, a Euro Pacific employee, the SEC said.

Conradt then told four Euro Pacific colleagues, including Payton and Durant, who made hundreds of thousands of dollars trading before the deal's announcement, the SEC said.

Story continues

Federal prosecutors initially brought criminal charges over the case against five people, four of whom including Payton but not Durant pleaded guilty.

But after a December 2014 appellate ruling limited the scope of U.S. insider trading laws, a federal judge threw out the guilty pleas and prosecutors dropped the case. The SEC, facing a lower burden of proof, chose to move forward in its case.

The case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Payton et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-04644.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Tom Brown and Cynthia Osterman)
(Adds comment from defense lawyers)

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - Two former New York stockbrokers must pay $1.9 million after a U.S. jury found them liable for having engaged in insider trading based on confidential tips about an IBM Corp acquisition, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan ordered ex-Euro Pacific Capital Inc brokers Daryl Payton and Benjamin Durant to pay $546,459 and $1.36 million, respectively, following a trial in a lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Rakoff ruled that a civil penalty was appropriate given the jury's verdict in February. He rejected arguments by Durant that he should be forced to pay only $53,000, saying to accept his arguments would grant him "a significant undeserved windfall."

But Rakoff declined to adopt even steeper penalties sought by the SEC, which asked to have Payton pay $1.03 million and Durant pay $2.57 million, citing their "challenging financial circumstances."

Both men are now expected to challenge their liability on appeal amid ongoing litigation over what constitutes insider trading, an issue the U.S. Supreme Court in January said it would review.

Matthew Fishbein, Payton's lawyer, said, "There is every reason to believe that the SEC failed to prove the elements of its claim." Scott Morvillo, Durant's lawyer, said he was "confident that Mr. Durant will be vindicated on appeal."

An SEC spokesman declined to comment.

The SEC alleged that in 2009, an attorney at IBM Corp's law firm told his friend, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc analyst Trent Martin, that he was working on IBM's $1.2 billion acquisition of SPSS Inc.

While the lawyer expected Martin not to tell anyone, Martin bought SPSS stock and told his roommate, Thomas Conradt, a Euro Pacific employee, the SEC said.

Conradt then told four Euro Pacific colleagues, including Payton and Durant, who made hundreds of thousands of dollars trading before the deal's announcement, the SEC said.

Story continues

Federal prosecutors initially brought criminal charges over the case against five people, four of whom including Payton but not Durant pleaded guilty.

But after a December 2014 appellate ruling limited the scope of U.S. insider trading laws, a federal judge threw out the guilty pleas and prosecutors dropped the case. The SEC, facing a lower burden of proof, chose to move forward in its case.

The case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Payton et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-04644.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Tom Brown and Cynthia Osterman)
A miniature coffin discovered more than a century ago holds the remains of the youngest Egyptian ever embalmed as a mummy on record, researchers in England said.

A computed tomography (CT) scan of the coffin revealed that the coffin didn't hold mummified internal organs, as researchers had suspected, but instead contains the tiny mummy of a human fetus, according to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England. The mummified fetus was likely at only 16 to 18 weeks of gestation when it died, likely from a miscarriage, museum officials said.

"This landmark discovery  is remarkable evidence of the importance that was placed on official burial rituals in ancient Egypt, even for those lives that were lost so early on in their existence," museum researchers said in a statement.

The British School of Archaeology originally uncovered the 17-inch-long (44 centimeters) coffin in Giza in 1907, and the Fitzwilliam Museum added the coffin to the museum collection that same year. The cedarwood coffin is a perfect miniature of a regular-size coffin from Egypt's Late Period, and likely dates to about 644 B.C. to 525 B.C., museum researchers said. It even has "painstakingly small" carvings on it, the researchers added. [Photos: 1,700-Year-Old Egyptian Mummy Revealed]

For years, museum curators assumed that the coffin held internal organs, which were routinely removed during the Egyptian embalming process. But curators found otherwise when they examined the coffin during preparations for the museum's bicentennial exhibition, "Death on the Nile: Uncovering the Afterlife of Ancient Egypt," which opened in February.

What they discovered in the coffin surprised them.

The wood casket contained a small wrapped package, bound in bandages and covered with molten black resin. An X-ray of the coffin gave inconclusive results, but suggested that the container held a small skeleton. So, the researchers examined the tiny bundle with a micro CT scan.

Story continues

The resulting CT images revealed that the coffin held the remains of a tiny skeleton, which the researchers left undisturbed.

"CT imaging has been used successfully by the museum for several projects in recent years, but this is our most successful find so far," Dr. Tom Turmezei, recently an honorary consultant radiologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, England, said in the statement. "The ability of CT to show the inner workings of such artifacts without causing any structural damage proved even more invaluable in this case, allowing us to review the fetus for abnormalities and attempt to age it as accurately as possible."

The CT scans showed that the fetus already had five digits on each of its hands and feet, as well as clearly visible long leg and arm bones. However, it's unclear whether it was a boy or a girl, and it's unknown what caused the miscarriage, if that's what really happened, the researchers said.

The CT images also indicate that the fetus' arms are crossed over its chest. This intricate positioning, coupled with the extraordinary detail on the coffin, suggest that ancient Egyptians placed great importance on the fetus' burial, the researchers said.

"The care taken in the preparation of this burial clearly demonstrates the value placed on life, even in the first weeks of its inception," said Julie Dawson, head of conservation at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

This discovery isn't the only one of its kind. King Tutankhamun's tomb contained two mummified fetuses, which were estimated to be at 25 weeks and 37 weeks into gestation. Archaeologists have also discovered a few other examples of miscarried babies in ancient Egyptian burials, the researchers said.

The public can view the miniature coffin at the Fitzwilliam Museum until the exhibit ends on May 22.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations

Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
By Julien Pretot CANNES, France (Reuters) - A story about banned inter-racial marriage might have been a golden opportunity for a tense courtroom drama, but U.S. director Jeff Nichols opted for a heatwarming love film now vying for the top Palme d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Nichols, who won critical acclaim for high-anxiety dramas like "Take Shelter" and "Midnight Special", defies expectations in "Loving" by focusing on the power of love against all odds rather than clobbering viewers with racial politics. It is based on the true story of a white man and a black woman from Virginia who get married in Washington D.C. in 1958. When they return home, they are first jailed then banished because inter-racial marriage is prohibited in Virginia at a time when racial segregation remains common in America. They relocate to Washington but struggle to adapt to city life. Lawyers take their cause to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rules in 1967 that interracial marriage is unconstitutional, a historic civil rights decision that ends all race-based limits on marriage in the United States. "It was very un-Hollywood in the sense that at certain moments, someone really drawn into the patina of Hollywood might have rearranged the truth in order to make it more Hollywood," Australian actor Joel Edgerton, who plays Richard Loving, told a news conference on Monday. "There was something so simple about the truth that allowed us ... a very nice guideline to find our way into the story." Edgerton pairs up with Ethiopia-born Irish actress Ruth Negga playing Mildred Loving. Her subtle performance has triggered speculation in Cannes that Negga could be up for an Academy Award. "I looked at the story and it seemed very very obvious to me that we just needed to talk about the people," said Nichols, who previously presented "Mud" and "Take Shelter" in Cannes. "The court case is so fascinating in itself that it could be a movie. (But) I did not want to make a courtroom movie. I wanted to make a movie about two people in love. I hope it's the quiet film of the year." "It humanises us," Negga said. "It just shows the world that these things aren't just boring, politicial ideas, they're about individuals and humans." (Editing by Mark Heinrich)
From Harper's BAZAAR

Nick Jonas just debuted his new single, "Chainsaw," with an accompanying music video starring model Sara Sampaio. The song is his latest single-following "Close" and "Champagne Problems"-for his upcoming album, Last Year Was Complicated, which is set to release June 10.

Jonas and Sampaio play a passionate couple on screen, one minute throwing dishes and screaming at each other, the next dotingly caressing each other. Watch them get hot and heated:

[youtube ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1JCGSS9f_c[/youtube]

The video is set in a romantic cabin in the woods, but the tune itself is a lot closer to home for Jonas. "In a few hours my most personal song I've ever written will be released," he tweeted this morning, followed by a string of follow-up tweets about the song's intimacy.

Earlier this year, he told Complex that he penned the song about his relationship with Olivia Culpo. The result is an emotional but catchy song that you won't know whether to cry or jam to.




mario_movie

Buena Vista Pictures

Growing up in the 80s and 90s meant an intimate understanding and love of all things Nintendo. From The Legend of Zelda to Super Mario Brothers. That meant supporting Nintendo throughout all of their endeavors, even the rather ridiculous live-action adaptation of Super Mario Brothers featuring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. Realistically, most of us know that Captain Lou Albano was by far the better Mario, he even taught a generation of kids to do the Mario.



Admittedly, Nintendo doesnt think much of these adaptations, especially the film, which has kept the company away from that industry for years now. According to NintendoEverything, though, that might be changing in a hurry. In an interview translated from Japanese outlet Asahi, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima spoke about the companys intention to make a possible feature film within the next two the three years, although in pure Nintendo fashion he was vague and dismissive when it came to details.

Our primary goal is to increase the number of people who know our IPs. Our core business is to create games and hardware, but the question becomes how to make that business more effective. And of course simple advertisment is no good. So wed like to create other businesses that can support that goal.

So while he wouldnt commit on a time frame, if wed see Zelda or Mario heading to a big screen, or if it would be animated or live action, he does seem intent on releasing a film to attempt to appeal to a broader audience. The disappointing sales of the WiiU is most likely behind the idea of pushing to win back audiences worldwide, while the 3DS has been a huge success, showing that there is still an audience for Nintendos product, they just havent been able to reach that audience with their home consoles. Hopefully the impending Nintendo NX is able to bring some of that Nintendo magic back to the world of home consoles. That will ease the pain while we wait for one of these (possible) movies.

(Via NintendoEverything/Asahi)
London (AFP) - Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, is to sue German carmaker Volkswagen over an emissions-cheating scandal that caused it huge losses, the Financial Times reported Sunday.

"We have been advised by our lawyers that the company's conduct gives rise to legal claims under German law. As an investor it is our responsibility to safeguard the fund's holding in Volkswagen," Peter Johnsen, the chief executive of the fund's manager Norges Bank Investment Management, told the newspaper.

The German automobile giant is already facing a slew of lawsuits from shareholders seeking damages after deep falls in its share price, as well as from angry car owners.

Volkswagen's admission that illegal software was installed on 11 million diesel engines to cheat emissions tests sparked a global scandal and forced it to recall vehicles from around the world.

The carmaker has set aside 16.2 billion euros ($19 billion) in provisions to cover potential fines, lawsuits and recall costs, resulting in its first annual loss since 1993.

Volkswagen did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Norges Bank Investment Management could not be reached for comment.
Saudi Arabia trader oil

Saudi Arabia has built up a massive amount of US debt.

The kingdom held $116.8 billion in US Treasurys as of March, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Saudi holdings of US federal debt have come under scrutiny in recent months after the kingdom said it would liquidate more than $750 billion worth of US Treasurys if Congress were to pass a bill allowing the families of terrorism victims to sue foreign countries. Such a law could potentially allow families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia.

The number disclosed Monday falls well short of the threatened amount, but it may be undershooting the total, Bloomberg said. For instance, debt could be held by Saudi Arabia in financial instruments set up in other countries, so it would not show up on the Saudi balance sheet.

While there is some skepticism over whether Saudi Arabia would go through with the threat, the new information provides a clear picture of just how devastating the move would be for the US debt market.

In its monthly report of foreign holdings of US Treasurys, the Treasury Department has previously lumped in Saudi Arabia's debt with that of other nations including Ecuador, Qatar, Venezuela, and Iraq. Most countries with high debt holdings are listed individually. As of February, the oil exporters held a combined $281 billion in US debt.

Stripping out Saudi Arabia's debt from the oil exporters would make the kingdom the 13th-largest holder of Treasurys based on the February data, just behind India and ahead of Singapore.

The Treasury's response Monday was in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, according to the Bloomberg report.

NOW WATCH: FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Why I won't vote for Donald Trump





More From Business Insider


Donald Trump's treatment of women through the years -- the executives he's hired by day for his real estate development business and the beautiful women he's pursued at night -- is getting a new look by U.S. media now that he is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Two of the country's most prominent news outlets -- The Washington Post and The New York Times -- both published stories in recent days looking in detail at Trump's past connections with women. They comprise the majority of the U.S. electorate Trump would face in November's national presidential election against the likely Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is seeking to become the country's first female president.

 Trump as His Own Publicist?

The Post reported that for years in the 1990s Trump masqueraded as his own publicist, often calling himself "John Miller" or "John Barron" in calls with reporters as he bragged about his exploits with women while he was married to the first of his three wives, Ivana Trump.

In one taped interview, a man claiming to be Trump's spokesman but with a voice sounding like Trump, said, "Actresses just call to see if they can go out with him and things." The publicist assured the reporter that Trump treated his wife well as would he his new girlfriend, Marla Maples, who became his second wife.

In the interview, Miller referred to Trump as "he," but lapsed into the first person, too, as he talked about one Trump conquest. "I think it's somebody that -- you know, she's beautiful. I saw her once, quickly and beautiful..." he said before continuing the conversation in the third person.

Trump denied that the voice on the tape was his, but he testified in a 1990 court case that he used the alter ego Miller "on occasion."
By Daniel Wiessner

May 16 (Reuters) - A federal agency on Monday released final rules explaining how employers can offer workers financial incentives to participate in wellness programs without violating federal laws protecting the confidentiality of medical information.

The move from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was meant to clear up confusion over the way two federal laws protecting employees' medical privacy apply to the popular programs, which are designed to control medical spending by reducing obesity, smoking and other risk factors.

The rules, which were first proposed in November, mark a compromise with U.S. businesses that opposed the EEOC's previous stance that providing incentives to join voluntary wellness programs rendered them involuntary, and thus illegal.

About 98 percent of U.S. companies with 200 or more workers, and 73 percent of smaller firms, offered wellness programs in 2014, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Wellness programs are generally managed by outside companies in what has become an $8 billion-a-year industry, research firm IBISWorld reported last year.

The 2010 Affordable Care Act allowed U.S. employers to increase the rewards they offer to employees who participate in wellness programs. But in a series of 2013 lawsuits against companies, including Honeywell International Inc, the EEOC said a request for medical information related to any program offering incentives violated the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

On Monday, the EEOC brought its rules into line with other federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying companies could offer employees and their spouses incentives worth up to 30 percent of their out-of-pocket health insurance costs without violating the laws.

Incentives can include discounts on health insurance premiums, cash, prizes or paid time off from work. Some health and workers' rights groups say the rules, which take effect next year, penalize employees who decline to join wellness programs and hand over private medical information.

Story continues

The EEOC's 2013 lawsuits riled the business community and prompted some companies to threaten to pull their support for the ACA as it came under attack from Republicans.

A federal judge in Minnesota in 2014 dismissed the case against Honeywell, in part because the EEOC had not issued guidance to employers on how to structure wellness programs lawfully.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Dan Grebler)
(Adds detail on rules, comments from senator, law professor and employer organization)

By Daniel Wiessner

May 16 (Reuters) - A federal agency on Monday released final rules on how employers can offer workers financial incentives of up to 30 percent of the cost of their cheapest health insurance plans to participate in wellness programs without violating federal laws protecting the confidentiality of medical information.

The move from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission aims to clear up confusion over the way two federal laws protecting employees' medical privacy apply to the popular programs, which are designed to control medical spending by reducing obesity, smoking and other risk factors.

The rules, which were first proposed in November, mark a compromise with U.S. businesses that opposed the EEOC's previous stance that providing incentives for voluntary wellness programs rendered them involuntary, and thus illegal.

The 2010 Affordable Care Act allowed U.S. employers to increase the rewards they offer to employees who participate in wellness programs. But in a series of 2013 lawsuits against companies, including Honeywell International Inc, the EEOC said requests for medical information related to incentive-based wellness programs violated the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

Under the new rules, incentives for wellness programs are open only to employees, not their families, and are capped at 30 percent of the cheapest individual health insurance premium offered through the employer.

The new rules are more restrictive than those passed under the ACA, which allowed incentives of up to 30 percent of the actual cost of an employee's insurance plan and 50 percent for programs approved by the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services. Only smoking-cessation programs received that approval.

Senator Lamar Alexander (R.-Tennessee), chair of the Senate's Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said he would push legislation, along with House Republicans, to reverse the rules.

Story continues

The National Business Group on Health, a non-profit organization advocating for large healthcare employers, said that although it would have "hoped for some additional flexibility... the rules do what the EEOC was asked to do."

Some health and workers' rights groups say the rules, which take effect next year, penalize employees who decline to join wellness programs and hand over private medical information.

Maxwell Mehlman, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said lower-income employees could be unduly pressured to join wellness programs.

"It's hard to say that that's a voluntary program for a lot of people," he said.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Additional reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Dan Grebler)
By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) - The occupation of a Massachusetts Roman Catholic church to prevent its closure will end now that the Supreme Court has declined to hear the case brought by people who have held their ground for 12 years, the Friends of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini said on Monday.

"We made this deal with the lower courts that we would vacate the premises within 14 days of the Supreme Court decision," said Jon Rogers, a leader of the Friends' group. "From the very beginning we have promised to exhaust every avenue of appeal available to us and we have now done that."

The occupation dates back to the early days of the U.S. clergy sex abuse scandal when the Archdiocese of Boston decided to close and sell some 70 churches to cover its legal costs.

Rogers said the parishioners would hold a farewell celebration at the church in Scituate, about 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Boston, on Sunday, May 29, and end their occupation.

Working in shifts since 2004, the group of about 100 people have maintained a constant presence in St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church, which was built in the 1960s.

Initially, it was one of more than a dozen Boston-area Catholic churches occupied by parishioners, but the other groups either lost in the courts or abandoned their efforts.

They have held regular prayer services, but without the involvement of a priest the church did not offer Masses.

The parishioners contended that since their donations had paid for the church to be built, they were entitled to a say in its closing. The church is on 30 acres (12 hectares) of waterfront land.

Lower courts repeatedly rejected their reasoning and last year a state court ruled that the group was trespassing.

Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said in an e-mail that the church was pleased with the court's decision.

Rogers said that after leaving the church, his group would gather in a new location and attempt to reach out to former Catholics who have drifted away from the church since the clergy sex abuse scandal surfaced in 2002.

"Although it is bittersweet that our spiritual home will be destroyed, we are excited about filling the void that has been left," Rogers said in a telephone interview.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
Fresh-faced Samira Wiley, a SAG winner as Poussey Washington in Orange Is the New Black, is a captivating young actor. (That smile is a traffic-stopper.) In Daphnes Dive, the new play by Pulitzer Prize-winning scribe Quiara Alegria Hudes premiering at Signature Theater, Wiley plays a throwaway child who is adopted by the owner of a grungy but popular neighborhood bar in North Philadelphia. Over the years, she becomes a kind of mascot for the local bar patrons and a symbol of the inherent goodness of their extended family. Its a sweet play, but it doesnt have much heft.

Set designer Donyale Werle draws on universal barroom imagery  scarred countertops, beat-up barstools, sticky bottles, and Christmas lights that never switch off  to capture that ineffable come-hither vibe of your favorite neighborhood watering hole. The word comfortable comes to mind.

This particular dive is owned by a sturdy, big-hearted but solitary woman named Daphne (Vanessa Aspillaga, looking grumpy) who treats her band of regular patrons like needy children. Pablo (a spirited Matt Saldivar) is an explosive artist who paints still-lifes of peoples garbage. Rey (Gordon Joseph Weiss, mellow) is a quiet older guy who wears ratty clothes but has enough money to commission Pablo to paint mermaids on his motorcycle. And Jenn (a fluttery KK Moggie) is a performance artist who organizes colorful street scenes for lefty political causes. Waving a banner celebrating Peace. Liberty. Ecology. Democracy, Jenn keeps exhorting her friends and neighbors to Wake up! and join her sit-ins, dance-ins and love-ins.

Although Daphne treats these barflies like family, her only actual relative is her sister Inez (the vivacious Daphne Rubin-Vega), a vivid personality who glories in both her humble Puerto Rican roots and her materialist tastes. Shell proudly move to an upscale part of town, but plant a guiro vine (more Puerto Rican than a crucifix in the rearview) on the lawn.

Story continues

Her husband, Acosta (Carlos Gomez, down-to-earth and very likeable), is a successful businessman. No sob story is too preposterous to win his favors, and hes very much at home manning a barstool in his sister-in-laws bar, generously spreading his wealth around the neighborhood.

Ruby, the young girl Wiley plays with singular intelligence and feeling, drops into this cozy scene at the age of eleven, after escaping from Social Services when the cops come to haul her parents off to jail. Everyone falls in love with Ruby, whose absolute innocence, Hudes intimates, will cleanse their souls and change their lives.

But the patrons of Daphnes Dive are decent folks to begin with, the sort of people who dont hesitate to extend a helping hand to members of their tight community. So that plot line is a non-starter.

Unfortunately, there are no other plot lines. Unlike the more ambitious plays in the trilogy that contains Hudes Pulitzer Prize-winning Water by the Spoonful and turns on the experiences of a young soldier named Elliott, the wellbeing of this neighborhood is not inextricably bound up in Rubys fate. More often than not, Daphnes friends seem to detach themselves from the crazy old world. (Outside those doors, chaos, insanity.)

Hudes writes juicy dialogue for these colorful characters. That Inez, for one, has some mouth on her (Who says Im going to hell for wearing a diaphragm?), and Rubin-Vega delivers her explosive lines with gusto. Wileys wide-eyed Ruby is also a joy to watch as she matures in grace and intelligence. (Whats a diaphragm?)

But without a plot or something of consequence at stake, the play slips into the conventional vein of those static ensemble pieces set in diners, barbershops, hair salons, and bars. Not even director Thomas Kail, who brought such joyful inventiveness to Hamilton and In the Heights, manages to pump some life into that static genre format. Barroom plays are fun to visit, but you dont really want to live there.

Related stories

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Starry Playwrights Set for 2016-17 Season at Off Broadway's Signature Theater

Off Broadway Review: 'The Royale'
Ask the oldest living person in the world  a tiny, 116-year-old Italian woman  what the key to her longevity is and her response might surprise you. The Guinness World Records confirmed on Monday that Emma Morano of Verbania, Italy is now the oldest living person at 116 years and 169 days old.

The spry supercentenarian was born on November 29, 1899, making her the only person whose life has touched three centuries.

In a 2015 interview with the New York Times, Morano shared that she attributes her long life to eating three raw eggs a day  she has since gone down to two eggs a day  since she was in her teens (a doctor recommended it for anemia.)

She also largely credits her impressive life span with being single. Although Morano had many suitors following the end of an unhappy marriage in 1938, she never remarried. I didnt want to be dominated by anyone, Morano said.

When Morano was told that she now held the title of oldest person alive, she told the Telegraph via her caretaker, Rosi Santoni, My word, Im as old as the hills.
An idyllic Thai island has been so despoiled by tourists that local authorities are being forced to close it to prevent further damage.

Koh Tachai in Thailands Ranong Province was rated last year by specialist website beachmeter.com as Thailands most beautiful island. However, according to the Bangkok Post, the tourist-ravaged beaches of Koh Tachai will have to close indefinitely from Oct. 15.

Tunya Netithammakul, director general of the department of national parks, wildlife and plant conservation, said that tourism had resulted in overcrowding and the degradation of natural resources and the environment.

He told the Bangkok Post that the closure of the island was designed to give the land and marine environments a change to regenerate before the damage is beyond repair.

He added that beaches on the island were holding up to a thousand people  when no more than 70 could be comfortably accommodated  and were crowded with food stalls and tour boats.

If its not closed now, well lose Koh Tachai permanently, he said.

[Bangkok Post]
Actress Vanessa Hudgens has paid $1,000 in restitution for carving a heart into a red rock wall during a trip to Sedona, Arizona.

Hudgens posted a photo of the carving bearing the names "Vanessa" and "Austin" on her Instagram page around Valentine's Day, along with other photos of the couple amid towering red rocks that draw throngs of tourists to northern Arizona.

The payment resolves a citation issued to Hudgens on a misdemeanor count of damaging a natural feature on U.S. Forest Service land. The money was used by a volunteer group called Friends of the Forest to restore the rock wall, which typically is done by scrubbing or sanding the rock.

A federal magistrate in Flagstaff approved the agreement April 19, but it was not made public. The Associated Press obtained a statement of probable cause and the agreement resolving the citation from the federal judiciary under a records request.

A publicist for Hudgens did not immediately respond to a message left Friday. Hudgens is best known for her role as Gabriella Montez in the "High School Musical" TV-movie franchise.

Hudgens admitted to using a rock to scratch the names inside the heart and gave authorities information on where to find it. Volunteers and Forest Service employees found the 1-by-1-foot heart matching the description around Feb. 23 on a geologic formation known as Bell Rock.

Vandalizing

Forest officials rarely find out who is responsible for vandalizing rock walls, but Hudgens celebrity status played a huge role, Coconino National Forest Service spokesman Brady Smith said.

Hudgens' followers on Instagram alerted the media, and authorities took note of the news coverage. The photo of the carving quickly was removed from her page.

"She was caught in the act because she publicized it and she's famous," Smith said. "I'm sure there are others who are not famous and publicized it and we've never known."

Smith said carvings destroy the natural beauty of the area and create the perception among the public that it's OK to deface rock walls. Damaging a natural feature is punishable by up to six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Jennifer Young, president of Friends of the Forest said about 10 to 15 volunteers responding to reports of vandalism set out in the Red Rock Ranger District every other week in search of reported graffiti and use wire brushes, sandpaper and a specialized drill to clean it up.

"Unfortunately, there's a lot that happens," she said.
By Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Oracle Corp (ORCL.N) did not acquire Sun Microsystems in 2009 in order to launch a copyright lawsuit against Google, but rather to protect its products that relied on Sun's software, Oracle co-Chief Executive Safra Catz told jurors on Monday.

In a trial at San Francisco federal court, Oracle (ORCL.N) claims Google's Android smartphone operating system violated its copyright on parts of the Java programming language. Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google unit said it should be able to use Java without paying a fee under the fair-use provision of copyright law.

Oracle acquired Sun in 2010 and sued Google after negotiations broke down. The jury was deadlocked in a trial in 2012. If the current jury rules against Google on fair use, then it would consider Oracle's request for $9 billion in damages.

Google has argued that Sun welcomed Google's use of Java, but Oracle plotted to sue upon acquiring the company.

However, an Oracle attorney asked Catz about emails from 2009, in which former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz described a dispute with Google over Java.

"He told us that they'd been talking with Google and had been trying to get them to licence Java," said Catz, noting that Android was an unauthorised version of Java because Google did not have a licence.

Oracle proceeded to acquire Sun, Catz said, because Java was too strategically important to Oracle's products for it to be bought by a competitor.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Richard Chang)
Safra Catz

Oracle CEO Safra Catz took the stand on Monday in Oracle's ongoing trial in which it's suing Google for billions of dollars.

And Catz dropped a few interesting tidbits while she was being questioned.

Among them: Oracle didn't buy Sun just to sue Google.

It bought Sun because it was afraid IBM was going to grab it, she said, as reported by Sarah Jeong, a reporter from Motherboard who is in court live tweeting the trial.

Catz explained that Oracle bought Sun because so much of Oracle's own product was based on Sun's Java, and they were concerned about what would happen if someone else acquired Sun.

By someone else, she later clarified, she meant that Oracle "was afraid" IBM would buy Sun.

Oracle: Did you buy Sun because you wanted to file a copyright lawsuit against Google?



Objection. Overruled.



Catz: No, we did not.  sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) May 16, 2016

To recap: Oracle and Google have been locked in a legal battle since 2010.

Oracle claims that Google owes it billions of dollars because Google created its Andoird software using certain parts of the Java programming language without paying for it. The parts in question are called application programming interfaces and they are bits of code that allow two software programs to talk to each other and share information.

Google use 37 of Java's APIs in Android helped Google jump-start Android by making it more appealing for Java developers to write apps for it.

In a previous trial about the issue, Google argued that APIs were not even subject to copyright but lost that case on appeal.

Now Oracle is trying to convince a jury to award it a lot of money in damages. Meanwhile, Google is arguing that APIs fall under "fair use" and if the jury agrees, Google won't owe Oracle anything.

Java is an extremely popular programming language created by another company, Sun Microsoystems, that Oracle bought in for $7.4 billion in 2009. (Really more like $5.4 billion if you subtract Sun's cash on hand.) Shortly after that, Oracle slammed Google with this lawsuit.

Story continues

The case has riled up the computer industry, who argue that if everyone has to license and pay royalties on APIs, and face copyright infringement lawsuits over them, it could damage the whole software industry. The software industry already spends a good deal of time suing each other and defending against software patents.

All of this means that people in the industry have long rumbled that grabbing Java was Oracle's main reason to buy Sun. And Catz just admitted that this was true.

But Oracle also got Sun's hardware business, most of which it flicked off. The part it kept is used to create its multi-billion "Exadata" business of specially hardware designed to run its software, particularly its database.

Oracle originally sued Google for $6 billion  an amount that would have pretty much paid for acquisition  but the judge at that time rejected the amount as being ridiculously too high. So if Oracle can convince a jury now that Google owes it billions, Sun could be one of the most profitable acquisitions that Oracle ever made.

NOW WATCH: This guy makes flip books using nothing but a hole puncher





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From Cosmopolitan

Angus McCormick was visiting his hometown of Victoria, Australia, and decided to attend an event at his former high school. He wore a tailored black jacket over a crisp white shirt that he paired with a black bow tie and fitted leather pants. Minutes after arriving to the event, he was approached by the school's deputy head who told him he was "inappropriately dressed" and demanded that he "leave the event."

The event, a celebration in honor of the 133rd birthday of Girton Grammar School, took place at a cathedral. During the time of the event, McCormick's father, Christopher, was a board member for the school. McCormick wrote in a Facebook post that prior to his arrival, he was asked to "tone down" his appearance, so he decided to wear something he thought would be "respectful" of their wishes.

"Now, those who know me are fully aware that I am openly gay and very confident in my often 'bold' choices of fashion. (I was originally considering rocking a dress and some killer heels!)," he wrote. "I decided to wear minimal makeup, a single small earring, neat black leather pants, a white shirt with a black bow tie and black designer jacket."

After immediately being asked to leave, McCormick turned around and walked away.

"Although my Father as [sic] a Board member (at the timehe has since resigned!) had duties to perform at the service, he was so disgraced by my refusal of entry that he departed with me to support me in my rejection," he wrote.

McCormick and his family are extremely hurt by the situation and decided to use his experience as a push for change.

"Despite trying to remain my bubbly and confident self, this is eating away at the core of who I am, not to mention the utter sense of despair I have suffered in being turned away by the school with which I was once so proud to be associated with," McCormick wrote.

He detailed the entire incident in the above Facebook post that has since gone viral with over 5,000 shares. His goal of spreading awareness and speaking out about the discrimination he faced for his attire is definitely being met.

Story continues

"Its [sic] 2016! This kind of discrimination against any person regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation or beliefs is just utterly appalling," he wrote.

Since the incident, he has not been contacted by the school. His father, who has since resigned from his role as a board member, wrote to the school "asking for an explanation to what exactly it was about Angus's choice of clothing that was inappropriate and why he was singled out," he explained to News.com.au.

In a statement to News.com.au, he said that he could not support a school that did not believe in individuality, diversity, and inclusivity.

"I have a strong relationship with both my children and I want to provide them with the best possible education for life  not just their academic education, but also their understanding, acceptance and appreciation of others expression and individuality. We have tried to teach them respect and integrity in how they conduct themselves in public, but that does not mean stifling their individuality or compromising who they are," he wrote.

The school is not budging at all. Girton Grammar School's headmaster, Matthew Maruff, told the Herald Sun he supported the school's decision to ban McCormack from the event.

He even said that suggestions McCormack was the victim of discrimination were "rubbish."

"These are our standards and I am not going to apologise for that," he said. "It's not about self expression - he got it wrong on the night."

Get non-boring fashion and beauty news directly in your feed. Follow Facebook.com/CosmoBeauty.

Follow Maya on Instagram and Twitter.
"Progress."

Oxfordthe British university whose roots date back to the 11th centuryhas a pattern of taking in a lot of rich, white students. UK prime minister David Cameron called the school out this year for its historic homogeneity, noting there were recently only 27 black students among 2,500 incoming freshmen, and asking the selective college to do better.

The schools response? Its making progress. But on its own time.

Responding Monday to newly unveiled plans from the British government to make higher education more accountable, Oxfords chancellor Chris Patten said he disagrees with the governments insistence that elite schools should accept more students from a wider range of ethnic and racial backgrounds. Schools shouldnt be required to meet any sort of diversity quota at all, he said.

Pattern, whose pre-Oxford career includes a politically conservative stint in parliament and the governorship of Hong Kong, told the Telegraph:

I am in favor of universities recognizing their responsibilities for promoting social inclusion. But I dont think that if you want high-class universities, you should expect them to lower their standards in order to make up for some inadequacies in our secondary education system. Nobody will explain to me how you can make a system of quotas work while retaining the highest admissions standards. Quotas must mean lower standards. There are better ways of addressing social inclusion at universities.

His comments come at a time when many institutions across the world are shamefacedly admitting the absence of diversity in their ranksand, more importantly, recognizing this as a problem and vowing to do something about it.

When asked what Pattens better ways of achieving social fairness might be, Oxford said it could not answer.

Read this next: Should universities take down statues of dead racists?

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More stories from Quartz:
el chapo mugshot

When drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was spirited from a high-security prison in central Mexico to one just miles from the US border under the cover of darkness on May 7, many saw it as a step toward the fate that terrifies drug traffickers: extradition to the US.

According to Jhon Jairo Velasquez Vasquez  Pablo Escobar's top hitman  extradition to the US is the fate that drug barons like Escobar and Guzman fear most.

In the jails and prisons of Latin America, kingpins often exercise a great deal of influence.

While detained at Puente Grande Federal Prison from 1993 to 2001, for example, Guzman was allowed to host his family for a vacation inside the prison grounds, held multiple parties for friends, and had female inmates brought to the all-male jail for his enjoyment, Mexican journalist Anabel Hernandez said in an interview.

The US legal and prison systems, however, strip drug barons of their power.

Extradition threatens powerful narcos like Escobar and Guzman because they would be cut off from their cartel business, their family, and corrupt authorities willing to accept bribes.

In the words of Escobar, "better a grave in Colombia than a cell in the United States."

In an interview with Univision, Velasquez elaborated on another thing that scared traffickers: "wanted" posters.

El Chapo Guzman escape

As one of the few surviving members of Escobar's Medellin cartel, Vasquez, commonly referred to as "Popeye," claimed that the "king of cocaine" once told him, "Popeye, we're dead," after seeing his face on a "wanted" poster.

"The 'wanted' poster is very dangerous for us as bandits because you go to a store to buy a drink and there's your photo. Someone sees it on TV and knows you are worth 10 million dollars," Popeye said.

Story continues

For Guzman, the years long "wanted poster" portion of his criminal career, which included two brazen prison escapes, appears to have given way to the extradition portion.

Mexican officials dismissed the possibility of his extradition to the US after Guzman was captured in 2014, but the government seemed to be changing its mind before his breakout last July.

The extradition of Guzman to the US was already in the works, according to the Mexican attorney general's office  Mexico received the extradition request on June 25, but Guzman slipped out of prison through a mile-long tunnel two weeks later.

Now, four months after Guzman was reapprehended in January, he sits in a jail outside Ciudad Juarez, miles from El Paso, Texas. A Mexican judge recently signed off on the legal proceedings involved in the kingpin's extradition, but diplomatic and political hurdles remain.

It seems unlikely that Guzman will arrive on US territory anytime soon, but the move does put him within surveillance range of US intelligence assets in Texas, which could help Mexico prevent or respond to an escape attempt.

And, as Nathan P. Jones of Rice University's Baker Institute has noted, the new location puts Guzman near El Paso, where he faces indictment and where he can be moved quickly if the Mexican government decides to expedite his extradition.

popeye escobar

Popeye was Escobar's chief assassin during the final years of the drug lord's life, and he was responsible for more than 300 assassinations and for organizing another 3,000 homicides.

He spent 23 years in six different Colombian prisons after he turned himself in to authorities in 1992. He was released in August 2014.

Popeye estimates that Guzman's 2015 escape could have cost at least $50 million in bribes to authorities and prison workers since "at [Altiplano] they have sensors and cameras to prevent tunnels," according to his interview with Univision, though other sources put that number much lower.

But no amount of money is likely to win Guzman favor in a US prison, something the Sinaloa cartel kingpin most likely knows all too well.

NOW WATCH: Pablo Escobar: The life and death of one of the biggest cocaine kingpins in history





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Pakistan will on Wednesday host a new round of four-nation Afghan peace talks aimed at reviving long-stalled negotiations with the Taliban, a foreign office official said.

The group comprising Afghanistan, the United States, China and Pakistan has been attempting since January to restart the nascent peace process.

But the lack of progress has left many frustrated, as the Taliban ramp up their insurgency, launched in late-2001 after they were toppled from power by a US-led invasion.

A spokesman from Pakistan's foreign office, Mohammed Nafees Zakaria, however tweeted that a fifth round of talks between the four countries would take place in Islamabad on Wednesday, without giving further details.

A joint statement issued after the fourth round in late February said direct peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban were "expected to take place" by early March.

But the Taliban announced in April the start of their "spring offensive" even as the government in Kabul tried to bring the insurgents back to the negotiating table to end their drawn-out conflict.

The Taliban have made the departure of all foreign forces a precondition to the resumption of direct peace talks with Kabul which began last summer in Pakistan but ended abruptly after it was revealed that their leader Mullah Omar had been dead for two years.

Pakistan had hosted a milestone first round of direct talks with the Taliban in July last year.
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked parliament on Monday to form a commission to investigate allegations stemming from the Panama Papers leak but opposition lawmakers walked out, saying he had evaded questions about his family's affairs. Sharif has been under pressure since documents released as part of the Panama Papers data leak showed his children owned several off-shore companies and used them to buy properties in London. He denies wrongdoing, as do his children. The opposition has seized on the Panama Papers scandal as a fresh opportunity to try to unseat Sharif, who told parliament that his wealth was acquired legally in the decades before he entered politics and no money was siphoned off-shore. "I can say with surety that ... not a single penny went out of Pakistan," Sharif told the parliament. Sharif asked the opposition and other lawmakers to help form a parliamentary commission. Previous efforts to have a retired or sitting Supreme Court judge chair a judicial commission have stalled as all the judges rejected the offer. It is not clear if the opposition will take up Sharif's latest offer. They walked out soon after Sharif stopped speaking, angered that seven questions they posed to him ahead of the parliamentary session were not answered. "Not a single question has been answered by the PM," said Khursheed Shah, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly. Imran Khan, leader of the opposition PTI party, said: "We didnt need to hear such a long story. He could have shown the documents as I have done so." Opposition politicians said they would announce on Tuesday their response to Sharif's speech. Analysts say opposition attacks on Sharif have lost some of their bite since Khan on Friday admitted he once owned an off-shore company to buy a London flat and avoid paying British taxes. The leak of documents from a Panamanian law firm has captured global attention, uncovering among other things the use of off-shore businesses by wealthy individuals and corporations worldwide. While such off-shore companies are often not illegal per se, their use spurs suspicions of illegal activity, such as money-laundering, corruption, and tax evasion. (Reporting by Drazen Jorgic in Islamabad and Syed Raza Hassan in Karachi; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; editing by Ralph Boulton)
As far as plot twists go, this story out of Texas really takes the cake: the pastor who accused an Austin Whole Foods of writing "fag" on a cake he ordered has withdrawn his lawsuit against the company and issued an apology, KXAN reports.

"Today I am dismissing my lawsuit against Whole Foods Market. The company did nothing wrong. I was wrong to pursue this matter and use the media to perpetuate this story," Jordan Brown said in an email.

I want to apologize to Whole Foods and its team members for questioning the company's commitment to its values, and especially the bakery associate who I understand was put in a terrible position because of my actions. I apologize to the LGBT community for diverting attention from real issues.

LOVE WINS FAG. That's not the cake I ordered, @WholeFoods and I am offended for myself & the entire #LGBT communitypic.twitter.com/cuxuv6mL3G https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgWDeozVAAED2da.jpg:large

Back in April, Brown, who is pastor and founder at the Church of Open Doors, tweeted out a photo of a cake with "Love Wins Fag" written on it in frosting, writing, "That's not the cake I ordered, @WholeFoods and I am offended for myself & the entire #LGBT community."

That week, Brown filed a lawsuit against the company "for intentional infliction of emotion distress," a spokeswoman for Whole Foods said.

But the company responded with a statement saying that their bakery team member had written only "Love Wins," as requested, replete with security footage showing Brown purchasing the cake. In the footage, the label was on the top of the cake box  but in Brown's photo that he tweeted, it had been moved, suggesting that the cake had been altered after purchase.

The company said in April that it planned to "take legal action against both Mr. Brown and his attorney." But after Brown's apology, the company said it will drop the counter-suit, reports KXAN.

"We're very pleased that the truth has come to light," a Whole Foods representative said. "Given Mr. Brown's apology and public admission that his story was a complete fabrication, we see no reason to move forward with our counter suit."
The costs of Korea's reunification would run to US$1 trillion by conservative estimates, the Economist claimed on Saturday.

In an article titled "What North and South Korea would gain if they were reunified," the British weekly described the cost as "staggering," or three-quarters of annual GDP. South Korea's GDP was $1.4 trillion in 2015.

South Korea would need a social security system to provide for 25 million North Koreans, "many of them brutalized and malnourished, and including tens of thousands of prisoners in the North's gulag."

But the gains would also be significant as North Koreans see their living standards improve while South Korea would be able to recover economic vitality from an abundant young labor force and underground resources from the North.

"Disbanding the North's standing army, the fourth-largest in the world, would free up workers. In total, about 17 million workers would join the South's 36 million -- though admittedly with far lower skills and education," at a time when "South Korea's working-age population begins to shrink from 2017," the weekly wrote.

"South Korea would also reap a windfall in reserves of rare earths, which are used in electronics," it added.

The underground resources in the North are estimated to be worth about $10 trillion, 20 times as much as those of South Korea.


The Hague (AFP) - An international tribunal on Monday finally unveiled a secret ruling confirming it had rejected a bid by tobacco giant Philip Morris to sue Australia over its plain packaging laws, calling the attempt "an abuse of rights".

In its heavily-redacted 186-page ruling dating from December 17, 2015, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) said it had no jurisdiction over the case brought by Philip Morris.

In 2012, Australia became the first country to mandate that cigarettes must be sold in plain packages, in a bid to reduce smoking rates. This initiative has since been followed by other nations including France and Britain.

But big tobacco firms including Philip Morris have launched legal challenges against such laws, arguing the new rules impinge on their trademark intellectual property.

Philip Morris, manufacturers of some of the world's most recognisable brands, including Marlboro, lodged the challenge with the arbitration court based in The Hague in 2011 after the plain-packaging legislation was first passed, using a 1993 trade deal between Australia and Hong Kong that included foreign investment protections.

But the PCA found in its animous ruling that "the main and determinative, if not sole, reason" for a restructuring of the company as far back as 2005 was to enable it "to bring a claim under the treaty, using an entity from Hong Kong" after it received ample warnings that such legislation was being considered.

"The record indeed shows that the principal, if not sole, purpose of the restructuring was to gain protection under the treaty in respect of the very measures that form the subject matter of the present arbitration," the court ruled.

"The tribunal cannot but conclude that the initiation of this arbitration constitutes an abuse of rights," the court added.

The court therefore found that Philip Morris's claims were "inadmissible" and it was "precluded from exercising jurisdiction over this dispute."

The ruling came after a closed-door hearing held in Singapore in February 2015.

Canberra had welcomed the decision saying "plain packaging is a legitimate public health measure."
Manila (AFP) - Islamist extremists in the Philippines who last month beheaded a Canadian man say they will kill another Western hostage if a multi-million dollar ransom is not paid within four weeks.

A video released by Abu Sayyaf -- whose leaders have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group -- shows Canadian Robert Hall and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad wearing orange shirts in a jungle setting, surrounded by hooded, armed men.

The men say their captors have threatened to kill at least one of them if no payment is received by June 13.

A caption on the video, carried by the terror-monitoring SITE Intelligence Group, says Abu Sayyaf is demanding 600 million pesos ($12.8 million).

In April, the group killed Canadian John Ridsdel after a ransom deadline passed.

Ridsdel, Hall, Sekkingstad, and Hall's Filipina girlfriend were abducted in 2015 from a resort on Samal island, hundreds of kilometres (miles) from Abu Sayyaf's traditional strongholds.

The group has been blamed for the worst terror attacks in Philippine history.

Although its leaders have pledged fealty to the Islamic State group, analysts say they are more focused on lucrative kidnappings-for-ransom than on setting up a caliphate.

The group is believed to have just a few hundred militants but has withstood repeated US-backed military offensives, surviving by using the mountainous, jungle terrain of the southern islands to its advantage.

The Abu Sayyaf are also believed to be holding four Malaysians, a Dutch bird-watcher and four Filipinos, seized in separate raids.
The tough-on-crime presumptive winner of the Philippine presidential election, Rodrigo Duterte, has told reporters in his first postvictory comments that he intends to bring back capital punishment.

According to Philippine news outlet GMA, Duterte told reporters in Davao City on Sunday night that he would urge Congress to restore the death penalty by hanging, especially if you use drugs.

Other news outlets reported that he would also give police shoot-to-kill powers against mobsters and those violently resisting arrest.

If you resist, show violent resistance, my order to police [will be] to shoot to kill, he declared, adding: Shoot to kill for organized crime. You heard that? Shoot to kill for every organized crime.

Dutertes election success has been credited to his promise to eradicate crime in a country that has the worlds 11th highest homicide rate. During his campaign, he said he would fatten the fish of Manila Bay with the bodies of criminals.

The President-elects 22-year track record as the mayor of Davao City gives him enormous credibility with Philippine voters. Before he took mayoral office, Davao was known for its war-zone-like lawlessness, but last year, a crowdsourced poll declared it fourth safest city in the world.

Human-rights activists have decried his allegedly shady tactics  claiming that Duterte hired mercenary death squads to execute violent criminals in Davao  but Duterte is unabashed and voters apparently unconcerned.

He is due to be sworn in as President on June 30 for a six-year term.
Davao (Philippines) (AFP) - The leader of the Philippines' communist insurgency will be welcome to return home after nearly three decades in exile and participate in peace talks, president-elect Rodrigo Duterte has said.

Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison wrote in a Facebook post last week he hoped to come home following the landslide May 9 election win of Duterte, with whom he has maintained ties while living in the Netherlands.

In his first press conference since it became clear he had won the election, Duterte said late Sunday that Sison's return to the Philippines would be important in helping to end the rebellion.

The insurgency was one of Asia's longest and has claimed an estimated 30,000 lives since the 1960s.

"Yes, he is welcome. I am happy with the statement that he is coming home. I would very much want to talk to him about resolving the insurgency problem," Duterte told reporters in the southern city of Davao where he has ruled as mayor for most of the past two decades.

Duterte also said communist figures would be considered for cabinet posts.

Sison, now 77, fled to Europe soon after peace talks failed in 1987.

The communists armed wing, the New People's Army, is believed to have fewer than 4,000 soldiers, down from a peak of 26,000 in the 1980s, according to the military, however it retains support among the deeply poor in the rural Philippines.

Communists killed three soldiers in the central Philippines on Saturday, according to the military, in the first outbreak of deadly violence between the two sides since Duterte's election win.

Duterte is due to be sworn into office on June 30.

Incumbent President Benigno Aquino revived peace talks soon after taking office in 2010 but shelved them in 2013, accusing the rebels of insincerity in efforts to achieve a political settlement.

The talks got bogged down after the communists demanded the release of scores of their jailed comrades whom they described as "political prisoners", which the Aquino government rejected.

Duterte, who was Sison's student at a Manila university in the 1960s, said Sunday he was open to releasing communist prisoners.
DAVAO, Philippines (Reuters) - Philippines President-Elect Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday he would pursue peace talks with Marxist guerrillas and as an olive branch would offer government roles to the Communist Party of the Philippines, including its exiled founder. The mayor and self-styled sheriff of Davao City said it was time to put an end to hostilities with the CPP and its armed wing, the New People's Army, which has been embroiled in decades of on-off fighting with government troops in the south and east of the country that has killed 40,000 people. Duterte's peace offer would include a ministerial post to Jose Maria Sison, the CPP figurehead who lives in the Netherlands and was once listed by the United States as a "person supporting terrorism". "I offer my hand in peace to Sison and to others and we can talk," Duterte told a news conference in Davao, where he has remained since a May 9 election for which an unofficial vote count shows him a clear winner. In a television interview, Sison said he was felt proud to see Duterte win but ruled himself out of serving in his cabinet. He said the CPP would seriously consider his offer. "No, I don't want any position for myself, but you know there are many people who are very competent," he told CNN Philippines. Duterte said he would seek a referendum in two years on a plan for federalism to empower and develop provinces and he floated names of possible cabinet ministers. They included vice-presidential running mate Alan Cayetano as justice or foreign minister and a post for former defense minister, Gilbert Teodoro. Duterte, 71, said he wanted former agriculture secretary Carlos Dominguez to be his finance minister, but was having trouble convincing him. Nicknamed "the punisher" for his measures to tackle crime, Duterte also said he would beg Congress to re-introduce a death penalty that was repealed in 2006. Crime is endemic in the Philippines and Duterte's promise of a war that would wipe out gangs and drugs within six months struck a chord with Filipino voters. In a comment that spiraled into one of his trademark tirades, Duterte reiterated his priority was crushing crime, although not at the expense of economic reform. "Stop messing with me because I have this sacred promise to save the next generation from the evil of drugs. That is my priority," he said. "We will work simultaneously with the economic managers of this country." (Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Additional reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)
By Toby Sterling

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Philips (PHG.AS) said on Monday it is seeking to raise at least 694 million euros (547 million pounds) by selling a 25 percent stake in its lighting division in an initial public offering of shares.

In a statement, the company said it would sell 37.5 million shares at 18.50-22.50 per share in an IPO, implying a market capitalisation for the division of 2.78-3.38 billion euros.

Including debt, Philips Lighting, the world's largest lighting maker, would have an enterprise value of 4.32-4.92 billion euros, the company said.

Final pricing is set for May 26, with the listing commencing the following day on the Euronext stock exchange under the ticker symbol "LIGHT."

On May 3, Philips announced it would float its lighting unit, after a two-year process of separating the business that was the core of the original Philips company founded in 1891. [uL2N1800N0].

Philips CEO Frans van Houten says the lighting business, which accounts for about a third of Philips' sales but only a quarter of profits, needs independence in order to invest and grow in selling programmable lighting systems and related services to corporate customers.

Under Van Houten's 5-year tenure Philips' shares have moved mostly sideways, underperforming the benchmark AEX index of blue chip shares by about 10 percent by the close of trade on Friday. Investors hope the separation of the two companies may lead to a re-rating of shares.

Philips' remaining business will be focussed on healthcare technology, including selling advanced medical scanners and devices, patient monitoring systems and information services to hospitals, as well as consumer health devices and toothbrushes and shavers.

Van Houten has said Philips will sell its remaining stake in the new lighting company over time.

Philips Lighting had adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation (EBITA) of 547 million euros in 2015, on sales of 7.47 billion euros, the company said.

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"We believe we present a solid investment case," said Lighting chief executive Eric Rondolat in a statement. Rondolat will remain in the top job at Lighting after the IPO.

Rondolat must manage the company's transition from conventional lighting, a shrinking market in which it is by far the largest company by sales, to the fast growing market for LEDs, where Philips is also currently biggest but faces eroding margins.

Competitors include General Electric (GE.N) of the United States and Osram Licht (OSRn.DE) of Germany, as well as Japan's Nichia corp. (5393.T), Cree (CREE.O) and Acuity Brands (AYI.N) of the U.S., and a slew of small but growing Chinese manufacturers.

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; editing by Jason Neely and Adrian Croft)
In part two of a series about the history of political conventions hosted in Philadelphia, we look three at very different GOP-related national conventions in the days when Republicans controlled the City of Brotherly Love in the post-Civil War era.

The 1900 GOP convention floor

Philadelphia was the nations second biggest city when the Civil War began in 1861 and it soon became a political center for the emerging Republican Party and what was called the National Union Party in the 1864 election. (The National Union name allowed the GOP to include Democrats who supported the Union cause in its ranks.)

Read Part One: Philly hosts Whigs, Know Nothings and first GOP convention

The city hosted three major party conventions between 1866 and 1900, with the 1900 convention introducing Theodore Roosevelt to the national political stage as a vice presidential candidate. The first convention was a rare mid-term meeting that led to one of biggest public relations disasters in American history: President Andrew Johnsons Swing Around The Circle speaking tour. The second convention led to the successful renomination of Ulysses S. Grant as President.

1866: The National Union Mid-Term Convention

The August 1866 meeting of the National Union partys remnants in Philadelphia was an attempt by President Johnson to unite conservative Republicans with Democrats, in his fight with the Radical Republicans. Johnsons proposed lenient terms for Reconstruction in the South infuriated the Radical Republicans, and both sides saw the 1866 mid-term elections as critical in their bitter struggle.

Johnsons supporters were especially upset with the 14th Amendment passed by a Congress controlled by the Radical Republicans. On the night that Congress approved the landmark amendment, Johnson called for a national convention to deal with the Radicals.

The group met in Philadelphia, and while the 14th Amendment wasnt mentioned by name, the guest speakers railed against the Reconstruction supporters. They also called for total support for Johnson and the immediate readmission of the former Confederate states.

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Emboldened by the convention, Johnson decided to take his party leaders on a whirlwind speaking tour. The Swing Around The Circle tour would start near Philadelphia, head to the Midwest, and then head back East. Confronted by hecklers at several speeches, Johnson used vulgar language, threatened to harm the Radicals and also compared himself to Jesus. The Radicals also claimed Johnson was drunk during his speeches. The National Union Party faced severe losses in the 1866 election, leaving Johnson facing an angry Congress.

1872: Grant nominated and Vice Presidential drama

The next official Republican gathering in Philadelphia was six years later in June 1872, when the Party faced a decision on President Ulysses S. Grants nomination. During Grants first administration, the controversy over Reconstruction continued, and in May 1872, an anti-Radical Republican group split from the party. Called the Liberal Republicans, they nominated newspaper editor Horace Greeley as their presidential candidate.

In Philly, there were three days of celebrations at the Academy of Music with no opposition at the convention to Grant. However, there was considerable debate about incumbent Vice President Schuyler Colfax. The former House speaker had declared he would not run for any election in 1872, but he refused a request from Grant to resign and accept the position of Secretary of State  an indicator that Colfax was pondering a challenge to Grant for the presidential nomination. In the end, the convention rejected Colfax for Henry Wilson of Massachusetts as Grants running mate.

1900: McKinley names Teddy as VP pick

In June 1900, the Republicans gathered at a large temporary auditorium near Philadelphias Schuylkill River to approve a second term for William McKinley, who had defeated William Jennings Bryan four years earlier. But McKinleys Vice President, Garret Hobart, had died a year earlier, and there was much speculation about the next vice presidential nominee.

One name in the initial mix was New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt. But on June 16, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the popular Roosevelt absolutely refused to have his name put into nomination, but Roosevelt would be easily nominated if he did run. President McKinley had wanted Senator William Allison as his running mate, but Allison refused. And Mark Hanna, McKinleys campaign manager, hated Roosevelt.

In a political twist, Thomas Platt, the political boss of New York state, hated Roosevelt, too, and Platt worked with Pennsylvania boss Matthew Quay to get Roosevelt on the ballot  as a way to get Roosevelt out of New York politics.

Roosevelt was forced to accept the nomination by popular acclaim after McKinley refused Hannas pleas to use the partys patronage system to block Roosevelt. An agitated Hanna allegedly remarked, Theres only one life between that madman and the Presidency.

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It's the golden era of celebrities on Snapchat, but some of the app's most successful users are actually its most surprising. In a recent profile for Vanity Fair, "Dr. Miami" - real name Dr. Michael Salzhauer - allowed the world a behind-the-scenes peek of how he got nearly 821,000 people to watch him perform plastic surgery every day.

"People have never seen these surgeries before," Salzhauer told VF. "I remember the first time I saw one, I was mesmerized. [Some people tell me] they get a little high from it. There's actual joy from watching people getting manipulated. Some people like that feeling of getting grossed out and losing control, too."

His Snapchat is so popular, in fact, that he even had to hire two social media assistants to film him while he works. Even more interesting, not only are his patients completely all right with him broadcasting these procedures, but many are beginning to actively seek him out as a result of them.

Salzhauer himself is likely not the kind of man you'd expect to be a social media star. While the profile points out that the doctor has admitted to chasing fame his entire life, Salzhauer is a husband, father of five (dad jokes included), and an Orthodox Jew who keeps kosher and observes the Sabbath. He also just happens to be a Miami plastic surgeon who broadcasts Brazilian butt lifts to popular music.

"I like trap music," Salzhauer said. "I've developed quite a taste for it. We always had something playing in the O.R. before the snap, but now I monopolize the music. I'm always asking, 'Is this new?' Or, 'Are the kids asking for it?'"

As Vanity Fair asks, "Is his Bal Harbour operating room a new kind of reality theater, the logical end of selfie culture, or both?" While the appeal is easy to understand - we're a culture obsessed with sex and violence, after all - it's interesting to see how a social media platform has suddenly made those obsessions so easily accessible, and Dr. Miami is proof of its success.

For more on Dr. Miami, check out the rest of his profile over at Vanity Fair right here and follow him on Snapchat @therealdrmiami.

Follow Gina on Twitter.
The Chinese government is relocating factories near Beijing to combat some of the worst pollution in the world, including potentially some Korean businesses.

Officials in Beijing have come up with an action plan to deal with the chronic haze that blankets the city and are pressuring factories to move to other parts of China.

Top of the list are petrochemical, chemical, steel, construction materials and non-ferrous metal product factories that belch out the worst fumes.

Around 300 factories are to go. One is apparently Hyundais, the biggest of its overseas factories. Completed in 2002, it employs around 14,000 workers and rolls out a million cars a year, accounting for 21 percent of Hyundai's global output.

If Hyundai has to go, so will its myriad subcontractors.

Hyundai denies it, but a source said, "I heard that a possible relocation is being discussed."

Shanghai, Nanjing and Gansu Province in the northwest are also facing rising demands from citizens to move factories out of their immediate vicinity so they can breathe.

The Chinese government strengthened emission rules this year and either refuses to authorize new plants for companies that fail to meet the regulations or slaps them with 1 million yuan fines. Some of the worst offenders are ordered to halt production or forced to shut down.

An official at the Korea International Trade Association said, "Korean companies will face increasing pressure from major Chinese cities to relocate."

In July last year, Kumho Tire started relocating its plant in Nanjing, which was built 20 years ago. Kumho held four years of talks with Nanjing city officials to choose a new spot and get some compensation. The new spot is 30 km away in an economic development zone.

Shanghai, meanwhile, relocated 153 factories ahead of the opening of a Disney Land theme park this year. "In order to minimize the impact, we need to ensure that factory owners receive help from the Korean Embassy in China or receive expert advisory services to ensure they are compensated, Choi Yong-min at KITA said.
Update: According to the Wilmette police, O'Connor was located on Monday afternoon and is "safe and is no longer listed as a missing/endangered person."

Sinead O'Connor has been reported missing in a Chicago suburb after reportedly going out for a bike ride on Sunday (May 15) and failing to return.

Sinead O'Connor Cuts Ties With Family Members After Suicide Scare: 'You're Dead to Me'

On Monday morning (May 16) a statement to Billboard from the Wilmette Police Department confirmed, "the Wilmette Police is seeking to check the well-being of Sinead O'Connor. O'Connor reportedly left the Wilmette area for a bicycle ride yesterday at 6:00 a.m. and has not returned. A caller has expressed concern for her well-being and no other information is available at this time." At press time, a Wilmette PD source said there was no update on O'Connor's status.

TMZ first reported that O'Connor had been classified as "missing suicidal" after an unidentified person called in to police to report that the "Nothing Compares 2 U" star left for a ride in the Chicago suburb around 1 p.m. on Sunday and had not returned the bike.

According to TMZ, she was last seen on a Raleigh motorized bicycle with a pink basket, wearing a black parka, black leather pants and a sweatshirt that says "Ireland." O'Connor, who recently made some controversial allegations about Arsenio Hall and Prince, has discussed her struggle with mental health over the past few years.

O'Connor canceled her summer 2015 tour after suffering from "exhaustion due to an existing not resolved medical situation." She also publicly cut ties with her family in Nov. 2015 after she allegedly suffered an overdose in a Dublin hotel room.

In a since-deleted Facebook post from last fall, O'Connor said she lost consciousness during the incident and woke up in a hospital, labeling her family "hypocrites" for coming to visit her and leaving before she woke. "I never wanna see you again. You stole my sons from me. Then you had hypocrisy to come to hospital and then not be here when I wake and not pick up phone?" she wrote. "You're dead to me. You killed your mother. You stole my sons. You left me alone for twelve weeks! Why did I have to hear it was your hypocritical asses here while I was unconscious?? And now you're Gone and not picking up phone... never want to see or hear from any of you again."

Sinead O'Connor's Facebook Plea: What You Can Do When You See Online Cries for Help

O'Connor has been very open about her mental health issues, which include a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, later amended to PTSD, including depression and suicidal tendencies. A spokesperson for O'Connor could not be reached for further comment at press time.
It wasnt so long ago that the notion of Wroclaw, Poland, emerging as a hub of art film and a private sector boom would have prompted outright laughter. Just five years ago, no fast rail or reliable airline service was even on offer to the city.

Now, the city is sharing the title 2016 European Capital of Culture with San Sebastian, Spain, and the recognition seems almost overdue.

Aside from two major Polish film festivals and a bold new professional development workshop for the industry  the 3-year-old School of Film Agents  the southwestern city is securely on the arts map. Its galleries and design scenes are as hip as those in major capitals, and this year in particular, the citys calendar is chock-full of concerts, art openings and events in celebration of the Capital of Culture nod.

Steven Spielberg even used the city as the double for Cold War Berlin in his Oscar-nominated pic Bridge of Spies.

Its a far cry from when Polish producer Roman Gutek and a few colleagues launched the New Horizons Film Festival in 2006, when the idea seemed like a brave, possibly risky, move.

Since then, some 500 Polish pics have been produced in Wroclaw, and New Horizons, as both the countrys largest fest and a production and distribution arm itself, has been a driving force. Guteks latest coup, the launch of the Helios Cinema  one of Polands best new arthouse facilities  keeps the indie programming running year-round, taking in almost everything from Laura Poitras docs to Carol and 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Helios, a multiplex screening Polish and ambitious films from around the world, the sleek and airy space also books more mainstream fare, but is dedicated to a non-Hollywood aesthetic  and goes so far as banning popcorn. Polish films are also screened with English subtitles, a practice thats hardly standard in the country.

Wroclaws other trendsetting fest, the American Film Festival, brings U.S. indies, accompanied by filmmakers, to Polish audiences who would otherwise never see their works in local cinemas. The events artistic director, Ula Sniegowska, says the citys cultural feats demonstrate what smart municipal backing, combined with creative talent in a given sector, can accomplish.

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Wroclaw mayor Rafal Dutkiewicz has partnered strategically with Gutek during three successive terms to support and develop not just a thriving film scene but also other festivals and theater.

But the city has not neglected business growth while nurturing the arts, Sniegowska points out. Cultural development of Wrocaw comes secondary to its industrial growth, she says, noting that major corporations such as HP, BNY Mellon and Amazon have built and opened facilities here, employing thousands of potential festgoers.

The School of Film Agents is also an increasingly critical part of the mix, as founder Nikolaj Nikitin points out.

The venture, aimed at professional development for people already working in the regional film business, runs Aug. 19-28. It focuses on helping them not only create viable business plans, but also helps them find backing for new ideas  such as a Serbian networking center or Polands Cinebus rolling film school. Its proven to be a driving force in a local film biz boom, Nikitin believes.

Poland has surely become one of the hottest co-production countries in Europe, with outstanding local productions winning awards at major film festivals, he says.

Sofa won support early on from the Polish Film Institute, and also benefitted from a strong network established by Polish producer Radek Drabik, maker of the domestic hit Planet Single, Nikitin says.

Setting up shop in Wroclaw made sense when this energetic city embraced us with open arms and we felt the support of many locals, he adds. Besides the attraction of a major arthouse cinema as a partner along with strong fests, the Wroclaw Film Commission gave Sofa a big boost.

With other Polish cities, such as Lodz, eager to brand themselves film biz meccas, Wroclaw will need to stay competitive, says Sniegowska. Plus, changing the name to something easier to pronounce would help!

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Paris (AFP) - Pope Francis has ruled out seeking the fast-track resignation of a French cardinal accused of failing to inform the authorities about an alleged paedophile priest, the French newspaper La Croix reported on Tuesday.

In an interview with the Catholic daily on Monday, the pope said it would be "contradictory, imprudent" to seek Cardinal Philippe Barbarin's resignation at this stage.

"We will see after the end of (any) trial. But (to seek his resignation) now would be to imply guilt," the pontiff said.

Francis said he believed Barbarin had "taken the necessary measures, he took things in hand. He is brave, creative, a missionary. We should now wait for the outcome of the civilian judicial procedure."

Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, France's second largest city, is facing a storm over his handling of allegations against Father Bernard Preynat, accused of sex attacks on four boy scouts between 1986 and 1991.

Preynat was placed under formal investigation in January, but his lawyer argues the alleged crimes are now beyond the statute of limitations.

In March, prosecutors in Lyon ordered a preliminary investigation into three accusations by civilian plaintiffs that Barbarin's diocese knew about the scandal a number of years ago but failed to inform the authorities.

According to the diocese, Barbarin first received testimony from an alleged victim in mid-2014, and relieved Preynat of priestly office in May 2015.

An association called La Parole Liberee ("The Liberated Word") says it has identified between 50 and 60 victims.

One of the group's founders, Francois Devaux, told AFP that the pope did not have enough information to be able to exclude Barbarin's resignation.

"He is lacking many of the elements needed to have a clear idea of the situation. I think the pope does not have all the ins and outs (of the situation) to consider that Cardinal Barbarin should remain in place," Devaux said.

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The Lyon diocese has not made an official comment on the report. A source close to the cardinal however said the pope was commenting for the first time on the matter and that it was "an expression of confidence between two men who know and respect each other."

- France visit? -

In other comments the pope made to La Croix, he floated the idea of visiting France, but said he was unable to say when it would take place.

"Last year, some suggestions started to be made about a trip of this kind, comprising a stop in Paris and its suburbs, in Lourdes and in a city where no pope has been, Marseille for example, which represents a gate that is open to the world," Francis said.

"I recently received an invitation from President Francois Hollande. The episcopal conference also invited me," he said, adding, "I don't know when this trip will take place, because next year is an election year in France, and generally the Holy See's practice is not to travel (to a country) in this time."

He described France as "the oldest daughter of the church but not the most faithful!"

That was a reference to a traditional honorific given to France for its centuries-long support of the Catholic church.

But modern France has become emphatically secular, for instance by enshrining into law the rights to gay marriage, contraception and abortion and curbing public display of religious symbols.

France is "a land of great saints and great thinkers," Francis said, before adding: "The slight criticism that I say with regard to France (...) is that secularism is being overdone."
By John Irish and Lesley Wroughton VIENNA (Reuters) - World powers including the United States are ready to consider demands from Libya's new unity government for exemptions from a U.N. arms embargo to help take control of the lawless country, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday. The West is counting on the U.N.-backed unity government to tackle Islamic State in Libya and stop new flows of migrants heading across the Mediterranean, though the newly instated leaders are still not in control of the capital city, Tripoli. Speaking after a meeting of about two dozen ministers in Vienna, Fayaz Seraj, the head of the Government of National Accord (GNA), said that with his administration now taking shape, he would be giving a list of weapons to relevant authorities "as soon as possible". "We have a major challenge facing us in fighting Daesh," Seraj told reporters, referring to the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. "We hope for assistance on training and equipping our troops." International powers have repeatedly said they would support Libyan efforts once a unity government was in place and had made its demands clear. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said such a request made sense but would need to be "carefully sculpted". "We have now had a request come to us and obviously (it has) to be discussed and go through the process with respect to the U.N.," Kerry said. "It's a delicate balance, but all of us here are supportive of the fact that if you have a legitimate government and the legitimate government is struggling against terrorism, that legitimate government should not be made the prisoner, or should not be victimized, by virtue of the U.N. action," he said. The Libyan government is allowed to import weapons and related materiel with the approval of a U.N. Security Council committee overseeing the embargo imposed in 2011. In March last year, eight Security Council members delayed approval of a request by Libya to import weapons, tanks, jets and helicopters to take on Islamic State militants. U.N. sanctions monitors had told the Security Council committee they were concerned that, if the request was approved, some of the weapons and equipment could be diverted to militia groups. Sanctions were renewed this March. Major world powers are banking on the GNA, which arrived in Tripoli on March 30, to end the violent chaos that Libyans have endured since Muammar Gaddafi's fall five years ago. Seraj's government is supposed to replace two rival administrations - one based in Tripoli, the other in eastern Libya - that have been competing for power and oil wealth in the OPEC member since 2014. It has won the backing of factions in western Libya and on Monday the GNA's leadership issued a statement commissioning its ministers to start work in a caretaker basis in Tripoli, until they take the oath of office. But the eastern parliament has yet to accept the GNA, and eastern factions have recently made military gains and a forceful bid to sell oil independently. The eastern government tried to wrest control of both the National Oil Corporation (NOC) and central bank through branches based in the east. Western states have moved to block those efforts, and a joint statement by the ministers meeting in Vienna stressed their commitment to "ceasing support to and official contact with parallel institutions". "While deploring recent oil and arms transactions made outside the scope of the GNA, we reaffirm our commitment to upholding the arms embargo and measures concerning illicit oil exports" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, it said. Separately, Libyan oil sources told Reuters exports from the eastern port of Marsa el-Hariga would resume after a deal was reached in Vienna by rival oil officials. Western powers have ruled out a military intervention in Libya, although the United States has already conducted air strikes against Islamic State militants there. (Additional reporting by Michael Shields, Ahmed Elumami and Libby George; Editing by Louise Ireland)
A pregnant mother of two was stabbed to death, allegedly by her husband of nearly six years, Yeveginy Eugene Savenok, on Saturday, May 14, inside their home in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, according to the Star Tribune.

Lyuba Savenok died shortly after police were called to a domestic-disturbance call at their two-story house, the paper reports. Eugene, 30, reportedly fled the scene in an SUV with their two children  Matthew, 4, and Vivienne, 3  but later turned himself in to police, and has not yet been charged.

PHOTOS: Stars Gone Too Soon

Eden Prairie police lieutenant Greg Weber told CBS Minnesota he was familiar with the suspect. We do have previous calls to that residence for domestic assault cases, he said, adding that the accused had been arrested in the past for domestic assault and was scheduled to go on trial later this year.

The 23-year-old victims brother, Aleksandr Katane, told the Star Tribune that his sister was 26 weeks pregnant with a baby boy. Her greatest passion was being a mom and doing everything she could to enrich their lives, Katane wrote in an email. The entire family is heartbroken, and we look for Lyuba in the face of her remaining children. It is very hard.

PHOTOS: Celebrity Deaths in 2016: Stars Weve Lost

Fox 9 reported that Lyuba had an order for protection against Eugene in Illinois.

A GoFundMe page has raised more than $37,000 to raise money for Matthew and Vivienne.




Saudi Arabia is apparently miffed that a street in Seoul is named after the capital of archrival Iran and wants a street named for its own capital here.

But Iran is one of Korea's most valuable trading partners, and Seoul city officials are apparently less than enthusiastic about the prospect of a Riyadh Street evoking one of the most repressive regimes in the world.

A Foreign Ministry official said Saudi Arabian state-run oil company ARAMCO made the proposal to its Korean subsidiary S-Oil in March to name a street in the Mapo district after Riyadh.

Saudi officials feel the move would bolster bilateral relations and are also suggesting naming a street in the Saudi capital after Seoul -- a rarer honor since many Saudi streets have no names at all.

"Mapo district officials asked us if naming the street after Riyadh could cause any diplomatic problems, and we said no," the ministry official said. But district officials still have their doubts.

Following President Park Geun-hye's visit to Tehran early this month, they are nervous that relations with the two theocracies, which are fighting several proxy wars in the Mideast, must be handled with kid gloves.

On Monday, Saudi billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is visiting Korea to meet with officials here. It remains to be seen if he will try to exert pressure over a matter that is essentially trivial.
Categories Health & Wellness

Your thrice weekly scramble to squeeze in hour-long workouts may soon be a thing of the past. A new study by McMaster University, in which three groups of men with varying fitness regimens were monitored for twelve weeks, revealed that simply sixty seconds of high-intensity exercise is as effective as forty-five minutes of moderate activity. For real. While the benefits of interval training (think: an accelerated, quick burst of work alternated with longer, more steady movement) isnt breaking news, were giddy to learn that intense micro drills alone are as rewarding as drawn-out sessions at the gym in terms of their capacity to burn fat, build muscle and lower insulin resistance levels. Not that you needed another reason to ditch your ClassPass membership, but hopefully this enlightening info will find you less stressed to cram in an hour of Pilates when you can take a few fast-paced sprints up and down your stairs instead. Hows that for a workout plan, Kanye?
Brasilia (AFP) - Street protests and controversy over the absence of female ministers clouded Brazilian acting president Michel Temer's political honeymoon as he began his first full week in power.

Temer took over from President Dilma Rousseff last week after the Senate voted to open an impeachment trial on charges that she illegally manipulated the budget.

The 75-year-old center-right leader has vowed to reverse Rousseff's leftist course in an attempt to haul Brazil back from its deepest recession in decades.

Though a cabinet -- which will be reduced from a bloated 32 ministries to 23 -- has already been named, there was a delay to the nomination in the key post of central bank head.

New Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles, whose early pronouncements are being carefully watched by the markets, had been due to announce the nominee Monday but put it off for a day, Brazilian newspapers reported.

In a television interview late Sunday, Temer vowed to unite Brazil after months of increasingly divisive debate over the impeachment of Rousseff, who accuses Temer of leading a coup.

- Jeering and pot banging -

But just days into the job, Temer finds himself under steady attack from the left.

Jeering and pot banging could be heard in parts of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo during his television interview, a form of protest that used to dog Rousseff to the point where she began avoiding broadcast appearances.

Street protests also took place Sunday in several cities, including the capital Brasilia and the financial center Sao Paulo.

Another was held Monday in Rio de Janeiro, which hosts the Olympics in less than three months.

Temer himself phoned Thomas Bach, the head of the International Olympic Committee, to reassure him of Brazil's commitment to making the Games a success.

Activists occupied offices of the education and culture ministries, which are being merged under Temer's plan.

"Coup mongers, fascists, you will not get through!" activists yelled.

Story continues

"This coup is setting us years back," said renowned Brazilian film maker Rui Guerra, 84, who was taking part in the protest.

Though the scale of opposition demonstrations is so far modest, Rousseff's fight against impeachment in the Senate trial, which could take as long as six months, means that Temer is having trouble settling in.

"The popular reaction to the coup continues and the protests should continue," Rui Falcao, president of Rousseff's Workers' Party, said Monday.

A regional diplomatic storm was also brewing, with El Salvador among countries opposing the Temer government.

Brazil's foreign ministry sent a pointed complaint to President Salvador Sanchez Ceren, who refuses to recognize Temer's presidency, noting that El Salvador is the biggest beneficiary of Brazilian aid in Central America.

"The Brazilian government hopes that the government of El Salvador will reconsider its position," the ministry said.

- Unpopular -

Polls show Temer -- the son of Lebanese immigrants -- is almost as unpopular as Rousseff.

His naming of a cabinet with no women in it, just as Brazil's first woman president was suspended -- has put him on the defensive in some quarters.

In his Sunday interview he looked to sidestep the controversy, insisting that women would be given powerful posts, although not at ministerial level. But his reference to women as "representatives of the feminine world" drew derision in opposition social media.

Late Monday, he named a woman, economist Maria Silvia Bastos Marques, as head of the huge BNDES development bank, a powerful post.

Another hurdle facing Temer is to make good on his promise to cut costs and streamline the overburdened state budget. He has promised to slash up to 5,000 civil service jobs and says that he, unlike Rousseff, is in a position to deal with Congress over unpopular budget reductions.

Temer was due to meet Monday with the main unions to discuss social security reforms. But one of the biggest groups, the CUT, boycotted the session.

A constitutional lawyer who was Rousseff's vice president thanks to an uneasy coalition between his PMDB party and the Workers' Party, Temer says he feels free to act in the interests of the country because he likely won't seek election in the scheduled 2018 presidential vote.

"I realize I don't have popular backing," he told local media Monday. But "I don't have to make gestures or do things leading to an eventual reelection. I can even be, let's say, unpopular, because as long as I produce benefits for the country, that's enough for me."

Temer told Globo television a day earlier that he had "constitutional legitimacy".
By Nick Brown

NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - Puerto Rico's total revenues in April, mainly through tax collections, totaled $1.28 billion and marked a drop of $47.7 million versus the same period a year ago, the U.S. territory's treasury secretary said on Monday.

The financially strapped island, which is struggling to pay for basic services such as health, police, and fire while facing a $70 billion debt load it says it cannot pay, saw corporate taxes increase but individual income tax collections decline.

April's corporate tax revenues rose by $32.5 million compared to the prior year to $409 million, Treasury Secretary Juan Zaragoza Gomez said in a statement.

However, a drop in individual income taxes, to $302 million this April from about $360 million a year ago, along with the loss of some non-recurring special taxes, led to the overall drop in revenues, the statement said.

The total $1.28 billion revenue figure was $76.2 million higher than revised estimates, the statement said.

Puerto Rico's economic future is a key focal point in municipal debt markets and in Washington, where federal lawmakers are debating a way to stabilize the island's bond debt, address a 45 percent poverty rate and rampant emigration of its population to the U.S. mainland.

The Obama administration has called on Congress to legislate a mechanism for Puerto Rico to restructure its debt, while putting the island's finances under federal oversight.

The Republican-led House Natural Resources Committee has crafted a bill aimed at achieving those goals, but it has stalled. Conservatives in the U.S. Congress are fighting against the idea of a court-sanctioned debt restructuring process while Democrats call for limitations on the federal oversight board.

Puerto Rico has defaulted on some of its debt already, and faces a critical $1.9 billion payment on July 1.

(Reporting by Nick Brown; Editing by Daniel Bases and James Dalgleish)
BEIJING (Reuters) - With barely a flicker of concern, Chinese policeman Mao Weidong celebrated with push-ups after setting a new Guinness World Record for planking for eight hours, one minute and one second. Mao edged out the previous record holder, retired U.S. Marine George Wood, who collapsed on the mat after seven hours, four minutes and five seconds in the head-to-head competition. Planking is a core strength exercise in which the body is kept in a straight line from head to feet, with its weight borne on the forearms and toes. Mao said his police work had helped him. "Actually, as Special Weapons And Tactics police, we have lots of strength training every day. I think the strength training is very helpful for doing planking," he told Reuters TV. Wood had set the world record for abdominal planking last year with a time of five hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds. (Reporting by Reuters TV. Writing by Karishma Singh; Editing by Nick Macfie)
May 16 (Reuters) - The Quaker Oats Company, a unit of PepsiCo, Inc., announced on Monday a voluntary recall of a small quantity of its Quaker Quinoa Granola Bars distributed in the U.S. due to the possible risk of Listeria contamination.

The company, which did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment, said in a statement there have been no reported illnesses to date.

According to the Chicago-based company, an ingredient supplier was found to have distributed sunflower kernels that may have been contaminated by the bacterium, which can be either harmless or pathogenic, causing serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, elderly people, and those who have weakened immune systems.

Quaker, which manufactures hot cereals, pancake syrups, grain-based snacks and flavored rice products, said that while the vast majority of potentially affected Quaker products were withheld from reaching retail shelves, the products being recalled were distributed nationwide.

The recall only covers Quaker Quinoa Granola Bars Chocolate Nut Medley and Quaker Quinoa Granola Bars Yogurt, Fruit & Nut Medley.

(Reporting by Melissa Fares in New York; editing by Anna Driver and Alan Crosby)
Talking about race, particularly in the workplace, can be tough.

"Well, you just have to be prepared to be awkward," says W. Kamau Bell, who knows a few things about awkward.

The Berkeley-based comedian is the host of a new CNN travel show called The United Shades of America, which explores issues of race and culture through his unique socio-political lens. (His "meeting" with the president of the International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is a must-see.)

But in moving from stand up to bigger media gigs, Bell has become a significant corporate player and leader in his own right. "I definitely didn't see that coming." So when we talked by phone for my recent feature, Leading While Black, he ended by offering advice to Fortune readers who wanted to advocate for changes, big or small, around racial diversity within their organizations: don't let the human stuff stop you.

"It's hard work to champion the diversity side of things, to highlight the inequity around you," he said, no matter the shade you are. "You have to stretch the boundary of what's expected." And those conversations can feel awkward, at least at first. "Embrace it."

So, we're embracing it. RaceAhead, Fortune's newest newsletter, focuses on the experience of black, brown, Asian, and Native American people in corporate America. At its heart, this newsletter will be a daily quest to aggregate and share data, stories, and news to help leaders make better, more informed decisions about racial diversity in their organizations and in the world.

Diversity means better business. It's impossible to overstate how important this conversation is," says Bernard Tyson, the CEO of Kaiser Permanente, a health care organization with some $60 million in revenue. Tyson has been unusually candid for a CEO, and he continues to share his own insights on his LinkedIn profile. "People talk about a business case for racial diversity. In the 21st century, diversity is the business case. Our objective is to get the best out of everyone. And to do that we need to speak truth to power.

Story continues

We'll hear directly from researchers who are discovering and sharing surprising insights into how racial bias is playing out in an increasingly global workforce, while cementing the case that diversity means good business.

I'll be sharing conversations with educators, artists, cultural icons and other creative thinkers -like W. Kamau Bell  who by the nature of their work can inspire us to think more deeply about race, bias, and history.

For news, look to the On Point section. For deeper ways to think about race, culture and leadership, look to the section called The Woke Leader.

I'll try to get Beyonce on the line, but I can't promise that.

I can promise to highlight the work of the leaders at every level who are working hard to reap the real world benefits of diverse teams and leadership.

In fact, I believe that the greatest potential for raceAhead is to introduce allies to each other, in an extended network of weak ties who are talented, prepared, and committed to an equitable society that also delivers shareholder value.

Diverse workplaces generate better ideas, happier customers, and more revenue. But, as Brunswick Group Partner David Sutphen has made so clear to me, inclusive workplaces, when carefully tended, can offer deeper benefits that come with becoming comfortable with 'the other.' "A generous orientation can be cultivated," he says. "When people feel safe to be their full selves at work, they are happier in every aspect of their lives."

See original article on Fortune.com

More from Fortune.com

On Point

[bs-title]Hire smarter.[/bs-title]

[bs-content]Journalist and author Jeff Chu highlights entrepreneurs who are successfully bringing autistic adults into the workforce, all while making a business case for inclusion and shattering stereotypes. Though not explicitly about race, the story explores smart new hiring practices and talent strategies that could inspire meaningful change for everyone. Some 50,000 individuals with autism enter adulthood every year.[/bs-content]

[bs-link link="http://www.inc.com/magazine/201506/jeff-chu/making-it-work-the-spectrum-of-debate.htm" source="Inc"]

[bs-title]Package delivered.[/bs-title]

[bs-content]Amazon responded to complaints that minority communities were being excluded from their free, same-day delivery service by pledging to eliminate gaps in a statement obtained by the Congressional Black Caucus. The Caucus had called for an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, and an analysis by Bloomberg found racial disparities in several of the 27 cities where the service is offered.[/bs-content]

[bs-link link="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-06/amazon-to-fill-racial-gaps-in-same-day-delivery-after-complaints" source="Bloomberg"]

[bs-title]There's no place like home for Jamal or Tanisha.[/bs-title]

[bs-content]A Harvard Business School study found that racial bias in Airbnb booking practices is widespread. NPR's Hidden Brain explored the issue; check out #AirbnbWhileBlack on Twitter for more stories and discussion.[/bs-content]

[bs-link link="http://www.npr.org/2016/04/26/475623339/-airbnbwhileblack-how-hidden-bias-shapes-the-sharing-economy" source="NPR"]

[bs-title]Head White Man In Charge.[/bs-title]

[bs-content]What was Brazil's new interim President Michel Temer's first great act? Selecting an all white, all male cabinet to run one of the world's most diverse countries. Brazil's first female president, Dilma Rousseff, was recently suspended and is facing impeachment for allegedly mishandling the federal budget. [/bs-content]

[bs-link link="http://fortune.com/2016/05/13/brazil-new-president-temer-cabinet" source="Fortune"]

[bs-title]Mizzou swings low.[/bs-title]

[bs-content]Enrollment at the University of Missouri-Columbia could be the lowest in nearly a decade. Last fall, the university drew national attention as students protested racial incidents and forced the resignation of top leadership. "As we've been talking to prospective students and parents, we've been told that the vents of last fall have played a role in their decision-making process," a spokesperson said. [/bs-content]

[bs-link link="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/mizzou-s-enrollment-plummet-is-more-drastic-than-previously-projected/article_b938838c-6858-5bdf-b220-f1bfd29a21d2.html" source="St. Louis Post Dispatch"]

[bs-title]Your network at work.[/bs-title]

[bs-content]Grade A for brilliant hires: James (Jim) Shelton III, the former deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, then Chief Impact Officer at ed tech company 2U, is now joining the philanthropic foundation started by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. He'll be leading their education efforts. [/bs-content]

[bs-link link="http://fortune.com/2016/05/04/chan-zuckerberg-jim-shelton/" source="Fortune"]

The Woke Leader

[bs-title]Advocate at your own risk.[/bs-title]

[bs-content]Not only does the promotion of diversity not help executives get ahead - at least according to their performance evaluations - it actually penalizes people of color and women who advocate for people who look like them, says professors David Hekman and Stefanie Johnson. [/bs-content]

[bs-link link="http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2016/04/11/women-nonwhite-execs-promote-diversity-their-own-detriment-says-cu-boulder-study" source="University of Colorado Boulder"]

[bs-title]Criminal justice reforms are falling short.[/bs-title]

[bs-content] PBS Newshour spent some quality time with Bryan Stevenson, who earned his spot on Fortune's World's Greatest Leaders list for his advocacy for more equity in the criminal justice system. In addition to calling for reforms in prison overcrowding and violence, Stevenson gives a don't miss history lesson in race, power, and justice.[/bs-content]

[bs-link link="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/top-civil-rights-lawyer-says-u-s-criminal-justice-reforms-are-falling-short/" source="PBS"]

[bs-title]#StarringJohnCho[/bs-title]

[bs-content]Last week, Twitter erupted in gleeful protest of the lack of Asian representation in Hollywood films. In an impressive show of creativity, blockbuster movie posters were photoshopped to remove white male stars and replaced with Asian American actor John Cho. In a separate report, ThinkProgress parsed the dismal stats for Asian and Latino actors in major films, and explains why it matters.[/bs-content]

[bs-link link="http://thinkprogress.org/culture/2016/05/10/3776893/hollywood-pushing-diversity-will-asian-latino-actors-left/" source="Think Progress"]

[bs-title]We need to talk.[/bs-title]

[bs-content]On a recent Essence Live video, cultural commentators Tracy G, Abiola Abrams, Kazeem Famuyide, and Michael Arcenaux took on the difficult topic homophobia in the black community with real sensitivity and grace. [/bs-content]

[bs-link link="http://www.essence.com/video/why-black-people-arent-more-homophobic-other-races" source="Essence"]

Quote

[bs-quote link="http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/author/dkkim/ " author ="-- David Kyuman Kim, Chair, Department of Religious Studies Program in American Studies, Connecticut College"]What does it mean to be in solidarity? To be an ally? It means I'm standing with you because I care about you in abstraction. I care about your well being, including the threats to your humanity.[/bs-quote]
Korean cosmetics are gradually asserting their presence in Europe after sweeping China and Southeast Asia.

Last year, Too Cool for School opened an outlet in Paris' Galeries Lafayette Department Store, while Amore Pacific forged a strategic partnership with Christian Dior. Sales in France are growing particularly strongly.

"The popularity of K-pop in Europe is apparently boosting sales of Korean cosmetics products there," said a spokesman for Tonymoly. "To meet demand we opened outlets in 825 Sephora stores in 14 European countries this month."

According to EU data, French imports of Korean cosmetics rose from 4 million euros in 2010 to 16.41 million euros last year.

Industry insiders here say this is a promising sign as France retains a leading position in the global cosmetics industry, so success there means Korean products have a better chance in other European countries as well.
New York (AFP) - Rapper Azealia Banks has apologized for a stream of racist and Islamophobic invective against former One Direction heartthrob Zayn Malik that led Twitter to suspend her.

Banks, who has long been notorious for provocative social media postings and has rarely voiced remorse, offered her "sincerest apologies to the world" in a posting on Instagram, where her account remains active.

"Employing racial/sexual slurs/stereotypes in attempts to make fun of or degrade another person or group is not fair or fun for anyone," wrote Banks, who performed Sunday in Istanbul.

"Allowing my anger to get the best of me, I've managed to insult millions of people without reason. And for that I give my deepest apologies," she wrote late Saturday.

Banks, who is African American, used a series of epithets targeting Muslims in a rant on Twitter late Tuesday against Zayn, whom she accused of copying her style in his new racy look after One Direction.

Banks on one point gloated that the US military would kill the family of Zayn, a Briton who is partially of Pakistani descent and is one of the most high-profile Muslims in Western pop culture.

Twitter suspended her account on Thursday, pointing to its policy against "abusive tweets and behavior."

Banks initially defended herself, suggesting that she was singled out as an African American woman and saying she was upset that Zayn -- who has gone only by his first name since leaving the boy band -- refused to engage with her over her criticism.

Banks, who did not mention Zayn by name in her apology, also clarified one point from her insults -- she had no problem with curry, one of the terms she used to berate him.

She said she was repeating a joke from her native New York -- where nearly half of cab drivers were born in Bangladesh, India or Pakistan -- that taxis smelled like curry.

"I feel compelled to clear the air with curry itself because that's a bridge I don't want to burn. I still want to be able to enjoy it freely without guilt or judgment," she wrote.

Banks has previously used homophobic language and called for the burning down of buildings owned by descendants of slave traders, remarks that drew controversy but did not lead to her suspension from Twitter.

She has also raised eyebrows by supporting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, a fellow enthusiast of acerbic Twitter postings who has little support among minorities.
Already one of MLB's best offensive teams over a stretch of two-plus weeks, the Boston Red Sox reached more spectacular heights during a seven-game homestand.

They'll try to carry over those prodigious performances into Monday night's visit to the Kansas City Royals, who have gotten shaky pitching at times lately, and Jackie Bradley Jr. will seek to extend his hit streak to 22 games.

Boston was batting .302 with 97 runs in the 18 games before its homestand and kicked that up to .369 while winning six of seven at Fenway Park. The Red Sox (24-14) outscored their two opponents 73-37 and rallied after blowing an early four-run lead Sunday for a 10-9 victory against Houston.

Mookie Betts hit the go-ahead triple in the seventh inning, and Xander Bogaerts contributed a three-run homer in the second. Bogaerts is batting .408 in his last 24 games and has driven in seven runs in his past four.

"We are getting contributions up and down the lineup," manager John Farrell said. "It's fun to be a part of."

Bradley, who singled in the fifth to extend his streak, is hitting .402 with a .768 slugging percentage and 26 RBIs in his last 21 games. David Ortiz was given the day off after finishing a single shy of the cycle and hitting the winning 11th-inning double in a 6-5 victory Saturday.

Ortiz is batting .341 with seven homers, 11 doubles and 23 RBIs in his last 22 games. In his final series in Kansas City, the retiring slugger will face a rotation that has a 7.07 ERA in its last 11 games.

The Royals' staff has a 5.13 ERA in its past 12 contests but allowed a combined eight runs while taking two of three from lowly Atlanta this weekend, including a 4-2 victory in 13 innings Sunday.

"There's a lot of harmony in the clubhouse. Everyone is pulling for each other," designated hitter Kendrys Morales told MLB's official website following his game-ending home run.

Yordano Ventura (3-2, 4.62 ERA) is coming off a 7-3 win against the New York Yankees on Wednesday. The right-hander gave up three runs in six innings after allowing a combined 10 in back-to-back losses, lasting just four innings each time.

Story continues

Ventura gave up one run in six innings in his only matchup with Boston last season, a 6-3 win Aug. 22.

Rick Porcello bounced back from his only loss this season with a 13-3 victory against Oakland on Wednesday, allowing three runs in 6 2/3 innings.

Porcello (6-1, 3.11) has a 7.20 ERA while losing his last three starts against the Royals and gave up six runs in five innings in his lone meeting last season, a 7-4 defeat in Kansas City on June 20.

Boston went 4-3 against the Royals in 2015 but has won five of seven in Kansas City. The Red Sox will try to extend a pair of streaks in the first matchup this season.

They have homered in 16 consecutive games, the second-longest run in franchise history behind a 19-game streak in 1996. They also have double-digit hits in each contest in their homestand.

Boston hasn't recorded 10-plus hits in eight straight games since a run of 11 in May 2008.

Bogaerts is batting .433 in his last seven matchups with Kansas City, and Mookie Betts is a career .420 hitter against the Royals. Bradley has a lifetime .229 average in 11 meetings, and Ortiz is hitting .193 with one homer in his last 15.

Lorenzo Cain, batting .361 in his last 15 games, is 5 for 13 versus Porcello.
By Larry Hand (Reuters Health) - Women who attend religious services frequently may live longer than women who dont, new research suggests. Over the 16-year study, religious service attendance was linked to a substantial reduction in mortality, Tyler J. VanderWeele, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, told Reuters Health by email. VanderWeele and colleagues analyzed data collected every four years between 1996 and 2012 from nearly 75,000 women participating in the Nurses Health Study. Most were Catholic or Protestant. As reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, about 14,000 of the women attended religious services more than once a week, about 30,400 attended once a week, about 12,000 less than once a week, and nearly 18,000 never attended. Women who attended religious services regularly were 33 percent less likely to die during the study period, compared with women who never attended services. Once-a-week attendees were 26 percent less likely to die, and those attending less than once a week were 23 percent less likely to die. Overall, frequent religious attendance was associated with a 27 percent lower likelihood of dying from cardiovascular disease and a 21 percent lower risk of death from cancer. Frequent attendance was also associated with significantly less risk of breast cancer and colorectal cancer. Although attendance at religious services was associated with lower cardiovascular mortality and cancer mortality, attendance was not significantly associated with incidence of breast cancer or cardiovascular disease, the researchers wrote. So-called observational studies like this one can't prove cause and effect, VanderWeele said. But, he added, That we had data on both service attendance and health repeatedly over time helps provide evidence about the direction of causality. Dr. Dan German Blazer, of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, who wrote an accompanying commentary, told Reuters Health by email, Though we do not know the mechanisms, research and especially this study, emphasize the importance of religious service attendance to health. Because the study only included middle-aged and older professional women, "we do not know whether the results would hold for men or for younger persons, Blazer said. We need to continue to chip away at a better empirical understanding of cause and effect and refrain from either over-generalizing these results or dismissing them as impossible to better understand. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/255mofm and http://bit.ly/23UNlfL JAMA Internal Medicine, online May 16, 2016.
(Reuters) - The "remain" camp held a 15-point lead over its "leave" rivals in Britain's EU referendum campaign, according to the latest poll from ORB for the Telegraph newspaper, published on Monday. The poll found that among all respondents, support for remaining in the union stood at 55 percent, while that for the so-called "Brexit" option was at 40 percent. (http://bit.ly/24VCPaJ) Britons will vote on June 23 on whether their country should remain in or leave the 28-member bloc. The "remain" camp held an eight-point lead over its "leave" rivals in a separate ICM poll for the Guardian newspaper, also published on Monday. (Reporting by Parikshit Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Brown)
From Esquire

A small group of Republicans quietly have been recruiting potential candidates to run as an independent conservative and beat Donald Trump in a general election, the Washington Post reports.

The recruiting group includes Bill Kristol, Erick Erickson, as well as strategists Mike Murphy, Stuart Stevens and Rick Wilson, among others. The group reached out to businessman and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban, who declined the offer.

"I don't see it happening," Cuban told the Post in an email, adding that he was told he was being courted for his "bluster and volume, combined with substance and the ability to connect with voters on a more personal basis."

"[Trump] could come after me all he wanted, and he knows I would put him in his place. All that said, again, I don't see it happening. There isn't enough time," he concluded.

Freshman Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are the top contenders at the moment. Former senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, and retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal were also considered.

The strategy makes sense, considering many prominent Republicans believe that a Trump presidency would do more long-term, irreparable damage to the party than Hillary Clinton in the White House. An independent who runs in the general could win or, more likely, be a sacrificial lamb, splitting the conservative vote with Donald Trump and essentially handing Clinton the presidency.

Then, so the plan goes, the party could stonewall Clinton for the next four years while they re-group and find a more suitable candidate to hopefully prevent a 2020 Clinton re-election.

But here's the catch: no one wants to take the fall. Almost every single person they have approached thus far has given their offer a hard pass.
Elvis (Michael Shannon) meets Nixon (Kevin Spacey) in Elvis and Nixon. (Cathay-Feris Films)

Marcus Goh is a Singapore television scriptwriter. Hes also a Transformers enthusiast and avid pop culture scholar. He Tweets/Instagrams at Optimarcus and writes at marcusgohmarcusgoh.com. The views expressed are his own.

Secret ending? No.

Running time: 86 minutes (~1.5 hours)

Elvis & Nixon is a historical dramedy based on the legendary meeting between President Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley, and Elvis request to be sworn in as a federal agent-at-large. It stars Kevin Spacey (President Richard Nixon), Michael Shannon (Elvis Presley), Alex Pettyfer (Jerry Schilling), Colin Hanks (Egil Krogh), Johnny Knoxville (Sonny West), and Evan Peters (Dwight Chapin).

If youre wondering how an entire movie can be based on a single meeting, Elvis & Nixon covers a good deal of setup and also the events leading to the meeting between Elvis and Nixon. Its an entertaining comedy that shows the two title characters in a more light-hearted setting, rather than the usual heavy biopics about historical characters. Its definitely a treat to see the two personalities from opposite sides of the spectrum meeting, and relies heavily on the performances of the lead actors to carry it through its 86 minutes.

A historical moment in Elvis and Nixon. (Cathay-Feris Films)

Highlights

Nixons characterisation

The film shows us the human side of Nixon, whos often vilified in media portrayals, and paints him as a kindly old father whos rather traditional. Faced with the impending upheaval of the status quo, in the form of Elvis, Nixon reacts rather predictably. But its his softer side that really garners your empathy, especially when you see that hes quite a bit of a family man, with his daughters as his weakness.

Elvis and Nixons interaction

Their scenes almost play out like a buddy cop movie, with such thick layers of subtext between the two powerful men. Its an unlikely connection that forms between them, even though theyre from completely different worlds. Theres also a heavy dose of humour from the inappropriate situations and misaligned expectations of and from the pair. This is the highlight of the movie, after all, and its certainly the most entertaining portion of Elvis & Nixon.

Story continues

Comedic tone

Theres no slapstick since its not an outright comedy, but most of the humour comes from the supporting characters. Both Elvis and Nixon are very powerful men, and there are more similarities than differences working for the two. Their associates give us the perspective of the Everyman, allowing the regular audience a way to see the two men as the rest of the public sees them, and its this perspective that amplifies what might only be mildly humourous situations.

Egil Krogh (Colin Hanks) and Dwight Chapin (Evan Peters) in Elvis and Nixon. (Cathay-Feris Films)

Letdowns

Too little of Elvis and Nixon

The film takes way too long to get to the good part, which is, of course, the meeting between Elvis and Nixon. The film attempts to generate tension by putting the meeting itself at stake, but you know that it will happen anyway, so theres very little tension as a result. The scenes between Elvis and Nixon should have been longer, since thats what audiences are coming to watch this film for.

Michael Shannon is an unconvincing Elvis

Sadly, Michael Shannon is completely unbelievable as Elvis. In terms of appearance, hes far too old and serious looking to play Elvis. More importantly is that he lacks the flamboyance and debonair required to pull off a portrayal of one of the most popular entertainers in the world. This results in a lackluster Elvis, who is saved only by an amazing performance from Kevin Spacey.

Elvis and the ladies in"Elvis and Nixon. (Cathay-Feris Films)

"Elvis & Nixon gives us an entertaining look at two incredibly influential historical figures, although it could have done with more interaction between the key characters.

Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? Yes.

Should you watch this at weekend movie ticket prices? If youre a fan of Kevin Spacey or Michael Shannon.

Score: 3.5/5

Elvis & Nixon opens in cinemas 19 May, 2016 (Thursday).
By Scott Malone

(Reuters) - The Rhode Island congregation that worships at the United States' oldest synagogue owns that house of worship and its assets, a federal judge ruled on Monday, rejecting a New York synagogue's claim to oversight.

The ruling follows a four-year legal battle that began when members of the Touro Synagogue in Newport tried to sell a set of ritual bells worth some $7.4 million and New York's Congregation Shearith Israel attempted to block the deal, citing an 18th century agreement that named it a trustee.

The historic building was consecrated in 1763, when the town had one of the largest Jewish populations in the American colonies, including many who had fled the Spanish Inquisition. It was vacated in 1776 when most of the city's Jewish population fled at the start of the Revolutionary War.

Members of the synagogue at that time shipped a pair of valuable silver bells used in rituals to the New York synagogue, and asked its leaders to act as trustees for the vacant temple. Worshippers returned by the 1870s and the New York group's influence waned.

"For at least the past 20 years, Shearith Israel has not taken any meaningful action in its capacity as trustee for the Touro Synagogue and lands," U.S. District Judge John McConnell wrote.

Shearith sued Newport's Congregation Jeshuat Israel when it learned the Rhode Island group had reached a deal to sell the bells, known as "rimonim," to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. The Touro congregation had planned to use the funds to create a reserve to pay for maintenance of the building, after the congregations its finances had been hard hit by the 2008 credit crisis.

The deal has since been canceled.

The New York congregation also claimed ownership of the bells and charged that the Newport group was violating Jewish tradition by selling ritual objects.

McConnell wrote that Shearith had gone against its duty as a trustee of the Newport synagogue.

Story continues

Deming Sherman, an attorney for the New York congregation, said his clients were still reviewing the judge's ruling and had not decided whether to take additional legal steps.

"We're obviously disappointed," Sherman said in a brief phone interview.

Gary Naftalis, a lawyer for the Rhode Island congregation, in a statement called the decision an "important victory."

"The effort to evict the Rhode Island congregation has been thwarted, and an important piece of American history and of Jewish history has been preserved," he said.

(Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
The Arusha airport looks like a huge souvenir shop with an airstrip attached. Thousands of tourists pass through here on their way to Tanzanias famed national parks and Mount Kilimanjaro. But what those sunburned visitors may not know is that where their safari starts is where civil wars end.

This sleepy city in the north of Tanzania has been a diplomatic hub since the signing of the Arusha Accords in 1993 ended the war in Rwanda. But now, with civil conflict brewing or in full swing in neighboring Burundi and South Sudan, this neutral city may be the regions best broker for peace agreements. Over 345 new cases of torture and abuse by security forces have been reported in Burundi since the start of 2016 and experts warn of the violence taking an even darker turn. We are not there now, says Alexandre Leveque, Canadas high commissioner and envoy to the East African community, but everybody remembers Rwanda.

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Source: Ivan Dupont/Flickr CC

The role of peacemaker is one that Tanzanias recently elected president John Magufuli is taking seriously. He has appointed a seasoned diplomat as minister of foreign affairs and at the top of his agenda is addressing the violence in Burundi, where the election of President Pierre Nkurunziza to an unconstitutional third term has thrown the East African nation into turmoil. If the Tanzanian official manages to convince Nkurunziza to come to the table, that table will be in Arusha.

Home to a number of crucial institutions, including the East African Court of Justice, Arusha is also where the Burundi civil war ended in 2005 after 12 years  and some 300,000 dead. It was there that the National Liberation Forces, Burundis last rebel group, finally signed a deal to stop the fighting, demobilize and be integrated into the national army. Today, nestled among rolling green hills, Arusha moves slowly; save for an occasional four-wheel-drive vehicle rushing tourists to view zebras, the city gives the impression that nothing bad could happen here.

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Tanzania has more moral authority than all countries in the area combined, so they are best placed to make peace happen. Paul Nantulya, Pentagon adviser

But can Arusha  the Geneva of Africa, as Bill Clinton once called it  live up to its past image as peacemaker? Part of that depends on the rest of Tanzania. Paul Nantulya, a Pentagon adviser who was part of a peace-based negotiating team in Arusha in 1998, says having morally respected arbiters  the late South African leader Nelson Mandela and Julius Nyerere, Tanzanias founding father  are key to any peace agreement. Those accords only happened because of Mandela and Neyrere, Nantulya says. Tanzania has more moral authority than all countries in the area combined, so they are best placed to make peace happen.

Given Tanzanias neighbors, there isnt much of an alternative. Kenya has a recent history of electoral violence, and Ugandan and Rwandan leaders have both forsaken term limits  the same issue fueling violence in Burundi. Meanwhile, Tanzania just had a peaceful change of government, and in 2003, when violence threatened Zanzibar, the country managed to negotiate the creation of a unity government.

Shutterstock 388127020

Source: Shutterstock

But regional unity is lacking from the Burundi negotiations. During the 2005 Burundi accord, neighboring countries agreed to a severe embargo and to put peacekeeping boots on the ground. Today, Tanzania has to be the one to lead the way to a more coordinated effort. Tanzania is capable of doing that, says Hassan B. Jallow, chief prosecutor of the United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, from his small office in Arusha. Leveque says its urgent for the country to step up to its reputation.

There are many obstacles remaining in the way of President Magufuli playing Switzerlands role in this heated region. For starters, his party has a long-standing relationship with Burundis ruling party, so it finds itself torn between its roles as peacekeeper and ally. And Tanzanias relationship with some of its neighbors is becoming more strained, says Nantulya. Even if it manages to be the peacemaking arbiter it aims to be, there is no guarantee of success  despite Tanzanias best efforts to help manage violence in South Sudan after the countrys civil war, the peace accord disintegrated only a few months after its signing.

Near the Arusha airport is the almost empty Mount Meru Hotel. Recently, its sad-looking conference rooms and echoing halls were packed with more than 1,000 well-dressed men and women attending an East African summit. At the top of the agenda? Burundi. Welcoming attendees was a massive photo of Nyerere  the man who brokered the Arusha Accords and who warned, more than half a century ago, We must either unite now or perish.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un tried rather desperately to look like his grandfather, nation founder Kim Il-sung, during the recent Workers Party congress. Kim junior even donned black horn-rimmed glasses and walked with his hands behind his back, just the way his grandfather used to.

Then he appointed himself chairman of the Workers Party, a title only his grandfather has so far held, since his father Kim Jong-il never held a party congress and banned some of the more obvious Soviet echoes of the organization in favor of all-out military strutting.

As the congress convened, the state media touted the 1960s as the "golden age" of the North, clearly in order to suggest that a new golden age with an oddly similar-looking leader is just around the corner.

But the truth is that Kim Jong-un never met his grandfather, who was already retreating from the world by the time he was born in 1983 or 84 and died 10 years later. That means there is no picture of the two of them together to affirm the lineage, which might have gone some way to consolidating the current propaganda.

One defector who used to be a high-ranking official in the North said Kim Il-sung had an old-fashioned patriarchal aversion to the children of Kim Jong-il and his second wife, Ko Yong-hui, who had been a dancer and was raised in Japan, a blot on the lineage. Kim Jong-nam, Kim's much older half-brother, did eventually meet his grandfather when he was already a big boy, but Kim Il-sung also disliked Jong-nam's mother, Song Hye-rim, who was a movie star and a divorcee.

It seems that Kim Jong-il, who took over most of the running of the country as his father became ever more peculiar, assiduously kept his children out of the old man's way.

Even when Kim Il-sung was safely dead, Jong-un was sent to a Swiss boarding school in 1996, when he was 12 or 13. Soon after he returned to Pyongyang five years later, his mother died, and there is testimony that he missed her a great deal -- internal documents refer to her as the "mother of Pyongyang." There are rumors that May 6 was set as the date for the Workers Party congress because it was Ko's birthday.

Yet her identity must for some reason remain a badly kept official secret in the North. Now Kim Jong-un has appointed himself to nine top positions and seems to have everything he ever wanted. But he still has to resort to imitating a grandfather who never gave him the time of day.

No wonder South Korean intelligence officials have trouble figuring Kim out and making sense of his flip-flopping ways.


Robert Shapiro did in fact try on one of the evidence gloves during the O.J. Simpson case to see whether it might fit his client, the still practicing lawyer revealed in an interview with Megyn Kelly.

Shapiro, part of Simpson's "dream team" of defense attorneys, talked about the gloves and more during a sit-down with Kelly for her primetime special airing Tuesday night on the Fox Broadcasting Network.

"I tried the glove on," Shapiro told the Kelly File host, according to parts of a transcript released Monday by Fox. "It was a little bit wide in my palm and a little bit long in my fingers. O.J. Simpson has enormous hands, and I knew that the glove would not fit him. No question about it. Wouldn't even be close."

Shapiro previously told The Hollywood Reporter he had not done press about the case since Simpson was acquitted in 1995.

Interest in the case surrounding the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman was reignited thanks to the 10-part FX series The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, which ran from February to April.

In one of the episodes, the Shapiro character, played by John Travolta, tries on one of the evidence gloves in the courtroom, an incident which some viewers found hard to believe actually happened.

Well, it did.

And when asked by Kelly if he realized he may have been trying on the glover of a killer, Shapiro replied, "That is a very compelling question that I've never even thought about, and we'd looked at that glove, every expert had looked at that glove," he said, according to parts of the transcript. "It did have stains on it, did have certain cuts on it. I didn't consider it, but, it's kind of an eerie thought when you say that.

"As you say it now, it is chilling," he continued, "but it wasn't something that I contemplated or thought about at the time."

Kelly also asked Shapiro if the "not guilty" Simpson received was a "fair verdict."

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"There's two types of justice that we deal with in America: There's moral justice and there's legal justice," Shapiro says. "If you look at it from a moral point of view, a lot of people would say he absolutely did it. I deal in legal justice, as you did as a lawyer, and that's proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And there's no question in my mind that any fair juror who saw that case from the beginning to the end would conclude there was reasonable doubt."

Read More: Megyn Kelly Says It Wasn't Easy Holding Her Tongue During Donald Trump Attacks

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
A front page story in The New York Times about Donald Trump's dealings with women over the years has led to some backlash against the newspaper.

One of the former models quoted in the story, which ran on The Times' front page Saturday, Rowanne Brewer Lane, is now blasting its reporters, claiming they were dishonest about what the story was supposed to be.

I'm extremely upset. Basically, they lied to me, she told Inside Edition. They promised me multiple times that it would not be a hit piece, and clearly it was.

Read: Trump Denies He Posed as His Own Publicist To Brag About Exploits With Women

Brewer Lane, who dated Trump in 1990, says The Times distorted her words.

The newspaper ran a lengthy front-page story Saturday alleging Trump had made "unwelcome romantic advances" and indulged in "unsettling workplace conduct" and crude behavior in the past.

The Times report details a 1990 pool party at Trumps Mar-A-Lago estate in Florida where Brewer Lane first met the real estate tycoon.

The newspaper says Trump had barely met her when he asked her to put on a swimsuit.

The Times wrote that the 26-year-old model put on the bikini and when she came out, Trump said, "wow."

The 44-year-old Trump was in the midst of a divorce from first wife Ivana.

Trump then took the young model to the pool and said, "that is a stunning Trump girl, isnt it?," Brewer Lane told the Times.

The Times called the incident "a debasing face-to-face encounter."

But Brewer Lane says it was anything but, telling Inside Edition: "I told The Times that I was flattered by that comment, I was shocked and flattered."

She said she wasnt offended and it was "the exact opposite of what they depicted." She added "I feel betrayed and deceived" by The New York Times.

Once they began dating, she says the billionaire was "gentlemanly."

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I never saw Donald be disrespectful to a woman, I met a lot of women when I was with Donald, a lot that worked with him, for him, and a lot that did not and he was very graceful to every one of them, she told Inside Edition.

Another woman quoted in the story is a former Miss Utah, Temple Taggart.

According to the Times, Taggart was competing in the 1997 Miss USA pageant, and was "startled by how forward he was with young contestants like her."

"He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, 'oh my God, gross, she told the paper.

"I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like, 'Wow, that's inappropriate.'"

Trump disputes the kissing claim.

Read: Trump Bodyguard Once Accused of Having Affair With Marla Maples Never Got Over The Scandal, Ex-Wife Says

The two Times reporters who wrote the piece, Michael Barbaro and Megan Twohey, appeared on CBS This Morning Monday.

"I think readers of the story can digest what happened to her [Brewer Lane]," Barbaro said.

Twohey said the motive of the article was "to go behind the scenes and examine how Trump has behaved with women in private. Not just in recent years, but going back to his days in the military school in the 1960s."

After backlash from Brewer Lane, Barbaro defended the story, saying: There is not a single dimension to this story because there is not a single dimension to Donald Trump.

Trump tweeted a barrage of responses, calling it a "failing" newspaper.

The @nytimes is so dishonest. Their hit piece cover story on me yesterday was just blown up by Rowanne Brewer, who said it was a lie!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2016

Wow, Rowanne Brewer, the most prominently depicted woman in the failing @nytimes story yesterday, was on @foxandfriends saying Times lied  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2016







In a statement to Inside Edition, The New York Times said: "Ms. Brewer Lane was quoted fairly, accurately and at length. The story provides context for the reader including that the swimsuit scene was the 'start of a whirlwind romance' between Ms. Brewer Lane and Mr. Trump."

Watch: Trump Reacts To 'Bombshell' Report That Bill Clinton Charity Gave $2 Million To Friend's Company

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Donald Trump

Ever since Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee for president, he's been focusing most of his attacks on his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and imploring her challenger to enter the race as an Independent.

"Bernie Sanders is being treated very badly by the Dems," Trump tweeted on Monday. "The system is rigged against him. He should run as an independent! Run Bernie, run."

Bernie Sanders, an Independent senator from Vermont, has had an impressive rise this election cycle, mounting a surprisingly tough challenge to Clinton. Although he's the longest-serving Independent member of Congress, he's been running for the Democratic nomination for president.

Trump has been pushing this message of Sanders being treated unfairly by the Democratic party for weeks.

"Bernie Sanders has been treated terribly by the Democratsboth with delegates & otherwise,"Trump tweeted in late April. "He should show them, and run as an Independent!"

Despite Trump's advocacy on Sanders' behalf, the real-estate mogul has dubbed him "crazy Bernie" in other tweets.

Sanders running as an Independent against Trump and Clinton would largely benefit Trump. Sanders, who has built up a significant amount of popular support, could win voters who might otherwise support Clinton.

sanders

Trump more or less acknowledged this himself in tweets earlier this month:

"Get ready for November," Trump tweeted on May 11. "Crooked Hillary, who is looking very bad against Crazy Bernie, will lose!"

He said in a subsequent tweet: "I don't want to hit Crazy Bernie Sanders too hard yet because I love watching what he is doing to Crooked Hillary. His time will come!"

Both Trump and Sanders have railed on their respective party's nominating processes, calling them "rigged" to favor establishment candidates.

Story continues

Allan Smith contributed to this report.

NOW WATCH: FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Why I won't vote for Donald Trump





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VIENNA (Reuters) - The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed in a meeting in Vienna on Monday on the need for a full ceasefire to be observed in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, the RIA news agency quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying. The two men also agreed they would fix the time and place of their next meeting in June and that the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) would draw up a plan to investigate ceasefire violations in Nagorno-Karabakh, Lavrov said. The Vienna meeting was the first between Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev since a dramatic flare-up in violence between Armenian-backed separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azeri forces last month which killed dozens of people and pushed relations to a multi-year low. The existing ceasefire may have stopped the short conflict becoming an all-out war a month ago, but gunfire and shelling still echo nightly, residents say, and people are still being killed. Lavrov said he sensed there was now a desire on both sides for a compromise and that Russia was ready to do what it could to broker a more satisfactory deal. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was also involved in the talks. Sargsyan's office confirmed the details in a statement, saying a deal had been struck to step up monitoring of the existing ceasefire, to look at beefing up the OSCE team, and to take steps toward resuming talks on finding a more permanent solution. (Reporting by Polina Devitt in Moscow and Hasmik Mkrtchyan in Yerevan; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
Moscow (AFP) - Russia's economy contracted by 1.2 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same quarter last year, in a tentative sign of stabilisation, the state statistics service said on Monday.

The latest GDP figures compared favourably to the 3.8 percent contraction in the last quarter of 2015 and were better the forecast by Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev who had expected a decline of 1.4 percent in the first quarter.

Russia has seen its economy slump into a profound recession, partly on the back of the fall in oil prices and Western sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine conflict.

London's Capital Economic consultancy said the year-on-year figure confirmed "the acute phase of the crisis is now over."

"The annual growth rate could return to the positive territory towards the end of the year," it said in a note to clients. "Even so, the recovery looks set to be disappointing."

Oleg Kouzmin, Renaissance Capital's economist for Russia and CIS countries, agreed that the figure was better than the market had expected.

"It suggests to us that the second adjustment of Russian economy to weaker oil prices in 2016 is going easier than it was suggested initially," he told AFP.

"The possible reasons are that Russia did take the most part of adjustment last year -- hit also by sanctions -- and now a weaker currency and normalised balance of payments, with subdued capital flows, help to soften the impact of oil price falling again."

He said however that full-year growth was likely to turn positive only next year.
Stockholm (AFP) - A Stockholm court on Monday sentenced a Swede of Rwandan origin to life in prison for genocide and war crimes for his involvement in the 1994 massacres.

Claver Berinkidi, 61, moved to Sweden in 2002 and was naturalised in 2012.

In 2007 a Rwandan court sentenced him in absentia to 30 years behind bars, and authorities later tracked him down to Sweden, where officials opened an inquiry.

Basing its decision mainly on the testimonies of survivors, the Swedish court said Berinkidi had a commanding role and took part in five attacks in April and May 1994, including an assault in the Nyamure hills that killed thousands of civilians.

"While the genocide took place 22 years ago, this category of crime is so grave that the sentence should be life in prison," the court said in a statement.

Berinkidi, who was also ordered to pay compensation to Rwandans whose property was damaged, is the second Swede of Rwandan origin to be sentenced over crimes committed during the genocide.

Stanislas Mbanenande was also sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for his role as a low-level commander.

According to the United Nations some 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, were killed in the Rwandan genocide, which began after the assassination of Rwanda's Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana in April 1994.

Rwandans have also been sentenced in the United States, Canada, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France for their role in the killings.
Kigali (AFP) - Rwanda formally opened a unique methane power plant Monday with hopes that it will one day provide 60 percent of the country's electricity, according to its operator.

The generation station on Lake Kivu in Rwanda's west will also help reduce the risk of a potentially catastrophic natural disaster should the lake's vast quantities of methane and carbon dioxide be disturbed by an earthquake.

President Paul Kagame joined managers from the state-run Rwanda Energy Group (REG) for the opening ceremony of the $200 million (145 million euros) "KivuWatt" project, REG manager Augusta Mutoni told AFP.

US-based power company ContourGlobal started construction of the plant located in Kibuye, close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, after the government ran a successful pilot that produced about two megawatts (MW) of electricity from the methane in the lake.

The Kibuye plant has produced 26 MW since December.

The pioneering new system uses a floating platform 13 kilometres (eight miles) off the shoreline that employs a vacuum to suck up methane from 300 metres below the waterline instead of using drilling as with traditional methane extraction projects.

Methane is then separated from water and carbon dioxide (Co2) and shipped to the shore via an underwater pipeline while excess CO2 is pumped back into the lake.

ContourGlobal hopes to build three more platforms at Kibuye by 2018 or 2019 which will increase the capacity of the "KivuWatt" project by 100 MW, a major boost to Rwanda's current nationwide production capacity of just 160 MW.

Lake Kivu, along with Cameroon's Lake Nyos and Lake Monoun, is one of three lakes in the world to have dangerously high concentrations of gasses like methane that if released suddenly could cause a disastrous explosion, after which waves of CO2 could suffocate people and livestock.

In 1984, an eruption killed 37 people around Lake Monoun, then in 1986 a similar disaster at Lake Nyos claimed more than 1,700 lives.

The "KivuWatt" scheme was largely financed by private capital, though some 45 percent of the funding came in the form of loans from international development institutions.
Marc Benioff

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff isn't happy about the prospects of filmmaker George Lucas opening his own museum in San Francisco  a plan that was rejected two years ago by the city.

In a series of tweets on Monday, Benioff voiced his opposition to San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee's lobbying campaign to bring back the rights to build Lucas' museum to the city. The filmmaker wants a place to exhibit his popular-art collection.

After failing to get the approval in San Francisco in 2014, Lucas has been working with Chicago city officials to build his own museum there, although the plan has recently hit a roadblock following a lawsuit.

Now Lucas and Lee have held talks about putting the museum on San Francisco's Treasure Island, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. But that's already raising some opposition.

"SF @sfgov & @mayoredlee should only support Lucas Museum if George Lucas does something for SF Schools, Hospitals, & Homeless," Benioff tweeted.

The tweets seem to raise concerns around the additional cost and tax breaks the city of San Francisco would accrue as a result of supporting Lucas' museum.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Lucas' proposed museum in Chicago would cost $1.2 billion, of which Lucas pledged to pay roughly $700 million. The rest would have to be paid off by the city, which is one of the reasons why Lucas' museum still hasn't been approved for construction in Chicago.

Salesforce declined to comment.

Benioff's tweets against Lucas and Lee are the latest in the billionaire CEO's many acts of social activism.

He's recently helped reverse a couple of "antigay" laws in the states of Georgia and Indiana by threatening to reduce investments in the regions. He's also known for rallying other CEOs to join his cause in order to win more public support, earning the nickname "corporate bully" from certain lawmakers.

Here are Benioff's tweets in response to Lee and Lucas:

Story continues

@matierandross If G Lucas does something for SF Schools, Hospitals, & Homeless then @mayoredlee @LondonBreed ok otherwise no way!  Marc Benioff (@Benioff) May 16, 2016

Oh man the 2nd headline tells the whole story. Tax breaks for businesses and teachers can take a hike. #SanFrancisco https://t.co/bWwunKsQyS  Normal Josh Kelly (@jcoltkelly) May 16, 2016

Im getting tired of @SuperBowl sell outs of our city without regard to our public schools, hospitals, & homeless. pic.twitter.com/wp3Ue7xXo6  Marc Benioff (@Benioff) May 16, 2016

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CIA Director John Brennan, Sen. Dianne Feinstein. (Photo Illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP, Reuters)

The CIA inspector generals office  the spy agencys internal watchdog  has acknowledged it mistakenly destroyed its only copy of a mammoth Senate torture report at the same time lawyers for the Justice Department were assuring a federal judge that copies of the document were being preserved, Yahoo News has learned.

While another copy of the report exists elsewhere at the CIA, the erasure of the controversial document by the office charged with policing agency conduct has alarmed the U.S. senator who oversaw the torture investigation and reignited a behind-the-scenes battle over whether the full unabridged report should ever be released, according to multiple intelligence community sources familiar with the incident.

The deletion of the document has been portrayed by agency officials to Senate investigators as an inadvertent foul-up by the inspector general. In what one intelligence community source described as a series of errors straight out of the Keystone Cops, CIA inspector general officials deleted an uploaded computer file with the report and then accidentally destroyed a disk that also contained the document, filled with thousands of secret files about the CIAs use of enhanced interrogation methods.

Its breathtaking that this could have happened, especially in the inspector generals office  theyre the ones that are supposed to be providing accountability within the agency itself, said Douglas Cox, a City University of New York School of Law professor who specializes in tracking the preservation of federal records. It makes you wonder what was going on over there?

The incident was privately disclosed to the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Justice Department last summer, the sources said. But the destruction of a copy of the sensitive report has never been made public. Nor was it reported to the federal judge who, at the time, was overseeing a lawsuit seeking access to the still classified document under the Freedom of Information Act, according to a review of court files in the case.

Story continues

A CIA spokesman, while not publicly commenting on the circumstances of the erasure, emphasized that another unopened computer disk with the full report has been, and still is, locked in a vault at agency headquarters. I can assure you that the CIA has retained a copy, wrote Dean Boyd, the agencys chief of public affairs, in an email.

The 6,700-page report, the product of years of work by the Senate Intelligence Committee, contains meticulous details, including original CIA cables and memos, on the agencys use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other aggressive interrogation methods at black site prisons overseas. A 500-page executive summary was released in December 2014 by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committees outgoing chair. It concluded that the CIAs interrogations were far more brutal than the agency had publicly acknowledged and produced often unreliable intelligence. The findings drew sharp dissents from Republicans on the panel and from four former CIA directors.

But the full three-volume report, which formed the basis for the executive summary, has never been released. In light of a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling last week that the document is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, there are new questions about whether it will ever be made public, or even be preserved.

After receiving inquiries from Yahoo News, Feinstein, now the vice chair of the committee, wrote CIA Director John Brennan last Friday night asking him to immediately provide a new copy of the full report to the inspector generals office.

Your prompt response will allay my concern that this was more than an accident, Feinstein wrote, adding that the full report includes extensive information directly related to the IGs ongoing oversight of the CIA. (CIA spokesman Boyd declined to comment.)

The incident is the latest twist in the ongoing battle over the report, and comes in the midst of a charged political debate over torture. Likely Republican Party nominee Donald Trump has vowed to resume such methods  and a lot more  in the war against the Islamic State. I love it, I love it, Trump recently said, describing his views on waterboarding. The only thing is, we should make it much tougher than waterboarding. )

The CIA allegedly tortured two terror suspects, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, in its secret facility in Poland. Shown here in this 2005 photo is a watchtower near the Polish intelligence school just outside of Stare Kiejkuty, Poland. (Photo: Czarek Sokolowski/AP)



Ironically in light of the inspector generals actions, the intelligence committees investigation was triggered by the CIAs admission in 2007 that it had destroyed another key piece of evidence  hours of videotapes of the waterboarding of two high value detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

According to a brief by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is seeking release of the full report under the Freedom of Information Act, the document describes widespread and horrific human rights abuses by the CIA and details the agencys evasions and misrepresentations to Congress, the courts and the public.

To ensure the document was circulated widely within the government, and to preserve it for future declassification, Feinstein, in her closing days as chair, instructed that computer disks containing the full report be sent to the CIA and its inspector general, as well as the other U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Aides said Feinstein specifically included a separate copy for the CIA inspector general because she wanted the office to undertake a full review. Her goal, as she wrote at the time, was to ensure that the system of detention and interrogation described in this report is never repeated.

But her successor, Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, quickly asked for all of the disks to be returned, even threatening at one point to send a committee security officer to retrieve them. He contended the volumes are congressional records that were never intended for executive branch, much less public, distribution.

The administration, while not complying with Burrs demand to return the disks, has essentially sided with him against releasing them to the public. Early last year, Justice lawyers instructed federal agencies to keep their copies of the document under lock and key, unopened, lest the courts treat them as government records subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Weeks later, in an effort to head off a motion for emergency relief by the ACLU, a Justice Department lawyer told U.S. Judge James Boasberg that no copies of the report would be returned to Congress or destroyed; the government can assure the Court that it will preserve the status quo until the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit was resolved, wrote Vesper Mei, a senior counsel in the Justice Departments civil division, in a February 2015 filing.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein discusses a newly released Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIAs antiterrorism tactics on Capitol Hill in December 2014. (Photo: Senate TV/Reuters)

But last August, a chagrined Christopher R. Sharpley, the CIAs acting inspector general, alerted the Senate intelligence panel that his offices copy of the report had vanished. According to sources familiar with Sharpleys account, he explained it this way: When it received its disk, the inspector generals office uploaded the contents onto its internal classified computer system and destroyed the disk in what Sharpley described as the normal course of business. Meanwhile someone in the IG office interpreted the Justice Departments instructions not to open the file to mean it should be deleted from the server  so that both the original and the copy were gone.

At some point, it is not clear when, after being informed by CIA general counsel Caroline Krass that the Justice Department wanted all copies of the document preserved, officials in the inspector generals office undertook a search to find its copy of the report. They discovered, S***, we dont have one, said one of the sources briefed on Sharpleys account.

Sharpley was apologetic about the destruction and promised to ask CIA director Brennan for another copy. But as of last week, he seems not to have received it; after Yahoo News began asking about the matter, he called intelligence committee staffers to ask if he could get a new copy from them.

Sharpley also told Senate committee aides he had reported the destruction of the disk to the CIAs general counsels office, and Krass passed that information along to the Justice Department. But there is no record in court filings that department lawyers ever informed the judge overseeing the case that the inspector generals office had destroyed its copy of the report.

The episode was viewed among intelligence committee aides as another embarrassment for the inspector generals office. Months earlier, a CIA accountability board had overruled the IGs findings that agency officials had improperly searched computers used by Senate investigators working on the report. Sharpley has been serving as acting inspector general since his predecessor, David Buckley, resigned in January 2015. The White House has yet to nominate a successor.

A Justice Department spokesman said on Friday that, since the inspector generals office is, by statute, a unit of the CIA, and the agency still had its copy, the status quo  was preserved. But Feinstein, in a separate letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch last Friday, took a different view: She asked that the Justice Department notify the federal courts involved in the Freedom of Information Act litigation about the destruction.

At issue in the ongoing legal dispute is whether the report is subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The administration says no, and a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals last week agreed, ruling that it is a congressional document not subject to FOIA, under the terms of a 2009 letter by which the Senate panel had received access to CIA files. The judges did write, however, that the executive branch does have some discretion to use the full report for internal purposes. The ACLU said on Friday it was considering our options for appeal; CIA spokesman Boyd said the agencys copy of the report would be retained pending the final result of the litigation. But he pointedly made no mention of what would happen to the CIAs copy of the report after that.

CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. (Photo: Charles Ommanney/Getty Images)

In the meantime, Feinstein, joined by Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, has taken a different route, petitioning David S. Ferriero, the chief of the National Archives, to formally declare the report a federal record that must be preserved in the public interest under a law known as the Federal Records Act.

In a letter last month, the senators expressed concerns that federal agencies might destroy their copies of the report. No part of the executive branch has ruled out destroying or sending back the full report to Congress after the conclusion of the current FOIA litigation, they wrote in an April 13, 2016, letter. A similar point was raised by more than 30 advocacy groups who noted in a separate letter to Ferriero last month that the archivist had a duty to act whenever there was a threat that government records are at risk of unauthorized destruction.

Ferriero on April 29 wrote back to Feinstein that he would not rule on the question until the FOIA court case is concluded. And last week, Burr renewed his call to have all copies of the report sent back  presumably a way to ensure they are never publicly released. Citing the new Court of Appeals ruling, Sen. Burr anticipates the return of these full reports to the Senate Intelligence Committee, a spokeswoman said.
Barry Bennett, senior political advisor to Donald Trump, will meet with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the companys headquarters on Wednesday. The meeting comes after allegations that the site suppressed headlines from conservative media outlets in its trending news section, as first reported by Gizmodo.

Zuckerberg has been critical of Trump, but in a Facebook post on Thursday pledged to sit down with conservative leaders. I want to have a direct conversation about what Facebook stands for and how we can be sure our platform stays as open as possible, Zuckerberg wrote.

Bennett, who previously served as campaign manager to former presidential candidate Ben Carson, will join former senator Jim DeMint, Foxs Dana Perino, the Blazes Glenn Beck, CNNs SE Cupp and the American Enterprise Institutes Arthur Brooks, and Mitt Romneys former Digital Director Zac Moffett at Facebook headquarters.

The question that needs to be answered Wednesday is: Will Mark see this as an opportunity to free all points of view but at the same time unify America and the world, Beck wrote on Facebook. While they are a private business and I support their right to run it any way they desire without government interference, it would be wonderful if a tool like face book INDEPENDENTLY CHOSE to hold up Freedom of speech and freedom of association as a corporate principle.

Conservative CNN commentator Cupp, told CNN shes looking forward to the meeting. Conservatives and Silicon Valley actually come down on the same side of many issues and share some common concerns, Cupp said. Im sure well find plenty to talk about, and Im honored to have been included.

Last Monday, Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) sent a letter to Zuckerberg demanding answers about Facebooks practices, and according to CNN, more meetings with conservative leaders are expected.

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* Advent and Baxter also among suitors for Gland -sources in April

* Gland, maker of injectable drugs, is backed by KKR

* Fosun International has spent about $30 bln in outbound M&A (Updates shares; adds Fosun M&A history)

By Donny Kwok and Denny Thomas

HONG KONG, May 16 (Reuters) - Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co has made a non-binding proposal to buy India's Gland Pharma, which is backed by KKR and valued at up to $1.5 billion, to boost its drug manufacturing and research and development capacity.

Shanghai Fosun's announcement on Monday of its interest in Gland Pharma is the first major move on a deal by the Fosun group of companies since Guo Guangchang, one of China's best-known entrepreneurs and the founder of flagship investment holding company Fosun International, briefly went missing late last year.

The move is also a departure from the group's strategy of largely targeting companies in developed markets and comes after sources said last week that Fosun International was among suitors bidding for ACR Capital Holdings, the owner of Singapore's biggest reinsurance firm.

Gland Pharma founders and KKR, who jointly own about 96 percent of the Hyderabad-based injectable drugs manufacturer, are selling their combined stake, valued at between $1 billion and $1.5 billion, people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters in April.

Global buyout firm Advent International and U.S.-based Baxter International are also among suitors preparing to submit separate bids to buy Gland Pharma, the people had said. Advent, Baxter and KKR had declined to comment.

Shanghai Fosun said the proposal was made through its unit Fosun Industrial Co Ltd. The company gave no further details.

Shanghai Fosun shares closed up 0.9 percent on Monday, in line with a 0.7 percent rise in the benchmark Shanghai share index. The company has a market value of about $6.5 billion.

DRIVING FORCE

Billionaire Guo has been the key driving force behind the group's M&A push and his disappearance had raised concerns about Fosun and its group companies' ability to pursue outbound deals. He returned to work after assisting authorities with an investigation.

Story continues

Fosun has slowed down on acquisitions after spending about $30 billion in outbound M&A over the past two decades, largely acquiring insurance companies and other real estate assets mainly in Europe and the United States.

In recent months, Fosun has scrapped bids for Israeli insurer Phoenix Holdings Ltd and Anglo-German banking group BHF Kleinwort Benson Group and is more focused on bringing its debt under control.

But Guo, a self-styled disciple of Warren Buffett, told Bloomberg this month the company will actively look for investments in countries including Brazil, Russia, India and China as there are fewer investment opportunities in Europe and the United States as the overall valuations have come expensive.

(Reporting by Donny Kwok and Denny Thomas; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / The following statement is being issued by Levi & Korsinsky, LLP:

To: All Persons or Entities who purchased Nanosphere, Inc.(NSPH) stock prior to May 16, 2016 .

You are hereby notified that Levi & Korsinsky, LLP has commenced an investigation into the fairness of the sale of Nanosphere to Luminex Corporation (LMNX) for $1.35 in cash per share. To learn more about the action and your rights, go to: http://zlk.9nl.com/nanosphere-nsph or contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. either via email at jlevi@zlk.com or by telephone at (212) 363-7500, toll-free: (877) 363-5972. There is no cost or obligation to you.

Levi & Korsinsky is a national firm with offices in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California, and Washington D.C. The firm's attorneys have extensive expertise in prosecuting securities litigation involving financial fraud, representing investors throughout the nation in securities lawsuits and have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for aggrieved shareholders. For more information, please feel free to contact any of the attorneys listed below. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Levi & Korsinsky, LLP

Joseph Levi, Esq.

Eduard Korsinsky, Esq.

30 Broad Street - 24th Floor

New York, NY 10004

Tel: (212) 363-7500

Toll Free: (877) 363-5972

Fax: (212) 363-7171

www.zlk.com

SOURCE: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / The following statement is being issued by Levi & Korsinsky, LLP:

To: All Persons or Entities who purchased Memorial Resource Development Corp. (MRD) stock prior to May 16, 2016 .

You are hereby notified that Levi & Korsinsky, LLP has commenced an investigation into the fairness of the sale of Memorial Resource Development to Range Resources Corp. (RRC). Under the terms of the transaction, Memorial Resource Development shareholders will receive 0.375 shares of Range Resources Corp. stock for each share held, representing an approximate value of $15.75 a share. The transaction has a total approximate value of $4.4 billion, including the assumption of $1.1 billion in debt. To learn more about the action and your rights, go to: http://zlk.9nl.com/memorial-resource-mrd or contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. either via email at jlevi@zlk.com or by telephone at (212) 363-7500, toll-free: (877) 363-5972. There is no cost or obligation to you.

Levi & Korsinsky is a national firm with offices in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California, and Washington D.C. The firm's attorneys have extensive expertise in prosecuting securities litigation involving financial fraud, representing investors throughout the nation in securities lawsuits and have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for aggrieved shareholders. For more information, please feel free to contact any of the attorneys listed below. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Levi & Korsinsky, LLP

Joseph Levi, Esq.

Eduard Korsinsky, Esq.

30 Broad Street - 24th Floor

New York, NY 10004

Tel: (212) 363-7500

Toll Free: (877) 363-5972

Fax: (212) 363-7171

www.zlk.com

SOURCE: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / Levi & Korsinsky announces it has commenced an investigation of Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (BIO) concerning possible breaches of fiduciary duty by the board of directors of the company. To obtain additional information, go to: http://zlk.9nl.com/bio-rad-laboratories or contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. either via email at jlevi@zlk.com or by telephone at (212) 363-7500, toll-free: (877) 363-5972.

Levi & Korsinsky is a national firm with offices in New York, New Jersey, California, Connecticut and Washington D.C. The firm's attorneys have extensive expertise in prosecuting securities litigation involving financial fraud, representing investors throughout the nation in securities and shareholder lawsuits. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

CONTACT:

Levi & Korsinsky, LLP

Eduard Korsinsky, Esq.

30 Broad Street - 24th Floor

New York, NY 10004

Tel: (212) 363-7500

Toll Free: (877) 363-5972

Fax: (212) 363-7171

www.zlk.com

SOURCE: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / Purcell Julie & Lefkowitz LLP, a class action law firm dedicated to representing shareholders nationwide, is investigating a potential breach of fiduciary duty claim involving the board of directors of Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (BIO).

If you are a shareholder of Bio-Rad and are interested in obtaining additional information regarding this investigation, free of charge, please visit us at: http://pjlfirm.com/bio-rad-laboratories-inc/.

You may also contact Robert H. Lefkowitz, Esq. either via email at rl@pjlfirm.com or by telephone at 212-725-1000. One of our attorneys will personally speak with you about the case at no cost or obligation.

Purcell Julie & Lefkowitz LLP is a law firm exclusively committed to representing shareholders nationwide who are victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty and other types of corporate misconduct. For more information about the firm and its attorneys, please visit http://pjlfirm.com. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

SOURCE: Purcell Julie & Lefkowitz LLP
Business owners in the Golden State are complaining that a ballot measure is hurting business. A year and a half ago, the California shoplifting law changed so that any stolen item below $950 would be charged as a misdemeanor. Law enforcement says this may be a reason for a spike in crime.

When you normalize criminal behavior, youre going to get more of it. When you punish criminal behavior, youre going to get less of it, said Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke to the FOX Business Networks Stuart Varney.

According to Clarke, since the ballot measure was imposed, the ten largest cities in California have seen a 10% increase in violent crime and a rise in 9 of the 10 largest cities in property crime.

They look at these individuals, these criminals, as victims now. They are no longer looked at as being a stain on civil life in the state of California They feel sorry for them and they dont want to stigmatize criminal behavior  but you have to keep criminal behavior stigmatized otherwise youll see a total collapse of the social order The cops are now the bad guys and the criminals are the victims, he said.

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Thank you, Marie. And thank you esteemed members of the faculty, proud parents, devoted friends, squirming siblings.



Congratulations to all of youand especially to the magnificent Berkeley graduating class of 2016!



It is a privilege to be here at Berkeley, which has produced so many Nobel Prize winners, Turing Award winners, astronauts, members of Congress, Olympic gold medalists. and that's just the women!



Berkeley has always been ahead of the times. In the 1960s, you led the Free Speech Movement. Back in those days, people used to say that with all the long hair, how do we even tell the boys from the girls? We now know the answer: manbuns.



Early on, Berkeley opened its doors to the entire population. When this campus opened in 1873, the class included 167 men and 222 women. It took my alma mater another ninety years to award a single degree to a single woman.



One of the women who came here in search of opportunity was Rosalind Nuss. Roz grew up scrubbing floors in the Brooklyn boardinghouse where she lived. She was pulled out of high school by her parents to help support their family. One of her teachers insisted that her parents put her back into school - and in 1937, she sat where you are sitting today and received a Berkeley degree. Roz was my grandmother. She was a huge inspiration to me and I'm so grateful that Berkeley recognized her potential. I want to take a moment to offer a special congratulations to the many here today who are the first generation in their families to graduate from college. What a remarkable achievement.



Today is a day of celebration. A day to celebrate all the hard work that got you to this moment.



Today is a day of thanks. A day to thank those who helped you get here - nurtured you, taught you, cheered you on, and dried your tears. Or at least the ones who didn't draw on you with a Sharpie when you fell asleep at a party.



Today is a day of reflection. Because today marks the end of one era of your life and the beginning of something new.



A commencement address is meant to be a dance between youth and wisdom. You have the youth. Someone comes in to be the voice of wisdom - that's supposed to be me. I stand up here and tell you all the things I have learned in life, you throw your cap in the air, you let your family take a million photos  don't forget to post them on Instagram - and everyone goes home happy.



Today will be a bit different. We will still do the caps and you still have to do the photos. But I am not here to tell you all the things I've learned in life. Today I will try to tell you what I learned in death.



I have never spoken publicly about this before. It's hard. But I will do my very best not to blow my nose on this beautiful Berkeley robe.



One year and thirteen days ago, I lost my husband, Dave. His death was sudden and unexpected. We were at a friend's fiftieth birthday party in Mexico. I took a nap. Dave went to work out. What followed was the unthinkable - walking into a gym to find him lying on the floor. Flying home to tell my children that their father was gone. Watching his casket being lowered into the ground.



For many months afterward, and at many times since, I was swallowed up in the deep fog of grief - what I think of as the void - an emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even to breathe.



Dave's death changed me in very profound ways. I learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss. But I also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface, and breathe again. I learned that in the face of the void - or in the face of any challenge-you can choose joy and meaning.



I'm sharing this with you in the hopes that today, as you take the next step in your life, you can learn the lessons that I only learned in death. Lessons about hope, strength, and the light within us that will not be extinguished.



Everyone who has made it through Cal has already experienced some disappointment. You wanted an A but you got a B. OK, let's be honest - you got an A- but you're still mad. You applied for an internship at Facebook, but you only got one from Google. She was the love of your life but then she swiped left. Game of Thrones the show has diverged way too much from the books - and you bothered to read all four thousand three hundred and fifty-two pages.



You will almost certainly face more and deeper adversity. There's loss of opportunity: the job that doesn't work out, the illness or accident that changes everything in an instant. There's loss of dignity: the sharp sting of prejudice when it happens. There's loss of love: the broken relationships that can't be fixed. And sometimes there's loss of life itself.



Some of you have already experienced the kind of tragedy and hardship that leave an indelible mark. Last year, Radhika, the winner of the University Medal, spoke so beautifully about the sudden loss of her mother.



The question is not if some of these things will happen to you. They will. Today I want to talk about what happens next. About the things you can do to overcome adversity, no matter what form it takes or when it hits you. The easy days ahead of you will be easy. It is the hard days - the times that challenge you to your very core - that will determine who you are. You will be defined not just by what you achieve, but by how you survive.



A few weeks after Dave died, I was talking to my friend Phil about a father-son activity that Dave was not here to do. We came up with a plan to fill in for Dave. I cried to him, "But I want Dave." Phil put his arm around me and said, "Option A is not available. So let's just kick the shit out of option B."



We all at some point live some form of option B. The question is: What do we do then?

As a representative of Silicon Valley, I'm pleased to tell you there is data to learn from. After spending decades studying how people deal with setbacks, psychologist Martin Seligman found that there are three P's - personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence - that are critical to how we bounce back from hardship. The seeds of resilience are planted in the way we process the negative events in our lives.



The first P is personalization - the belief that we are at fault. This is different from taking responsibility, which you should always do. This is the lesson that not everything that happens to us happens because of us.



When Dave died, I had a very common reaction, which was to blame myself. He died in seconds from a cardiac arrhythmia. I poured over his medical records asking what I could have - or should have - done. It wasn't until I learned about the three P's that I accepted that I could not have prevented his death. His doctors had not identified his coronary artery disease. I was an economics major; how could I have?



Studies show that getting past personalization can actually make you stronger. Teachers who knew they could do better after students failed adjusted their methods and saw future classes go on to excel. College swimmers who underperformed but believed they were capable of swimming faster did. Not taking failures personally allows us to recover - and even to thrive.

The second P is pervasiveness - the belief that an event will affect all areas of your life. You know that song "Everything is awesome?" This is the flip: "Everything is awful." There's no place to run or hide from the all-consuming sadness.



The child psychologists I spoke to encouraged me to get my kids back to their routine as soon as possible. So ten days after Dave died, they went back to school and I went back to work. I remember sitting in my first Facebook meeting in a deep, deep haze. All I could think was, "What is everyone talking about and how could this possibly matter?" But then I got drawn into the discussion and for a second - a brief split second - I forgot about death.



That brief second helped me see that there were other things in my life that were not awful. My children and I were healthy. My friends and family were so loving and they carried us - quite literally at times.



The loss of a partner often has severe negative financial consequences, especially for women. So many single mothers - and fathers - struggle to make ends meet or have jobs that don't allow them the time they need to care for their children. I had financial security, the ability to take the time off I needed, and a job that I did not just believe in, but where it's actually OK to spend all day on Facebook. Gradually, my children started sleeping through the night, crying less, playing more.



The third P is permanence - the belief that the sorrow will last forever. For months, no matter what I did, it felt like the crushing grief would always be there.



We often project our current feelings out indefinitely - and experience what I think of as the second derivative of those feelings. We feel anxious - and then we feel anxious that we're anxious. We feel sad - and then we feel sad that we're sad. Instead, we should accept our feelings - but recognize that they will not last forever. My rabbi told me that time would heal but for now I should "lean in to the suck." It was good advice, but not really what I meant by "lean in."



None of you need me to explain the fourth Pwhich is, of course, pizza from Cheese Board.

But I wish I had known about the three P's when I was your age. There were so many times these lessons would have helped.



Day one of my first job out of college, my boss found out that I didn't know how to enter data into Lotus 1-2-3. That's a spreadsheet - ask your parents. His mouth dropped open and he said, 'I can't believe you got this job without knowing that" - and then walked out of the room. I went home convinced that I was going to be fired. I thought I was terrible at everything but it turns out I was only terrible at spreadsheets. Understanding pervasiveness would have saved me a lot of anxiety that week.



I wish I had known about permanence when I broke up with boyfriends. It would've been a comfort to know that feeling was not going to last forever, and if I was being honest with myself neither were any of those relationships.



And I wish I had understood personalization when boyfriends broke up with me. Sometimes it's not you - it really is them. I mean, that dude never showered.



And all three P's ganged up on me in my twenties after my first marriage ended in divorce. I thought at the time that no matter what I accomplished, I was a massive failure.



The three P's are common emotional reactions to so many things that happen to us - in our careers, our personal lives, and our relationships. You're probably feeling one of them right now about something in your life. But if you can recognize you are falling into these traps, you can catch yourself. Just as our bodies have a physiological immune system, our brains have a psychological immune system - and there are steps you can take to help kick it into gear.



One day my friend Adam Grant, a psychologist, suggested that I think about how much worse things could be. This was completely counterintuitive; it seemed like the way to recover was to try to find positive thoughts. "Worse?" I said. "Are you kidding me? How could things be worse?" His answer cut straight through me: "Dave could have had that same cardiac arrhythmia while he was driving your children." Wow. The moment he said it, I was overwhelmingly grateful that the rest of my family was alive and healthy. That gratitude overtook some of the grief.



Finding gratitude and appreciation is key to resilience. People who take the time to list things they are grateful for are happier and healthier. It turns out that counting your blessings can actually increase your blessings. My New Year's resolution this year is to write down three moments of joy before I go to bed each night. This simple practice has changed my life.



Because no matter what happens each day, I go to sleep thinking of something cheerful. Try it. Start tonight when you have so many fun moments to list - although maybe do it before you hit Kip's and can still remember what they are.



Last month, eleven days before the anniversary of Dave's death, I broke down crying to a friend of mine. We were sitting - of all places - on a bathroom floor. I said: "Eleven days. One year ago, he had eleven days left. And we had no idea." We looked at each other through tears, and asked how we would live if we knew we had eleven days left.



As you graduate, can you ask yourselves to live as if you had eleven days left? I don't mean blow everything off and party all the time - although tonight is an exception. I mean live with the understanding of how precious every single day would be. How precious every day actually is.



A few years ago, my mom had to have her hip replaced. When she was younger, she always walked without pain. But as her hip disintegrated, each step became painful. Now, even years after her operation, she is grateful for every step she takes without pain - something that never would have occurred to her before.



As I stand here today, a year after the worst day of my life, two things are true. I have a huge reservoir of sadness that is with me always - right here where I can touch it. I never knew I could cry so often - or so much.



But I am also aware that I am walking without pain. For the first time, I am grateful for each breath in and out - grateful for the gift of life itself. I used to celebrate my birthday every five years and friends' birthdays sometimes. Now I celebrate always. I used to go to sleep worrying about all the things I messed up that day - and trust me that list was often quite long. Now I try really hard to focus on each day's moments of joy.



It is the greatest irony of my life that losing my husband helped me find deeper gratitude - gratitude for the kindness of my friends, the love of my family, and the laughter of my children. My hope for you is that you can find that gratitude - not just on the good days, like today, but on the hard ones, when you will really need it.



There are so many moments of joy ahead of you. That trip you always wanted to take. A first kiss with someone you really like. The day you get a job doing something you truly believe in. Beating Stanford. (Go Bears!) All of these things will happen to you. Enjoy each and every one.



I hope that you live your life - each precious day of it - with joy and meaning. I hope that you walk without pain - and that you are grateful for each step.



And when the challenges come, I hope you remember that anchored deep within you is the ability to learn and grow. You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. Like a muscle, you can build it up, draw on it when you need it. In that process you will figure out who you really are - and you just might become the very best version of yourself.



Class of 2016, as you leave Berkeley, build resilience.



Build resilience in yourselves. When tragedy or disappointment strike, know that you have the ability to get through absolutely anything. I promise you do. As the saying goes, we are more vulnerable than we ever thought, but we are stronger than we ever imagined.



Build resilient organizations. If anyone can do it, you can, because Berkeley is filled with people who want to make the world a better place. Never stop working to do so - whether it's a boardroom that is not representative or a campus that's not safe. Speak up, especially at institutions like this one, which you hold so dear. My favorite poster at work reads, "Nothing at Facebook is someone else's problem." When you see something that's broken, go fix it.



Build resilient communities. We find our humanity - our will to live and our ability to love - in our connections to one another. Be there for your family and friends. And I mean in person. Not just in a message with a heart emoji.



Lift each other up, help each other kick the shit out of option B - and celebrate each and every moment of joy.



You have the whole world in front of you. I can't wait to see what you do with it.



Congratulations, and Go Bears!


Cheap fuel boosted yields.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) core profit after tax and minority interest (PATMI) skyrocketed 95% to $701.6m in FY16. This is after stripping out exceptional non-operating items like dividends from investment, as well as refund of fines to SIA Cargo.

According to a report by OCBC, SIAs revenue for the financial year dipped 2.2% to $15.2b on lower yields at parent airline and its cargo business. This was partially offset, though, by revenue growth from SilkAir and Scoot on capacity and carriage growth.

Meanwhile, net fuel cost for FY16 tumbled 18.9% to $4.5b despite a 41.3% plunge in average jet fuel price, as it was partly mitigated by a 107.4% jump in hedging loss.

OCBC notes that parent airline as well as SIA Cargo saw FY16 yield slide 5.4% and 11.6% respectively, mainly on excess capacity in the market. While SilkAir and Scoot embarked on capacity expansion in FY16, yields slipped 2.9% for SilkAir and was flat for Scoot.

We believe SIAs improving fuel hedges couldn't have come at a better timea period of intense competition where weak yield environment is the result. In our view, the key factor is whether SIAs declining unit cost from cheaper jet fuel is able to outpace the weak yields outlook, asserts OCBC.

As SIA plans to take delivery of 13 new fuel-efficient A350-900s and returning five less fuel-efficient aircraft to lessors in FY17, more fuel costs savings are expected other than that from improved fuel hedges. However, full impact will only likely be see from FY18 onwards.

Note that Scoot benefited from rapid expansion and delivery of the new B787s throughout FY16 recording a S$95m improvement in operating profit to S$28m. We also expect more meaningful impact in FY16 from SIA enhancing connectivity between Scoot and Tigerair network, states OCBC.

All said, we expect decline in costs driven mainly by cheaper fuel to mitigate the weak yields environment, OCBC adds.





More From Singapore Business Review


TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / Silver Shield Resources Corp., (CSE:SSR), (the "Corporation") announced today that the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") has granted the Corporation full approval to implement both its name change, and change of business. Effective May 18th, 2016, at market open, the name of the Corporation will change to "Gunpowder Capital Corp.," from the current name "Silver Shield Resources Corp." Furthermore, the common shares of the Corporation will trade under the new name, and under the new corresponding trading symbol, "GPC". The Corporation's new website address will be www.gunpowdercapitalcorp.com.

The Corporation's shareholders previously approved the aforementioned changes at the Corporation's Special Meeting of Shareholders which was held January 28th, 2016. Furthermore, as a requirement by the CSE, the Corporation also received shareholder consent from its shareholders with 9,830,455 shares consenting to the changes, out of the 18,098,954 eligible shares. The Board has also unanimously approved the proposed changes, and Management has filed the required articles of amendment in order to implement the changes.

Mr. Frank Kordy stated: "The Board and I are very pleased to have finally completed our strategic transformation from Mining & Exploration into Merchant Banking. The Board and I strongly feel that the completion of this process will be beneficial to our shareholders as the new business model offers more revenue generating opportunities, and will allow the Corporation the ability to make strategic investments into many diverse sectors. The Corporation has come a long way over the course of the last year, and we are excited to have the ability to now focus more energy on business development endeavors vs. restructuring. We remain committed in continuing building this business."

For further information please contact:

Mr. Frank Kordy

Interim CEO

Silver Shield Resources Corp.;

T: (647) 466-4037

E: frank.kordy@silvershieldresources.net

Forward-Looking Statements

Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. The forward-looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements included in this document are made as of the date of this document and the Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation. Although Management believes that the expectations represented in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such. Neither CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Silver Shield Resources Corp.
I think globally each week. Do you? Follow me on twitter @johnblank100



In the last 4 months of 2016, (February to May) major stock indices and the U.S. 10-year Treasury rate entered a new trading range.



Risk-on and long gets rates up to near 2.0% on 10-yr Treasuries

Risk-off and short gets rates back to 1.70% where the 10-yr left off last Friday



On Monday May 16th, this Global Week Ahead started U.S. Treasuries at 1.73%. The markets show you a modest shift back into a Risk-on and long posture in this trading range.



This rotation should catch your interest.

In the latest swing trade, the 10-yr hit 1.93% late in April. Stock indices topped off. Then, the 10-yr risk-free rate headed down for a 3-week range-trading journey to the 1.70% bottom. On the way down, traders sell stock indices. They put the money in a fixed income safe haven. Then, they reverse the swing trade at the bottom of the trading range.



Rinse and repeat.



Without any fresh macro catalysts, this is what traders do to major stock indices and fixed income.



After reviewing coming global-macro indicators in the Global Week Ahead, there is nothing to get excited about. News of a stronger U.S. housing construction sector is coming this week -- in terms of permits, starts, and leading indicators. This data is likely fully priced in.



GDPNow says Q2 GDP growth for the U.S. economy will be +2.8%. A fully anticipated seasonal spring rebound is on for the U.S. economy.

If you just want to play the new 2016 trading range, I have an idea for you.



An interesting Zacks #1 Rank stock to look at is Chipmos Tech (IMOS). This is a Taiwanese company. It is an independent provider of total semiconductor testing and packaging solutions to fabless companies.



This stock is a small-cap at $468 million. Shares are priced at the bottom of a trading range at $17 a share. The stock has a Zacks Value rating of A. The respected investor Seth Klarmans Baupost Group controls 13.75% of ChipMOS.



What isnt in a trading range is the price of oil!



Global Brent crude oil prices rose to nearly $49 a barrel on Monday. Thats a 7-month high. This week, Energy is a #65 out of 265 (top 29%) Zacks-ranked Industry. The higher oil prices go, the higher Energy stocks go.



Oil price momentum is on.



If you are looking for an Energy sector stock ticker play, take a look at Zacks #1 Rank Seadrill (SDLP). This stock also gets a composite Zacks VGM rating of A.



This dirt-cheap $4.60 a share stock offers a PEG ratio of 0.06. It doesnt get much cheaper than that! The market cap is currently a paltry $360 million and the chart shows you nice upward trading momentum.



Seadrill Partners LLC is engaged in owning, operating and acquiring offshore drilling rigs. The company's drilling rigs are under long-term contracts with major oil companies. The firm is based in London.



Finally, for the more risk-averse, take a look at Adidas AG (ADDYY). This is the large cap global German shoe & apparel company. The $24.6 billion market cap stock holds a Zacks VGM rating of B.



These are the three most interesting global stocks up to a Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) over the weekend.



This Friday -- as is the tradition -- G7 finance ministers and central bankers meet in Japan. Finance minister and central banker meetings are held typically one week ahead of a 2-day meeting of G7 leaders planned for May 26th and May 27th.



Japan holds the presidency of the G7 this year. President Obama of the USA will visit the Hiroshima nuclear site on that Friday in two weeks time. Thats the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited.



Leading Global/Macro indictors Out This Week



On Monday, Japans PPI came in at -4.0%. That is not good. That is deflationary.



The unemployment rate in Turkey is 10.9%, down from 11.1% in the prior reading.

The unemployment rate in Peru is 6.9%, down from 7.2% in the prior reading.



The NAHB builders survey comes out in the U.S. Look for 59, slightly better than the previous 58.



The Feds Kashkari speaks in Minneapolis.



On Tuesday, the U.K. CPI should be up a paltry +0.5% y/y. Thats not much.



The U.K. input prices look to be down -6.8% y/y in unadjusted terms.



U.S. building permits should get to 1.135M, better than the prior 1.086M. Spring is here. Housing starts are looking for 1.125M, better than the prior 1.089M.



Japans GDP growth should get to +0.1% q/q, which is an annualized +0.3% rate. That is better than the prior -0.3% q/q, which annualized to -1.1%. Having written that, this is a poor growth rate at best.



The Feds Lockhart, Williams, and Kaplan speak.



On Wednesday, the U.K. ILO unemployment rate looks steady at 5.1%.



The Fed releases the latest FOMC minutes.



The ECB Governing Council meets in Frankfurt.



On Thursday, the Australian unemployment rate looks to be 5.8%.



In France, the ILO unemployment rate looks steady at 10.3%.



The U.K. retail sales (ex-auto and fuel) looks to be +2.6% y/y, about the same as the prior +2.7% reading.



The ECB minutes get released.



U.S. initial claims should be 275K.



The Feds Dudley speaks in NYC.



On Friday, Mexican GDP (revised) looks to grow +2.6% y/y. The latest quarter should be about +0.7% q/q. Its better than the +0.5% prior reading.



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



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From Popular Mechanics

With President Obama visiting Hiroshima and the Republican frontrunner calling for Japan and South Korea to arm themselves with nuclear weapons, the specter of atomic warfare is just about as present as its ever been. A new website from The Future of Life Institute shows-with brutal efficiency-what the fallout from an American nuke would look like for the rest of the world. It's not pretty.

Nuclear maps have been made before, but the FLI wanted to make it as modern as possible, with as many hypotheticals as you could ever hope to play out, so they've used a recently declassified list of American nuclear targets from 1956. While the targets have presumably changed since then, the wide-ranging list stretches across Europe and Asia.

The site runs through a series of grim hypotheticals, such as letting all 1,100 targets get blasted on the same day, which, perhaps to no great surprise, leads to a nuclear winter and the death of all life on Earth. Detonating on separate dates and shows how the wind and weather could change the death count and the countries afflicted, specifically how the fallout would end up hurting countries that weren't even the initial targets of the attacks.

Cleverly, the FLI also allows the user to select from "hall of fame," as it were, of famous nuclear missiles that you can select for your simulated strikes. So you can what it would be like for anything from the Fat Man to the Tsar Bomba to devastate any given target. It's a fascinating and chilling illustration of the horrific potential for death that is sitting in our nuclear arsenals. Let's just hope these strikes are never anything more than hypothetical.

Source: Motherboard
Hours after Wilmette, IL, police confirmed they were searching for Sinead O'Connor, who was reported missing since Sunday (May 15), the Wilmette Police Department announced that O'Connor has been safely located. "She is safe, and is no longer listed as a missing/endangered person," the Wilmette PD said in a statement released at 1:45 p.m. local time. Chicago Tribune first reported the news.

Earlier today (May 16), police told Billboard they were "seeking to check the well-being of Sinead O'Connor. O'Connor reportedly left the Wilmette area for a bicycle ride yesterday at 6:00 a.m. and has not returned. A caller has expressed concern for her well-being and no other information is available at this time."

Last fall, O'Connor was found safe after an alleged overdose in Dublin, following a Facebook post that many took as a potential suicide note. O'Connor has publicly discussed her PTSD, including depression and suicidal thoughts, in the past.

Following the death of Prince (who wrote O'Connor's most famous song, "Nothing Compares 2 U"), O'Connor accused Arsenio Hall of supplying drugs to the musical icon. Hall responded with a $5 million defamation lawsuit, which O'Connor said she was "amused" by.
Skepta_Konnichiwa_800_border_1fcef136-9b34-45a0-bd0a-b17034ba4eb0_grande

By Constant Gardner

This Skepta album is fire! Its his first one, right? a friend and hip-hop fan asked me earlier this week. It got me thinking about the unique position the British MC and producer now finds himself ina veteran in music and a legend in the grime scene, but an unknown quantity for many American rap fans who are being introduced to him through a Drake Instagram or a Hot97 interview.

Konnichiwa, Skeptas fourth studio album, successfully navigates his cross-Atlantic appeal, proving that its possible for a grime artist to make an album that resonates with rap listeners without losing any of its distinctly British edge. Just the way that drill music is something thats different in Chicago, grime is just a different style of rap, Skepta told us in 2014, and his vision of the future is one in which Londons raw street music can and will be accepted and appreciated worldwide.

Skepta is not the first grime artist to gain recognition Stateside. Dizzee Rascals 2003 debut album Boy in da Corner was critically acclaimed at home and abroad, winning the UKs prestigious Mercury Prize and scoring a 9.4 review from Pitchfork the same year. Although music did not spread as quickly around the world in those pre-SoundCloud, pre-Spotify days of promo CDs being sent abroad, it wasnt long until Dizzee was touring America. He played his first show in Williamsburg, New York in 2004 and would go on to perform with N.E.R.D. and make songs with U.G.K.

In an interesting twist of fate, Dizzee was actually back in New York playing Boy in da Corner in full the same week as Skepta released Konnichiwa. Although the two artists are not close friendssee Skeptas stone-faced reaction when Peter Rosenberg brings up Dizzee in an interviewit is difficult to talk about Skeptas new album without considering Dizzees Boy in da Corner. It is the first classic grime album, and in a genre that often doesnt translate particularly well to full lengths, it has yet to be topped in terms of sheer creativity.

Story continues

Skepta uses Dizzee Rascals song names and lyrics in the first two tracks on his album, first referencing Dizzees Fix Up, Look Sharp from Boy in da Corner and Respect Me from Showtime on opening track Konnichiwa:

Fix up, look sharp when I enter

And talk with respect when you discuss me

A lot of these MCs disgust me

Real talk, you aint best MC in the country

On second track Lyrics he raps, Tell a pussyole look sharp, fix up, another reference to Fix Up, Look Sharp and also to Pussyole (Old Skool) from Dizzees third album Maths + English. Whatever the motive (some say its a diss, but Skepta reminded DJ Semtex that he had repurposed Dizzee lyrics before), it situates Konnichiwa in that lineage, and, four studio albums into his career, it may well be Skeptas defining album.

Where Dizzees 2003 album appeals to Americans in its total foreignness and relentless bombardment of beats and bars, Konnichiwa is more nuanced and more inclusive. Dizzee looked inwards, working in his mentor and manager Cages London studio, whereas in the time that Konnichiwa has been gestating, Skepta has traveled the world, making genuine, grassroots connections from New York to Tokyo to Toronto.

This approach is very different from that of other British rappers, who in the past have seemingly collaborated with whichever big name U.S. artist they (or their label) could secure. Tinie Tempahs pop-orientated debut album Disc-Overy hit No. 1 in the UK charts in 2010, and a year later it got a U.S. release. The new version of the album featured Wiz Khalifa crooning a very brief hook on the generic pop rap track Till Im Gone and the Boi-1-da produced So Addicted. These songs, which fit in perfectly well on mainstream U.S. radio, might have gained Tinie a bit of exposure, but they did not not create a lasting and loyal fanbase who would consistently support his music and come to his shows.

In the time that Konnichiwa has been gestating, Skepta has traveled the world, making genuine, grassroots connections from New York to Tokyo to Toronto.

Equally, the only noticeable result of Chips three-year foray into the American market has been the alienation of his UK fans. Chris Brown, Keri Hilson, and Trey Songz featured on his 2011 album Transition, and the same year Chip signed with T.I.s Grand Hustle label. He released a mixtape hosted by DJ Drama in 2012 and appeared on a label compilation alongside the whole Grand Hustle roster in 2013, but this affiliation did not end up with a successful album release, a U.S. tour, or have any other lasting impact. In fact, since Chips return to grime at the beginning of 2015, he has won back the respect that many fans lost when he started making pop music.

It seems that Skepta has learned not only from the past mistakes of English MCs seeking to appeal to an American audience, but also from his own past missteps. Skeptas 2009 album Microphone Champion included the electro-rap of Sunglasses At Night and Rolex Sweep, which were his highest charting songs at the time, and brought him to the attention of a more mainstream audience. 2010 album Doin It Again seemed to attempt to capitalize on this new popularity, with a slew of pop and R&B choruses (Rescue Me, Taking Too Long, Cross My Heart) and sugary dance pop production (Amnesia, Bad Boy). These songs were commercially successful (three charted in the UK Top 40 and and the album broke into the UK Top 20) but do not stand up well five years later, and do not represent the fearless creativity and personality that Skepta possesses.

Since, Thats Not Me, however, Skepta has played his cards perfectly. Yes, hes good friends with Drake and the two have collaborated on music. Yes, hes performed at a Boiler Room with A$AP Rocky. Yes, hes hit the studio with Kanye West. But none of those artists appear on the album. Instead, multiple generations of grime MCs, from Wiley and D Double E through Chip to future superstar Novelist appear, alongside Skeptas Boy Better Know Crew and brother JME.

Back in 2010, Skepta was on the grime remix of P. Diddys Diddy Dirty Money track Hello Good Morning. They made a video, and the track itself isnt terrible, but rather than drawing listeners into his own world or collaborating on an equal footing, Skepta was jumping on a track that was already popular.

When he does look beyond the U.K. on Konnichiwa, however, the collaborations feel organic and fresh. Even the Pharrell collaboration Numbers, an undeniable surprise, finds a middle ground between their two styles, with P revisiting the production approach that he pioneered as part of The Neptunes, a minimalism which is in line with grimes sparse soundscapes. Elsewhere on the album, Skepta builds a bridge from London to America on the punishing grime/Three 6 Mafia hybrid It Aint Safe with Young Lord and the smoother, poppier Ladies Hit Squad, featuring a low-key earworm of a hook from A$AP Nast.

The internet is breaking down barriers, and this is reflected in a rapid spread of sounds, styles, and slang. The results can be rather awkward (Drakes Popcaan karaoke impression on Too Good and recent Instagram captions, for example), or they can feel natural, a reflection of the times we live in. Despite the fact that Skepta is comfortable over Americanized beats and uses some American slang like opps, at the end of the day Konnichiwa is an invitation into his world, the London musical underground.

At the end of the day Konnichiwa is an invitation into Skeptas world, the London musical underground.

Konnichiwa, especially its opening four-track salvo, is thick with British slang, London references, raw grime production, and commanding MCing. Criticism of his lyricism as simplistic is missing the origins of grime. This is a genre with its origins in soundsystem culture where the deejay gets on the mic and toasts or talks while the selector spins tunes. From there, you can trace the origins through rave culture and UK garage, where the beats are primary and the MC acts more as a guide for the crowd, but soundsystem cultures clash elementcompetitors seeking to win over the crowdappears clearly again in grime. The bars are constructed to get a reaction in the rave or on radio, where memorable catchphrases tend to trump tongue-twisting double entendres.

Lyrics, the raw second song on Konnichiwa, directly references this history of competition and live performance, opening with a sample of Pay As U Go Cartel and Heartless Crews famously aggressive clash in 2001. The hook, too, harks back to pirate radio days by sounding as if its being transmitted through a slightly fuzzy transmitter. Last but definitely not least, Birmingham MC Devilman, whose 2006 Lord of the Mics clash with Skepta is the stuff of legend, is called out once again, after the two MCs reignited their rivalry with diss tracks aimed at each other last year.

Amongst the boasts, disses, and self-confidence, however, Skepta remains relatable. Went to the Brits on a train, Skepta raps on the title track, going on to say, Man shut down Wireless then I walked home in the rain. The loss of friend and MC Lukey Maxwell, who was killed last year, hangs heavy over Skepta, as does being targeted by the police (Crime Riddim). Those who know him from Shutdown and It Aint Safe might be surprised by the romantic Text Me Back, but Skepta has never been one dimensional, as a look back at Sweet Mother (2007), Skepta (2009), Castles (2012), and Lukey World (2015) will amply demonstrate.

The increase of American interest in grime over the past few years is great, but it is also a double-edged sword for Skepta. Rather than being taken at face value, Konnichiwa is under scrutiny from UK fans who are concerned that he will sell out in an attempt to reach a larger audience. Its not real grime, they say, a surprising comment for a genre that is still so young, and one that echoes the reductive real hip-hop comments aimed at any boundary-pushing or non-conforming American rappers. On top of that, ill-advised talk of a grime takeover (There is never going to be a grime takeover of U.S. rap, the two can coexist and be appreciated in tandem.) doesnt sit well with some American rap fans, who refuse to even try and get past the foreign-sounding beats and rapping style.

Whether youre a fan or not, Skepta has stayed true to himself and to grime with Konnichiwa. Yes, he has ambitions to take his London sound worldwide, but rather than attempting that with an album full of watered down tracks and big name features, he mixes real grime MCing and production with more polished, accessible sounds. This has never been done in an authentic way by a British rapper before.

Konnichiwa is the fourth album of a career that has stretched over a decade already, and although its the culmination of a journey that started with 2014 return to top grime form Thats Not Me, it is also the beginning of a new journey. Skepta is shining a light on his culture and his country, while extending an invitation to anyone, anywhere who wants to engage with it in a meaningful way. Konnichiwa should serve as inspiration for rappers in the UK, US, and around the world, who arent afraid to push the boundaries whilst staying true to themselves.

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 3.06.13 PM

Skeptas new album Konnichiwa is out now.

The post Skepta Reaches Rap Fans Without Abandoning Grime Authenticity on Konnichiwa appeared first on Pigeons & Planes.

More from Pigeons & Planes
By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) - The son of former Honduras President Porfirio Lobo pleaded guilty on Monday to conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, a year after his arrest in Haiti as part of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration probe. Fabio Lobo, 44, faces a mandatory 10-year minimum prison term when he is sentenced on Sept. 15, and could get up to life behind bars following his plea to a single count of conspiring to import cocaine. At a hearing in federal court in Manhattan, Lobo admitted to participating in a drug trafficking scheme that federal prosecutors said also involved Honduran police officers. "I knew that it was illegal," Lobo said. Lobo's father was elected president of Honduras in late 2009 after a military coup ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya. Porfirio Lobo left office in January 2014, when Juan Orlando Hernandez assumed the presidency. At the time of his son's arrest, Porfirio Lobo said he hoped his son was innocent, "but if he is guilty, he should take responsibility for his actions." Prosecutors said that in 2014, Lobo agreed to help two DEA sources posing as Mexican drug traffickers transport a multi-ton load of cocaine through Honduras so the drugs could be sent to the United States. The goal, prosecutors said, was to profit from facilitating drug-running through Honduras. The notoriously violent Central American country has long served as a major transshipment point for U.S.-bound cocaine smuggled out of South America. As part of the scheme, Lobo introduced the confidential sources to a "high-ranking official" who declined to participate in the deal and Honduran police officials who agreed to help facilitate it, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emil Bove said in court. Lobo was arrested in May 2015 in Haiti, where he had agreed to travel to receive payment for the drug deal, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's office said in a statement. "Whether you are a street-level dealer, a member of a cartel, or the son of a former foreign president, drug dealing is drug dealing," Bharara said. "It is a serious federal crime for which you will be prosecuted." Manuel Retureta, Lobo's lawyer, said outside of court that his client "made a mistake" by getting close to individuals involved in large-scale drug trafficking. "He is stepping forward to take responsibility for what he did," he said. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Tom Brown)
Johannesburg (AFP) - A group of South African metred-taxi drivers clashed with their Uber rivals in Johannesburg on Monday as a provincial government launched a process to formally licence the car-hailing app service.

The handful of taxi drivers, some wearing yellow uniforms, confronted several Uber drivers who were leaving a meeting with a provincial minister of Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg.

The provincial government said the fracas was caused by "extremely aggressive" cabbies, adding that Gauteng transport minister Ismail Vadi was hurried away from the scene.

An Uber spokeswoman confirmed the "disruption" of the meeting and said "we are relieved nobody was seriously injured".

Vadi was launching a process to issue operating licences for Uber taxis.

Uber drivers in South Africa, and in many other countries, have faced threats from metred-taxi drivers who accuse them of stealing business and posing unfair competition due to low fares.

"We're highly tired about Uber. We don't want it in South Africa, they must close this app," said Jabu Sepele, 43, adding Uber was "robbing us, it's killing our business."

The Gauteng government -- which is in charge of the capital Pretoria and economic hub Johannesburg -- vowed not to reverse its new licensing policy.

"We will not be deterred from building an integrated, affordable, and modernised transport system by any groups or individuals who want to use intimidation," Gauteng premier David Makhura said in a statement.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. HOT recently announced the debut of Aloft hotel in Veracruz, the main commercial seaport in Mexico, and Queretaro, one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. The hotels will join the brands existing collection of hotels in the region, which includes Aloft Bogota Airport in Colombia, Aloft San Jose in Costa Rica, Aloft Panama, Aloft Cancun, Aloft Guadalajara in Mexico and Aloft Asuncion in Paraguay.

The announcement was made at the Hotel Opportunities Latin America (HOLA) Conference. Aloft Veracruz is set to open toward the end of 2017 and will be developed by FibraHotel, a Mexican trust created mainly to invest in a diversified portfolio of business-class hotels in Mexico. Aloft Queretaro will be located in Juriquilla and run as a franchised hotel operated by Grupo Presidente. It will open in 2018.

Aloft is one of the fastest growing brands with 100 hotels in 15 countries. The Aloft brand caters to modern travelers who seek a unique experience. Its affordable price point in the mid-market hotel category is another reason for its increasing popularity.

Influenced by increasing demand in dynamic markets around the globe, Aloft continues to enter new horizons  which includes recent openings in Asuncion, Paraguay and Munich and Stuttgart, Germany. Further it is on track to double its footprint in Latin America in less than two years.

With its strong presence, Starwood has become one of the most sought-after global brands. The company is now assessing its opportunities in various untapped but highly populated emerging cities. The thriving economy in these regions and the proliferation of small and medium-size businesses are boosting business travel. Moreover, the sharp rise in affluence and growing sophistication of city dwellers are fueling an uptick in spending on travel and other leisure activities.

With the rise in global travel demand and increasing wealth of consumers, Starwood expects 2016 to be strong in terms of openings and new deals. This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company will continue to concentrate on fast-growing areas where demand is substantially high but supply limited.

Story continues

Some better-ranked stocks in the same sector are Belmond Ltd. BEL, Intrawest Resorts Holdings, Inc. SNOW, both carrying a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corp. VAC, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

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May 16 (Reuters) - State Street Corp is nearing a deal to pay more than $500 million to end long-running investigations over allegations that the custody bank dishonestly overcharged clients on currency transactions, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The deal is likely to resolve claims by the U.S. Justice and Labor departments and the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as lawsuits lodged by clients including pension funds, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The lawsuits accuse Boston-based State Street of promising to execute foreign exchange trades for clients at market prices, but instead using inaccurate or fake rates that included hidden markups, the Journal reported. (http://on.wsj.com/1ZY0nrO)

In an administrative complaint last month, Massachusetts' top securities regulator, William Galvin, accused a unit of State Street of overcharging its clients.

Galvin's complaint alleged that State Street routinely concealed markups to clients and earned hundreds of millions of extra dollars in what it described as "a dishonest and pervasive culture of overbilling."

State Street did not immediately respond to requests by Reuters for comment.

(Reporting by Nikhil Subba in Bengaluru; Editing by Ted Kerr)
Susan Sarandon predicted that many voters might not show up at the polls in November if Bernie Sanders isnt the Democratic presidential nominee.

If he doesnt get the nomination, theres a very good chance that people wont vote, Sarandon said told Variety at the Cannes Film Festival.

Sarandon pointed out why Sanders has been polling better against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. Theres a lot of people that have been brought into the political process that have not been engaged before, Sarandon said. Theres going to be such a backlash, if Sanders doesnt get the nomination, she added. She suggested that many millennial voters would just stay home.

Sarandon also called Clinton a very good Republican candidate, meaning that some Republicans would vote for her over Trump. Sarandon said she believed that Sanders could still be the nominee, despite pundits saying it would be mathematically impossible for him to accumulate enough delegates at the July convention. The actress said that Hillary could be indicted at any moment over using her personal email for classified information.

Trump, the main things he talks about are absolutely impossible so theyre not that threatening, Sarandon said. What he did that was terrible is that he legitimized racism and homophobia and everything else in order to get that very discontented base [He] said it was okay to be violent.

Sarandon blasted the media for giving so much coverage to Trump. They werent even covering Bernie Sanders until he won Iowa, she said. He just won three more states. She said that The Apprentice was to blame for Trumps popularity with voters. They know him from that reality show that legitimized him.

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Cannes: '100 Meters' Sells To Germany, Asia, Poland (EXCLUSIVE)

Cannes: Protagonist Boards Amma Asante's 'Where Hands Touch' (EXCLUSIVE)

London's Production Finance Market Tweaks Structure, Reveals Dates (EXCLUSIVE)
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish court sentenced on Monday a 61-year-old man to life in prison for genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the second such case brought by the Nordic country over crimes during the conflict. The Stockholm District Court said Claver Berinkindi, a Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda, was convicted of genocide and gross crime under international law consisting of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping in Rwanda. "This relates to participation in a large number of massacres during the 1994 genocide where the defendant had an informal role as a leader," the court said in a statement. Under Swedish law, courts can try Swedish citizens and other nationals for crimes committed abroad. The court said fifteen crime victims had been awarded damages ranging from 3 million Rwandan francs ($3,781) to 10 million francs ($12,602). It was the first time a Swedish court had awarded damages to victims of genocide. An estimated 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi ethnic minority but also moderates of the ethnic group Hutu, were killed by Hutus over three months in 1994 after years of civil war. The massacres raised questions about the ability or will of international organizations or states to intervene to halt mass killings of civilians. According to the Stockholm court verdict, Berinkindi, who arrived in Sweden in 2002 and became a Swedish citizen in 2012, was convicted in absentia of genocide-related crimes by a Rwandan Gacaca community court in 2007. He was charged in Sweden in September 2015. The district court ruling can be appealed. A number of Rwandan genocide-related crimes have been tried in recent years in Rwanda and other countries. In 2013, a Swedish court sentenced another man to life in prison for genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It was the first time a person in Sweden had been convicted of genocide. Last month, a Rwandan court handed a life sentence to a former senior politician for hate speech aimed at stirring up killings of Tutsis during the genocide. ($1 = 793.5000 Rwandan francs) (Reporting by Anna Ringstrom; editing by Ralph Boulton)
(Corrects paragraph 13 to show the bank was headquartered in Moscow not in the United States)

* Even small-scale investment requires extensive precautions

* Swedish firm says laborious due diligence leads to opportunity

* U.S. sanctions on trade with Iran still in place

* European banks, in particular, still fear falling foul of U.S.

By Jonathan Saul

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - A Swedish firm is looking to launch the first initial public offering to raise capital for investments in Iran since international sanctions on Tehran were lifted.

But the precautions it takes to demonstrate that its dealings are legitimate show that the undertaking, even on this small scale, is time-consuming and costly.

Although global trade sanctions against Iran were lifted in January in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear programme, the United States still forbids its own nationals and firms to do business in Iran, and prohibits dealings with a list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) deemed to engage in undesirable or terrorist activity.

For those reasons, Pomegranate Investment AB, set up in Sweden in 2014, is entering the Iranian market cautiously.

Chief executive Florian Hellmich told Reuters on a visit to London on Monday that the firm, which has raised 80 million euros ($91 million) from European investors since 2014 in anticipation of sanctions easing, hopes to launch its IPO in Sweden within 12 months, for investments in Iran's consumer technology sector.

He declined to say how much it might raise, but U.S. and Canadian citizens and corporations will be excluded from the offer.

To avoid any risk of infringing a ban on dollar payments to or from Iran passing through U.S. financial institutions - one that still frightens European banks, some of which received heavy U.S. penalties for doing business in Iran - all transactions are done in euros.

The main challenge for any international company, however, is vetting Iranian partners to ensure they are not on the U.S. blacklist.

Story continues

"We have learned to operate in a sanctions environment, which means we have had to engage in a high amount of KYC ("Know Your Customer"): legal due diligence of all our partners, including the banks we do business with," Hellmich said on a visit to London.

Many Iranian companies have beneficial owners who are not easily traceable, making it hard to be certain that investments will not end up, for instance, going into the wide-ranging business empire of the hardline Revolutionary Guards Corps, which the United States accuses of sponsoring terrorism.

"We have engaged an armada of lawyers who have been advising us in terms of disclaimers and due diligence. Again it comes back to the cost of doing business. It is time-consuming," Hellmich said.

"This is also where the opportunity is - everyone could have done the work we have done, but nobody has."

Hellmich, a veteran of emerging markets including Russia who was previously with the Moscow-headquartered investment bank Renaissance Capital, said Pomegranate was working with a "combination of Swedish banks and Swiss banks", but declined to be more specific.

"We found regional banks with no U.S. exposure a lot more accommodating in how we do business," he said.

Around 50 percent of Pomegranate's shareholders are from Sweden, including the prominent investor Per Brilioth, and others come from Britain, Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe.

The firm has already taken minority stakes in Iranian companies including the Internet and e-commerce company Sarava. ($1 = 0.8829 euros) (Editing by Kevin Liffey)
By Jonathan Saul

LONDON (Reuters) - A Swedish firm is looking to launch the first initial public offering to raise capital for investments in Iran since international sanctions on Tehran were lifted.

But the precautions it takes to demonstrate that its dealings are legitimate show that the undertaking, even on this small scale, is time-consuming and costly.

Although global trade sanctions against Iran were lifted in January in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear programme, the United States still forbids its own nationals and firms to do business in Iran, and prohibits dealings with a list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) deemed to engage in undesirable or terrorist activity.

For those reasons, Pomegranate Investment AB, set up in Sweden in 2014, is entering the Iranian market cautiously.

Chief executive Florian Hellmich told Reuters on a visit to London on Monday that the firm, which has raised 80 million euros (63 million) from European investors since 2014 in anticipation of sanctions easing, hopes to launch its IPO in Sweden within 12 months, for investments in Iran's consumer technology sector.

He declined to say how much it might raise, but U.S. and Canadian citizens and corporations will be excluded from the offer.

To avoid any risk of infringing a ban on dollar payments to or from Iran passing through U.S. financial institutions - one that still frightens European banks, some of which received heavy U.S. penalties for doing business in Iran - all transactions are done in euros.

The main challenge for any international company, however, is vetting Iranian partners to ensure they are not on the U.S. blacklist.

"We have learned to operate in a sanctions environment, which means we have had to engage in a high amount of KYC ("Know Your Customer"): legal due diligence of all our partners, including the banks we do business with," Hellmich said on a visit to London.

Many Iranian companies have beneficial owners who are not easily traceable, making it hard to be certain that investments will not end up, for instance, going into the wide-ranging business empire of the hardline Revolutionary Guards Corps, which the United States accuses of sponsoring terrorism.

Story continues

"We have engaged an armada of lawyers who have been advising us in terms of disclaimers and due diligence. Again it comes back to the cost of doing business. It is time-consuming," Hellmich said.

"This is also where the opportunity is - everyone could have done the work we have done, but nobody has."

Hellmich, a veteran of emerging markets including Russia who was previously with the Moscow-headquartered investment bank Renaissance Capital, said Pomegranate was working with a "combination of Swedish banks and Swiss banks", but declined to be more specific.

"We found regional banks with no U.S. exposure a lot more accommodating in how we do business," he said.

Around 50 percent of Pomegranates shareholders are from Sweden, including the prominent investor Per Brilioth, and others come from Britain, Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe.

"There are plenty of liquidity pools in Europe to be successful," Hellmich said.

The firm has already taken minority stakes in Iranian companies including the Internet and e-commerce company Sarava and Iran's second largest online classifieds company Sheypoor.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey)
* Even small-scale investment requires extensive precautions

* Swedish firm says laborious due diligence leads to opportunity

* U.S. sanctions on trade with Iran still in place

* European banks, in particular, still fear falling foul of U.S.

(Adds Hellmich comment, detail on Iran investments)

By Jonathan Saul

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - A Swedish firm is looking to launch the first initial public offering to raise capital for investments in Iran since international sanctions on Tehran were lifted.

But the precautions it takes to demonstrate that its dealings are legitimate show that the undertaking, even on this small scale, is time-consuming and costly.

Although global trade sanctions against Iran were lifted in January in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear programme, the United States still forbids its own nationals and firms to do business in Iran, and prohibits dealings with a list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) deemed to engage in undesirable or terrorist activity.

For those reasons, Pomegranate Investment AB, set up in Sweden in 2014, is entering the Iranian market cautiously.

Chief executive Florian Hellmich told Reuters on a visit to London on Monday that the firm, which has raised 80 million euros ($91 million) from European investors since 2014 in anticipation of sanctions easing, hopes to launch its IPO in Sweden within 12 months, for investments in Iran's consumer technology sector.

He declined to say how much it might raise, but U.S. and Canadian citizens and corporations will be excluded from the offer.

To avoid any risk of infringing a ban on dollar payments to or from Iran passing through U.S. financial institutions - one that still frightens European banks, some of which received heavy U.S. penalties for doing business in Iran - all transactions are done in euros.

The main challenge for any international company, however, is vetting Iranian partners to ensure they are not on the U.S. blacklist.

"We have learned to operate in a sanctions environment, which means we have had to engage in a high amount of KYC ("Know Your Customer"): legal due diligence of all our partners, including the banks we do business with," Hellmich said on a visit to London.

Story continues

Many Iranian companies have beneficial owners who are not easily traceable, making it hard to be certain that investments will not end up, for instance, going into the wide-ranging business empire of the hardline Revolutionary Guards Corps, which the United States accuses of sponsoring terrorism.

"We have engaged an armada of lawyers who have been advising us in terms of disclaimers and due diligence. Again it comes back to the cost of doing business. It is time-consuming," Hellmich said.

"This is also where the opportunity is - everyone could have done the work we have done, but nobody has."

Hellmich, a veteran of emerging markets including Russia who was previously with the Moscow-headquartered investment bank Renaissance Capital, said Pomegranate was working with a "combination of Swedish banks and Swiss banks", but declined to be more specific.

"We found regional banks with no U.S. exposure a lot more accommodating in how we do business," he said.

Around 50 percent of Pomegranate's shareholders are from Sweden, including the prominent investor Per Brilioth, and others come from Britain, Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe.

"There are plenty of liquidity pools in Europe to be successful," Hellmich said.

The firm has already taken minority stakes in Iranian companies including the Internet and e-commerce company Sarava and Iran's second largest online classifieds company Sheypoor. ($1 = 0.8829 euros) (Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Marvel Comics' Black Panther No. 1 - scripted by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a national correspondent for The Atlantic [EDIT: and wonderfully illustrated by Brain Stelfreeze] - sold 253,259 issues in its first month to become the best-selling comic so far in 2016. (That number will likely hit the 300,000 number Marvel announced in March once reorders are factored in). No. 2 on the list - an issue of Star Wars: Poe Dameron - sold 175,000 copies.

The sales figures marks an outstanding debut for a character often considered in the second tier of Marvel superheroes.

Black Panther No. 1's tally is comparable to the Marvel best-selling solo superhero comics of 2015: Invincible Iron Man No. 1, which sold 279,000 copies, and Spider-Gwen No. 1, which sold 254,000 copies. It outpaces such stalwarts as Spider-Man and the X-Men, whose books generally sell in the 75,000-100,000 copies-a-month range.

Coates' re-imagining of the first mainstream black superhero has been hotly anticipated since it was first announced and has drawn rave reviews. It's a big year for the character - a prince from the fictional (and technologically advanced) African nation of Wakanda - who in addition to celebrating his 50th anniversary made his big-screen debut in Captain America: Civil War (played by Chadwick Boseman).

A solo Black Panther film is scheduled for July 6, 2018. Earlier this year, Coates won the National Book Award for his memoir Between the World and Me and was awarded a MacArthur "genius" grant.

Read More: 'Black Panther': Which Character Will Michael B. Jordan Portray?
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japanese air bag manufacturer Takata Corp (7312.T) on Monday filed reports with U.S. auto safety regulators declaring nearly 14 million air bag inflators defective.

Earlier this month, Takata said it would expand recalls for defective air bag inflators by 35 million to 40 million in several tranches through 2019, adding to the 28.8 million recalled before May 4.

Monday's recall of nearly 14 million inflators is the first tranche of the expansion announced on May 4.

This is the largest recall in U.S. auto safety history. Malfunctioning Takata air bag inflators can explode with too much force, sending shrapnel into vehicles. The issue has been linked to 13 deaths worldwide, and more than 100 injuries.

Takata said there are no reports of any ruptures or injuries linked to the inflators involved in the most recent expansion, but agreed "out of an abundance of caution" to file the defect reports to promote public safety and in cooperation with U.S. regulators.

Takata said it is aware "that remedy parts are not currently available for many of the vehicles containing inflators." It agreed to work closely with each manufacturer to develop a recall plan to focus on high-humidity areas where the risks are greatest.

Air bag inflators made by Takata have shown an increased chance of malfunctioning, over time, when exposed to humidity.

Earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA.O), Fisker Automotive and Jaguar Land Rover will recall Takata air bag inflators, bringing the number of automakers involved to 17, including Honda Motor Co , Ford Motor Co (F.N) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI) (FCAU.N).

Jaguar Land Rover is a Tata Motors Ltd (TAMO.NS) brand.

The expansion of up to 40 million inflators will cover all the remaining Takata inflators containing ammonium nitrate-based propellant on driver and passenger frontal air bags without a chemical drying agent, known as a desiccant, that were not previously recalled.

(Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall in Detroit; Editing by Tom Brown and Matthew Lewis)
By Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala KAMPALA (Reuters) - Tanzania has removed more than 10,000 "ghost workers" from its public sector payroll after a nationwide audit found their fraud cost the government over $2 million a month, the prime minister's office has said. Government officials say the payroll audit is continuing and more non-existent workers are expected to be found. "We will identify those behind this payroll fraud and take them to court ... the fight against corruption is top priority for the government," Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa was quoted as saying in the statement issued late on Sunday. Purging the "ghost workers" from government payrolls would save more than 4.5 billion shillings ($2.06 million) a month, the statement said. Reformist President John Magufuli ordered the national audit in March as part of a wider corruption crackdown. Businesses have long said corruption and government inefficiency were major obstacles to investing in Tanzania, which ranked 117 out of 168 countries in Transparency International's 2015 index of least corrupt countries. No.1 is deemed the least corrupt. Elected last October, Magufuli has already dismissed several senior officials, including the head of the government's anti-graft body, the country's top tax chief, a senior rail official and the head of the country's port authority. Tanzania spends over $260 million per month to pay salaries of its civil servants, but the government believes the public wage bill is bloated by thousands of phantom staff. The country has over 550,000 civil servants in central and local government authorities. (Reporting by Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala; Editing by Elias Biryabarema and Tom Heneghan)
By Anuradha Nagaraj CHENNAI, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Efforts to combat discrimination against India's lower castes, religious minorities and women must begin in the classroom, with children holding the key to ending deep-rooted prejudices, a human rights campaigner said. According to the Amnesty International's annual report for 2015-16, gender and caste based discrimination and violence has "remained pervasive" in India, with increasing censorship and attacks on freedom of expression over the last year. "Equality has to be taught in classrooms. We have to invest in fostering values of human rights," lawyer and human rights activist Henri Tiphagne told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Tiphagne, founder of the non-profit group People's Watch, which documents human rights violations in India and provides legal assistance to victims, is drafting a curriculum to teach primary school children ideas about human rights through games. In a program first developed by People's Watch in 1997, human rights was integrated in the teaching of English, maths and science in schools in 18 Indian states. Around half a million children are now being taught about rights and discrimination in their classrooms. "It's a good sign because 20 years back, human rights was a bad word. It had a negative connotation," Tiphagne said by phone from Madurai in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. India today has numerous laws to protect the rights of individuals with more than 100 institutions monitoring various facets of human rights across the country. "And yet the violations are increasing and getting more sophisticated. Even in case of torture, the beatings are done in such a way that the evidence is lost or reduced," he said. "But the biggest casualty in recent years has been the attacks on freedom of association, assembly and expression." In 2015, charities came together to oppose the use of an opaque, "draconian" law on foreign funding by the Indian government to muzzle criticism of initiatives such as industrial projects affecting the poor and the environment. "There is a clampdown on civil society but there is no question of giving up. And we need young people to take this struggle forward," said Tiphagne, who this year won Amnesty International Germany's 8th Human Rights Award. "For that they need to understand the essence of equality in everyday life, starting from kindergarten." (Reporting by Anuradha Nagaraj, Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)
From Esquire

You probably missed it, but the 2020 presidential campaign has begun, and Tailgunner Ted Cruz is already running hard. He has taken to the liberally biased, anti-Jesus editorial pages of The New York Times to present more of his foreign policy to a nation that had heard enough of that-and of him-almost a month ago.

It was not revealed if this missile had its genocidal intent actually inscribed on it, as other missiles recently tested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have-with the inscription in Hebrew "Israel should be erased from the map." But it hardly matters. The mullahs' objectives are plain enough for anyone with eyes to see: The Iranian regime is continuing its determined march toward not only a nuclear weapon, but also the means to launch it, first against Israel and then against the United States. This reality makes all the more inexplicable President Obama's steadfast faith that, since the election of President Hassan Rouhani in 2013, Iran has been charting a "more moderate course" to the detriment of the old-time hard-liners, and that Mr. Rouhani and his administration would be reliable partners in negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.

Once again, Cruz has decided on his own that the ruling government of Iran is set on a course that will prove to be completely suicidal. One nuke aimed at Israel or the United States, even if it never lands, and Tehran is a glass parking lot within the hour.

Cruz believes in the bellicose rhetoric of various Iranian government officials more than their own people do. Of course, in this particular instance, he is betraying the legacy of Ronald Reagan more than anyone ever has. You're supposed to send the mullahs the missiles, dammit. Get with the program.

Click here to respond to this post on the official Esquire Politics Facebook page.
The gap between marijuana-related arrests for minority and white Coloradan teens aged 10 to 17 years old has only widened since the state legalized the drug in 2014, a report by the Colorado Department of Public Safety, released in March, found. Marijuana has been legal in Colorado for over two years for adults 21 and older.

The report found that from 2012 to 2014, the overall number of "juvenile marijuana arrests" in elementary and secondary schools increased by 34%. However, there's a racial disparity among those arrested: The rate for white students actually decreased by 8%, while the rate increased by 58% for blacks and 29% for Latinos.

Most of the offenses were related to possession, which resulted in a fine and drug education course rather than jail time, BuzzFeed reported.

The report also found that the schools with the smallest proportion of minority students had the lowest rates of suspending students who were caught with a marijuana offense.

Source: Robert F. Bukaty/AP

Each school and county has its own set of rules when it comes to dealing with juveniles and marijuana. For example, most of the arrests were done by "school resource officers" stationed on campus.

"All I can say is while it may seem disproportionate, those are the students we're catching with the drugs," Tustin Amole, the director of communications at Cherry Creek Schools, told BuzzFeed.

In 2013, a survey by the Colorado of Public Health and Environment found that 25.9% of black, 23.6% of Latino, and 17% of white high school students had used marijuana within 30 days of the survey's conduction, BuzzFeed reported. So while less white students reported using marijuana, these rates still fail to align with the rates of arrests.

This discrepancy amongst youngsters echoes a larger one to that of the state  and also nation. In 2012, the number of black Coloradans arrested for marijuana crimes was just about double that of whites. By 2014, it was triple.
Why Have Active Japan-Focused Funds Done Better Than ETFs?

(Continued from Prior Part)

Performance evaluation of SAESX

The SunAmerica Japan Fund  Class A (SAESX) fell a sharp 17% in the first four months of 2016, making it the second-worst performer among the nine funds in this review. In the past one year, the fund has fallen 20.7%, again ranking second-to-last among its peers. From the end of December 2015 until May 10, 2016, the fund has fallen 11.4%. Below, weve graphed its performance against two ETFs: the iShares MSCI Japan ETF (EWJ) and the iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Japan ETF (HEWJ).

Lets look at what has contributed to the funds poor performance in the first trimester of 2016.

Portfolio composition and contribution to returns

The financials sector was the key negative contributor to SAESXs returns in the first four months of 2016. Sony Financial Holdings drove down returns from the sector. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MTU) and Mizuho Financial Group (MFG) followed closely. Leopalace 21 contributed positively but was not able to do much good.

Toyota Industries drove down the consumer discretionary sector. Detractors from the sector included Nissan Motor (NSANY) and Toyo Tire & Rubber, among others.

Telecom services played a key role in saving the fund. Its sizable positive contribution ensured that the funds negative returns were capped to a certain extent. SoftBank Group (SFTBY), Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT), and KDDI all contributed positively.

Investor takeaways

SAESX was convincingly beaten by EWJ in the first trimester of 2016. Except for the materials and telecom services sectors, none of SAESXs stock picks from the other sectors could outperform those of EWJ.

The funds high portfolio turnover is a liability since the high churn rate hasnt resulted in superior performance. New investors may tend to stay away from the fund. Existing investors will have to wait and watch for their investments to recover a little.

Story continues

In the final article of this series, well look at the big picture that should be emerging regarding your Japanese equity investments.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
By Marilynn Larkin (Reuters Health) - Long-distance dermatology services may not be ready for prime time, a new study suggests. Incorrect diagnoses, inappropriate treatments, lack of information about possible side effects and risks, and lack of transparency about a doctors credentials were among the concerns raised in the study of direct-to-consumer (DTC) teledermatology sites. I was deeply disappointed by the poor performance we observed, senior study author Dr. Jack S. Resneck, Jr. of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, told Reuters Health by email. Resneck and colleagues note that DTC teledermatology is expanding rapidly but has not been well studied. To test some of these sites, the researchers posed as patients with skin-related symptoms. The fake patients submitted photos of various cancerous, inflammatory and infectious skin conditions to sites offering services to California residents. They claimed to be uninsured and paid fees using Visa gift debit cards, according to a report in JAMA Dermatology. They received responses from 16 DTC sites for 62 online visits in February and March of this year. No sites asked for proof of identification or raised concerns about the photos, which had mostly been downloaded from online search engines. In two thirds of online visits, patients did not get a choice of clinicians. Licensing information was provided in only about a quarter of cases, and some of the sites used foreign physicians without California licenses. In less than a quarter of cases did the sites ask the name of the patients primary care physician. In only 10 percent of cases did they offer to send medical records. A diagnosis was offered in 77 percent of cases. Although prescription medications were ordered for 65 percent of diagnosed cases, potential adverse effects were disclosed in only a third of those cases, and pregnancy risks in 43 percent. In addition, treatments were sometimes at odds with existing guidelines. When a diagnosis could be made by photos alone, the sites made several correct diagnoses. But when additional information was neededfor example, other symptoms, such as fever or heavy periodssites regularly failed to ask simple questions and diagnostic performance was poor, according to the researchers. Major diagnoses such as syphilis, eczema, and poly cystic ovarian syndrome were repeatedly missed, Resneck noted. One patient uploaded photos of a syphilis rash and gave a medical history that fit with syphilis, but she told the service she thought she had psoriasis. Most clinicians working for these DTC sites just agreed with the self-diagnosis and prescribed psoriasis medications, he said. Further, if patients end up needing in-person care because their condition worsens or they have a medication side effect, many teledermatology clinicians dont have local contacts and cant facilitate an appointment. Thats why telemedicine is best performed by physicians and team members who are part of practices or regional systems in which patients already receive care, Resneck stressed. I dont want to see low-quality services put patients at risk and ruin telemedicine for doctors who are using it to provide high-quality care, he added. We had expected to see variation among the different services, but the broad lack of choice, transparency, quality, and care coordination is very concerning. Dr. Ateev Mehrotra of Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, added, Teledermatology sites that dont ask for pictures or a medical history, and dont ask about medications and allergies, may not be as high quality as sites that do. He told Reuters Health, While nothing can insure the quality of care in person or on the Internet, the more information youre asked for and give, the easier it will be for a clinician to see the whole picture and make an appropriate diagnosis. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1srMuYU JAMA Dermatology, online May 15, 2016.
Tesla illegally imported workers from Eastern Europe to help build its new paint shop in its Fremont, California, plant, according to new reports from the Mercury News. These employees allegedly worked long hours of manual labor for less than the minimum wage.

The electric vehicle manufacturer reportedly paid these foreign workers about $5 per hour  compared to the $52 per hour their American colleagues received for doing similar work.

Tesla's dark secret came to light following a serious injury sustained by one of the plant's workers, Gregory Lesnik. Lesnik is an electrician from Slovenia whose workplace injury sparked a lawsuit that dug into the factory's practices.

According to some of the 140 workers brought in from Eastern Europe, they were flown in "for months at a time" and were housed in "nondescript apartments" and shuttled to Tesla's Fremont plant six to seven days a week, the Mercury News reported.

@margotroosevelt Only heard about this today. Sounds like the wrong thing happened on many levels. Will investigate and make it right.

If Tesla was employing upwards of 140 foreign workers with "suspect visa papers" in its Fremont plant, it was happening right under Elon Musk's nose  the Tesla founder's desk is situated at the end of the production line at the factory, BGR reported.

Tesla's take: The company just released a statement regarding the issue.

In response to Lesnik's story, Tesla said in a statement, "We are taking action to address this individual's situation and to put in place additional oversight to ensure that our workplace rules are followed even by sub-subcontractors to prevent such a thing from happening again."

Tesla said that ISM Vuzem  the firm it hired to construct the Fremont, California, paint shop  was responsible for hiring Lesnik.

"Assuming the article is correct, we need to do right by Mr. Lesnik and his colleagues from Vuzem," the statement reads. "This is not a legal issue, it is a moral issue. As far as the law goes, Tesla did everything correctly. We hired a contractor to do a turnkey project at our factory and, as we always do in these situations, contractually obligated our contractor to comply with all laws in bringing in the resources they felt were needed to do the job."

Story continues

The statement goes on to say that if the $5 an hour wage reported in the Mercury News article is true, it is "totally unacceptable."

While Tesla does not take legal responsibility in the statement, citing its actions as legally sound, it does say that it will "give Mr. Lesnik the benefit of the doubt" and that it will take care of him. "We will make sure this happens."

You can read Tesla's full response to the allegations here.

Tesla's factory in Fremont, California

Silicon Valley's immigrant workers: This type of visa abuse isn't rare in Silicon Valley, where there's a particularly colossal demand for visas for foreign workers. Around 75% of Silicon Valley workers were born outside the U.S., compared to 45% among the total working population, according to My Budget 360. In tech, foreign workers often earn significantly less then their American counterparts.

This technique of employing foreign workers for cheap work  which San Francisco Weekly says is creating a caste system  is rippling throughout Silicon Valley.

"We have concluded that there is widespread abuse of the B1 visa in the Bay Area," Michael Eastwood, assistant district director of the San Jose office of the U.S. Department of Labor, told the Mercury News.
From Esquire

Today, the White House is distributing a letter to the country's public schools directing administrators to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice. According to The New York Times, the document also lays out guidelines for ensuring inclusivity at schools.

Though it doesn't have legal teeth, the threat of lawsuits and cuts in funding loom over public school systems that continue to discriminate against transgender students. So, naturally, states are vowing to discriminate against transgender students.

When word of the directive broke, Texas governor Greg Abbott announced that Texas will fight it, according to The Washington Post.

A Texas school superintendent also told the local news, "That letter is going straight to the paper shredder," continuing, "Now, I don't want [transgender students] bullied  but there are accommodations that can be made short of this."

Abbott already aligned his state with North Carolina, which is currently heading into a legal showdown with the federal government-each suing the other.

Can't wait to see how this plays out.
Thanks to contributions from spirits, beer segments.

Thai Beverage PLCs (ThaiBev) 1Q16 net profits bubbled up 30% to THB8.6b (roughly $333m) thanks to increased profitability of Fraser and Neave/Frasers Centrepoint Limited as well as growth in ThaiBevs spirits, beer, and food segments.

According to a report by OCBC, ThaiBev also saw a narrowed net loss for nonalcoholic beverages (NAB) during Q1.

Meanwhile, ThaiBevs revenue for the quarter grew 20.7% YoY to THB55.2b ($2.14b) thanks to growth in sales of spirits, beer, and NAB divisions. However, food segments sales posted a marginal pullback.

Recall that in 4Q, their market share had increased from 30% to 38%. NAB losses narrowed We previously mentioned that NAB losses may narrow for the year, as FY15 included the launch of 100+, Jubjai, and Oishi in Malaysia, notes OCBC.

Aside from the anticipated decrease in SG&A expenses, growth in volume was propelled by products like Jubjai, drinking water, and Est. With the lower oil prices, ThaiBev was also able to enjoy favourable packaging costs.

With regards to the the proposed sugar tax on soft drinks in Thailand, management asserts ThaiBev is ready with potential options like product innovation and possible reductions in sugar content.





More From Singapore Business Review


Political advisor James Carville knew what he was saying when he coined the phrase, Its the economy, Stupid, during Bill Clintons 1992 election campaign. Nearly 25 years later, the economy is still foremost on voters' minds. Forty percent of Americans believe that economic issues are the most important problems facing this country today, according to a recent Gallop poll. Retired four-star general and former 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark agrees. He recently sat down with Yahoo Finance at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles to discuss the five biggest current threats to the U.S. economy.



Terrorism



Terrorism is a problem that leaks its way into all facets of life, including the economy. Clark believes that a terrorist attack or threat would have an incredible impact on U.S. business and world commerce. If terrorism takes rootif it hits an airliner, it disrupts world commerce. If it hits ocean ships, its a big deal in international trade, he says. The terrorist attacks on September. 11, 2001, for example, cost an estimated $3.3 trillion, according to research by The New York Times.



Cybersecurity



We invented the Internet in America, well, paradoxically were the most vulnerable to its destruction, explains Clark. Cyberattacks threaten both intellectual property and the Internet itself, yet many businesses dont make online security a priority. Cybercrime costs are projected to reach $2 trillion by 2019, according to Juniper Research. IBM CEO Ginni Rommety has said that cybercrime may be the greatest threat to every business in the world. And the World Economic Forum has said that a vast amount of cybersecurity threats go undetected because of a lack of funding.



Financial system stability



Debt is like rocket fuel, says Clark. "If you have the right amount, you take off, but if you take on too much, you blow up. Clark believes were maxed out on debt, and at some point, someone blows the whistle and says, Oh, I dont think that debt is going to get repaid. And then theres a crisis of confidence in the debt, and boom, youre into a recession or worse.



Emergence of China as a superpower with global ambitions



Clark is afraid of what might happen if the Renminbi, the official currency of China, becomes the global reserve currency. He believes that China is pushing for the change, but that it is premature in its ambitions. Last August, China surprised investors with a devaluation that brought the Yuan down 5% in one week, hurting global markets and currencies. But China clearly has these global ambitions, says Clark. They have the military forces, they have the population and demography.



Climate change



The Paris Accord has got to be implemented, and even that is too little too late, says Clark of the 2016 United Nations agreement negotiated by 195 countries aiming to mitigate greenhouse emissions starting in 2020. Clark doesnt think were going to be able to prevent developing countries from using coal-power and hydrocarbon fuel vehicles. Were not going to jerk that to a stop, he says.
Summer dressing is a joy everywhere but the office. Even if you work in a casual office, dressing for work during the warmer months is fraught with anxiety.



Finding something that ticks the box of appropriate, cool (literally) and still stylish without flashing all the flesh can feel near impossible. However, with the help of actual bosses and stylists to boot weve devised your ultimate summer appropriate workwear guide.

Follow our advice and youll never break a sweat over what to wear when the temperature soars again.



Summer dressing doesnt have to have you breaking a sweat. [Photo: River Island/ Boohoo/ New Look/ Dune/ Zara]

First, we spoke to an actual boss, PR agency CEO, Miki Haynes-Sanger, about what she really thinks of what her staff wear to work in the hotter months.

Miki told us that above all she encourages her staff to express themselves at work, within reason.

At Golden Goose PR, anything from Breton stripes to purple rinses go. Having said that, Im lucky to work with people who know that anything goes doesnt quite extend to Madonna at Met Gala. At least, not for a client meeting - though after work, whos business is it to complain?



Maybe not QUITE office appropriate. [Photo: Rex]



In fact, Miki said that shes against telling her staff what to wear:

I was shocked to read about a PA being sent home for refusing to swap her flats for heels. No one should make you feel you have to contort your foot into such a painful contraption in order to do your job, the same way that no one should make you wear a low-cut top or demand your skirt splits to the thigh.

However, she does prescribe a check list to make sure her staff toe the line of decency during the summer months.

Heres a checklist I try to answer no to before I go to work, and most of the team are pretty good at following this too: 1. Can you see my underwear/ nipples/ bum cheeks? 2. Can I move/walk/bend down in this? (Without revealing the former). 3. Am I flashing double-flesh? [( a) bare legs and shoulders b) bare cleavage and legs c) bare midriff and legs?]. If the answer is yes, a jacket you keep on until evening could be an easy solution.

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This Boohoo shirt - a snip at just 16 - will pretty much go with everything in your summer wardrobe. [Photo: boohoo]



Next we spoke to stylist Sian O Donnell who agreed that dressing for work come summer is no breeze.

Dressing for the office in summer months can be a minefield. Caught between not melting when 30C outside (and 100C on central line) and dressing appropriately for a meeting with the boss first thing. Its a constant pull between being wanting to look presentable and not hyperventilating.

Were seriously lusting over this bag designed for M&S by Michael Van Der Ham (39.50). [Photo: M&S]



So what should we be aiming for and where is doing the best workwear on the high street right now?

For inspiration look towards Celine SS16- then get realistic and head to Zara whose collection this season is affordable with stand out key pieces that look straight off the catwalk. And if on a tighter budget, Boohoo.com has got the office blouse down to a tee that importantly, comes in at under a tenner, she says.

We put to Sian three of the common summer workwear errors (we know weve been guilty of in the past) and asked her to find us a solution.

1. Its summer  wear your flip flops!

Sian says: Forget flip-flops. These should stay at the beach. Instead invest in a pair of backless slip-ons for that instant cool factor, plus they look great with both a skirt/dress and crop/ wide leg trousers.

Were in love with these metallic backless loafers - 70 from Dune. [Photo: Dune]



2. Its summer  Im wearing my shorts.

Sian says: Ditch the shorts and replace with culottes. The loose shape and light weight fabric are bang on trend right now and styled with an off the shoulder ruffle blouse, is a smart way to keep chic in the most raging of temperatures.

These Zara culottes (39.99) will keep you cool when the mercury rises. [Photo: Zara]



3. ARGH - just cover everything up with a billowing maxi dress!

Sack like maxi dresses are a no-no. Try a slip dress instead, just keep the lace and sheer proportion levels to a minimum and hemline to the knee. Pair with espadrilles for office-to-date night, whilst layer over your culottes when temperatures drop - this is the great British summertime after all!

If you add one thing to your wardrobe this summer make it a slip dress - we love this one from New Look - a bargain at just 22.99. [Photo: New Look]



In summary, summer workwear is all about using your common sense, keeping things modest and remembering light grey is always a bad idea. Happy working!

Tried any of these suggestions? Tweet us your pics @YahooStyleUK.



22 Times Women Killed It In Trouser Suits On The Red Carpet

Stylish Summer Cover-Ups To Keep You Safe In The Sun
That midnight snack could be to blame for your trippy dreams. (Photo: Rex Features)

Try to remember your dream last night. If you do and it was a little on the weird side, that cheese binge you had right before bed could be the culprit. Pre-bedtime snackers, take note: The types of food you eat before hitting the sack can have a major effect on your dreams.

Eating anything close to bedtime increases the activity of your metabolism, which causes your brain to stay active, making it more likely that the sleeper will have vivid dreams.



When we consider that the nutrients in food affect many things in the body, such as energy levels, mood, and sleep quality, it is entirely plausible that different foods can also affect dreams in different ways, explains nutritionist and yoga teacher Julie Montagu.



With that in mind weve put together our avoid-list of foods to skip if you dont fancy dreams that will haunt you all day long.

It may be the ultimate midnight snack, but cheese can play havoc with your dreams. (Photo: pixabay.com via Pexels)

Cheese

You may have heard the old wives tale that eating cheese before bedtime gives you nightmares, and it turns out theres something to it. There is much speculation, and actually some solid research, to suggest that eating dairy products in the hours leading up to bedtime can cause bad or unusual dreams. Cheese and milk are thought to be the biggest culprits within this group, explains Montagu. Cheese contains tryptophan  an amino acid that the body uses to produce serotonin. Serotonin is the chemical in the brain that helps to keep the mood stabilized. So enjoying a dose of cheese right before bedtime could contribute to heightened levels of serotonin in the body, which could influence how prominently you dream.



Cured and processed meats



You should probably stop raiding the fridge for cold cuts before bedtime. Sausages, salami, bacon, hot dogs, corned beef are very high in tyramine, an amino acid that regulates blood pressure, explains clinical nutritionist Kamilla Schaffner, from My London Nutritionist. Foods high in tyramine are nutritionally known to disrupt normal sleeping patterns as well as the central nervous system in general, which may lead to increased episodes of nightmares, disturbing dreams, or persistent migraines.

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If only I hadnt eaten that curry, Id be dreaming of Jamie Dornan right now (Photo: Rex Features)

Curry

Theres a reason your dreams ramp up a notch after Friday-night takeout. Spicy foods right before bedtime have also been associated with bizarre dreams, explains Montagu. The body has to work a bit harder than usual to digest seriously spicy foods. This disruption to the digestive system could impact the quality of sleep that you enjoy, leading to undesirable dreams.

Pickles and Fermented Foods



Terrible for your breath, even worse for your dreams. Foods that are fermented or pickled in any way  sauerkraut, kimchi, tofu or pickles, soy sauce, miso and miso-containing products  can induce bad dreams when eaten at night, explains Schaffner.

Alcohol

Cocktails or alcoholic beverages, such as beer, red wine, sherry, and liqueurs are known to induce nightmares due to their fermentation process, especially when consumed in excess, says Schaffner.

Heavy night? You could be in for even heavier dreams! (Photo: Salo Al via Pexels)

Chocolate

Noooooo! Eating any food late at night that has a high fat content is going to cause some degree of indigestion. Indigestion can cause you to have a poor quality of sleep, as you are likely to wake often, and when you do so you are more likely to remember the strange dreams that you were having, explains Montagu. Youre breaking our hearts here.

So how do we ensure our dreams are more Ryan Gosling than Walking Dead? The best way I can suggest to avoid disturbed dreams is to not eat anything in the two to three hours before you go to bed, advises Montagu. This gives your digestive system a chance to catch up, and you are more likely to experience an undisturbed sleep until morning.
carson block muddy waters

Activist short seller Carson Block usually takes big swings at companies.

Block, who heads up the firm Muddy Waters Capital, typically tries to expose fraud, lies, and corruption.

And that often makes him unpopular, not least with the companies he is targeting and their investors.

Block talked to Business Insider last week, and in a wide-ranging interview discussed the merits of activist short selling. He also said that mainstream investors are now paying closer attention to what he has to say.

Block became notable by exposing Chinese firm Sino-Forest as a fraud. He also angered the company and a lot of investors.

"This was a stock that almost everyone in Canada owned in their retirement fund or something," Block told Business Insider. "So there was a certain amount of pushback, but you expect that."

Despite the headaches he causes for companies and their investors, Block believes that his kind of approach to investing is ultimately a win-win for investors.

"Many investors appreciate that the presentations I make on the shorts are educational as well," Block said. "I have people come up and say to me, 'Reading your report really helped me learn how to do better due diligence and sift through trades.'"

Essentially, said Block, shorts were previously done in private beforehand by large institutions. Now, by bringing in an activist mentality to shorting, more investors are being exposed to the type of analysis and research that can help spot fraudulent companies and bad businesses.

Andrew Left

In time, that has led to these kinds of noisy activists gaining acceptance.

Back when Block started, it was essentially just Muddy Waters and Andrew Left's Citron Research doing the legwork and presentations necessary to launch one of these high-profile shorts.

Nowadays, said Block, instead of being seen as rabble-rousers trying to disrupt companies, they are important parts of the investing world.

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The best way to get acceptance, said Block, has been to prove that his type of loud shorting is effective.

He told us:

It really helped activist short selling to get wins. We were getting wins, Andrew [Left] is getting wins, other activist short sellers have gotten wins, and now the smart money is starting to notice what we do and listen to it. I think we're helping people recognize companies that are not good companies.

NOW WATCH: Virtual reality could help the stock market reach all-time highs in 2016 and 2017





More From Business Insider


Abdulahi Olatoyan at work. (Photo: Daniel Sync/Sync MEDIA HOUSE)

Theres an old saying about how you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have  and the sentiment has never been more true than for one young man in Nigeria.

According to NAIJ.com, Abdulahi Olatoyan was a student at Nigerias University of Ilorin but was forced to leave due to financial reasons after his father died. In order to support himself, the 30-something began washing car windows on the streets.

What made Olatoyan stand out from competing washers? His formal manner of dress. Rather than wearing the typical tee and jeans, he wore a dapper blazer and shirt with a bowtie and matching pocket square.



Struck by Olatoyans distinguished look, celebrity photographer Daniel Sync took his portrait and wrote about their meeting online: So, I bumped into this well suited windscreen cleaner yesterday in Ogun State. We need more innovative citizens like Abdulahi in Nigeria. Well spoken Abdulahi Olatoyan who is in his early thirties is a University of Ilorin dropout, who turned to the street after the demise of his father to make a living and save enough money to start a business.

He hopes to return to school to finish his studies one day, Sync added. Photographing and speaking with Abdulahi today inspired me and I do hope that you are inspired by his story, too. If youre trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. Ive had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles dont have to stop you. If you run into a wall, dont turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

That was only the beginning. In the days that followed, designer Uche Nnaji of the popular Nigerian clothing brand OUCH caught wind of Olatoyans story and posted on Instagram asking his 17,900 followers to help him track down the window washer, adding We have a JOB waiting for him at OUCH. The post was showered with comments of praise and eventually updated, with Nnaji writing that he finally got to speak with [Abdulahi] Blessings .

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Though its unclear whether Nnaji is interested in casting Olatoyan as a model for his brand or as a salesperson, his story is being compared to that of former Nigerian bread seller Jumoke Orisaguna, who became a model and motivational speaker after photobombing a shoot with rapper Tinie Tempah.

Whatever the outcome, stories like this prove that social media, and its ability to connect people, can actually result in something positive and sweet. More of the same, please!

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.


Tony Barrow, the longtime Beatles press officer who coined the term "Fab Four," died Saturday (May 14) at his home in Morecambe, England. He had turned 80 just three days prior.

Barrow served as press officer for the legendary band during their heyday, from 1962-1968, and worked with a string of Hall of Fame acts through his career.

George Martin, Producer and Arranger for The Beatles, Dies at 90

Paul McCartney has paid tribute to Barrow, who he described as "a lovely guy who helped us in the early years of The Beatles. He was super professional, but always ready for a laugh. He will be missed but remembered by many of us."

Tony Barrow was a lovely guy who helped us in the early years of The Beatles. He was super professional but always ready for a laugh. (1/2)

- Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) May 15, 2016

He will be missed but remembered by many of us. (2/2)

- Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) May 15, 2016

Born in the Liverpool suburb of Crosby in 1936, Barrow joined the team at Decca Records as a teenager, writing liner notes for the label and contributing record reviews to the Liverpool Echo. In the early '60s, Beatles manager Brian Epstein approached Barrow to help lift the profile of the then-unsigned band. And with Barrow's help, the band scored an audition for the label, which famously failed to yield a recording contract. Epstein recognized Barrow's talents and he poached the young writer, reportedly with the offer of twice the salary he was earning with Decca.

Beatles Remastered 'Anthology' Albums Debut On All Streaming Services

Barrow would write features for the Beatles Monthly, often using a pseudonym or attributed to members of the band, and he penned the liner notes for the first three Beatles albums. He also drew the cartoon featured in the sleeve notes for Magical Mystery Tour and was the first to use the term "Fab Four," which he dropped in a press release. He worked not just on the Beatles, but across Epstein's stable of homegrown acts like Cilla Black and Gerry and the Pacemakers.

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Barrow left the Beatles in 1968 (a year after Epstein's death) to establish his own PR firm, where he worked with the likes of the Kinks, the Jackson Five and the Monkees.

'Hey, Jude' Becomes First-Ever Beatles Song to Be Licensed for Use in China

He published a handful of books on his time with the iconic act, including Meet the Beatles and the memoir, John, Paul, George, Ringo & Me - The Real Beatles Story.

The cause of Barrow's death is unknown at this time. He is survived by his wife, Corrine, and their two sons.
Americans are generally aware of tax-advantaged investment vehicles such as 401(k) plans, individual retirement accounts and 529 college savings plans. But one instrument, the health savings account, isn't as well known, although it offers three separate tax benefits.

An HSA allows account owners to pay for current health care expenses and save for those in the future. Its first advantage is that contributions are tax-deductible, or if made through a payroll deduction, they are pretax. Second, the interest earned is tax-free. Third, account owners may make tax-free withdrawals for qualified medical expenses.

Qualified expenses include most services provided by licensed health providers, as well as diagnostic devices and prescriptions. They even include acupuncture and substance-abuse treatment.

Unlike health care flexible spending accounts, which have a maximum year-to-year carry-over of $500, HSAs have no limit on carry-overs or when the funds may be used. Even if the account is opened through an employer-sponsored program, all money in an HSA belongs to the account owner. Accounts are held with a trustee or custodian, which may be a bank, credit union, insurance company or brokerage firm.

Although the tax advantages are appealing, advisors say investors shouldn't overlook HSAs' role as vehicles to save for medical expenses in retirement, when health care expenses generally rise.

"When they are discussed, they're thought of as a tax shelter, which is true," says Shelby George, senior vice president of advisor services at Manning & Napier, a Fairport, New York, investment manager.

"There's no other vehicle under the tax code that has the kind of preferential treatment that health savings accounts have. But it's a way for those who are not focused on tax-shelter opportunities to put the money aside as well," she adds.

HSAs were established under the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and are available to people covered by high-deductible health plans. According to the IRS, those are plans "with an annual deductible that is not less than $1,300 for self-only coverage or $2,600 for family coverage, and the annual out-of-pocket expenses (deductibles, co-payments and other amounts, but not premiums) do not exceed $6,450 for self-only coverage or $12,900 for family coverage."

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As employers try to shift health care costs away from the company and onto workers, high-deductible plans are becoming more common. That means more Americans are becoming eligible for HSAs. It also means financial advisors see more opportunities to educate clients about the benefits of HSAs.

Ann Reilley Gugle is co-owner and principal at Alpha Financial Advisors in Charlotte, North Carolina. For people who are eligible, an HSA is a good choice, she says.

"We typically advise clients to take advantage of enrolling in HSA-eligible, high-deductible health plans if their employer offers them and they don't typically have high out-of-pocket health care expenses. We recommend contributing the maximum amount to the HSA annually, as this vehicle allows you to save tax-free for future health care costs," she says.

Gugle adds that there is a strategy to maximize the account's benefits. She suggests investing the money for long-term appreciation, letting it grow tax-free, rather than spending it on current health care needs.

"In this sense, the HSA resembles a Roth IRA, in that it grows tax-free, but you also get the benefit of a current deduction. We advise clients to keep growing the HSA as long as possible as a hedge against the risk of rising health care costs," she says.

HSAs have contribution limits. For 2016, an individual may contribute up to $3,350; for a family, that amount is $6,750. People over 55 may add another $1,000 per year as a catch-up contribution.

Rising health care expenses. The investment industry often appeals to retirement savers with images of healthy, attractive couples walking on the beach. But it leaves out an unpleasant reality of aging: increased medical expenses.

HealthView Services, a Danvers, Massachusetts, maker of health care cost-projection software, studies retiree medical expenses. In a 2015 report, it found that medical expenses for a 65-year-old couple retiring today rose by 6.5 percent from the previous year.

Rapidly rising health care expenses are a reason to designate funds specifically for medical costs, says Ryan Monette, a financial advisor at Savant Capital Management in Rockford, Illinois.

"Because the HSA grows tax-deferred and distributions for qualified medical expenses are tax-free, I recommend funding the HSA even at the expense of lowering retirement plan contributions for those near retirement age," he says. "We know that medical expenses will play a role at some point, so why not take advantage of the deduction from current contributions and the tax-free nature from the distributions? In a way, it is saving for retirement, but the funds are earmarked towards qualified medical expenses."

To quickly fund an HSA, Monette suggests a transfer from an IRA. An individual may make a tax-free rollover from an IRA to an HSA once in his or her lifetime. The rollover is limited to the maximum allowable contribution for the year, minus any amount already contributed.

Before age 65, account owners face a 20 percent penalty for withdrawals for nonqualified medical expenses. These include elective cosmetic surgery, hair transplants, teeth whitening and health club memberships, among other things.

Starting at age 65, account owners may take penalty-free distributions for any reason. However, to be tax-free, withdrawals must be for qualified medical expenses.

Although HSAs may seem a little more complex than other retirement-savings vehicles, advisors say some research can pay off.

"An HSA is really an important financial planning tool," George says. "Individuals could benefit from taking some time to understand how these plans and savings accounts work."
(Reuters) - Presidential politics crept into the graduation ceremony at the University of Pennsylvania on Sunday, with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Joe Biden in attendance to cheer on family members. The two men sat relatively near each other at the event in Philadelphia, where the Trump family gathered to watch the real estate tycoon's daughter, Tiffany, graduate from the Ivy League school. Biden came to support granddaughter Naomi. Tiffany Trump, 22, is the daughter of Trump and his ex-wife Marla Maples. Naomi Biden is named after the vice president's one-year-old daughter, who died in a 1972 car accident along with the girl's mother, Biden's first wife. Donald Trump, who earlier this month effectively secured the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election, also attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating from its Wharton business school. Biden, who is not running in the 2016 election, has been a bitter critic of Trump's policies and campaign tactics, calling the Republican front-runner's remark that Mexico was sending rapists and other criminals across the border a "sick message." (Reporting by Daniel Trotta, Ginger Gibson and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Sharon Bernstein and Paul Simao)
Theres a popular saying attributed to the late New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan that in discussion of public policy, people are entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts. The 2016 presidential race, dominated by New York real estate billionaire Donald Trump, now the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, suggests that now, more than ever, we need a corollary to Moynihans adage.

Maybe something like: Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but not to their own logic.

Related: RNC Chair Shrugs Off Trump Controversies -- People Just Dont Care

Trump, who has driven much of the enthusiasm for his candidacy by stoking fear of immigrants, gave an interview to The Green Line over the weekend. Thats a podcast hosted by two Border Patrol agents, Shawn Moran and Thane Gallagher, and supported by the National Border Patrol Council, the union supporting US Border Patrol personnel. The union, which has never endorsed a presidential candidate before, has officially backed Trump, who has promised to build a wall on the Mexican border and to crack down on illegal immigrants.

In the interview, he also -- again -- ripped into proposals that the US ought to allow refugees of Syrias brutal civil war to enter the country and suggested that likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is in favor of unchecked immigration of Syrian refugees.

She wants the Syrians to pour into the country -- we dont know if theyre Syrians, by the way. We have no idea who they are because much of it is undocumented. A lot of these people dont have any documents. Wait until you see the problems well have with that.

(To be clear, the federal governments program for vetting refugees -- while imperfect -- takes more than year and is far more demanding than any of the European countries whose policies Trump went on to criticize.)

Related: Is this Why Trump Wont Release His Tax Returns?

When one of the hosts of the program asked him if he believed it would take another attack on the scale of 9/11 to change what he (and Trump) view as a too lax attitude toward border security, Trump heartily agreed.

Story continues

Bad things will happen - a lot of bad things will happen. There will be attacks that you wouldnt believe. There will be attacks by the people that are right now that are coming into our country, because I have no doubt in my mind.

But hang on. Saying, Bad things will happen.because I have no doubt in my mind is logically equivalent to saying Unicorns exist because I really, really believe in unicorns.

Its not a grown-ups argument. And it doesnt get better when its paired with a billionaires understanding of how the world works for the great unwashed.

I mean you look at it, they have cell phones, he said of the refugees. So they dont have money, they dont have anything. They have cell phones. Who pays their monthly charges, right? They have cell phones with the flags, the ISIS flags on them. And then were supposed to say, Isnt this wonderful that were taking them in?

Related: Trump Policy Advisor Promises an Astounding $7 Trillion Surplus

Putting aside the absurd idea that undercover ISIS agents would show up at the border with phones adorned with ISIS flags, Trump seems unaware that huge (even yuuuge) segments of the population have cell phones that dont require monthly payments. Poor people have phones, too. They just frequently fund them a few dollars at a time with prepaid cards.

The hosts didnt challenge him, but thats no surprise. In this election, facts are becoming as rare as unicorns.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been agitating U.S. allies abroad for months now with his calls for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., promises to re-assess longtime strategic partnerships, and seeming embrace of authoritarian rulers like Russias Vladimir Putin. He has promised to become more presidential as the November election nears, but there wasnt much evidence that he is ready to dial back his rhetoric yet in an interview he gave to talk show host Piers Morgan that aired on the ITV program Good Morning Britain on Monday.

Trump continued to voice his support for the movement in the United Kingdom to extricate the country from the European Union -- a position that puts Trump directly at odds with the government of Prime Minister David Cameron, as well as U.S. President Barack Obama.

Related: RNC Chair Reince Priebus Shrugs Off Trump Controversies -- People Just Dont Care

A lot of the migration and a lot of the acceptance of people is because of the European Union, I think thats been a disaster, he said. I think if I was from Britain I would want to go back to a different system. Ive dealt with the European Union and its very bureaucratic. Personally, in terms of Britain, I would say: What do you need it for?

When Obama visited the U.K. last month, he spoke in support of Britain remaining in the EU and said that while the U.S. would always maintain a strong relationship with the U.K., a departure from the EU would create complications around international trade agreements. The U.S. would certainly enter into agreements with the U.K. but would first focus on completing a huge package of trade agreements with its erstwhile EU partners, putting the U.K., in Obamas words, at the back of the queue.

No so under a Trump administration, the billionaire promised. Britains been a great ally. Theyve been such a great ally theyve gone into things they shouldnt have gone into, for example going into Iraq. With me, theyll always be treated fantastically, he promised. Im not going to say front of the queue but it wouldnt make any difference to me whether they were in the EU or not. You would certainly not be back of the queue, that I can tell you.

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Camerons government is desperately trying to convince British voters to remain in the EU when they go to the polls on June 23 for a referendum on the question.

Related: Trump on Refugees -- Bad Things Will Happen on the Scale of 9/11

Not only did Trump not offer Cameron any backup on the EU question, he suggested that Camerons characterization of his proposed Muslim ban as stupid, divisive, and wrong back in September augured poorly for their working relationship should he win the White House.

It looks like were not going to have a very good relationship, he said. I hope to have a good relationship with him, but it sounds like hes not willing to address the problem either.

He added, Number one, Im not stupid, I can tell you that right now. Just the opposite. I dont think Im a divisive person. Im a unifier, unlike our president now.

Camerons office on Monday said that the Prime Minister continues to stand by his criticism of Trumps plan to keep Muslims out of the U.S.

Related: While Clinton Sets Her Sights on Trump, Sanders Pulls Her Back

Trump also had strong words for Londons recently elected mayor, Sadiq Khan. After Khan, a Muslim, was elected, Trump said that he would make an exception from the ban if the mayor wanted to travel to the U.S.

"I think Donald Trump has ignorant views about Islam, Khan said at the time. It's not just about me. I don't want to be the exception to be allowed to go to America," Khan replied. Referring to the election, he added, I hope Donald Trump looks to the lessons that London sent last Thursday and recognizes that it's possible to be Western and Muslim.

Trump replied angrily to Khan in his interview with Morgan, among other things seeming to threaten future retaliation and suggesting that they should each take an IQ test and compare scores.

He doesn't know me, never met me, doesn't know what I am all about, he said. I think they are very rude statements. Frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements," Trump said. "It is ignorant for him to say that."

Trumps appearance on British morning television was not universally enjoyed. The Mirror newspaper collected social media reactions to the interview, including pleas like, Please dont let this vile man become POTUS and complaints like, Trump being interviewed by Piers Morgan. Enough to put you off your breakfast.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
London (AFP) - Donald Trump warned Monday he may end up having a bad relationship with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who branded the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's proposal to stop Muslim immigration to the US "stupid".

"It looks like we are not going to have a very good relationship," Trump told Britain's ITV television.

"Who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him but he's not willing to address the problem either."

In December, Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on", citing "great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population".

Cameron branded the tycoon's stance as "divisive, stupid and wrong" and has refused to retract his comments, though he said on May 5 that anyone who comes through the US presidential primaries deserves "respect".

Cameron's spokesman told reporters Monday: "The PM has made his views on Donald Trump's comments very clear: he disagrees with them."

But he added: "He's been clear that he will work with whoever is president of the United States."

Trump insisted he was "not stupid... just the opposite", and denied he was divisive, calling himself "a unifier".

He told ITV his campaign trail policies were just "suggestions", but said there was a "tremendous" problem with Islamic extremism.

The tycoon rejected claims he was anti-Muslim.

"Absolutely not. I am anti-terror," he said.

Trump said he had "many Muslim friends", one of whom told him: "'Donald you have done us such a favour: you have brought out a problem that nobody wants to talk about'."

Trump also blasted the new London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim elected to run a Western capital city.

Story continues

Khan, who took office on May 9, has branded Trump "ignorant" on Islam and claimed the tycoon was making the world more dangerous by alienating mainstream Muslims.

Trump said he was offended by Khan's denouncement.

"I think they were very rude statements and, frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements," Trump said.

"When he won I wished him well. Now, I don't care about him.

"Let's see how he does, let's see if he's a good mayor."

A spokesman for Khan on Monday again described Trump's views as "ignorant, divisive and dangerous".

"It's the politics of fear at its worst and will be rejected at the ballot box," the spokesman said.
Istanbul (AFP) - Turkey's army on Monday vehemently defended the attendance of its top general at the wedding of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's younger daughter, after a storm of criticism in the opposition press and on social media.

General Hulusi Akar was one of several witnesses at Saturday's marriage of Sumeyye Erdogan to defence industrialist Selcuk Bayraktar, whose family company manufactures military drones.

Some commentators bitterly criticised the chief of the general staff's presence, which came a day after eight Turkish soldiers were killed in a single operation against Kurdish rebels.

In a highly unusual statement on the general's personal schedule, the army said he had taken part in the wedding in Istanbul "within the framework of state protocol", after earlier attending funeral ceremonies for the dead soldiers in Ankara.

It said some of the coverage of the wedding had been "far from humane and conscientious" and warned against the use of "divisive language" in the fight against the militants.

Some commentators also suggested it was inappropriate that Akar had shown his closeness to a company which produces equipment for the armed forces.

"He was a witness at Erdogan's daughter's wedding on the day eight martyrs were laid to rest," said the anti-government Soczu daily. "Fury is growing" with Akar, it said.

In an event of huge political symbolism, other witnesses at the marriage included outgoing Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and former president Abdullah Gul, both of whom have been rumoured to be at odds with Erdogan.

Foreign leaders including Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and former Lebanese premier Saad Hariri were also in attendance.

The army was historically considered a major force in Turkish politics, able to oust governments it believed were eroding the secular principles of the modern republic set up by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Erdogan, in power as premier and then president since 2003, clipped the wings of the military through a succession of legal cases to ensure its loyalty and most commentators see little risk of the coups that marked Turkish history in the last decades.
Updated June 1: Following news of Universal Television president Bela Bajaria's exit, here's a closer look at how NBC's studio counterpart fared. UTV fell from second place last season to fifth this year after NBC picked up a number of new shows from outside studios in a move that separated itself from other broadcasters who put a greater emphasis on vertical integration.

Following a broadcast season that produced few bona fide hit breakout series, the networks continued to vertically align themselves with their studio counterparts as ownership becomes more of the mandate at the Big Four.

With overall orders down slightly (42 vs. 45 in 2015), 20th Century Fox Television proved to be the big winner - largely thanks to its vertically aligned network. Off-network sales are now increasingly challenging and what sales there were became more about shared ownership and stacking rights than ever before.

Here's a look at how each of the studios fared. (For last year's tally, click here.) Note: Not included are off-cycle series like CBS' BrainDead, etc.

See More: Broadcast TVs New Shows for 2016-17 Season (Photos)

20th Century Fox Television: 12 series ordered. (Up from 10 last year.)

Moving from third to first this year, the studio has 10 of its 12 pickups at Fox and shares ownership on its off-network sale to ABC. Fox's American Idol-sized hole also prompted a slight uptick in series pickups (from 10 to 11 this season), with the studio continuing to reap the benefit.

Making History (Fox)

The Mick (Fox)

Son of Zorn (Fox)

APB (Fox)

24: Legacy (Fox)

The Exorcist (Fox)

Pitch (Fox)

Prison Break* (Fox)

Shots Fired (Fox)

Star (Fox)

Speechless (ABC) co-production with ABC Studios

This Is Us (NBC)

*Straight to series.

Returning series: 15 (10 at Fox) for a total of 27 on broadcast

Designated Survivor* (ABC) co-production with eOne

Still Star-Crossed (ABC)

Conviction (ABC)

Downward Dog (ABC) co-production with Legendary TV

Untitled Sarah Dunn(ABC)

Story continues

Time After Time (ABC) Warner Bros. Television

Notorious (ABC) co-production with Sony Pictures TV

Imaginary Mary (ABC) co-production with Sony Pictures TV

Speechless (ABC) co-production with 20th Century Fox TV

*Straight to series.

Returning series: 14 (11 on ABC) for a total of 22 on broadcast

See More: Broadcast TVs Returning Shows 2016-17

Warner Bros. Television: Eight series ordered. (Up from seven last year.)

In addition to boarding CBS Television Studios' No Tomorrow with its pickup at The CW, Peter Roth's independent studio had sales at each of the Big Four broadcast networks. Sources say WBTV, which has remained steadfast in its unwillingness to share ownership, is also rumored to have given up a sliver of Training Day to CBS TV Studios in a bid to get the reboot on the air as that stance appears to be changing with the times.

Time After Time (ABC)

Training Day (CBS)

Lethal Weapon (Fox)

Powerless (NBC)

Trial and Error (NBC)

Frequency (The CW)

Riverdale (The CW)

No Tomorrow (The CW) co-production with CBS TV Studios

Returning series: 19 (12 on CW) for a total of 27 on broadcast

Universal Television: Seven series ordered. (12 last year.)

Like 20th, nearly all of UTV's sales this year were to its network counterpart at NBC. Hurting the Bela Bajaria studio's tally is NBC's stocked schedule. With fewer holes on its schedule and having renewed all of its tentpoles, the network also opted to pick up fewer series and spread the wealth with nearly half of its pickups off-net buys. A bright spot though: Jason Katims redeveloped Silicon Valley medical drama went to series at CBS with CBS TV Studios boarding as a co-producer.

The Good Place* (NBC)

Taken* (NBC) co-production with Europa Corp.

Chicago Justice (NBC)

Marlon (NBC)

Great News (NBC)

Midnight, Texas (NBC)

Pure Genius (CBS) co-production with CBS TV Studios

*Straight to series.

Returning series: 9 (7 on NBC) for a total of 16 on broadcast

Sony Pictures Television: Five series ordered. (Up from four last year.)

The independent studio continued to be aggressive in landing series pickups, even if that means continuing to sacrifice ownership. The studio has two co-productions at ABC (including buzzy Notorious) with another at CBS with Kevin James' return to the small screen set up at the latter. Meanwhile, the studio is still in talks to bring Cruel Intentions to the small screen on NBC - where it has one of the season's biggest swings in Timeless.

Imaginary Mary (ABC) co-production with ABCS

Notorious (ABC) co-production with ABCS

Kevin Can Wait (CBS) co-production with CBSTVS

Timeless (NBC)

The Blacklist: Redemption (NBC)

Returning series: three for a total of eight on broadcast

Keep up with all the renewals, cancellations and new series pickups with THR's handy scorecard and follow the pilot crop status here. For full upfronts 2016 coverage, go to THR.com/upfronts.
Is Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR)'s policy of who it hands over data to a double standard?

Twitter's decision to cut off U.S. intelligence services from accessing its data has been widely reported known for some time. What hasn't been reported is the company's willingness to allow foreign governments, especially those that aren't particularly friendly to the US, to receive the same data and information U.S. intelligence agencies are banned from.

Dataminr is a company that searches for patterns across hundreds of millions of Tweets and then reports its findings and alerts to its clients which used to include U.S. intelligence agencies - until Dataminr was forced to end its relationship with spy agencies in early May.

Related Link: MKM Cuts Twitter's Target To , Bearish On Lack Of Management Focus On Moments

Meanwhile, Twitter appears to have no problem in allowing Dataminr to count Russia-based RT as a client.

RT is an English-language broadcaster created and funded by the Russian government. According to The Wall Street Journal, Russian Federal Security Service agents "have full access via RT to the alerts now being denied to the CIA."

The Central Intelligence Agency was quoted by WSJ as saying that Dataminr's service have proven to be "critical in providing indications of pending plots" by Islamic State and al Qaeda terrorists.

See more from Benzinga

 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
From Esquire

You hear a lot of talk these days about our country coming apart at the seams. Some say we're not as great as we used to be. I hear that, and it speaks to me, specifically as a healthy rural or exurban male, probably from the south, but also possibly from Maine, who is unsure about what I want to do with my life. But know that I love my country, and I know that freedom sure as hell ain't free.

I hear stories from my grandfather about his generation fighting the Nazis, and I think, "Yes, now there's an evil I wish I had the moral certainty to confront." The type of adversary you could be proud to go into battle against without overthinking it. Now? Well, who even knows who we're fighting against.

That's why this recruitment effort from the U.S. Army, in collaboration with the forthcoming major motion picture Independence Day: Resurgence, directed by Roland Emmerich, scheduled for a June 24, 2016 release, speaks to me as a generic representative of my particular demographic. I know there's something out there far more important than all of the petty squabbling you see on the news these days from the right and the left, and of course I'm referring to the menace of horrific alien space bugs and their infamous world-landmark-destroying lasers.

The first time I started to worry about the very real and not at all fictional impending alien invasion was in a commercial for the film Independence Day: Resurgence, in theaters June 24, 2016, titled "United We Survive | Join the ESD."

"Twenty years ago the world escaped the clutches of extinction," explains the strident voiceover of a politician, who sounds a little like Hillary Clinton, but never mind. "We must never forget our survival is only possible when we stand together. We have found strength and unity as a planet, and that strength has brought us the power to survive."

We then learn about the importance of the Earth Space Defense, which is, as far as the spot lets on, a real thing that actually exists.

Story continues

The commercial closes by encouraging me, a healthy rural or exurban male, to go to enlist at join.ESD.com. A second video features a different man talking about how proud he is of his daughter who, like him, has enlisted to fly jet planes against the alien horde. Like most of you, I have long sought the approval of my father, so this resonated. "Be someone's hero," the text of the commercial says in big letters. "Paid for by the U.S. Army," it says in much smaller letters.

I followed the URL, like the nice people in the commercials said to do, and found a really professional looking portal to interstellar heroism. The introduction read:

SINCE THE WAR OF 1996, THE EARTH SPACE DEFENSE HAS BEEN PREPARING FOR THE NEXT GREAT ALIEN INVASION. WE'RE LOOKING FOR THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST FROM AROUND THE GLOBE TO JOIN THE ESD, AND PROTECT MANKIND. OUR PURPOSE IS SIMPLE: DEFEND EARTH'S INDEPENDENCE AT ALL COSTS.

That purpose does seem pretty simple when you break it down to brass tacks.

And just below that:

Learn more about U.S. Army careersIndependence Day: Resurgence In theaters June 24

I'm also given the opportunity to unlock exclusive content from Independence Day: Resurgence, in theaters June 24, 2016, by granting the Army access to my Facebook page. Done.

I decided to enlist.

I found all sorts of realistic simulations that appealed to me, a healthy exurban or rural male. I'm also exceptionally likely to understand the world through the context of the easily discerned Good v. Evil narrative of most video games, which I play frequently.

Four training missions gave me what I think is a pretty good picture of what it must be like to join the military. In one, I pointed my cursor at a petri dish of alien microbes and clicked on them, earning points along the way.

I only scored 92% in my first effort, but I feel like I could master the task given the hundreds of man hours I put into a typical game.

In another mission I had to crack the code of an alien message.

I have to admit I faired a little worse at this one, pulling in a still somewhat respectable 0%.

Nonetheless, I was informed at the end that:

CRYPTOLOGIC NETWORK WARFARE SPECIALISTS IN THE REAL U.S. ARMY WORK IN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE, CONDUCTING CYBERSECURITY OPERATIONS TO PROTECT FREEDOM OF ACTION IN CYBERSPACE.

Maybe I could be one of those?

When I was asked if I wanted to learn more, a link sent me to this page, with all sorts of information about the job of a cryptologist explained in cool-sounding military jargon. A cartoon avatar named Sgt. Star looked on stoically, but helpfully, as if he really wanted me to perform my best, and offered to answer any questions I might have.

I only had a couple of questions. First:

"Are space bugs real?"

SGT. STAR: Good question. I'm not sure how to answer that. Please try rewording your question. I understand simple questions best.

Hmm. How about this one:

"Is this some propaganda bullshit or what?"

SGT STAR: Watch your language or I'll have to shut you down.
By Letitia Stein

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. Coast Guard investigators on Monday resumed a probe of last year's deadly sinking of the El Faro off the Bahamas, beginning two weeks of hearings to examine the cargo ship's operations, weather forecasts and regulatory oversight.

Captain Eric Bryson, who helped launch the El Faro on its final voyage, told the Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigation panel that the ship's doomed captain had said he planned to "go out and shoot under," meaning avoid, a storm brewing in the Caribbean.

He was among some two dozen experts set to testify during a second round of hearings on the worst cargo shipping disaster involving a U.S.-flagged vessel in more than three decades.

The 790-foot (241-meter) ship sank off the Bahamas during a hurricane on Oct. 1, two days after leaving Jacksonville before the storm intensified into a hurricane.

"There was nothing out of the ordinary," said Captain James Fudaker, a docking pilot who also worked with the ship before it departed for Puerto Rico. He testified that he was not aware of equipment deficiencies.

Testimony from a former master of the ship also offered little insight into what went wrong.

"To me, the El Faro was a Cadillac. She rode well," Captain Eric Axelsson told the panel, adding that he did not consider the vessel vulnerable.

During its first meeting in February, the Coast Guard panel heard the final phone call of the ship's captain, Michael Davidson, a veteran mariner from Maine, who warned that the "clock was ticking" as his vessel took on water.

Executives with ship operator Tote Services have said the captain was responsible for decisions leading to the disaster.

The Coast Guard panel is looking for evidence of negligence or misconduct and the cause of the sinking. Convened only for the most serious disasters, the panel plans a third set of hearings at a yet unscheduled date.

By then, it hopes to have evidence from the ship's voyage data recorder, which may contain detailed information from the vessel's final hours. The recorder has been located in 15,000 feet (4,600 meters) of water off the Bahamas, but authorities have not been able to retrieve it.

Ultimately, the Coast Guard panel expects to issue a report and could make recommendations aimed at preventing another disaster.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Paul Simao and Cynthia Osterman)
By Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is increasingly concerned about the potential for an economic and political meltdown in Venezuela, spurred by fears of a debt default, growing street protests and deterioration of its oil sector, U.S. intelligence officials said on Friday. In a bleak assessment of Venezuela's worsening crisis, the senior officials expressed doubt that unpopular leftist President Nicolas Maduro would allow a recall referendum this year, despite opposition-led protests demanding a vote to decide whether he stays in office. But the two officials, briefing a small group of reporters in Washington, predicted that Maduro, who heads Latin Americas most ardently anti-U.S. government and a major U.S. oil supplier, was not likely to be able to complete his term, which is due to end after elections in late 2018. They said one plausible scenario would be that Maduros own party or powerful political figures would force him out and would not rule out the possibility of a military coup. Still, they said there was no evidence of any active plotting or that he had lost support from the countrys generals. The officials appeared to acknowledge that Washington has little leverage in how the situation unfolds in Venezuela, where any U.S. role draws government accusations of U.S.-aided conspiracies. Instead, the administration of President Barack Obama wants "regional" efforts to help keep the country from sliding into chaos. You can hear the ice cracking. You know theres a crisis coming, one U.S. official said. Our pressure on this isnt going to resolve this issue. Maduro hit back on Friday night, blasting what he said was a meeting "to conspire against Venezuela" in Washington. "Washington is activating measures at the request of Venezuela's fascist right, who are emboldened by the coup in Brazil," he said during a televised broadcast in reference to this week's impeachment of fellow leftist Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. Maduro, 53, then declared a 60-day state of emergency which includes the "necessary measures" to protect Venezuela in the event of a foreign attack, he said, without providing details. Mobs in Venezuela have stolen flour, chicken and even underwear this week as looting increases across the crisis-hit OPEC nation where many basic products have run short, and the U.S. officials said this could spiral into widespread unrest. Soldiers fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters on Wednesday as Venezuela's opposition marched to pressure electoral authorities into allowing a recall referendum against Maduro. Maduro has sworn he will not be forced out before his term expires in 2019 and accuses the opposition of seeking a coup against him to destroy the socialist legacy of his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez. Washington has had an acrimonious relationship with Caracas for years, especially following U.S. support for a short-lived 2002 coup against Chavez. The U.S. officials insisted that the United States was not rooting against Caracas but just wanted to see the crisis defused. They expressed concern for a possible spillover to its neighboring countries, especially Colombia, but said most of the instability would be "self-contained" to Venezuela. Such intelligence assessments help U.S. policymakers decide on how to respond. There was no immediate comment from the White House. The administration quietly sought last year to improve relations but the imposition of new U.S. sanctions and drug-related indictments stoked fresh tensions. The officials cited the risk of a Venezuelan debt default. Maduro's government has consistently paid its debt on time and has slammed market fears of a default as an international smear campaign. Weak oil markets and an unraveling socialist economy have fanned concerns that the Venezuelan oil firm PDVSA will be unable to make nearly $5 billion in bond payments between now and the end of the year. (Editing by Mary Milliken and Stephen Coates)
By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to conduct a comprehensive review of the police department in a South Carolina city where a white officer shot dead an unarmed black man a year ago, the federal government said on Monday.

The city of North Charleston last month requested the review from the department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) as a trust-building step that has won praise from civil rights lawyers.

The Justice Department, which is responsible for upholding civil rights and has the power to intervene locally if needed, announced the review in a brief statement and called a news conference for Tuesday in North Charleston.

Patrolman Michael Slager killed motorist Walter Scott, 50, on April 4, 2015, firing eight times at his back as he fled a traffic stop for a broken tail light. A bystander captured the shooting on cell phone video.

Slager is awaiting state trial on a murder charge and was also indicted last week on suspicion of U.S. federal civil rights violations. His lawyers say he acted in self-defense.

North Charleston still simmers with racial tension and black residents say they continue to be harassed and humiliated by law enforcement.

North Charleston has avoided the rioting that took place in other U.S. cities after police killings of black men, but African Americans complain of being subjected to overly aggressive policing and racial profiling. A city of 106,000, its population is 47 percent black and the police force is about 78 percent white.

The mission of COPS is to improve policing by state and local law enforcement through training, grants to hire more people and to test policing strategies, according to its website.

North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey and Police Chief Eddie Driggers requested the review, a move welcomed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. and South Carolina civil rights leaders.

Summey says steps have been taken to rebuild trust. Police are now equipped with body cameras and the department launched two new community outreach programs, in addition to the request for a COPS review.

Story continues

"Our efforts have uncovered some areas in which we could benefit from outside assistance," Summey and Driggers said in a letter to COPS last month.

The letter also asked for help in improving the department's public perception and sought help for police training, creating a citizen panel and "more wide-ranging assistance."

(Reporting by Harriet McLeod; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Dan Grebler)
By Michelle Nichols and John Irish UNITED NATIONS/VIENNA (Reuters) - The Obama administration's failure to convince Moscow that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go is fueling European frustration at being sidelined in efforts to end the country's five-year civil war, diplomats say.Some diplomats and analysts question whether the United States has misread Russia's desire to keep Assad in power. "Many have consistently underestimated Russia's determination to prevent this regime from falling," said Philip Gordon, a former National Security Council aide to U.S. President Barack Obama. "They've been pretty clear that they're not prepared to let this happen." Ahead of a meeting on Tuesday of the 17-nation group backing Syria peace talks in Vienna, a senior U.N. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Europeans "tend to be pretty skeptical about the U.S.-Russia bilateralism." He said there were creative ways to provide for a transition away from Assad to give Syrian opposition groups a reason to stop fighting and start negotiating. "But we haven't got anywhere near having that discussion with the Syrians themselves because the U.S. and Russia have been trying to bridge the gap, and they haven't been able to do so," said the diplomat. "So that's why we have got to come back and multilateralize this." While some acknowledge that U.S.-Russian cooperation has delivered a patchwork of partial ceasefires and U.N. Security Council resolutions, the divide over Assad has proven too big to bridge and stalled U.N.-led efforts to negotiate peace agreement. "If we recall how (U.S. Secretary of State John) Kerry committed himself on this... it was with the hope and conviction that the Russians would relatively quickly get some commitments from the regime to engage in a political process. This never happened," said a senior Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the political differences. As a result, prospects remain bleak for an early end to a conflict that began in 2011 and now has claimed more than 250,000 lives. One of the main problems, diplomats say, is the U.S. administration's inability - or unwillingness - to confront an increasingly aggressive Russia. Some have suggested Washington lost whatever leverage on Moscow it might have had by failing to follow through on Obama's 2013 threat to punish Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons. "I'm realistic. I see Americans who aren't especially combative or ready to put much on the table that would convince the opposition to return to negotiations," said a senior European diplomat in Vienna. Some Syrian opposition representatives, Arab and U.N. officials have complained that the United States often has put more pressure on the rebels to compromise instead of pushing Russia to sway the Syrian government. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir signaled that Riyadh is not pinning its hopes on the United States convincing Russia to remove Assad and suggested a push to make sure opposition fighters were better armed might be needed. "The choice is Bashar al-Assad's," he told reporters in Paris last week. "He will be removed, either through a political process or through military force." (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by John Walcott and Dan Grebler)
By Olivia Oran

(Reuters) - UBS Group AG's (UBSG.S) Americas wealth unit is partnering with online financial advisor SigFig Wealth Management to develop technology and investment tools for the Swiss bank, UBS said on Monday.

UBS said it has also bought an undisclosed stake in SigFig, a so-called robo-adviser which provides investment advice online at a lower cost than traditional brokerages which rely more heavily on human advisers.

The firms will form a research lab to collaborate on new wealth management tools as part of the venture, UBS said in a press release.

Wall Street banks and investment firms are increasingly building or buying robo-advisers to add business while cutting costs. Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) are building their own technologies, while BlackRock (BLK.N) acquired FutureAdvisor last August.

UBS has shifted its business model in recent years to focus more on wealth management, which is typically more stable than businesses like trading. The Americas wealth unit, which has around 7,000 financial advisors, had net inflows of $13.6 billion during the first quarter. UBS started exploring ways it could partner with financial technology companies under former UBS Americas Wealth Chief Executive Bob McCann, his successor Tom Naratil said in an interview.

McCann led a delegation including UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti to Silicon Valley last year where the bankers met with a number of robo-adviser companies, including SigFig.

Naratil, who took over McCann's role in January, said UBS ultimately decided against buying a robo-adviser.

"Our fear was that we would turn a technology firm like SigFig into us," he said. "They're not us ... we want them to continue to be very creative and innovative."

Naratil said UBS would roll out the technology to a small group of investment advisers later this year and complete a full launch in 2017.

(Reporting by Olivia Oran in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)
UBS Group AG UBS has urged a U.S. judge to dismiss claims that the bank should be held liable for losses of $2 billion incurred by investors on mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that were issued before the housing market meltdown. The lawsuit was brought by U.S. Bancorp on behalf of three trusts established for MBS.



The news reported by Reuters stated that, on Friday, lawyers representing UBS made their closing arguments in the non-jury trial in Manhattan federal court. Sean P. Baldwin, the trusts' lawyer stated that UBS agreed that the mortgages underlying those securities would conform to certain standards. However, when deficiencies continued to appear, the bank refused to repurchase them.



He mentioned, UBS knew of the defects and decided to ignore them or  in some cases  turn a blind eye to them. Baldwin said that the Swiss banking giant should be held accountable for its business decision.



In defense, UBS lawyer, Robert Fumerton stated that the though the trusts claimed that thousands of loans were defective under the governing contracts, they had failed to establish that those defects were material. He noted, "Not all breaches of the guidelines and not all breaches of the representations and warranties are material.



Notably, in 2013, UBS shelled out $358 million to Assured Guaranty Ltd. in a case involving the same three trusts. The lawsuit had accused the bank of misrepresenting the quality of the loans underlying $1.49 billion of MBS insured by UBS.



While the outcome of the case is uncertain as of now, any unfavorable ruling is likely to further add to the legal woes of UBS Group. Also, the company is exposed to huge potential expenses from the case that may affect its financials.



Currently, UBS carries a Zack Rank #5 (Strong Sell). Some favorably ranked stocks in the foreign banks space include Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Limited ANZBY, Grupo Financiero Galicia S.A. GGAL and Shinhan Financial Group Company Limited SHG, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).



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To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - France and Britain are preparing a UN resolution that would authorize EU ships in the Mediterranean to intercept vessels suspected of carrying weapons to Libya, diplomats said Monday.

The European Union's Operation Sophia would be tasked with enforcing a UN arms embargo that was imposed on Libya in 2011, during the uprising against Moamer Kadhafi.

European powers are also looking at building up Libya's coast guards to ramp up operations against migrant smugglers operating off the coast of the north African country.

The two measures could "come up pretty soon" at the Security Council, said a senior diplomat, who spoke on condition that he not be named.

Operation Sophia's enforcement of the arms embargo would be aimed at shoring up the UN-backed government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.

Many deliveries of weapons by sea have been destined for Sarraj's rival government in eastern Libya.

Sarraj won backing from the United States, European powers, Egypt and others on Monday for exemptions to the arms embargo that will allow his government to purchase weapons and confront the threat from the Islamic State group.

The draft resolution on expanding the EU naval mission would first require a decision from the European Union, said the diplomat, adding that this should take "weeks, not days."

Operation Sophia's new UN mandate would be limited however to the high seas off Libya's coast. It would authorize EU military action without the consent of the vessel's flagged state.

"If they spot that weapons are coming into Libya by sea, then they would be able to interdict the vessels carrying those weapons," he said.

- Loosening the arms embargo -

World powers hope the new UN-backed government will be able to put an end to years of chaos in Libya since the fall of Kadhafi and confront IS jihadists who have expanded their foothold in the lawless country.

Story continues

Sarraj's government has the backing of the central bank and the national oil corporation but the House of Representatives has refused to endorse the new leadership.

Libya has had two administrations since mid-2014 when the militia alliance overran Tripoli, setting up its own authority and forcing the parliament to flee to the country's remote east.

A UN panel of experts reported in March that the Tobruk-based government in the east had recently received MIG-21F jets apparently from Egypt. Cairo told the panel the information was "incorrect".

The panel is also investigating weapons deliveries from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan to various Libya factions.

Last year, seven council members led by Spain put on hold Libya's request for UN approval of a major delivery of weaponry.

Libya had asked an exemption for deliveries of eight helicopters, six fighter jets, four fighter-bombers, 150 tanks, 150 personnel carriers mounted with machine guns, 10,000 automatic grenade launchers, 1,000 sniper rifles along with ammunition and mortar shells.

The UN experts had advised the council to reject the request, arguing that the arms shipments could fall into the wrong hands.
Niamey (AFP) - More than nine million people in the Lake Chad region are in desperate need of food aid as the violent insurgency being waged there by Boko Haram rages, the UN said Monday.

Half of the region's residents are facing "chronic food insecurity" and malnutrition as the violence around Lake Chad "continues to deteriorate", the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.

"(Fighting) has catastrophically worsened their vulnerability," said the statement, which blamed Boko Haram's violent campaign to carve out a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria and beyond for triggering "the largest crisis of displaced people in Africa".

Over 2.4 million people have been forced from their homes due to the violence in the region that has claimed more than 20,000 lives, according to the UN.

Since 2015, the four countries that share Lake Chad -- Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger -- have significantly weakened Boko Haram but have been unable to vanquish the Islamists entirely.

UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs Stephen O'Brien began a four-day tour of the region on Monday to raise awareness of the crisis.

On Tuesday he will visit Diffa in southeast Niger which is home to 200,000 refugees and people internally displaced by the violence before travelling to Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria, a city that has been on the frontline of the battle against Boko Haram.

Lake Chad itself has several islands which have been evacuated at the request of the Chadian army to help it fight against insurgents.

The area around the lake has thick vegetation which has helped jihadists to move undetected.

On Friday the UN Security Council expressed "alarm" at growing ties between Boko Haram and the Islamic State group.
Lishui is the nickname for my uncle, a farmer who has lived all his life in the suburbs of Tianjin, a big city in northeastern China. Whenever people talk about Lishui, my mothers older brother, they always say: Lishui is a nice guy, honest, always in a good mood. As a young child, when I heard him coming to visit, I would rush out of the house, climb onto his shoulders, and pull his ears.

The more I think about Lishui, the more I am confused by the fact that he was a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution, a movement from 1966-1976 led by then-ruler Mao Zedong that caused great upheaval and pain among Chinas people. Most confusing to me is the fact that my kind and honest uncle says he doesnt regret a single thing he did  not even today, when the Cultural Revolution is widely acknowledged both outside and within China as a massive historical mistake. (In June 1981, the party passed the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the Peoples Republic of China, which described the Cultural Revolution as a mistake. That was the closest the party has ever come to apologizing. Meanwhile, the last several years have seen a wave of public and in-person apologies from individuals who used to be Red Guards, the young enforcers of Maos insane vision.)

For this article, I spoke with Lishui about his experience as a Red Guard on two occasions, once in April and once in November 2015. I also spoke with other family members about their recollections of Lishui and the Cultural Revolution that shaped him. Lishuis story began in in May 1966, when he was 18 years old. He told me he heard a government announcement on the village loudspeaker: Some representatives of the Bourgeoisie have creeped into our party, our government, our military, and our cultural departments. They are a group of counterrevolutionary revisionists and they are waiting for the right moment to seize power.

Story continues

One night not long after the announcement, when Lishuis father was putting on a shadow play under candlelight for his younger children, Lishuis heard the sound of drum, gongs, and voices, chanting, Down with the landlords and their bastards!

Whats that? Wangs young brothers and sisters asked.

Red Guards, said their father.

Not long after, Lishui told me, he found that almost every young person around him had become a Red Guard. He soon joined them, for reasons he could not articulate clearly. Its like being pushed by a flood, he said. There was also an intitial attraction to the position. There was less work to do at Lishuis village production team, because so much time was spent on political activities. His younger siblings did not need to attend school.

One day, the Red Guards received a high command that they should clean away all the Four Olds  old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. Their first step was to search peoples houses and confiscate any property that fit any of these broad categories; it could be a traditional painting, or a table.

One of the first targets was Lishuis grandfathers house. Terrified of severe punishment, the old man handed over his collection of books and paintings before those young people, including his own grandsons, would find them. The Red Guards piled the books and paintings and burned them. To show his sincerity and to avoid further punishment, my great-grandfather used the fire to boil water in front of the guards.

Lishui also followed the other Red Guards to the west end of the village, where the villages ancestral tombs lay. Dozens of the young guards started dug up tombs, broke coffins, and looted graves for jewelry, leaving the bones in the dry grass. Our family tombs werent spared.

But Lishui isnt sorry about that either. He told me he followed guards to the tombs many times, but insists he did not take anything. It was the leaders who took the jewelry, he said, although nobody knows what they did with the golden earrings and bracelets. Lishui told me what they did was not totally wrong, because its intent was to convert the land so it could be used to plant grain.

Red Guards also banished Peking Opera, a once much-beloved art form, from the village. One day, after theyd finished destroying part of the local temple, Lishui and his fellow red guards broke into the village stock of opera stage settings and costumes and burned them. My uncle says he did think for a moment about how his father loved Peking Opera, and memories came back to him of old days when his father would take him onstage and let him practice reciting the lines of a small role.

I never had a chance to ask my grandfather  once a frequent Peking Opera actor in the village, who until the last day of his life still held his radio to listen to famous opera performer Mei Lanfang  about how it felt to see his own son burning those cherished parts of his life. But I know my grandfather stopped singing Peking Opera for many years while the classic plays were banned and only eight model operas were permitted.

Over time, Red Guards turned from attacking physical objects to attacking people. My uncle says he could feel the turn happening, but he could not stop it, or stop himself.

Whenever the Red Guards and the peoples militias chanted slogans outside, the young children of my family would run out and see what was going on. Then one day, the chanting stopped outside a nearby house, home to a lady who was more than 60 years old. Her husband used to do business when they were young, so the woman became old white hair, a target. The Red Guards found a pair of golden earrings hidden behind some photos frames. The old woman was dragged out and beaten by wooden sticks as thick as arms.

That same winter, my grandmother told me, a man surnamed Fu, one of the few landlords in the village, was found to have engaged in conduct before the founding of the Peoples Republic of China that was extremely guilty and evil. So Red Guards dug a hole in the frozen river, tied Fu to a big stone, and pushed him into the hole. At first there was a cry and the sound of struggling in the water. Then everything was quiet except for the wind.

My great-grandfather, Lishuis grandfather, was afraid for himself. Although he had already gambled away his property, it felt like hundreds of pairs of eyes were staring at his past: that of a young master, educated in Confucianism, who kept a concubine and was the village head during the nationalist Kuomingtangs pre-Communist regime. He had negotiated with the occupying Japanese army when they passed through his village, giving them nice food and gifts in exchange for their mercy.

My mother once had a conversation with my great-grandfather. They did not kill anyone when they lived in our village; isnt that the result of my hard work? she said he told her. They killed so many people in our neighboring village. I dont think I was wrong.

None of that mattered during the Cultural Revolution. My great-grandfather was forced to step on stage and accept criticism, wearing a high hat, which looked like a dunce cap, enumerating his crimes. Lishui worried about further retaliation against my grandfather, so Lishui visited his grandfathers house to help him write self criticisms.

He was old and his eyes were diseased, so he told me his stories, and I wrote them down, Lishui told me. I also guided him to write what the Red Guards would like to hear. I remember a few lines: I was born in 1899; at eight years old I started studying the Four Books and Five Classics taught by private teachers. I will reflect deeply and profoundly on my past.

But Lishui wont blame Red Guards for his grandfathers torment. We were loyal, and we were following Chairman Maos guidelines, Lishui said, and whats more important, we believed we were doing things that were good and meaningful. He added that Chinese socialism was facing great challenges from counterrevolutionists back then.

But in 1976, everything ended. That July, an earthquake killed many people in Lishuis village and destroyed the already shabby houses; that September, Mao died; and that October, my uncle heard another announcement from the village loudspeakers: the Gang of Four, a powerful political faction driving the Cultural Revolution, had been struck down, and the Cultural Revolution was over.

The spell broken, Lishui found himself a farmer once again. A photograph from that time shows him young and happy in a white shirt, green army trousers, and an army hat.

Things have not gotten better for Chinese socialism, or for my uncle. He is bitter that China has cast off the values he fought for and for which he sacrificed his youth, the kind of socialism where the workers and farmers like him were the masters of their country. In his youth, Lishui believed in a socialism in which there were no classes. He remains proud that he was what he calls a good student of Chairman Mao. (During the Great Leap Forward, a disastrous and famine-inducing policy Mao implemented in the late 1950s to spike economic production, Lishui was one of the children who pushed their parents to donate their iron tools, including farming implements, so they could be melted down to make steel. Even today, he never addresses Mao Zedong by name, but always as Chairman Mao.)

But in todays highly unequal China, it seems, the joke is on Lishui.

My uncle now lives as a farmer in the Tianjin suburbs, and says he has nothing more than the $15 pension he receives each month from the government. He still likes to talk politics. The aim of the Cultural Revolution was good, Lishui insists. Our society now lacks some of the positive spirit of the Cultural Revolution.

Lishui is serious about that contention. During the Cultural Revolution, nobody dared to abuse their power like today, he told me. Farmers and workers were like the real masters of the country. Look at today: officials are the lords, and this country is full of capitalists. I dare say 99 percent of the village officials in China, some of which are chosen via a quasi-democratic process, gave bribes to get themselves elected.

Around early 2013, when Chinese president Xi Jinping started a sweeping anti-corruption campaign, his portrait appeared on my uncles wall. Lishui was excited, and in conversation he used to link the campaign to an earlier Mao-led movement in 1963, the Four Cleanups, meant to remove reactionary elements from Chinese politics. But to Lishuis disappointment, a new Cultural Revolution hasnt followed. On my most recent visit to my uncles house, Xis portrait no longer adorned the wall. Lishui is still waiting.

Jean Vincent/Getty Images
From Cosmopolitan

As of March 2016, over 200 colleges and universities were under investigation for their handling of sexual misconduct complaints. More specifically, these investigations pivot around these schools' compliance with Title IX, a 1972 law that prohibits sex discrimination at schools receiving public funding. Title IX is intended to safeguard equal opportunity for women in higher education, and increasingly, this includes how schools respond to allegations of sexual violence. At the forefront of discussions about Title IX compliance is building a culture of reporting all acts of sexual misconduct, from sexual harassment to rape.

There is a growing national movement focused on mandating that nearly all university employees report any allegations of sexual misconduct to the appropriate official at their university. For example, this week at the University of Oregon, the faculty senate will consider a new policy of mandatory reporting for nearly all university employees to the university's Title IX coordinator. Although supporters of this new policy view it as a step toward full Title IX compliance and connecting student survivors to appropriate resources, this particular approach to addressing under-reporting is more complicated than it may appear.

It is important to acknowledge the ways in which universities are working toward stopping sexual violence on college campuses. This work is long overdue and necessitates substantive and sustainable institutional resources that focus on the specific needs and desires of survivors, and account for how race, ability, gender identity, class, sexual orientation, religion, and other factors shape survivors' experiences. So the demand for university employees to report all sexual misconduct allegations may feel like a step forward in eliminating the arbitrary, inconsistent, or subjective ways in which university employees handle student allegations. This mandate may also indicate a university's desire to offer more resources for student survivors of sexual violence, which, of course, is a good thing. However, the institutionalization of a requirement for reporting also has a pretty significant downside.

Story continues

One concern about mandatory reporting is the elimination of a survivor's decision to report. As a faculty member who has built close relationships with many of my students, it would disturb me to know that if a student confided in me, I would be required to break that student's confidence because of a university mandate. As a survivor of sexual violence, I know that sharing your experience with someone you trust vastly differs from reporting a crime. I value my role as a trusted faculty member for my students and could imagine a mandate requiring me to report being an ethical and moral conundrum. I am already legally to bound to report if students tell me they will do harm to themselves or others. I firmly believe, however, that the stakes differ when students confide harm enacted on them by another person. How do can we build trusting and meaningful relationships with our students if our first response to their outcry is to turn around and share this information with someone else?

Depriving survivors of the right to decide whether or not to formally report their experiences could leave many feeling powerless. Sexual assault and rape are acts of power, control, and domination. The survivor did not give consent during these acts of violation. Forcing nearly all university employees to report sexual misconduct allegations means the student's story will become part of an institutional record, with or without the consent of the survivor. Survivors differ in their desire to have university officials involved in their processes of moving forward after their attacks. They might, for instance, have concerns about reprisal from their attacker or peers. Many survivors question their own behavior and worry they will not be believed. Or students may feel the university is ill-equipped to provide adequate resources, and therefore useless or perhaps harmful in their journey as survivors. Furthermore, a 2013 study indicated that taking decision-making away from survivors after their violation can lead to symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

Mandatory reporting also resonates as a more palliative than proactive approach to ending sexual violence on college campuses. It's like putting a Band-Aid on a potentially fatal gunshot wound. Ending sexual violence on college campuses necessitates a more concerted emphasis on preventive programs and initiatives. At the stage of reporting, the act of violence has already occurred. Ensuring that university employees report could help shed light upon the pervasiveness of sexual violence, if victims continue to share their stories with people who are required to report. But what do we risk in terms of relationships between university officials and students if students feel their privacy can be violated without their consent? Could these new requirements backfire and result in students feeling less comfortable speaking about sexual assault and rape with professors, staff, or administrators?

These questions should give us pause as we advocate for universities to improve how they address sexual violence. According to a 2015 survey conducted by the Association of American Universities, 23 percent of female college students had experienced unwanted sexual contact, but focusing on university reporting is just a small piece of the larger issue. Ending sexual violence on college campuses necessitates combating sexism, misogyny, homophobia, racism, patriarchy, ableism, and transphobia at our universities. The significant presence of sexual violence on college campuses cannot and should not be ignored, but we must think carefully each step we take to dismantle its ubiquity.

The crisis of sexual violence on college campuses requires many strategies. This approach, however, does not fully account for survivors who may not want their stories reported. We must always strive to keep the needs, desires, and voices of survivors at the center of our efforts to make places of higher learning safer, healthier, and more equitable and just.

Follow Treva on Twitter.
From Cosmopolitan

Alabama's Samford University president is "repulsed" by a T-shirt made by the school's Alpha Delta Pi sorority, WBRC reports. The shirt, pictured below, was printed in celebration of the chapter's formal and pictures a black man eating watermelon next to slaves picking cotton.

According to "an apology to the community" issued by the school's vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, "despite the university's denial of the project through our normal review and approval process, the shirts were produced anyway."

Jezebel notes this is not the first time in recent history Alabama Greek life has gone viral for a very public display of racism. Last year, a University of Alabama sorority reportedly did not support a black member's run for homecoming queen because of her race, and the year before that, a student at the same school was caught on Snapchat celebrating the sorority's lack of "niggas."

ADPi's executive office has yet to comment.

Follow Tess on Twitter.
Nagasaki Fat Man bomb Harold Agnew

Photo source: Los Alamos National Laboratory

This image from 1945 shows Manhattan Project physicist Harold Agnew smiling and holding the plutonium core of one of the world's most devastating weapons.

Weighing 14 pounds and responsible for 80,000 deaths, the heart of the "Fat Man" atomic bomb was detonated on August 9, 1945, over the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

Fat Man was the second nuclear weapon to be deployed in combat after the US dropped a 5-ton atomic bomb, called "Little Boy," on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Japan surrendered to Allied forces, effectively ending World War II, three days after the US deployed Fat Man.

NOW WATCH: Animated map shows every nuclear-bomb explosion in history





More From Business Insider


Norwegian Boeing 787 9

Norwegian Air International's expansion into the US has ruffled feathers. It's a potentially industry-changing move that US airlines and unions have vigorously opposed.



The US airlines are objecting on the grounds that NAI could exploit foreign labor laws, but in truth they should be worried about the kind of international network the carrier is attempting to create.

Last month, the US Department of Transportation tentatively approved the Irish  yes, Irish  airline's application to fly into the US.

You may be wondering why an airline called "Norwegian" would be based in Ireland. That's the root of the issue.

NAI is one of several subsidiaries operating under the Norwegian banner. Unlike the rest of the company, including Norwegian Air Shuttle, NAI is based in Dublin instead of in Norway.

This, critics say, allows NAI to take advantage of Ireland's employment laws, which are significantly less stringent than Norway's. As a result, they say, NAI could hire lower-cost pilots and cabin crew members from Asia to fly trans-Atlantic routes. (The company's current service to the US is operated by NAS with European crews.)

AFL-CIO Transportation president Edward Wytkind referred to the DOT's decision as one to "green-light this low-road air carrier whose operating plan will destroy fair competition and extinguish middle-class airline jobs here and in Europe."

But NAI says none of its Asia-based crews will operate flights into and out of the US. Further, the pay differential between the airline's Asia- and Europe-based pilots is roughly 1%, Norwegian Air spokesman Anders Lindstrom told Business Insider.

And all this complaining about NAI is happening even though it is tiny, with a fleet of just 10 Boeing 787 Dreamliners. The major US airlines and their European alliance partners have more than 1,000 wide-body long-haul jets at their disposal and are responsible for more than 80% of the traffic across the Atlantic.

Story continues

Here's why Norwegian is scary

Here's the real problem for US airlines: Norwegian is going to expand rapidly and in a way that eats at the foundation of the hub-based system major US airlines depend on for survival.





Norwegian Air flight attendant cabin crew

How? By offering direct flights to smaller cities in the US from underserved cities in Northern Europe.

In practice, this means passengers in Hartford, Connecticut, or Providence, Rhode Island, no longer have to fly to Boston or New York for an international trip. Instead, for a far lower cost than a US carrier, they might fly NAI to Oslo, Norway; Stockholm; or Hamburg, Germany. Later this year, Norwegian is launching service to Paris from New York, Los Angeles, and Fort Lauderdale.

This kind of setup not only undercuts US airlines' international business; it could also threaten their domestic operation.

But there's more

With its base in European Union-member Ireland, NAI will also be able to use its hubs in Europe as transit points for passengers traveling into and out of Asia and Europe to the US. As a result, NAI will be able to tap into the lucrative US-to-South Asia market over which US, European, and Middle Eastern airlines have fought for the past decade.

The presence of Norwegian and its low-cost model could provide competitive pressure on legacy carriers for value-minded travelers the same way Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar have for premium-cabin clients.

Norwegian Air Airbus A320neo

In fact, NAI could be the airline to disrupt the trans-Atlantic long-haul business the same way other low-cost carriers have transformed the European airline industry. In Norwegian's home market, it has forced its local rival SAS to revamp the way the 70-year-old airline does business.

"We have made significant transformative changes to stay competitive and to survive," SAS CEO Rickard Gustafson told Business Insider in March. "We have cut overhead costs, adjusted pensions and union contracts."

NAI's weapon in all this will be narrow-body jets like the Boeing 737 Max 8 and the Airbus A320neo. The company has orders for as many as 350 of these aircraft in place.

While trans-Atlantic service has traditionally been operated using large wide-body jumbo jets, the narrow-body jets are cheaper to buy and cheaper to operate. The first of the 737 Max aircraft are expected to enter service in 2017, while Norwegian is expected to see its first A320neos later this year.

Norwegian Boeing Dreamliner Interior

Norwegian won't be able to reach the US legacy carriers' bread-and-butter customer: the high-end business traveler. Major US airlines depend these high-value clients, who fly often and pay full-business or first-class prices, to generate the revenue they need to stay afloat.

Norwegian's low-cost premium cabin on its Dreamliners may attract some of these customers, but it is unlikely to sway high-end corporate clients.

But based on how Norwegian has shaken up the airline industry in its homeland, US carriers should be wary of the disruptive power of this airline.

One final detail: According to Norwegian's CEO, the target price for admission to one of his airline's flight across the Atlantic is $69.

NOW WATCH: When to book flights to get the best deal





More From Business Insider


Washington (AFP) - The number of US law enforcement officers criminally killed in 2015 dropped nearly 20 percent last year, the FBI said Monday.

The figure fell to 41 officers from 51 officers the previous year.

Police officers died in a range of incidents, including ambushes, robberies, domestic disturbance calls and traffic stops, according to preliminary statistics the FBI released in a statement.

More killings took place in the South than any other region, the FBI said.

Offenders used guns in 38 of the 41 deaths, most of them handguns. Three used vehicles as weapons.

In addition to the 41 officers criminally killed, another 45 police officers died during line-of-duty accidents in 2015, the same number as in 2014, the FBI said.

Most died in car or motorcycle accidents, while another two died in accidental shootings.

The downward trend contrasts with the country's general homicide rate, which rose in 2015 and the first months of 2016 in more than two dozen major cities, FBI statistics showed last week.

FBI Director James Comey has suggested that greater public scrutiny of police may be changing how they operate, pushing up the homicide rate by making them less willing to confront possible suspects.

The controversial suggestion concerns what has been dubbed the "Ferguson effect," after the Missouri city where protests erupted when a white police officer fatally shot an 18-year-old African-American in 2014.

It was one of a series of killings of African-Americans by white police officers -- most caught on video -- that have roiled racial tensions and prompted a protest movement under the banner "Black Lives Matter."
Vienna (AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Cairo on Wednesday for talks with President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, amid a stark crackdown on political freedoms in Egypt.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Kerry would fly to Cairo after talks on the Syrian crisis in Vienna and before heading to Brussels to meet the NATO allies.

The spokesman did not say what would be on the agenda in Cairo beyond "a range of bilateral and regional issues."

Last week US government auditors criticised Kerry's department for authorising arms sales to Egypt without properly checking they would not be used in rights abuses.

On Sunday, a Egyptian court jailed 152 people who had dared to protest against Sisi's government, the latest stage in what rights groups say is an authoritarian assault on dissent.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - The South Pacific island of Vanuatu plans to generate all its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Ham Lini told Radio New Zealand. Vanuatu's economy is still struggling to recover after monster cyclone Pam last year wrecked fisheries, ravaged crops and livestock, causing damages of an estimated $450 million. The government has several renewable energy projects in the pipeline, including a 767-kilowatt solar farm funded by the United Arab Emirates, Radio New Zealand said. "Vanuatu's climate change minister says the country is working towards having 100 percent of its electricity generated from renewable energy sources by 2030," the broadcaster said in a report on its website. (Reporting by Cecile Lefort; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Caracas (AFP) - Venezuela's army is to be backed by civilians grouped into ancillary security units, to tackle food shortages and public unrest, under a state of emergency decree published on Monday.

The decree, published in the government gazette, brings into effect for at least 60 days sweeping powers President Nicolas Maduro announced on Friday.

The measures give his government and security forces broad authorization to ignore most constitutional safeguards in a bid to keep order and supply basic food and services, and to counter a crippling energy shortage.

But the opposition, which controls the National Assembly and is seeking Maduro's ouster through a referendum, is to put the decree's public-control measures to the test on Wednesday with nationwide marches.

Police and soldiers used tear gas to break up similar protests last week.

The developments threaten to deepen the crisis in the oil-rich South American country, whose oil-dependent economy is tottering dangerously.

Hyperinflation, three years of recession, shrinking oil revenues, electricity rationing, and now rising political confrontation in the nation have sent alarm bells ringing across the Americas.

"The conditions for the Venezuelan population are terrible," said a spokesman for the White House in Washington, Josh Earnest.

He described recent reports of chaos as "breathtaking."

"Now is the time for leaders to listen to diverse Venezuelan voices and work together peacefully to truly find solutions."

- Military exercises -

The United States is picking its words carefully, aware that Maduro is holding it up as a principal agent of the mounting woes he is facing.

But two senior US intelligence officials last week warned that the odds of public revolt are rising.

Maduro has ordered military exercises for Saturday to prepare for what he calls the threat of an armed intervention backed by the United States at the behest of the "fascist Venezuelan right."

Story continues

In his decree, Maduro put security to the fore, to fend off "destabilizing actions that mean to disrupt life inside the country or its international relations."

Soldiers are to help police keep order, backed by the local civilian committees, and are to be deployed to distribute and sell food.

Individuals, companies or non-governmental organizations in Venezuela with links to foreign entities are to be put under scrutiny and their finances frozen if deemed to be political or destabilizing.

The text also opens the way to expropriations of businesses not seen to be doing enough to supply staple foodstuffs, and other steps as needed as long as they don't violate constitutional protections on human rights.

The measures are to last for 60 days with the option of being renewed for further periods of 60 days.

- 'Authoritarian' -

The opposition says the state of emergency is an attempt to quash efforts to call a referendum on removing the unpopular president from office.

"This government is acting in an authoritarian manner to keep itself in power," opposition lawmaker Tomas Guanipa told a press conference.

Seven in 10 Venezuelans want a change in government, according to recent polls.

The discontent with 53-year-old Maduro, the hand-picked successor of the late Hugo Chavez, has gone hand-in-hand with the economic unraveling he has presided over since becoming leader in 2013.

Maduro has said the state of emergency could be renewed to extend through 2017.

The company seizures could notably affect the Polar group, Venezuela's biggest food and beverage company, which halted beer production on April 30, saying it had run out of barley.

Venezuelan businesses say they are currently operating at less than 45 percent capacity because the government will not allow them to buy increasingly scarce dollars to pay foreign suppliers.

The opposition won legislative elections in December, but its agenda in the National Assembly has been stymied by the Supreme Court, which it condemns as beholden to Maduro.

It is now seeking to organize a recall referendum, and says it has collected 1.8 million signatures to launch the process.

But the vote must be held by the end of the year to trigger new elections, and the opposition accuses the authorities of stalling.

After January 10 -- four years into Maduro's six-year term -- a successful recall vote would simply transfer power to his hand-picked vice president, Aristobulo Isturiz.

Isturiz said Sunday there would not even be a vote, alleging irregularities in collecting signatures.
By Alexandra Ulmer and Corina Pons CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela has reached a deal with its main financier China to improve the conditions of an oil-for-loans deal, giving the OPEC member's crisis-hit economy "oxygen" ahead of heavy debt payments, its top economic official said on Monday. Venezuelan Economy Vice-President Miguel Perez told Reuters that all conditions, including loan time frames, investment amounts and non-financial aspects, had been improved. China has lent some $50 billion to Venezuela in that arrangement over the last decade, and markets are watching to see if Beijing will help President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government as it struggles with recession, shortages and reduced oil revenue. "Today we can say that we've agreed to new commercial conditions that are adapted to the country's reality," Perez said in an interview in his office at the Industry Ministry, which he also heads. He declined to elaborate. Better terms with China would be hugely useful for Venezuela, given that low oil prices means the South American country would be required to send more barrels to meet its obligations. Oil is trading at nearly $50, about half the levels in mid-2014, although prices have risen almost 80 percent this year. "This will give the country important oxygen to go forward," added Perez, a former industry association leader who became economy czar in February, replacing a hard-line socialist who lasted only a month. Beijing officials could not immediately be reached for comment. When asked earlier on Monday about possible aid to Caracas, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry said Venezuela's economic crisis was a domestic matter. Perez said the improved China deal, as well as a steep cut to imports and a new, weaker foreign exchange rate, would help Venezuela crawl out of a "very complicated" semester. The economy is likely to remain in recession until the end of 2017, he added. Venezuela's struggling state-led economic model and the fall in oil prices have triggered severe shortages of food and medicine, triple-digit annual inflation, and a slowdown in local business activity.[L2N18A0SS] Maduro blames an "economic war" launched by right-wing businessmen and opposition politicians seeking to sabotage him. POSSIBLE PDVSA REFINANCING The dire economic situation has led to market speculation that Venezuela, with the world's biggest oil reserves, or its state oil company PDVSA [PDVSA.UL] could default. Perez reiterated that all debt commitments would be honored and that any refinancing of PDVSA debt would be good for bondholders. The company's president has said PDVSA, which must pay around $4 billion this year to service debt, was in talks with international banks over refinancing debt. Perez said Venezuela could offer assets to guarantee bonds issued under a potential refinancing. Prioritizing its debt payments, Venezuela has slashed shipments in the last two years, with 2016 imports set to fall to $16 billion, the official said. That compares with $28 billion in the first three quarters of 2015, according to official data. Some 75 percent of 2016 imports will be financed at the most favorable exchange rate, currently at 10 bolivars to the dollar, Perez added. Venezuela has two official exchange rates, with the bolivar having weakened past 400 per dollar on the new second system. "We're searching for exchange rate equilibrium," Perez said of that system known as DICOM. The greenback is worth nearly 1,100 bolivars on the black market. Some $4 billion to $5 billion in mining investment is expected from companies by year-end, Perez added, a slower time frame than forecast early this year. Venezuela has already secured a roughly $400 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank, he said. "There is nothing we're not exploring," Perez said. Venezuela is not considering refinancing its sovereign bonds, though it is not closed to the possibility, he added. SHORTAGES, UNREST Perez is seen as more inclined toward reform than other factions of the ruling Socialist Party. But many economists express doubt he could turn around Venezuela given the severity of its crisis. Inflation hit 180.9 percent and the economy contracted 5.7 percent last year, according to central bank figures, and unofficial estimates for this year paint an even gloomier picture. The opposition is working toward a recall referendum against Maduro, whom they say is pushing Venezuela toward a humanitarian disaster. As protests, looting and anti-government sentiment increase, U.S. intelligence officials said last week Maduro might not finish his term. The president responded on Friday night by declaring a state of emergency, citing alleged plots from Venezuela and the United States to subvert him. [L2N18B014] Over the weekend Maduro added the government would take over idled factories, stoking rumors that Polar, the country's largest food and beverage maker, might be targeted. The company had recently shut down several factories due to a lack of raw materials. But Perez said the measure was "preventive and dissuasive" and so far, the government had not found factories halting production without a valid explanation. An increase in costs for price-fixed goods would stimulate output and ease shortages in the next month, he added. "We've gone through the most difficult period," he said, defying many forecasts of even worse times ahead. (Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer and Corina Pons; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Richard Chang)
(Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) and representatives from two striking unions will return to the negotiating table on Tuesday after a weekend meeting with U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez.

About 40,000 network technicians and customer service representatives in the company's Fios Internet, telephone and television services unit walked off the job in mid-April in the largest U.S. strike in recent years.

The two sides have remained far apart on issues related to healthcare coverage, pensions and the off-shoring of call-center jobs.

Verizon Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam and union officials from the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers met with Perez on Sunday at his request.

Verizon and the unions declined to comment.

"The best way to resolve this labor dispute is at the bargaining table, and I am heartened by the parties mutual commitment to get back to immediate discussions and work toward a new contract, Perez said in a statement issued Sunday night.

(This story corrects paragraph 3 to add dropped letter "s" in sides)

(Reporting by Mir Ubaid in New York; Editing by Anna Driver and Jeffrey Benkoe)
Burlington College

Burlington College announced to students, faculty, and staff on Monday that it will be shutting its doors in two weeks, the Burlington Free Press reported.

The school will officially close on May 27.

While the college's board of trustees made the decision unanimously on Friday, there was no mention of the closure at the school's commencement ceremonies, according to the Free Press.

The college celebrated its 35th commencement ceremony on Saturday, with its former president and founder, Dr. Steward LaCasce, as the keynote speaker.

LaCasce started the college in 1972 in his living room as an alternative educational environment. Though the college has grown in size  it currently has 250 students  it has maintained its free-spirited ethos.

"This is a great loss to the higher ed community," the school's current president, Carol A. Moore, said on Monday, according to the Free Press.

The school seems to be in the process of sending out more information. A woman who identified herself as an administrative assistant at Burlington College asked for patience from students.

"Please keep in mind that your faculty and staff are also having to process this news and your kindness and patience is appreciated," she wrote in a Facebook post.

She also indicated that students will be receiving an email informing them of what will happen next and that faculty advisers will be in touch.

Some students have already expressed their sadness and frustration on Facebook:

Burlington College review

The school's reason for closure is the "crushing weight of debt" it incurred because of a land purchase in 2010 by then President Jane Sanders, according to a statement from the school.

Story continues

Sanders, wife of Vermont Sen. and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, took out a $10 million loan for the purchase.

Burlington College did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Editor's note: This post previously reported that the administrative assistant's Facebook post was deleted.

NOW WATCH: A nationwide survey on sleep revealed a common bedtime practice for students at elite universities





More From Business Insider


Presidential candidates during this election cycle have certainly not been shy about declaring their willingness to assert American power abroad. In fact, the rhetoric on the campaign trail over the past year has been down right bombastic. Donald Trump promises to aggressively employ American economic power against China and Mexico. Hillary Clinton swears she will use military force against Iran without hesitation if the state pursues nuclear weapons in the future. So what? you may be wondering. Is anyone really paying attention to what candidates say on the campaign trail?

Yes, they are, though political scientists have argued for years whether credibility really matters in foreign policy. There is an older body of scholarship that suggests concerns over credibility are overstated (for a sympathetic review of that literature, see here). According to this view, leaders could make idle threats and not pay a price, because in each new contest, the actors discounted heavily whatever had been done or not done, said or not said, in earlier stages.

However, more recent scholarship has debunked the credibility does not matter school. For instance, the dissertation one of us (Danielle Lupton) wrote shows that making unrealistic threats and promises that you may not be able or willing to keep in the future is an entirely unwise course of action. Drawing on new archival material, her evidence from the history of U.S. foreign relations during the Cold War, as well as new experimental research, demonstrates that statements create expectations of future behavior. Leaders who make assertive statements and then fail to deliver on their promises can see their reputations seriously damaged and leave their countries more vulnerable to threats from abroad.

Take, for example, the case of President John F. Kennedy. New documents from Soviet and American archives reveal that the Kremlin paid close attention to his foreign policy statements on the campaign trail and his senatorial record. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev used this intelligence to predict the new presidents commitment to defending Berlin in 1961. The problem for Kennedy was that he failed to back up strong rhetoric with decisive action.

Kennedy made highly assertive statements about his willingness to extend the umbrella of American power over Berlin during his campaign and inaugural speech. However, this rhetoric did not match his initial behavior during his first months in the Oval Office. Most notably, Kennedy failed to support U.S.-backed Cuban exiles in their bid to depose Castro during the Bay of Pigs invasion. This led Khrushchev to believe that Kennedy was not serious about his commitments abroad. Khrushchev then pushed the new president hard during negotiations at the Vienna Summit in June 1961. Here, again, Kennedy was perceived as weak and intimidated. As a result, Khrushchev issued his ultimatum at the end of the summit, initiating the Berlin Crisis of 1961.

Khrushchev believed that Kennedys assertive statements were hollow and that the new presidents bark was much worse than his bite. Throughout these interactions, the Soviet premier presumed that Kennedys statements were not legitimate signals of resolve. This contradiction between JFKs campaign rhetoric and his early behavior in office made him appear indecisive and irresolute.

Kennedy then faced increasingly difficult foreign policy challenges from the Soviets, as Khrushchev later capitalized on this perception of a weak and easily intimidated president by erecting the Berlin Wall and deploying missiles to Cuba. In short, Kennedys failure to back up his rhetoric with firm action put the security of the United States and its allies at risk.

The pattern of attitudes reflected in the Khrushchev-Kennedy interaction shows up in other settings as well. For instance, Luptons recent survey experiments, with a large subject pool, show that individuals view political leaders who make assertive statements but then back down as weaker than leaders who are initially cautious but then stand firm during crises.

Even more so, leaders who make tough statements but then fail to follow up are perceived to be as irresolute as individuals who make weak statements and also back down. This confirms that failing to follow through on aggressive rhetoric can be very damaging to leaders. This isnt just a story about a leaders physical actions. Instead, these findings demonstrate a clear interaction between a leaders statements and that leaders subsequent behavior. Together, both rhetoric and action drive perceptions of resolve.

Just as Khrushchev interpreted Kennedys campaign statements as a commitment to future action, these experimental surveys show that statements are widely perceived as signals of intended future behavior. Leaders who offer weak and indecisive statements certainly make themselves and their states more vulnerable in the future. Yet, failing to follow through on assertive statements with firm and decisive action also leaves political leaders in a poor bargaining position and exposes their states to challenges from abroad.

What does this mean for policymakers? First, strong statements alone will not prevent you from being tested by potential international adversaries. It is not the rhetoric itself that is critical, but the follow through that affects how you are perceived. When the United States is directly threatened, presidents and presidential candidates should certainly declare their commitment to standing firm in the face of threats.

However, even presidential candidates must choose their words wisely. While it may be tempting to make aggressive statements to fire up ones base of support, these words can come back to haunt you in the future if you win the election and are unable to follow up on your assertive promises. Internationally, it is a much better strategy to make reasonable and achievable claims regarding Americas future foreign policy behavior.

Talk is not cheap or without cost. It matters not only what you do as a candidate, but also what you say.

Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images
The United States and Volkswagen are closing in on a $10 billion settlement over the German car companys diesel emissions cheat. But the carmaker is far from out of the woods when it comes to closing the door on the scandal, and a powerful new player now has VW in its crosshairs.

On Sunday, Norways $850 billion state pension fund, which is the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, announced it would join a class-action lawsuit brought against the company by private investors in Germany who are looking to make up some of their losses on their VW investment. Before the cheat emerged last September, the fund, known as Norges Bank Investment Management, had a $1.2 billion stake in the company. Its the fourthlargest stakeholder in VW.

That investment is now worth $720 million, and the fund wants a court to force VW to make up at least some of the $500 million loss. Volkswagens stock price has plummeted as much as 40 percent since the news of the scandal broke.

We have been advised by our lawyers that the companys conduct gives rise to legal claims under German law. As an investor, it is our responsibility to safeguard the funds holding in Volkswagen, Marthe Skaar, the funds representative, said in a statement Sunday.

VW has set aside $18 billion to pay for the emissions cheat, which involves 11 million cars around the world. The deal with the United States, on course to be finalized in June, is expected to cost the company around $10 billion. Whether or not the remaining $8 billion would be enough to cover the roughly 70 lawsuits that have been filed against the automaker remains unclear.

VW has admitted wrongdoing that allowed its diesel cars to emit almost 40 times the permitted levels of nitrogen oxides in the United States. It has also acknowledged that it might have to pony up much more cash than it anticipated. The company did not respond to requests for comment on the latest development.

Photo credit: RONNY HARTMANN/Getty Images
Sagar Bhanushali

The Volkswagen Group has handed over 1.94 million vehicles to customers from January to April 2016. The global quarterly figure indicates next to zero progress over the same period last year as the scandal-hit brand continues to struggle in regaining momentum in several key markets.

The brand sold 476,700 units in April 2016, marking a 3.9 percent decline in sales compared to the same period last year (April 2015_ 496,000). At the moment, China along with Central and Eastern Europe are the only growth regions where Volkswagen is managing decent sales.

In terms of regional developments worldwide, Volkswagen delivered 579,500 vehicles to customers in the overall European markets from January to April, on a par with the prior-year level. At 511,000 units, the brand kept deliveries in Western Europe almost stable. The situation in Russia, however, continued to decline as sales dropped by a significant 10.2 percent.

There was a 4 percent increase in deliveries in North America while the overall market situation in South America remained difficult with sales of just 31,900 units. Volkswagen, as we know, is suffering from the aftermath of the mega scandal relating to the cheat software to pass diesel emissions tests. As you would expect, the brand is struggling to put things back in place and make up for the decline in market share.

For more news,reviews,videos and information about cars, visit CarWale.com.

Check On-Road Prices | Find New Cars | Upcoming Cars | Compare Cars | Dealer Locator
San Francisco (AFP) - Google-owned navigation application Waze on Monday began testing a carpool feature that rolls near the home turf of Uber and Lyft.

Waze Carpool stressed that it intended only to help commuters get to or from their jobs, chipping in to cover trip costs, and was not getting involved with the types of on-demand rides that Uber and Lyft offer.

Still, Waze Carpool would serve as an alternative to ride-sharing services such as Uber or Lyft -- at least for people dealing with daily commutes.

"Waze Carpool makes it easy to help a neighbor or colleague in your area," the company said at a website page explaining the service being tested in the San Francisco Bay area.

"Detours are minimal so your drive to work is almost the same, you get to ride in the carpool lane, and the rider you pick up helps cover your commute costs -- so why not?"

Waze Carpool is in a pilot mode and available to Bay Area employers and their workers by invitation only, according to the website.

If a person's employer is in the pilot program, the worker can use a carpool feature in free Waze smartphone applications.

"Schedule a ride and Waze Rider will look for the closest driver already planning a drive on your route," the company explained.

Drivers opting in using Waze Carpool will have the option of accepting or declining requests from riders, who help pay for fuel in pre-arranged transactions handled automatically in applications.

"Waze Carpool connects riders and drivers with nearly identical commutes based on their home and work addresses," the company said.

"Riders and drivers share the cost of gas for the trip."

Ride payment is set in advance and money is transferred from riders to drivers automatically.

Waze stressed that the carpool feature is focused on letting people share the costs of commuting, and not as a way for drivers to make extra income.

Waze last year began testing a similar carpool feature in Israel, where it got its start.

Waze navigation goes beyond using satellite positioning data to incorporating real-time traffic information from its community of drivers.

Google bought Waze three years ago in a deal valued at slightly more than a billion dollars.
Wendell Pierce, the actor who portrayed Detective William "Bunk" Moreland in The Wire, was arrested and charged with simple battery over the weekend for allegedly coming to blows with a Bernie Sanders supporter.

PHOTOS: Celebrities' Political Affiliations

According to police and court records (via NBC News), the 52-year-old actor was arrested early on Saturday, May 14, at the Atlanta Loews Hotel, where he was staying as a guest.



Atlanta police officer Donald T. Hannah described the arrest as routine, adding that Pierce "made no indication he was famous, nor did the officer inquire."

PHOTOS: Stars at Court

The actor, who has been staying in Atlanta while shooting a new movie, One Last Thing, reportedly got involved in a conversation with a woman and her boyfriend that turned to politics.



PHOTOS: Celebrity Mugshots

TMZ reports that the conversation became physical when Pierce, a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, heard that the couple were supporters of Sanders.



A full arrest report is expected to be released later today. Online Fulton County Jail records show Pierce was booked on a charge of simple battery and released the same day on $1,000 bond.




Advance Auto Parts Inc. AAP is expected to report first-quarter fiscal 2016 results on May 19. In the last quarter, the company posted a positive earnings surprise of 0.83%. Lets see how things are shaping up for this announcement.



Factors Influencing this Quarter



Advance Auto Parts drives profits through its relentless focus on store expansion. During fiscal 2015, the company opened 121 stores. The increase in store count ensures higher availability of parts to customers, thereby leading to higher sales volume.



Advance Auto Parts expects comparable store sales growth to be in the low-single digits in fiscal 2016 which is better than flat comparable store sales recorded in fiscal 2015. Adjusted operating margin is expected to be 12% in fiscal 2016, higher than 10.2% recorded a year ago. In order to achieve the targeted operating margin, the company will focus on improving gross margins and reducing costs. Higher annual guidance raises hopes about an improvement in the companys first-quarter results as well.



However, Advance Auto Parts faces challenges from rising new vehicle sales and price competition. This can adversely affect the companys quarterly results.



Earnings Whispers



Our proven model does not conclusively show that Advance Auto Parts is likely to beat earnings this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1, 2 or 3 for this to happen. This is not the case here, as you will see below:



Zacks ESP: The Earnings ESP represents the difference between the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Advance Auto Parts Earnings ESP is -6.84% because the Most Accurate estimate stands at $2.45, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate is pegged at $2.63.



Zacks Rank: Advance Auto Parts carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). We caution against stocks with a Zacks Rank #4 or 5 (Sell-rated stocks) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions.



Stocks to Consider



AutoZone, Inc. AZO  a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock  will report its third-quarter fiscal 2016 (ended May 7, 2016) financial numbers on May 24.



CarMax Inc. KMX  a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock  will report its first-quarter fiscal 2017 (ended May 31, 2016) results on Jun 17.



Navistar International Corporation NAV  a Zacks Rank #3 stock  will report its second-quarter fiscal 2016 (ended Apr 30, 2016) results on Jun 2.



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From Esquire

I have just about had it with the Democratic presidential primary campaign.

It's degenerated into dueling Borgs, wherein you must assimilate fully or die. Any mention of the fact that Bernie Sanders' path to the nomination seems to end in thin air short of Philadelphia gets you branded as an undercover oligarch and fellow traveler to the encroaching plutocracy. (Jeff Weaver can get off my electric teevee screen anytime he wants.) Any mention of the fact that Hillary Rodham Clinton is not exactly William Jennings Bryan on the stump, or that this campaign is no better than her last one was at reacting quickly to unanticipated events, gets you branded as a sexist loser who has abandoned good solid Democratic pragmatism in favor of flipping the switch on Ricky Ray Rector again. (I had some experience with the latter phenomenon earlier this week, when I simply noted that HRC campaigns generally corner with the dexterity of the average nuclear aircraft carrier.)

My last nerve was finally shredded by this passage today at Salon, which has proven itself a fount of political foolishness during the current election cycle, not least because it's the home of what we can fairly call the COINTELPRO wing of progressive politics-the people who expect the FBI to eliminate HRC as a candidate.

Movie critic Andrew O'Hehir was not impressed by the latest George Clooney vehicle, Money Monster. That's OK. I generally admire O'Hehir's take on the motion picture scene. But then we get this, from Salon:

Still, I can't resist making this point, although it may not directly relate to why "Money Monster" is dreadful: Adam McKay, the comedy director who made "The Big Short," is a genuine left-winger and a Bernie Sanders supporter; Clooney and Foster and Roberts belong to the core Democratic Party cadre in Hollywood that has funded Hillary Clinton's career for many years. Is it a coincidence that McKay's film depicts the 2008 crash as the unavoidable result of systemic corruption and stupidity on a massive scale, whereas "Money Monster" (whose screenplay is credited to Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore and Jim Kouf) is a "bad apple" story about one flawed company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars vanish? I report; you decide.

Story continues

OK, I've decided that this is nonsense. Clooney's movie may be as bad as O'Hehir says it is; I had that sinking feeling when I saw the trailer that you get when you suspect that the trailer contains all the good parts, and I've never forgiven Julia Roberts for her godawful accent in Michael Collins. But the equation of "genuine left-winger" with "Bernie Sanders supporter" makes me want to beat something with a stick.

I know plenty of genuine left-wingers who have put time in the trenches on a whole bunch of issues and who are supporting HRC. (I've argued with most of them.) And to cast Clooney as some sort of DLC Democrat manque when he's put his money where his mouth is on any number of important progressive causes, and when he's taken no little grief for having done so, is Play-Doh politics at its very worst.

The campaign will go on, as it should. Bernie Sanders' message should be heard by as many people as possible in the time he has left. HRC should be D'ing up now for the onslaught of public insanity her campaign is going to encounter when it faces He, Trump. Sanders and she should run strongly and hard against each other right up to the convention ballot. But making up issues out of thin air, and running One True Scotsman riffs against the other side, help nobody.

Knock it off, the lot of you.

Click here to respond to this post on the official Esquire Politics Facebook page.


Congressman Jason Chaffetz, (R-Utah), chair of the House Oversight Committee, is calling for Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes to testify at a hearing about the controversial Iran nuclear deal.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Rhodes admitted to misleading the press and the public with the diplomatic particulars leading up to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran deal.

Rep. Chaffetz said on FOX Business Networks Varney & Co. that he has invited Rhodes, along with Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), to have a rational discussion with Congress.

We are going to have a hearing regardless, but he [Rhodes] should show up. He hasnt indicated that he is not going to show up and we should have this dialogue, Chaffetz said.

Chaffetz, who opposes the Iran deal, says the misinformation used to sell it to the American public and the findings from the Times interview confirm Rhodes has misled the public.

The president has entrusted him [Rhodes] in a very powerful position and this article I think clearly lays out that he used that podium and used that position and the bowels of the White House there to mislead the American people.

The Iran deal is an international agreement that was reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015 between Iran and five members of the United Nations Security Council on the Middle Eastern countrys nuclear program.

Rhodes was asked to appear at a hearing on Tuesday, May 17 at 10 a.m.

Related Articles
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday that millions of American women will continue to have access to health insurance that they need, despite the Supreme Court's ruling in a case involving contraception coverage under the Obamacare law. "We were gratified by the ruling today," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. "And this announcement does ensure that millions of women across the country can continue to have access to their healthcare. And it is a reflection of something we have long believed: which is that it is possible to prioritize both access to healthcare for everybody while protecting the religious liberty of every American." (Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham)
The White House denied a request by a top Republican lawmaker on Monday for one of President Barack Obamas closest foreign policy aides to testify on Capitol Hill, saying it poses separation of powers issues that raise significant constitutional concerns.

The row represents the latest twist in the controversy surrounding an unusual New York Times Magazine profile of Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes. In the piece, Rhodes boasted about his ability to sell the Iran nuclear deal to gullible reporters  a claim Republicans want to question Rhodes about in a public hearing.

But the Obama administration isnt taking the bait. In a letter from White House Counsel W. Neil Eggleston to House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, it effectively tells Republicans, thanks but no thanks.

The appearance of a senior presidential adviser before Congress threatens the independence and the autonomy of the president, as well as his ability to receive candid advice and counsel in the discharge of his constitutional duties, Eggleston wrote. We will not make Mr. Rhodes available to testify.

Republicans are already blasting the administration for the response, with Chaffetz leading the pack in a message on Twitter. Disappointing but typical, he said.

Republicans seized on the profile last week, viewing it as confirmation that the Obama administration misled the public on the merits of the Iran nuclear deal. Republicans uniformly opposed the agreement, which exchanged sanctions relief for curbs on Tehrans nuclear program.

In the article, Rhodes talks about the administrations aggressive messaging strategy, which was designed to combat GOP criticisms. In the absence of rational discourse, we are going to discourse the [expletive] out of this, he said.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest argued it is not the Obama administration that manufactured lies about the nuclear deal, but Republican lawmakers. The truth is it is Republicans in Congress who criticized the Iran deal whove got a lot to explain when it comes to saying things about the Iran deal that didnt turn out to be true, Earnest said at Mondays daily press briefing.

Story continues

And if they want to hold a hearing to determine whether or not Republicans were just wrong and badly misinformed or if they were purposefully lying to the American people, then they can do that, he added.

The author of the article, David Samuels, also didnt escape the controversy unscathed, as several experts and journalists challenged his account of the debate surrounding the Iran nuclear deal and forced an admission that he did not reach out for comment to some of the key journalists he accused of retailing the deal for the administration.

Getty Images
Washington (AFP) - The White House expressed concern about Venezuela's rapidly worsening political situation Monday, urging President Nicolas Maduro to listen to critics inside the country or risk deepening the crisis.

Treading carefully to avoid making Washington a foil for the country's populist leaders, White House spokesman Josh Earnest described recent reports from Venezuela as "breathtaking."

"The conditions for the Venezuelan population are terrible," he said as the country braced for more upheaval.

President Nicolas Maduro is preparing to unveil the scope of a new emergency decree as the opposition readies protests against what it calls a bid to cling to power.

The White house urged Maduro to listen to those voices and solve the plethora of problems facing the country -- from economic collapse to drought to power cuts.

"The solution to these challenges will require the inclusion of all interested parties," Earnest said.

"Now is the time for leaders to listen to diverse Venezuelan voices and work together peacefully to truly to find solutions."

"The failure to do that only puts hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Venezuelans at risk of further suffering."

Maduro has also ordered military exercises for Saturday to prepare for what he calls the threat of an armed intervention backed by the United States at the behest of the "fascist Venezuelan right."

Maduro, the hand-picked successor of the late Hugo Chavez, has presided over a collapse of Venezuela's economy since he took charge in 2013.

Seven in 10 Venezuelans want a change in government, and 97 percent say their lives have gotten worse, according to recent polls.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who narrowly lost the 2013 presidential election to Maduro, has warned the country is "a bomb that could explode any minute."

The opposition says it has collected 1.8 million signatures backing a referendum to remove Maduro from power.
From Esquire

Not to repeat ourselves too often, but it is very likely that many of our future wars will not be over oil, but over water, the commodification of which is one of the more indecent aspects of corporate power and the global economy.

Right now, there's a battle going on in a small place in Pennsylvania where Nestle, which is trying very hard to be the Exxon of the world's water, has moved in on the local water supply.

From WaterOnline:

Nestle has been active in Kunkletown, PA, for years according to EcoWatch. In the permit application that Nestle filed with the township, it stated the company is proposing to drill two large wells, pump 200,000 gallons of water per day, put it in trucks, and transfer it to an existing bottling facility near Allentown, about 20 miles away. Kunkletown residents organized against Nestle's attempts to move in. They formed an informal community group and five residents retained a lawyer. Last December, a group of five filed a lawsuit against the Eldred Township Board of Supervisors alleging the area's zoning rules were unfair. Earlier this year, the Eldred Township Planning Commission held a public meeting with Nestle representatives and attorneys in attendance to present on the project and answer questions. During the meeting, residents challenged Nestle and their actions. In March of this year, the planning commission voted unanimously to recommend that the township zoning board deny Nestle's application. EcoWatch reports that in many other parts of the country, there are other communities resisting Nestle. In McCloud, CA, town leaders signed a 50-year agreement in which Nestle would pay "one sixty-fourth of a cent" for a gallon of water and then turn around and sell it for more than $1 per gallon.

The same argument that obtains in Flint, where the water was poisoned, obtains in situations like this, where the water gets sold.

If there is one element that cannot be turned over to whatever people believe market forces to be, it's water. It should never be commodified or sold off to make some investor wealthy far from the people who need it. That this ever needs to be argued is a measure of how far we've allowed corporate power to change us as a nation.

Click here to respond to this post on the official Esquire Politics Facebook page.
From Esquire

The pointless alleged cover-up of the role of Saudi nationals in the attacks of September 11, 2001 is starting to come just a little bit unraveled. The Guardian had a provocative piece quoting John Lehman, a Republican member of the 9/11 Commission and a former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, to the effect that the investigation essentially buried the question of Saudi involvement.

"There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government," Lehman said in an interview, suggesting that the commission may have made a mistake by not stating that explicitly in its final report. "Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia." He was critical of a statement released late last month by the former chairman and vice-chairman of the commission, who urged the Obama administration to be cautious about releasing the full congressional report on the Saudis and 9/11-"the 28 pages", as they are widely known in Washington-because they contained "raw, unvetted" material that might smear innocent people.

I, for one, didn't know that a Saudi diplomat had been implicated in the support network on which some of the hijackers depended while living in San Diego. (Why is Fahad al-Thumairy walking around free while shoeless losers who fall for FBI stings get shipped off to the nether regions of the federal penal system?) But Lehman wasn't finished yet.

In the interview Wednesday, Lehman said Kean and Hamilton's statement that only one Saudi government employee was "implicated" in supporting the hijackers in California and elsewhere was "a game of semantics" and that the commission had been aware of at least five Saudi government officials who were strongly suspected of involvement in the terrorists' support network. "They may not have been indicted, but they were certainly implicated," he said. "There was an awful lot of circumstantial evidence."

Story continues

Allegedly, there was a considerable brawl within the commission about how the material concerning the Saudi involvement was being handled, and at the center of it was staff director Philip Zelikow, whose previous job was as an aide to Condoleezza Rice back in the days when she was proving to be the worst National Security Advisor ever. This always has stuck in my craw, and if the stonewall is falling down, then that's all to the good.

Zelikow fired a staffer, who had repeatedly protested over limitations on the Saudi investigation, after she obtained a copy of the 28 pages outside of official channels. Other staffers described an angry scene late one night, near the end of the investigation, when two investigators who focused on the Saudi allegations were forced to rush back to the commission's offices after midnight after learning to their astonishment that some of the most compelling evidence about a Saudi tie to 9/11 was being edited out of the report or was being pushed to tiny, barely readable footnotes and endnotes. The staff protests were mostly overruled.

The crime against history is ongoing, but it does seem we're edging a little closer to solving it.

Click here to respond to this post on the official Esquire Politics Facebook page.
Can Merck's Blockbuster and New Drugs Keep It Profitable?

(Continued from Prior Part)

Remicade

Remicade is one of Merck & Co.s (MRK) blockbuster drugs. Its one of its top-selling drugs for the treatment of inflammatory disorders. However, after the loss of exclusivity in European markets in February 2015, Merck has reported a constant decline in Remicade revenues. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) also has marketing rights to Remicade for certain countries outside Europe.

Remicade revenues

Remicade revenues declined by ~30% to $349 million in 1Q16, compared to $501 million in 1Q15. This was mainly due to the entry of generic competitors and biosimilars following the loss of exclusivity in European markets.

Merck expects Remicade revenues to decline further since new patients are concerned with pricing rather than drug administration methods. Theyre expected to prefer biosimilars over Remicade.

Other drugs in the inflammatory franchise

Simponi is another drug in Mercks inflammatory franchise. Simponi revenues increased to $188 million in 1Q16 compared to $158 million in 1Q15.

Zetia and Vytorin: cardiovascular blockbusters

Zetia and Vytorin are Mercks blockbuster cardiovascular drugs. Both of these drugs are used to lower LDL cholesterol levels in the blood.

Revenues for Zetia increased in 1Q16, but the increase was offset by declining revenues for Vytorin. The combined revenues for these two drugs reported no change at $889 million in 1Q16, compared to $887 million in 1Q15. Worldwide sales were affected due to the loss of exclusivity for Vytorin in the United States and Zetia in Canada.

Competitors for Zetia include Niaspan from AbbVie (ABBV) and Lipitor from Pfizer (PFE).

To avoid risk, you can consider ETFs such as the iShares Global Healthcare ETF (IXJ), which holds ~3.8% of its total assets in Merck.

Next, lets see whats driving Mercks animal health segment.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
The Constitution doesnt require the chamber to hold hearings or a vote.

Senate

Does the Senate have to hold hearings and a vote on President Obamas nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court? The Constitution says that unless the Senate gives advice and consent Garland cannot be appointed, but it does not require the Senate to do anything in response to the nomination.

The relevant text is the appointments clause of Article II, Section 2, which provides: [The president] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States This language makes the Senates consent a prerequisite to presidential appointments, but it does not place any duty on the Senate to act nor describe how it should proceed in its decision-making process. Even if the word shall in the clause is read as mandatory, shall refers only to things the president does. Instead, the Senates core role in appointments is as a check on the president, which it exercises by not giving consenta choice it can make simply by not acting.

No one doubts that the Senate can refuse consent to Garlands appointment, so the only real question is the process: can it only do so after holding hearings and taking a vote? Of course, the text manifestly doesnt say anything about hearings and votes, and there are at least three reasons why these requirements cannot be found by implication.

First, the Constitutions separation of powers provisions often provide for one part of government to propose an action subject to the approval of another part. The president negotiates treaties and the Senate consents or does not consent to them. One chamber of Congress passes bills and the other chamber passes or does not pass them. The president proposes laws and Congress enacts or does not enact them. Congress proposes constitutional amendments and state legislatures ratify or do not ratify them. The Constitution is not read in any of these situations to impose a duty on the second entity to act formally on the proposal. If the second entity fails to approve, for whatever reason and in whatever manner, the measure does not take effect.

Story continues

The one exception is presentment. Article I, Section 7 says that when Congress passes a bill, the president ordinarily must veto the bill within 10 daysand give reasons for doing soor the bill becomes law. The framers knew how to require formal action if they wanted to; they just chose not to require it in the appointments clause (and elsewhere).

Second, by Article I, Section 5, the Senate has power to determine the Rules of its Proceedings. As a result, the Constitution expressly lets the Senate decide how to respond to presidential nominations. The Senate could, for example, adopt a rule that it will promptly hold votes on all presidential nominations. But that is the Senates decision to make, and for better or worse its adopted a different approach, which is that it can decide not to have formal proceedings and instead withhold its consent through an informal process.

Some critics say the Senate is refusing to consider Garlands nomination, but thats mistaken: Senators are aware of the nomination; they have thought about it and decided that formal action should wait until after the presidential election. The critics claimthat it doesnt count as considering unless the Senate acts formallyis exactly contrary to Article I, Section 5, which says the Senate decides on its rules of procedure. In this case, the procedure thats been adopted is for the majority leader and the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee to convey the Senate majoritys decision not to consent to the appointment (at least until after the election).

Third, the Senates longstanding practice, at least in modern times, is often not to act formally on nominees. This practice has mostly involved nominations to lower courts and executive branch offices (as with the Senates failure to vote on numerous judicial nominations by President George W. Bush). But the appointments clause applies to all nominations equally; if the clause imposed any duty on the Senate, the duty would encompass all nominations, not just Supreme Court nominations. Moreover, the Senate has in modern times assumed that Supreme Court nominations can be filibustered (which has the effect of denying a formal vote). Indeed, the Senate did filibuster Lyndon Johnsons nomination of Abe Fortas to be chief justice, and many senators (including then-Senators Barack Obama and John Kerry) joined an unsuccessful filibuster against Samuel Alito. The Senates practice, under both Democrats and Republicans, shows that it thinks the appointments clause does not impose a duty to take formal action.

Some commentators suggest that the Senate has a special duty to act on Supreme Court nominations because of the Courts constitutional significance. The Constitution provides for a Supreme Court and does not provide for lower federal courts or executive offices, which are all creations of Congress. It may be that the Senate could not block the Courts very existence by refusing consent to all nominations. But that is far from the present situation, in which the Senate is temporarily declining consent on a single nomination to an otherwise-fully staffed Court. It would be somewhat easier for the Court to operate with nine justices than eight. But the Constitution does not require nine justices at all; at various times in history, Congress has provided for six, eight, or 10. Like lower federal courts and executive offices, the ninth seat is entirely Congress creation and could be abolished if Congress chooses. While there may be a constitutional obligation to maintain a Supreme Court, there is no constitutional obligation to maintain nine justices nor to assure that the Court operates at maximum efficiency.

Criticswho concede that the Senate can refuse to approve Supreme Court nominationsargue for an atextual requirement that the Senate must refuse its consent through formal procedures. But nothing in the Constitution requires this, and the Senates longstanding practice has included many failures to take formal action on nominees. Garland is by all accounts a fine judge and the Senates failure to take formal action may be regrettable, but that is a decision the Constitution entrusts to the political process.

Michael D. Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law and a former judicial clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia.

This article is part of Confirmations: The Battle Over the Constitution, a partnership with the National Constitution Center and The Atlantic.
Actor Wendell Pierce has decided not to attend a graduation ceremony at Rutgers University-Newark where he was scheduled to speak, following his arrest in Atlanta over the weekend.

Mr. Wendell Pierce was arrested early Saturday morning at Atlanta Loews Hotel, where he was a guest, an Atlanta Police Department spokesperson told TheWrap in a statement.

According to the police report, a conversation about politics between Pierce, his girlfriend and a group also staying at the hotel got heated at which time Maggie Baca, a member of the other party, said Pierce pushed one of her female friends. Baca said Pierce then followed the group to their room, which he allegedly tried to enter. From there, Baca said the group tried to push Pierce out when he began to hit her.

Also Read: 'The Wire' Actor Wendell Pierce Arrested in Atlanta

Pierce refutes Bacas account, telling police that he followed the group to their room, but that she and the other two witnesses tried to pull him in as he fought to get away.

The incident did not rise to anything significant so no special notification was made  it was treated like any other arrest a patrol officer conducts, the APD statement continued. Mr. Pierce made no indication he was famous nor did the officer inquire.

Pierce is best known for playing Det. Bunk Moreland on the HBO series The Wire, and most recently played Clarence Thomas in the pay-TV networks original movie Confirmation opposite Kerry Washington. He also appeared in the critically acclaimed film Selma and multiple episodes of CBS sitcom The Odd Couple.

TV news anchor Soledad OBrien will speak at Wednesdays commencement in Pierces absence.

Related stories from TheWrap:

'The Wire' Actor Wendell Pierce Arrested in Atlanta

WWE Star Adam Rose 'Suspended Indefinitely' After Domestic Violence Arrest (Updated)

Former Disney Child Star Joey Cramer Arrested for Canadian Bank Robbery
An actor best known for his work on HBO's The Wire and Treme was arrested this weekend on a simple battery charge, police in Atlanta said.

Wendell Pierce was arrested Saturday at the Atlanta Lowes Hotel, where he was a guest, Atlanta police Officer Donald T. Hannah said in a statement to InsideEdition.com.

The New Orleans native is best known for his roles as Detective William "Bunk" Moreland on The Wire and Antoine Batiste on Treme.

Watch: 'Star Wars' Actor Jake Lloyd In Wild, High-Speed Chase with Cops

According to police, Pierce made no indication he was famous nor did the officer inquire.

"The incident did not rise to anything significant so no special notification was made... it was treated like any other arrest a patrol officer conducts," Hannah said.

I regret that what started as a civil political discussion escalated to the level that it did. (1/3)  Wendell Pierce (@WendellPierce) May 17, 2016

Although what has been reported thus far differs in important respects from what actually occurred, (2/3)  Wendell Pierce (@WendellPierce) May 17, 2016

I have confidence that the judicial process will work as it should. (3/3)



Wendell Pierce  Wendell Pierce (@WendellPierce) May 17, 2016

In a series of tweets posted Monday night, Pierce suggested the incident did not go down the way the media is claiming.

"I regret that what started as a civil political discussion escalated to the level that it did," he tweeted. "Although what has been reported thus far differs in important respects from what actually occurred, I have confidence that the judicial process will work as it should."

Story continues

Fulton County Jail records indicate Pierce was arrested on one charge of simple battery on Saturday and later released on $1,000 bond.

According to the APD incident report, accuser Elena Baca and her friends started a political conversation with Pierce and his girlfriend "which got Mr. Pierce upset."

Pierce is an avowed Clinton supporter. According to reports, the victim was a Bernie Sanders supporter.

Baca told police that Pierce began to push her. As she and her friends headed to their room, Baca told police Pierce stuck his arm in the door.

As he tried to enter the room, Baca said she and her friends tried pushing him out, at which point they say he began to hit Baca in the head and grab her hoodie.

When police arrived, both parties declined medical treatment and Pierce was transported to the county jail.

Read: Randy Quaid and Wife Evi Released From Vermont Jail After Charges Dropped

Following the arrest in Atlanta, Pierce decided not to speak at a graduation ceremony at a New Jersey college on Wednesday.

"This morning Rutgers University- Newark was informed by actor and humanitarian Wendell Pierce that in order to assure that commencement 2016 will be a celebration of the accomplishments of our students free of distractions, he is declining to join us and consequently must decline the conferral of an honorary degree," Rutgers officials said in a statement.

TV news anchor Soledad O'Brien will reportedly speak at the commencement instead.

Watch: Woman Who Told FBI about Jared Fogle: He Said Middle School Girls Were Hot

Related Articles:
This is Brittany Nicole Wallace.

Source: Facebook

She lives in Salyersville, Kentucky, about 100 miles southwest of Lexington.

Source: Google Maps

According to a Facebook post from Wednesday, Wallace was physically assaulted by an unidentified man who said he would "beat me like the man I was trying to be" and told her she looked like a "dike [sic]."

Source: ATTN

The post has been set to private, but not before it was shared more than 13,600 times.

Hate violence in America is all too common.

In 2014, 20 people were killed in anti-LGBTQ attacks in the United States. "There is a public perception that there is a sea change for LGBTQ people, and that is true for public opinion of LGBTQ people," Chai Jindasurat, who coordinates programs with NCAVP, told BuzzFeed News. "But it is still dangerous to be LGBTQ in the United States."

Source: Anti-Violence Project

Wallace said that although witnesses to the attack didn't help, she's not cowering in the face of hate.

"I will do everything I can to try to put a stop to this hate and violence," Wallace wrote. "I love people and try to help people all the time."
By Lin Taylor LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Global leaders must come together to tackle a 'once-in-a-generation' migrant crisis, said U.N. special envoy Angelina Jolie, or risk greater instability that could drive more refugees to Europe. The United Nations and the declaration of human rights were among the world-changing outcomes of the global refugee crisis after World War Two, Jolie said, adding that the international community is now at a similar pivotal moment. "I believe this is again that once-in-a-generation moment when nations have to pull together," the Hollywood actress and director told the BBC. "How we respond will determine whether we create a more stable world, or face decades of far greater instability." Jolie said inaction or uncoordinated efforts that did not address the underlying causes of the crisis would only lead to more conflict and displacement. "If these things continue to happen, there will be further displacement and more people on the borders of Europe and elsewhere," she said. Europe is grappling with its largest migration wave since World War Two, as a traditional flow of migrants from Africa is compounded by refugees fleeing wars and poverty in the Middle East and South Asia. The U.N. refugee agency has said the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide was likely to have "far surpassed" a record 60 million in 2015, including 20 million refugees, driven by the Syrian war and other drawn-out conflicts. The Oscar-winning actress argued against closing borders to refugees and migrants. "If your neighbor's house is on fire you are not safe if you lock your doors. Isolationism is not strength," she said. European Union leaders, alarmed by an influx of one million refugees and migrants into the bloc of 500 million people, struck an accord with Turkey in March that would grant Ankara more money to keep Syrian refugees on its territory. The deal sealed off the main route by which a million migrants crossed the Aegean into Greece last year, but some believe new routes will develop through Bulgaria or Albania as Mediterranean crossings to Italy from Libya resume. Jolie, special envoy for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, said she was disappointed in some politicians for fear-mongering and a "race to the bottom" approach to the refugee crisis. She said it has led to "countries competing to be the toughest, in the hope of protecting themselves whatever the cost... and despite their international responsibilities." When asked about Republican Donald Trump's U.S. presidential campaign, Jolie said it was divisive. "America is built on freedom of religion so it's hard to hear that this is coming from someone who is pressing to be president." (Reporting by Lin Taylor @linnytayls, Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers humanitarian news, conflicts, land rights, modern slavery and human trafficking, women's rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)
LONDON (Reuters) - Hollywood stars Jennifer Lawrence and James McAvoy reprise their roles as powerful mutants in "X-Men: Apocalypse", this time joining forces against a new supervillain. Oscar-winner Lawrence returns as the blue, shape-shifting Mystique, while McAvoy plays the younger, mind-reading Professor Charles Xavier, a role portrayed by Patrick Stewart in the franchise's first films. In the movie, the world's first mutant Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) awakes in 1980s Cairo after hibernation in ancient Egypt and embarks on a mission for global power with his new recruits, including Magneto (Michael Fassbender). Professor Xavier seeks to defeat him with the help of Mystique and other mutant students from his school - characters introduced in the original "X-Men" movies and brought to life here by a younger generation of actors. "...none of these superheroes in these movies are that capable of winning the day on their own," McAvoy told Reuters in a joint interview with Lawrence. "They're all fairly flawed... They need each other, and what I like about it is that it's about community and it's about society and it's about family." The movie is the latest superhero action flick hitting screens as Hollywood continues to expand its comic book cinematic universe. This month, Disney-Marvel's "Captain America: Civil War" brought together Marvel characters such as Iron Man, Ant-Man, Black Widow and Scarlet Witch as well as a new Spider-Man on screen. Asked if they could see their mutant characters joining forces with other superheroes in a franchise crossover, Lawrence said "no". "Maybe when people get really tired of superhero movies, they'll do it as one last ditch desperate attempt to kind of milk the cow dry," McAvoy said. "I think there are so many characters in the X-Men universe that we could go and explore before we have to go and mash up with those guys," he said. "X-Men: Apocalypse" hits cinemas worldwide from May 18. (Reporting by Sara Hemrajani; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Louise Ireland)
NEW YORK, NY and WUHAN, CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / Yangtze River Development Ltd., (OTC Markets: YERR), formerly known as Kirin International Holdings Inc., (the "Company") today announced Executive Director, James Coleman, will present a corporate overview at the SeeThruEquity 5th Annual Microcap Investor Conference on May 31, 2016. The event will be held at Convene Conference Center at 730 3rd Avenue in New York City.

ABOUT SEETHRUEQUITY:

SeeThruEquity is committed to providing unbiased research for companies under $1 billion in market capitalization - and as always - AT NO COST TO THE COMPANY. What's more - we also host regular investor conferences for small-cap and micro-cap companies. For more information please visit the following website (www.seethruequity.com)

ABOUT YANGTZE RIVER DEVELOPMENT LTD.:

Yangtze River Development Limited primarily engages in the business of real estate development with a port logistic project located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Wuhan Newport is a large infrastructure development project implemented under China's latest "One Belt One Road" initiative and is believed to be strategically positioned in the anticipated "Free Trade Zone" of the Wuhan Port, a crucial trading window between China, the Middle East and Europe. To be fully developed upon completion of three phases, within the logistics center, there will be six operating zones, including port operation area, warehouse and distribution area, cold chain logistics area, rail cargo loading area, exhibition area and residential community. The logistics center is also expected to provide a number of shipping berths for cargo ships of various sizes. Wuhan Newport is expected to provide domestic and foreign businesses a direct access to the anticipated Free Trade Zone in Wuhan. The project will include commercial buildings, professional logistic supply chain centers, direct access to the Yangtze River, Wuhan-Xinjiang-Europe Railway and ground transportation, storage and processing centers, IT supporting services, among others.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:

This document includes "forward-looking" statements, as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 or by the Securities and Exchange Commission in its rules, regulations and releases. Forward-looking statements are any statements other than statements of historical fact, including statements regarding Company's expectations, beliefs, hopes, intentions or strategies regarding the future. Among other things, these forward-looking statements may include statements regarding the change of Company's plan of operation, future opportunities as a result of the matter referenced in the above statements; and any other statements regarding Company's future beliefs, expectations, plans, intentions, financial condition or performance. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may," "will," "expects," "should," "believes," "plans," "anticipates," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," "continue," or other words of similar meaning. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in, or implied by, the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such a difference include, but are not limited to, general economic conditions, our financial and business prospects, our capital requirements, our financing prospects, our relationships with employees, and our ability to realize the anticipated benefits of such transaction, and those disclosed as risks in other reports filed by us with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including those described in our most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K.

We caution readers that any such statements are based on currently available operational, financial and competitive information, and they should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect management's opinion only as of the date on which they were made. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation to review or update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances as they occur.

CONTACT:

James Coleman

Executive Director

jcoleman@yerr.com.cn

646-861-3315

SOURCE: Yangtze River Development Limited
Aden (AFP) - Authorities in south Yemen have banned the sale of the mild narcotic qat on working days, and it will be only allowed into the city of Aden on weekends, witnesses said Monday.

Checkpoints have been set up around Aden to stop qat shipments from entering the port city, as patrols roamed markets to enforce the ban on sales, the witnesses said.

Security forces said in a statement that they had decided to "ban the sale of qat in Aden and its suburbs during the week".

The statement said the ban was prompted by complaints from citizens and due to "security, social and health" concerns, adding that qat markets caused traffic jams.

Aden has served as the temporary capital of Yemen since forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi recaptured it and four other southern provinces from Shiite rebels in the summer.

Southern militias that fought alongside Hadi's loyalists have been mostly assimilated in security forces.

Chewing wads of the evergreen herb has a stimulant effect similar to drinking numerous cups of strong coffee, and it is part of the social fabric of Yemen.

This restriction on qat consumption was applied in the formerly independent south Yemen, before it united with the north in the 1990s.
For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  May 16, 2016  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include Alcobra Ltd. (ADHD), Editas Medicine Inc. (EDIT), Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SNDX), Seres Therapeutics, Inc. (MCRB) and Neos Therapeutics, Inc. (NEOS).

Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free.

Here are highlights from Fridays Analyst Blog:

Drug Stock Earnings to Watch for Monday

The Q1 earnings season is almost wrapping up with 90.2% (as of May 11) of the S&P 500 members having already reported results. Now how does the picture look like? While growth remained nonexistent, the results were not that bad with a number of companies coming out with positive surprises for both earnings as well as revenues.

However, 2016 earnings growth expectations have turned negative similar to what was seen last year. Will Hopes of Earnings Growth Materialize ? As most of the remaining companies report Q1 results over the next coming days, things will become clearer.



With several pharma and major biotech companies having released their earnings results, Medical is one of the few sectors witnessing earnings and revenue growth in Q1. Our Q1 scorecard shows that 94.3% of the Medical sector has reported results with earnings growth of 7.8% and revenue growth of 9.8%. The blended beat stands at 64% (the percentage of companies that have beaten both EPS as well as revenue estimates).



Notably, the Medical sector is anticipated to be one of the seven sectors to record earnings growth (7.6%) in Q1, as per our Earnings Trends report.



Among drug stocks lined up to report on May 16, lets take a sneak peek at five companies.



Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, Alcobra Ltd. (ADHD) is an emerging pharmaceutical company focused on the development of treatments for cognitive disorders including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and fragile X syndrome. Alcobra has been seen to consistently beat expectations with an average positive surprise of 21.53%. This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock has an Earnings ESP of 0.00% for the first quarter thereby making it difficult to predict a beat.

Story continues

Editas Medicine Inc. (EDIT) is one of the leading genome editing company developing a proprietary genome editing platform based on CRISPR/Cas9 technology. The company is looking to treat patients with genetically defined diseases by correcting their disease causing genes. This Cambridge, MA-based company, which started trading from Feb 2016, has a Zacks Rank #3 which when combined with an ESP of 0.00% makes a surprise prediction difficult.

Based in Waltham, MA, Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SNDX) is a development-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of entinostat as a combination therapy in multiple cancer indications. Syndax started trading from March this year. The companys Zacks Rank #3 with an ESP of 0.00% once again makes a surprise prediction difficult this quarter.



One of the leading microbiome therapeutics platform companies, Seres Therapeutics, Inc.( MCRB) is a development stage company focused on the development of a novel class of biological drugs designed to treat disease by restoring the function of a dysbiotic microbiome. This Cambridge, MA-based company, which started trading from Jun 2015, has delivered disappointing performances in both its reported quarters with the company missing estimates with a negative surprise of 19.11%. The companys Zacks Rank #3 with an ESP of 0.00% makes a surprise prediction difficult this quarter.

Grand Prairie, TX-based Neos Therapeutics, Inc.s (NEOS) Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) increases the predictive power of the ESP. However, the companys 0.00% ESP makes a surprise prediction difficult yet again. Neos is a pharmaceutical company focused on the development, manufacturing and commercialization of products utilizing its proprietary modified-release drug delivery technology platforms. The company, which started trading from Jul 2015, reported a positive surprise of 22.97% last quarter.

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Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  May 16, 2016  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include Apple, Inc. (AAPL), Alphabet, Inc. (GOOGL), Lenovo Group Ltd. (LNVGY) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT).

Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free.

Here are highlights from Fridays Analyst Blog:

Forget Apple: Buy These 3 Tech Stocks Instead

Earlier this earnings season, Apple, Inc. (AAPL) reported Q2 earnings and revenue that missed analysts estimates, and its current quarter guidance fell short of expectations as well. As a result, shares fell more than 8% in after-hours trading, which erased over $46 billion in its market cap.

iPhone Sales Decline

One of the main reasons for Apples declining revenuethe tech giant said reported earnings of $1.90 per diluted share on $50.56 billion in revenue. Wall Street expected Apple to report earnings of about $2 a share on $51.97 billion in revenuewas the year-over-year decrease in sales of its iPhone.

Despite beating estimates on iPhone shipments, posting 51.19 million for the quarter in comparison to analyst expectations of 50.3 million, the iPhone unit count was a 16% decline from the 61.17 million shipped during the year-ago quarter.

CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that the company added more switchers from Android and other platforms in the first half of the year than in any other six-month period ever.

In contrast, Apples Services segment saw its best revenue yet last quarter, bringing in $5.99 billion and beating analyst estimates of $5.78 billion. The companys second-largest source of revenue grew 20% year-over-year.

Our team executed extremely well in the face of strong macroeconomic headwinds, said Cook in Apples earnings release, sounding optimistic despite the decline in sales. We are very happy with the continued strong growth in revenue from Services, thanks to the incredible strength of the Apple ecosystem and our growing base of over one billion active devices.

Story continues

Looking ahead, Apple now expects revenues between $41-$43 billion, below original estimates of about $47 billion. Gross margin is estimated to be in the range of 37.5-38% and operating expenses between $6-6.1 billion.

3 Stocks to Consider

This current earnings season was expected to be one of the worst since the financial crisis in 2009. According to Bloomberg, investors have had itchy trigger fingers about tech firms for much of this year. Signs of soft economic spots in parts of the world and hiccups in business spending have clouded hopes for tech companies that depend on growing sales.

With this in mind, if you are an investor who is still interested in big tech stocks, here are three stocks you may want to consider for your portfolio instead of Apple.

Alphabet, Inc. (GOOGL) is the parent company of Google, and provides web-based search, advertisements, maps, software applications, mobile operating systems, and other services through its subsidiaries.

Google has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) and a VGM score of C. The company has expected earnings growth of 15.00% for the current year. It has a Forward PE of 27.23, which is higher than its industrys average of 4.02. Its earnings estimate for the current year is $26.26 per share, with eight analysts revising downwards over the last 30 days. Googles average earnings surprise of -2.78%.

Lenovo Group Ltd. (LNVGY) is dedicated to building PCs and mobile Internet devices, and its business is built on product innovation and strong strategic execution.

Lenovo has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) and a VGM score of A. The company expects earnings growth of 116.67% for the current quarter. It has a Forward PE of 8.03, which is lower than its industrys average of 9.40. Its earnings estimate for the current year is -0.19 per share, with no analysts revising upwards or downwards. However, Lenovo expects to earn $0.39 per share for the current quarter. The companys average EPS surprise id 18.81%.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is a technology company whose products include operating systems for computing devices, servers, phones, and other intelligent devices.

Microsoft has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) and a VGM score of C. The company has expected earnings growth of 2.23% for the current year. It has a forward PE of 19.16, which is higher than the industry average of 18.86. Its earnings estimate for the current year is $2.69 per share, with two analysts revising upwards but 9 revising downwards in the past 30 days. Microsoft has an average EPS surprise of 9.42%.

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Zacks Equity Research provides the best of quantitative and qualitative analysis to help investors know what stocks to buy and which to sell for the long-term.

Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

Zacks "Profit from the Pros" e-mail newsletter provides highlights of the latest analysis from Zacks Equity Research. Subscribe to this free newsletter today. Find out What is happening in the stock market today on zacks.com.



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Washington (AFP) - Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has invited conservative leaders to a meeting this week to discuss allegations that the social network has been suppressing some political views.

A Facebook spokeswoman told AFP Zuckerberg would meet with about a dozen conservatives including political commentator Glenn Beck and talk show host Dana Perino.

The meeting comes in the wake of a report by tech news website Gizmodo alleging that articles from politically conservative outlets were deliberately omitted from Facebook's "trending" news stories.

Facebook has denied the allegations and Zuckerberg has promised to investigate the matter.

"If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post last week.

Beck said in a post on Facebook that he had been contacted by Zuckerberg and asked to meet Wednesday at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

"Mark wanted to meet with 8 or ten of us to explain what happened and assure us that it won't happen again," Beck wrote.

"The question that needs to be answered Wednesday is: Will Mark see this as an opportunity to free all points of view but at the same time unify America and the world."

Others invited include Zac Moffatt, a political consultant who worked for former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney; Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute; and Barry Bennett, an advisor to presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The debate comes with Facebook and other social networks playing a growing role in how people get their news and amid concern over whether this information is promoted or filtered by online services and applications.
Microsoft has done a tremendous job with Windows 10 in so many ways, which is even more impressive when you consider that the company's prior release was nothing short of a disaster. Microsoft knew it had fallen behind in mobile, so it tried to make Windows 8 as tablet-friendly as it could. What the company seemingly forgot, however, was that most people use Windows on a laptop or desktop, and a tablet interface in those environments provides a horrible user experience.

Windows 10 succeeded in erasing Windows 8 from users' minds almost entirely, and the public conversation surrounding Microsoft's latest release has been overwhelmingly positive (aside from when the world learned that Windows 10 was spying on users, that is). Nothing is perfect, and now a new change Microsoft is about to make will undoubtedly upset many Windows 10 users.

DON'T MISS: To make the iPhone exciting again, Apple has to launch an Android phone?

Microsoft is in the process of putting the finishing touches on a fresh new Windows 10 update set to be released this coming July. The upcoming Anniversary Update will be free for all Windows 10 users and it will include some nice new features and several refinements that users will definitely enjoy. But there's one change in particular that Microsoft revealed late last week and it's undoubtedly going to ruffle some feathers.

As noted by Microsoft news blog Neowin, Microsoft's upcoming Anniversary Update will see a wave of advertising wash over the Start Menu in Windows 10. The absence of the Start Menu is one of the things people hated most about Windows 8, and they celebrated its return when Microsoft released Windows 10. While users are surely still happy that the Start Menu returned to Windows, the increased volume of advertising will undoubtedly leave many users with mixed feelings.

Microsoft is set to double the number of promoted apps that appear in the Start Menu and come preinstalled in Windows 10. In total, there will now be 10 sponsored apps. As The Verge pointed out, the increased bloat is likely a move to play nice with developers as Microsoft continues to pull out all the stops in its effort to woo software companies to its Windows app store.

Story continues

Microsoft made the announcement in a presentation during last week's WinHEC conference, and you can see the slides here.

The good news is that according to Microsoft, all sponsored apps can be removed from the Start Menu manually and any promoted apps that come preinstalled in Windows 10 can be uninstalled. Even with this in mind, this new influx of advertising and bloatware will be one of the first things users see when they install the new update this July, and it won't make a very good first impression.

Related stories

Windows has finally fixed its awful auto-update system

Windows 10 will finally stop sharing Wi-Fi passwords after public backlash

Act surprised: There's a new zero-day Flash exploit you need to fix right now

More from BGR: Replace every wall outlet in your home with this $15 box

This article was originally published on BGR.com
From Cosmopolitan

A team of Apple engineers were unable to extract any information from Austin Stephanos's iPhone, the Sun-Sentinel reports. The phone was retrieved in March when the boat he and fellow 14-year-old Perry Cohen were fishing on was found capsized off the coast of Bermuda. The boys have been missing since they took said boat out on July 24 of last year.

Stephanos's father's attorney Michael Pike told the Sun-Sentinel that the family is "devastated" and that "it's just a tragic, devastating situation. I know the families are very disappointed relative to the outcome of not being able to power on the phone." The Stephanos and Cohen families have been involved in a lawsuit since the phone was found - the Cohens believe because Perry used Austin's phone while on the boat (Perry's was dead), the phone is half theirs and should be handed over to authorities to try and recover information. The Stephanos's disagreed, but ultimately they both decided to let Apple try and extract information.

Cohen's mother said in a statement that Apple believes there are other experts who might be able to extract data from the phone and that the company offered to give the phone to said experts if the families could come to an agreement: "As I said before, I owe it to Perry to exhaust every possible avenue in pursuit of finding out what happened to him. We look forward to working cooperatively with Austin's family toward this transition. We are not giving up on the iPhone's potential for evidence until all viable efforts have been exhausted."

The phone is currently in several pieces, NBC News reports, as Apple had to dismantle it to clean and try to restore it. While the Stephanos family is "truly grateful" to Apple for its attempts at recovery, the cleaning process cleared the phone of its call logs, text messages, and photos, some of which could have been used as evidence.

Story continues

When the boat was discovered, investigators noticed its battery had been turned off, alerting authorities to potential foul play in the boys' disappearance. Several of Perry's and Austin's friends have since told police they received Snapchats from the boys reading "We're F'd" before they went missing. Austin also posted an Instagram with the caption, "Peace Out Jupiter," just after they took the boat out.

Still, the phone holds value for Stephanos's father, Blu: "It's a small piece of him; something he used to call me at night when he needed to talk to someone, something he put his stickers on and carried with him every day," he wrote in his statement. "As any parent would understand, to me, it's not a broken phone, but a memory of my son that I will hold close to my heart and treasure for the rest of my life."

The boys are still officially classified as missing.

Follow Tess on Twitter.
TipRanks

Considering the tough macro environment and its impact on the markets, investors can be forgiven for some indecision when it comes to choosing stocks right now. But there are clues, hints that will point out the right stocks, even in an unsettled market. The simplest move, of course, is to look for quality stocks that have fallen sharply in recent months, down to bargain-level prices. The adage is 'buy low and sell high,' and fundamentally sound stocks that have fallen 50% or more in less than a
The changing of the guard has begun. Were getting the first look at Season 2 of USA Networks praised drama series Mr. Robot. The network debuted the trailer this morning at NBCUniversals upfront presentation in New York.

Mr. Robot follows Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), a young cybersecurity engineer who becomes involved in the underground hacker group fsociety, after being recruited by its mysterious leader (Christian Slater). The new season will explore the consequences of its hack on the multinational company Evil Corp as well as the illusion of control. Portia Doubleday, Carly Chaikin, Martin Wallstrom, Grace Gummer, Michael Cristofer and Stephanie Corneliussen co-star.

The Golden Globe- and Peabody-winning drama series hails from writer and executive producer Sam Esmail and Anonymous Content executive producers Steve Golin and Chad Hamilton. Universal Cable Productions is the studio.

Check out the first look at Season 2 above.

Related stories

USA's New Drama Series Trailers: 'Shooter', 'Falling Water'

Tom Sizemore Joins USA Series 'Shooter' As Recurring

'Suits' Season 6 Gets Summer Premiere Date; USA Releases Sneak Peek
A five-turbine floating windfarm has gained final approval to set up 25km off the east coast of Scotland in 2017, and is expected to become the world's most powerful floating windfarm of its kind once it starts churning out a combined 30MW.

A floating steel tube anchors each 6MW spar design turbine, with a ballast mixture enabling it to stay in place, while remote controls allow fine tuning of the turbine's positioning.

Lindsay Roberts of Scottish Renewables described floating offshore wind as "an exciting technology with huge, global potential," while Statoil's project director Leif Delp identified the area, near Peterhead, as a "region with a huge wind resource and an experienced supply chain from oil and gas."

Offshore wind turbine installations provide a rich source of renewable energy while remaining hidden from land-based human populations, which can ease the planning permission process; they can also help power conventional undersea oil and gas projects, as Windpower Offshore pointed out on May 16, the same day that Statoil's license was granted.

The Hywind Scotland flotilla will soon face competition for the title of world's most powerful, with similar large-scale projects also under construction around the world, including Principle Power's farms off the coasts of Oregon, USA, and northern Portugal.
Last week, which was light in terms of tech earnings, saw a number of negative reports on Nikkei that pulled down Apple shares. At the same time Alphabet GOOGL and Oracle ORCL found themselves heading to court again.

Here are the top stories-

Nikkei Reports Pulling Down Apple

Back-to-back negative reports from the Nikkei impacted Apple shares last week. The first of these mentioned falling iPhone shipments based on estimates from IHS, smartphone part makers and manufacturing equipment makers, all of which see increasing demand for cheaper Chinese smartphones from Huawei, Xiaomi, Lenovo, ZTE, Vivo, etc. While Huawei is currently expected to be the biggest gainer (to grow 20-30% this year), the top 10 Chinese smartphone makers are together expected to grow 15% to 550 million.

The other reports focused on weak sales of Apple component suppliers and measures taken by Japanese and Taiwanese part makers to target Chinese phone makers. Since Apple is already dealing with its first quarter of shipment decline, the Nikkei reports had more of a negative impact.

Oracle Has Some New Numbers for Alphabet

Oracle lawyer Peter Bicks says that Alphabets Google made $42 billion in revenue and $21 billion in profits from Android-based smartphones and is therefore seeking $8.8 billion in damages, or around 11.7% of its balance sheet cash. Its a huge amount even for Google, but its as yet unclear if Google will have to pay for it. Google used 37 application programming interfaces (APIs, or software code that enables interoperability between programs) that belonged to Sun, which was subsequently taken over by Oracle.

The last time the case was tried, the court held that the technology wasnt copyrightable. Moreover, Google argued that the inability to use APIs and making them negotiable and licensable, especially in the given circumstances (such as Sun encouraging Java use to ensure its proliferation) would limit innovation. App and hardware makers building on Android would also be affected and there would be cost escalation for all.

Story continues

HP, Red Hat and Yahoo submitted papers supporting Google while Microsoft, EMC and NetApp sided with Oracle at the time. Both sides argued for innovation. Microsoft said that failure to protect APIs would lead software makers to reveal less about them, which would in turn affect innovation.

But that was a long time ago. Oracle now says it has numbers to support its claims. Google of course doesnt make anything from Android but from software it has developed on it that people use to search, download apps, etc. It doesnt even sell those, earning only from the ads and commissions they generate.

So after Google was granted victory in 2012, the decision was overturned on appeal, when Google asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. When they refused, the case went for retrial. Now theres a jury of 8 women and 2 men to decide Googles fate.

Company Last Week Last 6 Months AAPL -2.37% -19.42% FB +0.27% +12.50% YHOO -2.00% +8.31% GOOGL -0.05% -3.97% MSFT +1.37% -5.69% INTC -0.43% -10.31% CSCO -0.00% -5.86% AMZN +5.37% +8.34%

Other stories you might have missed-

Corporate

iPhone Manufacturing in India: Confirming earlier reports about possible iPhone manufacturing in India, last week saw a fresh report from ET saying that Apple supplier Foxconn was ready to sign a contract for a $10 billion facility covering 1200 acres in Indias Maharashtra state. Apples plans of selling refurbished phones in the country were hit by regulatory authorities on account of competitive concerns.

A manufacturing facility in the country aligns with the governments plans of creating 6 million manufacturing jobs through the Make in India initiative. If Apple resorts to India-only prices as this facility might enable and as manufacturers in other industries already do, it has a much better chance of tapping the Indian market where the average smartphone costs around $150.

Apple on 10nm Chips: Apples supplier of choice is Taiwan Semiconductor, which has reportedly started taping out the design for its 10nm A11 chip. Its currently expected that the chips will be qualified by the end of the year with samples shipping in the first quarter of 2017. It was earlier thought that Taiwan Semiconductor would secure an exclusive contract, which made sense since it is more focused on developing leading edge technology that Apple can make use of in the future. But it now appears that Samsung is likely to get a quarter share of orders.

Facebook Trouble in Sweden: 27 Swedish broadcasters, publishers and media associations have objected to Facebooks deal with partly state-owned telecom Telia. The deal offers Facebook to customers without charging them for the data used. The concept hasnt been popular in a number of places, most notably India where it was objected to on the grounds of net neutrality. Swedish companies are objecting on the same grounds.

Intel Refinances Debt: Intel refinanced some debt that matures this year and in 2017. It sold $2.75 billion in bonds with five, ten and thirty-year maturities and carrying an S&P rating of A+. The 30-year part is the biggest one through which it raised $1.25 billion at 1.55%. The company will also repay $1.5 billion of its 1.95% percent notes due in October and a portion of the 1.35% notes due next year.

Google, Yahoo Apps Banned: News reports last week said that the Yahoo Mail and Google appspot.com had been banned in the lower house of Congress on security concerns. In Yahoos case, it was because the mail was allowing ransomware attacks, in which hackers attach malicious software to emails. In Googles case, it was because appspot continues to host remote access tools that were capable of stealing personally identifiable information and a trojan named BLT. The FBI issued warnings on these in June 2015.

Microsoft Cloud in Canada: Microsoft has announced that its Canadian cloud is now open for operation. This is a big deal because it allows businesses and governments to store their data within the country while using Microsoft solutions such as its IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and hybrid platforms. Microsoft has said that Office 365 is already available for data residency and Dynamics CRM is coming in September.

Alibaba Fights Counterfeiting, Brands Unimpressed: Alibabas entry into the Washington DC-based International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) last month has ruffled many. Gucci and Michael Kors already quit the lobby group in protest and last week saw an anonymous letter to the board that there would be mass exits unless Alibaba was ousted. The relationship between IACC President Robert Barchiesi (who has held Alibaba shares since its IPO) and Matthew Bassiur (who took over as Alibaba's head of intellectual property enforcement this January) has also been called into question.

Chinas leading ecommerce company has battled with counterfeits on its Taobao platform for long and many brands are unhappy with its limited success. Taobao has announced fresh rules to crack down on counterfeit items including new requirements for luxury goods sellers that require them to upload proof of authentic goods by May 20, failing which they can have their fund balances frozen.

WDC Closes SNDK Acquisition: Following the approval of the Ministry of Commerce of China (MOFCOM), the deal, which was already approved by other regulatory bodies and company shareholders, came to a close. Western Digital, which specializes in HDDs and San Disk, which specializes in the new age NVM are perfectly complementary to each other with broad product and industry experience. So the acquisition is a boon for shareholders. SanDisk co-founder, President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra joins the Western Digital board of directors. Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan continues as CEO of the combined company.

Legal/Regulatory

Facebook Meets Conservatives: Facebook has been anonymously accused of suppressing news stories that offer a conservative view point. Zuckerberg said an investigation was in progress although there was no evidence of this happening and that he would meet conservative leaders through the week. Facebook also confirmed that it will remain a sponsor of the GOPs July convention in Cleveland despite pressure from liberal activists. Separately, U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal has left the bench to become global litigation head at Facebook.

FTC Investigates Google Search: A new report from Politico indicates that Alphabets Google is in for some fresh investigation into its search practices. The report says that the investigation is in its early stages, so details are limited. But the idea is to see if Google has misused its dominant position in search to favor its own products. A previous investigation found it not guilty back in 2013.

Both search and Android OS are being scrutinized by European authorities. The British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday that Google was looking at a fine of up to $3.4 billion (or up to 10% of its annual sales) plus a ban on favoring itself over rivals in search but that the bill had not been finalized.

Groupon Suing IBM: Groupon has sued IBM in Chicago district court for infringing on its software patent. Specifically, Groupon alleges that IBMs WebSphere Commerce platform infringes on a patent that Groupon holds. This follows IBMs suing the company for infringement of four of its patents, which said that Groupons lawsuit is without merit.

New Technology/Products

WhatsApp for Desktops: Possibly in order to better target business users, WhatsApp has now spread to Macs and PCs. The app is now available on the broadest range of operating systems including iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows and has the reach of other leading messaging services, such as iMessage and Skype. Facebook Messenger is close on its heels with apps for mobile, web and as a Windows 8 or 10 app.

Facebook at Work in India: Business Insider reports that India comes first as far as Facebook At Work adoption is concerned and says that its because of its high mobile dependence. Users can typically toggle between their personal and official accounts, with Facebook serving ads on the first one and giving companies total control over the other one which is ad-free. First users are happy with the product calling out its intuitive feature.

Microsoft Wants More Apps on Windows: Microsoft is courting corporate technology buyers by allowing them to make bulk purchases of third party apps from its Windows Store for Business launched last November. While theres no incentive yet, volume discounts are reportedly on the way.

Thats not all -- it is removing the option to block the purchase of apps using Windows 10 Pro devices. This is a cheaper version of its OS, usually used by SMBs. If the IT departments want greater control over company devices, they have to upgrade to its pricier product. All this is expected to interest developers to make more apps for Windows, which is absolutely necessary if it is to succeed against Android and iOS.

Google's Chirp: Google has a developers conference this week where we might learn more about a new device along the lines of Amazons popular Echo. Re/codes Mark Bergen says the device will be called Chirp and is in all probability being developed by its Nest group. Nest has some earlier success with smart thermostats and security cameras and has something of a cool design team. So we should get ready for a smart device answering questions, fetching mail, turning on music, etc but hopefully Google will think of a sexier name than OK Google.

Amazon Video: Amazon has launched a YouTube killer/competitor called Amazon Video Direct that will live on user-generated content the way YouTube does. But Amazon may get it to profit sooner since it can advertize the millions of items it sells on the platform. It also has a fairly large and loyal user base that it feeds through Prime, so uptake could be quick. Just how Amazon hopes to tie this in with the rest of what it does isnt something its talking about yet, but the possibilities are exciting.

Also, note that Amazon has some fairly successful original content that sets it apart from other video providers except Netflix. Still, YouTube has many more years of experience in video distribution and also has brand value, so it should be a good fight.

M&A

Salesforce to Use Amazons AWS: Salesforce will build its IoT cloud on AWS according to the WSJ. This is a big win for Amazon, which also recently helped Netflix move to its cloud. While Amazon remains the largest online retailer with significant growth prospects, all the excitement in recent times has been about AWS.

Its cloud infrastructure business, while making a single-digit contribution to revenue, generates nearly half its profit. Note that Salesforces flagship CRM offering competes with Microsofts Dynamics CRM. Microsoft is second in the IaaS segment, so Amazon (the market leader) is the best company it could have gone to.

Apple Invests in Chinese Ride-Sharing Company: Apple has invested a billion dollars in Chinese ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing Technology. Company president Jean Liu has said that the two companies would "benefit each other on product, on technology, on many other levels," but no other details are available.

Apples only known interest in cars is with respect to its autonomous/electric car technology, which is another secret project with few details available. Its extremely hard to understand Apples move here. If it had been a manufacturing alliance, Apple would have tied with car makers, instead its tied with technology companies. SO Didi could be interested in using these cars when they become available. This could be a goal of the Chinese government as well as it moves to reduce Chinas carbon footprint.

Alibaba-Softbank Team Up: Alibaba and Softbank have formed a joint venture (called SB Cloud) to offer cloud services in Japan. Softbanks goal is to develop the perfect cloud for Japanese companies and multinationals with data residency in Japan. Alibaba brings its secure, scalable cloud computing technology to the JV so the companies can deliver data storage and processing services, enterprise-level middleware and cloud security services.

Some Numbers

Micron Shares Down: Micron said it was expecting a third quarter loss of 5-12 cents per share on revenue of $2.8 billion to $3.1 billion. Analysts expect Micron to report a loss of 4 cents per share on revenue of $3.2 billion. The softness at Micron is because it is focused on memory chips for the PC market where prices continue to slide. The company does have new products in the pipeline, but they arent expected to make a contribution yet.

Some Other Companies That Reported Last Week: Dun & Bradstreet, CA Inc, Symantec, Electronic Arts, NVIDIA

Some Companies Reporting This Week: A, CSCO, ADI, AMAT, TTWO, ADSK, CRM, SNPS

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Zacks Investment Research
For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  May 09, 2016  Today, Zacks Equity Research discusses the Semiconductors, including Intel (INTC), ARM (ARMH), IBM (IBM ), Cisco (CSCO) and AT&T (T).

Industry: Semiconductors

Link: https://www.zacks.com//commentary/80882/semiconductor-industry-outlook---may-2016

This isnt a great time for semiconductor stocks, what with the PC market being what it is and the bulk of semiconductor devices continuing to go into PCs.

Yes, its true that the Semiconductor Industry serves as a driver, enabler and indicator of technological progress. Developments in the industry do determine the way we work, transport ourselves, communicate, entertain ourselves and respond to our environment.



But the PC market slump cant be ignored. So in searching for bright spots at the moment it would perhaps be better to look for other applications, such as in the cars we drive, the phones we communicate with, the electronic gadgets on which we watch movies, listen to music and play games on, the devices we use to monitor our health and connect our homes and the planes and weapons used to transport or protect us, all of which use semiconductors. Also dont forget the increased automation on the factory and shop floors, which are facilitated by these tiny integrated circuits called semiconductors.



Other opportunities could be in technologies that help solve environmental issues or promote thrift, helping to improve corporate balance sheets in an environment remaining somewhat impacted by China market concerns, oil prices, currency issues and the rate hike. These opportunities would lie in chips reducing power consumption, reducing heat dissipation, capturing solar energy, creating more efficient lighting solutions and so forth.



So first, the bad news



The PC market is essentially two markets, one is the enterprise side and the other, consumer. Believe it or not, neither side is doing too good right now, and wont do much better for another one-to-two quarters.



On the enterprise side, corporate spending decisions take time and are predicated on a perception of added value, whether its related to security or efficiency. The cloud is adding a new dimension to this, as companies partially or wholly adopt this new technology. Thats why Microsofts Windows 10 is expected to have a big, if somewhat-delayed impact here, as it takes one final step to retain legacy workloads. This update will perhaps be the last time that Windows will be a key driver, as the company doesnt plan on a totally new OS again, but will henceforth focus on periodic updates. Increased BYOD device sales and Intels Skylake family will be other drivers.



On the consumer side, Microsofts offer of a free upgrade to Windows 10 is limiting PC sales in a market where consumers are hesitant to spend on upgrades anyway. Thats because consumers already have many more devices than they need and because Internet and many other conveniences of computers are now easily available on smartphones and tablets.



Recently-released reports from IDC and Gartner indicate a secular decline. Both say that the PC market, which saw significant declines in the Dec 2015 quarter declined even more in the Mar 2016 quarter. Since their definition of the market varies slightly, their estimated decline differs somewhat: in IDCs estimation, its an 11.1% decline while according to Gartner, its 9.6%. Whatever the case, both agree that the top vendors are Lenovo, HP and Dell. Gartner estimates that both Apple and Asus grew with Apple in the fourth place and Asus fifth while IDC says they both saw sales decline with Asus in fourth place and Apple fifth.



Chipmakers try to get into as many devices as possible, which is easier said than done. Apple for one makes its own PCs, software and also a lot of its own chips, relying largely on high-end chips from Intel and memory chips from Samsung for the bulk of its other semiconductor requirements. Microsoft makes software and limited quantities of hardware, relying largely on third-party device makers for chips, PCs and mobile devices. Its also a major player in the cloud, which makes it an important ally for device makers.

Now for the good news



Cloud computing is increasing demand for dumber terminals that rely on cloud-based services and software. The demand for denser, energy efficient and secure data centers and networks, and more intelligent network control in this segment are positives for semiconductor device sales. This is pushing demand for servers and data centers and thereby helping Intel, which is the dominant player in the segment. While Intel may have failed to enter mobile where ARM reigns, it is likely to make inroads into this segment that has until now been dominated by Intel.



At any rate, disruption in this market is afoot because of the work done by the Open Compute Project (OCP) that Facebook founded and continues to feed. The social networking company generates a huge volume of data and wants to store, manage and process it as quickly and cost-efficiently as possible. Others with similar interest like Apple, Microsoft, Google and differing interest like Intel, HP, Cisco and Juniper also joined in.



Facebook designs the chip that is then optimized by the OCP so it becomes something members can standardize on. So far so good. But if the OCP is able to design chips that perform better or comparably with Intel chips, the chip makers cloud business can be hurt. This doesnt look like an immediate concern however.



It would also be fruitful to see how the cloud infrastructure market is shaping up. The market is dominated by Amazon, followed by Microsoft, IBM and Google. So these companies are hungry for chips and have a long-term demand for the devices. They would also be interested in performance per watt as all of this contributes to cost.



Some time back, Amazon started dabbling with low-end ARM-chips. The company looks interested in making its own devices, but its still too early to comment on its progress.



Google is reportedly the only top chip buyer that doesnt sell servers but instead builds them for internal use. And the company is now also seeking growth in the IaaS segment. Therefore, Googles decisions are extremely significant in the chip consumption context. Google has done two things in the recent past that could be viewed as second sourcing or maybe creating leverage against Intel to lower prices. The company has declared that everything it now does also supports IBMs Power systems and it is also hobnobbing with Qualcomm ostensibly to use some of its fledgling ARM-based server chips.



Microsoft is fair and square allied with Intel although we dont know how that story will play out since its also a member of the OCP.



Other than tablets, the consumer technology market also includes gadgets like LCD TVs, Blu-ray players and smartphones.



The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), formerly called Consumer Electronics Association ("CEA") expects U.S. consumer technology retail sales to be driven by Internet of Things (IoT) this year to touch $287 billion.



The CTA sees IoT in three groups. The first is named Audio and Video, where smart TVs will grow 13%, streaming media players 5%, connected speakers and headphones 40%, and wireless headphones 30%. The next category is the Smart Home, encompassing products like thermostats, smart smoke and CO2 detectors, IP/Wi-Fi cameras, smart locks, smart home systems, and smart switches, dimmers and outlets, which will grow 21%. The third category is wearables, led by fitness trackers, which will grow 12% and smart watches, which will grow 22%.



The CTA says that emerging fast-growing areas include drones (up 149%), VR (up 440%) and 3D printing (up 64%).



Smartphones, tablets and TVs are mature categories with shipments expected to grow a respective 5%, -9%, -1%. Laptops also play a role here with traditional devices expected to grow 2% and the hybrids, convertibles and detachables category growing 48%.



The strength in smartphones is largely coming from emerging markets where Google has refreshed its Android One program in several markets and Microsoft has announced several cheaper devices. Companies with greater geographical diversity have stronger chances of tapping this opportunity.



Wireless infrastructure builds (3G, 4G LTE) have been necessitated by increasing data volumes and connectivity issues (network congestion, power reliability, privacy and security) in wireless networks. These builds will require increased investment in semiconductors thus driving sales.



Security Gaining Importance in the IoT Market



The increased interconnectedness of things is a positive for semiconductor players because it creates a new market for chip consumption. For instance, Freescale has joined the Embedded Microprocessor Benchmarking Consortium (EEMBC) to identify embedded security gaps and set guidelines for IoT manufacturers to make more secure devices.



The two companies offering chip architectures are Intel (INTC) and ARM (ARMH) and both have increased focus on security. Intel acquired McAfee several years ago and has only recently decided to break out security revenue separately, possibly indicating its growing importance. In ARMs case, the company acquired Israeli startup Sansa, which offers both hardware security technology and software for advanced SoCs used in the IoT market. The company will likely build some security features into its designs.



Connected medical devices, wearables, cars and corporate Intranets are particularly susceptible to attack. Additionally, persistent hacker attacks on retailers is leading to increased demand for chip-based credit and debit cards and new payments systems.



The IoT opportunity is split between the IoT devices connecting to the Internet and the cloud facilitating their existence. According to the World Economic Forum, the number of connected devices will grow at a 21.6% CAGR from 22.9 billion in 2016 to 50.1 billion by 2020. In order to tap the growth potential in IoT devices, industry players have to enable much greater chip integration (a typical IoT device requires microcontrollers, sensors, connectivity and storage chips, but in an extremely small package). Adoption will increase only with very low-cost chips that will not require high compute power in many cases. So the challenge here is cost, which can be overcome only with very high volumes.



Prime enablers of IoT growth in the next few years are likely to be companies like Intel, ARM, etc. although many others will play a role. Apples Watch has positive implications for companies like Samsung.



The opportunity in the cloud is far broader because the demand for more powerful chips (with more processing power) is now being supplemented with a growing demand for lower-cost chips that can handle simple operations in high volume. The data captured by sensors in IoT and other devices is useful only when it is stored, sorted and analyzed in a protected environment, which is when it becomes valuable for industry players like retailers, healthcare professionals and marketers.



Semiconductors enable this process at every stage, but the limited standardization in the systems created by tech companies are bottlenecks in the smooth flow of data. Thats why big companies like Intel, IBM (IBM), Cisco (CSCO) and AT&T ( T) formed the Industrial Internet Consortium to develop common standards. The process could take time but once available, the standards could generate higher-margin revenue for semiconductor players. There will, however, be increased scrutiny on privacy considerations.



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Calligraphy by Chinese ancient scholar nets $32m

From:chinadaily.com.cn | 2016-05-16 14:43

The work Ju Shi Tie by Chinese Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) scholar Zeng Gong fetched 207 million yuan at the China Guardian's Grand View Night in Beijing, May 15, 2016. [Photo/China Guardian]

A calligraphy work by Chinese Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) scholar Zeng Gong fetched 207 million yuan ($31.69 million) at the China Guardian 2016 Spring Auction on Sunday evening, setting an auction record for the calligrapher.

The work Ju Shi Tie, a script with only 124 characters and signed by Gong himself, generated a heated bidding war in the salesroom of China Guardian's Grand View Night.

It finally went to Wang Zhongjun, the Chinese movie mogul who co-founded Huayi Brothers Media Corp, who made headlines by spending $61.8 million on a Van Gogh canvas, Still Life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies, at a Sotheby's sale in New York in November, 2014.

The calligraphy work was originally a letter Gong wrote for one of his countrymen at a ripe age of 62. It told his recent situation and expressed his depression of being exiled from the capital for 12 years.

The work made its debut at a Christie's sale in New York about 20 years ago and was sold for $508,500 (about 4.51 million yuan).

The second time, it made its appearance in Polys Autumn Auction in 2009 and reached a deal of 108 million yuan, which made it the first Chinese calligraphy work break the 100 million yuan.

From the transaction price of its third deal, the price of Gong's work has increased by 45 times in 20 years.
The Kerala High Court on Thursday, September 20, quashed the anticipatory bail granted to Chandran by the Kozhikode Sessions Court.
President Yoon Suk-yeol called Tuesday for bipartisan cooperation to cope with threats from North Korea and economic difficulties as he explained his administration's first budget ...

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on Tuesday called for preemptive responses to downside economic risks to cope with rising volatility in financial markets. With major economies jac...

South Korea's new COVID-19 cases sharply bounced back to over 40,000 Tuesday, sharply rebounding after showing a gradual decline in the past week. The country reported 43,759 n...

Two upcoming playoff series will determine the fate of four South Korean football clubs for next year, with two of them looking to stay in the top division and the two others tryin...
There are some films that you can easily watch again and again.

It may be because they're so much to see and follow that they warrant second or third viewings, it may be because the jokes never get old, it could even be just that they're especially comforting for you.

The movies on this list, however, are not comforting. At all. In fact, if you watch any of these on a regular basis, look at yourself because there's something seriously wrong with you. Don't get us wrong - these are all fantastic movies, but it's pretty hard to sit through these a second time.

Read on, if you're up to it...

10. 'HARD CANDY' (2005)

Elliot Page terrorises a suspected paedophile and, well, it gets vicious. Really, really vicious. What makes 'Hard Candy' so traumatising is both its frank depiction of violence, the fact that it's about paedophilia and the fact that you really can't look at Elliot Page the same way after seeing this. Or Patrick Wilson, for that matter. Wilson admitted that he actually passed out during the filming of one particular scene.

9. 'DELIVERANCE' (1972)

Although people might remember 'Deliverance' for the infamous Duelling Banjos scene, what most people likely remember it for is the brutal rape scene involving Ned Beatty. Nearly 50 years after its release, it's every bit as disturbing then as it is now. It isn't just that scene that makes it all so unnerving, though. During production, the cast performed all of their own stunts and didn't even have insurance. Ronny Cox actually really did climb the side of a cliff. What's more, shortly after the movie came out, it was reported that more than 30 people drowned in the Chattooga river trying to recreate the same adventure.



8. 'FUNNY GAMES' (1997 / 2007)

Michael Haneke has made a career out of making disturbing content that features socially detached people, sadists, masochists and casual violence. None more disturbing is 'Funny Games', a story about two good-looking brothers who decide to terrorise a small family simply because they can. It doesn't really matter which version you see, the original German one or the one with Michael Pitt, Tim Roth, and Naomi Watts - they're both equally messed up.

7. 'BLUE VALENTINE' (2010)

Movies don't need to deal with violence or gore in order to unsettle or disturb you, and 'Blue Valentine' is a good example of this. Derek Cianfrance's romantic drama about the decline of a relationship between a married couple doesn't just hollow you out, it will actually have you questioning any relationship you've ever had. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams give arguably the best performances of their career, but it's the interplay between them and the eventual disintegration that's just harrowing to watch. Really, don't watch this if you're in the honeymoon phase of a relationship. Same goes for...

6. 'REVOLUTIONARY ROAD' (2008)

Story time. We know someone who went to see this movie during a particularly rough patch in a relationship. Why'd they go see it? Oh, it's Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet! Oh, this'll be romantic. URRR. WRONG. Be prepared for two hours of Jack and Rose from 'Titanic' screaming at each other. Not only will it make you wary of getting into a relationship, it'll also make you terrified of any job you're currently in. Seriously, this movie needs to come with a health warning. You'll question everything you've ever done after seeing this. Career choices, love life. All of it.

5. 'ANTICHRIST' (2009)

Lars Von Trier is known for being a controversial man and known for making controversial movies. It's not exactly known why he does this, whether it's to deliberately shock people or if it's for some idea or artistic vision. Looking over his work, it's obvious that he has some kind of idea of what he's about and 'Antichrist' does, admittedly, have a cohesive narrative. It also has a talking fox that's actually Satan, a man getting a certain appendage cut off and was written when Trier was in the depths of a serious depression. So it's wine and roses, basically.

4. 'SHAME' (2011)

It's hard to know exactly how to approach 'Shame'. On the one hand, you could argue that the movie is almost prudish and that sexual urges shouldn't be the subject of shameful displays in Michael Fassbender's character. On the other hand, it's clear that both characters - Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan - are deeply wounded people who have a truly damaged and unhealthy view of sex and relationships.

'Shame' is stunningly beautiful in terms of cinematography and the acting is just incredible. Why Michael Fassbender never won an Oscar for his performance, we'll never know. That said, as fantastic as it truly is, there is no way you could sit through it twice.

3. 'REQUIEUM FOR A DREAM' (2000)

If you've ever seen 'Requiem For A Dream', you'll know just how disturbing, sickening and harrowing it is. What makes it even more horrifying is that, realistically, the events that unfold could happen to anyone. Almost all of the stories in the movie begin in simple enough terms, but it's how it all slowly begins to spiral out of control that we see just how far and quickly it can get away.

As well as dealing with drug addiction, it also focuses on how we see ourselves and the addiction of perfection, or perceived perfection. Ellen Burstyn's character, for example, tries desperately to make herself more youthful. Jared Leto, in a career-best performance, just wants to become a businessman - but does this by selling hard drugs. It's all so, so terrible and what's more, it's so believable. That's the real horror.

2. 'SCHINDLER'S LIST' (1993)

Steven Spielberg became so depressed during the filming of 'Schindler's List' that he frequently called the late Robin Williams to lift his spirits and make him laugh. Ralph Fiennes looked, dressed and sounded so much like the Nazi commandant Amon Goth that, when introduced to an actual survivor of the Holocaust, said survivor reportedly froze in terror. Spielberg offered the director's chair to numerous well-known contemporaries, including Martin Scorsese, Sydney Pollack before he assumed the role.

Billy Wilder, who directed the likes of 'Stalag 17', 'Some Like It Hot', and 'The Apartment', had attempted to mount a production as a memorial to his own family who perished in the camps. It was only when Holocaust deniers began gaining more media attention that Spielberg signed on to direct the film, for which he would eventually win Best Director. To this day, Spielberg hasn't accepted any money from 'Schindler's List' and refused his salary for making it, calling it "blood money". The proceeds from the box office of 'Schindler's List' go to the USC Shoah Foundation.

1. 'A SERBIAN FILM' (2010)

It's quicker to list the countries this movie HASN'T been banned in than the ones it has. 'A Serbian Film' has been described by many critics as sickening, traumatic, morally evil, shocking and that it appealed only to mouth-breathing gorehounds. Those are all accurate. The director, however, has said that the movie is an allegory for the Serbian government and the trauma that the nation had experienced.

Serbia was previously under the control of Slobodan Milosevic, a brutal dictator who frequently murdered his political opponents and was brought before the Hague on genocide charges. The fact that the movie was specifically called 'A Serbian Film' was a pointed gesture to the country's past.
Everyone is so sure the Tom Hiddleston is bound to be the next Bond that bets have been suspended after a "particularly large wager" was thrown down. If you've not seen the BBC's Night Manager, he is effectively playing Bond - the double agent, the sharp suits, the exploding chandeliers, the women he helps save, and so on. Sure in the final episode he be seen ordering a "vodka martini." What further evidence do you need?!

Welp, should you require more, it's been rumoured that Hiddleston has been "spotted meeting with Bond movie director Sam Mendes and producer Barbara Broccoli." In addition to this, Associated Press have reported that - since the reported meeting - "a flurry of bets in recent days made 'The Night Manager' star the 2-1 favourite to replace Daniel Craig to be the next 007. But after a particularly large wager, the odds plummeted and betting was suspended."

The article adds: "Coral spokeswoman Nicola McGeady, says while earlier in the year "there was a gamble" on Damien Lewis and Idris Elba, nothing has "come close to the recent gamble on Hiddleston."


You can breathe a sigh of relief, Red Hot Chili Peppers fans - it looks like Anthony Kiedis is going to be just fine.

The frontman was rushed to hospital over the weekend after complaining of 'extreme stomach pain', leading to the band's California gig on Saturday to be cancelled.

It's now been revealed that the 53-year-old's been diagnosed with intestinal flu and is expected to make a full recovery.

The band issued a statement on their website, saying that they would also be cancelling their forthcoming gig tomorrow.

"Due to Anthony Kiedis' hospitalization from complications from the intestinal flu on Saturday evening, the Red Hot Chili Peppers regretfully must postpone their upcoming concert for iHeart Radio on May 17th," it read. "They would like to extend their gratitude to the fans for the outpouring of well wishes. Anthony is expected to make a full recovery soon."


There were incredible scenes in Kenya recently following the death of a prominent business man in the capital city, Nairobi.

Jacob Juma was killed in a drive by shooting last week. An outspoken critic of the government, opposition parties have alleged that the state may have been involved. Juma's body was being flown away via helicopter after a public viewing but it seems local man Saleh Wanjala hadn't gotten a close enough look so he decided to try and go with him.

The video cuts out before we can learn of Wanjala's fate but it was revealed that he was later dropped down at a nearby air strip. He sustained multiple cuts on his hands and head. You can see some footage of him after the incident in the video below at the 1 minute mark.
This season of 'Love Is Blind' is shaping up to be absolute madness  here's what people are saying about it
If some part of you was feeling sorry for Nicky Byrne after his 'Sunlight' failed to qualify for the circus that is Eurovision this weekend - spare your emotions. He's already dusted himself off and moved on the the myriad of things he's had queued in his pipeline. It's been reported that he's in line to present ITV's Xtra Factor.



According to reports, the presenter / former Westlifer has been "screen tested for the coveted role before the Eurovision semi-final." A source speaking via The Irish Mail on Sunday said: "A number of people are being considered for the position and Nicky is on that list. He has plenty of experience on camera and has a great profile in England which is a real plus. What happened in Stockholm wont matter for this job. It is all about the chemistry. If they find someone who works with him he has a real chance at landing the gig."

Others rumoured to take the job include Bray native Laura Whitmore - although if you're day dreaming of two of our prettiest blonde exports presenting Xtra Factor together, you can jog on as the source added: "It would probably be one Irish presenter paired with a UK name. A decision will be made very soon as the live auditions start in June."

Nicky's biggest TV presenting role to date was RTE's exceedingly pants Million Euro Challenge. Like the Eurovision, he "tried his best" given what he had to deal with...

Via The Examiner
Bulgaria and Romania have joined their forces to veto the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union and Canada due to Ottawas refusal to waive visa requirements for their nationals. Both countries now propose the FTA to be postponed in an effort to put pressure on both Canada and the EU Member States to solve the visa issue. The CETA has been described by Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom as the best free trade agreement that the EU has signed so far. It was agreed in 2014 but it is still to be signed and ratified.

In a joint letter sent by the ambassadors of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU, both countries express their disappointment by the way the Commission deals with the reciprocity mechanism in EU legislation visa matters. We are disappointed by the way chosen by the European Commission to proceed further with the reciprocity mechanism. We expect the Commission to implement the relevant provisions and regulations, thus safeguarding the Treaties and their fundamental principles of equality and non-discrimination for all European citizens, the ambassadors write.

Canada offers a visa-free travel to all EU Member States with the exception of Bulgaria and Romania while the United States also excludes Poland, Croatia and Cyprus. Ottawa says that Romania and Bulgaria still do not meet the requirements to waive the visa and as such it has not been able to fulfill its promise given at the 2014 EU-Canada summit to solve this issue. The European Commission on the other hand tried to enforce the reciprocity mechanism, though it decided in mid-April that the consequences of the EU imposing visas to Canada and the USA would be so dire that the mechanism could not be applied in this particular case.
Colors of Miao attract visitors to Taijiang Updated: 2016-05-16 08:30 (China Daily)

A Miao ethnic woman attends the recent Zimei Jie (Sisters' Day), a five-day festival similar to Valentine's Day, in Taijiang county, Guizhou province.CHINA DAILY

"Zimei Jie" (Sisters' Day), a five-day festival similar to Valentine's Day, is helping boost tourism in an ethnic county in Southwest China.

Chinese of Miao ethnicity in Guizhou's Taijiang county, in which 97 percent of the 168,000 residents are Miao, concluded the annual event on April 19-23, with tens of thousands of locals donning traditional attire in parades, musicians playing the reed-pipe lusheng, and performancers presenting drum dances. Group weddings and bullfights were also held, according to the county government.

According to folklore, a Miao couple were not given permission to be together by their parents and tribe leaders. They continued their romance regardless and when they met in secret, the girl would give her lover a bowl of glutinous rice, known as Sister's Rice.

Miao ethnic people of all ages dress in festive costumes and wearing silver, gather at the Zimei Jie (Sisters' Day) festivities.CHINA DAILY

The two overcame adversity and became an official couple. Sisters' Day is celebrated annually in honor of their love.

The occasion, which reportedly reflects the ancient lives of the Miao people during the transition to patriarchy from matriarchy, drew more than 50,000 tourists this year.

"The stories are so romantic," said Xia Xiaohui, a painter from east China's Zhejiang province. "The distinctive Miao culture is really inspirational."

For tour guide Li Mei, Sisters' Day gives tourists the opportunity to "have a glimpse of Miao culture."

"In recent years, many foreign visitors have come to Taijiang to admire the culture," she said.

Daniel, an Italian tourist, said he came to Taijiang to enjoy the "colorful glutinous rice."

"I was curious about Miao folklore," he said. "This is the first time that I have seen Miao people, I just adore their culture."

The event was also great for local businesses.

Wu Dongxiong, who operates a silverware store on Sisters' Street in the county, said tourists swarmed his store to buy souvenirs.

"I have sold a pretty good amount of silverware this year," said the silversmith. "Because tourism has exploded in recent years, all of my 12 siblings now work in the souvenir business."

The local government named Wu an "inheritor of intangible cultural heritage" to encourage him to pass on the craftsmanship to the next generation and to attract more young people to the industry.

"I have accepted six apprentices recently," he said.

Liu Yongying, another local, chose to cash in on another unique productMiao embroidery. Liu said she usually collects handmade embroidery from local women and sells it during Sisters' Day. This year her embroidery was snapped up very quickly.

"Tourists love Miao embroidery, which usually features goats, dogs, snowflakes and swallows," Liu said.

Sisters' Day was named a national intangible cultural heritage in 2006.

In the first three months of 2016 alone, Qiandongnan Prefecture, which administers Taijiang, has welcomed more than 14 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 57.6 percent, according to official statistics. Tourism revenue rose 62.6 percent to 12.4 billion yuan ($1.9 billion).

To take Taijiang's tourism to the next level, the local government decided to bring in more investment, with 13 projects worth almost 1.2 billion yuan already inked at this year's event.

The projects will help develop tourism, agriculture and health recovery industry, according to the government.

"We plan to invest more in our ethnic culture, such as Miao silverware and embroidery," said county mayor Du Xianwei. "We will also develop 'mountain tourism,' featuring mountain lakes and parks."

Li Feiyue, Qiandongnan's Party chief, said events like Sisters' Day are not just about boosting economic growth.

"I hope similar festivals will pass on the Miao culture and traditions," Li said.
Chinese economy showing continued improvement in restructuring Updated: 2016-05-16 08:35 By Wang Yanfei(China Daily)

Despite the slight easing in growth momentum as shown by April economic data released on Saturday, Chinese economy has shown continued improvement in restructuring.

The year-on-year growth of fixed-asset investment, industrial production and retail sales all cooled in April after a recovery in the first quarter, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. But in month-on-month terms, all had positive growth. Importantly, there have been some encouraging changes in the structure of growth.

The year-on-year growth of fixed-asset investment eased to 10.5 percent to 13.26 trillion yuan ($2 trillion) from January to April, down from the 10.7 percent growth in the first quarter. On a month-on-month basis, fixed-asset investment expanded by 0.7 percent in April.

In the same month, industrial production registered year-on-year growth of 6 percent, down by 0.8 percentage points compared with March. It increased by 0.47 percent in April month-on-month.

Retail sales increased by 10.1 percent in April year-on-year, 0.4 percentage points down from March. Month-on-month, retail sales grew by 0.8 percent.

Wang Baobin, senior statistician with the NBS, said in a note that the slower year-on-year fixed-asset investment was caused mainly by weaker investment growth in infrastructure. Also, manufacturing has been trapped by weak demand and overcapacity problems that "remain severe", Wang said.

Despite the falling year-on-year growth of the indicators, structural improvement has become apparent with efforts to foster new growth engines as both domestic and external demand weakens.

Money invested in industrial technology upgrades in manufacturing increased by 15.8 percent in the first 4 months, 8.5 percentage points higher than that of overall industrial investment. Investment in consumer goods manufacturing rose by 10 percent year-on-year in the January-to-April period, 4 percentage points higher than that of all manufacturing investment, in line with restructuring strategies, Wang said.

He Zhicheng, an independent economist, said that the drop in manufacturing investment is inevitable with restructuring and the search for new growth impetus.

"We might have to wait for another couple of months to see new engines to pick up," said He. A temporary slowdown shown by monthly data should not raise concerns over the stabilizing trend of the world's second-largest economy, which is moving away from the inefficient investment-led model and shifting toward a consumption-driven growth pattern.

He said the government might not further ease monetary policy in response to the new data, given that the central bank said on Saturday that its monetary policy stance remained unchanged, pledging to maintain a "prudent" policy.

Economists said what is more concerning is slowing private investment growth that may affect the vitality of the broader economy.

Growth of fixed-asset investment by private firms, around 62 percent of overall fixed-asset investment, rose only by 5.2 percent year-on-year in January-April, the slowest in four years.

Xu Kunlin, head of the fixed-asset investment department with the National Development and Reform Commission, said on Friday "a series of measures" will be taken to boost private investment, including lowering market entrance barriers and helping private firms with access to financing channels.

wangyanfei@chinadaily.com.cn
Bordeaux + braised pork = Bliss Updated: 2016-05-16 09:12 By WU YIYAO(China Daily)

A girl tastes a 2013 vintage red wine at the Palais de la Bourse in Bordeaux, southeastern France. Bordeaux's exports to China rebounded recently, after the region adjusted the structure of its supplies.CHINA DAILY

For Bernard Farges, president of Le Conseil interprofessionnel du vin de Bordeaux or CIVB, a council of wine professionals and traders in Bordeaux, France, the China market remains an export destination with great potential, in spite of the recent hiccups.

So, Bordeaux will allocate more resources to boost consumption of its wines in China. Bordeaux is one of France's, and arguably the world's, best wine regions.

After two years of decline in export volumes to China due to unavailability of wines, Bordeaux's exports to China rebounded recently, after the region adjusted the structure of its supplies.

Exports to China rose to 61 million bottles, or 24 percent of Bordeaux's combined volume, which were worth 280 million euros ($318.53 million), or 15 percent of the region's global export turnover value.

"China has been topping Bordeaux's global export destinations both in terms of volume and value since 2011. In the next 10 years, we anticipate more diversified consumption among China's consumers on the back of vineyard tourism, wine-related courses at academies and fresh investments," said Farges.

Consumers and wine trade experts said they have seen Bordeaux wines' improving image and Bordeaux wine exporters' efforts to better understand China and its consumers, and to adapt Bordeaux's image to China.

China's drinking habits are changing. Focus has shifted to individual consumption from drinking at group events like banquets. Stress is on personal experiences. This augurs well for Bordeaux labels, experts said.

"Ten years ago, when I heard about Bordeaux through films or television, its wine bottles retailed for 80,000 yuan each. Now, I drink Bordeaux red or white about twice a month. The price is somewhere between 300 yuan and 500 yuan per bottle. I can experiment with pairings of different food and wine, which is quite interesting," said Liu Erye, a consumer and a freelance food reviewer in Shanghai.

Dong Li, a wine importer at Shanghai Junjue Foreign Wines Ltd, said he has received a booklet from a Bordeaux wine trader full of ideas on how to pair Bordeaux wine with Chinese food.

"It is really interesting to read some of the ideas. You can tell that the French winemakers have made extremely great efforts to understand Chinese cuisine and Chinese taste buds," said Dong.

One pairing tip suggests matching soft and well-structured dry red wine from Saint-Emilion, Pomerol or Fronsac with fresh pork moon cake. The wine and food share many things in common, including saltiness, complexity and structure of tastes. The wine's tannin and acid can balance the meat's oily feeling, the booklet states.

Other tips include having the fruity Bordeaux Superier rose with chili bull frog, and braised pork with Medoc or Graves dry red wine.

CIVB has been researching global consumers' preferences and tolerance to various tastes that Bordeaux wines offer. The research includes a study of Chinese consumers' preference for levels of tannin, acid, sweetness, bitterness, flavor and the age of wine. The results will be out by this year-end.

Faced with competition from the world's emerging brands in China, the Bordeaux wine sector professionals are focusing on their own products to forge ahead, said Thomas Jullien, representative of CIVB's Asia-Pacific operations.

"We don't have some particular strategies to handle increasing competition. The wine sector is a key pillar of the Bordeaux economy. So, we focus on improving quality to produce wines that offer higher value. We have been making great efforts to educate and inform consumers about wines. Chinese consumers now associate Bordeaux with wine quality.

"We are pleased to note that Chinese consumers are choosing wines other than those from Bordeaux. This shows they are learning, experimenting and comparing. We believe oenophiles will always buy and drink Bordeaux wines again and again," said Jullien.
More Chinese business hotels land in Seoul Updated: 2016-05-16 14:48 (Xinhua)

SEOUL -- More business hotel chains are preparing for their branches in and near Myeongdong, the shopping mecca of downtown Seoul, as they try to cater to a growing number of Chinese tourists who visit South Korea as individuals instead of package tours.

Industry officials estimated that up to 60 percent of visitors from China are now coming on self-guided tours rather than group tours, raising the demand for business-class accommodations.

"Unlike group travelers, independent tourists prefer business hotels that are usually closer to subway stations," an industry official was quoted by Yonhap on Monday. "Business hotels are 100,000 won (85 U.S. dollars) to 200,000 won cheaper than luxury hotels but offer rooms that are not much below par."

Courtyard Marriott will open a branch in Namdaemun, near a popular traditional market in central Seoul within walking distance from Myeongdong, on May 23, its third business hotel in the country. It has 409 rooms, an executive lounge, an all-day dining restaurant and conference rooms.

Hana Tour is also setting up shop this month in the Namdaemun area, opening Tmark Grand Hotel that offers 576 rooms plus a swimming pool, a fitness center and a VIP Lounge.

Lotte City Hotel Myeongdong and L7 Myeongdong, both run by Lotte Hotel, have already been in business since January. Lotte City has 430 rooms, while L7 has 245.

Louvre Hotels Group of France landed in Myeongdong in January in partnership with Seoul M Hotel to run the Golden Tulip M Hotel, a more posh four-star hotel that has 430 rooms.

Starwood Hotel 7 Resort will join the ranks in February next year with the opening of its business hotel Aloft. The 223-room hotel will sit in the middle of Myeongdong.

Nearly 6 million Chinese travelers came to South Korea last year, a number that would have been higher if not for the scare from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), according to tour agencies.
Tim Cook visits Apple store in Beijing, with Didi president Updated: 2016-05-16 10:03 By Ma Si(chinadaily.com.cn)

Tim Cook (third left), CEO of Apple Inc, and Liu Qing (first left), president of Didi Chuxing visit an Apple store in Beijing on Monday morning. [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc, is in China again. His eighth visit to Beijing since taking over the helm of Apple in 2011 highlights how important the world's largest mobile arena is to the United States tech giant.

On Monday morning, Cook visited an Apple store in Beijing, accompanied by Liu Qing, president of Didi Chuxing, the largest ride-hailing service provider in China.

His visit came shortly after the company announced on Friday it had pumped $1 billion into Didi Chuxing, which is battling with Uber Technologies Inc for supremacy in the booming car-hailing sector.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc, takes a taxi hailed via Didi Chuxing on the morning of May 16, 2016.[Photo: twitter.com / tim_cook]

When asked about why Apple invested in Didi, Cook said on Monday "because Didi has a very great management team and its objective is also environmental, hoping to help reduce pollutions by making more efficient use of cars."

Cook was in Beijing for an app store developer activity where Liu helped moderate the panel discussion.

Apple Inc also confirmed with China Daily that Mu Rongjun, senior vice-president of Meituan- Dianping; Stan Xu, CEO of Tap4Fun; Norma Chu, Founder of DayDayCook; Wu Xinhong, Founder and CEO of Meitu; Zhang Yiming, Founder and CEO of Toutiao, have attended the developer activity.

"China-based developers have now earned over $7 billion, and what is more impressive, over half of that came in the past 12 months alone. The momentum is quite strong," Cook said.

Tim Cook (left), CEO of Apple Inc talks with Liu Qing, president of Didi Chuxing on May 16 in Beijing. [Photo: twitter.com / tim_cook]

"The thing I like to do most in China is to spend time with entrepreneurs. There are so many entrepreneurs that are driving the next wave of innovations," he added.

To help local developers go global, Cook said they are already technically strong and Apple will make more efforts to help them in the marketing side.

Cook's visit also came at a time when Apple is wrestling with declining smartphone sales in China, its second-largest market. Last month, the government shut down Apple's iTunes and iBooks services in the mainland.

It is not immediately known whether Tim Cook will meet any high-level officials to discuss regulatory issues during this trip.
Huawei signs deal with UK government to boost clients Updated: 2016-05-17 00:37 By Cecily Liu(chinadaily.com.cn)

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei signed an agreement with the UK government on Monday in London to further incorporate UK suppliers into its network of clients, and in the process become more local in its operations.

The memorandum of understanding was signed with UK Trade and Investment, the UK government's trade and investment arm, at the firm's annual suppliers' conference, which is attended by 130 industry representatives, mostly Huawei's existing and potential suppliers and partners.

The MoU focuses on identifying the best UK technology partners for Huawei's global supply chain and supporting Huawei's investment and business development in the UK.

Gordon Luo, CEO of Huawei UK and Ireland, said at the conference that the firm's local suppliers are very important. "We are not just focused on doing business, but also creating a harmonized ecosystem," said Luo.

Michael Boyd, managing director of strategic investment and accounts at UKTI, applauded Huawei's strong relationships with local suppliers. "This event shows very clearly the strength of a relationship between a major company and its supply chain, and that it wants to bring its supply chain together to celebrate the success of what it has achieved."

With 15 years of history in the UK, Huawei already has a large UK supply chain. In 2012, it promised to invest 1.3 billion pounds in the UK in the following five years, of which 650 million pounds will be procurement in the UK market.

The company has already invested 226.9 million pounds in 2013 and 295.1 million pounds in 2014. If Huawei maintains current procurement levels, its procurement investment between 2013-17 would amount to 1.41 billion pounds.

"It's fantastic to work with Huawei because they share our values of working with partners to share success and grow the overall industry," said Pete Hutton, executive vice president and president of product groups at ARM, a Cambridge-based firm that designs the processors for Huawei's smart phones.

ARM supplies a few smartphone manufacturers with a basic form of processor, and each smartphone manufacturer build additional functions on it to suit their needs. As ARM makes a profit based on units of smartphones sold, supplying Huawei is very significant because Huawei is currently the world's third largest smartphone brand, said Hutton.

Hutton's views are shared by Alan O'Prey, managing director of Telecoms at the British engineering firm MJ Quinn Integrated Services Limited, who adds that Huawei's global vision and open attitude makes it a great partner.

MJ Quinn started working with Huawei in 2010, and it currently has about seven projects with Huawei, one example being to provide smart cities solutions to Britain's local governments.

Under this partnership, Huawei is providing the equipment and technology connections to local governments, for solutions like smart lighting and smart healthcare, so effectively helping the governments to understand needs from its citizens better and supply them more efficiently. MJ Quinn is the engineering firm to put the equipment in place.

Huawei also has extensive cooperation with key industry bodies in the UK, and last year it joined Tech UK, a British telecommunications trade association.

Paul Hide, director of operations at Tech UK, said having Huawei as a part of the association helps more of its members, who are British telecom industry firms, to work with Huawei and potentially find areas of cooperation.

To contact the reporter: cecily.liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com
Brexit 'last thing the economy needs': UK PM Updated: 2016-05-15 14:18 (Xinhua)

LONDON - British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned local voters that leaving the European Union was the "last thing the economy needs" and would be a vote for recession, Sky News reported on Saturday.

Cameron made the remark at an event in his own Witney constituency in Oxfordshire.

Economic security was the single most important thing for people to consider, and none of the arguments for Brexit were "able to counter the immediate and sustained hit that we would suffer to our economy" if the UK left the EU, the broadcaster quoted Cameron as saying.

Addressing voters on the biggest day of campaigning yet, dubbed Super Saturday, Cameron said: "If we vote to leave on 23 June we will be voting for higher prices, we will be voting for fewer jobs, we will be voting for lower growth, we will be voting potentially for a recession. That is the last thing our economy needs."

Britain will hold the EU referendum on June 23. Sky Data suggests the economy lags behind immigration as the greatest concern of undecided voters. The poll showed 29 percent of voters were undecided and 28 percent said immigration was the greatest concern, with just 15 percent said the economy.

Cameron said that the referendum was "more important than a General Election" and the "chance for a generation of a lifetime," according to the report.
Japan to issue 10-year multi-entry visas for Chinese Updated: 2016-05-16 16:45 (chinadaily.com.cn/Agencies)

Chinese tourists, dressed in traditional Japanese kimono, take photos in front of Kiyomizu-dera Temple, Kyoto, Japan on April 9, 2016. [Photo/VCG]

The Japanese government will further ease visa requirements for Chinese citizens as part of its plan to attract 40 million foreign tourists every year by 2020.

The plan was adopted at a meeting of the Ministerial Council on the Promotion of Japan as a Tourism-Oriented Country on Friday, Japan Times reported.

The newspaper also reported that the new visa rules are expected to be carried out before this summer.

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on its website late last month that 5-year, multi-entry visas will be extended to 10 years, particularly for Chinese businessmen, academics and artists. Visa requirements for certain applicants will also be lowered. Previously, multiple-entry individual visas were issued to high-income Chinese tourists with a 5-year validity.

Meanwhile, single-entry visa application procedures will also be simplified for students from 75 universities under the direct supervision of the Chinese Ministry of Education. These include registered undergraduates and post-graduates, as well as alumni who graduated from the 75 schools within 3 years.

The announcement came after Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida's meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, last month in Beijing, the first since one held in Seoul in November 2015.

Liu Junhong, a researcher at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the easing of Japan's visa policies is aimed at boosting the country's sluggish economy, which is reeling from deflation and weak demand.

Japan remains one of the favorite overseas destinations for Chinese holidaymakers. Data from the Japan National Tourism Organization showed that the number of Chinese tourists to Japan more than doubled last year to reach 5 million.

More noticeable for local retailers is the spending power of Chinese tourists, who accounted for more than 40 percent of the total spending of foreign visitors to Japan in 2015.

Russians and Indians are also on the list of beneficiaries in this visa easing policy.

Prior to Japan, many other countries have issued 10-year visas for Chinese citizens. Back in November 2014, the US government started issuing multi-entry business and tourist visas valid for up to 10 years in China.

The United Kingdom and Australia are also considering the extension of their visa validity to 10 years.
Researcher Xu Zhiheng explains findings of a Chinese team studying the Zika virus in Beijing on Wednesday. [Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

BEIJING - The first imported case of Zika virus infection in Beijing was reported on Sunday, the capital's health and family planning commission said in a statement.

The patient, a 29-year-old female from eastern Shandong Province, developed a skin rash and a fever in Venezuela on May 11 local time and returned to China on May 13 Beijing time.

She was tested positive for the virus on Sunday and is currently receiving treatment in hospital.

But experts from the commission said further spreading of the disease in Beijing is relatively low.
Gent Shkullaku | AFP | Getty Images. Construction on a $45 billion gas pipeline to supply energy to Europe begins Tuesday. It's the biggest foreign investment in the history of Greece.

ATHENS- Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will inaugurate the start of construction for the TransAdriatic Pipeline (TAP) in Thessaloniki, Northern Greece on Tuesday. Official representatives of the European Union and U.S. State Department as well as high ranking officials from Greece, Turkey, Albania, Italy and Bulgaria will attend the ceremony.

TAP will transport Azerbaijani gas from Shah Deniz-2, extracted in the Azeri sector of the Caspian, to western Europe through Greece and Albania. It is part of the Southern Gas Corridor, one of the most complex gas value chains ever developed stretching over 2,174 miles. The first delivery of Azerbaijani gas is scheduled for early 2020.



The $45 billion project represents the biggest foreign investment that has ever taken place in Greece . The shareholders of the project are: Socar (20 percent), BP (London Stock Exchange: BP.-GB) (20 percent), Snam (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

This project opens broad opportunities for transportation of Azerbaijani gas to such European markets as Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland and Austria. It also will help Europe diversify its sources of natural gas. Currently Russia is the major gas supplier for the continent.



At the same time, construction of the pipeline will help the anemic economies of Albania and Greece. It is expected that construction of the pipeline will employ 150 Greek companies as contractors, subcontractors or track support, and about 8,000 workers.

On Monday, Greek Minister of Environment and Energy Panos Skourletis told the Athens News Agency, "We are entering into a new phase for the economy. The TAP project will offer a strong boost to move forward."

TAP's initial capacity of 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year is equivalent to the energy consumption of approximately seven million households in Europe. In future, the addition of two extra compressor stations could double throughput to more than 20 bcm as additional energy supplies come on stream in the wider Caspian region.



Story continues

Russia is trying to bolster pipeline links with the continent through southern Europe. Gazprom (: @GAZLFDC15X-GB) tried and failed to gain strategic entry through Bulgaria and Turkey. Recently it announced new plans with Italian utility Edison and Greece's DEPA to supply natural gas along the seabed of the Black Sea into Greece and Italy, from where it could be sold in Europe.

The so-called Interconnector Turkey Greece Italy (ITGI) Poseidon pipeline scheme  unable to get off the ground for years  was shelved in 2012 after it lost out to TAP. Gazprom is now trying to get this project revived. It would consist of an offshore pipeline that will connect the Greek and Italian natural gas transportation systems. The capacity of the pipeline would be 8 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year.

It is expected that during his visit to Athens on May 28 Russian President Vladimir Putin will seek to gain support for the Poseidon pipeline.

Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.



By Nasos Koukakis, special to CNBC.com

Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.







More From CNBC


TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - May 16, 2016) -

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWS SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION.

THIS NEWS RELEASE IS INTENDED FOR DISTRIBUTION IN CANADA ONLY AND IS NOT INTENDED FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Alabama Graphite Corp. ("AGC" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:ALP)(ABGPF)(1AG.F) today announced that it is proposing to complete a non-brokered private placement (the "Private Placement") of up to approximately 3,333,333 units ("Units") at a price of $0.15 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds to the Company of up to approximately $500,000. Each Unit is comprised of one common share in the capital of the Company (each, a "Common Share") and one Common Share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one additional Common Share at an exercise price of $0.20 for a period of 24 months following the date of issue, subject to customary adjustment provisions.

AGC intends to use the net proceeds of the Private Placement for further advancing the Company's development of its metallurgical process for producing coated spherical purified graphite ("CSPG") for use in Lithium-ion batteries.

Certain insiders of the Company have indicated their support for the Private Placement. Any such participation would be a related party transaction under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101") but will be exempt from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 as neither the fair market value of the subject matter of the transaction nor the consideration paid will exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization. The Private Placement was approved by all of the independent directors of the Company.

The number of Common Shares potentially issuable to insiders of the Company pursuant to the Private Placement (including any Common Shares issuable upon the exercise of the Warrants) will represent not more than 10% of the Company's currently issued and outstanding Common Shares on a non-diluted basis.

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In connection with the Private Placement, the Company may pay a finder's fee in cash and in the form of compensation warrants, subject to all necessary regulatory approvals.

The closing of the Private Placement is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The Company intends to close the Private Placement in one or more tranches as soon as practicable, subject to receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals. All securities issued pursuant to the Private Placement will be subject to a hold period of four months and one day in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Alabama Graphite Corp.,

Donald K. D. Baxter. P.Eng., President, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director

About Alabama Graphite Corp.

Alabama Graphite Corp. is a Canadian-based flake graphite exploration and development company as well as an aspiring battery materials production and technology company. The Company operates through its wholly owned subsidiary, Alabama Graphite Company Inc. (a company registered in the state of Alabama). With an advancing flake graphite project in the United States of America, Alabama Graphite Corp intends to become a reliable, long-term U.S. supplier of specialty high-purity graphite products. A highly experienced team leads the Company with more than 100 years of combined graphite mining, graphite processing, specialty graphite products and applications, and graphite sales experience. Alabama Graphite Corp. is focused on the exploration and development of its flagship Coosa Graphite Project in Coosa County, Alabama, and its Bama Mine Project in Chilton County, Alabama as well the research and development of its proprietary manufacturing and technological processing process of battery materials.

Alabama Graphite Corp. holds a 100% interest in the mineral rights for these two U.S.-based graphite projects, which are both located on private land. The two projects encompass more than 43,000 acres and are located in a geopolitically stable, mining-friendly jurisdiction with significant historical production of crystalline flake graphite in the flake graphite belt of central Alabama, also known as the Alabama Graphite Belt (source:U.S. Bureau of Mines). A significant portion of the Alabama deposits are characterized by graphite-bearing material that is oxidized and has been weathered into extremely soft rock. Both projects have infrastructure in place, are within close proximity to major highways, rail, power and water, and are approximately three hours (by truck or train) to the Port of Mobile, the Alabama Port Authority's deep-seawater port and the ninth largest port by tonnage in the United States (source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers/USACE). The state of Alabama's hospitable climate allows for year-round mining operations and the world's largest marble quarry (which operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in Sylacauga, Alabama), is located within a 30-minute drive of the Coosa Graphite Project.

On November 30, 2015, Alabama Graphite Corp. announced the results of PEA for the Coosa Graphite Project, indicating a potentially low-cost project with potential positive economics. Please refer to the Company's technical report titled "Alabama Graphite Corp. Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on the Coosa graphite Project, Alabama, USA" dated November 27, 2015, prepared by independent engineering firms AGP Mining Consultants Inc. and Metal Mining Consultants Inc., and filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Note: a preliminary economic assessment is preliminary in nature, it includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves and there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized.

*Inferred Mineral Resources represent material that is considered too speculative to be included in economic evaluations. Additional trenching and/or drilling will be required to convert Inferred Mineral Resources to Measured or Indicated Mineral Resources. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no guarantee that all or any part of the Mineral Resource will be converted into a Mineral Reserve.

For further information and updates on the Company or to sign up for Alabama Graphite Corp. News, please visit www.alabamagraphite.com or follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking information under applicable Canadian securities laws ("forward-looking statements"), which may include, without limitation, statements with respect to the completion of the Private Placement and the use of proceeds therefrom. The forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of management and reflect Alabama Graphite Corp.'s current expectations. When used in this press release, the words "estimate", "project", "belief", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "plan", "predict", "may" or "should" and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the current view of Alabama Graphite Corp. with respect to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in those forward-looking statements.

By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among other things, the interpretation and actual results of current exploration activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; future prices of graphite; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the failure of contracted parties to perform; labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing or in the completion of exploration, as well as those factors disclosed in the Company's publicly filed documents. Forward-looking statements are also based on a number of assumptions, including that contracted parties provide goods and/or services on the agreed timeframes, that equipment necessary for exploration is available as scheduled and does not incur unforeseen breakdowns, that no labor shortages or delays are incurred, that plant and equipment function as specified, that no unusual geological or technical problems occur, and that laboratory and other related services are available and perform as contracted. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and Alabama Graphite Corp. undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements (unless required by law) if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. Alabama Graphite Corp. cautions that the foregoing list of material factors and assumptions are not exhaustive. When relying on Alabama Graphite Corp. forward-looking statements to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and assumptions and other uncertainties and potential events.

Alabama Graphite Corp. has also assumed that the material factors and assumptions will not cause any forward-looking statements to differ materially from actual results or events. However, the list of these factors and assumptions is not exhaustive and is subject to change and there can be no assurance that such assumptions will reflect the actual outcome of such items or factors.

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICE PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

Website / LinkedIn / Facebook / Twitter
Stepanakert, the unrecognised capital of Armenian-seized Azerbaijani region of Nagorny Karabakh on April 4, 2016 (AFP Photo/Karen Minasyan) (AFP/File)

Vienna (AFP) - Leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet on Monday in Vienna to discuss a fragile truce in the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region after the worst clashes in decades, mediators said Thursday.

Top diplomats from the United States, Russia and France, who are spearheading efforts to end the decades-long feud, are expected to participate in the talks aimed at strengthening a tenuous ceasefire hammered out by Moscow.

"A meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan is being planned for next week," Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Later on Thursday, French secretary of state for European Affairs Harlem Desir confirmed the meeting would take place on Monday.

The meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian will be their first face-to-face encounter since a surge in fighting last month that killed some 110 people and sparked fears of a return to full-scale war.

"In light of the recent violence and the urgency of reducing tensions along the Line of Contact, we believe the time has come for the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to meet," said a statement from the OSCE's so-called Minsk Group, headed by Russia, France and the US.

"Our foreign ministers are prepared to facilitate this meeting next week in Vienna."

The meeting will aim to reinforce the ceasefire, build confidence between Yerevan and Baku and "create favourable conditions for resuming negotiations on a comprehensive settlement," the Minsk Group said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US State Secretary John Kerry are expected to attend.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a festering feud over the breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh after Armenian separatists seized the territory from Baku in a bloody conflict in the early 1990s.

The two sides never signed a definitive peace deal despite a 1994 ceasefire and have regularly exchanged fire across the volatile frontline, but last month's violence represented an unprecedented spike.

Karabakh has declared itself independent but it has not been officially recognised by any country, including its main backer Armenia.

Both sides have been rearming heavily in recent years and the sudden escalation in fighting saw the parties ramping up the rhetoric, accusing each other of fuelling the conflict.
PASADENA, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / Brazil Minerals, Inc. (BMIX) (the "Company" or "BMIX") announced today several developments: 1) it had received a new truck from Mercedes Benz in exchange for cashless tax credits; 2) one of its variable-rate notes had been purchased; 3) conversations with a Chinese mining enterprise had advanced and a visit to BMIX in Brazil was being planned; and 4) mining of a new area for diamonds and gold was progressing well.

In early May 2016, BMIX retrieved from the Mercedes Benz factory in Juiz de Fora, state of Minas Gerais, a brand new Accelo 1016/44 truck. This piece of capital equipment was obtained for no cash, but the use of tax credits. Every time one of the Companys subsidiaries buys diesel as fuel for equipment and the diamond and gold recovery plant, part of such cost becomes tax credits. BMIX is very pleased that the treasury department of the local state reviewed and approved its application for use of accumulated tax credits in obtaining the truck; one of the requirements is that the machine be newly built within Minas Gerais.

Last week, the Company assisted an interested investor purchase the last convertible note held by JSJ Investments, Inc. (JSJ). In the last 30 days, two short-term oriented variable noteholders, JSJ and LG Capital, LLC, have ceased to own any BMIX debt, and the Company is now left with only two other such groups remaining.

BMIX believes that the recent conversations with the CEO of a mining group from China have progressed well. Among next steps being planned is a visit of 2-3 members of such company to BMIXs mineral rights and operations in July 2016. Before this, in late May 2016, a representative of a separate U.S. investor group will make a visit.

BMIX also believes that the excavation of the new mining area has progressed well. All machines are working properly, which is extremely important since maintenance at a remote location can be problematic. The Company hired additional local employees to expedite the work. A layer of blackish mud harder than anticipated was encountered during the final few meters of excavation, which slowed operations by approximately one week. The auri-diamondiferous gravel layer is now being removed, transported, and accumulated near BMIXs recovery plant, which should have its first processing run shortly.

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About Brazil Minerals, Inc.

Brazil Minerals, Inc. (BMIX) is a producer of diamonds, gold, sand, and industrialized mortar. We also own 30 mineral rights for gold and diamonds, including 10 mining concessions, the highest level of right to mine in Brazil. More information on BMIX can be found at www.brazil-minerals.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements are based upon the current plans, estimates and projections of Brazil Minerals, Inc.'s management and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from the forward looking statements. Such statements include, among others, those concerning market and industry segment growth and demand and acceptance of new and existing products; any projections of production, reserves, sales, earnings, revenue, margins or other financial items; any statements of the plans, strategies and objectives of management for future operations; any statements regarding future economic conditions or performance; uncertainties related to conducting business in Brazil, as well as all assumptions, expectations, predictions, intentions or beliefs about future events. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements: business conditions in Brazil, general economic conditions, geopolitical events and regulatory changes, availability of capital, BMIX's ability to maintain its competitive position and dependence on key management. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security and shall not constitute an offer, solicitation or sale of any securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.

Cautionary note regarding estimates of Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources of Diamonds and Gold as found in MDBs NI 43-101 Technical Reports.

We advise U.S. investors that while these terms and amounts are recognized by Canadian regulations, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) does not recognize them. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of the mineral deposits in these categories will ever be converted into mineral reserves as defined by the U.S.s Industry Guide 7.

Cautionary note regarding estimates of Mineral Reserves of Diamonds and Gold as found in MDBs Bankable Feasibility Study.

We advise U.S. investors that while these terms and amounts are recognized by Brazilian regulations, the SEC does not recognize them. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of the mineral deposits in this category will ever be converted into mineral reserves as defined by the U.S.s Industry Guide 7.

Cautionary note regarding estimates of Volume and Weight of Sand as found in MDBs studies filed with the local Brazilian regulatory agencies.

We advise U.S. investors that while sand volume and weight terms and amounts as filed in Brazil are recognized by Brazilian regulations, the SEC does not recognize them. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that any part of such are not considered mineral reserves as defined by the U.S.s Industry Guide 7.

Cautionary note regarding estimates of potential mineralization for gold of the Apui/Borba Project with the local Brazilian regulatory agencies.

We advise U.S. investors that potential mineralization for gold of the Apui/Borba Project with Brazilian regulators is not recognized by the SEC. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that any part of such potential mineralization is or will ever become mineral reserves as defined by the U.S.s Industry Guide 7.

Contact:

Marc Fogassa

CEO, Brazil Minerals, Inc.

(213) 590-2500

info@brazil-minerals.com

www.brazil-minerals.com

SOURCE: Brazil Minerals, Inc.
(Adds timeline for pension reform, new BNDES chief)

By Alonso Soto

BRASILIA, May 16 (Reuters) - Brazilian Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles will likely pick Itau Unibanco's chief economist, Ilan Goldfajn, to head the central bank in a bid to recover investors' confidence, an official familiar with the discussions told Reuters on Monday.

Meirelles, a former central bank chief, delayed the announcement of his economic team until Tuesday to give his picks more time to leave their jobs in the private sector, said the official who asked for anonymity to speak freely.

He will unveil his appointments, including the next central bank president, on Tuesday, according to the ministry's press office.

Meirelles' press office declined to comment on whether Goldfajn was his pick for the central bank. Goldfajn could not immediately be reached for comment.

Goldfajn, an MIT-trained economist widely respected on Wall Street, was the central bank's director of economic policy between 2000 and 2003.

In an opinion piece published by the local daily O Globo on April 5, Goldfajn warned against a hasty interest rate cut but acknowledged slowing inflation will allow the central bank to start easing monetary policy later this year.

Under the leadership of Alexandre Tombini the central bank has repeatedly missed its annual inflation targets, hurting the bank's inflation-fighting credentials and fueling speculation of political interference.

Goldfajn could replace Tombini before the bank's next rate-setting meeting on June 8, the official said. Last week, Temer's press office told Reuters Tombini could stay on the job until June for a gradual leadership change.

Interim President Michel Temer, who replaced President Dilma Rousseff last week after she was suspended by the Senate to stand trial for breaking fiscal rules, picked Meirelles to revive an economy mired in one of its worst recessions in memory.

The interim government will set up a working group with union leaders to draft a pension reform bill in 30 days, said union bosses who met with Temer on Monday. An overhaul of the costly pension system is key for Brazil to plug a widening fiscal gap that cost the country its coveted investment grade credit rating last year.

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The Temer administration is forecasting a primary budget deficit of more than 120 billion reais ($34.27 billion) for this year, well above the 97 billion reais estimated by the previous government, said three officials familiar with the matter.

Temer plans to submit this week a bill to change the estimate for the primary deficit, which is the budget gap prior to interest debt payments, Planning Minister Romero Juca said on Monday.

In another key leadership change, the administration appointed Maria Silvia Bastos, a former chief executive of steelmaker CSN, to head state development bank BNDES, Temer's press office said on Monday.

($1 = 3.5017 Brazilian reais) (Reporting by Alonso Soto; Editing by W Simon and Alan Crosby)
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - May 16, 2016) - Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc ("Caledonia" or the "Company") (CAL.TO)(CALVF)(CMCL.L) announces that its 49% owned Zimbabwean subsidiary, Blanket Mine, has sold Treasury Bills ("Bills") issued by the Government of Zimbabwe for a gross value of approximately $3.2 million. The Bills were issued to Blanket in 2015 and replaced the Special Tradeable Gold Bonds ("Bonds") which were issued to Blanket in 2009. The Bonds were issued as part consideration for gold sales that were made by Blanket in 2008 under the terms of the sales mechanism that existed at that time for Zimbabwean gold producers. The Bonds were fully written down in a previous accounting period, and the impairment value was applied as a deduction from Blanket's income tax liability. Accordingly, the gross sales proceeds will be subject to Zimbabwean income tax at 25.75%.

Commenting on the sale of the Treasury Bills, Steve Curtis, Caledonia's Chief Executive Officer, said:

"The Bills that were issued to Blanket Mine, and that have now been sold, date back to the commercial environment which prevailed in Zimbabwe in 2008. This bears no relationship to the existing commercial environment in the country.

"Blanket Mine has sold all of its production to the government-owned refinery in Zimbabwe since January 2014, and it has always received payment in full and on time. The sale of the Bills is a continuation of the process to dispose of non-core assets."
Deflated duck

China delivered a poor batch of data in April, and that has some of the brightest minds in finance making gloomy predictions that the rebound in the world's second-largest economy might be ending soon.

Heavy industry is in bad shape and posted a 6% year-over-year growth rate in April, hurt by underperformance of state-owned companies and weak export growth in the country.

Weakened domestic demand resulted in lower-than-expected investment growth in infrastructure and factories of 10.5% in the first four months of 2016.



Even retail sales  an area that many count on to pick up the slack  grew less than expected at a 10.1% rate. Auto demand in particular was hit hard by the government's gas-price hike.

More alarmingly, total social financing, a measure of liquidity in the system, fell in April to its lowest level since June 2013. That can be partly blamed on Chinese banks' sharp pullback on new loans, which dropped to only 556 billion RMB ($85 billion) in April.



China tap1





All of these disappointing numbers came despite Beijing's aggressive fiscal boost in the first quarter. Lending in the country suddenly exploded: Chinese banks extended more loans over a three-month period than the entire US corporate-financing market ever has, according to Deutsche Bank. There were also several rounds of relaxation in property-purchase regulations, according to Morgan Stanley.

The sharp slowdown indicates an increased likelihood of a prolonged malaise in the world's second-largest economy. The drop in lending also reflects China's caution in fueling a ticking time bomb while working toward its restructuring goal.

Unless lending jumps significantly from the April rate, China's rebound could end soon, according to a Deutsche Bank research report led by Sebastian Raedler.



China tap2



Here is Raedler on the issue (emphasis added):



China's growth rebound appears to be faltering: weakness in April's total social financing (TSF) data appears to confirm a shift in policy stance away from aggressive credit easing. If the current TSF lending rate is maintained in May and June, the credit impulse will turn significantly negative in Q2, from sharply positive in Q1. To avoid this outcome, TSF lending would have to return close to Q1 levels, which we see as unlikely. If the credit impulse turns negative, this would point to downside for investment growth and PMIs, which should negatively impact commodity prices and European miners.

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china tap 4

Junwei Sun, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, shares the same sentiment. While the firm is expecting a slowdown in growth from August to September, recent numbers have "raised the risk of the current rebound ending early," according to a note circulated on Monday.

The next shoe to drop could be property-sales growth. If that also loses its mojo, then it would confirm that "growth has peaked in the current mini-cycle," Sun wrote.

NOW WATCH: Apple just invested $1 billion in this Chinese company





More From Business Insider


Some 204,000 migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe since January, the United Nations refugee agency said (AFP Photo/Aris Messinis)

Geneva (AFP) - A controversial EU-Turkey deal dramatically cut the number of migrant arrivals in Greece last month, data showed Friday, even as a row between Brussels and Ankara threatened to sink the agreement.

Last month 3,360 migrants and refugees landed on the Greek islands, compared with 26,971 in March -- an 88 percent drop, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The EU border agency Frontex also reported what it described as a "dramatic" slowdown, saying it had registered 2,700 arrivals in Greece last month.

The figures are the first for a full month-long period since the EU-Turkey deal came into force in March and will be seen as a key measure of its effectiveness.

"The total for all of April is well below the number of people we often saw reaching just the island of Lesbos on a daily basis during last year's peak months," Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri said in a statement.

Under the March deal, Turkey agreed to take back migrants landing on Greek islands in exchange for incentives, including billions of euros in aid and visa-free European travel for its citizens.

The agreement is the cornerstone of the EU's plan to curb a crisis that has seen 1.25 million Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan and other migrants enter Europe since January 2015.

The new figures underline the powerful deterrent effect of the deal, and the closure of the borders in eastern Europe, which have discouraged many from making the crossing to Greece.

The most controversial provisions, including the mass return of migrants from Greece to Turkey and the exchange of Syrians, have not been implemented on a large-scale.

- 'Not hopeful' -

But the deal was at risk of unravelling after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defiantly vowed Thursday that Ankara would not amend its counter-terror laws -- a key condition set by Brussels for Turkey to secure visa-free travel.

With Turkey's military battling rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Kurdish-majority southeast, Ankara has said that it cannot change its anti-terror legislation.

Story continues

Ankara must also fulfil four other outstanding conditions including anti-corruption and data protection issues. Turkey has so far complied with 67 requirements of the deal.

Turkish EU Affairs Minister Volkan Bozkir voiced pessimism at the prospect of smoothing the rift with Brussels.

"At this stage I would not say we are very hopeful," he told Turkish reporters in televised comments in Brussels following talks with EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn.

- 'Historic abdication' -

The agreement had run into widespread criticism from the United Nations, rights groups and several EU member states even before it came into force.

Medical charity MSF on Friday described it as "a historic abdication" of Europe's moral and legal responsibilities.

"This deal is sending a troubling signal to the rest of the world: countries can buy their way out of providing asylum," MSF president Joanne Liu said in an open letter to EU leaders.

More than 850,000 people -- most of them fleeing conflict in war-ravaged Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- arrived on the Greek islands last year alone, and so far this year another 155,765 people have landed, UN refugee agency figures show.

Italy however saw nearly 154,000 arrivals last year, and more than 31,000 so far in 2016.

But the balance shifted last month, with Italy recording 9,149 arrivals -- nearly three times more than Greece, according to the IOM.

"For the first time last month there were more arrivals in Italy than in Greece," UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told reporters.

There has been speculation that the virtual closure of the route to Greece would push refugees from Syria to begin travelling through North Africa and onto Italy instead.

On Thursday, the Italian coastguard initially said some 150 Syrians were among hundreds of migrants rescued off Sicily.

But IOM spokesman Joel Millman said Friday that number appeared to have been greatly exaggerated.

When the boat that had sailed from Egypt, thought to be carrying the large group of Syrians, arrived in port "there were only two individuals who claimed to be Syrian," Millman told reporters.

Spindler said people were still being taken from a number of boats that rescued up to 1,000 people who had set off from Egypt and Libya, and that it was unclear how many Syrians were onboard.

"We cannot yet say that there is a shift in the routes from Turkey to Greece, into North Africa to Italy. It's too early to say," he said.
(Adds background, supporters' reactions)

By Jorge Pineda

SANTO DOMINGO, May 15 (Reuters) - Dominican Republic President Danilo Medina was poised to win a second term easily on Sunday, with early results showing his record of fast economic growth and social projects swayed voters despite accusations of graft.

In preliminary results from 15 percent of polling stations, Medina's coalition won 61 percent of the vote, a margin that if sustained would be enough to avoid a runoff election in June.

The preliminary results gave his nearest rival, businessman Luis Abinader, 35 percent.

A noisy motorcade of Medina's supporters drove through the capital on Sunday night blaring music in celebration of his apparent victory.

The election was marred by a shootout at one voting center, long lines and grumbles from smaller parties over the method of counting.

Authorities allowed voting to continue for an extra hour until 7 p.m. (2300 GMT) after delays at some centers.

A left-of-center economist, Medina has had high popularity ratings during the latter part of his four-year term in the country of 10.4 million. Electoral rules were changed to allow him to run for a second consecutive term.

"I won't be satisfied until progress reaches everyone, when growth means a table full of food for everyone," Medina, 64, said at a rally to close his campaign on Thursday.

Medina's Dominican Liberation Party has been continuously in power since 2004.

Abinader promised to double down on social spending and reduce crime. The challenger also focused on allegations of corruption related to a power plant awarded to Brazilian engineering conglomerate Grupo Odebrecht.

Medina's campaign chief, Joao Santana, returned to Brazil in February to face charges Odebrecht had paid him funds siphoned from Brazil's state oil company Petrobras in offshore accounts to finance the 2014 election campaign of suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

Medina has yet to refer to the Petrobras scandal, but he did admit the Brazilian political strategist was his top adviser. Santana has called the allegations against him "baseless."

Story continues

With the fastest growing economy in Latin America in 2014 and 2015, Dominican Republic is wealthier than Haiti, its poor neighbor on the island of Hispaniola.

Medina has overseen the repatriation of tens of thousands of people with roots in Haiti. The policy is popular at home but condemned by human rights groups.

Despite the strong economy, many Dominicans struggle to meet basic needs, and poverty rates rose to 41 percent in the first year of Medina's term, according to the World Bank.

New schools and health spending in recent years have won Medina support, and poverty has started to decline.

The remaining six candidates combined had less than 4 percent of votes, including the first two women running for the presidency in a Dominican election.

(Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Cynthia Osterman)
A worker fixes the Hyundai logo on a vehicle at a plant of Hyundai Motor in Asan, south of Seoul, February 9, 2012. REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won/File Photo

By Norihiko Shirouzu

BEIJING (Reuters) - After poaching Bentley's design chief last year, Hyundai Motor Co is set to announce it has also secured the services of the luxury marque's exterior designer.

Korean Sangyup Lee is being brought in to work with Luc Donckerwolke, a Peruvian-born Belgian, to lead Hyundai's development of its Genesis premium car brand - a project driven by Chung Euisun, heir-apparent to the Hyundai Group.

Hyundai Motor, which sells some 8 million cars a year, sees limited growth unless it breaks into new markets, a person close to the automaker told Reuters. For the South Korean firm, that means premium cars and maybe pick-up trucks and parts of Southeast Asia.

Lee says he is set to join Hyundai Motor as a vice president in charge of Hyundai and Genesis design, reporting to Donckerwolke, who will head up Hyundai's new Prestige Design Division, as well as being global head of Hyundai design.

Bentley spokesman Andrew Roberts confirmed Lee "has resigned from Bentley to take a position at another brand."

A Hyundai spokesman declined to comment.

Lee, 46, ran Bentley's exterior design since 2012 having previously worked at Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) group's design center in California, and General Motors (GM.N). He played a lead role in designing the Chevrolet Corvette, Stingray and Camaro - which featured in the "Transformers" movies - and Bentley's Bentayga SUV.

"CLEAN SHEET"

Lee told Reuters the ex-Bentley design duo aim to make Genesis a recognized global premium brand as new disruptive technologies such as autonomous, connected cars and alternative propulsion systems alter the auto design landscape.

"Because of these technologies, the car industry is about to hit a crossroads. The future is truly open," he said. "It's difficult to say if all the prestigious brands today will still be around in 10-20 years."

Lee, who says he was first approached by Hyundai two years ago, said he and Donckerwolke plan to design Genesis cars from a "clean sheet of paper".

Story continues

"For decades, luxury brands such as Bentley, Aston Martin and Maserati have been about possession," he said. "In the future, as disruptive technologies kick in, luxury is going to be about experience. People are going to look for a special experience rather than something special to own."

GLOBAL LEGACY

As "mobility on demand" - the once futuristic concept of calling up a robot-car by smartphone - takes hold, Hyundai predicts many households in the United States, its biggest market, will no longer own two, or three cars, but spend more on one car, said the person close to the company.

"That means upscale cars," he said, adding "profitability-wise, the luxury segment is much better, too."

That fits with Chung's aspiration to not just drive the Genesis brand but elevate the Hyundai name to an elite global corporate league alongside the likes of BMW (BMWG.DE), Boeing (BA.N) and Apple (AAPL.O).

"That's his legacy. ES (Euisun) wants to make Hyundai a truly globally recognized and respected company," the person said.

Chung was involved with hiring both Donckerwolke and Lee, as well as Manfred Fitzgerald, former brand and design director at Lamborghini who was named earlier this year as head of Genesis, said another person with knowledge of the matter.

(Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
By Jussi Rosendahl

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland's Konecranes (KCR1V.HE) has agreed to buy Terex Corp's cranes business for ports and factories for 1.1 billion euros (905.73 million pound), in a move that cancels a planned full merger and allows the U.S. firm to pursue talks with a rival suitor.

Konecranes and Terex (TEX.N) agreed to an all-share merger in August, hoping a deal would help them better cope with cooling Chinese and weak European demand.

But the deal was challenged in January when Terex received a non-binding cash bid from China's Zoomlion Heavy Industries Science & Technology Co , which later sweetened its offer to $3.4 billion.

"The agreement provides Terex with the ability to continue to pursue discussions with Zoomlion ," Terex said in a statement on Monday.

Under the new Konecranes deal, Terex will become a 25 percent shareholder in the Finnish company and Konecranes will aim for annual synergies of about 140 million euros within three years of buying Terex's Material Handling & Port Solutions (MHPS) business.

At 0935 GMT, Konecranes' shares were up 19 percent at 24.55 euros. It said the MHPS business was what had attracted it to Terex and the expected synergies were largely in line with those anticipated from a full merger.

"The Chinese intervention of course changed the picture, but if this deal goes through, I don't think it is any worse than the initial one," chief executive Panu Routila told reporters.

He said the deal would improve Konecranes' growth prospects, especially in its services business as it could help it to win larger outsourcing deals from customers.

The MHPS unit had sales of about 1.39 billion euros last year, compared with Konecranes' revenue of 2.13 billion euros.

"Both companies got what they wanted," said Inderes Equity Research analyst Juha Kinnunen, who has a "reduce" rating on Konecranes stock.

"Compared with the estimated value for the whole company, the price seems high for just one business. But it's the business Konecranes wanted, so it probably makes sense to pay a bit more."

Story continues

Terex has the right to terminate the deal before the end of the month for a fee of $37 million, if the U.S. company and Zoomlion agree on a sale of Terex as a whole.

Zoomlion declined to comment on the deal or its talks with Terex.

Zoomlion's bid for Terex has sparked some national security concerns in the United States, with a Congress member noting the Chinese company's long-time association with China People's Liberation Army.

(Additional reporting by Tuomas Forsell in Helsinki and Fang Yan in Beijing; Editing by Adrian Croft and Mark Potter)
Alexion Disappointed in 1Q16, but What's that Mean for Investors?

(Continued from Prior Part)

Strensiq

During the first quarter of 2016, Strensiq added $33.2 million to Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN) top line. Now the drug is in its initial launch phase in the US, Germany, and Japan. Alexion has initiated disease awareness and diagnostic initiatives for expanding the population base for the drug.

Kanuma

Kanuma has been approved for the treatment of Lysosomal Acid Lipase Deficiency in the US and Germany. During 1Q16, Kanuma earned $2.5 million for Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN). The drug was launched in 1Q16 in the US and is currently serving its initial patients. (For more information on Kanuma, please refer to Kanuma Has Now Been Approved in the US.)

Launch

Kanuma has launched in the US and Europe. Recently on April 28, 2016, it received marketing approval in Japan. The drug will serve Japanese patients from 3Q16.

Alexion has also initiated the funding processes with the healthcare authorities in other major European countries for both drugs. Similarly, it plans to pursue the launch of the two drugs in additional countries in fiscal 2017. With such expansion of both these drugs, total dependence on Soliris will likely decline gradually.

To get exposure to Alexion Pharmaceuticals and control excessive company-specific risks, investors can choose to invest in the iShares S&P 500 Growth ETF (IVW). The fund has 4.4% of its total weight in biotechnology sector stocks. It holds 1.32% and 1.13% of its total assets in Gilead Sciences (GILD) and Pfizer (PFE), respectively, and has 0.94% in Allergan (AGN). Alexion accounts for 0.35% of IVWs total holdings.

For more information on how Strensiq was acquired, you might be interested in Alexion Pharmaceuticals Strengthens Rare Disease Portfolio.

But first, lets discuss analyst expectations about the potential upside of Alexions stock.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
* Moody's lifts Ireland to A3 from Baa1

* Dublin now has A rating from all major agencies

* Strategists say upgrade will broaden buyer base (Updates prices, adds new quote)

By John Geddie

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Ireland's long-term government borrowing costs fell below 0.80 percent for the first time in nearly five weeks on Monday after Moody's upgraded the country's credit rating.

The lift by one notch to A3 from Baa1 means Ireland has won back an A category rating from all the major agencies, a move that some analysts said could broaden the international buyer base for Dublin's debt.

Ireland's 10-year bond yield, having shed 8 basis points on Friday in expectation of the upgrade, fell another 4 basis points on Monday to 0.78 percent, the lowest since April 11. By the close, it had edged back up to 0.81 percent but was still 1.2 bps lower on the day.

Irish bonds were the top performers, with yields on most other euro zone debt flat to slightly higher on the day.

"The upgrade by Moody's expands the range of potential buyers of Irish bonds. Some investors, particularly in Asia, require a minimum A grade from all of the three big agencies," Cantor Fitzgerald strategist Ryan McGrath said.

Moody's was the only agency to cut Irish debt to junk in 2011, months after Dublin entered a three-year international bailout.

The agency, which kept a positive outlook on its new rating on Saturday, said in a statement that growth in the country has been better than expected in recent months.

Ireland's economy grew almost 8 percent last year, and is forecast to expand by close to 5 percent this year to remain the best performing economy in the European Union for a third successive year.

"ENORMOUS CHANGE"

That growth should cut Ireland's gross debt below 90 percent of gross domestic product by the end of the year, the country's Finance Ministry has predicted. Ratings agencies have been impressed by that sharp reversal from a peak of 125 percent during 2013.

Story continues

"We think the debt-to-GDP ratio will be below 90 percent by the end of the year, which is an enormous change from where we were," said Conall Mac Coille, chief economist at Davy Research.

He said the conditions for a further upgrade from Moody's remained in place.

The lift also came a week after Enda Kenny was re-elected prime minister, ending 10 weeks of political deadlock, as head of a minority government that many analysts believe will be short-lived amid Ireland's newly fractured parliament.

Next month's vote on EU membership in Britain, one of Ireland's largest trading partners, also poses a significant risk. In its statement, Moody's said a UK exit from the European Union would have a negative impact on Ireland due to its close economic ties with Britain.

"There may be some caution ahead ... given Ireland remains especially vulnerable to a Brexit vote," Societe Generale strategist Ciaran O'Hagan said.

(Additional reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe; Editing by Nigel Stephenson and Gareth Jones)
The iShares MSCI Saudi Arabia Capped ETF (NYSE: KSA), the lone exchange-traded fund dedicated to stocks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nation, is down nearly 1.1 percent year-to-date, a disappointing performance when noting the United States Brent Oil Fund, LP (NYSE: BNO) is higher by 19.5 percent.

Will Saudi Arabia Make The Leap To EM Status?

While the iShares MSCI Saudi Arabia Capped ETF launched in the midst of an epic slide in oil prices, the fund was viewed as a potential play on two other themes: the liberalization of the Saudi economy  including increased access for foreign investors, and the kingdom's eventual ascent to the widely followed MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

Related Link: Meet Saudi Arabia's New Oil Minister

Depending on one's perspective, Saudi Arabia's ascent to that index is a near-term disappointment because, if it happens, it is going to be awhile.

Currently, Saudi Arabia is not even a member of the MSCI Frontier Markets Index or the iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF (NYSE: FM). Nor is the kingdom even on index provider's list for potential inclusion in the emerging markets benchmark.

However, Credit Suisse sees Saudi Arabia making its way to the MSCI Emerging Markets Index...in 2019. Credit Suisse believes MSCI will begin reviewing Saudi Arabia for possible inclusion in its emerging markets benchmarks next year.

Qatar And UAE Leading The Way, Perhaps

Saudi Arabia's fellow OPEC members Qatar and the United Arab Emirates prove it is possible to make the leap from FM to the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Indx (ETF) (NYSE: EEM), as those are the only two Middle East nations to earn that promotion. However, investors should also remember that Qatar and UAE were on MSCI's list for possible frontier-to-emerging promotion for seven years. It is believed that Pakistan, currently FM's fourth-largest country weight at 10.4 percent, is going to be the next country to make the FM-to-EEM jump.

Saudi Arabia has been bolstering its efforts to lure foreign investors while liberalizing its capital markets in a bid to land the MSCI promotion. The kingdom recently boosted foreign investor limits to $5 billion from $1 billion, according to Gulf Business.

Story continues

Still, equities there remain tightly correlated with oil prices. Underscoring that correlation, the Tadawul has slumped 30 per cent over the last year, in line with a 29 per cent decrease in Brent prices over the same period, noted Gulf Business.

See more from Benzinga

 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Kenyan riot police clash with protesters during an opposition rally in Nairobi, on May 16, 2016 (AFP Photo/Carl De Souza)

Nairobi (AFP) - Kenyan police fired tear gas and beat opposition demonstrators with truncheons Monday to stop them storming the offices of the electoral commission to demand its dissolution.

Hundreds of protesters were prevented from reaching the offices of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). Some of the demonstrators threw stones at police.

There have been several such protests in recent weeks.

Protests were also held in other Kenyan towns, including Kisumu and Kisii in the southwest, with police there firing tear gas to break up the crowds, local media reported.

"Police are using unnecessary excessive force on peaceful demonstrators, they are not justified at all," said former prime minister Raila Odinga, promising to hold protests every Monday.

Odinga, who lost his latest bid for the presidency in 2013, accuses the electoral commission of being biased towards President Uhuru Kenyatta.

He has demanded that a new slate of commissioners be named ahead of the next election in August 2017.

The windscreen of Odinga's own car was damaged during Monday's protest. He later said he was not inside the vehicle at the time.

Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinet denied rumours that police had fired on the car.

Police spokesman George Kinoti said only teargas had been used to disperse the protesters, stressing that "no live bullets were used".

Kenyatta beat Odinga by more than 800,000 votes to win the presidency in 2013.

Odinga and civil society groups have accused the electoral commission of a series of irregularities that they said skewed the results.

The election nonetheless passed off peacefully, in contrast to the country's disputed 2007 elections which degenerated into fierce inter-ethnic violence that left more than 1,100 people dead after supporters of Odinga, who is from the Luo people, challenged his defeat by Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu.

The next election in August 2017 is shaping up as a rematch of the 2013 election, with 71-year old Odinga expected to try to unseat Kenyatta, 54.

President Kenyatta recently organised a meeting with several party faithful to discuss the possibility of reorganising the electoral commission.
By Hyunjoo Jin SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea said it would punish Nissan Motor Co with a fine and a recall of its Qashqai diesel sport utility vehicles after accusing it of manipulating emissions, an allegation that the Japanese automaker denied. The finding is an embarrassment for Nissan, which blew the whistle on Mitsubishi Motors Corp's mileage-cheating scandal and last week announced it was buying a $2.2 billion stake for de facto control of Mitsubishi. South Korea's environment ministry said it believed Nissan had used a so-called defeat device in Qashqai to turn off its exhaust reduction system under regular driving temperatures. The ministry said it would fine Nissan 330 million won ($279,920), and order a recall of the 814 new Qashqai vehicles sold in the country so far. It also plans to file a complaint against the head of its local operations with prosecutors. Nissan disputed the finding and denied any wrongdoing. "Nissan has not and does not employ illegal defeat or cheat devices in any of the cars that we make," it said in a statement, adding that testing using similar methods by European Union regulators found that Nissan had not used a defeat device. Investors in Nissan shares seemed to have shrugged off the news, with its shares in Tokyo ending up 0.5 percent, in line with the broader market. "It's too early to judge in terms of what the impact on the brand is. Nissan denied any wrongdoing. Its not a huge number," said Koji Endo, senior auto analyst at Advanced Research Japan. South Korea tested 20 diesel vehicles, after Volkswagen AG's falsified emissions tests became known last year. The South Korean ministry said its investigation applied to new Qashqai models with Euro 6 engines, and that it would test older models with Euro 5 engines. James Chao, Asia-Pacific managing director at IHS Automotive, said the risk for Nissan was that the issue could snowball. "But the fact that theyve come out so strongly in their denial might mean they may have a strong case. In this time of hypersensitivity about it, it certainly doesnt do them well to come out so strongly just to backtrack, said Chao. ($1 = 1,178.9000 won) (Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Additional reporting by Minami Funakoshi and Maki Shiraki in TOKYO; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Rousseff Steps Down: Why Brazil Shouldn't Celebrate Just Yet

(Continued from Prior Part)

Will Landers on Latin America

BlackRocks Will Landers, who heads the Latin American Investment Trust, is positive on Latin America in general and Brazil (EWZ) and Mexico (EWW) in particular. In an interview with International Adviser, Landers said, Brazil represents half of the opportunities in Latin America.

The interview was conducted before the Senate voted 5522 in favor of an impeachment trial against Dilma Rousseff. Landers said that if a new political regime takes over, he would expect it to implement social policy reforms. For 2016, he said that regardless of the president, times will be tough. A more market-friendly president would create a better backdrop for 2017.

Landers said that all four political parties realize that Brazil needs fiscal responsibility and management. He added, Theyve seen the numbers and clearly things are not working right now. If theres no correction on the fiscal side to get back to fiscal responsibility, then Brazil is going to continue to get downgraded and they will all be voted out of office in the next elections.

Apart from Brazil, Landers is bullish on Mexico and has invested in stocks such as Fomento Economico Mexicano (FMX), CEMEX (CX), and Credicorp (BAP).

Mark Mobius on Brazil

Mark Mobius has been buying in Brazil and thinks that the rally is not over just yet.

In an interview with Bloomberg Markets Middle East, Mobius said that Brazilian stocks had not yet taken full cognizance of the potential removal of Rousseff as president. Due to this, he was continuing to put money into Brazil. He said, If you look at where were heading compared to previous highs, weve got a long way to go. Maybe another 100 to 200 percent.

In the next article, lets consider a more cautious position. Well assess it along with the bullish views of Landers and Mobius.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
A company list showing the Mossack Fonseca law firm is pictured on a sign at the Arango Orillac Building in Panama City in this April 3, 2016 file photo. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso/Files

By Clare Baldwin and Paul Carsten

HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - The law firm at the center of the "Panama Papers" offshore tax haven controversy has written an apology to a Chinese banking client as it seeks to shore up its Asian business following a massive leak of financial data last month, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.

The letter was written by Mossack Fonseca in response to queries from the Chinese bank about compliance with global financial standards. It is not known whether there were similar communications with other financial institutions, but the letter shows at least one bank client in the firm's biggest market was concerned by issues raised in the publicity surrounding the leak.

In the undated letter to the mid-tier Shanghai-based lender, signed by Mossack Fonseca's regional general manager, the shell company specialist said it "deeply regrets" any misuse of its services or the companies it set up.

"If the unauthorized illegal leaks from Mossack Fonseca company servers have created any inconvenience for (the bank) and your clients, we wish to once again apologize," it added.

A Mossack Fonseca spokesperson said reporting of the leak had "deepened confusion" about the nature of its business.

"As such, we are routinely speaking to our clients and other related parties that have questions to explain that ... nothing in the illegally obtained cache of documents suggests we have done anything wrong or illegal," the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Leaks from the Panama Papers, named after the law firm's central American home base, have embarrassed some leading politicians around the world with their chronicling of a shadowy world of offshore holdings and hidden wealth.

The source who provided the letter requested that the state-owned bank not be named to protect their identity due to the sensitivity of the subject in China. A former Mossack Fonseca employee in China said the bank was a major client.

Story continues

Mossack Fonseca has also replaced several key staff in a shake-up of its operations in China, according to a person familiar with the matter and a second former employee.

Relatives and business associates of eight senior Chinese Communist Party figures  including President Xi Jinping's brother-in-law - are named as beneficiaries of offshore holding companies in the leaked documents. None have made any comment and it was not clear if any were clients of the Shanghai bank.

ASIA SHAKE-UP

The letter to the state-owned bank was signed by Maria Mercedes Sadowski, who became regional general manager for Asia in January 2016, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The second former employer, who was dismissed from Mossack Fonseca earlier this year, also said Sadowski had arrived in Asia at the start of the year and initiated a shake-up that saw roughly half a dozen departures across its eight offices in Greater China.

In response to Reuters' emailed questions to Sadowski and the firm, the Mossack Fonseca spokesperson said that "our plan in China and elsewhere is to continue to serve our clients".

The former employee said Sadowski had replaced Austin Zhang, who had headed Mossack Fonseca's Asia business from its busiest office in Hong Kong since the early 2000s. But it was unclear whether Zhang had severed all ties with firm.

Contacted by Reuters on the messaging app WeChat in April, Zhang hinted he had left. A keen photographer, he said he would be willing to talk about his art, but "if it's for other things then it would not be necessary. I am no longer in that group".

He then stopped responding to messages.

Following the reports about the links to relatives of Chinese officials, China has moved to limit access to online coverage of the "Panama Papers" story within its borders, with state media denouncing Western reporting on the leak as biased.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin in Hong Kong, Paul Carsten in Beijing and John Ruwitch in Shanghai; Edited by Alex Richardson)
Norwegian Boeing 787 9

Norwegian Air International's expansion into the US has ruffled feathers. It's a potentially industry-changing move that US airlines and unions have vigorously opposed.



The US airlines are objecting on the grounds that NAI could exploit foreign labor laws, but in truth they should be worried about the kind of international network the carrier is attempting to create.

Last month, the US Department of Transportation tentatively approved the Irish  yes, Irish  airline's application to fly into the US.

You may be wondering why an airline called "Norwegian" would be based in Ireland. That's the root of the issue.

NAI is one of several subsidiaries operating under the Norwegian banner. Unlike the rest of the company, including Norwegian Air Shuttle, NAI is based in Dublin instead of in Norway.

This, critics say, allows NAI to take advantage of Ireland's employment laws, which are significantly less stringent than Norway's. As a result, they say, NAI could hire lower-cost pilots and cabin crew members from Asia to fly trans-Atlantic routes. (The company's current service to the US is operated by NAS with European crews.)

AFL-CIO Transportation president Edward Wytkind referred to the DOT's decision as one to "green-light this low-road air carrier whose operating plan will destroy fair competition and extinguish middle-class airline jobs here and in Europe."

But NAI says none of its Asia-based crews will operate flights into and out of the US. Further, the pay differential between the airline's Asia- and Europe-based pilots is roughly 1%, Norwegian Air spokesman Anders Lindstrom told Business Insider.

And all this complaining about NAI is happening even though it is tiny, with a fleet of just 10 Boeing 787 Dreamliners. The major US airlines and their European alliance partners have more than 1,000 wide-body long-haul jets at their disposal and are responsible for more than 80% of the traffic across the Atlantic.

Story continues

Here's why Norwegian is scary

Here's the real problem for US airlines: Norwegian is going to expand rapidly and in a way that eats at the foundation of the hub-based system major US airlines depend on for survival.





Norwegian Air flight attendant cabin crew

How? By offering direct flights to smaller cities in the US from underserved cities in Northern Europe.

In practice, this means passengers in Hartford, Connecticut, or Providence, Rhode Island, no longer have to fly to Boston or New York for an international trip. Instead, for a far lower cost than a US carrier, they might fly NAI to Oslo, Norway; Stockholm; or Hamburg, Germany. Later this year, Norwegian is launching service to Paris from New York, Los Angeles, and Fort Lauderdale.

This kind of setup not only undercuts US airlines' international business; it could also threaten their domestic operation.

But there's more

With its base in European Union-member Ireland, NAI will also be able to use its hubs in Europe as transit points for passengers traveling into and out of Asia and Europe to the US. As a result, NAI will be able to tap into the lucrative US-to-South Asia market over which US, European, and Middle Eastern airlines have fought for the past decade.

The presence of Norwegian and its low-cost model could provide competitive pressure on legacy carriers for value-minded travelers the same way Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar have for premium-cabin clients.

Norwegian Air Airbus A320neo

In fact, NAI could be the airline to disrupt the trans-Atlantic long-haul business the same way other low-cost carriers have transformed the European airline industry. In Norwegian's home market, it has forced its local rival SAS to revamp the way the 70-year-old airline does business.

"We have made significant transformative changes to stay competitive and to survive," SAS CEO Rickard Gustafson told Business Insider in March. "We have cut overhead costs, adjusted pensions and union contracts."

NAI's weapon in all this will be narrow-body jets like the Boeing 737 Max 8 and the Airbus A320neo. The company has orders for as many as 350 of these aircraft in place.

While trans-Atlantic service has traditionally been operated using large wide-body jumbo jets, the narrow-body jets are cheaper to buy and cheaper to operate. The first of the 737 Max aircraft are expected to enter service in 2017, while Norwegian is expected to see its first A320neos later this year.

Norwegian Boeing Dreamliner Interior

Norwegian won't be able to reach the US legacy carriers' bread-and-butter customer: the high-end business traveler. Major US airlines depend these high-value clients, who fly often and pay full-business or first-class prices, to generate the revenue they need to stay afloat.

Norwegian's low-cost premium cabin on its Dreamliners may attract some of these customers, but it is unlikely to sway high-end corporate clients.

But based on how Norwegian has shaken up the airline industry in its homeland, US carriers should be wary of the disruptive power of this airline.

One final detail: According to Norwegian's CEO, the target price for admission to one of his airline's flight across the Atlantic is $69.

NOW WATCH: This is America's most hated airline





More From Business Insider


Rousseff Steps Down: Why Brazil Shouldn't Celebrate Just Yet

(Continued from Prior Part)

A breakdown of Brazils exports

Exports are not a very large component of Brazils economic output. In terms of chained 1995 prices, exports formed 6.5%7.5% of Brazils GDP in 1996. They peaked at 14.4% in 3Q06, and as of 4Q15, they formed 13.5% of GDP. Whats important to understand is the role that commodities play in Brazils output.

Data from WITS (World Integrated Trade Solution) showed that raw materials formed 45% of Brazils exports in 2014. Brazils top five exported commodities are soybeans, iron ore and concentrates, petroleum oil and products, raw cane sugar, and oil cakes and other solid residue.

With its primary products forming such a large share of exports, a fall in demand is highly detrimental to Brazils economic output. A fall in domestic demand and other factors have contributed to the contraction in Brazils economy.

The importance of China to Brazils exports

Even given its geographical proximity to the United States, Brazils biggest export destination is China (FXI). On the other hand, its Latin American peer Mexico (EWW) trades the most with the United States. This has been a major difference between the performances of these two countries. While the United States has remained broadly healthy, a sharp slowdown in China has created further problems for Brazil, which was already facing a fall in domestic demand.

According to WITS, Brazils exports to China formed 18% of its total exports, followed by the United States, to which Brazil exported 12% of its total exports. As of 2014, Brazils total trade with China, including imports and exports, stood at $78 billion. Exports of soybean, iron ore, and oil products form ~80% of Brazils total exports to China.

According to the ECBs (European Central Bank) Economic Bulletin, Issue 1/2016, The most significant factors in explaining the decline in Brazilian GDP since mid-2014 have been adverse commodity price developments and shocks to domestic factors.

Story continues

The report further notes, The prices of iron ore and raw sugar  which account for 13% and 5% respectively of total exports  have been falling since 2011. Given their high compositions in Brazils total exports, the price falls of these commodities have contributed significantly to the countrys falling economic output.

Though several Brazilian stocks have benefited from the recent rally, a few (ERJ) (BAK) (FBR) havent. Before moving on to what investment managers think about Brazil, lets take a brief detour and see how Brazils financial markets and related instruments have performed.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
The South African rand is crashing after reports the finance minister might be arrested.

The rand is down by 1.6% at 15.6623 per dollar, its lowest level since mid-March, as of 9:44 a.m. ET. It dropped by as much as 2.1% to 15.7275 minutes earlier.

This follows reports that Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan is set to be arrested over "alleged irregularities at the nations revenue service," according to Bloomberg.

Although, a Reuters report noted that President Jacob Zuma's office denied that the minister would be arrested on Sunday.

"Due to a combination of weak fundamentals and rising political risk, the South African rand has underperformed this year. This should continue as both of these drivers are likely to intensify in the coming weeks," argued Marc Chandler, the global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, in a note to clients.

Screen Shot 2016 05 16 at 9.45.13 AM

Notably, this isn't the first shake up with finance ministers in South Africa.

Back in December, the struggling economy saw three finance ministers within a week as Zuma fired his well-respected finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene, out of nowhere, replaced him with an unknown former mayor  and then fired the new guy and replaced him with Pravin Gordhan.

All of this political chaos comes at a time when the country continues to struggle with ongoing economic problems.

Most recently, the unemployment rate surged to a 12-year high, while the youth unemployment is even worse.

Even the one sort of decent data point, manufacturing PMI, might not actually be that good, according to analysts.

"As such, social tensions are likely to remain high ahead of municipal elections in August. While support for the ANC is likely to dip further then, the ANC should retain its grip on power. President Zumas second and final term doesnt end until 2019, and he has so far proven impervious to various scandals," added Chandler.

NOW WATCH: FORMER GREEK FINANCE MINISTER: The single largest threat to the global economy





More From Business Insider


By Ernest Scheyder

HOUSTON, May 16 (Reuters) - Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked a state judge on Monday to block U.S. Virgin Islands officials from subpoenaing 40 years of internal climate change documents from Exxon Mobil Corp, saying the probe is "a fishing expedition of the worst kind."

The motion is the latest salvo in an ongoing disclosure fight that has engulfed Exxon in recent months, with critics charging the company misled investors and the public about the risks of climate change for years. Exxon has denied the allegations.

Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Earl Walker launched an investigation two months ago, seeking to build a case against Exxon. The probe is similar to ones launched by attorneys general in New York, Massachusetts and California.

Paxton, in a Monday filing with a judge in Tarrant County, Texas, blasted the investigation as a violation of Exxon's First Amendment rights. Exxon, the world's largest publicly-traded oil company, is headquartered in Texas, where it employs thousands of people.

"What is Exxon Mobil's transgression? Holding a view on climate change that the Virgin Islands attorney general disagrees with," Paxton said at a news conference. "This is about the criminalization of speech and the criminalization of thought."

Paxton is effectively asking the court to block Walker's subpoena power. Exxon has no operations in the Virgin Islands and would need the cooperation of Texas officials for the documents it seeks. The case could ultimately move to a higher court.

"This is an instance where an elected official is trying to turn free speech into a crime," Paxton said. "If we let this stand, it's only a matter of time before they come for other companies or individuals who voice opinions with which they disagree."

Exxon said in a statement it appreciated the support from Paxton in its fight against the Virgin Island's subpoena.

It was not immediately clear why Paxton's motion did not include officials from other states probing the company. Requests for comment from Paxton's office were not immediately answered.

Story continues

Walker's office was not immediately available to comment.

Paxton also criticized Walker's use of the Washington law firm Cohen Milstein to issue the subpoena, claiming it was an "unconstitutional delegation of prosecutorial power."

Cohen Milstein specializes in class action lawsuits. Representatives of the firm were not immediately available to comment.

Exxon shareholders are set to vote next week at the company's annual meeting on several climate change-related resolutions.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Terry Wade and Tom Brown)
SIERRA BLANCA, TX--(Marketwired - May 16, 2016) - Texas Mineral Resources Corp. (TMRC)

--- Independent laboratory tests suggest potential of 9,000 tons per year of lithium carbonate from Round Top at full scale production

--- 2013 PEA suggests 100+ year Round Top mine life

--- Current lithium carbonate pricing at $7500/ton

Texas Mineral Resources Corp. (TMRC), an exploration company targeting the heavy rare earths and a variety of other high-value elements and industrial minerals, in response to lithium industry inquiries, plans to establish a separate lithium subsidiary to market the lithium potentially produced from its poly-metallic Round Top long-life deposit. A separate lithium subsidiary is an appropriate vehicle as we evaluate strategic alliances or joint venture opportunities with processors, producers and end-users.

Column leach tests were conducted by Resource Development Inc (RDI) of Wheat Ridge, Colorado, an independent laboratory testing company which provides technical and consulting services to the international mining industry. Round Top rhyolite crushed to  inch and leached at room temperature in 75 g/l sulfuric acid strength columns for 60 days yielded potentially economic amounts of lithium (Li) with an ore grade of 400 ppm and a 58.5% extraction rate.

At these recoveries, and assuming a 20,000 tpd (tonnes per day) operation as envisioned in the 2013 Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA), recoveries of as much as 9,000 tons per year of lithium carbonate are suggested. Additionally, the 2013 PEA was based on a 20-year mine life while only using 18% of the resource, suggesting a potential overall mine life in excess of 100 years.

Dan Gorski, CEO, commented: "We believe that Round Top can be a stable, long-term domestic supply of lithium. The formation of a lithium marketing subsidiary is an integral part of our plans to realize the potential of the non-rare earth elements that are leached from the Round Top rock. Potentially producing and marketing lithium significantly de-risks project economics and adds a potentially significant source of long-term revenue."

Story continues

Anthony Marchese, Chairman, further stated: "Apart from growing global demand, U.S. lithium production is already a story of rapidly rising demand chasing limited supply. Round Top lithium could help meet the needs of the EV and energy storage industries at a critical moment in their development. The U.S. Geological Survey reports that the U.S. is presently import-dependent for virtually all domestic lithium consumed each year."

Global Lithium Demand

While the lithium industry is extensive, the real growth is in batteries. The most important growth areas are in transportation (electric vehicle batteries) and renewable energy (grid storage). Goldman Sachs, in a December 2015 research report, has called lithium "the new gasoline." Goldman Sachs believes growth in the electric vehicle market alone could triple the size of the lithium market from 160,000 tons today to 470,000 tons by 2025. According to Credit Suisse, demand for lithium could outstrip supply in 2020 by 25%. At that point, the world is expected to need over 380,000 tons of lithium (reported as lithium carbonate equivalent or "LCE"). Considering the demand was approximately 190,000 tons in 2014, that is over 100% growth over a six year period.

About Texas Mineral Resources Corp.

Texas Mineral Resources Corp.'s primary focus is exploring and, if warranted, developing its Round Top heavy rare earth and industrial minerals project located in Hudspeth County, Texas, 85 miles east of El Paso. The Company's common stock trades on the OTCQX U.S. tier under the symbol "TMRC."

Cautionary Note

The PEA referenced herein is not a feasibility study and there are no known proven or probable reserves at the Round Top project under SEC Industry Guide 7. The mine plan and mine economics presented in the PEA are preliminary in nature and may not reflect actual mine production and costs if the Company determines to develop the Round Top project. The projected annual Lithium production numbers and mine life are based on preliminary laboratory testing and mine plan economics, investors are cautioned that such results may not be indicative of up-scaled mining operations and the economic viability of the Round Top project.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including, but not limited to, statements recovery rates of lithium from the Round Top leach solution being indicative of production potential, potential development and production of lithium at Round Top, potential production rates and mining costs, potential revenue streams from such production, anticipated production methods and results, anticipated mine life at Round Top, potentila production of lithium de-risking project economics, Round Top being a stable, long-term supply of Lithium, projected increased demand in the Lithium market and other similar statements. When used in this press release, the words "potential," "indicate," "expect," "intend," "hopes," "believe," "may," "will," "if, "anticipate," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Such factors include, among others, risks related to the development of the Round Top project, up-scaling of extraction testing, risks related to changes in future operating costs and working capital balance, risks related to mining results not matching preliminary tests and risks related to the ability of TRER to raise adequate working capital and continue as a going concern, as well as those factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's latest annual report on Form 10-K, as filed on November 30, 2015, and other documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements.
Didi Chuxing, Uber's rival in China which Apple invested $1 billion into, has denied reports that it is planning an initial public offering (IPO).

"We currently have no IPO plan, so there's no point of talking about location or schedule," a spokesperson for the ride hailing app told CNBC by email.

Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg Monday reported that Didi was planning a flotation in New York next year. No decisions had been made regarding exchanges or banks yet, it added.

A separate story from Reuters, also citing unnamed sources, suggested the IPO would be in 2018 in the U.S. and the company has ruled out a flotation in China.

Formerly known as Didi Kuaidi, the Chinese firm has secured funding from top-flight backers in recent years. Aside from Apple, which announced its backing late last week, Didi also counts Alibaba and Tencent among its investors, placing its valuation north of $20 billion .



If Didi's U.S. IPO does pan out, it would be the biggest listing by a Chinese company since Alibaba's (: ) 2014 offering, Bloomberg's report noted.



A number of Chinese technology companies have managed to raise large rounds recently. Ant Financial, the affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba that runs Alipay, recently raised $4.5 billion at a valuation close to $60 billion.

Many start-ups want to remain private for longer given the volatility in the stock market as well as the availability of capital. Didi Chuxing's rival Uber, which is the most valuable private tech company in the world, recently said its planning to hold off from a flotation.

"I'm going to make sure it happens as late as possible," Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick, told CNBC in an interview in March .

The taxi app battles in China are fierce. Didi Chuxing claims it commands a 99 percent market share in China's taxi-hailing market, but it is still carefully watching Uber's expansion on the mainland. Uber meanwhile said it is losing over $1 billion a year in China but is expecting that in two years' time it will start to see parts of China start to be profitable .

Story continues

But the U.S. firm is looking for ways to gain greater presenceit recently announced it was rolling out a facial recognition feature in to prevent fraud.

There are currently no publicly-traded companies similar to Uber or Didi. If the Chinese start-up floats first it could set a benchmark for further IPOs - including Uber's.

"Whoever goes public first sets the market for that industry, so Uber is actually going to have a good idea of what their likely valuation is based on this," Dale Huxford, corporate finance lawyer at Squire Patton Boggs, told CNBC by phone.



"That will let them know when a good time to go public is."



-Additional reporting by Eunice Yoon

Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.







More From CNBC


BURLINGTON, VT--(Marketwired - May 16, 2016) - Vermont Information Technology Leaders, Inc. (VITL) has named Robert Turnau as the new vice president of finance/chief financial officer, and Jonathan Knapp as security analyst.

Turnau is responsible for directing all financial and human resource activities at VITL, including budget, grants and human resource management for 32 staff members. Prior to VITL, he was the finance director at ReSOURCE, a Vermont nonprofit enterprise formerly known as Recycle North, and was responsible for the organization's financial management and accounting. During his tenure at General Dynamics, Robert directed cost accounting and strategic program initiatives, as well as financial management for one of the then-largest armament projects at the Vermont operation.

Turnau holds a Master of Science in Administration, Finance and Planning from St. Michael's College, and a bachelor's degree in economics from St. Mary's College of Maryland. He lives in Charlotte with his wife Robin.

Security analyst Jonathan Knapp joined VITL after working as an information technology consultant for a pediatrician's office in South Burlington. His work included risk assessment and mitigation, as well as providing technical support during the transition from paper to electronic medical records. Knapp graduated from Champlain College with a degree in computer and digital forensics, and a specialization in information assurance.

About VITL:

Vermont Information Technology Leaders, Inc. (VITL) is a nonprofit organization that assists Vermont health care providers with adopting and using health information technology, to improve the quality of care delivery, to enhance patient safety and to reduce the cost of care. VITL is legislatively designated to operate the health information exchange (HIE) for Vermont, and is governed by a collaborative group of stakeholders including health plans, hospitals, physicians, other health care providers, state government, employers, and consumers. For more information, please visit www.vitl.net

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/5/16/11G098418/Images/Turnau_LowRes-6b3f1c0e6c1e978a939c10992ecca710.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/5/16/11G098418/Images/Knapp_LowRes-1287a5d7b4bbb9fba222c311358e2a12.jpg


2000 - 2022   24 .-   .       focus-news.net,                 () .                  24 .                 24      .       .       24 .
HAIKOU - Some 8,000 fishing boats from South China's Hainan province returned to port on Monday as the 18th seasonal fishing moratorium began in the South China Sea.

From May 16 to August 1, no fishing is allowed in parts of the sea under China's jurisdiction except by single-layer gill nets or other approved methods, including conventional angling.

According to provincial fisheries department, the 7,952 fishing boats affected by the ban account for 32 percent of fishing boats in the province, with over 36,000 fishermen affected.

During the moratorium, these fishermen receive training on regulations, new technology and navigational safety.

Fishing bans in the South China Sea began in 1999. Although they have reduced the income of some fishermen, bans protect fisheries and ensure the industry's sustainability.

Annual fishing bans began in the Yangtze River and Poyang Lake, China's largest body of freshwater, in March.
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Antonov An-225 Mriya touches down in Australia

BBC News16 May 2016Thousands of Australian aircraft enthusiasts have watched the world's largest plane, the Antonov An-225 Mriya, arrive in Perth.The 276ft-long plane, which weighs 175 tonnes without cargo or fuel, was transporting a 117-tonne generator.Traffic blocked roads on Sunday as crowds gathered to watch the plane's arrival.The plane picked up its cargo in Prague and stopped at locations in the Middle East and Asia on its way to Australia.
PLATTSMOUTH  Multiple local residents appeared in Cass County District Court Monday morning and afternoon for hearings on various drug offenses.

* Plattsmouth residents Kevin E. Dormer, 52, and Peggy S. Dormer, 50, each pled guilty to charges involving methamphetamine. Peggy Dormer entered a plea to one Class IV felony count of possession of controlled substance. Kevin Dormer submitted a plea to one Class I misdemeanor count of attempted possession of controlled substance.

Deputy County Attorney Steven Sunde told the court Plattsmouth police officers and Cass County Sheriffs Office deputies conducted a search warrant at a Plattsmouth residence in August 2015. Sunde said Peggy Dormer told officers they would find drug-related material in a pouch located in her purse. The items later tested positive for methamphetamine.

Officers searched Kevin Dormer and found a glass pipe in his front left pocket. The glass pipe contained burned residue. The state crime lab later confirmed the residue as methamphetamine.

The state agreed to recommend probation in Kevin Dormers case. The state also agreed to dismiss a second charge of possession of controlled substance in Peggy Dormers case. Peggy Dormer will be sentenced July 11 and Kevin Dormer will be sentenced July 25. Both remain free on bond.

* A second case involved Plattsmouth resident Joshua C. Warga, 26. He pled guilty to one Class I misdemeanor of attempted possession of controlled substance-methamphetamine. There was no agreement regarding sentencing.

Sunde said Plattsmouth police officers and CCSO deputies conducted a search warrant at a Plattsmouth residence less than a week after the Dormer incident. Sunde said Warga was present at the house when officers began inspecting the property.

Sunde said Warga was taking a cellphone out of a pocket in his pants when a plastic baggie also fell out. He attempted to conceal the baggie by moving it under his foot, but an officer spotted the container and retrieved it. Material in the baggie tested positive as methamphetamine.

Warga remains free on bond. Sentencing is scheduled for July 11.

* A third case involved Omaha resident Tanner J. Dix, 22. Dix pled guilty to a Class I misdemeanor charge of attempted possession of controlled substance-heroin. The plea deal contained no language regarding sentencing.

Deputy County Attorney Richard Fedde told the court a Nebraska State Patrol trooper stopped Dix for speeding on Aug. 29, 2015. The trooper took Dixs information and ran a routine background check in the patrol car. The background check revealed there was an active warrant for Dixs arrest out of Douglas County.

Fedde said the trooper found several suspicious items in Dixs possession as he was placing him under arrest. One of the items tested positive for heroin at the state crime lab.

Dix remains free on bond. Sentencing will take place July 25.

* A fourth drug-related case involved Plattsmouth resident Jeremy M. Spires, 41. Spires was sentenced for two Class I misdemeanor charges. The first count was domestic assault-third degree and the second charge was false imprisonment-second offense.

Fedde told the court Spires and a female victim had both been using methamphetamine at an Elmwood residence Dec. 26. Spires struck the female victim in the face after they began arguing while taking the drugs. Fedde said the victim reported Spires also grabbed her and choked her for several seconds.

Fedde said he had spoken with the victim prior to the sentencing hearing. He said she was in favor of Spires receiving probation.

Defense attorney Julie Bear said her client had successfully met requirements of a pre-trial release program. Bear said Spires had been attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and was willing to begin an outpatient treatment program.

Judge Jeffrey Funke ordered Spires to spend 24 months on probation. Spires must complete an outpatient treatment program, abstain from all alcohol and drugs and submit to random drug tests and searches. He must also complete 40 hours of community service.
Fellowship applications for Nebraska LEAD (Leadership Education/Action Development) Group 36 are now available for men and women involved in production agriculture or agribusiness.

Up to 30 motivated men and women with demonstrated leadership potential will be selected from five geographic districts across our state, said Terry Hejny, Nebraska LEAD program director.

In addition to monthly three-seminars throughout Nebraska from mid-September through early April each year, Nebraska LEAD Fellows also participate in a 10-day national study/travel seminar and a two-week international study/travel seminar.

Seminar themes include leadership assessment and potential, natural resources and energy, agricultural policy, leadership through communication, Nebraskas political process, global perspectives, nuclear energy, social issues, understanding and developing leadership skills, agribusiness and marketing, advances in health care and the resources and people of Nebraskas Panhandle.

The Nebraska LEAD Program is designed to prepare the spokespersons, problem-solvers and decision makers for Nebraska and its agricultural industry. In its 35th year, the program is operated by the Nebraska Agricultural Leadership Council, a nonprofit organization, in collaboration with the University of Nebraskas Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources and in cooperation with Nebraska colleges and universities, business and industry, and individuals throughout the state.

Applications are due no later than June 15 and are available via email from the Nebraska LEAD Program. Contact the Nebraska LEAD Program office at leadprogram@unl.edu. You also can request an application by writing to: 104 ACB, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 68583-0940 or by calling 402-472-6810. To learn more about the selection process, visit www.lead.unl.edu.

Nebraska LEAD Program offices are in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Two men were sentenced to serve terms of probation in unrelated cases Monday morning in Dodge County District Court.

Jacob Carstensen, 23, pleaded guilty and was found guilty March 14 of being in possession of a controlled substance  marijuana, and attempted delivery of marijuana, a Class IIIA felony, court records show.

On Monday, Carstensen was sentenced to 30 months of intensive supervised probation. Terms of the defendants probation include: attending two NA/AA meetings per week, completing moral reconation therapy, working or seeking work, completing 120 hours of community service and completing a RISE Program (Recovery is an Independent, Sober Environment.)

Charges against Carstensen stem from an arrest by the III CORPS Drug Task Force on Dec. 2, 2015.

Prior to sentencing, Carstensen said that he has been sober seven months, noting that he has changed a great deal as a person since his arrest.

In an unrelated case, Arthur Jensen, 32, was sentenced to serve 30 months of intensive supervised probation after pleading guilty and being found guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol third offence, a Class IIIA felony.

Under the probationary terms, Jensen is required to attend two AA/NA meetings weekly, complete 120 hours of community service and revoke his license for five years.

Following the five-year revocation, Jensen is required to immediately install an ignition interlock device in his vehicle.

In other District Court news:

*Austin Oreskovich, 20, of Lincoln pleaded not guilty to operating a motor vehicle to avoid arrest, a Class IV felony, willful reckless driving, driving during suspension and speeding. Court records show that Oreskovich allegedly led a Dodge County Sheriffs Office deputy on a high-speed chase reaching speeds of more than 100 mph before he was apprehended. Oreskovichs bond is set at $10,000 with a 10-percent option and a status hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. June 20.
When Cael Rudkin was in first grade at West Marshall Elementary School he got stuck outside one day because none of the schools doors had handicapped-accessible push buttons.

Cael uses an electric wheelchair and this was the only way for him to get the door open. It was raining.

To even enter the building in State Center, Cael had to go around to the back door, because the front door had a step. Cael, now 14 and from the town of Rhodes, has dealt with many accessibility issues in his time attending school in the West Marshall Community School District.

So have others. The majority of Iowa school districts reviewed by the Iowa Department of Education do not meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards, an IowaWatch investigation shows.

Since 2010, the Iowa Department of Education has inspected 48 school districts in the districts annual equity review, and all except one had areas of non-compliance with the ADA.

The categories with the most areas of non-compliance are parking including passenger loading zones, entrances and toilet rooms.

The examples include not having enough van-accessible parking spots, not having a curb cut or direct accessible route to the front of a building, not having wide enough wheelchair-accessible bathroom stalls, and not having appropriate signage to indicate accessible parking spots, entrances and bathrooms.

It is important for the schools to be compliant so that parents can feel comfortable when they send their children to school, said Caels mother, Joey Rudkin.

So many people take for granted that they can open a door or fit inside a bathroom stall, but until you are a person or have a family member who needs these things you truly cant understand, she said. They are important for normal life, not special treatment.

REQUIREMENTS SPELLED OUT IN ADA

The original ADA of 1990 prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in employment, local and governmental services, transportation, commercial facilities and public accommodations. In 2010, Attorney General Eric Holder signed updates to the ADA regulations, including the implementation of ADA Standards for Accessible Design.

Changes from the 1990 to the 2010 standards include wider parking spaces for wheelchair-accessible vans, landing spaces at the tops of curb ramps, and many new statutes for assistive listening systems.

The only school district in Iowa without non-compliance issues was Clear Creek Amana, an IowaWatch investigation of the 48 school district reports showed.

Tim Kuehl, the districts superintendent, said that this is most likely because most of the buildings in the district were built recently.

Even our older buildings are one level and accessibility isnt an issue, he said.

Since 2013 the Iowa Department of Education has focused inspections only on facilities that offer career and technical education programs, such as high schools and administrative buildings.

In the absence of unlimited resources, we have adjusted our review schedule to better reflect our funding and staffing levels, which align with the federal requirements, said Staci Hupp, the Iowa Department of Educations communications director.

Since this switch, elementary and middle schools have been overlooked in reviews.

Data on whether or not a school is compliant with the ADA are taken from equity reports, which are done annually and voluntarily by school districts based on scores on the Educational Equity Review Targeting Plan.

Generally, the higher the score a school district receives, the likelier it is that it will be selected that year for an equity review.

A score is based on enrollment patterns for sex, racial background and disability; whether or not the percent of minority students enrolled over the past five years has changed; any complaints the district may have received; and time elapsed since the districts last onsite equity review.

Since 2010, an average of eight school districts have been reviewed each year.

As a part of these equity reviews, certain school district facilities are inspected to determine if they are compliant with the ADA, as required by the federal Office for Civil Rights.

For all other district buildings, the superintendent signs a yearly assurance that they are up to code with the ADA. School administrators inspect the buildings, not an independent agency.

Nicole Kooiker, the West Marshall Community School District superintendent, agreed that schools need to be made fully compliant with the ADA and sometimes even go beyond that in making sure things are accessible for everyone.

That way, it benefits not just students and staff with disabilities, but also any elderly relatives who may be visiting the school for events or any visitors that may have unique needs.

West Marshall Community School District received an equity review in March 2013 and had seven areas of ADA non-compliance in its high school.

The middle school and elementary school were not part of this review because it took place after the Iowa Department of Education decided to focus only on buildings that offer career and technical education programs.

OLD BUILDINGS IN NON-COMPLIANCE





According to the 2010 Standards for Accessible Design published by the U.S. Department of Justice on Sept. 15, 2010, any construction or alteration that occurred on or after March 15, 2010, must comply with the 2010 Standards. Before that date, construction or alteration only had to comply with the 1991 Standards.

Administrators at Des Moines Public Schools are familiar with making alterations to the districts buildings, as the average age of the districts 72 facilities is 60 years old, district Chief Operations Officer Bill Good said.

Our buildings werent built for accessibility, Good said. The Des Moines school district had 136 areas of ADA non-compliance in a 2011 equity review.

However, each new alteration done on a Des Moines district building has included making it more accessible to be in compliance with the ADA. This summer the district plans to add an elevator while renovating Howe Elementary School.

To date, accessibility to Howe Elementarys second level has been handled in the same way that Cael Rudkins elementary school handled it.

Lets say we have a fourth-grade teacher thats on the second floor thats disabled, Good said. Up until the improvements here, we could establish that fourth grade classroom on the main level and have it accessible. Now, after we get this work done, it could be on either floor.

Good said only two buildings in the school district do not have elevators.
MASON CITY  Adam Pommrehn of Rockford became a hero to a North Iowa woman last week when he found a lost diamond during his late shift at Hy-Vee East.

It was unbelievable, he said. It was a good night.

Laura Howe of Nora Springs noticed the diamond from her wedding ring was gone the Saturday before Mothers Day.

I was driving and I looked down and it was missing, Howe said. I just screamed.

She called every business she had been to that day, hoping someone might find it.

I thought it was gone for good, Howe said.

Howe called Hy-Vee and mentioned that she had been in the store to pick up a cake from the bakery.

Pommrehn came in for his 10 p.m. shift, keeping an eye out for something sparkling on the ground. When he was sweeping around the bakery, he kept looking down in the dirt and dust just in case.

All of a sudden, I come around the corner and it was right there, Pommrehn said. It shined and I picked it up.

He then called Howes husbands aunt, Diane Howe, who works at Hy-Vee in accounting, to tell her the good news. Diane gave the diamond back to Howe.

It was weird. Usually we cant find that stuff, Pommrehn said. It will get picked up on someones shoe or kicked under something. It was perfect.

In his 11 years at Hy-Vee, Pommrehn has done his fair share of looking for missing items.

People usually lose debit cards and stuff like that, he said. Never a diamond, thats for sure.

Howe was thrilled to get her diamond back.

Thanks for making my Mothers Day, Howe said to Pommrehn, laughing. I was very surprised. My kids were all sitting around saying Is that the best Mothers Day present you got?

Howe took to the North Iowa Area Local Businesses Rant or Rave page on Facebook to share her story.

That site has a lot of people complaining and I just wanted people to know that theres still good people, honest people, Howe said He could have easily took it and pawned it off and he didnt.

The post garnered more than 380 likes and several comments commending Pommrehns kindness. Howe said he went above and beyond his job description and she is thankful he was working that night.

We had customers come in who saw it on Facebook and congratulating me, he said. I didnt even see the Facebook post. It felt good.
NORTHWOOD | Kum & Go is working with Worth County officials to finalize the layout of a convenience store it plans to build near Diamond Jo Casino in rural Northwood.

Officials at the West Des Moines-based company have submitted plans for the store at the casino development, said County Engineer Richard Brumm.

Brumm told the Worth County Board of Supervisors on Monday he plans to discuss traffic flow described in the plans with company officials.

New convenience store possible at Diamond Jo interchange NORTHWOOD  Representatives from Kum & Go have met with Worth County public officials to

A Kum & Go spokeswoman said the project was still in the works and a final decision whether to build in Northwood would come in the next month.

County officials previously said the tentative schedule calls for groundbreaking over the summer with completion by late fall.

If built, the new Kum & Go store would be the second convenience store at the development at County Highway 105 and Interstate 35.

The interchange, about 22 miles north of Clear Lake, is currently the site of the a BP store, two hotels, the Top of Iowa Welcome Center, a Burger King restaurant and the casino.

Two more restaurants are housed within the casino.

 Molly Montag
BUFFALO CENTER | The North Iowa Community School District is joining other districts and communities across Iowa this May to thank elected school board members for their commitment to public education.

Iowa School Board Recognition Month honors Iowas volunteer school board members and recognizes that they are providing leadership through responsibilities ranging from financial stewardship to ensuring rich and diverse curriculum to make sure all students are prepared for a bright future when they graduate.

Those serving North Iowa are Rande Giesking, Matt Duve, Mark Ostermann, Jamie Price, Renae Sachs, Rachel Wubben and John Helland.

Superintendent Cory Myer said board members are "dedicated individuals who are committed to improving student achievement and striving for the best for all of our students."
MANLY | In spite of purported interest in bringing Prestage Farms' 650,000-square-foot hog slaughterhouse to Manly, at least one city official says the community of 1,300 residents doesn't have the infrastructure to support the $250 million project.

Prestage Foods, of Clinton, North Carolina, is looking for a new home for the plant after the Mason City Council, on a 3-3 vote, rejected a development agreement to build the packing plant on the city's south side.

Officials in several North Iowa communities have since expressed interest in the plant. Last week, Worth County Supervisor Merlin Bartz said he contacted a Prestage official by phone at the behest of a resident of Manly.

He stressed he has not met with other Prestage officials and there are no negotiations to bring the plant to Worth County.

Would-be suitors line up to speak with Prestage Farms MASON CITY  Officials in several local communities are interested in exploring the possibil

On Monday, Supervisor Dave Haugen said county officials had looked into the Prestage project after Manly City Council members brought it to supervisors' attention.

"We're just gonna check it out and see what it entails," he said during the regular Board of Supervisors meeting. "We haven't made (any) plans of doing anything."

Manly Mayor Pro Tem Scott Heagel, who says he did not contact supervisors about the plant, told the Globe Gazette Monday afternoon that he believes the city doesn't have the ability to provide enough sewage or water for the plant.

"We have no room inside city limits for any of that," he said.

He also said the city doesn't have the capacity to provide similar services to the Manly Terminal, an industrial park in the county just north of city limits.

As far as Heagel knows, Prestage also hasn't contacted the city of Manly to express interest in putting the plant there.

Manly Councilman Steve "Buck" Leake told the Globe Gazette he thought Prestage's plant is worth looking into, although he also questioned if the city had the necessary infrastructure.

He cautioned that his interest should not be construed as support or opposition to the project.

"I need to know more about it before I would say much more," he said Monday afternoon.

Prestage officials have previously said they are exploring possible sites for the plant. The company does not disclose details of potential sites.

Even without any confirmed interest from Prestage, news that Worth County would even consider the project was enough for two Worth County residents to attend Monday's Board of Supervisors meeting and ask the supervisors not to support the project.

"I would just hope that you would be opposed to it," said Phyllis Willis, of Fertile. "It's really bad for the state, the country. What can I say? We need our water and our air."
Talk about an untraditional election!

American presidential races generally match two veteran male politicians. This year, neither likely nominee fits that description.

And the differences only start with saying the race matches a billionaire businessman who never before sought public office and a woman who was first lady, a senator and secretary of state.

These two aging, rather unpopular baby boomers will present voters with one of the greatest contrasts in the history of presidential politics, from the personal to the political.

The examples are endless.

Beyond likely being the first major party female nominee, Hillary Clinton epitomizes the Democratic establishment. Donald Trump is an outsider who challenged the Republican establishment he now hopes will support him.

Clinton is a traditional center-left politician, running on experience and offering stability in a time of uncertainty. Trump, a political chameleon who is difficult to peg ideologically, is running as a conservative outsider challenging the status quo and pledging his ability to make good deals that can "make American great again."

Despite a political lifetime and two Senate election victories, Clinton admits she is not a natural politician. Trump has shown in his first political race he is one.

Clinton is cautious and carefully programmed, rationing media interviews and rarely holding news conferences. Trump is an unpredictable, shoot-from-the-hip candidate, prone to frequently revising positions while dominating cable news networks through multiple interviews with journalists.

Clinton mostly avoided personal criticism of her Democratic rivals, stressing policy differences. Trump made personal denigration of rivals a principal part of his primary campaign, and is now targeting "Crooked Hillary" and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton has issued many highly detailed policy proposals on issues from the economy to student loans and is conversant with their specifics. Trump has released few, relying mainly on incendiary rhetoric and sweeping promises. He has shown little knowledge of policy details.

Clinton favors a muscular, yet cautious international role, stressing traditional American leadership coupled with restraint in committing U.S. troops. She supported -- but now regrets -- President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. Trump favors an "America First" approach to foreign policy, threatening a lesser role in NATO and other alliances but promising sweeping successes. He touts his opposition to the Iraq war, which he initially backed.

A long-time international trade supporter, Clinton opposes the current Trans Pacific agreement. Trump made opposition to trade agreements a campaign centerpiece.

Clinton is a one of history's most prolific fundraisers. Trump largely self-funded his primary campaign but is now seeking outside funds for the general election.

Clinton released 30 years of tax returns, disclosed lucrative outside speaking engagements, but refused to release speech transcripts. Trump says he can't release his tax returns because he is being audited.

Clinton hopes to expand Democratic support from women and such growing voter groups as Hispanics because of Trump's many statements criticizing women and minorities. Trump hopes to inspire greater participation of lower income white voters turned off by government's failures.

Clinton favors a comprehensive immigration agreement including a path to citizenship for most of the 11 million immigrants here illegally. Trump would deport many of them, ban Muslims and erect a "very large wall" to bar illegal immigration from Mexico.

Clinton favors legalized abortion rights and opposes additional restrictions. Trump, who once held that position, opposes abortion rights, except for victims of rape and incest or to save the life of the mother, and opposes late-term abortions.

Clinton promises liberal Supreme Court justices committed to protecting abortion rights and reversing the Citizens United decision legalizing virtually unlimited political spending by private groups. Trump says he will release a list of prospective conservative court nominees.

Clinton's economic plan would tax the wealthiest Americans to pay for programs to reduce college debt, expand infrastructure spending and increase reliance on renewable energy. Trump would give massive new tax cuts to businesses and individuals, including the wealthy, but concedes congressional compromises would reduce the latter's benefits.

Like Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, both offer a "choice, not an echo." But the campaign could turn on whether they modify their starkly different stances and how they react to the outside forces that inevitably impact most campaigns.
The Port of Luanda is the country's largest and is now undergoing a massive facelift. [Photo provided to China Daily]

LUANDA -- Citic Construction, one of the largest construction companies operating in Angola, has launched a massive weekend sanitation campaign at Kilamba Kiaxi, the largest satellite town to Luanda in collaboration with the local government.

Starting from Saturday, over 600 Chinese volunteers from Citic joined over 10,000 local residents to clean the main streets, weed out wild grass, and remove dustbins from Kilamba Kiaxi as part of the country's sanitation efforts to reduce breeding grounds for mosquitoes which transmit most of the epidemic diseases in the African country, including malaria and yellow fever.

Mayor of Kilamba Kiaxi Joaquim Israel thanked Citic and its volunteers for their efforts of cleaning his town, which is now home to over 100,000 people.

Liu Guigen, General Manager of Citic Construction's African section, said his colleague working in Angola were ready to join hands with local residents to keep Kilamba Kiaxi clean and tidy.

Currently there are over 770 high-rise buildings at Kilamba Kiaxi, which was built by Citic with an investment of $3.35 billion from the Angolan government.
When Councilman Bill Schickel said the other day he was undecided on whether to bring the Prestage pork plant issue back to the council table, he mentioned possible interest from Worth County on the project.

This represents a potential worst-case scenario for Mason City. It theoretically could be located in our backyard as close as 10 minutes away, in which case we absorb the cost without receiving any of the benefit, said Schickel.

He said the city, schools and college would get none of the revenue from a $240 million capital improvement project and a $100 million increase in tax base.

He pointed out the city would also lose the revenue from spinoff businesses and there might be no buffer zone for CAFOs, as Prestage had offered in the Mason City proposal.

Schickels view is important because he is one of three council members who voted no on the Prestage development agreement. The only way the proposal can be reconsidered is if one of the three opponents agrees to bring it back for consideration.

Schickel, general manager of KCMR radio, is a former journalist who is still pretty good at putting words to good use.

So, when he says he is undecided on whether to reconsider his no vote, he leaves a lot of options open to consider. In other words, he could agree to bring it back for council consideration  and then once again vote no.

This isnt the first time Worth County could benefit from something Cerro Gordo County didnt want.

In 2003, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission was looking to add a few new casinos around the state. Cerro Gordo, Worth and several other counties were in the hunt.

The commission required any interested county to hold a referendum to judge community interest in a casino. It is a reasonable requirement. Why place a casino in a county that doesnt want it?

Cerro Gordo County held its referendum on Sept. 16, 2003 and two-thirds of the voters rejected the casino proposal. The vote was 2,422 yes to 4,664 no.

Meanwhile, Worth County residents approved the casino idea, putting them in the running to have one. Then residents put on a spirited marketing campaign and eventually got the OK. And the rest, as they say, is history. Diamond Jo Casino is a major attraction for the county.

Many people believe that even if Cerro Gordo voters had approved the casino vote, the county probably wouldnt have been selected.

The reason is Worth County draws not only from Cerro Gordo and other surrounding counties but also from southern Minnesota. And it is unlikely the Racing and Gaming Commission would have placed two casinos so close to each other.

But well never know. What we do know is Cerro Gordo Countys loss turned out to be Worth Countys gain  the scenario Schickel said was a possibility with the Prestage proposal.

But what is true in both cases is that the actions of a spirited citizenry had an effect on what happened.

Opponents of Prestage have banded together to take a stand, just as opponents of a casino did 13 years ago.

And listen to the voices of the opponents back then. They have a familiar tone.

I hope this means people looked at this as more than just a get-rich-quick thing, that they thought of the human cost, that they thought of the children, said the Rev. Terry Hamilton-Poore, head of the ministerial association that opposed the casino.

Mason City Councilwoman Lori Henry, also an opponent, said, We talk all the time about quality of life and how this is a good place to raise a family. I think the people said this wasnt good for the quality of life that we want.
English Finnish

Helsinki, 2016-05-16 08:32 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

Finlands leading water-saving service company Envera Oy gets a new owner, as Taaleris circular economy fund buys 20% of the companys share capital. Taaleris holding helps to realise Enveras strong growth plan.

With 20 staff currently in Espoo, Tampere and Oulu, Envera will open offices in Turku and Stockholm during the next year. Enveras objective is to become the leading supplier of real-estate water-saving services in the Nordic Countries by 2020.

Taaleris holding speeds up Enveras strong growth. During the next year, we will recruit to our team 20 enthusiastic and responsible professionals to develop themselves into top water-saving experts, says Envera Oy CEO Henri Kajula.

Enveras Fiksuvesi (SmartWater) service reduces unnecessary water use, benefiting all interest groups. The concept has been proven to be well-functioning in Finland, and now it is ready to go international.

Growth prospects are supported by the well-functioning Fiksuvesi concept and capable management team. As an investment target, Envera is a perfect fit to Taaleris Circular Economy, because it is smart to earn money through resource-saving. It is great to speed up Enveras growth story together with the companys management, says Investment Director Tero Luoma on the Taaleri Circular Economy fund.

Further information:

Henri Kajula, CEO, tel +358 45 631 6186, henri.kajula@fiksuvesi.fi

Tero Luoma, Investment Director, tel. +358 50 344 9993 tero.luoma@taaleri.com

Envera in brief

Envera Oy is a service company in the water-saving field, with offices in Espoo, Tampere and Oulu. Employing twenty water-saving professionals, the company serves hundreds of housing cooperatives and Finlands leading property owners, saving over 20% in their water use on average.

Taaleri in brief

Taaleri is a financial group whose parent company, Taaleri Plc, is listed on the main list of the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Taaleri provides wealth management and financing services to institutional investors, companies and private individuals. Taaleri Group consists of the parent company Taaleri Plc and four operational subsidiaries: Taaleri Wealth Management Ltd and its subsidiaries, Taaleri Private Equity Funds Ltd and its subsidiaries, Taaleri Investment Ltd and Garantia Insurance Company Ltd. In addition, Taaleri has an associated company, Fellow Finance Oy, which offers peer-to-peer lending services. The Group has over 180 employees. Its offices are located in Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Pori, Oulu, Istanbul and Nairobi.

At the end of 2015, Taaleri had assets under management of EUR 3.9 billion and 3,500 wealth management clients. Taaleri Plc has more than 2,400 shareholders. The operations of Taaleri are supervised by the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority.

Further information about our company and services can be found at:

www.taaleri.com

www.fellowfinance.fi

www.garantia.fi

Taaleri on Twitter
Dover, DE, May 16, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) market size is forecast to reach USD 2.78 billion by 2023; as reported in the latest study by Global Market Insights, Inc. Increasing incidences of cancer, especially colorectal cancer is expected to boost CEA usage rates in the coming years.

A number of government initiatives aimed at curbing cancer, and commercialization of novel and combination biomarkers will drive the global carcinoembryonic antigen market size.

Colorectal cancer will be the most lucrative application segment in the CEA market, estimated to reach USD 1.2 billion by 2023. Annual global colorectal cancer incidence rates are more than 1 million, and steadily rising. Specificity and sensitivity in diseases depend mainly on the CEA level in the blood. According to NICE, the specificity in detecting diseases is almost between 30% and 80% during CEA test for the diagnosis of early colorectal cancer.

Get sample pages from our latest research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/427

The industry is also positively impacted by favorable regulatory initiatives that encourage early detection of cancer using CEA. Technological advancements in cancer biomarkers and untapped opportunities in the emerging markets of China, India, and Brazil are anticipated to enhance carcinoembryonic antigen market growth. There has been a steady rise in acceptability of combination biomarkers for screening, monitoring, and diagnostic purposes.

There has also been rising demand for minimally invasive diagnostic procedures and increasing usage of CEA, and combination biomarkers at various stages of cancer in the developed nations of North America, and Europe will drive demand.

Rapid growth in global geriatric population share, prone to chronic conditions such as cancer will also drive growth by widening target patient base. In North America, there were 315.62 estimated cases of cancer per 100,000 adults in 2012, and 1,786,369 estimated cases in total. Such large pool of patients suffering from cancer is one of key attributing factors for the growth of CEA tests throughout the forecast timeframe.

To access sample pages or view this report titled, Carcinoembryonic Antigen (CEA) Market Size By Application (Colorectal, Pancreatic, Ovarian, Breast, Thyroid Cancer], Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Japan, China, India, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa), Application Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016  2023 in detail along with the table of contents, please click on the link below:https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/carcinoembryonic-antigen-cea-market



Key insights from the report include:

Global carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) market size was USD 1.67 billion in 2015, with 6.6% CAGR growth forecast from 2016 to 2023.



North America, with U.S. carcinoembryonic antigen market size accounting for over 78% regional revenue in 2015, will be driven due to high incidence rates of cancers, presence of sophisticated healthcare infrastructure, and high patient awareness levels.



Europe CEA market, with Germany, France & Spain occupying over 45% share, will see 6.9% CAGR from 2016 to 2023.



Breast cancer carcinoembryonic antigen market share is forecast to exceed USD 460 million in revenue by 2023. Breast cancer market is stimulated by factors such as growing number of female population above 50 years, rising demand for Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), and cosmetic surgeries.



Technological advancements in proteomics, such as protein labeling, mass spectrometry, protein array, protein bioinformatics, and novel immunological assays such as radioimmunoassay is responsible for significant rise in the demand for CEA test used in combination.



Industry rivalry for the global carcinoembryonic antigen market share is expected to be moderately high, since the manufacturers need to deal with cut throat price competition in the market, and are required to incessantly launch new and technologically advanced products. Acquisitions and mergers are one of the major strategies adopted by industry participants.

Browse Full Press Release @ https://www.gminsights.com/pressrelease/carcinoembryonic-antigen-cea-market

Global Market Insights has segmented the carcinoembryonic antigen industry on the basis of Application and region:

Global Carcinoembryonic Antigen Market Application Analysis (Revenue, USD Million; 2014 - 2023)

Colorectal Cancer

Pancreatic Cancer

Ovarian Cancer

Breast Cancer

Thyroid Cancer

Others

Carcinoembryonic Antigen Market Regional Analysis (Revenue, USD Million, 2014  2023)

North America U.S. Canada

Europe Spain Germany France

Asia Pacific Japan China India

LATAM Brazil Mexico

MEA South Africa



About Global Market Insights

Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.








Albany, NY, May 16, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A property insurance policy covers any loss or damage to personal or commercial property. It also insures against loss or damage to the contents that are kept on the property and are under the control of the customers. However, if the property is given on rent or lease, the owner is expected to take appropriate insurance by the terms of the lease or contract. The more kind of loss the policy covers, the higher the premium.

The global property insurance market to grow at a CAGR of 5.6% during the period 2016-2020. The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global property insurance market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers two types of property insurance premium: personal and commercial.

For more info, get a Sample PDF:http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=717629

The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:

Americas



APAC



EMEA



Technavio's report, Global Property Insurance Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.

Key vendors

Allstate Insurance



American International Group (AIG)



Berkshire Hathaway Homestate



Liberty Mutual



View TOC (table of content), Figures and Tables of the Report:http://www.researchmoz.us/global-property-insurance-market-2016-2020-report.html

Key questions answered in this report:-

What will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?



What are the key market trends?



What is driving this market?



What are the challenges to market growth?



Who are the key vendors in this market space?



What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?



What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?



Related Reports:

UK Private and Commercial Landlord Insurance 2016

UK Private and Commercial Landlord Insurance 2016 explores the buy-to-let and commercial property sectors, and the factors affecting those with investments in these markets. The report discusses how insurers will fare following the introduction of new regulations and the tightening of rules, which is set to impact landlords and in turn their need for insurance cover. New regulation is highlighted, as well as key issues insures will need to consider and address over the next few years.

Read full Report: http://www.researchmoz.us/uk-private-and-commercial-landlord-insurance-2016-report.html

Innovations in the Insurance Market - US - April 2016

After years of offering little innovation, the insurance industry is rapidly integrating technology into its interactions with consumers. Mobile apps that make it easier to get information and conduct transactions, trackers that provide feedback so people can change their behavior, and devices that keep homes safer and more environmentally friendly are customer-centric innovations that are changing consumer expectations of both the industry in general and their individual carriers.

Read full Report:http://www.researchmoz.us/innovations-in-the-insurance-market-us-april-2016-report.html

Insurance for HNWIs - Current State and Future Prospects

Growth in the number of HNWIs and a consistent rise in their wealth are creating new opportunities for insurers globally. The global HNWI population increased by 2.8%, from 17.3 million in 2013 to 17.8 million in 2014, and is expected to reach 19.8 million in 2018.

Read full Report:http://www.researchmoz.us/insight-report-insurance-for-hnwis-current-state-and-future-prospects-report.html

About Us

ResearchMoz is the worlds fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMozs service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.
English Lithuanian

Vilnius, Lithuania, 2016-05-16 15:36 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On 16 May 2016, amended Articles of Association for Litgrid AB, legal entity code  302564383, legal form  limited company, registered headquarters address  A. Juozapaviciaus St. 13, Vilnius, Republic of Lithuania, data about the company stored and safeguarded at the Legal Entity Registration Section of the Vilnius Branch of the Register of Legal Entities, a State Enterprise, were registered with the Register of Legal Entities.

The companys Articles of Association have been amended pursuant to a decision of the 26 April 2016 Litgrid AB annual general meeting of shareholders.
STUART, Fla., May 16, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CPSM, Inc. (OTCQB:SWMM) the Florida based pool & spa industry aggregator today has reported its fifth consecutive quarter of revenue growth.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1ea7aaef-9eee-4883-971d-788bf3d01db1

CPSM, Inc. reported top line growth of approximately 34% over Q1 of 2015. The Company continues to improve fiscal results with an increase exceeding 40% in Stockholders Equity and an improvement in the Current Ratio exceeding 30%. The Company also completed its move to its new headquarters and will now be able to capitalize on efficiencies of scale.

Lawrence Calarco, Chairman of CPSM, Inc. commented, Our results continue to improve. Our operational footprint has become denser with the recent acquisitions allowing us to operate more efficiently. Further, our plastering division (CPP, www.cpoolplastering.com) has already had to expand to meet current and projected demand. Lastly, we are pleased that our strategy to shore up the financial side of the business is realizing demonstrable results. Shareholders should find great comfort in our progress to date and our ongoing efforts in this regard. We are managing our explosive growth in a responsible manner.

CPSM, Inc. is a publicly held company serving the surging pool/spa maintenance, design, and construction industry.

Safe Harbor Statement: This news release contains forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements that are other than statements of historical facts. These statements are subject to uncertainties and risks including, but not limited to, product and service demand and acceptance, changes in technology, economic conditions, the impact of competition and pricing, government regulation, and other risks described in statements filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All such forward-looking statements whether written or oral, and whether made by or on behalf of the Company, are expressly qualified by the cautionary statements that may accompany the forward-looking statements. In addition, the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.




Dublin, May 16, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Smoking Cessation Drugs Market 2016-2020" report to their offering.



The global smoking cessation products market to grow at a CAGR of 18.16% during the period 2016-2020.



The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global smoking cessation products market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of prescription, generic, off-label, and over-the-counter (OTC) products used for smoking cessation. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.



A ban on tobacco advertisements around the world has had a positive effect on consumers. The report showed a decline of at least 16% in tobacco consumption compared to the pre-ban days. However, only 29 countries, which constitute 12% of the world's population, have banned these advertisements. Globally, one-third of countries have imposed a minimal restriction on tobacco advertisements and campaigns. It is estimated that around 78% of youngsters aged 13-15 years are exposed to advertisement or promotions for tobacco, leading them to experiment with the product.



According to the report, more people are becoming aware of the risks associated with tobacco use. Around six million users of tobacco die every year and this number is set to increase to eight million by 2030. Cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases are also caused due to tobacco use. Tobacco smoke consists of over 4,000 chemical compounds, with about 69 chemicals that are potentially known to cause cancer. These chemicals harm not only smokers, but also second-hand smokers who inhale the smoke in public spaces. Another area where the harmful effects of tobacco are witnessed are in tobacco farming, where young children from underprivileged families are often employed.



Further, the report states that the side effects associated with drugs and therapies may hinder market growth.



Key vendors:



GlaxoSmithKline

Imperial Tobacco

NJOY

Pfizer

Reynolds American

Other prominent vendors



22nd Century Group

Alkalon

Altria Group

Aradigm

Arena Pharmaceuticals

Ballantyne Brands

British American Tobacco (BAT)

CB Distributors

Cytos Biotechnology

Electronics Cigarettes International Group (Victory Electronic Cigarettes)

Evotec

Gamucci

Japan Tobacco

Johnson & Johnson

LOGIC Technology

NAL Pharmaceuticals

Nicotek

Novartis

Revolymer

RR Chemicals

Selecta Biosciences

Target

The Harvard Drug Group

Vapor

VMR Products

Walgreens

Wal-Mart

White Cloud

Key Topics Covered:



PART 01: Executive summary



PART 02: Scope of the report



PART 03: Market research methodology



PART 04: Introduction



PART 05: World cigarette statistics: Per capita consumption per year



PART 06: Epidemiology



PART 07: Health implications of smoking



PART 08: Regulations on tobacco use



PART 09: Pipeline analysis



PART 10: Market landscape



PART 11: Market segmentation by type



PART 12: Market segmentation by availability



PART 13: Geographical segmentation



PART 14: Market drivers



PART 15: Impact of drivers



PART 16: Market challenges



PART 17: Impact of drivers and challenges



PART 18: Market trends

PART 19: Vendor landscape



For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/zvfc3k/global_smoking




CHICAGO, May 16, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The John Marshall Law School in Chicago hosted the Chicago chapter of the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA) for a day-long conference on human rights and the role of the United Nations on May 5. John Marshall's International Human Rights Clinic was a co-organizer of the conference.

The event, Universal Periodic Review Town Hall Meeting, covered a brief overview of the Universal Periodic Review, which is a United Nations process whereby countries are evaluated on their human rights practices. Professor Michael Seng, co-director of John Marshall's Restorative Justice Project and director of the John Marshall Fair Housing Legal Support Center, spoke as part of the sustainable development panel. His presentation focused on the importance of restorative justice, particularly when applied to discrimination, torture and violence.

"What we often do not recognize is the role of the community," Seng said. "Holding the community responsible and making the community a part of the process is one of the reasons restorative justice can be so effective."

Representatives from the U.S. Human Rights Network, the EPA, UNICEF, Windy City Times, the U.S. Department of Justice and more were on-hand at the day-long event. Their presentations discussed issues such as what can be done about the growing number of prison inmates who suffer from mental illness; how Chicago can fix its issues regarding police brutality and torture; what it will take to ensure all citizens have access to clean water in the U.S.; and what can be done to stop human trafficking.

"We were thrilled to partner with UNA-USA Chicago, which plays a key role in promoting continued U.S. engagement with the UN," said Sarah Davila-Ruhaak, co-founder and director of the International Human Rights Clinic at John Marshall. "We hope that this conference served as a platform for local activists to share thoughts and experiences on various issues in human rights."

John Marshall's International Human Rights Clinic promotes human rights domestically and around the world by providing direct legal representation to clients and organizations in international and domestic forums; documenting human rights violations in the United States and abroad; collaborating with other human rights organizations on cases and projects; and publishing and presenting reports, papers and other materials related to human rights. The clinic offers law students a background in human rights advocacy through the practical experience of working on international human rights cases and projects.

In January 2016, the International Human Rights Clinic launched its Human Rights for Syrians Initiative (HRSI). The HRSI establishes a network of advocates, attorneys and service providers in the United States to support Syrian refugees and asylum seekers.

About UNA-USA Chicago

The United Nations Association of the United States of America Chicago (UNA-USA Chicago ) is a membership organization dedicated to inform, inspire and mobilize the greater Chicago community to support the ideals and vital work of the United Nations. A grassroots organization, UNA-USA Chicago is devoted to work with foreign policy makers, political decision makers, schools, colleges, universities, non-profit and other organizations to strengthen the U.S.  UN relationship through youth engagement, advocacy efforts, education programs and public events. UNA-USA is a program of the United Nations Foundation. UNA-USA and its sister organization the Better World Campaign represent the single largest network of advocates and supporters of the United Nations in the world.

About The John Marshall Law School

The John Marshall Law School, founded in 1899, is an independent law school located in the heart of Chicago's legal, financial and commercial districts. The 2017 U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Graduate Schools ranks John Marshall's Lawyering Skills Program 5th, its Trial Advocacy Program 19th and its Intellectual Property Law Program 21st in the nation. Since its inception, John Marshall has been a pioneer in legal education and has been guided by a tradition of diversity, innovation, access and opportunity.
Orangeburg, NY, May 16, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Novastep, Inc., and its affiliates (Novastep or the Company), a global medical technologies company specializing in foot and ankle implants, biologics, instrument systems and medical education programs, today announced its entry into an agreement with Vivex Biomedical, Inc., a privately held company focused on cellular therapies that treat orthopaedic, spine, wound and soft tissue indications.

With this new relationship, Novastep gains access to Vivex catalog of allograft materials. In particular, Novastep's new family of biologics products, marketed under the name bioSTART Tissue Repair Process, will allow Novastep to immediately offer amniotic membranes and liquid to surgeons performing foot and ankle procedures in clinical and outpatient settings throughout the United States. The Company is likewise expanding its portfolio to add demineralized bone matrices, geometrically configured bone wedges and other biologics materials to its product offering.

"This agreement reflects Novasteps commitment to offer surgeon users differentiated technologies that target bone, joint and soft tissue disorders of the foot and ankle for the benefit of their patients," said Vadim Gurevich, President and CEO of Novastep, Inc. We are extremely pleased to be working with Vivex, not only because our respective competencies complement each other so elegantly, but also because of the broad range of benefits our relationship will bring to the patient population as a whole, added Gurevich.

Associations with pioneering industry leaders like Novastep furthers our commitment to clinicians by helping donated tissue reach more patients," said Tracy Anderson, President and CEO of Vivex Biomedical. We look forward to growing our relationship with Novastep.

Novastep is broadening their scope of surgeon education, sales training and scientific discussion forum programs to help support this market entry. In line with this added emphasis, Novasteps annual Global Foot and Ankle Symposium (GFAS), being held on December 2  3 in New York City will feature an expanded biologics session.

For further information concerning this announcement and/or Novastep, Inc., send all inquiries to info@novasteportho.com or call 877.287.0795.





About Novastep Inc.

Novastep Inc., (www.novastep-us.com) is a global medical device company specializing in the design, development and commercialization of advanced technologies that treat conditions affecting the foot and ankle. The Company is focused to optimize clinical efficiencies, inventory management and healthcare economics by transforming the way foot and ankle products are deployed and utilized in the surgical environment. Novastep has allied itself with a strategic network of key international opinion leaders to deliver breakthrough technologies, innovative services and compelling medical education programs to the foot and ankle community.

About Vivex Biomedical, Inc.

Vivex Biomedical, Inc., (www.vivex.com) is a privately held company based out of Marietta, Georgia focused on cellular therapies that treat orthopaedic, spine, wound and soft tissue indications. Vivex Biomedical and its wholly owned subsidiary, UMTB Biomedical, Inc., own and hold exclusive rights to proprietary technologies in the field of biomedicine, stem cells, and orthopaedic implant surface modification. The Vivex Biomedical technology includes marrow isolated adult multilineage inducible (MIAMI) cell identification and processing, as well as, mimetic patterning technologies (MIME) which can improve the efficiency and efficacy of a patient's healing cascade and reduce the overall cost of healthcare.








RESTON, Va., May 16, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- STG Group, Inc. (OTCQB:STGG), a leading provider of mission-critical technology, cyber, and data solutions to multiple Federal Agencies, today filed its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2016. The 10-Q was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and is available on the Companys website (www.stg.com).

About STG Group, Inc.

STG Group, Inc. (STG) is a leading provider of mission-critical technology, cyber and data solutions to more than 50 US Federal Agencies. Applying decades of experience, the company works to ensure the security of the digital domain, the effectiveness of complex IT systems and the delivery of quality intelligence to decision makers. STG is a Washington Technology Top 100 Company. Visit STG at www.stg.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release and the Form 10-Q referred to herein contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties concerning STG, STGs expected financial performance, as well as STGs strategic and operational plans. Forward-looking statements relate to expectations, beliefs, projections, future plans and strategies, anticipated events or trends and similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. Terms such as anticipate, believe, continue, could, estimate, expect, intend, may, might, plan, possible, potential, predict, should, would and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Actual events or results may differ materially from those described in this press release or the Form 10-Q due to a number of risks and uncertainties. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks relating to success in retaining or recruiting officers, key employees or directors, the potential liquidity and trading of our securities, and the size of our addressable markets and the amount of U.S. government spending on private contractors. In addition, please refer to risks described in the Risk Factors in STGs Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and filed with the SEC. Please also refer to the other documents that STG filed with the SEC on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. The filings by STG identify and address other important factors that could cause its financial and operational results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements set forth in this press release and the Form 10-Q referred to herein. STG is under no duty to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this press release to conform to actual results.
method wrote:

I keep hearing really good things about Indiana for CPG

I will be studying consumer marketing at Kelley starting this August.One of the good things is there are typically about 75 or so folks who pursue marketing (consumer and B2B) every year so there is a critical mass of potential MBA hires. This provides a strong incentives for companies to actively recruit from Kelley.A lot of it depends on what type of target company one is looking for.In particular, Kelley seems to have the strongest connections in:CPG -- Kelley has about the deepest connections to brand positions at the major CPG companies than any other school. Plus, there are a lot of people going there from Kelley, so you have the critical mass for the CPG companies to want to push hard to have a presence with Kelley students and the school.Midwest-based Retail Companies -- Deep connections with most of the large retailers in the Midwest, including the likes of Target, Sears and Best Buy.Durables -- Deep connections with Whirlpool (people go there every year and a top exec is a Kelley grad) and I know there are Kelley people at the major US auto companies as well as Toyota.Services -- Deep connections with Nationwide (Columbus, OH) and (lately) GM OnStar (Meto Detroit), among othersPharma/Nutritionals -- Places students every year at Eli Lilly (no surprise there), Abbott (it has several different US locations that marketing folks go to, depending on the industry within Abbott), Mead Johnson Nutritionals, Pfizer, and a few others.As already noted, if your GMAT is up to par, I would think 2 years of WE would still be doable at Kelley, provided that it is a solid 2 years with good leadership experience, etc.Cheers,Tom
Can gentrification benefit both long-time neighborhood residents and gentrifiers alike?

It's a knotty issue to tackle in five minutes, but filmmaker Nelson George uses interviews and animation in "Degentrify America," to dig into the question that is central to America's rent-burdened urban renaissance.

George's film is part of "Take 5: Justice In America," a series of five vignettes released by AMC Networks.

The film features interviews with urban planning expert Martine August and Donna Mossman, a Crown Heights resident and co-founder of the Crown Heights Tenants Union.

August gives the basic definition of gentrification as "the production of space for more affluent users." According to a recent report, 15 of New York's neighborhoods are currently gentrifying to varying degrees.

At the same time, there are concerted efforts to tamp down on gentrification's negative effects on New Yorkers as well as those who exploit the misery of long-time residents for profit. Steve Croman was arrested on May 9th, facing allegations that include harassing rent-stabilized tenants, incentivizing harassment, and ignoring work requests. Only two days before that, three of landlord Raphael Toledano's buildings were tested for toxic lead dust.

All five films in the Take 5 series will be available to stream online for free via the SundanceNow Doc Club website.
Four people were injured, including three pedestrians, when the driver of a stolen SUV allegedly fled police, ran a red light and crashed into another SUV driver in East Flatbush this morning, police said.

The crash took place at about 9:15 a.m. at the intersection of Remsen Avenue and Rutland Road, according to the NYPD. When cops tried to pull over Stephen Brumaire, 18, in a Chevy Tahoe, he allegedly blew a red light and slammed into the driver of a Nissan Pathfinder who was crossing the intersection with the light on Rutland. The collision sent the two vehicles careening in different directions, the Tahoe into a 34-year-old woman and a 2-year-old boy in a stroller, and the Pathfinder into a 10-month-old baby boy.

Paramedics drove the three pedestrians to Kings County Hospital in stable condition, and the 57-year-old Nissan driver to Brookdale Hospital, also stable, police said.

Officers arrested Brumaine and charged him with assault, fleeing police, speeding, grand larceny, possession of stolen property, stealing a car, unlicensed driving, and run

Update May 17th: This story has been updated to reflect new details of the crash provided by the NYPD. An initial report by an FDNY spokesman said that an NYPD driver was involved in the collision.


NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton does not hold back in his assessments of ATV and dirt bike riders who speed en masse on city streets, pop wheelies, and run red lights when the weather starts to warm up. "We have significant resources out looking to get these characters, these knuckleheads if you will," Bratton told reporters last month, adding, "they're not going to be too happy when we take those damn [bikes] and crush them."

That public display of force could take place as soon as tomorrow afternoon, according to the department. And in an apparent effort to get New Yorkers jaw grinding and knuckle cracking, the NYPD recently invited ABC on a ride-along with bike busters from the 44th Precinct in the Bronx. It turns out cops on the ground communicate with helicopters from the NYPD's aviation unit, tracking bikers who are apparently aware of being stalked from above.

"Aviaton: up above, in the sky... they can tell us what direction they [the bikers] are heading," one cop told ABC.

"[Bikers once] went under the train tracks trying to elude us, so they are aware they're being watched," another added.

ABC also documented officers blocking bikes into alleys, blaring sirens, and breaking locks with massive pliers. According to Brian Mullen of the 44th, the majority of the bikes confiscated this year to date have been unregistered and unlicensed, many of them stolen. This year to date, hundreds have been confiscated in the South Bronx, Northern Manhattan and Brooklyn.

ATVs and dirt bikes are illegal within NYC limits, but the NYPD has a policy against chasing caravans of riders on city streets (in October 2013, one chase ended with a police officer shooting an ATV driver; in 2013, officers fatally struck a man on a dirt bike during a chase).

"We like to apprehend them as they are gassing up in the gas stations or as they are gathering in parks or deserted streets," NYPD Housing Chief Carlos Gomez told reporters last month. "We'll descend on the streets and apprehend as best we can."

Here's a warmup to this week's bike-crushing porn:


(Getty Images)

President Barack Obama addressed Rutgers University's Class of 2016 yesterday, issuing a pointed critique of Donald Trump's know-nothing candidacy.

"Facts, evidence, reason, logic, an understanding of sciencethese are good things. These are qualities you want in people making policy. These are qualities you want to continue to cultivate in yourselves as citizens," the president said.

We traditionally have valued those things. But if you were listening to todays political debate, you might wonder where this strain of anti-intellectualism came from. So, Class of 2016, let me be as clear as I can be. In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue. It's not cool to not know what you're talking about. That's not keeping it real, or telling it like it is. That's not challenging political correctness. That's just not knowing what you're talking about. And yet, we've become confused about this.

While Obama never explicitly named Trump, his speech was called "a tough, aggressive takedown of the Republican presidential front-runner" and "the beginning of a forceful effort to help elect a Democratic successor as president" by the Times and the Washington Post.

The president took on Trump's desire to build a wall and to ban Muslims:

The world is more interconnected than ever before, and its becoming more connected every day. Building walls wont change that... It won't boost our economy, and it wont enhance our security either. Isolating or disparaging Muslims, suggesting that they should be treated differently when it comes to entering this country that is not just a betrayal of our values that's not just a betrayal of who we are, it would alienate the very communities at home and abroad who are our most important partners in the fight against violent extremism. Suggesting that we can build an endless wall along our borders, and blame our challenges on immigrantsthat doesnt just run counter to our history as the worlds melting pot; it contradicts the evidence that our growth and our innovation and our dynamism has always been spurred by our ability to attract strivers from every corner of the globe. That's how we became America. Why would we want to stop it now?



Indeed (Getty Images)

Obama also lamented how "actual experts" are being called "elitists" by politicians; from the transcript:

The debate around climate change is a perfect example of this. Now, I recognize it doesnt feel like the planet is warmer right now. (Laughter.) I understand. There was hail when I landed in Newark. (Laughter.) (The wind starts blowing hard.) (Laughter.) But think about the climate change issue. Every day, there are officials in high office with responsibilities who mock the overwhelming consensus of the world's scientists that human activities and the release of carbon dioxide and methane and other substances are altering our climate in profound and dangerous ways. A while back, you may have seen a United States senator trotted out a snowball during a floor speech in the middle of winter as proof that the world was not warming. (Laughter.) I mean, listen, climate change is not something subject to political spin. There is evidence. There are facts. We can see it happening right now. (Applause.) If we dont act, if we don't follow through on the progress we made in Paris, the progress we've been making here at home, your generation will feel the brunt of this catastrophe. So its up to you to insist upon and shape an informed debate. Imagine if Benjamin Franklin had seen that senator with the snowball, what he would think. Imagine if your 5th grade science teacher had seen that. (Laughter.) Hed get a D. (Laughter.) And hes a senator! (Laughter.) Look, I'm not suggesting that cold analysis and hard data are ultimately more important in life than passion, or faith, or love, or loyalty. I am suggesting that those highest expressions of our humanity can only flourish when our economy functions well, and proposed budgets add up, and our environment is protected. And to accomplish those things, to make collective decisions on behalf of a common good, we have to use our heads. We have to agree that facts and evidence matter. And we got to hold our leaders and ourselves accountable to know what the heck theyre talking about.

The president's commencement speech at the NJ school took about two years of lobbying and planning, and his presence bumped Bill Moyers from the headlining speech spot (Moyers spoke at the Arts & Sciences commencement instead). While he was bold about the way he wanted graduates to go forth, Obama was cowardly when it came down to a very important issue: Whether NJ should be using the term "Taylor ham" or "pork roll."

Here's the president's full speech, plus a transcript from the White House:
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Last year at Sasquan the worldcon business meeting passed two proposals to change the voting procedures for the Hugo Awards, to deal with the problems posed by slating. WSFS rules require that a change be passed by two successive worldcons before it takes effect, however, so both 4/6 and EPH will be up again for vote at MidAmericon II in August.The 4/6 proposal is pretty straightforward. At present there are five finalists in each category, and each voter gets to nominate five choices for those five slots. 4/6 would increase the number of finalists to six, and simultaneously decrease the number of nominations allowed each voter to four. The theory being that a slate voting lockstep might take four slots, but not the whole category.EPH, which stands for E Pluribus Hugo, is considerably more complicated, and I will not attempt to describe it here. It was designed by mathematicians and voting theorists, and will supposedly prevent a small disciplined minority from taking all the slots on the ballot. There's been plenty of discussion and debate about EPH all over the internet.Most recently, the designers of EPH have done a test run to see what impact the system would have had on the latest ballot. The results, and a spirited discussion of same, can be found over on Mike Glyer's FILE 770, here: http://file770.com/?p=28946#comments ((For those of an academic and mathematical bent, the hard crunchy bits are here: https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/Proportional_Voting_System.pdf ))From where I sit, the EPH results are not very encouraging.Over the past few months, I've read countless variations of the statement that goes, "well, this is the last year we will have a problem, come summer we'll pass EPH and all will be fine." I had my doubts about that every time I heard it, and this new report just confirms them. We may indeed pass EPH, and it may help... a little... but all willbe fine.We may pass 4/6 too, and that could also help... slightly... but it's easily thwarted, if you have hundreds of followers who will do exactly as you tell them, and the Rabids seem to have just that.If EPH and 4/6, or both, are passed at MidAmericon II, and work more-or-less as advertised, the slates will no longer be able to completely dominate entire categories by taking all five slots. The reforms should ensure that there are at least one or two legitimate nominees in every category. Which is better, certainly, than what has happened to Best Related Work the past two ballots, say. But it is still far from ideal. Future ballots will instead look more like last year's Best Novelette, Best Professional Artist, and Best Fan Writer shortlists, or this year's Best Fan Artist, all of which featured one legit choice and four slate candidates. Maybe we'd see some improvement in some categories, and have two finalists to choose between.Better than what we have now? Sure. But comparable to being able to choose among five strong candidates to decide which one was the very best of the year? Not even close.I can hear the proponents of EPH and 4/6 saying their reforms were never meant to be a cure all. Yes, I know that, I never believed otherwise, and I applaud your efforts to help. I just wish these reforms helped. Neither EPH nor 4/6 is going to prevent us from having VD on the Best Editor shortlist from now until the heat death of the universe.And I also know that there are now other proposals out there, proposals that call for three-stage voting, for negative votes and blackballing, for juries. Some of these cures, I fear, might be even worse than the disease. We have plenty of juried awards; we don't need another. Three-stage voting, with fifteen semi-finalists that get boiled down to five finalists and one winner? Maybe, but that considerably increases the workload of the Hugo administrators, whose job is hard enough already... and I fear it would actually ratchet up campaigning, as friends and fans of those on the List of Fifteen rallied around their favorites to get them on the List of Five. And a blackball round, voting thingsthe ballot? Is that really a can of worms we want to open, in this present climate? That would dial the ugliness up to eleven, I fear... or higher.Sadly, I don't think there is an answer here. No magic bullet is going to fix this. And I fear that the people saying, "pretty soon the assholes will get bored and go away," are being hopelessly naive. The assholes are having far too much fun.A year ago April, when Sasquan announced the ballot, I wrote the Hugo Awards had been broken, and might never be fixed. A lot has happened since that time, and from time to time I've allowed myself to think that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, that this too would pass. Now I am starting to fear that my first reaction was the correct one.The Hugo Awards have always been an occasion for joy, for celebrating excellence and recognizing the best among us. That's what we need to get back to. But I don't see how.
I am writing today to urge the decent, responsible voters of Montana to not support Donald Trump for president this November. This presumptive nominee for president has a history of denigrating political opponents, railing against the press, taunting women with misogynistic comments, as well as making jokes about disabled Americans. On July 11, 2015 Trump said the following about Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.: "He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured." Such complete disrespect for a sitting U.S. senator, war hero, and a captured POW was an affront to anyone who says they support our military veterans. However, this comment only made him more popular with Republican primary voters.

The most reprehensible thing about Donald Trump to me is his implicit support from white supremacists. William Johnson was recently selected by the Donald Trump campaign to be one of the 169 delegates for the state of Iowa at the Republican National Convention. Johnson is the head of the white supremacist American Freedom Party (AFP). He paid for a series of robocalls and radio time in Iowa and Utah in support of Trump's candidacy. His robocalls that went out to many Iowa voters stated: "The white race is dying out in America and Europe because we are afraid to be called 'racist.'

In an interview with CNN on May 11, Johnson was quoted saying: For many, many years, when I would say these things, other white people would call me names: Oh, youre a hatemonger, youre a Nazi, youre like Hitler. Now they come in and say, Oh, youre like Donald Trump.

It was only until earlier this week, that it was discovered that Mr. Trumps campaign had hired him to be a delegate for his candidacy at the Republic National Convention. After media scrutiny, the campaign has rescinded his selection as a delegate, stating his selection was due to a database error. In addition to support from Johnson, Trump has also been supported by David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Klu Klux Klan.

Donald Trump is a dangerous demagogue who flirts with white supremacists. The reason why he is their candidate is because the interests of white supremacists coincide with those of Donald Trump. They both support forced deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants, as well as building a border wall with Mexico to prevent illegal immigration from Central and Latin America.

Brent Beardslee

Helena
A decision in the ongoing lawsuit involving the city of Helenas rights to water from Ten Mile Creek affirmed nearly all of the citys ability to continue using the creek as a source of drinking water.

However, its unclear if Water Judge Loren Tuckers April 25 decision will again be brought before the state Supreme Court.

John Bloomquist, who represents the Community of Rimini and Andy Skinner, the objectors in the case, could not be reached for comment on Friday.

City Attorney Thomas Jodoin also was unavailable for comment.

The water rights dispute dates back to the late 1990s, according to Water Judge Ted Mizners November 2013 ruling that went to the Supreme Court, which sent it back to the Water Court for further legal review.

Tucker has also seen the case previously and his latest decision on the challenge to the citys water rights upholds all but 0.6 cubic feet per second of the 13.75 cfs that the city claimed.

A cubic foot of water amounts to nearly 7.5 gallons.

The 0.6 cfs that Tucker determined the city had abandoned as a result of at least 63 years of non-use, from 1948 to 2011, represented the difference between the water right that the city claimed and the capacity of its Rimini pipeline.

This period easily suffices to raise a presumption of intent to abandon, Tucker wrote in his decision of the 63 years.

A municipal water user qualifies for the presumption of non-abandonment if it used any part of the water right and met at least one of four criteria contained in a state law, the decision stated.

While there was no dispute that the city did use part of its water rights, the dispute focused on three of the four sections of state law. Tucker concluded the city met those requirements.

Construction of the Rimini pipeline met one of the criteria that called for acquiring, constructing or maintaining on a routine basis a diversion or conveyance structure for the future municipal use of the water right.

Similarly, a municipal water right qualifies for the presumption of non-abandonment if a formal study is prepared by a registered professional engineer or qualified consulting firm that includes a feasibility assessment and addresses whether the amount of the water right is reasonable for the foreseeable future need.

The final point of dispute between the city and the objectors involved use of the water for an emergency.

During the wintry months when no one is irrigating their lawns, the city relies entirely on the creek to provide the city with drinking water.

The average daily use is about 3 million gallons, city officials have said.

During the summer months, when daily demand can reach 14 million gallons of water because people are irrigating lawns, Missouri River water supplements the 8 million to 9 million gallons of water each day that the city draws from the creek.
The Democratic candidate for Montanas lone U.S. House seat wants six debates across the state with her opponent, incumbent U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau, who announced her candidacy last fall, asked for the debates in a letter to Zinke that was sent Friday.

I recognize that none of us want to have a debate about debates, but its important to agree upon and quickly set a realistic number of debates between now and the general election, she wrote.

Juneau proposes a series of debates over the summer and fall in Billings, Bozeman, Great Falls, Butte, Pablo and Glendive. She wants each moderated by an independent news or community organization.

She wrote about Glendive being an important location, echoing the infrastructure needs brought on by a booming and now-declining oil play, something many candidates have referenced this election.

Juneau also wrote of the Pablo location: I cant recall there ever having been a congressional debate held on any of Montanas seven recognized Indian reservations. Thats unfortunate and something we can change this election cycle. I propose that we hold a debate halfway between Missoula and Kalispell in Pablo at the Salish Kootenai College.

In 2006, then U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R, and his challenger Monica Lindeen, D, scheduled a debate at Fort Peck Community College in Poplar, according to an Associated Press story previewing the event.

Zinke campaign spokeswoman Heather Swift said they'd received the letter.

"We ... look forward to working with Montana media organizations on several debates. The people of Montana deserve to hear their candidates take on the most important issues like the fallout of the nuclear Iran Deal, Syrian refugees coming to Missoula, and the future of coal jobs."

In 2014, Zinke said he would pull out of a debate against Democratic candidate John Lewis in Billings, but then changed his mind and agreed to participate in the debate.

Zinke said he had a scheduling conflict. The debates sponsors, the Billings Gazette and Yellowstone Public Radio, changed the format to a forum with Lewis, but then Zinke said he changed his plans to accommodate the event.

The two also debated in Kalispell and Bozeman.

Juneau is the fist American Indian woman elected to statewide office in Montana, and would be the first American Indian congresswoman if elected.
WASHINGTON -- Save us all the faux drama. We already know how this star-crossed courtship is going to end: House Speaker Paul Ryan will decide that Donald Trump isn't such an ogre after all, and they'll live unhappily ever after.

Ryan will be unhappy, at least. Trump has stolen his party, and there's nothing Ryan can do in the short term to get it back.

"I heard a lot of good things from our presumptive nominee," Ryan told reporters after his much-ballyhooed Thursday meeting with Trump. "I do believe we are now planting the seeds to get ourselves unified to bridge the gaps and differences."

Translation: Ryan may still not be "there yet," in terms of a formal endorsement, but we should have no doubt about where he's headed.

Trump came to Washington for meetings with Ryan and other GOP establishment figures as a conqueror, not a supplicant. His populism, xenophobia, isolationism, bigotry and evident love of big government may be anathema to the Republican elite, but the party's base clearly feels otherwise. Anyone choosing self-interest over principle, a habit I have observed among politicians, would think twice about opposing a man who received more primary votes than any previous GOP nominee.

Thus we witness a shameful parade of quislings. The most galling surrender may have been that of Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who says he will support the nominee even though Trump cruelly ridiculed him for being shot down and captured during the Vietnam War.

McCain's military service was a profile in courage; what he's doing now is not. Leaving aside the personal insult, McCain has spent his career advocating a muscular foreign policy. His has been one of the loudest and most persistent voices arguing that more U.S. troops be sent to Syria and Iraq. Trump, by contrast, has proclaimed an "America first" doctrine that focuses resources on solving problems at home. Trump has even expressed deep skepticism about NATO, which has been the cornerstone of the West's security architecture for more than half a century.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, McCain's closest soul mate on national security issues, is one of the few leading Republicans who remain in the "never Trump" camp. He vowed this week that "no re-education camp" would change his mind.

What's the difference between the two amigos? Graham doesn't have to face South Carolina voters again until 2020. McCain is running for re-election this year, and watched as Trump scored a blowout victory in Arizona's presidential primary in March.

Ryan is, or perhaps was, the last great hope of those Republicans who oppose Trump on ideological and historical grounds. The party of Lincoln has a storied past -- the landmark civil rights laws of the 1960s, for example, never could have made it through Congress without GOP support. This heritage has been dishonored in recent years; among other transgressions, Republican governors and state legislatures across the country are trying to discourage minority voters with restrictive voter-identification laws. But there are those, such as Ryan, who profess to believe that the party can still be compassionate and inclusive.

Not with Trump in charge, however. Trump's appeal has been built on anger, grievance and nostalgia for a golden age that never was (at least for women and people of color). To the extent he has any coherent political philosophy, it is one of exclusion. His one unwavering promise involves the building of a wall.

Everything else, it seems, is negotiable. Having sewn up the nomination, Trump has entered the "three-card Monte" phase of his campaign in which he shuffles his positions so quickly that the gullible patsy loses track. His proposed ban on Muslim immigration? That was a mere "suggestion," he said the other day. His view that wages are too high? He now wants to see the minimum wage raised, but by the states, not the federal government. His view on whether the rich should pay more in taxes? Yes, no and maybe.

Ryan acknowledged after his meeting with Trump that "differences" remain. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has endorsed Trump, as has most of Ryan's leadership team in the House. If Ryan were to announce at this point that he deems Trump unfit for the presidency and therefore cannot support him, he would become the leader of a movement with few followers.

The Republican Party will not be united this fall. In what promises to be a display of cravenness on an epic scale, it will pretend to be.
Editor's Note: This is the letter Gov. Bruce Rauner will send to state employees after his veto Monday of HB580.

OPEN LETTER TO STATE EMPLOYEES:

For too many years, Illinoisans have been misled. Each of you in state government has been misled. Taxpayers who fund government have been misled. Recipients of public services, including our most vulnerable residents, have also been misled. The consequences are before us, and they are dire.

I ran for office to right these wrongs. I believe that solving our states crisis requires a simple first step  for someone to tell the truth. So here it is.

The truth is that Illinois is broke. Our taxpayers, who pay the highest property taxes in the nation, are maxed out and local governments continue to raise property taxes.

Expanding the size of government faster than middle-class paychecks are growing is a failing strategy. That is why I have no choice but to veto AFSCMEs arbitration bill, HB580.

Its not because I dont want to see you earn a better living today. I do. I veto HB580 because I want to protect the pension system that you are counting on for your retirement.

If I signed this bill, I would be subjecting all taxpayers to another $3 billion in higher taxes. That makes no sense when too many jobs have been leaving Illinois, and those hardworking Illinoisans that remain see their incomes falling.

We can make Illinois a state where our employees receive the pension benefits they were promised, where our budget is truly balanced through strong economic growth rather than destructive tax hikes, and where our state workers are not forced to work in decaying buildings with technology that is older than my children and furniture that is older than me.

I pledged on my first day in office to build a partnership with state employees, and that is exactly what we have done. Our 1970s computers are being replaced with next generation technology. With the General Assemblys help, I pledged to put the Thompson Center up for sale and move employees to more modern space. We pushed for more flexible scheduling and ended Rod Blagojevichs corrupt hiring system.

When Attorney General Madigan sought to shut off pay, Comptroller Munger and I defeated that misguided attack on state employees. And I have called on the General Assembly to honor Governor Quinns failed promise of wage increases from 2011. We must respect our commitments and not make new commitments that we cannot afford.

We also sought employees ideas for improvements and savings, prompting us to send out the first-ever state employee survey. The results were eye-opening.

You told me that promotions and compensation are not based on merit. You told me that agencies dont reward creativity and innovation. I want to reward hard work and ingenuity. Unfortunately, union leadership is blocking many of these common sense ideas  ideas that you want. Rest assured, I heard your desire for these reforms loud and clear.

So my administration took action. We launched a truly meaningful merit pay program. We started a gainsharing program that will reward state employees for helping save taxpayers money. We implemented a rapid results system that removes obstacles to employee innovation and allows employees to personally change processes that impede good customer service.

But as I have noted, with a truly historic budget deficit and skyrocketing debt, our taxpayers cannot afford the added spending pressure of huge wage and health insurance increases. That is why I must veto HB580, ensuring that the legal process agreed to with AFSCME leaders and currently underway before the Labor Board, is allowed to proceed and fairly resolve any outstanding issues.

But I make this pledge: The State will honor its promises to you. We will continue to listen and build a workplace that values and rewards hard work, innovation, and creativity, all in a welcoming work environment. We will keep fighting to get you paid in full and on time. And we will continue to stand for fiscal discipline so that you and your families can again know you are, finally, being told the truth.

Gov. Bruce Rauner
New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Windy. Thunderstorms, some heavy during the evening will give way to mainly clear skies after midnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low near 55F. Winds NW at 25 to 35 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Windy. Thunderstorms, some heavy during the evening will give way to mainly clear skies after midnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low near 55F. Winds NW at 25 to 35 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
On May 15 at 3 p.m., three men entered the Garni village drugstore of Arousyak Ayvazyan and proceeded to verbally assault her.

Mrs. Ayvazyan told this reporter that the three men entered the store and said they wanted to purchase some medicine. They then started to talk to her in a menacing tone and said they would be sending investigators to see her.

The men said that her son hadnt done his military service and that they would send him to the frontline.

Mrs. Ayvazyan told the men that they were mistaken and that her son has finished his military service some time ago. One of the men started to talk to the shop owner in a vulgar manner, to which Mrs. Ayvazyan replied that she would call the police. The men quickly left.

Mrs. Ayvazyan followed them out and spotted them getting into a Mercedes Benz car with a 01TP001 license plate.

Mrs. Ayvazyan says she recognized the three men. Two of them had arrived in Garni three days before with a number of government officials (State Water Resources Committee President Aram Haroutyunyan, Kotayk Governor Karapet Gouloyan, etc.), for a public meeting on a controversial irrigation project that plans to divert water from the local Azat River and pipe it to communities in Ararat.

On that day, Garni residents boycotted the meeting and gathered outside the village cultural center. The officials pushed their way through the crowd and entered the center. They then called on residents to follow them inside. The officials wanted reporters to take pictures as if a public hearing had indeed taken place.

When residents refused, the hapless officials sought the assistance of the above three men and others in their employ who had made the trip, to salvage the situation.

These lackeys tried to coerce residents into the cultural center by using verbal insults. Their ploy failed.

Heres a video showing how they tried to intimidate Garni residents.

It would appear that not being able to swallow their defeat, these ruffians have returned to Garni and are trying to silence Arousyak Ayvazyan and other local community members who are actively opposing the government-backed irrigation project.

This is the second time that Mrs. Ayvazyan has been threatened in the past month. The first time, she was threatened over the phone. She went to the police, providing the number of the phone used, but so far law enforcement has taken no action.
Asl Cavusoglus Red/Red (2015) work will be shown at the Arab Museum of Modern Art (Mathaf) in Doha, Qatar, from May 22-September 11.

This is the first presentation of Red/Red at Mathaf following its production for the 14th Istanbul Biennial, SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms, (2015), with support from Qatar Museums.

Asl Cavusoglus Red / Red (2015) explores the physicality of a colour to tell a story of coexistence and communality. Delicate drawings are made on worn papers and handmade notebooks in two red inks: Armenian red, extracted from the endangered Armenian cochineal insect, and Turkish red, now used in the national flag. As the patterns modernise from floral to geometric shapes, the resilience of each pigment as it transforms over time is also reflected. In the work, the Turkish red holds its colour while the Armenian fades, narrating the changing physical and allegorical links to national culture, identity, and memory.

Cavusoglu studied Armenian cochineal, from its earliest extraction in the 7th century BC to its use in manuscripts, or miniature paintings, to document Armenian culture and life. The pigment comes from a carminic acid found in the Ararat or Armenian cochineal insect living in the roots of the Aeluropus littoralis plant. This plant is indigenous to the Aras (Araks) River valley, which forms the natural border between Turkey and Armenia. On the Turkish side of the river, knowledge of how to produce Armenian cochineal red has been lost since 1915, while on the Armenian side the plant and insect are threatened by extinction due to 20th century industrialisation.

The work explores this pigments disappearance, speaking to the political and ecological histories of this region. Red / Red advocates for the protection of the delicate social and organic systems of the Aras valley  human, plant, and animal life  to support a communally protected ecosystem and shared knowledge of production that will preserve the recording of its collective past, present and future existence.

Asl Cavusoglu was born in Istanbul in 1982. Her research-based practice explores the production and interpretation of cultural and ecological archaeologies and social histories. Working in video, drawing, and installation, Cavusoglu explores the conditions and histories of artistic and cultural production, and traditions of display.

Recent solo shows include The Stones Talk, ARTER, Istanbul (2013) and Murder in Three Acts, Delfina Foundation, London (2013). Recent group shows include the14th Istanbul Biennial, SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms, (2015); The Crime Was Almost Perfect, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2014); and Signs Taken in Wonder, MAK Museum, Vienna (2013).

Cavusoglu lives and works in Istanbul.

Top Photo: Red/Red, 2015, Armenian and Turkish red on worn-out papers and worn-out handmade notebooks / Sahir Ugur Eren.
Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.
Plain Talk: Just how dumb does Scott Walker think we are?
When Chris Enos first visited UW-Madison from Boston, Massachusetts, he looked at the Abraham Lincoln statue that overlooks Bascom Hill and told himself one day hed get to sit on Abes lap.

That day came Sunday.

It all comes full circle, said Enos, 23, who graduated Saturday with a degree in civil engineering, but waited until Sunday for the annual tradition shared each semester by hundreds of graduates of sitting on Lincolns lap for a photo shoot in their cap and sometimes slippery gown.

Touching Abes well-worn nose is said to bring good luck. And the university has made getting up on the statue easier by providing a ladder. Enos girlfriend, Vreni Pigorsch, 22, said a friend who graduated two years ago used a giant trash can to climb up.

Theres such a superstition that if you jump in Abes lap as an undergraduate, its bad luck, said Pigorsch, who is from Verona.

Pigorsch graduated Friday with a degree in strategic communication from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She said she and Enos came two weeks ago to take formal photos on Lincolns lap but there was a two-hour line.

Those there Sunday at 10:30 a.m. said the wait was only about 45 minutes. Most students did multiple poses, many making the W sign with their fingers. Almost everyone also got shots with their families in front.

The statue was first unveiled in 1909, a century after Lincolns birth. Ten years later, it was moved from its original location between North and South halls to its current position in front of Bascom Hall.

UW-Madison alumnus Richard Lloyd Jones worked with sculptor Adolph Weinman, and donated the statue. It is the only replica of a statue Weinman previously erected in Hodgenville, Kentucky, near Lincolns birthplace. In 1905, Jones purchased the farm where Lincoln was born. However, the inscription attributes the gift to Madisonian Thomas Brittingham, who paid for casting the statue and its pedestal.

Lincoln is considered a patron of the university because he signed the Morrill Land Grant College Act in 1862. The Morrill Act provided federal aid to land-grant colleges, and allowed UW-Madison to buy 933 acres for less than $2 per acre.

To mark its centennial in 2009, a Milwaukee art conservator power-washed and waxed the statue to get rid of surface deposits from air pollutants, grit and bird droppings. It underwent another restoration and cleaning 10 years earlier.

Mitch Abeln, 22, who graduated over the weekend with a degree in nuclear engineering, said he had to rub Abes nose before leaving campus. Abeln said rubbing Abes shoe, which can be reached from the ground and is also shiny, brings good luck on midterms and final exams.

Anyone can do that, Abeln said, noting that rubbing the nose is only for graduates. As he rubbed Lincolns nose Sunday he said it felt like four years of work finally came together.

As for Enos and girlfriend Pigorsch, they both rubbed Lincolns nose for luck, but Enos, who plans to attend graduate school at UW-Madison in the fall, also gave Honest Abe a pat on the chest and said he would see him again in two years.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify that Richard Lloyd Jones purchased the Lincoln family farm in 1905. Lincoln was born in 1809.
Joyce Veir of Stoughton would like her college diploma, which she cant find, replaced. She got it in 1960 from UW-Platteville, which awarded her the prestigious PHT, though at the time the school was called the Wisconsin State College and Institute of Technology at Platteville.

If you have never heard of the PHT degree, then you were not a married woman in the 1950s or 1960s.

In 1960, my husband Roger received a BS in Mining Engineering from Platteville State College and Institute of Technology, she wrote to SOS. I received a PHT (Putting Husband Through) degree, suitable for framing, from the same institution.

My husband was a returning veteran, Korean War, and many of our friends were also GI bill students. Where did this idea originate? Were there other state colleges doing this?

I qualified for receiving my degree because I was employed by the college as the secretary to the Dean of Women and Dean of Men.

The Veirs, along with other students in similar domestic situations, didnt have time to dally in college. They had already gone through the Korean War together, when they were sent to England for three years to build an airfield. Thats where their first daughter, Marianne, was born.

We had to have a job immediately so we didnt stick around for graduation, she said, so her PHT was mailed to her. The Veirs had four children  three daughters and a son  and Roger Veir worked as an engineer.

Betty Friedan referred to PHT in The Feminine Mystique, and it was part of the vernacular in describing the changes in womens roles over the decades. But awarding the informal certificates to students wives?

SOS contacted James Hibbard, the archivist for UW-Platteville. He hadnt heard of the practice at Platteville, and he couldnt find any reference to it.

There are many examples of colleges giving similar certificates to wives, however. In 1950-51, for example, Stanford University printed fancy PHT honorary degrees, signed by the president of Stanford. SOS found certificates referenced for Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Harvard Business School.

SOS also found the Stanford Dailys story about it, noting 16 wives and one husband of graduating students of the Law School were awarded the honorary degree of PHT (L.S.) for Putting Husband Through.

The article, from January 1951, continues: Receiving the degrees Magna cum Labore, the wives were recognized for extraordinary services rendered above and beyond the conjugal duties.

SOS could not find mention of the PHT diplomas being awarded informally at UW-Madison. But in spring 1962, the Wisconsin Academy Review carried a poem, written by Emeritus Professor Lelia Bascom:

Eagle Heights where G.I.s stay, house those working for B.A.

Or maybe for the high degree, known to us as Ph.D.,

Wives of G.I.s work in town, selling rouge, perhaps a gown,

Plugging for their own degree, which they call PHT.

Known to us as something new, Putting Husband Through.
A 63-year-old Beloit man was shot early Sunday morning while sitting on his porch, the shots coming from a car driving by.

The incident happened at about 1:20 a.m. Sunday at 612 St. Lawrence Ave., police said.

The victim told police he was on his porch when he was struck by gunfire coming from a dark-colored car.

"The victim sustained a non-life-threatening wound and was treated at a local hospital," police said.

Investigators looking into the case said evidence from the scene didn't appear to be consistent with the account provided by the victim, so detectives are asking for the public's help if there is information to be gained from witnesses.
A carbon monoxide detector alerted two Madison residents to a potentially deadly situation early Sunday morning, the couple getting out of their apartment before getting harmed by the gas.

Madison firefighters soon found out the couple had used two charcoal grills a few hours before, and put the grills in their garage located directly under the apartment.

The incident happened at about 1:45 a.m. Sunday on Carrington Drive on the city's Far West Side.

"The couple called 911 after their alarm went off twice, but then fell silent," said MFD spokeswoman Cynthia Schuster.

CO monitors used by firefighters showed levels of 60 parts per million in the hallway of the apartment building, and levels of 125 ppm in the apartment.

"After talking with the couple about what the cause could be, they said they had used the grills and the grills were in the garage," Schuster said.

Firefighters put on breathing apparatus to enter the garage, where they found CO levels to be reaching 900 ppm, and one of the charcoal grills was still smoldering.

"The garage door was opened and the grills were brought outside," Schuster said. "The garage, apartment and common hallway were ventilated."

A neighbor in an adjacent apartment was wakened to see if she was experiencing any symptoms of CO poisoning, but she wasn't.

After readings fell to zero, the residents were allowed back into their apartment.
An early morning apartment building fire on Sunday put 20 people out of their homes in Janesville, with damages estimated to be $1,000,000.

One occupant suffered possible smoke inhalation in the fire that was reported at about 5:45 a.m. at the Village Green Apartments, 1410 Morningside Drive, the Janesville Fire Department said.

The preliminary investigation said the cause of the fire was from improper disposal of smoking materials.

Arriving firefighters saw smoke and flames coming from the roof of the two-story, 16-unit apartment building.

All of the building's occupants evacuated after a resident pulled a fire alarm in the hallway of the building.

The fire started on a second floor balcony, went up the siding and into the attic.

"Fire crews aggressively attacked the attic fire but were unable to prevent the collapse of the roof structure into the second floor apartments," the report said.

The entire building was affected by fire, smoke and/or water damage.

Seventy-four personnel from the Janesville, Milton, Beloit, Brodhead, town of Turtle, town of Beloit and Footville Fire Departments fought the fire.

The one occupant who suffered possible smoke inhalation had gone back into the burning building to rescue a pet cat. The cat was found by firefighters and removed from the building. Two other cats were not accounted for at the time of the fire.
Grief counselors were on hand for students and staff at Richland Center High School on Monday, following the deaths of two students Saturday afternoon in a crash.

Brooklyn Lindvig, a 17-year-old junior, and sophomore MaKenzie Foust, 16, were killed in the crash, and junior Jacob Logterman was injured.

The crash happened shortly before 3 p.m. about four miles northwest of Richland Center on Highway A in the town of Dayton, the Sheriffs Office said. Deputies found the car overturned in a ditch.

It is with deep sadness that we need to inform you about an unfortunate event affecting our school community, the district said in a Facebook post Sunday.

The schools crisis team was called together to provide support for students and staff, and an all-student body assembly was held Monday morning, with students able to meet with counselors throughout the day.

The Sheriffs Office said no alcohol or drugs were involved in the crash.

Funeral services for Foust are on Wednesday at Pratt Memorial Chapel in Richland Center, and funeral services for Lindvig are on Sunday, also at Pratt Memorial Chapel.
A Janesville store clerk felt something didn't seem right when three teens bought items early Monday morning with some shiny coins, so the clerk had an officer check on it.

The observant clerk led to the arrest of the teens, who allegedly broke into a coin shop and took collector coins.

The oldest teen, a 17-year-old boy from Janesville, was tentatively charged with burglary and was taken to the Rock County Jail.

A 15-year-old boy from Janesville was tentatively charged with being party to the crime of burglary, party to the crime of theft, criminal damage to property and a curfew violation.

A 13-year-old boy from Janesville was tentatively charged with party to the crime of burglary, party to the crime of theft, obstructing an officer and a curfew violation.

The younger teens were taken to the Rock County Juvenile Detention Center.

According to police:

An officer stopped in Casey's General Store, 1542 Center Ave., at about 1:50 a.m. Monday just to check on the store.

"He spoke to the clerk, who alerted him to three teens in the store," the report said. "The clerk said the teens had just paid with some 'shiny' coins and something didn't seem right."

The officer talked to the teens and he determined they allegedly broke into The Coin Shop, 411 W. Milwaukee St., a couple of hours before going to Casey's General Store.

Other officers found evidence of a forced entry to a window on the north side of the store, and the owner told police collector coins had been stolen, which were recovered.
A man found by a Downtown resident in his house allegedly tried to take a laptop computer, with police arresting the man later on, allegedly with a different laptop in his back pack.

Jeffery Evans, 54, no permanent address, was tentatively charged with burglary, Madison police said.

The incident happened at about 3:30 p.m. Friday in the 500 block of West Washington Avenue.

The 21-year-old resident confronted Evans, who allegedly had a laptop computer of the resident's roommate in his hands.

"He put it down upon being confronted," said police spokesman Joel DeSpain. "The victim was able to provide police with a good description, and the suspect was located still in the area."

Police allegedly found the second laptop in Evans' back pack, with Evans claiming someone gave it to him.

"He had been checking doors in the neighborhood and entering residences that had been left unlocked," DeSpain said. "Officers are trying to find the owner of the seized laptop."
Former Gov. Tommy Thompson showered UW-Madison professors with praise at a graduation ceremony last week, striking a different tone from the sharp criticism of faculty members fellow Republican Gov. Scott Walker has leveled in recent days.

In a passionate speech as he accepted an honorary degree from the university Friday, Thompson  who earned his bachelors and law degrees from UW-Madison in the 1960s  thanked faculty, calling them some of the greatest professors in the United States of America.

After polite applause, Thompson told the audience of graduates and their families, You can be a little bit more enthusiastic than that  these are great professors! A larger ovation followed.

Thompson also lauded the university as an engine of economic development and research during his address at the commencement ceremony for doctoral and professional degree candidates Friday in the Kohl Center.

Thompson spoke about investments his administration made in UWs buildings, and  after a week in which some professors announced plans to leave UW-Madison  recounted state efforts to make sure top faculty members stayed at the campus.

We raised the money and we kept those professors here  and you benefited from it, he told the graduates.

Some UW supporters and professors have expressed nostalgia for Thompson and his approach to higher education, comparing it to a Walker administration they say is hostile to the university and its faculty in the wake of budget cuts and new tenure policies that weakened job protections.

Speaking Saturday at Wisconsin Republicans state convention in Green Bay, Walker continued criticism of professors that he has intensified since campuses across the University of Wisconsin System have begun passing votes of no confidence in top UW officials.

Walker derided one such vote at UW-Milwaukee last week as a fuss by faculty there. He has accused professors of being well-paid employees who want a job for life but have been indifferent to the concerns of students as college costs have risen.

On Monday, Walker told conservative talk radio host Charlie Sykes, We had the audacity to just put a slight restraint on this job-for-life tenure program that they had at the University of Wisconsin System and thats really what got (faculty) upset.

State Journal reporter Matt Defour contributed to this report.
The Madison Fire Department responded to a fire Saturday at the YWCA, but an automatic sprinkler system extinguished the fire before they got there, a fire department spokeswoman said.

Firefighters were called to 101 E. Mifflin St., just before 5 p.m. for a fire on a fifth floor hallway, said Bernadette Galvez.

As firefighters were making their way up the stairway, residents were exiting the building, she said. After the first firefighters on the scene found heavy smoke, more firefighters were summoned due to the high density of the building, Galvez said in a press release.

Damage is estimated at $25,000 and the cause of the fire is under investigation, she said. No injuries were reported. All residents were able to return to the building.

The automatic fire sprinkler system kept the fire from spreading, and limited fire damage and property loss, she said. Natural ventilation helped clear the smoke from the building, Galvez said.
State Sen. Mary Lazich, urging fellow Republican senators to enact a voter ID requirement in a closed-door meeting in 2011, told her colleagues to consider its impact in the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and the states college campuses, a top aide to a former GOP senator testified in federal court Monday.

Congressman Glenn Grothman, serving at that time as a state senator, said in the same meeting that he supported voter ID because it would help Republicans win elections, according to the aide, Todd Allbaugh.

Other Republican lawmakers in the meeting appeared giddy at those prospects, Allbaugh testified. At the time of the meeting, he was chief of staff to then-Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center.

What Im concerned about here is winning, Grothman, of Campbellsport, told his GOP colleagues, Allbaugh said.

Lazich, of New Berlin, one of the bills co-sponsors, told her Republican colleagues weve got to think about what this would mean for neighborhoods in Milwaukee and college campuses, Allbaugh said.

Democrats tend to fare well in elections in those areas, including in Milwaukee, home to a large share of Wisconsins African-American and Latino populations.

Critics of voter ID, including the plaintiffs of the lawsuit in which Allbaugh testified Monday, have argued it disproportionately hinders voting by racial minorities and young voters who are less likely to have IDs that meet the requirement.

Monday was the first day of trial for the lawsuit, which challenges voter ID and other recent changes to Wisconsin election law.

Allbaughs comments Monday were his most detailed account to date of his charge that Republican lawmakers secretly discussed that voter ID would be politically advantageous to their party before enacting it. In Wisconsin, voter ID largely has been on hold since its enactment due to court challenges; it took effect in a statewide election for the first time this year.

Others testifying in Mondays trial spoke of difficulties they encountered to get special IDs for voting from the state Department of Transportation.

One woman testified her elderly father, born in Mississippi during the Jim Crow period, was unable to get an ID because his name was misspelled on his birth certificate.

Josh Kaul, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, which include progressive groups and individual Wisconsinites who struggled to obtain voter IDs, also castigated lawmakers for failing to fund a public informational campaign about voter ID as the law requires.

The state elections board recently requested $250,000 from lawmakers for such a campaign, and lawmakers are expected to take up that request soon.

State: Concrete proof

required for claims

The state Attorney Generals office, which is defending the state against the suit, gave an opening statement in which it dismissed testimony about senators remarks five years ago as hearsay.

Assistant Attorney General Clay Kawski told Judge James D. Peterson that the standard must be high to show there was intentional racial discrimination by supporters of voter ID and other laws.

These are very serious claims, and they require very concrete proof, Kawski said.

Lazich, Schultz and Grothman couldnt be reached Monday to respond to Allbaughs testimony.

Allbaugh said it was apparent to him and others in the meeting that Lazich and Grothman were referring to making it more difficult for certain demographic groups to vote.

It was absolutely clear to me, Allbaugh testified.

Some GOP senators in the caucus meeting, including Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Brookfield, and former Sen. Randy Hopper, R-Fond du Lac, appeared giddy at those suggestions, Allbaugh testified.

Others, including Sens. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, and Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay, and former Sen. Neal Kedzie, R-Elkhorn, appeared ashen-faced and troubled by the suggestion, Allbaugh said.

Allbaugh said his boss, Schultz, interjected into the closed-caucus discussion, asking lawmakers to step back and consider the ramifications of what they were discussing.

Schultz  speaking to the Wisconsin State Journal in April, before Allbaugh fully detailed his claims  said he wasnt present at the caucus meeting during the portion that Allbaugh was describing. Schultz also said he was honor-bound not to disclose private conversations that occur in a closed caucus, but described Allbaugh as honest and trustworthy and beyond reproach.

Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, told the State Journal last month that he had no recollection of anyone being giddy about anything related to voter ID during a closed caucus meeting.

Voter ID was made law in 2011 by a Republican-led Legislature and GOP Gov. Scott Walker.

First time naming names

Allbaughs testimony expanded on controversial remarks he made on social media on the eve of Wisconsins April 5 spring election. Allbaugh, also a former aide to former GOP Congressman Scott Klug, R-Madison, wrote on Facebook last month that the voter ID law was the last straw for why he left the Republican Party and that some GOP senators were privately giddy about its prospects for suppressing voting by minorities and college students.

Monday was the first time Allbaugh named names for his claim about voter suppression.

Allbaugh testified Monday that he was a loyal Republican for many years despite key differences with the party. Those included his objections, as a gay man, to the Defense of Marriage Act, he said.

But Allbaugh said the voter ID discussion was a turning point in his personal affiliation with the GOP.

At that moment, in that room, I could not continue to stay with the party, Allbaugh said.

Grothman drew fire from Democrats on April 5 when he told a Milwaukee TV reporter that the GOP presidential nominee has a chance of winning Wisconsin this year for the first time since 1984 partly because photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference.

Allbaughs testimony is key to certain claims in the lawsuit, which challenges the voter ID requirement as well as other recent election law changes by Walker and GOP lawmakers.

Also challenged are restrictions to early voting and the elimination of straight-ticket voting and corroboration, the process by which a voter can vouch for another voters residency when they register.

Plaintiffs in the suit include One Wisconsin Institute, the research arm of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, and Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund.

The trial is expected to last nine days, according to an order filed by Peterson last week.
Reunion: The 2016 Oscar Mayer Retirees Coffee will be held from 8 to 11 a.m. on June 6 at Rexs Innkeeper, 301 N. Century Ave., in Waunakee. Cost: $8 per person. Checks should be made payable to and sent to: Eileen Koch, 4806 Felland Road, Madison, WI 53718 by May 27. All Oscar Mayer retirees are welcome.

The 142nd Lodi High School All-Class Alumni Reunion will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. June 12, at the Lodi Valley Historical Society Museum, 173 S. Main St., in Lodi. Refreshments will be served, and a business meeting will be held at 2 p.m. There is no charge, but donations will be accepted to support the Lodi High School Alumni Scholarship Fund; checks may be mailed to Barbara Johnson, 310 Prairie St., Lodi, WI 53555. The event is hosted by the Class of 1966 and the historical society. Contact Kathy Molony Johnson, lkjohnson1605@charter.net, with questions.

On July 8, the Madison East High School Class of 1958 will meet for a noon luncheon at the Coliseum Bar, 232 Olin Ave. There will be three menu choices: a veggie lasagna, or a chefs choice of beef or chicken entree, including a beverage. Cost: $15. There will also be a cash bar available. Please contact Class President, Les Nesbit, at lesmary2@charter.net or 608-221-0482 by July 1.

Grants: A United Way youth group has awarded $32,500 to local youth programs that will directly impact more than 420 youth. By Youth for Youth has awarded the money to 16 programs or projects. A few recipients include: Historical Black College/University Tour  East High School Black Student Union, $3,000; Drop the Mic: Loud and Unchained  Freedom, Inc., $2,500; Nuestras Voces: Mujeres Poderosas  Centro Hispano, $2,350. BYFY is a collaborative project of United Way, Dane County Youth Commission and City of Madison Community Development Division.

Award: UW-Madison student Dania Shoukfeh has been awarded the 2016 Excellence in Civic Engagement Undergraduate Award by the Morgridge Center for Public Service. Shoukfeh has been a food pantry volunteer with the Lussier Community Education Center for over two years. She will receive a $400 stipend.
There is now a new Cold War in Europe.

Speaking in Germany on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter warned of Russian aggression and denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin for nuclear saber-rattling and going backward in time to an earlier era of military confrontation.

A mid-April meeting between NATO and Russia  the first in two years  was highly confrontational on the Russian side, according to various reports. Russia denounced NATO moves to strengthen its Eastern defenses as a threat to Russia. And it has heightened intelligence and military operations in Eastern Europe as evidence of its rejection of NATOs decision, under President Bill Clinton, to accept nations bordering Russia as members.

Defense Secretary Carter said the United States of America will continue to hold out the possibility that Russia will assume the role of a constructive partner moving forward, adding, We do not seek to make Russia an enemy.

But NATOs departing supreme commander, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, said he and his advisers believe President Putin is just one of a small group running Russia who have made their objectives clear and are likely to be in power for some time to come.

He also said Russia has made drastic improvements in its military in the past three years and that NATO now has to refocus its operations, tactics and intelligence capabilities on Russia after 14 years of fighting a counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan. He added, Now that we see that Russia has not accepted (the) hand of partnership but has chosen a path of belligerence, we need to readdress where were heading.

In his remarks at the U.S. European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Secretary Carter said Russias talk about using nuclear weapons was the most disturbing aspect of Russias new posture.

Moscows nuclear saber-rattling raises troubling questions about the commitment Russias leaders have to strategic stability, their respect for norms against the use of nuclear weapons and the profound caution that nuclear-age leaders showed with regard to brandishing nuclear weapons, he said.

Russia should make no mistake, Carter continued. We will defend our allies, the rules-based international order, and the positive future it affords us.

The New York Times reports that one concrete demonstration of this renewed commitment is a plan to deploy one additional U.S. Army combat brigade to Europe next year and to consider establishing the continuous rotation of a brigade-sized force to the territory of threatened NATO partner nations on the Russian border.

The history of the Cold War suggests that Russia will likely make counter moves that NATO will have to match to reassure its members. A new Cold War appears to be well under way, and it will require a renewed commitment to the defense of our allies and our national interests.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross has been working hard for two years to repair a long-frayed relationship between his institution and the Republicans who run state government.

Faculty resolutions expressing no confidence in his leadership wont help him convince state leaders to commit greater support for higher education in the next state budget.

The resolutions are a mistake, and they exaggerate changes to job security for the vast majority of professors across the state.

UW-Madison professors targeted Cross with a resolution this month, and several other campuses followed suit. So far, faculty at five of the states 13 public universities have adopted no-confidence measures, though UW-Eau Claire wisely refused to rush a vote last week.

Professors, some of whom bring millions of dollars in research grants to campus, are understandably upset about a $250 million state cut to UW System in the current state budget. So is a wide swath of the public, according to polling.

Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature forbid universities from raising tuition to offset the lost revenue. So some campuses are laying off staff, consolidating administrations, reducing advising services, and limiting course offerings.

That wont help Wisconsin produce more educated workers and entrepreneurs to compete in the global economy.

But the cut could have been worse. Walker originally proposed a $300 million reduction, which Cross and others lobbied to lower.

Moreover, it wasnt Cross fault lawmakers were upset with UW System. Their ire predated his presidency, peaking three years ago when a group of accountants in the Legislature highlighted more than $600 million in university reserves.

Many Republicans were outraged the university had been raising tuition while quietly setting aside money.

But a lot of the reserves, spread across many accounts and campuses, were destined for technology purchases, financial aid and other investments in student programs and services. UWs mistake wasnt having healthy reserves to fall back on. It was failing to be clear about how much it had and what the money was for.

Thats when Cross was thrust into the presidents job, as his predecessor was pressured to leave.

UWs reserves helped cushion the $250 million cut. Then came limits on faculty tenure, allowing professors to be laid off if their academic programs are discontinued. Cross understandably favors some flexibility on tenure if staff are no longer needed in an area of study that is going away.

Yet Cross has forcefully defended free speech, academic freedom and the right to pursue truth on campus. Walker quickly dropped his inexplicable attempt to nix the search for truth from UW Systems mission statement last year. And Cross defended professors  I dont like to see faculty vilified  after the governor suggested instructors should increase their workload.

Tenure has been loosened, yet it remains similar to peer universities. And UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank just said she wont lay off any tenured professors.

So the best strategy for a better state budget is to tout UW Systems contribution to Wisconsins economy, innovation and jobs. Thats what Cross is doing in an effective way.
Franks' decision not to seek his 10th term shifted Republican-leaning McHenry County's political landscape and Republican House candidate Steve Reick reacted by posting the following commentary on his website Sunday night:

After weeks of speculation, its official. Jack Franks has been slated by the Democrats to run for Chairman of the McHenry County Board and will not seek re-election to his legislative seat here in the 63rd District.

First off, I wish to thank Jack for his 18 years of service to McHenry County. Public service requires personal sacrifice, and we should acknowledge the sacrifices Jack and his family made in furtherance of that service. I wish him and his family well.

Though I lost to him in 2014 and was prepared to go toe-to-toe with him in the fall, I was never running against Jack Franks. I was, and still am running for the things that I believe will make Illinois and McHenry County a better place to live, open a business and raise a family. Those things include:

Lowering property taxes. Until we see a reduction in local property taxes, we will continue to lose businesses and population to states with lower taxes. Property tax reform can only come about if we:

Change the way we pay for education. The state constitution puts the primary responsibility for funding education on the state. The only way to enact true education funding reform is to put that responsibility where it belongs and to expand parents role in determining where and how their children are educated.

Pension reform: So long as 25% of our general revenue budget goes to pay our underfunded pensions, were never going to get a budget that meets the legitimate needs of those who rely on the State for their funding.

Regulatory relief: Illinois businesses are burdened with out of control workers compensation costs, an unrealistic prevailing wage system and other regulatory burdens which make it almost impossible to compete. Governor Rauner carried this District by 36% in 2014, and he did so by promising to enact those reforms. I pledge to help him fulfill that mandate.

Its time to get serious about the future of this State and McHenry County. I pledge to the people of the 63rd District that Im committed to representing you and no other, and that Ill carry on the tradition of having a strong, independent voice for you in Springfield. I ask for your support.
Toyota Motor's confidence in India has taken a big knock after the Supreme Court ban since mid-December last on sale of high-end diesel cars and SUVs, and the continuing uncertainty is only adding to it.

On December 16 last year, the apex court banned sale of all diesel cars/SUVs with an engine capacity of 2,000 cc or more till March 31. It then extended the ban till April 30.

By India Today Web Desk: The lingering uncertainty on sale of high-end diesel vehicles in the national capital region has come as a big blow to Japanese auto major Toyota's "confidence in India", forcing its domestic unit to rework its plans.

"Toyota Motor's confidence in India has taken a big knock after the Supreme Court ban since mid-December last on sale of high-end diesel cars and SUVs, and the continuing uncertainty... is only adding to it. But it is our job at Toyota Kirloskar Motor to reinstate that confidence," TKM Vice-Chairman Shekhar Vishwanathan said here over the weekend.

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ALSO READ: Toyota Innova to get petrol option now

Stating that "the element of trust has been broken" between Toyota and the country as a whole, he said "it has become very difficult to launch new products or commit fresh investments. This is in spite of the fact that we have been producing vehicles complying with all the norms laid out in the country from day one".

"If we were to go and ask the headquarters for new products, they would ask how do you know it will not get banned? And I have no answer. So, my first step is to make sure the ban gets lifted. If that means paying a nominal cess, so be it even though we don't believe the cess is a fair idea," he asserted.

On December 16 last year, the apex court banned sale of all diesel cars/SUVs with an engine capacity of 2,000 cc or more till March 31. It then extended the ban till April 30. As of now, there is no final word on when the SC will conclude the hearing and issue a final order.

ALSO READ: Toyota Innova Crysta launched in Mumbai; prices start at Rs 13.84 lakh

Toyota models - the Innova, Fortuner, Land Cruiser and Prado - except the Corolla and lower-end models have taken a hit. The ban has also upset all calculations for Mahindra, Tata Motors, Toyota and Mercedes.

M&M tried to work around the ban as it launched existing vehicles with down-sized engines within a month of the SC order.

For now, Toyota is playing along. The Innova Crysta is the first launch following the Supreme Court restriction

ALSO READ: Spec Comparison: Toyota Innova Crysta vs Renault Lodgy vs Maruti Suzuki Ertiga vs Tata Aria

The Bengaluru-based Toyota Kirloskar Motor last Friday rolled out the Innova Crysta, an all-new model of its best-selling Innova nationally except in Delhi because of the court imposed ban. Delhi-NCR is the single-largest market with more than 8 per cent of total sales for Toyota.

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The Innova Crysta is built on a new platform and comes with two engine options -- 2.4 L and 2.8 L -- apart from offering an 8-seater option as well.

The ban has also forced the company to look at launching a petrol variant of all its high-end vehicles, including Innova Crysta, even though its past attempts have not been successful.

ALSO READ: Skoda Superb vs Audi A3 vs Mercedes Benz CLA vs Toyota Camry

"It is not so much about the ban per se. Okay, we will lose some money, that's fine. But the more moot question is why such an unfair ban is in the first place when we have complied with every law? That is what is hurting. This is not an arithmetic loss," Vishwanathan said.

Maintaining that there has to be legal certainty for businesses to establish and grow, he said unless this is established, "everyone's perception will change about the country. They will keep asking can the law be reinterpreted again even when you are compliant and you can be banned, suddenly bringing my business to a standstill".

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The missile was tested on the newly named Abdul Kalam Island located in the Balashore district off Odisha coast.

By India Today Web Desk:

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has come up with a new indigenously produced Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor missile, Ashwin. The missile was tested on the newly named Abdul Kalam Island located in the Balashore district off the Odisha coast. This was the 12th test in the series to develop interceptor missiles.

Here are a few facts about the latest missile test conducted in Odisha:

Prior to this test the DRDO has conducted 11 tests out of which 9 were successful

The newly tested missile was tasked with intercepting another ballistic missile from a long range

The supersonic low-altitude missile weighs around 1.2 tonnes, stands 7.5 meters tall and has a diameter of under 0.5 meters

The missile comes with an inbuilt navigator, an advanced computer and an electro-mechanical activator

The technology within the missile is encrypted using a secure data link independent tracking and homing capabilities and sophisticated radars

After the successful test, India became the fourth country in the world to have full-fledged multi-layer Ballistic Missile Defence system. With only United States, Russia and Israel are in the same league

The new supersonic missile interceptor will soon become a part of the Indian Army's arsenal of world class weaponry.



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Interested in General Knowledge and Current Affairs? Click here to stay informed and know what is happening around the world with our G.K. and Current Affairs section.

To get more updates on Current Affairs, send in your query by mail toeducation.intoday@gmail.com

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By PTI: Colombo, May 16 (PTI) At least three persons were missing in torrential rains and flash floods lashing Sri Lanka for the last two days, prompting authorities to issue an alert, officials said today.

"Three people are reported missing in Dehiowita area," Disaster Management Centre spokesman Pradeep Kodippily said.

Relief operations are well underway even the military had been deployed in the hill country areas to provide relief, he said, adding that the men went missing from the countrys southwestern district of Kegalle.

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Rains lashed the country throughout yesterday, flooding most of the roads in Colombo. Besides, several roads have been cut off due to floods with the Sri Lanka Red Cross saying its employees have been placed on alert to assist anyone who may be affected by the bad weather.

The armed forces have also been put on alert. As many as eight districts have been issued landslide warnings.

Katunayake, just outside Colombo, had recorded the highest rain fall, over 260 millimeters between 0830 hours Sunday to 0530 Hrs Monday, Meteorology Department said.

However the rains were to ease somewhat today.

"The low pressure area is moving away from Sri Lanka so the rainy conditions over the island will be reduced to some extent, but strong wind conditions will continue for a few more days," Malinda Millagoda, a meteorologist said.

Yesterday, three international flights were diverted to Kochi in India due to bad weather conditions prevailing in Sri Lanka, Airport officials said. PTI CORR CPS AKJ CPS

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Two Harry Potter fans who proposed to each other during a visit to the The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, got married in a ceremony straight out of Hogwarts. The Harry Potter theme literally transported the guests into a magical world. And no, the groom did not come on a broom.

By Mohak Gupta:

For Cassie and Lewis, every single detail of the wedding had a Harry Potter touch to bewitch the guests. Lord Voldemort was not invited for obvious reasons.

Photo Credit: Kelly Clarke Photography



She made these enchanting bouquets by hand and even has her own Facebook page for her craft.

Photo Credit: Kelly Clarke Photography

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Who's Team Gryffindor and who's Team Slytherin? The jury's out on that.

Photo Credit: Kelly Clarke Photography



The Potter mania was evident everywhere at the wedding. Even ol' Dumbledore gave you a stare from somewhere.

Photo Credit: Kelly Clarke Photography



Cassie even had special silver bracelets with the Golden Snitch attached made for her bridesmaids.

Photo Credit: Kelly Clarke Photography



Snape would approve of this, "always."

Photo Credit: Kelly Clarke Photography



Cassie's co-worker made an out-of-this world cake for the ethereal wedding with two books on top which read "Cassie" and "Lewis".

Photo Credit: Kelly Clarke Photography



The venue of the wedding was an ancient building that houses Manchester City Council and if that doesn't remind you of Hogwarts, nothing else will.

Photo Credit: Kelly Clarke Photography



And that was how Wizards wed. Wingardium Leviosa!

Photo Credit: Kelly Clarke Photography



Cassie even posted a video on her Facebook page sharing the magic with everyone.

"Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure." - Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

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Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said that AAP's so-called rally and Gherao programme today was " a massive flop show" because of that party's act of betrayal of Punjab on the river waters issue and because of their politics of fraud, deception and cheap stunts.

Despite having barricaded the routes leading to Badal's residence, the police and district administration struggled hard to control the unruly crowd of AAP workers.

By Manjeet Sehgal: Demanding a probe into the alleged foodgrain scam, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday created a big drama in Chandigarh. Despite the restrictions, more than ten thousand party workers managed to reached Mohali's Dussehra ground and marched towards Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's residence.

Despite having barricaded the routes leading to Badal's residence, the police and district administration struggled hard to control the unruly crowd of AAP workers who protested for more than four hours under the scorching sun.

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At many places the police itself hid behind the barricades and failed to protect the hoardings put up by the Punjab government to detail the 'progress' it made. The hoardings praising Badals and telling the foodgrain scam as 'propaganda' were torn off by the AAP workers. Some even used them as mats during the protest.

However, the protesters led by Punjab in-charge Sanjay Singh, Punjab convenor Sucha Singh Chotepur, comedian turned actor Gurpreet Ghuggi besides others were stopped by Chandigarh police on Punjab-Chandigarh border. The party workers did not violate the barricading put-up by the Chandigarh police which was ready with water cannons to disperse the protesters in case they broke the barricading.

AAP's plan to organise a sit-in outside Badal's residence did not materialise as its workers were not allowed to move towards Chandigarh. However, Badal called party leaders for a discussion but refused to accept that a foodgrain scam ever took place in the state. He also turned down the demand to book state's Agriculture Minister Tota Singh. The demand to compensate each farmer-who committed suicide-by paying Rs 15 lacs was also turned down.

"We were going to gherao CM's resdence but were stopped by the police and were told that chief minister Parkash Singh Badal wanted to meet us. We were asked to come inside but we refused and asked to meet in the presence of media. Badal came but refused to accept the demands," Sanjay Singh said.

Thousands of AAP activists reach Chandigarh border Tear off dozens of Punjab government hoardings, used them as mats AAP comparing Punjab youth with Biharis, Bengalis and UP-ites, says Badal

The AAP leaders also met Punjab Governor and submitted a memorandum to him in this regard and demanded a Supreme Court monitored probe into the Rs 12,000 crore foodgrain scam.

"Aam Aadmi Party demands that in order to bring facts before the public of Punjab an SIT to be monitored by Supreme Court of India should be set up and all politicians and officers responsible for the this "Grain Stock Shortage Scam" should be brought to book, put behind bars and dealt with as per the law of the land," the memorandum said.

Earlier addressing the AAP workers, Sanjay Singh said that the RBI had feared that the food scam in Punjab if investigated by an independent agency could go beyond even Rs. 25,000 crore.

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"Where has the money or the food grains from Punjab godowns vanished. Has the money gone into the pockets of Badals. Let there be a probe by a special investigative team (SIT) monitored by a sitting supreme court judge.Badal has unleashed reign of terror through Punjab police officials all across Punjab on the volunteers and workers of AAP to create a fear psychosis among them that in case they attended AAP's protest demonstration in Chandigarh on Monday they all would be booked in false criminal cases," Sanjay Singh said and accused Punjab police of stopping the party workers at various places who wanted to join the protest.

The game is over, says Badal

Reacting to AAP's protest Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said that the Aam Admi Party's so-called rally and Gherao programme today was " a massive flop show" because of that party's act of betrayal of Punjab on the river waters issue and because of their politics of fraud, deception and cheap stunts.

"Their game is over. It is time for the circus called Aam Admi Party to fold up their tents and leave, because the people of Punjab, especially our farmers, have spoken out most clearly and categorically that they are not amused or entertained by the petty songs, vulgar jokes and cheap stunts and gimmicks indulged in by the indulged in by the organisers of the AAP circus.," said Badal.

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Badal said that the leaders of AAP in Punjab are remote-controlled by notorious non-Punjabi actors who were hated by the people in their own states because of their corrupt, criminal and immoral acts. These non-Punjabi leaders who are most powerful in that party have no interest in the welfare of the state nor did they understand Punjabi pride in their state and its culture.

"The AAP leaders of Punjab were acting at the behest of their non-Punjabi masters and were defaming and ridiculing their own state. They were trying day and night to prove that Punjabis especially Punjabi youth were no match for youth of other states like Biharis, Bengalis and UP-ites .Today, the AAP leaders must have found out what Punjabi youth and farmers think about this act of betrayal of Punjab by AAP," Badal said.



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Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who has been mostly appreciated for her looks at the Cannes Film Festival this year, says that her daughter Aaradhya helps her choose her dresses.

By India Today Web Desk: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's Cannes 2016 outing has been mostly appreciated so far. While the actor has received much praise for most of her red-carpet looks at the film extravaganza, she has also had to face brickbats for some of her appearances.

PHOTOS: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan leaves for Cannes 2016 with daughter Aaradhya

ALSO READ: What was Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's first Cannes experience like?

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Aishwarya has been largely unfazed by the criticism coming her way. This year, Aishwarya had an interesting nugget of information to share about daughter Aaradhya's contribution to her wardrobe too.

In an interview to AP, Aishwarya said how her four-year-old daughter has been helping her choose her outfits for Cannes this year.

Ash said, "For her it's more like playing dress up and appreciating colors. So yeah, it meets her approval quite often. It's fun, it's a laugh."

This is Aishwarya's 15th Cannes visit, and her daughter's fourth. Aishwarya's journey to Cannes this year has been mostly to promote her upcoming film Sarbjit. The biopic of Sarabjit Singh, the Indian who was allegedly wrongly imprisoned in Pakistan on charges of spying and terrorism, is all set for a release in India on May 20 this year.

Talking of her own experience at the French Riviera, Aishwarya said, "15 years is a long time and things are changing. It's changing and the world is getting smaller... The world is (becoming) smaller and access is plenty and easier, so with that, I think our audience is more influenced. There is a lot more awareness, interest and cultural exchange (in our films). Our cinema is reaching wider. Our cinema has a wider audience reach. I have looked upon Cannes film festival as a festival that showcases international cinema and largely it's also market for the business."

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According to Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar, the Haryana government has scrapped a chapter from a Class V textbook which profiled political personalities like Ranbir Hooda, Chhotu Ram, Devi Lal and Bansi Lal.

By Mail Today: After removal of Jawaharlal Nehru's name from a textbook in Rajasthan, the Congress is miffed over a similar scrapping of the names of political stalwarts in the BJP-ruled Haryana.

Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar said the party is miffed that the Manohar Lal Khattar government has removed the names not only of veteran Congress leaders, mentions of other senior political figures from the state too have been targeted.

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According to Tanwar, the Haryana government has scrapped a chapter from a Class V textbook which profiled political personalities like Ranbir Hooda, Chhotu Ram, Devi Lal and Bansi Lal.

"These leaders were stalwarts who were also freedom fighters and played a role in the development of Haryana. Removing their names from text book is saffronisation of education," Tanwar told Mail Today.

According to the Haryana Congress chief, the above mentioned names found mention in a chapter Haryana Ke Gaurav from a Class V social science book Jhilmil. Tanwar alleged the chapter will be renamed as Gaurav Gatha and would have profiles of RSS and BJP leaders instead. "History of Haryana is being distorted?this is divisive agenda of the BJP," said Tanwar.

He said the Haryana Congress would soon discuss the issue and protest it strongly as such misadventures were likely to impact other political parties also.

While Ranbir Hooda was the father of former CM Bhupinder Hooda, Bansi Lal was the father-in-law of Congress legislative party leader Kiran Chowdhry. Chhotu Ram incidentally happens to be grandfather of Union rural development minister Birender Singh, who joined the BJP in 2014 after spending four decades in the Congress.

Devi Lal's legacy is being pursued in Haryana by the Indian National Lok Dal, a former BJP alley.

"The Khattar government is pursuing RSS agenda. They are playing with the history of Haryana," INLD Lok Sabha member Dushyant Chautala, great grandson of Devi Lal, said. Dushyant said his party will corner the state government during a special two-day Assembly session next week. "We will ask the CM himself to reply," he said, adding "the people will not forgive them for doing this".

Also Read

Congress fumes as Rajasthan drops chapter on Jawaharlal Nehru from textbooks



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By PTI: New Delhi, May 13 (PTI) A wildlife body today alleged that Amazon website was selling wildlife specimens including sea horses and alligator heads, protected under the countrys laws, and urged the company to stop their sale.

Wildlife SOS claimed the website was offering an array of wildlife trophies, snares and manuals on hunting - including alligator heads, preserved snakes, butterflies, starfish, rare beetles and seahorses along with dangerous trapping and killing devices like snares.

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The body noted it was "incredulous" that a company like Amazon would list items for sale listed under protected species in India.

An Amazon India spokesperson, however, said the company supports wildlife protection efforts and it was in the process of informing the seller about the concerns raised so that "corrective action" can be taken.

"Amazon.in supports wildlife protection efforts. We are in the process of informing the seller of the concerns raised so that the seller can take corrective action wherever necessary," the spokesperson said.

According to SOS, it has launched a petition asking Amazon to stop selling such items that encourage or propagate maiming, hunting and killing of wildlife.

The petition has gathered nearly 7,000 signatures, with animal lovers across the globe expressing their outrage and vowing to boycott the retailer, it said.

The campaign aims not just to implore the website to stop selling these items but also educating people about snares and the suffering caused to innocent animals by their use, it said in a statement.

Quoting Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, the statement said, "The government and NGOs like Wildlife SOS are struggling to protect our wildlife and make this country safer for animals, yet we have a giant like Amazon shamefully selling wildlife specimens and animal traps that directly contribute to the slaughter of wildlife."

It alleged that traps and snares are being sold on one of the worlds leading online retailers website (Amazon) not just in the USA but also in India where all wild animals are protected under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 and hunting is illegal. (MORE) PTI TDS SR IKA ZMN IKA

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"The UPA government had left us with empty coffers because of which it was not possible for the present government to do anything for the poor," Shah said speaking at the launch of the second phase of 'Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana' at Dahod in Gujarat.

By Mail Today: BJP chief Amit Shah attacked the previous Congress-led UPA government saying it left empty coffers after a 10-year rule which was posing difficulty for the NDA to work for the poor. "The UPA government had left us with empty coffers because of which it was not possible for the present government to do anything for the poor," Shah said speaking at the launch of the second phase of 'Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana' at Dahod in Gujarat.

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Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, Chief Minister of Gujarat, Anandiben Patel, Madhya Pradesh CM, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Rajasthan CM, Vasundhara Raje, were present on the occasion.

The BJP chief compared Prime Minister Narendra Modi's campaign urging well off people to give up LPG subsidy to that of former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri's call for voluntarily giving up one meal to deal with food shortage.

"As soon as the prime minister took over, he took steps to remove corruption and curb black marketing by direct transfer of Rs 13,000 crore into the bank accounts of poor people. He also initiated 'give it up' scheme and appealed to the well-to-do people to give up gas subsidy for the sake of country's poor. The response to the appeal was unprecedented," Shah said.

Highlighting the benefits of 'Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana', Shah said, no other scheme can provide women better empowerment."Six crore women will get gas connections, which is the best example of women empowerment and poverty alleviation," he said.

Modi had launched the programme from Ballia in Uttar Pradesh on May 1 which aims to cover five crore beneficiaries for which Rs 8,000 crore has been earmarked. The tribal beneficiaries from Jhabua in MP, Pratapnagar and Dungarpur in Rajasthan, and from Dahod and Panchmahals in Gujarat were given LPG connections. Pradhan said within three years, five crore families will get LPG connections for which Rs 8,000 crore finance will be provided.

"This financial year alone, one crore new connections will be provided for which Rs 2,000 crore have been earmarked. In Gujarat, in the coming days, we will provide 25 lakh new connections, most of which will be targeted at," Pradhan said. The minister also said that the government was not passing on the entire benefit of reduction in global crude oil price to the public so that the remaining money was diverted to the programmes oriented towards the pool.

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Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said his government is ready for a CBI probe into senior journalist Rajdeo Ranjan's murder. The scribe was shot dead in Siwan last Friday.

"The investigation is being carried out with highest diligence," the Bihar CM said.

By India Today Web Desk: Three days after a senior journalist was gunned down at a busy intersection in Siwan town, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said he is ready for a CBI probe into the incident.

'STRICTEST PUNISHMENT'

"We have not left any stone unturned. The investigation is being carried out with highest diligence. Those who committed this crime (will get the strictest punishment). If they (journalist's family) are not satisfied, we will ask for a CBI probe," Nitish told reporters in Patna today.

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"I have said earlier too. Anyone can commit a crime. But the law has to take its own course," he added.

NITISH GOVT UNDER PRESSURE

The Bihar government is facing intense heat over the incident with the BJP-led Opposition accusing the ruling RJD, JD (U) combine of doing nothing to prevent the return of 'jungle raj' in the state.

Rajdeo Ranjan, 46, the Siwan bureau chief of Hindi daily Hindustan, was shot dead at a busy market near the Station Road last Friday night.

The murder took place less than a fortnight after the son of a JD(U) lawmaker was arrested for killing a teenager in a road rage case in Gaya. While Rocky Yadav's father Bindi in behind bars, his mother JD(U) MLC Manorama Devi is still on the run.

'ORDER TO KILL CAME FROM SIWAN JAIL'

Reports said that "order" to kill Ranjan came from Siwan jail, where former MP and RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin is serving a life sentence for murder.

Siwan Superintendent of Police Saurav Kumar Shah said nearly a dozen suspects have been detained in connection with the murder case. One Munshi Mian was detained from Pratappur, the village of Shahabuddin.

Also Read:

Former RJD MP Shahabuddin's role under scanner in Rajdeo Ranjan murder case

Journalist Rajdeo Ranjan shot dead in Bihar's Siwan



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He runs one of the most followed travel feeds on Instagram, and he wants a lucky lady to join him on adventure.

By India Today Web Desk: Ladies, here's your chance to travel the world with this hunk. Yes, you read that right! We know you already have far too many questions, and we will try our best to answer all of them. Scotland based Jeremy Jauncey runs Beautiful Destinations, one of the most followed travel accounts on Instagram. The travel and lifestyle feed has more than 6 million followers, including celebrities like model Kendall Jenner among others.

Jeremy's travel photograph from the romantic city of Venice, Italy. Picture courtesy: Instagram/@beautifuldestinations

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All of those amazing travel photographs come from his trips to several parts of the world without spending a penny. Well, he makes his living by taking snaps of some of the most beautiful places on Earth, alongside his photographer brother.

Also read: 5 online communities every passionate traveller must follow



If a recent report by The Sun is anything to go by, this 31-year-old travelling hunk with a dream job is looking for someone special to share it all with. To be more precise, he is looking for a lucky lady to join him on his jet-setting adventure. He confirmed this as he told The Sun, "I don't have a girlfriend at the moment but I probably will soon." He further said, "I'm not dating anyone, it might be difficult but I would definitely make it a priority if I met someone."

Jeremy's selfie from Budapest, Hungary. Picture courtesy: Instagram/@jeremyjauncey

Jeremy started out as a teenage rugby player representing Scotland at the age 18 before his career as a sportsperson was cut short due to an ankle injury. At the age of 21, he became a businessman and successfully ran the UK operations of a large ecommerce company for the next eight years.

The stunning landscape of San Quirico dOrcia in Italy. Picture courtesy: Instagram/@beautifuldestinations

It was in the year 2012 that he founded Beautiful Destinations after he made travelling and taking photographs his regular job. Commenting on this venture, Jeremy told The Sun, "The idea is to show the most beautiful parts of the world through the lenses of real people, totally capturing amazing places - but we always credit the people who take the photograph.

Jeremy at the Kawasan Falls in Philippines. Picture courtesy: Instagram/@jeremyjauncey Jeremy at the Kawasan Falls in Philippines. Picture courtesy: Instagram/@jeremyjauncey

"I have always been passionate about travel and photography. Growing up with a Scottish, professional photographer father and a Colombian mother, I think both have always been in my blood."

Link to Beautiful Destinations

Link to Jeremy Jauncey's personal Instagram account

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By PTI: offences registered

Thane, May 15 (PTI) A day after RPI activists went on a rampage in Bhiwandi following the death of its Dalit member Vicky Dhepe, police has registered cases of rioting-related offences against unidentified persons even as a close relative of a local BJP MLA has been booked for the murder, police said today.

According to police, four offences of rioting were registered against the 100-plus armed mob which damaged number of vehicles, including two police jeeps yesterday.

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Bhiwandi Police Control Room told PTI that 2 offences were registered with Narpoli police station last night while one each at Bhoiwada and Bhiwandi city police station.

However, no arrests have been made in connection either with the attack on Dhepe and others or the riots.

Yesterday, more than 30 vehicles including cars, two-wheelers and police vans were torched in Bhiwandi by an irate mob consisting of activists of Republican Party of India (RPI). The activists also vandalised two offices of Bhiwandi BJP MLA Mahesh Chougule, whose close relative Raju Chougule was booked in the assault case.

Banners put by Chougule were also pulled down, according to sources in Police Control Room.

Meanwhile, the bandh call given by RPI city unit in Bhiwandi to protest the killing of the activist was total. All establishments remained shut since early morning. Also, vehicular traffic remained affected in the powerloom town.

According to Thane DCP (Crime) Parag Manere, the bandh has been peaceful so far and the situation is now normal and under control.

The trouble in the powerloom town, about 50 km from here, began yesterday when news came in that Dhepe, who was seriously injured in the May 11 attack, succumbed to his injuries at the St George Hospital in Mumbai, sources said.

Dhepe and a few others were assaulted by a group of youth armed with iron rods and choppers, police said adding Chougules son was allegedly involved in the attack.

The youth were suspected to be members of BJP.

Police had then filed a case under IPC sections related to attempt to murder, criminal intimidation, breach of peace and also the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against nearly two dozen, people including the MLAs relative. Now, they have been booked under the IPC 302.

The attack on Dhepe and other RPI workers was fallout of political rivalry, police said.

The last rites of the activist will be conducted later in the day. PTI COR DK DBS RDS

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"Initially UDF was behind in the poll campaign, but finally we have forged ahead of LDF and BJP. I am sure that we will win the poll," AK Antony said.

Congress Working Committee Member and former Union Defence Minister AK Antony ended up his poll campaign in Kerala in high spirits

By Jeemon Jacob: Congress Working Committee Member and former Union Defence Minister AK Antony ended up his poll campaign in Kerala in high spirits, hoping that UDF will retain power in the state.

AK Antony has been campaigning for UDF from Manjeswaram to Thiruvananthapuram in 14 districts.

"Initially UDF was behind in the poll campaign, but finally we have forged ahead of LDF and BJP. I am sure that we will win the poll," Antony said.

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"UDF will have a clear majority. The people of Kerala will vote against violence promoted by LDF and the insults showered over Kerala by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

BJP spent lot of money in their campaign but with Prime Minister's Somalia remarks, the party lost its chances," he said.

According to him, Modi shouldn't have compared Kerala with Somalia.

"When he came to Thripunithura for the campaign, he could have rectified his mistake. But he never cared to do so," Antony said.

According to Antony, the decision to close down the bars in Kerala would help the party earn more votes from women.

He even defended his actions as Defence Minister in VVIP chopper scam.

"I have ordered CBI investigation on the deal and blacklisted all the companies involved. Now it's for the government to complete the investigation and find the accused," he said.

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A few slabs of concrete reportedly came unstuck, leading to the incident. The slabs also fell on the BJP MP, injuring her.

By India Today Web Desk: In a freak accident caught on camera, Poonamben Madam, BJP MP from Jamnagar, Gujarat, fell into a 10-foot deep drain in Jalla Ram Nagar today while speaking to TV reporters.

A few slabs of concrete reportedly came unstuck, leading to the incident. The slabs also fell on the BJP MP, injuring her.

Poonamben was rushed to a nearby hospital. She will be shifted to Mumbai for further treatment.



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The incident, according to ANI, took place when she was speaking to a group of people during an anti-encroachment drive.

Jamnagar BJP MP Poonamben Madam rushed to nearby hospital after she fell into a drain in Jalla Ram Nagar in Gujarat pic.twitter.com/04agRPWzA3&; ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

Fortunately for her, a fire brigade team was stationed nearby and quickly rescued the MP. She's believed to be out of danger now.

The MP came in the spotlight in April 2015 during a 'Bhagwat Katha' programme in Gujarat's, where the MP was seen dancing in a crowd where a massive number of currency notes were allegedly showered by the crowd.

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Patel's agitation left the BJP, both in Gujarat and in Delhi, stunned and brought Chief Minister Anandiben Patel's political and administrative skills into question.

Home to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gujarat is due for Assembly elections in 2017.

By Mail Today: Alarmed at its sliding popularity in Gujarat, the BJP is deliberating various options, including an overhaul of the state government and the party's faction-ridden unit, India Today has reliably learnt.

Home to prime minister Narendra Modi, Gujarat is due for Assembly elections in 2017.

But the BJP faced a massive blow to its image when a young man, Hardik Patel, mobilised as many as five lakh people for a protest rally to demand job reservations for the influential Patidar community in the state last year.

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Patel's agitation left the BJP, both in Gujarat and in Delhi, stunned and brought Chief Minister Anandiben Patel's political and administrative skills into question.

India Today has accessed an internal party report, which Modi commissioned his close lieutenant Om Prakash Mathur to prepare, on Gujarat's current political situation.

Mathur, formerly in charge of the BJP in Gujarat, submitted his report to the prime minister and party president Amit Shah on April 25 along with recommendations. In his findings, obtained by India Today, Mathur advised the BJP not to underestimate or overlook the Patidar stir.

He also recommended major changes in the state government and emphasised immediate measures be taken to narrow down the gaps in coordination between the party and the administration.

Mathur underscored the need to end internal factionalism in the BJP as well as its government in Gujarat, according to the report.

Besides, he recommended the party be involved in the state government's decision-making and that the central leadership regularly review their performance.

Party sources say the PM may take a call on the BJP's Gujarat leadership, both in the party and in the government.

A key section of the BJP fears Anandiben Patel may turn out to be a liability in next year's state elections, party sources disclosed to India Today.

Any electoral loss for the BJP in Modi's stronghold of Gujarat will be a huge setback to the PM's personal reputation.

The BJP seemed to have lost the ground already at least in rural Gujarat to Congress as indicated by its slump there in local-council elections that took place after the Patidar protests in 2015.

Meanwhile, Shah has stepped up his Gujarat visits, holding a series of meetings with state ministers and leaders to discuss options to rebuild the organisation.

Modi, Mathur and the BJP chief also met twice in Delhi within a week to brainstorm revival of the party's fortunes in the state ahead of the 2017 vote, the sources said.

Modi would not want to risk Gujarat, they said. "Any upset in his home state may have farreaching repercussions on the BJP's national prospects in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections," the sources admit.

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Shah also recently met all state BJP MPs and senior Gujarat leaders as part of frantic efforts to reign in the party's descent.

If eased out as chief minister, Anandiben Patel may be accommodated as governor in some other state, the sources say.

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Chef Sabyasachi Gorai lets us in on a few secrets on how to get those salads right.

Make your salads even more healthy with these super easy tips. Photo courtesy: Mail Today

By Lipla Negi: 1. Go for the mini greens or the baby greens veggies. These are packed with micro nutrients and make the salad visually appetising too.

Chef Sabyasachi Gorai gives us a few tips to spruce up those salads. Photo courtesy: Mail Today

2. Mix and toss super grains with greens. Whole grains like amaranth, quinoa, etc can wonderfully elevate the flavour and nutrition of your salad.

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Also read: Five surprising and delicious ways to have watermelon this summer



3. Add a dash of protein with grilled cottage cheese and boiled eggs.

4. Give a punch of colour and flavour with fresh fruits. Think tropical! For dressing, pick the citrus fruits such as oranges, lemon, etc.

5. Do not toss the veggies too much. Let the ingredients shine through.

Also read: Cucumbers like you've never seen them before



6. Do the dressing just minutes before serving the salad.

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The annual U.S. defence report to Congress on China's security noted among other developments a beefing up of China's posture along the border with India, stating that tensions remained along the Line of Actual Control.

By Ananth Krishnan: The Chinese government on Monday said China and India are "wise" enough to solve their boundary disputes, delivering a not-so-subtle rebuke to the United States following a new Pentagon report that has rankled Beijing.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS The annual U.S. defence report to Congress on China's security noted among other developments a beefing up of China's posture along the border with India, stating that tensions remained along the Line of Actual Control. Abraham Denmark, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia, said that the US had "noticed an increase in capability and force posture by the Chinese military in areas close to the border with India". China on Monday said it hoped 'countries outside the region' played 'a constructive role' and 'respect efforts by China and India' to solve their issues, 'not the opposite'. "China is committed to upholding stability and tranquility along the India-China border and is committed to resolving the boundary question with India through negotiations," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said. "China and India are fully wise and capable of solving this problem. We hope countries outside the region will respect efforts by China and India and make a constructive role, not the opposite," added Hong. India and China have played down recent incidents of transgressions along the LAC, attributing them to an undemarcated line and differing perceptions. In April, an agreement on a long-discussed military hotline was finally sealed when Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar visited Beijing. At the same time, both sides have moved to step up infrastructure in border areas, with India now looking to catch up after China has put in place a vast network of roads and railways on the Tibetan plateau. On Friday, a Chinese newspaper said the People's Liberation Army was moving to elevate the rank of the Tibet Military Command to expand its capability, with analysts in Beijing telling a Party-run newspaper that the command bore "great responsibility to prepare for possible conflicts between China and India."

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China has been angered by the annual Pentagon report, which this year has also detailed the bolstering of Chinese military capabilities in the disputed South China Sea. The report said China had reclaimed 3,200 acres of land on new islands and was now moving to weaponise them.

This drew a sharp response from the Chinese Defence Ministry, which said on Sunday that the US had "deliberately distorted" China's defence policies and that it was the party that was "flexing military muscles by frequently sending aircraft and warships to the region". The report, the defence ministry added, had "severely damaged mutual trust between the two sides".

Also read:

Eye on India, China raises Tibet military command rank to expand its combat role



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Chinese tourists, dressed in traditional Japanese kimono, take photos in front of Kiyomizu-dera Temple, Kyoto, Japan on April 9, 2016. [Photo/VCG]

The Japanese government will further ease visa requirements for Chinese citizens as part of its plan to attract 40 million foreign tourists every year by 2020.

The plan was adopted at a meeting of the Ministerial Council on the Promotion of Japan as a Tourism-Oriented Country on Friday, Japan Times reported.

The newspaper also reported that the new visa rules are expected to be carried out before this summer.

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on its website late last month that 5-year, multi-entry visas will be extended to 10 years, particularly for Chinese businessmen, academics and artists. Visa requirements for certain applicants will also be lowered. Previously, multiple-entry individual visas were issued to high-income Chinese tourists with a 5-year validity.

Meanwhile, single-entry visa application procedures will also be simplified for students from 75 universities under the direct supervision of the Chinese Ministry of Education. These include registered undergraduates and post-graduates, as well as alumni who graduated from the 75 schools within 3 years.

The announcement came after Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida's meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, last month in Beijing, the first since one held in Seoul in November 2015.

Liu Junhong, a researcher at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the easing of Japan's visa policies is aimed at boosting the country's sluggish economy, which is reeling from deflation and weak demand.

Japan remains one of the favorite overseas destinations for Chinese holidaymakers. Data from the Japan National Tourism Organization showed that the number of Chinese tourists to Japan more than doubled last year to reach 5 million.

More noticeable for local retailers is the spending power of Chinese tourists, who accounted for more than 40 percent of the total spending of foreign visitors to Japan in 2015.

Russians and Indians are also on the list of beneficiaries in this visa easing policy.

Prior to Japan, many other countries have issued 10-year visas for Chinese citizens. Back in November 2014, the US government started issuing multi-entry business and tourist visas valid for up to 10 years in China.

The United Kingdom and Australia are also considering the extension of their visa validity to 10 years.
By PTI: New Delhi, May 16 (PTI) A Delhi court today sent to five- day CBI custody an under secretary in the Union Home Ministry in connection with a case against him of allegedly dishonestly issuing FCRA notices to several NGOs for financial gains.

Special CBI Judge Vinod Kumar allowed the probe agency to quiz Anand Joshi, who was arrested yesterday from west Delhi, in its custody till May 20.

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Seeking Joshis custody, CBI argued that files relating to several NGOs had gone missing from the Home Ministry and they were recovered from his house and he was not supposed to take them away.

It contended that he was neither cooperating in the probe nor disclosing relevant facts and his custodial interrogation was required to find out how those files came to his house.

CBI alleged in court that Joshi had been issuing notices dishonestly to a large number of NGOs/ societies registered under the FCRA 2010, which have been receiving significant amount of foreign contributions, in an arbitrary manner.

It said some of these organisations are Care India, Snehalya Charitable Trust, Indian HIV/AIDS Alliance and All India Primary Teachers Federation and alleged that the representatives of some of these organisations were called and Joshi demanded and obtained illegal gratification.

It further said when the CBI team had gone to his house, he not present there and even his mobile phone was switched off from May 11 to May 15 and he had left his house leaving a false letter behind.

The custody plea, however, was opposed by Joshis counsel who said his mobile was not switched off and he had lost his phone in Ujjain and in his 24 years long career he was not even issued an office memo.

Joshi was arrested yesterday after he allegedly gave unconvincing answers to the questions posed by a team of Special Crime division of the CBI, including those related to disappearance of files related to Sabrang Trust of activist Teesta Setalvad.

Joshi, who had disappeared on the morning of May 11 from his home in Indirapuram in Ghaziabad, was yesterday picked up from Tilak Nagar area of West Delhi and taken to the CBI headquarters for questioning.

The case was slapped against Joshi and some other unnamed persons for allegedly indulging in corrupt practices and arbitrarily issuing notices to several NGOs, registered under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), which were receiving foreign contributions, including activist Teesta Setalvads Sabrang Trust. (More) PTI SKV UK SKV VMN

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Trump, when asked about Cameron's criticism, said such comments indicate he is unlikely to have a good relationship with the British prime minister.

By Reuters: British Prime Minister David Cameron stands by his description of Donald Trump's proposal for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States as "divisive, stupid and wrong", a spokesman said on Monday.

Trump, when asked about Cameron's criticism, said such comments indicate he is unlikely to have a good relationship with the British prime minister.

"The prime minister has made his views on Donald Trump's comments very clear. He disagrees with them," the spokesman said.

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ALSO READ: Donald Trump to British PM Cameron: 'I'm not stupid, Okay'



"He continues to believe that preventing Muslims from entering the US is divisive, stupid and wrong. He stands by his comments."

Asked who Cameron would prefer to be the next president, the spokesman said he would not comment on another country's election but said the British leader had been clear he would work with whoever won.

"He is committed to maintaining the special relationship," he said.

The spokesman said no meeting or call between Cameron and Republican candidate Trump was currently planned, but if one were proposed the prime minister would consider it.

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Reacting to remarks made by British Prime Minister David Cameron, the Republican candidate in the US presidential election on Sunday said he was not anti-Muslim, but "anti-terror".

By Indo-Asian News Service: The presumptive Republican candidate in the US presidential election, Donald Trump, has called on Muslims to work with police and "turn people in".

Trump on Sunday said he was not anti-Muslim, but "anti-terror", BBC reported.

Trump was reacting to remarks by British Prime Minister David Cameron that he was "stupid, divisive and wrong" in calling for Muslims to be banned from the US.

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Trump made the call last year, when he was not the party's front-runner. The New York billionaire said when he called for an immediate temporary ban on Muslims being allowed into America, there had been criticism only from politicians.

Millions of people from all over the world had called in, he said, saying "Donald Trump is right".

Asked whether he would re-phrase those comments in the light of the controversy they caused, Trump said: "It got people thinking. Whether it's good for me or bad for me, I don't really care."

"Something very bad" was going on that people pretended did not exist, Trump said.

The world had a tremendous problem with radical Islamic terror, the Republican said.

"If you look at it world-wide, the world is blowing up. And it's not people from Sweden that's doing the damage, okay?"

It is up to Muslims to turn in people they suspected of extremism, he said.

"They have to work with the police. They're not turning them in. If they're not playing ball, it's not going to work out."

Referring to Cameron's criticism, Trump said it looked like he was not going to have a good relationship with the British prime minister.

He also criticised the new Mayor of London Sadiq Khan for calling him "ignorant".

The New Yorker is one of the least politically experienced nominees in the US history, having never held elected office.

Many senior Republicans have refused to back him. All other Republican rivals have dropped out of the campaign.

Protests have plagued his campaign, with particular focus on his plan to build a wall on the Mexican border and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton appears closer to the nomination, having secured more delegates than challenger Bernie Sanders.

ALSO READ:

Bromance: Portrait of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump kissing is going viral



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PSI Yeshwanth Kumar of Kikkeri town was allegedly drunk when he entered the home of an individual and harassed him for money.

By Mail Today: A police sub-inspector (PSI), who reported to work in a drunken state in Mandya district in Karnataka, was suspended after the public caught him harassing people.

PSI Yeshwanth Kumar of Kikkeri town was allegedly drunk when he entered the home of an individual and harassed him for money. The victim raised an alarm following which neighbours gathered. When the public found out that he was drunk, he allegedly tried to assault them. When the public retaliated, he hid himself in the victim's home.

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Later, the police higher authorities were informed about the cop, who was rescued. The district administration suspended him and ordered an inquiry.

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Arpita Khan Sharma is off to New York with baby Ahil, husband Aayush Sharma and her in-laws. Arpita shared a picture on Instagram with caption New York Diaries.

By India Today Web Desk: It seems like it's vacation time for Bollywood celebs. Salman Khan's sister Arpita Khan Sharma is off to New York with baby Ahil, husband Aayush Sharma and her in-laws. Arpita shared a picture on Instagram with caption New York Diaries.

NewYork Diaries ! A photo posted by Arpita Khan Sharma (@arpitakhansharma) on May 15, 2016 at 2:14pm PDT

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Aayush Sharma has also been sharing the pictures of their trip on his Instagram account.

Thanks Mom and Dad for joining us on our holiday.. Had a lot of fun A photo posted by Aayush Sharma (@aaysharma) on May 14, 2016 at 8:50pm PDT

The Sharma's #family #familyholiday #besttime #newyorkcity #manhattan A photo posted by Aayush Sharma (@aaysharma) on May 11, 2016 at 12:35pm PDT

Aayush and Arpita welcomed a baby boy into their family on Wednesday (March 30) morning. Both Arpita and Aayush have been posting pictures of their little bundle of joy on social media. It's not just Aayush and Arpita who are excited, Salman is also not far behind in taking care of his little nephew Ahil.

There were reports that the Bajrangi Bhaijaan actor has has taken the charge of finding a suitable nanny for his newborn nephew. The whole Khaandaan has welcomed this new addition in the family. And unlike other B-Town families, Salman's family didn't hesitate in sharing the first picture of the baby.

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Zanzu.de was reportedly set up in light of sexual assaults committed during the 2016 New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne. Around 1,000 women reported sexual assaults and thefts by men, many of whom were allegedly of "Arab or North African appearance".

By Vishakha Saxena: The German government's effort to sensitize and educate refugees about sexuality and anatomy - through an online sex manual - is facing an angry, racist backlash. Locals are protesting the representation of mixed-race couples and revealing illustrations on the website.

Zanzu.de was reportedly set up in light of sexual assaults committed during the 2016 New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne. Around 1,000 women reported sexual assaults and thefts by men, many of whom were allegedly of "Arab or North African appearance".

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The site is available in 13 different languages, and is divided in six broad sections - body, family planning and pregnancy, infections, sexuality, relationships and feelings and rights and law. Each section is accompanied with descriptive text, illustrations and audio input. To help its users, the website includes a dictionary, translator and even the mechanism to connect to a mental health professional.

The site was set up to address the cultural shock refugees might face in Europe, as compared to their countries. Zanzu addresses all topic imaginable, including sexual health, LGBT rights, consensual sex, orgasms, virginity, porn and prostitution.

OBJECTIONS

While the response is not entirely negative, anger has been the dominant force from readers.



One of the first things people objected to was the semi-porn nature of the information and illustrations on Zanzu. For example, many sexual positions have been explained and illustrated graphically. This is not a big deal in Germany, however, where public nudity is acceptable and people openly discuss topics like sex.



#Zanzu on consent is hugely problematic. How about "Don't coerce anyone into having sex. It's rape. It's a crime." pic.twitter.com/49jqoK37Pa

In a section on pornography, Zanzu explains porn is not the same as sex in reality. When seen in context of the entire website, however, the information seems perfectly in sync with its purpose.

Another chunk of people are rejecting the illustrations on the website as they often show brown and white figures as partners claiming they encourage interracial relationships.

Social media is brimming with such Islamophobic and racist comments on Zanzu. One user suggests that Zanzu will encourage refugees to "use German women for nothing but raw, crude sex." "Being illiterate, they won't be able to read the text not that it would matter to them. The race replacement project (is) no longer hidden," writes another.



#Zanzu sex education website is packed with useful information yet for some people depictions of interracial couples are 'problematic' Lejla KuriA? (@Leila_Creative) March 13, 2016

THE GOVERNMENT'S VERSION

German parliamentarian Elke Ferner says the purpose of the website is to provide "migrants" with "understandable and relevant information on all sexual and reproductive health issues." She further explains the website is meant to guide medical professionals on the nature of topics to approach when providing migrants and refugees with health care provisions.

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ANTI-REFUGEE VIOLENCE

Meanwhile, refugees are not exactly safe in Germany, where authorities have recorded 1,610 crimes against refugees. The figure was 895 in 2014. In January, a refugee shelter was attacked with grenades in the southern German town of Villingen-Schwenningen.





Even Angela Merkel's leadership has taken damage, in light of such an Islamophobic atmosphere, where politicians are making violent anti-refugee statements and making strong gains in local polls, ahead of crucial state elections.



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By PTI: From Aditi Khanna

London, May 16 (PTI) Donald Trump today indicated that he may end up having a bad relationship with David Cameron after the British Prime Minister criticised his controversial proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US as "divisive, stupid and wrong".

"It looks like we are not going to have a very good relationship," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said.

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"Who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him [Cameron] but hes not willing to address the problem either."

Cameron, 49, has refused to retract comments he made about the American billionaire tycoons temporary ban proposal, which he had branded as "divisive, stupid and wrong".

In an interview with Britains ITV television, Trump responded to his criticism: "Number one, Im not stupid, I can tell you that right now, just the opposite. I dont think Im a divisive person, Im a unifier, unlike our president now."

Trumps comments are likley to cause unease among Britons about their ties with their closest ally, the US.

Trump, 69, also went on to take a dig at the newly-elected Muslim mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who had snubbed Trumps offer of making him an exception to his Muslim ban plan.

"When he [Khan] won I wished him well. Now, I dont care about him, I mean it doesnt make any difference to me, lets see how he does, lets see if hes a good mayor," he said.

In reference to a question about Khans comments branding Trump as having an "ignorant view of Islam could make both of our countries less safe ? it risks alienating mainstream Muslims around the world and plays into the hands of extremists, he added: "He doesnt know me, hasnt met me, doesnt know what Im all about. I think they were very rude statements and frankly tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements? I think its ignorant for him to say that."

Asked if he was offended by Khans public denouncement he replied: "Yeah, I am."

However, soon after the telecast a spokesperson for Khan reiterated the London mayors stand against Trump.

"Donald Trumps views are ignorant, divisive and dangerous ? its the politics of fear at its worst and will be rejected at the ballot box just as it was in London. Sadiq has spent his whole life fighting extremism, but Trumps remarks make that fight much harder for us all ? it plays straight into the extremists hands and makes both our countries less safe," his spokesperson said. PTI AK ABH AKJ ABH

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By PTI: New Delhi, May 16 (PTI) Panama today said it is in talks with India for putting in place a bilateral tax information exchange agreement, amid furore over hundreds of names of Indians figuring in the Panama Papers. However, the Latin American nation said it would not be able exchange information with India unless it comes through a judicial channel since there is no pact in place as of now. "We are already in talks to begin a process of negotiating exchange of information agreement... We would begin DTAA/TIEA wih Japan, Germany and Brazil and of course India.

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"This is something (which we) will be discussing tomorrow with the Ministry of External Affairs. It has been in pipeline for sometime and it is time to have second round of negotiation as soon as possible," Maria Luisa Navarro, Vice Minister of Multilateral Affairs and Cooperation, Panama, said here.

On the timeline to complete negotiations with India, she said "it depends" and cited the example of Columbia wherein her country took more than a year to complete the talks for an information exchange agreement.

"(We are in process of getting into an agreement) so that we can provide exchange of information (to India)," the visiting minister said.

Navarro said that Panama is a provider of a very small percentage of those companies that appear in documents that were released. "I know there were around 500 Indian beneficial owners or related to corporate entities... But I am not sure how many of them used Panama as jurisdiction," she noted. She expressed confidence that nothing is expected to go wrong during the negotiations. "We have already made public three negotiations...with Japan, Germany and Brazil. We will keep putting more in pipeline as soon as we receive requests and India has already manifested that request," the Minister said. Amid the furore, she also said that Panama has been "mislabelled many times as a tax haven". Panama imposes and collects tax, which goes up to as high as 35 per cent, she added. Leaked documents of Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed names of over 500 Indians including some well known names figure persons having association with firms in tax havens.

India has constituted a multi-agency group to continuously monitor information in the wake of Panama Papers that named hundreds of Indians including film actors and industrialists who have allegedly stashed money in offshore entities. The multi-agency group will comprise various government agencies - the CBDT, FIU, FT&TR (Foreign Tax and Tax Research) and RBI. PTI NKD RAM MKJ

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By PTI: New Delhi, May 15 (PTI) With a revised Mauritius pact in place to check round-tripping, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said investors must pay taxes on money earned in India and ruled out any depletion of FDI due to imposition of capital gains tax on investments through the island nation.

He asserted that India no longer needs any "tax-incentivised route" to attract foreign investments as India economy is now "strong enough" and said there was no "serious apprehension" of investors shifting base to other tax havens due to the re-drawing of the decades-old tax treaty with Mauritius -- the biggest source of foreign investments into India. By checking round-tripping of funds, the amendment would help boost domestic consumption, Jaitley added.

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After toiling for almost a decade to redraw the tax treaty with Mauritius, India will begin imposing capital gains tax on investments in shares through Mauritius from April next onwards. This has been made possible with amendment to the 34-year-old tax treaty between the two countries. As markets reacted cautiously to India expanding its crackdown on tax treaties to make it harder for investors to use tax havens as a shelter to avoid levies, Jaitley told PTI, "Eventually markets have to operate on inherent strength of the (Indian) economy." Stating that the Mauritius tax treaty created a "tax-incentivised route" at a time when India was looking at foreign investments to boost economy, he said the economy has become strong enough and "now those who earn must pay taxes". The original treaty, signed almost a decade before India opened up its economy in 1991, has helped channelise more than a third of the USD 278 billion (nearly Rs 19 lakh crore) foreign direct investment India received in the past 15 years. The imposition of taxes has been "done in a phased manner to avoid shock and I dont expect any depletion to FDI because of this. Also eventually, markets have to operate on inherent strength of economy", he said. Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said the treaty revision will bring in a lot of transparency about Mauritius-based entities investing in India. "It will help us dramatically in curbing round-tripping because there are two very important aspects to it. One is the capital gains regime... that will be applicable at the same rate as you would get if you were a domestic resident tax payer in India. So, there would be no advantage for anybody coming in through the Mauritius route after 2019. "There was round-tripping of money for certain that was happening. That, of course, will stop because the capital gains benefit will go away. And the information exchange will be far more thorough," Sinha said. The redrawn Mauritius treaty will trigger a similar amendment in Indias tax treaty with Singapore. Mauritius and Singapore accounted for USD 17 billion of the total USD 29.4 billion India received in FDI during April-December 2015. India had in August 1982 signed the treaty with Mauritius to eliminate double taxation of income and capital gains to encourage mutual trade and investment. PTI JD ANZ MR BJ (EDS: PLZ PICK UP SUITABLY FROM THE EARLIER RELATED SERIES) ARD

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Ranbir Kapoor had earlier avoided taking the same flight to Morocco with Katrina Kaif. And now according to reports, they are staying in different hotels.

By India Today Web Desk: Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif are currently are shooting for the film Jagga Jasoos, directed by Anurag Basu. And according to reports, their split is reflecting on the scenes and the shooting schedule.

ALSO READ: After break-up, Ranbir Kapoor not comfortable kissing ex-girlfriend Katrina Kaif?

Ranbir had earlier avoided taking the same flight to Morocco with Katrina. And now according to a report in Mid-Day, the two are staying in different hotels. The reports also stated that Ranbir and Katrina go separate ways after the pack-up.

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Things are that awkward between them that the Tamasha actor had also asked the director to chop off the intimate scenes as he wasn't comfortable filming them with ex-girlfriend Katrina. Ranbir and Katrina, who are being professional in front of the lens, are completely ignoring each other off the camera on the film sets.

A source had earlier told DNA, "Katrina and Ranbir have been cold-shouldering each other ever since their break-up. Especially Ranbir has been avoiding Katrina but on the sets, they behave like professionals and do their scenes together."

"They were practising their steps for the song and they had to do it together. So once the rehearsals were over, Ranbir quickly moved out. Only a few minutes later, Katrina too followed suit. They are giving each other the royal ignore these days, mostly after what happened at Karan Johar's party," added the source.

Ranbir and Katrina's relationship have been talk of the town for a long time now. The rumours their relationship touching the rock bottom started soon after Ranbir started shooting for his last outing Tamasha with Deepika Padukone. And it was this January, Ranbir and Katrina decided to put an end to their six-year long relationship. Meanwhile, there are reports of Ranbir dating a Delhi-based girl.

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By PTI: New Delhi, May 16 (PTI) Continuing with his criticism of judiciary for its "overreach", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said it must draw its own "Lakshmanrekha" as there cannot be a "compromise" with other aspects of the basic structure in the name of independence of the judiciary.

Four days after Jaitley remarked in Parliament that "Step by step, brick by brick, the edifice of India?s legislature is being destroyed" due to judicial activism, Jaitley asserted that "activism" has to be blended with "restraint".

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"Judicial review is legitimate domain of judiciary but then the Lakshmanrekha has to be drawn by all the institutions themselves. Lakshmanrekha is very vital," the Finance Minister said, asserting that "the executive decisions are to be taken by the executive and not the judiciary".

Replying to questions during a media interaction at IWPC here, Jaitley reasoned that there are different kinds of recourse and "layers of accountability" available when the executive takes decisions and people have options of seeking changes in the decision taken by the executive besides voting out the government.

The courts can also strike down a decision taken by the executive if it is found to be unconstitutional but all these options are not available when the court ends up taking executive decisions, Jaitley, who has been Law Minister, argued.

"Courts cannot substitute the executive and say I will exercise the executive power. If you do so the three options will not be available, which are there when the executive takes executive decisions," he said.

Jaitley was asked questions about his earlier remarks that the judiciary had been encroaching on legislative and executive authority.

At the same time, he noted that the indpendence of judiciary is extremely important and that is rightly asserted by the judiciary.

"Just as independence of the judiciary is part of basic structure, the primacy of the legislature in policy making is also part of basic structure.

"In the name of the independence of judiciary, we cannot compromise the other two basic structures," he said asserting that to protect one basic structure is not enough".

Stressing that he was not going into any specific issue but speaking on the issue of constitutionality, Jaitley said, "Element of activism always has to be blended with element of restraint" and the correct course is when the two are balanced.

Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Jaitley had earlier urged the legislators to refrain from handing over budgetary and taxation powers to the judiciary.

Again speaking in Hyderabad, Jaitley had yesterday said hthat while he respects the apex court, "one should not try to interfere in others areas". PTI KR/AMR PYK VMN

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Maheboob posted a picture of Modi seeking the blessings of Akbaruddin Owaisi, brother of AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi on Facebook on Sunday.

By Mail Today: The Karnataka police have arrested a youth from Gangavathi town in Koppala district, Karnataka, today for uploading an altered picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and posting it on Facebook.

The police arrested Mohammed Maheboob after the local BJP unit lodged a complaint against him.

Maheboob posted a picture of Modi seeking the blessings of Akbaruddin Owaisi, brother of AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi on Facebook on Sunday. He had used the picture of Modi seeking the blessings of senior BJP leader L K Advani and altered it in such a manner that it looked as if Modi was seeking the blessings of Owaisi.

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This had led to an unrest in Gangavathi after the picture became popular on Facebook. The BJP in its complaint alleged that Maheboob was responsible for it.

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By PTI: Jammu, May 16 (PTI) Several landmines exploded today when a forest fire engulfed an area along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

The forest fire broke out along the LoC in Balakote sector of Poonch district triggering explosion of several landmines and caused panic among local residents, a police officer said.

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The fire might have started due to the heat generated by the rising temperature, the officer said, adding, steps are being taken to control the fire from spreading to other areas.

He said army personnel deployed in the area were monitoring the situation and helping the administration in dousing the fire. PTI TSS DK AAR PAL AAR

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By PTI: Guwahati, May 15(PTI) An Assam BJP leaders remark that the party would take 1951 as the base year to detect foreigners if elected will have "no effect" on minorities and has caused "damage" to it in the second phase of Assembly polls in the state, AIUDF Chief Badruddin Ajmal has said.

Assam BJPs Election Committee Convener Himanta Biswa Sarmas statement during the campaign will in "no way affect the minorities but has severely affected BJPs prospects in the second phase polls in Lower and Central Assam", Ajmal told PTI.

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The two-phased Assembly polls in the state took place on April 4 and April 11.

"Sarma made this statement to score politically but it has caused damage to BJP and will electorally benefit Congress the most. In fact, the BJP high-command should take Sarma to task and ask for an explanation from him on this issue," the All India United Democratic Front leader said.

The process of updating the National Register of Citizens is currently on in Assam with 1971 as the base year which was agreed upon in the Assam Accord.

"The demand for 1951 as the base year will in no way affect majority of the Muslims as most can trace their family linkage to 1951 but will actually affect the Hindu Bengalis as most came from Bangladesh after 1971", Ajmal said.

"Our stand is very clear--we stand by the decision of 1971 as the base year which is being followed for updating NRC and we are committed to the Assam Accord," he said.

AIUDFs stand on the issue of foreigners has been clear from the beginning that all foreigners who have come after 1971 must leave but genuine citizens should not be harassed at any cost, Ajmal said.

"Bangladeshis must go. We do not want them to be in Assam but genuine citizens of the country who have been living in the state for generations should not be harassed. I have stated the same in Parliament," he said.

Asked about allegations that his party was formed after the scrapping of the Illegal Migrants Determination Tribunal (IMDT) Act, to protect the interests of Bangladeshi migrants, he said this was "absolutely false and a propaganda spread by Congress".

"Our party was in existence for six months before the scrapping of the IMDT Act in 2005 and we are not for protecting foreigners," he said.

Asked about his party being viewed primarily as a party for the minorities, the AIUDF chief said this was "not true. We are a secular party committed to the development of all communities in the state".

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"In this Assembly polls, out of the 73 candidates we have fielded, 33 are from different communities across the state and we want all-round development of all the communities," he said.

On allegations that madarsas in Assam were emerging as hubs for jihadis, Ajmal said these are just "speculation and an example of witch-hunting".

"There is no jihadi activities in madarsas. In most cases, it has been found that people are arrested on suspicion but later released after several years, thereby completely ruining their lives", he said.

Police should arrest only those against whom they have concrete evidence of indulging in such activities and not ruin the lives of people by keeping them in jails, Ajmal said. PTI DG RCJ SC RCJ

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By Rahul Kanwal, Javed M. Ansari : There is little for the Congress party to cheer about as far as the exit polls of the states that recently went to the polls are concerned. If the exit polls turn out to be correct, then the Congress party stands to lose both Assam and Kerala and end up on the losing side in West Bengal. Of the lot the loss of Assam will hurt more, because its pitted directly against the BJP in the state. Kerala has a history of voting out governments every five years, hence that is likely to hurt less.

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Exit polls: Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Bengal, Assam predictions, in a nutshell



The Congress will be hoping that the exits polls turn out to be as wide off the mark as they were in the case of Bihar, but incase that does not happen, then the results will prove to be a major setback in the party's attempt to stage a comeback. It would mean that its winless streak since 2104 continues. The Congress party is yet to win a single election since its drubbing of 20-14. true it was on the winning side in Bihar, but that was also due to the fact that it was a part of the JD(U)-RJD alliance. On its own the party is yet to win a state since the last Lok Sabha polls.

ALSO READ: Mamata Banerjee to retain West Bengal



The results if true, will also severely limit the party's ability to play a decisive role in the presidential and vice presidential elections due in the summer of 2107. Additionally, it will also impact the party's strength in the Rajya Sabha. The Congress party's influence in geographical terms will have shrunk further with the party as will the number of states where it is in power. Apart from Karnataka and Uttrakhand, the only states that it will be left with are three North East states.

ALSO READ: BJP set for historical debut, predicts India Today-Axis My India survey



This will also raise huge questions marks over whether the Congress party can be the axis around a potential anti-Modi front can evolve come 2019. While it's true that most of the regional parties too were decimated in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, some of them have begun to regain lost ground. The JD(U)-RJD decimated the BJP in Bihar, Kejriwal did the same in Delhi, and Karunanidhi looks likely to hold his own in Tamil Nadu and Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. What should worry the Congress party's political managers is that it is the only won which is still struggling to recover from its defeat in the last Lok Sabha elections.

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ALSO READ: Left to return, predicts India Today-Axis My India survey



The Congress leadership will come under greater pressure next years as it heads into polls in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. In Punjab, it has the AAP breathing down its neck, and unless it can get its act together in double quick time, Modi and Amit Shah might actually begin to believe that their dream of a Congress Mukt Bharat is nearing realisation. However, if Mr Tarun Gogoi does manage to win a record fourth term, it will certainly give the party and its leadership some breathing space.

ALSO READ: Jayalaithaa's AIADMK set to lose Tamil Nadu



In addition to winning Assam, for the BJP of particular interest will be the results of Kerela and West Bengal. In both these states the BJP's fight is more about establishing a foundation to build on for the future and less about government formation. The party did well fort itself in the Lok Sabha elections. For the first time, the BJP won 11 per cent of the popular vote in Kerala, a state in which it has struggled to make its presance felt all along. However, it it manages to open its account and win a couple of seats its political managers will be tempted to feel they have established their foot hold in yet another south India state after Karnataka.

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By PTI: From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, May 16 (PTI) Madhesis and demonstrators from other minority groups seeking more rights and representation in Nepals new Constitution clashed with police and blocked main streets near the Prime Ministers office here as their fresh protests entered the second day today.

Some 1,000 protesters chanting anti-government slogans picketed near the Prime Ministers office. They tried to break the police barricade, triggering a clash with the police.

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The protesters chanted: Down with incompetent government, Prime Minister K P Oli leave the country and We want our demands to be fulfilled.

Riot police used batons to disperse demonstrators.

Three Madhesi cadres sustained minor injuries during the clash, according to the agitating Federal Alliance, the grouping of seven Madhes-based political parties and 22 other ethnic groups.

Security was stepped up around Singha Durbar secretariat complex that houses the prime ministers office and government offices. Hundreds of riot policemen were deployed in the area to prevent an untoward incident.

The Federal Alliance spokesperson Parashu Ram Tamang said police personnel stopped "hundreds of leaders and cadres" heading to join the protest, interrogated them, seized flags and banners and frisked them unnecessarily.

The major demands of Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, include re-demarcation of the seven province model of federal structure, inclusiveness and proportionate representation of marginalised groups and ethnic minorities including the Madhesis, indigenous groups and dalits in all the state bodies.

They want the government to re-write the Constitution to meet their demands. The alliance started their Kathmandu-centric fresh protests yesterday.

Madhesis earlier had launched six-month-long agitation from September to February in which more than 50 people were killed. The agitation had also crippled the landlocked countrys economy as supplies from India were blocked.

The alliance has this time changed its strategy and focused their protest in the capital city in an attempt to draw attention of the government and other stakeholders to their demands. PTI SBP NSA

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By PTI: From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, May 16 (PTI) About 1,000 Madhesis and demonstrators from other minority groups seeking more rights and representation in Nepals new Constitution scuffled with police today, even as Prime Minister K P Oli warned that the government will not keep quiet if the protests become violent.

Protesters chanting anti-government slogans picketed near the Prime Ministers office and tried to break a police barricade, triggering a clash with the police on the third day of their protest.

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Riot police used batons to disperse demonstrators. During the protest, three demonstrators and two pedestrians were injured.

Two students were injured as the members of the agitating groups beat them up, accusing them of being governments vigilantes.

The protesters chanted slogans like Down with incompetent government, Prime Minister K P Oli leave the country, We want our demands to be fulfilled and Ensure our federal and ethnic rights.

The major demands of Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, include re-demarcation of the seven province model of federal structure, inclusiveness and proportionate representation of marginalised groups and ethnic minorities including the Madhesis, indigenous groups and dalits in all the state bodies.

Meanwhile, speaking at a separate programme to pay tribute to CPN-UMLs late leader Madan Bhandari, Prime Minister Oli asked the agitating groups to engage themselves in reconstruction of earthquake damaged structures across the country instead of taking to streets and creating traffic jams in the busy streets of the capital.

The Madhesi protesters jammed roads here after they were rejected by the people of southern Nepal, where their protests led to border blockade for six months, Oli said.

The government will not keep quiet, if the protest becomes violent, he warned.

Stating that the government is ready to address all the demands through talks, the Prime Minister asked the dissenting parties to arrive at the negotiating table.

"The government wants solution to the problem through dialogues. For that, we requested the agitating parties for talks time and again," he said.

The Federal Alliance, the grouping of seven Madhes-based political parties and 22 other ethnic groups, also announced that they would picket the Prime Ministers official residence in Baluwatar during their fourth day of protest tomorrow.

About 1,000 protesters picketed near the Singhdurbar Secretariat, the main administrative complex that also houses the Prime Ministers Office, today to protest the Constitution that divides the country into seven federal provinces. MORE PTI SBP NSA ASK AKJ ASK

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By PTI: Amritsar, May 15 (PTI) Jathedars of different Sikh religious Takhts including acting Jathedar Akal Takht (highest Sikh temporal seat) Amritsar Dhian Singh Mand who were appointed during the Sarbat Khasla last year, today paid obeisance at Akal Takht under heavy security cover.

The moment the acting Jathedar Akal Takht Dhian Singh Mand, Jathedar Takht Kesgarh Sahib Amrik Singh Ajnala, Jathedar Takht Damdama Sahib Baljit Singh Daduwal reached Golden Temple, they were escorted by task force of SGPC, provided special VVIP route to reach sanctum sanctorum of the Golden Temple to pay obeisance.

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Similar treatment were given when they reached Akal Takht to pay obeisance.

Mand when asked about the heavy security told newsmen that the "administration and SGPC were scared of their visit."

Mand said that he was not happy with the security cover inside and outside the Golden Temple, since it created hurdles to pay obeisance besides hurting his sentiments.

However, police said that security was to avert any untoward incident and to maintain law and orders during their visit in the city. Police also clarified that there was no such plan to arrest them. PTI COR VJ GS IKA RG

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By PTI: New Delhi, May 15 (PTI) Seeking addressing of water and sanitation woes in their areas, over 57 per cent of eligible voters in Ballimaran ward in north Delhi today came out to cast their franchise in the municipal bypolls held today.

Ballimaran sits in an eponymous Assembly constituency and for this by-election had 28,448 registered voters, out of which 57.63 per cent or 16,396 voted.

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"We do not get enough water here. One and half hours of water supply in the morning is all we get the entire day," said 60-year-old Ziauddin, a resident of Kasimjan area.

"Apart from the water shortage, we have also been facing lack of cleanliness and awful drainage system since quite a few years now. AAP (area MLA Imran Hussain) has not done enough to address the issue," said Krishan Solanki, 40, who works in a private company.

Interestingly, among the voters who queued up to the polling stations, some had "little to no hope of change" but still cast their votes as it was their "duty in a democracy".

"We want a better living standard for ourselves and our children. We want good education for them. However, over the years nothing has changed and I dont expect any change even after this election. I and my family cast our votes because its our duty to do so in a democracy," said a 32-year old woman who did not wish to be named.

The ward had an "ultra-sensitive" polling station. It is represented in Delhi Assembly by AAP minister Hussain who heads the Food, Supplies and Environment ministry.

Traditionally a Congress bastion, Hussains brother-in-law Mohammad Sadiq is the AAP candidate from Ballimaran and during his campaign, he had promised to continue "the good work done by his predecessor".

Apart from Sadiq, Congress candidate Obaid Khan and BJPs Nitin Tiwari are also in the fray from here.

Ballimaran, a densely populated area near Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi carries a distinct identity for the house of Mirza Ghalib in Gali Qasim Jan. PTI CHT KND RG

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Mikhail Bora has revealed quite a bit about his strained relationship with his mother Indrani on Bigg Boss Bangla 2, and has been getting a lot of attention from the audience.

By Manogya Loiwal : Indrani Mukerjea's son Mikhail Bora is making headlines again and this time it's for his appearance on the second season of popular reality show Bigg Boss Bangla.

In the show, Mikhail has revealed quite a bit about his strained relationship with his mother Indrani and has been getting a lot of attention from the audience.

The Sheena Bora murder case made headlines in September last year, and the complexities in the case made it one of the most sensational murder cases in recent times.

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A series of CBI and special police investigations finally put the spotlight on Sheena's mother and former NewsX CEO Indrani Mukerjea as the main accused in the case, along with her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyamvar Rai.

Mikhail's various revelations while inside the reality show house have come under the scanner considering he is still part of an ongoing investigation. Having made his way to the second season of the show, Mikhail is being paid a handsome amount of around Rs 50,000 per week.

The Bengali version of the show is being shot in the same Lonavala Bigg Boss house as the Hindi version. The reality show, which premiered on April 4, usually thrives on controversies and is being avidly watched by viewers. Here are six things Mikhail said on the show:



In one of the episodes, when Mikhail was quizzed about his life before the murder case, he talked about how his mother Indrani had abandoned him and left him at his grandparents' place since childhood. Mikhail also said that after Indrani was booked for murder, his family suffered both emotionally and financially. Mikhail accused his mother of drugging him and then later sending him to a rehabilitation centre to get rid of him. In yet another episode, Bora was seen talking about his sister's death and said that he had no idea about Sheena's whereabouts until the news of her murder came out. He told the contestants in the Bigg Boss house that Indrani had told him several lies about Sheena, including that she had moved to the US. Mikhail had also confirmed to his co-contestants that his sister Sheena was in a relationship with Peter Mukerjea's son from his earlier marriage, Rahul. Indrani, who had told everyone that she was Mikhail and Sheena's elder sister, had apparently threatened Mikhail warning him not to tell anyone the truth unless he wanted the money she sent to him, stopped. Owing to the financial strain he was in, Mikhail said he was forced to keep quiet about the entire thing.

Mikhail's surprising revelations about his mother and sister are sure to stir up a storm in the Bigg Boss house.



Also read:I was there when Sheena Bora was strangled: Indrani Mukerjea's driver tells Mumbai court

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Data prepared by the corporate affairs ministry has shown that among all projects of the Narendra Modi government, Swachh Bharat and Namami Gange have received least amount of funding from private companies in the year 2014-15.

By Mail Today: Big corporate houses in the country have not come forward to support Modi government's flagship projects Swachh Bharat and Namami Gange. The two cleanliness projects have received lukewarm response from the private sector as companies have spent meagerly under corporate social responsibility.

Data prepared by the corporate affairs ministry has shown that among all projects of the Narendra Modi government, these two have received least amount of funding from private companies in the year 2014-15. Altogether, these two projects have got not even 1 per cent of the total spending of Rs 6,337 crore. While Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has got a meagre 0.68 per cent of total spending, Clean Ganga Mission has got only 0.25 per cent.

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Companies have spent over Rs 42 crore towards 'Swachh Bharat Kosh' as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in 2014-15, money was given for achieving the objective of improving cleanliness levels in rural and urban areas including schools. As many as 460 companies spent a little over Rs 6,337 crore for CSR activities. This included 51 PSUs which spent Rs 2,386.60 crore.

Among other projects of Modi government, corporates have shown maximum response in education and livelihood enhancement schemes which have received over Rs 1,462 crore of CSR fund. Similarly, schemes to eradicate hunger, poverty and healthcare have also received about Rs 1,421 crore from business houses.

The two ambitious projects require big funds. As per Niti Aayog report, the Swachh Bharat Mission, which was launched on October 2,2014, envisages an investment of nearly Rs 2.23 lakh crore over a five-year period for constructing household toilets, community and public toilets and scientific waste management. The government is also considering long-term, tax-free Swachh Bharat bonds to raise funds.

Planning



Planning Similarly, the government has devised a threephase plan spanning nearly 18 years at Rs 51,000 crore to clean Ganga under Namami Gange project. The Union Cabinet has already approved of Rs 20,000 crore for the next five years for the 'Namami Gange' Programme which integrates the efforts to clean and protect the Ganga river in a comprehensive manner.

However, despite massive estimates, business houses have not come forward with funding under CSR. Keeping in mind that the government would require big money for these projects, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs had in October 2014, included donations to the Swachh Bharat Kosh and the Clean Ganga Fund as part of the CSR spends by India Inc, but the response has not been encouraging so far.

Provision

The new Companies Act mandates every company with a net worth of Rs 100 crore to set aside minimum 2 per cent of their three-year average annual net profit for CSR activities. To make PM Modi's dream projects "Clean India" and "Clean Ganga" a success, the finance ministry had made a provision for 100 per cent tax deduction for contributions made towards the Swachh Bharat Fund.

Under Clean Ganga project, a few companies have shown interest in taking up the work in Varanasi, which happens to be the Prime Minister's Lok Sabha constituency. While campaigning in the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi had vowed to clean the Ganga.

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Moreover, the government is also working on 30 per cent of CSR spends on Swachh Bharat which might be announced soon. The proposal is under consideration of a panel of Union ministers that is deliberating on ways to fast-track Modi's top priority schemes - Make in India, Jan Dhan Yojana, Swachh Bharat, Digital India and Skill India.

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By PTI: Bhopal, May 16 (PTI) In the wake of peoples stiff opposition to the development of proposed Smart City plan at the Shivaji Nagar area in the city, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan today said the site will now be shifted to North T T Nagar here.

"The site of the Smart City project will now be shifted to North TT Nagar from the earlier proposed Shivaji Nagar, respecting the popular opinion and for keeping intact the greenery and beauty of the area," Chouhan announced after a meeting on the issue.

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Addressing a high-level review meet on Smart City plan at Mantralaya here, the Chief Minister said that constructing high rises would be "unjust" keeping in view the greenery and aesthetic value of town planning in Shivaji Nagar.

"Therefore, the decision of shifting the Smart City site from Shivaji Nagar to North T T Nagar has been taken," he said.

The open flowing nullahs (drains) in the area would be taken care of and massive plantations would be taken up at the new site.

Chouhan asked the authorities concerned to start necessary preparations for the new site.

It may be noted here that land measuring 691.89 acres is available at North T T Nagar, while Shivaji Nagar had 332.98 acres.

The State Chief Secretary Antony DeSa, Principal Secretaries to Chief Minister, Iqbal Singh Bains and S K Mishra, among others were present on the occasion.

In the past, Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh had written a letter to Chouhan, in which he had opposed the move of setting up Smart City project in Shivaji Nagar and Tulsi Nagar areas because of its rich green cover.

In the letter, Singh had highlighted that the proposed project would lead to uprooting of around 40,000 trees, which not only provide fresh air to the city, but also made the area already "Smart". PTI MAS NP AMS JMF

--- ENDS ---
Between October 1947 and January 1948, Sheikh Abdullah, then chief minister of Kashmir, invited artists from around the country to contribute to what he labelled a 'National Cultural Front', envisaged as a means to unify Kashmiri sentiment and craft an identity distinct from Pakistani influence. Brij Mohan Anand, a little-known illustrator, was among the artists invited to contribute, alongside the likes of S.H. Raza. He delivered, though details are nebulous, a series of nudes. Alka Pande, in a foreword to a lavishly produced monograph on Anand, describes the incident as an example of his "fearlessly independent temperament". He had been advised to withdraw the drawings but had refused. "Sheikh Abdullah issued an arrest warrant for him," Pande reports, "but Anand managed to escape with his compositions, never to return to Kashmir."

The next exhibition of his work was held in 1979, over 30 years later-folk paintings at the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar. Anand, as Aditi Anand and Grant Pooke (the authors of Narratives of Indian Modernity, a comprehensive study of a figure who might easily have been lost to Indian art history despite the volume of his work) argue, was not interested or motivated by the acclaim of his peers or even an audience. Instead, he was content to make a living as a commercial illustrator, working for clients that included charities, journals and authors of pulp fiction. His practical approach to his artistic career was vital to that fearlessness Pande lauds in her foreword, the willingness to hew to his political and artistic ideals even if it meant courting arrest in Kashmir or annoying Nehru with his Soviet-inspired communist art.

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If Anand eschewed public acclaim, it's not that he was uninterested in public engagement. In 1972, he sent New Year's greeting cards to 50 embassies in New Delhi, Kurt Waldheim, the Secretary General of the United Nations and the editors of the Hindustan Times and the Times of India. "Stop Burning Asia," the card commanded. "Here they come again," Anand had written, referring to the war in Vietnam and a death toll numbering in hundreds of thousands, "the cultural parasites. Awake! Oh, Asia." It is both an exhortation and a lament, the tone upended by an ironically jaunty "season's greetings" attached to the end of the card. The card includes a reproduction of a sketch titled 'Stop Burning Asia. The Death is Shadowing You.' It is a minatory scratchboard drawing, made by scoring lines into a thin layer of clay. A Death-like figure, shrouded and skeletal, looms over skyscrapers and the Capitol dome. A muscular Native American crouches on what looks like a bridge or a road of skulls. He has struck a match, ready to set fire to a globe that has Asia turned to the viewer; strapped to his back is another globe with the North American continent clearly visible. It is a dramatic piece, in Anand's signature white on black, with a dramatic message-to set Asia alight is a Pyrrhic victory, is to assure American self-destruction. But it is also witty, ironic rather than pompous. Whatever response Anand expected, it can't have been the one he got-universal, mystified silence.

Pooke and Aditi write that Anand might be perceived to have been naive, that such confrontational engagement with politicians was bound to be met with silence. It is, they argue, an indication of his belief that art has an obligation to be political, to participate in the world, to not hold itself above the fray. For Pooke and Aditi, Brij Mohan was ignored by critics in thrall to the glamorous emigres, to the Progressive Artists' Group conducting a conversation, however oppositional or subversive, with European art history. "Whilst some of his peers were able to take the opportunity to travel overseas to the art capitals of Paris and London," the authors note waspishly, "Anand's practice was one of continuous immersion within Indian culture."

It is from this immersion that Anand looks abroad. He feels a kinship with other postcolonial peoples, with the greater effort towards human emancipation. Anand's greeting card recalls a scene in Satyajit Ray's Pratidwandi (1970) in which Siddhartha, the protagonist, is asked at a job interview what he regards as "the most outstanding and significant event of the last decade". The war in Vietnam, he answers. It's more significant than the landing on the moon (the answer the interviewers were anticipating), Siddhartha says, because "it's not a matter of technology". Given scientific progress, the landing on the moon had to happen. But the resistance of the Vietnamese revealed something about "plain human courage", something so hopeful and inspiring "it takes your breath away".

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Siddhartha's empathy for the Vietnamese reflects the spirit of Anand's art. His scratchboard work, with its sickles and heroic, martial peasants are obvious homages to Soviet propaganda. But so overblown are Anand's images, so overblown the accompanying rhetoric-for instance, "holding parliamentary chains to scorn, the emerging working class blessed by toiling peasantry frees itself from putrid and imperialistic clutches"-that he seems not so much a doctrinaire as an artist playing with form. This is not to say his beliefs are lightly held, that his opposition to India's military ambitions were not sincere, only that to focus solely on his political positions is to miss the comic book energy of his compositions. Anand, who died in 1986, missed liberalisation, which could have been his great subject-a country in which the richest one per cent own 53 per cent of the total wealth.

Brij Mohan Anand, on the evidence of this fascinating volume, was an artist who believed in the artist's ability to shape his country. If he was ignored, it did not stop him from committing his ideals to paper (or scratchboard), to showing what he believed India should be, could still be and what it must not allow itself to become.

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--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Chennai, May 16 (PTI) Nepal Chief Election Commissioner Ayodhya Prasad Yadav today had a first hand look at the special arrangements made for conduct of Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

A team of officials led by Yadav visited the Secretariat and inspected the steps taken for smooth conduct of the polls, official sources said.

The team met Chief Electoral Officer Rajesh Lakhoni and senior officials. Later they visited the control room and call centre offices set up by the Election Commission. PTI VIJ APR DBS KK

--- ENDS ---

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By PTI: Mumbai, May 16 (PTI) Shell India today announced the appointment of Nitin Prasad as its new chairman after the incumbent Yasmine Hilton retires in September.

Prasad is currently the cluster general manager for lubricants sales and marketing for India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. He will take charge from October 1, the company said in a statement.

Hilton, who has been the chairman of Shell Companies in India and vice present for IT project excellence at the parent Royal Dutch Shell, will end her assignment on September 30, 2016, after a career spanning 37 years with Shell, the statement added.

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Hilton began her career with Shell in 1979 in IT and went on to hold a number of senior posts in the group including, chief information officer for Britain and for Shells global retail business, operating in all five continents.

In October 2012 she took up a four-year assignment as country chairman, the first woman leader in the Indian oil and gas industry. PTI BEN NRB MR JMF

--- ENDS ---
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar was in Lucknow to attend a function organised by the Kisan Manch to support liquor prohibition in state.

By Mail Today: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday advised his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Akhilesh Yadav to ban liquor in his state.

Nitish, who was in Lucknow to attend a function organised by the Kisan Manch to support liquor prohibition in state said "Earlier people thought that my decision would invite all-round protest and the state would suffer a huge revenue loss. But we did not face any protest and slowly our economy will also come back on track".

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Advising Yadav, Nitish said, "Waqt ke saath doosre tareekon se iski poorti ki jaa sakti hai (The losses incurred (due to revenue loss) can easily be made up slowly by other developmental works)".

Nitish also went ahead to say that he did not get any kind of support from the neighboring states of Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh after he imposed the prohibition in Bihar.

"Before imposing the ban, we wrote to both the governments for their assistance in implementing it effectively. However, we received no response and the number of shops have also increased in the bordering districts", he said.

Taking a jibe at senior Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav, Nitish said, "Woh din kabhi nahi aaega ki hume katora le kar bheekh mangni pade (We will never ask for money from any one due to the revenue loss; instead our economy will strengthen)".

It is to be mentioned that Ram Gopal Yadav on Saturday said, "Liqour is a huge source of revenue and within a year, Nitish will be seen asking for money (from the centre) to run the state". Nitish also called upon prime minister Narendra Modi to set an example by banning liquor in BJP ruled states.

"Those who talk about morals should also set an example for others. He (Modi) should take the initiative for banning liquor in BJP-ruled states and gradually across the country", Nitish said.

Liquor traders however opposed Nitish's demand for prohibition in Uttar Pradesh. A local association of liquor traders claimed to have showm black flags to Kumar for suggesting imposition of prohibition in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow Sharab Association leader Kanhailal Maurya claimed that slogans were shouted against Nitish and black flags were shown to him. Police, however, did not confirm the incident. JD(U) MP, KC Tyagi, who had accompanied Nitish to Lucknow, referred to the incident during his speech at a Kisan Sammelan addressed by the Bihar chief minister.

Nitish's latest visit and his other recent tours of the state, however, did not go down well with ruling SP leaders. Nitish had visited Varanasi a few days back. The manner in which Nitish has been targetting UP, coming here every now and then, his comments against the SP government will embolden communal forces against which the UP government is fighting, SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said.

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He said Kumar has joined the league of MIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, who visit UP frequently and criticise the state government and the ruling party, which is fighting communal forces.

Also read:

Gaya road rage: Rocky's mother MLC Manorama Devi wanted for hoarding banned liquor

After liquor ban, crime graph slumps in Bihar







--- ENDS ---
Before launching the fidayeen attack, terrorists spoke to Kashif Jan, their handler in Pakistan and Maulana's pointsman for the Pathankot attack.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: Four months after 6 Jaish-e-Mohmmad (JeM) terrorist stormed Pathankot Airbase, the national investigating agency (NIA) has gathered technical proof against mastermind Maulana Masood Azhar and his brother Abdul Rauf. A crucial part in unravelling of the Pathankot conspiracy is joining the dots by phone calls and establishing the web link.

Before launching the fidayeen attack, terrorists spoke to Kashif Jan, their handler in Pakistan. Kashif Jan was Maulana's pointsman for the Pathankot attack. Terrorist on entering the Indian side, made an outgoing call to the number of Al Rahmat Trust 923213132786 on December 31, 2015. The Al Tahmat Trust is pseudo face of JeM, and the trusts page is linked to rangonoor.com. The agency has been further able to establish key link of administrator of alqalamonline.com and rangonoor.com as Muhammed Tariq Siddiqui, an important player in JeM. Both dot coms have a common email address an6415@yahoo.com, with its address in Karachi, Pakistan. NIA says that at least two numbers based in Pakistan was called by the terrorist at least 24 times. Most of the intercepts are already available with the agency.

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ALSO READ: 10 key points that top NIA's agenda to unravel Pathankot terror attack plot



An expert team also accessed facebook friends of "Kashif Jan" and as per his friend list, most lead to links to Jihad, JeM and contained videos and photos of killed JeM terrorist.

Facebook group also had videos and audio of Maulana Masood Azhar. How terrorist tracked the attack, was also by video channel footage links saved to their site.

While NIA is looking for forensic help from FBI on the Chinese wireless set which was recovered after the attack. The set was with NTRO but after Indian agencies failed to recover the deleted data. After three months, the set was sent to FBI which is expected to share results of the analysis sometime in mid June.

ALSO READ: Pathankot terror attack: Pakistan arrests several Jaish-e-Mohammad men



--- ENDS ---
By PTI: From K J M Varma

Beijing, May 16 (PTI) Five persons including a Hong Kong man linked to the citys pro-democracy opposition have been arrested in China over a plot to use a drone to disrupt a fence-mending visit by a top Chinese Communist party leader to the global financial hub, a media report said today.

Two persons were arrested from Hong Kong and three others from the mainland over the alleged plot involving a drone ahead of the visit of the third ranking ruling Communist Party of China, (CPC) leader Zhang Dejiang, Police in Shenzhen city located close to Hong Kong said yesterday.

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This is the first visit by a top level Chinese leader after the 75 days-long agitation in 2014 in which thousands of people pitched tents occupying key roads in Hong Kong, demanding Beijing to rescind on a rule brought in by it to screen the candidates to contest the 2017 election for the Chief Executive.

One of the arrested persons from Hong Kong identified as a 56-year-old man surnamed Guo was said to be helping a member of the "opposition" to cause a nuisance. He is said to have "financed several figures in the (Hong Kong) opposition".

He was described as a long-time sponsor of the opposition camp and had procured a drone for the opposition figure, only named as "Tsang", the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported today.

Tsang Kin-shing, a former lawmaker of Hong Kong has confirmed that he had asked some friends, including Guo, to buy a drone from the mainland a month ago, the report said.

Tsangnow, a member of the League of Social Democrats who is known as The Bull, said he had thought of using a drone for protests, not just for Zhangs visit.

Zhang, Chairman of the National Peoples Congress, (NPC), Chinas highest legislature is scheduled to visit Hong Kong tomorrow ending a four-year vacuum over increasing alienation of the former British colony over Beijing attempts to select candidates to contest polls affectively removing chances of "pro-independence" backers to join the electoral fray.

Hong Kong merged with China in 1997 as a Special Administrative Region of the mainland ending British rule since 1839.

Besides "inspecting" Hong Kong, Zhang will take part in a meeting formally endorsing the province role in Chinas "belt and road" strategic initiative. Official media reported that Zhang, also the leader of Chinas central coordination group for Hong Kong and Macau affairs, would "inspect" the city.

The "inspection" may feature unprecedented face-to-face encounters with pan-democratic lawmakers at a 40-minute cocktail reception which comes just months after the city experienced arguably its bloodiest social unrest since the 1960s, the report said.

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Hundreds of protesters mainly students pitched tents and occupied main location of the city, attacked police.

The pan-democrats have already said no to attending the banquet after the reception, the report added. PTI KJV CPS NSA AKJ CPS

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: South Indian superstar Rajinikanth today urged people to vote, saying it is the duty of all citizens to exercise their franchise.

He, however, declined to comment on allegations of distribution of money by candidates in Tamil Nadu.

"Everybody should vote and that is our duty," he told reporters after voting at Stella Maris College premises.

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Asked about allegations of distribution of money and postponement of elections, he merely said, "No comments".

EC has postponed polls in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur seats following allegations of distribution of money.

Another veteran actor Kamal Haasan said, "Higher the polling percentage, it is good for democracy and my feeling too is that it should be higher."

Asked who should come to power, he said "good people".

He voted at a polling station in Teynampet along with actress Gowthami.

Actor Ajith Kumar, hailed as "Thala" (leader), cast his vote along with wife Shalini. Actor turned politician Kushboo and her actor-director husband Sundar C also cast their votes.

Comedian Vivek, actors Prabhu, Sivakarthikevyan, Jeeva, Meena, lyricist Vairamuthu too exercised their franchise. Actor-turned politician and chief of Nam Tamizhar Katchi, Seeman, said those who distributed money were "sinners," and asked all the people to exercise their franchise.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: From Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, May 16 (PTI) Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today asked Parliament to set up a committee to probe all those whose names figure in the Panama Papers after his family was accused of stashing money in offshore entities.

Sharif asked the Speaker to thrash out a detailed procedure to probe those mentioned in the Panama Papers, in consultation with the opposition.

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He addressed parliament after the opposition had demanded that he should face the house to clear his name after his family members were mentioned in the Panama Papers.

Sharif dwelt at length on the issue of his family business which he said was established much before Partition.

He rejected the charge of money laundering and said his family did not transfer any money from Pakistan but used proceeds from the family business in UAE and Saudi Arabia to buy properties in the UK.

He said he was ready for accountability but demanded that all others involved in corruption should also face probes.

"The speaker should set up a committee of parliament in consultation with all parties to prepare terms of reference and detailed procedure for probe into Panama Papers," he said.

However, his offer was rejected by opposition parties which staged a walk out after Sharifs address.

Sharif also claimed that he had set up his business first and subsequently joined politics unlike those who make money through politics.

The opposition has been demanding Sharif face parliament and respond to various questions regarding how his family transferred money from Pakistan to set up businesses abroad.

Sharifs two sons Hussain and Hassan own businesses in UK and Saudi Arabia.

His critics want him to reveal the channels through which the funds were transferred from Pakistan along with the exact amount and whether any taxes were paid or not.

But pressure has eased on Sharif after Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaaf chief Imran Khan admitted having an offshore company while several other leaders were also found owning such entities, including Moonis Elahi, son of former deputy premier Pervaiz Elahi, and Pakistan Peoples Party senator and ex-interior minister Rehman Malik besides others. PTI SH KUN

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Mumbai, May 16 (PTI) Industrial explosives manufacturer Solar Industries India (SII) today reported a 20.24 per cent increase in net profit for the March quarter at Rs 48.22 crore on the back of higher sales.

The company had reported a net profit of Rs 40.10 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

Its sales for the January-March period increased to Rs 465.53 crore from Rs 418.88 crore a year-ago, registering a growth of 11.14 per cent.

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"The growth in sales was driven by demand from state-run Coal India and exports," companys Chief Financial Officer Nilesh Panpalliya told PTI.

During the year, the Nagpur-headquartered company reported total sales of Rs 1,658.23 and net profit of Rs 166.14 crore compared to Rs 1,456.46 crore and Rs 147.41 crore, respectively in the corresponding quarter of FY15.

"The sales have improved, but it could have been higher. Devaluation of currency in Nigeria, Zambia and Turkey was one of the reason for lower numbers," he said.

Panpalliya also said the company expects to get more orders from the defence sector.

"We already have nearly Rs 73 crore worth orders in our defence business for HMX and its compounds, propellant, pyrotechnics and warheads from various ordnance factories.

"In 2015-16, we reported revenues of around Rs 8 crore in this business. The current order book gives us a visibility of around Rs 80 crore revenue this fiscal," he added.

The company entered into the defence sector four years ago and has set up countrys first HMX plant in private sector, a large composite propellant plant and facilities for producing various other products like pyros and war heads.

SII plans to start commercial production in South Africa where it will manufacture bulk explosives and cartridges among other with a total capacity of 30,000 metric tonne. The company has invested USD 7 million in the facility. PTI PSK NRB MR

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Mumbai, May 16 (PTI) Industrial explosives manufacturer Solar Industries India (SII) today reported a 20.24 per cent increase in net profit for the March quarter at Rs 48.22 crore on the back of higher sales.

The company had reported a net profit of Rs 40.10 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

Its sales for the January-March period increased to Rs 465.53 crore from Rs 418.88 crore a year-ago, registering a growth of 11.14 per cent.

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"The growth in sales was driven by demand from state-run Coal India and exports," companys Chief Financial Officer Nilesh Panpalliya told PTI.

During the year, the Nagpur-headquartered company reported total sales of Rs 1,658.23 and net profit of Rs 166.14 crore compared to Rs 1,456.46 crore and Rs 147.41 crore, respectively in the corresponding quarter of FY15.

"The sales have improved, but it could have been higher. Devaluation of currency in Nigeria, Zambia and Turkey was one of the reason for lower numbers," he said.

Panpalliya also said the company expects to get more orders from the defence sector.

"We already have nearly Rs 73 crore worth orders in our defence business for HMX and its compounds, propellant, pyrotechnics and warheads from various ordnance factories.

"In 2015-16, we reported revenues of around Rs 8 crore in this business. The current order book gives us a visibility of around Rs 80 crore revenue this fiscal," he added.

The company entered into the defence sector four years ago and has set up countrys first HMX plant in private sector, a large composite propellant plant and facilities for producing various other products like pyros and war heads.

SII plans to start commercial production in South Africa where it will manufacture bulk explosives and cartridges among other with a total capacity of 30,000 metric tonne. The company has invested USD 7 million in the facility. PTI PSK NRB MR JMF

--- ENDS ---
Sonam Kapoor's latest Cannes outfit is giving us major Black Swan vibes--and we love every bit of it.

Sonam Kapoor was her usual effervescent self as she engaged in an informal press meet on the second day of her Cannes stint. Picture courtesy: Instagram/Rhea Kapoor

By India Today Web Desk: Sonam Kapoor's unpredictable-yet-edgy style is taking on Cannes, one stunning outfit at a time.

After sending the world into a whirlwind of awe with her first two looks, inclusive of her futuristic Rimzim Dadu saree followed by a stunning Ralph & Russo white gown, Kapoor has yet again managed to more than impress us.

Also Read: Sonam Kapoor looks absolutely angelic on the red carpet

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And keeping her love for Ralph & Russo intact, Kapoor once again donned a stunning dress by the renowned fashion house.





Sonam Kapoor's latest outfit channelises her inner ballerina and how. Picture courtesy: Instagram/ Rhea Kapoor

The gorgeous Bollywood star, who has the reputation of experimenting with her fashion choices in a rather commendable way, was her usual effervescent self as she engaged in an informal press meet on the second day of her Cannes stint.





Will it be a Ralph & Russo hattrick for Sonam? Picture courtesy: Instagram/ Rhea Kapoor

Also Read: Sonam Kapoor's futuristic saree will blow your mind

With makeup from L'Oreal's infallible collection and accessories by Suhani Pittie, Kapoor's third Cannes appearance reminded us of a certain Mila Kunis in Darren Aronofsky's mystery-drama movie, Black Swan.



--- ENDS ---
The Stockholm District Court said Claver Berinkindi, a Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda, was convicted of genocide and gross crime under international law consisting of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping in Rwanda.

A Rwandan refugee girl stares at a mass grave where dozens of bodies have been laid to rest outside Kigali (REUTERS)

By Reuters: A Swedish court sentenced on Monday a 61-year-old man to life in prison for genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the second such case brought by the Nordic country over crimes during the conflict.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS The Stockholm District Court said Claver Berinkindi, a Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda, was convicted of genocide and gross crime under international law consisting of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping in Rwanda. "This relates to participation in a large number of massacres during the 1994 genocide where the defendant had an informal role as a leader," the court said in a statement. Under Swedish law, courts can try people for crimes committed abroad. The court said fifteen crime victims had been awarded damages ranging from 3 million Rwandan francs ($3,781) to 10 million francs ($12,602). It was the first time a Swedish court had awarded damages to victims of genocide. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly of the Tutsi people, were killed over three months in 1994 after years of civil war. The massacres raised questions about the ability or will of international organisations or states to intervene to halt mass killings of civilians. Berinkindi was charged in Sweden in September 2015. The district court ruling can be appealed.

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In 2013, a Swedish court sentenced another man to life in prison for genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It was the first time a person in Sweden had been convicted of genocide.



--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Ahmedabad, May 16 (PTI) Nearly 44 per cent voter turnout was registered till 1 PM today during the ongoing poll for the by-election in Talala Assembly constituency in Gir-Somnath district of Saurashtra, officials said.

According to Gir-Somnath Collector Ajay Kumar, no untoward incident has been reported so far.

"Till 1 PM, around 44 per cent voters, out of total two lakhs, have exercised their franchise. We expect it to increase as polling will end at 5 PM. No untoward incident has taken place during polling," Kumar said.

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Polling is presently underway at 230 booths.

The counting of votes will take place on May 19.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made for the polling as three battalions each of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) have been deployed, besides the local police, Kumar said.

The by-election was necessitated after Jasu Barad, Congress MLA from the constituency, passed away in January.

The Congress and BJP are in a direct fight in the by-election.

While the Congress has given ticket to Bhagwanji Barad, younger brother of Jasu Barad, the BJP has fielded Govind Parmar, who won the Talala seat in 2002.

This will be the second face off between Bhagwanji Barad and Parmar as they had contested against each other on the same seat in the 2007 Assembly polls.

Barad had then defeated Parmar.

Parmar, on the other hand, had won the 2002 Assembly election defeating Jasu Barad.

Later, Jasu Barad defeated Parmar in 2012 Assembly polls with a thin margin. PTI PJT PD GK TIR RDS

--- ENDS ---
Their number shot up from a mere six lakhs to one crore. In other words, they constitute nearly 25 per cent of the total electorate.

First time voters in Tamil Nadu could well tilt the balance between the two Dravidian parties given the humongous rise in new registrations. Their number shot up from a mere six lakhs to one crore. In other words, they constitute nearly 25 per cent of the total electorate.



But what is it that drove the young voters to ink themselves this time in a state that has seen not just a multi-cornered election, but also one where moneybags are alleged to have played a very crucial role?

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India Today spoke to some first time voters and they definitely looked at themselves as game changers.

Ananya who landed at the Saidapet polling booth with her family was quite excited to ink her finger. She said, " I voted because I get to be involved in the democratic process and contribute towards the development of the state. I would like to vote for a change if there is a stronger third option. Unfortunately, at present, that's not the case in Tamil Nadu. The Dravidian parties seem like the ultimate rulers here and the change we all like to see is not in the near future.

Dhanalakshmi, another first time voter said "It is my duty to vote. It was an exciting experience, not only to cast the vote but also to get to know about all the candidates and then make an informed decision. I take great pleasure in the liberty to express my opinion and choice. Voting is not just a responsibility for youngsters like me, but a requirement."

In 2011, the vote difference between the AIADMK and the DMK was around 50 lakh. If you do the math, these one crore first time voters could prove to be the real game changers.

Like Aarthi Anand said "Being a citizen of India it is our right to vote. Generally we think single vote doesn't count but think what will happen if this becomes a national attitude? "

--- ENDS ---
Counting votes for all four states and Union Territory -Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry- will be held on May 19.

By India Today Web Desk: Elections in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry began at 7am today morning.

Superstar Rajinikanth voted in Chennai's Stella Maris College the moment voting started at the polling booth. People were seen standing in long queues even before the polling began in Tamil Nadu.

Former Union Defence Minister AK Antony was among the early birds in Kerala. After casting his vote Antony said, "there is no doubt that the UDF will win." He also said, "the PM's comparison of Kerala with Somalia has hurt the pride of Malayalis."

For the first time in Kerala's history,UDF going to come back again.We'll win Kerala Elections hands down: AK Antony pic.twitter.com/byno0z9FiF& ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

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Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are voting today as per the Election Commission's single phase schedule. Counting votes for all four states and Union Territory -Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry- will be held on May 19.

Everyone should vote, that is a duty: Rajinikanth after casting his vote in Chennai's Stella Maris College. pic.twitter.com/NwABfJvBJj&; ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

--- ENDS ---
American thriller TV series Quantico, starring Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra has come to an end.

By India Today Web Desk: American thriller TV series Quantico has finally revealed its season-long mystery on Sunday--who was really behind the Manhattan bombings? (for that you have to watch the show)--and with that the current season has come to an end.



An emotional and overwhelmed Priyanka took to Twitter to show her gratitude towards her fans.



Also read: Quantico season 1 is coming to an end soon, reveals Priyanka Chopra

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"And so its ends...for now! #Quantico Will miss my weekly live sessions with you guys...was so much fun! Thanks for being there with me!!!(sic)," she tweeted this morning.

The show that aired its first episode last year in September has successfully completed its 22 episodes this month.

"So so grateful for the love #Quantico has received...truly an unforgettable experience. Can't wait for Season 2! #QuanticoFinale," Priyanka's another tweet read.

The hit series revolves around the lives of young FBI recruits training at the Quantico base in Virginia when one of them is suspected of being a sleeper terrorist.

Also read: Priyanka Chopra's Quantico wins sexiest TV cast title

After Quantico became an essential part of her life, Priyanka also bagged a big-budget Hollywood movie, Baywatch, also starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson.

Ahead of its finale, Quantico also started trending in the US at number 3.

"Broken battered and bruised...But will keep running...Thank you for all the love and support...It keeps me going...Xoxox zzzzzzs," Priyanka thanked her fans online.

Last month, Priyanka uploaded a picture on her Instagram account with the caption-- "Last table read for season 1 #Quantico" and went on to add, "It's been arduous and hard but made friends for life.." hinting that the series will be ending soon.



And now when it has finally ended, fans are not happy. The show's ardent followers and fans have inundated Priyanka and team with messages asking them to come forward with the next season ASAP.

Priyanka has been getting congratulatory messages on Twitter from her fans, colleagues from Bollywood and critics, since morning.

The Bajirao Mastani actress also became the first Indian to win at the People's Choice Awards in the category of Best Actress in a new TV series for her show Quantico.

--- ENDS ---

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By India Today Travel Plus: Day 1: Begin your Hong Kong hop with a panoramic view from Victoria Peak. Take the Peak Tram, the 120-year funicular to the top. The other option is to get on to the Hop On Hop Off bus for a quick/convenient look at the city. If you want to do it in style, book a heli tour. For a top-down view of city, head to the helipad atop Peninsula Hotel for a 15-minute chopper ride. Return to a glass of champagne.

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Day 2: Hong Kong is a fun place. There's Disneyland, Ocean Park, Kowloon Park, Hong Kong Wetland Park, Madame Tussaud's. You cannot cover all of them in one day. On Day 2, pick the Flexi Pass that offers nearly 50 per cent discount on sightseeing. Then have tea in Li Heung, an old-world tea house in Wellington Street that keeps the history alive. Must-order includes lotus paste buns and rice dumplings.

Also Read: London has been voted the world's best travel destination



Day 3: After seeing the must-sees, on Day 3, get ready to shop. Causeway Bay is called the Olympics of Shopping; at Admiralty, the big guns flash their plastic cards; Tsim Sha Tsui is a breathing world bazaar. At night, step into thefamous Temple Street night market in Kowloon. If you are game for more shopping adventure, try stepping into the bursting Chungking Mansions where everything under the sun is sold.

Day 4: Before catching the flight home, hire a junk (a motorised pleasure boat) and go island hopping. Hong Kong actually is an archipelago of 260 islands. All you need to do is carry a picnic basket, some good books to read and your beer, drop anchor in one of the islands and jump off the deck for a swim. Or, take a day trip to the breath taking Lantau Island located on the mouth of River Pearl.

See: Edward Youde Aviary Sprawled over 30,000 sqft and built over a natural valley in a corner of Hong Kong, Edward Youde Aviary, is the largest aviary in South Asia and is definitely a bird watcher's delight. If you take a walk through the aviary which has some 600 birds, at the entrance you can also see a collection of bird eggs.

Also Read: Mother-daughter travel diary in Paris



Shop: Goodbye Goodbuy This one is a flea market in a store. The couple that runs Goodbye Goodbuy has picked up trinkets, knickknacks, bags, jewellery, all other sundries from their travels abroad. The store inventory is forever changing and it is a great place to pick things from countries you have never even heard of.

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Stay: The Luxe Manor Next to Knutsford Terrace in Tsim Sha Tsu area, The Luxe Manor blends post-modern with colonial glamour; fiery red melds with Salvador Dali's melting watches; Dada, the bar, is popular for its unique music; in Gastronomy Extra, it is a 3-star Michelin chef that rustles the fine dining experience.

Eat: Dinner in the Dark This one can be a taste-bud and table-manners challenge. The restaurant is dark. You eat in complete darkness. The servers are blind. Rest assured the three-course meal is scrumptious. The menu is not divulged before the meal. You know what you ate only after you have finished dinner.

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By Shwweta Punj : Two years into power, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has managed to silence his naysayers by following a fiscally conservative and prudent path that has focused on India's macro fiscal health. However, there are questions on expanding India's direct tax base, resurrecting the disinvestment agenda, phasing out of subsidies and much more. But the finance minister seemed to be in no hurry. He was quick to point out that reforms are a legislative and non-legislative process. The FM spoke to Associate Editor Shweta Punj on two years of Modi government.

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Shweta Punj (SP): Your biggest accomplishment as FM...

Arun Jaitley (AJ): I think the most critical factor is that the last two years globally have been the most challenging. Even today, global leaders don't know how long the slowdown phase will last. Global growth has been scaled downwards. Most economies are struggling between negative and plus-2 per cent range in terms of growth. To add to this, we inherited a policy paralysis, a negative image with the investors, a very difficult NPA (non performing asset) situation and an overstressed private sector.

Now, in the backdrop of all this, the most important aspect is we withstood the storm. It is for the first time in history we grew at 7.3 and 7.5 per cent. In slowdown phases these are high growth figures. This was in the face of adverse global environment, a stressed private sector and an obstructive domestic environment. Essentially, it is done on the strength of public investment and policy reform. We have maintained consistency and with each step we have been able to move in one direction, never reversing it. On the strength of public investment, foreign direct investment, policy and if we have a good monsoon this year and if it results in good rural demand, it will also have an impact on private sector, we could even do slightly better.



SP: On GST, it does seem like that Arun Jaitley wants to get it passed but party does not.

AJ: Party and government are on the same page. GST is something that the entire country is in favour of. Across political parties, state governments are supporting it. Even Congress governments are supporting it. The Congress is raising objections which have been recently invented. Now it's 'A' objection which has been recently invented which I feel they should reconsider. Congress' stand is more of a teaser.

We have been able to carry through all reform measures which we have tried, whether it was insurance, whether it was Aadhaar, or Bankruptcy Bill, mining or coal - both through legislative action or through executive action we have been be able to get through almost every measure. At the end of the session we will have GST and some routine ones, like revisiting of Companies Act in the pipeline. My position on GST is that we prefer to do it with consensus and therefore I would like the Congress to come on board. I will again speak to them after the Bankruptcy Bill is passed.

SP: The Congress party seems to be unhappy about the fact that the PM has not reached out to them.

AJ: That's not correct. I have personally carried the message to them. The leaders I have spoken to and I have visited their homes and spoken to them, publicly take the position that nobody has spoken to us.



SP: Your approach has been very incremental and conservative. With an absolute majority why have you not been able to push through anything big?

AJ: You can have big bang articles in newspapers but as far as reforms are concerned they contain legislative and non legislative steps. There is no one step which can reform the whole economy.

SP: The government has been slow tackling the issue of non-performing assets of banks. We have been delayed in reacting and very measured.

AJ: It's not a panic situation. It's a challenging situation. Problem is not a creation of the present government. Few loans appear to have been improperly given... most of them, NPAs relate to sectoral downturns. The previous governments did not address the problems of those sectors. The sectors are steel, textiles, power, sugar, highways, and infrastructure. If you look at the NPAs, an overwhelming percentage relates to these sectors. In the last 1.5 years, we have taken stock of the situation. We have addressed highways, sugar. We have taken step after step on steel, which is the largest NPA... the balance-sheets are turning. We have addressed power through UDAY scheme. Many stalled projects have been expedited. Textiles, we are in the process of addressing. Additionally, I announced, a year ago, recapitalisation. Two installments of recapitalisation have already gone in. The legislative framework, the recapitalisation, the empowering of banks, empowering the banks, addressing the sectoral problems -have all been put in motion.

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SP: On the taxation front, we have had many issues - from GST, to tax inspectors hounding tax payers for service tax.

AJ: No government has eased and relaxed tax provisions the way we have. This year on service tax, there were five grounds on which a person could be arrested. In this year's finance bill I have deleted four of them. Now, one can be arrested only if he collects and doesn't pay. On income tax... the tax payer's life is the easiest today in history. Ninety four per cent returns are coming online. Refunds are online. No longer does an inspector visit you and want a kickback for a refund. Small monies are transferred immediately to the bank. Larger amounts reach you by speed post. Over 2 crore people have received refunds online.

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SP: What about the Direct Tax Code?

AJ: Most of the provisions have been incorporated in various finance bills. Some may have become obsolete. DTC is not on my agenda.

SP: What's on your agenda?

AJ: I have today, after the Bankruptcy Bill is cleared, the following exists: GST, health of the banks, emphasis on rural India, emphasis on infrastructure and strengthening social sector schemes

SP: So more schemes?

AJ: For example, we followed a slightly different agenda, instead of distributing cheques, we have had the most successful financial inclusion programme anywhere in the world. We then had major insurance and pension schemes. We now have a crop insurance scheme, a health insurance for weaker sections. We have started the Mudra, Start Up and Stand Up. Now we have cooking gas for the poor...additional resources would be for rural India, infrastructure and social sector. Some old schemes could be merged or phased out from time to time.

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By PTI: From Aditi Khanna

London, May 16 (PTI) Britains senior-most Indian-origin minister Priti Patel today congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the second anniversary of his election victory and praised him for setting a "new level of ambition" for India-UK ties.

Patel, who sits on the UK Cabinet as Employment Minister and is also British Prime Minister David Camerons Indian Diaspora Champion, in a statement said, "I would like to congratulate Prime Minister Modi on the second anniversary of his election victory. He set out an ambitious vision for India ?- one of inclusive, sustainable development."

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She said, "We remain committed to supporting the Prime Ministers vision for Indias transformation and to taking the UK-India relationship to new heights."

The 44-year-old senior Conservative party MP said as the worlds oldest democracy and largest democracy, the UK and India share a long-standing friendship anchored in democratic values, shared history and common interests.

"Prime Minister Modi has set a new level of ambition for our growing partnership," she said.

Patel, herself of Gujarati-origin, has been a vocal supporter of Modi in the UK since he was the chief minister of Gujarat. PTI AK PMS AKJ PMS

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By PTI: Kathmandu, May 16 (PTI) Nepal Police today arrested a British national for allegedly participating in the anti- Constitution protests here, days after a Canadian software developer was deported over his controversial tweets.

Martin Travers, 44, was arrested during a protest outside Singha Durbar in the capital while he was taking pictures of the scuffle between police personnel and hundreds of Madhesi protesters, who are demanding changes to the new Constitution.

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The arrest comes a day after reports of foreigners taking part in the anti-government protest splashed the local media.

Travers is a mural painter and paints peoples faces, his aides were quoted as saying by the Kathmandu Post.

They also claimed that Travers was not taking part in the demonstration.

Chief District Officer of Kathmandu District, Ram Krishna Saubedi, confirmed the arrest of British national.

Travers had been actively involved in relief distribution work and returned to Nepal on the first anniversary of earthquake to continue his relief programme.

Earlier this month, Nepal government ordered a Canadian IT professional Robert Penner to leave the country as his tweets were deemed to "incite conflict".

The authorities said Penner had violated the terms of his visa by commenting on Nepals "internal matters".

According to reports, Penner has appealed the governments decision and the Nepal Supreme Court is scheduled to hold a hearing on the matter next week. PTI SUA AKJ SUA

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: From K J M Varma

Beijing, May 16 (PTI) Accusing the US of "sowing discord" between China and India, Beijing today said the two neighbours are wise enough to resolve their boundary dispute peacefully through talks and asked America to respect their efforts.

Dismissing as groundless a Pentagon report that claimed the Communist giant was deploying more troops along the Sino-India borders, China said that it was a misrepresentation of its military development.

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"Maintaining peace and tranquility along the China-India border areas is an important consensus reached between the leaders of the two countries," the Chinese Defence Ministry said in written response to PTI here about the US report.

"Currently, the border forces of China and India are actively carrying out exchanges, working towards establishing hotline between the two militaries, and are in close communication through the mechanism of border personnel meetings," it said.

"The situation in the China-India border is overall peaceful and stable. The relevant statements by US defence officials are clearly unsubstantiated and intended to sow discord," between India and China, the ministry said.

Earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry in a written response said the US must respect India-China efforts to resolve the boundary dispute peacefully through negotiations.

India and China last month held the 19th round of talks to resolve the border dispute stretching along the 3488 km long Line of Actual Control (LAC).

While China says that the boundary dispute is confined to 2,000 kms, mainly in Arunachal Pradesh in eastern sector which it claims as part of southern Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covered the whole of the LAC including the Aksai Chin.

"The Chinese side is committed to safeguarding peace and tranquility of the border areas between China and India, and resolving the boundary question through negotiation with India," the Foreign Ministry said in written response to PTI.

"China and India are wise and capable enough to deal with this issue. It is hoped that other country would respect efforts made by China and India for the peaceful settlement of dispute, rather than the opposite," the Foreign Ministry said, without directly referring to United States.

The US report also warned of increasing Chinese military presence in various parts of the world, particularly Pakistan.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for EastAsia Abraham M Denmark told media in Washington on May 14 that "we have noticed an increase in capability and force posture by the Chinese military in areas close to the border with India."

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"It is difficult to conclude on the real intention behind this," Denmark said after submitting Pentagons annual 2016 report to the US Congress.

"It is difficult to say how much of this is driven by internal considerations to maintain internal stability and how much of it is an external consideration," he said when asked about Chinas military command in Tibet. PTI KJV NSA ZH AKJ ZH

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Tributes have poured in for the pilot Greg Connell, with fellow fliers even drawing a heart in the sky for their fallen colleague.

By India Today Web Desk: A pilot was killed on Saturday when his biplane crashed while performing a stunt at an airshow in Atlanta, Georgia. He has been identified as Greg Connell, a stunt pilot with more than 20 years experience.

Connell crashed and died while flying in tandem with another plane during an aerial acrobatics stunt on Saturday afternoon at the Good Neighbor Day Open House Airshow at DeKalb Peachtree Airport, said DeKalb County Public Information Officer Sheira Campbell.

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The airport is about 11 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta.

The pilot was the only one aboard when the plane crashed at 4:49 pm, DeKalb County spokesman Burke Brennan told AP in an emailed statement. No other injuries were reported on the ground and nothing else was damaged apart from the aircraft.

It was the first accident in 30 years of the PDK Good Neighbor Day Airshow, Brennan said.

Tributes have poured in for Connell, with fellow fliers even drawing a heart in the sky for their fallen colleague.

Reposting this poignant scene from yesterday's Good Neighbor Air Show @PDKAirport in honor of Greg Connell. #rip pic.twitter.com/F8hSQCjErA Mark McKay (@mckayWSB) May 15, 2016



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Maintaining your weight loss is a challenge and needs extra attention to even keep other diseases at bay.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Are you keen on shedding those extra kilos, but are unable to maintain consistency? Take heart, as according to a new study, participating in a weight loss programme for long-term can help manage your body weight. Losing weight is difficult and at the same time maintaining the new healthy weight, which is associated with lower blood pressure, blood sugar, improved sleep, over years is even harder.

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The results demonstrate that long-term participation in weight loss programme could be effective in sustaining weight loss and ward off obesity.

"Maintaining long-term weight loss is a critical challenge in treating obesity and other health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease," said lead author Nia Mitchell from University of Colorado in the US.

The team followed over 65 thousand overweight or obese people who joined a national programme called 'Take Off Pounds Sensibly' (TOPS), from 2005 to 2010.

The findings revealed that half of the participants showed significant weight loss in the first year. Out of those who participated in the second year, 80 percent kept off the weight. During years three to seven, nearly 90 percent of participants who continued the programme maintained their weight loss steadily.

ALSO READ: 6 big rules you just can't afford to skip before weighing yourself

Consistent participation in the weight loss programme for one year helped the participants to sustain their new healthy weight, the researchers noted.

"Just losing the weight isn't enough. Since the health benefits of weight loss disappear when weight creeps back on, we need more research into effective strategies for maintaining a healthier weight once it is reached," Mitchell added.

The findings were presented at the recently held Society of General Internal Medicine 2016 Annual Meeting in Florida.

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The phone uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 415 octa-core processor that has a speed of 1.4GHz and 16GB internal storage.

By Shivangi Mishra: Micromax on Monday launched the Canvas Evok smartphone. Priced at Rs 8,499, the phone will be sold exclusively at Flipkart. Earlier this month, the company had also launched Canvas XP 4G and that was a Flipkart exclusive.

The Evok, which is a fairly affordable phone, has a hardware that matches its profile. It has a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels. The phone uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 415 octa-core processor that has a speed of 1.4GHz, has 3GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. On the back, the phone has a 13MP camera and for the selfies it offers a 5MP camera. The phone has Adreno 405 graphics chip, a 3000mAh battery and a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the screen.

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Commenting on the launch, Shubhajit Sen, CMO, Micromax said, "The current trend of 4G connectivity, big screens, high definition displays and powerful RAM has picked up immensely and the Canvas Evok brings the best combination of all these with its features and design language".

Also Read: Micromax Yu's YU5200 with 3GB RAM coming to India soon: Report

Micromax claims that the rear camera's sensor area of 1.12um reduces noise in images and captures low-light pictures expertly.

Though a reasonably priced 4G smartphone, the Canvas Evok uses Android Lollipop 5.0.2 at a time when users can buy devices like the Moto G3 with Android Marshmallow at a price of less than Rs 10,000. Consumers also have option to opt for the Micromax Canvas XP 4G, which runs slightly upgraded version -- Android 5.1 -- of the Android operating system. The XP 4G costs Rs 7,499.

Also Read: Micromax launches Canvas XP 4G with 3GB RAM at Rs 7,499

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Covert Origins

From August 1981 to February 1982, the 70-member commission met in some of Washington, D.C.s most storied hotels. From the Capitol Hilton to the Mayflowera mecca for the capitals rich and powerful, where Franklin Roosevelts right-hand man first penned the line the only thing we have to fear is fear itselfa group of labor leaders, high-ranking party functionaries, senators, representatives, governors and mayors hammered out the nitty-gritty details of reform.

The gathering got off on a light note when Minneapolis Mayor Don Fraser joked that the party could simply announce it wouldnt nominate anyone selected through the primaries. This, the transcript notes, elicited general laughter.

The very democracy of the primary process appears to have made the Commission members nervous. They felt they had to give party eliteselected officials and high-ranking party membersa greater hand in choosing candidates, or as Xandra Kayden, a member of the Center for Democratic Policy (now Center for National Policy), put it, the power to to regain control of the nomination.

This was partly couched in a belief in elites superior judgment. They bring to the convention a certain political acumen, a certain political antenna, explained Connecticut state Sen. Dick Schneller, a liberal member of the party.

The inspiration for these words was likely Jimmy Carter, whose presidency cast a long shadow over the proceedings. The Georgia governor had won the nomination running as an outsider against the political bosses. Carter often bragged in his stump speech: Ive never worked in Washington. Im not a senator or congressman. Ive never met a Democratic president.

As president, he passed over party insiders for appointments in favor of his close-knit team of Georgia unknowns. His strained relationship with his party was exacerbated by his reluctance to compromise on pork-barrel spending, which congressmen relied on to shore up support in their districts.

Excerpt from the Hunt Commission on Presidential Nominations

[Carters] nomination at least would not have been possible under the old rules, said Austin Ranney, an expert on elections who had worked on the 1968 Humphrey campaign and served on the McGovern-Fraser Commission.

Though his name was not invoked as often as Carters, these reforms were also a rebuke of George McGoverns disastrous 1972 campaign. McGovern had won the nomination on the back of the grassroots-focused reforms he himself had helped institute in 1970. The [Hunt] Commission doesnt want a system that lends itself to a McGovern or Carter, Rick Stearns, a member of the Commissions advisory committee, would later tell the press in explaining the rationale for superdelegates.

Another fear was that the 1970 reforms led to nominees out of step with the partys ever-shifting centerwhether to its left, or, in the case of Carter, to its right. Liberal-reformers realized that the same rules which made it easier for a liberal-insurgent like George McGovern to get nominated could be used successfully by a Southern-conservative-insurgent, which is how they perceived Carter, wrote Commission member and Maryland Democratic Committeeman Lanny Davis not long after.

A concern was that primaries, with their lower turnout rates than general elections, could give undue power to single-issue factions. This was a standard complaint at the time (and since): that the Democratic Party was coming under the sway of groups devoted to narrowly focused causes, from gun control and environmentalism to feminism and civil rights.

Our decisions will make the convention more representative of the mainstream of the party, the Commissions chair, North Carolina Gov. James Hunt, told the press shortly before the Commission finished. We lost a lot of people in the last few years. Our actions should make mainstream Democrats feel better.

Mainstream may have been code for the working-class voters who were fleeing the Democratic Party. The 1981 DNC report had noted significant differences between primary and general election voters; primary voters tended to be better-educated and middle-class.

While the loss of working-class support was a problem that would dog the party for decades, Commission members saw no illogic in addressing this disaffection by reinstating top-down control. Many seemed to truly believe that superdelegates could represent the will of the people more faithfully than the votes of the people could.

They can positively bring to the convention the views of the grassroots who are their constituents, explained New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, who would become the first woman vice-presidential candidate on a major-party ticket when she was tapped by Walter Mondale three years later. No one is better able to represent them at the convention than a member of Congress.

Excerpt from the Hunt Commission on Presidential Nominations
Mehr state news agency reported on May 4 the story of Mr. Chavosh Azizi Koutanai, the inventor of artificial intelligence for drilling equipment, injections and related operations who came in second in the International Competitions of Geneva 2011 in Nuremburg, Germany. He is from the city of Qaemshahr, Mazandaran Province (northern Iran).

Koutanai said that despite his scientific experience and many articles as an inventor he has yet to earn his rightful place in Iran and at the age of 35 he has been unemployed for 10 years.

Speaking on the competition of Geneva inventors he said: This competition is among the most prestigious events for inventors worldwide and is of great importance scientifically and trade-wise.

This young inventor could not obtain a visa to travel to Switzerland for the 2016 competition after a lack of support from his government. Also, since he was not introduced by the scientific circles of Iran, preventing him to participate in the competition.

He had to defend his invention in the competition via the internet. He said: Since I was not present, I lost the special award worth 10,000 Euros in this competition.

Omran Alizadeh, head of the paramilitary Bassij in Gilan, northern Iran, who was interviewed by Tasnim News Agency on April 17 said: The employment has not increased but there has been a marked increase in unemployment among university graduates and individuals with higher educations. Statistics show that the number of educated people who are unemployed was 750,000 two years ago, but reached one million last [Persian] year.
Tabrizi, the commander of the Aleppo front, made these remarks in a gathering of the Basij forces in Sari, the provincial capital of Mazandaran.

Tabrizi attempted to soft pedal the heavy blow dealt to the IRGC in Syria in the past weeks, especially on Friday, May 7, around Khan Touman in southern Aleppo where dozens of IRGC forces were killed or wounded in clashes with the Free Syrian Army.

Most of the casualties in this area were from the IRGC and had been dispatched there from Mazandaran.The number of casualties provoked such a widespread social reaction in Mazandaran that the regime was forced to remove the forces from IRGC Division 25 of Mazandaran from Syria.

Tabrizi attempted to portray the clashes and subsequent heavy casualties as the result of defending the shrine and confronting Daesh, the terrorist organization also known as ISIS.However, most of the regimes casualties fell in Aleppo, which is over 300 kilometers from Shiite shrines. Moreover, the region in which the revolutionary guards were killed is nowhere near Daesh positions.
HID Global Secures George Mason University and Streamlines "One Card" Student ID Solution

HID Global, a worldwide leader in secure identity solutions, today announced that offerings from its broad portfolio have been chosen by George Mason University to upgrade its Mason ID card to a more secure and flexible, student ID system. HID Global Seos smart cards, multiCLASS SE readers and FARGO secure ID card issuance solutions, coupled with locks from its parent company ASSA ABLOY, provide the university with a strategic migration path from legacy magnetic stripe (magstripe) cards to new contactless technology that offers best-in-class security and privacy protection for its campus, students and staff. The new Mason ID card enables the university to meet the growing demands of its campus by providing a single ID that can be used to securely connect users with multiple applications, services and departments.

"We needed a more secure and flexible system that we could roll out incrementally as our budget permitted, while still supporting our legacy infrastructure and technology," said Danny Anthes, Senior Manager of Information Technology with George Mason University. "The new ID solution has provided our students and faculty a safer campus and a better card experience. I think Seos goes beyond just door access; it allows us to manage the credentials better and put the destiny of the department back into their own hands."

As the commonwealth of Virginia's largest public university, George Mason's campus has more than 30,000 students with nearly 5,000 facility members and 2,000 contractors who all require a Mason ID card to access facilities, resources and services. For nearly a decade, the university has issued magstripe ID cards that rely on older security technology which lacked the cryptographic capabilities of smart cards, making them susceptible to cloning and counterfeiting. Additionally, these cards wore out quickly and cost the university time and money to replace.

University administrators knew they needed something more secure. With their limited budget, a multi-year technology migration was needed to deploy the new ID card system that includes:

HID Global multiCLASS SE readers as well as ASSA ABLOY SARGENT Passport  locks with embedded iCLASS SE  technology, and PERSONA  Campus Software. Chosen for their built-in encryption that offered enhanced security, the new readers and locks allow the university to use both legacy magstripe and new contactless cards simultaneously, thereby enabling a smooth technology migration over a longer period of time.

Chosen for their built-in encryption that offered enhanced security, the new readers and locks allow the university to use both legacy magstripe and new contactless cards simultaneously, thereby enabling a smooth technology migration over a longer period of time. Seos smart cards from HID Global offer advanced security and interoperability between the new locks and readers, while enabling multiple applications. The university deployed HID Global OMNIKEY  desktop readers to extend the value of the Seos card by connecting it to multiple services such as library check-out and cashless payment for meals in the cafeteria.

offer advanced security and interoperability between the new locks and readers, while enabling multiple applications. The university deployed HID Global OMNIKEY desktop readers to extend the value of the Seos card by connecting it to multiple services such as library check-out and cashless payment for meals in the cafeteria. HID Global FARGO DTC4500e ID card printers and encoders and Asure ID card personalization software were installed at the campus card office. The new Mason ID cards are personalized by printing student information to the card while also encoding and programming each card in a single, inline issuance process. Issuance time has been drastically reduced, data entry mistakes have been eliminated and the new, high quality ID cards are now printed with more durable lamination.







George Mason University has installed approximately 3,500 HID Global readers and ASSA ABLOY locks and has issued more than 12,000 new Mason ID cards to incoming freshmen to date. The university expects to complete its card migration by 2017.

Watch the video or access the full case study for more information.

Stay Connected with HID Global

For more HID Global news, visit our Media Center, read our Industry Blog, watch our videos and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

About HID Global

HID Global is the trusted source for innovative products, services, solutions, and know-how related to the creation, management, and use of secure identities for millions of customers around the world. The company's served markets include physical and logical access control, including strong authentication and credential management; card printing and personalization; visitor management systems; highly secure government and citizen ID; and identification RFID technologies used in animal ID and industry and logistics applications. The company's primary brands include ActivID, EasyLobby, FARGO, IdenTrust, LaserCard, Lumidigm, Quantum (News - Alert) Secure, and HID. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, HID Global has over 2,700 employees worldwide and operates international offices that support more than 100 countries. HID Global is an ASSA ABLOY Group brand. For more information, visit http://www.hidglobal.com.

 HID, Asure ID, FARGO, iCLASS SE, multiCLASS SE, OMNIKEY, Seos and the HID logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of HID Global or its licensors in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks, service marks, and product or service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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[May 16, 2016] Kroll Appoints Four New Directors in Growing Cyber Practice

Kroll ("the Company"), a global leader in risk mitigation, compliance, security, and incident response solutions, today announced the appointment of four new Directors in its Cyber Security and Investigations practice - Devon Ackerman, Mari DeGrazia, Ron Dormido, and Ray Manna. Each of these individuals is a highly accomplished cyber security professional with deep subject matter expertise developed through years of experience handling complex and high profile cyber security incidents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, or private enterprise. "Cyber capabilities, especially in the area of advanced digital forensics, are playing an essential role in how Kroll meets the needs of its clients facing challenges as diverse as data breaches, stolen intellectual property, counterfeit products, asset search and recovery, transactional due diligence, as well as fraud and corruption investigations," said Tim Ryan, Managing Director and Practice Leader, Cyber Security and Investigations practice. "Having worked with and for federal law enforcement, the military, and the private sector, Devon, Mari, Ron, and Ray have honed their skills on wide-ranging assignments that not only mirror the issues our clients face today, but these experiences have also provided a foundation of knowledge that enables each of them to anticipate evolving and emerging cyber threats." "Over their careers, Devon, Mari, Ron, and Ray have each consistently demonstrated a commitment to excellence, quality, collaboration, and outstanding client service, in addition to their tremendous technical expertise," said David Fontaine, Chief Executive Officer of Kroll and its parent, Corporate Risk Holdings. "Whether in service to the public or private sector clients, their significant hands-on experience in the investigation and remediation of cyber-related threats and incidents adds extraordinary capabilities to our dedicated team of cyber professionals." Ackerman most recently served with the FBI as a Supervisory Special Agent and Senior Digital Forensic Examiner, where he had responsibility for oversight and coordination of all FBI Digital Forensics-related field operations across the United States, spanning a variety of matters such as domestic terrorism, mass shootings, and incident response events. He has also developed a number of widely used forensic tools; provided expert witness testimony in federal and state courts; and presented as a thought leader at many industry and educational conferences. Ackerman began his career with the FBI in 2008 where he co-founded the FBI's first North Carolina Cyber Security and Intrusion (News - Alert) Working Group (e-Shield), and received a Citation for Special Achievement from the Director of the FBI in 2015 and a Certificate of Recognition from the Operational Technology Division in 2014. In addition to holding many professional certifications, he earned a M.S. in Digital Forensic Science and a B.S., magna cum laude, in Computer & Information Systems, both from Champlain College. DeGrazia comes to Kroll from Verizon (News - Alert) Enterprise Solutions, where she was a Senior Security Consultant with the Research, Invstigations, Solutions, Knowledge (RISK) practice, serving as Case Lead on various network intrusion and data breach investigations. Throughout her 12-year career, DeGrazia has served with computer forensics firms and a Big Four accounting firm and led her own consultancy firm. She has often conducted her work within the context of cyber investigations and has collaborated closely with law enforcement on criminal cases and with attorneys on civil litigation matters. She has written and released numerous programs/scripts to the forensics community; presented on her research at several industry conferences; is a published author in eForensics Magazine; and was technical editor for Windows Registry Forensics S.E. She holds several certifications in addition to earning a B.S. in Computer Science from Hawaii Pacific University.



Dormido is a 26-year veteran of the U.S. Army, having served in the military for more than two decades. He spent his last tours of duty as a Special Agent with the U.S. Army's Intelligence and Security Command, where he established the computer forensics/digital evidence recovery lab for a Hawaii-based U.S. Army Counterintelligence Investigations unit and supervised a team responsible for providing computer forensics support to U.S. Army investigations and operations within the Pacific region. He also served as the primary U.S. Army Intelligence representative to the FBI Honolulu counterintelligence/counterterrorism cyber threat working group. Most recently, Dormido was a Senior Information Security Consultant with Verizon's RISK practice, where he led computer forensic investigations for corporate clients worldwide, including several Fortune 100 companies affected by data breach and cyber incidents. He has completed numerous advanced technical training programs and holds various professional certifications and designations, including Certified Computer Forensics Examiner (CCFE). Manna most recently led the FBI's Philadelphia Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory (RCFL), capping a distinguished 20-year career with the FBI. In his role as Supervisory Special Agent and Director of the RCFL, Manna managed the forensic processing of all types of digital evidence for hundreds of requests annually. He was also the primary liaison with investigative personnel and prosecuting authorities in addition to having oversight responsibility for operational and personnel management of the RCFL. During his service with the FBI, Manna received the FBI Director's High Impact Leadership Award as well as the FBI Medal for Meritorious Achievement (Heroism). Manna joined the FBI after 10 years as a U.S. Army Officer, serving as a troop commander at various levels as well as in diverse staff positions. He holds numerous certifications in addition to earning a B.B.A. from James Madison University.

About Kroll: Kroll is the leading global provider of risk solutions. For more than 40 years, Kroll has helped clients make confident risk management decisions about people, assets, operations and security through a wide range of investigations, cyber security, due diligence and compliance, physical and operational security and data and information management services. Headquartered in New York with more than 50 offices across nearly 30 countries, Kroll has a multidisciplinary team of over 2,000 employees and serves a global clientele of law firms, financial institutions, corporations, non-profit institutions, government agencies and individuals. For more information visit www.kroll.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain "forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the Company's performance and growth, and other non-historical statements. Forward-looking statements identify prospective information. Important factors could cause actual results to differ, possibly materially, from those stated in the forward-looking statements. In some cases you can identify forward-looking statements by words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "predict," "potential," "should," "will" and "would" or the negatives thereof, variations thereof or other similar words. You should read statements that contain these words carefully because they discuss the Company's future priorities, goals, strategies, actions to improve business performance, market growth assumptions and expectations, future business opportunities, capital expenditures, financing needs, financial position and other information that is not historical information or state other "forward-looking" information. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by which, such performance or results will be achieved. Forward-looking information is based on information available at the time and/or management's good faith belief with respect to future events, and is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in the statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date the statements are made. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changes in assumptions or changes in other factors affecting forward-looking information except to the extent required by applicable securities laws. If the Company does update one or more forward-looking statements, no inference should be drawn that the Company will make additional updates with respect thereto or with respect to other forward-looking statements. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516006014/en/

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[May 16, 2016] AHF Urges Congress to Fund Zika Prevention and Research

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, joins public health experts and top federal health officials calling for Congress to authorize funding to address the threat of the Zika virus. Lawmakers adjourned for a 10-day recess late last month after failing to approve the Obama administration's request for $1.9 billion in emergency funding in February. Congress's inaction on the issue reflects a lack of concern over the mosquito-borne disease that has primarily affected low-income pregnant women and their newborns across Latin America. Zika virus infection during pregnancy can cause microcephaly in newborns, a severe birth defect linked to developmental delay, seizures and intellectual disability. It has also been linked to Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare paralytic disease. Republicans argue that the resources requested are larger than necessary to combat the virus, despite the consensus among federal health officials that the funds are urgently needed for early research and prevention measures.



"Congress cannot continue to stubbornly ignore the proven threat of the Zika virus," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "Failing to act decisively on Zika could easily result in a wider-spread public health and economic catastrophe." Zika poses a tangible threat to the U.S. that may escalate to a public health emergency in coming months. There are already 472 confirmed cases in the continental U.S., with 84 new cases occurring just in the past week. In a commentary for the Harvard Public Health Review, population health expert Amir Attaran warns that the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio could spark a "full-blown global health disaster" after an estimated 500,000 foreign tourists travel in and out of the epidemic's epicenter. The likelihood of Zika spreading also increases during mosquito-friendly hot summer months.

Beyond the disastrous public health implications of a Zika virus spread, the epidemic could also cost Americans billions if the nation is not adequately prepared. Health economist Donald Shepherd compared Zika to the similarly mosquito-borne dengue outbreak, which cost the global economy $8.9 billion. AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 611,000 individuals in 36 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook (News - Alert): www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter (News - Alert): @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516006156/en/

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Itongadol.-Legendary Jewish Hollywood film director Steven Spielberg was caught off guard at the Cannes Film Festival Saturday evening after a reporter asked if he was aware of acclaimed children\s author Roald Dahl\s professed anti-Semitic views, according to USA Today.

Spielberg is currently in the French Riviera to debut his visually stunning children\s adventure movie The BFG, based on the book of the same title written by Dahl in 1982.

Spielberg, director of Academy-Award winning Holocaust film Schindler\s List and prolific philanthropist to numerous Jewish causes, said he "wasn\t aware of any of Roald Dahl\s personal stories."

"I was focused on the story (Dahl) wrote," Spielberg added. "I had no idea of anything that was purportedly assigned to him, that he might have said."

Following Dahl\s death in 1990, then Anti-Defamation League President Abe Foxman penned an opinion piece in the New York Times saying that Dahl was a "bigot" and "admitted anti-Semite."

Foxman\s passages allude to a interview Dahl gave in the early 1980\s to British magazine The New Statesman, where he stated: "There\s a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity  I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn\t just pick on them for no reason."

Dahl later said in a review of Tony Clifton\s picture book, God Cried, which documented Israel\s assault on Beirut during the 1982 Lebanon War, that he was "violently anti-Israel."

Dahl\s prolific career as an author spanned decades, and includes popular children\s tales such as Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, James and The Giant Peach, Matilda and Fantastic Mr. Fox- all of which have been made into feature-length films.

Spielberg, a self described "ardent defender of Israel," said of the BFG: "This is a story about embracing our differences. The values in the book and in the film, those are the values I wanted to impart in the telling of this story.
Itongadol.- Ania Bukstein is finishing up a shining year of work: a leading role on a successful series (False Flag), a piano performance, a new album, and mainly a surprise role in the new season of Game of Thrones.

Bukstein is wary of speaking about her new role in the HBO series for a multitude of reasons. The most important is her contract, which forbids her from telling, hinting, breathing or miming anything that might give away something from the plot of the new season. Bukstein had been a fan of Game of Thrones long before she was invited to act in it, and she knows that its viewers can be very tough regarding spoilers.

But that\s not all. It is in Bukstein\s nature to celebrate herself as little as possible. "Yes, it\s very exciting, but let\s calm down. It\s not like I\m the new Khaleesi. Game of Thrones came after a ton of hard work. I filmed a lot of audition tapes in front of a white wall at home. I\ve paid my dues for years. There were lots of \almosts,\ and his first return is very exciting.

"It\s part of my path, and that\s how you have to look at it. A few years ago, when they had only begun to cast the first season of Game

of Thrones, I sent an audition tape. I didn\t really know for which role, and I mainly didn\t knowand neither did the worldwhat a hit the series was about to become. But I remember that even then, the scenes that I got excited me, and I completely went with the style. Then, too, I got to a pretty advanced stage, but it didn\t work out in the end. And now it\s come back to me."

How does something like that get started?

"I have an agent in England who works in coordination with my agent, Zohar Yakobson. A new audition could show up any day. It could be a role in Anna Karenina, an indie film, or a role in Game of Thrones. You learn the text, dress appropriately, style your hair to match, film it, and send it. Dotan, my husband, has already filmed dozens of audition tapes. You get better slowly, and you learn from it. Today, you can absolutely do it here, from the corner of your living room."

Do you understand from the audition what the layers of the role are?

"You don\t understand anything. And it doesn\t really matter. You do your best if it\s for something minor or if it\s for some role as a fearsome dragon. I got the scene months ago, a while before the last season ended. I didn\t understand how it was connected. I filmed it and sent it. And then you wait.

"Suddenly, one day, it happened. My agent called me. A few days before, we had had a discussion about some film that I passed on, and I thought that he was calling to talk to me about that, and then he told me, \Ania, you got Game of Thrones.\ I think that I said, \What? What? What?\ I wanted to make sure that I heard him right."

Shooting for Bukstein\s episode, which will be broadcast this month, took place in Ireland last year. Aside from a stolen selfie in the dressing room, she doesn\t have any photographed memories for souvenirs. From the moment that she entered the set, she was required to put her cell phone in a trailer. She only learned about Jon Snow\s resurrection a fortnight ago with the rest of the world. The compartmentalization of Game of Thrones works so that each actor only receives their character\s lines and not the entire script. That may be the reason that Bukstein didn\t realize that another Israeli actor, Yousef Sweid, was filming for the same episode.

"We wrote to each other on Facebook when it was announced; we both were excited, but we also didn\t ask each other what the other one was doing. You\re always scared that they\ll catch you."

Isn\t it stressful working like that?

"I wasn\t worrying about fear. I was focused, and I managed to really enjoy myself. At the end of the day, everybody comes in order to work, and it\s another day of shooting, when standards are very high, and it\s right. I think that only when I got to wardrobe did I get a little shock. Something in the clothing, when you suddenly see yourself in the mirror. I said to myself, \Wow, this thing is really happening.\ It\s crazy. I remember that I was standing in front of the mirror, and I said to myself, \Oh my god, oh my god, it\s real.\ I was in the dress; I was there. They sewed the thing for me. For me!"

At least you had a dress, and you were clothed. That isn\t so common on Game of Thrones.

"I\ve already been naked in the past, so it\s not a big deal. If the scene requires it, I\m completely okay with it. For something minor, I wouldn\t just give away my flowers," she laughed. "But generally, as an artist, I don\t make a big deal out of nudity. If there\s something that I can\t stand, it\s righteousness. And there\s a lot of it regarding nudity. Somebody gets naked in a film, and it immediately becomes a headline. Sometimes, people expose so much more than their body. The body is part of life, and life is part of art, and you don\t need to make a fuss out of it."
Dakota Guardian Trust announces the appointment of Tom Van Robays, JD to president and Renee Zikmund, CTFA to senior vice president.

Van Robays previously served as Dakota Guardians senior vice president and has dedicated more than 25 years to the field of estate planning, financial services and trust services. He is a member of the Omaha Estate Planning Council and is involved with numerous charitable organizations. Van Robays replaces Tracy Edgerton, who is leaving the firm to follow her passion and return to the nonprofit field.

Zikmund joined Dakota Guardian in 2014 and has been in the financial services industry for over 30 years with a focus on trust services. She recently earned the certified trust financial advisor designation from the American Bankers Association to complement her experience. Zikmund volunteers her time and talents with a variety of community organizations, including the Nebraska Chapter of the American Stroke Association.

With an advisor, friendly approach, Dakota Guardian Trust partners with financial and estate planning professionals to help families ensure their financial legacy. Dakota Guardian has offices in Omaha, Lincoln and Rapid City, and its South Dakota charter provides clients enhanced flexibility and access to the states favorable trust laws. More at DakotaGuardianTrust.com.
Lincoln Community Foundation welcomes Tracy Edgerton who will assume the role of vice president for strategic giving. She will help donors and professional advisors design and implement charitable gift plans.

Edgerton brings a strong background in planned gift fundraising and experience with nonprofit management, law, estate and tax planning. She worked at the University of Nebraska Foundation for more than 15 years and most recently served as president of Dakota Guardian Trust Company. Edgerton is a graduate of UNL's College of Journalism and Mass Communications and the University of Iowa College of Law.

Lincoln Community Foundation, established in 1955, strives to continually enrich the Lincoln community by promoting and achieving perpetual philanthropic support. The Foundation has distributed more than $90 million in grants to nonprofit organizations that have improved lives of thousands of residents.
"We can't have an element sitting in the middle of the city that isn't part of the city," one planning commissioner said.
Olsson Associates on Monday announced a deal to buy a Kansas City-area engineering company.

The Lincoln-based firm said the deal to buy Lutjen Inc. is expected to be finalized by June 13. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Lutjen's 52-person staff, including management, will remain in place and its offices will remain in North Kansas City, Missouri. It will operate as Lutjen, a division of Olsson Associates, until the end of the year. After that, it will take the Olsson Associates name.

Brad Strittmatter, Olssons president, said in a news release, that the addition of Lutjen will be complementary.

"Lutjen has a strong presence in private land development projects within the Kansas City metro area, which balances Olssons growing public and private work very well. The joining of our firms expands our breadth and depth of expertise allowing us to better serve our clients."
BEATRICE  Two workers were injured Sunday morning in an accident at the Continental Carbonic Inc. plant 5 miles northwest of town.

Beatrice Fire Capt. Craig Fisher said some type of blast or pressure release of carbon dioxide injured the two people around 9 a.m.

One of the workers was flown to a Lincoln hospital. The other was released after treatment at a Beatrice hospital.

The company makes dry ice products and is the nation's largest distributor of dry ice blasting equipment, according to its website.
Nebraska Medicine named Dr. Daniel J. DeBehnke its new chief executive officer Monday, and he'll begin leading the academic medical center in Omaha later this year.

DeBehnke, CEO of Medical College Physicians in Milwaukee, will succeed interim CEO Rosanna Morris and interim President Dr. Bradley Britigan in leading the clinical integration of the Nebraska Medical Center, Bellevue Medical Center and UNMC Physicians.

The opportunity to lead an organization with such a legacy of excellence like Nebraska Medicine is one that I am extremely excited to undertake, DeBehnke said in a statement. I am very much looking forward to getting started in Omaha and getting to know the providers and staff members who provide the serious medicine and extraordinary care for which Nebraska Medicine has come to be known.

DeBehnke began at Medical College Physicians in August 2013, and also served as senior associate dean for clinical affairs and as a professor of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

During his tenure, Medical College Physicians added a 300,000-square-foot professional office building for faculty and staff, while enhancing support for physician recruitment and medical education and research.

UNMC Chancellor Dr. Jeff Gold, chairman of the Nebraska Medicine Advisory Board, said Nebraska Medicine set out to find a physician leader who could not only personify what the organization was all about, but one who could lead Nebraska Medicine during such a transformational time.

Once DeBehnke begins in late July, Morris will transition to executive vice president for the health system while Britigan will continue in his permanent role as dean of the UNMC College of Medicine.
The last time anyone put a quarter in the pay phone outside the Road Runner gas station in Plainview, Dave Heineman was the governor.

No one has used the public phone since sometime in 2013. Its beat up by the weather. And a replacement will cost more than $1,000.

Thats why Plainview Telephone Co. is asking the state Public Service Commission for permission to remove the last pay phone in the northeast Nebraska town of 1,300.

The days of needing a pay phone are over, said Grant Dummer, company manager. Now everyone has a cellphone in their pocket.

And most Plainview residents still have a landline in their home, though the service is digital, said Dummer. Plainview Telephone installed fiber optics to every home and business starting in 2005, replacing the old and failing copper wire system.

Pay phones and phone booths are a relic of the landline era, when they were available for the stranger in town who needed to make a call or the resident without a telephone at home.

And the Nebraska Public Service Commission, which regulated telephone service when it was a monopoly, required at least one public phone in every town. It still does.

So Dummer is seeking permission from the PSC to remove the last pay phone in Plainview. If no one protests, the commission will grant the request without a public hearing, a process that has been routinely occurring over the last decade as cellphones and cellphone service were becoming ubiquitous.

The commission can waive the rule for reasons such as: abusive vandalism or damage, excessive cost of maintaining the pay station, or lack of use.

Its fairly easy these days to show theres no need, said Gene Hand, director for the PSC.

Since 2012 the PSC has freed four companies from their pay phone requirement in 40 towns.

Times have changed since Clark Kent (aka Superman) used phone booths as his dressing room because they were everywhere. And the numbers show it.

There used to be more than 2 million pay phones in the United States, according to the American Public Communications Council, a trade association. Fewer than 200,000 are left.

Nebraska, which had almost 2,600 pay phones in 2010 was down to 1,172 last year, based on PSC records.

Lincoln has just 292 pay phones. And Windstream, which is the local landline company, has just 1,945 pay phones in communities across the country, down from 7,837 in 2005, according to spokesman Scott Morris.

These days few people are without a cellphone in their purse or pocket. So theyre not looking for pay phones.

Twenty years ago there were about 190,000 cellphone subscribers in the state.

In 2004 there were about 944,700 cellphone subscribers. Ten years later there were 1.3 million cellphones and just 699,118 landline subscribers.

You still see them (pay phones) at airports and places like that, though there are probably more plug-ins for cellphones than pay phones," said Hand. And the pay phones probably use a credit card rather than coins, he said.
Those in need of health care but who struggle to pay for it now have a new option in Lincoln.

The Health 360 Clinic at 23rd and O streets is open for business in the former OfficeMax building.

The clinic is a partnership between nonprofit health providers Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska and Peoples Health Center.

Were really able to serve any and all people, said Todd Reckling, vice president of programs for Lutheran Family Services, a behavioral health provider.

The clinic is designed to provide clients a one-stop shop and offers services on a sliding fee scale.

It offers primary health care, dental services and behavioral health services, including outpatient mental health services, community support, medication management, counseling and substance abuse treatment. It also has an on-site pharmacy and eventually will offer a Head Start school readiness program.

The Peoples Health Center will provide two nurse practitioners and a physician, as well as social workers and a certified paramedic who can visit patients homes to dress wounds and perform other medical tasks.

Brad Meyer, CEO of the Peoples Health Center, said the clinic will allow the center to serve more clients.

We havent had enough providers to accommodate all the patients that wanted to get in to see us, he said.

Lutheran Family Services took over the former Lancaster County Community Mental Health Centers core services and moved into its offices at 2201 S. 17th St. in February 2014. Two weeks ago, Lutheran Family Services staff moved into the new building at 23rd and O and opened the clinic a few days later.

We think the accessibility for clients will be better, Reckling said.

Lutheran Family Services and the Peoples Health Center opened a pilot clinic together in the building at 2201 S. 17th St. in February 2015. Reckling said the pilot clinic allowed the two agencies to work out any potential problems with the joint health care model.

He said integrated health care is a much-needed service, considering 70 percent of adults with a behavioral health disorder also have at least one physical health condition. Conversely, nearly one-third of adults with a medical condition also struggle with behavioral health issues, such as substance abuse or depression.

The newly renovated 24,500-square-foot clinic features an arched entryway and a brightly lit interior with soft paint colors intended to calm visitors. After clients check in, they proceed past the front desk through a single door and then left toward the Health 360 medical offices or right to the Lutheran Family Services behavioral health offices.

Shirley Terry, chief operating officer for Health 360, said behavioral health, especially mental health programs, carries a stigma and the building was designed to allow clients to maintain their privacy as to what kind of services theyre seeking there.

No one will know what program theyre coming in for, she said.

The clinic eventually hopes to provide telehealth medicine and video conferencing, as well as X-ray services. The building features three conference rooms, which will be used for internal and external educational programs, Reckling said.

The clinic also will feature a Head Start program sponsored by the Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders Counties. That program is expected to open in a few months, said Vi See, executive director of Community Action Partnership.

The Head Start will feature five classrooms and be able to serve nearly 60 children. It will be designed to support working parents, See said.

Quality child care is necessary so they can maintain their employment, she said.

She said the program will provide working parents convenient access to medical and behavioral health care as well.

Reckling said numerous organizations and individuals helped establish the clinic, including the Community Health Endowment and Mayor Chris Beutlers administration.

We really see ourselves as one part of a community effort to make Lincoln the healthiest and happiest city, he said.
WASHINGTON -- Blaming President Barack Obama for the rise of Donald Trump is popular among Republican leaders. They don't want to take responsibility for the choices made by their own voters or their complicity in tolerating and even encouraging the extremism Trump represents.

They also don't want to face the fact that many Trump ballots were aimed at them.

It should be said that many conservatives are resisting the Blame-Obama-First temptation by trying to come to terms with what has happened to their cause. National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru offered an admirably sober assessment of his side's role in Trump's emergence that included this observation: "We have come to reward the expression of resentment and anger more than the mastery of public policy."

This is an accurate and powerful critique of a movement that once claimed to have all the new ideas.

Now their main insight is that Obama is wrong about everything. The Wall Street Journal drew on dialectic to editorialize on the Obama-leads-to-Trump concept: "Every thesis creates its antithesis."

Just last Friday, Barry Sternlicht, a big-time investor, said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that "Obama basically apologized for us" on the world stage, and that Americans are "tired of apologizing." Trump, he explained, has tapped into a "deep vein," the desire of the United States to win.

Now it's true that every president ends up with responsibility in some way for everything that goes awry on his (or, someday soon perhaps, her) watch. And you can make a case that Democrats, in the brief period under Obama when they held a filibuster-proof Senate majority -- they lost it, remember, in January 2010, after Ted Kennedy's death -- should have done more to stimulate the economy, lift working-class incomes and thus reduce the level of anger in parts of the electorate.

But what's maddening here is not just the incongruity of indicting Obama for the success of the man who denied his very right to be president. It's also that Obama has consistently stood for the things that conservatives say they want liberals to stand for -- starting with a robust patriotism.

No one who heard Obama's 2015 speech in Selma, Alabama, could doubt his belief that the United States is a special place, "strong enough to be self-critical" and thus capable of extraordinary moments of self-improvement and self-correction.

But it goes beyond this. Obama's commencement address earlier this month at Howard University, which has received less attention than it deserved, was a compendium of arguments that conservatives have wanted to hear.

Conservatives worry that liberals, on university campuses and elsewhere, are inclined to shut down speech they disagree with. Well, Obama is worried, too.

"There's been a trend around the country of trying to get colleges to disinvite speakers with a different point of view, or disrupt a politician's rally," Obama said. "Don't do that -- no matter how ridiculous or offensive you might find the things that come out of their mouths. ... If the other side has a point, learn from them. If they're wrong, rebut them. Teach them. Beat them on the battlefield of ideas."

Don't conservatives want to argue that to deny racial progress is to ignore what's happened over the last 50 years? Obama thinks this, too.

"Let me say something that may be controversial, and that is this: America is a better place today than it was when I graduated from college. ... If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, 'young, gifted, and black' in America, you would choose right now."

"To deny how far we've come would do a disservice to the cause of justice, to the legions of foot soldiers ... your mothers and your dads, and grandparents and great grandparents, who marched and toiled and suffered and overcame to make this day possible."

Conservatives regularly criticize self-righteous moralism on the part of progressives. Well, Obama insisted that "change requires more than righteous anger. It requires a program, and it requires organizing. ... In particular, it requires listening to those with whom you disagree, and being prepared to compromise."

"Listening to those with whom you disagree." Now there is a bracing idea at a moment when the politician getting all the media attention is famous for attaching nasty adjectives to the names of his opponents and urging his followers to strong-arm dissident voices out of his rallies.

Blaming Obama for that guy is like condemning someone who's trying to stop the fight for starting it. It's sad. Very weak, too.
The May 14 editorial ("Long live the bison") read, "The bison, which once ranged free on the Nebraska prairie, is a splendid choice for national mammal." It is also a splendid choice for an image on the State of Nebraska license plates ("New Sower license plate ready," May 5). Perhaps the Nebraska State Tourism Commission could incorporate the bison in their promotions. How about a momma and baby bison for the Lincoln Children's Zoo?
Gov. Pete Ricketts on Monday suggested that Nebraska public school leaders should ignore an Obama administration directive urging them to allow transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identities.

The policy pronouncement is "basically an opinion (that) does not have the authority of law," Ricketts said during his monthly statewide call-in radio broadcast.

Schools should "reject this bullying by the Obama administration," the governor said.

Ricketts' pronouncement followed on the heels of a resolution adopted by the Republican state convention on Saturday that encourages the Legislature to restrict the use of public restrooms based on biological gender at birth.

The administrative directive issued by the Department of Education and the Justice Department proposes guidelines to ensure that transgender students "enjoy a supportive and non-discriminatory school environment."

Ricketts said the Obama administration should concentrate more of its attention on "growing jobs and creating opportunities for American families."

On a separate issue, he told a caller he would be open to consideration of a "stand-your-ground law" in Nebraska. Such state laws generally remove the duty to retreat before using what could be deadly force in what may be viewed as self-defense.

"I agree with the principle (of) defending property and family," the governor said.

Asked about his meeting with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at an Omaha rally earlier this month, Ricketts said he endorsed Trump at the event because "we've got to have party unity."

Ricketts told the caller Trump was "very charming personally."
Cindy Lange-Kubick Columnist Cindy Lange-Kubick has loved writing columns about life in her hometown since 1994. She had hoped to become a people person by now, nonetheless she would love to hear your tales of fascinating neighbors and interesting places. Follow Cindy Lange-Kubick 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

Her mother told them they were going camping.

They left California in the dark, and when the little girl and her sisters woke up their mother told them the truth.

She said, Were moving to Nebraska. And thats how I got here, Cynthia Harris says.

That was the year they lived in their car and in homeless shelters and on couches with people the little girl didnt know.

The year their father left El Cajon and came to Omaha searching for them. The year the police came knocking on the door and took them away.

The year Cynthia was a 7-year-old named Cindy.

She began using her given name when she started college, she says.

Cynthia sounded more grown up. It fit the honor roll student from Lincoln North Star, mature beyond her years.

Harris is still in college nearly a decade later, working on her second master's degree.

Shes a mom now. A new homeowner. A young woman with a grownup job -- administrator of the Office of Consumer Affairs at the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Behavioral Health Division.

The wordy title was announced by the state last week, moving Harris, 28, up from interim director, a title shed held for eight months.

My experience with poverty, childhood abuse and neglect, foster care system, domestic violence and trauma have had a significant impact on my life, Harris said in a department news release. These experiences drive my passion to serve others.

Shes not reluctant to share the bones of her story in print, she tells me, although there are pieces she wants to keep from public consumption.

In a more private setting -- as a boss and a mentor and a woman with a passion for people whove been where shes been -- she shares the more intimate details, anything that will help her connect and take away shame or stigma.

But her focus is on the good. On eliminating labels and on finding the resiliency inside us and the power of hope.

Even though her childhood was filled with struggle, she doesnt blame her parents.

My mom was a survivor of extreme childhood abuse and trauma. She endured so much I still dont know how shes standing to this day.

Her father was a disabled Vietnam veteran who had his own demons after returning to a society that rejected his service.

Hes one of the strongest men I know, and he is my hero.

But her parents needed help -- and so did Harris and her siblings.

We were basically a family of people who fell through the cracks.

And when the police came for her and her sisters and they were dropped into foster care, they didnt always get what they needed.

It was scary for us. The things I would do for my own child, I didnt see that.

She wanted her mom and dad.

She took on the role of parent for her younger sister as they traveled from placement to placement -- or back home, only to be removed again -- all of their belongings stuffed in a garbage bag.

She has trouble now remembering the details, the sequence of things, the faces and names of the people who took them in.

It was survival. All I remember is there was so much instability and a complete lack of a sense of control.

Harris wants to be a part of changing that for children and for parents struggling with addiction or mental health issues.

Her boss believes she will.

She has a great talent to really bring people together, says Sheri Dawson, director of Behavioral Health at DHHS. Im confident shes going to do a great job.

Harris is ready to serve the people of Nebraska, she says. Consumers of mental health and substance abuse programs, people involved in the criminal justice system, foster kids and foster families.

Theres a lot we can do in terms of preventive measures. Meeting people where they are instead of letting our young people fall through the cracks.

Shes not sure, exactly, why she didnt fall.

Why she excelled in academics, a high-achieving honor roll student and athlete who went onto college and graduated in four years and enrolled in a masters program, doing homework in the hospital in between nursing her newborn son.

I struggled in college to learn the lay of the land, she says. I knew there was a greater plan for me.

Lisa Bickert watched Harris grow up, a second daughter to her, determined and strong spirited.

What I see and know is that she has the strength of a mature woman, Bickert says. She turned her life into something different than it could have been.

She turned her life over to Christ, Harris says.

She went to work for the Friendship Home. She went to work for the state, a specialist in the Behavioral Health Division. She connected with children she met.

She remembered when she was that child. In a strange house, in a strange bed, crying, a kid not wanting to live if this was all life was.

The weight was just so heavy that the thought of closing my eyes and never waking up was better.

She also remembers this: Waking up crying and sobbing, telling myself I want to make it better for other kids.

And now, this opportunity.

Its a true, true honor to be selected, I wish words could describe it.

And then she finds the words.

I want to help people have a voice and be connected and not be alone.

I want them to know recovery is possible and there is a tomorrow and there is hope.

I want them to heal and then go help others.
A whole new ballgame.

A quick look at the roster of state senators suggests that at least 30 of the 49 members of next year's Legislature will be rookies or senators who have served no more than two years.

That number could climb higher because it doesn't include five incumbents who finished second in last week's primary election. Two of them trailed their challengers substantially.

The loss of legislative leaders next year will be deep: Speaker of the Legislature and the chairmen or chairwomen of key committees: Appropriations, Revenue, Education, Health and Human Services.

In addition, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee finished far behind his primary election opponent last week.

The 2017 legislative session will be a new political animal operating in what may be an electric environment.

A new president will be defining the national political landscape after a tumultuous and ugly presidential campaign clash and a first-term governor will be preparing to mount his 2018 campaign for re-election with an eye on his legislative record.

Potential gubernatorial challengers have been focused on that legislative record for some time.

No doubt, some senators will be considering other political opportunities as the Legislature meets, including the office of state treasurer, which will be opened by term limits. Other potential State Capitol opportunities will be determined by re-election decisions made by incumbents.

It will be a 90-day legislative session with lots of competing agendas and a limited storehouse of institutional knowledge.

As Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus, a thoughtful guy with a mind to behold, has often pointed out, that lack of institutional knowledge will be magnified even more by the gradual departure of veteran legislative staff members.

Schumacher has proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow voters to consider whether senators should be able to serve a maximum of 12 consecutive years instead of the current eight years.

That could be shaped in the form of two six-year terms or three four-year terms.

Term limits are not entirely a black-or-white issue.

While one can reasonably argue that voters ought to be able to retain experienced, effective, skilled legislators for as long as they want, the political clout of incumbency can shut out bright, new, independent voices.

The 2015 freshman class contained a whole number of those, some of whom are likely to move into a couple of the key vacated leadership positions next year.

"If there weren't term limits, I wouldn't be here," one of those senators who now stands on the cusp of legislative leadership reminded me one morning as we were walking into the Capitol.

***

Nebraska Republicans dutifully lined up in support of Donald Trump at their weekend state convention in Omaha because that's what political parties do.

The overriding argument was that the choice now is going to be either Donald or Hillary.

And Ben Sasse was mildly rebuked for saying none of the above.

All of that is essentially predictable in the world of two-party partisan politics.

Rejection of a proposed resolution condemning degrading remarks toward women or members of minorities by Republican candidates may have made some political sense within the partisan confines of the Omaha convention center meeting room, but that decision will be much harder to explain in the wider world.

Outside the convention, the vote to scuttle that proposal immediately lit up the Twitter world.

***

Action is heating up on the Democratic side next.

Saturday's Lancaster County Democratic convention has been moved to the East High School gym to accommodate all those who have expressed interest in participating next weekend.

And the young Bernie Sanders supporters who mounted a successful downtown march for the senator in February are planning an event to stand in solidarity with their candidate at the high school.

As of Sunday morning, Cody Pratt said, almost 60 people had pledged to show up and another 136 had expressed interest in attending on Facebook.

Sanders won Nebraska's Democratic presidential caucus in March.

***

Finishing up:

* Ben Sasse has been personally urged by Mitt Romney to consider an independent presidential bid challenging both Trump and Clinton, according to The Washington Post.

* Only two state senators are members of Nebraska's Republican national convention delegation: Bill Kintner and Merv Riepe.

* Look for some young students in the Democratic delegation yet to be named; some Bernie supporters have earned it.

* Once upon a time, budget cuts were not automatically considered to be the only possible way to deal with projected deficits.

* It's hard to grasp the fact that the cost of shutting down OPPD's nuclear power plant hovers close to a billion dollars.

* George Norris, Willa Cather, John J. Pershing, Father Flanagan, Buffalo Bill Cody and William J. Bryan were the first six; you can nominate the next Nebraska Hall of Fame member.
I prefer to support our local retailers rather than shop online. ("Stocks stumble late on retail losses," Journal Star May 14, 2016).

However, when recently shopping, I couldnt find a clerk anywhere to help me.

When purchasing clothing, I must try it on for fit. Size charts have changed so dramatically that the size on the tag is not necessarily what it used to be. I was looking for a certain brand product and wanted to know where I could find it.

After walking the entire floor and seeing no one, I called out loudly Is there anyone here to help? No response. I walked out of the store empty-handed.

Perhaps hiring more employees to offer assistance would counter the loss in sales to the Internet.

I long for the good old days of Golds Department Store with Nate Golds customer service mantra, The customer is always right. At Golds there was always a co-worker at your side asking May I help you?

Leta Powell Drake
CALEDONIA  The village on Monday will take the first steps to pay for a passel of public works projects during the next few years.

On Monday night, the Village Board will consider taking preliminary steps to borrow money for various projects, including $3.45 million to build a new 12,470 square-foot Village Hall near Crawford Park on Chester Lane.

The board meets 7 p.m. Monday at the East Side Community Center, 6156 Douglas Ave.

At the meeting, the board will review initial resolutions to borrow:

$13 million for several community development projects within Tax Incremental District No. 4, which includes a new 187-acre business park along Interstate 94 at Highway K.

$4.51 million for several other projects, including $3.45 million for the new Village Hall.

$2.5 million for several water and sewer system projects.

All the money wont be borrowed this year, said Village Administrator Tom Christensen. Some will be borrowed in 2017 or later, he said.

These are the preliminary resolutions, with our limits of what we dont want to exceed, Christensen said. This is the first step of the borrowing process.

Most of the money will go to completing infrastructure for the WisPark LLC Business Park, being developed on 187 acres of land at Interstate 94 and Highway K.

WisPark, a company that develops real estate projects and is owned by the Wisconsin Energy Corp., bought the land for $5 million in April.

The village will run water and sewer lines in the park and provide other incentives to attract businesses to the location, Christensen said.

Raymond-based Norco Manufacturing Corp. plans to build a 130,000 square-foot facility on 15 acres of land in the park. A second phase of the park will be able to support a one million-square-foot building.

Village Hall

Financing the new Village Hall is the next step in a process that started in April 2015, when the village spent $186,677 to buy 23 acres of land northeast of 4 Mile Road and Douglas Avenue as a spot for a new municipal campus.

Plans for the new facility received a conditional-use permit from the village Plan Commission and the Village Board earlier this month.

The new hall will replace the current Caledonia Village Hall, built in 1953 in the Husher area of the village.

Village Board and many committee meetings are held at the small East Side Community Center, a 1950s building that has served as a town garage, fire station and parks department facility.

Neither of those buildings is in a prime location for visibility or access.

The current village buildings also have a long list of deficiencies, including a bad septic system, undrinkable water, leaking roofs, mildew and cramped space, village officials have said.
RACINE COUNTY  To say that Earl O. Christianson has had his share of experiences with drugs and alcohol would be an understatement.

But the 91-year-old World War II veteran from Racine said hes never been addicted to drugs or alcohol himself. His experiences came from 24 years with the Racine Police Department.

When I got on the police department in 1947, (officers would receive) drunk and disabled (calls) and call for the paddy wagon, said Christianson.

Drunken individuals would be laid out in a cell so if they vomited, urinated or defecated, they could be hosed off, he recalled. Then, times began to change and drunks were taken to local hospitals, or some place believed to be safe.

I think its a disease, Christianson said of alcohol and drug addiction. But men and women can turn their lives around once they learn its beyond their control and turn their life over to a higher power.

Contributing

to the community

Christianson, who served in the Navy during World War II, joined Veterans Treatment Court less than a month ago as a veteran mentor.

I was looking for something to do. I dont like television, he said. I like to contribute something to the community. Racines been good to me.

The Second Judicial Districts Veterans Treatment Court began in November 2012. The district encompasses Racine, Kenosha and Walworth counties, but this treatment court operates in Racine.

Some veterans charged with crimes are referred to this specialty court. To be eligible, these veterans must have a diagnosable mental health condition, drug or alcohol addiction or a combination of both.

It operates similarly to drug courts.

This post-conviction treatment court combines substance abuse and mental health treatment with enhanced opportunities to obtain federal services and benefits that already are available to veterans  even if they dont know these services exist, or ever have tried to obtain them.

He called me out of the blue and said I think Id like to do something else before I check out,  Racine County Veterans Service Officer Bradley Behling said of Christianson. Its nice to have somebody in there to show youre never too old to contribute something back.

Behling said as a war veteran, Christianson can share his tactics for dealing and coping with his experiences.

What were really lacking is people with that empathy. He has that, Behling said of Christianson. Hes from The Greatest Generation ... when it was announced he was a World War II veteran, all the other veterans in the court were like, wow. 

Several weeks ago, Christianson received his first assignment: Shadow a mentor.

He said he thought maybe I have something to offer.

In the service

During his tenure with Racines Police Department, Christianson, formerly of Mount Pleasant, worked his way up from a patrol officer to captain of detectives. He said he then spent 18 years as director of corporate security for Case, retiring from that position in 1989.

In his youth, Christianson faced tough times. His mother died in a car crash when he was 13, her burial coming on his 14th birthday.

Just after Pearl Harbor broke out, I went to the principal to ask about joining the military. You had to have 76 (high school) credits, and I had 78, he said.

In January 1942, he enlisted. After three weeks in boot camp, he was transferred to Detroit, where Christianson attended electrical school. He hitchhiked back home in time to graduate with the rest of his class in June.

He attended advanced schooling in electrical work before being transferred to the U.S.S. Arkansas, a battleship. After a couple of convoy duties in England and Scotland, we were involved in the invasion of North Africa, Christianson said.

While in the electrical unit, he spent time on shore patrol in Casablanca, North Africa.

They put a .45 on my hip. I dont know till this day if it was loaded or not, he said, adding he never had occasion to fire the gun.

Christianson said he was in eight battles during his time in North Africa and the South Pacific, although he didnt engage in combat.

After transferring to the light cruiser U.S.S. Miami in Miami, his ship became part of a three-cruiser task force loaded with soldiers bound for Hawaii.

Then we joined the fleet and started shooting at people, Christianson said, adding that as an electrician first class, he was stationed down in the ships power shop.

He said he was honorably discharged in December 1946.

Christianson said if he can help Veterans Treatment Court participants understand their addiction is a disease and that the end of the world hasnt occurred, then I think I have imparted something to the community.
RACINE  If Sundays Democratic Party of Racine County dinner was any indication, Russ Feingold will link Sen. Ron Johnson with Donald Trump a lot this summer in his bid to return to the U.S. Senate.

Feingold, who served three terms before Johnson, a Republican, ousted him in 2010, hammered Johnson and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee throughout his 20-minute speech at Infusinos Banquet Hall, 3201 Rapids Drive, which hosted the local Democratic Partys annual banquet.

Feingold faces Johnson in a U.S. Senate rematch on Nov. 8. He contrasted some of Trumps controversial ideas, like a ban on Muslims and a wall on the Mexican border, with issues he says he hears from Wisconsin residents, including a living wage, high prescription drug prices and protecting Social Security.

Mr. Trump doesnt even really let us know where he stands on half the issues and changes the ones he does, Feingold told reporters before the dinner. Thats who Ron Johnsons willing to back for president. I think its irresponsible.

He criticized Republicans for avoiding talking about Trump by name during their state convention over the weekend and ripped Johnson for comparing the election to the vote of Flight 93 passengers who stormed the cockpit on Sept. 11, 2001.

Feingold also said the Koch brothers takeover of Wisconsin includes the Senate race, with the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity spending money on advertisements.

What you hear on TV ... is the next step in the corporate takeover in the State of Wisconsin, he said.

A spokesman for the state Republican Party responded that Feingold spent 18 years in Washington, D.C. advocating values far out of touch with those in Racine County.

The fact is: Senator Feingolds long record fits the mold of a politician who says one thing and hypocritically does another  thats because hes an insider who fights for himself, not Wisconsinites, said Pat Garrett, Republican Party of Wisconsin spokesman.

Racine seen as key

Meg Andrietsch, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said the party remembers the hurt, the disappointment and the surprise when Johnson beat Feingold in 2010.

Its been a long, long, long five-plus years, she said. We have the opportunity to rectify this and get him back in the Senate where he belongs.

Feingold said Racine is a pivotal county in the election, meaning party activists have to make sure we are completely on our game. The county has proved to be a bellwether in recent statewide elections and went to Johnson in 2010.

I want to carry Racine County this time, my friends, he said. Help me make that happen.
RACINE  Take the furniture, leave the food.

If youre moving and using Merchants Moving and Storage Company in Racine, Merchants will take your unwanted, uneaten food and donate it to the Racine County Food Bank.

Merchants, 1215 State St., recently became the first moving company in Racine County and fourth in Wisconsin to team up with Move For Hunger, a national, nonprofit organization that works with moving companies to collect unwanted, unopened food from people who are relocating and deliver it to local food banks.

Movers join the group by donating $300 and pledging to collect at least 300 pounds of food per year, said Dan Beam, Move For Hungers communications manager.

Including Merchants, Move For Hunger now has four moving partners in Wisconsin, Beam said. The others are Ace Worldwide in Cudahy, A-1 Movers in Superior and OMara Moving Systems in Madison.

Since starring in 2009, Move For Hunger has delivered more than 6 million pounds of food to local food banks throughout North America, Beam said.

Merchants crews have already collected 262 pounds of food items and have delivered 180 pounds to the Racine County Food Bank.

We are always excited for the possibilities that new donor relationships can bring, and are grateful for the extra food that they generate, said Dan Taivalkoski, executive director of the food bank, located at 2000 DeKoven Ave.

The food bank, which has operated for more than 30 years, supplies the emergency food network in Racine County with more than 90,000 pounds of food each month, he said.

Food insecurity affects nearly 470,000 people in southeastern Wisconsin, according to the group Feed Wisconsin, and nearly one in five children in the region go to bed hungry each night.

Merchants recognized the urgency of that need and joined Move For Hunger, company officials said.

When we realized how many of our neighbors were going hungry, we knew we had to do something, said Anshanet Ball, Merchants Move For Hunger coordinator. Move For Hunger gives us the opportunity to help our community in a meaningful way.

The service is free to customers and turns every move into an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate, Ball said.

How it works

Merchants relocation coordinators mention the partnership with customers and let them know that the mover will take any unwanted, nonperishable foods.

Crews collect any unwanted foods in specially marked boxes, bring them to the Merchants warehouse, and deliver them to the food bank once a month.

We are thrilled to have Merchants join us in the fight against hunger, said Adam Lowy, founder and executive director of Move For Hunger. With such devastating hunger statistics at both the local and national level, their efforts will provide crucial support to the food banks mission to feed the hungry.

Lowys family owned and operated a moving company in New Jersey. There he saw firsthand how much waste occurred when people relocated.

Clothing, furniture, appliances, and especially food, Lowy said. After seeing so many pantries of perfectly good food being thrown away, I knew something had to be done. It started out as a simple idea.
RACINE  Police are investigating a retail theft and assault Sunday night at a Walgreens in West Racine.

Officers responded about 8:30 p.m. to Walgreens, 4810 Washington Ave., after a female suspect put a large amount of razorblade refills into a shopping cart and left the store without paying, police Lt. Al Days said Monday.

An employee tried to stop the suspect in the parking lot and was assaulted, Days said. The suspect then fled in an unknown vehicle.

The employee sustained minor injuries, according to police. No arrests had been made as of Monday morning.

Anyone with information about this incident can contact Crime Stoppers anonymously at 262-636-9330, online at racine.crimestoppersweb.com, or by sending a text to CRIMES (274637).
Andre Brahic, discoverer of Neptune's rings, dies

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Army faces questions over actors reception

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Briton held for 'participating' in Sanghiya Gathabandhan's protest

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Cadres of Madhesi, Janajati parties continue picketing outside Singha Durbar

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Canada wildfires: Alberta releases app for worried residents

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Charity Save the Children urges 'new deal' for child refugees

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9-pt deal sees sharp drop in cases

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Consensus chance slim

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Daily number of plaints falls drastically in Rolpa

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Driving by an example

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Five Nepali teachers languish at Indian jail

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WASHINGTON, May 15, 2016 - Senate appropriators look to step up pressure on the Agriculture Department to back off from tightening regulations for convenience stores that accept food stamps, and there also could be a fight this week over proposed new restrictions for organic livestock operations.

The Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee will meet Tuesday to advance a fiscal 2017 spending bill for USDA and the Food and Drug Administration. The panel chairman, Jerry Moran, said he wants tol include a provision targeting proposed new standards for retail stores that participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Thats a rural issue to me, the Kansas Republican said. An aide said later that Moran hoped to include the provision in a manager's amendment.

Convenience store owners and industry representatives say the rule would force tens of thousands of retailers to stop accepting SNAP. The House Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment to its version of the 2017 Agriculture spending bill that would block USDA from finalizing the rule.

The rule would increase the amount of single-ingredient foods like fruit, vegetables and meat that SNAP-eligible stores must offer.

The full Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to debate the Agriculture bill on Thursday, and the organic industry is bracing for a fight over a proposed rule that, among other things, would require laying hens to have year-round access to an outdoor area with at least 50-percent soil cover. The use of covered porches wouldnt meet the requirement.

A

draft amendment

obtained by

would bar USDA from finalizing the rule unless an independent study verified that it wouldnt increase organic food prices significantly or disrupted farming operations.

Agri-Pulse

The Organic Trade Association says Congress should leave the rule alone, arguing that it would hamstring USDAs National Organic Program, and would set a very dangerous precedent for organic agriculture.

The rule also would ban debeaking of chickens and turkeys and tail docking of cattle and sheep.

The Agriculture bill is expected to omit some controversial provisions included in the House version, including $3 million earmarked for promoting the safety of biotech foods to consumers and an amendment that would bar USDA from finalizing new marketing and contracting regulations for poultry and livestock operations.

The Senate bill is expected to be on the Senate floor in June, and will likely be debated along with the Commerce-Justice-Science measure, Moran said.

Also this week, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine will release a sweeping report analyzing whats known about the safety and impact of genetically engineered crops and the prospects for new biotech techniques.

The study, which will be released Tuesday, also is supposed to lay out the uncertainties and information gaps that still exist about the safety and economic and environmental impact of genetically engineered crops and food.

The timing of the report couldnt be more important, given that it comes as leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee are still negotiating on an agreement to preempt state GMO labeling laws and set national disclosure standards for foods with biotech ingredients.

The Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday will hold a hearing on the Farm Credit System.

At a House Agriculture Committee hearing last fall, lawmakers sharply questioned the chairman and CEO of the Farm Credit Administration, Kenneth Spearman, about the size and scope of Farm Credit lending. Spearman will be the lead witness at Thursdays Senate hearing.

Did you know Agri-Pulse subscribers get our Daily Harvest email and Daybreak audio Monday through Friday mornings, a 16-page newsletter on Wednesdays, and access to premium content on our ag and rural policy website? Sign up for your four-week free trial Agri-Pulse subscription.





Leonard Wolfe, chairman, president and CEO of the United Bank and Trust in Marysville, Kansas, home state of committee Chairman Pat Roberts, will be pressing the American Banking Associations longstanding concerns that the Farm Credit System has been exceeding its authority.

Heres a list of agriculture- or rural-related events scheduled for this week in Washington and elsewhere:

Monday, May 16

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman is in Peru through Tuesday to discuss environmental enforcement efforts and participate in APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade meetings.

All day - FDA public meeting on animal drug user fees, Center for Veterinary Medicine, Rockville, Maryland.

1 p.m. - U.S. Chamber of Commerce 2016 Sustainability Forum, 1615 H Street, NW.

4 p.m. - USDA releases Crop Progress report.

Tuesday, May 17

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell report on preparations for the 2016 fire season.

10 a.m. - House Agriculture subcommittee hearing, Focus on the Farm Economy: Impacts of Environmental Regulations and Voluntary Conservation Solutions, 1300 Longworth.

10 a.m. - House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on Army Corps of Engineers chiefs reports, 2167 Rayburn.

11 a.m. - National Academy of Sciences releases report, Genetically Engineered Crops: Experiences and Prospects, 500 5th St. NW.

4 p.m. - Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee markup of the fiscal 2017 Agriculture bill for USDA and FDA.

Wednesday, May 18

9 a.m. - House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on EPA employee misconduct, 2154 Rayburn.

10 a.m. - House Agriculture Committee hearing, Service in the Field: Veteran Contributions to National Food Security, 1300 Longworth.

10 a.m. - House Energy and Commerce Committee markup of the Ozone Standards Implementation Act (HR 4775), 2123 Rayburn.

11 a.m. - Feeding the 5000 DC conference on food waste, Ronald Reagan Building. Vilsack is among the speakers.

Thursday, May 19

Building a Healthier Future 2016, conference sponsored by Partnership for a Healthier America, through Friday, Renaissance Washington

Vilsack speaks at the World Trade Day Conference in Denver, Colo.

8:30 a.m. - USDA releases Weekly Export Sales report.

10:15 a.m. - Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, The Farm Credit System: Oversight and Outlook of the Current Economic Climate, 328A Russell.

10:30 a.m. - Senate Appropriations Committee markup of the FY17 Agriculture bill, 106 Dirksen.

2:30 p.m. - Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on declining deportations, 226 Dirksen.

Friday, May 20

Building a Healthier Future 2016.

(Updates May 17 with aide saying SNAP provision may be in manager's amendment.)

#30

For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com
Govt decides to observe National Day on Sept 20

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Great divide

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Prahlad Rijal is a business reporter at The Kathmandu Post, focusing on the energy sector. Before joining the Post, Rijal was an online reporter at The Himalayan Times.
Lighting claims two in Tanahun

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Madhesis, Janajatis unite to picket Singha Durbar

Donning red bands and red and green caps and carrying flags of different varieties amid tight security, thousands of protesters from the mountains to the plains joined forces on Sunday to picket Singha Durbar on the second day of the Madhesi-Janajati protest against the government and the new constitution.
Nepal Army defends security to Bollywood celebs

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Nepali migrant worker in Japan found dead

The body of a Nepali migrant worker  who arrived in Japan seven years ago holding a cook visa  was found inside the Nagareya jungle of Chiwa, which is located 30 km from the capital, Tokyo.
Nepathya plays to commemorate quake

The popular folk-rock band Nepathya rocked a crowd of more than 10,000 at Jawalakhel ground on Saturday evening to commemorate the first-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake that shook the country last year.
NRA releases over Rs11 billion for 11 quake-hit districts

The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) on Monday released Rs11.11 billion for the 11 worst quake-hit districts for reconstruction of quake-damaged houses.
Sanghiya Gathabandhan cadres batter students

As the protest staged by Sanghiya Gathabandha, an alliance of Madhesi and Janajati parties, enters third day in the Capital on Monday, the cadres affiliated to the alliance have beaten up two students accusing them of being vigilantes.
Seven snow leopards under protection in Gorkha

As many as seven endangered snow leopards are under protection in the northern VDCs Chhekampar and Samagaun under the Snow Leopard Preservation Campaign of the Manaslu Conservation Area Project (MCAP).
Supreme Court stays govt decision

The Supreme Court on Sunday stayed the governments decision to stop registration of new single-engine aircraft and ban passenger charter flights by such planes.
Tractor driver drowns in Mahakali river

A tractor driver drowned in the Mahakali river on Sunday when collecting stones.
Two dead, three missing in flash floods, landslides

Two persons are dead while at least three others are missing in flash floods and landslides that occurred in Bajhang and Dailekh in the past three days, police in the two districts said on Sunday.
Yes, its hard to to tell when one enters the city limits

Yes, they will make the city more inviting

Maybe ... does it really matter?

No, the signs in place are fine

No, it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars

Vote

View Results
Opposition Forum For Democratic Change (FDCs)Dr. Kiiza Besigye has been finally transferred from Moroto government Prison to Luzira prison.

This is after the Moroto Chief Magistrate Charles Yeteise ordered that he be transferred to Luzira Prison.

The Moroto resident state attorney Moroto Peter Amalo told court that Besigye should be transferred from Moroto to Kampala because he is a former presidential candidate and needed to be kept in a prison suitable for his caliber.

Amalo added that the presence of the accused person in the district was posing a security threat in the area and that transferring him to Luzira would be more convenient for his trail.

Dr. Besigye, who came second in the February polls, spent three days in police custody before he was charged with treason and remanded to Moroto prison on Friday evening.

He was transferred to Moroto police on Wednesday last week in a helicopter, after he was earlier arrested in Kampala after a video of him being sworn-in as president was circulated on social media.

The Prisons Spokesperson Frank Baine has confirmed to KFM that the necessary preparations are being made to receive Besigye.

Meanwhile heavy deployment of Counter Terrorism officials remains amid firing of tear gas to disperse protesters.

Story By Steven Ariong
Hearing of the case in which former Old Kampala DPC Joram Tumwesigye is accused of assaulting television journalist Andrew Lwanga has flopped due to absence of a trial magistrate.

The matter had come for hearing from prosecution witnesses, however the state prosecutor Patricia Chingtho informed Buganda Road court grade one magistrate Marion Mangeni that the trial magistrate James Ereemye was handling special matters at the Nakawa court thereby asking for an adjournment.

Tonny Kirabira one of Lwangas lawyers has informed the press that they were ready to proceed since some of the exhibits which had gone missing were recovered.

Hearing has now been pushed to 7th June 2016.

Prosecution alleges that on January 12 2015 while at Namirembe Road Joram assaulted Andrew Lwanga with an electric cable causing bodily harm as well as damaging his video camera.

Story By Ruth Anderah
Security remains tight in Moroto town where the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) former presidential candidate Dr. Kiiza Besigye is detained.

Dr. Besigye, the first runner up in the February polls spent three days while in Moroto police custody before he was charged with treason and remanded to Moroto Government prisons on Friday evening.

He was transferred to Moroto police on Wednesday last week in a police helicopter after he was earlier arrested in Kampala.

He was then produced in court the same evening under tight security.

According to Daily Monitors Stephen Ariong, Moroto town and its surroundings including the prison premises is being patrolled by counter terrorism police and plain clothed military police.

He says Christians also flocked the prison on Saturday and Sunday morning for prayers with Dr. Besigye.

Meanwhile, business remains slow in Moroto Municipality as traders and bodaboda cyclists secretly fundraise for what they call Dr. Besigyes upkeep while in prisons.

Story By Stephen Ariong
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First, the governor, and now the DFL-controlled Minnesota Senate, are advocating for a borrowing bill of at least $1.4 billion this year.

Those large proposals garner most of the attention in discussing bonding, but increased emphasis should be placed on another set of numbers: The states payments on debt, which have increased by nearly double over the past several years.

People should know that bonding isnt free. Nonpartisan reports show our states debt service payments soared from $409 million in 2008 to $752 million in 2015, a trend that started around the time the states limit on debt payments was removed.

That is astronomical growth. And now, after Minnesotas Management and Budget Office announced lawmakers could borrow more than $3 billion, Democrats propose the largest capital investment bill ever.

Its important to remember that we have bonding guidelines in place, but when they do not take into account the amount of payments, as well as how much outstanding debt the state owes, they are measuring only part of what is financially necessary. This makes them ineffective and outdated when it comes to prudent debt management.

A House bill offered this year would reinstitute a debt-service cap at 3.5 percent of projected general fund revenue in order to contain that growth and protect taxpayers. The state included debt-service management in its borrowing guidelines for 30 years until the practice ended in 2009. The threshold for payments on debt during most of that span was three percent or less of state revenue.

It is crucial to remember that borrowing simply is spending tomorrows money today. With that in mind, we should be taking a closer look at the amount we can reasonably dedicate to debt payments without handcuffing ourselves in the future, especially with the impacts of an aging society yet to be realized. Just because we can borrow more doesnt mean we should.

The bill we in the House propose would help us be more prudent with taxpayer dollars by using a more accurate framework to capture our fiscal picture. To more carefully manage state debt, the Houses proposal clearly states that debt payable to from non-dedicated state general fund revenues is not to exceed 3.5 percent. It will give the legislature the information it needs to look out into the future, and the taxpayers the assurance they need that the debt will not become too burdensome for them to sustain.

This 3.5-percent cap on debt service still allows for a reasonable bonding bill to be crafted this year, which is something we both support after we approve our transportation and tax relief proposals. It is not intended to be a statement on state bonding as a practice in general, but rather, a way for the state to better manage its debt payments so future obligations do not overburden taxpayers today and in the future.

In that light, fiscal responsibility never shall become outdated.

Rep. Paul Torkelson (R-Hanska) is the chairman of the Minnesota House Capital Investment Committee, and Rep. Bob Vogel (R- Elko New Market) is the chief author of the debt service cap legislation in the Minnesota House.
LA CRESCENT, Minn.  Scott Fritzs office crawl space looks almost empty.

It used to house state equipment and paperwork (there was even stuff in his garage). Thats in addition to what he had in the state-provided warehouse.

Its late Mothers Day morning, and Fritz is grilling with family. Only days before, he retired as a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources conservation officer following 31 years of service.

Hes sitting in his home office, which also served as his state office headquarters, and hes recalling the days when he began back in 1985 as a boat and water specialist for three summers.

That was in the Twin Cities metro area.

So we had more lakes than you could ever cover, he says. And then some.

From there, he was stationed in Appleton, Wis. He compared the experience to the formative years of a kid.

Youre like a sponge, and those guys had very good work ethics, and they also had a very good sense of humor. You put the two together, he smiles, and all his knuckles join together.

When he moved to Fairbault for another stint, he says his neighbors were also good, hard-working people who made him look better than he was.

They were known as game wardens prior to the 1960s, when the position was refined and grew into what has become known as conservation officers. They have full police powers; carrying a sidearm became mandatory.

Our duties had changed quite a bit, he says.

The want came, in large part, from what he calls the recreating he did with his father: hunting, fishing, the full spectrum. Theyd duck hunt down on the Mississippi, he recalls, and fished all the trout streams. The Whitewater area was for deer hunting.

And then ma and dad bought a cabin up in northern Minnesota, and us kids would always go up there and did a lot of fishing up that way.

That also included being on a boat a lot. Snowmobiles were also a favorite. Its been a part of his life for as long as he can remember.

Always been, he sighs. You know, like what we did for today on Mothers Day, wed go for a hike in the woods.

He called his career a natural fit.

Twelve years ago saw the Fritz family move to La Crescent, where they now live on the citys north outermost end. Again, he said, hes surrounded by top-of-the-line people, both wardens and citizens.

Ive been very lucky that way, he says.

Summing up a more than three-decade career isnt easy.

We work out of our homes, he says, his voice accelerating along with his seriousness. Your average station in the state is between 600 to 900 square miles. Thats the land mass, including the lakes.

Were on-call 24/7. This was my state office, he says motioning around the small room, in the house.

Prior to moving to La Crescent and getting the warehouse, the boats, ATVs and snowmobiles sat in his own yard.

We stored them because we needed them, he says.

A well-equipped state truck is also furnished, like a police car with radios, lights, and sirens, and firearms, protective clothing  because they work so much out of their vehicles, its like an office on wheels.

Shifts could last six hours, they could also last 16.

You went prepared, he says.

Thats just the truck. Patrol boats, air boats, even a canoe also come with the job, which Fritz says makes you pretty diverse in what you can do when you need to. But, you have to master the equipment.

With my background, he says of his family, Ive been doing that my whole life.

Theres more to it than equipment, of course. Conservation officers enforce all the hunting and fishing laws and regulations, as well as boating and snowmobiles, four-wheelers, ATVs, and off-road motorcycles. Add to all that wetland laws, especially when folks are developing commercial or on-commercial properties, the ground water use has to be somewhat regulated. Theres also the pollution laws to be enforced, and all this while working closely with county officials, local law enforcement, councilors and commissioners, and the citizenry.

His station covered Pool 9, where it boards Iowa and Wisconsin, all of Pool 8, and part of Pool 7, as well as land mass covering half of Houston County and part of Winona County.

He got to see the best every season had to offer.

The biggest change in my career is the cell phone and computer, he says.

It increased reporting and accountability, which he feels is good, but it also took the officers out of the field more. Its tempting to see technology as a necessary evil, but theres perhaps a finer philosophy to live by.

As my dad always, If you dont go with it, itll leave you behind.

The floods of 2007, he says, when you look back at career: that was a big one. It provided a lot of opportunities to help people. And, he stresses, it was a team effort, covering many neighbors over a wide area in the county.

Its a community, he says, we live in a small community and we work together.

Its the people, he says, that he enjoyed the most in his job. Except it wasnt a job, he says, it was a lifestyle.

Im retiring from a job I still like, he says, and he realizes how fortunate that makes him. But its because the job required him, and his family, to become fully-realized member of the community, and he had to make himself available. Its the hallmark of the best wardens.

This is my area, he says. These are my people, and you take care of them accordingly.

Travel is on his agenda; he and his wife, Robyne, have always wanted to see Ireland. Theyll be going in June. Alaska is also on the list at some point soon. Asked if, now that hes retired, theyve ever thought about moving, he says for his family and their interests, La Crescent is a perfect fit.

Why would you leave? We live in the greatest place.

Hes grateful not to be asked about the many awards and citations adorning the wall of his office, because even though hes grateful for the commendations, its more about the work of the team than himself as an individual.

Hes not so humble that he wont offer up some career advice, though.

What I would tell kids is, Go to school. That could be a nine-month program or a four-year degree. Keep your nose clean, because it does pay down the road. Take the time to enjoy life, I mean, you need to laugh, hug your spouse or kids, if you have them. You need to do that, because all the sudden you look in the mirror and youre retiring. Because it goes like the blink of an eye.

Officers recollect

Tom Hemker met Fritz in 1996  he was a neighbor office in Owatonna while Fritz was stationed in Fairbault  and then they became literal neighbors in La Crescent by the time 2004 rolled around. Hemker is now a conservation office in the Winona area. He called Fritz a fantastic officer.

Probably one of the best, Hemker said, and is probably an even better person.

Hemker has always looked up to Fritz, he said, citing him as continually concerned with making the right decisions.

Ive always strived to think things through the way Scott does, he said.

Mitch Boyum, whos an officer in the Rushford area, knows Fritz very well. He was Boyums primary field training officer in 2000.

Scotts a good man, Boyum said.

He called Fritz dedicated, an officer who is all about the resource, especially protecting it. He also cited Fritzs excellent rapport with people.

Its going to be sad to see him go, but I get where hes at.
Benjamin Franklin came to life at the push of a button Monday, teaching second-grade students at State Road Elementary about his life and accomplishments, as well as sharing some pie.

Franklin was portrayed by Eliott Monte, a fifth-grade student at State Road who spent the last several weeks researching the famed inventor and statesmans life. As part of the curriculum, all fourth- and fifth-grade students researched famed Wisconsin and U.S. figures and presented in character as part of a living wax museum open to the other grades and the students parents.

The projects were aimed to keep students focused and engaged as the weather turned nicer and the end of the school year approaches, Montes teacher Jeanie Ruprecht said. The project also touches on all of the state standards from reading and writing historical materials to understanding the timeline of the person studied and his or her place in history.

Each student also had to create a research poster on the figure and dress up for the living wax museum, where attendees watched the historical figures come to life. Each student then gave a presentation and took questions from the crowd.

It is a living, breathing museum of real learning, Ruprecht said.

Eliott said he was really interested in the inventions of Ben Franklin, such as bifocals and the lightning rod. He said the project involved a lot of reading and writing but it was cool how much he was able to learn about the person.

I just liked how many different things he invented, Eliott said. He seemed like a really cool guy.

Down the hall in Stephanie Callens fourth-grade classroom, Bella Masewicz shared information about Mildred Harnack, a woman born in Milwaukee and who was executed by the Nazis during World War II as a spy. Harnack studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to be a teacher before she met her husband Arvid and moved to Germany with him. During the war, she stole Nazi war plans and gave them to the Allies, Bella said, but was caught and beheaded.

We had a whole list of people we could do our projects on, Bella said. I thought she was the most interesting.

Bella said it took a lot of work researching Harnack because there werent a lot of books on the topic in the schools library. But she said she learned a lot from researching and writing about her figure.

I really enjoyed it, she said. This is one of the best projects Ive been given.
The 24-year-old woman whose body was found early Saturday morning outside Lewiston, Minn., was identified Sunday, and a 23-year-old man remains in custody, suspected of killing her.

The body of Tasha Lynn Hanson, 24, of Lewiston, was found in a wooded area about three-quarters of a mile east of Lewiston early Saturday after an hours-long search triggered by a tip to law enforcement.

Hours later, Kyle Benjamin Allers, 23, was arrested and is being held in the Winona County Jail on probable cause of second-degree murder in Hansons death. He is expected to make his first appearance Monday morning in Winona County District Court.

Hanson and Allers had two children together, according to birth records, a 3-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter. Allers, whose last recorded residence is in Rushford, has a 2011 conviction for domestic assault in Wabasha County.

Hansons body was taken to the Southern Minnesota Regional Medical Examiners Office in Rochester for identification and an autopsy. No further information about the circumstances surrounding her death, or what caused her death, have been released.

This is an active and ongoing investigation, Winona County Sheriff Ron Ganrude said Sunday.

The investigation began at 6:22 p.m. Friday after an caller provided information to Winona County law enforcement about a possible homicide. Based on information developed during the course of the investigation, law enforcement personnel from several agencies began a search for the woman around 8 p.m. Friday. Hansons body was discovered at about 12:35 a.m. Saturday.

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents and crime scene personnel are assisting the Winona County Sheriffs Department with the investigation.
Donald Trump argues that Washington is captured by special interests, especially Wall Street.

Trump argues that Washington politicians dont know how to make deals, including with each other.

Trump argues that a weak Republican establishment has let a Democratic president steamroll it with executive actions.

I have a humble suggestion for how the political establishment  particularly the Republican political establishment  can kill all three of these allegations with one stone.

Congress should close the carried interest loophole.

This refers to a quirk in the tax code that allows a small, mostly mega-rich segment of the population to pay much lower tax rates than everyone else.

Managers at certain kinds of investment funds  such as private equity and venture capital funds  receive a share of the profits earned on their clients investments in exchange for the service of managing those investments. This performance fee is called carried interest.

These managers report this carried interest as long-term capital gains, which are taxed at 20 percent. Thats about half the tax rate they would pay if carried interest were treated as ordinary labor income and taxed at the top marginal rate.

This is a huge giveaway to a tiny but generally ultrawealthy and politically influential constituency. An estimated 60,000 households benefit from this loophole, according to Victor Fleischer, a University of San Diego law professor.

Its a niche tax issue, but the loophole is extremely unpopular among the masses and has gotten a lot of play lately on the political stage. Calls to close the loophole have been gathering steam at both the state and federal levels, and with Democrats and Republicans alike.

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Jeb Bush and Trump all targeted this loophole for closure in their tax plans. Trump in particular has made it a frequent talking point, since it conveniently illustrates his sometimes-made populist claim that hed soak the politically connected rich (even though his tax plan overall would dramatically reduce rates on high-income households).

Rarely has a policy existed so long with such weak arguments in its favor, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers observed at a hedge fund conference this week, offering a backhanded compliment to the industrys lobbying prowess. Its the First Amendment, the Second Amendment and carried interest, right?

President Obama has advocated taxing carried interest as ordinary income for years. And in recent months, a growing chorus of tax experts has argued that the White House can close the loophole without any action from Congress.

As Gretchen Morgenson explained in The New York Times last week, Obama potentially could instruct Treasury to change how carried interest is taxed through regulatory measures alone.

The administration thus far has shown little interest, at least publicly, in this route, instead insisting on the need for legislative action. No one should be able to play by a different set of rules, so its time for Congress to act to close the carried interest loophole once and for all, a Treasury spokeswoman told Morgenson.

But remember that administration officials had also initially pooh-poohed the legality and propriety of other executive actions that were ultimately taken by Obama after Congress failed to act, including on immigration and corporate tax inversions.

During the same conference panel that Summers participated in this week, Carlyle Group co-chief-executive David Rubenstein even seemed to tacitly acknowledge that the loophole could be closed through executive-branch action.

Should the Obama administration indeed decide to pursue closing the carried interest loophole through Treasury action, GOP legislators would find themselves in a very bad position.

Executive overreach is a touchstone of the Republicans anti-Obama narrative, so theyd be obligated to oppose such a move. Opposing such action, though, would play into the anti-establishment populist narrative  presented by Trump and Sanders, among others  that most GOP politicians are Wall Street puppets.

Which is exactly why it would be so smart for House Speaker Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republican Congress to get in front of this issue while its in the spotlight, and close the loophole themselves.

Relatively little money is at stake (about $20 billion over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation; Fleischer estimates it at about an order of magnitude higher). Nonetheless, plugging an unfair and unpopular loophole through legislative action would be a major symbolic victory. It would demonstrate that a Republican-led Congress could actually get something done, was not beholden to its financier donors and could even unify around the leadership of its new party standard-bearer.

Win-win-win  just the kind of dealmaking Trump has been advertising.
Ive always considered myself to be transgender. No, it has nothing to do with bathrooms. My biological apparatus matches both my birth certificate and sense of reality. What I mean is that Ive always looked at things from an essentially gender-neutral perspective. While I suppose there are some quirky differences between the ways men and women view the world, and while I admire the marketing savvy of the person who wrote, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, Ive never put much stock in the idea that our minds are fundamentally different. I laugh in the faces of men who suggest that girls dont get math, even though one look at my grades would single me out as the pathetic exception that proves the rule. I also have a problem with the idea that women are more naturally inclined to be nurturers than men, and every woman who supports unlimited abortion rights are my exhibits A through Z.

We are not simple functions, or victims, of our nether regions.

But get ready for the gender wars, my friends. Weve already seen a few skirmishes between Donald Trump and female opinion writers, Donald Trump and female television journalists (God forbid I call them broad casters), Donald Trump and female GOP candidates, and Donald Trump and female Democratic candidates.

It appears the Donald is going mano-a-mano with 51 percent of the population and is winning.

Thats right, hes winning. And you know why hes winning? Because among all the women who are supposedly being assaulted by His Mighty Orangeness, a large proportion are thinking creatures who do not feel singled out for his obnoxious attention. Weve seen what hes done to Jeb, Marco, Chris (before he loved him), John, Lindsey and, most especially, poor Lying Ted. Women arent special. We have eyes and ears. We really dont think that Trump is on a crusade against the ladies.

We just think hes one of the many words that rhyme with ick.

I say this as a woman who really despises the conduct and content of the man who is the presumptive nominee of my newly adopted (and soon to be abandoned) party. It is rare that I say never, but the only thing that could ever make me even think of voting for Trump is if Clinton threatens to appoint non-lawyer Cecile We Dont Sell Body Parts Richards to the Supreme Court. But its a long shot.

That said, Im not turned off by Trump because of his alleged misogyny. While he isnt the most chivalrous of fellows, the fact that he has absolutely no time for anyone who vaguely disagrees with him is proof positive that the man is an equal opportunity maligner. Gender really is irrelevant in his rants.

Thats not to say that some of his comments, including his references to Megyn Kellys menstrual cycle, arent disgusting. They are tasteless, and the idea that he could be in the Oval Office is only slightly less appalling than the idea that Bill Clinton did some taste testing of his own there. Regardless of what happens, neither of these fellows should ever end up on the $10 bill.

But when Hillary starts making her sly, dog-whistle references to how Donald Trump demeans the sisters, I head straight for the Dramamine. Part of it is that she didnt care too much about the sisters dating her husband.

Mostly, its about the lazy thinking that goes into the war on women schtick, the fraudulent and awkward attempt to enlist people of vastly divergent philosophies, principles and experiences into one happy sorority of solidarity.

Frankly, the only thing that I have in common with Hillary Clinton and the type of female who thinks like her is my plumbing (and even that should become irrelevant with the impending hot flashes.) She, and they, have nothing for me.

But Im supposed to be offended that Trump is making sexist remarks because Im a girl. For a group that has long lobbied for equality between the sexes, this seems to me like a return to the days of, pink is for girls, blue is for boys.

There is real misogyny in the world, and Ive experienced it, usually from other women and the liberal men who want to date them. Im used to being called ugly, stupid, incoherent, a bad writer, and lots of equally unpleasant things, especially by the sort of people who are otherwise devoted to tolerance and diversity.

And Im not stupid enough to believe that gender is completely irrelevant. Quite the contrary, I think it is extremely important, and thats why the whole idea of gender fluidity repels me. For example, Im frightened at how willing we seem to just ignore the negative impact of this bathroom nonsense. But its like the frog that sits in a pot of water. If you turn up the heat slowly, the frog gets acclimated to the boiling temperatures, and doesnt jump out in time to save itself.

Thats where society is right now. Legalize sodomy? Turn up the temperature. Same sex marriage? Make it a few degrees hotter. Caitlyn Jenner? Your tea is almost ready. Transgender bathrooms? Full boil. Sayonara.

But recognizing and respecting gender is a lot different than using it as a badge of victimhood.

Trump is a creep. But he doesnt look below the waist when going in for the kill.

In a strange way, Trump is an evolved human being who looks at people as either friends or enemies. Whether they stand up or sit down when doing their business is irrelevant.

So I say we all just demagnetize our woman cards and focus on what matters:

Will Bill Clintons platform as first lady require parental consent?
State officials have signed a $79.8 million, 10-year contract with a former state lawmakers firm to provide a new test for Wisconsin elementary and middle school students that will replace the problematic Badger Exam that students took for the first and last time in 2015.

The final deal with Minnesota-based Data Recognition Corp. is nearly $17 million more than DRCs original bid, which came in at $63 million in September 2015, but was for an exam that tested students only in English, math and science. The new state test includes those subjects and social studies questions.

In comparison, the cost for the now-defunct Badger Exam over 10 years was $104 million.

The state signed a contract with DRC in March, according to Department of Public Instruction spokesman Tom McCarthy, to build a test called the Wisconsin Forward Exam that is aligned to the Common Core State Standards in English and math, despite Gov. Scott Walkers and some Republican lawmakers opposition to them, and is aligned to the states standards in science and social studies.

Susan Engeleiter, chief executive officer and president of DRC, was the Republican Senate minority leader in the 1980s. She also ran an unsuccessful campaign against former U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, a Democrat, in 1988.

Engeleiter gave $10,000 to Walkers campaign in October 2014 and $500 to state Superintendent Tony Evers in 2013, according to Wisconsin Democracy Campaign records. Former President George H.W. Bush in 1988 also appointed Engeleiter to head the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The test DRC built for Wisconsin that students are taking right now for the first time is web-based but is not able to adapt the difficulty of test questions to a students abilities, a feature the Badger Exam was supposed to have but didnt because of technical difficulties.

After multiple delays and problems with the rollout of the Badger Exam, which was created by test vendor Educational Testing Service with questions written by the Smarter Balanced consortium, the state negotiated a smaller price tag for the test Wisconsin students took once.

McCarthy said the state negotiated with Smarter Balanced and ETS to pay $7.5 million for the one-time test  which represents 59 percent less money to Smarter Balanced and 25 percent less to ETS than originally planned.
A Republican lawmaker and a conservative Christian organization are calling on Wisconsin's attorney general to intervene against clerks in Dane and Milwaukee counties who have made domestic partnership declarations available to opposite-sex couples.

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell and Milwaukee County Clerk Joe Czarnezki announced on Friday that they would immediately start issuing domestic partnership declarations to opposite-sex couples along with same-sex couples.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, McDonell said, clerks aren't allowed to discriminate based on gender when granting marriage licenses. The same logic applies to domestic partnership declarations, he said.

"A same-sex couple can choose between a domestic partnership and marriage, but an opposite-gender couple cant," McDonell said. "Thats not equal protection under the law."

But while Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac, has been critical of the state's domestic partnership registry for not being open to heterosexual couples, he argued McDonell and Czarnezki are acting "lawlessly."

Both Thiesfeldt and Wisconsin Family Action president Julaine Appling on Monday called for Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel to seek an injunction against McDonell and Czarnezki.

A spokesman for Schimel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Thiesfeldt called for the registry to be repealed in June 2015, after the Supreme Court issued its ruling.

"The domestic partnership law is discriminatory. But it needs to be repealed, not expanded. It stands as a form of 'marriage-lite,' encouraging same-sex couples to avoid the commitment of marriage," Thiesfeldt said in a statement. "These clerks are now engaging in social engineering by lawlessly extending this 'marriage-lite' option to opposite-sex couples as well."

The state's domestic partnership registry was enacted by Democratic former Gov. Jim Doyle in 2009 as part of the state budget, three years after a ban on same-sex marriage was approved by voters.

While the state registry applies only to same-sex couples, Dane and Milwaukee counties have local ordinances that allow opposite-gender couples to register as domestic partners, as well.

"This registry was in retaliation against the marriage amendment," Appling said in a statement. "Proponents said it wasnt fair that same-sex couples couldnt get benefits. The liberal progressives wrote and passed this law to try to erode marriage  and now liberals are trying to take it a step further with no legal authority again using the fair argument. Clearly, making marriage utterly meaningless is their endgame. And clearly they will stop at nothing to get what they want  including ignoring the law."

Appling was a leader in the push for the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the domestic partnership registry.

The lawsuit failed and the registry was upheld, protecting some rights for same-sex couples regardless of the outcome of challenges to the constitutional marriage ban.

Appling called McDonell and Czarnezki "arrogant" and accused them of overstepping their authority.

But McDonell said he believes they are the only two clerks in Wisconsin following the law as it applies under the Supreme Court's ruling. He followed suit after Czarnezki was advised by Milwaukee County's legal counsel that opposite-sex couples should have access to domestic partnerships.

It would be easier for clerks if the Legislature would bring state law into compliance with the federal decision, he said.

"They need to get state law in line with federal court rulings," McDonell said. "Thats their issue, not my issue."
Tomah Middle School competed in the Mississippi Valley Gifted and Talented Network Art Festival in Viroqua on May 10.

Six artists were chosen to compete in this contest: Polly Walker, Reyna Herold, Kiria Leah Jonhen, Alyssa Whaley, Angelina Samsal and Zoey Dvorak. There were nine school districts that competed this year, with a total of around 60 students participating.

Each student was required to bring in one work of art to be judged along with a written artist statement. The students shared their works with the other students and the show judges, which included three professional artists and an art teacher.

While the judges scored the entries, students were required to complete a realistic self-portrait. These self-portraits were considered by the judges when determining winners. Tomah ending up with the most awards, with two students winning recognition awards and one student winning the honorary award.

Dvorak and Whaley were chosen with six others for the recognition award. They spoke about their artworks with the entire group and won a medal. Walker won the honorary award, just a hair behind the best of show winner. Walker also shared her artist statement with the attendees.

The students then went out to lunch and browsed the Viva Gallery where they were able to talk about the artworks there with local artists.
Chinas state media have all but ignored the 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution.

Fifty years ago, the Chinese Communist Party started the country down a path to the Cultural Revolution. The party said the campaign would bring about a more just society in China. But in reality, it led to complete social and economic disaster.

On May 16, 1966, Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution by ousting several top party officials. Mao also announced plans to return power to the working class.

What followed was not the workers state he had planned. Instead the country experienced violence, food shortages and economic hardship. The Cultural Revolution led to the oppression and deaths of millions of Chinese.

Now it seems as if the government would like to forget the Cultural Revolution. There were no official events held on Monday. No newspapers in mainland China noted the anniversary.

Instead, Chinas largest papers published stories about American businessman Donald Trump, and Chinese government reaction to a U.S. military report.

Uncomfortable facts

Roderick MacFarquhar is with Harvard University in Massachusetts. He is an expert on the Cultural Revolution. He told The Guardian newspaper that Chinas current president, Xi Jinping, is looking to avoid any uncomfortable facts about the revolution.

MacFarquhar said The really uncomfortable fact which Xi Jinping  cannot really stomach is Maos role [in the Cultural Revolution]. Mao actually [enjoyed] the chaos. He loved the idea of civil war.

Mao Zedong urged young people in China to join his Red Guard paramilitary group. He told them to attack the Four Olds in Chinese society: Customs, culture, habits and ideas.

Many Red Guard members were students. They tortured teachers and other school officials in public. The students even turned in their own parents to the government for expressing anti-government ideas. Thousands of people were beaten to death. Many others were driven to suicide.

The violence and hardship started to end when Mao died in 1976. It took another five years for Chinas government to comment on his policies. The government said the policies led to domestic turmoil and brought catastrophe to the Party, the state and the whole people.

What Mao did during the Cultural Revolution is still a hard subject to debate in China.

There has been a return to his ideas in recent years. Mao has found support among the old and poor members of Chinese society. They like to remember the time when the state provided for them and society was more equal.

Risk of repeating

On Monday, the only media reports about the Cultural Revolution in China came out of Hong Kong. That area has greater economic and speech freedoms than the mainland.

The South China Morning Post published an opinion piece by writer Cary Huang. His story called on China to remember its past, or risk repeating it.

He wrote While many Western universities run courses and research programs on the Cultural Revolution, Beijing has banned public discussion and academic study of the topic. He added that the Chinese government fears that talking about the past would lead to a reassessment of the party in modern China.

Im Ashley Thompson.

Joshua Fatzick wrote this story for VOANews.com. Jim Dresbach adapted his story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

capitalism  n. a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products such as land, oil, factories and ships are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government

utopia  n. an imaginary place in which the government, laws, and social conditions are perfect

chaos  n. complete confusion and disorder

recruited  v. to find suitable people and get them to join a company, an organization or the armed forces

turmoil  n. a state of confusion or disorder

catastrophe  n. a terrible disaster


A new report shows Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton running a close race in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The report from Quinnipiac University was considered important news, even though it described voter opinions in just three of the 50 U.S. states. The reason? Because how people vote in those three states could decide who becomes president.

The American presidential election is now centered on a shrinking number of battleground states to decide the winner, said Eric Ostermeier, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota.

These battleground states are also called swing states, meaning that sometimes their voters choose a Democratic candidate and sometimes a Republican.

The media focus so much on these states because of how Americans elect their president.

The Electoral College

Americans go the polls to vote for president on November 8, but the candidate with the most votes does not automatically win. The winner is decided by the 538 members of the Electoral College.

The Electoral College does not have any students or teachers. Instead, it is a group of people who represent their states in the U.S. presidential contest.

Each state has the same number of members in the Electoral College that they have representatives in Congress. That number is decided by the states population.

States with the smallest number, including Alaska and Vermont, have three members of the Electoral College. The state with the largest number, California, has 55.

The U.S. Constitution, which established the Electoral College system, does not require members of the Electoral College to vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in their states. But they almost always do.

As a result, in most states, candidates do not benefit more by winning a larger percentage of the popular vote. So, if 99 percent of voters in California select Hillary Clinton, she will receive all of Californias 55 votes in the Electoral College. If only 51 percent of voters in California select Hillary Clinton, she will still receive all of Californias 55 Electoral College votes.

In all but two states, whether they win by 1 percent or 20 percent, candidates still get the same number of Electoral College votes.

How the Electoral College affects campaigns

The Electoral College system means that Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate, and Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic candidate, will not campaign in states where they think they already know who will win.

For example, Donald Trump will probably take Alaska, Idaho, and seven other states. Republicans presidential candidates there have won every election since 1968.

Hillary Clinton will probably carry Minnesota, New York, and the other six states that voted for every Democratic presidential candidate since 1988.

Norm Ornstein, the government and political expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said voting trends show only nine states with an uncertain winner in 2016: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

None is more important than Ohio. That state has voted for every winning presidential candidate since 1964.

As a result, Ohio receives a lot of attention.

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat, has represented the Ohio city of Toledo since 1983. She talked about what it is like in Ohio a few weeks before a presidential election day.

We get a barrage of television ads, radio ads, phone calls, people knocking on our doors, and lots of people coming to our state from other parts of the country to campaign for their candidate, Kaptur told VOA.

David Cohen is a political science professor at the University of Akron. He and other researchers found that the 2012 presidential candidates visited Ohio more than any other state. But other states, including the largest, California and New York, get almost completely ignored, Cohen said.

The end of the Electoral College?

Because campaigns treat the states so differently, some people argue to end the Electoral College. They want the U.S. to elect its president based on the candidate who earns the most votes across the country.

Voters currently living and voting in a red (Republican) or blue (Democratic) state are disenfranchised, because their vote doesn't matter, read a petition on the Moveon.org website.

But changing the American system to a popular vote would require changing the U.S. Constitution. That process is not easy.

Norm Ornstein, the American Enterprise Institute expert, points out that changing to a popular vote would also take away a reason for candidates to campaign in smaller states.

And he worries that all 50 states would fight to recount their votes in a close election.

One such recount happened in Florida in 2000. The media first reported that Democrat Al Gore won the race there. Then, reporters said that Republican George W. Bush won. Later, they said the vote was too close to call.

Florida officials spent several weeks recounting the votes. The U.S. Supreme Court made a 5-4 decision to stop the recount.

In the end, Floridas Electoral College votes went to Bush. Those votes were enough to give him the presidency over Democrat Gore, though Gore won 500,000 more votes nationally than Bush.

The 2000 election was one of only four U.S. elections when the Electoral Vote did not match the popular vote. The other times happened in the 1800s.

In one contest, neither candidate earned the required number of Electoral College votes. The House of Representatives chose the winner.

In the other two contests, one candidate was very popular with voters in a few states. But he lost to the candidate with more national appeal.

Im Bruce Alpert.

Bruce Alpert reported on this story for VOA Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or share your views on our Facebook Page.

___________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

shrinking  adj. smaller number

battleground  adj. states with very hard fought elections

barrage  n. a great amount of something that comes quickly and continuously

knock  v. to hit something (such as a door) with the knuckles of your hand or with a hard object

disenfranchise  v. to prevent a person or group of people from having the right to vote

petition  n. a written document that people sign to show that they want a person or organization to do or change something
Kenya is planning to close the worlds largest refugee camp, which it says poses a security threat that could lead to terrorist attacks.

An estimated 330,000 refugees will be affected when the Dadaab camp in northeast Kenya is shut down. Most refugees there are from Somalia who escaped conflict in their country.

Kenyas government announced plans to close the camp within the shortest time possible. But the United Nations and international human rights groups have criticized the move.

The U.N. refugee agency urged Kenya this week to reconsider its decision. The agency said in a statement that closing the camp would have devastating consequences. It urged the government to avoid taking any action that might be at odds with its international obligations.

Kenyas Interior Minister, Joseph Nkaissery, said at a news conference Wednesday that the camp threatens Kenyas security. He said the government believes the camp harbors extremists from Somalias Islamic al-Shabab group and is used to smuggle weapons.

Al-Shabab has carried out several major terror attacks in Kenya. In 2013 an attack on a Nairobi mall killed 67 people. A 2015 attack on a college in the town of Garissa left 148 people dead.

Al-Shabab began launching attacks in Kenya after Kenyan troops entered Somalia to fight the militant group in 2011.

Kenyas government has admitted that closing the refugee camps will harm refugees. It urged the international community to take steps to minimize the pain and suffering.

Human Rights Watch senior refugee researcher Gerry Simpson says refugees are not the source of security threats in Kenya.

Theres not a single shred of evidence that any registered Somali refugees in Kenya have been behind any attacks in Kenya.

Simpson said that in the cases of both the mall and university attacks, Somali nationals who came directly from Somalia were charged with the terror offenses, not registered refugees.

But Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka disagrees, saying that terrorists have used refugee camps to plan and train for attacks.

"I will tell you for a fact, like, the people who carried out the terror attacks at Westgate, several of them were traced either through phone calls or through various contacts -- intelligence -- to refugee camps in Dadaab.

Government and security expert Mummoh Nzau agrees that terrorists have infiltrated the camps, and that the camps do pose a security risk. But he is calling for a careful approach to dealing with the situation. He said one option would be to relocate the camps.

They can move them [the refugees] right inside Somalia, but in a way that it is safe for them, and but they can be accessed by the international refugee agencies and other aid agencies.

Kenya and Somalia signed an agreement with the United Nations refugee agency in 2013 to voluntarily repatriate Somali refugees. As Somalia has slowly recovered from years of conflict, the Dadaab camp population decreased from more than 500,000 refugees to 350,000.

The United Nations said it planned to repatriate 50,000 more refugees this year. But officials admitted this repatriation would be a difficult task because the Somali government is still fighting an insurgency from al-Shabab.

Kenya, which has been hosting refugees for nearly 25 years, previously threatened to close the camps, but did not follow through.

The group Human Rights Watch noted that politicians often bring up the refugee issue during election cycles. Elections in Kenya are set for next year.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Jill Craig reported on this story for VOANews.com. Bryan Lynn adapted this story for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and post on our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

devastating  adj. highly destructive or damaging

consequence  n. a result or effect of an action or condition

at odds  in conflict or at variance with something

harbor v. to shelter or hide a criminal or wanted person

smuggle  v. to move items illegally into or out of a country

minimize  v. reduce something to the smallest possible degree

repatriate  v. to send someone back to their own country

insurgency  n. an active revolt or uprising
North Korea has expelled a group of BBC reporters, apparently because the country was unhappy with their reports.

The BBCs Tokyo correspondent, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, was detained Friday. His cameraman and producer were also detained as the group was about to leave North Korea.

The BBC reported that Wingfield-Hayes was interrogated by North Korean officials for eight hours and made to sign a statement. The team remained in Pyongyang before flying to Beijing on Monday.

The BBC reporters were in North Korea before the Workers Party Congress meeting in Pyongyang. They were also following a delegation of Nobel Prize winners who were visiting the country.

The team later joined about 130 other foreign reporters covering the Workers Party Congress. The event is the biggest political convention to be held in North Korea in 36 years

But the reporters covering the congress were kept away from party officials attending the meeting. The reporters also were closely monitored by North Korean representatives.

The party congress has tried to show unity and support for the policies of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Among those policies are development of both the economy and nuclear weapons.

During the congress, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un declared his country was a nuclear state. However, he said North Korea would not use nuclear weapons unless its sovereignty is violated.

Kim said he is willing to consider normalizing ties with countries that have been hostile to North Korea in the past.

Experts said the North Korean leader did not offer any serious new proposals for reducing international tensions over the countrys nuclear program.

South Koreas Defense Ministry rejected Kims assertion that North Korea is a nuclear power.

It is a consistent position of us and the international community that we do not recognize North Korea as a nuclear state, said a defense ministry spokesman. He said that Seoul will continue to push efforts to make North Korea give up its nuclear program through sanctions and pressure.

The United Nations placed strong new sanctions on North Korea in March for its latest nuclear test in January and a rocket launch earlier this year.

Korea expert Bruce Bennett from the RAND Corporation told VOA the North does not need nuclear weapons for its defense.

Bennett pointed out that North Korea did not have nuclear weapons for many years after the end of the Korean War in 1953. He said during that time, it was not attacked by the United States.

He also warned that once North Korea starts with a small number of nuclear weapons, that number could keep growing.

If they have more than a few, theyre not purely defensive, theyre starting to field an offensive capability. And thats bad news for North Korea because they may eventually push the U.S. to do something about it.

Bennett added that North Korea lacks credibility on the nuclear issue because it has broken agreements and shared nuclear technology with other countries.

Another expert, Bong Young-shik from the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, doubts the commitment made by Kim Jong-Un at the congress.

I think that proposal needs to be weighed to see if it carries any significance, or it is just cover for the sake of proposing to the world that the North Korean regime might be interested in a reduction of tension.

Im Mario Ritter.

Brian Padden and Victor Beattie reported on this story for VOANews.com. Youmi Kim in Seoul also contributed to the report. Bryan Lynn adapted this story for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and post on our Facebook page.

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Words in This Story

apparently  adv. according to what you have heard or read, or to the way something appears

interrogate  v. to ask somebody a lot of questions over a long period of time, sometimes in an aggressive way

monitor  v. to watch closely or keep track of

sovereignty  n. complete power to govern a country

assertion  n. a statement that you strongly believe something to be true

sanction n. an official order that restricts trade or contacts with a country

significance  n. the importance of something, especially when it has an impact on something in the future
The United States government says transgender students have a right to use restrooms that agree with their chosen sexual identity.

The Obama administration sent a letter containing its guidance to all U.S. public school districts last week. The letter was signed by Justice and Education department leaders.

School district officials also received a statement from Attorney General Loretta Lynch. It said that there is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex.

Lynch said the guidance gives (school) administrators, teachers, and parents the tools they need to protect transgender students from peer harassment and to identify and address unjust school policies.

The letter said that public schools are required to treat transgender students in a way that agrees with their gender identity. It said this is a requirement even when a different sex is listed on a students education records or identity documents.

The new directive might not be legally enforceable. But it is possible that opponents of the Obama administrations position could face legal action or lose federal aid.

The letter said that schools may not require transgender students to have a medical exam before treating them according to their chosen gender identity. It said schools also may not require such individuals to get a medical treatment or produce a birth certificate or other documentation.

The letter was sent soon after the Obama administration brought legal action against the state of North Carolina. In March, the states legislature approved a bill that became law. It requires transgender people to use bathrooms that match their sex at birth instead of the gender with which they now identify.

North Carolina is the first state that bars people from using large bathrooms in public buildings that do not match the gender on their birth certificate.

Attorney General Lynch called the North Carolina law state-sponsored discrimination. She said it reminded her of a time when African-Americans were barred from public buildings and when states could decide who is permitted to marry.

The federal governments case names the state government, Governor Pat McCrory, the Department of Public Safety, and the University of North Carolina.

Lynch said this is about the dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens. She said the North Carolina law has caused, in her words, emotional harm, mental anguish, distress, humiliation and indignity to transgender people.

North Carolina has brought a case against the federal government, seeking to keep the law in effect.

McCrory and other supporters of the law say it is necessary to protect privacy in public bathrooms and guard against men using womens restrooms to spy on women.

But Lynch said the state invented a problem that does not exist so it can discriminate against and threaten people.

In addition to possibly losing federal money, North Carolina could also lose millions of dollars in taxes from companies that have or could cancel plans to open offices in the state.

In April, an opinion survey found that Americans are divided about which public bathrooms should be used by transgender people. It showed 44 percent of those asked said people should use bathrooms that match their biological gender. The study also found 39 percent said they should be used according to the gender with which a person identifies.

Im Anne Ball.

VOANews.com reported this story. VOAs Ken Bedemeier contributed to the report. Additional material for the report came from the Reuters news agency. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted the report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

transgender  adj. of or relating to people who have a sexual identity that is not clearly male or clearly female

school district  n. an area or region containing the schools that a school board is in charge of

peer  n. a person who belongs to the same age group or social group as someone else

gender  adj. the state of being male or female

match  v. to be in agreement with (something)

state-sponsored  adj. supported by a government

remind  v. to make (someone) think about something again; to cause (someone) to remember something

accord  v. to give (something, such as special treatment or status) to someone or something

distress  n. unhappiness or pain; suffering that affects the mind or body

humiliation  n. to make (someone) feel very ashamed or foolish


An art project in Turkey is bringing together people divided along ethnic and religious lines.

Twenty-four Kurdish and Turkish young adults have worked together to create documentaries and photographs about life in Turkish cities.

The results are now on display in the southern Turkish city of Diyarbakir. The art project is called BAK.

Latife Ulucinar is the coordinator.

"People, especially young people, living in different parts of Turkey don't know each other," she said. "Face-to-face [meeting] is important. We want to give some possibilities to these young people to experience the city.

The project members chose the following issues: The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey; Roma people; and the tattoo culture.

Many works also featured the Kurds years-long battle for minority rights.

Zilan, a video documentary, recalls a massacre of thousands of Kurds and the exile of many more by the Turkish state in the 1930s.

I found out that many killed were relatives of mine. The affected villages were very familiar, said co-director Derya Gumus.

I met people who survived. [They were] the last witnesses. Even though I live there, I learned it very late as well, so I wanted to tell this.

Gumus admits that working with a partner from a different background was not always easy. Her partner was originally from the Black Sea region, but now studies in the western city of Izmir, which is one of the main hubs for refugees seeking to enter Europe.

That experience, Gumus says, helped to provide common ground.

Overcoming ethnic divides between partners became harder when fighting between the PKK Kurdish rebel group and the Turkish government resumed last July.

Diyarbakir, one of the BAK host cities, witnessed some of the worst fighting. The conflict affected some projects.

For example, "The Resort of the East: Hazar" aimed to show an aspect of Kurdish life rarely seen: normality. Photographer Murat Kartal said he and his partner wanted to show the holiday habits of the region. But, he said, the growing violence caused problems.

I saw that our efforts could be in vain, he said. The clashes started and I questioned this, What am I doing here? When we finish this project and exhibit these photographs, we see the preciousness of peace.

Many observers warn that the deepening ethnic conflict, especially among the young, presents Turkey with one of its greatest challenges.

But those who participated in BAK say they took a small step in bridging that ethnic divide.

Im John Russell.

Dorian Jones wrote this story for VOANews.com. Jim Dresbach adapted his report for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

exhibit  n. an object or a collection of objects that have been put out in a public space for people to look at

tattoo  n. a picture or word that is drawn on a person's skin by using a needle and ink

massacre  n. the violent killing of many people

hubs  n. the central and most active parts or places

common ground  n. something that people agree about even if they disagree about other things

resort  n. a place where people go for vacations
LEXINGTON, Neb.  There is perhaps no one more experienced and qualified to work with students from different cultures who speak different languages than Nanette Bates.

Although she had a rural Gothenburg upbringing, Bates is a lifelong world traveler who also has decades of experience teaching English as a Second Language in other countries.

Bates longest tenure of her teaching career has been the past 17 years spent at SandozElementary School. I never thought Id last here 17 years, she said.

Bates will retire this month from Lexington Public Schools. This year she worked as a teacher in the NewcomerCenter at Sandoz.

She grew up on a farm seven miles from Gothenburg. Her elementary school days in a rural school were spent in one large room, which housed eight grades.

Bates attended GothenburgHigh School, where she graduated in 1969. She went to college at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she majored in elementary education and minored in social science.

It was during her college years that Bates immersed herself in two big passions that would stay with her throughout her life: world travel and teaching.

Between her junior and senior year of college, Bates went on a six-month backpacking trip through Europe and Israel. The summer of 1976, she traveled through India and Turkey.

From June to September of 1977, Bates taught English as a Second Language in Tehran, Iran, during a time when there was widespread political tension and hate in the country for President Jimmy Carter and his administration.

She lived for eight months in 1980 in Cusco, Peru, where she taught adults ESL. Bates lived and taught in Tokyo, Japan from 1981-1983.

Ive taught everyone from three-year-olds to 80-year-olds, Bates said.

From 1984 to 1986, Bates taught elementary-age students at a small country school north of Brady. She had four students her first year and six students her second year.

Not surprisingly, the travel bug again bit Bates soon after. She traveled back to Asia and spent eight months living Tokyo with a friend.

She moved to Albuquerque, N.M., where she did substitute teaching. She got married in 1989 with a husband who also liked to travel. They spent a three-month honeymoon in Europe.

Her daughter was born on Nov. 11, 1990. She lived in a motor home in Southern California from 1989 to 1990. She worked at a preschool academy in San Diego during this time.

In the 1990s, she spent five years in Guam, where she taught at Anderson Air Force Base and taught second grade at a local school.

Bates did substitute teaching in five towns in the Lexington area from 1996 to 1999. She began working for Lexington Public Schools in 1999. She taught second grade for four years and has taught ESL for 12 years.

Mary Jo Page, a second grade teacher at SandozElementary School, said she has known Bates for about 14 years. They were both ESL teachers in the district and worked in the same building last year.

Nanette is a very energetic and determined teacher. She works very hard to make sure each student learns as much as they can. As a traveler she can understand how a person feels when they don't know the language or customs to a country. These experiences help her to relate well to students and their parents, Page said.

Page also said, Last year was my first year teaching second grade. Nanette was so helpful and fun. She was always sharing ideas. We quickly became friends. I will miss her next year but wish her well in her retirement.

Bates said she has enjoyed seeing how students quickly pick up the verbal part of the English language.

Reading and writing takes a while, but the verbal part comes quickly, Bates said about her ESL students.

I have also been happy with the large amount of activities and books we offer our students. We always have good paraprofessionals, Bates said.

With some time soon to be on her hands, Bates has the opportunity to continue to chase her goal of visiting 100 countries in her lifetime. So far she has been to 79. The next three countries on her visit list are Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Chinese device maker Meizu is preparing to launch one of its first products for the US market. But its not one of the companys inexpensive high-quality smartphones. Its a wireless speaker called Gravity.

Meizu expects to begin shipping the speaker in December, and you can reserve one for $169 and up through the companys crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

Most crowdfunding projects are aimed at raising money to actually take a project from concept or prototype to a real, shipping product. But Meizu doesnt really need the money. Instead, the company is using the Indiegogo campaign to raise awareness of its speaker and get feedback from potential customers.

The Meizu Gravity is eventually expected to sell for $249, but early backers can try to reserve one of a limited number for a lower price.

The speaker gets the name because its designed to look like it defies gravity by floating but thats really just due to a clear plastic base.

The unusual design might help the product stand apart from wireless speakers from Sonos, Bose, and others. And the speaker should offer decent sound, due to Meizus partnership with Swedish audio company Dirac.

The speaker runs Android-based software, has an Allwinner R16 ARM Crotex-A7 quad-core processor, and supports WiFi and Bluetooth.

So why is Meizus first product for the US a speaker and not a phone? The company has been making audio products for a long time, and got its start with MP3 players, not smartphones. But wireless speakers with multi-room capabilities are more popular in the US than in Meizus home country of China, so the Gravity will be available in the United States before China.

As for phones, right now a Meizu official tells Engadget that the company doesnt feel its feel its phones would stand out enough in the US market. Maybe if Meizu has some success building some name recognition with its speaker, it could pave the way for the company to launch other products for North America.
The first crisis the young Chabad rabbi encountered when he arrived at the University of Pennsylvania was a suicide. The victim was the son of a faculty member and Rabbi Menachem Schmidt, the campus new Chabad representative, was called in to help the grieving family. Following that tragedy, Schmidt founded a crisis intervention line for students in distress and opened the doors of Lubavitch House at Penn as a safe haven for everyone.

That was 36 years ago.

Now, says the 62-year old, its getting worse. It used to be that there was a certain stability for a child growing up. You would go to college, get a job, get married, have children. It read like a script. These days, its much harder to find a job, people are getting married later, if at all, and the worlds general insecurity provokes a lot of negativity.

In the case of Penn, as the schools academic caliber has risen, so has its students levels of stress and anxiety. But mental health concerns are not relegated to this leafy campus. Universities across the nation are seeing elevated anxiety, depression and stress. According to a 2013 survey of college students reported in Psychology Today, 57 percent of women and 40 percent of men described overwhelming anxiety while 33 percent of women and 27 percent of men felt too depressed to function. The suicide rate for young adults has tripled since the 1950s.

Michael Shaid is Director of External Affairs at CogWell, a campus group that promotes mental wellness. CogWell, founded under the auspices of Lubavitch House and supported by the Minding Your Mind Foundation, is a peer-to-peer network that encourages students to reach out to friends in times of struggle. Each semester approximately 25 students sign up for an intensive training where they are taught effective listening and coping skills. The main goal of CogWell is to destigmatize mental illness, explains Shaid. Youre not alone. Dont feel uncomfortable going for help.

For Shaid, a senior, the highest point of stress is exam time when there can be five major exams in a week. And throughout the semester, there is the pressure to keep up with others socially and academically. There is a constant need to work but also a pressure to go out, get drunk, be sociable.

Telltale Signs

Students at many competitive colleges drive themselves to the brink, a danger that has now made mental health the number one public health issue on campus, prompting proactive initiatives and greater awareness within the campus community. For its part, Chabad on Campus International, the umbrella organization, places a high priority preparing campus leaders to address students mental wellness.

It starts, says its director Rabbi Yossi Gordon, with a tenet basic to Judaism: Loving another Jew means understanding their situation. A person going through a hard time needs someone to really hear them. Our campus representatives are good listeners.

But as these campus leaders know, a friendly ear isnt always enough. So at its annual conference, the organization trains its members to recognize mental health situations and emergencies. It also provide campus representatives with professional guidance during the school year.

Freidy Brackman, Chabads representative at the University of Oxford, says that students arent taking care of themselves. They study all day and party all night. They dont have the maturity to realize that they will crash at some point. Or, they work too hard and dont incorporate socializing into their schedule.

Brackman, who works part-time at a womens center in town, is also an Oxford-trained counselor with a Masters in psychodynamic counseling from the British university. The stress levels students experience, she says, can be dangerous. Throw in something extra, like falling in or out of love, illness, a death or situation in the family, and the stress is just too much. When someone shows up at eight on a Shabbat morning (dead time on any campus) she knows, they are really, really anxious.

Building Trust

The mother of six who shares responsibilities at Chabad of Oxford with her husband, Rabbi Eli, is in a unique position to help people. Ive had a few people come with really hard issues who werent getting helped elsewhere. There is a level of trust between Jewish students (wherever theyre coming from, even if they never come) and their Chabad rabbi and rebbetzin. They know we are there for them when things arent smooth.

When Brackman came to the campus as a newly-married 20-year old, she had never heard of anyone cutting themselves. Fifteen years later, she says, she can see immediately if students have issues. Brackman hosts group discussions examining stress, particularly around exam time when, she says sadly, there are always a few suicides. She also meets with students personally, for regular 50-minute sessions. They might come because they have suicidal thoughts, theyre lonely, or overwhelmed. And once they are in the counseling room, we can discover their underlying issues to fully help them.

Years of interacting with students have taught her what she can and most importantly, cant offer. When she is too close to the situation, or feels that the student requires more help, she will refer them to the appropriate professionals.

Rabbi Shua Rosenstein, who has been Chabads representative at Yale for the last 12 years, has tapped into those resources. Yale has a super competitive attitude, he says. Students got in through being competitive and that stress translates into extreme mental conditions that often go undiagnosed.

Rosenstein and his wife Sarah serve as surrogate parents. We are the first stop when someone is anxious or depressed. To better serve their needs, Rosenstein attends psychology courses on campus and reads up on current psychological research. Many situations, he says, can be alleviated with a lot of love and acceptance. But, he cautions, the most important role a Chabad couple can play on campus, is recognizing their limitations. Love only goes so far. Sometimes professional involvement is necessary.

If someone is a danger to themselves or others, is suffering from drug addiction or withdrawal, or is challenged by a mental health issue, a professional must be called, a referral must be made.

Safe Haven

CogWell at Penn was founded by Rabbi Ephraim Levin and he serves today as its main advisor. With a degree in psychology from Georgetown and rabbinic ordination, Levin came to Pennsylvania in 1990 determined to change the face of student health. His Healthy Living Training presents a proactive approach to destigmatize mental illness and to impress upon students that there is no difference between a healthy body and a healthy mind, he says.

A team of social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists serve on CogWells board, advising the group and running training sessions. They also represent a recent cultural shift: recognizing the value in religion and spirituality, professionals today are more open to working with chaplains. Levin says that the atmosphere on campus is slowly changing as well. The school now allows students to take time off for personal reasons and encourages freshmen to have healthy habits such as a good night sleep.

Chabad is there shoulder to shoulder with other university providers, says Schmidt, founder of Lubavitch House at Penn. Your job is not to play amateur psychologist, he cautions colleagues, but rather to offer something unique.

You cant underestimate a Chabad house on campus. Its not a center, its a home. Students are included in our families and taught belief in G-d, belief in tradition. These values are tremendously valuable, not as an escape, but as a means to deal with the world in a healthy way.
It has been 15 years at Cannes for Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. And almost every outing, and outfit, has made news  good, bad and ugly.

This year, it was her purple pout that created a stir.

Starting with a gold cape dress, she followed it with a red number designed by Naeem Khan. During the premiere of Sarabjit, Aishwarya took her Rami Kadi ensemble to an edgier level by sporting a lavender lip. 16 May was indeed a busy day for Twitter, what with assembly polls and Aishwarya's choice of lipstick.

Aishwarya Rai's purple lips are proof that actresses don't look in the mirror when they're stylists are around!  namrata zakaria (@namratazakaria) May 16, 2016

Aishwarya Rai: "I'm wearing purple lipstick for Cannes this year" Abhishek Bachchan: "Good, it'll go well with my purples-less existence."  Akshar (@AksharPathak) May 16, 2016

Aishwarya Rai has broken barriers & done the thing women have been secretly hoping for. She's got all the men talking about lipstick.  Ripper (@Ace_Of_Pace) May 16, 2016

There's certainly no escaping the fashion police, if you happen to be Aishwarya Rai. So much that Rai, when asked if she felt a constant pressure to look a certain way, replied that she might one day "walk out in a white shirt and jeans on red carpet".

So why don't you, Aishwarya? What exactly is stopping you?

The former beauty queen describes fashion as "art". Which it is. In its purest self, it's an expression of individualism and creativity. But fashion on the red carpet isn't art; it's business. The Guardian writes that Cannes' screenings are by invitation and the official dress code is explained to guests: men should show up in black tie-black shoes, and women in elegant dresses with smart footwear.

Perhaps, that's what stopping Aishwarya. And other celebrities. That the fact that they might represent a brand (Aishwarya is the brand ambassador for L'oreal Paris). Or they might represent various jewellery businesses and fashion designers, who will have the satisfaction of seeing their creations on the red carpet. Aishwarya, this Cannes season, sported looks by four different designers.

How much is the red carpet business worth? A report by The Cut estimates that a red carpet day rate for a celebrity stylist is anywhere between $1,500 and $10,000. It details in neat mathematics, a breakdown of Charlize Theron's 2012 Golden Globes outfit. Another report, by New York Magazine, details the appearance fee for different celebrities. While Business Insider confirmed that jewellery designers, shoe designers and even tampon companies pay the celebrities who endorse their products. It is all about the money.

Fashion protocol, obviously, is strict at Cannes: In 2015, a group of older women wearing rhinestone flats, were barred from the screening of Carol for not wearing high-heeled shoes. At the preview of Money Monster, last Thursday, Julia Roberts reportedly walked the iconic Cannes red carpet, barefoot. News reports cited that a French newspaper called it an act of "militant feminism".

Militant feminism is perhaps too harsh a phrase to describe what Roberts did  she was, after all, trying to make a point. Aishwarya, who claims to be following a "very hectic schedule," has all the more reason to turn up in a pair of blue jeans and a white shirt. That doesn't have to limit her fashion choices: Last year, Lady Gaga wore a custom jumpsuit designed by Brandon Maxwell to the Oscars, Emma Stone wore a Lanvin jumpsuit to the Golden Globes, and a number of women ditched gowns for pants at the Emmys. Perhaps, next time Aishwarya's statement can come true: she can pair her pants with a bold red lip (courtesy L'oreal) to add to the effect.

(With inputs from IANS)
Mumbai/New Delhi: Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook will visit India this week and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, two sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.

His visit comes at a crucial time as Apple seeks new growth markets such as India after posting its first-ever decline in iPhone sales.

Mr Cook, who is visiting China after announcing a $1 billion investment in Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, will fly to India on Tuesday in his first official visit to the country as the head of the U.S. technology company, one of the sources said.

The sources declined to be named as the plan is not public yet.

Apple declined to provide details of Mr Cook's schedule in India.

Apple is looking to set up its first retail outlet in India, where it only has about a 2 per cent market share. But its sales there surged 56 percent in the first three months of this year, driven mainly by cheaper older-generation devices such as the iPhone 5S.
New Delhi - A high-level delegation led by NITI Ayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya will meet Japanese officials in Tokyo tomorrow to finalise key issues relating to the Rs 98,000 crore Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project.

This is the second meeting of the joint committee set up to execute the bullet train project, according to Railway Ministry.

During the meeting, the committee will finalise the schedule of the project, terms related to the appointment of general consultant and procurement conditions, it said.

Besides Panagariya, the Indian delegation will comprise A K Mital, Chairman Railway Board, Shaktikanta Das, Secretary Department of Economic Affairs, S Jaishankar, Foreign Secretary, and Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, Department of Industry Policy and Promotion.

The Japanese side will be led by Hiroto Izumi, Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Japan. Other members from Japanese side will comprise senior officials from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) and senior officials from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The flagship project is being financed by JICA, which is providing a soft loan of about Rs 79,380 crore, amounting to 81 per cent of the total project cost.

Since the loan negotiation and finalisation of loan agreement will take some time, the government has requested for a proper schedule of project implementation to achieve timely completion, the railways said in a statement.

India had also requested for appointment of general consultant, will enable start of preparatory activities like designing and preparation of tender documents, before the finalisation of loan agreement. .
Will the government disregard Subramanian Swamy's volatile views and offer a second term to RBI governor Raghuram Rajan? Finance Minister Arun Jaitley isn't about to give away the government's thinking on this ticklish issue just yet. He declined to be drawn into the matter this morning while interacting with journalists, saying these are not issues which we discuss through the media. Don't give credence to what appears in the media.

But Jaitley then went on to say that there was a mature relationship between the central bank and the government. As far as the Finance Ministry and RBI are concerned, there is an institutional relationship between the two. It is a very mature relationship. We at the highest level at the two institutions have discussions and each others' views are considered, he said.

So will Rajan be second time lucky? The governor's push to banks to make provision for bad loans - something previous governors could have done but chose not to - besides myriad other initiatives should give enough reasons to this government to ask Rajan for a second term. Besides the RBI governor's second term, Jaitley also spoke his mind on a wide range of other issues in today's interaction:

GST: Most political parties, even regional ones, support the GST bill and it should preferably be passed by consensus. But if consensus doesnt emerge, then the only other option is the parliamentary process, he said. The Congress party should have had the vision to support it more aggressively because they can claim original authorship of the bill. Every regional party barring one, which has mixed voices (the AIADMK), supports this bill. SP, BSP, RJD, JD(U), DMK, TMC ... all are making strong noises in support of the bill. When you take a broad head count, I am confident that it will be difficult for Congress to have a contrarian view. All Congress CMs are also on board, he said.

The passage of the GST Bill in the monsoon session is crucial if GST has to be implemented from next fiscal. GST seeks to unify the country into a common market by removing barriers across states. The Congress wants 1% additional levy on supply of goods and services to be removed, tax rate to be capped at 18% and an independent dispute resolution mechanism for settling disputes between states.

Disinvestment: Last year, the government had to scale down its target of disinvestment proceeds since markets were volatile and prices of metals, gas, oil were low. This year, Jaitley said, the target would be met "hopefully" as there is reason to believe markets will stabilize. He indicated that some hotels under the government's control could be first off the block, saying he has already held meetings with the ministries of civil aviation and tourism for this.

For the remaining part of disinvestment, Niti Ayog already has a mandate to suggest PSUs where the government can go in for a strategic sale. Jaitley said asset segregation was also an option, as this practice is being followed globally. The government aims to raise Rs 56,500 crore through disinvestment of its stake in PSUs in 2016-17, down from Rs 69,500 crore it had targeted to raise through disinvestment in the previous fiscal. However, in 2015-16 it could raise Rs 32,148 crore in divestment receipts in the entire fiscal.

Mallya: The UK government almost always decline requests for deportation since it believes legitimate travel documents in possession of such a person should be enough ground for not deporting him. Now, Jaitley said, the Indian authorities will begin extradition proceedings to get back Vijay Mallya. "Agencies will make every endeavour in this regard".
Second anniversary of any government provides a lot more ammunition than the first for its detractors in as much as the first requires greater indulgence to be shown. Predictably therefore in the run-up to the second anniversary, commentators and analysts are falling over themselves to make an appraisal of the government. The detractors highlight the omissions and commissions of the government whereas the die-hard BJP supporters and dispassionate commentators give credit to the Modi government for running a scam free government, ushering in transparency in coal, petroleum exploration auctions and putting in place a comprehensive insolvency code.

In the din over Agusta chopper scam, the commentators on both the sides of the divide however have forgotten to mention the seminal and welcome amendment to the Indo-Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) inked at Port Louis, the capital of the island nation on 10 May 2016. In 1983, the Indian government had bartered away the nations interest by agreeing to a most laughable clause in the agreement-- -the Indian government will not tax the capital gains earned in India by a resident of a Mauritius. And post-haste, the Mauritius government abolished capital gains tax in its country thus playing dog-in-the manger to the hilt (I will not tax and I will not allow you to tax either).

It was not an innocent lapse. Rather it had makings of a calculated and well crafted work in favor of crooks. What it meant was this. If I sold shares of an Indian company in an Indian bourse, obviously the resultant profit is an Indian income and the same rule ought to apply to non-residents because as per the source rule of taxation, even a foreigner has to pay tax in India on his Indian income. But the Indo-Mauritius treaty cast aside this cardinal principle of taxation exclusively in favor of Mauritius residents and gave that right to Mauritius which in a manner of double take quietly abolished capital gains tax after signing the treaty with India.

Those in the know aver that it was a conspiracy between the two governments (after Mauritius demography shows 50% Indian stock) to facilitate round-tripping of black money of Indian crooks-- -- Indians buying shell companies in Mauritius and investing in the Indian share market. An Indian resident acting straight has had to pay tax on short-term capital gains whereas a crook pretending to be a Mauritius resident got away with no tax. Long term capital gains have been exempt in either case thanks to the exemption conferred by the income tax law on it provided the transaction was consummated in a recognized stock exchange in India.

Every corrupt intent is camouflaged with a veneer of righteousness. The UPA government through its finance minister P. Chidambaram has been rationalizing the invidious treaty on the ground that it enabled India to attract FII money into its stock exchanges. It is true that FIIs or foreign institutional investors, with their deep pockets, have been the movers and shakers of the Indian stock markets. And almost all of them have been entering India via shell companies in Mauritius so as to avoid tax liability. Chidambaram had been saying that if the treaty were amended so as to withdraw the undeserved tax exemption, FIIs would abandon India and the nation would lose foreign exchange they have been pouring in.

It redounds to the credit of the Modi government that it has at last summoned courage to rewrite the treaty which now after grandfathering the benefit (or is it an abuse?) for a while will restore parity with the Indian residents in the matter of taxation of capital gains earned in India.

From the assessment year staring 1 April 2017, half the tax payable by residents would be payable by the Mauritius residents in respect of Indian shares acquires after the above cut off date subject to passing the main purpose and bona fide business tests. A resident is deemed to be a shell/ conduit company, if its total expenditure on operations in Mauritius is less than Rs 2,700,000 (Mauritian Rupees 1,500,000) in the immediately preceding 12 months.

And from 1 April 2019, they would pay full tax at par with the Indian residents. The

grandfathering clause is to give notice period to the Mauritius residents, both genuine and the impostors. It is also a subtle hint to the FIIs to rush in money from abroad into the Indian bourses before the cut off date, 1 April 2017.

This should go down as the best ever measure taken by the Modi government on the black money front. It has pulled the rug from under the feet of Indian crooks who have been laundering their ill-gotten wealth by misusing the Indo-Mauritius treaty tailor made for them. Vested interest are sulking and fuming of course. Would now Rahul Gandhi eats his words-- --suit boot ki sarkar? After all, it was the Congress government and the governments propped up by the Congress that turned blind eye to this most obnoxious tax treaty all these years.
Mumbai - Expanding its money laundering probe into L'affaire Mallya, the Enforcement Directorate has asked around half a dozen lenders of Kingfisher Airlines to furnish details of the financial transactions conducted by the long-grounded air carrier and its top executives.

"The banks have been asked to furnish details of all domestic and foreign inward and outward remittances of KFA (Kingfisher Airlines). Information such as from which accounts the money came in and to which accounts they were transferred, have been given to the ED," a source said.

"The aim, it seems, is to look at whether there was any case of money laundering or whether the money was parked in any tax haven," said another source.

The Enforcement Directorate had asked for financial details from both public and private sector banks and a part of these details were submitted last week.

So far, the ED was focussing on Rs 900-crore loan that IDBI Bank had given to KFA to investigate whether there was any money laundering involved. The move to seek details from more banks indicates widening of the probe into the Mallya saga.

Last month, a PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) Court had issued a non-bailable warrant against the fugitive baron Vijay Mallya in the IDBI case.

Besides, markets regulator Sebi has also expanded its probe into possible siphoning off funds by the promoters on suspicion of lapses in financial dealings of various listed companies of Mallya-led UB Group.

The market watchdog has also flagged the matter to other agencies and government departments, including the Corporate Affairs Ministry and its probe agency for white-collar crimes, SFIO (Serious Fraud Investigation Office).

The market regulator is looking into violation of securities market regulations, including the strict disclosure requirements about 'insider dealings' with the promoters and related parties.

Besides, Sebi is also probing any possible violation of norms aimed at checking fraudulent and unfair trades and comprising the interest of minority shareholders.

Mallya, currently said to be in the UK, recently lost control of another of his prime asset Kingfisher Villa in Goa.

After an order from North Goa Collector in favour of banks, the lenders took the possession of the Kingfisher Villa on May 12.
New Delhi: A 70-year-old woman passenger on wheel chair was not allowed to board her Air India flight to New York from Mumbai via Delhi allegedly due to "over booking."

The incident took place on Friday. The woman was later flown on the airline's Delhi-London Heathrow flight to provide her a connecting flight for her destination, New York on Saturday, an Air India official said.

Air India attributed the denial of boarding to the woman passengers on its flight AI 101 (Mumbai-Delhi-New York) due to the cancellation of its same flight on Thursday.

The incident was brought out by her daughter, who tweeted, seeking airline's help in this regard.

"Air India has offloaded my 70y mother from her US flight becoz of overbooking. She is wheelchair-bound and scared. Please help! @airindiain," she said in her tweet.

Air India has ofloadsd my 70y mother from her US flight becoz of overbooking. She is wheelchairbound and scared. Please help! @airindiain  Tierra travels (@RupalTierra) May 13, 2016

"In fact, Air India flight which was to depart for New York via Delhi was cancelled due to some technical issue. As a result some of the passengers of that flight were accommodated in its Friday's flight, leading to denial of boarding to many passengers including this woman," airline sources said.

All the stranded passengers were given accommodation, the official said, adding, "the woman passenger was later flown to Delhi from where she boarded Air India flight AI 115 for London. The London staff was also informed of her arrival and told to provide her all help in getting a connecting Air India flight to New York from there."
In the latest development to the murder probe of a Class XII student in Bihar, Teni Yadav, named in the FIR in Aditya Sachdeva murder case, today surrendered before a court and has been remanded in judicial custody.

Teni, who is a cousin of Rocky, surrendered before Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate-IV Om Sagar who remanded him to 14 days judicial custody.

It is the fourth arrest in the case after main accused Rakesh Ranjan Yadav alias Rocky, his father Bindi Yadav and bodyguard Rajesh Kumar.

Teni was allegedly travelling in the SUV with Rocky and bodyguard Rajesh Kumar, when Aditya was shot dead near police lines under Rampur police station area after Rocky's vehicle was overtaken by the car in which Aditya and his friends were sitting.

Police had been looking for Teni for a week since Rocky was arrested in Gaya. In a statement Teni has denied any involvement in the incident, reported NDTV.

Earlier on Monday, the Gaya court deferred hearing on the anticipatory bail plea of Manorama Devi. The Gaya court also asked for case diary and record of the lower court in this regard.

On Saturday, Rakesh Ranjan Yadav alias Rocky Yadav who initially told reporters that he was innocent of the crime, confessed to killing Sachdeva for overtaking his SUV.

Rocky, who was initially absconding, surrendered after 54 hours. He was later sent to 14-day judicial custody by a Gaya court, police said.

On 10 May, the Bihar police said that Rocky will be subjected to a speedy trial.

"SSP Gaya has been directed to ensure a speedy trial in the case. The investigation is still on and it will be completed within three weeks and a chargesheet will be filed within a month," the Additional Director General of Police (Headquarters) Sunil Kumar told reporters.

Aditya murder case: Teni Yadav, friend of Rocky Yadav, surrendered before Gaya court,sent to 14 day judicial custody pic.twitter.com/Mq1tiziyFY  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

Aditya Sachdeva was allegedly shot dead by Rocky Yadav for overtaking his vehicle near the police lines in Gaya district on Saturday night.

When pointed out that Yadav denied opening fire, the ADGP said, "No accused confesses that he has committed crime. Let him say whatever he is saying. He will get opportunity during trial."

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has denied that this is the latest in Bihar's emerging "jungle raj", as alleged by BJP.

With inputs from PTI
Kolkata: The deaths in a boat capsize in the Hooghly river in West Bengal's Burdwan district rose to 18 on Monday, an official said.

An overcrowded boat capsized late Saturday night near Kalna Ghat in Burdwan while on way to Shantipur in Nadia district.

"Till now 18 bodies have been recovered," Burdwan district magistrate Saumitra Mohan said.

Nadia district magistrate Vijay Bharti on Sunday said at least 12 people were reported missing.

Led by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), search operations are continuing since Sunday.

Incensed by the "delay" in launching the rescue and search operations, locals on Sunday set fire to several boats in Shantipur's Nrisinghapur Ghat jetty and pelted stones at police men, injuring some of them.

Police had to fire tear gas shells to disperse the irate mobs.

The administration has denied any delay in the rescue and search operation.

The boat ferrying at least 55 people, much above its capacity, overturned in the river on Saturday night as the people were on their way back to Shantipur on the opposite bank from a fair at Kalna in Burdwan district.

On the alleged delay in rescue operations, Mohan had said the river current, depth of the river and the muddy water

had made the job of the divers "very difficult".

The Burdwan DM had said "overloading" was one of the suspected causes which led to the incident.

With inputs from IANS
Srinagar: A concerted counter-insurgency campaign against mildly resurgent militancy, that had given a semblance of a new wave of insurgency in the region, has resulted in neutralisation of many militants, including commanders, and led to an ebb in violence in Kashmir.

The brunt of the campaign led by security forces has been faced mostly by the Hizbul Mujahideen militant outfit, whose cadres are mostly local and who have been at the forefront of a renewed face of insurgency in south Kashmir.

On 7 May, security forces killed three militants two from Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), while one belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit, before they were asked to surrender in Panzgom village in south Kashmirs Pulwama district, 30 km south of Srinagar. The slain militants were identified as Ishfaq Ahmad Dar and Ishfaq Ahmad Baba of the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) outfit and Haseeb Ahmad Pahla of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). All belong to Pulwama district.

This fresh assault on Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) outfit was part of dozens of counter-insurgency operations carried out by forces to neutralise around a dozen local Kashmiri militants part of the Hizbul outfit in recent months.

Majority of the militants killed in the recent months have been associated with Burhan Wani, the Hizbul Mujahideen commander, who, along with dozens of others, became part of a steady flow of recruits for Hizbul Mujahideen. The Hizbul commander and the poster boy of Kashmirs new militancy is the son of a school principal and is a resident of Tral village in south Kashmir.

But police says the outfit led by Syed Salahuddin, who is based in PoK, is fast losing its cadre in Kashmir valley, after continues and sustained counter insurgency operation by Jammu and Kashmir Police and army particularly in south Kashmir, where a renewed face of insurgency had erupted in recent years.

This new militancy has, and still continues, to draw well-educated boys from middle class families of Kashmir, particularly from south Kashmir.

Inspector General of Police Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gillani says there are 150 to 170 militants, both local as well as foreign militants, presently active in Kashmir. Although, IGP says, the recruitment of local boys by militant groups had increased last year and the focus was contain and prevent them from joining militancy.

He said Wani, the Hizbul Mujahideen outfit commander has been left alone as most of his accomplices have been killed. Gillani, told a local newspaper that since past eight months Wani has been quiet, and most of the people around him have been neutralised. Now he is on his own with just two or three people around him, Gillani said.

A home ministry report, released last month, said that 435 militants have been killed in last five years. In 2015, 59 of the 72 new recruits had come from south Kashmir.

In March this year, the state police managed to neutralise the second most wanted militant commander of Hizbul Mujahideen militant group, Dawood Ahmed Sheikh, in an overnight encounter in Buchroo village of south Kashmir in Kulgam district. The killing of the Hizbul man was part of a continued effort by the Kashmir Police and army to eliminate Hizbul-Mujahideen group from south Kashmir.

The violence has come down since 2015. Militancy-related incidents had claimed 220 lives in 2014 but in 2015, 197 people died including 102 militants, 12 policemen, 41 civilians, 35 army soldiers, five BSF personnel and two CRPF men.

There has been a slow resurgence of militancy in valley with young and educated boys joining militancy, who, according to police officials, are dependent on weapons snatched form the security forces. Now due to a strict vigil on the Line of Control and the failure to infiltrate towards the Indian side the violence has been curbed to a great extent.

Barring three we have been able to kill all the militants in that picture that went viral on social media. The time is not far when we will apprehend or kill Wani too, a senior police official based in south Kashmir, told Firstpost.
The confusion over the sudden roll-out of the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) has reportedly created problems for students. However, seemingly it is the private medical colleges and not students who will be at the receiving end. NEET will have devastating effect on multi-crore capitation fees industry run by private medical colleges. There are more than 250 private medical colleges in the country where mostly admission processes are a farce and capitation fees is what decides the entry of the candidates. The National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) replacing all other private and state medical entrance tests across the country is scheduled to be held on 24 July.

The Supreme Court on 28 April approved conducting NEET for students seeking to enter BDS and MBBS courses in the 2016-17 sessions. The apex court denied to entertain the plea taken by some of the States and associations of private medical colleges, which requested the government and the court not to thrust NEET on them. Supreme Court bench, headed by Justice AR Dave gave its approval to the two-phase holding of the examination by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

The effect the roll-out would have on the students has been widely debated. However, talking to students, medical practitioners and teachers helping students with the entrance test preparation, gives a different picture.

Vinay Bhargav who teaches students appearing for various medical entrance tests says, See the benefit of implementing NEET is that the process of misusing the entire entrance process by taking huge capitation fees will immediately be checked. Also, earlier students had to appear for lots of exams and incur huge expenses on filling numerous entrance exam forms. Now students will have only one exam to concentrate. This is seen as a problem by some students as they feel their choices have been reduced. However, I dont see a problem here. The exam pattern and everything will remain same. Supreme Court has now allowed students to appear for NEET 2 (All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) will be considered the first phase of NEET which was held on 1 May) Students are getting benefited as they are getting another chance and much more time to revise the syllabus.

He adds, My take is that it is good but the time gap between board and the entrance exam should be such that students get enough time for preparation. I dont think students in general have any problem with the new scheme. Most of the students are happy that they are getting chance to appear for NEET 2.

In December 2010, Medical Council of India (MCI) amended its Graduate Medical Education Regulation which provides for the procedure and qualification for the admission to medical colleges. As per the amendment it was made mandatory that those seeking admission in MBBS and other courses will have to secure minimum eligibility marks in common entrance test which was to be called NEET. It was challenged by various private medical colleges and other organizations and was struck down in 2013 by the Supreme Court. A review petition was filed by Union of India and MCI. In April 2016 the earlier judgement was set aside by a larger bench. NEET was revived. Reviving the NEET, the court held, We further clarify that notwithstanding any order passed by any Court earlier with regard to not holding NEET, this order shall operate. Therefore, no further order is required to be passed at this stage.

Talking about the issue, a doctor-turned-civil-servant from Maharashtra says, This is indeed an opposition and confusion created by a bogey of private medical college owners. I have seen in Maharashtra where a particular family that owns host of medical colleges have created a huge fortune through selling seats to sons and daughters of rich people. They will never want a common entrance test as that will lead to shutting down their shops.

He adds, Even some very influential doctors would never want NEET to be implemented as they would have to ensure seats for their own sons and daughter who had to run their big medical empires. How can they allow NEET to replace other entrance test, which allows easy entry for their wards.

Dr Rahul Tiwari, Neurosurgeon, at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital feels that NEET is must for ensuring that only meritorious and eligible candidates enter the medical colleges.

Implementing NEET is the need of the hour. A lot of undeserving people are getting seats in private medical colleges by shelling out huge amounts. I did my MBBS from King George Medical College, Lucknow, which is one of the most prestigious medical colleges of the country and I can say with certain conviction that a serious student will never have much problem with this change. This is much required for uniformity in selection and admission. NEET is going to affect multi-crore capitation fees industry not students.

Talking to Firstpost, Advocate Amit Kumar who appeared for the NGO Sankalp which filed the PIL seeking an order to be issued to conduct NEET said, In All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) around 6 lakh students have appeared and for this they study physics, chemistry and biology only. Some students had grievance that they were not prepared and they were preparing for state examination and they were never told that AIPMT will be converted into NEET. The apex court taking this into consideration ordered that those who are not satisfied with their result can appear in NEET 2 to be held on 24 July. See essentially the problem is not of students; rather it is of medical colleges.

He adds, There are around 20,000 seats in private medical colleges. They have been conducting exams for entrance which has been completely farcical.

Everyone knows that. They are opposing it because NEET will lead to major loss of revenue for them which they use to earn in form of capitation fees. They are pushing the case of students who get into medical colleges from backdoor. No serious student will have problem with a uniform exam. The only problem is that there is some confusion that needs to be dispelled. The whole bogey has been created that it is in interest of student to have multiple exams and oppose NEET.

He adds, 85 percent of seats in all the states will be reserved for its own students. They will have a level playing field, as they will have to compete with candidates of their own states only. Where is the problem in this? Secondly they are talking about the issue of language (The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is conducting the NEET in the current year only in English and Hindi). This is again a perceived problem. Most of the States dont conduct exam in (regional) languages.

So many medical colleges across the country are owned by big politicians and really influential people. There is very strong lobby. Those opposing NEET are putting forward the cause of private colleges and not students, says Kumar.
Patna: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the Bihar government will recommend a CBI inquiry into the killing of a journalist at Siwan in the state on 13 May.

"A decision has been taken to send the inquiry into the killing of a journalist of vernacular daily at Siwan to CBI on the request of his family. After following procedural code, the recommendation for CBI investigation would be handed over today itself," Kumar told newsmen in Patna.

"When I saw in the media the (journalist's) family's demand for a CBI probe, I personally asked the DGP to send a police team to acquaint the family with probe.

"Patna Zonal IG NH Khan met the family and they expressed satisfaction over the inquiry. We were prepared that if they are not satisfied, a CBI probe would be recommended in the Siwan incident," he said.

The chief minister said that no effort has been spared in investigating the killing of Rajdeo Ranjan, the Siwan district bureau chief of Hindi daily 'Hindustan', and in the Gaya road rage incident.

"None should have any doubt that anybody would be protected in any crime. In my government, nobody is above the law irrespective of party affiliation or social standing. We believe in the principle that police should conduct investigation in any crime independently and nobody should interfere in the probe process," Kumar said.

He also called on mediapersons to be responsible citizens and share information or clue, if any, with the probe officials in the two cases.

When asked about RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin's alleged link in the murder of the scribe on Saturday and progress of police investigation in the case, the chief minister called Director General of Police PK Thakur, present at the programme, and handed him over the loud speaker to answer the questions.

Rubbishing the charge of return of 'jungle raj' in Bihar, Kumar, during the one-and-half-hour press meet, asserted that "rule of law" prevailed in the state and he was personally committed to continue it in future too.

There have been allegations by NDA of return of 'jungle raj' under the present ruling coalition in which RJD is a partner and law and order becoming a casualty due to Kumar's tours outside the state for programmes on prohibition.

He highlighted the suspension of JD(U) MLC Manorama Devi, whose son Rocky Yadav is alleged to have killed 19-year-old student Aditya Sachdeva in an incident of road rage, and also recovery of liquor bottles from her Gaya house.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi had his mother visiting him at this official Race Course Road residence, for the first time since he started living there nearly two years back.

After Heeraben returned to Gujarat, Modi posted photographs on his twitter account in which he is seen showing her around his 7, Race Course Road residence.

"My mother returns to Gujarat. Spent quality time with her after a long time & that too on her 1st visit to RCR," he tweeted along with the photographs.

In the pictures, Heeraben is seen in a wheel chair, while the Prime Minister, wearing a grey T-shirt and black trousers, can be seen showing her the greenery and flowers in his residence.

In one of the pictures, Modi, in kurta pyjama and waistcoat, is seen offering a glass to his mother while sitting on a sofa.

My mother returns to Gujarat. Spent quality time with her after a long time & that too on her 1st visit to RCR. pic.twitter.com/2n5ZT2C4PC  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 15, 2016

Heeraben lives with her another son, a government servant, in Gandhinagar.
Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju, while dealing with a case regarding passive euthanasia, had quoted an evocative line written by the Urdu post Mirza Ghalib"Marte hain aarzoo mein marne ki/maut aati hai par nahi aati." The apex court's judgment in March 2011 gave rise to a debate on the ethics surrounding euthanasia, and gave rise to the question of whether the right to die could be included as a part of the right to life.

The Union government has now come up with a draft bill on passive euthanasia and has invited comments on it from people till 19 June. This comes more than five years after a bench of the Supreme Court expressed its opinion that passive euthanasia should be legalised. The court laid down a set of guidelines by which passive euthanasia can be legalised through a High Court-monitored mechanism.

In January, after initially opposing passive euthanasia, the Union government told the Supreme Court that it was finalising a legislation which would permit it, as per a report in The Times of India. On 15 February, the Supreme Court directed the government to consider the matter of passive euthanasia and made it clear that pendency in the apex court should not come in the way of authorities to take a decision on the matter.

Urging that the public debate on the contentious issue would be a better course, Additional Solicitor General PS Patwalia, appearing for the Centre, told an apex court bench of Justices Anil R Dave, Kurian Joseph, Shiva Kirti Singh, AK Goel and RF Nariman that the law commission report was under examination of the health ministry.

Seeking deferment of court hearing till July, Patwalia told the constitution bench that once the health ministry examined the law commission report, the law ministry will draft the necessary law.

The proposed Bill gives patients the right to withdraw medical treatment to herself or himself and 'allow nature to take its own course.' If a patient expresses a decision to withdraw treatment, the decision would be binding on the medical practitioner. The medical practitioner, however, is not barred from giving palliative care.

The draft, however, disappointed experts who wanted clarity on the concept of a 'living will', as per The Times of India report. A living will is a directive for the future given by a patient that he or she should not given medical treatment in a case of terminal illness. The proposed Bill mentions that advance medical directives will not be binding on the medical practitioner.

With inputs from IANS

Euthanasia by Firstpost
Do you experience bloating, intestinal cramps and excessive gas in your stomach often? This could be lactose insensitivity which is a very common reason for digestive problems.

Lactose is a sugar found in milk and milk products. Lactose should be broken down in your upper intestine by the enzyme lactase. Most people in India have varying degrees of lactose insensitivity, making it difficult for them to digest sugar. But since the pain and bloating differs, people often dont connect the two.

Technically, as infants, humans produce lactase in our digestive systems and can digest milk. As we enter adolescence, the enzyme in the body starts decreasing and with it the ability to break down lactose. This is natural because milk is for infants and humans are the only mammals that drink milk beyond infancy.

Seventy-five percent of Africans and Caribbeans, 50 percent of Europeans, 35 percent of Americans and almost all of theAsians have certain degrees of lactose intolerance. The only people who can really digest milk are Northern Europeans and Americans of North European descent who have a genetic mutation to deal with lactose. Unfortunately, it was these North Europeans who colonized much of the world and they brought their eating habits with them; which is why America, colonial Africa and Asia started drinking milk.

So, while your background defines whether you can tolerate dairy products or not, most governments promote milk products aggressively, and food manufacturers find milk sugar a cheap ingredient, therefore adding it to wide variety of processed products.

How sensitive you are depends on how much lactase enzyme your body is still producing. Some people can drink a glass of milk without apparent side effects. Some can have just a spoonful in their tea or coffee or on their cereal and it triggers off a gastric upset.

Why does lactose cause gas and abdominal pain?

When your body does not produce enough lactase in your small intestine, all your milk/milk products pass through to the large intestine undigested. Bacteria in your colon love lactose and quickly ferment it. This fermentation creates lots of gas. Due to the high levels of protein in the milk, the gas is very smelly. These extra gases bloat the intestine causing spasms and cramps. When the pressure from the gas interferes with water absorption in the colon it causes diarrhoea. Some people experience bloating and flatulence anywhere between 15 mins and 2 hours after consuming milk or its products. Gurgling or rumbling sounds in your belly, loose stools or throwing up are common symptoms.

While passing wind almost immediately is the best thing to happen, apart from being uncomfortable it is also embarrassing for you - both the smell and the noise are not socially acceptable. Smell has a decisive role in changing mood and it becomes very annoying for people to share the same space.

Since this is such a common problem, why do most people not realize it? One of the reasons is that since food containing lactose (for instance, paneer included in vegetables) travels much slower than liquid. It may take hours for the symptoms to show. You could have eaten something in the morning and end up with gas in the evening without making any connection between the two.

Food and drinks that contain lactose

Milk is obviously the first product that you should avoid, especially cow and goat milk. All dairy milk, even skimmed milk, has extremely high levels of milk sugar. All protein powders contain concentrated lactose. Butter and all types of cream contain relatively less lactose than milk but enough to cause you trouble. Freshly made cheese  feta, paneer etc  contains a large lactose amount. The harder the cheese, the less lactose it contains. For instance, parmesan will have much less than mozzarella. Ice cream is particularly bad because not only is it made from milk, but manufacturers add extra milk sugars to sweeten it. Home-made curd without any flavours has the least amount of lactose because it has good quality. But commercial yogurt is simply thick and sweet milk with very little beneficial bacteria in it. All yogurts are made with live cultures, but many yogurts go through a process called heat treatment that kills the bacteria. Check the label for the words contains live and active cultures.

Canned soup has lactose  especially if it is creamy. So do packaged savoury snacks, especially if they are cheese flavoured. Milk chocolate, cakes, puddings, biscuits, doughnuts have lactose, as do premade sauces, gravies and salad dressings like mayonnaise. Breakfast cereals are sometimes made with milk powder or solids and then you eat them with more milk. Bread, baked goods, instant breakfast drinks, instant potatoes, instant soups, pancake, cookie, and biscuit mixes, margarine and salad dressings too. Even processed meats like sausages, luncheon meat have lactose. Pizza with its combination of soft cheese, bread and perhaps processed meat is the worst thing you can eat. Start looking at labels for the words lactose, milk solids, milk powder, milk protein, non-fat dried milk, casein, sodium caseinate and whey. Strangely enough, birth control pills, headache tablets and some drugs and supplements also contain lactose. By themselves they are unlikely to have a major effect but if your food is bad, it all adds up.

If you are lactose intolerant, it is far more serious that just cramps, bloating and flatulence. If the colon is constantly deluged by fermenting lactose it can leave the digestive system permanently weakened with harmful bacterial overgrowth and weak immunity. If you are an Indian, take it for granted that you have some level of intolerance. Sometimes the small intestine stops making lactase after a short-term illness such as stomach flu or as part of a lifelong disease such as cystic fibrosis. Or the small intestine sometimes stops making lactase after a surgery to remove a part of the small intestine. In rare cases, newborns are lactose-intolerant  this is serious because diarrhoea causes dehydration. Some premature babies have temporary lactose intolerance because they are not yet able to make lactase. Lactose intolerance increases as you get older.

You need to check out what harm you are doing to yourself. The best way to check this is to avoid eating milk and dairy products to see if your symptoms go away. If they do, then you can try adding small amounts of milk products to see if your symptoms come back.

Possible measures

There are two tests that doctors suggest: the Hydrogen Test Breath and Lactose tolerance tests. Before the test, you need to avoid certain foods, medicines and cigarettes. On the day of the test, you will drink a liquid that contains lactose and then breathe into a machine several times over a couple of hours. If the hydrogen levels in your breath are high, you may have lactose intolerance.

Lactose tolerance test measures your blood sugar after you eat or drink lactose. The night before the test, post midnight you should not eat or drink anything. On the day of your test, you will drink a liquid that contains lactose, which may cause gas or pain in your belly. Then your blood will be tested every 30 minutes for 2 hours. If your blood sugar levels do not rise, you may be lactose-intolerant. You may also be asked to bring in a sample of your faeces. The faeces of a person who has lactose intolerance is usually loose or watery and foamy.

There is no cure for lactose intolerance. But you can treat your symptoms by replacing milk products; with soy milk/cheese. If you are worried about getting enough calcium, you can easily get it from all greens, bhindi, broccoli, saag, almonds, and all soyas. You can use non-dairy creamers in your coffee. If you cannot bear the thought of life without milk, ice cream, cheese and pizzas you can take lactase supplements of which the best known is Lactaid 9000 Fc. You need to take these pills just before you consume lactose-heavy or lactose-based food. The capsules start at 1000 FC for those with slight insensitivity. But pills always have their own fallout.
Dehradun: Congress in Uttarakhand on Sunday said a "consensual" committee be formed to probe all the allegations that leaders of his party and BJP had levelled against each other during the President's rule in the state.

"The political scenario in the state has become murky and caused much confusion among the people due to levelling of corruption and horse trading charges against each other by Congress and BJP since March 18," state Congress unit chief Kishore Upadhyay said.

The committee should include representatives from the judiciary, civil society and journalists. The time-bound enquiry will bring out the truth before the public, Upadhyay said.

On the controversial sting CD episode, Upadhyay alleged that Chief Minister Harish Rawat has been framed because of political vendetta and said the probe should be stopped after state Cabinet's decisions to withdraw the notification recommending a CBI inquiry into the matter.

On the BJP's demand for a narco test, Upadhyay said he and Rawat were ready for it but demanded a similar test for BJP chief Amit Shah, party leaders Kailash Vijayavargiya, Bhagat Singh Koshyari and Ajay Bhatt.
Karaikudi: Senior Congress leader and former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday exuded confidence that the DMK-Congress alliance will get a good majority and form the next government in Tamil Nadu.

"The alliance of DMK, Congress and others will for sure get a good majority. A regime change will happen. I am totally confident that a DMK government will be formed," he told reporters here after casting his vote.

Chidambaram also charged the Election Commission with "failing to check distribution of money by AIADMK".

"Election Commission has failed in checking distribution of money by AIADMK men in Tamil Nadu. The AIDMK men had distributed money at several places," he alleged.

"Information I am getting for the past 10 days confirmed money distribution," he added.

Though he welcomed flying squad raids and vehicle checks, he said they have "not prevented the distribution of money for votes and taking money for votes".

He said polls in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur constituencies could have been nullified after today's elections instead of postponing it to 23 May.

The EC had postponed the polling in the two constituencies after seizing huge sums of cash and reports of large-scale distribution of money to voters.

On the detaining of three trucks carrying Rs 570 crore near Tirupur by election officials, the former finance minister said he was "not aware whether so much of money can be taken to the bank".

"It is a rare news that so much of money was being carried in containers," he said while seeking an investigation into the matter.

Referring to the rains in various parts of the state today, he said showers on the polling day are indication of the "change" to come.
Unless there is a miracle, the Congress will lose what the BJP called the 'Last Battle of Saraighat' in Assam. And the political implications of the loss in Assam could be identical to the events that followed the historical war fought on the banks of the Brahmaputra nearly 450 years ago.

All the exit polls indicate that the BJP will either be the single-largest party or sweep the election in Assam. Either way, it will get the first shot at forming the government in the state.

The BJP had compared the Assam polls with a historical battle between the invading armies of Mughals against local Ahom rulers. In that battle Ahoms led by general Lachit Borphukan had repulsed the Mughals and ended their dream of expanding beyond Bengal.

Midway through the poll campaign in Assam, BJP's poll strategist Himanta Biswa Sarma, a Congress renegade, realised that the most effective way to win the election was to raise the issue of the threat to Assam's demography from illegal immigrants. Through a sustained campaign, he managed to create the impression that an invasion of Assam by Bangladeshi immigrants would become a fait accompli if the Congress and Badruddin Ajmal's parties are allowed to form the government. And that the original tribes of Assam will turn into a religious minority.

There are around 35 percent Muslim voters in Assam, most of them immigrants from erstwhile East Bengal (later Bangladesh). Their numbers have gone up steadily over the past few decades. If the exit polls are an indication, fears of Assam becoming a Muslim-majority state seem to have swung the election in the BJP's favour.

The BJP appears to have raced past the Congress also because of its alliance with Asom Gana Parishad and Bodo People's Front. On the ground the alliance seemed to be working by transferring their votes to each other. Exit poll results also indicate that the Bihar-like Mahagathbandhan in Assam has helped the BJP demolish the Congress.

The Congress would be ruing its decision to let Sarma walk out of the party and he became the BJP's strategist. Such is Sarma's clout in the state that it is widely believed that he single-handedly stitched an invincible alliance and turned illegal immigration into the most important issue in the election.

A few months before walking out of the Congress, Sarma had staked claim to the CM's job during a meeting with Rahul Gandhi. He had argued that the party had won the 2011 Assembly polls only because of his strategy and personal influence. To this Rahul had reportedly retorted with a ''so what?" The Congress VP may get the answer on 19 May.

The predicted loss in Assam suggests that nothing is working for the Congress. It is being routed in states where it has a government  Assam and Kerala; it is finding it difficult to return in states where it is the opposition. Incumbency, anti-incumbency, alliances...whatever the Congress is trying is not working.

With the predicted loss of Assam and Kerala, the Congress would be wiped out of every major Indian state except Karnataka. Since May 2013, when it won Karnataka, primarily because of BJP's mistakes and Siddaramaih's influence, the Congress has not won a single election. Though it rode to power on the coattails of Nitish Kumar-Lalu Yadav alliance, in every other election it has been routed.

Assam was the Congress' only hope in this round of polling. Since it had won three consecutive elections in the state, was led by a strong regional leader in Tarun Gogoi and the BJP just had a token presence till a few years ago, the state appeared to be a safe bet for the party.

After the Mughals lost the battle of Saraighat, they went into terminal decline. Within a few decades the Mughal empire crumbled and the dynasty became irrelevant.

History may be on the verge of repeating itself. And the Last Battle of Saraighat may turn out to be last nail in the Congress coffin.
Nearly 15,000 Aam Aadmi Party activists on Monday marched towards Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's residence to protest but Chandigarh Police stopped them at the city's border with Mohali town of Punjab.

Later, a delegation of AAP leaders, including Sanjay Singh, in charge of the party's affairs in Punjab, state convenor Sucha Singh Chottepur, MP Bhagwant Mann and actor-comedian Gurpreet Ghuggi, was escorted by police to meet acting Punjab Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki to submit a memorandum against the Badal government.

The protestors are seeking a high-level probe into the Rs.12,000-crore scam of 'missing' food grain.

Security in and around Chandigarh was tightened on Monday ahead of the AAP protest against the Punjab government's alleged failure to probe the food grain scam and curb the menace of drugs, mafia and corruption.

The area around the official residences of the chief minister and his son and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal in the upscale Sector 2 was barricaded by police. Scores of police personnel, many of them in anti-riot gear, were also deployed.

Police personnel were also deployed around the Haryana Raj Bhavan, the official residence of Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, in Sector 6.

Security was also increased at all entry points to Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, to stop the AAP activists from moving in close to the VIP residences.

According to The Indian Express, the party workers planned to meet at Gurdwara Amb Sahib and leave for Chandigarh where they will gherao Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badals residence.

Ahead of the protest, security was stepped up with over 4,500 personnel deployed, most of them at the SAS Nagar- Chandigarh barrier, and the police invoked Section 144 of CrPC in Chandigarh, reported Hindustan Times. According to officials in Chandigarh, police have deployed riot control vehicles, fire fighting engines, ambulances to restrain the AAP activists from entering Chandigarh.

Meanwhile, Badal cancelled all engagements for Monday.

"This has been done in view of Aam Aadmi Party's reported programme, even though that party has not sent any formal information to this effect," the chief minister's spokesman said on Monday, according to NDTV.

Badal had said on Sunday that he would instead "remain available" at his residence to receive "any responsible political leader or representative for discussion on any issue concerning the people of the state." He also said, "This party had already delivered the most treacherous betrayal to the farmers of the state by backing out on the SYL issue. They cannot now pretend to be the sympathisers and supporters of the same farmers."

AAP had earlier proposed a plan to gherao Badal's residence. The party accused the SAD-BJP government of misusing the official machinery for "suppressing" its democratic right to protest in Chandigarh against the foodgrain scam.

"We challenge the Badals to tell the people of Punjab where Rs 12,000 went, whether it went in the pockets of Badals or in the pockets of officials,"AAP's Sanjay Singh was quoted as saying by India Today.

Singh also accused Badal of using "coercive ways and means at his command to ensure AAP doesn't hold a massive protest demonstration and surround his official residence at Chandigarh to expose his misdeeds".

#PunjabKranti

Badals have indulged the Farmers of Punjab to Commit Suicides,today We all are here to Gherao Them. pic.twitter.com/oFF8pyHDd1  Sucha Singh Chotepur (@SChotepur) May 16, 2016

"The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has unearthed the biggest food scam of the country accusing the Badal government of either siphoning off Rs 12,000 crore or the food grains worth the same amount from the Punjab godowns," he further added.

In reciprocation, Badal had expressed that his "doors have always been open" for everyone to discuss, in a constructive and meaningful way while adding his government will not allow "AAP's dramatic tantrums to weaken and dilute the state's struggle for justice" on the river water issue.

"It is disgraceful how AAP continued to indulge in double speak on this critical issue. They do not tire of raising slogans and at the same time continue to betray the state's interests through unbelievable flip-flops on the issue in the Supreme Court," he had alleged.

Meanwhile, in another development, the Punjab government on Monday inserted advertisements in newspapers claiming that account of every

procured grain is maintained by Punjab procurement agencies and FCI.

It claimed there was a "conspiracy of anti-Punjab elements" to "defame" Punjab and said bogey of "missing wheat" was raised by opposition parties for their "political gains".

"Beware of those (who are) out to defame Punjab," said an advertisement.

With inputs from agencies
In a brilliant article, Swaminathan Aiyar talks about 'the alcoholic mammaries of the welfare state'. And he talks about how the freebies that chief minister J Jayalalithaa (and by M Karunanidhi before her) announces are financed mainly by massive revenues from liquor sales.

The freebies must cost Tamil Nadu huge money. According to her party manifesto, the giveaways promised include

- Free cellphones for ration-card holders;

- Free laptops with internet connections for Class X and XII students;

- Maternity assistance of Rs 18,000

- Maternity leave of nine months;

- 100 free electricity units every two months;

- Waiver of all farm loans (at a cost of Rs 40,000 crore). Unlike Maharashtra that wants banks to write off loans, Tamil Nadu pays the banks and then writes off loans.

- Fisherfolk assistance

- A 50 percent subsidy for women to buy mopeds or scooters

- An eight-gram gold coin for women getting married

- A free Amma kit including sanitary napkins

- This is in addition to schemes already in existence  the 20 kg subsidised rice per family, subsidised Amma kitchens and goats and cows for rural families. Tamil Nadu, incidentally, has not enforced a ban on slaughter of cows or the consumption of beef.

To meet this huge cost, Jayalalithaa has ensured that all liquor shops in the state are run by Tasmac, a government monopoly. Thus, the incomes from the sale of liquor are reasonably well accounted for. That ensures a steady flow of funds to meet one of the largest outlays for giveaways (compared to other Indian states). Tasmac also collects money from private bar owners who are allowed to lease space (within liquor shops owned by Tasmac) and thus earns some more money.

As a result, revenues from the sale of liquor have swelled from around Rs 2,800 crore in 2002-03 to Rs 30,000 crore today.

True, such financing of freebies through liquor sales is not easy to digest in terms of morality. But in a political environment where votes can be purchased through freebies (which are nothing but social welfare for the needy, and hence not easy to strike down by the courts), a system that allows for proper accounting is better than a system that blurs accounting and accountability.

To understand this, compare the Jayalalithaa model with those adopted by a state like Maharashtra (each state has its own flavour of buying votes through freebies). In Maharashtra, liquor can be sold by liquor companies to liquor shops. Some of the liquor is smuggled out from the godowns or breweries, to evade payment of excise duty. Even this liquor finds its way into shops, but after sharing a bulk of the excise money evaded with the politician-bureaucracy apparatus. The money thus goes out of the purview of accounting. It leads to enormous corruption and consequent cover-up.

It leads to the corrosion of the entire administrative fabric.

Consequently, Maharashtra announces freebies for which there is very little accounting. This state gives away freebies in the form of allowing votebanks to come up in slums which appropriate government land in prime locations. At other times, it allows illegal parking of cars and trucks. Then there is the way illegal construction was permitted  remember the Adarsh scam? And at times even by printing bogus stamp papers (the Telgi scam). At other times it siphons out money from public works (remember the irrigation scam?)

The money is used to buy favours from the vote banks crucial to the ruling politicians. Of course, even opposition members are allowed a small share of this booty, if anecdotal versions are to be believed.

None of these are accounted for. Some even goes into the promotion of private businesses for which the politician or the bureaucrat (often both) opt.

It is then that you realise that Jayalalithaas way of financing freebies  without allowing for corrosion of the moral fibre of the bureaucracy  is a better type of governance than say, states that do not allow for proper accounting.

Of course, Jayalalithaa now faces a problem. With the Opposition snapping at her heels, accusing her of promoting alcoholism, by keeping bars open for longer hours, she has no option but to announce prohibition.

Everyone knows that by announcing prohibition, illicit liquor will get sold. This will mean more hooch peddlers working out ways to bribe petty officials and police inspectors. Part of this money will eventually find its way into the pockets of politicians who will use it to finance the gargantuan political machinery and for appeasing vote banks. And yes, that will mean more corrosion of the administrative machinery which had been taught to maintain accounts scrupulously.

If Jayalalithaa wins, she will have to work her strategy carefully.

True, unlike the DMK, she has announced phased prohibition. Obviously, she will try to work out ways to balance accounting with the financing of freebies. She will try to ensure that development funds do not get used up for attaining political ends.

It is the adoption of such policies and also ensuring that development funds are not frittered away that has allowed Tamil Nadu to see a a 2.17-time increase in tax collections over the past seven years, compared to 2.12 times for Maharashtra. But, like Maharashtra, which was once one of the most desirable places to set up industry, Tamil Nadu too is slipping in its rankings, although its growth rates are still better than those of Maharashtra.

But the guardians of morality will have a tough time deciding what is good, and which is better. Is financing of a gravy train through liquor good? And how does one stop freebies, especially when they are targeted at the poor and the needy and can easily pass off as social welfare. If Jayalalithaas freebies are bad, how does one describe MNREGA, free school uniforms, free bicycles and free computers? They may be bad. But they are certainly better than financing giveaways through selling of illegal hooch, or through skimming money from any project that the state may undertake.

The moral debate is a vexatious one. There are no clear answers or winners.
Step by step, brick by brick, the edifice of India's legislature is being destroyed. Arun Jaitley minced no words in this outburst against judicial overreach in the case of NEET 2016 examination last week, while participating in a discussion in Parliament, and has only re-emphasised this government's unhappiness with over this issue many times since then.

On Monday, he lashed out at the judiciary again, saying courts cannot substitute the executive and begin exercising executive powers.

A case in point: The brewing tussle over a decision by the Supreme Court to bar states from conducting separate entrance exams for medical courses.

"There must be fair opportunity for everyone to compete (in medical entrance tests). Some state governments say boards are unequal or languages are unequal. The manner of holding medical entrance exams is in the policy domain...health ministers of state are meeting on this issue and will take a decision keeping the courts' ruling in mind," Jaitley said while interacting with journalists at the Indian Women's Press Corps on Monday morning.

The SC had ruled that undergraduate admissions to medical courses can only be done through the NEET (the National Eligibility and Entrance Test), turning down an appeal by state governments and medical colleges to modify its earlier order.

That the NDA government is, rightfully or wrongly, in conflict with the judiciary has been quite evident recently. NEET is one example, another would be the apex court asking the Centre to create a new policy on handling drought and set up a new disaster relief fund. Jaitley was earlier quoted saying We have the National Disaster Response Fund and the State Disaster Response Fund and now we are being asked to create a third fund. The appropriation bill is being passed. Now outside this appropriation bill, we are being told to create this fund. How will I do that? Indias budget-making is being subject to judicial review.

One can write newspaper editorials criticizing the government and if that doesn't suffice, vote the government out in the elections or even challenge any decision of the executive in the courts, Jaitley explained today. But are similar democratic rights available to any citizen of India if he wants to appeal against a court decision?

"When courts exercise executive powers, no judicial review is available, no possibility of public criticism is there and the electorate also do not have any right to reject this decision of the judiciary through voting....this element of activism must be blended with restraint within the judiciary," the finance minister said.

More recently, the Supreme Court intervened in the Uttarakhand episode and effectively told the Speaker of the Uttarakhand Assembly how to do his job, including the counting of votes in the trust-vote. On this specific issue, Jaitley again said that though judicial review is a legitimate space available to the judiciary, "Lakshman Rekhas have to be drawn by institutions themselves".

That there is a major conflict brewing between the Centre and the judiciary is evident from Chief Justice TS Thakur's comment; he was quoted by the The Times of India as saying that at a time when people are languishing in jails and others are crying for justice, the government can't be "sitting over the proposal (on judges' appointment) for more than two months".

"...It is actually the protection of the rights of the people for whom the laws were made that you act. It is not for any personal glorification that the court act, it is for the enforcement of these laws. I don't know but I think time has come when you do audit of the performance of the government, when we need to do audit of the government by some processes."

No government will, obviously, take kindly to the judiciary seeking to review its performance when the electorate anyway does that periodically.
As Tamil Nadu and Puducherry went into polling on Monday, nearly 15 million people voted in the first four hours to pick a new Tamil Nadu assembly while Puducherry recorded 81.94 per cent voting till about 4 pm to elect the 30-member assembly.

In Tamil Nadu, the voter turnout touched 69.19 percent at 3 pm, Chief Electoral Officer Rajesh Lakhoni said.

Salem and Namakkal registered high voter turnout with long queues seen in both towns and polling was picking up pace in Thanjavur and Dindigul which had witnessed showers in the morning, forcing voters to stay indoors.

Lakhoni, however, indicated that the polling hours may not be extended as sought by political parties including DMK and AIADMK, as rains had subsided but assured that all voters who turn up before 6 pm at the booths will be allowed to cast their votes.

The voting process will not end till the last voter who makes it to the booth before 6 pm casts the vote. Such voters will be given tokens to ensure they voted.

The polling was largely peaceful and no major incidents of violence had been reported, he said.

Three villages in Thoothukudi, Kancheepuram and Viridunagar had boycotted the polls, but central observers and local officials were holding talks with them, Lakhoni said, adding he was confident that the voters will cast their votes.

Leaders of major political parties were among the early voters.

Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa , however, did not make the usual claims about the electoral outcome.

"In two days time, the people's verdict will be known," she said after voting.

DMK chief and former chief minister M Karunanidhi, his son and party treasurer M.K. Stalin and state BJP leader Tamilisai Soundararajan voted in Chennai. Congress leader P. Chidambaram voted in Sivaganga district.

Speaking to reporters, Karunanidhi said the DMK-Congress combine was poised to win and form the next government.

Madurai, Tiruchirapalli and some places in southern districts saw rains, which in turn slowed down the voting.

In Chennai, voting was progressing briskly, officials said. Actors Kamal Hassan, Rajinikanth, Ajith, Sundar. C and Kushboo voted in the city.

Polling in 232 of the 234 assembly constituencies began at 7 am and ended at 6 pm.

Elections in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur, deferred following allegations of bribing of voters, will be held on 23 May and counting of votes on 25 May.

In the 232 constituencies, 3,728 candidates are in the fray.

The ruling AIADMK is aligned with some smaller parties. The DMK has aligned with the Congress, two Muslim parties and some smaller outfits.

The third front, led by the DMDK, comprises the CPI-M, CPI, VCK, TMC and MDMK.

The PMK is contesting alone while the BJP has aligned with a few smaller parties.

Meanwhile, after a sluggish start in Puducherry with just over 10 percent turnout being seen in the first two hours after polling centres opened at 7 am, the voting picked up pace in the day

There are over 9.4 lakh voters in Puducherry, and a total of 344 candidates are in the fray.

In the 2011 assembly elections, the polling percentage was 85.52 percent out of over 8.10 lakh voters.

The main fight in Puducherry is between the Congress-DMK combine and the ruling All India NR Congress (AINRC), while the AIADMK, the ruling party in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, is going it alone.

Rains in Puducherry did not affect polling.

With inputs from agencies.
Predictably, the Congress party has questioned the way in which the National Investigating Agency (whose Director was appointed during the UPA regime) has dropped charges against Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and recommended the non-use of the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit. But the fact remains that it has been more than seven years since Purohit and Sadhvi have been incarcerated in prison without chargesheets. And what is more important to note is that if the NIA did finally prepare the charge-sheet on 13 May, it was after the Supreme Court of India had questioned the very basis of continued detention of Purohit and Pragya under the MCOCA, as they had no criminal record. The apex court had also observed that there was considerable doubt about their involvement in Malegaon blasts. In fact, the Supreme Court had directed that their bail plea should be examined by a special trial court.

It is also worth noting that on its part, the Indian Army had conducted its Court of Inquiry and some 50 witnesses, officers and men had given their testimony in favour of Purohit. They had hailed Purohit as a dedicated professional who had infiltrated into organisations like SIMI and the Indian Mujahideen and some right-wing outfits like Abhinav Bharat, with full knowledge and concurrence of his seniors.

The Malegaon bombings were a series of bomb blasts that took place on 8 September, 2006. The Maharashtra police initially suspected Bajrang Dal, the Lashkar-e-Toiba or the Jaish-e-Mohammed of involvement in the attacks. Investigators then said that the explosives contained in these bombings were "a cocktail of RDX, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil  the same mixture used in 7/11", referring to the 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings. In fact, on that basis, the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra prima facie ruled out the involvement of Hindu Nationalist groups like the Bajrang Dal in the Malegaon blasts; it cited two reasons: one, RDX is only available to Islamist outfits; two, Bajrang Dal activists so far had only used crude bombs, nothing as sophisticated as the ones in Malegaon. Accordingly, the Police arrested members of the Students Islamic Movement of India and their promoters. In fact, on 28 November, 2006, the Mumbai police stated that two Pakistani nationals were involved in the explosions. "We have successfully detected the Malegaon blasts case. We are, however, on the lookout for eight more suspects in the case," said DGP PS Pasricha.

However, the contours of the investigation by the ATS underwent radical changes once Hemant Karkare succeeded KP Raghuvanshi as its chief in January 2008 (eventually he was succeeded by Raghuvanshi after he was killed during the attack in Mumbai on 26 November, 2008). It is an open secret that Karkare had excellent relations with senior Congress leaders, particularly Digvijay Singh. Karkare started the process of highlighting saffron terror with the arrest of Purohit and Sadhvi.

I do not want to go into details, as in these pages I have written earlier that the theory of saffron terror was popularised by the UPA regime to neutralise the adverse impacts of the 26/11 tragedy, particularly during the electioneering for the 2009 general elections. This strategy went into full swing soon after the Congress party won the 2009 general elections and the assembly elections in Rajasthan and Haryana. At the time, not only at the Centre but also in Rajasthan, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra there were Congress governments. Re-investigations of the blasts in Samjhauta Express, Malegaon, Ajmer Sharif and Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad) were reopened simultaneously to implicate Hindu fundamentalists.

After seven years, it is becoming increasingly difficult to legally prove the charges of saffron terror. That explains why the NIA is reconsidering its previous positions. And that explains why the Congress is getting upset. In fact, the so-called saffron terror is the third major issue raised by the Congress against its opponents that like the other two  Tehelka Scandal and Coffin Gate  has been a case of more sound but less substance. The Coffin scam was a result of the faulty approach adopted by the Comptroller and Auditor General of Indias (CAG) report which alleged corruptions in the purchase of coffins for the dead soldiers during the Kargil war that took place in 1999 between India and Pakistan.

According to the CAG, the Vajpayee government incurred a heavy loss of 1, 87,000 US dollars in the entire transaction. I have always argued that the CAG is prone to make blunders when it deals with military matters  for instance, once it said that the Indian Air Force was wasting money by buying fighter planes from abroad at a much higher price than what the countrys Defence Research and Development Organisations (DRDO) could spend for making these planes at home. Nothing could be more perverse than this logic, but then the CAG has made similar observations about the Indian Navy and Army as well. In this specific case, the caskets were purchased from Buitron and Baiza, a company based in United States of America, rendering funeral services.

The Vajpayee government had bought 500 caskets worth $2500 each, which the CAG presumed to be 13 times the original amount. However, the Ambassadors from both the countriesIndia and the UShad declared in writing that those caskets had a cost worth $ 2,768 each. But, when the issue was made a scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigated the case and filed a chargesheet against three Indian Army officers in August 2009. However, in December 2013, a special CBI court found no evidence and discharged all the accused. The case was closed. And this happened during the UPA regime itself.

The Tehelka scam has been the most ludicrous in Indias history of scandals. A highly partisan and controversial journalist, claiming to be the representative of a non-existent defence firm, traps some officials in the name of procuring a non-existent weapon system and then generalizes that the then defence minister George Fernades and his staff are indulging in corruption, indicating that the proposed deal to buy Barak missiles for the Navy from Israel is one such incident that had witnessed kickbacks. In fact, such heat was generated in the process that the Congress party made the life of the then Vajpayee government miserable and boycotted Fernandes in Parliament. They, along with the partisan journalists, boycotted two commissions of inquiry that the Vajpayee government set up under two respected retired Supreme Court judges  Justice S N Phukan and Justice Venkataswami. So much so that to a great extent the Congress under Sonia Gandhi won the elections in 2004 on the basis of the two scandals of Coffin-gate and Tehelka by successfully building the public perception over misleading and fabricated evidences against the government of the day.

When the Congress-led UPA came to power in 2004, the two judicial commissions were dismissed by the government and everything was handed over for investigations to the CBI, which, in turn, filed a First Information Report (FIR) on 10 October, 2006. But again, nothing concrete emerged. On 24 December, 2013, after investigating for more than seven years, the CBI decided to close the matter as it did not find any evidence on the allegations. And the UPA government was very much there then.

Viewed thus, one is sure that even if the UPA were in power today, the NIA would not have acted differently.
New Delhi: The Election Commission on Monday revised the voter turnout of assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, but they were less than the 2011 polls.

However, the percentage is likely to go up as the figures were not final.

In Tamil Nadu, where the elections went off peacefully, 72 percent of the 5.82 crore voters turned out to cast votes, according to figures issued by quoting reports till 8 pm.

In the 2011 assembly polls, the figures were 78.12 percent and 73.85 percent in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

In Kerala, the figures available at 8 pm said that 71 percent of the total electors had cast votes. The figure was 75.12 percent in 2011 and 74.02 percent in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. At 6 pm too, the figure had stood at 71 percent, as told by EC during a media briefing at 7 pm.

In Puducherry, the voter turnout recorded at 8 pm was 84.11 percent, which was 75.12 percent in the 2011 assembly polls. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the turnout was recorded at 83.05 percent, the Commission said.
Hyderabad: Voting is being held on Monday for the bypoll to Palair Assembly constituency in Khammam district of Telangana amid tight security arrangements.

The polling began at 7 AM and will continue till 6 PM.

Thirteen candidates including nine Independents are in the contest which is being held after Congress MLA from the constituency Ramreddy Venkat Reddy passed away in March.

The contest is expected to be a triangular one between ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), Congress and CPI(M).

TRS has fielded State Roads and Buildings Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao while the opposition Congress has named Venkat Reddy's wife Sucharita Reddy as its candidate.

TDP and YSR Congress, which are not contesting the polls, are supporting the deceased MLA's wife. BJP is not contesting either.

The ruling TRS has tried to woo voters on the "developmental work" it plans to undertake in the constituency if elected, while Congress has tried to "encash" the sympathy wave due to the sudden death of Venkat Reddy.

CPI(M) has fielded P Sudarshan Rao for the seat. "The district administration has made all necessary arrangements for smooth conduct of the bypolls," Khammam district Collector Dana Kishore said.

As many as 41 flying squads are monitoring activities to ensure enforcement of the model code of conduct, according to officials.

Apart from central paramilitary forces, police personnel from the state have been deployed as part of the security arrangements, they said.

There are 243 polling stations in the constituency, and 1,90,351 eligible voters.

The results would be declared on May 19.
New York: All eyes are on the race for the high-profile US Senate seat in California. Two prominent Democratic women, both minorities, lead the pack. The front-runner, Indian origin Kamala Devi Harris, has been Californias attorney-general for more than five years and has run two statewide campaigns for the seat. The second, Latin American Loretta Sanchez, has served in Congress for nearly 20 years.

Polls show Harris, the 51-year-old daughter of Indian doctor Shyamala Gopalan and Jamaican American father, Stanford University economics professor Donald Harris, is the front-runner, with 27 percent support in an April poll of voters by Field Research.

US Representative Loretta Sanchez, 56-year-old daughter of Mexican immigrants, is in second place at 14 percent. Both Democrats, have the best chance at making it past the states top-two 7 June primary to face each other in a general election than the three top Republican hopefuls in the race  Duf Sundheim, Tom Del Beccaro and wealthy software developer Ron Unz.

The USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll also put Harris as the solid front-runner, and Sanchez in second place far ahead of the Republican pack. Harris has raised $10 million through the first quarter of the year; Sanchez has raised $3.2 million and Del Beccaro merely $316,000.

According to the media, Harris' appeal is similar in many ways to her friend President Barack Obama's; she has a compelling life story and trails innovative ideas the way some women do perfume. Like her friend Obama, who created a stir by declaring that "Kamala is the best looking attorney-general of the United States," Harris is a product of todays multi-racial, mobile America.

Harris' parents separated when she was five. Harris and her younger sister Maya, also a lawyer, were raised by their Indian mother, a successful oncologist, who moved to America in the 1960s to study medicine. Harris was married in an Indian and Jewish ceremony in 2014 to Douglas Emhoff, who is a partner with her at law firm Venable LLP's Los Angeles office.

A brilliant prosecutor, Harris became San Francisco's first female district attorney in 2003. Her biracial background made her the state's first black  and nation's first Indian American  district attorney. She has now been the attorney-general in California for more than five years.

Senate ads for Harris have cast her as tough but caring, a candidate who can put bad guys in jail one minute and high-five with kids the next. The ads focus on her "fearless" record as Californias attorney-general.

Harris prosecuted violent predators and transnational gangs exploiting women and children. She took on big oil companies violating our hazardous waste laws. And Kamala Harris sued the big banks and won $20 billion for California homeowners, reels out the Senate ad.

Kamala Harris was fearless, says Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts who has endorsed Harris as a fearless advocate for Californians.

Harris has strong support among Asian Americans who make up about 15 percent of the population of California. Harris draws her strongest support from the liberal Bay Area which has a lot of Indian tech workers. Sanchez draws her support from the traditionally conservative Orange County.

"Kamala Harris is a trail blazer," said Radha Patel, a software engineer in San Francisco. "I hold her up as a role model for my girls. We will support her in this race."
New Delhi: BSF has suspended its seven troops posted along the Indo-Bangla frontier, including an officer, after ordering a Staff Court of Inquiry into the killing of a Bangladeshi national suspected to be part of a group of cross-border gold smugglers, last week.

Officials said the incident took place on 14 May at about 10 am along the Banpur border post in Krishnanagar district of West Bengal when a group of suspected smugglers surrounded a Border Security force patrol and the force party subsequently fired from a non-lethal gun to disperse them.

Later, they said, a teenager who received the gun shot from the pump action gun succumbed to injuries on the other side of the border.

"The Staff Court of Inquriy will go into the details of the incident. The seven personnel including an Assistant Commandant of the 113th battalion have been placed under suspension pending inquiry," a senior official said.

He said the BSF patrol was acting on an intelligence input to intercept cross-border smugglers.

The incident comes at a time when a high-level delegation of the Border Security Force, led by its Director General KK Sharma, is in Dhaka for the annual border talks with their counterparts Border Guard Bangladesh.
A group of Taiwanese fraud suspects deported from Malaysia to China have confessed and will be tried on the mainland, according to Chinese authorities, despite an angry Taipei demanding they face justice at home.

The expulsion of the 32 suspects from Malaysia in April came after another group of Taiwanese fraud suspects were sent to China from Kenya, a move described by Taiwan as "abduction".

The deportations are seen by observers as a means of exerting pressure on self-ruling Taiwan's new president Tsai Ing-wen, who takes office on Friday and has a far more sceptical approach to relations with Beijing than her China-friendly predecessor did.

Taiwan has lodged formal complaints with China over the deportations and has insisted its nationals face investigation and trial on the island.

Beijing says it wants to try the suspects deported from Malaysia on the mainland because they were part of a telecom fraud ring that targeted Chinese victims. China's Ministry of Public Security said they will undergo proceedings under the "mainland judiciary".

"The 32 Taiwanese suspects confessed to committing fraud and have been detained according to law," mainland police said, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

But Taiwan insisted the case was still under investigation.

"Both sides are working together," Chen Wen-chi, who heads cross-strait legal affairs at the Ministry of Justice, told AFP.

Chen, who led a delegation to meet mainland police and discuss the case over the weekend, said the location for the suspects' trial would be "negotiated at a later time".

The Xinhua report quoted a 72-year-old cancer patient who was tricked into depositing two million yuan ($152,835) into a "safety account" as part of the fraud scheme.

"This is my medical savings and it's all been cheated," said the woman surnamed Guo.

"I hope Taiwan will hand these crooks over to the mainland so they can be punished by law," she said.

Twenty other Taiwanese suspects arrested in the Malaysia raids were deported back to Taiwan last month and are currently under investigation.

Chinese state media has also said previously that the Kenya suspects have admitted their guilt and will be tried on the mainland.

Taiwan is self-ruling after splitting with the mainland in 1949, following a civil war, but China still sees it as part of its territory waiting to be reunified.
London: US presidential candidate Donald Trump says he may have a poor relationship with Prime Minister David Cameron in light of the British leader's criticism of Trump's call for all Muslims to be temporarily banned from entering the United States.

Trump's comments, broadcast Monday on ITV's Good Morning Britain made headlines in Britain, which claims a "special relationship" with America. Trump's suggestion of a temporary Muslim ban led to a petition signed by half a million people demanding that Parliament hold a debate on whether he should be banned from the country. Lawmakers held the debate, but rejected a ban.

"It looks like we are not going to have a very good relationship," Trump said in the interview conducted in New York. "Who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him (Cameron) but he's not willing to address the problem either."

Cameron has refused to retract comments describing Trump's proposed Muslim ban as "divisive, stupid and wrong." But Cameron's spokesman, Dan York-Smith, told reporters that the prime minister was "committed to maintaining the special relationship" no matter who wins the presidential election.

"He has been clear that he will work with whoever is president of the United States," York-Smith said.

In the interview conducted Saturday, Trump also describes London's new mayor, Sadiq Khan, as "rude" for calling him ignorant. The real estate tycoon said he would "remember" the mayor's hostile reaction to the idea that Khan, a Muslim, would be given an exception to the temporary ban.

"He doesn't know me, hasn't met me, doesn't know what I'm all about. I think they were very rude statements and, frankly, tell him I will remember those statements," Trump said. "They are very nasty statements."

Trump denied he was "at war" with Khan.

"I just think it's very rude of him. In fact it's the opposite," he said. "I wished him well when I heard he won, he's a Muslim, I think it's ignorant for him to say that."

Khan's office said American voters would reject Trump's views.

"Sadiq has spent his whole life fighting extremism, but Trump's remarks make that fight much harder for us all  it plays straight into the extremists' hands and makes both our countries less safe," his office said in a statement.

When reminded Khan has described Trump as ignorant, Trump shook his head and said: "Let's do an IQ test."

The mayor's office rejected the idea, saying "ignorance is not the same thing as lack of intelligence."
Steve McCurry  a name that rings a bell in mind of photographers across the globe. His images have captured the imagination of millions of people including mine. His beautifully composed images of exotic nations across the globe easily excited my teenage mind many years ago. I used to imagine his life as an adventurous photojournalist, an Indiana Jones in his own right, travelling to an unknown place every day and coming back with fantastic photographs.

I am not overstating when I say that Steve McCurry played a part in inspiring me to become a photographer. And it is just not me. Even the 2010 World Press Award Winner, Jodi Bieber, said that Steve McCurrys portrait of the Afghan Girl played a part in inspiring her award winning image. While McCurry is best known for his portrait of Sharbat Gula (commonly known as the Afghan Girl), he has produced many beautiful images over a career spanning nearly four decades.

One of my most treasured possessions is one of his photo-books, South Southeast, that he had personally autographed when I met him in 2011. He seemed like a quiet and an unassuming person on that September afternoon in London. He was shorter than I had imagined, dressed in a pair of jeans and a casual shirt, the master of photography would be indistinguishable in a crowd. And I thought it was the compactness of his stature that allowed to him so discreetly capture the unguarded moment as he calls it.

When the recent news of the photo manipulation emerged, I honestly hoped that it was a one-off occurrence of a single image that had somehow passed through McCurrys steely supervision. There must be a mistake, his editorial team must have goofed up, I thought. But after a few more images came to light, I was devastated. It became obvious that his images had been altered by removing/adding elements to the original image. In one of the altered images, quite a lot has been changed  distracting electricity poles have been removed, an entire fruit stall vanishes and even a person is cloned out.

For a significant part of my life as a photographer, I had believed that McCurrys work defined perfection. He had made these dream like images  too flawless to be real. But, I also believed that he had only managed this level of excellence through his patience, ardent research work, and a masterful understanding of light that led him to be in the right place at the right time. I used to tell my peers that if you were not able to achieve the same level of mastery as McCurry, then you simply were not committed enough.

Today, it is evident that he used extra ingredients to create the perfect images. A touch of post processing, some cloning and alterations to produce that look of finesse. A finesse that never existed in reality and never will. Make no mistake, the skills that are required to be a good photographer are still the same as ever. Lots of research and patience is an inherent part of the evolution of a photographer. But perhaps thats not enough.

McCurry built his career in the era of film photography when manipulating a negative or a print beyond the basic dodging and burning would have required significant effort. With the advent of digital photography over the past decade or so, a phrase that is often heard is that you cannot trust digital photography since one can change everything in Photoshop. While that is true to a certain extent, we still trust the professionals to have an ethic to not mislead the public.

The important lesson for young photographers here is to never knowingly mislead your viewers. When you are embarking on a pure photojournalistic mission to tell the truth about a place or issue, then make sure that you present the facts as they are. Of course, a bit of colour correction is normal but altering of the subject of the image would be crossing the line. On the other hand, if you are taking up a project (fashion, fine art, etc) with the intention of doing detailed post processing to bring out your vision, then edit and alter the images by all means but be honest about the changes you have done.

At the end of the day, I am sure that there are images in Steve McCurrys vast collection that are unaltered yet brilliant. However, I feel let down by the fact that he had created a false reality for all photographers and made us work towards a nonexistent state of perfection.
London: UN special envoy Angelina Jolie Pitt urged the international community on Monday to respond to Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War II with generosity and not the "politics of fear".

In a speech in London, the Oscar-winning Hollywood actress said there was a "duty that falls on all of us" to help those fleeing their homes, warning the alternative was "chaos".

The American star also had criticism for US presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has proposed building a wall to stop Mexican immigrants and called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

"It is hard to hear that this is coming from somebody who is pressing to be an American president," she said in a question and answer session after her speech.

"America is built on people coming together for freedom, especially freedom of religion."

Conflicts, including the five-year war in Syria, have fuelled a global refugee crisis, with 60 million refugees and displaced people across the world.

Jolie Pitt, a United Nations special envoy for refugees, said she recognised that some people felt "angry" about the numbers of people on the move, and no longer had faith that institutions could deal with the issue.

"It has given space to a false air of legitimacy to those who promote the politics of fear and separation," she said.

"It has created the risk of a race to the bottom, with countries competing to be the toughest in the hope of protecting themselves whatever the cost or challenge to their neighbours, and despite their international responsibilities."

However, she warned: "If your neighbour's house is on fire you are not safe if you lock your doors. Strength lies in being unafraid."

Jolie Pitt called on the international community to be more generous towards refugees, who were each "a person with an equal right to stand in dignity on this planet".

"This is a duty that falls on all of us, to the next UN secretary-general, to all governments, to civil society, to everyone of us," she said.

"Whether we succeed will help define this century. The alternative is chaos."

The UN set out a plan last week that aims to resettle at least 10 percent of the global refugee population every year, as it tries to tackle the crisis.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hopes the new "global compact on responsibility-sharing" will lift some of the burden on developing countries.
Dhaka: A senior BNP leader has been arrested in Bangladesh over his alleged involvement in a plot to oust the Awami League government, in collusion with Israel, following his meeting in India with a top Israeli politician, police said on Monday.

Aslam Chowdhury, a joint secretary general of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and a leading businessman of Chittagong, was arrested in Dhaka last night after a travel ban was enforced on him.

"We arrested him (Chowdhury) as investigations revealed he was involved in a plot to oust the government with Israeli support. He personally met an Israeli politician abroad," police's detective branch commissioner Abdul Baten told reporters.

"Police filed a prayer seeking Aslam Chowdhury to be remanded in custody for 10 days, the magistrate granted seven days," an official of Dhaka's Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court said today.

Police had earlier said they launched an investigation into BNP's alleged connection with Israeli Mossad intelligence agency.

"We are investigating whether any Bangladeshi has connection with Mossad. The suspects are under surveillance," Chittagong's regional police chief Mohammad Shafikul Islam said.

Chowdhury came under scrutiny after newspapers published several photographs in which he was seen with Israel's ruling Likud party leader Mendi N Safadi in India during a conference.

DelAviv, an Indo-Israel relationship platform, and Mendi N Safadi Center for International Diplomacy and Public Relations, posted the photos.

The reports sparked uproar in Bangladeshi media and political circles.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh does not have any diplomatic relations with Israel and Bangladeshis are banned from travelling there. Bangladesh has also voiced concerns over Israeli atrocities in Palestine.

"We (Bangladesh) cannot think of relations with Israel," junior minister for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam had told reporters.

Meanwhile, Palestinian envoy in Dhaka said it would be a "political suicide" for any Bangladeshi party to have ties with Israel.

Chowdhury earlier admitted he met an Israeli politician in New Delhi earlier this month but claimed the meeting was "accidental".

Chowdhury is known to be a trusted lieutenant of BNP's senior vice-chairman Tarique Rahman, who is former prime minister Khaleda Zia's son.

Rahman has taken political refuge in the UK to evade a number of graft and criminal cases in which he is being tried in absentia at home.

The BNP is the key opposition party outside parliament as it had boycotted the 2014 general election citing unfair conditions for polls.
Beijing: Asking the US to respect the efforts by China and India to resolve their boundary dispute peacefully, a top Chinese official said on Monday that the two nations are wise enough to deal with it after the Pentagon accused Beijing of deploying more troops along the Sino-India borders.

"The Chinese side is committed to safeguarding peace and tranquility of the border areas between China and India and resolving the boundary question through negotiation with India," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in written response to PTI about a Pentagon report alleging that Beijing has increased defence capabilities and deployed more troops along the borders with India.

The US military report also warned of increasing Chinese military presence in various parts of the world, particularly in Pakistan.

"China and India are wise and capable enough to deal with this issue. It is hoped that other country would respect efforts made by China and India for the peaceful settlement of dispute, rather than the opposite," the Foreign Ministry said, apparently referring to the US.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia Abraham M Denmark had said that "we have noticed an increase in capability and force posture by the Chinese military in areas close to the border with India."

"It is difficult to conclude on the real intention behind this," Denmark said on Saturday after submitting Pentagon's annual 2016 report to the US Congress on 'Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China'.

"It is difficult to say how much of this is driven by internal considerations to maintain internal stability, and how much of it is an external consideration," he said in response to a question on China upgrading its military command in Tibet.

On Sunday, the Chinese Defence Ministry expressed "strong dissatisfaction" and "firm opposition" to the Pentagon report which also alleged that China is focusing on the militarisation of the artificial islands built by it in the disputed waters of the South China Sea in a bid to assert its control.

Skirting any references to allegations of increasing troops presence along the Sino-India border, the Defence Ministry accused the Pentagon's annual report as misrepresentation of China's military development.

The US, which has accused the Chinese military of lacking in transparency, deliberately distorted China's defence policies and unfairly depicted China's activities in the East China Sea and South China Sea, a statement issued by Chinese Defence Spokesman Col Yang Yujun said.

"China follows a national defence policy that is defensive in nature. Moves such as deepening military reforms and the military buildup are aimed at maintaining sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, and guaranteeing China's peaceful development," Yang said, adding that the US side has always been suspicious.

Yang stressed China's construction on the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea serves mostly civilian purposes and helps fulfill its international responsibilities and obligations by providing more public goods.

The South China Sea has become a major flash point for military tensions between China and the US in recent years as Beijing which claims sovereignty over all most all of the South China sea sought to assert its claim by building artificial islands with military facilities.

The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan contested China's claims.

Backing the small states, the US has so far sent three warships through the waters around the artificial islands to asset the right for freedom navigation.

In his statement, Yang said it is the United States which has been flexing military muscles by frequently sending military aircraft and warships to the region.
Kabul: Tens of thousands of minority Shiite Hazaras demonstrated through the streets of Kabul Monday, demanding that a key power transmission line pass through their electricity-starved province, in the second major anti-government protest in recent months.

Authorities locked down central Kabul, blocking key intersections with stacked shipping containers as the protesters marched on the presidential palace, holding unlit lanterns and banners with slogans such as "justice and light".

The demonstration, which spotlights the war-torn nation's turbulent politics, follows one of the biggest anti-government rallies for years last November, which was galvanised by the beheading of a group of Hazaras.

Some protesters pelted rocks at officials and banged on the sides of containers, prompting police to sporadically use water cannon against them but the demonstration was largely peaceful.

"(President) Ashraf Ghani is hiding himself behind blast walls," Dawood Naji, a Hazara leader, told flag-waving demonstrators, drawing rousing applause.

"We can break down these containers if we want but we are here to protest in a civilised way for our rights."

Authorities shut down roads to the presidential palace, fearing a repeat of the violence in November when protesters tried to scale the walls of the compound.

The 500-kilovolt TUTAP power line, which would connect the Central Asian nations of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with electricity-hungry Afghanistan and Pakistan, is seen as a crucial infrastructure project.

But it has been mired in controversy, with leaders from the minority group demanding that the line be routed through Bamiyan, one of the most deprived areas of Afghanistan with a large Hazara population.

The line was originally set to pass through the central province but the government rerouted it through the mountainous Salang pass north of Kabul, saying the shorter route would speed up the project and save millions of dollars.

Hazara leaders in the ethnically divided nation lashed out at the Pashtun president, calling the decision prejudiced against the Hazaras, a community that has suffered a long history of oppression.

Persecuted community

"Bamiyan has seen no development in 15 years (since the Taliban were toppled from power)," Hazara lawmaker Arif Rahmani told AFP.

"We are demanding justice, not charity."

Ghani has appointed a commission to review the multi-million-dollar project and assured the protesters that Bamiyan would receive electricity from it even if the transmission line does not pass through the province.

The rally comes in the midst of the Taliban's annual spring offensive launched last month and authorities said the streets were blocked with shipping containers to prevent any insurgent attacks during the protests.

The dispute, which highlights the challenges of modernising the country, threatens to overshadow the TUTAP project, which is due to be implemented by 2018 and could help ease crippling nationwide blackouts.

Monday's protest underscores Ghani's rising unpopularity amid endemic corruption, rampant unemployment and a worsening 15-year Taliban insurgency.

Hazara protesters last week repeatedly heckled Ghani during an anti-corruption summit in London.

The three million-strong Afghan Hazara community has been persecuted for decades, with thousands killed in the late 1990s by Al-Qaeda and the mainly Pashtun and Sunni Taliban.

There has been a surge in violence against the community, with a series of kidnappings and killings in recent months that have triggered a wave of fury on social media.

Last November thousands of protesters marched coffins containing the decapitated bodies of seven Hazaras through the Afghan capital.

Their bodies were found in the southern province of Zabul, which is under Taliban control and has been the scene of clashes between rival militant factions.

Ghani called the killings "the shared pain of a nation" and accused the militants of trying to divide Afghanistan.
Last week Mark Steinert, the current chief executive of Stockland, claimed Labor's policy has "the potential to destabilise the entire economy"  to the extent of "risking a recession". During the 2013 Q&A program, Mr Symond argued for expanding the housing stock through land releases in the eastern states and reduced taxes and charges on subdivisions.

"If it were devoted to new property development, to creation of new housing, it would actually go to relieve the shortage of housing and I can really sympathise with Leanne," he said.

On the same program, Graham Bradley, the chairman of Stockland, Australia's biggest residential property developer, also agreed with Leanne's question.

"Do you think negative gearing should be abolished or at least quarantined, only available for new dwellings, and thus giving low income earners the opportunity to get into the property market?" she asked.

Mr Symond told 2GB last week that real estate prices could fall by up to 20 per cent if Labor got into power.

On Sunday, he went further and raised the prospect of recession.

"It is frightening and it will frighten others . . . and it creates this stampede. And that's my concern that there could be a glut of properties come on the market, force the prices down, and then all of a sudden it could be Armageddon with the housing industry that's propped up the Australian economy the last four years," he told Seven's Sunrise program.

On Monday, Mr Turnbull was asked about Mr Symond's apparent backflip but he again went on the attack against Labor's policy.

"What Shorten is proposing on negative gearing is a policy as John Symonds has said, as the real estate industry have said .... will smash the value of properties and it will drive up rent. It will drive up rent," he said.



"The extraordinary thing about the Labor Party is that they ignore experience. They are going to go back and make the same mis take on negative gearing that [former prime minister Paul] Keating did which he had to reverse."
Ms Credlin, who has been hired by Sky News to provide commentary on the election, said the candidate's absence was notable and becoming a pattern for the new Prime Minister.

Mr Turnbull on Monday did not appear at a campaign event in the West Australian seat of Fremantle with the local Liberal candidate Sherry Sufi, who argues that gay marriage will lead to polygamy.

Tony Abbott's former chief of staff Peta Credlin has launched another scathing critique of Malcolm Turnbull's campaigning tactics, accusing the Prime Minister of casting into the cold hopeful Liberal candidates.

"I think once in a while the candidate not being at a press conference in an elector ate is fair enough, in isolation, fair enough," Ms Credlin told conservative News Corp columnist and Sky commentator Andrew Bolt.

Peta Credlin has launched another attack on Malcolm Turnbull's campaign tactics. Credit:AAP

"When it becomes a pattern, the pattern becomes a problem, and particularly the seat of Boothby and Dunkley where he did not have the candidates, Nicolle Flint in Boothby and Chris Crewther in Dunkley, I think was a mistake, they're seats we hold, we've got retiring 20-year members going and anything you can do to boost name recognition is important."

But unlike Mr Sufi's case, the candidates for Dunkley and Boothby were a major part of the prime minister's campaign events in their electorates and while they were not filmed standing behind him during his media conference they did attend his remarks.

Publicly Liberals, including the Prime Minister, are refusing to respond to her criticisms but privately believe she is in danger of sabotaging the Coalition's campaign. In 2010, Labor blamed former prime minister Kevin Rudd for causing the hung parliament outcome, when their polling took a hit and never recovered after damaging cabinet leaks against his successor Julia Gillard were aired.
Sussan Ley, before she became federal health minister, was criss-crossing regional NSW in campaign mode when she started feeling horrible and morphed into the "elephant man".

"Something in me knew something was going badly wrong," she recalled at the launch of National Allergy Week in Sydney on Monday. "I swelled up, my throat constricted and the person who was driving said to me: 'You look dreadful, you look like the elephant man'."

Ms Ley shared her story as she announced a $550,000 funding boost for the National Allergy Strategy, which aims to standardise drug allergy management, better equip young sufferers and educate restaurant and cafe workers.
The worlds poorest people are going to be hit the worst by catastrophic flooding as the climate warms, says an author of a report released Monday.

Its not just that a billion people will be exposed, but it will be the poorest people who will be most at risk, Alison Doig, with Christian Aid, told VOA Monday following the London groups release of the report.

The study predicts more than a billion people will live in low-lying cities exposed to massive flooding from rising sea levels by 2060 as a result of climate change.

Most of the cities are in Asia, but Miami, in the United States, is also at risk.

Doig cautioned against downplaying the risk to people in wealthy nations, but said they are more likely to recover than people in poor countries.

They are extremely exposed, but they have resources to move house, to raise their homes, to put defenses around themselves. They have insurance that will pay back, Doig said. If youre a poor person in Kolkata or Dhaka, you have no insurance. They have very, very little and when the devastation comes, if they do survive it, they have nothing left.

The report focused specifically on the worlds cities and named Asian megalopolises like Kolkata in India and Dhaka, in Bangladesh, as being most at risk, along with some of the coastal cities of China, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

It said West Africa was also of concern, especially Lagos, Nigerias main city, and Ivory Coast's commercial capital, Abidjan.

In cities, people are more dependent on food, water, and fuel that is brought in from outside than in the countryside, where it is more likely for people to be self-sufficient. That makes urban residents more vulnerable to shortages, humanitarian crises and rising costs that can lead to riots and unrest.

Security experts have for years drawn a link between the effects of climate change and political instability.

Of the most immediate concern, sharply reduced crop yields in multiple places simultaneously could trigger a shock in food prices with devastating effect, especially in already-fragile regions such as Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, CIA Director John Brennan said in Washington last year.

Past research, unclear links

Their research has often looked at the effects of droughts and other natural calamities on migration and competition for resources that can set off conflicts, and some have pointed to drought as one trigger of the ongoing conflict in Syria.

The link between climate change and wars, however, is not as clear as some might suggest, said Ilan Kelman, a researcher at University College Londons Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction.

What we know from extensive research is that we have no specific conclusions in terms of climate change as a cause, he told VOA. "It seems clear that climate change does not and will not cause war or peace."

Kelman said natural disasters caused by climate change can precipitate the start of conflicts such as the one in Syria, where people suffered political oppression under the Assad family for decades before war broke out.

When you have that underlying cause, certainly if theres a sudden change, such as rainfall in Syria, such as increased drought, such as sudden migration from rural to urban areas, that may be a trigger," he said. "That may be an impetus, that may spur on what people want to do anyway, but there were still those underlying decades of having brutal dictatorships, of being oppressed and not being able to pursue livelihoods."

Doig, who co-authored the Christian Aid report, agrees that flooding and other climate-related catastrophes serve as a trigger, if not an underlying cause. If youve got a crisis, if youve got political instability, its going to ramp it up. Its going to turn up the volume on any of that.
Despite the ongoing migrant and refugee crisis, Greece expects to welcome a record 27 million tourists this year.

I think its an achievement given the fact that we have capital controls, we still have the refugee and migration crisis - which make tourists think twice if they want to visit Lesbos or some other places that are migration hubs, the governments top spokesperson Lefteris Kretsos told reporters on Monday.

Greece is a brand name in tourism. It was always, and I think it will always be, he added.

In part, Greece could be seeing higher tourist numbers because of the political instability and terrorist attacks that have scared off international travelers from nearby Egypt and Turkey.

Both of those nations have catered to millions of tourists in the past, but now have seen their numbers drop dramatically.

Greece has suffered a prolonged economic crisis, but otherwise has remained safe and stable. Last year the country received some 26.5 million international visitors.

The biggest tourist agencies are confident about Greece, said an upbeat Kretsos, who touted Greeces many attractive qualities for tourists, including good weather, great food and ancient monuments. He also cited as enhancing Greece's international image is the way the country has handled the more than 1 million refugees and migrants who have arrived since 2015.



The fact that ordinary people have treated migrants with a lot of support is also something that I think attracts more people to visit Greece; its not an obstacle at the end of the day, said Kretsos.

Tourism is a key contributor to the Greek economy. According to the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE), it comprises more than 20 percent to the countrys GDP and accounts for one out of every five jobs.
Nigeria's oil production has fallen by nearly 40 percent because of militant attacks in the country's south, according to Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Emmanuel Kachikwu.

Kachikwu told the lower house of parliament Monday that the country's crude oil production had declined from 2.2. million barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day. He said the loss of 800,000 barrels per day is due to "incessant attacks and disruption of production in the Niger Delta."

Nigeria relies upon the production of crude oil for the bulk of its national income and the 2016 budget assumes production of 2.2 million barrels per day at $38 a barrel.

Attacks on oil infrastructure are on the rise in Nigeria's south, where a group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers has been vandalizing oil facilities. The group is calling for a greater share of oil profits for the region's residents and has vowed to damage Nigeria's economy.

The Niger Delta also saw a wave of violence in the last decade when rebels attacked pipelines and kidnapped workers. That violence only subsided in 2009 when the government introduced an amnesty program that paid off militants.

Kachikwu said the government would look at the previous amnesty to determine why militant attacks are again on the rise. He also said Nigeria must invest more money in its oil infrastructure, including repairing pipelines and burying them to proper levels.
Conservative critics are sharply attacking a new edict from President Barack Obama's administration that transgender students in the United States be allowed to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

"Texas is fighting this," declared Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a long-time Obama opponent. "Obama can't rewrite the Civil Rights Act. He's not a king."

Another state leader, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, said, "I recommend that school districts disregard (Obama's) 'guidance' on gender identification in schools."

The country's Justice and Education departments last week issued what they described as a "guidance" to thousands of school districts around the country on how to treat transgender students and to deal with questions of what bathrooms they should use.

The order came just days after the Justice Department and the eastern U.S. state of North Carolina sued each other over enforcement of a law in that state requiring transgender people use bathrooms that conform to their gender at birth.

The country's top law enforcement official, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, said, "There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex."

Guidance for some, overreach for others

Under the U.S. political system, many educational issues are decided at the state level of government, and more specifically by local school boards that govern schools in their communities.

"This guidance gives administrators, teachers, and parents the tools they need to protect transgender students from peer harassment and to identify and address unjust school policies," Lynch said.

But conservative leaders and lawmakers in the United States have long chafed at federal government orders issued during the seven-plus years Obama has been president as over-reaching control by Washington on policies they believe should be decided at the state or local level.

Luther Strange, the attorney general in the southern state of Alabama, vowed to fight what he called the "absurd" Obama order.

Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin said Obama "is intentionally dividing America by threatening to sue or withhold funding from our cash-strapped public schools if they do not agree with his personal opinion on policies that remain squarely in their jurisdiction. They should not feel compelled to bow to such intimidation."

A prominent conservative Christian evangelist, Franklin Graham, said, "Who does President Barack Obama think he is? The sultan of Washington? Does he think he can just make a decree and we will bow down and simply obey? What about the privacy and protection of all the other students? Isnt this discrimination against all of them?"

"This opens up bathrooms to sexual predators and perverts," Graham said.

The White House is defending the new mandate, with Obama spokesman Josh Earnest saying, "The foundation of this guidance is that people should not be discriminated against just because of who they are."
Asias biggest aircraft lessor is seeking to raise USD1.1 billion to fund an expansion as the region is poised to become the worlds top air travel market in about two decades.

BOC Aviation Ltd., the Singapore-based company that has more than 100 planes leased out to airlines around the world, will sell new and existing shares at HKD42 apiece in a Hong Kong initial public offering. It will become the second Asian plane-leasing company to get listed in the stock markets after China Aircraft Leasing Group Holdings Ltd. went public in July 2014.

Spurred by strong economic growth in the past decade and rising incomes in the worlds two most-populous countries, China and India, Asia is on course to beat the U.S. as the biggest market, according to Airbus Group SE and Boeing Co. That potential has lured billionaires such as Li Ka-shing and budget-carrier pioneer Tony Fernandes to the plane-leasing market, where returns from multiyear contracts can exceed those of airlines.

Asia is the fastest-growing aviation market with demand for pilots, aircraft and leased aircraft, said Mark Martin, founder of Dubai-based Martin Consulting LLC. Strategically, its a perfect time for BOC to capitalize on what they have already achieved.



The lessor was established in 1993 as Singapore Aircraft Leasing Enterprise Pte., a business that was sold to Bank of China Ltd. in 2006 and renamed BOC Aviation the following year.

BOC Aviation and Bank of China plan to offer a combined 208.2 million shares, according to a statement to the Hong Kong exchange Thursday. Half the offering will be comprised of new shares, with the rest being sold by Bank of China, according to the statement.

Bank of China may sell an additional 31.2 million BOC Aviation shares if an over-allotment option is exercised, the statement showed. The company plans to use the proceeds from the IPO to fund pre-delivery payments for new aircraft, as well as future plane purchases, according to preliminary terms for the deal obtained by Bloomberg last month.

What is different with BOC is that it is an established lessor, said Will Horton, a Hong Kong-based analyst at CAPA Centre for Aviation. The initial placement of aircraft with airlines is comparatively easy. The challenge is re-marketing them.

Its parent companys overseas investment-banking arm, BOC International Holdings Ltd., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are joint sponsors of the offering, the company said in an April 24 pre-listing filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Our core business model is focused on purchasing new, fuel-efficient, in-demand aircraft at competitive prices directly from aircraft manufacturers, BOC Aviation said in the prospectus. The company also regularly replaces some of its planes to maintain a young fleet.

At the end of 2015, the average age of its fleet was 3.3 years, according to the prospectus.

The leasing company owned and managed 270 aircraft at the end of 2015, with narrow-body planes from Airbus Group SE and Boeing Co. making up 79 percent of the total, according to its website. It had 241 airplanes on order at the end of last year.

BOC Aviation posted a record net income of $343 million in 2015, 11 percent more than a year earlier. Revenue rose 10 percent to $1.09 billion.

Lis Cheung Kong Holdings Ltd., now part of CK Hutchison, agreed in 2014 to pay $1.9 billion to buy 45 planes from companies including General Electric Co.s aviation services unit. Malaysian low-fare carrier AirAsia Bhd. entered the leasing market the same year.

Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., Qantas Airways Ltd. and and Lion Air Group are among BOC Aviations customers, according to the prospectus. Rental income from its clients in Asia Pacific made up for a third of the total at the end of last year, followed by Europe at 23.9 percent. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau accounted for about 17 percent. Kyunghee Park, Bloomberg
Exactly 50 years ago, China embarked on what was formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a decade of tumult launched by Mao Zedong to revive communist goals and enforce a radical egalitarianism. The milestone was largely ignored yesterday in the Chinese media, reflecting continuing sensitivities about a period that was later declared a catastrophe.

Authorities have generally suppressed discussion of the violent events, now a couple of generations removed from the lives of young Chinese focused on pursuing their own interests in an increasingly capitalistic society.

On May 16, 1966, the ruling Communist Partys Politburo met to purge a quartet of top officials who had fallen out of favor with Mao. It also produced a document announcing the start of the decade-long Cultural Revolution to pursue class warfare and enlist the population in mass political movements.

The start of the Cultural Revolution was not widely known or understood at the time, but soon took on an agenda characterized by extreme violence, leading to the downfall of leading officials, factional battles, mass rallies and the exile of educated youths to the countryside. It wound up severely threatening the Communist Partys legitimacy to rule.

Despite the partys formal repudiation of the movement five years after it ended, vestiges of the Cultural Revolution continue to echo in Chinas authoritarian political system, the intolerance of dissent and uncritical support for the leadership, said veteran journalist Gao Yu, who was a university student in 1966.

Gao said her initial enthusiasm for the Cultural Revolution faded after fanatical young Red Guards raided her home and accused her father, a former ranking party cadre, of disloyalty to Mao. The violence of the era was impossible to avoid, she said.

I saw so many respected teachers in universities and high schools get beaten up, Gao said. The movement wasnt so much a high-profile political struggle as a massive campaign against humanity.

A longtime party critic, Gao, now 72, was allowed to return home last year on medical parole after being imprisoned on a state secrets charge related to her publicizing a party document about ideological controls.

Gao and others say cynicism in Chinese society still lingers from the Cultural Revolution, when students were called on to denounce authority figures, including teachers and even parents. Traditional morals and philosophy were attacked and Buddhist temples were defaced and destroyed.

No official events were held to commemorate yesterdays anniversary, although neo-Maoists have been staging private commemorations. Many are motivated by nostalgia for a simpler time and alienated by a growing wealth gap brought about by the governments pursuit of market economics and abandonment of the former command economy that provided jobs and welfare to its citizens, even amid widespread poverty.

Newspapers monitored in Beijing provided virtually no coverage of the anniversary apart from small articles mentioning demand for antiques dating from the era.

Egged on by vague pronouncements from Mao, students and young workers clutching their leaders famed Little Red Book of sayings formed rival Red Guard factions starting in 1966 that battled each other over ideological purity, sometimes using heavy weapons taken from the military. Few sought to oppose them given Maos approval and the popularity of slogans such as to revolt is justified, and revolution is not a crime.

Rising violence later compelled party leaders to send in the Peoples Liberation Army to reassert control as many government functions were suspended and long-standing party leaders sent to work in farms and factories or detained in makeshift jails. To put a stop to the violence and chaos, millions of students were dispatched to the countryside to live and work with the peasantry, among them current President Xi Jinping, who lived in a cave dwelling for several years in his familys ancestral province of Shaanxi.

Much of the country was on a wartime footing during the period, with Mao growing increasingly feeble and tense relations with former ally the Soviet Union breaking out into border clashes. Radicals allied with the so-called Gang of Four, consisting of Maos wife Jiang Qing and her confederates, battled with those representing the partys old guard, who were desperate to end the chaos in the economy, schools and government institutions.

The Cultural Revolution finally came to a close with Maos death on Sept. 9, 1976. In the aftermath, Deng Xiaoping emerged as the countrys paramount leader, initiating four decades of economic development and a gradual repudiation of orthodox Marxism.

China formally closed the book on the era with a 1981 party document approved by Deng declaring it a catastrophe for the nation, but which largely exonerating Mao, whose portrait continues to hang from iconic Tiananmen Gate in the heart of Beijing and is stamped on banknotes.

The national curriculum offers students only a minimal account of the events, although a number of former Red Guards have written about their experiences and some have come forward to apologize to those they persecuted.

Despite the official silence, recent years have seen the growth of informal discussions online, in private magazines and at social gatherings of those who lived through the events. Revolutionary songs and operas from the period also remain popular, often divorced now from their original context.

Memory has dwindled, but discussion of the Cultural Revolution has significantly expanded online, said Yang Guobin, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Christopher Bodeen, Beijing , AP
The MERS incident, which occurred in South Korea, in 2015, resulted in a total failure of communication, according to Soon-Joo Wang, a professor of Medicine from the Republic of Korea. Last year, 186 MERS-CoV cases were associated with the virus outbreak, including 36 that resulted in death.

Wang, who is also the president of the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine, was one of the participants in last weeks Asia Emergency Management Conference

The expert argued that there was a lack of communication between the victims and health authorities in South Korea, which resulted in poor medical assistance being provided to those who required it. According to him, there was overcrowding in one or two hospitals, while other medical care centers remained empty.

Wang also claimed that citizens expect too much from their government, which has historically provided inefficient responses in the aftermath of a disaster.

Soon-Joo Wang said that the most efficient way to deal with potential deadly diseases is to teach people how to act, noting that the key for improvement lies in education. We ought to teach citizens to learn how to help themselves, argued Wang, emphasizing that communication between government and citizens is crucial.

The expert stated that after years of handling disasters, the Korean government has made some improvements to their responses. However, he said that one of the most crucial things is the change in culture, an idea which was pointed out to him by Harald Drager, the president of the International Emergency Management Society.

Drager exemplified his point with the story of the 2014 Korea ferry tragedy that Wang recounted during his lecture. The Norwegian expressed that the disaster happened partially as a result of the Korean culture, which praises the saying respect the parents and the masters, referring to students obeying their captains order, even when the order is clearly wrong.

In 2014, more than 200 people died in a ferry disaster that deeply rattled the country. Koreas top court last year upheld a life sentence for the captain of the ferry, because he fled his ship without giving an evacuation order. Staff reporter
G2E Asia is set to host 180 international exhibitors on its 10th Anniversary from today to Thursday at The Venetian.

The event will incorporate an iGaming Zone, which provides a direct market networking platform and access to over 50 gaming exhibitors.

Industry experts will also lead seminars on global market developments, the growing importance of non-gaming activities, and opportunities for integrated resorts, according to the organizer, Reed Exhibitions.

The executive vice president of Reed Exhibitions, Josephine Lee, said they are expecting 12,000 visitors to attend the exhibition to be held in a 9,200 square meter space.

We have about 5,000 plus pre-registered visitors [] We have actually mapped [this] out; all the casinos in Asia [are represented] in the pre-registered visitor number, said Lee.

According to the organizer, the exhibitions Personalized Matchmaking Service helps buyers and suppliers to meet at G2E Asia in a streamlined and more cost-effective way by providing a systematic and customized business matching service.

G2E Asia will also host its first Gaming Regulators Networking Luncheon to provide a networking platform. Lee claimed that there are currently 30 gaming regulators joining the luncheon to explore opportunities for cooperation that may facilitate the future development of the gaming industry in Asia.

The exhibition also features the Asia Lottery Forum, which will explore latest developments in the lottery industry in the internet era, with over 300 lottery industry experts and operators from China and abroad.

In addition, produced by Asia Gaming Brief, in association with G2E Asia and the Innovation Group, the inaugural Asia Gaming Awards will be recognizing operators, regulators, suppliers and service providers for their contributions to the industry. Staff reporter
British actor and comedian Ricky Gervais has called for a ban on the export of Irish greyhounds to China, declaring that every dog sent to Macau will die there.

The well-known animal welfare supporter issued a plea to the Irish Government on May 14 to ban any further exports of the dogs after the 24 Irish greyhounds were stopped in Britain en route to the Macau Canidrome.

Speaking to the Irish Mail on Sunday, the actor urged the government to act now and ban the trade, the Independent reported.

If they are unconcerned about the agony that awaits these innocent animals then the Irish government will pay the price in terms of damage to its international reputation, Gervais said.

An import of 24 Irish greyhounds was expected to arrive Macau on May 13, the Times reported. However, the arrival never came to fruition. The export of the 24 dogs has been blocked in Manchester, after several rallies against it in Ireland and England, local animal rights group Anima informed.

The Birmingham Greyhound Protection organization with the help of the Caged North West organization had previously reported that the greyhounds had been illegally transported from Ireland to England before they would be shipped to Macau via Hong Kong. At that time, the organization stated that among other mistreatments, the dogs had not been fed or watered for at least three days. RM
Hundreds of protesters took to the streets on Sunday in a large-scale demonstration in opposition to the MSARs controversial RMB100 million (around MOP123m) donation to Jinan University. Some analysts say that this act is severing the governments credibility with Macaus youth.

The demonstrators are demanding the withdrawal of the donation to Jinan University and the resignation of Chief Executive (CE) Chui Sai On over the scandal. The CE is being accused of using his ties to the Mainland education institution to facilitate the monetary transfer.

Thousands of people showed up on the weekend, most of them young people who will be the future of Macau, social affairs commentator Larry So told the Times. The point is very clear: young people do not trust the government.

The lack of government transparency in the issue is causing a credibility problem for the government, the analyst surmised, which is alienating young people in the MSAR.

However the activism is not solely in response to the donation, but rather the culmination of a dissatisfied and disengaged youth who feel that the government is not listening to them.

This is not the only issue that the public cares about. Over-

expenditure on public works and a lack of transparency [over government decisions] are major issues too, said lawmaker Pereira Coutinho, who did not attend the rally.

There is collusion between the government and private enterprise in Macau that needs to be addressed, he added. We need to upgrade the CCACs [Commission Against Corruption] ability to crackdown on the private sector in particular he noted, suggesting that otherwise residents will continue to feel isolated from the political process.

Trust is a necessary ingredient in any society for societal development. The government gravitates toward the rich and powerful and [in the process] alienates the young people and forces them toward anti-establishment ideas, agreed Larry So. The government now has a credibility issue.

While organizers say that as many as 3,300 may have attended the demonstrations on Sunday, the police put their estimate at just 1,100. Nevertheless the hundreds of protestors chanting, Chui Sai On, resign!, present an unwelcome challenge to the government after the Government Spokesperson Office and the Macau Foundation tried to downplay the issue last week.

On Sunday, a large police presence beside Nam Van lake prevented the crowd from approaching the governments headquarters on the grounds of a court order issued on Friday. They also claimed that the march constituted an illegal demonstration.

The police are trying to scare us by saying that it is an illegal assembly, New Macau Association (ANM) president Scott Chiang told the Times, I expect that they are preparing a case against us.

ANM were one of the principal organizers of the demonstration. They are calling for the withdrawal of the donation to Jinan University and for the resignation of Chui Sai On.

We consider the demonstration a success, Chiang declared. However, none of the demands have been enforced yet, so thats why we will continue our efforts.

In response to the demands articulated by ANM, lawmaker Pereira Coutinho agreed that the donation should be withdrawn though he thinks it is unlikely that the CE will resign.

[The donation] should be withdrawn. I requested that a week ago and I also insisted that the government answer the questions I submitted to them [regarding the issue] within 30 days, said Coutinho. I dont think that the Chief Executive will resign. Its not the first time that people have called for it [Chuis resignation].

However Larry So believes that these demands are part of a bargaining strategy: When you bargain you always ask for more. You can use drastic slogans to get people behind the cause.

[These demands] are not even a threat; they are slogans it is only propaganda, he added.

Asked about the traditional view of political apathy in Macau, ANM president Scott Chiang confidently stated that residents are not as complacent as has been suggested.

People in Macau douse themselves in the illusion that we have always been apolitical but this is not true [] Some of the young people were not satisfied with yesterdays demonstration (with just taking a walk); they want something else done. The energy has not been released yet, he explained to the Times.

What we [ANM] want is a more organic social movement, and what I mean by organic is that people go out [to demonstrate] because they feel strongly about this issue, and not because it is being led by a particular group, added Chiang.

On the other hand, Larry So cautioned against Macau adopting the kind of political activism that occasionally grinds Hong Kong to a halt.

I dont want to see the same things here in Macau as those happening in Hong Kong, he cautioned, adding that it really doesnt suit the MSAR.

Coutinho remarked that the weekends demonstrations seem to be textbook Hong Kong.

This could have happened in Hong Kong, he said. People have resigned [there] for less. For example the former Hong Kong Financial Secretary [Antony] Leung, who resigned in 2003 after he was accused of knowingly buying a car shortly before raising the taxation on motor vehicles.

Actually, this is a very important analogy and one that I hope Macau pays more attention to, added Coutinho.

The government should now take this as a lesson: they should enact the necessary measures to see how many members of the Executive Council are holding similar posts and this should be made public [knowledge], he concluded.

journalists allegedly censored

Last Friday, the Macau Journalist Association published an announcement on its Facebook page with accusations of censorship over the news reports concerning the Macau governments donation to Jinan University. According to the announcement, some journalists of Chinese language media outlets were requested not to mention the names of certain governors in their reports; some were assigned to other work instead of following the Macau Foundation story; and some journalists reports involving content that expressed doubts over whether or not the government was corrupt were cut. The association believes that such incidents were the result of governmental manipulation, in addition to the self-censorship present within the media industry. The announcement condemned the intervention as a violation of press freedom, as well as being a show of disrespect towards the journalist profession.
President Barack Obama cast Donald Trumps positions on immigration, trade and Muslims as part of an ignorance-and-isolation philosophy that the president says will lead the U.S. down the path of decline.

Obama used his commencement speech Sunday at Rutgers University to tear into the presumptive Republican nominee, without ever mentioning his name. Time and again the president invoked specific Trump policies to denounce a rejection of facts, science and intellectualism that he said was pervading politics.

In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue, Obama told some 12,000 graduates at the public university in New Jersey. Its not cool to not know what youre talking about. Thats not keeping it real or telling it like it is. Thats not challenging political correctness. Thats just not knowing what youre talking about, the president said.

And yet, weve become confused about this, he added. Obamas rebuke came as Trump closes in on clinching the GOP nomination, raising the prospect that Novembers election could portend a reversal of Obamas policies and approach to governing. In recent days, Trump has started focusing on the general election while working to unite a fractured Republican Party around his candidacy. Democrats are readying for a fight against a reality TV host they never anticipated would make it this far.

Obama has mostly steered clear of the race as Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders compete into the summer for the nomination. But in speeches like this one, he has laid out themes that Democrats are certain to use as they work to deny Trump the White House. Hes urged journalists to scrutinize Trumps vague policy prescriptions and not to emphasize what he calls the spectacle and the circus.

Trump has barreled his way toward the nomination by emphasizing the profound concerns of Americans who have felt left behind by the modern, global economy, summed up in his ubiquitous campaign slogan of Make America great again. Hes called for keeping Muslim immigrants out of the U.S., gutting Obamas trade deals with Asia and Europe, and cracking down on immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

In his speech, Obama told graduates that when they hear people wax nostalgic about the good old days in America, they should take it with a grain of salt.

Guess what? It aint so, the president said, rattling off a list of measures by which life is better in the U.S. than in decades past. AP
Oil prices exploded to a six-month high this week as global production outages threatened to crimp supply. Wildfires in Canada cut off production in some of Albertas major oil fields, while fighting factions in Nigeria have led to production cutbacks. Those two nations supply around 7 percent of the global oil market.

With oil near $50 per barrel, some producers and traders are using the futures markets to lock in these relatively high prices, with an expectation that prices could decline again in the future.

These oil market bears are emboldened by recent data showing that Iran has increased its production faster than expected after the nuclear accord with the U.S. last year opened the door to loosened embargoes against the Iranians.

As of midday Friday, crude oil for delivery in June was worth $46.20 per barrel.

Soybean Supply Squeezed

The U.S. Department of Agriculture shocked markets on Tuesday with an outlook for a much tighter global soybean supply. U.S. stockpiles could run low by the end of the summer, which led end users and investors to bid up the bean market after the report. At one point Tuesday, soybeans went limit up, climbing the exchange-permitted maximum 65 cents per bushel.

The global supply is running low due to ongoing strong demand from China, the worlds biggest consumer of beans. Meanwhile, Argentina, the worlds third-largest exporter of soybeans, is suffering from damaging rains during their harvest, forcing buyers to purchase more U.S. beans, helping to push prices to near $11 this week.

This move has been wonderful for farmers, especially those who still have open acreage they can plant soybeans on this year.

Meanwhile, other Americans could feel the pinch of higher soybean prices, even though few Americans consume soybeans directly. Soybean oil is used prevalently throughout the food industry for both cooking and salad oils. Soybean meal is a major component in animal feed, impacting meat prices.

Meanwhile, corn prices remain lackluster near $3.90 per bushel while wheat lingers near multi-year lows.
TWIN FALLS  There are still tickets left for the 2016 annual Idaho Rodeo Hall of Fame Inductions ceremony, to be held June 4 in Twin Falls.

But tickets wont last long, says Charmy LeaVell, secretary/treasurer of the IRHF. Tickets are sold on a first come, first served basis, and seating is limited.

This years inductees include Deanne Bell, Earl E. (Tim) Bouscal, LeRoy A. Hess, Kelly Wardell and L. Wardell Larson.

Posthumous inductees include Earl Bascom, Weldon Bascom, Edmund E. Tex Bouscal, Guy W. Cash, and David Stoecklein.

The annual Idaho Rodeo Hall of Fame Inductions, dinner, live and silent auction is held each year to honor Western cowboys and cowgirls and to preserve the Western heritage. The auctions help raise funds in four categories of available student awards in Agriculture, Rodeo, Scholastic and Community Service.

Registration for inductees starts at 8:30 a.m. June 4 at the Red Lion Canyon Springs, 1357 Blue Lakes Blvd. Interviews for oral histories, recorded by Zeb Bell, IRHF vice president and 2012 inductee, begin at 9 a.m. in the Willow Room. Photos of current and past inductees will be taken at noon.

The induction, dinner, live and silent auction start at 1 p.m.

Call LeaVell at 208-539-0202 for information.
GREELEY, Colo.  The jagged hole in the roof of the chicken coop at Gingers Farm shows the sky, but there are no birds to see it. The coop has been empty for months, nearly as long as the beehive surrounded by tiny winged corpses. The plot that used to grow everything from raspberries to onions to cabbage is now just mud and weeds.

A year ago, things looked different on the small organic farm in Eaton, just outside Severance. Gingers Farm grew two acres of produce, raised dozens of pigs, chickens, bees and more. One day in August 2015, farm owner Matt Varoz was working the farm when he believes it was sprayed with pesticides. He saw a crop dusting plane flying overhead, then felt liquid misting down over everything.

He couldnt sell the crops, because they were marketed as all-natural, a practice that, among other things, promises no pesticides were used. He sold most of his animals because he was concerned about reproductive problems. The pesticides killed his bees. Hes cut back on his farm work because of health problems he attributes to the incident. Now he said he is looking into legal action.

Its getting less heartbreaking, but it was very hard to come out this winter, Varoz said. All the joys were taken away.

The number of organic and all-natural farms like Varozs is on the rise in the U.S. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of organic farms increased 12 percent to 21,000 between 2014 and 2015. And yet, with urban areas growing and increasing demand for farmland, conventional and organic producers and their vastly different practices may clash. Varozs farm can show the devastating consequences when they do.

Harry Strohauer, who farms both conventional and organic produce in LaSalle, has organic plots bordered by his own conventional farmland. He protects his own with spraying practices to ensure both sides of the field grow to their best ability. But he tries to protect his neighbors as well.

Its not just an issue of organic and conventional stewardship, he said, but rather about being a good neighbor all around. Even conventional practices can clash. If a farmer sprays an herbicide on corn, he said, that chemical can kill a potato or an onion crop.

Dave Eckhardt, president of the Colorado Corn Growers Association, said organic farms can indeed be ruined by a wayward sprayer, but conventional farmers have that risk if neighboring organic farms dont use good pest and disease control. Though Eckhardt himself hasnt encountered a situation like this, he knows the best way to guarantee your neighbors know your needs is to tell them.

I think everybody whos left in ag understands that while were not in this together necessarily, were in this together, Eckhardt said.

The issue has come up before the Colorado Corn Growers Association, and Eckhardt said the association encourages neighboring farmers to be open to interaction, partnership and cooperation.

Communicate. Respect one anothers business and ability, Eckhardt said. The majority of producers dealing with one another dont want to interfere with one anothers operation.

That can be hard for farmers who typically dont want anyone interfering with their business practices and try to stay out of others, he said.

Nathan Weathers, a farmer from Yuma County, said most of the time, the farmers in his area dont communicate about what theyre doing day-to-day. They just try to be as careful as possible because they know if their pesticides can drift onto a neighbors property, it could just as easily happen the other way around.

Occasionally, Weathers will make sure to tell his neighbors about certain specialty crops, like the popcorn he plants. Unlike his corn, popcorn cant be sprayed with popular pesticide Roundup. In cases like this, he calls neighboring farmers to let them know though the popcorn looks similar to corn, it is different.

For the most part, this good neighbor philosophy works, he said. Weathers rarely hears about issues, but he said usually each year, one pivot in his area will get hit with pesticide drift. But when these issues come up, farmers are usually understanding because they know all it would take is a shift in the wind for them to be behind the mistake.

Mistakes do happen. Thats why theres a system in place to train farmers on how to best handle and apply pesticides and minimize these risks. The Colorado Pesticide Applicators Act regulates all levels of pesticide application, from commercial to governmental to private farms. The act details licensure, directions for pesticide use, registration for those sensitive to pesticides and enforcement for pesticide-related offenses.

Several years ago, oversight of the private applicators switched from the hands of the Environmental Protection Agency to the Colorado Department of Agriculture. It was a shift Weathers said has directly made his farm a safer place and himself a safer applicator.

Before, applicant certification was largely done via a handbook and a mail-in test. Now, there are online resources and classes to attend on a variety of topics, including how to handle and store pesticides, which product is best for which situation and best practices for record-keeping. There were classes offered before, but they largely felt punitive, not informative, Weathers said. Most of the time, the farmers in the classes were scared to ask questions because they felt like it was a trap, rather than a lesson, he said.

Its much easier when youre going to a class when you know youre there to learn instead of when you walk into a meeting afraid of what theyre going to do to you, he said.

Weather said his farm has never had an issue with pesticide drift or misuse, a streak he thinks has continued in part because of the states regulation.

Strohauer trusts in the states system for pesticides as well. He said the only method of spraying that ever really concerns him is aerial spraying, but between state regulation and the trust he has for his long-term sprayer, he breathes easy when the crop duster heads out for a run.

That kind of comfort is far from Varozs mind. This year, hes anxious something may happen whenever hes out feeding his few remaining pigs  including the farms mascot, a large sow named Ginger  or when hes tending the vegetables in the greenhouse. He hopes hell be able to start ramping the farm back up to higher production eventually, but the future depends on his health. Less than a year since the event, hes trying to do a little more bit by bit.

A new hive of bees is set to arrive at the farm in the middle of May. He and his wife, Megan, are raising baby chicks indoors for eggs, something Varoz calls his own little therapy.

Eventually, Varoz wants to get back into doing educational visits to schools and events, like he used to do to spread the message of sustainability and all-natural farming. Now, he wants to continue to talk about those messages, but stress the status quo of doing things isnt the only way. He wants to encourage agriculture to think of different ways of doing things, like applying pesticides by helicopter instead of plane, because its more precise.

Were really hoping, he said, that with education and talking with the neighbors and the applicator that we can avoid it (happening again) along with other people not having to go through the same thing.
TWIN FALLS  The Twin Falls City Council will hear an update Monday night on the ongoing renovation of the former Banner furniture building into the new City Hall and on the renovation of the old City Hall and current police station into a new Public Safety Complex.

The Council will also hold a ceremony marking the promotion of Dusty Solomon from police officer to sergeant. Solomon is the first woman sergeant in Twin Falls police history. The ceremony was scheduled for last weeks meeting but delayed because police were busy investigating the shooting death of 15-year-old Vason Widaman.

And, the Council will vote on accepting two bids  a $123,831 bid from Boise Mobile Equipment for fitting a light rescue vehicle for the Twin Falls Fire Department, and a $751,421 bid from the Boise construction company RSCI for a construction project to control wastewater odor at the bottom of the Canyon Springs Grade. The first was already budgeted for, and the second will be paid out of Urban Renewal Agency tax increment financing money from Chobani and city sewer reserves.

The Council also has three public hearings scheduled. The first is to review the use of the $149,586 Community Development Block Grant the city received in 2014 to fund improvements at the Twin Falls Senior Center. The second is on a special use permit for a medical office at the corner of Locust Street North and Cheney Drive.

And the third is on a permit for a new city-operated communications tower at the site of the city water tanks and the Wills Booster Station on Washington Street South. The tower would serve the Joslin Field Magic Valley Regional Airport and the fire station that there.

The regular meeting is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, 305 Third Ave. East, and the public hearings are scheduled to follow the meeting and start at 6 p.m. at the earliest. The agenda and related materials are available online at the citys website, tfid.org.
JEROME  Veterans are working together to preserve their past for future generations.

Within its first year of becoming a nonprofit organization, the Northside Military Museum started remodeling a historic Jerome building. Volunteers have put in more than 500 combined hours, applying new paint and making the building handicapped-accessible, in hopes of opening the museum by Veterans Day.

For veteran Eric Bolich and his wife, Amanda, the project is moving more quickly than imagined, but the work is far from over.

The Northside Military Museum will honor Magic Valley veterans  past and present  by displaying their memorabilia and sharing their memories.

We want to highlight their stories, their memories, just to give it a human face, said Amanda Bolich, the groups secretary. It really gives a human connection to it.

Chairman Eric Bolich, a Jerome native, served in the Army for 20 years before he retired  he served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the last four years, hes been a recruiter in Twin Falls, and he continues to be active with veteran organizations as commander of VFW Post 3001.

The idea for a museum came from another local veteran, but it was about a year before the Boliches hosted the first meeting in January 2015. People came from veterans groups all over the community.

Its important for people to know what we went through, said Loren Ray Turpin, an Army veteran who served in the 1960s through the 1980s and is leading work on the building.

While movies often glorify wartime, he said, its important to teach younger generations about what it was really like and to honor veterans.

For every veteran in the Magic Valley, being able to preserve those memories is important, Eric Bolich said.

Since becoming a nonprofit last summer, the Northside Military Museum has raised more than $3,000 in private and corporate donations. Businesses such as Lowes have donated materials for a handicapped ramp and other improvements, and volunteers show up on a regular basis from organizations such as the VFW and the American Legion.

I think thats really a testament to how much the community really wants this museum, Amanda Bolich said.

Organizers have collected about 60 display items so far, mostly uniforms and notebooks of stories, photographs and documents. Some pieces of trench art from World War I  spent shell casings decorated and turned into vases  have also been donated.

The selection committee is accepting more donated or loaned items  especially from locals who have served, or whose family members have served, in the military.

Whatever theyre willing to share, we want to preserve, Amanda Bolich said. I think anybody whos served our country, whether it was in wartime or not, should not be forgotten.

Amanda Bolich is studying history at the College of Southern Idaho.

The Pioneer Hall at 220 N. Lincoln St. was constructed in the 1930s by the Work Progress Administration, and became a Boy Scouts hall in the 1950s, she said. It previously housed the Jerome Historical Society until 2012, and has been central to community events throughout the years.

Weve been told by a lot of people they remember coming here square dancing, Amanda Bolich said.

The Northside Military Museum will lease the building from the city.

A membership in the museum organization costs $15 per person or $35 per family. Sponsorships are $100, and donations of labor, money or memorabilia are always appreciated. The building still needs a new roof and air conditioning.

The museum will tentatively open Nov. 11 and will be staffed entirely by volunteers. There will be no admittance charge. A rotating display will bring in new items every few months.
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State-run Turkish news agency, Anadolu, reported that Turkish shelling and US-led coalition military airstrikes have killed more than 27 Islamic state militants in Syria as they were about to fire rockets into Turkey from northern Aleppo.

The airstrikes were reportedly carried out in three sorties destroying defense and gun posts less than 10kilometres away from the border. Kilis, a Turkish border town, has been shelled several times by the extremist group. Turkey is not a member of the coalition but cooperates with them in Syria where it is against the stay of President Assad in power.

Russia is also fighting against ISIS but in coordination with Damascus. Its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, stated on Monday that overcoming the extremist group will be difficult because there is support coming from the outside, especially from those who neighbor Iraq and Syria. The group controls territories in Syria and Iraq and declared them an Islamic State under the caliphate of al-Baghdadi. Although Lavrov didnt cite any country, Moscow has accused Ankara of dealing with ISIS and illegally buying cheap oil from them.

Meanwhile in Aleppo, pro-Assad forces claimed that they forced ISIS out of two villages in the northern part of the city with much of the fighting focused around the strategic area that serves as an entry and exit into rebel-controlled eastern Aleppo.

Fighting is also continuing in the Deir Az Sor, eastern Syria, between government forces and ISIS with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stating that the terror group controls around 95% of the city. The area is rich in oil.

After more than five years of fighting and a cocktail of armed groups on the ground fighting against Assads regime, peace talks continue to be elusive because parties cannot agree on mechanisms for a political transition. The rebels want Assad excluded from any post-war role while Damascus rejects such a condition.
Wearing an ambulatory blood pressure monitoring device that measures blood pressure around-the-clock may help identify African Americans who have masked or undetected high blood pressure outside of the doctor's office, a tricky condition that can signal high blood pressure in the clinic down the road, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Hypertension.

The reverse of white coat hypertension (higher blood pressure readings at the doctor's office than at home), masked hypertension is normal blood pressure in the doctor's office but high readings outside of the office. Masked hypertension is easy to miss, and can occur during the day or night.

Blood pressure naturally fluctuates throughout the day. To discover who might have masked hypertension among a high-risk population, researchers used ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, an easy technology that involves patients wearing a compact cuff around the arm that is connected to a device worn at the hip. The advantage to ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is that it provides readings of blood pressure over a 24-hour period while doing normal daily activities, whereas home monitoring requires a patient to check his or her own blood pressure at single points in time at rest and at home, and cannot be performed while the patient sleeps.

The study included 317 African-American participants (69 percent women) from the Jackson Heart Study, an ongoing, population-based study in Jackson, Mississippi, that examines the factors associated with and occurrence of heart disease among African Americans.

Participants did not have high blood pressure and were not on high blood pressure medication when enrolled. They wore ambulatory blood pressure monitors at the first clinic visit and their readings were compared with clinic readings taken at a two subsequent visits. Participants were followed for an average of 8.1 years and 187 developed high blood pressure.

Researchers found:

Overall, masked hypertension was associated with a significantly increased risk for high blood pressure detected in the clinic.

Clinic high blood pressure developed in 79.2 percent of participants with any masked hypertension compared to only 42.2 percent of participants without masked hypertension.Clinic high blood pressure also developed more in participants who had masked daytime hypertension, masked nighttime hypertension, or masked 24-hour hypertension.

"Our study found that African Americans with any masked hypertension had twice the risk of developing clinic hypertension when compared to those who had both normal clinic and normal out-of-office blood pressure," said Marwah Abdalla, M.D., M.P.H., lead study author and cardiologist at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.

"The risk was also high among those with masked nighttime hypertensiona condition where blood pressure is only elevated at night or while asleep. We also found that even among those with normal blood pressure for example, (less than 120 mm Hg/80 mm Hg) during a clinic visit, individuals with masked hypertension had a high risk of developing clinic hypertension."

Using ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and paying closer attention to day- and nighttime- masked hypertension may help those at the greatest risk, Abdalla said.

Explore further Masked hypertension in kidney disease patients may affect kidney and cardiovascular health
(HealthDay)For patients with severe acute kidney injury, mortality does not differ with either an early or delayed strategy for renal-replacement therapy initiation, according to a study published online May 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The research was published to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Thoracic Society, held from May 13 to 18 in San Francisco.

Stephane Gaudry, M.D., from the Hopital Louis Mourier in Colombes, France, and colleagues from the Artificial Kidney Initiation in Kidney Injury Study Group conducted a multicenter randomized trial in which 620 patients with severe acute kidney injury were randomized to an early or delayed strategy of renal-replacement therapy. Renal-replacement therapy was started immediately after randomization with the early strategy, while with the delayed strategy it was initiated if one or more of the following criteria were met: severe hyperkalemia, metabolic acidosis, pulmonary edema, blood urea nitrogen level above 112 mg/dL, or oliguria for more than 72 hours after randomization.

The researchers observed no significant difference in Kaplan-Meier estimates of mortality at day 60 for the early and delayed strategy groups (48.5 versus 49.7 percent; P = 0.79). Forty-nine percent of patients in the delayed strategy group did not receive renal-replacement therapy.

"We found no significant difference with regard to mortality between an early and a delayed strategy for the initiation of renal-replacement therapy," the authors write.

Explore further Remote ischemic preconditioning cuts kidney injury risk

Copyright  2016 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
A whole-body hyperthermia device was used to raise the body temperature of study volunteers.

Raising the body temperature of depressed volunteers to the equivalent of a mild fever improved their symptoms of major depression for as long as six weeks after a single treatment, results from a new study show.

Researchers led by Dr. Charles Raison of the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted a small, double-blind trial to test whole-body hyperthermia as a novel treatment for major depression.

They evaluated the depressed volunteers on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and found that 60 percent of them had a response and 40 percent met the criteria for remission of depression during at least one assessment after having received the treatment.

"Our hope is to find better and faster-acting treatments for depression than the antidepressants currently in use,'' says Raison. "We think that using heat to stimulate the skin activates serotonin-producing cells in the mid-brain, which then produce a change in how the brain functions. In a way, one might think of this pathway from the skin to the brain as a deep-brain stimulator crafted by evolution. We tap into this pathway because heat makes the brain feel happy."

Raison announced the results today at the 2016 Meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry in Atlanta. The results were published online today in JAMA Psychiatry.

The researchers used a whole-body hyperthermia device to raise the body temperatures of 16 volunteers to 38.5 Celsius, the equivalent of about 101.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Another 14 were randomized to a "sham" procedure that had them lie inside the hyperthermia device with fans and lights, but only a small amount of heat, not the intense infrared heat that produced the full treatment.

"Our sham intervention was so realistic that most of the participants (10 of 14) thought they were receiving the real treatment,'' says Raison. That is important, because it suggests the antidepressant response was not due primarily to placebo factors associated with the treatment.

The real hyperthermic treatment improved depression scores by a mean of 5.67 points more than the sham at week one and a mean difference of 4.83 points at six weeks after the treatment. The HDRS rates scores of 0 to 7 to be normal, 8 to 13 to indicate mild depression, 14 to 18 to indicate moderate depression and 19 and above to indicate severe and very severe depression.

Researchers screened 338 volunteers and wound up with 34 patients with HDRS scores of 16 and above. The two arms began with 17 volunteers each, but with dropouts, 15 wound up completing the whole-body hyperthermia and 14 the sham treatment.

Those receiving the active treatment were in a type of tent, and were heated on their chest by infrared lights and on their legs with infrared heating coils. After their body core temperature reached 38.5 degrees Celsius (usually after about an hour and half) the heat was turned off and they were allowed to cool for an hour.

A week after treatment, researchers who were blinded to whether the volunteers had the real treatment or not assessed their depression levels using HDRS. Further assessments were made at two, four and six weeks. Self-reports also showed lessening of symptoms, although not as dramatic. Both groups reported only mild adverse effects.

"We were surprised to see that the effect (of reduced depression symptoms) was still present six weeks after the initial treatment,'' Raison says.

Co-author Christopher Lowry, associate professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, showed in an earlier study that whole-body heating activates neurons in the brain that synthesize the neurochemical serotonin, an effect that is shared by antidepressant drugs. In addition, Lowry said, "We know that warming the skin activates areas of the brain where activity is low in depressed patients."

One brain area activated by heating the skin, the medial orbitofrontal cortex, is involved in the regulation of mood. This area of the brain responds to pleasant sounds, smells, images, tastes and other stimuli. A premise of the research is that certain sensory pathways evolved to mediate antidepressant-like responses. Lowry says depression is associated with over-activity of the brain's default-mode network, which is engaged when a person is ruminating.

But throughout evolution, certain conditions made such a state of mind "extremely maladaptive," Lowry observes. Extreme heat would demand that people shift their attention from internal thoughts to the external world.

Raison says that the current study extends results from an earlier open-treatment study his group did in Switzerland in inpatient volunteers with major depression. Hyperthermia has been used for many years, primarily in Europe, as part of a cancer-fighting regimen, although whole-body hyperthermia to treat cancer typically raises the body temperature to temperatures much higher than used in the depression studies.

According to Raison, the results of the small study are encouraging, but he cautions that because the sample size was small, more research is needed to determine how hyperthermia should be optimally delivered in terms of the temperature used and the amount of time patients are exposed to the heat. Additionally, the results may have been confounded by volunteers' expectations that the treatment would work.

Raison is the Mary Sue and Mike Shannon Chair for Healthy Minds, Children & Families in the UW School of Human Ecology. He is also a member of the psychiatry faculty in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

The study was conducted at the University of Arizona and funded by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the Depressive and Bipolar Disorder Alternative Treatment Foundation, the Institute for Mental Health Research, the Braun Foundation and Barry and Janet Lang and Arch and Laura Brown.

Explore further Intravenous ketamine may rapidly reduce suicidal thinking in depressed patients

More information: Clemens W. Janssen et al. Whole-Body Hyperthermia for the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder, JAMA Psychiatry (2016). Journal information: JAMA Psychiatry Clemens W. Janssen et al. Whole-Body Hyperthermia for the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder,(2016). DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.1031
The Canadian government's plan to legalize marijuana contravenes its current legal obligations to the United Nation's international drug-control conventions, states a commentary in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"The federal government should immediately take proactive steps to seek a reservation to the marijuana provisions of these treaties and/or to initiate their renegotiation in light of its legalization plans," write Dr. Steven Hoffman and Ms. Roojin Habibi, both with the Global Strategy Lab at the University of Ottawa's Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics. "If these diplomatic efforts fail, Canada must formally withdraw from these treaties to avoid undermining international law and compromising its global position."

Three legally binding international treaties control or prohibit access to various drugs around the world, including marijuana.

Other jurisdictions, such as Colorado and Washington in the United States and Uruguay, have legalized marijuana and violate current UN conventions.

The authors suggest that the most feasible option for Canada is to withdraw from these treaties. The federal government could then fulfill its campaign promise to legalize marijuana without violating international law.

"Formally withdrawing from outdated treaties like these is a country's sovereign right. It may also be a moral duty if the government believes the conventions' required policies are harmful," state the authors.

Explore further Legalization of marijuana in Washington had no effect on teens' access to drug
A pioneering study led by researchers from the University of Sheffield is helping to give a voice to children and young adults who are living with a parent with dementia.

There are estimated to be at least 42,325 people in the UK under 65 living with a variant of young onset dementia.

Many of those affected by the disease are parents of children and young people who are left feeling isolated and afraid as they try to cope with the loss of their mother or father.

For the first time, researchers from the University of Sheffield's School of Education have examined the perceptions and experiences of children and young people who have a parent with dementia by giving them the opportunity to tell their stories.

The ground-breaking project aims to raise awareness of the impact the disease has on the youngsters  especially their education and schooling  and to highlight the fact there is now a growing number of under 25s living with a parent with dementia due to improved diagnosis and demographic changes such as people choosing to have children later in life.

Professor Pat Sikes, whose own children's father began showing symptoms of young onset dementia when they were just 13 and 15, is leading the project which is being funded by the Alzheimer's Society.

"Before and after diagnosis my children had to experience the police being called out to find him when he slipped out of the house and went missing, many tantrums, obsessive hoarding, violent episodes, verbal abuse, falls, unpleasant incidents around his failure to find the lavatory, and countless sleepless nights due to his constant wandering," said Professor Sikes.

"The children involved in our study all had similar stories to tell including a little boy whose father was eventually diagnosed with dementia after they sat down together on Christmas Day to play with his new Lego and his dad simply don't know what to do with it.

"Another girl who had always been very close to her dad was devastated when he began accusing her of stealing things and became very aggressive towards her  something which is not unusual behaviour for someone with certain forms of young onset dementia."

Professor Sikes and Dr Melanie Hall spoke in detail to 22 young people aged between six and 31 years-old. Because of the age profile usually associated with dementia the assumption is that partners or middle-aged children are the family members most affected but this is certainly not the case.

"Many of the children we spoke to had 'cancer envy' because they believed that if their parent had cancer at least there was hope of a cure," said Professor Sikes.

"With cancer people offer sympathy but with dementia people often say unhelpful things like 'they are still the same person' or 'at least they can still be at your wedding' but it's not that simple and bodily presence alone is not enough - if the parent is unaware of what is going on, they can't share. And if they were 'still the same' they wouldn't be being violent or shouting or swearing at their child.

"Dementia is different from other diseases and grieving typically goes on for a long time as the parent progressively loses abilities. People mourn the loss of variety of things: for some it is when their parent can no longer walk, for others it is when they don't recognise them anymore."

Professor Sikes added: "As one young woman put it, 'I get used to it and then she gets that bit worse and I get upset. Every few weeks, or even less, there's a new normal and it's so unpredictable.

"One of the participants who was at University whilst they parent was diagnosed said they didn't like going home in the holidays because they knew every time he saw his dad it would be the worst he'd ever been, and the best he'd ever be."

Although children and young people living with a person with dementia have similar experiences to older relatives, the impact on their lives is arguably much greater. Young onset dementia is likely to be diagnosed when someone is still working. Many will have significant financial commitments such as a mortgage, children to care for and dependent parents too.

Olivia Barnett was just 19 when her mother was diagnosed. Now 21, Olivia decided to take part in the project because she felt she had been left in the dark about her mums condition.

"I felt like I trawled through the whole of Google and couldn't find anything that related to my mum's condition or my experience aside from medical journals", said Olivia.

"It was very upsetting feeling so alone, especially when you're a teenager and your friends can only relate to you by referring to a grandparent with dementia. I was keen to take part in this project so that other people know they're not alone  and so that there is a wider awareness that dementia isn't just an "old person's disease".

She added: "I think there is definitely a need for people to be more aware of early onset dementia - if only for the fact that people are still shocked that my mum, now 60, has it.

"I've encountered countless people over the five years that she has been living with dementia who are still left stumped as to what to say when I tell them.

"I feel that if people were more aware of early onset, they wouldn't be so hesitant to talk about it. I also believe that services for people living with early onset dementia and their families would be improved (or even created!) if the general public knew it was actually an issue - as people with early onset are typically of working age, the impact on their family financially is huge - and their children, who are often teenagers, are left without any resources (be that financially or emotionally)."

Dr Melanie Hall, Research Associate on the project, said: "We were absolutely overwhelmed with the response from young people wanting to take part in the project.

"Everyone who shared their story discussed how desperately isolating it is to have a parent with dementia and how you become marginalised from your friends and society.

"Going through secondary school, college and university can be a challenging and stressful time for anyone but to have to deal with slowly losing your parent to such an debilitating disease at the same time is unimaginable.

"Through this project we want to show young people that they are not alone in this awful situation."

Explore further Social clubs fill gap in dementia support

More information: For more information about the project visit For more information about the project visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/education/  groups/ccpe/dementia
The Mother and Infant Nutrition Investigation wants to study new mothers who are at a late stage of pregnancy, or have recently given birth.

After the birth of their baby most women see their health care professionals, with the focus often on the baby's health. Yet 10 to 15 per cent of new mothers in New Zealand will suffer from postnatal depression.

The mental health of the mother has been known to impact on their child's cognitive and emotional development.

A new study from Massey University  the Mother and Infant Nutrition Investigation (MINI)  will monitor the mother's health by assessing her nutrient status, thyroid function, general health, and potential link to postnatal depression.

Researchers in the MINI study are seeking healthy mothers who are at a late stage of pregnancy or have recently given birth. Participants must be based in the wider Manawatu region.

PhD researcher Ying Jin is studying three nutrients  iodine, selenium and iron  and the impact the combination of these nutrients has on thyroid function.

The thyroid, a small butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the neck, produces hormones. These three nutrients are key to how thyroid hormones function. Thyroid hormones, in turn, control our metabolism  the way we convert food and use it as energy.

"When the thyroid hormones are not adequately produced, or their production is impaired, many other bodily functions are affected, for example, possible increased frequency of anxiety, mood disturbances and depression," Ms Jin says.

The MINI study will screen for postnatal depression during each mother's visit and explore the relationship between multiple micronutrient deficiencies and the risk of postnatal depression.

Ms Jin says it is the first known study in New Zealand to investigate the intakes and status of all three micronutrients (iodine, selenium and iron), which are known to collectively affect thyroid function, rather than investigating a single micronutrient in isolation. "Understanding these nutrients will help to provide better health care to future mothers. This leads to greater knowledge about the health and wellbeing for both the mothers and their infants."

To express your interest in the MINI study, please register here.

Explore further Mothers with postnatal depression reluctant to have more than two children
@ByKristenMClark

Hot off a combative interview with an MSNBC host on Saturday, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate and U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson had an interesting interview with a Miami news anchor on Sunday morning.

The Orlando congressman's appearance on CBS Miami's "Facing South Florida" was much more tame and wide-ranging, as host Jim DeFede interviewed Grayson about why he's running for U.S. Senate and the various policies he supports.

A few times during the discussion, Grayson slammed his primary opponent -- fellow U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter.

He accused Murphy of being part of those who have "fundamentally corrupted" the Democratic Party, citing Murphy's father's substantial financial contributions to Democrats over the years.

MORE: "The financial muscle behind Patrick Murphys Senate bid: Dad"

He also called Murphy a "walking, talking crook," because he owns $5 million in stock in his father's construction company, Coastal Construction, which has taken part in projects that benefit from the federal EB-5 visa program. In 2014, Murphy co-sponsored legislation to extend the EB-5 program.

The subject of a congressional ethics investigation into Grayson's family hedge fund also came up.

In contrast to the MSNBC appearance, Grayson kept his cool as DeFede questioned him about it. But he did offer this colorful soundbite:
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carlos Beruff is refusing to apologize for calling President Barack Obama "an animal" who has been trying to turn America into "just another country."

Since a video of Beruff making the remarks surfaced on Sunday, both Democratic and Republican candidates in the Senate race have blasted the Manatee County homebuilder for stepping over the line for calling Obama an animal.

U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, was first to take issue with the language.

"Mr. Beruffs statement is not only offensive, but extremely disrespectful to President Obamas incredible service to our nation, Murphy said in a statement first published by The Huffington Post. Im proud to stand by President Obama and his commitment to fighting for Florida families, and I call on Mr. Beruff to immediately apologize for his disrespectful comments. In the U.S. Senate, our diverse state deserves better than Mr. Beruffs clear record of bigotry.

Beruff's spokesman Chris Hartline chided Murphy for the statement.

"When liberals like young Congressman Patrick Murphy cannot defend their views they resort to name calling and the politics of racial division," Hartline said.

Hartline said the people who owe an apology are Murphy and other politicians who have been "aiding President Obama in making America weaker."

During the speech in St. Johns County, Beruff alleged that Obama has been destroying the military and that he has a plan to make American "just another country."

"Unfortunately, for seven and a half years this animal we call president, because hes an animal, OK  seven and a half years, has surgically and with thought and very smart, intelligent manner, destroyed this country and dismantled the military under not one, not two, but three secretary of defenses, Beruff said in a video recording of his speech. And theyve all written books about it.

But Murphy is not the only one upset with the choice of words. U.S. Rep. David Jolly, a Pinellas County Republican, also took issue with Beruff, issuing his own statement later in the day.

"Like many Americans, I believe with the strongest conviction that the President's policies the last 7 years have weakened our leadership on the world stage and have weakened us economically here at home, but referring to the President of the United States as an 'animal' is an alarming insult of questionable intent and has no place in American politics," Jolly said. "Carlos should immediately apologize."

Jolly and Beruff are in a crowded primary field that also includes U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, Orlando area businessman Todd Wilcox and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera.

The winner of the Aug. 30 primary is likely to face either Murphy or U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson.

See the video here: https://youtu.be/wl3RkzTxiPA
via @ChuckRabin

A Miami-Dade County police officer who stopped a man from setting a gas station on fire and a North Miami officer who shot a man after a wild car chase and shooting spree, will receive the nations highest public safety honor at a ceremony at the White House on Monday.

It was October 2013 when Miami-Dade police officer Mario Gutierrez spotted Domique Jean, 51, acting erratically at a Shell Gas station on LeJeune Road near Miami International Airport. As Gutierrez approached, Jean tried to set a gas pump on fire. The two struggled. Gutierrez was stabbed, and Jean was shot dead.

In April 2015, North Miami officer Niel Johnson confronted an armed Frantzy Armand outside an apartment complex in Sans Souci. During the shootout, Aramnd was shot. He survived. But before he was subdued, Armand stole a cop car, got into a shootout with an officer and led police on a wild chase north and then east, while shooting and injuring two unsuspecting car drivers along the way.

On Monday in the East Room of the White House, the two officers will receive the prestigious Medal of Valor from President Barack Obama. Its the highest national honor awarded to a public safety officer.

--CHARLES RABIN
HELENA  The Democratic candidate for Montanas lone U.S. House seat wants six debates across the state with her opponent incumbent U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau, who announced her candidacy last fall, asked for the debates in a letter to Zinke that was sent Friday.

I recognize that none of us want to have a debate about debates, but its important to agree upon and quickly set a realistic number of debates between now and the general election, she wrote.

Juneau proposes a series of debates over the summer and fall in Billings, Bozeman, Great Falls, Butte, Pablo and Glendive. She wants each moderated by an independent news or community organization.

She wrote about Glendive being an important location, echoing the infrastructure needs brought on by a booming and now-declining oil play, something many candidates have referenced this election.

Juneau also wrote of the Pablo location: I cant recall there ever having been a congressional debate held on any of Montanas seven recognized Indian reservations. Thats unfortunate and something we can change this election cycle. I propose that we hold a debate halfway between Missoula and Kalispell in Pablo at the Salish Kootenai College.

In 2006, then U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R, and his challenger Monica Lindeen, D, scheduled a debate at Fort Peck Community College in Poplar, according to an Associated Press story previewing the event.

Zinke campaign spokeswoman Heather Swift said they'd received the letter.

"We ... look forward to working with Montana media organizations on several debates. The people of Montana deserve to hear their candidates take on the most important issues like the fallout of the nuclear Iran Deal, Syrian refugees coming to Missoula, and the future of coal jobs."

In 2014, Zinke said he would pull out of a debate against Democratic candidate John Lewis in Billings, but then changed his mind and agreed to participate in the debate.

Zinke said he had a scheduling conflict. The debates sponsors, The Billings Gazette and Yellowstone Public Radio, changed the format to a forum with Lewis, but then Zinke said he changed his plans to accommodate the event.

The two also debated in Kalispell and Bozeman.

Juneau is the fist American Indian woman elected to statewide office in Montana, and would be the first American Indian congresswoman if elected.
Where were you when you turned 22?

For Lindsay Combs, it was a Monday in November in 2011. She was in her final year as an undergraduate student at the University of Montana in her hometown of Missoula.

I wish, Combs said last week, I could say something more exciting.

Her grandfather can  and does.

On his 22nd birthday, Bob Schottelkorb flew a B-17 that dropped bombs on an oil refinery in Hamburg, Germany. It was a Wednesday afternoon in October 1944, and Schottelkorb was piloting his 32nd mission over Europe. It proved to be his last.

Landed at 15:30, and after critique we had a real surprise from the colonel, he wrote in his diary. He said we were through! Boy that was hard to take  A real birthday present.

Schottelkorb turned 93 last Oct. 25 in his hometown of Missoula, where he grew up and graduated high school and college. It was the place he dreamed of returning to while away at war. So he did.

He married a Missoula girl, Shirley Lee, in 1948, bought into Culligan Water in Hamilton in 1950, moved the business to Missoula five years later and operated the company until he retired in 1973.

Bob and Shirley Schottelkorb's three children  Billy, Bette and Bobbi  were born in those early years. Bobbi grew up to marry John Combs, the longtime band instructor at Hellgate High and now supervisor of fine arts for Missoula County Public Schools.

Lindsay Combs lived within a mile of her grandparents home in the Rattlesnake Valley.

They were always present in our lives, she said.

That presence routinely involved listening to Schottelkorbs stories of war and peace.

My grandpa has always been kind of a storyteller, said Combs. Hed been talking about trying to get a book together about his life. I had a little time one summer, which ended up to be 18 months of working on this.

Between them, they produced a 225-page paperback titled The Big Three Let Me Reach 93: The Good Lord, A Guardian Angel, And Dumb Luck, published late last year by Amazon. Its a first-person account of Schottelkorbs growing up, camping with the family in a Ford Model T, working as a janitor at the Missoula Mercantile, and following in the footsteps of his older brother Bill.

Some 30 pages are devoted to a six-week trip to Mexico with friends in 1942, in the car he inherited when Bill joined the Army Air Corps. They called it The Dynamiter.

That was the neatest trip. The Model A roadster. We just camped beside the road, Schottelkorb said last week.

By then he'd already finished civilian pilot training at Hale Field in Missoula and he'd followed in his brothers footsteps by enlisting in the Army Air Corps. The road trip to Mexico ended memorably. In San Francisco, on the return drive, word came from his mother, Eva, that the War Department wanted Schottelkorb to report to flight training school in San Antonio in 24 hours.

He'd been told he wouldn't be called up until Thanksgiving or Christmas. It was early September.

After a hurried 36-hour drive back to Missoula, Schottelkorb was granted another 24 hours before he had to boarded a train to Texas.

***

His body is giving out on him  hell be moving into an assisted living home shortly  but Schottelkorb's mind and his memory are crystal clear.

Names, dates and places from more than 70 years ago roll off his tongue. Pilot training took him to Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas and McCook, Nebraska, before he was assigned to one of four squadrons of the 493rd Bombardment Group and sent to join the Eighth Air Force in England.

Schottelkorb flew there in a shiny new B-24 in May 1944 on a route over Labrador, Iceland and Scotland. It was the same course his brother had taken less than two years earlier in a P-38 Lightning, the fighter plane in which Bill lost his life in January 1943 over North Africa.

From his first bombing mission over France six days after D-Day in June 1944 to the last birthday bombing 4 months later, 1st Lt. Schottelkorb dodged flak and escaped harrowing dilemma after dilemma. Sometimes his decisions were poor ones, he admits, but he lived to fly another day.

I wasnt a hero, he said. I was one of the many. But Id like to think I was a little better pilot maybe than some.

***

In 2003, Stan Cohen and Pictorial Histories Publishing of Missoula published Schottelkorbs book about the brother he so revered and lost so young. Its called From Model T to P38 Lightning: Celebrating the Life of William Frank Schottelkorb.

Combs was in middle school at the time. She went on to high school, acing her German classes, playing oboe in her fathers band at Hellgate and spinning imaginary worlds on paper. Her senior project was the publication of a 398-page fantasy novel, The Light of Edorian.

She graduated in 2008 and four years later achieved bachelors degrees from UM in German and anthropology. Combs spent those next three school years teaching English in Germany. She's kept busy as a substitute teacher in Missoula, with plans to start working toward a master's degree in teaching at Seattle University in the fall.

It was during Combss summer break in 2014 that the idea of writing down Schottelkorbs stories took root.

I guess I kind of like a challenge, and I knew hed been talking a lot about it, she said. So it was like, I can do this. Lets give it a go. 

And away they went. Grandfather and granddaughter spent hours that summer, he talking, she listening and recording and later putting things into a coherent narrative.

I had a ball talking with her about my experiences, Schottelkorb said.

Some of his more colorful escapades crept into the book. Others did not.

I was telling too many of my intimate stories to her, he said slyly. Shirley says thats not necessary to put that in there. So she kind of censored me a little, and Lindsay censored me a little too.

If it would have been my dad I think it would have been a little awkward," Combs said. "But with my grandpa we had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs together. Wed start cracking up about something and then we'd be off laughing for 10 minutes. Grandma would be like, 'Whats going on in there? 

Her parents were big helpers with the book, especially when she was in Germany.

They would do the technical aspect of putting what was recorded on the computer and sending the email," said Combs. "And grandma helped out a lot with that too, so there was definitely some middleman work.

Combs came home for good last August and spent many hours in the fall editing, re-editing, organizing and laying out the book. She designed the cover, with the dominant element a photo of a young Schottelkorb as he flew the B-24 from America to England.

She went whole hog and brought tears to my eyes, he said. She made a grand slam.

The finished product was released at Christmastime.

We were kind of out of steam a little bit at the end, Combs said. It was like, finally we got it done. Now we have to do all this marketing?

The $12.95 paperback is for sale on Amazon and at local bookstores like Fact and Fiction and the Book Exchange. Sales have been disappointing to Schottelkorb, but he's gratified by the feedback "The Big Three Let Me Reach 93" has received from those who've read it. He received kind words from novelist and part-time Missoula resident James Lee Burke, who according to Schottelkorb praised not only for the writing of the book but also his diary entries in 1944.

***

The German city Schottelkorb's granddaughter lived and worked in for three years? Hamburg.

It was devastated in the months following D-Day by bombs like the ones he dropped on the oil refinery on his 22nd birthday.

Due to an accidental release by our leader, about one squadron dropped their bombs early, but that didnt stop us from motoring through the flak, Schottelkorb wrote regarding that night. Quite a lot of flak and rockets were coming up, but it was pretty inaccurate.  Apparently someone hit the target as a large cloud of dark smoke billowed up from the target area through the undercast.

They still find unexploded bombs from World War II in Germany. Combs said theres a lot of building going on in Hamburg, the northern port city of 1.7 million people.

While I was living there they found I think two bombs, she said. Its kind of a common thing while theyre building something, and they have to evacuate the area to blow it up.

"I had to wonder: Was that my grandpas bomb?
Phoebe Dillon spotted a patch of kinnikinnick, and the rest of her class hiked over to examine.

Ten-year-old Dillon and her fourth-grade Rattlesnake School class headed to Pattee Canyon on Monday morning, part of the Montana Natural History Center's Visiting Naturalist in the Schools program's partnership with the Lolo National Forest and the White House initiative Every Kid in a Park.

MNHC was one of 186 federal sites picked for a field trip grant this year from the National Park Foundation. It's a national effort to get children outside, exploring their public lands. The grant covers the cost of busing more than 1,000 Missoula County area fourth-graders to the Bitterroot National Forest, Lolo National Forest, Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge and Bison Range this month.

The field trips fall in line with the Visiting Naturalist's annual program with area fourth-graders.

"We chose fourth-graders, it had to do with in 2004 what programs were available to schoolkids, and fourth grade seemed like a group that could use some programming," said MNHC education director Lisa Bickell. "There was programming for third-graders and there was stuff for fifth- and sixth-graders."

Fourth grade is also a benchmark year for science.

"The Visiting Naturalist program is designed to meet science standards through nature-based study," Bickell said. "And it provides a different opportunity to teach science instead of some of the more traditional textbook ways."

The program starts in September. There's a field trip in October, and naturalists do monthly visits until the culminating field trip in May.

"There was the No Child Left Behind Act that had a real strong focus on reading and writing and math, and I think because of that and because the way the funding was tied to it, science became ... as important as it is, it became a little less of a priority when you're dealing with a variety of challenges," Bickell said. "I kind of wonder if it's gong to come back with the Next Generation Science Standards. In Missoula, teachers have been working together to re-imagine the science curriculum, so it may get an infusion of interest here pretty soon."

***

There's no doubting Dillon's interest. Her arm shot up every time naturalist Kate Crouch asked a question on their hike.

"You get to explore things that you see all the time but you don't really think about much," Dillon said of the field trip.

Her hiking group gathered around a fallen tree, trying to figure out what had happened. One girl thought it had been pulled out. No, her peers said, it's too big. Another wondered if wind or lightning had knocked it down. Dillon had another idea: a fire.

Tony Schoonen, father of Rattlesnake fourth-grader Brookelynn, came out with the class on Monday.

"I enjoy being with the kids, especially when theyre outside doing things," he said. "Rattlesnakes very good about getting them outdoors, getting them close to nature. Theyre very fortunate up there to have that philosophy in the school, and the location."

These trips are important to connect kids with nature, he said.

"By and large, between the time when I was young and the times these kids are young, a large part of our society has separated itself," he said. "I dont think its been intentional, but its just, Americas becoming more urbanized and the kids dont have the opportunity to connect with nature as much. Rural America is no longer rural America."

A national park may not be next door to Missoula, Bickell said, but the city is surrounded by opportunities for kids to throw themselves into nature.

"We have such great resources with the Forest Service," Bickell said. "The idea is to get kids into the forest. It's always amazing to me how many kids in Missoula actually don't get to these spots, even though they're pretty close by."

When Crouch asked the class how many had never been to the Crazy Canyon Trailhead at Pattee Canyon, about 10 kids raised their hands.

***

Each student threw a pair of binoculars around their neck for the hike. Other than that, all they brought with them was their naturalist journal and a pencil.

They stopped along the trail, pointing out different types of trees, plants and flowers. Dillon had the right idea when Crouch pointed out a Ponderosa pine with its lower branches broken off. It had something to do with a fire, Dillon said.

"You're on the right track with fire," Crouch said. "They start to do this on their own. They break off their lower branches so when a fire occurs, it doesn't go woosh! up in flames. It's a form of self-protection."

At the end of the program, these students and their families will get vouchers to get into any national park or federal fee site for free.

"Whats interesting about these kids is, you know when youre a kid, theres the innocence of babes thing," Schoonen said. "These kids are all connected to nature when theyre little. Theyre naturally attracted to it  you can tell. I think its when they get older and they start using the electronics and all that other stuff, that they start losing that.

"Right now is the perfect age because they can get out there, they can remember things and realize that this is a cool thing to do."
Its not hard to remember that when Jon Tester first campaigned for the U.S. Senate he pledged to make Washington more like Montana. But here we are, 10 years later and, from the evidence, it looks like just the opposite has happened. Montanas Sen. Jon Tester, who once painted himself as an outsider, is now wholly a creature of the Washington, D.C., Democrat insiders political machine, carrying out their anti-Bernie Sanders marching orders without a shred of guilt or remorse for what he has become  or how far he has strayed from understanding the Montanans hes supposed to be representing.

Yet, the day after two high-energy, vocal and wildly supportive crowds cheered for a politician like no one can recall seeing in a long time, the Washington Post quoted Tester saying: Its the democratic process, said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) of Sanderss plans to stump in Montana ahead of its June 7 primary. Hes got every right to do that, but its already over with, and it would definitely be over with by then.

It is inconceivable that Tester did not know that Bernie Sanders had just drawn overflow crowds in Missoula and Billings on the same day last week. Missoulas Caras Park was jammed to its capacity of nearly 5,000 people while an overflow crowd of 4,000 gathered outside the park to hear Sanders speak. In Billings MetraPark, the Montana Pavilion was described as packed. An estimated 40 percent of the supporters were young people, who Sanders described as the future of the Democratic Party.

Perhaps Tester has forgotten his own underdog primary run for the Senate against John Morrison. In that race, Morrison was the anointed candidate, hand-picked by the D.C. insiders and backed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee prior to the primary vote.

The parallels to the Sanders-Clinton primary are undeniable. Morrison, much like Hillary Clinton, was groomed for the position by long familiarity in political circles. His grandfather was governor of Nebraska, his father a Montana Supreme Court justice, his mother a successful trial lawyer. Having won a statewide race for state auditor, personal wealth and strong connections to the Washington Democrat insiders Morrison was the obvious choice.

Tester, on the other hand, was just a Big Sandy farmer who had risen to become president of the Montana Senate with virtually no statewide name recognition. He was most certainly not the pick of the Demo Party pundits. His personal wealth, like Bernie Sanders, was not significant, and the idea that he would actually run in a primary against Morrison was simply repugnant to the party insiders. After all, the fix was in, so what did the upstart Tester think he was doing?

And much like Sanders, Tester trailed in the media and polls throughout the primary campaign right up until the final weeks when an unfortunate turn of events tripped up Morrisons campaign with allegations of infidelity and impropriety involving the wife of a man being investigated by Morrisons office at the time.

The rest is history. Tester made his improbable run against the power, connections and money of Washington and, despite the slim chance any candidate has of unseating an incumbent senator, went on to prevail against Republican incumbent Conrad Burns.

Is it possible that Tester has now forgotten his own political past? Has he forgotten that, like Bernie Sanders, his campaign put forth a progressive agenda that rallied support for ending the wars, investing in American infrastructure and building a more equitable society for all  not just the powerful moneyed interests?

But now Tester chairs the same organization that backed Morrison. As Roll Call wrote a year ago: If the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had its way a decade ago, its current chairman probably wouldnt be in the Senate today. In the 2006 cycle, Democratic strategists in Washington preferred State Auditor John Morrison in the Montana Senate race, hoping to avoid a primary and keep the party focused on defeating Republican incumbent Conrad Burns. But state Sen. Jon Tester was undeterred by national Democratic efforts to get him out of the race and even bragged about being opposed by the party establishment.

It would serve Tester well to remember his own political struggle and give his Senate colleague Bernie Sanders, and Montana voters, the respect the party insiders once denied to him. Tester would also do well to remember the sage words of Yogi Berra: It aint over till its over  and the Demo primary aint over.
The guest column by retired federal wildlife biologist and Montana Wildlife Federation member Dan Bricco ("Montanas sage grouse: a model in conservation," Missoulian, May 5) could benefit from some context. In July 2014 I was offered $10,000 by the Western Conservation Foundation to arrange 10 presentations to hunters across Montana in partnership with MWF. The topic? Gov. Steve Bullocks imminent executive order on sage grouse conservation in our state. But after I learned the terms of the offer, I rejected it.

I had by then 15 years of experience with agencies and non-governmental organizations on sage grouse conservation planning, population monitoring and habitat assessment. Id been invited to testify in front of Congress, and to participate in a group developing the Bureau of Land Managements first national conservation strategy. And Id trained and fielded more citizen scientists than anyone else to census grouse populations. Why didnt I take the money? Because the foundation demanded I abandon integrity in my professional assessment and public outreach. I was told explicitly that my presentation required pre-screening and approval by the foundations representative, and it must only laud the governors grouse conservation efforts. Having received grants for years, this was the first which so blatantly attempted to purchase positive professional opinion on behalf of a politician.

MWF at the same time accepted over $14,000 from WCF to build public support for adoption of the Montana grouse plan. I admit the plan contains many good things, but it was also very controversial regarding the top public lands threats: energy development and mining. The conservation representatives voted against accepting the plan, and issued four minority reports on related flaws. More troubling, after receiving his advisory committees split-decision product, Bullock weakened the energy development stipulation still further to favor industry.

WCF dollars funded the whitewash of this political and biological misdeed, and as evidenced by Briccos column, the whitewash continues. I called Dan Bricco and he readily admitted he didnt write the column submitted over his credentials. He is 80 years old, hasnt really followed sage grouse science since retiring nearly 20 years ago and is in poor health. He hasnt read the governors plan, didnt attend any of the advisory councils meetings, and couldnt name any organizations that, as he wrote, praised across the country Bullocks model of collaborative conservation. He said he was supplied with the columns text directly from MWF staff, and asked to send it to newspapers. I believe he naively did so, not knowing his endorsement acts to legitimize misinformation that works against the long-term interests of sage grouse, at least according to authentic science-based opinion. The bird, our senior biologists and the public deserve better un-politicized information.
Some in Washington may tell you that the dust is finally settling after over a decade of war. I would say those folks aren't seeing the whole picture  and the 80 servicemembers from Montanas 219th RED HORSE Squadron who recently returned from their deployment to the Middle East might, too.

The threats facing our nation are growing  and with it, American servicemembers are more important than ever.

Whether its engaging the enemy, constructing runways for bombers or manning a Missile Alert Facility in Great Falls  Montana servicemembers are protecting our nation daily.

These servicemembers will one day join the ranks of the 100,000 other veterans in Montana  and it will be time for us to serve them.

Unfortunately, we are currently failing our veterans and are ill prepared to take care of our servicemembers.

As Memorial Day approaches and we celebrate Military Appreciation Month, we honor those who have served and are serving our country. It reminds me that there is more to do. As the son of a Marine who served with the Billings-based 58th Rifle Company, Ive been raised to always take it one step further than that.

John F. Kennedy said, As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

In Washington, it seems as though many have forgotten that sentiment.

For too long Ive heard horror stories about the treatment of our veterans  wait times, failed payments for care providers, an inability to get a ride to treatment from a rural area  the list goes on and is known by many.

This month the Senate is moving forward with a bill to reform the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs based off of legislation I introduced earlier this year.

The Veterans First Act includes many substantial fixes Ive long fought for  like allowing female World War II pilots who trained in Great Falls to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, and overhauling the Choice Program, which was meant to allow veterans easier access to care outside of the VA when they needed it. Unfortunately, its doing just the opposite, which is why new reforms are essential.

Change needs to happen in the VA  ask any veteran who's had their credit score impacted by the failure to get their medical bills reimbursed in time.

But veterans in rural states like Montana will always need help and we cannot simply stop with this bill.

Rural veterans face higher rates of suicide, decreased access to care and unique issues like less access to employment opportunities. After urging for a new Veterans Center in Helena, I thanked the VA when it was completed  but I wont stop fighting for more rural access, including adding a Veterans Home in Butte.

I also applauded the U.S. Department of Agriculture for increasing hiring programs for veterans  and successfully fought tooth and nail to bring the program to Montana when I heard we were not originally included.

I appreciate the rural van drivers the VA provides  but Im still demanding that the VA step up their efforts to fill empty employment positions ensuring that veterans are able to make their appointments.

This list goes on with more that we must fight for in rural areas, and my priorities for Montana veterans will not stop with the Veterans First Act. Thats why Im excited about this step in the right direction for those who so bravely served our nation.

On Mothers Day weekend, homecoming celebrations welcomed men and women of Montanas 219th RED HORSE Squadron home from six months of sacrificial service. These celebrations are important. But the best way that we as a nation can thank our military men and women is to ensure that they receive the care and support they need well after their service to the country has ended.

That is exactly what I have been doing in Washington. By enhancing VA accountability, bolstering resources and increasing veteran services in our communities, we can fulfill our unwavering commitment to our veterans.

I am proud that together we are taking action for our veterans and, like our forefathers did, expressing our gratitude through our actions.
We encourage you to vote Dave Strohmaier for Missoula County commissioner. We are confident that Strohmaier is the best candidate for this six-year term on the county commission. Over the next six years, our county population will increase. We will need Dave Strohmaiers strong, thoughtful leadership.

Dave Strohmaier's positive leadership style encourages citizen participation. He has a long, proven track record of working with diverse groups and getting work done. Strohmaier welcomes all players to the table. He listens intently to everyones concerns and then he acts. Citizens know they are heard and their opinions are considered before decisions are made.

Dave Strohmaier is respectful and inclusive. For eight years, we witnessed his leadership style on the Missoula City Council. Strohmaier knows that without positive and constructive leadership, the important work of the county will not get done.

Dave Strohmaier knows Missoula landscapes and citizens. He has spent countless hours both in the heart of the city and in the far reaches of the county, knocking on doors and connecting with people. He recognizes the county and city of Missoula are not exclusive. He will assure the city and county work together effectively.

As a parent of two children who attend Missoula County Public Schools, Strohmaier is involved with everything from getting kids to the bus stop to attending choir and band concerts to serving on the school district's Safety and Security Task Force.

Finally, Strohmaier's commitment to stewardship of our land, culture and heritage convinces us that he is truly the only person for this job. As residents of Missoula County, we value our open space and agricultural lands, our river ecosystems and air quality. Dave Strohmaier will protect these values, safeguarding them for us and for future generations. Plus, hes the only candidate in this race endorsed by the Montana Conservation Voters.

Jean Curtiss,

Missoula County commissioner,

Sen. Sue Malek,

Senate District 46,

Sen. Diane Sands,

Senate District 49,

Neva Hassanein,

agricultural lands advocate,

Bryony Schwan,

women's nonprofit leader,

Nancy Erickson,

Missoula artist
HAMILTON  A Hamilton man is facing felony charges of sexual intercourse without consent and four counts of aggravated assault after he allegedly choked, slapped and hit a woman who had recently been released from Warm Springs Hospital.

Jalen Ore Elliott, 42, of Hamilton appeared before Ravalli County Justice Jennifer Ray on the five felony counts Wednesday.

A charging affidavit said the womans caseworker notified the Hamilton Police Department after the woman made statements to her about the alleged assaults that had occurred over the course of a weekend.

The woman was released from Warm Springs Hospital on Thursday, May 5, and had gone to live with Elliott, a man with whom she had an intermittent dating relationship.

The woman told a police detective on May 9 that on the evening after her return to Hamilton, Elliott forced her to get drunk by shoving a beer into her hand and telling her if she didnt drink it, he would kill her, the affidavit said. She said Elliott then tried to kiss her, but she refused him several times.

The woman said Elliott continued to attempt to touch her private parts and attempted to take off her shirt. At one point, Elliott allegedly put his finger inside her vagina, the affidavit said.

On May 7, the woman said Elliott became drunk and put her in a choke after coming up behind her in the bedroom. She said he held her for about 10 minutes while she was gasping for air. During that initial assault, the woman said Elliott also punched her in the back of the head about three times.

The woman said later that same day, Elliott came up behind her again and put her in another chokehold. This time the incident lasted about five minutes, but it again left her feeling dizzy and sweating.

The next morning, Elliott once again came up behind her and put her in a chokehold, the affidavit said. She said he was screaming at her for about 10 minutes as he continued to strangle her.

She told the detective that this time she was unable to get any air and believed she was going to die. In the previous incidents, she said she able to get some air while being strangled.

Finally on Sunday afternoon, the woman said she was getting dressed when Elliott began to slap her in the face before he started strangling her again, the affidavit said. She said he continued to strangle her for about 10 minutes while slapping her with an open hand.

She said Elliott was drinking again in this instance.

The woman said she left the apartment and called her case manager to ask for help.

Elliott told the detective that the woman was lying. He initially denied talking to the woman about sex, but later told the detective that he may have talked to her about it.

He also said the only physical contact that he had with the woman was a hug or a kiss that he gave her.

Ray set bail at $50,000.
BILLINGS  Hiring licensed clinical therapists to help mentally ill inmates at the Yellowstone County jail is proving to be difficult.

The Mental Health Center, which was awarded a contract for services by the county in March, received zero applications despite advertising for six weeks online, at colleges and with professional associations, said Barbara Mettler, the centers executive director, this week.

The centers human resources department also expanded its search by mailing 700 letters recently to all licensed professional counselors in Eastern Montana, Mettler said.

One person responded on Friday to the letter. Mettler said she didn't know yet whether the person was qualified but was happy to finally have an applicant.

Not that Mettler thought hiring for the two new jobs would be easy. But no response was more of a surprise than we thought, Mettler said.

Its getting to be this way everywhere in the state, she said.

Mettler attributed the hiring problems to working in a jail and to workforce shortages.

People are not entering the field and licensed clinical therapists can make more money in a lot of other places, Mettler said.

In March, county commissioners approved contracting with MHC for services to replace a previous agreement it had with Billings Clinic, which provided one staffer. The center agreed to provide two full-time staff, along with on-call service, to conduct risk assessments of all inmates and to provide other services, like group therapy on topics such as criminal thinking and domestic violence.

MHCs services will help inmates while in jail as well as continue to offer care when the person returns to the community. The goal, county and MHC officials said, is that by treating mental illnesses while people are in custody, fewer persons will return to jail after release.

At least 50 percent of people incarcerated have some form of mental illness, Mettler said.

The MHC is seeking licensed therapists, which require a masters degree and licensing by the state to do therapy, Mettler said.

We need a high level of education and experience, she said.

But MHC has a tough time competing on salaries with private sector positions and hospitals, she said.

The center is offering a salary in the mid to upper $40,000 range plus a stipend of about $300 a month because of working at the jail. Mettler said the normal starting salary is about $42,000.

Mettler said the county wanted MHC to start in April, but the center thought it would take at least two months to hire for the jobs. Its now been about two and a half months, she said.

MHC hasnt signed the contract yet and will notify the county if it cant hire anyone, Mettler said.

MHC was the only provider to respond to countys request for proposals. The agency serves thousands of people with mental and physical disabilities in 11 counties and offers numerous services, from individual and group therapy to the HUB Drop-In Center.

We will keep trying until the jail finds someone else, if they even could. I dont want to dump it back on them, Mettler said.

Meanwhile, the county is providing mental health care through a part-time counselor with Billings Clinic, said Kevin Gillen, a Yellowstone County civil deputy attorney. The county also is working on contracting with Billings Clinic to provide tele-psychiatric consultations, he said.

The county will take an inmate as needed to Billings Clinic for an assessment, he said.

Contracting with MHC will cost about $144,000 a year and there will be additional expenses for on-call work. Previously, the county's contract with Billings Clinic was for $98,000. The additional funding is coming from the sheriff's budget.

Gillen said the county had wanted to start services with MHC by May 15.
MyStudentInNeed.org is a website that provides a private way for teachers and staff members of Missoula County Public Schools to ask for help for a student in need, and a way for the community to give back.

A seventh-grade female student, age 12, needs small women's jeans, shorts, women's small tank tops (blue or black) and a summer dress, women's small. If you would like to help with this need you can either donate gently used clothes that are stain free or make a donation in any amount up to $125 to My Student in Need and we will purchase a gift card so the teacher can take the student shopping. Washington No. 1633.

A 10th-grade male student, age 15, needs of men's jeans, size 42-by-32, and men's size 9.5 athletic shoes (student prefers black). If you would like to help with this need you can either donate gently used clothes and shoes or make a donation in any amount up to $125 to My Student in Need and we will purchase a gift card so the teacher can take the student shopping. Sentinel No. 1628.

If you would like to help, visit mystudentinneed.org/Missoula-MT. Scroll down to the list of schools. The number next to the school represents the number of current needs at that school. The number of needs can change daily. Click on the name of the school, find a need request and click on the "Fulfill This Need" button. Complete the donor form and click the "Submit" button. A member of the team will contact you.
BILLINGS  Brianna Goff used to smoke about a pack of cigarettes a day until she discovered vaping, and then started a business when she discovered others with the same problem.

Goff, 38, owns B-Town Vapes in Billings, and shes worried that new federal regulations treating the growing electronic cigarette industry like traditional cigarettes could put her out of business.

Vaping is being vilified, and it should be praised, Goff said last week.

This month, the Food and Drug Administration released new regulations on the growing e-cigarette industry, winning praise from public-health advocates and angst from the vaping community.

While vape shop owners knew federal regulations were coming, they said the FDAs proposals are too costly and could put them out of business by cutting their supply from manufacturers.

The biggest blow is to manufacturers of vaping juice, the liquid heated in a mod device and vaporized in a sweet-smelling cloud. They must now register every flavor (some make hundreds, with varying levels of nicotine), list ingredients and obtain authorization from the FDA.

Vaping advocates say these regulations could cost manufacturers millions, which they cant afford.

A lot of the companies will just quit  Its going to be awful. Youre basically killing an entire industry that has grown so rapidly, Goff said.

Billings has six vaping shops, and e-cigarettes are sold in convenience and groceries all over town. The boom came in 2014, when four shops, U-Blaze Vapor, the Vape Shop, Vapor Craziness and Juicity (then called Montana Vapor Outlet) opened within six month.

A second Heights shop opened last month, Old Skool Vape Society.

E-cigarettes have grown into a multibillion-dollar business nationwide and started cutting into sales of tobacco. Vaping advocates note that large tobacco companies have pushed for increased U.S. regulation of e-cigarettes for years.

They also point to an April study by a British medical organization, the Royal College of Physicians, that concludes e-cigarettes provide more benefits to users than harm.

In the United States, however, public health advocates say consumers deserve to know more about what theyre putting in their bodies. They add that current regulations do little to protect children.

Donna Healey, a spokeswoman for RiverStone Health, noted that about 16 percent of high school students reported last year using electronic cigarettes, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

The FDA has taken a long-awaited step to protect the health of minors by regulating e-cigarettes. Right now, theres no scientific consensus on the potential benefits or harms of vaping. While cigarette smoking has declined among youths in recent years, e-cigarette use has skyrocketed, Healey said in a written statement.

Federal regulations prevent retailers and manufacturing from marketing e-cigarettes as a way to quit tobacco. However, shop owners in town say theyve stopped their heavy smoking since they started puffing juice vapors.

Anecdotally, they add that customers have similar stories, and theyre afraid the regulations will have an unintended, ironic side effect: forcing people to go back to tobacco for their nicotine fix.

A lot of people are worried that (vaping is) going to completely go away, said Dan Michaelis, general manager of the Juicity store in Billings.

Juicity has five employees and manufactures and sells 100 to 200 bottles of juice daily, said Kellie Rogers, who owns the Billings and second location in Evanston, Wyoming.

She said she supports limited regulation, and she thinks manufacturers should be treated the same as restaurants and food servers.

Submit the facilities for spot checks from local health departments, but dont force them out of business, she said. Otherwise, vapers will go to the black market, ordering online from Chinese manufacturers or buying ingredients and making their own.

Theres really no way to stop it, so they may as well regulate it on a reasonable level, she said.

Rogers added that the industry is working through advocacy groups such as the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives to lessen the blow.

Its ridiculous, (but) I dont think it will end us. I think we all will fight it and come out with some sort of agreement, said Rogers, also a former smoker.

Goff said her shop strives to serve customers without glamorizing vaping, especially to children. B-Town Vapes is tucked inside a liquor store, which is already limited to sales to adults, and the juice bottles are displayed on black shelves with simple descriptions of the flavors.

It lacks flashy descriptions of names often cited by opponents as appealing to kids, and Goff said she instead focuses on a deep knowledge of the products by her staff.

There has be to some regulations that are welcome. I get that. Its a necessity Weve always been about educating customers on the safety, she said.
STEVENSVILLE  This place is a blessing.

Thats a phrase that Gail Fisher has heard over and over again in the years that shes served as the volunteer manager of Stevensvilles Clothes Closet.

Fishers not alone in serving the hundreds who walk through door of what many have always called the free store to find clothing and household items that will make their lives a little bit easier.

Ever since it began decades ago in Florence garage, the Clothes Closet has depended on the goodwill of people who give their time freely to help others.

Without volunteers, this wouldnt happen, said Clothes Closet Director Molly Hackett. From the very beginning, we knew that we needed to keep this simple. One of the reasons it works, we operate on an extremely low budget.

Every single one of the more than 40 people who find ways to help at the facility on Burnt Fork Road volunteer their time, including Hackett.

Last year alone, the volunteers gave an estimated 8,200 hours to the project that helped distribute and recycle about 100 tons of clothes.

Nothing gets thrown away here, Fisher said. We find a way to use it all.

This week, the Ravalli County Retired Volunteer Senior Program (RSVP) is joining with the national Senior Corps organization to celebrate the thousands of men and women who volunteer in a variety of ways.

Senior Corps Week is a time to salute volunteers from the Foster Grandparent Program, RSVP, and Senior Companion Program, recognize community sponsors and partners and communicate the impact of and on the lives of those who serve, said a press release from the national program.

The weeks theme is Senior Corps Works.

Throughout the country, Foster Grandparents are mentoring and tutoring students, Senior Companions help the elderly remain in their homes and other RSVP programs provide other essential services like disaster relief, caring for the environment, supporting veterans and military families and providing tax preparation services to low income and the elderly.

At Stevensvilles Clothes Closet, volunteers sort through donations and help the people who line up on the days that they open their doors to find the clothing and others items that can make their challenging life a little easier.

The people who come to the Clothes Closet all have their own stories, said volunteer Mary Gallina.

Some have just lost everything to a fire. Others have arrived in the Bitterroot Valley with little more than the clothes on their back.

A lot of them have just been through some sort of disaster in their family, Gallina said. They tell us what they need and we do what we can for them. I keep coming back because it makes me feel good to be able to help people.

Joe Galipeau said he and his wife were looking for a way to give back to their community when they found the Clothes Closet.

Its a fun way to spend some time, he said. Something different happens every day. You get to meet a lot of people and you feel like youre making a difference in their lives.

And its not only those in need that come away from this place feeling better about themselves.

A lot of people donate directly to the Clothes Closet because they know that its going to be given away from free, Galipeau said. Thats important to them to know that.

Fisher said they can always use more volunteers, even if people can only work a few hours here and there.

This is a place thats all about people, Hackett said. Our volunteers want to do something to give back to their community. They care about their neighbors. They want to help in whatever way they can.

I think thats why people come back here to volunteer year after year, she said. Sometimes I think you can divide the world into people who are willing to work to care for others and those who work to care for themselves. This place is filled with those who care about the people who live in this community and are willing to put in the time to help them.

There are all kinds of ways that people can volunteer to help out in their community, said Colleen Dahlstrom, the Ravalli County RSVP volunteer coordinator.

We have lots of volunteer opportunities, Dahlstrom said.

People interested in learning more can call Dahlstrom at the RSVP office in Hamilton at 406-363-1102.
Butte police reports

HIT-AND-RUN

Rachel Anderson, 20, of Butte faces misdemeanor charges of hit-and-run and aggravated DUI after police say she hit a 2007 Chevrolet pickup truck on the 1900 block of Stuart Avenue about 1 a.m. Saturday. A bumper and license plate from a 2004 Oldsmobile were left at the scene. She was arrested at her home on the 3000 block of Ottawa Street. A Breathalyzer test showed her blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit.

VANDALISM

Three vehicles used by the U.S. Department of the Navy recruiting office at Butte Plaza Mall were possibly vandalized Thursday night. Police say a 2014 Hyundai Sonata, 2012 Chevrolet Equinox, and 2015 Mitsubishi showed no visible damage. Gas was possibly siphoned or an object placed in each tank.

DRUG ARREST

Adam Reighard, 18, of Butte was arrested for misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia after he and a 17-year-old male were found in an alley on the 1000 block of South Arizona Street on Friday.

ASSAULT

Derek Bumgardner, 36, of Butte is facing a misdemeanor charge of assault after he allegedly kicked and pushed a man, 43, as he tried to access a residence on the 2800 block of Silver Bow Boulevard on Friday.

Police arrested Michael Schow, 44, of Butte for misdemeanor partner assault in the area of Motor View Road after a woman, 35, reported he slapped her at their home Friday on the 4800 block of Harrison Avenue. Police had escorted him for the residence earlier and he returned.

Police say the mother of Brandie Abad, 36, of Butte suffered a cut hand and a scratched face when she tried to deflect an alleged attack by her daughter after an argument in her home on the 3200 block of Evans Avenue early Sunday morning.
"Be here now."

Academy-Award winning actor and 1978 University of Montana alumnus J.K. Simmons summed up his advice for the Class of 2016 in those three words.

"I'm not sure if for young people in the Class of 2016 ... if listening to the voice of experience is what's most helpful," he said. "I think what is most helpful for young people, for any people, is to do your best to adhere to the principles expressed in these three words."

The wind whipped through Washington-Grizzly Stadium on Saturday morning, tumbling chairs like dominoes, ripping caps off students' heads, and ruining hair-dos.

"I apologize for the breeze. It's a little windy today," UM President Royce Engstrom said to begin the ceremony. "Hold onto your hats and it'll be a day to remember."

Simmons asked the more than 3,000 students participating in the ceremony to live in the moment, "not dwell on the past, not be too anxious about the future."

"I mean wherever you are physically present, to also be mentally, emotionally, spiritually present," he said. "And by present I mean fully engaged, not staring at your damn smartphone all the time.

"I'm just another curmudgeon who likes to bitch and moan about how things were better in my day  which they were. Before smarty-pants-phones."

Life may be faster now, and more complicated. But, Simmons suggested, the path to success, however each person defines it, is still lined with the same principles:

Work hard, listen and be fully engaged.

Griz students have certainly worked hard, as outgoing president of the Associated Students of the University of Montana Cody Meixner expanded upon when talking about the all-nighters, obstacles they've overcome and stress of final exams.

"All of our years here have been challenging, but this last one I think was particularly difficult," he said. "As enrollment dropped and budgets tightened, every member of our community began to grapple with complex questions about the capability of our institution and its worth. For awhile, this instilled panic and confusion, outrage, disdain."

He said that many students started questioning their time at UM, and how it would impact their future.

"But as the snow melted and the Missoula Valley inversion lifted, I think we came to terms with what our institution is," he said. "Sure, we have fewer students and yes, that means we have fewer faculty and staff, but I ask you to look around. To those students who have worked years to attain the degrees they'll receive today: Were all those efforts not real? Were all those lessons and experiences not valuable and life-changing? Is it not one of the most noble achievements to have pushed oneself to the extreme, confronted real and sometimes crippling obstacles and to have emerged victorious?

"The University of Montana has taken every one of these students and molded them into the leaders of the state and of the nation and of the world. You have emerged victorious."

"Aspiration without hard work is really just a pipe dream," Simmons said.

In a news conference prior to the ceremony, Simmons talked about his work and upcoming projects. But he shook his head any time the words "fame" or "notoriety" crossed his lips, as if it was silly for those words to be associated with him.

"So many actors obtain notoriety when they're young," he said. "But it's not about fame or fortune. It's about doing the work."

But Simmons, now 61, has grown in notoriety over the past several years as a popular character actor. That's in stark contrast to his late 20s when he was broke and seeking jobs waiting tables while he worked to land his next role on stage.

Others' quotes punctuated his address, including his first line, pulled from "A River Runs Through It:" "The world is full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula, Montana."

Simmons said he could "vouch for the veracity of that wonderful line."

"I've been many places, I've met many fine people, and I have also encountered what seems to be like more than my fair share of bastards," he said. "So it's really nice to be back here, where the odds are much more in my favor."

During the ceremony, Simmons was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters. Dr. Jack Ward Thomas, a notable wildlife biologist who's the former U.S. Forest Service Chief, also was honored with an honorary doctorate of science, though he couldn't attend Saturday's ceremony.

Simmons couldn't remember who gave the commencement address at his graduation 38 years ago  "someone educated and wise ... I assume"  and he didn't expect this year's graduates to remember much from his speech years from now.

So his advice was to-the-point: "Take care of yourself: Eat your vegetables, get some exercise, floss. Use your turn signal. I know that has nothing to do with taking care of yourself, it's just a pet peeve of mine. I needed to get that off my chest. Be on time. Please have the decency to ... not make people wait for you.

"Take out your telephone and use it to make a telephone call. Call an old person. Call your mom. Call your dad."

The sentiment echoed his 2015 speech accepting the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in "Whiplash." The speech went viral online, and he repeated it on Saturday:

"If you're lucky enough to have one or more parents alive on this planet, call them. Don't text. Don't email. Call them on the phone. Tell them you love them and listen to them for as long as they want to talk to you."

His 14-year-old daughter has now read the Harry Potter series 14 times  literally, he said. That word, "literally," took him on a tangent, scolding today's youth for its misuse and overuse.

On Thursday and Friday, Simmons said hundreds of Missoulians wanted to talk to him, not about his career but his parents  Don and Pat Simmons  and the impact they had on their lives.

"That's always my favorite part of coming back to Missoula, Montana, and to the University of Montana," he said. "My parents didn't often sit us down and preach to us about their philosophy of life. ... They led and taught by quiet example, by living life well and being kind, considerate, by obeying the golden rule, by using common sense. My wife and I try to do the same with our children. We try to be here, now.

"Thank you for having me, and thank you to my mom and dad for having me  literally."
The centerpiece of this 1939 photo by Arthur Rothstein is the Lizzie Block, home to the Arcade Bar. Rothstein was part of a small army of photographers sent across America during the Great Depression to document conditions at the time for the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information.

"The project initially documented the Resettlement Administration's cash loans to individual farmers, and the agency's construction of planned suburban communities," according to the Library of Congress, which makes all the images available today. "As the scope of the project expanded, the photographers turned to recording rural and urban conditions throughout the United States and mobilization efforts for World War II." The collection includes several hundred photos of Butte spanning the time from 1939 to 1942.

The three-story Lizzie Block was built about 1887 with a concert hall and saloon in the basement and shops for gents' clothing and guns, two jewelers, and another saloon at street level. By 1900, the upper floors held office space as well as lodging rooms above an office and pawn shop in the two store fronts facing Main Street, and there was still a gun dealer in the shop facing Park near the alley west of the building. In the basement, a dealer in trunks and carpets ran his business. The building had its own boiler, so it was not part of the extensive network of Uptown steam connections served by the central heating system based in the Owsley Block across the street.

Burton K. Wheeler's first law offices were in the Lizzie Block. Wheeler had been stranded in Butte in 1905 after losing his train fare in a poker game, but Wheeler's loss was Butte's gain. He ultimately served as Senator from Montana from 1923-47. In 1905, he rented a room and a half in the Lizzie Block, dividing the main room in two. Half was his office and half was his bedroom; he sub-let the rest of the office space to a real estate salesman and even rented his desk to a traveling salesman specializing in calendars. All that reduced his cost for lodging and office to $4.00 a month.

When the photo was made in 1939, the Arcade Bar was the prominent business in the corner space. In 1951 the Lizzie contained at least six stores, three opening on Park, two on Main, and one in the basement. By 1957, the building was gone, replaced by a single-story building that served as a Rexall Drug Store for many years.
HELENA  The Democratic candidate for Montanas lone U.S. House seat wants six debates across the state with her opponent, incumbent U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau, who announced her candidacy last fall, asked for the debates in a letter to Zinke that was sent Friday.

I recognize that none of us want to have a debate about debates, but its important to agree upon and quickly set a realistic number of debates between now and the general election, she wrote.

Juneau proposes a series of debates over the summer and fall in Billings, Bozeman, Great Falls, Butte, Pablo and Glendive. She wants each moderated by an independent news or community organization.

She wrote about Glendive being an important location, echoing the infrastructure needs brought on by a booming and now-declining oil play, something many candidates have referenced this election.

Juneau also wrote of the Pablo location: I cant recall there ever having been a congressional debate held on any of Montanas seven recognized Indian reservations. Thats unfortunate and something we can change this election cycle. I propose that we hold a debate halfway between Missoula and Kalispell in Pablo at the Salish Kootenai College.

In 2006, then U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R, and his challenger Monica Lindeen, D, scheduled a debate at Fort Peck Community College in Poplar, according to an Associated Press story previewing the event.

Zinke campaign spokeswoman Heather Swift said they'd received the letter.

"We ... look forward to working with Montana media organizations on several debates. The people of Montana deserve to hear their candidates' take on the most important issues like the fallout of the nuclear Iran Deal, Syrian refugees coming to Missoula, and the future of coal jobs."

In 2014, Zinke said he would pull out of a debate against Democratic candidate John Lewis in Billings but then changed his mind and agreed to participate in the debate.

Zinke said he had a scheduling conflict. The debates sponsors, The Billings Gazette and Yellowstone Public Radio, changed the format to a forum with Lewis, but then Zinke said he changed his plans to accommodate the event.

The two also debated in Kalispell and Bozeman.

Juneau is the first American Indian woman elected to statewide office in Montana and would be the first American Indian congresswoman if elected.
BILLINGS  A Yellowstone National Park bison calf was euthanized on May 10 after it was picked up by tourists who were concerned about its welfare and took it to a nearby park facility.

Criminal charges against the tourists, who the park did not identify, are pending.

Rangers attempted to reunite the newborn calf with its herd in the Lamar Valley, according to a Park Service press release.

"These efforts failed. The bison calf was later euthanized because it was abandoned and causing a dangerous situation by continually approaching people and cars along the roadway."

It was a father and son who picked up the bison on May 9, placed it in the back of their Toyota Sequoia, and snapped a photo of the unusual passenger, according to a post on the website Yellowstone Insider.

The men were cited by a park ranger for taking the calf, a $110 violation. But the international visitors will now face more charges requiring their appearance in court, said Morgan Warthin, Yellowstone public affairs spokesperson.

She said the situation is unprecedented, and she is not aware of another instance in which tourists put a bison in their car.

When asked to respond to critics of Yellowstone's decision to euthanize the calf, Warthin said park officials are professionals and should be trusted to "make the very best decision they can based on the information they have at the time."

"In terms of human safety, this was a dangerous activity because adult animals are very protective of their young and will act aggressively to defend them," Warthin wrote in a news release. "In addition, interference by people can cause mothers to reject their offspring."

The incident is the latest example of some park tourists showing either ignorance or disdain for park rules that require visitors to keep their distance from wild animals.

"In recent weeks, visitors in the park have been engaging in inappropriate, dangerous and illegal behavior with wildlife," Warthin wrote. "These actions endanger people and have now resulted in the death of a newborn bison calf."

In a video posted online in April, a Yellowstone tourist was filmed petting an adult bison in the Old Faithful area. Another video featured visitors posing for pictures with bison. Last year, five visitors were seriously injured when they approached bison too closely. Bison injure more visitors to Yellowstone than any other animal.

Park regulations require that visitors stay at least 25 yards away from all wildlife (including bison, elk and deer) and at least 100 yards away from bears and wolves. Disregarding the regulations can result in fines, injury, and even death.

"For us, it is almost like a call to action ... to share the message of visitors respecting wildlife and staying away," Warthin said. "We are doing what we can to make people aware that they are drastically affecting wildlife's well being" when they approach too close.
In 2008, during the end of the Bush Administration, the National Defense Authorization Act sanctioned the Department of Defense to conduct a program to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the (official) beginning of the Vietnam War. The United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration is the official title given to this program. It is designed for federal, state and local communities, veterans organizations and other nongovernmental organizations to become a Commemorative Partner, not to glorify this war but to honor the service of veterans who participated in a conflict that ended in 1975.

Over 3.5 million soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines served in the Republic of Vietnam, and many returning servicemen and -women were not honored by the American public as had been the case in previous wars. Our fellow citizens have come to realize that we need to honor these soldiers even if we didnt agree with the war.

Organizations desiring to participate in the Commemorative Partner program must submit a formal application to the Defense Department for approval. Western Montana is quite fortunate to have several organizations that are Commemorative Partners: the Montana Museum of Military History; the Western Montana Military Officers Association; and the Vietnam Veterans of America-938, Bitterroot Chapter, to name a few.

I recently participated in two local programs where veterans were honored and 50th anniversary lapel pins were given out to the attendees. It was brought to my attention after our VVA meeting that Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke is planning to host Commemorative Partner ceremonies himself in late May-early June. I was shown Zinkes office press release by one of our VVA members and it indicated that Zinke desires to distribute Commemorative Partner lapel pins in Missoula, Helena, Butte, Bozeman, Billings, Great Falls and Kalispell in less than a week's time.

I know that Zinke is a veteran and probably intends to truly honor Vietnam veterans, but his timing might be questionable for choosing to do this while attempting to get elected a second time in office. Butte author and 20-year Army veteran David Abrams wrote an opinion piece in the Feb. 14 New York Times titled Veterans, Patriots and Pawns. Abrams writes, for candidates, veterans are the most useful props imaginable. They are real-life stand-ins for any number of campaign trail virtues: patriotism, national defense, anti-elitism, take your pick. Abrams further writes that military service is charged with a special aura of bravery and honor that politicians cant resist glomming on to.

The Commemorative Partner program is designed for communities, organizations, military service groups and the like to set up their own events and activities to honor veterans through 2018, which is when the programs ends. I dont believe it was intended for congressmen running for re-election to travel all over a state in six days handing out lapel pins.

-- Jim Hamilton of Florence is vice president of the Bitterroot Chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America.
All with eyesight problems ranging from the need for eyeglasses to cataracts to low vision to macular degeneration -- you are not alone.

All are eligible to join the Anaconda Chapter of the Montana Association for the Blind, which meets at 1 p.m. on the third Monday of every month at the Metcalf Memorial Senior Citizens Center in Anaconda. The meeings include speakers, social gatherings, picnics and more at no cost to the participants.

Members also are eligible for a full month of summer school at Carroll College in Helena, with teachers and instructors in subjects ranging from wood shop project, mobility, discussions, reading devices, typewriter training, computer training, personal living and leading a "larger life,'' which helps restore self confidence and self esteem. The rooms, meals, snacks and transportation to appointments and shopping center are included at no cost.

For information, call Rhonda Cochrane, president of the Montana Association of the Blind, Anaconda Chapter, at 406-563-7711, or Charles Dowd, 406-563-6430.

-- Charles Dowd, Anaconda
WILSON, Wyo.  They first thought it was a baby turkey vulture, thin and severely dehydrated, jaw broken, eyes shut.

It was brought to the Teton Raptor Center after the Idaho Game and Fish found the nestling in late September, an odd time of year for baby birds. But when it arrived, the staff based quickly realized it wasn't a turkey vulture.

It was a baby barn owl covered in grit.

Just like all of the rescued birds brought to the Raptor Center near Jackson, this baby barn owl needed help. The staff provided antibiotics and food, rehabilitating the bird with hopes of returning her to the wild.

The barn owl grew stronger. She passed a flight test but before her release, she needed to prove her capability to hunt for live prey.

The staff presented a mouse.

"And the mouse came over to her feet, and she'd fly away," said Meghan Warren, the rehabilitation coordinator at the Teton Raptor Center.

It was odd behavior to say the least. Later that week, Warren entered the barn owl's enclosure and discussed the event with another staff member. As they chatted, Warren noticed something even stranger. She had been talking and making noise for five minutes, and the barn owl was still fast asleep.

Barn owls have some of the best ears on Earth: They can hear a mouse's heartbeat from 10 feet away.

"And this bird hadn't even woken up with them coming in, moving around and talking," Becky Collier said, the senior avian educator at the Teton Raptor Center. "That's when (we) started saying, 'Wait a minute.'"

The barn owl was deaf. It did not matter whether she was born that way or lost her hearing via an unknown injury. Deafness is a debilitating trait for a bird that depends on hearing to survive. She could no longer be released.

Established in 1997, the Raptor Center provides veterinary care and rehabilitation for birds of prey. The nonprofit also has an educational program featuring birds that are not fit to be released into the wild. The barn owl was a perfect candidate. The center went through proper paperwork and officially added the barn owl to their education program on April 1.

She was the latest addition to a program that features a handful of birds, including a bald eagle, a golden eagle, a red-tailed hawk, owls, a falcon and more.

Roughly 100 birds are brought to the Raptor Center every year, all for various reasons. Sometimes they're struck by cars or electrocuted by power lines (the center avoids intervening with non-human-induced injuries). Currently, the center has five birds in rehab, receiving medication, food, a hyperbolic oxygen chamber, X-rays and more, all with hopes of returning the animal back into nature.

"I think in an ideal world, if you're doing your job right, all rehab centers strive to put themselves out of business," Collier said. "Because it means that people are driving slow, and making wise choices. I think the key, though, is that accidents will happen."

One of the recent accidents was a high-profile one. In March, an injured bald eagle was found on the side of the road in Jackson across from the National Elk Refuge. The eagle was rescued and brought to the center. When the staff entered the numbers listed on the eagle's leg band, the computer system revealed an error message.

"(The eagle) was so old that (her results) weren't popping up to the top of the list," Warren said.

That's because this wasn't an ordinary bald eagle. It was 34 years old, the oldest one ever found in the West. It hatched in a nest south of Jackson in 1982, when bald eagles were still on the endangered species list. Now, their populations are growing, and she is one of the reasons. A biologist estimated that this eagle probably had 35 to 45 chicks in her lifetime.

Now, she was in bad shape.

The eagle was electrocuted by power lines, an injury that primarily affects skin and blood flow. Originally, the center expected to release the eagle back into the wild, but in the coming weeks, the bird's injuries became worse, enough that Warren and the center made the difficult decision to euthanize it at the end of April.

"I was really looking for a silver bullet that would be a magic fix. I reached out to all of (the staff). I called a vet in Texas and one in North Carolina. I sent it out on this raptor care listserv just seeing if anyone had any ideas," Warren said. "They all agreed that electrification wounds are very difficult and she probably wasn't going to be releasable, and that euthanasia was the best option."

It's one of the difficult parts of the job. But stories like the bald eagle and the deaf barn owl are important. They spread beyond the center, capturing the imagination of those in Jackson and elsewhere, which is one of the center's goals: Get people thinking.

"People really care about these live birds," Warren said. "Through education, they learn more about what's going on out in the wild landscape. The whole point is that we want people to leave here, get in their car, start driving down the road, look up and see a red-tailed hawk on a fence post.

"Just to see more birds, and be aware."
DES MOINES, Iowa This week on the podcast, reporters discuss if Democrats will support GOP incumbent Rep. Steve King, if an Iowan will be the next vice president, and the state of the U.S. Senate race.

On Iowa Politics is a weekly news and analysis podcast that aims to re-create the conversations that happen when political reporters from across Iowa get together after the day's deadlines have been met. This week's show features James Q. Lynch, Todd Dorman, Erin Murphy, Bret Hayworth and Ed Tibbetts.

This week's show was produced by Clare Murphy and the music heard in the podcast is courtesy of Dr. Z's Experiment. Chat with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @OnIowaPolitics, and subscribe on iTunes. Know an Iowa musician who should be on our show? Send their band sound files to oniowapolitics@gmail.com.
Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading.

Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy
MUSCATINE, Iowa Muscatine Community School District students and staff received awards for their achievements at an award ceremony on Sunday.

"You will hear about the students who strive for excellence, and about the teachers who helped them along the way, this is truly a day of celebration," Jan Collinson, Director of Special Programs at Muscatine Community Schools began.

The program was made possible by the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, and Jerry Riibe, superintendent for Muscatine Community Schools, said he appreciated the opportunity to recognize the achievement of students and staff.

"The trust not only recognizes excellence, they not only award excellence, they also practice excellence, and today is a great day for us to be able to share with family and friends in the community the great work and experience that our students have had," Riibe said.

Tammi Drawbaugh, President of the Muscatine School Board, presented the awards. The outstanding staff grant recipients and the students who received scholarships were nominated by the public and selected by the Excellence in Education Committee. Four teachers received a $1,000 professional development grant, and one support staff member received a $500 grant.

"I consider it a great honor to be here today and an honor to serve as the school board president, Muscatine has provided my family with many great opportunities and experiences, and serving on the school board allows me to give back to our community," Drawbaugh said.

Out of the 217 nominations, Mike Sterner, Community Liason for East Campus, Michelle Dusenberry, a teacher at Grant Elementary, Nathan Rickerd, a teacher at Central Middle School, Tristan Tolle, a teacher at Central and West Middle Schools, and Rachel Hansen, a teacher at Muscatine High School, were awarded the grants.

"It is said that a great teacher wins a mind and touches a heart, today we honor five educators who do exactly that day after day, year after year. The impact that they have made can not be measured but will always be appreciated," Drawbaugh said.

Ten eighth grade students were awarded $1,000 scholarships to be used after they graduate from high school, and Josue Oyervides, an eighth grade recipient in 2013, and Tyler Much, a recipient as a senior in 2014, presented the scholarships to students.

Oyervides, currently a junior at Muscatine High School, plans to attend Iowa State for a degree in mechanical engineering, and Riibe said that his consistency in academia made him an ideal recipient for the Excellence in Education scholarship in 2013.

"For a student to receive a scholarship while they're still in the eighth grade, that is really rare... and I hope our students remember that when you're going through high school and you finish high school and are getting ready to use that scholarship it's a reminder that there are lots and lots of people behind you, supporting you, and wanting you to do your very best," Riibe said.

The 10 eighth grade students selected a teacher that had a profound influence on their academic and personal lives, and they were invited onstage with the students.

Drawbaugh introduced Much, a junior at Iowa State studying computer engineering with a minor in leadership and diversity studies, and said that he was setting a good example for Muscatine students.

According to Drawbaugh, 11 of the 20 seniors who received their $3,000 scholarships had a 3.5 GPA or higher, and six had a 4.0 GPA or higher. The seniors, who were also nominated by the public and selected by the Excellence in Education Committee, also selected teachers who had influenced their education to join them onstage.

After many awards and expressions of gratitude, attendants were invited to have their photos taken for free, and to enjoy refreshments.

"Today is a celebration for families, because everyone worked hard to get here, whether you are a student, a parent the teacher, a relative, a neighbor, or a friend, you are all a hardworking team," Collinson said.
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 []
Seacom launched its fibre Internet access products in 2015, promising best-in-class connectivity at competitive prices.

Seacom first offered high-speed fibre solutions to businesses in Gauteng in 2015, and expanded its fibre services to businesses in Cape Town and Durban in March 2016.

Its new products include Fibre Internet Access, with dedicated speed options ranging from 25Mbps to 1Gbps.

The company promised best-in-class connectivity at competitive prices, and  according to the latest MyBroadband speed test results  Seacom is making good on its promise.

The latest MyBroadband speed test results show that Seacoms fibre service had:

The highest average download speed  641Mbps

The highest average upload speed  863Mbps

A peak download speed of  803Mbps

The highest peak upload speed  938Mbps

More on fibre

Uncapped Prices: FTTH versus ADSL

Fibre may replace Naked ADSL

The fibre revolution in South Africa
Effective Measure has released its website traffic statistics for April 2016, which show that 22 websites attracted over 1 million unique South African browsers.

Effective Measure is the official traffic measurement partner of the IAB South Africa, and provides accurate traffic and demographics statistics for SAs top websites.

According to the stats, News24 attracted 5.9 million South African browsers in April, followed by Gumtree with 4.6 million local browsers and Times Live with 3.1 million unique visitors.

The table below shows all the South African websites which attracted over 1 million unique local browsers last month.

It should be noted that only IAB-affiliated websites running Effective Measures tracking code are included in the table.

A comprehensive look at South Africas websites and their visitor numbers is available here: South African Internet Map

Top South African Websites Website Unique Browsers Page Views news24.com 5,913,671 67,036,771 gumtree.co.za 4,622,880 157,947,979 timeslive.co.za 3,171,260 19,498,105 iol.co.za 2,619,956 20,424,515 msn.com 2,594,595 69,793,376 fin24.com 2,050,457 8,660,919 ewn.co.za 1,623,502 8,416,488 mybroadband.co.za 1,524,422 6,305,474 BBC Sites 1,413,337 11,039,642 Careers24.com 1,409,619 20,887,011 sowetanlive.co.za 1,356,132 14,853,804 netwerk24.com 1,343,676 9,101,096 pnet.co.za 1,328,523 23,650,144 sport24.co.za 1,280,000 9,246,955 dstv.com 1,209,030 7,626,550 enca.com 1,207,972 4,774,761 channel24.co.za 1,198,419 4,999,370 soccerladuma.co.za 1,126,184 38,772,224 mg.co.za 1,103,016 4,591,582 Cars.co.za 1,067,694 32,649,729 autotrader.co.za 1,047,746 58,023,741 BusinessTech.co.za 1,029,815 2,715,034

Top online publishers in South Africa

Effective Measure also tracks statistics for online publishers, showing the total reach of a publishers websites.

These statistics are based on monthly South African browsers only.

Top South African Online Publishers Publisher Unique Browsers Page Views 24.com 13,658,326 325,428,098 Times Media LIVE 5,445,805 46,720,784 Gumtree 4,612,609 157,711,535 Kagiso Media Limited 3,800,967 86,409,798 Caxton Digital 3,517,055 19,372,864 Independent Online 2,782,379 22,187,086 DStv Digital Media 2,775,753 35,800,259 MyBroadband 2,331,344 9,285,830 Primedia Online 2,231,329 14,122,593 Sabido 1,497,821 8,263,269 BBC Sites 1,413,347 11,039,655 PNet 1,333,348 23,625,461 Perform Sports, Group 1,272,604 38,583,320 Soccer-Laduma 1,123,611 38,752,674 Auto Trader 1,118,472 62,457,675 Mail & Guardian, Online 1,117,381 4,652,768 South African Broadcasting Corporation 1,093,746 4,856,877 Cars.co.za 1,065,399 32,609,884

More on South African websites

Critical security bug hits South African websites

Hetzner partners with DFA to offer greater ISP choice

Inside Hetzners new data centre
Businessman Jacob Juma had accused top government officials of planning to kill him. He even went ahead to give the name of a police officer he said had been hired to do the job.

When he turned up dead, all fingers pointed at the government. Cord politicians have accused Deputy President William Ruto of being behind the assassination, something the DP has denied and promised to sue.

Juma was incredibly rich, and it is not uncommon for wealthy people to accumulate enemies along the way. While some think the state killed him, others say business rivalry might have been the cause.

What do you think. Was Jacob Juma killed by the state?


When I walked around Stonehenge, I said, I have seen the Pyramids, the Great Wall and now Stonehenge, the greatest constructions of ancient mankind.

Several people replied, But now you have to see Machu Picchu in Peru.

So I called Jenny Sercu at Napa Valley College Trips and Tours and arranged to travel to Peru with Collette Vacations.

We experienced several hours of turbulence as we flew through Dallas-Fort Worth on our way to Lima, Peru, the City of Kings.

Situated on the arid plains of the Pacific coast, Lima has 43 districts and 43 mayors. Driving through the massive honking traffic, I saw the Auyaca Pacyllama ruins, the historic Spanish colonial Plaza de Aramas, the San Francisco monastery and catacombs.

In 1532, a small army of conquistadores, led by Francisco Pizzaro, captured and killed the Inca emperor and thus began Spanish rule over Peru until their independence in 1821.

The tour group of 39 included three people from Britain, two from Ireland, two from Canada, and 32 from around the U.S. Barbara Keene expertly managed the tour with experienced drivers and knowledgeable local guides.

I expected Peru to have simple, spicy food. Instead, there was a variety of beautifully presented appetizers and main dishes, often with some of the 780 types of potatoes grown in Peru. You could even try their specialties of alpaca or guinea pig. A delicious dessert accompanied by coca tea or a pisco sour might be followed by dancers or flute music. We did have to use bottled water to drink and brush our teeth.

Flying to Cusco, we immediately noticed the thinner air at 11,500 feet. A bus took us even higher into the majestic Andes to the Sacred Valley of the Incas, the agricultural center of Peru.

Following the Urubamba River, we stopped at Awana Kancha museum and the Pisac market to see the variety of llamas, alpacas, colorful weaving and handicrafts. We also visited Pablo Seminarios ceramic studio to learn how this internationally renowned artist uses Peruvian techniques in his sculptures.

We stayed at a former Franciscan monastery in the Sacred Valley, where we were visited by a family of alpacas before going to a huge indoor market. Generations of families have worked at the market. We saw one potato that was red, white and red like the Peruvian flag.

An Inca settlement that is still inhabited is at the base of the Ollantaytambo ruins. Many in our group climbed the terraced complex, admired the stone panels and how closely the stones fit together. The view was amazing as well.

A special treat was a visit to a small mountain village, where we were greeted with music, dancing, and a potato, cheese and coca tea snack. A demonstration followed of how the women clean, dye, wrap and weave llama and alpaca wool into blankets, hats, scarves and purses. It takes 55 days to weave one small blanket. The weavings and hats that the women wear represent their village.

Finally, the day that I had been anticipating arrived. It began with a ride on the Machu Picchu train, followed by a bus ride into the Andes to see the Lost City of the Incas.

In July of 1911, Hiram Bingham, a historian from Yale, rediscovered Machu Picchu, Old Mountain. It was a crystal-clear day as we walked into and around spectacular Machu Picchu. Agricultural terraces, residential ruins, a palace, the Temple of the Sun, the Sacred Square, the Temple of the Three Windows, and the Main Square with llamas grazing under the Maynapicchu mountain: They were magical to see and experience. It was difficult walking on the uneven stones and squares, but so worth the effort.

We had an overnight stay at the fancy five-star hotel Sumaq, in the cute little town of Machu Picchu. It was a perfect ending to the day. We looked out at a double rainbow over a raging river while having tea, a cooking demonstration, dinner and a pisco sour.

On the way back to Cusco, we traveled again by the Machu Picchu train, which included a fashion show, then a bus to Hagar-Mercedes Orphanage, which is supported by Collette Cares. The tour group donated gifts to the girls, and I gave them Spanish and English copies of my six childrens books about my dog, Tristan. I wonder what they thought of all the special care he receives.

Cusco was the former capital of the Inca empire. It has a population of 500,000 and spreads out over the hills up to the sacred ruins of Sacsayhuaman Fortress. We learned that the Spanish took many stones from Inca sites and built their cathedrals, like Santa Domingo and Qorikancha, over the Inca temples.

It was difficult for me, especially in Cusco, to see the many homeless and uncared-for dogs running around the city streets, scrounging for food and sleeping on the sidewalks. The Peruvians just ignore them. Peruvian mothers nurse and carry their children on their backs until they are 3 years old, but I never saw the children receive any comfort when upset.

Another Peru flight took us to Puno, along the shores of Lake Titicaca, the second highest lake in the world at 12,500 feet. Ancient legends say that Lago Titicaca was the birthplace of the Inca empire. Humans were created from stone by the god Viracocha, and at death their souls return to the lake. The lake supports 2,000 Uros people who live on floating islands and in huts made from tortura reeds. We enjoyed walking on the spongy islands, seeing how the Uros live and riding in their special boats.

Our final tour had us huffing and puffing from the altitude as we walked up a hill to Chullpas de Sillustani archaeological site with 13th-century funerary monuments, surrounded by another beautiful lake and views.

In museums, we learned about the pre-Inca and Inca weaving, pottery, metalwork and architecture.

Collectively, we experienced Peru as a beautiful, historic country of proud, strong, hardworking, friendly people.
SAN DIEGO  A well-financed campaign whose backers include billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, medical groups and organized labor has collected enough signatures for a ballot measure to raise Californias cigarette tax by $2 a pack, officials said.

The Save Lives California coalition scheduled a news conference Monday at the San Diego County Registrar of Voters office to submit the first signatures in a campaign to nearly triple Californias cigarette tax to $2.87 a pack. If enough signatures are verified, the measure would appear on an increasingly crowded Nov. 8 ballot alongside proposals to repeal a ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery stores and require actors to use condoms in adult films.

The announcement comes less than a month after Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation to make California the second state in the nation, following Hawaii, to raise the legal age to buy tobacco from 18 to 21. Beginning June 9, it will be a crime in California to sell or give tobacco to anyone under age 21 except military personnel.

The proposed tax increase also would apply to electronic cigarettes and other products with tobacco or nicotine. The measure calls for money to be spent on services for Californias version of Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal, anti-smoking campaigns and medical research.

Carmen Gonzalez, program director of Community Action Napa Valleys Tomacco Education and Quit Smoking Program, said the proposed $2-per-pack tax would raise the average price to $6 a pack.

A $2 price boost would be enough to cut consumption of tobacco. Some people wont be able to afford it anymore, Gonzalez said.

In 1998, the last time that California voters passed a tax on tobacco, 17.5 percent of adults smoked, she said. By 2013, the rate had dropped below 12 percent, she said.

Historically, tobacco tax initiatives have had a hard time at the polls, noted Peggy Klick, program manager of CANVs Quit Smoking Program.

In 2012, voters narrowly rejected Proposition 29, which would have put a $1 excise tax on tobacco products. The statewide vote was 50.2 percent no, 49.8 percent yes.

The tobacco industry vigorously fights tobacco tax measures, framing the issue as a matter of individual rights, Klick said.

In Napa County, 16 percent of adults smoke, compared with 12 percent statewide. Among youths, 6.5 percent smoke in Napa compared with 4.8 percent statewide, CANV reports.

Major backers of the Save Lives California initiative include the California Medical Association, California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems and the Service Employees International Union. Steyer, a former hedge fund manager who has spoken about his late mothers three-pack-a-day smoking habit, has contributed $1 million.

Seven measures have collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, and an eighth  placed by the Legislature  would repeal prohibitions on multilingual instruction in public schools.

The tobacco tax joins three other measures, including a proposal to legalize recreational use of marijuana, that are pending signature verification.

City Editor Kevin Courtney contributed to this story.
A historic First Street mansion, built around 1868, could become the citys next bed-and-breakfast inn.

The citys Cultural Heritage Commission is recommending approval of a plan to create a seven-room inn at 1929 First St. in what is known as the William Smith house.

A lot of the most beautiful buildings of this era are B&Bs, said project spokesman Dan Vinatieri. You need the money to keep them up to that level. I think this project is going to do that. Its going to make it an asset to the neighborhood.

The owner of the home, Shahin Shahabi of Stonehedge Winery, had submitted the project to the commission in 2015, but did not receive approval at that time. The commission thought a proposed back deck was too large, and questioned parking and traffic, among other issues.

Neighbors and nearby B&B owners also expressed concern about traffic and noise.

To mitigate those concerns Shahabi and his representatives revised their proposal, making a number of changes, including a smaller deck, a revamped landscaping plan, a reduced number of rooms  from 10 to seven  and agreed to preserve certain interior design features.

I think the plans have come a long way and I like them very much, said Commissioner Beverly Shotwell.

I want to commend you, Commissioner Sarah Van Giesen said. This is a jewel box of a piece of architecture that should be preserved. In the end its going to be a better project that everyone will appreciate.

The applicant did a good job on the revisions, said Commissioner Bill Tuikka. We have something we can be proud of.

Two members of the public spoke at the meeting.

Neighbor Ralph Dalla Betta said at first he wasnt sure about the new inn, but after hearing the revised plans, said, I like that this property will be maintained and that there will be money to maintain it.

Jim Beazley, owner of the nearby Beazley House bed-and-breakfast inn, still wasnt so sure.

Im glad to see the parking is there (and) were down to a reasonable number of guest rooms, (but) I still think there is a significant amount of problems with this project, Beazley said.

The William Smith House is currently a four-bedroom dwelling featuring two stories and a basement. The house was originally occupied by William Smith.

Originally from Massachusetts, Smith arrived in Napa around 1850 at about age 18, following a stint in the California gold fields. He first worked as a tinsmith before partnering with C. Cheeseborough to own and operate one of Napas first hardware stores, the Smith & Cheeseborough Hardware Co.

Eventually, Smith was said to play an important role in the creation and success of the Napa Building and Loan Association as well as the Napa Gas Co.

Smiths house is described as Second Empire style. Shiplap siding clads the house, with a paneled and bracketed cornice that meets the roof covered in octagonal shingles. A two-story addition was constructed at the rear of the property prior to 1901, but the street-facing facade has remained unaltered.

The property is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is designated a Napa Local Landmark.

Four heritage commission members approved the plan on Thursday night. Commissioner Deborah Macdonald was absent.

The next steps on the project include review by the Planning Commission and City Council at dates to be announced.
Istanbul Armenian activist Garo Paylan, who is also an MP from the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) of Turkey, spoke to Armenian News-NEWS.am in an exclusive interview.

They are attempting to silence and digest not only me, but the opposition in Turkey, Paylan specifically said and continued: And we are continuing to fight. Of course, there is a greater risk in case of being an Armenian [member of the] opposition [in Turkey]. The incident that occurred in the Meclis [i.e. the Grand National Assembly (parliament) of Turkey] was pre-planned, and it was a lynching attempt based on hatred.

I have always received social networking website threats, or profanities, whose target was my Armenian identity. [But] after the incident in Parliament, my supporters messages have become more visible.

Targeting of the HDP MPs and the insults toward them continue, and this is led by the [Turkish] presidential palace.

[PM] Ahmet Davutoglus removal from office also means one of the steps in a regime change in Turkey. () After Davutoglu, [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is seeking someone who will listen to his words; we call this a civilian coup. () Turkey is going further away from democracy every day.

I know the problems of the [Turkish] Armenian community very well. Before being elected MP, I was fighting for the solution of [these] problems, and now, I wage the same fight in Parliament. The Armenians of Turkey were living in a more tranquil period several years ago.

Armenians can survive in a democratic Turkey; I am fighting for the fulfillment of this idea.
Kremlin says Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents prepare to meet

Leading Party Sponsor: Conservative Party is not fit to run Britain

'From Old Memory': Drivers can't see road signs on section of North-South highway under construction in Yerevan

Russian MFA: We are sure that attempts of external forces to split Moscow and Yerevan will not succeed

Yair Lapid: Israel is deeply concerned over Russia and Iran's military ties

Another school shooting in U.S.: 3 dead, including shooter

Azerbaijani Armed Forces shell Armenian positions

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OSCE representatives visit villages affected by Azerbaijani aggression in Syunik Province

US presidential adviser calls OPEC's decision to cut oil production political move

Lavrov: Russia and Iran gave comprehensive answers about alleged use of Iranian drones

Netanyahu's comeback dominates Israel's elections

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S&P Global Market Intelligence: Recession in Eurozone looks increasingly inevitable

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Qatar urges to depoliticize oil and gas

General Staff of Armed Forces head discusses Ukraine with his British colleague

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Azerbaijan sends note in connection with 'anti-Azerbaijani statements' on Channel One

Goldman Sachs foretells European business worst year since global financial crisis

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Aliyev says Baku-Tbilisi-Kars route should be increased

U.S. State Department official expresses support for Armenia's sovereignty

Iranian MFA: IRGC exercises on borders with Azerbaijan are not directed against any neighboring state

Pashinyan: Damage caused to country by corruption must be restored

Rishi Sunak to become UK PM

Armenia official: Defense sector expenses will increase the most, state budget allocations will increase by 160bln drams

Iranian president congratulates Xi Jinping: Tehran is determined to expand comprehensive relations with Beijing

Russian MOD: Work on Ukraine's 'dirty bomb' comes to end

Dollar drops, euro goes up in Armenia

Fly Arna planning to conduct 2 weekly flights between Yerevan and Beirut

Ilham Aliyev: Azerbaijan doubles gas and oil exports to Europe via Georgia

Two quakes hit near Tbilisi

Aliyev: Azerbaijan-Armenia agreement signing will be guarantee of peace in entire South Caucasus

Over 1.5 million light bulbs lit simultaneously in India: New Guinness World Record

Garibashvili: Georgia is ready to support peaceful neighborhood initiative in South Caucasus

Azerbaijan to export 157 GW of electric energy via Georgia

3, including one foreigner, arrested after illegal weapons, ammunition found in Armenia town house

Milliyet: Turkey has tightened control over the Bosphorus Strait due to mines in the Black Sea

Northern France hit by tornado

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NYT: Israel gives Ukraine intelligence data to fight UAVs

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Artsakh ombudsman shows Azerbaijan destruction of Armenian cultural heritage

Naryshkin urges international community not to allow Ukraine's nuclear status

Azerbaijan president visits Georgia

Macron: Ukrainian conflict should not make us forget about Armenia, Syria, Iraq and other wars

Charles Michel: Ukraine itself must decide when to resume talks with Russia

Finance ministry: Armenia national debt will decrease in dram terms but we will borrow new debts

Man, 38, dies after being hit by car in Armenia

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Driver dies in hospital 25 days after Armenia road accident

Gold weakly appreciates

Komsomolskaya Pravda: PM Pashinyan is handing over Karabakh in order to take Armenia to the West

Vedomosti daily: Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia leaders to hold face-to-face talks

Russia to evade G7 plan to cap oil prices, export 90% of its oil?

Russia military forces announce reason for fighter jet crash in Yeysk

OSCE fact-finding mission visits Armenias Syunik Province (PHOTOS)

US dollar may be closer to peak than markets think

Syunik governor in Frances Vienne, sister city of Armenias Goris, discusses implemented projects, future cooperation

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2 pilots killed in Russia fighter jet crash

Russia, France defense ministers discuss Ukraine

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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

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Xi Jinping elected Communist Party of China Central Committee general secretary

Armenia envoy presents credentials to Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency chair

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Lithuanian President Nauseda is named most popular politician in country

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Italy's new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, begins forming government
In the framework of his visit to China, the Head of the State Service for Food Safety at the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture, Armen Hayrapetyan, discussed with his Chinese colleagues the new opportunities of bilateral cooperation and export.

Specifically, together with the head of Food Safety and Quality Control Inspectorate Arman Araratyan, Hayrapetyan visited the China National Research Institute of Food & Fermentation Industries. Besides, they met with the Deputy President of the Institute, Wang Jien. The sides discussed the requirements of national standards used in China, the observation of which will enable the export of alcohol from Armenia to China.

Hayrapetyan also attached importance to the expansion of market geography, stressing that the new laboratory equipment of the State Service for Food Safety will contribute to the growth of quality of Armenian beverages, increasing its competitiveness. Agreement was reached on deepening the cooperation between the State Service for Food Safety at the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture and China National Research Institute of Food & Fermentation Industries.

The representatives of the Armenian delegation also met with the head of Food Products Import and Export Department of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, Ling Wei. The sides determined the scope of their cooperation.

As a result of discussing the opportunities of exporting Russian products to the Chinese market, agreement was reached on presenting the alcoholic beverages of Armenian production at exhibitions. The most upcoming exhibition, which the Armenian side has received invitation to, will take place in Guizhou district of China from September 8 to 9.
21:57

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday directed setting up of a task force to study the economic impact of drip irrigation in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra on parameters like water saving and productivity.

Reviewing the drought situation in Andhra Pradesh with its Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here, Modi also asked the NITI Aayog to set up a task force that could come up with a model on how to use technology for crop insurance.





Naidu gave details of the state's efforts for drought mitigation, including building of check dams, reviving lift irrigation schemes and deploying mobile sprinkler units (rain guns), a PMO statement said.





He mentioned the state's progress in micro-irrigation and said it has a target of 20 lakh hectares for micro-irrigation by 2022.

"Appreciating the state's efforts in micro-irrigation, the Prime Minister directed setting up of a task force to comprehensively study the economic impact of drip irrigation in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, on various parameters such as water saving, enhanced productivity, and savings in terms of reduced input costs of fertiliser, pesticide and labour," the statement said.

Naidu also made a brief presentation on how the state government is using technology to get real-time updates on water and agriculture from the field.
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Music students part of production in Ireland

by Andrea Hahn

CARBONDALE, Ill.  The Gaiety School of Acting, also known as The National Theatre School of Ireland, hosts a program in which a director, a playwright, and a group of university students create from scratch a play to perform at the Smock Alley Theatre 1662 in Dublin at the conclusion of the workshop period  about two weeks. Most universities send drama students. Southern Illinois University Carbondale sends students from the School of Music.

Susan Davenport, director of choral activities, said SIU is the only American school so far to bring music students to an acting school. Its not that she misread the directions. Its that it works. SIU sent music students to Ireland in 2012, and Davenport previously worked with the Gaiety School of Acting with music students, and shes happy with the results.

This year, she and Christopher Morehouse, director of bands, are bringing 18 students, all of them enrolled in either the SIU Wind Ensemble of the SIU Concert Choir, to the Original Theatre Concert Project from May 17 to June 5. The students didnt audition  theyd done that already to qualify for ensemble membership. But they did submit an explanation about what they wanted to do in such a project and what musical or dramatic or creative contribution they could make.

When we arrive, Director Patrick Sutton and playwright Martin Maquire will do lots of preliminary work with the students so they can get a sense of what each student can do with a dramatic situation, Davenport said. The preliminary work includes intensive workshops in improvisation and acting as the students, director and playwright explore a broad range of ideas.

Davenport and Morehouse will work with the students on the musical part of the project  showing the Irish guys what the kids can do musically, Davenport said.

The director and playwright already have a general notion about what they will do  the play has a title, a few characters and a plot outline already: Malacodas Bridge: The Ninth Circle of Hell. And it has performance dates: June 1-2 at the Smock Alley Theatre 1662, next door to the Gaiety School.

Davenport explained that the director and playwright will get to know the SIU students, and as they find their strengths and learn their talents, the two will develop characters and fill out the storyline. The students will help develop songs, dances and story ideas as they learn to present these ideas on stage.

This is a perfect project for the students to take their musical studies and put them to work to make this project a success, Davenport said.

Davenport said the project gives her and Morehouse an opportunity to stretch their own teaching skills.

Creatively, working with Patrick and Martin allows us to broaden our own work beyond the rehearsal room or concert hall, she said. It challenges us to use our own skills in new and different ways.

The students will work long and hard in the theater, but theyll also have a chance to experience Irelands rich culture off stage. Theyll attend several plays, including a performance of Othello at the famous Abbey Theater, take Irish dancing lessons, visit museums, including the William Butler Yeats exhibit and the Killmainham Gaol where the Easter Rising of 1916 prisoners were executed, visit Belfast and other outings. Davenport noted theyll have some sort of cultural visit nearly every day they are in Ireland.

Students participating in the project are, by hometown:

Illinois

Calumet City  Arthur Scoleri

Carbondale  Aubrianna Rathunde

Carterville  Taylor Dunning

Du Quoin  Caleb Gomes

Edwardsville  Eleanor Sullivan

Murphysboro  Rachel Brady

North Aurora  Yazmin Celaya

Oak Forest  William Radtke

Smithton  Joshua Armbruster

Wheaton  Erin Ryan

California

Laguna Hills  Jacqueline Blackburn

Connecticut

Baltic  Katrina Walczyk

Massachusetts

Beverly  Ben Handler

Michigan

Davison  Deanna Leach

Missouri

Morrison  Brittney Leimkuehler

St. Louis  Ethan Trimble

Ohio

Dayton  James Vilseck

Wisconsin

Luxemborg  Emma Wallander
When the seas rise: global changes and local impacts

The research of Jaret Daniels, UF assistant professor of entomology and a Florida Museum of Natural History expert on endangered butterfly conservation, is featured in this recent edition of Gatorbytes.

On a balmy day in early June, Jaret Daniels drove from Gainesville to Florida City in an aging Ford Fiesta with a backseat full of hope.

Packed into a lime-green cooler barely bigger than a lunch bucket were twelve living examples of one of the worlds rarest butterflies, tucked into individual translucent waxed paper envelopes to keep their fragile wings motionless and safe.

A bigger cooler held clear plastic cups, each with a wooden tongue depressor propped inside. Each stick supported a dust-colored pupa, resembling the dry leaf that nature had designed it to mimic.

Also in the backseat, inside a nylon mesh flight cage, were more pupae nearing the end of their transformation from caterpillar to butterfly. Their wing cases were turning transparent as glass, revealing a vivid pattern: the black of the night sky streaked with sunset colors of yellow, orange, and blue.

Two big butterflies were in the process of eclosing, the word lepidopterists use to describe butterflies emergence into the worldor in this case, into their temporary habitat in Daniels back seat.

The flight cage was there to give the butterflies room to stretch and form their brand-new wings. Still, at least once on the southbound drive, Daniels had to pull into a Florida Turnpike rest stop to park, pluck a butterfly out of a tight corner where its wings couldnt fully open, and place it on a better perch within the net enclosure.

The first hour when the wings take shape is crucial to the insects survival. And when you are working with the only human-reared population of the critically endangered Schaus swallowtail butterflya creature so elegant it has graced a U.S. postage stamp and so rare that in 2012 a thorough search turned up only four of them, all on a single island in Biscayne National Parkcare is warranted.

Im dealing with precious things, said Daniels, a University of Florida assistant professor of entomology and a Florida Museum of Natural History expert on endangered butterfly conservation. Im the only person allowed to breed this endangered butterfly in captivity and handle it. Im entrusted with their care, and I dont take that lightly.

Like the island chain it inhabits, the Schaus swallowtail butterfly is a living embodiment of the tropical Caribbean that strayed onto the North American mainland and made itself at home. This resilient creature has made it through two of the worst hurricanes on record, the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and countless other storms. It has survived at least two recent population crashes and may now be making a human-assisted comeback.

But like most creatures that exist only on low-lying islands, the Schaus swallowtail is in danger of losing its habitat to rising seas. And theres another peril: if rainfall patterns change in Southeast Florida, the spurt of early rainy season plant growth that sustains each new generation of caterpillars may come too late or not at all.

If those biological cues are mistimed too many years in a row, the butterfly could disappear for good.

To read more of the story, go to http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=DEWAR008 and download the complete text, available from University Press for $14.95.

The stories chronicled in GATORBYTES span all colleges and units across the UF campus. They detail the far-reaching impact of UFs research, technologies, and innovationsand the UF faculty members dedicated to them. Gatorbytes describe how UF is continuing to build on its strengths and extend the reach of its efforts so that it can help even more people in even more places.

Gatorbytes is available from University Press of Florida [URL: www.upf.com] and can be found wherever books and ebooks are sold.
Japanese government bonds edged down slightly on Monday, with the 30-year zone still feeling the effects of lacklustre results at an auction last week.The Bank of Japan refrained from purchases under its asset buying operations.The benchmark 10-year JGB yield rose a half basis point to minus 0.110 percent, while the 10-year JGB futures contract ended nearly flat, up 0.02 point at 151.95 2JGBv1 >.The 5-year JGB yield also rose half basis point to minus 0.230 percent. On Tuesday, Japan's Ministry of Finance will auction 2.4 trillion yen ($22.07 billion)of 5-year JGBs.The 30-year JGB yield added 1.5 basis points to 0.360 percent. A 30-year auction last week drew only tepid demand.Japan's top government spokesman denied a weekend media report that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has decided to delay a sales tax hike scheduled for next year.Abe said on Monday a majority of Group of Seven leaders agree on the need to deploy fiscal stimulus measures to boost global demand.Abe also said that if the BOJ had not launched its quantitative and qualitative easing programme, Japan would still be in deflation.REUTERS AKC JW VP1301 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-734935.Xml
Model Gigi Hadid says social media has "taken the dumb model stereotype away". The 21-year-old, who is dating former One Direction member Zayn Malik, feels she has "much more control" over who she is because of the profiles she has on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, reports femalefirst.co.uk. "We've just been given a gift as a generation of being able to show our own personality and have so much control over the person we are to the public, and not just being a face on a page. I think social media has taken the dumb model stereotype away," Hadid told digital media website Mashable. She also offered advice to her fellow avid social media users, insisting none of the negative comments on those sites is "real". "Just realising how it's not real, how none of it's real. If all technology just shut down today, all of those comment feeds would just be nothing so you have to your own strength regardless of that stuff and try and find yourself without that stuff," she added. --IANS ank ( 188 Words) 2016-05-16-05:24:04 (IANS)
While Rajinikanth cast his vote at Stella Maris College, Ajith along with his wife Shalini exercised their franchise at government school on Kuppam Beach Road.

Kamal Haasan, who had earlier said he might miss voting due to the shoot of his upcoming trilingual film "Sabaash Naidu", stayed back to cast his vote at Corporation School in Teynampet.

Haasan was joined by his younger daughter Akshara.

Actor Suriya skipped voting as he could not return from the US, where he had gone with his family for a holiday.

In a statement, Suriya apologised for being not able to present to cast his vote.

Other actors who cast their vote include Jiiva and Vidharth.

--IANS hp/ksk

( 144 Words)

2016-05-16-09:26:03 (IANS)
Wilson is popularly known as Isobel Crawley from the British-American historical period drama television series "Downton Abbey".

The "Murder" star also shared a photograph of herself with Wilson.

"Loved meeting one of my favourite actresses from 'Downton Abbey' Penelope Wilton. I just love her. Cannes 2016," Mallika tweeted on Monday.

Directed by Hong Kong-based filmmaker Daniel Lee, "Time Raiders" was shot in China last year.

--IANS dc/rb/dg

( 101 Words)

2016-05-16-17:20:04 (IANS)
"Urging all voters in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry to vote in record numbers today & be a part of this festival of democracy," he tweeted.

Tamil Nadu is going on polls on 233 seats, with voting for Aravakurichi constituency having been deferred.

Kerala would see polling for its 140 seats assembly. In Puducherry, 30 seats would go for polls.

The polling started at 7 a.m. and would end at 6 p.m.

The Election Commission has made additional efforts in the polling booths to provide cover for the voters to come and exercise their franchise without getting drenched in the possible rain.

The Election Commission introduced many innovative measures during this election in Tamil Nadu, including getting booth slips through the helpline number 1950 in electronic mode, knowing the queue status before polling booths through smart phone apps and getting navigation help through Google maps to locate the booths by the voters by feeding their election identity card number in the apps.

Thousands of youth volunteers at grass-root levels are also being pressed into service to help the election authorities to ensure ethical voting and to remind people to come out and exercise their franchise today.

The Kerala Government has made elaborate arrangements for smooth and peaceful conduct of polls.

In all, 2.56 crore electors including 1.33 crore females are expected to cast votes.

A total of 1, 203 candidates including 109 females are in the fray. There are 21,646 polling booths across the state.

Special arrangements have been made for sensitive and vulnerable polling stations, especially in Kannur district.

Over 9 lakh voters will exercise their franchise in Puducherry today. Voting will take place in 930 polling stations spread over four regions of the Union Territory.

5,382 officials are deputed for polling duties. Over 6,000 police personnel including the central para military forces will provide security for assembly polls.

The Commission has identified 148 polling stations and deployed micro observers and Central forces for additional security. (ANI)
The final draft will be tabled in the coming session of Delhi assembly and will be then sent to centre as the Statehood is subject to parliamentary approval.

The Parliament needs to amend the NCT act for Statehood to Delhi.

Earlier, the then Home Minister LK Adwani had also tabled the Statehood Bill of Delhi in parliament as Statehood was a poll promise by all parties contesting in Delhi.

It will also open another gateway of confrontation between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and the Centre as there are already many crucial bills pending before the MHA that awaits clearance to inaction as law in the capital. (ANI)
In a tweet, Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda said he is looking forward to the meeting today and expressed hope to find a solution to address the concerns of lakhs of medical aspirants and their parents.

The Supreme Court had ruled that starting this academic session, students would have to appear for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) to seek admission to any medical or dental colleges in the country.

Earlier this week, the apex court also turned down a batch of appeals by states seeking to conduct their own medical admission tests and ruled that only NEET would enable students to get admission to MBBS or BDS studies.

Following the apex court's ruling, opposition parties have raised concerns that students passing out from state boards in vernacular languages and living in remote areas may not be able to perform well in common entrance exam despite being competitive.

Several MPs have demanded the government to bring forth an ordinance to stall the NEET for the current academic session. (ANI)
Ahead of the massive protest by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today against the state government at Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's residence here, section 144 has been imposed in Chandigarh as a precautionary measure. AAP has claimed that more than 50, 000 supporters will gherao the Chief Minister's residence protesting against the 12,000cr food grain scam. The leaves of all personnel of the state police have been cancelled in the wake of the protest and Badal has cancelled all his engagements scheduled for today. Badal's adviser on national affairs Harcharan Bains said that the Chief Minister will remain available at his residence to receive any political leader or representatives for discussion on any issue concerning people of state. Describing the AAP as "a band of fugitives" and "anti-Punjab" elements, Badal has called upon the people of Punjab to beware of their "nefarious designs" and narrow political vested interest. Badal said the AAP has no definite agenda for the overall development and welfare of the state or its people. "Rather, their sole agenda is to rule Punjab by hook or crook just to satiate their lust for power," he said. Exhorting people to give another opportunity to the SAD-BJP combine to serve them and to ensure all-round development and prosperity of all sections of society, Badal said, "It is evident from its Delhi model of governance that the inexperienced and novice AAP leadership will certainly land you in the soup, rather extending a helping hand. On the contrary, the SAD-BJP alliance is trusted and time-tested in which people can repose their faith, and have confidence in its policies and programmes." "How can you expect a new political party, which has not even known the hardships faced by the people at the grass-roots level to do justice with you? The SAD-BJP alliance was an all-weather friendship, which could feel the pulse of people besides resolving their grievances to their satisfaction," said Badal. Accusing the AAP of fiddling with the sentiments of the innocent people of Punjab, Badal said this was not only deplorable, but also highly unethical. He said political outfits indulging in such gimmickry should refrain from it. (ANI)
Over 18 percent of the total voters cast their ballots on Monday in majorty of Tamil Nadu's 232-assembly constituencies where polling is underway on Monday. At the end of two hours, the poll percentage is over 18 percent, said an election commission official. DMK chief M.Karunanidhi, his son and party treasurer M.K.Stalin, the state leader of BJP Tamilisai Soundararajan, Congress leader P.Chidambaram and others cast their votes. Speaking to reporters after casting his vote, Karunanidhi said the victory prospects for the DMK-Congress combine is bright. The DMK-led alliance will win required number of seats to form the next government, Karunanidhi said. Madurai, Tiruchirapalli and in some places in southern districts are experiencing rains which in turn has slowed down the voting. There were also reports of malfunctioning of voting machines and power cuts in some places that has slowed down the process. In Chennai, voting is progressing at a brisk pace. Actors like Kamal Hassan, Rajinikanth, Ajith, Sundar.C, Kushboo and others also cast their ballots. Polling in the 232 out of 234 assembly constituencies began in Tamil Nadu at 7.00 a.m. and will end at 6.00 p.m. The Election Commission had campaigned hard to achieve 100 percent polling in the state. Around 5.82 crore voters are set to elect the new 234-member assembly in the polls and on May 23 for Thanjavur and Aravakurichi constituencies. The Election Commission has postponed the elections in Thanjavur and Aravakurichi after it received complaints about large scale distribution of money to the voters by political parties and their candidates vitiating the electoral process. In the 232 constituencies, there are 3,728 candidates in the fray. In 234 constituencies, a total of 3,776 candidates including 320 women are in the fray. There are 1,566 independent candidates are also trying their electoral fortunes. The ruling AIADMK is going to the polls aligning with a couple of smaller parties fielding its candidates in 227 seats and the balance seven has been given to its allies. The DMK has aligned with the Congress, two Muslim parties and some smaller outfits. The third front led by the DMDK comprises the CPI-M, CPI, VCK, TMC and MDMK under its fold. The PMK is contesting alone while the BJP has aligned with few smaller parties. --IANS vj/ksk ( 387 Words) 2016-05-16-09:44:03 (IANS)
Situation continued to be tense in the Nizamabad area of Azamgarh district for the second consecutive day today even as Uttar Pradesh police refused to allow a delegation of the state BJP to visit the spot this morning. The Nizamabad area was hit by a communal violence on Saturday and yesterday the violence escalated leaving several injured including an SDM and a police circle officer. The communally sensitive district is the parliamentary constituency of Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. Police sources here today said that people took to the streets last night and resorted to arson and set shops on fire and indulged in arson. Educational institutes across the district have been shut down till further notice. The violence was sparked due to a minor spat between people of two communities late Saturday night and it spread to nearby areas thereafter. Meanwhile, the six-member delegation, constituted by BJP state president Keshav Maurya, which was slated to visit the violence-hit regions was not allowed by the district authorities.The committee comprises former DGP Brij Lal, legislator Radha Mohan Das, MP Neelam Sonkar, Surya Pratap Sahi and former IG Rajesh Rai. Former UP DGP Brijlal and ex IG Rajesh Rai were stopped at Barabanki while legislator Radha Mohan Das Agarwal and former UP BJP president Surya Pratap Shukla were blocked at Deoria-Gorakhpur border. Mr Brijlal told UNI from Barabanki police lines that they were stopped at Barabanki toll plaza at around 0735 hrs and were taken to police lines. "The situation is Azamgarh is deteriorating by the day just due to the callous approach of the state police. The police should have controlled the situation after houses of 13 Dalits were torched at Khudapur village. But they failed and now the communal tension has spread to entire Azamgarh and its adjoining districts," the former DGP alleged. All the six members of the BJP fact finding team were slated to meet at 1230 hrs in Azamgarh but the state police did not allow it. Neelam Sonkar was slated to reach Azamgarh from Varanasi. On the other hand , BJP MLA and chief whip in the assembly Dr Radha Mohan Das Agarwal, said in Gorakhpur that the police first tried to stop them inside their house, but when they protested, then they were allowed to go up till Gorakhpur- Deoria border. " By preventing us from reaching Azamgarh, the state government was trying to cover up their lapses," Mr Agarwal alleged.UNI MB SB 1156 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-734862.Xml
Shouting slogans, the lawyers under the banner of Bar Association of Jammu this morning, staged a protest amid anti-police slogans on the court premises.

The attempt to abduct the advocate was made in broad daylight from Bikram Chowk area here on Saturday.

The lawyers rued the failure of police in keeping check on criminal activities and also demanded immediate arrest of the culprits besides a thorough probe into the incident.UNI VBH JW SB 1239

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0364-734835.Xml
: Over 60 per cent of more than 1.90 lakh voters exercised their franchise in a bye-election to the Palair Assembly Constituency at Khammam district of Telangana till 1300 hours today. The election office sources said, barring some minor incidents, the polling was progressing peacefully. As many as 240 polling booths manned by over 1200 polling personnel have been set-up for the benefit of voters in the constituency. Over 3,000 police and other security personnel were deployed to ensure peaceful and orderly polling. The polling will end at 1800 hours and the results will be announced on May 19.Eds pick up suitably from earlier polling series.UNI SMS KVV AK 1350 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0414-735095.Xml
Security in the powerloom town of Bhiwandi was stepped up following the death of a young RPI activist yesterday leading to tension in the area. Twenty-year-old Vicky Dhepe died after a murderous attack by a group on May 11. The funeral is slated to take place later in the day. Police have registered four offences of rioting against the 100s of strong armed mob which allegedly went on an attacking spree, damaging a number of vehicles including two police jeeps. Meanwhile, the RPI city unit has given a call for total bandh to protest the killing. All the establishments remained shut since morning. The vehicular traffic also remained affected. Senior police officials are camping at the town monitoring the situation. No arrests have been made in this regard, police said. The police have converted the case of attempt to murder into that of murder following Dhepe's death in a Mumbai hospital. The police have booked the main accused Raju Chougule, a close relative of the local BJP MLA Mahesh Chougule, as one of the accused among the 20 strong armed mob which attacked the deceased and two others on the night of May 11. The police on May 11, registered an offence under sections 307,143,147,149, 323,324,504 and 452 and also sections 3(1)(10) of the Atrocities Act the police said. The charge under section 307 has been upgraded to one of 302 of the ipc following the death of the victim. The entire incident is said to be a fall out of the long pending enmity between the two rivals which was initiated during the Ganesh Charturthi festival, it was stated. Meanwhile, talking to mediapersons, the BJP MLA said that he was in Manali when the incident took place and his arrest is not at all warranted.UNI XR NV SB 1331 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-734972.Xml
According to police sources, Eshwar Balasaheb Shinde (11) and Samadhan prakash Shinde (10) residents of Bhagur village had taken their cattle for drinking water near the Darna river.

As the cattle entered into the river and was not able to come out the duo entered into the water. As they unaware the depth of the river water, both of them drowned.

Later, the local residents informed the nearest police station about the incident. The police and fire brigade rushed to the spot and fished out their bodies, they added. UNI RDS NV SB AS1400

-- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-734974.Xml
One person died on the spot and three were injured after a bus collided with auto in Barsana area of Mathura Uttar Pradesh. Police sources said here today that accident look place when an auto filled with passengers was hit by a mini private bus near Barsana area of Mathura last night. Shakuntala Sharma (50) and auto driver died on the spot and three others got injured in accident. Deceased auto driver has not been identified yet. The injured were taken to nearby health centre of Barsana whereas the bus driver managed to escape. In another report from Hardoi district, a sub inspector and two others got injured seriously in a road accident last night. According to police here today sub inspector Mridul kant shukla, who was posted in Shubhashnagar Police station of Bareilly, was returning to Bareilly from Lucknow with his driver Rakesh. Near Tadiyava area his car got uncontrolled and hit the road side tree. Both of them got seriously injured in accident. Injured SI and his driver were admitted to the hospital in Lucknow.UNI XC- MB SB AS1407 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-735011.Xml
The Congress today slammed BJP president Amit Shah for waving the photograph of a malnourished child of Sri Lanka to project the plight of the poor in Kerala.Mr Shah on Saturday stirred a fresh controversy when he waved a copy of a magazine, dated July 2013, which carried a cover story on the death of tribal children in Attapadi. Local news portals, however, claimed that the image that the magazine used on the cover, is from Sri Lanka.Talking to reports here, AICC spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed said, "Mr Amit Shah has done it again. He waved photo of a malnourished child of Lanka to project the plight of poor in Kerala.''Mr Ahmed said Mr Shah's projecting the photo of Sri Lanka to project Kerala's poverty was yet another attempt by the BJP to mislead the people in a big to seek politics gains.Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra modi had created a controversy when he had, while addressing a public rally in Kerala, compared Kerala to Somalia.The Prime Minister's remarks had evoked condemnation from the Congress as well as the Left.UNI AR SW AE 1437 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0377-735175.Xml
Aiming to further boost its operation in Saudi Arabian port city, country's second largest airline Jet Airways today said it will launch an additional daily service to Dammam from Mumbai and Delhi from June 9, 2016.The additional service from Mumbai to Dammam, Jet Airways flight will depart Mumbai at 0045 hrs and arrive into Dammam at 0205 hrs. The return flight to Mumbai will depart Dammam at 0305 hrs and arrive in Mumbai at 0920 hrs, the airline said in a statement.The service from Delhi to Dammam, Jet Airways flight will depart Delhi at 2230 hrs and arrive Dammam at 0010 hrs. The return flight will depart Dammam at 0110 hrs and arrive in Delhi at 0730 hrs. Gaurang Shetty, Whole time Director, Jet Airways said, "We have seen a significant increase in traffic from Mumbai and Delhi to Dammam. As the preferred airline on the highly competitive Indo-Gulf route, we constantly offer our guests unparalleled levels of service with unmatched quality. Through the introduction of these additional flights we can now offer our guests greater convenience, more choice and increased flexibility in their travel to and from Dammam."Dammam is among the largest ports in the Gulf. With trade booming, it is home to a large population of Indian expatriates. Recognising its economic potential, Jet Airways has been steadily adding new destinations or increasing frequencies to existing destinations in the Gulf region, it said. UNI ASH RN AE 1430 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0388-735134.Xml
Congress and Janata Dal (United) are apparently going on different paths for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections 2017 but apparently both the parties along with other smaller and bigger outfits would forge a ' Mahagathbandan' within next six months' time. The Bihar-like Mahagathbandan (grand alliance), would emerge as the fourth big force in the state elections, after the Samajwadi Party, BSP and BJP, and the leaders are eager to rope in other smaller parties, including Left Parties in the new alliance. The Congress has given all responsibility for the UP elections to the poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who was also the advisor to the JD(U)-RJD government in Bihar with a Cabinet minister rank. JD(U) president Nitish Kumar had already started his electioneering in UP from Varanasi, the Prime Minister's constituency, on May 12 and even held a meeting in Lucknow yesterday to launch his total prohibition drive in UP, which will be the main poll plank of the party.On the other hand, Congress led by PK and his team are working round the clock to assess the position of the party at the grassroot level and are formally holding meetings to select the winnable candidates.PK had frequently told the Congress workers that they will go for a formidable alliance in the UP polls though other senior party leaders have denied such and had announced that Congress will fight the elections alone.Former AICC working committee member and ex-union minister Beni Prasad Verma,who recently switched over to his old home Samajwadi Party, has openly alleged that the Congress was on the verge of forging alliance with the JD(U) to challenge the SP in the coming assembly polls. "I will never accept that anyone goes against Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who is my nephew and I will work so that he retains power," Mr Verma told reporters here after joining the SP. Meanwhile JD(U) 's UP president Suresh Niranjan ' Bhaiyya' also did not rule out JD(U) and Congress forging an alliance 'the Mahagathbandan' for the UP polls next year. "In Bihar, JD(U), RJD and the Congress are running a coalition government and in UP too, there is a big possibility of these parties going together for the next year's poll," Mr Niranjan told UNI here today.He also said Prashant Kishor is an advisor of the Bihar government and now, he was also heading the elections for the Congress, so both parties going together in the polls is natural.More UNI MB RSA AE 1503 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-735154.Xml
The Bihar government today recommended a CBI inquiry into the murder of senior journalist Rajdeo Ranjan in Siwan on Friday night. Expressing his grief over the killing of the scribe, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told newspersons here that the state government would recommend for a CBI inquiry into the murder. He said that recommendation for the inquiry would be made to the Union Home Ministry today itself. "Nobody is above law and all law breakers, irrespective of their stature and position, will face the music if they indulge in any unlawful activity," he added. "I treat attack on a journalist as an attack on myself ," he said. The wife of the slain journalist, Asha Yadav, had also demanded a CBI probe,expressing her lack of faith in the local police. The BJP and its allies, including the LJP, had also demanded a CBI probe by taking the plea that the local police was not in a position to hold an impartial probe in Siwan, considered the "fiefdom" of controversial incarcerated former RJD MP Mohammed Shahabuddin. UNI KKS DH PL RSA AS1435 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-735144.Xml
Former Miss World and Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai made heads turn with her 'purple pout' as she walked the red carpet at the Cannes film festival last evening.Dressed in an embellished light pink Rami Kadi dress, Aishwarya, who has marked her 15th year at the Cannes Film Festival, was the cynosure of all eyes with a purple pout when she stepped out on the red carpet of the gala for the screening for her forthcoming film 'Sarbjit'.Aishwarya, who is representing cosmetic giant L'Oral Paris at the gala, attended the screening of her film 'Sarbjit' at the Cannes Film Festival where she was accompanied by the film's director Omung Kumar, actress Richa Chadha and producer Jackky Bhagnani.'Sarbjit' is a biopic on Sarabjit Singh, an Indian farmer who was convicted of terrorism and spying in Pakistan.He was attacked and killed by inmates at a Lahore prison in April 2013. Randeep Hooda will be seen playing Sarabjit in the film while Aishwarya plays his sister Dalbir Kaur. The film is narrated through the perspective of Dalbir Kaur.UNI AR SW AE 1527 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0136-735342.Xml
Five inter-state dacoits were arrested from Dinara forests in Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri district, police said. On a tip-off, the bandits were arrested while they were planning to commit dacoity at a house last night. The accused were also wanted in connection with incidents of looting vehicles and diesel on state highways in Datia and Uttar Pradesh. UNI XC-PS AE AN1527 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0044-735303.Xml
Private lender Bandhan Bank today reported a net profit (after tax)of Rs 275.25 crore in exactly seven months and eight days since it started universal banking operations on August 23, 2015. Headquartered in Kolkata, the private lender, first of its kind in eastern zone after India gained freedom, believed that it can make a growth at least 30 per cent by next financial year, according to founder, MD and CEO Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, Giving a break up of its "very good" growth since Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley unveiled the universal banking service last year, Bandhan Bank's net interest income stood at Rs 972.72 crore, non-interest income at Rs 149.99 crore and total income Rs 1082.71 crore in little over seven months. The bank's gross advances stood at Rs 15,493.97 crore deposits at Rs 12,088.75 crore and net worth at Rs 3,334.5 crore unto March 31, 2016. Mr Ghosh declared that in a short span of operations, "BB has recorded a healthy deposit of Rs 12,088.75 crore. Of these the Current Account and Savings Account (CASA) balance stood at Rs 2,605.59 crore (21.55 per cent of total deposits with total customers 8.4 milions as on March 31,2016). "From micro finance lending business to universal banking BB's number of branches in seven months stood at 670 from 501, ATMs 234 from mere 50 and expanded to 29 states and union territories so far." "As far as business growth is concerned BB is doing very good with total credibility and faith with the customers," Mr Ghosh announced. "I am happy to announce that the transformation of the micro finance institution into a universal ban has been smooth. Despite spending on technology, infrastrucure and new employees ( 20,600), the bank has posted a decent profit." "A very high capital adequacy ratio shows our robustness. The growth in deposits including current and savings is also very encouraging. We will continue to strive to offer a bouquet of banking servies to all", Mr Ghosh said.UNI PC AD ASH AN1556 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0108-735229.Xml
As the government and coal mine allottees get busyin settling scores in the courts of law across the country, the unattended captive coal blocks are being plundered by mafiosi and local miscreants, India Coal Market Watch (ICMW) quoted official sources as saying. "These blocks (unattended) are lying abandoned now. Neither the old allottees nor the new ones are occupying them, leading the mines open for locals (miscreants) to exploit. We keep getting reports of rampant theft of coal from these blocks," ICMW quoting an old allotee, said. "These blocks are nobody's concern now. Neither the government nor Coal India Limited has any interest in them. Hence, there is no security either," the report maintained. "A visit to these mines will reveal the extent of the loss. It is reported that every morning, hundreds of bicycle-borne miscreants takeout coal through 'rat holes' and sell the same outside. "It will not be a surprise if we get reports of cave-ins within those mines in future," he added. Earlier, a former Coal India official had said that coal theft had become a common occurrence in many of the blocks in Jharkhand and West Bengal, including mines owned by Eastern Coalfields and Central Coalfields Ltd.Altogether, only 9 of the auctioned blocked have started production so far, while a large number of them are lying idle due to litigation filed by aggrieved parties.Prior to the de-allocation of all the blocks by the Supreme Court in September 2014, as many as 35 captive coal blocks were in operation and another five were on the verge of commencing production.Another report said the Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL), which suffered a 15.1 per cent drop in production in April 2016 on an annual basis, attributed it to severe shortage of explosives. "What you are saying is true. We suffered a drop in production in April, but there was no plan to regulate production as such. The negative growth in April was rather due to other factors," CCL official was quoted as saying. "Actually, the supply of explosives was far less than the requirement in March and that impacted our production in April," ICMW reported.UNI PC PL ASH NS1540 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-735276.Xml
Police arrested five smugglers and seized huge consignment of heroin valued at nearly Rs two crore in the international market near the Indo-Nepal border under Kochadhaman police station area in the district today. Police said here that the smugglers were intercepted on National Highway-63 while they were trying to escape with the consignment in their vehicle. Later, police seized 400 gm of heroin worth nearly Rs. two crore during frisking. An interrogation of the nabbed persons was on.UNI XC DH PL AE AN1532 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-735287.Xml
Rating agency Moody's today said the substantial amendments to the Double Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) between Indian and Mauritius are credit negative for Indian Ocean nation. Mauritius's financial centre would be a less attractive platform for investing in India than it used to be.A curtailment of new investment flows through Mauritius would cause deterioration in the balance of payments equal to 1-2 per cent of GDP annually, and consequently put pressure on Mauritian foreign exchange reserves. However, a sharper shift in investor sentiment would have more dire consequences, the rating agency said in its report, 'Mauritius' Tax Treaty Amendments with India Are Credit Negative'.Mauritius' financial industry is a key economic pillar and the primary source of net financial inflows from abroad. The tax changes will particularly weaken Mauritius' balance of payments, consequently increasing its external susceptibility. The financial industry contributed 10 per cent of GDP in 2015 and substantial financial net inflows over the past five years allowed the central bank to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves of almost four billion dollars as of March 2016, up from two billion dollars in 2010.Companies using the DTAA operate in Mauritius under a Global Business Company 1 (GBC1) licence, are subject to Mauritian tax jurisdiction, and benefit from an advantageous tax regime, including low corporate taxes and a zero per cent capital gain tax. At year-end 2014, Mauritian companies with GBC1 licences held 200 billion dollars in Indian assets, according to the Financial Sector Commission of Mauritius, constituting 38 per cent of their 520 billion dollars total assets held worldwide, including in Mauritius. However, in general, these assets are invested abroad and in countries that have DTAAs with Mauritius.The changes to the DTAA with India will be carried out during a transitional period, starting in April 2017, and benefit from a grandfathering clause that exempts Indian assets acquired before April 2017 from the new dispositions, it said. Nevertheless, the changes to the DTAA will weaken the country's balance of payments. For companies utilising internationally focused financial centres such as Mauritius, the traditional business model is mainly to channel funds with limited effect on the host country. More UNI ASH SW GC1745 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0388-735563.Xml
Nearly 65 per cent of the 26.1 million electorate exercised their franchise till 1700 hrs today to elect 140 members to the Kerala Assembly. Four poll-related deaths have been reported from various parts of Kerala today with three of them collapsing after exercising their franchise. Long queues were seen at the closing hours in many parts of the state with polling scheduled to end at 1800 hrs. The polling was peaceful in Kerala where more than 52,000 police personnel were deployed for security. Several constituencies in Kerala witnessed a tri-polar contest for the first time in its electoral history with the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front, the Opposition Marxist-led Left Democratic Front and the BJP-led NDA were engaged in a fierce encounter. Overnight rain that continued in several districts failed to dampen the spirit of voters, who queued up in front of polling booths in large numbers since early morning to choose their representatives from 1,203 candidates, including 109 women. MORE UNI CR/CGV/PCH CS 1724 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0414-735623.Xml
Agitating SC and ST legislators from Congress and the BJP, who are on an indefinite dharna inside the well of the Odisha Assembly, today stalled the business of the House. Speaker Niranjan Pujari had to adjourn the House immediately after it assembled to take up Question Hour till 1500 hrs as the SC/ST members shouted slogans demanding fulfillment of their demand. The SC/ST MLAs are sitting on dharna since May 10 demanding implementation of the Odisha Reservation Vacancies(ORV) Act and 38 per cent reservation of seats for SC/ST students in Engineering and Medical Colleges. The SC/ST legislators first resorted to dharna in front of the chief minister's chamber inside the Assembly but later shifted their protest to the well after the Assembly security personnel removed them from the Chief Minister's Office. The business of the Assembly has been paralysed for past ten days as the Opposition Congress and the BJP members are disrupting the functioning of the House, demanding resignation of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in the chit fund scam and removal of the Chit Fund Commission for his remark against the innocent investors. The trouble started when the House assembled at 1030 hrs to take up the question hour.The agitating SC/ST MLAs raised slogans in favour of their demand. The Speaker Immediately adjourned the House till 1500 hrs without transacting any business. UNI BD DP PL RSA GC1730 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-735504.Xml
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today assured journalists of immediate arrest of all assailants involved in the brutal killing of senior scribe Rajdeo Ranjan in Siwan recently. A delegation of Journalists' coordination committee comprising senior journalists from the state called on Mr Kumar in support of their five-point charter of demands including financial support of Rs 25 lakh to the bereaved family by the state government. Expressing his anguish over the murder of Mr Ranjan, working for a leading Hindi daily, Mr Kumar said the top most priority of the government was to put all criminals involved in the killing of the journalist behind bars. "For me, an attack on a journalist is not less than an attack on myself" the CM remarked while reassuring that the state government would not leave anything to chance in its bid to bring all culprits to justice at the earliest. In addition to the financial support to the bereaved family, senior journalists in their memorandum to the CM also demanded regularisation of service of the slain leader`s wife Asha Yadav presently working as a contractual teacher, free education to children of the journalist, adequate security cover to family members of the journalist and also creation of an environment under which journalists could work fearlessly. The delegation included convener of the journalists' coordination committee Ravi Upadhyaya and other senior scribes Ashish Kumar Mishra, Nivedita, Shivendra Narayan Singh, Ganga Prasad and Kulbhushan.UNI DH AKM RSA AS1851 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0213-735662.Xml
Former chairman of the now-defunct Mizoram Agriculture Marketing corporation (MAMC) has been arrested in connection with misappropriation of more than Rs 260 lakh.Following a complaint submitted by Mamco employees in December last year, the Anti Corruption Bureau arrested Lalremthanga a few days ago, and he is now in judicial custody. Lalremthanga, who was deputy manager of Mamco and taking managing director's charge during 2010-14, allegedly siphoned off around Rs 268 lakh, meant for establishment of Kendriya Vidyalaya Schools in Mizoram. Mamco was made a nodal agency to implement the HRD ministry-funded projects. Mamco is one of the three PSUs that Mizoram government has recently abolished due to heavy losses incurred by them. According to the complaint, Lalremthanga illegally took about Rs 268 lakhs from prospective contractors and suppliers for establishment of KVS in two places. As per the agreement between Mamco and KVS, the former would receive 7 per cent of the estimated amount as agency charge. The amount Lalremthanga allegedly took from the contractors and suppliers was not deposited into the Mamco's bank account, but instead into the account of his alleged accomplice named Mustagar Rahman. After they were awarded the contract, the contractors and suppliers made a complaint to the Mamco asking for refund of the money they had given to the managing director. After investigation, the ACB found that Lalremthanga has taken money from seven contractors/suppliers. The ACB has also questioned these contractors and suppliers, and is gathering more evidences.The accused will appear before the Special Judge under Prevention of Corruption Act on May 26 next.UNI ZS BM SW GC1800 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0214-735650.Xml
A 'most wanted' militant was killed while two of his associates were arrested from a remote area along the Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir today. ''A militant of 'A' category from Baramulla identified as Abu Bilal died when he fell into a deep gorge while giving a slip to security forces during a joint raid conducted on specific inputs in Poonch district,'' Danish Rana, Inspector General of Police, Jammu Zone here told UNI. Mr Rana said Bilal was among the most wanted and 'listed' militant while two of his associates have also been taken into custody.''We are investigating the matter as the arrested militants are being shifted to the police station for interrogation,'' adding that the body of the slain militant has been retrieved. Cash worth thousands was also recovered from the militant. ''So far no ammunition or weapon has been recovered from them,'' said the top cop adding that the arrested militants might be the new recruits and whether they infiltrated or were about to ex-filtrate is yet to be ascertained. The matter is under investigation, said Mr Rana.UNI VBH RSA AE 1948 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-736031.Xml
An uneasy calm prevailed in Azamgarh with the heavy police force patrolling in the trouble-torn areas to avert any further clash as a delegation of BJP was refused entry in the area. A BJP delegation was stopped at Barabanki which was on its way to Azamgarh today. "Additional director general of police, law and order, Daljeet Singh Chowdhury, IG of Varanasi Zone, along with IG ATS and IG STF were camping in the district and talks were on with the public to defuse the tension", confirmed IG (public grievances) Ashok Mutha Jain, while confirming that communal tension still gripped Azamgarh though no fresh violence has been reported for the past 24-hours. "Besides senior officers and police force from neighbouring districts, a dozen companies of Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and two companies of Rapid Action Force (RAF) has been positioned to maintain peace," Mr Jain disclosed while confirming that so far seven people have been arrested in connection with violence. However, no one was arrested for torching the house of dalit and attacking the occupants. "Seven persons have been arrested and named FIR has been lodged against 21 persons which included one Feroz while 150-200 unidentified persons were also named in it," he revealed here.Talking to the media, Mr Jain disclosed that on May 3 last one Musafir Ram, a Dalit hailing from Khudadadpur area of Azamgarh, was assaulted by one Danish, a resident of the same locality. On the next morning, Ram lodged a case in the matter naming Danish. Reports said that irked with the move, Danish and his accomplishes threatened Ram for lodging a case against him and he first attacked the dalit family and later torched his house the same night. Reports said that when the local police took no action against the culprits involved in attack on Ram's house and torched it, local residents belonging to particular community staged a strong protest which later resulted in clash between the two communities late on last Saturday night. Mr Jain said that police went to defuse the situation but they had to fight pitch battle for several hours before the heavy police rushed to the spot which managed to defuse the situation. He said that circle officer of Sadar in Azamgarh, Krishna Kant Saroj was hit by a bullet in his hand while SDM Nizamudin also received serious injuries along with over two dozen others. Mr Jain claimed that soon after the news of violence reached Lucknow, senior officers which included ADG (law and order) Daljeet Singh Chowdhary, IG STF, IG ATS, IG Varanasi Zone, DIG of Azamgarh range and other senior officers rushed to the spot and were camping there since Sunday morning to avert any further clash. UNI MB CJ AE 1955 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-736051.Xml
Puducherry recorded the highest voting turnout with 81.94 percent, while Tamil Nadu and Kerala stood at 69.19% and 71% respectively.

"Overall polling percentage of 81.94% recorded in Puducherry Assembly election till 5pm...Overall polling percentage of 71% recorded in Kerala Assembly election till 6pm, which is likely to go up," Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha told media here.

"Overall polling percentage of 69.19% recorded in Tamil Nadu Assembly election till 5pm," he added.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the voters in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala to vote in record numbers .

In response to the Met Department prediction of showers in Puducherry, the Election Commission had raised pavilions in front of polling stations to provide protection from elements for voters.

233 seats went to polls Tamil Nadu today, while polling was held in 140 and 30 seats in Kerala and Puducherry respectively.

Counting of votes for Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, West Bengal and Assam Assembly elections will be held on May 19. (ANI)
Legal correspondents today took out a march to protest against the killing of senior journalist Rajdeo Ranjan and demanded CBI probe, speedy trial in the case.The protest march began from state bar council building near Patna High Court and culminated into a meeting at Income Tax roundabout.Later, a large number of legal correspondents castigated the state government for the brutal murder of the senior scribe Rajdeo Ranjan in Siwan on Friday.On the occasion, Arvind Ujjawal of Bihar Legal Correspondents Association said the Centre should order a CBI probe into the killing of the journalist by accepting the state government's recommendation in this regard. He claimed the local police were not in a position to hold an impartial inquiry into the case. Mr Ujjawal also pressed for speedy trial in the case so that assailants were brought to justice without any unnecessary loss of time.UNI XC DH PR SB2154 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0214-736188.Xml
The presidency has noted the story in the Sunday Times alleging an imminent arrest of Gordhan, presidential spokesperson Bongani Ngqulunga said.

The newspaper claimed that Gordhan could soon be arrested after anti-crime unit, the Hawks, reportedly handed a docket over to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for his involvement in the SA Revenue Service's (SARS') "rogue unit" which was allegedly spying on taxpayers during his time as SARS' commissioner during 1999 and 2009, according to Xinhua.

"We have also noted the response of law enforcement agencies which have swiftly denied the rumour," Ngqulunga said.

It is clear therefore that the story is the work of dangerous information peddlers who wish to cause confusion and mayhem in the country, he said.

Zuma and the whole of government are focused on the goal of reigniting economic growth, preserving existing jobs and creating more jobs through working together with business and labour, Ngqulunga said.

Meanwhile, spokesperson for the NPA, Luvuyo Mfaku, also claimed that no decision has been made to prosecute Gordhan and that the matter remained under investigation.

Gordhan has said the so-called "rogue unit" was lawfully established to perform very important functions for and on behalf of SARS.

This was in line with tax laws which have always vested SARS with wide powers for the investigation of tax matters, including the investigation of crimes with tax implications, said Gordhan.

Gordhan was appointed by Zuma in early December last year to replace his predecessor Nhlanhla Nene.

--IANS vr/

( 273 Words)

2016-05-16-04:02:05 (IANS)
Dominican Republic President Danilo Medina was poised to win a second term in line with poll projections that suggested his record of fast economic growth and social projects swayed voters despite accusations of graft.In preliminary results from 12 per cent of polling stations, Medina's coalition won 61 per cent of the vote, a margin that if sustained would be enough to avoid a runoff election in June.The election was marred by a shootout at one polling station, long lines and grumbles from smaller parties over the method of counting.Authorities allowed voting to continue for an extra hour until 7 pm (0430 IST) after delays at some centers.A Gallup-Hoy poll published on April 25 showed Medina winning 63 per cent of the vote. Preliminary results gave his nearest rival, businessman Luis Abinader, 36 per cent of the vote.The remaining six candidates combined included the first two women running for the presidency in a Dominican election.A left-of-center economist, Medina has had high popularity ratings during the latter part of his four-year term in the country of 10.4 million. Electoral rules were changed to allow him to run for a second consecutive term."I won't be satisfied until progress reaches everyone, when growth means a table full of food for everyone," Medina, 64, said at a rally to close his campaign on Thursday.Medina's Dominican Liberation Party has been continuously in power since 2004.Abinader promised to double down on social spending and reduce crime. The challenger also focused on allegations of corruption related to a power plant awarded to Brazilian engineering conglomerate Grupo Odebrecht.Medina's campaign chief, Joo Santana, returned to Brazil in February to face charges Odebrecht had paid him funds siphoned from Brazil's state oil company Petrobras in offshore accounts to finance the 2014 election campaign of suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.Medina has yet to refer to the Petrobras scandal, but he did admit the Brazilian political strategist was his top adviser. Santana has called the allegations against him "baseless."With the fastest growing economy in Latin America in 2014 and 2015, Dominican Republic is wealthier than Haiti, its poor neighbor on the island of Hispaniola.Medina has overseen the repatriation of tens of thousands of people with roots in Haiti. The policy is popular at home but condemned by human rights groups. REUTERS DS RAI0651 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-734673.Xml
Dominican Republic President Danilo Medina was poised to win a second term easily, with early results showing his record of fast economic growth and social projects swayed voters despite accusations of graft.In preliminary results from 15 per cent of polling stations, Medina's coalition won 61 per cent of the vote, a margin that if sustained would be enough to avoid a runoff election in June.The preliminary results gave his nearest rival, businessman Luis Abinader, 35 per cent.A noisy motorcade of Medina's supporters drove through the capital last night blaring music in celebration of his apparent victory.The election was marred by a shootout at one voting center, long lines and grumbles from smaller parties over the method of counting.Authorities allowed voting to continue for an extra hour until 7 pm (0430 IST) after delays at some centers.A left-of-center economist, Medina has had high popularity ratings during the latter part of his four-year term in the country of 10.4 million. Electoral rules were changed to allow him to run for a second consecutive term."I won't be satisfied until progress reaches everyone, when growth means a table full of food for everyone," Medina, 64, said at a rally to close his campaign on Thursday.Medina's Dominican Liberation Party has been continuously in power since 2004.Abinader promised to double down on social spending and reduce crime. The challenger also focused on allegations of corruption related to a power plant awarded to Brazilian engineering conglomerate Grupo Odebrecht.Medina's campaign chief, Joo Santana, returned to Brazil in February to face charges Odebrecht had paid him funds siphoned from Brazil's state oil company Petrobras in offshore accounts to finance the 2014 election campaign of suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.Medina has yet to refer to the Petrobras scandal, but he did admit the Brazilian political strategist was his top adviser. Santana has called the allegations against him "baseless."With the fastest growing economy in Latin America in 2014 and 2015, Dominican Republic is wealthier than Haiti, its poor neighbor on the island of Hispaniola.Medina has overseen the repatriation of tens of thousands of people with roots in Haiti. The policy is popular at home but condemned by human rights groups.Despite the strong economy, many Dominicans struggle to meet basic needs, and poverty rates rose to 41 per cent in the first year of Medina's term, according to the World Bank.New schools and health spending in recent years have won Medina support, and poverty has started to decline.The remaining six candidates combined had less than 4 per cent of votes, including the first two women running for the presidency in a Dominican election. REUTERS DS RAI0741 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-734682.Xml
The Turkish military killed 16 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters in an operation backed by air power near the Iranian border and another six militants elsewhere in southeast Turkey, the armed forces said today.The air force-backed operation was carried out in Yuksekova while the other six fighters were killed in fighting near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, the military said in a statement. All the clashes occurred yesterday, it said.REUTERS PY AN1522 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-735288.Xml
Gachhadar asserted in finding a consensus before going to the voting process to decide on the regulations, reports the Himalayan Times.

He pointed out that the opposition parties should think that people would take them positively if the regulations were passed in consensus.

Asserting that the size of the Parliamentary Hearing Special Committee should be determined as per the new Constitution, he said the committee could disqualify decisions of the government regarding impeachment of the chiefs of the constitutional bodies and other officials appointed on political basis with the two-thirds majority.

He also said that the government was ready to hold local bodies' election and both Nepali Congress and Madhesi Morcha should be positive for the same.

Expressing his view over the current agitation of the Federal Alliance, he said that it was not suitable to launch agitation as the government had urged the Alliance for talks time and again.

He pressed that all problems would be resolved through dialogues.(ANI)
The Kim Jung-un-led regime, in a statement, expressed openness to discussing any proposal South Korea may make with frankness, Efe news reported.

Without offering more details on the hypothetical proposal it expects from Seoul, Pyongyang urged South Korea not to link North Korea's nuclear programme with bilateral relations.

In February, South Korea broke off the few remaining ties with North Korea, including closing the Kaesong joint industrial complex, after Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test and launched a space rocket using long-range missile technology.

The period since then has witnessed simmering tension between the neighbours, including exchange of threats and heightened military preparedness on both sides, especially during the Seoul-Washington joint military drills on South Korean territory in March and April.

Pyongyang's latest gesture -- despite being vague and conditional -- could be a first step towards improving relations between the two countries that are technically still at war since the armistice that ended the Korean War (1950-53) was never replaced with a definitive peace treaty.

--IANS py/dg

( 218 Words)

2016-05-16-19:04:17 (IANS)
A contemporary story of the traditional travelling theatre in India and a more than half-century old neorealist film from Pakistan have stolen the show at the 69th Cannes Film Festival's prestigious section celebrating preservation of cinema.'The Conema Travellers' by Indian filmmakers Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya and a restored version of ''Jago Hua Savera' (Day Shall Dawn) by Pakistani director Aaejay Kardar were screened on the same day at the Cannes Classics yesterday.Among those present were both the Indian directors and Salima Hashmi, the daughter of celebrated poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz.'Jago Hua Savera', shot in the then East Pakistan, is the first ever Pakistani film to be screened in the Cannes Classics section, which has shown several of the restored films by Indian masters like Satyajit Ray, Mrinan Sen and Ritwik Ghatak.'The Cinema Travellers', the 96-minute documentary on the dying art of travelling theatre, has been made by the Indian directors after a long research of seven years. "Our film celebrates the way in which we all go to theatres and see movies," said Abraham, a debut filmmaker born in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.The film follows travelling theatres bundled in old trucks that haul projectors and screens to faraway villages. The filmmakers trace the journey of the traditional exhibition method that is disappearing following the arrival of digital technology-based equipment.'The Cinema Travellers', the only Indian full length film in the Cannes official selection this year, is in the race for the Camera d'Or prize for first-time filmmakers.'Jago Hua Savera', about the life of fisherman in Saitnol village near Dhaka, was restored by the family of its producer after years of search for a surviving print. "My father produced the film, which was lost, and we discovered later," said Anjum Taseer, the son of the producer, at the Cannes screening. The story, lyrics and dialogue of the film was written by Faiz."The film was made in a difficult period in the history of Pakistan when my father and many other artists had been imprisoned by the military regime," said Hashmi, the Lahore-based daughter of Faiz.The Pakistani military regime had also tried to stop the premiere of the film in London in 1958. "Several young Pakistani writers involved in the making of the film had been branded by the government as Communists," said Taseer.The film, in Urdu, also features Bengali dialogue. UNI XC RSA AE 1810 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0104-735708.Xml
The son of former Honduras President Porfirio Lobo pleaded guilty on Monday to conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, a year after his arrest in Haiti as part of a US Drug Enforcement Administration probe.Fabio Lobo, 44, faces a mandatory 10-year minimum prison term when he is sentenced on Sept. 15, and could get up to life behind bars following his plea to a single count of conspiring to import cocaine.At a hearing in federal court in Manhattan, Lobo admitted to participating in a drug trafficking scheme that a federal prosecutor said also involved Honduran police officers."I knew that it was illegal," Lobo said.Lobo's father was elected president of Honduras in late 2009 after a military coup ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya. Porfirio Lobo left office in January 2014, when Juan Orlando Hernandez assumed the presidency.At the time of his son's arrest, Porfirio Lobo said he hoped his son was innocent, "but if he is guilty, he should take responsibility for his actions."In court, Assistant US Attorney Emil Bove said evidence showed that beginning in late 2013, Lobo began discussing drug trafficking activities with confidential DEA sources posing as drug traffickers.The goal, he said, was to profit from facilitating drug-running through Honduras. The notoriously violent Central American country has long served as a major transshipment point for U.S.-bound cocaine smuggled out of South America.As part of the scheme, Lobo introduced confidential sources to a "high-ranking official" who declined to participate in the deal, as well as police officials who could take steps to help them, he said.Manuel Retureta, Lobo's lawyer, declined outside of court to discuss those allegations, but said his client "made a mistake" by getting close to individuals involved in large-scale drug trafficking."He is stepping forward to take responsibility for what he did," he saidREUTERS CJ -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0098-736332.Xml
Picture shows the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, collectively known as the Belt and Road initiative. (Xinhua)

BANGKOK, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Heads of government and other high-level officials from around Asia and the Pacific region have been convening in Bangkok for the 72nd session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), where they will debate regional cooperation and integration from May 15 to 19.

A ministerial roundtable will be held on May 18 with a focus on the theme of the 72nd session: science, technology and innovation for sustainable development, followed by a seminar on China's Belt and Road Initiative.

"ESCAP regards the Belt and Road Initiative as a historical momentum for Asian-Pacific countries in promoting infrastructure construction and software connectivity," Shamshad Akhtar, Executive Secretary of the ESCAP, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

"We think it is a great opportunity for ESCAP and China to cooperate together," Shamshad Akhtar said.

On April 11, Shamshad Akhtar was invited to Beijing and signed a proposal on jointly boosting regional connectivity and the Belt and Road Initiative.

It stresses that the two sides will jointly plan concrete actions to promote connectivity and the Belt and Road Initiative, encourage countries along the route to align their policies and boost pragmatic cooperation.

The proposal is the first cooperation document on the Belt and Road Initiative between China and an international organization.

As for the incentive of signing this proposal, Akhtar explained, "we do believe that ESCAP, as a multi-dimensional organization, is consistent with the spirit of the Belt and Road Initiative, which itself is multi-dimension and multilateral in nature."

She said the ESCAP has a long-standing tradition in promoting cooperation and integration in the Asia-Pacific region, acting as a very honest inter-governmental platform to negotiate agreements of transport, energy, and ICT.

"ESCAP is an inter-governmental organization with more than 60 members, almost like an Asia-Pacific regional parliament, there is no other parallel mechanism like it."

"ESACP is not a political entity, but we need to develop strong political commitments, working with sub-regional organizations, and we need countries to work collaboratively," She added.

"We will have to use some kind of criteria to define what would be a high priority of the Belt and Road Initiative. Connectivity, of course, we would like to promote."

Belt and Road Initiative is about seamless connectivity, meanwhile, ESCAP is advocating seamless connectivity, for example, Asian roadways need to be connected with railways, dry-ports need to be connected with inland areas, and then all roads should lead to maritime seaports.

Furthermore, what ESCAP brings in added value is agreements, harmonization and standardization of laws and regulations, as well as electronic and paperless trade.

It is not only talking about cargo infrastructure, but also people-to-people connectivity, enhancing cultural communication and good values.

These are deep and varied elements that ESCAP offered for the Belt and Road Initiative cooperation.

The ESCAP not only advocated and promoted the Asian Highway Network, the Trans-Asian Railway Network, but also the Asian Energy Highway.

ESCAP brings dialogues on an inter-governmental platform, to promote development of an Asian power grid, to develop a network of sub-regional initiatives with a view to eventually realizing an integrated power market for the region, as well as urging the use of more renewable energy.

"There are a lot of overlaps between ESCAP's game plan and the Chinese game plan. Members of ESCAP are going to benefit from Belt and Road. On the other hand, ESCAP will play a special role as an institutional and regional broker for regional connectivity and integration," said the UN official.

"In addition, we are looking to China to champion the cause of greater regional connectivity, integration and cooperation for the mutual benefit of all the people of Asia and the Pacific region."

Related:

China Focus: Asian businessmen treading on China's "belt and road"

BEIJING, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Boonyong looks forward to lower transport costs when a rail network connecting China and Thailand is completed.

Currently his rice products are delivered by road and sea which takes about three and five days respectively. Full Story

World Bank joins AIIB on financing for joint projects

WASHINGTON, April 13 (Xinhua) -- World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) on Wednesday signed the first co-financing framework agreement, paving the way for their cooperation on joint projects this year.
BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists on Monday proposed an international scientific cooperation program for Earth observation to support the Belt and Road Initiative.

The "digital Silk Road" proposal was put forward at an international symposium in Beijing on Earth observation for the Belt and Road. The event was attended by over 300 Earth observation scholars and experts from more than 40 countries and regions along the Belt and Road, as well as international organizations such as UNESCO.

Guo Huadong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), said space-based Earth observation technology will help enhance people's understanding of the Belt and Road in a faster, broader and more accurate way.

The "digital Silk Road" program will hopefully provide statistics and environmental information for the Belt and Road Initiative and support decision making, Guo said.

Fu Bojie, another CAS academician, expressed hopes that Earth observation technology may be used to promote research on natural resources in countries along the Belt and Road, paving the way for more bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

This "digital Silk Road" program will be scientific, open and cooperative and will welcome more countries, organizations and scholars to participate, according to Guo.
Lifers moved from Maximum security

Relatives of prisoners Damien Tommy Ramiah and Michael Rat Maharaj contacted Newsday yesterday to complain that the two life-timers are now being housed in containers which they consider to be sweat boxes and have been refused permission to have their belongings from the MSP given to them at the new facility .

Relatives said that the two prisoners have been unable to adapt to the new environment and have complained about poor ventilation being in the hot sweaty container and are being deprived basic items such as toiletries and other items .

Relatives have since contacted an attorney to send a pre-action protocol letter to Prisons Commissioner Sterling Stewart on the matter. Contacted on the matter, Commissioner Stewart said, when they conform to and can be respectful of prison rules and stop infringing these rules and regulations, by their actions, words and attitudes, an assessment will be done and consideration will be given for their return .

Until that time, we will have to maintain control .

They are not in the Hilton but we try to keep them under humane conditions as much as humanly possible. They have been threatening to kill my officers .

Their behaviour has been unbecoming and my officers feel intimidated by their presence and actions. Commissioner Stewart said that the behaviour of trouble makers will not be tolerated and the appropriate action will be taken. Yesterday Attorney Jagdeo Singh who is representing the interests of the two life-timers said, there is nothing on record to suggest these two prisoners have behaved in any manner suggesting they pose a danger to the prison or prison officers or prisoners. In the circumstances we consider this to be a matter of victimisation, particularly by a senior officer against whom these two prisoners have lodged a complaint and we intend to approach the courts to seek redress.
Fired SSA head files claim

Bisnath was one of five former SSA directors who were fired from the spy agency. A former Assistant Superintendent of Police, he was first appointed on April 17, 2012, and his contract renewed on April 17, 2014, for a further three years, but he was dismissed on November 11, of last year.

He alleged that his removal as Director of the SSA was contrary to the principles of natural justice, as he was not given a fair hearing before his dismissal from the security agency.

No reason was provided to him, he claimed.

Bisnath earned a remuneration package of $40,500 a month and is seeking compensation for loss of earnings, which he has quantified in the sum of $578,000 as well as $291,600 gratuity; $62, 960 vacation leave; $23,800 stress leave, plus interest and damages.

Justice Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell has been assigned the case which has been adjourned to July 26.

In his lawsuit, filed by attorneys Anand Ramlogan SC, Kent Samlal, Jayanti Lutchmedial and Douglas Bayley, Bisnath says he had a right to be given a fair hearing by Cabinet before it decided to advise the President to revoke his appointment.

In his claim, Bisnath said his firing has left him a shell of the man he used to be and continues to be unemployed and cannot return to the Police Service because of Police Service Regulations.

I am in shock that after dedicating over 35 years of my life to my country, I have been discarded from the protective services and the Ministry of National Security, without an explanation, a complaint or worse an opportunity to make representations on my behalf, he said.

Bisnath added that his wife, former journalist Phoolo Dhanny- Maharaj, has been diagnosed with cancer and being unemployed has created hardship for his family. He had 17 months remaining on his appointment.
Bakery burglar jailed 3 years

Ian Marlon Gunnesslal was hauled before Siparia Magistrate Armina Deonarinesingh last Thursday where he pleaded guilty. Court prosecutor Sgt Anthony Baptiste, in relating the facts of the case, said that Quinton Ramdeen secured his businessplace Jus Cakes Bakery located at Clarke Road Junction in Penal, at about 6 pm on Wednesday and went home.

Ramdeen returned the following day at about 8.45 am and discovered the front door broken into.

The prosecutor added that upon checking, Ramdeen discovered quantity of cash, NLCB scratch cards and snacks, missing.

A report was made and Constables Gaffar, Mentor, Boyce and Bharath of the Penal CID began investigations which resulted in Gunnesslals arrest along Abby Street, Batchyia Village, Penal.

All items including the cupcakes were found in a knapsack.

Constables Boyce and Gaffar charged Gunnesslal with shop break-in and larceny as well as possession of house break-in instruments.

The magistrate sentenced the 44-year-old man to three years imprisonment with hard labour.
Coastguardsman killed in accident

Reports are that Reon Arnold, 30, was riding his bicycle near First Citizens Bank in Canaan early on Saturday, when he slammed into a car driven by Lenora Phillips Edwards.

Arnold was rushed to the Scarborough Hospital but succumbed to his injuries while undergoing surgery at the facility. Edwards received minor injuries.

Arnolds brother Keron Antoine Arnold, also died in a car accident two years ago along Shirvan Road. Crown Point Police are investigating.
Winning works from Caribbean authors

The Bocas Lit Fest was packed with opportunities to develop the craft of writing in writing workshops. There were opportunities to learn from wellknown writers who are making their mark on the world. This year, Bocas Lit Fest featured two stalwarts in the literary world: Jamaican writers Olive Senior and Marlon James.

Every year Caribbean writers vie for the OCM Bocas Lit Prize. First, second and third place winners are chosen. Last year, I was head judge and the three books we chose blew me away. Theyre dope, as everyone likes to say today for the highest form of praise. Each book is distinctly different, and each book could have been the first prize winner.

My fellow judges and I did not have an easy time last year deciding the order of the winners.

We decided in the end on Children of the Spider simply because it was distinctly different, and it took the most creative chances. It reminded me of the magical realism novels by Guyanese writer Wilson Harris. Wilsons writing is often difficult for many readers to decipher because they are so far left on the magical spectrum of magical realism. Children of the Spider interpreted Harris theory of magical realism in a very reader- friendly, Young Adult (YA) way.

So, here are the winners from 2015. They are now available in local book stores.

1. Children of the Spider by Guyanese writer Imam Baksh is a hearty combination of folklore, myth adventure and sic/fi. It fits comfortably within dystopian literature as well. This is the story of Magali, who leaves behind her home in another world, Zolpash, as she journeys to Guyana where she meets Joseph, a boy who cannot speak. In many ways this YA West Indian novel is a dystopian take-off on traditional Anancy tales. It has an important message about communication, packaged in a riveting read. Theres nothing quite like this book. If you liked Lisa Allen-Agostinis sci/fi novel The Chalice Project, youll love this book.

2. Gone to Drift by Jamaican writer Diana McCaulay is a beautifully written mystery/adventure set on the island of Jamaica.

Here, Lloyd, a poor boy from a fishing village, is devastated when he learns that his grandfather is missing at sea. Everyone wants Lloyd to accept that his beloved grandfather is gone, but Lloyd refuses to give up. Instead, he enlists the help of a girl who studies dolphins, his best friend Dwight and a mad man called Slowly to find his grandfather. This novel addresses the problem of boys growing up without a father. A fast-moving plot, beautiful imagery and compelling characters makes this book a winner.

3. Dancing in the Rain by Trinidadian writer Lynn Joseph is a touching story of a 12-year-old girl from the Dominican Republic.

Elizabeths life changes when a family member dies after terrorists bring down the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11. Determined to find happiness even when those around her unhappy Elizabeth finds new meaning for her life when two boys arrive on the island. This too is a beautifully written story of faith, friendship, happiness and loss. It is a special story that transcends Caribbean boundaries and becomes international literature.

Ask your favourite bookstore for these books.

When you support Caribbean literature, you keep Caribbean books in print.

Next week: More Bocas Lit Fest books

Book cover st paul.
Rowley: No crime switch

This level of unacceptable violent crime has been with us for quite some time, a sombre Rowley surmised as he sat at the press conference. He recalled the Government had focused on tackling violent crime in a variety of ways, namely by trying to curb the drug trade, firearms availability and gang activities. But the general behaviour and lack of respect for human life in Trinidad and Tobago have come down now to the level where one is beginning to question general conduct, he lamented.

In recent times, Im seeing a lot of people are being killed without firearms being used and without it being (about) drugs, where it was aggravation of one kind and another.

One could put them under the question mark of senseless, but at the end of the day the level of violence in Trinidad is just too high and unacceptable, the Prime Minister said.

He said that in many such cases the Governments role doesnt begin until after the crime has been committed, but meanwhile the Government must do nothing to encourage any growth in such misbehaviour.

Asked if the economic crunch produces personal stresses that could turn trivial spats into murders, he said, to take your point, insofar as economic stress may contribute to personal behaviour, we (must) work towards lowering that economic stress by improving the economic circumstances. Yet Dr Rowley also noted that high-crime rates also existed in the economic good times, adding, So one doesnt exclude the other (crime and the state of the economic).

Its a problem of violent conduct.

Our society is labelling itself as a violent society. And one can lose ones life for the slightest thing. And that is not a matter that the Government can come and say , Look, Im going to flick a switch and turn it off , he said.

Where we can do things we will do. For example, I understand that the speed gun is having an effect.

There are things that we can do and at the end of the day the national security agencies and Government at large have a responsibility to bring about a feeling of safety in the national community and to secure the national community.

And those things well keep on doing on a sustained basis. Rowley said that while overseas he held talks on national security with both the United States and United Kingdom Governments.

Regarding the US, he said TT could not focus only on performing suppression of illegal activities without help from America. Further, he said he tried to link such TT-US cooperation to getting TT access to US markets to sell traditional items, a move which could help stop TT serving as a nursery for criminal activities.

He said that in London he had met the British National Crime Agency to discuss significant matters of interest to TT and the UK, but pressed by Newsday for details he simply said this concerned the ability to share information, monitor threats, prepare for incidents, training and TT accessing support from the UK.
Focus on teenaged pregnancies, not marriage

Maharaj was responding to the organisations recent call for child marriages to be outlawed in this country .

In a statement, the womens organisation said, laws that permit the marriage of young girls with parental consent in cases where the male is several years her senior is in reality permitting statutory rape or child abuse. Such oppressive laws cannot be allowed to remain on the statute books. But in an interview on the weekend, Maharaj referred to a newspaper article which stated that 74 girls under the age of 16, gave birth at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EW MSC) in Mt Hope last year .

These (the Hindu Women Organisation) women should be concerned about that. All they want to do is follow what the foreign countries have done and try to build pressure on the Hindu, Muslim and Orisha communities, Maharaj said .

Maharaj said the law allowing child marriages should remain on the statute books because it acts as a safety net. If young people engage in sex and a child is on the way, you get them married under that law. So in that sense, it is there as a safety net, he reasoned .

Head of the Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO) Harrypersad Maharaj, said the IRO met on Monday last and unanimously agreed that no government or law should interfere with child marriages .

He said they have found it has been one of the best things to guide society in terms of moral and spiritual values as it relates to family life .

There is no benefit in saying people should marry at an older age .

In todays cases, they are making their own choices but we are having more divorces than marriage. It is not good for the society in terms of the family life. There is no justification even in terms of social issues, that it is going to be any benefit to society, Bro Maharaj said .
No report for years

That report revealed that none of the 267 instances of interception were done by way of a warrant obtained by a judge. All of the intercepts were done by the Strategic Services Agency (SSA).

The offences covered included: counter narcotics; counter terrorism; human trafficking; serious crime; arms and ammunition; and state of emergency.

Instead of invoking provisions requiring a warrant, another section of the act, allowing interception for evidentiary purposes, was invoked. Under Section 6(2) (b) of the Act authorised officers may intercept for four reasons: national security; preventing crime; safeguarding the economic well-being of the State or effecting international arrangements.

Offences such as money laundering, human trafficking and/or participation in terrorist activities present serious threats to the safety and stability of the State and, by extension, the region, the report states. Interception of communications provides a means for the police to detect and investigate the commission of such offences.

NO ANNUAL REPORTS

While Section 24 of the Act  once hailed as a Parliamentary safeguard  calls for the tabling of an annual report, to date only one report is on file at the Parliament Library. Section 24 states, The Minister shall, within three months, after the end of each year, in relation to the operation of the Act in the immediately preceding year, prepare a report relating to  (a) the number of warrants applied for to intercept communications.

This report is meant to state, a general assessment of the importance of interception of private communications for the investigation, detection, prevention and prosecution of offences in the State. It is supposed to be tabled in both Houses of Parliament.

Questions have been raised about the effectiveness of Parliament oversight of intelligence functions in the wake of legislation to widen the powers of the SSA. The Interception of Communications Act  brought by the Peoples Partnership  was passed unanimously in Parliament in 2010 after a series of talks between Government and Opposition MPs in November 2010.

Independents were not included.

However, these talks also involved the Law Association and the Criminal Bar Association.

We have concluded our discussions on the committee and we have arrived at an amicable solution to some of the problems, then Government Whip Dr Roodal Moonilal told reporters at the Red House on November 24, 2010.

Then Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley had initially called for the interception legislation to be referred to an in camera Joint Select Committee but then settled for informal talks between both sides of the House.

The current Joint Select Committee on National Security is chaired by a Cabinet Minister, Works Minister Fitzgerald Hinds. Colm Imbert, in his capacity as Acting Prime Minister, earlier this month said the issue of a Cabinet member chairing an oversight committee was not problem. The Opposition has disagreed, saying it was an unprecedented development in the Commonwealth.

In addition to reports, regulations under the act do not appear to have been tabled.

Interception of Communications Act

SECTION 24 (1) The Minister shall, within three months, after the end of each year, in relation to the operation of the Act in the immediately preceding year, prepare a report relating to (a) the number of warrants applied for to intercept communications; (b) the number of warrants granted by the Court; (c) the number of warrants applied for and granted under section 11; (d) the average period for which warrants were given; (e) the number of warrants refused or revoked by the Court; (f) the number of applications made for renewals; (g) the number and nature of interceptions made pursuant to the warrants granted; (h) the offences in respect of which warrants were granted, specifying the number of warrants given in respect of each of those offences; (i) the numbers of persons arrested whose identity became known to an authorised officer as a result of an interception under a warrant; (j) the number of criminal proceedings commenced by the State in which private communications obtained by interception under a warrant were adduced in evidence and the number of those proceedings that resulted in a conviction; (k) the number of criminal investigations in which information obtained as a result of the interception of a private communication under a warrant was used although the private communication was not adduced in evidence in criminal proceedings commenced by the State as a result of the investigations; (l) the number of prosecutions commenced against persons under sections 6, 7, 8, 17, 19 and 21 and the outcome of those prosecutions; (m) a general assessment of the importance of interception of private communications for the investigation, detection, prevention and prosecution of offences in the State; and (n) any other matter he considers necessary.

(2) The Minister shall cause a copy of the report prepared by him under subsection (1) to be laid before both Houses of Parliament within one month after its completion.
Consultant calls for revamp

He noted there was a serious issue with persons adhering to their health regime, adding that younger people were presenting with heart disease and hypertension because they did not manage their health.

He said TTs population was exceedingly sick and people have a personal responsibility for their own health. This was all in relation to World Hypertension Day, observed last Monday.

Lynch said hypertension is a major problem in Trinidad and Tobago. Even though people may be accessing free drug medication, which is in itself amazing, that responsibility of managing their disease has to be improved. We really have to revamp our primary health care system, he said.

Lynch said when a Government invests in a primary health care system it would not see the effect until 15 years, so it required a sustained effort to sustain the burden of communicable diseases.

If you invest $1 in primary health care, you can save $5...

but in 15 years and this is why we must adhere to a particular philosophy no matter what regime comes in. Hypertension is a burden and it is a largely a lifestyle-based disease. There is a hereditary component to it and a greater occurrence in the black population, he said.

Lynch said in the United States there has a disproportionate number of African- Americans who have to undergo dialysis. He attributed this to poor lifestyle, heavy lifestyle consumption of alcohol.

Not Trinidadian moderate.

Moderate is defined as one drink for a woman and one or two for a man, not Friday night at Smokey and Bunty, he said.

Lynch said risk reduction in hypertension would prevent two per cent strokes and heart attacks over a four-year period.

We have to raise awareness and it takes more than the stakeholders. It takes the media and the health care agencies, he said.

Lynch said TT was one probably the only country in the Caribbean that had universal dialysis.

He said this not only helped people to live, but was also also a human rights issue. When dialysis is not available you die.

When I was an intern, if you needed dialysis and you had no money, you died.

We are now seeing younger and younger people presenting with renal disease, heart disease, diabetes, but that is not the problem. Because it is an asymptomatic disease you really dont manage it and then they turn up ten years later with their kidneys gone, they need amputation, their eyes are bad and that is the problem with asymptomatic diseases.

It is very difficult to try and convince your patient that they need to do this because in 15 years time they will be like this if they dont change their action, he said.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said there was a culture in Trinidad where people thought they are invincible.

It is a normal culture of alcohol consumption, of eating the wrong foods, drinking soft drinks (soda) as if it is going out of style. We are going to have a non-communicable diseases (NCD) intervention as soon as humanly possible, he saidD eyalsingh said a major component with NCDs was personal responsibility at the level of the individual, the lifestyle changes that needed to be made.

We need to exercise more, get up more. When we look at the rate of childhood obesity they are frightening. There is also a culture in TT where men would decide that because there was a long weekend, they would forego their medication to indulge.
Rowley: IDB loan for TT-Ghana energy projects

He spoke to reporters at Piarco Airport upon his return from meeting IDB officials in Washington DC and officials in Ghana whose energy- sector he hoped TT could help develop.

Rowley said the IDB had endorsed TTs visit to Ghana, including projects the National Gas Company (NGC) and Petrotrin might undertake based on Ghanas abundance of natural gas and oil. If we do find something that we want to do out there, the IDB is prepared to partner with us, he said. Rowley hailed this as a first-time kind of arrangement whereby the IDB is encouraging links between developing countries.

They believe this could be a model for other developing countries where resources and cross-benefits could be had on both sides, he explained. Those discussions will continue, and everything in Ghana depends on what gas is available and how much exploration is there. Saying, Our visit to Ghana did not go unnoticed, Dr Rowley revealed an unexpected development whereby Nigeria sent their own two delegations to Ghana to talk energy with Rowley.

He said one delegation of very high-ranking private-sector people sought more cooperation between TT and Nigeria. They wanted us to pay the same kind of attention to Nigeria because they are of the view that there are possibilities in Nigeria of a similar nature as the ones we discussed with Ghana, he explained.

The Nigerians were keen to access energy- sector training and education in TT. Thats an area where we have some potential, and almost immediately we can begin those discussions. Rowley said Nigeria is a federation of States.

River State, one of the oil-producing States in Nigeria, was very keen to show that whatever we are interested in in Ghana, we should also see the potential for further discussions in Nigeria. He said the potential of this trip is to open doors for TT.

We must understand that we can only rely so much on whats going on within our border, asserted Rowley.

We are at a stage in our development and our history  where if we are to find growth and expansion significant and commensurate with where we are at now, to maintain our standard of living, and to have the infrastructure to support us going forward - we need to look beyond our border for those opportunities.

That is what this trip was all about. However, Rowley also bought the bad news of the United States having recently exported eight cargoes of liquified natural gas (LNG), to be a direct rival to TTs LNG exports (in contrast to TT once supplying 75 percent of LNG consumed by the US eastern seaboard).

What was anticipated has begun, he lamented.

This is of great significance to us. He also noted that Jamaica has just built the first of two re-gasification plants, indicating its switch from gasoline to LNG. And that brings TT into some serious positions as to who will supply Jamaica and on what terms.

So these are discussions that we have to be very cognisant about, and have to get our act together very quickly. Rowley also said his talks in London with BP had underlined TTs need to ensure a steady gas-supply so as to attract new industries to TT. He hoped an exploration of new areas in deep waters could increase this countrys sum of proven and probable gas reserves from a current timeline of 10 to 12 years at current consumption, up to 20 years. He said the BP talks had mulled all possibilities.

Follow-up talks will be held within the next few weeks. He said that even economic diversification will first require oil and gas supplies.
PM bats for Faris: UNC dislikes AG

Asked if hed defend his AG, Rowley replied, I dont think I have to defend the Attorney-General.

I think the Attorney- General can defend himself very well. He added, It is no surprise to us that the UNC has no confidence in the Attorney-General.

You know the kind of attorney-general that they have confidence in, and our Attorney-General does not fit that mode. So we are not surprised at all. Asked if he was pleased with his Cabinet or would there be a reshuffle, Dr Rowley replied, You could never be satisfied with everything.

There is always room for improvement, across the board. Much time has been spent to put the Government into office, and that process continues, he added.

Rowley contrasted his Government to the predecessor Peoples Partnership (PP) that he dubbed a disaster zone. We have come from a place of great chaos. Even though we have got a lot of challenges in front of us now and a lot of work to be done, and we have a Cabinet made up of a lot of new people/young people, they are finding their feet and we are a whole lot better off than when we came in. He vowed to supply the best governance to TT, even as Cabinet settles in.

That will continue, and when the time comes for adjustments to be made to Cabinet, well make the adjustments, he said. When the last government was in office, by this time how many bacchanals did we have by now? Its a complete difference, and we are now settling down to serious work in very, very challenging times.
Deyalsingh: No medical mafia in TT

Deyalsingh said reports that $60 million was spent on the EPP were erroneous and it was more in the region of $26 million. Deyalsingh said the EPPs initiative was to help persons who could not access help from the private sector and had to depend on the public sector.

He said all these programmes had noble intentions, but with time, there was something called Project Creep where the noble intentions sometimes got overtaken by expediency.

Deyalsingh said the EPP covered dialysis which costs $15 million per year and the waiting list for surgery was $11 million. Those are the two main components of the EPP programme he said.

The minister said there were other components that did not fall under the EPP, adding that cardiac and by-pass surgery costs about $7 million and did not fall under the EPP. Deyalsingh said there was an increase in cataract surgeries as from June 2014 to September 2015, there were 2,223 cataract surgeries, a definite increase over the past year.

When I became minister and started looking at the cost of cataract surgery in the private sector and looked at the data from 2009-2014, the number was 48 with the rest going out into the private sector.

We started, in November 2015, a cataract surgery initiative at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital so we are shifting back from the private sector into the public sector where they belong, and we are saving tons of money. We have increased surgeries from 48 to close to 100, he said.

As such the waiting list of surgery has been reduced considerably.

We have rejected 31 applications because what was happening before was that people were being seen in the private sector exclusively and then applying for the state to pay for their surgery. The private sector, not following the protocol where you have to be seen in the public sector first, we are now insisting that they follow protocol. You must be a patient at a public institution before you can be referred by a consultant, Deyalsingh said.
Baptiste: TT can look to Ghana

He pointed to political stability, similar legal framework, shared cultural touch points and economies based on agriculture, manufacturing and energy as ways Ghana can offer opportunities.

He spoke at a cocktail reception hosted by HFC Bank (Ghana) and RFHL last week which was attended by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley during his four-day official visit to Ghana.

Rowley returned home last Saturday, from the overseas trip which also saw him visit the US and London.

The cocktail reception was aimed at reinforcing close historical ties among Ghanaian and TT companies.

In his address, Baptiste also said that the goal of RFHL is to add value to the local context in which it is operating.

In 2012, the Group took what many considered at the time, to be the brave decision of expanding our footprint into sub-saharan Africa, and Ghana in particular, by acquiring an 8.9 percent stake in HFC Bank, Baptiste said.

This month marks the Groups one year anniversary of majority ownership of HFC Bank. In May 2015, RFHL became the majority shareholder in HFC Bank with 57.11 percent equity stake following the Mandatory Tender Offer (MTO) to shareholders with the approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SE C) and the Bank of Ghana.

Working in collaboration with HFC (Ghana), RFHL said it expects to build on the existing strong foundation and grow to achieve new levels of success in the banking industry. Baptiste expressed hope that the partnership built by RFHL and Ghana could be a beacon for what is possible between both countries.

We see opportunities to facilitate linkages between companies in the oil and gas sector in TT and Ghanaian companies. In recognising Robert Le Hunte, Managing Director of HFC Bank (Ghana), Baptiste said Le Hunte was based in Ghana with the responsibility for championing the bilateral possibilities on both sides of the Atlantic.

RFHL said, endorsing similar sentiments, to those of Baptiste, Rowley spoke about this countrys more than a centurys worth of experience in oil and gas production and TTs success in giving value to its natural gas resources.

Our experience with utilising gas both for power generation and for the development of the petrochemical industry, as well as exports of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), could be of interest to countries in Africa and we are keen to share our experience in oil and gas with our brothers in Africa, Rowley said.
What you need to know about the Octagon Art Festival on Sunday in Ames

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Gender Identity: Marxist Plan to Destroy the Family

This past week America got a glimpse into what was really meant when Barack Obama said we were five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America. The president demanded that school districts across the country allow boys who identify as female have access to girls locker rooms, bathrooms and even college dorms. Many people have been warning that Obama has a lot of time left in office to push through some of his most, shall we say, radical ideas in his quest for social change. People would have never imagined back in 2008 however, that this man would one day issue decrees that would ultimately redefine humanity itself by pushing the issue of transgenderism into the forefront of everybodys consciousness.

The liberal left would have you believe that allowing transgendered people to use the restroom of their choice is a civil rights issue comparable to the struggle black Americans have faced. To them America is an oppressive society that clings to the idea of a Gender Binary System. This is the idea that gender itself is nothing more than a social construct based off a persons biological sex and that by separating gender into two distinct classes, male and female, society is engaging in gender oppression. This means that we are forcing individuals into the expected norms and social mores of the biological sex assigned to them at birth. The left uses the term gender identity in an attempt to differentiate between the ways a person self identifies and their actual gender. In fact, they claim that gender itself is defined not by the individuals biological anatomy but by a complex relationship between their actual biology, how they self-identify, and the behaviors they exhibit that project that particular gender identification as well as the expected social roles of that gender.

Biological Gender (sex) includes physical attributes such as external genitalia, sex chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, and internal reproductive structures. At birth, it is used to assign sex, that is, to identify individuals as male or female. Gender on the other hand is far more complicated. It is the complex interrelationship between an individuals sex (gender biology), ones internal sense of self as male, female, both or neither (gender identity) as well as ones outward presentations and behaviors (gender expression) related to that perception, including their gender role. Together, the intersection of these three dimensions produces ones authentic sense of gender, both in how people experience their own gender as well as how others perceive it.

These ideas are Marxist in origin as Karl Marx viewed the nuclear family as a vehicle of class oppression. In a civilized society the most basic institution of self governance is the family structure. Marxists on the other hand, view this structure as one that exploits the labor of women and reduces her to nothing more than a servant of men. They claim that because women are viewed as being the nurturer and caretaker of the home they are being oppressed. This was the idea behind Betty Friedans The Feminist Mystique as well. While Friedan started the feminist movement masquerading as a typical suburban housewife, the truth is radically different. She was actually a radical left wing activist who pushed communist propaganda for nearly twenty five years before publishing her book. This means that she already held a biased, Marxist view on the traditional family and that she wrote her book with the intent of pushing change that would break the traditional view Americans held towards the family as an institution. The following is the first paragraph from The Feminist Mystique.

The problem lay buried, unspoken for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for the groceries, matched slip cover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured cub scouts and brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask of herself the silent questionIs this all?

In her article entitled On the Social Construction of Sex Freya Brown, a Marxist, writes that the idea of gender is a set of baseless myths designed to reinforce and ideologically justify the oppression of women. Again, this comes from the Marxist idea that the family is an oppressive institution that exploits the labor of women while keeping them in the societal role of mother and caretaker. Consider the following from //uregina.ca/~gingrich/o402.htm

Some Marxists view the household as an institution that functions to support capitalism and it permits or even encourages exploitation. That is, by creating and recreating sexual inequalities, and keeping women in the home with responsibility for family subsistence, emotional support and reproduction, the family helps capitalism continue to exploit labour and helps maintains stability within a system of class oppression and inequality. There are various ways in which the family and sex roles do this.

First are the strictly economic features. So long as women have primary responsibility for reproduction (physical and socialization) and household and family maintenance, women constitute a cheap form of labour, a reserve army of labour. T hey have been a latent reserve over the last forty years, some are a short term reserve over the economic cycle, and women are a labour reserve in a generational sense. That is, the expectation that women will not be as committed to many jobs as men, with time taken off for childbearing, child care, care of elderly parents, etc., allows employers to pay women less than men. The lower status of women within society also allows women to be paid less, since some wages and salaries are structured on status considerations.

Brown also goes on to say that it is the patriarchal ideology, or the idea that men are the head of the family structure that needs to be dismantled in order to create true equality. She argues that a Marxist theory should govern society when it comes to gender identity.

At the end of the day, the sex/gender dichotomy is part of patriarchal ideology, and it is an idea that we need to break with in favor of a theory which is revolutionary and Marxist in character. The purpose of the present article is to provide an initial counter to the idea that sex assignment is just biology. A properly Marxist theory of sex will be more thoroughly explored in part two. Freya Brown-On the Social Construction of Sex

The whole purpose behind the transgender issue is not to push for civil rights, but to destroy the basic ideas behind the traditional gender structure and the institution of family. In its place would be a system based on Marxist theory where everybody is completely equal without the societal assigned pressures of having to behave according to our natural biology. Without a legal definition of sex, or male and female, there can be no family where there are traditional mothers and fathers recognized by law; therefore, the family would have been effectively neutralized. Riki Wilchins, in his or her article entitled Well win the Bathroom Battle when the Binary Burns writes that the real struggle that gay and lesbian activists face is the hetero-binary system that queer people must inhabit. This is quite a telling admission seeing as though it was a convicted child rapist who wrote North Carolinas transgender bathroom law. In another article entitled Dismantling the Gender Binary System, written by someone calling themselves Rae, it is admitted that educating people into the idea that gender is a social construct is the only way to break people from the rigid ideas of biological gender being what identifies us as individuals. This would explain why they are pushing the issue into our public school system. By conditioning students at an early age to accept transgender individuals into their personal space, the transition into a genderless society in their later years will be easy.

This is essentially a battle between the traditional Judeo-Christian view on the role of men and women and the Marxist view. The former views men and women as being complete equals with different roles to play in society while the latter argues that believing a woman should embrace her responsibility as a mother is a form of oppression. The left believes that by destroying the idea of biological gender they will essentially be creating a world of total equality where the stigma of behaving according to societys definition of gender is gone. If this goal is realized, and the truth of biological sex is redefined by law under the guise of transgenderism and gender identity theory, the structure of our society would also be redefined because it is the family itself that has served as the basic institution of liberty. There would be no legal definition of men and women in the traditional sense and the idea that fathers and mothers have separate but equal roles to play concerning the raising of children would thus be irrelevant and have no real meaning. If our country is to survive at all, this is an issue that must be fought on all levels.

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11 Credible Predictions for Google I/O 2016

New Delhi, Mon, 16 May 2016 NI Wire

Google I/O 2016 is about to begin from 18th May 2016. In this blog we have introduced all the technologies, gadgets and improvements going to be discussed and showcased at the event.

Google I/O 2016 is just at the doorstep, scheduled to take place from 18th to 20th this month. While expectations are mounting high on the new announcements and unveiling of several projects, developers, techies, IT companies, marketers and enthusiasts are expectantly waiting for the wonders revealed from the tech giant. From the deservingly hyped self-driving car to latest upgrade for Android N to some amazing VR announcements to unveiling of ambitious Project Tango device, Google this year is all set to reveal an impressive array of sophisticated apps, devices and technologies.

Here below we have picked 11 most credible predictions for Google I/O 2016.

1. Android

As expected, at Google I/O this year Android team will lead the haul by offering some sleazy upgrades and announcements. Google has already revealed Android N and naturally except for some bits and pieces of the Android N updates scheduled later this year we cannot expect much to be startled at. But, except Android N Google will have lot of discussions on non-smartphone products on the Android platform such as the Android TV, Android Wear, etc.

2. Driverless cars

Self driving cars from Google once again will have the spotlight at the event this year. Some big news before the event like Googles high-profile partnership with Chrysler made us more enthusiastic about this. Astro Teller who is heading the Google X reportedly said in an interview that this project of self driving cars is very close to getting graduated from its X status. This may be taken as a significant indication that Google may finally come up with a really consumable prototype of its futuristic car.

3. Cloud

Google I/O after almost years of perceptible silence on cloud this year has taken some steps to showcase some latest developments on this front. Google Cloud Platform this year at Google I/O may grab more attention by revealing some latest advances allowing cloud service becoming more powerful and reliable. A whole range of Google Cloud technologies will enjoy focus at discussion forums including machine learning through Vision API, App Engine Flexible Environment, StackDriver monitoring, etc. Google is also prepared to reveal the advances made in Cloud Vision API and Speech API which will take machine learning to another level.

4. Android Wear

Android Wear is surprisingly missing from session schedule of the event. But, hardly anyone can expect the keynote address to be delivered without a word on Android Wear. Several Android Wear updates have been released in past months. IPhone compatibility though seems still not probable

Android Wear may have Windows Phone compatibility shortly and that would really be a big announcement for the platform. Some of the other key updates that are expected now include standalone feature set, enhanced voice control and even gesture enabled controls.

5. Project Tango

Project Tango smartphone is one of the most ambitious projects of Google and it has already garnered immense attention at Mobile World Congress 2016 from developers worldwide. As Project Tango is reportedly nearing the completion, this can be the event to launch the product for the larger audience. Besides the discussion on Whats New with Project Tango the machine learning aspects of the new smart mobile gaming device will also be revealed. Project Tango is more focused on offering a truly immersive Augmented Reality (AR) gaming experience and as game apps are the highest earners in Play Store, this is likely to have a dominating focus at the event.

6. IoT and connected platform

Connected and interactive devices are increasingly leading the device led innovations. Google has arrived with the new IoT platform now that can allow users easily communicate with number of devices. Named as Physical Web this open-source platform facilitate easy and simple interactions across an array of connected devices by the location sensor beacons working to receive signals to and fro.

7. VR

Google I/O this year will offer more focus on VR headsets and technology than all the previous years. With a dedicated content track and seven full sessions completely assigned for discussions on virtual and augmented reality, you can expect them to reveal a lot for the expectant audience. This year at Google I/O, the Cardboard VR device may be announced to have some significant improvements allowing a more immersive experience. Google also can launch a completely stand-alone VR headset that can work independently of the smartphones.

8. Chrome with Android

The Chrome and Android holding hands has been in the rumors for some time now. This long-standing and baffling rumor can finally come to reality as many observers pointed out. If this happens there would be the most versatile OS for both mobile and desktops creating more possibilities for browsing ease and immersive gaming. Android combined with Chrome can bring a robust change and Google I/O maybe gearing for such an announcement anytime soon. As Chrome OS is rapidly becoming the most popular OS for classrooms in the US, such a move undoubtedly will push the growth.

9. Project Ara

Project Ara devices are in the making for some time and is almost nearing the completion. This new Google device reportedly having some impressive stuff is very likely to enjoy some quality focus on-stage this year. Though Project Ara is very probable to make an attention grabbing appearance at Google I/O, still what will be unveiled and to what extent remained unknown to us.

10. Google Play

Google Play for several reasons is going to grab some attention this year. Google Play taking the Chrome OS is a big possibility and there is strong rumor that a special Google Play Store is in the making to be launched in China. So, whatever way it turns out Google Play is likely to make some news. Already some companies and tech observers claimed that Google is working closely with the Government of China to hit the globes largest mobile market with a custom-built Play Store.

11. Project Aura

Project Aura is nothing but the upgraded Google Glass 2.0. It would be the same original Google Glass with enterprise ready features and attributes. Whether the new upgrade would be a through and through enterprise edition or will have a consumer version with some stunning improvements, we have to wait until it takes the stage on Google I/O 2016.
Delhi BJP Demands C.B.I. Inquiry into Delhi Jal Board Scams

New Delhi, Mon, 16 May 2016 NI Wire

Kejriwal Govt. Now Promoting Airflow Meters Which It Protested Earlier

Delhi BJP Demands C.B.I Inquiry into Delhi Jal Board Scams Including The Latest on Water Metera

Till Now People of A to D Categories Cry of Over billing Soon People of Unauthorized Colonies Too Will Cry AMNESTY SCHEME A FARCE ON COMMON MAN

New Delhi, 16th May: Today at a press conference Delhi BJP President Shri Satish Upadhyay said that Delhi Jal Board has become a centre of corruption and an inquiry is needed into its affairs. Water & R.W.A. activists Shri B.B. Tewari, URD General Secretary Shri Saurabh Gandhi who too put their points & BJP Media Incharge Praveen Shankar Kapoor and Spokesperson Shri Harish Khurana were present in the P.C.

Shri Upadhyay & Shri Tewari displayed before the media persons 2 pieces of Jal Board's newly approved IP68 model of water meters with a varying price range of Rs. 1300 to Rs. 2200 and pushing air into them showed that like the past Automated AMR Meters these new models too run with air flow.

Shri Upadhyay said what is baffling is that at present AMR meters available in the market cost around Rs. 700 to Rs. 800 but these new IP68 meters will cost twice to thrice more yet run on airflow. Moreover the approved new range of water meters have a vast variance of price range from Rs. 1300 to Rs. 2200 which obviously means either there is a quality difference between them or companies have been allowed price variance in return of some favours to the ruling party. In both cases consumer stands cheated and scam appears in this price variance. Out of these new models of meters there is a meter of a company named ITRON whose old AMR Meters were the cause of harassment for the people.

Expressing shock at Kejriwal Government's promotion of Airflow Water Meters which are primarily responsible for hefty bills to consumers Shri Satish Upadhyay said the dual character of the C.M. Kejriwal stands exposed. Till 2013 Vidhansabha elections Sh. Arvind Kejriwal used to lead a campaign against Airflow Automated Water Meters popularly called AMR meters but once in power he now wants people to keep using them as evident from the latest approval to new IP68 model of Airflow Water Meters.

Shri Upadhyay said people of Delhi have not forgotten those pictures of Arvind Kejriwal trying to push air into Automated Meters to prove that these meters run on air flow nor have they forgotten the F.I.R. that Kejriwal cronies lodged against the Jal Board about these automated meters. Now in a public notice issued yesterday Kejriwal Government has ordered that consumers can not replace Airflow Automated Meters.

Shri Upadhyay said that conduct of Delhi Jal Board's projects has always been under suspicion but with the way the Arvind Kejriwal government is trying to suppress past corruption in Jal Board, is making false claims of rebate & relief to consumers and for the latest water meters price variance scam we urge the Lt. Governor of Delhi to order a C.B.I. inquiry into Delhi Jal Board affairs.

Shri Upadhyay said that even as BJP has been working to expose Arvind Kejriwal Government's which is doing all that it can do to suppress the Rs. 400 crores Water Tanker Scam we are shocked to see how with manipulations Kejriwal Government is deceiving people with false claims of relief & rebate to people on outstanding water bills.

The so called claims of rebates on outstanding bills needed due to overbilling based on AMR meters is misleading manipulation. The claim of Relief to 11 lacs consumers too is farce.

Using its slab system of rebate all that the Kejriwal government has done is to fool the people into paying almost double the amounts that they fairly needed to pay. Shri Satish Upadhyay said that an average C or D category middle class family @1000 ltrs per day consumes around 30 kiloliters of water in a month meaning 180 kl per month but they had got half yearly bills of around 500 to 600 kl and the same when settled at 50 or even 75% rebates means they paid much above their actual consumption.

Shri Upadhyay said that Kejriwal Government's claims of 11 lacs consumers benefitting by its amnesty scheme is a farce on the common man. The amnesty scheme benefits only those have working water meters and as per a RTI reply of 2015 Jal Board has 19.97 lacs consumers but there were only 9.58 lacs with working meters and eligible for rebate. By any fair count we can assume that half of these 9.58 lacs have paid their bills on time and the other 50% had disputes who could get the benefit. If we add up around 30000 new metered consumers between the dates of RTI reply & announcement of amnesty maximum of 5 lacs consumers will get the benefit. Thus the amnesty scheme is a farce.

Shri Upadhyay said that with Kejriwal Government going ahead to extend its metered consumers network in unauthorised colonies or other lower class colonies with its airflow affected IP68 meters now we will soon find lacs of lower middle class residents crying foul of over billing.

Sh. Upadhyay said it is unimaginable why Kejriwal Government which talks a lot on a resolve to fight corruption is not taking any action on the Delhi Jal Board's Rs. 400 crores Water Tanker Scam during Smt. Sheila Dikshit tenure.

It seems the Kejriwal Government is suppressing the matter of Rs. 400 crores scam either in return of some monetary benefit or as a part of the deal which facilitated the 49 days alliance government of Kejriwal & the Congress. The ongoing political honeymoon between Congress, Communists, Nitish - Laloo & Kejriwal could also be behind Kejriwal's silence.

Water activist Shri B.B. Tewari said that Kejriwal Government has fooled the citizens and the new IP68 meters will only add to the woes of the people as they don't offer any solution to the problem of over billing due to meters running on airflow.

R.W.A. activist Shri Saurabh Gandhi said that R.W.As strongly protests against the IP68 meters specially its price & quality variance from company to company and we will soon move the matter before the Lt. Governor of Delhi.
PM Modi reviews drought and water scarcity situation at high level meeting with Gujarat CM

New Delhi, Mon, 16 May 2016 NI Wire

The Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, today chaired a high level meeting on the drought and water scarcity situation in parts of Gujarat. The Chief Minister of Gujarat, Smt. Anandiben Patel, was present in the meeting. Senior officials from the Government of India, and the State of Gujarat, were also present.

Elaborating on the States efforts for water conservation, recharge and creation of water bodies, the Chief Minister mentioned that 1.68 lakh check dams, 2.74 lakh farm ponds, 1.25 lakh Bori Bandhs have been made with storage capacity of 42.3 billion cubic feet water, benefitting 6.32 lakh hectares.

Piped water supply is being provided to 77 per cent of households in the State. In spite of deficient rainfall for the second consecutive year, the work done for the state water grid has resulted in only 568 tankers being required for water distribution in some remote tail areas. The Prime Minister, while appreciating this effort, called for further action to completely eliminate the need for tanker supply.

The State has made significant progress in micro-irrigation. One hundred per cent coverage of drip/sprinkler irrigation has been achieved in 3789 villages.

The measures undertaken by the State have resulted in a reasonable amount of drought-proofing, despite deficient (about 80 per cent of long-term average) and skewed temporal distribution of rainfall. Despite two successive years of drought, crop production in the State has been estimated at 95 per cent of the normal.

The creation of an elaborate canal network under the Sardar Sarovar Irrigation Scheme, has led to a significant increase in crop yields, and a positive impact on farm incomes. In this context, the Prime Minister emphasized on value addition in horticulture and cash crops.

Measures to boost progress in fishery, bee-keeping, pearl culture, and seaweed, were also discussed.

The meeting ended with a resolve on the part of the Centre and State to work together.

Source: PIB
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Philip Lubin, University of California, Santa Barbara, proposes to expand their investigations started in their NIAC Phase I of using directed energy to allow the achievement of relativistic flight to pave the way to the first interstellar missions. All of the current conventional propulsion systems are incapable of reaching the high speeds necessary to enable interstellar flight. Directed energy offers a path forward that, while difficult, is feasible. It is not an easy path and it does have many milestones to cross in order to get to the point of achieving the speeds needed. Along the roadmap we propose are important and useful waypoints that both allow testing and feed back to the larger design but are also useful for many applications. The consequences of this program are truly transformative not only for achieving relativistic flight for small probes but also for larger spacecraft at lower speeds suitable for rapid interplanetary travel. The Phase II work will consist of refining our roadmap and building and testing a small phased array prototype to test many of the concepts developed in the Phase I. They will also further our work on the wafer scale spacecraft design including work on the critical integrated laser communications system. We will also explore and test the inverse mode of using the array for reception which is critical to receiving the laser communications from the spacecraft.

Detailed directed energy progress and the asteroid defense work that can be adapted for interstellar exploration

Toward directed energy planetary defense (Optical Engineering 53(2), 025103 (February 2014))

Asteroids and comets that cross Earths orbit pose a credible risk of impact, with potentially severe

disturbances to Earth and society. We propose an orbital planetary defense system capable of heating the surface of potentially hazardous objects to the vaporization point as a feasible approach to impact risk mitigation. We call the system DE-STAR, for Directed Energy System for Targeting of Asteroids and exploRation. The DESTAR is a modular-phased array of kilowatt class lasers powered by photovoltaics. Modular design allows for incremental development, minimizing risk, and allowing for technological codevelopment. An orbiting structure would be developed in stages. The main objective of the DE-STAR is to use focused directed energy to raise the surface spot temperature to 3000 K, sufficient to vaporize all known substances. Ejection of evaporated material creates a large reaction force that would alter an asteroids orbit. The baseline system is a DESTAR 3 or 4 (1- to 10-km array) depending on the degree of protection desired. A DE-STAR 4 allows initial engagement beyond 1 AU with a spot temperature sufficient to completely evaporate up to 500-m diameter asteroids in 1 year. Small objects can be diverted with a DE-STAR 2 (100 m) while space debris is vaporized with a DE-STAR 1 (10 m)

Beam power to distant probesthe system can be used to beam power to very distant spacecraft. At 1 AU the flux is 70 MWm2 or about 50,000 times the flux of the sun. At the edge of the solar system (30 AU) it is about 80 kWm2. At 225 AU the beam is about as bright as the sun is above Earths atmosphere. Similarly, it could be used to provide power to distant outposts on Mars or the Moon or literally to machine on the lunar surface (or possibly Mars). The latter would be a complex sociological and geopolitical discussion no doubt.

Spacecraft rail gun modewhile photon pressure is modest, it is constant until the beam diverges to be larger than the reflector. In a companion paper, Bible et al.2 discuss using this mode to propel spacecraft at mildly relativistic speeds. For example, a 100-, 1000-, 10,000-kg spacecraft with a 30-m diameter (9 kg, 10-m-thick multilayer dielectric) reflector will reach 1 AU (Mars) in 3, 10, 30 days. Stopping is an issue! The 100-kg craft will be going at 0.4%c at a 1 AU and 0.6%c at the edge of the solar system. This is 1800 kms at the edge of the solar system with just a 30-m reflector. This speed is far greater than the galactic escape speed and nearly 100 times faster than the Voyager spacecraft. If a reflector could be built to intercept the beam out to the edge of the solar system (900-m diameter) the same craft would be going 2% at the edge of the solar system and 3% if illumination stayed on for about 2 months. We do not currently know how to build kilometer-class reflectors that are low enough mass, though we do know how to build 30-m reflectors and 100 m appears feasible. There is work on graphene sheets that may allow for future extremely large, extremely low mass reflectors that may allow for fully relativistic speeds. Future generation may build even larger DE-STAR 5 and 6 units to allow highly relativistic probes.

Relativistic Propulsion Using Directed Energy by Johanna Bible, Isabella Johansson , Gary B. Hughes, Philip M. Lubin

We propose a directed energy orbital planetary defense system capable of heating the surface of potentially hazardous objects to the evaporation point as a futuristic but feasible approach to impact risk mitigation. The system is based on recent advances in high efficiency photonic systems. The system could also be used for propulsion of kinetic or nuclear tipped asteroid interceptors or other interplanetary spacecraft. A photon drive is possible using direct photon pressure on a spacecraft similar to a solar sail. Given a laser power of 70GW, a 100 kg craft can be propelled to 1AU in approximately 3 days achieving a speed of 0.4% the speed of light, and a 10,000 kg craft in approximately 30 days. We call the system DE-STAR for Directed Energy System for Targeting of Asteroids and exploRation. DE-STAR is a modular phased array of solid-state lasers, powered by photovoltaic conversion of sunlight. The system is scalable and completely modular so that sub elements can be built and tested as the technology matures. The sub elements can be immediately utilized for testing as well as other applications including space debris mitigation. The ultimate objective of DE-STAR would be to begin direct asteroid vaporization and orbital modification starting at distances beyond 1 AU. Using phased array technology to focus the beam, the surface spot temperature on the asteroid can be raised to more than 3000K, allowing evaporation of all known substances. Additional scientific uses of DE-STAR are also possible.

Planetary Defense using directed energy systems

2015 Planetary Defense Conference in Frascaty, Italy. Philip Lubin discusses Directed Energy Planetart Defense. Travis Brashears discusses the laboratory measurements of directed energy while simulating space conditions.

More background material at the Deepspace UC Santa Barbara site

SOURCES  Deepspace UCSB, Philip Lubin, NASA NIAC
French President Francois Hollande delivers a speech during the 2nd Regional Security Summit in Abuja on May 14, 2016.

Hammond met with key regional leaders to discuss what the global community can do to support Nigeria with its security issues.

Leaders from Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger beside French President Francois Hollande, high-ranking diplomats from the United States, Britain and the European Union are attending the summit.

The Nigerian military has occupied schools, transforming them into barracks or command centres.

Regional and Western powers gathered in Nigeria to discuss their war with Boko Haram, as the United Nations said the group posed a major threat to security in West Africa.

Earlier, the UN Security Council voiced its deep concern on "the alarming scale" of the humanitarian crisis caused by Boko Haram's activities in the Lake Chad Basin region.

Home Minister: Bangladesh executes leader of Islamist party

The US state department and some human rights groups have said the trials fall short of global standards and need oversight. The Bangladesh Jamaat said last week that Nizami was innocent as he had "no links with war crimes" in 1971.

The first regional summit on Boko Haram was held in Paris on May 17, 2014 as the worldwide community woke up to the threat posed by the group in the wake of its mass abduction of schoolchildren in Nigeria's Chibok town on April 14 that year.

Nigeria is seeking closer military cooperation to bring to an end almost seven years of violence, which has left at least 20,000 dead and displaced more than 2.6 million people in the northeast.

Boko Haram is one of the deadliest terror groups in the world.

Mausi Segun, a Nigeria researcher for Human Rights Watch, recently said those children remain missing.

This shouldin turn prevent boko haram from continuing to take advantage of its ability to move across borders.

Last year, the extremist group released a video pledging their official allegiance to ISIS.

Jason Day has 3-shot lead in suspended Players Championship

The biggest thrill belonged to Will Wilcox , who hit pitching wedge for a hole-in-one on the island-green 17th. The famed island green had not surrendered a hole-in-one since Spain's Miguel Angel Jimenez made one in 2002.

"The Nigerian government and regional governments have to deal with the immediate challenge and the underlying elements, not timeframe", he said.

"By December the armed forces of Nigeria, Cameroun, Chad and Niger degraded boko haram and squeezed them into a small enclave of Sambisa Forest", President Buhari said.

They made the pledge while addressing the 2nd Regional Security Summit in Abuja at the weekend.

But he warned: "This terrorist group nevertheless remains a threat".

"This will help because if you defeat Boko Haram and you are not able to deal with the underlying problems, it may make some people to be extremists".

Countries hit by the violence needed to win "the hearts and minds of those terrorized by Boko Haram", Hammond said.
But in an interview with "Today" on NBC Friday, Trump denied that he was "Miller" - and Carswell told Kelly that, if that's true, "I think he should come clean and apologize to me now".

"I have many, many people trying to imitate my voice".

"This sounds like one of the scams, one of the many scams, doesn't sound like me", he said.

Trump continued: "Wow. You mean you're going so low as to talk about something that took place 25 years ago, about whether or not I made a phone call?"

Forgive me if I don't believe Donald Trump when he says that wasn't his voice on that 1991 audio interview with People Magazine.

Stunned Trump Foes Face Diminished Options at GOP Convention

Sanders consistently has topped Clinton in small towns and rural areas, while Trump romps among Republicans from the same locales. But he seems in no mood for conciliation amid a backlash against the likelihood that he will be the GOP nominee.

The newspaper reports that a publicist calling himself "John Miller" or "John Barron" called journalists from Trump's office during the 1970s, '80s and '90s, sounding very much like Trump himself. She says she knew immediately that Miller was actually Trump, and reached out to three people, including Maples, to confirm her suspicions. "He's coming out of a marriage, and he's starting to do tremendously well financially".

Trump in 1991 with Marla Maples, who would become wife number 2.

Donald Trump and girlfriend Melania Knauss attend the opening of the Broadway play "42nd Street" May 2, 2001 in NY.

This lines up perfectly with the Washington Post column, which details some of the more disturbing details of his conversations with reporters in a non-sports setting.

One Trump biographer, says he may learned the trick from his dad, who was known in the NY real estate press as "mister green".

Search over for shooting suspect, city safe

Edward Villmore, who lives near the site of the first shooting, said he awoke to multiple gunshots around 2 a.m. Officer Hardy suffered wounds to the face and torso and is now in stable condition at a Boston hospital.

The names John Miller and John Barron (sometimes spelled "Baron") have always been in Trump's wheelhouse, speaking for the Trump empire throughout the" 80s and "90s in multiple publications.

"I think it's somebody that - you know, she's handsome". But Trump, who has all but locked up the Republican nomination, has said the IRS was auditing his returns and that he wanted to wait until the review was over before making them public.

Reporters who covered his early career say they regularly spoke to a Trump spokesman sounding exactly like him.

Trump said that Bezos was using the Post "like a toy" and "for power so that the politicians in Washington don't tax Amazon like they should be taxed".

KELLY: Wait a minute, so you're suggesting - you're suggesting Trump leaked this to the Washington Post?

Will Wilcox makes hole-in-one on 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass

On Friday, during the tournament's second round, Will Wilcox snagged the seventh ace on the 17th in Players history. Wilcox, who played one year at UAB in 2005, is no stranger to big days on the course.

This is possibly the most Trump story ever, but it's also maybe the most endearing thing he's ever done.
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Libyas nominal Prime Minister, backed by the international community, has accused the West of abandoning Libya alone after toppling former ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

In a column published Sunday by the Telegraph, Faiez Serraj called on western countries to help finish the job by filling the vacuum created as the country fell into abyss, following the death of Gaddafi in 2011.

NATO air power backed a UN resolution supporting the ouster of Gaddafi, battled by a revolution in 2011. UK, France and the US spearheaded the war against Gaddafi forces. The Libya ruler was captured and killed in October near his hometown of Sirte.

The international community has responsibilities towards Libya. After 2011, it simply let go, Serraj said.

His remarks came on the eve of the Vienna meeting where Western powers are to discuss as of this Monday several issues including means to help the Serraj-led Government of National Accord put the chattered country together and smash the Islamic State (IS) whose influence is being felt in Europe.

Serraj argued that Libyans themselves can fight IS and that his government does not need foreign military boots but technical and financial assistance. He again called for the removal of the arms embargo and the release of frozen Libyan assets.

To the call for technical assistance, unnamed British military sources said up to 50 British military personnel would be deployed next week in Libya to help consolidate the fight against IS.

According to the Daily Mail, relayed by the Middle East Eye, Forces C Squadron, Special Boat Service (SBS) are expected to be sent to Libya to help the GNA to coordinate the fight against IS as the Libyan National Army and militias sharpen plans to take on the militants Sirte-stronghold.

UK is also envisaging training Libyan forces but is waiting for formal invitation from the GNA. Reports also say around 800 to 1,300 British forces may join an Italy-led assistance mission of 6,000 fighters to intervene in Libya in a move to shore up the Serraj-led unity government.
France would go ahead and organize the international conference seeking to relaunch the peace process between rival Palestinians and Israelis despite the Israeli Premiers opposition to the move, said French Foreign Minister Sunday at the close of his one-day visit in Israel and the West Bank. France has been on a diplomatic frenzy to relaunch peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis and proposed to host an international conference at the end of this month.

The conference will gather some 20 countries and members of the Middle East Quartet (United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia) but neither Palestine nor Israel will attend.

The Paris conference will pave the way for a second major conference, to be held in the second half of the year, with the participation of the two rivals. Talks will focus on the two-state solution said to bring peace to the region.

We arent giving up, and neither are our partners, Ayrault said at a press conference at Israels Ben Gurion Airport, at the close of his visit to Israel.

We must demonstrate that the path that we are proposing will be the one that will allow for an exit out of the extremely serious situation, the impasse which we find ourselves in. I explained to him (Netanyahu) what that means, he added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu poured cold water on the French plan saying that only direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians could help reach genuine agreements.

Our experience with history shows that only this way did we achieve peace with Egypt and Jordan, and that any other attempt only makes peace more remote and gives the Palestinians an escape hatch to avoid confronting the root of the conflict, which is non-recognition of the State of Israel, he said.

Tel Aviv fears the conference to be attended by Arab countries may be used as platform to criticize and impose decisions on Israel, analysts say.

Last peace efforts initiated by the Obama Administration to build bridges between the two camps failed two years ago after the two sides traded accusations.
Moroccans of all walks of life and political obedience commemorate this Monday in unity, harmony and patriotism the terror attacks that rocked the city of Casablanca on May 16, 2003.

The attacks were the deadliest terrorist attacks in the history of the North African Kingdom. 45 people were killed as a result of these horrible attacks (33 victims and 12 suicide bombers.)

The brainwashed suicide bombers came from the shanty town of Sidi Moumen, a poor suburb of Casablanca. They targeted a Spanish restaurant, a five-star hotel, a Jewish cemetery, an Italian restaurant and the Belgian consulate.

These unspeakable attacks show the extent to which terrorist fanatics are willing to go in the name of their depraved cause as they seek to impose their extremist views.

Each anniversary of May 16th calls to Moroccans mind the tragic events of that day. They remember the horror they felt, the sadness of mourning their loved ones and the renewed appreciation for the freedoms they enjoy under the leadership of King Mohammed VI.

As Moroccans pay tribute to those who lost their lives that day, they gather in unity and dignity to honor those who devote their lives for the stability of the North African Kingdom.

This year, remembering that tragic incident comes just few days after Moroccan authorities, which are waging a tireless war waged against Islamist extremists, foiled another ISIS deadly plot.

Last week, the Moroccan Interior Ministry announced the arrest of a Chadian national who was plotting to attack Western diplomatic buildings and tourist sites.

The investigators say the man was tasked by ISIS to recruit Moroccan and Algerian extremists to carry out attacks against Western diplomatic missions and tourist sites in the Kingdom like the Casablanca attacks of May 16, 2003.

According to security experts, Daech is changing its strategy in Morocco by sending some of its members settled in sub-Saharan countries on suicide and terror mission.

Moroccan intelligence services have been guarding against terrorist attacks since 2011, when 15 people were killed in a bombing at a cafe in Marrakesh, one of the worlds popular tourist destinations.

According to newly set up Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ,) dubbed Moroccos FBI, 35 deadly terror plots were foiled last year and 155 terror cells were dismantled since 2002. But BCIJ cautions that there is no zero risk in the field as the terror threat is still hovering.
Listen up. Photo: Steve Sands/2016 Steve Sands

Good morning and welcome to Fresh Intelligence, our roundup of the stories, ideas, and memes youll be talking about today. In this edition, Obama throws some expert shade, Trump defends his treatment of women, and Mark Zuckerberg will meet with conservatives. Heres the rundown for Monday, May 16.

WEATHER

Monday will be cool and rainy across most of the Midwest, with severe weather in Louisiana, Arkansas, and parts of Mississippi. In New York, cloudy morning skies will give way to sunshine toward the afternoon, with highs in the upper 60s. [Weather.com]

FRONT PAGE

Obama Cements Legacy As Shade-Queen-in-Chief

President Obamas commencement speech at Rutgers University on Sunday was also a thinly veiled condemnation of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. In it, Obama spoke out against Trumps anti-intellectualism, his disdain for facts, and his isolationist foreign policy. And, just in case we still didnt know who he was talking about, he threw in references to Trumps Mexican wall and suggested Muslim ban  but stopped just short of saying Trumps name out loud. The man is a master.

EARLY AND OFTEN

Nevada State Democratic Convention Turns Chaotic

Officials were forced to end Nevadas Democratic convention Saturday at the Paris Casino after casino staff said they could no longer provide the necessary security for the event. Bernie Sanders supporters, upset over the delegate count as well as the conventions decision to adopt a set of temporary rules as permanent, threw objects (including chairs) and shouted this is fixed and no confidence at party leaders. Clinton ended up getting seven additional delegates, while Sanders got five. [WSJ]

Donald Trump Treats Women Pretty Much How Youd Expect

The New York Times interviewed more than 50 women who lived, worked, or interacted socially with Donald Trump, and the result is a complex, at times contradictory portrait of unwanted come-ons, inappropriate comments, and reliance on smart, ambitious female employees. Trump, being Trump, called the whole thing a hit piece and blamed the Clintons for its publication, while Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said Trump would have to answer for his treatment of women  before changing the subject. [NYT]

Bill Clinton Gets a Job

Hillary Clinton has yet to clinch the Democratic nomination, but she already has big plans for her husband. During a campaign stop in Kentucky on Sunday, the Democratic front-runner said Bill would be in charge of revitalizing the economy if shes elected  because you know, he knows how to do it. So sweet of her to give Bill something to keep him busy. [WaPo]

Trump Disowns Liddle Marco

Donald Trump would like to make it clear that he is not  repeat not  considering Marco Rubio as a vice-presidential candidate. After the Washington Post reported Rubios name among a list of potential candidates, Trump tweeted that most of the list is wrong. And because Trumps tweets are always based in fact, we should totally believe him. Sarah Palin, meanwhile, is still on the short list. [CNN]

THE STREET, THE VALLEY

Google to Be Slapped Qith Antitrust Fine

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the European Commission is planning to fine the worlds largest internet search engine $3.4 billion  its steepest antitrust punishment to date  for abusing its dominance in online searches and for manipulating search results to harm rivals, especially in the realm of online shopping. The fine isnt official yet, but its expected to be announced in June. [Bloomberg]



Another Day, Another Spike in Oil Prices

Oil prices jumped almost one percent early Monday after Goldman Sachs released a prediction saying oil supply had gone from being oversaturated to being in deficit much sooner than it had anticipated. Goldmans prediction is based on supply disruptions in Nigeria, Venezuela, the U.S., and China. [Reuters]

Amazon to Release New Private-Label Brands

In the coming weeks, online retail behemoth Amazon is set to release a line of new in-house products from private-label brands like Happy Belly, Wickedly Prime, and Mama Bear  the products will include nuts, spices, tea, coffee, baby food, and other household items. [WSJ]

Google to Pay People to Not Drive Its Cars

Google is hiring people to get behind the wheel of its self-driving cars  and just sit there. The vehicle-safety specialists will test how well the cars handle themselves on the open road, taking the wheel when necessary. [Jalopnik]

MEDIA BUBBLE

Mark Zuckerberg Has to Hang Out With Glenn Beck Now

After Facebook was accused of favoring liberal-leaning stories in its trending-topics bar, Mark Zuckerberg got an angry note from Republicans in the Senate demanding answers, and it seems hes willing to talk. On Sunday radio personality Glenn Beck announced  in a Facebook post, no less  that he and several other conservatives were invited to the companys Menlo Park headquarters to work things out with the CEO himself.

Warren Buffett Goes Vintage Shopping

Yet another heavyweight is courting Yahoo!, Inc. According to people familiar with the matter, Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett is exploring a bid for the companys internet assets  hes part of a consortium including Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert thats in its second round of bidding for Yahoo. [CNet]

The Wire Actor Arrested Over Alleged Bernie Sanders Beef

He plays a cop on TV, but on Sunday actor Wendell Pierce had a real run-in with law enforcement when he was arrested at a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, on a simple battery charge. According to the Daily Beast, Pierce, a staunch Clinton supporter, got into a fight with two other guests when they told him they backed Bernie Sanders  now, thats commitment. [NBC]

PHOTO OP

This Explains the Lines

Passengers across the country have been complaining of abnormally long airport security lines  to the point that the Department of Homeland Security got involved. Were just saying this could be part of the problem.

Talk about deadheading... This crusty ol' chap is actually a prop from the #TexasChainsawMassacre movie. He was brought through a checkpoint at the Atlanta (#ATL) International Airport, where as you can see, he was screened and sent on his jolly way. #TSAOnTheJob A photo posted by TSA (@tsa) on May 15, 2016 at 3:41pm PDT

MORNING MEME

Who said baseball isnt exciting?

When you graduate grad school and the loan deferment ends https://t.co/M8lBH8ucJw  Vann R. Newkirk II (@fivefifths) May 15, 2016

OTHER LOCAL NEWS

Florida Woman Accessorizes

Beachgoers in Boca Raton, Florida, were shocked when a woman emerged from the water with a shark still attached to her arm. The two-foot nurse shark sunk its teeth into her right forearm and refused to let go, even after it died. Despite having a shark attached to her arm, the woman remained calm on the scene and was taken to a nearby hospital, where the shark was removed; shes now in stable condition. [Florida Sun-Sentinel]

Animals: Theyre Nothing Like Us

A father and son visiting Yellowstone National Park from another country were very concerned that one of the parks resident bison calves was cold and lost  so concerned, in fact, that they kidnapped it, stuck it in the back of their SUV, and drove it to a park ranger station. The ranger explained to the pair that the baby bison was just living out its little bison life, fined them, and told them to put the animal back where theyd found it. [East Idaho News]

HAPPENING TODAY

Democrats Campaign Hard in Kentucky

Hillary Clinton is pushing hard for a win in Kentucky, especially after a string of losses to Bernie Sanders. Sanders also campaigned heavily over the weekend, and both Democratic camps say the Bluegrass State will be more competitive than Oregon, where Sanders is heavily favored to win Tuesdays contest. [WSJ]
Donald Trumps refusal to release his tax returns could be seen as a process issue, perhaps even a vetting question so important that its disqualifying, as Mitt Romney has called it. But perhaps it could be something more than that. It might be the thin end of the wedge that opens up a powerful theme against the self-professed billionaire: that Trump is a total fraud.

Trump has repeatedly refused to publish his tax returns, and repeatedly lied about his intention to do so. He promised five years ago to release his returns when President Obama released his birth certificate, and reneged. He promised to release them in February 2015; again promised to do so last fall and then in January, then backed off on the grounds that he was under an IRS audit, an argument tax experts have unanimously dismissed as nonsensical. Now he insists theres nothing to learn from them.

As many financial reporters have speculated over the years, based on whatever fragmentary information Trump has provided, he almost certainly has far less money than he claims. A reporter who has dug into the question estimates Trumps actual worth at $150250 million; Trump claims to be worth $10 billion, which is at least 40 times the journalists estimate. The reality of Trumps business career is that he is not so much a great businessman but somebody who has figured out how to make money by convincing people that he is one.

Theres a line I vividly recall from the 2004 election, though I cant find it online. An adviser to George W. Bushs campaign explained why it was so focused on discrediting John Kerrys character. You dont shoot down every fighter plane launched against you, he said, you blow up the platform theyre being launched from. Its a mistake to assume any particular political tactic works in all cases, but this approach seems to suit Trump especially well. The particulars of his day-to-day message, to the extent he has one, barely matter. His entire appeal rests on the bedrock of his identity as a successful entrepreneur. The vast wealth Trump claims to have amassed allows him to supposedly fund his own campaign, escaping the influence of fundraisers who control his opponents. His alleged deal-making skill explains why he will be able to improve every trade deal, solve every legislative impasse, and finesse every diplomatic conflict. Trumps endlessly repeated proposition is that he will take the skills that made him so rich and generously use them to make the country rich. Without that, hes just a dumber version of Pat Buchanan.

The key thing Hillary Clintons campaign should understand is that it does not have to handle this question the same way journalists do. A reporter can raise questions about Trumps wealth, but that is as far as it can go, or else Trump will sue. Clinton doesnt have to be held back like this. She can simply assert that Trump is lying. She can say, as all the publicly available evidence suggests, that Trump is worth a mere fraction of what he says, heavily indebted, and turning to Republican fundraisers because he doesnt have anywhere near enough money to fund a general-election campaign. (Trump, in fact, has spent a mere $317,000 of his own money, the rest of his spending coming from loans he can recoup through fundraising.)

The same principle holds true of Trump University. The whole enterprise is very likely a fraud, operating under the same principles as his candidacy  Trumps promising to put his financial genius at your disposal. Trump is being charged with actual fraud, and he successfully persuaded a judge to delay the trial until after the election. But Clinton has no reason to defer to the legal uncertainty this delay gives Trump. She can assert that he is a fraudster, and, if Trump protests, then he can agree to move the trial up in order to clear his name.

In a court, if you can exclude the relevant evidence, you can maintain the presumption of innocence. Journalism operates under somewhat similar lines  a reporter can speculate on the basis of absent evidence, but cant assert a firm conclusion. Politics doesnt work like that. Trump is a fraud  a charge he wants to deny on the basis of evidence he refuses to disclose  and he should bear the presumption of guilt.
Grand Marshal Donald Trump marches in the Salute to Israel Parade. He yelled Youre fired! to cheering spectators. Photo: Ron Antonelli/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

It is one of Donald Trumps chief foreign-policy credentials: that morning a dozen years ago when he marched down Fifth Avenue with the words grand marshal across his chest.

In spring 2004, at the height of violence in the Gaza Strip, I was the grand marshal of the 40th Salute to Israel Parade, the single largest gathering in support of the Jewish state, Trump told attendees at this years American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington, D.C., a line he has also offered at debates, in interviews, or whenever his fealty to the Jewish state or knowledge of foreign affairs is questioned. It was a very dangerous time for Israel and frankly for anyone supporting Israel, he continued. Many people turned down this honor. I did not. I took the risk, and Im glad I did.

Which is, as is often the case with Trumps stated accomplishments, not the way others involved with the event remember it. I mean, come on, said Juda Engelmayer, a PR executive who served on the board of directors of the Israel Tribute Committee, which used to organize the annual event. The Israel Day Parade is one of the most protected parades at every level of government. I dont think there was ever any concern that anyones life would be in danger.

Photos of the event show a beaming Trump waving to the crowd on a gorgeous summer afternoon and shaking hands with attendees. At one point he marched alongside his cogrand marshal, the sex therapist Dr Ruth. The Apprentice had debuted earlier in the year, and Trumps fellow marchers recall him pointing a finger at paradegoers and shouting, Youre fired! to cheers.

Foreign-policy leadership America can count on. Photo: Scout Tufankjian/AP

Trump wrote about the parade in his book Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate and Life, a rambling, diaristic account of his life when he was shooting the first season of The Apprentice.

We were finished by 8 p.m. and Melania was making dinner tonight, so we headed upstairs for a relaxing evening at home, Trump writes in the sole paragraph in the book dedicated to the event. Tomorrow, after the task assignment I would be the grand marshall in the Salute to Israel Parade on Fifth Avenue, so it would be a busy and exciting day. Ive always enjoyed parades, and this parade would be a special one.

Trumps claim that many people turned down this honor is about as true as his claim that it was a dangerous undertaking. Prior to Trump, previous grand marshals had come from the ranks of American and Israeli public officials, particularly those based in New York, for whom attendance is practically mandatory. Chuck Schumer was the 2003 grand marshal. In 2011, it was Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, who did hard labor in a Siberian gulag before rising to the speakership of the Israeli Knesset.

The widespread assumption about the choice of Trump that year was that he secured the plum spot by making a high-dollar donation to the Israel Tribute Committee, which ran the parade. But as has been the case with much of Trumps charitable giving, his generosity is more imagined than real. Judy Kaufthal, an active Riverdale-based philanthropist and longtime organizer of the parade, said that she did not recall any donations from Trump that year, even though later it would become part of the organizers practice to ask the grand marshal for fundraising help to defray the parades costs.

Instead, the events organizers were simply looking to raise the parades profile, and trying to make the event more inclusive by finding someone who was not Jewish to lead it. Kaufthal was brainstorming with Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, the president of the New York Board of Rabbis, who, in addition to serving as chaplain of the New York City Fire and Police Departments and for the New York Press Club, also hosts Religion on the Line, an interdenominational call-in show on WABC 770. They went back and forth on a few different names  Jerry Seinfelds name came up  when Potasnik suggested Trump.

Back then, Trump was no longer seen as the avatar of Gotham greed as he was in the 1980s and 1990s, nor was he the snarling nativist of today, nor, for that matter, was he yet the grim-faced arbiter of entrepreneurial acumen that he was on The Apprentice.

I remember, he looked up at me and said, How would you like it if I got you Donald Trump? Kaufthal recalled. I mean, talk about someone exciting. Everyone was pretty pleased.

Potasnik contacted Howard Lorber, the chairman of Douglas Elliman and one of the few New York real-estate tycoons friendly with the reality-TV star. Lorber proposed the idea to Trump  the two marched together at one point  and Trump quickly accepted.

It wasnt like we asked ten people first who said, No, Im too afraid to do it, Kaufthal said, adding that they moved around the start time of the march in order to accommodate Trumps television schedule. He was very gracious and very charming.

Judy and some others came to see me in my office, Potasnik recalls. They wanted to elevate the profile of the parade, they wanted to heighten the attention so that more people would come. We said, Who is the person who can be grand marshal who will generate that kind of enthusiastic response? He was just a popular figure. There was no political consideration. It was strictly a matter of finding a celebrity.

Twelve years ago, Kaufthal, Potasnik, and the rest of the parade organizers would never have imagined that Trump would be using the experience as a talking point in a populist presidential campaign. But none seemed to view the decision as a mistake.

I dont think you could put the word regret on it, said Engelmayer. Has he said or done anything as far as Israel, or as far as the parade is concerned that would make you regret? I dont think so. Its not like we asked a young Adolf Hitler to be the grand marshal.

Trump, after all, was a major New York City personality, someone with business ties to the Jewish state and whom the Jewish community in town counted as one of their supporters. That he now uses the parade as proof not just of his support for Israel but as proof of his foreign-policy bona fides, thats just politics.

If Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of State, said that marching in the Celebrate Israel parade was a reason to support her for president, that would be a problem. I mean, Trump will use whatever leverage he can get right now. There is nothing else he has done, Engelmayer added.

And given that the whole idea of asking Trump to lead the parade was to garner attention  well, that plan succeeded beyond anyones wildest dreams.

The first time he said it, I just couldnt believe it, said Kaufthal. Selfishly, truthfully, the parade has in the end gotten a lot of publicity this year thanks to Trump.
Charles Koch. Photo: Bo Rader/Wichita Eagle/MCT via Getty Images

Charles and David Koch once pledged to spend $889 million on the 2016 campaign cycle. Now the billionaire brothers plan to stay on the sidelines of this years presidential race  and have cut their paid media budget for all of this cycles campaigns to $40 million, down from $150 million one year ago. While many have interpreted the Kochs sudden stinginess as a rebuke to the less-than-libertarian Republican nominee, a new report from the National Review suggests the tycoons are fundamentally rethinking their approach to rigging the system.

The magazines story opens at a February meeting of the Koch networks top political operatives. Trump had just won the New Hampshire primary, and Freedom Partners president Marc Short had prepared a plan to halt the Donalds rise. But when Short arrived at the summit he was confronted by an unwelcome surprise: The Kochs corporate wing had been invited.

The suits at Koch Industries had never been crazy about the brothers campaign spending and the public-relations nightmares it routinely generated. When Charles Koch decided to poll the room on Shorts plan, its fate was inevitable: The Kochs would sit out the primary. A month later, they announced theyd probably be sitting out the fall presidential contest altogether. Now they appear to be cutting back on their down-ballot spending as well.

According to the National Review, the Koch network has spent $10 million in paid media on this years Senate races  at this point in 2014, theyd spent more than $35 million. In those midterms, the Kochs funded ad campaigns in 11 Senate contests; in 2016, theyre involved in just 4.

Some reasons for this drawback are cycle-specific: A lot of big-money donors have a fetish for presidential politics, and when the Kochs announced they had no interest in backing Trump, their fundraising took a hit. Plus, with the Donalds unfavorability handicapping GOP Senate candidates, the Kochs are reluctant to bet big money on Republicans keeping the upper chamber.

But the brothers are also getting tired of being the poster boys for plutocracy. Last October, Charles made the media rounds to promote his book Good Profit, which detailed the high-minded principles that guide Koch Industries. Much to his horror, the only thing the media wanted to talk about was how he was trying to buy the government.

The Koch network began inviting reporters to its exclusive donor retreats for the first time last year, and Charles embarked on a media blitz to promote the book. What he encountered was eye-opening: Despite his remarkable business career and decades-long involvement in other philanthropic initiatives, questions centered around one topic: his putative role as the GOPs puppet master.

The Kochs communications department had long warned that their conspicuous political spending would erode the corporate brand. Charles finally believed them.

Before 2010, the Kochs were content to advance their self-serving brand of libertarianism by bankrolling university departments, think tanks, and like-minded local candidates. Now, after six years as two of the biggest moneymen in national politics, theyre starting to appreciate the virtues of their old model.

Their participation in federal elections has cost them millions of dollars and generated innumerable pieces of bad press. And for what? Sure, they helped engineer big Republican victories in the 2010 and 2014 midterms. But America is no closer to being Ayn Rands utopia  heck, the GOP Congress just reauthorized (the bastion of cronyism called) the Export-Import Bank.

And the Kochs long-term project  defeating big-government liberalism in the war of ideas  appears to be in dire shape. Per the National Review:

Koch allies say the brothers took tremendous interest in Bernie Sanders unlikely success  particularly his resonance with young voters who represent the future of the electorate  and drew stark conclusions about their own efforts. Dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into elections doesnt persuade enough people to achieve lasting change, one Koch confidante says. To achieve lasting change, the effort has to begin much earlier.

You cant indoctrinate the young with a 30-second ad  but you can generate ill will from potential corporate clients. These sad facts may reshape the Kochs political strategy for cycles to come.
Photo: Connecticut Dept. of Corrections

Robert Gordon had lived an unassuming life in the tiny Connecticut town of Sherman for close to 30 years. People knew him as Bob, a guy who fixed boats. Now, at 71, hes got a slew of health problems  congestive heart disease, bladder cancer  and just supervises others as they make boat repairs.

But Robert Gordon is a made-up name, one conjured up nearly 50 years ago after a man named Robert Stackowitz walked off a lot where he was fixing school buses as part of his prison work duty in Georgia. He evaded authorities until last week, when U.S. Marshals showed up on his doorstep with a warrant for his arrest.

Stackowitz had served two and a half years into a 17-year sentence for armed robbery when, in 1968, he decided to catch a ride to the airport in Atlanta and fly away. I worked over there for quite a while and one day I left. Its kind of simple as that, Stackowitz told CBS News. Somebody gave me a ride to the Atlanta airport and [I] got on a plane and flew home. Back then, he added, they didnt have terrorist checks.

Stackowitz said he doesnt even think hes got so much as a speeding ticket in the nearly 48 years hes been on the lam. Nobody seemed to know his secret. Not his customers, not his neighbors, not his girlfriend of more than 20 years. Ive been in shock all week, his partner, Cindy Derby, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He never mentioned Georgia. Im not mad at him.

Georgia law enforcement caught up with Stackowitz, who, by his own admission, had gotten a bit sloppy. He applied for Social Security benefits using his real name, and listed it on his property-tax forms. Stackowitz figured if authorities were after him, theyd have tracked him down by then. But Georgias Fugitive Apprehension Unit had been following up on some cold cases. The unit reached out to the Carroll County Correctional Institute, from which Stackowitz had escaped, and asked for his file. It was in a stack of folders, set to be shredded. But according to the Daily Beast, the warden set aside two files, just in case. One of those belonged to Stackowitz. His name and photo were run through the system; there was a match in Connecticut.

Stackowitz, who admitted his identity as soon as authorities showed up at his house, is now trying to avoid extradition to Georgia. Hes asking for officials to commute his original armed-robbery sentence, and requesting that the DA doesnt file any additional charges related to his escape. His lawyer is citing his clean record since the escape and his health issues.

But authorities in Georgia say they wont consider Stackowitzs requests until he returns to the state. The Georgia Department of Corrections and the Board of Pardons and Paroles will review his case, his original crime, and his conduct over the past 48 years, according to the Hartford Courant. Right now Stackowitz is out on $75,000 bail, posted by friends, and back in his Connecticut home. He faces an extradition hearing June 6.

I was Gordon. Thats who they knew me as, Stackowitz told the Journal-Constitution, after he was freed on bail Saturday. I dont feel bad about lying. I feel bad about being caught.
Hail to the shade-queen-in-chief. Photo: Steve Sands/2016 Steve Sands

On Sunday, President Obama gave a commencement speech at Rutgers University that also happened to be a scathing condemnation of Donald Trump. Without mentioning the presumptive nominees name even once, the president spoke out against his anti-intellectualism and isolationist politics. When our leaders express a disdain for facts, when theyre not held accountable for repeating falsehoods and just making stuff up, when actual experts are dismissed as elitists, then weve got a problem, he said. He went on:

Facts. Evidence. Reason. Logic. An understanding of science. These are good things. These are qualities you want in people making policy. These are qualities you want to continue to cultivate in yourselves as citizens. We traditionally have valued those things, but if you were listening to todays political debate, you might wonder where this strain of anti-intellectualism came from, he continued. So class of 2016, let me be as clear as I can be: in politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue. Its not cool to not know what youre talking about. Thats not keeping it real or telling it like it is. Thats not challenging political correctness, thats just not knowing what youre talking about. And yet weve become confused about this.

He also referenced Trumps outlook on foreign policy, specifically his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border:

The world is more interconnected than ever before, and its becoming more connected every day. Building walls wont change that. The point is: To help ourselves, weve got to help others, not pull up the drawbridge and try to keep the world out.

The biggest challenges cannot be solved in isolation, he said, including terrorism. To that end, Trumps suggestion that Muslims be isolated or disparaged, Obama said, is not just a betrayal of our values, thats not just a betrayal of who we are, it would alienate the very communities at home and abroad that are our most important partners in the fight against violent extremism.

Although Obama didnt explicitly name Trump, in many ways his remarks were the antithesis of Trumps foreign-policy speech, in which Trump said hes skeptical of international unions that tie us up and bring America down. Hail to the shade-queen-in-chief, whose sick burns will be sorely missed.
President Barack Obama with comedian Keegan-Michael Key, playing Luther, Obamas anger translator, 2015. Photo: Yuri Gripas/AFP/Getty Images

Last year, President Obama delivered his speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner with his anger translator, who interjected punchy insults between the presidents staid remarks. The routine culminated with Obama growing so agitated discussing climate change  Miami floods on a sunny day, and instead of doing anything about it, weve got elected officials throwing snowballs in the Senate!  that his anger translator tries to calm him down. The subject of the joke  a speech earlier that year by Senator James Inhofe, who chairs the Committee on Environment and Public Works, using the existence of snow in Washington in February as evidence against the theory of anthropogenic global warming  came up again in closed-door remarks to a party fundraiser that leaked into the press. At Sundays commencement address at Rutgers, Obama dispensed with all restraint. He openly mocked Inhofes pseudo-scientific ignorance:

Every day, there are officials in high office with responsibilities who mock the overwhelming consensus of the worlds scientists that human activities and the release of carbon dioxide and methane and other substances are altering our climate in profound and dangerous ways. A while back, you may have seen a United States senator trotted out a snowball during a floor speech in the middle of winter as proof that the world was not warming. (Laughter.) I mean, listen, climate change is not something subject to political spin. There is evidence. There are facts. We can see it happening right now. (Applause.) If we dont act, if we dont follow through on the progress we made in Paris, the progress weve been making here at home, your generation will feel the brunt of this catastrophe. So its up to you to insist upon and shape an informed debate. Imagine if Benjamin Franklin had seen that senator with the snowball, what he would think. Imagine if your 5th grade science teacher had seen that. (Laughter.) Hed get a D. (Laughter.) And hes a senator! (Laughter.)

The contempt Obama hid beneath a comedy routine last year is now the actual text of his remarks. Hes actually calling out a Senate committee chairman for being so ignorant on his supposed issue of expertise that he would fail elementary school. Anger translation is no longer required.
The opposite of a divisive, stupid man.

Donald Trump began his week sitting at a pub with Piers Morgan, explaining why David Cameron was wrong to call his Muslim ban stupid, divisive, and wrong.

Number one, Im not stupid, okay? I can tell you that right now  just the opposite, he assured the Good Morning Britain host. Number two, in terms of divisive, I dont think Im a divisive person. Im a unifier; unlike our president now, Im a unifier.

Still, even a unifier like Trump cant bring together two countries with as little in common as the United States and the United Kingdom.

It looks like were not going to have a very good relationship, Trump said of U.K. prime minister David Cameron.

His relationship with Londons newly elected Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, looks to be even worse. Khan has called Trumps statements about Muslims ignorant, and pledged to help Hillary Clinton defeat the Donald in November.

When he won I wished him well  now, I dont care about him, Trump said. He doesnt know me. Never met me. Doesnt know what Im all about  Theyre very rude statements, and frankly, tell him, I will remember those statements.

Trump went on to clarify that his call for a ban on Muslims entering the country was just a suggestion  and most of his Muslim friends think its a great one.

I have many Muslim friends. They come over  not all of them, I have to say  I was with one the other day, one of the most successful men. Hes Muslim. He said, Donald you have done us such a favor. You have brought out a problem that no one wants to talk about.

Morgan then asked Trump what he would say to law-abiding Muslims who feel stigmatized by his blanket ban on immigration from members of their faith.

They have to turn the people in, Trump said (apparently convinced that every Muslim knows at least one terrorist). Now: If theyre not going to play ball, its never going to work out.
The puppet master. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Earlier this month, The New York Times Magazine published a profile of deputy national-security adviser Ben Rhodes. The piece argued that Rhodess unique narrative gifts and mastery of social-media technology  combined with the ineptitude of a beleaguered political press  allowed the Obama administration to actively mislead the public during the debate over the Iran deal. Specifically, reporter David Samuels wrote that the White House created an echo chamber, inundating often-clueless reporters with freshly minted experts who repeated Rhodess carefully crafted talking points until they attained the status of objective facts. This spin ultimately robbed the public of the opportunity to engage in a divisive but clarifying debate over the actual policy choices that the administration was making  policy choices that amounted to nothing less than a large-scale disengagement from the Middle East.

A lot of journalists thought this analysis was wrong  or, at the very least, poorly substantiated. Many wrote articles detailing their objections. Others read those articles and wrote pieces that reiterated the existing complaints, while adding a few novel ones of their own. Tweets were exchanged. A consensus was formed. And David Samuels shook his head, watching as the echo chamber killed the possibility of an open, rational debate about the issues he was actually raising.

It has been fascinating for me to watch my story, which was largely read on its own terms outside of Washington and even by the White House itself, go through the looking glass of social media, Samuels wrote Friday. The story itself has vanished, replaced by a digital mash-up of slurs and invective, supported by stray phrases that have been mechanically tweezered from different texts.

In the column, Samuels repeatedly accuses his critics of failing to engage with the text of his profile and the substantive issues contained within it  even as he fails to engage the most substantive complaints leveled by his critics.

Before we get into those, lets look at the two critiques Samuels does address. First, he disputes the idea that he is an ardent opponent of the Iran deal and neocon who, by writing this article, was plotting to sow seeds of mistrust about a policy hed long opposed. Second, he argues that his description of the journalists Jeffrey Goldberg and Laura Rozen as retailers of the Obama administrations talking points was fair and backed up by his reporting.

As to the former, Samuels notes that this characterization was built off of exactly two pieces of evidence: a Slate piece he wrote in 2009 that made the rational argument for an Israeli attack on Iran, and his participation in an April 2015 panel discussion titled Whats wrong with the proposed nuclear deal with Iran.

On the first point, Samuels argues that his Slate piece was not a work of personal advocacy, but rather an exercise in rational choice superpower-client state theory. Which is to say, he was not trying to convince his readers that they should support an Israeli attack on Iran, but merely making the case that such an attack was in Israels rational interest, as defined by this particular theory of international relations.

This is a fair argument, if not entirely convincing. The Slate piece is certainly framed as a work of analysis, not opinion. But that analysis essentially amounts to: An Israeli attack on Iran would create the political conditions necessary for a two-state solution, and this outcome would be very good for virtually everyone involved. Heres how the piece concludes:

Israels version of a nuclear grand bargain that brings peace to the Middle East may be messier and more violent than what the Obama administration imagines can be accomplished through sanctions, blandishments, and the invocation of Barack Obamas magic middle name. But who can really argue with the idea of trading the Iranian nuclear bomb for a Palestinian state? Saudi Arabia would be happy. Egypt would be happy. Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates would be happy. Jordan would be happy. Iraq would be happy. Two-thirds of the Lebanese would be happy. The Palestinians would go about building their state, and Israel would buy itself another 40 years as the only nuclear-armed country in the Middle East. Iran would not be happy. But who said peace wont have a price?

I suppose its possible to read this as a disinterested analysis of how Israel sees its rational interest. It doesnt read that way to me. And the way Samuels tried to frame his analysis as one shared by Obama himself in his Friday column seems  actively misleading:

My analysis of how Israel might see its own rational self-interest was apparently shared by no less distinguished a neocon than President Obama. As Leon Panetta noted in my magazine article, perhaps his main job as secretary of defense was to restrain Israel from bombing Iran  by convincing them that America would do it for them, if Iran actually threatened to build a bomb.

Heres what this paragraph convincingly establishes: Both Samuels and Obama believed that Israel was seriously considering a preemptive strike against Iran.

Heres what this paragraph establishes in no way whatsoever: that Obama believed this because he recognized that such a strike would be in Israels rational interest, as defined by superpower-client state theory. In his Slate piece, Samuels notes that many observers believed Israel would launch a strike precisely because its political leaders were irrational. In fact, the whole premise of Samuelss Slate article was that the idea of a rational Israeli attack was a contrarian one, or, as Samuels himself describes it, intentionally provocative.

And, obviously, the fact that Obama worked to prevent Israel from launching a strike suggests that his administration completely rejects Samuelss broader analysis  that such an attack would actually create a more peaceful and stable Middle East. True, Samuels does not specifically claim that Obama backed this part of his argument. But he argues that his analysis wasnt nearly as contentious as his critics claim by suggesting that Obamas actions testified to its veracity. That suggestion is wildly misleading.

As for his remarks at that panel discussion about why the Iran deal was bad: Samuels explains that he was participating not as a neoconservative pundit, but as a journalist who had done extensive reporting on nuclear weapons. Its true that, at one point in the discussion, he argued that the deal would unleash a potentially disastrous wave of nuclear proliferation  but he did so while assuming the hypothetical that this deal would undermine existing nonenrichment standards.

When it comes to the actual deal that was ultimately negotiated, Samuels says he is a tentative supporter. But he doesnt explain why he believed his alarmist hypothetical to be plausible in April 2015. At that time, Iran had publicly agreed to a framework that required the nation to restrict its uranium enrichment to 3.67 percent for 15 years (bomb-grade uranium requires enrichment of above 90 percent).

After disputing the characterization of his ideological leanings, Samuels only addresses one other critique of his work: that he branded the journalists Jeffrey Goldberg and Laura Rozen as retailers of the administrations talking points, without offering any supporting evidence for that characterization.

The reason I chose to cite Rozen and Goldberg as important conduits for the administrations foreign policy message is based on two kinds of evidence. One: This very idea was suggested to me in taped interviews with White House staff members who dealt with these journalists; in interviews with other journalists; and in interviews with other people who read their work. Two: My own reading of both Rozen and Goldberg for years had suggested to me that this was a fair thing to say about their work.

Samuelss case here would be strengthened by presenting specific quotes from these taped interviews, or, better, specific excerpts from Rozen and Goldbergs reporting that betray an unmerited sympathy with the Obama administrations narrative on a given subject.

Nonetheless, the great failing of Samuelss profile was not that it contained a dig at two prominent journalists  though that is what Samuels would like you to believe (emphasis added):

If I didnt name any of those journalists, readers might fairly conclude that Rhodes was in fact terrible at his job  or that journalists, especially those who live in Washington, belong to a special category of person who must never be criticized, even gently. And this is why, I think, my story ignited such a firestorm. It was a portrait of an honest, dedicated person with a great deal of power in Washington who happens to be deeply critical of the press  not out of cynicism or anger, but out of regret over the seemingly vanishing possibilities of free and open discourse.

Whatever ignited the firestorm against Samuelss piece, said firestorm was well deserved. If you peruse my initial critique of the profile, youll find many undisputed flaws in its argument. But since Samuels accuses his critics of failing to deal with his text itself, Id like to examine a short paragraph of Samuelss initial piece  one particularly dense with unsupported assertions.

After one of Rhodess communications operatives describes how he relays the administrations message to friendly journalists  who then disseminate it across social media  Samuels writes:

This is something different from old-fashioned spin, which tended to be an art best practiced in person. In a world where experienced reporters competed for scoops and where carrying water for the White House was a cause for shame, no matter which party was in power, it was much harder to sustain a narrative over any serious period of time. Now the most effectively weaponized 140-character idea or quote will almost always carry the day, and it is very difficult for even good reporters to necessarily know where the spin is coming from or why.

The idea that social media has allowed political leaders to exert unprecedented top-down control over public discourse probably wouldnt sit well with Hosni Mubarak or the GOP Establishment. And the notion that, pre-Twitter, it was hard for American presidents to sustain false narratives for any serious period of time is tough to digest for a lot of reasons, but to pick just one: In 2006, 50 percent of Americans still believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction at the time of the U.S. invasion. (In 2015, that number had eroded all the way to 42 percent).

Finally, Samuelss central claim  that Ben Rhodess messaging operation and its effectively weaponized tweets almost always carry the day  is difficult to square with the current politics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

By all accounts, the TPP is one of the Obama administrations top second-term priorities. In their efforts to sell the deal, the administration has put forward a narrative that I believe to be intentionally misleading: Based on the analyses Ive encountered (often whilst perusing Twitter), the TPP seems to be less about free trade than it is about establishing international copyright and patent protections favored by politically connected U.S. industries. Somehow, despite Obamas command of the echo chamber, this counter-narrative has gained broad currency: This fall, both major-party candidates will be campaigning against the TPP (at least in its current form)  even though the (likely) Democratic standard-bearer is a former administration official who once sang the deals praises.

This raises the question: Why has the administration failed to market the TPP as successfully as it did the Iran deal?

One answer: It didnt actually market the Iran deal very successfully, either. The American public has been bullish on Obama recently, but they still take a dim view of his foreign policy. The thesis of Samuelss profile is that Ben Rhodes built a digital messaging operation so effective, it presents a novel threat to open discourse. In support of this (audacious) claim, Samuels marshals two pieces of evidence:

1. Rhodes and his deputies sometimes say things like that when bragging about how good they are at their jobs.

2. The Iran deal happened.

On the latter point: The Iran nuclear agreement didnt go through because it won a national referendum; it went through because 42 Senate Democrats blocked a resolution of disapproval.

As the Washington Posts Dan Drezner has noted, opponents of the Iran deal massively outspent supporters, and successfully increased public opposition over the summer of 2015. The White House actually lost the communications battle over the deal. But that didnt matter, because most Americans just didnt care all that much either way. Thus, Democratic senators faced no major political risk in standing by their president. Here is the great achievement of Rhodess masterful messaging operation: The public did not mobilize against the deal in large numbers, even though a plurality of Americans opposed it.

Samuels framed his Friday column around an unspoken gentlemans bet hed made with Rhodes. The master propagandist had expressed a deep personal hopelessness about the possibility of open, rational public debate in a brutally partisan climate. Samuels wagered that his article might restore Rhodess faith:

Over time, our conversations around this point evolved, without either of us directly mentioning it, into a kind of gentlemans bet: My article would go as hard as I could at the truth as I saw it, The Times would publish it, and one of us would be proved right while the other would be proved wrong  It seems fair to say that Rhodes won our bet.

There are a lot of reasons to worry about the prospects of open, rational public debate in the United States. The critical response to David Samuelss conception of the truth is not one of them.
The idea was for the dress to look European, but also speak to the history of colonialism. Photo: Bobby Doherty/New York Magazine

Maria de Los Angeles, Artist

What is this dress?

I made it out of paper. I call it the family dress  on the front is a portrait of me with my nieces. The idea was for the dress to look European, but also speak to the history of colonialism. Its about migration and being ungrounded. I have another dress that I wore to the fashion exhibit at the Met that had phrases on it like DEPORT ME and DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Ive been making dresses like this for the past two months for a show Im having in June at Front Art Space. I was thinking that art, when it looks political, people dont want to engage with it. But a beautiful dress? Im curious if a dress can make people engage.

Where are you from?

I was born in Michoacan, which is in the south of Mexico. Im the oldest of eight, and my siblings and I were smuggled across the border in a van when I was 11  they pretended we were someone elses kids, and we were given Tylenol so wed be asleep during the border crossing. We were brought to Los Angeles, to our aunts apartment with these brown rugs, and our first meal was pineapple pizza, which I hated. Something about the sweet pineapple with the tomatoes. I remember thinking it was just wrong.

Lightning Round

Neighborhood: Bushwick.

Roommates: 2.

Age: 27.

Bona fides: B.F.A. from Pratt; M.F.A. from Yale.

On Trump: Hes a comedian, a performance artist, but some of his sentiments are real, and its not funny when its about you.

Hillary or Bernie? If I could vote  I cant because of my DACA status  I would vote for Bernie. I adore him.

*This article appears in the May 16, 2016 issue of New York Magazine.

Photo: Bobby Doherty

Photo: Bobby Doherty

Photo: Bobby Doherty
In early spring 1966, the photographer Larry Fink agreed to take a series of pictures for a literary magazine called East Side Review, edited by a man-about-town named Shepard Sherbell. The story was about Andy, says Sherbell. In 1966, everything was about Andy.

Over the course of several days, Fink shot the group  Warhol and Ingrid Superstar, Lou Reed and John Cale, Edie Sedgwick and Gerard Malanga (Warhols collaborator and right-hand man)  mostly on the Lower East Side. They were styled (Sedgwick in a lace scarf and polka-dot dress, Ingrid Superstar in heavy earrings and a gauzy white head scarf) by a woman named Khadejha McCall, a friend of Finks who sold African fabric on St. Marks Place. Soon after, the East Side Review shuttered when Sherbell ran out of money, before the shoot was ever published.

It was a larky shoot, says Fink of the photos. Spontaneous. One image depicts Warhol, Malanga, and Ingrid Superstar posing solemnly alongside a butcher soaked in blood, with Malangas hand resting on a heap of disassembled cattle. We bumped into the meat guy and asked if we could shoot  he said, Shit, yeah, bring them in. Fuck it  lets eat some steak,  Fink remembers. Another shot  in which Malanga and Warhol stand coolly behind a group of tussling schoolyard children  was more conceptual. In a way, says Fink, these guys represented for me not avant-garde but really arriere-garde. They were far behind the black revolution. So in the schoolyard, I thought Id have the kids overthrow them. I told Andy and Gerard to walk around in fashion-y poses, and I yelled for the children to attack them. If there had been 150,000 kids, it would have been sort of like Battleship Potemkin, but there wasnt  there were only 15. So my grand scheme of revolution was miniaturized. But still: I was pulling a fast one on them, in a way. And Andy never forgot me after that.

In the 50 intervening years, Fink never realized that the photos hadnt been released. I was high all the time back then, he says. And I wasnt a careerist. So I didnt think I needed to get them published. Then this year they turn up. And everybody goes: Well, look at this shit. 

The series will be published by Damiani, winter 2017.

*A version of this article appears in the May 16, 2016 issue of New York Magazine.
Photo: Guenter Guni/Getty Images

Eight people, the majority of them women, were arrested in Iran for sharing un-Islamic photos on Instagram  specifically, photos of themselves with their hair uncovered, which is required for women under national law.

They were on the list of 170 people being investigated for their Instagram posts; along with models, that list includes fashion designers, makeup artists, and photographers.

The Guardian reports that, two years ago, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled that modeling was acceptable under Islamic law, which led to a massive growth in the countrys fashion industry. The recent crackdown  operations Spider I and Spider II  followed modelings rise in popularity. Tehrans cybercrimes court prosecutor Javad Babaei accused modeling agencies of making and spreading immoral and un-Islamic culture and promiscuity, according to the BBC.

The BBC further reports that Instagram is a particular target for behavioral monitoring. Mostafa Alizadeh, a spokesman for the Iranian Centre for Surveying and Combating Organised Cyber Crimes, said, Sterilizing popular cyberspaces is on our agenda. We carried out this plan in 2013 with Facebook, and now Instagram is the focus.



One former Instagram model (her account was shut down months ago), 26-year-old Elham Arab, faced questioning by prosecutors on television. She spoke negatively of her experiences, saying, you can be certain that no man would want to marry a model whose fame has come by losing her honor.
I go to see Bond movies in theatres anyway, so I'd definitely be here for this ofc, but I kinda like when he goes for roles that aren't franchises.

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...people were actually betting on this shit?



it's weird because i like him well enough, but he's such a flop and i don't see that changing. i don't think he'll ever be the leading man everyone anticipated him to be.



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People bet on everything.

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him and benedict are in similar boats. all hype, but it never really got them very far. smushface got an oscar nom, but that's about it.



proof that fandom doesn't equate to overall success with the GP

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It's still possible that Cumbersnatch has a movie star moment. Dr. Strange is going to keep him high profile for the next five or so years. It's the kind of part that might do more for him than a lot of the other Marvel boys.

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cumberbatch isn't catching on as a leading man (thank christ) but he's still done well. he got an oscar nom and has had pretty big roles in major franchises. i'm hoping dr strange will flop hard and keep him from having much more of a career, but without internet ppl hyping him he would be forever stuck with like masterpiece theater and random bbc shit (which would make him 100x more tolerable, he's fine for that kinda stuff, just don't put that face on the big screen). imo he's already gotten as much fame/big roles as he ever could have hoped for.

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The fact that they have huge fandoms gives them buzz but I believe they are just not physically attractive enough to appeal to the mainsstream. Plus men often seem to catogorize them as ~softies.

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please no @ damian lewis and fassbender

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he'd be an awful bond

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I love Tom but no @ him as Bond.



From that betting list the only one who'd be a good bond is Idris Elba. Aidan Turner might be interesting but I've never thought to consider him for the role before. He seems to fit more with the young Q they're going for now instead of Bond, idk idk.



Edited at 2016-05-16 03:38 am (UTC)

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Yeah Aidan might be good in a couple of years but right now he has too much of a boyish charm for this role in my oppinion

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ugh please no.



Adrian Lester and Chiwetel Ejiofor should be included in this.



I'm really worried Damian's already got it tho, he did some q+a recently and someone asked him about it and he just... winked UGH.

/source my friend with a bike

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I will die if Chiwetel get picked for this, I need a hot James Bond ASAP and he looks so good on a suit.

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chiwetel is the only pick i want or that would make me care about bond. he's perf for the role

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Like I said, I hate James Bond, but I would watch the shit out of it if my sexy adorkable bb Chiwetel were playing him!



I like Adrian too, but I don't really find him sexy and he's already cemented as Mickey Bricks in my head.

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I am so attracted to Adrian Lester, yes please. I'll watch anything with him in

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Chiwe or David Oyelowo. Both have more interesting projects in America though.



I'm here for a younger Bond so Aidan is still my first choice.

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These movies are so awful

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Have been watching The Night Manager all day and to be honest it sold me on him being bond. With a good script i would totally be game.

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I just watched the first two eps and they are sooooo good. But so far not convinced he would make a good Bond.

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i went back through his movie catalog yesterday, and i watched high rise last night and then this today, and when i first was into him i wanted him to be like the cute period piece guy, but night manager, high rise, and only lovers left alive have really brought me around to this.

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I've been watching it this weekend, and I've never given a flip about him before, but he is so good in this! He and Hugh Laurie have great chemistry.

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Yeah I was completely against him being Bond until I watched The Night Manager. After that I can see it working.

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does anyone know where i can watch the last two episodes of the night manager, its not on any of my torrent pages.

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this should work http://www.primewire.ag/watch-2256891-The-Night-Manager-online-free

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I can't stand his pandering and thirst. He tries so aggressively hard to be charming, but it just comes off as so hollow to me.

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mte

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can't stand him

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lmao

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same

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i like him but this tbh.

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ik this comment is from months ago but lmao

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amen

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I find him a bit creepy tbh. His fan pandering always seems one blueberry away from a blueberry fiasco.

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Huh, I've been trying to figure out why I dislike him so much. I think you described it perfectly.

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yass

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I'd kind of rather he didn't cause then I'd have to watch a Bond movie and they just don't seem interesting to me.

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I love Tom and I love the Night Manager, but I don't think he'd be a great Bond and frankly, I think it's one of the least interesting career choices for him.



Didn't his people deny he met with them though?

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Co-sign. He's a great actor and I feel like Bond would do nothing for him.

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Every guy wants to be Bond, especially if they grew up with Tom's background (iirc Bond went to Eton).

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I love Thomas, but no.

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Also, I just saw Crimson Peak and it was the worst movie I've seen in a long time. I started laughing when [ Spoiler (click to open) ] ghost!Hiddles showed up. I just can't buy him as being a suave, sexy anything. Then again, I hate James Bond so I don't really care.Also, I just saw Crimson Peak and it was the worst movie I've seen in a long time. I started laughing when. Guillermo del Toro is so overrated, damn.

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lol, i didn't think it was the worst movie i've seen, but crimson peak DEFINITELY wasn't as good as it could've/should've been.



i've had to come to terms with the fact that it seems like GDT peaked with pan's labyrinth and everything since has been either subpar or outright bad. :\

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I'm really mad at how much wasted potential there was with CP. the cast, costumes and incredible house deserved better :(

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The Chinese slowdown did more than drag down its own economy, it singlehandedly created financial tremors throughout the global financial markets. With consistent growth rates well over 6 percent, China's economic health is an integral part of global expansion.

But just last year, investors saw the disintegration of billions of dollars worth of wealth on the Asian giant's stock market. The globalized economy experienced economic withdrawals with lagging Chinese demand, a substance to which both foreign and local industries have become addicted. It goes without saying that industrial and manufacturing demand in the Chinese economy acts as a relevant indicator of the world's financial condition, similar to the status of the United States. For that reason, investors have no choice but to realize the implications that can come from changes in demand for Chinese goods, services, and capital.



A country's stock market is often a leading indicator of its economic performance. In China, two dramatic corrections occurred in the middle of 2015 which translated to the weakness that would infect the global economy. From its peak last year, the Shanghai CSO 300 Industrial Index has lost over 50 percent of its value in a downtrend that has depressed sentiment surrounding the industrial and manufacturing sectors in China. The downtrend has softened but continues to devalue large-cap industrial shares approaching values seen in mid-to-late 2014. As far as projections go, the stock market appears to be an indicator of a contraction in demand. Investors looking to pump capital back into these Chinese firms need to consider the bubble-like symptoms that caused four freefalls in the past year. Related: Iran Hits Saudis Where It Hurts, Offers Discounts On Asian Crude



The China Caixin Manufacturing PMI is one of the most watched industrial economic indicators for domestic and global demand trends. The index tracks the monthly growth of the manufacturing sector, one of the largest components of China's GDP. Readings above 50 translate to expansion while readings below 50 represent contraction. February 2015 was the last month where an expansion was reported before the drop that occurred later in the year. Just after the major correction in August 2015, the September reading was recorded at its lowest point, 47.0. From there, the contractions have been slowly shrinking to just below 50 in March 2016.

The worst of the losses look to be over with a trough most likely formed in late 2015. The next milestone for recovery will be getting the PMI back into positive growth territory. Demand will only fully come back online when the levels of mid-2014 are approached. But, at the very least, the worst could be over, as the corrections have successfully repriced the stock market in relation to the country's manufacturing strength.



When the Chinese manufacturing and industrial sectors are strong, their consumption of raw materials, machinery, and just about anything else is equally as robust. China is highly dependent on heavy industry, which made up 40 percent of the economy in 2014. As the slowdown set in, businesses started to import less. In April 2016, Chinese imports dropped by 10.9 percent to $127.2 billion, a 30.6 percent slide from the March 2013 peak of $183.1 billion. Moreover, imports may never recover to their peak levels. The Chinese economy is undergoing a transformation, and the emergence of a service sector is allowing China to shift away from a reliance on heavy industry. For global exporters of commodities and industrial materials, the shrinking of the world's largest source of demand is bad news. Related: EPA Launches New Methane Rules For Oil And Gas



Nowhere is this more evident than in the Chinese energy sector, as crude oil accounts for about 6 percent of total imports. According to EIA data, members of OPEC already account for 58 percent of China's oil supply with its leader, Saudi Arabia, the highest at 16 percent. Saudi Arabias revenues have plunged because of low oil prices, forcing the Saudi government to cut spending on social programs.

Now, the slowdown in Chinese demand as it builds up its service sector, combined with a global push towards renewable energy, could further threaten the already fragile levels of Chinese oil consumption. On top of that, China has pushed to diversify its sources of imports, another challenge to Middle East suppliers. China has already exchanged the volatile supply of Sudan, Iran, and Syria for deals with its neighbor, Russia. More shifts could be due in the near future and here's who may be affected:



 Saudi Arabia, Angola, and Oman are all countries that supply at least 10 percent of China's crude oil. But recently, the Wall Street Journal reports that Russia has overtaken the trio to Chinas top supplier. In the first quarter of 2016, Saudi Arabia's exports to China have only increased by 7.3 percent despite low oil prices, which should encourage larger increases in consumption. In a world of abundant supply, OPEC members will fight each other for market share in China, especially if Iranian capacity increases rapidly and a cheap energy environment settles in for the long run. The disinterest of the cartel's biggest customer could mean a more competitive market, or worse, the disintegration of OPEC. Related: Where Will Halliburton And Baker Hughes Go From Here?

 Russia has had the advantage of being on good terms with China while they shift their supply chains to more secure channels. Deals like the $400 billion agreement between the Chinese government and Russia's Gazprom have given their neighbor preferred access to China. As Saudi exports fell, Russia logged a 42 percent increase in crude oil shipments to China in the same period. Russia has seduced Chinese customers with discounted crude as well as deals done in yuan, whereas most of global oil deals are conducted in dollars. The new partnership has increased tension present in the rivalry between OPEC and non-OPEC members. The shift in Chinese imports might convince Saudi Arabia and its peers to increase production, a threat already used by Saudi crown prince bin Salman. But has Russia won this "race" before it began? According to the EIA, Russia and China have signed a deal to send "up to 800,000 b/d of crude oil by 2018." With the country securing more demand for its enormous oil and natural gas stocks, they might be in prime position to benefit from a stabilization, or maybe a recovery, in energy prices.

 The United States is in a unique position in this changing market. With shale production spurring a renaissance in domestic supply, the world's second largest oil importer now has options on the supply side. Energy independence (no imports) may never be in the equation, but the U.S. could begin to balance their energy trade deficit with the ban on exports lifted. However, the shrinking discount between WTI and Brent means that it becomes cheaper to import oil. Also, weak Chinese demand is keeping oil prices low, and the shale revolution is withering away as a result.

The days of global reliance on Chinese demand are soon coming to end as seen by the decline in growth rate, decline in imports, and increase in service sector strength. The implications have already been great as stock markets across the developed world fell into peril when China's GDP growth rate fell below 7 percent.

Withdrawal symptoms may last for a while until a recovery in demand alleviates some pressure. But global financial markets will have to adjust to a developed China, and as this "new normal" sets in, it will mean softer demand for commodities. Chinas slowing demand for oil will lead to heightened competition for suppliers. For now, it appears that OPECs loss is Russias gain. The energy players and other foreign businesses that once relied on China's robust growth will no longer be able to depend on its expanding demand. A new group of emerging economies will have to step in. Who will they be?



By Jacob Hess for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Famous short seller Jim Chanos is shorting oil majors Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp, according to Bloomberg. He is operating under the belief that the negative cash flows and dividend payments using borrowed money by both the companies is an unsustainable move in the long-term.

He also believes that a preference for electric cars and trucks can seriously dent the demand for crude oil in the near future.

Shells current cost of supplies earnings tanked in the latest quarter from $4.8 billion to $0.8 billion. The worrying point was the $4.6 billion in cash flow against an expenditure of $6.1 billion in Capex. $3.7 billion of dividends were distributed to the shareholders, of which the company managed to settle $1.5 billion in payouts by issuing 65.7 million A shares under the scrip dividend program.

On the other hand, Chevron also declared a below par result with a net loss of $725 million, compared to a profit of $2.6 billion in the first quarter of 2015. The cash flow situation for Chevron looks shaky. It generated $1.1 billion in operating cash flows in Q1 this year, whereas, it spent $5.6 billion in capex and $2 billion for dividends.

Both the companies are borrowing money, cutting costs and burning their cash reserves to fulfill their dividend payouts.

Bloomberg reports that the top six companies have doubled their borrowings in the last two years compared to 2014 levels.

Due to the increased borrowings, the debt-to-capitalization ratio for Shell has increased to 26 percent from 12.4 percent at the end of first quarter 2015, whereas, for Chevron it has increased to 22 percent. Both the levels are comfortable in the short-term, and there is no immediate risk due to the prevailing low cost of borrowings.

The 75 percent rise in crude oil prices from the lows in February has boosted prices of both the companies. Investors are encouraged by the managements commitment to maintaining dividends even during the worst oil crisis in decades. Even after the current run-up in stock prices, the dividend yields on both the companies are attractive.

The Chevron management in its latest conference call reiterated: Sustaining and growing the dividend is still the first priority from a cash use standpoint.

Similarly, Shell has targeted to cut spending by $3 billion, bringing total spending down to $30 billion this fiscal year, in order to continue paying dividends.

However, crude oil fundamentals dont support higher prices, and that is a fairly significant however.

The EIAs May STEO forecasts an average crude oil price of $41 per barrel in 2016 and an average of $51/b in 2017. Many top trading firms such as Vitol have predicted a range bound price for almost a decade.

Neither company is in any immediate danger of tanking or facing a crisis, unless the current appreciation in oil prices reverses and oil again drops to retest the lows of $27/b.

Traders who are currently holding the stock can continue to do so, keeping an eye on the crude oil prices. If for some reason crude oil were to break the lows, all bets on the oil companies should be off.

The latest STEO by EIA has raised its forecast by $6 for 2016 and $10 for 2017, compared to the previous months forecast, which indicates a changing trend. In case the outlook improves further, both Shell and Chevron will be in a much stronger position to continue dishing out dividends and improving their cash flow situation.

Though short-term trading opportunities exist for a small pull back when crude pulls back to under $40/b, a long-term short on both the companies is not favorable from a risk-reward perspective for the retail investor.

By Rakesh Upadhyay for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Imagine a fossil-fuel independent world where those who dont want to give up their road autonomy drive electric cars, while those who need to get from A to B as fast as possible whoosh at close to 1,000 mph in aerodynamic pods hidden behind air-free tunnels. No planes, no gas-guzzlers, no trains, just clean air, electric cars and time-saving Hyperloops.

Hyperloop One has announced that its first track test of Hyperloop technology was a success. The company was set up two years ago with the aim of turning into reality Elon Musks vision of a superfast and affordable public transport network using magnetic propulsion in a near vacuum. Related: Where Will Halliburton And Baker Hughes Go From Here?

The crux of Musks idea was a long, straight tube, almost completely evacuated, along which a transport pod will travel at high subsonic speeds. A journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles would take half an hour in such a pod at 760 mph or more. Impressive as this sounds from a technical perspective, what made the Hyperloop idea so appealing to various investors was that, according to Musks cost calculations, it was economically viable.

If you havent watched the video released by Hyperloop One, you might assume they built a tube and tested a pod in it. The future right here, right now. No. They built a track and tested a sled on this track, which cost $37 million to build. The whole thing looks  at least to the eyes of a non-engineer  remarkably similar to this magnetic levitation train built by General Atomics a few years ago. Related: EPA Launches New Methane Rules For Oil And Gas

The key difference, of course, is speed. Hyperloop Ones sled accelerated from 0 to 176 mph in just over a second. Thats certainly impressive as far as speed and acceleration goes, and serves as proof that a linear electric motor can propel objects forward and fast. And basically thats all the test has demonstrated.

The problems that skeptics have identified with the Hyperloop technology, however, and which are well summed up here, have nothing to do with speed. They have to do with many issues, such as thermal expansion, for one  the steel pod is bound to expand from the heat in the atmosphere in California  which needs to be managed to avoid unfortunate events and increased costs. Related: Oil Prices Slip As Stronger Dollar Outweighs Bullish IEA Data

As noted above, affordability is one of the major advantages of the Hyperloop, but this affordability is also a target of Hyperloop skeptics. One analyst calculates the cost of the Hyperloop at $14 million per mile, which is almost twice that of Musks calculation, but still much cheaper than a bullet train for the state of California. A New York Times survey among various experts revealed that the true cost of the Hyperloop could be more like $100 billion for the stretch from San Francisco to L.A. If accurate, the Hyperloop would lose some luster since the high-speed train track between the two cities has been calculated to cost a more reasonable $68 billion.

The Hyperloop could well be a game-changer, albeit a possibly expensive game-changerpossibly much more expensive than currently believed. And still, it could disrupt everything from freight transport to air travel, putting the last nail in the coffin of the oil industry if it presents an alternative mode of travel between major cities . But this just wont happen anytime soon. Not until new materials, construction methods and tech make it economically viable as well as reliable at the same time.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Milwaukee County and MCTS will hold another public meeting this week to get input on the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Feasibility Study. The meeting on Wednesday, May 18, will feature an open house format from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Marquette University Campus Alumni Memorial Union.

New information will be available for the public to see, ask questions and give their input. New items include:

Updated BRT Route Maps

Conceptual Costs for the Route and Stations

BRT Ridership Estimates

BRT Benefits and Potential Impacts

The BRT Feasibility Study is examining adding BRT service to better connect people to jobs, school, medical appointments and other opportunities within the East-West Corridor between Downtown Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa.

The East-West Corridor has long been recognized as the most heavily congested corridor in the Milwaukee area. BRT would strengthen existing transit service and create economic development while also taking cars off the road and easing congestion in neighborhoods.

MCTS currently gives more than 50,000 rides a week to people in the East-West Corridor  thats 2.6 million rides a year. The proposed BRT service would increase ridership in the corridor while also speeding up travel times for bus riders.

The meeting will be held in the third floor ballroom of the Marquette University Alumni Memorial Union, 1442 W. Wisconsin Ave. Street parking is available or, you can take the GoldLine, BlueLine, Routes 14, 23, 30 or 30X to campus.
Protests are great but a sustainable progressive revolution requires much more



(Image by Democracy Spring) Details DMCA



Last month a few thousand activists and everyday Americans descended on Washington DC in an action called Democracy Spring. It consisted of a ten-day 140-mile walk from Philadelphia to Washington. It culminated with eight days of civil disobedience at the US Capitol -- "either end the corruption of big money in politics and ensure free and fair elections or arrest hundreds of people, day after day, simply for demanding an equal voice."

I interviewed a Democracy Spring participant about this action during the event, the 'Lady Liberty' who got arrested. She was energized by the demonstrations but noted that this is just a tiny part of what needed to be done to take back our democracy.

It was very disappointed but expected that this Democracy Spring got little coverage. What is more disappointing is that the attendance did not match the buildup. Many expected more people given the number of activist groups and prominent individuals who signed on. To clear, had a fraction of Right Wing activists put on such an event, the media coverage would be incessant.

The Democracy Spring page characterized the success of the political protest as follows.

We arrived in DC on April 11th, we gave Congress a simple choice: either take immediate action to end the corruption of big money in politics and ensure the right to vote or arrest over 1,300 Americans simply for demanding an equal voice in government. Their refusal to act and their readiness to condemn so many exposes the depth of corruption that pervades our political system. The historic march and Capitol sit-ins this April inspired millions of people across the country. But that was just a beginning. From here, we need to take the fight home to states across the union, challenging candidates, and elected officials to take a side, lifting up those who declare their support for fundamental reforms to fix or democracy, and exposing those who refuse to do so as defenders of the corrupt status quo. We will disrupt their fundraisers, their debates, their press conferences, and ultimately, their chances at the polls. We have been able to focus the nation's attention as never before on the urgency of this crisis, the existence of solutions to it, and the strength of the popular demand to enact them. Now, we will make this election a referendum on whether our democracy should belong to the People as a whole or to the billionaire class alone. That's a referendum we can win, setting the stage to achieve fundamental reform that will give us -- finally -- the democracy for all we were promised.

The characterization is correct but incomplete. Activists justifiably protest for change. The effectiveness of that protest is only as good as the larger body supporting it. Media plays a significant role in this in acquiring support or identifying support. A small number of TEA Party activists in that sense gets to influence much more so than thousands of progressive activists.

Progressives must add more components to the repertoire. What are those components? Education and pragmatism.

A good example of that is the Move to Amend's Movement Education Program. It builds on the concept 'you can't know where you're going until you know where you've been' along with material that details successful movements.

Last week Move to Amend had its Inaugural National Leadership Summit. Participants learned about social media. They learned about the 'We the People Amendment.' They learned about all types of oppression, its manifestations, and how to talk about it. They reconstructed the reasons why the battle against the corporatocracy is much more than money in speech. They learned that the defining of corporations as people is a form of cancer that negates the rights of the average Americans. They learned that the ills that afflict the nation are solved only when these concepts are understood. They will only be understood when we make a concerted effort by enlighting and speaking truth to our fellow Americans.

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Reprinted from WSWS

The American FBI has a secret cache of documents, more than 80,000 pages in all, concerning possible ties between the 9/11 hijackers and an upper-class Saudi family who lived in Florida and fled the United States two weeks before the suicide hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people.

A federal judge in Tampa, Florida has been reviewing the documents for more than two years as a consequence of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by a trio of online reporters -- Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swan and Dan Christensen. The review process has been extremely slow because of restrictive FBI rules on how many pages Judge William Zloch may access at any one time.

The existence of the document trove was revealed Friday in a front-page article in the US-based web publication the Daily Beast. The article identified the Saudi family as Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife Anoud, who was the daughter of Esam Ghazzawi, an adviser to a nephew of Saudi King Fahd. Ghazzawi owned the home in which they were staying in a gated community in Sarasota, Florida. The home was raided by the FBI after 9/11 but the residents had all departed in evident haste on August 30, 2001.

Visitor logs in the community, known as Prestancia, showed that the alleged ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers, Mohammad Atta, had visited al-Hijji, along with two other 9/11 hijackers, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan Al-Shehhi.

Former Senator Robert Graham, co-chair of the joint congressional committee that investigated the 9/11 attacks, told the Daily Beast that he had never known of the FBI documents on the Sarasota home until they were uncovered by the investigative journalists. He later viewed a portion of these records and confirmed that they identified the three 9/11 hijackers as visitors.

Throughout this period, the FBI had denied that the al-Hijji family had any connection to the 9/11 attackers. The agency changed its story only when Graham said he would testify under oath about what he had read in the file of documents. At this point the FBI conceded the existence of 35 pages of documents.

When Judge Zloch ordered a further search for records, the Tampa office of the FBI came back with 80,226 pages of files marked PENTTBOM, which stands for "Pentagon/Twin-Towers Bombing" in FBI jargon. Judge Zloch has been reviewing these since May 1, 2014 and has given no date by which he expects to finish.

The al-Hijji family exited its Sarasota home, leaving behind three cars, an open safe and disarray that suggested a hasty departure. The security guards at the gated community noted their departure, but did not consider it suspicious until the 9/11 attacks two weeks later.

The FBI initially made only a perfunctory response and did not open a formal investigation until eight months later, in April 2002, "based upon repeated citizen calls" about the conduct of the family during their stay in the United States. One of the few documents released said that this investigation "revealed many connections" between a member of the family "and individuals associated with the terrorist attacks."

The Daily Beast report adds to recent revelations of evidence of Saudi regime ties to the 9/11 hijackers that has been covered up by the US government under both the Bush and Obama administrations.

Graham has actively campaigned for the release of 28 pages of material on the Saudi-9/11 connection comprising an entire chapter of the joint congressional committee report on the 9/11 attacks in which he participated. This material has been withheld for more than 13 years. On April 10, Graham was the main witness interviewed by the CBS program "60 Minutes" in a segment on the continuing cover-up of Saudi-9/11 connections.

In an op-ed column this week in the Washington Post, Graham reiterated his demand for release of the 28 pages, noting that President Obama had promised a decision on declassifying the material by next month. Graham denounced CIA Director John Brennan, who responded to the "60 Minutes" program by publicly opposing any release of the 28 pages.

Also Friday, the Guardian newspaper published an interview with a former member of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission appointed by President George W. Bush, who flatly declared that there was extensive Saudi involvement in supporting the hijackers. Of the 19 perpetrators, 15 were Saudi citizens, most of them having recently arrived in the United States when they seized control of four jetliners on September 11, 2001.

Former Navy Secretary John Lehman, a Republican, told the newspaper: "There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government." While only one Saudi consular official in Los Angeles, Fahad al-Thumairy, was implicated in supporting the hijackers, according to the official account, Lehman believes that at least five officials were involved.

Al-Thumairy was linked to the two hijackers who lived in San Diego before the 9/11 attacks, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, but he was deported rather than charged with a crime. The other five, whom Lehman did not name, "may not have been indicted, but they were certainly implicated. There was an awful lot of circumstantial evidence."
Reprinted from Consortium News

If the Democratic Party presses ahead and nominates hawkish Hillary Clinton for President, it could recreate the conditions that caused the party to splinter in the late 1960s and early 1970s when anti-war and pro-war Democrats turned on one another and opened a path for decades of Republican dominance of the White House.

This new Democratic crackup could come as early as this fall if anti-war progressives refuse to rally behind Clinton because of her neoconservative foreign policy -- thus infuriating Clinton's backers -- or it could happen in four years if Clinton wins the White House and implements her militaristic agenda, including expanding the U.S. war in Syria while continuing other wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya -- and challenging Russia on its borders.

Clinton's neocon policies in a prospective first term could generate a "peace" challenge similar to the youth-driven uprising against President Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War in 1968.

Indeed, in 2020, anti-war elements of the Democratic Party might see little choice but to seek a candidate willing to challenge an incumbent President Clinton much as Sen. Eugene McCarthy took on President Johnson, leading eventually to the chaotic and bloody Chicago convention, which in turn contributed to Richard Nixon's narrow victory that fall.

A difference between Johnson and Clinton, however, is that in 1964, LBJ ran as the "peace candidate" against the hawkish Republican Barry Goldwater (who incidentally was supported by a young Hillary Clinton), whereas in 2016, Clinton has made clear her warlike plans (albeit framing them in "humanitarian" terms).

After winning a landslide victory against Goldwater, Johnson reversed himself and plunged into the Vietnam War, fearing he otherwise might be blamed for "losing" Indochina. With Clinton, there's no reason to expect a reversal since she's made no secret about her plans for invading Syria under the guise of creating a "safe zone" and for confronting nuclear-armed Russia along its western borders, from Ukraine through the Baltic States. In her belligerent rhetoric, she has compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hitler.

Courting Bibi

Clinton also has vowed to take the U.S.-Israeli relationship to "the next level" by embracing right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who expects to convince President Hillary Clinton to end any detente with Iran and put the prospect of bombing Iran back on the table. Clinton would seem to be an easy sell.





Another feature of the LBJ-Hillary comparison is that the Democratic Party's turn against the Vietnam War in the 1968 and 1972 campaigns prompted a collection of pro-war intellectuals to bolt the Democratic Party and align themselves with the Republicans, especially around Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Those Democratic hawks became known as the neoconservatives and remained attached to the Republican Party for the next 35 years, eventually emerging as Official Washington's foreign policy establishment. However, in some prominent cases (such as Robert Kagan), neocons are now switching over to Clinton because of the rise of Donald Trump, who rejects the neocon passion for interventionism.

In other words, just as Johnson's Vietnam War escalation -- and the resulting fierce opposition from anti-war Democrats -- set in motion the neocons' defection from the Democrats to the Republicans, Clinton's enthusiasm for the Iraq War, her support for escalation of the Afghan War, and her scheming for "regime change" wars in Libya and Syria are bringing some neocon hawks back to their first nesting place in the Democratic Party.

But a President Clinton's transformation of the Democratic Party into "an aggressive war party," whereas under President Barack Obama it has been "a reluctant war party," would force principled anti-war Democrats to stop making excuses and to start trying to expel Clinton's neocon pro-war attitudes from the party.

Such an internecine battle over the party's soul could deeply divide the Democrats between those supporting Clinton -- as "the first woman president" and because of her liberal attitudes on gay rights and other social issues -- and those opposing Clinton because of her desire to continue and expand America's "perpetual wars."

The Sanders Resistance
By Kathryn Hickok

Did you know that almost half of Washington, D.C.s public school children attend charter schools? In fact, our nations capital now has 115 charters, run by 62 nonprofit organizations.

President Bill Clinton signed the legislation authorizing D.C.s charter schools twenty years ago this spring. Since then, D.C. charter school students have made significant academic gains. A recent study on urban charter schools by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that D.C. charter students are learning the equivalent of 96 more days in math and 70 more days in reading than their peers in traditional public schools.

David Osborne, director of the project Reinventing Americas Schools at the Progressive Policy Institute, has called D.C. the nations most interesting laboratory for public education. In an article for U.S. News and World Report, Osborne compares the traditional public school system with a Model T trying to compete on a racetrack with 21st century cars. [F]or those with greater needs, he writes, schools need innovative designs and extraordinary commitment from their staffs.

Charter schools entrepreneurial governance model allows them to innovate, adapt, and specialize to meet the particular needs of students. Their success in educating children who face the greatest challenges to academic achievement is fueling an even greater demand for the kind of choice in education that charter schools have come to represent.

Kathryn Hickok is Publications Director and Director of the Childrens Scholarship Fund-Portland program at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregons free market public policy research organization.
Nawaz Sharif to address NA today

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs is going to address the National Assembly on Monday (today). But revelations that his arch-rival, PTI chief Imran Khan, had also set up an offshore company have eased some of the pressure that was mounting on the prime minister in the aftermath of the Panama Papers leaks.



A key adviser to the prime minister, who was involved in the preparation of his landmark speech, told reporters: The prime minister will come up with lots of substance, which should be sufficient for his own constituency and the more fair-minded critics, since the opposition always manages to find some fault. Pressed for more details, the adviser simply said: I can only say that things will get messier. This may take some by surprise.



The adviser said that the PM was now in a better position to defend the case of his three children, given that several key opposition members, including PTIs Imran Khan, Jahangir Tareen, Aleem Khan, PPP senators Rehman Malik and Osman Saifullah as well as Moonis Elahi, the son of former deputy PM Pervaiz Elahi, would have to answer regarding their direct or indirect links to offshore companies in tax havens.



Apart from responding to the oppositions queries about his familys business concerns, the prime minister is likely to urge political leaders across the board to come up with a collective strategy to root out the evil of money laundering once and for all, another ruling party source said.



I personally think a joint parliamentary committee, which will formulate the terms of reference (ToR) for a Panamangate-specific probe is the best course of action, and some in the party have also suggested the same. But lets see how the PM handles the oppositions queries, the source said.



Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan is said to have played a key role in the preparation of notes for the prime minister, whereas Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid has been tasked with phrasing the response, a couple of senior government officials privy to the development told reporters.



They said that after the Supreme Court had asked the government to review its ToR for the proposed judicial commission, there was a good chance that the PM would opt for consultation with the opposition. That stance, the official said, can be in the form of proposing a multi-pronged investigation, instead of just focusing on the PM and his children.



The opposition, meanwhile, will be meeting again ahead of the assembly session on Monday afternoon to thrash out a strategy before going into the session. [Opposition parties] will meet and discuss our response in case the PM avoids answering the seven questions that have been conveyed to the government through the National Assembly speaker, PTI chief whip Dr Shireen Mazari told media men.



She said the opposition would hear out the prime minister, adding that they had already asked the speaker to ensure that the PM also hears out what key parliamentary leaders from the opposition have to say.



The prime minister wont be the only habitual truant attending Mondays session.



PTI spokesperson Naeemul Haq confirmed that Imran Khan was due to return to Pakistan on Monday morning and would also be attending the National Assembly sitting.



Senate Opposition Leader Aitzaz Ahsan  who has been leading the PPPs onslaught against the government  had repeatedly said that if the prime minister fails to address the specific queries raised by the combined opposition, they will not keep quiet.



Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq has also said that he expected the PM to make a serious offer for talks to forge a way forward. PTIs Shah Mehmood Qureshi was also of view that in the wake of the CJPs response, a couple of parliamentary committees; one to deliberate on the ToRs and one to mull legislation for the proposed commission, can be the best response.
Most studies of the interactions between companies and consumers look at one piece of the puzzle: Advertising or social media or news coverage or "consumer sentiment" as measured in surveys. A new study from researchers at the University of Maryland, University of Tennessee and Massey University examines how messages about brands across various channels interact in a complex set of feedback loops the authors call the "echoverse." And the study offers advice for managers on navigating this new complex media world.

"You can't just be in your silo," says Roland T. Rust, Distinguished University Professor and David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing at UMD's Robert H. Smith School of Business. "You have to manage all of your brand communications as a big system."

In addition to offering an unprecedented look at the interdependence of media, corporate communications, and information emanating from consumers, the study underscores how the importance of Twitter in brand management has exploded since 2010even more than one might expectand how the influence of other channels has waned. Consumer sentiment, for instance, a snapshot of how people feel about brands, is not nearly as important as it used to be. The study focused on the four top financial service firms from 2007 through 2013, a tumultuous period for that sector: Bank of America, Citibank, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo.

The authors analyzed the volume and tone of messages in different media: articles in top newspapers; tweets over the period that emanated from or mentioned the banks; press releases; ad spending; and consumer sentiment. As a measure of business outcomes, the authors used deposits on a quarterly basis. They controlled for factors that would affect all banks simultaneously, such as general economic conditions. All told, the authors write, theirs is "one of the most comprehensive datasets in the brand communications literature."

To capture the "valence," or tone, of most messages, they used automated linguistic analysis. And to spotlight changes over time, they divided the dataset into two groups: 2007-2010 and 2011-2013. While people often talk loosely about an "echo chamber," this study offers an empirically rooted picture of how it actually works. Among the findings:

Negativity feeds on itself. News articles with a negative tone lead to an increase in negatively toned tweetsand vice versa. Negative news articles breed more of the same, and negative tweets prompt more negative tweets. Such negative spirals lead to fewer deposits in banks. (Early in the period studied, positive feedback loops were more common. Later, the negative spirals became the norm. This may be partly due to the rise of online media, but traditional media also appears to feed off its own negativity more often these days.)

Some parts of the echoverse influence each other equally. In other cases, influence goes one way. Traditional newspaper articles strongly influence word of mouth (Twitter, in this case); likewise, tweets affect the tone of news stories. In contrast, while Twitter influences consumer sentiment, consumer sentiment had little influence on what was said in Twitter. "This is in line with the opinion leadership role of the Twittersphere," the authors write. Companies issued more press releases when Twitter sentiment soured than when when consumer sentiment did.

Press releases actually work. This surprised the authors, as press release are an often overlooked part of the echoverse. But positive press releases by companies could lift the tone of third-party tweets about the banks, and even lift customer deposits.

Advertising bypasses the echoverse. Traditional ad buys did not affect traditional media coverage in a statistically significant way; nor did they affect tweet volume or tone, or consumer sentiment. Advertising did increase consumer deposits, howeverconsistent with existing literature suggesting advertising has a slow, long-term payoff.

The study also found that some banks had more effective social media strategies than others. Bank of America, the study found, was able to reduce the number of negative tweets mentioning the company, and even reduce negative news stories, by sending out more tweets. Wells Fargo could not. Unlike other banks, Bank of America, was also able to increase consumer deposits by ramping up its tweets. The authors suggested this is because Bank of America's main strategy was to send direct tweets to customers with concerns, whereas other banks were more likely to use Twitter as a kind of broadcast-advertising medium. (There was also some evidence that "high volume, consistent, moderately toned" tweets were more effective than more enthusiastic tweets that consumers may read as inauthentic.)

"Managers are used to a one-to-many model of communication," Rust says. "But more and more, they have to move to a one-to-one approach to be effective. On the other hand, consumer word of mouth used to spread one-to-one. More and more consumers are one-to-many in their brand communications."

The paper also implies that the considerable money companies spend on monitoring social media, including predictive analyticspredicted to reach $136 billion by 2020is worth it.

Explore further Positive emotions more contagious than negative ones on Twitter

More information: "Brand Buzz in the Echoverse," by Kelly Hewett of the University of Tennessee; William Rand, assistant professor of marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland; Roland T. Rust, Distinguished University Professor and David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing at the Robert H. Smith School; and Harald J. van Heerde of Massey University, is forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing. Journal information: Journal of Marketing "Brand Buzz in the Echoverse," by Kelly Hewett of the University of Tennessee; William Rand, assistant professor of marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland; Roland T. Rust, Distinguished University Professor and David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing at the Robert H. Smith School; and Harald J. van Heerde of Massey University, is forthcoming in the
Escherichia coli. Credit: Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH

Australian scientists may have found a way to stop deadly bacteria from infecting patients. The discovery could lead to a whole new way of treating antibiotic-resistant "superbugs". The researchers have uncovered what may be an Achilles heel on the bacteria cell membrane that could act as a potential novel drug target.

Almost every second woman suffers from a urinary tract infection during her lifetime, mostly caused by the intestinal bacterium E. coli. It travels along the urethra to the bladder where it triggers painful infections.

In order to infect the bladder (which is constantly being flushed out with urine), the bacteria have developed nanofilaments which effectively anchor the bacteria to the walls of the urinary tract.

A team headed by Professor Trevor Lithgow, from the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University, has found a proteincalled the TAMthat is crucial to the assembly of these anchoring filaments.

In a paper, published today in Nature Microbiology, the researchers describe how they developed an assay to measure the assembly of the filament forming protein, called usher.

"Using our assay we tested whether blocking TAM had any effect on usher. What we found was that TAM is required for the assembly of usher and therefore for production of the filaments needed to anchor the bacteria to the urinary tract surface," he said.

The assay revealed that, under normal circumstances, E. coli can create filaments within two minutes of sensing the urinary tract environment. However, when TAM is blocked, it can take up to four hours for the same anchoring process to happen.

According to Professor Lithgow the discovery of how TAM impacts on the E. coli's ability to latch onto the wall of the urinary tract could be a very important target for drug therapy. "Most antibiotics against E. coli have to get across the bacterial cell membranes in order to kill the invader," he said.

"The TAM is on the bacterial surface, so it is directly accessible to the sorts of drugs that would inhibit its function, and thereby halt the rapid production of these nanofilaments."

Importantly, other potentially lethal bacteria also use filaments which are controlled through TAM, according to Professor Lithgow. These include Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase-producing bacteria (KPC) which caused a scare in Victoria last year when Victorian authorities issued an alert that the antibiotic resistant superbug may have contributed to up to 18 deaths over the previous three years.

Explore further Urinary tract infection: How bacteria nestle in

More information: Effective assembly of fimbriae in Escherichia coli depends on the translocation assembly module nanomachine, Nature Microbiology, DOI: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.64 Journal information: Nature Microbiology Effective assembly of fimbriae in Escherichia coli depends on the translocation assembly module nanomachine,
Bamboo has a critical role to play in the provision of safe and affordable housing and could be a key contributor to greener urban environments worldwide, according to a leading group of academics, architects and construction experts.

This strategic resource combines rapidly renewable properties, strength, and cost-effectiveness  making it an ideal building material and a potential driver of sustainable development in many parts of the world.

The case for bamboo is outlined in the 'Pittsburgh Declaration'  a global call-to-action that seeks to increase international recognition of the benefits of bamboo, and outline recommendations designed to more effectively harness the plant as a building material. Its benefits have been recognized recently, following earthquakes in Nepal and Ecuador, where bamboo structures often fared better than buildings made from conventional construction material such as concrete. Bamboo is now expected to play an important role in both countries' reconstruction.

The Declaration follows a meeting at the University of Pittsburgh - the 'Symposium on Bamboo in the Urban Environment,' part of a US-State Department and UK British Council-funded Global innovation Initiative (GII) project that is supporting the development of bamboo as a sustainable and engineered alternative construction material.

The meeting, which brought together academic, private sector and civil society actors from 14 countries and territories, was jointly organized by the University of Pittsburgh, Coventry University, and the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), a multilateral organization with 41 member states.

To ensure bamboo is harnessed more effectively and becomes a viable building material for the future, the Declaration makes several recommendations. A key consideration is international standards - the plant's use in modern structures has been previously hampered by a lack of formal standards and codes.

The Declaration therefore invites all bamboo-producer and consumer countries to participate in bamboo standard development within the newly established International Standards Organization (ISO) Technical Committee 296; and to share information and coordinate efforts on new harmonized, best-practice international ISO design standard for round culm bamboo. Other recommendations include inviting businesses, industry and academia to advance national and international standards cooperation; encouraging researchers and business to validate the adoption of testing standards; and requesting the development of a new standard on the structural uses of laminated bamboo.

"The Pittsburgh Declaration clearly demonstrates a growing consensus among experts on the need to harness bamboo as a building material," says Oliver Frith, INBAR's Global Programme Director. "Bamboo is a practical, cost-effective and sustainable option that will provide affordable, and as we have seen recently in Nepal and Ecuador, resilient and secure homes. The recommendations included in the Declaration are an important milestone and offer a framework to ensure the plant plays a more significant role in construction."

Explore further How bamboo could help build a sustainable future
Credit: KNMI

Air quality and climate change are important challenges for society. As part of Europe's environmental monitoring Copernicus programme, the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite will be launched towards the end of the year. It carries the Tropomi tropospheric monitoring instrument to measure atmospheric trace gases such as nitrogen dioxide, ozone, carbon monoxide and methane. It will provide daily worldwide measurements for the next seven years. The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service will use these data to forecast air quality.

Developed by the Netherlands and ESA, Tropomi is particularly innovative. It observes sunlight that is scattered back to space by Earth's surface and atmosphere, detecting the unique fingerprints of each trace gas in different parts of the spectrum.

As a significant improvement on earlier such instruments, Tropomi has a resolution of 7 km x 7 km  six times higher than the ozone monitor on NASA's current Aura satellite. In addition, the sensitivity of individual ground pixels is also significantly higher. High spatial resolution and sensitivity are very important for identifying small emission sources and for making observations in between clouds.

ESA has assessed how Tropomi-type observations will improve air-quality forecasts, computing the concentrations of trace gases for the summer of 2003. Europe was suffering a severe heatwave and high air pollution at the time. From the modelled concentrations, simulated satellite observations with realistic uncertainties have been created. This is shown in the image above and was presented at the Living Planet Symposium in Prague in May 2016. The study showed that Tropomi's observations of nitrogen dioxide and other gases will greatly improve air-quality forecasts.

Explore further Monitoring air quality takes next step
With the right mix of nutrients, phytoplankton grow quickly, creating blooms visible from space. This image, created from MODIS data, shows a phytoplankton bloom off New Zealand. Credit: Robert Simmon and Jesse Allen/NASA

Over the past half-million years, the equatorial Pacific Ocean has seen five spikes in the amount of iron-laden dust blown in from the continents. In theory, those bursts should have turbo-charged the growth of the ocean's carbon-capturing algae - algae need iron to grow - but a new study shows that the excess iron had little to no effect.

The results are important today, because as groups search for ways to combat climate change, some are exploring fertilizing the oceans with iron as a solution.

Algae absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Proponents of iron fertilization argue that adding iron to the oceans would fuel the growth of algae, which would absorb more CO2 and sink it to the ocean floor. The most promising ocean regions are those high in nutrients but low in chlorophyll, a sign that algae aren't as productive as they could be. The Southern Ocean, the North Pacific, and the equatorial Pacific all fit that description. What's missing, proponents say, is enough iron.

The new study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds to growing evidence, however, that iron fertilization might not work in the equatorial Pacific as suggested.

Essentially, earth has already run its own large-scale iron fertilization experiments. During the ice ages, nearly three times more airborne iron blew into the equatorial Pacific than during non-glacial periods, but the new study shows that that increase didn't affect biological productivity. At some points, as levels of iron-bearing dust increased, productivity actually decreased.

What matters instead in the equatorial Pacific is how iron and other nutrients are stirred up from below by upwelling fueled by ocean circulation, said lead author Gisela Winckler, a geochemist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The study found seven to 100 times more iron was supplied from the equatorial undercurrent than from airborne dust at sites spread across the equatorial Pacific. The authors write that although all of the nutrients might not be used immediately, they are used up over time, so the biological pump is already operating at full efficiency.

"Capturing carbon dioxide is what it's all about: does iron raining in with airborne dust drive the capture of atmospheric CO2? We found that it doesn't, at least not in the equatorial Pacific," Winckler said.

The new findings don't rule out iron fertilization elsewhere. Winckler and coauthor Robert Anderson of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory are involved in ongoing research that is exploring the effects of iron from dust on the Southern Ocean, where airborne dust supplies a larger share of the iron reaching the surface.

The PNAS paper follows another paper Winckler and Anderson coauthored earlier this year in Nature with Lamont graduate student Kassandra Costa looking at the biological response to iron in the equatorial Pacific during just the last glacial maximum, some 20,000 years ago. The new paper expands that study from a snapshot in time to a time series across the past 500,000 years. It confirms that Costa's finding, that iron fertilization had no effect then, fit a pattern that extends across the past five glacial periods.

To gauge how productive the algae were, the scientists in the PNAS paper used deep- sea sediment cores from three locations in the equatorial Pacific that captured 500,000 years of ocean history. They tested along those cores for barium, a measure of how much organic matter is exported to the sea floor at each point in time, and for opal, a silicate mineral that comes from diatoms. Measures of thorium-232 reflected the amount of dust that blew in from land at each point in time.

"Neither natural variability of iron sources in the past nor purposeful addition of iron to equatorial Pacific surface water today, proposed as a mechanism for mitigating the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 inventory, would have a significant impact," the authors concluded.

Past experiments with iron fertilization have had mixed results. The European Iron Fertilization Experiment (EIFEX) in 2004, for example, added iron in the Southern Ocean and was able to produce a burst of diatoms, which captured CO2 in their organic tissue and sank to the ocean floor. However, the German-Indian LOHAFEX project in 2009 experimented in a nearby location in the South Atlantic and found few diatoms. Instead, most of its algae were eaten up by tiny marine creatures, passing CO2 into the food chain rather than sinking it. In the LOHAFEX case, the scientists determined that another nutrient that diatoms need - silicic acid - was lacking.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) cautiously discusses iron fertilization in its latest report on climate change mitigation. It warns of potential risks, including the impact that higher productivity in one area may have on nutrients needed by marine life downstream, and the potential for expanding low-oxygen zones, increasing acidification of the deep ocean, and increasing nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas more potent than CO2.

"While it is well recognized that atmospheric dust plays a significant role in the climate system by changing planetary albedo, the study by Winckler et al. convincingly shows that dust and its associated iron content is not a key player in regulating the oceanic sequestration of CO2 in the equatorial Pacific on large spatial and temporal scales," said Stephanie Kienast, a marine geologist and paleoceanographer at Dalhousie University who was not involved in the study. "The classic paradigm of ocean fertilization by iron during dustier glacials can thus be rejected for the equatorial Pacific, similar to the Northwest Pacific."

Explore further Seeding iron in the Pacific may not pull carbon from air as thought
On May 16, 2016, the NASA-funded MinXSS CubeSat deployed from an airlock of the International Space Station to enter an orbit around Earth. MinXSS observes soft X-rays from the sun -- such X-rays can disturb the ionosphere and thereby hamper radio and GPS signals. Credit: ESA/NASA

On May 16, 2016, the bread loaf-sized Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer, or MinXSS, CubeSat deployed from an airlock on the International Space Station to begin its journey into space. The NASA-funded MinXSS studies emissions from the sun that can affect our communications systems.

MinXSS will operate for up to 12 months. The CubeSat observes soft X-rays from the sun, which can disrupt Earth's upper atmosphere and hamper radio and GPS signals traveling through the region. The intensity of the soft x-ray emissions emitted from the sun is continuously changing over a large range - with peak emission levels occurring during large eruptions on the sun called solar flares.

MinXSS data will also help us understand the physics behind solar flares. The soft X-rays carry information about the temperature, density and chemical composition of material in the sun's atmosphere, allowing scientists to trace how events like flares and other processes heat the surrounding material in the sun's atmosphere - which are still being debated among solar scientists.

?CubeSats are a new, low-cost tool for space science missions. Instead of the traditional space science missions that carry a significant number of custom-built, state-of-the-art instruments, CubeSats are designed to take narrowly targeted scientific observations, with only a few instruments, often built from off-the-shelf components. For example, MinXSS uses a commercially purchased X-ray spectrometer for a detector and an extendable tape measure as a radio antenna. The MinXSS development program was funded by the NASA Science Mission Directorate CubeSat Initiative Program and implemented by the University of Colorado Boulder under the leadership of Principal Investigator Tom Woods.

MinXSS was launched via the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative program on Dec. 6, 2015, aboard Orbital ATK's Cygnus spacecraft through NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. Since its inception in 2010, the CSLI has selected more than 120 CubeSats for launch and deployed 43 small satellites as part of the agency's Launch Services Program's Educational Launch of Nanosatellite Missions.
Original Review will change the way the restaurant owners and managers view their business, and our solution provides them with an easy-to-use tool for increasing revenues and customer engagement almost immediately, said Frederick Lightbourn, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer. Since I started piloting OR in my own restaurant, I am seeing upticks in service, positive customer engagement and number of reviews.

The OR Customer Insight Platform is already being used in 4 restaurants in the Bahamas, 2 in Dallas, 2 in Oklahoma City, and 5 in India, with plans to launch additional pilots in these cities within the coming weeks, including one in Michigan.

Original Review is a hat trick of actionable feedback, real and trusted consumer reviews, and customer engagement and loyalty, said Debra Lukacsko, Co-Founder and CEO. Already, after just
The Philippines held it national elections earlier this week  and controversial Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte won by a landslide.



The tough talking Duterte has promised to crackdown on crime and corruption within six months in office.

But after joking about rape and murder, Duterte, the first president from a conflict-ridden part of the country, has showed a more reflective side.

Madonna Virola has this story from Baco town.

The Mangyan Alangan people are lining up here on voting day at the countrys first pilot project for indigenous people.

The initiative is designed to make voting more accessible to the Philippines indigenous peoples.

Manuel Mintaras is a community leader from the Mangyan Alangan sub-tribe.

Were happy now that were able to vote without disturbances or manipulation. People look down on us because many of us did not go to school. But we also listen to the radio and watch television, so we know who to vote for.

Manuel wont say who he voted for, but for million of Filipinos, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is the answer to the countrys problems.

Duterte made his political name as the mayor of Davao, where he took a hardline approach to drugs and crime, reportedly with the use of extrajudicial killing squads.

Now hes planning to take his tactics to the national stage.

I am here because there is so much criminality, drugs is flooding the country. I would get rid of criminality, drugs and corruption just give me 3-6 months, and I will do it for you. Again I said, we cannot go for economic growth unless we start with government for as long as there are incompetent and corrupt officials in our government, we cannot reach our goal.





On election night it quickly became clear that Duterte had secured a landslide win.

He got the edge with millions more votes than his closest competitor.

Yet the man who has been labeled The Punisher and Dirty Harry has showed more of a reflective side since. On election night he commented,

These past few days were quite virulent for all of us. The black propaganda and the false accusations exchanges between two sides. This is part of a day's work in the elections. I would like to reach my hand to my opponents. There's the hurt. Lets begin to forget and start healing. I extend my hands to opponents, let's be friends. Forget about the travails of the elections.

Duterte has continued to surprise people. On election night he visited his mothers tomb and prayed for help in his new role.

He also pledged to be more diplomatic, even contemplating a visit to the Pope, who he cursed last year for causing major traffic during his visit to Manila.

But analysts say Duterte is still light on the details of his governance, even though there has been talk that he prefers a federal system, and will alter the Constitution to allow that.

Earl Parreno is an analyst from the Manila-based Institute for Political and Economic Reform. Hes says its hard to evaluate, right now, what type of leader Duterte will be.

A year will suffice, then we will already be able to see the direction of his governance, his policies. During the campaign, he promised radical change. But if youre there in governance, you cant do it just like that, like you said in the campaign. I think he will be more presidential with time, after he takes over the reigns of the executive branch, said Parreno.

Bishop Warlito Cajandig form the Apostolic Vicariate of Calapan, says that now Duterte has been elected, the Philippines must work with him.

What can we do if we choose a president who is not suppose to be there, we just have to accept it because thats the reality, then well see how we can work with him and we pray, Warlito said.

While its clear Duterte will be the next man in charge, the vice presidency is yet to be determined.

At this time, its likely to be Leni Robredo, a first time politician and widow of good governance champion Jesse Robredo. She is winning by a thin margin.

Back in the mountains of Mindoro, Dindo Dumagol, a volunteer-leader for the Legal Network for Truthful elections shares the wishes of his tribe, with a new leader poised to take over.

Whoever will be elected, especially as President, we hope they will pay attention to community development, for our rights to be promoted and our many concerns to be addressed, commented Dumagol.
Western tourists flocking to Bangkok would be hard-pressed to envision Thailand without its Buddhist temples and monks collecting alms.



But a campaign to see Buddhism become the official religion has exposed an ugly side of religious division in the country.

As Kannikar Petchkaew reports, there are growing concerns about the rising tide of Buddhist fundamentalism, hate speech, and Islamophobia in Thailand.

Its the end of Friday afternoon prayers for the Muslim community in Denchai district, northern Thailand.

Most are heading home after the prayers, chatting with their neighbors along the way.

But not Somjit. Hes hurrying to get the bus.

Somjit and a group of his neighbors travel nearly 145 kilometers every Friday for their prayers because there is no mosque in their province.

I leave my house at 7 or 8 oclock in the morning to go to the bus station and take a bus or van to this province, then I take another bus to this town and another ride to the mosque. It takes about 4 to five hours and often I dont make it on time.

Somjit lives in Nan province, home to 500,000 Buddhists, 60 Muslims, and no mosque.

They have tried to build a mosque several times, but each time their plan has been blocked.

Recent protests by Buddhist monks and everyday Thais have seen the construction of several mosques, and a halal food industrial zone, also halted in northern Thailand.

In Thailands deep south there has been a long running conflict between government forces and Muslims. Since 2004, some 6,500 people have been killed in the insurgency.

While in the past religious conflicts has been confined to southern areas, such as Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, now religious tensions seem to be spreading  fuelled by comments like this:

Any single monk in the deep south killed by a blast or bullet, that should be traded with a burning single mosque; start from the northern part of the country.

Thats a comment from Aphichat Promjan, an academic and monk from a famous temple in the capital, Bangkok.

He believes Buddhists should avenge the deaths of monks in the south, and he has been preaching this kind of hate speech since last year.

Meanwhile, Suchat Sethamanilee, a local Muslim and an academic who teaches peace studies at Pyap University, shows me the house of Khunchuangliangleukiat, one of the first Muslim traders in Chiang Mai.

Suchat, who was raised in the area, tells me that Muslims have a deep history in Thailand. The first Sheikh-ul-Islam, for example, was appointed 400 years ago.

There were Chinese Muslims, Bengalis, Muslims from India and Pakistani Muslims, Sethamanilee says.

They all moved to here more than 100 years ago. They ran businesses as middlemen and distributors between the locals in the mountainous area with their horse caravan.

Sethamanilee also shows me Ban Ho mosque, which this September will have been standing for 100 years.

The mosque shares a wall with a Buddhist temple.

When the Buddhists pray their voices travel into the mosque when we conduct our prayers, Sethamanilee tells me.

Our Azan, or call to prayer, which is quite loud, is played through the speaker, so it is also heard when they pray. But we have never had any problems between us.

Thailands new draft Constitution will go to a referendum vote this August.

A clause to see the country officially become a Buddhist state was eventually rejected in the draft, but it does include a statement about how Thailand must protect Buddhists, which account for 90 percent of the population. There was no mention of protecting the minority Muslim community.

Surapot Taweesak is a Buddhist academic at Rajabhata Instistute in Bangkok.

Politically the objective, pushing for Thailand to be a Buddhist state, is obvious, Taweesak says.

But in the long run I dont think it would have a positive impact on the health of democracy and peace between religions.

Taweesak says the idea to have an official Buddhist state was initially included in the draft Constitution for political reasons, to please the Buddhist majority.

Many Thais supported the idea, arguing that Buddhist morals could help guide Thailand out of political turmoil.

In the current political climate, Muslim academic, Suchat Sethamanilee, says the Islamic community has an important role to play, to help educate Buddhist Thais, and ensure that all non-Muslims are treated like brothers.

I wont blame people from other religions for their lack of understanding. I would ask for all Muslims to understand this issue in a fair manner and with self criticism. See how we have portrayed our Islam to others. Did we try to make them understand clearly what is the real Islam? Sethamanilee commented.

But for others like Taweesak , the current divisions also need a political fix.

In the end we have to be democratic. Any religion in Thailand should live under the principle of democracy, says Taweesak .

And at the very least, we have to respect the principles of human rights.
The annual ASEAN Literary Festival was recently held in Jakarta, Indonesia, for the third year running.



Book lovers descended on the city for poetry performances, workshops and discussions on everything from censorship, sexuality and freedom.

Nicole Curby has more from the Indonesian capital.

Jose Ramos Horta, the former independence leader and president of East Timor officially opened the ASEAN literary festival in Jakarta.

He commented on the importance of freedom of expression saying that, peace is broken when freedom is denied to people, whether to a nation as a whole, or a particular ethnic or religious group.

With controversial issues scheduled for discussion at the event, Hortas opening remarks rang true.

Amid threats of censorship from authorities, sparked by planned talks on sexuality and the massacres of 1965, festival director Okky Madasari was adamant the events would go ahead, stating,

[The] ASEAN literary festival stands against all kinds of censorship, and thats why we decide to continue the program. No matter what, we will continue the program regardless!

Its not the first time there has been some resistance to open discussion here in Indonesia.

At the Ubud Writers Festival in Bali late last year, authorities shut down several planned discussions on the events of 1965, when at least half a million suspected communists were slaughtered  its a deeply sensitive topic in Indonesia.

Author Leila Chudori maintained that the subject has be approached seriously, commenting,

There has to be a truth telling, there has to be investigation, there has to be an apology from the state, and in the end there has to be a reconciliation. But think that we really, really have to go through all of the steps that people need to, because otherwise the impunity in this country will never end.





While demonstrators did gather outside the venue on opening day, forcing one workshop to move to a secret location, the ASEAN literary event didnt shy away from sensitive political issues, including religious radicalism and LGBT rights.

Just days after the Indonesian government signaled that further executions would go ahead the use of capital punishment also came under scrutiny.

Indonesia was widely condemned by the international community last year, after it executed 14 prisoners, including two Australian men, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Julian McMahon, who represented the so-called Bali Nine duo, spoke about the politically charged dynamic of the death penalty.

The legal system works to an extent, but the question to kill or not, ultimately is a political question. I was very upset to learn that there might be more executions. It certainly hasnt happened yet, and hopefully the way it is sorted out in Indonesia wont lead to more deaths.

Talking all things literary, writers from across the archipelago also expressed concerns about the quality of education in Indonesia and ways to combat low literacy rates.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the reading ability of Indonesian students rates remarkably low  ranking 60 out of 65 countries surveyed by the Program for International Students Assessment.

In the age of all things digital, Leila Chudori said she remains hopeful the online revolution is a good thing for literature, and writers and readers.

I know there is a session in this festival talking about Indonesia; the people have a very low interest in reading. That is so true, and that is very sad. But I want to be positive. Since there is the internet revolution, there are blogs, a lot of people think that writing is cool, and being read is cool. So there are more writers since the internet revolution, and therefore more readership.

Chudori believes that the internet has changed the habit of reading in Indonesia.





For Malaysian poet and educator Illye Sumanto, literature should be something that is accessible to everyone.

As a teacher, she urged children to connect with language, and write their own poetry, stating,

We want to humanize literacy. Language learning is very functional in Malaysia. But poetry can change that.

Sumanto believes that writing poetry can open up the confidence and creativity of students.

Meanwhile, the competition is on to host the next ASEAN literary festival. For the last three years the event has been held in the Indonesian capital.

But independence leader Jose Ramos Horta is, of course, lobbying hard for East Timor.
It can often be difficult to know where to begin when it comes to kickstarting a healthier lifestyle, so we are here to help you
National Republican Congressional Committee is spending money to target Democratic congressional candidate Mike Derrick, just three days after an NRCC spokesman claimed Derrick was not "a viable candidate."

NRCC announced Monday it is placing robo calls in the 21st Congressional District criticizing Derrick for not endorsing a Democratic presidential candidate, even as the MRCC's own congressional candidate has not directly endorsed a Republican presidential candidate.

Derrick has said he will support which ever candidate the party nominates.

Derrick has no direct role in to become a convention delegate and he is not a super delegate -- one who an automatic delegate because of elected office or party leadership position -- so he has no direct role in the presidential nomination process.

NRCC calls Derrick a "party insider," an apparent change in strategy from a year ago when the group criticized Derrick for being a newly-minted Democrat.

Derrick, a retired Army colonel from Peru, is running in the 21st Congressional District against U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, and Green Party candidate Matt Funiciello, a bread company owner and political activist from Hudson Falls.

Stefanik has said she will support the Republican nominee, but, to the best of my knowledge, has not specifically endorsed presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

Funiciello has endorsed Jill Stein, one of five candidates seeking the Green Party presidential nomination.
This is the latest in a series of posts about House Armed Services Committee votes on amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act that passed the committee April 27.

U.S. Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, and Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, voted opposite in the House Armed Services Committee on three amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act, a defense spending bill.

Stefanik voted against and Gibson voted for an amendment to end U.S. military assistance to "vetted Syrian" opposition forces.

The amendment was rejected 52-9 with five Republicans and four Democrats voting in favor.

"Congresswoman Stefanik believes one of the top failures of this administration is lack of partnership with our allies in the Middle East," said Tom Flanagin, the congresswoman's spokesman. "Eliminating this program would send the wrong message to our partners who are working hard to bring stability and security to the region."

"Rep. Gibson does not believe these operations have been successful by any reading of the word," said Matt Sheehey, a spokesman for Gibson. "He wants to pull our special forces, or 'advisors', from Syria and cease our training of the politically and militarily unreliable Syrian opposition forces."

Stefanik voted against and Gibson voted for an amendment to expand military selective service registration to include women.

The amendment passed by a vote of 32-30 with five Republicans and all but one Democrat voting in favor.

"Congresswoman Stefanik supported the original language in the NDAA that called for a report on the current and future need for a centralized registration system for military selective services," Flanagin said. "This should not be an issue we vote on in the middle of the night without feedback from women across the country."

Stefanik voted for and Gibson voted against an amendment to allow the head of the agency managing Federal property to object including property on the National Register or designating it as a National Historic Landmark for reasons of national security.

The amendment passed by a vote of 33-28, with Gibson the lone Republican voting with all Democrats on the committee.

"Congresswoman Stefanik supported the amendment to ensure that Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security can weigh in on the national security implications of federal land before being included as a national landmark." Flanagin said.

Click here to read the most recent previous post in the series.
CORINTH | A Corinth man was charged with felony driving while intoxicated Saturday night after a traffic stop on Main Street, police records show.

Jeffrey R. Lawrence, 29, was charged after a 5:34 p.m. stop for speeding by state troopers, according to the State Police public information website.

Lawrence was found to have a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent or higher, records showed. He has at least two prior DWI convictions within the past 10 years, which raised the charges to felonies, the website showed.
QUEENSBURY | Three New York City residents were arrested Thursday after they used counterfeit money to buy lingerie at the Victoria's Secret store in Aviation Mall, police said.

Police said store staff determined that fake $100 bills were used to buy clothes, and store employees were able to give police a description of the three suspects and the vehicle in which they left, according to the Warren County Sheriff's Office.

The car was spotted on the Northway near Exit 18 a few minutes later, and one of the suspects tried to flee the vehicle on foot after it was stopped but was caught after a short foot chase, police said.

An estimated $4,000 in fake $100 bills were seized after the car stop, the Sheriff's Office said.

Sheriff's Lt. Steve Stockdale said the bills weren't good quality and there were no indications any other stores were targeted.

Charged with first-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, a felony, were Juwan S. Wilson, 19; Amara J. Camara, 23; and Yves Gala, 18, all of Manhattan, police said.

All three were arraigned and sent to Warren County Jail for lack of bail.

Sheriff's patrol officers Brandon Kommer and Kevin Yandon handled the case.
GLENS FALLS  Postmaster Dan Cronin had the number right at his fingertips, but he acknowledged it would be getting larger.

We collected 35,688 pounds of food; thats more than we ever have before, Cronin said Monday morning after the totals came in from Saturdays National Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger Day. We weighed it on the scales we use for bulk mailings.

As he was discussing the total, a postal clerk shouted over to Cronin to let him know food was still coming in.

Oh, yes. That will definitely go up as people bring stuff in, he said. It went really well. The carriers really enjoy it, because its their way of giving back to the community. Everyone is very involved and looks forward to it every year.

Local food pantries also look forward to the collection.

When I got the post card about the collection, I called to see if we could come over and get some of the food, said Becky McDonald, secretary at the Church of the Messiah in Glens Falls, who was working with two other church members to load two minivans with bags of food.

This is really important for us, because most of our donations come from our church members, said Marge Hull, who coordinates the churchs food pantry. We give out between 200 and 250 items every week. This will really help.

Most of the food is picked up by Warren-Hamilton Counties Community Action Agency, which will distribute food mainly to the Salvation Army, Moreau Community Center and the Family Service Association of Glens Falls.

Food collected by Hudson Falls-area carriers was being picked up by the Washington County Economic Opportunity Council for distribution in Washington County.
The Queensbury man who was injured in a Saturday morning motorcycle crash in Clinton County has died from his injuries, and the local music community is remembering him as a talented musician who was always quick to help others.

Mark E. Orlosky, 55, died Sunday morning at University of Vermont Health Center after suffering severe head injuries in the 10:34 a.m. crash in the town of Black Brook.

State Police said he drove a Harley-Davidson motorcycle off the side of Silver Lake Road and hit a tree. He was taken to the Vermont trauma center via helicopter.

Orlosky was well-known on the local music scene, playing the keyboard in the band Dirt Cheap and working at events as a sound technician with his son, Brandon Orlosky. He helped his son run Sound Designs, a Queensbury-based audio production company.

Orlosky worked a day job as a technical supervisor for Frontier Communications.

Many local musicians posted tributes to Orlosky on social media after learning of his death.

This is a huge loss to the musical community, local rock band Kings English posted on its Facebook page. Mark was not only supremely talented, but one of the really great guys on the scene.

Our regional music community has lost one of its giants, wrote musician Mikki Bakken.

Local musician Joe Defelice played in a duo with Orlosky for a couple of years and recalled his friend as a giving person and talented keyboard player.

He was super helpful and truly a great pal, he said. He was there for me when my dad passed away in 2010, and always gave me great advice and support, not just with music.

Orlosky was a pilot who took Defelice on a sightseeing tour of the region from the air, and Defelice said he will never forget it.

State Police said the cause of the crash remained under investigation as of Monday and it was unclear what caused Orlosky to lose control of the motorcycle.

Arrangements were pending as of early Monday.
BALLSTON SPA  An artifact from the 9/11 terrorist attacks will be coming to Ballston Spa.

The Village Board last week agreed to accept two pieces of rail from the Port Authority Trans-Hudson transit station below the World Trade Center that was damaged in the 9/11 attacks.

The pieces will become part of a public memorial to the attack victims, though it hasnt been determined where the memorial will be located.

A former village resident lost a brother in the attacks, and village residents raised money for the victims following the attacks.

Its a really positive thing for the village, said Mayor John Romano. I think it will get a lot of attention.

A local company, Rossi Development, has offered to pick the rails up, and Romano said the project wont cost the village anything. The pickup will occur later this month, though deciding where to display them and building the memorial will take longer.

It worked out. I didnt think it would, but it did, said Peter Champagne, a local contractor who began working to bring a fragment of the remains to Ballston Spa last October, working through U.S. Rep. Elise Stefaniks office.

Communities across the country have obtained pieces from the destroyed Twin Towers and use them as memorials to the 2,753 people who died there that day. Two large girders were turned into a sculpture in Saratoga Springs. and Amsterdam also has a column from the building on display in Riverlink Park. Another piece of the World Trade Center is at the Waters Edge Lighthouse restaurant in Glenville.

In Ballston Spa, veterans organizations and the Ballston Spa Rotary Club are expected to help with funding for design and construction of the memorial. The rails are currently in a Port Authority storage area in New York City.

When Pete came to me, I thought it was an outstanding idea, Romano said. I talked to the other board members, and they were all enthusiastic about it.

Romano said he wants it to be located downtown, but not in the villages Veterans Park on Milton Avenue, the place where it would be seen by the most passing motorists. That should be for veterans, he said.

Champagne hopes the memorial will have a spot of prominence. Its about people who are walking around the village seeing it, he said.
This week, proms went nautical as Bolton, Granville and Greenwich central schools cast off from the shores of Lake George to have a night to remember. Bolton took off from The Sagamore resort on The Morgan to the theme of 'Stormy Night'; Granville held its prom on the Lac du Saint Sacrement to 'A Night at Sea' and Greenwich spent its night aboard the Adirondac to 'New York New York.' Other proms held across the region included Fort Edward at the Great Escape Lodge in Queensbury to the theme of 'Night in the Enchanted Forest'; Hadley-Luzerne at The Georgian Lakeside Resort to the theme of 'Roaring 20s'; Johnsburg held its from at The Copperfield Inn Resort in North Creek to the theme of 'Enchanted Forest' and Newcomb, Minerva, Indian Lake and Long Lake central schools joined together for its night under the theme of 'Enchanted Forest' at the Garnet Hill Lodge in North River. Schools held events at their high schools before heading off to their prom sites for dinner and dancing.
EASTON  Jonathan Wood has been hunting with falcons for four decades, has done more than 2,000 raptor shows in 46 states and owns 60 birds, which he says is more than any traveling raptor expert in the world.

But he is not nearly as famous as his bald eagle, Uncle Sam.

The YouTube video Watch Donald Trump Dodge a Bald Eagle has been viewed nearly 2.9 million times. It shows Uncle Sam flapping at the presidential contender in his office, then Wood patting Trumps hair back into place.

It wasnt the birds fault, Wood explained Sunday during the six annual Winter Raptor Festival, held this year for the first time at the Washington County Fairgrounds. He has a broken wing, and sometimes he loses his balance, and thats what happened. But someone was taking video and sold it to the Reuters news service.

The incident happened in August as part of a photo shoot for the cover of Time magazine, and Wood is continuing to make use of it as part of his Raptor Project show, in which he shows off not only Uncle Sam, but Black Beauty the buzzard, a barn owl, an Icelandic gyrfalcon and a Eurasian eagle owl, the largest owl species in the world.

How do I get birds? People give them to me, Wood told a packed house of several hundred at one of more than a dozen program sessions at the raptor festival, which is sponsored by the Friends of the Washington County Important Bird Area. They get hit by cars and airplanes, they get poisoned, get shot, run into windows ... Its dangerous out there for birds.

Almost all the birds I get are injured in one way or another. Those that we can get back to health, we release, he said. The rest stay with me.

Those birds include a male and female barn owl, one with a missing right wing and the other with a missing left wing, which have produced more than 125 offspring that have gone back into the wild all over the country.

Until this year, the event was held at Gallup Ridge Farm in Fort Edward, and Friends fo the IBA President Laurie LaFond said the move to the fairgrounds gave her group more room and allowed more exhibitors.

Sundays cold and windy weather made it seem more like the old raptor fests, which were held in March. Saturdays attendance was 1,300, which was more than the first day last year, and despite the weather, Sundays crowd was steady.

Its been a busy year for the Friends of the IBA, who have added 100 acres to their protected areas, have their eyes on another 50 and are being encouraged by state and federal officials to apply for $50,000 to $100,000 in matching funds to preserve more land in the one of the nations prime habitats for raptors and grassland birds. The group is expected to get its first paid employee next year, and the Department of Environmental Conservation recently opened a new viewing platform on the grasslands.

With a variety of birds on stage behind him, Wood was the focus of dozens of cameras in the crowd as he talked about his home on South Padre Island, Texas, near the Mexican border. He also has a home in New York and travels in a recreational vehicle, occasionally stopping so eggs can hatch.

He serves as a consultant to Trump and many others who want to incorporate safety for birds into their businesses.

You can say what you want about him, and vote for him or not, but Donald Trump does care about the birds on his properties, Wood said.

His hour-long session was part bird lecture and part comedy show. He was quite serious when he talked about how the pesticide DDT reduced the number of breeding pairs of bald eagles in New York from 67 to one, then noted that the DEC traveled to Alaska to bring in more eagles and there are now more than 400 nesting pairs in the state.

As much as he talked about Uncle Sam, he also focused on Black Beauty and the wonder of buzzards.

Their sense of smell is amazing, he said. They will be up there in the sky, above the fair, and its not all the fried food they are smelling, he said. Its the smell of roadkill lying out in the sun five miles away. Thats what they go after.

He also described barn owls as the worlds best mousetrap and said his favorite shows are the ones he does at schools.

The schools are the most important because we are not going to be the people that protect the grasslands in the future, Wood said. They are.
Glens Falls Key Club volunteers Nolan Hogan, Jake West, Sarah Blow and Izzy Topper on Saturday installed four informational signs at Crandall Park in Glens Falls.

One sign is about the history of Henry Crandall, a local businessman and philanthropist who established the park. Crandall, his wife and his horse are buried at the park.

The other three signs have information about the ecology of the parks pond, woodlands and wetlands.

Debbie Peck, Kirsten Seleen, Ericka Schielke and Pattye Nicholls prepared the text.

Crandall Park Beautification Committee purchased the signs. The committee is a private organization that raises money and implements projects to improve the park, which is owned by the city of Glens Falls.

Thrill ride

In a speech at EDC Warren Countys annual luncheon on Friday, Queensbury Supervisor John Strough said Ralph Macchio Sr., owner of Wild West Ranch and Western Town, has been attempting to convince him to try the new Eagle Flyer zip line ride being constructed at the park.

Theyre encouraging me to try it, Strough said. Im not saying Yes yet.

Free movie

Crandall Public Library will show the 2013 documentary Hafu: The Mixed Race Experience in Japan at 2:30 and 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the library community room.

Hafu is the Japanese term for a person of mixed race.

The documentary tells the stories of five mixed-race people and their multi-cultural experiences.

The showings are open to the public free of charge.

Blood drive

The American Red Cross will conduct a blood drive in memory of Nathan Brown from noon to 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Glens Falls Family YMCA racquetball court.

Brown, a private first class in the Army National Guard, was killed in combat on April 11, 2004, in Iraq.

Appointments can be made at kinneyinsurance.com.

Free concert

The Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library spring concert series concludes when David Burgess appears at 7 p.m. Thursday in the community room in the library basement.

Burgess is a guitar soloist who specializes in Latin music.

The concert is open to the public free of charge.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Concert attendance

Just under 3,000 people attended the Justin Moore country concert at Glens Falls Civic Center on Friday, said Jeff Mead, the arenas general manager.

It was a good show. We made a little money, he said, in an interview on Monday.

Busy weekend

It will be a busy weekend in downtown Glens Falls with back-to-back events in City Park.

Glens Falls Collaborative will hold its inaugural Pet Fest from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Glens Falls Food Co-Op will hold its annual Farm & Food Festival from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
The views also included who they thought deserved or did not deserve to win certain categories.

Speaking on Rhythmz A-Z on Joy FM, Nii Ayittey-Hammond said the loves the creativity in the song.

I enjoyed it when I heard it. I downloaded it, I enjoyed the creative aspect of the song, he mentioned.

Commenting on the views expressed in the song, the Board Chairman said he respects opinions of people and will therefore not be peeved.

For the content, its his opinion and I dont begrudge anybody for their opinion, he noted.

The 2016 VGMAs held at the Accra International Conference Centre on May 7, saw ELcrowned Artiste of the Year. He also won Hip-hop/Hiplife Artiste of the Year, Music Video of the Year, Afro-pop Song of the Year and Music Producer of the Year.
According to the victim's mother, Madam Esther Ankomah, she was kidnapped by some unknown people last Monday, May 9, at Wassa Akropong around 5:00pm when she was attending a choir meeting.

She told Ghana New Agency (GNA) that, her daughter told her after she was rescued that the kidnappers took her to an unknown location, however, when the assailants were undressing her, they noticed that she was in her menstrual period, therefore, the fetish priest told them she was not suitable for the rituals because of her condition and ordered her to be sent back

However, to avoid the Police from tracking them, she said the kidnappers blind-folded her with a black handkerchief and left her at a nearby school at Wassa Akropong on Tuesday, May 10 and called her parents to come for her using the victims phone.

The District Police Commander, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Isaac Kumnipa, stated that although the victims mother reported that her daughter was missing on that fateful day, they received information about the victim's discovery the next day.

He said the Police gave the victims parents medical forms to attend hospital for medical examination but the girl declined to go.

In this case, we cannot compel her to go to hospital because thats her human rights, therefore the Police cannot ascertain the truth in the reported kidnap, told GNA.
Software executive Brett Parker claims that Africa will probably remain natural resources-driven for the next two decades at least. African Leadership Universitys Fred Swaniker says, the Africa Rising narrative presents the most compelling argument for the continents prosperity.

Their statements come at a time when commodity prices have crashed to record lows. This has left societies like Nigeria in profound crisis. And in spite of petroleum falling below US$30 per barrel earlier this year and hovering at $40 today, Standard Chartered Bank economist Razia Khan argues that Uganda should keep pumping scarce investment funds into oil exploration. Production in the country will cost an estimated $70 per barrel.

The 2016 World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa, hosted in Kigali, claimed the fourth industrial revolution  the use of cyberphysical systems like artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology and biotech  as Africas future. This is because the continent is the worlds fastest-growing digital consumer market. Yet fewer than a third of sub-Saharan Africans have electricity in their homes. The summit merely reinforced extractive-industry and high-tech myths.

But there is widespread social resistance under way in Africa. Grassroots protesters are questioning the logic of export-led growth and renewed fiscal austerity. They are demanding that policies meet their basic needs instead.

Since 2011 the continent has witnessed a dramatic spike in social protests, as recorded by the African Development Bank. The wave has not receded. The bank said in its 2015 African Economic Outlook that there were five times more protests annually between 2011 and 2014 than in 2000. And after the dramatic Arab Spring  the 2011 North African democratic uprising that was especially acute in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Morocco  protesters picked up the pace in Algeria, Angola, Chad, Gabon, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and many other countries.

The power of protests

Press reports collated by the bank confirm that almost all protests since 2011 have been about inadequate wages and working conditions, the low quality of public service delivery, social divides, state repression and a lack of political reform. A few examples illustrate the impressive results of recent protests.

Some social turmoil is localised, taking place in the vicinity of mines and oil wealth. This is correlated in recent mappings by the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research, based on data gathered by University of Sussex researchers, and on more than 200 studies in the Environmental Justice Liabilities and Trade research projects EJ Atlas.

Labour also regularly protests in Africa. The WEFs Global Competitiveness Report authors ask businesses in 140 countries each year how they rate labour-employer relations in terms of cooperation versus confrontation. Of the third most militant countries in the world, African countries typically account for 40%, far higher than any other region.

Since 2012  the year in which 34 miners were killed in the Marikana Massacre  the South African working class has been ranked angriest. The 2015 WEF rankings for the other most confrontational workers include those from Algeria, Tunisia, Mozambique, Guinea, Chad, Liberia, Mauritania, Lesotho, Morocco, Cape Verde, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Seychelles, Ethiopia, Kenya, Cameroon and Gabon.

Financial outflows

The pressures on many African societies relate to the continents fiscal stresses, since declining commodity prices lower state revenues. These stresses also reflect the massive outflow of funds by multinational corporations via tax dodges and other illicit routes. The African Union Panel on Illicit Financial Flows last month raised the estimate to $80 billion lost each year.

There is also the matter of licit financial outflows: the profits and dividends taken offshore legally by multinationals thanks to deregulated exchange controls, which must be paid in hard currency. In South Africa, these have driven the past 15 years of current account deficits  the trade deficit plus the outflow of profits  which in turn led to a huge increase in the countrys foreign debt: from $32 billion in 2000 to $140 billion today.

What to do next? The IMFs April 2016 Regional Economic Outlook for Africa suggests that

a substantial policy reset is critical in many cases  Because the reduction in revenue from the extractive sector is expected to persist, many affected countries also critically need to contain fiscal deficits and build a sustainable tax base from the rest of the economy.

Precisely this neoliberalism  a policy reset that in reality is more of the same  is one reason for what US academics Adam Branch and Zachariah Mampilly term Africa Uprising.
Eric Amoateng, who completed serving a 10-year jail term in the USA on a drug-related offence has pleaded not guilty to the charge of possessing a forged document.

Mr. Amoateng pleaded not guilty and was subsequently admitted to a GH200,000 bail with three sureties.

According to the prosecution during the trail of the case, Amoateng was on December 11, 2005, arrested in the United States for possessing heroin valued at $6 million and was tried, convicted and later sentenced to a 10-year prison term which ended July 30, 2014 where he was released.

They further stated that about 2.20 p.m. on August 7, 2014, Amoateng arrived at the Kotoka International Airport and during his arrival formalities, he was found to be in possession of a Ghanaian passport with the number H02347080.

The passport, the prosecution said, was in the name of one Barbara Inkum and was issued on February 23, 2009 at a time when Amoateng was in prison in the USA.
Having a roof above her head makes her feel strong, she doesn't have nightmares anymore.

It was only a few months ago that she was begging for death.

She was living on the streets of Accra with her two boys, now aged 6 and 8.

Rita didn't know when help would come, she turned to various churches through Accra looking for safety but instead, she says congregations laughed at her dress or said she was mentally unwell, pouring anointing oil on her as she stood humiliated.

It was in 2005 when Rita first came to Accra from the Ashanti region with her then partner. They had two children, but never married.

Rita says her family never liked the partner, who ended up leaving her and the children.

She was unable to keep paying rent in the home they had. She told her family, who asked her to move back home, but family issues made this unworkable.

They told her to go back to the man to ask for help. However, Rita alleges he told her to sell one of the children and use the money to support herself and the other one.

Rita decided there was no way she would leave her children, so she did the only thing she thought was left to do  joined life on the streets, keeping Ofankor barrier as her base.

It was scary, she told Pulse Ghana.

It was not a pleasant place there were so many mosquitoes, the dust from the cars, you will even wake up one night to realise there was a mad man sleeping next to you.

She saw fights everyday and would wake up to see someone trying to steal her children.

The small about of money she had would be stolen.

I actually hid the money deep down in my panties but people would go right into the panty and take it.

Life on the street was something she would never wish on anyway, the logistics were a daily battle, getting food for her boys, finding places to bathe and safe places to sleep.

But as Rita narrates what she went through, it was the cruel taunts from other people  and being mocked when she tried to go to church  that cut her deepest.

We had to sleep in front of people's stores, sometimes people were mocking at us, they called us mad... I knew I wasn't mad it was just the situation.

On Sundays, Rita wanted to go to church.

She would dress herself and her children as best she could.

Most Sundays, I was mocked because of the dresses I wore to church. They actually thought I was bewitched or they would pray for me and pour so much anointing oil on my head, because of a dress I used to wear.

They were known churches all through Accra.

Even though I had the desire to go to church, because of what happened to me I couldn't go.

She would cry after these rejections.

There have been so many time I have prayed to God to take my life because church was supposed to be the last place of resort. I was thinking the church would rather give me a place to sleep, clothes to wear and food to eat but when I entered the church and church was just about closing, these people would throw me out of the church with my two children and all my things.

Abandoned, rejected and feeling hopeless, Rita didn't know when her plight would end.

But, one day, a stranger came to see her. He had read about her on Joy Online when a reporter met Rita and shared her story.

Elijah Amoo Addo, the founder of Food for All Ghana, an organisation that seeks to help the vulnerable through Ghana sought out Rita.

Rita was skeptical of Elijah, unsure of his intentions.

NGOs had offered to help before, but only the children. Rita recalls she was told they would put them in an orphanage but Rita did not want to be parted with them.

Elijah offered Rita and the children a hotel room for the night while he figured what he could do for them.

Rita declined, unsure if they would be safe with this stranger. But when he came back the next day, and waited six hours for her as she had gone to wash clothes for someone, she changed her mind.

When I went back to the same place Elijah was there and I realised this man had good intentions, and indeed he has. He has really helped me and my kids.

For Elijah, the desire to help Ghana's vulnerable kept him there, waiting under that bridge  determined to get Rita and the two boys out of their situation.

He spends a lot of time with Ghana's vulnerable  particularly children who have been abandoned by their parents. Rita's resolve to keep her kids with her impressed him.

What really touched me as a food recovery organiser, was the fact that most of the street children we rescue and feed on the streets, they are children who their father abandoned their mother, and as a result the mothers also left them to be on the streets. What was so spectacular about Rita's story is the fact that she held on to the kids.

Rita told Elijah her story, about life on the streets and the way churches treated her.

Through it all, the children were her treasure, she told him.

He had to assure her he would not separate her from the children.

She worried what would happen to them if she died, they kept her going when she wanted to die.

Elijah, with his team from Food for All Ghana, posted Rita's plight on social media and had many people respond.

The Facebook group Ghana International Expats rallied to the cause, with members offering cash and goods donations.

So with their support, and Elijah and his team, Rita and the children were registered on the National Health Insurance Scheme, got medical treatment, were put into a home in Teshie and that home was filled with what the family needed, from a mattress to clothing, they also set Rita up with a provisions store close to the house.

The expat group also planned to offer Rita ongoing support with her store and money management.

Rita's children excitedly play around the store, and cling to Elijah when he visits, though Elijah is concerned about their physiological development after their time on the street. He is seeking support for them.

For now, Rita beams with happiness when she talks about the house.

She proudly displays her goods in the small store.

And because there's not much else she can do, she has learnt to laugh about what she went through on the streets.

It's been very long since I've slept in a room, even your soul is happy because you are sleeping in a room. No more nightmares, she says with her beaming smile, as she flops down onto her mattress.

Rita says she is content with her new life.

She doesn't want her boys to ever go through the hardship they were in again.
Akufo-Addo told some spare parts dealers at Abossey Okai in Accra thatAs you have been telling me, if things are not really go well then I urge you to vote for the NPP because we have done it before and you all know what we are capable of doing in government. We have a record of fixing the economy and making things better for Ghanaians. So vote for us to do what we are good at doing."
According to him, Chairman Wontumi was acting on rumours by the National Democratic Party (NDC) aspiring MP, Nana Osei Bamfo, that the lawmaker was instructing people to go round polling stations with cutlasses to terrorise registrants.

"We have been best friends and I cannot blame him for what happened as investigations have revealed he is not to blame for the incident," Amanwaah told Joy News.

"I love my Regional Chairman and I love the Party. I have stood through thick and thin to rally behind the Party and I have been so committed and dedicated to the cause of the Party, having served in various capacities," he added.

Mr. Collins Owusu Amankwah was slapped and his constituency secretary, Felix Ibrahim was beaten by the Regional Chairman during the limited biometric voters registration exercise on May 1, in Krofrom.

The incident was reported to the Kumasi police headquarters and Chairman Wontumi arrested.

The MP told Joy FM that he drop the charge against the NPP regional chairman because his mother begged him to drop the charges after receiving threatening calls.

He opined that anything could have happened to his mother if he refused to drop the case and Wontumi was granted bail by the Asokwa District Magistrate Court.
The others were: Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) and the New Labour Party (NLP)  four (4) each; National Democratic Party (NDP)  two (2); and the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) and Peoples National Convention (PNC)  one (1) each.The report added that "for the radio stations, 18 out of the 40 monitored, recorded incidents of indecent expressions. Accra-based Montie FM topped the list with 22 incidents followed by Oman FM with 15 incidents, and Adom FM and Diamond FM with seven (7) each. All the incidents of indecent expressions recorded on Adom FM were also recorded on Nsawkaw-based Tain FM."

Below is the full statement from the MFWA on the findings:

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has released the first report of its campaign language monitoring project. The report, which is based on monitoring of 516 programmes on 40 radio stations for the period April 18-30, 2016, names political parties whose officials, affiliates and supporters used abusive language; individuals and radio presenters who used abusive language; and radio stations on which the indecent expressions were used.

A total of 87 incidents of indecent expressions were recorded on 18 out of the 40 radio stations monitored. Officials, affiliates and supporters of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) topped the list of culprits with a total of 27 incidents. The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) followed with a total of 16 incidents. The others were: Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) and the New Labour Party (NLP)  four (4) each; National Democratic Party (NDP)  two (2); and the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) and Peoples National Convention (PNC)  one (1) each.

For the radio stations, 18 out of the 40 monitored, recorded incidents of indecent expressions. Accra-based Montie FM topped the list with 22 incidents followed by Oman FM with 15 incidents, and Adom FM and Diamond FM with seven (7) each. All the incidents of indecent expressions recorded on Adom FM were also recorded on Nsawkaw-based Tain FM.

It is regrettable to have programme presenters not only allowing their platforms to be abused by politicians but also being the abusers themselves, said Abigail Larbi-Odei, MFWAs Programme Manager for Media and Democracy.

The monitoring report is the first of several to be issued by the MFWA before, during and after the 2016 elections (April  December). Under its Issues Not Insults campaign, the MFWA and its team of monitors are on a daily basis, monitoring and tracking indecent expressions used by politicians and activists on selected radio programmes. The campaign also involves monitoring and reporting how presenters/moderators on the selected stations handle their programmes and whether or not they allow their platforms to be used to abuse others.
According to Mahama, he is currently building on what his predecessors had done, and cannot fix every challenge confronting the nation in four years. However, government has put in the measures to ensure that Ghana is able to attain a middle-income status by 2025.

He also said that, there are challenges confronting the nation but government is investing massively in infrastructure to help make access to healthcare easier and better.

Mahama made these statements in response to a question asked him during his interaction with the Ghanaian community in the UK on the sidelines of the just ended anti-corruption summit organised by the United Kingdom government.

Responding to a question by one of the participants on lack of bed at health facilities in Ghana, President Mahama said, government had done impressively well investing in health infrastructure but there remain challenges which efforts are underway to resolve.

Government he indicated is increasing the bed space to about 6, 000 but the country needs more especially a for a population of 26 million, he added.

"We are not there yet. I'm not saying I've made Ghana a paradise, but I'm building on what I inherited from my predecessors and I'm taking it to the next level and when I leave, somebody else will take it to the next level. In four years, I cannot fix everything but will take the steps that continue to fix the problems we've identified," Mahama stated as quoted by Rainbowradioonline.com

He continued "And eventually, I mean 2025-2030, we will have the kind of system that makes us either a full middle-income country or a fully developed country...We have challenges... and I will be the first to admit that people are dying who shouldn't die because if they had access to an ambulance, and they went to the hospital and the ICU was working, they will get immediate care and that is why we are investing money; we've re-opened the new Korle-Bu ICU- we've refurbished it completely to receive more people."

President Mahama further stated that there is more work to be done, and the only way to do so, is for Ghanaians to pay their taxes to ensure that government is able to undertake the infrastructure Ghanaians yearn for.

He chided Ghanaians for not paying their taxes, yet there always want better services.

"There is a lot of work to do. And how do we do that work? It means that we must pay our taxes. You go to Ghana and nobody wants to pay their taxes. It is estimated that only 30 percent of our population pay taxes...We want the best of services but we are not willing to pay the taxes to make it possible," he added.

He added it is more challenging to be the President of Ghana, than any other country in the world.
In a trend that started on Twitter, the rapper was accused of allegedly getting women drunk with the intention of having sex with them in their drunken stupor.

Screenshots of a conversation where an alleged victim of the rappers sexual coercion revealed the details to another user of Twitter went viral and trended for a while.

However, a blog dedicated to Ghanaian feminism and female rights advocacy, published a post today titled, . The post detailed accounts of 6 different women who had claimed they were alleged victims of sexual abuse from the rapper.

Throughout the 6 accounts, a certain theme seemed very conspicuous;

and sometimes successfully engage

Another similar trend in the victims account is how XO Senavoe would try to use pity-stories to manipulate his alleged victims. According to one of the 6 accounts published on GhanaFeminism.com, This guy will manipulate the hell out of you. The fav is that hes an orphan blah blah. He pulls that pity card a lot

In the words of one of the alleged victims, she would never had slept with him if I was sober

X.O Senavoe, who is of Ghanaian and Nigerian heritage has worked with MI, Sauce Kid, R2Bees, D-Black, Ice Prince, Beazy, Corey Gunz and The Aphilliates among others.
The rapper who suffered a heavy slap on Twitter for her racist rant about Zayn Malik, 23, has expressed her sincerest apologies in a statement via her Instagram account.

Banks diss for Zayn Mlike almost messed up her career after she accused him of stealing some of her concepts for his latest video Like I Would

She upset a lot of people with her words and trolling nature, which eventually led to the suspension of her Twitter account over her racial comments. The artiste was also dropped off from the performers' line up for the Rinse Born and Bred festival in the United Kingdom.

Although the rapper had earlier awkwardly apologise in the past, it was obviously not accepted by fans and those affected by her trolling social media attitude.

Ive had some time to decompress & take a more rational assessment of things. I want to extend my sincerest apologies to the world, Employing racial/sexual slurs/stereotypes in attempts to make fun of or degrade another person or group is absolutely unacceptable and is not fair or fun for anyone, she wrote
Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
The 24-year-old Ashimiyu who was arrested alongside his partner in crime, Kayode Jolaade, 34, in the Maryland and Mile 12 areas Lagos, explained that he found it hard to resist the scarlet ladies and hence he could spend even his last Kobo on them to satisfy his sexual appetite.

The suspects who were caught in the act by policemen after they had successfully removed three phones from commuters in different BRT buses, both confessed that they are experts in robbing commuters that ply the Mile 12 to Maryland routes.

Also Read:

Ashimyu, a native of Yemetu, Alawada in Oyo State, said:

I have not spent a dime from my proceeds in stealing on anything tangible. I womanise a lot and I spent my money on both young and old ladies.

I smoke Indian-hemp and drink all sorts of hard drinks. Before I was arrested, I had successfully removed two mobile phones from commuters during a rush at the Maryland bus-stop.

It was my third attempt that led to my arrest. My accomplice caused my arrest today. Before he joined me at Maryland, I had stolen two phones successfully. If he had not joined, I would not have been arrested.

People who knew him in the area were monitoring us, unknown to us. The people after monitoring our operations for some time started chasing me. On sighting them, I took to my heels. They were many, they caught up with me and started beating me.

I was able to escape from them and ran after Bus Rapid Transport (BRT). As I was attempting to board, I saw a guy at the entrance, who was trying to assist me in getting into the bus. In the process of helping me, I dipped my hand in his pocket and removed his phone, and jumped down.

But he didnt know I had equally removed his phone. As I jumped down, the people continued chasing me. When I had no option left, I tried to cross the express way, but unfortunately for me I was knocked down by a truck.
It was gathered that the 62-year-old Pastor Ojo, defiled the girl identified as Bidemi, who is friend and fellow pastor's daughter, on May 9 and by May 13, the girl was still bleeding profusely, leading to her family believing he could have raped her for ritual purposes.

The randy man of God was reported to have lured the girl into his churh while she was playing with her younger brother in the premises, and raped her.

The State Police Public Relations Officer, (PPRO), DSP Adekunle Ajisebutu, while confirming the incident, said the suspect had been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), for further investigation, after he confessed to the crime.

Ajisebutu said the girls vagina was badly torn by forced penetration and she had been bleeding since the occurrence.

When asked what led to the incident, Pastor Ojo reportedly said:

The little girl and her younger brother used to come to me to play in the church premises. Her father is a close friend of mine.

On Monday, May 9, I was in my church premises when she came with her brother. The girl went to lay on the rug on the altar and told her brother that her private part was itching. They used to play on the rug before then.

I went near them to ask what was wrong with her. I had to use my hand to help her scratch her private part.

After that, I moved nearer, I could not do anything with her; I did not insert my penis in her vagina.

What happened next was that I brought my penis out but I could not penetrate her because her vagina was tight.

My intention was to touch her, not to damage her. When I saw that her vagina was very tight, I withdrew my penis and left.

There was no blood at that time. I dont know how blood came out of her.

But he, however, denied having sex with the girl for ritual purpose, saying she was young enough to be his granddaughter.

The victim also narrated how she was defiled:

"Daddy Dayspring is my fathers friend. On Monday, my younger brother and I went to greet him. While my brother was playing outside, Daddy Dayspring asked me to lay on the rug.

He laid beside me, removed my pants. He first put his fingers in my private part. He later put his penis in my vagina and I cried.
The group made global headlines after it blew up a Chevron platform in the region on Wednesday, May 4, 2016.

This is what we promised the Nigeria government since they refuse to listen to us, the group said after the incident.

Its Okan offshore facility in the Western Niger Delta region was breached by unknown persons. The facility is currently shut-in and we are assessing the situation, and have deployed resources to respond to a resulting spill, Chevron said in a statement confirming the attack.

The NDA also claims to have carried out attacks on pipelines transporting crude oil to the Warri and Kaduna refineries and also on a Shell oil pipeline, which shut down the 250,000 barrel-a-day Forcados export terminal.

The recent attacks come despite President Muhammadu Buharis threat to deal with the militants like he dealt with Boko Haram.

I am aware that in the last two weeks, the national grid collapsed a number of times. I hope this message will reach the vandals and saboteurs who are blowing up pipelines and installations. We will deal with them the way we dealt with Boko Haram, Buhari said during a meeting with the Nigerian community in China in April.

The Niger Delta militancy has been a major battle for Nigeria, but it was temporarily won by the creation of the Amnesty Initiative. Through the initiative, ex-militants were rehabilitated and placed on allowances while some were sent to study abroad all in a bid to secure the tentative peace.

The former militants got a sweet deal from the government, but what exactly was their struggle about? The militants claimed to be fighting against the marginalization of their people, but have their actions changed the lot of the average Niger Deltan? Do the militants even care about the masses?

To answer this question, one needs only to take a look at two of the prominent ex-militants in the country, Government Tompolo Ekpemupolo and Mujahid Asari-Dokubo.

Both men have amassed great wealth due to their militancy, but how has it helped the people for whom they claimed to be fighting? Have they created any industries? Jobs? Facilities? Why did Asari-Dokubo build his empire in Benin Republic instead of the Niger Delta?

What about all the former militants who have been educated and fed off Nigerian money? How have they contributed to the development of the Niger Delta? How have they earned the Amnesty? Were they simply being paid to keep the peace?

At the heart of the Niger Delta militancy are several valid grievances caused by years of injustice, but the problem with most freedom fighters in Nigeria is that they are only trying to set themselves free, as Tompolo and Asari-Dokubo have done.
According to a report by ThisDay Newspaper, security operatives have recently become the targets of militants and sea pirates in the Niger Delta region.

Confirming the latest attack, Desmond Agu, Commandant of the NSCDC in the state, noted that his men were on patrol when they came under fire from the suspected criminals.

ALSO READ: Agency arrests 2 suspected oil thieves in Bayelsa

In his words, "NSCDC personnel while on patrol along Snake Creek within Nembe Creeks came under heavy attack from the criminals operating along that axis. After the ensuing gun battle, three of the assailants were killed while the rest escaped with gunshot injuries."

Continuing, Agu said, 'Two NSCDC personnel sustained minor gunshot injuries but have been treated and discharged from the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa.'
A check by NAN shows that the most affected places in the Cross River capital are the popular Marian Market, Akai Street, State Housing Estate and Ikot Ishie area among others.

The NAN check also shows that the refuse has taken over a better part of some roads, forcing motorists to use one lane.

Passers-by close their noses to avoid inhaling the stench from the dumps and contracting infectious diseases.

Meanwhile, some residents have complained about the development and expressed fear over possible outbreak of diseases in the city if the refuse is not cleared.

NAN reports that some residents now dump refuse on the median of the roads, thereby defacing the green and clean environment that the city is known for.

She expressed concern that the refuse could cause an outbreak of cholera or other infectious diseases if not removed.

"We are living in danger because of this refuse; it has been piling up for several weeks now without the authorities doing anything to evacuate it, she said.

Mrs Mary Eteng, a trader at Marian Market, said that the traders were worried about the odour from the refuse dump in the market.

"As you can see, whenever it rains, some of us close our businesses because the whole place is very filthy, she said.

Mr Emerald Ejom of Akai Street in Ikot Ishie area of the city also expressed concern over the delay in evacuating the refuse in the area by the concerned authorities.

He said: "Look at it; it is horrible and the situation has not been as bad as this in recent years.

"People now close their noses while relaxing in their sitting rooms. Something must be done at least for the sake of the children living in this vicinity.

A staff of Calabar Urban Development Agency (CUDA), Mr Simon Odey, however, told NAN that the agency was striving to clear the refuse.

"But the more we try, the more residents pile up refuse. We are handicapped because of lack of equipment.

"We do not have enough trucks and that is one of our major problems, he said.

It will be recalled that the Ministry of Health recently set up a disease infection prevention and control committee to manage medical waste in the state.
NDA has reportedly carried out series of bomb blasts on some offshore facilities belonging to oil companies in the Niger Delta region recently.

The militant group has also vowed to continue destroying oil facilities, if the federal government does not meet their demands.

Leadership reports that Akpodoro said the current unrest in the Niger Delta region, was planned in January 2015, before the presidential election.

The ex-militant leader also said The Niger Delta Avengers is a creation of Dr Jonathan aimed at thwarting any efforts made by successive administration especially that of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC )administration.

Akpodoro also alleged that GEJs Special Adviser on Amnesty Program Mr Kingsley Kuku, in a meeting with ex militant leaders, organised by the Bayelsa state Governor, Seriake Dickson, at the Bayelsa Government House, told them to remain in the creeks pending the announcement of the election results.

He said I was bundled out of the meeting but then that is realities of what Nigerians are witnessing today. Former President Jonathan created the monster-Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, and he alone can call them to order and that is what my group is asking him to do.

Akpodoro added that Nigerians should hold the Ijaw leader-Jonathan responsible for any possible collateral damage that may be incurred in the process of exterminating that destructive rag tag group with all its sympathisers in the region.

Our common enemies in the Niger Delta region are those governors, ministers, Special Advisers, Director Generals, Senators and other representatives from the region who participated in Jonathans 6-year misrule using their offices to enrich themselves at the detriment of general good.

We must redirect our anger to those who cornered the dividends of democracy in the region buying fleet of aeroplanes, building mansions in choices cities of the worldwhile their people live in abject poverty.

The Nigerian army has already launched a manhunt for members of the Niger Delta Avengers, reports say.
The statement reads:

To the Nigeria military, the Niger Delta Avengers is among you. And we know all your plans, so we will always be 10 steps ahead of you. We have been seeing lots of reports about us in the media.

Some are asking, who are they avenging? Some are calling us empty heads, while ex-agitators have been condemning us on a daily basis. To our critics from the region, we want you to know that you are all cowards and afraid to stand for your people.

The Niger Delta Avengers is more concerned with people of Niger Delta unlike you (ex-agitators) that were into kidnapping, killing of Nigerian soldiers and piracy.

But we were able to carry out all our operations without killing a fly. We have sophisticated arms far better than what you used during your kidnapping days. After the amnesty Programme you (ex-agitators) have been enjoying patronize from the government and royalty from multinational oil companies. While we (Avengers) have been strategizing on how the voice of the Niger Deltans can be heard. We are fighting a radical fight without taking any life.

Let us make it clear to you, our elder brothers (ex-agitators) that we are not begging you to join this campaign. We are young, educated, well-travelled and most of us were educated in East Europe, but do not worry, when we achieve our goal (sovereign state of Niger Delta), then you people will be proud of us.

In as much as we respect you as our elder brothers (ex-agitators), please do not dare to stand on our way because if you do we will crash you. To the citizens of the Niger Delta, who share same idea with us, we thank you all. Just know that no amount of criticism within and outside the region can stop us.

For the record, the Niger Delta Avengers is enjoying the blame game going around. In our meeting comprising all heads of the strike teams, which was held in Bayelsa, the Niger Delta Avengers High Command concluded that if the military harass or invade any community in the region, then you (Nigeria military) will get a feel of the Avengers.

The group has claimed responsibility for the recent attack on a Chevron platform and an earlier one on pipelines supplying crude oil to the Warri and Kaduna refineries.

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The suspects have been named as Kelvin Mordi, Samuel Emiko, Henry Arogboritse, Isaac Edemde, and Alfred Timede, according to The Cable.

The arrest has been confirmed by the spokesman of Gbaramatu Kingdom in Warri South-West, Godspower Gbenekama.

The soldiers arrested them in a speed boat, which had the inscription of Chevron. They had their identity cards on. So, there is no case of mistaken identity. Far from it, he said.

After their arrest, the soldiers moved to different communities and started harassing our people. They invaded buildings and tortured youths just to coerce them to accept membership of militant groups.

Their tactics will not work. We demand the immediate release of our innocent boys, and ask the military to stop this intimidation," he added.

The attack has been claimed by the Niger Delta Avengers, a group of militants who say they are seeking a sovereign state of Niger Delta.

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Kalu alleged that OBJ used the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to settle scores with his political opponents.

The former Governor said this when asked about his opinion on the anti-corruption stance of President Buhari.

An excerpt of his interview obtained from The Daily Sun reads: He (Buhari) should not fight corruption the way former President Olusegun Obasanjo did, when you have seen me spend security vote and you are after me on that to settle personal scores. You pursue people for not supporting your inordinate ambition and policies, it is wrong. I appeal to President Buhari not to get involved in that kind of corruption-fighting and I am happy he has appointed someone who has lesser belief in material things, as acting chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). I am saying this because when all these people say they are fighting corruption, they dont really fight corruption. You know I dont fear anybody; Im not even afraid of dying today and not afraid of not saying the truth.

Kalu also said He (Buhari) is not selective at all. People should not expect him to pick on those who were not in power and had nothing to do with our commonwealth. It is those who were entrusted with our money he is calling to come and give account of what they did with the money. So, he is not selective. I sincerely believe that if people abuse their offices, they should be punished thoroughly, not looking at who is involved. I have always said it even before President Buhari that he should not have two sets of rules but one and if he maintains that, he is not going to be in problem with anybody. Mind you, the European and North American countries have a lot of belief in his attitude to fighting corruption; they have not disapproved that and its high rating for him. I dont know what Nigerians think, but he has high rating from the international community in his ability to genuinely clean the cobwebs in the four corners of the house and I think this is what he is doing.

People might be saying it was the same Buhari, who wanted to lock everybody up, you cannot leave people who genuinely stole Nigerias money. Some people they said stole money, did not steal any money. Within me, when I look at myself, my conscience tells me I did not break any law, but the matter is in the court of law. I believe sincerely that Buhari cannot lock anybody up in prison that did not do anything. What will he gain from it? He also knows that this is democracy and not military rule; so, he is applying due process in his fight against corruption, the ex-Governor said.

The decision was announced by Justice Suleiman Galadima on March 18, 2016.
APC cannot gather this kind of crowd without crises, Sule Lamido said adding, The North West has always been PDP except for what happened in 2015.

But as am talking to you, there is no APC in the North West zone. The eyes of the people have opened. Can APC gather this crowd? If they made effort to get something close to this, it may result to killing, Lamido said.

I thank God every hand is pointing at me for 2019. The PDP family has gathered peacefully and that is our trademark in this country. Each time APC member gathered all you hear is killings. But the PDP family is peaceful. There is love and happiness among the PDP family.

The former Jigawa State Governor, Lamido, said the PDP is strategizing to rescue Nigeria from what he described as APC mismanagement of governance.
According to SaharaReporters, the President agreed to demands by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that he significantly devalue the Nigerian currency.

The development follows the shocking announcement of the increase in fuel price - from N86.5 per litre to N145 - which was effective from Thursday, May 12, 2016.

Sources told the online news platform that the naira would be pegged at N290 to one dollar, with the current official rate being about N200 to a dollar.

Buhari and his economic team were said to have taken the decision to accept the IMFs terms so that the government can access funds in order to bridge a critical shortfall in revenue occasioned by a drastic decline in oil revenues.

Quoting a government insider, the online publication claimed that Nigeria could receive as much as $3 billion in credit facilities from the IMF.

The truth is that Nigeria cannot operate without sourcing credit from the IMF. And the IMF was adamant that we must devalue before they can discuss extending credit to us, an economic adviser to Buhari told SaharaReporters.

It was reported that the decsion to devalue the naira was taken without the input of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.

Some of us here [the CBN] are not opposed to devaluation, given our countrys present circumstances, a CBN official, who confirmed that executives of apex bank were kept in the dark about the discussions that led to the devaluation of naira, said.

According to another source in the know, the naira has been weakened in the parallel market, where it now sells at N360 per dollar.

The government cannot continue to operate under the illusion that the naira is stronger than it is. The only problem is that we did not start early enough to admit to Nigerians how bad the financial outlook was, the source said.

The IMF had long indicated its readiness to support Nigerias economy with credit liquidity but insisted on Nigeria devaluing its currency.
In the words of the Head of Jury, Shaibu Husseini, "the foursome of Iretiola Doyle, Omoni Oboli, Dakore Akande and Nse Ikpe-Etim, as one for the category became necessary after we found out that one character relies on the other. Hence it will be unfair to just single a character when the four characters depend on each other for the success of the movie."
Announcing the nominations at a press briefing that held in Protea Hotel, Ikeja GRA on Sunday, May 15, 2016 was the Head of the jury for the 12th edition, Shuaibu Husseini.

Joining the Soldier's Story and Osimiri are South African highly rated flick, ' and Ghanaian flick,

Competing for the best film category are Dry (Nigeria), Ayanda (South Africa), Tell Me Sweet Something (South Africa), The Cursed One (Ghana), Fifty (Nigeria), Eye of the Storm (Burkina Faso), La Pagne (Niger) and Behind Closed Doors (Morocco).

Nigeria's OC Ukeje and Daniel K Daniel will be slugging it out in the Best male in a lead role category alongside their contemporaries from other parts of Africa.

Husseini disclosed that AMAA received nominations from Cape Verde, Gambia, Morocco, Uganda, Togo, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Cameroun, Mali, Ethiopia, Niger, Kenya, Algeria and Egypt, including Nigeria and expressed satisfaction about the quality of the films.

We are very happy about the quality of works that came into the competition this year and it gladdens our heart that every year the objectives of the awards are being achieved with film makers in Africa and beyond upping their game, said Husseini.

The 12th edition of the AMA Awards will also be honouring late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the pillar of the awards ceremony, who was touted as the man that bore it all by the founder, Peace Anyiam Osigwe.
This is contained in a statement signed by Mr Ariyo-Dare Atoye, the Co-Convener of the PDP Reform Group on Sunday in Abuja.

The group also urged Sheriff to make whatever sacrifice that was necessary to salvage the party in the interest of all.

The statement said that the group was ``deeply saddened over two avoidable painful developments that had thrown PDP into a serious dilemma and an intractable crisis.

"We are saddened by the infamous decision of some persons in the South-West to betray the zone and throw away the national chairmanship slot.

"We are also not happy for the inability of the Deputy President of the Senate, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu, to stand firm on his committee's adopted report.

"We wish to remind those who sold away the political right of the South-West on the chairmanship slot that what goes around comes around.''

The group said that they had expected party leaders, including Ekweremadu, to resist every attempt to jettison his report.
In the Nigerian hospitality industry, most hotels are faced with grim inventory management challenges that undermine their revenue generation potential. The biggest operational difficulties that hotels face are related to gaining visibility for their rooms on major hotel booking sites, with further complications in the room booking procedure, and even more limitations in terms of payment flexibility. In addition to these recurring problems, cash flow and the eventual reconciliation of payments across multiple channels pose another set of challenges to hotel administrators.

In the past, no singular platform was able to address all these challenges that are unique to the Nigerian hospitality industry. However, with the recent launch of its comprehensive Enterprise Package, SlimTraders MoBiashara for Hotels platform now aims to solve all these problems.

SlimTraders MoBiashara for Hotels platform provides hotels with an easy to use Property Management System (PMS) and Channel Manager as well as a composite Personal Computer  Point of Sale Terminal (PC-POS). With the Channel Manager feature, FHL hotels rooms will be available for purchase on international and local online travel agencies. The platform supports both online and offline payments as well as automatic syncing and reconciliation between FHL hotels credit and debit card machines with computer records.

According to the Managing Director of Maison Fahrenheit Hotel, Mr. Anthony Shishler, the adoption of MoBiashara for Hotels will enable FHL to move to a new era of hotel inventory management, one he believes will see an improvement in room sales and efficient hotel processes automation.

In his words, Before the coming of this solution; hotels in Nigeria were completely unplugged. Now, this plugs us in and more people would be able to view our rooms and book them online. No other platform allows us to plug into all these different OTAs and to also receive payments. It simplifies processes immensely for FHL and for our customers who can now book and pay for our rooms anywhere in the world, and in any currency. Our hotel staff will not be bogged down with currency conversions, forex limitations or the hassle of consolidating offline with online records.
Boko Haram, which has been waging a seven-year insurgency in northern Nigeria, last year pledged loyalty to Islamic State.

Little is known about the extent of cooperation. But Western officials worry that Islamic State's growing presence in North Africa and ties with Boko Haram could herald a push south into the Sahel region and create a springboard for wider attacks.

"If we see Daesh establish a stronger presence in Libya, that feels much more to people here like a direct communications route, that is likely to step up the practical collaboration between the two groups," British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond said at a security conference in Nigeria.

He was referring to a derogatory name of Islamic State.

On Friday, a senior U.S. official said there were signs of Boko Haram fighters going to Libya from Nigeria, crossing via porous Sub-Saharan borders.

"The intent is clearly there, the evidence of hard collaboration is still pretty sketchy," Hammond said about the cooperation between the two groups.

At the conference attended by Nigeria's neighbours and Western powers, several African leaders warned stability in lawless Libya was key to fighting Boko Haram and improving security in the region.

In a speech, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said the army had almost recaptured all territory it had lost to Boko Haram, though the group still often stages suicide bombings.

"What remains is to dislodge the terrorists from their hideout in the (northeastern) Sambisa forest and safely liberate the Chibok girls and other victims of abduction," he said.

He was referring to a group of 219 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in the Nigerian town of Chibok in 2014.

Buhari also said the Nigeria's army was respecting human rights when dealing with civilians, a condition from the U.S. to fulfill requests to sell it aircraft and other arms.

Under Buhari's predecessor Goodluck Jonathan, the United States had blocked arms sales, partly due to human rights concerns.
Lang was drunk and police detained him when they found that he had no valid residency permit, they said.

The six men convicted on Sunday had been Lang's cellmates and had beaten the teacher to death, according to a prosecution document and the judicial source.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact the lawyers representing either Lang or the six defendants.

A French embassy spokesman did not respond to calls for comment on the case.

French President Francois Hollande told a news conference during a visit to Cairo last month that he had raised the case of Lang and that of Italian student Giulio Regeni in his meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Regeni, 28, was last seen by his friends on Jan. 25. His body, which showed signs of torture, was found on Feb. 3 in a roadside ditch on the edge of Cairo.

Lang was known to have been held at a central Cairo police station. Following his arrest, the Frenchman was presented to Egyptian prosecutors who decided to deport him, security sources said at the time.

He was being held pending his deportation when he was killed by inmates in what the sources said was a dispute over whether to turn off the light.

The six sentenced on Sunday are already in custody, the judicial source said. They can appeal the verdict.
Police used teargas and water cannon to disperse two similar rallies in the past month. On Monday police backed by trucks with water cannon flanked the protesters gathered outside the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

Kenya does not hold its next presidential and parliamentary polls until August 2017, but politicians are already trying to galvanise their supporters in a nation where violence erupted after the 2007 vote and the opposition disputed the 2013 result.

The opposition CORD coalition, led by Raila Odinga who lost the 2013 vote and unsuccessfully challenged the result in court, has accused the IEBC of bias and said its members should quit. IEBC officials have dismissed the charge and say they will stay.

"For free and fair election, IEBC must go," read a banner held aloft by one demonstrator on Monday.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is expected to seek re-election next year for a second and final term, has urged opponents not to take to the streets.

Despite the 2013 legal challenge, that vote proceeded smoothly and Odinga accepted the court ruling in a nation where ethnic loyalties usually trump policy among voters.
The Stockholm District Court said Claver Berinkindi, a Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda, was convicted of genocide and gross crime under international law consisting of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping in Rwanda.

"This relates to participation in a large number of massacres during the 1994 genocide where the defendant had an informal role as a leader," the court said in a statement.

Under Swedish law, courts can try Swedish citizens and other nationals for crimes committed abroad.

An estimated 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi ethnic minority but also moderates of the ethnic group Hutu, were killed by Hutus over three months in 1994 after years of civil war. The massacres raised questions about the ability or will of international organisations or states to intervene to halt mass killings of civilians.

According to the Stockholm court verdict, Berinkindi, who arrived in Sweden in 2002 and became a Swedish citizen in 2012, was convicted in absentia of genocide-related crimes by a Rwandan Gacaca community court in 2007.

He was charged in Sweden in September 2015.

The district court ruling can be appealed.

A number of Rwandan genocide-related crimes have been tried in recent years in Rwanda and other countries.

In 2013, a Swedish court sentenced another man to life in prison for genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It was the first time a person in Sweden had been convicted of genocide.

Last month, a Rwandan court handed a life sentence to a former senior politician for hate speech aimed at stirring up killings of Tutsis during the genocide.
After Trump's call for an entry ban on Muslims, Cameron criticised Trump in the British parliament and suggested that Trump, who is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, would unite Britain against him if he visited.

"It looks like we're not going to have a very good relationship, who knows," Trump told Britain's ITV television station in an interview aired on Monday when asked how ties would be if he won power in the Nov. 8 presidential election.

"I hope to have a good relationship with him but it sounds like he's not willing to address the problem either," Trump said, although earlier in the interview he said he didn't care about the Cameron comments.

The United States is Britain's closest ally and political leaders from both nations often speak of how the countries' enjoy a special relationship.

Cameron earlier this month refused to retract his "divisive, stupid and wrong" comment but said that Trump deserved respect for making it through the gruelling Republican primary process.

Trump, who had initially wished newly elected London Mayor Sadiq Khan well, said he was offended by Khan's criticism that he was ignorant about Islam.

"He doesn't know me, never met me, doesn't know what I am all about. I think they are very rude statements. Frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements," Trump said. "It is ignorant for him to say that."

After Khan's election, Trump had told the New York Times that he could make an exception for Khan, who is a Muslim, to visit the United States.
Brady Street underground sewer work began Monday with lane closures from 12th to Locust streets, Davenport.

Brady from River Drive to High Street will be torn up in sections throughout the summer and fall as the city's hired contractor, Langman Construction Inc. of Rock Island, performs the underground work.

"We do appreciate the publics patience as we begin such a substantial project," Davenport deputy public works director Brian Schadt said.

Two lanes of Brady will remain open throughout the entire project and access to all businesses is being maintained, Schadt said.

Scott Tunnicliff, director of Hilltop Campus Village, which is a designated Main Street Iowa District with 140 businesses, said city representatives will be available to answer questions about the Brady Street work at Hilltop's annual meeting Thursday.

"It will be great to have it done," Tunnicliff said of the project. "Hopefully, it will move forward without incident."

Tunnicliff said he has been fielding concerns from business owners, especially in light of last year's Harrison Street closure that, he added, seemed to catch people by surprise.

The city shut down seven blocks of Harrison for four months to repair sewers and replace the surface. Tunnicliff said the first he had heard about the Harrison closure was 48 hours before barriers went up.

"It's not going to be like Harrison Street," he said. "I think the city is cognizant of the businesses here. We're going to need some additional signage. There are no four-lane closures. That was the problem last year."

Tunnicliff said communication with the city has been "much better."

Langman Construction is supposed to resurface Brady Street next year.
RSVP of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois honored its volunteers earlier this month with luncheons at The Fountains in Bettendorf and Jumer's Casino & Hotel in Rock Island.

RSVP officials told their volunteers that they served more than 126,000 hours between March 2015 and March 2016. RSVP staff also helped the volunteers find 400 new placements during the same period.

RSVP stands for Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, and it is a program of the Western Illinois Area Agency on Aging. RSVP is funded in part by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the states of Iowa and Illinois, the United Way of the Quad-Cities area and private donations. For more information, go to wiaaa.org.
DES MOINES  The four Democrats running for the U.S. Senate in Iowa fired shots at Sen. Charles Grassley's foreign policy record Sunday, while taking issue at times with their president over trade deals and drone attacks during a forum sponsored by the "Stop The Arms Race" PAC and progressive groups.

Former state legislators Tom Fiegen of Clarence and Bob Krause of Fairfield, state Sen. Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids and Albia Democrat Patty Judge, a former state senator, Iowa agriculture secretary and lieutenant governor, spent almost two hours discussing 15 topics ranging from the Middle East, national defense, immigration and going to war.

The Democrats vying for their party's nomination in the June 7 primary took turns criticizing congressional inaction for impeding American progress as a strong world leader and Grassley as an obstructionist, while supporting President Barack Obama's negotiated nuclear deal with Iran but opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal and universally condemning the use of torture as a tool of war.

The four candidates called for a clear policy and oversight governing the use of drone strikes against ISIS and enemy targets under the auspices of the Pentagon with no CIA involvement. Krause called for a "fail-safe" protocol while Judge said drones are a military tool that needs to be used "very judiciously" to avoid killing innocent victims.

Fiegen applauded anti-drone protests outside the Iowa Air National Guard base in Des Moines in decrying the use of drone strikes in "places where we have not declared war" that has escalated under former President George W. Bush and now the Obama administration.

"You wonder why there are more terrorists. It's because we use drones to kill people who are innocent victims," Fiegen told about 100 people who gathered at the First Christian Church near the Drake University campus.

"These are going to come back to haunt us," Fiegen said of an evolving, relatively inexpensive and accessible technology. "If we believe we can do this" in other countries, "we give everybody else in the world carte blanche to do the same thing to us. Be prepared. Be prepared, be afraid."

Hogg voiced similar misgivings, saying the Iowa Legislature passed legislation dealing with privacy and safety concerns and he supported military use for information-gathering purposes. Beyond that, he said, the U.S. government should use "extraordinary caution" in an international arena where drone technology is not going in "a good direction."

"This idea that we're using these devices in the way that we're using, I am really concerned about how this is going to come back and really hurt us," he said.

Krause said he would like to see a comprehensive review of the government's drone program, acknowledging that it's been "a mixed bag" in targeting terrorist operatives but also killing or injuring civilians. "It has a negative impact. I don't know if I'm willing yet to say that we need to stop targeting and pinpointing the leadership of ISIS. I can't say that, but I know that there are problems that we have to deal with," he said.

Judge called it "absolutely shameful that Congress hasn't declared war on ISIS," saying it's been more than a year since the president called for action that would let U.S. men and women in Iraq and Syria know they have the backing and commitment of the American people to win the fight.

"Congress has been timid. Sen. Grassley has been timid," Krause said for "walking away" and not enforcing the Constitution.
A voracious appetite for restaurant workers in Sioux Falls, with food service managers reported to be scrambling for applicants to fill job openings, isnt being seen in the Rapid City area.

According to recent published reports, the number of restaurant job openings in Sioux Falls has nearly tripled over the last five years, jumping from about 500 in 2011 to about 1,480 openings in 2015.

The vacancies far outstrip demand for workers in other employment sectors, including the health care and construction fields, which are also struggling to fill job openings.

"It's a nightmare," Ryan Brickner, manager of Pappy's the Original cafe in downtown Sioux Falls, said. "It's not like even the quality of the applicants. It's like there's not even applications coming in anymore."

But in Rapid City, which has seen steady growth in the number of new eateries, the number of worker vacancies hasnt become a problem even with employers seeking summer employees.

Julie Whitcher, director of tourism for the Rapid City Convention and Visitors Bureau, said there arent indications of a overall shortage of employees in the area.

She describes the restaurant service industry as something of a revolving door, with workers staying at one restaurant for a short time, then moving on to work somewhere else, she said.

Theres always help-wanted signs out, but were not seeing an extreme industry need right now, Whitcher said.

Alicia Wurtz, manager of Native Grill & Wings in the Rushmore Crossing Shopping Center in Rapid City, has witnessed the revolving door effect since the restaurant opened in December.

Its kind of hit and miss, she said.

Wurtz said Native Grill & Wings has a steady stream of applicants for wait staff and other positions, but also a fair amount of turnover in those positions for a number of reasons.

Its not a problem hiring people, Wurtz said. Its more of a problem keeping them because of their work ethic.

In Sioux Falls, that employee turnover that is part of running a restaurant is worsened by the demand for workers because employers have to compete with each other to find those employees, Mike Lynch, public affairs and research manager for the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, said.

Greg Puls, owner of five sandwich restaurants in Sioux Falls, always has the help wanted sign out, but said he will often go days without an applicant.

"It's tight," Puls said. "It's very tight."

In Rapid City, Bob Fuchs, owner and founder of the 1915 Firehouse Brewing Co., Firehouse Winery, along with the Ciao Italian Eatery, Que Pasa Cantina and Tequila Bar, Wobbly Bobby British Pub in the Shops at Main Street Square, said his establishments are now hiring additional seasonal employees, drawing upon returning college students and the downturn in energy field jobs in North Dakota and Wyoming.

He expects to hire about 100 additional employees to help run outdoor seating areas at the Firehouse, Que Pasa and Ciao and is optimistic of filling those positions.

So far, I dont think were having any kind of issue, Fuchs said. Well see here shortly.

Marcia Hultman, head of the South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation, said business owners who are struggling to find staff need to look not only at the wages they're offering but benefit packages and overall work environment.

Fuchs said his businesses offer higher pay than mnost national chain restaurants.

Thats a big part of it. We dont pay minimum wage. We pay quite a bit better, Fuchs said. We have really stellar employees, because were pretty picky. Maybe thats why weve had good luck with the employees.
Officials with the Black Hills National Forest say they are ready to handle whatever comes their way this summer fire season.

The agency will have about 230 personnel available for firefighting May through October, including 14 engines, two 10-person hand crews, two bulldozers, five staffed fire-lookout towers, a Type 3 helicopter, a 7-person veteran fire team, and a hand crew from the Box Elder Job Corps Center.

The forest also hosts nationally shared resources including a Type 1 helicopter available June through September. The Tatanka Hotshot Crew, a crew that responds to complex wildfires nationwide based outside of Custer, is available May though October.

The Rapid City Air Tanker Base is in full operation from June through September and supports all large air tankers, as well as single-engine air tankers. It is located on the south end of Rapid City Regional Airport and can service all South Dakota wildland firefighting retardant needs.

The Great Plains Interagency Dispatch Center, located south of Rapid City, is staffed year-round and provides a single point for ordering, coordination of firefighters, equipment and supplies.
Mrs. Belle Fourche will receive a crown and sash, make appearances in her city and be a spokesperson for her platform of choice. In December 2016, the Mrs. SD Pageant will be held in Sioux Falls, and a Mrs. SD 2017 will be crowned.

That winner will proceed to the Mrs. America Pageant in Las Vegas. The current reigning Mrs. SD is Stephanie Fischer Dinsmore of Sioux Falls.

The Mrs. Belle Fourche candidate must be over 18, married, a U.S. citizen and a resident of South Dakota at the time of the pageant to be considered. The Mrs. South Dakota pageant is made up of articulate, well-rounded, beautiful married women with an interest in competing and community involvement.

Contestants are of all ages, backgrounds and occupations, some having children or even blended families. There is no talent performance, nor is there an age or height requisite.

The South Dakota Pageant will also name a Mrs. Spearfish, Mrs. Saint Onge, Mrs. Badlands, etc.

For more information, please contact the Mrs. SD office at 605-334-0619.
The Gov.s Column

Congratulations to the class of 2016! To all high school, college and technical school students now approaching graduation in South Dakota, I commend you for reaching this milestone. After years of studying, taking tests and writing essays, youve finally made it. Congratulations on all you have achieved!

Most of you probably already have a good idea of what youll be doing next  what additional education youll seek or what career youll pursue. Whether youve decided to stay in South Dakota or pursue a career or education elsewhere, I hope youll ultimately consider a future here in our state. There are a number of reasons to consider living and working here.

First, we have the lowest unemployment rate in the nation at 2.5 percent, compared to the national rate of 5 percent. Job opportunities are better here than in most places.

Secondly, the tax burden in South Dakota is low. We are among only a few states without an income tax, meaning you can keep more of the money you earn. Money that can repay student debt, buy a house someday or replace that car you drove into the ground in school.

Third, not only do people keep more of the money they earn in South Dakota, but that money will buy more here than in other places. According to a U.S. Department of Commerce report, South Dakotans experience a very low cost of living in the United States. We dont spend as much money on housing, insurance, food and the other everyday needs. In fact, we have some of the lowest costs in the nation. In New York, California, Washington, D.C., or many other places, you will find costs that are 12 percent, 15 percent, even 18 percent higher than the national average. In South Dakota our costs are only 88 percent of the national average.

Now some people will say, South Dakota may have a low tax burden and low cost of living, but I wont get paid as much if I live there. Actually when it comes to per capita personal income, we fare pretty well. Nationally, we rank in the top half. And, if you adjust the per capita personal income to add cost of living and taxes, we rank fifth in the nation.

After I graduated from USD, I hitchhiked my way to Chicago to attend law school at Northwestern. Id lived in South Dakota my whole life and I was ready for something bigger, something more exciting. I wanted to experience life in the bright lights of a big city. I finished school and decided to stay in Illinois for a few years to practice law. Still, over time, I came to miss seeing the stars at night, enjoying the wide open spaces and having the company of friendly, down-to-earth people. I was glad to have experienced something new and different, but I was ready to come home to something better.

My hope is not that you will never venture outside of our state, but rather that you would consider a more permanent future in South Dakota. Most of all, I hope you will come to realize, as I did, that your dreams can come true right here at home.
HOT SPRINGS - Hot Springs eighth grade students spent a day on five college campuses earlier this year as a way to visualize and experience how a higher education can help reach their future goals. The students visited Black Hills State University, Western Dakota Tech, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Chadron State College (Neb.), and Western Nebraska Community College in Scottsbluff (Neb). The idea for these visits was inspired by a program that Hot Springs eighth grade reading teacher Susan OBoyle learned about during her time as a counselor in Nebraska.

OBoyle credits Hot Springs Middle School Principal Liz Baker for arranging for the five visits and bringing all the eighth grade teachers on board with the idea. The teachers and Mrs. Baker each took a group of students to one of the five campuses. Baker talked with the colleges ahead of time about what kids want to see and hear on a visit, OBoyle said.

All the eighth grade teachers saw the need for this, OBoyle said. They saw the importance of getting the process started in eighth grade. Its the best college prep if we get kids on the campuses.

During the semester the students also spent some class time searching the website: sdmylife.com. The website provides information, such as, which colleges are in South Dakota, a list of careers, the kinds of tests students take for college entry, what major and minor means, and much more. OBoyle said its an excellent informational site for career discovery. She said students, parents and educators should make use of the site.

The students day on campus included tours and some hands-on activities. At the School of Mines there were hands-on projects for the students to do. At Chadron they saw the new ag facilities. Students said the ag facilities were the coolest buildings, OBoyle said. The students also saw the college dorms, gymnasiums, and most of them ate at the cafeterias.

The colleges were very welcoming, OBoyle said Chadron had an electronic sign welcoming the Hot Springs eighth grade students. The colleges gave the students pens, t-shirts, and planners.

Touring colleges helps students understand more what campus life looks like, OBoyle said. I felt it was pretty successful, she said. I wasnt sure if they (students) saw the end of the road, so it helped wake them up to were not just spending time here.
The national board that makes the final call on American place names recently considered a motion that would have renamed South Dakotas highest point, Harney Peak, to Black Elk Peak.

The motion, made at the April 14 meeting of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names at the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., was seconded but ultimately withdrawn after a lengthy discussion, according to recently published minutes.

Had the motion passed, the controversy over the name of the 7,242-foot mountain would have reached new heights after many in South Dakota thought the name game was over.

The renaming proposal remains on the table of the national board, to be considered again in August.

Was the board actually close to renaming the mountain? Only one board member could be reached by the Journal for comment, and he hinted that the new name might not have had broad support.

Some people on the board are more eager for the change than others, said board member Jon Campbell, of the U.S. Geological Survey. It only takes one person to make a motion.

The board is composed of employees of various federal departments. There were 13 voting members at the April 14 meeting, and a majority of seven would have been required to adopt the motion.

Lou Yost, the executive secretary of the board, said the motion was withdrawn because time was running short, some board members had to leave for another meeting, and there was a feeling that the discussion was not finished.

The board could take any one of three options with Harney Peak: retain the name; rename it Black Elk Peak in honor of the late Lakota holy man Nicholas Black Elk; or rename it Thunder Peak.

Yost said Paul Stover Soderman, who wants to rename the peak and describes himself as a relative to the peak's namesake, the late Gen. William S. Harney, is seeking consensus prior to August among Native American tribes on their preference for the Black Elk Peak or Thunder Peak name.

The genesis of the debate over Harney Peak was with the Black Elk Peak proposal. It was made in September 2014 by Basil Brave Heart, a Native American from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He considers the name Harney Peak offensive because Gen. William S. Harney led military campaigns against Native Americans in the 1800s, including one in which women and children were killed.

The South Dakota Board on Geographic Names conducted public meetings around the state last year to gather oral input on the Black Elk Peak proposal, and hundreds of written comments also were accepted. Support coalesced not around Black Elk Peak, but around an alternative proposal to rename the peak Hinhan Kaga, a Lakota phrase meaning Making of Owls that some believe is the traditional Lakota name for the mountain.

The state board initially voted to recommend a name change to Hinhan Kaga, but after that change was put out for public comment and the board suffered a backlash, the board took another vote and decided unanimously to recommend that the name Harney Peak be retained.

That recommendation went to the national board, which has now had the matter under consideration for nearly a year. It's been widely assumed, in part because of statements made by a national board staffer, that the national board would give significant weight to the state board's recommendation to keep the existing name.

Meanwhile, someone else sent in a formal proposal to rename the mountain to Thunder Peak, which the national board was obliged to add into the mix.
Peter Norbeck was a very accomplished public servant. He served South Dakota as a legislator, governor and United States senator from 1909 to 1936. Of all things he achieved, he is most remembered as the father of Custer State Park.

Norbeck worked for 20 years to create Custer State Park, which is among the largest state parks in the United States. He designed many of the parks roads. Thinking of the people who would travel to the area, Norbeck chose the route for Iron Mountain Road. Instead of the shortest route of nine miles, he created a 16-mile road with fantastic views of Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills. He even helped construct fences at the park.

A marker placed at the Peter Norbeck Wildlife Preserve sums him up in this way: His was the heritage of cold, strong lands; his the pioneer vision which saw far ahead, far beyond. He felt the strong heart throb of his beloved people commanding him to do greatly and be great. In these mountains he found a wilderness for them and labored to preserve its beauty unspoiled for them and for their childrens children. He is still present in every mile of road that he built, in the noble pines and towering rocks he loved, and in the hearts of the multitudes who will enjoy them.

When he spoke at the First National Conference on State Parks in 1921, Peter Norbeck observed, Parks are not merely picnicking places. They are rich store houses of memories and reveries. They are bearers of wonderful talks to him who will listen, a solace to the aged and an inspiration to the young.

Likewise, Custer State Park is so much more than a picnicking place. Each year nearly 2 million people from all over the world come to see the buffalo, drive the wildlife loop, hike Lovers Leap, fish on Legion Lake, and swim and kayak up at Sylvan. This 72,000-acre getaway destination is a place where memories are made.

With so many things to do and see, first-time visitors  and even seasoned guests  need a guide. Last week we celebrated the opening of a new state-of-the-art visitor center that will serve as that guide.

Visitors wont be able to miss the new facility as they come into the park. Theyll be able to start at the visitor center to find out about the layout of the park, the many activity options and even where the buffalo are in the park at any given time. Theyll also have the chance to stop in the new state-of-the-art theater to watch a 20-minute introductory film called Spirit of Tatanka which is narrated by Academy Award winner Kevin Costner.

Establishing the Custer State Park visitor center took time, hard work and finances. An exemplary public-private relationship made this building a reality. In 2013 the Legislature approved my proposal to allocate $1.5 million for the visitor center. I am grateful to the legislators and taxpayers who saw this as a priority. I am also grateful to the private groups and individuals who contributed a total of $3.5 million for this project.

Whether you are well acquainted with Custer State Park or you have never been, I invite you to come to the park this summer and check out the new visitor center. Its truly an addition the father of Custer State Park would be proud of.
In a March 27 editorial, we said Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump shares responsibility for violence directed at protesters by his supporters because of incendiary rhetoric he uses. We urged him to tone down the "tough guy" talk and speak out at his rallies in stronger fashion against the violence.

No place exists in our democratic process, we said, for violence at presidential campaign events.

In fairness, today we direct our criticism not at Trump, but at Trump protesters who engaged in repulsive violence outside the site of a rally for the candidate in Costa Mesa, Calif., on Thursday night.

According to published reports, protesters blocked traffic, kicked at and punched approaching vehicles, attacked Trump supporters, fought with and shouted insults at law enforcement officers and smashed the window and kicked in the doors of a police car. Cops in riot gear responded; nearly two dozen protesters were arrested.

A protest is acceptable  in fact, it's an exercise of protected free speech. Violence is not. Frankly, we question whether it's accurate to call those who took to the streets outside the Trump event in Costa Mesa "protesters." They appeared more interested in causing trouble than sending a political message and deserved nothing more than arrest and marginalization.

The garbage we witnessed in Costa Mesa not only served no useful purpose, but may, in what would be a twist of irony, do the cause of protesters more harm than good by increasing support for Trump ahead of the June 7 California presidential primary.

"Every time leftist protesters disrupt one of his events or stage a riot outside, he benefits," Editor Rich Lowry wrote in National Review on Tuesday. "They arent on the Trump payroll, but they might as well be. The protests are catnip to cable TV  as if Trump needed any more free media attention  and provide the perfect framing for Trumps message that only he has the strength to defy the forces of chaos and political correctness."

Bottom line: Proper ways exist for Americans to voice dissent, but this wasn't one of them.

Because, as we said on March 27, no place exists in our democratic process  and, we might add, in our civilized society  for violence at presidential campaign events.
Russian court opens hearings in dispute over Sakhalin ex-governors property

MOSCOW, May 16 (RAPSI)  The South-Sakhalin City Court has begun hearing of a dispute over property of former Skhalins governor, Alexander Khoroshavin, who stands charged with large-scale embezzlement, RIA Novosti reported on Monday.

Hearings are expected to continue until June 15.

Earlier the Moscow City Court has ruled that extension till June 27 of the attachment of property belonging to Irina and Ilya Khoroshavin, the spouse and son of Alexander Khoroshavin, was lawful.

The lawyer of ex-governors spouse maintained that investigators had missed the deadline for petitioning the extension of attachment and stressed that some part of the seized property had been acquired yet in 2009, whereas, according to investigators, Khoroshavin started to commit crimes in 2011.

Investigators failed to present convincing evidence that the sized property of third parties had been purchased at the expense of funds Khoroshavin obtained by crime,  the lawyer said.

In the respective complaint, Ilya Khoroshavins lawyer noted that when his client had been questioned as a witness he stated that he had own sources of income and was not dependent on his father.

In the course of the debate, the prosecutor insisted that the circumstances the investigator in the case described in the petition requesting to extend the attachment of property were correct and standing, and therefore the ruling of the Moscow Basmanny Court was not subject to reversal.

The Prosecutor Generals Office has filed a lawsuit with the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Court to take over the entire property registered to the former governor, his wife and son, which is estimated at 1.1 billion rubles ($16.4mln).

Last September, Irina Khoroshavina filed for divorce and division of property.

Investigators announced in March 2015 that Khoroshavin and several other officials were arrested for allegedly taking a $5.6 million bribe to secure a contract to build a power unit for the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk thermal plant.

In April 2015, Khoroshavin was charged in another criminal case with taking a bribe of at least 15 million rubles ($194,500) for providing credits on advantageous terms to one of the local businessmen. He pleaded not guilty.

In January, the third criminal case was opened against Khoroshavin. According to investigators, he took 27 million rubles ($350,000) in bribes from candidates for the positions in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City Duma in 2014.

President Vladimir Putin dismissed Khoroshavin from his post due to loss of trust in March 2015.
Russian Defense Ministry sues Polet airline for $6.7 mln

MOSCOW, May 16 (RAPSI)  The Defense Ministry of Russia has filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Commercial Court against bankrupt airline Polet, demanding 432,2 million rubles ($6.7 mln) from the defendant, the court ruling reads.

The lawsuit is going to be reviewed on July 29. Several other companies, government entities and individuals have also registered their own claims against the airline.

Polet airline was found bankrupt on April 26. Overall, the airlines debt is estimated to make 3 billion rubles ($46.1 mln).

In March 2014, the Ilyushin Finance Co company filed a bankruptcy lawsuit against Polet. On November 21, 2014, a court ruled to introduce monitoring procedures at the airline. Debt owed to the Ilyushin Finance Co was included into the list of creditors claims.

Polet airline was founded in 1988. It has been registered in Voronezh, a town in southern Russia, until the end of 2013. In 2014 the company experienced financial troubles, which eventually led to suspension and revocation of Polets airline certificate.
Universal Music appeals against ruling in copyright infringement dispute with VK

MOSCOW, May 16 (RAPSI)  Universal Music Russia filed a cassation appeal against a court ruling in a dispute with Russia's top social network VKontakte over distribution of music, according to the courts official database.

On March 17, the Thirteenth Commercial Court of Appeals recognized VKontakte, known as VK, as honest information intermediary. The claim by Universal Music Russia therefore was rejected. Moreover, the court in March dismissed a similar claim lodged by Warner Music UK against VKontakte.

As reported earlier, the recording companies demanded removal of pirated music and 31 million rubles ($477,400) in damages from the social network.

The lawsuits provided the list of performers on whose behalf the music companies had filed a petition to delete the pirated files.

On July 27, 2015, the Commercial Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region approved an out-of-court agreement between Sony Music Russia and VK worth 15.6 million rubles ($240,300).

Sony Music reportedly became the first large foreign company with which VK has found common ground. Having settled their dispute, Sony Music and VKontakte have agreed to legalize music that is streamed by the social network.

Sony Music has signed a contract to this effect, but not with VKontakte or its main shareholder, Mail.ru Group. It signed the contract with Oleg Butenkos United Music Agency (UMA). Butenko is the former director of MegaLabs, a MegaFon subsidiary, which is controlled by Alisher Usmanovs USM Holding. USM Holding also controls Mail.ru Group.

As previously reported, VKontakte would gradually modernize its music service by introducing commercial services. Music services for smartphones will be accessible for a fee, while music streamed via computers will be available for free but will include commercials.

Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music sued VKontakte in the spring of 2014 claiming that it streamed pirated music and demanded the removal of the infringing music and 50 million rubles ($770,000) in damages.
Three gang members convicted of stealing vintage books

Context Three Muscovites could face up to 15 years for stealing vintage books

MOSCOW, May 16 (RAPSI)  Three members of an organized gang have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3.5 to 5.5 years for stealing rare and antique books from Moscow libraries, RIA Novosti reported on Monday.

According to investigators, they have stolen and sold many old books over the past eight years. Investigators had evidence of 10 such cases.

Investigators found that the group members stole antique books of historical, scientific, artistic and cultural value and sold them at auctions, through resale shops, secondhand bookshop and art centers, as well as to collectors. Police have established the groups scheme, including the suspects, the masterminds behind the operations, and the sales network of stolen goods, an official at the Moscow department of the Interior Ministry said earlier.

The reserved price of one of the stolen books could amount to $30,000 at international bibliopolical auctions.

In August 2014, one of the gang members was placed in detention, while two others were released, but restricted. In 2015, they were charged under a Criminal Code article on the theft of items of intrinsic value.
Four administrative cases opened in relation to animal deaths in Moscow shelter

MOSCOW, May 16 (RAPSI)  The Moscow Prosecutors Office has initiated four administrative proceedings against animal shelter EKO Veshnyzki, a unit of EKO animal charity, and its head Vera Petrosyan, RIA Novosti news agency reports on Monday quoting the Prosecutors Office press release.

Earlier, it has been reported that a criminal case under cruelty to animals article of the Russian Criminal Code was opened as 41 dead animals, 29 cats and 12 dogs, were found in the territory of this shelter in April.

According to the press release, the Prosecutors Office has reacted to the case initiating four administrative proceedings relating in particular to an infringement on animal quarantine rules and concealment of the fact of sudden die-off of animals from the veterinary authorities against the shelter and its head.

The administrative cases were submitted to the Moscow Veterinary Committee to be reviewed on merits.

It is reported that inspections of animal shelters and compliance with respective government contracts are underway in all Moscow administrative divisions. It has been stressed that the Prosecutors Office pays special attention to other animal shelters run by the EKO charity.

The press release also informs that the efficiency and compliance with targeted use of budgetary funds allocated for animal welfare will be specifically inspected, and that alongside supervisory agencies, animal advocacy NGOs participate in the examination. The Moscow Prosecutors Office is monitoring the results of inspections.


Kathmandu, Nepal: Nepal Army has been dragged into controversies after its senior officials were mobilized to receive the Bollywood actresses Sonakshi Sinha and Malaika Arora Khan at the Tribhuwan international airport on Friday.



Nepali media have criticized the Nepal Army for its decision to deploy a senior army official for the security of film actresses. Various media have criticized the Nepal Army stating that the act was demoralizing which also reduces the prestige of the national Army.



General Samir Shai was mobilized at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) to receive Sinha. Similarly, another senior army officials was also mobilized to receive Khan.



Senior Army officials had not only received the actress duos but also mobilized for the security of them.



The actresses duo were invited in Nepal to participate in charity function, organized by the wife of Army chief General Rajendra Chhettri for benefit of the victims of last years devastating earthquake.




Pokhara, Nepal: Eight people including three foreigners have been rescued by the Armed Police Force (APF) personnel from the Phewa Lake in Pokhara on Sunday.



According to the AF, five Nepali tourists from Syangja district, and a Chinese couple and a two-year-old baby were stranded due to heavy storm on Monday afternoon.



An APF team led by Sub Inspector Ishwar Adhikari had rescued them. APF has set up a rescue tower at the bank of lakeside to monitor the activities in the Phewa Lake.






Kathmandu, Nepal: The foreigners, who had taken part in the protest of Federal Alliance, has been arrested by the Nepal Police on Monday.



Among a group of foreigners, a Briton Martin Pewar was arrested on Monday afternoon while he was participating in a sit-in organized by the Federal Alliance (FA).



Likewise, the Ministry of Home Affairs has decided to take action against the foreigners participating in the protest.



Participation of foreigners in the protest program is against the immigration law, Home Ministry Spokesperson Yadav Koirala said adding that the government would take action against the arrested person after investigation.



Though the motive behind the participation of foreigners in the protest is yet to conformed, the government has suspected that the participation of foreigners would have intended to support the parties and the group that intend to federate the country on the basis of ethnicity.


The Washington Post

An Indian teen was raped by her father. Village elders had her whipped

By Annie Gowen May 9 at 2:01 PM

MAUJE JAWALWADI, India a The teenage girl, dressed in pink, sits in the dirt before six community elders.

In a scene captured on a cellphone video, one of the men wags his finger angrily at her. He rages: This girl must be punished.

A villager ties her waist with rope, holding the other end, and lifts a tree branch into the air. She bows her head. The first lash comes, then another, then another. Ten in all. She lets out a wail.

Eventually the crowd starts murmuring, aEnough, enough,a although nobody moves to stop the beating. Finally, the man throws down his stick. Itas over.

She is 13 years old. Or maybe 15. Her family doesnat know for sure. She has never set foot in a school and has spent most of her life doing chores at home, occasionally begging for food and performing in her fatheras acrobatic show, for which she is given 20 rupees, about 30 cents.

A girl from the Northern Indian state of Haryana was one of four girls whose supporters say they were raped at the order of a panchayat, village council, as punishment to the entire community over a land dispute. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post)

Her crime? Being too scared to tell anyone her father raped her.

India is a country of 1.2 billion people, with a growing economy, a young population and an energetic prime minister eager to sell the country on the world stage. A generation of women taking stronger roles in the workforce, in colleges and online isnat afraid to push against outdated misogyny a be it acid attacks, rape and sexual harassment, or the demeaning portrayal of women in movies and advertisements.

Yet patriarchal prejudices ingrained for centuries have been tough to shake loose despite a growing clamor for change a and continue to affect life from the village water pump to the judicial system and beyond.

Male-dominated village councils have existed in India for centuries to resolve disputes between neighbors and serve as enforcers of social mores in the countryas stratified caste system. Although elected village bodies were established by the Indian government in 1992, unelected clan councils continue to operate with impunity throughout rural India, issuing their own edicts in the name of preserving harmony.

Five years after the Supreme Court said such councils should be illegal, the central government and some states are only beginning to pass or contemplate laws that would limit their behavior.

These councils often prevent or break up marriages and love affairs between couples from different castes, and they have instigated honor killings. Women typically receive the harshest punishments.

Sube Singh Samain (center), age 60, a cotton and rice farmer and leader of an association of clan councils in Hisar, Haryana, says the councils play a valuable role in smoothing things over between families and keeping disputes out of the courts. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post)

They also intervene in cases of sexual assault a mediating resolutions between two families, attempting to smooth over devastating wounds with a few hundred rupees, and even in some cases forcing a victim to marry her rapist. Amid international outrage about the 2012 fatal gang rape of a Delhi student, laws were passed to make it easier for rape victims to file charges. But the road to the police station is still a long one.

[Gang rape of a woman on a bus in New Delhi raises outrage in India]

aIn rape cases, their role is underground and not officially or publicly acknowledged,a said Jagmati Sangwan of the All India Democratic Womenas Association, a longtime critic. aThey will ask the family of the victim to go for a compromise, go for mediation, and that suppresses the interests of the victim.a

Sube Singh Samain, a leader of an association of clan councils in the northern state of Haryana, said they serve a vital role in a county with an overburdened justice system and where legal cases can be costly. He said that village elders have banned the sale of meat, restricted cellphone use by youths and even prohibited loud music at weddings. (aThe music is so bad the cows and bulls fall over and run away,a he said.) They also step in to smooth things between families, sometimes urging people to withdraw police complaints.

aWe say, aLetas not go to the courts; letas resolve it,a a he said. aWe encourage them to go back to the police if a [complaint] has already been filed and say, aI was not in a right state of mind; I want to take back my statement.a a

Some of the most brutal decrees have garnered international headlines.

In 2014, for example, a clan council in the state of West Bengal ordered the gang rape of a woman as punishment for her relationship with a man outside her tribal community a with a leader allegedly urging the council to ago enjoy the girl and have fun,a according to a police complaint.

In Maharashtra, representatives from an advocacy group called the Committee for Eradication of Blind Faith work with about 100 people a year who have been victimized by caste councils a called panchayats a most of them female.

Women are forced to retrieve a coin from a vat of boiling oil to prove their purity. One woman was forced to walk, scantily clad, through the forest while the panchayat members threw balls of dough straight off a fire at her back.

aYou canat have a parallel judiciary thatas completely unaccountable and gives arbitrary punishments a many of them barbaric,a said Hamid Dabholkar, the head of the advocacy group. aThat is what happened in this case where the girl was beaten when she herself was a victim.a

Grim turn in a hard life

Before she died, Anusuya Chavanas existence had been as precarious as the tightrope she walked in her husbandas acrobatic shows. For the most part, she was able to shelter her two younger daughters from their fatheras rages, but eventually her own drinking and battle with tuberculosis caught up with her. She died last year.

At the time, her teenage daughter begged to go live with one of her older siblings, but the father, Shivram Yeshwant Chavan, told her no. He needed someone to cook, keep house and earn money for him.

Up until then, the girlas life had not been easy, but there were small comforts. She had no friends, but she liked turning handstands in the dirt with her sister, Laila, 7. Or buying a snack of spicy puffed rice or kulfi, a frozen dessert, with pocket change her father slipped her.

Then one night in January, her father came home from his job playing a steel drum in a wedding band, drunk on local hooch. She was sound asleep on the ground in their home, her sister curled up tight next to her. He got down on the ground, too, and put his hand over her mouth.

Victimized again

In early March, a farmer and local labor activist named Sachin Tukaram Bhise was headed to a nearby village to find day laborers for his wheat and sugar cane farm when he heard a village council was to be called by members of the local Gopal community, near Mauje Jawalwadi. Shivram Chavanas sons did not know the whole story but feared the worst and had ostracized their father; he was ready to confess.

The Gopals are a largely illiterate, impoverished group who were once nomads making their living as cow herders and itinerant street performers. Many have since settled down to menial jobs in the fertile farming region in the shadow of the basalt crags of the Sahyadri mountain range.

As Bhise watched, people from around the area gathered in the main square of the village amid tin-roofed sheds. The teenager and her father were brought to kneel before the council.

Chavan bowed his head and admitted what he had done, Bhise recalled, and said he was ready for whatever punishment the council would give him. Then the elders turned to the teenager and began to berate her.

aThey said it was the girlas fault. That the father was drunk and he was not in his senses,a Bhise said. aI got angered at the whole thing. How could a girl invite such an act? The panch said, aYouare useless, youare the culprit.a She was crying.a

Bhise took out his cellphone and surreptitiously began recording video as the council issued its verdict a a fine of about $67 and a whipping of 15 asticksa for the father, five asticksa for the girl. They would be whipped until each of the thin tree branches broke.

Bhise took his evidence to the police, who later arrested all seven members of the council, charging them with conspiracy, extortion and assault. The father was held on charges of child abuse.

Teen: aI was at faulta

aIt did not hurt me, because they beat me very lightly,a the teenager said quietly about a month later.

She was curled up on a tarpaulin outside the place where she now lives with her brother and his family a a hut of fabric pieces stretched over bamboo poles and secured by rocks. It sits on a ridge overlooking a sweeping mountain vista.

As she spoke, the girl began to cry, tears slipping easily from her eyes. She touched the feet of a Marathi-speaking visitor, a gesture of respect, and said she has only herself to blame.

aI asked them to beat me because I was at fault,a she said. aThe fault was I did not tell anyone about this at home. I told them my father just held my hand. That was my mistake.a

Her sister-in-law, Jaya, who was sitting with her on the tarpaulin, agreed that she had been wrong.

aIf she had told them, the brothers would have beaten the father. There would have been no panchayat and the matter would have been resolved at home,a she said. aIf the brothers hadnat beaten him, then the sisters-in-law would have.a

Now, the woman said, the girl just wants to close the case and put it behind her. Since the attack, she has been interviewed by a female police officer, undergone a medical examination, and received a small amount of money from the stateas victims fund.

[Indiaas rape problem is also a police problem]

Last month, the state government of Maharashtra approved a measure that prohibits the gathering of village councils to impose a asocial boycott,a one of the most common a and devastating a punishments. It effectively banishes an individual or family, cutting them off from communal Awater pumps, stores or the local temple.

Some in the Indian government have called for other states to follow suit, and the government has tightened its laws to prohibit social boycotting in some cases.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that he had pushed through the bill because of a rising number of disturbing cases of caste panchayats acting improperly.

aWe cannot allow atrocities against any individual or groups,a he said. aWe will not allow parallel institutions of justice by non-state actors, and we cannot compromise on the dignity and rights of individuals.a

And in April, the Gopal comAmunity decided to disband the panchayat system and take criminal matters directly to the police from then on, community leader Dilip Dinkar Jadhav said.

Marry the rapist?

For a while it seemed that the members of the panchayat, or at least the man who administered the beating, did not want to be found. A trip to his village a a few families living on a narrow dirt lane near a small yellow Hindu temple a turned up nothing.

aWe donat know him,a one of the neighbors said.

But after a flurry of telephone calls, Arun Jadhav agreed to meet. He appeared with Dilip Jadhav at a roadside restaurant on the areaas busy National Highway 4, which is studded with expensive auto dealerships that cater to the areaas prosperous farmers and white-collar workers. Arun Jadhav, 45, an illiterate trumpet player, was reserved, a Nike ball cap pulled low over his eyes. Dilip Jadhav, 45, a wedding band manager with a gold-tone watch and a neat checked shirt, had the air of a man used to sorting out problems.

Arun Jadhav, who is not directly related to Dilip Jadhav, said he had been called to the village that day to attend a memorial service for the teenageras mother that evolved into the panchayat meeting.

aSomebody asked me to take responsibility for hitting these people, and thatas what I did. I had tea and then I left,a he said.

Both men agreed that the teenager deserved the beating because she hid the truth about the assault.

Dilip Jadhav said it has fallen upon him to secure a future for the girl, which will be difficult.

aIf something like that happened to my daughter, then we would get her married off to the rapist,a he said. aWe donat go to the police station. If they take the kids to the police station, everybody knows about her and she is a bigger liability. Itas better if she gets married to him.a

He thinks he has found a match for the teenager, though a a widower of 20, maybe 21, also a musician, whose wife recently died. Within six months, sheall be Amarried.

Farheen Fatima, Sangeeta Gandhe and Pragya Krishna contributed to this report.
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Independence Woman Killed In Crash West of Monmouth

Four passengers in the second vehicle were not badly injured.



Head-on crash on Highway 194 near MP6, Independence, Oregon.

Photo: OSP



(MONMOUTH, Ore.) - OSP Troopers and emergency personnel responded to the report of a two vehicle, head-on crash on Highway 194 near milepost 6 (west of Monmouth on Fishback Road), Sunday, at about 12:50PM.

Police say the preliminary investigation revealed a 1997 Dodge Neon was traveling eastbound on Highway 194 (also known as Monmouth Highway) when it crossed the centerline striking a 2006 Dodge pickup head-on.

Witnesses reported observing the Neon driving at a high rate of speed prior to the crash.

The driver of the Neon, 30-year old Tara C. Kadell, of Independence, was pronounced deceased on scene.

The driver of the pickup, 23-year old Lacey C McLaren, of Portland, was not injured. Two other passengers, a four-year old girl and a six-year old girl, were also not injured.

It was discovered McLaren had a felony warrant for Theft I issued by Linn County Sheriff's Office. She was arrested and lodged at the Polk County Jail.

A male passenger in the pickup fled the scene prior to law enforcement arriving. He was later identified as 33-year old Jason Lee Greer, of Oregon City. It was learned Greer had a misdemeanor warrant for his arrest. At the time of this release, Greer has not been located.

Highway 194 was closed for about five hours while the investigation was being conducted. OSP was assisted by Monmouth Fire, Polk County Sheriff's Office, Polk County District Attorney's Office and the Oregon Department of Transportation.

This is an ongoing investigation and more information will be released when it becomes available.

Source: Oregon State Police news release

_________________________________________
 Making the case that "criminal justice reform is a conservative effort" and a "moral imperative" | Main | SCOTUS back to work with no new cert grants, punting, and a per curiam AEDPA summary reversal 

At Jost on Justice, Ken Jost has this notable new piece, headlined "For Juvenile Lifers, Wheels of Justice Grind Slow," about the application of the Supreme Court's ruling in Montgomery v. Louisiana in state systems. Here are excerpts:

Henry Montgomery has lived behind prison walls for 53 years now, but even so he is a little bit antsy according to his lawyer while waiting to learn when he will get a chance at freedom under a new Supreme Court decision.

Montgomery is one of 300 or so Louisiana inmates serving time under life-without-parole sentences imposed for murders they committed as juveniles  sentences ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court four years ago. The court followed with a 6-3 ruling in January that the earlier decision applies retroactively to prisoners even if their regular appeals had already ended....

The hang-up in Louisiana and in several other states stems not only from the customarily slow pace of judicial proceedings but from uncertainty about how to comply with the high courts ruling. The 6-3 decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana appeared to prescribe parole hearings as the remedy rather than court resentencings for inmates now seeking release.

The courts earlier decision, Miller v. Alabama (2012), prohibited states from automatically sentencing juvenile murderers to life-without-parole but left open the possibility of such sentences in some murder cases. In the new opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said that prisoners who have shown an inability to reform will continue to serve life sentences. Citing Montgomerys record as a model prisoner, however, Kennedy said that inmates like him must be given the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable corruption.

Kennedy appeared to be letting states off easy by negating any need to resentence the juvenile lifers in court, much less to review their convictions. But leaders of a juvenile justice advocacy group working to abolish life-without-parole sentences view courts as a more receptive forum than state parole boards for inmates to gain their freedom. Heather Renwick, legal counsel for the Washington-based Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, says courts are a more favorable forum than politically appointed parole boards....

Nationwide, there are an estimated 1,300 prisoners serving life-without-parole sentences for offenses committed as juveniles. Louisiana and two other states, Michigan and Pennsylvania, account for the lions share. In Louisiana, Montgomerys lawyer is impatient for the states high court to act. Its in limbo right now, says Mark Plaisance, a private lawyer representing Montgomery on contract with the East Baton Rouge Parish public defenders office.

Montgomery, who turns 70 in November, was sentenced for killing a school truancy officer in 1963 when he was 17. Plaisance says Montgomery shares his impatience with the delayed follow-up. Not only him but several of the defendants are antsy about how quick can we get back into court, Plaisance says.

For its part, the juvenile sentencing group acknowledges the slow pace but takes encouragement from recent moves by Utah and South Dakota to become the 15th and 16th states to abolish life-without-parole for juvenile offenders altogether. There is broad bipartisan support for alternatives to death-in-prison sentences for children, says Jody Kent Levy, the groups director and national coordinator. Still, there is work to be done to ensure reforms are implemented meaningfully.
 SCOTUS back to work with no new cert grants, punting, and a per curiam AEDPA summary reversal | Main | "13 Important Questions About Criminal Justice We Cant Answer. And the government cant either." 

May 16, 2016

President-elect in Philippines eager to bring back death penalty "especially if you use drugs"

The worldwide story of capital punishment has generally involved an ever-growing number of nations moving away from regular use of the death penalty. However, as this Time piece highlights, at least one notable nation has just elected a tough-on-crime leader eager to get his nation to execute again. The piece is headlined "Philippine President-Elect Rodrigo Duterte Plans to Bring Back the Death Penalty," and here are the basics:

The tough-on-crime presumptive winner of the Philippine presidential election, Rodrigo Duterte, has told reporters in his first postvictory comments that he intends to bring back capital punishment. According to Philippine news outlet GMA, Duterte told reporters in Davao City on Sunday night that he would urge Congress to restore the death penalty by hanging, especially if you use drugs. Other news outlets reported that he would also give police shoot-to-kill powers against mobsters and those violently resisting arrest. If you resist, show violent resistance, my order to police [will be] to shoot to kill, he declared, adding: Shoot to kill for organized crime. You heard that? Shoot to kill for every organized crime. Dutertes election success has been credited to his promise to eradicate crime in a country that has the worlds 11th highest homicide rate. During his campaign, he said he would fatten the fish of Manila Bay with the bodies of criminals. The President-elects 22-year track record as the mayor of Davao City gives him enormous credibility with Philippine voters. Before he took mayoral office, Davao was known for its war-zone-like lawlessness, but last year, a crowdsourced poll declared it fourth safest city in the world.... He is due to be sworn in as President on June 30 for a six-year term.

May 16, 2016 at 11:13 AM | Permalink

Comments

He needs to get elected as mayor of Chicago, no better place to start thumping on gangs and thugs, with 3,000 shootings/yr. Have at it, take new military recruits their, they need target practice and mow them thugs down.. after a yr ir 2, I bet their shootings and crime rate goes way down. its cost effective, humane and we dont gave to listen to lawyers and all of the lefal crap on what we need to do with them. its efficient.

Posted by: MidWestGuy | May 16, 2016 6:14:50 PM

Why don't give the police department to Mafiosi ???? They will fight gangs and restore order.

Posted by: claudio giusti | May 19, 2016 3:02:24 PM

Post a comment
Google just fired a rather loud shot across the bow of both Uber and Lyft. With the release of Waze Rider, the Google-owned Waze has its eye on a significant portion of ride-hail passengers: Those catching rides to and from work. The app coordinates carpools, and according to the Chronicle allows individuals to request free rides or agree to pay the IRS recommended per-mile reimbursement rate of 54 cents  a rate that would significantly undercut both Uber and Lyft.

Lyft charges $1.16 per mile in SF (plus other assorted fees), and Uber charges $1.15 per mile (also plus other fees).

Waze Rider is at present only available in the Bay Area, but will likely expand to other cities around the country should the initial launch be considered successful. Although the app is in a "pilot" phase right now, supposedly only available to pre-approved employees of specific companies, this reporter was able to download it via Apple's app store and create a full account with the option to start getting rides today. Image using this to get a ride to the airport  sure, you'd end up in long-term parking instead of right at the terminal, but your ride would be around $7.00. In other words, even less than BART.

At present, Waze Rider does not charge a fee or take a percentage of the transaction. That could of course change in the future.

Susan Shaheen, who is the co-director of UC Berkeley Transportation Sustainability Research Center, told the Chronicle that Waze's 700,000 Bay Area users (for its mapping app) means Waze Rider could succeed where other carpooling apps have failed.

Critical mass is a big reason carpooling hasnt been able to be as successful as it could be, Shaheen explained. Its exciting to see how we can use technology in a socially and environmentally beneficial way.

Below, the cheeky promo video.

Related: Uber Wants To Drive You To, And Leave You In, Tijuana
Cosmic Chunder heads to Barcelona to sample plenty of Catalan architectural delights, coming back with a new edit for your visual gratification. Brendan Watson, Alex Harris, George Smith (in a fetching outfit to close proceedings), Corey Bayley and more take advantage of the good weather and multiple spots to hand!

Fire up your Playstation and be transported to Newport. A putrid urban waste of space, sluggishly draped between the glorious smackhead magnet 'Wave' to the...

Haunting Skateboards hit Hereford, Saffron Walden, Newport, John Games and more in the second of their new series of edits.

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NEW YORK | Prize-winning nonfiction author, journalist and comic book writer Ta-Nehisi Coates says he and his family won't be moving into a recently purchased New York City brownstone because of media attention.

Coates says once word of the $2.1 million sale was published in various media outlets along with his new home address he and his family knew they couldn't live there for personal safety reasons.

He wrote about it last week in The Atlantic, where he's a national correspondent. He writes that although his newfound fame helped him buy the Brooklyn home it has its downside, including more scrutiny and less privacy.

Coates' 2015 book "Between the World and Me" won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. The book is an open letter to his son about race and police violence.

Coates also is working on a new Black Panther comic book series for Marvel.
SIOUX CITY | An irritated, missing-toothed Shih-Tzu hates being groomed and lets it be known with yelps and nips while a chunky Cavalier King Charles Spaniel stares up at Patty Brockhaus.

He likes his snacks, she says and turns to meet his gaze. Its OK. I know. Its OK. I like my snacks, too.

Brockhaus and her employees see about 18 dogs a day.

My Best Friend is one of eight local dog groomers participating in the Groom-a-Thon benefit for Partners for Patriots. Throughout the month of May, theyre going head-to-head to see who can raise the most money for the local nonprofit that trains service dogs for military veterans.

Director Cindy Brodie is always on the lookout for creative fundraising ideas because that money doesnt just fall from the sky, but then again, sometimes it does.

Partners for Patriots recently received $100,000 from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, the billionaires 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Trump raised $6 million for veterans in January after boycotting the Republican debate and hosting a rally a couple miles down the road in Des Moines instead. The money was split between 22 nonprofit organizations. Three of them were in Sioux City: Support Siouxland Soldiers, Projects for Patriots, and Partners for Patriots.

In a normal year, Brodie said the organization functions on donations totaling $30,000-$40,000. At that level of funding, Partners for Patriots has been training less than 10 dogs a year.

Brodie, who founded the nonprofit with her husband in 2009, dreamed of building a training center to expand their services, but that seemed like a distant goal.

When asked if getting a property was even on the radar for this year, she said, No, no, no. Weve been trying to look for some investors or somebody that would help.

The local nonprofit came to Trumps attention through Todd Landen, who is getting a service dog from Partners for Patriots. The Iraq veteran posed a question to the presidential candidate about wounded warriors during a rally at West High School in October. The Trump campaign kept in contact with him.

Next thing you know, Brodies getting up on stage with Trump at a town hall meeting in Council Bluffs, Iowa, to accept a giant novelty check.

With the sudden influx of cash, Partners for Patriots put an offer in on a property about seven miles east of Moville, Iowa. The sale is set to close on June 6.

Its a big step toward constructing the Partners for Patriots Canine Complex, which would help the nonprofit train 25 to 40 dogs per year.
DENISON, Iowa | A Minnesota man has been formally charged with shooting at two deputies during a standoff in March.

Crawford County Attorney Roger Sailer on Monday filed two counts of assault on a peace officer using or displaying a dangerous weapon against James Champion, 45, of Mankato, Minnesota. Both charges are Class D felonies that carry five-year prison sentences. His arraignment was set for June 6.

Champion is accused of firing a shotgun at Crawford County Sheriff's deputies Devin Jepsen and Todd Stater during a March 9 standoff in Schleswig, Iowa.

Authorities had been called to an apartment building in Schleswig to check on the welfare of Champion, who is accused of threatening to shoot them when they opened the door. A five-and-a-half hour standoff ensued, ending when Champion opened the door and fired a shot at the officers. Crawford County Deputy Lt. Corey Utech then shot Champion twice in the torso.

Utech was later cleared of wrongdoing, as Sailer determined during an investigation of the shooting that Utech's actions were appropriate and justified.

Champion was hospitalized in Omaha for his wounds, but has since been released. He is on pretrial release from custody.
DES MOINES | The four Democrats running for the U.S. Senate in Iowa fired shots at Sen. Charles Grassley's foreign policy record Sunday while taking issue at times with their president over trade deals and drone attacks during a forum sponsored by the "Stop The Arms Race" PAC and progressive groups.

Former state legislators Tom Fiegen of Clarence and Bob Krause of Fairfield, state Sen. Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids, and Albia Democrat Patty Judge -- a former state senator, Iowa agriculture secretary and lieutenant governor -- spent nearly two hours discussing 15 topics ranging from the Middle East, national defense, immigration and going to war.

The Democrats vying for their party's nomination in the June 7 primary took turns criticizing congressional inaction for impeding American progress as a strong world leader and Grassley as an obstructionist, while supporting President Obama's negotiated nuclear deal with Iran but opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal and universally condemning the use of torture as a tool of war.

The four candidates called for a clear policy and oversight governing the use of drone strikes against ISIS and enemy targets under the auspices of the Pentagon with no CIA involvement. Krause called for a "fail-safe" protocol while Judge said drones are a military tool that need to be used "very judiciously" to avoid killing innocent victims.

Fiegen applauded anti-drone protests outside the Iowa Air National Guard base in Des Moines in decrying the use of drone strikes in "places where we have not declared war" that has escalated under former President George W. Bush and now the Obama administration.

"You wonder why there are more terrorists. It's because we use drones to kill people who are innocent victims," Fiegen told about 100 people who gathered at the First Christian Church near the Drake University campus.

"These are going to come back to haunt us," Fiegen said of an evolving, relatively inexpensive and accessible technology. "If we believe we can do this" in other countries, "we give everybody else in the world carte blanche to do the same thing to us. Be prepared. Be prepared, be afraid."

Hogg voiced similar misgivings, saying the Iowa Legislature passed legislation dealing with privacy and safety concerns and he supported military use for information-gathering purposes. Beyond that, he said, the U.S. government should use "extraordinary caution" in an international arena where drone technology is not going in "a good direction."

"This idea that we're using these devices in the way that we're using, I am really concerned about how this is going to come back and really hurt us," he said.

Krause said he would like to see a comprehensive review of the government's drone program, acknowledging that it's been "a mixed bag" in targeting terrorist operatives but also killing or injuring civilians. "It has a negative impact. I don't know if I'm willing yet to say that we need to stop targeting and pinpointing the leadership of ISIS. I can't say that, but I know that there are problems that we have to deal with," he said.

Judge called it "absolutely shameful that Congress hasn't declared war on ISIS," saying it's been more than a year since the president called for action that would let U.S. men and women in Iraq and Syria know they have the backing and commitment of the American people to win the fight.

"Congress has been timid. Sen. Grassley has been timid," Krause said for "walking away" and not enforcing the Constitution.
Business moves at supersonic speed. While technology has facilitated easier communication and information gathering, it has also ushered in a new economy in which the common worker can be more readily replaced by technological advancements than ever before.

The option to utilize advanced algorithms, data visualization and robotics as opposed to human assistance has become increasingly more alluring to organizations. In turn, the burden to prove themselves necessary has fallen upon the common worker.

Competency no longer does the trick. More so than ever, it is crucial for professionals to not only be able to complete tasks, but to be able to complete them with the utmost efficiency, accuracy and creativity.

Performing at a consistently high level requires sustained focus. Luckily, there are ways to train yourself in order to become the type of individual who not only produces results, but produces the type of results that make you an all-star in your respective area.

How To Become More Focused

1. Define your goals and prioritize tasks accordingly. The first step in concentration is to form a mental picture of what you wish to accomplish. Understanding why you are engaging in an activity and clearly stating what you hope to achieve from completing the task adds clarity to your thought process. Its important to write down your objectives and pinpoint how that job assists you in meeting those overarching goals.

2. Slow down. When you work with a deliberate slowness, it allows you to more effectively pay attention to the task at hand. When it comes to engaging in mindful work activities, it is important to gain the discipline to keep things simple and moving at a pace conducive to improved focus.

3. Conquer negativity. Negative thoughts greatly drain mental capacity, as an unhealthy thought process overly stimulates the brain, increasing mental pressure and tension. When your mind is overloaded with threats, demands and counterproductive thoughts, cognitive impairment (a big hindrance to productivity) is the result.

Such tricks as remembering your core values, defining aspects of yourself that you are grateful for, breathing to relieve bodily tension and getting up and moving will lessen thoughts of doom and gloom and heighten your ability to think efficiently and produce at optimal levels.

4. Practice intense focus. Whenever you fix your mind on a certain thought and hold your mind on it at successive intervals, you develop concentration. Understand that the human brain has limited capacity for attention. When you allocate anything less than 100% focus to a task, you weaken your ability to produce at a level consistent with your capabilities. If you wish to enhance the quality of your work, it is imperative to set aside any other activities that require effort for the time being.

When distractions such as emails, co-worker interactions and consistent client inquiries compete for your attention level, they dispose of a limited budget of mental capacity. Therefore, they must be put off until completion of that task or you risk a lesser output.

How To Become More Efficient

5. Confront procrastination. Researchers estimate that nearly 15% of adults are chronic procrastinators. Putting off tasks is problematic on several fronts. First, when a job remains incomplete, it creates undue mental pressure straining your ability to focus on any other project. Additionally, failure to jump right in and see a project through to its end eventually becomes a habit and in time leads to low self-esteem.

Practices such as creating self-imposed deadlines, engaging in advanced planning and breaking a project into smaller steps will help combat procrastination.

6. Focus on the final product. Knowing where a project is going is paramount to you being able to focus intently on that task. Understand what you expect out of the work will help you get down to work and provide you with the resiliency to finish the task.

As the working world evolves and many professionals find themselves ever closer to competing with efficient technologies in some aspect of their work, it is those who learn how to become more focused and maintain good practices that will rise to the top, regardless of industry or position.

Republished by permission. Original here.
A couple of weeks ago, I met a local entrepreneur who is raising money for her new company. I connected her to a micro venture capitalist (VC) out in California who offered to invest at a pre-money valuation of $1.5 million. She turned down the offer to try to raise capital at a $2.9 million valuation elsewhere.

I think she made a mistake. A better approach would have been to accept the valuation, but only raise a tiny amount of money.

Dont Be Quick To Turn Down Low Valuation Offers

When entrepreneurs turn down financing because they think the valuation is too low, they are usually miscalculating. Most entrepreneurs overestimate the number of investors who will offer them a term sheet. And they usually underestimate the amount of time it takes to find investors.

Sophisticated investors finance a tiny fraction  less five percent  of the companies that approach them for money. Each investor an entrepreneur approaches consumes a lot of the entrepreneurs time explaining the idea and answering questions. That time comes at a huge opportunity cost. Every moment the entrepreneur spends fundraising could have been spent building a product, interacting with customers, or growing the business.

Second, even if the entrepreneur finds another investor, odds are that the second investor will offer a similar valuation to the first one. Most sophisticated investors see a lot of new companies  those making three or four investments per year are usually looking at upwards of a couple hundred ventures annually. They are also interacting with other investors who are looking at a lot of deals. Chances are high that a sophisticated investor an accurate sense of the new companys valuation. The second investors valuation will likely come in somewhere near the first one.

Third, seeking the highest valuation isnt always the best approach to initial financing. Most high-potential companies need to raise money from investors more than once. If companies are valued too high in the initial round, they stand a good chance of having a down round next time. Investors often shy away from such companies because the odds of consummating the deal are low. The psychological difficulty of accepting a down round usually mean that a high percentage of these discussions fail. To avoid wasting time, many investors avoid initially overvalued companies in subsequent rounds.

Fourth, entrepreneurs often underestimate the importance of getting the first investor check. New ventures are highly uncertain. Investors look to each other to provide social proof of the value of the new company. If no one has invested in a company, many people are afraid to write a check. By accepting a lower valuation for the first money, an entrepreneur can provide evidence of the ventures appeal to investors, much the same way to accepting a lower price for the first sale permits the founder to have a reference customer.

Fifth, founders rarely appreciate the importance of momentum. Getting initial money in at a low valuation is very helpful if it allows the venture to develop. A company that has raised some money at a low valuation and is using those funds to build the company usually looks better than a venture that has been shown all around town without a raise.

Rather than rejecting low valuation offers, a better strategy is to take a small amount of financing at the low valuation, and then do a future raise at a higher number. If the initial rise is small, the entrepreneur isnt giving up much equity at the lower price, but is showing the ventures progress and his or her efficient use of time.
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
Gregory A. Kernan.

LA PLATA, Md.

(May 16, 2016)The Charles County Commissioners announced the selection of Gregory A. Kernan as chief of Parks and Grounds in the Department of Public Works. Kernan will begin employment with Charles County Government on Monday, May 16. As chief of Parks and Grounds, he will perform managerial and technical parks and grounds work, including design and development, construction and maintenance, budgeting, purchasing, and personnel.With more than 25 years of coordinating, directing, and managing park operations, Kernan has held leadership positions with the City of Alexandria, and the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission. In his career, he has managed more than 190 employees, provided oversight for a $26 million parks and facilities management budget, and successfully negotiated a collective bargaining agreement as a union contract negotiating team representative."I am very excited for Mr. Kernan to join the new Department of Recreation, Parks, and Tourism. His wealth of experience with parks and ground maintenance and operations makes him a key addition to Charles County Government. I am confident Mr. Kernan will play a vital role in continuing parks development throughout the county," said Eileen Minnick, director of the Department of Community Services."It is indeed an honor to have been selected for the chief of Parks and Grounds position. I am looking forward to coming to work for the citizens of Charles County. I am impressed with the department's work and can't wait to get started," said Kernan.Kernan has a bachelor's degree in ornamental horticulture from Delaware Valley College of Science and Agriculture in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. He is affiliated with the Maryland Recreation and Parks Association and the International Facility Managers' Association.As of July 1, 2016, the Parks and Grounds Division will move under the direction of the Department of Recreation, Parks, and Tourism.
LEONARDTOWN, Md. (May 16, 2016)Superintendent of Schools, Mr. J. Scott Smith, recognized several employees that have been recognized for their service and dedication to St. Mary's County Public Schools.



Ms. Ellen Johnson, Human Resources Assistant in the Department of Human Resources, has been selected as the Educational Support Professional of the Year award winner. Ms. Johnson has been employed with St. Mary's County Public Schools since January 2004. The Educational Support Professional of the Year award was established in 2009 to recognize the essential role support staff has on the success of the school system by fostering a positive learning environment for students. Dr. Jeffrey Maher, Chief Academic Officer said of Ms. Johnson, "She is well respected by her colleagues and by anyone with whom she interacts."



Ms. Alison Sayers, English teacher at Fairlead Academy I, has been selected as the representative from St. Mary's County Public Schools for the Maryland Teacher of the Year program. Ms. Sayers has been employed with St. Mary's County Public Schools for ten years. She will compete against other teachers from across the State of Maryland for the Maryland Teacher of the Year Award. Ms. Sayers holds a Master's Degree in School Counseling from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor's Degree in Education from Eastern Michigan University. Ms. Rebecca Cline, Academic Dean at Fairlead I, said of Ms. Sayers, "Come visit Ms. Sayers' classroom. See the incredible, unbelievable, skillful, and amazing things that are happening each day."



Ms. April Wathen, Media Specialist at George Washington Carver Elementary School, has been selected as the representative from St. Mary's County Public Schools for the Washington Post Teacher of the Year program. Ms. Wathen has been employed with St. Mary's County Public Schools for seven years. She was a finalist competing against other teachers from public and private schools throughout the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. Ms. Wathen holds a Master's Degree in Leadership in Teaching from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland and a Bachelor's Degree in Education from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. John Michael Ballard, Third Grade Teacher at George Washington Carver Elementary said of Ms. Wathen, "She has served as an inspiration and role model for Carver teachers and students alike. Ms. Wathen is a highly valued member of our school community who is consistently seeking ways to support our staff, students, and stakeholders, both personally and professionally."



Ms. Audrey Ellis, Principal of Piney Point Elementary School, has been selected as the representative from St. Mary's County Public Schools for the Washington Post Principal of the Year program. Ms. Ellis returned to St. Mary's County Public Schools in 2009 as an Assistant Principal at Benjamin Banneker Elementary and was appointed as Principal at Piney Point Elementary in 2011. Ms. Ellis holds a Master's Degree in Education from McDaniel College and a Bachelor's Degree in Education from University of Hartford. She was a finalist for the Washington Post Principal of the Year Award competing against other principals from public and private schools throughout the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.



"These four employees represent the excellence found in St. Mary's County Public Schools. They are truly dedicated to the success of the students they serve and to the school community. I join the entire school system in applauding Ms. Johnson, Ms. Sayers, Ms. Wathen and Ms. Ellis for being recognized by their peers as outstanding educators" said Mr. J. Scott Smith, Superintendent of Schools.



All nominees for the Educational Support Professional of the Year, Teacher of the Year, and Principal of the Year, will be recognized at an event at Chopticon High School on Thursday, May 26, 2016, beginning at 5:00 p.m.
PRINCE FREDERICK, Md.

Disclaimer: In the U.S.A., all persons accused of a crime by the State are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. See: http://so.md/presumed-innocence. Additionally, all of the information provided above is solely from the perspective of the respective law enforcement agency and does not provide any direct input from the accused or persons otherwise mentioned. You can find additional information about the case by searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Database using the accused's name and date of birth. The database is online at http://so.md/mdcasesearch . Persons named who have been found innocent or not guilty of all charges in the respective case, and/or have had the case ordered expunged by the court can have their name, age, and city redacted by following the process defined at http://so.md/expungeme.

(May 16, 2016)The Calvert County Sheriff's Office today released the following incident and arrest reports.WEEKLY SUMMARY: During the week of May 6 through May 15, deputies responded to 2,014 calls for service throughout the community.BURGLARY CASE #16-26205: On May 8, Deputy G. Gott was dispatched to a home on Peace Pipe Court in Lusby for the report of a burglary. The victim stated several rear windows were broken, some were removed and a large fire pit had been dug on the property, as well. This crime took place some time between April 26May 8.BURGLARY CASE #16-25750: On May 5, Deputy D. Denton responded to Evergreen Drive in Lusby for a reported burglary in progress., had gained entry into the home by removing a window and was also found to be in possession of Clonazepam and Amphetamines. She was transported to the Detention Center and charged accordingly.ATTEMPTED BURGLARY, DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY CASE # 16-26211: On May 16, Deputy C. Fox responded to C Street in Chesapeake Beach for the report of an attempted burglary. It appears a suspect(s) cut the screen on the victim's door near the lock. There is no evidence of anything missing and entry was not made. This crime took place between May 4 and May 8.CDS VIOLATION CASE #16-27196: On May 13, Deputy B. Robinson responded to the Detention Center for the report of a CDS Violation. Upon processing inmate,, Correctional Office D. Carroll advised an Oxycontin pill was discovered hidden in her clothing while performing a search. She was charged with Possession of Contraband in a place of Confinement and with CDS Possession-Not Marijuana.CDS VIOLATION CASE #16-27005: On May 12, Deputy C. Ward approached a vehicle involved in a minor accident, at the intersection of Main Street/North Solomons Island Road, and discovered the driver,, to be in possession of a large amount of Marijuana. He was charged and arrested with CDS: Possession with intent to Distribute (Marijuana), Possession of Marijuana and possession of a Concealed Dangerous Weapon.CDS VIOLATION CASE #16-26892: On May 12, Deputy K. Williamson responded to Dumbarton Drive in Dunkirk for the report of a domestic issue. He discovered that, had stolen a synthetic narcotic from an occupant who was visiting his home. He was arrested and charged with Theft less than $100.00, Possession of Paraphernalia (straw) and Possession Not-Marijuana (Oxycodone).CDS VIOLATION CASE #16-26885: On May 11, Deputy D. Clark was dispatched to check the welfare of a driver parked along Old Solomons Island Road in Owings. He discovered the driver, identified as, and, to be in possession of illegal paraphernalia. The rear passenger,, was also in Possession of Paraphernalia, Heroin, Cocaine and gave a false name upon being questioned. Dorwart and Beal were taken to the Detention Center and charged with Possession of Paraphernalia (hypodermic syringes); Greene was transported to the Detention Center and charged with Intent to Distribute Narcotics (heroin), Possession-Not Marijuana (cocaine), Possession of Paraphernalia (digital scale) and for Fraud-Presume Identity to avoid Prosecution. He was also served with two outstanding Calvert County Warrants and an additional Warrant through the Maryland State Police.CDS VIOLATION CASE #16-26769: On May 11, Sgt. R. Naughton was dispatched to the area of Chesapeake Avenue in North Beach for the report of a person possibly in need of medical attention. Upon arrival, Deputy Naughton determined the suspect to be under the influence of an unknown substance., was arrested after determining he was in Possession of a Controlled Non-narcotic Drug (Adderall).DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY CASE # 16-27167: On May 13, Deputy N. Barger responded to Ponds Wood Drive in Chesapeake Beach for the report of damage to outdoor lawn chairs. It appears that a bullet or pellet was shot causing a hole in two chairs. This crime took place sometime between May 8May 13.THEFT CASE #16-27402: On May 14, Deputy P. Mosely was dispatched to Capitol Court in Lusby for the report of a theft from an unlocked vehicle. A blue Samsung Point/Shoot Camera and Sony PS Vita were both stolen. This theft took place in the very early morning hours on May 14.THEFT CASE #16-27326: On May 16, Deputy B. Boerum responded to a report of a theft from an unlocked vehicle, which was parked on Pine Blvd. in Lusby. Sometime between 11:00pm on May 138:30am on May 14 a multi-colored wool wallet, credit cards, money and MD Driver's License were stolen.THEFT CASE #16-27175: On May 16, Deputy B. Pounsberry responded to 6th Street, in Chesapeake Beach, for the report of a theft of mail/package. Sometime on May 9, the day FedEx notified the victim their package would be delivered, it was stolen from their property.THEFT CASE #16-27174: On May 13, Deputy N. Barger was dispatched to Wessex Lane, in Huntingtown, for the report of a theft. The victim reported a white 250 gallon outside propane tank and copper piping, attached to the brick chimney, were cut and stolen from his yard. This theft took place on May 12th.THEFT CASE #16-27000: On May 12, Deputy J. Buck responded to Smoothie King located on North Solomons Island Road, in Prince Frederick, for the report of a stolen tip jar. The jar was removed from the business at approximately 4:00pm that day.THEFT CASE #16-26725: On May 10, Deputy W. Durner responded to a report of a theft from a vehicle parked at the World Gym parking lot in Owings. The victim stated his wallet, money, MD driver's license and multiple credit cards were stolen.THEFT CASE #16-26448: On May 9, Deputy J. Denton responded to Austyn Court in St. Leonard for a reported theft of a green Next Generation bicycle. The (unsecured) bike was stolen from the victim's front yard.
Delandre Bernard Rosier, 30, of Indian Head, was arrested in connection with a child sexual abuse incident which occurred on November 11 in Pomfret.

LA PLATA, Md.

Disclaimer: In the U.S.A., all persons accused of a crime by the State are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. See: http://so.md/presumed-innocence. Additionally, all of the information provided above is solely from the perspective of the respective law enforcement agency and does not provide any direct input from the accused or persons otherwise mentioned. You can find additional information about the case by searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Database using the accused's name and date of birth. The database is online at http://so.md/mdcasesearch . Persons named who have been found innocent or not guilty of all charges in the respective case, and/or have had the case ordered expunged by the court can have their name, age, and city redacted by following the process defined at http://so.md/expungeme.

(May 16, 2016)The Charles County Sheriff's Office today released the following incident and arrest reports.CCSO DETECTIVES IDENTIFY AND ARREST SUSPECT IN SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE: Charles County Sheriff's detectives assigned to the Judicial Services Unit arrested, in connection with a child sexual abuse incident which occurred on November 11 in Pomfret. A warrant charging Rosier with sexual child abuse was obtained soon after the report was made; however, he eluded arrest. On May 12, Rosier was located and arrested at a residence in Ft. Washington, in a joint effort by the CCSO Judicial Services Unit and the United States Marshals Service. Rosier was processed and ultimately held without bond. Detective J. Long investigated.DETECTIVES IDENTIFY AND CHARGE SUSPECT IN SHOOTING: On May 7, detectives assigned to the Charles County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations Division, along with members of the U. S. Marshals Task Force, arrested, and, in connection with the April 29 shooting of a 29-year-old man. The shooting occurred on Bridle Path Drive during which Hemsley, Wade, and the victim were making a drug transaction involving marijuana. The suspects attempted to rob the victim of cash and shot him during the course of the robbery. The victim drove to a nearby gas station where he called for help. Both suspects were charged as adults with attempted murder. Det. J. Elliott is investigating.COMMERCIAL BURGLARY: On May 13 at 12:03 a.m., an unknown suspect broke a rear window and entered a business in the 5000 block of Hawthorne Road in Indian Head. Once inside, the suspect removed a video surveillance camera which was mounted on the ceiling before fleeing. It does not appear that anything was taken. M/Cpl. R. Cadrette is investigating.TRESPASSING, FRAUD, POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED DANGEROUS SUBSTANCE: On May 10 at 9:47 a.m., officers responded to a hotel located in the 11000 block of Business Park Drive in Waldorf for a trespassing complaint. Upon arrival officers located the suspect and placed her under arrest for trespassing, during which she actively resisted. A search revealed that the suspect had provided a false name. Heroin and related paraphernalia were also located., was arrested and charged with trespassing, identity fraud, and possession of a controlled dangerous substance. Officer J. Pogar investigated.CCSO WARNS CITIZENS AGAINST SCAMS: The Charles County Sheriff's Office has recently received several calls from citizens regarding continued phone scams. The latest scam involves the caller claiming that they are from the IRS and stating that the person receiving the call owes back taxes. The caller states that in order to avoid being arrested, the person must pay their back taxes by way of iTunes gift cards.Please note that the IRS will not: Call you to demand immediate payment. The IRS will not call you if you owe taxes without first sending you a bill in the mail. Demand that you pay taxes and not allow you to question or appeal the amount you owe. Require that you pay your taxes a certain way (for instance, with a prepaid debit card). Ask for your credit or debit card numbers over the phone. Threaten to bring in police or other agencies to arrest you for not paying.The CCSO urges citizens to be wary of these types of phone calls and to reference this article from the IRS website: https://www.irs.gov/uac/irs-urges-public-to-stay-alert-for-scam-phone-calls
(EDGE) When it comes to condoms, proper size matters. ONE Condoms is excited to introduce 56 perfect-fit condom sizes to the United States. These include sizes larger and smaller than those currently available, marking a historic shift in the range of condoms that are cleared for sale by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). ONE has also acquired TheyFit Condoms, a popular European brand that will be relaunched as myONE Perfect Fit condoms this fall.

Does condom size really matter? Research consistently shows that many men avoid condoms because they do not fit or are uncomfortable. In studies dating back to 1993, 40-45 percent of men have suffered problems with fit or comfort from "one-size-fits-all" condoms. Common complaints include the condom being too loose, tight, long or short, resulting in loss of erection, de-sensitivity, and difficulty achieving orgasm.



Safety may be compromised due to improper coverage if the condom is too short. Research also shows that men who wear condoms that do not fit properly are more likely to report slippage and breakage of the condom. In a large condom study of 820 men conducted by Indiana University researchers, fitted condoms broke half as often as one-size-fits-all condoms. The study also found users of fitted condoms were much more likely to purchase or recommend a fitted condom over a one-size-fits-all condom.



"We believe that condom fit is the next great frontier when it comes to increasing use and acceptability," said Davin Wedel, president of Global Protection Corp., parent company of ONE Condoms. "Shoes and pants come in different sizes, so why not condoms? We're very excited to bring this solution to millions of men who are frustrated by condoms that just don't work for their bodies."



When myONE is made available in the United States this fall, customers will measure their penis using a FitKit and receive a unique product code that corresponds to their myONE size. Purchases may be made at onecondoms.com and authorized resellers, and the product is shipped discreetly to customers.

The introduction of myONE required an expansion to condom sizes permitted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Condoms are classified as Class II medical devices, and must conform to standards set by American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). The new myONE sizes come after years of advocacy to update condom testing standards to more accurately reflect penis size.



"In order to sell myONE, a considerable amount of time was spent with the FDA, researchers, and ASTM over the past few years to show that the current range of sizes just wasn't enough for a majority of consumers," said Wedel. "Years of effort have been put into updating the American standards, which had not been updated since 2003."



Prior to myONE, the minimum allowed condom length set by ASTM was 6.69 inches -- with the introduction of myONE, condoms will be available starting at 4.92 inches. The allowed condom width set by ASTM prior to myONE was 1.85 to 2.24 inches. MyONE widths will range from 1.77 to 2.52 inches. In contrast, studies show that penis size varies greatly, with lengths ranging from about 1.57 to 10.24 inches and widths ranging from about 0.5 to 3.16 inches.



This fall, myONE will offer an array of 56 condom sizes, with combinations of eight condom lengths and nine condoms widths-representing a more accurate range of penis size. The company selected its sizes based on data from TheyFit, a popular European brand which it acquired in 2015.



"When we reviewed the data, it was surprising to see that only 12 percent of purchases were within the current American standard," said Jared Maraio, Senior Director of Brand Strategy. "Based on the data, myONE will offer sizes properly fitting 80 percent of condom purchasers. Another 10 percent will find a substantially improved fit over regular condoms. It's our goal to ensure that myONE supports the great majority of men, and we'll continue to develop the product as we gather more information."

Public Health Implications

The introduction of an expanded range of condom sizes may also have positive ramifications for the public health sector, where health educators often meet resistance to condom use because of comfort.



"There's a common health demonstration where an educator will put their fist, a watermelon, or some other large object inside a condom to show that it's silly for guys to complain about condom fit," said Maraio. "Just because something fits, it doesn't make it comfortable. MyONE makes the argument that people don't have to choose between comfort and safety."



The effect that myONE may have on public health efforts is particularly important to Wedel, who founded Global Protection Corp. with a mission to improve acceptance of condoms to prevent the transmission of HIV. In addition to the ONE brand, Global Protection Corp. is the country's largest distributor of safer sex products to the public health sector.



"Providing an expanded range of condom sizes has powerful implications for increasing condom use and making a positive impact on public health over all," said Wedel. "We're looking forward to working with our partners in the health community to identify strategies to eliminate barriers to condom use with myONE, particularly among at-risk populations."



Launched in 2004, the ONE brand strives to increase condom usage and facilitate conversations about sexual health by surprising, delighting, and engaging people in ways no one else can. As a leader in premium-branded condoms and lubricants in North America, ONE brings a fresh perspective to sexual health through a fusion of advanced product design, manufacturing technology, customer participation, and social responsibility. ONE is a member of the Global Protection Corp. family of sexual health products.

For more information, visit http://www.onecondoms.com
(AP) Texas' lieutenant governor said Friday that the state is prepared to forfeit billions of federal dollars in public school funding in defiance of an Obama administration directive requiring schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity.

The new directive is expected to worsen tensions between Republican-led statehouses and the federal government over divisive social issues. It clarifies expectations for districts receiving federal school funds, which Texas' powerful Republican lieutenant governor argues the state's 5.2 million public school students can now do without.



"We will not be blackmailed by the president's 30 pieces of silver," Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said. "The people of Texas and the Legislature will find a way to find as much of that money as we can if we are forced to."



Patrick said Texas currently receives about $10 billion in federal education funding. He didn't say how that money would be replaced, and his remarks on Friday came only moments after more than half the state's 1,200 school districts lost a major lawsuit that claimed Texas unconstitutionally underfunds public schools.



The risk of not accommodating transgender students and losing federal school funds alarmed others. In Georgia on Thursday night, the Fannin County school superintendent said transgendered people are protected under the Civil Rights Act and surrendering $3 million in annual federal funding to avoid the issue isn't an option.



Texas' attorney general suggested that the guidelines would result in "yet another legal fight" over transgender bathroom access. Just this week, Texas joined a lawsuit in Virginia over transgender students using the bathrooms of their choice and signaled that the Fort Worth school district, which is Texas' sixth-largest, illegally adopted policies recently that give the district latitude to not tell parents information shared by their transgender children.



U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said "there is no room in our schools for discrimination" and was sending the directive Friday to school districts. Some told her not to bother.



"When I get that letter I'll throw it away," Rodney Cavness, the superintendent of the small Port Neches-Groves school district in southeastern Texas, told Beaumont television station KFDM.



Under the guidance, schools have been told that they must treat transgender students according to their chosen gender identity as soon as a parent or guardian notifies the district that that identity "differs from previous representations or records." There is no obligation for a student to present a specific medical diagnosis or identification documents that reflect his or her gender identity, and equal access must be given to transgender students even in instances when it makes others uncomfortable, according to the directive.



Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has staunchly rejected issues over gay and transgender rights that the Obama administration has cast in terms of civil rights. Patrick responded to Friday's directive at the Texas Republican Party Convention, where delegates this week are considering a new state party platform that says "homosexuality must not be accepted as an acceptable alternative lifestyle."
One Irish priest will be taking a leave of absence following the discovery of his leaked nudes and presence on gay hook-up phone app Grindr.

35 year-old Father Rory Coyle of Armagh, Northern Island is a curate and former chaplain for St. Catherine's College and was outed by an unnamed source, according to Pink News.

The source spoke out to Thinking Catholicism after allegedly meeting and sexting the priest on Grindr.

[Coyle is] a dirty bastard; orgies in Dublin, gay beaches in Portugal, renting rooms by the hour in Soho in London for sex meets, he wrote in an email to the blog. He's a total pervert  You can relax. I'm over 18 so at least he's not a paedo.

Shortly after his discovery, Coyle deleted his Grindr and was removed from his clerical job, according to LGBTQ Nation.

According to the email, Coyle spoke out against homosexuality while in the clergy. He's just a hypocrite. Denouncing gay people from the pulpit and then shagging guys when no one is looking.

There is no indication that Coyle committed any illegal actions.
Melbourne, Australias Proud Mary Coffee are set to open a cafe in Portland, Oregon in November of 2016. As first reported by Broadsheeta sort of non-corporate Australian version of EaterProuds founder Nolan Hirte (pictured above) has big plans for transforming the PDX coffee scene.

The cafe is set to open in a lease on Alberta and 20th, across the street from the original Salt & Straw location. Hirte, whose Proud Mary brand in Melbourne includes offshoots Stagger Lee and Aunty Pegs (profiled by Sprudge last year) tells Broadsheet: I honestly reckon its harder and more risky for me to do another three cafes here in Melbourne than it is to go to the other side the planet and do something I know really well, in an area where theres nothing.

Alberta St. is currently home to cafe offerings by Barista, the noted multi-roaster, as well as an airy two-floor space from Portland local roaster Case Study Coffee, and a cafe outpost of Seattles Caffe Vita.

Of the current coffee scene in Portland, Hirte tells Broadsheet, One of the big holes there is service. Not in restaurants, not in bars. In coffee shops and cafes. His new cafe will clock at just under 3000 square feet, and will include a full kitchen manned by Melbourne chef Barney Hannegan. Plans also call for an off-site roaster, and he looks to the Portland market as ripe for Proud Mary to sell wholesale coffee around town.

This impending project from Hirte and co. follows in the footsteps of Mark Dundon & Russell Beards successful Paramount Coffee Project in Los Angeles, winner of the 2016 Sprudgie Award for Best New Cafe. Dundon is the founder of Melbournes Seven Seeds coffee roaster & cafe brand, while Beard founded Reuben Hills in Sydney. Melbournes incredibly saturated cafe market has brands looking to America for cache and growth, and its not a trend we see slowing down soon.

Read all Proud Mary coverage on Sprudge.

Top photo by Eileen P. Kenny for Sprudge.com.
Berlin (Germany), May 14, 2016 (SPS) - Members of the Bundestag (German Parliament) and representatives of the association Freedom for Western Sahara called for the organization of a self-determination referendum in Western Sahara, according to a communique made public.

Frank Heinrich, of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), Kerstin Tack, of the Social-Democratic party (SPD), Sevim Dagdelen, of the Left Party (Die Linke) and Katja Keul, of the Green Party, called for the organization of a referendum as soon as possible in Western Sahara, according to a communique made public on Thursday, on the occasion of a debate in the Bundestags plenary session on Western Sahara, themed 25 years of ceasefire in Western Sahara- Implementing Resolution 690 of the United Nations, for the holding of the referendum.

These members also called for the extension of the United Nations Mission for the Organization of a referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to the monitoring of human rights.

Registered since 1966 on the list of non-autonomous territories, making it eligible to the implementation of resolution 1514 of the United Nations General Assembly, on granting independence to colonized countries and peoples, including Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa, occupied since 1975 by Morocco. (SPS)

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In an interview with senior researcher and investigator, Daniel Eyre, Sputnik was told that despite the constant calls to shut the center down, their protests have gone unheard.

President Buhari has finally responded to the investigation, stating that he will step up his plan to investigate the abuse at the detention centre in Maiduguri, Nigeria, where in the last year alone, 149 people have died  out of them 11 were children under the age of six, including four babies.

Babies dying in Giwa barracks #Nigeria@camanpour: So will you step up investigations?

Buhari:We have to do it" pic.twitter.com/twmFCts9H8  Stefan Simanowitz (@StefSimanowitz) May 13, 2016

Asked in a recent interview whether he will "step up the investigation" into conditions in Giwa barracks, President Buhari said:

"We have to do it."

However, this is not the first time the president has said he will investigate the claims of violence at the center. In 2015, Amnesty reported the abuse and the Nigerian government also said they would investigate.

In a 2015 statement, government spokesman, Mike Omeri, said:

"The government of Nigeria has zero tolerance of the mistreatment of citizens, especially when human rights are involved."

However so far, nothing has happened and the abuse continues.

Amnesty has reminded the president again, not to delay and to act with haste if the abuse at the barracks is to cease.

"Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Nigerian Government to investigate allegations of war crimes, but after almost a year in office President Buhari has yet to show any sign that he plans to pay anything more than lip service to these allegations. The perpetrators are still at large. If the President is serious about his promises, now is the time to take action. It is Nigeria's responsibility to investigate. However, if the government shows itself to be unwilling or unable to investigate, the ICC must step in," Amnesty International's senior research adviser Aster van Kregten said.

In addition to this, a statement from Amnesty reads, "Amnesty International is calling on President Buhari to waste no more time before launching an urgent investigation into deaths in detention and to shut down Giwa barracks detention center without delay."

"It's almost a year after President Buhari promised he would investigate Amnesty International's evidence of death in custody and extrajudicial executions. President Buhari should not waste more time. Now is the time to put those promises into action and launch an urgent investigation into these deaths, release the children and shut down Giwa barracks detention facility without delay," Aster van Kregten added.

Gina barracks have responded to Amnesty's investigation, stating that they did give the NGO access to the center and that the reports of abuse are false.

However, Amnesty claim this is simply not true. They based all of there findings on the interviews given by previous detainees and eyewitnesses, which was also supported by videos and photos showing that many of the detainees had died from hunger and dehydration.

Senior researcher Aster van Krontan denied the claims:

"Amnesty International remains extremely keen to visit Giwa barracks and would very much welcome an invitation granting our researchers permission to do so."

"[We] had repeatedly requested access to the detention centre and it has never been granted. The most recent request was made during a meeting with the Chief of Army Staff in February 2016. This was followed up with written requests to the Attorney General, National Security Adviser, Chief of Defense Staff and, most recently, by letter to the Chief of Army Staff on 3 March."

"No response has been received In the last years, the military has repeatedly released statements denying Amnesty International's findings. It seems almost a standard response. It is extremely worrying that nothing is done to actually address our findings. How many more babies and children have to die?"

It is not just Nigeria who must act, Amnesty had a warning to the international community, who have also turned a blind eye to the suffering. "Nigeria's international partners also need to consider the consequences of their military support. Many nations, including the UK and the USA, provide arms, training and advice to the Nigerian military. Any state which provides such assistance must carry out due diligence to ensure that it does not run an overriding risk of facilitating serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law. The international community must not overlook these responsibilities," said Aster Van Krontan.
Kristian Rouz  Several artifacts which were recently recovered from a Florida sinkhole might be evidence of the first human settlers who arrived in the area from Siberia across the Bering Strait roughly 14,500 years ago, at least 1,500 years earlier than previously thought. A team of researchers from Texas A&M University and Florida State University made the discovery while working on the archaeological site 30 miles southeast of Tallahassee, FL. They have confirmed theories which have existed for about ten years that humanity arrived earlier in the modern-day Southeastern USA than was earlier believed.

Archaeologists from Texas A&M University conducted excavations at the Page-Ladson site, a cave filled with water in Florida, between 2012 and 2014. They found, among other things, a stone knife and other tools, along with mastodon bones and fossilized excrement. As reported by Science Advances magazine, the findings date back to at least 14,500 years ago, providing clues about the earliest stage of human colonization of the Americas.

Previously, scientists believed the first humans reached Florida no earlier than 13,000 years ago, when the so-called Clovis culture of ancient people formed. The Tallahassee sinkhole has been "just politely ignored" in the paleo-historical debate in the past ten years since it was first discovered, Mike Waters of Texas A&M University said.
"We are taking icons with us  gifts to the monasteries and temples of Greece, a nation which is very dear to us; we will also take return gifts back to Russian Orthodox monasteries."

Strogov noted that the bikers' journey to Greece has not been without its hiccups. "Polish authorities canceled a number of visas for our bikers, and they could not get to the route on their own bikes. We had to fly to Greece by plane and to try to rent bikes on the spot." Other bikers had to travel by car.

For his part, club spokesman Vladimir Smirnov said that he wanted to thank the Greek people for their hospitality. "We get the feeling that we've come home. All the people and all the monasteries have met us very warmly," the biker noted.

"In the beginning of our journey, we were surprised by Polish authorities, who seem to be afraid of wreathes and Orthodox moto-pilgrimages. We had a large group, everyone had the necessary documents, but several dozen people were stamped 'refused entry'. In Ukraine, in Kharkov, our group was beaten up for laying wreaths to monuments and standing up for veterans. But despite everything, we made it, and we are very happy by the reception we have been given. The Greek Consulate gave us visas without any problems. Thank you!"
Oleg Mezentsev, head of the Primorsky Safari Park, revealed that the newest addition to his enterprise is also a goat, but with a rather unusual name  Obama.

"In March 2016, a farmer named Oleg Sirota told me of a rare and exotic beast living in Sochi  a goat named Obama. The Primorsky Safari Park is a serious business, and the fact that our zoological collection lacks Obama the goat is anything but serious. So I immediately started planning to bring him here," Mezentsev said in a statement posted on the parks official website.
The comments were made by the 71-year-old politician during a press conference on Sunday.

"What I will do is to urge Congress to restore death penalty by hanging," Duterte said of capital punishment that was abolished in the Philippines in 2006.

He also pledged to expand powers of the police, allowing them to shoot to death anyone who would resist arrest.
The committee believes that the possibility of the virus' spread in Beijing is rather low.

China has already registered over 10 imported Zika cases.
Experts from the Bangladesh Meteorological Department said that a spike in deaths is conditioned by the deforestation and peoples exposure to metal equipment.

"Palm and other taller trees usually attract the lightning flashes," Gawher Nayeem Wahr, departments official, told Voice of America. "But these trees [are] becoming scarce in rural areas.

Ahmed added that the government is now mulling over branding the event as a natural disaster.

A campaign on preventing the growth of deaths amid upcoming monsoon season is being launched.

Well ask the people not to work in open spaces such as farmland, avoid the use of electronic gadgets such as mobile phones and not to stand under metal electric poles or big trees during lightning, Ahmed said.

Intensified thunderstorms with lightning bolts always mark the beginning of the monsoon season that usually lasts till September.

Strong tropical storms with lightning regularly hit Bangladesh ahead of and during the monsoon season, which runs from June to September every year.
The official added that the trilateral exercises would focus on the intelligence activities aiming to detect the signs of Pyongyang's potential missile launches and would not include the missile interception training.

North Korea declared itself a nuclear power in 2005. The United States, Japan and South Korea, as well as Russia and China, took part in talks with North Korea on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula between 2003 and 2009, when Pyongyang withdrew from the talks.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula escalated after North Korea successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test in early January and put a satellite into orbit a month later, violating UN Security Council resolutions and triggering condemnation from the international community.


WASHINGTON (Sputnik)The Chinese government is likely to continue its territorial claims in the South China Sea despite the upcoming UN Permanent Court of Arbitrations ruling on the issue, the US-based intelligence assessment company Stratfor said in a report on Monday.

"China will continue, however, to adhere to the maritime boundaries marked by the nine-dash line, rendering the court's ruling largely ineffective," the report stated.

In June, the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration is set to rule in the case filed by the Philippines, which claims Beijing has violated the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea by its actions in the South China Sea.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)The Brent crude benchmark rose over 2 percent to $48.77 per barrel by 11:00 GMT, hitting the highest index since November 3. WTI crude mirrored the trend, rising past the $47 per barrel mark for the first time since the same date.

Brent July 2016 futures were also over 2 percent in the green, reaching $48.82 by 11:20 GMT, while WTI June 2016 futures were trading at $47.18 per barrel, up from less than $46.50 per barrel a day earlier.

The rally follows oil supply disruptions in Nigeria, Venezuela and Canada, as well as positive WTI forecasts by the Goldman Sachs multinational investment banking firm.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)China's Internet companies may invest up to $200 million in the development of Russia's Internet segment, the Institute of Internet Developments (IID) said on Monday.

"The expected volume of Chinese Internet companies investments in the Russian Internet in 2016-2017 amounts to $100-$200 million," the IID statement reads.

Earlier in the day, Russia's Presidential Adviser German Klimenko announced the establishment of the Internet plus China working group. New working group comprises representatives of such Chinese companies as LeEco, AliExpress, JD.com, Huawei, Baidu, China Big Data Exchange, Yidao, LeSports as well as Russian firms Signal-Media, Aviastar-Tu and the Russian Export Center.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The US Department of the Treasury has revealed that Saudi Arabia holds $116.8 billion in US debt, making it among the top dozen foreign nations with US holdings, according to media reports on Monday.

The Treasury Department released the information in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Bloomberg News, the outlet reported. The department had kept information on Saudi-held US debt confidential for 42 years, according to the report.

The report noted, however, that the Treasury Departments figures may not account for all of the money held by Saudi Arabia.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Over 300 UK business leaders have called on the country to vote to leave the "failing" European Union in order to support Britain's economic potential.

"Britains competitiveness is being undermined by our membership of a failing EU. Year-on-year the EU buys less from Britain because its economies are stagnant and millions of people are unemployed It is business  not government  which generates wealth for the Treasury and jobs for our communities. Outside the EU, British business will be free to grow faster, expand into new markets and create more jobs. Its time to vote leave and take back control," UK business leaders said in a letter, published in The Telegraph newspaper Sunday.
Remarkably, the call to end the monarchy came just shortly before Norway celebrated National Day on May 17. Stavanger Aftenblad said that future observances of the holiday should not be in danger, at the same time arguing that "the sun is now setting on the monarchy."

In April, Norwegian MP Hadia Tajik raised a media storm and became a target of racist critics after admitting she agreed with 80 percent of her fellow young Labor Party MPs that Norway's monarchy should be abolished in favor of a republic.

"Even though we have a brilliant royal house, for which I have great respect, my feeling is that such positions shouldn't be passed on through inheritance," Tajik told the tabloid Verdens Gang.
On 26 April, a collision was nearly averted when a Widere aircraft flew within several meters of a drone at an altitude of about 1,600 meters in the province of Hordaland in western Norway. The plane was flying at a speed of about 450 kilometers per hour and the crash would have had lethal consequences for all of its 62 passengers. An investigation was launched immediately, but failed to locate the owner of the white-orange drone.

"We see this as a serious incident," said Director of Avinor Bergen Airport Aslak Sverdrup.

More than two weeks after the incident, the police are still left without suspects in the case. Oddbjrn Dyrdal of the local police acknowledged that such cases are difficult to investigate, and has recommended the registration of all drone owners, claiming that it would make the investigators' job easier.
MINSK (Sputnik)  Russia and Belarus are concerned about NATO fueling confrontation and expanding toward the east, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday following talks with his Belarusian counterpart Vladimir Makei.

"In regard to European security, we share a concern regarding our colleagues from NATO countries trying to drag us into confrontation, moving their infrastructure to the east, close to our borders. Neither Russia nor Belarus favor such a confrontational line," Lavrov told reporters.
MINSK (Sputnik)  Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will discuss issues concerning European security, as well as the situations in Ukraine and Syria.

"The international situation demands tight coordination on issues over European security, the Ukrainian crisis, and the situation in the Middle East," Lavrov said upon his arrival to Minsk.

Moscow and Minsk should also discuss cooperation of the two countries in many international organizations, such as the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), where Belarus holds observer status, Lavrov added.
The poll conducted by the pollster Taloustutkimus on behalf of the Tampere-based daily Aamulehti found that a huge 69 percent of Finns think joint air exercises with US forces are beneficial to Finland's security, compared to only 18 percent who believe them to be detrimental to the national interest.

Aamulehti then proceeded to refer to a recent Yle survey, conducted by the same Taloustutkimus, that revealed that 55 percent of Finns are opposed to NATO membership, compared to just 22 percent in favor.

Taloustutkimus research chief Juho Rahkonen told Aamulehti he considered the results surprising. According to him, this could reflect the fact that American fighter planes have already been deployed in Finland. It is easier to approve of concrete facts than to support a general remote idea belonging to the far future, he argued.
Boris Johnson  who is now a leading campaigner to take the UK out of the EU at the In-Out referendum on Britain's membership of the EU on June 23  had previously been in favor of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), currently being negotiated between the EU and the US.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph in 2014, Johnson said: "It is Churchillian in that it builds transatlantic links, it is all about free trade, and it brings Britain and Europe closer to America. The idea is to create a gigantic free-trade zone between the EU and the US  There is absolutely nothing not to like about the TTIP."

However, having declared himself behind the Brexit campaign, Johnson is now accused of making a U-turn after saying in a recent speech: "As for the argument that we need the muscle of EU membership if we are to do trade deals  well, as I say, at the results after 42 years of membership, the EU has done trade deals with the Palestinian Authority and San Marino. Bravo.
MINSK (Sputnik)  Belarus and Russia are in favor of states strictly complying to their obligations as member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), Belarusian Foreign Affairs Minister Vladimir Makei said on Monday.

While discussing the construction of the Eurasian Economic Union, we reiterated that the parties must strictly adhere to their obligations We are in favor of the development of third parties ties but we must take into account the economic interests of all the members of the Eurasian Economic Union, Makei said.

The discussion happened as a part of an official visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Belarus.
Last week, the Swedish parliament voted on whether Daesh's ongoing mass murder in Syria and Iraq should be classified as genocide. All parties except the two government parties the Social Democrats and the Greens concurred that Daesh's killings and persecution directed against Christian and Kurdish minorities constitutes genocide. However, when it came down to voting, only the Sweden Democrats, the Liberals and the Christian Democrats recognized the Daesh killings as genocide, wrote newspaper Fria Tider

"Unfortunately, it looks like we will be sending a very bad signal from the Swedish Parliament by not recognizing this as genocide. I think this is disgraceful!" Julia Kronlid of the Sweden Democrats said.

"Daesh is a genocide machine," Kerstin Lundgren of the Center Party stated, according to newspaper Dagen.
Immoral or Illegal?

Many relief agencies  including Medecins Sans Frontieres, the International Rescue Committee, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children and Red Cross  have joined the UN refugee agency UNHCR in saying the EU-Turkey deal is either immoral or illegal as the 'hotspots' have become detention centers. They also say Turkey is not a 'safe country' for migrants to be returned to, under the Geneva Convention.

Speaking in the European Parliament, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Sophie In' t Veld said:

"This so-called agreement is extremely fragile, both legally and in practice. We outsource our problems, hope Turkey and other countries will keep refugees away from our doorstep. Europe is divided, paralyzed and weak; Erdogan knows this. The only answer to this is European unity."

Merkel is facing her worst political crisis since coming to power, with time ticking away to the next federal elections in 2017, at which  until a year ago  many would have put money on her winning another term.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has met opposition in Brussels and Washington amid fears that increased reliance on Russia for gas supplies could threaten Europes energy security.

"The Austrian position, as been said very often, is that we see it as an economic project, and this we would be happy to be involved [in]. One of our companies is one of those partners that are interested in realizing the project," Brix told RIA Novosti.
Oxfam has also invested in the fight against coal, on the occasion of COP 21 (The 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) at the Paris Climate Change Conference in November 2015).

This NGO is particularly supported by the European Union, which paid it 75.3 million in the 2013-2014 financial year, the French political analyst states.

In October 2015, Oxfam published the report Solidarity with the Syrian people where it demanded France step up its resettlement programs, criticizing Paris for not contributing enough to the refugee programs and advocated the acceleration of procedures for family reunification, the acceleration of community sponsorship arrangements and opportunities for fellowship and pay based on work.

Another actor in support of immigrants is the UNITED for Intercultural Action, a network, composed of leftist activists and funded by the Council of Europe, the European Commission and the Open Society.

Another very influential think tank working on the issue is the US think tank European Stability Initiative which, in fact, is behind the October 2015 Merkel Plan. This plan recommends Germany welcome more migrants and issue them no-cost visas to move freely across the country.

Behind this obscure think tank, we still find the Soros Open Society, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and other American financiers, Carayon says.

And so everything brings us back to the very same man, George Soros, he concludes, who is also behind the so-called Panama papers scandal.

Through these NGOs he puts weight on European institutions and government programs, such as the one forced on Germany to host illegal migrants.
Christian explained that the legend differs slightly from that of the traditional werewolf  which is actually quite rare in English folklore  normally emerging from Eastern European traditions, in that its victims do not necessarily become werewolves after having been bitten.

In fact, what is quite remarkable about the story of "old stinker" is how unusual it is to find a werewolf legend in the United Kingdom at all.

Despite his passion for all things mythical though, Christian believes that there will be a logical  non supernatural  explanation for the numerous sightings reported recently:

"I'd put my money on it being something like an abandoned Siberian Husky, or an Alaskan Malamute, which look like wolves. In fact Malamutes are frequently used in movies where they want wolves because it's easier to train Malamutes to run around baying and chasing people than it is to have actual wolves doing it."

So in all likelihood, there's no cause for alarm in Yorkshire, which is more famous for a slightly more cuddly cadre of canines: its once-fashionable 'handbag' terriers. But that probably won't stop residents being a little more "were-ey" than usual when they hear something go bump in the moonlit night.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)The process of settling the Ukrainian crisis has not come to a standstill despite the slow progress in reconciling the Kiev government with the eastern Ukrainian militias, Austrian Ambassador to Russia Emil Brix said Monday.

"Frankly speaking, there is not much progress at this very moment but there have been many attempts to move forward I do not think that we are at the dead end of the situation at the moment, I think we still have to work on implementing the agreement," Brix told RIA Novosti in an interview.

Austria has been supportive of the Minsk agreements. In March, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said that the protocols are the only chance of settling the Ukrainian conflict despite the difficulties and slow progress in their implementation.
The police documents obtained by the groups and released on Twitter, reveal that the police are allowed to prevent demonstrations in the four districts of Paris where the demonstrations have traditionally occurred, the 6th, 7th, 14th and 15th arrondissements. It bans demonstrations from 1100 to 2000 on May 17, when the protest was due to take place and places a night-time restriction on la place de la Republique, the central rallying point in recent weeks.

Michel Cadot, the Prefect of Police of Paris, invoked Article 5 of the law on the state of emergency, which allows him to:
However, critics say the new tax arrangement  for multinationals with a total consolidated group revenue of at least US$847 million  will only involve passing tax information between member states' tax agencies and will not be made public or available to journalists.

'Threshold Makes No Sense'

Transparency International EU says that setting the threshold for companies covered by the reporting requirement at US$847 million in annual consolidated turnover would  according to the OECDs estimates  exclude 85-90 percent of multinationals from the reporting requirement. A lower threshold would cover more companies, providing more data on the activities of multinationals and ensuring a more level playing field.

The Socialists & Democrats (S&D) proposed an amendment to lower the threshold.

"This threshold makes no sense. It should be much lower," said Emmanuel Maurel, a French Socialist MEP.

Elena Gaita, Policy Officer on Corporate Transparency at Transparency International EU told Sputnik in April:

"The Commission has squandered a golden opportunity to make companies more accountable. The last minute addition of tax havens smacks of window dressing. Companies will still be able to strike favorable deals with governments in other parts of the world without public scrutiny."

"It's baffling why the Commission has proposed a cumbersome and contentious process to create a list of tax havens when there is already a simpler solution. Full public country-by-country reporting applying to the whole world would produce better results. This proposal cannot be called public," she said.
One of the reasons behind the dramatic increase is that it has become relatively easy for hoodlums to steal heavy machinery, such as wheel loaders.

"Theft protection on the big machines is beneath contempt. First, the personnel are loath to properly lock the machines. Second, many of the machines often have matching ignition keys. Therefore, it is enough to take hold of at least one set of keys to gain access to virtually all construction equipment in and around Stockholm. And today, it is the criminals have who the keys in their possession," Swedish Trade Federation's Security chief Per Geijer told Swedish Radio.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)The UK Parliament's Justice Committee on Monday urged the government for drastic action before introducing a wider penal system reform amid the deteriorating security in the nation's prisons as the number of assaults in custody grew by 20 percent in the six months to December 2015.

"It is imperative that further attention is paid to bringing prisons back under firmer control, reversing recent trends of escalating violence, self-harm and disorder. Without such action, the implementation of these wider reforms will be undermined," Bob Neill, the committee's chair, was quoted as saying in the Justice Committee's report.

After an earlier warning from the committee about the drastic surge of violence in British prisons, the Justice Ministry and the National Offender Management Service tried to improve the situation, but these efforts failed, according to the report.
She also said that the Norwegian immigration policy has changed a lot in the last few years. The refugees are complaining about the food: they are Muslims and do not eat certain food. However they are either being fed forcefully or are being left with just crumbs.

The refugee benefits are scarce, and only half of the refugees qualify for them. The majority have to walk in ragged footwear and torn clothes.

In Afghanistan, we are being killed with arms, and in Norway we are being killed with psychological torture, Ghutay Ghutay quotes one of the refugees from the Ghazni province of Afghanistan.

She also noted that she has appealed to Norwegian, Ukrainian and British media as well as Afghan media in Norway, but has received no response.

The media there is only interested in reporting on the distribution of humanitarian aid, she noted.

She added that she wants her interview to be published for the Afghanistan president, his allies and the international community to hear the voices of those who had left their home country in the hope to live without war and receive a higher education, but their expectations differ vastly from the reality that they encounter.
This is not the only obvious oversight as far as the Refugee Council as concerned, the Bill means that anyone who has an unsuccessful asylum application, will have up to 90 days to leave the country, this includes those with children. After this point all support and accommodation will be taken away.

The Government originally wanted it to be 28 days, however pressure meant they had to change it to 90.

There are some safeguards in place for those refugees who can not leave the UK for medical reasons, for Featonby however this does not go far enough, he said:

"Many asylum seekers have been in the UK for several years, and may also be worried about their safety should they be returned, we are concerned that families will be left homeless and destitute."

The Refugee Council have also drawn reference to unaccompanied children and the lack of support given to them.

The headlines of course, focused on the UK Government's decision not to provide help to 3,000 lone children, then their subsequent U-turn on the decision, which led to the Dubs Amendment. However most of the headlines have neglected to mention the fact that support for lone children will cease once they reach the age of 18. Local authorities will no longer be obliged to help and assist them once they turn 18-years-old, leaving them in a potentially desperate situation, especially those who have been tortured by war, the memories of which can be lasting.

#RefugeeChildren welcome! Read how you can help bring over children from the camps here after the #dubsamendment https://t.co/s4ZP9LWyhd  Calais Action (@calaisaction) May 16, 2016

Finally, the Refugee Council have looked at the lack of support given to families separated by war, the law has changed to accommodate reuniting spouses who have been separated, but it does not take into account children under the age of 18, who again will be left behind in war torn countries or in other parts of the EU, and thus leaving them to make the treacherous journey to the UK alone.

The refugee council have refused to back down on the issue, and will push this further, Featonby said:

"We wanted the Government to reverse its shameful policy of not allowing refugee children to apply for their parents to come and join them. Unfortunately, the Government refused to listen to our arguments and those of many politicians, but we will continue to push them on this so that family members can be together just when they need one another the most."

In addition to this those asylum seekers who have been waiting longer than six months for a decision will not be allowed to work. This means that many will be reliant on the Home Office for support.

It is not all doom and gloom however, the Refugee Council, after much pressure from campaigners, those immigrants in detention, will automatically have their case looked at by the courts once they have been in detention for four months. Also pregnant women can only be detained up to 72 hours.

"Along with the Dubs Amendment, this offers a glimmer of hope in what is otherwise a largely regressive and un-compassionate piece of legislation," Featonby said.
NEW YORK (Sputnik)  The son of the former President of Honduras Porfirio Lobo pleaded guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara said in a statement.

"Fabio Lobo has now admitted in court that he conspired to import thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the United States," Bharara said Monday.

Lobo, 44, agreed to assist Mexican drug traffickers, who were in fact disguised sources of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, to import numerous tons of cocaine to the United States through Honduras, according to court documents.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  A US-Russia-brokered ceasefire came into force across Syria on February 27, but it does not apply to terrorist organizations active in the country.

"In the city of Damascus, the orphanage "Children of the fallen" has received 1,5 tons of humanitarian aid," the bulletin published Sunday on the Russian Defense Ministry's website read.

Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups.
VIENNA (Sputnik)  Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam militant groups, active in Syria, are supported by Turkey and fighting against the Democratic Syrian Forces that are countering Daesh terrorist group, Salih Muslim, co-chairman of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), told Sputnik on Monday.

"Mentioned groups [Ahrar ash-Sham and Jaish al-Islam] are supported by Turkey and are fighting against the Democratic Syrian Forces (DSF). They are jihadist, but presented like Free Syrian Army," Salih Muslim, co-chairman of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The New York Times reported Sunday, citing US and European intelligence and counterterrorism officials that al-Qaeda reconsidered the importance of Syria for the group and relocated a number of "most seasoned veterans" there from Pakistan to create an alternate headquarters.

The newspaper added that al-Qaeda would use the resources and the potential of the Nusra Front, the group's affiliate in Syria, to increase its presence in the country.

According to the newspaper, the headquarters in Syria would allow al-Qaeda to have a base near the European borders, but also to recruit new fighters from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.


NEW YORK (Sputnik)The Middle East Quartet remains the single legitimate mediation framework of Israeli-Palestinian settlement and regional security, Russias Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov told Sputnik.

"Yes, it is not immediate results. But we always say, whether you like the Quartet, or you dont like it, it is the only mediation mechanism endorsed by the Security Council resolution," Safronkov said.

The Quartet, comprising Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union, was established in 2002 with the aim of mediating the peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)The issue of ceasefire renewal in Syria's province of Aleppo depends heavily on the actions that could be taken by the Nusra Front terrorist group, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday.

"More than 100 settlements and organizations observe the ceasefire regime. With regard to potential renewal of ceasefire regime in Aleppo, the point is how the Nusra Front and the organizations affiliated with it will behave," Ryabkov told reporters.

Moscow continues urging Washington to make a distinction between such groups and entities, but these attempts have not been successful so far, he added.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)The Kremlin believes it is premature to talk about what to expect from the upcoming International Syria Support Group (ISSG) meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.

The ministerial-level ISSG meeting is set to be held in Vienna on Tuesday.

It is too early to say, Peskov said, when asked about Moscows expectations of the meeting.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)The Iraqi army has begun an offensive in the western province of Anbar to liberate the town of Rutbah controlled by Daesh terrorists, a source in the local authorities said Monday.

The Iraqi security forces, in cooperation with tribal fighters and Iraqi warplanes and the coalition, launched the Rutbah offensive, Sabah Karhut, head of the Anbar provincial council, was quoted as saying by the Kurdish media group Rudaw.

Karhut added that Iraqi officials planned to release a statement concerning the advance of the army later on Monday.
VIENNA (Sputnik)  The UN-backed Libyan governments activities will remain limited until the conflicted sides come to an agreement, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at a ministerial conference on Libya in Vienna on Monday.

"This government has started working. But, of course, this governments possibilities will be limited as long as the internal conflict and competition between the two rival forces remains," Steinmeier told reporters.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The US-led coalition against the Daesh terrorist group carried out 14 airstrikes on Sunday on the groups positions and infrastructure in Syria and Iraq, the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve said in a press release.

In Syria, coalition military forces conducted six strikes using bomber, fighter, and attack aircraft against Daesh targets, the release said on Monday. Additionally in Iraq, coalition military forces conducted eight strikes coordinated with and in support of the Government of Iraq using bomber and fighter aircraft against ISIL targets.

In Syria, the coalitions airstrikes were waged near four locations, Abu Kamal, At Tanf, Manbij, and Mara. The airstrikes destroyed a Daesh vehicle, a rocket rail, and four fighting positions.
Daesh terrorists have resumed missile attacks on the town of Al-Khalidiya in western Iraq's Anbar province, killing at least five people and wounding 22 more, according to Sputnik's Arabic edition

Terrorists fired the so-called Jhannam (Hell) missiles on several areas in the town, where five civilians, including women and children, were killed in these strikes.
Speaking to Sputnik, Rajeh al-Issawi, the head of the Security Committee of Anbar's Provincial Council, said that the Iraqi armed forces, along with police and militia forces from among the local population, have completed preparations for a major offensive against Daesh militants.

The terrorist group has controlled the town of 22,000 since June 2014; since then anti-Daesh coalition air power has conducted dozens of airstrikes in and around the town, strategically located about 110 kilometers from both the Jordanian and Saudi borders.

"The country's armed forces, along with three regiments of Anbar province police, and three militia regiments, supported by the Iraqi air force and coalition air power, will attack ar-Rutbah in a three-pronged attack to liberate the territory from Daesh," al-Issawi said. "The most important flank will be the area of the 160th kilometer to the west of Ramadi," he added.
Late last week, Sputnik reported that four wounded Daesh fighters had been treated at a hospital in southern Turkey, citing a local medical worker.

Speaking to Sputnik, Erdem noted that the phone taps too confirm the jihadists' use of Turkish hospitals, which indicates that Turkish intelligence knows about it. "The documentscontain information about the medical treatment of terrorists on Turkish territory. For example, there are records of telephone conversations in which militants report on how many militants much be sent to which hospital."

"Terrorists receive treatment in hospital, after which the head of the group asks about the cost of the treatment. He is told 'We paid the hospital $18,000.' In response, the commander says 'You overpaid. You should have found a hospital with better prices.' In short, the terrorists are satisfying their needs, using Turkey as if it were one big shopping and wellness center."

In addition to Ilhami Bali, the wiretap records also mention Ebu Hanzala, a Turkish jihadi recently released from prison believed to be one of the main organizers of Daesh activities in Turkey. "Militants' conversations contain information about how Abu Hanzalah led efforts to recruit fighters in the Turkish province of Urfa, and oversaw the creation of training camps for the jihadists. And this man was released from prison not long ago."

"What else can this be called if not clear evidence of the authorities' complicity and cooperation with the Daesh militants? If the government did not cooperate with Daesh, the security forces would have carried out a series of operations and arrested at least a couple of the militants. Meanwhile, [in reality] it has not detained any members of the terrorist organization  not one."
For almost a year Miguel Fernandez was the only journalist from the Western world accredited to work in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

He worked there on behalf of the Prensa Latina news agency, which has been present in Syria since 2011. After returning home to Havana, he gave Sputnik an exclusive interview about his experiences.

"Seeing how these people don't give in, that they dream about a prosperous country, is the biggest lesson that Syria gave me," Fernandez said.


DAMASCUS (Sputnik)Three people were injured when shells fell on a maternity hospital in the Muhafaza neighborhood, less than a week after it was targeted for another attack.

Mortar fire was also directed at Sheikh Maqsoud and Maidan districts, injuring several more civilians.

Last week, the Russian military accused the Daesh and al-Qaeda linked Nusra Front groups of launching attacks at Aleppo as well as in Syrias Homs province.
"Neither the camp's director nor his assistant were anywhere to be found; there was only a representative of the municipality and the chief of the gendarme. After crossing two cordons, we came to the main entrance to the camp, which was guarded by 15-20 soldiers. They ordered us to leave our vehicle and to follow them on foot. "

"Before the trip," Turkmen recalled, "I learned about the functioning of the camp; earlier, cars had been let in. A question arose in my mind: if an official car with representatives of a party investigative committee could not enter the territory of the camp, who could? Besides, we saw parked cars on the territory of the camp."

"What happened next was very reminiscent of a well-planned and prepared demonstration program, as if we were on a tourist trip, where a special imitation of a tent camp had been prepared and carefully demonstrated. I suspect that behind these closed doors were even more serious violations and crimes."

"Around us, 10-15 guards had gathered, and they did their best to prevent our work. I wanted to ask where they had been were when children were being raped?"
"[The US was] granted, in the final agreement, 23.75% of Iraqs oil," Becker says. "23.75% went to each Britain, France, and the Netherlands, together, leaving 5% behind, of all of Iraqs oil, and that went to a man named Calouste Gulbenkian, who brokered this deal.

"That left Iraq with0% of Iraqs oil. Which is why Iraq, despite all of its great natural resources, in the 1950s was one of the most destitute, poorest countries in the world."

Sykes-Picot was followed shortly by the Balfour Declaration, a letter from UK Foreign Secretary James Balfour to Walter Rothschild, which laid the groundwork for the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East.

"This lord in the British House of Lords indeed promised something that was never his, to people that were not all his, to the detriment of another people who were not even consulted about this," Kara-Mustapha says.
VIENNA (Sputnik)  The composition of Syria's transitional will not be discussed during a meeting of the International Syria Support Group in Vienna as it is a subject of intra-Syrian talks, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennadi Gatilov said Monday.

"This issue is not discussed by the ISSG. It's on agenda of talks between the official Damascus and the opposition," Gatilov said on the eve of an ISSG meeting on Tuesday.

Gatilov also said that it is up to UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura to decide on the start of a fresh round of intra-Syrian talks.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Russian servicemen delivered 4.5 metric tons (5 US tons) of humanitarian aid to the settlement of Qanaqiyah in the Syrian province of Homs, the Russian reconciliation center said in a bulletin.

"As many as 4.5 tonnes of humanitarian aid were delivered to the Qanaqiyah settlement in the province of Homs. Medical aid was administered to 47 locals, including 12 children," the statement, published by the Russian Defense Ministry on Monday, read.

Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups.
"Observation flights will be performed on May 16-21 from Open Sky air fields in Zagreb [Croatia] and Ljubljana [Slovenia] at a maximum distance of 1,300 kilometers [some 808 miles] and 500 kilometers, respectively," Sergei Ryzhkov said.

The Treaty on Open Skies was signed in March 1992 and became one of the major confidence-building measures in Europe after the Cold War. It entered into force on January 1, 2002, and currently has 34 states parties, including Russia and most NATO members.
BAKU (Sputnik)  The Armenian military has violated the ceasefire along the contact line in Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh 119 times over the past 24 hours, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on Monday.

"Despite the agreement on the ceasefire on the contact line in Karabakh, the Armenian side violated the ceasefire 119 times in the past day along the entire line," the ministry said in a press statement.
"Today, the base in Romania has been brought to operational readiness; tomorrow the first brick will be laid for the construction of a similar base in Poland. Then there are the ships, moving freely through the seas, including the Black Sea, the Barents Sea and the Baltic Sea. And the US has refused discussing any limitations," Ulyanov said, cited by Russian media.

Furthermore, according to Russia's permanent NATO representative Alexander Grushko, Moscow remains very concerned about the possibility of the US rapidly converting the missile systems to provide them with offensive capabilities, something entirely possible given the nature of the launchers being deployed. "By deploying the MK-41 universal launchers, capable of launching medium-range missiles, at the Aegis Ashore facilities, the US is seriously undermining the Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF)," Grushko said.

Just how grave is the threat, and how can Russia adequately respond? For answers to these questions, independent Russian online newspaper Svobodnaya Pressa turned to Russian military expert Viktor Murakhovsky.

Speaking to the paper, Murakhovsky, a member of Russia's powerful Military-Industrial Commission, explained that the biggest danger lies in the fact "that the US missile defense systems are deployed on the MK-41 vertical launching system, which the US Navy has used for many years to launch its Tomahawk cruise missiles."

"Under the INF Treaty of 1988, signed by the Soviet Union and the United States, the signatories pledged not to produce, test or deploy ground-based missiles like the Tomahawk; they were limited to air and sea use. But in fact, the medium-range missiles used by the navy are no different, apart from their launch platform, from their ground-based counterparts. Therefore, the deployment of US Tomahawk launchers in Europe really is a threat to the Russian Federation."
At the same time, Yevseyev warned, the fact that "Japan, South Korea and the US are conducting these kinds of exercises means that hypothetically, they might create a naval group consisting of cruisers and destroyers on the basis of the Aegis missile guidance system, and including the SM-3 [ship-based anti-missile missiles]. Theoretically, these ships will be capable of intercepting Chinese missiles. Ground-based systems deployed in South Korea and Japan, as will sea-based radar, will allow [the US] to identify Chinese missile launches."

"It is likely that these exercises are the first step toward working out the deployment of such a combat group," the military analyst emphasized.

Asked how China might respond to the provocation, Yevseyev said that it would lead to further tensions and speed the current military buildup in the region. "First, they will strengthen their coastal defense through a variety of coastal missile defense systems. I also believe that China will devote considerable attention to enhancing its air power capabilities, [which are also] aimed at preventing the deployment of any group of ships armed with SM-3 missiles on its coast. Moreover, China will have to build up its navy to counter the deployment of this sort of group."
At the same time, he denied reports about a contract for delivery of advanced S-400 air defense systems to India.

The $900-million Moscow-Tehran contract to deliver five Russian S-300 systems to Iran was signed in 2007. It was suspended after the imposition of the UN Security Council sanctions on Iran in mid-2010.

In 2015, Moscow annulled the S-300 delivery ban, after Iran and six world powers, including Russia, reached a framework nuclear deal to lift the anti-Tehran sanctions in exchange for guarantees of the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities.

On April 27, Indian Minister of State Rao Inderjit Singh said that India and Russia had already signed a deal for the S-400s delivery.
"Secretary Carter is prepared to engage with Minister Shoigu in the future, if we feel like that is a productive step to take," Cook stated. "At this point there is no meeting or calls planned."

The US authorities announced the two new bases as an effort to build NATO solidarity and reassure alliance member states in Eastern Europe that the United States remained committed to their defense.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that NATOs military build-up in Europe is provocative and can result in regional and global destabilization.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The US National Security Agency (NSA) targeted in 2002 Vladimir Kumarin, the suspected leader of the Tambov crime syndicate in Russia, on the direction of the US State Department, according to internal NSA documents obtained by Edward Snowden and released on Monday.

The document noted that the NSA Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID) had neither Kumarins phone number nor a sample of his voice when asked by the State Department to probe possible links between the target and St. Petersburg authorities.

"The identification and collection of Kumarin's phone number was made possible by the efforts of the OCN's [US Office of Crime and Narcotics] [redacted] who worked with Math Research Group analysts to produce contact chaining charts and collection managers to optimize collection," the document explained.
NEW YORK (Sputnik)  A UN Secretary-General cannot solve all the global issues alone and multilateral international cooperation is the only solution for problems, Russias Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov told Sputnik.

"UN Secretary-General cannot be a panacea for all the world problems. He cannot do it alone. He cannot bring decisions alone. Its again [about] cooperation," he said.

Objectivity, impartiality, ability to take all the opinions into account are the qualities the next Secretary-General should have. "Its not a simplistic world [we are living in today], it requires a lot, it requires a personality, it requires a vision and independence  especially at this time," Safronkov added.
The joint drills begin on June 28, and will coincide with biennial multinational naval exercises held in Hawaii between June and August, which the three countries normally attend.

Tokyo and Seoul have long suffered tensions over territorial disagreement. The Liancourt Rocks islands, also known as Dokdo or Tokto in South Korea and as Takeshima in Japan, have been administered by South Korea since 1954, but Japan disputes Seouls sovereignty over the territory. Fears over Pyongyang's nuclear activities look to force the sides to put those tensions on hold.
The nuclear deal has become the weapon of choice for conservative military hawks and the Israeli lobby, against what they consider to be Obamas foreign policy of capitulation. Last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the Obama Administration on the floor of the US Congress, in an unprecedented affront to a US President.

Release of inflammatory information regarding the treatment of the American sailors may give rise to renewed calls to rescind or renegotiate the embattled nuclear deal.

"I think that when the details actually come out, most Americans are going to be taken aback by the entire incident, both how Iran handled it and how we handled it," said the Congressman. "I think thats going to be huge cause for concern for most Americans. Thats why Ive encouraged members of Congress to get that briefing so they do know exactly what did take place."

The incident, including the video of US sailors openly weeping and apologizing to the Iranians at gunpoint, may have involved treatment blatantly in violation of international law, suggested the Congressman. Forbes asserted that Secretary of State John Kerrys gratitude to Iran for releasing the captured Navy personnel "was a slap in the sailors face."
Russia has repeatedly refuted the allegations, warning that the Western sanctions are counterproductive. In response to the restrictive measures, Russia announced in August 2014 a food embargo on some products originating in states that imposed sanctions against it.

"Our goal must be to end the economic sanctions against Russia as soon as possible," Tillich told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
VLADIVOSTOK (Sputnik)  On Saturday, reports emerged that North Koreas coast guard had detained the Elfin, a Russian yacht with a crew of five, in the Sea of Japan. The crew members were athletes from Russias Far Eastern Primorsky Territory.

The following day, Yuri Bochkarev, Russia's Consul General in Chongjin, North Korea, met with the administration of North Hamyong Province's Department for External Relations over the Elfin yacht's detention. According to him, the North Korean government explained that the detention of the vessel had been the result of a misunderstanding.

"[The yacht is] en route to Vladivostok. It will arrive tomorrow approximately. We do not know its speed yet, it's a rough guess," Yana Konoplitskaya told RIA Novosti.
NEW YORK (Sputnik)  The West understands the importance of maintaining a dialogue with Russia as it is impossible to overcome many international problems without it, Russias Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov told Sputnik.

"Western partners understand the necessity to stay in dialogue with Russia, they are aware that without Russia its impossible to overcome many hotspots in international relations," Safronkov said.
NEW YORK (Sputnik)  Russias relations with the West are not on the level of the Cold War , but are "abnormal," Russias Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov told Sputnik.

"We [had] better speak not of [the] Cold War, we [had] better speak on the abnormal relationship between [the] west and Russia," Safronkov said.

The official stressed that he did not share the opinion of some analysts that the relations between Moscow and Washington were at the Cold War level.
NEW YORK (Sputnik)  Russia and the United States co-chair the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) whose efforts led UN humanitarian deliveries and UN-mediated peace talks this year.

"I do not see another track [to the ISSG]. Together with Americans we created, as I mentioned earlier, a political settlement infrastructure. And we expect others to help us, not to undermine efforts," Safronkov said.

The diplomat noted that Moscow maintains "permanent daily dialogue" with the leadership of countries that support the Syrian opposition  Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates  on the Syrian issue.
The diplomat also pointed out friendly ties with the Lebanese government and its people.

Resolution 1559 was adopted in September 2004 at the initiative of France and the United States. The resolution called for restoring Lebanese sovereignty, withdrawing foreign troops and special services from the country, and disbanding and disarming the militias.

Bans report submitted for the Security Councils consideration last month stressed continued disappointment at the lack of progress in implementing 1559s remaining provisions.

The UN secretary general decried a nearly two-year vacancy in the Lebanese presidential seat, cross-border incidents, and criticized Israel for border violations and Syria for no progress on border delineation and demarcation.
NEW YORK (Sputnik)  Russia sees relations between Arab and Western countries based on the principle of equality create a "healthy environment," but unilateral intervention undermines security, Russias Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov told Sputnik.

"We never monopolized our relationships with Arab countries. Those are sovereign governments, and they could have normal relationships with Western countries, with Russia, so it is their sovereign decision So we are for a normal relationship with Arab countries," Safronkov said.

The diplomat stressed that Russias diplomatic thinking process would refuse to accept the "monopolized right to interfere" in the affairs of another country, bringing to mind the 2003 US War on Terror in Iraq.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  There are "no guarantees" that the upcoming International Syria Support Group (ISSG) meeting would result in adoption of any final document despite the fact that Moscow is working out the ideas for such a paper, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday.

"I do not think that now, at the stage, when the event has not even started, we can speak about any decision or any decisions. We are working out the ideas for the potential outcome document, but there are no guarantees that such final paper will be shaped, agreed and adopted," Ryabkov told reporters.
MINSK (Sputnik)  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday called for the full implementation of the Minsk agreements on Ukrainian reconciliation without rewriting the logic of the peace accord.

"It [the Minsk package of measures] should be fully implemented without any deletions [from the text of the agreement] and without attempts to rewrite the logic and sequence contained therein," Lavrov said, following a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Vladimir Makei.
He said money was an issue that would be needed once political stability is reached in Syria.

"Actually, the big money is needed when we have a political solution for Syria, and when it's safe to rebuild there the culture heritage site in a way which can support also the reconciliation of people in Syria, which can also give them back the cultural self-confidence necessary," Brix said.

Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups.

A US-Russia-brokered ceasefire came into force across Syria on February 27, but it does not apply to terrorist organizations active in the country, such as Nusra Front, which is outlawed in many countries, including Russia. Despite the ceasefire agreement, violence has escalated in Syria in recent weeks, especially in the northern Aleppo region.
"In case of Daraya, it [pressure] should be on Damascus, as they are the ones who have blocked it. But we also have problems with an assessment mission to Foah and Kefraya. They also did not have access, and that was because of the opposition groups," he said.

Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups.

A US-Russia-brokered ceasefire came into force across Syria on February 27, but it does not apply to terrorist organizations active in the country, such as Nusra Front, which is outlawed in many countries, including Russia. Despite the ceasefire agreement, violence has escalated in Syria in recent weeks, especially in the northern Aleppo region.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Moscow's stance on the Golan Heights status is unchanged and is based on international law and the UN Security Council resolutions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.

In April, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a government meeting in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. He stressed that the decision to hold the meeting there had been taken to show that Israel does not intend to give up the territory, adding that the international community should recognize it as part of Israel.

"Our stance has not changed anyhow. In this case we adhere to international law and the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. Russia's position has not changed," Peskov said, answering a request to comment on the statements of the Israeli leadership on the region's territorial belonging.
"We shall promote this in every way," Lavrov stressed.

Sergei Lavrov also said that Armenian President and Azerbaijan President will agree in June on the date and place of their next meeting where they will discuss characteristics for settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"In June, the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia will agree on the time and the place of their next meeting where work will take place on agreeing on parameters of the final resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, taking in the account what has already been done within the framework of the political process," Lavrov said after the meeting.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europes (OSCE) Minsk Group also said that Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev have reiterated their commitment to peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis.

On Monday, Sargsyan and Aliyev met in Vienna to discuss the conflict in the Azerbaijani breakaway region with a predominantly Armenian population. The meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of the United States, Russia and France as co-chairs of the Minsk Group.

"The Presidents reiterated their commitment to the ceasefire and the peaceful settlement of the conflict. To reduce the risk of further violence, they agreed to finalize in the shortest possible time an OSCE investigative mechanism," the OSCE Minsk Group said in a statement after the meeting.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The next meeting of the Cuba-US Bilateral Commission to review progress in restoration of ties between the two countries will take place in September in Washington, DC, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release.

"Both delegations agreed to hold the fourth meeting of the Bilateral Commission in September, 2016, in Washington DC," the release stated on Monday.

Earlier in the day, Cuban and US authorities concluded the third meeting of the Commission in Havana.


KRASNOYARSK (Sputnik)Russia's new Irkut MC-21 mid-range twin-engine jet airliner is set to be presented at the Irkutsk Aviation Plant on June 8, a source working for the manufacturer said Monday.

"We are planning to present the new MC-21 plane on June 8. This will be a festive event, with the press and key figures invited," the source told RIA Novosti.

The aircraft has yet to be fully fitted before test flights can be conducted, the source added.
An entire array of die cast miniature clones of world-famous Soviet- and Russian-made tanks are currently available via the online store of the Russian corporation Uralvagonzavod, the company's website reported.

The online store features 19 hand-made models of armored vehicles which were previously produced by the various companies which were consolidated under the Uralvagonzavod umbrella.
After finding out about her parents support for the candidate, she dug up her mothers Twitter account, which she says contained offensive memes.

Hateful memes, ugly language, and appearance-based attacks, targeted at Hillary Clinton, stacked up, Perry wrote. And not just hateful, but off-topic and malicious calling Hillary ugly, old and screechy. An unlikeable old bag. The woman card stinks! my mother wrote. My mother! A college instructor! She should know better. Shes no internet troll. Is she?

Perry, after seeing the barrage of hate on her mothers Twitter account, then recalled hearing racist slurs frequently used in her home to describe people from Mexico.

After the Obama election, my mother had said to me: You know, I think I only voted for Obama to prove to myself that I wasnt racist. I walked away from that conversation, Perry recalled.

Disappointed by her discovery, Perry tweeted at her mother.

I commented on my mums tweet and asked her if shed really written those words. Her response: (American Flag emoji) You dont share my beliefs, and you dont have to. (smiley face emoji).

 Barbara Jensen (@BarbaraJensen1) April 30, 2016

Unsatisfied with her response, Perry tweeted at her mother once again, expressing her embarrassment.

Your Twitter feed makes me disappointed and embarrassed of you as a person, a supposed critical thinker, and my mother. Shocked, she wrote.

Soon after, much to Perrys dismay, she found Fox News clips showing her parents at Trump rallies, where her mother proclaimed support for the candidate.

I was overwhelmed with shame for my years of silence for not opposing her ideologies sooner, Perry writes. Look where it got me. Look where it got my family. Look where it got us as a nation, a country of closet racists and enablers.

Perry then took to her Facebook feed to post screenshots and put her mother on blast. Her mother blocked her in response, something that her father had reportedly done years ago.
The ACLU wrote in a brief that, "The summary describes how the CIA repeatedly misled Congress, the Justice Department, the White House, the media, and the public about its torture programincluding misrepresentations about the 'effectiveness' of torture, the brutality of the agencys techniques, and the number of detainees in its custody."

The ACLU also pointed to mixed signals from the executive branch, with some agencies trying to block the release of the full report, even though President Barack Obama commented in an official statement that the summary confirmed his "long-held view that these harsh methods were not only inconsistent with our values as a nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests."

Before Senator Feinstein ended her tenure as committee chair, she gave instructions that computer disks containing the full report be sent to the CIA and the OIG, along with other law enforcement and intelligence agencies. She also sent a copy to the CIA inspector general, so that they could conduct a review. Feinstein says she did this so "that the system of detention and interrogation described in this report is never repeated."

Her successor, Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina has now twice asked for agencies who received the full report to return their copies.

The ACLU is currently looking for ways to appeal the decision keeping the full report from being released to the public.

The CIA said, in a statement, that the agency will wait until litigation has been finalized before taking any other action regarding the report.
The Simpsons, is of course, no stranger to politics. Over the years, the series has made a name for itself by producing some of the most adept satire in the business, and the show has already found itself in the center of the 2016 election in surprising ways.

After Trump announced his candidacy, fans were quick to point out that The Simpsons predicted a Trump presidency during a 2000 episode.

"As you know, weve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump," a grownup Millhouse tells President Lisa Simpson in an episode that imagines Barts  and Americas  future.

"What we need was for Lisa to have problems that were beyond her fixing," series writer Dan Greaney recently told The Hollywood Reporter, "that everything went as bad as it possibly could, and thats why we had Trump be president before her."

The show was also referenced by former Republican hopeful and pop-culture whiz Ted Cruz early in his campaign. In an effort to present himself as a likeable everyman, Cruz, further assuring The Simpsons place as a cultural icon of the West, starred in his own video performing impressions of Simpsons characters.

You cant make this stuff up.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The Obama administration strongly objects to many provisions in the current draft of the US defense budget for fiscal year 2017 and would recommend to veto the legislation, the White House said in a press release.

"If the president were presented with H.R. 4909 [defense budget], his senior advisors would recommend he veto the bill," the White House stated on Monday.

The Obama administration argued that the $610 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) cuts off wartime operation funding after April 30, 2017 and imposes "unneeded costs."
The US Department of State reported that the event would be co-chaired by both the United States and Italy and the participants of the meeting would discuss the support to Libya's Government of National Accord (GNA) , with a focus on security.

Libya has been in a state of turmoil for years after the Arab Spring protests in early 2011 led to a civil war and the overthrow of long-standing leader Muammar Gaddafi. The instability has triggered the rise of numerous Islamic militant and terrorist groups.
"I want the Italian government not to make any strategic mistakes. But anti-Russia sanctions are exactly a mistake, as well as the failure to recognize what is obvious  Crimea is part of Russia," he said.

He added that the economy of the Veneto region was hardest hit by the restrictive measures and that over the past year and a half losses have amounted to more than one billion euros there.

As for the resolution, it slammed the political stance both the EU and Italy have adopted toward Russia as a policy of double standards, according to Izvestia.

"They [Italy and the European Union] fully ignore the almost unanimous will of both the people of Crimea and the Parliament, as well as the historical and cultural components which contributed to this choice," the resolution said.

During the March 2014 referendum, more than 96 percent of the Crimean electorate voted in favor of seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia. The post-Maidan coup government of Kiev and its Western supporters refused to recognize the results of the referendum, accusing Moscow of invading and annexing the former Ukrainian region.
Bloomberg's Julian Lee believes that the political standoff in Nigeria has added greatly to upward pressure on global oil prices.

In his article 'Forget the Saudis, Nigeria's the Big Oil Worry', Lee said that apart from "Saudi Arabia's oil market machinations," policymakers should also be concerned about what is now "happening 3,000 miles away in the Niger River delta."

Describing Nigeria as Africa's biggest crude producer, Lee said that the country is now embroiled in chaos, with a series of attacks and accidents already hitting its infrastructure and "taking Nigeria's output down to 20-year lows."
TOKYO, May 16 (Sputnik)  Russian and Japanese priorities in cooperation coincide 80 percent, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev said Monday.

During Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abes visit to Sochi at the beginning of May, he presented an 8-point bilateral economic plan between the two countries.

This plan is basically a list of priority directions in cooperation. And they coincide 80 percent with the ones that we see as priorities in developing Russias Far East, Trutnev told journalists in Tokyo.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  In a mid-December reaction to Trumps call for a complete ban on all Muslims from entering the United States until a counterterror plan had been implemented, Cameron derided the idea as "divisive, stupid and wrong."

"Looks like we're not going to have a very good relationship, who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him, but it sounds like he's not willing to address the problem either," Trump said in a interview on ITV's Good Morning Britain television program.

Donald Trump tells @piersmorgan: I may not have a 'very good relationship' with David Cameron if I become presidenthttps://t.co/Rw3Wc1ojec  ITV News (@itvnews) 16 May 2016

Cameron has so far refused to withdraw his comments about Trump, however, he stated early in May that the presumptive Republican nominee deserves respect for going through the difficult party nomination process.


BEIJING (Sputnik)Last week, the members of European Parliament passed a non-binding resolution calling on the European Union not to recognize China as a market economy. China's status was supposed to automatically transit to that of a market economy after December 11 according to the protocol on its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The minister also stressed that, as Article 15 of the accession protocol states, other WTO members should stop using the so-called Surrogate Country approach for anti-dumping investigations against China.

"These obligation must be respected by all WTO members. Irrespective of whether our market economy status is recognized or not, EU countries must respect the legal obligations of the Article 15 of the accession protocol," Wang Yi stressed.
In an interview with Sputnik, Hossein Sheikholeslam, advisor to the Iranian parliament speaker, pointed the finger at Washington for violating all international norms when pursuing its policy on Iran.

The interview came after Iranian lawmakers reportedly gave preliminary approval to a bill requiring the government to sue the US for the damage Iran has suffered as a result of every hostile move the US has taken against the country over the past 63 years.

Sheikholeslam said that his country's parliament is up in arms against "such actions" and that Washington should be brought to justice for its misdeeds.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia's agriculture watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor will ban the import of Turkish zucchinis and pumpkins, the regulator's deputy head, Julia Shvabauskene, said Monday.

On Thursday, Rosselkhoznadzor head Sergey Dankvert said that the regulator plans to impose a ban on the importation of certain Turkish agricultural products due to systematic violations of sanitary requirements. These agricultural items are among the few to have so far evaded Russian bans on Turkish produce imports. On Monday, Dankvert told RIA Novosti that the Turkish side has begun talks on the quality of its food products.

"As it stands, the decision has been taken in such a way as to temporarily restrict the import of zucchinis and pumpkins, provisionally from May 19. The date has not been finalized, but it will be this week," Shvabauskene told RIA Novosti.


TEHRAN (Sputnik)Russia has fulfilled its commitments on the delivery of S-300 air defense systems and Iran's lawsuit will be withdrawn after the Islamic Republic has implemented the necessary procedures in the international court, member of Iran's Security Council Hossein Sobhani told Sputnik on Monday.

"We can say that the case is at the stage of suspension, its withdrawal requires certain measures that Iran needs to take in regard to the international court, but the main part of the lawsuit is fully settled after Iran received the first batch of the air defense systems," Sobhani said.

Russia and Iran initially signed an S-300 delivery deal in 2007, but its implementation was halted by Moscow due to UN Security Council sanctions against Tehran. In response, Iran filed a lawsuit against Russia.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)Russian Helicopters designer and manufacturer will take part in the Asia Pacific China Police 2016 exposition, the company said in statement on Monday.

"Russian Helicopters will participate in the eighth exposition of the police equipment of China and the Asia-Pacific region, the Asia Pacific China Police 2016 (CIEPE), which will take place between May 17 and 20 in Beijing," the statement, published on Russia Helicopters' website, reads.

The company will present Ka-32A11BC multirole helicopter, already certified in China, for search-and-rescue and firefighting missions, as well as multi-purpose light helicopter Ansat for medevac missions.
The massacre was perpetrated by members of Ahrar ash-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam groups. Earlier attempts by Russia to officially add these two factions to the list of terrorist organizations list were blocked by the UN Security Council, with the US, France, the UK and Ukraine voting against it.

"Gerard Bapt, chairman of the France-Syria Friendship Group in the National Assembly, condemns the murder of Alawite families of Al-Zara village in Hama province perpetrated by terrorist groups  namely Ahrar ash-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam, Ajuda Homs (formerly known as Al Faruk)  which agreed to a ceasefire," the politician told Sputnik.

Bapt pointed out that while the male residents of the village were murdered and their bodies were cast into the Rastan lake, 115 civilians  women and children  were forcibly taken to Rastan.
VIENNA (Sputnik)  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks on Monday with envoys of Syrian moderate opposition in Vienna ahead of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) the next day.

The Syrian opposition was represented by envoys from the so-called Moscow, Cairo, Hmeimim groups and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party.

"Our position is clear  to implement commitments that intra-Syrian dialogue must be all-inclusive and involve both the government delegation and all, without any exclusions, spectrum of opposition," Lavrov told reporters after the meeting.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)Hanoi signed the FTA with the EEU last May to remove major trade barriers between the respective markets and was one of 12 Pacific Rim signatories to the controversial TPP in February 2016.

"The only thing that I would like to draw your attention to is that it is very important for us that the rules that apply to our FTA  here we have no doubt at all  with Vietnam, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership on the other hand, comply with the rules of the WTO," Medvedev said.

The Russian prime ministers Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, earlier expressed hope that the FTA with the EEU would take effect as soon as next month.


MEXICO CITY (Sputnik)Danilo Medina, who served as the Caribbean state's president for one term since 2012, has received 61.9 percent of votes so far, with 55.5 percent of the total counted, according to Central Electoral Board data, as quoted by the Listin Diario newspaper.

The president is followed by Luis Abinader, representing the Modern Revolutionary Party, who garnered 35.18 percent. The remaining candidates have received less than 3 percent of the total.

On Sunday, the population of the Dominican Republic went to the polls to elect the country's president, vice president, senators, lawmakers of the parliament and mayors of 158 cities. Medina had the most popularity among the voters, according to preliminary polls, and was projected to receive 63 percent of votes during the first round of voting.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)Pope Francis was speaking at a meeting with Bulgarias President Rosen Plevneliev and his delegation. The event was timed to 1150 years since the start of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the southeastern European state.

"Pope Francis has urged to seek a solution to unite the interests of all communities, taking into account that most sacred concern is precisely the average person that deserves to ask for their dignity to be respected," the office of the Bulgarian president quoted the pontiff in its statement.

Bulgaria was a gateway for Central Asian and Middle Eastern migrants and refugees seeking to enter Europe from Turkey. It built a razor-wire fence along the Turkish border in 2015 to put off thousands of people fleeing war and poverty from travelling north.
VIENNA, (Sputnik)  The UN Security Council Sanctions Committee will make decisions on possible exemptions from the arms embargo to deliver weapons for the GNA to fight terrorism, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told Sputnik on Monday.

Earlier in the day, Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj called for lifting arms embargo to support the national army. In response, Gentiloni and US Secretary of State John Kerry said the GNA would be able to request and receive weapons specifically to counter terrorist groups.

"The Sanctions Committee on Libya at the UN [headquarters] in New York will take this decision on making exemptions. I do not know when, but it will be upon the request from the Libyan government [of National Accord]," Gentiloni told Sputnik.


VIENNA (Sputnik)Representatives of the Syrian opposition met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday to discuss ways to find consensus on political transition at the intra-Syrian talks, Qadri Jamil, one of the leaders of Moscow-Cairo opposition group, told Sputnik.

"We spoke about how to speed up Geneva process and find ways of reaching consensus on the political transition and primarily composition of the transitional governing body," Jamil said after the meeting.

Jamil, the leader of Astana platform in Moscow-Cairo group, Randa Kassis, representative of Hmeimim group Ilian Masaad and European representative of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) Khaled Issa held the talks with Lavrov ahead of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Washington's actions against Tehran have been breaching all norms of international law for decades, the adviser to the Iranian parliament speaker, Hossein Sheikholeslam, told Sputnik Persian in an interview.

On Sunday, media reported that Iranian lawmakers passed a motion obligating the government to seek compensation from the United States for damages incurred for the decades of coup attempts and sanctions.

"We cannot remain silent and we will file a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice in The Hague for such illegal actions. In addition, we also intend to sue Washington for all the crimes committed by the US against Iran since the 1953 coup. Staged by the US special services, it led to the torture and murder of scores of innocent Iranian citizens," Sheikholeslam said.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The United States is prepared to carry out additional airstrikes in Libya when necessary, White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated in a press briefing on Monday.

"The United States has already taken military strikes against ISIL targets in Libya, and when necessary to take additional strikes to protect American people, we wont hesitate to do so," Earnest stated.

Earlier in the day, Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj called for lifting arms embargo to support the national army. In response, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who co-chaired a meeting of foreign ministers in Vienna to discuss supporting Libyas Government of National Accord (GNA), said the GNA would be able to request and receive weapons specifically to counter terrorist groups.


KIEV (Sputnik)Ukraine and Turkey have signed on Monday a military cooperation plan, Ukrainian General Staff said.

"Taking into account the geopolitical situation in the Black Sea region, we are continuing to develop military cooperation with Turkey as a Ukrainian strategic partner. In recent time the cooperation between Ankara and Kiev gained additional weight. Today Ukrainian and Turkish Armed Forces signed an implementation plan of military cooperation," the General Staff said in a statement.

The General Staff says the document would determine areas of military cooperation between the states until 2020. It is also said to contain a number of steps aimed at improving operational capabilities of the Ukrainian army.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia will be ready to consider the possibility of arms deliveries to legitimate Libyan government only if the UN Security Council approves the lifting of weapons embargo in force since 2011, the Russian Ambassador to Libya said Monday.

Earlier on Monday, the United States and Italy co-chaired a gathering of foreign ministers from over 20 countries in Vienna to discuss supporting Libyas new government with security and humanitarian assistance.

"The issue of lifting the weapons embargo was discussed. It is premature to say that the embargo will be lifted soon as it should be decided by the UNSC and involves consideration of a wide range of criteria and conditions," Ivan Molotkov, who took part in the meeting, told RIA Novosti in a phone call. "The issue will be decided by the UNSC, and if Russia supports at least a partial lifting of the embargo that would mean that we will be ready to go ahead with plans to deliver arms to Libya."
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  US Secretary of State John Kerry is interested in examining ways with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to reduce the violence in Nagorno-Karabakh, Department of State spokesperson John Kirby said during a briefing on Monday.

Kerry was scheduled to meet with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev later in the day, Kirby noted, to discuss the fragile security situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

"The secretary [Kerry] definitely wants to discuss how we can better lower the tensions there [Nagorno-Karabakh] and deescalate the violence that has sadly continued," Kirby stated. "He wants to explore ways in which we can ratchet down the tension."
According to various news outlets, The Stronach Group has reached an agreement to purchase Rosecroft Raceway from Penn National Gaming.

An article by The Baltimore Sun states that the deal to purchase the Maryland raceway is expected to close in June and that the deal is subject to conditions.

The Baltimore Sun article has also cited officials with The Stronach Group as saying that the organization is excited to continue running harness races at the track. Rosecroft has a total of 54 race dates scheduled for 2016.

An article by the Baltimore Business Journal has cited Maryland Jockey Club General Manager Sal Sinatra as saying that he can not disclose the purchase price.

(With files from The Baltimore Sun and the Baltimore Business Journal)
With the 2016 Pepsi North America Cup eliminations less than a month away, the majority of three-year-old pacers aiming for Canadian harness racing's biggest prize have made on-track appearances and statements as they aim to displace the reigning divisional kingpins.

For the past several years, Trot Magazine's Pepsi North America Cup Spring Book has served as an initial barometer for the colts and geldings that may be in the running for the sophomore pacing set's single biggest payday.

This year's edition of the $1 million Pepsi North America Cup will be contested on Saturday, June 18 at Mohawk Racetrack in Campbellville, Ontario.

Listed by the Spring Book odds as featured in the April 2016 edition of Trot Magazine, here are the horses that are still Cup-eligible as of the April 15 sustaining payment and have raced or are in-to-go as of May 16, 2016. ( indicates a horse not listed last week)

 Control The Moment / 3-1 -- entered to qualify on May 16 at Mohawk Racetrack

 Boston Red Rocks / 5-1 -- qualified on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished first, timed in 1:51

 Betting Line / 8-1 -- raced on May 14 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished second, individually timed in 1:52

 Big Top Hanover / 10-1 -- last raced on May 7 at Mohegan Sun Pocono, finished third, individually timed in 1:50.4

 Nvestment Bluechip / 14-1 -- qualified on May 13 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished first, timed in 1:55.4

 Racing Hill / 15-1 -- qualified on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished second, individually timed in 1:51.1

 American Passport / 16-1 -- qualified on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished first, timed in 1:51.3

 Katies Rocker / 20-1 -- qualified on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished second, individually timed in 1:51.3

 Ideal Rocky / 22-1 -- qualified on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished third, individually timed in 1:51.1

 Nocturnal Bluechip / 24-1 -- qualified on May 9 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished first, timed in 1:52.4

 Voracity / 25-1 -- last qualified on May 7 at The Meadowlands, finished fifth, individually timed in 1:53.4

 Im Some Graduate / 30-1 -- qualified on May 10 at Harrah's Philadelphia, finished second, individually timed in 1:54

 Pretty Boy Hill / 30-1 -- raced on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished second, individually timed in 1:51

 Check Six / 32-1 -- last raced on May 7 at Mohegan Sun Pocono, finished first, timed in 1:50.3

 All The Cookies / 35-1 -- raced on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished fourth, individually timed in 1:51.2

 Mystical Rock / 35-1 -- qualified on May 14 at Tioga Downs, finished first, individually timed in 1:58.1

 Rollaroundtheworld / 38-1 -- raced on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished second, individually timed in 1:52.2

 Inspiration View / 40-1 -- last raced on May 7 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished seventh, individually timed in 1:52.3; entered to race on May 16 at Mohawk

 JDs Chancey Design / 40-1 -- raced on May 15 at Hawthorne Race Course, finished first, timed in 1:54.2

 Easy Lover Hanover / 40-1 -- raced on May 15 at Flamboro Downs, finished ninth, individually timed in 1:58.4

 Magnum J / 42-1 -- raced on Mat 14 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished seventh, individually timed in 1:55.3

 Kokanee Seelster / 45-1 -- last raced on April 30 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished sixth, individually timed in 1:54.2

 The Catamount Kid / 45-1 -- raced on May 15 at Mohegan Sun Pocono, finished first, timed in 1:51.2

 Mindtrip / 48-1 -- raced on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished first, timed in 1:52

 Tom Hill / 50-1 -- raced on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished third, individually timed in 1:52.3

 Manhattan Beach / 50-1 -- last raced on May 7 at Mohegan Sun Pocono, finished sixth, individually timed in 1:51.4

 Arsenic / 50-1 -- qualified on May 9 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished second, individually timed in 1:53

 New Talent / 50-1 -- qualified on May 9 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished third, individually timed in 1:54.1; entered to race on May 16 at Mohawk

 Highlandbeachycove / 55-1 -- raced on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished first in 1:50.4

 Michaels Victory / 60-1 -- qualified on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished thirf, individually timed in 1:52.3

 Tap Into Power / 60-1 -- qualified on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished fifth, individually timed in 1:53

 Cruise Patrol / 60-1 -- raced on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished fifth, individually timed in 1:53.3

 Dreamfair Mesa / 60-1 -- last raced on May 7 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished sixth, individually timed in 1:52.1; entered to race on May 16 at Mohawk

 Flaherty / 60-1 -- last raced on May 7 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished ninth, individually timed in 1:53.4

 Bettor Memories / 65-1 -- last raced on May 1 at Mohegan Sun Pocono, finished third, individually timed in 1:52.2

 Stonebridge Beach / 65-1 -- raced on May 15 at Rideau Carleton Raceway, finished third, individually timed in 1:56.1

 Think On It / 65-1 -- last raced on April 21 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished fourth, individually timed in 1:53.2

 Good Living / 65-1 -- qualified on May 10 at Harrah's Philadelphia, finished second, individually timed in 1:53.3

 Dr J Hanover / 70-1 -- last qualified on May 7 at The Meadowlands, finished seventh, individually timed in 1:54.1

 Lyons Snyder / 70-1 -- last raced on May 7 at Mohegan Sun Pocono, finished fifth, individually timed in 1:51.2

 Some Gold / 70-1 -- last raced on May 7 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished fifth, individually timed in 1:51.3; entered to race on May 16 at Mohawk

 Max Is Back / 70-1 -- last qualified on April 14 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished second, individually timed in 1:54.4; entered to qualify on May 16 at Mohawk

 Rock Power / 75-1 -- qualified on May 14 at The Meadowlands, finished fifth, individually timed in 1:53

 Major Hill / 75-1 -- last raced on May 5 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished third, individually timed in 1:52.1

 Sutton Seelster / 90-1 -- raced on May 9 at Western Fair, finished first in 1:57; entered to race on May 16 at Western Fair

 Beast Mode / 100-1 -- last raced on May 5 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished first, timed in 1:51.4; entered to race on May 16 at Mohawk

 Brookdale Sonny / 100-1 -- raced on May 9 at Mohawk Racetrack, finished first in 1:53.3; entered to race on May 16 at Mohawk

 Totally Great / 110-1 -- last qualified on May 5 at Flamboro Downs, finished second, individually timed in 2:01; entered to qualify on May 16 at Mohawk
By Daisy Handfield

SCORES of Dominicans in the Turks and Caicos Islands attended a special ceremony to say their final goodbyes to murder victim Yuneiry Veras before her body was repatriated to the Dominican Republic for burial.





The ceremony was held at Our Lady of Divine Providence Catholic Church in Providenciales on Thursday (May 12) with the casket present.





After the ceremony, her body was driven to the Providenciales International Airport to be flown back to the DR where she will be received by family members.





In an interview with president of the Dominicans United Committee, Candido Moreno, he said that he along with other Dominicans in the TCI and those who have heard the news all over the globe, had faith that justice will be served and that this matter will not turn into another unsolved murder.





He said: "We as a Dominican community are willing to assist the Turks and Caicos authorities if that may be the case so that the culprit could face the consequences of this heinous act.





"If the Turks and Caicos authorities need assistance from the Dominican Republic we are willing to send representatives from the Dominican Republic.





Candido confessed that he has spoken to family members of the murder victim and that they are highly upset and frustrated that the killer of Veras is still living among society.





Dominicans in the TCI described Veras as a kind-hearted individual.





Veras murder has made headlines on a number of news stations in the Dominican Republic and has also raised fear among Dominicans residing in the TCI.





The body of the young Dominican woman was discovered at about 1.04pm on Saturday, April 23, in Pirates Cove located on Tom Lightbournes Drive, in the north western area of Providenciales.





The area is very secluded and is surrounded by bushes.





Veras was last seen on April 18 at about 2.15am at her residence in Blue Hills. She was wearing a black top and blue short skirt.





Police are seeking public assistance to find the person or people who are responsible for her murder.





Anyone with information about this murder or other crimes can contact Chalk Sound Police Station on 339-5901.





To remain anonymous, the public can call Crime Stoppers on 1-800 8477 or use the Crime Stoppers online reporting page: www.crimestoppers.tc.




AFTER a somewhat disjointed examination on Wednesday morning (May 11) chief valuation officer Shaaban Hoza finished his evidence in chief.





Since SIPT lead prosecutor Andrew Mitchell began his examination on May 5, Hozas testimony has centred on the valuations he produced during the years of the Michael Misick government.





He also spoke about the problems the valuations created when he was allegedly asked to revalue land at a lower price by government ministers.





Some of these valuations he was asked to lower were for high profile developments, the court heard.





During a brief examination on Wednesday - following a dispute about misfiled documents, which caused the postponement of his cross examination - the valuation officer was taken through documents he produced on several developments and correspondence he exchanged with ministers and other government officials about his valuation reports.





He was asked by the prosecutor to verify the documents, all of which he did.





The developments he has been questioned about were Salt Cay, Water Cay, Joe Grant Cay, Juniper Hole, Beaches, North West Point, South Caicos and West Caicos.





With Hozas testimony the Crown sought to prove one of the central points in their case that the political defendants and two lawyers - Michael Misick, Floyd Hall, McAllister Hanchell, Jeffrey Hall, Lillian Boyce, Clayton Greene and Thomas Misick - conspired to defraud the government and the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands by undervaluing land.





On May 31 the defence will attempt to disprove this allegation.





All the defendants deny all the charges against them.





The trial continues.




ON THURSDAY morning (May 12) a combative Lillian Missick brought a touch of hilarity to what has so far been a cheerless process, fraught with tension in the corruption trial.





From raised voices - both hers and the defence lawyers  to stern responses to questions, and evident frustration at being asked the same thing many times and in many different ways, Missick sparred with attorney Ralph Thorne, lawyer for Michael Misick.





The current Governors appointed member in the House of Assembly and former head teacher, was sworn in as witness for the prosecution on Thursday.





She taken through a brief and somewhat sedate examination by chief Crown prosecutor Andrew Mitchell.





Mitchell questioned the assembly member about her involvement in what used to be TCInvest, but was recently rebranded and reopened as Invest Turks and Caicos.





She was asked about the practice of concessions, in the form of land and work permits, being afforded to inward investors during her time as a non-executive member on the board of directors between 1995 and 2000, and then as an executive member from 2000 to 2011.





This was the briefest examination in chief to date for the Crown, lasting under an hour, but Missicks cross-examination by the defence team took quite a different turn.





Thorne, the former premiers lawyer, had first shot at the former teacher, as is the norm as his client is the chief defendant in the trial.





Thorne proceeded to question Missick about her years on the TCInvest board, and what functions the agency served when it came to investment.





It was revealed that even after one year into an investment in the Islands, the agency was still shoulder deep in some businesses.





Upon further questioning about political involvement in the agency, Missick firmly stated that during her tenure there was no political or ministerial involvement in the agency.





Things took a turn for the worse, to the amusement of many in the courtroom, when Thorne questioned Missick about any changes to that process after she became an executive member of the agency in 2002, as the small business manager operating out of Grand Turk.





She replied that the same practice "should have applied as the ordinance, which dictated the process, had not changed.





Continued questioning by the lawyer, however, made the witness become somewhat combative, at one point addressing him outright, instead of the judge as is the procedure.





She said that he (Thorne) could ask the question ten different ways, the answer would still be the same.





Yet Thorne persisted, this time asking Missick if she had given any evidence in her examination by the SIPT that there was a departure from the process, as she knew it.





After a long pause, Missick restated that the ordinance had not changed, so the process should have remained the same.





He then put to her that she was not directly involved after 2002, and as such could not give evidence about the process regarding the granting of concessions of land and work permits.

Missick admitted that this was so.





Further questioning about her role as a small business manager within the agency, prompted Missick to say, without being asked by the lawyer, that management meetings were called with heads of the department with the sole purpose being to criticise, demean and diminish employees of TCInvest between the period 2002 to 2011.





Again without any prompting, the witness stated that she could say more about those meetings, but that she would not do so, adding, "I hope the person is resting in peace, I hope.





Yet again, Missick stated that the management meetings were held solely and exclusively for the purpose of demeaning, criticising and diminishing employees.





When the lawyer asked her about the collaboration between the Attorney General Chambers and TCInvest, and if there was a TCInvest attorney, Missick replied that the CEO was an attorney.





Rephrasing the question, Thorne asked her if there was an "in-house attorney apart from the fact that the CEO was himself a lawyer.





Missick briskly replied: "Yes, the in house attorney was fired.





This prompted subdued laughter in the courtroom.





When the lawyer then went back to what she can speak to concerning the granting of concessions after 2002, a somewhat fed-up Missick sternly reiterated that she only gave evidence as to the process she knows and what should have obtained, as the ordinance had not been changed.





She again stated that she could not speak of any instance where there were departures from the practice she knew.





When asked about the former TCInvest boss who served from 2002, the now deceased Conrad Higgs, Missick did not mince her words when asked if she had a good working relationship with him, replying with: "No.





She then proceeded to add, without prompting: "It is difficult to, when someone is trying to get you fired repeatedly.





However, she stated, when asked, that the friction in the relationship between her and Higgs did not affect her functions in the agency.





Missick also testified that the CEO of the agency had broad discretionary powers when it came to new projects, stating when asked, that he could cut a new project if his investigations revealed that it was not viable.





Other interesting moments of Missicks cross examination came when Earl Witter, lawyer for Floyd Hall, was questioning her.





Witters questioning, as has been the case with some of the other witnesses, was initially geared towards establishing the supposedly good and honest character of his client.





But he was thrown a curveball, which had the courtroom laughing, when he asked Missick, who was the head teacher at Halls school, to describe the former Deputy Premier.





Missick promptly replied: "He wasnt the sharpest knife. However she did acknowledge upon further questioning that he was a hard worker and "a virtuous schoolboy.





The SIPT prosecutor subsequently protested the line of questioning, stating that the questions have no bearing on the witnesss testimony.





But Witter told the court that he is indeed going somewhere with his line of questioning.





He then proceeded to ask her about her political affiliations  past and current.





It was revealed that Missick was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, and had campaigned in 1995 for office.





She however stated that she is now a-political, and when asked if it ever occurred to her to be a member of the Progressive National Party (PNP), Missick promptly replied: "No.





All the defendants deny all the charges against them.





The trial continues.




PEST control products will be put under the spotlight this month during a practical safety course.





All pesticide operators are invited to take part in the training in Providenciales on Tuesday, May 17.





According to a Government release: "Like most countries in the Caribbean, pest control products are used in the Turks and Caicos Islands to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of environmental health and agriculture programmes.





"In some instances theyre are used widely in homes and other human dwellings for vermin control.





The Department of Agriculture recently recognised the "obvious information shortage among farm workers and pesticide operators.





As a result it is moving to promote programmes that foster efficient pesticide management and use throughout the country.





The first session will take place next week for pest control operators, government vector control officers, landscaping companies, plant nurseries operators, and anyone whose job requires the application of chemicals.





The main objective of the programme is to create an awareness among pesticide operators of the importance of precautionary use of these products.





Participants will gain a better understanding of classes of chemicals, be able to interpret pesticide labels, and improve their overall management of pest control products.





There will be practical demonstrations and videos, and one kit of personal protection gear will be given to each participant.





The programme will be repeated in North Caicos, where the main target group will be farm workers.




By Daisy Handfield

TWENTY-three police officers from the marine branch of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force underwent a four week training initiative to improve operational effectiveness and availability.





The project was coordinated between the RTCIPF and UKs Defence Section in Kingston, Jamaica, and has been jointly funded by the UKs Conflict, Security and Stability Fund, as well as the UK MODs Defence Assistance Fund.





The training began in mid-April at the marine branch headquarters at the Ship Yard Marina in Long Bay, Providenciales, and was divided in two courses lasting two weeks each.





Twelve officers attended the first course and the second course saw 11 officers which tallied up the 23 police officers that participated.





The initiative concluded with a certificate presentation on Friday (May 13) at the marine branch headquarters.





Martin Powers, warrant officer for second class year of the Royal Marines, said that the classes were basically to increase the skills of the officers in navigation and boat handling.





He added that since these were techniques that the officers never really used, this brought them out of their comfort zones.





"Basically, we are from a team of the Royal Navy international maritime training team and we have been out here running maritime and small boats navigation training for the Caribbean overseas territories marine police units for the last four weeks.





"They were taught new information and they took in the information very well.





Police press officer Kevin Clarke said that the training was extremely necessary for marine police officers in the TCI.





He said that it will "enhance their knowledge when manoeuvring and operating the vessels at nights and during inclement weather which can better their skills, especially during search and rescue operations.




By Olivia Rose

CONCERTED efforts must be made to prevent the entry of illegal sloops into the Turks and Caicos Islands.





This view was expressed by leader of the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) Sharlene Cartwright Robinson in the House of Assembly on Wednesday (May 11) in Grand Turk.





It came following reports of 12 people escaping from the detention centre in South Dock and in a separate event a deportee attempting to flee authorities at Providenciales International Airport.





The political Opposition is calling for more accountability on the part of the Government and the implementation of stringent measures to prevent future occurrences.





According to police reports the vessel was detected by the Coastal Radar Station and intercepted by officers of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force marine branch.





Some 108 persons were on board the vessel, consisting of 100 men and eight women. They were later transported to the detention centre for further processing and detention.





Cartwright Robinson said real efforts must be made by the Government to address the entry of illegal sloops into the country.





"For a few years the Governor and members of the Government travelled back and forth to Haiti and have reportedly engaged in talks with the Haitian government and other authorities.





"As shadow minister for border control, I posed questions over the years on the progress of these talks.





She noted that a few weeks ago the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Border Control and Labour reported that there was a decline in the number of sloops.





"And within a week we have seen three, with a report of 12 escapees from the detention centre and one escapee from the airport ranks (a deportee).





"We recognise the efforts of the radar station personnel and are indeed grateful that no one was injured during the escape from the detention centre.





"We have not heard the Government on this issue and the people of this country are still wondering whether the talks with Haiti have borne any fruit, whether they remain in progress and what it is that the Government plans to do address this issue.





The Opposition leader remarked that the high risk of loss of life, the cost to detain and repatriate a detainee, and the high risk of escape or a successful entry by illegal means, should be a cause for concern for the Government.





Weighing in on the issue elected member for Grand Turk South and Salt Cay, Edwin Astwood said there is seemingly a lack of accountability on the part of the Government.





"Up to now no one has been held accountable, no organisation has been held accountable, and Im wondering why it that the Government is not saying whos accountable.





"We have people escaping, we have persons running away from the airport, this is jeopardy to our national security, and again no-one is being held accountable.





"I dont know if the Premier is afraid to hold his minister of border control accountable, somebody must be held accountable for this.





Astwood believes that the recent escapes are indicative of negligence on the part of some personnel and by extension the Government.





He said: "Theres a lack of paying attention to procedures, there must be procedures in place and the leaders of Government must be held accountable.





Meanwhile Premier Rufus Ewing in response to the comments made by the Opposition leader and elected member of Grand Turk said that negations with Haitian authorities are still open and every effort is being made to intercept every sloop that reaches the shores of the TCI.





He said: "The situation with regards to the escapees is an ongoing investigation, not all information could be divulged, but investigations are ongoing, both for the airport and the detention centre.




By Olivia Rose

THE TURKS and Caicos Islands is being used as a major transhipment point for illegal drug trade.





This is according to the 2016 International Narcotics Control Strategy (INCS) report from the US Department of State.





It details that the Turks and Caicos Islands is being used as a critical transit point for drug trafficking between countries such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.





The report highlighted that drug smugglers are incrementally increasing the quantity of cocaine being trafficked between these countries.





It stated that: "Strong family connections between the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas, coupled with direct flights between Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands, result in many Bahamian smugglers travelling to Haiti via the Turks and Caicos Islands with large amounts of cash for future smuggling ventures.





The report further detailed that: "Smugglers exploit the wide distribution of numerous islands and the high number of recreational vessels flowing through the Bahamas.





It also noted that large loads of drugs are split into smaller loads before entering the southern Bahamas, sometimes bypassing the customs station in Great Inagua, which is strategically located between the Turks and Caicos Islands, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica.





"Traffickers move cocaine through the Bahamas via go-fast boats, small commercial freighters, containers, and small aircraft.





"Small sport fishing vessels and pleasure crafts move cocaine from the Bahamas to Florida by blending in with legitimate traffic that transit these areas.





"Larger go fast and sport fishing vessels transport marijuana from Jamaica through the Bahamas and into Florida in the same manner as cocaine.





"Traffickers also skirt along the loosely monitored Cuban coast line, then head for Florida through Bahamian waters, the report stated.





According to the report, Haitian and Haitian-Bahamian drug trafficking organisations, increasingly networked between Haiti and the significant Haitian Diaspora in the Bahamas, continue to play a major role in the movement of cocaine.





Investigations of these organisations are hindered by a lack of trusted and appropriately assigned Creole speakers within the Royal Bahamas Police Force Drug Enforcement Unit.





In 2013 the INCS report stressed that aviation routes are an increasing source of concern, adding that small, privately owned and operated planes ferry loads of cocaine from and between source countries South America into Haiti and the Dominican Republic.





Under Operation Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands (OPBAT), US agencies led by the DEA and including the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection integrated with the Royal Bahamas Police Force to gather intelligence, conduct investigations, and execute interdictions.





In 2012, operations under OPBAT led to the seizure of 236 kilograms of cocaine, 162 metric tons of marijuana, 149,074 marijuana plants, 201 arrests and $122,333 in assets.





These operations are supported by marine and technical resources provided through US assistance programmes.





The report added that there has also been a rise in the interdiction of cocaine at the Bahamas international airport by customs and border protection agents working at the pre-clearance facility, with at least one case allegedly involving staff employed by the Nassau Airport Authority.





The report also detailed the extensive training of 32 TCI officers who received polygraph examinations to establish the TCIs first narcotics unit.





The unit was expected to work in tandem with the Drug Enforcement Agency.




Cowlitz County sheriffs deputies early Monday morning arrested a Longview man who allegedly pistol-whipped his girlfriend and possibly fired a shot at officers, according to the sheriffs office.

Brent Luyster, 36, was booked in the Cowlitz County Jail on suspicion of second-degree assault, nine counts of unlawful possession of firearms and reckless endangerment, all felonies.

According to a sheriffs press release, a 32-year-old Vancouver woman called 911 at about 3 a.m. to report that Luyster started hitting her in the head and face with a pistol while she was asleep in his house at 123 Solo View Drive. Luyster also grabbed her by the hair and dragged her down the hallway, the woman reported.

She did not know what instigated the alleged beating.

Deputies found the woman bleeding from the head and sent her to the St. John Medical Center. She was treated and released Monday morning, according to the hospital.

When deputies approached Luysters house they heard gun fire from the woods nearby. Deputies believe Luyster was shooting at them, but no one was injured, according to the press release. It was not clear how many shots were fired.

Deputies eventually talked Luyster into surrendering and found a .223 semiautomatic rife, a 12-gauge shotgun and a 40-caliber Glock pistol in the woods where Luyster had been shooting.

Luyster and the victim have a child in common but do not live together, according to the sheriffs office.
tech2 News Staff

Earlier this week Adobe issued a critical patch for a zero day exploit for Adobe Flash in addition to the 24 other vulnerabilities. The zero day exploit was in the wild and was already being used by the criminals to target users. Adobe claimed that all the versions including the latest version 21.0.0.226 on Windows, Macintosh, Linux and ChromeOS are affected by the exploit.

The exploit only seems to attack Microsoft Office, Windows and Flash users with the help of some form of phishing file or a link. The only way that the exploit can run for so long is the fact that it keeps on changing the exploit using Dynamic DNS domain.

As reported by TheRegister , Genwei Jiang, a senior security engineer from Singapore adds, "With this configuration, the attackers could disseminate their exploit via URL or email attachment."

"Attackers had embedded the Flash exploit inside a Microsoft Office document, which they then hosted on their web server" says Jiang. He added that people who can not stop with using Flash on their system need to patch against this exploit along with patches for other vulnerabilities and should use Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) from Microsoft to counter the vulnerabilities in Flash.

The machines which are most at risk are the versions previous to Windows 10 which includes EMET in the operating system and the users running the previous versions must keep Flash updated.
hidden

The world-first scanning helium microscope has been built by Australian researchers who feel it could "open doors" for many new discoveries by allowing scientists to scrutinise materials without disturbing them.

Paul Dastoor of University of Newcastle who has been working on the scanning helium microscope (SHeM) for two decades said the new microscope will enable scientists to study human, animal and plant samples, as well as computer chips and pharmaceutical drugs, without damaging or changing them.

He said the scanning helium microscope means the samples will be analysed in their true state for the first time ever and every time a new microscope was developed there had been enormous scientific advances.

"We wouldn't know anything about bacteria without the development of the optical microscope, we wouldn't know anything about nanotechnology, without the development of the electron microscope. What exactly will the new helium microscope tell us? We don't know yet. What will it open the doors to? We don't know yet, but it will open doors" Dastoor added.

The scientist said SHeM could be useful in major industries such as solar energy, defence, explosives and information technology.

"The new device is expected to pave the way for many new discoveries, because it gives new insight on structures at a microscopic level," he said. He led the team of researchers from the University of Newcastle, and collaborated with scientists from England's University of Cambridge.

"We're opening a window onto a new scientific world," Dastoor said adding scientists would be able to see much smaller objects with a much higher resolution.

Dastoor further said that the ground-breaking technology may help find ways of removing carbon monoxide from exhaust gases. He also said SHeM could help with the clean-up of toxic or even radioactive spills, without harming the surrounding flora or fauna.

"Defence experts will be interested because it could lead to the development of stealth technology and new explosives," Dastoor said. He said the possibilities were endless in the areas of biological sciences, pharmaceuticals, and delicate materials.

"We work a lot with explosives  you don't want to put an explosive in an energetic microscope. We really think we're opening a window onto a new scientific world," he said.

"When you see the first image coming out on an instrument that you've only designed on paper, it's certainly time for the happy dance. We are genuinely amazed at what this microscope can do," he added.

PTI
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Chinese mobile phone manufacturer Transsion Holdings on Monday announced its entry in the Indian market with its global brand itel phone in an affordable price range of Rs 700 - Rs 7,000.

The company will launch six phone models -- SmartSelfie it2180, SmartPower it5600, SmartSelfie it5231, PowerPro it1410 and Wish it1508, and its flagship product, SelfiePro it1511. itel seeks to drive the rural and semi-urban Indian consumers onto a digital platform and to provide affordable yet feature-driven mobile phones for the aspiring Indian consumers across geographies and social classes, said Sudhir Kumar, CEO, itel India, in a statement.

The flagship "it1511" device is a 4G-enabled smartphone that operates on Android 6.0 Marsh Mallow and comes with dual-SIM/dual standby capability. itel endeavours to provide long-lasting battery and better camera performance as the primary product essence.

The feature phones will be categorised in three series -- SmartSelfie, SmartPower and Shine. itel is also planning to set up manufacturing units in India. The company is looking forward to establish 1,000 service touch points across the country.

As part of the launch, the company will roll out its India operations in two phases. "Phase one will include Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand while phase two will see itel Mobile entering the local markets in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh," the company stated.

IANS
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Three French anti-racism associations said on Sunday they would file legal complaints against social networks Facebook, Twitter and Google's Youtube for failing to remove "hateful" content posted on their platforms.

French law requires websites to take down racist, homophobic or anti-semitic material and tell authorities about it.

But French Jewish students union UEJF and anti-racism and anti-homophobia campaigners SOS Racisme and SOS Homophobie said the three firms had removed only a fraction of 586 examples of hateful content the anti-racism groups had counted on their platforms between the end of March and May 10.

Twitter removed only four percent, Youtube seven percent and Facebook 34 percent, according to the associations.

"In light of Youtube, Twitter and Facebook's profits and how little taxes they pay, their refusal to invest in the fight against hate is unacceptable," UEJF president Sacha Reingewirtz said in a statement.

Germany got Facebook, Google and Twitter to agree in December to delete hate speech from their websites within 24 hours.

In 2014, Facebook had come under scrutiny in Myanmar as an unwitting platform for a rising tide of hate speech following a new wave of Buddhist-Muslim bloodshed in the former junta-run country.

With inputs from Reuters
tech2 News Staff

Paul English, was one of the founders of Kayak, a travel services metasearch engine, that was sold to Priceline group in 2013. Paul English has just launched Lola, a novel approach at intelligent travel assistants, that incorporates machine learning but also uses a small team of human travel agents.

The artificial intelligence component analyses Gmail headers on authentication, and derives information on airline, hotel and travel preferences. There is also a sign up profile that asks a series of questions from the user, aimed at personalisation of the service. All of this information is served to a cluster of human travel agents, who reply to the users in an asynchronous chat based interface.

Lola hopes to handle all your travelling needs, from booking flights, to hotel rooms, to restaurant tables. Launch coverage by Venture Beat and Boston Magazine have Paul English explaining the reasoning behind using this hybrid approach for making a travel app.

Lola is as of now a free, iOS exclusive application. The software is expected to launch for on the Android platform later this year. The monetisation model for the app, when it gets implemented, is expected to be a yearly subscription fee. Lola is also invite only for now, so those who want to try it out have to find someone who is using the service. Lola is expected to stay invite only for the rest of the year.

This bucks the trend of emerging technologies that totally do away with humans for the process of booking. Viv uses complex natural language understanding models to quickly extract intent from different types of voice input. Microsoft representatives showed off in a Microsoft Bot Framework keynote, a series of platform agnostic bots that can invisibly hand over the user from one to another, through Cortana. This implementation had the airline, hotels and restaurants involved in the process all having their own intelligent bots.
tech2 News Staff

The Motorola Moto G4 is scheduled to launch on 17 May and there is new information regarding the yet-to-launch phone coming in on a daily basis. According to a latest leak (h/t PriceRaja), the G4 is expected to sport an octa-core processor.

The Geekbench listing shows the scores obtained by a device named motorola Moto G (4) and it clearly mentions the processor as having 8 cores.

The exact chipset model hasn't been stated outright, but the Motherboard is named as 'msm8952' which hints at the G4 coming with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 617 chipset. The phone will also come 3GB of RAM.

Like we said, earlier, there have been lots of leaked details on the Moto G4 out already. A French website has reported fresh new images of a smartphone tagged as the Motorola G4 Plus that show plenty of similarities with the recently leaked out successor to the Moto X. The leaked images show off a smartphone that appears to be the same as the previous Moto X leak. The images show off both the front and back of the Moto G 2016 revealing a massive display and the square front-facing fingerprint reader.

Twitter user Roland Quandt put out a detailed specifications sheet of the upcoming smartphone and as it turns out, theres is plenty of stuff in there as well. Adding to this is another leak that reveals some more confirmed specifications coming from another Twitter user Vaibhav Jain.

Combining both leaks, we can now expect the Motorola Moto G4 to arrive in a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 variant with 2GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage and another model sporting a Snapdragon 617 with 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The cameras would include a 13MP unit for the rear and a 5MP fixed focus unit up front. The handset is expected to arrive with dual SIM slots and will pack in a 3200mAh battery. The display is expected to be a 5.2-inch Full HD unit.

Motorola has confirmed that it will be selling the phone exclusively on Amazon this time around.
tech2 News Staff

While many suspected that Sony would come up with a new strategy for mobile after its recent slump a year ago, we were bit surprised when Sony launched another line up of X series smartphones back at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

News coming the Xperia Blog points that while we expected Sony to drop the Xperia Z series, seems that Xperia M and C series will be next with the newly launched X series holding the fort for its smartphone brand.

The Asian tech media indicates plenty of hints including the re-branding of the rumoured 'Xperia C6 Ultra' to the 'Xperia X Ultra'.

A couple of leaked slides from ePrice reveals a recent presentation explaining that Sony's recently announced X series will encompass the company's smartphone range from 2016-2018.

Marked as Chapter 3 in the leaked slides, the new chapter indicates how the Xperia X branding stands for "Xperia for new communication". Meanwhile Chapter 1 (2010-2012) showed off how Sony's smartphone efforts took off with the Xperia X10 smartphone and how Chapter 2 (2013-2015) revealed the "best of Sony" with the Xperia Z series.

With that said, it will be interesting to see how Sony renames all of its handsets to the new Xperia X brand, which would be similar to the example shown above. The Xperia X series has yet to arrive in India, while the old Sony Xperia Z5 holds the fort for this Sony's flagship.
Veteran journo Sadeque Khan passes away at 84

UNB, Dhaka: Veteran journalist Sadeque Khan passed away here on Monday. He was 84.



Family sources said Sadeque Khan, an Ekushey Padak winning Language Movement hero, entered a bathroom of his Baridhara residence in the morning to have a shower.



As he was not coming out of the bathroom and responding to repeated calls after so long, family members broke open the door only to find him lying senseless.



He was taken to United Hospital where doctors declared him dead.



The veteran columnist left behind wife, one son and a host of relatives and well-wishers to mourn his death.



His body will be brought to the Jatiya Press Club at 10am on Tuesday so that all can pay their last respects to him.



He will be buried at the grave of his father Abdul Jabbar Khan, Speaker of the Pakistan National Assembly during the Ayub Khan regime, at Banani Graveyard following a namaz-e-janaza at Gushan Azad Mosque after Zohr prayers.



Sadeque Khan, who acted as a film actor in the 50s, also produced some films. He was also the general secretary of East Pakistan Communist Party.



Meanwhile, Jatiya Press Club President Muhammad Shafiqur Rahman and its General Secretary Quamrul Islam expressed deep shock at the death of the veteran journalist.



In a condolence message, they prayed for salvation of the departed soul and conveyed their sympathy to the bereaved family members.
Doctor describes incredible case of patient whose womb was connected to her rectum

Mail Online :

There's no doubt that sex education seeks to bust myths like 'you can't get pregnant standing up' or 'you can't get pregnant on your period'.

But until now, the playground cry of 'you can't get pregnant through anal sex' was assumed to be a biological truth. Now, however, a doctor has made the astonishing claim that he treated a woman who conceived through anal sex.

Dr Brian Steixner, a urologist at the Jersey Urology Group in Atlantic City, said he saw the unthinkable phenomenon when he was a medical student, Men's Health reports.

At the time, he was part of a team caring for a woman born with a rare medical condition called 'cloacal malformation'. This occurs when, very early in pregnancy, the rectum, urethra and vagina fail to separate into different tubes.

This means urine and faeces drain into a common channel which opens in the perineum - where the anus is normally located - according to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

It only occurs in one in 50,000 births - and is normally treated by surgery to create three separate channels as well as two openings - an anus a vagina. When she was younger, the woman had such an operation, but the procedure went wrong. Either through a mistake by surgeons - or perhaps because of the way her body reacted to the trauma of the surgery - a fistula formed.

This is an abnormal connection between organs - and in her case it meant her womb became connected to her rectum. Every month, during menstruation she bled from her anus - but her vagina was a dead-end.

After doing a whole bunch of X-rays, we determined that she got pregnant from having anal sex Dr Brian Steixner, a urologist at the Jersey Urology Group

Dr Steixner told Men's Health the woman reported she only had anal sex before getting pregnant - presumably because it was not possible to be penetrated in the vagina.

'After doing a whole bunch of X-rays, we determined that she got pregnant from having anal sex,' he told Men's Health journalists. And in a later interview with its sister magazine Women's Health, he added: 'It blew my mind.' Doctors decided any form of natural childbirth would be unsafe and therefore opted to perform a C-section on the patient. Despite never seeing the patient again, Dr Steixner maintains the anecdote his 'greatest story ever'. '



They totally lied to us in 9th grade health class,' he said. Cloacal malformation is a problem present at birth that only affects girls. Very early in pregnancy, the rectum, urethra and vagina fail to separate into separate tubes.

This means that urine and faeces drain into a common channel opening in the perineum - the area where the anus and vagina are normally located.

It occurs in one in 50,000 births and can be associated with other congenital malformations.

Cloacal malformation occurs very early in pregnancy, around five to six weeks after conception.

It is not known what stops the rectal, urethral and vaginal tubes separating but it is unlikely to be caused by the mother's lifestyle during conception or early pregnancy.

Women with cloacal malformation have a single drainage channel or tube in the perineum instead of a separate rectum, urethra and vagina.

It is a complex problem, best dealt with at a specialist centre with input from both surgeons and urologists.

Normally, it is treated with surgery to create three channels as well as an anus and vagina.

This is to provide the potential for the child to achieve normal bowel and bladder control, normal sexual and reproductive function and to protect the kidneysin later life.
Philippine President-elect to offer Cabinet posts to rebels

Duterte vows hangings in war on crime

Presumptive president-elect Rodrigo Duterte answers questions from the media during a news conference in Davao city southern Philippines on Monday.

AP, Manila :

Presumptive Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday he will reimpose the death penalty, offer Cabinet posts to communist rebels, and move to amend the constitution to give more power to the provinces, in some of his first policy pronouncements since winning last week's election based on an unofficial count.

In his first formal news conference since the May 9 vote, Duterte also said he will launch a major military offensive to destroy Abu Sayyaf extremists on southern Jolo Island, even if their human rights are trampled in the process.

The announcements, a sharp departure from current government policy, reflect his brash campaign pledge to end crime and corruption in the impoverished nation in three to six months. Police officials have said the plan is undoable, and that crime remains prevalent in Davao city, where Duterte has served as mayor for more than 22 years.

The military have been fighting a decades-long Marxist insurgency in the countryside.

Duterte said he would likely offer the Cabinet posts of environment and natural resources, agrarian reform, social welfare, and labor to the communist rebels.

"They are the most vigilant group in the Philippines about labor so they would get it," Duterte said.

The move would likely be strongly opposed by big business and industry.

Duterte said he would ask Congress to reimpose the death penalty, which has been suspended since 2006 in the face of staunch opposition from the dominant Roman Catholic church. Capital punishment by hanging, he said, should be imposed for heinous crimes, and criminals convicted of killing along with robbery and rape should be meted "double the hanging."

"After the first hanging, there will be another ceremony for the second time until the head is completely severed from the body," he said in the nationally televised news conference.

In a populist move, Duterte said he would sell the presidential yacht and use the money to buy medical equipment for military and police personnel.

"When people are hungry and jobless ...it would be an obscene thing" to have the luxury vessel lying unused, he said.

Duterte also vowed to roll out Davao law-and-order measures on a nationwide basis, including a 2:00 am curfew on drinking in public places and a ban on children walking on the streets alone late at night. Smoking in restaurants and hotels will also be banned.

Duterte said a central part of his war on crime would be to bring back the death penalty, which was abolished in 2006 under then-president Gloria Arroyo.




Addressing youth unemployment agenda

Nils Muiznieks :

If recent data indicate some progress, a closer look suggests that action is still an urgent necessity.

Although the unemployment rate among active youth in the age group 15 to 24 years old has decreased in the EU from 23.3% to 20.4% between 2012 and 2015, the current average youth unemployment rate in the EU remains 5% higher than that of the first quarter of 2008, before the onset of the crisis. However, in some EU countries youth unemployment rates in the last trimester of 2015 actually exceeded those of 2012. Moreover, in certain of the countries where the youth unemployment rate went down, the reason may be linked to rising numbers of young people leaving to seek employment abroad. Huge regional differences also persist, ranging from a 3.4% youth unemployment rate in Oberbayern in Germany to 79.2 % in Ceuta in Spain.

In addition, if we look at the youth unemployment ratio, i.e. the share of unemployed youth for the total population of that age group, which includes students - we see no substantial decrease since 2012. In some countries this ratio has even increased, with peaks as high as 50% over the average youth unemployment ratio of the EU-28. A recent ILO study also shows that in the EU-28 more than one third of unemployed youth has been looking for work for longer than one year in 2014, which is an increase compared to 2012.

Worse, young people aged 18 to 24 are those most at risk of poverty and social exclusion in the EU, according to Eurostat. In 2013, more than 30?% of them were affected by at least one of the three forms of poverty used as indicators, i.e. monetary poverty, material deprivation or low work intensity.

To compound this already grim picture, when young people do find employment, they often work in more precarious and less protected jobs, often receiving unfair wages, as noted by the European Committee on Social Rights in its 2015 activity report.

The combination of youth unemployment, especially over a long term, and reduced socio-economic protection has negative personal, societal and fiscal consequences, which may be exploited by populist movements and undermine social cohesion and stability. It is therefore urgent to find more effective measures to improve the situation. One way forward is for governments and parliaments to use human rights standards as a tool to design, implement and monitor youth policies.

A key instrument is the European Social Charter, a binding Council of Europe treaty which contains specific provisions concerning the protection of young people's social, legal and economic rights. To create uniform socio-economic protection across Europe, all Council of Europe member States should ratify the Charter's provisions. To date, all but Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Switzerland have ratified the Social Charter as revised in 1996, with only France and Portugal having ratified all its provisions.

All States should also ratify the Charter's collective complaint mechanism, which allows trade unions, employers' organisations and international NGOs to challenge the compliance of State laws and practice with the Charter's provisions. So far, only 15 of the 47 member States of the Council of Europe have ratified it, and only Finland has recognised the right of national NGOs to lodge collective complaints.

The EU should promote the ratification of this procedure among its member States and, more generally, take into account the Charter and the Committee's case-law, so as to help establish a more coherent legal space for the enforcement of social rights.

Moreover, governments should implement more readily the decisions of the Charter's Committee and build on its case-law to design youth policies, while parliaments should make sure that legislation complies with the Charter's case-law.

European countries should also make good use of specific standards they have established and agreed to, such as the recommendations of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, which tackle a variety of issues relating to youth, including young people's access to social rights, youth participation and non-formal education.

Ombudspersons, equality bodies and human rights institutions should also pay closer attention to youth rights. A good example in this sense is provided by the Ombudsman of Spain who has often dealt with youth-related human rights issues, for example in the housing field.

There is also the need to step up efforts to empower young people to assert their rights. The Council of Europe has launched many initiatives with the active participation of youth organisations, in particular as regards human rights training and awareness raising and combating hate speech. Member States have to sustain these valuable initiatives and engage more actively in other youth-related initiatives.

The YO!Fest and the European Youth Event taking place on 20-21 May 2016 in Strasbourg provide a useful occasion not only for members of the European Parliament, but for all European and national decision-makers to take into due account youth needs and concerns that the European Youth Forum will convey through its network of over 100 national youth councils and international youth NGOs.

Addressing youth unemployment and its correlated human rights issues is no easy task, but nor is it impossible. We know where the problems lie and what tools we can use to address them.

We must now act more effectively and make youth policies based on human rights a top priority in the national and international agenda. Otherwise, we risk needlessly prolonging the suffering of many young people, harming their future prospects and undermining the European ideal among a whole generation.

(Nils Muiznieks is the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights).


French women deserve fair treatment without prejudice

SEVENTEEN women who have served as Ministers in France say they will no longer be silent about sexual harassment in politics. All 17 signatories to a declaration are present or former Ministers. Among them is Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund and France's former Finance Minister. On Monday, the Deputy Speaker of the French National Assembly, Denis Baupin, resigned over allegation of sexual harassment which he denies, media report said.

In the declaration, the women politicians call for a toughening of the law against sexual harassment on women while demanding setting up a specialist desks in police stations to deal with such complaints. Examples of some of the sexual harassment suffered by the women are also given in their complaint. It explains that Fleur Pellerin, who was culture minister in Francois Hollande's Socialist government from 2014 until February this year, rarely suffered harassment until she was appointed to office. But after her first appointment in the government, she evaded direct answer to a journalist's question whether she was given the job because she was a beautiful woman. She however said "They feel entitled to have a laugh and to make unwelcome gesture such a patting a women on  . Another former woman minister said some women are not offended but others are very offended and are now speaking out.

The Deputy Speaker of the French National Assembly reportedly groped one female Green Party member and sent explicit messages to others, alleges a former Green Party colleagues in interviews with local media.

Sexual harassment is something not only endemic in France; it has grasped the entire world in its vile clutches. From the USA to the Philippines, it is at work in many forms in political establishments and at other high society. In our country single young women in vulnerable situation often face it but there is no such allegation so far from our political establishment and our socio-cultural background is not also permissive about it.

We must say when French feminist leader like Christine Lagarde has made the issue public with others holding similar high position in French political system, it really speaks out the terrible condition in which women rights and liberty are violated in a country which claims to be the citadel of human liberty in modern time. There is no doubt that ordinary women are treated even worse in the French society if powerful women like Lagarde feels she was not treated fairly by her male colleague.

In our view their complaint must be fairly investigated following the resignation of the Deputy Speaker of the French National Assembly on charge of sexual harassment. French women must be equally treated without prejudice.
Mother, daughter among 3 killed in road crashes

Two women were killed as tanker hit a passenger bus at No-2 Rail Crossing gate in Panchlaish area on Monday.

Staff Reporter :At least three persons, including a police official, were killed in road accidents in the city's Sayedabad and Khilkhet areas on Monday. The victims have been identified as Mahinur Begum, 23 and her daughter Shahnaz, 5 and Md Saiful Islam, Sub-Inspector (SI) of Police. Mozammel Haque, In-charge of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) Police Outpost, said "Mahinur and her daughter Shanaz received severe injuries when a covered van hit them on a rickshaw in Sayedabad's Janapath area around 2:00am. They were rushed to the DMCH, where the on-duty doctors declared them dead."The bodies were handed over to the deceased's family members, the police official said. Meanwhile, Sub-Inspector Md Saiful Islam received injuries when a bus hit motorcycle in the Gulshan's Kuril area. He was declared dead in the city's United Hospital around 11:00am," said Gulshan Police Station SI Alamgir Kabir.
UN says turning migrants away 'won't work'

The UN high commissioner for refugees says the migrants crisis is now a global phenomenon and that simply turning them away "won't work".Filippo Grandi told the BBC that more nations had to help the "few countries" shouldering the burden, by increasing both funding and resettlement.He said that, last year, fewer than 1% of 20 million refugees had been resettled in another nation.More are fleeing conflict and hardship than at any other time in history.Mr Grandi was speaking to the BBC during a day of special live coverage examining how an age of unprecedented mobility is shaping our world.Later, the UN refugee agency's special envoy, Angelina Jolie-Pitt, will deliver a keynote speech, in which she will warn about the "fear of uncontrolled migration" and how it has "given space, and a false air of legitimacy, to those who promote a politics of fear and separation".A range of speakers, including the UNHCR's special envoy Angelina Jolie-Pitt, and former British secret intelligence chief Sir Richard Dearlove, will set out the most important new ideas shaping our thinking on economic development, security and humanitarian assistance.'Difficult discussion'Mr Grandi, who took up the UN post in January this year, said the fact that Syrians were arriving in East Asia and in Caribbean as refugees showed "how global the phenomenon has become and therefore we have to have global responses".He said the burden of caring for refugees had so far fallen "on a few countries that host hundreds of thousands of refugees, usually those near wars, near conflicts and a few donors that alone, seven or eight of them, give 80%-90%, of the funding"."This has to spread more, has to be shared more, otherwise the imbalances will cause knee-jerk reactions, closures, rejections and in the end we will fail in our responsibility to help refugees."He said that resettlement was "a direction in which we need to move more boldly", given that fewer than 200,000 of 20 million refugees, excluding internally displaced, had been taken in by another country."There is an awareness that global displacement, having reached 60 million people, plus all that move for other reasons, economic migrants and so forth, that requires a different kind of investment and therefore it involves everybody," Mr Grandi said.He admitted a solution would require "a very long and difficult discussion" but added: "There can't simply be a reaction whereby states shut down borders and push people away simply because it won't work."Save the Children is calling for greater international commitment to ensure child refugees remain in school. The charity's new report, A New Deal for Refugees, says only one in four refugee children is now enrolled in secondary school.It is calling on governments and aid agencies to adopt a new policy framework that will ensure no refugee child remains out of school for more than a month. It is an ambitious target but there is growing concern that this migration crisis is producing a lost generation of children which means conditions for even greater insecurity and poverty. On Monday, Angelina Jolie-Pitt will call for stronger multilateral action to respond to this migration, which she describes as the challenge of our century. She will say there is now a "risk of a race to the bottom, with countries competing to be the toughest... despite their international responsibilities".The number of people seeking asylum in the European Union in 2015 reached 1,255,600 - more than double that of the previous year.Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans topped the list of applicants, with more than a third going to Germany, Eurostat says.There has been a sharp decrease in the flow this year, after the main crossing point at the Greece-Macedonia border was closed and a number of European countries blocked the route north with fences.The signing of an EU-Turkey deal has also cut the number of migrants. Under the agreement, migrants who have arrived illegally in Greece since 20 March are 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 is to take in another Syrian who has made a legitimate request.
BNP leaders meet Todd at Bernicat's residence

A group of BNP leaders on Monday held a meeting with US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs William E. Todd at the residence of its Ambassador Marcia Bernicat. The BNP delegation, led by its standing committee member Abdul Moyeen Khan, attended the meeting that began at around 7:45am and ended around 9.55am, said a BNP leader present at the meeting wishing anonymity.The BNP leader, however, declined to disclose what they discussed at the meeting. The other BNP delegation members are: party standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan, BNP chairperson advisers Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, Reaz Rahman, Enam Ahmed Chowdhury and Sabihuddin Ahmed.Talking to reporters after the meeting, Moyeen Khan said, "It was a courtesy call. The US Ambassador invited us here and we took breakfast together." Asked whether they talked about Aslam Chowdhury's arrest, the BNP leader parried the question hurriedly getting into his vehicle. From the US envoy's residence, the six BNP leaders went to BNP chairperson's Gulshan office.Earlier on Sunday, plainclothes police arrested BNP joint secretary general Aslam Chowdhury from the capital city as he allegedly held a meeting with Israeli influential leader Mendi N Safadi in India recently to hatch a conspiracy to oust the government. But, Aslam denied any conspiracy against the government although he admitted to meeting Safadi in a tea party in India.
Govt using murder incidents for pol gains: Khaleda

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia on Monday alleged the government is blaming her party for the country's recent barbaric and heinous killings in an effort to make political gains.

In a statement, she said, "From the very beginning, the ruling party has been trying to involve the opposition in all the savage killings out of its wild vengeance. It seems their main target is to use the murder incidents for political purpose instead of destroying the dens of perpetrators and arrest them. That's why BNP is blamed immediately after any incident."

The BNP chief also alleged that the government's such attitude and irresponsible comments are encouraging extremists to carry out their destructive activities in full swing. The statement was issued denouncing the killing of a Buddhist monk in Bandarban.

On Saturday, Buddhist monk Mong Sui U Chak, 75, found dead with his throat slashed inside a pagoda at Chakpara in Naikhongchari upazila.

Khaleda said the government's bid to stay in office by force, its irresponsible statements, stubbornness and inaction against miscreants belong to Awami League have contributed to the rise in criminal activities in the country.

She also said ministers' contradictory statements over the existence of militancy in the country have also raised a big question in public mind about the government's role and action against extremism.

The BNP chief demanded the government immediately arrest the killers of the Buddhist monk and mete out exemplary punishment to them.

She prayed for the eternal peace of the slain monk's departed soul and conveyed her deep sympathy to the bereaved family members.


Schoolgirl killed 'after rape'

UNB, Gazipur :A schoolgirl was strangulated to death allegedly after rape at Dakkhin Khan in Joydebpur upazila on Sunday night.Khandaker Rezaul Hasan Reza, officer-in-charge of Joydebpur Police Station, said the eight-year-old girl, also a class II student of Hyderbad Government Primary School, was found dead in a septic tank near her house around 11 pm. The girl remained missing since Sunday noon. After a hectic search, family members recovered her body from the septic tank. On information, police recovered the body with her hands and legs tied up and sent it to Shaheed Tajuddin Medical College Hospital Morgue for autopsy.Victim's father said he had an enmity with his elder brother Kalam Mia, a Saudi expatriate over a land and both the families often locked into altercation over the issue. Rahmat Ullah Mona, son of Kamal Mia, took the girl to their house where he raped her and then strangled her to death, he alleged. However, police arrested Mona's mother Fazilat Begum alias Fatema, 40 and his sister Nasima Akhter, 25 in this connection. Police could not arrest Mona as he went into hiding, said OC. A case was filed in this connection in the night.
Hasina's home-coming day today

BSS, Dhaka :

Today is the 35th homecoming day of Awami League President and now Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

On May 17,1981, she returned to Dhaka after a long exile. "I have come to stay beside the people of Bangladesh and taken part in the struggle for freedom. I have not come to be the leader of Awami League. I want to stay beside you as your sister, as your daughter, and as a worker of Awami League, who believes in the ideals of Bangabandhu." These were

the first public remarks of Sheikh Hasina on her return.

A nor'wester had hit the city and there was incessant rainfall on the day, yet over a million people had gathered outside the Kurmitola Airport in Dhaka to receive her. They had come from every corner of the country and the whole thoroughfare from the Farm Gate point to Kurmitola in the city was full of jubilant crowd.

Earlier on February 14, 15 and 16 in 1981, Awami League in its council meeting had elected Sheikh Hasina as the president of the party. After a long hovering over the airport, an aircraft of Indian Airlines carrying Sheikh Hasina from Delhi via Kolkata, touched the runway at 4:30 pm. She was overwhelmed by emotion, she kissed the soil of the motherland immediately after alighting from the aircraft. Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, along with his family members was brutally killed on August 15, 1975.
Medical Assistant Training School students and professional diploma doctors observe token hunger strike in front of the Jatiya Press Club demanding implementation of five points on Monday.
Veteran Journo Sadeque Khan no more

Staff Reporter :Veteran journalist Sadeque Khan is no more. He was 83 and suffering from cold over the last few days but did not withdraw from writing and other work. Sadeque Khan was the eldest son of Abdul Jabbar Khan, Speaker of the Pakistan National Assembly in 1960s. His brother, Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon, said he was found dead in his Baridhara residence in the city on Monday morning. Sadeque Khan's car driver Nazrul Islam said the veteran journalist went for a shower at around 11 am. As he was not coming out and not responding to calls for long, the door of the washroom was broken open at around 12 noon. He was found dead lying on the floor, he said. The driver said Rashed Khan Menon rushed to the house on receiving the information and sent Sadeque Khan's body to United Hospital. The 83-year-old journalist is survived by his wife, and a son. Sadeque Khan embarked on a career in journalism in the 1950s. Over time, he wrote columns for different newspapers, both Bengali and English including the Weekly Holiday till to his death without break. He started his career as a film maker. 'Nadi O Nari' a film he starred in, was released in the early 1960s. He also produced a film 'Raja Elo Sohorey' and another film named 'Duur a hai sukh ka gaon' was produced by him but could not be released for some other reasons. An adherent of the political ideology of Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, Sadeque Khan announced the establishment of a political party named Bangladesh Ganashakti Dal in 2012. He was actively involved in Communist movement in his early days and eventually became the General Secretary of East Pakistan Communist Party. But he resigned at one point due to ill health. Sadeque Khan was a highly acclaimed art critic. He was a political analyst and TV talk show participants. He would write lead column in the Holiday every week, the oldest national weekly his brother AZM Enayetullah Khan has founded. Sadeque Khan also founded Global Bangla Foundation to carry research on contemporary politics and culture and make documentation of events at national level. He had also set up a firm 'Lubdhak' in his earlier days and produced many documentaries of socio-cultural interest. Sadeque Khan was also a recipient of Ekushey Padak for his valiant role in Language Movement. Barrister Mainul Hosein has condoled the death of veteran journalist Sadeque Khan. He visited his house where family members were present and expressed his profound grief to the family on his demise. BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and leaders M Shamsul Islam and Tariqul Islam expressed condolence at his death. Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu, Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus, expressed condolences over the death of Sadeque Khan in separate messages. Sadeque Khan was Chairman of Gonoshashtya Kendra Trust. Gonobishwabiddalaya held a condolence meeting at its Savar campus over the death. He was the eldest among six children of Abdul Jabbar Khan, whose family hailed from Babuganj, Barisal. His brother Abu Zafar Muhammad Obaidullah Khan was a secretary to the government. Prominent as poet Abu Zafar Obaidullah, he later served as agriculture minister of HM Ershad government. Another brother Enayetullah Khan was the founder of weekly Holiday and English daily New Age. In the late 1970s, Enayetullah Khan served in the government of General Ziaur Rahman. Under the Ershad regime, Enayetullah Khan was Bangladesh's ambassador to China and Myanmar. Sadeque Khan's sister Selima Rahman is a BNP vice-chairman and was a state minister in Khaleda Zia's government. His brother Rashed Khan Menon, president of the Workers Party, is currently minister for civil aviation and tourism. Another brother, Shahidullah Khan Badal, once a contractor, is a director of Dhaka Bank and is on the board of directors of the newspaper New Age.Now-defunct Daily Azad chief reporter Sheikh Rakib Uddin told said, "Sadeque Khan had a chequered career. He proved his talent not only in journalism, but also in different areas of the film industry."Secretary General of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists' pro-BNP faction M Abdullah, Dhaka Union of Journalists President Abdul Hye Sikder and General Secretary Jahangir Alam Prodhan, National Press Club President Muhammad Shafiqur Rahman and General Secretary Kamrul Islam Chowdhury also condoled Sadeque Khan's death. In a condolence message, they prayed for salvation of the departed soul and conveyed their sympathy to the bereaved family membersFamily members recovered his body breaking the washroom's door open as he was lying senseless. He was taken to United Hospital where doctors declared him dead. His body will be brought to the Jatiya Press Club at 10am on Tuesday so that all can pay their last respects to him. His second namaz-e-zanaza will be held at Gulshan Azad Mosque after Asar prayer and to be buried at Banani graveyard at the grave side of his father Abdul Jabbar Khan.
World is concerned about our crisis, we are not



An old Buddhist monk is the latest victim of targeted killing who used to live in a Buddhist temple in Naikhyangchhari Upazila of Bandarban of Chittagong Hill Tracts district.

Bangladesh is facing a killing spree. Everyday for flimsiest of reasons or no reason murders take place. The people have nowhere to go for assurance of their safety. The police is kept busy for protecting VIPs, even their relations in some cases. Various countries including the United Nations have been expressing anxiety about safety and security situation in the country. During his daily press briefing on Friday Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General said, "The Secretary General, various human rights parts of the organization have expressed their concern at the targeted violence we've seen in Bangladesh against reporters and bloggers." Nevertheless the grim situation in the country is getting worse. The government is seen as ineffective or do not feel concerned. It can only think of police power. They do not care to know the public resentment for government's divisive and politicising policies.

The New York Times in its May 8 editorial described the situation in Bangladesh, as 'descent into lawlessness.' We, on our part, have been warning the government about the danger looking behind the killings.

The narrative of The New York Times appears highly conjunctive with the worsening of the law and order situation where at least five bloggers were killed last year and in just nine days last month five more were hacked to death as New York Times said.

The government is apparently having no power to stop the killings with a fragile hold on the administration. But it blames the opposition BNP-Jamaat for every such killing as conspiracy against it.

The killing of an Ansar battalion commander at Teknaf in Cox's Bazar on Friday and looting of 11 rifles and several hundred bullets from the forces camp is an example of desperation for weapons.

Blaming politically opponents cannot be the answer to this life and death crisis. Killers are criminals and the government must try them and prove who belong to which party. The government has to show success in saving lives and not just punishing the right or wrong persons. The Chairman of the HRC, Bangladesh has expressed doubts if the real criminals are apprehended through proper investigation.

In another incident Yaba lords had beaten six journalists in the same Teknaf area on the same day as they were working to track the source of drug trafficking in the region. Bangladesh is now a place where protection of common people and safety of their life and property is at high stake.

The New York Times editorial indeed highlighted the situation. It has said since 2009 when Sheikh Hasina and her party won elections she set up the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal in 2010 to prosecute war criminals and used it as a political tool targeting Jamaat-e-Islami leaders.

The government pursued the prosecution with so much enthusiasm that international perception about the motive went against the government. The government did not care. It was the previous Awami League government that allowed main criminals of genocide the Pakistan occupation army to go unpunished in 1974.

The New York Times said 'government actions are fuelling extremism provoking violent counter-response. It is benefitting violent party wings and extremists groups alike.'

Meanwhile The Economist of London has published a critical story on Bangladesh in its current issue. It said Sheikh Hasina's government is turning the country into one-party dictatorship. Economist said Bangladesh is recently attracting world headlines for ugly reasons.

'The religiously motivated murders - of more than two dozen secular bloggers, liberals and others since 2013 and then the execution of Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the country's largest Islamist party for war crimes charges show 'Bangladesh's remorseless descent into authoritarian rule. All three phenomena are symptoms of the same disease: a political culture that cannot brook dissent and which views power as a means to crush it.'

It said Bangladesh used to have a kind of rotating one-party system between Awami League and BNP. Sheikh Hasina is trying to keep her party without the rotation. Her supporters now look at Malaysia as a model in which the one party rule apparently immovable from power.

The Economist warned so far as to allege that the courts, civil service, army and police are all thoroughly politicized.

We are surprised why the government is incapable of reviewing the policy being pursued that proved totally unhelpful for restraining the dangerous crimes. Corruption is the main reason for staying in power of the government as organised by the bureaucrats. So the crisis is deep and complicated for the police alone to resolve.

It is so sad and disappointing that while the world outside is concerned to find the Bangladesh descending in chaos, our government is playing blame game. The authorities seem to be sure that they can remain in power without governing. The bureaucratic primacy of the government has made it so indifferent about the concern of the general public.


Members of the Community Working Group, a planning team of civic reps appointed by DOTD, discuss the I-49 Connector at the Vermilion Conference Center on Gauthier Road in February. Photo by Robin May

Since the nearly 30-year-old I-49 Connector project came back online early last fall, Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development officials have avoided some community-requested changes to the interstates design as potential project killers. Following early public backlash, DOTD allowed its contracted design team to field more conceptual flexibility in its public design meetings, putting 14 design refinements on the table with features once feared to be dangerously deviant from the design prescriptions enshrined in the 2003 Record of Decision.

Toby Picard Photo by Robin May

Members of the Community Working Group, a planning team made up of civic representatives appointed by DOTD, requested that DOTD and its team study a boulevard as a refinement concept instead of yet more interstate-grade options. DOTD clammed up. In a letter to CWG members, DOTD Connector Project Manager Toby Picard required that all further design concepts include a mainline interstate facility that follows the alignment selected in the ROD. Anything else would risk the ROD and set the project back decades. The retreat to the ROD was intended to protect the integrity of the project by bracketing out concepts DOTD representatives say could kill the project, but the fundamentalist approach presents an existential threat to the project in its own right.

By positioning further planning in a ROD or bust framework, DOTD unnecessarily alienates some community-generated ideas as deal breakers, making more enemies of the project where there perhaps otherwise wouldnt be. Conceivably, whether the ROD permits any change is up to the Federal Highway Administration. But beyond reported informal discussions with FHWA about non-interstate options, DOTD has refused to approach the federal agency about non-interstate options or alignment changes in any official capacity.

As described in the Record Of Decision, the I-49 Lafayette Connector is a limited access freeway, DOTD spokesperson Deidra Druilhet said in a statement to ABiz. As such, DOTD has not and cannot discuss non-interstate options with FHWA, as they violate the purpose, need and intent of the project.

Shawn Wilson Photo by Robin May

The purpose and need of the project as outlined by the ROD is to accommodate heavier traffic in the coming decades, improve safety in the corridor and provide better hurricane evacuation, among other commitments. While the ROD does stipulate a freeway grade facility, it stands to reason that any concept that accomplishes those transportation goals shouldnt be ruled out, especially if it comes with community support and demonstrable benefit.

According to some national transportation experts, the federal transportation authorities that enforce DOTDs commitment to the ROD are inclined to take a liberal view of what a ROD would allow. DOTD representatives argue that they have no choice but to stick to the script, but thats not exactly true.

According to Eric Sundquist, managing director of infrastructure think-tank State Smart Transportation Initiative, DOTD has little reason to hide behind the ROD beyond preventing a study reboot, itself not a project killer.

All the options are there for them, says Sundquist. There are RODs that have been sitting around for decades. Things change. I dont think the ROD is a major impediment to doing the right thing.

Federal regulations require a ROD to be re-evaluated if the action approved is not taken within three years of the projects approval. DOTD is currently in that re-evaluation process as part of an 18-month, $21 million public collaborative planning process. Regardless of what DOTD designs, the FHWA will determine if social, economic, transportation and ecological conditions  what transportation professionals call the environmental impact  are sufficiently met by the potentially expired document. Should circumstances be different enough, the FHWA could require that DOTD amend or even re-start the environmental impact studies anyway, a circumstance that DOTD seems hell-bent on avoiding.

We have not been shy that our intent is not to reconsider or re-evaluate decisions made in the past, DOTD Secretary Shawn Wilson wrote in an opinion piece published in The Daily Advertiser. We are focused on advancing the project within the scope of the decisions that have been made.

Among those decisions and promises made, according to DOTD, is that the project produce a freeway. But as noted, those documents were finalized over a decade ago after yet another decade of studies, stops and starts. In any case, DOTD has consistently walked back previous stonewalling behind the ROD.

At a town hall meeting held by Connector opposition group Y-49? last December, Wilson  then the transportation agencys chief spokesperson, as he had not yet been appointed secretary by Gov. John Bel Edwards  repeatedly told a seething crowd of skeptics that DOTDs hands were bound by the will of the FHWA.

Ill tell you from a real practical standpoint, weve done this over and over in different places. And so do we have an idea that the feds are gonna tell us no if you say youre going to get rid of this, that and the other interchange? Wilson told ABiz at the time. Yeah, we know theyre going to say, No. Who are you kidding? Here we are in May 2016 and DOTD has allowed 14 refinement concepts on the table, many of which remove interchanges.

Of course thats a decidedly different move than say dramatically altering the alignment or changing the grade. But the point is that DOTD has more discretion on the issue than it lets on, especially considering federal transportation authorities up to Secretary Anthony Foxx himself are trying to reverse course in urban highway design. The Connectors environmental studies predate the advent of Context Sensitive Solutions, a new planning approach that is being used on this project to ensure the interstate will enhance, rather than harm, the surrounding area. The ROD is thus a relic of a time when interstate building was an end in itself rather than a means to civic repair.

Credit should be given to the Connector team for the progress that has been made until this point, reluctant as it seems to have been. Many of the 14 options on the table are dramatic improvements to the preliminary working designs produced a decade ago, and they address many of the connectivity and contextual issues that have been raised by the community at large. It may be impractical for DOTD to allow a full study of a new alignment, but limiting design options to interstates and ideas that havent been tested is unnecessarily rigid. That rigidity forces Connector skeptics into taking their issues outside the design process.

Rallying around the ROD dissuades community buy-in and attracts aggressive and political action against the Connector. Proactive and angry opposition is a far more dangerous threat to the livelihood of the project than a flexible interpretation of the ROD.
While the House steered more dollars to Louisiana's safety net hospitals, health care services remain short of the financing needed in next year's budget to keep from shuttering services and threatening medical training.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP)  While the House steered more dollars to Louisiana's safety net hospitals, health care services remain short of the financing needed in next year's budget to keep from shuttering services and threatening medical training, state senators were told Sunday.

The Senate Finance Committee was digging into the health care details of a nearly $26 billion budget proposal passed by their House colleagues a few days earlier for the financial year that begins July 1.

Louisiana's health secretary said programs for people who are elderly and disabled would close. Leaders of the LSU medical schools in New Orleans and Shreveport said they're training programs face damaging reductions. And operators of the safety net health hospitals that care for the poor and uninsured disagreed with assertions that they are fully funded.

Lawmakers are grappling with a $600 million shortfall for next year. Although Gov. John Bel Edwards wants to hold a special session on taxes in June, the Legislature is expected to pass a budget proposal before that session begins.

HEALTH DEPARTMENT

Health and Hospitals Secretary Rebekah Gee said "critical services, life-saving services" aren't funded in the budget proposal. She said four Medicaid programs that help the elderly and people with developmental disabilities stay at home and out of more costly institutions like nursing homes would be eliminated.

The health department is limited in which Medicaid programs are discretionary under federal regulations and can be cut. In addition, the House budget prohibits cuts to rural hospitals and other health care programs, further restricting flexibility.

But if the department eliminates the programs for people who are elderly or disabled, "we run the risk of ending up in front of a federal judge," said Jeff Reynolds, chief financial officer of the health department.

Gee also said her agency would have to cut restaurant inspections by half, along with other public health programs.

MEDICAL SCHOOLS

Leaders of the LSU medical schools in New Orleans and Shreveport said they're slated to take a combined $50 million cut that could shutter programs and damage training programs. Larry Hollier, chancellor of the LSU Health Sciences Center-New Orleans, said he'd have to "start taking out programs" like dental hygiene and undergraduate nursing.

Plus, the medical school officials said they face further hits if the safety net hospitals and clinics where they train students take reductions and scale back patient care. But the Edwards administration and the safety net hospitals disagree over the financing needed to keep the facilities on track.

Hospital representatives said they're about $150 million short to continue all services. Gee said the House-approved budget covers hospital costs, calling the financing "reasonable."

"I'm scratching my head as to why we've spent so much time on that particular issue," she said.

SAFETY NET HOSPITALS

At issue is the estimate of hospital savings from the planned expansion of Louisiana's Medicaid program and its enhanced federal financing rates. The hospitals say the savings estimate used by the administration is too high.

Tyron Picard, a lobbyist representing the hospitals, said the contracts that privatized the safety net care once provided by LSU has "zero profit built in." Hospital leaders said they may have to ration care or rethink their deals with the state if they don't get more than the $1.1 billion in financing proposed.

Finance Committee Chairman Eric LaFleur called it "absolutely ridiculous" to suggest the hospitals don't make money off their contracts with the state.

"I don't think anybody on this committee believes any of the testimony coming out of your mouths in that regard," said LaFleur, D-Ville Platte. "There's an economic benefit from it  come on."

QUESTIONABLE FINANCING

The budget hearing began with questions about $100 million the House proposed to cut across agencies by taking a more than 3 percent slice of the department's fees for services and other dedicated sources of revenue to instead help shore up the TOPS college tuition program.

Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, worried those cuts would too heavily hit the agriculture department, transportation projects, the state police and the legislative auditor. Senators also raised concerns the money wouldn't meet the legal criteria for spending on ongoing programs.
Edwards' anti-discrimination order is similar to orders enacted by two former Louisiana Democratic governors  but he added language protecting against discrimination based on "gender identity," a provision that protects transgender people.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP)  More than 30 state lawmakers Friday asked Louisiana's attorney general for an opinion on whether an April anti-discrimination order issued by Gov. John Bel Edwards is constitutional.

Edwards' order bans discrimination in state government based on sexual orientation and gender identity. State contracts will be required to include a similar provision, except those contractors that are religious organizations.

Thirty-two Republican House members sent a letter to GOP Attorney General Jeff Landry asking for the legal opinion, saying the Democratic governor's order "raises troubling legal and practical questions."

Edwards and Landry have clashed over several issues since both took office in January. An attorney general's opinion does not carry the force of law. But it could be used to lay the groundwork for a lawsuit.

In the opinion request, the GOP lawmakers cited an Obama administration directive issued Friday telling public schools they must permit transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity. The lawmakers also asked Landry whether Louisiana's school districts must comply with the directive.

But most of the dozen questions posed to Landry deal with Edwards' order issued last month, seeking to tie it to the Obama administration directive.

"We are already receiving calls and emails from many school officials, parents, business owners and other constituents who are deeply concerned about the implications and effects of these unprecedented orders," Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Bossier City, the lawmaker who spearheaded the letter and an attorney running for Congress, said in a statement.

Edwards' anti-discrimination order is similar to orders enacted by two former Louisiana Democratic governors  but he added language protecting against discrimination based on "gender identity," a provision that protects transgender people.

At the time he issued it, the governor said he was respecting religious beliefs but also signaling "Louisiana is a state that is respective and inclusive of everyone around us."

Edwards spokesman Richard Carbo released a draft of the opinion request that had been circulated among lawmakers  and obtained by the governor's office  that indicated Johnson had spoken to Landry about the letter before sending it.

In a statement, Carbo said since it was "clear that the Attorney General and Rep. Johnson discussed the contents of the letter and the opinion prior to issuing the request, we fully expect it to reinforce the views expressed in the letter."

Landry's office wouldn't comment on the pending request.
Pre-purchase property inspection is a relatively new thing in the United Kingdom. Its not something that most people have heard about, but it has become increasingly popular over the last few years with the rise in property prices and increased demand for high quality homes.

What are the benefits of pre-purchase building inspection? What can you expect to find out when you pay someone else to inspect your home before you buy it? And what should you look for during an inspection?

Many people want to know if theyre buying a house thats been well maintained or if its had any serious problems. If youve found a place on the market that seems attractive, but then discover some issues after moving in, you may not be as excited about buying it as you thought you were.

Its important to do your due diligence when looking at properties. A lot goes into making a property appealing to potential buyers, from the landscaping to the flooring to the kitchen appliances. The same applies when inspecting a property  there are many things that need checking over to make sure everything is running smoothly.

Here are some of the benefits of performing a pre-purchase inspection:

You get to see exactly what will happen to your money

When you go shopping for a new car, youll probably be shown several different models. You might even be shown one that looks like a great value, but doesnt fit around all of the extra features that you want. When it comes time to actually buy the vehicle, however, you wont have seen how your money will be spent on it once you drive it off the showroom floor.

Likewise, when you shop for a new home, you dont really know what youre getting yourself into until you move in. In order to get a feel for whether the home youre considering is what you want, you normally have to spend quite a bit of time inside it. This allows you to learn more about everything that youre going to be spending your hard-earned cash on.

A pre-purchase building inspection gives you much the same kind of experience without having to spend thousands of dollars. Since youre paying for the service, you can expect to see exactly what youre paying for, instead of just seeing a vague idea of what you might end up with.

You find out about potential major repairs

Some buildings are very expensive to maintain, which means that owners often neglect them for the sake of saving money. While youre paying for a building inspection, youre also paying for a professional who knows how to spot signs of trouble and repair work that needs doing.

If you notice that a particular area of your new home needs fixing right away, you can call in an expert to take care of it quickly. If you find that theres something wrong with your boiler, you wont have to wait weeks for a plumber to come over and fix it. Instead, youll have access to a solution immediately.

You can save hundreds of pounds by finding out about potential problems early on

One of the biggest expenses when you first buy a home is the cost of moving in. Many people dont realize this until its too late. Buying a home involves not only paying for the actual house, but also for moving costs, furniture, and other items that have to be moved along with the home.

Having a good idea ahead of time of what youre likely to encounter can help you avoid these kinds of costs. If you know youll need to replace the plumbing system, for example, youll be able to put together a budget for the expense and plan accordingly.

You can protect your investment by finding out if the homes been well cared for

While there are plenty of people who think that houses always look better when theyre newly built, youd be surprised at how well maintained older residences can still look nice. Sometimes, though, those homes need some additional maintenance to keep them looking their best.

This could involve repairs that arent so noticeable or small improvements that you wouldnt consider otherwise. Even worse, some houses have fallen into disrepair without anyone noticing. This is why having a professional perform a building inspection prior to purchasing a home is such a big benefit.

Not only will it give you insight into the state of the property, but it will also give you peace of mind knowing youre not getting taken advantage of. As long as youre aware of the potential pitfalls, youll have less reason to worry about the state of your new home.

You can use information gathered during a building inspection to negotiate a lower price

If youre worried about buying a home because you suspect that it may need extensive renovation work, you may already have a rough idea of how much work youll need to do to bring it up to scratch. That knowledge can come in handy if you decide to buy the home.

You can use all of the details that you gather during a building inspection to present a realistic picture of what the home is worth to prospective buyers. If a potential buyer thinks that the home is worth more than what you paid for it, you can try negotiating a lower price.

You can sell your home faster and for more money

If you decide to list your home on the market soon after buying it, youll need to price it accurately in order to attract buyers. But if youve already done a thorough building inspection, youll know exactly what work is needed and what the current market conditions are.

In other words, youll be able to make a more accurate estimate of the amount of money youve invested in the home and how much its worth. If you find that youre selling your house for close to its full market value, you can use this information to convince the potential buyer that your home is worth the asking price.

Even if youre planning to stay in the home for a while before you decide to sell, the fact that you did a thorough building inspection will give you more confidence when listing it. Prospective buyers will know exactly what theyre paying for.

Your home will hold its value longer

As mentioned earlier, the value of a home depends heavily upon the condition of the building itself. If your home is in bad shape, potential buyers wont be interested in buying it. On the other hand, if youve performed a thorough building inspection and know what sort of repairs are necessary, you can offer your prospective buyer a compelling reason to invest in your property.

When you buy a home, youre essentially agreeing to have it inspected periodically to ensure that it stays in top shape. Not only does this allow you to avoid expensive repairs down the road, but it can also increase the value of your home.

You can make smart decisions about property investments

Buying real estate isnt as simple as just driving a couple of minutes to pick up a house. There are lots of considerations involved, ranging from location to cost. The same is true when youre investing in property.

If you find a house that meets all of your requirements, youll want to make sure that you have a solid understanding of where it stands with regards to the rest of the market. If you havent spent enough time researching the area, you could inadvertently end up with a bad deal.

There are lots of resources available online that can help you determine the overall level of competition in your area. They can also help you figure out if there are any properties that meet your requirements that you didnt know about.

If you own rental property, you can use the information to identify tenants who might cause damage

If you own rental property and youve noticed that certain tenants consistently cause damage, you can use the results of a building inspection to identify them. You can then contact them directly to let them know that youre watching them closely and that you dont appreciate the problem theyre causing.

They might start taking better care of their homes, which would be good news for everyone. It could also be the case that youll find out that theyre responsible for previous damages that werent caught during a previous visit.

You can make smarter decisions about hiring contractors

If youve hired contractors to build or repair your home, you might want to ask them for references. However, unless you perform a thorough building inspection, you might not know exactly what to look for.

For instance, maybe you only checked the roof for leaks or the walls for cracks. You might not have looked underneath the foundation for anything that could cause a future issue. By performing a building inspection, you can ensure that you hire reputable contractors who will be trustworthy with your money.

You can avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition

Of course, the main benefit of structural inspections perth is that it helps you avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition. Before you make the decision to buy a home, you should do whatever you can to find out about the state of the building.

You can also ask your realtor about what sorts of inspections are typically recommended. Some agents say that its standard practice to check the heating system, the roof, the electrical wiring, and the floors. Others will tell you that they recommend that you check the entire structure.

Either way, if you choose to hire an inspector, youll find out exactly what needs to be fixed and how much it will cost to do so.

As a result, it can be concluded that a pre-purchase building inspection is highly important for the buyers because it provides transparency regarding the current conditions of the structure. Additionally, the building owner is made aware of any upgrades or repairs that are required, which could lead to a fair deal throughout the purchasing and selling process.
President Joe Biden has decided to ban Russian oil imports, toughening the toll on Russia's economy in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine. The United States generally imports about 100,000 barrels a day from Russia, only about 5% of Russia's crude oil exports, according to Rystad Energy. Last year, roughly 8% of U.S. imports of oil and petroleum products came from Russia. Gas prices have been rising for weeks due to the conflict and in anticipation of potential sanctions on the Russian energy sector. The U.S. national average for a gallon of gasoline soared 45 cents a gallon in the past week and topped $4.06 on Monday, according to auto club AAA. Should the US ban Russian oil imports over Ukraine war?

You voted:
Paris, TX (75460)

Today

Thunderstorms, some with heavy rain this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 49F. WSW winds at 5 to 10 mph, increasing to 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some with heavy rain this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 49F. WSW winds at 5 to 10 mph, increasing to 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
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.
PADUCAH -- U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, pressing his bid to overtake Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, was about an hour into his speech Sunday when he made a vow to Kentucky voters.

If anybody in this room or in this state wants to know what kind of president I will be, take a look at Gov. (Matt) Bevin and what he is doing and then think about the exact opposite, Sanders told about 2,000 people at the Julian Carroll Convention Center.

Sanders, the junior senator from Vermont, spoke for 70 minutes before an energetic, supportive crowd that included a big percentage of young voters. On Saturday, he addressed 2,450 people in Bowling Green.

His Paducah talk, two days before Kentuckys primary, touched on his campaigns central themes: rebuilding the middle class, eliminating income inequality, raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, ridding politics of big money interests, affordable college, universal health care, and tackling issues using outside the box, non-conventional thinking.

I think all of you know that throughout the history of this country, real change  has never taken place from the top on down, (its) always from the bottom on up, said Sanders, who has won 19 primaries so far.

What the establishment is doing today, and what it always does, is to tell you and to tell the people that real change is impossible, that you gotta think small, not big. That you should not have the kinds of dreams that we should have in terms of what this country must become.

Sanders encouraged voters to participate in Tuesdays primary, to be part of a political revolution that he said millions of people being left behind in the U.S. desperately need.

What we have learned throughout this campaign is we do well when the voter turnout is high. We do not do well when the voter turnout is low, he said. Let us see on Tuesday a record-breaking turnout.  Let Kentucky join the other 19 states.

Our job now is to tell a handful of billionaires and folks on Wall Street that their incredible power over the economic and political life of this country is going to end. Our job is to create a political system that is vibrant and democratic  one person, one vote  and to create an economy that works for all of us and not just a handful.

Bevin wasnt the only Kentucky leader to feel the Bern on Sunday. Sanders also criticized Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell for supporting the Supreme Courts Citizen United decision.

The courts decision, Sanders said, says to the billionaire class, you guys already own the economy, you own a bunch of America, now we will allow you to own the United States government.

Mitch McConnell believes that Citizens United, which now allows an unlimited amount of independent expenditures, doesnt go far enough, Sanders said. He wants to see the day come when corporations and billionaires can buy politicians directly.

Sanders said his campaign has resonated with Democrats, Independents, and especially voters 45 and younger for a simple reason: Hes employing a radical tactic in contemporary American politics.

We are telling the truth, Sanders said.
WASHINGTON  For the first time, thousands of low-income high-school students in nearly two dozen states will soon be able to get federal grants to take college courses for credit, part of a program the Obama administration plans to begin this summer.

The experimental program allows high school students to apply for federal Pell grant money to pay for college courses. The "dual enrollment" program is designed to help students from lower-income backgrounds.

The Education Department says the administration will invest about $20 million in the 2016-17 school year to help about 10,000 students.

On Monday, the administration announced 44 colleges that are expected to participate. In Illinois, the list included Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg, Illinois Central College in East Peoria and Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville.

Education Secretary John B. King Jr. says too many students in need aren't getting challenging coursework to help prepare and motivate them beyond high school.

"The courses students take while in high school and the support they get to succeed in those courses are major factors in not only whether students go to college but also in how well they will do when they get there," King said in a call with reporters. "The more rigorous and engaging the classes are, the better."

The schools had applied for the program after it was announced last October, and can start offering Pell grants to students as early as July. Pell grants are for low-income people and do not have to be repaid.

Most of the institutions selected for the dual enrollment program are community colleges.

In the 2010-11 school year, more than 1.4 million high school students took courses offered by a college or university for credit through dual enrollment programs. With this new experimental program, the administration is aiming to help better prepare students in need for the rigors of college-level work.

According to the department, less than 10 percent of children born in the bottom fourth of household incomes earn a bachelor's degree by age 25, compared to over 50 percent in the top fourth.

The department has the authority to create the pilot program under the experimental sites section of the Higher Education Act of 1965. It gives federal officials flexibility to test the effectiveness of temporary changes to the way federal student aid is distributed.

Usually, "experimental site" programs last for three years. But the department is hoping that this one will last for at least four years, to cover students all through high school.
The Rev. Sammie Gordon Sr. is well acquainted with hard work.

The Hampton County native was born in the small, rural farm town of Furman. Though his father, Ashley, was an engineer, Gordon was introduced to the life of the farm at the tender age of 10.

I got pretty good at it, he said.

Gordon became such a skilled hand that his father saw the potential in him.

When he was 12, Gordon and his family started their own farm with Gordon doing much of the work for the next four years  until the unexpected happened.

I got sunstroke, he said. That ended my farm life, and I had to figure out how to make a living. I was sick for a while. While I tried to recuperate, I studied.

To ensure that he would continue to be financially solvent, Gordon, at the age of 18, embarked on a path that led to him starting a small business  Gordons Shoes and Tax Services on Russell Street in Orangeburg.

The business is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

Gordons business plan came out of his time on the farm and his other ventures as a child. While working on the farm, he also raked yards and worked for a man who distributed various goods such as chewing gum and tobacco.

He had a warehouse ... and he took me there one day, Gordon said. He told me, If you sell a box for $1, we would do a 40 and 60, where I would get 40 cents and he would get 60 cents. That taught me how to manage money. It was a great learning experience.

Gordon also delivered papers for the Savannah Morning News as a teenager. He started off with 20 people and ended up with 100 customers.

I was always involved, he said. We were never broke. We always had some money.

Seeing the dividends of hard work, Gordon began researching how others started their businesses. He stumbled upon a man in Florida who founded a modular home business with about $500.

That struck me that you did not need much, Gordon said. I looked at J.C. Penney, and they went bankrupt about three times. I also studied Sears Roebuck and Walker Shoe Company.

Gordon went to Estill Training School, which functioned both as a high school and vocational school. He knew if he wanted to start his own business, he would need to learn about business in a formal setting.

Following high school, Gordon participated in the home study program of Princeton Hall Institute in Clifton, New Jersey, learning investment strategies and small business development.

Because of poor eyesight, which he has suffered much of his life, Gordon left the school. However, he later received a scholarship to South Carolina Area Trade School in Denmark, now known as Denmark Technical College. There he learned about electronics.

Gordon married his wife, Hester, who lived in Cameron, in 1964, and he graduated from the trade school in 1965.

I had only been to Orangeburg once, but I fell in love with Orangeburg, he said. I felt it had the potential of growth and development.  I looked at many areas, but this is the area that sold me and where I thought I could really do well.

But there was one problem.

I had to borrow money to operate with, but I couldnt, Gordon said. Nobody gave me the money to operate with. I had to figure out how to get some money.

At the time, President Lyndon B. Johnson developed a program to help minorities open small businesses, he said. Before long, he was able to receive the needed funds to build his business.

He opened his shoe business on March 15, 1966 at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and social unrest in Orangeburg. He said the hardest part he faced was convincing the public that he was for real.

Everybody was upset and they were scared, Gordon said. The thing is I talked to everybody. I would go to stores and start talking to people, and they listened to me. I was friendly, and nobody controlled me. I had a lot of rebuff, but I love challenges.

Gordon, who later became a pastor at Zion Hill AME Church, said what helped him through the civil unrest in the 1960s was his belief in God.

God is real and he loves everybody, he said.

Gordon pastored in the AME church for 28 years before retiring in 2012.

God made all of us, and that is something my parents taught me  that nobody was better than me or better than you, he said.

Gordon brought this philosophy and his people person personality to his shoe store. He went through a telephone directory to find wholesale dealers in Atlanta, New York City and other cities.

I started buying them and bringing them to Orangeburg, he said. I thought it would be something different.

Soon his shelves were stocked with the latest shoe styles and brands. Gordon also began repairing shoes.

A lot of people would bring in shoes and put the shoes in a newspaper box, he said. At the time he was still delivering newspapers. I would pick up the shoes and then bring them back. I had a lot of fun.

Gordon said he focused on shoe sales and repair, but five months into his business, he learned another business secret.

The one thing I learned is that if you have something the government wants, youve got a great foundation, and that was doing taxes, Gordon said.

Applying his farming experience, Gordon began to advise a handful of people about their taxes. Today, he has nearly 400 tax customers though the business serves about 5,000 in total.

During the farming years, January, February and March were bad months, Gordon said. We had cows and we would sell the cows in January, February and March and that would give us tax money.

He said he would encourage individuals to file taxes at years end in order to make up for winter shortfalls.

Gordon passed his tax preparation skills along to his sons and his daughter when they were in elementary school.

Today, the business is run by his entire family  his wife, Hester; his oldest son, Sammie Gordon Jr.; and his daughter, Sigma. His youngest son, Sandor, was also heavily involved in the business until his death in a traffic accident in November 2005.

In addition to the challenges he faced starting his business, Gordon said during the early years he would spend long hours in the office filing taxes.

I was doing it by hand during those times, he said, noting it was not until 1993 that he upgraded to computer technology to help expedite the tax filing process.

I read everything I could find, Gordon said. It is a self-taught tax service.

Along the way, he developed another skill  designing belts for people who special ordered them. He has also designed shoes into human figures as a hobby, but his busy schedule doesnt allow him to do that much anymore.

Gordon has customers who have been coming to him since he opened his business. Now, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren are coming into his store, he said.

His 50 years in Orangeburg have been one big adventure, Gordon said.

I love it, he said. It has been good for me and good for my family.

Gordon said he challenges local residents to shop locally and to start a business locally.

It is a great place to develop, he said.

At the age of 78, Gordon says he is not planning to slow down anytime soon. He estimates he has at least 10 years left, but he is confident the business will survive him through his children.

They are prepared now, and I have set a foundation for them, Gordon said. They could go way off because they are well educated, but I have shown them you can do this in Orangeburg.
South Carolina State University trustees expressed concerns Monday about the state's plans to put out a request for proposals for a presidential search firm.

Some trustees said they want to choose their own search firm to ensure it meets the university's needs.

Dr. Doris Helms told trustees that the state is in the process of putting out and RFP for search firms.

She said three or four firms will be in charge of searching for all agencies and colleges in the state.

"They were not willing to let us do our own RFP at the same time they will be doing the state RFP," Helms said.

Board Chairman Charlie Way said, "I truly believe we have a special situation here.

We don't need the same search firm. I feel like this is a situation where we don't fit in a box of some of the other institutions of higher education."

Way said he wants to talk to lawmakers about the issue.

Helms said she has volunteered to be on one of the search committees, but said she will let Way handle the process.

"I won't be holding anybody up," Way said.

* This story has been corrected. The university has not issued an RFP.
As the choices in the November presidential election become clear, the rhetoric from a contested primary season continues to echo through the political landscape. While the Democrats seem poised to battle their way to the bitter end of the primary season, the Republican leadership is making a risky move to unite the party behind a historically unique candidate.

It is a daunting challenge, especially given how dedicated the Never-Trump conservatives are in their resistance to the apparent nominee. Social-media comparisons of Trump to Hitler and other European fascists (including Marine Le Pen) suggest an ongoing Balkanization of the GOP that could spell the doom for the party.

This is a good time for the Never-Trumpers to reconsider their view of Trump. While his talk about deporting illegal immigrants is bombastic, it is far from the ethnic-cleansing agitation that constitutes a steady background noise in euro-fascist politics. Where Front National wants to throw legal citizens out of France simply because they are Muslims of non-European descent, Trump wants to expel people who have illegally entered the United States and continue to violate our immigration laws.

The difference is bigger than it may seem at first glance. But there is another aspect to Trumps rhetoric: his commitment and dedication to it. How important will it really be to a President Trump to take to such outlier measures as mass deportation? Once in office, will his days be filled with much more mundane issues, such as funding Social Security and increasing military spending?

There are two people who can put Trumps upsetting, sometimes infuriating rhetoric in perspective. The first is Jesse Ventura. When he ran for governor in Minnesota in 1998, he presented himself as the guy who had done things during his Navy SEAL career that would make the other gubernatorial candidates pee in their pants. He ruthlessly played the populist outsider card, yet once in office he governed cautiously from the middle.

So far, Trump is more of a Jesse Ventura than anything else. If that analogy holds, we can expect a president and an administration that will govern like an expert board of executives more than anything else. This is, of course, somewhat of a speculation, but given Trumps business background and the parallel to Governor Ventura, it is a more realistic speculation than that he would turn out to be a Le Pen or even worse.

The other person who can put Trump in perspective is his presumptive Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. There is no doubt that she is the politically more radical of the Clinton couple, the architect as she was of the 1993 failed Hillarycare plan. Even though she no longer speaks openly about her dedication to single-payer health care, it is not inconceivable that she would return to that idea once in office. One indicator of that is that she wants to bring other elements of the European welfare state to the United States. For example, she wants to force American businesses to provide paid leave to their employees for a number of reasons: vacation, sick leave, maternity leave

Based on the European role models that inspire Clintons paid-leave programs, the costs to American businesses would probably exceed their total annual bill for federal and state corporate income taxes. Add to that the costs if she also pursues universal pre-K child care  another item on the liberal welfare-state wish list  as well as single-payer health care, and the total cost would be so enormous that it would send the American economy into the same long-term quagmire of zero growth and 10-percent unemployment where the European economy is now stuck.

With this probable agenda of a Clinton presidency, conservative Trump critics need to ask themselves two questions:

1. Do they have a realistic, workable reform agenda to roll back the American welfare state, once Hillary has added the last, missing pieces that currently separate it from the European welfare state?

2. Is Hillary more dedicated to expanding the American welfare state than Trump is to his anti-immigration rhetoric?

The last question is crucial. If the answer is yes, then it should be easy for the Never-Trump conservatives to vote against Hillary.
You would think that when one country openly calls for the destruction of another country, the latter would not help the former achieve its malevolent goal.

So why, when Iranians chant Death to America! in the streets and proudly proclaim their hatred of the Western world, would the United States do anything to aid Iran in acquiring a nuclear weapon  a weapon that would be used to threaten our nation and our allies?

President Barack Obama considers his disastrous deal with Iran to be a great legacy achievement, the hallmark of his time in office on the foreign policy front.

Over the protests of Congress and despite abysmal approval ratings from the American people, the Iran deal was put into place in trademark Obama style: alone and with arrogant dismissiveness of those who dared to question the wisdom of his administration. Now, as his tenure as president comes to a close, the administration is expressing concern that the deal may not be maintained under a future president.

On April 5, Under Secretary of State Thomas Shannon warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the consequences of dismantling the Iran nuclear deal could be dire. This is ludicrous. In fact, the consequences of dismantling this disastrous deal can be no more calamitous than the consequences of keeping it in place.

The Iran deal was bad from the start and is rotten to the core. Every time you think it cannot get worse, it does. This deal does nothing but embolden Iran and all of our other enemies.

The deal gave Iran access to $100 billion it was unable to use before. It got rid of international sanctions, and despite promises to the contrary, there is no way to restore them in a meaningful capacity. The deal gives Tehrans terrorist leaders freedom to travel the world. It allows them to continue enriching uranium and controlling what sites get checked by nuclear inspectors and when. The Iranians are gaining increased access to the U.S. financial system and to our currency.

And what, exactly, did the United States get for all of these concessions?

We got an emboldened adversary that now knows that the United States will capitulate as the mullahs continue to threaten world order. We got renewed support for the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and even more support for Irans terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East including Hezbollah and Hamas.

We got ballistic missile tests threatening Israel, our closest ally in the region. One of these missiles even had Hebrew writing on it pledging to destroy the Jewish state.

The central argument for the deal was that engagement would moderate the Iranian leadership. There was absolutely no reason to believe that would be the case during negotiations and now it has been proven totally false.

We need more than halfhearted words claiming that this deal will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. It wont and everyone knows that. Iran is more dangerous than ever, and the Islamic Republic continues to pose real threats to the United States and our allies. If the Obama administration claims Iran is not violating the terms of the deal explicitly, then that illustrates that the deal is woefully inadequate.

In a recent interview, Obama made clear that he believes the United States should disengage from the world and let our allies fend for themselves. This is a deadly philosophy, and it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of our role in the world. He is right that America cannot be the worlds policeman. But he is wrong that we are helpless when it comes to defending our values and advancing our interests.

Hopefully the next president will have the sense to reframe our budding relationship with Iran and treat the supreme leader and his ayatollah cronies like the despots they are. If not, then the world will pay the price for Americas passivity.

Read more than South Carolina native Armstrong Williams, author of the new book Reawakening Virtues, at RightSideWire.com and join the discussion live from 6-8 p.m. and 4-6 a.m. ET on Sirius/XM Urban View 126.
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Greece can assist Azerbaijan in developing tourism and information technologies, Rahman Mustafayev, Azerbaijani ambassador to Greece, said.

"Today the main tasks for the Azerbaijani economy are to diversify and reduce dependence on oil and gas production, create jobs at new enterprises," Mustafayev said in an interview with Greek media. "There is a need for an education reform as the specialists are required in the districts where the country's government plans to increase economic activity."

"Among other priorities are the reduction of dependence on imports, the growth of exports, IT-sector development, the creation of tourism industry," he said.

"Greek companies have experience and knowledge in all these areas," the ambassador said, adding that this creates additional opportunities for the development of mutually beneficial cooperation."

Mustafayev also reminded of the fourth meeting of the Azerbaijan-Greece Intergovernmental Commission on Economic, Industrial and Technological Cooperation, to be held in Athens on May 26-27.

The diplomat said that among the main topics of the meeting is the revival of trade between Azerbaijan and Greece, which dropped up to a very low level.

According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, the Azerbaijan-Greece trade turnover hit $162 million in 2015.

"Azerbaijan and Greece will also discuss the cooperation in such priority sectors as energy, health protection, agriculture, tourism, transport, IT, development of small and medium business, education, culture, science, sport," Mustafayev added.
The Baku Expo Center is to host one of the important regional events on food industry  the "WorldFood Azerbaijan 2016" International Exhibition on May 19-21.





Co-organizers of the Exhibition are Azerbaijans Agriculture Ministry, "Iteca Caspian" and "ITE Group" companies.





As in the previous years, the Exhibition is to be attended by the leading world and local producers, distributors and suppliers of food products from Germany, UAE, Belarus, Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, India, Spain, Italy, Lithuania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and other countries.





Over the years WorldFood Azerbaijan has become an effective business platform, facilitating the search for new partners and strengthening pre-existing relationships through its ability to attract experts from the sector, thus defining the vector of development for the food industry in the region.





The exhibition is supported by Azerbaijani companies, whose participation accounts for 40% of the exhibition. There is a growing interest in the exhibition from international and especially European companies, which account for 30% of the total number of exhibitors. Every year the exhibition attracts new members and expands the range of products presented.





Traditionally WorldFood Azerbaijan unites several thematic exhibitions under one roof: food (WorldFood), beverages (WorldDrink) and technology (WorldFoodTech), covering much of the food market. Within these major sectors are individual zones for meat and poultry, canned foods, ice cream, groceries, ingredients, confectionery, beverages, oil and fat products, tea and coffee making and much more. In the dairy zone a variety of products will be on offer, this year from producers from Azerbaijan, Belarus and Egypt. Given that the country is increasing its food production sector, a wide range of modern equipment for different areas of the food industry will be on display at this year's exhibition.





The "WorldFood Azerbaijan 2016" International Exhibition has its own dedicated industry event  the Caspian International Packaging, Tare, Label and Printing Exhibition, Ipack Caspian 2016. The exhibition will include packaging machines, equipment for packaging and printing on the packaging, packaging materials, the finished products, and labelling products.




/By Azernews/

By Nigar Abbasova

Sharm el-Sheikh-Baku direct flight will be launched from this June, said Fathy Attia, Commercial Director of Air Cairo company, at a press conference dedicated to cooperation between Azerbaijan and Egypt in tourism sector.

Air Cairo low fare subsidiary of Egypt Air will open regular Baku-Sharm el-Sheikh-Baku flights starting June 3.

The tickets for the four-hour flight will cost approximately $350, Attia added.

The flights will be performed once a week. Departure from Baku will be at 09:30 and estimated arrival to Sharm el Sheikh will be at 11:00 local time. Return flight departure time will be 03:00 local time, estimated arrival time to Baku is 08:30.

Several years ago, charter flights from Baku to Sharm el-Sheikh were operated, but later flights were suspended as there was no demand in this direction which in its turn was connected with unstable political situation in Egypt.

Previously, Azerbaijans State Civil Aviation Administration reported that opening of regular flights to Egypt would be possible should aircrafts operating flights on this direction satisfy all necessary security regulations.

The launch of non-stop air flights between Baku and Sharm El Sheikh is considered to be a positive step in terms of developing ties between the two countries in the sphere of tourism.

Egyptian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Suzanne Mouh Gamil highlighted the importance of tourism sector for Egypts economy, saying the cooperation between the two countries in tourism sphere will develop as other fields.

Currently the number of Azerbaijani tourists travelling to Egypt is not high, but experts are sure in the future success of non-stop flights, as Sharm el Sheikh is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Arab world.

Air Cargo airline was established in 2003. Main base of the Airline is Cairo International Airport. The airline successfully passed the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) for the fifth time in sequence and has joined IATA by the end of August 2015.

Egypt recognized Azerbaijan's independence in December 1991 and diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in March 1992.
By Rashid Shirinov

Russia and Iran have agreed to attract additional volume of railway cargo within the North-South Transport Corridor.

The issue was mulled in Tehran as President of Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov met with the Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development, Abbas Ahmad Akhoundi, and the Head of the Iranian Railways, Mohsen Pour Seyed Aghaei, Russian Railways reported.

The sides mulled prospects of cooperation between Russia and Iran for developing the Caspian Sea region's railway infrastructure.

Belozerov said that currently, the parties are not fully using their cooperation potential. "Meanwhile, railways of Russia and Iran have experience in joint implementation of infrastructure projects: in 2012, JSC Russian Railways completed the electrification of the Tabriz-Azarshahr railway line," noted Belozerov.

The sides also mulled creation of a direct railway traffic along the west branch of the North-South international transportation corridor. This project envisages the construction of Rasht-Astara railway line, which will link railways of Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran. The new infrastructure will allow accelerating the delivery of cargos between the countries of Europe, the Persian Gulf and the Southern Asia.

The implementation terms of the electrification project of Garmsar-Ince Burun railway line also was on the agenda of the talks. The railway line has a length of 495 kilometers, 203 kilometers of which pass through the highlands. The modernization of this infrastructure will increase the capacity and speed of trains.

The talks in Tehran ended with signing of a protocol on the main directions of further cooperation between Russian and Iranian Railways. The document was undersigned by Oleg Belozerov and Mohsen Pour Seyed Aghaei.

The parties agreed to continue to work for the realization of joint projects, to strengthen cooperation and attract additional cargos for the North-South international transport corridor.

The North-South international transport corridor will link Northern Europe and South-East Asia. It will also serve as a bridge to connect the railways of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia

The key aim of the Corridor is to reduce costs in terms of time and money over the traditional route currently being used. The corridor will allow to increase trade connectivity between major cities such as Mumbai, Moscow, Tehran, Baku, Bandar Abbas, Astrakhan, Bandar Anzali.
I was elected in March 2008, the Member of Parliament for Petaling Jaya Utara under the Democratic Action Party (DAP). I'm also the DAP National Publicity Secretary, as well as the investment liaison officer for the Penang Chief Minister based in the Klang Valley.Before joining politics full-time in January 2007, I was the CEO and founder of a Malaysian IT company, publicly listed in Singapore. I divested all my shares in the company to be able to serve the community and take part in socio-political affairs of Malaysia.I've always had faith that there has been a guardian angel looking after me all these while - my personal well-being, my education, my career. Some will call it "God's will", some "fate" while some others, "destiny". I strongly believe that it is time for me to repay the kindness and fortune showered on me by my family, the society and of course, not forgetting, my guardian angel. :-)Also, don't forget to visit my other blog at Education in Malaysia and my Chinese blog 
The construction of a multibillion-dollar long-distance railway connecting all six GCC countries could take between six and eight years, said a report.



The first phase of the project could start in Qatar but the system has to be compatible with all six GCC countries, reported The Gulf Times, citing AbuIssa chairman Ashraf AR Abu Issa.



It depends when will the Gulf countries give the go-ahead. From the time they start and get approvals and build the tracks to have a complete solution, it will need six to eight years, he noted.



Abu Issa was speaking on the sidelines of an agreement signing between the Gulf Organisation for Industrial Consulting (GOIC) and China Railway Signal and Communication Corporation (CRSC) on Wednesday to boost the development and construction of rail transit lines in the Gulf area.



A provider of technologies, products and services in rail transportation signalling and communication, CRSC is the largest supplier of rail transportation control system solutions in the world.



About the speed of the trains, he noted that they can go up to 350 kph, meaning it will take a two-hour non-stop travel from Doha to Kuwait, and about 40 minutes from Doha to Bahrain.



The chairman added that this speed is the fastest so far, a record the Chinese have achieved. The trains can run to a maximum of 380 kph, stated the report.



Putting up a link between the long-distance railway system and the Doha Metro through the main stations is part of the masterplan, it added.
Hidd Al Saadiyat, an exclusive beachfront community in Abu Dhabi, UAE, has started work on its ambitious marina project which is scheduled for completion in April next year.

The contract for the construction of the marina has been awarded to the Ghantoot Group.

The development, which boasts 461 exclusive villas, covers nearly 1.5 million sq m of natural waterfront land within Saadiyat Island. With nearly 7 km of beachfront, Hidd Al Saadiyat enjoys an island feel and remarkable landscape.

Just a few minutes from downtown Abu Dhabi, Hidd Al Saadiyat inspires an exclusive lifestyle that combines contemporary, Mediterranean and modern Arabic designs, with an enclave of architect villas, apartments, an international five-star resort, marina and yacht club, cultural district, and an educational institution.



Conveniently designed to reflect the project's serene surroundings, the private marina is set to feature a pedestrian walk encompassing a view of the striking landscape within a leisurely and relaxing atmosphere.



It will also be equipped with 110 berths for boats of different sizes, directly linked to the beach and easily accessible by car, boat or water taxi, said a statement from the Abu Dhabi developer.



On the company's move, Greg Slingerland, the project director, said: "We are witnessing the evolution of Hidd Al Saadiyat into a state-of-the-art development especially now with the construction of the long-anticipated marina."



"Our continued collaboration with leading contracting companies such as Ghantoot Group further reinforces our commitment to making Hidd Al Saadiyat an exclusive neighbourhood just a stones throw away from the islands pristine beaches and turquoise waters," he added.



As part of its social and environmental responsibility, Hidd Al Saadiyat adopts the best practices of Estidamas Pearl 2 Sustainability Protocol through close collaboration with Abu Dhabis Urban Planning Council, said the developer.



It is a project managed by Lead Development, an integrated full service consultancy which provides key insights across the commercial development value chain.



Initial construction on Hidd Al Saadiyat began in January 2013. Construction milestones continue to be met and the project handing over will begin by end of 2016, it added.-TradeArabia News Service
Boeing Company's top executives laid out an ambitious, five-year strategy on Wednesday to increase revenue and profits and secure the company's future for the next 100 years, promising to boost efficiency, return free cash to shareholders and expand the after-market services and parts business.



But the executives, speaking to analysts at a conference, faced some skepticism about whether Boeing can tame the commercial aircraft business cycle, and the company gave few new details about plans to modify existing planes to better match market needs to counter competitive threats from Airbus and Bombardier.



Boeing expects to lift profit margins to a double-digit percentage next year and has an "aspirational target ... toward the end of the decade of getting to mid-teen margins," Boeing chief executive Dennis Muilenburg told the conference.



The company is re-engineering itself to become more flexible and efficient in designing and building jetliners, using automation, 3-D printing and other measures.



These moves, Muilenburg said, would allow Boeing to create a steady, sustainable business in what has historically been a highly cyclical industry.



Boeing aims to be not only a "global industrial champion" but "the industry leader in cash generation," Muilenburg said. Over the next decade, Boeing aims to achieve "sustained top- and bottom-line growth" in all of its businesses, he added.



Boeing said 777 jetliner output would fall to about 5.5 a month in late 2018 and 2019, in line with some analysts' predictions, as it shifts to the successor 777X jet. The rate is 8.3 now, and will fall to 7 a month next year. Muilenburg said the changes are factored into Boeing's cash and profit margin expectations.



Boeing described how it will pay back nearly $30 billion in deferred costs from the 787, saying 70 per cent would come from selling larger, more profitable versions of the plane and higher prices.



Boeing also addressed whether its output will overshoot demand if there's a downturn in the aerospace cycle. New plane orders have slowed, and by 2020, Boeing will be making more than 900 planes a year, a position some analysts questioned.



Ray Conner, head of Boeing's commercial plane unit, said the factory has to be flexible and Boeing has to watch the market. "But particularly on the single aisles, where we have taken the rates really high, we are feeling pretty strong about that." - Reuters
General Motors Co said on Friday it was temporarily halting sales of about 60,000 new 2016 US SUVs because the vehicles' window labels overstated their fuel efficiency.



A spokesman for the largest US automaker said GM discovered an "inadvertent error" on US 2016 GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave and Chevrolet Traverse SUVs that caused the estimated fuel economy to be listed on the window label as 1-2 miles per gallon higher than it should have been. GM is stopping sales of the SUVs in dealer showrooms until a corrected label is placed on the vehicles.



Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman Laura Allen said Friday the agency has been notified by GM that it is correcting fuel economy labels on the three 2016 SUVs. "We have asked the company to provide all relevant information to the agency," Allen said.



GM said Friday the rating for the vehicles on the EPA's fueleconomy.gov website was incorrect but has since been corrected. New labels are expected to begin showing up at dealerships soon.



The incident is the latest in a multitude of issues in recent years involving the auto industry overstating vehicle fuel efficiency.



Some automakers have previously compensated vehicle owners for overblown fuel economy ratings. Asked if GM will follow suit, GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson said the automaker "will contact owners of the affected models to address this situation."



Automotive News reported GM engineers discovered the error as they worked on the 2017 model label.



In April, Mitsubishi Motors Corp admitted to overstating the fuel economy of four small car models sold in Japan, including two under Nissan Motor Co's nameplate.



This week, Nissan agreed to buy a 34 per cent controlling stake in Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi has said the overstatement didn't impact US vehicles.



In 2014, Korean carmakers Hyundai Motor Co and affiliate Kia Motors Corp agreed to pay $350 million in penalties to the US government for overstating fuel economy ratings in about 1.2 million vehicles. That was on top of $395 million they agreed to pay to resolve claims from vehicle owners.



In June 2014, Ford Motor Co lowered the fuel economy ratings on six models and agreed to reimburse owners for the difference.



Ford cut ratings on its 2013 and 2014 model year hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles as well as most 2014 Fiesta cars. It was the second time Ford cut fuel ratings for the C-Max hybrid in under a year. - Reuters
A delegation from Saudi Arabias King Abdullah Port recently visited Valencia Port in Spain, Europes fifth busiest port, along with teams from other organisations to study and benchmark operational procedures in use.



The accompanying organisations included officials from the Economic Cities Authority (ECA), the border guard, the Saudi Customs and the National Container Terminal (NCT), the main operator of the container terminal, said a statement from King Abdullah Port.



The delegates explored first-hand the key features of the terminals at Valencia Port, the working and business methods the Port Authority of Valencia employs, and safety and security standards and procedures, it said.



King Abdullah Port officials previously visited the ports of Istanbul, Rotterdam and Antwerp. They selected Valencia Port for this years visit on account of it being the largest not only in Spain, but also in the Mediterranean Sea basin, and Europes fifth busiest port, it added.



For the past three years, with our partners in the government and the private sector, we have been making visits to major ports to exchange knowledge and experience and utilise best practices at our port, said Engineer Abdullah Hameedadin, managing director of the Ports Development Company, the owner and developer of King Abdullah Port.



He said: After each visit, we conduct a feasibility study to see how these practices may be utilised at King Abdullah Port by reporting our findings, just like other ports in the kingdom, to the border guard and Saudi Customs.



Also, the visits present opportunities to develop strong relationships with strategic maritime players from around the globe, and to keep the government agencies and our partners abreast with the plans and programs at King Abdullah Port, so as to market the port as a strategic gateway between the region and the world, he added.



King Abdullah Port is Saudi Arabias and the regions first port ever to be fully privately owned and developed. The ports strategic location, comprehensive services, and advanced technologies enable it to be of service to the worlds largest shipping and freight companies, setting it up to achieve its vision of becoming one of the worlds major ports, hence strengthening the pivotal and important commercial and economic roles of the kingdom and playing an integral role in achieving the Saudi Vision 2030.  TradeArabia News Service


Fajr Capital, a leading private equity investor in high-growth markets across the Middle East and Asia, has announced the completion of its acquisition of Cravia Group, one of the fastest-growing food and beverage platforms in the Middle East.



Founded in 2001, Cravia is the parent company that operates some of the Middle East and north Africa (Mena) regions most successful food and beverage franchises, including: Zaatar w Zeit, Cinnabon, Seattle's Best Coffee and Carvel ice cream.



Cravia also recently started operations for the US number one better burger brand, Five Guys (Burger and Fries), in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. The newly-opened Five Guys outlet in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is the burger chains largest branch worldwide and broke the record for the highest performing store by sales in the global network.



Fajr Capitals investment in Cravia will support the Company to strengthen its leadership position in the regional food and beverage sector and accelerate its immediate growth plans. Cravias management team will leverage Fajr Capitals global network to increase the Companys presence in existing markets and penetrate new markets such as Bahrain and Qatar.



Walid Hajj, founder of Cravia, will remain actively involved in the business as executive chairman. The companys experienced management team will also remain in place and will continue to be led by Louay Ghandour, chief executive officer.



Iqbal Khan, CEO of Fajr Capital, said: Cravia is one of the most successful and exciting food and beverage (F&B) platforms in the Middle East.



We are delighted to announce our investment in Cravia at such an important stage in the companys growth trajectory, and look forward to expanding the business in our constituent markets, he said.



We are confident that Hajj and Ghandour, in partnership with the world-class management team already in place, will drive the companys continued growth, while maintaining Cravias guiding principles of loyalty, integrity, dynamism and excellence, he added.



Hajj, executive chairman of Cravia, added: Fajr Capitals proven track-record and global network will be extremely valuable as we enter a new stage of expansion and growth.



We are grateful to Fajr Capital for their confidence in our company, and their belief in our executive management team and our hard-working and dedicated employees, he added.



Dubai-based deNovo Corporate Advisors acted as sell-side advisors on the deal, with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher providing legal representation to the shareholders of Cravia. Arqaam Capital, Deloitte, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and Strategy& acted on behalf of Fajr Capital, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
MBA Fakhro Holding has signed the lease agreement to open its first Anytime Fitness gym, in Bahrain at El Mercado Janabiya, the new neighbourhood market just north of the Saudi highway.



Anytime Fitness is the largest fitness chain in the world with a global network that can be accessed by all of its members, 24 hours a day.



This world leading brand will be housed in the relaxed atmosphere of El Mercados central courtyard overlooking its beautiful landscaping, said a statement.



The announcement was made by MBA Fakhro Holding-Bahrain, Anytime Fitness-USA, and First Bahrain-Bahrain, during the recent Gulf Property Show.



MBA Fakhro Holding, the area developer for the brand, will establish a large network of more than 100 Anytime Fitness gyms across the Gulf region over the next decade (excluding Qatar, where another firm has the franchise).



Commenting on the launch, Mohammed Adel Fakhro, chairman of MBA Fakhro Holding, said: In line with our time-tested business strategy of bringing to Bahrain, and the rest of the region, globally reputed and respected brands in the B2C and B2B sectors, we have entered into an area development and franchising agreement with Anytime Fitness. We will be setting-up Anytime Fitness clubs across Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman, in a phased and systematic expansion of the chain.



In several ways, our gyms will be unique and the first-of-their-kind in these markets, just as they are in the rest of the world, by effectively addressing the needs, preferences, and expectations of all fitness enthusiasts, he said.



Founded in 2002, Anytime Fitness has been the fastest-growing fitness chain in the world, and is ranked #1 on Entrepreneurs prestigious Top Global Franchise list, with more than 3 million members and more than 3,000 clubs worldwide.



The clubs are unique in that they are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Anytime Fitness also prides itself on providing its members with convenient and affordable fitness options in friendly, well-maintained facilities which feature top-quality exercise equipment. Clubs are now open across the US and in nearly 25 other countries around the world.



John Kersh , vice president of international development of Anytime Fitness / Self Esteem Brands-US, said: We are extremely enthusiastic about the upcoming launch of Anytime Fitness in Bahrain through our franchise agreement with MBA Fakhro Holding. We applaud their vision to improve the health and wellbeing of residents of the Gulf region with the convenient, customer-focused approach of Anytime Fitness, and we look forward to a long and productive partnership.



Joining one of our clubs and being able to access any of the over 3,000 Anytime Fitness clubs worldwide, accessing the clubs anytime as per your convenience wherever you are, and making use of our group exercise services, are some of the numerous wonderful benefits that the members of our clubs enjoy in addition to being able to undertake the personal training options that we offer, added Fakhro.



What differentiates Anytime Fitness from other clubs is our focus on helping members get the results that theyre seeking, he further said. Our gyms are unique in that they provide personalised attention for all our members. Whether weight-loss is your goal, or increased strength or improved balance and flexibility  or a combination  were committed to helping you achieve all of those goals, he said.



Amin Al Arrayed, CEO of First Bahrain, stated: "El Mercado Janabiya was designed with the needs of its neighbourhood in mind. Accordingly, we are thrilled to welcome Anytime Fitness. They will directly enhance our community with the services they provide, helping to foster an environment marked by convenience, relaxation, and health for all. It means a lot to be adding another well-established global brand and such a reputed regional business group to our offering." - TradeArabia News Service
Japanese automaker Nissan has unveiled the new 2017 Nissan Altima for the Middle East at an event in Dubai, UAE.



The mid-sized sedan comes with a fresh new appearance including the "Energetic Flow" exterior styling theme and "Gliding Wing" interior layout, Class Leading Fuel Economy and Improved Driving Dynamics and Safety Technology, according to a statement.



We are excited to launch the 2017 Nissan Altima in the Middle East, which compliments Nissans range of innovative, exciting cars and represents Nissans vision for the design of the modern passenger car, said Samir Cherfian, managing director of Nissan Middle East. The Altima is a popular car in the region and globally, and the new design elements add to the overall appeal of its reliability and features.



The front end of the 2017 Altima offers the most dramatic change with its energetic flow design, since all panels and pieces forward of the A-pillars are new  fascia, bumper, fenders, hood and lights.



The reshaped headlight units incorporate halogen high beam and projector low beam lights. LED projector low beam lights and LED signature Daytime Running Lights that sweep into the wide raised hood (available only on 3.5L SL grade)



The rear of the new Altima is marked by a new sculpted bumper with a dark lower accent, a new trunk lid and lower, wider boomerang-shaped combination lights that help provide a more expressive, higher quality appearance when approaching the vehicle from behind. The four-piece combination lights incorporate the tail- and stop lights, turn lamps and backup lights.



The Altima colour palette for 2017 includes Java Metallic, Brilliant Silver, Gun Metallic, Super Black, Cayenne Red and Pearl White and a new 17-inch machine-finish aluminium-alloy wheel designs.



The Altima have stepped up the safety technology by adding its First in Class Predictive Forward Collision Warning (PFCW), the Blind Spot Warning (BSW). Forward Emergency Braking (FEB), and Rear Cross Traffic Alert (RCTA).The new steering has been reshaped and tuned to provide real time road input and precision (available only on SL grades).



The 2017 Altima's refined interior design follows the new "Gliding Wing" design language. Central to the new look is the revised C-stack with available 5.0-inch and 7.0-inch displays for the Navigation with Mobile Apps.



The Nissan Altima 2017, now offered in five grade levels including 2.5 S, SV, SL and 3.5 SV and SL grades, will have a price ranging between $21,500 and $28,900 in the GCC. Prices per market will be revealed at their respective launches and will vary from region to region, the statement said.  TradeArabia News Service
Canon Central and North Africa (CCNA), a division of Canon Middle East, a global leader in photo imaging, has opened its largest B2B and B2C showroom in the region in Tunisia.

The showroom, located in 22 Avenue Alain Savary Cite Jardins, Tunis, has been set up in partnership with its local partner, Media Diffusion.

At the showrooms experience zone, customers can gain hands-on learning on Canons innovative products, said a statement.

The showroom was inaugurated in the presence of Japanese Ambassador to Tunisia Susumu Hasegawa, who was the guest of honour; Roman Troedhandl, managing director of CCNA; Mondher Bouattour, managing director, Media Diffusion; Somesh Adukia, B2C sales director, CCNA; and Michele Tuscano, B2B sales director, CCNA.

Tunisia is one of our focus markets which is why we have invested with our local partner here. We want customers to gain a better understanding of Canon at this showroom. Higher internet penetration and a skilled talent pool of IT professionals have energised the countrys technology sector. There is growing demand for innovative products and we are leveraging this opportunity to provide various sectors a wide range of products at our showroom, said Troedhandl.

We will continue to build our presence in Tunisia through our range of innovative technologies and solutions, enabling our customers to achieve exceptional results. The opening of the showroom also underlines our focus in strengthening our presence in Central and North Africa, having launched CCNA to serve the region, he added.

The new facility will showcase the full array of Canon services and solutions ranging from inkjet and laser printers to copiers and large format printing machines.

Research shows that the B2B services market in the EMEA region will grow to 20 billion ($22.6 billion) by 2018 while the B2B solutions market will be worth 18 billion by 2019. In the B2C services and solutions market, the strongest immediate opportunities come from building new, value-added digital solutions and services. It is estimated that in the EMEA market the value of photobooks alone, for example, will be 800 million by 2018, said the statement.

The opening of the facility will give Tunisian customers the opportunity to receive direct advice on products and services from Canon professionals. - TradeArabia News Service




360 Mall, Kuwaits iconic shopping mall owned by Tamdeen Shopping Center, has introduced the German luxury brand MCM in Kuwait for the first time.



The store, which is operated by 360 Style Co. a subsidiary of Tamdeen Group Company, is only the fifth in the Middle East.



The store provides 120 sq m of top-of-the- line, luxury travel-accessories ranging from luggage and backpacks to small leather good and sunglasses.



Claudia Lopusinska, marketing manager, 360 Mall, said: 360 Mall is Kuwaits most sophisticated retail offering and the presence of MCM will further enhance our offering. The choice of Kuwait as only the 5th Middle Eastern location for the brand is evidence of the trendy Kuwaiti consumer and their interest and familiarity with the latest from around the world.



Currently, MCM stores are located in over 36 countries with 431 retail operations worldwide, a statement said.  TradeArabia News Service
A new showroom for the Danish electronics company Bang & Olufsen has been opened in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, by Arabian Sounds and Lights, the brands exclusive dealer in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

The new B & O showroom will be offering its key line of products, which includes speakers, sound systems, televisions and the latest line of B&O play speakers and play headphones.

It will also feature the company's latest speaker model, BeoLab90, a powerful digital loudspeaker built for optimum precision in sound. The system features 18 state-of-the-art loudspeaker drivers placed across carefully defined locations and directions to deliver maximum performance.

The newly opened outlet spans 148 square meters and is strategically located in the heart of Jeddah on Tahliah Street, Assila Tower, according to a press release.

Ala Tashkandi, head of marketing and business development at Arabian Sounds and Lights, said: The opening of this new store proves to be both timely and strategic as the consumer electronics segment in the Kingdom continues to rise as more and more people are looking at products offering world class quality and performance.

B&O is world-renowned for its premium audio and visual equipment. The company manufactures a highly distinctive and exclusive range of televisions, music systems, loudspeakers, telephones, and multimedia products that combine technological excellence with emotional appeal, according to the press release.

The opening of this new showroom is testament to the growing appeal of Bang & Olufsen products across the Kingdom while also showing the strong ties that we have kept with partners like Arabian Sounds and Lights. We look forward to working closely with Arabian Sounds and Lights in this endeavour and increase our market presence in the Saudi and the rest of the region, concluded Michael Viberg Pedersen, head of sales for Middle East at Bang & Olufsen. TradeArabia News Service
The number of hotel rooms in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia is forecast to double by 2018, according to a new report.



The Jeddah Hotel Market Overview report by JLL prepared ahead of The Hotel Show Saudi Arabia 2016 reveals that the current supply of 8,600 rooms (Q1 2016) in the city will double  with another 8,600 rooms forecast to be added to the market by 2018.



With a total stock of 17,200 hotel rooms estimated by 2018, major projects in the Jeddah pipeline include: The Ritz Carlton, Jeddah; Radisson Blu Al Salamah; Movenpick City Star; Elaf Galleria and Assila Hotel & Residence by Rocco Forte.



Christian Renz, vice president for sales and marketing for Rocco Forte Hotels said: "With the growth figures of Jeddah doubling, Jeddah was a clear choice for Rocco Forte Hotel's development in the Middle East. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is also one of our strongest outbound markets worldwide for our European hotels, so we felt it important to have a presence in the region. The Alissa family, who are one of the most respected families in the region, approached Sir Rocco Forte to partner as they admired his hotel management style in the European properties where they had stayed. Both family companies, together we have built the Assila Hotel on the prestigious Tahlia Street, the first five-star to open in almost 10 years in the city."



Hotel occupancy rates in Jeddah are historically high, added Christine Davidson, group event director of the dmg events hospitality portfolio. Saudi Arabia is an important market for developing business and leisure tourism as well as the dominant religious tourism sector. Jeddah is a gateway for pilgrims travelling to the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah, while its coastal location makes it popular with domestic tourists. Business tourism is fast developing, and infrastructure developments in the pipeline including expansion works on Jeddahs King Abdulaziz International Airport will increase accessibility.



AccorHotels Middle East own a significant margin of Jeddahs hotel portfolio with nearly 600 operational rooms in the market at present, set to increase to over 3,000 hotel rooms in the coming years. Olivier Granet, managing director and chief operating officer of AccorHotels Middle East said: We are on track to have 50 operational hotels in the kingdom with over 13,500 rooms. By 2020 we are quintupling our network in Jeddah with a fivefold increase from three existing hotels to 15.



Granet added: In order to attract both business and leisure clientele, AccorHotels has been focusing on the development of multi-brand projects; especially clusters that comprise midscale and economy hotels and serviced apartments. A particularly large-scale project in Jeddah will introduce a Novotel, ibis and Adagio to Al Andalus Road, which I personally believe will become a local landmark as it combines office, retail and hospitality components in one of the citys most vibrant areas.



At The Hotel Show Saudi Arabia, global consulting firm Deloitte will offer further insights in to the Jeddah market discussing Market performance, trends and projects in Jeddah and Makkah as part of the Vision Conference programme for 2016.



The Hotel Show Saudi Arabia, which runs from May 17 to 19 at the Jeddah Centre for Forums and Events, is the only event where hospitality industry professionals can source everything needed to develop, build and maintain a hotel or restaurant in the Kingdom. - TradeArabia News Service
Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, has appointed George Mawadri as its new general manager in Nigeria.

In his new role, he will be responsible for growing the group's relationships with its travel trade and corporate customers while furthering the development of the airlines commercial strategy in Nigeria.



Mawadri brings a vast amount of airline experience and knowledge to the position having served with British Airways for 19 years in Uganda, Kenya and Zambia in the East and Central Africa region, as well as the surrounding feeder markets of Zimbabwe, Malawi, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sudan and South Sudan.



I am excited to take on this new role with Etihad Airways in one of the airlines most dynamic markets, said Mawadri. I look forward to working with the team to find new and innovative ways of expanding our strategic corporate and trade partnerships, strengthening our commercial ties and providing our guests with Etihad Airways world-class service, comfort, and hospitality.



Danny Barranger, Etihad Airways senior vice president, Global Sales, said: I am delighted that George will be leading our team in Nigeria to grow our business there. His extensive commercial experience and successful track record in the African aviation industry will be invaluable as he continues to develop awareness of Etihad Airways, making him the ideal candidate for this important position.



Etihad Airways launched its service between Lagos and Abu Dhabi on July 1, 2012 and currently operates four-times-per-week using an Airbus A330-200 aircraft configured to carry 254 guests, 18 in Business Class and 236 in Economy Class. - TradeArabia News Service


The executive chef of West 14th steakhouse, Clive Pereira, has been named Gastronomic Superstar at the inaugural Leaders in Hospitality Awards.



Pereira, who was recently appointed to the high profile role, was recognised for his culinary talent, which included a total revamp of the menu at the popular Manhattan style grill and bar. He triumphed over tough competition from fellow professionals Suzi Massetti of Masso at The Palace Boutique Hotel, Bahrain and Ryan Wadell, head chef at The Black Lion at Dubais H Hotel to win the accolade.



Judge Daniel During, principal and managing director, Thomas Klein International said: We had some fantastic candidates in this category but Pereira stood out for his ability to deliver such a marked impact in a relatively short space of time. The award was designed especially to recognise a culinary raising star who is consistently challenging the norm and Pereiras creative ideas for new dining concepts and dishes that produced tangible results encapsulated everything the judges were looking for.



The annual award ceremony, hosted by Hotel News ME, took place at the St. Regis Dubai last month and was attended by more than 200 industry figures. Overall, there were 19 categories covering all aspects of the hospitality industry.



We received hundreds of nominations and the standard of the competition was incredibly tough, which demonstrates the strength of the industry across the Middle East at the moment. To beat such stiff competition shows how highly regarded Clive is across the industry, said Sophia Soltani of BNC Publishing, organiser of the awards.



During his short tenure at West 14th, which is located at the Oceana Beach Club on Palm Jumeirah and is under the management of the soon-to-open DUKES Dubai hotel, Pereira has spearheaded a number of innovations that have resulted in significant business growth.



Among his achievements include an additional 228 covers generated by the new Friday BBQ Brunch; 42 new diners thanks to the introduction of the Sunday Roast Beef Night promotion; and an amazing 705 additional covers at the Arabic Saturday Brunch.



The quality of food at West 14th has always been exceptional and being able to put a personal stamp on what is already a hugely successful product is a privilege. I am honoured to receive this award and look forward to taking the restaurant to the next level in the coming months, said Pereira.



Pereira previously worked with Michelin-starred chef Gary Rhodes and his new menu is a celebration of high quality ingredients and classic preparations, with mouthwatering dishes such as Wagyu beef cheek, T-bone steak, chicken and mushroom pie, smoked salmon plate and Cornish crab cake. Dessert has also been given an overhaul with new sweet delights including apple and rhubarb crumble and lemon meringue pie.



Judged by an independent jury of high profile industry players, this years expert panel included Daniel During, principal and managing director, Thomas Klein International; Rabih Feghali, director, Roya International Hospitality and Leisure Consultants; Ali Manzoor, associate partner, Knight Frank; Rupprecht Queitsch, CEO and founder, INHOCO Group; Marianne Saulwick, industry liaison director, Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management; Gaurav Sinha, founder and CEO, Insignia Worldwide; and Filippo Sona, director and head of hotels MENA for Colliers International.



Abdulla Bin Sulayem, CEO, Seven Tides, developer of DUKES Dubai, commented: This is the first accolade for West 14th under the management of the DUKES Dubai team and we are proud of what Clive has achieved. His passion for excellence mirrors the values of the DUKES brand and his endeavours will provide the perfect inspiration to all of our management and staff as we near the opening of Palm Jumeirahs most unique luxury hotel.



West 14th is open from 9am to midnight, seven days a week, and offers lunch through to 3pm and dinner from 6pm. The contemporary, open-plan, loft-inspired layout of the restaurant attracts diners looking for a stylish setting in which to sample the best steaks from around the world, as well as seasonally inspired dishes for those looking for something different. The bar element is popular in its own right, known for its delicious cocktails and mocktails, plus amazing views, complimented by a great selection of spirits, fresh mixers and shisha. Dining tables fit from two to 16. - TradeArabia News Service
Turkish Airlines has reported an 8.6 per cent jump in passenger numbers during the first four months of the year, welcoming a total of 19.3 million between January and April.



The flag carrier also said in a stock exchange filing that its load factor, which measures an airline's capacity utilisation, declined by 3.4 percentage points to 73.8 per cent. - Reuters


Kerzner International Holdings has appointed Stuart Thomson Executive as the new vice president of global human resources.



In this role, Thomson will lead the companys human resources strategy, and will work with the operations and HR leaders of Kerzner to adopt and implement best practice human resources initiatives that will support the vision of the company. He will also lead global recruitment activities, supporting the strategic growth of the company as Kerzner enters new destinations, as well as refine policies and procedures to ensure future agility. Most importantly, Thomson will further the development of Kerzner team members to continue to build the company as employer of choice through a culture of inspiration, innovation and internal advancement.



I am delighted to have Stuart join Kerzner International at this exciting time of growth for the Company, said Ali Tabbal, COO, Kerzner International. He is a strong leader who has a clear focus on developing talent to drive amazing guest experiences. I look forward to working with Stuart as we continue to grow our Team and further develop the culture and impact of HR across the Company to support our business goals and strategies, as well as the needs and aspirations of our employees around the world.



Thomson joins Kerzner International with over 15 years in hospitality and human resources, having held both operational and corporate senior leadership positions. Most recently, he was with Starwood Hotels & Resorts where, in his capacity of regional director of human resources, Middle East, he successfully oversaw the HR functions of over 50 properties and approximately 20,000 employees. He also supported the opening of resorts under the groups management, including the St. Regis Abu Dhabi, St. Regis Dubai, Luxury Collection Ajman Saray and additional properties across the region. He also led the planning for the hiring of a further 16,000 staff, including preparation and due diligence for the groups entry into new counties. Under his leadership, Thomson achieved the highest regional employee engagement score, contributing to the highest guest satisfaction score globally.



Prior to his role in the Middle East, Thomson spent six years in senior roles at Starwood in London, including the streamlining of the Human Resources department, with the establishment of a dedicated Resourcing function, Learning and Development, Internal Communications and Community roles. Earlier, he was director of human resources at Sheraton Grand Hotel and Spa and began his career in human resources at the Hyatt Regency in Auckland. - TradeArabia News Service


Omniyat Group, a leading real estate developer in the UAE, has awarded the enabling works contract to NSCC International for its Dh1-billion ($272 million) Langham Place Hotel and Residences in Downtown Dubai.



Mark Phoenix, managing director, Omniyat Group, said: The commencement of construction and award of the enabling contract to Dubai-based NSCC is a significant milestone towards our commitment to completing our 2,000 keys of uber-luxury hotels and five-star serviced residences before Dubai hosts the Expo 2020. As a well-established curator of the worlds greatest designers and hospitality brands, it gives me great pleasure to see the Langham Place moving forward to take a special place within our $4 billion development portfolio.



He added: Mobilisation work will begin in one week and will be complete in the first quarter 2017.



Omniyat Group is currently working on issuing the main construction works package tender and expects to award it by end of 2016.



To ensure investors get immediate return on their investment, the group has unveiled a guaranteed income programme that offers 20 per cent returns over the first two years of investment.



The Langham Place Downtown Dubai meets two of the utmost requirements of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) property investors worldwide  owning an ultra-luxury branded development, and being in the heart of the tourist and business centre. We are releasing our residential units for sale in Dubai and Doha on May 30th and are confident of a strong pick up from local, regional and international investors who appreciate owning a piece of one of our trophy assets, Phoenix emphasised.



Prime Location



Located in Dubais dynamic central business district, Business Bay, The Langham Place offers a panoramic view of Dubai Water Canal and offers easy access to Downtown Dubai, Mohammad Bin Rashid City, World Trade Centre and Dubai International Financial Centre.



The Langham Place hotel will cover an area of 9,028 sq m and have a built-up area of 65,025 sq m. The project will include 167 hotel keys whilst the Langham Place Residences will have 239 fully-serviced five-star residences, ranging from deluxe to one-, two- and three-bedroom suites, and duplex penthouses.



Residents will be offered an array of amenities including a swimming pool, state-of-the-art gymnasium, a spa, childrens facilities, food and beverage outlets, a business centre, housekeeping and room service and retail shops.



In August 2015, Omniyat Group and Hong Kong-based Langham Hospitality Group signed a deal to create the prestigious Langham Place Downtown Dubai.



The world-renowned Langham Place operates over 8,000 rooms in over 30 properties located in major cities over four continents. - TradeArabia News Service
It was a busy weekend for Alpha Natural Resources' lawyers. No sooner had word broken that Virginia environmentalist Tom Clarke had submitted a bid to buy the company, then Alpha filed a notice Friday saying the auction planned for today was off.

Only one qualifying bid had been submitted for the company's core assets, among them the Belle Ayr and Eagle Butte mines outside Gillette, Alpha's attorneys wrote.

The owner of the one qualified bid? That would be the company's senior lenders, who proposed a $500 million minimum bid when the auction was first announced back in March.

More details emerged late Saturday. In an updated disclosure statement, the company said it had contacted 150 potential buyers, received 17 indications of interest and nine final bids.

However, Alpha's board of directors decided the other bids did not provide any additional value, were not economically feasible, relied on speculative financing or represented a risk to the company's restructuring.

Is your head spinning yet? Mine too. So let's take a step back and go over some of the basics of Alpha's restructuring.

Alpha released its restructuring plan back in March. It calls on splitting up the company's assets into two groups: core and non-core assets.

The core assets include Belle Ayr and Eagle Butte, the McClure, Nicholas and Toms Creek mining complexes in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, and the company's natural gas assets in the Marcellus Shale formation. The non-core assets consist of marginal mines in Appalachia.

Under Alpha's initial plan, all the core assets were to go to auction, which was to be held today. They can be sold off individually or separately. The non-core assets are to form the basis of a second company, which would largely focus on reclamation.

Alpha's senior lenders have submitted something called a "stalking horse bid." A stalking horse bid is essentially a minimum bid. In this case, the senior lenders' minimum bid was $500 million.

Bids are supposed to be confidential. But SNL Financial, a trade publication, reported Thursday that Clarke had submitted a bid of $2.8 billion for all of Alpha's assets. The bid reportedly includes a $400 million cash payment, $250 million in new capital and the assumption of Alpha's reclamation liability of $683 million.

Blackhawk Mining LLC was also said to have submitted a bid of $1 plus the assumption of the reclamation liability at some Appalachian mines.

Whether Clarke, or any of the other bidders, choose to object to Alpha's moves is unclear.

Alpha has already seen objections to its restructuring plan from the Justice Department and the Sierra Club, each of whom argue the company is essentially establishing a second company (made up of the non-core assets) that won't be able to generate enough income to pay for reclamation.

In its updated disclosure statement, Alpha said it is negotiating with regulators in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee to ensure the restructured company has enough money to pay for reclamation. The statement was silent on negotiations with Wyoming regulators. A hearing on objections to Alpha's disclosure statement is scheduled for May 26.
Chesapeake Energy was successful in its bid to reverse a decision by the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission denying a high-volume gas flaring permit for an exploratory well.

The commission has not been known for denying flaring permits. But in what some viewed as indication of a possible shift, the Commission voted in March against Chesapeakes initial request in a split 3-2 vote.

At Tuesdays hearing, however, with formerly dissenting Commissioner and State Geologist Tom Drean absent, the commission approved the request with caveats. The commission reduced the amount of gas to flare to 130 MCF, (thousand cubic feet), a day, and limited it to six months.

While some on the commission still had concerns, Chesapeake presented enough new information on its need for the permit to change the commissions earlier decision in March.

Chesapeake officials said they wanted better data, which could best be gathered by letting the wildcat oil well run at full capacity. The commission was concerned with the amount of natural gas the company was requesting to flareup to 160 MCF per day for a year.

Partly due to growing concerns about the amount of gas being flared in the state, and the subsequent loss of tax revenue, the commission recently implemented new flaring rules, including a requirement that companies provide a gas capture plan on a new well or field.

At the hearing, Chesapeake told the commission that it now had a gas collection plan, but it would be uneconomic to put in a gathering system for a single well. It also noted it was an oil well, where gas is only considered a byproduct.

Chesapeake representatives told the commission at the March hearing the fracked well was its first in the Teapot formation in Converse County. It produced 56,711 barrels of oil in about a year of operation, with 22,613 MCF of gas. The company had asked that it be given until October to come up with a plan to capture the gas, without cutting back on oil production.

At the rehearing on Tuesday, representatives said the earlier decision to limit the amount of flared gas to 60 MCF a day restricted the flow of oil and gas from the well. While the wells potential could still be modeled under the reduced rate, the company said it prefers to have actual unrestricted results.

When we go out and ask for funding within the company, they want to know how you are going to produce it said Chesapeake Engineer Grant Loxston. If youre going in and presenting the forecast based on what you think it could possibly do theres hesitation, and you have to build a risk factor into that, and the opportunity of getting funding becomes very risky.

Oil and Gas Commissioner Mark Doelger asked if the test well indicates it is economic to develop the field, even with restricted flaring. Officials said with a development plan of a minimum of ten wells, it would become profitable after the first five wells.

Yes, its around 2 percent economic at the present Wyoming rolling 12 month average price, Loxston said of the single well. But at the company we have to show a 20 percent rate of returnwe would look at it as a big-play rather than the single well play.

Before taking the vote, Doelger still hesitated to support lifting the restriction.

I know that the additional data would help in its decisions, but I think that you have a certain amount of data, Doelger said.

In a switch from his earlier no vote, Fitzsimmons referenced the companys funding model and also the usefulness of the well information to other operators in the state.

The value to the commission is that that data doesnt reside in a file in a field office, but is actually shared through public filings to the commission, so that it can be transparent to other operators, Fitzsimmons said.

Meanwhile, there was both support and protest at the hearing.

Amol Bhavsar, of the Wyomings Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute, testified it was working with Chesapeake on possible ways to use the gas, such as re-injection to enhance oil recovery.

Commission Member Gov. Matt Mead, however, cautioned Bhavsar that it was not appropriate for the state financed Institute to weigh in on individual cases, particularly before the Commission.

The Powder River Basin Resource Council challenged Chesapeakes request, saying the benefits to lifting the flaring limit were not sufficient to justify the loss of enough gas to heat 500 homes, and potential severance tax revenue to the state.
Yellowstone National Park officials euthanized a bison calf after tourists put the newborn in their car and caused the animal to be rejected by its herd, the park said Monday.

Criminal charges against the tourists, who the park did not identify, are pending.

Rangers repeatedly tried to reunite the calf with its herd, according to a statement released by the park. The efforts failed, and the calf was later euthanized because it was abandoned and approaching people and cars along the road.

Human interference can cause mothers to reject their offspring, the park said.

Yellowstone released a statement Monday after receiving criticism for euthanizing the calf. In order for the calf to leave the park, it would have had to spend months in quarantine to be monitored for brucellosis. No approved quarantine facilities exist, and the park said it doesn't have the capacity to care for a calf that's too young to forage on its own.

"Nor is it the mission of the National Park Service to rescue animals: our goal is to maintain the ecological processes of Yellowstone," the statement said. "Even though humans were involved in this case, it is not uncommon for bison, especially young mothers, to lose or abandon their calves. Those animals typically die of starvation or predation."

The tourists were cited for taking of wildlife after they put the calf in their car and took it to a park facility because of a misplaced concern for the animals welfare, the release said.

Morgan Warthin, a spokeswoman for the park, said the investigation is ongoing and she did not know what the criminal charges would be. Warthin called the visitors international but said she did not know what country they came from.

She said the situation is unprecedented, and she is not aware of another instance in which tourists put a bison in their car.

When asked to respond to critics of Yellowstones decision to euthanize the calf, Warthin said park officials are professionals and should be trusted to make the very best decision they can based on the information they have at the time.

Warthin said the park would like visitors to respect wildlife and to know and follow the safety regulations.

The visitors put themselves in danger because adult animals are protective of their young and will act aggressively to defend them, the park said. Last year, five visitors were seriously injured when they approached bison. Bison harm more visitors to Yellowstone than any other animal.

Park regulations require visitors to stay at least 25 yards from all wildlife and at least 100 yards from bears and wolves.

Disregarding these regulations can result in fines, injury and even death, the release said. The safety of these animals, as well as human safety, depends on everyone using good judgment and following these simple rules.
SAO PAULO  To say that Michel Temer faces huge challenges would be an understatement.

Brazils 75-year-old acting president must fight the Zika virus, which can cause birth defects and has ravaged thousands of families in poor northeastern states. He must rescue Latin Americas largest economy from its worst recession since the 1930s, most likely by making painful  and protest-invoking  cuts to the pension system and social-welfare spending.

He must win back the trust of a populace that has come to believe virtually all politicians, including him, are lining their pockets with taxpayer money.

And he must begin these gargantuan tasks with the Summer Olympics just months away and while his predecessor and former-ally-turned-enemy, Dilma Rousseff, is rallying supporters around assertions she was the victim of a coup led by Temer.

This is going to be a real mess. The combination of all these factors at once is unbelievable, said Alexandre Barros, a Brasilia-based consultant. Everybody is unhappy with the situation, but nobody knows what to do.

For the sake of the nations 200 million people, and for all the South American nations whose fortunes are tied to Brazils powerhouse economy, one hopes that Temer does know what to do.

The career politician took office on Thursday just hours after the Senate voted to impeach Rousseff, accusing her of using illegal accounting tricks to hide deficits in the federal budget. Rousseff insists she has done nothing wrong and vows to fight as the Senate holds a trial, a process that can take up to six months.

If the Senate votes to remove Rousseff, as is likely, Temer would complete her term, which goes through 2018.

Temer is getting early kudos for one Cabinet choice: Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles is widely respected for serving as Central Bank chief during the boom years from 2003 to 2010.

Meirelles quickly signaled that hell push to revamp labor laws to increase productivity and reform a pension system known for generous payouts and early retirement; many public workers can retire in their early or mid-50s.

Actually pulling that off will be very difficult. Many lawmakers in Congress rallied around the idea of ousting Rousseff, but building consensus around unpopular reforms could prove elusive. Still, the ongoing crisis combined with the reality that there will be no near-term rebound in the prices of commodities, Brazils lifeblood, could be strong incentives for change.

One of Temers biggest challenges, if not a direct threat to his presidency, is the so-called Car Wash probe. Led by judge Sergio Moro, investigators uncovered a multi-billion dollar kickback scheme centered on the state oil company Petrobras that has astonished even a populous long inured to political graft. In two years, dozens of the countrys elites have been ensnared, from top lawmakers to businessmen.
The Hopyard Deli & Market on North Fourth Avenue is apparently closed.

The space at 210 N. Fourth Ave. was vacant last week and the phone has been disconnected. However there is no mention of the closing on the store's Facebook page and its website is still up and running.

Hopyard, owned by Connecticut transplant Allison Crist, opened in March 2014. In addition to serving sandwiches and New England deli fare, the shop served as a small neighborhood market.

 Speaking of closings, Tucson chef Albert Hall served his final meals at his AAA Four-Diamond Foothills restaurant Acacia Real Food & Cocktails. On Sunday, Hall celebrated his finale after 11 years in business. Hall announced in February that he would close the restaurant, which he had opened in 2004 in St. Philip's Plaza. He moved it in 2011 to a smaller, airy hillside spot on Skyline's Gallery Row.

In February, Hall said he would likely open a new "modern" concept," but he wouldn't comment on when and where or what shape the concept would take.
Interstate 10 near San Simon has been re-opened Tuesday afternoon after an hours-long closure because of blowing dust. It's the third time in three days the 60-mile stretch of interstate has been closed to traffic.

ADOT employees and Arizona state troopers are stationed near the field at milepost 376 that is the source of the dust. ADOT and other agencies are working with the landowner to deal with the blowing dust, including spraying 320 acres of the field with water last week.

Eastbound traffic will detour on U.S. Highway 191 to Safford and then take U.S. 70 back to I-10 at Lordsburg, New Mexico. Westbound traffic will follow that route in the opposite direction. The detour is about 110 miles long.

The same stretch of I-10 was closed Sunday from about 10:30 a.m. to about 6:50 p.m. It was also closed for several hours Monday afternoon.

For tips on what to do if caught in a dust storm, visit: pullasidestayalive.org/

For updates on the latest highway conditions, visit the ADOT Traveler Information Center at az511.gov or call 511.
Constance Mwamba has long had a love for the languages of the world. So much so that by age 11, she could speak four different ones.

But of all the languages she acquired during her childhood in Africa, she was without words when her family immigrated to the U.S. six years ago.

Now a Pueblo Magnet High School senior, Mwamba speaks fluent English and has managed to pick up Spanish with the help of telenovelas. She has also devoted the last several months to learning Korean.

Mwamba, 18, aspires to become a surgeon. She wants to make use of her multilingual skills as she travels the world, helping people in need, much like the doctors at the refugee camp she and her family lived in for about a decade after fleeing the violence-plagued Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Armed with a handful of scholarship awards and having been accepted into the University of Arizona, Mwamba says she will not be deterred by the years of schooling required to go into medicine, given all that she has overcome thus far.

For many English-language learners, the road to graduation is difficult to navigate. U.S. Department of Education data show that Arizonas 18 percent graduation rate of English-language learners was not only far lower than the 75 percent rate statewide, but the lowest in the country for the 2013-14 school year.

Upon arriving in Tucson in December 2009 as a sixth-grader, Mwamba did not speak English.

Her only friends, she said, were her teachers and her siblings. She credits her English-language development teacher and the PBS Kids television shows with helping her gain proficiency by the end of her seventh-grade year.

While having the ability to communicate was empowering, Mwamba found herself targeted by bullies for being different and having an accent.

By the end of her junior year of high school, Mwamba decided to remove herself from that environment, and transferred to Pueblo.

Its the best decision Ive made in my school career, Mwamba said. Ive done so many things, and I feel proud of myself for once.

She quickly made friends on campus and was encouraged to plan for the future.

Its a good community, she said of the Tucson Unified School District campus. I have people to help me, people to talk to. People encourage you to go to college and apply for scholarships, and I did that and I received some scholarships.

Im going to the U of A, and thats a great accomplishment, really. Im really proud of that.

Also proud of Mwamba is Pueblos senior student counselor, Teresa Toro.

In my 10 years as a high school counselor, Constance is one of the few students who has impressed me with her academic resiliency, tenacity and achievements, said Toro, sharing that Mwamba enrolled in honors and dual-enrollment college Spanish as well as Advanced Placement statistics.

Being recently immigrated to the United States has come with its challenges, but because of her personal assets and family support, (Constance) has risen above those challenges and is planning for a promising future.

Mwamba encourages students like herself to strive to overcome challenges.

It is not a good idea to give up, because you never know what you can accomplish once you break that barrier between you and what you see as impossible.
Some Pima County residents are crying foul after finding that the Arizona Secretary of State's website does not list Pima County polling locations.

A link on the state agency's site, marked "Where is my polling location?", only partially works - throwing up error messages when Pima County residents attempt to use the online tool that searches for voter information.

A button, which allows voters to search by address, works correctly.

A spokesperson for the Arizona Secretary of State's Office, Matt Roberts, says a fix is in the works - but the problem lies with the Pima County Recorder's Office. He said Pima County did not provide the polling information to his office.

A pop-up screen on the Secretary of State's website warns voters that the information provided is supplied by each county and suggests those who can't find their polling place should call the county recorder's office.

An online tool on the Pima County's website does work correctly, allowing people to search for a polling place by their address.

A call to the Pima County Recorder's Office was not immediately returned.

State Senator Steve Farley, a Democrat, still puts the blame on Secretary of State Michele Reagan.

Saying her office is ultimately responsible, Farley notes this is third voting problem Reagan has had since taking office last year.

Roberts says he expects to fix the issue by this afternoon.
PHOENIX  Arizonans could get the last word on whether to uphold or reject newly enacted campaign finance laws that would allow more dark money to flow into state elections.

Opponents of changes approved earlier this year by the Republican-controlled Legislature filed the necessary paperwork Friday to begin circulating petitions to refer the two new laws to voters.

The two measures would create new exceptions to existing statutes that require certain groups that try to influence elections to disclose the true source of their cash. That would bar both the secretary of state and the Citizens Clean Elections Commission from demanding they open up their books.

Foes have until Aug. 5 to gather 75,321 valid signatures on each of two petitions.

If they are successful, both measures would not take effect until voters decide in November whether to ratify what lawmakers have approved or reject it.

Provisions in SB 1516 and HB 2296 say if an organization is classified as a social welfare organization by the Internal Revenue Service, it need not disclose its donors to efforts to affect political races.

Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Phoenix, who spearheaded the effort, said the Internal Revenue Code aligns with existing law that says groups that spend less than half their money on political issues can keep the sources of their funding secret.

Rep. Ken Clark, D-Phoenix, said the problem with that is the IRS does not actively police these groups to ensure they are, in fact, living within their fiscal limits.

SB 1516, in a very kind of sneaky way, abdicates the states responsibility to oversee expenditures in campaigns from dark money groups, he said. Clark said the two state agencies that have the power to police election laws need to be able to demand that groups spending money to influence Arizona voters open their books.

While federal law says social welfare groups cannot spend more than half their money trying to elect candidates, there is no such limit on trying to approve or defeat ballot measures.

Clark also said the changes give political parties the power to launder anonymous donations and get the funds to candidates, all outside the purview of voters.

Mesnard does not dispute that the change could mean less information for voters about who is trying to influence them. But he said hes not bothered by that.

At the end of the day, this is fundamental to democracy, and that is the right of a person or a group of people, an organization, to weigh in on our election process, he said. Somewhere along the line, some folks got it into their heads that we have a right to know.

Mesnard said he does not believe that.

A message is a message, he said. If its important to you to know whos behind the message and you dont know whos behind the message, then disregard it. But if its not important to you and you want to focus on the message itself, then theres no harm done with the current system.

Clark, however, is proceeding under the premise that people do want to know who is spending millions of dollars on commercials to affect the outcome at the ballot. We know the public wants nothing to do with dark money and they can see through these games, he said.
Help India!

Bengaluru : Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Sunday renamed the Bengaluru city station after Karnatakas 19th century revolutionary freedom fighter and warrior Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna, fulfilling a long-standing demand of the people across the state.

Born on August 15, 1798, Rayanna, then ruler of Kittur in Belagavi fought against the British East India Company till he was killed in 1832.

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The 33-year-old Rayanna participated in the 1824 rebellion and was captured and hanged to death from a banyan tree at Nandagad in Belagavi district on January 26, 1832.

The South Western Railway (SWR) has installed Rayannas bust at the main station entrance, with a plaque having his picture and a brief biographical account.

On the request of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and central minister Ananth Kumar, who represents the Bengaluru South seat in Lok Sabha, Prabhu agreed to consider installing a tall statute of Rayanna in front of the station and ensure the warriors full name would be printed on tickets in place of KSR currently.

We will also publish an article on Rayanna in our on-board magazine Railway Bandhu and bring out a booklet for passengers on him, recounting his patriotism, nationalism and sacrifice for the country freedom, Prabhu said.
Help India!

By Twocircles.net Special Correspondent

New Delhi: A seminar in Vigyan Bhawan to talk about government schemes to protect cows turned embarrassing for the government after Union Minister for Agriculture Radhamohan Singh and Environment Minister Prakash Javdekar were hooted and booed by a group of Gau Rakshaks.

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The day-long programme was being organised in Vigyan Bhawan on the welfare of cows today on the second anniversary of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) victory in the Lok Sabha elections. Interestingly, Home minister Rajnath Singh, who was scheduled to be the Chief Guest, did not turn up for the seminar.

When Radhamohan Singh said the government had released Rs 582 crore for cow protection, many in the crowd stood up to ask: Where is the money? The protesters added that ministers were only interested in playing politics over cow and much less bothered about protecting the animal. The protesters also raised the issue of selling grazing land, saying that any scheme meant to protect cows will be of little use if there is grazing fields are sold.

 Photo credit-Press Information Bureau

In 2015, the Haryana government, in an effort to protect local cows, had said that no cow of recognized indigenous breed would be inseminated with exotic/crossbred semen from now on. However, protesters said the government policy is to promote foreign breeds. Who will look after the local breeds? asked one of the protesters.

The seminar was organised to discuss how to increase the milk production, provide nutritious feed and fodder to cows and how to make non-productive cows financially sustainable.
Help India!

In the second of the four-part series, we look at how the livelihoods of the fishing community is increasingly under threat to overfishing, change in climate and the unquestioned powers of the forest officials.

Read part one here.

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By Amit Kumar, Twocircles.net

Sunderbans: The Public Hearing had made it clear that due to the lack of effectiveness in implementing the Forest Rights Act, issues that now threaten the livelihoods of the people go much beyond the implementation of one, or a few, Acts. Over the past two decades, the very existence of these islands, and its people, has been under increasing threat and man-made laws seem ill equipped to help local people find ways of sustenance.

Rajni Mandal, a member of the audience in the Public Hearing had been listening with apt attention, and towards the end of the meeting, approached me. After questioning me about why I was here, he said something which seemed surprising initially. I do not understand the point of holding the meeting in this school, he said, before clarifying, Hardly anyone from this island, or Rangabelia village (on the main island of Gosaba) go fishing. If you want to talk to people, come to my village, almost everyone is either a fisherman or a honey collector. If they had held this meeting in the interior islands, it would have benefited a lot more people, he said.

We would have to take another boat, he said, to go to his village, Chotto Molla Khali. Mandal, who is also a fisherman, was in his 30s and had been fishing for the past 15 years. He said he preferred crabs over fish, for they fetched more in the market. The boat ride was short: his village had been on the same island as Uttar Danga, but on the opposite side: from this village, one could see the site of probably the Left Regimes worst atrocity: the island, and the massacre, of Marichjhapi.

While approaching Chotto Molla Khali, Mandal explained his situation. Yes, the situation with Forest Officials had worsened, but his concerns were far more serious. There is no fish, he says.

What?

There is fish, yes, but we are running out of places to find them, he says.

Why?

As we walked through bone-dry land with remnants of what seemed like a good paddy harvest, Rajni asked other men from his village to join in.

Simanta Mandal, a 27-year-old fisherman, showed us his recent catch: a cast of crabs which would sell for Rs 400 a kilo in the market. On first impressions, it seemed a nice catch for what he described as a two-week incursion into the maze of rivers. That is, until he broke down the numbers over twenty minutes.

Not everyone can go fishing in Sunderbans. Not even locals, who have been living here all their lives. It is another matter that even if you do venture around the islands, you will land zero fish (because as Mandal said, there arent any fish).

The licence to fish, the permission to exploit

Of the 4.2 million people in Sunderbans, almost 90% are from the Paundra Kshtriya, Namasudra, and Jele castes from the Schedule Caste Community. In the late 19th and 20th century, according to various studies, Paundras and Namasudras migrated to the forests during the time when the British government was converting large tracts of mangroves to agricultural land. A number of people in Sunderbans, including Rajni Mandal, trace their roots to Jharkhand. Among the population, almost 80%, or three million, depend on fishing for a source of livelihood.

But the number of Boat Licensing Certificates, which gives you the Right to fish in Sunderban waters, stands at 923. Yes, for a population of roughly 3 million, there are 923 licenses, of which only 700 or so remain active. The other license owners either died, or left the profession. The licenses were issued in 1973, for the Sundarban Tiger Reserve area of 892.38 square kilometers.

What has happened since, Simanta spoke after explaining the concept of BLC, is that all fishermen rent these BLCs for anything between Rs 20,000-30,000 per annum, depending on the time of the year and the catch they expect. I too rented this for around Rs 25,000 for the year. Importantly, while the license belongs to one person, there can of course be more people on the boat, since it is a collective effort. Simanta last went out to fish with three other men, so his collection had also been split accordingly. Then, there is the cost of going to fish. We take loans from Arakdar (merchants), who charge no interest on the loan. Instead, we either pay them off slowly, or as is mostly the case now, they buy our catch at about 25% lower than the market rate, Simanta adds. This, he added, is done until the loan is paid off.

It is more than 30% lower than the market price, another fisherman added. Others, however, agreed that it was not a bad deal in order to go fishing. It seemed like the only viable option too, given that none of the fishermen we spoke to had ever approached a bank for a loan.

 While big cargo ships like these, on their way to Bangladesh, can use this route, local fishermen are not allowed to use machine-powered boats

So, Simanta continued, after all these calculations, I made about Rs 4,500 from this trip, he says. But do you know how long do we have to row for this catch? he asked.

Why couldnt they use mechanised boats? Was it because of monetary constraints?

No, Rajni Mandal added, reminding me again of what Younus Mulla said. We cannot take mechanized boats for fishing, it causes pollution, he said. This seemed a bit odd, for we had seen cargo ships heading towards Bangladesh on our way. Cargo boats, cruise ships, tourist boats are allowed to use diesel-powered boats, except fishermen. We have to row, he said. Upto six hours to enter the area of fishing, Simanta added.

 Niranjan Sarkar, one of the local fishermen, shows some of his recent catch

What was defined as the area of fishing? That again, is a complex issue when it comes to Sunderbans.

The Sundarban Tiger Reserve (STR) is spread over 2, 585 sq. kms. Of this, about 1,600 square kms is land area and the rest 985 km is the water area. The first Sundarbans Management Plan demarcated the STR into the wilderness zone or Core Area measuring 1,330.10 square km. No activities like fishing or honey collection was permitted here. The remaining area, in the north and the east of the Core Area, was defined as the 1,254.9 square kilometer buffer zone, wherein all activities that forest dependent communities engage with were permitted. In 1977, the forest department expanded the no fishing zone by 437.61 square kilometers, notifying Sajnakheli Bird Sanctuary, to about 1,692 square kms. Within the STR, in 2007, the State Government expanded the area by around 1,700 square kilometers.

Essentially, what this has meant is that not only has the fishing area come down, it has also presented the fishermen with challenges they cannot simply cope with. Unlike land, you cannot divide water. A number of our fishing routes have been blocked and we have to now go to new places to fish, where the Forest Officials are only too happy to take their share, says Simanta. The increase in reserve forest area, the increase in fishing due to multiple rentals of the same old BLCs and the recent changes in weather due to global warming have meant that the fishermen of Sunderbans, despite living around water, are now entering unchartered territories for fishing. We often end up fishing close to the waters around the Indo-Bangladesh border. In a few years, we will be going to the sea to fish, added Rajni. The waters near the border present another challenge: Pirates. However, according to the fishermen, the incidents of Pirate attacks have come down in the last five years due to the increased patrolling around the border areas. But who is scared of pirates when there are Forest Officials around, Simanta adds laughingly.

 A fisherman on his boat

But what about Tigers: the most famous enemy of the fishermen?

The last time we spotted a Tiger on this island was in 2009, a couple of months after Cyclone Aila. Now the Tiger is not so much an issue, at least on this island, Simanta said. All reserve islands had been sort of wrapped in a two-layer netting, to ensure that neither humans enter the reserve islands nor do the tigers encroach out of the territory. Tigers and humans can live; they have done so in the past too. It is the other humans (forest officials) we are scared of, added another fisherman.
This summary of the American Cancer Society Prostate Cancer Survivorship Care Guidelines targets primary care physicians who coordinate care of prostate cancer survivors with subspecialists. Prostate cancer survivors should undergo prostate-specific antigen screening every six to 12 months and digital rectal examination annually. Surveillance of patients who choose watchful waiting for their prostate cancer should be conducted by a subspecialist. Any hematuria or rectal bleeding must be thoroughly evaluated. Prostate cancer survivors should be screened regularly for urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction. Patients with predominant urge incontinence symptoms, which can occur after surgical and radiation treatments, may benefit from an anticholinergic agent. If there is difficulty with bladder emptying, a trial of an alpha blocker may be considered. A phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor can effectively treat sexual dysfunction following treatment for prostate cancer. Osteoporosis screening should occur before initiation of androgen deprivation therapy, and patients treated with androgen deprivation therapy should be monitored for anemia, metabolic syndrome, and vasomotor symptoms. Healthy lifestyle choices should be encouraged, including weight management, regular physical activity, proper nutrition, and smoking cessation. Primary care physicians should be vigilant for psychosocial distress, including depression, among prostate cancer survivors, as well as the potential impact of this distress on patients' family members and partners.

American family physician. 2016 May 01 [Epub]

Erika M Noonan, Timothy W Farrell

Intermountain Healthcare, Provo, UT, USA., University of Utah School of Medicine and VA Salt Lake City Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.

PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27175954
Chinese help revive local businesses in Egypt Updated: 2016-05-16 08:34 (Xinhua)

A man goes by a billboard advertising Egypt's tourism in Wangfujing Street, downtown Beijing.CHINA DAILY

The bazaar before the ancient Karnak Temple in Upper Egypt's Luxor tourist city bustled with a substantial number of Chinese tourists visiting the city, following months of acute recession.

"Business died as most foreign tourists stopped visiting the city lately," Wael Ahmed, an owner of a bazaar in Luxor said. "However, business improved after Chinese tourists started visiting Luxor."

An increasing number of Chinese tourists are visiting Egypt following President Xi Jinping's recent visit, reviving Egypt's tourism industry.

Tourism in Egypt was dealt a heavy blow following the Russian airplane crash in North Sinai last October, after which several countries, including Britain and Russia, suspended their flights to Egypt.

This further augmented the recession in the country's already ailing tourism sector which is a major source of its national income and foreign currency reserves.

However, even before the plane crash, Egypt suffered a sharp decline in tourism due to three years of political turmoil, including two mass uprisings which toppled two presidents, forcing several countries to ban their citizens from visiting Egypt for safety reasons.

Luxor, once an Ancient Egyptian capital, suffered similarly as with Egyptian tourist cities.

However, the industry has recently improved as hundreds of Chinese tourists visit the city daily.

"As you can see, Chinese tourists are everywhere in Luxor," Ahmed said. "I was going to close my shop a month ago but I changed my mind after Chinese tourists started coming."

He added that Chinese tourists also frequent restaurants, coffee shops, bazaars and malls nearly as much as American and European tourists did, though they've recently stopped visiting Luxor.

Egypt, the most populous Arab country, with its rich culture, now pins immense hope on China and is eager to tap into the China's tourism market.

During a recent interview with Xinhua, former Egyptian Tourism Minister, Hisham Zaazou, said that Egypt received 35 percent additional tourists from China immediately following president Xi's visit to Egypt.

"The number of Chinese tourists increased from 65,000 to 135,000 in 2015," Zaazou said, adding that he believes the number could rise to between half a million and a million shortly, once flights from China to Egypt increase.

To encourage more tourists to visit the country, Egypt exempted Chinese tourists from visa requirements, allowing for visa-upon-arrival if they are sponsored by a tourist agency and are financially comfortable.

Apparently, these measures as well as Luxor's charm attract Chinese tourists looking for tranquility surrounded by breathtaking ancient ruins scattered throughout the city.

Luxor is home to Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings and its magnificent sunset at the majestic Karnak and Luxor temples are a perfect choice for culture-based tourism.

"It is very pleasant here amongst the city's old temples, with lovely weather, and it is quite safe," said a 17-year-old Chinese girl called Helen, as she toured the Temple of Karnak.

Helen is visiting Egypt with her family for the first time, but she said it will not be her last.

"We prefer Luxor as it is a historical city and we learn so much about Egypt's history since it is one of the most ancient civilizations in the world, comparable to China," Helen's mother said.

Helen's mother also said visiting Egypt is much cheaper than neighboring countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon or Jordan, therefore it is more attractive to Chinese tourists.

Chinese and Egyptian tourist agencies promote Luxor to Chinese tourists as a great city to visit in Egypt.

"Egypt in general and Luxor in particular are rather special. Luxor's 7,000 year-old history attracts Chinese tourists who single out Egypt for its rich history, and they also want to learn more about its local culture," said Yang Lili, a Chinese leader of a tourist group during a tour of Karnak Temple.

Yang said Chinese tourists were very scared to visit Egypt at first due to the country's political and security situation, but they were encouraged following the Chinese president's visit earlier this year.

"We don't worry too much about security as it is very safe here, and not as dangerous as the news portrays it," she said.
4,500-year-old Yan Emperor links modern neighbors Updated: 2016-05-16 08:40 By Sun Ruisheng / Li Yang(China Daily)

About 2,000 people, more than half of them from Taiwan, attended an annual memorial ceremony on Saturday for the Yan Emperor in what is thought to have been his hometown in Gaoping, Shanxi province.

The Yan Emperor was a legendary Chinese ruler who lived about 4,500 years ago. He is also known as Shennong, or holy farmer, and is credited with spreading farming technology, inventing tools, finding herbs and collecting grain seeds.

The eighth day of the fourth month on the Chinese lunar calendar, which fell on Saturday this year, is believed to be the birthday of the Yan Emperor. The ceremony was held at a newly renovated tomb and adjacent temple, which consists of about 300 halls covering 11 hectares.

Yok Mu-ming, president of Taiwan's New Party, who was a keynote speaker, said: "Chinese from the two sides of the Taiwan Straits have the same ancestors. The purpose of our joint memorial for the Yan Emperor is peace and harmony for future generations. The two sides should help each other's economy for the rise of China."

It is estimated that there are 146 Yan Emperor temples in Taiwan.

Some delegates of the temples took part in the ceremony and will take back incense ashes as a symbol of the two sides' sharing the same root.

Residents offered ritual sacrifices before a statue of the Yan Emperor, and some students from Taiwan who attend a school in Dongguan performed for the ceremony.

Song Heping, spokesman for the Gaoping government, said there are hundreds of ancient temples, stone tablets and historical sites, as well as a strong folk culture surrounding the Yan Emperor in Gaoping, dating to at least 2,000 years ago. The county - specifically the region around Yangtou Mountain - was believed to be the emperor's birthplace, main region of activity and burial site.

Contact the writers at liyang@chinadaily.com.cn

Students in traditional costumes perform during the annual memorial ceremony for the Yan Emperor in Gaoping, Shanxi province, on Saturday. Sun Ruisheng / China Daily

(China Daily 05/16/2016 page5)
Connections to Chinese mainland remain tight Updated: 2016-05-16 08:40 By An Baijie(China Daily)

The central message of the poem, which was written decades ago, has not been diminished by the passing of time. Its verses still resonate with the heartache of those stranded by the ebb and flow of history.

"When I was young, my homesickness was a small stamp. I was here, my mother was there. After growing up, my homesickness was a narrow ticket. I was here, my bride was there.

"Later, my homesickness was a little tomb. I was outside, my mother was inside. And now, my homesickness is a shallow strait, I am here, the mainland is there."

The poem, Homesickness, (also translated as "nostalgia") was written in Taipei in 1971 by Taiwan's preeminent poet, Yu Kuang-chung, when Yu was 43. At the time, he had not been back to his hometown in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, for more than 20 years because of the tide of events after the Kuomintang was defeated by the Communist Party of China.

The poem is still popular with people from both sides of the Straits, but enhanced economic and people-to-people exchanges in recent years have put an end to any sense of isolation that previous generations suffered.

"We learned the poem in primary school, but I couldn't understand it then. Neither could most of my classmates because they had never been to the mainland before," said 25-year-old Alice Lin, who is now in Pingtan, the closest place on the Chinese mainland to Taiwan, where she runs a chain of bed-and-breakfast guesthouses.

Lin, whose father is a legislator in Taiwan, said she knew little about politics - either in the Chinese mainland or in Taiwan.

Many other young people in Taiwan have also expressed the opinion that they don't care too much about cross-Straits politics, even those that have businesses on the mainland. They have said they are confident the mainland's supportive policies toward Taiwan investors will not be changed.

A number of young Taiwan entrepreneurs have made their choice: They have come to the mainland to start up their own businesses amid the "mass entrepreneurship and innovation" campaign boosted by the central government, and they have also enjoyed policy benefits, including tax reductions and lower rent for housing.

When asked about their expectations from cross-Straits relations, the most frequent answer I got was, "No matter who takes office in Taiwan, developing ties with the mainland will be a must."

They may not be able to recite the poem Homesickness as fluently as their parents did, but their ties with the mainland are just as tight.

Contact the writer at anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn.

(China Daily 05/16/2016 page5)
Four Chongqing public clinic employees arrested over vaccine scandal Updated: 2016-05-16 10:02 By Tan Yingzi in Chongqing(chinadaily.com.cn)

Four employees at a public clinic in Chongqing, Southwest China, were arrested on Sunday for making illegal profits from suspect vaccines.

Last Friday, a post about a clinic nurse in Nan'an District suspected of replacing expensive, imported vaccines with fake ones went viral online. Hundreds of angry parents protested over the weekend demanding a thorough investigation into vaccine management at the clinic, which has been providing services to the community for years.

The clinic is under the management of Chongqing No 6 People's Hospital.

Concerns were first raised when a mother noticed a nurse at the clinic using different colored syringes to administer a 700 yuan ($108) imported pentavalent vaccine, which is intended to protect children from five potentially deadly diseases including tetanus, hepatitis B and diphtheria.

According to the online post, the nurse would sometimes use blue syringes that came with the vaccine and at other times use white disposable syringes when giving the shots.

Many parents commented that their children had suffered an adverse reaction to the vaccine and suspected foul play.

A health expert with the team investigating the incident told the media on Sunday evening that it was acceptable for the clinic nurse to use disposable syringes if the original ones had become contaminated.

However, the team also found that four employees at the clinic, including the nurse, had illegally profited from falsifying vaccine purchase and registration records.

Last month, a revision of the previous regulation on the management of vaccines was approved by the State Council, China's Cabinet, after a scandal involving 570 million yuan worth of Category 2 vaccines that had been stored improperly and sold across China.

This revision intensifies management rules for vaccines, including their transportation and storage, and increases punishments for violators.

It also stipulates that chief government officials should resign if serious vaccine violations occur within their jurisdictions.
Jiangmen, Silicon Valley team up Updated: 2016-05-16 11:08 By Lia Zhu in San Francisco(China Daily USA)

Jiangmen, known as the capital of overseas Chinese, has teamed up with Silicon Valley to build the city into the capital of overseas Chinese innovation and entrepreneurship.

A delegation of more than 20 government officials and entrepreneurs from the southern China city and their US counterparts attended the Silicon Valley-Jiangmen Innovation Forum on Sunday in Mountain View, California. The forum attracted more than 200 guests including elected officials, entrepreneurs and academia.

"Silicon Valley is a world-renowned center of electronic industry with a high concentration of small- and medium-sized high-tech companies, while Jiangmen enjoys advantages in manufacturing, cost and market, which means immense potential for cooperation in developing the high-tech industry," said Xu Xiaoxiong, vice-mayor of Jiangmen.

Jiangmen, in Guangdong province, is a prefecture-level city of 4.5 million in the western part of the Pearl River Delta, known as "the world's workshop". As a key national economic center, the city has stepped up efforts to attract talent and highly skilled professionals in recent years with policies and incentives.

Last year, Jiangmen ranked first as a national demonstration city for entrepreneurship and innovation for small and micro enterprises in China.

In the next five years, Jiangmen will put a priority on equipment manufacturing, smart manufacturing, green manufacturing and sophisticated manufacturing, said Xu.

"Jiangmen is one of the best-kept secrets of China and, in my view, the newly discovered shining pearl of the Pearl River Delta," said Carol Brookins, former US executive director of World Bank Group, and currently managing director of Public Capital Advisors LLC.

She said that she first visited Jiangmen in 1999 when she was spearheading an effort for Asia-Pacific economic cooperation.

She said at that time Jiangmen was underdeveloped compared with the dynamic growth of the eastern Pearl River, and the trip from Hong Kong Special Administrative Region took six hours by slow ferry and land. Today, it takes only two hours.

"In China and in the world, sustainability is a very important topic and issue," said Brookins. "But I want to commend Jiangmen because the focus of Jiangmen on being a sustainable city really began more than 17 years ago.

On economic growth, Jiangmen has grown three times, and at the same time, its ecological environment and economy have been developing in a harmonious way, said Brookins, adding that "it's one of the most important assets for Jiangmen".

The connection between Jiangmen and the San Francisco Bay Area began over a century ago, when people from the Jiangmen's five counties region came to San Francisco to exploit mineral resources and to take part in building the Transcontinental Railroad.

More than 300,000 Chinese of Jiangmen origin live in the Bay Area, said Liang Fuming, director of Jiangmen Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Bureau. Trade between Jiangmen and the US reached $3.16 billion last year, said Xu.

During the forum, Chinese and US entrepreneurs signed 12 agreements to develop projects covering biotech, automobiles, electric appliances and healthcare, involving a total of $378 million in capital.

The Chinese delegation and 16 cities in Silicon Valley also established the Jiangmen-Silicon Valley Innovation City Alliance at the forum.

liazhu@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 05/16/2016 page3)
Businesses hope for waters to stay calm Updated: 2016-05-16 08:38 By An Baijie/Hu Meidong/John Liu(China Daily USA)

As Taiwan's new leader prepares for her inauguration, businesspeople look for relations with the mainland to remain on an even keel

Editor's note: China Daily is publishing a series of reports on cross-Straits relations ahead of the inauguration of Taiwan's new leader. The reports are jointly compiled with the Taipei-based China Post. The first, by China Daily reporters An Baijie and Hu Meidong and China Post reporter John Liu, looks at how businesspeople are viewing the joint ties.

As Friday, inauguration day for Taiwan's new leader, approaches, businesspeople across the Straits are concerned about uncertainties brought by the political change in Taiwan.

They have urged the new government, led by Democratic Progressive Party politician Tsai Ing-wen, not to destroy the good basis for peaceful development built up over past years.

They also say that people on both sides of the Straits should not suffer from political confrontation between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

Taiwan investor Nien Shun-jung said he is confident about his business on the mainland even though Tsai's inauguration could bring uncertainties to cross-Straits relations.

Nien, 38, CEO of Crown Wei Pingtan Trading Co, runs a gift shop named Taiwan Gege at the Aoqian township duty free market in Pingtan, Fujian province, the closest place on the mainland to Taiwan. The shop opened three months ago and all goods sold there are imported from Taiwan and are exempt from customs duty.

"I don't care who Taiwan's ruling political party is because it's none of my business. No matter who the top leader of Taiwan is, he or she will not turn a blind eye to the mainland's huge market," he said.

"The mainland's supportive policies have made Pingtan an ideal place for Taiwan's ambitious younger people and experienced middle-aged businesspeople like me to look to for our future," he said.

Last year, cross-Straits trade volume reached $188.56 billion, and about 40 percent of tourists visiting Taiwan came from the mainland, which is also the island's largest investment source and its prime export destination.

Reflecting the advanced development in exchanges across the Straits, nearly 100,000 Taiwan companies have set up operations on the mainland, while last year alone, 9 million people traveled across the Straits in various capacities.

Tsai is replacing Ma Ying-jeou, from the mainland-friendly Kuomintang, as Taiwan's top leader. She has said that once she takes office, she will expand the island's export markets to Southeast Asia and attract more tourists from countries in that region.

But mainland-based Taiwan businesspeople say the challenge lies in the fact that change won't happen that soon.

Steve Lai, executive director of the Supply Management Institute in Taiwan, said: "From what we've heard ... transformation can't happen that quickly. Until major changes to the island's export trends occur, Taiwan dearly needs the mainland market."

With observers waiting to hear Tsai's comments on cross-Straits relations in her inauguration speech, Taiwan businesspeople said her main challenge is to find the "political language" that can please Beijing.

Beijing has called repeatedly for Taipei to continue peaceful development of cross-Straits relations, adding that it must accept the 1992 Consensus - that the mainland and Taiwan belong to "one China".

On May 5, People's Daily said in an editorial that if Tsai refuses to accept the 1992 Consensus, this will be considered an act that jeopardizes cross-Straits relations. The editorial, which set an unprecedentedly serious tone, has been viewed as a warning from Beijing toward Taiwan's new government.

During the annual session of China's top legislature in March, President Xi Jinping told lawmakers that the mainland's policy toward Taiwan is clear and consistent, and it will not change with Taiwan's political situation.

Ni Yongjie, deputy director of Shanghai's Taiwan Research Institute, said the mainland has sent a strong signal to Taiwan authorities that accepting the 1992 Consensus is the premise for further developing cross-Straits relations.

Zhang Zhijun, head of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, said in March that cross-Straits relations could be affected by unknown factors. He urged Tsai to clarify her understanding of these ties.

But observers said that Tsai and the DPP appear to prefer political ambiguity in an attempt to maintain the status quo in cross-Straits ties.

Lai said, "From what I understand, Beijing doesn't allow such ambiguity." As a result, cross-Straits relations are now "stuck" and it will take great wisdom from both sides to resolve the issue. If not, there are likely to be consequences for the economies on both sides of the Straits, and "this may be particularly hurtful to Taiwan," Lai said.

There are measures Beijing can take to punish Taiwan - for example, by squeezing the flow of mainland tourists to the island, he said.

Hopefully, both governments won't jeopardize the momentum built up over the years and will adopt pragmatic approaches that benefit both economies, he said.

Tension may hurt Taiwan

Justin Mo, 25, who owns the Sanyou Duty Free Shop in Pingtan, said Beijing and Taipei should not quarrel or fight, as business development needs a stable environment.

Taiwan's political parties should not play cross-Straits relations "as a card" to cater to a small group of people, as this could harm the island's economy, he said.

Ho Hsi-hao, chairman of the Taiwan Business Association in Zhangzhou, Fujian, said Tsai has promised to maintain the status quo.

"We hope that she won't worsen cross-Straits relations, as this will not be in Taiwan's interests," Ho said.

Although Tsai won the election in January, her support came mainly from her core constituency. If she keeps cross-Straits relations on good terms, Taiwan merchants will support her re-election. If not, "we will be forced to go back and oppose her", Ho said.

Asked how Taiwan businesses on the mainland may be jeopardized by any tension that arises after Tsai takes office, Ho said the impact will be limited.

Taiwan and its residents will bear the brunt of any tension, he said, citing the recent decline in mainland tourists visiting the island as an example. "The mainland is still an important market," he added.

Chiang Pin-kung, former chairman of the Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation, advised the new government to maintain social harmony for both sides. It should sign the cross-Straits pact on trade in goods as soon as possible, he added.

Nien, the Taiwan businessman who worked on the mainland from 1999 to 2010, said there might be uncertainties arising from the island's political transition, but the direction of peaceful development will not be changed.

He has moved his family - including his son who is in primary school and his daughter who is in kindergarten - from Kaohsiung in Taiwan to Pingtan. Nien believes it is the right choice for his family to invest and live on the mainland.

"I have made up my mind to strive for my future on the mainland for at least another 10 years," he said.

Yang Jie in Fuzhou contributed to this story.

Lyu Yajun works on an embroidery product to be shipped to Taiwan in Fenglingtou, a township in Shangrao county, Jiangxi province, in March. Zhuo Zhongwei / For China Daily An exhibitor fromTaiwanmakes tea for visitors during a crossStraits expo inWuyishan, Fujian province.Zhang Guojun / Xinhua

(China Daily USA 05/16/2016 page1)
New Japanese ambassador a welcome choice for ties Updated: 2016-05-16 07:13 (China Daily)

Yutaka Yokoi,Japanese ambassador to China.

The previous Japanese ambassador to China, Masato Kitera, assumed office in December 2012 amid what he called "a dry and cold wind like that of the Beijing winter blowing between the two countries".

Yutaka Yokoi took over the ambassadorship on Sunday when, in Kitera's words, "the warm sunshine of spring" is beginning to take hold.

Indeed.

The foreign minister of Japan just paid an official visit to Beijing, the first after a four-year-and-a-half hiatus.

Negotiations on higher-level contacts are reportedly underway.

There appears to be an unannounced consensus that China-Japan relations have sailed past their most difficult time in decades and are on the mend, albeit slowly.

It is thus understandable that well-wishers in both countries will place more expectations on the shoulders of the new diplomatic envoy. Especially since Yutaka has the reputation of being a seasoned "China hand".

Counting his time in Beijing learning Chinese, Yutaka has lived for more than 15 years in China, and, in his own words, "witnessed the entire process of China's reform and opening-up". He has thereby developed broad personal connections with Chinese officials, including Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly.

Yutaka's appointment is certainly a welcome choice. His experience in and with China should prove conducive to better managing the fragile and volatile relations.

But it is too early to speak of "warmth" in the China-Japan relationship. Distrust runs deep since Tokyo's "nationalization" of the Diaoyu Islands. And it's ongoing attempts to meddle in the South China Sea are making things worse.

While the prospects of a serious meeting between the leaders of the two countries remain slim, there is little an ambassador can do to make a substantial difference.

Yet that in no way diminishes the value of Yutaka's presence. On the contrary, his special profile and expertise is a precious asset for handling the tricky relations at such a sensitive juncture.

The Japanese foreign minister's latest visit was the outcome of a shared feeling that the damaged ties should no longer be left unattended and allowed to further deteriorate. But it will take strenuous confidence-building efforts to get genuine improvement.

Yutaka has a particular advantage when it comes to what is badly needed for the ties. Besides communicating vital messages more accurately and efficiently to and from Beijing, he is now in a better position to promote what he identified as critical in salvaging the strained tiesfacilitating people-to-people exchanges.
It's all too easy for some Americans to dismiss the Chinese news media as nothing but government propaganda, as Joseph Nye, a Harvard University professor, mentioned in a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on May 11.

He was referring to Chinese news organizations like CCTV, which have expanded globally from the United States to Africa and South America.

What Nye, a respected thinker in global affairs, missed is that Americans could be far better informed about the rest of the world by watching CCTV America than by watching the main US cable news networks such as CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.

The same would be true if Americans tuned in to France 24, NHK World and RT, the other international broadcasters that report breaking news from around the world, something US cable news networks no longer do.

So early Sunday morning, while CCTV and France 24 were reporting the latest tensions between the Israelis and Palestinians, RT was covering the civil war in Yemen and NHK was talking about the G7 in Japan, such news did not make it on to the 24/7 US cable news line-ups, even though the US has been more of a key player in all those places than most other nations.

TV has remained the top source of news for Americans, as revealed by various polls, but the only news that audiences get these days from cable news networks is about the 2016 US presidential election - Did presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump impersonate his own publicist in 1991? Will Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton turn up the heat on Trump's holding out on releasing his taxes? Does Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders have the best chance of beating Trump?

There is no news about Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, where civil strife is directly linked to US intervention.

The only exception on CNN may be the Sunday GPS Program hosted by Fareed Zakaria, which provides a weekly peek at a few hot-button global issues.

Unlike US cable news that relies on a stable of talking heads to interpret the news, the international broadcasters are far more objective, providing just straight news and hard facts.

That list of international broadcasters should still include Al Jazeera America, which closed just last month. The Nation praised the network for producing "some of the best fact-based, socially liberal TV reporting in the United States in recent years".

No wonder former US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said last October that the vast majority of Americans don't have a clue what's happening on the world scene.

Over the years, people from CNN anchor John King to Fox News' Bill O'Reilly have also sighed about how uninformed Americans are about the world around them.

Neither Brzezinski nor King or O'Reilly blame US cable news networks, which Americans depend on as a major news source, for failing to inform Americans on global news.

A PublicMind survey by Fairleigh Dickson University in 2012 found that people who tune in to cable news outlets such as Fox News, CNN and MSNBC tended to answer fewer current events questions correctly compared with audiences of even talk radio and talk shows such as the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (now with Trevor Noah). NPR, which I tune to while driving, turns out to be the most informative, according to the survey.

A 2014 study of public perception in 14 countries by Ipsos MORI found that US residents ranked as second least informed in its Index of Ignorance, better only than Italy, but worse than France, Canada, Japan, Germany and Sweden.

It might be interesting for Nye to assign his students to find out whether people watching CCTV America are better informed about the world than those watching only US cable news, where ratings trump everything.

Contact the writer at chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com.
World's oldest tea on display in NW China Updated: 2016-05-16 09:58 (Xinhua)

World's oldest tea will go on display starting on May 18 at a museum in Hanyang, northwest China's Shaanxi province. [Photo/Xinhua]

Tea unearthed from the 2,100-year-old tomb of an emperor will be displayed at a museum in northwest China next week.

Zhang Yun, deputy director of the Hanyang Mausoleum Museum in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, said that small bits of the tea, recently recognized by the Guinness World Record as the world's oldest, will be exhibited at the museum starting May 18.

He said the tea was mixed with grains when it was first discovered in 2005 at the Hanyang Mausoleum. The site was the graveyard of Emperor Jing (188-141 BC), also father of Emperor Wu, whose reign ushered in one of the most prosperous periods in Chinese history.

However, it was not until 2015 when archaeologists from the Shaanxi Provincial Archeological Research Institute were able to ascertain the fossilized plant remains were tea. Experts with the Chinese Academy of Sciences used new microfossil plant analysis techniques to examine the samples.

"The analysis results showed that the remains were all dried tea sprouts when they were buried," said Yang Wuzhan, a research fellow with the institute.

It was the first evidence of tea consumed by a Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD) emperor, he said, adding that the findings are of great importance to research on the history of Chinese tea culture.

Rowan Simons, attestation officer from the Guinness World Record, on May 6 conferred the certificate to recognize the discovery as the world's oldest tea.

He said it has long been known that China is the home of tea, and the world record gives us a deeper understanding of China.

In ancient China, tea had more and different uses than we have now. It was drunk as a beverage, cooked in meals, and even used as herbal medicine.

Ancient Chinese liked to be buried with their favorite things so they could enjoy them in the next world. Other items found at Emperor Jing's burial site include pottery figurines, an army of ceramic animals and several chariots as well as animal remains, including cows, sheep, dogs, pigs, deer, rabbits and birds.

Related:

Long history of the blackened leaves
China blasts Pentagon's new report Updated: 2016-05-16 11:08 By Chen Weihua in Washington(China Daily USA)

China has objected to the latest Pentagon report on Chinese military development and capability, calling it a continuation of playing up the so-called "Chinese military threat" card.

The US Department of Defense released its research - Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2016 - on May 13 as an annual report to Congress mandated by law.

Abraham Denmark, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, said in a briefing on May 13 that China's investment in military and weaponry operations continues on a path to increase its power projection, anti-access and area denial and its operations in cyberspace, space and electromagnetic emerging domains.

"China continues to focus on preparing for potential conflict in the Taiwan Straits," Denmark said, "but additional missions such as contingencies in the East and South China seas and on the Korean Peninsula are increasingly important to the [People's Liberation Army]."

Denmark also described the Chinese defense budget as underestimated.

Talking about the Chinese military modernization program entering a new phase in 2015, Denmark expressed concerns about Chinese activities in the South China Sea, the growing global military presence and large-scale military reforms.

Yang Yujun, spokesman for China's Ministry of National Defense, said that the report continues to play up the clich of a "China military threat" and "opacity of Chinese military capability".

In a statement posted on the ministry website on May 14, Yang called the report "improper talk" when it comes to issues such as Chinese military reform, overseas military operations, development of weaponry and military equipment, the military budget, space, cyberspace and Taiwan.

"(It) wantonly distorted China's national defense policy and the legal activities in the East and South China seas," Yang said.

"The Chinese side expresses its strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition (to the report)," he said.

Yang reiterated that China sticks firmly to a national defense policy that is defensive in nature, and Chinese military reform and modernization is aimed at ensuring China's national sovereignty, security, territorial integrity and peaceful development of the nation.

He said the US side continues to harbor suspicions about China's strategic intentions and labels China's normal weaponry and military equipment development as "anti-access" or "area denial".

"Why is the US side expressing such concerns if it is still not embracing a Cold War mentality?" he asked.

He also defended China's construction on reefs and isles in the Nansha Islands as not only meeting the necessary requirements for national defense, but even more so in serving civilian purposes and carrying out China's international obligations.

He blasted the US' flexing its muscle by dispatching military planes and vessels in the South China as exercising hegemony and militarizing the region.

He said Chinese overseas military operations, such as peacekeeping, rescue and disaster relief, are effectively fulfilling international obligations and providing public good for the international community.

Of the five permanent UN Security Council members, China now contributes the most personnel to peacekeeping efforts, a fact that was praised last week in a seminar in Washington by Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor and former US assistant secretary of defense.

Yang described the Pentagon's annual report as gravely damaging to mutual trust and running counter to the development of the China-US military relationship. He said China will react further after studying the report in more detail.

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
Guangdong pitches NY on prosperity Updated: 2016-05-16 11:08 By Amy He in New York(China Daily)

Senior government officials and business leaders from Guangdong came to New York to promote China's most prosperous province as a place with great business potential and technological innovation.

"Guangdong is one of the most prosperous provinces in China. It has always been at the forefront of economic development in China, and it has always been very innovative," Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to the US, told the China (Guangdong)-US (New York) Economic and Trade Cooperation Conference on May 13.

"In 1983 Guangdong province had already entered into a partnership with Massachusetts and the province had 20 friendship cities in the US, so it is already a reality that it has become a close friend of the United States," he said.

A large delegation from various business sectors in Guangdong along with Chinese and US government officials attended the conference that showcased tech industries in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, a tech hub.

Guangdong province is China's most populous, home to more than 100 million, and is the largest economic power within China. In 2015, GDP in Guangdong reached $1.17 trillion, an increase of 8 percent over the prior year and one-ninth of the domestic GDP. Its GDP of $10,800 per person is the highest in China.

"After over 30 years of economic reform, Guangdong has achieved progressive development. Currently, Guangdong has entered into a new economic norm and maintains a stable development trend," said Hu Chunhua, Party secretary of Guangdong Provincial Committee.

Guangdong's main task going forward is to "promote structural adjustments", which include promoting high-tech industries, improving traditional industries, and relying on new technology, Hu said.

The province is also seeking to implement smart manufacturing and green low-carbon ecological development to improve the environment, and also to "speed up innovation and economic patterns", he said.

"We know that Guangdong is at the forefront of innovation in China and it has served as a gateway to China, way back to the days when it was first called Canton," said Patrick Santillo, deputy assistant-secretary for China at the US Department of Commerce.

Santillo called Shenzhen - home to companies like medical-equipment maker Mindray and electric-car manufacturer BYD - a "tech-savvy and innovative city" that will play a key role in China's economy.

"Guangdong is combining internet with agriculture, manufacture, finance, logistics, business, environmental protection, and public service," said Chen Yuehua, deputy director general of the Guangdong commerce department.

Hezi Jiang contributed to this story.

amyhe@chinadailyusa.com
Xi's words put in English Updated: 2016-05-16 11:08 By Niu Yue in New York(China Daily)

Jiang Yaopeng (left), secretary of the Party committee of Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, and James Bryant (right), CEO of Trajectory Inc sign Xi Jinping Wit and Vision - Selected Quotations and Commentary English edition and e-book global distribution agreement at Columbia University in New York on May 14. Back row, from left: Yang Xiaomei, office administrator of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China; Zhang Meifang, deputy consul general in New York; Karen Christensen, CEO of Berkshire Publishing Group. Niu Yue / For China Daily

Expressions of the president are published jointly by SJTU Press, Foreign Languages Press

When President Xi Jinping spoke in Seattle during his state visit last year, he said: "It's always important to make an effort to get a deep understanding of the cultures and civilizations that are different from our own."

Now an English book featuring his thoughts will be available on American book sales platforms.

A signing ceremony for Xi Jinping Wit and Vision - Selected Quotations and Commentary English edition and e-book global distribution agreement was hosted by Shanghai Jiao Tong Press (SJTU Press) and presented jointly by China Universal Press & Publication Co. Ltd (CUPP) and US Trajectory Inc at Columbia University in New York on May 14.

The book, co-published by SJTU Press and China's Foreign Languages Press, features distinctive expressions that have been selected and compiled from speeches delivered by Xi since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

The book is divided into four sections: Overview, Imagery and Metaphors, Everyday Sayings, and Quotations from the Classics. The book examines the origin and context of the expressions and explains the ideas behind them.

According to data collected by Open Book, a Chinese company that monitors book sales in China, Xi Jinping Wit and Vision has sold more than 300,000 print copies since it was released a year ago.

"In poetic and memorable terms, President Xi's thoughts have captured the imagination of the hundreds of thousands of people in China who have already purchased this finely assembled book by Chen Xixi (chief editor)," said James Bryant, CEO of Trajectory Inc, an intelligent network connecting publishers to retailers and a variety of distribution channels around the world, which will be in charge of the book's e-edition's global distribution.

"By listening to President Xi's message as conveyed in this book, people outside of China will now have the unique opportunity to look into the soul of a country re-emerging on the global stage," Bryant said, adding that he believes the book might provide lessons for other developing nations on their own paths to modernization.

"The publication of the English edition of Xi Jinping Wit and Vision and distribution in American mainstream e-book sales platforms will help readers in America and around the world to learn more about the Chinese president's thinking on governance, understand Chinese culture and wisdom, so as to promote elimination of Sino-US differences, and deepen mutual cooperation and mutual trust," said Zhang Meifang, deputy consul general of the Chinese Consulate General in New York.

The book is part of the Chinese Book International Promotion Plan launched by Chinese Culture Translation and Studies Support (CCTSS) along with many domestic and overseas organizations.
Afghanistan backs Beijing on South China Sea Updated: 2016-05-17 03:16 By Hu Yongqi(China Daily)

Afghanistan supports China's position to resolve the South China Sea issue via bilateral negotiations between countries, a top Afghan leader said while meeting with Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing on Monday.

"Afghanistan supports China's stances over issues concerning its core and major interests," said Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, who is visiting China from Sunday to Wednesday.

The remark came after about 40 countries said they backed China's stance on the issue.

"Afghanistan supports our position in the South China Sea issue and our efforts in resolving the issue through bilateral channels and peaceful means of negotiation and consultation," Hou Yanqi, deputy director of the Foreign Ministry's Asian Department, said after the meeting.

Premier Li said China appreciates the neighbor's solid support in these areas and would like to deepen bilateral cooperation in economic and people-to-people exchanges, security and regional and international affairs.

The post of Afghanistan's chief executive was created in September 2014 for Abdullah, who claimed victory in that year's presidential election simultaneously with another candidate, Ashraf Ghani. In a compromise to maintain national unity, Abdullah assumed the new post while Ghani became president.

Fu Xiaoqiang, a researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said Afghanistan's support shows that China has won over a large number of countries on the South China Sea issue.

"Negotiations with contracted countries are the only way to resolve the dispute, instead of military means," he said.

Support for China included a statement on Thursday at the close of the ministerial meeting of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum, in which the participating Arab nations backed China's efforts to peacefully resolve maritime differences through dialogue.

Meanwhile, after the meeting, China and Afghanistan signed agreements to promote economic and technological exchanges, regional connectivity and bilateral trade.
I am British by upbringing and Ugandan by birth. I get people all the time telling me that I am brave for having dropped everything as I knew from Jand and moving to Nigeria. Some people even thought they could have seen me with a white man or even a Ugandan man, but a Nigerian one? Definitely not.

Growing up I used to go help my mumsi in the salon after school. There was always plenty gist about Nigerian men in particular, how corrupt they are. The discussion was always among other Nigerian university students themselves; they would discuss how so and sos son is doing yahoo yahoo (internet fraud). In some cases I would see the negative side of some Nigerian men with my own eyes  Nigerian young men marrying fat white girls that you could not place them with on a normal day  all for papers (visas). And of course the story most times turned out that they had a wife back home, or they would divorce them after getting what they want. Thank goodness the Western government has made the process more complicated, so men can think twice before going to play with someones daughters life.

So, back to why I married a Nigerian man. In my university days, (and even now), it was always known that Nigerian men went for Ugandan and Zimbabwean girls because they were easy to get into bed. I could not really argue this matter because I saw it happen constantly, and the girls would just get pregnant and have children for them. So, as an educated and exposed young woman, I always thought it best to stay away from Nigerian men because they would just sleep with me, get me pregnant, and happily pay child support. When I started dating my husband while in university, I had to admit to myself that na mumu love carry me come here today o!

I knew his initial intentions were not pure. but for some reason, the washing no let me waka. As we dated, however, we noticed we were similar in many ways. I have to admit that it was the way he treated me like a lady that caught my attention. In fact, the guy don blow my mind. First of all, he worshiped the ground I walked on, and spoiled me with gifts like phones, perfumes, and watches. He did not know how to buy flowers at that time sha, but I guess that would have been a shocker for a typical Warri man.

In the Western culture, most monetary responsibilities tend to be shared between the couple, and this was a culture I had gotten used to. Whilst on dates, especially with White men, they would confidently bring out their share of the money. When I met my Mr. Nigeria  dont you love his name?  this culture seemed so bizarre to him. He would happily pay for everything. I could see a look of pride when he did so as well. I so loved this! I did not know they made them like that. It was not about the money, but the thought was everything. I also noticed that he showed a lot of respect to his parents and would never dream of talking back to them. He respected his elders even when the age difference was close to none. He understood the role of being a man in a relationship by taking care of all major responsibilities. It was at this time that I managed to save tremendously.

Our only shortcoming was that he was a big flirt. No surprises there. Nigerian men are rarely afraid of rejection, so they tend to be forward. I have witnessed this several times. Telling a Nigerian man that you are engaged, married, or pregnant is never enough reason to discourage them. They are go-getters! Anyway, back to my Mr. Nigeria; his good outweighed the bad (flirtatious nature), and when he was ready to settle down, his level of commitment skyrocketed to an extent that even scared me a little.

One thing was evident, however, and that was that he had a great upbringing. I can confidently attribute his personality to this  and to his culture, too. When we decided to get married, we faced a lot of adversity from our family and friends, but in retrospect, I realize now that it was all Gods plan for us.

I am not advising that you, too, should follow my footsteps, and I am definitely not encouraging other nations to come and take our Nigerian men (wink), but what I am saying is that other African countries should learn a thing or two about the Nigerian culture. Let us not only focus on the corruption stigma, but also on the good things about Nigeria and Nigerians.

Nigeria is a God-fearing country, and the people are extremely driven and lovely. The men provide for their wives, and the women tend to take on the role of being virtuous women as they run their home while working to save for the future. I would like to thank Mr. Nigerias mummy for raising such a lovely man in preparation for me.

This is why I married a Nigerian man.

BIO: I was born in Uganda, grew up in the UK. I am an entrepreneur, married, and I am expecting my second bundle of joy.

You can connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and on my blog, Fiona Uncensored.
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As of February 29 this year, charter capital of all credit institutions totals VND460.9 trillion (US$20.9 billion). Illustrative Image/ Photo saga.vn

Viet Nam News -HA NOI  The process of restructuring commercial banks in Viet Nam mostly focusses on mitigating negative effects and not on promoting positive factors, one of which is the increase in private ownership.

Nguyen Hong Son, rector of the Viet Nam National Universitys School of Economics and Business, made the remark in his groups recent working paper which shows the results of an empirical test to study the relation between the ownership structure and bank performance, using data collected from 44 banks in the Vietnamese banking system from 2010 to 2012.

The study finds that in their models measuring banks Return on Asset (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE), the non-performing loan ratio has the opposite impact on the banks ability to earn profits while the percentage of private ownership presents a positive relationship with profitability.

Therefore, the researchers recommended that the percentage of private equity in banks should be increased, even in the State-owned commercial banks, such as the Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV) and the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam (Vietcombank).

The privatisation of Vietnamese commercial banks is not a new story but the research by Son and his group has raised another point of view relating to the State ownership of large State-owned commercial banks.

ao Van Hung, a member of the National Financial and Monetary Policy Advisory Council, said though there was a strong decrease in the rate of State ownership in State-owned commercial banks over the past 20 years, from 85 per cent in 1993 to 47 per cent in mid-2015, the rate was still higher than the worlds average level which already reached 15 per cent in 2010.

As of February 29, this year, charter capital of all credit institutions totals VN460.9 trillion (US$20.9 billion). Of the sum, the State-owned commercial banks hold VN137 trillion ($6.2 billion) and the group of private banks VN194 trillion ($8.8 billion).

The State Bank of Viet Nams rate of ownership in the Viet Nam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (Vietinbank) is 64.5 per cent, the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam (Vietcombank) 77 per cent, the Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV) 95.3 per cent, and the Viet Nam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) 100 per cent.

The SBV also holds 100 per cent of charter capital of three One Member Limited Liability banks including the Ocean Bank, the Global Petroleum Bank (GPBank) and the Construction Bank (CBBank).

Currently, the Governments Resolution 15/NQ-CP allows the SBV to hold at least 65 per cent of charter capital in joint stock commercial banks except Vietinbank.

Waste of resources

Hung who is also the director of the Ministry of Planning and Investments Institute of Policy and Development said that the four State-owned commercial banks [Agribank, Vietinbank, Vietcombank and BIDV] were all multifunctional banks of which roles, missions and targets are similar, providing similar services.

Thus the existence of the group of four would lead to a waste of resources and made it difficult to create a regional-scale bank, he said.

Nguyen inh Cung, director of the Central Institute of Economic Management (CIEM), said the private sector had become a major driving force of the economys growth and was believed to be able to promote their roles in many industries that the State was handling.

Therefore, with limited State resources, the State should shift from being a direct investor to being a supporter of the market economy development. The States intervention was only to fix the markets failures, Cung said.

Hung said that in the long run the State should drastically apply market principles in developing the financial market and speed up the privatisation of the banking sector.

Banking is also a kind of business. If the State has sold their shares in many production and services enterprises, there is no reason to not do the same with the commercial banks, he said.

If we could gradually reduce the State ownership in the four large commercial banks by selling its shares to foreign investors or local private institutions, the State can use the money to invest in infrastructure, education and health to meet essential demand for the socio-economic development, Hung said.

Nguyen Hong Nga, associate dean of the Economics Faculty of the Viet Nam National University  HCM Citys University of Economics and Law, suggested the government treat and supervise the commercial banks as independent organisations.

He said that the SBV currently acted as a State body managing the banking system, on behalf of the Government, and at the same time was responsible for the banks business performance.

Therefore, reducing the State ownership ratio in State-owned banks would help partly solve the inherent conflicts and release more of the States limited resources which would instead be used in dealing with market failures.

Tran Thi Thanh Tu, associate dean of the University of Economics and Businesss Finance and Banking Faculty, said, When privatisation is encouraged, transparency and disclose of information would be more tightly controlled and monitored as more shareholders are engaged in, thus banks will be more pressured to operate in a healthier manner and more effectively, and thereby the profitability will also be raised.

It is hard to say what percentage of State ownership is optimal for the Vietnamese commercial banks.

The figure might depend on each phase of the economys development as well as the maturity of the countrys banking system.

However, we still recommend that participation of the private sector in banks should be encouraged to increase the profitability. Increasing the ratio of private ownership in commercial banks is a common trend of developing countries, Tu said.

Banks will

Not only experts but bank leaders also see the importance of calling for more private investment in the banking sector.

A leader of Vietcombank once proposed to the Government to have a roadmap to reduce the ownership in State-owned banks to 51 per cent to create favourable conditions for the process of credit institution restructuring.

He said that the Government should focus on building one or two regional-scale commercial banks which would be the backbone of the whole system, facilitate the banks to do M&A activities and increase charter capital.

A member of BIDVs Board of Directors also said to the press that it was not necessary for the State ownership to be maintained at that high level [65 per cent]. He said that 51 per cent was enough.

According to the National Financial Supervisory Commission, by the end of 2015, Viet Nams credit institution system includes seven State-owned commercial banks, 28 privately owned joint stock commercial banks, 55 joint venture and wholly foreign invested banks.  VNS
Several Vietnamese suppliers have expressed concern about Big C chain's demand for higher discounts on their orders.  Photo nld.com.vn

Viet Nam News -HCM CITY  The Viet Nam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has asked the supermarket chain Big C to refrain from asking for higher discount rates from Vietnamese suppliers, and has recommended a maximum rate of 15 per cent.

Several Vietnamese suppliers have expressed concern about Big C chains demand for higher discounts on their orders.

Thai food products could end up dominating the shelves of Big C Viet Nams outlets, one of the countrys biggest supermarket chains, now owned by Thailands Central Group, experts have warned.

Setting up its new empire, the Thai firm has asked for higher discounts from Vietnamese food processing enterprises, forcing them to withdraw from the retail system.

Among the supermarkets in Viet Nam, Big C has the highest discount from suppliers, of 17-20 per cent, 5 per cent higher than the rate last year, according to a director of a Vietnamese seafood processing enterprise.

In addition, numerous products have discount rates of up to 25 per cent.

Along with unreasonably high discounts, Vietnamese enterprises have to cope with many fees, including fees for Big Cs promotions, product testing, customer festivals and Big C birthdays, as well as other minor fees.

Nguyen Hoai Nam, deputy general secretary of VASEP, said the average discount that enterprises in the seafood processing sector could accept was 15 per cent, and that Big Cs 17-20 per cent discount was too high.

Le Thanh Tam, deputy director of Saigon Food Joint-Stock Company, said to ensure the profit of enterprises, appropriate discounts should be about 10 per cent.

Pham Hai Long, general director of Agrex Saigon Foodstuffs Joint-Stock Company, said that increased discount rates could be one of the Central Groups ways to dominate the retail market in Viet Nam.

The high discount would restrict Vietnamese enterprises from becoming suppliers to Big C, opening the road for Thai producers to gradually replace them, he added.

Long said the company had withdrawn its products from Big C, and had shifted to other distribution channels. The company has also begun exporting to Japan and South Korea.

Higher discounts help Big C lower product prices, creating a competitive advantage over other supermarkets and retailers.

Thai products could dominate the retail market if Vietnamese enterprises lose the pricing war with Thai retailers, experts have warned.

Future preparations

In recent years, Vietnamese retail firms began to adopt better retail practices as more merger and acquisitions (M&A) occurred.

Nguyen Huong Quynh, general director of the market research company Neilsen Viet Nam, said Vietnamese enterprises faced opportunities as well as challenges in the more liberalised trade environment.

To better compete with foreign products, domestic businesses must improve the quality of products and maintain a reasonable price as well as enhance their competitiveness capacity in the market, she said.

Most importantly, Vietnamese firms must take the initiative to prepare for the battle with foreign rivals, Quynh added.

The recent penetration of foreign retailers from Thailand, Japan and France has hastened the race for market share in the Vietnamese retail sector.

This sector has large untapped potential, with strong purchasing power from a population of 90 million.

However, local retailers are still the underdogs, and some are crying for help.

The HCM City Union of Business Associations recently sent a document to the Prime Minister about risks caused by the domination of foreign retailers in local retail markets.

The association has called for more support for a more favourable business environment.

According to the association, modern retail in Viet Nam accounts for a mere 25 per cent of total retail sales.

It is facing increasingly harsh competition from foreign retailers such as Big C, with its 32 supermarkets, Metro with 19 supermarkets, Lotte Mart with 11 supermarkets and Aeon with three supermarkets.

Frances fourth largest retailer, Super Auchan, is also planning to expand its supermarket chain in HCM City.

In addition, a series of mergers and acquisitions include Aeon buying stakes of Fivimart and Citimart, and Thai groups acquiring Big C and Metro, the association said.

Local retailers should work with producers to build supply chains for Vietnamese quality products to gain the trust of consumers and build brand names, experts have said.

Economist Ly Truong Chien said Vietnamese retailers must improve their operation models and cooperate by using modern retail techniques and trends, such as developing convenience stores and minimarts.

However, Vo Van Quyen, director of the Ministry of Industry and Trades Department of Domestic Market, said the opening of stores by foreign retailers was not a major problem.

For local retailers, it presents an opportunity to improve their competitiveness and prevent shut-downs or bankruptcies as a result of failures to compete.

For consumers, foreign retailers bring high-quality products to Viet Nam and contribute to improving the quality of made-in-Viet Nam products by upgrading the quality of merchandise found on shelves, Quyen said.  VNS
Appearing among the top 10 tuna buyers from Viet Nam since last year, China is a promising market that has replaced Japan in fourth place, Vasep said.  Photo fistenet.gov.vn

Viet Nam News -HCM CITY  Viet Nams tuna exports to China have risen sharply this year but exports to traditional markets like the US, EU and Japan have fallen, according to the industry association.

The Viet Nam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (Vasep) said tuna exports in the first quarter fell by 5.5 per cent year-on-year to US$98.5 million.

Shipments to the US were 4.4 per cent down to $36 million. Exports of fillet and tenderloin went up by 34 per cent while those of other products plummeted.

Exports to the EU and Japan dropped by 14.3 per cent and 6 per cent to $24.2 million and $3.8 million.

Viet Nam exported to 85 countries and territories, though the US, EU, ASEAN, China, Israel, Japan, Mexico, and Canada accounted for nearly 88 per cent.

Vasep attributed the fall in exports to key traditional markets to the scarcity of the fish, complex regulations on the import of natural tuna in those countries, and food safety, origin and packaging requirements.

Therefore, only companies that have their own fishing vessels or work closely with fishermen can maintain exports to these fastidious markets, it said.

Chinese market

According to Viet Nam Customs, tuna exports to China were worth nearly $7 million, a year-on-year increase of nearly 253 per cent.

Appearing among the top 10 tuna buyers from Viet Nam since last year, China is a promising market that has replaced Japan in fourth place, Vasep said.

This year it has increased imports of tuna fillet from Viet Nam by 372 per cent to nearly $1.4 million. But its import of canned tuna fell 35 per cent to $383,000.

According to the International Trade Centre, in recent years, while Chinas imports of processed/canned tuna have been on a downward trend, imports of fresh/live/frozen tuna have risen.

A jump in Viet Nams tuna exports to China was driven by difficulties in exporting to major markets, which forced Vietnamese enterprises to eye the new, promising market, the association said.

Besides, demand for tuna in China and for re-export to Europe by Chinese companies also rose, it added.

But while Vasep is sanguine about this market, many exporters are wary saying there are implicit risks in terms of prices, payment methods and quality requirements.

ASEAN has also emerged as a promising market, with exports rising by 19.5 per cent in the first quarter. Thailand alone accounted for nearly 72 per cent of the shipments.

The association said besides boosting exports to new markets like China and ASEAN, exporters must also work to keep their traditional markets.

They should strengthen collaboration with fishermen to ensure stable supply of the fish, it said, adding they should do business only with those using modern technologies and comply with international fishing regulations to ensure their products are accepted in choosy markets.  VNS
DAVAO, Philippines  Philippines president-elect Rodrigo Duterte has said he wanted friendly relations with China and confirmed he was open to direct talks over a territorial row that has badly damaged bilateral ties.

Duterte also announced that Chinas ambassador to Manila would be among the first three foreign envoys he planned to meet on Monday, after winning the May 9 presidential election in a landslide.

"Well ties have never been cold. But I would rather be friendly with everybody," Duterte told reporters on Sunday in the southern city of Davao when asked whether he wanted closer ties with China than seen under current President Benigno Aquino.

Relations between China and the Philippines worsened sharply throughout Aquinos six-year term over conflicting claims to parts of the South China Sea, one of the worlds most strategically important waterways.

China claims nearly all of the sea, even waters approaching the coasts of the Philippines, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations.

To enforce its claims, China has in recent years built contested reefs into artificial islands, some topped with military-capable airstrips.

In 2012 China also took control of Scarborough Shoal, a rich fishing area within the Philippines economic exclusive zone.

The Aquino administration responded by signing a new defence pact with the United States and filing a legal challenge with a United Nations tribunal asking it to rule that the Chinese claims to most of the sea were invalid.

It also sought to raise the issue at multilateral events, such as summits of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

China reacted furiously to Aquinos tactics, demanding that the Philippines negotiate directly but also insisting that it would never give up any of the territory.

Aquino refused to hold direct talks, fearing the better resourced and more powerful China would have an advantage.

He also said there was no point in talking with China if it insisted there was nothing to negotiate.

Duterte, who will be sworn into office on June 30, said he planned to continue raising the issue in multilateral environments.

But he also repeated a campaign pledge to hold direct talks with China, if other negotiations failed.

"If the ship of negotiation is in still waters and theres no wind to push the sail, I might just decide to talk bilaterally with China," Duterte said.

Duterte also said he would meet with the ambassadors of China, Japan and one other, in his hometown on Monday  his first day of public appearances since winning the election.

It was unclear who the third ambassador would be, but Duterte did say no meeting had been scheduled with the US envoy.

War on crime

Philippines president-elect Duterte has vowed to introduce executions by hanging and order military snipers to kill suspected criminals as part of a ruthless law-and-order crackdown.

In his first press conference since winning the May 9 elections in a landslide, the tough-talking mayor of southern Davao city said security forces would be given "shoot-to-kill" orders and that citizens would learn to fear the law.

"I expect you to obey the laws so there will be no chaos. I will hit hard on drugs and I promise them (criminals) hell," Duterte said .

Duterte also vowed to roll out Davao law-and-order measures on a nationwide basis, including a 2:00am curfew on drinking in public places and a ban on children walking on the streets alone late at night. Smoking in restaurants and hotels will also be banned.

Duterte said a central part of his war on crime would be to bring back the death penalty, which was abolished under then-president Gloria Arroyo in 2006.

"What I will do is urge Congress to restore (the) death penalty by hanging," said Duterte, 71.

Duterte said he wanted capital punishment reintroduced for a wide range of crimes, particularly drugs, but also rape, murder and robbery. He said he preferred death by hanging to a firing squad because he did not want to waste bullets, and because he believed snapping the spine with a noose was more humane.  AFP
WASHINGTON  The International Monetary Fund said on Sunday that its second in command was on a two-day visit to Iran for discussions on economic developments.

The Washington-based lender said First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton would meet with senior Iranian government officials, private sector representatives and bankers, as well as academics and students.

The visit follows the lifting of sanctions linked to Irans nuclear programme in the wake of a landmark deal between Tehran and world powers signed in July.

"His discussions will focus on the IMFs continuing dialogue with Iran, and Irans economic developments and policy initiatives, following the recent lifting of sanctions," the IMF said in a statement.

The IMF currently does not have an economic program underway in Iran aside from statistical and technical assistance, according to a spokesman.

"The recent lifting of economic sanctions is expected to help increase oil production and exports, and lower costs for trade and financial transactions," the IMF wrote in a January "economic health check" of Iran, adding that its real GDP growth was projected to accelerate to 4 to 5.5 percent in 2016-17.  AFP
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.  File Photo

Viet Nam News -HA NOI  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc begins his official visit to Russia today at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

The PMs Russian tour is the first by a Vietnamese leader in the new tenure, which aims to implement the foreign policy of the 12th National Party Congress and strengthen the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership.

During the trip to Russia, which runs until Friday, PM Phuc will also attend the Commemorative Summit to mark the 20th anniversary of the ASEAN-Russia dialogue relationship on Thursday and Friday.

The Vietnam-Russia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership has strongly developed in recent years.

The two-way trade volume reached US$2.2 billion in 2015 and $591 million in the first quarter this year. Viet Nam mainly exported phones, garments and agro-forestry-fishery products, while mainly importing oil and petrol, steel, fertiliser, machinery and equipment from Russia.

Currently, Russia ranks 17th out of 101 countries and territories investing in Viet Nam with a total capital of $2 billion in 114 projects. Russian companies mainly invested in mining, processing and manufacturing.

Vietnamese companies have invested $2.93 billion in Russia, mostly in oil and gas and trade, with major projects including Rusvietpetro, Gazpromviet and the Hanoi Trade Centre in Moscow.

Energy has been the traditional and strategic field of co-operation between the two countries, with considerable contributions to Viet Nam and Russias state budgets.

The two countries have also stepped up co-operation in security, defence, science and technology, as well as ties between their localities. More than 100 co-operative agreements have been signed since 1991 pertaining to the economy, trade, investment, gas and oil, nuclear power, training and education, culture, science and military engineering.

The Commemorative Summit to mark the 20th anniversary of the ASEAN-Russia dialogue relationship takes place in the context of positive progress in bilateral ties.

At the meeting, Russian and ASEAN leaders are expected to discuss and draw up guidelines for strengthening the ASEAN-Russia Partnership to make it more practical and effective in the future.  VNS
HA NOI  Ambassador Nguyen Trung Thanh, Viet Nams permanent representative to the United Nations (UN), rejected the inaccurate, biased and unverified information provided by the spokesperson of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) last Friday.

Spokesman of the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner Rupert Colville said the UN rights body is concerned about the increasing levels of violence perpetrated against Vietnamese protesters expressing their anger over the mysterious mass deaths of fish along the countrys central coast.

Colville called on the Vietnamese government to respect the right of freedom of assembly in line with its international human rights obligations.

Viet Nam has respected and ensured peoples fundamental rights and freedoms, including the right to freedom to gathering and the right to freedom of speech, in compliance with the countrys 2013 Constitution and international standards, Thanh said on Sunday.

Thanh noted international conventions, especially those on civil and political rights have prescribed that personal rights and freedoms must be exercised in line with laws and without affecting security, public order, moral standards, public health and rights and interests of others.

Based on that spirit, measures that are employed by Viet Nam to safeguard traffic order, security and safety for people, comply with the countrys law and international standards, Thanh stressed.

Actions that provoke violence and disturb social order, affecting peoples lives need to be prevented within the framework of law, he said.

Referring to the recent environmental incident in the central region, the Government, relevant localities and socio-political organisations have been working together to support affected residents.

Viet Nam, with support from international experts and partners, is working to establish the causes of the incident and is providing regular updates via the media, Thanh stressed.

Viet Nam welcomes international co-operation, including the UN in dealing with the situation in a scientific, unbiased and constructive spirit, he said.  VNS
HA NOI  Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong welcomed Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith in Ha Noi yesterday, and underlined the visits significance to deepening the friendship, solidarity and co-operation between the two countries.

He congratulated Laos on its remarkable achievements over the past 30 years of renovation as well as the successful 10th Congress of the Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party (LPRP) and elections of deputies to the 8th National Assembly.

The Party leader conveyed his congratulations to Thongloun Sisoulith on his election as the new Lao PM, confirming that Viet Nam supported the Lao renovation and believed that under the leadership of the LPRP and the Lao Government, the Lao people would continue to reap significant achievements, implement successfully the Resolution adopted at the 10th Congress and the five-year social-economic development plan, and build Laos into a country of peace, independence, democracy, unity and prosperity.

He suggested the two Governments co-ordinate in directing ministries, localities and businesses to realise the outcomes of the visit to Viet Nam by Lao General Secretary and President Bounnhang Volachit and the co-operation contents agreed at the 38th session of Viet Nam-Laos intergovernmental committee.

The two sides were expected to increase the exchange of information and experience in Party building and socio-economic management, enhance collaboration in security-defence and external affairs, and promptly extricate difficulties to ensure the progress of Viet Nams investments in Laos, he said.

He urged both nations to increase two-way trade and forge links in economics, transport infrastructure and energy; while improving the quality of education, training and human resources.

The Lao PM expressed his delight to visit Viet Nam in his new position. He extended the best regards from Lao General Secretary and President Bounnhang Volachit to the Vietnamese Party chief and congratulated Viet Nam on its significant attainments in the oi moi (renewal) process.

He was confident that under the leadership of the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV), Vietnamese people would soon become a modern and industrialised society.

He thanked Viet Nam for the assistance given to Laos in the past and at present.

The Lao PM informed the host about the outcomes of his talks with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and other Vietnamese leaders.

He confirmed that the Lao Government would work with their Vietnamese counterparts to implement the contents of the Viet Nam-Laos Joint Statement issued in April 2016.

Both host and guest expressed their delight at the thriving friendship, solidarity and co-operation between Viet Nam and Laos, which not only benefits people in the respective countries but also contributes to peace, stability, co-operation and development in the region and the world.

Also yesterday, the Lao leader met with HCM Citys Party Committee Secretary, inh La Thang, and other leaders of the city.

Meeting top legislator

In a meeting with Vietnamese NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan earlier on Sunday, the Lao PM suggested that the National Assembly (NA) of Viet Nam and Laos should continue implementing high-ranking co-operation agreements between the two countries.

The Lao guest called for Viet Nams assistance for his country to complete its ASEAN Chairmanship in 2016.

He affirmed that he would do his best to realise the contents of the Viet Nam-Laos Joint Statement, which was signed on Lao Party General Secretary and President Bounnhang Volachits recent visit to Viet Nam.

Thongloun Sisoulith also wished that Viet Nam would hold the upcoming 14th NA and all-level Peoples Council elections successfully.

NA Chairwoman Ngan asserted that Viet Nam was willing to help Laos in its role of 2016 ASEAN Chair, adding that she would do her utmost to promote relations between the two nations and legislative bodies.

The Vietnamese top legislator expressed her hope that the two legislatures would further enhance links and experience sharing.

The two agencies should also boost their monitoring related to investment and co-operation projects between the two countries, Ngan stated.

She took the occasion to thank the Lao Party and Government for their decision to increase the water discharge at hydropower dams built on the Mekong River in order help tackle Viet Nams water shortage, and Laos recent support to help Viet Nams southern localities overcome consequences and damages caused by prolonged-droughts and saline intrusion.  VNS
MOSCOW  Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev emphasised their resolve to enhance the countries partnership during their talks in Moscow yesterday.

The talks, also attended by the countries senior officials, took place following the welcome ceremony for the Vietnamese leader at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow.

Russian PM Medvedev congratulated the Communist Party of Viet Nam on successfully holding the 12th National Congress, which set up important guidelines for Viet Nams future development.

He welcomed the first visit to Russia by Nguyen Xuan Phuc as the Vietnamese Governments leader, adding that his country considered Viet Nam one of its top Asian-Pacific partners.

PM Phuc spoke highly of Russias development and its growing stature in the world. He stressed Viet Nams policy of promoting the comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia.

Expressing delight at their countries growing political trust, the PMs agreed to continue all-level delegation exchanges and existing dialogue mechanisms.

They agreed to make efforts to shore up bilateral trade through creating favourable conditions for trade activities, fostering trade promotion events, boosting payment by using their domestic currencies, and capitalising on the Viet NamEurasian Economic Union Free Trade Agreement, of which Russia is a member.

The leaders applauded Vietnamese and Russian ministries co-operation projects in energy, oil and gas, mining and agriculture.

Amid domestic and global economic difficulties, both sides agreed to support the oil and gas joint ventures in each country and strengthen collaboration in other areas such as petroleum refining and chemistry and liquefied gas production.

They affirmed the continuation of co-operation in defencesecurity, particularly in military techniques. They reinforced cooperation in other areas like sciencetechnology, educationtraining, culture, tourism, labour, and between localities, bringing those connections on par with the countries comprehensive strategic partnership.

PM Phuc thanked Russias central and local authorities for providing good conditions for Vietnamese people, adding that the Vietnamese community would continue contributing to the two nations friendship.

At the talks, the two leaders discussed international and regional issues of mutual concern. They agreed to work more closely at multilateral forums such as the United Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation, the Asia-Europe Meeting, and ASEAN.

The Vietnamese side also expressed hope for the success of the ASEANRussia Summit to be held in Russia. The event, which marks the 20th founding anniversary of their dialogue relationship, will bring ASEANRussia relations to a new height.

With regard to recent developments in the East Sea, the PMs shared the view that disputes in the waters need to be solved through peaceful measures on the basis of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea, and efforts to push for a code of conduct.

They said they believe that the Vietnamese PMs official visit to Russia would create momentum for the two countries co-operation.

PM Phuc invited Medvedev to visit Viet Nam. He accepted the invitation with pleasure.

After talks, the two PMs witnessed the signing of co-operation agreements between the two countries economic groups operating in the fields of oil and gas, investment, and cadres training.

They later held an international press conference to affirm the two governments standpoints on strengthening bilateral co-operation.

The Russian PM spoke highly of the visit to Russia by his Vietnamese counterpart and described it as a symbol of the two nations trust.

He said Russia was willing to co-operate with Viet Nam in various fields such as telecommunications, banking, automobile assembly, finance, machine manufacturing, shipbuilding, mineral mining and agriculture.

The two countries had advantages to boost major investment projects, he said, suggesting the pair attach more importance to exchanging farm produce.

PM Phuc highly valued the long-standing and close-knit rapport between Vietnamese and Russian people.

He noted that during the bilateral talks both sides discussed and agreed to increase two-way trade, which is standing at US$4 billion, via the exchange of goods that are of respective strengths.

The two government leaders also concurred to pushing ahead with co-operation programmes and projects in energy, oil and gas, breeding and farm produce, he said.

The two PMs said they agreed to prepare for the implementation of the free trade agreement (FTA) between Viet Nam and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which is expected to take effect soon and bring opportunities to expand bilateral trade.

They agreed to expand co-ordination across fields of high potential, particularly tourism, services and advanced technology.

Viet Nam and Russia have established a comprehensive strategic partnership, so the two sides will boost and diversify their cooperation across the board to match their respective potential and meet the expectations of the two countries governments and people.  VNS
THANH HOA  The health ministry has called for increased efforts to provide effective and safe vaccines under the National Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) to all children in the country.

The announcement was made at a meeting to celebrate Immunisation Week 2016 in Thanh Hoa Province on Saturday.

The annual week, entitled Immunisation is everyones job, protect your community. Immunise all throughout life, is one of the communication programmes to strengthen awareness of community on the importance of vaccinations and to mobilise local and international support and investment for EPI in Viet Nam.

Vaccinations are not only the right and responsibility of each individual, but also of the entire community. Parents and child caregivers should take children to get vaccines under the EPI, said Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long, speaking at the event.

Long noted that the country still faced problems in carrying out the immunisation programme in mountainous, remote, border and island areas. From five to ten per cent of the countrys districts, mainly remote, mountainous and difficult localities, have not reached the targeted vaccination rates among their populations.

Officials noted that between three to five per cent of children under-12 months have not received all vaccinations, as called for under the EPI. Also, about 10 per cent of 18-month-old children had not received their repeated doses of measles, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus vaccines, according to Long.

Immunisation is one of the most powerful tools to save millions of lives. We have made enormous progress, but still, today, nearly one in five children worldwide are missing routine immunisations, said Sergey Diorditsa of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Western Pacific Regional Office.

This is the second year of the Close the Gap campaign  aimed at ensuring we leave no one behind in life saving immunisations. This is a call for everyones action to protect their communities through vaccinations, said Diorditsa.

In order to reach the goals of the Decade of Vaccines, we will have to develop innovative ways to reach the unreached and remove barriers to immunisation. In Viet Nam, this means reaching hard to find populations, such as the transient community, and working to address vaccine safety concerns and the hesitancy to be vaccinated, said Diorditsa.

He also highlighted achievements that Viet Nam has reported due to the national immunisation programme over the past 30 years.

Health ministry statistics note that the EPI has saved an estimated 42,000 lives and prevented more than 6.7 million childhood diseases, such as polio, tetanus, diphtheria, measles and pertussis, due to the high number of children receiving immunisations.

Additionally, over the last five years, the immunisation rate for Hepatitis B vaccinations among new born babies has increased from 21 per cent to 69.8 per cent. These achievements are due to tireless efforts of front line health workers and the strong commitment by the government, according to the health ministry.VNS
QUANG NINH  An exhibition of photos, reportage and documentary films about the ASEAN Community has been showcased in northern Quang Ninh Provinces Ha Long City since last Saturday. The show ends tomorrow.

More than 300 photos, nearly 60 reports, and documentary films feature the beauty of ASEAN people, landscapes, cultural diversity, environmental protection, health and education.

The works displayed was selected from outstanding works featuring ASEAN member countries and people and submitted to several prestigious festivals and competitions from 2010 to 2015.

The exhibition raises public awareness of the ASEAN Community established in 2015. It also calls for solidarity among Vietnamese citizens for the purpose of nurturing the ASEAN Community towards peace, stability and prosperity.

All the works on display will be presented to the Peoples Committee of Quang Ninh Province for dissemination purposes when the exhibit closes.  VNS
Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Pham Cong Tac said that sufficient scientific evidence has been collected to conclude the cause of unusual fish deaths that occurred in the central coastal region in early April, which will be announced soon. Photo tienphong.vn

HA NOI  Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Pham Cong Tac said that sufficient scientific evidence has been collected to conclude the cause of unusual fish deaths that occurred in the central coastal region in early April, which will be announced soon.

At a press briefing in Ha Noi Saturday, Tac said all evidence pointed to the two most likely causes of toxic substances and algae, adding that other causes such as seismic impact, heat shock and diseases have been ruled out.

This was the result of more than a month of research by domestic and foreign scientists from Japan, Germany, France, the US and Israel, he said, noting that the Ministry of Science and Technology had established a Council of Scientific and Technological Experts for the purpose of collaborative research in the four affected provinces.

The mass fish deaths were first reported in waters off of Vung Ang Port and Ky Anh Township in the central province of Ha Tinh on April 6. The phenomenon later spread to Quang Binh on April 10, Thua Thien-Hue on April 15 and Quang Tri on April 16, and lasted until May 4.

On April 24-26, brown sea tides were also spotted in the region.

Then on May 4, a streak of reddish sea water appeared along the shoreline of a beach in Quang Binh, but it faded several days later.  VNS
Illustrative Image.  VNA/VNS Photo

VIENTIANE  ASEAN labour ministers and their counterparts from China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (RoK) agreed to strengthen co-operation in the fields within their remit during a meeting in Vientiane, Laos, yesterday.

The ninth ASEAN Plus Three Labour Ministers Meeting took place as part of the 24th ASEAN Labour Ministers Meeting.

The officials shared their viewpoints and proposed measures for supporting the transition from informal to formal employment.

They hailed efforts to promote labour cooperation between ASEAN and the three partner countries as a whole as well as between ASEAN and each of them individually, especially in workforce training, labour relations and occupational safety.

The ministers agreed to enhance ASEAN+3 co-operation so as to promote vocational training quality, develop human resources, and build up the information system for the labour market, ultimately narrowing the development gap among the regional countries.

Vietnamese Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, ao Ngoc Dung, told the Vietnam News Agency that the regional ministers issued a joint statement on the transition from employment information to formal employment towards decent work promotion in ASEAN. It is like a commitment to create jobs for ASEAN workers, including Vietnamese.

At present, more than 60 per cent of Viet Nams workforce are informal labourers. If the country succeeded in complying with the statement, it can provide jobs for another 6 million people by 2020, he said.

However, it was important to boost mutual sharing, support and interaction among the ASEAN member countries, Dung added.  VNS
HA NOI  South Korea will resume accepting Vietnamese labourers on job visas under the Employment Permit System next year.

The South Korean Ministry of Employment and Labour (MoEL) said yesterday it will re-sign a standard Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on this during its minister Lee Ki-kweons visit to Viet Nam tomorrow.

The MoU will be signed by Lee Ki-kweon and Vietnamese Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs ao Ngoc Dung, the MoEL said.

The MoEL suspended the MoU in 2012 due to the high rate of illegal Vietnamese workers in South Korea. The ministry then signed a one-year MoU allowing the recruitment of a limited number of labourers.

The MoEL said the decision comes after South Korean enterprises employing foreign labourers asked their government to re-sign the MoU. They said Vietnamese labourers adapted well to the new working environment and quickly acquired the necessary skills. Meanwhile, Viet Nam has proposed a plan to improve the management of its workers and curb the number of Vietnamese overstaying their visas in South Korea.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs has announced illegal Vietnamese workers in South Korea who voluntarily return home from May 1 to September 30 this year will not have to pay any administrative penalties.

The move is aimed at encouraging and facilitating the return of Vietnamese workers and reducing the rate of workers illegally staying and working outside Viet Nam.

During his visit to Viet Nam, the South Korean minister is scheduled to meet his Vietnamese counterpart to discuss Viet Nams industrial safety, the labour information system and the labour law. The minister will meet Deputy Prime Minister Vu uc am and hold discussions on expanding labour exchange and solving problems relating to administrative procedures in attracting investment.

The MoEL also reported that some 10,000 South Korean employees are working at 3,300 South Korean enterprises in Viet Nam.

It said Viet Nam had recently tightened the process of granting visas to foreign workers, which could create difficulties for South Korean companies who want to send employees to work in Viet Nam.  VNS
THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

A Peoples History, 1962-1976

Frank Dikotter

Bloomsbury Press

396 pages; $32



A "people's history" suggests an alternative to an official history. But there is no official account of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. After Mao Zedong died, the Chinese people cut a tacit deal with the Communist Party: Raise our living standards and we will allow you to stay in power; we will not ask questions about the nightmare we endured.

Frank Dikotter's gripping, horrific and at times sensationalistic The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976, the third volume of his work on the Mao years, challenges the Chinese people to address those missing years. Drawn from hundreds of English-language and Chinese eyewitness accounts, newly available archival records, online Cultural Revolution documentary projects and foreign and Chinese scholarship, the book paints such a damning portrait of Communist Party governance that if it were circulated in China, it could undermine the current regime.

Mr Dikotter, a professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong, divides the period into four phases. The first is the 1962-66 lead-up to the Cultural Revolution, when Mao contemplated his return to the political stage. Relaxed policies under the leadership of Liu Shaoqi had helped the country partially recover from a famine that had killed millions. Mao, fearing the return of revisionism and sidelined by his own party, signalled his reassertion of control.

What Mr Dikotter calls the "Red Years" from 1966 to 1968 saw the worst of the urban violence. Student Red Guards were organised to defend Mao against his enemies. They attacked their teachers (humiliations, beatings, torture and suicides are described in wrenching detail) and raided homes in search of bourgeois "articles of worship, luxury items, reactionary literature, foreign books, concealed weapons, hidden gold, foreign currency, signs of a decadent lifestyle, portraits of Chiang Kai-shek." Then new factions targeted elite party members, along with intellectuals, artists and writers and miscellaneous class enemies, until competing groups were fighting one another in the streets.

Mao eventually brought in the military to quell factional violence, but China descended further into civil war as the army, too, sought revenge. The country became a dictatorship under the command of Mao's chosen successor Marshal Lin Biao. Another wave of purges and counter-purges ensued.

During what Mr Dikotter calls "The Black Years" from 1968 to 1971, the Cultural Revolution moved to the countryside, as former Red Guards were rusticated by the millions to "learn from" the peasants and prepare for war with the Soviet Union along the border. Mr Dikotter describes the experience as an unremittingly terrible time of suffering, hunger, rape and abuse. Yet the rustification has produced hundreds of memoirs, many of which testify that for some young people, the time in the countryside was more nuanced or even bittersweet than he indicates. The rusticated youth, arguably, helped China break with its Maoist past, for they later became known as the "awakened generation" and the "thoughtful generation" as they gradually inherited the leadership of the country.

The period ended when Lin Biao died on September 13, 1971, in a plane crash in Mongolia. He is alleged to have tried to flee after conspiring to assassinate Mao.

Mr Dikotter paints the "Gray Years" from 1971 to 1976 as a time when consumer goods were in such short supply that hunger, even famine, was widespread. Mao, in failing health, relaxed state interference in daily life. Elite-level power struggles continued, but as Mr Dikotter describes it, the extreme policies of the Mao period essentially fizzled out.

Some may disagree with Mr Dikotter's argument that Maoism died out primarily through widespread passive resistance and noncompliance; there were important policy experiments in decollectivisation underway at the time, and the eventual dissolution of the people's communes came as a carefully considered decision by policy elites who prevailed after Mao died.

At times, Mr Dikotter's account focuses on the sensational rather than the nuanced. Some discussion of how reliable his disparate sources are would have been welcome. Cultural Revolution memoirs may emerge from understandable pain and the desire for revenge. They are by their nature subjective and selective. Yet attributions in the text are sparse.

That said, this book is a significant event in our understanding of modern China. For Mr Dikotter, the Cultural Revolution represented Mao's attempt to put himself at the centre of global Communism. In his efforts to purge the party's highest echelons, Mao unleashed the people of China against one another, with the result that the roles of victim and victimizer became entwined. This, perhaps, is the best explanation for why so many Chinese people have chosen to be complicit in the party's historical amnesia. Mr Dikotter's account chronicles not only the Chinese people's bad behaviour and suffering during the Cultural Revolution but also their disparate and creative responses to the upheavals and violence. Beaten down and often near starvation, people at the grass roots played a significant role in ending one of history's worst convulsions.

2016, New York Times News Service
WEST UNION -- Jurors on Tuesday will likely begin deliberating whether Abel Quijas Jr. meant to kill a police officer in September 2014.

Attorneys in the case are scheduled to make closing arguments at 9 a.m. in Fayette County District Court.

Quijas, 34, of Maynard, is charged with attempted murder. Law enforcement officials allege he drove his car at Jay Tommasin, who at the time was a lieutenant with the Oelwein Police Department.

A conviction is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

Jurors can also consider lesser charges. Those are assault with intent to commit serious injury and simple assault. The jury could also find Quijas not guilty.

Prosecutor Douglas Hammerand closed his case Monday with testimony from a number of criminalists representing the Division of Criminal Investigation laboratory in Ankeny.

Amanda Kilgore told jurors about recovering bullets from Quijas' vehicle, a Chrysler 300M. She found bullets in the door post near the driver's door, in the front passenger seat and in the rear door on the driver's side.

Previous testimony revealed doctors in Iowa City took a fourth bullet out of Quijas' left arm.

According to Kilgore's testimony, the driver's door was open when one bullet struck the vehicle's frame. She illustrated two of the bullets' paths of travel using wooden dowels.

Kilgore, though, told jurors she could not determine exactly where or how close Tommasin and a second officer, Special Agent Kyle Bassett with the Division of Narcotics Investigation, were to Quijas when they fired their weapons. Her investigation also could not answer the question of what order the shots were fired.

The issue, she added, was also complicated because the two men and the vehicle were reportedly moving at the time.

The incident developed after authorities intercepted a FedEx package in Waterloo and organized "a controlled delivery" at 210 First St. SE in Oelwein. Quijas' father, Abel Quijas Sr., lives at that address.

The packaged contained a child's toy, a Farm Mash-up, with 1/2 pound of methamphetamine concealed inside.

Tommasin and Bassett posed as the company's delivery men while other troopers with the Iowa State Patrol and police officers, most in plainclothes, staged discreetly nearby. When Quijas arrived to collect the package, he was able to get to his vehicle and to elude officers despite being shot in the forearm.

Members of the U.S. Marshal's tactical team apprehended Quijas the next morning at a home in Maynard.

Hammerand on Monday also introduced a toxicology report that showed Quijas had amphetamine and meth in his system.

Richard Crivello told jurors a partial palm print and a fingerprint lifted off the hood of Quijas' vehicle belonged to Tommasin. According to Tommasin's earlier testimony, he braced himself on the car during the confrontation with Quijas.

Kristan Evans tested blood recovered in Quijas' car, inside a semi that belonged to Brent Scharff and on a toy and packaging. Quijas apparently spent the night in the semi's cab and discarded the toy and cardboard in and near a creek while on the run.

According to Evans, the blood matched Quijas' DNA.

The DCI's Victor Murillo fired Tommasin's .40-caliber Glock and Bassett's 40-caliber Sig Sauer in his lab in Ankeny. He then compared tiny scratches found on those to markings on bullets and casings recovered in the Quijas case.

Murillo testified two of the shells were fired by a Glock and two by a Sig Sauer, which matched the officers' earlier testimony.

Hammerand also called Lt. Jesse Paul with the Oelwein Police Department and Trooper Lynn Olesen to testify.

Paul was positioned near the apartment when Tommasin and Bassett entered. Later, he heard voices shouting commands.

"'Stop. Stop, police,'" Paul testified, and later "'Don't do it'" and "'Get on the ground.'"

Paul said he then heard gunshots. He radioed "officer needs assistance" and drove into and south down the alley behind Quijas Sr.'s apartment.

He found a group of people where the alley intersects with Second Street Southeast.

"They were very excited about what was going on," Paul said.

Trooper Olesen, who specializes in collision reconstruction, talked about conducting tests with another officer using a Chrysler 300M and a second similar vehicle. He concluded the parking brake on Quijas' car was engaged during the incident.

Olesen also conducted "maneuverability tests," exploring how the front-wheel drive vehicle handled with extreme acceleration with the parking brake on.

"It was perfectly controllable," Olesen testified.

Besides his tests, Olesen said tire marks at the crime scene in the alley also showed Quijas was able to steer. The marks clearly indicate the vehicle veered away from a tree, Olesen testified.

"That wouldn't end real well if you hit that tree," he added.

Olesen also concluded Quijas car would have hit Tommasin.

"The path of the vehicle went directly over where he had been standing," Olesen said.

Defense attorney Melissa Anderson-Seeber called just one witness Monday.

Trooper James Smith said he was one of the three troopers who staged at McDonald's near Quijas Sr.'s apartment. Smith also said he could not see the building's rear entrance, and he testified the troopers were not informed when Quijas Jr. arrived at the apartment.
CEDAR RAPIDS  Calling her a strong progressive Democrat who understands the struggle people face every day, former Iowa first lady Christie Vilsack endorses Monica Vernon in a campaign ad that will begin airing today.

Vilsack, a former Democratic candidate for the U.S. House, says in the 30-second spot Vernons record of building affordable housing for seniors and a homeless shelter for women and children show Vernon will fight for us every time.

Vernon, a former Cedar Rapids business owner and City Council member, is seeking the Democratic nomination in the 1st District that includes Cedar Rapids, Waterloo-Cedar Falls, and Dubuque. She will face former lawmaker Pat Murphy of Dubuque in the June 7 primary. The winner will face Republican Rep. Rod Blum of Dubuque.

Vilsack, the wife of USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, joins numerous state lawmakers and Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller in endorsing Vernon because she's the only Democrat with the campaign it's going to take to beat Congressman Rod Blum, according to her campaign manager Michelle Gajewski.
DES MOINES  The four Democrats running for the U.S. Senate in Iowa fired shots at Sen. Charles Grassleys foreign policy record Sunday while taking issue at times with their president over trade deals and drone attacks.

They were at a forum sponsored by the Stop The Arms Race PAC and progressive groups.

Former state legislators Tom Fiegen of Clarence and Bob Krause of Fairfield, state Sen. Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids and Albia Democrat Patty Judgea former state senator, Iowa agriculture secretary and lieutenant governorspent nearly two hours discussing 15 topics ranging from the Middle East, national defense, immigration and going to war.

The Democrats vying for their partys nomination in the June 7 primary took turns criticizing congressional inaction for impeding American progress as a strong world leader and Grassley as an obstructionist, while supporting President Obamas negotiated nuclear deal with Iran but opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal and universally condemning the use of torture as a tool of war.

The four candidates called for a clear policy and oversight governing the use of drone strikes against ISIS and enemy targets under the auspices of the Pentagon with no CIA involvement. Krause called for a fail-safe protocol while Judge said drones are a military tool that needs to be used very judiciously to avoid killing innocent victims.

Fiegen applauded anti-drone protests outside the Iowa Air National Guard base in Des Moines in decrying the use of drone strikes in places where we have not declared war that has escalated under former President George W. Bush and now the Obama administration.

You wonder why there are more terrorists. Its because we use drones to kill people who are innocent victims, Fiegen told about 100 people who gathered at the First Christian Church.

These are going to come back to haunt us, Fiegen said of an evolving, relatively inexpensive and accessible technology. If we believe we can do this in other countries, we give everybody else in the world carte blanche to do the same thing to us. Be prepared. Be prepared, be afraid.

Hogg voiced similar misgivings, saying the Iowa Legislature passed legislation dealing with privacy and safety concerns and he supported military use for information-gathering purposes. Beyond that, he said, the U.S. government should use extraordinary caution in an international arena where drone technology is not going in a good direction.

This idea that were using these devices in the way that were using, I am really concerned about how this is going to come back and really hurt us, he said.

Krause said he would like to see a comprehensive review of the governments drone program, acknowledging that its been a mixed bag in targeting terrorist operatives but also killing or injuring civilians. It has a negative impact. I dont know if Im willing yet to say that we need to stop targeting and pinpointing the leadership of ISIS. I cant say that, but I know that there are problems that we have to deal with, he said.

Judge called it absolutely shameful that Congress hasnt declared war on ISIS, saying its been more than a year since the president called for action that would let U.S. men and women in Iraq and Syria know they have the backing and commitment of the American people to win the fight.

Congress has been timid. Sen. Grassley has been timid, Krause said for walking away and not enforcing the Constitution.
WATERLOO  U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said Friday she was thrilled President Barack Obama will sign legislation she led to ensure World War II women pilots get inurnment rights at Arlington National Cemetery.

Ernst, a retired Iowa National Guard lieutenant colonel, worked on the bipartisan legislation in the U.S. Senate with Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. It passed the Senate unanimously last Wednesday.

It passed the U.S. House shortly after and was sent to the presidents desk for his signature. Obama has indicated he will sign the bill.

The bill deals specifically with Women Air Force Service Pilots, or WASPs, who Ernst describes as having an uphill battle since World War II to get the recognition they deserve for their wartime efforts.

To say that were going to run out of space, some day we will run out of space, but these were pioneers in their area, and we just need to make sure were honoring them, Ernst said Friday.

Ernst said the women  who did not fly combat missions in theater, but did train their male counterparts and ferry planes to various destinations  were initially denied even military benefits.

They were initially deemed civilians, but since the 1970s they have been granted status as veterans. But more recently, a new reading of regulations meant the women were denied having their urns placed in Arlington National Cemetery.

We tried to get the Army just to correct the issue, because they could have done a waiver. For whatever reason, they chose not to do a waiver for all of those ladies that were involved, and so we said, OK, if you wont do it, we will, Ernst said. And, so we pushed, (and) we got it through.

She said the effort came to her attention because around the time of the 2015 policy change, a female pilot Elaine Harmon had specifically requested in her will to be inurned there. Harmons granddaughter Erin Miller has been fighting since learning of the change to fulfill her grandmothers wishes.

Ernst stressed the rights are specifically for placing the womens urns in the national cemetery, rather than burial rights that would take up more space. She also noted there were 1,704 women who were part of the WASP program and not all would opt to be inurned at the national cemetery in Virginia.

U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., also was one of the bills sponsors, and she noted the women lawmakers  mostly from Millers home state or military members  have been working for the 19 weeks since they learned the WASPs were not getting the inurnment rights to change the policy.

Not all World War II veterans are eligible for burial at Arlington, but there are fewer restrictions on inurnment, above-ground placement of ashes. The cemeterys rules state any former member of the Armed Forces who served on active duty (other than for training) and whose last service terminated honorably is eligible to have their ashes placed at the national cemetery.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
SIOUX CITY  Scott Chaussee has never been a fan of Iowa 4th District Rep. Steve King.

Chaussee, of Sioux City in Woodbury County, said he doesnt like the conservative Republicans voting record on social program funding or his opposition to same-sex marriage, so hed love to see Kings House career end after 14 years in 2016.

Therefore, Chaussee, a registered Democrat, plans to switch his voter registration and vote in the June 7 Republican primary not for King but for his GOP challenger, state Sen. Rick Bertrand of Sioux City.

Ive never, ever voted Republican in my life. This guy, (King) is against everything I stand for, Chaussee said. And I dont even like Bertrands policies, but I cant stand Kings policies.

Tim Bottaro, a former Woodbury County Democratic Party chairman, also will vote in the Republican primary for Bertrand. And Diane Hamilton, a Democrat from Storm Lake, is giving serious consideration to doing so as well.

I dont know if any Democrat can ever beat (King), so maybe this is the answer, to have a Republican beat him, Hamilton said, pointing to the huge voter registration edge held by Republicans, 184,182 to 123,345, in the 4th district, which spans 39 counties in Northwest and north central Iowa.

Bertrand, a two-term state senator, surprised political observers when he decided to take on King, who is generally popular among conservative voters. While Republicans are deciding which of the two to support, there has been speculation Democrats who dont like King would cross over to vote for Bertrand, to knock King out. The winner of the Republican race will face the only Democratic candidate, Kim Weaver, of Sheldon, in the November general election.

If a slew of Democrats move his way, Bertrands chances of winning the primary likely would increase. But based on voter registration totals, if there is a big move by Democrats to aid Bertrand, it will be a late-breaking phenomenon.

Democratic Party officials on the state, district or county level are not publicly pushing any plans to have their voters switch allegiance for a day to back Bertrand.

One factor many county party chairmen cited is four Democrats  Patty Judge, Rob Hogg, Tom Fiegen and Bob Krause  are running in a primary on the same day to determine who will advance as nominee to take on Republican U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley of New Hartford in the fall.

Unless Rick Bertrand has some cards hes not showing, he is going to get shellacked ... It is just stunning, the silence you are hearing out of his campaign, Woodbury County Democratic chairman and former state lawmaker Al Sturgeon said.
WATERLOO  On Saturday the National Association of Letter Carriers, union members, staff of local food banks and pantries and the Cedar Valley United Way took part in the Cedar Valleys largest one-day Stamp out Hunger food drive.

The food was sorted weighed and shared with the Northeast Iowa Food Bank, The Salvation Army and St. Vincent De Paul Society.

Residents on mail routes are set out their donations, collected by volunteers.

Each year on the second Saturday in May, letter carriers across the country collect nonperishable food donations. Those donations go directly to local food pantries to provide food for local people.
AMES  Izak Christensen of Osage won first-place individual honors at the the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture Judging Conference April 14-16 at the University of Minnesota-Crookston.

Christensen, a sophomore ag business/agronomy major, took two first-place honors in the area of ag computers and one in ag business.

In the crops division, Logan Koester, a junior agronomy major from Gladbrook, placed 14th individually and was part of a first-place team in the four-year division in the crops area.

Jake Ziggafoos, a senior agronomy major from Eldora, was part of a fifth-place team in soil judging.

There were 570 contestants at the conference competing on 27 teams from four-year schools and 12 from two-year schools.

Teams competing in several agricultural categories were judged as a group and individual team members were ranked, as well. The Iowa State Ag Knowledge Bowl team won first place for the sixth year in a row. Teams ranked first in agribusiness, ag computers, ag sales, crop and horticulture. The Soil Judging Team ranked fifth.

The Iowa State teams in each contest category are listed below with the members by name, major and hometown.
WATERLOO  The Cedar Valley Campaign for Grade-Level Reading will join Penguin Random House, the American Library Association and fellow readers across the country for the second annual National Read-a-thon Day on May 21.

The campaign is partnering with the Waterloo Public Schools and Waterloo Public Library to host the event at the Waterloo Public Library from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Guest readers will read to children. All-star readers from each of the local elementary schools who were named the top readers in their school will be recognized. The first 100 families will receive a free book courtesy of Waterloo Schools.

The theme for the local read-a-thon is On Your Mark, Get Set, Read. The goal of the read-a-thon is to promote summer reading, educate about summer learning loss slide and provide summer reading tips to keep children learning throughout the summer.
It should be obvious to all by now Donald Trump knows nothing of what he speaks. His disastrous economic ideas are but the latest in a litany of nonsensical proposals.

Yet, and still, his supporters  that Republican base so carefully nurtured by the very GOP operatives and politicians who now find its members so distasteful  proclaim his supremacy with such bracing observations as, Well, at least hes got [spheres], or At least he speaks his mind, or At least he doesnt suck up to anybody.

These selections from the morning mail share a common element  at least  which seems apt enough, though the least seems more to the point. Trump was the least of so many other Republican candidates who offered governing experience, knowledge and even, in some cases, wisdom.

So why didnt these superior candidates win, especially given his consistently low favorability ratings? Indeed, both Trump and Hillary Clinton, presumptively speaking, would be the most disliked nominees at this stage of any in the past 10 presidential cycles, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis.

Trumps average strongly unfavorable rating of 53 percent  16 points higher than Clintons  is at least 20 points higher than every other candidates rating since 1980.

Never mind the many elected Republican leaders who are distancing themselves from his candidacy. Not enough of them, to be sure, which is disgraceful and surely will be noted by future historians as cowardly. My own running list of sycophants remains handy for the duration of their likely shortened political careers. Nearly half of voters say theyre less likely to support candidates who have aligned themselves with Trump, according to Morning Consult, a group that conducts weekly polls of 2,000 voters.

To answer my earlier question, the better candidates didnt win because, obviously, so many of them siphoned votes from stronger ones, giving Trump the lead and all-important momentum. Thus, the constant refrain from Trump supporters the establishment is ignoring the will of the people is only true to a point. Trump is the choice of a plurality of the GOP, but not of a majority  a distinction with a crucial difference.

At this stage, as the GOP convenes its circular firing squad composed of party leaders, operatives, hacks, flacks, politicos  if youll pardon the redundancy  and, yes, certain media, they might better expend their energies considering alternative voting methods that might have prevented Trumps ascendancy and likely would prevent future demagogues.

One of these methods, already used by a variety of professional organizations to elect officers, as well as by the United Nations to elect the secretary-general, uses an approval ballot by which voters rank all the candidates of whom they approve rather than select just one. Far from new, this idea was suggested in 1770 by French mathematician and astronomer Jean-Charles de Borda, who expressed concern several similar candidates would split the majority vote and allow a nonconsensus candidate to win.

Voila.

Through election by order of merit, now known as the Borda count, each candidate was awarded a number of votes equal to the number of candidates below him on each voters ballot. The candidate with the most votes won.

Fast-forward a couple of centuries to 1977 when New York University politics professor Steven J. Brams and decision theorist Peter C. Fishburn devised approval voting, which is similar but even simpler. By their method, voters would cast a vote for each candidate of whom they approve, in no particular order. The candidate with the most votes would win.

Another ranking method, advanced recently in The New York Times by economists Eric Maskin and Amartya Sen, was developed by 18th-century mathematician and political theorist Marquis de Condorcet. This process called for ranking candidates in order of approval  or not ranking them at all as an indication of disapproval. The candidate with the highest approval ranking would win.

Longtime voters might find such suggestions jarring, but a Trump nomination could be a rule-changer. He can brag he has won a couple dozen contests but the reality is another of the other primary candidates might have beaten him if not for voters scattering their ballots among so many. This is to say, the majority of Republican voters rejected Trump.

Had an approval system been in place, its conceivable John Kasich could be accepting the nomination in July. And Trump would be piling up approval ratings where he belongs  on reality TV.
Theyre about to ruin Evansdale, and barely anyone here even cares.

A few years ago, the city discarded our excellent MET bus connection to the rest of the Cedar Valley, which both inconvenienced a lot of people and reduced commerce from nearby parts of Waterloo to our businesses. Merely to save a few bucks.

Then three years ago, the U.S. Postal Service irrationally closed our profitable post office branch, purportedly to save money. And in a city of 5,000, only about 200 residents showed up to protest that colossal government insult, and only two  the mayor and one other resident  made the effort to appeal that debacle to the Postal Regulatory Commission. (Ironically, they succeeded  only to lose again because the USPS can override the PRC. And did.)

So now its 2016, and the feds are generously handing $1.5 million to our city so we can set the place back a half-century, throwing away our beautiful (and only) four-lane thoroughfare, which links downtown to the interstate, in exchange for returning to a two-lane bottleneck.

Some gift. And all but a handful of our thousands of people are blithely lapping up this toxic brew like a kitten at a saucer of warm cream. Only a mere 90 people signed a petition to stop this unconscionable destruction of the west side of our city. Everyone else is guzzling the snake oil. Or ignoring the impending devastation. How can so many folks have allowed themselves to have been sold such a bill of counterproductive goods?

I guess theyre about to get what they deserve. After all, most of them can just circumvent by using other streets, right? But for all of us who live on or by River Forest Road (which has already been denuded of dozens of the hundred-year-old maple trees that gave the boulevard half of its name, for this abomination of a project), thats just our tough luck. Without the support of the rest of our neighbors, were powerless. (And those living on River Forests only dead-end cul-de-sac  Forest Circle  are about to be cut off completely. For at least three months.)

They came for our bus link and nobody cared. Then they came for our post office, and most said ho-hum. Now the feds are again trashing us mercilessly, and were embracing it.

To my neighbors in Evansdale, I ask that you finally rise up and reverse all of the above damage that has been done to our community while we still can. Including demanding the government to withdraw the River Forest Road grant. Otherwise, you might want to take a leisurely drive up and down River Forest now, so you can remember what you discarded every time you endure the bottleneck that replaced it, over the decades to come.
By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 14, 2016 | 11:16 PM | MARION, KY

A one-car crash Saturday morning in Crittenden County left a Lyon County man injured and facing charges.

According to the Kentucky State Police, the wreck happened around 1:45 am on US 641, near the Crittenden/Caldwell County line. Troopers said 18-year-old Bryant Millikan of Eddyville was southbound on US 641 when he lost control of his car.

Millikan's car crossed both lanes of travel, and left the left shoulder of the roadway. His car then rolled multiple times and came to rest upright off the roadway.

Millikan was transported by ambulance to the Crittenden County Hospital where he was treated and released. He was then lodged in the Crittenden County Detention Center on a charge of DUI 1st offense.

Troopers said Millikan was not wearing his seat belt.
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Last night the Nightingale sang and sang! I have recorded the Nightingale last year and this year, after the many babies last year, we have Nightingales all over the village. It is really wonderful and it looks like we will have another nest on the fence as it was last year. (If ? He can find a girlfriend? I am sure he will and he is trying real hard, as he sings so beautiful all night long. How could a sweet girl Nightingale resist?) Mother Nature is wonderful

Everyday the people in the Tiny Russian Village siesta. It is something I will do also, for it seems just the right thing to do. The people rest through the hot noon sun and come out to pay or work again when the edge of heat comes off the sun. So it is work early and sleep some more and then work later in the evening

* * * * * * * * * *

I started this article many days ago and today I will finish it

I will finish it with a worry. I am seeing many articles about Americans and Britains wanting to or desiring to move to Russia. They are attracted to the idea of free land and free Russia. Russia is free and liberty, reins true over all of it in comparison to the western world

Russia is far from perfect and one thing Russia will do is to is to toughen your ass up. Russians do not have stigmas about political correctness and they do not care if life is tough for you. There is no safe hide hole to run to, when life bothers you. Welfare is virtually non existence and governmental interference is definitely non existent. You stand on your own two feet and or you die

But, if you help someone, they will help you back when needed. If you are an ass to people, then you go down with your ass attached and people will not care. You have to have a huge massive mindset change to survive Russia and you have to be willing to become Russian to make it. Thus when you break your big toe and it hurts, you still walk and gather what life needs to survive. Then you share what you gathered if the guy next to you does not have what you have and vice a versa. For he has the same broken toe and you would never know it. Just a simple example

Russians are intelligent and very philosophical. They all know what is wrong with the world and maybe that is why I fit in so well. I seem to act like I know what is wrong with the world also. It is important to understand that Russians are very deep thinkers and will remember everything you say to the last letter of the sentence. Do not lie to a Russian, drunk or not, they will remember how you act and think

As with me, you do not want to make Russians an enemy. They are the worst kind of foe. They will take so much and you think they are weak, but then as you look away for one minute, they will smack you silly and take you down. They are quiet and methodological about their responses. But in the same token, they will become your best friend and never leave you. Russian women are a perfect example; they are ferociously loyal to their men and I know, My sweet pea is a good example of a Russian woman

My friend Vova is a good example of an old Soviet type friend. His Vodka is important and good friends are more important. For friends are invaluable to survival and this last winter, Vova and I spent much time together and we talked about many things. One thing that is more true than anything; Russians have lost the starry eyed aspect they had about America and America was a fool to not befriend a country full of intellects, who will fight you to the ends of the earth and farther. Russians will push you into Hell itself and follow you there to finish the job. In the same breath, they will help you into Heaven and stay away, for they have done the utmost in service to life itself

They are religious without even knowing it and believe in a God, but a God who helps only those that help themselves. If helping themselves is helping you, then they will. By this act, they live a full and eventful life and they do not fear anything to speak of. They are curious, intelligent, soulful, thoughtful and forgiving. They forgive if you are sincere in your apologies

Russians want one leader for life. They do not and can not understand the charades played by America. Changing a president every four years makes no sense and they really have no desire to change their president at all. A president for life is considered the best and is not looked at as a dictator. They are intellects and want stability and realize that America does not offer stability, either abroad or within her boarders

So what I am saying in this post is that people who dream of coming to Russia to live, need to seriously think what they want. Russia is harsh and brutal at times. It is a world of wonderment, but can be a world of hurt, for those who are weak. Winter is tough and it gets cold, not one or two days of cold, but months of deep freeze (some places all year long) that will take your life in a heartbeat. For two months I watched my breath freeze in the air and make a tinkling sound as it settled to the ground. But then again, Russia is the most free place I have ever been and freedom is part of that harsh and brutal world it is. People can not have their cake and eat it to.My cake is with out icing and I like it that way 

Bottom line of all this; Do not come to Russia and expect government welfare! The government has better things to do, like protect the people from the western world morals and warfare attitude and that is exactly how it should be

They do not have it or care for it. That is the way I like it

If you come to Russia? Come to live a Russian life, not change what Russia is, to how you expect life to be

WtR
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.

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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.

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Now that youve got an idea of what to look for when choosing an online casino, heres some tips for making the right choice

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May 16, 2016 | By Benedict

McFarlane Aviation, a Kansas-based manufacturer of replacement aircraft parts, is looking to expand its business by opening a new additive manufacturing facility. By working closely with the FAA, McFarlane hopes to force the approval of 3D printed aircraft partsa feat that would have significant knock-on effects for the industry as a whole. Using 3D printers will also help the company to reduce costs and maximize efficiency, says general manager Dan McFarlane.

Located on a quaint country airport in Vinland, Kansas, right in the middle of the United States, family-run business McFarlane Aviation could hardly be better placed to manufacture and distribute aircraft components for its nationwide customer base. For almost 50 years, McFarlane has been providing high-quality replacement parts for Cessna, Piper, Grumman, Beechcraft, and Ag-Cat airplanes, delivering quality parts at a lower price than the original manufacturer.

Much has changed in the aerospace industry since McFarlane was first established by David McFarlane, now company president, in 1970. Slowly but surely, additive manufacturing has made a convincing case for itself as a viable option for small parts productionthink 3D printed fuel nozzles, 3D printed cabin partitions, and more. And while giant aircraft manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus, who have been particularly vocal in their advocacy of 3D printing, can benefit greatly from the technology, it could offer an even bigger advantage to medium-sized businesses like McFarlane.

In 2012, McFarlane added 24,000 square feet of production and warehouse space to its existing premises, with the intention of setting up a new additive manufacturing facility called McFarlane AMS. Over the last 18 months, engineers at the company have been studying additive manufacturing technology, in the hope of securing new customers through selective laser melting (SLM) 3D printing services. When the company installs its proposed duo of 3D printers, it will be able to manufacture entirely new components, as well as making stronger and cheaper versions of existing ones. There is, however, an obstacle to the process: FAA certification. [3D printing] is basically a new manufacturing process with not enough history of durability or reliability, Dan McFarlane told Lawrence Journal-World. We will be working closely with the FAA to certify those processes. Its a lot of testing and a lot of research and development.

McFarlane has not disclosed which model of 3D printer it is looking to invest in, but has suggested that an outlay of $1 million per unit would be required. With that investment and other costs involved in the expansion, the company is seeking a partner for the project. With several 3D printer manufacturers also hoping for a speedy stamp of approval from the FAA regarding 3D printed aircraft components, Dan McFarlane thinks this partnership could come sooner rather than later: Because were investing so much to get FAA certification and in infrastructure, we will be partnering with a machine manufacturer who sees the value of what we are doing, he said. Were going to be the one that gets it up and going for the broader aerospace industry.

The two proposed 3D printers will require 12 x 12 x 12 inch build volumes, enough for McFarlane to manufacture a range of small airplane parts that would be far more costly to produce via traditional means. The printers will also allow McFarlane to use less metal for each component, while actually making stronger and lighter parts than before. This is due to the topology optimization that 3D printing affords: by engineering the internal structure of a component with tunnels, lattice structures, and such, the company will be able to maximize a components strength and stiffness while minimizing material cost.

With traditional machining, the more complex and intricate a part is the more expensive it is to manufacture, Dan McFarlane explained. With this, the more complex a part is, the less expensive it is to make because there is less base metal used. Its also a very green technology. With milling, up to 60 percent of metal is waste or is recycled. This uses 99 percent of the base metal.

Although the investment required to kickstart the new additive manufacturing facility will be significant, McFarlane is confident that 3D printing is a risk worth taking.

Posted in 3D Printer Company

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by Aasem Bakhshi

Why does an apple fall when it is ripe? Is it brought down by the force of gravity? Is it because its stalk withers? Because it is dried by the sun, because it grows too heavy, or the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing under the tree wants to eat it? None of these is the cause. They only make up the combination of conditions under which every living process of organic nature fulfills itself. In the same way the historian who declares that Napoleon went to Moscow because he wanted to, and perished because Alexander desired his destruction, will be just as right and wrong as the man who says that a mass weighing thousands of tons, tottering and undetermined, fell in consequence of the last blow of the pickaxe wielded by the last navy. In historical events great men  so-called  are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free-will, is in the historical sense not free at all but is bound up with the whole course of history and preordained from all eternity.

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Wouldn't you visualize Livia Drusila  the wife of Roman emperor Augustus  as a cunning and venomous political mastermind if your sole introduction to ancient Roman history is Robert Graves' engrossing autobiographical tale of emperor Claudius? Haven't you always visualized the last Roman emperor of Julio-Claudian dynasty, the infamous Nero, playing fiddle while Rome was burning in 64 AD? Can anyone have a more predominant image of Abu Sufyan's wife Hind Bint Utbah than the one represented by Irene Papas through her revengeful eyes and blood-dripping lips in the film The Message (1976) when she was shown chewing the liver of Prophet Muhammad's uncle Hamza after the Battle of Uhud?

These are all overpowering images, sustained over time, and hard to erase from the slate of our memories. It doesn't matter much if we argue, for instance, that it was not Hind but the black slave Wahshi who actually gouged out Hamza's liver according to a traditional Muslim historian Ibn Kathir's narrative or else that the earliest recording of the incident by the historian Ibn Ishaq is a dubious attribution because of broken chains of narration. Similarly, does it matter that fiddles were non-existent in first-century Rome and it is probably an anciently preserved metaphor, as Nero was famous for his love of extraordinary indulgence in music and play? It would not transform these images the least if we juxtapose the contradicting accounts of Suetonius, Cassius and Tacitus and present evidence that Nero even returned immediately from Antium and organized a great relief effort from his own funds, even opening his palaces for the survivors. And it is pretty much futile to argue  after BBC popularized Graves' autobiographical account of Claudius by adapting it into a TV series  that Livia might not be a such a thorough Machiavellian character, and in fact it was not her favorite pastime to scheme political upheavals and poison every other claimant to Roman throne.

Thus after centuries of dust settling over innumerable layers of narratives, the quest for historical certainty, for that which actually happened, is overpowered by popular images that refuse to erase themselves from collective memory.

And this, of course, is also the single most important contribution of British-American psychologist Lesley Hazleton's narrative history of Shia-Sunni split: refreshing and reinforcing some already held soppy images.

But this is not about reviewing Hazleton's reading of the perennial sectarian split at the heart of Islam per se; rather, using her as a

template to locate the increasingly blurred lines between narrative history and historical fiction. In the wake of this relatively new genre taking a sharp modern turn, where must a reader not well-rooted within the whole literary tradition of the respective historical current place his sensibility regarding authenticity of the historical truth?

That Hazleton is more interested in psychological characterization and building a juicy and well-coherent narrative, rather than objective historical analysis and criticism, is easily evident even from a cursory look through the text. Even though, the characterization and speculative psychological insights are evenly distributed all over the text, Hazleton surely has her pivotal choice of heroes and villains to build a gripping narrative. Well-meaning heroes, who are eventually destined to be gypped, and pernicious villains, who are designed to exploit. As Hazleton's publishers must have carefully put it in the title, it has to be marketed for the reader as an 'Epic Story', an epic Game of Thrones adventure intricately built around the desire for power.

Therefore, right from the beginning, the narrative essentially revolves around the struggle for accession to this proverbial throne. The opening part supplies images in which Prophet Muhammad, who according to the author, was perhaps leading a life of celibacy after the death of his most beloved wife Khadija is dying and the community is not yet ready to grapple with his evident death. In an authorial figment of imagination, all of his wives surely did try to get pregnant by him in order to bear a son and it was Ayesha who was specially haunted by her childlessness. Understandably so, as her readers naturally having modern sensibilities and this being a medieval monarchical structure, Hazleton must logically supply reader with an image where the community is fragile enough to disintegrate in the absence of an immediate political center. Hence, as they say, the stage is set in the opening part for the power play amidst usual chaos depicted in a medieval folklore,

What did he intend to happen after his death? This is the question that will haunt the whole tragic story of the Sunni-Shia split, though by its nature, it is unanswerable. In everything that was to follow, everyone claimed to have insight into what the Prophet thought and what he wanted. Yet in the lack of a clear and unequivocal designation of his successor, nobody could prove it beyond any shadow of doubt. However convinced they may have been that they were right, there were always those who would maintain otherwise. Certainty was a matter of faith rather than fact.

Subsequently, in this cheesy narrative pivoted around power struggle, Ayesha is depicted as a charming and impudent young brat who, as she gets older, essentially acquires a Livian element with a soft Machiavellian composition, which Hazleton carefully imparts as if there is enough historical truth to substantiate her psychological make-up beyond reasonable doubt.

How could a teenage girl possibly compete against the hallowed memory of a dead woman? But then who but a teenage girl would even dream of trying? Charming she must have been, and sassy she definitely was. Sometimes, though, the charm wears thin, at least to the modern ear. The stories Ayesha later told of her marriage were intended to show her influence and spiritedness, but there is often a definite edge to them, a sense of a young woman not to be crossed or denied, of someone who could all too easily switch from spirited to mean-spirited.

Throughout her narrative, this Machiavellian composition of Ayesha is carefully pitted against composed and well-balanced demeanour of Muhammad's cousin Ali, whom Hazleton portrays something closer to an Arthurian legend with Excalibur (book has a reference to Excalibur too comparing it with Ali's famous sword Al-Zulfiqar). And because it is naturally a demand of a stronger narrative, Hazleton never fails to speculate even when there is little room to supply a tinge of any imagined political conflict between Ali and other challengers of succession to Prophet Muhammad, namely Abu Bakr and Omar

The meaning was clear: in a society where to give was more honorable than to receive, the man who gave his daughters hand bestowed the higher honor. While Abu Bakr and Omar honored Muhammad by marrying their daughters to him, he did not return the honor but chose Ali instead.

But if there is a true Livian character in this tale, it is Muawiyah, the powerful governor of Syria whose promised reinforcements didn't arrive to avert the assassination of third caliph Othman, according to some of Hazleton's sources.

Certainly he was no one-dimensional villain, though it is true he looked the part. He had a protruding stomach, bulging eyes, and feet swollen by gout, but as though in compensation for his physical shortcomings, he was possessed of an extraordinary subtlety of mind [] Eight centuries before Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, Muawiya was the supreme expert in the attainment and maintenance of power, a clear-eyed pragmatist who delighted in the art and science of manipulation, whether by bribery, flattery, intelligence, or exquisitely calculated deception [] The famed image of Hind cramming Hamzas liver into her mouth worked to his advantage. Any son of such a mother could inspire not just fear but respect, and Muawiya commanded both. Except from Ali [] Poison has none of the heroics of battle. It works quietly and selectively, one might almost say discreetly. For Muawiya, it was the perfect weapon.

For an informed reader, therefore, authorial intention easily protrudes from the text, rather it is the subtext itself which lays bare the intent to give a chilling speculative quality to the whole story as it is told. Hence, it is usually through the subtext that we see Muawiyah and his associates, among them Amr Bin Al Aas, poisoning, deceiving and when it is necessary, battling their way to the throne. From the point of view of an impartial author who doesn't have a possible conflict of interest, Hazleton carefully chooses her sources  her chief source being the Annals of Tabari  and claims not to prefer less authentic ones over the stronger. However, using her authorial right to choose among various versions of the same incident, she intelligently prefers the most chilling and controversial version over the casual and discreet ones. This is the primary reason why the readers who are generally unacquainted with classical Muslim sources such as those of Tabari, Ibn Saad, Ibn Athir and Masudi etc would find Hazleton's accounts of Battles of Siffin, Jam'l and subsequent events of Karbala in Yazid's reign simply unputdownable. However, such readers must understand that the chief success of Hazleton's work lies in its ability to create an extremely readable and gripping narrative with psychological insights of a bystander looking piercingly into her historical subjects.

Moreover, if the text is read carefully, she is able to present a decent popular point of view, drawing from both sides of history as well heresiography. What she fails to make emphatically clear is that historical certainty and objectivity must not be compromised for the flair of narrative. From a sheer academic point of view, the text is absolutely unworthy of attention primarily because it doesn't live up to its promise of linking the present Shia-Sunni conflicts in contemporary Syria and Iraq to its alleged historical roots. There is a lot more to the Shia-Sunni conflict then a supposed Game of Thrones and it certainly has as much to do with the global politics during post-formative periods of Islam, not to mention another more interesting conflict between two different theological meta-narratives.

Hazleton neither has the historical insight of William Dalrymple, nor has she the profundity of Orlando Figes to produce a useful narrative-history for widely informed audience. In the absence of footnotes and textual references, it is extremely hard to trace her contentions and speculations to original sources. Furthermore, the distraught and superficially agitated nature of the narrative is generally distasteful to a serious reader, who might not be interested in an over-dramatized good vs evil story. At the most, Hazleton's account must be read as a riveting historical novel adapting real characters and actual events. Unfortunately for a serious student of history, it has nothing much to chew.

Therefore, as a reader who is certainly not a history buff but have at least this much interest to have an occasional monthly drift towards the genre, this leaves me baffled about the whole genre, and I am compelled to raise a question about the balance between imagining a narrative or creating one from the sources. Of course, latter has its downside as well since there has to be a certain degree of selective bias in choosing the particular sources to support the preconceived line of enquiry; however, a committed reader can always point that out after a little hard-work.

From a Christian point of view, a somewhat similar case in point is Reza Aslan's reconstruction of life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. One can argue that from a particular kind of revisionist Christian setting Aslan does a decent act of balancing the historical Jesus, that is of Nazareth, with the theological one that is Christ and Savior. However, from the standpoint of all the hype that it created due to generally misplaced Islamophobic critiques and the authorial defenses centered on a presumably academic unbiased historical work, shouldn't it be considered a mediocre work when placed into narrative history genre?

Let us see how. Aslan's basic idea: disentangle historical Jesus from the theological one by contending that the former was a radicalized anti-Roman zealous Jew. The claim is not alarmingly novel, at least from a Muslim standpoint, however, Aslan's work merely moves on the fringes of the arguments. In my humble opinion, its neither a rebuttal of classical orthodox Christian position and nor a critical challenge to it. To achieve any of that Aslan had to delve deep into the theology and scriptural interpretation of last 20 centuries, from which he deliberately distanced himself by calling his work a 'historical study'. However, on the chronological scale that he is working, its nearly impossible to disentangle history from theology and the work obviously suffers not recognizing that. Even a Muslim reader would struggle to grapple with Aslan's portrait of Jesus and in the end it would only prove to be a gripping read for his non-religious audience.

In a nutshell, Aslan claims to engage himself in the domain of critical history (drawing from a rich archive of secondary revisionist sources) rather than literary analysis but the grandiose claims that he makes belong as much to the latter. I do not even have an amateur reading in Biblical studies but my reader's hunch says that a Biblical scholar would accuse him of cherry-picking from selective ancient sources, such as Josephus. As far as his flat reconstructions of Jewish resistance into a formal zealotry is concerned, well, one can only leave it to a more informed reader; a more or less equally informed reader, as I am in the case of Hazleton.

Coming back to my original motivation of producing this seemingly agitated tirade against writers whom I otherwise adore, where should one position himself as a reader while accessing narrative history? More specifically, where is the exact boundary between the idealized narrative history and the nonfiction historical novel? Historians know best, but from a reader's point of view, it is probably not so much an art of failure to separate the tendency, rather impulsive proclivity, to sensationalize the reader from the will to inform him about history. Since more and more lay-historians are embracing the sensationally imaginative version of narrative form, it is perhaps time to call it a nonfiction historical story rather than proper narrative history.
Ivan Semeniuk in The Globe and Mail:

Earlier this year, Jennifer Doudna, a molecular biologist at UC Berkeley who is known for her role in developing the revolutionary gene-editing technique called CRISPR, got a surprising e-mail from her neighbour. It was a link to a do-it-yourself CRISPR kit on sale for $140 US.

The site included an enticement that until recently would be taken as droll science fiction. Note to BioHackers: Each Kit comes with all sequence and cloning detail so you can perform your own custom genome engineering.

Even Doudna, a recent winner of a Canada Gairdner International Award, expresses amazement at the pace, scope and accessibility of the new genetics. In the few short years since she and others got CRISPR to work, the manipulation of genes has become something we can play with at home in our spare time. Its this newfound capacity, with all its ethical ramifications, that makes Siddhartha Mukherjees latest book especially timely.

Mukherjee is a physician and assistant professor at Columbia University whose history of cancer,The Emperor of All Maladies, won him a Pulitzer Prize in 2011. A gifted writer with knack for storytelling, Mukherjee managed to translate his insiders view of cancer medicine into a memorable read.

With The Gene: An Intimate History, Mukherjee is attempting to capture something far larger. Genetics is not just a field of research, it is the overarching framework that spans the life sciences and the key to heredity and identity. Where cancer provides a rich world of material for narrative treatment, genetics throws in the entire biological universe.

More here.
by Katrin Trustedt

Faced with a looming terrorist threat from the self-proclaimed Islamic State, attempts throughout Europe are being made to reclaim one's 'own identity.' While the conception of war between equal nation states is questioned by the structure of international terrorism, the dynamic of national identity experiences a comeback. A desire for given group identities is growing all over, regarding nation states with their supposed German, French or Polish identity, alliances of states such as Europe, or even more extended coalitions such as 'the West' or 'the Occident.' This desire is situated within a struggle for the dominance of one's own given 'values' and 'identities' against an antagonist: 'We' defend our way of life against those who attack it. Such claims become especially prevalent in the aftermath of attacks like the ones in Paris and Brussels. But what this form of self-assertion serves, is above all the goals of ISIS. Their terror seems not to be directed primarily at an opponent whose identity is already fixed, and who must be overwhelmed because of it. Instead, the specific form of ISIS terror should be understood as one of provocation, intended to prompt the formation of opposing identities, to evoke antagonism. From this perspective, the highly staged terrorist acts are the attempt to force a complex and diverse world into a framework of unambiguously opposed fronts.

Even before the proclamation of an Islamic State, a textbook was published with the telling title The Management of Savagery/Chaos, which openly stated its political objective: to force America, or 'the West,' out of its latent opposition to Islam and into the position of an active and identifiable foe (Force America to abandon its war against Islam by proxy and force it to attack directly.) The strategic management of chaos was aimed initially at the immediate sphere of influence of ISIS, the 'Muslim gray zone' in the Middle East, whose shattered condition was to provide the basis for a progressive polarization by violence (dragging the masses into battle such that polarization is created between all of the people.) Invoking the alleged original battle of the pioneers for the establishment of Islam, violence is conceived as a means of creating opposing fronts (This was the policy of battle for the pioneers: to transform society into two opposing groups, igniting a violent battle.) The particular brutality of such acts of terror thus should be attributed less to an existing antagonism and more to forcing and creating enmity. The violence aims at tearing apart a murky gray zone by establishing a front line across which two warring parties can confront each other. The supposed 'hardliners' who promote a 'relentless crackdown' on ISIS are actually following ISIS' script in executing the role ascribed to them.

The wave of refugees fleeing to Europe initially presented a defeat for ISIS, since Muslims were leaving the alleged 'Islamic paradise' in mass migrations to make their way to the 'decadent West,' while an 'Islamophobic Europe' openly welcomed them. (This moment did not last long.) The French journalist Nicolas Henin, a former prisoner of ISIS, sees the Paris attacks of November 2015 as a reaction to this initial defeat. Against this background, it seems no accident that Europe has recently become a special focus of ISIS. In 2015 the ISIS online magazine Dabiq devoted a twelve-page editorial to the Extinction of the Grayzone, now dealing specifically with attacks across Europe, especially that on Charlie Hebdo. The Extinction of the Grayzone was said to have begun with the blessed operations of September 11th, as these operations manifested two camps before the world for mankind to choose between, a camp of Islam  without the body of Khilafah to represent it at the time  and a camp of kufr  the crusader coalition. Terrorist attacks like that against Charlie Hebdo should now also deliberately polarize Europe's gray zone into a domain of conflict, to bring further division to the world and destroy the grayzone everywhere. The mere existence of ISIS should serve to amplify the impact of the Paris terror attacks, even if these had not been directly planned by ISIS. The proclamation of the Islamic State was in this sense a performative act that was supposed to lend additional support to remote acts of terror by relating them to this center and the fronts it established. The performative impact of terror should aim to force the crusaders (of 'the West') into destroying their own gray zone. The presence of the Khilafah also magnifies the political, social, economic, and emotional impact of any operation.  This magnified impact compels the crusaders to actively destroy the grayzone themselves. ISIS sees itself as an agent of the final struggle in an apocalyptic scenario, a struggle that it actively seeks to further. For this apocalyptic war, ISIS needs a suitable enemy; and so Dabiq cites George W. Bush's doctrine that, reacting to 9/11, exactly followed this script: Bush spoke the truth when he said, 'Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.' Meaning, either you are with the crusade or you are with Islam. Europe must be divided into two camps; that is the beginning of its 'end' and its 'truth': the option to stand on the sidelines as a mere observer is being lost.

Polarization through the destruction of the gray zone now seems to be well under way in Europe. Not only questions of 'national security' and foreign policy are at stake, but, and more fundamentally, the dynamic of the construction of (national) identity itself. Such a dynamic can be seen in populist right-wing organizations like Pegida or Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), the Front National in France, or the Congress of the New Right in Poland. The German Pegida manifests the twisted logic of identity politics already in its name, an acronym for Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident. The fact that the conceptions linked together here are contradictory (a national sentiment like patriotism is applied to extra-national unities like Europe and 'the Occident') doesn't defeat their purpose, but rather shows what that purpose is. The linkage serves to create a general antagonism in which Germany, Europe and the Occident can then stand in for each other. The identity of a 'we' is created solely through an antagonism to Islam, Occident becomes the other to Orient, and remains entirely dependent on this opposition to its declared other. The supposed threat  the Islamization of the Occident  legitimates and engenders retrospectively the patriotism founded upon the gesture of defending one's identity which is itself a product of the opposition that has been posited. Pegida cites attacks like those against Charlie Hebdo to support its claims, thereby fulfilling the declared aim of such attacks (destroying the gray zone). A majority of Germans, as polls reported early on, shared the worries about a prospect of 'Islamization.' This tendency corresponds to the general shift to the right in Europe, the emergence of self-styled organizations of 'citizens' defense' and an increase in right-wing terror against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Such antagonistic dynamics play directly into the hands of ISIS, with the rising Islamophobia of 'the West' generating new recruits, which in turn increases the level of anxiety and reinforces the polarization that ISIS seeks. In this polarized context 'Western values' become something that have to be defended, but which are articulated as a means of demarcating an 'other' which in turn becomes the condition of existence of these values. ISIS, which here marks the most extreme pole of this declared 'other,' defines itself in opposition to 'crusaders' and 'unbelievers' in the 'decadent West,' and so shows in turn its own identity as not grounded in itself but as relying on what it rejects.

The recent attacks in Europe are not simply the outcome of an existing confrontation between radicalized Islamists on the one side, and hedonistic, secularized Europeans on the other. It was not 'the West' as an established foe that was the prime target. Instead, it was the gray zone itself that was targeted, so that Europe would be divided into two clearly-identified camps. From what we know of the Paris attackers, most of them initially belonged neither unambiguously to 'the West', nor to 'Islam'. According to France's Centre for the Prevention of Sectarian Drift Related to Islam, 90% of radical Islamists have French grandparents; 80% come from non-religious families. In this sense, they seem to originate precisely in the gray zone that Dabiq had described earlier in the same year and identified as a target. Growing up in complex circumstances marked by the violence of colonial history, nation-building and its failures, the attackers emerged from a gray zone that is constitutive of a Europe with many languages, migration histories and so-called minorities. In this context, the act of a suicide attack seems like the ultimate attempt to destroy the gray zone within one's own existence by ending this very existence; employing an impossible act to turn oneself retroactively into a martyr and the victim into the enemy that justifies such an act in the first place.

If it is true of every cultural identity that it remains reliant on its precarious relation to an other, then this has a special significance for Europe. Given the catastrophic history of European nation states, Europe was supposed to overcome the disastrous trinity of people-territory-state (Hannah Arendt). The mythical figure Europa, who was abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull and taken to Crete, originally stemmed from Phoenicia, sited on the Mediterranean coast of today's Lebanon and Syria. According to this myth of migration and alterity, Europa lent her 'alien' name to her place of involuntary exile. Faced with the challenges of the present, Europe should resist being sucked into a spiral of polarization, and uphold the paradoxes of a gray zone, for which any division into opposing identities constitutes an act of violence.
Marijuana is illegal for any reason under federal law, but states have boldly experimented with allowing its use anyway, starting with California 20 years ago.

Some states have made the drug legal for medical purposes; others have removed jail sentences for carrying small amounts; and some let adults 21 and older use it for any reason.

Heres a look at where the states are on pot as well as legalization developments in other countries:

___

LEGAL FOR MEDICAL USE

Eight states allow people with certain medical conditions to use marijuana, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization group that tracks state pot laws.

Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Vermont each have their own lists of ailments for which sufferers can use the drug with a doctors recommendation.

The drug cannot legally be prescribed in any state, because it has no accepted medical use under federal drug law. But some doctors are willing to recommend it under certain conditions.

___

LEGAL IF IT DOESNT GET YOU HIGH

At least 17 states, many in the South, have passed laws opening the door to marijuana use as long as the drug is extremely low in THC, the intoxicating ingredient. The laws have emerged in the last three years following publicity about children with severe seizures benefiting from oils derived from marijuana.

Marijuana legalization activists often disregard these laws for being loaded with so many caveats that the drug isnt being used. The laws, which still violate U.S. law, exist in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

___

NOT LEGAL BUT WONT PUT YOU IN JAIL

Five states have removed the potential for jail time for those caught with small amounts of the drug. That means pot isnt legal for recreational use, but people smoking it to get high cant be put behind bars. Those states are Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina and Ohio.

___

COMBINATION OF THE ABOVE

A few states both have approved marijuana use by sick people and removed jail sentences for recreational users. One is California, whose voters passed the nations first medical marijuana law in 1996. Others are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada and Rhode Island.

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LEGAL FOR ADULTS OVER 21

Four states and Washington, D.C., allow marijuana possession in small amounts by adults over 21 for any reason. They are Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington state and the nations capital.

___

INTERNATIONAL POT LAWS

Cannabis possession is illegal in most countries under a 1925 treaty called the International Opium Convention. But just like the U.S., some nations either flout the treaty or dont enforce it.

Legalization supporters consider pot possession either legal or tolerated in Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, India, Jamaica, Jordan, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Uruguay, Germany and the Netherlands.

Each country has many caveats. Some consider the drug just as illegal as heroin but dont enforce the ban. Others, like Uruguay and the Netherlands, allow its recreational use.
ANTIGO, Wis.  Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Monday called for a discussion on how to deal with bullying in schools after friends of a gunman who wounded two people outside a high school prom said the 18-year-old had been bullied.

Authorities have not revealed a motive for the shooting outside Antigo High School in northern Wisconsin and declined to comment Monday on whether bullying may have been a factor. Police fatally shot former student Jakob E. Wagner after he opened fire on students outside the school Saturday night, authorities say.

Wagners mother, Lorrie Wagner, told The Associated Press that her son wasnt a monster.

If anything, I hope it shines light on bullying and how deeply it affects people, she said, before ending the interview.

Former classmate Dakotta Mills, who said he had known Wagner since sixth grade, told The Associated Press that he had some rough spots now and then and that he had witnessed him being bullied. Another former classmate, Emily Fisher, told the Wausau Daily Herald that students ganged up on Wagner and called him names, in part because of poor hygiene. The bullying started in middle school, Fisher said, and continued through high school.

Walker, a Republican, said authorities should address bullying and mental health, as well as teaching students how to resolve disagreements peacefully rather than impose new limits on firearms. He said that if there were a ban on rifles in Wisconsin, you wouldnt have hunting here.

At a news conference Monday, authorities said they couldnt confirm that Wagner had been taunted by fellow students or say whether it was a possible motive in the shooting.

I cant get into the specifics on that, Antigo Police Chief Eric Roller. He added, Thats still part of the investigation.

However, Roller said it didnt appear that the victims had been specifically targeted.

The state Department of Justice has taken over the case because it involves a police shooting. Agency spokesman Johnny Koremenos said in an email that it was too early to offer a motive or provide other details of the investigation.

Roller said the officers response saved lives by stopping the threat in that the suspect didnt end up inside a building that was full of prom-goers.

Wagner arrived on a bicycle armed with a rifle and opened fire as two couples were leaving the dance, Roller said. One 18-year-old male student was struck in the leg and a bullet grazed his dates thigh. The other couple wasnt struck. Two officers were stationed in front of the school and one quickly shot the gunman.

The couple who wasnt shot helped the 18-year-old male victim by wrapping a necktie around his leg as a tourniquet to stanch the bleeding, Roller said.

The victims family requested privacy, but said in a statement that their son was doing well after a long surgery. They thanked everyone who helped and asked that people pray for the family of Jakob Wagner.

As much as we are struggling through this event, we cannot imagine the grief they are experiencing at this time, the statement read.

Roller said no weapons were recovered aside from the rifle. He declined to describe the weapon further or say how many rounds of ammunition Wagner was carrying.

Principal Tom Zamzow, wearing a burgundy T-Shirt that read Antigo Pride in bold white letters, said that classes were back in session Monday and that attendance was normal. Counselors were on campus to help students.

A school official told AP on Sunday that Wagner had not graduated as scheduled last May, but Zamzow said Monday that he was a graduate.

___

Associated Press writer Doug Glass contributed to this report from Minneapolis.
HARTFORD, Conn.  Bernie Sanders campaign chief is vowing his candidate will stay in the Democratic race until the summer convention, even as Hillary Clinton looks to lock down her commanding position for the partys nomination with a strong performance in a five-state round of contests Tuesday.

Clinton has the chance of a clean sweep or at least multiple victories Tuesday that would probably foreclose Sanders already narrow path to the nomination. But the Vermont senators campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, said the millions of dollars flowing to Sanders and the boisterous rallies show that his supporters will stand with us all the way to the end.

Asked whether he expects a contested national Democratic convention, Weaver told reporters in Connecticut, Absolutely, 100 percent. Weaver said, This is a powerful movement hes built and were going to take it to the convention.

Both Democrats spent the day before the Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island contests campaigning on the East Coast.

Clinton looked beyond her rivalry with Sanders and went after Republican front-runner Donald Trump as a man out of touch on wages, climate change, national security and the lives of everyday people.

Come out of those towers named after yourself and actually talk and listen to people, Clinton told a Delaware crowd, as if talking to him. Dont just fly that big jet in and land it and go make a big speech and insult everybody you can think of and then go back in on that big jet and go back to your country club house in Florida or your penthouse in New York. She was addressing more than 900 people in a Wilmington theater.

At a Hartford rally with more than 1,800 people, Sanders drew distinctions with Clinton on the minimum wage, his call for a carbon tax to address climate change, fracking and more.

We cannot afford to poison our water, he said. Secretary Clinton does not agree. In fact, as secretary of state she pushed fracking on countries all over the world. Sanders said he would phase out fracking as president.

Sanders moved on to a rally at a field house on the University of Pittsburgh campus, where he told a crowd of more than 1,000 that young and poorer people need to vote in higher numbers if anything is to change.

That means every person here has got to understand that you are very, very powerful people if you choose to exercise that right, Sanders said. Politicians dont listen to people if they are not involved. They listen to people who contribute hundreds of millions of dollars.

Tuesdays contests offer 384 delegates, who will be divided proportionally based on the outcome. After her New York victory, Clinton has a lead of more than 200 delegates won in primaries and caucuses. Including superdelegates, Clintons lead stands at 1,944 to 1,192 for Sanders, according to an Associated Press count. That means she has 82 percent of the 2,383 delegates needed to win the nomination.

Clinton planned a primary-night rally Tuesday in Philadelphia, the city where the partys nominee will accept the nomination in July.

___

Lucey reported from Wilmington, Delaware. Associated Press writers Ken Thomas in Hartford and Joe Mandak in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.
The nations largest Hispanic business group is diving into the presidential campaign for the first time  and is skipping over the only Latino still running.

The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce plans to formally endorse former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, R, for president on Thursday, a shot in the arm for both campaigns at critical moments for each bid.

The move will be seen as a rebuke of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the only remaining Latino contender, who isnt held in high regard anyway by most Hispanic business and political leaders.

Word of the endorsements leaked out after Kasich dropped hints during a private meeting with supporters on Tuesday in Indiana. The support should help bolster the governors argument that he has the best general election appeal even if he trails far behind Cruz and GOP front-runner Donald Trump. Recent national polls show that Kasich is the only GOP candidate that could beat Clinton.

But for Clinton, the support comes as she tries to shift attention away from her bitter primary fight with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and towards a general election with Cruz or GOP front-runner Donald Trump.

Javier Palomarez, the chambers president and CEO, hosted public forums with most of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates  but not  before making a decision.

He credited Kasich for helping create jobs in Ohio and for his push to balance the federal budget as a congressman in the 1990s. He conceded that the governor doesnt have a huge track record of working with Hispanics  the guys from Ohio, for Christs sake. But he has a record of economic growth.

Clinton, Palomarez said, does have a long record of working with Hispanics, dating back to her time as a Democratic activist registering voters in Texas in the 1970s. He said in a statement that unlike Sanders, Clinton has demonstrated the ability to enact a robust and pragmatic policy agenda that will allow the Hispanic small business community to thrive and prosper.

Palomarez conceded in an interview that his group was passing up an opportunity to support Cruz, a fellow Hispanic, whom he knows from back home in Texas. This is not about being Hispanic, he said. This is about selecting the best person for the job.

Im heartbroken, heartbroken that I cant endorse a Latino, he added.

If you look at Teds divisive rhetoric about immigrants, it disqualified him from consideration, Palomarez said. His inability to work within his own caucus, let alone with Senate Democrats, made it hard for us to consider him. He also pushed for the deportation of up to 12 million people.

In twin statements announcing the endorsements, the chamber denounced Trump, saying his hateful rhetoric toward women, immigrants, the disabled, Muslims, and the Hispanic community not only divides our country, but sends a clear message that Hispanic voters wont forget: he does not stand with our community.

The chamber represents more than 270 corporations and associations who generate more than $660 billion in annual economic activity. Long known as a Washington-based lobbying organization, its opted to become more active in national elective politics this cycle. Its already endorsed Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as he faces a tough re-election bid.

Kasich visited Indiana on Tuesday despite agreeing to avoid the Hoosier State as part of an arrangement with Cruz. He went to Indianapolis to headline a long-scheduled campaign fundraiser and to meet with supporters recently elected as delegates to the Republican National Convention.

The governor told the group that he remains committed to campaigning until the convention and that he still hopes to rely on their support if Trump fails to win the GOP nomination on the first ballot, according to one person familiar with the meeting. Kasich enjoys the support of many of the states delegates despite not having the financial firepower to compete in the state.

Asked during the meeting to explain why he thinks hes the most electable Republican candidate, Kasich mentioned that hed just received word of the chambers endorsement, said the person familiar with the meeting who asked for anonymity to speak frankly about the exchange.

News of Kasichs meeting with the delegates was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Kasich spokeswoman Emmalee Kalmbach said the governors Indiana trip was planned before the pledge to stop campaigning there last Sunday. This meeting was no different than the two private meetings he held in Pennsylvania last week, she said in an email. Another aspect of our outreach strategy to delegates.

Kasich aides were tight-lipped about the impending endorsement late Wednesday, saying only that it was expected soon.

David Weigel contributed to this report.
AT TREASURE HOUSE BOOKS: J.L. Greger will sign her mystery Murder: A Way to Lose Weight at noon today.

Treasure House Books & Gifts is at 2012 South Plaza NW in Old Town. Call 242-7204 or 242-7204.

AT PAGE ONE: Local author Jeanne Shannon will sign and discuss her latest poetry collection, Summoning, at 3 p.m. today.

Robert Julyan will discuss his latest book, Hiking to History: A Guide to Off-Road New Mexico Historic Sites, at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 19. With more than 13,000 years of human habitation, New Mexico offers a wealth of historic sites located on vast tracts of land well off the beaten path.

In celebration of the stores 35th anniversary, Santa Fe author Michael McGarrity will sign and discuss the new and final book of his American West trilogy, The Last Ranch at 7 p.m. Friday, May 20.

When Matthew Kerney returns to his ranch in the beautiful San Andres Mountains after serving in Sicily during World War II, he must not only fight to recover physically and emotionally from a war injury, but he must also battle attempts by the U.S. Army to seize control of his land.

Page One is at 5850 Eubank Blvd., Suite B-41, in the Mountain Run Center. Call 294-2026.

AT BOOKWORKS: Michael Arkin will read from Judicial Indiscretion at 3 p.m. today.

When an attorney in Mimbres, N.M., is indicted and charged with the murder of a judge, an investigative reporter enlists Matt Lucas, an experienced attorney turned investigator, to collaborate with the local public defender.

James Reich will sign Mistah Kurtz at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 19.

In Mistah Kurtz! A Prelude to Heart of Darkness, Reich discloses the contents of the papers that Kurtz entrusts to Marlow at the end of Joseph Conrads canonical novella.

Bob Julyan will talk about Hiking to History at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 21.

Written for both outdoor enthusiasts and vicarious travelers, the book describes the historical significance behind these publicly accessible sites

Bookworks is located at 4022 Rio Grande NW. Call 344-8139.

AT BARNES & NOBLE: Jonathan Miller will be signing his latest thriller, A Million Dead Lawyers, at noon Saturday, May 21.

Barnes & Noble is at 6600 Menaul NE.
The crew at New Mexico Pinon Coffee is turning up the fire on its move to a larger facility.

Its quite a tall order, said Allen Bassett, president of the homegrown Albuquerque company, which roasted 1 million pounds of coffee last year and quickly outgrew its current workspace.

The business, which has grown from seven to 25 employees since the Bassett family acquired it seven years ago, is leaving its current 4,888 square-foot warehouse at 4431 Anaheim Ave. NE.

The new location in the Comanche Business Park at 2420 Comanche Road NE is 11,340 square feet.

Bassett said the business was shooting for a May move-in but that may be pushed back slightly as tenant improvements still are underway.

We cant skip a beat from the old location to the new, said Bassett. Time off production, of course, is not an option for the firm, which needs to keep up with its orders.

Were going to have roasters in operation simultaneously between the two locations to keep up with demand, said Bassett.

The companys clients include Trader Joes stores nationwide as well as select Costcos in New Mexico and Colorado.

The business is adding a third roaster at Comanche, which means running new gas lines to the building.

With production capacity projected to double, its safe to say that Bassetts can proceed full steam ahead without much concern over the next expansion.

It is the culmination of many years of hard work manifested in one space, and that is something that makes us feel very proud, added Bassett who runs the business with his brother Kevin. Being a small business, you are always holding things together with extra hours, sweat, and enthusiasm, hoping to just keep moving forward. But now that we have become a little bit more established and found some breathing room, we were able to do what we have always wanted.

On Holly by go lly

Commercial brokers Thalia Toha and partner Todd Strickland of NAI Masestas & Ward are getting close to signing tenants for a growing retail center at Holly Avenue and San Pedro NE.

The team is in advanced talks with businesses looking to purvey coffee, juice, pizza and sandwiches from four retail spaces. Agreements are not locked in, but we are very close, said Toha of the process.

She said tenant names wont be released until leases are signed. In the meantime, construction crews have started grading and putting in parking at the site, which is adjacent to eateries like Chipotle and Chick-Fil-A. A permit filed with the City of Albuquerque at the site provides an estimated construction value of $1.9 million.

Whoever ends up setting up shop will likely see lots of business. The high-traffic corridor is evolving into a restaurant mecca, said Toha.

Strickland and Toha are representing the property owners, whom they describe as experienced Albuquerque hotel-motel operators.

Allen Sigmon sells Hobbs investment

The Allen Sigmon Real Estate Group recently sold an 85,000-square-foot shopping center in Hobbs that it acquired in 2014.

The Albuquerque-based firm, which is busy with hotel and retail projects in Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Los Lunas, originally bought the Bel Aire Shopping Center as an investment among the companys partners Lance Sigmon, Brad Allen, Jeff Martinez and Rob Powell.

The partners sold to an out-of-state buyer after the group improved the center and kept occupancy high despite a decline in Hobbs economy due to low oil prices. Allen Sigmon declined to divulge financial terms, nor did the firm provide the name of the buyer. The center has big box stores Big Lots and Family Dollar, and smaller storefronts and restaurants including Verizon and Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi Bar. Only 3,000 square feet of the center is vacant.

Steve Sinovic is the real estate reporter for the Albuquerque Journal. News items can be sent to him at ssinovic@abqjournal.com. Or call 505-823-3919.
Ila Beth Hancock ran cattle on two parcels of land in Quay County in eastern New Mexico. The parcels met at their corners, like two red squares on a checkerboard. To get cattle from one parcel to the other, Hancock drove them across a corner of the neighboring property  the black square, so to speak. This practice continued for at least 65 years, according to Hancock. A fence cut off the corner of the black square, giving Hancocks cattle free passage between her two parcels.

But then ownership of the black square changed hands. The new owner relocated the fence along the property line described in his deed, blocking the passage of Hancocks cattle. Hancock sued, claiming she was the rightful owner of the corner, regardless of what her and her neighbors deeds said.

In New Mexico, there are multiple ways in which title to land can pass by means other than contract and closing. The classic example is adverse possession, one of those vaguely sinister legal phrases that belongs on the jacket of a legal thriller. Its an old doctrine, inherited from the English, that operated like a statute of limitations. If a landowner failed to take action to eject a squatter within 12 years, he lost the right to do so. The former squatter became the new rightful owner of the land.

One of the very first laws enacted by New Mexicos territorial legislature, way back in 1858, dealt with adverse possession. This law, repealed in 2007, applied only to land grants from the governments of Spain, Mexico or the United States. Since the American government didnt make land grants, its purpose was clear enough. To acquire title in land grant land by adverse possession, a person needed only some kind of deed or other conveyance, no matter how patently bogus, and the passage of ten years. It was much easier to establish than common law adverse possession.

For non-land grant real estate, title could pass by adverse possession only if two additional requirements were met. First, the trespass had to constitute an actual and visible appropriation of land, and  this was the kicker  the trespasser had to pay property taxes for the entire ten years. This latter statute remains in effect today.

Hancock claimed title to the contested corner of her neighbors property, but not under the theory of adverse possession as defined by statute. Instead, she claimed ownership under a theory invented by the courts and given the different name of acquiescence. Courts are quick to draw a sharp distinction between adverse possession and acquiescence, because if they didnt, it might give rise to the suspicion that they are circumventing the legislature. In practical effect, however, acquiescence is just a specialized form of adverse possession, one that dispenses with the necessity of paying property taxes.

As explained by our Supreme Court, when owners of adjacent lots agree, even implicitly upon a boundary, that boundary may be established as a matter of law even if it is not accurate according to plats, surveys or other maps. The classic case of acquiescence occurs when neighbors treat a fence as the boundary between their lots even though it doesnt follow the property line.

When the new owner relocated the fence to match the legal description on his deed, Hancock filed a complaint in the Tenth Judicial District Court, asking the court to rule that title to the corner of her neighbors land had passed to her by acquiescence, allowing her to restore the passage between her two parcels.

The Tenth District, based in Tucumcari, is a New Mexico oddity. Only one district judge sits in the Tenth. Since the 2008 election, that judge has been Albert J. Mitchell, who recently acquired the distinction of becoming the first New Mexico judge to lose a retention election only to be reappointed by the governor, replacing himself. Judge Mitchell presides over three counties with a combined 2014 population of just 11,009. By contrast, the three counties bordering Albuquerque that together make up the 13th Judicial District have one district judge for every 30,000 residents. Surely there is a colorful story of backroom politics to explain the long-ago formation of the Tenth Judicial District.

Although Ms. Hancock filed her lawsuit in 2006, the case didnt come on for trial until January, 2010. Judge Mitchell heard it without a jury. Nine months later, he sent out what in New Mexico is called a letter ruling, a letter explaining what he intended to rule in the future, when he issued his final judgment.

And then the case went into suspended animation. Every few months Judge Mitchell would hold another status conference, imposing additional costs on the parties, at which he would promise to issue his final order within a week or shortly. Years passed. To quote the Court of Appeals: Finally, in October 2013, just shy of four years after trial, the district court issued its final judgment  which contradicted its letter ruling.

Reading the Court of Appeals opinion in the case of Hancock v. Nicoley, its difficult to figure out what Judge Mitchell ruled, or even what he intended to rule. The Court of Appeals admitted its frank puzzlement. After noting the district courts conclusion that Hancock had prevailed in her boundary by acquiescence argument, the court asked, why did the district courts order reflect the opposite of what she originally requested as to the corner?

The court sent the whole mess back to Judge Mitchell for answers to that and several other, equally pertinent questions. After ten years, the issues are more confused than when Hancock filed her complaint. The case stands as a reminder that the law is sometimes less important to the resolution of a case than the judge who mediates between it and the parties.
MONTPELIER, Vt.  Vermont is poised to become the first state requiring drug companies to explain their price increases, and Bob and Deborah Messing think thats a good idea.

The Messings live in Montpelier and are in their early 70s. Shes on Orencia, a Bristol-Myers Squibb product, for rheumatoid arthritis. He recently finished a course of Harvoni, made by Gilead Sciences Inc., to treat hepatitis C.

Both drugs are expensive, though for people of the Messings modest income, big manufacturers discounts and state assistance make their costs manageable. Harvoni lists at $1,125 per pill, or $94,500 for a 12-week course of treatment. Orencias list price tops $3,000 a month.

The Messings say theyre mystified by the high prices and worried about what would happen if either the discounts or state assistance disappeared.

Then youre faced with these wildly expensive costs, Deborah Messing said.

Drug prices have been a big issue nationwide, highlighted by Martin Shkreli, a boyish-looking, early-30s executive dubbed Pharma Bro. He was CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals when the company acquired rights to make Daraprim, which has been on the market since the 1950s and is used to treat a life-threatening parasitic infection. Turing raised the price from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

At a U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing in March, Sen. Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, called that move pure evil.

Bob Messing pointed to a Harvoni predecessor, also made by Gilead: Sovaldi. Information gathered by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in 2014 showed that the company that developed the drug, Pharmasset Inc., projected its price at $36,000 for a 12-week course of treatment. After Gilead acquired Pharmasset, the price jumped to $84,000.

Drug companies often counter that research and development of new medicines is costly, a view that got some support last month in a Boston Globe op-ed by Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of the Harvard Medical School.

New drugs require expensive research and development under tight regulatory oversight. The cost of developing a single new drug may exceed $2 billion when including the cost of failures, Flier wrote.

Vermont state Rep. Christopher Pearson, a member of the Vermont Progressive Party from the states largest city, Burlington, and a key supporter of the legislation, noted prescription drugs often sell for far less in other countries and offered another reason for high prices: the inability of Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate better prices under federal law.

Priscilla VanderVeer, spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said Vermont is the first state to see a transparency bill pass both houses of its Legislature.

If the governor signs the bill, which is likely, it wouldnt be the first time one of the nations smallest states in both size and population has taken on big business. Vermont in 2007 passed a law to restrict prescription data mining by companies that track doctors prescribing habits and sell the information to drug companies, but the U.S. Supreme Court shot it down in 2011. The food industry so far has failed to block a Vermont law to require labeling of genetically modified food that is set to take effect July 1.

Several other states, including New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California and Virginia, have had drug-explanation measures like Vermonts under consideration this year and in 2015. A California ballot initiative in November would go further by requiring state agencies to get drugs for the same prices as the Veterans Administration, which is not affected by the no-negotiations rule.

The Vermont bill calls on state health care regulators to develop an annual list of up to 15 drugs that have seen the biggest price increases. Their manufacturers would then have to justify the increases to the attorney generals office.

Gileads media office did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment Thursday.

VanderVeer called the Vermont legislation misguided and said drugs actually control health care costs by helping patients avoid hospitalizations and more expensive procedures.

Instead of passing legislation that makes a political point, we believe the Legislature should have focused instead on giving patients and families what they actually need: predictable and accessible information about the out-of-pocket costs they will face and enforceable, common-sense rules  that remove barriers to receiving care, she said in a statement.

The bills likely longer-term problem for the pharmaceutical industry is in legislative findings near the top: Transparency is typically the first step toward cost-containment, it says.

Short of that, backers in Vermont said they want to light a fire under Congress to act on drug prices.

Rep. Peter Welch, a Democrat and Vermonts lone congressman, said this week that Congress did not appear likely soon to do so. He added that he was glad to see Vermont take the lead on the issue.

States taking action will be a boost to my efforts down here, Welch said, adding that governments have a big stake.

Why cant the state say to the pharmaceutical companies selling the drug, Hey, if youre going to hammer us with a 50 percent price increase, we want to know why.
DENVER  A woman who went to the hospital with severe abdominal pain on Christmas Eve 2013 remembered feeling out of it after getting a dose of morphine. But as she came to, she realized her hospital gown was open and a male nurse was touching and kissing her.

The woman said she lay still, seemingly frozen. She says when she was discharged, her nurse, Thomas Mark Moore, told her Ill find you Sweetie.

She told nobody, even when Moore sent her a Facebook friend request days later. A year and half after her discharge from Poudre Valley Hospital, she reported Moore to police in Fort Collins, an hour north of Denver.

That report in August set off an investigation that turned up eight other women who alleged that Moore, 43, had fondled, groped or kissed them at hospitals in Colorado and Nebraska over a two-year period, according to court documents.

Moores case highlights how easy it can be for nurses who are fired or forced out of their jobs over alleged misconduct to find work elsewhere, in part because some states  Colorado is among a handful  dont require hospitals to report nursing law violations to regulators. Colorados nursing board also doesnt have the power to conduct criminal background checks for license applicants.

The hospitals apparently knew about some alleged misconduct by Moore. He was terminated from three hospitals before he was arrested and a Nebraska hospital reported an unspecified incident involving him in 2013 that never led to charges. But without any prosecution pending, it doesnt seem that they shared the information with other facilities.

He also held nursing licenses in Alaska and Wyoming.

Lawyers representing Moore, who is due back in court Monday on some of the allegations, did not return telephone calls seeking comment. Telephone numbers for his home and for possible relatives have been disconnected, and he did not respond to a letter sent to him in jail. The Associated Press generally does not name victims of alleged sexual abuse.

Brie Akins, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said sex offenders often go undetected because most victims dont go to authorities because they dont want to be subjected to scrutiny and they may blame themselves for what happened.

There is still a lot of shame around that, she said.

In Moores case, Akins said, some of the women also may have wondered whether they would be believed since they were under the influence of painkillers.

But even when the patients risked speaking out and authorities were notified, nothing happened.

Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff, Nebraska  a city of 15,000 in the states panhandle  reported an unspecified complaint involving Moore and a female patient to police in June 2013. No charges were filed at the time, but its not clear why. Moore is now charged with abusing three women at the hospital in 2014 and 2015.

In August 2014, a woman told police that Moore had tried to grope her breasts a few months before at the Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center in Greeley, an agricultural and college town about 35 miles from Fort Collins. She wanted to warn authorities but didnt want to press charges.

However, after Moore was arrested in the Fort Collins case in December, Greeley Detective Dave Arpin contacted her again. Since other women had stepped forward, she decided to pursue charges too.

In Colorado, complaints to the nursing board are confidential and officials say they cant even confirm whether a complaint exists. Any disciplinary actions taken as a result of a complaint, however, are made public.

Citing those regulations, a spokeswoman for the Division of Regulatory Agencies, Rebecca Laurie, refused to say how many complaints were filed against Moore while he worked in Colorado.

After police began investigating the 2013 case in Fort Collins, a nursing board investigator told a detective that Moore was fired after two complaints against him at the Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center in March 2014 and April 2015, court records state.

Moore also once held a license to work in Alaska but, according to records there, agreed to surrender it in March 2014 amid an investigation into undisclosed convictions on his license application. The state denied a request from The Associated Press to disclose the details.

Last year, before his arrest, Moore was fired from the company that owns the Poudre Valley and Greeley hospitals and also lost his job in Nebraska. The hospitals will not say why he was terminated.

Still, he was able to get a nursing license in Wyoming and find a job at a Denver-area hospital. North Suburban Medical Center said it hired an outside firm to do a background investigation on Moore, including checking with his previous employers.

He lost that job after his arrest, and his Colorado nursing license was suspended. Wyomings nursing board eventually suspended his license there after being notified of his arrest through a national database of information shared by boards.

A timeline of allegations against nurse accused of fondling

DENVER  A Colorado nurse is charged with inappropriately touching six women under his care in Colorado and three more in Nebraska. Thomas Moore is scheduled for a hearing Monday in Fort Collins, Colorado.

A timeline of the first reported incident in June 2013 to his arrest in December 2015 and the suspension of his nursing license in Wyoming this year:

June 23, 2013: Woman treated at Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, accuses Moore of unspecified misconduct. The hospital reports the allegation to police two days later. No charges filed.

September 2013: Moore starts working at UCHealth, which operates Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins and Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center

Dec. 24, 2013: A woman treated at Poudre Valley Hospital with severe abdominal pain says that while she was under the influence of morphine, Moore inappropriately touched her and kissed her. She reports the allegations to Fort Collins police Aug. 13, 2015.

January 2014: A woman says Moore touched her inappropriately while she was medicated at Poudre Valley. She makes a report in January 2016 after learning Moore had been charged.

March 2, 2014: A woman treated at Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff says Moore touched her in a sexual way. She complains to the hospital, but the outcome of the complaint isnt clear. Fort Collins police find her complaint during an investigation of Moore, leading prosecutors in Nebraska to file charges in January 2016.

March 6, 2014: A woman being treated for abdominal pain at Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center says Moore touched her breasts while massaging her shoulders after giving her pain medication. She says she was in and out of consciousness. She reports the allegations to police a few months later but doesnt want to pursue charges. She changes her mind after other women step forward.

March 11, 2014: Moore surrenders his nursing license in Alaska amid an investigation into undisclosed convictions on his license application, according to state records.

March 28, 2014: A woman who went to Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center for abdominal pain says Moore gave her morphine and touched her breasts. The woman reports the allegation after Moores arrest.

June 19, 2014: A woman who went to Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center with pain from kidney stones says she was falling asleep after Moore gave her morphine and Tramadol. She felt him lie next to her but thought she was dreaming until he touched her breast. Moore stopped after someone knocked on the door, she says. She reports the incident after Moores arrest.

Dec. 28, 2014: A woman who went to Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center with kidney pain says Moore gave her morphine. She says he touched her breasts. She reports the incident after Moores arrest.

January 2015: A woman who went to Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff when she was intoxicated and suicidal said Moore touched her breasts. After she was transferred to the behavioral health unit, she says Moore sent her a Facebook friend request and flirtatious messages. She reports the allegations to police in January 2016.

Feb. 3, 2015: A woman who went to Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff with a migraine was given an antipsychotic drug and a painkiller. She says she woke to find Moore touching her breasts. When she was discharged, she says Moore told her that the drugs might make her hallucinate. According to court documents, Moore wrote in his nursing notes that she had called him her lover when she woke up and said she had a weird dream. She contacted Fort Collins police after Moores arrest.

March 2015: Regional West Medical Center in Nebraska fires Moore.

June 2015: UCHealth, owner of Poudre Valley Hospital and the Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center, fires Moore

July 2015: Moore starts work at North Suburban Medical Center in Thornton, Colorado.

Aug. 13, 2015: Woman reports alleged Dec. 24, 2013, misconduct at Poudre Valley Hospital to Fort Collins police.

Sept. 21, 2015: Moore gets nursing license in Wyoming.

Dec. 21, 2015: Moore arrested for alleged unlawful sexual contact in the Dec. 24, 2013, Fort Collins case

Jan. 6, 2016: Colorado suspends Moores nursing license.

Jan. 20, 2016: Fort Collins police say that a second woman reports being inappropriately touched by Moore at Poudre Valley days after the Dec. 24, 2013 incident

Feb. 29, 2016: Wyoming suspends Moores nursing license.
DALLAS  Former Texas foster care children described conditions of neglect and sometimes physical and sexual abuse as part of a lawsuit against Texas, prompting a federal judge to declare the system unconstitutionally broken. Here are some of their stories, based on court documents and interviews.

___

After about 25 placements across Texas, Kristopher Sharp refused a move 600 miles away during his senior year of high school. He soon found himself living on the streets of Houston and turned to prostitution for a place to stay at night or for a meal.

Sharp entered the foster care system at 10, and testified he was molested beginning around age 12 by a residential treatment center employee.

I came from a chaotic home environment, and I was thrown into a system where people beat on you, they call you names and they molest you. And it didnt necessarily seem like this was abnormal, Sharp, 26, told The Associated Press.

Most of his placements were in foster group homes or residential treatment centers, and were absolutely fraught with abuse, he said, especially between children. He lived as far east as Lufkin and as far west as El Paso. So after several placements in Houston, he didnt want to leave.

There was this convenience store by my house and I used to go by there and a couple of the clerks knew my name, Sharp said. Id never been somewhere long enough where there were people who actually noticed me and got to know me.

But after refusing the move, Sharp was homeless or precariously housed for two years, and learned he was HIV-positive. It is a direct result of me having to be on the streets, which is a direct result of the foster care system allowing me to fall through the cracks, he said.

One day, Sharp wandered into a University of Houston-Downtown building and discovered that as a former Texas foster child he was entitled to a college tuition waiver. He earned a social work degree and now works for U.S. Sen. Patty Murray.

___

Darryl Jackson entered foster care as a baby in Louisiana, and moved into the Texas system at 12. From then until he aged out of the system at 18, Jackson had some 35 placements in about 10 different cities, at one point moving every other week.

As a teenager in a foster group home, he shared a room with a 2-year-old and two other teens, and saw one of the other teens hit the toddler and later go to jail.

Jackson said after he left foster care he had no idea how to live on his own. How could someone let me go all the way to  almost 19 before I get a drivers license? No one decided to say, Hey, lets help this kid out,' Jackson said.

His caseworker recommended Angel Reach, a Houston-area nonprofit that offers temporary lodgings after foster care, counseling and life-skills lessons. Jackson said he learned all the basics of adult life, including how to drive and pay bills.

Now 19, Jackson is using the state tuition waiver to study criminal justice.

___

Patricia Virgil testified she was placed in foster care at 12 after enduring all forms of abuse from her stepfather.

There, she said, a fellow foster child choked her until she passed out, and a shelter worker kicked her awake. She testified that at a foster group home, the foster father sexually abused her. She told her caseworker, but nothing ever happened, she testified. Officials noted in her record that she was wearing provocative clothing and asking for it, she said in an interview.

Her caseworkers changed frequently, leaving her often unsure where to seek help.

When you are in foster care you just want to feel loved, and I didnt feel that from a lot of places, Virgil said.

She started college using the tuition waiver, but moved often and eventually became homeless. She dropped classes and paying back tuition left her $13,000 in debt.

Now 27, Virgil lives near Houston where she works two child-care jobs. She now hopes to return to college and become an elementary school teacher. She also wants to start her own family  and become a foster parent herself.

___

Crystal Bentley says after being physically and sexually abused in the foster care system, shes become a statistic once, twice, again and again in adulthood: having unhealthy relationships, being sexually trafficked and having four children.

Bentley, who entered foster care at 2, said it was common to be abused by other children in the household. One boy told her, I wont beat you up if you let me touch you, she said.

So as I got older, sex was my bargaining chip, she told the AP.

She was adopted at 11, but left after conflicts with the mother. She got pregnant her senior year in high school and said she lived for a while with the babys father. Later, a friend of a friend lined up work for her. That turned out to be prostitution, she said.

Bentley, now 25, lives in Houston where she has started a catering business and also sings and raps and makes art and jewelry.

Im actually just now learning how to be happy, she said.
LOUISVILLE, Ky.  Hillary Clinton is making a big final push in Kentucky where rival Bernie Sanders hopes to extend his winning streak and further delay her clinching the Democratic presidential nomination.

Big-name surrogates have been dispatched, television ads are playing and Clinton is touring the state in advance of Tuesdays voting. On Sunday, the former secretary of state dropped in at Louisville churches and had two get-out-the-vote rallies on her schedule.

We need a president who will work every single day to make life better for American families, Clinton said at a union training center in Louisville.

While Clinton leads Sanders by nearly 300 pledged delegates going into Tuesdays primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, the Vermont senator continues to win contests and has pledged to stay in the race until the July convention. With Donald Trump set as the presumptive Republican nominee, Clintons team would like to turn their attention to the general election contest, but they still cant fully make that shift.

A win in at least one of the two upcoming contests would give Clinton momentum heading into the primaries in California and New Jersey in early June. Oregon is likely to go for Sanders, but Clintons campaign thinks the race is competitive in Kentucky, where she planned to spend Sunday and today, courting voters.

Clinton easily won the Kentucky primary over President Barack Obama in 2008. But, this time, she has come under criticism in parts of the state after saying in March that were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business. Clinton later said she misspoke, but the comment has drawn fire in mining communities in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky.

On Sunday in Louisville, Clinton touted her plan for coal country. She briefly mentioned Sanders, questioning his support for the auto industry bailout, but focused most of her fire on Trump, hitting him for reckless risky talk and calling him a loose cannon.

High-profile advocates campaigning for Clinton in Kentucky include Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Reps. James Clyburn of South Carolina, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Hakeem Jeffries and Joe Crowley of New York.

Clinton is spending about $325,000 on Kentucky ads. Sanders, after seeing her reserve airtime, followed behind with $126,000 in ads, according to advertising tracker Kantar Medias CMAG.

Going into Tuesday, Clinton has 1,716 pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses, compared with 1,433 for Sanders. When you add superdelegates, or party officials who can back any candidate, Clinton holds a much wider lead. She remains on track to reach the 2,383 needed to win the nomination by early next month.

Clinton and her supporters have avoided calling on Sanders to drop out of the race. But they worry that Sanders could damage her chances by staying put. The Vermont senators economic hits on Clinton could benefit Trump, as he seeks to appeal to independent voters. In addition, Clinton cannot start wooing Sanders supporters until he is out of the way and she must continue campaigning in primary states, rather than general election battlegrounds.

A Trump adviser said Sunday that the campaign was hoping to appeal to Sanders supporters in the general election.

You see Democrat support for Bernie Sanders that is potential Trump support, when its indicated that they will never vote for Hillary Clinton, and when you analyze who those people are that are saying it, theyre the very demographic that Trump is appealing to in independents and crossover Democrats, Paul Manafort said. So, we think, in a number of places, for a lot of issues, jobs, integrity, coal, for example, in Pennsylvania and Ohio and elsewhere, we think there are a number of issues that allow us to expand the map.
New Mexico has made strides on pre-kindergarten education, climbing from 28th to 18th in the nation for spending on pre-K programs.

The new 2015 State Preschool Yearbook, released last week by Rutgers Universitys National Institute of Early Education Research, complimented the states significant progress through a concerted effort to increase enrollment and funding and improve quality.

A total of 8,397 4-year-olds participated in New Mexico pre-K during the 2014-2015 school year at a cost of $39.6 million, according to the report  a boost from the 7,674 enrolled the year before at a budget of $27.2 million.

State spending was $4,722 per child, slightly above the $4,489 national average.

In addition, New Mexico met NIEERs standard on eight of 10 pre-K quality measures, falling short only on degree requirements for teachers and assistant teachers.

Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera said the results reflect her administrations commitment to early learning.

It shows that we have been responsible in our scaling, but aggressive, Skandera told the Journal . We are investing where it matters most and seeing more and more students have the opportunity to participate in pre-K and keeping the quality high, while still increasing the number of students participating and increasing our investments every year.

The Land of Enchantment typically languishes near the bottom of most lists of educational attainment, from test scores to graduation rates, but on pre-K it is besting wealthier states like Florida and Texas.

Overall, Washington, D.C., ranked No. 1 with $207.2 million allocated for pre-K programs or $17,509 per child. Mississippi, the worst performer, only spent $3.1 million or $3,762 per child.

Eight states were not listed, because they do not have state-funded pre-K.

Supporters of early childhood education call it a strong investment in the future that boosts standardized test scores in third grade and helps level the playing field for minority children.

In New Mexico, pre-K has long been a polarizing issue at the state Legislature. During the last session, Senate Majority Whip Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, failed to get support for a state constitutional amendment to tap the $15 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund to fund free universal pre-K.

Skandera said the state must continue to make aggressive but measured investments that provide a great teacher and a safe environment with high expectations.

We are really making sure we are investing where it counts to establish that foundation for our students, she said.
A judge who has been asked to dismiss charges against Metropolitan Detention Center guard Enock Arvizo, accused of raping a female inmate while she was at court and forcing others to perform sex acts, said she will review documents before making a ruling.

Second Judicial District Judge Briana Zamora heard arguments last week from Arvizos lawyer Stephen Lane, who asked for dismissal based on failure to provide proper notice of the charges before the case was presented to a grand jury in February.

Arvizo received a target letter telling him that a grand jury was going to be presented with evidence regarding five allegations of criminal sexual penetration and that prosecutors would seek to present one charge of criminal sexual contact and three counts of battery.

But at the grand jury, prosecutors presented evidence on 11 allegations  more than twice what they had advised Arvizo they would pursue.

The indictment as filed contains 18 counts, including six petty misdemeanors and 12 felonies.

Under a 2009 New Mexico Supreme Court ruling, suspects have a right to present exculpatory evidence regarding offenses at a grand jury proceeding.

Arvizos lawyers have argued that the process described in that case is meaningless unless theres adequate notice.

In response, Assistant Attorney General Greer Rose said in a written filing that the notice was adequate, and Assistant Attorney General Anthony Long, standing in for her, reiterated that position.

But the defense claims that Arvizo was not in the courthouse on some of the dates specified and was in fact working at the detention center.

For other counts, the state gave a range of dates over a period of a year.

The case was deemed complex because of extensive discovery, scientific evidence, 49 witnesses and many charges.

It is set for trial in April 2017.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, about 4 percent of adults in the United States  or 10 million people  have a serious mental illness that causes issues with one or more major life functions. We both have loved ones who have been diagnosed with a severe mental illness and we understand the challenges they deal with on a daily basis as well as the toll it takes on the family.

We also know what it is like to live with the constant fear that you will receive the call that there has been an incident: Shes hurt herself; the police have shot him; or hes killed someone else.

Science tells us that someone with a severe mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder may have an episode that leads to a break with reality. When this happens, they are more likely to be involved in one of these incidents that we all fear.

We have seen high profile cases of this in recent years: in Aurora, Colo., a man being treated for schizophrenia shot up a movie theater; in Tucson, Ariz., U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and six others were shot by a man who exhibited many of the classic symptoms of mental illness; and in Albuquerque, James Boyd, who had been treated for severe mental illness, was fatally shot by officers with the Albuquerque Police Department.

Even when the family members of someone who is experiencing an episode are aware that it is happening, they have had very few legal remedies available to make their loved one get the help they need.

Thats why most states have adopted an Assisted Outpatient Treatment law  more commonly known as Kendras Law. The law is named after Kendra Webdale, a young woman who was pushed in front of a New York City subway car by a mentally ill man who had stopped taking his medication.

And it is why we have fought so hard to pass this in New Mexico.

Under this law, which was passed during the 2016 legislative session and was signed by Gov. Susana Martinez, a judge may issue a court order for someone who has a primary diagnosis of mental illness, has a track record of failing to comply with treatment for the mental illness and is unwilling or unlikely to participate voluntarily in outpatient treatment.

The law includes numerous safeguards to protect the rights of the individual who has the severe mental illness, including a limitation of one year on the court order, criteria in a petition to the court that must be met and an examination by a qualified professional. This treatment must also be the least restrictive appropriate alternative.

We all hope that our society never has to deal with another tragedy in which someone with a mental illness becomes a danger to himself or someone else. With the adoption of the Assisted Outpatient Treatment law in New Mexico, we finally have a tool that can reduce this risk.

Sen. Mary Kay Papen is N.M. Senate president pro tem.
Standing on principle, not to mention common sense, is so rare these days that when someone does it they make headlines. Thats because you can quickly be labeled a bigot if you oppose a lot of the sludge dumped on us by the secular left, and few can withstand the onslaught.

North Carolinas Republican governor, Pat McCrory, is unafraid.

On May 6, the Department of Justice sent him a letter warning that North Carolinas House Bill 2, also known as the bathroom bill, violated the Civil Rights Act. The bill, which requires that transgender people use public bathrooms that match their birth certificates, was swiftly labeled anti-LGBT, which was all DOJ needed to hear.

The government gave McCrory until May 9 to confirm that North Carolina would not comply with or implement HB2. McCrory pushed back. On May 9, he filed a lawsuit against the DOJ, targeting Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta.

The suit, according to ABC News, accused the DOJ of a radical reinterpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and wrote that the federal governments position was a baseless and blatant overreach.'

The governments letter, according to North Carolina Public Radio-WUNCs Jeff Tiberii, who obtained a copy, warned that The State is engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination against transgender state employees and both you, in your official capacity, and the state are engaging in a pattern or practice of resistance.

In a statement following the announcement of the lawsuit, Gov. McCrory said, The Obama administration is bypassing Congress by attempting to rewrite the law and set restroom policies for public and private employers across the country, not just North Carolina. This is now a national issue that applies to every state and it needs to be resolved at the federal level, meaning Congress and the courts.

McCrory added that Washington is telling every government agency and every company that employs more than 15 people that men should be allowed to use a womens locker room, restroom or shower facility.

The push and pull continues.

If you are a woman reading this, how would you feel about showering with a naked man? If you are a man who has daughters, would you be OK with allowing them to use a womens restroom knowing that a man could be in there?

Target is fine with it, apparently. In a recent blog, the company stated that it welcomes transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity. Target stores are now the target of a boycott.

What about school gyms? Are you fine with having your daughter changing and showering with a boy who believes hes a girl? What happened to the right to privacy, so revered by the progressive left?

Does the fact that we are even having this debate say something about the state of our culture and the attempts by secularists to undermine what remains of its creaking foundations, traditions and what used to be known as common sense? Who gets to decide? And on what is that decision based?

Are morals and ethics now up for grabs, depending on which group makes the most noise and promises the most votes?

Perhaps Loretta Lynch and her deputy should lead by example and shower with a transgender male.

Even better, how about first lady Michelle Obama? Media coverage could be discreet.

Im betting that neither Lynch nor the first lady would go that far. In fact, I suspect that very few on the left would want to live under many of the laws and dictates they like to impose on the rest of us.

Have we gone mad? The question all but answers itself.

Gov. McCrory has already directed state agencies to make reasonable accommodations to transgender people by installing single-occupancy restrooms.

North Carolina also allows private companies to set their own bathroom policies, but that is not what the Obama administration wants.

It wants to fundamentally transform the United States of America.

Its one of the few promises the president has managed to keep.
WASHINGTON  The Obama administration has another chance to enforce its botched red line against the use of chemical weapons in Syria, given new reports that President Bashar Assads regime has used nerve gas against extremist fighters and may be planning more such attacks.

Obamas decision not to retaliate against Assads use of chemical weapons in 2013 has become an emblem for his larger foreign policy, which critics argue hasnt been forceful enough in Syria and other places. Obama justified his restraint by citing the diplomatic agreement that was brokered by the U.S. and Russia to destroy Syrias chemical arsenal. But new Israeli reports question whether Assad has complied.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, apparently relying on a government source, reported on May 2 that Assads forces used sarin gas in late April against Islamic State fighters after they attacked two Syrian air force bases east of Damascus.

Stockpiles of this deadly gas were supposed to have been removed from Syria in 2014.

Given the international silence, Israeli officials are said to fear that Assad will keep striking with the banned weapons. With the continuation of fighting in Syria, it is reasonable to assume that the regime wont hesitate to use these weapons again, especially after already having done so  without any reaction, an Israeli source told me.

The alleged use of sarin is another sign that Assad appears ready to breach any diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the war.

In recent weeks, his forces, backed by Russia, have struck a hospital in Aleppo run by Doctors Without Borders, a pediatric hospital there, and a U.S.-backed humanitarian group in Idlib called Syria Civil Defense.

Chemical weapons have become part of the new normal in Syria, according to a report in February by the Syrian American Medical Society. The group said that in 2015, there were 69 chemical weapons attacks in Syria, mostly chlorine bombs dropped by Assads air force.

The Assad regime often justifies such attacks by saying it is bombing the Islamic State or Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. But these jihadists are intermingled with civilians and moderate opposition groups in ways that make the non-extremist groups targets, too.

As Assad has pressed his campaign in Aleppo and elsewhere, the cessation of hostilities negotiated by the U.S. and Russia in February has frayed badly.

The possibility that Syria retains chemical weapons was noted recently by Ahmet Uzumcu, director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. There are still questions. I am not able to say whether Syria has declared everything or whether Syria continues to possess some chemical weapons or some munitions, he cautioned.

Uzumcu also noted extremely worrying signs that the Islamic State has used mustard gas in Syria and Iraq.

Obama administration officials are concerned about continued Syrian use of chemical weapons, but they see significant differences between the recent reported incidents and the size and scope of the 2013 attacks using sarin and VX, which are believed to have killed more than 1,400 Syrian civilians.

Diplomacy remains the administrations focus in Syria  and the partnership with Russia seems to be expanding, rather than shrinking, despite its setbacks.

To bolster the cease-fire, U.S. and Russian officials have been discussing the location of protected Syrian opposition groups. Officials from the two countries are said to talk daily in Geneva and by telephone to Syria, arguing over which areas are legitimate extremist targets and which should be avoided.

This shared domain awareness, as one official describes it, illustrates the extent of quiet Russian-American cooperation.

But Syria shows the limits of this great-power diplomacy. Russia cant seem to control Assad, even when it attempts to do so. And the U.S. has been unable to force opposition fighters to disentangle themselves from Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State.

Assad, once seen as a mild-mannered ophthalmologist, has proved a headstrong, brutal leader who has spawned the equivalently vicious Islamic State.

Finally, there remains a gaping hole in the U.S. strategy for capturing the Islamic States strongholds in Raqqa and Manbij in eastern Syria. Washington wants this fight to be led by Sunni Arabs, but the only reliable fighters America has found are Syrian Kurds from the YPG militia  which, to complicate matters further, is viewed by Turkey (a NATO ally) as a terrorist group.

Who will bell this cat? Are Presidents Obama and Putin really ready to tolerate a situation where the use of chemical weapons is seen as normal, despite a Russian-American agreement that they should be banned?

Email: davidignatius@washpost.com. Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group
ROSWELL  A New Mexico woman convicted of creating a public nuisance by posting an online comment about the possibility of a shooting at her sons school will get a new trial.

Jeanette Garza Alvarez of Roswell will have a jury trial in July, after appealing a judges conviction in Municipal Court. Her defense plans to argue that the April 26 conviction violated her free-speech rights, attorney Luke Ragsdale said. Her post on her Facebook page was not a threat but an attempt to gather information, Ragsdale said.

If you read the post, it just says whats going on, Ragsdale told the Roswell Daily Record in a recent interview. Its not even close to yelling fire in a theater.

According to Ragsdale, Alvarez intends to file a lawsuit against the city of Roswell in federal court.

In a Jan. 29 post on Facebook, Alvarez shared that her son told her that several eighth-graders were planning to take guns to Sierra Middle School and have a shootout, court records show. School officials reported at least 100 phone calls and 160 student absences after the post. The school normally sees 30 absences in a day.

Alvarez received a 30-day deferred sentence and was ordered to pay $29 in court costs.

Judge Lou Mallion declined to comment on his decision to convict. However, he recently told the Daily Record newspaper that disrupting the educational process and preventing people from using public facilities met the city ordinances definition of a public nuisance.

Ragsdale, however, said the absences were due to a school assembly the day before.

Tom Burris, the Roswell Independent School Districts superintendent, said Alvarezs post caused pandemonium and warranted a conviction.

What she did caused a lot of kids to miss school, Burris said. There was a lot of panic, a lot of concern with parents who did send their kids to school. I think that she was out of line with her comments on Facebook.
Copyright  2016 Albuquerque Journal

All Kristin Cunnar wanted was a list of active licensed social workers in the Albuquerque area.

Cunnar called the state Board of Social Work Examiners, part of the Regulation and Licensing Department, and was told there was no list for Albuquerque social workers, but she could get a statewide list.

For a fee of $250.

Im a small businesswoman. Thats a lot of money to me, and certainly, she said, a burden on low-income people and elderly people on fixed incomes. The steep fee also demonstrates that the board is disconnected from the people theyre serving, she said.

Cunnar, a licensed massage therapist, then exchanged emails with Claudia Armijo, the deputy general counsel for the Regulation and Licensing Department, who informed Cunnar that she was correctly advised by the boards staff that the list would cost $250.

Ben Cloutier, spokesman for the state Regulation and Licensing Department, said the $250 fee was established at least a decade ago.

Each board is required to set a reasonable fee for a list of their licensees and the work that goes into producing the list, he said.

The social worker database has about 4,000 names. Each time it is requested, it must be updated and a new list or document must be created.

He said requests for the social worker database generally do not come from individuals; rather, they come from companies looking to create a marketing list of contacts to whom they might sell products and services.

Who asks for the list or why should not be a factor, said Susan Boe, executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government.

The ultimate use of a list is not only irrelevant, but any custodian responding to a request for a list under the states Inspection of Public Records Act can not even ask how that information is to be used, she said.

The cost of such a list should be the same, regardless if the request comes from a commercial entity, a journalist or a private citizen, and that cost should reflect the actual cost of producing the list, she said.

The Journal contacted the boards Armijo after Cunnar shared her frustrations about the steep $250 cost. She did not return phone calls and her office referred questions to department spokesman Cloutier.

Armijo did, however, send Cunnar an email on April 28  about 10 days after her request and after the Journals call about the $250 cost  that indicated if Cunnar made an IPRA request for the list, the board would make the 178 pages available at 25 cents a page, or just under $45.

As an alternative, she could inspect the list in person and at no cost by scheduling a visit to the Regulation and Licensing Departments Santa Fe or Albuquerque offices.

An electronic version of that list was not offered at the time, but later that day Armijo sent a second email to Cunnar, saying she had been advised that the department could make the full list available to her on a CD for $5. The $5 CD fee is reasonable, Boe said. Under IPRA, agencies can recover their actual costs by charging no more than $1 a page. Agencies can also recover the costs for producing electronic copies on, say, a thumb drive, a CD or a DVD.

The statute does not specify a minimum or maximum, but the actual cost, Boe said, should not include the labor to produce the list, regardless of the format, because theres nothing in the statute that permits it, and we think thats their job.

While Cunnar said she was thrilled that she could finally get her hands on the social worker list for an affordable $5, she wondered, Why couldnt they have just done that in the first place?

Thats still not clear, nor is it clear if it was a one-time concession to her.

Last week, the Journal called the New Mexico Board of Social Work Examiners to ask, again, how much the list of current and active licensed social workers would cost. A woman who identified herself as the administrative assistant to the board quoted the $250 fee.

Unlock that data

As a licensed massage therapist, Cunnar says she wanted the list because she prefers consulting with social workers on a variety of topics, including resume strategies, personal and professional goals, financial decisions, retirement plans and ways to boost her self-confidence.

And she was surprised by the fact the state could not break out the Albuquerque list.

I explained I wasnt looking for a list of social workers from the whole state, just from the Albuquerque area, she said. They told me they were unable to break out the list by city or county. Can you imagine that? Theyre using a computer program that cant do something as simple as that. The technology exists. Its out there. Its not uncommon.

Cloutier said consumers can look up individual licensees, as well as reported complaints and disciplinary actions, at the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department website, www.rld.state.nm.us.

But that would not help Cunnar, who needed the list of social workers.

Boe noted there is a separate provision under the Public Records Act that some public bodies interpret to mean they also can charge a licensing fee when the requested information is a database. The problem is that some state agencies take the position that any document thats on an Excel spreadsheet is a database, Boe said.

No portion of the initial $250 fee quoted to Cunnar was intended as a licensing fee, Cloutier said.

Nationwide, the trend in federal, state and local governments is toward the creation of open data formats, in which large volumes of information are readily available at no cost, often on a website.

That way, anyone can use it and slice and dice it and come up with trends or get access to names, Boe said. Unfortunately, New Mexico has been slow to get on the open data bandwagon.

Taxpayer dollars were used to create the databases in the first place.

We want to unlock that data, she said.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court has rejected Philip Morris USAs appeal of a $25 million punitive damages award to the family of a dead smoker in Oregon.

The justices on Monday are leaving in place a state appeals court ruling that likened the cigarette makers role in smoker Michelle Schwarzs death to manslaughter under Oregon law, had the case been pursued in criminal court.

Schwarz started smoking in 1964 at age 18. She switched to the low-tar cigarette the company began selling in 1976 because of her concerns about the health effects of smoking. Schwarz died in 1999 at age 53 from a brain tumor caused by lung cancer that had metastasized.

The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld a Portland jurys $25 million award, citing Philip Morris extreme reprehensibility.
FARMINGTON  Experts from across the state and the nation will convene at San Juan College this week, to discuss water contamination issues in the wake of the Gold King Mine spill.

The two-day conference starts Tuesday morning, and will feature presentations on the condition of local water sources both before and after last years mine spill. The New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute will host the event, in collaboration with other organizations.

This conference will facilitate the exchange of data and ideas among four states, three Environmental Protection Agency regions, two tribes and numerous local and municipal agencies, Sam Fernald, the director of the institute, said in a press release.

Water contamination issues such as heavy metal seepage and elevated bacteria levels have existed for years in San Juan County. But after a crew from the EPA working near Silverton, Colo., accidentally released more than 3 million gallons of water polluted with mine waste into the Animas River last August, many questions have arisen.

It grabbed a lot of the attention because of the immediate risk, Paul Montoia, a water resources specialist with the city of Farmington, said. But its important we pay attention to all the risks associated with our water supply.

Panelists will address a spectrum of subjects, from the health of fish populations to pollutants in the food web. Registration costs $175 for those who want to attend, but event organizers decided to open the Wednesday afternoon panel discussion to the public at no charge.

I think a lot of people will be interested in that final session, said Catherine Ortega Klett, a water research institute event organizer. We started getting requests that people would like to attend, but couldnt afford it.

The presentation  titled Where Do We Go From Here?  will address options for local agencies in the aftermath of the mine spill.

While the EPA has declared surface water contamination levels have returned to pre-incident conditions, many argue pollutants remain in sediment.

Montoia said a common concern is that the heavy metals released during the disaster settled to the bottom of the river where it flattens out near Durango. As winter snow pack melts and river levels rise, Montoia said contaminates may be stirred up and swept downstream into northern New Mexico. Heavy metals, including lead, were found in the mine waste.

State officials have also criticized the EPA for adopting recreational screening levels, which determines if water is safe for rafters or fishermen, in the wake of the spill.

The is EPA probably not being quite a vigilant as what wed like to see, Montoia said.

To address concerns, EPA staff members will attend the conference, according to agency spokesperson Christie St. Claire.

Prior to the spill, the EPA had detected harmful levels of contaminates flowing from the Gold King Mine into the Animas River, St. Claire stated in an email. The accident occurred while trying to address the seepage problem, and the EPA is moving to designate the surrounding Bonita Peak Mining District as a Superfund site to mitigate future incidents. St. Claire noted that 5.4 million gallons of acid mine drainage is discharged every day from the 48 historic mines in the district.

The New Mexico Environment Department has developed a response program of its own. The department is currently trying to secure federal funding for a long-term monitoring plan, which calls for additional scientific studies and community outreach programs.

The forum at San Juan College is the first of its kind, but event organizers plan to make it an annual occurrence.

People are going to remain concerned about this, Montoia said.

For more information on the conference visit animas.wrri.nmsu.edu.

Brett Berntsen covers government for The Daily Times. He can be reached at 505-564-4606.



2016 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.)

Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at www.daily-times.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

_____
LAS CRUCES  New Mexico State University sent 2,000 students into the world Saturday in two ceremonies at the Pan American Center.

Today, were graduating 2,000 fine Aggies, said President Garrey Carruthers, standing outside the arena before the morning commencement. I predict that 1,995 of them will go on to wonderful lives and successful careers. The other five will become university presidents.

According to NMSU officials, 738 students were expected to receive bachelor degrees in the morning ceremony, 769 in the afternoon ceremony, as well as a combined 453 masters degrees and 65 doctorates.

A world of opportunities

Cindy Yeh, 22, was among those who graduated Saturday. Yeh received a Bachelor of Science in Genetics and Biotechnology, and was a research scholar funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at NMSU. She has conducted her own research project in the laboratory of Graciela Unguez in the Department of Biology, which focused on muscle degeneration in vertebrates.

Yeh was born and raised in Las Cruces, and graduated from Las Cruces High School in 2012.

I started my degree in biology, but became really interested in genetics, Yeh said. I had a really good professor, and there was something about the elegance of the molecular aspects that I found fascinating. I became really interested in the medical implications, as modern medicine moves more toward personalized medicine. Everyone has a unique genome, and its really important to understand that when it comes to treating and preventing disease.

Yeh said her work in Unguezs lab drew her to a career in research. She recently completed an internship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.

While I was there, I had the opportunity to do some research acute myeloid leukemia, Yeh told the Sun-News. The coolest thing was the chance to do clinical research  to see the culture of research, but also its practical application. I was able to shadow a doctor in a leukemia ward, and see the research being put to use.

She was also awarded the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, a highly-competitive award that supports outstanding students in the fields of math, science or engineering.

Aside from her achievements in the classroom, Yeh said shes most proud of getting involved in her community.

I joined the NMSU Rotaract Club, and was able to spearhead projects like getting involved with an orphanage in Juarez, she said. We collected and donated food and supplies, but also had the opportunity to go down and spend some time there with the kids. Its really nice to be in the Borderlands, because its such a diverse community.

Yeh is also an accomplished pianist who teaches lessons to children; she has collected short fiction stories and poems from NMSU undergraduate students to edit, publish, and disseminate to the Las Cruces community; and she spearheaded a local showing of the documentary Food Chain$, which focuses on current farm labor practices in the United States.

NMSU has given me so many opportunities  not only research, but also has provided a level of mentorship that is hard to find anywhere else, Yeh said. The faculty is so great. In February, I was able to visit a number of graduate schools, for tours and interviews. And youd see these students from really prestigious, Ivy League schools like Columbia and Princetonand I realized that, in many cases, Id been given better opportunities than they had. At NMSU, you can get the same quality of education, but even more research experience.

In the fall, Yeh will attend the University of Washington in Seattle, where she will begin pursuing her doctorate in genome sciences. As to a future career, Yeh is keeping her options open.

Im trying to keep my mind open, because the field is changing a lot, she said. I dont know what the world of genetics will look like after I graduate. Its a really exciting time for the field.

Biology and Flamenco

Applehelen Kirby, 21, graduated Saturday with a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Biology. She earned a double-minor in Biochemistry and Dance.

Kirby, a Las Cruces native, was home-schooled from second grade through high school, and has been dancing since age four.

After graduating high school with honors, she received an Honors Excel Scholarship from NMSU.

Originally, my plan was to go to medical school, Kirby said. I started teaching dance when I was 10, and I loved working with kids. I thought Id like to be a pediatrician, and I came into college with that focus.

But then a professor gave her a tour of his microbiology lab, and a whole world opened up to her.

I loved seeing the research side of science, she said. During Kirbys last two years of college, she was part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Scholar program. She also enjoyed the mentorship of Michele Nishiguchi, a principle investigator professor in the Biology department.

I absolutely loved the work I was able to do in the lab, Kirby said. Dr. Nish is a real role model.

Over Spring Break this year, Kirby traveled to Hawaii with a group of students from NMSUs Sundt Honors Seminar to study the effects of climate change on coral reefs

My dads a meteorologist, and we talk about climate change all the time, Kirby said. There were only 12 of us in the class, and we were split up into different groups. My group looked at coral biology, disease and health. Before we went, we were able to talk to people in Hawaii who have been studying this problem. It was really, really interesting.

Over the summer, shell travel to Spain with NMSUs Sol y Arena Spanish/Flamenco Dance Company.

I came into NMSU as a contemporary dancer, but took one Flamenco class and fell in love, she said. Well be going to Spain for three weeks in July, working with some incredible Flamenco masters. It will be a great workshop, and well see some great dancers. At the end of the workshop, there is a performance.

Kirby said her experience at NMSU has been richly rewarding  after she adjusted to a little culture shock.

One of the scariest things was being home-schooled, then coming to college, she said. Socially, I was ready for it, because of all my experience in dance. But I came in taking 18 credits, and was super gung-ho with such a specific plan. I was really apprehensive, but had great people and great support  parents, friends, bosses and professors. I couldnt have done it without their encouragement.

Damien Willis may be reached at 575-541-5468, dawillis@lcsun-news.com or @damienwillis on Twitter.

More Stories

Valencia County fire chiefs wont resign over racy photos

May 14, 2016, 8:35 p.m.

2 dead in separate car crashes in New Mexico

May 14, 2016, 8:34 p.m.

NM extends comment period on lab cleanup plan

May 14, 2016, 8:33 p.m.



2016 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

_____
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders campaign is opening an office in Albuquerque today, with just over three weeks remaining before New Mexicos June 7 primary election.

Sanders, a Vermont senator, is trailing Hillary Clinton in pledged delegates, but has generated enthusiasm among many younger Democratic voters.

Clinton has also opened field offices in New Mexico, and recently hired three state-level staffers to oversee her operations in the state. In addition, former President Bill Clinton, Hillarys husband, will make two campaign stops in the state next week  in Albuquerque and Espanola.

New Mexico is one of the last states to hold its primary election, and 34 delegates are at stake on the Democratic side.

The Sanders campaign will host a party at 7:30 pm tonight to celebrate the opening of the new campaign office, which is its first official office in New Mexico.

An announcement from the Sanders campaign did not mention whether Sanders himself might hold a campaign rally in New Mexico before next months primary.
It absorbs moisture on babys bottoms and for some women on their private areas, but at what cost?

A group of 15 woman with New Mexico ties have joined a growing number of women nationwide suing baby powder manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, claiming the product caused their ovarian cancer. The estates of two women who died from ovarian cancer also joined the suit.

More than 1,100 women have sued the company so far, according to news reports. And a Missouri jury this year found Johnson & Johnson liable and decided by a 10-2 vote to give one of the plaintiffs $10 million in compensatory damages and $62 million in punitive damages, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek story from March.

Like its national counterparts, the local lawsuit, filed Thursday by the Branch Law Firm in Albuquerque, says Johnson & Johnson should have alerted its consumers with a simple warning label not to put the talcum powder products on genital areas.

The suit says more than 20 studies dating back 40 years have each shown a significant increase in cancer risk for women using baby powder containing talcum on their underwear and genitals. Johnson & Johnson even marketed some Talcum powders specifically for female genitals.

Johnson & Johnson says in its A Message About Talc post on its website that it relied on research that showed talc did not cause ovarian cancer.

We also know that some epidemiology studies have reported an association between talc and ovarian cancer. However, various governmental and non-governmental agencies as well as other expert panels have reviewed and analyzed all available data, and none have concluded that talc can cause cancer, according to the website.

Joshua Bradley, one of three attorneys with the Branch Law Firm working on the local suit, said he expects more women to join the action against Johnson & Johnson.

He said Monday that most of the 17 women in the local suit are from New Mexico or lived or traveled in New Mexico at one point. The women range in age between late 20s and 65 years old. They are also from various socioeconomic and racial groups, he said.

In the (Missouri) lawsuit they discovered papers that Johnson & Johnson markets to black, Hispanic and obese women as their prime market, Bradley said. They have an increased risk of ovarian cancer as it is, but you add baby powder into the mix and its just a bad combination.

His firm has included in the lawsuit two additional companies, Ethicon Endo, a Johnson & Johnson surgery product producer in Albuquerque that offered discount products including talc powder to employees, and Imerys Talc America, a company that provides talc from Chinese mines to Johnson & Johnson and also has a location in northern New Mexico. The Imerys mine in New Mexico produces perlite, not talc.
One of the three remaining members of the Syndicato de Nuevo Mexico prison gang wanted by federal authorities died in a motorcycle crash Friday morning, an FBI spokesman said.

Leroy Torrez, 40, was wanted on a charge of felon in possession of a firearm, said Frank Fisher.

Officer Tanner Tixier, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department, said Torrez was driving fast northbound on Second Street SW when he lost control and went through the fence of a business near Woodward.

He said Torrez died at the scene, and police discovered the motorcycle was stolen.

In late April, federal, state and local authorities arrested 19 members of the prison gang on various charges related to the mission to kill the secretary of the New Mexico Corrections Department  as well as a mix of other crimes. Nine men were arrested in Albuquerque and 10 more were already in prison when they were taken into the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, Fisher said.

The 19 men face a variety of charges including murder, conspiracy to murder, racketeering conspiracy, and aiding and abetting, for their part in the mission.

Three of the alleged gang members  Torrez, Paul Enrique Rivera, 44, of Los Lunas, and Shauna Gutierrez, 36, of Belen  avoided arrest last month.

Rivera was arrested by APD on May 8 and is charged with conspiracy to commit murder or attempted murder, Fisher said. Gutierrez is still on the loose.

The roundup was the second phase of Operation Atonement, in which more than 40 alleged gang members were arrested last December. Angel DeLeon, 38, is still wanted from the first phase, Fisher said.
ACAs library of educational tools help members improve their business practices. ACA also holds the most popular industry conferences and offers credentialing for collectors, attorneys, and more. ACAs Training Zone subscription gives agencies access to almost all of our education for one low cost.
U.S. companies are paying among the highest corporation taxes in the world at a rate well above the global average, according to a new study by the accounting and consulting firm network UHY.

UHY calculated that the U.S. corporation tax rate was 41.1 percent when combining federal and assumed state tax rate of 7.1 percent on taxable profits of $1 million for fiscal year 2015. Officially, however, the top federal corporate income tax rate is 35 percent.

The study found the U.S. corporate tax rate is far higher than the global average corporation tax rate of 27 percent. For European economies the average is 25.3 percent and the G7 average is even higher at 32.3 percent.

However, UHY acknowledged that the effective corporate tax rate for U.S. companies is often far lower than the statutory rate and is usually mitigated by a variety of tax-planning opportunities and tax deductions.

Low corporate taxes can help countries create competitive advantage and fuel growth by freeing up more profits for re-investment, discouraging domestic companies from moving investment overseas and attracting foreign companies to locate there, according to UHY.

UHY tax professionals studied corporation tax data on taxable profits of $1 million in 31 countries across its international network, including all members of the G7, along with key emerging economies.

The U.S. is at the top of the table of economies with the highest corporation tax in the study, charging a combined rate of 41.1 percent. In comparison, Canada (which charges 26.7 percent) has a much lower rate and fellow G7 member, the United Kingdom (which charged 21 percent in 2015) has almost half the corporate tax rate of the U.S.

Japan comes next, despite reducing corporation tax by 2.5 percent in a year as part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abes Abenomics policy to stimulate growth in the Japanese economy following more than two decades of stagnation.

There is a global competition amongst countries to offer a lower corporation tax rate, and there are enormous advantages for those countries that can put themselves ahead of the pack, said UHY LLP partner Dennis Petri, who sits on UHYs board of directors. Enabling companies to retain more of their profits encourages them to re-invest more capital back into their business, helping to drive innovation. The U.S. could see significant benefits by simplifying and reducing the corporate tax burden across the board, in order to better support the domestic business base and attract more corporate investment from overseas.

UHY found that businesses in the UK and Russia are enjoying the lowest corporation taxes of the major global economies, accounting for just 21 percent and 20 percent of their profits respectively.

Of the 31 countries in the study, most (74 percent) have kept corporation tax rates the same over the last two years. Six (19 percent) lowered rates last year, while just two countries (Israel and India) raised it (see table below).

Clearly there is not much appetite for governments to raise corporation tax rates in the current climate but there is little interest to lower them either, Petri said in a statement. Tinkering around the edges with a variety of reliefs and exemptions can create far more complicated systems which are then far more open to abuse and error. Simply cutting the stated rate sends a very clear message that an economy is very much on the side of business growth, expansion and continued investment. 

UHY found the United Arab Emirates has the lowest corporate taxes of any country in the studycharging no corporation tax at allfollowed by Ireland (12.5 percent) and several eastern European countries including Romania, the Czech Republic and Croatia.

Global corporation tax rankings (by highest rate levied)
A roundup of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

West Palm Beach, Fla.: A federal court has ordered preparer Paul Jean not to prepare federal returns for anyone except himself.

The order was entered after Jean failed to respond to a civil complaint, which stated that Jean has operated under the business names Whiz Tax and Rejoice Tax Services and alleged that he prepared returns that claimed fabricated or inflated Earned Income Tax Credits, education credits or fuel credits.

Jean also allegedly prepared returns that report false or inflated deductions on Schedule A, such as deductions for mortgage interest paid or charitable contributions, or on Schedule C, such as expenditures for supplies or office expenses.

The IRS estimates that Jean, directly or indirectly, has prepared and filed more than 3,000 returns since 2012, according to the complaint, and that his conduct may have cost the U.S. Treasury millions of dollars.

LaVergne, Tenn.: A federal court has barred tax preparer Michelle Cole Theus, a.k.a. Michelle Cole, and Cole Tax Services from preparing federal tax returns or operating a return-preparation business. Theus, who agreed to entry of the injunction without admitting or denying the allegations, must also turn over a complete list of her customers to the government.

According to the complaint, Theus initially prepared accurate returns for her clients then fraudulently increased the returns claimed refund by, for example, adding fictitious dependents or false education credits. She then diverted the inflated portion of the refund, or sometimes the entire refund, to her own bank account, the complaint alleges.

The IRS estimates that Theus has claimed at least $788,220 in fraudulent refunds, according to the complaint.

Barbourville, Ky.: Preparer Brian Hamilton has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. with respect to claims, one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated ID theft.

Hamilton admitted that during 2011 and 2012 he conspired with others, including his brother, Billy Ray Hamilton, Patsy Carnes and Diana Hill to file false returns from the Bailey Switch Pawn Shop in Knox County, Kentucky. According to the plea agreement, the Hamiltons prepared and e-filed with the IRS at least 31 returns that contained false and fraudulent information regarding wages, self-employment income, expenses, filing statuses and dependents.

The Hamiltons did not list their names as preparers on these returns; in some cases, they filed false returns without the knowledge or permission of the taxpayers named on the returns. Hill obtained personal identifying information and Carnes kept files of that information and provided it to the Hamiltons.

In January, Carnes and Hill each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. In April, Billy Ray Hamilton pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S., wire fraud and aggravated ID theft.

Brian Hamilton faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for the conspiracy charge and 20 years for the wire fraud charge, as well as a two-year term for the aggravated ID theft charge. He also faces financial penalties, supervised release and restitution.

Swanton, Vt.: Preparer Lisa Ryder, 48, has been arrested for two counts of grand larceny and one of petty larceny following a complaint that she stole approximately $2,900 from at least one client over the last four years. Investigators said there may be more victims. Ryder is due in court on May 16.

Cleveland: Monique Kirk, 39, has been charged with filing false returns of friends and relatives, fraudulently claiming some $131,000.

The indictment claims that Kirk held herself out as a preparer and offered to prepare returns and used the personal information friends and relatives provided to file false returns, including false wage income and tax credit information, often for claimants who earned little or no money.

Kirk requested that some of the refunds be paid by direct deposit into bank accounts in the name of third parties that she in fact controlled.

She filed 21 false returns between 2012 and 2014 in which she claimed approximately $131,871 in refunds to which neither she nor the claimants were entitled, according to the indictment.
Carat India, the flagship media agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, has roped in Sujata Dwibedy as executive vice president. A media veteran with more than 17 years of experience, Sujata has extensively worked across sectors such as FMCG, telecom, airlines, finance, alcohol and beverages. Prior to this, Sujata was head - business development at Omnicom Media Group.

As per her new mandate, Sujata will lead the Mondelez business at Carat in India and ensure that the best possible solutions are provided across all media platforms. Meanwhile, she will also work closely with the Carat APAC team on the business.

Speaking on the appointment, Kartik said, We are delighted to have the vast experience and capabilities that Sujata brings to the table. I am certain that she will bring to bear all of her learnings to deliver outstanding solutions for Mondelez in India.

Sujata added, I have always aspired to work on brand Mondelez. It is a wonderful brand to work on. It is a matter of great pride for me that I will be able to leverage my planning, research, buying and strategic skills for a brand of this stature!
India Radio Forum Awards, which aims to support and recognise quality in radio broadcast, has concluded the 11th edition of the awards. The Awards, which celebrates the very best of Indian radio, honouring outstanding programming, on-air personalities were distributed under four categories  Programming, Talent, Promotion & Marketing and Advertising.

Red FM won 13 awards across five different categories, followed by Big FM, which grabbed eight metals, while Radio Mirchi bagged six metals at the awards ceremony held on May 13, 2016 in Mumbai.

Radio Mirchi, Delhi was adjudged the Best Radio Station. The Best RJ of the Year award was won by Neelesh Misra for Big FMs Yaadon ka Idiot Box. The title for the Best Breakfast Programme went to Red FM for its Morning No 1 show, while Red FM walked away with the Best Radio Promo award.

This year also marked Red FMs 11th year partnering with IRF as Premium Presenting Partners. Red FM Delhis Bauaa was given the Best Radio Sparkler of the Year award. Red FM Punes Morning No.1 show was honoured as the Best Radio Program (Marathi). While Red FM Mumbais Morning No.1 and Suryam FMs Blade No.1 shows walked away with the Best Breakfast Program award in Hindi and Tamil categories, respectively.

Red FM Hyderabads Zabardasth Masthi was recognised as Best Program (Non-Breakfast) in the Telugu category. Red FM came out shinning with four of its RJs receiving RJ of the Year awards. RJ Blade Shankar from Suryan FM Chennai, RJ Dhrumil from Red FM Rajkot, RJ Sowmya from Red FM Kochi and Red FM Pune RJ Sangram stole the limelight with RJ of the Year trophy in Tamil, Gujarati, Malayalam and Marathi categories, respectively.

Red FM Mumbais show Special 26, Red FM Hyderabads Red FM Sankranthi and Red FM Mysores Pani to Police initiative were recognided for Best Radio Promo (In-house) in Hindi, Telugu and Kannada categories. Red FM Delhis social initiative  Himmat Ki Kimat Delhi  was conferred with the Best Community Service Award.

Speaking about IRF and the Excellence Awards, Nisha Narayanan, COO, Red FM, said, It is a moment of immense pride for Team Red FM. In a constantly evolving and challenging industry scenario, being recognised for creativity, innovation and clutter breaking campaigns is an encouraging impetus. We have aggressive plans for the coming year both in programming and marketing and listeners in each of our stations can look forward to some great listening experiences.
Test successful for revised leadership course

Sixteen officers at Headquarters Air Force Reserve Command participated in the beta test of a revised leadership course, and the results were very encouraging.



The Force Development Branch within the commands Directorate of Manpower, Personnel and Services conducted the revised Leadership Today & Tomorrow course April 25-29. The course was led by Maj. Gen. Jane Rohr, mobilization assistant to the commander, Air Force Space Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, and Col. Marshall Irvin, vice commander of the AFRC Force Generation Center here.



The course is designed for senior captains (those with three-plus years time in grade) to junior majors (less than three years time in grade).

Maj. Kira Cooper, chief of the Force Development Branch, said LTT addresses the challenges associated with balancing todays readiness with tomorrows new centers of power and capabilities in an unpredictable world through the strategic use of the art of leadership. The course motivates officers to focus on various leadership models with emphasis on fostering relationships, mentoring and guiding the enlisted force.



Cooper said students attending the course received lessons on manpower, financial management, ethics and enhancing human capital. In addition, they had the opportunity to complete a focused leadership activity with members of the active-duty 5th Combat Communications Squadron, which proved to be a true testament of total force integration. Cooper said the course culminated with group presentations to a senior panel on command-level issues and challenges.



The course received good reviews from the students, who said it offered more than they had expected. One Airman said it was the best Air Force course he had ever attended.



Beginning in 2017, plans call for LTT to be offered four times a year. This year, classes are currently scheduled for September and December. Eligible officers can apply through the 2016 Reserve School Selection Board process in the virtual Personnel Center (vPC).


Robinson assumes command of NORAD, NORTHCOM

Gen. Lori Robinson assumed command of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command from Navy Adm. Bill Gortney during a ceremony May 13.



Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Gen. Jonathan H. Vance, the Canadian chief of the defence staff, presided over the change of command ceremony. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr. and Canadian Defence Minister Harjit S. Sajjan were also in attendance.



NORAD is a bi-national command between the U.S. and Canada, while NORTHCOM is the U.S.-only geographic command for North America. The two commands have complementary missions and are colocated at the headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.



Carter praised Gortney for his service, leadership and professionalism, and welcomed Robinson to her new post.



As commander of NORAD and NORTHCOM, Admiral Bill Gortney has been instrumental in forging a stronger coordination and deeper connection with both our Mexican and Canadian neighbors, Carter said. Bill, as you transition from this command, you can take comfort in knowing that NORAD and NORTHCOM are now in the hands of another proven strategic leader, warrior and diplomat: General Lori Robinson.



The secretary noted that changes in the world continue to show the need for NORAD and NORTHCOM to protect and defend North America.



As a strategic thinker and joint force leader, (Robinson) has proven her ability to manage complex operations with partners across theaters and domains; these abilities will serve our nation well as NORAD and NORTHCOM continue their vital contributions in the counter-Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant campaign and defense of our homelands.



Sajjan remarked on the great partnership between Canada and the U.S.



NORAD is certainly a shining example of two countries that can and continue to work together for mutual benefit, he said. May history record, reflect and remember our unique partnership.



As the new commander of two of the most complex commands in the world, Robinson spoke about the importance of homeland defense.

The world is more dangerous, and North America is increasingly vulnerable to a vast array of evolving threats, threats in every domain we operate in, she said.



Robinson also noted the importance of the various mission partners who are key to the success of the two commands.



With linkages in our cultures, our prosperity and our security, the quality and scope of cooperation between the United States, Canada and Mexico is at an unprecedented high, she said. Undeniably, the power and the strength of NORAD and (NORTHCOM) are derived from its sustained partnerships with joint, interagency and multinational organizations.



Prior to departing from Colorado Springs for retirement, Gortney took a moment to thank his family, the Navy and the local community for their support, and wished Robinson well in her new assignment. He had special words for his NORAD and NORTHCOM team.



To all the members of NORAD and NORTHCOM -- Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, civilians, shipmates: I wish to thank each and every member of the NORAD and NORTHCOM team, and I want to really thank their families for the sacrifices and contributions each of them make. While we wear the cloth of our nation, it is the families that are the very stitching that hold that cloth together.




A BJP parliamentarian from Gujarat was injured when she fell into a sewage drain in a freak accident in Jamnagar on Monday, officials said.

The MP from Jamnagar, Poonamben Maadam, received injuries on her head, shoulder and foot when she fell into the 8-feet deep drain while talking to municipal officials over a drive to remove encroachers in Gujarats fifth biggest city. She has now been airlifted to Mumbai.

According to her doctor S Maheshwari, the leader suffered a 4-inch deep gash on her head besides injuries on her shoulder and foot.

her condition is stable, her vitals normal, and she is conscious and there is nothing to worry about. She will be able to go home earliest by tomorrow morning, he said at the hospital where she was being treated.

Maadam had gone to the Jalaram slum on Indira Marg in Jamnagar to take stock of a demolition drive taking place there. The incident captured on video, shows Maadam surrounded by people and talking to an official. Then the ground caves, swallowing her and some others who were standing around her.

A footage showed people rushing to help the MP, in a yellow dress, lying on her back in the drain.

Maadam had been rushed to a hospital and sources have said she has sustained fractures and head injuries from the fall.
The BJP after its defeat in Bihar and Delhi can now expect some good news from these under poll five states. Still nothing much can be predicted at this moment. Victories in Assam and Kerala will symbolically strengthen the BJPs status as a truly national party in a geographical sense. Voters in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry exercised their franchise on Monday by bringing to an end polling in five states.

The results are to be declared on May 19 and the stakes are high for both the BJP and the Congress. The BJP sighted a chance to seize power in Assam from the Congresss Tarun Gogoi. It is also hoping to open its account in Kerala in alliance with the Bharatiya Dharma Jana Sena, an outfit supported by the OBC Ezhava organisation Sri Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP). After repeated defeats in Delhi and Bihar, BJP distractedly needs a booster shot. For this, the party is counting on Assam where it has fought elections in alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad and the Bodoland Peoples Front  a union it sees as an indigenous peoples alliance against Bangladeshi immigrants represented by the All-India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). It needs a few States under its belt to at least partially offset its Rajya Sabha disadvantage.

Which way the Muslims voted is crucial for the Congress in Assam. If they have shifted tactically from Badruddin Ajmals AIUDF in favour of the Congress, particularly in the Muslim-heavy second phase of polls, the party will give the BJP a run for its money. For the left, it is virtually a life or death battle, in West Bengal and Assam. It is hoping to topple the powerful Mamata Banerjee in alliance with the Congress in West Bengal. In Kerala, it is looking to defeat a Congress-led United Democratic Alliance government that is weighed down by corruption charges.

After his three successive terms in Assam since 2001, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi confronted a strong anti-incumbency sentiment in 2016, the poll observed. Asked if they would like to see the 81-year-old leader re-elected, just 30 per cent of the voters said yes. However, the level of the anti-incumbent mood was found to be overwhelming. From 38 to as high as 70 per cent of voters said they would not like Gogoi retain power, the poll explained. On average, almost 55 per cent of electors showed no inclination for Congress. Only 30 per cent favoured the ruling party while 32 per cent chose to stay neutral in the poll conducted in all 126 constituencies of the state. The survey analysed almost 40 per cent of the states population was dissatisfied with the Gogoi government despite his moderate track record.

Last months assembly elections in Assam also witnessed voter polarization on religious lines, something rare in the northeastern state. The poll revealed a stunning consolidation of Hindu votes in favour of the BJP while Muslim voter-share broke up between Congress and the AIUDF. AIUDF played a major spoilsport for the governing party. Muslims constitute more than one third of the states population. The AIUDF made significant inroads into the Muslim-dominated constituencies, the survey said. The Muslim-backed party held a sway over as much as 23 per cent of that key bloc in constituencies it contested. That in turn ended up as a competitive disadvantage to Congress, the poll analysed.

With religion overriding caste and ethnicity in Assam, the latest elections saw Hindus collectively throwing their weight behind the BJP. Detailed analysis of results shows that unexpected support from Hindus and tribals was the main reason for Congresss tally which surpassed the expectation of its strategists, while numbing rivals, AGP and BJP. BJP and its allies gained the trust of nearly 60 per cent of all Hindu groups like: SC/ST, OBC, upper castes and others in 2016. Barely one-fourth of the states lower-caste Hindu communities backed Congress, according to the pollsters vote-share analysis. Upper-caste groups were even less supportive, with their share standing at 19 per cent in favour of the governing party, the analysis revealed.

Besides, its move to name its candidate for the chief ministers post, Sarbananda Sonowal, well in time was another big factor that went in its favour, the survey noted. A positive campaign centering on development appealed to the voters. The BJPs promise to improve rural-road connectivity struck a chord with the villagers of Assam, who constitute 86 per cent of the states total population. Geographically, Congress managed 30 per cent of the rural and 32 per cent of the urban voter-share, the poll noted. Congress also appeared to have trailed the BJP in securing the trust of below-poverty-line (BPL) groups.

In Tamil Nadu, the DMK-Congress alliance is looking to trounce the AIADMK. The outcome will have a bearing on the GST Bills 1 per cent additional charge that is being opposed by Jayalalithaas AIADMK government. Anyways these are just poll surveys conducted by various agencies. Lets wait for final results.

Sources from various agencies

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
A Delhi court on Monday sent to 14 days judicial custody a journalist for allegedly fabricating an RTI reply and publishing a news report claiming that the government had been discriminating against Muslims in their recruitment as yoga trainers in the Ayush Ministry.

Pushp Sharma, who was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Ashok Kumar on expiry of his two-day judicial custody, was sent to Tihar Jail till May 30 in the case registered days after his report We dont recruit Muslims: Modi govts Ayush Ministry appeared on Milli Gazette, a fortnightly English language newspaper. The Delhi-based journalist was arrested on May 14 on charges of cheating, forgery and promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, etc in the case registered a Kotla Mubarakpur Police Station here.

A senior police officer had said that Sharma had been arrested in 2009 on the charge of extorting government officials by threatening sting operations on them. There were also allegations that Sharma even tried to extort police officers on one occasion.

Sharma had claimed that he filed an RTI with the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) enquiring about the Muslim teachers and trainers recruited by the AYUSH Ministry for foreign assignments during the World Yoga Day last year.
Owaisi questioned the clean chit given by NIA to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi criticised the manner in which National Investigation Agency (NIA) had dropped all charges against Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, who was accused of co-conspirating the 2008 Malegaon blast which claimed six lives and injured 101 people. The investigation agency has claimed that all the evidence against her is weak. Owaisi said that injustice has been meted against Yakub Memon as he was awarded death sentence for the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. The vehicle used for carrying out the blast had belonged to Memons wife Raheen Memon which was used for planting explosives. Owaisi asked how Sadhvi was given clean chit by NIA even though the motor cycle in which the bomb was planted in Malegaon belonged to her. The opposition parties also have attacked the government for interfering in the Malegaon bomb blast investigation case.

Owaisi said, Why law is not equal for everyone. The Modi government is trying to save people belonging to RSS involved in terror activities. The NDA government has pressurised the officials of NIA to save certain people involved in the Malegaon bomb blast case. 

Owaisi made these statements in a rally at Hingoli. He also spoke about other issues like drought situation prevailing in Maharashtra, Vande Mataram row, atrocities committed against Dalits, caste system in Hindu religion and failures of the Modi government. He attacked the Congress and NCP parties and held them responsible for the drought crisis in the state. Owaisi raised the issue of Waris Pathans suspension from the state assembly for his opposition to chant Vande Mataram.

It was a ploy of the Congress, NCP, BJP, Shiv Sena, Samajwadi party which resulted into Pathans suspension. If these parties can come together to lure Muslim and Dalit voters why cant Muslims and Dalits remain united to avert the division of secular votes, asked Owaisi.

On the other hand, Shiv Sena welcomed the acquittal of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and others in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, stating the ATS had falsely implicated the Hindu outfits and that believing in the formation of Hindu Rashtra does not amount to saffron terrorism.

The ATS had carried out a bogus investigation and falsely implicated certain Hindu organisations for carrying out the Malegaon blasts, an editorial in Sena mouthpiece Saamana said.

The Malegaon blast case was investigated initially by Joint Commissioner of Mumbais ATS Hemant Karkare who was killed during the 26/11 Mumbai attack. Before the NIA took over the case in 2011, ATS had booked 16 people but filed charge sheets on January 20, 2009 and April 21, 2011 against 14 accused in a Mumbai court.








Web Toolbar by Wibiya

Date: 1994.

Place: Larry Kings show.

In the last years, convincing evidences of UFO sighting have been confirmed by several members of the governments around the world. For example, in 1994, Barry Morris Goldwater (1909  1998), one of the most prominent members of the Conservative Party in the United States said in an interview with television presenter Larry King that at Wright-Patterson [military base], if you could get into certain places, youd find out what the Air Force and the government does know about UFOs. Later, the senator added: Reportedly, a spaceship landed. It was all hushed up.

General, I know we have a room at Wright-Patterson where you put all this secret stuff. Could I go in there? Mr Goldwater affirmed having asked General Curtis LeMay, but he [LeMay] got madder than hell at me, cussed me out, and said, Dont ever ask me that question again!, stated the politician.

Draw your own conclusions

For further information: http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/2016/05/senator-barry-goldwater-admits-there-is.html

Senator Barry Goldwater Admits There Is A UFO Cover-Up, Interview Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of interview: 1994

Location of interview: Larry King Show

This video takes me way back. This interview was taken way back in 1994, so it goes to show you how long govt officials high up have known about UFOs and how much they detest keeping a secret that is equal to a crime against humanity. Sometimes we need a reminder in life.

Scott C. Waring

www.ufosightingsdaily.com

Video states: Goldwater had a fascination for the UFO issue, and, throughout his life and career, made more than a few notable comments and observations on the subject. The bulk of them revolved around his attempts to determine the truth about longstanding rumors that something of a UFO nature (and something of deep significance, too) was secretly held at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. The location of whatever this something may have been has variously been termed as Hangar 18 and the Blue Room. On March 28, 1975, Goldwater wrote the following, highly thought-provoking, words to a UFO researcher named Shlomo Arnon: The subject of UFOs is one that has interested me for some long time. About ten or twelve years ago I made an effort to find out what was in the building at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where the information is stored that has been collected by the Air Force, and I was understandably denied this request. It is still classified above Top Secret. On more than a few occasions, the subject of UFOs featured heavily on Larry King Live. On one occasion, specifically in 1994, the person that King had on his show to talk about UFOs was none other than Goldwater himself, who told King: I think at Wright-Patterson, if you could get into certain places, youd find out what the Air Force and the government does know about UFOs. Reportedly, a spaceship landed. It was all hushed up. I called Curtis LeMay and I said, General, I know we have a room at Wright-Patterson where you put all this secret stuff. Could I go in there? Ive never heard General LeMay get mad, but he got madder than hell at me, cussed me out, and said, Dont ever ask me that question again!
Every election year, former Senator George McGovern (SD), the 1972 Democratic Nominee for President, seems to find his way back into the news, and this one, 2016, more than most. Comparisons come up routinely between McGoverns 1972 campaign against the Vietnam war and the Democratic Partys then-exclusionary nominating rules, a movement that inspired a generation of young Americans, and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) campaign for social justice today.

On the other side of the political aisle, the conservative Weekly Standard recently carried an article titled How George McGovern Made Donald Trump Possible, explaining how post-1968 nominating reforms proposed by McGovern for Democrats, and later adopted by Republicans, made possible the emergence of a Trump-style insurgent candidate even over objections of party establishments.

George McGovern was a self- proclaimed liberal and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton for being one of our greatest humanitarians. George McGovern died in 2012; it is time to put the Senator into some perspective.

Senator McGovern was a decorated World War II bomber pilot, a hunter, a capitalist (not always successful), a supporter of traditional agriculture (including genetic engineering), and bipartisan in his approach. His well-known special friendship with Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) produced an extraordinary legacy of legislation that still feeds millions of children here in the United States and around the world.

Many continue to judge Senator McGovern today solely by the margin of his loss to President Richard Nixon in 1972, carrying only Massachusetts and even losing his home state of South Dakota.

Why did he lose so badly in 1972? Clearly, it was a combination of factors:

First and foremost, he was running against an incumbent president in wartime, backed by a reelection team (fittingly calling itself the Committee to Reelect the President or CREEP) that felt little hesitation to ignore the law. Hence, the Nixon impeachment two years later.

McGovern compounded his disadvantage with a series of early campaign blunders that became impossible to overcome

o Having won the nomination after a long, grueling convention debate, he delivered his acceptance speech well after midnight rather than insisting on waiting till the next day. As a result, few voters saw an eloquent statement defining his campaign. In an age before the Internet or cable TV, once the moment passed, there was no chance to recapture the audience;

o In his acceptance speech and during the campaign, he declined to highlight his WWII military record, both out of modesty and because he was riding a wave of public opposition to the Vietnam War. History proved him right about the Vietnam War. But tactically, his modesty was a terrible mistake;

o Finally, having chosen Senator Tom Eagleton (D-MO) as his Vice Presidential running mate, he stood behind Eagleton one thousand percent after it was discovered that Senator Eagleton had been treated for depression. For McGovern, personal loyalty trumped politics. But in the end, Eagletons problem proved insurmountable. McGovern reversed course and asked him to leave the ticket.

All this happened before Labor Day 1972. By then, the campaign was simply too badly wounded to recover. McGovern had allowed the Republicans to define him.

But McGovern never allowed his painful loss in 1972 to defeat his spirit or end his political career. He returned to the Senate in 1972, was reelected to the Senate in 1974, and teamed up with Senator Bob Dole to assemble a record of legislative achievements in the field of nutrition and public health second to none.

So where does this place McGovern compared to Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-declared democratic socialist? And did he open the door for Donald Trump?

On this subject, I find it near impossible to be objective. Senator McGovern found me in 1972 serving as a young attorney on an Indian Reservation with South Dakota Legal Services and gave me the life-changing opportunity to join his Senate staff as committee counsel. We went on to become professional colleagues and friends. I enjoyed the extraordinary opportunity to serve both Senator McGovern and Senator Dole, both while they were in the Senate and afterward. I was with Senators McGovern and Dole when they met with President Bill Clinton in 2000 to establish the global school feeding program that still bears their name. (Dole turned to McGovern and said, George, I always wondered what the Oval Office looked like.)

Senator McGovern would clearly be supporting Hillary Clinton this year. McGovern would applaud Bernie Sanders idealism and his ability to engage younger voters. But ideology was not the whole picture for Senator McGovern. McGovern knew Secretary Hillary Clinton well over many years and greatly admired her for her priorities, pragmatism, strength, and faith. He would have been excited for her and the country to see her as the Democratic nominee in 2016 and President of the United States in 2017.

As for Trump, yes, Senator McGovern did push to open the nominating process to the grassroots. And yes this opening has benefited Trump in 2016. But it also worked to the benefit of Presidents Bill Clinton in 1992 and President Barack Obama in 2008. In other words, the process worked, and the peoples voices are being heard on both sides of the divide.

Senator Bobby Kennedy (D-NY) once referred to George McGovern as the most decent man in the Senate. There was strong support for that sentiment among his colleagues. George McGovern was a winner in the end, notwithstanding his loss in 1972.

Marshall Matz is at OFW Law still working on global food security and other issues. Marshall Matz is at OFW Law still working on global food security and other issues. mmatz@ofwlaw.com
ISIS Says It Destroyed Ancient Assyrian Gate in Iraq's Mosul

Shamash Gate in 1977. ( Vivienne Sharp/Heritage Images/Getty Images) Islamic State has taken credit for demolishing the Assyrian Mashki Gate in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, in another example of the destruction of priceless antiquities in areas under the Jihadist group's control. The Gate of Mashki was built during the era of the Assyrian King Sennacherib in 705-681 B.C. It was located east of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, which was taken over by Islamic State forces in June 2014. Photographs distributed by Islamic State on Sunday show militants using at least one bulldozer to knock down the ancient ruin, although it was unclear when the action took place. National Geographic said in April that it had obtained images revealing the destruction of the Mashki Gate and the nearby Adad Gate, built around 700 B.C., by Islamic State. The group in February 2015 posted a video showing militants using sledgehammers and drills to smash ancient artifacts and statues in Mosul, saying the relics were against the teachings of Islam. In August, Islamic State militants destroyed parts of an ancient stone temple in Palmyra, Syria, days after using explosives to blow up another site in the historic city. At about the same time, militants beheaded Khaled al-Asaad, a Syrian archaeologist who had spent more than four decades cataloging the city's antiquities. Palmyra in March was retaken by Syrian forces backed by Russian troops.
Battles Across Iraq Call Into Question U.S. Strategy

Political and ethnic rivalries in Iraq are threatening the ongoing campaign to eject the Islamic State from the northern and western portions of the war-torn country. A large battle for the majority-Christian village of Tel Asqaf north of Mosul began at dawn on May 3, as more that 100 ISIS fighters launched a surprise attack that pushed Peshmerga and militia fighters out of the town and claimed the life of Navy SEAL Charles Keating IV, according to Kurdish media sources. The terrorist fighters attacked from three or more directions using more than 10 car bombs and one bulldozer to break through defensive barriers around the village, according to Nineveh News. Rudaw, a Kurdish media site, claimed more than 400 ISIS fighters participated in the attack, including 50 wearing suicide vests. For the first time since its formation in 2014, the Assyrian Christian fighters known as the Nineveh Plains Defense Force sent approximately 100 fighters into a major battle with ISIS and fought alongside hundreds of Peshmerga to drive ISIS out of the village, according to Jeff Gardner, chief of operations for the Restore Nineveh Now Foundation. The defense force arrived in Tel Asqaf at 10:00 am., trading fire with ISIS for hours until its fighters ran low on ammunition. U.S. Army Apache helicopters began to attack the ISIS forces late in the morning and continued to hit the jihadists through May 4, causing most of ISIS's casualties during the battle, Gardner told the Washington Free Beacon. Peshmerga forces reported 10 dead and as many as 150 ISIS fighters dead, according to Rudaw. Athra Kado, a spokesman for the defense force, said there were 73 ISIS dead left on the field and 3 defense force fighters wounded. On the second day of the Tel Asqaf battle, ISIS set two oil wells on fire in the Kirkuk oil field 70 miles south of Erbil. The fires are expected to burn for three weeks, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Security forces removed improvised explosive devices from two other wells without incident. ISIS attacks during the first two weeks of May appear to be exploiting the sectarian divide. Iraqi Army forces are tied down in combat and terrorist attacks throughout the desert region of Western Iraq where Sunni Arabs are the majority. On May 12, near the town of Albu Aitha, north of the provincial capital of Ramadi, Iraqi forces pushed back a massive ISIS attack, killing 158 terrorists, 19 suicide bombers, and exploding 18 vehicle bombs, 2 bulldozer bombs, 3 machine-gun mounted vehicles and 20 Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), according to Daesh Daily, a digest of multiple Iraqi news sources. However, the battle took the lives of 33 Iraqi Army soldiers. Daesh Daily made this comment of the action: "This is no great victory for Iraqi forces. Albu Aitha was already cleared a few months ago and the Iraqi military failed to keep Daesh out. 33 men died largely because of leadership failures." ISIS unleashed a wave of suicide bombings aimed at Shia pilgrims in Baghdad and towns to its north from May 2 to 11, according to reports from the institute. The suicide bombing attacks have taken advantage of political upheaval in the Iraqi central government. Thousands of activists supporting Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have effectively halted government operations since April 30, when they stormed Parliament and ministry buildings in the city to demand that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi remove dozens of officials tied to corruption. The Kurdish delegation to Iraq's parliament reacted to the protests by returning to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, prompting Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani to implore them to return to Baghdad. South of Kirkuk, a tenuous peace is in effect in the city of Tuz Khurmatu after a battle erupted between Peshmerga and a Shia militia in late April that left 40 Shia and six Peshmerga fighters dead. The two forces, allies against ISIS, have agreed to a joint policing of the city, Rudaw reports. The ISIS attack in Tel Asqaf that forced the Peshmerga garrison to retreat from the village demonstrated that ISIS is still capable of complex attacks against the local armies allied with Baghdad, despite having no air power. The fighting between Peshmerga and Shia militia south of Kirkuk was symptomatic of the devolution of Iraqi security to militias and defense forces not under Baghdad's full control. The central government has a regular army, the Iraqi Security Forces, but counts on the support of between 30,000 and 100,000 fighters from Shia militias, known as Popular Mobilization Forces. Many of the militias are armed by Iran and led by Iranian operatives, according to Michael Pregent, a former career military intelligence officer. Since the pullout of all U.S forces from Iraq in 2011, Shia governing officials purged Iraqi armed forces of thousands of Sunni career soldiers, leaving the Iraqi Army in the hands of Shia units and myriad Shia militias supporting the Bagdad government, according to Pregent. The 14,000 Iraqi soldiers operating near the Makmour front are not up to the task of retaking Mosul, the Sunni Arab stronghold of Iraq, according to Pregent. The 160,000-man Peshmerga cannot retake Mosul on its own. That mission can only be achieved by an army of Sunni fighters that has yet to be recruited, according to Peshmerga Brig. Gen. Muhsin Rashed. "If the Shia forces enter the battle for Mosul, it's going to go very badly," Muhsin told the Free Beacon. Analyst Byron Horatio wrote in Nineveh News that a breakthrough is not likely for either side in the years-long conflict. "For all the unquestionable bravery of the thousands of Kurdish soldiers who have perished in combat with ISIS, the fact remains that the frontlines are largely unchanged since the fall of 2014," Horatio wrote. "Both the Kurds and ISIS remain heavily dug-in outside of Mosul and Kirkuk, with the fighting reduced to a kind of war of attrition along hundreds of miles of trenches."
May 13, 2016

Many people know the name Mustafa Badreddine, but few could say they really knew the Hezbollah high commander in Syria, who died last week in an explosion at one of the groups bases near Damascus International Airport.

Even those who had met the man knew him by different names.

Hezbollah announced that its most prominent commander, known among his ranks as Zulfiqar (a legendary sword in Islam), was killed in an artillery bombardment carried out by area groups of takfiris, fundamentalists who excommunicate other Muslims. According to an Iranian military source in Syria who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Badreddine wasnt alone at the time of the explosion.

There was a high-ranking meeting. A senior Iranian commander was with him, along with other Hezbollah senior officers. As they finished the meeting [and started to disperse], a shell fell close to [Badreddine]. Shrapnel to the back of his head killed him immediately  while there were a few light injuries among the others.

Losing the high commander of its forces in Syria makes the stakes very high for Hezbollah in a war that has seemed to go nowhere in five years. According to the Iranian military source, there is no way to make up for Badreddine's loss.

Hes a combination of several elements  experience, charisma, military vision and shrewdness  that are hard to find in one person. He had them all in him. But this doesnt mean Hezbollahs men are going to be affected on the ground, he told Al-Monitor. Resistance bloc fighters execute plans and tactics that are drawn by the joint military command, so theres no fear in this regard on field operations. But, yes, the command will miss his capabilities and broad vision.

The source added, Hezbollahs military today isnt the same as a decade ago. Today they are more institutionalized. Several great commanders have fallen in the past couple of years, but this didnt change the course of the war.  The best farewell to [Badreddine] is to continue this war until the victory that he was looking for [is achieved].

But in fact, the killing of Badreddine is going to have a deep effect on Hezbollahs military command. For the first time in many years, there will be a new commander from outside the legend of Badreddine and his brother-in-law, commander Imad Mughniyeh.

A source close to the organization said, There are other commanders who are going to rise. The mythical effect of Mughniyeh and Badreddine didnt allow others to be heard clearly. This might be a chance for fresh blood to pour into the groups body  yet in Syria this will have a different effect.

According to the source, the command in Syria is expected to see more centralization under the Iranians. Until his death, Badreddine played an important role in the decision-making path in Syria, military-wise. This is due to his character and history. Now the command is expected to solely be in the hands of the Iranians, whereas Hezbollahs role will be executing decisions taken by the central command.

Badreddines name has been in the media for decades. In 1991, he was said to have taken part in negotiations for the release of Western hostages taken in Beirut by the Islamic Jihad movement. According to the Oct. 16, 1991, issue of the New York Times, Badreddine supervised a secret meeting with former United Nations envoy Giandomenico Picco.

I heard of his death this morning, Picco told Al-Monitor on the phone from New York. He said he wasnt able to say for sure that he had met Badreddine. They were all masked, but I heard he was with them.

In 1991, Badreddine was back from Kuwait, where he had been serving a life sentence for allegedly bombing the French and US embassies there. According to Kuwaiti media reports, Badreddines nom de guerre was Elias Saab and he was a member of the Iraqi Islamic Dawa Party.

An Iraqi who said he was with Badreddine in the prison recalls the story of their escape after the Iraqi invasion. The prison was isolated completely. There were seven of us  myself; Mustafa Badreddine, who used the name Abu Amin; the well-known Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi AlMohandes; and others from the PLO, the Iraqi inmate, who refused to give his name, told Al-Monitor.

Badreddine was trained to use and make explosives; therefore, when the guards fled and we started hearing gunshots, he began planning for our escape. He brought some soap, matches and batteries, and made a small bomb that destroyed the locks. According to the source, the prisoners were able to flee and stayed in Kuwait for four days before arranging for sea passage to Iran, where they were temporarily detained.

From 1992 until 1999, Badreddine was the military commander of Hezbollah leading the resistance against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Then Badreddine assumed another role and the command was taken by Mughniyeh, who was married to Badreddines sister. While Badreddine had mainly focused on reducing the number of deaths among members by enhancing the use of booby traps, Mughniyeh came from a newer school of thought that blended classic military with guerrilla war. By May 2000, Israel was forced to withdraw from Lebanon unilaterally.

From 2000 until 2008, Badreddines role was to lead the groups security apparatus, which helped later in uncovering several Israeli spy networks in Lebanon. A source close to the party indicated that Badreddine played a vital role in the 2006 war with Israel, though the source provided no details.

The special tribunal for Lebanon that is looking into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri believes Badreddine and three others were responsible for Hariris Feb. 14, 2005, death, an accusation that Hezbollah repeatedly denied while refusing to hand over the four suspects. According to the court, Badreddine used several names during this operation, among them Sami Issa, Elias Fouad Saab and Safi Badr. The courts accusation of Badreddine and Hezbollahs denial added to the already-tense atmosphere that had pervaded Lebanon since 2005, though after the Syrian crisis the case dropped down on Lebanons priority list.

In 2008, Mughniyeh was assassinated in a Damascus car bombing. Badreddine was chosen among other commanders to fill the shoes of Mughniyeh, whose death Hezbollah blamed on Israel. All those who were chosen became members of the jihadi council and aides to Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. In 2011, the Syrian crisis began at the same time the tribunal indicted Badreddine. A year later Hezbollah started preparing for its intervention in Syria. May 2013 marked Hezbollahs first battle in Qusair. Badreddine started overseeing the groups war in Syria and how it developed from an operation to protect the borders to a battle for the preservation of the Shiite shrines. He remained in that capacity until the day he was killed.

To Hezbollah, Badreddine isnt someone who can be replaced the next day, given his history, understanding and influence inside the organization. Yet, the number of commanders slain during the Syrian war has given the group the experience to endure such hits with the fewest possible effects. In fact, one day, years ago, Mughniyeh and Badreddine were seen as Nasrallahs main lieutenants. Now that he has lost both, Nasrallah will begin looking within his ranks for the man wholl replace his Syria war commander. He might have many candidates, but none of them can fill the shoes of Mustafa Badreddine.
May 16, 2016

BAGHDAD  On May 11, the Iraqi capital was the scene of three terror attacks, each bomb targeting different areas on both sides of the Tigris River that separates the city. The death toll has reached terrifying numbers with more than 100 people killed, including women and children, and around 170 injured. The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for all three attacks.

The most deadly attack occurred in the Shiite-majority Sadr City east of Baghdad, where 64 people were killed and 87 injured, some of whom severely, security sources told Al-Monitor the day after the attack.

This bomb attack targeted the popular Arriba market, which is surrounded by a concrete barrier of 3 meters (roughly 10 feet) high that prevent cars from entering. However, witnesses told Al-Monitor that the explosion was caused by a car bomb close to the entrance gate where there is a lot of foot traffic.

Hakim al-Zamili, member of the Iraqi parliaments Security and Defense Committee, said in a statement hours after the bombing, The [series] of bombings that targeted the poor in Sadr City [came as a response] to their legitimate demands for removing the corrupt, the partisan and the incompetent persons in charge of security and [the politicians] clinging to their positions in power.

Zamili hails from Sadr City and his family still lives there; he is one of the strongest supporters of the ongoing demonstrations against the government, which explains his angry statement against the government and security leaders.

In fact, the majority of the protesters in Baghdad  particularly those who stormed the Green Zone April 30  are from Sadr City,which suffers from overpopulation, poverty and unemployment. Sadr City, which is the largest neighborhood in Baghdad, is also the area where Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has the most influence.

The anger toward the government and security leaders escalated in Sadr City following the attacks, with a demonstration held in the neighborhood only hours after the bombing. The protesters condemned the government, and some even blamed the Iraqi officials for the attacks.

Writer and journalist Zaher Moussa, who hails from Sadr City, pointed to two options explaining how the car carrying the bomb could have entered the neighborhood.

Moussa told Al-Monitor, First, the road leading to the market in Sadr City is easy to navigate. However, the terrorist driving the car with the bomb would have had to go through the main security checkpoints in every corner of Sadr City.

He said, It is not hard for terrorists to cross a security checkpoint in Iraq.

He then said that the car could have been also rigged inside Sadr City. It is very possible that the bomb was placed in the car from the inside, as this has happened before. However, the assembly process [of placing a bomb in a car] is slow and is done at different intervals.

Security experts in Baghdad told Al-Monitor that the bombings happened because IS is trying to influence the speed with which the military operations of the security forces and tribes are targeting IS in areas under its control, and because the political disputes have negatively affected the security situation.

In this context, Imad Alou, an expert on security affairs, told Al-Monitor, Whenever a political crisis emerges, the security situation in the country is negatively affected. He added, IS has moved its sleeper cells as it has been facing major pressure on the battle fronts. The government ought to activate its intelligence efforts and find out where these sleeper cells are located in the provinces and cities. [The government] should spare no effort to put pressure on these cells and arrest them.

For his part, Hisham al-Hashemi, a visiting professor at Al-Nahrain Center for Strategic Studies, told Al-Monitor, Every time IS finds itself under pressure in cities under its control, it carries out cowardly acts of terrorism in other cities that are unstable on the security level  such as Baghdad.

Hashemi, who published a book titled IS world about the hierarchical organization of IS, stressed the need for the national security services to be in charge of the security dossier instead of Baghdads Operations Command.

Security in the capital is managed by the Operations Command in Baghdad, which follows the orders of the Ministry of Defense that includes the intelligence services. However, many officials in Baghdad consider that the protection of the capital should fall under the Ministry of Interiors responsibility.

Hashemi said the government should also activate local security in the markets and places of worship by resorting to the local police. Local security cannot be established through the militarization of cities and by setting up checkpoints that obstruct roads. Rather it can be achieved by finding digital and technical solutions to the problem of detecting bombs.

Most local or Arab statements condemning the bombings that rocked Baghdad urged Iraqi political parties to overcome their disputes and reach political and national reconciliation for the countrys political and security stability.

Secretary-General of the Arab League Nabil al-Araby stressed in a statement May 11, The Arab League supports the efforts deployed by the Iraqi government to eliminate IS and fight terrorism and extremist groups.

He called on all Iraqi political leaders to unify their voices and end the political divide to prevent radical terrorist organizations and groups from sowing discord, sparking sectarian strife and undermining Iraqs security and stability.

The bombings that struck the Iraqi capital last week may have proven again that terrorism is quickly spreading and carefully timed. On the morning of May 11, Baghdad's Sadr City was attacked, on the eastern side of the Tigris River; at night, the Shiite area of al-Kadhimiya and Sunni area of Hayy al-Jami'a in Karkh, on the western side of the capital, were targeted by bomb attacks.

In light of this situation, the Iraqi political elites should come up with plans to fortify Iraqi cities and protect them from terror attacks. However, this can only be achieved once the internal political disputes are resolved and a solution that ensures political stability, and consequently security and stability, is reached.
May 16, 2016

Among the buildings lining the northernmost stretch of Tehrans legendary Valiasr Avenue stands an imposing glass structure that is home to one of the most crucial centers of power in Iran  the state-run broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). It is often simply referred to as the Glass Building, which is ironic given that its occupant is one of the least transparent organizations in the country. This is a lesson that Mohammad Sarafraz learned the hard way.

Directly appointed in November 2014 by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Sarafraz took the helm promising change and reform. On May 10, however, he became the first IRIB director in recent history to resign, after only 18 months in office. His three predecessors each served two consecutive five-year terms. Sarafraz cited problems with back pain as the reason for his resignation, but few are buying his explanation. Al-Monitor followed up on Sarafraz's resignation, speaking to several sources within IRIB.

With a billion-dollar budget and more than 50,000 employees, IRIB is a behemoth known by friends and foes as spectacularly wasteful. Officials in the Kuala Lumpur headquarters of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), which counts IRIB as a member and whose secretary-general is Iranian, told Al-Monitor that IRIBs lack of transparency is legendary in the community of broadcasting bureaucrats.

They have one of the largest budgets for any broadcasting organization, and yet produce so little that is of quality, a Western source close to the ABU told Al-Monitor by phone from Kuala Lumpur. Sarafraz was supposed to change this, but many of us were skeptical of his chances of success.

Indeed, Sarafrazs 18 rocky months as director provide enough material for a whodunit with multiple subplots. Given his insider status, as previously detailed by Al-Monitor, Sarafraz pulled no punches from the outset of his term. He announced that his mission was to downsize and rationalize the behemoth, and he implemented extensive changes in management.

Prior to being appointed IRIB chief, Sarafraz had headed the broadcasters foreign-language operations for more than two decades. He  didnt know just how much power the [political] establishment wields in the organization, a mid-level IRIB manager told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. He thought he could just walk in and change everything.

In the management shake-up, Sarafraz replaced Ali Darabi, the powerful head of television, with Ali-Asghar Pourmohammadi. In 2012, Darabi had dismissed Pourmohammadi, who at the time served as the well-liked head of the most popular TV channel. Pourmohammadi gave a controversial farewell speech, attacking then-IRIB director Ezatollah Zarghami for appointing security-linked figures who wont pass a test of art nor intellect. Amid these changes, no one felt safe. Sarafraz had eyes everywhere, the IRIB manager told Al-Monitor.

Among Sarafrazs close confidantes was Shahrzad Mirgholikhan, who had gained prominence after spending five years in a US prison on charges of attempting to smuggle night-vision goggles. Upon Mirgholikhan's release in 2012, Sarafraz appointed her director of international relations at IRIBs English-language station, Press TV, which he headed at the time. When Sarafraz moved to the Glass Building, he brought along Mirgholikhan, this time as his special inspector.

According to Iranian sources who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Mirgholikhan poked around everywhere and into everything to stop waste and corruption. It didnt take long for established interests to feel threatened. Soon, Mirgholikhan, once celebrated as a national hero, was suddenly met with allegations of espionage, corruption and engaging in illicit sexual relationships.

Sources within IRIB told Al-Monitor that Mirgholikhan's ex-husband, Mahmoud Seif, who is said to be close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and who allegedly led the attempt to obtain the night-vision goggles, was supposedly behind it all. Late last year, Mirgholikhan abruptly left for Oman, which seems to have played a role in her release in the United States. Iranian media subsequently peddled rumors about her marrying into the Omani royal family and involvement in espionage for Washington via Muscat.

Yet, Sarafraz doggedly continued to defend Mirgholikhan, even as she was being slammed as a spy in media outlets linked to the Intelligence Organization of the IRGC. A manager close to Sarafraz took to the pages of IRIBs newspaper, Jam-e-jam, to claim that Mirgholikhan had been pressured to leave Iran after revealing the waste at the IRIB. In March 2015, a London-based publisher released Mirgholikhans memoir, which was dedicated to Sarafraz and included an image of her without the mandatory hijab on the cover.

In February, Sarafraz called the allegations against Mirgholikhan ridiculous. All the while, two channels on the popular messaging app Telegram  interestingly named Shahrzad Press News and The Glass House  began sharing supposedly incriminating classified documents, leading Sarafraz to demand their closure, which was implemented. Hard-line outlets reported that those behind the accounts had been detained the day after Sarafrazs resignation.

Meanwhile, controversy after controversy dogged the IRIB. Campaigns were organized against a TV series that was deemed insulting to Iranians of Turkic heritage. Another show was found to be offensive to doctors. Then, a Press TV presenter fled Iran after posting a recording of a conversation with her manager in which she demands an end to his alleged sexual harassment.

Few people succeed in taking on the IRGC head on, but Sarafraz might have felt safe in doing so because of his background and the fact that he had an IRGC insider as his chief of staff. This seems, however, to have been a miscalculation. A source at IRIB told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the row over Mirgholikhan was the straw that broke the camels back. Even Mojtaba [the influential son of Ayatollah Khamenei] tried to mediate, the insider said. He [Sarafraz] tried distancing himself ever more from [moderate President Hassan] Rouhani. But everybody knew he had to go.

Abdolali Asgari, who had headed the broadcasters technical department until his dismissal by Sarafraz, was appointed the new IRIB chief May 11. Asgari is known to be close to the IRGC, and with much of the media focused on highlighting his technical background, it is seldom noted that he was the founder of a retail conglomerate known to be funded by outfits affiliated with the security services. Moreover, Asgari has penned the publications End of the American Age, The Death of the West, Smiles and Swords in Iran-US Relations and Cultural Cold War.

Rather than what he is, the most important thing about Asgari may be what he isnt. A bureaucrat not known for being strong-willed or harboring political ambitions, Asgari is the perfect choice for maintaining the status quo at IRIB, with its inflated budgets and few results. Most of all, the Glass House is not about to become more transparent.
May 16, 2016

The collision between Turkey and the European Union (EU) was not unexpected, arriving as it did before mid-May. Now, attention has turned to the next looming crisis, between Ankara and Berlin.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is not only the head of a leading European country who has stood firm against mounting domestic and foreign criticism of the deal she masterminded with Turkey to curb the flow of refugees into the Schengen zone. Merkel is also the de facto leader of the European Union. The deterioration of the relationship between Turkey and Germany will have a very strong imprint on the already troubled relations between Ankara and Brussels.

German weekly Der Spiegel reported May 13, The tone between Ankara and Berlin is likely to worsen even further on June 2, when the German parliament intends to pass a resolution commemorating the 1915 genocide carried out by Turkey on the Armenians. Out of consideration for the sensitive negotiations with the government in Ankara, coalition parliamentarians opted not to pursue such a resolution last year. But now, with Erdogan not showing much interest in de-escalation, Merkel's conservatives along with the SPD [Social Democratic Party of Germany] want to pass the bill in three weeks' time. The draft resolution speaks clearly of 'genocide' and of planned expulsion and destruction.

The Turkish-German relationship had already soured this month when it became clear that visa-free travel for Turkish citizens in the Schengen zone would not be implemented by June as stipulated by the Turkey-EU refugee deal, to which Merkel had seemingly tied her political survival. European Parliament President Martin Schulz outspokenly declared that unless Turkey met the 72 criteria for the fulfillment of visa-free travel, the EU body would not put the matter on its agenda. Turkey has met 65 of the 72 criteria, but the remaining seven are thorny for Ankara, particularly modification of the Anti-Terror Law, which is being abused to stifle any sort of dissent.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, unsurprisingly, has expressed indignation toward the EU. As Der Spiegel reported, while addressing the Europeans from a rostrum in Ankara, Erdogan roared, Since when are you controlling Turkey? Who gave you the order? Accusing Brussels, of trying to divide Turkey, he said, Do you think we do not know that? Some circles are interpreting his remarks as laying the groundwork for a break with Europe.

Unlike Schulz, who belongs to Germanys center-left Social Democratic Party, which is sensitive to violations of human rights and basic freedoms in Turkey, the floor leader of the center-right European Peoples Party, Manfred Weber, is from the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, a partner of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. Adhering to realpolitik would be expected of Weber, yet he threatened to lift Turkeys privileged access to the European market. These things are not automatic, Der Spiegel reported Weber as saying. If President Erdogan continues to threaten us and bombard us with insults, then well find ourselves at a dead-end. Europe is not dependent on Turkey.

Erdogan feels similarly and never misses an opportunity to warn that Turkey can envisage parting ways with the EU. When visa-free travel began to look undoable given the requirement that Turkey change some of its legislation, the president asserted, You go your way, let us go our way! Volkan Bozkir, Turkeys minister in charge of EU affairs and a former ambassador to the EU, parroted his boss Erdogan, reiterating that Turkey would not amend the Anti-Terror Law for the sake of visa-free travel.

Given the balance of power in Turkey, domestic considerations are important to Erdogan now more than ever. He cannot afford to appear weak in the face of anything, including the EU. At this juncture, his counterterrorism policy is more important to sell to the domestic audience than easier travel. Passport holders in Turkey do not exceed 10% of the population. For these reasons, Erdogan is prepared to allow the refugee deal to fail if Brussels remains immovable. His calculations are further aided by his firm conviction that Europe needs Turkey at this point in history more than Turkey needs Europe.

Erdogan's assessment, however, might be misguided. Der Spiegel, referring to the Turkey-EU deal, wrote, After all, no one aside from the German chancellor appears to have much interest in the agreement anymore. Erdogan certainly doesn't: He does not want to make any concessions on his country's expansive anti-terror laws, the reform of which is one of a long list of conditions Turkey must meet before the EU will grant visa freedoms. The Europeans at large, wary of selling out their values to the autocrat in Ankara, are also deeply skeptical.

Among those Europeans are some staunch and good friends of Turkey, such as Erik-Jan Zurcher, the Dutch historian and renowned expert on modern Turkey. This month, Zurcher returned Turkey's highest award, which had been presented to him a decade ago. He explained his rejection of the Medal of High Distinction in a fiercely critical piece for the Dutch media outlet NRC May 10. Accusing Erdogan of dictatorial misrule, he said that Turkey has no place in Europe:

"I have hesitated for a long time, not because I had illusions left about Erdogan and his ilk, but because such a demonstrative act might damage others besides myself, notably the dozens of MA and Ph.D. students that I have supervised over the years, many of whom have returned to Turkey. My signature is on their diplomas. I feel I have no choice, however. I have to do this precisely because, as professor of Turkish studies, I am seen as an authority on Turkey. I have to do it as a sign of protest against the dictatorial misrule of Erdogan in Turkey but also in recognition of the fact that I was wrong twelve years ago: Turkey has not come closer to Europe as it seemed in the now far-off years of 2002-2006, but since 2007 it has moved away. So far away that membership is no longer a realistic option. Our political leaders should say so loud and clear. Enough is enough."

The tension between Turkey and the EU, after a very optimistic period, has proved the predictions made by some pessimists (or, rather, realists) on the visa issue correct, including a former EU ambassador to Turkey, Marc Pierini. In April in The Looming EU-Turkey Visa Drama, he wrote the following lines: On March 18, Brussels and Ankara agreed to a deal that aims to stem the flow of migrants from Turkey to the EU and promises among other things to lift the visa requirements for Turkish citizens entering the EU, provided Ankara meets the 72 standard technical conditions. With this agreement, EU leaders imprudently launched themselves into bazaar diplomacy and, worse, omitted to factor in the transparent and predictable workings of Turkeys domestic politics.

That is exactly what has happened, and now there is more drama ahead, bearing important strategic and geopolitical implications for Turkey and its future.
A gay pastor from Texas who sued Whole Foods for allegedly writing "Love Wins F*g" on a cake has withdrawn his lawsuit and apologized to the retailer.

(Photo by KVUE-TV, Austin)

Texas resident Jordan Brown said Whole Foods "did nothing wrong" and he is sorry "for diverting attention from real issues" facing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

"I was wrong to pursue this matter and use the media to perpetuate this story," he said on The New York Times website.

Whole Foods staunchly denied any wrongdoing in April and said it planned to countersue Brown and his attorney for fraudulent accusations.

In a statement Monday, the Austin-based grocer said it is pleased "the truth has come to light."

"Given Mr. Brown's apology and public admission that his story was a complete fabrication, we see no reason to move forward with our counter suit to defend the integrity of our brand and team members," Whole Foods said.

Whole Foods said it has a strict policy prohibiting employees from accepting or designing bakery orders with offensive language or images.

The company stood by its bakery employee, also a member of the LBGT community, who wrote "Love Wins" on the cake.

"We appreciate the team members and shoppers who recognize that this claim is completely false and directly contradicts Whole Foods Market's inclusive culture, which celebrates diversity," Whole Foods said in April.
Last week,we asked AL.com readers where we could find the best pulled pork sandwich in the state. (Read more here.) And in two days, y'all gave us thousands of recommendations suggesting hundreds of places across the state. Yep, Alabama's got a lot of delicious 'cue.

But wait -- your job isn't done yet. We compiled a list of some of the top places you mentioned, and now we need you to vote for your favorite in each region.

This time, vote for the top 'cue spot in the Montgomery/Black Belt area, up to U.S. 280. You can vote once a day through Friday, May 20 for your favorite. The poll will close at 4 p.m.

After all the votes are tallied, a group of AL.com judges will travel the state to find the best barbecue sandwich in Bama. (Yes, everyone in the office has already volunteered for the job.) When we're finished, we'll officially name Alabama's Best BBQ Sandwich.

And remember: This is all about pulled pork. Not brisket. Not ribs. Not smoked chicken. Pulled pork all the way.

Now, get to voting!

BBQ 65,

Big D'S Butts 'N Stuff,

Brenda's Bar-B-Que Pit,

Cotton's Alabama Barbecue,

Country's Barbecue,

Fat Boys Bar B Que Ranch,

Hancock's Country BBQ,

Jim's Highway 82 Barbecue,

K & J Rib Shack,

Kendall's BBQ,

Lannie's Bar-B-Q Spot,

Rock's Famous Bar B Que,

SweetCreek Farm Market,

Wrights BBQ inside Kravings Cafe,

Voting has closed. Check back Monday for results!
The U.S. Supreme Court today unanimously decided to send back to the lower courts the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of nuns who care for the elderly poor.

The Supreme Court threw out rulings in seven different cases that had endorsed the contraception mandate. The decision sends the issue back to the lower courts to reconsider the dispute.

The decision provides relief from serious fines on religious non-profits that objected to providing contraceptive coverage in their health care plans under the Affordable Care Act.

In its decision, the Supreme Court held that the lower courts should again review the cases.

"We are very encouraged by the Court's decision, which is an important win for the Little Sisters," said Mark Rienzi, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead Becket attorney for the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Becket also represents EWTN Global Catholic Network based in Alabama.

"The Court has recognized that the government changed its position," Rienzi said. "It is crucial that the Justices unanimously ordered the government not to impose these fines and indicated that the government doesn't need any notice to figure out what should now be obvious--the Little Sisters respectfully object. There is still work to be done, but today's decision indicates that we will ultimately prevail in court."

Gretchen Borchelt, vice president for Reproductive Rights and Health at the National Women's Law Center, called it a setback but expressed hope that the contraception mandate will be be upheld.

"We are disappointed that the Court did not resolve once and for all whether the religious beliefs of religiously-affiliated non-profit employers can block women's seamless access to birth control," Borchelt said. "Eight of nine Circuit Courts of Appeals have already upheld women's access to birth control no matter where they work. We are confident that the government's birth control accommodation once again will prevail."

EWTN CEO Michael Warsaw called today's ruling a clear victory.

"Today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling reversing the decisions of four federal appellate courts on the HHS Mandate is a clear victory for EWTN and all of the plaintiffs who have spent the last several years fighting against the government's attempt to hijack our employer-sponsored health care plans in order to force us to provide contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization procedures," Warsaw said. "The Supreme Court has now said what we have been saying throughout our challenge of the mandate, that the government does indeed have less restrictive means to accomplish its goals without forcing religious organizations like EWTN and the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate our strongly held moral beliefs or face crushing fines. The government itself was forced to admit this as part of its case before the Supreme Court. With regard to EWTN's own case, today's ruling by the Supreme Court strikes down several of the key decisions upon which the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based its previous ruling against EWTN. While we await further action by the 11th Circuit in the EWTN case, we are even more confident that we will prevail."

EWTN had filed a petition on May 4 asking the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to rehear its case challenging the HHS contraception mandate.

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange filed an amicus brief today to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which was joined by the Attorneys General of Florida and Georgia, in support of EWTN.

"I will continue standing with EWTN against Obamacare's outrageous mandate that infringes upon fundamental religious beliefs and liberties," Strange said. "Today's U.S. Supreme Court decision to send a similar case back for a possible compromise underscores the flawed 11th Circuit decision against EWTN. The government may not force citizens to violate their deeply-held religious values, and I will not relent in fighting for the religious freedom that is enshrined in our Constitution as our 'first' right."

EWTN said in a statement that the federal government now admits it never had a viable opt-out plan for religious organizations burdened by the requirements. It accused the federal government of wanting to "hijack our health plan."
A cute cottage with an original grain silo, a stylish lakeview home and a custom-built farmhouse on more than 10 acres, each offered for around the same price.

Here's a look at what you get for between $359,000 and $389,900 in Foley, Pike Road and Florence.

FOLEY

What: A three-bedroom, two-bath cottage built in 1949 and completely renovated in 2015

Price: $359,000

Size: 1,567 square feet

Price per square foot: $229

Setting: Listed on a local historic register, this home sits on a picket-fenced corner lot and is surrounded by mature live oaks. Known as "the Silo house," the property includes a vintage silo with a new roof.

Inside: Renovations include an all-new kitchen with high-end stainless steel appliances, Alabama marble countertops and a farm sink; new wiring, 3.5-ton heat pump and tankless hot water heater; oak flooring throughout; and a large screened porch.

Outside: The home is located two blocks from the Governor's Club in quaint Magnolia Springs and a public area fronting Bemis Bay, the widest section of Magnolia River, with adjacent lots available for purchase. It also has a one-car garage with storage.

Contact: Bob Allsman, RE/MAX By the Bay - Fairhope, (251) 928-7474 or (251) 751-0606.

PIKE ROAD

What: A two-story home with an open floor plan, four bedrooms and three baths

Price: $369,900

Size: 2,416 square feet

Price per square foot: $153

Setting: Located in The Waters, a neighborhood in the town of Pike Road, in Montgomery County, this new home built in 2015 offers beautiful views of Lake Cameron.

Inside: The open floor plan includes a kitchen with a large custom island, granite countertops, a farm sink and stainless appliances; a master bedroom that opens onto the covered second-story porch with great views of the lake; a roomy master bathroom with frameless glass and a large soaking tub; and a guest suite downstairs.

Outside: A covered downstairs porch is steps away from the lake, and the landscaped yard is fenced.

Contact: Justin Moody, Partners Realty, (334) 277-1077

FLORENCE

What: A custom-built, five-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath farmhouse on 10.97 acres in the Central community

Price: $389,900

Size: 3,947 square feet

Price per square foot: $99

Setting: Wide-open, bucolic views surround this home, which has road frontage on Janice Lane in Farmington Estates.

Inside: Built in 2014, this house has an open floor plan that makes it perfect for entertaining. The living room has a gas log fireplace surrounded by natural stones. The kitchen includes a large island and an eating area. Other amenities include a large bonus room, mudroom and laundry room.

Outside: A wraparound porch maximizes views of the wooded property surrounding this thoughtfully designed home. A flat concrete driveway leads to the double garage.

Contact: Kanda Calvert of Realtysouth Shoals, (256) 710-8879 or (256) 718-2020
A Cherokee County man has been charged with first degree arson and attempted murder following an incident this weekend.

Josh Summerford of the Cherokee County Major Crimes Unit said Aaron Lee Rochester, 50, was arrested Sunday. He is being held in the Cherokee County Jail on $750,000 bond.

Rochester was arrested following a fire at a residence on County Road 131 in Cedar Bluff at 8:30 p.m. Friday. First responders found a woman in the front yard with serious burns.

She was airlifted to Grady Hospital in Atlanta where she is in critical condition, Summerford said. Her name has not been released.

Firefighters from Centre, Gaylesville and Cedar Bluff responded to the fire.

Rochester had already fled the house by the time authorities arrived. He was believed to be living at the residence with the woman and got into an argument with her before the fire, Summerford said.

The fire, which did extensive damage to the home, is under investigation by Cedar Bluff police, the Major Crimes Unit and the State Fire Marshal's Office.
A Tacoma, Wash. man has been arrested on drug charges in Gadsden after law enforcement agents say they intercepted a package of more than eight pounds of marijuana.

Etowah County Drug Enforcement Unit Commander Randall Johnson said Dejarik Macon, 33, has been charged with marijuana trafficking.

Johnson said agents took control of a package in the mail going to a Maple Street home in Gadsden. Agents believed the package contained "a large amount of narcotics."

After it was delivered, a search warrant of the residence revealed 8.5 pounds of high grade marijuana with a street value of $24,000. Johnson said Macon received the package when it was delivered.

Macon was arrested and released from the Etowah County Detention Center on $40,000 bond.

Agents with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Postal Service and the FBI North Alabama Safe Streets Task Force participated in the case.
heflin pot 2.jpg

Heflin police said two bags were found during a traffic stop containing about 43 pounds of marijuana.

(Heflin police)

Heflin Police Chief A.J. Benefield today said police making a traffic stop found a sizeable quantity of marijuana.

Benefield said the department's K-9 Officer stopped a vehicle for moving and equipment violations today.

"During the stop, the passenger in the vehicle was extremely nervous and gave officers a false name," he said.

Police found a pistol reportedly stolen from Birmingham in the waistband of the passenger, who is a convicted felon, Benefield said. The driver consented to a vehicle search, and marijuana residue was found in the front seat.

Elsewhere in the vehicle, police found two bags containing about 43 pounds of marijuana.

The two men, whose names have not been released yet, were arrested for marijuana trafficking, receiving stolen property, a felon in possession of a firearm and obstruction of justice. The two are being held in the Cleburne County Jail on $1,045,000 bond, Benefield said.
New Delhi, India  Each morning, before he opens his grocery store, 46-year-old Rajesh Kumar Sharma heads to a metro bridge in the east of Indias capital, New Delhi.

It isnt the bridge that interests him, but what goes on beneath it.

For this is where he founded what he affectionately calls the free school under the bridge.

With no walls, the pillars of the bridge serve as a boundary. But for the roughly 300 pupils  mostly children of impoverished migrant labourers, daily wage workers and seasonal farmers  it offers the chance of an education.

I started this school in 2006 and this year we are celebrating 10 years of the school, Rajesh explains.

I didnt want this generation to lose out just because they are poor.

It is a deeply personal issue for the shopkeeper.

I could not become an engineer because of financial constraints. I had to drop out of college. Through these children I get to live my dream, he says.

The school runs two sessions a day  two hours for boys in the morning and two hours for the 120 girls who attend in the afternoon.

READ MORE: Nepal: Football training helps girls stay in school

Most of the pupils are enrolled in nearby government-run schools, but the free school under the bridge offers them the additional tuition in mathematics, English, Hindi, science, history and geography they need to get by.

We encourage students to join the government school because they get many benefits from it, such as free meals, Rajesh explains.

This school gives them additional help to understand the syllabus. In government schools, boys have to attend the afternoon batch, so they attend our free school in the morning and after that go to their government schools while girls attend government schools in the morning and they come to our school in the afternoon.

The students have left their mark on their school  painting brightly-coloured murals on the platforms of the bridge.

They sit on donated mats, while the teachers use donated plastic chairs. Two steel trunks store the attendance registers and other paperwork.

Every morning, before class begins, the students sweep the floors.

Laxmi Chandra teaches mathematics and science at the school.

The son of a daily wage labourer from the Indian state of Bihar, he believes poverty can drive children to crime.

I have been teaching here since 2011 and back home I have seen how, due to poverty, children got into all sorts of wrong things, he says.

They need guidance and thats what we try to give them here through education, so that they can have a bright future.

READ MORE: Kashmirs orphan girls
Palestinians throughout the besieged Gaza Strip marked Nakba Day on Sunday, with hundreds attending a commemorative ceremony and photographic exhibition highlighting the hardships faced by Palestinian refugees. Artists sang and performed the dabka, a traditional Palestinian dance.

Israel has expelled me and my family from my village, al-Brare, and now I am in Gaza as a refugee  All Palestinians have the right to return their lands, from which they were expelled by Israeli Zionist groups, Abd Alftah Abudaim, 90, told Al Jazeera.

Six-year-old Tala Abusharikh expressed similar sentiments: My grandmother always tells me about stories of life that occurred in her village that is now occupied by Israel. She made me enthusiastic to come back to our occupied village, confirming that all Palestinians will return to their stolen lands.

READ MORE: Nakba Day  a clear challenge to Israeli establishment
The Julian Lage TrioSignal KitchenBurlington, VermontMay 9, 2016Burlington Vermont's Signal Kitchen offered the Julian Lage trio a more confined, but ostensibly more hip atmosphere than the venue of the guitarist's last visit to Vermont when he played the assembly hall of a church outside the Queen City. But the meeting of minds between a knowledgeable audience and an intelligent band was the same, the end result an exquisite concert experience, albeit one somewhat truncated in length at seventy minutes plus (not including meet & greet afterwards.When Julian Lage plays, he selects, with surgical precision, the currents of melody and rhythm he wants to utilize and this mid-spring evening, he did so while simultaneously maintaining veritable telepathic empathy between himself and his co-musicians. On this tour, the guitarist again has the venerableon drums with bass mastering supplied by Jorge Roeder and the trio romped and tantalized their way through their set with a playful, but nonetheless authoritative approach to a range of material echoing that captured on Lage's most recent studio recording Arclight (Mack Avenue, 2016).In fact, the threesome gained their collective footing Monday night with a small handful of selections from the album, including "Nocturne" and WC Handy's "Harlem Blues," the momentum they generated leading, with some discernible logic, to the more up-tempo likes of "Presley" and "'Prospero." Lage really began to shine at this point, his lightning fast switches from deft soloing to chordal flourishes wholly precluding any sense of playing too correctly. With its an exotic intro and outro sandwiching a heavy shuffle,'s "Island Blues" was thus perfectly placed in the set,Such an earthy progression ended up the precursor to the atonal likes of "Activate" and "Stop Go Start," where the Lage trio enacted a study in contrasts, tossing shards of noise around with their respective instruments, the cacophonous atmosphere they conjured up set in motion with a subdued but ingenious percussion segment from Wollesen: Lage and Roeder savored watching and listening to this interval as much as the drummer was seemingly enraptured by the galloping double bass solo moments before.The Julian Lage Trio seemingly enjoyed their return to Vermont venue as much as the attendees, so when the leader offered his debt of gratitude for the turnout, it hardly sounded pro forma, but rather heartfelt (and his solicitation of CD sales almost apologetic). But the fact is that, while the show wasn't presented as a mere replication of the Arclight tracks, closing the set proper with the number that concludes the record, "Ryland," imbued the air inside and out of the downtown Burlington location with a fitting finality.
           2005     ..        










English News Civil society experts set expectations on first day of UN climate negotiations in Bonn

- 16 Mai 2016





May 16, Bonn, Germany - This UN climate negotiations, kicking off today in Bonn, represent the first time governments have formally met since the Paris Agreement was agreed last December, and with over 170 countries meeting in New York in April to sign the agreement political momentum on climate change continues on a high. Today countries are giving their opening statements in a plenary session as negotiators set out their stalls ahead of two weeks of negotiations, focused on rule-making for the new global climate regime and efforts to ramp up short-term ambition to tackle climate change. There is no time to lose.



It was announced today that last month was the hottest April ever, which means we have now experienced seven months in a row of months breaking temperature records, says Teresa Anderson from ActionAid. As the hottest El Nino ever bites across the world, 60 million people are expected to face its impacts this year in the form of heatwaves, droughts and famine. In Paris, governments agreed to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. This number may prove to be the planet's lifeline, but only if we choose to pick up that lifeline, grab it with both hands, and follow it to its necessary conclusion. We need much greater ambition to radically and fairly cut emissions, delivered much faster than the national pledges currently on the table.



We are seeing some positive signs, says Alden Meyer from the Union of Concerned Scientists. 177 parties have signed the Paris Agreement and 16 have already deposited instruments of ratification. Outside the UN process the renewable energy revolution is unfolding, and financial flows are shifting towards low carbon development - but the question is whether this is happening fast enough to keep pace with changes in the physical environment. Negotiators have an opportunity in Bonn to speed things up by developing the rulebook for the Paris Agreement, working to build capacity for a major increase in both pre- and post-2020 ambition, and putting the spotlight on efforts to ramp up support for adaptation and loss and damage ahead of the COP in Marrakesh.



Today the new Moroccan Presidency labelled COP 22 in Marrakesh the COP for action which is good a start, says Anoop Poonia from Climate Action Network South Asia. This year we need action to develop a roadmap that delivers the long-promised $100 billion in climate finance. In the process negotiators must ensure this finance supports both adaptation and mitigation in order to boost the resilience of the most vulnerable countries already experiencing climate impacts. Right now less than $6 billion per year is available for adaptation - this is not enough. Another important task for governments here in Bonn is to get working on the rules for accounting and transparency so that we develop more accurate ways to measure the cost of complex climate impacts and exactly what support falls under the banner of climate finance as we move f orwards.



Dans la meme rubrique : < > CIIE makes huge Chinese market a big opportunity for world Chinese, Mexican cultures to take nourishment through exchanges, mutual learning: Mexican archeologist China will not change its resolve to open wider at high standard Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)
(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Easy Solutions, the Total Fraud Protection company, today announced that it has signed a reseller agreement with Qatar Datamation Services to provide Easy Solutions' full range of Total Fraud Protection solutions to the Qatari market. As part of the agreement, Qatar Datamation will be authorized to offer the entire Easy Solutions anti-fraud solution product line, including Detect Monitoring Services, DetectTA, Detect Safe Browsing and DetectID, which includes new biometric features. ...



Source : http://me-newswire.net//news/17884/en...
The Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, will restate the UKs continued support to Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram. On Saturday 14 May the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, will attend the second Regional Security Summit in Abuja, Nigeria. The Summit will bring together leaders from across the world to address the international communitys intent to []http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric...










English News Poor countries to bear brunt of climate change despite emitting least CO2

- 16 Mai 2016





Many of the worlds poorest countries are expected to experience daily heat extremes due to climate change sooner than wealthier nations  according to research from an international team including the University of East Anglia.



New findings published today in Environmental Research Letters show that the poorest fifth of the global population will be the first to experience more frequent heat extremes  despite cumulatively emitting the least amounts of CO2.



Countries including those in the Horn of Africa and West Africa are likely to be worst affected.



The study is the first to examine the link between cumulative CO2 emissions and more frequent hot days.



Dr Manoj Joshi from UEAs School of Environmental Sciences said: Many of the poorest people in the world live in tropical latitudes, while many of the world's wealthiest people live in mid-latitude climates.



We know that low latitude regions have much less variability in day-to-day temperatures when compared with the mid-latitudes, which means the 'signal' of climate change emerges quite quickly, and because of this, the frequency of extreme hot days increases rapidly too.



Lead author Luke Harrington, a PhD student at the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute (NZCCRI), said: Previous studies have shown a link between rising global temperatures and increases in the frequency of local heat extremes, while others have shown a clear relationship between the total amount of CO2 emitted to the atmosphere and rising temperatures.



This study is the first to use climate models to simulate the end-to-end link between cumulative CO2 emissions and people experiencing more frequent hot days.



The team used state-of-the-art climate models to estimate cumulative CO2 emissions and subsequent changes to extreme local daily temperatures over the 20th and 21st century.



An extreme hot day was defined as occurring 0.1 per cent of the time in model simulations of the pre-industrial climate.



Dr Chris Jones from the Met Office Hadley Centre said: Our results show much fewer cumulative emissions are required for the poorest fifth of the global population to experience a robust increase in the number of extreme hot days, when compared with the wealthiest population quintile.



These results help to clarify how the wealthiest and poorest fractions of the global population will experience different emergent increases in extreme heat with continued climate change.



We also know the wealthiest countries will be able to cope with the impacts more easily than poorer nations, said Dr Erich Fischer of ETH Zurich.



What our research shows is that heat extremes do not increase evenly everywhere, but are becoming much more frequent more quickly for countries nearer the equator  these happen to be disproportionately poorer nations, including those in the Horn of Africa and West Africa.



In fact, this pattern was robust even when we considered future projections of population and income.



Dr Ed Hawkins from the University of Reading said: Most importantly, this disparity in exposure to more frequent temperature extremes between the global rich and poor only becomes more pronounced as cumulative CO2 emissions continues to rise. This result is yet another piece of evidence demonstrating that limiting cumulative CO2 emissions over the 21st century will help avoid these impacts.



Poorest countries experience earlier anthropogenic emergence of daily temperature extremes is published in Environmental Research Letters on May 17.



Dans la meme rubrique : < > CIIE makes huge Chinese market a big opportunity for world Chinese, Mexican cultures to take nourishment through exchanges, mutual learning: Mexican archeologist China will not change its resolve to open wider at high standard Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)
I am very pleased to be back in Kinshasa, and have had some very constructive and useful discussions over the last two days. As I said during my visit to the DRC in November last year, the relationship between the UK and the Democratic Republic of Congo matters greatly to us. I reiterate that now. []

I am...



Source : http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric...




AR's Editor Joe Shea Talks About Elections On Iranian TV Bear Stearns Saved By Fed As Lehman Bros. Falters; Major Bank

Failure Looms Over Wall Street, Sends Markets Into 200-Pt. Dive Lie Upon Lie Five Years Into the Iraq War

The Administration Still Churns Out Lies by Randolph Holhut A Small Tragedy Even at 90, As Friends Turn Cool

She Knows the Show Must Go On by Joyce Marcel I'll Take Me Imagine John Wayne or Arnold

In Heels, Silk and a Girdle by Elizabeth Andrews Sen. Nelson Calls For New Fla. Primary; Gov Crist Backs 'Do-Over' Who'll Win? Ask Spock Spock.com Engine Predicts Winners

By Site Searches; It Can be Wrong by Jay Bhatti Chatting Up The Cat God Gave Me Dominion Over Him

But I Think He's a Non-Believer by Constance Daley Death of a Thug The Life and Horrors of Suharto by Andreas Harsono ___________________________ This Just In Sierra Club: McCain Ducked All 15 Key Votes On Green Laws (AR) A Work By AR's T.S. Kerrigan Is Chosen As 'Best Poem' By Wordpress Site Murder At Mile 63

The Deadly Assault and

Bush Administration Cover-Up

by S. Eben Kirkesby

and Andreas Harsono 5427 14th St. West, Bradenton, FL 34207 $6.99 Fish Fridays! Manatee Co.'s Only 24-Hr.

FREE Wi-Fi Paid Advertisement On Native Ground

AFTER 5 YEARS, WE'RE STILL LIED TO ABOUT IRAQ by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Next week is the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And it is likely that sometime in the next couple of weeks, the 4,000th American soldier will die in Iraq. [MORE] Momentum

OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - It's 1931, and a 14-year-old girl is standing alone on a stage. She's small and lively with dark curly hair, widespread hazel eyes, slender wrists and an open, eager face filled with the wonder of performing. Her name is Rose, and one day she will be my mother. But now she is performing an Eugene O'Neill monologue called "Before Breakfast" for a ladies' club in a wealthy suburb of Long Island. [MORE] One Woman's World

COMFORTABLE WITH MYSELF by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- I'm not sure but I think I may be socially incorrect. [MORE] On Native Ground

ENOUGH FOR A WAR, NOT FOR A PEOPLE by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Last week, the National Governors Assn. met in Washington, D.C. One of the tasks the NGA had on its agenda was to ask President Bush to increase federal spending on roads, bridges and other public works projects as a way to stimulate the economy. He rejected their pleas out of hand, claiming that infrastructure projects wouldn't offer any short-term economic boost. [MORE] Brasch Words

BEWARE THE SELF-REVERENTIAL PRESS by Walter Brasch BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- Shortly before the primary votes this past week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter called Sen. Barack Obama's surge to the Democratic nomination "inevitable." It also called for Hillary Clinton to "start her campaign for Senate majority leader." [MORE] Constance

A CONVERSATION WITH MY CAT Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- Normally, when the cat starts his evening rant of meowing continuously until he makes his point, I just take it as long as I can, pick him up, and put him in the garage for the night. He doesn't want to go, but the meowing stops and I don't care if he likes it or not. [MORE] Momentum

OUT OF STRUGGLE, ART by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Here we are again at the crossroads of art and social change, having the opportunity to watch good and great films about the lives of women in support of the Women's Crisis Center. [MORE] Campaign 2008

HOW TO PREDICT SUPER TUESDAY II WINNERS? ONLINE SEARCH by Jay Bhatti NEW YORK, March 4, 2008, 7:00PM ET -- With the outcomes of the Texas, Vermont, Ohio and Rhode Island primaries to be decided tonight, how possible is it that online searching can predict who will win tonight's primaries? [MORE] One Woman's World

DON'T VOTE; IT ENCOURAGES THEM by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- Call me angry and disgusted but don't call me un-American because I won't be voting come November. [MORE] On Native Ground

BUSH AND THE KEYBOARD COMMANDOS by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- As the days tick down toward the eventual departure of President George W. Bush from the White House, it's a hopeful sign that most Americans are no longer moved by his Administration's constant exploitation of terrorism for political gain. [MORE] Momentum

WHICH AMERICA DO YOU LIVE IN? by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- It's a little confusing. [MORE] Make My Dat

THE LAWYER THAT ATE NEW YORK by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- I used to know a guy who, quite literally, didn't get hyperbole. He didn't understand exaggeration. As a result, he missed most jokes that came his way. [MORE] On Native Ground

FIDEL RETIRES: NOW THE COLD WAR IS REALLY OVER by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Maybe now, we can finally say the Cold War is over. [MORE] Make My Dat

THE LAWYER THAT ATE NEW YORK by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- I used to know a guy who, quite literally, didn't get hyperbole. He didn't understand exaggeration. As a result, he missed most jokes that came his way. [MORE] One Woman's World

POLITICS IS NO PARTY by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- Are you having a hard time focusing your eyes? Do you have faint red spots all over your body? Is there a ringing in your ears and do you see wavy lines when you look at your television set? Do your hands shake when you try to hold a cup of coffee? And have you recently been forgetting what day of the week it is - or what year? [MORE] Make My Day

FOR BETTER OR WORSE ... A LOT WORSE by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- "Marriage: It's Only Going to Get Worse." [MORE] Constance

YOU CALL THESE RIGHTS? by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- When you express an opinion you hope to persuade others to your point of view. It doesn't always happen but still, opinion writers try. [MORE] Momentum

THE BRIDGE WOMAN by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - Out there in America - yes, still - is a generation of women who were born in the 1940s, raised in the 1950s, and who came to radical consciousness in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I am one of them. Hillary Clinton is one of them. [MORE] On Native Ground

OBAMA AND MY GENERATION by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- I originally planned on voting for Dennis Kucinich in the Vermont Primary on March 4. [MORE] The Willies:

WARNING: THIS MEDICATION MAY MURDER YOUR FRIENDS by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla. -- You've heard the warnings, haven't you? Stop Prozac and you may take a shotgun, an Uzi or an AK-47 and mow down your family and friends, or even a whole classroom full of your fellow students. You didn't? Well, that warning is not on the bottle, but like countless mass-murder incidents before it, Friday's shootings at Northern Illinois University, as well as the Virginia Tech shootings that killed 32 last year, was probably precipitated by the effect of stopping medications that suppress anger and other powerful emotions but do not relieve the underlying cause. Isn't it time we started warning people - or stopped prescribing these medicines? [MORE] One Woman's World

DON'T KNOCK ON MY DOOR by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- I wish I could feel delight in my poet's mansion being like Grand Central Station all the time, but I can't. And I wish my place was such a place that someone would one day write: "Her door was always open and she always made you feel all fuzzy and warm in her presence. She could make a cup of coffee seem like a banquet." [MORE] Reporting: Panama

PANAMA'S VIOLENT LABOR UNREST INTENSIFIES Mark Scheinbaum PANAMA CITY, Panama, Feb, 15, 2008 -- After just one day of relative calm, wildcat construction strikes by some members of Panama's largest union flared up again Friday morning, four days after a police sniper shot one worker. More than 140 demonstrators have been injured and at least 500 arrested, authorities say. [MORE] Brasch Words

TO STIMULATE ECONOMY, BUY A CHINESE-MADE U.S. FLAG by Walter Brasch BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- Walking down Main Street, pushing a grocery cart loaded with clothes, toys, and appliances was Marshbaum. Fastened to the right front corner of the cart was an American flag tied onto a three-foot ruler. [MORE] Make My Day

THE TOOTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- To commemorate the death of noted shark exploder Roy Scheider, and the "Jaws" movies that resulted in Erik never setting foot in the ocean again, we are reprinting this column from 2003. Shark Experts 0, Sharks 1 [MORE] Momentum

THE WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - As I write this, it's raining ice. Maybe a half a foot of snow and ice has already landed up here in the woods of Dummerston. Our cars are encased in it, and the door to the house is blocked. The satellite dish that brings in our Internet service quit about 20 minutes ago - frozen solid. [MORE] The Willies

AMERICA TO HILLARY: GET OUT! by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 13, 2008 -- Sen. Hillary Clinton has adopted the Rudy Giuliani strategy, and it's working - for Sen. Barack Obama. It turns out to be the strategy all Democrats are seeking - an exit strategy. But it's not for Iraq. It's for her exit from the race for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. [MORE] Constance

CONFESSIONS OF A DISAPPOINTED VOTER by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- A week ago at just about this time, I completed an article and was about to submit it as scheduled to The American Reporter. I was feeling rather elated, ready to show up on Super Tuesday morning, firmly touch the X next to Rudy Giuliani's name and get on with my day. He was my choice; he would get my vote. [MORE] Reporting: Florida

SIERRA CLUB SET TO SUSPEND FLA. CHAPTER by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 10, 2008 -- The national Sierra Club is set to suspend its Florida chapter after years of divisive infighting, the president of the national club told Florida members in a letter delivered to some this weekend. It is the first time in its 116-year history that such a step has been considered by the club, according to news reports. [MORE] One Woman's World

PLANT A NEW WORLD THIS SPRING by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- For a little while, the men will just have to toss and turn in their fear-free-women beds. For a small space of time Hillary Clinton will just have to trudge on toward the White House without my faint applause in the background. [MORE] On Native Ground

VERMONT AND THE 5 STAGES OF CONSERVATIVE GRIEF by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- First, Vermont tried to convince the nation to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. [MORE] Make My Day

REBEL WITHOUT A TONGUE by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Kids' brains work in amazing ways. At times, they can grasp complex concepts and make impressive discoveries. Other times, you have to wonder how we ever survived as a species. [MORE] The Willies

FOR DEMOCRATS, NOW IT'S ABOUT RACE, INCOME AND GENDER by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Feb. 6, 2008 -- It's not a good time to be a Democrat. As the Super Tuesday results demonstrated, the presidential race between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has divided the partly along clear racial, income and gender lines - the very distinctions the party has sought to erase in principle but has emphasized in its pursuit of diversity. [MORE] Momentum

SUPER TUESDAY BLUES by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Super Tuesday has come and gone and I still can't get excited about the upcoming presidential elections. [MORE] The Willies

ON THE BRINK OF HISTORY, YOUR PUSH IS NEEDED by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 5. 2008 -- I'm expecting a sea change tonight. I believe that for the first time in this nation's history we will once and forever banish racism as the deciding factor in the destiny of African-Americans, and indeed adopt diversity as our path to the future. [MORE] Campaign 2008

AT 88, EVERY VOTE REALLY COUNTS by Ted Manna DENVER, Feb. 5, 2008 -- Pearl Turner will caucus for Mitt Romney tonight in Denver. [MORE] One Woman's World

STAND BY YOUR WOMAN by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- The black vote. The gay vote. The fundamentalist vote. The Hispanic vote. [MORE] An AR Special

SUSPECTS IN BENAZIR ASSASSINATION HAVE TIES TO MUSHARRAF by Ahmar Mustikhan WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When Gordon Brown this past Monday feted coup-leader-turned-President Pervez Musharraf at 10 Downing Street, Britain's new prime minister probably didn't ask the Pakistani dictator a question that is now on many minds: Did you order the murder of Benazir Bhutto? [MORE] Momentum

TO THE VERMONT DELEGATION: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR US LATELY? by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt.  Back when President George W. Bush and Dick Vice President Dick Cheney were building up to their loathsome war in Iraq, very few people were brave enough to call the bullies' bluff. [MORE] On Native Ground

IF BUSH HAS HIS WAY, WE'LL NEVER LEAVE IRAQ by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. - In his final State of the Union address on Jan. 28, President Bush cautioned against accelerating U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, saying that it would endanger the process that has been made over the past year. [MORE] Campaign 2008

CLASH OF COMMENTS AND PROTESTORS AT CLINTON, OBAMA RALLIES IN DENVER by Ted Manna DENVER, Feb. 1, 2008 -- At least four presidential campaigns of both partiers rolled into in Denver this week ahead of the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries in 22 states, but it was the Democratic presidential contenders who drew the big crowds and duked it out Wednesday. If sheer numbers are any indication, Sen. Barack Obama - preceded by a buoyant and beautiful Caroline Kennedy - won the round handily. He is the overwhelming favorite to win the Colorado primary next Tuesday. [MORE] The Willies

WHY THE FLORIDA PRIMARY STINKS by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Jan. 30, 2008 -- I was with my wife and daughter driving the back way from Miami home to Bradenton when we stopped at a McDonald's in Clewiston, the only big town along the vast shore of Lake Okeechobee, the state's precious freshwater reservoir. The McDonald's had three televisions at a central seating area, each tuned to a different network, and our table was in front of CNN as the very first election results started to pour in around 7:30PM. With them, almost as counterpoint, suddenly came such an overwhelming odor of cow plop that my wife started to throw up as we all ran to the parking lot. [MORE] Passings: Suharto

DEATH OF A KEMUSU THUG by Andreas Harsono JAKARTA - A few minutes after hearing that former president Suharto had died in his hospital bed, Marco, a militia leader in downtown Jakarta, raced to Suhartos house, wearing his jungle camouflage and began guarding the Suhartos residence on Cendana Street. [MORE] Constance

I REMEMBER YOU by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga.. -- It seems to be more often lately that the sentiment is spoken but it's always been out there: "You never get over the death of your child." This is true. But the heartfelt expressions come from some who cannot fathom the notion of losing a child; their own child is who is in their mind, not another mother's child. [MORE]
Sometimes, it is all in the messaging. And when it comes to the topic of the minimum wage, the Democrats are winning the battle. And thats too bad, because if the Republicans could better communicate the real reason the Democrats want the national minimum wage raised (and the flaws with Democratic thinking), the discussion could be very different.

But as currently explained, which side would you rather be on? The Democrats, who embrace giving more money to the hard-working but struggling employees of the land? Or the Republicans, who seem to favor keeping the literally poor guy under the poverty level?

Have you no heart, man? Heck, even I -- the consummate capitalist who ran multinational corporations  have a hard time siding with Republicans given that choice.

Of course, I know the rationale for a lower (or no) minimum wage. As a University of Chicago MBA, I know all about price elasticity and supply & demandand how the data (and common sense) dictate that jobs are lost when wages are increased. In my career, I ran companies with factories in Asia and know that it is logical to manufacture high-volume products in countries where wages & benefits are $3.00 per hour rather than in the US where comparably skilled workers pull in $30+ an hour. Its no secret why jobs have moved overseas in recent decades.

But, explaining the intricacies of economics to most US voters is futile. Consider the facts: 12% of Americans lack a high school diploma. 70% have not completed college. And only 30% of US citizens have passports. The typical group of Americans at a dinner party does not want to hear how an increase in the minimum wage will inevitably create job losses due to global wage economics. Yet this is the ill-conceived Republican approach. A little demand curve debate with your buffalo wings, anyone?

Instead, the Democrats go straight to a simpler, albeit incomplete, argument that the average New Yorker or Chicagoan does understand: a full-time worker earning the USs national minimum wage only earns $15,000 a year. And residents of a big city could not live on that.

And, at that point, the argument is lost. As the media covers protests in the big cities demanding $15 an hour and marches for equality parade down Broadway or Michigan Avenue, the Republicans spout complicated economic responses or seem to be uncaring for the poor. Often both.

But what is also lost at this point is the real reason the Democrats want to raise the national minimum wage: to prevent the loss of jobs in its liberal strongholds to other, generally conservative states.

Forget the gobbledygook put forth by leading Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, who claimed in 2014 that raising the minimum wage by nearly 30% would create 85,000 jobs. Forget the discredited talk of a multiplier whereby higher wages would lead to more jobs. In reality, the Democrats know the economic truth: jobs really do flow to lower cost areas. And they understand that if Democratic strongholds like Seattle and New York continue to raise their local minimum wage rates above the national minimum wage rate, jobs and business activity will flow elsewhere. But, if the national minimum wage were increased, liberal cities and states could raise their wages without the risk that jobs would flow to other states with lower minimum wages.

Given this truth, it is time for new messaging for the Republicansa message people can understand. Republicans should embrace the minimum wage, but embrace it at the local level. Embrace local minimum wages that reflect the realities of each locale. Embrace that each statemaybe even each cityset a wage that reflects its own costs, its own conditions and its own preferences. After all, one-size shoes dont fit all, and neither should a one-size federal minimum wage.

Such an argument not only is a political winner, but it makes sense.

Twelve years ago, I moved from the bustling suburbs of Chicago to a quaint, historical town of 10,000 (Madison, IN) on the banks of the Ohio River. And the experience was telling, especially from a financial perspective. For example, I now live in a gorgeous 5,000 sf home on a bluff overlooking the Ohio River and my house price is half what my similarly-sized home (without the river view) was in the Chicago suburbs. My real estate taxes are a ridiculously low $2,800 per year in Indiana, down more than 70% from Illinois.

And its not just my experiences. Data indicates nearly everything is much more expensive in Chicago than in Madison, IN. The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Chicago is $1,970 versus $675 in my hometown, a remarkable difference of 66%. Gasoline is 24% higher in the big city, electricity is 44% higher and Chicagos sales tax rate is 32% higher. Heckeven movie tickets are 30% cheaper in Madison, IN than in Chicago.

Given such differences in cost, how could it possibly make sense that the minimum wage in Chicago is the same as in Madison, IN? The answer: it doesnt. In Madison, a couple both working full time at the current federal minimum wage could enjoy a reasonable existence. In Chicago at that wage, you might be able to live in a cardboard box in a sketchy neighborhood.

Republicans should point out how minimum wages should match local costs of living. And they should argue that Washington has neither the competence nor intelligence to know what is right for each area of the country. Both are much simpler arguments to make. Both are arguments people will understand.

Of course, the Democrats would hate this idea. Why? Simple. As Democratic strongholds in New York, Illinois and elsewhere pump up wages, the gap between those states and lower cost alternatives increase. And the jobs will flow to the more conservative bastions where minimum wage rates arent set at stratospheric levels. Maybe not immediately, but inevitably.

This isnt just speculation. It isnt a coincidence that Texas has grown from 24 electoral votes in 1960 to 38 today while New York (down from 45 to 29) and Illinois (27 to 20) have plunged.

Accordingly, Republicans running for office in 2016, should repeat after me: We see the value in a minimum wage to protect the working man. And we think all men and women working full time should be able to afford a reasonable living. But having the same minimum wage in high cost areas (like New York) and low cost areas (like small town America) is silly. So we support that each state and city set an appropriate wage for their citizens.

Of course, given that Republicans currently hold the governorships in 31 states, conservative views (and more sound economic thinking) will likely prevail throughout much of the United States. As for the rest? Let the big cities and regions of liberalism raise minimum wages to the high heavens and let the free market determine where jobs flow. Lets support the Democrats right to raise their local minimum wagesno matter how much it kills them.

Until recently leaving the rat race and joining the world of early retirement, John L. Podczerwinski (age 54) served as President of De-Sta-Co Industries, a multi-national corporation with nearly 1,000 employees and manufacturing and assembly facilities located in the United States, Brazil, China, Thailand, India, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Prior to that, he held various executive roles in the automotive and furniture industries. He has earned his MBA from the University of Chicago and his B.S. in accounting from the University of Dayton. His columns have been published in numerous sites including TheFederalist.com
Supporters of Donald Trump are valiantly trying to replace #nevertrump with #getoverit. Many are chanting the mantra that not voting for Trump is a vote for Hillary Clinton. One wonders if the corollary is also true. Since I am not voting for Hillary Clinton, by their logic not voting for Hillary should be a vote for Trump, right?

One wonders if this faulty logic is just an attempt to guilt the never-Trumpers into voting for him, or an attempt to lay the groundwork to blame those who cannot bring themselves to vote for, dare I say it, the mouth that roared, for a loss in November. True, a Clinton win would carry with it disastrous consequences for the nation, from Supreme Court picks to the setting in concrete of ObamaCare. But let us not concede for a minute that we should hold our nose and vote for Donald Trump just because he is allegedly the proverbial lesser of two evils.

Hillary Clinton is certainly the devil we know. The problem is that Donald Trump is the devil dont know, a political chameleon who admittedly gets his information from the Sunday talk shows and writes his policies on an Etch-A-Sketch. As Breitbart reported, Trump told NBCs Chuck Todd:

Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press, when host Chuck Todd questioned Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump on his military positions, Trump said he watches television shows for military advice Todd asked, Who do you talk to for military advice right now? Trump answered, Well, I watch the shows. I mean, I really see a lot of great -- you know, when you watch your show, and all of the other shows, and you have the generals, and you have certain people --

Meet Donald Trump -- Presidential Apprentice, whose stream-of-consciousness foreign policy utterances make little sense such as this gem on what we should do about ISIS:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated the US should let ISIS and Bashar al-Assad fight and take over the remnants and let Russia fight ISIS in Syria in an interview broadcast on Wednesdays Erin Burnett OutFront on CNN.

Russia is not fighting ISIS and any credible candidate seeking access to the nuclear codes would know that. Russia has been bombing the Syrian resistance with one goal in mind -- keeping the murderous Bashar al-Assad in power. At best, this is an isolationist endorsement of President Obamas abandonment of Americas leadership in the world.

Trump would create power vacuums all over place which the bad guys would gladly fill, such as President Obama left in Iraq.

Trump considers Iraq a failure by President George W. Bush, yet it was a great victory. Both Shiites and Sunnis learned to work together under an America that had both their backs and acted as referee in disputes. Women proudly held their purple fingers aloft after voting for the first time in a free Iraq. Yes, we were propping up a Baghdad incapable of defending itself, just as we prop up South Korea and Japan seven decades after World War II. And just as we prop up a NATO incapable of defending itself without our help.

We do it because it is in our national interest to do it. Let France and Germany be free-riders. Let America also be what it used to be -- leader of the Free World. Trumps view that NATO is obsolete and American participation in it questionable is a Putin dream come true, one that would throw away President Ronald Reagans Cold War victory. His statements reveal a glaring naivete about the world:

I think NATO is obsolete. NATO was done at a time you had the Soviet Union, which was obviously larger -- much larger than Russia is today. I'm not saying Russia is not a threat. But we have other threats. We have the threat of terrorism. And NATO doesn't discuss terrorism. NATO's not meant for terrorism. NATO doesn't have the right countries in it for terrorism And if you look at the Ukraine, we're the ones always fighting on the Ukraine. I never hear any other countries even mentioned and we're fighting constantly. We're talking about Ukraine, get out, do this, do that. And I mean Ukraine is very far away from us. How come the countries near the Ukraine, surrounding the Ukraine, how come they're not opening up and they're not at least protesting?

Perhaps they are intimidated by a rapidly rearming Russia and dismayed by an America that let Russia annex the Crimea and let Russia invade Ukraine to pull it back into a reconstituted Soviet-style empire, an empire Ronald Reagan rightly called evil and which Trump seems not to want to do anything about. All were doing about Ukraine is talking. Would Trump push for Ukraines admission into an obsolete NATO? I think not. Terrorism is a threat, but these days it is not the top threat to Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which are also very far away from us. Trump should know we are no longer protected by two oceans and a the 600-ship navy Reagan built. Russian, and Chinese and, soon enough, Iranian and North Korean ICBMs have made the world a very small place.

Trumps view of former KGB chief Putin is naive and dangerous:

After Putin praised Trump on Thursday as "bright and talented" and "the absolute leader of the presidential race," the billionaire trumpeted Putin's praise as a "great honor" and even shrugged off widespread allegations that the Russian president has ordered the killing of journalists and political dissidents.

"He's running his country and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country," Trump said Friday morning on MSNBC. "I think our country does plenty of killing also."

Yes, like other expansionist despots before him, Putin is a leader who runs his country. Im sure the Moscow subway runs on time too. Reagan would have stood up to Putin, just as he stood up to Gorbachev and told him to tear down the Berlin Wall. Somehow I cant imagine Trump doing that. Nor was there any Art of the Deal at Reykjavik in 1986. As Investors Business Daily noted:

When Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, he hoped the U.S. president would be willing to trade his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) away in exchange for arms-control agreements and vague promises of making nice with America. Reagan refused to negotiate the SDI away. He opposed the proposed nuclear freeze and put Pershing missiles in Europe to counter the Soviet SS-20s that were targeted on Western Europe. He put Americas security in the hands of American technology, not the goodwill of its enemies.

Would Trump have countered Soviet expansionism by means of deploying SS-20s, or would he have dealt away the U.S. missile defense in its infancy? Or would he have played Lets Make a Deal with Gorbachev? Trump is a dealmaker unlikely to have a strategy of we win, they lose as Reagan did.

Trump likes to fancy himself as a new Reagan and claims his mantle even as he trashes him, referring to him in his book, Art of the Deal as a conman who couldnt deliver the goods. ThinkProgress noted in 2011, Trumps professed admiration for Reagan was merely a head fake:

 in his bestselling book, Art of the Deal, published at the conclusion of the Reagan presidency, Trump cited Reagan as an example of someone who could con people but couldnt deliver the goods. Trump said Reagan was so smooth that he won over the American people. But at the conclusion of his presidency, people are beginning to question whether there is anything beneath that smile, Trump writes.

I am not #NeverTrump. I am none of the above. Hillary Clinton is dangerous because of what she would do. Donald Trump is dangerous because he doesnt know what he is doing or saying. I will vote with my feet and stay home. If the Almighty really does look after drunks, children, and the United States of America, Ill put my faith and my vote there. But I will not sacrifice my core principles and vote for a dealmaker who doesnt appear to have any.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investors Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.
Democrats continue their 200-year tradition of setting low standards for African Americans.

"Rather I should die a thousand times  than see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." - Robert Byrd, Democrat Senator (1959 through 2010) and founder of the Sophia, West Virginia chapter of the Ku Klux Klan (150 members) I did not lie awake at night worrying about the problems of Negroes.  Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, 1961 These Negroes, theyre getting pretty uppity these days and thats a problem for us since theyve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness - Lyndon B. Johnson (1963) Ill have those n**gers voting Democratic for the next 200 years. - Lyndon B. Johnson confiding in two governors why the passage of his civil rights and welfare legislation was important (1963)

In a recent American Thinker article (The Secret Racist History of the Democratic Party), Kimberly Bloom Jackson made the case that the Democrats were the party of racists. She presents concrete examples from the 19th and early 20th centuries. This is a relatively straightforward case to make and Democrats will usually acknowledge their racist heritage. They insist, however, that the two parties switched places in the 1960s: Democrats are now the champions of African Americans, while Republicans are the racists. This article makes the case that no such switch occurred.

In reality, the underlying racist views of the modern Democratic Party have changed little in the last 200 years, since their founding by Andrew Jackson, celebrated slave owner and Indian fighter. As long as Democrats were able to suppress the black vote, they regarded African Americans as beasts to be suppressed. Once blacks achieved political power in the 1960s (more so through the efforts of Republicans than Democrats), the left decided to treat African Americans with gentleness, sympathy, and understanding -- as pets. In other words, the Democrats simply changed tactics once they recognized that African Americans had achieved political power.

Perhaps there is no clearer indicator that the Democratic Party cannot shake its historic view of African American potential than affirmative action. They refuse to consider replacing race based affirmative action with affirmative action based on socio-economic status. In other words, they insist that colleges lower admission standards for black students from wealthy families as compared to white students from poor families, since the African Americans are (always) disadvantaged.

Further signs that, in reality, Democrats continue to hold African Americans in low regard is their venomous attack on blacks that dont support the liberal cause. Today, Democrat treatment of conservative blacks is reminiscent of their treatment of all blacks before the great party switch of the 1960s.

At the heart of nearly all Democrat charges of Republican racism is the GOPs belief that all people should be judged on individual merit. This is unacceptable to the left, since their obsession with race remains intact. The following examples support the contention that the left has not missed a beat in their 200-year insistence that lower standards must be used to judge blacks. For convenience and specificity, we usually use 1964 (Johnson-Goldwater election) as the point where Democrats claim the two parties switched places.

Blacks and Education

Pre-1964 Democrat: Blacks are violent and exhibit little interest in or aptitude for learning.

Post-1964 Democrat: Correcting peoples bad grammar and punctuation is racist.

Post-1964 Democrat: Standardized tests are inherently flawed and culturally biased. They fail to properly measure student progress or knowledge. The testing is racist.

Post-1964 Democrat: Individual student grades should be banned. A more reasonable approach is for the instructor to evaluate overall class performance when working as a team (2016 White Privilege Conference Talk).

Post-1964 Democrat: Obama Department of Justice mandates school discipline quotas to ensure black students are not punished at rates higher than white students.

Pre-1964 Democrat: Black and white education should be separate and unequal.

Post-1964 Democrat: Black affirmative action college students graduate with degrees in African-American Studies, as taught by African American professors. White students graduate with degrees in business and Asians graduate with degrees in engineering. All have separate but equal student debts of $200,000. All have separate but unequal job prospects.

Blacks and Voting

Pre-1964 Democrat: African Americans are denied the opportunity to run for political office and even denied the right to vote.

Post-1964 Democrat: Blacks were not racist when 95% of them voted for Obama, but whites were racist because 55% of them supported McCain.

Pre-1964 Democrat: Blacks lack the intellect and wherewithal to vote.

Post-1964 Democrat: Blacks lack the intellect and wherewithal to get voter ID

Post-1964 Democrat: The only real blacks are the ones who vote Democrat (i.e. African Americans lack the intellect to understand issues such as school choice and the suppression of wages due to open border policies). The DNC invests heavily to defeat all conservative black politicians (e.g. Allen West and Mia Love) and then blames Republicans for their lack of diversity in Congress.

Blacks and Crime

Pre-1964 Democrat: Blacks are inherently violent and lack impulse control

Post-1964 Democrat: It is racist to blame African Americans for riots, looting, arson, flash mobs, the knock out game, or any other criminal act that Democrats attribute to the historic oppression of blacks.

Pre-1964 Democrat reporters and journalists: Black on white crime, especially rape, is placed on page 1, above the fold.

Post-1964 Democrat reporters and journalists: It is racist to disclose the race of a criminal unless the criminal is white (or a white Hispanic). Cases involving black victims and white criminals warrant extended and prominent coverage

Pre-1964 Democrat: Blacks are denied gun ownership

Post-1964 Democrat: The most restrictive gun ownership laws are in areas with the highest concentration of African Americans

Post-1964 Democrat: Crime is blamed on guns rather than criminal behavior, since blacks dont know right from wrong (The problem is always called gun violence rather than criminal violence).

Blacks and Eugenics

Progressive Democrats in the early 20th Century: Mandatory sterilization of people with low intelligence and low moral character (Three Generations of Imbeciles Are Enough)

Post-1970s Democrat: The highest concentration of Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics (operated and run mostly by Democrats) are located in poor black neighborhoods

Black and White Organizations

Pre-1964 Democrat: The Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow, poll taxes, impediments to black education, and an occasional lynching are appropriate tools to keep blacks in their place.

Post-1964 Democrat: All white advocacy groups are, by definition, white-supremacist groups. Organizations that dont explicitly exclude blacks, but are overwhelmingly white, such as the Boy Scouts of America and the Republican Party, are racist. Whites, in fact, are the only racial group in the western world forbidden to form exclusive groups, even in cases where they are a regional minority. Blacks are encouraged to establish and promote black advocacy organizations and even black pride groups.

The Democratic Party continues to set low standards for all African Americans, but now in exchange for their votes.
The Biblical view of the relationship between man and nature is set out clearly in Genesis 1:28:

God blessed them [mankind] and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

The view of the Sierra Club is well described by this:

Humans have evolved as an interdependent part of nature. Humankind has a powerful place in the environment, which may range from steward to destroyer. We must share the Earth's finite resources with other living things and respect all life-enabling processes. Thus, we must control human population numbers and seek a balance that serves all life forms.

In the Biblical view, mankind rules nature and exploits it. In the Sierra Club view humankind must blend in with all the other animals and not burden the natural order. The Sierra Club view represents a step backward from monotheism to nature worship. They cannot admit that they are practicing a religion, because if they did many of the laws passed in response to lobbying by the Sierra Club and similar organizations would be unconstitutional, according to the first amendment, as a law respecting an establishment of religion

John Muir, the founder and first president of the Sierra Club, made clear the religious nature of the club in his protest against the damming of the Hetch Hetchy valley in Yosemite National Park: "Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the peoples cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.

In the preface to the book Dark Green Religion, the green religion is described as:

Dark green religion -- religion that considers nature to be sacred, imbued with intrinsic value, and worthy of reverent care -- has been spreading rapidly around the world.

The books author considers the green religion to be dark because its religious nature is hidden, disguised as an ecological or conservation movement that follows scientific principles.

The green religion utilizes scientific narratives to promote its ideals and to create emergencies that increase green influence and cause green policies to be implemented. Green religion does not like modern industrial civilization and instead favors an economy that has minimal impact on sacred nature. The global warming emergency is an example of a fake scientific narrative that is being used to promote the green program. Global warmings scientific justification is a house of cards built on selectively cited evidence and computer models that are not worthy of respect. But the advocates of the green religion eagerly embrace global warming because it provides motivation for closing down the fossil fuel industry and thus much of industrial civilization.

Although green religion speaks scientific jargon and pretends to be modern, green religion is actually backward and has more in common with primitive societies that sacrifice virgins than it does with the modern world. The green religionists are mostly against everything that is modern because it represents a departure from the imagined state of nature. For example, green religion opposes genetic engineering, nuclear energy, and insecticides. Genetic engineering has increased agricultural yields -- for example 10 times as much corn per acre. Nuclear energy holds out the promise of electricity that is pollution-free and ironically that does not emit CO2. Insecticides have saved millions of lives from malaria and prevented insect-caused famines.

Organic groceries are embraced by green religionists. They think that organic food is more natural and free of nefarious influences from modern industry and science. But agriculture is only 12,000 years old and involves extensive selective breeding, a type of genetic engineering, to create suitable plants and domestic animals. Even humans changed their genetic nature to become more lactose tolerant as the consumption of milk increased. Organic agriculture mainly amounts to prohibiting agricultural practices developed after about 1930. The green religion has limited historical perspective.

South sea islanders developed cargo cults. People arriving by ships or airplanes bought items from the developed world, for example metal implements, that were greatly desired by the islanders. However, the islanders had no real understanding as to why these cargos arrived. They would, for example, construct runways in the jungle and conduct religious ceremonies to encourage planes to land with cargos. Like believers in cargo cults, understanding of science and economics among green believers is very primitive. Many green religionists believe that if they eat organic food they will be protected from cancer and other ills, a superstitious explanation of the cause of cancer. Green religion is characterized by a rejection of scientific explanations of the relation between cause and effect. Many green religionists drink bottled water because they are convinced that something is wrong with city water even though city water is scientifically tested and controlled. (The Flint, Michigan water scare is greatly exaggerated.)

The widespread consumption of natural medicines that are unproven and unregulated is an example of the green idea that natural substances are better for health than pharmaceutical products subjected to extensive testing and regulation. The Whole Foods grocery chain that promotes organic food, has whole aisles of shelf space devoted to these supplements that supposedly provide a cure for any ailment. The Congress removed natural medicines from regulatory supervision in response to lobbying by green religionists and the natural medicine industry. They were upset because the Food and Drug Administration was banning many such products on the grounds that they didnt work or were harmful.

Organized science is complicit in the promotion of anti-scientific green superstitions. The science establishment has been infiltrated by green ideas and the attraction of the money and fame that can come from promoting green ideas is irresistible to scientists that should know better. Establishment climate science, greatly enriched by global warming theory, has become an intolerant lobby for global warming hysteria. Science that has been corrupted by superstition and self-serving faulty ideas is known as junk science. Junk science is widespread and the more sensational it is, the more publicity it receives. Government agencies are among the biggest promoters of junk science. In order to justify their mission, regulatory bureaucracies need to keep finding dangerous things that need to be regulated. That leads to imaginary dangers, the danger of which is supported by junk science.

The green religion is against a long list of modern things, but the green religion has no coherent program. It is not practical for the current population of the Earth to return to practicing substance agriculture and sharing their living rooms with cows and pigs. That seems to be the logical endpoint of the green religion theology. Neither is the green religion logically consistent. For example green religionists advocate consuming food growing locally, but also advocate consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.

If people want to worship nature, that is their right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. But it is illegitimate to disguise nature worship as science. The informational media are scientifically illiterate and easily victimized by junk science. The media should adopt a more skeptical attitude toward crackpot science and hire a few scientifically literate analysts. The media should aim to provide vetted information and filter out or expose crackpot ideas.

Norman Rogers writes often about global warming and similar subjects. He has a website.
The biggest political story that the media wants to ignore is the bitter split in the Democratic Party, as Sanders supporters refuse to capitulate to Hillary Clintons purported inevitability, while the party establishment steamrollers the Big Fix in Philadelphia. The ingredients for a repeat of the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago are being assembled, as the media pilot fish at the New York Times and Washington Post prefer to use their resources to deliver the shocking news that Donald Trump likes beautiful women.

Did you know that Hillary supporter Barney Frank was booed and shouted at as a "sellout" who should "go back to Massachusetts" by Sanders supporters at the Maine State Democratic Convention on Saturday? Somehow, the mainstream media managed to overlook this sign of the divisive passions rending the Democratic Party as its establishment strong-arms Hillary Clinton. Along with the incredible story of the Nevada State Convention where DNC officials fled, violence erupted and John Law had to be called in, signs are that the party is falling apart.

At issue right now is fixing of the standing committees at the Philadelphia convention, especially the rules committee that will shape who is allowed to speak and what is allowed to happen. Daniel Strauss of Politico reports:

The most recent flare-up occurred last week, when Sanders publicly released a letter to Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz accusing her of stacking the deck against him on the convention's standing committees. [W]e are prepared to mobilize our delegates to force as many votes as necessary to amend the platform and rules on the floor of the convention," wrote Sanders, several days after a tense phone conversation with the chairwoman.

According to a Sanders official with knowledge of the call, the senator demanded more representation on the committees but Wasserman Schultz would only assure him that he would have representation. A DNC spokesman declined to characterize the conversation and would only confirm that it took place.

Foolishly, the DNC is virtually freezing out the Sanders faction in the committees that will govern the convention.

Both the Hillary Clinton and Sanders campaigns had submitted names for consideration on the convention's standing committees, but in January when Wasserman Schultz handed down her final list of 75 nominations  all of whom were approved by the DNC's Executive Committee  nearly all of Sanders' choices had been disregarded.

Wasserman Schultz has demonstrated many times her detachment from reality and ability to stick with fantasy, and her current vision, that Sanders supporters will just fall in line and behave themselves on the floor of the convention and outside the venue on the streets is dangerously deluded.

But of course, she answers to Hillary, who is panicking over her inability to close the deal.

The GOP is supposed to be the party that is hopelessly divided. The MSM has told us so many times. But as the GOP begins to unite, the leadership of the Democrats is behaving like the aristocrats at Versailles as the Parisian mobs gathered in front of the Bastille.

The Philadelphia convention will be must-see TV. I expect Hillary to employ her customary level of finesse, so we could be in for quite a spectacle.
Anyone who might have been wondering what Bill Clinton would be doing in the White House if his wife was elected president - besides prowling around looking for young women - wonder no more.

Hillary Clinton says she will put Bill in charge of revitalizing the American economy, thus continuing the myth that the economic boom of the 1990's was not due to the dot com revolution and the expansion of the private economy, but because President Clinton was such a brilliant leader and government was responsible for economic success.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts.

ABC News:

Hillary Clinton has always made known that she wants Bill Clinton to have some kind of role in the White House should she become president, but over the past few weeks she's begun to reveal more about what exactly that would be. During a campaign event in Fort Mitchell today, the was more blunt than ever about what her husband's role could be in a future Clinton administration  saying she plans to to put the former president "in charge of economic revitalization." "My husband, who I'm going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy, cause you know he knows how to do it," Clinton told the crowd at an outdoor organizing rally. "And especially in places like coal country and inner cities and other parts of our country that have really been left out." Clinton made similar remarks earlier this month during her first visit to Kentucky, a state where Bill Clinton remains popular among the largely white, working class voters. "I've told my husband he's got to come out of retirement and be in charge of this because you know hes got more ideas a minute than anybody I know," she said, while talking about manufacturing and jobs. Over the course of the campaign, Clinton has repeatedly said she would seek her husband's advice if she takes office.

Forget for a moment the idea that Bill Clinton is an economic genius. He isn't. He was coasting on the coattails of the economic revolution wrought by Ronald Reagan and took credit for an economy he had very little to do with.

What about the notion that Hillary is going to cede input into economic policy to an un-elected spouse? This is almost as bizarre as Reagan's idea to set up a "co-presidency" with Gerald Ford if he took the vice president's slot at the 1980 convention. Except that this really would be a joint venture, with Bill making decisions on the economy and Hillary presumably running foreign policy.

Given what we know about the Clinton marriage, the two are not very close. How well would they work together? Would Hillary ever overrule Bill? This is such a bad idea on so many levels that the GOP should call her out for making the suggestion in the first place.
Iranian fanatics have arrested at least 8 women and charged them with appearing online without a headscarf.

If it was good enough for Mohammed, it's good enough for them, I guess.

Associated Press:

Iranian police have arrested eight people in a new crackdown targeting "un-Islamic acts" online such as female models posting images of themselves without their hair covered, state media reported Monday, part of a larger cultural struggle in the Islamic Republic over the country's future. The arrests follow the detentions of artists, poets, journalists and activists as moderate President Hassan Rouhani's administration secured a landmark nuclear deal with world powers. The arrests and harsh sentences handed down signal that hard-liners in the police and judiciary, who were unable to stop the accord and fear looser social norms will weaken the Islamic Republic, still hold significant power in the country. State television said this latest operation, called Spider II, particularly targeted users of the Instagram picture-sharing application. Instagram, owned by Facebook, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The television report included footage of model Elham Arab, known for her portraits in wedding dresses, speaking before Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi in a conference room, her blonde hair hidden under a black chador. "All people love beauty and fame," Arab said. "They would like to be seen, but it is important to know what price they will pay to be seen." Arab could not be immediately reached for comment. It wasn't immediately known if she had a lawyer. The TV report did not say what charges she faced, nor did it identify the other seven people arrested. It said police identified some 170 people in the operation through social media activity as being involved in modeling, including 58 models, 59 photographers and makeup artists. It said those targeted saw their businesses shut down, as well as their pages on Instagram and Facebook removed. Arab's Instagram account could not be accessed Monday. "We must fight with enemy's actions in this area," Dowlatabadi was quoted by the state-owned IRAN newspaper as saying. "Of course our actions in this area will continue."

The AP report appears to express surprise that the "moderate" President Rouhani would allow these idiotic prosecutions to take place. This is typical of western media, who believes Rouhani opposes the enforcement of the mandatory headscarf and other fundamentalist laws. He would not have been allowed to run for president unless he supported these laws and it's ridiculous to think otherwise.

What kind of sentence can these women expect? Perhaps they will fare better than a group of young people caught dancing on the internet:

In May 2014, authorities arrested a group of young Iranian men and women for an online video of them dancing to Pharrell Williams' song "Happy." While the arrests drew widespread criticism, including from the musician himself, those involved each received suspended sentences of six months' imprisonment and 91 lashes. Meanwhile, journalists, filmmakers, writers and activists also have been detained, sentenced or imprisoned.

Ninety-one lashes for dancing. Do you think the fanatics care about liberals and their "widespread criticism"? Obviously not.

Welcome to the 8th century.
Didn't someone tell Mr. Trump that his tax returns would be an issue in the campaign? I can't believe that he didn't see this one coming.

He will need to do better than saying that it's none of our business. It was none of my business before. We should see them now.

To be fair, there is a lot of hypocrisy out there, such as George Stephanopoulos of ABC asking about his returns. After all, didn't George work for a guy who didn't release his returns in 1992?

It's reasonable to request a tax return from a man who wants my vote.

I'm not interested in reading a line or making an issue of everything.

I just want to know whether Mr. Trump is consistent with what he preaches. For example, does he hide his money overseas? Or do his international associations pay taxes here or there?

Timothy O'Brien had a chance to see his returns a few years ago, as part of a lawsuit involving both men. This is what Mr. O'Brien wrote:

Actually, as someone who saw Trumps federal tax returns about a decade ago as part of a legal action in which he sued me for libel (the suit was later dismissed), I think there probably are some things to be learned from them. The tax returns my lawyers and I reviewed were sealed, and a court order prevents me from speaking or writing about the specifics of what I saw. I can say that Trump routinely delayed -- for months on end -- producing those documents, and when they finally arrived they were so heavily redacted that they looked like crossword puzzles. The litigation ran on for five years, and during that time we had to petition the court to compel Trump to hand over unredacted versions of the tax returns -- which he ultimately did. So despite Trumps statements to the contrary, here are some general questions that a full release of at least several years of his tax returns might usefully answer: 1) Income: Trump has made the size of his fortune a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, implying that its a measure of his success as a businessman. He has also correctly noted that the income shown on his tax returns isnt a reflection of his total wealth. Even so, income is a basis for assessing some of the foundations of any individuals wealth -- and would certainly reflect the financial wherewithal of the businesses in which Trump is involved. After Fortunes Shawn Tully dug into Trumps financial disclosures with the Federal Election Commission and an accompanying personal balance sheet his campaign released, he noted in March that Trump appears to have overstated his income, by a lot, which could be the reason he has so far tried to avoid releasing his returns. Tully said that Trump apparently boosted his income in the documents by conflating his various businesses revenue with his personal income. Trump didnt respond to Tullys assessment, but he could clear up all of that by releasing his tax returns. 2) Business Activities: Trump has long claimed that his company, the Trump Organization, employs thousands of people. He has also criticized Fortune 500 companies for operating businesses overseas at the expense of jobs for U.S. workers. Trumps returns would show how active he and his businesses are globally -- and would help substantiate the actual size and scope of his operation. 3) Charitable Giving: Trump has said that hes a generous benefactor to a variety of causes -- especially war veterans -- even though its been hard to find concrete evidence to support the assertion. Other examples of major philanthropic largess from Trump have also been elusive. Trump could release his tax returns and put the matter to rest. 4) Tax Planning: Theres been global attention focused on the issue of how politicians and the wealthy use tax havens and shell companies to possibly hide parts of their fortunes from authorities. If released, Trumps returns would make clear whether or not he used such vehicles. 5) Transparency and Accountability: Trump is seeking the most powerful office in the world. Some of the potential conflicts of interest or financial pressures that may arise if he reaches the White House would get an early airing in a release of his tax returns.

To be fair, I don't know whether Mr. O'Brien is part of the #NeverTrump movement or part of the "establishment" or just a guy who hates Trump.

However, he raises reasonable points in his article, such as the real size of the Trump Empire.

Let me add this. I expect Mr. Trump to pay the lowest tax under U.S. tax laws. I don't think that he should be treated at all differently from Mr. Romney, who had a complex tax return, too.

Mr. Trump owes the country a little transparency here. Again, I expect Mr. Trump to take advantage of the U.S. tax laws, as any of us would do in the situation.

This is about transparency, not taking cheap shots at his taxes. The left will always take cheap shots at Mr. Trump's taxes. At the same time, none of these lefties is going to vote for Trump even if he sent each one a personalized copy of the returns by overnight mail.

I want to see whether Trump is really Trump. So show me the returns, and let's move on to other issues. Frankly, there are bigger issues on the table.

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
The woman whose story was featured in the lede of the New York Timess big front page Sunday attack on Donald Trump has just spoken out about how her message was totally distorted. The Times began its story:

Donald J. Trump had barely met Rowanne Brewer Lane when he asked her to change out of her clothes. Donald was having a pool party at Mar-a-Lago. There were about 50 models and 30 men. There were girls in the pools, splashing around. For some reason Donald seemed a little smitten with me. He just started talking to me and nobody else. He suddenly took me by the hand, and he started to show me around the mansion. He asked me if I had a swimsuit with me. I said no. I hadnt intended to swim. He took me into a room and opened drawers and asked me to put on a swimsuit. Rowanne Brewer Lane, former companion Ms. Brewer Lane, at the time a 26-year-old model, did as Mr. Trump asked. I went into the bathroom and tried one on, she recalled. It was a bikini. I came out, and he said, Wow.  Mr. Trump, then 44 and in the midst of his first divorce, decided to show her off to the crowd at Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Palm Beach, Fla. He brought me out to the pool and said, That is a stunning Trump girl, isnt it?  Ms. Brewer Lane said. Donald Trump and women: The words evoke a familiar cascade of casual insults, hurled from the safe distance of a Twitter account, a radio show or a campaign podium. This is the public treatment of some women by Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president: degrading, impersonal, performed. That must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees, he told a female contestant on The Celebrity Apprentice. Rosie ODonnell, he said, had a fat, ugly face. A lawyer who needed to pump milk for a newborn? Disgusting, he said. But the 1990 episode at Mar-a-Lago that Ms. Brewer Lane described was different: a debasing face-to-face encounter between Mr. Trump and a young woman he hardly knew. This is the private treatment of some women by Mr. Trump, the up-close and more intimate encounters. (emphasis added)

What the Times editorialized in its news story as a debasing face-face encounter is seen rather differently by Ms. Brewer. Nick Gass reports in Politico:

On Monday morning, Brewer Lane appeared on "Fox & Friends" to dispute the Times' framing of her account. "Actually, it was very upsetting. I was not happy to read it at all," Brewer Lane said. "Well, because The New York Times told us several times that they would make sure that my story that I was telling came across. They promised several times that they would do it accurately. They told me several times and my manager several times that it would not be a hit piece and that my story would come across the way that I was telling it and honestly, and it absolutely was not." Asked what the reporters got wrong, Brewer Lane said they took her quotes and "put a negative connotation on it." "They spun it to where it appeared negative. I did not have a negative experience with Donald Trump, and I don't appreciate them making it look like that I was saying that it was a negative experience because it was not," Brewer Lane said. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked to clarify if Brewer Lane knew him well and that they dated for several months. "That's correct. Yes, and he was never -- he never made me feel like I was being demeaned in any way. He never offended me in any way. He was very gracious. I saw him around all types of people, all types of women. He was very kind, thoughtful, generous, you know. He was a gentleman," Brewer said.

Of course, the Times did not misquote its source, it merelty pulled out of context what she said and presented it with a spin entirely opposite what the source intended.

The Times has opened Pandoras Box here. Donald Trump is not going to let this drop. And by attacking Trump in these terms, it legitimizes every excursion Trump cares to make into Bill Clintons far more appalling behavior with women.

The Times story got major play over the weekend. It will be childs play to put together videos featuring the Fox and Friends interview to discredit those who attack Trump over his treatment of women.
There were 11 state GOP party conventions this past weekend, and at almost every one, the #NeverTrump forces were shunted to the sidelines. There was even some punishment doled out as the Nebraska GOP indirectly censured Senator Ben Sasse for his leading anti-Trump role.

Omaha World Herald:

U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse has carved out a name for himself on the national stage as a leader in the Never Trump Republican faction. On the home front, however, the Nebraska freshman found himself rebuked Saturday by party loyalists upset at his call for a third candidate to arise and give conservatives such as himself an alternative to Donald Trump in the fall election. Delegates at the State Republican Convention overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing Sasses call for a third candidate. They argued it would only help Democrats win the White House in November. If you support a third-party candidate, you are going to elect Hillary Clinton, and she is going to nominate the next three or four members of the U.S. Supreme Court, said Pat McPherson, an Omaha Republican.

At other state conventions, the anti-Trump forces were overwhelmed with calls for party unity.

Politico:

In Maryland, it meant the ouster of a veteran Republican committeeman  Louis Pope  by Citizens United chief David Bossie, a conservative activist who is close to Trump and closely associated with the rise of super PACs in American politics. Bossie has been a longtime ally of Trump and represents an early look at how Trumps takeover of the party could reshape it for years. In Arkansas, it meant packing the states national delegation with Trump allies and granting them influential leadership positions to shape Republican Party rules and policy doctrines at the convention. Across the country, party leaders encouraged, coaxed and even browbeat their rank and file into a message of unity. And they did it by way of a consistent message: Trump is flawed, but Hillary Clinton would be far, far worse. Oklahoma and Montana conventions shared a common mantra: "United We Stand." In Montana, walls of posters interspersing Trump's "Make America Great Again" signs with campaign posters for Congressman Ryan Zinke and gubernatorial candidate Greg Gianforte reinforced the theme. In Wisconsin, local reports indicated that even former Trump critics were nudging their allies into backing the mogul. That message carried over into the selection of delegates to the national convention. In all, nearly 400 were picked on Saturday at these 11 party meetings  about one in every six that will fill seats in Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena in July.

The #NeverTrump movement had no chance once Cruz dropped out. And with the third-party effort by Romney and his friends faltering badly, there wasn't much of a choice for these professional party men and women except to swallow hard and support the nominee.

Perhaps we should be more concerned about rank-and-file Republicans who say they will never vote for Trump. They don't have the vested interest in the Republican party that the pros do, and appeals for unity might not resonate quite the same way.

For those die hard anti-Trump voters, I suspect most of them will stay home or not vote for president rather than pull the lever for Hillary. The Clinton campaign is delusional if they think they will get a significant portion of the GOP vote.
Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution forbids office holders from accepting anything of value from a foreign state, yet husband Bill Clinton collected $1 million from the Abu Dhabi government while Hillary was secretary of state.

Bill Clinton spoke at the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI) on December 13, 2011 and received a speaking fee of $500,000. The AGEDI is a program funded by the Abu Dhabi government, so the source of the funds was the government itself. Although the fee was paid to Bill, Hillary equally benefited from the payment. In effect, she accepted money from a foreign state.

A year later, Bill spoke to the World Travel and Tourism Council in Abu Dhabi (also funded by the Abu Dhabi government) for another fee of $500,000, for a total of $1 million.

The U.S. Constitution provides in Section 9 as follows:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

The Congress has provided that gifts to the president from foreign governments, for example, are transferred to the United States government. The Congress has never provided for office holders to accept personal gifts. Yet somehow, the Department of State allowed Bill to collect large speaking fees when Hillary was also a benefactor.

Bill and Hillary both studied law at Yale University and they presumably took a course on constitutional law. Also, Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. Yet Bill was allowed to brazenly accept large speaking fees from a foreign government where Hillary also stood to benefit.

It is possible that the FBI is investigating this angle, since Michael Mukasey, former U.S. judge and attorney general, stated on Fox News Channel's Sunday Morning Futures on May 15, 2016 that there was a violation of the Constitution when Bill took money from Nigeria. Mukasey apparently had his facts wrong, since it was a newspaper owner who paid for Bill's Nigeria speech, and it was the government of Abu Dhabi who gave Bill money. Even though he got his country wrong, Mukasey may have contacts in the FBI or Justice Department who revealed to him that the investigators are looking at a possible constitution violation.

Both Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer and the Wall Street Journal have reported that Abu Dhabi benefited from actions by Hillarys State Department during the time of the payments.

Meanwhile, Hillary's rocky campaign for the Democratic nomination continues while we wait for word on any criminal charges.
As the Trump bandwagon rolls on and the parade grows behind it, there has to be a growing unease in many federal office buildings throughout the country that computers and file cabinets may contain emails and documents that could be used against them if Republicans take total control of the government. Even if a Trump Justice Department chose not to determine the truth about Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and the IRS scandals and take prosecutorial action, a friendly administration might allow hundreds if not thousands of civil suits to be filed against federal departments and employees by citizens and organizations who consider themselves damaged by the Obama administrations dishonesty and many abuses of power.

What if all those FOIA requests for documents and information that have been routinely stonewalled by multiple federal agencies and departments for the past eight years were suddenly honored by a Trump administration? Such an action could very well result in a treasure trove of culpability falling into the waiting hands of countless plaintiffs lawyers and even federal prosecutors. The thought of that happening has to be keeping some bureaucrats, as well as elected and appointed politicians, from sleeping too soundly as Trumps election appears more possible with every passing day. You would have to be naive beyond belief not to realize that there must be thousands or more of those individuals who are beginning to wonder just whats in their files that could provide the rope that hangs them. And of course, the very next thought that follows that mental inventory is what can be done to get rid of the rope.

Trump could enhance his popularity immediately and immensely if he were to add to his stump speeches the promise that those in the Obama administration who have ignored the law or acted illegally on behalf of their political masters wont necessarily be investigated for such actions by a Trump administration, but they will most certainly be prosecuted to the fullest extent if they attempt to obstruct justice by destroying official communications and records. He should cement that thought in their minds by reminding them that even if they destroy electronic and paper evidence in their personal possession, in this day and age, there are always copies of those records in other computers and file cabinets that inevitably will be found. And that evidence could very well provide the obstruction of justice rope they hang by. Trump should emphasize that even someone as powerful as Hillary cant escape investigation for mishandling and likely destruction of official communications and documents; she may avoid prosecution, perhaps, but then bureaucrats arent Hillary, with all that Clinton Teflon magic.

To absolutely mangle Dr. Samuel Johnson: the thought of a hanging by the next administration should wonderfully concentrate the mind of a federal bureaucrat.
Three weeks ago my friend Jacqueline O, a retired government surgeon in Venezuela, mentioned that a child of a friends relative needed a procedure on his heart because he was born with one ventricle.

The babys name is Jose Manuel Villamizar Zambrano, and because of a birth defect, Jose requires a cardiac catheterization and almost surely will require follow-up heart surgery.

Jacqueline and I became online friends because she is so ardently anti-Marxist and attracted politically to people of like mind. Jacqueline is an activist at heart and has a soft spot for suffering children, which may be why my big mouth and my politics piqued her interest.

For the last seventeen years, this brave woman has lamented the mayhem socialism is wreaking on her once beautiful country. For eight of those years, she oftentimes would agree with my assessment of socialists or just ask for prayer.

Jacqueline found out and conveyed to me that Joses mother Evelyn took her son to the government-run free Venezuelan health care hospitals, where the baby, despite his oxygen-deprived blue lips, was turned away because the equipment was broken.

Naturally, when I heard about the babys plight, I asked my friend if there was something I could do to help. Jacqueline again asked for prayer, because for the child to be treated at a private clinic, his mother would need what amounted to 10,000 American dollars.

Rather impulsively, and with not one iota of experience raising money, I ran headlong into starting a GoFundMe campaign, and within one week, I raised, by the grace of God, and the help of many generous people, $10,000. There was even one selfless individual who said that if the campaign fell short of the goal, he, after donating quite generously to begin with, would provide the remainder.

GoFundMe was wonderful and vetted the campaign thoroughly. The organization requested backup verification including documentation from Joses mother, pictures, medical records, official letters, and even a photo of her government ID.

Since all this happened, Jacqueline and I have been in almost constant contact, either online or by phone, and what was once a casual understanding of the plight these people suffer every day has become something quite different for me.

Since raising the money, there have been all sorts of obstacles and barriers.

Getting the funds converted and sent to Jose has also been a bit of a trial.

Thanks to GoFundMe, and the wonderful people that made this miracle happen, Jose, who lives in San Cristobal, estado Tachira, which is about 14 hours each way by bus to Caracas, will receive the initial part of his care at the private Clinica Santa Sofia, in Caracas.

In the meantime, the plight this baby and his mother are suffering has been verified by correspondence Ive had with Jacqueline over the past few weeks.

One day, this woman spent four hours standing in line to buy a stick of butter!

In Venezuela, the shelves are empty, and things Americans take for granted are nowhere to be found. When Venezuelans go to the market, there is no oil, butter, toilet paper, diapers, medicine, or baby formula. In fact, this good woman respectfully asked if some of the donated money could be designated to buy Jose diapers and formula, both of which are in short supply.

My friend has expressed to me that she longs for the day when she will again enjoy a bowl of cornflakes and milk. Right now, in Venezuela, there is no milk.

After posting an MSN article about embattled leftist Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro titled Maduro in crackdown under Venezuela emergency decree, in the best way she could express it in English, Jacqueline replied to the post, saying this:

You're seeing only a piece what's the reality. Maybe today we'll get water, from last week and nada of water set. We have a medium water tank and 10 medium bottles potable water. From 4 bathroom we close 3. No bread. Ore arepa (our national food) have to paid more money for toilet papers, no butter, milk even for baby, Etc, etc.

That grim picture needs no translation.

So, with that in mind, Im writing an update for two reasons.

First, I want to reassure all of you that gave money and prayed  were doing the right thing. Just two weeks after the GoFundMe campaign was started by someone who never raised a dollar in her life  namely, me  the New York Times published an article titled Dying Infants and No Medicine: Inside Venezuelas Failing Hospitals.

Heres an excerpt from the piece:

Gloves and soap have vanished from some hospitals. Cancer medicines are often found only on the black market. There is so little electricity that the government works only two days a week to save what energy is left Late last fall, the aging pumps that supplied water to the University of the Andes Hospital exploded. They were not repaired for months. So without water, gloves, soap or antibiotics, a group of surgeons prepared to remove an appendix that was about to burst, even though the operating room was still covered in other peoples blood.

A little farther along, the article says that because of the devastating conditions, President Maduros opponents in the legislature declared a humanitarian crisis ... [and] passed a law that would allow Venezuela to accept international aid to prop up the health care system.

Mr. Maduro, who is Chavezs successor, [r]ejected the effort, describing the move as a bid to undermine him and privatize the hospital system. Delusional Maduro said this: I doubt that anywhere in the world, except in Cuba, there exists a better health system than this one.

Sound familiar?

This brings me to the second reason I chose to write all this. I do it to warn anyone who thinks this couldnt happen in America. Seventeen years ago, Venezuela wasnt what it is today. The people of Venezuela embraced socialism because Hugo Chavez promised them that if they did, they would eat  today, if they dont die, they get to stand on line for four hours for a stick of butter.

Update: David Paulin writes:

Hugo Chavez initially ran as a political outsider and had pledged to steer a "third-way" between socialism and capitalism. It wasn't until well into his presidency (I think his second term) that he finally declared himself a socialist. In other words, the socialist take-over of Venezuela was a gigantic bait and switch. See my articles on this at AT and FPM.



That said, it might be said that Venezuela was on a slippery slope toward all of this -- in light of a long-time political climate of bread-and-circuses populism fueled by its oil wealth.

Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com.
The best time to visit Italy, if you want to catch the incredible Infiorata festival, is during May and June. At this time of the year, especially on the occasion of Corpus Domini, many Italian towns decorate their streets with flower petals creating beautiful artworks ranging from simple geometric designs to elaborate tapestries inspired by religious art and famous paintings.

To create the flower carpets, the design is first sketched in chalk on the pavement, and then filled in with thousands of petals of various colors. Sometimes soil is used to highlight the outline of the design. At other times, wood carvings is used along with flowers. The entire process takes two or three days to complete. Often a religious procession takes place on the flower carpets after there are completed.

Photo credit: Stefano Mortellaro/Flickr

Although the practice of honoring divinities and illustrious personages, such as emperors and warriors, by throwing flowers or creating flower compositions is ancient and dateless, the art of creating flower mosaics on the streets is believed to have started in Rome in 1625, when Benedetto Drei and his son Peter, used flower petals to decorate the Vatican Basilica on the day of Saints Peter and Paul's feast, the patron saints of Rome.

Later, baroque artist and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) spread this flower art throughout Rome, using it for the baroque festivals he organized. The custom disappeared out of Rome in the seventeenth century, but the Castelli Romani townspeople continued to keep the traditions alive. in 1778, this tradition became part of the Christian celebration of Corpus Domini in the town of Genzano where a brightly colored flower carpet was laid down in the center of a long street. Eventually, various towns of Italy began celebrating Corpus Domini by creating flower carpets.

Some of the best towns to see the infiorata festival today are Noto, Spello, Genzano, Bolsena, Brugnato, Orvieto, and the Abbey of Chiaravalle della Colomba, near Fidenza.

Also Read: 10 Most Incredible Flower Festivals Around the World

Photo credit: Gian Marco Anzellotti/Flickr

Photo credit: Lucia Uccellatore/Flickr

Photo credit: Riccardo Torosani/Flickr

Photo credit: Riccardo Torosani/Flickr

Photo credit: Riccardo Torosani/Flickr

Photo credit: worldfest.wordpress.com

Photo credit: Domenica Prinzivalli/Flickr

Photo credit: Roberto Composto/Flickr

Photo credit: www.nunassisi.com

Photo credit: Gian Marco Anzellotti/Flickr

Photo credit: www.liguriaslow.it

Sources: Italy Magazine / About.com
In the beginning of the 2nd century, the Roman Emperor Trajan led two very successful war campaigns against the powerful Dacia kingdom by the river Danube in what is now Romania. The Dacians were a constant threat to the Roman Empire since the days of Caesar. Two decades earlier, after a savage pillaging of a Roman settlement and the humiliating defeat of Trajans predecessor, the Romans tried peace negotiation with the Dacians. When that failed the new Emperor Trajan led tens of thousands of Roman troops across the Danube River over a massive bridge that was constructed for the invasion, and defeated the barbaric empire on its home turf twice.

The victory over Dacia was the defining event of Trajans 19-year rule. The conquest brought back a staggering amount of loot in the form of gold that helped finance Romes further expansion campaign. By the time Trajan died, the Roman empire attained its maximum territorial extent in history.

Photo credit: arts.st-andrews.ac.uk

To commemorate the victory, the Roman Senate erected a towering Trajans Column in Rome, depicting in stone carved bas-reliefs the Dacian Wars' most important moments. The bas-reliefs are strung together in a 200-meter-long band that spirals from the bottom of the Column to the top forming a continuous narrative of the emperors two campaigns in Dacia. The Column was originally crowned by a bronze statue of Trajan himself, but was replaced by a statue of St. Peter in 1588. The Column stood at the center of a spacious plaza known as Trajans Forum surrounded by galleries from which one could view at various levels the spiral band. The Forum and the Column were completed in 113 AD.

The continuous spiraling frieze winds twenty-three times from the base to the capital, and contains over 2,500 figures in 155 scenes, with Trajan himself appearing nearly sixty times in various roles such as leading the army, judging prisoners, and holding councils of war. Surprisingly, there are very few scenes of actual battle. Instead, there are large number of scenes showing construction and ceremonies conducted by the soldiers, and figures of forts, ships, weapons, soldiers, etc. Depiction of violence against the enemy is also rare, but there is a bizarre scene showing Dacian women torturing Roman men.

Some scholars suggest the lack of battle scenes and large number of building scenes is a propaganda constructed specifically for the urban population of Rome (the primary audience), addressing their fear and distrust of the army by depicting its warfare as one with little collateral damage, reads the Wikipedia article on the Column.

Some of the key scenes portrayed in the narrative include the first crossing of the Danube by the Roman legion, Trajan's voyage up the Danube, the surrender of the Dacians at the close of the first war, the great sacrifice by the Danube bridge during the second war, the assault on the Dacian capital and the death of the Dacian king Decebalus.

You can see the entire narrative in this interactive graphic prepared by National Geographic.

Photo credit: Nat Geo

Photo credit: Stefano Costantini/Wikimedia

Photo credit: Conrad Cichorius/Wikimedia

Photo credit: CristianChirita/Wikimedia

In this scene from a plaster and marble-dust cast made between 1939 and 1943, Trajan (at far left) watches a battle, while two Roman auxiliaries present him with severed enemy heads. Photo credit: Nat Geo

This scene shows Roman soldiers loading plunder onto pack animals after defeating Decebalus, the Dacian king. Casts such as this one preserve details on Trajans Column that pollution has eroded. Photo credit: Nat Geo

Photo credit: arts.st-andrews.ac.uk

Photo credit: arts.st-andrews.ac.uk

The plaster casts laid out at eye level in the Museum of Roman Civilization. Photo credit: Notafly/Wikimedia

Photo credit: arts.st-andrews.ac.uk

Photo credit: natchard.com

Sources: Wikipedia / National Geographic / Ancient History
HTCs latest flagship smartphone, the HTC 10, may be getting all the press currently, but the company has also been working hard to establish a presence in the highly competitive mid-range segment with its Desire line of affordable handsets that are marketed mostly at pre-paid users globally. One admirable thing about HTC is that unlike many other manufacturers who give the short-shift to their cheaper devices, the Taiwanese company has shown the inclination to keep at least some of its mid-rangers updated with newer versions of Android. That being the case, the company is now reported to be rolling out Android 6.0 Marshmallow to the Desire 820 smartphone that was launched back in 2014.

The Desire 820 may be one of the comparatively older mid-rangers from HTC, but with the rollout of the latest full-release version of Android, the device now gets many of the same features found on the companys current flagship, the HTC 10, including the seventh-gen iteration of HTCs custom Android interface, Sense UI. Unfortunately though, theres nothing official at the moment from HTC, so theres no word on which regions are getting the update, neither is there an available changelog to detail the exact changes that the new software brings to the table. However, the new software is expected to bring a number of thoughtful little features to the device. Marshmallow is expected to come with its native features, including Google Now on Tap, an all-new app permissions manager, a new app drawer and the battery-saving feature called Doze. On its part, HTC introduced a number of new design features with Sense UI 7.0, including support for theme packs and the ability to customize the on-screen virtual buttons.

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Meanwhile, even though details regarding the rollout are sketchy at the moment, HTC should be able to deliver the new Marshmallow-based update worldwide over the next few weeks. Once it is available in a particular region though, users there should expect to receive an update notification on their device. However, those willing to manually check for the availability of Marshmallow should also be able to do that by going over to Settings and then choosing About Device before tapping on the Software Update option.
U.S. carriers have been upping their international roaming game significantly in recent years, but customers will still face at least some extra charges when leaving the United States borders, even if its only to the countrys closest neighbors, Mexico, and Canada, where some of the big carriers even have their own service. AT&T, however, is looking to flip the script and let customers use their phones as they please when away from their home country. The kicker is that the offer is only available to certain subsets of high-data customers. Specifically, those who are on 15GB plans or unlimited plans, whether through grandfathering or new initiatives, can take advantage of this offer.

The deal kicks in on May 20th. Qualifying customers must activate the free feature, either online through the My AT&T portal or by calling customer service. The feature, known as Roam North America, allows customers on qualifying plans to use their phones abroad just as they would within the United States at no extra cost. Customers can make and receive calls, send and receive texts and use their data allotment in the normal manner, with the ability to call to and from all three countries. AT&Ts coverage throughout North America, with goals set for more coverage in the near future, allow them to provide the same network and features between Mexico, the United States, and Canada. As a caveat, however, 15GB customers only enjoy these benefits in Mexico. Those who have an unlimited plan under their belt have free reign of all three countries.

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Once the offer begins on May 20th, business customers can also sign up if they are on or are activating plans for 15GB per month or higher, or activating new Mobile Share Value plans worth $20 per user or more. The benefits, however, only extend to Mexico; business users will still face the usual roaming charges in Canada. Even though the offer is set to activate this Friday no date for when it may end was announced, leading to the possibility that the new plan may be permanent or it may be a temporary perk for qualifying users. Check out the source link for the full release and more info for business users.
Since the beginning of the year, HTC expanded its 2016 smartphone lineup with new offerings, including the latest flagship phone  the HTC 10  as well as a handful of mid-range terminals carrying the Desire brand. As you may recall, last week a so-called HTC Desire 628 was also briefly spotted on HTCs official website in Vietnam, signaling an imminent market release. Sure enough, this week the HTC Desire 628 made a second appearance in the same region and on the same website, where the smartphone now seems to have been silently and officially introduced.

The HTC Desire 628 Dual SIM made a comeback on the official HTC Vietnam website this week, and this time around it looks like the smartphone is there to stay. However, at the moment pricing and availability details are missing, but on the bright side, the smartphones specifications have been officially confirmed. Thus, the HTC Desire 628 Dual SIM is equipped with a 5-inch display featuring a resolution of 1280 x 720 and a pixel density of 294 pixels per inch, an unspecified octa-core processor clocked at 1.3 GHz per core (presumably the MediaTek MT6753 SoC), 3 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of internal memory expandable through a microSD card slot capable of reading up to an additional 2 TB of external storage. In the camera department, the HTC Desire 628 Dual SIM flaunts a 13-megapixel main shooter with an f/2.0 aperture and 28 mm focal length, HDR mode, and beautifying features, as well as a 5-megapixel front-facing unit with an f/2.4 aperture, selfie voice capture, selfie automatic capture, and face recognition features.

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All of the components inside the HTC Desire 628 draw energy from a 2,200 mAh battery wrapped in a chassis measuring 146.9 x 70.9 x 9.8 mm and weighing 142 grams. Additionally, the smartphone supports 4G LTE Cat.4, Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/, and runs an unspecified version of Android OS (possibly Android 6.0 Marshmallow) covered by the HTC Sense proprietary user interface. Its also worth noting that, unlike the HTC 10, the HTC Desire 628 retains the old BoomSound speaker formula accommodating two front-facing stereo speakers. Needless to say, HTC unveiled pretty much all there is to know in regards to what makes the HTC Desire 628 Dual SIM tick, but sadly it looks like prospective customers may have to wait a bit longer for pricing and availability details to emerge. However, in light of these recent events, the handsets market release should now be just around the corner, at least in Vietnam and possibly China.
China is home to many smartphone manufacturing companies. Some of those companies are well known, like Xiaomi, Huawei and ZTE, for example, others however, not so much. We often talk about smaller China-based smartphone manufacturers, and IUNI is actually a great example. This company has released a very powerful flagship back in August 2014, the IUNI U3, but we havent heard much from them since then. Weve talked about the IUNI U3 at length, but never got the chance to properly test it because there was no way to bring Google Play services on it back then, even though we were able to get our hands on it. Well, it seems like IUNI might release its successor in the coming weeks, at least according to the new (concept) leak, read on.

If you take a look at the gallery down below, youll get to see the alleged IUNI U4 which will hopefully ship with Google Play services this time around, like many other Chinese smartphones which are sold via Chinese resellers. As you can see, the phone looks quite sleek in the leaked renders, and its bezels are very thin all around. There are three capacitive buttons located below the display, and the IUNI OS which will be included on top of Android looks significantly different than before, though we dont get to see much of it here. The leaked renders do seem to be made by a third-party designer, but they do look somewhat realistic. Anyhow, the phones specs have also surfaced, and according to the available info, this phone might be a really powerful device once release. The leaked info says the device will sport a 5.2-inch fullHD (1920 x 1080) display, 4GB / 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 64GB / 128GB of UFS 2.0 internal storage. The 13-megapixel snapper (Sonys IMX377 sensor) has also been mentioned, and the IUNI OS 2.0 has been listed as well, but the UI showed in the renders actually looks somewhat different than the IUNI OS 2.0 that has shipped on top of IUNI U3 almost two years ago. Qualcomms Snapdragon 820 64-bit quad-core SoC will allegedly fuel this smartphone, and the phone will also ship with a side-facing fingerprint scanner it seems.

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That is more or less it as far as the design and specs go. The leaked info did mention the pricing as well, and if the information is to be believed, the 4GB and 6GB RAM variants of this smartphone will cost 1,999 Yuan ($305) and 2,499 Yuan ($382), respectively. As already mentioned, this seems information to be provided by a third-party designer, both the design and specs, but it is possible the information is real, we dont often see concept leaks of devices made by companies like IUNI. Either way, this device sure seems interesting, stay tuned.
Both LG and Samsung are companies that make many more products besides the smartphones that we all know and love them for. As the two largest South Korean Consumer Electronics companies, its no surprise that the rivalry between the two companies is as fierce as it is. The two compete in household appliances, the TV market and a whole lot more, as well as their mobile offerings, of course. Its their household appliances, specifically the humble washing machine, that has gotten LG Electronics CEO, Jo Seong-Jin in hot water, and now the prosecution are demanding jail time for Mr Seong-Jin.

Last year, four different executives from LG Electronics, including the firms CEO Jo Seong-Jin, were alleged to have broken the doors of these new models and then proceeded to defame Samsung by claiming that these new models werent durable and werent as good as LG models. Samsung didnt take too kindly to all of this, unsurprisingly, and they took LG Electronics to court, but in the first trial Mr Seong-Jin was acquitted of wrongdoing. Now however, the second trial is being held and prosecution have bought the big guns with them, demanding not just $10,000 worth in fines but a sizeable 10-month prison sentence for Jo Seong-Jin. This seems pretty harsh, but Samsung is clearly unhappy with LGs actions back in 2014, and the prosecution is obviously looking to take things as far as they can.

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CCTV footage of the crime was released last February, which is where the court cases first began. While many of the executives involved, included Seong-Jin, were indicted none of them faced any further action. This is because the court felt that the LG Press Release was opinion and not dressed up as fact. This alone helped LG Electronics swerve some serious legal headaches, but this latest push by the prosecution wont help matters. The footage is readily available (with a YouTube video embedded below) and this has not helped LG Electronics name in many parts of the world. Its unlikely that Jo Seong-Jin will have to face a prison sentence, but at the very least its interesting to see how seriously these companies take such things.
Motorola is a very well-known company, and it is owned by Lenovo now, as you probably already know. Motorola has introduced a number of devices last year, including their Moto G (3rd) budget smartphone. Motorolas Moto G devices are quite popular, and weve all been looking forward to the 4th-gen edition of this smartphone. Weve seen quite a few leaks and rumors regarding this handset thus far, and it seems like both the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus might get announced on May 17th. Motorola has already announced the press event in India, and the aforementioned devices have been leaking out for weeks now. Motorola India and Amazon India have already (unofficially) confirmed via Twitter that the two devices are going to be available exclusively through Amazon in India, and all that remains thus far is for the company to introduce these two devices.

While were waiting for Motorolas May 17th event, two Motorola devices paid a visit to the FCC, and it seems like were looking at the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus here. The XT1622 and XT1642 are the devices in question, and considering this is FCC were talking about, these are good news for those of you who live in the US and are looking forward to purchase one of the upcoming Moto G4 devices. This is still not an official confirmation or anything, but sure is a strong indication both devices will be available in the US. It is also worth mentioning that the Moto G4 has surfaced on Geekbench quite recently, and the listing has confirmed that the device will ship with the Snapdragon 617 64-bit octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM and Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. It is possible Motorola plans to release the 2GB RAM variant of this device as well, but we wont know for sure until the company officially unveils the Moto G4.

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The Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus have leaked a number of times thus far, and even though most leaks suggested that the fingerprint scanner will be located up front, some of them revealed no physical keys on the front side of the device. It is possible that one of the two devices will sport a front-facing fingerprint scanner, while the other one might ship with a rear-facing one. All that we can do at this point is wait for Motorola to unveil the two phones, and judging by the available info, that will happen tomorrow (May 17th), stay tuned.
Samsung Group subsidiary Samsung SDS has been providing information technology services to customers for roughly two decades, and last year the company formed a new cyber security team and acquired a stake in South Korean security firm SECUI. Fast forward to today, and the vice president of Samsung SDS cyber security team  Han Sung-Won  together with the head of IBMs Asian-Pacific sales team  Roman Tuma  have signed a new deal, forming a partnership in order to provide security services to clients in the utility and energy industry. While separate from their KNOX initiative it shows commitment from Samsung.

Today, Samsung SDS and IBM have announced their newfound partnership. Following the agreement, Samsung SDS will provide clients with IBMs X-Force Exchange cloud-based threat intelligence platform for researching the latest global security threats, and the Korean tech giant will also serve customers in the utility and energy industries with IBMs total security framework, which can collect data for analysis from all the sensors in a production line, all the while protecting networks, applications, and end-points. According to Samsung SDS and IBM, the key to success in the utility and energy industry is to protect the backbone infrastructure and to maintain safety on the system against ageing hardware equipment.

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IBMs vice president added that IBMs top-of-the-line security solutions combined with Samsung SDS expertise in the South Korean market will allow the two companies to provide competitive security services. Meanwhile, IBM together with SK C&C is also working on launching its AI platform, Watson, in South Korea this week. The two companies will apparently develop data analysis solutions based on natural language semantic analysis and machine learning by the end of the year, and reportedly they will also build a Watson cloud platform at SKs Pangyo datacenter. As for IBM and Samsung, theres no telling when exactly they will begin offering security solutions for the local energy and utility industry, but its quite clear that IBM is getting increasingly involved with the South Korean IT market. Samsung might turn out to be one of the best partners for this endeavor, as both Samsung and IBM have a reputation for trying to innovate, and last year both companies ranked much higher than Apple in this regard, at least based on their patent activities.
For the foreseeable future, the smartphone industry in the US will be dominated by Samsung and Apple  yes, HTC and LG, especially, will sell their share of devices, but it is Samsung and Apple that own the market. The Chinese companies are starting to make their mark in the US, such as Huawei and Lenovo, now that they are making Motorola devices. One powerful Chinese company, Xiaomi, is selling millions of phones but have not yet made their way into the US market. Xiaomi may be the one Chinese company that can make some real inroads into the US  they do not have the espionage taboo hanging over them as Huawei does, and their Vice President of Global Sales, Hugo Barra, was a longtime Google employee.

One thing is for certain  Xiaomi will be coming to the US  they are simply paving the way to make it happen. With all of the logistics to sort out, it looks like it will not be until 2017. Hugo Barra said in an interview, The US is a very different market. I think the natural time will come. Its certainly not this year. It was much easier to build up a loyal fan base in countries like Brazil and India with their high quality and low price strategy. These markets were ripe for the picking, but Hugo says the US market will take a year or two of preparation before they can launch a Xiaomi device in the US. This preparation involves clearing the way for a successful run  being ready for patent battles is one hurdle and learning how to work with the US carriers will be another, especially when up until now most sales are conducted at Xiaomis website as they sell directly to their customers.

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The patent battles are something that most of the big players in the US smartphone business have to deal with and something that Xiaomi is already getting a taste of  but will Xiaomi be able to protect the company enough before the start hitting the US? Xiaomi says they are ready, and Xiang Wang, Xiaomis senior VP of mobile said, Definitely, we are aware of those challenges in the patent area. We are in a battle. Xiaomi has filed 3,000 patents in 2015, and he claims they are buying up others to pad their portfolio. Barra says you have to buy essential licenses for the basic things you need to make your phone work. After that, you have to deal with the patent trolls  small companies that buy up patents for the sole purpose of suing the bigger companies for patent infringement  it is how they make their money. Also, let us not forget the large, legitimate competitors that want to protect their property rights. Barra said, Were very well prepared. Theres no mystery involved in this territory. Its very predictable.

Cozying up to the carriers is another problem that Xiaomi will have to resolve to score a real impact in the US. As I mentioned earlier, most of Xiaomis sales come from direct online, while the majority of Americans buy their devices from their carriers  either in store or online. This is one piece of the puzzle that does not work in Xiaomis favor, but they do have a relationship with Google and Facebook, not to mention they have Hugo Barra as well  a well-known and trusted name in the Android world. More and more US buyers are getting comfortable with online purchases, and this could bode well for Xiaomi as they carve out their niche in the US. Barra said, at the time we entered, India was only about 10% e-commerce. Now its at about 30%.

Once Xiaomi does make its way to the US, it will be interesting to see how their sales will affect Samsung and Apple. If Xiaomi can keep making quality devices for a reasonable price, it may knock the wind out of their rivals sails as both Samsung and Apple charge a premium amount for their flagship devices. Most of the techie people know about Xiaomi, but the average buyer has never heard of them. It will take a while to build that relationship, but it is nothing some well-placed advertising couldnt fix. Sometime in 2017, we should begin to see Xiaomi start to hit the US, and it can do nothing but increase competition and innovation.
(by Claudio Accogli) (ANSAmed) - ROME, MAY 16 - All's set in Vienna for the summit on Libya backed by Italy and the United States with the aim of launching 'Phase 2' of the stabilisation of the North African country. The countries of the so-called 'Rome Format' (the permanent members of the UN Security Council, European and regional countries, international organisations) and Malta, Chad, Niger and Sudan have all been invited to the meeting called and co-chaired by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

"The unity and stabilisation of Libya remain a priority for Italy," read a statement from the foreign ministry on the eve of the summit. Sources in Europe and Libya say the summit should give rise to renewed support for the presidential council led by Premier-designate Fayez al Sarraj, with an invitation to the executive to begin its political activity without waiting for the green light from Tobruk. Sarraj already has the support of a parliamentary majority but obstructionism by President Aquila Saleh has so far prevented a confidence vote from taking place. This stalemate makes Sarraj's executive "very fragile", according to Italian Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti, who told SkyTg24 on Sunday she hoped an agreement to combat Islamic State in Libya might involve the forces led by General Khalifa Haftar.

Numerous sources explain that in order to reach a joint solution negotiations are to focus on the creation of an 'appointed' or 'emergency' government with a limited number of ministers occupying key positions relating to security, the migrant emergency, international relations and the energy industry. However Libyan media report that this possibility is opposed by the regional alliance led by Egypt and that also includes other powers of the calibre of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This alliance is setting its sights on general Haftar also for the defeat of ISIS in Sirte and is not holding back on military aid, denounced by the United Nations, including fighter helicopters and armoured vehicles. However, the general's men are still caught up in Bengasi against the Ansar al Sharia militia and other jihadist groups, to the extent that ISIS has consolidated its positions in Sirte and launched an offensive in the west near Misurata. Some 22 people have been killed and 104 more wounded in combat over the last month, excluding the dozens of victims of jihadist terrorist attacks. In order to defeat ISIS Sarraj has asked for the arms embargo to be eased: the US and its allies, including Italy, are in favour but are demanding a precise plan and consolidated armed forces. The Vienna summit will also address the equally dramatic and urgent issue of the hundreds and thousands of migrants who are expected to attempt the sea crossing to Europe from North Africa now that the so-called Balkan route has been closed. The numbers are already considerable and are destined to rise further with the arrival of the summer season. The EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said recently the naval units supporting the operation Eunavfor Med are preparing to enter Libyan waters to carry out training activities with the national coast guard. However, an explicit request from the Libyan authorities - namely the Sarraj government - is needed first. The EU Foreign Affairs Council is expected to give its definitive backing to the plan in Brussels on May 23. In short, time is running out. (ANSAmed).


(ANSA) - Rome, May 16 - Undersecretary for European Affairs Sandro Gozi on Monday said that Italy and Britain are partners for digital unity and that he hopes that British voters in the June 23 'Brexit' referendum will choose to stay in the European Union.

"Italy and the United Kingdom have long been close allies in Europe in the development of the digital economy, for the fight against unemployment through growth of the digital single market, in view of Great Britain's European Council presidency in the second half of 2017, which we're counting on a lot," Gozi said, adding that the presidency would however require a UK vote to stay in the European Union.

Gozi spoke at a joint Italy-British forum on the digital economy that was also attended by Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Britain's Minister for Intellectual Property.

"Breaking down digital barriers in a single market of half a billion people can contribute to making Europe more prosperous," Neville-Rolfe said.

Both Gozi and Neville-Rolfe sit on the European Commission Competitiveness Council, whose next meeting is set for May 27-28.

Gozi said he hoped the forum would result in a joint Italy-UK draft document dedicated to the single digital market that could be submitted at the Council meeting, to show "how important the British role is for the single market".

He said the Renzi government recently presented its national "Digitalisation Plan" to the European Commission as part of the Digital Agenda for Europe, one of the seven pillars of the Europe 2020 Strategy.

The plan is based on four points: infrastructure development; promotion of digital competence and training; 'Smart City' management of services to citizens such as energy, transport, healthcare; and e-government, in which Gozi said strides have already been made through the country's digital vital records database.


(ANSA) - Rome, May 16 - There will be no foreign intervention in Libya where the Libyans will fight ISIS terrorism, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said after a Libya summit in Vienna. "The message that comes from Vienna today is that Libya remains united, divisions are not fuelled, Libyans will combat terrorism and there will be no foreign ground intervention", he told SkyTg24, stressing that the international community had recognised that "the Sarraj government will be the protagonist of this process of stabilisation".

"The Libyan premier has been very clear in stressing the fact that it is the Libyans who must be in the front line to fight terrorism and human traffickers and we are ready to collaborate," Gentiloni said.

"They're not asking for foreign intervention, but want to take on these responsibilities directly".

Gentiloni said he was "certain that, having set up a few days ago the Presidential Guard, supposed to be a first core of Libyan military forces, in the next few weeks they will ask us to collaborate on training and if they ask us we are certainly ready to collaborate".


(supersedes previous).

(ANSA) - Vienna, May 16 - US Secretary of State John Kerry said at a joint press conference with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Libyan Premier Fayez al-Sarraj Monday that "we will support the presidential council and will try to revoke the (arms) embargo and provide the necessary tools to counter-attack Daesh (ISIS). Kerry was speaking after an international conference on Libya in Vienna.

Kerry said that "it is imperative that the international community should support the Sarraj government, which is the only legitimate one in Libya and which must now start to work".

Kerry thanked Italy for its commitment to Libya, a country for which "it has particular sensitivity". Gentiloni said that "we are ready to train and equip the Libyan military forces as the Sarraj government asks us". Gentiloni said that "we will try to reinforce the political accord, to fight against ISIS, including General (Khalifa) Haftar, but the full recognition is needed" of the national unity government.

Sarraj told the Daily Telegraph he did not want western troops to be sent against ISIS in his country. "No boots on the ground," he said. Sarraj instead asked the international community to train Tripoli's troops and end an arms embargo on the north African country. He added: "The terrorists will be defeated by our armed forces and not by rival militia". In an interview with the British daily, Sarraj said his country felt abandoned by the West since the 2011 intervention that helped topple Muammar Gheddafi. Sarraj said the country's worst enemy was not ISIS but divisions that only his national-unity government will solve.

The Vienna summit on Libya was backed primarily by Italy and the United States with the aim of launching 'Phase 2' of the stabilisation of the North African country. The countries of the so-called 'Rome Format' (the permanent members of the UN Security Council, European and regional countries, international organisations) and Malta, Chad, Niger and Sudan were all invited to the meeting called and co-chaired by Kerry and Gentiloni.

"The unity and stabilisation of Libya remain a priority for Italy," read a statement from the foreign ministry on the eve of the summit.


(By Denis Greenan).

(ANSA) - Vienna, May 16 - US Secretary of State John Kerry said at a joint press conference with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Libyan Premier Fayez al-Sarraj after an international conference on Libya in Vienna Monday that "we will support the presidential council and will try to revoke the (arms) embargo and provide the necessary tools to counter-attack Daesh (ISIS)".

His co-chair Gentiloni said Italy would train Libyan troops and there would be no foreign intervention in Libya. Kerry said that "it is imperative that the international community should support the Sarraj government, which is the only legitimate one in Libya and which must now start to work".

Kerry thanked Italy for its commitment to Libya, a country for which "it has particular sensitivity". Gentiloni said that "we are ready to train and equip the Libyan military forces as the Sarraj government asks us".

Gentiloni said that "we will try to reinforce the political accord, to fight against ISIS, including General (Khalifa) Haftar, but the full recognition is needed" of the national unity government.

There will be no foreign intervention in Libya where the Libyans will fight ISIS terrorism, Gentiloni said. "The message that comes from Vienna today is that Libya remains united, divisions are not fuelled, Libyans will combat terrorism and there will be no foreign ground intervention", he told SkyTg24, stressing that the international community had recognised that "the Sarraj government will be the protagonist of this process of stabilisation".

"The Libyan premier has been very clear in stressing the fact that it is the Libyans who must be in the front line to fight terrorism and human traffickers and we are ready to collaborate," Gentiloni said.

"They're not asking for foreign intervention, but want to take on these responsibilities directly".

Gentiloni said he was "certain that, having set up a few days ago the Presidential Guard, supposed to be a first core of Libyan military forces, in the next few weeks they will ask us to collaborate on training and if they ask us we are certainly ready to collaborate".

The final document from the summit in Vienna said "security is a key point in Libya's future. "We recognise the need to bolster the efforts of coordination among the Libyan military and security forces and we invite them to rapidly create a unified command to coordinate the fight against Daesh". It said "guaranteeing security and defending the country from terrorism must be the task of unified and strengthened national forces. The Libyans must fight with unity".

Italy, along with the other European countries present at the summit, has declined the invitation of the United Nations to protect the UN mission offices in Tripoli, for which "a multinational force is needed," Gentiloni said. For Rome, he said, the priority is to defend the Italian embassy in the Libyan capital, which is set to be reopened in the coming months.

Gentiloni told ANSA that the agreement reached on Libya today "has a great political value", based on the recognition "of the international community of the responsibility of the government led by Sarraj." He said "on this basis I think that various requests of this government can be met". The reopening of Italy's embassy in Tripoli is "an objective we are very fond of" but security is needed, "I hope that today's step forward helps us".

The Vienna conference represents "a great success for Italy", Italy's special Libya envoy, Ambassador Giorgio Starace, told ANSA. "We are very satisfied, putting 20 countries together wasn't simple," he said. From today, Starace said, "a new phase opens with the recognition that the national-unity government is operational to address the country's emergencies".

Premier Matteo Renzi said in Rome that "it is important to underline how the specific attention on Libya is useful to pacify the whole Mediterranean area and not only to reduce the number of refugees and (migrant) arrivals in Europe". He said "I underline the extraordinary importance of the international community's diplomatic action led by Minister Gentiloni" in Vienna. Renzi spoke after meeting Polish President Andrzej Duda.

Sarraj told the Daily Telegraph earlier he did not want western troops to be sent against ISIS in his country. "No boots on the ground," he said. Sarraj instead asked the international community to train Tripoli's troops and end an arms embargo on the north African country. He added: "The terrorists will be defeated by our armed forces and not by rival militia". In an interview with the British daily, Sarraj said his country felt abandoned by the West since the 2011 intervention that helped topple Muammar Gheddafi. Sarraj said the country's worst enemy was not ISIS but divisions that only his national-unity government will solve.

The Vienna summit on Libya was backed primarily by Italy and the United States with the aim of launching 'Phase 2' of the stabilisation of the North African country. The countries of the so-called 'Rome Format' (the permanent members of the UN Security Council, European and regional countries, international organisations) and Malta, Chad, Niger and Sudan were all invited to the meeting called and co-chaired by Kerry and Gentiloni.

"The unity and stabilisation of Libya remain a priority for Italy," read a statement from the foreign ministry on the eve of the summit.


Serbia-Algeria: President Nikolic on visit to Algeria

(ANSAmed) - BELGRADE, 16 MAY - Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic is making an official visit to Algeria, where he will meet with the country's top officials and sign several documents from Monday to Wednesday.



During the visit, Nikolic will talk with his Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika.



The Serbian president will also meet with Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and sign a memorandum of understanding in the field of information technology between the National Agency for Promotion and Development of Technological Parks and the Science Park Belgrade and a protocol on the cooperation between the two diplomatic academies.The two governments will also sign a culture cooperation program and a protocol on cooperation between the national libraries. (ANSAmed)
Libya: summit called by Italy in Vienna to tackle stability Co-chaired by Gentiloni, Kerry, security and migrants on agenda

(by Claudio Accogli) (ANSAmed) - ROME, MAY 16 - All's set in Vienna for the summit on Libya backed by Italy and the United States with the aim of launching 'Phase 2' of the stabilisation of the North African country. The countries of the so-called 'Rome Format' (the permanent members of the UN Security Council, European and regional countries, international organisations) and Malta, Chad, Niger and Sudan have all been invited to the meeting called and co-chaired by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni.



"The unity and stabilisation of Libya remain a priority for Italy," read a statement from the foreign ministry on the eve of the summit. Sources in Europe and Libya say the summit should give rise to renewed support for the presidential council led by Premier-designate Fayez al Sarraj, with an invitation to the executive to begin its political activity without waiting for the green light from Tobruk. Sarraj already has the support of a parliamentary majority but obstructionism by President Aquila Saleh has so far prevented a confidence vote from taking place. This stalemate makes Sarraj's executive "very fragile", according to Italian Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti, who told SkyTg24 on Sunday she hoped an agreement to combat Islamic State in Libya might involve the forces led by General Khalifa Haftar.



Numerous sources explain that in order to reach a joint solution negotiations are to focus on the creation of an 'appointed' or 'emergency' government with a limited number of ministers occupying key positions relating to security, the migrant emergency, international relations and the energy industry. However Libyan media report that this possibility is opposed by the regional alliance led by Egypt and that also includes other powers of the calibre of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This alliance is setting its sights on general Haftar also for the defeat of ISIS in Sirte and is not holding back on military aid, denounced by the United Nations, including fighter helicopters and armoured vehicles. However, the general's men are still caught up in Bengasi against the Ansar al Sharia militia and other jihadist groups, to the extent that ISIS has consolidated its positions in Sirte and launched an offensive in the west near Misurata. Some 22 people have been killed and 104 more wounded in combat over the last month, excluding the dozens of victims of jihadist terrorist attacks. In order to defeat ISIS Sarraj has asked for the arms embargo to be eased: the US and its allies, including Italy, are in favour but are demanding a precise plan and consolidated armed forces. The Vienna summit will also address the equally dramatic and urgent issue of the hundreds and thousands of migrants who are expected to attempt the sea crossing to Europe from North Africa now that the so-called Balkan route has been closed. The numbers are already considerable and are destined to rise further with the arrival of the summer season. The EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said recently the naval units supporting the operation Eunavfor Med are preparing to enter Libyan waters to carry out training activities with the national coast guard. However, an explicit request from the Libyan authorities - namely the Sarraj government - is needed first. The EU Foreign Affairs Council is expected to give its definitive backing to the plan in Brussels on May 23. In short, time is running out. (ANSAmed).




Serbia: Belgrade's Technical Fair celebrates jubilee

(ANSAmed)- BELGRADE, 16 MAY - The 60th International Fair of Technique and Technical Achievements, whose exhibitors are announcing more than 100 innovations, kicked off at the Belgrade Fair grounds on Monday.



The trade show is hosting over 500 exhibitors from 26 countries, spanning Europe, America, Africa and Asia.



Besides its own jubilee, it is marking 160 years since the birth of Nikola Tesla, the great scientist whose discoveries and vision changed the world forever.



Several events, including exhibitions on the history of robotics, with an emphasis on the Belgrade School of Robotics, Tesla coil and other themes, and projects of the Serbian Association of Inventors, will be held as part of the celebration.



The 60th Belgrade Technical Fair was opened by young mathematicians who won the first prize at the recently held 33rd Balkan Mathematical Olympiad for secondary schools students in Tirana.



The trade show is hosting a number of national exhibitions, presented by the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Austria, Croatia and Republika Srpska.(ANSAmed)
US envoy says IS losing grip on territories IS lost hundreds of millions in US lead raid

(ANSAmed) AMMAN, MAY 16: The US envoy in the coalition to fight the Islamic State (IS) has said that the extremist group is losing its grip on territories and has been dealt a heavy blow in its financial resources.



Speaking during a press conference in Amman late Sunday, president Obama top envoy Brett McGurk said IS has seen its control on areas shrink in Iraq and Syria, as the US-lead coalition is carrying out procession attacks on daily bases.



"The coalition is doing precision strikes in Mosul almost every day. There is constant synchronized pressure," he added. McGurk said the US military has recently captured hundreds of millions from IS assets in Mosel after an intelligence operation lead them to hideout of cash used by the group. He did not give details, but noted that the operation lead IS to slash salaries of its members to half and caused a serious financial trouble for the group.



The top US envoy also said that a counter propaganda war has been organized to face the spread of IS in the region, naming Jordan, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates as some of the active partners in this strategy.



The US official arrived in Jordan to discuss means of inflicting an ever lasting blow to the IS presence in Syria and Iraq and has held meetings with king Abdullah and top military officials.



He said the near future will see the coalition conduct attacks on IS positions in Raqa, the symbolic capital of the Islamic State, in partnership with regional powers.




Vienna - Some 20 countries at a Vienna conference on Libya are willing to move towards easing an arms embargo on Libya according to a draft of the final document from the meeting, ANSA learned from well-informed sources. The draft has to be ratified, they said.

Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said at a press conference with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Libyan Premier Fayez al-Serraj Monday that "we are ready to train and equip the Libyan military forces as the Sarraj government asks us". He was speaking after a Vienna conference on Libya.

Gentiloni said that "we will try to reinforce the political accord, to fight against ISIS, including General Haftar, but the full recognition is needed" of the national unity government. He was speaking after a Vienna conference on Libya.
(by Claudio Accogli)

ROME - All's set in Vienna for the summit on Libya backed by Italy and the United States with the aim of launching 'Phase 2' of the stabilisation of the North African country. The countries of the so-called 'Rome Format' (the permanent members of the UN Security Council, European and regional countries, international organisations) and Malta, Chad, Niger and Sudan have all been invited to the meeting called and co-chaired by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni.



"The unity and stabilisation of Libya remain a priority for Italy," read a statement from the foreign ministry on the eve of the summit. Sources in Europe and Libya say the summit should give rise to renewed support for the presidential council led by Premier-designate Fayez al Sarraj, with an invitation to the executive to begin its political activity without waiting for the green light from Tobruk. Sarraj already has the support of a parliamentary majority but obstructionism by President Aquila Saleh has so far prevented a confidence vote from taking place. This stalemate makes Sarraj's executive "very fragile", according to Italian Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti, who told SkyTg24 on Sunday she hoped an agreement to combat Islamic State in Libya might involve the forces led by General Khalifa Haftar.



Numerous sources explain that in order to reach a joint solution negotiations are to focus on the creation of an 'appointed' or 'emergency' government with a limited number of ministers occupying key positions relating to security, the migrant emergency, international relations and the energy industry. However Libyan media report that this possibility is opposed by the regional alliance led by Egypt and that also includes other powers of the calibre of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This alliance is setting its sights on general Haftar also for the defeat of ISIS in Sirte and is not holding back on military aid, denounced by the United Nations, including fighter helicopters and armoured vehicles. However, the general's men are still caught up in Bengasi against the Ansar al Sharia militia and other jihadist groups, to the extent that ISIS has consolidated its positions in Sirte and launched an offensive in the west near Misurata. Some 22 people have been killed and 104 more wounded in combat over the last month, excluding the dozens of victims of jihadist terrorist attacks. In order to defeat ISIS Sarraj has asked for the arms embargo to be eased: the US and its allies, including Italy, are in favour but are demanding a precise plan and consolidated armed forces. The Vienna summit will also address the equally dramatic and urgent issue of the hundreds and thousands of migrants who are expected to attempt the sea crossing to Europe from North Africa now that the so-called Balkan route has been closed. The numbers are already considerable and are destined to rise further with the arrival of the summer season. The EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said recently the naval units supporting the operation Eunavfor Med are preparing to enter Libyan waters to carry out training activities with the national coast guard. However, an explicit request from the Libyan authorities - namely the Sarraj government - is needed first. The EU Foreign Affairs Council is expected to give its definitive backing to the plan in Brussels on May 23. In short, time is running out.


ISTANBUL - More than 100,000 websites have been censored in Turkey since last June's elections, according to a report by Press for Freedom from a bilateral project financed by the British Embassy to monitor freedom of speech.



The study said the web is one of the areas in which censorship is most widely seen in Turkey.



In the same period, the pro-Kurdish website Diha has been blacked out 37 times, while 13 of its reporters are currently in prison.



Since the beginning of this year, 33 journalists have been stopped and 894 fired, confirming how pressures on the press come directly from the authorities as well as from a narrowing of diversity in the publishing landscape.



Alarm over reporter safety also remains high, with 200 attacks recorded between January and April 2016.



In the same period, another 12 journalists were put on trial, accused of insulting President Recept Tayyip Erdogan.



Nearly 2,000 investigations into cases of insults of Erdogan have been opened since the beginning of his term in August 2014.(ANSAmed).
Vienna - US Secretary of State John Kerry said at a joint press conference with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Libyan Premier Fayez al-Serraj Monday that "we will support the presidential council and will try to revoke the (arms) embargo and provide the necessary tools to counter-attack Daesh (ISIS). Kerry was speaking after an international conference on Libya in Vienna.



Kerry said that "it is imperative that the international community should support the Sarraj government, which is the only legitimate one in Libya and which must now start to work".



Italy's Foreign Minister said that "we are ready to train and equip the Libyan military forces as the Sarraj government asks us". He was speaking after a Vienna conference on Libya.



Gentiloni said that "we will try to reinforce the political accord, to fight against ISIS, including General Haftar, but the full recognition is needed" of the national unity government. He was speaking after a Vienna conference on Libya.(ANSAmed).


TUNIS - Sousse is to host the first edition of the trade fair dedicated to technology and innovation 'Smart Expo Tunisia' on May 19-20 under the title 'The role of the digital economy in regional development'.



Over 50 exhibitors, more than 30 internet experts and over 2,000 professional visitors are expected to attend the two-day fair, whose programme also includes conferences and debates.



The event has been organised by the company Business Innovation Network (Ibn) with support from the ministry for information and digital technology, in collaboration with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the EU's PACS programme, the National Digital Certification Agency of Tunisia and chambers of commerce.
Last week, Yemenia operated Aden's first commercial flight in six months following the airfield's partial reopening in November of last year. Much of the airfield's infrastructure has had to be rebuilt following heavy bombardment by the Royal Saudi Air Force last year.

Riyan Mukalla saw its first flight arrive following the expulsion of Al Qaeda insurgents from the city last month by soldiers from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As such, the first flight, ferrying in aid on behalf of the Red Crescent, was operated by a United Arab Emirates Air Force (Abu Dhabi Bateen) Lockheed Hercules.
His appointment into this new role comes in response to a growing demand for Avtrades products in the region. A degree educated professional with experience in sales, purchasing, business development and key account management, Armstrong joined Avtrade in 2015 as a regional sales executive.

With focus on the Middle East & Africa, Armstrong will be responsible for developing further business and customer relationships, increasing sales and revenue, as well as promoting Avtrades full range of services available to the aviation industry.
Visa Checkout is now available to Emirates Airline customers in 15 countries including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, South Africa, the UAE and the USA. Enrolling in Visa Checkout is a simple, one-time process, taking only a few minutes. Consumers simply store their shipping and payment information in a secure account with Visa once, and they never have to re-enter it again when shopping online at all merchants globally who offer Visa Checkout.

Emirates customers can now conveniently use Visa Checkout with any Visa debit or credit card to make Emirates Airline ticket purchases to its global network spanning six continents directly from the emirates.com website. The service solves the frustration that many online shoppers face in having to submit large amounts of information  such as their name, card numbers and billing address - each time they want to make an online purchase.

Paul McCrea, visa's vice president of Products for Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: We are delighted that Emirates Airline will now offer Visa Checkout to customers in 15 countries who wish to book air tickets online. For Emirates customers, Visa Checkout is quick and easy to use, particularly as they book air tickets more frequently on smaller devices like mobile phones and tablets but still want to use the payment cards they already know and trust. Ultimately, Visa Checkout will ensure that consumers have a seamless and secure experience while booking a host of exciting travel options on the worlds largest international airline  Emirates Airline. Globally, our Visa Checkout merchant partners are already seeing the benefits, and we are expecting similar results with Emirates.
Nesma Airlines to acquire A319

Nesma Airlines is due to acquire its maiden A319-100, adding to the carrier's three A320-200s.
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by J.B. Nam Nguyen

Commission president Mgr Paul Nguyen Thai Hop issued a pastoral letter slamming "the governments iron fist against protesters who demand the restoration of a clean environment. Thousands of dead fish began showing up a month and half ago due to pollution by the Hung Nghiep steel, threatening human health. "As Pope Francis wrote in Laudato si, we cannot tolerate crimes against nature, which are sins against God."

Hanoi (AsiaNews)  For Mgr Paul Nguyen Thai Hop, bishop of Vinh and president of the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace, "We cannot remain indifferent to the disastrous pollution of the environment that is wreaking havoc in the central coastline, and causing long-term risks for the whole nation. The ocean, if I may say so, is screaming in desperation that its being poisoned to death.

In a pastoral letter released last Friday, the prelate slammed the governments violent crackdown on protesters and its attempt to hinder the investigation. In it, the bishop describes the "panic, impoverishment and indignation people have had to go through as a result of the environmental emergency that has killed hundreds of thousands of fish over the past month and half, and threatened the livelihoods of fishermen in the central provinces of Vietnam. "As Pope Francis wrote in Laudato si, we cannot tolerate crimes against nature, which are sins against God."

Since 6 April, thousands of dead fish have started to show up in the coastline of the central provinces of Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue. In early May, reports indicated that the fish had died as a result of pollution caused by a 17-metre sewage pipe that discharges wastewater directly into the sea near a plant operated by the Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp (owned by Formosa Plastics).

The company admitted to dumpling 12,000 cubic metres of wastewater every day. The last time it did so (perhaps last month), they used 300 tonnes of extremely toxic chemicals to clean the sewer.

Mgr Paul Nguyen Thai Hop slammed the government for hindering the investigation. "For over a month the authorities have failed to disclose the cause and the culprits of this catastrophe, he said. What is more, not only have they encouraged people to consume seafood from the affected areas without proper health controls, but it is even harder to understand why the government has used an iron fist against protesters who demand the restoration of a clean environment.

According to the president of Justice and Peace, the environmental damage caused by Hung Nghiep is very serious. "The toxic elements will remain in the seabed for a long time. Sea currents will dilute the concentration so as not to cause immediate death to the creatures of the sea, but these will still suffer from long-term hazards from infected food. When humans consume poisoned sea products, harmful substances will infiltrate and accumulate in their bodies, causing cancer, deformities, and birth defects."

To deal with the emergency, the bishop of Vinh appeals to our "Catholic brothers and sisters to show your Christian nature [. . .] by abandoning the consumer lifestyle that disregards environmental issues; [. . .], and by helping disaster victims by visiting them and giving them material and spiritual support.

At the same time, this calls for safe disposal of the dead sea animals to prevent toxic emissions, a ban on the sale of contaminated food, as well as cooperating with individuals and organisations of goodwill to find measures to tackle the emergency."

Finally, Mgr Paul Nguyen Thai Hop has called for the Constitution of Vietnam to include the right of citizens to demand transparency in the countrys governance and disaster management. He also called for those responsible of this disaster to be brought to justice.
Palestinians yesterday commemorated their expulsion as a result of the founding of Israel. For Prof Sabella, the anniversary is a "reminder" of "evil and mistakes" that can only be healed through justice. With Israels right in power, Israels democracy is in danger. Unity between Gaza and Ramallah and new elections are needed.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews)  The Nakba is a "reminder" and a memorial to evil and errors" committed against "the Palestinian people", although some "in Israel and in the West" want to "deny" this historical fact, Prof Bernard Sabella told AsiaNews.

A Catholic, Prof Sabella is a Fatah representative in Jerusalem and executive secretary of the Department of Services to Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East Council of Churches. Speaking about the anniversary, he said that the event was not marked "to return to the homes of the past. My parents had a house and were driven out. Yet, I am not asking to go back. Times have changed, wounds cannot be erased, but the time has come to heal them and bring justice."

Tens of thousands of Palestinians yesterday commemorated Nakba (catastrophe in Arabic) Day to mark the exodus of 760,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948 at the founding of Israel. Since then, the exiles and their descendants have increased to 5.5 million.

Sirens wailed for 68 seconds Sunday in the West Bank to mark the passing of 68 years since the event. In Ramallah and Bethlehem cars and pedestrians stopped. Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and shouted slogans.

For Prof Sabella, the desire to mark Nakba "does not mean that we do not want to recognise Israel, but it is a call for justice." What is scaring, the Catholic leader noted "is the right-wing drift in Israel and its government, which is marginalising [if not attacking] all those elements in [Israeli] civil society, individuals and movements, who are fighting for social and other rights. If such [right-wing] rhetoric wins, the very essence of the country is in danger.

In recent years, Israel has struck strategic alliances with several Arab nations against Iran. The climate has "changed" and Israeli leaders can no longer claim that their nation is surrounded by "hostile forces."

Recently, critical voices have emerged within Israel. In an editorial article in French daily Le Monde, Israeli writer Shmuel Meyer argues that "Israel must evacuate all the Palestinian territories in order to regain its soul."

He warns that Israeli "democracy is in danger", as did Nadav Bigelman of Breaking the Silence (BtS). A few days ago, he told AsiaNews that Israels "democratic values are under attack."

For Meyer, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "a spineless demagogue" who only wants to stay in power, and is able to do so because the left has no identity and is in crisis.

The only solution is for Israel "to withdraw unilaterally from all the occupied territories, telling the settlers that they can choose to be Israelis abroad, Palestinian Jews, or Martians.

In the meantime, another major anniversary is coming up. Next year, 5 June will mark 50 years since the Six Day War, which began the occupation of the territories.

Among Palestinians, the sense of humiliation, frustration, and anger is growing. Attempts by Fatah leaders to pressure the Mideast Quartet (United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia) to make 2017 the year of Palestinian independence is making little headway.

In Prof Sabellas view, "There are two essential things that Palestinians must face. One is unity between Gaza and Ramallah" to reach true "reconciliation between the two sides" at a time when, increasingly, people in the Strip are dissatisfied with Hamas rule. The other is elections. "Parliamentary and presidential elections are necessary" in Palestine; they have not been held "since 2006".

The Palestinian parliament has been "set aside" and this complicates the democratic process. Palestinians are tired of that. Elections are necessary despite opposition from leaders in Gaza.

Finally, a "common vision" with Israel is needed. The two must deal with each other to build together "the future, ensuring that they can live side by side in harmony, putting aside the conflict. What is needed is a middle ground, bridge-building, as Pope Francis said.

This is a difficult challenge that we must meet. It will not happen tomorrow, but we have to keep trying."
An attack yesterday on a factory killed 14 people, injuring another 20. 15 more victims in a series of attacks in the capital and surrounding areas. The Chaldean Patriarchate condemns attacks, which have become "a daily constant". The appeal to political and religious leaders for the promotion of a "culture of tolerance, love and peace."

Baghdad (AsiaNews) - The militias of the Islamic State (IS) have claimed responsibility for the suicide attack yesterday on a gas factory north of Baghdad, Iraq, killing at least 14 people and wounding twenty. The attack began with the explosion of three car bombs near the main entrance of the Taji plant, north of the capital.

Afterwards, six men with explosive belts stormed and ignited the gas in the tanks; only later the security forces were able to stop the attackers and regain control of the facility.

Yesterdays attack on Taji, about 20km north of Baghdad started at dawn. The explosion of the three gas tanks f caused a violent fire; several workers employed in the structure are among the victims of the attack, caught up in the explosion along with some security personnel.

Also yesterday in a series of attacks in the capital and surrounding areas killed another 15 people.



The Islamic State militias control much of northern and western Iraq and in the last week, have unleashed a series of bloody attacks in the capital. On May 11, a series of car bombs exploded in Shia districts of the capital, killing at least 93 people. It was the most serious attack recorded in 2016 in Iraq, followed the next day by other explosions that caused new victims among the civilian population.

In a note sent to AsiaNews, the Chaldean patriarchate has "strongly condemned" the violence, which today have become "a daily" constant in the country. To the leaders of the Iraqi Church say the target "is Iraq's cultural mosaic" and the idea of "coexistence." Hence the invitation to the government, the political class and to all people of good will to work "for the safety and the lives of innocent citizens". Added to this they appeal for "urgent reforms" for the development of the nation at a time of deep political, economic and institutional crisis exacerbated by splits and internal divisions.

The document, signed by the Patriarch Mar Raphael Louis Sako is also a strong appeal "to the Muslim religious leaders" and "Christian clergy" to "unite their efforts" in promoting a "culture of tolerance, love and peace "against all" abuses "and" distortions" of the faith. "This co-operation - the statement concludes - will forcefully reject the wave of fundamentalism and sectarianism" associated with past crisis.



The Chaldean Patriarchs appeal come at a time of deep crisis in Iraq, marked by internal division and an inability to form a new government. An impasse that has raised doubts on the capacity of the political and institutional leaders to fight the militias of the Islamic State which, after a period of difficulty, seems to be gaining new ground.
by Sumon Corraya

The young woman is 26 years old and teaches at Majibnagor Amrokanon High school in the diocese of Khulna. She went to a nearby town for a public exam for teachers. The headmaster and his friend raped her in a hotel room and then threatened to post the video of the rape on Facebook.

Dhaka (AsiaNews) - Hundreds of Christians protested yesterday in the streets of Dhaka, denouncing the brutal rape of a Catholic teacher by the Muslim principal of the school where she works and his friend. The sexual violence against the 26-year-old woman who shall remain anonymous, took place on May 13 in Kushtia in western Bangladesh.

The teacher was raped and then threatened to with public humiliation through the posting of the video of the rape online Facebook. Nirmal Rozario, general secretary of the Bangladesh Christian Association, told AsiaNews: "We have heard about the incident and ask the local administration for justice. We want that the attackers be punished. "



The woman belongs to Bhabarpara parish, in the diocese of Khulna (south-west of the capital). She teaches at Majibnagor Amrokanon High school in which Shariful Islam, a Muslim, is principal On May 12 she had gone into the town of Kushtia, about 20 km away from the school, for a public exam for teachers. The headmaster accompanied her.

The two spent the night in two separate rooms of a hotel, but the next morning the headmaster and his friend forced open the door of the room and raped the girl. Then they threatened to post pictures of her rape on the social network, if she talked to anyone.

The victim was hospitalized in serious condition, and there a journalist who was present in the structure warned the parish of the violence. Fr. Domenic K. Halder, the Bhabarpara parish priest, told AsiaNews: "We were advised by a local newspaper. We sought help from the local police for the victim. The girl is very frightened. We pray for her, she is still in hospital.

Relatives of the victim have filed a complaint against the rapists and yesterday Shariful Islam, the main culprit was arrested.

Christian activists have condemned the brutal violence. Rosaline Costa said: "I condemn the behavior of the principal and ask for an exemplary punishment to be imposed ".
Georgia Angus, solicitor at TGT Legal in New Zealand, talks about how she ended up in the law.



What made you decide to become a lawyer?

I was originally planning on attending jazz school but was strongly encouraged to have a backup plan should my jazz singing career not work out. I also watched a lot of Boston Legal. On that basis I enrolled in LAWS101 and from that point I didnt consider any other career.



How long have you worked at TGT Legal and what brought you to this position?

Ive been at TGT Legal for 8 months. My previous role was in the property team at a large commercial firm. I wanted to work in litigation and loved the idea of working at a boutique firm for private clients so TGT Legal was perfect. Its a brilliant place to work.



Whats the strangest case youve ever worked on/been involved with?

In my short litigation career I havent had many cases, let alone strange ones.

If you could invite three people for dinner, dead or alive and excluding family and friends, who would they be and why?



Amy Winehouse to entertain, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to inspire and Prince Harry for some insight into my favourite family.



Youre based in Auckland  wheres the best place to go for a drink and/or dinner after work?

Racket Bar, Federal Deli and Woodpecker Hill are some of my favourites. There are endless places to choose from in Auckland.



Whats the best piece of advice (work or personal) youve ever been given?

Its better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.



Do you have any hobbies/interests outside of work?

Is eating a hobby? I spend too much time investigating new cafes and restaurants. I also dabble in various musical pursuits and enjoy live comedy shows.



Complete this sentence: If I wasnt a lawyer, I would be

A television news presenter, a la Hilary Barry.



What do you think will be single biggest issue facing the legal space in New Zealand in 2016?

For my area, I think advising clients in light of the decision in Clayton and the litigation that will stem from that case.



If you had John Keys job for one day, what would you do?

I would revisit the refugee quota and look at how we can address the terrible rates of child abuse in New Zealand.



What do you love about your job?

I love the collegiality of being a lawyer and being part of the legal community. There are so many brilliant people to learn from and so many opportunities to do so.



What would you change about your job right now if you could?

A sparkling water tap in the office would be fantastic!




A Canberra lawyer has been struck off for professional misconduct, after he admitted to misusing more than $47,000 of client money.



The ACT Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal recommended that the lawyer, whose name has been supressed, be banned from practice.



In 2013, the lawyer sold his practice to another business, run by two lawyers, where he worked as a consultant, The Canberra Times reported.



A complaint filed with the ACT Law Society the following year by the two lawyers alleged that the lawyer had misappropriated $7000 in legal fees, which should have been paid to the new business under the sales agreement.



But the man said the lawyers directed him to have his clients pay fees into the account of the former practice to then be transferred to the new business. Despite asking the client to pay into a personal account rather than a trust, he claimed he hadnt misused the money as he had given the business a cheque for the same amount of money.



The new business owners said they never received the cheque and the Law Society pursued disciplinary action over the matter in June last year.



Reports said the lawyer later admitted to misappropriating the funds and to other instances where he paid money into the practice account before withdrawing it. His legal team submitted a document detailing 20 other payments, totalling $40,227, where the funds were misappropriated.



The court commended the lawyer for repaying all the money with interest and for not opposing the Law Societys application, alerting the society to additional misused funds.



Despite the commendations, tribunal members found him guilty of professional misconduct and said his actions were serious enough to have his name removed from the Supreme Court roll.



He was ordered to pay the Law Societys costs.



The tribunal noted that the lawyer had taken steps to separate a legal practice in NSW and said the matter should be drawn to the attention of the NSW Law Society and Legal Services Commission.


By Alan Duffy, Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology

ESA/ATG Medialab, CC BY-NC

Space research never stops and it seems neither do the surprises. On ABC Breakfast News I covered some huge results from the last few weeks.

Be still my beating (magnetic) heart

Earths magnetic field isnt just useful for helping us to not get lost when hiking. Its a key part of what protect us (and our vulnerable electronics) from radiation from space and solar outbursts. So it was far from simple curiosity that lead the European Space Agency to launch the Swarm trio of satellites to monitor our planets magnetic field.

After two years of data collection Swarm has uncovered significant and rapid changes in the direction and strength of the magnetic field. Over the course of weeks you can see changes in the field, with a pulsation in our magnetic field that is directly tied to the heart of the planet.

Thats because the magnetic field is generated by the motion of the molten iron core of Earth, and this heartbeat seen by Swarm is directly related to changes in that flow 3,000km below your feet.

It may come as a shock to many of us, but the Earths magnetic poles are on the move and have been for the century or so of detailed measurements. In the case of the North Magnetic Pole, it is moving towards Asia, and the South Magnetic Pole is leaving Antarctica and heading towards Australia. This is all part of a large scale swap of North and South called a field reversal, which happens every few hundred thousand years.









The Swarm constellation confirms that the motion of the poles is speeding up, meaning that compasses in a few centuries times might have North rewritten as South.

Also dont worry about your great great great grand kids on that hike, as even this potentially weakened magnetic field (as well as Earths atmosphere) will continue to protect them from radiation from space.

Earths thinner past

A key model of Earths history is that billions of years ago we must have had a thicker atmosphere than now. This thick atmosphere was assumed because the younger Sun was dimmer than it is now, meaning Earth would have frozen without the added greenhouse effect of extra air. Not the conditions one needs for life to arise, nor indeed were hints of any glaciers in ancient rocks of the time.

The latest research in Nature of Australian rocks from Beasleys River have suggested that far from being thicker the young Earth in fact was paradoxically thinner than it is now.









Sanjoy Som/University of Washington





Picture the scene, 2.7 billion years ago, of a younger Earth. Lava pours across the land and reaches a sea. The rapid cooling of the hot lava by the water causes a glass-like surface to form.

While the release of the pressure from the depths of the mantle to the atmosphere allows dissolved gasses to bubble out like opening a bottle of fizzy soft drink. Just like when youve only partly opened the bottle and the pressure is still above the atmosphere around the bubbles that form are smaller than if you just open it fully.

Those surprisingly large bubbles (which are seen in white, having since filled in with calcite) indicate that the background air pressure was at most half of the current air pressure we experience today.

This is similar to what you would experience on a mountain 5km high, yet thanks to the glass-like lava toes this lava undoubtedly flowed at sea-level. Thanks to other Australian rocks of a similar age bearing fossilised single cell life (known as stromatolites) we now life had arisen and was flourishing in this thinner Earth.

As the Sun was definitely dimmer and hence cooler how did Earth not freeze without a thicker blanketing layer of atmosphere? One suggestion is that water can more easily boil in low pressure (on top of that mountain your kettle wouldnt boil at 100 degrees centigrade but instead closer to 60).

Increased levels of water vapour or other greenhouse gasses, such as methane, may hold the answer. However, for now its clear that life can form and thrive across a wider range of pressures than we may have hoped, and certainly increase the narrows bounds we consider for potentially life-sustaining alien worlds.

Count again

A more generous consideration of what planets may harbour life is particularly timely as NASAs Kepler satellite revealed 1,284 planets, doubling the number known.

Amongst this treasure trove of confirmed alien worlds are 550 worlds small enough to potentially be rocky life Earth, and nine are in the habitable zone of their star. This is a band around a star that is far enough away that the water isnt boiled off, but not so far that it freezes into ice, and instead might exist as a liquid, hence the alternative name of the Goldilocks Zone.













The next step in determining a worlds suitability for life is to examine the atmosphere. This is a challenging observation but next generation telescopes such as NASAs James Webb Space Telescope will be able to discern the content and temperature of the air of these worlds.

Thanks to learning about our own planets history we might not be quite so picky about these other alien worlds when considering their potential for harbouring life.

Disclosure

Alan Duffy receives funding from Swinburne University of Technology.

Originally published in The Conversation.
Hi guys,



This is Priyanka from India. I have applied for spouse 309/100 visa from India on April 5th 2016. through vfs Hyderabad. Received mail from immi to do the medicals on April 12th 2016. I have done the medicals on May 4th 2016. No more further documentation pending from my side.After that I applied for tourist visa on 5th may 2016 for upto six months.



My question here, where I am checking the Indian embassy website they updated stating they were processing applications lodged on 6th which is today. On Friday may 13th they processed applications lodged on 5th may. But so far I haven't heard anything from immi about my tourist visa application.



In regarding to medicals I have approached clinic and they mentioned the medicals were updated to immi on 12th April. But when I am checking online I could not see anything. To mention mine is a paper application. Can I still check my medicals status online?!



I am so worried about this visa application and also about medicals. Can anyone please advise me on what to do?! Should I call them tomorrow to know the status or wait?!



Awaiting for all your valuable advises.



By the way I am new to this website.
We used a newsletter layout in Word when attaching evidence for our 300. Added our photos and used the text sections to describe our relationship while referencing the photos (about 16 photos I believe of the significant events and favorite pics). Did "Save As" within Word and selected the format from the drop down menu to save it as a PDF. Easily under the 5mb limit. Then uploaded another several months later since a lot had happened since applying.
Hi all,

I am sure this question has been posed before but I cannot find it.

If in the visa details information it states multiple entries to and from Australia during validity of your visa 6 month on each arrival, what is the difference between that and your visa expiry date?

I guess I am trying to understand how the expiry date changes if you leave the country and then decide to come back later, do you receive a new expire date? Then do you receive another 6 months when you return?

Thanks

Leesa
I am deeply sorry for your husband's passing

I know in the case of a partner passing whilst the provisional visa is still processing, you can withdraw the application and get a full refund. In this case as the application has technically been processed you couldn't get a refund, but I would have no doubts that they would grant you PR if you can prove genuine relationship. If you had/are having a big part in organising his funeral or other celebrations, I'd include that as evidence.



Anyway, my main point is that if the provisional visa is still processing and a partner dies, the money is refunded. If PR is given and a partner dies, you keep PR. So I am sure it isn't the case that when PR is processing but after the provisional visa is given, that in the case of your partner's death you lose residency AND money. That would just be unfair and cruel.
Special-edition Xcent is available in petrol and diesel guises only in the mid S trim level.

Hyundai has launched a special edition of the Xcent to celebrate 20 years of operation in India. Available only in the mid S trim level, the special-edition Xcent comes at an additional cost of Rs 16,999. The special edition Xcent is priced at Rs 6.29 lakh for the petrol and Rs 7.21 lakh for the diesel. (All-prices, ex-showroom, Delhi)

On the outside, the car gets additional detailing such as a '20th anniversary' badge on the boot, chrome finish to the lower front grille, a boot-lid spoiler with a reflector strip, additional chrome detailing to the rear fascia and side-body graphics.

Inside, the limited-edition model gets new black and red dual-tone fabric upholstery and a 6.2-inch Blaupunkt touchscreen infotainment system, in place of the standard cars beige and black upholstery and 2-DIN audio system.

The 20th anniversary-edition Xcent is available in two exterior colour options  Pure White and Sleek Silver  and is powered by the same 1.2-litre petrol and 1.1-litre diesel engines as its standard sibling.

Hyundai will only be producing 2,400 units of the special-edition sedan.
HP

Compared to the, I bet everybody will claim that the new kid on the block is a far more beautiful machine. Its hard to observe it at first, but the revised headlights are the Opel IntelliLux LED Matrix units with glare-free high beams detailed last month by the German automaker. There are 16 LED elements in total, 8 for each of the headlights.So we know how the full-LED headlamps look when applied to the 2015 Opel Astra K. For the base halogen headlamps, we reckon we have to wait a wee bit before Opel will give us a glimpse of them. The Italians from CarPassion.it are telling that the K will be about 100 kilograms (220 lbs) lighter than the outgoing model. That could translate to 1,293 kg (2,850 lbs) for the 2015 Opel Astra 1.0 ECOTEC SIDI Turbo (115) if we base this guesstimate on the outgoing Astra 1.4.Underpinned by the same D2UX/D2XX vehicle architecture employed by General Motors for the 2016 Chevrolet Cruze and Volt, the Opel Astra K will also utilize an all-new 1.4-liter petrol with 145 horsepower, as well as two 1.6 ECOTEC SIDI Turbo engines with 170 and 200 ponies, respectively. If oil burners are your cup of tea, the diesel front will come in the guise of single and twin-turbo 1.6 Whisper Diesel motors with up to 195 horsepower.Word on the street is that the China-spec Chevrolet Cruzes 7-speed dual-clutch gearbox will arrive on the Opel Astra K as soon as possible. Other than the oily bits and aesthetic front, we deem necessary to mention the Ks cabin design. The Astra in the adjacent photographs does seem to employ an IntelliLink infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility.Theres an e-brake replacing the good ole handbrake lever, a digital TFT screen flanked by two analogue gauges in the instrument cluster, as well as a center stack with noticeably fewer buttons than the outgoing Astra. Just like the front fascia design, the styling of the Ks dashboard resembles that of thethe 2015 Opel Astra K is
What looks like a diehard off-road machine from afar is, in fact, a 1991 Honda VFR750. It may sound strange to have VFR750 and off-road/adventure in the same sentence, but Chilly Racing's Carlos Avendano believes this is an entirely legit thing. Having previously worked on BMW GS and Honda Dominator machines allowed Carlos to properly assess the modding potential of the mauled 1991 VFR750 he had laying around.The project involved a ton of work to have the bike ready to receive the mandatory adventure add-on that needed to be installed, and Carlos remembers how much plastic and metal bracket welding was involved in the fabrication process. It took Carlos around six weeks of painstaking work to get the job done, but the result is worth the effort.Some riders will most likely not find the outspokenly hybrid looks of this VFR pleasing, but considering the fact that we're talking about a bike that had one foot in the grave, we'd go for "yay" instead of "nay" any day (nice rhyme, huh?).There are parts sourced from various other bikes, and the list includes a KTM SX, a Suzuki RM-Z, a Yamaha YZF, and a Honda CR. For example, a 1993 CR250 supplied the Showa USD forks that were shortened to suit the build. Shorter and stronger springs went inside them, as well, to cope with extra weight of the VFR.Technically, the parts that were used to rebuild the VFR750 are all second hand, salvaged from other machines. The list includes a supermoto CR front rim that uses wire spokes, and should be more enduring when hitting the rocky trails than a cast wheel. Brembo brakes and a Nissin pump were also "stolen" from a KTM.The oil cooler had to be relocated to get it out of the way of flying rocks, and a new position was also found for the fuel tap. Dual LED headlights now light the way towering above the ample number plate. Also, the instruments have been relocated inside a carbon fiber roadbook case with looks that are quite similar to what Dakar riders use for navigation.All in all, the "reborn" VFR750 should feel quite thrilling when taken off the road, and its V4 engine revved high will definitely have a vibe of its own.
Second of all, if you have any tin foil nearby and some minimal origami skills, feel free to build me a sea captain's hat from it, I won't mind.Last week, for the zillionth time since the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal began, a number of journalists accused Opel of rigging some, if not all of its diesel models with emission defeat devices that make the exhaust treatment in said cars to be severely limited in certain conditions. This apparently allowed the emissions of more poisonous NOx than permissible by law.The news came after other European carmakers had been continuously put under scrutiny by official and unofficial organizations regarding their diesel engines. In fact, the Opel Dieselgate story isn't something new either, since back in January 2016 they were again accused by a journalist of modifying diesel Zafiras to meet emissions.This time, the accusations are a bit more serious, since Germany's transport minister has apparently summoned Opel to make an appearance in front of an investigative committee. The report came from German magazine Der Spiegel, among others, which claimed that the Opel Astra features an engine software for its diesel engines that switches off the exhaust treatment system when the outside temperature falls bellow a certain threshold or during hard acceleration.Environmental and consumer protection association Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) claimed that the German certification and testing organization TUV Nord found at least three cases where Opel diesel cars switch off their exhaust treatment systems.According to the report, the vehicles pollute many times more than official numbers when the engine runs at higher revolutions than 2,400 rpm, when they go faster than 145 km/h (91 mph) or when the barometric pressure is less than 915 millibar, indicating that the car is traveling at an elevation higher than 850 meters (2,799 feet) from sea level. Now those are some pretty specific numbers if you ask me.Keep in mind that other European carmakers, including Mercedes-Benz and BMW, were accused of similar shenanigans with their diesel engines, but they replied in pretty clear terms that none of their vehicles featured an emission defeat device or software.Opel naturally took a similar stance against the accusations, which haven't yet been officially proven. Working closely with the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), Opel says that it has fully cooperated and offered extensive data in the fall of 2015 to German authorities. As a first conclusion, its software was never designed to cheat or deceive, and a field study conducted by the KBA using a number of cars from all German automakers said that no other vehicle has been found that has an illegal defeat device. Apart from those already discovered in Volkswagen's backyard, of course.Opel continues and mentions that the testing methods and protocols used by the peeps at DUH and quoted by the Monitor and Der Spiegel publications were not shared with the carmaker, thus not allowing Opel to evaluate their outcome.On top of it, the Russelsheim carmaker goes as far as saying that it does not believe that the results of those tests are objective or scientifically founded, basing this opinion on other experiments published by DUH before.This is where my tin foil hat senses started to tingle because this accusation from Opel sounds pretty peculiar. As most of you know, Opel has been a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors since, oh, 1931.My conspiracy theory is primarily based on two simple facts, and it's probable that this is exactly what makes it so sketchy and sounding so unbelievable. Volkswagen is German. General Motors is American. Volkswagen's Dieselgate started in the United States. Even though only half a million cars with defeat devices were sold there - compared to about 11 million in other parts of the world - it's the U.S. where VW will face the most severe penalties for its wrongdoings.On the other hand, Volkswagen's biggest direct rival in Germany is Opel, which we already established that it has a very American daddy. Could this be some kind of payback?Moreover, could a semi-rogue PR/lobbyist inject all sorts of allegations about Volkswagen's competitors to certain media outlets and organizations just to take away some of the heat that VW is currently experiencing? It's possible, not exactly probable, but it does sound like something that a company that used to be run by Ferdinand Piech would do, don't you think?Another thing that I'm basing my somewhat childish diatribe on is the fact that ever since Volkswagen's world turned upside down in the fall of 2015, no other carmaker has been found using an emission defeat device or software. Keep in mind that just about every official emission testing organization out there has since tested all European carmakers that sell diesel cars.There have been a lot of allegations , enough to make even BMW's stocks to go down , but no irrefutable proof so far. If Volkswagen cheated, then everyone else must cheat, we're getting told by all the naysayers. Maybe, maybe not. I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that diesels are a menace to our health, especially those who must live in European cities, and I fully agree that diesel is bad , and it should feel bad. On the other hand, I also think that Volkswagen was the only culprit in terms of using emission defeat devices, so let's not try and take away some of its blame by pointing the finger in other directions.
Apparently, if we are to give some credit to the latest patent sketches that made it on the internet, Honda might be looking forward to bringing to the market a leaning scooter that should rival Yamaha and Piaggio. That is, the Yamaha Tricity ( read road test review here ) and the Piaggio MP3.Leaning multi-wheel vehicles are becoming a thing and it appears that the interest of customers who are not necessarily looking for a motorcycle is only growing stronger. We also saw Yamaha making solid steps in the three-wheeled segment with the announcement that the MWT-9 will make it into production soon, and more models are being designed as we speak.Honda has been rather conservative as far as leaning three-wheelers go, but it looks like things are finally moving. The sketch, if real, shows a scooter that has two leaning front wheels and a rear swingarm unit engine. This means House Tokyo is eyeing a 150-200cc displacement for the new scooter, and this might be just enough for commuting, crosstown traffic, and even short trips outside the city.The presence of a kickstand may indicate that the three-wheeler Honda is allegedly preparing will not have a self-balancing system like that on the Piaggio MP3 or Quadro scooters, and be more in the vein of the Yamaha Tricity.Even in the absence of the self-balancing feature, such a scoot should sell well, given the increasing popularity of these vehicles. And with more manufacturers tapping into this niche, competitiveness should be on the rise, which is, again, a great thing. Most likely, we'll find out more this summer, in anticipation of the 2016 edition of the EICMA.
Apparently, the popular Nissan Qashqai crossovers diesel engine was to blame for the sanction. The South Korean ministry of environment did not mention if they were talking about the current generation of the Qashqai or an older model. In any case, they claim to have found a so-called  defeat device  in the Qashqais engine control software.The Japanese automaker denied any wrongdoing in the matter. However, as the BBC notes, the companys South Korean boss was sued for the situation. The Japanese company issued a press release in which it denied any manipulation of emission controlling elements and the use of defeat devices. Nissan has promised to look into the matter, as they do not understand the inconsistencies between the results of the South Korean tests and their European counterparts, which the Qashqai's diesel engine passed with flying colors.The South Korean government wants Nissan to recall around 800 vehicles sold by this brand, without any explanation on which engine version did not comply with standards or homologated specifications. Most likely, the 1.6-liter diesel version of the Qashqai is involved in the scandal, but it is too soon to be sure.South Korea is a country which has taken Volkswagens Dieselgate as a great offense , and it plans legal action against the German company. Most likely, the probe done on the diesel cars among which the Qashqai was included is linked to the Dieselgate situation, which has caused great harm to the automotive industry, as government officials do not have the same trust in automakers anymore.This is the second scandal related to emissions and fuel economy ratings in the past month, as Mitsubishi admitted last month to manipulating data in their national fuel economy homologation procedures. Ironically, Nissan was the one to find Mitsubishi s figures as inaccurate, as the latter supplied the former with rebadged Kei cars. Eventually, Nissan purchased a controlling stake in Mitsubishi.
To be fair, the mother should have known what was coming to her (and she does admit to it at the end of the video), but I guess it's hard to say "no" when your previous similar video racked up over 1.5 million views on YouTube. That's right, it isn't the first time this guy takes his mother for a spin that ends up to be more than she bargained for.His name is Adam, and when he's not scaring the life out of his mother, he's riding BMX bikes. And we all know what "riding" BMX bikes actually means... so he's basically constantly tormenting his poor mom who's probably expecting a phone call from the hospital every minute, telling her he's broken his leg or something.But, sadly for her, all of his legs were working just fine last Sunday when he got back home to celebrate Mother's Day with... well, his mother. One year ago, he got her to drive his modified Nissan 240SX, which turned out quite nicely. She refused to do a burnout, but she managed to cope with the extra power, the hard clutch, and the short-throw gear shifter.However, she wasn't so happy when Adam got into the driver's seat. In fact, she was quite upset with the whole burnout-plus-drifting scenario, so he probably had to eat out that night. This time around, though, more consent was involved. And the 240SX was nowhere to be seen, so mom's Pontiac Solstice had to do.The Solstice was a weird vehicle with plenty of things wrong with it, but also a few that made it quite fun. Like its European counterpart, the Opel/Vauxhall GT , it wasn't a sales hit, so the 70,000 units sold in the US over six years weren't convincing enough for Pontiac to grant it a successor. The fact that the brand went belly-up in 2010 didn't help either. However, it's still a fun two-seater with a unique design and a tendency not to go straight. In other words, it's definitely not the kind of car you would expect a 50-something-year-old woman to drive.After watching this video, it's clear she wasn't driving it the right way, and she refused to let herself be lectured into how to spin the car. So the Solstice is still condemned to a life of grocery runs. Well, at least it had its almost five minutes of fame thanks to Adam.
We are talking about the Crazy Color Edition of the G63 and G65 AMG . You know, the eye-catching scheme that was introduced back in February 2015, with the cars having started to reach dealers in March this year.Well, we're here to show you a photo that almost offers the full rainbow, including four of the five available shades. Coming from Magazin ProDriver CZ , the pic shows the G63s and G65s working as a customer magnet in front of the MB dealer in Hamburg, Germany.From left to right, we have Galactic Beam, Solar Beam, Alien Green and Tomato Red. As Merc fans know, the palette also includes Sunset Beam (profanes will probably end up calling this Orange), but while this was also present at the said location, it's sadly not in the photo.We know this is one of those dealers that like to organize memorable events from time to time, such as the 300SL rally held last year. However, we were still swept off our feet when we saw the... Golorful line-up adorning the lot. Heck, you don't even have to be a gearhead to be impressed by such a display.For one thing, the Crazy Color paint editions bring a price premium of between $17,000 and $22,500, so the financial part of the deal should be enough to grab one's attention - remember, we're almost talking 2016 Ford Mustang money here.Then again, with this type of machines sometimes being treated more like pieces of jewelry than offroading-savvy vehicles, we're happy to at least see the cars enjoying the great outdoors.
The computing power that will go into future cars would make your desktop PC blush, and somebody has to provide all those silicon chips. You might have already heard of NVIDIA, but that's mainly because you like to play a video game or two on your PC, so you had to keep up to date with the latest graphic cards. In recent years, though, NVIDIA has expanded from manufacturing GPUs (graphical processing units) to making general-purpose chips like the Tegra mobile processor.Naturally, NVIDIA is also present in the automotive industry, providing the brains for the vehicles of many well-known brands, but with the advent of the self-driving technology, the ability to process ones and zeros as quickly as possible has suddenly become paramount. That means that the companies providing this type of solutions are now engaged in a war to secure the best contracts available.NVIDIA's most notable rival is called NXP , and it has just announced a new product. Called the BlueBox, it is basically a one-in-all computing station destined for smart-cars that includes everything the company was offering individually until now. It's got processors for radar, vision, and LIDAR, which is another way of saying everything an autonomous car would need.Last year, Holland-based NXP acquired the US Freescale for a total of $12 billion, giving birth to the world's largest supplier of automotive semiconductors. That's a self-declared title, and one that NVIDIA will obviously be contesting. Bob Conrad, the man who leads NXP's microcontroller business, explains why his company is actually in the lead. Speaking to IEEE Spectrum , he said, They have no intermediate processors, and thats not the way people do it today, not how they bundle options on cars. Its a Big Bang approach; Im not saying it will never happen, but its not whats happening now.We're just going to nod at that, as if we understood everything he said, even though we couldn't explain what all that meant if our lives depended on it. Luckily, he goes on, so we can start to fathom what he's on about: About 80 percent of the silicon content is in Level 3. Levels 4 and 5 are only the last 20 percent of silicon content.He's talking about the levels of autonomous cars, where Level 3 is what we're starting to get now (when the drivers have to keep their hands on the wheels at all times), Level 4 allows you to sit back and do whatever you want, while Level 5 cars don't even have a steering wheel. Bob's point is that his company is in a better position because the parts it supplies don't depend on whether or when cars will make it to levels 4 and 5.Whatever the case, we surely haven't seen the last of this rivalry. With cars quickly becoming more about IT than chassis and performances, these suppliers have everything to fight for. So this isn't the last time we hear of NXP
Toyota do Brasil LTDA (TDB) has opened its new engine manufacturing facility in the city of Porto Feliz. Built on a plot of land that covers an area of 9.39 million sq. ft., the new facility represents an investment of $170 million and approximately 320 direct jobs in the region. With this new manufacturing operation, Toyota reinforces its commitment to the Brazilian economy and increases its support for Latin America and the Caribbean region as a whole.

The new Porto Feliz facility is Toyotas first engine plant in the region. Its capacity to produce up to 108,000 units annually will serve production of Toyotas 1.3-liter and 1.5-liter NR engines, which come equipped with Dual VVT-I, four cylinders, and flex fuel. These engines are used in the new Etios, which is manufactured in Brazil specifically for customers in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC region) markets, according to the company.

Toyota production in Brazil dates back to 1959 with a Complete Knock Down facility of TDB, Toyotas first manufacturing affiliate outside of Japan. Since then, Toyota has aimed to manufacture vehicles valued by Brazilian consumers on location; a goal symbolized by the more than 100,000 Bandeirante UVs produced and sold between 1958 and 2001, according to the company.
Communauto, a Canadian-based carsharing company, has added approximately 600 vehicles to its carsharing program in several cities, including Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, and Halifax, according to a report by auto123.com.

Montreal alone will get 275 new Communauto cars  a quarter will be fully electric, according to the report. Quebec Citys fleet will expand from 30 to 55 hybrid vehicles.

In 2015, nearly one million trips were made with Communauto vehicles, Benoit Robert, president and CEO of Communauto, told auto123.com. Carsharings growing popularity, partly due to our extremely competitive rates, requires us to drastically increase our fleet in order to effectively meet the demand. The impact of carsharing is becoming more and more noticeable: in Montreal and Quebec City alone, Communautos offer will replace, in 2016, more than 15,000 privately-owned cars.

Click here for the full auto123.com report.
16 May 2016 14:43 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Armenia may face strict international sanctions due to illegal use of chemical weapons against the Azerbaijani civilians in the frontal zone.

The Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) detected Armenian white phosphorus bomb in Tartar District of Azerbaijan last week. More than 20 military attaches from 13 countries visited the area to witness the gross violation of a number of international documents.

Armenia has violated the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons, which it joined in 1993, by using the white phosphorus bomb to Azerbaijan.

Now the international experts urge that the incident must be thoroughly investigated by international community and strict sanctions should be imposed on Armenia.

The country's involvement in nuclear materials and chemical weapons emerged concerns of many international organizations and countries. In particular, Armenian politicians' open statements threatening with an atomic bomb that the country allegedly possesses made the Azerbaijani government to actualize the issue.

Alexey Sinitsyn, chief expert of the US-Azerbaijan Fund for Advancement Assistance and a military expert, told day.az that Armenia used the chemical weapons even in 1990s.

He reminded the April events of 1992 when he was in Shusha and noticed that the majority of Azerbaijani soldiers had scarlet rash on their bodies, suffering bubbled up and slipping leather in some cases.

We explored the entire area, literally on our bellies, and gathered a few dozen of rusted out so-called "arrow-shaped elements", i.e. small arrows, which equip artillery shells. On the next day the same red pimply rash appeared on our bodies and hands especially, he told.

Then foreign experts and journalists gathered in Shusha along with the Commission of Azerbaijan Ministry of Health and doctors to hold an examination and agreed that Armenians used prohibited ammunition with poisonous substances in the area between Lachin and Shusha.

Sinitsyn expressed his confidence in use of chemical weapons shells and chemical toxic substances by Armenia back in the beginning of 1990s, when military hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh war reached their peak.

Ph.D. Elkhan Alasgarov, who heads the Baku Network expert group, also believes that theoretically Armenia may produce "dirty bomb" due to its Metsamor nuclear power plant.

The NPP enables the leadership of Armenia to legally purchase radioactive elements abroad. They can be used to create "dirty bombs" later, as well as for profit and sale on the black market. Citizens of Armenia, selling radioactive materials to the world, are the main characters of shady deals on the black market, Alasgarov wrote in his article.

He brought some evidences of transferring smuggled nuclear materials by Armenians abroad, usually through the Georgian territory.

"One of the last cases was arrest of three Armenians by the Georgian authorities for attempting to smuggle cesium-137 through Sadakhlo-Bagratashen checkpoint in Georgian-Armenian border in January 2016. The other proof is the incident fixed in April, 2016 when three Georgian and three Armenian citizens were arrested for attempting to sell 200 grams of uranium-238. It was revealed that the three Armenians worked for the Metsamor nuclear power plant previously. The group planned to sell uranium-238 to the Middle East."

The news was a hot topic of the world famous newspapers such as Washington Times, Reuters, The Huffington Post and The Jerusalem Post, which published stories about these attempts of Armenian smugglers.

It is assumed that Sashik Sargsyan, the brother of Armenian President, is the protagonist of all these actions because it is not possible to carry radioactive substances through Armenian checkpoints without his consent.

Now the international community is called to urgently prevent Armenia's manufacturing and selling nuclear materials in order to avert a possible terror escalation in the region. Otherwise, the terror organizations can benefit this opportunity and use Armenia as its nuclear resources supplier.

--

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16 May 2016 16:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Armenia's nature threatening actions have anew become topical as the country continues polluting the major rivers in the South Caucasus.

The Rivers of Kura and Araz are constantly polluted through the nuclear waste of the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), but there is a probability for scaly pollution.

The overused plant operated by Armenia remains a threat for the entire region. The NPP is located close to the regions four states borders: 120 kilometers to Azerbaijani and Georgian, 60 km to Iranian and 16 km to Turkish lands.

Its explosion or other unwanted accidents will seriously affect not only Armenia, but also other countries of the South Caucasus and the Middle East, the Azerbaijani scientist warns.

Professor Islam Mustafayev, member of the Public Council under the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, told Trend that each of these countries will greatly suffer from the possible threat of the NPP.

"But Azerbaijan will suffer much more because the main rivers of the country, Kura and Araz, flow through Armenia," he emphasized.

Mustafayev alarrns that the toxic waste will enter the rivers first and the Caspian Sea then.

"This is very dangerous. Therefore, a public movement should be formed to prevent the threat and work comprehensively on the case, Mustayev said.

Exploration period of the Metsamor NPP has reached its deadline and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to determine with the further operation of the NPP this year. Therefore, professor calls on the public to voice its opinion on closing the NPP.

He mentioned that the countries of the region build new NPPs or destroy old ones constantly. That in fact opens up risks for smuggling. Armenians smuggle nuclear materials, particularly from Metsamor NPP as it was revealed recently.

Various projects have been implemented to prevent such threats, in particular special training courses were conducted for customs officers, and special equipment was purchased and installed in the last 12-15 years. The country keeps the issue under a strict control. But 20 percent of our territory is under occupation, which creates certain problems, and opportunities to use these territories for various nefarious purposes, Mustafayev noted.

IAEA implements its nuclear control over the member countries. However, Azerbaijan must use and increase all its capabilities in this regard.

William Arthurs, member of the British Institute of Energy Economics and Ziba Norman, Director of the Institute of Transatlantic & Caucasus Studies Institute told Trend about the dangerous impact of the outdated NPP for region.

The NPP is located in a highly dangerous area and a single earthquake can destroy the infrastructure of whole country and affect nearby states, they believe.

It is almost unthinkable that an old nuclear power plant like Metsamor is still used as the main source of energy for Armenia. Continuing efforts to modernize the NPP while being aware of the unacceptable risks that it poses to Armenia itself and the region as a whole, is short-sighted and careless, they noted.

Moreover, the experts mentioned that Armenia could become inhabited if the NPP is not closed on time and accident happens.

Metsamor NPP was built in 1970 put into operation in 1977 near the city of Metsamor, Armenia. It was closed after the earthquake of 1988, but the Armenian government reopened it in 1995. The NPP consists of two power generating units.

The European Union insists on closing the NPP offering 200 million Euro. Despite this, the NPP is still functioning as no alternative sources of energy exist in Armenia.

A campaign to stop the exploitation of Metsamor NPP started recently in change.org by activists could gain around 2,000 subscribes so far.

--

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16 May 2016 10:23 (UTC+04:00)

By Kent Harrington

Conventional wisdom lays much of the blame for the rise of Donald Trump on angry American voters, who have allowed him to break every rule in the political playbook without paying a price. But more responsibility arguably lies with the American broadcast journalists who amplified his schoolyard name-calling and bizarre policy views.

All along Trumps march to becoming the Republican Partys presidential nominee, partisan commentators spun and re-spun his countless outrageous statements, sometimes with just a tut-tut of disapproval, while other on-air pundits all too often treated his malignant demagoguery as worthy of serious analysis. When it came to the chores of professional journalism  fact-checking, providing historical background, and offering impartial analysis  television news channels failed to fulfill their election-year responsibilities.

The reasons are not hard to discern. Spending on political advertising is skyrocketing, boosting profits at broadcast and cable news networks, which have been struggling with declining viewership and lackluster revenues. In a highly competitive market, in which legacy media companies are under pressure from Internet news sites and social media platforms, news programs quickly realized that they could leverage Trumps outlandish behavior to attract larger audiences and strengthen their bottom lines.

At the same time, the industry has been undergoing a fundamental consolidation. Major companies are snatching up stations across the United States and, in the process, eroding the scope and quality of local news reporting. The impact of this restructuring on journalism and its role in the political process should not be underestimated.

Even with the rise of the Internet, local broadcast news remains the main source of information for the majority of Americans. Opinion polls consistently show that some 60% of Americans still regard television as their primary news source. News consumers are twice as likely to express the most trust in local broadcast and cable news compared to social media, attesting to voters reliance on television journalism to inform their thinking.

Nothing better illustrates local televisions role than how candidates spend their money. Campaign spending on political advertising is expected to top $5 billion in 2016, nearly quadruple the total in 2008. And local television is on track to get the lions share; more than three-quarters of that spending  some $4 billion  will be earmarked for political advertisements on local broadcast and cable television channels.

For media companies that own local stations, reaping the financial bounty from political ads is one thing; investing in news operations another. And in dozens of this falls battleground states, where the rival campaigns will blanket the airwaves with political ads, broadcast news departments are increasingly ill-equipped to assess either the candidates or their political claims.

The industrys own figures explain why. In 2014, five companies owned one-third of the 1,400 local television stations in the US. Over the last decade, their acquisitions have given them far more than local influence. The 168 stations owned or operated today by Sinclair Broadcasting, the largest of the five, are a case in point; Sinclair broadcasts in 81 local markets, reaching nearly 40% of the US population.

The accumulation of local broadcasters by a handful of media corporations has left its mark on journalism across the country. Because of consolidation, fewer television stations actually gather and report the news. According to the Pew Research Center on Journalism and the Media, the number of local television stations originating their own news programming has fallen 8% since 2005.

Federal regulations allow media companies to own multiple stations in a single market, and in nearly half of them, media companies own or manage at least two. Stations share staff, facilities, and even stories, reducing not just the number of newsrooms, but also the competition that brings diversity and depth to reporting.

According to the Radio and Television Digital News Association, a quarter of US television stations that present local news receive their programming via news sharing arrangements. In other words, the stations do not produce news programs themselves. A 2014 University of Delaware analysis highlighted the consequences. In four of the television markets the researchers assessed, nearly 100% of the stories broadcast by news sharing stations used the same videos and scripts.

More troubling, research suggests that as local stations reap revenue windfalls from election campaign advertising, reporting on the candidates claims becomes off-limits. A study by the public-interest group Free Press of political advertisements during the 2012 presidential election found that stations in the six sizable television markets examined undertook virtually no reporting on the claims made in the political ads they aired.

In Denver, for example, local stations took in $6.5 million to air nearly 5,000 ads paid for by the 2012 presidential candidates political action committees (ostensibly independent fund-raising groups that shield their donors identity). The same Denver stations devoted only 10 minutes and 45 seconds in total to examining the accuracy of the advertisements claims. The ratio  162 minutes of campaign ads to every minute of related news  speaks for itself.

Vigorous political reporting is vital to democracy, because it enables voters to understand the issues and evaluate their choices. But this year, Americas media industry seems more inclined to bank its profits than bolster its reporting on a presidential campaign that even its senior executives acknowledge has become a circus. It may not be good for the country, Leslie Moonves, the chairman of one of Americas largest broadcast networks, said a month ago, but its damn good for CBS.

Copyright: Project Syndicate: Trumps Media Enablers

---

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16 May 2016 13:44 (UTC+04:00)

Amina Nazarli

The defense ministers of the regional neighbors -- Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia  came together in Azerbaijans city of Gabala on May 15 to look though the development perspectives of the trilateral military ties.

The bilateral and trilateral meetings involving Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov of Azerbaijan, Ismet Yilmaz of Turkey and Tinatin Khidasheli of Georgia on Sunday discussed security issues and mutual interest for cooperation in the military field.



The meetings also thoroughly discussed the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, particularly the recent developments along the line of contact of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops.

Holding such a trilateral format in the period, when the three countries are going through the certain known military conflicts, is aimed at improving combat readiness and mutual vigilance of the neighboring countries.

Exclusively peaceful nature of the meeting is expected to give an impetus for improvement of the military base and future prospects of relations.

Turkey, which ranks among the top ten countries on the planet, according to the ranking Global Firepower, has the largest army compared to Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Today, Turkish-Azerbaijani relations are important not only for development of bilateral relations, but they also perform a stabilizing function within maintenance of peace, stability and security in the region.

The meeting is important for Azerbaijan, which for more than 20 years is fighting for the return of its historical territories, occupied by Armenian armed forces.

Georgia, in turn, intends to modernize its defense forces to join NATO, which the country is awaiting for several years.

The three countries that enjoy the friendly and fruitful relations are actively working to strengthen their trilateral military and defense cooperation in a sustainable manner.

In recent years, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgias relations reached the level of strategic partnership and play an important role in ensuring peace and stability, sustainable development, the welfare of the three nations.

The ministers exchanged views on the military-political situation in the region, stressing the strategic importance of the bilateral talks and meetings.

During the fourth trilateral meeting the parties reiterated the importance of enhancing the combat readiness of the three countries armed forces and holding trilateral joint military exercises in order to achieve mutual interoperability, trilateral development of military education and training, development of cooperation on cyber security, and further improvement of trilateral exercises on the protection of oil and gas pipelines.

Hasanov highlighted the importance of the meeting, saying that Azerbaijani, Turkish and Georgian defense ministries are expected to sign a trilateral Memorandum of Understanding.

He noted the memorandum, which is under development, will be a legal base of the three countries cooperation and allow their trilateral activities to enter a new stage.

The three countries will hold joint military exercises, Azerbaijan's defense minister informed.

"We considered it appropriate to hold trilateral joint exercises to improve combat readiness and mutual vigilance of the three countries, cooperate in the field of military training in a trilateral format, develop cooperation in the field of cyber security and hold exercises for the protection of oil and gas pipelines," he added.

Hasanov said during the bilateral and trilateral talks, they discussed the military and political situation in the region, as well as security issues.

He expressed hope that the military cooperation between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey will contribute to the strengthening of fraternal and friendly relations between the peoples of the three countries, as well as the restoration of peace and stability and achievement of sustainable development in the region.

Hasanov also thanked his Georgian and Turkish counterparts for sincere and fruitful discussions and the Georgian and Turkish people for supporting Azerbaijans fair stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the recent developments along the line of contact of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops.

Ismet Yilmaz said the private meeting between Turkey and Azerbaijan addressed issues of regional security, global projects, conducted with the participation of the three countries, and the joint security of oil and gas pipelines.

The Turkish minister noted that Azerbaijan intends to increase its military power and to strengthen the defense sector.

Turkey and Azerbaijan want to solve Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Turkey is ready to fully support Azerbaijan in the liberation of the Azerbaijani lands occupied by Armenia and solving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, he said.

Tinatin Khidasheli, for her part, noted that the goal of the meeting is to restore and protect the peace and prosperity in the region.

She stressed that today Georgia has extensive connections with Azerbaijan and Turkey in all spheres, including the military. The agreement reached at the meeting, will create opportunities for further strengthening of cooperation.

Georgia and Azerbaijan felt Turkey's support over the past 25 years. I consider this meeting effective for the further expansion of military cooperation between the three countries, the Georgian minister said.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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16 May 2016 17:55 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijan is a strategic partner of Georgia and the country is interested in developing and strengthening these relations, said Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili as he met with Azerbaijani Prime Minister Artur Rasizade in Tbilisi on May 16.

The sides exchanged views on prospects for the development of relations between Azerbaijan and Georgia, activities of the East-West energy corridor, as well as other energy projects implemented in the region, Azertac reports.

Rasizade hailed the bilateral relations and friendly ties between Azerbaijan and Georgia, saying the energy projects serve the best interests of both countries.

A delegation led by Rasizade embarked on a visit to Georgia to attend a series of events on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of East-West energy corridor to be held in Tbilisi.

During the Tbilisi visit, Rasizade also met with his Georgian counterpart Giorgi Kvirikashvili to explore prospects for the development of strategic partnership.

They discussed the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipelines, the East-West energy corridor and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway projects. They in particular discussed ways of expanding the bilateral relations between their countries in a variety of fields, including investment making, trade, power engineering and transportation.

Rasizade hailed the friendly relations between the two countries, saying Azerbaijan is interested in developing these ties.

Hailing the importance of the projects co-implemented by Azerbaijan and Georgia, Rasizade said these projects are of crucial importance not only in strengthening our state independence and economic relations, but increasing international influence of our countries."

Kvirikashvili offered his congratulations on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the commissioning of Baku-Supsa energy corridor, which, he said, made significant contributions to the development of strategic partnership between the two countries.

He thanked Azerbaijan for involving Georgia in energy projects, as well as for the country's approach to solving gas and other problems faced by Georgia.

---

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16 May 2016 22:48 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev has met with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, Trend reports.

The meeting was held during the working visit of President Aliyev to Austria on May 16.

During the meeting, the parties expressed satisfaction with the current status of cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan.

The parties emphasized the high level of Mogherini's visit to Azerbajjan and noted that the visit brought good results.

They also exchanged views about the situation regarding the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The parties emphasized the necessity of adhering to the ceasefire regime by taking mutual understanding and confidence-building measures.

They also discussed the events on the line of contact in April 2016.
16 May 2016 10:40 (UTC+04:00)

Elman Rustamov, chairman of Azerbaijan's Central Bank (CBA) will visit Iran on May 16, Iran's Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mohsen Pakayeen told Trend.

He said that Rustamov will visit Iran due to his Iranian counterpart Valiollah Seif's invitation.

"The head of CBA will have a meeting with Iran's Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayyebnia over the ways of boosting bilateral relations". Touching upon the importance of economic relations, Iranian ambassador said that establishing a joint bank is an agenda in the negotiations between Baku and Tehran.

Before, Mahmoud Vaezi, minister of communications and information technology of Iran, co-chairman of the intergovernmental commission, said in an exclusive interview with Trend last August that Iran and Azerbaijan discuss creation of a joint bank and the opening of branches of the two countries' banks in Baku and Tehran.

He said the branches of the new bank will operate in both Azerbaijan and Iran. Vaezi went on to add that several private banks of Iran are interested in entering the banking market of Azerbaijan.

The two countries have limitations in the banking sector now, therefore, cooperation between banks isn't at an appropriate level yet, Vaezi said. "There is a branch of Bank Melli Iran in Azerbaijan, but it is not active," the minister said, adding that preliminary talks on these issues were already held, and it is expected that they will be resolved during the visit of the head of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan Elman Rustamov to Iran.

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16 May 2016 12:32 (UTC+04:00)

Greece can assist Azerbaijan in developing tourism and information technologies, said Rahman Mustafayev, Azerbaijani ambassador to Greece.

"Today the main tasks for the Azerbaijani economy are to diversify and reduce dependence on oil and gas production, create jobs at new enterprises," Mustafayev said in an interview with Greek Ethnos. "There is a need for an education reform as the specialists are required in the regions where the country's government plans to increase economic activity."

"Among other priorities are the reduction of dependence on imports, the growth of exports, IT-sector development, the creation of tourism industry," he said.

"Greek companies have experience and knowledge in all these areas," the ambassador said, adding that this creates additional opportunities for the development of mutually beneficial cooperation."

Mustafayev also reminded of the fourth meeting of the Azerbaijan-Greece Intergovernmental Commission on Economic, Industrial and Technological Cooperation, to be held in Athens on May 26-27.

The diplomat said that among the main topics of the meeting is the revival of trade between Azerbaijan and Greece, which dropped up to a very low level.

According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, the Azerbaijan-Greece trade turnover hit $162 million in 2015.

"Azerbaijan and Greece will also discuss the cooperation in such priority sectors as energy, health protection, agriculture, tourism, transport, IT, development of small and medium business, education, culture, science, sport," Mustafayev added.

He further said that implementation of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline's (TAP) construction project, which envisages the delivery of the Azerbaijani gas to Europe, will give a huge impetus to Greece's economy.

Mustafayev said that the creation of the Southern gas corridor and the beginning of implementation of Trans Adriatic Pipeline project will enhance the energy security of the whole South-Eastern Europe and will lead to the development of the regional countries' economies.

"Economic development will create conditions for the development of bilateral economic relations between those countries, including Azerbaijan," said the envoy.

Mustafayev noted that Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR actively supports the involvement of Greek companies at all stages of the TAP's construction in Greece, for example, in the supply of pipes, construction of compressor stations and others.

"The total value of these contracts exceeds 1.5 billion euros and gives a huge impetus to the Greek economy," he said. "This is the recipe of our success."

TAP project envisages transportation of gas from the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas and condensate field to the EU countries. The 870-kilometer pipeline will be connected to the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italy's south.

The groundbreaking ceremony of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline will be held on May 17, 2016. It is expected that the first gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas field will reach Europe via TAP in 2020.

TAP's initial capacity will be 10 billion cubic meters of gas a year, expandable to 20 billion cubic meters.

The diplomat said that during the recent meeting with the Greek Deputy Prime Minister Yannis Dragasakis and Head of the SOCAR Energy Greece S.A. Anar Mammadov, the issues related to the privatization of Greece's gas transmission system operator DESFA were in focus.

"Azerbaijan is not only a country with an independent and active energy policy, but also a serious and reliable partner in the implementation of investment projects," said Mustafayev. "We have proved it in Switzerland, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro and in many other countries."

"If the Greek side has desire to cooperate, we can prove it in Greece too, in particular, in the context of DESFA's privatization," he added.

"SOCAR successfully completed a three-year negotiation process with the European Commission; it remains to pass only a small part of the exhaustive marathon," noted Mustafayev. "We expect the Greek government to respect our efforts, our positions and create conditions for the process's successful completion."

"The common success of SOCAR, the Greek government and our Italian partner company Snam in this project is a guarantee of further investments in new projects," said the ambassador. "And I hope that all participants of the meeting understood our message."

SOCAR won a tender in 2013 on the sale of the 66-percent stake in DESFA for 400 million euros.

Greek Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change Panos Skourletis said in autumn of 2015 that in order to complete the deal on SOCAR's purchasing the 66-percent share in DESFA, it is necessary to sell 17 percent of this share to a European company.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2016 16:13 (UTC+04:00)

By Fatma Babayeva

Azerbaijan has joined the international railway project Viking Train, which will enable to up the countrys trade and transport potential.

A protocol on Azerbaijan Railways' joining the railway project Viking Train was inked on May 13, Nadir Azmammadov, spokesman of Azerbaijan Railways told Trend.

Companies which participate in the project met in Baku on May 12-13, said Azmammadov, adding that this meeting mulled several issues like the final works on the train's operation, the prospects for developing and expanding the piggyback train project, the tariff terms for 2017, the tariffs for export and import operations and the additional services.

Representatives of Azerbaijan Railways, ADY Express Ltd., railway agencies of Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, as well as, the rail freight transporters of Bulgaria and Romania, and other operators of the project took part in the meeting.

The participants of the meeting considered an appeal by Azerbaijan Railways and gave consent to the company's joining the project, and after that the parties signed a corresponding protocol, he added.

It is worth mentioning that the piggyback Viking Train project was launched in 2003. The project's participants are Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and since 2012 Bulgaria.

The total length of the Ilyichevsk (Ukraine)-Minsk (Belarus)-Draugyste (Lithuania) route is 1,766 kilometers.

In September 2015, the Ukrainian Railways announced about the possibility of cargo transportation by Viking Train from China to Europe.

Azerbaijans participation in the Viking project will extend the container train route to more distant Asian countries by providing an alternative route to reach Kazakhstan and China, as well as, more freight will be transported to the Baltic region from Kazakhstan and China, and the new Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will be used to transport containers from Turkey to Ukrainian ports.

The Viking project has been recognized as one of the best examples of developing the East-West and North-South transport corridors.

---

Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2016 17:04 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

French company Alstom is expected to supply its electric locomotives to Azerbaijan in 2017.

Alstom will supply 50 electric locomotives with 40 being freight and 10  passenger. The locomotives will be brought to the country under the project being realized by Azerbaijan Railways, Zaura Rakhmedova, Alstrom communication manager told Trend.

Freight locomotives will be manufactured in the production area located in Astana, Kazakhstan while passenger locomotives will be produced in France, Rakhmedova said.

The AZ8A electric locomotives with the capacity to pull up to 9,000 metric tons at a speed of 120 km per hour are considered to be one of the most powerful in the world. The locomotives will be manufactured specifically for Azerbaijan. New locomotives will give an impetus for increasing the transportation capacity of the company.

Azerbaijan Railways LTD and Alstorm Company signed a contract on the supply of 50 freight locomotives in 2014 while the final agreement was reached in May 2015. The total amount of the contract is 300 million euros.

Initially it was planned that Azerbaijan would receive Alstom locomotives in late 2016. The time for delivery was extended due to some changes in the agreement terms. Originally, supply of 50 freight locomotives was scheduled for 2016, later Azerbaijan changed some details of the agreement, Rakhmetova said.

Azerbaijan Railways launched a long-term program for the sustainable renovation and modernization of its railways in 2006. The program included reconstruction of infrastructure and gradual switch from direct current to alternating current as well as gradual replacement of obsolete trains running on existing lines.

Alstom is also cooperating with Baku Metro. The company has delivered 3 new metro train sets to Baku Metro, in accordance with a contract signed in 2014. The train sets, consisting of 5 cars each, were commissioned for passenger service in May 2015.

With its headquarters in France Alstom company operates in over 60 countries all over the world. The company develops wide range of systems, equipment and services in the railway sector. Currently the company is a world leader in integrated railway systems.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2016 21:27 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The World Bank (WB) may issue $20 million for Azerpoct LLC to provide population with microcredit services.

The issue is expected to be considered during the next visit of WB mission to Baku, which will take place in mid-May, a source told Trend.

The WB offers a loan worth $20 million for 20 years for microcredit deployment in the country by Azerpoct. The volume of loans provided to population should not exceed $5.000. As the offered funds could be allocated under governmental guarantees, the cooperation issue should be resolved with the government of the country.

Azerpoct was established in 1999 by the Communications Ministry of Azerbaijan. The company started to provide financial services in April 2012 in accordance with the license of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan.

Today, nearly 1,000 post offices of the Azerbaijani postal operator are provided with the capabilities of offering all banking services (except for the issuance of loans and deposits) based on the license of the CBA.

The company became the national postal operator in 2004 and is widely spread throughout the country, having 4 affiliated branches. These are sorting and technical support services, express mail and special communication.

Azerbaijan has been a WB member since 1992. As of February 1, 2016, the Bank issued loans amounting to $3.785 billion to Azerbaijan. The funds were used to finance over 60 projects. By early 2016, Azerbaijan has used $2.764 billion or 73 percent of all loans drawn via WB. Besides the loans, WB delivered 45 grants totaling $41.586 million to Azerbaijan in 1995-2014.
16 May 2016 11:24 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Students of the Baku Music Academy named after Uzeir Hajibeyli have successfully performed at International contest SEA, SUN, FESTIVAL in Barcelona , Spain, Trend life reports. The festival was attended by representatives of thirteen countries.

Javid Azizov, the student of honored Azerbaijani teacher Nazakat Rimasi won in the category "Instrumental solo" in the age group of 20-25 years. The second place was taken by Vusal Aydemirov, the student of another famous teacher Ogtay Abbasguliyev.

Vusal Aydemirov together with Javid Azizov (student of professor Narmina Guliyeva) has took the third place in the nomination "Ensemble".

International contest SEA, SUN, FESTIVAL is a festival contest of various genres which corresponds to its name as the participants find themselves on the warm coast of the Mediterranean sea, under the hot Spanish sun, and, of course, beautiful happy days of the competition. The jury of the contest is formed of the most important choreographers and cultural workers of Spain, France, Canada and other countries of the Eastern Europe and Asia. International jury is formed by the contests providers. Participation in the gala concert isnt guaranteed for everyone and is confirmed due to the results of the previous shows according to the consolidated legislative decision of the contest providers and the judges.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2016 18:08 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

A grand event in the fashion industry of Azerbaijan -- Baku Fashion Week 2016 kicked off last weekend, Trend life reports.

Baku Fashion Week 2016 once again turned into a celebration of style and fashion. The evening was attended by famous fashion designers, bloggers as well as representatives of business. The well-known Turkish model and actress, Touche Sarikaya, has been invited to host the fashion event.

The first day featured fashion collection of famous Italian designer Andrea Lazzari - a versatile collection of men's clothing pret-a-porter with a strong expressive personality Plus Que Ma Vie. Lazzari is a graduate of the program "fashion Design" fashion Institute Marangoni. The first collection of the designer won the award for Best Menswear Brand Award Marangoni in Milan and Paris.

The collection of Italian designer featured the black color which is the dominant element in each collection. All other colors revolve around him, and help maintain a constant and clean aesthetics.

Further, the audience enjoyed the collection of the fashion house "Uventa." Romantic and elegant outfits by local designers did not leave the audience indifferent. The latest collection ofthe first day was presented by Ukrainian fashion House Anna Zhabniak. Light dresses in pastel colors is very reminiscent of the 70s.

The event is broadcast in 121 countries of the world.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2016 17:35 (UTC+04:00)

The Armenian government intends to investigate its intensive ceasefire breaches on the contact line with Azerbaijan by the help of French equipment.

Armenia appealed to France to supply equipment to record the armistice breaches on daily basis.

Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian announced this festive news for his army, the move which really caused many questions in the society.

Armenia which breaches the fragile ceasefire with Azerbaijan every day shelling by 130-150 times on the opposite positions now wants France-made devices to help to get assured whether the mission aimed at escalating the situation on the frontline is fulfilled.

For over 20 years of peace process targeting to find a peace to lingering Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Yerevan could differ with "original" approaches. Staging provocation of different types and scales on the fronltline indeed helped the small South Caucasus to be proud of its "achievement".

Armenia keeps under occupation of 20 percent of internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan and is very satisfied with the current status-quo in the resolution of the conflict.

Every positive move that could potentially lead to resolution of the conflict meets with new Armenian provocation on its way. Thus, staging armed provocations on the contact line of troops and also on the border, Armenia each time tries to mislead the international community from the true essence of the problem - the Armenian occupation troops in the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan.

Yerevan seems to reach the deserved culmination of continuous aggression against Azerbaijan and is very concerned on the international community's calls to withdraw from the occupied lands of Azerbaijan and return at a negotiating table.

New "inventory" is another tool for Armenia to distract the attention from the resolution of the conflict and to retain deep belief in its impunity.

Baku has repeatedly warned that if this mechanism begins to be applied now, this would be further strengthening of the current status quo, which is unacceptable. Strengthening the ceasefire is possible only if it would ensure the consistent and speedy solution to the conflict.

Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry, commenting on the issue, reminded that the mechanism of investigating the incidents should be one of the elements of the process of withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied Azerbaijan lands.

"Otherwise, this mechanism can serve for maintaining the status quo based on the fact of occupation," said Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.

Another nonsense aspect of Nalbandians talks in France is the legitimacy - Armenia, which declines to show constructive position on the conflict resolution and refuses to sit at the negations table, now mulls such a peaceful initiative with France in absence of Azerbaijan.

Expert Ilgar Velizade, who shared the view, said the fact is that first, such discussions are beyond the scope of bilateral Armenian-French format, and, secondly, even if Baku agrees to its deployment, such equipment must be installed outside the area of access to it by any party to the conflict.

Accordingly, this equipment must be supervised and managed by independent experts with the relevant mandate, confirmed by the parties to the conflict and certified by the relevant structures of the OSCE - an organization that is engaged in the negotiation process, he said.

The expert believes that Yerevans attempts to discuss the mechanism of investigating the incidents and deployment of peacekeepers into the conflict zone at this stage is an absolute profanity

Yerevan does not have any right for such talks. And such issues are not solved unilaterally. This is an obvious attempt of the Armenian side to "put the cart before the horse" and mull issues that are out of priority before the possible meeting of presidents in Vienna, he said, adding that Yerevans attempts are ridiculous.
16 May 2016 13:20 (UTC+04:00)

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline's (TAP) project financing continues to progress according to the schedule, Ian Bradshaw, Managing Director at TAP AG said in an interview with Trend on May 16.



"TAP expects to secure funding from a number of multilateral institutions, such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank, as well as Export Credit Guarantee Agencies of a number of OECD countries involved in the supply of goods and services," Bradshaw said.



In addition, a large proportion of TAP's financing is foreseen to include commercial lenders, he said.



Bradshaw added that TAP is currently in the process of arranging its financing ratio, with a mix of debt and equity.



TAP project envisages transportation of gas from the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas and condensate field to the EU countries.



The 870-kilometer pipeline will be connected to the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italy's south.



TAP's shareholding is comprised of BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).



A groundbreaking ceremony for TAP will be held May 17 in Thessaloniki, Greece.



Earlier, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) managing director of energy Riccardo Puliti said in an interview to Reuters that bank is considering financing of up to 1.5 billion euros for TAP.



"We are considering up to 500 million euros of our own money for TAP plus we will try to arrange with other banks up to 1 billion euros in a syndicated loan," Puliti said.



"Together with financing from the EIB, project sponsors' equity and export credit agencies, I think the (project) will be fully financed," he added.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2016 14:26 (UTC+04:00)

By Fatma Babayeva

Azerbaijans state owned energy company SOCAR seeks to expand its presence in Balkans.

The company decided to intensify its activities in Balkan Peninsula via its subsidiary SOCAR Balkan in order to explore cooperation opportunities with the countries of this Peninsula, a source at the company told Trend.

The source stressed that the companys utmost concern is about boosting energy security in the western Balkan region. Countries located in this region are not EU members. However, these countries lack of capacity to ensure their own energy security impacts the EU, said the source by reminding that in the joint declaration on Southern Gas Corridor signed in 2011 between the EU and Azerbaijan, the priority was given to the countries of South-Eastern Europe as they can ensure their own energy security to a lesser extent, and Baku traditionally has had good mutual relations with them.

The source further added that SOCARs activation of works in this direction is not a surprise. Croatia and Montenegro was invited to the second ministerial meeting of the Advisory Body for Southern Gas Corridor held in Baku in February 2016. The final document reads that works will be carried out to assist new gas infrastructures of these countries, especially Ionian Adriatic pipeline (IAP) was mentioned in the document.

Currently, the company bilaterally cooperates with Albania and Montenegro and provides assistance in improving their gas infrastructures, said the source, reminding that these countries are the participants of IAP project, and SOCAR sees great opportunities for cooperation.

These two independent processes- bilateral contribution to the development of the gas market and infrastructure projects- can be combined in a package, and a special permanent operational subdivision will be established soon and immediately begin developing the road map, said the source, further adding that SOCAR will work together with the European Commission on remaining opportunities within the framework of the special fund under the EC providing assistance to Balkan states.

The source excluded problems over SOCARs compliance with the Third Energy Package (TEP). Balkan states are the members of the energy community, and they are required to integrate to the legal system of the EC on energy development through a relevant program.

As SOCAR only provides technical assistance and will not become a direct participant of the IAP pipeline, at least for now, issues about compliance with the TEP will not arise,  the source explained, emphasizing that SOCAR only shares its experience.

SOCAR Balkan was established two years ago, its headquarters is located in Baku. The subsidiary is the founder of SOCAR Greece as well.

As the opportunities for cooperation with Balkan countries in the energy sector keep increasing, SOCAR decided to intensify its activities in the region. However, the company has been actually working with these states long ago, said the source.

The envisaged IAP will be constructed through the Western Balkans and provide natural gas to the South-Eastern European states. It will be connected to the TAP pipeline, which is part of the ongoing Southern Gas Corridor project. Upon completion, the pipeline network will provide more than 10 billion cubic meters- expandable to 20 billion cubic meters in future- to the EU through via Georgia and Turkey.

The main source at the initial stage will be Shah Deniz Phase 2- a gas field located in the Azerbaijans section of the Caspian Sea. Nevertheless, other sources can be connected to the SGC in future as well.

Worth noting, the groundbreaking ceremony of TAP will take place on May 17 in Greece.

In addition, TAP has already signed memoranda of understanding and cooperation with the developers of the IAP project, namely with Plinacro (Croatia), BH-Gas (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Geoplin Plinovodi (Slovenia), as well as, with the governments of Montenegro and Albania.

A working group for TAP and IAP has been established. The group meets regularly to synchronize the timing of both projects and to coordinate technical issues related to their connection.

In the meantime, possible timeframe for the realization of this project is not disclosed.

In addition, Bulgaria also has intention to be connected to the TAP pipeline via the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB).

First gas delivery to Georgia and Turkey via SGC is scheduled for late 2018. However, gas deliveries to Europe are expected a year after the first gas is produced in offshore fields of Azerbaijan.

The SGC, a win-win project for all parties, is one of the biggest construction projects of our times with a value of $45 billion.

---

Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2016 17:31 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Russia and Iran have agreed to attract additional volume of railway cargo within the North-South Transport Corridor.

The issue was mulled in Tehran as President of Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov met with the Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development, Abbas Ahmad Akhoundi, and the Head of the Iranian Railways, Mohsen Pour Seyed Aghaei, Russian Railways reported.

The sides mulled prospects of cooperation between Russia and Iran for developing the Caspian Sea region's railway infrastructure.

Belozerov said that currently, the parties are not fully using their cooperation potential. "Meanwhile, railways of Russia and Iran have experience in joint implementation of infrastructure projects: in 2012, JSC Russian Railways completed the electrification of the Tabriz-Azarshahr railway line," noted Belozerov.

The sides also mulled creation of a direct railway traffic along the west branch of the North-South international transportation corridor. This project envisages the construction of Rasht-Astara railway line, which will link railways of Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran. The new infrastructure will allow accelerating the delivery of cargos between the countries of Europe, the Persian Gulf and the Southern Asia.

The implementation terms of the electrification project of Garmsar-Ince Burun railway line also was on the agenda of the talks. The railway line has a length of 495 kilometers, 203 kilometers of which pass through the highlands. The modernization of this infrastructure will increase the capacity and speed of trains.

The talks in Tehran ended with signing of a protocol on the main directions of further cooperation between Russian and Iranian Railways. The document was undersigned by Oleg Belozerov and Mohsen Pour Seyed Aghaei.

The parties agreed to continue to work for the realization of joint projects, to strengthen cooperation and attract additional cargos for the North-South international transport corridor.

The North-South international transport corridor will link Northern Europe and South-East Asia. It will also serve as a bridge to connect the railways of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia

The key aim of the Corridor is to reduce costs in terms of time and money over the traditional route currently being used. The corridor will allow to increase trade connectivity between major cities such as Mumbai, Moscow, Tehran, Baku, Bandar Abbas, Astrakhan, Bandar Anzali.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2016 16:09 (UTC+04:00)

On the eve of the official visit of Croatia's President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic to Iran, a high ranking delegation has left Zagreb for Tehran for talks on the expansion of bilateral ties.



Representatives from 72 Croatian companies alongside with several ministers are expected to attend talks with senior Iranian officials, IRNA news agency reported.



The Croatian delegation is also slated to hold several meetings with the members of Iranian private sector to discuss bilateral cooperation.



Earlier commenting on the visit, Total Croatia News said that for Iran, which has large gas reserves and could take over an important gas producer, Croatia is located at an extremely important geopolitical location and could become a distributor of Iranian gas to many European countries.



Iranians are interested in investing in an LNG terminal, shipbuilding, petrochemical industry and tourism, while Croatian companies want to invest in infrastructure and energy.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2016 09:51 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan sweeps everyone off its feet, who has once been here. Tourists, who visit the Land of Fire for the first time, usually say in one voice that the trip was a real discovery for them.

Travelers always remember the romantic Maiden Tower in the center of Baku, dazzling Palace of Sheki Khans from Venetian glass, as well as the cradle of human civilization -- Gobustan with thousands of incredible petroglyphs.

However, in addition to well-known attractions, Azerbaijan carries quite a lot of unexpected discoveries that await visitors at the close acquaintance with Azerbaijani cities and regions.



Did you know, for example, that bananas are grown and crabs live in the countrys Masalli region, or that the oldest butter in the world is stored in Ismayilli regional museum?



Unusually colorful and interesting corner of Azerbaijan Masalli carriers many secrets.



Due to the mild subtropical climate, the average temperature here is +29 degrees Celsius in summer. The whole area is covered by dense forests, where many rare plants are grown including the famous ironwood. The abundance of sunlight, water and fresh air make Masalli a paradise for subtropical plants including tangerine, oranges and lemons. But seeing here growing bananas can surprise many.

Masalli is also a promising medical region for tourism, thanks to its beautiful healing waters called Istisu, translated as hot water. And near the healing springs you can find small harmless freshwater crab, which not only attract tourists but also serve as an excellent indicator of environmental cleanliness of these places.

Ismayilli is one of the centers of ethnographic tourism in Azerbaijan.

One of well-known village of Ismayilli is Basgal, which is famous for its plane tree, planted in the XVI century. It has a huge hole once housing the entire teahouse, and later a hairdresser. Now the tree is protected by government.



Its interestingly that people here still used sewage system built in the IX century, and what is more surprising people still do not know where waste water drain.

Probably many knows about Sheki thanks to the Palace of Sheki Khans with magnificent wall paintings and delicate shebeke, built in the XVIII century without a single nail, as well as the ancient fortress Gelersen-Gerorsen and caravanserais.



However, not many knows that Sheki has some several Christian monuments of Caucasian Albania (Caucasian Albanians must not to be confused with the Illyrian Albanians of modern-day Albania in the Balkans), the most famous of which is the church in Kish village. This temple is important not only as an architectural monument, but has also a significant historical value.



The official date of its construction is the I century A.D., a time when the territory of Azerbaijan was a part of the Caucasian Albania.

The courtyard of the complex is an ancient burial ground, covered with transparent plastic dome in order to protect it. Note of, a gigantic height of the buried people - more than two meters is really striking.

Legendary Norwegian explorer, scientist and anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl conducted studies here to garner evidence to prove his tantalizing theory - that Scandinavian ancestry can be traced to ancestors of Caucasians. A bust of the famous scientist has been also installed near the church.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
 

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When Lydia Tapia was a college student abroad in Mexico, she was raped. Her assailants learned her routine, watched her getting onto the metro
Sept. 15, 2022

Even though some states have decriminalized or legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use, under federal law, Marijuana remains an illegal Schedule I Controlled Substance, with a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical use.
Jessica Helmes spends many, many hours online talking to veterans. They are her sisters and brothers.

Army veteran formed Vet V.I.P. to bring fellow vets together

Group provides friendship, direction to veterans

An U.S. Army veteran, Helmes has served two tours of duty in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom I and III.

After leaving the service, she searched for groups dedicated to young vets and found none. So, a year ago she created Vet V.I.P.

Our group focuses on bringing people together and trying to redevelop the camaraderie that we lost once we exited the service, Helmes said. Her group offers friendship, help and direction to vets.

One of the people she met was from Iowa.

Amanda Rickens, an Army veteran and mother of two young girls, is facing a far greater battle than her days stationed in Iraq: stage IV colon cancer.

I couldnt imagine being told that you might not have time to see your girls grow up, Helmes said.

Rickens told Helmes of her desire to create positive and happy memories for her children.

With Helmes' help and other veteran organizations, Rickens and her girls made some of those positive memories with a trip in January to Disneyland.

For Rickens, who is visiting in Florida, Vet V.I.P. is many things.

It means a lot. Its more than just a veterans friendship, Rickens said. Its actually quite deeper for me than that. I can come to her and talk about anything.

Said Helmes: We try to reach out to them and to provide them the support they need. Maybe theyre having a bad day, and they just need somebody to talk to and thats what we do.
Oregon Coast Event Examines Debris Boats and Their Invasive Species

Published 05/15/2016 at 6:11 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Florence, Oregon)  There are still unsettling aspects to the aftermath of Japan's 2011 earthquake and the tsunami debris that is arriving on the Oregon coast. The region has seen an upsurge this year in everything from buoys to bottles. Sometimes these have found their way into the Pacific Gyre, where they swirled around for five years and then made their way to these shores.

Most worrisome, however, the region has seen seven boats or fragments of boats appear on Oregon beaches.

On Tuesday, May 17, Hatfield Marine Science Center researcher John Chapman appears in Florence, giving a talk with background information on this phenomenon, explaining what has been learned regarding the tsunami debris that continues to wash up on Oregon beaches.

Dr. Chapman speaks at 6:30 p.m. (doors open at 6) at the Lane Community College Florence branch (3149 Oak St.), Room 103. The talk, offered by the CoastWatch program of the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition, is free and open to the public (a $5 donation is suggested).

Tsunami debris can pose threats of unwelcome sea life guests, but especially dangerous are those with large pieces and cavities that could provide protected temporary habitat. These hold more of a risk of harboring non-native species that have survived the journey, and might prove invasive in this new territory.

Oregon coast watchdog group CoastWatch  which is putting on the talk - works closely with scientists who are studying these non-native species by reporting tsunami debris found on the shoreline and the presence of possible invasive organisms, and where possible actually carrying the material to the Hatfield Marine Science Center.

John Chapman, an invertebrate zoologist who studies aquatic biological invasions, collects tsunami debris and samples the organisms clinging to it to measure the abundance and diversity of these non-native species. He will discuss the scientific research that has been done by himself and others on tsunami debris since 2012.



He and CoastWatch Volunteer Coordinator Fawn Custer will also provide information on how CoastWatchers and others can assist by scouting for and reporting on potential tsunami debris.

For more information about the event, or about CoastWatch and its citizen science activities, contact Fawn Custer at (541) 270-0027, [email protected] Yachats Hotels - Lodging for this event - Where to eat - Map and Virtual Tour





















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Southeast Texas students are cashing in on a growing demand for welders created by the specialized workforce's thinning ranks and local industry's multi-million dollar expansions.

The profession's attraction among young people is based on better-than-average job prospects and higher compensation, as well as the lengths to which some companies are willing to go to recruit new welders.

Twenty-three about-to-be-graduated high school students from Southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana last week attended a reception at the Lamar Institute of Technology to acknowledge their acceptance into Cheniere Craft Development Program, which provides financial incentives for their first year of instruction.

Students who complete their first two semesters can receive tuition reimbursement up to $6,000.

After successful completion of the first year, the students proceed to a second year of advanced training with Bechtel, the main contractor for Cheniere's conversion of its liquefied natural gas terminal for export on the Louisiana side of Sabine Pass.

The students took welding classes in their junior and senior years of high school and set their sights on industrial careers instead of a bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degree.

Craig Johnson Jr., who is about to graduate from Central High School, took his early welder training at the O.C. "Mike" Taylor Career Center.

"I could have gone to LIT anyway," he said. "But honestly, this opportunity is a blessing."

He hopes he can hire on with Cheniere - or more specifically, Bechtel, the contractor.

"The probability of me going into the workforce is very high," he said.

Three soon-to-graduate students from Memorial High School in Port Arthur are on a similar career track.

Marco Antonio Lora said Cheniere came to the school to describe the opportunity to those in his welding class who had the basics down.

"I really wanted it," he said. "The teacher showed us how to pass the test. It's a life job opportunity."

With the Cheniere-Bechtel program, Lora is on track to achieve payback for his education and payroll for the future.

The nation's welder ranks have been thinned by the retirement of baby boomers and downsizing from the last recession.

State Rep. Dade Phelan, a Republican who represents many of the industrial areas of Jefferson and Orange counties, spoke to students at the reception about House Bill 5, passed in 2013, which encourages industrial training for students in high schools.

"You're going to learn a skill that's highly sought-after," he said. "Industrial growth in Southeast Texas can't happen without skilled labor."

The U.S. economy includes 388,000 welders. In the next five years, the craft will need at least 110,000 replacements.

The National Association of Manufacturers reports that nearly 81 percent of manufacturers across the United States say they cannot find enough skilled welders to meet demand.

That shortage also exists for shale gas manufacturers, who need professional welders with experience in pipefitting.

The growing demand for welders is accompanied by higher-than-average starting pay, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

Training is key because the National Association of Manufacturers reports that 60 percent of manufacturers typically turn away half of all applicants because they lack proper skill.

Alvaro Daniel Lopez said he looked at other training programs, but he would have to pay for those himself.

"There was no reimbursement," he said.

Jorge Zamora Jr. said without the welding opportunity, he is not sure what he might have done.

His mom, Anna Zamora, said she and her husband support his decision to pursue the technical training.

"He had his mind set," she said. "We told him, whatever you choose, get something done."

Nick Harris, Craft Development Program Manager at Cheniere, lauded the collaboration with LIT and the school districts.

"Partnerships like this help develop the local workforce while addressing specific industry needs," he said.

DWallach@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/dwallach
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Waitr, an app that enables diners to order and "pay for food on their smartphones for carryout, delivery or dine-in," will launch soon in the Beaumont, Port Arthur and Nederland areas, according to a job ad the company posted seeking delivery drivers.

For those customers wanting delivery, a Waitr driver will pick up an order from a "network of restaurants" and bring it to a home or office.

"Waitr is looking for drivers who know their way around town and can get our customers food to them safely and securely," according to the job ad.

Waitr already operates in Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Houston, Brazosport and The Woodlands, according to its website.

The Waitr app can be downloaded through Google Play and the iPhone App Store.

More:experience.waitrapp.com

----

Philpott will formally christen its new Toyota facility, at 2229 U.S. 69 N. in Nederland, during a grand opening party from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

Everybody's favorite grill masters from Rudy's Pork Kabobs will be on site. (You know Rudy's. It's the stand at the YMBL South Texas State Fair with the wrap-around line.)

Boss Burger, Kona Ice and Cici's Pizza also will provide eats and treats.

Skeeter Jones and the Beer Can Band will perform.

Philpott Toyota's team members will also have a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 4 p.m. Thursday with the Nederland Chamber of Commerce.

More:PhilpottToyota.com

----

Beaumont's Basic Foods, a specialty grocery store at 229 Dowlen Road, Suite 7, is relocating at the end of the month.

The store's owner announced on Basic Foods' website that the current location will be open until May 25.

"Please follow us on Facebook for updates, the address of our new location, and for the grand re-opening date," the website post continued.

In the meantime, customers can stock up on discounted products, because "we would rather sell our current inventory than move it," according to a post on store's Facebook page.

More: Basic Foods on Facebook; basicfoodsmarket.com

----

Lamar University announced a new partnership with Lone Star College last Tuesday at the Lone Star College-University Center in The Woodlands.

Lamar will now have staff members at The Woodlands' campus who will be able to advise students on courses to take to prepare for continuation toward a bachelor's degree or beyond, according to a statement from LU.

"With more than 100,000 students, the Lone Star College System presents a significant market for students ... who can complete an associate degree through lonestar.edu and then complete an entirely distance-based bachelor's degree through LU," the statement said.

The LSC-University Centers offer junior, senior and graduate level classes through partnerships with several universities, according to LU.

"Students who enroll with one of its partner universities at either The Woodlands or University Park locations are able to complete a bachelor's or master's degree (or teaching certificate) without traveling to the university campuses," the statement said.

More: lamar.edu; lonestar.edu

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The Gulf waters lapped the sandy tires of a thousand topless Jeeps parked along 12 miles of the Bolivar Peninsula beach on Saturday.

It was a weekend in the middle of May, but the thousands of drivers and passengers had manufactured their own July:

Smoke whisked the pungent smell of lighter fluid through the reds and blues and greens of the Jeeps parading the sandy path; friends tossed washers into the calm air that barely fluttered the Jolly Rogers and Rebel flags draped over their Jeeps' rear wheels; and ashes blackened the center of an elaborately dug fire pit, complete with a sand-carved bench and foot trench.

The crowd had used the make of their vehicles to create their own holiday, "Go Topless Weekend," in a Jeeptopia that was founded on a Facebook page in 2013.

The holiday was birthed from division. All Things Jeep, a social organization unaffiliated with Jeep, started creating events to link Jeep owners across the country. Most were held on beaches, including Galveston.

According to Jason Meredith, a member of a Southeast Texas Jeep social club called SETX JEEPERS, drama in Galveston created division between Jeep owners. Meredith and his friends, Danny Bacchiochi and Shelby OBrien, moved their party across the ferry to Crystal Beach. They created the SETX JEEPERS group in 2013 and have held Topless Weekend ever since.

"The group started with a couple hundred (people)," said Meredith, who drove his wife and 13-year-old son to the peninsula in his white two-door Jeep Wrangler. "In a year and a half, it grew to a couple thousand."

JEEPERS now has 4,648 members and has partnered with other groups like Bottom's Up and TX Jeeps to form the state's happiest traffic jam on the Bolivar beach.

The caravans of lifted, mud-wheeled, and large-engine began on Thursday and continued on Saturday.

"You see a guy that's got 60-70 grand in a Jeep, and you think, 'Oh my God, why would anybody do that? This person's crazy,'" Meredith said. "But how many brand new Fords do you see with lifted tires? You see them every day. Nobody questions that. More people drop more than that on pickup trucks and nobody says anything about it. The thing is, you take a -turn truck and you put a big lift on it with big mud tires, it's useless. The truck is so heavy, you're going to get stuck. It's like it's not functional. The thing about a Jeep is that it's functional. You put $40-50,000 in a Jeep, it will do what it's built to do."

The Jeeps demonstrated their multi-terrain use in the sandy shores of Crystal Beach. But the $60,000 Montgomery County resident Brandy Wilson invested into her custom 2012 was spent on more than just its functionality. The jet black Jeep was adorned with custom paintings of wolves, and wolf-headed foot pedals jutted from the doorframes. She had invested her personality.

"Jeeps are fun vehicles, and typically that's the kind of people you see driving them," Meredith said. "They're fun people. They're people that like to get out and enjoy life and do things."

Several hundred Jeep owners parked in an open-field parking lot of a restaurant on Saturday morning for an aerial picture. Josh Marsh and his tan ratrod Jeep were still there at noon.

"The starter broke," said Marsh, 33, who owns an auto repair shop in Conroe.

Marsh and his father, Robert, who was then driving to Winnie to buy a new starter, built the Jeep from scratch on the day after Easter.

They used the frame of a 1985 CJ-7 and left the Chevy 350 engine fully exposed. Silver exhaust pipes strung from the 450 horsepower engine and wound underneath the body. One of the exhaust tips poked out behind the black ridged tires and beneath a bottle opener screwed to the driver side doorframe. A long strip of LED headlights was strung across the black grille, and a Navy Jack American flag was poled on the back platform next to a black flag with a white hand that gave other drivers the bird when it flapped on the highway.

The Jeep had won that morning's car show and a half-gallon of Fireball Whisky. Now, it couldn't get out of the parking lot.

"AWOOOOGAH," bleated the horn of a red Jeep that passed Marsh on its way to the beach.

Its driver, Mike Shannon, drove 72 miles from Hull with his wife, Glenda, on Thursday.

Christmas lights in the shapes of red Solo cup shot glasses lined the frame of their 2013 Wrangler, and bull horns were strapped to the grille.

This was their second year to join the Jeeps on the beach and the couple has fished the peninsula for many years.

"(Members of the Jeep community) are just good people," said Glenda, who was wearing a tie-dyed shirt and visor.

A white Jeep pulled up beside them and four young men jumped out.

"These people are polite because they're in a Jeep!" she said.

The Shannons left to find a space on a beach that filled at 10 a.m.

The Gulf and the grass were separated by 30 yards of sand, and Jeeps lined each side and created a narrow trail for a never-ending Jeep procession.

Rap, country and classic rock fused into a blend of music almost as ridiculous as the decals on the passing windshields: "Topless & Commando," "Sotally Tober," and "Pimp Juice."

This was the catwalk where cats dared not walk - where driver Scott Stephens said Jeepers show their personalities.

"It's like for the person who doesn't work out," said Stephens, who was the monster truck driver of King Crunch from 1980-2001. "We let our Jeeps show off for us."

Six people in matching blue tanktops watched the procession from their lawn chairs.

Michelle Monot, her family and friends drove four hours from New Iberia, Louisiana. The group formed their own Jeep social club, "All Jacked Up," at a Louisiana diner two years ago. Their club now has 50 Jeep owners.

"This was all decided over two beers," said Chris Tidwell, a founding member.

A tent stretched between the roofs of two Jeeps, where former coworkers at Beaumont Baptist Hospital reunited. Two treasure chest coolers wedged into the beach, and a toy JP29 leaned one wheel against another cooler.

"That's our winner," joked Blake Shute, who has returned with his friends for their third year.

"This is just a good excuse for us all to hang out," said Cara Babino, who now lives in Dallas.

The Jeep procession continued into the afternoon. There was one day left before their holiday would end, when the parade would tread from the sand back onto Texas 87.

BKubena@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/BKubena
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On the day the last of Donald Trump's competitors dropped out, making the sharp-tongued billionaire the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, the local GOP chairman issued a statement that didn't mention the standard-bearer by name.

Instead, Jefferson County Republican leader Garrett Peel saluted U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for "a hard fought campaign for conservative principles" and called for voters to "unite against" presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"We will support the Republican nominee for president and focus on our local elections," Peel's statement says.

In the context of a major political party deciding its nominee after being out of the White House for eight years, the response hinted at the looming challenge in Southeast Texas' last blue county: Turn out local Republican voters who might be disillusioned by the polarizing reality TV personality.

"I think there was some wind knocked out of the sails of many Texans," when Cruz dropped out, said Ray Beck, Republican nominee for sheriff, one of three county-wide races in November. "We're going to do our best to keep the enthusiasm going."

The election falls two years after Jefferson County GOPers won two county-wide seats and were within four percentage points in three of the other seven county races. The local party also saw record turnout in the March presidential primary, with Texas' junior senator topping a then-deep field by a large margin.

Now, as voters prepare to pick the county's first new sheriff in 20 years, the brand name atop the ballot and his scattered political positions threaten to sap momentum that had coalesced around Cruz's version of conservatism.

In a state that allows straight-ballot voting, party turnout is crucial to determining the results of local races in presidential years.

In the 2012 general election, 65 percent of Jefferson County voters filed straight-party ballots, meaning with the tap of one button they chose all Democrats or all Republicans. Democrats accounted for 60 percent of the 58,300 such votes.

Cruz, who took 48 percent of the county's primary vote to Trump's 31 percent, became the latest Republican to dismiss or postpone a Trump endorsement, saying Tuesday that "it's not a choice we as the voters have to make today."

Earlier this month, Cruz called Trump a "pathological liar," a "narcissist" and a "serial philanderer."

Former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have declined to endorse Trump, and Speaker Paul Ryan of the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives said he's not ready to do so.

"I think conservatives want to know, does he share our values and our principles on limited government, the proper role of the executive, adherence to the Constitution," Ryan told CNN last week.

From a local perspective, the question six months from now will be how many Cruz-aligned Jefferson County Republicans unsure of Trump's conservative bona fides cast ballots, and how many party converts Trump can generate.

Retired Lamar University political science professor Bruce Drury said he's not sure whether Trump's nomination would be a net gain or loss for local Republicans.

Any dip in GOP votes would be glaring in tightly contested races, but the party could absorb some non-voters, independents and even some Democrats, Drury said.

"If it's going to have an effect, there have got to be some independents and weak Democrats who will be willing to go to the Republican side and vote for Trump and then go on down and vote for the (local Republicans)," Drury said.

New voter registration this year has been "really slow" for a presidential cycle, a supervisor in the Jefferson County registrar's office said Tuesday. Oct. 11 is the general-election registration deadline.

"I hope (Trump) energizes people to get out to vote," said Luke Nichols, Republican nominee for a county court at-law judgeship. "I'm excited about the extra voter participation. If Trump brings energy and new voters, that's a good thing."

Local candidates hope any voters turned off by Trump recognize the importance of the contested seats.

"Local turnout is, we hope, driven by local issues and the feeling of close effect that local races will have on people in the county," said Dana Timaeus, Republican nominee for the 136th District judgeship.

Not all national Republican leaders have dismissed Trump. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who called Trump's campaign a "cancer on conservatism" while seeking the nomination, has since said he would consider being his running mate.

Jeff Sadighi, chairman of the Southeast Texas Tea Party, said he would "vote Republican" in November - in opposition to Clinton rather than support for Trump.

Sadighi feels that picking a third-party candidate would dilute his vote's meaning, he said.

"There are some people that have got to get a hold of themselves," Sadighi said of Republicans' Trump anxiety. "It could compromise the (local) election a bit, but I think people will be over it by November."

EBesson@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/EricBesson_news
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Stacy Udstuen was about 13 when she went to a Dallas water park called Wet 'n' Wild for the day. At some point, her mother's 1957 Beaumont High School class ring slipped off her finger and was lost.

Her brother, Stephen, said Stacy was so upset she never told their mother.

For 30 years, the ring remained missing - until a week ago.

The twists and turns in this tale of lost and found are many, but the cosmic tumblers clicked into place for Stephen Udstuen, who learned of the ring's existence on the same day he brought home his mother's class photo from her recently deceased second husband's home.

The story starts with a 12-year-old girl named Sally Ann Stephenson, born in Michigan in 1939. Her parents had died and Sally Ann was adopted by an aunt and uncle, Evelyn and Dr. George Bruce Stephenson of Beaumont, a prominent physician. They lived at Thomas Road and Gladys Avenue. They were members of the Beaumont Country Club.

Sally Ann came to Beaumont, perhaps in the early 1950s, and graduated from Beaumont High in 1957. She later attended the University of Texas, where she met her future husband, Thomas Louis Udstuen, who became an architect. They made their home in the Dallas area.

After Stacy Udstuen lost her mother's ring, another teenaged girl, Ashley Yarberry, found it in one of the pools and took it home. She placed it in her own mom's jewelry box, where it sat unnoticed and unremarked for the next 30 or so years.

Stephen Udstuen, now 49, picks up the story.

He said his father died in 1980. His mother later married Jim Winters, whom she met in a support group for people suffering from multiple sclerosis. Sally Ann eventually succumbed to the disease in 2011. Her second husband died May 1.

Udstuen went to Winters' home last Friday to retrieve his mother's 1957 high school class photo to bring to his own home in Rockwall, east of Dallas.

The same day, he got a call from Yarberry.

"Are you Sally Ann Stephenson's son?" he said the caller asked.

Yes, he replied, his curiosity stoked.

She told him she had something that might interest him.

Udstuen, amazed at the confluence of events, called his siblings to tell them.

He said that Yarberry, for reasons passing understanding, decided to look at the ring in her mom's jewelry box and wondered whose it was.

She used Google to search for Beaumont High School, class of 1957, and tried to match up the inscription inside the ring, "SAS," with a person. Sally Ann Stephenson seemed to fit. A further search turned up Stephen Udstuen, who lived in the Dallas area. She found a phone number and called him.

As Stephen Udstuen related the turns of events, he said his sister, Stacy, burst into tears and revealed the secret she had held in for three decades.

"She never said anything. She thought mom would be mad. She never thought it would be found," Stephen said.

Earlier this week, Udstuen and Yarberry met at a Dallas area police and fire station, where she returned his mother's class ring.

Now he has his mother's class picture and the ring to go with it.

Udstuen said his sister can come and see the ring, but he's going to mount it in a case and place it next to the class photo.

"She went out of her way to find me," Udstuen said of Yarberry. "Something told her to do what she did."

DWallach@BeaumontEnterprise.comTwitter.com/dwallach
Poor Jose. After more than a decade of prominence at the top of Texas' list of popular male baby names, its decline in the past few years has been swift and steady.

From 1996 to 2009 Jose was number one, meaning right now, at this very instant, there is likely at least one Texas teacher calling for "Jose" and attracting a crowd.
Take a look at Seattle's houseboats through the years in photos taken from the seattlepi.com archive, the Museum of History and Industry and the City of Seattle Municipal Archives.
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Southeast Texas school districts on Friday were outspoken in their defiance of an Obama administration directive on the use of school bathrooms and locker rooms by transgender students that has intensified one of the fiercest battles in the nation's culture wars.

A letter to the nation's school districts from the Justice and Education departments stated that students must be allowed to use the facilities that match the gender they identify as, even if that conflicts with their anatomical sex.

Port Neches-Groves Superintendent Dr. Rodney Cavness was unapologetic about comments to Channel 12 News that Obama "can't tell me what to do" and the letter was "going straight to the paper shredder."

"Let there not be any doubt in your mind that I am absolutely 100 percent against the fact that Washington wants to send a letter to Port Neches-Groves ISD to tell us how to run our school," Cavness told The Enterprise.

The administration had already taken the position in scattered cases around the country - from a school district in a Chicago suburb, to a district in rural Virginia, to, most prominently, this week's lawsuit challenging a North Carolina state law. But Friday's rules were the most sweeping attempt yet to impose that view, turning it into a national issue.

The policy drew a swift backlash from conservative politicians, groups and parents, who called it an illegal overreach that will put children in danger. A recent poll shows that they are in the majority in opposing the administration's position on bathrooms and locker rooms.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick appealed to local school boards and superintendents not to abide by the administration's guidelines, noting that there were just a few weeks left in the school year and time over the summer to fight the policy with legislation or legal action. "We will not be blackmailed," he said.

"I believe it is the biggest issue facing families and schools in America since prayer was taken out of public schools," Patrick, a Republican, said at a news conference. "Parents are not going to send their 14-year-old daughters into the shower or bathroom with 14-year-old boys. It's not going to happen."

Like Cavness, Silsbee ISD superintendent Richard Bain sided with Patrick against the administration.

"We're not going to change the way we do things," said Bain, who has been the district's superintendent for eight years. "Boys use the boys bathroom and girls use the girls bathroom."

Beaumont ISD's Nakisha Burns, special assistant to Superintendent John Frossard, said in a statement that the district "will await clarification from the federal government, the state government, the Texas Education Agency and the Region 5 ESC before taking any action or developing any policies."

Lumberton ISD and Hamshire-Fannett ISD said they have not changed their procedures. Hardin-Jefferson ISD did not comment.

Bain said Silsbee previously had a transgender student use the bathroom in the nurse's office and said that will be the district's procedure going forward.

Cavness said PN-G followed its attorney's advice in the past and allowed transgender students to use faculty restrooms, which are used by both men and women.

"Nobody dislikes these kids or hates them in any way or wants to hurt them in any way - we just believe that boys should be in the boys restrooms and locker rooms and girls should be in the girls locker rooms and restrooms," Cavness said. "When transgender kids need some accommodations, there are practical and effective ways to do that."

Beaumont Pride, an organization that supports the LGBTQ community, released a statement that they "extend our hands and our hearts to those children who will suffer as a result of Cavness' comments and policies."

Jacqueline Hays, Beaumont Pride's volunteer coordinator, said transgender people will use the restrooms that fit them best and called the government's position "a solution without a problem."

"You've had transgender people go into the bathroom with you," said Hays, an adjunct English instructor at Lamar University. "I've had transgender people go into the bathroom with me - and I didn't even know it. Sex is defined by more than just your genitalia. So when you say 'boy' and 'girl,' it's not necessarily a binary world."

"The bottom line is this: Boys need to use the boys restroom and girls need to use the girls restroom," PN-G's Cavness said. "We're going to do everything we can to fight and keep it that way."

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One by one, the Blanchette first-graders stood, pushed in their chairs and read stories and showed pictures from their books.

John Frossard greeted each student with a handshake and a smile. The class had already presented him with posters they drew.

"I couldn't write this well when I was in first grade," the Beaumont school district superintendent told them.

The day was atypical for Frossard, who has spent much of his first year on the job assembling a team and figuring out how to confront the district's many challenges, but the visit to Blanchette reminded him why he got into education in the first place more than 30 years ago, diverting his career path from bank auditing.

Frossard asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up.

The answers tumbled out. Teacher, principal, police officer, nurse.

"I'd hire all of you," Frossard said.

Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor

Painful prologue

Frossard, previously superintendent of Wichita Falls ISD, was hired in May 2015 to help rebuild the shattered Beaumont school district.

Community confidence had plummeted in the wake of federal criminal investigations, indictments and guilty pleas in connection with massive embezzlements and other scandals.

The state education commissioner responded by sweeping aside the elected board of trustees and appointing a board of managers and interim superintendent, Vern Butler, in July 2014.

"Vern Butler came in when morale was really down," Frossard said.

The previous administration, enabled by an inattentive board majority, had blown a mammoth hole in the district's budget, necessitating a reduction in force - layoffs - to make ends meet.

BISD was $36 million in the red when Butler arrived.

"He was a good people person, and that's what the district needed after the RIF," Frossard said.

Frossard, who took over from Butler, said he expects to finish the school budget year with about $20 million in cash carryover, much less than he would like but preferable to a deficit.

"I'd like to see $30 million or $40 million, but if you do it too quickly, that's at the expense of students and teachers," he said.

A year ago

Frossard arrived as the school year was ending. He didn't have much time to get a sense of what was happening in classrooms. The summer was devoted to the next budget. And he spent the first six months of his tenure assembling new senior leadership, with six of eight new administrators from other school districts, such as Houston, Humble, Fort Bend, Kary, Dickinson and Port Neches-Groves.

Frossard said BISD now has an excellent cabinet of assistant superintendents, financial managers and others to whom he can delegate while he prioritizes the needs. And he has what he calls a "great board of managers," all of whom have executive experience, to supervise him.

The Beaumont school district's challenges are many, he said. What sets it apart is that he has never seen all the challenges in one place before.

Kim Brent

"I have to make sure I don't get overwhelmed, or the board, or the teachers or the students," he said.

The super's list

The entire point of a school district, Frossard reminds, is to educate students to prepare them for the rest of their lives. That means the focus always should be on successful classroom learning.

First up is aligning the curriculum with state standards.

A committee formed to audit the curriculum will submit its findings within a couple of months, in time for the district to make changes by the start of the next academic year, he said.

That should begin to solve the district's academic performance problems with state exams, he said.

Another immediate challenge that needs the board's backing is teacher compensation. Frossard said it should rise for the "middle steps" - teachers in their most productive years. He said compensation for beginning teachers and those late in their careers is competitive with other districts, but the middle lags.

Frossard also has created a discipline commission within BISD, which is on a double track.

First is to help teachers, particularly new ones, with classroom management. A recent web video showed a teacher at Ozen High School losing self-control and striking a student several times. She was arrested on a charge of assault and subsequently fired by the school district.

Frossard said he recognizes that teachers need the district's support.

"We acknowledge the problem, but it shouldn't overshadow all of the people who are doing the right thing," he said.

The district employs about 2,500 people, about half of whom are teachers.

Student discipline is the other side of the issue. Frossard said Pathways, the district's alternative school, should not just be a place to send unruly students, have them do their time and return them to their schools.

Frossard plans to have mentors work with troubled students to try to change their behavior and outlook.

"I'm looking for transformation," he said.

Volunteers are a crucial part of the solution, he said.

This is a test

A recent rally at Homer Drive Elementary by adults who held signs encouraging students as they prepared for STAAR tests grew out of a suggestion from volunteers, Frossard said.

STAAR refers to the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, the dreaded standardized test all students must pass multiple times to graduate.

At least 50 superintendents, all from Houston-area districts in Region 4, have asked the TEA not to judge districts on STAAR results this spring because of problems with some students' answers being lost in online testing.

Frossard, no fan of "teaching to the test," said offering students a more rational curriculum will help them succeed on STAAR tests.

He also would like to offer students a more challenging curriculum, with more advanced placement courses, that evens the playing field for Beaumont's students.

At the same time, he wants to avoid what is known as "sorting and selecting," the term for diverting some students from such courses.

"We want to expose as many students as we can to the most challenging curriculum," he said.

Kim Brent

Part of that approach will require volunteers, which means more involvement from the community.

"This community understands the importance of a school district succeeding," he said.

The district now has almost 1,400 volunteers, up 500 from last year, he said. The Reach Out and Read program, abbreviated as ROAR, attracted 350 volunteers in its first year, he said.

Laurie Leister, a parent who has two children at West Brook High School, is one of the ROAR volunteers who started in December at Caldwood Elementary School.

She tutors three second-graders twice a week.

"It's very rewarding. It's like teaching a kid to ride a bicycle. You steady them until they can take off themselves," she said.

She wanted to volunteer because she said a child's ability to read is the key to their success in education and some of the kids at Caldwood in particular have a great need for the extra help. The teachers are scheduled to the hilt and volunteers can help take care of the extra attention a child might need, she said.

Paul Jones, president of the Beaumont chapter of the NAACP, has planned a community meeting on Tuesday at West Tabernacle Baptist Church to assemble a group to volunteer as mentors, particular with the disciplinary needs of the district, but also in the reading program.

"I know the problems," he said. "I can recite them in my sleep. What we want are solutions and this is a 'call to action' meeting," he said.

Beyond the classroom

BISD is one of three districts in Region 5 - the others are in Silsbee and Port Arthur - to have TEA approval for its new Early College High School program, which would allow students to complete credits for the first two years of college while still in high school.

Career and Technical Education at the O.C. "Mike" Taylor Career Center attracted nearly 300 students in its first year of operation and expanded to at least 900 this year, Frossard said. The final count could reach past 1,000 when all of the certifications are tallied.

"We're leaving our graduates with something tangible," he said.

A year from now, BISD might have its first trustee election since 2011. The Board of Managers has retained a law firm specializing in drawing school board voting districts to create five single-member trustee districts that will be voted on along with two at-large trustees.

That could mean a new school board is in place by May 2017.

"I can't get caught up politically," Frossard said. "I need to focus on our students. We have a good workforce and good community participation."

"I'm not interested in spinning. I'm interested in changing reality and ensuring the public knows about it. The politics will take care of itself. If you don't have that (the tools for success), it doesn't matter how adroit you are politically."

DWallach@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/dwallach
Republicans and Democrats can't agree on much in Congress, which is fine with some members of both extremes. Every now and then, however, representatives of both parties manage to join forces on the kinds of bills that benefit ordinary taxpayers. It should happen more often in Washington.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, persuaded the Senate Judiciary Committee to approve a bill designed to eliminate the chronic backlog of untested rape kits. That's one of those common-sense issues that has nothing to do with labels like Republican or Democrat.
Boston-based Steward Health Care System is under scrutiny for withholding audited financial statements for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 from the state, according to The Boston Globe.

The Massachusetts agency that oversees hospitals' financial health, the Center for Health Information and Analysis, fined the nine-hospital system $37,000 for not filing the information on time. However, Steward has refused to pay the penalty and is questioning its legality, according to the report. Jeff Hall, a spokesman for Steward, told The Boston Globe the for-profit system has taken issue with the format in which CHIA has requested the reports be filed because it puts some of its propriety information at risk. He also said Steward is working "in good faith" with CHIA to resolve the issue.

However, the system has a history of avoiding CHIA's filings. It missed the deadline for filing fiscal year 2013 statements by almost a year, and only filed after omitting certain parts it said contained proprietary information, according to the report.

Steward has shared some financial information with Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey's office, according to the report. This information shows the company's operating losses totaled $75 million in 2014, growing from a $55 million loss in 2013, according to the report.

Louisville, Ky.-based Kindred Healthcare and Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. missed the CHIA deadline for their Massachusetts hospitals as well, but their statements were filed as of Friday, according to the report.

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The following hospital and health system layoffs were reported by Becker's Hospital Review since May 1. They are listed below, beginning with the most recent.

1. Pocono Medical Center in East Stroudsburg, Pa., cut 55 jobs, or 2 percent of the total workforce. Here are four things to know about the layoffs.

2. The financially ailing Washington, D.C.-based Howard University Hospital plans to cut 10 percent of its workforce by June 30 as part of a restructuring plan. Neither union nor nonunion employees will be spared from the layoffs, which will also effect those in management roles, according to Washington Business Journal.

3. Boca Raton, Fla.-based Cancer Treatment Centers of America laid off 81 employees at its Zion, Ill., medical center. The layoffs represent 5.6 percent of the Zion hospital's workforce of 1,400 people, Cancer Treatment Centers of America spokeswoman Kristen Gerlach said in an email, according to the Chicago Tribune.

4. Merit Health Natchez (Miss.) reduced its workforce by 5 percent. Here are three things to know about the layoffs.

5. Farmington, Maine-based Franklin Community Health Network, which includes Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington, is laying off nearly two dozen employees and leaving other vacant positions unfilled. Twenty-two full-time employees have been told they are being laid off. Another 18 vacant positions will remain unfilled for a total of 40 full-time positions that are being cut, according to a WGME report. Additionally, salaries will be frozen.
The most common operation in the U.S. is the Cesearean section, and the single biggest variable that influences a woman's chance of having a C-section is the hospital she chooses to deliver her baby. This physician wants healthcare leaders to know there is something fundamentally wrong with that.

Neel Shah, MD, an assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Boston-based Harvard Medical School and associate faculty at Ariadne Labs for Health Systems Innovation, has made it his mission to find out how hospitals can improve rates of low-intervention childbirth. As a medical student, Dr. Shah launched Costs of Care, an NGO with a global reach that helps provide insights for clinicians to provide better care at lower costs. He was previously named one of Becker's Hospital Review's "40 of the Smartest People in Healthcare."

We caught up with Dr. Shah to discuss his C-section mission and his work to drive down the costs of care.

Editor's note: Responses have been edited lightly for length and clarity.

Question: Your research at Ariadne labs focuses on overtreatment in childbirth, and in particular C-sections. What first sparked your interest in investigating C-sections?

Dr. Neel Shah: In my residency I saw C-sections had become very normalized for clinicians. When I took on a faculty position at Harvard, I looked for opportunities to improve childbirth. I zeroed in on C-sections as biggest lever I could pull.

C-sections are the most common major surgery performed on human beings anywhere in the world and the most common in the U.S. They have become 500 percent more common over the last generation of moms. We really have no idea why rates are skyrocketing. Not only are they really high, but it's hard to believe 1 in 3 humans need major surgery to be born. There is also incredible variation in C-section rates from hospital to hospital. It ranges from 7 to 70 percent of births, which indicates the greatest risk factor for a woman to have a C-section may be the hospital she goes to  not her own risks or preference  but which door she walks through.

Additionally, about half of C-sections are not necessary in retrospect. As many as 20,000 surgical complications could be avoided that cost $5 billion and a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering.

Q: What are the biggest obstacles to reducing C-section rates in hospitals?

NS: Both the solution and the barrier is something at the hospital level. The fact that C-section rates are so different from place to place means there is something going on at the hospital level we don't understand. A range of 7 to 70 percent of births is so spread that on one hand, that's really messed up, but on the other hand, we already know some people have figured what the solutions might be. We have to look at the people who are doing well and spread those ideas to other places.

Through another lens, looking at the ways hospitals are managed, labor and delivery floors are where 99 percent of babies are born in the U.S., and they are also the hardest units to manage in the hospital. The reason is, unlike other parts of the hospital, the unit operates under incredible uncertainty all the time. They don't know how many patients are going to show up and once the patients show up, they don't now how long it will take. Labor can be short or long and you don't know who will be healthy or suddenly need acute surgery, and the unit may need resources to operate immediately.

Which patient should go to which room becomes really complicated. It's like an air traffic control problem that shifts from one hour to another. Managers have to learn how to be good on the fly and learn from their predecessors, but they don't know how their peers approach these challenges. How labor and delivery units are managed is different from place to place, and we have never characterized what those meaningful differences are. That's the work that will show us what makes a high-performing versus a low-performing hospital on C-section rates.

Q: You are also the founder of Costs of Care. How has the organization evolved since it first launched?

NS: We started in 2009 when I was a third-year med student caring for a lot of patients who didn't have deep pockets and struggled to afford care. Everyone around me was making decisions on their behalf that impacted how they had to pay, and I realized we could make different decisions that lead to the same health outcomes but are more accountable in terms of cost.

We benefitted from the timing. In 2009, healthcare reform was top-of-mind. The name 'Costs of Care' wasn't particularly creative, but people were Googling that thousands of times a day in 2009. Because of the name, we got a lot of Google hits and pretty soon we were the No. 1 hit on Google. To this day you get our website first and HHS' second.

When we started, we were largely an advocacy organization focused on leadership development, building the will for change in the profession and training physicians. We wrote a whole textbook on how to think about costs while caring for patients. We created education modules to shift professional will and teach skills physicians needed to care for patients.

Over the last six years, the world has been shifting with us in positive ways. We still care about learning and advocacy, but it's less of the main focus now. The policymakers have also taken this up with incentives to think about value. We are starting to shift from advocacy to an implementation organization that designs, tests and spreads solutions.

Q: What have you found to be the most effective strategies in teaching physicians to consider costs?

NS: You have to be really clear about the piece they own. Usually people talk about healthcare costs in abstract terms, like they account for 18 percent of GDP. Most people know that's a problem, but no one goes to med school to change GDP. We need to reframe the cost conversation within the doctor-patient relationship, forgive the things they are not responsible for and focus on the things they are.

If you take a picture of a generic American medical bill and show it to physicians, you will find several things wrong. Within 10 seconds, this will be the longest a doctor has ever looked at it. Prices are inflated and arbitrarily determined and doctors will throw their hands up at it. You need to tell them you understand it's not their fault and forgive them for that, but then highlight the times they are adding cost without helping the patient get better. Those instances are directly in their wheelhouse and they need to own that.

Q: What would your best advice be to hospital leaders who want to help physicians be more cost-conscious?

NS: The same thing  Keep the focus on the patient, as opposed to healthcare costs in general. The cost to the patient is different than the cost to the hospital, and the thing clinicians care most about is the cost to the patients they are caring for.

Leaders need to show physicians thinking about costs is not skimping on necessary care, and maintain focus on the part of the problem that physicians own. Physicians may say patients are demanding that they need this, or voice concerns about medical malpractice, and leaders need to acknowledge that. Yeah, sometimes patients will say that and yeah, medical malpractice is tough, but it's not the whole ballgame.

Q: What is your take on how healthcare has played out in the election so far?

NS: First let me say that Costs of Care is very intentionally nonpartisan. Of course politics affect everything in healthcare, but we try really hard to make sure we present our solutions in a nonpartisan, neutral and objective way.

The way it has played out is Obamacare has become a lightening rod for the Republican side. It's more neutral on Democratic side; there's a little bit of a spat between Bernie and Hillary about whether you start all over or do single payer, but they are essentially on the same page. There are real legitimate pros and cons no matter which side you take.

I would say if you are against the ACA, tough nuggies. It was held up in highest court in the land twice. If you are for it, you have to stand by it, and understand we didn't make healthcare any more affordable for Americans. For many of them we've made it easier to purchase insurance  but that's just your ticket to the show.

Most Americans have high-deductible health plans and the average deductibles are several thousand dollars. No matter who you are, that's real money. Tests and treatments that don't make you feel better are eating into people's wallets. More people are insured, but insured with the worst insurance and still struggling to afford care. I would argue in 2016 healthcare is the least affordable it has been in the last half century.

There have been lots of benefits. My own younger brother wouldn't have a mechanism of getting insurance  he's in his 20s and doesn't work for a big employer. I see the benefits in my own patients because being a woman is not a preexisting condition anymore. These are big forms of social progress, but it's an incomplete solution and we still have more to do.

The key for the Becker's audience in thinking about healthcare reform is to be careful not to conflate two things: payment reform and delivery reform. The way money flows happens in the halls of Congress and delivery reform happens in the halls of hospitals. What we have to do is figure out what to do differently in our hospitals and clinics. If you have created the carrot and stick, your job isn't done.

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BP has doubled its stake in the Culzean North Sea gas field as part of the energy giant's 7 billion investment programme in the region.

The company has raised its holding from 16% to 32% in the development, which is expected to produce enough gas to meet 5% of total UK demand by 2021.

Production at the Maersk-operated field is expected to start in 2019 and continue into the 2030s, with production forecast to peak at the equivalent of 60,000 to 90,000 barrels of oil per day.

Mark Thomas, BP regional president for the North Sea region, said: "BP has been focusing and refreshing its North Sea portfolio by bringing new fields into production, redeveloping and renewing existing producing facilities and divesting some of its more mature or less strategic assets.

"Our deepening in Culzean further demonstrates our commitment to supporting the development of another UK field for the future."

Mr Thomas flagged the low oil price as representing a "challenging time for the industry" and stressed the importance of efficiency.

Discovered in 2008, the Culzean gas field is estimated to contain the equivalent of 250 to 300 million barrels of oil.

In April, BP said that first quarter losses narrowed as cost-cutting helped it offset falling crude prices. Replacement cost losses came in at 485 million US dollars (335 million) for the first three months of the year, down from losses of 2.2 billion US dollars (1.5 billion) in the previous three months.

The figures showed trading has improved since a dismal end to 2015, with oil prices touching near 13-year lows. The global commodity price rout saw the cost of crude drop to 34 US dollars a barrel on average in the first three months of 2016 compared with 54 US dollars a year ago.

The North Sea oil industry has also been hammered, with an estimated 5,500 jobs lost since the oil price fell 60% from 115 dollars a barrel in the summer of 2014 to 48 dollars today. More than 65,000 indirect jobs reliant on the oil industry have also been lost.
Mr O'Leary said that inward investment will be lost to competitor EU member states such as Ireland and Germany if Britain votes for Brexit

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has warned that the budget airline will be forced to scale back British investment if the country votes to leave the European Union.

Appearing on a platform with Chancellor George Osborne at Stansted Airport, Mr O'Leary said that inward investment will be lost to competitor EU member states such as Ireland and Germany if Britain votes for Brexit.

He also announced the creation of 450 new jobs in Britain as part of a 1.4 billion US dollars (976 million) investment into the Ryanair's 13 UK bases.

Mr O'Leary said: "It is this type of large-scale foreign inward investment that is helping to drive the UK economy and job creation.

"It is exactly this type of investment that will be lost to other competitor EU members if the UK votes to leave the European Union."

The outspoken Irishman also urged the British public to vote to Remain on June 23.

He said: "The single market has enabled Ryanair to lead the low-fare air travel revolution in Europe, as we bring millions of British citizens to Europe each year, and welcome millions of European visitors to Britain, and we are calling on everyone to turn out in large numbers and vote Remain," he said.

Mr O'Leary was speaking at the opening of Ryanair's European Training Centre at Stansted, which will create more than 1,000 new jobs overall for pilots, cabin crew and engineers this year.

Charlie Cornish, chief executive of Stansted owner Manchester Airports Group (MAG), said leaving the EU would be a "huge backward step for UK aviation".

The announcement comes after more than 300 business leaders urged Britain to vote to leave the European Union, warning that the country's competitiveness is being undermined by its membership.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, they argued that businesses will be "free to grow faster, expand into new markets and create more jobs" if they are unconstrained by EU rules.

Signatories include Peter Goldstein, a founder of Superdrug; Steve Dowdle, a former vice-president Europe of Sony; David Sismey, a managing director of Goldman Sachs, and Sir Patrick Sheehy, the former chairman of British American Tobacco.

Mr O'Leary, speaking in front of a Ryanair Boeing 737 emblazoned with the slogan "stronger, safer and better off in Europe" warned that Brexit would see air fares rise.

He said: "If Britain leaves the single market, Britain may be forced out of the open skies regime and air fares and the cost of holidays will rise.

"That's not speculation, that's a certainty."
One in six shops in Northern Ireland remains vacant

One in six shops in Northern Ireland's towns remains vacant amid the second worst performance in retail footfall in the UK, figures showed today.

The province had the highest level of shop vacancies for April in the UK with a 16.1% rate reported.

And there was a 7% drop in high street footfall, and a 2.8% drop in visitors to shopping centres.

Shop vacancies here have increased from 14.7% in January - but the rate for April is down slightly on the 16.3% level of April last year.

And although Scotland suffered the worst drop in footfall with a 6.2% decline, its shop vacancy rate is one in 12.

Overall, the monitoring report from the British Retail Consortium indicated an average 2.4% drop in retail footfall on 2015.

Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association chief executive Glyn Roberts said that the figures made stark reading for the new Executive up at Stormont.

"The statistic that gives me the most concern is the shop vacancy rate," he said.

"That's a very clear wake-up call and a call to action to the Executive to urgently address this problem of a high level of shop vacancy and dereliction in their town centres."

Aodhan Connolly, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, backed that call to the Executive. "There must be clear, bold and effective decisions made to support an industry which employs over 70,000 directly, and more through the supply chain," he said.

"The new Executive must recognise the cumulative burden faced by retailers in areas as diverse as business rates, the National Living Wage and the introduction of the apprenticeship levy."

Diane Wehrle from Springboard described our footfall performance as "notoriously volatile". "A sharp decrease such as this, which followed reasonable results in March, is not unusual. This volatility is undoubtedly a key factor in the persistently high vacancy rate which rose once again to 16.1% from 14.7% in January," she added.

Economist Andrew Webb said the new figures were "interesting and surprising".

"Consumer confidence has also remained reasonable, certainly nothing to suggest that level of a drop in footfall," he said. "Our town centres need to think of innovative ways to reinvigorate and provide a compelling reason to come back."

Greater London's shop vacancy rate is half of Northern Ireland's at 7.6%.

UK-wide, high street footfall was down 3.8%, with shopping centres at 1.8% and retail parks 2.7%. No region reported an increase in footfall in April.
Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Rian Johnson (director ) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Rian Johnson (director ) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Rian Johnson (director ) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Rian Johnson (director ) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars cast members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning. They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Filming for the hotly anticipated next episode of Star Wars took place over the weekend in Donegal - and one of its lead characters took the time out to drop into the local watering hole.

Cast of the science-fiction epic arrived in Northern Ireland on Friday ahead of filming over the weekend at Malin Head.

The area has been buzzing with excitement over the past week as construction on what looks like the Millennium Falcon took place on the Wild Atlantic Way for the as-yet-untitled episiode VIII.

There also appears to have been a base of some sort built on a cliff edge.

The filming has sparked widespread interest, with flights diverted so as not to interfere with filming.

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Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close The model of the Millennium Falcon being built on the Star Wars set at Malin Head in Co Donegal A Millennium, Falcom in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA A set is created in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey The view of the Star Wars film set from Ardmalin Caravan Park. Pic: Ardmalin Caravan Park A fleet brought the Star Wars set to Malin Head. Pic: Ardmalin Caravan Park The view from Ardmalin Caravan Camp. Pic: Ardmalin Caravan Park The view from Ardmalin Caravan Park. Pic: Ardmalin Caravan Park Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Farrens Bar in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA A Millennium, Falcom in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Farrens Bar in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA Hazy Zoom - wires and cabling snake through the terrain from base to the Millennium Falcon. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. The stunning landscape surrounding the Star Wars set in Malin Head. Pic James Whorriskey Remote - Malin Head, Ireland's most Northerly point and location for the latest Star Wars movie. Picture James Whorriskey A mixture of tourists and inquisitive Star Wars fans mingle - Pic at Bamba's Crown, which overlooks the cast and crew tents. Picture James Whorriskey Cast and crew areas being readied ahead of weekend filming - roads in the area will be closed for several days. Picture James Whorriskey Cast and crew areas being readied ahead of weekend filming - roads in the area will be closed for several days.Picture James Whorriskey Cliff path to the Millennium Falcon - private security staff prevent people from getting too close. Picture James Whorriskey Millennium Falcon Base - scaffolding, fencing and crew buildings surrounding the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Gardai on standby and ready to politely ward of anybody who security deem to have gotten too close for comfort. Picture James Whorriskey Concealed - A drone hovers to the left of picture, over the Millennium Falcon location - and what's that partially visible on the right? Picture James Whorriskey Tight security guards the boundaries of the Star Wars set. Picture James Whorriskey Millennium Falcon base at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Crews at the Millennium Falcon site. Picture James Whorriskey Security try to prevent photography at the location. Picture James Whorriskey Narrow single track roads are the only way around Malin Head - In the distance the Millennium falcon site. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Private Security posted at public vantage points in Malin Head attempt to prevent photography. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey New signs erected in many of the surrounding fields - Millennium Falcon in the distance. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Basecamp at the Millennium Falcon site. Pic James Whorriskey The landscape overlooking the Millennium Falcon base. Picture James Whorriskey. / Facebook

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Whatsapp The model of the Millennium Falcon being built on the Star Wars set at Malin Head in Co Donegal

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More used to the squalor of some of the galaxy's more seedy establishments, Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, took time out to visit Farren's Bar.

Donegal TV was at the bar for the arrival of the Jedi.

He said Donegal was "georgeous" and locals had made him feel "like part of the family".

"I've had a great time," he said, "I'd love to come back, but on my own time so that I am not working."

As he shook the hands of many who had gathered he joked for them to be careful with his "removable hand".

Owner Hugh Farren has painted a huge mural on the bar's gable wall of Yoda to celebrate the arrival of the production.

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Speaking to the BBC, he said rumours began to intensify that someone was going to stop by on Sunday night, before Skywalker himself arrived.

"I was like a four year old on Christmas morning,"he said.

He said people were coming from far and wide to try and get close to the filming.

"For the past 48 hours there has been a complete buzz around the area," said Hugh

All that remains in the area is crew dismantling the set and restoring the area to its original condition.

Hugh said there were rumours that filming would return for the next film - episode nine - later in the year.

"The past couple of days have just been fantastic for us," he said.

Filming has taken place right across Ireland.

Skellig Michael - a UNESCO World Heritage Site off the Ring of Kerry on the west coast - featured in the 2015 Force Awakens and was centre stage in the first teaser trailer of episode eight.

A Jedi temple has also appeared in Kerry and work is reportedly underway in Cork on a set.

Decembers The Force Awakens, was the highest grossing film of all time and Star Wars: Episode VIII is set for release in 2017.
Lorraine Kelly has said the Duchess of Cambridge appears more comfortable in high street fashion.

Presenter Lorraine Kelly has said the Duchess of Cambridge appears more comfortable in high street fashion.

Kelly praised Kate for wearing clothes from Zara and Topshop during the recent tour of India.

"Kate often tours wearing all this thousand-pound this, thousand-pound that stuff - and then she wore a wee dress from Topshop for 75 and looked phenomenal," Kelly said.

"She looked really good. When someone like that wears high street, it's great."

She added: But it's difficult for her because if she wears high street, all the stuck-up courtiers will say, 'Look at that, she's not being dignified enough' and then if she wears designer clothes, 'Look at that, spending a fortune on clothes'.

"The poor kid can't win. But I think she looks much more comfortable in high street."

Kelly, 56, will be hosting Lorraine's High Street Fashion Awards, which are voted for by viewers of her ITV morning show.

The popular broadcaster is championing the high street in the build-up to the star-studded ceremony on Tuesday.

Awards for the best in British high street fashion across eight categories will be handed out on the night.

Former Coronation Street star Georgia May Foote, Lorraine stylist Mark Heyes and Fabulous magazine fashion editor Lynne McKenna served on the panel for the awards, whose categories include best affordable fashion, best curvy collection and best department store.

Asked why this year's floral-inspired event introduced best menswear as a new category, Kelly said it was due to public demand by male viewers of her show.

"We're doing a feature called Check Your Chaps, aimed at raising awareness of testicular and prostate cancer, and a lot of men watch and they said, 'Hey, what about us?'"

She continued: "I think it's a really good category to have because men's fashion has got a lot better."

Asked about men who are well turned out, Kelly's favourites include her ITV colleagues Ant and Dec.

"David Beckham always looks good, of course," she said.

"I'm tempted to say Aidan Turner with his top off in Poldark! But seriously, he always looks fantastic.

"Tom Hiddleston has style and Ant and Dec look great when they're doing I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! I love their casual look on the show."

Kelly, who was born in Glasgow and now lives in Dundee, added: "I also love a man in a kilt, but not the Highlandy, shortbread tin thing. A man in a kilt has to wear socks rolled down, big boots and a rugby top. That is fabulous. That's a look and a half."

With regard to her own style, Kelly said it has taken years to perfect her wardrobe.

"I like LK Bennett, Zara and Ted Baker, but also I can go into Topshop and maybe buy a top or a skirt or a pair of trousers.

"I wouldn't buy the whole look because I'm not a fashion victim and I'm not 19, but you can have wee bits of something," she said.

"It took me until I got to the age of 50, six years ago, to actually feel comfortable about fashion."

Lorraine's High Street Fashion Awards come at a time when both BHS and Austin Reed have been placed into administration. Kelly has called on consumers to back the high street.

"I genuinely think there's nothing like the British high street and we should support it.

"Most people do, whether it's Marks & Spencer or H&M or Primark, but use it or lose it - that's what we've got to do. I'm pretty much a high street girl."
Stella Jarvis (8) was there with dog Poppy and mum Helen Jarvis (46) from Lisburn

Stella Jarvis (8) was there with dog Poppy and mum Helen Jarvis (46) from Lisburn. She said: "I feel very strongly about animal cruelty and the lack of jail time these people get.

"Perpetrators walk away with a slap on the wrist, we want to see these people pay for what they have done.

"In my opinion animals feel pain and terror just like a person who is being abused. It makes me feel so angry, there is no excuse."

I am here to be a voice for them

Ciaran Gorman (46) from Belfast attended with Gordon setters Willow and Flynn. "I am here to protest again at the sentences for animal cruelty, as they are too lenient," he said.

"I would like to see legislation change and proper sentences handed out to those who treat their animals with absolute disrespect with no regard for their life. I am here to be a voice for the doggies because these animals cannot speak for themselves."

Stop giving thugs rap on the knuckle

Sinead Rafferty (39) came with dogs Teddy and Pablo. She said: "I am here to fight for all animals, it's about time judges gave tougher sentences and stopped giving people a rap over the knuckle for abusing animals.

"I thoroughly believe people who hurt animals will go on to hurt people. I can understand that prison may be full, so if they can't give them a custodial sentence then they should be out in the community cleaning up dog muck."

Serial killers start by hurting animals

Paddy Murphy (64) from Ravenhill in Belfast brought his Jack Russell cross Gibbs. He said: "He was stray for three months. He's a lovely little dog with a feisty personality and people just let him go. He's a survivor and he's enriched our life.

"Cruelty to animals is not a small thing, cruelty is cruelty. There is evidence that a lot of serial killers started off harming animals before going on to kill people."

Its the same as abusing a child

Cherie Part (35) from Waringstown is a dog trainer and behaviourist. She owns five dogs including Rupert.

She said: "I hope that there will be changes as there is no deterrent at all. Abusing an animal is the same as abusing a child in my opinion because they are both dependent on you and defenceless. How anyone can abuse an animal and get away with it is beyond me."

Sentences are far too lenient

Alliance Party councillor Michael Long came to the protest with rescue dog Daisy.

He said: "We are here to see tougher sentences imposed because the legislation is already there but it is a case of getting the judiciary to use those powers.

"It's a really important and serious issue, but sentences are far too lenient."

Slap on the wrist not good enough

Patricia Creeney (59) from Millisle has 12 rescue dogs. She came with King Charles spaniel Rusty. She said: "I hope the law will change and people will get more than a slap on the wrist.

"Unless people are imprisoned I don't think they will stop, they are giving lenient sentences and they leave court laughing. It's really disgusting, I don't understand the mentality of these people."

They need to be put behind bars

Jo Luke (49), a retired police officer from Donegal, brought Nina the Dachshund. "I couldn't not come to this event. There needs to be heavier sentences behind bars.

"To think that abusers come out jeering and laughing at the judicial process proves that community sentences do not work, they should go to prison. I have successfully prosecuted people for animal abuse and I am extremely proud of that."
The father of convicted drugs mule Melissa Reid has spoken of the family's relief and delight after authorities agreed to release her from jail in Peru and expel her from the country.

Reid was jailed alongside Michaella McCollum from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, in 2013 for six years and eight months after admitting trying to smuggle cocaine worth 1.5m from Peru to Spain.

Billy Reid said his "prayers had been answered" following the court ruling.

He expressed his belief that his 22-year-old daughter could become an asset and a credit to her family when she returns to the UK.

McCollum (23) was freed in March under new legislation on early prison release introduced in Peru last year after serving two years and three months.

Shortly afterwards she gave a controversial soft-focus interview to RTE in which she insisted she was "not a bad person" and that she had acted in a moment of madness.

Peruvian authorities agreed to release Reid, from Lenzie, East Dunbartonshire, after a court hearing on Friday.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, Mr Reid (55) said: "We are all relieved and delighted, although I don't think it has fully sunk in yet. We went to bed on Friday night unsure of what the future held for us as a family and woke to find out our prayers had been answered."

He thanked the Peruvian authorities for "allowing our daughter to come home to us" and suggested almost three years of worry had "taken its toll" on the family.

Mr Reid said his daughter wanted to prevent other people from being sucked into the situation she found herself in.

"We now hope Melissa will be able to demonstrate that she is the asset we believe she can be and not a liability," he said.

"She regrets the predicament she finds herself in, is apologetic for her actions and wants to show that she can be a credit to her family and make things right."

A magistrate ruled that she had been remorseful and shown her "intention to be reinserted back in society" at an earlier hearing.

Newspaper reports suggested the court was to inform the British embassy of the decision so arrangements could be made for her to be returned to the UK.

The Foreign Office said on Saturday it was providing assistance to Reid and remained in contact with her family and local authorities.

However, it is anticipated to be some time before the women can return home.

McCollum and Reid were caught with the haul at Lima Airport on August 6, 2013 while attempting to fly to Spain. They were caught trying to board a flight with 24lb (11kg) of cocaine in food packets hidden in their luggage.

They claimed they were forced into carrying the drugs, but pleaded guilty to charges later that year.

McCollum and Reid faced the prospect of a maximum 15-year prison term but struck a behind-closed-doors plea bargain to secure a shorter sentence.

They had previously been held at Lima's Virgen de Fatima prison but were moved to the Ancon 2 prison, where McCollum was reportedly crammed into a cell with 30 other prisoners with poor sanitation and toilet facilities.
Demi Boyd and James Allsopp have been reported missing.

Two Northern Ireland teenagers have appeared to taunt police after missing appeals were made for them on PSNI Facebook pages.

Last week police issued separate appeals for the two teenagers.

James Allsopp was reported to police by his family as missing from the New Lodge area of north Belfast.

The 18-year-old was last seen on Wednesday.

Inspector David McBride said: I would urge Mr Allsopp to make contact with police as a matter of urgency by telephoning 101 or attending any police station.

But in a comment in the teenager's name immediately below the appeal, he told them he was "far from missing" and was "on the run from the PSNI".

"Get at picture of me down I'll send use better one... I'm in copshop doesn't look gd [sic]," the post from Mr Allsopp's account stated.

Hundreds reacted to the post and many expressed hope that the teen would be found.

Others asked why the appeal was being shared when James appeared to be posting on the thread.

It's understood James is known to the police, aside from the missing appeal.

Police said the appeal was solely based on the missing person report made by the family and not with the intention of arresting the teenager.

In a separate appeal, the PSNI in Bangor appealed for a missing 16-year-old Demi Boyd last seen in the seaside town on Friday.

However, she too appeared to respond to the appeal.

In a post under her name, she asked the police to take down the appeal.

"I'm sweet," one comment said.

The appeal was later removed from the PSNI's Bangor Facebook page.

Police said both teenagers were still missing on Monday morning and until both met with police face-to-face their appeals remained active.

"These are missing person appeals and we would hope they are both found safe and well," a police spokesman said.

Demi Boyd was later found safe and well on Monday afternoon.
Police at the scene of the murder of Dan Murray in west Belfast

Pacemaker Press 16/5/2016 Ciara Austin (right-Partner) during The Funeral for Dan Murray takes place at Holy Trinity Church in West Belfast. Dan Murray, a takeaway delivery driver, had been taking an order to Lady Street, near Grosvenor Road, when he was shot. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 16/5/2016 Ciara Austin (right-Partner) during The Funeral for Dan Murray takes place at Holy Trinity Church in West Belfast. Dan Murray, a takeaway delivery driver, had been taking an order to Lady Street, near Grosvenor Road, when he was shot. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 16/5/2016 The Funeral for Dan Murray takes place at Holy Trinity Church in West Belfast. Dan Murray, a takeaway delivery driver, had been taking an order to Lady Street, near Grosvenor Road, when he was shot. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 16/5/2016 The Funeral for Dan Murray takes place at Holy Trinity Church in West Belfast. Dan Murray, a takeaway delivery driver, had been taking an order to Lady Street, near Grosvenor Road, when he was shot. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 16/5/2016 The Funeral for Dan Murray takes place at Holy Trinity Church in West Belfast. Dan Murray, a takeaway delivery driver, had been taking an order to Lady Street, near Grosvenor Road, when he was shot. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Nurdered takeaway driver Dan Murray with his partner Ciara Austin at the birth of their son Podraig (now 2)

Pacemaker Press 16/5/2016 The Funeral for Dan Murray takes place at Holy Trinity Church in West Belfast. Dan Murray, a takeaway delivery driver, had been taking an order to Lady Street, near Grosvenor Road, when he was shot. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Pacemaker Press 16/5/2016 The Funeral for Dan Murray takes place at Holy Trinity Church in West Belfast. Dan Murray, a takeaway delivery driver, had been taking an order to Lady Street, near Grosvenor Road, when he was shot. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Injuries Dan Murray sustained in a previous murder attempt when he was shot in the face

Pacemaker Press 16/5/2016 The Funeral for Dan Murray takes place at Holy Trinity Church in West Belfast. Dan Murray, a takeaway delivery driver, had been taking an order to Lady Street, near Grosvenor Road, when he was shot. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

The funeral has been held for Daniel Murray, the Belfast delivery driver gunned down after he was lured to a shooting by a bogus takeaway order.

The 54-year-old was shot in the Divis area of Belfast last Monday night.

He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition, but did not survive despite efforts to save him.

He was targeted while sitting in his dark-coloured Ford Focus car in Lady Street after possibly being lured to the area by a bogus fast food delivery order.

The driver's seat and seatbelt were seen to be heavily bloodstained by witnesses.

Two men have been arrested over the murder. Both were later released unconditionally.

On Monday, the funeral was held at Holy Trinity Church in Turf Lodge.

Mr Murray was previously targeted in a gun attack almost exactly a year ago.

He was shot in the face by dissident republican vigilantes in 2015 near his north Belfast home.

Mr Murray, who was originally from the Turf Lodge area of west Belfast, said at the time he had been accused of being a drug dealer - which he denied - and would have to flee his home.

As he recovered from that shooting, he said the attack was an attempt to execute him.

He had also been wounded in a Continuity IRA gun attack before last year's murder attempt.

He claimed that was an extortion bid, and again denied he sold drugs. He challenged the paramilitaries to produce any evidence of criminal activity.
It's already known for its stunning scenery and now it has been named the friendliest place in the whole of the UK.

Beautiful County Fermanagh came top in a survey to find the UK's most neighbourly places.

It showed Northern Ireland is friendlier than anywhere in England, Scotland and Wales, with Fermanagh topping the list of counties ahead of Armagh and Antrim.

First Minister Arlene Foster, who hails from Co Fermanagh, said she was not surprised.

"It's not the first time that Fermanagh people have been described as the friendliest people in the country," she said. "I'm not sure what factors contribute to making Fermanagh people so friendly, but the scenery and the rural way of life must surely be key ingredients.

"Since being elected as First Minister I have been encouraging people everywhere to be proud of Northern Ireland.

"I want to help create an environment where every young person is as proud of Northern Ireland as I am. It's not a surprise this survey is now recognising us for our hospitality. I am delighted with the news."

All of Northern Ireland's counties made the top 10 friendliest spots across the UK - with the province dominating the top six.

The findings emerged after a study by the Big Lottery's Big Lunch, which aims to bring communities together and reduce loneliness and isolation. Now in its eighth year, The Big Lunch is an idea from the Eden Project, made possible by the Big Lottery Fund. It aims to get as many people as possible to have lunch with their neighbours in a simple act of community, friendship and fun.

Last year there were hundreds of Big Lunches across Northern Ireland, with tens of thousands of people taking part.

As many as 240,000 people in Northern Ireland have participated in a Big Lunch over the last five years.

Larger Big Lunches include one that starts and ends the Rathlin Sound Maritime Festival in Ballycastle, and an annual gathering in the grounds of Castle Upton in Templepatrick.

Belfast Friendship Club, a forum to bring people of different backgrounds together, organised a Big Lunch alongside City Church, in the south of the city, and Common Grounds Cafe in June last year.

It's not the first time Co Fermanagh has been recognised for its friendly nature - last year the Lakeland county was named the happiest place to live in the UK.

A study by the Office for National Statistics found people living in Fermanagh and Omagh rated themselves the happiest on a scale of zero to 10.
They say never meet your heroes - but that couldn't be further from the truth for one brave cancer survivor teen from Northern Ireland who had breakfast with Luke Skywalker.

Jamie Harkin (17) from Londonderry was diagnosed in June 2011 with Hodgkins Lmphoma cancer and suffered a relapse in January 2013.

Having beaten the disease twice in five years, the 17-year-old has been seriously ill since January this year.

A Star Wars fan since he was three, the teenager dreamed of one day meeting his galactic heroes.

And he got the surprise of his life on Monday morning as Luke Skywalker himself joined him for breakfast at the Redcastle hotel in Donegal.

It was a once in a lifetime opportunity after Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver aka Luke Skywalker, Rey and Kylo Ren - instead of being in a galaxy far, far away were in Donegal to film the latest installment in the science-fiction epic.

The iconic Millennium Falcon also docked not far from Jamie's home at Malin Head in Co Donegal.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars cast members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning. They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Rian Johnson (director ) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Rian Johnson (director ) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Rian Johnson (director ) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Rian Johnson (director ) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 13/5/2016 Daisy Ridley (Rey) pictured as Star Wars Cast Members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning , They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. The entire shoot is very much top secret, with locals and landowners sworn to keep it that way, and access to the beauty spot is closed for the next three days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker / Facebook

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Whatsapp Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) pictured as Star Wars cast members arrive at Belfast International Airport on Friday Morning. They are due to film Star Wars Episode VIII at Malin Head in Co Donegal. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

The determined teen runs Jamie's Journie, a community to help those in the north west suffering from cancer, raising over 15,000.

He has set up experiences for many young people - but with his heroes so close by filming Star Wars Episode VIII in Donegal - Jamie's mum thought it was time something was done for him.

Mum Patricia launched an online appeal to get the actor's attention using the hashtag #StarWarsForJJ on social media.

And on Saturday she got the call she had been waiting on, the meeting was going to happen but she was now faced with the task of keeping it a secret all weekend.

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Jamie had no idea what was happening as he thought he was going to the hotel for breakfast with one of the youngest members of Jamie's Journie, Ciaran Murphy (1) who was home from hospital for the weekend.

As they were all sitting discussing Star Wars - Jamie got the shock of his life as Mark Hamill walked in.

Posting on his social media page afterwards Jamie said he couldn't believe it had happened and told of the emotional meeting with both him and the Hollywood actor being reduced to tears.

'COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED'

He said: "I'm speechless.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close The model of the Millennium Falcon being built on the Star Wars set at Malin Head in Co Donegal A Millennium, Falcom in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA A set is created in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey The view of the Star Wars film set from Ardmalin Caravan Park. Pic: Ardmalin Caravan Park A fleet brought the Star Wars set to Malin Head. Pic: Ardmalin Caravan Park The view from Ardmalin Caravan Camp. Pic: Ardmalin Caravan Park The view from Ardmalin Caravan Park. Pic: Ardmalin Caravan Park Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Farrens Bar in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA A Millennium, Falcom in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA JJ McGettigan from the Emerald Garrison, a star Wars costuming club, in Farrens Bar in Malin Head, Co Donegal Ireland, as filming for the next Star Wars movie will take place there. PA PA Hazy Zoom - wires and cabling snake through the terrain from base to the Millennium Falcon. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. Construction on the millennium falcon which is perched on rocks on the rugged landscape at Ireland's most northerly point - Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey. The stunning landscape surrounding the Star Wars set in Malin Head. Pic James Whorriskey Remote - Malin Head, Ireland's most Northerly point and location for the latest Star Wars movie. Picture James Whorriskey A mixture of tourists and inquisitive Star Wars fans mingle - Pic at Bamba's Crown, which overlooks the cast and crew tents. Picture James Whorriskey Cast and crew areas being readied ahead of weekend filming - roads in the area will be closed for several days. Picture James Whorriskey Cast and crew areas being readied ahead of weekend filming - roads in the area will be closed for several days.Picture James Whorriskey Cliff path to the Millennium Falcon - private security staff prevent people from getting too close. Picture James Whorriskey Millennium Falcon Base - scaffolding, fencing and crew buildings surrounding the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Gardai on standby and ready to politely ward of anybody who security deem to have gotten too close for comfort. Picture James Whorriskey Concealed - A drone hovers to the left of picture, over the Millennium Falcon location - and what's that partially visible on the right? Picture James Whorriskey Tight security guards the boundaries of the Star Wars set. Picture James Whorriskey Millennium Falcon base at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Crews at the Millennium Falcon site. Picture James Whorriskey Security try to prevent photography at the location. Picture James Whorriskey Narrow single track roads are the only way around Malin Head - In the distance the Millennium falcon site. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Private Security posted at public vantage points in Malin Head attempt to prevent photography. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey New signs erected in many of the surrounding fields - Millennium Falcon in the distance. Picture James Whorriskey Construction underway on the Millennium Falcon at Malin Head. Picture James Whorriskey Basecamp at the Millennium Falcon site. Pic James Whorriskey The landscape overlooking the Millennium Falcon base. Picture James Whorriskey. / Facebook

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Whatsapp The model of the Millennium Falcon being built on the Star Wars set at Malin Head in Co Donegal

"Even now there's a wealth of emotions running through me, I'm definitely still in shock, I'm absolutely elated, incredibly humbled, honoured and just completely overwhelmed."

He continues: "I finally met my idol today. I had breakfast with Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill himself. People say that you should never meet your idols, because you build them up in your head so much that when you do meet them, they are a let down, and to that, I say, you're wrong."

"Mark was everything I ever imagined him to be and then some."

"As he walked in completely out of the blue Jamie stood up to shake his hand, but the Hollywood star told him "you don't need to stand up for me".

'EVERYBODY WAS IN TEARS'

Mark then shared with Jamie some words of inspiration which he said reduced them both to tears.

Jamie said: "He chatted to everyone for a while, before turning to me, and he told me something that I really needed to hear after the last few weeks and months that I've had. I promised myself that I wouldn't cry, but I just couldn't help it, and then Mark hugged me and as he was sitting down, I saw that he was crying too.

"Seeing him like that, in normal clothes as opposed to Jedi robes, talking about normal things as opposed to saving the galaxy, he really is an extraordinary actor, not just because he played my childhood hero, but because despite being the star of the biggest franchise ever, he is still completely down to earth, and has remained human."

The pair then spent the next hour and a half chatting about the "good old days" with Mark telling them stories as Jamie sat "enthralled" listening intently to his hero.

'AN EXPERIENCE WE'LL NEVER FORGET'

Patricia told the Belfast Telegraph that Mark was a "gentleman" and that it was a surreal experience they will never forget.

She said: "He gave Jamie really inspirational words and it was just such a surreal experience. I'm still speechless. He spent well over an hour, it was just like sitting down with an old friend. He was an amazing, charismatic person. It was just unbelievable.

"Everybody was completely comfortable and Jamie was just totally gobsmacked and overwhelmed and so happy."

"We were just sitting there and Mark just walked in and Jamie was talking and he just gasped.

"It was just an incredible moment for Jamie and as his parents sitting watching."

Patricia said they have been overwhelmed by the public support to get the attention of the actor.

She said: "It was the most lovely experience and one I'll never forget.

"We are just totally overwhelmed by the support from the public.

She added: "They were embracing and he had Jamie in tears and everybody was in tears.

"He was crying too, saying that Jamie was such a hero and saying how he was an incredible man and that he was the real hero. Jamie was in tears, he was in tears and Mark just held him for about five minutes."
Health officials from Northern Ireland are due to arrive in the Philippines today as part of a bid to recruit up to 1,000 nurses to work in our health service

Health officials from Northern Ireland are due to arrive in the Philippines today as part of a bid to recruit up to 1,000 nurses to work in our health service.

The move - the first leg of an international recruitment campaign - has been prompted by an acute shortage of nurses in the province.

And with hundreds of them due to retire over the next year, health bosses believe the answer to the growing problem may lie overseas.

In March the Belfast Telegraph revealed that an astonishing 400,000 was spent here every day by the health service on agency workers.

In the 12 months to April 2015 a total of 140,607,692 was spent on agency staff.

In the same period the Belfast Trust - Northern Ireland's largest trust - spent just over 47m on agency staff.

The Northern Trust allocated 28.7m, while the Western Trust's bill topped 25m.

Agency nurses at one health trust were paid up to 87 an hour.

Officials hope to recruit 300 nurses in the Philippines, as well as an additional 700 this month and next in trips to Italy and Romania.

Two international recruitment companies - TTM and HCL - have been awarded the tenders to undertake the drive.

The successful applicants will initially be employed by the Health And Social Care service in Northern Ireland as Band 3 nursing support staff until they become fully registered.

The recruitment drive in the Philippines this week is for jobs in all the province's health trusts.

There will be another in Romania later this month for the Belfast, South Eastern and Northern Trusts.

In Italy the recruitment drive will take place next month for posts in the Western and Southern Trusts.

Earlier this month the Health and Social Care service said there was "much work ongoing at a local level to make every effort to attract existing students and encourage those who have previously lived or worked in Northern Ireland back to work here".

The successful applicants from the Philippines, Italy and Romania will receive English language training and examination.

The European recruitment is expected to last 39 weeks and the Philippines recruitment is estimated to take up to 48 weeks.

In February an investigation by the BBC found there were more than 850 nursing vacancies across four of Northern Ireland's five health trusts.

Figures also revealed there were 243 doctor vacancies.

Nursing vacancies at the Southern Health Trust went up by 1,000% in two years - from 19 to 226.

The Belfast Trust reported more than 500 available nursing positions and 113 unfilled doctors' posts.
Police at the scene of the murder of Dan Murray in west Belfast

The killer or killers of a takeaway delivery driver acted as judge, jury and executioner, a priest at his Belfast funeral said.

Last Monday night's shooting of Dan Murray, 55, was the fourth gun attack in the city in four days.

The victim was lured to his death by a bogus fast food order, detectives said.

Mr Murray, who was known to police and had survived a previous murder bid, had been dispatched in his black Ford Focus to deliver food to a house in the Lady Street area of West Belfast.

Fr Brendan Smyth told mourners at the Holy Trinity Parish Church: "Danny's death was a horrific one, where his life was snuffed out in the blink of an eye, from behind him his killer set themselves up as judge, jury and executioner."

The father-of-six was shot in the head when he drove into Lady Street.

Fr Smyth said the gunman had no concern for the victim's children or the impact this murder would have upon them.

"They have been added to the very long list of those who suffer at the hands of those who have no care for justice, those who seek to settle things by the barrel of a gun.

"And they say we live in a more civilised and peaceful time in our city's, our country's history, I think not."

He said the murderer or murderers believed life was "worthless".

"This is the second time in as many months that I have had to stand at the door of this church and received the remains of someone who was murdered.

He feared for the impact on worshippers.

"They too must be affected by how violent this city has become. The consequences of Danny's death will therefore ripple out for a long time to come.

"How long must we wait before the lessons are learnt, that whatsoever you do to the least of these my brothers and sisters you do to me?"

He said they faced eternal punishment.

"Those who took Danny's life, and all who are involved in leading others down the path of self-destruction, may well have no care or thought that what they do, they do to Jesus. Well they would do well to listen to the end of the Gospel."

He added: "The words of the Gospel are clear and concise, without confusion, 'and these will go off to eternal punishment'."
The memorials to the men of the 36th Ulster Division

Guest list: Martin McGuinness has been invited to the event in France

Martin McGuinness is considering an invite to attend a memorial service marking the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme.

The Deputy First Minister has been included on a draft guest list for the event in France on July 1.

Sinn Fein said any invitations to events will be considered.

A series of major ceremonies are planned across the UK and France on July 1 to mark the centenary.

The Somme was one of the bloodiest battles of World War One with more than one million casualties over 141 days.

The fighting began just before 7.30am on the morning of July 1, 1916.

Men of the 36th (Ulster) Division were among the 100,000 Allied soldiers who went over the top to face the Germans on the slopes around Thiepval and Beaumont-Hamel in the valley of the River Somme.

It was to become known as the British Army's bloodiest day.

More than 15,000 people are expected at three major centenary events taking place in northern France on July 1.

The Northern Ireland service, which has been organised by the Somme Association, takes place at 2.30pm local time at the Ulster Tower.

The First Minister and Deputy First Minister have been invited to the service.

While Arlene Foster has indicated she will attend, it is understood that Mr McGuinness has yet to respond.

A Sinn Fein spokesperson said: "Any invitations to events to commemorate the Battle of the Somme will be considered.

"Commemorations are not simply about remembering the past - they are also about looking to the future.

"Commemorations should be about gaining a deeper understanding of differing viewpoints, and should be seen as an opportunity to explore, understand and celebrate our differences.

"Commemorative events should aid reconciliation, and not deepen division."

Irish Government sources said Taoiseach Enda Kenny was expected to attend.

Last year Belfast Lord Mayor Arder Carson said Sinn Fein would consider attending events in Belfast to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.

It came after he laid a laurel wreath at the cenotaph at Belfast City Hall ahead of the main British Legion ceremony.

It followed the approach taken by former Sinn Fein Lord Mayors Alex Maskey, Tom Hartley, Niall O Donnghaile and Mairtin O Muilleoir.

Mr O Muilleoir made history in 2013 by becoming the first Sinn Fein Lord Mayor to attend a Remembrance Day service at the cenotaph.

However, party Lord Mayors have yet to attend the main Battle of the Somme ceremony amid concerns about British military trappings.

Speaking last July, Mr Carson said: "These things we keep under consideration all of the time. There are discussions and engagements all the time in relation to these type of events."

The Battle of the Somme has an indelible link with Northern Ireland given the scale of sacrifice.

The 36th (Ulster) Division was formed with units from the Ulster Volunteer Force, which had been raised in 1913 to fight against Home Rule in Ireland.

After training, it was deployed to France in September 1915.

By mid-March the division had taken over a section of the front line astride the River Ancre between Hamel and Thiepval.

On July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the men left their positions and made rapid progress as far as the German third line positions.

As the assaults on Beaumont-Hamel and Thiepval were quickly repulsed, the Germans soon turned their full strength on the Ulster men who were trapped by fire on their flanks and shelling.

The division suffered around 5,500 casualties - about 2,500 were killed.

A series of formal events will take place around the centenary of the start of the battle.

These include vigils at Helen's Tower in Co Down, Westminster Abbey in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff. A national commemoration will also take place in Manchester.

In France the main ceremony takes place at Thiepval, where the memorial stands to more than 72,000 men who died and have no known grave.

Around 10,000 people are expected to attend the event, organised by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on behalf of the British Government, the Mission du Centenaire on behalf of the French Government, The Royal British Legion and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Ahead of that, the day will start with a dawn service at Lochnagar Crater.

It was formed by one of a series of offensive mines blown along the front ahead of the major infantry attack.

At 2.30pm around 3,000 people will gather at the Ulster Tower for the Northern Ireland ceremony.
Keiko Fujimori campaigning on the outskirts of Lima, Peru

Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori denied a news report raising questions about whether she was involved in money laundering.

A local television network broadcast a report on Sunday night suggesting the US Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating a member of Ms Fujimori's party for money laundering. The allegations come just weeks before the presidential run-off election.

The report said the agency was investigating whether Joaquin Ramirez of Ms Fujimori's Fuerza Popular party laundered millions for the candidate.

Ms Fujimori denied that she was involved with any money laundering.

DEA spokeswoman Anne-Judith Lambert said the agency never said Ms Fujimori was a target of any investigation. The DEA did not say whether it was investigating Mr Ramirez.

Ms Fujimori has struggled to cast off the legacy of her father, jailed former president Alberto Fujimori.
Libyia is under a UN embargo imposed to keep lethal arms away from terrorists

In a move fraught with risk, the United States and other world powers have said they will supply Libya's internationally recognised government with weapons to counter Islamic State and other militant groups gaining footholds in the country.

Aiming at once to shore up the fragile government, and prevent Islamic State fighters and rival militias from further gains, the US, the four other permanent UN Security Council members and more than 15 other nations said they would approve exemptions to a United Nations arms embargo to allow military sales and aid to Libya's so-called Government of National Accord.

In a joint communique, the nations said that while the broader embargo will remain in place, they are "ready to respond to the Libyan government's requests for training and equipping" government forces.

"We will fully support these efforts while continuing to reinforce the UN arms embargo," the communique said.

With support from all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the plan is unlikely to face significant opposition from any quarter.

The communique was issued at the end of the talks that gathered US Secretary of State John Kerry and top officials from more than 20 other nations to discuss ways to strengthen Libya's fledgling government. The aim is to give the internationally recognised administration more muscle in fighting Islamic State radicals and end its rivalry with a group to the east claiming legitimacy.

The step will boost the government's efforts to consolidate power and regain control over Libyan state institutions like the central bank and national oil company. However, it also comes with risks, not least of which is that the arms may be captured or otherwise taken by the Islamic State or other groups.

Mr Kerry called the plan "a delicate balance".

He added: "But we are, all of us here today, supportive of the fact that if you have a legitimate government and that legitimate government is fighting terrorism, that legitimate government should not be victimised by (the embargo)."

Libyan premier Fayez al-Sarraj said his government would soon submit a weapons wish-list to the Security Council for approval.

"We have a major challenge ahead of us," in fighting extremists, he said. "We urge the international community to assist us."

Before the meeting, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier outlined the high stakes at hand.

"The key question is whether Libya remains a place where terrorism, criminal human smuggling and instability continue to expand, or if we are able, together with the government of national unity to recover stability," he told reporters.

The challenges are daunting.

Libya descended into chaos after the toppling and death of Muammar Gaddafi five years ago and soon turned into a battleground of rival militias battling for powers.

More recently, the power vacuum has allowed Islamic State radicals to expand their presence, giving them a potential base in a country separated from Europe only by a relatively small stretch of the Mediterranean Sea.

Also worrying for Europe is the potential threat of a mass influx of refugees amassing in Libya, now that the earlier route from Turkey into Greece has been essentially shut down.

In Libya, the UN-established presidency council on Monday effectively gave the go-ahead for 18 government ministers to start work, even though they have not received backing from the parliament.

The council was created under a UN-brokered unity deal struck in December to reconcile Libya's many political divisions. It won the support of a former powerbase in the country's capital Tripoli, but failed to secure a vote of confidence by the country's internationally recognised parliament, based in Tobruk, a city in eastern Libya.

The UN deal also created the internationally recognised government, through a de facto cabinet to administer the country under Mr Serraj and the 18 ministers will answer to him.

Divisions in the Tobruk parliament between boycotters and supporters of the new government have prevented the house from reaching a quorum to endorse the council.
Brian McClinton of the Humanist Association of Northern Ireland wrote (Write Back, March 1) that most people in Ireland now think for themselves and refuse to be dictated to on moral matters by religious bodies. He highlighted education, same-sex "marriage" and abortion.

I approve of integrated education, having attended a mixed school myself.

Abortion is not simple. In the Belfast Telegraph (News, February 13), a woman described how, as a 13-year-old rape victim, she was forced into an abortion which left a legacy of suppressed grief and depression. Only when she received Christian counselling did she recover.

On same-sex "marriage", the Son of God concluded His teaching on marriage and divorce by saying: "What God has joined together let not man put asunder." It would be an insult to God to declare that He has joined together a same-sex couple.

Churches may fail in various ways and lose their authority. But the Word of God never does.

DONALD GALE

By email
In elections there will always be winners and losers. Even in those places around the world where the single transferable vote (STV) system has replaced the first-past-the-post system, there is every likelihood that parties will still suffer defeats at the polls.

STV is, of course, thought to be a fairer and more equitable redistribution of votes, where candidates that fail to meet the quota can still benefit from transfers from voters who have placed them further down their list of preferences. This means that even small parties have the opportunity to do well at the polls.

The recent Assembly election did not produce much in the way of surprises, with the notable exception that it enabled smaller parties to make breakthroughs in constituencies which had been dominated by bigger parties.

The most notable beneficiary of STV in the election was, of course, the Green Party, which enjoys strong support in middle-class areas such as South Belfast and North Down. It more than trebled its share of the vote from 6,031 to 18,718, winning an additional seat.

The anti-austerity People Before Profit Alliance (PBPA), which drew on strong support in the marginalised working-class areas of West Belfast and Foyle, won two seats, taking 13,761 first preference votes. It had previously polled only 5,438 votes in the 2011 Assembly election.

West Belfast and Foyle are areas which are predominantly Catholic and nationalist in religious and political terms, though they do have a smaller number of Protestants residing within their electoral boundaries.

As a consequence, both Gerry Carroll and Eamonn McCann made the point of telling voters on the campaign trail that they are "neither orange nor green", thereby seeking election on a cross-community basis.

The PBPA's main focus is on protecting the rights of working people, the unemployed and the disabled, many of whom feel marginalised by those traditional parties they see as having done little for them during the long years of austerity. In this sense, Carroll's campaign almost certainly benefited from a protest vote against Sinn Fein.

The agenda of protecting the most deprived and marginalised people in society has a long tradition. McCann was a founder member of the Derry Labour Party, which was part of the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP), until his stance on civil rights led to a parting of the ways in the late-1960s.

During the 1950s and 1960s the NILP was the third political tradition and won around 100,000 votes in the 1964 and 1970 Westminster elections.

After the outbreak of sectarian violence, cross-community parties became a rare species. The Alliance Party, though attracting Protestants and Catholics into its ranks, was born out of the collapse of the old-established Unionist Party. It has always appealed to a middle-class agenda.

The NILP's vote collapsed in the 1970s, but the party limped on until the 1980s when some of its leading lights threw their energies into the Campaign for Labour Representation (CLR). The nucleus of the CLR pressure grouping wanted the British Labour Party to organise in Northern Ireland.

It was not until late-2003 that the Labour Party was forced to concede membership rights to people living in Northern Ireland. This only happened after a successful court case brought by GMB official Andy McGivern.

After the election of Jeremy Corbyn in September 2015 there was some speculation about whether the party would finally contest elections in Northern Ireland, as its Conservative rivals has repeatedly done.

Labour declined to take up the banner of democratic socialism in Northern Ireland, and even went as far as to ban its members from contesting elections.

Eight members defied the ban and ran for the Assembly as the Northern Ireland Labour Representation Committee. It polled only 1,577 votes - fewer votes than its claims to have members and supporters.

Its leader, journalist and author Kathryn Johnston, polled 243 first preference votes in North Antrim - fewer than half the votes of Green candidate Jennifer Breslin.

In East Belfast Erskine Holmes, who served as a NILP councillor in Belfast in the 1970s, polled 78 first preference votes. The best-performing candidate, Damien Harris, polled 285 first preference votes in Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

That British Labour has shown no interest in contesting elections in Northern Ireland must also be seen in the context of a reversal of fortunes for the party in Scotland.

The One Nation project, instigated under former Labour leader Ed Miliband, seems to have been jettisoned by the current leadership.

This begs the question if there remains a viable labour politics in Northern Ireland.

Since the demise of the NILP, British Labour has intimated that its "sister" party is the SDLP, which was unlikely ever to appeal to the Protestant working class.

The labour tradition in the Protestant community tended to percolate through former NILP activists, who drifted into other parties.

Notable individuals included Jim McDonald and David Overend, both of whom were responsible for formulating labour-orientated policies inside the PUP from the late-1970s onwards.

For much of the 1980s and 1990s the PUP imbibed a democratic socialist ethos in its politics.

This was to change under the successive leadership terms of Dawn Purvis and Brian Ervine, who emphasised liberal and centre-Right tendencies respectively.

The election of Billy Hutchinson as party leader in October 2011 stabilised the party's liberal-Left tendencies until the influx of new members in the wake of the flag protests.

Throughout 2013 the PUP saw its membership rise from less than 100 to more than 250. However, this placed tremendous strain on the party's Leftist credentials and saw a broadening of its support-base to include loyalists more in tune with The Sash than The Internationale.

The PUP failed to capitalise on its impressive showing at the 2014 local government elections, where it won more than 12,000 first preference votes and saw councillors elected in North/West Belfast, East Belfast and Coleraine. It won only 5,955 votes in the 2016 Assembly election.

That the DUP managed to reinforce its 38-seat lead in the recent polls suggests that either the PUP failed to make its message relevant at a regional level, or, more plausibly, that the ethnic rage and angst produced by the flag protests led to an artificial swelling of votes for the PUP. In both cases it appears that those with a natural political home in the DUP have simply returned to that fold.

The attempts to reconcile two increasingly divergent strands - cultural loyalism and civic unionism - running through the party have come at a price. Outwardly, at least, the party has made a trade-off, jettisoning some of its democratic socialist, pluralist and civic unionist ethos for the short-term political gains offered by ethnic-based protest.

A quick glance at the PUP's policies is instructive here. On devolution, for instance, the party has not really defined what it understands by unionism and may even have retreated into a centre-Right position on "more stringent background checks" for economic migrants. However, on education, social development and justice, it appears to be more liberal and forward-leaning.

If the party is to reach out beyond this residual cultural loyalism that has come to dominate its support base, it needs to construct a more confident, outward-facing unionism.

In light of this, what then is the future of democratic socialist-based parties more broadly in this part of the United Kingdom?

That is difficult to forecast with any kind of certainty. If the past century is anything to go by, we might well see the resurgence of a cross-community labour tradition.

Now the best chance appears to come from the People Before Profit Alliance, provided it ensures it does not get entangled in the barbed wire of national or religious identity that has long plagued Irish politics.

If the Assembly election demonstrated anything, it is that the radical impulse for the basis of a new labour politics is more likely to come from within Catholic nationalism than from Protestant unionism.
In this image taken from a video disseminated online by IS Lanao, a young person plays with a shot-down Philippine military drone.

The militant group Islamic State (IS) Lanao has claimed that it shot down a drone operated by the Philippine armed forces as it flew a reconnaissance mission over Lanao del Sur, on the southern island of Mindanao, in early May.

The group also released an online video showing in-flight images taken by the drones camera as it took off and came down, as well as footage of an IS Lanao fighter playing with the small unmanned aerial vehicle after it fell to the ground.

In the video titled Allah is the Best of Those who Plot, narrator Abu Hafs al-Mashriqi (alias Abu Hafs from the East) greets IS fighters in the Philippines in Arabic and urges Muslims to pledge allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

This move by IS Lanao to reach out to other threat groups and seek unification with them reveals an emerging IS centric threat landscape in the Philippines. If the disparate IS support groups link up, the threat posed by IS in the Philippines will be resilient and sustained.

Seeking acceptance

Islamic State Lanao is led by Abdullah Maute (alias Abu Hasan), a graduate of al-Azhar University in Egypt. The group was previously known as the Khilafah Islamiyah Movement (KIM).

Under the supervision of the Office of the Chief of Philippine National Police (OCPNP) a Task Force officially known by the acronym TFMKI was created in 2013 to dismantle the group.

Of the IS support groups, Islamic State Lanao is one of the groups that pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but IS Central, based in Raqqa, Syria, has not accepted IS Lanao.

The Philippine group is not a part of the countrys official IS branch, IS Philippines, which consists of three groups: al Harakat ul Islamiyah Basilan, led by Isnilon Hapilon; Ansar Khilafah Mindanao, led by Muhammad Jafaar Maguid (alias Tokboy); and Jund ul Tawhid, led by Amin Baco.

In its video, IS Lanao is reaching out for acceptance to IS Central and IS Philippines.

Mohd Najib Husen (alias Abu Anas Al Muhajir), who was appointed as head of the Ansar al-Sharia of the IS Philippines, was killed in a firefight with the Philippine military in Basilan in December. A Malaysian, Najib operated with other Malaysians.

These personalities and groups in the Philippines seek to emulate IS Central by attacking government forces, incarcerating Filipinos  including Muslims  and beheading spies and Christians.

In April, Islamic State Lanao took six Philippine sawmill workers hostage and demanded the release of an IS Lanao fighter captured two months earlier by the Philippine army. The group emulated IS Central by parading the men in orange jumpsuits. Thereafter, IS Lanao beheaded two of the men whom it branded as disbeliever spies.

Diffused groups

The IS threat in the Philippines is decentralized, diffused and evolving. There is no one central group. The Philippine government did not take the threat of IS seriously until the threat grew and expanded.

The reporting of the threat was both by government security agencies but also by the Filipino journalist Mohommad Saaduddin, who wrote about the emergence of the IS threat in the southern Philippines.

Those operating with IS support groups in the Philippines include other Southeast Asians and Arabs. A Moroccan fighter, Muhammad Khattab Al-Maghribi Al-Muhajir, who wore a black shirt bearing the IS logo, last month was killed in a clash between Philippine forces and IS Philippines.

Another group harboring foreigners is Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), which also pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi. Although IS Central did not accept BIFF. The group, led by Ismael Abubakar, and Rajah Solaiman Movement, led by Ahmad Santos, hope to unite and work under the IS black banner.

In Maguindanao, BIFF hosted Malaysians Amin Baco and Zulkifli Bin Hir (alias Marwan) and Abdul Basit Usman (the special operations group leader for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front [MILF]) prior to the killing of 44 members of a police tactical unit in Mamasapano in January 2015. It was a sad moment for the nation.

In Mindanao, the potential for threat groups to cooperate is high. Some MILF commanders have family connections or other ties to the key personalities in IS Lanao. Abdullah Maute is the cousin of Jannati Mimbantas, the present base commander of the MILF Northeastern Command based in Butig, Lanao del Sur.

Some members of IS Lanao have links with the late Umbra Kato, the founder of BIFF. Fortunately for Manila, the MILF, under Haji Murad, opposes IS.

After Haji Murad assumed leadership, MILFs relationship with the Abu Sayyaf Group and Jemaah Islamiyah was severed. Unlike his predecessor Hashim Salamat, Haji Murad considered ASG, JI  and now IS as strategic liabilities. The mainstream MILF cut ties with ASG and JI, but splinter groups within MILF, such as BIFF, have maintained links and hosted foreign fighters.

A win for IS

The downing of a drone operated by the Armed Forced of the Philippines (AFP) is a victory for IS.

Islamic State Lanao is likely to share the technical capability with other threat groups. Because IS support groups in Southeast Asia are linked, they are likely to know about the technical capabilities of drones.

To fight against IS-centric threat groups, the AFP will have to study the operational failures and carefully plan and prepare operations. The Philippine government generated accurate intelligence reports but its military failed to act decisively.

Weeks before the May 9 presidential election, reports pointed to the the terror group in Lanao continuing to consolidate its position and planning an attack against government troops on election day.

On the eve of the election, the group attacked the local power grid. Similarly, IS Lanao operated a training camp in Jabal Uhud in Butig. However, the Philippine military was not able to dismantle the facility but only disrupt the training.

A larger body of highly trained troops willing to dominate the terrain, where IS has now established a presence, is now needed.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and not of BenarNews.
Security personnel escort Bangladesh Nationalist Party Joint Secretary-General Aslam Chowdhury to court in Dhaka following his arrest, May 16, 2016.

Bangladesh police have seven days to question an opposition politician for an alleged plot to overthrow the government with the help from Israeli intelligence, a Dhaka judge determined on Monday.

Aslam Chowdhury, the joint secretary-general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) who was arrested Sunday, has been charged with meeting Likud Party leader Mendi N. Safadi in India and plotting to remove Bangladeshs Awami League party from power with the help of Mossad, Israels main intelligence service.

BNP officials have denied the charges in a story that is dominating headlines in Bangladesh, saying that the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was falsely accusing their party of ties with the Jewish State, which has no diplomatic relations with Dhaka.

We, the BNP, have no connection with Israel. We do not know anyone in Israel. Mr. Aslam has said that he went to India and met (Safadi) accidentally, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told BenarNews.

Accidental meeting

Israel was one of the first countries to recognize Bangladesh, supporting the fledgling nation during its war of independence from Pakistan in 1971. But Bangladesh has yet to recognize the Jewish State because of political sensitivities among Bangladeshis who are sympathetic to the Palestinians. Bangladesh passports are valid for all countries except Israel.

Chowdhurys arrest occurred after two Bangladesh newspapers reported that he met with Safadi  whose center-right Likud Party leads Israels ruling coalition  and allegedly promised Tel Aviv that BNP would recognize Israel if it helped the BNP come to power.

The court has granted a seven-day remand for questioning Aslam Chowdhury to unearth the conspiracy with the Israeli intelligence agent, Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Maruf Hasan Sarder told BenarNews.

According to Sarder, Facebook posts clearly showed that Chowdhury met with Safadi in New Delhi.

Prosecutor Salma Tuli told reporters that Chowdhury met Safadi three times. She said the court also granted a seven-day remand for Chowdhurys personal aide, Asaduzzaman Mia.

Chowdhury along with his aide and his chauffeur were arrested under section 54 of Bangladeshs criminal code that allows police to arrest anyone on suspicion. Human rights activists have called for dropping the section because of its frequent use in arresting suspects, but the government has not supported this.

Chowdhury has said that he went to India for medical treatment and met Safadi by accident.

This allegation is completely false and fabricated, he told reporters two days before his arrest.

On Saturday, BNP Secretary General Alamgir rushed to the residence of the Palestinian ambassador in Dhaka, Yousef S.Y. Ramadan, and told him that the party had no links with Israel. Ramadan responded that relations with Israel would be political suicide, according to media reports.

The Awami League, meanwhile, challenged the opposition partys statements.

The BNP has aligned with Israel to topple our government. They promised recognizing Israel if they come to power. Their plan will not succeed, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, the prime ministers cousin and a member of the Awami League presidium, told BenarNews.

Very sensitive issue

On May 11, Chowdhury attended a conference on Indo-Israeli relations at the Mendi N. Safadi Center for International Diplomacy and Public Relations in Delhi, according to a Facebook post by the center. Its Facebook page featured a photo of Chowdhury with Safadi, which has been published by Bangladeshi media.

Connections with Israel is a very sensitive issue in Bangladesh. But unless the government comes up with more concrete proof of the alleged conspiracy meeting of Safadi with Aslam Chowdhury, the Awami League is unlikely to get political benefit from the issue, Nizam Ahmed, a political commentator and professor at the Chittagong University, told BenarNews.

Recognition of Israel by any party in Bangladesh is almost impossible unless the Palestinian issue is solved, he said.
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For Immediate Release, May 16, 2016 Contact: Bob Sallinger, Audubon Society of Portland, (503) 380-9728, bsallinger@audubonportland.org

Collette Adkins, Center for Biological Diversity, (651) 955-3821, cadkins@biologicaldiversity.org Opponents of Cormorant Slaughter to Rally at Portland Federal Building at Noon on May 17 PORTLAND, Ore. A rally will be held at noon on May 17 at the federal building courtyard at 911 NE 11th Avenue to protest the ongoing slaughter of double-crested cormorants in the Columbia River Estuary by federal agents. Double-crested cormorant photo courtesy Flickr/Mark Dumont. This photo is available for media use. Over the past year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services have shot more than 4,500 cormorants and destroyed more than 6,000 cormorant nests. This represents more than 7 percent of the entire double-crested cormorant population west of the Rocky Mountains. The goal of the agencies is to ultimately kill more than 10,000 cormorants and destroy more than 26,000 nests. Federal agents in boats are currently using shotguns to shoot cormorants out of the sky. In the coming weeks they will shift to shooting the birds on their nests as they care for their eggs and young. The killing represents a senseless wanton slaughter of wild birds. The agencies claim that the killing is necessary to protect Columbia River salmon populations, but in fact the agencies are simply scapegoating wild birds for salmon declines that have been caused by the federal hydropower system. Last year documents obtained by the Audubon Society of Portland showed that the Fish and Wildlife Service ignored a report by its own biologists showing that killing cormorants would provide no benefit at all for salmon recovery. In April 2016 a federal court in Washington, D.C., struck down analysis used by the Fish and Wildlife Service to justify killing of tens of thousands of double-crested cormorants in the eastern United States, finding that the agency failed to consider any alternatives other than its preferred lethal strategy. Just last week a federal court in Portland ruled for the fifth time in 20 years that the federal agencies failed to adequately consider modifications to the Columbia River hydropower system in their plan to recover salmon and ordered them to redo their plan. The court wrote that the agencies had ignored the admonishments of the court for years and focused on strategies that cry out for a major overhaul and which had cost taxpayers billions of dollars, yet are failing. The only credible response to the information that has emerged over the past year is for the federal agencies to immediately stop the killing and review what has gone terribly wrong with their decision-making processes, said Audubon Conservation Director Bob Sallinger. That they have instead accelerated the killing is absolutely unconscionable. This is a senseless and cruel waste of life that defies science, law and common decency. Were outraged that the Corps continues to kill cormorants without any justification or benefit, said Tanya Sanerib, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. The science shows that cormorant killing does nothing to protect salmon. It is the Corps refusal to modify dam operations thats the real threat to salmon, and the needless deaths of cormorants are another causality of the agencys mismanagement of the Columbia River ecosystem. Audubon Society of Portland, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of Animals, Animal Legal Defense Fund and Wildlife Center of the North Coast have sued the Fish and Wildlife Service, Army Corps and Wildlife Services to stop the slaughter of cormorants. They are represented by Earthrise Law Center. A ruling in the case is expected later this year. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Whether you are a Remainer or a Leaver the film by Martin Durkin, which came out last week, is well worth watching - it's funny, entertaining and challenging.

You can also watch on Vimeo.
The Government of Rwanda has announced a collaboration with MasterCard to fast-track the country's move to include 90% of its citizens in the financial mainstream, as set out in its Vision 2020 strategy.

In a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed by the CEO, Rwanda Development Board and cabinet member, Francis Gatare and Raghu Malhotra, President of Middle East and Africa for MasterCard, Rwanda will promote the move to a cashless economy by collaborating on numerous initiatives.

These solutions include, the digitisation of school fees and national healthcare claim payments, providing an online payment gateway for Rwanda Online, contributing to the creation of a common mobile banking platform, and contributing to the effective management of spending activities across borders.

Speaking at the announcement last week, 12 May 2016, Gatare said, We are confident that Rwandas partnership with MasterCard will be beneficial to the country and its citizens as we are implementing our vision of becoming a knowledge based service-oriented economy. I believe this can only be achieved as we embrace the fourth industrial revolution.

Malhotra remarked that the Government of Rwanda shares the commitment of MasterCard to realising a world beyond cash. He said. Our global reach and local experience makes MasterCard a perfect partner to help Rwanda meet its Vision 2020 strategy. Rwanda is a key market in East Africa for MasterCard and todays announcement marks an important milestone in driving financial inclusion, not just in the country but in the region and Africa as a whole.

According to the World Banks Global Findex 2014, two billion people globally do not have access to formal financial services. In Rwanda, 42% of adults own a financial account, whether formal or informal.

Rwandas Vision 2020 aims for 70% financial inclusion by 2017 and 90% by 2020. Building on the companys approach to develop partnerships with governments, NGOs and local businesses, MasterCard and the Rwandan government will address common challenges faced by poor and often remote populations, such as the lack of formal identification and financial illiteracy.
US entrepreneur and philanthropist Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS, will receive Cannes LionHeart Award during International Festival of Creativity.

Mycoskie launched TOMS 10 years ago, as a not-for-profit, sustainable business that has provided new shoes to millions of disadvantaged children worldwide. In 2011, he started TOMS Eyewear and has helped to restore sight for over 325,000 people in need, through every pair of sunglasses sold.

Mycoskie is the catalyst behind the One for One business model, which has inspired other global entrepreneurs to launch socially minded companies. He was recently asked to join Richard Bransons B Team, a group of business leaders embracing sustainable business practices and is the author of best-selling book Start Something That Matters.

Terry Savage, chairman of Lions Festivals, said, Blakes unstoppable passion and commitment has driven him to create a brand model that has made a positive impact on millions of peoples lives across the world. His vision to develop a new kind of conscious consumerism has transformed into a global movement. Blakes ongoing achievements encapsulate the spirit of the Cannes LionHeart.

Introduced in 2014, the Cannes LionHeart is an honorary award, presented to an individual who has innovatively harnessed commercial brand power to make a significant and positive difference to people or the planet.

Mycoskie, said, It is incredibly special to receive the Cannes LionHeart award. I am humbled and honoured that the TOMS movement has influenced so many and continues to inspire others to make a difference. Since TOMS began, we have given over 60 million pairs of shoes all over the world. This award not only belongs to me, but to all the many brilliant people working at the intersection of purpose and profit and to everyone that has helped share our mission along the way.

He will be presented with the LionHeart at the Cannes Lions Awards Ceremony on Saturday 25 June 2016. For more information, go to www.canneslions.com.
If you're targeting a generic 'black middle class' without properly interpreting the meaning behind the insights you're using in your brand communication, you'll fall just as far short of actually resonating with your intended audience as those who use the 'Africa as a country' mindset. Here's why.

A one-size-fits-all approach doesnt work like it used to before, because a guy from Soweto has different needs to a guy in Khayelitsha. Thats the wisdom of Thando Makhathini (MD) and Thato Tshabalala (ECD) from township-born advertising agency Monkey Concepts Advertising. They form part of Joe Public Uniteds youth enterprise development programme, which is a formal agreement where Joe Public gives the agency room to grow and be groomed by them, to learn at Joe Public by accessing their work and bounce ideas off of Joe Publics resources, but best of all, to work off and with their clients.

Makhathini and Tshabalala

Thats because Monkey Concepts Advertising has pinned down the identity of the black middle class in South Africa  but dont expect a one-pager with clear demographics. Instead, Makhathini explains its a tricky concept as its changing so quickly. In fact, it reminds him of the Chinese proverb: If you understand everything, you must be misinformed.

That said, they do have insights into the upwardly mobile, which has a growing number of entrants, but in South Africa thats uniquely dynamic as subsections suddenly pop up and then disappear. Many marketers and brands simply dont take the time to track whats really going on in the market, often with disastrous consequences by adopting a one-size-fits-all approach, much like the Africa as a country mindset.

Who is the black consumer?

Those disastrous results speak for themselves, as the marketers that simply reach out to the black consumer quickly see a lack of success. Creatives need to learn from this, says Makhathini  there are so many examples of when this didnt go right, but he says its largely down to misinterpreting the insight and the demographic it represents, but the blame spreads across to the creative team and how they work various insights into the work they create. Taken together, this is why creatives and strategists need to work together to better interpret insights as well as how to talk to specific markets. Limit client chatter and focus on actual benefit to and values of the market.

This is why multinational corporations fail to make a splash in the South African market. They devise a strategy that gains traction in another African market, like Nigeria or Kenya, and then try to cut-and-paste the concept onto SA. Our country needs to be seen as a unique being, as its a different landscape entirely. So repeating a tried-and-tested-in-other-markets message here will fail even if theres a proper business model behind it, as the insights are incorrect. Brands definitely need to be more sensitive to localisation, says Makhathini.

Taking this further, he says this ties into the most important aspect of building brand loyalty  genuine connection. Were all emotional beings on a personal level, and are no different in our business lives. Emotion is driven by communication, but before we can tap into certain emotions as brands to connect with our consumers, we need to remember that people usually have to love your brand before they buy your brand (grudge purchases aside). And brands are loved for various reasons. Nandos is loved for its humorous approach to situations while Nedbank is loved for tapping into the true aspirations of South Africans.

These are the fine lines of connection that get threaded into specific communication. Times have changed and features no longer sell products  today, its all about resonance and staying top of mind with your audience can make or break your brand, especially as theres already so much 'clutter communication for consumers to filter through.

The importance of proper insight application

Speaking of Joe Publics 18+: Be the Mentor campaign for SAB, Makhathini says this approach again proved effective. Through proper insight application of the kasi truths made clear in the research process, the campaign was able to better gain traction with its intended black market. Makhathinis careful to point out that the insight itself was pretty generic  the need to stop underage drinking. Its a persistent problem across the market, specifically targeted in the brief. In speaking to the specific subcategories, they took that general insight and brought across the concept in terms of how to communicate it with context. This boils down to the specific language used, the art direction and the imagery. It all ties together to generate a strong connection, which helped the creative team add context when bringing the campaign to life:

Simple as that. Theres no magic formula to Monkey Concepts research approach. They host focus groups and field studies that have proven effective for others  the difference lies in the specific insights gleaned from the research, and in taking these back to the creative teams, making sure the actual meaning isnt lost in translation.

At the end of the day its not about the data, its about the meaning associated with it, explains Makhathini.

For more, be sure to follow Joe Public on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
NEW YORK - Iconic American stores Macy's and Gap are facing tough questions about their future following dreary earnings announcements last week that highlighted the growing market share taken by online retailers.

Conventional retailer profits are falling as fewer shoppers head to malls in favour of click-and-buy options offered by Amazon and a trove of emerging online fashion vendors. The trend is all the more striking because retailers see good conditions in the economy for consumers, including strong employment levels.

"We're frankly scratching our heads," Macy's chief financial officer Karen Hoguet, told an analyst conference call. "We see the same economic data you all see and it would point to a customer that would be spending more."

In the first four months of 2016, all online retail sales rose 8.1 percent over a year ago, compared with just 1.9 percent growth in clothing stores, according to the Commerce Department.

"We're seeing a fundamental reorganization of retail from an automobile-centered model to a smartphone-centered model," said Andy Dunn, chief executive of Bonobos, a nine-year old men's apparel store that does most of its sales online.

"We're seeing a tremendous shakeout as we see online grow and offline contract," Dunn said. Still, he added, "I don't think we're moving to an online-only world."

In women's apparel, rising online players include websites like Wanelo, which "curates" products from 550,000 vendors and doubles as a social network for shoppers.

There are speciality sites for plus-sized women, such as Eloquii, and for consumers focused on sustainable manufacturing, such as Reformation.

There are also fashion websites that combine editorial and selling functions, such as WhoWhatWear, part of the Clique Media Group, which boasts 12 million unique monthly visitors.

"People are now realizing they have more options," said Chris Morran, deputy executive editor Consumerist.com. "I don't see any of the (newer) companies replacing Gap, but I see them all chiseling way."

Shoppers say the online experience is greatly improved from just a few years ago, with sellers permitting returns and sometimes paying for the shipping of items that don't fit. More online vendors lets shoppers easily compare items and prices as well.

"It's not only that you don't have to leave your house, it's that you don't have to walk around," said one forty-something professional mother of two. "It's very efficient."

Men's fashion too is experiencing seismic shifts. Gone are the days when department stores could rely on a captive audience to buy button-down shirts for the office. Boutique stores like Thomas Pink and Charles Tyrwhitt boast a multitude of fits for different body types that can be bought online once a consumer knows his size.

Bonobos, which began as an online-only men's store in 2007, began adding small showrooms in 2011 to display product and let customers get fitted.

"The store piece of what we do is really profitable," Dunn told AFP. "But you want the right sized store footprint and you want to be fully integrated with online."

But online earnings remain constrained by factors that include high shipping cost and bruising competition. Profit margins in brick-and-mortar stores remain about 10 percent compared with seven percent online, said Credit Suisse.

However, as shipping costs decline and rent and other infrastructure weigh on traditional stories, "brick-and-mortar" stores will be the ones to suffer, Credit Suisse said. That means more retail stores are likely to close.

Nordstrom, which reported earnings Thursday that badly lagged analyst expectations, said it will emphasize a buyer loyalty program and exclusive merchandise. It is also beefing up e-commerce.

"We're seeing a transformation in our business model," said chief executive Mike Koppel. "We continue to see traffic falling off in malls, and how we think about our store base asset will probably require some level of adjustment."

Macy's, which announced in January plans to close 40 stores, is emphasizing store-within-store ventures intended to appeal to millennials, such as the off-price Backstage and the beauty-and-spa Blue Mercury stores.

Macy's Hoguet said the 186-year-old retailer is "always evaluating" its fleet of 870 stores for potential closures.

Gap, which a year ago announced plans to cut 175 namesake stores in North America, pledged renewed focus to streamline its operations and whittle its presence internationally to the most promising markets.

Source: AFP
The judgment, reached by a full bench, found in favour of the 69 mineworker applicants, and the estimated 200,000 of their colleagues they represent.

Mineworkers from neighbouring countries, such as Lesotho and Swaziland, are also eligible to join the class action.

What the court said

The only way justice can prevail in the cases of individual mineworkers or their descendants is if they are afforded an opportunity to pursue their claims by at least having significant parts of it determined through a class action, read the judgment.

Accordingly, we reject the submissions of the mining companies that the class action is untenable and unmanageable and hold to the contrary. The judgment said it was unfortunate that mining companies have chosen to ignore claims they have tried to obstruct the course of justice.

The list of defendants in the case include Harmony Gold, Gold Fields, AngloGold Ashanti, Sibanye Gold , African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) and Anglo American, all of which formed the OLD working group in 2014.

The miners said that, while they did not believe they were liable in respect of the claims brought, and were defending these, they did believe they should work together to seek a solution to this South African mining industry legacy issue, Mining Weekly reported at the time.

Despite this abdication of responsibility, a number of the gold producers have made financial reparation to miners not involved in the class action for OLD-related claims.

The latest settlement of R464m was placedd in an independent trust by AngloGold Ashanti and Anglo American for 4,400 stand-alone silicosis claims.

OLD working groups response

The OLD working group is studying the judgment and each company will decide whether to lodge an appeal against the silicosis finding.

"The companies remain of the view that there are issues related to compensation and medical care for occupational lung disease that need to be addressed through engagement between stakeholders, with a view to designing and implementing a comprehensive solution that is both fair to past, present and future gold mining employees, and also sustainable for the sector," a statement issued on their behalf said.

If the class action were to go ahead and went the way of the applicants, the cost would literally bring the gold mining industry to its knees. A more likely scenario is, whether or not they decide to appeal, the mining companies will look to negotiate a settlement.
Trevor Manuel at Sustainable Brands Cape Town

One of the first proponents of sustainability reporting since the United Nations adopted the standards of the triple bottom line accounting framework in 2007, Manuel remains a cheerleader for the cause. He stressed that the reporting system which draws attention to the environment in which business is conducted remains a huge step forward.

We continue to have a responsibility to ensure that the practice and metrics remain current and that each and every loophole is closed. We must also work hard to broaden the discussion and the ownership of the work and outputs, and to create new frontiers where development checks itself. This is necessary, if only because resources are finite, said Manuel.

World needs to check itself

Referring to a recent report titled, How to make green growth the new normal, he commented that as demand for resources grows, resulting in an ever-expanding supply, the world needs to check itself. He also advised that companies seeking to operate sustainably need to start asking themselves tougher questions.

My plea is that we think about the mode of sustainability accounting differently and recognise that if the only achievement is a contest to see how many boxes a corporation can tick in a particular column, then the endeavour for sustainability would have floundered on the sharp pencil of the accountant, said Manuel.

Issues of justice

Beyond the accounting and the accords - Manuel emphasised - are issues of social justice expressed as intergenerational responsibilities. Questions of sustainability need to be discussed outside the boardroom, and these discussions need to be more inclusive by integrating the poor, as well as the youth, in revaluing the future.

Referring to the report produced by the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations, Manuel concluded his keynote session, We must invest in the youth to ensure that we can enlarge the cadre of critical thinkers, who will engage in action against environmental degradation. Your efforts at working for sustainability will, I am afraid, come to nought if societies remain as grotesquely unequal as they are in most countries. Not only are the poor excluded from market access, they also feel excluded from the discussions we have about the future. As part of building an understanding of a sustainable future we must work to counteract the sense of despair and alienation that consumes the being of too many people. An informed youth is the key to sustainable development.

Trevor Manuel is a former minister in SA government. He led the crafting of the National Development Plan. Manuel currently holds several non-executive board positions, including a directorship of SABMiller, and is chair of the Old Mutual non-executive board. Manuel is also the founder of the Mitchell's Plain Bursary and Role Model Trust.

For more info on the Sustainable Brands Conference, click here.
Social impact architect Alfredo Brillembourg was inspired by great designers who worked to provide solutions to social concerns. "All of them were doing architecture because they had these social and utopian beliefs about changing the world," says Brillembourg.

The co-founder of Urban-Think Tank(U-TT), Brillembourg uses his own skills in projects that tackle a major concern around the world: the lack of adequate housing and the proliferation of informal settlements.

Alfredo Brillembourg: Architecture as a response to social issues from Design Indaba

In South Africa, U-TTs Empower Shack is an innovative, urban design solution to the housing crisis left behind by the Apartheid regime. When the legislated system of racial segregation was abolished in 1994, the new democratic government was tasked with providing millions of people of colour with the infrastructure, housing, and sanitation denied them by the previous regime.

With his project, Brillembourg hopes to provide a hybrid form of informal and formal housing. The initiative builds interdisciplinary and participatory housing prototypes in the BT-Section of Khayelitsha, Cape Town.

If we dont attend the housing crisis now it will be a catastrophe, says Brillembourg. Things will get denser, criminality will increase, there will be people banging on the doors of the city centre.
In light of recent disclosures in the Panama Papers, the Citadel Group would like to outline the extent of its dealings with Mossack Fonseca and other external service providers and the services they have provided to our clients in the past.

Hilary Dudley

If any Citadel client is named in the Panama Papers, we can assure you that the services provided to our clients have, to our knowledge, always been regulatory and tax compliant. Citadel will not compromise on governance standards. As Jan Berry, CEO, Phatshoane Henney Attorneys has commented, it is concerning that law-abiding and transparent clients have been placed in a situation where their privacy has been breached, and we share this concern.

Multi-generational estate planning structures

The facts are as follows: PraxisIFM and United Ventures Limited, working under legal advice from Phatshoane Henney Attorneys, are the service providers for some Citadel clients offshore structures, which are used as multi-generational estate planning structures. They establish and administer the structures for the benefit of our clients.

The offshore structure set up for clients consist in part of a British Virgin Islands (BVI) company. The choice of the BVI as a jurisdiction is essentially based on the existence of a strong legal system under English law and cost effectiveness.

Phatshoane Henney Attorneys have advised us that PraxisIFM and United Ventures Limited have in the past used the services of Mossack Fonseca to establish the BVI companies which form part of the structure. Once the company is incorporated, Mossack Fonseca is no longer involved. We have also been advised that Mossack Fonseca is only one of two key providers of this service in the BVI.

Most appropriate mechanism

Phatshoane Henney Attorneys advises clients investing significant amounts abroad to refrain from doing so in their own name as this avoids onerous administrative burdens and fees, particularly in the event of death. In terms of exchange control regulations, South African resident individuals may invest offshore in or through a non-resident company.

However, South African trusts  which would be the obvious and most cost effective choice  may not invest abroad. In addition, exchange control regulations also prohibit the pooling of foreign investments, so a non-resident company within which each family member can hold his/her own shares is deemed the most appropriate mechanism to provide for a familys estate planning across the generations.

All investment conform to exchange control regulations

Phatshoane Henney Attorneys confirms that all clients investments in foreign companies comply with exchange control regulations, which also require tax clearance certificates on behalf of tax payers. Clients are therefore fully compliant from a tax perspective, with all applicable taxes being paid, both in South Africa and in other tax regimes.

Clients shareholdings in companies formed as part of these structures are recorded in the shareholders register and are transparent and correspond with the clients records with SARS. Full and complete know your client (KYC) records are maintained for every client, in accordance with the Financial Intelligence Centre Act.

Credentials checked

In spite of the allegations against Mossack Fonseca, Phatshoane Henney Attorneys has always found the firm to be professional, regulatory compliant and cost effective. Mossack Fonseca was engaged in an administrative capacity, after their credentials and reputation were verified with and confirmed by various major financial institutions using them as one of the largest providers of company incorporation services both offshore and onshore, including jurisdictions such as the UK and US.

ICIJ disclaimer

We wish to draw attention to the statement on the ICIJ Offshore Leaks which must be read prior to accessing the database: There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. We do not intend to suggest or imply that any persons, companies or other entities included in the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly. Many people and entities have the same or similar names. We suggest you confirm the identities of any individuals or entities located in the database based on addresses or other identifiable information.
Air Seychelles has reported its fourth year of profitability in a row, with net profits of $2.1 million in 2015, on revenues of $105.4 million. These financial statements, audited by KPMG, also reflects growth in passenger traffic and strong cargo volumes.

Pvalmont via Wikimedia Commons - Air Seychelles Airbus A320-200, Isle of Silhouette

A total of 522,873 passengers travelled with the airline in 2015, 22 percent more than in 2014. Air Seychelles passenger carrying capacity, measured in Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs), increased by 7 percent to 1.7 billion by the end of 2015. Despite this increase the airlines seat load factor rose by 6 percentage points from 60 percent in 2014 to 66 percent in 2015.

Cargo services continue to be a major area of growth for Air Seychelles, with the airline carrying 4,415 tonnes of freight, primarily driven by wide-body operations on Johannesburg and Paris routes.

Joel Morgan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Transport and Chairman of Air Seychelles, said: We will continue to consolidate Air Seychelles position by making investments that will allow the airline to continue on its current trajectory of further growth.

James Hogan, president and chief executive officer, Etihad Airways, said: Air Seychelles is delivering on both levels of our equity investment strategy. It has extended our network, adding new revenue opportunities and sharing in the economies of scale our grouping of airlines can achieve.

Importantly, it is also delivering on its own commercial and business goals, with another year of profitability."

Since July 2015 the airline has undertaken a number of initiatives outlined in its turnaround plan to transform and bring efficiencies into the national carrier and turn it into a profitable, stable, reliable and strong airline to serve Seychelles and the broader Indian Ocean region.

New aircraft

The airline brought onto its own registry three new-generation Airbus aircraft, with two A320s and one A330 added to the fleet. As a result, it was able to tap into new markets and grow the number of frequencies in its regional network. In October 2015, a brand new DHC-6 Twin Otter landed in Mahe. Isle of Denis is the final of three DHC-6 Twin Otter Series 400 aircraft to be delivered to Air Seychelles as part of an order placed with Viking Air Limited in 2013. The first two aircraft joined the domestic fleet in 2014, one year ahead of schedule, replacing the DHC-6 Twin Otter Series 300 and Shorts SD-360. Today, Air Seychelles domestic fleet counts six Twin Otter aircraft that are perfect for the operational demands of island hopping in Seychelles.

Codeshare destinations

During 2015, Air Seychelles network of codeshare destinations rose from 30 to 61, through partners including airberlin, Alitalia, Etihad Airways, Jet Airways, NIKI, South African Airways and Air France. Partnerships, coupled with the induction of the jet fleet, introduction of direct flights to Paris and increase of frequencies in the region, have been a key driver of the significant growth in passenger numbers in 2015. Of the total passengers carried, 30 percent were contributed by partner airlines, generating 41 per cent of Air Seychelles passenger revenue, demonstrating the importance of growth through partnerships.

Job creation and workforce development

Air Seychelles growth has created a significant number of new jobs for Seychellois nationals. During 2015, the airline increased its workforce by 128 new professionals. With the focus remaining on providing an excellent guest experience, the Ground Services department of Air Seychelles has employed 55 service professionals at Mahe International Airport.

Air Seychelles continued to place much emphasis on personal development and succession planning, investing significantly in the development of its workforce and introducing a range of training programmes for its employees, who have access to some of the most advanced educational facilities in the world through the airlines partner, Etihad Airways. Hundreds of Air Seychelles staff have now completed these programmes and are building strong careers at the airline.

Equally committed to its community, Air Seychelles made a contribution to Seychelles culture, health, children and other community programs, through more than 500 gifted tickets and free cargo transportation.

Roy Kinnear, chief executive officer of Air Seychelles, said: While the 2015 results are a sure sign that we are on the right path, we must not rest on our laurels and, in 2016, we are committed to accelerating our growth. We will do this by continuing to grow our route network both organically and through an expansion of our codeshare partnerships. We will also continue to invest in our products and services to ensure that we provide the best possible guest experience both in the air and on the ground."
Airbnb has officially joined the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) as an affiliate member and in doing so, joins influential community leaders within the travel and tourism sector. This includes the UNWTO's 157 member states and over 480 affiliate members from the private sector, educational institutions, tourism associations and local tourism authorities.

"From Cuba to Cape Town, Airbnb is helping to grow and diversify tourism and democratise its benefits for more families, communities, and local businesses," said Chris Lehane, global head of public affairs at Airbnb. "It's a sustainable form of tourism that provides transformative travel by allowing people to live like a local. Airbnb guests don't just go there; they live there by staying in the homes of actual people, visiting the real neighborhoods and experiencing life the way a local does. We are excited to work with UNWTO and global leaders to harness the positive impacts of travel to activate new communities and bring the world a little closer together.

Said Taleb Rifai, UNWTO secretary-general The UNWTO Affiliate Members Programme gathers representatives from a wide range of non-governmental organisations and is a key feature of UNWTO work. Airbnb will participate in the UNWTO Seminar on New Business Models taking place at the 60th meeting of the UNWTO Commission for Europe, in Lithuania.

How tourism supports communities

According to the UNWTO, travel and tourism are one of the biggest sectors in the world: in 2015 international tourist spending increased by 3.6 percent to reach a record $1.4 trillion, making it the third largest export sector in the world after fuels and chemicals. Airbnb has seen first-hand how tourism is supporting communities from all walks of life around the world, including:

 Seniors - Hosts 60 years and older are the fastest-growing age demographic of hosts joining the Airbnb community in the US, and nearly two-thirds of all senior hosts are women. The average senior host earns just under $6,000 a year hosting on Airbnb, and for many of them hosting provides essential income that aids in their retirement.

 Activating communities - In London and Barcelona, the outer districts of the cities are the fastest growing destinations for Airbnb guests, spreading benefits beyond the tourist hotspots to more families, communities, and local businesses.

 Laos - The average Airbnb host in Laos earns about $115 dollars per booking, which represents a significant supplementary income in a country where the average income is about $138 per month.

 Kenya - Airbnb hosts in Kenya make an average of $260 per booking, where the average income is about $108 per month.
These days, almost every data centre is heavily virtualised. So much so, that Gartner reports that as many as 75% of X86 workloads are virtualised already to allow multiple operating systems to simultaneously share processor resources in a secure and efficient manner.

Johan Scheepers

Despite this rapid growth, and even though virtual machines outperform the rate of physical servers, most virtual environments are still protected by backup systems that are intended for use with physical servers, and the protection does not match the virtual infrastructure these systems are used on.

Each production environment has requirements that cannot be realistically identified during demo stage or during proof-of-concept, yet failing to account for these requirements can lead to hefty costs once deployment has taken place and time has passed. Understanding your requirements and these costs will help to equip you to make a better appraisal of any virtualisation-focused data protection system you might be considering, and will lead to a far more favourable, long-term outcome.

Growing hardware and network requirements

Backup storage often contains many copies of identical data, and while deduplication technology can detect and reduce the redundant data to reduce the amount of disk space required, this kind of technology isnt as beneficial as it first seemed. Its costlier than commodity disk storage, and it only achieves best efficiency when used on a single appliance. The minute an additional storage appliance is added to your network, duplication will start to creep back in, the benefit will be reduced and the situation will be exacerbated as your storage requirements grow.

Similarly, when you start moving data around your network, WAN acceleration technology could be useful to improve speeds and costs, dramatically. WAN accelerators look for and eliminate redundancies in the data before transmission. Here again, external appliances are pricy which bumps up the overall solution cost as well.

Since data protection software has a comprehensive central view of all data and can work bearing in mind version and retention policies - a mature product can handle all of the deduplication responsibilities for both storage and network transfers without the need for external appliances and at a higher efficiency. Advanced solutions will be able to perform source-side deduplication so that redundant copies of data are eliminated before transmission over the network.

Integrated database shocks

Like most applications that manage large amounts of data, backup and recovery solutions need a database. Luckily, one is often included with a software solution, and this lowers the cost and makes it easier to deploy. However, many point-based solutions typically use Microsofts SQL Server Express, which works perfectly well for small deployments. Once your deployment increases - supporting many production systems, many months of archives, and possibly multiple locations - you will need an enterprise-class database; more robust database functionality will be needed, which is more costly.

Microsofts SQL Server Enterprise may quickly change the economics of your software purchase, so knowing which version your selected backup solution uses and how it will support the long-term needs of your environment, is important from a cost perspective.

Buchachon Petthanya via 123RF

Slowing efficiency at scale

Efficiency can also be lost as you scale the number of servers you protect. As most backup systems will have dedicated servers that connect to your storage devices, enabling you to scale-up performance as your backup storage pool grows, a poorly written backup server module will diminish CPU performance and disk I/O bandwidth. This forces you to deploy more backup servers, earlier than necessary. It drives cost, both in extra software licenses and hardware, plus incremental human intervention required to manage those extra servers.

On the other hand, a well written backup server module will use resources with efficiency, and support multiple simultaneous read and write threads, getting the most value out of your hardware investment, and delaying future investments.

Multiples mean doubling costs and effort

Its wise to consider solutions that will support multiple platforms  your physical, virtual and even cloud-based applications  all from a single management console. Its tempting to go with a virtualisation-focused point backup solution, however, it comes at a cost. If a new backup system cannot support physical servers, you end up with a fragmented backup system, with double the costs when it comes to backup licences, maintenance contracts, management consoles, administrator skills, processes and policies.

The high cost of vendor lock-in without workload portability

Virtualisation has moved beyond mainstream architecture in our data centres. The core of virtualisation, the hypervisor, is beginning to commoditise and theres much more choice these days. Based on financial and operational pressures, you might need to have multiple hypervisors and to move some or all workloads to a different Hypervisor.

This means that the data protection solution you choose must be able to cover all the hypervisors you might consider using (not just what youre using today) and must be able to move backups from one to another quickly, without manual intervention. The data backup solution you choose must have cross-platform recovery in order to give you protection from vendor lock-in.

True workload portability is the ability to recover a backup from any platform onto any other platform, and it is this that lets you experiment with very little risk and build a culture and operational mode of agility, because you can adopt new technology quicker as the cost of a mistake is very low. True workload portability is what will help us realise the dream  the IT department that delivers data, applications and services reliably while able to adopt new beneficial technologies just as quickly and seamlessly.
The stars have aligned to give Vodacom the edge over its nearest rival MTN in terms of market capitalisation. Until late last year, MTN was significantly bigger, but a series of unfortunate events have had a damaging effect on the telecoms group's share price.

lutho tshambo via Wikimedia

While MTN has been besieged by a slowdown in emerging markets, where it has a substantial presence, as well as a hefty fine in its Nigerian operations, Vodacom has cantered ahead, buoyed by its steady performance since listing in 2009. In the past year, MTN's share price has dropped 44.39%. It has lost an estimated R294bn in value since October. The company is now valued at about R244bn. In the same period, Vodacom's market capitalisation has risen 13.54%, valuing the company at about R249bn.

A Cape Town-based analyst, who cannot be named in line with company policy, said MTN's share price had lagged Vodacom's in the past six years, as MTN's earnings were perceived to be riskier.

"Vodacom has increased drastically. As much as MTN has fallen behind, Vodacom has powered ahead. MTN is not anywhere near its all-time highs, but Vodacom just hit its own highest levels last month. The timing of the data is just a coincidence," the analyst said.

Vodacom shares traded at their best level yet on 28 April, reaching R170.55 per share. Neither the failed deal with Neotel, nor the legal battle concerning the 'Please Call Me' concept, has seriously hindered the share-price run. When the firm announced the end of its MPesa offering, which had largely failed in SA, the share price rallied.

"Vodacom's investment in the reach, quality, and efficiency of our networks is a fundamental point of differentiation. We firmly believe that this advantage has played a significant part in offering better value to our customers," Vodacom spokesman Byron Kennedy said. "In the past five years, we accelerated our network investment to approximately R50bn, having spent R70bn over the past two decades."

Vestact analyst Sasha Naryshkine said a combination of factors were at play for MTN, causing already skittish investors to scatter. "Emerging markets are sloppy at the moment and subscriber numbers in their main operations - SA and Nigeria - have been muted. MTN also doesn't have a parent company like Vodacom does to shield them," Naryshkine said.

Vodacom is majority-owned by England-based Vodafone.

Naryshkine said the single most pressing issue for shareholders, though, was the fine imposed on MTN Nigeria by the Nigerian authorities. In October last year, the Nigerian unit was fined $5.2bn for failing to deactivate about 5 million unregistered subscribers. The Nigerian Communications Commission later reduced the fine to $3.9bn.

MTN said it was still engaging with the regulator to see if the fine could be reduced further. So far, the company has paid a 'good faith"' payment to the federal government of $250m. "There's also uncertainty about leadership at MTN," Naryshkine said. When the Nigeria unit was penalised, Sifiso Dabengwa resigned as CEO and former MTN chairman Phuthuma Nhleko was brought in as an acting CEO.

Source: Business Day
State-owned South African Express, which last month had its entire fleet grounded for safety reasons, has roped in Denel for the maintenance of its aircraft, CEO Inati Ntshanga says.

Hansueli Krapf via Wikimedia Commons

South African Express had been in talks with South African Airways (SAA) Technical and Denel regarding the maintenance of its fleet, but had fast-tracked the process following the grounding of its aircraft, in a move to improve the airline's reputation, Ntshanga said on Friday.

South African Express had been doing its own maintenance, despite misconceptions that this was being done by SAA Technical, he said. "The skills are still sitting at South African Express, but my job is to fly people and look over operations, and Denel has a section called Denel Aviation, which focuses on aircraft maintenance... so it makes sense," Ntshanga said.

South African Express was investigated on April 19 and 20 after an aircraft computer malfunctioned in the air. The investigation found deficiencies in the airline's safety monitoring system, which affected its entire operations, according to the South African Civil Aviation Authority. The airline was given until 29 April to respond to the findings. When its response did not tackle the concerns raised, the airline was grounded.

South African Express maintained that it had been grounded due to differences in incident-reporting procedures. Following meetings soon after the grounding between executives and the aviation authority, the airline was back in the air in 42 hours.

South African Express flies to 29 destinations and has 37,287 flights a year, according to its annual report. The airline is looking to replace its fleet of 24 aircraft over the next 10 years.

Denel spokeswoman Vuyelwa Qinga said Denel Aviation, a division of state-owned Denel Group, had been in talks with South African Express regarding maintenance services. Denel Aviation provides aircraft maintenance repair and overhaul services to local and international organisations. Services had focused mainly on military aircraft, with the South African Air Force being the main client, but Denel Aviation was looking to enter the civil aircraft services market, she said.

Transport economist and aviation expert Joachim Vermooten said there were "synergies" between South African Express and Denel, as it conducted maintenance on aircraft similar to the airline's fleet.

Source: Business Day
The Soweto Fashion Week is looking forward to an exciting autumn/winter season showcase. From 25 to 28 May, 2016. Soweto Fashion Week will present the AW17 collections from existing and up-and-coming young talented designers.

Soweto Fashion Week (SFW) aims to develop and empower young fashion designers, and continue to uplift young talent. GQ magazine held a menswear competition and fashion showcase in April 2016 and four of the finalists were Soweto Fashion Week designers, namely Kasified, Zama Swazi, Macgale and Flyod Avenue winning the overall competition.

We couldnt be more proud of our creative designers, not just the winner, but all of them; this is a great achievement for them to be part of such an amazing upstaged showcase, said SFWs founder, Stephen Manzini.

Other designer(s) achievements include designers owning their own flagship stores in Joburg and surrounding areas, and partnering brands through fashion. SFW designers Deja vu by Funeka boasts two stores in Joburg and Benoni; Limba by Mbali Nene has three stores in Rosebank, Joburg, Sandton and an online store. Macgale has partnered Oreo for its 2016 design campaign, called Open Up With Oreo.

The aim of the event is to develop, uplift and empower young up-and-coming fashion creatives, designers, models, up-and-coming artists and brands, respectively.

For this season SFW partners a newly developed alcohol spirit from Soweto, VTK Vodka as its new beverage sponsor: the first black-owned local alcohol spirit brewed in the heart of Soweto.

The spirit brand joins the existing sponsors behind SFW, the principal sponsor Darling Hair and Joburg Tourism.

The SFW-AW17 Collection showcase will take place from Thursday, 26 to Saturday, 28 May 2016 with a pre-launch party celebrating the young talent on 25 May at the Soweto Theatre, in the heart of Soweto, Jabulani.

Tickets are available at www.computicket.com, Shoprite Checkers nationwide as well as www.sowetofashionweek.com for R80 per person per day.
Barons Pietermaritzburg is the 2015 Volkswagen Dealer of the Year. This was the second consecutive year that Barons Pietermaritzburg was recognised as the best performing dealership in the Volkswagen network.

Thomas Schaefer, chairman and MD of Volkswagen Group South Africa and Stefan Mecha, director of sales and marketing at Volkswagen Group South Africa with Kevin Pillay of Barons Volkswagen Pietermaritzburg.

Each year, the 106 Volkswagen dealerships are set targets across various disciplines of the business. The targets include sales volumes and customer service delivery. The 'Dealer of the Year' award is presented to a dealership that excels in all major disciplines of the business. The top performing dealerships are invited into the 'Volkswagen Club of Excellence', where the overall best performer is awarded with the 'Dealer of the Year' status.

Speaking at the annual Volkswagen dealer awards gala dinner hosted in Johannesburg recently, the chairman and MD of the Volkswagen Group South Africa, Thomas Schaefer said: "After a rocky and challenging start in 2015, each one of you put their shoulders against the wheel to ensure that we finished the year on the high to become the passenger car market leader for the fifth consecutive year."

Schaefer added: "The declining sales in the first quarter have given us an indication that 2016 will be another tough year for the local car market. This will be exacerbated by the weakening currency and uncertain socio-political outlook. We however, remain positive that the strength of our brand and your ingenuity will carry us through the year."

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Dealer of the Year award was presented to Hatfield Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles for the second straight year. The Dealer Macro Group of the Year was presented to Barloworld Group and Dealer Micro Group of the Year went to Hatfield Group. Both Groups were recognised with the awards for the second year in a row.
Equatorial Guinea is to launch an oil and gas technical training programme, covering critical industry disciplines, which will see students spend two years in Canada at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT Polytechnic).

The Ministry of Mines, Industry and Energy of Equatorial Guinea has announced that it has signed an agreement with the SAIT to provide comprehensive technical training to Equatorial Guinea nationals in Calgary in Canada. The two-year programme, which will provide the students with core and specialised oil and gas knowledge, is part of the governments drive to promote workforce nationalisation in the industry.

SAITs International Workforce Development and Workforce Nationalisation Training have been successful in transferring technology to Africa countries, boosting national capacity and promoting local content. The first partnership between SAIT and Equatorial Guinea saw the training and development of the first nationals to work in the oil and gas industry, specifically on the offshore Zafiro complex, the countrys largest oil field.

The oil and gas sector is driven by people and technology. Through this historic training programme, we are investing in both, said Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, Minister of Mines, Industry and Energy. The government of Equatorial Guinea is empowering its nationals with the technical tools they need to lead the next generation of our nations oil and gas industry so we can be better stewards of our resources.

The curriculum will cover production field operations, energy asset management, maintenance of operations and electrical instrumentation and mechanical training. Underpinning the programme will be extensive safety training. Upon completion, every student will receive an SAIT Certificate of Achievement and will return to Equatorial Guinea equipped to handle the rigorous demands of the oil and gas industry.

Equatorial Guinea produces nearly 300,000 barrels per day of petroleum liquids and exports 3.7 million tonnes per annum of liquefied natural gas to markets worldwide. As the output of its offshore legacy oilfields decline, the country is investing heavily in improved oil recovery methods and technologies to maximize every drop in reserve. Equatorial Guinea operates at the cutting edge of industry practices and is expanding its role in the energy value chain through megaprojects that push the technological envelope. This includes the Fortuna floating liquefied natural gas facility, which will be the first of its kind for Africa when it produces first gas in 2019, the Bioko Oil Terminal and the Riaba Petrochemicals Complex.
One fearful night in March 2015 that dragon set great swathes of the Cape Peninsula to fire and Tintswalo Atlantic, at the very foot where the mountain meets the sea, was lashed with flames and burned, almost entirely, to the ground. It is too tempting to talk about rising from the fiery ashes as a great and vibrant phoenix as Im sure many other writers have already used that analogy so rather I describe its rebuild - in fewer than eight short months - as the product of a formidable team of people passionate about reclaiming their former and privileged position as the only hotel in the Table Mountain National Park.

Family business

Husband and wife team Ryno and Melissa du Rand, the general managers of Tintswalo Atlantic, said that the response to assist in the rebuild was tremendous. We have forged great relationships with our past guests, and so we sent out emails to most, made a few phone calls to others, and offered them a personal invite to join us in replanting trees on the property, said Melissa. The reaction was overwhelming  the local Capetonians jumped at the offer; some couples who were married at Tintswalo Atlantic even expressed that they would like to have their (future) children christened at the site of their tree. They helped to plant some of the 750 trees that were donated by local business Just Trees and at last count, 400 of these trees were already regreening the surrounding mountainside."

Gaye Corbett, co-owner and CFO of Tintswalo Lodges, commented on the interior of the lodge, saying: We did not just want to discard the dead trees; they were part of our original journey and I wanted to retain the spirit of them in the new lodge. The wood is being used to create furniture that will form part of the new hotel bar and the dining room table.

Gaye explains that the greatest challenge initially was just getting over the shock of losing the lodge. We had to get to grips with the fact that it was all gone and to somehow see the rebuild as an exciting challenge and not a complete loss, which is what it felt like after the fire. We realised that the only time you can truly and totally lose something is if you feel you can never recreate it again. When we had decided to go ahead, we put a deadline in place and knew wed stick to it. Once we had our building team in place, it was easy. Before we knew it, the job was done and the lodge was back in all its glory!

And then, there is the silver table from the original lodge  it was the only item that was saved. Tintswalo Atlantic's General Manager Melissa du Rand knew how much that table meant to me, so she and assistant general manager, Tania Batista Hofer, managed to drag it to safety before the fire engulfed the property. Now it is even more special!"

Apart from Gaye, the main task team behind the new interior is Tintswalo Lodges CEO, Corbett daughter, Lisa Goosen and Caroline Wright, from Spatial Concepts, who were also both involved in decorating the original lodges interior. When asked whether they have tried to replicate everything exactly as it was before, Gaye comments, "It is impossible to recreate, due to the uniqueness of each of the old pieces, however, we have aimed to retain the same atmosphere, while trying to bring in new elements too. Returning guests will see similarities as well as some refreshing changes, like the wonderful new fabrics. We do feel the pressure of recreating the space, as there is an expectation from our supporters who loved the old Tintswalo Atlantic' very much."

The suites

The 10 suites and a two-bedroomed Presidential Suite are decorated as they were previously and named after Islands. Two years ago we stayed in the Zanzibar suite but for this May 2016 stay the Java suite was our home. It is furnished in elegant and comfortable aquamarine shades with turquoise and brown in the form of dark timber armoire and writing desk. There is a spectacularly carved wooden headboard while deep purple velvet cushions crown the bed.

A notable change to the room interior is a row of plug points including two USB charging ports and two diamond two or three prong and circular two prong plug adaptors at desk height as well as two data points.

The shell decals, such a wonderful part of the original interiors, have been beautifully recreated and in a move away from the welcome yet ubiquitous Nespresso offering in hotels, they have the latest generation Illy Francis Francis pod espresso dispensers. Bathrooms in all the suites focus your attention on the view and watching the sunset over the Atlantic while in a bubble bath should be on ones bucket list.

Biggest difference

The biggest difference to the new Tintswalo Atlantic is the absence of the 300-year old Milkwood trees that leant over the cove as if to keep the sea away from the mountain. If the pebbles and rocks could talk, there would be stories of happy family holidays, ragamuffins, community projects, a devastating fire and, most recently, deluxe accommodation and fine dining celebrations. While the initial footprint remains the same, it feels more open and airy and there is a now a view of the mountain backdrop, which was previously obscured, as well as of the sea.

Another change is the current reception area and entrance is in the same clean-lined clapperboard as the rest of the suites in a move away from the previous stone cladding that reminded me of Great Zimbabwe which links to Tintswalos sister properties in Waterfall, Gauteng and Safari Lodge in the bush in the Manyeleti concession of Kruger National Park. Tintswalo means the intangible feeling of love, gratitude, and peace bestowed upon someone offering you a meaningful and worthy gift and a better name for what they offer could hardly be chosen.

Executive chef, Jeantelle van Staden produces magnificent cuisine at Tinstwalo Atlantic. This is a five-star offering and priced accordingly but there are local winter rates that are affordable and worthy of investigation and while the property is not ideal for walk-ins, meals and visits can be booked in advance.

I can unreservedly recommend Tintswalo Atlantic for even the most discerning guest but also as the perfect location for a board meeting or corporate "bosberaad".

For reservations and enquiries please contact res3@tintswalo.com or by telephone on 011 3008700
Calgro M3, a residential property and memorial parks developer, has weathered a subdued operating environment in the construction industry to report significant growth.

Revenue grew to more than R2bn in the year ended-February, accompanied by a 91.2% leap in operating profit. This was underpinned by a strong pipeline of projects, which grew from R19bn to R27bn, and the group's turnkey approach.

Group MD Wikus Lategan said that under the prevailing conditions in the domestic building industry, the result was acceptable.

"We are pleased to have once again increased revenue and overall profitability of the group," he said.

The group is a developer of social housing and affordable housing, and develops fully funded government housing and rental units. It also develops homes worth about R700,000. The government assists with bulk service infrastructure on projects.

"We are a property developer that happens to do its own construction," Lategan said.

Calgro M3 said the increase in the project pipeline had ensured enough construction work for the next seven to eight years.

The bulk of this - 92% of the pipeline - was made up of providing homes in the fully subsidised housing sector, subsidised rentals and lowincome rental housing institutes.

"The result is pretty much in line with our expectations," Samantha Pauwels, an investment analyst at Cannon Asset Managers, said on Wednesday, 11 May.

She said the big jump in the value of the project pipeline was due to the construction of the R5.7bn integrated, 12,000-residential unit Leratong City development in Mogale City, which was to commence soon. This would bring in substantial revenue streams for Calgro M3 for more than 10 years, she said.

Meanwhile, Calgro M3 said its focus in the past year was to ensure that more projects in the pipeline were converted into construction projects, to contribute to revenues.

"The group was successful in this, and currently has 12 of its 17 residential projects in the ground, ensuring that risk is sufficiently spread over projects, provinces and customer bases." The group also said it had launched its pilot memorial park project near Soweto. It would be a commercially operated burial business.

Lategan said these projects would be rolled out nationally over the next four to five years, as municipalities were struggling to deliver a quality service.

"Judging by the company's performance for the last few years, there is far more to come from Calgro M3, as they work though their R27bn project pipeline," Sibonginkosi Nyanga, an analyst at Momentum SP Reid Securities, said.

"(It) is diversifying across a number of projects in the ground at different phases."

Nyanga said Calgro M3 was focusing on the full range of accommodation, from RDP houses to housing for middle to high Living Standards Measure groups, "which bodes well in this challenging industry".

Source: Business Day
Popimedia, wholly owned subsidiary of Publicis Africa Group, is encouraging local tech startups to participate in technology conference VIVA Technology Paris, running from 30 June to 2 July 2016.

Co-hosted by Publicis, the inaugural event aims to provide a real-time platform for collaboration and a high-level stage for discussions around the impact technology has on both businesses and society. Touting an expected 30,000 visitors, comprising entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and venture capitalists, the event promises to be a melting pot of tech, interaction and innovation.

VIVA Technology Paris is based on four cornerstones: Labs, which is a collaborative, co-working space focused on 20 industry sectors; Challenges, an open-innovation platform aimed at solving business challenges through technology; Imagine, keynotes and panel discussions, and Hall of Tech  devoted to technology innovations that are changing business and society.

Says Daniel Levy, CEO of Popimedia, VIVA Technology Paris presents an incredible platform, which local startups could use as a springboard to the next level of innovation and development. Understanding the journey of the tech startup ourselves, we can attest to the benefits of collaborating with large corporations. VIVA Technology Paris will provide startups incredible networking opportunities, insight into the most sophisticated technology developments on the planet, and inspiration for future collaborations and projects.

Popimedia is facilitating African participation in the event. As part of the Publicis Groupe, we want to form an African delegation that has access to the worlds best tech players, experts, and success stories, says Levy.

More information on VIVA Technology Paris is available on the website.

For startups wishing to attend, please contact Lisa at moc.aidemipop@dlogniets.asil.
The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) has announced that in just over a month, Cape Town will play host to scores of CEOs from the world's most influential consumer and retail brands. The CGF Global Summit, expected to draw more than 800 delegates from over 365 companies from 40 countries, will take place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from 15-17 June 2016.

The theme of this years Global Summit is Seizing opportunities in the face of disruption. Delegates and speakers will span the entire consumer goods ecosystem including retailers, manufacturers, service providers and trade associations. The Global Summit, which has become the industrys most significant annual event, celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.

This year the line-up of speakers will serve to bridge the industry generation gap and will feature both legacy heavy-hitters such as Coca Cola Company CEO and chairman Muhtar Kent, Tesco CEO Dave Lewis and Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba; as well as a new generation of young entrepreneurs making waves of their own in the industry, including the CEO of Facebook Africa, Nunu Ntshingila and Affiong Williams, founder and CEO of ReelFruit, an emerging fruit processing company. With the CGFs focus on collaboration, this will be an exciting juxtaposition of ideas coming together to create mutual inspiration - each side has much to learn from the other.

The Global Summit will focus on disruption in all areas of business, and the resultant opportunities. Innovators, CEOs and leaders of new business models from both emerging and developed markets will come together to challenge delegates to see disruption from new vantage points.

Additional speakers set to deliver exclusive insights at the Global Summit include:

Sir Martin Sorrell, Founder and CEO at WPP, on Lessons to be Learnt from Disruptive Communications.

Doug McMillon, CEO Wal-Mart Stores, Responsible on Retailing for the Modern Consumer.

Francois Pienaar, former captain of the South Africa Rugby team.

Zelda La Grange, Former Private Secretary to the Office of the President Nelson Mandela.

How to go the distance in the digital world

Panel discussions scheduled will see invited speakers debate and evaluate key issues facing the industry on a daily basis. Topics will include health and wellness challenges and ways in which the industry can do more to improve these issues through greater collaboration. The digital disruptors will also have their say on how integral digital platforms are key to the success of business today.

Other topics to be discussed include:

Positive Impact, Real Business, where fearless young entrepreneurs from Africa share their stories and provide refreshing, inspiring and innovative concepts for emerging markets

Retail Growth Success Stories, bringing together both digital natives and established retailers that have successfully embraced new models and addressed new markets

Building a Sustainable Future, exploring how companies can build sustainable futures by looking at todays challenges and turning them into tomorrows opportunities

In addition to the speaker programme, the CGF will host its Innovation Zone, called the i-Zone, showcasing the latest cutting-edge and creative ideas from the retail and consumer goods industries. This stylish display area offers a window to the most innovative concepts offered by members from across the world.

A key feature of the event is the Store Visits Programme. This top-class retail tour will offer invited participants the opportunity to participate in a custom-made retail tour that will showcase the very best of local retail. Guests will be given coveted access to senior industry executives and will be privy to some sought-after information regarding their business background as well as an opportunity to benchmark their own retail offer.

Peter Freedman, managing director at the Consumer Goods Forum, commented: All industries experience waves of disruption but the consumer goods industry is arguably going through more disruption right now than we have seen in a lifetime. Digital is perhaps the biggest disruption because it affects how we produce, buy, sell and communicate. At the same time we are seeing disruption from new entrants  not just digital natives but also many others, ranging from the local craft industry to a new breed of emerging market-based multinationals. The Global Summit is the forum for our members to discuss how they can capitalise on the opportunities that lie beneath all disruptions. We will explore how the CGFs mission to collaborate on consumer trust and industry efficiency can also unlock growth opportunities.

The CGF works to create better lives through better business. Manufacturers and retailers partner with the CGF to develop common positions, drive business efficiency and positive societal change in four strategic priority areas for the industry: sustainability, health and wellness, product safety, and end-to-end value chain.

The Consumer Goods Forum Global Summit convenes at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from 15th-17th June. Manufacturers, service providers and retailers within the consumer goods industry can register here to attend.
While crossing the check-post, BGP personnel of Udaung out-post are harassing and searching the whole bodies of villagers including women, Mohin more added.



A Rohingya villager Mohamed Eliyas (18), son of Abdu Jalil from Khonzabill village under Maungdaw Township was searched by BGP on May 8 while going to Gorakhali village, villager Kurdus Mea said.



After searching his whole body, BGP didnt get anything from him. But, suddenly, he was beaten up by the BGP saying that who gave him permission to go to Gorakhali, Kudus Meah added.



However, he was released after taking 20,000-Kyat by BGP personnel. Similarly, many villagers were arrested and extorted money by BGP personnel of Udaung-outpost, said Faisal Mohamed, a village elder from the village.

The Rohingya villagers are facing problems and restriction of movement to cross the check post of Udaung, which is controlled by BGP camp of Myient Hlut, said another villager Pervaz said.



"In brief, there is no rule of law for Rohingya community", said Anis Ullah, a youth from Maungdaw.
The village Admin officer delivered invitation letters to all Udaung villagers to participate in the dinner held by him after slaughtering three cows. The village has 900 houses, Mohin said. The village Admin officer told every villager to attend the dinner. Absentees will have to face problem if he/she failed to join in the dinner, according to the villagers who received invitation letters.

Mostly poor villagers attended to the dinner with gifts and money as they feared of arrest and harassment by the Admin officer, as said by villagers.



A village elder said, on condition of anonymity, it is a plan of the village Admin Officer U Tin Maung collecting money from Rohingya villagers with the help of Border Guard Police of Burma.



Villagers who attended the dinner provided money at least Kyat 50,000 to 100,000 per head, where Tin Maung could gain a huge money from the villagers, the elder added.

This is a kind of lucrative business said Anwer, a trader from Udaung village.
A BGF major who did not want to be named said that two bombs exploded in the early hours of 11 May, one at 12.45am and the other at 1.55am. At 5.30am the DKBA splinter group, led by Bo Nar Ma, then started firing at the joint Burma Army and BGF forces from a hill near Pyar Pin Village.

According to local residents, the skirmish was between a joint force of Burma Army Light Infantry Battalions (LIB) 548 and 549 under the 12th Military Operations Command (MOC-12) supported by BGF Battalions 1016 and 1019 on one side and on the other side the DKBA splinter group led by Bo Nar Ma Kyar.

When contacted by KIC News Captain Ye Htet from the DKBA said: Bo Nar Ma Kyar went back to his village. I heard about the skirmish after receiving a report from there. I dont know any details.

The DKBA were one of eight ethnic armed organisations that signed last year'

The Burma Armys LIB 547, 548, and 549 and Infantry Battalions (IB) 230 and 231 under MOC-12 and the BGFs Battalion 1016 and 1017 are active in the territory near the areas where the skirmish broke out.

Neither side has yet released any details about causalities.

Translated by Thida Linn

Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI


Fishermen are working at a shelter at

Abaw Kyar-tan Village (Photo: MNA) Fishermen are working at a shelter atAbaw Kyar-tan Village (Photo: MNA)

Included in the 98 criminal cases, were 4 homicides, 16 deaths, a robbery case, 2 rapes and 34 other cases as well as 41 prevention cases. Of the four homicides, 3 cases took place in Abaw Kyar-tan village, which is located on the coast where fishermen are dependent on the ocean for work.

3 homicidal cases took place at the sea. They were fighting. There were misunderstandings and some fishermen stabbed the others to death. And, they proceeded to throw them into the water. A rape case also took place here, said Police Chief Myint Taw, of Ye Township.

There were 16 death cases beginning in January 2016, in Ye Township, averaging at 4 cases per month. The deaths occurred with raft fishermen. In some cases, they were deaths at sea, some died before reaching hospital, others died of hunger and thirst while some people died in other ways, according to the police chief Myint Taw.

It is reported that because fishermen work at sea for many days, some would have concerning health problems.

The police chief Myint Taw also stated that older fishermen over 60 should retire to land. If they are working at sea and die, they will be processed as death cases. If such cases take place, employers will become involved with the cases and police will have to manage more cases. Therefore, in order to lessen the cases, employers should work with the police.

Here, we have people die at sea, while some returned home and then died. We are not sure where the deaths took place, said U Myint Thant, secretary of Abaw Fishermen Association.

Last year, in Ye Township, there were a total of 332 criminal cases; and in the area, under the control of Ye Town Police Force alone, 225 criminal cases occurred. Comparatively, there were 44 criminal cases in Lamine Sub-township and 33 cases in Kawzar Sub-Township.


SSPP/SSA Troops SSPP/SSA Troops

Both armies reached an agreement on 30 April that would allow joint inspections of camps located along the Loi Say-Loi Leng ridge. The ridge is located in the south of Tangyang Town, east of the Tangyang-Mong Hsu road and west of the Salween River.

An official based at the SSPP/SSAs headquarters said: We reached an agreement to hold the inspection on [May] the 12th . We are now discussing at headquarters who will lead from our side. We have learned that the Tangyang-based Tactical Operations Commander, Colonel Wai Linn Aung, will lead the Burma Armys side. How will they carry out the inspection? If it is acceptable, it is okay for us.

An SSPP/SSA commander stationed at the front expressed frustration at some of the army's demands.

He said: They told us to fill in all the trenches and take down all the military camps because they dont want to see them when they come to inspect. What should we do? We are soldiers. This issue is unacceptable. Its an insult.

A person close to the Burma Armys North Eastern Command office in Lashio told the Shan Herald that the Burma Army wants to establish a new military base between the SSPP/SSAs military base and the Burma Army's military camps. It wants to establish the military base at a higher location than the SSPP/SSAs military base without having to engage in battles.

Last month the commander of the Burma Army North Eastern Command instructed the SSPP/SSA to clear its military camps along the Loi Say-Loi Leng ridge in Tangyang Township and gave the SSPP/SSA a 22 April deadline. The SSPP/SSA disagreed with this and when the Burma Army initially requested to hold a joint inspection of the SSPP/SSA's military camps on 27 April the SSPP/SSA did not agree.

The Burma Army has used a similar strategy in the past, requesting to hold joint inspections of SSPP/SSA positions as it made preparations on the ground to take over Tar Phar Saung Bridge in 2014 and Tar San Puu Kuu To Seik in 2015.

Although the SSPP/SSA has so far declined to sign the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA), they did sign a bilateral ceasefire with the central government during Thein Sein's time in office that officially remains in effect.

Translated by Thida Linn

Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI


Pyidaungsu Minister of Ethnic Affair,

Nai Htet Lwin (Photo: BBC) Pyidaungsu Minister of Ethnic Affair,Nai Htet Lwin (Photo: BBC)

The new post, as under a direct appointment by the President, has been awarded to a Mon ethnic person, a Mon politician from Mon State. However, this installation has sparked controversial in the public sphere in terms of its mandate and executive power, let alone the nature of the appointment. This analysis highlights the trend of Mon politicians in the modern era engaging with Bamars political elites, to positive or negative ends in their political career.

The truth is that each ministerial appointment to an ethnic person always sparks controversial in a country like Burma where the inter-ethnic divide itself is part of the complex due to the diverse populations within the country.

Nonetheless, the NLDs control of the Union-level executive affords it the constitutional prerogative to form its state-level counterparts across all 14 states and divisions in Burma. Additionally, the party sought collaboration in the form of ministerial posts, most prominently the Union-level ethnic affairs minister portfolio that ultimately went to Mon political veteran Nai Thet Lwin. Prior to his appointment, an NLD offer went out to the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), which declined the invitation to hold the seat in the Naypyidaw cabinet, reported the Irrawaddy on the 2nd week of April.

The NLDs government can appoint anyone, regardless of race or religion, if the person is deemed to be closely associated with its own elites. It is not a healthy theory for debating whom shall be appointed in this context.

Minister for Ethnic Affairs, and other ministers such as Border Affairs, Home Affairs and Defense are directly instructed the mandate or role by the President, in theory. However, the instructions are usually issued by Commander in Chief of the Burmas Tatmadaw (Defense Force), in practice. In other words, Minister for Home Affairs is the most powerful post and ministry in recent past and current administration in Burma. The Home Affairs Ministry directly controls the Police Force and also indirectly engages with judicial matters from the past 50 years.

Another post, such as Minister for Border Affairs, was only created in 2010, after a new constitution was amended by the previous military authority. In fact, it is an extension of the Military in terms of collecting data for intelligence on the ground in dealing with ethnic armed organizations or the Border Guards circle. One more point that must be remembered by the public at large is that Minister for Ethnic Affairs is not mandated to sit with the nations higher post on the National Security Council (Committee), unlike Minister for Home and Border Affairs.

In practice, the post for Minister for Ethnic Affairs is a new appeasing policy used by previous Bamar political elites from the early independence period as a symbol of respect, equality and unity on the surface depicting the division of political powers. The contradiction of the appointment is that the government will be installing a new Chief to lead the old Myanmar Peace Center under a new name in due time.

A document outlining the Ministry of the State Counselors Office proposal was read out in the chamber by Speaker Mahn Win Khaing Than, in which the president was quoted as saying it is necessary to have a ministry to successfully implement the goals of national reconciliation, domestic peace, national development and the rule of law. The Speaker did not offer any indication as to who might head the new ministry and oversee its vague portfolio, but speculation has tipped Suu Kyis personal physician, Dr. Tin Myo Win, for the post. Dr.Tin Myo Win, long a close Suu Kyi ally, has also been given a leading role in the upcoming peace negotiations between the new government and ethnic armed groups. He is widely expected to head a new iteration of the Myanmar Peace Center (MPC), which Suu Kyi last week suggested would be renamed the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC), reported by the Myanmar Times on the 2nd week of May.

According to a report in state-run media, the doctors new prominent place in Burmas peace process was announced at Suu Kyis meeting with the Joint Ceasefire Monitoring Committee (JCMC), made up of government and military representatives, as well as non-state armed group signatories to the so-called nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA).

The Minister for Ethnic Affairs shall be having a wider mandate role and power in terms of building trust in the peace process, conducting consultation on the ground with each ethnic armed groups leaders and hearing the voice of populations in conflict zones. The Minister shall be able to access intelligence just like the Minister for Home Affairs or Border Affairs. It is an unfortunate saga that the Minister for Ethnic Affairs has been marginalized in the key decision making process over the past 30 days.

After 30 days in power, the NLDs government has flexed its political muscles in the appointment of ministerial posts beyond public belief. The Minister is accountable to the President in theory, but in practice he or she is liable to the Lady.

In fact, it is much clearer that Minister for Ethnic Affairs has little room to move in terms of its own mandate and role until the Lady opens her mouth. This is not a healthy democratic principle but at least we have it as it is.
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CHICAGO  Grigsby & Associates Inc. owner Calvin Grigsby said he will vigorously fight accusations leveled by the Illinois secretary of state that he failed to properly supervise a former banker in the firms Chicago office who advised the Illinois Student Assistance Commission to invest in a bank that later failed.

Secretary of State Jesse Whites office has not filed formal charges in a public document alleging securities violations, but it outlined its evidence that could eventually lead to charges in a document Grigsby said he received this week.

Whites securities department last month entered a consent order imposing various penalties, including a $15,000 fine against former Grigsby public finance banker Alvin Boutte Jr.

The office last October temporarily suspended Bouttes license, accusing him of providing misleading advice that led to ISACs $12.8 million investment for its pre-paid college tuition program in a 2008 public offering in ShoreBank Corp. Federal authorities seized the bank in 2010, rendering the commissions investment worthless.

Though the office has not formally issued any charges against Grigsby, the Boutte consent order concluded that Boutte and the firm breached their fiduciary duty to ISAC. The order attributed the finding to Boutte and the firms failure to prepare a complete and accurate offering analysis and prudence opinion that fairly and objectively evaluated the prudence of the investment based on ISACs goals.

Calvin Grigsby said he received the statement of evidence document earlier this week from Whites office alleging that he failed to adequately supervise Boutte. It also alleges a breach of fiduciary duty on the firms part and seeks a written response from Grigsby.

Neither Calvin Grigsby nor his firm has been charged with any wrongdoing, but the document could represent a precursor to the possible filing of charges in the future.

A representative of the secretary of states office confirmed that it had sent Grigsby a document and said: Mr. Grigsby is under investigation. The spokesman said he could not comment further as the probe is pending and the document is not public.

Grigsby fired back.

The charges regarding supervision are not violations under state securities laws, he said. Grigsby has defended the firms advice, saying ISAC conducted its own due diligence and went forward with the investment. He has requested from the secretary of states office all documents, interview transcripts and other notes that led to the offices development of the statement of evidence document.

The document  provided by Grigsby to The Bond Buyer  is dated Jan. 27 and reports that an ongoing investigation has disclosed evidence of a failure on Grigsbys part to properly supervise research and offering analysis prepared on the ISAC investment and possible violations of state securities rules.

Grigsby serves as the firms chief compliance officer.

The statement of evidence alleges that Grigsby or another principal should have reviewed three offering analyses produced by Boutte before they were submitted to ISAC.

The document alleges the firm breached its fiduciary duty by failing to provide updated information on the number of bank failures in its last offering analysis completed prior to the September 2008 closing date of the investment. It also alleges that the firm  through Boutte  failed to inform ISAC of the significance of ShoreBanks disclosure that it had missed financial goals. The document also questions Grigsbys supervision in the firms prudence opinions, which labeled the investment a prudent one.

The recommendations and investment advice to ISAC regarding the proposed investment in ShoreBank Corp. were unsuitable and a violation of state securities law, the document reads. It also alleges that the firm did not conduct internal audits of its branches and failed to adequately maintain emails.

The document also alleges that during 2008 and 2009, Boutte provided Chicago Bulls and White Sox tickets to former ISAC executive director Andy Davis and an ISAC commissioner valued at more than $100, but the firm failed to maintain any records on the type, amount, and recipient in violation of regulatory rules.

The San Francisco-based firm ranked 70th last year as a co-manager nationally but did not make the rankings among co-managers in Illinois after finishing fourth in 2010. The firm ranked 122d nationally as a senior manager last year and was 33d in Illinois, according Thomson Reuters.

Boutte resigned to take a position at another firm last summer and has since resigned from that firm. Ongoing losses suffered by ISACs pre-paid college tuition program led Gov. Pat Quinn last year to overhaul its board and leadership.




WASHINGTON (PTI): China has increased defence capabilities and deployed more troops along the Indian border, the Pentagon has said, as it warned of increasing Chinese military presence including bases in various parts of the world, particularly Pakistan.



"We have noticed an increase in capability and force posture by the Chinese military in areas close to the border with India," Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia Abraham M Denmark told reporters during a news conference here after Pentagon submitted its annual 2016 report to the US Congress on 'Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China'.



However, Denmark said it is difficult to conclude on the real intention behind this.



"It is difficult to say how much of this is driven by internal considerations to maintain internal stability, and how much of it is an external consideration," he said in response to a question on China upgrading its military command in Tibet.



Referring to US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter's recent trip to India, Denmark said he had a very positive and productive visit.



"We're going to continue to enhance our bilateral engagement with India, not in the China context, but because India is an increasingly important player by themselves. And we are going to engage India because of its value," he said.



The Defence Department also warned of China's increasing military presence including bases in various parts of the world, in particular Pakistan - with which it has a "longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests".



China's expanding international economic interests are increasing demands for the PLA Navy (PLAN) to operate in more distant seas to protect Chinese citizens, investments, and critical sea lines of communication, it said.



"China most likely will seek to establish additional naval logistics hubs in countries with which it has a longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan, and a precedent for hosting foreign militaries," the report said.



The Pentagon in its report expressed its concerns about Chinese military buildup near the Indian border.



"Tensions remain along disputed portions of the Sino- Indian border, where both sides patrol with armed forces.



"After a five-day military standoff in September 2015 at Burtse in Northern Ladakh, China and India held a senior-level flag-officer meeting, agreed to maintain peace, and retreated to positions mutually acceptable to both sides," it said.



The Pentagon said tensions remain with India along their shared 4,057-km border over Arunachal Pradesh (which China asserts is part of Tibet and, therefore, of China), and over the Askai Chin region at the western end of the Tibetan Plateau, despite increases in China-India political and economic relations.




India's indigenous Light Combat Helicopter.

NEW DELHI (PTI): India is in talks with "certain" countries in Africa for possible export of the indigenous Light Combat Helicopter even as the Defence Ministry has set a target of USD 2 billion worth of exports over the next two years.



The weapons trial of the LCH is planned in July-August this year. While the Army has placed an order for 114 LCH with state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the IAF has ordered 65.



The successful demonstration of the LCH in firing 70 mm rockets was conducted during the Iron Fist exercise of the IAF held recently.



The certification trials with integration of mission sensors such as electro optical system, helmet pointing system and weapon system like air to air missiles, turret gun and rockets are planned between July and August this year.



"We are in talks with certain countries in Africa who have evinced interest in the LCH. With great value for money, the helicopter is an attractive buy for many countries," a senior defence official said.



Asked why the countries would be interested in a chopper which is yet to get final certification, the official said, "The certification is a formal process. The countries interested in the LCH in the current form do not need high features like air to air missiles. For them turret gun along with some other features work."



LCH is a 5.5-tonne class combat helicopter designed and developed by HAL.



Its features include sleek and narrow fuselage, tri-cycle crash worthy landing gear, crash worthy and self-sealing fuel tanks, armour protection, nuclear and low visibility features which makes the LCH lethal, agile and survivable.



Designed for anti-tank and anti-infantry roles with a maximum speed of 275 kilometers per hour, the LCH is also capable of high-altitude warfare since its operational ceiling will be 16,000 to 18,000 feet.



Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had on Saturday said government is pushing for defence exports and plans to export Tejas fighter aircraft as well.



"I know it is not easy. Weapons and export of defence goods have double problems. One is whom you are exporting to and the second is one has to go on checking all international requirements," he had said.



Explaining that push for exports has started showing results, Parrikar said, "From a meager 140-150 million dollars, this year, I think we have crossed 330 odd million dollars. We have doubled the export. I have set a target for myself. In the next two years, why not touch USD 2 billion. It is not an impossible target."






BENGALURU (PTI): Eminent space scientist Prof U R Rao will be honoured by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) with the 2016 'IAF Hall of Fame Award" for his outstanding contribution to the progress of astronautics.



The IAF award is intended to reward personalities for their contributions to the progress of astronautics and the Federation.



In a letter to Rao, a former Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman, IAF stated "It is a true honour for IAF to attribute this award to Prof Rao, who has been for many years an active participant to the success of space in general and of the Federation in particular".



The IAF Hall of Fame consists of a permanent gallery of these personalities, including a citation, biographical information and a picture, in a special part of the IAF web presence.



This year's 67th International Astronautical Congress will be held in Guadalajara, Mexico during September 26 30, 2016.



Prof Rao will receive the 'IAF Hall of Fame' Award and a certificate, during the closing ceremony on September 30, according to an ISRO release.






NEW DELHI (PTI): Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has said the government will take into account the concerns while forging strategic partnership in the critical sector and set a target to raise India's defence exports to USD 2 billion in the next two years from the current over USD 330 million.



Parrikar, however, took a dig at defence players who were objecting to proposed strategic partnerships, saying it seems they have realised that they will not be able to "go through the window".



"After the windows have been well defined, (some) people, who have realised they they would be not be able to go through the window, have started canvassing that defence ministry is facing problems over strategic partnerships," he said at a seminar here on Saturday.



Parrikar said he had received many letters from VIPs expressing concern about strategic partnerships. He said many a times the letters had similar content, which showed that at times the VIPs were signing off letters written by some other party.



"Their concerns are well expressed. We are taking into account those concerns. We are soon sitting for second round of small groups (to discuss strategic partnerships). I intend to take up strategic partnership model further and work out strategic partnerships in couple of projects where otherwise there is no solution," he said.



Parrikar said he would love to follow the already established model (of tendering) but there are problems.



"How do you compare one fighter with any fighter," he said.



Former DRDO 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.



However, Indian private defence industry is divided over the issue with some big players batting for it while others pushing to delay it by at least five years.



Parrikar has already held a round of talks with the industry chambers over the issue.



Meanwhile, he said the government is pushing for defence exports and plan to export Tejas fighter aircraft as well.



"I know it is not easy. Weapons and export of defence goods have double problems. One is whom you are exporting to and the second is one has to go on checking all international requirements," he said.



Explaining that push for exports has started showing results, he said, "From a meagre 140-150 million dollars, this year, I think we have crossed 330 odd million dollars. We have doubled the export. I have set a target for myself. In the next two years, why not touch USD 2 billion. It is not an impossible target."


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Calgary Airport Authority has donated 55 luggage carts to Brandon Municipal Airport to ease operations as it continues with its expansion and redevelopment project.

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This article was published 16/05/2016 (2352 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Brandon University students masters thesis has been named the best in Canada in the area of education and leadership.

Ayodeji Osiname received the Margaret Haughey Award this spring. Titled The Effect of the School Principal in Creating an Inclusive School Culture during Times of Change and Challenge, his thesis examines how principals of schools in southwestern Manitoba create inclusive learning and work environments.

The award is given by the Canadian Association for the Study of Educational Administration. Its competitive selection process weighs the research and writing abilities of applicants who are studying educational administration and leadership.

Provided Ayodeji Osiname received the Margaret Haughey Award this spring for his master's thesis on creating inclusive school cultures.

During his examination of Manitoba principals, Osiname saw several patterns emerging.

Most engaged in building positive relationships, and served as role models in their schools. To encourage openness, they urged people to express their opinions  even if dissenting  and created an environment where individuals felt safe to express their opinion, Osainame said.

Osiname said his work was inspired by his childhood in Nigeria, where he had to learn strong work ethic and morals. This is what makes his success special, said his thesis advisor Dr. Helen Armstrong, Professor Emerita at BU.

It is absolutely fantastic for him to win this award, especially as an international student in competition with native-born Canadians from much larger institutions.

Osiname will begin work towards his PhD in the fall at the Unviersity of Manitoba. His thesis will be available at the BU library.
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MONTREAL  Amayas PokerStars captured 46 per cent of New Jerseys online poker revenue in the first full month of operation in April, the online gambling company said Monday as it released first-quarter results.

The Montreal-based company said PokerStars is helping to grow the New Jersey market, which the state Department of Gaming Enforcement estimated increased about 30 per cent over the course of last month.

Amaya (TSX:AYA), which has switched to reporting in U.S. dollars, had US$55.5 million in net earnings from continuing operations in the quarter, up from US$23.3 million a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, adjusted profits surged 26 per cent to almost US$85 million or 43 cents per diluted share. That compared with $67.4 million or 34 cents per share in the first quarter of 2015. Revenues for the three months ended March 31 grew six per cent to US$288.7 million.

Amaya said several potential buyers, including a group headed by former CEO David Baazov, have entered into confidentiality agreements with Amaya and are conducting due diligence.

The results are the first since Baazov took an indefinite paid leave of absence to focus on allegations against him by Quebecs stock market regulator that he attempted to influence the price of company shares by communicating privileged information.

Baazov was charged along with two other people and three companies following an investigation by the Autorite des marches financiers into alleged insider trading. All have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The AMF also alleged that 13 people, including Baazovs brother, used their access to information to reap nearly $1.5 million in profit from stock trades.

Rafi Ashkenaz, who headed Amayas operating business that includes the PokerStars and Full Tilt brands, has since taken over as Amaya CEO on an interim basis.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version incorrectly said PokerStars grew 30 per cent last month
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FORT ST. JOHN, B.C.  Strong winds, high temperatures and no sign of rain could mean another difficult week for crews battling wildfires in northeastern British Columbia.

Fire information officer Kevin Skrepnek says the Fort St. John area remains the hardest hit region, with 41 of the provinces 62 active wildfires.

Environment Canada is calling for temperatures of up to 26 C today while Skrepnek says firefighters are bracing for strong, sustained winds of 40 to 60 km/h over the next few days.

He says those conditions led to significant growth on the Beatton Airport Road and Siphon Creek wildfires over the weekend.

An evacuation order was issued Sunday for 130 homes near the 150-square-kilometre Beatton fire, while the Siphon Creek blaze northeast of Fort St. John is now estimated at 616-square kilometres.

About one-quarter of that fire is on the Alberta side of the provincial boundary.

Environment Canada is calling for rain and temperatures between 7 C and 14 C on Thursday and Friday, but the sun is expected to be back by next weekend. (CHNL)
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SASKATOON - Doctors will test 70 people, including 64 students, after a case of tuberculosis showed up at a Saskatoon elementary school.

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Sharran Mullins is looking to Westman residents to help her fill a void in modern dementia research.

The Brandon University Master of Psychiatric Nursing student is embarking on a thesis project that investigates what the end-of-life phase of the dementia journey is like for the surviving spouse.

Typically, dementia research has focused on the person that has dementia and even though spouses, historically, have tended to be the primary caregivers, they werent really considered as part of that unit that was experiencing it, Mullins said.

Colin Corneau/Brandon Sun Sharran Mullins is working on a thesis project about dementia and end-of-life care in her studies at Brandon University.

BUs Master of Psychiatric Nursing program is the first of its kind in Canada and Mullins was among the courses original intake in 2011.

Throughout the program, Mullins has worked as a research assistant on two other dementia-related studies. The first looked at how a number of couples dealt with the diagnosis and tried to maintain their relationship while one partner declined.

I got to repeatedly interview two couples in which one partner had dementia over an 11- to 13-month period, Mullins said. Its difficult for spouses to all of a sudden be thrust into a caregiver role, but its also hard on the person who has dementia because in the beginning theyre aware that theyre changing.

The second study focused on the transition into a personal care home and its effect on spousal relationships.

Mullins says her thesis will round out the story and provide important insights into what couples experience during end-of-life care and beyond.

In the course of my work with people with dementia, I saw families, and couples in particular, having to make some really heartbreaking decisions as end-of-life issues came up, she said, adding that the goal of her study is to better prepare loved ones for the road ahead. The only way to really get a handle on what thats like for people is to ask the people with the lived experience.

Over the next several months, Mullins is hoping to interview five to seven people from Brandon and the surrounding area who have lost a spouse to dementia in a long-term care facility within the last three to 18 months.

The interview will take approximately one hour and will involve questions related to emotions and experiences during the end-of-life phase; as well as any decisions the spouse had to make on behalf of their loved one.

Its not going to be onerous for the people who volunteer to participate, Mullins said.

Approximately 20,000 Manitobans have dementia and Mullins expects it to become one of the biggest health issues affecting the provinces aging population in the next 10 to 20 years.

Everybody is going to feel the impact of that  I think our system is going to be very taxed, she said.

Dementia is a terminal illness classified by a deterioration of the brain, which affects memory, cognitive function, movement and behaviour.

Mullins experienced those devastating symptoms first-hand when she lost her 61-year-old mother to dementia 18 years ago.

There were times when I couldnt decide what was worse: that she didnt know me anymore or that she didnt know herself anymore, she said. If we had known more and if we had known what to expect, I think we would have coped more effectively as a family  thats one of my goals with doing this research.

Anyone interested in participating in the study is asked to contact Mullins directly at 204-726-8751.

 ewasney@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @evawasney
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Two are in custody following a disturbance at a residence in the 2300 block of Brandon Avenue early Sunday.

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More than 300 walkers hit the pavement for the annual Westman Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries MS Walk on Sunday afternoon. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the multiple sclerosis fundraising event in Manitoba.

Among the seas of balloons and red T-shirts, Teresa Newton was celebrating a milestone of her own.

This is our 12th year  my husband and I  and this year, we will hit $50,000 for our 12-year fundraising total, Newton said.

Colin Corneau/The Brandon Sun Jaden Steede raises his hands after completing the Westman Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries MS Walk at the Victoria Inn on Sunday afternoon. Steede and his mother Wendy took part in the event for the fun of it and helped others raise funds for research and treatment of the disease.

The 46-year-old started participating in the local MS Walk almost immediately after being diagnosed with the disease in 2005. Since then, Newton and her husband Mike have regularly been the events highest individual fundraisers, bringing in close to $4,500 this year alone.

I have a lot of friends and family that are very, very supportive and they have been from the very beginning, she said.

According to the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, MS is thought to be an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. Symptoms can include extreme fatigue, lack of co-ordination, vision problems, weakness, tingling and cognitive impairment.

Newton says she is incredibly fortunate because her symptoms havent progressed since her diagnosis, however she sees the local event as a chance to raise awareness for a disease that isnt always easily recognized.

Just because you cant see a physical disability, it doesnt mean that persons not struggling with the disease that they have, Newton said. The more people know the more theyll get involved and the more money we can raise, the more help were going to get.

The MS Walk takes place in 11 communities acrosss the province and the Westman chapter aimed to raise $60,000 for MS research and programming this year.

A good chunk of it actually stays in our Westman area for our programs and services, development officer for the Westman chapter of the MS Society Leann Bower said. We have fitness activities, we have out-and-abouts, we have coffee crews and support groups.

Walkers of all ages set out from the parking lot of the Victoria Inn at approximately 1 p.m. on Sunday and had the option to complete a 2.5- or three-kilometre loop of Victoria Avenue. A number of local businesses had rest stops set up along the route.

Prior to the walk, the donation tally was several thousand dollars away from the organizations goal, but that number may change as more pledges come in.

Its a very emotional thing when youre seeing the support of the community on a day like this, so I feel very blessed, Bower said.

 ewasney@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @evawasney
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SIOUX VALLEY DAKOTA NATION  The fence line of a Sioux Valley Dakota Nation pasture has become a shrine to the sacred animals penned inside.

Colourful fabric and beads have been tied to the barbed wire as offerings to the communitys six-year-old female white buffalo and her newborn white calf.

The small cream-coloured male buffalo was born on May 7, and is one of eight calves born into the First Nations herd of 24 this spring.

Tim Smith/Brandon Sun A rare white bison calf stays close to its mother, also a white bison, and its herd at Sioux Valley Dakota Nation on Friday. The calf was born on May 7. A white bison is considered a sacred symbol among many First Nations communities. White bison births are extremely rare.

You can see with all the offerings, theres people that are praying for something, Sioux Valley Chief Vince Tacan said, adding that people have travelled from other communities to visit the buffalo. They can identify with this more than they can identify with sitting in a church.

Within the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota Sioux nations of Canada and the United States, the 2,000-year-old legend of the White Buffalo Woman carries great weight and forms the basis of many traditions and ceremonies  not least of all the pipe, or chanupa, ceremony.

An article describing the legend in a 1988 edition of The Dakota Times newspaper reads: The White Buffalo Woman showed the people the right way to pray, the right words and the right gestures. She taught them how to sing the pipe-filling-song and how to lift the pipe up to the sky.

Today, the birth of a white buffalo calf signals the return of the deity and is a symbol of hope and peace for many First Nation communities.

Sioux Valleys female white buffalo is the offspring of Assiniboine Park Zoos albino bull buffalo, Blizzard. She was gifted to the First Nation from the City of Winnipeg in 2010, and has since birthed four calves  the most recent of which being the only albino calf.

Tacan says that while he isnt a very religious person, he recognizes the significance in having two white buffalo in such a small herd.

I guess I didnt believe it at first, but now Im seeing that there is something happening that we cant explain, he said.

If anything, the number of people who have visited the pasture to pray upon the calfs arrival has made the chief realize his community is craving a return to traditional practices.

Its reminding us that we have the pipe, we have these ceremonies that we need to keep up with, we need to follow our own beliefs, he said. People are searching for something here, theyve lost out on a lot  on language, on family, on kinship.

Sioux Valleys two dozen buffalo reside in a rolling pasture on the Tacan family farm  located one half mile off Highway 21 and are cared for primarily by the chief and his brother, Tony Tacan. However, the brothers claim no ownership over the herd.

This is the communitys (herd), were just the caretakers, said Tony, who is also a band council member. Its considered a great honour to look after the white buffalo and the rest of the herd as well.

Tim Smith /The Brandon Sun Sioux Valley Dakota Nation Chief Vince Tacan opens a gate to the bison enclosure as his brother, Tony Tacan, drives in while going to check in on the First Nations bison herd on Friday. Eight calves have been born so far this spring, including the rare white bison.

While the Tacans arent opposed to people visiting their land to see the buffalo and leave offerings, they do have an issue with turning the animals into a side show.

Weve been asked to display (our white buffalo) at the Summer Fair, but were not into that, Chief Tacan said. We want to be respectful of the buffalo. I mean, I dont think anyone else would put a religious symbol like this on display.

In the same vein, the buffalo are treated like wild animals and none of them have names.

Tacan hopes to incorporate the white buffalo  and the teachings that surround them  into a youth conference scheduled to take place at Sioux Valley this summer. The conference will deal with issues of drug and alcohol abuse, suicide and the intergenerational effects of residential schools and the Sixties Scoop.

We need to get our young people to understand why things are the way they are, Tacan said. The main thing, I think, is identity so the buffalo form part of that identity and any strategy that helps people get on with their lives is a good thing.

 ewasney@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @evawasney
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ANNAPOLIS ROYAL, N.S.  With populations that are among the oldest in the country, Atlantic Canadas premiers say they need a health accord with Ottawa that reflects the reality of their health care challenges.

Following their annual meeting Monday in Annapolis Royal, N.S., the premiers said the current per capita funding formula instituted by the former Conservative government doesnt serve their needs.

Weve all been clear that funding health care on a per capita basis doesnt work for Atlantic Canada, said Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil.

Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil, New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Dwight Ball and Prince Edward Island Premier Wade MacLauchlan, left to right, attend a meeting of the Council of Atlantic Premiers in Annapolis Royal, N.S. on Monday, May 16, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

We need to take into account demographics and chronic disease management.

New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant said Ottawa needs to realize the region has a number of challenges in delivering health care, including the fact that its more rural and has higher rates of cancer due to its older population.

For us whether its demonstrated through the health transfers or some type of top-up program  that addresses senior care and or an aging population  we are certainly open to discuss that with the federal government, Gallant said.

Prince Edward Island Premier Wade MacLauchlan noted that the region isnt alone in calling for change that reflects the countrys aging population as a whole. He said similar calls have come from the Canadian Nurses Association, the Canadian Medical Association and the province of British Columbia.

We intend to work together as four premiers in four provinces to advocate for a more realistic funding arrangement, said MacLauchlan.

Estimates released by Statistics Canada in 2014 indicate that since 1984 the population share of the Atlantic provinces has decreased by 2.3 percentage points, while the population in western Canada increased by 2.4 percentage points.

The proportion of people aged 65 and older was also highest in the Atlantic provinces, with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia registering the highest proportions of seniors at 18.3 per cent each.

In Ottawa, federal Health Minister Jane Philpott said Monday she hoped discussions on a new health accord would wrap up by the end of the year. Philpott didnt say which direction the Liberal government would ultimately like to go.

Im certainly hoping in the very near future to have further meetings as a collective with my colleagues in the provinces and territories, she said. Im having conversations with them on a pretty regular basis at this point, with one on one conversations, but we are hoping to pull the whole group together very soon.

The Atlantic premiers also announced a joint procurement of anaesthesia and ultrasound equipment that they said would save $6.1 million over three years.

At the meeting, the leaders also discussed the economy, climate change and the need to enhance energy cooperation.

On the energy front Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Dwight Ball was asked by reporters whether there was any possibility the massive Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador would be cancelled.

Ball avoided a direct answer, instead referring to a Friday conference call in which Stan Marshall, the head of the provinces Crown energy corporation Nalcor, said the project would likely go ahead despite soaring costs and delays.

We understand the contract provisions that have been made, said Ball. We now will get a better understanding of the new schedule and costs near the end of June and that will give us a clear understanding of what the budget impact will be.

How the project proceeds is of particular interest to Nova Scotia, which is depending on electricity from Muskrat Falls to fill slightly less than 10 per cent of its renewable energy needs.

We are looking forward to this project continuing forward, said McNeil. I believe its a project that not only will drive the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador but I think it allows us as a sister province to be able to meet our greenhouse gas objectives.
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OTTAWA  The federal government is staring down the possibility of being ordered to stop collecting gender information on Canadians as part of their social insurance number record.

The outcome is one possibility in an ongoing dispute in front of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal over a piece of information that internal documents show isnt central to identifying the owner of a social insurance number, or critical for preventing fraud.

A ruling from the tribunal would have a precedent-setting effect for the federal government, even as it takes steps to extend human rights protections to transgender Canadians in the form of legislation to be tabled Tuesday in the House of Commons.

The bill would be the latest attempt to make it illegal to discriminate against someone because of their gender identity and extend hate speech laws to include transgender persons.

But even on the eve of its introduction, the government appears no closer to making it easier to change the gender attached to a social insurance number without requiring the holder to go through a bureaucratic paperwork process.

Christin Milloy, the Toronto-based trans rights activist at the centre of the tribunal case, said there is no need for the federal government to collect and store information on sex and gender.

Its not necessary to identify an individual, Milloy said of the gender field.

Name and birthdate and mothers maiden name  these things are enough and storing (gender) creates opportunities for discrimination and oppression of all transgender people and women.

It has been almost five years since Milloy first downloaded a government form needed to make changes to a social insurance number record. The changes were simple: her address, legal name and an update to the gender field to female.

The sex or gender category on a social insurance number record is set at birth when a number is issued.

The department refused Milloys request, barring production of a new Ontario birth certificate.

Milloy launched a human rights complaint, saying that the departments policy of using the sex designation at birth discriminated against transgender persons. She also noted that the information was not necessary to identify a numbers holder.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission agreed with Milloy, and sent the matter to the human rights tribunal for a hearing.

She and the department remain in mediation at the tribunal, although that process has been going on for more than a year. Milloy said she is confident there will be a resolution, but isnt sure when that will happen.

This is not just about me and my ID. This is about changing the system to be fair to everybody, she said.

Confidentiality rules at the tribunal prevent her from discussing the details of the mediation.

Last year, Employment and Social Development Canada conducted a sweeping review of what would happen if it just dropped the sex requirement from the social insurance registry, consulting with at least a dozen other government departments, including Health Canada, the RCMP, and the Canada Revenue Agency.

The department has yet to respond to questions about the review.

Documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act show the sex field in the social insurance registry is used for gender-based analysis and data analysis, not for integrity purposes.

The notes  dated June 2, 2015, and prepared for a meeting with counterparts at Citizenship and Immigration Canada  said some provincial governments are moving towards allowing identity documents like health cards and birth certificates to reflect gender identity, meaning the data in the sex field could more accurately be referred to as gender.' That information then makes it into the social insurance registry.

Internationally, seven countries allow a third sex designation on their passports, including India, Nepal, New Zealand and Germany  something no government in Canada allows. Should that change, the documents suggest there would need to be more changes to the social insurance registry.
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Five stories in the news today from The Canadian Press:



TRIAL BEGINS FOR MAN ACCUSED IN CALGARY STABBING DEATHS

Const. James Forcillo leaves court in Toronto on Jan. 25, 2016. A police officer found guilty of attempted murder in the death of a teen on an empty streetcar will be back in a Toronto courtroom today, where his lawyers will argue for a sentence of house arrest. Const. James Forcillo has filed a constitutional challenge to the mandatory minimum sentence of four or five years that he faces in the shooting death of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

A trial begins in Calgary today of a man facing five counts of first degree murder in the stabbing deaths of five people at a house party in 2014. Matthew de Grood, 24, is the son of a high-ranking Calgary police officer. A psychiatric review determined de Grood was fit to stand trial, because he understands the charges against him and is able to communicate with his lawyer. His attorney, however, says he isnt ruling out a defence of not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder.



SENTENCING ARGUMENTS BEGIN FOR TORONTO COP

Lawyers for Toronto police officer James Forcillo intend to argue today that he should be sentenced to house arrest after being convicted of attempted murder in the death of a teenager on an empty street car. Forcillo has filed a constitutional challenge to the mandatory minimum sentence of four or five years that he faces in the shooting of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim in July 2013. Forcillo was acquitted of second-degree murder, but was found guilty of attempted murder for continuing to fire after the dying teen fell to the floor. Yatims death triggered widespread public outrage.



ACCUSED IN HAMILTON DEATH CONTINUES TESTIFYING

One of the accused in the slaying of a Hamilton man will continue to be grilled today by the lawyer for his co-accused. Mark Smich has pleaded not guilty to first degree murder in the killing of Tim Bosma three years ago. The lawyer for his co-accused, Dellen Millard, will question Smich over his testimony from last week. Smich told the court Millard shot Bosma and then burned his body. He testified he was terrified of Millard and was forced to help get rid of evidence. Millard has also pleaded not guilty to a first degree murder charge.



TRUCKING COMPANIES HAVING TROUBLE FINDING FRESH BLOOD

Canadas trucking industry is facing a looming driver shortage. The Canadian Trucking Alliance says almost 30 per cent of drivers are nearing, or have reached retirement age, and its having trouble finding young recruits to take the wheel. Some fear the industry could be short as many as 48,000 drivers by the year 2024. Many believe the trucker lifestyle simply isnt attractive to a younger generation.



SUNSET TRIBUTE TO SASK FAMILY GENERATES GLOBAL RESPONSE

A woman who invited people to send photographs of sunsets to pay tribute to a family of four who died in a January car crash is staggered by the response. Andrea Lawrence came up with the idea of a tribute to Jordan Van De Vorst, his wife and their two young children because the Saskatoon man was an avid photographer. She says she expected only a few dozen responses but ended up with nearly 500, including submissions from Germany, the Netherlands and Barbados.


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OTTAWA  The federal government is taking the first steps towards giving federally regulated workers more flexibility in their work hours, part of a broader overhaul of employment rules.

The idea of flex time has been around for decades to help employees work around family issues like a child in daycare or traditional cultural practices.

The Liberals vowed during the election to make it easier for federally regulated workers to ask for a change their work hours, or to seek permission to work from home if and when possible.

The party only committed to giving workers the legal right to ask for a change in hours, not to making the request binding on employers.

Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk said last month that the proposal would ensure workers dont have to lose their jobs, or lose the hours necessary to qualify for employment insurance should they ever need it.

Mihychuk also said the proposal is aimed at helping more Canadians land jobs.

More people want to work than there are jobs (available) and by sharing those jobs, we may be able to have valuable and meaningful careers for many, many more Canadians, Mihychuk said.

The consultations announced Monday will take the form of an online survey, available until June 30, and town hall-like meetings across the country in the coming weeks.
Opinion

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Eight years ago, during the 2008 American presidential election, I happened to read about the Bugs Bunny theory of American politics. Does that theory describe todays race for president? Are you kidding? Of course it does!

The Bugs Bunny theory of politics was proposed by commentator Jeff Greenfield on the website Slate. Greenfield mused that two personality types can often be identified in presidential politics.

One personality type is like Bugs Bunny. Bugs is at ease, laid-back, secure, confident, Greenfield noted. Bugs never flails at his opponents or at the world.

The other is like Daffy Duck. Daffy is ever at war with a hostile world, Greenfield said. He fumes, he clenches his fists, his eyes bulge and his entire body tenses with fury.

Whenever there is a clear choice between the two, Greenfield said, Bugs wins. Think of Barack Obama beating John McCain in 2008. Or Ronald Reagan beating Jimmy Carter in 1980.

The two characters were on dramatic display in 1960 during the Kennedy-Nixon debates. John Bugs Kennedy was cool, restrained, ironic, Greenfield observed. Richard Daffy Nixon was brooding, suspicious, scowling.

Greenfields theory reminds me of Marshall McLuhans notion of hot and cool. According to McLuhan, Nixon was hot and fit with the hot medium of radio. Kennedy was cool and suited to the cool medium of TV. McLuhan pointed out that voters who only heard them on radio thought that Nixon had won the debates!

The Bugs Bunny theory applies elsewhere. Like here in Canada  just last year. Justin Trudeau was Bugs Bunny as sure as Stephen Harper was Daffy Duck!

We citizens, however, do need to be careful that we are not just swept up by Bugs-like charisma! Fortunately for us: Trudeau is comfortable with science. Did you see him answering a question at that university quantum physics lab?

And the future will be all about innovation, science and technology. So its great that  unlike Harper  Trudeau is cool with science and learning.

Enough already with serious Canadian stuff! Lets get back to U.S. politics!

Among their candidates, who is most like Daffy Duck? I say Ted Cruz! Cruz campaigned as a severe evangelical Christian and angry conservative. And, I kid you not: Cruz hangs around with back-to-the-Bible pastors who preach the death penalty for gays.

And non-religious progressives were not the only ones unnerved by the creepy Cruz. Republican bigwig John Boehner, a Roman Catholic, called Cruz Lucifer in the flesh.

On the other hand, who is the candidate most like Bugs Bunny? Well, hello there Bernie Sanders! Sanders is especially like Bugs when he draws on his background. And not that of bloviating legislators from Congress, but that of wisecracking comedians from New York City! Sanders has even had bit parts in comedy films.

Cultural historians say that Bugs Bunny himself is part of this hilarious tradition. Among these comedians: Groucho Marx, who was performing when Bugs first appeared in the 1930s; to Jerry Seinfeld and Amy Schumer today. And the shtick goes on, Live: from New York! Watch and laugh when Sanders is portrayed on Saturday Night Live by Larry David  co-creator of TVs Seinfeld.

Now, what about the main contenders: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump? I am afraid that Clinton is Daffy and Trump is Bugs.

Trump is a master communicator, entertainer and persuader. Just like Bugs, Trump will sometimes stop the action, turn to the audience and let them in on the joke.

Being presidential is easy. Its much easier than what I have to do, Trump told his supporters at one rally. I have to rant and rave and keep you people going, or else youre going to fall asleep on me, right?

Imagine a future debate. There will be Hillary Daffy Clinton: harsh and cranky, endlessly listing policy proposals. Then there will be Donald Bugs Trump: destroying his opponent with a few withering zingers.

Think of it this way: who could possibly defeat Trump? I think that requires a cool cat who could outfox Trump with flair and humour. And that is not Clinton! Bill, yes. But not Hillary!

So, Clinton is in big trouble. As Greenfield said when he first suggested his theory of politics, Bugs Bunny always beats Daffy Duck.

And if Bugs Trump wins the presidency in November, the whole world will be saying a lot more than just, Eh, whats up, Doc?

 David McConkey is an active citizen. Contact him and read previous columns at davidmcconkey.com.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 16/05/2016 (2352 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rural constituencies represented

Winnipeg is not the centre of the universe  exactly what Brian Pallister proved when choosing his cabinet! Do people not realize that the majority of the provinces cabinet ministers are from rural constituencies? Facts first, please!

Nothing but lies and broken promises

If you are wondering why Trump is doing so well and Harper got trounced and the Manitoba NDP almost got wiped off the map, I believe I have the answer. The common people are sick and tired of lies, lies, lies and broken promises. Trudeau just cancelled his promise on the small business tax, Selinger bare-faced lied on the PST and the Americans are sick and tired of health care, abortion laws, marijuana laws (as well as Trudeaus promise to legalize marijuana). The majority didnt want same-sex marriage! Canada wants tougher laws on juvenile crime, drunk driving. All governments have gotten us so far in debt that our great-grandchildren will still be paying off our debt. It seems the so-called highly educated people think they know it all, but the general public are sick of it and they are the majority and are starting to speak up.

Too many missed days by teacher

Schools often stress the importance of student attendance. My daughters teacher has missed many more days of school than my daughter. From what I understand, the teacher has to miss many days or half-days due to division-initiated meetings. This has given me the perfect opportunity to teach my daughter about hypocrisy. It would be interesting to know what substitute costs are for a school year in BSD.
More than 300 business leaders in the UK are urging Britain to vote to leave the European Union, warning that the country's competitiveness is being undermined by its membership.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, they argue that businesses will be "free to grow faster, expand into new markets and create more jobs" if they are unconstrained by EU rules.

Signatories include Peter Goldstein, a founder of Superdrug; Steve Dowdle, a former vice-president Europe of Sony; David Sismey, a managing director of Goldman Sachs, and Sir Patrick Sheehy, the former chairman of British American Tobacco.

"Brussels's red tape stifles every one of Britain's 5.4 million businesses, even though only a small minority actually trade with the EU," they said.

"It is business - not government - which generates wealth for the Treasury and jobs for our communities."

The letter will be seen as an attempt by the Leave camp to counter a series of warnings by bodies such as the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund that the UK will be worse off outside the EU.

Chancellor George Osborne will return to the offensive for the Remain campaign with a major speech warning of the economic dangers of Brexit.

On the Leave side, Boris Johnson will also be on the campaign trail with the Vote Leave battle bus after the controversy over his remarks comparing EU efforts to build a federal superstate to Hitler's attempts to dominate Europe.

Meanwhile, David Cameron has warned that leaving the EU would be a "national error" as part of an attempt to reach out to Labour supporters.

In an article for the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror, the British Prime Minister said he was backing Remain for the sake of jobs, security and Britain's place in the world.

"It's not every day you get a Tory Prime Minister writing in the Mirror. But then it's not every day we face a decision of this magnitude: whether to stay in the EU, or walk away," he said.

His intervention came amid concerns in the Remain camp that they are encountering significant hostility to the EU in traditional Labour areas.

On Saturday, Jeremy Corbyn appealed to supporters at a Labour In rally in London to blame the Conservatives, not Brussels, for the problems facing the country.

In his article, Mr Cameron emphasised he had been campaigning alongside Labour former foreign secretary David Miliband and ex-TUC general secretary Sir Brendan Barber, and praised Gordon Brown's "powerful and passionate" speech in support of Remain.

"I've been in this job for six years now. Whatever you think of me, I know how Britain gets things done in the world," he wrote.

"I've seen how free trade within Europe benefits working people. I've seen how manufacturing is boosted by trade deals the EU has done with the rest of the world. I've seen how shared intelligence keeps families safe.

"It's my deep, considered, steadfast belief that leaving Europe would be a national error, a big mistake."
New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that seasonally adjusted exports fell by 2% to 8.5bn in March, while imports sank by 12% to 4.4bn.

Today's figures also show that exports of medical and pharmaceutical products decreased by 11%, but exports of electrical machinery and appliances jumped by 125%.
Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has warned that the budget airline will be forced to scale back British investment if the country votes to leave the European Union.

Appearing on a platform with British Chancellor George Osborne at Stansted Airport, Mr O'Leary said that inward investment will be lost to competitor EU member states such as Ireland and Germany if Britain votes for Brexit.

He also announced the creation of 450 new jobs in Britain as part of a $1.4bn (1.23bn) investment into the Ryanair's 13 UK bases.

Mr O'Leary said: "It is this type of large-scale foreign inward investment that is helping to drive the UK economy and job creation.

"It is exactly this type of investment that will be lost to other competitor EU members if the UK votes to leave the European Union."

The outspoken businessman also urged the British public to vote to Remain on June 23.

He said: "The single market has enabled Ryanair to lead the low-fare air travel revolution in Europe, as we bring millions of British citizens to Europe each year, and welcome millions of European visitors to Britain, and we are calling on everyone to turn out in large numbers and vote Remain," he said.

Mr O'Leary was speaking at the opening of Ryanair's European Training Centre at Stansted, which will create more than 1,000 new jobs overall for pilots, cabin crew and engineers this year.

Charlie Cornish, chief executive of Stansted owner Manchester Airports Group (MAG), said leaving the EU would be a "huge backward step for UK aviation".

The announcement comes after more than 300 business leaders urged Britain to vote to leave the European Union, warning that the country's competitiveness is being undermined by its membership.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, they argued that businesses will be "free to grow faster, expand into new markets and create more jobs" if they are unconstrained by EU rules.

Signatories include Peter Goldstein, a founder of Superdrug; Steve Dowdle, a former vice-president Europe of Sony; David Sismey, a managing director of Goldman Sachs, and Sir Patrick Sheehy, the former chairman of British American Tobacco.
A search will resume this afternoon for a man who is feared to have fallen into the sea in County Clare.

The alarm was raised on Friday when staff arriving for work at the Cliffs of Moher visitor centre saw a a car in the car park from the previous night.
One of Europe's top rights watchdogs has warned Ireland over the lack of accommodation for Travellers and poor living conditions at halting sites.

In the midst of one of the country's worst housing crises, inspectors upheld five complaints against the state and dismissed nine.

They warned the biggest problems for Travellers include a lack of clean water and drainage, poor or non-existent bin collection, flooding and sewage issues, damp, and water ingress.

The European Committee of Social Rights, part of the 47-member Council of Europe, examined traveller accommodation after a complaint was lodged by European Roma Rights Centre in 2013.

It alleged insufficient housing, discrimination and breaches of education rights of children.

The watchdog said the Government was told in 1995 that 1,000 halting sites were needed but only 54 had been created in five council regions.

It said 361 families still lived on unauthorised sites in 2013.

The committee said the "not insignificant number" of halting sites were in poor condition, lacked maintenance and are badly located.

Some have no flush toilets, running water or postal and rubbish services and are far from shops and amenities, it said.

The committee also criticised Ireland's public order laws which it said do not adequately protect Travellers threatened with eviction or notify them of a time to leave.

The legislation is designed to stop unlawfully occupied property being damaged but the committee said it does not justify a lack of safeguards for people who are in "genuine need of a home".

The committee said the requirement for less than 24 hours' notice for an eviction is unacceptable.

And while it accepted the Government's response that "in practice" evictees get more than a day, it said that was insufficient.

The committee dismissed nine other claims including that the lack of suitable accommodation was a direct discrimination of travellers and that the right to education was affected by the lack of adequate halting sites.

"Ireland has adopted a co-ordinated approach ... to remove obstacles to access for housing for Travellers," the report said.

"The measures taken are monitored and consultation is ongoing on improving outcomes for the Traveller community."

It also criticised the lack of legal aid for travellers to fight evictions and the limited access to judicial review.

The European Social Charter, monitored by the committee, is a legally binding counterpart to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Judge Martin Nolan has told the jury that four former bankers accused of conspiracy to defraud in 2008 are entitled to a fair hearing and that the trial is no place for prejudice.

Four former executives from Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Life & Permanent (ILP) are alleged to have conspired to mislead investors about the true health of Anglo.

Closing speeches have now ended in what is understood to be the longest running trial in Irish legal history.

Peter Fitzpatrick (aged 63) of Convent Lane, Portmarnock, Dublin, Denis Casey (aged 56), from Raheny, Dublin, John Bowe (aged 52) from Glasnevin, Dublin and Willie McAteer (aged 65) of Greenrath, Tipperary Town, Co Tipperary have all pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to conspiring together and with others to mislead investors by setting up a 7.2bn circular transaction scheme between March 1 and September 30, 2008 to bolster Anglo's balance sheet.

At the end of day 74 of the trial Judge Martin Nolan began his charge by saying that the four accused are entitled to a fair trial.

Tomorrow morning he will continue to outline the legal rules which apply after which the jury will begin deliberating.

Judge Nolan said: Anglo is probably the most reviled institution in the State.

That should play no part in your deliberations, they are entitled to a fair trial.

You must do justice to these men.

Brendan Grehan SC, defending Mr Fitzpatrick, told the jurors that their eyes must have watered at the thought of getting their hands on someone who did something really evil regarding the banking crisis which caused misery to so many.

But, he said, the indictment didn't live up its billing.

He said that the prosecution had failed to produce any evidence that showed an intention on Mr Fitzpatrick's part to defraud.

He said the State's case against his client boils down to a single issue, the question of intent on the part of the former finance director for ILP.

He said that the State's case amounted to one of come on, they must have known.

If there was evidence don't you think they'd be shouting it form the roof tops? If there was a smoking gun the prosecution would be holding it up, like 'exhibit a', counsel said.

Mr Grehan said that there is no evidence that anyone had stolen any money and said that no-one has 7.2bn stashed away in a Cayman islands account.

He said none of the defendants gained personally from the deal.

He said Mr Fitzpatrick's motivation in authorising the deal was the green jersey agenda, the Financial Regulator's request for Irish banks to support one another.

He said by September 2008 Anglo were desperate and went to ILP for assistance and ILP felt they couldn't refuse to help. ILP agreed to a deal but imposed terms and conditions and Anglo simply ignored those, Mr Grehan said.

Michael O'Higgin SC, defending ILP's former CEO Denis Casey, said that Anglo had duped his client by misrepresenting the 7.2bn deal in their accounts.

He said there was no evidence that Mr Casey ever foresaw any skullduggery on the part of Anglo.

He said that his client didn't know that Anglo would misrepresent or fictionalise for accounting purposes the billion euro deposits from ILP.

Even if you don't accept this or don't believe it, but you think it could reasonably be true, you have to acquit, he said.

He said that far from being a bright idea to bolster Anglo's customer deposits number the actual transaction was daft and said that if David Drumm was the brightest and the best, I wouldn't like to see who wasn't.

He said it was daft because in September it was nuclear war in the finance world and Anglo were experiencing outflows of five billion euro in the week coming up to the end of that month.

By September 30, customer deposits were yesterday's chip paper. It was all loan impairment at that stage. The descent button had been hit, he said.

He put it to the jury that the market would have been able to accept a total end of year figure of 44bn in customer deposits, as opposed to the figure of 51bn which include the ILP deal.
Gardai investigating the shooting of an innocent young woman in a house in Cork city yesterday have recovered a firearm, writes Eoin English.

The handgun was found this morning in undergrowth close the house in Hollyhill where Ciara Sheehan was shot in the neck in the early hours yesterday.

Garda search teams had been scouring the area for evidence in the wake of the gun attack and Supt Con Cadogan described the recovery of the weapon as a significant development in the case.

The gun will now be subjected to detailed ballistics and forensic analysis to establish if it was the same weapon used in Sunday morning's gun attack.

Gardai are also examining threatening comments made on Facebook in the hours before the incident in which an individual threatened 'war' on named individuals.

Ms Sheehan, who was visiting her boyfriend, Dillon Cunningham at his house in Hollywood Estate, was shot through the window just after 1am when a firearm was discharged outside the home.

The house was one of several which had been attacked in the previous half an hour.

She suffered a bullet wound to her neck and was rushed by friends in a car to Cork University Hospital where she is now said to be in stable condition.

A bullet removed from her neck is also undergoing ballistic and forensic tests.

Two people, a man, 29 and a woman, 22, who were arrested nearby a short time later, are still being detained at separate Garda stations under the provisions of Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, for questioning about the incident.

The gun attack has been linked to an ongoing feud between a violent and aggressive man, who is known to gardai, and members of the Cunningham family, described by neighbours as good, decent, honest people.
The Junior Health Minister Finian McGrath says he stands by his comments on smoking, but will support Government policy on it.

Mr McGrath was commenting after he was quoted yesterday

Read More:

We are not all super humans we all have frailties and we have to accept thats life and thats part of life, he said.

It is the Governments policy to make Ireland smoke-free by 2025, and Minister McGrath says he will support that.

He said: "I said those comments over the last number of years and I said them in a recent interview which has thousands of words on health and disability.

"There was a couple of questions about designated smoking areas, and yes I did say it. I have my own personal views and I stand by my personal views.

"But as a member of Cabinet, of course I support the policy in relation to smoking and health generally in this country."

The newly appointed super junior minister with responsibility for disability admitted that he smokes up to 20 cigarettes a day and constantly makes an effort to cut down.

But I cant say that I will be giving them up because I am now in a new position as a cabinet minister, he said,

A lot of them [smokers] are genuinely trying, like myself, we wake up every day trying to cut down, trying to get off them, but it is an addiction.

So what I am saying is [instead of] beating those people up and kind of bullying them, we need to bring people along with proper public health policies out there to help us with our addiction and thats the progressive way forward.

I try to give them up every single day, what I dont do is go around talking about it or pontificating about it, but what I do is I make an effort every day like many many smokers.

Addressing previous comments, he told RTEs Today with Sean ORourke show: I defend the right of any minister or any citizen to have their own private and personal views and I think its important that we have that situation and in the past I did say that there were examples in other countries like Germany and Portugal where they had a more lenient regime in relation to smoking."

The Irish Cancer Society has described his remarks as "unhelpful and irresponsible" and said that "any roll back of the smoking ban would be a retrograde step".

They said: "The Irish state has led the way in tobacco control measures, showing courage in tackling smoking rates and the tobacco industry.

"In the 12 years since the introduction of the smoking ban, rates of smoking have dropped from 30% to less than 20%. This is not a coincidence."

The society quoted a recent Department of Health report showing that in 2015, 81,430 days in hospital beds were given over to cancers caused by smoking, while 6,350 inpatient admissions were patients with cancers caused by smoking.

They also produced the costs to society per year brought on by smoking:
A man arrested in connection a suspected hit-and-run in Dublin has been released without charge.

A 35-year-old woman remains in a critical condition at Beaumont Hospital following the incident at Lohunda Dale, Clonsilla, on the morning of Sunday, May 8.

A man in his early 40's was detained yesterday in relation to the investigation and he has now been released.

A file is being prepared for the DPP and Gardai are continuing to appeal for witnesses to come forward.
Primary schools are being urged to give children water safety lessons before they break for the summer holidays.

An average of 11 people drown each month in Ireland, or 135 a year.
A man has been arrested in England in connection with an incident that allegedly developed after a Domino's Pizza customer complained about his order.

Paul Williams received injuries to his face during an incident in Ebrington Road in Exeter on Friday night and required hospital treatment.

The Devon and Cornwall force said "precautionary measures" were used when uniformed officers attempted to arrest a man and spotted a "suspected weapon".

Mr Williams described the incident in a Facebook post to Domino's Pizza UK and alleged he was attacked after complaining about missing toppings.

He wrote: "Thank you Domino's for the personal attention of your manager last night in the Exeter Cowick Street branch, you do not expect your managers to come to your house and beat you wearing a crash helmet and full motorcycle gear if you complain of missing toppings."

In response to Mr Williams' post, Domino's replied: "As this is now a current police investigation there is very little we can publicly say on this matter.

"However, please rest assured we are taking this incident extremely seriously and will be providing the police with our full co-operation.

"Please do continue to stay in touch with your contact in our customer care team at head office and rest assured, we will do everything possible to ensure this situation is properly resolved."

A Devon and Cornwall Police spokesman said: "On May 13 police received a complaint that a male had been assaulted in Ebrington Road, Exeter.

"The male victim received a number of injuries to his face and forehead which required hospital attendance.

"Police attended Ebrington Road in order to arrest a male in his 20s in connection with the assault.

"During the course of the arrest attempt, a suspected weapon was seen.

"In order to preserve the safety of the public and officers, precautionary measures were used to secure the male's arrest.

"A search of the address resulted in a number of seizures including what we suspected are air weapons. At no stage do we believe any firearm was discharged.

"The arrested male has been bailed with conditions and is not residing in the Exeter area.

"We understand there are significant community tensions in Ebrington Road and continue to engage with residents to address their concerns.

"The investigation team are working to progress this matter efficiently to reach an early conclusion."
Police Scotland has been urged to do more to tackle the "frightening" number of rest days owed to officers.

Figures obtained by radio station LBC found that as of March this year 25,036 rest days were owed to serving constables, sergeants, inspectors and chief inspectors.

The Scottish Police Federation (SPF), which represents the rank and file, said the figure was the equivalent to a thousand officers having six weeks off work or 150 years' of rest days, a claim described as "utterly misleading" by the force.

SPF general secretary Calum Steele told the station: "The police service is woefully understaffed. It's over-stretched.

"It's being asked to do far too much with the resources that are available to it and what these figures show is that it is actually frontline working police officers that are carrying the brunt for the shortfalls that they've inherited.

"The fact that the police service has got to a situation where it owes over 25,000 rest days to the police officers in Scotland is simply frightening.

"What's self-evident at this moment in time is that the police service lacks the finance, the money, the people, to do all that's asked of it and the Chief Constable, and indeed others, need to stand up and make that point loudly and clearly.

"They also have to make sure that they put in place structures within the police service to make sure that they're not overworking their staff."

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: "These figures are simply astonishing. The fact that so many rest days have been cancelled reveals a deeper problem that exists within Police Scotland.

"It shows the real pressure that the force is under and how this is impacting on individual officers.

"Police officers have been stretched to breaking point and I think we need to step in to make sure we can relieve that pressure so that they can get their lives back."

Peter Blair, Police Scotland's head of resource management, said: "The amount of days owed works out at well under two days per officer, therefore it is utterly misleading to suggest that Police Scotland owes its officers many years worth of time.

"When an officer is required to work on a rest day it is re-rostered if officers are given more than 15 days' notice.

"If less than 15 days, then officers up to and including the rank of sergeant are entitled to claim overtime in the form of time off in lieu or payment.

"This is in line with police regulations, the re-rostering of rest days is a local operational policing decision."
An initial report into the Norway helicopter crash which claimed the lives of 13 people has found the flight appeared normal until a "sudden catastrophic failure developed in 1-2 seconds".

Eleven passengers, including oil worker Iain Stuart from Laurencekirk in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and two crew members were killed after the Super Puma aircraft came down near the city of Bergen on April 29.

The Accident Investigation Board Norway's report released on Monday found the black box recorder, officially known as a combined cockpit voice and flight data recorder (CVFDR), recovered from the wreckage revealed the tragedy unfolded in seconds.

The report said: "The recordings on the CVFDR showed that everything appeared to be normal until a sudden catastrophic failure developed in 1-2 seconds.

"The CVFDR recordings ended abruptly at the same time. There are no indications that flight crew actions were a factor in the accident.

"The helicopter was cruising at 2,000ft when the main rotor head (MRH) and mast suddenly detached. The helicopter impacted on a small island and caught fire.

"The main wreckage thereafter ended in the sea where it came to rest at a depth of 1-9 metres. The accident was not survivable."

The preliminary report is intended to give an update on the investigation and includes no conclusions or safety recommendations.

Investigators said examination of the wreckage is ongoing and a land and sea search is continuing to find "several key components" which are still missing, after the crash impact scattered pieces across a wide area.

The probe currently centres on the main rotor head, its suspension bar assembly and the main gearbox.

The report said: "At this preliminary stage of the investigation, detailed metallurgical examinations have not been performed. The examinations so far have not shown any sign of fatigue failure."

Previously, the board said the crash investigation indicated sudden mechanical failure.

The Super Puma was travelling from the North Sea Gullfaks B oil field, about 74 miles (120 kilometres) off the Norwegian coast, when it crashed en route to Flesland Airport.

The aircraft shattered into pieces when it smashed into the rocky shoreline of Turoey, a tiny island outside Bergen, western Norway.

Mr Stuart's family have said they are "heartbroken" by the death of the 41-year-old father-of-two.

The 10 other passengers who died were Norwegian while helicopter operator CHC lost two pilots, a Norwegian and an Italian.
Philippines' President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has said he aims to bring back death by hanging.

Mr Duterte said he will ask his country's congress to reimpose the death penalty, which has been suspended since 2006 following opposition from the Catholic church.

The controversial presumptive president, who was making his first policy pronouncements since winning last week's election based on an unofficial count, said that capital punishment by hanging should be imposed for crimes such as murder, robbery and rape.

Mr Duterte went on to say that those convicted of more than one crime would be hanged twice.

"After the first hanging, there will be another ceremony for the second time until the head is completely severed from the body," he said in the nationally televised news conference.

He said he will also offer cabinet posts to communist rebels and move to amend the constitution to give more power to the provinces.

In his first formal news conference since the vote on May 9, Mr Duterte added that he will launch a major military offensive to destroy the extremist group Abu Sayyaf on the southern Jolo Island.

The announcements are a sharp departure from current government policy and reflect his brash campaign pledge to end crime and corruption in the impoverished nation in three to six months.

Police officials have said the plan is unachievable and that crime remains prevalent in Davao City, where Mr Duterte has served as mayor for more than 22 years.

The military have been fighting a decades-long Marxist insurgency in the countryside.

Mr Duterte said he is likely to offer the cabinet posts of environment and natural resources, agrarian reform, social welfare, and labour to the communist rebels.

He said: "They are the most vigilant group in the Philippines about labour so they would get it."

The move is likely to be opposed by big business and industry.

Mr Duterte said he would also sell the presidential yacht and use the money to buy medical equipment for military and police personnel.

"When people are hungry and jobless ... it would be an obscene thing" to have the luxury vessel lying unused, he said.
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SINGAPORE/NEW DELHI: China is likely this month to export the highest volume of diesel, aviation fuel and gasoline...
LONDON: Penny Mordaunt, one of two candidates to be Britains next prime minister, is still in the leadership race...
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Animal activists are preparing for possible skirmishes in Canberra's nature reserves after the government announced plans to cull 2000 kangaroos.

The government said on Friday that multiple nature reserves would be closed in the evenings from Monday, May 16, while staff moved to control the population of eastern grey kangaroos.

Robyn Soxsmith, of the Animal Protectors Alliance, said the group was determined to stop the kangaroos being shot. Credit:Jay Cronan

The cull was necessary to protect biodiversity and minimise impacts on other flora and fauna in critical grassland and woodland, director of parks and conservation Daniel Iglesias said.

But animal activists say they have no plans to hold back their efforts to stop the culls and scare off kangaroos, even as some face penalties and fines in court.
A crisis in funding for Legal Aid is preventing Australia's most disadvantaged from obtaining a lawyer, the ACT Law Society has said.

Lawyers will rally on Wednesday in support of a national "Legal Aid Matters" campaign, which seeks to put pressure on the major parties to commit to reversing cuts and injecting new money into services ahead of the federal election.

Legal Aid ACT chief executive Dr John Boersig is expected to speak at Wednesday's rally. Credit:Graham Tidy

Successive federal governments have cut hundreds of millions of dollars from legal aid services, placing them under significant pressure across all states and territories, including the ACT.

In 2014, the Productivity Commission recommended that $200 million a year in interim funding was needed to fill service gaps.
Construction workers on Canberra's tram will be paid between $36 and $48 an hour, including a $5.50 an hour project allowance.

In a deal blasted by business leaders, who say it will distort construction wages across Canberra and drive civil contractors to the wall, the tram builder has negotiated with the construction union to directly employ as many as 250 workers.

Canberra Metro chairman Mark Lynch and Capital Metro Minister Simon Corbell in February. Credit:Jeffrey Chan

The agreement, yet to be signed, pays ordinary wages of $30.23 an hour for first-time workers, rising to $42.55 an hour. On top of that is a "project allowance" of $5.50 an hour, which folds in a range of award allowances, plus a daily travel allowance of $32.75, paid for work days and rostered days off.

Construction staff will work 40 hours a week, but be paid for 36 hours and get 26 paid rostered days off a year. Each week, $98 will be paid into a redundancy fund for each worker, which they will get when their work on the project stops.
Eight budget airlines, including Tigerair Australia and Singapore-based Scoot, have formed a new alliance designed to help them better compete against pan-Asian low-cost carrier groups like Jetstar, AirAsia and Lion Air.

The new Value Alliance, launched on Monday, will allow customers to view, select and book the best-available fares directly from the website of all airline members to create itineraries throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Tigerair Singapore, Thailand's Nok Air and NokScoot, Japan's Vanilla Air, Korea's Jeju Air and Cebu Pacific of the Philippines are founding members alongside Tigerair Australia and Scoot. The carriers collectively serve more than 160 destinations, primarily in the Asia-Pacific region.

"Coming together as an alliance we can leverage each other's brand recognition in our respective home markets and leverage each other's distribution in our home markets," Scoot chief executive Campbell Wilson told Fairfax Media. "We can present to them itineraries that include sectors with all of our partners."
Solomon Lew's Premier Investments is taking the unusual step of holding an shareholder meeting to seek approval for a range of perks for chief executive Mark McInnes that have been called "overly generous" by some proxy advisers and shareholders.

Rather than wait until its November annual meeting, the owner of retail chains Portmans, Peter Alexander and Smiggle will hold an extraordinary general meeting on June 15 to seek approval to pay as much as $5 million in termination benefits to Mr McInnes.

Premier Investments' CEO Mark McInnes (left) and chairman Solomon Lew. Credit:Pat Scala

The company will also ask shareholders to revise the terms of as many as one million performance rights so it can issue awards even if performance hurdles are not met or Mr McInnes resigns or is terminated without cause before 2020.

If shareholders don't agree, Premier has promised to reimburse Mr McInnes, who earned $5.4 million in 2015 and $4.3 million in 2014, for any loss he suffers.
It was a brief exchange in which Storrar, without even trying, got the better of his betters by speaking a few simple truths about the realities of being poor, to which they responded with garbled nonsense (O'Dwyer) and lofty contempt (Willox).

To recap. Storrar had fame thrust upon him when he embarrassed the Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer on Q&A last week. He didn't so much then go on to embarrass Innes Willox, the Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group, as Innes Willox decided to embarrass himself.

The lives of the poor are hard. They are all too often short, nasty and complicated. For struggling truck driver turned national pinata, Duncan Storrar, this last, short week has been about as nasty and complicated as ordinary lives can be. Brutish, too. A short, nasty and brutish passage he will no doubt be happy to leave behind. Hopefully, he enjoys the money, just over sixty grand, from a Go Fund Me campaign set up by a sympathiser and generously supported by a couple of thousand punters.

Duncan Storrar on the Q&A panel. Credit:ABC

What happened next was fascinating and awful. His 'critics' did not refute Storrar's main point that a rise in the tax free threshold can change the daily life of a poor person. Probably because it's irrefutable. Nor did they take up O'Dwyer's bungled defence of a tax cut for the rich over the poor - which might even be defensible if you're arguing from deep inside the closed loop of neo-liberal economics. Nope. They just pulled on the jackboots and kicked forty-seven flavours of shit out of an impoverished, uneducated man who'd done nothing more than ask a simple but surprisingly difficult question.

The savagery of the media assault on Duncan Storrar, almost entirely the work of the Murdoch press, was sickening to behold. It was, to quote from Jennifer Wilson (@noplaceforsheep on Twitter), a "depraved abuse of power". It elicited feelings of deep disgust from many who observed the attack. It was not unlike watching a crippled man set upon by a gang, his attackers huge with steroids and laughing like psychopaths, drunk with the heady liquor of their own violence.

They turned his family against him. They blew up his criminal record. They called him a thug, an egregious hypocrisy coming from these people.

Interestingly, however, as terrible as it must have been for anyone in that family, the destruction of Duncan Storrar did not go exactly to plan. Even as he was defamed, normal people, which is to say not billionaire media barons or lickspittles in the employ of billionaire media barons, continued to offer support and donate to the Go Fund Me campaign set up on his behalf. It really does bear repeating that Storrar never once asked for the money or the attention. People just started throwing tens of thousands of dollars at him via the internet because they were sympathetic or outraged or both.
Anne Deborah Atai-Omoruto, a Ugandan doctor who helped turn the tide in the battle against Ebola in Liberia, has died of pancreatic cancer at 59.

It was Atai-Omoruto who braved the risks to her own health in July 2014 by taking a team of 14 Ugandan health workers to Liberia at the request of the World Health Organization.

At the time, the outbreak had reached the capital city, Monrovia and businesses and private organizations were pulling their workers out of the country. Many many governments were unwilling to send medics. Eventually 4810 people in Liberia died of the disease and 10,678 were infected, making the country the hardest-hit in the region.

Atai-Omoruto and her team began training more than 1000 Liberian health workers on managing Ebola patients and protecting themselves from infection. She also managed a large treatment unit known as the Island Clinic, a joint initiative of the Liberian government and the WHO.

"Everything was in disarray and everybody was running away  she came in and stepped up to the plate," said Dorbor Jallah, who was the national coordinator for the Ebola task force in the early months of the response.

After the Island Clinic opened, hundreds of patients were transferred there from holding centres throughout the city. To accommodate the influx, Atai-Omoruto pushed beds closer together and put mattresses in the corridors, creating space to accommodate more than 200 patients. The clinic's original capacity was 120.
And yes, The Events does feel subtly different at Belvoir. This is a familiar space, for starters, almost a comfort zone. The contract between performer and audience is more obvious. Even so, I found myself as gripped as I was first time around.

In that grand old community space, Scottish playwright David Greig's dramatic experiment made for unusually immersive theatre. Writing at the time, I doubted the same experience could be had in a more conventional setting.

This production debuted in Granville Town Hall in January this year. For me, it was one of the highlights of the 2016 Sydney Festival.

Things are already afoot as the audience filters in with dozens of people  members of two of the 14 community choirs contributing to this season  milling about the stage, chatting among themselves. The audience does likewise until Anglican minister Claire (Catherine McClements) calls everyone to order.

After a couple of songs, the mood is buoyant. But someone is watching from the sidelines, a young man (played by Johnny Carr). Singing is the last thing on his mind, for he is a tribal warrior, a cleansing flame, and Claire's multicultural choir is everything he despises.

Save for one fleeting scene, Greig spares us the dramatisation of a massacre. Instead he focuses on its aftershocks as Claire comes to terms with her survival and her shaken faith in God and humanity. Her quest for healing  which involves an almost comic attempt at shamanic ritual with the confused remnants of her choir  becomes a quest for answers.

She interviews those she believes influenced the young man's actions: a journalist whose cynical tract was recycled into the young killer's blog; the figurehead of an ultra-nationalist party he flirted with; the boy's bewildered father, who dismissed his son's fascination with warrior culture as the confused feelings of a latent homosexual and said so to his face. The more she learns, however, the less she can be certain about. The boy can't even explain himself.

Director Clare Watson's production seems to have gained a yard or two of pace since January making Greig's switchback transitions seem more destabilising. McClements' performance is exceptional and Carr's understated playing very fine.
Filming on the Nine Network miniseries House of Bond has begun in secret.

The production company Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder started filming on the project several weeks ago, using a false name for the production, personalised scripts and undisclosed filming locations.

The secrecy is intended to protect the project from the kind of scrutiny that thrust the company's earlier project, House of Hancock, into the media spotlight and led to businesswoman Gina Rinehart suing CJZ and Nine in an attempt to delay or halt production.

"Legal action looms large in our mind given the Gina experience and the fact it is still going on," CJZ's Nick Murray told Fairfax Media. "The Rinehart case is about everything bar defamation, so we are being very careful."
Days after Alice* reconciled with her partner, he was charged and her child was taken away.

The 19-year old, unable to afford a lawyer, had tried to ask a court to discharge her intervention order against her partner on her own, after a busy community legal centre turned her away. She asked a deputy registrar to fill out the form for her, but did not realise she still needed to appear in court at a later date to end the order.

Her neighbour, who had previously witnessed violence between the pair, reported them to the Department of Health and Human Services after they moved in together.

Alice's partner was charged with breaching the intervention order and her child was removed for three weeks because she had allowed her perpetrator to contact them.
Wendell Pierce, the 52-year-old actor best known for playing Detective William "Bunk" Moreland on HBO's The Wire, was arrested Saturday morning in Atlanta.

Police have confirmed that Pierce was charged with simple battery and released that same day on a $US1000 ($1370) bond, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Wendell Pierce as "Bunk" on The Wire.

The altercation, which took place in a bar in the Loews Hotel in Atlanta, reportedly arose from a conversation about politics. Pierce, an avowed Hillary Clinton supporter, allegedly began arguing with a Bernie Sanders supporter and her boyfriend at The Lobby, the hotel's bar, around 3.30am, according to TMZ. The site goes on to report the conversation became heated, and Pierce "became enraged, pushed the boyfriend and then went after his girlfriend ... grabbing her hair and smacking her in the head."

The Daily Beast offers a slightly contradictory account, reporting that the woman "stepped into an altercation already under way."
Border Force officials have been accused by their bosses of wearing fake uniforms while campaigning for a Coalition defeat in the upcoming election.

A senior Immigration Department manager issued the warning after Border Force public servants, angry about their two-year pay dispute, rallied at Sydney Airport last week to kick off their campaign to have the Turnbull government voted out.

Border Force officials have been warned not to wear fake uniforms while campaigning for a Coailition defeat in the upcoming election. Credit:Instagram

The event was the launch of a union-led campaign to put the wage dispute between Immigration and Border Force public servants and the Coalition government on the election agenda and featured unions members wearing black pants and T-shirts clearly marked with the Community and Public Sector Union's logo.
Brisbane's high-rise height limit could be tested to its limits for the third time if a new high-rise, set to be approved by council, gets off the ground.

Two buildings  the under-construction Skytower and 240 Margaret Street  have already gained Brisbane City Council approval to be built to the city's 274-metre limit.

Aria Property Group's plan to add another tower to those lofty heights is set to be approved by the council next week.

Located on the corner of Edward and Elizabeth streets, near St Stephen's Catholic Cathedral, the 82-storey gold-coloured tower will go through the council's city planning committee on Tuesday morning before receiving the final tick of approval at next week's full council meeting.
The Premier has ordered a review of legal indemnity guidelines for ministers after taxpayers reportedly bore the brunt of a settlement worth more than $500,000 against Campbell Newman and Jarrod Bleijie over comments they made while in government.

The Guardian reported the former Premier and Attorney-General settled the case brought against them by Gold Coast lawyers after they referred to them as part of the "criminal gang machine", for $525,000.

Former Queensland Premier Campbell Newman. Credit:Renee Melides

It reportedly could have been less, but the pair refused to make a public apology as part of the settlement.

Under government guidelines, ministers are protected from having to pay the costs themselves and the money is paid from taxpayer funds.
A hospital patient is the second man charged over a bedside brawl involving his family members that spiralled out of control, injuring five hospital staff.

Four nurses and a security guard were hurt in the fight, with the guard and two of the nurses still unable to return to work at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, sparking a call from the nurses union to do more to prevent violence.

Police allege a female nurse was punched in the arm and kicked in the back of the head, a male nurse was left with scratches and another suffered cuts while the security guard was left with a fractured elbow.

They charged a 16-year-old boy on Monday with the serious assault of two of the nurses, crimes carrying 14-year maximum penalties.
Correctional officers and staff at five prisons walked off the job in response to the dangerous conditions they faced in overcrowded prisons.

Staff at the Brisbane, Wolston, Lotus Glen, Capricornia and Woodford correctional centres stopped work on Monday as workers at other statewide correctional centres held meetings outside shift hours in support of what they believe is an unfair and dangerous environment for prison staff.

The strike meant prisoners at five correctional centres across Queensland had to be "locked down".

Together Union industrial services director Michael Thomas said it wasn't reasonable for staff to be directed to intervene in situations where they could be injured.

"Every centre in the state is over capacity now and to be honest there is no answer around the corner in the foreseeable future," he said.
A 17-year-old girl who jumped from a moving car in Brisbane's south last week during a fight with her brother has died in hospital.

Carmen Pua was in the back of her brother Kevin's car as it travelled along Progress Road in Richlands last Wednesday when a fight erupted between the pair about 10.30pm.

Mr Pua told 7 News Queensland in an unexpected move, his sister jumped from the back of his car.

Police at the scene said it was travelling "at speed" when she jumped.
The appointment of two Newman-era headkickers to key roles on the LNP front bench signals a more robust approach to both the Parliament and the Palaszczuk Government under the new LNP Opposition Leader.

Jeff Seeney is Leader of Opposition Business and Jarrod Bleijie is industrial relations spokesman.

Not that day one in parliament went well for the LNP. Deputy Deb Frecklington attempted to muscle up to the premier, on appointments to the magistracy only to have Speaker Wellington rule the question out of order as a reflection on the judiciary.

Day two saw Mrs Frecklington make a tasteless comment about Julia Gillard jumping off the Kangaroo Point cliffs. As a beef farmer, Deb Frecklington should know all about the risks associated with foot in mouth disease.
Q. I am 63 and have been operating a small crash repair business for more than 30 years from a factory that I own. I am now considering retiring and my factory has almost tripled in value. I have been told about a capital gains tax exemption that would reduce any tax payable on the sale of the factory, would I be eligible for it and how does it work?

One of the other announcements in this year's budget, the lifetime limit of $500,000 on non-concessional contributions, could have reduced the effectiveness of the small business CGT 15-year and retirement concessions.

As a part of making this announcement there was a clear statement that the $2 million SBE turnover test would remain the same when it came to accessing the small business capital gains tax concessions.

There was a lot of good news for small business owners in this year's federal budget. Increasing the Small Business Entity turnover threshold from $2 million to $10 million will allow more small businesses to access the SBE tax concessions.

A. There are two ways that an owner is eligible to access the small business CGT exemptions. The first is if the business qualifies as an SBE by having a turnover of less than $2 million, the second is if the net value of the owner's assets counted under the test are valued at less than $6 million.

Once a person qualifies for the capital gains tax concessions they only apply to active assets, which are those assets used in the conducting of a business. In your case this would include your factory and the value of any goodwill realised on the sale of the business.

If you qualify for the CGT concessions the main one that will apply is the 15 year exemption. Under this exemption where a business asset has been owned continuously for 15 years, the owner is 55 or older, and it is sold as a result of retiring, all of the capital gain is exempt up to a limit of $1.395 million.

If this exemption is not used the active asset discount of 50 per cent can be used to reduce the capital gain made after the general 50 per cent CGT discount. The business owner can then use the small business CGT retirement exemption so that no capital gains tax is payable on the gain up to a limit of $500,000.

Business owners under 55 must contribute they retirement exemption to a super fund, while owners 55 and older don't have to make a contribution to super. The 15 year CGT exemption contribution and the retirement exemption are classed as non-concessional contributions within a super fund.
The type of tram which derailed and crashed into a house in Kew has a history of "enormous safety issues" and should be taken off the tracks, the tram union says.

Phil Altieri from the Rail, Tram and Bus Union has claimed there has been "nothing but trouble" with C-Class trams since their introduction.

"There's been a whole host of problems, it's not just about derailment," he told radio station 3AW.
A driver who killed six teenagers in Mildura in a horror hit-run accident in 2006 has been released from prison.

Thomas Towle, 44, was released on Monday morning, less than a year after returning to prison for breaching his parole.

Victoria's Adult Parole Board confirmed Towle would be released on parole but did not outline the conditions he would be subject to.

A spokesman for the parole board did not offer reasons for his release, saying only that the board had considered the "safety and protection of the community".
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The worlds oldest living person, an East New Yorker who ascribed her longevity to eating bacon, splitting with her underwhelming ex-husband, and forgoing children, died on May 12 at the age of 116.

Supercentenarian Susannah Miss Susie Mushatt Jones swore off alcohol and smoking, makeup, and never dyed her hair, but she indulged in bacon and grits every morning right up until the end  and it certainly kept her young, her niece said.

Up until recently she continued to still eat her bacon and eggs, said 76-year-old Bensonhurster Lois Judge. Its amazing.

Jones became the countrys only living soul whose life spanned three centuries on June 17, 2015, when the worlds then-oldest died in her sleep.

The sprightly senior was born on July 6, 1899 in rural Alabama. She graduated high school and then made the big move to the Big Apple via a three-day train trip in December 1922. She became a housekeeper and nanny all over the country  in New Jersey, Westchester County, Florida, and Hollywood. She made just $7 a week but saved advantageously to create a scholarship fund for students at her former high school and support her relatives as they relocated to New York.

Jones married in the late-1920s, but divorced shortly after and had no children  another factor she contributed to her longevity.

She retired in 1965 and went back to Alabama before returning to New York for good. Then moved into the Vandalia Senior Center in East New York as soon as it opened in 1983 and lived there until her final breath, celebrating every single birthday along the way  with many of her more than 100 nieces and nephews helping her blow out all the candles.

Judge spent nearly every birthday with her aunt at the senior center and said Jones couldnt believe she was the worlds oldest living person.

We were telling her she was the oldest person, and she said, That cant be true. And we said, Yes it is,  even she didnt believe it, she said. Were happy to have known her all these years, shes been very generous in her time and effort in speaking to us about life. She was a lovely person.

The worlds oldest person now lives in Italy, according to Reuters.
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This is one way to get a park looking like a million bucks.

The state could seize a Williamsburg waterfront property the city has long promised to buy and use to expand Bushwick Inlet Park then slap Mayor DeBlasio with a $1-million fine every year he doesnt turn it into green space, if local lawmakers succeed in passing a new bill they hope will force Hizzoner into action.

My objective was to allow the [state] to buy the property, give it to the city, and say, Weve got you a park Mr. Mayor  now its your job to outfit it,  said Assemblyman Joe Lentol (DGreenpoint), who drafted the legislation with state Sen. Daniel Squadron (DWilliamsburg).

The pair say they got sick of the city claiming it cant afford to purchase the 11-acre CitiStorage warehouse at 10th Street, which it needs to finish the 28-acre park that officials promised to build between the East River and Kent Avenue as compensation for rezoning much of the waterfront for luxury housing in 2005.

Lentol and Squadrons bill allows the state to seize the property via eminent domain  which means the owner has to sell, but receives a market-rate price  and then work out a deal to either give or sell it to DeBlasio.

Once the land changes hands, the state could then slug the city with a penalty of a million smackeroos for every year it doesnt build the park.

A senate committee just approved the legislation, which the lawmakers say is a promising sign the Republican-controlled house will actually vote on it this session.

But even if it clears both houses, Gov. Cuomo would still need to sign off on the plan. He spiked Lentols last do-gooding eminent domain bill  to seize an imperiled Williamsburg senior center  though this one offers a particularly high-profile chance for the governor to show up his nemesis DeBlasio.

One legal expert says it would be very unusual for a government body to use eminent domain to force another into paying for land  though it is common for the state to lump city pols with unwanted programs.

This is a constant criticism of the state by virtually every municipality  that the state tries to take credit for programs that provide benefit to the public, and then shifts the costs onto the municipality, said Stewart Sterk, a professor of real estate law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

Lentol insists the bill would only allow the state to seize the land, however  the transfer to the city would be a separate deal between the two parties, and the only pressure for it to agree or pay would come from members of the public.

And locals backing the legislation say it is only asking city officials to do something they devised in the first place.

Its promised as a park, said Greenpoint resident Steve Chesler, who is a member of activist group Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park. Its not like theyre taking peoples homes away  its definitely for the common good, for the taxpayers.

Indeed, CitiStorage owner Norm Brodsky does wants to sell the property  much of which burned down last year.

He claims it is worth upwards of $325 million, though the park activists believe $75 million to $92 million would be a more realistic price tag, as the land is not zoned for residential buildings and DeBlasio has promised he wont rezone it for housing.

A City Hall spokeswoman says it is currently reviewing the proposed law.

The Daily News was first to report on the bill.
Any Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead fan knows that things arent always what they seem when the groups stumble upon what seems to be safety, shelter and people. In Sicut Cervus, the group makes it to Mexico, but things arent as they seem. Victor, always the skeptic, finds out a lot quicker than the rest, while Strand makes a tough decision and Chris seems to have lost it.

Fear the Walking Dead Recap: Can Madison Rescue Her Family in Time? >>>

Whats Up in Mexico?

At a church service in Mexico, the priest gives a sermon and then leads the parishioners outside, where they pick up weapons as if ready for a fight. Thomas pulls up and begs them to stop what they are doing. Soon, they all start bleeding from their eyes, and the priest looks at Thomas and blames Celia.

Bienvenidos a Mexico

Meanwhile, on the Abigail, they are approaching Mexico pretty quickly. Strand explains that Luis will make the payment and it will be smooth into Baja. Except, two guards board the ship and Strand makes everyone hide in the lower deck. The group emerges after they hear gunfire to find the guards dead and Luis severely injured. Victor makes sure each guard is officially dead, but Ofelia and Nick wont let him kill Luis, who gives them a coin with a symbol to give to his mother. Victor doesnt want to hear it, so he tosses the coin and leaves him to die on his own.

Eventually, they make it to land and start their trek to Thomas property. They find his truck at the church with the walker parishioners. As they attack, Victor hesitates when a child attacks him, so Ofelia rescues him. Nick kills another child but is very upset about it  and rightfully so. And Chris hesitates when Madison is attacked, letting Alicia eventually step in to rescue her mother.

They reach the compound soon enough, which is surrounded by a cement wall. Behind the walls are a working farm and a huge mansion. Celia welcomes them and brings Strand straight to a dying Thomas, who was bit. Her staff welcomes the rest of the group, who makes them leave their weapons with them.

Fear the Walking Dead Recap: Alicias Past Comes Back to Haunt Her >>>

Something isnt Right

Immediately, Victor senses that something is up, but he cant quite put his finger on it. Madison also senses something is up with Celia but has enough problems of her own to worry about her just yet. Nick bonds with Celia pretty quickly, though.

Instead of joining the group for dinner, Victor walks around the grounds. At first, he spies a child dropping a dog into a chute. Then he finds a boy speaking to someone. When he confronts the boy, the child says hes speaking with his mother behind a gate. When Victor enters the cellar, he sees a bunch of walkers behind a metal gate, a la Hershel from The Walking Dead.

Later, Victor confronts Celia about her little secret, as shes preparing some communion wafers, and Victor realizes she poisoned the whole church. She claims she didnt kill them, but rather Victor and the group killed them. You know, after they already died and turned. Crazy woman!

Whats Up with Chris?

While they were on the ship, before Mexico, Travis confronts Chris about what happened with Connor and asks why he shot him. He says he doesnt believe Connor was sick. Chris immediately gets defensive and wants to know why Madison and everyone else doesnt like him. Perhaps its because hes a ticking time bomb ready to go off at any second?

At the compound, Alicia confronts Chris about why he hesitated back at the church instead of saving Madison. Chris begs Alicia not to tell anyone and threatens her to keep quiet. She, of course, tells Madison, who fights with Travis about it. Travis just wants to help Chris, but Im not exactly sure what Madison wants to do about it.

While Madison and Alicia sleep, Chris walks in their room, lamely attempts to wake Alicia up and then proceeds to the nightstand where he picks up a knife. Hes interrupted when he hears gunshots, and the ladies wake up.

Fear the Walking Dead Recap: What Happened to Flight 462? >>>

Saying Goodbye

Strand stays by Thomas side until the very end. He tells Thomas they can go together, as hell ask Celia for a little help with that. This way, they both can be together for eternity. However, after Thomas passes, Strand doesnt eat the poisoned communion host. Instead, he grabs a gun and shoots Thomas in the head.

New Threats

It seems the group is facing even bigger threats and some walkers. I can only assume Strand officially killing Thomas will not sit well with Celia, who seems to think the walkers are simply what comes next, rather than an ending. Her excuse for keeping the walkers was simply that they are family  just as Hershel used to say on The Walking Dead.

While weve seen this storyline before, I think it will force the group to really unite to perhaps take over the compound. At least, thats what Rick Grimes would do. But Madison isnt strong enough to be the next Rick. Perhaps Victor can take that role?

And Chris just needs to go. The last thing the group needs is a bratty teenager who is trying to fit in during the apocalypse.

Im really curious to see what will happen on this Mexican compound. Im happy they are off the boat, and I hope they dont get back on. Instead, Id like to see them take over the compound somehow and live happily ever after. Oh wait, that wont happen on Fear the Walking Dead!

Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9pm on AMC.

(Image courtesy of AMC)
If theres one thing weve learned from Game of Thrones, its that you dont mess with Daenerys Targaryen. In this weeks episode a bunch of men try to tell her what to do, but like the worlds greatest feminist icon, she refuses and decides to take everything for herself. Theres a very good reason that one of her many nicknames is the Unburnt.

But thats not the only great moment from Game of Thrones this week as we finally get a Stark family reunion between two characters who havent seen each other since the shows very first episode. There are actually family reunions all over the Seven Kingdoms with the Tyrells and Greyjoys.

Dany Takes Control

Jorah and Daario finally track down Daenerys to rescue her, but they obviously dont know their queen very well because shes no damsel in distress.

The Dothraki men meet to decide what to do with Drogos widow and they settle on selling or raping her. Its a powerful feminist social commentary as a bunch of men sit around deciding what to do with a woman, but Dany stands up for herself and decides shes the only one worthy of leading all of the Dothraki forces.

So Dany tips over the fire pits and burns all of the Dothreaki men alive while Jorah and Daario lock the doors from the outside. Just like at the end of season 1, Dany is the Unburny, incapable of being hurt by flames. She talks outside like shes Beyonce in Lemonade and all of the other Dothrakis bow down before her naked glory.

A Stark Family Reunion

At Castle Black, Jon Snow is ready to leave when he gets some unexpected visitors: Brienne, Podrick and Sansa! Yes, Jon Snow and Sansa Stark are finally reunited after not seeing each other since the first episode of the series. Theres also a bad-ass moment when Brienne tells Davos and Melisandre that she killed Stannis.

Sansa wants her big brother to help take back Winterfell and defeat Ramsey, but his heart isnt in the fight anymore. However, he receives a letter from Ramsey Bolton taunting him about how Ramsey has Rickon in his dungeon and he will take over the Nights Watch and brutally rape and murder Sansa.

This changes everything. Now it looks like Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, Brienne, Podrick, Davos, Melisandre, Eddison, the Nights Watch, Tormund and the wildlings are all on the same page about attacking the Bolton army. Sweet Jesus, thats gonna be an amazing battle.

In related news, Tormund appears to be attracted to Brienne (yes, please!) and Ramsey Bolton kills Osha when she tries to kill him. So sad, shes the first character to die this season I actually liked. Also, Littlefinger reconnects with Robin Arryn and claims that hes willing to join forces with Jon and Sansa to take down Ramsey. Am I the only one who thinks that Littlefinger may have sent that letter to Jon Snow posing as Ramsey?

The Lannister/Tyrell Alliance

In Kings Landing Margaery Tyrell finally gets to see her brother Loras and hes not doing so well. Hes not well-suited for prison and just wants to go home, he doesnt care about anything else.

Meanwhile, Cersei and Jaime decide to stop fighting with Olenna Tyrell and join forces to take down the High Sparrow. Their plan is for the Tyrells to send an army to Kings Landing to attack the Faith Militant and rescue Margaery and Loras. This feels like a classic Lannister double-cross to me.

Tyrion Negotiates for Peace

In Meereen, Tyrion meets with the leaders of the other cities to negotiate a peace so theyll stop supporting the Sons of the Harpy. Instead of abolishing slavery immediately, he proposes ending it in seven years so the masters can have time to adjust to this new world order.

Grey Worm, Missandei and the slaves of Meereen arent wild about this idea, but Tyrion insists that hes on their side and that its a necessary evil.

A Greyjoy Family Reunion

Theon returns home to Pyke where his sister is suspicious that hes only there to take over the throne from their recently dead father. Theon insists that hes not and he fully endorses his sister Yara to take over. Well see how that goes next week at the Kingsmoot.

This was definitely a huge step up from last week as the plot actually moved forward. Jon Snow and Sansa are reunited and Daenerys is done with her Vaas Dothrak detour, so now things can start to move forward.

Next week on Game of Thrones: Bran meets the Nights King. But its probably just another vision.

(Image courtesy of HBO)
UB one of three winners in Gov. Cuomos Energy to Lead competition

I congratulate our winning students and faculty, and commend them for their commitment to helping to build a cleaner, greener New York. 

BUFFALO, N.Y.  A University at Buffalo-backed plan to create 100 megawatts of new, locally produced solar energy within the next four years is among the winners of a clean energy competition for New York colleges and universities.

Winners of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomos $3 million Energy to Lead competition were announced today (May 16) in an event at Bard College in Dutchess County.

The Energy to Lead program is part of the Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) Campus Challenge, an initiative sponsored by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

As an Energy to Lead recipient, the UB proposal will receive $1 million to help implement its plan. The two other winners are Bard College and SUNY Broome Community College in Binghamton.

Cuomo announced the Energy to Lead competition in October 2015 to challenge colleges and universities to develop innovative plans for clean energy projects.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) administered the competition, which was open to private and public universities and colleges and student-led coalitions from two- or four-year institutions.

The Energy to Lead Competition' is challenging New Yorks emerging energy leaders to turn innovative ideas into cutting-edge solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy bills and improve resiliency in communities across the state, Cuomo said. I congratulate our winning students and faculty, and commend them for their commitment to helping to build a cleaner, greener New York.

The University at Buffalo is honored to be selected by Gov. Cuomos Energy to Lead competition and the innovative Reforming the Energy Vision initiative, said UB President Satish K. Tripathi.

Our university has a long tradition of leadership in research, education and engagement initiatives focused on creating a more sustainable future for our communities and our world. This groundbreaking proposal leverages this leadership and will help us build even further on our impact. We look forward to working with our community to realize the great potential of this initiative, from further implementing our climate action plan to achieving energy savings and driving economic vitality in our region, Tripathi added.

UB is the lead agency in a consortium of Buffalo-based institutions in the Localizing Buffalos Renewable Energy Future initiative.

The project aims to create 100 megawatts of new solar energy that will be manufactured in Buffalo, connected by Western New York workers and installed on properties in Buffalos urban core and on several local college campuses, including UB, SUNY Buffalo State and Erie Community College.

It is estimated that the initiative will:

produce $125 million in lower energy costs and savings

create 3,300 new local jobs

infuse more than $250 million in economic impact into the region

reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 82,000 metric tons annually

The proposal will leverage the innovative work being done with Renewable Energy Purchase Agreements (REPA), or contracts to purchase power from a renewable energy project for a predetermined price over a specified period of time. This allows institutions like UB to work with project developers who finance the money needed to build a project while allowing energy purchasers to avoid the need to use up-front capital.

UBs Localizing plan will enable multiple institutions to increase their purchasing power, which will significantly lower the price point. UB, SUNY Buffalo State and ECC each have committed to purchase 25 percent of their energy from the Localizing REPA, as long as the competitive price point falls well below their respective historical rolling average energy prices.

The project also aims to partner with the City of Buffalo and community organizations to utilize long-vacant properties throughout the city for solar panel siting, as well as city infrastructure  such as fire and police stations, parking lots and community centers  and local college campuses.

UB will look to its 3,200-photovoltaic panel Solar Strand for inspiration in integrating solar into Buffalo neighborhoods. The Solar Strand was designed to be accessible to the public  not fenced off to be avoided  while producing enough electricity to fuel 700 student apartments.

The Localizing Buffalos Renewable Energy Future initiative symbolizes UBs commitment to sustainability, both on campus and within the larger community. Among its goals, the university strives to become climate neutral by 2030.

A recognized leader in sustainability in New York State and across the nation, UB recently ranked No. 1 on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Green Power Partnership list of the largest college and university green power users.

UBs project partners include: the City of Buffalo, SUNY Buffalo State, the Education Leadership Fellows in Sustainability program at UB, Erie Community College, Erie County, Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

I would like to extend a personal thanks to our project partners, who were critical to the success of getting this proposal selected, as were our student, faculty and staff representatives who worked tirelessly on preparing the proposal, said Ryan McPherson, UBs chief sustainability officer. This truly was a collaborative effort on a significant scale.
Campus News

New artwork provides more cozy space on campus

The artwork is attracting a lot of attention. Passersby stop to look, touch and even snap a few photos. Photo: Chad Cooper

Installation of the sculpture is part of an effort to improve the UB experience for students by developing small, comfortable spaces throughout the campuses. Photo: Chad Cooper

The sculpture is made of thin layers of marine wood. Artist Michael Beitz says he first constructed an internal form, then bent the wood over the form to create the sculpture. Photo: Chad Cooper

"Whippy," a new piece of public art, recently was installed on Founders Plaza near Baldy Hall and the Student Union on the North Campus as part of the Small Facility and Grounds Spaces initiative. Photo: Chad Cooper

By SUE WUETCHER

I hope this becomes something that people interact with. 

They stop. They touch. They pull out their phones. They snap pictures.

And its OK, too, UB planners say, to take a seat, eat your lunch or maybe even grab a nap.

Thats the idea behind Whippy, the new piece of public artwork that was installed recently on Founders Plaza near Baldy Hall and the Student Union on the North Campus as part of the Small Facility and Grounds Spaces initiative.

The piece by UB alum Michael Beitz  and another by the artist to be installed on Diefendorf Quad on the South Campus later in the summer  are part of an effort to improve the UB experience for students by developing small, comfortable spaces throughout the campuses.

The bright turquoise sculpture resembles a picnic table  with the end coiled on top of the table. Its representative of the current work of Beitz, who received an MFA from UB in 2009.

Beitzs name came up for the project, according to Kelly Hayes McAlonie, director of the Capital Planning Group, which is designing and implementing the Small Spaces initiative, when planners began to look for artists who could create interesting art pieces that also had a practical purpose.

We didn't realize he was a UB alumnus until we spoke with him. It was a wonderful coincidence and he was excited by the prospect of doing two pieces for his alma mater, said Hayes McAlonie, who is working on the project with CPG planner Daryl Ryan. Former UB architectural planner Linsey Graff also worked on the initial implementation of Small Spaces.

Other than specific guidelines for the site, planners were open to Beitzs ideas and color choices for the artwork, she said.

For his part, Beitz said he chose the picnic table form because he had worked with it in the past and thought it was interesting as a kind of communal, shared place to spend time.

Whippy is made of thin layers of marine wood. Beitz said he first constructs an internal form, then bends the wood over the form to create the sculpture.

The color was a bit out of his wheelhouse, he admitted  he favors shades more typical of the subject, like forest green for a picnic table. A hint of purple peeks from between the slats  matched, Beitz said, to the color of the flowers of a lilac bush. The planned South Campus piece  in the shape of a question mark  will be even more colorful, he said.

Personally, I love the piece, Hayes McAlonie said of the Founders Plaza sculpture. I hope we can add to this collection over time. I really appreciate the whimsy and playfulness of it.

The artwork certainly is drawing a lot of attention. Many students walking by during a recent photo shoot stopped, asked questions and took photos. Theres been a really nice response, said Beitzs wife, Masha.

Its fun, said Dennis Black, vice president for university life and services, who is coordinating the Small Spaces initiative. People are going to be putting it to good use.

The North Campus, Black noted, is made up of roads and buildings  all in the same color running in straight lines. With the new artwork, we might be able to twist and turn and have some fun every once in a while, he said.

My guess is that people will stop and stare and take photos and talk and think and have lunch. Theres more to come.

And the coiled section provides a good place for a nap, Beitz added. I hope this becomes something that people interact with.

Beitz said he made his first art pieces while at UB  he mentioned upholstering a sofa and tying it in a knot  and later trained as a furniture maker with Wendell Castle, considered by many to be the father of the art furniture movement, in his studio in Scottsville, N.Y.

Currently an assistant professor in the art department at the University of Colorado Boulder, his work has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums, among them the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Banksys Dismaland in the UK and the Madison (Wisconsin) Museum of Contemporary Art.

He also has a piece  a tree-shaped picnic table sculpture  at Artfarms Michigan-Riley Farm at Michigan Avenue and Laurel Street on Buffalos East Side.
Campus News

UB one of three winners in Cuomos Energy to Lead competition

UB will look to its Solar Strand for inspiration in integrating solar into Buffalo neighborhoods as it implements its Energy to Lead plan. Photo: Douglas Levere

By DAVID J. HILL

We look forward to working with our community to realize the great potential of this initiative, from further implementing our climate action plan to achieving energy savings and driving economic vitality in our region.

A UB-backed plan to create 100 megawatts of new, locally produced solar energy within the next four years is among the winners of a state clean-energy competition for New York colleges and universities.

Winners of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomos $3 million Energy to Lead competition were announced today (May 16) in an event at Bard College in Dutchess County. The Energy to Lead program is part of the Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) Campus Challenge, an initiative sponsored by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

As an Energy to Lead recipient, the UB proposal will receive $1 million to help implement its plan. The two other winners are Bard College and SUNY Broome Community College in Binghamton.

Cuomo announced the Energy to Lead competition last October to challenge colleges and universities to develop innovative plans for clean energy projects.

NYSERDA administered the competition, which was open to private and public universities and colleges, and student-led coalitions from two- or four-year institutions.

The winners of this competition will transform ideas into real clean-energy solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy bills and improve resiliency for campuses and their surrounding communities, Cuomo said. I extend my congratulations to the winning students and faculty, and commend them for their commitment to combating climate change by building a cleaner and healthier environment.

President Satish K. Tripathi said UB is honored to be selected to take part in the initiative.

Our university has a long tradition of leadership in research, education and engagement initiatives focused on creating a more sustainable future for our communities and our world, Tripathi said. This groundbreaking proposal leverages this leadership and will help us build even further on our impact.

We look forward to working with our community to realize the great potential of this initiative, from further implementing our climate action plan to achieving energy savings and driving economic vitality in our region, he added.

UB is the lead agency in a consortium of Buffalo-based institutions in the Localizing Buffalos Renewable Energy Future initiative. The project aims to create 100 megawatts of new solar energy that will be manufactured in Buffalo, connected by Western New York workers and installed on properties in Buffalos urban core and on several local college campuses, including UB, SUNY Buffalo State and Erie Community College.

It is estimated that the initiative will:

Produce $125 million in lower energy costs and savings.

Create 3,300 new local jobs.

Infuse more than $250 million in economic impact into the region.

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 82,000 metric tons annually.

The proposal will leverage the innovative work being done with Renewable Energy Purchase Agreements (REPA), or contracts to purchase power from a renewable energy project for a predetermined price over a specified period of time. This allows institutions like UB to work with project developers who finance the money needed to build a project while allowing energy purchasers to avoid the need to use up-front capital.

UBs Localizing plan will enable multiple institutions to increase their purchasing power, which will significantly lower the price point. UB, SUNY Buffalo State and ECC each have committed to purchase 25 percent of their energy from the Localizing REPA, as long as the competitive price point falls well below their respective historical rolling average energy prices.

The project also aims to partner with the city of Buffalo and community organizations to utilize long-vacant properties throughout the city for solar panel siting, as well as city infrastructure  such as fire and police stations, parking lots and community centers  and local college campuses.

UB will look to its 3,200-photovoltaic panel Solar Strand for inspiration in integrating solar into Buffalo neighborhoods. The Solar Strand was designed to be accessible to the public  not fenced off to be avoided  while producing enough electricity to fuel 700 student apartments.

The Localizing Buffalos Renewable Energy Future initiative symbolizes UBs commitment to sustainability, both on campus and within the larger community. Among its goals, the university strives to become climate neutral by 2030. A recognized leader in sustainability in New York State and across the nation, UB recently ranked No. 1 on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Green Power Partnership list of the largest college and university green power users.

UBs project partners include the city of Buffalo, SUNY Buffalo State, the Education Leadership Fellows in Sustainability program at UB, Erie Community College, Erie County, Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

I would like to extend a personal thanks to our project partners, who were critical to the success of getting this proposal selected, as were our student, faculty and staff representatives who worked tirelessly on preparing the proposal, said Ryan McPherson, UBs chief sustainability officer. This truly was a collaborative effort on a significant scale.
JELD-WEN has appointed Graeme Robinson as its new managing director. Mr Robinson brings many years of UK, European, and global manufacturing experience to the business, with over 25 years in senior management roles across a number of sectors.

Mr Robinson was most recently the divisional managing director and vice president of LINPAC Packaging where he worked across the UK, Ireland, the Middle East, and Australia.

He said: "I am excited to be working with such an established industry brand which has a rich heritage and strong relationships to build on. My mission is to continue driving the company forward in collaboration with our customers in order to develop a first class, customer first business.
Phillies are World Series bound! How to watch, plus the full schedule

The Phillies are heading to the World Series for the first time since 2009. Follow along as Philadelphia takes on the Houston Astros.
Apple's chief executive officer Tim Cook is coming to India this week, his first visit to the country as the CEO of the Cupertino-headquartered company. Cook will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the weekend and is likely to announce the company's plans to manufacture iPhones locally.

The company's largest global manufacturing partner, Foxconn, has already signed a joint venture with the Adani Group to manufacture products in the country.

While a spokesperson of in India declined to share the details about Cook's visit to India, a government official privy to this information confirmed that a meeting between Cook and Modi has been fixed for this Saturday.

During his stay in the country, Cook is expected to visit Bengaluru and Hyderabad. has already announced it would set up a development centre in Hyderabad, to start with around 150 people, who would support on the development of maps. In New Delhi, apart from the meeting with the Prime Minister, Cook also has some private dinner engagements, according to sources in the know.

Cook's visit to India comes days after the government rejected Apple's proposal to import and sell refurbished iPhones in the country. The company is also close to getting the go-ahead to open its own branded stores in India, after the government agreed to waive off the 30 per cent local sourcing condition.

With diminishing prospects in large global markets such as the US and China, Apple is looking to develop India as a market that will offset declining iPhone sales, a trend which surfaced in the January-March quarter of this year. While iPhone sales fell 16 per cent globally, sales in India grew by a healthy 56 per cent. "Because the smartphones that are working there (India) are low end, primarily because of the network and the economics, the market potential has not been as great. But I view India where China was seven to 10 years ago. From that point of view, I think there's a really great opportunity there," Cook said in a conference call with investors.

During his visit to Silicon Valley last year, Modi is said to have asked Cook to consider manufacturing iPhones in India. The PM had travelled to the US to make a pitch to leading Silicon Valley and other US technology to invest in India and help the country realise its "Make in India" and "Digital India" initiatives.

Currently, Apple's play in the Indian market is quite small, largely owing to the high prices of its devices. To put things into perspective, nine out of 10 smartphones sold in the country cost between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000, whereas Apple's cheapest smartphone - iPhone SE - was launched in the country at Rs 39,000.

"Cook's visit basically shows the increased significance of India as a market for Apple," said Vishal Tripathi, an analyst with research firm Gartner. "If you look at the matured markets, their growth and penetration has reached its peak. With telcos in India offering 4G/LTE at the same price points as 3G, I think he is looking at India as a market for the future."



Apple's proposal to import refurbished devices into the country faced a lot of opposition from rival manufacturers who said the move would trigger a flood of used electronics to come into the country and defeat the 'Make in India' mission. A similar proposal by Apple was denied by the environment ministry in 2015.

"If he is coming to India, it could be for many other things - not just for pushing the agenda of refurbished phones," said an industry expert who did not wish to be named. "I don't think the proposal to bring refurbished phones will go through, owing to stiff opposition by many local players such as Micromax and Intex."



Apple controls a two per cent share of the Indian smartphone market in volume terms, which means it sells close to two million iPhones a year. Globally, Apple sold 51.1 million iPhones in the three months ended March 31.
Steel tycoons have a fetish for lavish weddings. Lakshmi Niwas Mittal got his daughter married in one of the most expensive weddings of the time at the Palace of Versailles, in 2004; Pramod Mittal reportedly spent Rs 500 crore for his daughter's wedding at Barcelona in 2013; the latest to make it to the list is Sajjan Jindal who got his son, Parth, married at Vienna last week.

Opulence, glitz and glamour: the Jindal wedding had all the makings of a Bollywood extravaganza. The rich and the powerful were all there, from Lakshmi Mittal to the Ambanis. The venues in Austria -Hofburg Imperial Palace, Liechtenstein Palace, Art for Art, Belvedere Palace - were iconic. And the icing on the cake was a performance by Enrique Iglesias.

In Mumbai circles, Jindal had last made news in 2012 when he bought a Rs 500-crore bungalow to make a seven-storey family home. Jindal's present house at Walkeshwar facing the Arabian Sea is equally palatial, though he prefers not to talk about his houses in Mumbai.

The glitz is a sign of arrival: from a plant of just one million tonne to being India's largest private sector steel producer with a capacity of 18 million tonnes, through organic growth as well as acquisitions, Jindal has come a long way in just about two decades.

Last week, in the middle of the celebrations in Vienna, news broke that JSW Steel was one of the seven bidders for Tata Steel's UK assets. The company statement read: as part of its growth strategy, the company evaluates several opportunities including the current opportunity of UK steel facilities. It is premature to add any further at this stage.

The party at Vienna continued but investment analysts started to get worried: won't this cause JSW Steel's debt to spiral?



At the end of September 2015, JSW's total debt was at Rs 37,364 crore, up from Rs 21,346 crore in FY13; interest outgo at the end of March 31, 2015 stood at Rs 3,493 crore.

In February, ICRA downgraded JSW Steel by a notch and changed the outlook to negative on the back of a significant drop in steel prices due to downturn in the global industry and unabated imports at predatory prices.

"No large extraordinary cap-ex or investment was planned earlier for the next one or two years beyond the normal. In that context, the potential bid may affect the company's liquidity and capital structure," says ICRA Senior Vice-president Jayanta Roy. "But it would also have to be seen what this acquisition, if it materialises, would mean for cash flows and whether it would be adequate to service incremental debt."



The steel market has recovered to an extent since the downgrade, though. The minimum import price imposed by the government has restored domestic prices; globally too prices have moved up by around $250 a tonne, or 91 per cent, in the past three months.

Yet the question doing the rounds is, how Jindal could possibly make the acquisition work given that has been losing a million pounds a day on these assets.

Akash Gupta, associate director, Fitch Ratings' Corporate Group in Singapore, says JSW Steel's net leverage will jump to above six times in FY16, compared to 4.5 times in FY15, indicating a relatively weak financial profile. "We expect gradual improvement in credit metrics, subject to risk of any material debt-funded expansion or acquisition. However, it is a bit early to comment specifically on the potential bid."



The dark horse of steel

Then there are those who feel Jindal can pull off the acquisition. "JSW Steel has the financial muscle and credibility to take these calls," says Ankit Miglani of Uttam Galva Steels group which is a customer of the company.

A Prabhudas Lilladher report after the third quarter results, too, said: current performance underscores our view that JSW Steel would be relatively better off in the existing environment due to improved domestic iron ore supplies, rich product-mix and highly competitive operations.

What makes Jindal a credible investor is that he has a proven track record of succeeding where others have failed.

In the mid-1990s, the Narasimha Rao government auctioned the Vijayanagar Steel Plant, which was a non-starter, to Jindal and Mukand. The plant had about 6,000 acres. Jindal's share stood at around 3,700 acres. Jindal's Vijayanagar plant, then under Jindal Vijayangar Steel, is now India's largest single-location plant at 12 million tonnes, and gearing up to produce 16 million tonnes.

An old timer remembers Jindal as a shy 26-year-old when he got involved with the Vijayanagar plant with older brother Prithvi Raj Jindal in tow. "He was a very good engineer," he recalls.

The plant had no captive raw material resources. "He overcame the iron ore issue through adaptation of beneficiation of rejected iron ore fines. Non-availability of coking coal was tackled by introduction of Corex technology. The twin initiatives were revolutionary for steelmaking in India," says a JSW Steel executive. "It gave a different meaning to innovation and tackling challenges. Jindal saw opportunities in challenges."



Somewhere in the late 1990s, Jindal Vijayanagar Steel (merged with Jindal Iron and Steel Company in 2005 to form JSW) was under corporate debt restructuring as were Essar Steel, Lloys Steel Industries and Ispat Industries. A decade later, it's Jindal who stands tall among the rest.

"It's difficult to beat someone whose sole interest is doing business," a former JSW Steel official says.

Having achieved success in steel, Jindal is now trying to do a repeat in cement and energy where he is eyeing a slot among the top three in the country.

Family matters

Paradoxical as it may sound, many say Jindal is a businessman who has his heart in the right place.

In 2007, he had bailed out Prithvi Raj when he bought a 90 per cent stake in his plate mill, double jointing and coating unit and a pipe mill in the US for an enterprise value of $900 million.

More recently, JSW Energy has agreed to buy younger brother, Naveen's 1,000MW power plant for an enterprise value of Rs 4,000 crore: Rs 6,500 crore if it secures fuel and power purchase agreements.

Jindal has gone off the beaten track otherwise as well. The most inconceivable was at the peak of the agitation in Singur against Tata Motors' Nano project by "unwilling" land losers led by Mamata Banerjee (then in the Opposition).

Responding to queries on what he would have done had he been the chief minister of West Bengal, Jindal had said, he would have compensated unwilling farmers with double the land, 800 acres, next door in return for land for the Tata Motors factory at Singur.

"I am a farmer's son. I understand their sentiment," he had famously said.

He followed up on that when he handed out an exemplary package that included free shares in his project to land losers at Salboni in West Medinipur, West Bengal.

Again, when the project was put on the backburner, he offered to return the land free of cost. "He is an outstanding entrepreneur," a once-upon-a-time close associate rationalises.

Maya Angelou had said: the desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise. Jindal understands the importance of striking a balance between the two.
Telecom operators are struggling with the ambiguity on differential pricing of data services offered via closed electronic communication networks (CECN). Companies in India cannot charge differential prices on data, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai)s rules.

What this essentially means is that a telecom operator cannot charge differential prices to consumers on the basis of content. However, they can do so over Closed Electronic Communication Networks or intranets where the content is hosted on their servers.

Trai has defined CECN as a communications network where data is neither received nor transmitted over the internet.

As that content is becoming a key differentiator for telecom companies across the globe, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the industry lobbying body, has written to Trai for clarity on CECN.

In a May 16, 2016 letter, it has requested the regulator to review its decision on CECN and allow differential data rates on the basis of content, irrespective how the content is provided.

The letter says members are deliberating on different business models with content providers and it appears that this terminology (CECN Network) may lead to a subjective interpretation and could be misapplied. Furthermore, the regulation has also stated that if such a network is used for purposes of evading this regulation, the prohibition will nonetheless apply, which is again open ended.



It may be recalled that earlier this month, Bharti Airtel had written to Trai seeking permission to offer exclusive video content of a leading global content company on its CECN. It said it was approached by the global content provider offering its exclusive content on Airtel's CECN.

Before tying up with the company, Airtel had sought approval but it is likely to be turned down.

In its letter, COAI has sought clarity if a telecom operator is allowed to subsidise or discount the content in return for a share in advertising revenues.

The body has sought further clarity on whether a operator is allowed to offer subsidised subscription of its content to select or all subscribers, then would that constitute a CECN or would that be excluded from prohibition of 'differential data' charging, as the customer's respective data charges would apply.

Trai prohibits discriminatory pricing for data services by operators. However, an exception was made for closed communication networks. The February 2016 notification of the regulator on discriminatory data pricing said: No service provider shall enter into any arrangement, agreement or contract, by whatever name called, with any person, natural or legal, that has the effect of discriminatory tariffs for data services being offered or charged to the consumer on the basis of content: Provided that this regulation shall not apply to tariffs for data services over closed electronic communications networks, unless such tariffs are offered or charged by the service provider for the purpose of evading the prohibition in this regulation.



The industry is struggling to monetise data as pure-play carrier business is unlikely to pay for high capex. According to J P Morgan, unless telcos differentiate themselves, through either proprietary/licensed content or an integrated proposition, its hard to see how they can command discretionary pricing/consumption.
In a little less than a year, life has come full circle for Murugappa Group chairman A Vellayan.

Last May, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had passed an interim order, without hearing him, in the matter of alleged insider trading at Sabero Organics Gujarat (SOGL), which named Vellayan. Based on some of his family and financial relationships, Sebi had concluded he'd passed on price-sensitive information regarding the acquisition of SOGL by Coromandel International in 2011.

Vellayan resigned as chairman, while denying the allegations. He rejoined last October, after clarifying his position before Sebi.

Last week, an order by Sebi wholetime member S Raman disposed of the interim order and ordered re-investigation in the matter.

This is the second high profile insider trading case where Sebi has had to take a U-turn in recent times. In March, Sebi disposed of the case against Reliance Petroinvestments after the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) asked the regulator to take a re-look at the earlier penal order.

Raman concluded after hearing all parties that, proceeding merely on the basis of available but inadequate evidence on record, without support of any collateral material to arrive at a reasonably conclusive finding that it was indeed only Vellayan who had passed the UPSI (Unpublished Price Sensitive Information) to Murugappan, who thereafter passed on the same to Gopalakrishnan and Karuppiah, may not be just and reasonable.



C Gopalakrishnan and V Karuppaiah of the Karuppaiah Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) were said to have made gains of Rs 1.3 crore and Rs 15.3 lakh by trading in SOGL shares. A R Murugappan was the alleged link between Vellayan and these two entities.

Murugappan was the son of Vellayans grand-aunt. Gopalakrishnan had some real estate transactions during the period of Sabero trades with Murugappans son, M Subramanian. Karuppiah was Murugappans son-in-law.

Just because he is my son-in-law, it does not mean that his dealings are with my guidance or inputs. On the contrary, he not only has an independent source of income but also his own mind, Murugappan told Sebi. He also presented evidence of his sons real estate dealings with Gopalakrishnan, for which some advances were paid to the latter. Subramanian was not given a notice in the case.

Karuppiah also said in his defence that he was an active trader and his trading was based on news reports. They all referred to Vellayans stature and profile, and asked why he would give them UPSI for these meagre gains.

Vellayans defence itself hinged on the facts that Sebi didnt find any evidence of UPSI being passed on and that his relationship did not fall under the definition of 'relative'. Further, it was brought on record that there were 69 individuals or entities which were in knowledge of UPSI at the time. And, 17 other entities, many based in Kolkata, that traded in Sabero shares during the relevant period. Eight of these followed the same pattern of trades as those accused in the interim order.

No evidence of any nature at all has been brought to bear to even attempt to establish if there had been any physical or telecommunication contact between any other insider in the know of the Sabero transactions and those who traded, Vellayan told Sebi, according to the latest order. He added that the investigation had not been of any scientific nature.

Sebi now has six months to do a better job, of unearthing the financial links and information channels among these 86, if any.
The United Breweries (UB) board would continue to maintain confidence in UB Chairman unless he was convicted or asked to step down to conform with regulatory requirements, said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, an old friend of Mallya and an independent board member at UB.

If they are willing to offer me safe passage, I am willing to come and answer all questions, Mazumdar-Shaw, recalled him as saying. I feel Im being victimised, so, right now, Im in no position to return till Im treated fairly.



Mallya participated in the board meeting of UB via a video call late last week.

During the meeting, Mallya addressed concerns of the UB board, where he remains the chairman. The board development was first reported in The Economic Times.

UB, once controlled by Mallya, is now majority-owned by Dutch beer maker Heineken; he had sold sold stake to raise money to fund the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines. The latter's failure also caused the collapse of Mallyas liquor empire  he'd once controlled the largest spirits and beverages maker in the country. And, has been left owing about Rs 9,000 crore of loans to a group of banks.

Mallya, in self-exile in Britain, had proposed to participate in the Enforcement Directorates ongoing probe of him via video conferencing; the suggestion was rejected by the investigative agency.

He has apparently said he was being victimised and was willing to return for questioning if the government assured him safe passage.

Mallya is facing investigations by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation over money laundering charges on a Rs 900-crore loan raised from IDBI Bank for the defunct airline. The money was sanctioned despite an internal IDBI report to not advance the money.

The UBL board includes Frans Erik Eusman, the Asia-Pacific head of Heineken. Mallya told the board he was in a difficult position and due to this, could not return to India. He would keep them posted about new developments in the case against him. Mallya added that he continued trying to reach out to banks to settle his dues that amount to Rs 9,000 crore.

Questioned about how he was planning to settle the dues of employees of Kingfisher Airlines, Shaw quoted Mallya as saying he'd made an offer to settle these through United Breweries Holdings a while earlier but his bank accounts were frozen and the Karnataka high court had denied him the route.

Mallya left the country on March 2 and has had his passport revoked. The government of Britain has apparently advised Delhi to look at the extradition route to bring him back.
Toyota has been one of the worst impacted among automobile in the country after the recent ban on sale of diesel cars with engines larger than 2,000cc in the National Capital Region (NCR). Such sudden changes in legislation are bad not only for it but for the overall sector, Akito Tachibana, the new managing director at Toyota Kirloskar Motor, tells Alnoor Peermohamed. Edited excerpts:



The recent ban on diesel cars with engines larger than 2,000 cc in Delhi/NCR has taken a toll on Toyota. How is the company looking at mitigating the impact?



The current impact is almost eight per cent of the total sales for Toyota in India. Not only have we and our suppliers been impacted but also the dealers in Delhi. They've lost 60 per cent of their sales because they can't sell the Innova or Fortuner; both models have only diesel engines. We hope that in the next Supreme Court hearing, this ban is removed. Automobile need long-term strategies, as it takes four years or more to develop a vehicle. If, all of a sudden, the legislation tells us diesel cars are banned, we cannot continue the business and we are afraid to invest more. Of course, we want to fully comply with the laws and regulations but we need a long-term automobile industry strategy. Based on this, we can invest. What kind of technology is suitable for this country? Recently, we found diesel is most suitable and invested accordingly. And, we have only diesel engines for the Innova and Fortuner.

Globally, diesel is considered more efficient and the emission-conscious Europeans prefer diesel...



Why do they prefer diesel in Europe? Because they suffer from acid rain, which is caused by CO2 (carbon dioxide) and they're focused on reducing CO2 first, which is why they've adopted diesel. Modern diesel engines produce less CO2 than petrol cars. Whereas, in the US and Japan, everything runs on petrol. In India, I do not know why they prefer diesel but we have to remember that in every type of fuel, whether diesel, petrol or CNG, there are pros and cons. What type of fuel is most suitable for this country or what kind of combination is best is what we must consider. Diesel has been banned in Delhi because of smog. They say diesel is the bad guy but think about the fuel efficiency; think about the CO2 levels. They have to look at the whole picture; they have to take everything into consideration. One of the best solutions for Toyota is hybrids. They have good fuel efficiency and emissions are also lower.

So hybrids and electric cars are the future for Toyota in India?



For Toyota, strong hybrids are one of the answers to solve the problem of emissions, fuel efficiency and safety. So, we have introduced the Camry Hybrid - that's again from the higher segment. The next step is to figure out how to put the hybrid technology in cars from lower segments, and then our next mission is to make hybrids popular in the C-segment.

Electric vehicles (EVs) will be very difficult to make popular in India because India is a very big country and EVs need charging stations. I think there is a debate going on currently on whether plug-in hybrids are better or EVs are better but our decision is that plug-in hybrids are the best in India.

Could Toyota look at exporting diesel engines, to utilise the unused capacity at its diesel engine plant?



Not yet; we don't have any such programme. Basically, all the engines made in India are installed in vehicles sold in India. It's only for the domestic car market.

The compact car market is something Toyota hasn't been able to crack. Are we going to see a play there or will Toyota continue to stick to the higher-end segment?



We understand that 70 per cent of the Indian car market is for small cars - the B and A segments. Unfortunately, we have only the Etios there and other car makers have many models in this segment. This market is huge, but we have a very precious customer base and we would like to prioritise how to take care of our current customers. They need their next car and today the question for us is what type of car to provide.

We believe a current Innova customer who is really pleased (with the product) will next buy the new Innova Cryst. Of course, if we provide a small car, we can sell more. But, we would like to contribute to problem solving in India. Our recognition of the problem around the car market is emissions, fuel efficiency and safety, and these are very expensive ones. We would like to introduce cars of global standards in India; so, we think we have to introduce them from the higher segments, down to the bottom.
Wockhardt chairperson Habil Khorakiwala wants the patent office to hasten the grant of patents for drugs and the framing of policies to encourage clinical research.

On Monday, he said it took six to eight years for securing a patent after filing of the application. Globally, the average is two to three years.

Till now, Wockhardt had filed 2,178 applications for patents in India and other countries. In India, it has been granted 75 patents till now; it has secured 327 outside India.

The new Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy, unveiled by the government last week, aims to simplify and expedite patent application processes.

Khorakiwala says it would bring more transparency and clarity on the existing provision to disallow evergreening of patents.

A patent is granted for 20 years and companies do try to increase the term by making changes in the product before expiry.

Indian patent law administration has come under criticism, especially from the US but the government has emphasised that existing laws are compliant with World Trade Organization norms.

Khorakiwala also said the procedures followed by the Drugs Controller General of India were not friendly to companies keen to carry out clinical research in India. We prefer carrying it out abroad, he said.
A Bihar court on Monday deferred the hearing of anticipatory bail plea of Manorama Devi, a Janata Dal-United (JD-U) legislator and mother of Rocky Yadav, who is accused of murdering a businessman's teenaged son, police said.

The Gaya civil court also asked for case diary and record of the lower court in this regard but did not give any date for next hearing, a district police official said.

Manorama Devi has been evading arrest since last Wednesday when a warrant was issued against her for harbouring her fugitive son who has since been arrested.

She has also been accused of keeping liquor in her home in Gaya town in violation of the state's prohibition law.

Manorama Devi filed an anticipatory bail plea on Friday as the Gaya district administration said her house would be seized.

Authorities in Gaya last week cancelled the arms licences of Manorama Devi, who is a JD(U) member of legislative council (MLC), and her husband Bindi Yadav, a criminal-turned-politician.

Her son was arrested last Tuesday from a house in Bodh Gaya for allegedly killing on May 7 Aditya Sachdeva, the teenaged son of a Gaya-based businessman, and was remanded in police custody.

Bindi Yadav is also in custody for allegedly helping Rocky escape after the murder.

Following the widespread outrage over the murder, the JD(U) suspended Manorama Devi from its membership.

Aditya's family has demanded a CBI investigation into the case and a speedy trial of the accused.

With Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar asserting that no guilty will be spared, police promised to file a charge sheet within a month.

Additional Director General of Police (Headquarters) Sunil Kumar said: "Police have been working to complete investigations in the case within three weeks. The charge sheet will be filed within a month to ensure speedy trial."
Flagging concerns over judicial overreach yet again, Finance Minister on Monday said the judiciary must draw its own "Lakshmanrekha" and not take decisions that encroach in the domain of the executive.

"Judicial review is legitimate domain of judiciary but then the Lakshman rekha has to be drawn by all the institutions themselves. Lakshman rekha is very vital," he said. Jaitley said: "The executive decisions are to be taken by the executive and not the judiciary".

At an interaction at Indian Women's Press Corps (IWPC) here, Jaitley reasoned that there are different kinds of recourse and "layers of accountability" available when the executive takes decisions.He said people have the options of seeking changes in the decision taken by the executive besides voting out the government.

The courts can also strike down a decision taken by the executive if it is found to be unconstitutional but all these options are not available, when the court ends up taking executive decisions, Jatiley said.

Jaitley also referred to protests by many states over the Supreme Court decision on NEET and asserted that what should be the manner of holding the examination across the country is essentially an executive matter as it is in policy domain.

"It is the case of some of the states that boards are unequal, their languages are dissimilar.Can those who are dissimilar in language and unequal be placed on the pedestal of quality and asked to give the same exam? "I think this matter is essentially in the executive domain.We now have a Supreme Court judgment. We will have to see how we deal with that particular issue," he said.

The Finance Minister also said: "Just as independence of the judiciary is part of basic structure, the primacy of the legislature in policy making is also part of basic structure.

"In the name of the independence of judiciary, we cannot compromise the other two basic structures," he said. Jaitley said that "element of activism always has to be blended with element of restraint," and the "correct course is when the two are balanced."

Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Jaitley had earlier urged the legislators to refrain from handing over budgetary and taxation powers to the judiciary. Jaitley had made the remark while replying to opposition Congress' demand for a dispute redressal mechanism under which a judge would resolve any dispute between the Centre and states on GST.

On New Delhi's tax treaties, the Finance Minister said India will have to renegotiate the tax treaty with Singapore to extend the capital gains tax provisions of the recently-concluded tax pact with Mauritius. "I am not giving it a timeline, because if you recollect, the renegotiation process of the Mauritius treaty started first in 1996 and it continued till about 2002 and then there was a pause. Singapore was entered into in 2005 and one of the covenants of Singapore was that provisions of what happens in Mauritius treaty would extend to it," Jaitley said.

The Finance Minister exuded confidence that the GST Bill will be passed in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament. He added that he is "reasonably confident" that when it comes to the crunch, "it would be extremely difficult even for the Congress party to take a contrarian view" on GST Bill. Jaitley said he believes consensus to be the way ahead. "If consensus does not emerge, then the only other alternative is the parliamentary process. We will ask the Rajya Sabha and take a view on it."

On industrialist Vijay Mallya, Jaitley said investigating agencies will make every endeavour to bring him back to face law. Last week, the UK told India that it cannot deport Mallya but that New Delhi could consider an extradition request for him.

With Delhi's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government facing criticism over huge spending on advertisements, Jaitley, who also holds the Information & Broadcasting portfolio said excessive publicity has become a tool of "political bribery" and underlined the need for tackling the "big menace" of paid news.

"Therefore we need to find out a way to check it...We are now reaching a phase when excessive advertisement is acquiring the proportion of political bribery," he said, wondering should large-scale advertisement with the intention of affecting the quality of reportage be allowed.

Jaitley dismissed suggestions about "censorship" on media, saying the media now is "too large".

Replying to questions about drought, Jaitley claimed the Modi government had done more than what had ever been done to tackle the problem plaguing several states.
Industrialist has expressed his intentions of returning to India, provided he is assured of his safety and freedom, The Economic Times reported on Monday. He has also made a new settlement offer to the State Bank of India (SBI), the report added.

Mallya chaired a board meeting of United Breweries (UBL) in Mumbai on Friday, with the industrialist logging in remotely from London. During the course of the meet, he also received backing from strategic partner Heineken.

We expressed concerns over the various issues and Mallya has assured us that he is in serious negotiations with the banks to repay the loans as soon as possible. He has said he is willing to return to India to answer all questions but he has to be assured of his safety and freedom, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, an independent board member told the newspaper.

The industrialist assured the board that he was in talks with lenders. He was also backed by several members. For now, the board stands by Mallya and sees no corporate governance issues and would monitor the progress until the next (board) meeting in August, Sunil Alagh, an independent board member, told the publication.

On the issue of paying dues of employees of Kingfisher Airlines, Mallya is said to have told the board that his plan faced a hurdle due to Karnataka High Court order.

CY Pal, another independent board member said, He also told us that he had tried to repay the Kingfisher Airlines' employee dues through United Breweries Holdings but was delayed since the Karnataka High Court has frozen the accounts and assets.



Earlier last week, the United Kingdom declined Indias request for deportation of Mallya based on pending cases of money laundering in the country. However, it recommended that India adopt the extradition route to bring Mallya back to India.
Automobile makers are ready to follow Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) in using the coastal shipping route to move vehicles from their factories to other cities  an initiative that could de-congest highways and reduce pollution. However, the say using this route is not viable at the moment and that the government should give financial assistance to promote coastal shipping.

In February this year, HMIL had sent 800 made-in-Chennai cars from its Sriperumbudur plant through MV IDM Symex, a roll-on-roll-off (RoRo) vessel, from Chennai port to Pipavav port in Gujarat.

ROADBLOCK Hyundai sent 800 cars made at Sriperumbudur unit in Chennai to Pipavav port in Gujarat in Feb

Company, however, says it is not currently viable

Cost and timing a major concern

Govt proposed a scheme in 2014 to provide monetary incentives but nothing concrete has come out of it

We will dispatch more by ships to Gujarat and other states. We are talking to the government for benefits. We need financial support from the government, said Young Key Koo, managing director of HMIL.

Coastal transportation has huge potential in India, blessed with a large network of water bodies, said Guillaume Sicard, president of Nissan India Operations. We are hopeful that the proposed plan by the government in the long run would iron out the logistical challenges of auto manufacturers in Chennai.



According to a senior official with a logistics company, there are some major issues. It is not financially viable because trucks are still to be used for transporting cargo from factory to port and again from port to dealers, besides the time taken to ship the vehicles.

It takes around five days for vehicles from Chennai to dealers in Gujarat through coastal shipping. In contrast, it takes only two days if sent through trucks. These factors are pushing up the cost, adequately compensated by the modest incentives on offer. Chennai Port has a flat wharfage rate of Rs 500 per small car and Rs 2,000 for big cars. It recently reduced the wharfage for RoRo vessels by 40 per cent.

Another problem is the lack of return cargo, which means the ships have to come back empty.

According to the official cited above, to boost coastal shipping, there is a need for more small ports with good infrastructure. The government had proposed a scheme in 2014 to provide monetary incentives for coastal shipping, but nothing concrete has come out of it. According to sources in the transport ministry, under the proposed policy, transportation of vehicles through RoRo vessels would be eligible for incentives worth Rs 3,000 per car.

To promote coastal shipping and inland waterways, last year, the central government relaxed cabotage rules for special vessels such as RoRo, hybrid RoRo, RoRo-cum-passenger, pure car carriers, pure car and truck carriers, LNG vessels and project cargo carriers for five years.

This relaxation allowed vessel operators to bring foreign vessels to ply on coastal routes, as such special vessels are in short supply in India.

In India, logistics cost is 18 per cent of the total value of goods, compared to eight per cent in China and 10-12 per cent in European countries.

Nitin Gadkari, Union minister for road transport and shipping, recently said freight transportation through water was much cheaper than that through road or rail.

He added India could double exports and compete with China by reducing logistics cost from 18 per cent to 12 per cent. Here is the vision for our government to give the highest priority to the water ways. We have 7,500 km of sea front. Out of which, 78 districts and 13 states have the advantage of sea front.



If you go by waterways, the cost is 20 paise; if you go by rail the cost is Rs 1 and going by road would cost Rs 1.50. For us, the first priority is the waterways, and second priority is the Railways and the third priority is the roads.



Gadkari said his ministry was keen to encourage coastal shipping and asked Hyundai to give its suggestion in writing.

He added that his ministry would take the measures to reduce costs to make coastal shipping viable.
The central government might decide to both provide free food in certain welfare schemes like the mid-day meal for children, the Annapurna Yojana for aged poor, pregnant women and destitute people, and to also expand what is given to include eggs, milk, pulses and fortified nutritious food.

For the 25 million beneficiaries of the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), 'poorest of the poor', the plan is to provide wheat or rice free of cost. Presently, AAY beneficiaries get 35 kg of wheat or rice at Rs 3 a kg for rice and Rs 2 a kg for wheat.

Officials said both proposals are at an exploratory stage because of the high cost involved. If it goes ahead, this would be implemented as a separate scheme, perhaps named after a prominent freedom fighter.

Grain for welfare programmes like the mid-day meal or Annapurna Yojana are provided by the ministry of food and monitored by different ministries and departments. In 2015-16, the Centre says it allocated 4.12 million tonnes of grain for these.

It incurs an annual subsidy of Rs 2,800 crore in this regard



Presently, grain for most of these, which is apart from the Targeted Public Distribution (TPDS) programme in which wheat and rice is sold through ration shops, is allocated to most states at Minimum Support Programme rates or at the existing TPDS rate for Below Poverty Line families.

To ensure that no one else wrongly takes credit for the burden borne by us, we are contemplating selling the grains for free, a senior food ministry official said.
In the backdrop of rising public discourse on recurring droughts and falling ground water levels, the Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research (IISR) is now developing new varieties, which require less amount of water to proliferate.

A few years back, the water element was almost a non-issue with the researchers and breeders of new sugarcane varieties with the Institute.



"All the new researches and breeding projects are now mandated to develop such varieties, which perform well even in water stressed environment," Principal Scientist Dr A K Sah told Business Standard.

He said along with the consideration about water conservation, the new sugarcane breeding programmes also aimed at tackling the menace of red rot and insects or pests, which cause extensive damage to the cash crop.

In fact, has already developed an early maturing and high yielding variety of sugarcane, which could be cultivated in areas facing both drought or flood situations. Known as CoLK 94184, the new variety could help farmers harvest up to 75-80 tonnes per hectare as 'plant crop', followed by 70 tonnes for the next 2-3 years as 'ratoon crop'.

While combining the attributes of early maturity and good 'ratooning', CoLK 94184 is also tolerant to water logging, moisture deficit and top borer (most common sugarcane pest in UP), and resistant to red rot and smut diseases.

Since it could withstand moisture stress and water logged conditions, which are mostly prevalent in North Central Zone, the new variety is suitable for cane growers in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

"At present, this new variety is being cultivated over an estimated area of 10,000 hectares in UP," Sah informed. However, compared to the total cane acreage of 23 lakh hectares in the state during 2015-16 crushing season, it was a miniscule and needs extension.

Meanwhile, UP Sugar Mills Association (UPSMA) Secretary Deepak Guptara said the industry was always supportive of cane varieties, which had good juice content and resistant to pests and other vagaries of nature, including drought or floods.

Recently, India has been witnessing debates whether cane plantations should be discouraged, since it needed large amount of water for irrigation and optimum growth and juice content. The scientific community and sugar industry has maintained although cane needed water, much of it was retained in the form of juice.
The market for organic food in this country is likely to treble in the next four years, according to a report from business chamber Assocham and TechSci Research, a non-government body.

It estimates the current market (pulses and foodgrain the bulk) at $500 million (about Rs 3,350 crore). It was $360 million (Rs 2,400 crore) in 2014, says the study.

However, the study points to various challenges in sustaining such growth, due to lack of government support, the courage (needed) to convert inorganic land into organic land, and absence of globally recognised consultancy for timely guidance to farmers. Thus, huge support from states and the Centre is required, said D S Rawat, secretary-general, Assocham.

Attempts by many state governments to promote organic farming have not yielded the desired results, it says. The current certified area under organic farming in Punjab, for instance, is estimated at no more than 2,000 acres. And, there are critics.

Organic agriculture has become irrelevant. India was indeed practicing organic agriculture till the 1960s but we faced acute shortage of food and had to depend on imported foodgrain. Thanks to (different) practices since then, Indian agriculture has steadily grown to make the country the second largest in production in the world. It is rather amusing that chronically food deficient states like Sikkim and Kerala brag about organic agriculture; foodgrain produced from Punjab and Haryana actually feed the people of these two states, said Rajju Shroff, chairman, Crop Care Federation of India (a body representing agro-chemicals manufacturers and formulators).

A recent Grant Thornton-Ficci report titled estimates Indias foodgrain requirement at 333 million tonnes, well over the current output figure.

The government, meanwhile, has set a target to bring 500,000 acres under organic farming in three years, with allocation support of Rs 412 crore. Experts say a policy framework is needed for utilising this. Rawat adds it takes three years to convert farm land to organic practices. Which means farmers must be adequately compensated for full and half-crop losses in the first and second year, respectively.
Rating agency Moodys today said the substantial amendments to the Double Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) between Indian and Mauritius are credit negative for Indian Ocean nation. The financial centre in Mauritius will be a less attractive platform for investing in India than it used to be.



The amended treaty removes a longstanding advantage that allowed investors to avoid paying capital gain taxes in India by channeling their investment through Mauritius.





ALSO READ: India-Mauritius tax treaty: Some clarity, more confusion

A curtailment of new investment flows via Mauritius would cause a deterioration in the balance of payments equal to 1-2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually. Consequently it would put pressure on Mauritian foreign exchange reserves.However, a sharper shift in investor sentiment would have more dire consequences, Moodys said in statement.

On 10 May, the government of Mauritius (Baa1 stable) announced major changes to DTAA which has been in place with India since 1983.



Moody's said Mauritius financial industry is a key economic pillar and the primary source of net financial inflows from abroad. The tax changes will particularly weaken Mauritius balance of payments, consequently increasing its external susceptibility.



The financial industry contributed 10% of GDP in 2015 and substantial financial net inflows over the past five years allowed the central bank to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves of almost $4 billion as of March 2016, up from $2 billion in 2010.



Companies using the DTAA operate in Mauritius under a Global Business Company 1 (GBC1) license, are subject to Mauritian tax jurisdiction, and benefit from an advantageous tax regime, including low corporate taxes and a 0% capital gain tax.





ALSO READ: Mauritius treaty: No tax on derivatives, other non-share securities in India: FinMin

At year-end 2014, Mauritian companies with GBC1 licences held $200 billion in Indian assets, according to the Financial Sector Commission of Mauritius, constituting 38% of their $520 billion total assets held worldwide, including in Mauritius. However, in general, these assets are invested abroad and in countries that have DTAAs with Mauritius.



The changes to the DTAA with India will be carried out during a transitional period, starting in April 2017, and benefit from a grandfathering clause that exempts Indian assets acquired before April 2017 from the new dispositions. Nevertheless, the changes to the DTAA will weaken the countrys balance of payments, it added.
The recently launched Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy reiterates Indias stance on the issue ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit to the US  a vocal critic of Indias IP laws, next month, Commerce and Industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday.

Sitharaman said the policy has generated a lot of interest in the US and it has built on Indias robust IPR framework.The prime minister is scheduled to visit the US on 7th June.

The policy is expected to strengthen the IPR regime in the country as well as improve available infrastructure to generate higher levels of intellectual property. However, India continues to be placed on a Priority Watch List by the US on account of their assessment of Indias IPR protection being inadequate.

The special 301 report by the US Trade Representatives office, has constantly kept India in the list while threatening to further downgrade the country for alleged IPR violations. It has pegged losses from piracy of music and movies in India at approximately $4 billion per year and the commercial value of unlicensed software at $3 billion.

We do not recognize the US exercising an oversight mechanism regarding the domestic policy of any other country, Sitharaman told reporters regarding the report.

The US has been an active critic of specific provisions in the Patents Act, namely section 3(d), which is aimed at curbing ever-greening of patents.The pharmaceutical sector has US companies holding a substantial number of patents, which it says risks losing out on revenue.

India has countered for long that the report constitutes an unilateral measure to create pressure on countries to enhance IPR protection beyond the TRIPS agreement. The agreement which came into force in 1994 sets down minimum standards for many forms of intellectual property regulations for WTO members.

The has also kept open the possibility of India inking international treaties on IPR standards.However, Sitharaman ruled out India accepting provisions which are stricter than the current TRIPS agreement.The agreement which came into force in 1994 sets down minimum standards for many forms of intellectual property regulations for WTO members.

In the domestic arena, legal practitioners warned that the has kept open the option of future amendments to laws protecting IPR in the country, which might harm domestic interests.

The policy has put Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) under the Commerce Ministry as the nodal body for leveraging IPR to reap economic and social benefits on a large scale. The minister said none of the six laws protecting IPR which are under the DIPP, are up for amendment.

Commerce ministry is also looking to spread IPR awareness in the country through teaming up with industry organizations, Sitharaman said. Saying that the policy took cognizance of the issue of copyright infringement in the music and film industries, she added that it was up to industry now to come forward and act upon the policy.
Succumbing to pressure from citizens against the proposed location of the Bhopal project, the state government today shifted the project from Shivaji Nagar and Tulsi Nagar area to North Tatya Tope Nagar. Since February this year, citizens of Bhopal have been agitating against the site, which covers a huge green area. They have mainly been opposing the felling of 30,000-40,000 trees.

A high-level review meeting on the chaired by the Chief Minister today decided to shift the proposed site of the project from Shivaji Nagar to North TT Nagar. The chief minister said it would not be in the interest of the public in view of the green cover and aesthetic value of the Shivaji Nagar area, a government official told Business Standard. Interestingly, Shivaji Nagar mostly has government-owned houses that are rented out to scribes, government officials and others.

The Chief Minister has asked authorities to go ahead with the new site, the official further said. The new site has 280 hectares of land, while Shivaji Nagar was planned on 332.98 acres. Shivaji Nagar area was identified for Smarty City in consultation with citizens.

Three cities of the state, namely Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur had been chosen for the Smart City project. Bhopal and Indore have redevelopment projects while Jabalpur has retro fitting as well has redevelopment projects.

A local corporator (Municipal Corporation) had opposed the projects on the grounds that the Bhopal Smart City plan should be for the entire city and not for just one locality. Lok Sewa Manch, an organization of citizens, has protested against the plan at various occasions.

The Prime Ministers Office also intervened in the matter and asked the state government to review the proposal, said a highly placed source in the state administration.

There was a plan to hand over the entire land in Shivaji Nagar area to private developers like Gammon India project in South TT Nagar. There were more than 350 trees that have been vanished now. The Shivaji Nagar Smarty City was also planned in the similar fashion, Sharma said.

However Commissioner of Urban Development and Environment, Vivek Agrawal, had told Business Standard, Shivaji Nagar is just one concept of the Smart City project. We chose the locality because it has 34 per cent ground coverage against available area of 330 acres approximately. It would be reduced to 28 per cent, which means we now have more area for greenery, proper sanitation, underground cables, pathways, better connectivity, bicycle lane, etc. He had also ruled out the cutting of trees for the project. The area would have been greener than the present as the plan is to reduce construction on ground coverage from 34 percent to 28 percent, Agrawal told Business Standard.

An initial investment of Rs 2,500 crore was planned for the Shivaji Nagar Smart City development plan which might have fetched Rs 3,000 crore through investment from private partnership.

State has a total plan of Rs 70000 crore in urban area development. It also include Metro rail project of Rs 12000 crore, AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) of Rs 1400 crore, solid waste management of Rs 400 crore and Housing for all of Rs 5000 crore under Smarty City project.
With almost no rain in the last two months and temperature hovering near 50 degrees Celsius in many districts of West Bengal, the state government is taking stock of the situation there before declaring them drought-hit.

The situation in the several districts, especially Purulia, West Midnapore, Bankura and Burdwan, is "pretty bad", state Agriculture minister Purnendu Basu told PTI.

"Crops are damaged because of no rainfall and water bodies have dried up resulting in massive water crisis in these four districts. We have sought reports from the concerned departments before declaring which districts are drought-hit. We will take a decision by next week," Basu said.

According to him, the DMO's report on the situation in each of the 19 districts has been sought. While the report of Purulia district is complete, compilation in other districts is on and will be over in another couple of days.

"These reports will help us estimate the crop loss in these places and accordingly help us plan how to compensate the farmers. And depending on them, we will also be able to place our demands before the Centre," Basu said.

He alleged that the Centre had not responded to the state's plea last year for relief for drought-hit districts.

The agriculture minister pointed out that a farmer would be compensated if only more than 33% of his crop was destroyed.

Talking about damage to crops, Basu said that cultivation of boro paddy, maize and pulses would be badly affected if the current "drought-like" situation continued for another couple of weeks.

"The situation will surely improve if there is some rainfall for a week or so. Definitely, we are praying for rains and the total situation will reverse," he said.

The Supreme Court last week criticised the role of few state governments for their "ostrich-like attitude" in declaring drought despite having a rainfall deficit.

The state government has decided to allot Rs 75 lakh each to the 19 districts, barring Kolkata, to repair tube wells and drinking water pipelines.

"With no rainfall, water crisis is definitely a huge problem. We are taking all precautionary measures and have decided to allot Rs 75 lakh each to all the 19 zilla parishads for repairing of tube wells and treated-water pipelines immediately and ensure adequate supply of drinking water," Public Health Engineering (PHE) Minister Subrata Mukherjee said, when contacted.

He said that over 30 lakh people in 28 blocks in four districts of Purulia, West Midnapore, Bankura and Burdwan were facing "serious drinking water crisis".

"Most of the water bodies have either dried up or are on the brink of drying up. We have to make it a point that people get enough drinking water. If they do not get enough of it, it can lead to serious health problems," he said.

"Cultivation will also be affected very badly... The situation is, however, still under control. There is no reason to panic," he added.

The PHE department has deployed around 19 mobile treatment units with the ability to produce around 70,000 litres of drinking water from water bodies in an hour.

"This drinking water is being distributed in 250 ml pouches to villagers in affected areas to prevent breakout of enteric diseases. We are also using tankers to carry drinking water," Mukherjee said.

The PHE minister said that his department in the past ten days had distributed 12.65 lakh drinking water pouches in West Midnapore, Bankura and Burdwan.

In fact, a quick response team is working 24X7 to tackle any eventuality in coordination with the district administrations, the minister said.
Around 58.2 million voters will be eligible to decide the electoral fortunes of 3,776 candidates (320 being women) in the multi-cornered legislative assembly election in Tamil Nadu on Monday.

There are 234 seats in the assembly but the polling for one, Avarakurichi, Karur, has been postponed by a week by the Election Commission of India, owing to the amount of money seized from the constituency in recent days. The results for the other 233 seats will be announced on Thursday; counting for Aravakurichi will be on Saturday.

For decades, the winning combine has been led by either the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) or DMK parties. This will be the first time other politically significant fronts are contesting separately from the traditional duo.

There are a little over 66,000 polling stations and 107,210 electronic voting machines, including reserves. Of the 234 seats, 42 are reserved for scheduled caste candidates and three for scheduled tribes.

Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar in this city, where Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is contesting, has 45 candidates, highest number in the state. The constituencies of Arcot, Gudalur and Mayiladuthurai have the lowest number of candidates, at eight each. The largest assembly constituency in terms of electorate is Sholinganallur, in this city, with a little over 600,000 voters. The smallest is Kilvelur, with 163,000.

AIADMK chief and incumbent chief minister J Jayalalithaa and DMK supremo, M Karunanidhi, veteran ex-CM, lead the list of candidiates. Other major ones include Karunanidhi's son and former deputy CM, M K Stalin; Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) chief and CM-candidate, Vijayakanth; and the CM-candidate of the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Anbumani Ramadoss.

The AIADMK has fielded its candidates in 227 seats, the first time it is contesting more than 200 on its own; its allies are in the other seven, and contesting on its poll symbol. The DMK has fielded 180 candidates, the DMDK 104, Congress 41, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 188, Bahujan Samaj Party 158, the Communist parties 25 each and Nationalist Congress Party 20. There are 1,566 candidates contesting independently.

The DMK has aligned with the Congress, two Muslim parties and some smaller outfits. Another front is led by the DMDK and also comprises the CPI-M, CPI, VCK, TMC and MDMK.

The BJP leads another front, with smaller outfits. PMK, once a partner in the BJP-led NDA at the Centre, is also going it alone.

Jayalalithaa is seeking a mandate for another term, saying it not only fulfilled several freebie schemes (mixer/grinder, fans, laptops, cattle) announced in its 2011 poll manifesto but implemented several others (subsidised canteen/cement/bottled water and others).

DMK supremo M Karunanidhi, 93, is seeking election to the assembly for a record 13th time and as a CM-aspirant for a 10th time. He has never been defeated since he started contesting elections in 1957. He and Jayalalithaa are arch rivals, as are their parties, each prophesying doom if the other is elected to power. Yet, never after 1984 has an incumbent government ever been re-elected, and it is one or the other who has been in power.

The other fronts are taking on AIADMK and DMK as synonymous with corruption, misuse of power and bad governance. Pre-election surveys predict victory for either AIADMK and DMK.

AIADMK has stuck to its tested formula of offering freebies. The party has promised free mobile phones for all ration card holders, 50 per cent subsidy for purchase of scooters by women, free power up to 100 units and so forth, beside continuation of all such current schemes if voted back to power. It and the DMK consciously attack only each other, as if the other parties do not exist.

All the parties have also promised total prohibition on liquor, which currently generates Rs 30,000 crore in annual revenue for the state, a key source for the diverse freebies. The election commission has just sent a notice to both AIADMK and DMK, asking them to detail how they'd fund the schemes promised in their manifestoes.
Mode-led BJP made has all attempts to put up a good show this time in the ongoing elections.

Prime Minister today urged the people in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry to "vote in record numbers" in the assembly elections.

"Urging all voters in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry to vote in record numbers today & be a part of this festival of democracy," Modi tweeted this morning.

Polling is being held for 232 Assembly seats in Tamil Nadu, 140 in Kerala and 30 in Puduchery.

The BJP, which is yet to make any significant impact in the polls in these states, had made all-out attempts to put up a good show this time, especially in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
When the former late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was touring Tamil Nadu along with his wife Sonia Gandhi, he visited an ancient place almost 90 kilometres away from Chennai. The place, Uthiramerur, has long been considered the birthplace of democracy, though not many outside are aware of the tradition.
AIADMK chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and DMK President Karunanidhi on Monday cast their votes early in the day.

Jayalalithaa, after exercising her franchise at a polling station in Stella Maris College around 10 am, told reporters that "people's verdict will be known in two days".

"You have waited for so long, if you wait for two more days, everybody will come to know of people's verdict," she said.

Karunanidhi cast his vote by 7.45 am at a polling station in Sarada School and later told reporters that "DMK will win necessary seats" to form the government.

In a Facebook post later he said, "It is the democratic right of every citizen to vote."

DMK treasurer M K Stalin, along with his wife Shanta Stalin, too voted early in the day in a polling station in Teynampet.

Congress top leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram voted at Kandanur in Sivaganga District. His son and AICC member Karti Chidambaram too voted there.

In a tweet, he said, "Going to vote. It's heavy rains in Kandanur, Karaikudi Assembly."
Tamil Nadu has registered voters' turnout of 73.76 per cent during the 2016 Assembly election as compared to 78.02 per cent recorded during the 2011 election. Despite the several attempts by Tamil Nadu Election Commission for 100 per cent voting, the voters turnout was low.

The 15th Assembly election has started off with slow turn around and till lunch it continued in slow pace due to rain in southern and delta districts. In Chennai also average rain has impacted the voting. For instance, at Vedaranyam in South Tamil Nadu 10.2 centimeter rain was reported till afternoon.

Polling started at 7 a.m. and went till 6 p.m. across the state. The Election Commission has wanted to extend the timing for one hour in districts where heavy rains were reported.

Tamil Nadu has registered voters' turnout of 73.76 per cent. The highest turnout was at Palacodu constituency (88.5%) and Pennagaram constituency (87.6%), in Dharmapuri district, followed by Edappady constituency in Salem district and Kulithalai constituency in Tirupur district (both 85.77%). Harbour constituency in Chennai reported 55.27 per cent polling lowest in the state.

In 1996, total turnout was 66.95 per cent, which dropped to 59.07 per cent in 2001 and it increased to 70.82 per cent in 2006 and further went up to 78.01 per cent in 2011. Despite the fact that in the last five years around 10 million voters were added, polling percentage was dropped.

Chief Electoral Officer Rajesh Lakhoni said that voting in towns were less compared to rural parts of the state and the voting levels of Chennai has not increased even after large scale social media and other campaigns run by the Election Commission. He added that while the total turn out in percentage seems lower, it is because the total number of voters has been increased compared to five years ago. He added that there is a slight increase in voters' turnout compared to the Lok Sabha elections in 2014.

Tamil Nadu has around 58.2 million voters and total candidates in the fray were 3,776. The Election Commission has earlier decided to postpone the elections in two constituencies - Aravakurichi, in Karur and Thanjavur constituency in Thanjavur, from May 16 to May 23 owing to the amount of money being seized from the constituencies in the recent days. Total number of constituencies in the state is 234.

Political leaders and celebrities have casted their votes before 10 am at Chennai. BJP State President Tamilisai Soundarajan casted her vote at 7 am. All the four Chief Minister candidates including DMK Supremo M Karunanidhi, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK Supremo J Jayalalithaa, PMK Leader and Former Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, third front's CM candidate Vijaykanth have casted their votes before 10.30 am.

The 2016 election will be the first time a powerful third front has emerged, while traditionally it was two Dravidian parties -- AIADMK and DMK -- have been ruling the State for nearly five decades now.

Speaking to reporters after casting at her vote at Stella Maris College Jayalalithaa, who was accompanied by her friend Sasikala, said that in the next two days people verdict will be known. It may be noted, Jayalalithaa studied in the same college.

DMK leader M Karunanidhi casted his vote at Gopalapuram. He told reporters that his party will form the Government and he was confident that DMK and the alliance will get sufficient numbers.

PMK's Ramadoss also claimed that his party will form the Government, while Vijaykanth did not speak to reporters.

Lakhoni said that no major violence or booth capture were reported, local channels have reported minor incidents and clashes.

Counting for the 232 constituencies are expected to take place on May 19, while the other two constituencies where the polling has been postponed, counting will be held on May 25, said Lakhoni.

3,776 candidates are in the race, of which 3,454 are men, 320 women and two third genders. The total number of polling stations was over 66,000. A total of 1,07,210 electronic voting machines, including reserves were made available for the election and there are 75,908 control units including reserves. Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) were allotted to booths in 17 constituencies, for the voters to verify their votes has been cast to the intended candidate.

According to Tamil Nadu Assembly website, the Legislative Assembly consists of 234 elected Members from 189 General and 45 reserved constituencies (42 SC Constituencies and 3 ST Constituencies).

Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar constituency, where Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is contesting, has the highest number of candidates - 45, while three constituencies Arcot, Gudalur and Mayiladuthurai has the lowest number of candidates, which is eight.

The largest assembly constituency in terms of electorate is Sholinganallur, in Chennai, which has over 0.602 million voters, while smallest assembly constituency electorate wise is Kilvelur, where there are 0.163 million voters.

The AIADMK has fielded its candidates in 227 seats and the balance seven has been given to its allies. This is the first time in the party's history that the AIADMK is contesting in more than 200 seats.

Though the allies have been given only seven seats, they will contest under AIADMK's "two leaves" symbol. Thus, for the first time, the AIADMK symbol will be seen in all the 234 constituencies.

The DMK has aligned with the Congress, two Muslim parties and some smaller outfits.

The third front led by the DMDK (symbol- drum) comprises the CPI-M (hammer, sickle and star), CPI (ears of corn and sickle) VCK (ring), TMC (coconut trees) and MDMK (top) under its fold.

The BJP (lotus) leads another front with smaller outfits while Naam Thamizhar Katchi is also contesting 234 seats under 'two burning candles' symbol.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday allowed foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) to invest in unlisted bonds of a public company and securitised debt instruments.

The measures, aimed at expanding the investment basket for FPIs, were announced in the Union Budget for 2016-17.

According to the extant guidelines, FPIs were only permitted to invest in listed or to-be-listed debt securities.

Investment in unlisted debt securities was permitted only in case of companies in the infrastructure sector.

The FPIs were earlier not allowed to invest in any kind of securitised debt instruments.
Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz, in a response to India's supersonic interceptor missile test, on Monday said that Islamabad would address the development at an level.

Expressing concern over India's conducted on Sunday, Aziz said it will disturb the balance of power in the region, and added that Pakistan will continue to upgrade its defensive capabilities by acquiring advanced technology, Radio Pakistan reported.

India is enjoying the cooperation of the United States of America, as Washington thinks a strong India is vital to contain China, he said.

The adviser said Pakistan would raise its voice at the level against these developments.

Aziz's statement comes after India successfully test-fired indigenously developed supersonic interceptor missile, capable of destroying any incoming ballistic missile, from a test range off the Odisha coast.
The Monetary Fund (IMF) said today that its second in command was on a two-day visit to for discussions on economic developments.

The Washington-based lender said First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton would meet with senior Iranian government officials, private sector representatives and bankers, as well as academics and students.

The visit follows the lifting of sanctions linked to Iran's nuclear program in the wake of a landmark deal between Tehran and world powers signed in July.

"His discussions will focus on the IMF's continuing dialogue with Iran, and Iran's economic developments and policy initiatives, following the recent lifting of sanctions," the IMF said in a statement.

The IMF currently does not have an economic program underway in aside from statistical and technical assistance, according to a spokesman.

"The recent lifting of economic sanctions is expected to help increase oil production and exports, and lower costs for trade and financial transactions," the IMF wrote in a January "economic health check" of Iran, adding that its real GDP growth was projected to accelerate to 4-5.5% in 2016-17.
Apple Inc Chief Executive will visit India this week and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, two sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.

His visit comes at a crucial time as Apple seeks new growth markets such as India after posting its first-ever decline in iPhone sales.

Cook, who is visiting China after announcing a $1 billion investment in Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, will fly to India on Tuesday in his first official visit to the country as the head of the U.S. technology company, one of the sources said.

The sources declined to be named as the plan is not public yet.

Apple declined to provide details of Cook's schedule in India.

Apple is looking to set up its first retail outlet in India, where it only has about a 2 percent market share. But its sales there surged 56% in the first three months of this year, driven mainly by cheaper older-generation devices such as the iPhone 5S.
BPL, the brand that once strode the Indian markets as one of the country's homegrown success stories, is diving back into the mainstream. With a low-key and low-budget plan, it has laid out a strategy for growing its current businesses as well as reclaiming its name in the consumer durables categories.

has been missing from the brand sweepstakes for many years now. Poor management, family battles and growing competition took the group down. Even though it relaunched itself online last year, allying with e-commerce player Flipkart for exclusive sales of its televisions and other durables, the former consumer electronics giant has struggled to reconnect with its consumers.

In the meantime it has built up its business in home automation and security solutions and medical equipment, but the brand stayed on the side lines. Now, the group is making a fresh pitch for consumer attention, drawn by the fact that the Indian consumer durable market is expected to grow at 17 per cent annually till 2020 to reach at Rs 20,200 crore.

Getting into the groove

launched a set of LED (light emitting diodes) televisions, refrigerators and washing machines six months ago. Its products are selling online through Flipkart, but growth has been slow. Its sales remain markedly lower at Rs 700 crore for 2014-15.

How does BPL plan to reconnect with consumers? The group says that the brand recall for BPL is still high and to start with the products will ride on the past associations that consumers have had with its products.

The potential for growth in an underpenetrated market has lured many global players in the past two decades to set up base in here and spend on promotion and manufacturing and expand their presence. Currently, at least 38 major brands are fighting for market share in India, including global leaders like Samsung, LG, Whirlpool, Bosch and Siemens, Panasonic and Hitachi. "Indian white goods space is too crowded with all major players present in here", a senior industry executive said.

What has drawn the global majors into the country and is driving BPL's future plans is the belief that the Indian consumer durables market is seriously under-penetrated. According to an industry expert, the players are all playing the waiting game, secure in the hope that the category will expand eventually.

While, penetration of air conditioners is at 60 per cent globally, for India its three percent with near zero penetration in rural households, according to a report by E&Y report (Study on Indian electronics and consumer durables segment). Washing machines, a category which BPL is focused keenly on at present, are found in 70 per cent of houses globally. But in India the penetration is just 8.8 percent of the total homes.

The story is the same for the other categories that BPL is making a bid for. For refrigerators and televisions the scenario is no better. For TV, penetration in domestic households remain at 60 percent (89 per cent globally) and refrigerators are used in 21 per cent of homes compared to 85 per cent.

Rebuilding the brand

Lower penetration of durable and home appliances is the most attractive feature of the Indian market, experts in the industry say. However, that comes with a rider; steeper competition, which often leads to price wars and heavy expenditure on and branding. Without spending on these can BPL beat the crowds?



While the company is confident about its abilities, industry sources say that the climb is going to be steep, given the brand's near disappearance from public memory. In fact BPL's fall from grace in the consumer space started in late 1990s when LG and Samsung entered Indian market. Both have since overtaken the homegrown brand to establish themselves firmly in the Indian market.

Over the years, the company that famously had Amitabh Bachchan as brand ambassador in 1995 and had secured profits of Rs 120 crore in that year has seen finances dwindle. In 2014-15, BPL Ltd, the arm of BPL group which looks after its consumer business made Rs 7.8 crore net profit from Rs 23.9 crore of revenue - much lower than its peak Rs 4,300 crore sales.

K Vijaya Kumar, says that these are hurdles the brand can cross. It will spread the word about the brand digitally and initially leverage social and digital media. "We are not looking for TVCs right now," he says.

The BPL brand, Kumar says has always been about quality, comfort and tech superiority. And the digital campaign will focus on these qualities. The company has set itself a bunch of targets for the coming year, more modest than the numbers it once achieved, but would still require the company to pull itself up considerably. As for now it is willing to put down a figure only for the home automation business in which, it wants to acquire 20 per cent share of the Rs 600 crore home automation market in India by 2019. "Our expectation from the surveillance business, which is pegged at Rs 2,500 crore, is that we should be doing business worth around Rs 100 crore in the first year of operations and then scale up to Rs 250 crore in next three years", Kumar said. While these are still on paper, there is little doubt that the brand is finally willing to step out of the shadows in 2016.
What goes up on unrestrained speculation will inevitably be back on earth at some stage. We saw it when speculation defying fundamentals took the mineral's price to a peak of $70.46 a tonne in the third week of April this year - a rise of 80 per cent since December 2015.

Buoyed by weather-related supply disruptions in Australia, fresh stimulus measures by Beijing and routine moves by China to start rebuilding inventories in the year's beginning, speculators went on marking up prices. Ore stocks at Chinese ports at close to 100 million tonnes (mt), the highest since March 2015, signals the end of inventory build up linked imports for some time.

No doubt, demand has rebounded in the world's largest market for steel as Chinese production surge in March and April will bear out. Steel prices in China are up 70 per cent from their November low, leading to significant improvement in the working of the country's major steel mills. But, benchmark ore with iron content of 62 per cent for delivery at China's Qingdao port has slipped below $55 a tonne as operators have started contending with what might be in store for the mineral in the coming days. Many experts, including Lakshmi Mittal, stay worried about the fragility of the steel market. Mittal is happy about the recent improvement in spreads, constituting the difference between raw materials costs and steel products prices in the core of his group. Nevertheless, he says: "Given the levels of excess capacity in China, the steel market remains fragile. We must, therefore, continue to be vigilant and active against the threat of unfair trade."



Mittal's concern found resonance in the proceedings of the recent Brussels meeting of associations of eight major steel-making countries. What proved to be a disappointment, though, was the reluctance of China, which hosts a major portion of global steel overcapacity of around 700 mt to partner other governments in a 'programme of actions' to set the industry in order.

No doubt 'structural and cyclical economic developments' in the past couple of years have painted the industry into a corner. But, it would have been better placed to negotiate the difficulties had it not been for government supportive measures, seen particularly in China, contributing to significant excess capacity and distortions in global steel trade flows.

The principal recommendation of the Brussels meeting is that no government or government-backed institutions should be found supporting 'consistently' loss making steel plants, encouraging investment in new capacity which, in normal course, would not be there and doing things that lead to trade distortions.

Around the time pitfalls of overcapacity were discussed, the rise in Chinese domestic steel prices to 19-month highs led some mills firing up of furnaces lying idle. What is feared is that price improvement is the reason for high production in China, which all will not be consumed in the domestic market. Pressure will, then, automatically build up on the industry to seek abroad for surplus steel. Many steel-producing countries, including India, cried foul last year when China's exports rose 20 per cent to 112.4 mt. Such high levels of exports were the reason for the Chinese industry getting embroiled in trade frictions with the US, European Union and India.

While India's trade action was by way of introducing minimum import price (MIP) on 173 steel products ranging from $341 a tonne to $752 a tonne earlier this year, some other imports injured nations took even harsher steps. Thankfully, world steel prices are still either at MIP level or slightly higher than that. But, mark ArcelorMittal chief financial officer Aditya Mittal saying it is possible "Chinese steel prices have overshot leaving room for correction". It will be instructive to recall what Goldman Sachs said in a report when prices of both ore and steel were in ascendance that the rally looked unsustainable as the tight Chinese steel market could turn out to be a temporary distraction.

Hasn't the World Steel Association (WSA) in its demand assessment for the year said Chinese steel use would contract by four per cent to 645.4 mt and then again by three per cent in 2017 to 626.1 mt? Why China alone, the global steel demand will shrink by 0.8 per cent to 1.488 billion tonnes (bt) this year, according to WSA. This follows a three per cent demand fall in 2015. India, however, should be an exception where a 5.4 per cent demand improvement both in the current year and 2017 is forecast by WSA.
The governments hasnt taken off, with banks yet to push it and slow process in certifying of collection centres and refineries. Hallmarking centres, refineries and banks have to sign tripartite agreements to get the scheme going.

The finance ministry has so far held around 10 meetings on the scheme; changes have also been made to attract gold holdings from temple trusts, among others. However, the bulk of the country's gold is with households and there is both a lack of enthusiasm and awareness on the scheme.

Households and temples are together estimated to have 25,000 tonnes, of which 3,000-4,000 tonnes are with temples. So far, only three or four tonnes is estimated to have been mobilised under the scheme, within six months of its operation.

Sanjeev Agarwal, chief executive, Gitanjali Exports, says: Banks need to aggressively promote the scheme and the norms for allowing jewellers registered with BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) to participate need to be simplified.



The latest meeting by the Union finance ministry was some days earlier. Banks brought up some accounting issues, said an official; the government would have to clarify on the point.

BIS had allowed jewellers to act as collecting centres but, goes the complaint, has specified norms similar to those for hallmarking centres. These involve investment of Rs 40-50 lakh, making it unviable for a jeweller. Bringing them in is considered key to the scheme's success, given the spread of jewllery shops and the trust that customers have.

Of the 375 hallmarking centres, only 47 have been certified by BIS to act as a collecting centre for the schme; they havent got business even after making the required additional investment. These centres are also not in easy reach of the general public  they were, till now, doing only hallmarking, a job between them and jewellers; retail consumers were not going there.

Hallmarking centres have to send gold received under the scheme to a BIS-certified refinery for converting into bars. There are 32 refineries in the country; seven have been certified. South India is considered a major centre for mobilising under the scheme but only a single refinery there, CGR Metalloys (earlier Chemmanur Refinery), has been approved.
The Bangladesh Border Guard (BBG) and the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) will jointly investigate border killings. This was decided by the heads of both forces during a five-day discussion held in Dhaka.

Major General Aziz Ahmed, director general of Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) said that through this process, both sides will have clear information reports Daily Star.

The five-day conference was held at BGB headquarters located in the capital's Pilkhana area.

Both sides, led by the head of the forces, attended the talks that began on May 11.

After the talks came to a close, a joint press briefing was arranged this morning.

Both sides agreed to invite journalists to open the activities of the border troopers to public, BGB chief Major General Aziz said.

His Indian counterpart, K K Sharma, director general of the Border Security Force (BSF), said talks were held focusing on moving forward to foster cooperation among both forces.
With Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar giving his consent for a CBI probe in the murder case of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan in Siwan district, Director General of Police (DGP) P.K. Thakur today said the state police would continue its investigation till the top investigating agency takes up the case.

Addressing a press conference along with the Chief Minister, Thakur said the former has announced that the case be handed over to the CBI, adding a proposal is being sent to the top investigating agency for the same.

The DGP, however, downplayed a media poser that 23 people were on the 'hit list' of former RJD lawmaker Mohammed Shahabuddin.

"We cannot divulge the details of the investigation.The accused can take advantage of the same," he said.

Thakur further said that it would not be appropriate to make any comment till the time the shooters are not arrested.

"Once the shooters are arrested and the weapons used in the murder are recovered.Then only we can ascertain," he added when asked whether the police investigation into the murder case was moving towards political intervention.

Expressing shock over the journalist's killing, the Chief Minister earlier said that he has given consent for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the murder case.

He said a formal announcement in this regard will be made soon, adding the request will be sent to the Centre for a CBI inquiry into the murder case in Siwan district.

The Chief Minister said he has given his approval for a CBI probe in view of the demand of the slain journalist's relatives.

The slain journalist's wife Asha yesterday demanded a CBI probe into his murder to ensure that the culprits get stringent punishment.

"I demand from the government a CBI probe and a secured future for my children and me. The culprit must be given stringent punishment," she said.

When asked if her husband had ever mentioned about any threat to his life, Asha said that she did not have any knowledge about it as her husband never talked about it.

She, however, told ANI in Siwan: "He only mentioned once about receiving threat regarding his profession after BJP leader Shrikant Bharti's murder."

42-year-old Ranjan was allegedly shot dead by criminals near the Siwan railway station earlier on Friday.

Two bullets were fired at the Siwan bureau chief of Hindi daily Hindustan that hit on his head and neck. He was shifted to a hospital, where the doctors declared him brought dead.
The Federal Alliance has accused Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli-led government of ordering a crackdown on its cadres who were taking part in the Kathmandu-centric protests which began on Sunday.

In a statement by the Federal Alliance on Monday, spokesperson Parashu Ram Tamang said that the police personnel stopped "thousands of leaders and cadres" heading to join the movement for seven to eight hours at midways, interrogated them with unnecessary questions, seized flags and banners and frisked them unnecessarily, reports the Himalayan Times.

The statement said that the police activities violated their basic right to movement.

"If any untoward incident takes place while suppressing our peaceful and nonviolent protests.We would like to inform that this racist government will be held responsible, " the statement said.

Meanwhile, the Alliance continued the Singha Darbar gherao programme for the second consecutive day.

Protesters gathered outside Singha Darbar, chanted anti-government slogans and attempted to push through a police barricade.

Briefly, the police also used batons to tame the protesters but no serious injuries were reported on either side.

Alliance members, however, said that three protesters were injured and were undergoing treatment at the National Trauma Centre.

The alliance comprising of 27 political parties, including seven Madhesi forces, which have formed the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) had announced protest to exert pressure on the government to address their longstanding demands.

The disgruntled Madhesi parties demand redrawing provincial boundaries and amending some provisions of the Constitution.

The move comes days after the agitating forces' declined the government's offer to resume talks.

Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli-led government had on Monday written to the agitating parties, inviting them to the negotiating table.

No talks have been held between the two parties since February 18, the day the government formed a political mechanism to address the agitating parties concerns.

The alliance has vowed to continue the protest programmes until their demands are met.
Seems like lesbianism isn't just a human thing as a primate expert has reported what seems to be the first occurrence of girl-on-girl gorilla sex.

Dr. Cyril Grueter from the University of Western Australia was examining the feeding patterns of gorillas in Rwanda when he made the stunning discovery.

He told Daily Mail Australia: "Instead of seeing aggression between females over food we saw them engaging in sexual behaviour which was quite surprising."

Dr Grueter learnt that when rejected by males, a majority of the female gorillas turn to each other to derive some sexual pleasure.

Of the 22 female gorillas examined from 2008 to 2010, 18 engaged in sexual activity with other females, including 'genital rubbing,' 'genital closeness' and mating calls during intercourse.

He also explained that this behaviour appeared to be motivated purely by sexual arousal rather than attraction and they were equally aroused by males and females.

The study stated that twelve out of 43 homosexual events involved at least one female that was also involved in a heterosexual act on the same/preceding/following day."

The academic said the study was significant as it might contribute to an understanding of the evolution of such behaviour in humans

The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.
A top commander of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group in Afghanistan was killed in an Afghan Air Force air strike.

Khamma Press quoted the Ministry of Defense (MoD), as saying that the air strike was carried out in Wata Pur district of eastern Kunar province.

The 201st Silab Corps of the Afghan National Army in a statement said the airstrike was carried out by the U.S. forces using an unmanned aerial vehicle.

A statement said Shafiq Abbas was a commander of the Taliban group and was involved in major terrorist activities in Wata Pur district.

Following major blows in some of their strongholds in eastern Nangarhar province, the insurgent group have recently started operations in the restive Kunar province.

On Sunday, at least eight ISIS loyalists were killed in an airstrike in Achin district.

The Afghan forces have stepped up operations to eliminate the insurgent groups amid concerns that it is attempting to expand foothold in the country.
Kabir Khan has recently undergone a sudden operation and is stable now.

According to a leading webloid, the 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan' director was rushed to Kokilaben hospital in Mumbai after he complained of severe stomach pain at around 4 am on May 13.

The doctors detected stone and hence, he was immediately operated on.

Reportedly, Kabir got discharged the very next day, but the doctors have strictly asked him to take rest for at least a week.

In the recent past, the director topped the headlines after he was heckled at the Karachi airport by few protesters, who accused him of making anti-Pakistani film 'Phantom.'

On the professional front, the director will very soon commence his next directorial venture with none other than Salman Khan, which is apparently titled 'Tube light.'

The film is an Sino-Indian venture and Kabir, along with casting director Mukesh Chabra, is looking for the Chinese actors for the film.
Luxurystation.com is an initiative by Kapila Gupta, to provide a platform to luxury retail consumers in India to shop brands that they don't have access to at a price which is significantly more competitive than buying from a retail/ brand store and even to places where stores do not exist.

Understanding the consumer is a key, luxury consumer isn't just about looking to buy a product but a complete experience of buying luxury products. Hence Luxurystation.com is not just an online platform but an attempt to offer a more experiential commerce.

It is will this intent that they have structured themselves differently from other online players and focused on very key factors in detail that influence buying decision of a luxury consumer.

Luxurystation.com is the first and probably the only platform to offer inventory within India which allows to them to deliver within a timeframe that the consumer wants. It has delivered products same day in NCR and within 48 hours in other parts of India.

It is the first and the only platform to offer home viewing services wherein selected products can be viewed at the comfort of their home not just on the website but in actual. You can choose the products, call them and they will send the selected products to your place. Service is largely limited to NCR but will soon be available in Mumbai too. In order to provide a similar experience, Luxurystation.com is also participating in luxury exhibitions, particularly charity led, in cities, which do not have access to luxury stores/ shopping malls, but the latent demand for luxury products exist.

The online luxury portal is the first and probably the only platform to offer both new and pre- owned products, which not only expands target audience but also develops a user base that is willing to spend on luxury products online and then giving them the opportunity to sell the products back to the portal. This is another way to authenticate the brands and provides added comfort to the consumers.

Even in Pre-owned section, unlike so many websites that are mushrooming by the day, Luxurystation.com is probably the only one to offer the sellers to direct sell to the website than just consigning on the website. This obviously means investments by the website which many competitors in this segment find difficult to do.

By creating a unique platform that caters to an ever-increasing demand for luxury fashion in all parts of India, we aim to be the preferred online partner to both the global luxury brand and its discerning Indian customer and provide the most authentic luxury buying experience.
Two Bangladeshis on a United Nations peacekeeping mission were killed and five injured in a storm in Mali last night.

The Daily Star reports that the deceased are police constables Samidul Islam and Motahar Hossain, according to a press statement issued by the police headquarters in Dhaka today.

Inspector General of Police (IGP) AKM Shahidul Hoque mourned the deaths of the constables, the press note adds.

Details on the deceased and injured victims were not available till 12:29pm when the report was filed.
"Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally,"-this proverb by famous writer and journalist David Frost rightly suits Aabhas Sharma, the child prodigy who has cleared the higher secondary exam conducted by the Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education (RBSE) at the age of 12.

Aabhas scored 325 out of 600 marks, scoring 65 percent to get a first division in the class 12th exam, the results of which were announced on Monday evening.

Two years ago, he became a celebrity in town when he passed class 10 at the age of 10.

"There was no pressure on me. I used to study at my will and play. I did not study class prep. I started my schooling from class first and I also jumped one or two primary classes," he tells ANI.

Jubilant with such an outstanding performance, Aabhas said how his family and his school teachers extended him full support throughout the exams.

"There was full support from my family as well as my teachers. I used to study only one night before the exam. I was hundred percent confident that I will get through," he added.

Born on August 26, 2003, this wonder boy from Jaipur aspires to become a doctor and serve the nation.

However, the 12-year-old boy has only one regret that he cannot appear for PMT (Pre Medical Test) before the age of 17 as the rules don't allow him to do so.

His father, Sachin Sharma, also the director of Aabhas Public Senior Secondary School in Jaipur's Durgapura area, says he never pressurised his son and always used to encourage him.

"He gave his exams without any pressure. Today evening, when results were about to come, he asked me as to what will happen. I told him to relax and said that what will happen, it will happen for the good. He studied only overnights," he said.

"He scored 61 percent marks in class 10th. From there on he got the confidence that he could clear class 12th. We never pressurized him to study," he added.
Union Home Ministry Under Secretary Anand Joshi, who went missing after charges of corruption were slapped against him and was later arrested, was on Monday sent to the CBI custody till May 20 by a Delhi Court.

The top investigative agency had sought five day custody of the officer accused of indulging in murky deals with NGOs from the Patiala House Court.

Joshi, who was found hiding at a relative's residence in Tilak Nagar, had left home in Indirapuram ahead of his questioning by the CBI on May 11. He had left behind an emotional letter for his family in which he claimed to be subjected to mental harassment.

In a moving appeal to his wife, Joshi wrote, "I am leaving home. Please do not look for me. Now, you (his wife) have to take care of kids by becoming both father and mother".

Joshi, who stands accused of issuing of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) notices arbitrarily to NGOs for financial gains, further said in his letter that he had never imagined that his 'patriotism' and integrity would lead to such a situation wherein he has been accused of corruption.

Posted in the MHA's Foreigners Division, Joshi reportedly had access to files related to Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). He is accused of accepting bribes for getting FCRA clearances done.

Joshi has, however, refuted the charges, saying he was 'pressurised' by his superiors to give a clean chit to some organisations.

The CBI had last Monday registered case against the Under Secretary under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Prevention of Corruption Act after conducting raids at four locations, including Joshi's residence and office.

The CBI had said that cash worth Rs. 7.5 lakh and certain 'incriminating documents', including files pertaining to THE MHA and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, were recovered from the premises of the officer during the raid.
Expressing confidence that the Kerala electorate will vote again for the Congress-led UDF government in the state Assembly polls, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Monday asserted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will face defeat, even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vigorous campaigns.

Speaking to ANI here after casting his vote, Chandy said that Kerala has been voting for UDF since the past five years in all elections and added confidently that the party would achieve similar results this poll as well.

Still smarting from the Prime Minister's comparison of the state to Somalia, he added that the people of Kerala had been hurt and insulted by the comment and that would be reflected in BJP's result.

"BJP will not open an account in the assembly elections. They do not have the support of the general public. People are still angry from what the Prime Minister said," the Chief Minister said.

Echoing similar sentiments, former defence minister A.K. Antony told ANI "I am very happy today. I am 100 percent sure that these elections will mark a new history for Kerala. Once again UDF is going to come back again. We will win hands down this election. LDF will once again sit in the opposition for next five years," he said.

"The BJP in spite of the hectic campaign by the Prime Minister will not be able to open an account in Kerala assembly. I am sure Kerala will vote for peace, communal harmony, stability and progress. I am very sure that we will get more seats than we got in last elections," he added.

Meanwhile, over 30 percent electorates cast their votes till 11a.m. in Kerala.

The state's Wayanad district recorded the highest turnout with 32 percent, while the lowest voter turnout is in Trivandrum with 21 percent.
An open letter to Kangana Ranaut under headline 'An Open Letter To Kangana Ranaut

With many hailing it as one of the best pieces written on the subject, the letter generated close to 5000 tweets on a Sunday evening.

The letter started off as a single piece, but soon spread across the social media platforms like wild fire, with readers in complete agreement.

The letter highlighted the point that the term "feminism" was interpreted wrong by the 'Queen' actress to suit her convenience.

Twitterers soon caught up with this open letter and it trended for more than four hours yesterday.

The most unusual sight with the letter was that it carried three impressions on India and it started trending simultaneously under hashtags 'Hrithik Kangana,' '#AnOpenLetterToKangana' and '#FakeFeminism.'

The evening continued with various opinions being poured in; some of which were, "Arguably the most well written piece on Hrithik Kangana episode," ""Whoever this writer is. She has my respect. Feminism is about truth and not lies," "Barkha Dutt you should have asked her all this," "Face the facts Kangana. Don't hide behind fake feminism" and more.
Pakistan Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif on Monday discussed measures to improve military to military cooperation and security of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) among other issues with top Chinese military leadership.

During his meeting with his Chinese counterpart at military headquarters in Beijing, the army chief congratulated the latter on assumption of command of the newly-established army headquarter, reports Dawn.

Both the leaders discussed measures to improve military to military cooperation, exponentially enhanced training exchanges, defence technical and intelligence sharing and the security of CPEC.

The army chief had also assured that armed forces of the country will fully support every meaningful effort in that direction to ensure a better future for our next generations.

General Raheel's visit comes days after he called on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the Prime Minister's House in an apparent attempt to revive civil-military relations following Panama leaks.
Pakistan Prime Minister on Monday will make his first appearance in parliament since the Panama Papers revelations about his family's offshore holdings caused a political uproar in the country.

However, the revelations that his arch-rival, PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf ) chief Imran Khan, had also set up an offshore company have eased some pressure.

"The prime minister will come up with lots of substance, which should be sufficient for his own constituency and the more fair-minded critics, since the opposition always manages to find some fault," Dawn quoted a key adviser to the prime minister as saying.

The adviser added that the Sharif was now in a better position to defend the case of his three children, given that several key opposition members, including PTI's Imran Khan, Jahangir Tareen, Aleem Khan, PPP (Pakistan Peoples Party) senators Rehman Malik and Osman Saifullah as well as Moonis Elahi, the son of former deputy PM Pervaiz Elahi, would have to answer regarding their direct or indirect links to offshore companies in tax havens.

Apart from responding to the opposition's queries, the prime minister reportedly would urge political leaders across the board to come up with a collective strategy to root out the evil of money laundering once and for all.

According to reports, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan is said to have played a key role in the preparation of notes for the prime minister, whereas Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid has been tasked with phrasing the response.

Meanwhile, the opposition will be meeting again ahead of the assembly session this afternoon to thrash out a strategy before going into the session.

"Opposition parties will meet and discuss our response in case the PM avoids answering the seven questions that have been conveyed to the government through the National Assembly speaker," PTI chief whip Dr. Shireen Mazari said.

PTI spokesperson Naeemul Haq confirmed that Imran Khan was due to return to Pakistan on Monday and would also be attending the National Assembly sitting.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will today make his first appearance in parliament since the Panama Papers revelations about his family's offshore holdings caused a political uproar in the country.

However, the revelations that his arch-rival, PTI chief Imran Khan, had also set up an offshore company have eased some pressure.

"The prime minister will come up with lots of substance, which should be sufficient for his own constituency and the more fair-minded critics, since the opposition always manages to find some fault," Dawn quoted a key adviser to the Prime Minister as saying.

The adviser added that the Sharif was now in a better position to defend the case of his three children, given that several key opposition members, including PTI's Imran Khan, Jahangir Tareen, Aleem Khan, PPP senators Rehman Malik and Osman Saifullah as well as Moonis Elahi, the son of former deputy PM Pervaiz Elahi, would have to answer regarding their direct or indirect links to offshore companies in tax havens.

Apart from responding to the opposition's queries, the Prime Minister reportedly would urge political leaders across the board to come up with a collective strategy to root out the evil of money laundering once and for all.

According to reports, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan is said to have played a key role in the preparation of notes for the Prime Minister, whereas Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid has been tasked with phrasing the response.

Meanwhile, the opposition will be meeting again ahead of the assembly session this afternoon to thrash out a strategy before going into the session.

"[Opposition parties] will meet and discuss our response in case the PM avoids answering the seven questions that have been conveyed to the government through the National Assembly speaker," PTI chief whip Dr. Shireen Mazari said.

PTI spokesperson Naeemul Haq confirmed that Imran Khan was due to return to Pakistan on today and would also be attending the National Assembly sitting.
Former defence minister A.K. Antony on Monday casted his vote and said that he is confident that United Democratic Front (UDF) will have a clean swipe in Kerala where polling for electing a new state assembly is under way, while adding that the Bharatiya Janata Party in spite of the hectic campaign by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be able to open an account in the state.

Antony told ANI, "I am very happy today. I am 100 percent sure that these elections will mark a new history for Kerala. Once again UDF is going to come back again. We will win hands down this election. LDF will once again sit in the opposition for next five years," he said.

"The BJP in spite of the hectic campaign by the Prime Minister will not be able to open an account in Kerala assembly. I am sure Kerala will vote for peace, communal harmony, stability and progress. I am very sure that we will get more seats than we got in last elections," he added.

The Congress leader asserted that the Prime Minister's speech where he compared Kerala with Somalia would really dent BJP's chances in Kerala as the statement had hurt the pride of every Malayali in the state.

Kerala would see polling for its 140 seats assembly.

The polling started at 7 a.m. and would end at 6 p.m.

All non-sensitive booths would have a policeman each for providing security and central paramilitary force personnel would give security cover for the sensitive and hypersensitive booths.

Meanwhile, the election authorities are bracing for the possibility of unusual rains today.

The Election Commission has made additional efforts in the polling booths to provide cover for the voters to come and exercise their franchise without getting drenched in the possible rain.

The Kerala Government has made elaborate arrangements for smooth and peaceful conduct of polls.
Not only did the first season of Priyanka Chopra's 'Quantico' come to an end, but also her 'Baywatch' shoot finally wrapped up.

The 33-year-old actress took to her Instagram account to share a snap and announce the wrap.

"And it's a picture wrap on #Baywatch .. Such a beautiful epic team on an epic film. @therock@zacefron @sethnodrog @bubbakrush @kellyrohrbach @ilfenator @thejonbass @alexannadaddario and the entire crew that worked endlessly to make this happen.. Lots of amazing hugs and love came my way.. Much love and gratitude right back.. C you soon!" she wrote alongside.

The snap shows the desi girl wearing a lifeguard jacket and hugging someone, who, unfortunately can't be seen.

'Baywatch,' slated to release next year, also star Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jon Bass, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Belinda Peregrn, David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson.

The movie, shot in Savannah, Georgia and Miami, narrates the story of the two unlikely prospective lifeguards vie for jobs alongside the buff bodies who patrol a beach in California.

Priyanka will be portraying a negative character named Victoria.
Indian batsman Suresh Raina and his wife Priyanka, who were expecting their first child, are now proud parents of a baby girl.

Raina took to micro blogging website Twitter to announce the welcoming of their daughter Gracia.

"Welcome my beautiful daughter. #GraciaRaina????????. Long wait but totally worth it. #ProudFather. She is getting dressed up for her photoshoot," Raina posted, along with a photo of his wife and daughter.

Raina, who got married last year in a glorious ceremony, flew out to the Netherlands on May 10 to be with his pregnant wife, thus missing his first Indian Premier League (IPL) match in nine years.
Nepal's former Ambassador to India, Deep Kumar Upadhyay, who was recalled by the government from the Nepali diplomatic mission in New Delhi, challenged Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli- led government to prove allegations leveled against him.

"I will quit public life if the government proves its allegations against me," the Himalayan Times quoted Upadhyay as saying.

Upon arrival at his home country with his wife yesterday, Upadhyay maintained that he did his best to strengthen Nepal-India ties while working in New Delhi for the last 13 months.

Government ministers had reportedly alleged that former Nepali Congress central committee member Upadhyay had helped in the plot to topple the UML-led government.

Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Bhim Rawal publicly alleged that Upadhyay had supported the move to topple the government.

"I have not breached decorum. Rather, I have maintained discipline and did not even participate in the NC's national general convention," he said.

Talking to the media at the Tribhuvan International Airport upon his arrival, he said that he also took initiatives to end the obstruction in supply of petroleum products to Nepal after the promulgation of the Constitution in September last year.

He, however, lamented that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not mention any reason behind his recall.

Commenting on President Bidya Devi Bhandari's visit to India that was cancelled at the last moment, he said that it was a sad incident.

Upadhyay, who was a central leader of Nepali Congress before taking up the diplomatic responsibility, maintained such few incidents would not affect the bilateral relations in the long-run.

He hinted that he would become active in politics and said that he would move ahead in consultation with his friends

Upadhyay said he took the decision of the government to recall him as a normal process as the government has the right to call ambassadors it does not feel comfortable to work with.
As if there werent enough reasons already for the automobile fraternity to oppose the blanket ban on diesel cars in Delhi, the Supreme Courts decision has impacted around 5,000 jobs, according to the Society of Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

In terms of volumes, the ban has affected the production of 11,000 vehicles, SIAM added. Production loss due to the ban of these vehicles in NCR from December 16, 2015 to April 30, 2016 has resulted in 11,000 vehicles, which translates to impact on approximately 5,000 jobs in the industry, it said in a written submission to the Supreme Court.

Emphasising the impact of the apex courts ban, it further said, if extended across the country, it (the ban) would lead to a loss of production of one lakh vehicles over the same period and would have impacted 47,000 jobs.

A certain Environmental Compensation Charge (ECC) has also been imposed on diesel vehicles. It could worsen things further and result in permanent job loss of a significant number of industry employees and the problem becomes manifold if such measure gets extended to other parts of the country beyond NCR, said the automobile manufacturers body.

Such adverse repercussions, even on existing employment and much more for future job creation are significant, and without a long term comprehensive policy could be potentially disastrous, SIAM said in its submission.

As various other manufacturers have pointed out, SIAM also stated that there is no established link between engine capacity and emission levels.

Individually too, automakers have called for phased reduction, which might also give more time for transition for workers. However, the Supreme Court currently appears to be entertaining no further debate on the issue.

Source : CarDekho
Shares of Bank of Baroda (BoB) may edge lower after the bank reported net loss of Rs 3230.14 crore in Q4 March 2016 comapared with net profit of Rs 598.35 crore in Q4 March 2015. Total income rose 6.06% to Rs 12789.06 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. The result was announced after market hours on Friday, 13 May 2016. The bank's gross non-performing assets (NPA) stood at Rs 40521.04 crore as on 31 March 2016 compared with Rs 38934.11 crore as on 31 December 2015 and Rs 16261.45 crore as on 31 March 2015. The ratio of gross NPA to gross advances stood at 9.99% as on 31 March 2016 compared with 9.68% as on 31 December 2015 and 3.72% as on 31 March 2015. The ratio of net NPA to net advances stood at 5.06% as on 31 March 2016 compared with 5.67% as on 31 December 2015 and 1.89% as on 31 March 2015. BOB's provisions and contingencies jumped 277.31% to Rs 6857.66 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015.

BOB's board of directors has not announced dividend for the financial year ended 31 March 2016 (FY 2016) as the bank reported net loss in FY 2016.

BoB said that its asset quality has stabilized and that the management expects the bank to return to black during the current financial year. The state-run bank posted a massive net loss of Rs 5395.55 crore in the year ended 31 March 2016 (FY 2016) as against a net profit of Rs 3398.43 crore in the year ended 31 March 2015 (FY 2015). The reason for the massive net loss was due to additional provisions that the state-run bank made with respect to certain loans in Q3 December 2015 and Q4 March 2016 as a part of an asset quality review (AQR) being carried out by the Reserve Bank of India for the banking sector as a whole. The provision coverage ratio (PCR) of the bank improved to 60.09% as on 31 March 2016 from 52.7% as on 31 December 2015. The total restructured standard assets of the bank dropped to Rs 13735 crore on 31 March 2016 from Rs 17135 crore as on 31 December 2015.

Union Bank of India's (UBI) net profit fell 78.34% to Rs 96.12 crore on 5.32% decline in total income to Rs 8884.41 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. The result was announced after market hours on Friday, 13 May 2016. The bank's gross non-performing assets (NPA) stood at Rs 24170.89 crore as on 31 March 2016 compared with Rs 18495.16 crore as on 31 December 2015 and Rs 13030.87 crore as on 31 March 2015. The ratio of gross NPA to gross advances stood at 8.7% as on 31 March 2016 compared with 7.05% as on 31 December 2015 and 4.96% as on 31 March 2015. The ratio of net NPA to net advances stood at 5.25% as on 31 March 2016 compared with 4.07% as on 31 December 2015 and 2.71% as on 31 March 2015. UBI's provisions and contingencies rose 54.92% to Rs 1564.67 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. The bank's provision coverage ratio stood at 50.98% as on 31 March 2016.

Among prominent results, Petronet LNG, Tata Coffee, Brigade Enterprises and JK Tyre & Industries are scheduled to announce their Q4 March 2016 results today, 16 May 2016.

Ahluwalia Contracts (India) announced that it has secured new orders aggregating to about Rs 492.65 crore. The company's unexecuted order book as on date stands at Rs 4507 crore, Ahluwalia Contracts (India) said. The announcement was made after market hours on Friday, 13 May 2016.

Bayer CropScience's net profit fell 61.98% to Rs 16.50 crore on 8.56% decline in total income to Rs 540.90 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. The result was announced after market hours on Friday, 13 May 2016.

Piramal Enterprises announced after market hours on Friday, 13 May 2016, that its consumer products division has entered into an agreement to acquire four brands from Pfizer for a consideration of Rs 110 crore. The acquisition includes brands namely Ferradol, Neko, Sloan's and Waterbury's Compound. Additionally the agreement also includes the trademark rights for Ferradol and Waterbury's Compound in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. These brands hold a rich legacy and have a high consumer pull and are available in India for the past 30 plus years, Piramal said in a statement. These products currently operate in a market which is currently estimated at Rs 7000 crore, it added. Completion of the deal is subject to certain conditions including regulatory approvals, Piramal said.

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Bank of Baroda fell 6.97% to Rs 144.15 at 9:26 IST on BSE after the bank reported net loss of Rs 3230.14 crore in Q4 March 2016 compared with net profit of Rs 598.35 crore in Q4 March 2015.

The result was announced after market hours on Friday, 13 May 2016.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 34.04 points, or 0.13%, to 25,455.53.

On BSE, so far 7.54 lakh shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 12.45 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 151.50 and a low of Rs 143.30 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 216.25 on 18 August 2015. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 109.45 on 12 February 2016. The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 13 May 2016, rising 1.64% compared with 0.54% decline in the Sensex. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 35.51% as against Sensex's 10.89% rise.

The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 460.83 crore. Face value per share is Rs 2.

Bank of Baroda (BoB)'s total income rose 6.06% to Rs 12789.06 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. The bank's gross non-performing assets (NPA) stood at Rs 40521.04 crore as on 31 March 2016 compared with Rs 38934.11 crore as on 31 December 2015 and Rs 16261.45 crore as on 31 March 2015. The ratio of gross NPA to gross advances stood at 9.99% as on 31 March 2016 compared with 9.68% as on 31 December 2015 and 3.72% as on 31 March 2015. The ratio of net NPA to net advances stood at 5.06% as on 31 March 2016 compared with 5.67% as on 31 December 2015 and 1.89% as on 31 March 2015. BOB's provisions and contingencies jumped 277.31% to Rs 6857.66 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015.

BOB's board of directors has not announced dividend for the financial year ended 31 March 2016 (FY 2016) as the bank reported net loss in FY 2016.

BoB said that its asset quality has stabilized and that the management expects the bank to return to black during the current financial year. The state-run bank posted a massive net loss of Rs 5395.55 crore in the year ended 31 March 2016 (FY 2016) as against a net profit of Rs 3398.43 crore in the year ended 31 March 2015 (FY 2015). The reason for the massive net loss was due to additional provisions that the state-run bank made with respect to certain loans in Q3 December 2015 and Q4 March 2016 as a part of an asset quality review (AQR) being carried out by the Reserve Bank of India for the banking sector as a whole. The provision coverage ratio (PCR) of the bank improved to 60.09% as on 31 March 2016 from 52.7% as on 31 December 2015. The total restructured standard assets of the bank dropped to Rs 13735 crore on 31 March 2016 from Rs 17135 crore as on 31 December 2015.

The Government of India held 59.24% in Bank of Baroda (as per the shareholding pattern as on 31 March 2016).

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Technology firms will play an increasingly important role in Asia-Pacific's financial services industry, says Fitch Ratings. Large unbanked populations in countries such as India, and the emergence of tech-savvy middle classes in countries such as China, Indonesia and the Philippines, will offer significant growth opportunities for "FinTech" companies.

The size of these markets will provide FinTech firms the opportunity to gain substantial scale and potentially change the banking status quo. This disruption to the financial sector will come with risks, especially where banks and regulators have limited experience in managing new technologies. How regulators balance the need to allow for the use of new technology to provide better services while controlling new operational risks and preventing the aggressive growth of unregulated financial services, will be a key challenge in the next few years.

FinTech remains a nascent sector despite rapid growth in large markets like China and India. Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, online payment systems and digital wallets focused on retail consumers and SMEs represent by far the largest markets.

We expect regulation to play a key role in determining how the sector evolves. Clear and transparent policies will be important for successful development. There is likely to be a fine line between the development of regulation to ensure orderly growth and the establishment of significant barriers to entry to protect the incumbents.

India has been proactive, and recently unveiled a consultation paper for P2P lending which seems to favour continued growth and development of the sector under a regulatory framework. The Reserve Bank of India noted the potential positive contribution that P2P lenders could have, especially in bringing formal financial services to the almost-50% of the population that is unbanked.

However, there are major challenges for new entrants. The lack of credit history for some new markets makes it difficult to assess creditworthiness to ensure appropriate credit-underwriting standards.

Importantly, the rise of FinTech could raise risks to traditional banks which fail to transform over the long term.

The rapid adoption of disruptive tech could raise security and operational vulnerabilities for banks if systems and resources to manage the new technologies are not enhanced. New technologies could also alter banks' business and operating models in the long term by eroding a previously lucrative business line or reliable funding source, and thus indirectly affect credit profiles as well.

Fitch believes the barriers to entry for FinTech firms are greatest where banking markets are more concentrated. For emerging markets, financial systems with fragmented banking systems that have seen limited innovation will be the most exposed.

Relatively high banking penetration - by emerging market standards - means there is an opportunity for digital FinTech firms in China to tap into the increasing levels of wealth being generated by a substantial middle class. China's large tech companies have already built viable payment systems outside the banking sector that compete for deposits and transaction fees. These companies could leverage these systems to market loans and investments to retail customers. Banks have under-served the household sector, given their focus on other parts of the economy, and traditional banks are playing catch-up. But this is not likely to represent a serious credit threat to banks at this stage, even with rapid growth.

In China, regulatory and policy uncertainty will be important. Growth, at least in the P2P lending space, may be checked by the authorities to protect incumbents and to ensure they are able to get up to speed with market developments. This is especially as there have been several high-profile reports of fraud in the still-unregulated P2P sector - a sector that has grown rapidly in recent years.

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On 15 May 2016

Lawreshwar Polymers announced that there was a fire accident occurred in one of the unit of the Company situated at SD-41, Kaladera Industrial Area, Tehsil Chomu, District Jaipur on 15 May 2016, around about 11:00 A.M. in the morning.

Fortunately, there has been no loss or injury to human life. The fire was controlled within the time causing the least effect on plant & machinery but still there is huge loss to plant and machinery and infrastructure. However, the Company is in the process of ascertaining the actual loss caused by the fire. The Company is taking adequate steps to ensure refunctioning of the plant at the earliest.

Although all the assets of the concerned unit are insured with The Oriental Insurance Company Limited and have already informed to the Insurance Company of the same

Since, the corporate office of the Company and the plant are situated in the adjoining building, the working was disrupted by the fire and this resulted in a bit delay in intimating to the Stock Exchange about the aforesaid incident.

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Union Bank of India fell 4.48% to Rs 110.75 at 9:53 IST on BSE after net profit fell 78.34% to Rs 96.12 crore on 5.32% decline in total income to Rs 8884.41 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015.

The result was announced after market hours on Friday, 13 May 2016.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 3.51 points, or 0.01%, to 25,486.06.

On BSE, so far 3.37 lakh shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 5.83 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 114.35 and a low of Rs 109.20 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 222.45 on 18 August 2015. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 104.05 on 29 February 2016. The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 13 May 2016, falling 11.72% compared with 0.54% decline in the Sensex. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 5.27% as against Sensex's 10.89% rise.

The mid-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 687.44 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

Union Bank of India's (UBI) gross non-performing assets (NPA) stood at Rs 24170.89 crore as on 31 March 2016 compared with Rs 18495.16 crore as on 31 December 2015 and Rs 13030.87 crore as on 31 March 2015. The ratio of gross NPA to gross advances stood at 8.7% as on 31 March 2016 compared with 7.05% as on 31 December 2015 and 4.96% as on 31 March 2015. The ratio of net NPA to net advances stood at 5.25% as on 31 March 2016 compared with 4.07% as on 31 December 2015 and 2.71% as on 31 March 2015. UBI's provisions and contingencies rose 54.92% to Rs 1564.67 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. The bank's provision coverage ratio stood at 50.98% as on 31 March 2016.

The Government of India (GoI) held 63.44% in Union Bank of India (as per the shareholding pattern as on 31 March 2016).

Union Bank of India is one of largest state-owned banks in India. The bank's business segments include treasury operations, retail banking operations, corporate wholesale banking and other banking operations. They offer various types of deposits such as savings bank deposits, current deposits, current and savings account (CASA) deposits, and term deposits.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News
At least 17 people died in flash floods in Indonesia's western island of Sumatra, the media reported on Monday.

Rescue teams on Monday were searching for 20 missing students, who were swept away by the floods on Sunday, Efe news reported.

The police said rescue teams located four students shortly after the incident.

Every year dozens of people die in Indonesia in floods and mudslides during the rainy season between November and March.

--IANS

py/bg
At least 29 militants were killed in two airstrikes in Afghanistan on Monday, authorities said.

An unmanned plane of the coalition forces struck a Taliban hideout in Mullah Quli locality of Dasht-i-Archi district in Kunduz province and killed 16 militants on Monday, district governor Nasruddin Nazari told Xinhua.

In neighbouring Baghlan province, 13 militants were killed following an airstrike in Surkhkotal area, the Afghan army said.

A heavy machine gun was also destroyed in the attack which occurred on Monday afternoon.

--IANS

lok/rn/vt
AAbout 90 percent voters cast their votes on Monday in the by-elections for Paleru assembly constituency in Telangana's Khammam district.

Enthusiasm marked the polling at all 243 centres. Long queues were seen at the booth with voters turning out in large numbers, braving the hot sun.

The balloting was peaceful with no untoward incident being reported from any part of the constituency.

The final polling figures will be known later after receipt of reports from all centres, officials said.

Over 1.90 lakh voters are eligible to cast their ballots.

In 2014 elections, 91.46 polling was recorded.

For the first time, printers have been attached to electronic voting machines (EVM) where voters can see their vote in a printed slip for seven seconds after pressing the button.

The Election Commission (EC) had deployed 1,720 personnel for the smooth conduct of the poll process. Over 3,000 policemen have also been deployed as part of the security arrangements.

The by-election was necessitated due to the death of of sitting legislator of main opposition Congress Ramreddy Venkat Reddy. The party has fielded his widow Sucharitha Reddy.

State Roads and Buildings Minister T. Nageswara Rao is the candidate of ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which is looking to continue its series of poll victories.

Though a total of 13 candidates are in the fray, it is mainly a three-cornered contest, with P.Sudershan of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) the third key candidate.

Congress is being backed by Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and YSR Congress Parry, who have not fielded their candidates.

In the run-up to the bypolls, the Election Commission (EC) had transferred Khammam District Collector Lokesh Kumar, Superintendent of Police Shahnawaz Qasim and assistant returning officer Ganesh after the Congress complained against them.

The counting of votes will be on May 19.

In 2014, Venkat Reddy had won the seat by defeating his nearest rival Swarna Kumari of the TDP by 21,863 votes.

--IANS

ms/vd
Algerian army troops arrested three terrorists on Sunday in the province of Tizi Ouzou, said country's defense ministry in a statement on Monday.

Army troops ambushed the three gunmen and arrested them, Xinhua reported, adding that a shotgun, an automatic Makarov type pistol, a grenade, a home-made bomb and large quantities of ammunition were confiscated.

A few terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the recently established Islamic State affiliate group called Caliphate Soldiers, are still in hiding in the woods of Algerian central provinces, including Bouira, Boumerdes and Tizi Ouzou in the east of the capital city of Algiers.

Located in a region plagued by unprecedented security and political instability, experts believe Algeria faces ongoing terrorist threats.

--IANS

sku/
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said the killing of a senior journalist was an attack on him and that he will recommend a CBI probe if the grieving family insisted.

Saying he was saddened by the murder of Rajdeo Ranjan, the chief minister told the media: "The killing of the journalist is an attack on me."

He said he had full faith in Bihar Police and its investigation.

"We have not left any stone unturned. The investigation is being carried out with highest diligence. Those who committed this crime (will get the strictest punishment)."

Nitish Kumar said he told the police chief on Sunday night to meet the victim's family and ask if they were satisfied with the action taken thus far.

"If they are not satisfied, we will ask for a CBI probe," he added.

Nitish Kumar said: "I have said earlier too. Anyone can commit a crime. But the law has to take its own course."

Ranjan, 46, the Siwan bureau chief of Hindustan, was shot dead at a busy market near the Station Road on Friday night.

Siwan Superintendent of Police Saurav Kumar Shah said nearly a dozen suspects, including Munshi Mian, had been detained in connection with the case.

According to police, Munshi Mian was detained from Pratappur, the village of jailed former MP Mohammad Shahabuddin.

--IANS

ik/mr
The deaths in a boat capsize in the Hooghly river in West Bengal's Burdwan district rose to 18 on Monday. The state government has announced monetary compensation for the victims' families, officials said.

An overcrowded boat capsized late Saturday night near Kalna Ghat in Burdwan while on way to Shantipur in Nadia district.

"So far 18 bodies have been recovered which include three children. Seventeen of them have been identified and the process is on to hand over the bodies to the bereaved families. Nine of the victims are each from Nadia and Burdwan," Nadia district magistrate Vijay Bharti said.

The state government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs.2 lakh each for the kin of the victims, added Bharti.

Led by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), search operations are continuing since Sunday.

"The search for the missing people is continuing. Several divers and boats have been pressed into service. We are also trying to locate the sunken boat," said an NDRF officer.

On Sunday, Shantipur's Nrisinghapur Ghat jetty witnessed violent scenes after a mob incensed by the "delay" in launching the rescue and search operations, set on fire several boats and pelted stones at police, injuring two of them.

Police had to fire tear gas shells to disperse the mob. Several people have been arrested or detained in this connection.

The administration has denied any delay in the search and rescue operation.

--IANS

and/rn/bg
The deaths in a boat capsize in the Hooghly river in West Bengal's Burdwan district rose to 18 on Monday, an official said.

An overcrowded boat capsized late Saturday night near Kalna Ghat in Burdwan while on way to Shantipur in Nadia district.

"Till now 18 bodies have been recovered," Burdwan district magistrate Saumitra Mohan said.

Nadia district magistrate Vijay Bharti on Sunday said at least 12 people were reported missing.

Led by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), search operations are continuing since Sunday.

Incensed by the "delay" in launching the rescue and search operations, locals on Sunday set fire to several boats in Shantipur's Nrisinghapur Ghat jetty and pelted stones at police men, injuring some of them.

Police had to fire tear gas shells to disperse the irate mobs.

The administration has denied any delay in the rescue and search operation.

--IANS

and/rn/vt
Chennai, despite a pleasant climate and a government holiday, will perhaps rank lowest in voter turnout in the 2016 Tamil Nadu assembly elections on Monday, said polls officials.

The city that was battered by floods last December was expected to come out and vote in large numbers, but at 5 p.m. - an hour before close of polls, the polling percentage in the state capital was just 57 percent.

Though the polling booths in the city witnessed brisk voting in the morning, the tempo slackened after that.

"It seems Chennai will be the lowest in terms of polling percentage," chief electoral officier Rajesh Lakhoni told reporters.

Incidentally, the state's other flood-hit districts like Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur and Cuddalore recorded much higher percentage of polling at 72, 68 and 74 percent at 5 p.m.

Lakhoni said voting was high in the rural areas whereas in cities, the polling percentage was relatively low.

--IANS

vj/vd
Chinese mobile phone manufacturer Transsion Holdings on Monday announced its entry in the Indian market with its global brand itel phone in an affordable price range of Rs.700-Rs.7,000.

The company will launch six phone models -- SmartSelfie it2180, SmartPower it5600, SmartSelfie it5231, PowerPro it1410 and Wish it1508, and its flagship product, SelfiePro it1511.

"itel seeks to drive the rural and semi-urban Indian consumers onto a digital platform and to provide affordable yet feature-driven mobile phones for the aspiring Indian consumers across geographies and social classes," said Sudhir Kumar, CEO, itel India, in a statement.

The flagship "it1511" device is a 4G-enabled smartphone that operates on Android 6.0 Marsh Mallow and comes with dual-SIM/dual standby capability.

itel endeavours to provide long-lasting battery and better camera performance as the primary product essence.

The feature phones will be categorised in three series -- SmartSelfie, SmartPower and Shine.

itel is also planning to set up manufacturing units in India. The company is looking forward to establish 1,000 service touch points across the country.

As part of the launch, the company will roll out its India operations in two phases.

"Phase one will include Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand while phase two will see itel Mobile entering the local markets in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh," the company stated.

--IANS

as/na/vt
The Congress on Monday dismissed an exit polls showing the party-led United Democratic Front losing power in Kerala to its rival, the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front.

Senior Congress legislator Benny Behanan, who did not get a party ticket this time, told media persons that the results that have come out in the exit polls are not true.

"I represent a seat in Ernakulam and I know this district very well and this survey says the UDF will win just three seats... this is just not right. Something has gone wrong with those who did this," he said.

Veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader O.Rajagopal, who is a contestant from the Thiruvananthapuram district, said even though the exit polls predicts three seats for his party, they are expecting more.

"So let's wait for the result to come out on May 19," he said.

Communist Party of India-Marxist Lok Sabha member M.P.Rajesh however said he did not find the results as a surprise as this was what they expected.

--IANS

sg/vd/
The BJP-led alliance will win the Assam assembly elections, three exit polls predicted on Monday evening, two of them giving it a comfortable majority in the 126-member house.

The India Today-Axis exit poll gave 79-93 seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party combine, 26-33 to the Congress and 6-10 to the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).

The ABP-Nielsen predicted 81 seats to the BJP coalition, 33 to Congress and 10 to the AIUDF.

According to Time Now C-Voter exit poll, the BJP and allies would get 57 seats, the Congress 41, AIUDF 18 and others 10.

In the last elections in Assam, the Congress -- which has been in power in the state for 15 years -- won 78 seats, the AIUDF 18 and the BJP five seats.

--IANS

sar/mr
At least seven students were killed and 14 others injured as flash floods struck a tourist resort in Indonesia's North Sumatra province, an official said on Monday.

The disaster occurred on Sunday afternoon when 21 students were visiting a waterfall in Durin Sirugun village, the official told Xinhua news agency.

"Suddenly flash floods hit the location and swept away all of them," the official said. "Seven bodies have been recovered and the search is on for rest of the bodies."

--IANS

lok/rn/vt
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will formally announce the draft bill on full statehood for Delhi this week, a government official said on Monday.

"The chief minister will make a formal announcement on the draft bill, after which it will be put in the public domain for eliciting suggestions and comments from the public," the official told IANS here.

Thereafter, the draft bill will be sent to the state cabinet for approval and tabled in the assembly, he said.

"Once passed by the assembly, the bill will be sent to the Centre for parliamentary approval."

Kejriwal has been pushing for full statehood for Delhi -- one of the poll promises of his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) -- as he says it will help him implement his plans for the national capital in a better way.

The AAP leader last month said on microblogging site Twitter that the draft bill was ready and will soon be put in the public domain for people's comments and suggestions.

--IANS

am/tsb/vm
A militant was killed while two others were apprehended near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district on Monday in a search by the army after reports of an infiltration bid, defence officials said.

"One militant was killed while other two were apprehended by personnel of the counter-insurgency Rashtriya Rifles (RR) in Sabjia Mandi area of Poonch district near the LoC today (Monday)," defence sources told IANS.

Noting there was information about the infiltration of militants in Sabjia Mandi area, a source said that on basis of this information, a search was launched in the area and militants spotted hiding in a dry watercourse.

"Seeing the army, they tried to flee from there, but were chased by alert troops and two were captured. While the third one was trying to escape, he fell down from a height and died," said the source, adding that there was no bullet injury on his body which confirms death due to falling.

"The dead militant has been identified as Bilal Khan while the names of the two apprehended militants are are being ascertained," the source added.

--IANS

sq/vd
Environmentalist R.K. Pachauri, accused of sexual harassment by a former colleague, on Monday again denied the charge and said he had done nothing wrong and will prove his innocence in court.

"I have complete faith in the country's justice delivery system. I am sure the falsity of the charge against my will be proved in a court of law very soon. I have cooperated and will continue to cooperate in the judicial process," Pachauri said in a press statement here.

He said: "I reiterate that I have done no wrong and this fact will be proved in court."

On May 14, a local court issued summons to Pachauri after taking cognisance of the charge sheet and held there was enough material to proceed against him in view of charges dealing with stalking and words, gestures or acts intended to insult a woman's modesty.

"The court, in its wisdom and without any arguments from my counsel, has dropped Section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC (Indian Penal Code) from the charge sheet, which prima facie manifests the falsity of allegations," he said.

"A copy of the charge sheet will be supplied to me on July 11."

Pachauri said the court only took cognisance of the charges levelled in the charge sheet.

"The court nowhere stated there is 'sufficient evidence' against Pachauri. This is a routine practice in courts where allegations are filed against anyone."

He said: "I again reiterate that the contents of the charge sheet are allegations levelled by the complainant. Nothing has been substantiated after yearlong police investigation. It also stated that there are no witnesses whatsoever from TERI who have corroborated her allegations."

The court has fixed July 11 for hearing in the case and issued summons to Pachauri.

On April 21, Pachauri had 'stepped down' from The Energy and Resources Institute's governing council. He is a former executive chairman of TERI.

--IANS

akk/tsb/dg
Nearly 15,000 Aam Aadmi Party activists on Monday marched towards Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's residence here to protest but Chandigarh Police stopped them at the city's border with Mohali town of Punjab.

Later, a delegation of AAP leaders, including Sanjay Singh, in charge of the party's affairs in Punjab, state convenor Sucha Singh Chottepur, MP Bhagwant Mann and actor-comedian Gurpreet Ghuggi, was escorted by police to meet acting Punjab Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki to submit a memorandum against the Badal government.

The protestors are seeking a high-level probe into the Rs.12,000-crore scam of 'missing' food grain.

Security in and around Chandigarh was tightened on Monday ahead of the AAP protest against the Punjab government's alleged failure to probe the food grain scam and curb the menace of drugs, mafia and corruption.

The area around the official residences of the chief minister and his son and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal in the upscale Sector 2 was barricaded by Chandigarh Police. Scores of police personnel, many of them in anti-riot gear, were also deployed.

Chandigarh Police personnel were also deployed around the Haryana Raj Bhavan, the official residence of Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, in Sector 6.

Security was also increased at all entry points to Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, to stop the AAP activists from moving in close to the VIP residences.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had cancelled all his official engagements for Monday to receive AAP leaders who wished to protest outside his official residence.

In the past, Badal stayed at his official residence to meet Congress leaders protesting outside.

Elections to the Punjab assembly are likely to be held in February next year.

--IANS

js/tsb/vt
Polling began on Monday in the by-elections for Paleru assembly constituency in Telangana's Khammam district.

Polling began at all 243 centres at 7.00 a.m. amid tight security and will continue till 5.00 p.m, officials said.

Over 1.90 lakh voters are eligible to cast their ballots.

For the first time, printers have been attached to electronic voting machines (EVM) where voters can see their vote in a printed slip for seven seconds after pressing the button.

The Election Commission (EC) has deployed 1,720 personnel for the smooth conduct of the poll process. Over 3,000 policemen have also been deployed as part of the security arrangements.

The by-election was necessitated due to the death of of sitting legislator of main opposition Congress party Ramreddy Venkat Reddy. The party has fielded his widow Sucharitha Reddy.

State minister for roads and buildings T. Nageswara Rao is the candidate of ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which is looking to continue its series of poll victories.

Though a total of 13 candidates are in the fray, it is mainly a three-cornered contest.

P.Sudershan of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) is the third key candidate.

Congress is being backed by Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and YSR Congress Parry, who have not fielded their candidates.

In the run-up to the bypolls, the Election Commission (EC) had transferred Khammam district collector Lokesh Kumar, district superintendent of police Shahnawaz Qasim and assistant returning officer Ganesh after the Congress complained against them.

The counting of votes will be on May 19.

In 2014 elections, 91.46 polling was recorded.

Venkat Reddy had won the seat by defeating his nearest rival Swarna Kumari of the TDP by 21,863 votes.

--IANS

ms/ksk
The Election Commission said on Monday that Kerala recorded over 71 percent polling while the percentage was over 69 percent for Tamil Nadu and above 81 percent for Puducherry in the assembly polls.

Addressing a press conference here, Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha said there were long queues at some polling stations in Kerala at the end of polling at 6 p.m. All those in line at that time would be allowed to vote.

"Kerala recorded polling of 71 percent till 6 p.m. The percentage is expected to go up," he said.

Election Commission Director General Sudeep Jain, who also addressed the media, said that the polling percentage was 69.19 percent for Tamil Nadu at 5 p.m. and 81.94 percent for Puducherry at 5 p.m.

Polling was held for the assemblies of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on Monday.

--IANS

mak-ps/vm
The Congress on Monday asserted that political strategist Prashant Kishore has no role in the organisational matters of the party and his job is confined only to preparing election strategy.

"Prashant Kishore is a strategist, he will suggest which points are to be highlighted in our manifesto or in our campaign, and he will have no role in organisational matters and ticket distribution," party general secretary Shakeel Ahmad, who is in charge of the party affairs in Punjab, said while talking to reporters at the AICC headquarters here.

"This was made clear to him that whatever strategy he has to make, he will advise our captain of Punjab, Amarinder Singh," Ahmad added.

He stressed that Kishore will be a key person in preparing the Congress manifesto for the Punjab assembly elections.

"Kishore will suggest which points are to be brought in front of our manifesto and what commitments should be made," Ahmad said.

He added that people are losing interest in party manifestos as both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had made some unrealistic promises which could never be fulfilled.

"Both Modi and Kejriwal made some unrealistic promises in their manifestos and they could fulfill none. But we will make only those commitments which we may realise after coming to power," Ahmad said.

He noted that there is no communication gap between Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh and Kishore, and both of them are committed to deliver a crushing defeat to the Akali Dal in the state.

Ahmad's statement assumes significance as it comes soon after Kishore's meetings with expelled Congress leaders Jagmeet Brar and Bir Devinder Singh. Some political observers said Kishore had possibly recommended that both the leaders should be taken back into the party, which had angered Amarinder Singh.

--IANS

vin/bim/vt
The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday said Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was "evasive and non-committal" on various issues like scams, corruption and suicides by farmers in the state.

"He was evasive and non-committal on most issues like the food grain scam, corruption, suicides by farmers and the mafia rule," senior AAP leader and Punjab affairs incharge Sanjay Singh told the media here after a brief meeting with Badal outside the chief minister's residence.

Sanjay Singh was part of the AAP delegation that met Badal, who walked out of his official residence in Chandigarh's upscale Sector 2 amid unprecedented security to meet the delegation members.

On the other hand, Badal said most issues raised by the AAP were under the purview of the central government.

Earlier, nearly 15,000 AAP activists gathered at the Dussehra Ground near Phase 7 in Mohali town, adjoining Chandigarh, as part of their proposed march towards Badal's Chandigarh residence.

However, the AAP activists were stopped at the Mohali-Chandigarh border by the Chandigarh Police.

Later, the delegation of AAP leaders, including Sanjay Singh, state convenor Sucha Singh Chottepur, Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann and actor-comedian Gurpreet Ghuggi, was escorted by police to meet acting Punjab Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki and Badal.

The delegation met Solanki at the Punjab Raj Bhavan here before their meeting with Badal.

Security in and around Chandigarh was tightened on Monday ahead of the AAP protest against the Punjab government's alleged failure to probe the Rs.12,000 crore food grain scam and curb the menace of drugs, mafia and corruption.

The area around the official residences of the chief minister and his son and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal was barricaded by Chandigarh Police since Monday morning. Scores of police personnel, many of them in anti-riot gear, were also deployed.

Chandigarh Police personnel were also deployed around the Haryana and Punjab Raj Bhavans.

Security was also increased at all entry points to Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, to stop the AAP activists from moving close to the VIP residences.

The chief minister had cancelled all his official engagements for Monday to receive AAP leaders who wished to protest outside his official residence.

The Punjab assembly elections are likely to be held in February next year.

--IANS

js/tsb/bg
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Sunday warned that any effort by conservatives to draft a candidate to run against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump would be a "suicide mission for our country".

"What it means is that you're throwing down not just eight years of the White House, but potentially 100 years on the Supreme Court and wrecking this country for many generations," Priebus said.

"And so, I think that's the legacy these folks will leave behind."

A group of anti-Trump Republicans led by 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney and conservative commentator William Kristol had begun recruiting candidates to make an independent run for the White House, Fox News reported.

Romney has made personal overtures to Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, a prominent anti-Trump Republican, and Ohio Governor John Kasich. Inquiries have also been made to businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

"I think they should consider the ramifications of what's going to happen on the Supreme Court, get assurances from Donald Trump that they're satisfied with that would show that he's committed to those conservative justices ... and I think that's the better way to go as opposed to this third party route," he said.

Trump's top ally in the Senate said the New York billionaire would require more policy schooling to earn the confidence of other Republicans and show he was ready to take on likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

"I think he's going to need to learn. He's going to need to understand really completely ... how complex this world is," Senator Jeff Sessions said.

In particular, Sessions said Trump has much to learn about how to talk about matters of war.

Republican Tom Cole, R-Okla., a onetime Trump critic who nonetheless has vowed to back him in November, called him "a work in progress", more so than most candidates.

"Usually you know a lot more about a candidate because they've run for other things. They've cast votes. They've done things. And he does have a shoot-from-the-hip style."

GOP officials are still trying to determine who should be the leading voice for party barely six months before Americans choose their next president in a likely showdown between Trump and Clinton, a former senator and secretary of state.

Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan who held a high-profile meeting in Washington last week, represent two Republican factions. Ryan has said he was not yet ready to back Trump.

Trump and Ryan said after their meeting on Thursday that they were committed to unifying the party despite their difference over immigration, Muslim immigrants, taxes, benefit programmes and trade.

The discussion seemed to thaw relations enough to make a reconciliation seem possible, and the men spoke of keeping the lines of communication open and of finding common ground.

Ryan's predecessor as speaker, John Boehner, said he endorsed Trump and Ryan probably was "trying to help shape the direction of Trump's policies".

What concerns many Republicans is the prospect of their backing Trump and then having him stumble over the party's core policy issues.

For example, he once suggested that there should be "some form of punishment" for women who have had abortions. Ultimately, Trump said abortion providers, not women, were the ones who should be punished if abortions were outlawed.

The policy education for Trump and his team appears to be underway.

A few weeks ago, top aide Paul Manafort spent about an hour at the conservative Heritage Foundation Washington as part of what the think tank described as part of an ongoing series of policy briefings for candidates and their advisers.

Other Trump officials have been meeting individual members of the house. Trump himself met senators on the same day he met Ryan, and many emerged describing an open-minded, even earnest candidate.

And lately, Trump has taken to describing his policy proposals as merely "suggestions", but also said he is his own best foreign policy adviser.

--IANS

py/dg
"The Wire" star Wendell Pierce was arrested at an Atlanta hotel after reportedly physically assaulting a woman supporting US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. He was later released.

Sources at the Loews Hotel in Atlanta said the actor, best known for his role as Baltimore Police Detective William "Bunk" Moreland on "The Wire", struck up a conversation with the woman and her boyfriend, which turned political.

Pierce, a big Hillary Clinton supporter, got upset when the woman declared her support for Sanders, reports tmz.com.

According to the source, Pierce, who played Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the HBO drama "Confirmation", became enraged, pushed the woman's boyfriend and then went after her, grabbing her hair and smacking her in the head.

The source also claimed that the woman and her boyfriend went to their room and called hotel security, who then called the police.

Pierce was arrested and booked for battery. He posted a $1,000 bond and was released.

--IANS

ank/rb/dg
Accused of an editorial bias against conservative news organisations in its popular "Trending Topics", the social media giant Facebook has invited conservative leaders, including outspoken media personality Glenn Beck, to meet CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week.

According to Tech Insider, the meeting is scheduled to take place at Facebook's Silicon Valley headquarters.

"They [Facebook] have had the same problem that many in media and Silicon Valley face: Suppression of conservative voices and ideas," Beck posted on his Facebook page.

"It would be interesting to look him [Zuckerberg] in the eye as he explains and a win for all voices if we can come to a place of real trust with this powerful tool," Beck added in the post.

A report in technology website Gizmodo last week accused Facebook of an editorial bias against conservative news organisations which led to a call for a congressional inquiry from senator John Thune (Rep) from South Dakota and the chair of US Senate commerce committee which has jurisdiction over media issues.

The panel also sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, asking for answers related to the "Trending Topics" row.

Defending "Trending Topics", Justin Osofsky, Facebook vice president for global operations, posted last week: "We take these reports very seriously and will continue to investigate the allegations. We have found no evidence to date that 'Trending Topics' was successfully manipulated but will continue the review of all our practices".

"The guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives. About 40 percent of the topics in the queue get rejected by the reviewers because they reflect what is considered 'noise' -- a random word or name that lots of people are using in lots of different ways," Osofsky said, adding that this tool is not used to suppress or remove articles or topics from a particular perspective.

"Trending Topics" was launched in 2014 to surface major conversations happening on Facebook.

It appears on right-hand side on desktop as well as when you tap on the search box in the mobile app and primarily for people using Facebook in English (there are limited tests being run in Spanish and Portuguese).

"At its core, 'Trending Topics' is designed to help people discover major events and meaningful conversations," Osofsky posted.

According to him, "Trending Topics" team is governed by a set of guidelines meant to ensure a high-quality product, consistent with Facebook's deep commitment to being a platform for people of all viewpoints.

"The guidelines demonstrate that we have a series of checks and balances in place to help surface the most important popular stories, regardless of where they fall on the ideological spectrum. Facebook does not allow or advise our reviewers to discriminate against sources of any political origin, period," Osofsky stressed.

--IANS

na/vt
Two people have been arrested in connection with the killing of TV journalist Akhilesh Singh in Jharkhand's Chatra district, a police officer said on Monday.

"We have arrested two people as part of our investigation into the murder of the journalist," Chatra Superintendent of Police Anjani Jha told IANS.

Asked about motive behind the murder, Jha said, "We are interrogating and will later disclose the details".

Indradeo Yadav alias Akhilesh Singh, a local television reporter in Chatra district, was shot dead on Thursday when he was returning home.

The killing has caused widespread outrage, occurring as it did a day before another journalist, Rajdeo Ranjan, was murdered in neighbouring Bihar.

Journalists' associations across the country have condemned the killings and demanded immediate arrest of the culprits.

Akhilesh Singh is the fourth journalist to be killed since the creation of Jharkhand in November 2000, according to the records kept by media watchdog agencies like the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

None of the previous three murders has been solved or the culprits brought to justice. A few people who were arrested in these cases managed to walk away free later.

Freelance journalist Adhir Rai was killed in Deoghar district in March 2000.

Pramod Kumar Munna, who worked for local newspaper Samkalin Tapmaan, was also killed in Deoghar district in December 2007.

The decomposed body of Nalin Mishra, editor of fortnightly Jharkhand Today, was recovered in Ranchi in April 2006.

--IANS

ns/kb/vt
US and Indian officials on Monday discussed the maritime challenges and naval cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region, the US Embassy said.

"The dialogue agreed upon during Defence Secretary Ashton Carter's recent visit to India is a further sign of the growing bilateral relations," said US Ambassador to India Richard Verma, who also participated in the meeting.

An embassy statement issued here said that naval cooperation between the two countries and multilateral engagement with other stakeholders in the Indian Ocean region topped the agenda for discussion.

Those who participated in the discussion with Indian officials from the ministries of external affairs and defence included Assistant Secretary of Defence for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs David Shear, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Manpreet Anand and US Seventh Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Joseph P. Aucoin.

--IANS

vin/tsb/vm
New Jersey police in the US were searching for a woman suspected of robbing three banks within 24 hours.

After a bank on Whitehorse-Hamilton Square Road was robbed on Friday, authorities in Hamilton township released pictures of a female suspect.

On Saturday morning, another bank in Hamilton was robbed less than five miles away on Quakerbridge Road, abc reported.

Police in Willingboro, New Jersey, said a woman with a similar description robbed a Wells Fargo Bank on Friday morning on Route 130.

A white middle-aged female wearing all black clothing -- including a scarf over her head and a green bag -- approached a teller and passed a note demanding money, according to the police.

Once the woman received an unknown amount of money, she left the bank and walked north towards a Goodwill Store.

--IANS

py/dg
Production designer Vanita Omung Kumar, who has worked on the set of Omung Kumar's "Sarbjit", says she aspires to be a director.

"Every production designer or art designer eventually wants to get into direction. I would also like to direct someday. Right now, I am too busy with other commitments. Whenever I feel that it's the right time to direct a film, I will certainly turn director," Vanita told IANS.

Vanita is currently busy promoting "Sarbjit", and says she is learning the tactics of direction from her husband.

"I am learning various aspects of direction from Omung. This is the time to learn for me. I am glad I have someone like Omung to guide me," she said.

"Sarbjit", which features Randeep Hooda in the title role, is a biopic on the Indian farmer who was convicted of terrorism and spying in Pakistan and was sentenced to death. The movie stars Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in a pivotal role.

The film was screened at the Cannes International Film Festival on Sunday.

--IANS

uma/rb/vt
Leaders expressed confidence after casting their ballots on Monday to elect 140 new legislators to the 14th Kerala Legislative Assembly.

Polling began at 7.00 a.m. across the state and will end at 6.00 p.m.

The electoral battle is principally between the traditional rival fronts -- the Congress-led UDF and the CPI-M-led LDF, while the BJP led NDA alliance is hoping a major victory.

A total of 1,203 contestants, including 109 women, are in the fray for the 140 assembly seats.

Minister of State for Excise K.Babu, who came under flak for his alleged role in the bar scam that rocked Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's government, told reporters at Ernakulam soon after casting his vote that there is no doubt the Congress-led UDF was going to win.

CPI-M politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, expressed absolute confidence that they were on course to form the next government.

"People will vote out the most corrupt government and there will be no space in Kerala for those who practice communal politics," said Vijayan after casting his vote in Kannur district.

Superstar Suresh Gopi, who recently was nominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Rajya Sabha, after casting his vote in the capital city said the hopes of the NDA alliance is sky high.

"Elections, today is similar to a circus ring, where strategies of various kinds are adopted. We have done our duty and placed our things before the people and now let the people decide," said Gopi, who actively campaigned for the NDA candidates across the state.

Former state minister of finance K.M.Mani who had to resign following an adverse court remark for his role in the bar scam, cast his vote along with his wife at his home town in Pala near Kottayam.

The actor son of superstar Mammootty, Dulqar Salman while waiting for his turn to vote at Ernakulam said that this is the first time that he is casting his vote in Kerala.

"In the previous elections, I used to vote in Chennai. I am happy, that this time I am voting here and the youth should come out in large numbers to vote as it's their responsibility and the right to do so," said Salman.

Meanwhile, 70-year-old Kunju Abdullah Haji who came to cast his vote at the CKG College at Perambara near Kozhikode collapsed while standing in the queue to vote and was declared dead when he was taken to a nearby hospital.

As per election officials, the state has 2,60,19,284 voters comprising 1,25,10,589 male, 1,35,08,693 female and two voters belonging to the third gender.

Overall, there are 21,498 regular polling booths and 148 auxiliary polling booths, of which there are 1,233 categorised as critical and including 119 booths that are in Maoist-influenced areas.

--IANS

sg/ksk
Both Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and CPI(M) leader V S Achuthanandan on Monday asserted that their coalitions were set to win the Kerala assembly election.

Chandy said after casting his vote that he was confident the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) would retain its majority in the 140-member assembly.

"We are certain the people will give us one more chance," Chandy told the media at his hometown Puthupally near here.

Polling began at 7.00 a.m across the state and will end at 6.00 p.m. The main opponent to the UDF is the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist.

Added Congress leader and former chief minister A K Antony, "For the first time in the state a ruling party is going to retain power. While the Left will remain in the opposition, the BJP won't win any seat."

Marxist leader Achuthanandan, contesting from Malampuzha in Palakkad district, met voters one last time before returning to Alappuzha to cast his vote.

"There is a slight rain and this is a good omen," he said. "There is a huge wave in our favour. We are heading for a landslide victory.

"People are going to show the exit door to Chandy," he added.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is hoping to enter the Kerala assembly for the first time.

State BJP president Kummanem Rajasekheran, contesting in Vatiyoorkavu in the heart of the state capital, said that looking at the voter turnout, things were looking very bright for the BJP.

"There is a strong opposition to both the Left and the Congress. That's why we are hugely confident this time," he said.
An unidentified woman threw acid on a veterinary doctor, injuring him critically, in Vaishali on Monday, police said.

According to the police, the woman barged into the residence of Amit Verma and threw acid on him while he was sleeping in his bedroom. The woman fled from the spot leaving the doctor crying for help.

The family members rushed him to Yashoda hospital where his condition is said to be critical.

"Verma shifted his clinic from Meerut to Vaishali about six months ago. He was running his clinic at his residence. The family members informed us that Verma had an affair with a woman who had joined his clinic on April 26, 2015," Circle Officer Atul Yadav said.

"She might be behind the attack, but we would be able to confirm her involvement only after the investigation," Yadav added.

--IANS

sps/lok/rn/bg
Last Saturday morning, I found myself emerging from a Mumbai cinema teary-eyed, at the end of the movie The Man Who Saw Infinity - the story of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a "self-taught" mathematician from Madras (now Chennai) and a clerk in the Madras Port Trust, who got himself invited to do research in advanced mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1914, and who had to return to India five years later because of ill-health, to die of tuberculosis.
Your daughter is in grade 12 in a well-known and respected school in Delhi. She's smart, bright and gets high grades. She may not be top of the class but she's well above average. After grade 12, most of her classmates are planning to leave the country for further studies. They are headed to the United States, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, Scotland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and even Ireland. She, too, wants to go out of the country. She feels it is the way to go.
At the core of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change is the aspiration of greater transparency based on a robust mechanism for monitoring, review and verification (MRV) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and related actions. Designing the nuts and bolts of this mechanism will require another set of contentious negotiations. But a lot of hard work will be needed at home, too, with implications for how India counts emissions.
The recent trend of successive state governments targeting companies by resorting to the highly controversial entry tax is worrying. The last 18 months saw states such as Uttarakhand, Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Gujarat, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh introduce specific provisions in their entry tax enactments to tax transactions whereas states like Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have also announced their intention to levy entry tax on transactions. If reports are to be believed, many other states are likely to follow suit.
Some years ago, while browsing at one of the bookshops at the Delhi airport, I found a book on globalisation by a former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor on top of the fiction shelf. I took a picture and sent it to the author. He was highly amused and later told me that much of economics was indeed fiction.
When it comes to reducing its dependence on debt, China's actions matter more than its words. Last week the state-owned People's Daily newspaper quoted an unnamed "authoritative figure" saying that the country's high leverage was the "original sin". Yet official data released over the weekend confirm debt is still rising while infrastructure and property investment are increasing at a rapid pace. Until the numbers show otherwise, it's safe to assume Beijing is still focused on growth.

On the surface, recent credit data suggests that China's economy has entered debt rehab. New total social financing (TSF), a widely used barometer of investment, was 751 billion yuan ($115 billion) in April, down sharply from 2.3 trillion yuan in March. New loans fell to 564 billion yuan from 1.3 trillion yuan in the previous month. This appeared to confirm speculation that the interview, published in People's Daily on May 9, had signaled a high-level shift in policy.

Yet a closer look at the numbers shows the story remains much as before. The TSF numbers don't include a monthly record of one trillion yuan of new local government bonds, most of which were issued as part of a scheme to swap bank loans for longer-term securities. Add these back in and UBS calculates that overall credit in grew 17 per cent year on year. That's far too high for an economy where nominal GDP is growing at about half that pace.

Moreover, the new money is still pouring into the same areas that gave years of lop-sided growth. Property prices have risen sharply in prime cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. Construction starts were 21.4 per cent higher measured by floor space in the first four months of 2016 than a year ago, China's National Bureau of Statistics said on May 14.

Even though infrastructure spending slowed slightly, it still increased by 21 per cent year on year in April, with investment in utilities growing at an even faster pace, according to UBS. Meanwhile, private sector firms complain of a shortage of credit.

To rebalance China's economy, Beijing needs to direct capital to areas that can generate better returns. For now, the numbers show no sign of that happening. Then again, renouncing original sins was never going to be easy.
may have already crossed the point of no return with its economic reform plan. A downgrade of the kingdom's credit rating by Moody's on May 14 came in response to a sharp deterioration in its finances caused entirely by falling oil prices. The kingdom is taking the hard path of reform rather than doing whatever it can to push up its crude revenues. That is undoubtedly the sensible option.

Saudi is burning through its foreign exchange reserves to offset declining export revenue and plug a budget deficit that is expected to average 9.5 percent of gross domestic product between now and the end of the decade. Moody's predicts that the kingdom will need to fund cumulative deficits of $324 billion by 2020. The figure would be equal to 75 percent of its gross income from crude exports at current prices over the same period.

Riyadh could easily look for a short-term fix by just pumping up crude prices to revive its finances. In the past, the kingdom worked with the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to maintain higher prices and boost revenue. So far its powerful Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - the mastermind behind a reform policy called Vision 2030 - looks determined to push ahead with the challenging restructure of its one-dimensional economy.

That could end up with Saudi in an even stronger position to service its debts. The current plan, which includes selling a stake in state-owned oil company Aramco, would leave Saudi with a $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund. But it's a riskier way to get there. Besides, moving away from oil is only one of a series of challenges the 31-year-old prince faces, along with the need for political liberalisation, high youth unemployment and diabetes that affects almost a quarter of the population.

Those alone justify forging ahead with reforms. Over the long term, whether the prince can tackle them will matter far more to lenders and investors than his kingdom's credit rating.
Ahead of the massive protest by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday against the state government at Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's residence here, section 144 has been imposed in Chandigarh as a precautionary measure.

has claimed that more than 50,000 supporters will gherao the chief minister's residence protesting against the 12,000 crore food grain scam.

The leaves of all personnel of the state police have been cancelled in the wake of the protest and Badal has cancelled all his engagements scheduled for Monday.

Badal's adviser on national affairs Harcharan Bains said that the chief minister will remain available at his residence to receive any political leader or representatives for discussion on any issue concerning people of state.

Describing the as "a band of fugitives" and "anti-Punjab" elements, Badal has called upon the people of Punjab to beware of their "nefarious designs" and narrow political vested interest.

Badal said that the has no definite agenda for the overall development and welfare of the state or its people. "Rather, their sole agenda is to rule Punjab by hook or crook just to satiate their lust for power," he said.

Exhorting people to give another opportunity to the SAD-BJP combine to serve them and to ensure all-round development and prosperity of all sections of society, Badal said, "It is evident from its Delhi model of governance that the inexperienced and novice AAP leadership will certainly land you in the soup, rather extending a helping hand. On the contrary, the SAD-BJP alliance is trusted and time-tested in which people can repose their faith, and have confidence in its policies and programmes."

"How can you expect a new political party, which has not even known the hardships faced by the people at the grass-roots level to do justice with you? The SAD-BJP alliance was an all-weather friendship, which could feel the pulse of people besides resolving their grievances to their satisfaction," said Badal.

Accusing the AAP of fiddling with the sentiments of the innocent people of Punjab, Badal said this was not only deplorable, but also highly unethical. He said political outfits indulging in such gimmickry should refrain from it.
Both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress have hit out at the advertising blitz of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) here, which runs this citys government.

Political bribery, said the BJP; splurge(ing) public wealth on self-promotion and self-publicity, said the Congress.

The latters spokesperson, Shobha Oza, stated a query filed under the Right to Information (RTI) law had showed the city government spent Rs 14.5 crore on advertisements in newspapers between February 10 and May 10. That was Rs 16 lakh a day on such ads, in Delhi and elsewhere, too, she said.

She added the RTI query was on ads across all media platforms (TV, radio, hoardings, etc) but the Delhi government had revealed details of prints ads alone. The party said its calculation was that the Arvind Kejriwal government spent close to Rs 100 crores on ads in the past three months. What, it demanded, was the justification for outstation ads by his government?



This blatant misuse of taxpayer money was even more shocking, it said, because the Kejriwal government had long delayed on the allocations for pay of sanitation workers, old-age and widow pensions and those for disabled people.

Incidentally, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had on Monday decried excessive advertising as akin to paid news. We need to see whether excessive advertisements become political bribery, he said. Oza said Jaitleys BJP and the were guilty of the same offence. Kejriwal and (Prime Minister) Modi want to see their faces glorified in large newspapers and TV ads, at the expense of hard-earned money of the hapless taxpayer.



She alleged that from May 2014 to May 2015 the Modi Government spent Rs 27 lakh per day on advertisements (according to DAVP figures) while in the last 90 days the Aam Aadmi Party Government in Delhi has spent Rs 16 Lakh per day.
It could take another 10 days to put out a huge fire at a tyre dump near Madrid, regional authorities said today, though residents have already been allowed to return to the area.

Some 10,000 people living in the town of Sesena near the Spanish capital evacuated their homes Friday after the dump went up in flames after a suspected arson attack.

Spanish authorities allowed the residents to return home Saturday, saying that the toxic fumes billowing from the rubber heap posed less of a risk.

The regional Castilla-La Mancha authorities in a statement estimated that "when the fire is completely extinguished (between a week and ten days) there will still be 30,000 tonnes of tyres able to be recycled and reused".

The blaze broke out before dawn last Friday in the dump that stretches over 10 hectares (25 acres) -- the equivalent of about 10 rugby fields -- and straddles the Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid regions.

A massive black cloud of fumes billowed into the air, prompting widespread health concerns. The Castilla-La Mancha government had warned that the smoke was "toxic."



The massive stack of tyres started to form in the 1990s when a company began using the site as a temporary depot for old tyres due to be recycled, and it grew from then on.
With the death of 18 more pigs since last night, at least 2,592 pigs have died in the Mizoram-Myanmar border Champhai district due to the outbreak of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), Champhai Area Vawkvulh Association (CAVA) vice president K Zamlova today said.

Zamlova said though the number of pig deaths gradually decreased during the last week, a number of pigs were taken ill of which some were very serious.

He said the CAVA convened a meeting of those who were engaged in piggery to deliberate on the suggestion by some members that all pigs in the area should be culled.

"It will be an extremely difficult decision to make, but we will take a decision in the interest of all stake holders," he said.

Zamlova said the association members were in favour of permanent prohibition on import of pigs from neighbouring Myanmar where the dreaded PRRS has been prevalent for some time.
Thirty-four fishermen from Tamil Nadu, arrested by the Sri Lankan naval personnel last month for allegedly entering their country's waters, were today ordered to be released by courts in the island nation.

The courts orders come close on the heels of Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena's visit to India on May 13 during which he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed among other issues the problems faced by Indian fishermen.

While 13 fishermen, arrested on April 15, were set free by the Oorkavalthurai Court, the others, detained on April 21, were ordered to be released by a court in Mannar, local Fishermen's Association president Emirite said quoting information received by him.

Of the 13 fishermen, four were from Rameswaram and nine others belonged to Nagapattinam.

The other group of 21 fishermen were from Pamban and Thangachimadam, he said.

However, their boats had not been released, he added.

Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had last month urged Modi to take immediate action in securing the release of all 55 fishermen and 91 fishing boats, detained by the Sri Lankan navy in recent months.
Five Chinese journalists of a newspaper and its website were today sentenced to up to 12 years in jail for extorting USD 125,000 from government officials by blackmailing them in central Hunan Province.

Zhang Huanrui, vice president of Modern Consumer News, and four of his subordinates were found guilty of blackmailing half a dozen government departments and officials for 815,000 yuan (USD 125,000) by threatening them with negative reports, said the Yanfeng District People's Court in Hengyang city.

The defendants used the potential consequences of the negative reports to coerce the agencies and officials to pay money, promising in return to delete negative reports or not to conduct follow-up reporting, the state-run Xinhua agency reported, citing the court.

Zhang was sentenced to 12 years in prison. One subordinate was given a six-year jail term. Two were sentenced to two years, four months and 20 days behind bars.

The other was given a three-year suspended sentence.
Seven persons were today arrested for allegedly trying to circulate 'outdated' Turkish currency with a face value of Rs 10 crore here, police said.

The arrests were made after the Cyberabad police conducted raids on the residence of one of the accused on May 14, they said.

The gang tried to circulate the Turkish Lira currency notes and coins belonging to pre-2005 series, which are no longer in circulation and are not accepted as a new series of Lira notes which was introduced on January 1, 2009, police said.

"The accused persons illegally secured the prohibited Turkish Lira currency from different sources and tried to exchange the same," the police said in a statement.

The accused persons and the seized currency have been handed over to Malkajgiri police for further investigation, police added.
Ahead of his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi tomorrow to discuss the prevailing drought situation in Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu today presented a rosy picture saying last fiscal a growth rate of 8.4 per cent was achieved under the Primary Sector Mission (agriculture and allied sectors).

This led to a wealth creation of Rs 1.64 lakh crore, the Chief Minister said.

Naidu held a lengthy meeting with Union Ministers P Ashok Gajapati Raju, Y Satyanarayana Chowdary, state Deputy Chief Minister N China Rajappa, Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, other ministers, Chief Secretary Satya Prakash Tucker and top bureaucrats to discuss the issues to be detailed to the PM.

A press release from the Chief Minister's Office said Naidu would make a PowerPoint presentation to the PM to highlight the state's achievements under the Primary Sector Mission and also the Neeru-Pragati (water and progress) programme.

The state was successful in implementing a programme to boost groundwater table, leading to consumption of less power for agriculture, resulting in a saving of Rs 2,000 crore, it said.

Agriculture production went up from 23 to 40 per cent due to soil tests and issue of soil health cards, Naidu said.

The state stood second in the country by taking up micro irrigation in 6.93 lakh hectares.

"In 2016-17, we will use 15,000 rain guns and provide water to one lakh acres in one day. Similarly, we have targeted to dig 6.05 lakh farm ponds to meet the irrigation needs of 3 lakh hectares and benefit 4.5 lakh farmers. We can also store 2.75 TMC ft of water," Naidu said.

"We have done everything to mitigate the drought. Now, all that remains is Central (financial) assistance. We can accomplish Neeru-Pragati, interlinking of rivers and Polavaram multipurpose irrigation project only if the Centre supports us," he remarked.

While the state sought a financial assistance of Rs 2,005.56 crore from the Centre to meet the drought in 2015, it sanctioned only Rs 433.77 crore. Of the sanctioned amount, only Rs 315.95 crore was released, the Chief Minister was informed at the meeting.

Similarly, the Centre sanctioned only Rs 280.19 crore as against Rs 3,501.63 crore sought for relief measures in the wake of damage caused by heavy rains and floods last year, it said.
At least eight persons including an infant have been killed in floods and landslides triggered by torrential rains in Sri Lanka, with the military being deployed to evacuate tens of thousands fleeing their homes, officials said today.

Meteorology Department today warned of incessant rain and thundershowers throughout the country.

Military personnel have been deployed to evacuate people living on slopes or in flood-hit areas. The navy was also helping clear choked canals in Colombo to stop low-lying areas including the country's parliament from flooding.

Nearly 5,000 families living in low-lying areas which have already been flooded due to the rains had been moved to relief centres, Disaster management centre spokesman Pradeep Kodippili said, adding that thousands of others have also left their homes to safety.

He said eight persons including an infant have so far died and the death toll could rise in near future.

The rains have been lashing the country for the last two days, felling trees, damaging power cables and blocking roads and connectivity.

"Three people are reported missing in Dehiowita area," Disaster Management Centre spokesman Pradeep Kodippily said.

Relief operations are well underway even the military had been deployed in the hill country areas to provide relief, he said, adding that the men went missing from the country's southwestern district of Kegalle.

Rains lashed the country throughout yesterday, flooding most of the roads in Colombo. Besides, several roads have been cut off due to floods with the Sri Lanka Red Cross saying its employees have been placed on alert to assist anyone who may be affected by the bad weather.

As many as eight districts have been issued landslide warnings.

Katunayake, just outside Colombo, had recorded the highest rain fall, over 260 millimeters between 08:30 hours (local time) yesterday to 05:30 hours today, Meteorology Department said.

"The low pressure area is moving away from Sri Lanka so the rainy conditions over the island will be reduced to some extent, but strong wind conditions will continue for a few more days," Malinda Millagoda, a meteorologist said.

Yesterday, three international flights were diverted to Kochi in India due to bad weather conditions prevailing in Sri Lanka, Airport officials said.
The AAP government today opposed in the Delhi High Court the parole plea of INLD leader Ajay Chautala, serving a 10-year jail term in teachers' recruitment scam case, alleging that he was "abusing" the process of law.

Chautala has sought parole for medical treatment and for maintaining social ties.

Delhi government told a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath that earlier also Chautala was admitted to a private hospital for around seven months in the name of treatment.

"I cannot say that he (Chautala) is hale and hearty but he does not require any immediate redressal (for his ailments). In an August 2013 medical report, it was said that a pacemaker was needed to be implanted but till date no such procedure has been carried out," Delhi government's senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra told the bench.

"This means that the patient is improving. Last time, he had gone to a private hospital and not a government hospital. He is abusing the system of law. He was out of jail for seven months in the name of treatment," he argued.

Senior counsel Sudhir Nandrajog, who represented Chautala, told the bench that a decision to defer pacemaker implant was taken by the team of doctors and his client was admitted to a private hospital earlier for seven months under custody.

He referred to the report of a medical board and said that the doctors have opined that Chautala needs medical treatment for his ailments.

The bench, after hearing the submissions, reserved its order on the plea.

"We will consider and pass an order," the bench said.

A single judge of the high court had last month dismissed the plea of Chautala, whose appeal against the high court verdict convicting him and his father, Haryana's former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, and sentencing them to 10 years in jail was dismissed by Supreme Court on August 3 last year, seeking 12 weeks' parole for medical treatment.

The high court had on March 5, 2015, upheld the 10-year jail term awarded to Chautalas and three others, saying "the overwhelming evidence showed the shocking and spine-chilling state of affairs in the country."



The father-son duo and 53 others, including two IAS officers, were convicted on January 16, 2013 by the trial court for illegally recruiting 3,206 junior basic trained (JBT) teachers in Haryana in 2000.

Besides the Chautalas and two IAS officers, the high court had also awarded 10-year prison term to Sher Singh Badshami, then an MLA and political adviser to Chautala senior.

The high court, however, had modified the trial court's order on the quantum of sentence and awarded two-year jail term to 50 other convicts.

All the 55 convicts were sentenced under sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 418 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 471 (using forged documents as genuine) of IPC and under Prevention of Corruption Act.

Initially, there were 62 accused in the case. While two died before filing of the charge sheet, four passed away during the trial of the case and one was discharged by the trial court.
Aam Aadmi Party today held protest against the alleged multi-crore foodgrain scam in Punjab and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored SIT probe into the issue.

AAP had plans to 'gherao' Chief Minister's residence in Chandigarh but police deployed at Mohali-Chandigarh border prevented protesters from moving ahead.

Large number of AAP workers participated in the protest at Mohali bringing traffic to a halt by choking several roads.

AAP leader Succha Singh Chhotepur later told reporters that he, Sanjay Singha and Bhagwant Mann met Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal at his residence who wanted a "closed door" meeting but gave into to AAP's pressure and came out to meet them.

The AAP leaders who went to meet Badal raised slogans against the state government, alleging it to be "anti-farmers".

Chhotepur said they had given a week's time to the state government to clear outstanding payments to wheat growers.

The top AAP leaders also met Punjab Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki and submitted a memorandum.

"Aam Aadmi Party demands that in order to bring facts before the public of Punjab an SIT to be monitored by Supreme Court should be set up and all politicians and officers responsible for the this 'Grain Stock Shortage Scam' should be brought to book, put behind bars and dealt with as per the law of the land," the memorandum demanded.

AAP has also demanded compensation of Rs 15 lakh for the families of farmers who committed suicide due to crop failure and bad loans.

Through the memorandum, the AAP also demanded sacking and prosecution of state's Agriculture Minister Tota Singh for criminal negligence causing alleged loss to the farmers in the cotton belt of Malwa last year.

AAP also demanded judicial inquiry into the alleged scam in public distribution system, where wheat worth Rs 4500 crore has been embezzled by government machinery and local leaders. MORE.

In another development, Punjab government today issued



advertisements in newspapers claiming that account of every procured grain is maintained by Punjab procurement agencies and FCI.

It claimed there was a "conspiracy of anti-Punjab elements" to "defame" Punjab and said bogey of "missing wheat" was raised by opposition parties for their "political gains".

"Beware of those (who are) out to defame Punjab," said an advertisement.

In view of the AAP protest, police had deployed riot control vehicles, fire fighting engines, ambulances to restrain the AAP activists from entering Chandigarh, officials said here.

Yesterday, Badal announced to cancel his previous engagements in the wake of AAP protest and said that he would "remain available" at his residence to receive "any responsible political leader or representative for discussion on any issue concerning the people of the state."



AAP National Spokesman and in-charge of party affairs in Punjab, Sanjay Singh accused Badal of using "coercive ways and means at his command to ensure AAP doesn't hold a massive protest demonstration and surround his official residence at Chandigarh to expose his misdeeds."



"The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has unearthed the biggest food scam of the country accusing the Badal government of either siphoning off Rs 12,000 crore or the food grains worth the same amount from the Punjab godowns," he further added.
Congress leader Rashid Alvi today kicked up a row with his remarks over Prime Minister Narendra Modi, evoking sharp reaction from an audience, which asked him to take back his words and apologise.

Organisers of the India TV conclave "Samvaad", to mark the two years of completion of Modi government, tried to pacify the agitated audience who shouted down the Congress leader as words of 'shame shame' rent the air.

It all started with Alvi asking HRD Minister Smriti Irani, who was also present, on what action was being initiated on Modi coming out as "most stupid Prime Minister" in Google search. This was offended to by the audience.

Responding to the remarks, Irani said, "In Congress, those who throw stones and spits at Narendra Modi will be blue-eyed. The poison against Narendra Modi has crossed the limits that people forget that he is country's Prime Minister."



"When Rashid bhai uses such words for the country's Prime Minister, what kind of words does he use for a woman minister by saying that 'it is heard that you are very close to Modi ji'. We have to live with this poison everyday and then you say why does Smriti Irani get angry," she said.

Lashing out at the Congress, she said, "There is a cabal who have festered this democracy for too long. They have lived off the scraps of the dynasty and they have done this irrespective of the damage they do to institutions. Because their whole survival was never dependent on their talent, but it was dependent on their proximity."



Irani said by the example put forth by Alvi, neither Modi nor his supporters would be hurt, but the Congress leader has only Alvi lowered his own image by doing so.

Earlier BJP leader and former JD-U MP Sabir Ali said it reflected the mindset of Congress, who were unable to digest their defeat and that their regime and influence were gone.

"I expect him to take back his words. I feel such language can be used only by people with such mindset who have a regret that their regime and influence have gone. Those who feel that being influential is their right can use such words," he said.

Lyricist and screenwriter Prasoon Joshi said Google provided information the way it was put forth before the search engine. "It is like an algorithm. Google always follows the pattern of your search. It is not a gospel, it is a pattern. It is an algorithm and should be read like that," he said.
A senior BNP leader has been arrested in Bangladesh over his alleged involvement in a plot to oust the Awami League government in collusion with Israel following his meeting in India with a top Israeli politician, police said today.

Aslam Chowdhury, a joint secretary general of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and a leading businessman of Chittagong, was arrested here last night after a travel ban was enforced on him.

"We arrested him (Chowdhury) as investigations revealed he was involved in a plot to oust the government with Israeli support...He personally met an Israeli politician abroad," police's detective branch commissioner Abdul Baten told reporters.

"Police filed a prayer seeking Aslam Chowdhury to be remanded in custody for 10 days, the magistrate granted seven days," an official of Dhaka's Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court said today.

Police had earlier said they launched an investigation into BNP's alleged connection with Israeli Mossad intelligence agency.

"We are investigating whether any Bangladeshi has connection with Mossad. The suspects are under surveillance," Chittagong's regional police chief Mohammad Shafikul Islam said.

Chowdhury came under scrutiny after newspapers published several photographs in which he was seen with Israel's ruling Likud party leader Mendi N Safadi in India during a conference.

DelAviv, an Indo-Israel relationship platform, and Mendi N Safadi Center for International Diplomacy and Public Relations, posted the photos.

The reports sparked uproar in Bangladeshi media and political circles.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh does not have any diplomatic relations with Israel and Bangladeshis are banned from travelling there. Bangladesh has also voiced concerns over Israeli atrocities in Palestine.

"We (Bangladesh) cannot think of relations with Israel," junior minister for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam had told reporters.

Meanwhile, Palestinian envoy in Dhaka said it would be a "political suicide" for any Bangladeshi party to have ties with Israel.

Chowdhury earlier admitted he met an Israeli politician in New Delhi earlier this month but claimed the meeting was "accidental".

Chowdhury is known to be a trusted lieutenant of BNP's senior vice-chairman Tarique Rahman, who is former prime minister Khaleda Zia's son.

Rahman has taken political refuge in the UK to evade a number of graft and criminal cases in which he is being tried in absentia at home.

The BNP is the key opposition party outside parliament as it had boycotted the 2014 general election citing unfair conditions for polls.
The Bank Board Bureau at its maiden interviews for appointments of MDs & CEOs at three state-run banks held here today met as many 10 candidates, according to sources.

The interview took place at the Reserve Bank office here for managing directors and chief executives for Indian Overseas Bank, United Bank of India and Bank of Maharashtra.

Executive directors of banks such as Punjab National Bank, Central Bank of India, Bank of India, Allahabad Bank, and United Bank of India, aamong others, appeared for the interview, sources told PTI.

This was the first job interview that was conducted by the recently constituted Bank Board Bureau. The Bureau under the chairmanship of former national auditor CAG Vinod Rai started functioning from April 1.

It will be followed by the selection of executive directors of various public sector banks, though the process for the same is yet to begin.

Apart from Rai, the Bank Board Bureau comprises Anil Khandelwal (former chairman of Bank of Baroda), HN Sinor (former chief executive of the Indian Banks Association and the mutual funds body Amfi) and Roopa Kudva (former chief of Crisil).

The ex-officio members of the Bureau are R Gandhi (RBI deputy governor), Anjuly Chibb Duggal (financial services secretary) and Ameising Luikham (secretary, department of public enterprises).
Congress today claimed RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat faced threat to his life from the outfit which was initially linked to the 2008 Malegaon blasts and that he was apprised about the matter by then Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare.

"Martyred ATS officer Hemant Karkare had met Mohan Bhagwat after the 2008 bomb blasts (in Malegaon) and warned him about threat to his life from the extremist organisation that carried out the blasts. After his warning, Bhagwat's security was stepped up," AICC General Secretary Mohan Prakash said at a press conference here.

Right-wing activist Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur was associated with this group, he alleged. Prakash did not name the outfit.

Last week, the NIA dropped all charges against Sadhvi and five other accused in the case, saying sufficient evidence has not been found for their prosecution.

If RSS was a nationalist organisation, Bhagwat should come forward and make public the discussion he had with Karkare, who was killed during 26/11 attacks, Prakash said.

BJP patriarch L K Advani, who had led a delegation to meet then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was also provided with all the details of the case. After this, Advani, who had defended Sadhvi, did not seek her release from jail, he said.

"Advaniji had led a delegation to the then Prime Minister demanding Sadhvi's release from jail. He was given full details of her role in the blasts. After that, he never demanded her release. Will Advaniji have the courtesy to speak the truth now in front of people," he asked.

Prakash, party observer for Maharashtra, said former Home Secretary R K Singh, now a BJP Lok Sabha MP, was the one who coined the term "saffron terrorism".

"The BJP before accusing us of maligning a community's name should first take some information from R K Singh," he said.

The Congress leader said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's interaction with Chief Ministers of drought-hit states early this month was nothing but a "farce".

"He has not provided a timeline for the release of funds to help the states affected by drought. In such a scenario, we want to know will the money really reach the needy states or will it go into somebody else's pockets," he said.
A day after RPI activists went on a rampage in Bhiwandi following the death of its Dalit member Vicky Dhepe, police has registered cases of rioting-related offences against unidentified persons even as a close relative of a local BJP MLA has been booked for the murder, police said today.

According to police, four offences of rioting were registered against the 100-plus armed mob which damaged number of vehicles, including two police jeeps yesterday.

Bhiwandi Police Control Room told PTI that 2 offences were registered with Narpoli police station last night while one each at Bhoiwada and Bhiwandi city police station.

However, no arrests have been made in connection either with the attack on Dhepe and others or the riots.

Yesterday, more than 30 vehicles including cars, two-wheelers and police vans were torched in Bhiwandi by an irate mob consisting of activists of Republican Party of India (RPI). The activists also vandalised two offices of Bhiwandi BJP MLA Mahesh Chougule, whose close relative Raju Chougule was booked in the assault case.

Banners put by Chougule were also pulled down, according to sources in Police Control Room.

Meanwhile, the bandh call given by RPI city unit in Bhiwandi to protest the killing of the activist was total. All establishments remained shut since early morning. Also, vehicular traffic remained affected in the powerloom town.

According to Thane DCP (Crime) Parag Manere, the bandh has been peaceful so far and the situation is now normal and under control.

The trouble in the powerloom town, about 50 km from here, began yesterday when came in that Dhepe, who was seriously injured in the May 11 attack, succumbed to his injuries at the St George Hospital in Mumbai, sources said.

Dhepe and a few others were assaulted by a group of youth armed with iron rods and choppers, police said adding Chougule's son was allegedly involved in the attack.

The youth were suspected to be members of BJP.

Police had then filed a case under IPC sections related to attempt to murder, criminal intimidation, breach of peace and also the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against nearly two dozen, people including the MLA's relative. Now, they have been booked under the IPC 302.

The attack on Dhepe and other RPI workers was fallout of political rivalry, police said.

The last rites of the activist will be conducted later in the day.

(REOPENS BES9)



Meanwhile, the 'bandh' in Bhiwandi called by RPI to



protest the murder of Dhepe was peaceful, police said.

No untoward incident was reported during the 'bandh' or the protest morcha taken out by RPI workers, Thane Police public relations officer Inspector Sukhada Narkar said.

She said additional force was deployed in the powerloom town to maintain law and order.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the Bihar government will today recommend a CBI inquiry into the killing of a journalist at Siwan in the state on May 13.

"A decision has been taken to send the inquiry into the killing of a journalist of vernacular daily at Siwan to CBI on the request of his family. After following procedural code, the recommendation for CBI investigation would be handed over today itself," Kumar told newsmen here.

"... When I saw in the media the (journalist's) family's demand for a CBI probe, I personally asked the DGP to send a police team to acquaint the family with probe.

"Patna Zonal IG N H Khan met the family and they expressed satisfaction over the inquiry. We were prepared that if they are not satisfied, a CBI probe would be recommended in the Siwan incident," he said.

The chief minister said no effort has been spared in investigating the killing of Rajdeo Ranjan, the Siwan district bureau chief of Hindi daily 'Hindustan', and in the Gaya road rage incident.

"None should have any doubt that anybody would be protected in any crime ... In my government, nobody is above the law irrespective of party affiliation or social standing. We believe in the principle that police should conduct investigation in any crime independently and nobody should interfere in the probe process," Kumar said.

He also called on mediapersons to be responsible citizens and share information or clue, if any, with the probe officials in the two cases.

When asked about RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin's alleged link in the murder of the scribe on Saturday and progress of police investigation in the case, the chief minister called Director General of Police P K Thakur, present at the programme, and handed him over the loud speaker to answer the questions.

Rubbishing the charge of return of 'jungle raj' in Bihar, Kumar, during the one-and-half-hour press meet, asserted that "rule of law" prevailed in the state and he was personally committed to continue it in future too.

There have been allegations by NDA of return of 'jungle raj' under the present ruling coalition in which RJD is a partner and law and order becoming a casualty due to Kumar's tours outside the state for programmes on prohibition.

He highlighted the suspension of JD(U) MLC Manorama Devi, whose son Rocky Yadav is alleged to have killed 19-year-old student Aditya Sachdeva in an incident of road rage, and also recovery of liquor bottles from her Gaya house.

The Bihar chief minister said he was personally saddened



by the two killings. "I am in more pain over the two incidents than those shedding crocodile tears to score political points. For me the attack on the journalist at Siwan is like attack on myself."



On NDA's allegation of return of the 'jungle raj' in Bihar, Kumar said it was "a pre-decided tune which they play on case to case basis". Kumar added that he did not need any "certificate" from anybody on "rule of law". He said the rule of law prevailed in Bihar and would continue in future too.

In an apparent dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had called RJD 'Rozana Jungle raj ka Dar' (Daily fear of jungle raj) while campaigning for Bihar assembly polls, Kumar said, "People gave him a sound reply by electing Grand Secular Alliance of JD(U), RJD and Congress with over two-thirds majority."



"They (NDA) have still not learnt any lesson and on case to case basis, their leaders start chanting the pre-determined tune of 'jungle raj'," he said.

On rivals' allegation that killings like those in Gaya and Siwan were occurring in the state as he, fuelled by his prime ministerial ambition, was busy travelling to Dhanbad, Varanasi and Lucknow to attend programmes on prohibition, Kumar shot back saying, "Since taking over as JD(U) President on April 10 I have been out of Bihar for merely 100 hours. So how come you comment about my absence?"



"I am a politician and have the responsibility of a party. Hence, I have to go to places ... Give me one instance that governance has been a casualty because of my going out (of the state) for a short period," he said.

Kumar said this charge was made against him by people hailing from "elite" class due to his "humble" background. "If anybody points any instance of compromise of governance due to my going out of the state for programmes, I will seek pardon holding my ears," he said.

Referring to the Siwan journalist's murder, the Bihar DGP said police efforts were focused on apprehending professional shooters suspectedly involved in the incident, investigating people behind it and motive behind the killing.

On police headquarters receiving a "hitlist" containing names of 23 people, including that of Rajdeo Ranjan, allegedly made by Shahabuddin, who is lodged in Siwan jail, he said, "An unverified information came in 2014, which after probe was found not true."



Asked about the use of mobile phone by Shahabuddin inside the jail, the DGP said, "During the recent raids no mobile phone has been found in Siwan jail.

(REOPENS CAL6)



In reply to a question, Kumar disagreed with suggestions that the previous coalition government headed by him in which BJP was a partner performed better from the point of view of law and order than the present Grand Secular Alliance dispensation.

"Killing of Ranbir Sena (a private militia of upper caste land owners) chief Brahmeshwar Mukhiya took place in June 2012 when people had fanned on roads and burnt my effigies. BJP was with me at that time," he said.

Kumar said after 2010, during the second term of the NDA government, BJP used to say the crime situation was better in the previous term and, when he parted ways with the party in June 2013, it said the scenario was better when BJP was in the government.

"Now they (BJP) see everything bad in Bihar ... They have this habit and hence it should not be taken seriously," he said.

Kumar trashed the opposition's charge of police going slow against JD(U) MLC Manorama Devi, who is still absconding in the case of recovery of six liquor bottles from her Gaya house, where property attachment notice has been pasted.

"Rs two crore was recovered from the house of a BJP leader who was minister in my government. BJP rewarded him and made him union minister of state (at the Centre)," Kumar said, apparently referring to Giriraj Singh, the BJP MP from Nawada.

On senior RJD leaders Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and MP Mohammad Taslimuddin attacking him over law and order, Kumar said, "This is the way they can get into ."



"Were their photographs in the posters of Grand Secular Alliance, in whose name we sought vote from the people ... People voted for our alliance in which I am the chief minister ... I will fulfil my commitment come what may," he said.

Replying to a question on alleged 'VIP gundagardi (rowdism)' directed towards Manorama Devi and jailed RJD MLA Raj Bhallabh Yadav and suspicions regarding former Shahabuddin's involvement in the journalist's killing, Kumar shot back saying, "Vijay Mallya flew out of India with Rs 9000 crore worth of loans.
Haryana secretary Jasbir Malore, a former MLA, resigned from the primary membership of Monday and joined the Congress in the presence of former Union Minister Kumari Selja.

Earlier, he had resigned from when he was denied ticket in the 2014 assembly poll, but following the assurance of Union Minister Krishan Pal Gujaar he had taken back his resignation.

He was inactive in BJP since the last one-and-a-half years.

After joining Congress, he said that BJP had failed to fullfill its promises and that Congress was the only party which could keep the country united.

Selja said that Malore would be given due regard in the party.
A compendium of over 200 rare books on Indian art, including limited edition monographs, reviews by early critics, artist-signed books and catalogues besides out-of-print books are set to go under the hammer



The 'Ephemera on Indian Art' online sale on May 17 - May 18 by StoryLTD, a platform under auction house Saffronart contains the first-ever book on an Indian artist - on Ravi Varma, published in Allahabad during his lifetime, auctioneers said.

The 51-lot collection also covers a range of Bengal School artists besides offering material on Sher-Gil, Souza, Husain, Keyt and Hebbar. Chughtai, Sadequain and some other Pakistani artists are also represented.

Leading the sale is a collection of 64 volumes of Marg's magazines on the arts, from January 1947 to June 2013, and estimated to fetch between Rs 4.5- Rs 5 lakh.

"Many of the early magazines are coveted for path-breaking articles by influential writers of the time, and are no longer available," auctioneers said.

'Poet of the East and Chugtai', an interpretation of philosopher Iqbal's verses published by Abdur Rahman Chugtai, a painter from Pakistan, published at ruinous expense by the artist himself and signed by Chugtai's son is estimated between Rs 3- Rs 4 lakhs.

"The presentation copy features lush illustrations by Chugtai, famed for his unique painting style that combined Islamic art traditions and Art Nouveau," auctioneers said.

Estimated between Rs 1.5 lakhs to Rs 1.7 lakhs, is a collection of monographs and catalogues on Akbar Padamsee, Jehangir Sabavala, S H Raza, Ram Kumar, Tyeb Mehta and Shiavax Chavda from the 1960s to the 2000s.

Among the catalogues is a 1958 catalogue on Raza's exhibition held at the Galerie Lara Vincy in Paris.

Other highlights include a set of 41 publications by Lalit Kala Akademi, and out-of-print books on artists including Thomas and William Daniell, Raja Ravi Varma, The Tagores, Nandalal Bose, Jamini Roy, Chittaprosad, Amrita Sher-Gil, F N Souza, M F Husain, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Sadequain, and Zainul Abedin.

StoryLTD's says its aim with such an auction is to address the needs of a growing collector base for books and create an arena for collectors to expand and enrich their art collections, by making such scholarship available to them.

"The previous two book auctions hosted by StoryLTD received an overwhelming response from collectors with several lots selling at nearly seven to ten times their upper estimate," auctioneers said.
A British Council summer course on 'Learn English with Shakespeare' will begin from today to familiarise school students of Kolkata with the Bard's plays.

Students as young as eight-year-olds will get the opportunity to add to their vocabulary many new words, phrases and idioms coined by Shakespeare, a BCL spokesperson said.

The three-week course will provide the students with an enjoyable platform to improve pronunciation with some of Shakespeare's famous monologues and sonnets, she said.

"The whole idea is to facilitate creative and imaginative thought and the development of communicative skills among the children of Kolkata", she said.

The course will be tailored for children in three categories - Ace Teens (13 to 15 year olds), Shining Stars (11 and 12 year olds) and Whizz Kids (8 to 10 year olds) - over a 15-day period (Monday to Friday) from May 16 to June 3 2016.

"This will be part of our year-long programmes to commemorate the 400th death anniversary of Shakespeare," the spokesperson signed off.
BSF has suspended its seven troops posted along the Indo-Bangla frontier, including an officer, after ordering a Staff Court of Inquiry into the killing of a Bangladeshi national suspected to be part of a group of cross-border gold smugglers, last week.

Officials said the incident took place on May 14 at about 10 AM along the Banpur border post in Krishnanagar district of West Bengal when a group of suspected smugglers surrounded a Border Security force patrol and the force party subsequently fired from a non-lethal gun to disperse them.

Later, they said, a teenager who received the gun shot from the pump action gun succumbed to injuries on the other side of the border.

"The Staff Court of Inquriy will go into the details of the incident. The seven personnel including an Assistant Commandant of the 113th battalion have been placed under suspension pending inquiry," a senior official said.

He said the BSF patrol was acting on an intelligence input to intercept cross-border smugglers.

The incident comes at a time when a high-level delegation of the Border Security Force, led by its Director General K K Sharma, is in Dhaka for the annual border talks with their counterparts Border Guard Bangladesh.
A 13-member delegation from Bhutan today performed religious rituals at various Buddhist worship places in Swat district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The delegation comprising four women and nine men also visited various Buddhist remains and archaeological sites in the district.

The delegation performed religious rituals at Gulkada and Saidu Sharif Stupa, later they also went to the statue of Mahatma Buddha.

In their brief interaction with the local media, Sewang Pengor, the head of the delegation, said they were delighted to visit the scenic Swat valley and were happy to perform their worship at the holy places.

"We are thankful to the people and government of Pakistan for preserving their centuries old holy places in good shape. We will go back with a message of peace and friendship," he added.

Director, Department of Archives Swat District, Faizur Rehman said that there were scores of archaeological sites of various religions in the district.

Tourism in Swat would flourish with the arrival of such religious tourists, he said.
Security officials were thrown into a tizzy when a man called up the police control room this evening threatening to "blow up" the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The call, however, turned out to be a hoax.

When the caller was traced, it emerged that he was the same man who had called up the control room half an hour earlier and threatened about having planted bombs, which also was declared a hoax, senior police officials said.

The first call was received by the control room around 6 PM in which the caller asked for the personal number of former city police commissioner B S Bassi.

When refused, he started demanding that he be connected to Bassi directly. But, when the operator refused to do so, he threatened about planting bombs.

"The number from which the call was made was found to be registered to an address in central Delhi's Daryaganj. Teams were rushed there and thorough checks were conducted in an around the area but no bomb was found," DCP (Central) Parmaditya said.

Meanwhile, the police kept calling back on the number and around an hour later, the man picked up the phone and confessed that he had had a heated argument with his wife and was agitated over it.

It was declared a hoax call. The caller's last location was traced to south-west Delhi's Sagarpur area and teams were sent to apprehend him, a senior official said.

However, by then the man had already made the other threat call.

It was around 6.30 PM that the police control room received the call in which the man theatened to blow up the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Several teams, along with bomb disposal squads, were rushed to the premises of the President's Estate and the elite units of Delhi Police -- Special Cell, Crime Branch and Security wing -- were also taken along.

"The caller threatened to blow up Rashtrapati Bhavan. A thorough check was conducted, which took hours, and it turned out to be a hoax call," DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said.

Once traced, the caller turned out to be the same man and another team was rushed to nab him from his last traced location in Sagarpur.
The Centre has asked all states to admit students in veterinary courses through a national common admission test from next year onwards on the lines of NEET for medical courses.

At present, Veterinary Council of India (VCI) conducts an 'All India Pre-Veterinary Test (AIPVT)' for admission to veterinary courses for filling up 15 per cent of all-India quota seats in veterinary colleges, and the rest 85 per cent state quota seats is filled up by states via separate test.

The Union Agriculture Ministry had asked all states to fill up the state quota through AIPVT for 2016 academic year. However, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur and Rajasthan agreed to participate.

"The four states participated in the AIPVT-2016 held last week. I have written to rest of the states to come on board for the next year," Minister of State for Agriculture Sanjeev Balyan told reporters here.

The Centre is keen that the veterinary admission for next year must be done only on the basis of the common entrance test similar to the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) being done for medical courses, he said.

"The states need not conduct separate test. A single test is envisaged with the sole objective to provide quality health care in the livestock sector," Balyan said.

There are 44 government veterinary colleges and universities in the country and there are no private run institutes in this stream.

Expressing concern over lack of faculty in agriculture and veterinary colleges in the country, Balyan said, "There is solution to this problem if states agree.

"Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ASRB) conducts a test for hiring faculty for central agri-colleges attached to ICAR. Once ASRB announces the cut off list, the rest can be recruited by the state governments," he said.

The situation is so bad that college infrastructure is in place in many states but there is not enough faculty. The state governments are not giving permission to recruit faculty in these colleges due to lack of funds for paying salary and other allowances, he added.

Balyan said the Central government is doing its bit in granting funds to the farm and livestock sector, but the state governments should also contribute and ensure all vacant posts are filled up in agri and veterinary colleges.

There are 74 agricultural universities and 44 veterinary colleges and universities in the country.
The Supreme Court's order to have a single entrance test NEET for admissions to medical and dental colleges was today welcomed by almost all states though some of them flagged concerns over holding it in the current year itself as Centre kicked off the consultation process on the issue.

Amid reports that Centre may bring an ordinance to bypass the apex court's ruling making NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) mandatory, Union Health Minister J P Nadda held deliberations with state health ministers on the common gateway during which some states sought more time to implement it.

Nadda said the future course of action will be thought of "soon" as the Centre was committed to bringing in transparency in medical education system and remove alleged malpractices. Health Ministers and representatives of 18 states and Union Territories attended the meeting.

The Union Health Minister said although most states are in favour of NEET "in principle", some have talked about logistical issues that are "impeding" its implementation.

"Most States are in favour of NEET in principle. However, some states have expressed that there are some logistics issues that are impeding its implementation, and therefore they have desired for some more time.

"We will need more discussions with the state governments on the NEET issue. Today, we had discussions on language, syllabus and state governments' concerns over state medical entrance examinations. We have to solve all the problems of the states before NEET is conducted across the country," Nadda said.

He said his Ministry will apprise the Supreme Court of the state governments' apprehensions on NEET only after arriving at a conclusion.

At the meeting, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain came out in full support of the Supreme Court order and requested the Centre to implement it at the earliest to bring in reform.

The Supreme Court had ruled that starting this academic session, students would have to appear in NEET to seek admission to medical or dental colleges in the country.

The apex court order had implied that all government colleges, deemed universities and private medical colleges would be covered under NEET and those examinations which had already taken place or were slated to be conducted separately stand scrapped.
Hinting at some steps to meet the situation arising out of Supreme Court's ruling on a common medical entrance test, the Centre today said the matter is essentially in the "executive domain", as it held parleys with state health ministers.

After the meeting with the state ministers, Health Minister J P Nadda said the Centre has noted their many concerns about the mandatory National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) from this year itself and that it will soon formulate further course of action. A meeting with representatives of political parties is also being convened.

Nadda also said more consultations will be held with states on the NEET issue amid reports that an Ordinance may be brought to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling that made the national test mandatory for admission to medical courses across the country, junking medical exams of the states, private institutions and deemed universities.

Separately, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while referring to protests by many states over the Supreme Court's NEET decision, asserted that what should be the manner of holding the examination across the country is essentially an executive matter as it is in policy domain.

"It is the case of some of the states that boards are unequal, their languages are dissimilar. Can those who are dissimilar in language and unequal be placed on the pedestal of quality and asked to give the same exam?



"I think this matter is essentially in the executive domain. We now have a Supreme Court judgement. We will have to see how we deal with that particular issue," Jaitley told reporters. Several states want NEET to be implemented only from the 2017-18 academic session.

Jaitley, however, said the judiciary and executive are "on the same page" over maintaining the fairness and integrity of exams at all costs.

Nadda held a consultation meeting with state health ministers to discuss the problems they were facing over the common medical entrance test.

"We will need more discussions with the state governments on the NEET issue. Today we had discussions on language, syllabus and state governments' concerns over state medical entrance examinations.

"We have to solve all the problems of the states before NEET is conducted across the country," Nadda said.

The Health Minister further said the Supreme Court will be apprised about the state governments' apprehensions on NEET only after arriving at a conclusion.

"Met Health Ministers of States today. They shared their views on holding NEET this year. "I have noted their many concerns about NEET this year. Will soon formulate further course of action," Nadda later tweeted.

Delhi's AAP Government while coming out in full support of the Supreme Court order said there is now a "reasonable apprehension" that the apex court verdict could be circumvented by way of an Ordinance to do away with NEET for this academic year to begin with.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the NEET issue, amid concerns raised by parents and students. "I have assured parents that I will meet PM Modi on NEET issue. We are trying our best to resolve the issue," he told reporters in Mumbai.
The Allahabad High Court has asked the Centre and Uttar Pradesh government to take a "final decision" on the application of underworld don Babloo Srivastava, seeking release from prison on bail till his plea for remission of sentence is considered by government, in the light of having spent more than 20 years behind the bars.

Passing the order on May 13 last, a division bench, comprising Justice V K Shukla and Justice Umesh Chandra Srivastava, turned down the jailed gangster's plea that during the pendency of his application (for grant of remission) dated 14.9.2013, he be freed on bail.

Currently lodged in Bareilly Central Jail, he is serving life sentence awarded by a TADA court at Kanpur for the murder of a customs official in Allahabad.

Better known by his nickname "Babloo", Om Prakash Srivastava was arrested from Singapore in 1995 after having been declared an absconder and issuance of a red corner notice.

He has been named in a number of criminal cases.

His plea for bail was pressed by senior advocate K T S Tulsi who had contended before the court that "the personal liberty of the petitioner has been taken casually by the state" and that the application moved in the year 2013 had "deliberately not been decided".

Appearing on behalf of the state government, Additional Advocate General Mohd Imran Ullah submitted that "no case for bail is made out as the petitioner is a known habitual offender and even while in jail he has involved himself in serious criminal activity".

The court disposed of Srivastava's petition with the direction that "within a period of two months from the date of judgement, all attempt and endeavour shall be made by the state to complete the record in question and thereafter forthwith transfer the papers for consultation with the central government".

"It is expected that the central government, from the date of receiving of the said papers in question, would deal with the matter preferably within next two months thereafter and outcome of the final decision would be informed to the petitioner", the court added.
Exactly 50 years ago, China embarked on what was formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a decade of tumult launched by Mao Zedong to revive communist goals and enforce a radical egalitarianism.

The milestone was largely ignored Monday in the Chinese media, reflecting continuing sensitivities about a period that was later declared a "catastrophe."



Authorities have generally suppressed discussion of the violent events, now a couple of generations removed from the lives of young Chinese focused on pursuing their own interests in an increasingly capitalistic society.

On May 16, 1966, the ruling Communist Party's Politburo met to purge a quartet of top officials who had fallen out of favor with Mao. It also produced a document announcing the start of the decade-long Cultural Revolution to pursue class warfare and enlist the population in mass political movements.

The start of the Cultural Revolution was not widely known or understood at the time, but soon took on an agenda characterized by extreme violence, leading to the downfall of leading officials, factional battles, mass rallies and the exile of educated youths to the countryside. It wound up severely threatening the Communist Party's legitimacy to rule.

Despite the party's formal repudiation of the movement five years after it ended, vestiges of the Cultural Revolution continue to echo in China's authoritarian political system, the intolerance of dissent and uncritical support for the leadership, said veteran journalist Gao Yu, who was a university student in 1966.

Gao said her initial enthusiasm for the Cultural Revolution faded after fanatical young Red Guards raided her home and accused her father, a former ranking party cadre, of disloyalty to Mao. The violence of the era was impossible to avoid, she said.

"I saw so many respected teachers in universities and high schools get beaten up," Gao said. "The movement wasn't so much a high-profile political struggle as a massive campaign against humanity."



A longtime party critic, Gao, now 72, was allowed to return home last year on medical parole after being imprisoned on a state secrets charge related to her publicizing a party document about ideological controls.

Gao and others say cynicism in Chinese society still lingers from the Cultural Revolution, when students were called on to denounce authority figures, including teachers and even parents. Traditional morals and philosophy were attacked and Buddhist temples were defaced and destroyed.
Notwithstanding the US' strong backing for India to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, China today harped on the need for consensus in the elite body where it is reportedly pushing for Pakistan's entry.

"The NSG has made serious political and technical standards with regard to accepting members. One compulsory standard is that the NSG members must be signatory states to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT)," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said here.

Asked what is the criteria that China wants non-NPT members to follow to get admitted to the 48-member NSG and on what basis it carried on with civil nuclear cooperation with Pakistan, Hong said like other non-proliferation regimes NSG is also based on the NPT.

"This year's consensus which has long upheld by the international community and was also reaffirmed in last year's NPT review session," he said skirting any references to Pakistan which has received a number of China-made nuclear reactors including the two of 1,100 MW being installed in Karachi plant.

India, Pakistan, Israel and South Sudan are among four UN member states which have not signed the NPT, the international pact aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. The NSG has already granted an exclusive waiver for India in 2008 to access civil nuclear technology after China reluctantly backed India's case based on the Indo-US nuclear deal.

According to reports from the US, China is equating Pakistan's case with India now and also wants its close ally to be admitted into the NSG despite Islamabad's questionable record on non-proliferation.

"All multilateral non-proliferation regimes, including the NSG, take NPT membership as the requirement to accept new members. China together with the other NSG members believes that with regard to accepting the membership of non-NPT countries, the NSG members should discuss this based on the NSG rules and standards and make decisions on consensus," Hong said.

Asked about State Department spokesman John Kirby's comments that India meets missile technology control regime requirements and is ready for NSG membership, Hong said "We have noted such reports," but did not comment on India's case.

"China supports and played a constructive role in the discussion recently held in NSG. China also states that such position targets no particular country and this position applies to all non-NPT countries. China sticks to this position in order to maintain international nuclear non-proliferation regime based on the NPT," he said.

The US recognised New Delhi as a "major defence partner"



during Modi's recent visit, meaning that the White House has given India the treatment as a US military ally, it said.

The article said that over the years, the US has been "bending the rules" to back India's nuclear projects.

"Against the backdrop of Washington's accelerated pace of promoting its pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, it will be highly likely to keep supporting New Delhi's nuclear ambitions, in order to make it a stronger power to contain China," it said.

The attitude of the US has had and will undoubtedly have an impact on some other nations. For those countries which also wish to put a finger in the pie of India's market, many of them begin to back India's NSG membership, or at least not oppose it, the article said in apparent reference to majority of the countries in the NSG supporting India's entry.

"However, as a country that has signed neither the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) nor the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), India is not yet qualified for accession into the NSG," it said.

"That's why the bloc is still divided over the case, and countries including New Zealand, Ireland, Turkey, South Africa and Austria have expressed their firm objections to India's membership," it said.

The article made no mention of problems faced by Pakistan in getting into the NSG due to its past record of proliferating the nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea, where as India is seeking entry into group based on clean non-proliferation record.

"As a crucial defender of the international system against nuclear proliferation, China does not wish to see the political and legal foundation of global nuclear security to be challenged by any party who does not abide by rules," the article said without referring to Beijing's own nuclear power cooperation with Islamabad in supplying a number of nuclear reactors, including two 1100 mw reactors currently under construction in Karachi.

"For those countries that are developing nuclear technology without the acceptance of the international community, perhaps counting them into the non-proliferation mechanism will better safeguard nuclear security," it said.

But at the same the article said China backs India's entry if a fair and just principle is worked out through consensus.

"Yet before that, a fair and just principle must be made through common consensus of all current members of the NSG, rather than the US and India's reckless pushing at the cost of rule-breaking".

"So far, all NSG members have signed the NPT. So the question is, if any non-signatory of the treaty wants to join the group, under what condition can it be accepted? If such a standard is to be made one day, then it will be possible for both India and Pakistan to become part of the group," it said.

"Beijing welcomes New Delhi playing a role as a major power in global governance, including producing positive effect in a nuclear non-proliferation organisation," it said.

"As long as all NSG members reach a consensus over how a non-NPT member could join the NSG and India promises to comply with stipulations over the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons while sticking to its policy of independence and self-reliance, China could support New Delhi's path toward the club," it said.
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) today came out in favour of Britain voting to remain in the European Union (EU) in the June 23 referendum.

Joining industry groups from various Commonwealth countries, CII highlighted the "border-free" access to Europe for Indian firms in the UK as a strong factor in the UK's attractiveness to Indian investment.

"India invests more in the UK than in the rest of Europe combined, emerging as the UK's third largest FDI investor. Access to European markets is therefore a key driver for Indian companies coming to the UK," CII director-general Chandrajit Banerjee said in a statement.

"Anything that lessens this attractiveness may have a bearing on future investment decisions. It is important also to ensure continued border-free access to the rest of Europe for the many hundreds of existing Indian firms that have manufacturing bases in the UK," he added.

His views were echoed by industry bodies from Canada, South Africa, Kenya and Jamaica.

The UK's own Confederation of British Industry made its stand in favour of staying in as the "best of both worlds". Its Director-General Carolyn Fairbairn said: "The UK has the best of both worlds by being able to trade easily with nations both from the Commonwealth and from the EU. Our membership of the EU gives us a home market of 500 million customers, while EU trade deals open up new opportunities in markets across the world, including our historic Commonwealth friends.

"European trade agreements currently in progress with Commonwealth nations will give the UK greater access to established and high growth markets. We already do 40 billion pounds of trade with some of the Commonwealth's largest economies each year, so by pushing the EU to continue removing current barriers, we can create more jobs and drive growth in the UK. And as part of the EU, trade deals open up the whole single market to our Commonwealth partners."



She warned that leaving the EU would mean going back to the drawing board. "We would have to undertake lengthy negotiations to secure brand new deals, which we know from experience can take many years. Having a strong British voice in the EU is vital to the interests of the Commonwealth."



The EU has agreed free trade deals with Canada, Singapore and South Africa, and will open negotiations with Australia and New Zealand next year. India's own FTA with the EU is also in discussion.

Khanyisile Kweyama, chief executive of Business Unity South Africa, said: "We want the UK to remain in the EU, to build a more prosperous Commonwealth, Africa and Europe."



John Manley, president and chief executive of the Business Council of Canada, added: "Canadian companies invest more in the UK than anywhere else in the world except for the US, and they do so in large measure because they consider the UK a gateway to the rest of Europe."



The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), India's other leading industry body, had already warned against "considerable uncertainty" for Indian businesses operating in UK and Europe at the prospect of a British exit (Brexit) from theEU.
Colombian police said they seized their largest domestic haul ever of illegal drugs: eight tons of cocaine from the Usuga Clan, the country's leading organized crime ring.

"Congratulations @PoliciaColombia: operation in Turbo seized the greatest amount in our history," President Juan Manuel Santos announced on Twitter.

Police said in a statement that early yesterday in Turbo, in the northwestern Uraba region near the border with Panama, they found the cache "of almost eight tons of cocaine belonging to the Usuga Clan," that was hidden on a banana plantation.

Three suspects were arrested and another three escaped, the statement read.

Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said that nearly 1.5 tons of cocaine was wrapped "and ready to go out to the export market."



He said this was the largest seizure ever of cocaine on Colombian territory, though there may have been slightly larger cocaine seizures at sea.

Authorities say the Usuga Clan, which emerged after the mass demobilization of right-wing paramilitaries a decade ago, ships tons of cocaine from Colombia to Central America and on to the United States.

The South American country is the leading producer of coca, the raw material from which cocaine is processed.
The BJP today urged the Election Commission to countermand the Assembly election in Pattambi constituency of Kerala alleging the Congress candidate there was indulging in "corrupt electoral practice".

Assembly polls were held in Kerala, along with Tamil Nadu and Puducherry today.

In a memorandum to the Commission, BJP said it has a CD purportedly showing Congress C P Mohammed from Pattambi seat in Palakkad district, "passing on money" in exchange of votes at an elector's house.

"This one brief video is not an isolated case of bribery, it amply represents the way the UDF candidates have attempted to cheat on the people of Kerala and also the Constitution of India that enables them to participate in the electoral processes," the memorandum alleged.

It urged the Commission to countermand the election in Pattambi seat and disqualify the Congress candidate.
Congress is coming out with a booklet seeking to "expose the claims" of achievements of the Narendra Modi government which will be completing two years next week.

Party sources said finishing touches were being given to the document which would highlight the "omissions and commissions" of the BJP-led government which came to power on May 26 in 2014.

Modi came to power securing a spectacular mandate for the NDA including a simple majority for the BJP.

"The last two years were those of complete disillusionment and disappointment for the people of the country," Congress General Secretary Shakeel Ahmed told reporters.

Speaking separately, party spokesperson Shobha Oza spoke in similar vein.

"2 years of Modi Govt: drought of ideas, drain of credibility," the AICC said in a commentary posted on its website.

It alleged that Modi government's policy decisions and priorities are "heavily skewed against" the interests of India's poor, farmers, labourers and unusually inclined towards the interests of few big business houses.

"The attitude of the Modi government can be been summed up by their inaction & indifference in handling 2 years of drought," it said.

It recalled that Cabinet Minister Uma Bharti even went on record saying "no one can prepare for a drought," and when the Indian Railways sent a 'water train' to Maharashtra it sent a 'bill' for Rs 2 crore to the state government.

"These two incidents are clear indicators that to the Modi administration farmers don't matter."



It claimed that Modi's "crony capitalist friends" invested heavily in his 2014 election campaign.

"They were instrumental in designing, funding & executing his surreal campaign and creating a demigod like aura around his person."



"So when the time came, it was obvious they would ask for returns. On 26 May, 2014, Modi became the Prime Minister of India, but the backrooms of his new government had already been taken up by his corporate friends," it claimed.

When the government releases latest data in July, the number of farmers who have committed suicide will be "significantly higher", it further claimed.

To put the issue in perspective, the party said in Maharashtra alone 3228 farmers have committed suicide, significantly higher than the official all-India number.
A Delhi court today sent to five- day CBI custody an under secretary in the Union Home Ministry in connection with a case against him of allegedly dishonestly issuing FCRA notices to several NGOs for financial gains.

Special CBI Judge Vinod Kumar allowed the probe agency to quiz Anand Joshi, who was arrested yesterday from west Delhi, in its custody till May 20.

Seeking Joshi's custody, CBI argued that files relating to several NGOs had gone missing from the Home Ministry and they were recovered from his house and he was not supposed to take them away.

It contended that he was neither cooperating in the probe nor disclosing relevant facts and his custodial interrogation was required to find out how those files came to his house.

CBI alleged in court that Joshi had been issuing notices dishonestly to a large number of NGOs/ societies registered under the FCRA 2010, which have been receiving significant amount of foreign contributions, in an arbitrary manner.

It said some of these organisations are Care India, Snehalya Charitable Trust, Indian HIV/AIDS Alliance and All India Primary Teachers Federation and alleged that the representatives of some of these organisations were called and Joshi demanded and obtained illegal gratification.

It further said when the CBI team had gone to his house, he not present there and even his mobile phone was switched off from May 11 to May 15 and he had left his house leaving a false letter behind.

The custody plea, however, was opposed by Joshi's counsel who said his mobile was not switched off and he had lost his phone in Ujjain and in his 24 years long career he was not even issued an office memo.

Joshi was arrested yesterday after he allegedly gave unconvincing answers to the questions posed by a team of Special Crime division of the CBI, including those related to disappearance of files related to Sabrang Trust of activist Teesta Setalvad.

Joshi, who had disappeared on the morning of May 11 from his home in Indirapuram in Ghaziabad, was yesterday picked up from Tilak Nagar area of West Delhi and taken to the CBI headquarters for questioning.

The case was slapped against Joshi and some other unnamed persons for allegedly indulging in corrupt practices and arbitrarily issuing notices to several NGOs, registered under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), which were receiving foreign contributions, including activist Teesta Setalvad's Sabrang Trust.

Joshi has rejected the charge and instead accused his



seniors of pressuring him to give a clean chit to NGOs. In a note which he had left before leaving home, Joshi claimed he had been subjected to "mental harassment" in recent months.

CBI alleged in the court that Joshi laundered ill-gotten earnings in various immovable assets as well as certain private companies which were floated by him and his wife was one of the directors in them.

It alleged even after his transfer from FCRA division, he continued to indulge in corrupt activities on the basis of documents which were in his possession unauthorisedly.

The agency claimed that during the search conducted at Joshi's house, one file pertaining to FCRA which pertains to private NGO Care India Solutions for Sustainable Development has been recovered and seized and his interrogation was needed to know as to how the official files made way in his house and what was his intention in bringing them.

The matter came to light after files pertaining to alleged FCRA violations by two NGOs run by Setalvad went missing from the Home Ministry. The files were traced and restored to the FCRA division but CBI was asked to investigate the matter.

It was noticed that the files had gone missing when the Home Ministry took a decision to cancel FCRA registration of one of Setalvad's NGOs, Sabrang Trust, sources had said.

Sabrang Trust's licence was suspended on September 9, 2015 by MHA for alleged multiple violations of FCRA rules, including misuse of funds for personal benefit of trustees.

When Home Ministry officials found that the files had gone missing, they conducted an inquiry and identified Joshi as the official who had taken away the files. He was summoned and the files were restored.

An Under Secretary is not allowed to take away files, only officials of the rank of Joint Secretary and above are allowed to take the files home. It is a serious violation, the CBI had said.
A slew of measures including creation of exclusive dairy plants for 'desi' cows, producing cow fodder under MGNREGA and empowering animal welfare boards to take action against illegal smuggling and slaughtering are being planned by the Centre in order to conserve 'gauvansh' and 'gaushalas' in the country.

Two Union Ministers whose departments deal with subjects of the bovine -- Forest Minister Prakash Javadekar and Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh --- today addressed a national seminar being held here on 'gauvansh' (cow clan) and 'gaushalas' (cow shed) and sought help of various state governments, farmers and cow owners to help protect the animal who they said is the "back bone" of the Indian economy.

Javadekar, while addressing participants from across the country, said his ministry is working on a plan to ensure that the 'gauchar bhoomi' (grazing land for cows) is protected and government programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme be utilised to produce healthy grass for cows which can be subsequently given "free" to farmers and people who have such livestock.

"The protection of the grazing land for cows is the most important subject. We are working on a new scheme and proposal for which we will also write to all states. The plan is to keep some land in the periphery of jungles for producing healthy and quality grass for cows and we can do this under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA. We can then provide this grass as fodder for cows to farmers and others like 'gaushalas' for free," Javadekar said.

The Minister added the government will soon make an "on ground" assessment of grass lands in the state and after that will take a "policy and administrative" decision as required.

He said they are also looking at measures which can be implemented so that the productivity of a cow is utilised by way of urine and cow dung after it stops producing milk and the owner of the cattle is not forced to sell it which later falls into the trap of smugglers.

The Union Minister for Forests and Environment said he is "ordering" the various Animal Welfare Boards in the country to take "immediate cognisance" of incidents like smuggling and cruelty to cows and and send a report to his Ministry in 1-2 months time so that some "action" can be taken in such cases.

"The Animal Welfare Boards have law in their hands and we will see how can they help us," he said.

The Minister said the agenda for calling this day-long conference in the national capital was three-pronged.

"We have to see how can we meet the challenge of increasing cow's productivity (in terms of giving more milk and post that), how can one take better care of cows and how can their security be ensured against smugglers and other cruel incidents (slaughtering)," he said.

The Agriculture Minister said his Ministry has recently



approved a proposal to create exclusive dairy plants for 'desi' breed cows, also called A-2, in Odisha and Karnataka while plans are afoot to create the same facility in Haryana's Karnal by this month-end.

He said the Modi government, in the last two years of it being in power, has allocated Rs 582 crore for the National Gokul Mission as compared to the Rs 45 crore allocated for cow wealth conservation and development by the previous governments in their tenures.

Singh stressed that the 'desi' cow breed has to be protected and cared as it is "more immune" to the effects of climatic changes as compared to other foreign or mix breeds.

"The cow is the backbone of Indian economy...I can tell you that any farmer or Dalit who has a cow will not die of hunger," he said.

Singh said the milk production in the country was increasing and the latest figures in this regard and during the year 2015-16 stood at 160.35 million tonnes.

The Agriculture Minister said protecting 'desi' cow will always help even when there are unfavourable circumstances.

Javadekar informed the participants that Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who was the keynote speaker at the inaugural of the conference, could not come as he had to rush for a drought-related meeting at the PMO.

(Reopens DEL 19)



Later, a statement issued by the Environment and Forest



Ministry quoted Javadekar as saying that "the draft of a policy is being prepared, which will include a provision to provide protein-rich fodder free of cost to the people living in villages adjoining the jungles.

"The Environment minister also emphasized the need to protect pasture lands. He also suggested that if there is 500 acres of land, 25 acres be set aside for growing good quality grass and fodder," it said.

Javadekar added that the technical sessions will discuss three issues -- how to increase the milk productivity of Indian cows, making provision for feed, fodder and ancillary requirements for Indian cows and management of cows in the post-productive phase.

Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said livestock forms the basis of occupation of 60 million people.

He said the distribution of livestock is much more balanced than distribution of land in rural economy.

"There are 19 crore livestock in the country, which is about 14 per cent of the world's livestock and out of this, 15 crore are indigenous livestock," Singh said.

He emphasised that government has granted funds to establish National Breeding Centres for the promotion and protection of indigenous livestock.

He added the average annual increase in milk production over 10 years was 4.62 per cent in India, while it was 2.2 per cent in the world.

Singh stated the annual increase in milk production for 2014-15 and 2015-16 is 9.59 per cent.

"While the availability of milk the world over is 296 grams, in India it is 340 grams," he added.
Singaporean lender DBS Bank is creating its biggest technology hub outside of headquarters, in Hyderabad where the company plans to have over 1,500 headcount.

"The new facility will be our largest tech hub outside our home market of Singapore. India was a choice market for this investment given its enabling ecosystem for technology innovation and access to a wide global talent pool," DBS Group Chief Executive Piyush Gupta said.

The foreign bank, which was among the first ones to apply to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary in the country after drawing expansion plans, will steadily take the total number of those employed at the Hyderabad facility to over 1,500 in two years.

The hub will help in strengthening the lender's technological capabilities across Asia as well as its digital banking strategy, it said in a statement.

It has created a wholly-owned subsidiary -- DBS Asia Hub 2 -- for this purpose and according to a filing with the exchanges, the initial and paid-up capital for the same stands at Rs 70.5 crore.

The exact investment details for the facility were not immediately available.

It can be noted that a slew of global banks, including HSBC and RBS, have created such units to do offshore work from India, leveraging on the cost benefits that it offers.

Meanwhile, DBS said it has appointed Mohit Kapoor, who was earlier global delivery leader and Chief Technology Officer at Bank of America, based in Hyderabad, to head the new hub.

Kapoor will be reporting to DBS Country Head Surojit Shome and Paul Cobban, the Chief Operating Officer at the Group technology and operations office, the statement said.

"With this facility, we will be able to develop and retain digital intellectual property, have greater ownership and control of technology, and accelerate new ways of working," Shome said.
Delhi BJP today demanded the Lt Governor to order CBI enquiry into alleged scams at Delhi Jal Board (DJB).

"Delhi Jal Board has become a centre of corruption and an inquiry is needed into its affairs," Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay said in a press briefing.

Upadhyay displayed two IP68 model of water meters approved by the DJB 2200 and blowing air into them said that the new models too run with pressure of air flow like the previous automated AMR meters.

"Till 2013 Assembly elections Arvind Kejriwal used to lead a campaign against automated water meters popularly called AMR meters but once in power he now wants people to keep using them as evident from the latest approval to new IP68 model of water meters," he said.

Claiming that that the AMR meters are available at the market price of Rs 700 to Rs 800, he charged that the IP68 models approved by the government are 2-3 times costlier which "obviously" means either there is a quality difference or companies have been allowed price variance in return of some "favours" to the ruling party.

He also accused that Kejriwal government is "suppressing" the alleged Rs 400 crore "tanker scam" of previous government in Delhi, and requested the Lt Governor Najeeb Jung to order an enquiry by CBI into DJB affairs.

Water minister Kapil Mishra in a counter offensive accused Satish Upadhyay and his "BJP friends" of trying to "save" water mafia.

"Everyone in BJP knows that Satish Upadhyay's resignation will be there in 2-4 days...What deal has been made before leaving," Mishra said in a tweet.

He also issued a statement saying that the DJB has for the first time published a detailed list of companies whose water meters meet the standards, price as well as shops were these meters were available.

"It is beyond comprehension what problem Satish Upadhyay has with curbing of black marketing and exorbitant pricing of water meters," he said.
The Delhi government today came out in full support of the Supreme Court order on single entrance test NEET for admissions to the medical and dental programmes across the country and requested the Centre to implement it at the earliest to check alleged irregularities in the enrollment process.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said the judgment of the Supreme Court was major reform to improve medical education in the country and the order should not be circumvented by an ordinance as demanded by one section.

In a series of tweets, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, "Del govt favors NEET. Central govt, in collusion wid most state Govts, planning to kill NEET to favor mafia.

"Kudos to @SatyendarJain who singlehandedly opposed efforts to kill NEET in Central n state Health Ministers' meet today."



Jain presented Delhi government's views on matter at a meeting of State Health Ministers convened by Union Health Minister J P Nadda to discuss the issue.

"The Delhi government welcomes and strongly supports the decision of the Supreme Court that the admission for undergraduate medical and dental courses across the country would be purely on the basis of the NEET from this academic session," said Jain.

He said Delhi government requested the Centre to immediately implement the Supreme Court order so as to "put an immediate end to widespread malpractices allegedly involved in the admission process of medical institutes in various parts of the country".

"Health Ministers of many states have not opposed the decision of the Supreme Court in toto, but some of them expressed strong reservations that NEET should not be conducted and the states should be allowed to conduct their own admission tests.

"There is now a reasonable apprehension that the Supreme Court judgement could be circumvented by way of an ordinance to do away with NEET for this academic year to begin with," Jain said.

In the meeting, Delhi government strongly opposed any dilution of the Supreme Court judgement on the NEET issue and demanded that it should be implemented immediately.

"Delhi government agrees with the view that medical education in the country is allegedly a Rs 20,000 crore industry marked with capitation fee and widespread corruption.

"Currently the scenario is grim with businessmen and politicians without any medical background owning and managing private medical colleges in a system endemic with huge corruption, denying genuine meritorious students lacking financial resources an opportunity to pursue medical education," Jain said.
Problems related to food and lodging being faced by devotees in Kedarnath will be sorted out in a week, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat said today.

Rawat, who paid a visit to Kedarnath yesterday to take a feedback straight from devotees about the arrangements at the Himalayan shrine, held a meeting with officials concerned today and asked them to sort out all problems related to food and lodging of pilgrims within a week.

"The pilgrims complained to me about certain problems during my visit there yesterday. I have spoken to the officials concerned and asked them to streamline things in a week's time. I am sure in a week from now all problems related to food, lodging, sanitation and medical facilities at the shrine will be overcome within the deadline," Rawat told reporters after the meeting.

Noting that arrivals at the shrine this season were likely to register a four-fold increase, he also asked officials to ensure that arrangements do not fall short of the requirements.

Arrangements should be made urgently for the stay of an additional 1000-1500 people between Gaurikund and Kedarnath. Besides construction of night shelters, the number of palanquin bearers, horse and mule operators should be increased and 50 additional toilets should be constructed for the convenience of pilgrims, he said.

Deployment of police personnel en route to the shrine should be stepped up besides reinforcing the State Disaster Response Force and strengthening the manpower at registration counters, the Chief Minister said and also asked the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam Limited to upgrade the quality of food being provided to devotees.

The District Magistrate of Rudraprayag, under which Kedarnath falls, was aksed to submit his action taken report on today's meeting to the Chief Secretary in three-four days after which the arrangements will be reviewed again.

Accompanied by his wife Renuka, Rawat paid obeisance at Kedarnath and also took stock of the arrangements.
In a stern warning to officials over faulty project reports, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari today cautioned that officials concerned could be booked in case of accidents happening due to flawed road designing.

The Road Transport and Highways Minister said he was "immensely pained" to see that as high as 1.5 lakh people are dying in road accidents here annually and faulty road designing is one of the major causes of accidents on several stretches.

"With folded hands I want to make a request to those who prepare DPRs (detailed project reports). Please don't take wrong meaning of my words. I am giving instruction that on those roads where frequent accidents happen, persons making DPRs should also be made accused...I will ensure this comes in the Act," Gadkari said at highways sector stakeholders' meet and launch of ministry's information technology initiatives.

The Centre has constituted a group of ministers (GoM), headed by Rajasthan Transport Minister Yunus Khan, for framing stricter traffic rules and penalties for various offences.

"It immensely pains me to see 1.5 lakh road accident deaths ... Not so many people die in any war or serious mishap...For every accident driver alone is not responsible. For many accidents wrong road engineering and faulty design is responsible," Gadkari asserted.

Cautioning officials concerned to take utmost precautions while drafting DPRs, the Minister also said that there should be adequate provisions of underpasses and overbridges for crossing of roads which in the past were lacking from many crucial stretches to make the project more cost-effective.

"When you make DPR and somebody from Ministry or NHAI asks you to change the design, ask them to give so in writing. Wherever there is needed, we have to make overbridge, underpasses otherwise if road speed increases without any provision of crossing, accidents will increase."



India accounts for as high as 5 lakh road accidents per annum in which 3 lakh people are crippled while another 1.5 lakh die and the total cost to the economy on this account is valued at 3 per cent of the GDP.

"I do not feel like watching TV as it is full of of road accidents...This situation cannot be allowed to continue anymore.... Please bring innovative techniques... Irony is that people function with outdated mindset which needs to be changed," the Minister said.

He also added that despite innovative measures being brought in people are reluctant to use them and cited examples as to how Highways Ministry had made it mandatory blending of 7.8 per cent waste plastic in bitumen road which was not followed.

He said the Ministry would keep a close vigil as the method would minimise pollution and added that despite notification waste material like iron slag were not used in highways making.

Gadkari urged officials to expedite work and do away with



mentality to resist any new system.

He said that there was resistance to adopt asset management system through which all the road assets were being mapped.

Stressing the need to inculcate positive attitude, Gadkari said his Ministry was taking help of IT tools to monitor the progress of highway projects and urged people to expose those delaying contracts.

He launched ePace, an IT initiative for for real time tracking of the projects and said more than 2,000 projects were directly monitored under it worth Rs 5 lakh crore.

Gadkari said another portal that has been developed as a comprehensive national portal was for infrastructure consultancy firms and key personnel in which more than 150 firms and 2000 key persons have got themselves registered.

Another initiative Inampro, he said, has resulted in buying of 5 lakh tonnes of cement from that portal and steel has also been included in it, he said.

Inampro is a platform for infrastructure and material providers and 265 lakh tonnes of cement has been committed here by 36 manufacturers.

The Minister said he was committed to auditing and accounting of projects in order to ensure transparency in the projects.

Also, he urged officials to hire young IIT and engineering graduates.
Edith Stein biopic is in works with Joshua Sinclair attached to direct the project.

The 59-year-old "Jump!" helmer will also write and produce the biopic titled "A Rose in Winter," said The Hollywood Reporter.

The film will tell the life story of Edith Stein, who, after years of fighting for women's rights in Germany, was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz in 1942.

George Edde, Max Keller and Micheline Keller will produce for Keller Edde Studios.

"This is both an extraordinary story and a remarkable screenplay that recounts the life of one of the most important heroines in Judeo-Christian history.

"Knitting together themes of love, courage, religion, feminism and the tragedy of the Holocaust make for a wonderfully rich and exciting picture and we are thrilled to be able to bring it to market," Keller said.

Cast of the film has not been finalized yet, but Oscar-winning composer Ennio Morricone has joined the project.

Stein is the first and only Jewish patron saint of Europe.
A European Parliament vote against granting China market economy status in the World Trade Organisation was "not at all constructive", Beijing's foreign minister said today as he met his French counterpart.

The designation would make it much harder for Brussels to fight Beijing over alleged unfair trading practices.

China joined the WTO in 2001, and argues that accession protocols dictate it will automatically switch over to market economy status by this December, 15 years later.

But European lawmakers in Strasbourg last week voted overwhelmingly against issuing the designation, concerned that doing so would cost Europe job losses in key industries such as steel.

"We believe that this European Parliament decision was not at all constructive," Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said at a joint press conference with his visiting French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault.

Wang urged the EU to take an "objective look" at the issue and respect WTO rules.

"As a member of the WTO, the EU must fulfil its promises and not deny or avoid the issue," he said, adding: "China's wish is clear, simple and reasonable: that everyone should remember the commitments they have made."



China is the world's second-largest economy, and is the EU's second-largest trading partner, with daily trade flows of over USD 1 billion.

It is also the world's top steelmaker, producing more than half of global output, and has been accused of flooding the world market with oversupply sold at below cost, in violation of global trade rules.

In the non-binding resolution, MEPs urged that Chinese exports be treated in a "non-standard way" so as to "ensure a level playing field for EU industry and defend EU jobs", the European Parliament said on its website.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, has given itself until this summer to decide on whether China should be granted the status.

Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, Lithuania's representative to the EU executive, told MEPs that the Commission all but ruled out doing so, saying that "any such move would be untenable".
A court here today sent retired IAS officer G S Sandhu, an accused in 2011 land deal case, to judicial custody till May 25.

Sandhu had on May 12 surrendered before the anti-corruption bureau court which sent him to three-day police custody.

He was today produced before the court where the magistrate sent him to judicial custody, Investigating Officer Bajrang Singh said.

Sandhu, was the Additional Principal Secretary, Urban Development and Housing in 2011 when the lease deed of a cooperative land was transferred illegally to a private firm.

Meanwhile, suspended RAS officer Onkar Mal Saini, who was deputy commissioner in JDA in 2011 and an accused in the case, also surrendered before the ACB.

"Saini surrendered today and was placed under arrest. He is another accused in the case against whom there was an arrest warrant. He is suspended and was absconding," he said.

The lease deed was issued by Jaipur Development Authority in 2011 but was cancelled in 2013 after objection came from the company partner Manju on single deed.

The matter was later probed by the ACB which arrested Rajasthan Administrative Service officer Nishkam Diwakar, company owner Shailendra Garg and interrogated former UDH minister Shanti Dhariwal in October last year.
Periods of unusually hot weather are on the rise in Africa and may become a normal occurrence in 20 years, which could have a damaging effect on life expectancy and crop production in the continent, a new study has warned.

This scenario could be triggered by an increase in average global temperature of 2 degrees, said researchers who examined temperature data from 1979 to 2015.

Located between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, Africa experiences high levels of solar radiation all year round and heat waves can occur in any season, not just during summer months.

Running climate models through to 2075, scientists found that so-called unusual heat waves could occur as frequently as four times per year towards the end of the century.

"Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change and even a modest rise in average global temperature could have severe consequences for the people living there," said Jana Sillmann of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) in Norway.

"We need to put considerable effort into climate change adaptation to reduce the risk of extreme events such as heat waves, which are likely to occur much more frequently in the future," Sillman said.

To crunch the numbers, researchers, including those from the Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) and the University of Catania in Italy - used a metric dubbed the Heat Wave Magnitude Index daily (HWMId).

The data format takes into account the severity of the temperature extremes as well as the number of consecutive days of hot weather.

Using this approach, the group can compare heat waves occurring in different places and at different times of the year, but there are other details to factor in.

"The severity of the impact on human mortality and crop production depends on the vulnerability of the communities affected and the environmental systems," said Sillmann.

"For example, the heat wave in Finland during 1972 - which we have studied previously - was comparable to the period of hot weather occurring in Central Europe during 2003," she said.

"However, the latter event was responsible for more deaths than the Finnish heat wave," she added.

The study was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today said he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) issue, amid concerns raised by parents and students.

"I have assured parents that I will meet PM Modi on NEET issue. We are trying our best to resolve the issue," he said.

"I will meet the PM to raise concerns of NEET students and will demand solution from the Central government," he told reporters here.

The Supreme Court has ruled that starting this academic session, students would have to appear for NEET to seek admission to any medical or dental college in the country.

Last week, the apex court had turned down a batch of appeals by states seeking to conduct their own medical admission tests and ruled that "only NEET would enable students to get admission to MBBS or BDS studies".

MNS chief Raj Thackeray, who met Fadnavis on the NEET issue here today, told reporters that he had called up the Prime Minister yesterday to convey the grievances of parents and students.

"I asked the PM as to who was running the country? Was it the Central government or the Supreme Court?" Raj told reporters.

"When there is a CET (Common Entrance Test) in the state, what is the need for NEET," he said.

In Maharashtra, the MHT-CET was held on May 5 in which over four lakh aspirants appeared for admissions in medical and dental courses.
The filming of a TV series that features Snoop Dogg's trial for murder sparked panic as a shooting re-enactment caused members of the public to flee a Californian park.

The 44-year-old rapper, real name Cordozar Calvin Broadus, Jr, was arrested in August 1993 in connection with the death of Phillip Woldermariam, a member of a rival gang who was shot dead by Snoop's bodyguard, MCKinley Lee, reported TMZ.

Both were charged with murder, as the rapper was allegedly



driving the vehicle from where Lee had shot Woldermariam.

Both were later acquitted, but the famous murder trial is now the subject of a US documentary series Rich and Acquitted, and a reenactment of the murder took place at a San Fernando Valley park.

Members of the public ran for cover as they heard what sounded like gunfire at Tarzana Park during the filming last week.

Local police were told that blanks would be used to replicate the gunfire in the filming of the murder scene, but people in the park were unaware and were under the impression that a real gun battle had broken out.
The government is considering providing incentives to the labour-intensive leather sector with a view to boosting manufacturing and exports.

Recently, a team of DIPP officials visited a leather cluster to understand the issues faced by the sector.

"The industry has informed us about their issues which includes high excise duty. This is a labour-intensive sector which has the potential to generate more jobs and push overall manufacturing," an official said.

The commerce and industry ministry may provide financial support to set up small and mega leather parks in the country, the official added.

As the sector provides employment to about 30 lakh people, the government should give special focus to this segment, Chairman of Council for Leather Exports Rafeeq Ahmed said.

"We have demanded cut in excise duty to 6 per cent from 12 per cent for non-leather products like footwears and also financial support for mega leather parks," he said.

Synthetic leather accounts for 80 per cent of the total leather product manufacturing in the country.

Ahmed said a high-powered committee headed by the DIPP secretary will meet on May 23 to discuss proposals of two mega leather parks each in Haryana and Andhra Pradesh.

China is giving tough competition to Indian leather manufacturers in terms of pricing, and support is required to compete with them, he added.

Leather exports have recorded negative growth in April.

Support to the sector will help boost shipments. Leather and leather goods are among the 25 focus sectors under the Make in India initiative of the government. The government aims to increase the exports to USD 15 billion by 2020 from the current USD 7 billion.
Health Minister J P Nadda today said the government will hold more consultations with states on the issue of Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) amid reports that an ordinance may be brought to bypass the Supreme Court ruling making the test mandatory for admission to medical courses.

He held a consultation meeting with state health ministers at AIIMS to discuss the problems the state governments were facing over the common medical entrance test.

"We will need more discussions with the state governments on the issue. Today we had discussions on language, syllabus and state governments' concerns over state medical entrance examinations.

"We have to solve all the problems of the states before is conducted across the country," Nadda said.

The Health Minister further said the Supreme Court will be apprised about the state governments' apprehensions on only after arriving at a conclusion.

"Met Health Ministers of States today. They shared their views on holding NEET this year.

"I have noted their many concerns about NEET this year. Will soon formulate further course of action," Nadda later tweeted.

The Supreme Court had ruled that starting this academic session, students would have to appear for NEET to seek admission to any medical or dental colleges in the country. Last week, it also turned down a batch of appeals by states seeking to conduct their own medical admission tests and ruled that "only NEET would enable students to get admission to MBBS or BDS studies".

Following the apex court's ruling, opposition parties have raised concerns that students passing out from state boards in vernacular languages and living in remote areas may not be able to perform well in common entrance exam.

Several MPs have demanded the government to bring forth an ordinance to stall the NEET for the current academic session.
Despite two successive years of deficient rainfall, Gujarat has recorded 95% crop production, the State administration estimated.

In a meeting chaired by Prime Minister to review the state's drought situation, measures taken by the state government was also discussed.

The meeting attended by Chief Minister Anandiben Patel was also told that the work done by the state government for the water grid has resulted in only 568 tankers being required for water distribution in some remote tail areas, a PMO statement said.

The Prime Minister, while appreciating this effort, called for further action to completely eliminate the need for tanker supply, the statement said.

Patel gave details of the work done by the state government towards water conservation, recharge and creation of water bodies.

She said 1.68 lakh check dams, 2.74 lakh farm ponds, 1.25 lakh Bori Bandhs have been made with storage capacity of 42.3 billion cubic feet water, benefitting 6.32 lakh hectares.

Piped water supply is being provided to 77% of households in the state, the Chief Minister said.

The meeting was told that the measures undertaken have resulted in a reasonable amount of drought-proofing, despite deficient (about 80% of long-term average) and skewed temporal distribution of rainfall, it said.

Despite two successive years of drought, crop production in the state has been estimated at 95% of the normal.

The state has made significant progress in micro-irrigation, with 100% coverage of drip/sprinkler irrigation being achieved in 3789 villages.

The creation of an elaborate canal network under the Sardar Sarovar Irrigation Scheme, has led to a significant increase in crop yields, and a positive impact on farm incomes, the Prime Minister heard and emphasized on value addition in horticulture and cash crops.

Measures to boost progress in fishery, bee-keeping, pearl culture, and seaweed, were also discussed.

The meeting ended with a resolve on the part of the Centre and state to work together, the PMO said.

The Prime Minister is in the process of meeting Chief Ministers of 11 drought-hit states. He has already met eight Chief Ministers.
A veil-wearing girl, presented by an NGO as the one who was at the centre of Handwara protests last month, today claimed that police had "pressurised" her to make a statement before a magistrate in which she exonerated an army man of molestation charges.

Addressing the media here, the girl demanded registration of a case against the police and anyone else found responsible for recording and circulating her video statement and for the "wrongful confinement and hostile treatment" from April 12 to May 12.

She made a statement, narrating what, according to her, had happened on April 12 and the subsequent developments. The media persons were discouraged from asking questions to her.

Handwara town and adjoining areas of Kupwara district of Kashmir had erupted last month after allegations that a 16-year-old girl had been molested by an army man.

In a video-recorded "statement" released by police later, the girl had said no soldier was involved in any molestation and had blamed a local boy for misbehaving with her.

Today, Khurram Parvez of NGO Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, organised a press conference here in which the veil-wearing girl made the allegations of pressure from the police.

The parents of the girl at the heart of the controversy were also present at the press meet.

"In the morning of April 16, a policeman told me and my father that we have to give a statement as per his instructions before the court. He pressurised me to say that I was born in 1997 and also to stick to the statement in the recorded video," the girl claimed.

"We were forced to sign on documents and our statements were forcibly recorded before a court," she alleged.

"My statement and that of my father before the court was therefore not a voluntary statement. When I gave my statement before the court, my father was not allowed inside with me," she charged.

The girl demanded registration of an FIR against the police for recording the video, circulating it and intimidating her and her family.

"I demand an FIR be registered for a video that was recorded of me and then widely circulated in the public against my will. I and my family members were also kept in police detention against our will for one month and we were abused, intimidated and harassed by the police," she said.

About the incident that happened on April 12, the girl



said that after leaving her school, "I had to go to the (Handwara main) chowk as I had left my phones there at a shop named 'Information Hub' as we were not allowed to take phones into the school."



The girl said after taking the phones, she went to a toilet located at the main chowk. "Unfortunately, the toilets at my school had been shut and therefore I had no option but to visit the public toilet," she claimed.

"I entered the toilet and at that point there was no one else inside. As I was exiting, an army soldier forcibly held my hand. I screamed and ran away from the bathroom area. He was in uniform and so there was no mistaking him to be a soldier," the girl alleged and demanded punishment to the soldier for his "actions of sexual assault".

In the meanwhile, the girl said, a crowd gathered and she was taken to police station against her will.

"The behaviour of the police personnel towards me as I arrived at the police station was of hostility. The police personnel were abusive and threatening. I narrated to three masked policemen what the Army soldier had done to me. They asked me not to tell anyone the real story as it would endanger my life and the lives of my family members," she claimed.

She alleged that when she resisted, one of them slapped her and told her to change her statement which "I agreed to" because of the pressure.

"Later, SP (Superintendent of police Ghulam) Jeelani came after 20-25 minutes and asked what had happened? I told him what had happened and then he went out and returned with a mobile phone and recorded the statement," she alleged.

"The statement that I gave on the video was what policemen had asked me to say. The SP took the video deceitfully. No one from my family was with me at that time," she claimed.

She added, "I pleaded with him (the SP) to not to release the statement to media which he promised. But he made the statement public without my knowledge. How could he do so?"



She charged that "in order to save the Army, he put my honour at stake."



The girl claimed that she and her family were kept in police custody at different houses and their movements were controlled by the police.

"We were under constant surveillance, and we were being intimidated, harassed and blackmailed by police," the girl said.
Haryana Health and Medical Education Minister Anil Vij today said his state welcomed the decision regarding implementation of NEET for admissions to medical and dental colleges, but flagged concern over the timing of the move, which he said has created "utter confusion".

Addressing a conference on National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) convened by Union Health Minister J P Nadda at AIIMS here, Vij urged him to overcome the deadlock for the future of students of Gold Field Medical College, Faridabad, which was recently shut down.

Vij suggested that a central regulation is very important for conducting entrance examination for admission into medical and dental colleges which would put an end to the present prevailing confusion.

He said at present there are four private and four government medical colleges and 11 dental colleges in the state, admission to which was earlier done on the basis of AIPMT examination.

"Haryana has no objection regarding implementation of NEET examination in the state, but the way in which it is being applied has created confusion between the candidates and their parents. It has also led to anxiety regarding the fee structure and other issues," he said, according to a state government statement.

Putting forth an example of Gold Field Medical College, Faridabad, Vij said the condition of private colleges is also not very stable. He apprised the Union Minister that the closing down of the GFMC by the Management Committee, has put the future of 400 students at stake.

Taking this into consideration, the need of the hour is to make a central legislation to resolve the issues related to medical education after understanding them in a proper manner, he said.
IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha will tomorrow take his maiden flight in India's indigenous light combat aircraft, Tejas, and review the development so far.

Raha will also inaugurate the LCA paint hangar in Bengaluru and visit the production line of the aircraft. The IAF has given an order of 120 Tejas, with 100 of them being an upgraded version.

He will fly a sortie in a Tejas trainer aircraft which is a two seater, defence sources said.

He will also visit the hangar where the Mirage 2000 is being upgraded.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), manufacturer of Tejas, is likely to hand over the fourth aircraft to IAF by June end.

The four aircraft will make up for the first squadron of IAF which will be used for training and familarisation.

Rather than waiting for LAC Mk II, IAF had decided to go in with an upgraded version of the existing Tejas with over 40 modifications.

IAF currently plans to acquire 120 Tejas aircraft, with 100 of these having major modifications. The force wants Active Electrically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar, Unified Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite, mid-air refueling capacity and beyond the vision range missiles.

As per the production plan, six aircraft will be made this year (2015-16) and HAL will subsequently scale it up to eight and 16 aircraft per year.

Upgraded version of Tejas will cost between Rs 275 crore and Rs 300 crore.

Tejas, which was several years in the making, has now caught the attention of foreign buyers, with Sri Lanka and Egypt evincing interest in the fighter jet.

Sri Lanka had recently rejected Pakistan's JF-17 aircraft built with Chinese help, while Egypt had last year signed a contract for 24 French-made Rafale fighter jets.

The two countries are interested in the current version of Tejas and not the upgraded one which will be rolled out later.
Panama today said it is in talks with India for putting in place a bilateral tax information exchange agreement, amid furore over hundreds of names of Indians figuring in the 'Panama Papers'.

However, the Latin American nation said it would not be able exchange information with India unless it comes through a judicial channel since there is no pact in place as of now.

"We are already in talks to begin a process of negotiating exchange of information agreement... We would begin DTAA/TIEA wih Japan, Germany and Brazil and of course India.

"This is something (which we) will be discussing tomorrow with the Ministry of External Affairs. It has been in pipeline for sometime and it is time to have second round of negotiation as soon as possible," Maria Luisa Navarro, Vice Minister of Multilateral Affairs and Cooperation, Panama, said here.

On the timeline to complete negotiations with India, she said "it depends" and cited the example of Columbia wherein her country took more than a year to complete the talks for an information exchange agreement.

"(We are in process of getting into an agreement) so that we can provide exchange of information (to India)," the visiting minister said.

Navarro said that Panama is a provider of a very small percentage of those companies that appear in documents that were released.

"I know there were around 500 Indian beneficial owners or related to corporate entities... But I am not sure how many of them used Panama as jurisdiction," she noted.

She expressed confidence that nothing is expected to go wrong during the negotiations.

"We have already made public three negotiations...With Japan, Germany and Brazil. We will keep putting more in pipeline as soon as we receive requests and India has already manifested that request," the Minister said.

Amid the furore, she also said that Panama has been "mislabelled many times as a tax haven".

Panama imposes and collects tax, which goes up to as high as 35 per cent, she added.

Leaked documents of Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed names of over 500 Indians including some well known names figure persons having association with firms in tax havens.

India has constituted a multi-agency group to continuously monitor information in the wake of Panama Papers that named hundreds of Indians including film actors and industrialists who have allegedly stashed money in offshore entities.

The multi-agency group will comprise various government agencies - the CBDT, FIU, FT&TR (Foreign Tax and Tax Research) and RBI.
Investment by Indian firms in their foreign ventures fell by almost 84 per cent to $4.11 billion in April 2016, according to RBI data. The domestic firms had made a collective investment of $7.56 billion in the same month a year ago. The investment put in by the local companies abroad in April this year was higher than $1.36 billion in previous month.

The companies made investments in a mix of guarantee issue ($1.92 billion), loans (298.75 million) and equity ($1.89 billion).

Among the major companies that invested in their overseas joint-ventures/wholly owned units include Lupin India $925 million; Videocon Oil Ventures $176 million; Videocon Industries $100 million.

Among others are Crompton Greaves $104.66 million, Oil India $96.17 million.

The direct investment outside India are the investments, either made through the automatic or the approval route.
Calling for more action on ease of doing business from New Delhi, a senior American official today sought to allay concerns on the future of the Indo-US commercial ties, saying they are "secure" and will withstand any political change at the White House.

"The important question is what is going to happen to the Indo-US commercial engagement? We are working very hard to institutionalise it, so that irrespective of the political leadership, the mechanisms, structure and momentum will be there to continue," US assistant secretary of commerce Arun Kumar said here this evening.

With the US presidential elections months away, and Donald Trump set to bag the Republican nomination, Kumar was asked about to the future of Indo-American ties, and he termed them as "secure".

Kumar, who oversees the global markets division, made it clear that his term will end with the Obama regime.

Specifically, he said initiatives like the CEO Forum, which is now woven into the Indo-US strategic and commercial dialogue, will continue irrespective of who is sworn on January 20, 2017.

Additionally, a strong bench of public servants who are in place will also ensure that the ties continue without any difficulties, he said while addressing an Asia Society event.

The Indian-origin Kumar, who started his career here in the financial capital itself with KPMG, however, flagged concerns about ease of doing business and asked for more action on it saying conviction on India will increase only when companies see action.

Stating that this is "fundamental to the future growth trajectory of commercial relationships", he said, "many US companies are increasingly optimistic about the shift in official terms and the increased willingness to engage with New Delhi. But they are waiting to see further tangible progress in the country's business climate."



He further said even though some states have made progress, as a whole the country still finds itself at the bottom of the ease of doing business list among the G-20 groupings.

The work on this front will also help the India initiative, he added.

Terming the just legislated Bankruptcy Code as a "significant milestone", he said, "This important reform will make it more likely that banks are able to recoup their money and lend to promising Indian entrepreneurs in the future.

To build on the positivity, Kumar said an Indo-US



Innovation Forum will be held by the end of the year.

He said there is more action required on the issue of standards, which is hampering the country's integration with the world economy by keeping it out of the global supply chains.

"India will need to harmonise its standards with international rules. Barriers like testing, certification, registration requirements not only pose obstacles to US companies but hamper integration with the global economy and supply chains," he said.

Kumar also flagged the issue of tariffs, saying the average duty on US imports to India is 13 per cent, which is higher by a few percentage points than what Indian exports attract in the US.

He said India and US are also working on a bilateral investment treaty, but declined to share more details on it.
Delhi Health Minister Satyender Jain today asked the homeopathy fraternity if they could come up with a "permanent" solution to tackle dengue which affects hundreds of people annually in the national capital alone.

"Homeopathic system of medicine is capable of healing most of the diseases of the time. Delhi has been facing a dengue problem, if homeopthy comes up with any permanent solution for the prevention of dengue it would be a great help to humanity," he said.

He was addressing a gathering at a symposium on dengue and homeopathy here, jointly organised by the Board of Homeopathic System of Medicine and Delhi Homeopathic Federation yesterday, according to a statement.

Jain further said the AAP government will focus on providing "more fund and attention to its AYUSH programme in order to make homeopathic system more popular.

May 16 is being observed as National Dengue Day.

Several experts present at the symposium were of the view that homeopathy has a large scope in both effective prevention and treatment of dengue fever thereby reducing the disease burden in the country, and tangentially, also reducing the overall cost of preventive programmes carried out by the central and state governments every year during the wave of dengue epidemic in the country.

It was mentioned that Central Council of Research in Homeopathy (CCRH) ran a preventive trial in the first ever reported worst year of dengue outbreak in 1996, and the results were reassuring.

Homeopathic remedies have the effect in "improving" the platelet counts in haemorrhagic dengue, which can result in the fall in the platelets and can even cause death, they said.

"Homeopathy is very effective in cases of dengue. We have both types of treatment-preventive and curative," claimed A K Gupta, President of Homeopathic Medical Association of India (HMAI) Delhi.

At least seven cases of dengue has been reported in the national capital with five of them in the first 10 days of April, according to a recent municipal report.

March saw two cases of the vector-borne disease and the current month five till April 9.

Last year, the city saw staggering 15,867 number of cases, worst in 20 years. The disease also claimed 60 lives, as per the municipal reports.

During 1996 a severe outbreak of dengue had occurred in Delhi wherein about 10,252 cases and 423 deaths were reported.
Union ministers Prakash Javadekar and Radha Mohan Singh today faced the ire of 'gau' workers who protested against the "inadequate" infrastructure for protection of cows at the national conference on 'gauvansh' and 'gaushalas' here.

The ministers faced interruptions and sloganeering when a group of gau workers protested during the conference over inadequate allocation of funds for their livestock and rampant incidents of cattle smuggling across the border.

While addressing the conference on 'gauvansh' (cow clan) and 'gaushalas' (cow shed), Singh had to briefly stop his speech and pacify the participants after they objected to his statement that states like Rajasthan were providing some subsistence allowance to those having cow as their livestock.

A number of people in the audience were seen interrupting the minister saying they have "never received" any support funds or facilities to conserve cows or 'gaushalas' in their states and that central funds also did not reach them.

The Union Minister later told the audience that while he agreed and sympathised with their grievances, he will ensure that work was done in this regard.

Javadekar also had to face the anger of the participants, who got up from their seats alleging that there was no curb on the illegal smuggling of cows and cattle across the Indian border.

The participants, many of whom owned 'gaushalas' or large livestock for farming and other purposes, alleged the government was not taking adequate steps in protecting the bovine by way of implementing strict laws against their killing and providing adequate funds for their conservation.

The gau workers also waved a cloth bag, issued by the Forest and Environment Ministry for the participants of the event, alleging that the picture depicted on it resembled a 'jersy' cow and not an Indian or 'desi' one.

Javadekar had to spend few minutes to pacify the crowd saying the conference was meant to find solutions to these issues and the central government and his ministry will go through the suggestions and recommendations that are made after the conclusion of the day-long meeting which also included scientists and dairy research professionals.

In more trouble for the speakers at the event, the protesters also stopped K P Ramesha, Principal Scientist, National Dairy Research Institute, from delivering his speech in English. He was asked to speak in Hindi.

A slew of measures including creation of exclusive dairy plants for 'desi' cows, producing cow fodder under MGNREGA and empowering animal welfare boards to take action against illegal smuggling and slaughtering, were agreed upon at the national conference, to conserve 'gauvansh' and 'gaushalas' in the country.
Enhancing connectivity to Saudi Arabia, private carrier Jet Airways will operate additional flight services to Dammam from next month.

The Mumbai-headquartered Jet Airways currently operates flights to 10 cities across the Gulf from 12 airports here.

Jet Airways will introduce the new daily services to Dammam, one each from Delhi and Mumbai, starting June 9, a release said today.

As of now, it flies a single daily service to the key port city in Saudi Arabia from Delhi and Mumbai.

"We have seen a significant increase in traffic from Mumbai and Delhi to Dammam. Through the introduction of these additional flights we can now offer our guests greater convenience, more choice and increased flexibility in their travel to and from Dammam," Jet Airways Whole Time Director Gaurang Shetty said.

Besides from the two metro cities, Jet Airways also operates flights from Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode.
An accused wanted for the kidnapping of two Rajkot-based jewellers in 2000, a case in which the ransom paid was allegedly used to fund terror activities, has been arrested by Gujarat ATS after nearly 16 years.

Based on a tip-off, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) nabbed the accused - Shailendrasinh Jat (45) - from his residence in Rohini area of New Delhi yesterday and brought him here today, a release of the ATS said.

As per the case details, two Rajkot based jewellers - Paresh Shah and Bhaskar Parekh - were allegedly kidnapped at gun-point by Jat's henchmen on November 12, 2000, in Rajkot.

While investigating the case at that time, police learnt that the kidnappings were allegedly made to fund terror activities by extracting ransom from the families of the victims, the ATS said.

Till now, 49 accused involved in the case have been arrested by police, it further said.

"At that time, the kidnappers, who were working at the behest of international terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, demanded a ransom of Rs 20 crore. While police at that time managed to free Paresh Shah from the kidnappers, Bhaskar Parekh was taken to Delhi by Jat's men," said ATS sub-inspector C R Jadav, who got the tip-off and nabbed Jat yesterday.

As per the ATS release, Parekh was released by the kidnappers in December 2000 after his father paid a ransom of around Rs 1.5 crore, which then went to one Aftab Ansari.

Notably, Ansari was arrested by the CBI in February 2002 upon his deportation from Dubai, as he was a key accused in the terror attack on American Centre in Kolkata in January that year.

"During probe by the Rajkot police and CBI till now, it has been revealed that Ansari was working at the behest of senior commander of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed Shaikh Mohammad Omar, who is believed to be in the UK. Ansari managed to acquire huge cache of arms through the ransom money," said Jadav.

According to the ATS release, Jat was part of a gang led by one Aamir Raza, who asked Jat and his accomplices to abduct the two jewellers in order to get ransom to fund terror activities for Ansari, who was working for Shaikh Omar.

Jat has been handed over to Rajkot police for further probe as the FIR of abduction was lodged there.

As per the release, Aftab Ansari, the native of Uttar Pradesh, had been found guilty in the American Centre attack case by a court, which awarded death sentence to him.

Ansari is at present lodged in Kolkata jail.
Tamil Nadu recorded a voter turnout of a little over 69 per cent in Assembly elections at the end of 5 PM as rural voters seemed more enthusiastic than their city counterparts in exercising their franchise, going by available statistics.

As many as 69.19 per cent of voters in 232 Assembly segments had cast their votes by 5 PM, electoral authorities said even as there was a dip in the pace of polling after 3 PM.

"Voting pace came down after 3 PM and it was not as high as it was in the morning," Chief Electoral Officer Rajesh Lakhoni told reporters.

He was responding to a query on polling percentage showing an increase of just around six per cent between 3 PM (63.70) and 5 PM, despite EC's massive efforts to ensure high voter turnout by way of its #Mission100percent campaign.

Rural segments in Dharmapuri such as Pennagaram put up a good show, Lakhoni said, adding Chennai district seemed to be heading towards the lowest polling percentage in the current hustings.

The Harbor constituency here polled just around 53 per cent whereas Pennagaram in Dharmapuri around 85 per cent till 5 PM, he said.

"This (voting percentage) is the hard fact. We will have to analyse the reasons behind it," he said.

However, the final voting percentage will be known only at around 8 PM, he said.

Polling had been largely peaceful except for stray incidents, he said.

For instance, at Muthugulathur in Ramanathapuram, a man tried to damage an EVM in a fit of rage finding his name missing from voters' list but the machine suffered no damage. The man was arrested, Lakhoni said.

In Madurai central constituency, the chief polling officer in a booth was replaced after she allegedly misled a visually-challenged voter to vote for a person not of his choice.

Polling came to a close at 6 PM in most of the constituencies even as voters who came before the cut-off time were allowed to vote, officials said.

The process of safely moving EVMs to respective strong rooms is underway. They will be opened for the ballots to be counted on Thursday.

Elections in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur, deferred following allegations of bribing of voters, will be held on May 23 and counting of votes on May 25.
Tens of thousands of minority Shiite Hazaras today marched through the streets of the Afghan capital to protest at the proposed route for a major power transmission line, in a brewing political crisis for the beleaguered government.

Security forces locked down central Kabul, blocking key intersections with stacked shipping containers as the protesters marched on the presidential palace - demanding that the line linking energy-rich Central Asia pass through a central Hazara-dominated area in Afghanistan.

The demonstration highlights the war-torn nation's turbulent politics. It follows one of the biggest anti-government rallies for years last November, which was sparked by the beheading of a group of Hazaras.

Some protesters threw stones at officials and banged on the sides of containers but the demonstration was largely peaceful.

"(President) Ashraf Ghani is hiding himself behind blast walls," Dawood Naji, a Hazara leader, told flag-waving demonstrators, drawing rousing applause.

"We can break down these containers if we want but we are here to protest in a civilised way for our rights."



Authorities shut down roads to the presidential palace, fearing a repeat of the violence in November when protesters tried to storm the compound.

The 500-kilovolt TUTAP power line, which would connect the Central Asian nations of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with electricity-starved Afghanistan and Pakistan, is seen as a crucial infrastructure project.

But it has been mired in controversy, with leaders from the minority group demanding that the line be routed through Bamiyan which has a large Hazara population.

The line was originally set to pass through the central province but the government decided to reroute it through the mountainous Salang pass north of Kabul, saying the shorter route would speed up the project and save millions of dollars.

Hazara leaders in the ethnically divisive nation lashed out at the Pashtun president, saying the decision to reroute the line was a sign of discriminatory policies - a charge that Ghani denies.

"Bamiyan has seen no development in 15 years (since the Taliban were toppled from power)," Hazara lawmaker Arif Rahmani told AFP.

"We are demanding justice, not charity."



The rally comes in the midst of the Taliban's annual spring offensive launched last month and authorities have warned that it could be targeted by insurgents.

"Staging peaceful protests is the civil right of every Afghan citizen," the interior ministry said in a statement.

"We respectfully request that our countrymen not allow the enemy (to) misuse this opportunity and disrupt public security.
A commission agnet of the LIC was shot at and injured before being robbed of Rs 16.87 lakh by unidentified armed miscreants in Phulwaria area in Bihar's Begusarai district, police said.

The incident took place at Mirchaiya Chowk at around 11.30 AM as three unidentified men on a bike intercepted Arvind Kumar Mishra soon after he came out of the LIC office carrying with him a sum of Rs 16.87 lakh in a bag.

The men shot him thrice for putting up resistance before decamping with the booty, police said adding he was hospitalised.

Mishra was attacked while he was walking towards a private bank to deposit the cash after collecting it from the LIC office located on the other side of the road, he said.

The Superintendent of Police (SP) Ranjit Kumar Mishra confirmed the incident, but said the exact amount looted by the miscreants was being verified.
About 1,000 Madhesis and demonstrators from other minority groups seeking more rights and representation in Nepal's new Constitution scuffled with police today, even as Prime Minister K P Oli warned that the government will not keep quiet if the protests become violent.

Protesters chanting anti-government slogans picketed near the Prime Minister's office and tried to break a police barricade, triggering a clash with the police on the third day of their protest.

Riot police used batons to disperse demonstrators. During the protest, three demonstrators and two pedestrians were injured.

Two students were injured as the members of the agitating groups beat them up, accusing them of being government's vigilantes.

The protesters chanted slogans like 'Down with incompetent government', 'Prime Minister K P Oli leave the country', 'We want our demands to be fulfilled' and 'Ensure our federal and ethnic rights'.

The major demands of Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, include re-demarcation of the seven province model of federal structure, inclusiveness and proportionate representation of marginalised groups and ethnic minorities including the Madhesis, indigenous groups and dalits in all the state bodies.

Meanwhile, speaking at a separate programme to pay tribute to CPN-UML's late leader Madan Bhandari, Prime Minister Oli asked the agitating groups to engage themselves in reconstruction of earthquake damaged structures across the country instead of taking to streets and creating traffic jams in the busy streets of the capital.

The Madhesi protesters jammed roads here after they were rejected by the people of southern Nepal, where their protests led to border blockade for six months, Oli said.

The government will not keep quiet, if the protest becomes violent, he warned.

Stating that the government is ready to address all the demands through talks, the Prime Minister asked the dissenting parties to arrive at the negotiating table.

"The government wants solution to the problem through dialogues. For that, we requested the agitating parties for talks time and again," he said.

The Federal Alliance, the grouping of seven Madhes-based political parties and 22 other ethnic groups, also announced that they would picket the Prime Minister's official residence in Baluwatar during their fourth day of protest tomorrow.

About 1,000 protesters picketed near the Singhdurbar Secretariat, the main administrative complex that also houses the Prime Minister's Office, today to protest the Constitution that divides the country into seven federal provinces.

Hundreds of riot policemen were deployed at the protest



venue, which comes under restricted area.

The Federal Alliance will stage their protest in front of the Prime Minister's residence as part of its efforts to exert more pressure on the Premier to fulfil their demands.

Federal Alliance spokesperson Parashu Ram Tamang said police personnel stopped "hundreds of leaders and cadres" heading to join the protest, interrogated them, seized flags and banners and frisked them unnecessarily.

They want the government to re-write the Constitution to meet their demands. The alliance started their Kathmandu- centric fresh protests on Saturday.

Madhesis earlier had launched six-month-long agitation from September to February in which more than 50 people were killed. The agitation had also crippled the landlocked country's economy as supplies from India were blocked.

Nepal had accused India of imposing an "economic blockade", which India strongly denied.

The alliance has this time changed its strategy and focused their protest in the capital city in an attempt to draw attention of the government and other stakeholders to their demands.
Madhesis and demonstrators from other minority groups seeking more rights and representation in Nepal's new Constitution clashed with police and blocked main streets near the Prime Minister's office here as their fresh protests entered the second day today.

Some 1,000 protesters chanting anti-government slogans picketed near the Prime Minister's office. They tried to break the police barricade, triggering a clash with the police.

The protesters chanted: 'Down with incompetent government', 'Prime Minister K P Oli leave the country' and 'We want our demands to be fulfilled'.

Riot police used batons to disperse demonstrators.

Three Madhesi cadres sustained minor injuries during the clash, according to the agitating Federal Alliance, the grouping of seven Madhes-based political parties and 22 other ethnic groups.

Security was stepped up around Singha Durbar secretariat complex that houses the prime minister's office and government offices. Hundreds of riot policemen were deployed in the area to prevent an untoward incident.

The Federal Alliance spokesperson Parashu Ram Tamang said police personnel stopped "hundreds of leaders and cadres" heading to join the protest, interrogated them, seized flags and banners and frisked them unnecessarily.

The major demands of Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, include re-demarcation of the seven province model of federal structure, inclusiveness and proportionate representation of marginalised groups and ethnic minorities including the Madhesis, indigenous groups and dalits in all the state bodies.

They want the government to re-write the Constitution to meet their demands. The alliance started their Kathmandu-centric fresh protests yesterday.

Madhesis earlier had launched six-month-long agitation from September to February in which more than 50 people were killed. The agitation had also crippled the landlocked country's economy as supplies from India were blocked.

The alliance has this time changed its strategy and focused their protest in the capital city in an attempt to draw attention of the government and other stakeholders to their demands.
The fate of 634 students, accused of adopting unfair means in getting admissions in Madhya Pradesh Medical colleges through VYPAM, hangs in balance as judges of a Supreme Court bench have differed with one asking them to serve as doctors for five years in Army, while the other ordering them to take up the entrance test afresh.

Medicos had challenged two verdicts, delivered in 2014, of the Madhya Pradesh High Court dismissing their pleas against cancellation of their results in the entrance examinations, being held from 2008 to 2013, by the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB), also known as 'VYPAM'.

The VYPAM scam is also the subject matter of the apex court-mandated CBI probe.

In its inquiry, the examination board had concluded that the exam process was "tampered with" and these 634 medicos were the beneficiaries of "manipulated examination process".

Referring the divergent verdict to Chief Justice T S Thakur for "further orders", Justice J Chelameswar said that he favoured permitting students to complete studies and "compensate" society by serving in Army without any claim.

"I would prefer to permit the appellants to complete their study of medicine and become trained doctors to serve the nation. But at the same time there is a compelling national interest that dishonest people cannot be made to believe that 'time heals everything' and the society would condone every misdeed if only they can manage to get away with their wrong doing for a considerably long period.

"Society must receive some compensation from wrongdoers. Compensation need not be monetary and in the instant case it should not be. In my view, it would serve the larger public interests, by making the appellants serve the nation for a period of five years as and when they become qualified doctors, without any regular salary and attendant benefits of service under the State, nor any claim for absorption into the service of the State subject of course to the payment of some allowance (either in cash or kind) for their survival...," Justice Chelameswar said.

Justice A M Sapre differed with Justice Chelameswar and upheld the HC verdict saying that there was "mass copying".

"The State may consider permitting the appellants and other candidates alike the appellants to appear in the competitive examination whenever it is held and consider granting age relaxation...Beyond this, in my view, the appellants are not entitled to claim any indulgence," he said.
A 26-year-old man was today killed while another sustained injuries when their bike was hit by a Haryana Roadways bus near village Behbalpur on Hisar-Chandigarh road.

The deceased has been identified as Sanjay. Injured Praveen was admitted to a private hospital here, police said.

The accident took place when the two were going to village Behbalpur, about 12 km from here to meet their relatives after attending a marriage function in village Badopati, they said.

Irate villagers set the bus on fire and also damaged another roadways bus by pelting it with stones.

They also blocked traffic on Hisar-Chandigarh road for about four hours.

Villagers lifted the blockade after an assurance by senior district officials about action against the bus driver, police said.
The northern parts of the country continued to reel under the scorching sun today with Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana recording maximum temperatures close to 45 degrees Celsius and above, even as rain brought the mercury down in Tamil Nadu.

Bikaner in Rajasthan was the hottest place recording a high of 46.6 degree Celsius. Few places in the state like Ajmer, Jaipur and Chittorgarh, however, received light rain.

In Punjab and Haryana, Hisar once again sizzled at 45 degrees Celsius. Chandigarh, the common capital of the two states, braved a hot day at 41.4 degrees Celsius.

The maximum temperature rose to 43.4 degrees Celsius in the national capital with the weatherman predicting dust storm and thunderstorm towards the night.

A man has been suspected to have died of heat stroke in Delhi with police recovering his body from a pavement this morning.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD), meanwhile, said the heat wave is expected to spread over more parts of north and central India, including Delhi, in the next five days but the conditions are likely to gradually subside during the remaining part of the month.

"These conditions are likely to spread over to some more areas comprising parts of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Gujarat and north Madhya Maharashtra during May 17-21. They are likely to abate gradually during the remaining part of May," it said in its forecast.

The Telangana disaster management department said as many as 300 heat-related deaths have been reported in the state since the beginning of the summer season this year.

"Nalgonda district tops the chart with 90 deaths followed by Mahbubnagar with 44," an official in the disaster management control room said.

The highest temperature was recorded at 44 degrees Celsius at Ramagundam and Adilabad in the state, IMD said.

In a relief from the searing heat, good rainfall was recorded in Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam, Tiruchirappalli, Dinidigul, Madurai, Ramanathapuram and Sivaganga districts of Tamil Nadu. Kerala witnessed slight drizzle in few areas.

The Met department added that rain and thundershower coupled with gusty surface wind is likely to lash some places of Odisha by tomorrow under the impact of a well marked low pressure area over southwest Bay of Bengal.
Opposing the mandatory disclosure of commissions paid by (MFs) to distributors, agents selling such financial products have requested regulator Sebi to scrap the directive saying it would be detrimental to the growth of the industry.

For greater transparency in dealings of mutual funds, Sebi had asked MF houses to disclose to investors the commissions paid to their distributors, including payouts in the form of gifts, trips and sponsorships from October in the consolidated account statement (CAS) sent to investors.

Several mutual funds' distributor associations including Financial Intermediaries Association of India (FIAI) said the circular on "commission disclosure is more likely to be counter productive on all counts and must be withdrawn."



They said such disclosures are selective and will provide information which is incomplete and not relevant and will mislead the investor to make wrong choices.

"This will be harmful to the investor, detrimental to the growth of the industry," distributors said.

In addition, it will make a negative impact on retail investors and eventually hurt growth of the mutual fund industry.

"Retail investors are not going to magically dream up the knowhow required to become direct fund investors. If they do or are prompted to do so, then there will be dire unintended consequences. There is a huge (and crying need) for expanding mutual fund investments in India and the independent fund distributor is a crucial part of realising this potential," they said.

They further said, "disclosure of distributor commissions on an ongoing basis will lead to unethical practices of pass backs. The regulation will lead to use of corrupt and illegal practices."



Most global like the US do not have disclosure of commission amounts in account statements.

Terming the regulation as unfair, distributors said regulations are made without any engagement with the stakeholders.

The regulations are also unfair in treatment of relative to other investment products like bank deposits investment-linked life insurance plans as such disclosure is not required for other financial products.

"The current regulations widen the regulatory arbitrage thus the regulations clearly harm the development of the mutual fund industry vis a vis life insurance, bank deposits, gold," the associations noted.
A suspected militant was today killed after he slipped into a gorge while being chased by security forces near the Line of Control in Poonch area of Jammu and Kashmir while his two associates were arrested, police said.

The militant identified as Abu Bilal slipped from a cliff while trying to flee and died on the spot , police said.

The three weretryingto cross over to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir from the Chaprian post area when they were challenged by the security forces, Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Poonch Rajouri range, Johnny Williams told PTI.

"Acting on specific information that a group of three militants was trying to cross to the other side of the LoC, a joint operation by the police and army was launched to nab them,"



On being challenged, the militants tried to flee.

"While one militant died after falling from the cliff into the gorge, the other two were arrested," the DIG said.

"The two have been taken into custody andhave been identified as Musleen Rashid (25) and Adil Ahmed both residents of South Kashmir's Pulwama district", he said.

Rs 27500 in Indian currency was recovered from Bilal.
A minor fire broke out on the terrace of a building in Connaught Place late this evening, police said.

Fire tenders were rushed to the spot in the popular market's C Block which also houses many shops including a bookstore, a Delhi Fire Service official said.

No major damage or casualty has been reported in the fire which was quickly brought under control, he said.

Earlier in the day, electric lines in Laxmi Nagar area of east Delhi caught fire creating panic among local residents.

The fire, which started from an electric pole, caused power lines to snap and short-circuit. The flame due to burning of the insulation of wire sent up dense black fumes.

Two fire tenders were rushed to contain the fire which was caused by short circuit, a fire official said.
A local court today extended by two days the police custody of Goa legislator Atanasio Monserratte who has been accused of buying and raping a minor girl and reserved until Wednesday its order on his bail application.

In his bail plea, the expelled Congress MLA said the charge of rape against him is a "fertile imagination of investigating officer".

Principal District and Sessions judge Pramod Kamat, who heard the arguments from defence and prosecution through the day in a packed courtroom, reserved the order on the bail plea for May 18.

Goa police is investigating the case against Monserratte who has been booked for buying the girl for Rs 50 lakh and raping her in March.

He was booked under IPC sections 376 (rape), 328 (poisoning), 342 (wrongful confinement), 370 (A) (trafficking), provisions of Goa Children Act and Protection of Children From Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

The MLA's counsel Rajiv Gomes argued against slapping of section 370 of IPC and section 8(2) of Goa Children's Act in the FIR against the MLA.

Referring to the statement recorded by the girl, Gomes said there was no sexual assault in this case as the girl never claimed or disclosed about it in her complaint.

"The investigation officer should have had facts on record before applying the section of rape against the accused. The application of such a grave section shows the fertile imagination of investigating officer," Gomes told the court.

He also challenged the arrest of Monserratte on May 5, the day he appeared before police, by an officer who was not investigating the case.

Gomes said the arrest was executed by police inspector Dattaguru Sawant though the case was investigated by Sawant's colleague Sudiksha Naik.

The investigation was conducted at the behest of political opponents of the accused, he stated.

The defence counsel further said that by charging the MLA with rape, police were making the girl as a "rape victim" and are "tarnishing her image".

"The girl has mentioned in the complaint that she was offered spiked drink by a maid servant but the police have accused Monserratte of drugging her, which contradicts the girl's statement," the counsel said.

Advocate Damodar Dhond, representing the mother of the girl and another accused Rosy Ferros who have also sought bail, claimed discrepancies in the statements of the girl recorded before the Child Welfare Committee.

Police arrested the girl's mother and another woman, Rosy



Ferros, for allegedly selling her to Monserratte for Rs. 50 lakh.

Dhond claimed that though the girl stated that she was drugged on March 8 and remained unconscious, there are records of communication from her mobile phone during the period of her alleged unconsciousness.

During the arguments, the judge questioned the delay on the part of police in tracing Rs 50 lakh which were allegedly paid by the accused to the girl's mother.

"If I want I can get the bank details in no time. Why is Crime Branch taking so much time? the judge said.

Opposing the bail, public prosecutor Nita Marathe said the police are still verifying the money trail and are yet to get details of the SMS communication between the accused and Ferros.
Malaysian electricity investor has been given a negative credit by Moody's rating agency on its funding and debt position following the firm's May agreement to acquire 30% stake in India's GMR Energy Ltd.

The proposed transaction is credit negative for Tenaga because it will reduce the company's liquidity and, depending on the funding mix, increase its adjusted debt.

Tenaga is to pay $300 million for the stake in GMR, which is its second acquisition in the past two months, the first being its $255 million purchase of GAMA Enerji A S (unrated) in Turkey.

"Assuming that the investment is fully debt-funded, we expect Tenaga's ratio of retained cash flow (RCF) to debt to be around 23% for the fiscal year ending 31 August, 2016, pro forma for the two transactions, versus 25% without them," said the credit agency.

"This ratio level is still within our quantitative guidance of 17-25% for Tenaga's rating, but the additional debt used to fund the acquisitions will reduce headroom. Also, Tenaga's RCF/debt ratio does not include debt at GMR Energy, the amount of which Tenaga has not disclosed," noted Moody's.

With these acquisitions, Tenaga aims to expand its business and reduce its overall exposure to Malaysia, which currently contributes nearly 100% of its revenues.

Following its agreement to acquire GMR Energy stake, Tenaga's presence overseas will include associate and joint-venture investments in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, India and Pakistan.

The proposed acquisition of the GMR Energy stake will allow Tenaga to benefit from the solid growth potential of electricity consumption in India, where there is significant economic growth, and diversify away from Malaysia's mature power industry, Moody's pointed out.

But the proposed acquisition, which involves assets with 2.3 gigawatts of operating capacity and an additional 2.3 gigawatts of capacity under construction and development, also introduces Tenaga to new operating and regulatory environments in which it does not have experience, Moody's said.
Former Moroccan Salafist prisoners protested on today outside parliament to demand the reopening of an investigation into bombings in Casablanca in 2003, and accused the government of "shirking its responsibilities".

Some 150 former prisoners and their families answered a call by the "joint committee for the defence of Islamist detainees" to demand that the probe into the bombings that they called "the biggest lie Moroccans have ever known".

Salafists adhere to a strict Sunni interpretation of Islam.

Today's demonstration comes 13 years to the day after the wave of suicide bombings in the country's commercial capital killed 33 people.

In the wake of the attacks, the authorities arrested more than 8,000 people and more than 1,000 were later sentenced, including 17 given the death penalty.

"We demand a transparent and impartial investigation into the events of May 16, 2003," committee coordinator Osama Boutahir told AFP.

"We ask Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane to meet this demand that he himself expressed while in opposition."



Some who attended the protest accused the government of "shirking its responsibilities" towards the former prisoners.

Other Moroccans convicted after the attacks are still languishing in jail.

"We are still waiting for our husbands and sons to be released," some of whom are in prisons hundreds of kilometres (miles) from their families, a spokesman for the committee said.
Myanmar police today said they have begun legal action against five protesters over a weekend rally intended to promote religious tolerance.

The move came as rights groups raise concerns about efforts by the new pro-democracy government to amend draconian laws on demonstrations.

Dozens of activists and students marched through Yangon on Saturday in a rare gesture of religious solidarity in the diverse nation, where rising Buddhist nationalism has stoked anti-Muslim sentiment and sporadic bouts of bloodshed in recent years.

Police said they decided to take action against five rally leaders - believed to be three women and two men of several faiths - because the campaigners had deviated from the agreed protest route.

They now face a charge that could land them in jail for up to six months under a controversial law, currently being reviewed by the new government led by political prisoner-turned-politician Aung San Suu Kyi.

"We have started legal action against five protest leaders under Section 19 of the Peaceful Assembly Act," police Lieutenant Major Win Tin from Kyauktada township told AFP.

Suu Kyi's party is stacked with former dissidents who served prison time for their opposition to Myanmar's military governments during decades of repressive rule.

They are now in government following a landslide November election victory.

Since taking the helm the administration has freed scores of activists and political prisoners and signalled its determination to repeal oppressive laws.

But rights groups have raised the alarm over a number of provisions in a draft amendment to the Peaceful Assembly Act. They fear these will continue to penalise non-violent demonstrations, albeit with shorter jail terms.

"You don't need these punishments in your draft. If you remove these three or four things then it's pretty good and you won't be condemning another generation of peaceful protesters for breaking a flawed law," said David Mathieson of Human Rights Watch.

He said the revised law would still give "carte blanche to abusive local officials" to prosecute activists and urged a rethink.

The proposed draft would mean protesters must still give local police 48 hours' notice of the place and time of any rally, as well as details of planned speeches and slogans.

Those who protest without giving prior notice could be imprisoned for three months, while repeat offenders could face a year behind bars.

Parliament is due to debate the law in the coming days.
Indian Foreign Service officer Namgya C Khampa was was today appointed as Director in Prime Minister's office.

Khampa is an Indian Foreign Service officer of 2000 batch.

Khampa has been appointed to the post for a period of three years, an order issued by Department of Personnel and Training said.

Besides her, there are five other officers working as Director in the PMO.

Khampa has worked as Counsellor (Trade, Commerce and Economic) in Indian Embassy in Beijing.
NASA has selected eight technology proposals for investment, including interplanetary habitats that can induce deep sleep for astronauts on long-duration missions, and growable habitats that can be robotically assembled in space.

The selected proposals have the potential to transform future aerospace missions, introduce new capabilities and significantly improve current approaches to building and operating aerospace systems, NASA said.

The selected concepts include an interplanetary habitat proposed by Space Works Inc in US, configured to induce deep sleep for astronauts on long-duration missions.

A novel coating called "Solar White" developed by Kennedy Space Centre is predicted to reflect more than 99.9 per cent of the Sun's energy.

According to the researchers a sphere covered with a 10 mm thick coating of Solar White and located far from the Earth can achieve temperature below minus 223 degrees Celsius, the freezing point of oxygen.

This method can cool fuel tanks in space down to minus 184 degrees Celsius, with no energy input needed.

Another concept proposed by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in US demonstrates low-cost atmospheric satellite which is powered by a combination of wind and solar energy and may be able to stay aloft for weeks or even months at a time.

Magnetoshell Aerocapture for manned missions and planetary deep space orbiters, being developed by MSNW Inc in US will use aerodynamic drag forces to slow a spacecraft while it lands on a planetary body.

Aerocapture would enable long term studies of the outer planets and their moons that would not be possible with existing braking technologies, researchers said.

Another proposal by the Texas Engineering Experiment Station seeks to design a rotating habitat with a robotic system that constructs the structure and provides a habitat growth capability.

Awards under the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Programme can be worth as much as USD 500,000 for a two-year study, and allow proposers to further develop concepts that successfully demonstrated initial feasibility and benefit.

"The NIAC programme is one of the ways NASA engages the US scientific and engineering communities, including agency civil servants, by challenging them to come up with some of the most visionary aerospace concepts," said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate.

NASA selected these projects through a peer-review process that evaluated innovativeness and technical viability.

All projects are still in the early stages of development, most requiring 10 or more years of concept maturation and technology development before use on a NASA mission.
In a development boost to the coastal Konkan region, the new Fertilizer Plant of Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilisers Ltd. (RCF) will be set up at Thal, in Raigad district, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said here today.

The decision was taken at meeting here, attended by Union Ministers Ananth Kumar and Hansraj Ahir for developmental projects in Maharashtra.

Some new institutions, projects, parks have been planned in Vidarbha, Marathwada, North and Western Maharashtra and Konkan region, Fadnavis said, after the meeting.

Maharashtra government will sign Memorandum of Understanding with the Centre for starting 100 'Janaushadhi' centers in the state for providing medicine to poor and underprivileged, he added.

It was also decided to give more impetus on generic medicines and to make available all types of medicines for poor at a very low cost.

National Institute of Pharma Educational Research (NIPER) will be set up at Nagpur, Fadnavis said, adding a Central team will visit the city in this regard by May end.

CIPET (Central Institute of Plastics Engg & Tech), Aurangabad will be expanded and 2 more centres of CIPET will be set up at Jalgaon and Pune, he said.

Land has been identified for Chandrapur CIPET. Bulk drug park will be set up at Aurangabad and medical devices park will be set up at Nagpur, he added.

Plastic Park will be set up at Jalgaon with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore and employment generation of around one lakh, Fadnavis said.

Other issues discussed in this meeting included management of city compost, plastic waste and revival of Hindustan Antibiotics Limited (HAL).

"This highway will create a revolution in agro-based



industry. As gas and petroleum pipelines will be laid under this highway, gas-based industry too will come to Vidarbha. Farmers will become rich as they will be the partners in the project," the CM said.

He said the opponents of this project are against development. "The time is now ripe to show them their place."



Fadnavis said education scenario has started looking up under his government.

"The state was languishing at 16th place in education. We started 'Shaikshanik Maharashtra Abhiyan' and through it improved the learning output of 17,000 schools to 100 per cent. As a result, the state has now jumped to number 3 place," he said.

The CM said his government has already decided to give 20% grant to all unaided schools.

"We are serious about the teachers working at non-aided schools," he added.
Five months after ushering in a landmark climate deal, diplomats kicked off a new round of talks today tasked with converting a political blueprint into a workable plan.

"The whole world is united in its commitment to the global goals embodied in the Paris Agreement," the UN's outgoing climate chief, Christiana Figueres, told the 196-nation UN climate body at the start of a 10-day session in Bonn.

"Now we must design the details of the path to the safe, prosperous and climate-neutral future to which we all aspire."



That remains a daunting task, negotiators and experts agreed.

The targets set are hugely ambitious, and the rift between rich and developing countries -- sufficiently reconciled to seal the deal in December -- remains just beneath the surface.

The new goal of capping global warming at "well below" two degree Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) means nothing less than weaning the world economy off fossil fuels within a few short decades.

It will also require mobilising trillions of dollars to help poor countries green their economies and brace for climate impacts.

Most of the details on how this will happen have yet to be worked out.

Voluntary national pledges in the Paris pact to slash carbon pollution -- going into effect in 2020 -- would still allow Earth's surface by at least 3 C (5.4 F), a cataclysmic scenario, say scientists.

A single degree Celsius of warming since the pre-industrial benchmark has already seen a crescendo of devastating storms, droughts and rising seas.

US national scientists said over the weekend that last month was the warmest April recorded -- the seventh consecutive month to exceed previous highs.

"The only question is whether we join together quickly and boldly enough to avoid catastrophe," Thoriq Ibrahim, environment minister for the Maldives and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) told the plenary.

One of the UN body's most urgent tasks is orchestrating the ramping up of national plans to cut carbon pollution.

The next "political moment" when countries could deepen their commitments is a so-called stocktaking in 2018.

At the same time, the developing world is concerned that too much of the 100 billion dollars (88 billion euros) per year promised by wealthy nations starting in 2020 will be spent on curbing greenhouse gases and not enough to boosting climate resilience.

"For our endeavours to be achieved, enhanced and adequate financial and technology support ... Must be provided," a Thai diplomat, speaking for the 134-nation 'G77 and China' bloc said at the opening plenary.
The National Green Tribunal has convened a meeting of all stakeholders involved in cleaning of River Ganga from Haridwar to Kanpur to deliberate on the mechanism to make the river pollution-free.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said the meeting would take place on May 20 at 1:00 PM in the conference hall of NGT.

"We are of the considered opinion that before the arguments are heard, it will be necessary for the Tribunal to have a final meeting with all the stakeholders who are involved in Segment-II of Phase-I (Haridwar to Kanpur) of the Ganga Cleaning Project in terms of the judgement of the Tribunal," the bench said.

It directed UP Chief Secretary, other secretaries concerned of UP, Managing Director of UP Jal Nigam, CEO of UP Jal Sansthan and other senior most officers of public authorities directly or indirectly concerned with the Ganga cleaning to be present in the meeting.

"Chairman and Member Secretary, of UP Pollution Control Board, Member Secretary of Central Pollution Control Board, Joint Secretary concerned of MoEF, Joint Secretaries concerned of the Ministry of Water Resources, Chairman & Expert Members of the Principal Committee constituted under orders of NGT and representative of tanneries, sugar, paper, distillery and textile association would also be present," the bench added.

The green panel has divided the work of cleaning the river into different segments -- Gomukh to Haridwar, Haridwar to Kanpur, Kanpur to border of Uttar Pradesh, border of Uttar Pradesh to border of Jharkhand and border of Jharkhand to Bay of Bengal.

On December 11, last year, the tribunal had imposed a complete ban on use of plastic of any kind from Gomukh to Haridwar along the river from February 1 and decided to slap a penalty of Rs 5,000 per day on erring hotels, dharamsalas and ashrams spewing waste into the river.
Shell India today announced the appointment of Nitin Prasad as its new chairman after the incumbent Yasmine Hilton retires in September.

Prasad is currently the cluster general manager for lubricants sales and marketing for India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. He will take charge from October 1, the company said in a statement.

Hilton, who has been the chairman of Shell Companies in India and vice present for IT project excellence at the parent Royal Dutch Shell, will end her assignment on September 30, 2016, after a career spanning 37 years with Shell, the statement added.

Hilton began her career with Shell in 1979 in IT and went on to hold a number of senior posts in the group including, chief information officer for Britain and for Shell's global retail business, operating in all five continents.

In October 2012 she took up a four-year assignment as country chairman, the first woman leader in the Indian oil and gas industry.
With an aim to provide world class amenities to rail passengers, high-speed free wi-fi facility was launched today at the Bhopal railway station by city MP Alok Sanjar.

"This ultra-modern world class wi-fi service will benefit all passengers arriving at the Bhopal station. The service is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India project," Sanjar told reporters.

The facility is being provided through Rail Wire, which is Railtel's new broadband service.
President Barack Obama on Sunday took a swipe at presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's plans to ban Muslims from entering America, and build walls between the US and its neighbours likes Mexico.

Though he did not name Trump, Obama made it clear what he thinks about the 69-year-old real estate tycoon's campaign and policy proposals in a highly political speech at Rutgers University yesterday.

"The world is more interconnected than ever before, and it's becoming more connected every day. Building walls won't change that," Obama said in an apparent reference to Trump's proposals.

The President also told the graduates to stand up to those who say that America was better in the past. He also asked graduates to tout their knowledge and not brag about their ignorance.





ALSO READ: Fearing Donald Trump, some Democrats up pressure on Sanders to exit

"Just as America is better, the world is better than when I graduated. Since I graduated, an Iron Curtain fell, apartheid ended. There's more democracy. We virtually eliminated certain diseases like polio. We've cut extreme poverty drastically. We've cut infant mortality by an enormous amount," he said.

"Now, I say all these things not to make you complacent. We've got a bunch of big problems to solve. Look, as President, my first responsibility is always the security and prosperity of the United States. And as citizens, we all rightly put our country first. But if the past two decades have taught us anything, it's that the biggest challenges we face cannot be solved in isolation," he said amidst applause.

"When overseas states start falling apart, they become breeding grounds for terrorists and ideologies of nihilism and despair that ultimately can reach our shores. When developing countries don't have functioning health systems, epidemics like Zika or Ebola can spread and threaten Americans, too. And a wall won't stop that," Obama further added.





ALSO READ: Muslim ban proposal temporary, just a suggestion: Donald Trump

"If we want to close loopholes that allow large corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, we've got to have the cooperation of other countries in a global financial system to help enforce financial laws," he informed the graduates.

Obama said building a wall is neither going to create jobs nor accelerate economy.

He also challenged the notion that Muslims should be banned from the United States, something Trump proposed in December.

"Isolating or disparaging Muslims, suggesting that they should be treated differently when it comes to entering this country, that is not just a betrayal of our values and who we are, it would alienate the very communities at home and abroad who are our most important partners in the fight against extremism," said the outgoing American president.
More than 30 per cent of the 9.41 lakh voters cast their franchise in Puducherry till 11.30 hrs on Monday. Voters turned up in large numbers at the booths despite rains in urban and rural areas.

Police were deployed in good strength in addition to personnel from Central Armed forces.

Physically challenged voters were helped by student volunteers to cast their votes.

Tension prevailed in a booth in Sorapet village in Tirubhuvanai reserved constituency, when a group of villagers registered strong protest against the alleged assault of a local youth by a police officer.

They alleged that the officer dragged out the youth from his house for possessing a bunch of voters slips.

However, police sources denied the allegation and said that the police were only asking the volunteers of political parties to remain beyond the 100 metre limit.

There was no disruption of polling in the booth, Election Commission officials said.

Rains in Puducherry did not affect the polling.
More than 300 business chiefs today urged to vote to leave the EU in June's referendum, arguing in a joint letter that its bureaucracy stifled companies' ability to grow.

The letter, published in The Daily Telegraph newspaper, comes days after the British government seized on warnings from the Bank of England and the Monetary Fund on the financial consequences of leaving the European Union.

"Brussels' red tape stifles every one of Britain's 5.4 million businesses, even though only a small minority actually trade with the EU," said the letter, whose signatories include Steve Dowdle, a former Sony vice-president for Europe, and David Sismey, a managing director at US investment bank Goldman Sachs.

"It is business, not government, which generates wealth for the Treasury and jobs for our communities," it added.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is fighting for his political future in the June 23 referendum, which polls suggest is neck-and-neck.

With less than six weeks until polling day, campaigning has become increasingly fractious.

Finance minister George Osborne Monday accused the Leave camp of indulging in conspiracy theories, insisting there was an "overwhelming consensus" among economists and world leaders that "Brexit", or leaving the EU, would be bad for .

"The next thing we know, the Leave camp will be accusing us of faking the moon landings, kidnapping (former racehorse) Shergar and covering up the existence of the Loch Ness monster," said Osborne, who was at London Stansted Airport for an announcement by Irish no-frills airline Ryanair on new investment.

"The response to the sober economic warnings from around the world by those who want to leave the EU has not been credible or serious," added Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary meanwhile warned that the budget airline would be forced to scale back British investment if the country votes to leave the EU, as he unveiled the creation of 450 jobs in Britain under a $1.4-billion (1.24-billion euro) boost for the firm's UK bases.

"It is exactly this type of investment that will be lost to other competitor EU members if the UK votes to leave the European Union," he said.

But the letter in The Daily Telegraph claimed that Britain's competitiveness was undermined by its membership of a "failing" 28-nation bloc.

"Outside the EU, British business will be free to grow faster, expand into new markets and create more jobs. It's time to vote leave and take back control," the letter concluded.
Pakistan will host a four nation meet this week to discuss a road map for negotiating a peace deal with the Afghan Taliban to end the 15-year insurgency, amid a surge in violence in the war-torn country.

The participating countries are The US, Pakistan, and China. The meeting will take place in Islamabad.

It would be the first meeting since the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) met in Kabul on February 23 and announced talks would start in the first week of March, but the process could not begin as Taliban refused to join.

Official sources said special envoys of China and the US and senior officials of Pakistan and were expected to attend the meeting schedule on May 18 in Islamabad.

"The group would discuss how to make more concerted efforts for peace talks to start," said the sources.

Initially the group was supposed to meet after the consultation between Taliban and Afghan officials. But the process ran a dead end following the terrible Kabul bombing last month which killed more than 64 people.

The Express Tribune reported that wants the Taliban to be declared 'irreconcilable' as they have publicly refused to engage in talks.

"We expect the QCG meeting to agree on implementation of the road map the group had agreed upon in its meeting on February 6," Afghan Ambassador to Islamabad, Omar Zakhilwal said while referring to the quartet call for the Taliban to shun violence and join direct talks by the first week of March.

"The road map is precisely about the steps the QCG members were to take in their respective domains both during peace talks, if they commenced, as well as if the Taliban refused to join talks. Now since the Taliban have publicly refused to join talks and opted for more violence the second scenario is applicable," the daily quoted Zakhilwal as saying.

"They must be declared 'irreconcilable' and action taken against them as was agreed in the road map," he added.

Zakhiwal travelled to Kabul following his meeting with Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif where they agreed to reopen the Torkham border crossing. The border remained closed for four days after Afghan security forces objected to the fencing of the border by Pakistani authorities.

After years of denial, the Pakistani government recently admitted that the Taliban leadership enjoys safe haven inside the country.

Taliban insurgents in recent months have repeatedly seized control of parts of the more than 2,000-mile-long Ring Road network, which connects major Afghan population centres.
Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan today demanded imposition of President's Rule in Bihar, alleging that the law and order situation was "deteriorating" in the state, and favoured a CBI inquiry in the Aditya Sachdeva murder case.

Hitting out at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD Chief Lalu Prasad, Paswan alleged that the incidents of murder, rape and robbery have "crossed all records" since the Grand Alliance government came to power in the state six months ago.

"The way there has been a constitutional breakdown in the state, there is no other way than to impose President's Rule in Bihar which LJP has been demanding. The incidents of murder, rape, robbery etc will continue to take place unless President's Rule is imposed there," Paswan said.

He said a delegation of LJP met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and President Pranab Mukherjee last week and handed over a memorandum demanding President's Rule in Bihar.

"Political murders and lawlessness are common features in Bihar these days...It is the strong opinion of LJP that one leader or the other of ruling party is indulging in all these incidents and that is why the police cannot conduct a fair investigation," he said.

Demanding a CBI inquiry into the murder of a businessman's teenaged son in Gaya, Paswan alleged Bihar police is deliberately leaving several loopholes in the case.

"The police is deliberately not conducting a fair inquiry in the murder case of Aditya Sachdeva at Gaya so that the case against the accused may become weak," he claimed.

Listing the murder incidents in the state in the past six months, Paswan also demanded compensation of Rs 25 lakh and a government job to the families of each of the deceased.

"LJP is organising 'dharna' at every district headquarters in Bihar today against the maha-jungle raj," he said.
Congress leader A K Antony today said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's controversial Kerala-Somalia comparison will impact the prospects of BJP, which has been pulling out all the stops in its bid to open its account in Kerala Assembly.

"Modi had compared Kerala to Somalia, which is infamous for starvation deaths and sea pirates. The pride of Keralites has been hurt," Antony told reporters after exercising his franchise at a booth here.

"The Prime minister had an opportunity to apologise for the remark, but he did not do that," the former Defence Minister said, adding the remark would affect the BJP's prospects.

Modi, while addressing an election rally here, had compared the infant deaths in some tribal areas in the state with that to Somalia.

However, BJP defended the Prime Minister, saying people were "twisting facts" and he had only highlighted the plight of the tribal community in the state and his desire was to improve their living conditions.

Expressing confidence that Kerala will create history by voting to power the UDF government again, Antony said the Marxist-led LDF will have to sit in the opposition for the next five years and BJP will not open its account.

This will be a vote against the politics of violence and communalism and it will be a vote for peace, he said.

The attack on RMP candidate K K Rema at Vatakara will prove dangerous for the LDF, he added.
Major political parties today favoured deferring implementation of Supreme Court-ordered NEET as the sole medical and dental entrance test by at least a year as the Centre kicked off consultations on the issue, asserting the matter was essentially in "executive domain".

As the parties addressed concerns by several state governments, which wanted their exams to be the basis for admission for their 85 per cent quota seats for this year too, Union Health Minister J P Nadda made it clear private medical colleges and deemed universities cannot have their entrance exams and will have to take students through the NEET route.

After separate meetings with State Health Ministers and political parties on the Supreme Court order, the government said it was in favour of implementing NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) but it has to take on board the issues being raised by the states on holding a common gateway test from this year itself.

Separately, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while referring to protests by many states over the Supreme Court order asserted that what should be the manner of holding the examination across the country is essentially an executive matter as it is in policy domain.

While Nadda chaired the consultations with the state health ministers, Jaitley presided over the meeting with the political parties. The consultations came amid reports that Centre may bring an ordinance to bypass the apex court's ruling making NEET mandatory from this year.

"We are in favour of implementation of NEET. We are trying to address the issues of states. There are mainly three concerns of the states. All states have different syllabus and therefore a common syllabus needs to be formed so that students can prepare accordingly.

"Secondly, the exams should also be conducted in regional languages whereever required and lastly the ongoing exams of the states needs to be looked at," Nadda said after the all- party meet tonight.

Nadda said the Supreme Court's order was welcomed by almost all states but some of them flagged concerns over holding it in the current year itself



The Health Minister said the future course of action will be formulated "soon" as the Centre was committed to bringing in transparency in medical education system and remove alleged malpractices.

Earlier, during an interaction with the media, Jaitley said, "It is the case of some of the states that boards are unequal, their languages are dissimilar. Can those who are dissimilar in language and unequal be placed on the pedestal of quality and asked to give the same exam?



"I think this matter is essentially in the executive domain. We now have a Supreme Court judgement. We will have to see how we deal with that particular issue," Jaitley told reporters. Several states want NEET to be implemented only from the 2017-18 academic session.

Jaitley, however, said the judiciary and executive are "on the same page" over maintaining the fairness and integrity of exams at all costs.

Nadda said although most states are in favour of NEET "in



principle", some have talked about logistical issues that are "impeding" its implementation.

"Most States are in favour of NEET in principle. However, some states have expressed that there are some logistics issues that are impeding its implementation, and therefore they have desired for some more time.

"We will need more discussions with the state governments on the NEET issue. Today, we had discussions on language, syllabus and state governments' concerns over state medical entrance examinations. We have to solve all the problems of the states before NEET is conducted across the country," Nadda said.

He said his Ministry will apprise the Supreme Court of the state governments' apprehensions on NEET only after arriving at a conclusion.

At the meeting, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain came out in full support of the Supreme Court order and requested the Centre to implement it at the earliest to bring in reform.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the NEET issue, amid concerns raised by parents and students. "I have assured parents that I will meet PM Modi on NEET issue. We are trying our best to resolve the issue," he told reporters in Mumbai.

The Supreme Court had ruled that starting this academic session, students would have to appear in NEET to seek admission to medical or dental colleges in the country.

The apex court order had implied that all government colleges, deemed universities and private medical colleges would be covered under NEET and those examinations which had already taken place or were slated to be conducted separately stand scrapped.

Nadda said all states agreed that the NEET was a welcome move for bringing in transparency and removing several malpractices in the field of medical education.

However, during the meeting some states said the examination process was either underway or was soon to commence for admission to various state medical colleges.

Others referred to the issue of the syllabus of the CBSE being different from that of the State Examination Boards.

"The views and concerns of the states shall be collated and soon a future course of action shall be thought of. The Government is committed to bring about transparency in medical education and remove malpractices," he said.

INLD leader Dushyant Chautala said students should be given time to prepare for the common exam.

Chautala said that every party that was present at the meeting has opposed the NEET because the time is very short and students are also not prepared to handle the common entrance test as all state boards have different syllabus.

"Therefore we request the government to conduct NEET with the postgrad exam next year and come with a common syllabus so that every student has equal right in all regional languages which the government accepts in the coming year 2017-18," he added.

Earlier this week, the apex court had turned down a batch of appeals by states seeking to conduct their own medical admission tests and ruled that "only NEET would enable students to get admission to MBBS or BDS studies".
A 54-year old polling officer died of a massive heart attack in a booth in Kangeyam Assembly constituency while two elderly voters in Madurai and Sivaganga collapsed and died near polling booths in Tamil Nadu today, police said.

Selvaraj, a teacher posted as polling officer in one of the booths in Kangeyampalayam in nearby Tirupur District, collapsed while on duty this morning.

His colleagues rushed him to a nearby hospital from where he was referred to the government hospital in Coimbatore, police said adding, however, he died on the way.

Doctors said he had suffered a massive heart attack.

A Madurai report said a 70-year old man died of suspected cardiac arrest as he collapsed near a polling booth in Madurai Central constituency before casting his vote.

In another incident, a woman, also aged 70, died after collapsing in a polling booth complex in Aruppukottai in Virudhunagar district, police said, adding she was suspected to have suffered a cardiac arrest.

In two other poll-related incidents, eight persons were injured when the roof and the sunshade of different polling booths caved in Sivaganga District.

Five persons were injured when the roof of the booth at Kottur near Karaikudi collapsed.

Three voters were injured in Thirumanavayal village when the sunshade of the polling booth broke and fell on them under the impact of rains in the area.

All the eight had been hospitalised, police said.

A 38-year old woman died when she struck by lightning while returning home after casting her vote in Ariyalur, they said.

Meanwhile, Election officials seized the car of AIADMK candidate in Kulachal constituency in Kanyakumari district as more than the permitted number of persons were found travelling in the vehicle, police said.
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today met Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven and discussed enhancing bilateral ties between the countries specially in the field of cyber security.

"Had a great meeting with Prime Minister of Sweden Mr Stefan Lofven. We discussed issues of bilateral cooperation. Swedish PM ... Recalled his suggestion to work on cyber security," Prasad said in a tweet.

Prasad is on a three-day visit to Sweden to enhance bilateral ties between the countries.

In February this year, Lofven visited India and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the occasion of the 'Make in India Week' in Mumbai.

Around 30 points were identified by the two countries in February for enhancing bilateral cooperation, including Digital India.

"As democracies India and Sweden can work towards safe secure and prosperous world. Swedish PM fully endorsed this idea," Prasad tweeted.

Both nations are committed to promoting human rights online, cyber security, combat cybercrime, and develop a common understanding on international cyber issues and support an open, inclusive, transparent and multi-stakeholder system of internet governance.

Prasad also visited headquarters of the Swedish telecom gear major Ericsson.

"With 5G prototype in 5G test facility in Ericsson Studio. To be miniaturised into normal mobile size in next 2 years," Prasad said.

Ericsson is at present testing gears for 5G technologies which it plans to start commercialising around 2018. The minister said that Ericsson employs around 22,000 people in India and has been present in the country since last 114 years.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has wished a speedy recovery to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who is down with high fever, Health Minister J P Nadda said today.

"Got to know that Sh Rahul Gandhi is not well from Hon'ble PM who was quite concerned about his health. In view of the concerns of Hon'ble PM, I enquired about his health and wished a speedy recovery for him," Nadda tweeted.

Rahul Gandhi had last week cancelled his two-day election visit to Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, saying he was down with high fever.

Congress sources said Gandhi is still suffering from high viral fever and the doctors have advised him to take rest.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee has warned of a 9/11-like attack on the US if refugees continue to be allowed into the country and alleged that they carry ISIS-funded cell phones.

"Our country has enough difficulty right now without letting the Syrians pour in," the 69-year-old real estate tycoon told the National Border Patrol Council podcast.

On The Green Line podcast, Trump also suggested ISIS is paying for refugees' cell phone plans.

"They all have cell phones so they don't have money, they don't have anything, they have cell phones. Who pays their monthly charges, right? They have cell phones with the flags, the ISIS flags on them," he alleged.

"And then we're supposed to say, 'Isn't this wonderful that we're taking them in?' We're led by people that are either incompetent or they don't have the best interest of our country at heart," Trump said.

When asked if he thought it would take an attack similar to 9/11 for the country to "wake up about border security," Trump answered in the affirmative.

"Bad things will happen; a lot of bad things will happen. There will be attacks that you wouldn't believe. There will be attacks by the people that are right now coming in to our country," he warned.

Trump also spoke about Hillary Clinton's agenda for immigration reform and his own plans for border control, including his proposal to build a wall at the Southern border with Mexico.

The National Border Control agents' union made its first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate when it backed Trump in March.

Trump had proposed a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," in December but just this week he said the ban was "only a suggestion."



Trump has also said that he may set up a counter- terrorism commission to study his immigration policies and his controversial proposal to ban foreign Muslims from entering the US until America's security has been assured.
Students of the Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Narendrapur, set a new record scoring 92.10 per cent marks on an average in the West Bengal Higher Secondary examinations, results of which were declared today.

The boarding school, run by monks of the Ramakrishna Mission and Math on the outskirts of the city, had 76 candidates for the HS exams - all in the science stream.

"Eight of our students are in the top ten list. They are in 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th ranks. Our school average is 92.10 per cent," school headmaster Swami Vedapurushananda told PTI.

None of the students have secured below 75 per cent marks while a majority 59 of them have bagged 90 per cent plus scores.

In mathematics subject, 16 students have secured 100 out of 100 marks, he said.

The monk credits the secret behind the stupendous success of his students to a number of factors including a disciplined lifestyle in a residential school where most students are admitted in younger classes.

None of them have access to distractions like TV sets or mobile phones in the campus where every morning begins with meditation and prayer sessions.

"They meditate and pray again in the evenings also which improves their concentration power. They grow up imbibing the ideology of Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Swami Vivekananda," Vedapurushananda said.

"The performance is good because the quality of our students is good. There is lot of opportunities for peer studies," he said adding that the overall lifestyle of students matter a lot. Here they lead a very regulated and disciplined lifestyle," the headmaster said.

Over 7,79,453 students appeared in the exam held in February. Altogether 83.65 per cent students secured pass marks.

Compared to last year, 1.27 per cent more students have passed this time. Swagatam Haldar of Panchasayar Shiksha Niketan in Kolkata has topped the merit list with 495 marks.

East Midnapore district had the highest number of candidates clearing the examination - 92.38 per cent.
The Rs 570 crore cash seized from three containers in Tamil Nadu on Saturday belongs to the State Bank Of India but it will not be handed over to the bank before a proper probe by the Income Tax Department, the Election Commission said today.

Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha said here that that it has now been established the amount belongs to SBI. But EC will not hand it over to the bank. The money will be with the Income Tax department till the probe by the tax authorities is over.

The State Bank of India had claimed the money belongs to it and it was being transferred from Coimbatore to Andhra Pradesh to address cash shortage in that state and as per RBI instructions.

The vehicles were detained by election department officials after chasing the trucks, which were accompanied by three cars, after they did not stop at the check post at Chengapalli in Tirupur District in the wee hours of Saturday.

A high-level committee, headed by Expenditure Observer, carried out a detailed inquiry with the State Bank of India officials for more than 12 hours, with regard to dispatch of the money, without valid documents and proper security.

The Bank had staked claim for the money, saying that it was transferred from Coimbatore main branch to its branches in Vishakhapatnam, where there was shortage of cash.

Moreover, this was done according to RBI guidelines, SBI had said.
Taking note of the claim of an environment activist that he was being "threatened" after filing case against illegal sand mining in UP's Sambhal district, the National Green Tribunal today sought response from the Uttar Pradesh government on the issue.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar issued notice to the UP Chief Secretary, State Environment Impact Assessment Authority Uttar Pradesh, District Magistrate and Senior Superintendent of Police of Sambhal district.

The matter is now listed for hearing on July 7.

The green panel, on April 8, had issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on the petition by Modi Nagar resident Phirey Ram alleging that illegal mining was being carried out in the close vicinity of the Narora atomic power station and on the banks of Ganga and its floodplains in the area.

The petition had further alleged that "despite notices being issued to the state government by this tribunal, the sand mafias are continuously and consistently carrying on illegal mining at the bank of Ganga, village Ishampur, tehsil Gunnor, district Sambhal and that too without fear of law."



It had further claimed that the villagers have given him photographs which clearly "support the case of the petitioner" and also shows that sand mafias were carrying out illegal activities under the "nose of the administration".

Earlier, the NGT had sought a response from the UP government on the plea which had also sought directions to the state government, state level environment impact assessment authority and the district administration to "stop illegal sand mining completely without obtaining environmental clearance and other required permission".
Omung Kumar's upcoming real-life drama "Sarbjit", starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, had two market screenings on the first weekend of the 69th Cannes Film Festival.

The star of the much anticipated film, after a red carpet appearance for the screening of Steven Spielberg's "Roald Dahl" adaptation The BFG on Saturday, participated in a photo call on Sunday and addressed a press conference.

"Sarbjit" was screened in the market on both Saturday and Sunday. While Richa Chadha, who plays Sarabjit Singh's wife in the biopic, and the film's director accompanied Aishwarya, Randeep Hooda, who essays the titular role, gave Cannes a miss.

On Monday, Sonam Kapoor, who, like Aishwarya, is a brand ambassador of French cosmetics giant L'Oreal, will witness her latest film, "Neerja", being screened in the Marche du Film here.

But the principal Indian focus will, however, continue to be on Monday's world premiere of Anurag Kashyap's "Raman Raghav 2.0", which is being unveiled in Directors' Fortnight. The director of the film has arrived in Cannes along with Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vicky Kaushal and will be in attendance during the screening of "Raman Raghav 2.0".

The film has generated a huge buzz here. It will be watched keenly in particular by Kashyap's fans who were left cold by his last film, the big-budget "Bombay Velvet".

One of the two Indian films in the Cannes official selection, Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya's "The Cinema Travellers", a documentary on Maharashtra's struggling travelling tent cinemas, premiered in the Cannes Classics on Sunday.

Screened in the Bunuel theatre, the film received a standing ovation.

Introducing "The Cinema Travellers", Abraham said, "The film showcases the keepers and custodians of an old tradition of film watching as a community exercise. It is, therefore, great to premiere in a festival like Cannes.
The Bihar government tonight recommended a CBI probe into the May 13 killing of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan in Siwan, bowing to the wishes of his family and mounting outrage over the incident, but Chief Minister Nitish Kumar rejected opposition's charge that 'jungle raj' was prevailing in the state.

State's Home department issued a notification in this regard, a Chief Minister's Secretariat official said.

As per the notification, the state government has requested the CBI to take over the investigation of the murder case.

"In exercise of the powers conferred under section 6 of Delhi Police Establishment Act 1946 (Act 25 of 1946), the Governor of Bihar is pleased to accord his consent to exercise of powers and jurisdiction to the whole of Bihar to the members of Delhi Special Police Establishment to investigate/ supervise and inquire into the Siwan Town P.S. Case No. 362/16, dated 13.05.2015 u/s 302/120 (B)/34 IPC and 27 Arms Act which is related to Murder of reporter Rajdev Ranjan," the notification issued by home department read.

Earlier in the day, Kumar had told the media that a decision to recommend a CBI probe had been taken at the request of Ranjan's family.

"A decision has been taken to hand over the inquiry into the killing of a journalist of a vernacular daily at Siwan to CBI at the request of his family. After completing the formalities, the recommendation for CBI investigation would be made today itself," Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told reporters here.

The Chief Minister said no effort has been spared in investigating the killing of Rajdeo Ranjan, the Siwan district bureau chief of Hindi daily 'Hindustan', and in the Gaya road rage incident in which a youngster was shot dead allegedly by the son of a ruling JD(U) MLC.

The Chief Minister said he was personally saddened by the two killings. "I am in more pain over the two incidents than those shedding crocodile tears to score political points. For me the attack on the journalist at Siwan is like attack on myself."



Kumar said he was prepared to order a CBI probe into the killing of the Gaya road rage incident victim too, if his family was not satisfied with the investigation being done by the state police.

On NDA's allegation of return of the 'jungle raj' in Bihar, Kumar said it was "a pre-decided tune which they play on case to case basis". Kumar added that he did not need any "certificate" from anybody on "rule of law". He said the rule of law was prevailing in Bihar and would continue in future too.

In an apparent dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had called RJD 'Rozana Jungle raj ka Dar' (Daily fear of jungle raj) while campaigning for Bihar assembly polls, Kumar said, "People gave him a sound reply by electing Grand Secular Alliance of JD(U), RJD and Congress with over two-thirds majority.
A Delhi court today sent to 14 days' judicial custody a journalist for allegedly fabricating an RTI reply and publishing a report claiming that the government had been discriminating against Muslims in their recruitment as yoga trainers in the Ayush Ministry.

Pushp Sharma, who was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Ashok Kumar on expiry of his two-day judicial custody, was sent to Tihar Jail till May 30 in the case registered days after his report 'We don't recruit Muslims: Modi govt's Ayush Ministry' appeared on Milli Gazette, a fortnightly English language newspaper.

The Delhi-based journalist was arrested on May 14 on charges of cheating, forgery and promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, etc in the case registered a Kotla Mubarakpur Police Station here.

A senior police officer had said that Sharma had been arrested in 2009 on the charge of extorting government officials by threatening sting operations on them. There were also allegations that Sharma even tried to extort police officers on one occasion.

Sharma had claimed that he filed an RTI with the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) enquiring about the Muslim teachers and trainers recruited by the AYUSH Ministry for foreign assignments during the World Yoga Day last year.
The Shiv Sena today welcomed the acquittal of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and others in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, stating the ATS had "falsely implicated" the Hindu outfits and that believing in the formation of "Hindu Rashtra" does not amount to saffron terrorism.

"The ATS had carried out a bogus investigation and falsely implicated certain Hindu organisations for carrying out the Malegaon blasts," an editorial in Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' said.

"Sadhvi Pragya Singh, Lt Col Purohit and others who were implicated went through intense emotional and physical torture. These people can be believers of a Hindu Rashtra but that does not make them saffron terrorists," it said.

The ruling alliance partner further said certain people, instead of eliminating terrorism fanned by Muslim extremists, with the help of Pakistan chose to create an air of saffron terror in the country.

"The previous Congress government at the Centre and the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra did not understand that by doing so we are only strengthening the hands of Pakistan. Whenever we asked Pakistan to hand over the terrorists taking refuge there, they asked for Col Purohit," it said.

Posing the question "Why would Hindus spread terror in their own country?", it said, "The UPA government for political gains had put pressure on the investigating agency and thereby indulged in deceit. This was a sin and the relevance of the people who committed that has ceased to exist."



In a U-turn, the NIA had on Friday dropped all charges against Sadhvi Thakur and five others in the while charges under the stringent MCOCA law were given up against all the other 10 accused including Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit.

Seven people were killed in the blast when they were coming out of prayers during Ramzan on September 29, 2008.

During investigation, "sufficient evidences were not found" against Pragya Singh Thakur and five others, the NIA had said, adding it has submitted in the charge sheet "that the prosecution against them is not maintainable".

The case was investigated initially by Joint Commissioner of Mumbai's ATS Hemant Karkare who was killed during the 26/11 Mumbai attack. Before the NIA took over the case in 2011, ATS had booked 16 people but filed charge sheets on January 20, 2009 and April 21, 2011 against 14 accused in a Mumbai court.
Clashes broke out between two communities over the weekend in Khudadadpur village in SP Supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's constituency, leaving three officers injured following which seven persons have been arrested and an FIR registered against another 200.

Police said today that members of a community attacked a house of a person belonging to another community and set it ablaze leading to the clashes.

Later, members of both the communities took to streets and began pelting stones at each other in which Circle officer K Saroj, SDM Anil Kumar Singh, a revenue officer and others sustained injuries, following which police used tear gas shells to control the situation, they said.

"Seven persons have been arrested and named FIR has been lodged against 21 persons while 150-200 unidentified persons were also named in it," Additional Director General (ADG), law and order, Daljeet Chowdhury said.

Heavy police force, Rapid Action Force (RAF) and PAC have been deployed to check any untoward incident in the area, he added.

Meanwhile, a delegation of BJP leaders led by former DGP (UP) Brijlal and retired IG Rajesh Rai, who were on their way to Azamgarh to ascertain facts of the clash, were detained in Barabanki district.

"The BJP leaders have been detained in Barabanki and they were not permitted in Azamgarh," a senior official said here.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today asked Parliament to set up a committee to probe all those whose names figure in the 'Panama Papers' after his family was accused of stashing money in offshore entities.

Sharif asked the Speaker to thrash out a detailed procedure to probe those mentioned in the Panama Papers, in consultation with the opposition.

He addressed parliament after the opposition had demanded that he should face the house to clear his name after his family members were mentioned in the .

Sharif dwelt at length on the issue of his family business which he said was established much before Partition.

He rejected the charge of money laundering and said his family did not transfer any money from Pakistan but used proceeds from the family business in UAE and Saudi Arabia to buy properties in the UK.

He said he was ready for accountability but demanded that all involved in corruption should also face probes.

"The speaker should set up a committee of parliament in consultation with all parties to prepare terms of reference and detailed procedure for probe into Panama Papers," he said.

However, his offer was rejected by opposition parties which staged a walk out after Sharif's address.

Sharif also claimed that he had set up his business first and subsequently joined politics unlike those who make money through politics.

The opposition has been demanding Sharif face parliament and respond to various questions regarding how his family transferred money from Pakistan to set up businesses abroad.

Sharif's two sons Hussain and Hassan own businesses in UK and Saudi Arabia.

His critics want him to reveal the channels through which the funds were transferred from Pakistan along with the exact amount and whether any taxes were paid or not.

But pressure has eased on Sharif after Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaaf chief Imran Khan admitted having an offshore company while several other leaders were also found owning such entities, including Moonis Elahi, son of former deputy premier Pervaiz Elahi, and Pakistan People's Party senator and ex-interior minister Rehman Malik besides .
The 'Sikkim Sewa Ratna' for 2016, the second highest civilian award of the state, was conferred upon former minister Ram Chandra Poudyal and former Lok Sabha MP Dil Kumari Bhandari for their contribution to the development of state on the occasion of the 42nd State Day.

"Ram Chandra Poudyal is remembered for his role in laying the foundation of democracy in Sikkim and as an advocate of the rights of the Nepalis of Sikkimese origin," Chief Minister Pawan Chamling, who was the Guest of Honour in the State Day celebration here, said.

"Dil Kumari Bhandari, the former MP from Sikkim, had a huge role in the inclusion of Nepali Language in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution of India," he said.

The Civilian Awards were conferred to distinguished personalities who have made a mark in their respective fields and have contributed to the development of Sikkim.

The Award comprised a gold-plated citation, shawl and cash award of Rs two lakh each.

Governor Shriniwas Patil, who was Chief Guest on the occasion, in his address hailed the major contribution of the people to usher in democracy in the state and their "selfless contribution" during the merger of Sikkim with the Indian Union.

He dwelt on the achievements of the state in various spheres and its recognition as one of the "most progressive states" of India.

The Chief Minister, in his address, said, "Sikkim is the only erstwhile nation which has merged into another country with the help of popular vote and unparalleled faith in the system of democracy.
Armed Forces veterans in Scotland, born in the 1940s and 1950s, are at an increased risk of lung cancer and other smoking-related cancers, according to a new study.

Researchshowed military personnelin the early 1960swere around 20 per cent more likely to smoke than civilians, and also that they smoked more heavily.

A recent study by researchers at the University of Glasgow showed that older veterans were at increased risk of heart attacks, and the researchers suggested that higher rates of smoking may be responsible.

The study analysed the long-term risks of smoking-related cancer, including lung, throat, stomach and bladder cancer.

The researchers found that overall, veterans had a 20 per cent higher risk of these cancers than people who had no record of service, but the risk was highest in those born in the late 1940s and 1950s, and also in veterans who left after the shortest service; they had a 45 per cent higher risk of lung cancer than non-veterans.

Veterans who were born after 1960 had a reduced risk of smoking-related cancer.

"This is an important study which supports the earlier indication, from our previous research, that the high rates of military smoking that were reported in young soldiers in the 1960s and early 1970s have had serious consequences for veterans' long-term health," said lead researcher Beverly Bergman.

Recent military health promotion campaigns have reduced in-service smoking rates and are showing clear benefits to later generations of service personnel, Bergman said.

"People with the shortest service may not have served for long enough to benefit from these campaigns. Veterans who have been smoking for many years can still reduce their risk of these serious diseases by stopping smoking, as it is never too late to quit."



The study, which used data from the Scottish Veterans Health Study to examine rates of hospital admission and death due to smoking-related cancer, is published in BMC Cancer.
The full cache of secret documents from former US intelligence contractor is being opened to journalists and organisations willing to work with the news organisation holding the archive.

The Intercept, the news site launched by journalist Glenn Greenwald -- who was part of the team that first interviewed Snowden in 2013 -- announced yesterday that it would "invite outside journalists, including from foreign media outlets, to work with us to explore the full Snowden archive."



The move could vastly increase the disclosures from Snowden, who fled the United States with a trove of documents detailing vast surveillance programs by the NSA and other intelligence agencies from around the world.

"From the start of our reporting on the archive, a major component of our approach has been to partner with foreign (and other American) media outlets rather than try to keep all the material for ourselves," Greenwald said.

"We have collectively shared documents with more than two dozen media outlets, and teams of journalists in numerous countries have thus worked with and reported on Snowden documents," in addition to other media outlets with some documents such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, ProPublica and the Guardian.

Greenwald said that under an agreement with Snowden, the journalists reporting on these documents must agree to certain rules.

"There are still many documents of legitimate interest to the public that can and should be disclosed. There are also documents in the archive that we do not believe should be published because of the severe harm they would cause innocent people," he said.

Greenwald said The Intercept has already begun to provide archive access to French daily Le Monde and other media outlets, and added that "we are excited by the reporting this new arrangement will generate."



The Intercept yesterday also released dozens of internal newsletters from the National Security Agency including one highlighting the secret agency's role in interrogation of Guantanamo prisoners.
Oscar-winning French star Juliette Binoche has revealed that she spoke to directors Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese over the lack of female-driven stories in their movies.

During a panel session at the Cannes film festival, "The English Patient" star recalled a conversation with Spielberg, a director she said she greatly admired, about why he rarely centers his films on female characters.

Binoche said he defended himself, reasoning that he had made "The Color Purple" in 1985. Since then, all of his films have featured male leads. The actress turned down a role in Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" that went to Laura Dern, reported the Guardian.

"Saying no to certain films is as important as saying yes, because it really defines you," Binoche said while speaking on behalf of We Do It Together, a newly launched not-for-profit production company which aims to improve opportunities for women in Hollywood.

The actress, 52, said she had a similar conversation with Scorsese.

"He has a very feminine side of himself. But for me, he doesn't explore it (in his work)," Binoche said of Scorsese.

Binoche said French director Olivier Assayas was more receptive to the criticism and following a conversation with her, he decided to make "Clouds of Sils Maria".

The film played in the 2014 competition at Cannes and won Kristen Stewart a Cesar, making her the first American to be so honored.

The actress said she has always looked for movies where women have a substantial parts.

"What I've been seeing is that I've been refusing roles, instinctively, out of the need to talk about the feminine. The feminine has to have its place. It needs space, and we don't have the space, so we have to take it," she said.

Binoche stayed away from Hollywood despite winning "The English Patient" in 1997 as she was not ready to conform.

"... I never chose to live in Hollywood because I didn't conform to a mold. American agents would sell me films to bolster my career, but I didn't feel a connection. Staying in Europe was a way of resisting.

"I knew I had to step away from the system. Being independent is the most important thing. I think as a free spirit, you have to be smart enough to be able to go in and then get out. Don't belong to a system that rules your spirit," she said.
Thirty-four Indian fishermen arrested by the Sri Lankan naval personnel last month for allegedly entering their country's waters, were today released by two separate Lankan courts.

As many as 34 Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan custody will be released, fisheries minister Mahinda Amaraweera said, adding that India will also release Sri Lankan fishermen.

While 13 fishermen, arrested on April 15, were set free by the Oorkavalthurai Court, the others, detained on April 21, were ordered to be released by a court in Mannar.

The court order came close on the heels of Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena's visit to India on May 13 during which he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed among other issues the problems faced by Indian fishermen.

It was reported after the meeting that both sides sought a permanent solution to the issue of frequent arrests of Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy and India reiterated the need to build a dedicated mechanism for it.
Superstar Mammootty, his actor son Dulquar Salman and actor and BJP Rajya Sabha member Suresh Gopi were among the celebrities who made a beeline to polling stations and cast their votes today.

Mammooty and Dulquar came separately and cast their votes at a polling station in Panampally Nagar in Ernakulam district, while Suresh Gopi got his finger inked at a booth here in the morning and said expectations were 'sky high' for the saffron party.

Posting the picture of his inked finger on Facebook, Dulquar urged everyone to exercise their franchise, saying that it is "our right and our responsibility".

"The only ink you need! Go Vote! It's our right and our responsibility!! You're not cool if you don't vote!," his Facebook post said.

When Mammooty was asked whom he would vote for, the actor smiled off and urged everyone to exercise their voting rights.

"You people should also vote", he told media personnel.

Actor Mukesh, seeking his electoral luck from Kollam constituency as the LDF candidate, stood in the queue along with other voters and cast his vote.

Exuding confidence, another actor candidate Jagdeesh, who is contesting on a Congress ticket from Pathanapuram, said after seeing the long queue, he was confident of poll victory for the party.
Drug firm Strides Shasun has decided to divest the company's UK arm Shasun Pharma Solutions Ltd to its current management for an enterprise value of GBP 25 million (over Rs 240 crore).

"The board of directors of the company at their meeting held today approved the divestment of SPSL, UK ... To the current management team of SPSL with funding by the promoter group of Strides Shasun for an enterprise value of GBP 25 million", Strides Shasun said in a filing to BSE.

Shasun had acquired SPSL from Rhodia in 2006. Since 2014 the current management of SPSL has shifted focus from being a pure CRAMS player to multiple industry CRAMS business including services, it added.

"The transaction is expected to achieve closure in the second quarter of FY 17", Strides Shasun said adding that the transaction will be at arms length basis.

In another filing Strides Shasun said its wholly owned subsidiary in Australia, Arrow Pharmaceuticals Pty Ltd has "entered into a 10-year supply partnership and trading platform with Pharmacy Alliance".

The new agreement also includes investment by Arrow in Pharmacy Alliance's plans for growth and retail innovation.

The supply agreement is an extension to the existing supply arrangement previously in place between Pharmacy Alliance and Aspen, before the Aspen Generics & Chemists' Own business was acquired by Arrow in September 2015.
Over 20 people, including seven policemen were injured when supporters of self styled godman Asaram Bapu attacked police personnel outside the Parliament Street Police station here in the wee hours today.

Hundreds of supporters of Asaram Bapu had gathered in front of the police station late last night demanding the release of Asaram Bapu, who is presently lodged at a jail in Jodhpur. The protesters demanded that the police arrest them too, an official said.

The clash broke out when police officials tried to clear the area after warning the protesters. While one group allegedly vandalised the police vehicles parked outside the police station, another tried to break open a barricade.

Police had to resort to lathi-charge and when the situation could not be brought under control, teams from other police stations in close proximity were summoned as reinforcement, the official said.

Seven policemen, including the Station House Officer of Barakhamba Road police station, and at least 13 supporters of Asaram Bapu were injured in the clash. While the supporters dispersed and fled the area later, the injured officials were rushed to RML Hospital.

At least six police vehicles were damaged in the incident, the official said.

A case of rioting, vandalism, causing damage to public property, criminal assault on public servants and other charges have been registered in connection with the incident but no one has been arrested yet, he added.

A teenaged girl of Asaram's Chindwara-based gurukul had accused Asaram Bapu of sexual assault at his ashram near Jodhpur. Following the girl's complaint, Asaram was arrested by Jodhpur police on August 31, 2013 and is in jail since then.

A group of Asaram supporters camped at Jantar Mantar here days after he was arrested, protesting against the police action against the self-styled godman.
A Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda has been sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1994 genocide in the African country.

Claver Berinkindi was today found guilty of genocide and gross violation of international law.

The Stockholm district court said the 61-year-old was an informal low-level Hutu leader who took part in massacres of civilians in Muyira and Butare in southern Rwanda.

Rwandan authorities initially wanted to prosecute him there but since he's a Swedish citizen he couldn't be extradited.

Berinkindi came to Sweden as a refugee in 2002 and became a Swedish citizen 10 years later.

His lawyer didn't immediately return calls seeking a comment.

Some 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists during the Rwandan genocide, according to the UN.
The body of a 42-year-old man



was found hanging from the cieling of a hotel room in the central part of the city this afternoon.

A Kolkata Police officer said the body was that of Sabeesh Kunnath, a resident of Kerala, was found hanging from the ceiling when police broke into the hotel room in Bowbazar area where he had checked in last night.

The man was in the city on being summoned by CBI for his alleged role in a duping case.

Kunnath was grilled by CBI for a couple of days for which he was probably "very upset" and might have committed suicide, the officer said.

"Though it seems to be a case of suicide we will also talk to CBI," he said.
Actor Wendell Pierce, of "The Wire" fame, was arrested for allegedly assaulting a Bernie Sanders supporter. He was later released.

52-year-old Pierce, who has been a vocal supporter of Sanders' rival and Democrat frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, was arrested at a hotel he was staying at in Atlanta, Georgia in the early hours of Saturday morning, reported TMZ.

He was arrested on a charge of battery and released that day on a USD 1,000 bond. A police spokesperson said the incident was not significant and was treated as "any other arrest."



The actor became "enraged" after an apparent heated political debate with a man and woman, who were Bernie Sanders supporters. Pierce is a supporter of Hillary Clinton.

The altercation was between Pierce and a man and the woman stepped in.

Pierce played Detective Bunk Moreland in the hit show "The Wire". He has also had starring roles in "Treme", "Suits" and "The Odd Couple". His film credits include the Ava DuVernay-directed film "Selma" as well as appearances in "Twilight" and "Ray".

A representative for Pierce has been contacted for comment.
A three-tier security would be put in place at the six counting centres in the city where the EVMs used in the 20 constituencies in today's assembly elections would be stored, police said today.

Adequate lighting arrangements, surveillance cameras and stand-by generators were established in the counting centres and police personnel would be monitoring the security round-the clock, a police release said.

It said elaborate security arrangements had been made for escorting the polled EVMs to the counting centres here and in neighbouring Thiruvallur district.

Control rooms have been set up for coordinating the movement and safe transport of the polled EVMs, it said.

City police said its senior officers were on the move across the metropolis ensuring peaceful polling today.

Officers in the rank of Additional Commissioner, Joint Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner visited various sensitive booths, it said.
West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress today expressed happiness at being given a clear majority in the state Assembly elections by most of the exit polls.

"We will wait for May 19 and the actual results. The people of Bengal will bless Trinamool abundantly. Mamata Banerejee government's peace and communal harmony will win the hearts and minds of the people of Bengal," TMC spokesperson Derek O'Brien said.

On the other hand, the opposition combine of the Left Front and Congress is hopeful that the formation of an alliance government is only a matter of time.

Most of the exit poll surveys by regional and national channels have given TMC a clear majority in the 294-member Assembly.

CPI-M MP Ritabrata Banerjee and Congress leader Abdul Mannan said that whatever might be the exit poll prediction, the formation of the alliance government was "imminent."



Mannan claimed people had voted in favour of the alliance.
: Ministers in the Tamil Nadu cabinet today cast their votes in their respective constituencies across the state.

Finance Minister and former Chief Minister O Pannerselvam voted in Bodinayakaur in Theni district, from where he is contesting.

Later speaking to reporters, he expressed confidence that Jayalalithaa would return as Chief Minister.

On his chances of winning the polls, he said "my chances are bright."



Edapadi K Palanisamy cast his vote in Edappadi in Salem District from where is seeking re-election, while Minister for Higher Education P Palaniappan exercised his franchise in Pappireddipatti in Dharmapuri District, where he is a contestant.

Housing Minister R Vaithilingam and Minister for Commercial Taxes M C Sampath cast their votes in Thanjavur and Cuddalore districts.

Vaithiligam is contesting from Orathanadu and Sampath in Cuddalore.

Natham R Viswanathan who is fighting polls from Athur in Dindigul District too cast his vote.
Ambedkar University will offer a total fee waiver from the upcoming academic session for disabled students and those belonging to SC and ST category.

The varsity has also decided to increase the ceiling of income for students from Economically Backward category upto Rs 6 lakh.

"So far the varsity used to offer full and partial fee waiver to students on merit cum means basis but it has been decided that the fee will be completely waived for SC, ST and disabled students from upcoming academic session," a senior university official said.

"Students whose annual family income is less than Rs 3 lakh will also be eligible for the same benefit. 75 per cent fee will be waived for those with family income in range of Rs 3-4 lakhs, 50 per cent for Rs 4-5 lakhs and 25 per cent for Rs 5-6 lakhs," she added.

The university has also created a student welfare fund in order to support the students in need by bearing the cost of study material like textbooks, lodging expenses equivalent to the amount that is required to avail of the Ambedkar University hostel facilities and other needs.

The decision would apply to students from both undergraduate and postgraduate level courses. While 85 per cent of seats have been reserved for students with a Delhi domicile, 15 per cent seats are for students who apply from outside the national capital.

BR Ambdekar University, which was established by Delhi Government in 2008 is a state funded university with a student strength of 1800. The university offers various undergraduate, post-graduate and doctoral programmes.

The admission process for undergraduate courses offered by the nine departments at the varsity began on May 9 and the last date of application is June 24.
Government today said that trading of the Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) will begin by month-end and the fourth tranche of the scheme will be launched thereafter.

The decision to launch the trading of the SGB by May-end was taken at a meeting held under the chairmanship of Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das recently to review the progress of the gold related schemes.

"On the Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme, it was discussed that tradability of the bonds will be started by the end of May and fourth tranche of the SGB will be launched soon," a Finance Ministry statement said.

It was also decided to ask the banks to put concerted efforts to mobilise more gold under the Gold Monetisation Scheme (GMS) to help the government achieve the objectives of the scheme.

Under the GMS, it said, total gold collected under Short Term Bank Deposit (STBD) and Medium and Long Term Government Deposit (MLTGD) is 2,891 kgs.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched these schemes on November 5.

There are 46 collection and purity verification centers (CPTCs), eight refiners and one jeweler certified/accredited by the BIS.

Das further asked the banks to put concerted efforts to mobilise more gold under the GMS in order to achieve the scheme's objectives and increase the number of tripartite and bipartite agreements with CPTCs and refiners.

He directed the Banks and Indian Bankers' Association (IBA) to rope in the eligible jewelers to act as CPTCs in the scheme especially in the areas where CPTC's presence is negligible.

Banks were also directed to adopt a practical approach while asking for guarantees or collaterals from the CPTCs, it said.

It was decided that IBA in association with World Gold Council will design an exhaustive media campaign which will be supported by the government.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has warned of major terror attacks by refugees coming into the US.

"I do, I actually do," Trump said when asked whether or not he believed it would take a large-scale attack on US soil for Americans to "wake up" about border security.

"Bad things will happen - a lot of bad things will happen. There will be attacks that you wouldn't believe. There will be attacks by the people that are right now that are coming into our country, because, I have no doubt in my mind," he said.

Trump warned that the US faces danger of a terrorist attack from the refugees coming to the country, the National Border Patrol Council reported.

And no one know where they are from Syria or somewhere else, he said.

"I mean you look at it, they have cell phones. So they don't have money, they don't have anything. They have cell phones. Who pays their monthly charges, right?" he asked.

"They have cell phones with the flags, the ISIS flags on them. And then we're supposed to say, isn't this wonderful that we're taking them in? we're led by people that are either incompetent or they don't have the best interest of our country at heart," the Republican presumptive nominee said.

He also lashed out at Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton, his potential rival in November general elections.

"She would be a disaster," he said.

Trump said he would not let the refugees come in the country. If elected, he said, he would have a safe zone built in the region with money from the Arab nations.
Two persons have been arrested in connection with the killing of a channel journalist at Dewaria in Chatra district on May 12, the police said today.

Police have arrested Birbal Sao, a native of Mayurhund block and Jhaman Kumar of Lawalong, in connection with the killing of the journalist last week, Superintendent of Police, Anjani Jha said.

Jha said the two were being interrogated.

Akhilesh Pratap Singh (35), who worked for a channel, was shot dead by unknown assailants near Dewaria panchayat secretariat on May 12, triggering widespread condemnation of the attacks on journalists across the country.

Chief Minister Raghubar Das had condemned the incident and sought an action-taken report from Director General of Police D K Pandey.

A delegation of local journalists had met Deputy Commissioner Amit Kumar and Superintendent of Police Anjani Kumar Jha following the incident and demanded adequate compensation to the family of the scribe.

A bandh was observed in Chatra town on May 13 in protest against the killing.
Two drug peddlers were today arrested and over 11 kg of cannabis was recovered from their possession, estimated to be priced around Rs 6 lakh in the international market, in Narwal area here, police said.

Manish Kumar and Sheru Kumar, both natives of Bihar were held with the psychotropic substance in Narwal area at a police check post, a police officer said.

The duo were arrested and booked under various sections of The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), he said.

On interrogation, they disclosed that the narcotics were to be sold among youngsters in Jammu region, the officer added.
Britain's senior-most Indian-origin minister Priti Patel today congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the second anniversary of his election victory and praised him for setting a "new level of ambition" for India-UK ties.

Patel, who sits on the UK Cabinet as Employment Minister and is also British Prime Minister David Cameron's Indian Diaspora Champion, in a statement said, "I would like to congratulate Prime Minister Modi on the second anniversary of his election victory. He set out an ambitious vision for India -- one of inclusive, sustainable development."



She said, "We remain committed to supporting the Prime Minister's vision for India's transformation and to taking the UK-India relationship to new heights."



The 44-year-old senior Conservative party MP said as the world's oldest democracy and largest democracy, the UK and India share a long-standing friendship anchored in democratic values, shared history and common interests.

"Prime Minister Modi has set a new level of ambition for our growing partnership," she said.

Patel, herself of Gujarati-origin, has been a vocal supporter of Modi in the UK since he was the chief minister of Gujarat.
Nepal Police today arrested a British national for allegedly participating in the anti- Constitution protests here, days after a Canadian software developer was deported over his controversial tweets.

Martin Travers, 44, was arrested during a protest outside Singha Durbar in the capital while he was taking pictures of the scuffle between police personnel and hundreds of Madhesi protesters, who are demanding changes to the new Constitution.

The arrest comes a day after reports of foreigners taking part in the anti-government protest splashed the local media.

Travers is a mural painter and paints people's faces, his aides were quoted as saying by the Kathmandu Post.

They also claimed that Travers was not taking part in the demonstration.

Chief District Officer of Kathmandu District, Ram Krishna Saubedi, confirmed the arrest of British national.

Travers had been actively involved in relief distribution work and returned to Nepal on the first anniversary of earthquake to continue his relief programme.

Earlier this month, Nepal government ordered a Canadian IT professional Robert Penner to leave the country as his tweets were deemed to "incite conflict".

The authorities said Penner had violated the terms of his visa by commenting on Nepal's "internal matters".

According to reports, Penner has appealed the government's decision and the Nepal Supreme Court is scheduled to hold a hearing on the matter next week.
Former British Prime Minster Gordon Brown has announced the creation of the United Nations' first humanitarian fund for education of refugee children.

Acting in his role as UN special envoy for global education, Brown said the fund is aimed at reaching the estimated 20 million school-age refugees and displaced persons around the globe who are being denied an education.

The fund, entitled "Education Cannot Wait," will be formally launched at next week's World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul and seeks to raise USD 3.85 billion from 100 donors in the public and private sectors over the next five years.

Speaking by telephone to reporters at the UN today, Brown said the number of children who are missing out on schooling due to displacement is becoming a global crisis that will haunt the world for generations.
The US military doesn't have a "great picture" of the situation in Libya, but small teams of US special operations forces continue working in the war-torn country to gain intelligence, a spokesman has said.

The Pentagon was forced to acknowledge in December that a team of US commandos had gone to Libya after they were kicked out the country by local forces who posted a photograph of the men on Facebook.

The United States still has a "small presence" in Libya tasked with trying to identify the players and which groups might be able to assist the United States in its mission to combat the Islamic State group, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters yesterday.

Exploiting Libya's power vacuum, the jihadists have established a firm foothold in the North African country, especially in the coastal city of Sirte.

"This small presence of US forces has been trying to identify players on the ground, and try and find out exactly what are their motives and what they are trying to do," Cook said.

"That is to give us a better picture of what's happening," he added. "Because we don't have a great picture, and this is one way we have been able to get a better intelligence sense of what's going there."



The US presence is not permanent, Cook said, stressing that the elite US forces would not be training local partners, as has been the focus in other countries grappling with the IS group.

The United States, Italy and Libya's friends and neighbours yesterday agreed to arm the war-torn country's fledgling unity government to fight the IS group's threat.

A 25-member group had agreed to exempt the Government of National Accord from the UN arms embargo imposed to halt the Libyan conflict, US Secretary of State John Kerry said.

But the Pentagon has not yet been issued "any particular marching orders," Cook said.
Asking the US to respect the efforts by and India to resolve their boundary dispute peacefully, a top Chinese official on Monday said the two nations are wise enough to deal with it after the Pentagon accused Beijing of deploying more troops along the Sino-India borders.

"The Chinese side is committed to safeguarding peace and tranquillity of the border areas between and India and resolving the boundary question through negotiation with India," the Chinese foreign ministry said in written response to PTI here about a Pentagon report alleging that Beijing has increased defence capabilities and deployed more troops along the borders with India.

The US military report also warned of increasing Chinese military presence in various parts of the world, particularly in Pakistan.

" and India are wise and capable enough to deal with this issue. It is hoped that other country would respect efforts made by China and India for the peaceful settlement of dispute, rather than the opposite," the foreign ministry said, apparently referring to the US.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia Abraham M Denmark had said that "we have noticed an increase in capability and force posture by the Chinese military in areas close to the border with India".

"It is difficult to conclude on the real intention behind this," Denmark said on Saturday after submitting Pentagon's annual 2016 report to the US Congress on 'Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China'.

"It is difficult to say how much of this is driven by internal considerations to maintain internal stability, and how much of it is an external consideration," he said in response to a question on China upgrading its military command in Tibet.

On Sunday, the Chinese defence ministry expressed "strong dissatisfaction" and "firm opposition" to the Pentagon report which also alleged that China is focusing on the militarisation of the artificial islands built by it in the disputed waters of the South China Sea in a bid to assert its control.

Skirting any references to allegations of increasing troops presence along the Sino-India border, the defence ministry accused the Pentagon's annual report as misrepresentation of China's military development.

The US, which has accused the Chinese military of lacking in transparency, deliberately distorted China's defence policies and unfairly depicted China's activities in the East China Sea and South China Sea, a statement issued by Chinese defence spokesman Col Yang Yujun said.

"China follows a national defence policy that is defensive in nature. Moves such as deepening military reforms and the military buildup are aimed at maintaining sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, and guaranteeing China's peaceful development," Yang said, adding that the US side has always been suspicious.

Yang stressed China's construction on the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea serves mostly civilian purposes and helps fulfil its responsibilities and obligations by providing more public goods.

The South China Sea has become a major flash point for military tensions between China and the US in recent years as Beijing, which claims sovereignty over all most all of the South China sea, sought to assert its claim by building artificial islands with military facilities.

The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan contested China's claims.

Backing the small states, the US has so far sent three warships through the waters around the artificial islands to asset the right for freedom navigation.

In his statement, Yang said it is the US which has been flexing military muscles by frequently sending military aircraft and warships to the region.
US Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Cairo on Wednesday for talks with President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, amid a stark crackdown on political freedoms in Egypt.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Kerry would fly to Cairo after talks on the Syrian crisis in Vienna and before heading to Brussels to meet the NATO allies.

The spokesman did not say what would be on the agenda in Cairo beyond "a range of bilateral and regional issues."



Last week US government auditors criticised Kerry's department for authorising arms sales to Egypt without properly checking they would not be used in rights abuses.

On Sunday, a Egyptian court jailed 152 people who had dared to protest against Sisi's government, the latest stage in what rights groups say is an authoritarian assault on dissent.
Counting of votes for 294 seats in the West Bengal Assembly elections would be taken up at 8 AM on Thursday in 90 venues, Election Commission said today.

Officials said engineers from the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) would be present in the counting centres to immediately provide technical assistance in the event of malfunctioning of EVMs.

One counting observer has also been appointed for each Assembly constituency.

Altogether 78 companies of central armed forces are guarding the strong rooms where the EVMs are kept after the end of polling, officials said.

The day after counting ends, all central security forces will leave the state.

Top officials of the Election Commission in Delhi will hold a review meeting tomorrow with the returning officers through video conferencing.
Britain's schools watchdog today warned of hundreds of children being at risk as they were being taught in unregistered, technically "illegal schools", mostly Islamic or Jewish.

Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshawwrote to UK education secretary Nicky Morgan today, saying his inspectors had identified 100 suspected unregistered schools since a team was set up in January to investigate the problem.

The majority were Islamic or Jewish, Ofsted said.

"What we have found so far is likely to represent only a small proportion of the illegal schools operating across the country. Inspectors are hearing about suspected new cases every week. I therefore remain extremely concerned about the number of children and young people attending these schools who may be at significant risk of harm and indoctrination," he writes.

Wilshaw had been tasked by the UK government last year to set up a separate Ofsted taskforce to investigate suspected illegal schools.

The inspections also uncovered serious fire hazards, including obstructed exits and inaccessible fire escapes, as well as schools with unsafe and unhygienic premises.

"One case involved the discovery of chemicals and chemistry equipment in an unlocked food cupboard in a room where children ate their lunch," the letter relates.

Last month, Ofsted inspectors issued seven warning notices to suspected illegal schools in London, Birmingham, Luton, Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said: "We have consulted on new measures to protect children in out of schools settings offering intensive education. We received a large number of responses, which we are now considering, and will make a further announcement in due course.
The White House has expressed concern about Venezuela's rapidly worsening political situation, urging President to listen to critics inside the country or risk deepening the crisis.

Treading carefully to avoid making Washington a foil for the country's populist leaders, White House spokesman Josh Earnest yesterday described recent reports from Venezuela as "breathtaking."



"The conditions for the Venezuelan population are terrible," he said as the country braced for more upheaval.

President is preparing to unveil the scope of a new emergency decree as the opposition readies protests against what it calls a bid to cling to power.

The White house urged Maduro to listen to those voices and solve the plethora of problems facing the country -- from economic collapse to drought to power cuts.

"The solution to these challenges will require the inclusion of all interested parties," Earnest said.

"Now is the time for leaders to listen to diverse Venezuelan voices and work together peacefully to truly to find solutions. The failure to do that only puts hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Venezuelans at risk of further suffering," he said.

Maduro has also ordered military exercises for Saturday to prepare for what he calls the threat of an armed intervention backed by the United States at the behest of the "fascist Venezuelan right."



Maduro, the hand-picked successor of the late Hugo Chavez, has presided over a collapse of Venezuela's economy since he took charge in 2013.

Seven in 10 Venezuelans want a change in government, and 97% say their lives have gotten worse, according to recent polls.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who narrowly lost the 2013 presidential election to Maduro, has warned the country is "a bomb that could explode any minute."



The opposition says it has collected 1.8 million signatures backing a referendum to remove Maduro from power.
Four suspected wildlife smugglers with international links were arrested and tiger skin and bones weighing 25 kg recovered from their possession here.

Meer Hamza, Mohammad Alam, Dau and Santosh Duggal were arrested from Teen Pani area on Haridwar-Dehradun road yesterday by Uttarakhand Police's Special Task Force, SSP STF P Renuka Devi said today.

A 11 ft long and 7 ft wide tiger skin, a skull and bones weighing 25 kg were recovered from their possession, she said.

A case under the Wildlife Protection Act has been registered against the accused at Raiwala police station and they are being interrogated, the official said.

Their arrest follows complaints that illegal poaching was going on in Rajaji and Corbert Tiger reserves and animal parts being sold to people from Nepal and Tibet in the border areas of Uttarakhand, she said.
In what virtually ends all of its customer-facing activities in the country, the troubled British lender RBS today said it will be finally closing down its 10 branches serving the retail segment.

"We are now in a position to initiate a phased exit of our retail bank branches here" RBS India said without giving a time-line for the exit.

The decision to wind up retail banking was in the making ever since the Reserve Bank refused to clear the sale of its branches (then 16) to HSBC India a few years back.

One of the main reasons for the regulatory refusal was HSBC's decision against converting its branch banking route into a fully-owned subsidiary route as it already has nearly 50 branches.

The British lender, which has been facing difficulties in the West following a series of scandals, had earlier announced that it would be withdrawing from the country.

The bank, which was very aggressive in the heady days of the early 2000s when the country was on a high growth path, has already sold Rs 1,000 crore of retail loans to Singaporean lender DBS Bank.

In a management buyout, it sold the wealth management piece to senior executives last year, while exit from wholesale banking earlier than that. RBS had also sold a diamond lending portfolio to IndusInd Bank last year. A few years ago it had also sold its credit cards business to IndusInd Bank.

"After examining a number of options for our banking business in India, we decided to wind down our corporate, institutional and retail banking businesses," the bank said, adding it is now informing customers of the decision.

Sources said there are up to 400 employees working in the retail branches now. The spokesperson said the staff will be "treated in a fair and transparent manner in line with RBS' principles and local policies".

According to the sources, some of them can get absorbed into the bank's offshore unit which supports global operations.

The Global Hub India employs over 14,000 people in the Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai,and that its presence will continue even in the future, the bank said.
Rajya Sabha MP and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy today claimed that work on the Ram Temple at Ayodhya would start before the end of the year and Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, giving special status to the state, would be revoked by the end of year 2017.

"By the end of this year, we will start the construction of Ram Temple. We and other stakeholders are in favour of day-to-day hearing in the case by Supreme Court from July onwards," Swamy said at the India TV conclave "Samvaad" on Modi government's two years completion.

He added that if this happens the court judgement would come within months, making it possible for work on Ram Temple to begin forthwith.

Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader Asaduddin Owaisi, who was also present at the event, however, countered Swamy's contentions saying, "It is just not possible as even the translation of the court documents will take six months."



He said, "Ram Mandir part of manifesto. Court will decide. The question is if mosque was built where temple was. Confident of winning the case."



On Article 370, Swamy said, "By the end of 2017, we (our government) will revoke Article 370."



Owaisi also challenged the BJP leader's claim on Article 370, saying, "Article 370 is a binding factor to keep Jammu and Kashmir united. Kashmir is an integral part of India."



He took a dig at Swamy saying BJP stood "exposed" as its leaders forgot Article 370 while finalising the common minimum programme with PDP before sharing power with it in Jammu and Kashmir.

Participating in a debate on "Do Muslims feel safe in India", the Hyderabad MP also said a uniform civil code is not possible in India as "it is necessary to save the diversity of our country and hence it cannot become a reality".

"To save the diversity of this vast country, I am against the uniform civil code," he said.

This was countered by Swamy, who claimed that when Muslims can accept uniform criminal code, why they did not accept the uniform civil code replacing their personal laws.

While Swamy claimed that Muslims were safe and as unsafe as Hindus in India, Owaisi said Muslims will be safe as long as there is Constitution.

"Muslims are as unsafe in India as Hindus. Muslims not unsafe in India. India provides maximum protection to Muslims as minority as compared to any other country," Swamy said.

Owaisi, however, said, "Muslims safe in India as long as there is Constitution". He also demanded reservation for Muslims and questioned why Jats were given even when they resorted to violence.
The world's first artificial intelligence lawyer has been employed by a law firm in the US, which will use the robot to assist its various teams in legal research.

The robot called 'ROSS' is built upon Watson, IBM's cognitive computer. With the support of Watson's cognitive computing and natural language processing capabilities, lawyers can ask ROSS their research question and the robot reads through the law, gathers evidence, draws inferences and returns highly relevant, evidence-based answers.

ROSS also monitors the law around the clock to notify users of new court decisions that can affect a case.

The programme continually learns from the lawyers who use it to bring back better results each time.

BakerHostetler, a US-based law firm, will license ROSS for use in its Bankruptcy, Restructuring and Creditors' Rights team.

"At BakerHostetler, we believe that emerging technologies like cognitive computing and other forms of machine learning can help enhance the services we deliver to our clients," said Bob Craig, Chief Information Officer.

ROSS Intelligence, the company that built ROSS, began out of research at the University of Toronto in 2014 with the goal of building an artificial intelligence legal research assistant to allow lawyers to enhance and scale their abilities.

Just ten months after they began teaching ROSS bankruptcy law, the company has been commercialising its first offering.
Zinc futures fell 0.32 per cent today as participants cut down their bets on a weak trend in base metals in the global market after Chinese disappointing data and subdued domestic spot demand.

At the Multi Commodity Exchange, zinc for delivery in May contracts was trading lower by 40, or 0.32 per cent, to Rs 126.10 per kg, with a business turnover of 880 lots.

The metal for delivery in June fell 35 paise, or 0.28 per cent, to Rs 126.80 per kg in a turnover of 27 lots.

Traders said the fall in zinc prices in futures trade was mostly in tandem with a weak trend in the base metals pack at the London Metal Exchange (LME) after a disappointing Chinese economic data, raising demand concerns.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's weather office said on Monday the late arrival of monsoon will not delay the sowing of crops and that rains are expected to make rapid progress after its advent around June 7.

Laxman Singh Rathore, chief of the India Meteorological Department, also told he was sticking to the original forecast of above-average rainfall this year after two years of drought that ravaged crops.

(Reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath)
With a revised Mauritius pact in place to check round-tripping, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said investors must pay taxes on money earned in India and ruled out any depletion of FDI due to imposition of capital gains tax on investments through the island nation.

He asserted that India no longer needs any "tax-incentivised route" to attract foreign investments as India economy is now "strong enough" and said there was no "serious apprehension" of investors shifting base to other tax havens due to the re-drawing of the decades-old tax treaty with Mauritius -- the biggest source of foreign investments into India.

By checking round-tripping of funds, the amendment would help boost domestic consumption, Jaitley added.

After toiling for almost a decade to redraw the tax treaty with Mauritius, India will begin imposing capital gains tax on investments in shares through Mauritius from April next onwards. This has been made possible with amendment to the 34-year-old tax treaty between the two countries.

As markets reacted cautiously to India expanding its crackdown on tax treaties to make it harder for investors to use tax havens as a shelter to avoid levies, Jaitley told PTI, "Eventually markets have to operate on inherent strength of the (Indian) economy."

Stating that the Mauritius tax treaty created a "tax-incentivised route" at a time when India was looking at foreign investments to boost economy, he said the economy has become strong enough and "now those who earn must pay taxes".

The original treaty, signed almost a decade before India opened up its economy in 1991, has helped channelise more than a third of the $278 billion (nearly Rs 19 lakh crore) foreign direct investment India received in the past 15 years.

The imposition of taxes has been "done in a phased manner to avoid shock and I don't expect any depletion to FDI because of this. Also eventually, markets have to operate on inherent strength of economy", he said.

Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said the treaty revision will bring in a lot of transparency about Mauritius-based entities investing in India.

"It will help us dramatically in curbing round-tripping because there are two very important aspects to it. One is the capital gains regime... that will be applicable at the same rate as you would get if you were a domestic resident tax payer in India. So, there would be no advantage for anybody coming in through the Mauritius route after 2019.

"There was round-tripping of money for certain that was happening. That, of course, will stop because the capital gains benefit will go away. And the information exchange will be far more thorough," Sinha said.

The redrawn Mauritius treaty will trigger a similar amendment in India's tax treaty with Singapore. Mauritius and Singapore accounted for $17 billion of the total $29.4 billion India received in FDI during April-December 2015.

India had in August 1982 signed the treaty with Mauritius to eliminate double taxation of income and capital gains to encourage mutual trade and investment.
As Sebi readies to tighten its rules for controversy-ridden P-Notes, major foreign investors including JPMorgan, HSBC, UBS and Goldman Sachs have supported the proposed provisions for immediate reporting of any breach to the regulator and filing of suspicious transaction reports.

However, these investors have opined that introduction of any further control measures is unlikely to be "resource effective" as the regulatory requirements in India are already more stringent than other jurisdictions globally for Offshore Derivative Instruments (ODIs) commonly known as Participatory Notes or P-Notes.

They have also sought to allay concerns emanating from a large chunk of end-beneficial owners of P-Notes being located in Cayman Islands, which accounts for over 41 per cent of all such entities.

In a representation before the capital markets regulator, these investors said the fund managers invest money on behalf of many investors and that needs an entity to pool such investments.

As many funds have hundreds - at times thousands - investors from multiple countries, it is not possible for a fund manager to open separate securities and banking accounts for each investor across different markets and Cayman Islands happens to be "one of the eligible jurisdictions with regard to investments as FPIs as well as subscription of ODIs".

They also said the establishment of funds in Cayman Islands is independent of their decision to invest in India as these funds invest globally and India is "often just one part of their portfolio".

As part of an analysis conducted by Sebi, which would consider a tighter set of norms for P-Notes next week, Cayman Islands is followed by Mauritius (11.09 per cent) as the second-biggest location for end-beneficial owners of ODIs.

Other major locations include the UK and the US with over 10 per cent share each.

Typically, P-Notes are instruments issued by registered foreign institutional investors to overseas investors who wish to invest in the domestic stock markets without registering themselves directly in India, but still need to go through a proper due diligence process.

P-Notes now make up for about 10 per cent of the total FII inflows as against over 50 per cent at the peak of stock market bull run in 2007. Rules have been tightened several times in recent years to check any misuse of this route, but P-Notes have still continued to court controversies.

The total outstanding investment through ODIs stood at over Rs 2.2 lakh crore at the end of March 2016.

As of March 31, 2016, as many as 37 foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) reported outstanding ODIs, out of which the top 10 accounted for 73 per cent share. The biggest FPIs in this regard included arms of Morgan Stanley, Copthall Mauritius Investments, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, HSBC, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Swiss Financial Corp and JPMorgan.

Out of a total of 2,448 entities that are subscribing to ODIs, over 60 per cent are interestingly mutual funds.

The foreign investors that made their representations before Sebi also included Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, CLSA, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Macquarie, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, Societe Generale and Standard Chartered. .

Sebi readies dividend distribution policy for top 500 firms

New Delhi, May 15 (PTI) Amid concerns over companies refusing to share extra profit with investors, regulator Sebi has readied a new regulation mandating listed firms to put in place a 'dividend distribution policy'.

The new regulatory framework will be applicable to the top 500 listed companies based on their market valuation initially and would be later expanded to others.

A proposal in this regard would be presented before the Sebi's board next month, after which necessary amendments can be made to the Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements (LODR) Regulations, a senior official said.

The move is aimed at helping investors get a clearer picture on returns from the investments made by them in listed companies and such a policy would help investors identify stocks that match with their investment objectives.

Through this proposal, which is part of Sebi's Plan of Action for the current financial year, the capital market watchdog would seek to strike a balance between investor interest and not being prescriptive in terms of regulations for dividend payment.

While dividend payment has been in vogue for many decades, having a clearly-defined policy in this regard would help investors identify and understand the potential of returns on investments made in a company.

The policy would require listed firms to state circumstances under which investors can or cannot expect dividend payouts.

At the same time, Sebi would steer clear of any directive being given to companies to pay any particular dividend amount as it wants to focus on disclosures rather than being intrusive into financial decisions of the companies.

The proposal follows complaints from various investor groups that the companies were not distributing their extra profits among the shareholders.

Sebi is of the view that the companies should analyse if they have reinvestment opportunities where they can plough back their profits into their business, or whether they need to distribute dividend among investors.

Some of the countries such as Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Columbia and Greece are said to have made it mandatory to pay dividend to shareholders depending on the size of profits. On the one hand, mandatory dividend payout protects the cash flow rights of the minority shareholders, but at the same time they can also distort investment plans of the companies.

The current regulations in India requires the companies to disclose their dividend policy as also the rate of dividend, if any, for the past five financial years.

However, it is not mandatory as of now to have a dividend policy although some listed companies have formulated such policies on their own.

The proposed policy would need to be disclosed by the companies on their websites and in their annual reports.

The companies would need to state the circumstances under which investors can or cannot expect the dividend, financial parameters to be considered for a dividend, the internal and external factors to be taken into account as also a policy as to how the retained earnings would be utilised.


J. Michael McQuade, the Senior Vice President for Science & Technology at United Technologies, a $56.5 billion company with business interests spanning from elevators to climate control and security to aerospace systems, was in India recently. Taking time out from his busy schedule he spoke to Business Today's E Kumar Sharma in Hyderabad. Here are excerpts from the interview:

BT: You have been coming to India for 20 years now, what key differences have you notice here?

McQuade: The difference is 20 years ago you came here because somebody decided that there is a cheaper place to get something done and now we come here because the talent is every bit good as anywhere else in the world and better in some cases and this is the right place to get the work done. And this is not just a UTC story but a much broader story.

BT: So, you are saying the interest in India has moved from body shopping to mind shopping?

McQuade: That is a nice way to put it. The story of this facility- Hyderabad Research and Development Centre - at the UTC was part of the acquisition of GE's security business. This was eight or nine years ago. It was a small laboratory. It was a body shop for GE in their global security business. When UTC acquired GE's security business we began to slowly expand this so it was not just for security but for all our commercial business. We have about $29 to 30 billion of business on the commercial side - for big infrastructure projects - elevators, escalators, air conditioning, security systems and the team here provides support, product development and product leadership on portions, which are really about software embedded systems, controls, IT technology. And it has gone from product support to the GE line to support across all of our commercial business and now. It is the leader for global development on certain product families. So big, big changes.



BT: For which of your products is end-to-end work being done here?

McQuade: There are a bunch of them. We have a business that makes locks for commercial establishments - key activated locks - like the key card you put in a hotel and check in. What is being led out of here is, how do you change that to a mobile-phone credentialed lock system. So, you can check in online with security credentials on your phone. You walk up to the lock, you log in and put in a key and the lock opens from a communication with your phone. The innovation and the design decisions and the product thoughts processes are all being done here. Production is a different story and will be done wherever it makes sense to do it globally.

BT: And how important is this, locks for example, in your scheme of things?

McQuade: It is a big business for us, sort of hundreds of millions of dollars of business. Another big thing, we are working out of here for the global family is the way we integrate the communication and data from all the products (elevators, air conditioning) that we sell into buildings.



BT: This is being done in India since when?



McQuade: I was here two and a half years ago and saw some of it starting. On the commercial side, we have Otis elevators and CCS (climate control and security). We do stuff in lot of places around the world but this is the single largest concentration of engineering talent we have in the world across these businesses. It just surpassed a big facility in Shanghai in terms of number of people. It is 400 plus here and in the last two years we have probably added over 200 people.

BT: Tell us a bit about what you are doing in China and how, what is being done here, is different?



McQuade: It is easy, if you are not from China or India, to say, China has done what it is doing and continuing to grow and India is just China, waiting to happen. And it is not. It is much more integrated systems set of technologies that we focus on here. We have 1000 engineers doing sophisticated work in aerospace out of Bengaluru but on the commercial side, the work being done here involves embedding intelligence, automation, embedded systems. So, it is more equipment-based, product-based technologies in China as opposed to intelligence-based (here) and part of it is because India, with its development of the IT industry here just has a much different set of skills that we have here. If I were to go for thermodynamics and rotating machinery, I might go to China but If I need to go to embedded systems , cloud computing, cyber security, I would come to India.



BT: You have quite a few partnerships in India, give us a sense of the vision going forward on partnerships.



McQuade: We have 20,000 engineers in UTC around the world and at any given moment, we have a lot more than 20,000 engineers worth of work we have to do and our partners have been important integrated parts of that overtime and this is going to change. We are going to continue to have deep relationships with all our partners like L&T or HCL or Cyient and we are going to be at both low-end and the high-end of the value chain.



BT: Tell us a bit about your interests in Hyderabad and about your role in the metro rail project here?

McQuade: Hyderabad as a growing city is very important to UTC. Some of the business wins we have had here are really quite important. The Hyderabad metro (rail) system, for example, is the largest elevator win we have had at the time it happened. The Hyderabad metro system for us is 670 escalators and elevators making it the largest single installation for a single project in India. It is worth around Rs 400 crore.

Between now and 2050, 400 million people in India will move into urban cities. So, if you think about Hyderabad Metro today, there will be more than 10 new mega cities between now and 2050 in India. So, we are here for the technology. Also India is incredibly important for us as a growth economy not just for the numbers - the 400 million people who will move into cities who will be needing elevators and escalators and air conditioners but also because (this is the place that will need lot of ) energy efficient products.

BT: What has urbanization in India meant to United Technologies from a revenue perspective?



McQuade: Between 2010 and 2015, we would have more than doubled our revenues here on the commercial side (which is elevators, escalators, cooling systems etc) and the biggest driver has been urbanization. Look at all the metro rail projects in India . Delhi metro for example or the airports. One of the biggest fire safety installations in the country is at the T2, the new air terminal in Mumbai and that has been done by us.

BT: How does the centre here mean financially for United Technologies?



McQuade: The products that are being worked on here will probably be worth $600 million in sales to us. The products that are being developed today when they go into service will be worth $600 million of sales over a three year period. That is if you integrate each of those products, they will come out at different times, some will come out this year, some next year, and if you take each of those over a three year period and sum them all together, it is about $600 million. It is a big deal for us. The bigger message is this is an 80 per cent increase over the last couple of years in terms of the value coming out of this place.

BT: What is the picture you can give us of India in the scheme of things for United Technologies, say three years from now?



McQuade: It will continue to grow in importance. I would expect this place to continue to grow at the pace at which it has been growing. I think the number and importance of the new product development out of here will be probably three to four times what it is right now in terms of number of products and value of the products coming out of here.


Two decisions - one taken by the Union Cabinet on May 12 and the other taken by Indian Patent Office on May 10 - will help Prime Minister Narendra Modi avoid lot of bilateral pressure as he embarks on his fourth trip to the US, early next month.

While the Union Cabinet cleared the National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy, which reiterates India's known position on IPR, the patent office reversed its own earlier decision to ensure patent protection for a hepatitis B drug sold by a US drug company. Global multinationals led by US based industries, which have been accusing India of not following an IPR regime that will maximise their profits from India, will not be happy to hear India sticking to its well known positions on IPR.

Though, they will definitely be glad to see India announcing an IPR policy that provides long term hope of further tweak in the existing laws. Additional sweetener has come in the form of a patent approval for a medicine, the application for which was earlier rejected on technical grounds. PM Modi's US visit during June 7th and 8th, will also include interactions with the US industry.

The IP Policy, which was approved on May 12, lays down seven objectives including creation of more awareness, generation of IPRs, stronger legal and legislative framework, modernisation of administration, commercialisation of IPRs, enforcement and human capital development.

The policy recognizes that India has a well-established TRIPS-compliant legislative, administrative and judicial framework to safeguard IPRs, which meets its international obligations while utilizing the flexibilities provided in the international regime to address its developmental concerns. It reiterates India's commitment to the Doha Development Agenda and the TRIPS agreement.

Announcing the IPR policy, the government has stated that with IPRs becoming increasingly important in the global arena, there is a need to increase awareness on IPRs in India, be it regarding the IPRs owned by oneself or respect for others' IPRs.

"The importance of IPRs as a marketable financial asset and economic tool also needs to be recognised. For this, domestic IP filings, as also commercialization of patents granted, need to increase. Innovation and sub-optimal spending on R&D too are issues to be addressed," it said.

The reversal of patent office's decision happened in the case of Sovaldi Hepatitis C medicine, sold by US based Gilead Sciences. The office had rejected the company's patent application last year on the ground that the new product was not a significant improvement over an earlier product developed by another company. As it stands today, India provides patent protection to only real innovations and not to incremental improvements over existing products.

Patient groups, opposing the patent office decision, has already called the decision as "political", and threatened to appeal against it.

Whatever be the reason behind the decision of the patent office, it will certainly help Prime Minister Modi avoid uncomfortable questions during his US visit.
Sage Killian wants to help others, whether thats helping them to live a healthier, more holistic lifestyle or to lend encouragement to entrepreneurs. Sage is a Junior at Utah State University majoring in International Studies with an emphasis in Peoples and Nations. But she is also a young entrepreneur who is passionate about pursuing opportunities.

At the age of 18, Killian started a business with her mother called My Base Products out of their home in Cedar Hills. The women saw an opportunity to draw on the familys generational experience with alternative medicine to help people take more control of their own health care. They developed a line of accessories to make essential oils easier to use, more effective and last longer.

The opportunity has empowered her and she wants to let others know that starting a business isnt as difficult as it may appear.

I would really love to help people start or have the courage to go after things they have passions for, Killian exclaims. In Utah County and in Cache County we have huge opportunity and there is an idea for almost every passion out there that you could use for a business idea that could end up being successful in so many different ways.

It benefits everyone; its super beneficial for the community as well as establishing a sense of success in yourself and helping the economy. It helps on tons of different levels.

She has learned many different lessons about starting and running a business along the way and has received useful advice through USUs Entrepreneurship Club through the Jeffrey D. Clark Center for Entrepreneurship.

She recognizes that starting a business can seem intimidating, but assures that its not as difficult as it looks.

Everyone thinks I cant be a business owner. I dont know business tactics, she says. I was 18 and had just graduated high school. You kind of have to take that first leap but a lot of it is learning processes, just taking a jump.

Its a learning process and as you go you learn so much more than you thought, about yourself and the world around you. It really changes you. Its really beneficial in a lot of different settings.

Not only has Killian been associating with other young entrepreneurs through USU, she has been talking to the organizers of the Cache Rendezvous Startup Series which also highlights entrepreneurs in Northern Utah. Generally speaking, Killian just wants to be a resource for anyone else who may be considering starting their own business.

I would love to help out however I can. Im not going to know all the answers but Im more than willing to help them find the answers if we dont know it, or to be there for them to let them know they can do this, youve really got this.

Ive had a ton of amazing mentors who have helped me exponentially so connecting them with people is important as well. I want to help people find that empowerment so they can say, I can really do this.'

Killians greatest satisfaction is seeing how her business is helping people. While its gratifying to see how the business has grown, hearing reviews from people who purchase her products is the most satisfying for Killian. In the future, she would like to transition into a more philanthropic business that can help people around the world who dont have the same situation as she has, hence her emphasis of study at USU.

Killian didnt have a mentor when she first started her business. But she hopes she can be one for someone else going through the same process.

You have to take that first jump. If youre going to fail, fail quickly because it will just show you what you need to do to pivot or find another way to approach the situation. It just shows you that there is more out there for you.

Killian invites anyone who is considering starting a business, but may have questions or reservations, to email her at sage@mybaseproducts.com.
GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Sue Williams rearranges food as she prepares for Passover on Friday, April 22, 2016, at the Congregation Beth Israel in Corpus Christi.

SHARE GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES The Congregation Beth Israel worships at this building on Saratoga Boulevard on Saturday, May 14, 2016, in Corpus Christi. Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times Rabbi Ilan Emanuel, with Congregation Beth Israel, reads from the Torah on Tuesday, September 23, 2014, while preparing for Rosh Hashana, or the Jewish New Year. Todd Yates/Caller-Times Grace Kopf serves up kugel, a noodle type pudding, during the 2008 Jewish Food Festival at Congregation Beth Israel. The congregation hosts the festival every year. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Tables are set for Passover on Friday, April 22, 2016, at the Congregation Beth Israel in Corpus Christi.

By Natalia Contreras of the Caller-Times

Manuela Sela and her family left the Netherlands about six months ago and left everything behind.

Once in Corpus Christi they did not have friends or family near  but it did not stay that way for long.

Sela, her husband and their two young daughters quickly felt at home at Congregation Beth Israel, she said.

"They welcomed us with loving, open arms," Sela. "The congregation truly is like a family to us."

In 2005, Temple Beth El and B'nai Israel Synagogue merged to create Congregation Beth Israel, located on Saratoga Boulevard, which allows members to join in reformed and conservative services at the same synagogue, Rabbi Ilan Emanuel said.

"There was such a small Jewish community in the area at the time. It made sense to combine them," Emanuel said. "The purpose of a synagogue has always been not just a place where you pray or study but a place where you join with community."

Sela agrees with Emanuel and said she and her family have become very involved with congregation.

She said in the last few years she lived in the Netherlands, she and her family faced a lot of discrimination. She said moving to Corpus Christi and joining the congregation was a positive culture shock.

"The people here, especially at the congregation, are so tolerant," Sela said. "Anytime we have needed anything (the congregation) is there for us. We take care of each other."

Sela, who is also the preschool director at the Jewish Community Center, said other than the services every Friday and Saturday, the congregation gets together for progressive dinners. During the dinners the families will go to one member's home for appetizers, another home for a main course, and another home for dessert.

"My husband and I always go to those. We had never tried that and we really enjoyed it," Sela said. "But there's always something to do for my two daughters, too. We are an active community."

Linda Snider, who has been a Congregation Beth Israel member for about three years, was in charge of preparing the Passover meal for the members in April.

She said several other people in the congregation also volunteered to cook the meals and the process was about a week long.

Snider said the members of the congregation are always looking for ways to stay active and involved in the community.

"If there's a need, we'll find it and we'll try to help," Snider said. "A big reason why my husband and I moved to Corpus Christi is because of the people here."

Snider said she and her husband moved from Vermont to Corpus Christi after they both retired.

"This is a place where people of all ages can come. It's a very easy place to belong to," Snider said. "It's modern but still traditional. The merger really made it very interesting and a really unique place to be a part of."

Emanuel said the congregation will continue to create an atmosphere where people can stay connected with Judaism, with their traditions and with God.

"We are committed to creating a vibrant Jewish life for Jews and people who are interested in becoming Jewish in the community," Emanuel said. "We are here to provide a space for worship, a space for study and always a space for community."

Twitter: @CallerNatalia
SHARE

The May 24 Texas primary runoff that starts Monday with early voting will not be a referendum on walling off Mexico or disrespecting war heroes. But there still are bozos to stop and deserving candidates to promote.

The remaining statewide party nominations to be made are for Railroad Commission, both Democrat and Republican, and the Republican runoffs for Places 2 and 5 on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Democratic voters in Nueces County Precinct 3 will choose a commissioner to replace longtime incumbent Oscar Ortiz, who decided not to run. There were no Republican candidates for Precinct 3.

Registered voters who didn't vote in the March 1 primary can vote in the runoff. Voters who participated in the primary can't switch parties for the runoff.

Here are our recommendations:

Railroad Commission: Republican Gary Gates and Democrat Cody Garrett.

Gates wasn't our endorsee in the primary but he was our second choice. We endorsed Railroad Commission employee Lance Christian, not to be confused with former state Rep. Wayne Christian, Gates' opponent in the runoff. Gates, from Rosenberg, made a fortune in real estate and projects the persona of a pragmatic businessman. Gates' background in oil and gas is on a personal level as a property owner. He'd be a seamless fit with the other two commissioners, oil and gas lawyer Christi Craddick and oil, gas and petrochemical technology company founder Ryan Sitton. Wayne Christian is the kind of political opportunist who runs for Railroad Commission with an eye on other offices. He ran for the commission in 2014 and has a history of seeking to inject unrelated issues such as abortion into the race. He lists Texas Right to Life and Pro-Life Texas as endorsers. Had they done better due diligence, they would have chosen Gates, who adopted 11 of his 13 children.

Garrett is a progressive firebrand and political operative with a background in journalism. He's for firm regulation, protection of union rights and the environment  a young Bernie Sanders for energy resource policy. It won't play in this Republican, frack-loving state in November. But it plays better in the Democratic runoff than Grady Yarbrough, who has run for other offices and attracts attention only because the name Yarbrough has a familiar ring in Texas political history. Different Yarbrough.

Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 2: Choose Mary Lou Keel, a longtime Houston district judge with extensive experience, including capital cases. She is certified in criminal law. Her opponent is not. The winner will face Democrat Larry Meyers, the longtime incumbent, who switched parties after the last election and fully expects it to hurt if not kill his hope for re-election.

Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5: No endorsement. Both candidates are disappointing.

Nueces County Commissioner Precinct 3: This is an opportunity for voters to practice anti-incumbency although there isn't an incumbent. Corpus Christi school trustee and former City Councilman John Marez described himself as the closest thing to an incumbent and he's right. We appreciate Marez's service. But Joe A. Gonzalez, the president of the county deputies' association, is our pick. He's 29 and looks younger but speaks with the authority of someone who knows the precinct, its residents and issues. Gonzalez is proud to have reached a collective bargaining agreement for sheriff's employees that satisfied his current constituency, the sheriff and the members of the Commissioners Court he hopes to join.

Agree or disagree with our recommendations but please vote. Early voting continues through Friday. Election Day is a week from Tuesday.
Each month, Campaign Japan will look in detail at a central theme affecting the Japanese marketing business. This month's feature, by David Blecken, executive editor, Campaign Japan, begins by examining the increasing efforts of Japanese companies to turn themselves into global brands, not just manufacturers.

Many Japan-headquartered firms have for years felt a nagging sense that going global is in their best interests, if not actually the key to their survival. But many of those companies have chosen to put it off. Why? Because globalising can seem an impossible task for organisations with legacies and limited international experiencenot just from a language perspective, but from a structural, attitudinal and branding one.

Its only now, as Japan regains its stature on the international stage, that real steps are being taken to bring about real change and ultimately growth. It wont be easy, and there is a scramble to catch up. But a number of brands are admitting what they dont know and moving in the right direction.

Branding is not an add-on

When Mitsui Chemicals wanted to enter the US healthcare space last year, for example, it knew it couldnt take the same approach as in Japan. At home, the emphasis for a lot of firms is still typically on product, with branding in many cases an afterthought. In the US, products are no less important, but rarely see the light of day without a clear brand proposition to support them.

Mitsui worked with J. Walter Thompson to launch Whole You, a healthcare service for people with sensory and mobility difficulties, in December 2015. The work involved a documentary and inspiring photography by a blind man, but minimal reference to the product itself. At the time, Hiromi Inagaki, the chief innovation officer for the brand, who splits her time between Japan and the US, said the aim of the campaign was to redefine health as the ability to enjoy life to the fullest.

Whole You

Its a bold, but necessary, statement for a brand that no ones heard of. The concept did not come out of thin air, but was the result of numerous workshops to discuss the roots of the brand and establish what it stood for. Direct interaction with consumers and healthcare professionals was also an important part of the process.

In Japan, theres a belief that brands are organic, says Amy Naoko Morita, J. Walter Thompsons global and corporate marketing director. Clients think product equals brand. Its important for them to understand the differences when trying to bring a brand outside to different markets.

Inagaki admits consumer-centricity is not a Mitsui strongpoint. Marketing at the company can tend to be a bit more like the sales department, she says. We have good knowledge about where the markets moving, but are not necessarily used to looking at the mind of consumers.

She says after lots of effort convincing Mitsuis leadership of the value of a new, seemingly more abstract approach, the company has made a big commitment to think more in terms of brands, how they appear to their audiences, and the role they can play in peoples lives. 120 people are assigned to work on the Whole You brand alone, and the aim is to take it global. A big driver of that will be thought-leadership activities.

Its not just about selling the product, but a way of life, Inagaki says. I think Japanese people need this kind of optimistic approach.

Distillation process

Though operating in an altogether different sector, Citizen took a similar approach to defining its brand for an international audience. Wieden + Kennedy conducted a large number of detailed interviews for the watchmaker with staff at all levels of the company to distil what they stand for, according to John Rowe, the agencys Tokyo MD.

John Rowe

The resulting mantra, Better starts now, also formed the basis of a brand book that is as much about giving staff an understanding of the brand they represent as it is to sell it to the outside world. After nearly a century in operation, Citizen had arrived at a point where it felt it needed to streamline its message and communications in order to resonate internationally.

Rowe and colleagues at Wieden + Kennedy agree with the sentiment that branding is often a secondary concern for Japanese companies. Wholesome positioning and being nice and hardworking can take precedence over having a strong point of view, says Tota Hasegawa, the agencys ECD. CMOs are also sometimes non-existent, or just tasked with making ads.

That might be OK domestically, but outside, Western brands are competitive and its a completely different battlefield, Rowe says. Theyre facing organisations where theres a CMO in the executive suite; where every day senior decisions are being made about the role of the brand. Japanese brands are not necessarily working that way because theres no one at the table thinking about that function.

Balancing Japanese and global

One obvious thing apparently standing in their favour is nationality: Japans heritage and the perceptions of quality associated it can potentially go a long way.

But opinions on the subject are mixed. Its easy to stress things people dont care about, Rowe says, but notes that it makes sense to emphasise it when talking about qualities like safety and craftmuch the same as for German brands. But it depends on the sector, he says.

One company that is underscoring its Japanese-ness is Aqua. Although now owned by Haier, a Chinese firm, it is the reincarnation of Sanyo and is headquartered in Tokyo. Last year, when it tied up with the Star Wars franchise to create a moving R2-D2 replica refrigerator among other themed products, then-CEO Yoshiaki Ito (he has since left the company) told Campaign that his motivating mantra for the brand was Japan awakens. His goal was for Aqua to represent a new era of home appliance innovation led from Japan. The company is now developing a new corporate brand positioning to challenge the assumption that white goods have to be boring.

Alan Ng, Haier Asias Japan-based CMO, is realistic that brand building is not an overnight thing, but he says Japans 30 to 40-year legacy of making quality items helps. He thinks people are very aware of the nationality of the products they buy in the sector. But while we want the halo effect, we cant be dependent on that. We need to have our own essence that will drive us towards the future.

In a number of Asian countries such as Vietnam, the Aqua brand has replaced that of Haier because its perception as being Japanese puts it in a more positive light than a Chinese one. But elsewhere, people are uncertain of its origins, and that is something it has to contend with. Ng believes the new positioning will help in terms of consistency.

Paul Miles, who recently became Asicss first global head of marketing after stints at Nissan and Uniqlo, is also charged with bringing greater unity to the companys operations and shaping a more sharply defined brand. He is in no doubt that having a clear strategy to go to market with trumps boasting about nationality. With the right strategic approach, awareness of heritage comes organically from the consumer, he says.

People dont associate marketing campaigns with Japan. You really want someone to recognise that DNA instead of shouting it. I dont think Apple shouted about being Americanit was just a very innovative company. Thats whats top-of-mind.

From Asicss perspective, Miles says: I hope by 2020 people realise who we are and what we stand for. If fans realise our DNA is rooted in a story from Japan and our founder, great.

Look outside and localise

Clearly, adaptation of message, and sometimes product, is importantwhile remaining true to brand values. From its base in Tokyo, Line has seen impressive growth in Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan, with 215 million monthly users worldwide. Cultural localisation has been an important part of its strategy. Initiatives have included the creation of a seasonal account for Ramadan, with themed stickers and a fasting calendar. While growth is slowing, it is now aggressively targeting the US.

Line

These activities are based on our core values, but are insightful reactions to the needs of users in that particular region, says Satoshi Yajima, the companys senior director of marketing. Rather than where the company comes from, its an issue of whether youre providing a great user experience. Made in Japan carries an image of high quality, but if we take a product or service that has been successful here and try to sell it as-is in other countries, theres no guarantee it will be well-received.

A common problem is simply that Japanese companies can have excellent products and services, but fail to take the risk in taking them international early on, with a story bold and straightforward enough to engage people.

Typically, there is a gap between product and marketing that must be bridged, says Ng. He adds that for companies for which marketing equals making TVCs, its important to remember that brand building is a long-term exercise.

Brands are like people, Ng says. You are how people perceive you over time, rather than in one instance. The idea that lots of advertising is branding shows theres a disconnect and I would say it runs across many companies. Steve Jobs was a product guy, but not just that. He knew what a brand is.

It might sound obvious, but marketers at Japanese companies would also do well to shift their gaze away from the confines of their own country. Only when people experience whats going on out there in the world do you realise how you can do better, Ng says. When youre inward-looking, it might appear that sales are doing well, but you dont feel the crisis that may be coming. Often, people talk about the challenge as being a language issue, but I dont think it is. Its a question of being more outward looking.

This article originally appeared in Japanese on Campaign Japan.
| BY Ricki Green |

Partnering with LA agency RPA and LA production company Arts & Sciences, Alt.vfx has created a world that can only be described as square. People, dogs, trees, skate bowls, haircuts and balloons stood in rigid contrast in awe of the new Honda Civic Coupe.

Even the format of the ad itself is square, with the sides of the frame opening like a curtain to further showcase the car in the commercial.

Alt was tasked with extensive digital environment work replacing buildings and landscapes with a squarer aesthetic, along with populating the square city with its inhabitants. Square pigeons and a poodle were created entirely in CG, with designs concepted by Alt. The square people were a combination of practical effects from film legends Legacy VFX, with Alt recreating the faces in CG to bring them to life.

Sean Ryan, Alt.vfx shoot supervisor was in LA to get the digital scans of the fantastic practical latex models made by Legacy FX.

Says Ryan: The Legacy practical models had so much detail; they were amazing, yet they were still just static latex faces in a neutral pose. We needed to have pixel accurate scans so we could recreate them in CG and then bring them to life.

Colin Renshaw, VFX supervisor and founder believes the project was a perfect example of remote but seamless execution with the agency and client States side, and Alt in Australia.

Says Renshaw: We met with the agency remotely on a weekly basis with our online review tools where we went into some amazing creative detail. There were lots of last minute tweaks and yet it was without stress and free flowing. The project was worked on by both the Sydney and Brisbane teams and it all came together in a few weeks.

Client: Honda Civic Coupe

Agency: RPA

Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer: Joseph Baratelli

Senior Vice President, Executive Creative Director: Jason Sperling

Co-Creative Director: Johnny Hardstaff

Senior Vice President, Chief Production Officer: Gary Paticoff

Vice President, Executive Producer: Isadora Chesler

Associate Creative Director (Art): Marcella Coad

Associate Creative Director (Copy): Paul Fung

VP Director of Business Affairs: Maria DelHomme

EVP Management Account Director: Brett Bender

VP, Group Account Director: Adam Blankenship

EVP Management Account Director: Brett Bender

VP, Group Account Director: Adam Blankenship

Management Supervisor: Rose McRitchie

Account Executive: Chloe Seitz

Production Company: Arts & Sciences

Director of Photography: Danny Ruhlmann
| BY Ricki Green |

Macleay College is awarding two scholarships valued at $5000 each for people enrolled into their Business and Advertising and Media courses in Sydney and Melbourne.

As part of Macleay Colleges commitment to premium industry focused education in Business and Advertising, and creating opportunities for talented and motived students to succeed in these areas, the college has announced scholarships valued at $5000 each in both the Business and Advertising & Media faculties for its Autumn intake in both its Sydney and Melbourne campuses.

The scholarships give new and continuing students a financial incentive to develop their learning and skills in a mentored environment with industry professionals over the course of the second trimester of the year.

The scholarships run from the 30th of May until the 28th of August 2016. Applicants must enrol in one of Macleays business or advertising courses, then complete the application process outlined below.

Business scholarship

 Write an essay of no more than 1000 words explaining who you consider to be an inspirational business leader and why.

Advertising and Media scholarship

 Write an essay of no more than 1,000 words explaining why you want to work in advertising and media and why you deserve the scholarship.

 Provide an example of one completed project, this can be an artwork, a film, a piece of creative writing, a blog, the organisation of an event, in fact anything that will give the college a clearer idea of what your passion is.

Applicants can email their submissions to scholarships@macleay.edu.au with the subject line Business Scholarship Application or Advertising & Media Scholarship Application, or mail them to:

Scholarship Application, Macleay College

Level 2, 28 Foveaux Street

Surry Hills, NSW 2010.
| BY Ricki Green |

Independent agency, The Works, has created an Australian first with VisitCanberra, launching a travel app for visitors that produces customised sharable video content of their upcoming trip and an itinerary builder.

The multi-platform application is designed to provoke the emotions associated with travel to create the best weekend ever for visitors. The VisitCanberra Video app serves up 2 to 3 second videos of more than 100 possible experiences that travellers can choose from producing a movie montage of their upcoming trip to share across their social media channels.

Says Douglas Nicol, creative partner, The Works: The VisitCanberra team have a healthy appetite for innovation and breaking new ground. The new app delivers a world first experience for travel planning  a video based itinerary planning service for a social led world.

Recent datafication research released by The Works and University of Technology Sydney discovered how Australians engage with social media apps, identifying five psychological motivators that dominate social sharing, the VisitCanberra app taps into these insights to convert consideration of a weekend in Canberra to an actual booking.

Says Nicol: Social video is clearly the dominant communications medium but to date has offered little opportunity for customisation, curation and functionality, the VisitCanberra app uses video to inspire and plan your experiences and share your plans with engaging and on-trend content.

Says Ian Hill, director, VisitCanberra: The app helps to bring Canberras One Good Thing After Another tourism message to life. It capitalises on Canberras unique selling point as a short break destination  our incredibly diverse range of experiences, all of which are located in close proximity to one another. Whether youre looking for blockbuster exhibitions, award-winning restaurants and wineries, world-class mountain biking tracks or something fun for the kids to do, everything is just moments away in Canberra.

We pride ourselves on innovation and putting the visitor at the centre of our thinking. With new direct international air services commencing in September this year, now is the perfect time to showcase Canberras offering to a global audience.

As part of the second phase of the One Good Thing After Another campaign platform, Maxus Australia will be re-targeting exposed audiences to download the app with additional media planning driven by mobile and programmatic audience optimisation, cinema and Shazam-enabled interactivity.

Visit Canberras goal is to grow the value of overnight visitor expenditure to $2.5 billion by 2020. The ACT tourism industry employs 14,700 people and contributes $1.62 billion to the ACT economy.

Download the app for IOS or Android here.
This is a cupcake tribute to a favourite ice cream flavour: rocky road. The fluffy icing is the perfect backdrop for marshmallows, almonds and chocolate. We've added pretzels for a hit of salt with the sweet.



Portion size 24 servings

Credits : Canadian Living Magazine: June 2012
Method

In covered steamer basket set over saucepan of boiling water, steam cauliflower until tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer to large bowl. Using potato masher, mash until cauliflower resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.



In separate bowl, whisk together eggs, mustard, chili powder, garlic, salt and pepper. Add cauliflower, bread crumbs, corn and half of the chives; stir until well combined. Shape by 2 tbsp into twelve 1-1/2-inch (4 cm) wide patties.



In large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium heat; working in batches, cook patties, flattening with spatula and turning once, until browned and heated through, about 6 minutes.



Top with sour cream and remaining chives.

Makes 12 cakes.
Sunday, May 15, 2016 at 10:56PM

Sony has been in the process of rebranding its smartphone efforts; thus, the release of the Xperia X line during MWC 2016. With the new line out, it was seen as the end of the Xperia Z line. However, it looks like that isnt the only line of products getting cut by Sony. According to reports from Chinese media, even the Xperia C, M, and E brands will be getting cut, while the Xperia X will be developed all the way up to 2018.

The Xperia Z brand was considered the line of premium devices from the Japanese brand, while the C, M, and E brands were more budget-friendly and highlighted specific features like waterproof ratings or battery life. The Xperia X line is seen to expand beyond just smartphones and incorporate all the different consumer electronics Sony develops. Not only is this seen as a way to consolidate its efforts but to also give them room to diversify outside of smartphones and into the growing Internet of Things market as well. Speculation about upcoming Xperia C, M, and E devices will be that theyll be renamed to fit into the Xperia X brand.

Source: Xperia Blog | Via: SlashGear
On the day the election was called, Labor ran four times as many ads as on the same day in 2013. The Liberals ran twice as many as it had under Tony Abbott three years earlier.
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Volkswagen confirmed on Monday that a robot killed one of its workers at a German factory in Baunatal, north of Frankfurt .



According to a report from the Financial Times, the 21 year old external contractor was installing the robot together with a colleague when he was struck in the chest by the robot and pressed against a metal plate.

Unfortunately, the young man later succumbed to his injuries.

VW spokesman Heiko Hillwig told the Associated Press that initial conclusions indicate that human error was to blame, rather than a problem with the robot, which can be programmed to perform various tasks in the assembly process.

He declined to offer additional information as theres an ongoing investigation on the incident.

While not forgetting that, a young man died, for all of you who are being reminded of the Terminator and Skynet, in an eerie coincidence, the story gained traction after a Financial Times employment correspondent namedSarah OConnor (in Terminator, it was Sarah Connor, but its close enough) tweeted about it.

It didnt take long for the internet to make the connection, even though OConnor herself claimed to have no knowledge about the movie.

 Guys. I dont know what skynet is. And I wouldnt follow me  I tweet really boring stuff about unit wage costs and the like, she wrote.

Sigh. Ive never even watched the films. Now my feed is full of people tweeting me about Skynet, OConnor tweeted later. Ok. I should have thought about my name & its associations before tweeting this!

*Note: stock VW picture used

A robot has killed a worker in a VW plant in Germany http://t.co/RRdCnNmbsj Sarah O'Connor (@sarahoconnor_) July 1, 2015

Photo Gallery
A virtually unused 1974 VW Beetle was discovered in mint condition and is now going under the hammer in Denmark.



This one-owner example was originally sold in Genoa, Italy to an elderly gentleman who had never owner a car before.

This Beetle was only used for short Sunday trips from his house to the local church but as the owner grew older, it was used less and less as his church-going became more infrequent. The car was last used in 1978, where it was stored in a barn for almost four decades.

Silverstone Auctions say that after its discovery, the Beetle was lightly recommissioned before it heads to their Classic Race Aarhus Auction on 28th of May. Finished in blue with a black leather interior, the car still has the original oil in its engine and its original set of tires. Even the tool kit is unwrapped and offered with it, along with the original books and invoice.

The VW Beetle is one of the most successful and loved cars worldwide, and were no strangers to them at Silverstone Auctions, said Nick Whale, managing director. This one is a very special example and something we rarely see. With such an incredibly low mileage it is in virtually new condition, 42 years after it was first bought.

Seeing a classic Beetle in this condition is a rare sight but whether it will reach the estimated 35,000 to 40,000 euros (around $40,000 to $45,000) remains to be seen.

PHOTO GALLERY
General Motors really has decided to consign a 63-year old tradition to history books and start anew for the next iteration of its icon.



Rumors have been circulating for longer than we can remember, but the latest Car and Driver report insists that the eighth generation of the Corvette will be mid-engined.

The publication had nabbed a crude test mule as early as January 2015. Now it cites an impeccable source and is certain that, come January 2018, the engine will be moved right behind the passengers cell, ending six decades of a front-engined, read-wheel drive layout.

At first, its supposed to be powered by a version of todays pushrod V8 with an output of 450-500 HP. A year later, Chevrolet will go all high-tech on us with a brand new four-cam V8 and, in 2020, will launch the hybrid E-Ray, with the electric motors powering the front axle and providing all-wheel drive.

According to the report, GMs fleet includes two Ferrari 458 Italias, two Porsche 911 Turbos, a Nissan GT-R and a BMW i8, which could be some of the competitors the C8 is benchmarked against.

The Stingray wont go out with a whimper but rather a bang, for an even more powerful variant than the mega Z06, that may or may not be named the ZR1, will be launched at the 2017 NAIAS.

Photo Gallery
Everythings bigger in Texas  even road rage incidents. This one happened at a busy intersection near Houston, on Saturday morning, when a brawl erupted between three men and a woman.



Facebook user David Dao and his daughter Nina Mai caught the fight on a cell phone camera (vertical video warning). Nina Mai and I witness road rage first hand, said Dao in a posting on Saturday morning. This was off Hwy 6 near 290 about an hour ago.

Dao told reporters that the truck wouldnt let the white car over to turn. When the white car proceeded forward, just a few inches, that aggravated the truck driver because he thought, Oh no youre not. Youre not going in front of me.

In the video, the woman got into a verbal argument with the male passenger and driver, while the man in the truck appeared to be trying to break things up. Even though it looked like the episode was over, the situation rapidly escalated into a brawl. The truck then sped up nearly hitting the woman who was his passenger. She then walked back to the white car and the passenger threw a drink at her and then, said Dao.

The pickup truck driver returned and kicked the white Hyundai Genesis sedan. I couldnt believe it. As soon as he kicked the grille, I was like, This is going down now,' Dao said. I was thinking this is going to be bad. At that time, I knew because theres physical damage now.

The infuriated Hyundai driver and passenger then attacked the man, with the woman screaming and trying to break up the fight, but she ended being punched as well. Far from over, the truck driver reversed and crashed into the Genesis before taking off. The Hyundai apparently went after them, but we dont see what happened next. The Harris County Sheriffs Office told reporters that they have not been notified about the incident.

Video
Possibly inspired by the wearable robot from the Alien film series, but compared to an Iron Man suit, Hyundais exoskeleton prototype wont help you fight Xenomorphs, though it will give the wearer extra strength.



In fact, the prototype will allow humans to lift objects of hundreds of kilograms in weight, as the South Korean automakers blog reveals, and could be used by the military or in factories. A second lightweight version, with a mechanical spine and legs strapped to the user, is being designed by Hyundai to help senior citizens and the physically disabled.

Our Korean is a little rusty, but we understand that this is a development of the brands H-LEX platform (Lifecaring ExoSkeleton), unveiled last year, but in a more juiced up variant, following six years of research in the area.

The project is part of the brands Next Mobility initiative and Hyundai is not alone in this battle, as companies like Panasonic and Daewoo are already developing similar suits for factory workers. According to TheVerge, DARPA has soldiers in mind for its Warrior Web program, while Audi and BMW have similar designs that allow engineers to sit in mid-air without straining their backs.

PHOTO GALLERY

VIDEO
A stop sale has been issued on one of Mercedes high-tech gizmos due to a dispute over patents.



The Airscarf system is available on all convertible Merc and acts by blowing hot air through the seat headrest onto the necks of the driver and passenger, allowing them to travel alfresco even in cold weather.

However, Automobilwoche reports that Germanys Federal Court of Justice has banned the car maker from selling its Airscarf headrest after a long dispute with an agency that holds the original patent, which was developed and registered by Ludwig Schatzinger in 1996.

Daimler has been fined 250,000 ($283,137) and has been ordered remove all of its advertising and promotional material about the system. Moreover, it must document how often it used the heating system and indemnify Schatzinger accordingly with an unspecified amount of money. We are surprised by the verdict, a company spokesperson said, without disclosing if Mercedes will contest this ruling.

It remains unclear how many cars are equipped with the Airscarf, as it was introduced in 1998 and could be commissioned in the SLK/SLC, SL, C-Class Convertible, E-Class Cabriolet, S-Class Coupe and Cabrio, and the SLS AMG Roadster.

Cars already sold with the system will not be affected, nor will vehicles destined for other markets besides Germany. However, this ruling will only be temporary as the patent rights will expire on December 25, 2016.

PHOTO GALLERY
After failing, multiple times, to take his furious Lamborghini up a sky slope, Jon Olson finally managed to drive the vehicle on top of a glacier, and the view was extraordinary.



A few days ago, the free-skier posted the struggles hes been through in an attempt to conquer nature itself with at rear-wheel-drive, 6.5-litre V12 Murcielago. After trying in vain for the better part of two weeks, Olson called it quits due to the poor quality snow, which wasnt offering any traction to the Lambos humongous spiked-up wheels.

However, in the end Olson didnt travel all the way from Monaco to Norways west coast for nothing, as the elements finally gave him a break and he was able to have a little fun with the LP640.

In his own words, this one did not come easy, but to rip around on a ski resort in a rear wheel converted 640hp Lambo with 16mm spikes beats pretty much everything!.

This stunt also gave him an idea how much grip the tires can handle, opening new winter adventures (and possibilities) for the mid-engine supercar. But until then, were left with a rather fantastic video.

PHOTO GALLERY

VIDEO
The films director (and founder of Hoorakhsh) Ashkan Rahgozar told Cartoon Brew that he believes the film will do well internationally because its full of action, drama, and mystery, and also contains deeper thematic elements that play well across cultures. The main concept of the film is about humanity, he wrote in an email. This film wants to show how a hero can become a villain and how a villain can be good sometimes. It just depends on the path they choose.

The Last Fiction shouldnt have any problems finding an audience in its native Iran thanks to a classic story that is known by almost everyone in the country. The film is based on The Book of Kings (Shahnameh), the foundational literary work of Persian culture. The thousand-year-old, 60,000 verse poem written by poet Ferdowsi is considered to be the countrys national epic, and liberally mixes myth and factual history to tell the creation story of the pre-Islamic Persian empire.

Rahgozar said that hed been intrigued by the poems story of the villainous Zahhak since he was a teenager, and that making a film based on Ferdowsis poem was an obvious choice: As Iranians, I think it was in our blood to make a movie about this.

As the violent trailer indicates, the nearly two-hour action film is geared towards teenagers and adults. The hand-drawn film was made using digital 2D techniques; Hoorakhsh claims to be the first animation studio in Iran that started fully-digital 2D production in 2005. The film also utilizes cg and vfx throughout.

A crew of one hundred people is currently working on the film. Hoorakhshs most high-profile projects in the West have been music videos, like this one for King Raam, but the studio has produced an extensive body of work including TV series, video games, 11 shorts, and commercial advertisements for major Iranian brands and companies.

Hoorakhsh aims to finish animation production on The Last Fiction by August 2017, and to have the film ready for release by November 2017. The films official website is TheLastFiction.com
Photo: CTV

At 7 p.m. on Monday night, thousands of Fort McMurray evacuees will receive a phone call.

The voice they'll hear will invite them to participate in a massive telephone town hall, where for an hour-and-a-half they'll get to hear the latest information and ask questions about the wildfire that forced them from their homes, as well as the condition of their neighbourhoods, financial assistance and predictions for when they'll be allowed to return to their city.

The Alberta government says more than 15,000 took part in the first town hall session that was held last Monday night and the numbers have continued to remain high as more were held Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

"We set up these telephone town halls in order to provide you with as much information as we can in an unfiltered way," Municipal Affairs Minister Danielle Larivee said at the beginning of the first session a week ago.

There are other ways the province is helping evacuees to get a sense of what they'll be coming home to.

The Alberta government has released an app with maps that are intended to provide a high-level satellite overview of the status of the city following the devastating fires, and daily updates are posted on the web.

In announcing the app, Larivee said that having been through a devastating fire and evacuation herself five years ago in Slave Lake, she knows how stressful it can be to wait for updates on which homes have been lost.

The town hall sessions have the feel of a news conference, but instead of reporters asking the questions, it's the residents of Fort McMurray.

To get the invitation call for the town halls, evacuees must have registered their phone numbers with the Red Cross, but they can also participate by phoning in themselves or listening in online.

One caller on Thursday night said her home was very close to the fire line and worried that if it had water damage, it might cause more problems if officials turn the electricity back on.

Another caller said he'd heard reports on social media that there had been looting in Fort McMurray.

"I'm just curious about what steps you're taking to secure everyone's homes?" the caller, identified as Grant, asked.

There was even a poll during the town hall asking whether people had been to one of the province's debit card distribution centres yet, and participants were able to respond on their phone keypads.

John Archer, a government spokesman, said the town halls were put together because even though there were numerous daily news conference and government updates, it didn't seem to be enough.

"There would continue to be comments from the evacuees: 'We just want more information. We want more information. We wish we had more information,'" Archer said.

Archer said there may be more telephone town halls as the week continues.

The question that's on every evacuees' mind was submitted online by woman identified as Grace during Thursday's town hall.

She wondered if evacuees will get to go home this month.

"No promises on that one," Larivee answered. "We will let you know as soon as possible."
Photo: CTV

A man accused of stabbing five young people at an end-of-school house party is to go to trial Monday in what police have said is Calgary's worst mass killing.

Matthew de Grood, 24, faces five counts of first-degree murder. He's been in custody since shortly after the attack on April 15, 2014.

Police were called to a four-bedroom home on a tree-lined street in the city's northwest after things went horribly wrong at the party, which was being held to mark the end of the university school year.

Three men were found dead at the scene. A fourth man found stabbed on the front lawn and a woman who was stabbed inside the home died in hospital.

Lawrence Hong, 27; Josh Hunter, 23; Kaitlin Perras, 23; Zackariah Rathwell, 21; and Jordan Segura, 22, were all killed.

Police have not said what they believe may have motivated the attack. They have revealed de Grood was invited to the party and mingled with guests before violence broke out.

The trial is scheduled for two weeks. It is being heard by an out-of-town judge at the request of both the prosecution and defence, because de Grood's father is a high-ranking city police officer and could be called to testify.

A psychiatric review determined de Grood was fit to stand trial, because he understands the charges against him and is able to communicate with his lawyer.

He has been undergoing treatment at the Southern Alberta Forensic Psychiatry Centre since his arrest.

Allan Fay, who represents de Grood, hasn't ruled out a defence of not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder.
Photo: CTV

UPDATE: 7:30 P.M.

An evacuation order has been issued for residents in the vicinity of a wildfire in northeastern British Columbia.

The 150-square-kilometre Beatton Airport Road fire is burning about 45 kilometres north of Fort St. John.

The fire flared up four weeks ago and is 45-per-cent contained, though a recent spate of hot and dry weather has led to more activity.

More than 100 firefighters are battling the blaze, along with 13 helicopters and 16 pieces of heavy equipment.

An evacuation alert is in effect for the region immediately east of the area that was ordered to evacuate.

The B.C. government is warning about smoky conditions in the Peace Region due in part to an increase in wildfire sizes, including the nearby Siphon Creek fire.

ORIGINAL

According to a government press release, hot, dry conditions and light winds are contributing to an increase in fire sizes and smoke throughout the Peace Region.

Sunday, smoky conditions prevailed as a shift in wind blew smoke from the Halfway River fire located 30 kilometres northeast of Hudsons Hope into the communities and area surrounding Hudsons Hope and the Halfway River First Nations. The fire has not moved closer to either community, however, it did see growth to the northwest. Crews continue to work on dozer guard on the southwest flank.

Additional growth was observed on the Siphon Creek fire in the northwestern and eastern flanks. Crews are working to establish containment lines and looking for opportunities to conduct burn-off operations.

The Beatton Airport fire has seen more active fire behaviour today, which is also contributing to the smoky conditions throughout the region. Firefighting efforts are ongoing at both fires.

Weather will continue to be hot and sunny with very low relative humidity today, but winds are expected to shift again tomorrow. Winds are expected to be 30 kilometres per hour west to southwest gusting up to 60 kilometres per hour. This will likely result in increased fire behaviour and potentially increased fire growth.
Photo: Thinkstock.com

UPDATE: 3:23 p.m.

The Community Against Preventable Injuries is defending its anti-drinking and boating campaign.

While there appears to be only 15 ice chests across the entire province displaying the anti-drinking and boating message, the group states there is more to the campaign.

B.C. liquor stores will also be rolling out signs in all stores in July, which Laura Lombardi with Preventable estimated would reach millions of people.

In addition to this, Preventable is reaching audiences across the province through our TV mass media 15 second spot on water safety, she stated in a release. As well, Preventable will be mounting a wide-reaching social media campaign to go along with the boating safety message.

She says Preventable will look into getting more ice chest wraps after Mondays launch, as the wraps were paid advertising. As more wrap advertising becomes available, Preventable and the BCLDB will be looking into securing spaces in the Interior of the province.

Its important to note that the public education materials will be in all 198 BC Liquor Stores throughout B.C., said Lombardi. Depending on the impact of this years campaign, efforts may be expanded to include inland lakes in future years.

The ice-chests and the point-of-sale messaging represent those times, and will encourage British Columbians to reflect on their attitudes toward safe boating and water activities, and to use appropriate behaviour to decrease their risk of injury, enjoy the wonderful waterways that BC has to offer, and to come home safely," said spokesperson Ian Pike.

A new campaign for boating safety this summer by the B.C. government wont include the Okanagan.

In 2013, the BC Coroners Service announced Okanagan Lake claimed more lives than any other body of water in the province. As just over 40 per cent of drownings were recorded in the Interior region that year  with the majority taking place in Okanagan Lake.

Just in time for the long weekend, the province along with BC Liquor Stores and The Community Against Preventable Injuries, have announced a concept that will see 15 ice coolers in high-traffic marinas around the province wrapped with an image of an overturned boat and the message: "If you think drinking and boating is a good mix, have a word with yourself.

However, none of these coolers will be placed in the Okanagan.

Instead the province has decided to focus the campaign in the Vancouver and Vancouver Island areas.

The goal of the campaign is to shift public attitudes toward drinking and boating. Drinking and boating is illegal, high-risk and can lead to fines and imprisonment.

Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Morris says many boaters are unaware that drink for drink, a boat operator becomes impaired twice as fast as someone drinking indoors due to various stress factors, such as sun and wind.

"Operating any vehicle while impaired by alcohol is not just a bad idea  it's against the law, whether you're on the water or the road, he said. Keep in mind that the statistics related to drowning and hypothermia also account for alcohol-affected passengers. You don't have to be at the tiller or the wheel to lose your life in a boating tragedy."

There are 48 deaths per year in B.C. due to water activities with 42 per cent being alcohol related.

Preventable injuries spokesman Dr. Ian Pike says this campaign encourages British Columbians to stop and think about their attitudes and behaviours before boating under the influence.

It educates us on some of the staggering statistics and reminds us that drinking and boating don't mix, he said.

Its estimated 160 people per year are hospitalized due to injuries from water activities, half of these deaths and hospitalizations take place in the summer months of June to August.
Photo: Contributed

The City of Kelowna is reinforcing the fire ban blanketing the region.

Citing the hot and dry forecast throughout the region, the city is reminding people that open fires are now prohibited in all zones of the Kamloops Fire Centre, including Kelowna. The ban is to help prevent human-caused wildfires.

"Campfires and barbecues are not allowed in city or regional district parks, with the exception of barbecues on beaches," the city said. "Smoking is banned from all city and regional parks."

The fire danger rating ranges from moderate to high.

Since April 1, Kamloops Fire Centre crews have responded to 36 wildfires.

Anyone who sees smoke or fire in any park should immediately call *5555, the B.C. Wildfire Management Branch or 911.
If you have just started your journey in an online casino or are looking for a new site to play,...
Zimbabwe: Sino Zimbabwe sales decline

ICR Newsroom By 16 May 2016

Sales for Sino Zimbabwe Cement Company (SZCC) have declined by 15 per cent in the first quarter, in comparison with the same period last year. A further decline in sales this quarter has been projected by the company, which has cited a difficult operating environment and liquidity problems as some of the reasons for the decline.



Wang Yong, SZCC managing director, said that the situation had been worsened by the smuggling of cheaper cement, mainly from South Africa. He also said a poor agricultural season had caused a negative impact on sales.

Despite a fall in sales, the company is continuing with its vigorous marketing strategies as is now a dominant player is the Midlands province of Zimbabwe.

After Pretoria Portland Cement and Lafarge, SZCC is the third largest cement producer in the country. The Gweru-based company produces 0.4Mt of cement per year and commands 25 per cent market share.

Published under
Zimbabwe: Dangote investment

ICR Newsroom By 16 May 2016

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote has said he will not rescind on the decision to invest in Zimbabwe, despite negative reports concerning the countrys economy.



Mr Dangote said in an interview that he currently has a team in Zimbabwe finalising logistics and making preparations to begin operations. His conglomerate intends to set up a cement manufacturing plant capable of producing 1.5Mt per year, whilst also investing in power generation and coal mining. Mr Dangote has already secured the necessary licences from the Zimbabwe Investment Authority, as confirmed by ZIA chief executive, Richard Mbaiwa.



Aliko Dangote also recently entered into a US$4.3bn deal with Sinoma, increasing his groups cement production to 70Mta. Dangote Holdings aspires to reach 100Mta by 2020 and the Zimbabwe investment features as one project that will help attain the target.

Published under


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Long Beach, CA, United States

There's plenty to do in Long Beach, California without ever having to leave the city limits. If you're looking for a little adventure, head to the Aquarium of the Pacific for a glimpse of the ocean's creatures or take a walk on the boardwalk at Rainbow Harbor. If you're more of a history buff, the Queen Mary is a must-see. This retired ocean liner is now a hotel and museum with plenty of stories to tell. And no trip to Long Beach is complete without a visit to the iconic Vincent Thomas Bridge.

Long Beach Luxury Hotels

Long Beach Luxury Villas

Cincinnati, OH, United States

Cincinnati is a city located on the Ohio River in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Ohio. The city was founded in 1788 and named after the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary War officers. Cincinnati is a major U.S. city and the metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million people. The city is well-known for its German heritage, Oktoberfest celebration, and its variety of chili dishes. Cincinnati is home to three major sports teams: the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals, MLB's Cincinnati Reds, and the NBA's Cincinnati Cavaliers. The city is also home to the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University. The city's historic neighborhoods include Over-the-Rhine, Mount Auburn, and Hyde Park. Cincinnati is a popular tourist destination and offers a variety of attractions and places to visit, including the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, the Newport Aquarium, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Cincinnati Luxury Hotels

Laughlin, NV, United States

Laughlin, Nevada is a great place to visit if you're looking for a fun and affordable vacation. There are plenty of casinos and resorts to choose from, as well as plenty of outdoor activities and attractions. Be sure to check out the local nightlife, and don't forget to take a trip down the mighty Colorado River.

Laughlin Luxury Hotels

Laughlin Luxury Resorts

Anaheim, CA, United States

Anaheim, California is home to both Disneyland and California Adventure Park. The parks are just a short walk away from each other, and make for a great day of exploration. Anaheim is also home to the Anaheim Angels and the Anaheim Ducks, so there's always a game to catch. If you're looking for something a little more low-key, Anaheim has a great shopping district and a variety of restaurants to choose from.

Anaheim Luxury Hotels

Santa Cruz, CA, United States

Santa Cruz is a great place to visit! There are so many places to see and things to do. Some of my favorite places to visit are the Boardwalk, the wharf, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. The Boardwalk is a great place to go for a walk, ride on the amusement park rides, and eat some of the delicious food. The wharf is a great place to go for a walk, eat some seafood, and listen to the street performers. The University of California, Santa Cruz is a great place to visit to learn about the history of the area and to see some of the beautiful architecture. I highly recommend visiting Santa Cruz if you are looking for a fun and interesting place to visit!.

Santa Cruz Luxury Hotels

Eugene, OR, United States

Eugene, Oregon is a great city to visit with a lot of places to see and things to do. One of the most popular attractions is the University of Oregon campus, which is home to a number of museums and a large football stadium. The city also has a vibrant arts scene, with a number of theaters and art galleries. Outdoor enthusiasts will enjoy the dozens of parks and hiking trails in the area, and there are also a number of wineries and breweries in the area.

Eugene Luxury Hotels

Branson, MO, United States

There's plenty to see and do in Branson, Missouri, from state parks and amusement parks to theaters and shopping. Here are some of the most popular places to visit: Silver Dollar City is a theme park with rides, shows, and craftsmen demonstrations. is a theme park with rides, shows, and craftsmen demonstrations. The Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Theatre puts on a variety of shows, including "The Legend of the Shepherd of the Hills" and "The Catfish Fry." puts on a variety of shows, including "The Legend of the Shepherd of the Hills" and "The Catfish Fry." Table Rock State Park has fishing, swimming, and hiking trails, as well as a nature center. has fishing, swimming, and hiking trails, as well as a nature center. The Titanic Museum features a half-sized replica of the ship, along with exhibits about the history of the Titanic. features a half-sized replica of the ship, along with exhibits about the history of the Titanic. Branson Landing is a shopping and entertainment complex on the waterfront. There's something for everyone in Branson, Missouri  come visit and see for yourself!.

Branson Luxury Hotels

Panama City Beach, FL, United States

The white sand beaches and emerald waters of Panama City Beach, Florida, are a popular tourist destination. The city is home to numerous hotels, resorts, and restaurants, as well as amusement and water parks. Visitors can also enjoy fishing, kayaking, and surfing.

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Panama City Beach Luxury Resorts

Monterey, CA, United States

Monterey is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, United States. It stands at the southern end of Monterey Bay, on the Pacific coast. The city is also the home of the Naval Postgraduate School. Monterey is the largest city in the Central Coast region of California. The main attractions in Monterey are the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Fisherman's Wharf, Cannery Row, and the downtown area.

Monterey Luxury Hotels

Norfolk, VA, United States

Norfolk, Virginia is a great place to visit for its historical places and military bases. Some places to visit in Norfolk are the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk Botanical Garden, and the Norfolk Naval Station.

Norfolk Luxury Hotels

Palm Springs, CA, United States

Palm Springs is a vibrant city located in the Coachella Valley and is known for its year-round sunshine, resort atmosphere and Mid-Century Modern architecture. Top places to visit include the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, Palm Springs Art Museum, Indian Canyons and Moorten Botanical Garden. For a truly unique experience, be sure to check out the Palm Springs Modernism Show & Sale  the worlds largest vintage furniture and design event.

Palm Springs Luxury Hotels

Palm Springs Luxury Resorts

Palm Springs Luxury Villas

Rochester, NY, United States

Rochester is a city in western New York State and is the county seat of Monroe County. Rochester is known for its annual festivals, including the Rochester International Jazz Festival, the Rochester Fringe Festival, and the Holiday Folk Fair International. Places to visit in Rochester include the George Eastman Museum, the Strong National Museum of Play, the Rochester Museum and Science Center, and the Seneca Park Zoo.

Rochester Luxury Hotels

Pigeon Forge, TN, United States

Visit the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge for a unique experience. This museum is dedicated to the Titanic, one of the most infamous ships in history. Tour the ship and learn about the passengers and crew who were on board. You can even see the actual artifacts recovered from the shipwreck. If you're looking for a little more excitement, head to Dollywood. This amusement park is home to roller coasters, a water park, and plenty of other rides and attractions. Plus, the park is themed around the life and music of Dolly Parton. No trip to Pigeon Forge is complete without a visit to the Great Smoky Mountains. These mountains offer a variety of activities, including hiking, fishing, and horseback riding. Plus, the natural beauty of the area is simply breathtaking.

Pigeon Forge Luxury Hotels

Jacksonville, FL, United States

Jacksonville is less than an hour's drive from the beaches of Amelia Island and St. Augustine, and a little more than two hours from Orlando. The city has a lot to offer visitors, including a riverwalk, museums, and a vibrant arts scene. Jacksonville is also home to the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team.

Jacksonville Luxury Hotels

Minsk, Belarus

Minsk, the capital of Belarus, is a city that has something for everyone. If you're looking for a little history, Minsk has plenty of it, with churches and monuments dating back to the 12th century. If you're looking for a lively nightlife, Minsk has that, too, with plenty of bars, clubs, and restaurants. And if you're looking for a little nature, Minsk has parks and gardens to enjoy. Here are just a few of the places you can visit in Minsk: The Holy Spirit Cathedral, one of the oldest churches in Minsk, is a must-visit for history buffs. The National Library of Belarus is a huge library with more than 18 million items in its collection. The Opera and Ballet Theatre is a beautiful building that hosts performances of both opera and ballet. The Victory Park is a large park with a war memorial, a children's playground, and a lake. And for a little bit of nature in the heart of the city, the Botanical Garden is a great place to relax and take a break from the hustle and bustle of Minsk.

Minsk Luxury Hotels

Jaipur, India

Jaipur is one of the most popular tourist destinations in India. It is the capital of the state of Rajasthan and is known for its palaces, forts and temples. Some of the places to visit in Jaipur include the Amber Fort, the City Palace, the Jantar Mantar Observatory and the Hawa Mahal. Jaipur is also a great place to shop for traditional Indian handicrafts.

Jaipur Luxury Hotels

Chicago, IL, United States

Chicago is a city full of culture and history. There are plenty of places to visit, such as the Willis Tower, Buckingham Fountain, and the Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago is also home to many restaurants and bars, so there is something for everyone.

Chicago Luxury Hotels

Auckland, New Zealand

Auckland is a beautiful city located on the north island of New Zealand. There are many places to visit in Auckland, including the Sky Tower, the Auckland War Memorial Museum, and the Auckland Domain. The beaches in Auckland are also worth visiting, especially Karekare and Piha. Auckland is a great place to visit, and I highly recommend it!.

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Auckland Luxury Villas

Amsterdam, Netherlands

If you're looking for a city that's got it all, Amsterdam should be your go-to destination. From the city's lively and vibrant nightlife to its charming and quiet neighborhoods, Amsterdam has something for everyone. Be sure to check out the Anne Frank Huis, the Rijksmuseum, and the Van Gogh Museum, as these are some of the most popular attractions in the city. And if you're looking for a little bit of nature, be sure to take a walk or bike ride through Amsterdam's many parks.

Amsterdam Luxury Hotels

Berlin, Germany

There are so many great places to visit in Berlin that it can be hard to know where to start. From the iconic Brandenburg Gate to the fascinating Reichstag Building, there's something for everyone in this vibrant city. If you're looking for a bit of history, make sure to check out the Berlin Wall Memorial or the DDR Museum. And for those looking for a bit more fun, there's always the Alexanderplatz Christmas Market or the Zoologischer Garten. No matter what your interests, Berlin is a city you won't want to miss.

Berlin Luxury Hotels

Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok is a city of contrasts with its gleaming temples and skyscrapers, chaotic markets and tranquil canals. While it's a popular tourist destination, Bangkok is a city that can be enjoyed by visitors of all ages. Some of the top places to visit in Bangkok include the Grand Palace, Wat Arun, the floating markets and the Chatuchak Weekend Market.

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Bruges, Belgium

Bruges is a city in Belgium that is worth visiting. It is full of medieval charm and there are a lot of things to see and do. Some of the places to visit include the Markt, the Belfry, and the Begijnhof.

Bruges Luxury Hotels

Brussels, Belgium

Brussels is a city in Belgium that is best known for its chocolate, waffles, and beer. But there is much more to see and do in Brussels than just indulge in the local cuisine. There are a number of interesting historical landmarks to visit, such as the Grand Place and the Atomium, as well as a variety of parks and gardens. And, of course, Brussels is also a great city to explore on foot.

Brussels Luxury Hotels

Budapest, Hungary

Budapest, Hungary's capital, is a city of thermal baths and medival, baroque and art nouveau architecture. Crowded with tourists, the city is bisected by the Danube River into the hilly Buda and the more developed and flat Pest. Among the main places of interest are the neo-Gothic Parliament, the Chain Bridge linking Buda and Pest, the Matthias Church and Fisherman's Bastion on the Buda bank, and the State Opera House and Heroes' Square on the Pest side.

Budapest Luxury Hotels

Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Home to some of the best beaches in Mexico, Playa del Carmen is a favorite tourist destination for visitors from all over the world. With its lively nightlife, gorgeous coastline and ample shopping opportunities, there's something for everyone in this tropical paradise. Don't miss the opportunity to visit some of the area's most popular attractions, such as the ancient Mayan ruins of Tulum and Coba, or the eco-friendly Turtle Beach. With its friendly people, delicious food and stunning scenery, Playa del Carmen is a place you'll never want to leave.

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Denver, CO, United States

Denver is a great city for visitors. There are so many places to see and things to do. Some of the top places to visit include the 16th Street Mall, the Denver Botanic Gardens, the Denver Art Museum, and the Colorado State Capitol. There are also plenty of great restaurants and shops to explore. Denver is definitely a city worth visiting!.

Denver Luxury Hotels

Dublin, Ireland

Dublin is a city located in Ireland. It's a city full of culture, with plenty of places to visit. Some popular tourist spots are the Guinness Storehouse, Trinity College, and the Dublin Castle. There are also plenty of pubs and restaurants to discover.

Dublin Luxury Hotels

Dusseldorf, Germany

Dusseldorf, Germany is a city with many different places to visit. The city has a mix of old and new buildings, and a variety of activities to do. The best places to visit in Dusseldorf are the Konigsallee, the Rhine Tower, and the Oktoberfest. The Konigsallee is an open-air shopping mall that has many high-end stores. The Rhine Tower is the tallest building in the city and offers great views of Dusseldorf. The Oktoberfest is a week-long festival that celebrates German culture and food.

Dusseldorf Luxury Hotels

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Edinburgh, Scotland is a beautiful city to visit. The architecture is very old and unique, and there are plenty of historical places to visit, like Edinburgh Castle. There are also plenty of parks and gardens, and lots of shops and restaurants.

Edinburgh Luxury Hotels

Rome, Italy

Rome is a city rich in history and filled with beautiful places to visit. Make sure to stop by the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Pantheon. Also be sure to visit St. Peters Basilica and the Sistine Chapel while in Rome. If youre looking for a little more nature in your trip, head to the Villa Borghese gardens or the Janiculum Hill for some wonderful views of the city. And of course, no trip to Rome is complete without a gelato!.

Rome Luxury Hotels

Rome Luxury Villas

New York, NY, United States

There are many amazing places to visit in New York State. Some of my favorites are the Niagara Falls, the Adirondack Mountains, and the Finger Lakes. If you're looking for a city break, New York City is definitely worth a visit. There's endless things to see and do, from touring the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island to visiting world-famous museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History. No matter what your interests are, you'll be able to find something to enjoy in New York State.

New York Luxury Hotels

New York Luxury Villas

London, United Kingdom

London is a city rich in history and full of amazing places to visit. Some of my favorite places are Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and the Tower of London. There is so much to see and do in London, you could spend weeks here and never run out of things to do. If you're looking for a city full of culture and history, London is the place for you.

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London Luxury Cottages

Madrid, Spain

Madrid is one of the most beautiful and culturally rich cities in the world. From the Royal Palace to the Prado Museum, theres plenty to see and do in Madrid. If youre looking for a little bit of nature, Madrid has plenty of parks, like the Buen Retiro Park, to relax in. And dont forget to try some of the delicious tapas and wine while youre in town.

Madrid Luxury Hotels

Memphis, TN, United States

The birthplace of rock 'n' roll, Memphis is a city rich in history and culture. From Graceland to Beale Street, there are plenty of places to visit in Memphis. Be sure to check out Sun Studio, where rock 'n' roll was born, and the National Civil Rights Museum, which tells the story of the African-American civil rights movement. Memphis is also home to some amazing food, so be sure to try some of the city's famous barbecue and soul food.

Memphis Luxury Hotels

Miami Beach, FL, United States

There is much to explore in Miami Beach, from the famous Art Deco district to the vast beaches and crystal-clear waters. Outdoor enthusiasts will love the opportunities for fishing, kayaking, and paddleboarding, while history buffs can explore the ancient burial mounds at Miami Beach. Shoppers and foodies will find plenty to keep them busy, with vibrant neighborhoods like Lincoln Road and Ocean Drive offering unique boutiques and award-winning restaurants. And of course, no trip to Miami Beach is complete without a visit to world-famous South Beach.

Miami Beach Luxury Hotels

Miami Beach Luxury Resorts

New Orleans, LA, United States

You can't visit New Orleans without trying some of the local food. Beignets, Po' Boys, and gumbo are just a few of the must-try dishes. While you're in town, be sure to check out the French Quarter, Jackson Square, and St. Louis Cathedral. If you're looking for some nightlife, Bourbon Street is the place to be. And, of course, no trip to New Orleans is complete without a visit to Mardi Gras!.

New Orleans Luxury Hotels

Milan, Italy

Milan is a city located in the Lombardy region of Italy. It is a popular tourist destination because of its historical and artistic heritage. Some of the places you should visit while in Milan are the Duomo, La Scala, and Castello Sforzesco.

Milan Luxury Hotels

Naples, Italy

Naples is one of the most beautiful and historic cities in Italy. There are countless places to visit, such as the Royal Palace, the Museum of San Martino, and the Church of Gesu Nuovo. Naples is also home to excellent shopping and dining options. Be sure to enjoy a cup of coffee at one of the city's many cafes and take a stroll through the picturesque streets.

Naples Luxury Hotels

Paris, France

Paris is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. It's home to iconic landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum, as well as a thriving nightlife and restaurant scene. If you're looking to explore all that Paris has to offer, here are some of the top places to visit: The Eiffel Tower: This iconic landmark is a must-see in Paris. Climb to the top for stunning views of the city, or take a ride on the elevator to the bottom for a closer look at the structure. The Louvre Museum: This world-famous museum is home to some of the most famous works of art in the world, including the Mona Lisa. The Notre Dame Cathedral: This beautiful cathedral is one of the most famous landmarks in Paris. Make sure to climb to the top for some amazing views of the city. The Champs-Elysees: This famous avenue is a popular destination for shopping and dining. Be sure to wander down the street and take in all the sights and sounds. The Arc de Triomphe: This towering arch is another iconic landmark in Paris. Climb to the top for some amazing views of the city.

Paris Luxury Hotels

Paris Luxury Villas

Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is a city rich in history and culture. There are plenty of places to visit, including the Prague Castle, the Charles Bridge, and the Old Town Square. There are also plenty of restaurants and bars to enjoy, and the nightlife is vibrant. Prague is a truly unique city and a must-visit for anyone traveling to the Czech Republic.

Prague Luxury Hotels

Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Located on the easternmost tip of the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana is known for its beautiful beaches and turquoise waters. This paradise is a favorite destination for travelers looking for a Caribbean getaway. Punta Cana is home to a wide variety of resorts and activities, from enjoying the sand and surf to golfing, spas, and shopping. Nature lovers can also explore the areas jungles, caves, and waterfalls.

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Marbella, Spain

If you're looking for an idyllic and luxurious Spanish escape, look no further than Marbella. Located on the country's Costa del Sol, Marbella is home to stunning beaches, top-notch resorts, world-class golfing, and much more. A visit to Marbella is the perfect way to experience all that Spain has to offer.

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Marrakesh, Morocco

Marrakesh is a city in Morocco that is full of culture and history. There are several places to visit in Marrakesh, including the Palace of the Bahia, the Ben Youssef Madrasa, and the Saadian Tombs. The souks (markets) are also a must-see, where you can find everything from souvenirs to spices to traditional clothing. Be sure to enjoy a meal in one of the many restaurants or cafes in Marrakesh; the food is delicious and the atmosphere is always lively. Marrakesh is a wonderful city to explore and definitely worth a visit!.

Marrakesh Luxury Hotels

San Francisco, CA, United States

San Francisco is a popular tourist destination, and for good reason. There are plenty of things to see and do in this vibrant city. Here are some of the top places to visit: 1. Fisherman's Wharf: This neighborhood is home to a variety of shops and restaurants, as well as a popular pier where you can enjoy views of the bay. 2. The Golden Gate Bridge: This iconic bridge is a must-see for any visitor to San Francisco. 3. Alcatraz Island: This former federal prison is now a popular tourist attraction. It's a must-see for fans of history and crime dramas. 4. Chinatown: This colorful neighborhood is home to some of the best food in San Francisco. Be sure to check out the Dragon Gate entrance. 5. The Mission District: This trendy neighborhood is home to hip restaurants, bars, and art galleries.

San Francisco Luxury Hotels

Moscow, Russia

Moscow, Russia is a beautiful city with plenty of places to visit. Some of the most popular tourist attractions are the Kremlin, Red Square, and Saint Basil's Cathedral. Other great places to see include the Bolshoi Theatre, Gorky Park, and the Tretyakov Gallery. There are also many churches and other historical buildings to explore. Moscow is a lively city with a lot of culture and nightlife. There is something for everyone to enjoy in Moscow.

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Venice, Italy

Venice is one of the most beautiful places on earth. The city is built on a lagoon in northeast Italy and is known for its canals and gondolas. There are many places to visit in Venice, including the Grand Canal, St. Marks Square, and the Rialto Bridge. Venice is also home to many museums, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

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Vienna, Austria

Vienna, Austria is a city with a long and rich history. There are many places to visit in Vienna, including the Hofburg Palace, the Ringstrasse, and St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna is also home to some of the world's best shopping, including the Karntner Strasse and the Graben. Finally, no visit to Vienna is complete without experiencing the city's world-famous nightlife.

Vienna Luxury Hotels

Zurich, Switzerland

Zurich is a marvelous city located in the heart of Switzerland. It is a city that has something to offer for everyone. From amazing restaurants and beautiful architecture to exciting nightlife and gorgeous parks, Zurich has something for everyone. Some of the most popular places to visit in Zurich include the Bahnhofstrasse, which is the city's most famous shopping street, the Lindenhof, which is a beautiful park with amazing views of the city, and Grossmunster, which is a stunning Romanesque church. Zurich is also home to some of the best museums in the world, including the famed Museum of Art and the Swiss National Museum. With its mix of old-world charm and modern amenities, Zurich is a city that is definitely worth exploring.

Zurich Luxury Hotels

Acapulco, Mexico

If you're looking for a Mexican vacation spot with plenty of history and culture to explore, Acapulco is a great option. From the archeological wonders of the ancient city to the stunning coastal views, there's something for everyone in Acapulco. Plus, with its temperate climate, it's a great escape from colder winter weather.

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Acapulco Luxury Resorts

Acapulco Luxury Villas

Nashville, TN, United States

One of the United States' most interesting places to visit is Nashville, Tennessee. There's plenty to see and do there, from the Grand Ole Opry to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Music is a big part of the city's history and culture, so be sure to catch a show while you're in town. Other popular attractions include the Ryman Auditorium, the Parthenon, and the Jack Daniel's Distillery. Nashville is also a great place to eat, with a wide variety of restaurants serving up everything from barbecue to Mexican food. So if you're looking for an exciting and diverse city to visit, be sure to add Nashville to your list.

Nashville Luxury Hotels

Nashville Luxury Villas

Atlanta, GA, United States

What's not to love about Atlanta? From the iconic Georgia Aquarium to the World of Coke, from the Fox Theatre to Centennial Olympic Park, Atlanta offers a wealth of destinations for tourists. Sports fans will want to check out the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and history buffs will enjoy the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum. Braves fans can take a tour of SunTrust Park, and shoppers will enjoy the many boutiques and malls in the city. There's also a great restaurant scene in Atlanta, and music lovers will want to check out the many venues offering live music. Whether you're looking for a fun family vacation spot or a place to explore on your own, Atlanta is a great choice!.

Atlanta Luxury Hotels

Miami, FL, United States

The Magic City is a top tourist destination for a reasonthere are endless things to do in Miami! From exploring the trendy neighborhoods and dazzling beaches to soaking up the Latin culture and nightlife, Miami is jam-packed with amazing places to visit. Here are a few of our favorites: 1. Wynwood Walls: This outdoor art exhibit is a must-see for any art lover. The colorful murals are awe-inspiring and definitely Instagram-worthy. 2. Vizcaya Museum and Gardens: This estate is dripping with luxury and opulence, from the grandiose architecture to the expansive gardens. It's the perfect place for a day of relaxation. 3. South Beach: This world-famous beach is a must-visit for any sun-seeker. The crystal-clear water and soft sand make for the perfect day-long beach getaway. 4. Little Havana: Experience Cuban culture at its best in Little Havana. From delicious food to lively music and dance, there's something for everyone in this vibrant district. 5. Art Deco District: This district is home to Miami's most iconic architecture. Take a stroll down the charming streets and admire the colorful buildings that make Miami so unique.

Miami Luxury Hotels

Miami Luxury Villas

Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo is a must-see destination in Japan. There are endless places to explore in this city - temples, shrines, gardens, and more. The Shinjuku district is a great place to start, with its neon-lit streets and myriad shops and restaurants. For a taste of traditional Japan, visit the Sensoji Temple in Asakusa or the Imperial Palace. Nature lovers will enjoy the Hamarikyu Gardens or the Hama-rikyu Teien Garden. And for a unique experience, take a trip to Mount Fuji.

Tokyo Luxury Hotels

Tokyo Luxury Villas

Buenos Aires, Argentina

There are plenty of places to visit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Some popular tourist destinations include the obelisk, the Casa Rosada, and the Puerto Madero district. Every barrio (neighborhood) has its own unique culture and flavor. San Telmo, La Boca, and Palermo are some of the most popular barrios. There are also many parks and plazas, such as Plaza de Mayo and Plaza de la Republica, that are worth checking out.

Buenos Aires Luxury Hotels

Hamburg, Germany

One of the most popular tourist destinations in Germany is Hamburg. From the lively and colorful harbor district to the grandiose City Hall, there is plenty to see and do in Hamburg. Some of the other popular places to visit include the Reeperbahn district with its pubs and nightlife, the Planten un Blomen botanical gardens, and the architecturally stunning Rathausmarkt square.

Hamburg Luxury Hotels

Lisbon, Portugal

The capital of Portugal, Lisbon is a city of fascinating contrasts. From its coastal location, visitors can enjoy stunning ocean views, while its hilly, narrow streets are home to a maze of charming traditional homes and lively nightlife. A city of 7 hills, Lisbon is a bustling metropolis with something for everyone. Here are some of the top places to visit: The Belem Tower, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of Lisbons most iconic landmarks. This 16th-century fortress and lighthouse is a must-see for visitors. The Alfama district, with its winding streets and tile-roofed homes, is the oldest district in Lisbon. This is the perfect place to get lost and explore the citys history. The Lisbon Zoo is a great place to enjoy a day out with the family, with over 2,000 animals from around the world. The Christ the King statue, located atop a hill in the suburb of Almada, offers impressive views of Lisbon and the river Tagus. The Lisbon Oceanarium, located in the Parque das Nacoes district, is home to more than 12,000 marine creatures and is one of the largest aquariums in Europe.

Lisbon Luxury Hotels

Lisbon Luxury Villas

Malaga, Spain

Malaga is an attractive seaside city in southern Spain with a long history. There are many places to visit in Malaga, including the Gibralfaro Castle, the Alcazaba fortress, and the Malaga Cathedral. Malaga is also home to a variety of museums, including the Picasso Museum. The city is well known for its beaches, and there are many delightful places to relax and enjoy the sun and the sea.

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Malaga Luxury Villas

Munich, Germany

When planning a vacation to Munich, Germany, be sure to include these top places to visit: The Marienplatz is a must-see square in the city center, featuring a beautiful Glockenspiel show and the Old and New Town Halls. The Englisher Garten, Europes largest city park, is a great place for a relaxing stroll or a picnic. OlympiaPark is home to the famous 1972 Olympic Stadium as well as a huge amusement park. The Frauenkirche is a stunning church in the old town with a Glockenspiel of its own. Beer lovers will want to visit the Hofbrauhaus, the worlds most famous beer hall. For a bit of history and culture, check out the LudwigMaximilians-University and the Deutsches Museum. There is so much to see and do in Munich  these are just a few highlights!.

Munich Luxury Hotels

Granada, Spain

Granada is a city in southern Spain that is known for its Moorish architecture and history. The city is home to the Alhambra, a palace and fortress that was constructed in the late 1300s. Visitors can also enjoy the citys many churches, including the Cathedral of Granada. Granada is also a convenient base for exploring the other cities and towns in Andalusia.

Granada Luxury Hotels

Bucharest, Romania

Bucharest is a city full of history and culture. There are many places to visit, such as the Palace of Parliament, which is the world's largest civilian building. Other places to visit include the old city center, which is full of charming streets and buildings, and the Botanical Garden, which is the largest botanical garden in Romania.

Bucharest Luxury Hotels

Bologna, Italy

Bologna, Italy is a beautiful city with plenty of places to visit. Some popular tourist destinations include the Piazza Maggiore, the Tower of Asinelli, and the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca. There are also plenty of museums and churches to explore, and the city is full of charming restaurants and cafes. Bologna is an excellent destination for a vacation, and there is something for everyone to enjoy in this amazing city.

Bologna Luxury Hotels

Porto, Portugal

Porto is a port city in Portugal that is well known for its wine. It's also a city with a long and rich history. There are many places to visit in Porto, including the old city center, the Dom Luis I Bridge, and the Clerigos Tower. Porto is also home to the famous Port wine caves, which are a must-visit for wine lovers.

Porto Luxury Hotels

Cologne, Germany

Cologne, located on the Rhine River in western Germany, is a city well worth visiting. The city has a long and rich history, dating back to the time of the Roman Empire. Some of the city's most popular tourist attractions include the Cologne Cathedral, Hohenzollern Bridge, and the RheinEnergieStadion. Additionally, Cologne is home to a wide variety of museums, shops, and restaurants. In fact, the city has been ranked as one of the best places to live in Germany. So, if you're looking for a great European city to visit, be sure to add Cologne to your list.

Cologne Luxury Hotels

Istanbul, Turkey

If you're looking for an exotic and affordable vacation destination, look no further than Istanbul, Turkey. Filled with historical places to visit and bargains to be found, Istanbul offers something for everyone. Be sure to visit the Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, and the Blue Mosque while you're there. Don't forget to bargain for the best prices when shopping in the bazaars, and enjoy some delicious Turkish cuisine while you're at it. Istanbul is sure to leave you with a lasting impression.

Istanbul Luxury Hotels

Istanbul Luxury Villas

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Dubai is a fascinating and exotic city that offers visitors a mix of traditional Middle Eastern culture and modern, cosmopolitan life. There are plenty of places to visit in Dubai, from the towering skyscrapers of Downtown Dubai to the luxury shopping malls and luxurious hotels of the Palm Jumeirah. Don't miss a chance to experience an Arabian night out on an epic dhow cruise, or take a trip out into the Arabian Desert to see the stunning sand dunes.

Dubai Luxury Hotels

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Dubai Luxury Villas

Antwerp, Belgium

Antwerp is a city located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital of the province of Antwerp and has a population of over half a million people. Antwerp is a popular tourist destination due to its many historical buildings, museums, and art galleries. Some of the most popular places to visit in Antwerp are the Cathedral of Our Lady, the City Hall, the Rubenshuis, and the Antwerp Zoo.

Antwerp Luxury Hotels

Lyon, France

Lyon is a beautiful city in the south of France that is full of culture and places to visit. Some of the most popular places to visit in Lyon are the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere, the Place Bellecour, and the Vieux Lyon. The Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere is a beautiful cathedral that is a must-see when visiting Lyon. The Place Bellecour is a large square in the heart of Lyon that is full of restaurants and cafes. The Vieux Lyon is a district in Lyon that is full of old buildings and is a great place to wander around and take in the sights.

Lyon Luxury Hotels

Athens, Greece

If you find yourself in Athens, there are definitely some spots you won't want to miss. The Acropolis, Parthenon, and Olympic Stadium are all essential stops, but there are plenty of others, too. If you're looking for a bit of history, the National Archaeological Museum is a must-see, while nature lovers will enjoy a visit to the botanical gardens. If you're looking to relax, take a walk along the beach in Glyfada or head to the Plaka district for a charming and picturesque setting. No matter what you're interested in, Athens has something for you.

Athens Luxury Hotels

Athens Luxury Villas

Helsinki, Finland

While in Helsinki, make sure to visit these popular tourist destinations: The Senate Square and Lutheran Cathedral The Sibelius Monument Ateneum Art Museum Market Square Helsinki Zoo.

Helsinki Luxury Hotels

Vilnius, Lithuania

The capital of Lithuania, Vilnius, is a picturesque city with a rich history. The old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is full of charming churches, narrow streets, and pretty squares. There are also lots of museums and other places of interest to visit, including the Hill of Crosses, Gediminas Tower, and the Presidential Palace. Vilnius is a great city to explore on foot, and there are plenty of cafes, restaurants, and bars to enjoy in the evening.

Vilnius Luxury Hotels

Reykjavik, Iceland

A city of remote beauty, Reykjavik is teeming with interesting places to visit. One of the worlds most northern capitals, Reykjavik offers stunning landscapes and a wealth of cultural experiences. From the iconic Hallgrimskirkja church to the popular Golden Circle tour, theres plenty to see and do in Reykjavik. Be sure to check out the citys lively nightlife scene, too  you wont be disappointed!.

Reykjavik Luxury Hotels

Glasgow, United Kingdom

Some of the most popular places to visit in Glasgow include the Gallery of Modern Art, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Riverside Museum, and the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. There are also many wonderful parks and gardens to explore, including the Botanic Gardens and Glasgow Green. For those interested in history and architecture, there are many fascinating old buildings to see, such as the Glasgow Cathedral and the University of Glasgow. And for those looking for a lively nightlife, Glasgow has no shortage of pubs, clubs, and restaurants.

Glasgow Luxury Hotels

Los Angeles, CA, United States

As the birthplace of Hollywood and home to some of the world's most recognisable landmarks, there's no shortage of places to visit in Los Angeles. Start by exploring the city's iconic neighbourhoods like Beverly Hills and Hollywood, then venture out to attractions like the Griffith Observatory, Venice Beach and Disneyland. And don't forget to savour the city's world-famous cultural scene, with its abundance of museums, theatres and restaurants.

Los Angeles Luxury Hotels

Los Angeles Luxury Villas

San Diego, CA, United States

San Diego is a city located in California and is a major tourist destination. One of the main reasons people visit the city is for its many beaches. Coronado Beach, Mission Beach, and Pacific Beach are some of the most popular and are all within close proximity to the city center. Other attractions in San Diego include the San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld San Diego, and the USS Midway Museum. Restaurants, bars, and shopping can be found throughout the city, and world-renowned museums, like the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, are also located in San Diego.

San Diego Luxury Hotels

San Diego Luxury Resorts

San Diego Luxury Villas

Washington, DC, United States

Washington, D.C. is a city full of history and places to visit. Some popular places to visit are the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, and the Smithsonian. D.C. is also home to a number of monuments and memorials, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial. There are also a number of museums in D.C., like the American History Museum and the National Air and Space Museum.

Washington Luxury Hotels

Cancun, Mexico

Cancun is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Mexico. Aside from its beautiful beaches, there are plenty of places to visit and things to do in Cancun. Some of the most popular attractions include the ancient ruins of Chichen Itza, the eco-park Xcaret, and the nightclubs and bars in the resort district.

Cancun Luxury Hotels

Cancun Luxury Resorts

Cancun Luxury Villas

Virginia Beach, VA, United States

Virginia Beach is one of the top tourist destinations on the East Coast. From the Virginia Beach Boardwalk to the miles of sandy beaches, there's something for everyone to enjoy. There are also plenty of restaurants, shops, and other attractions to keep visitors busy. Some of the most popular places to visit in Virginia Beach include: The Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center : This aquarium is home to more than 20,000 animals, including sharks, dolphins, and rays. : This aquarium is home to more than 20,000 animals, including sharks, dolphins, and rays. The Virginia Beach Boardwalk: This 3.5-mile boardwalk is one of the most popular attractions in Virginia Beach. It features a wide variety of shops, restaurants, and amusements. This 3.5-mile boardwalk is one of the most popular attractions in Virginia Beach. It features a wide variety of shops, restaurants, and amusements. First Landing State Park: This park offers miles of hiking and biking trails, as well as a beachfront area for swimming and sunbathing. This park offers miles of hiking and biking trails, as well as a beachfront area for swimming and sunbathing. Cape Henry Lighthouse: This lighthouse is one of the oldest in the country and offers stunning views of the Chesapeake Bay. There are plenty of other things to do in Virginia Beach, including dolphin and whale watching tours, kayaking, and golfing. Whether you're looking for a fun family vacation or a romantic getaway, Virginia Beach is sure to please.

Virginia Beach Luxury Hotels

Virginia Beach Luxury Resorts

Beijing, China

If you're looking for an amazing cultural experience, be sure to add Beijing, China to your travel bucket list! With beautiful temples, charming hutongs (traditional alleyways), and a lively food scene, there's something for everyone in this bustling city. Plus, Beijing is home to some of the most iconic attractions in China, like the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City. So if you're looking for an unforgettable East Asian adventure, be sure to add Beijing to your list!.

Beijing Luxury Hotels

Seoul, South Korea

Seoul is a metropolitan city that is home to over 10 million people. It is a city full of culture, history, and a vibrant nightlife. There are plenty of places to visit in Seoul, including the Gyeongbokgung Palace, Changdeokgung Palace, and N Seoul Tower. The Jeongdongne district is a must-see for anyone interested in art and culture, and the Itaewon district is a great place to go for a night on the town.

Seoul Luxury Hotels

South Lake Tahoe, CA, United States

Known for its dramatic lake and mountain scenery, South Lake Tahoe offers visitors plenty of places to visit and things to do. Some of the most popular attractions include floating down the river on a tube, hiking the trails in the summer and skiing or snowboarding the slopes in the winter. The city also has a variety of restaurants and nightlife options, as well as casinos for those looking to try their luck.

South Lake Tahoe Luxury Hotels

South Lake Tahoe Luxury Resorts

Daytona Beach, FL, United States

Daytona Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States. It is approximately 40 miles northeast of Orlando, and 85 miles southeast of Jacksonville. The city is known as "The World's Most Famous Beach." Daytona Beach is a principal city of the Fun Coast region of Florida. The Daytona Beach area is a popular tourist destination. It is well known for its beaches, sports events, and motorsports. Daytona Beach was the birthplace of NASCAR and home to its first track, Daytona International Speedway. Dayton Beach also features a large number of tourist-oriented businesses, such as motels, restaurants, and bars.

Daytona Beach Luxury Hotels

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The coastline of Rio de Janeiro is breathtaking, and the views from Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf Mountain are unforgettable. Rio's world-famous beaches are the perfect place to relax and enjoy the sun and the surf. The city's rich culture and history can be experienced in its many museums and in the lively nightlife. Rio is also a great place to shop for souvenirs.

Rio de Janeiro Luxury Hotels

Rio de Janeiro Luxury Villas

Jaco, Costa Rica

Jaco is a town on the Central Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. It's about an hour drive from San Jose and is a popular spot for surfers, sunbathers, and tourists. There are a number of beaches in the area, as well as restaurants, bars, and hotels. If you're looking for a place to relax and enjoy the Costa Rican sun and beaches, Jaco is a great option.

Jaco Luxury Hotels

Oslo, Norway

Oslo, Norway is a city with plenty of places to visit. You can find the peace and tranquility of nature parks and green spaces, experience the city's vibrant nightlife, or take in the historical and cultural sights. Here are a few of the top places to visit in Oslo: The Royal Palace: Oslo's Royal Palace is the official residence of Norway's king and queen. The palace is open to the public year-round, and offers a glimpse into the lives of the royal family. Oslo's Royal Palace is the official residence of Norway's king and queen. The palace is open to the public year-round, and offers a glimpse into the lives of the royal family. Vigeland Park: Considered one of Oslo's most popular tourist destinations, Vigeland Park is home to over 200 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. The park is a great place to spend a sunny day outdoors. Considered one of Oslo's most popular tourist destinations, Vigeland Park is home to over 200 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. The park is a great place to spend a sunny day outdoors. The Maritime Museum: This museum is home to a variety of exhibits on Norway's maritime history. Visitors can explore everything from Viking ships to modern submarines. This museum is home to a variety of exhibits on Norway's maritime history. Visitors can explore everything from Viking ships to modern submarines. The National Gallery: The National Gallery is Norway's largest art museum, and home to a vast collection of paintings and sculptures from the country's most famous artists. The National Gallery is Norway's largest art museum, and home to a vast collection of paintings and sculptures from the country's most famous artists. Aker Brygge: Aker Brygge is a popular waterfront district in Oslo, home to a variety of bars, restaurants, and shops. The area is a great place to people watch and enjoy the view of the Oslo Fjord.

Oslo Luxury Hotels

Lima, Peru

If you're looking for a city that's bursting with culture and flavor, Lima, Peru is the place for you! This vibrant destination is home to some of the most amazing places to visit in all of South America. From ancient ruins to lush rainforests, there's something for everyone in Lima. Here are just a few of the must-see attractions in this amazing city: The Larco Museum is one of Lima's top tourist destinations. This incredible museum is home to one of the largest collections of pre-Columbian art in the world. The Historic Center of Lima is a must-see for any history lover. This vibrant area is home to some of the oldest architecture in Lima, including the iconic San Francisco Monastery. If you're looking for a little bit of jungle in the city, head to the Parque de la Reserva. This lush park is home to beautiful gardens, a zoo, and even a butterfly farm! No trip to Lima would be complete without a visit to Machu Picchu. This ancient Inca citadel is one of the most iconic sites in all of South America.

Lima Luxury Hotels

Ankara, Turkey

Ankara is the cultural and political center of Turkey. The city is home to many museums, including the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, and is a popular destination for tourists. The Citadel, the Ataturk Mausoleum, and the War of Independence Museum are all popular tourist destinations in Ankara. The city is also home to a vibrant nightlife and is a popular destination for students.

Ankara Luxury Hotels

Birmingham, United Kingdom

There are plenty of great places to visit in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Some of the most popular places to go include the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and the Black Country Living Museum. These places are all great for tourists, as they offer a variety of attractions, including beautiful gardens, interesting art, and a recreation of an old-fashioned town. Additionally, there are plenty of other great places to visit in Birmingham, such as the Jewellery Quarter and the German Christmas Market.

Birmingham Luxury Hotels

York, United Kingdom

With a rich history that spans back over 1,000 years, York is a must-visit destination in the United Kingdom. Explore the city's medieval architecture and narrow cobblestone streets, or enjoy a leisurely walk along the River Ouse. Visitors can also enjoy a variety of cultural experiences, such as the York Minster cathedral, the Jorvik Viking Centre, and the National Railway Museum. There are also plenty of shops and restaurants to enjoy in York.

York Luxury Hotels

Inverness, United Kingdom

Inverness, Scotland is a must-see destination on any traveler's list. Filled with rolling green hills, historical sites, and plenty of outdoor activities, there's something for everyone in this charming town. Start by exploring the city center, which is home to a variety of shops and restaurants. Make sure to check out the Inverness Castle, which offers commanding views of the area, and the Inverness Cathedral, a beautiful example of medieval architecture. Outside of the city center, there are plenty of other attractions to explore. The Loch Ness Monster is said to make its home in the loch here, and visitors can take boat tours to hunt for the mythical creature. If you're looking for a more active adventure, take a hike in the hills or go fishing on the loch. No matter what you choose to do, Inverness is a beautiful and welcoming town that is sure to charm you.

Inverness Luxury Hotels

Marseille, France

The Vieux Port (Old Harbor) is the oldest port in France. It is a beautiful place to visit with its sailboats, restaurants, and cafes. The Notre Dame de la Garde Basilica is also worth a visit. It offers stunning views of the city. If you're looking for a more lively atmosphere, head to the La Canebiere. It's a wide avenue with plenty of shops and restaurants.

Marseille Luxury Hotels

Marseille Luxury Villas

Honolulu, HI, United States

Honolulu is a city located on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, United States. It is the most populous city in the state of Hawaii and the county seat of the City and County of Honolulu. Honolulu is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Hawaii. Waikiki Beach is one of the most famous beaches in the world and is located in Honolulu. Other places to visit in Honolulu include Diamond Head, the USS Arizona Memorial, and Hanauma Bay.

Honolulu Luxury Hotels

Honolulu Luxury Resorts

Honolulu Luxury Villas

Bar Harbor, ME, United States

Famous for lobster and stunning ocean views, Bar Harbor is a popular destination in Maine. There are plenty of things to do in the town and its surroundings, including hiking, biking, whale watching, and exploring Acadia National Park.

Bar Harbor Luxury Hotels

Colorado Springs, CO, United States

There are many places to visit in Colorado Springs. Garden of the Gods is a popular park with beautiful rock formations. Pike's Peak is a 14,115 foot mountain that offers great views and outdoor activities. The Broadmoor is a world-renowned resort with lovely gardens and a championship golf course. Royal Gorge Bridge is the world's highest suspension bridge and a popular tourist spot.

Colorado Springs Luxury Hotels

Fort Myers Beach, FL, United States

Just an hours drive from the Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Fort Myers Beach is a popular tourist spot, especially in the winter when the snowbirds migrate down. The seven-mile-long beach is known for its white sand and clear water and is a popular spot for swimming, sunbathing, fishing, and kayaking. There are also a number of restaurants and bars in the area, as well as a few stores.

Fort Myers Beach Luxury Hotels

Biloxi, MS, United States

There are plenty of places to explore in Biloxi, Mississippi  from the citys iconic Beaches to the picturesque Bay Saint Louis. Venture into the citys downtown area to check out the many shops and restaurants, or take a walk along the shoreline. No matter what you choose to do, youre sure to have a great time in Biloxi.

Biloxi Luxury Hotels

Palermo, Italy

If you're looking for a city with a rich and diverse history, Palermo is the place for you. This coastal city in Italy is teeming with medieval architecture, churches, and cathedrals. Be sure to check out the Teatro Massimo, the largest opera house in Europe, and the Palazzo dei Normanni, the seat of the Sicilian government. Don't miss out on the city's vibrant nightlife and vast array of restaurants that serve up some of the best food in the country.

Palermo Luxury Hotels

Palermo Luxury Villas

Manila, Philippines

The capital of the Philippines, Manila is a fascinating city with a rich history and a vibrant culture. There are plenty of places to visit in Manila, including the walled city of Intramuros, the Rizal Park, and the Manila Bay. The city is also home to a large number of churches, including the Manila Cathedral and the San Agustin Church. Manila is a great city to explore on foot, and there are plenty of restaurants and shops to enjoy.

Manila Luxury Hotels

Zermatt, Switzerland

Zermatt is an alpine village in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It is famous for its ski resort, mountaineering and hiking trails. The views of the Matterhorn from Zermatt are iconic. The village is car-free, making it a cyclists' and pedestrians' paradise. There are many places to visit in Zermatt, including the village's beautiful churches, impressive museums, and great restaurants.

Zermatt Luxury Hotels

Basel, Switzerland

Basel is a city located in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine. Basel has a population of about 176,000 and is the third most populous city in Switzerland. Basel has many interesting places to visit, including the Basel Munster, the Basel Rathaus (town hall), the Basel Zoo, and the Munsterhof, the old town square. Basel also has a number of art museums, including the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Fondation Beyeler, and the Schaulager. Basel is a great city to visit, and I highly recommend it!.

Basel Luxury Hotels

Copenhagen, Denmark

There are a number of places to visit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Some of the most popular tourist destinations include Tivoli Gardens, Nyhavn, and the Rosenborg Castle Gardens. Tivoli Gardens is a beautiful amusement park that has something for everyone. It is perfect for a day of fun with family or friends. Nyhavn is a charming canal district that is popular for its brightly colored houses and lively atmosphere. Visitors can enjoy a relaxing cruise down the canal or take a seat in one of the many cafes and restaurants. The Rosenborg Castle Gardens are home to a majestic castle as well as beautifully landscaped gardens. There is plenty to see and do in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Copenhagen Luxury Hotels

Steamboat Springs, CO, United States

Steamboat Springs is located in northwestern Colorado. The town is named for the steamboats that traveled up the Yampa River in the 1800s. Today, the town is a popular tourist destination, known for its skiing, snowboarding, hiking, and rafting.

Steamboat Springs Luxury Hotels

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates and is home to many tourist attractions. Some popular places to visit in Abu Dhabi include the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, the Ferrari World Theme Park, and the Yas Island Waterpark. There are also a number of museums and shopping malls in Abu Dhabi, making it a great destination for those looking for a mix of culture and leisure.

Abu Dhabi Luxury Hotels

Abu Dhabi Luxury Resorts

Abu Dhabi Luxury Villas

Bogota, Colombia

There's a lot to see and do in Bogota. Some of the top places to visit include the historical La Candelaria district, the cobblestone streets of Plaza de Bolivar, the Monserrate mountain, the Bogota Botanical Garden, and the Gold Museum. La Candelaria is home to many brightly-colored colonial buildings, churches, and plazas. Plaza de Bolivar is the center of Bogota and is surrounded by important landmarks like the Presidential Palace and the National Capitol. The Monserrate mountain is a popular tourist destination due to its stunning views of Bogota. The Bogota Botanical Garden is the largest in Colombia and features a wide variety of plants and trees. The Gold Museum is home to the largest collection of Pre-Columbian gold artifacts in the world.

Bogota Luxury Hotels

Cebu, Philippines

Due to its location and its rich history, there are plenty of places to visit in Cebu. Some of the most popular tourist destinations include the Cebu Taoist Temple, the Fort San Pedro, the Yap-San Diego Ancestral House, and the Magellan's Cross.

Cebu Luxury Hotels

Cebu Luxury Resorts

Lagos, Portugal

Lagos is a small town in Portugal with a population of around 22,000. It's located in the Algarve region and is a popular tourist destination. Some of the places to visit in Lagos are the beaches, the old town, and the Marina. The beaches are beautiful and there are a lot of them to choose from. The old town is a maze of narrow streets and alleyways with lots of shops and restaurants. The Marina is a great place to walk around and watch the boats.

Lagos Luxury Hotels

Medellin, Colombia

Some places to visit in Medellin, Colombia are: the Botanical Garden, the Ethnographic Museum, the Jardin Botanico, the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Park of Lights, and the San Pedro Claver Church.

Medellin Luxury Hotels

Genoa, Italy

While there are many places to visit in Genoa, one of the must-sees is the city's cathedral. Dedicated to San Lorenzo, the church features an intricate Gothic facade and a Renaissance interior. If you're looking for a place to take in some stunning views, head to the Genoa Aquarium, which is located on the promenade stretching along the city's harbor.

Genoa Luxury Hotels

Hoi An, Vietnam

Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Vietnam. Its a bridge town thats best explored on foot. The narrow streets are a mix of Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese architecture. There are tailors, artisans, and lantern shops galore. The food is also some of the best in Vietnam. Be sure to try the local specialties, like Cao Lau and White Rose dumplings.

Hoi An Luxury Hotels

Hoi An Luxury Resorts

Baku, Azerbaijan

Baku, Azerbaijan is a city with a lot of culture and history. There are a lot of places to visit, like the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and the Maiden Tower. There are also a lot of great restaurants, like the Flame Club, which has a great atmosphere and delicious food.

Baku Luxury Hotels

San Luis Obispo, CA, United States

San Luis Obispo is a city located in the central coast of California. It's known for its natural beauty, relaxed vibe, and abundance of things to do. Some of the top places to visit in San Luis Obispo include the Madonna Inn, Hearst Castle, and the Paso Robles wine country. The city is also home to a variety of beaches, parks, and other attractions. In addition, San Luis Obispo is a great place to live, with plenty of restaurants, shops, and other amenities.

San Luis Obispo Luxury Hotels

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Colombo is the largest city and commercial capital of Sri Lanka. The city is located on the west coast of the island and is the administrative, commercial, and industrial center of Sri Lanka. Colombo is also the center of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, with numerous Buddhist temples. There are a number of places to visit in Colombo, including the Galle Face Green, the Dutch fort, the Pettah Bazaar, and the Sri Lankan National Museum.

Colombo Luxury Hotels

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

The city of Yogyakarta in Indonesia is home to some of the most stunning temples and historical landmarks in the country. The city is also a great place to enjoy traditional Javanese culture and cuisine. Some of the must-see places in Yogyakarta include the Borobudur Temple, the Prambanan Temple, and the Sultan's Palace.

Yogyakarta Luxury Hotels

Cefalu, Italy

Looking for a beautiful and historic place to visit in Italy? Look no further than Cefalu. This town is teeming with history and stunning architecture, and its location on the coast makes it the perfect place to relax and take in the stunning scenery. Don't miss the Duomo di Cefalu, a 12th century Norman church that is definitely worth a visit, or the Palazzo dei Normanni, a former royal palace.

Cefalu Luxury Hotels

San Jose, CA, United States

San Jose, California, is home to a variety of tourist destinations. Some popular places to visit include the Winchester Mystery House, the Tech Museum of Innovation, and the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. There are also a number of lovely parks, such as Kelley Park and Plaza de Cesar Chavez, that are well worth a visit. San Jose is also home to a number of great restaurants, so be sure to check out the local cuisine. Whatever your interests, San Jose has something to offer visitors.

San Jose Luxury Hotels

Hong Kong, China

Hong Kong is one of the most popular destinations for tourists in China. There are many places to visit in Hong Kong, including the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, Victoria Peak, and the Temple Street Night Market. Hong Kong is also a great place to shop, with many high-end malls and markets.

Hong Kong Luxury Hotels

Hong Kong Luxury Resorts

Orlando, FL, United States

Orlando is a city in the central region of Florida, in the United States. The city is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the metropolitan area also known as Greater Orlando. Orlando is well known for its theme parks, including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort, and SeaWorld Orlando. Other tourist destinations in Orlando include the Holy Land Experience, the Orlando Science Center, and the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art. Orlando is also home to the University of Central Florida, one of the largest universities in the United States.

Orlando Luxury Hotels

Orlando Luxury Resorts

Orlando Luxury Villas

Philadelphia, PA, United States

If youre looking for a place thats rich in history and culture, Philadelphia is the place for you. The city is home to numerous iconic landmarks, including the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. Theres also a great variety of museums and other attractions to explore, such as the Philadelphia Zoo and the Please Touch Museum. And, of course, Philly is the birthplace of Americas favorite sandwich, the cheesesteak. So why not visit Americas most historic city and see for yourself what all the fuss is about?.

Philadelphia Luxury Hotels

Nice, France

France is known for its many beautiful places to visit, and Nice is no exception. With its stunning coastline and mild climate, Nice is a popular tourist destination. Some of the most popular places to visit in Nice include the Promenade des Anglais, the Castle Hill, and the Old Town. There is also a wide variety of shops and restaurants to enjoy in Nice. If you're looking for a beautiful and relaxing place to visit in France, Nice is definitely worth considering.

Nice Luxury Hotels

Nice Luxury Villas

Singapore, Singapore

Singapore is a popular tourist destination, brimming with cultural and natural attractions. From award-winning restaurants to serene gardens and pristine beaches, there is much to explore in this diverse city-state. Here are some of the top places to visit in Singapore: 1. Marina Bay: This iconic waterfront district is home to stunning architecture, world-class landmarks, and a vibrant nightlife. 2. Gardens by the Bay: These stunning gardens feature a mix of plants from around the world, as well as towering sculptures and a biodome. 3. Chinatown: This lively district is home to traditional Chinese shops and restaurants, as well as vibrant street markets. 4. Little India: This neighborhood is known for its vibrant culture and colorful temples. 5. Sentosa Island: This resort island is home to sandy beaches, lush rainforests, and a variety of entertainment options.

Singapore Luxury Hotels

Singapore Luxury Resorts

Nottingham, United Kingdom

Nottingham is a city in the East Midlands of England. It is one of the United Kingdom's major cities, with a population of over 321,000. The city is home to two universities, Queen's Medical Centre, and seven football grounds. Nottingham is known for its lace-making and bicycle manufacturing. The city has a rich history, dating back to the Bronze Age. There are plenty of places to visit in Nottingham, including the Nottingham Castle, the Sherwood Forest, and the National Ice Centre. The city also has a lively nightlife, with a variety of pubs and bars.

Nottingham Luxury Hotels

Cannes, France

Cannes is a city located in the south of France. Some of the places to visit in Cannes are the Palais des Festivals et des Congres, the Boulevard de la Croisette, and Le Suquet.

Cannes Luxury Hotels

Cannes Luxury Villas

Park City, UT, United States

Park City, Utah, offers visitors a wealth of places to visit and things to do. Main Street, with its charming shops and restaurants, is a must-see. The Park City Museum tells the town's fascinating history, and the Park City Utah Temple is a beautiful sight. For outdoor enthusiasts, there's plenty of skiing and snowboarding in the winter and hiking and mountain biking in the summer. And don't forget to visit the Olympic Park, where the 2002 Winter Olympics were held.

Park City Luxury Hotels

Park City Luxury Resorts

Port Angeles, WA, United States

If you're looking for a quaint, small town to visit in the US, Port Angeles is worth a stop. Located in the state of Washington, it's right on the Pacific coast with stunning views of the Olympic Mountains. There's plenty of things to do in the area, from hiking and fishing to whale watching and enjoying the local restaurants and breweries.

Port Angeles Luxury Hotels

Fort Lauderdale, FL, United States

If you're looking for a fun-filled Florida getaway, look no further than Fort Lauderdale! With its miles of pristine beaches, world-famous shopping and vibrant nightlife, there's something for everyone in this seaside city. Here are some of the top places to visit in Fort Lauderdale:  Las Olas Boulevard: This popular shopping and dining district is home to some of Fort Lauderdale's most upscale boutiques and restaurants.  The Beach: With its wide, sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters, Fort Lauderdale's beach is a major draw for visitors.  The Everglades: Just a short drive from Fort Lauderdale, the Everglades are home to an abundance of wildlife, including alligators, bald eagles and manatees.  The Broward Center for the Performing Arts: This world-class performing arts center is home to a variety of theater, dance and music performances. So what are you waiting for? Book your trip to Fort Lauderdale today!.

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Myrtle Beach, SC, United States

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is a popular tourist destination. There are plenty of places to visit in the area, including amusement parks, beaches, and golf courses. Myrtle Beach also has a lively nightlife, with plenty of bars and restaurants.

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Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg is one of the most visited places in Austria. It is a city rich in history and culture. There are many places to visit, such as the Hohensalzburg Fortress, the Mirabell Palace, and the Salzburg Cathedral. There are also many hiking trails and parks to enjoy.

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Pattaya, Thailand

Pattaya is an amazing city with plenty of places to visit and things to do. One of the most popular tourist destinations in Thailand, Pattaya offers something for everyone. There are lovely beaches, interesting temples, great shopping, and exciting nightlife. With its moderate climate and affordable prices, it's no wonder Pattaya is a favorite destination for tourists from all over the world.

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Dallas, TX, United States

Dallas is a city located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the ninth most populous city in the United States and the third most populous city in the state of Texas. Dallas is also the main city of the fourth most populous metropolitan area in the United States. The city's prominence arose from its historical importance as a center for the oil and cotton industries, and its position as a major transportation hub for the South. Dallas is home to the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League and the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association. The city's economy is primarily based on banking, commerce, telecommunications, technology, energy, healthcare and medical research, and transportation. The city is home to the world's largest airline hub and the third largest cargo airport in the United States.

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Kolkata, India

Kolkata, also known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. The city is located on the east bank of the Hooghly River. It is the second most populous city in India, after Mumbai, and the third most populous metropolitan area in India, after Mumbai and Delhi. The city is notable for its colonial architecture, art and culture, and for its overwhelming poverty. Kolkata is home to the Indian Museum, the Calcutta Stock Exchange, the National Library of India, and the Indian Statistical Institute.

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San Antonio, TX, United States

San Antonio is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Texas. There are plenty of places to visit in this city, from the well-known River Walk to the exquisite Spanish missions. If you're looking for a fun place to spend the day, you can't go wrong with San Antonio.

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Seattle, WA, United States

There are many wonderful places to visit in Seattle, Washington. Some of the most popular attractions include Pike Place Market, the Seattle Space Needle, and the Museum of Pop Culture. There are also many parks and gardens, such as Volunteer Park and Seattle Chinese Garden, as well as plenty of restaurants and shops. Located on the other side of the world, Western Australia is a great place to visit for those looking for something different. Some of the most popular attractions include Rottnest Island, the Margaret River region, and Monkey Mia. There are also plenty of beautiful parks and gardens, such as Kings Park and Botanic Garden, as well as restaurants and shops.

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Liverpool, United Kingdom

Liverpool is a city located in North West England and is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom. The city is known for its football teams Liverpool and Everton, The Beatles, and its maritime history. Liverpool is a popular tourist destination and is home to various tourist attractions including Mersey Ferry, Liverpool Cathedral, and Albert Dock.

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Malmo, Sweden

Malmo is Sweden's third largest city with a population of over 310,000. It is located in the province of Scania on the country's southern tip. Malmo is a vibrant city with a strong arts and cultural scene. There are plenty of places to visit in Malmo, including the Malmo Castle, the Botanical Gardens, and the Turning Torso skyscraper. Malmo is also home to a large shopping district and a lively nightlife.

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Gothenburg, Sweden

Goteborg, Sweden's second largest city, is a major port on the country's west coast. It's a popular tourist destination, known for its lively nightlife, beautiful architecture and delicious seafood. Some of the city's highlights include the Liseberg amusement park, the Botanical Garden, and the charming old town district. Goteborg is also home to a large number of museums, including the Volvo Museum, the Maritime Museum and the Universeum science center.

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Ljubljana, Slovenia

Ljubljana is the capital city of Slovenia and is a city full of culture and history. There are many places to visit in Ljubljana, such as the castle, the old town, and the cathedral. The city is also home to many museums, art galleries, and parks. Ljubljana is a great city to explore on foot, and there are many restaurants and cafes to enjoy.

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Sydney, NSW, Australia

Australia is a vast country with plenty of stunning places to visit, but Sydney is undoubtedly one of the most popular tourist destinations on the continent. From the iconic Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge to the beautiful beaches and lush national parks, there's something for everyone in this lively city. There's also a thriving food and nightlife scene, so you'll never run out of things to do in Sydney.

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Melbourne, VIC, Australia

There's a lot to love about Melbourne  its lively arts and culture scene, its parks and gardens, its diverse range of restaurants and cafes, and its stunning architecture. Here are some of the best places to visit in Melbourne: - Federation Square: This iconic square is a great place to people-watch and take in the city's impressive architecture. It's also home to a number of museums and galleries, including the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the National Gallery of Victoria. - Queen Victoria Market: This vibrant market is a must-visit for foodies and shoppers alike. It's the largest open-air market in the Southern Hemisphere, and offers a vast array of fresh produce, meat, seafood, and souvenirs. - Melbourne Cricket Ground: If you're a sports fan, be sure to check out the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which is the largest cricket stadium in the world. It's also home to the Australian Football League, and has hosted a number of major sporting events, including the Commonwealth Games and the Rugby Union World Cup. - Royal Botanic Gardens: These beautiful gardens are a great place to relax and take in some of Melbourne's natural beauty. They're home to a number of different gardens, including the Australian Garden, the Sculpture Garden, and the Japanese Garden.

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Vancouver, BC, Canada

The top places to visit in Vancouver are Stanley Park, Granville Island, Gastown, and Chinatown. These are all must-see attractions that offer an array of activities, scenery, and history. Stanley Park is a world-famous urban park that features greenery, beaches, gardens, and a stunning view of the North Shore Mountains. Granville Island is a vibrant neighbourhood with unique shops, restaurants, and art galleries. Gastown is the city's oldest neighbourhood and is home to charming cobblestone streets and funky boutiques. Chinatown is one of the largest and most vibrant Chinatowns in North America and offers delicious food, interesting history, and vibrant culture.

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Toronto, ON, Canada

From the CN Tower and Hockey Hall of Fame to the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Distillery District, there are plenty of amazing places to visit in Toronto, Canada. With something for everyone, Toronto is a great city to explore. So what are you waiting for? Start planning your trip today!.

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Montreal, QC, Canada

Montreal is a vibrant city with something for everyone. There are plenty of places to visit, including the Notre Dame Basilica, the Olympic Stadium, and Mount Royal. The city is also home to a lively arts and culture scene, with theatres, art galleries, and music venues. Montreal is a great place to visit year-round, with festivals and events happening throughout the year.

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Seville, Spain

Seville is one of the most visited places in Spain for a plethora of reasons: its stunning architecture, tapas bars, flamenco and great weather. The Giralda Tower is a must-see when in Seville as is the Plaza de Espana. Andalusian culture is heavily present in the city and is best experienced by wandering the narrow streets and alleyways, popping into a lively tapas bar for a drink and some snacks or enjoying a flamenco show.

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Ocean City, MD, United States

Ocean City is a seaside resort town in Worcester County, Maryland, on the Atlantic coast. It is well known for its long promenade, its fishing, and its crab cuisine. There are plenty of places to visit in Ocean City, including the boardwalk, amusement rides, shopping, and restaurants. You can also visit the Assateague Island National Seashore, which is home to wild horses, or head to the nearby town of Berlin for more shopping and dining options.

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Cambridge, MA, United States

If you're looking for a quintessential New England town to visit, Cambridge, Massachusetts is the place for you. With its elaborate architecture and Colonial history, Cambridge is a lively town with plenty of things to see and do - perfect for a weekend getaway. Some of the places you won't want to miss include the Harvard University campus, the charming and lively shops and restaurants in Harvard Square, and the leafy paths of the Cambridge Common.

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Laguna Beach, CA, United States

Laguna Beach, California is a place known for its stunningly beautiful coastline, excellent restaurants, and art galleries. But there's more to Laguna Beach than meets the eye. Here are some of the best places to visit in Laguna Beach: Crystal Cove State Park: This state park is known for its coves, tidepools, and bluffs. It's a great place to go hiking, swimming, and snorkeling. Heisler Park: This park is a great place for a walk or a picnic. It's also home to some of the best views of the Pacific Coast. Downtown Laguna Beach: This charming downtown area is home to art galleries, boutique shops, and excellent restaurants. Aliso Beach: This beach is known for its excellent surfing and swimming conditions. It's also a great place to take a walk or enjoy a picnic.

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Hot Springs, AR, United States

In downtown Hot Springs, Arkansas, you'll find historic buildings, antique shops, and art galleries. For nature lovers, there are also plenty of places to visit, including the Garland County Arboretum, Ouachita National Forest, and Hot Springs National Park. Spa enthusiasts can enjoy a relaxing day in one of the area's hot springs. And no trip to Hot Springs is complete without a visit to the world-famous Bathhouse Row.

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Sedona, AZ, United States

There are many places to visit in Sedona, Arizona. Among the most popular are the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Bell Rock, Cathedral Rock, and Boynton Canyon. The town's unique red-rock formations and ancient ruins offer plenty of photo opportunities. Visitors can also enjoy hiking, biking, and horseback riding. Sedona is a great place to relax and take in the natural beauty of the Southwest.

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Boulder, CO, United States

Boulder, Colorado is a breathtaking city nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The city is home to stunning views, ample outdoor recreation, and a lively arts scene. Outdoor enthusiasts will love exploring the city's many trails, parks, and open spaces. History buffs will enjoy checking out the city's museums and historic sites. Culture seekers will appreciate the city's many theaters, art galleries, and restaurants. No matter what your interests, you'll find something to love in Boulder.

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Key West, FL, United States

Key West is a small island off the coast of Florida that is filled with history, charm, and fun places to visit. Its lush tropical setting and the laid-back vibe of the island make it a popular destination for those looking for a relaxing getaway. There are plenty of places to explore in Key West, from the charming historic district to the crystal-clear waters of the Florida Keys. Here are some of the top places to visit in Key West: -The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum: This iconic museum is dedicated to the life and work of Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway, who lived in Key West for over 20 years. -Duval Street: This lively street is the heart of Key West's nightlife and is home to many bars and restaurants. -The Southernmost Point: This landmark is located at the end of Duval Street and is the southernmost point in the continental United States. -The Key West Lighthouse: This picturesque lighthouse is a popular spot for tourists and offers stunning views of the island. -The African American Heritage House: This museum is dedicated to the history and culture of African Americans in Key West. -The Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory: This attraction is home to over 2,000 butterflies and a variety of other tropical plants and animals.

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Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm, Sweden is a city with many places to visit. One place is the Vasa Museum, which is home to a ship that sunk in 1628 and was raised from the ocean floor 333 years later. The ship is preserved and on display in the museum. Another place to visit is the Royal Palace, the official residence of the Swedish monarch. The palace is open for tours, and visitors can see the royal apartments, the throne room, and the Hall of State.

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Destin, FL, United States

Looking for a place to visit in Florida? Look no further than Destin! This city is home to beautiful beaches, wonderful restaurants, and plenty of places to shop. No matter what you're looking for, you can find it in Destin. Be sure to check out the Destin Harbor and the fishing pier for amazing views and plenty of things to do. If you're looking for a place to relax, head to the beach and enjoy the sun and sand. There's something for everyone in Destin, so be sure to visit this amazing city!.

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Ashland, OR, United States

There are many places to visit in Ashland, Oregon. Some of the most popular places are the Shakespeare Festival, Lithia Park, and Mt. Ashland. The Shakespeare Festival is a great place to see some of the best plays in the world. Lithia Park is a beautiful park with a river running through it. Mt. Ashland is a great place to go skiing in the winter.

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Seaside, OR, United States

One of the most beautiful places on the Oregon Coast is Seaside. With its wide, sandy beach and majestic promenade, Seaside is a popular tourist destination. There are plenty of places to eat and shop, and the Seaside Aquarium is a must-see. Visitors can also enjoy fishing, whale watching, or just taking a leisurely stroll along the beach.

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Newport, RI, United States

Newport is a picturesque town located in southern Rhode Island that is home to some of the most visited tourist destinations in the United States. The city is known for its miles of beaches and historic mansions that line the coast. Some popular places to visit in Newport include the Cliff Walk, the Breakers Mansion, the Museum of Yachting, and the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

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Siena, Italy

Siena, Italy is a popular tourist destination, thanks to its well-preserved medieval city center. The city is famous for its art, food, and wine. Siena is located in the heart of Tuscany, making it the perfect base for exploring this beautiful region of Italy. Don't miss the Duomo (cathedral), the Piazza del Campo, and the Torre del Mangia.

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Reno, NV, United States

Home to the University of Nevada, Reno and a wide variety of cultural and natural attractions, Reno is a great place to visit. Some of the top places to see in Reno include the Nevada Museum of Art, the Fleischmann Planetarium and Science Center, and the Reno Events Center. Outdoor enthusiasts will enjoy hiking and skiing at Lake Tahoe and biking and kayaking on the Truckee River. In addition, Reno is home to a diverse array of restaurants and nightlife venues.

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Atlantic City, NJ, United States

Atlantic City is a popular East Coast tourist destination, known for its boardwalks, beaches and casinos. There are plenty of places to visit in Atlantic City, from the Boardwalk Hall and the Absecon Lighthouse to the Atlantic City Aquarium and Lucy the Elephant. For a more thrilling experience, head to one of the city's casinos, where you can try your hand at blackjack, slots, roulette and more. Atlantic City also offers a wide variety of restaurants, from seafood spots to pizza places, so you're sure to find something to your taste. And if you're looking for some nightlife action, the city has you covered there too. Atlantic City is definitely a place worth visiting!.

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Lake George, NY, United States

Looking for a place to visit in upstate New York? Look no further than the stunning Lake George. This picturesque locale is located in the heart of the Adirondacks and is known for its pristine beauty and terrific recreational opportunities. Visitors can enjoy hiking, biking, boating, fishing, and skiing, among other activities. Don't miss the chance to take in the spectacular views from the summit of Prospect Mountain or from the water's edge.

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Buffalo, NY, United States

If you're looking for a city that has it all, Buffalo is the place to be. From its vibrant downtown district to its abundance of parks and nature preserves, there's something for everyone in Buffalo. Here are some of the top places to visit in Buffalo: 1. The Buffalo Zoo - One of the top zoos in the country, the Buffalo Zoo is a must-visit for animal lovers of all ages. 2. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery - Buffalo's answer to the Louvre, the Albright-Knox is home to some of the world's most famous paintings and sculptures. 3. The Buffalo-Niagara Heritage Village - This living history museum offers a glimpse into what life was like in Buffalo in the 1800s. 4. The Buffalo River - Take a walk or bike ride along the Buffalo River, one of the city's most picturesque areas. 5. Delaware Park - This large park is home to a variety of attractions, including a zoo, a golf course, and a nature preserve.

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Rochester, MN, United States

Rochester, Minnesota is a city with plenty of places to visit. There's the Mayo Clinic, the Apache Mall, and several other shopping areas, as well as a variety of restaurants. There are also a few parks and golf courses. For those who love the outdoors, Rochester is also close to several state parks and the Mississippi River.

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Duluth, MN, United States

If you're looking for an amazing place to visit, Duluth, Minnesota should definitely be at the top of your list. This city is home to some of the most beautiful scenery in the United States, and there are plenty of things to do here that will keep you entertained for days on end. Some of the most popular places to visit in Duluth include the Aerial Lift Bridge, the Glensheen Mansion, and Chester Creek Park. Additionally, there are a number of excellent restaurants and shopping areas in the city, so be sure to explore everything that Duluth has to offer.

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Maputo, Mozambique

Maputo is the capital of Mozambique and a city full of culture and history. There are many places to visit in Maputo, such as the Jose Eduardo dos Santos Museum, the Maputo Cathedral, and the Rua da Independencia. Maputo is also home to the Maputo Bay, which offers beautiful beaches and great seafood.

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Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona, located on the northeast coast of Spain, is a renowned tourist destination and one of the most popular cities in the world. There are plenty of places to visit in Barcelona, such as the Gothic Quarter, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Parc Guell, La Sagrada Familia, and more. The city is also home to a lively nightlife and some of the best restaurants in the country.

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Split, Croatia

Split is a city on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. It is the second-largest city in Croatia and the largest city in Dalmatia. It has a population of over 200,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area, which includes the City of Split and the surrounding towns, has a population of over 330,000. Split is a popular tourist destination and is the home of the Diocletian's Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Other popular tourist destinations include the Riva, the Peristyle, the Cathedral of Saint Domnius, and Sustipan.

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Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dubrovnik is a city on the Adriatic Sea in Croatia. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean Sea, a seaport and the administrative center of Dubrovnik-Neretva County. Dubrovnik is nicknamed "The Pearl of the Adriatic".

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Byron Bay, NSW, Australia

Byron Bay is a magical place. It's no wonder that it's one of the most popular destinations in Australia. The town is set in a beautiful location, surrounded by rolling green hills and the bright blue ocean. There's plenty to do in Byron Bay, whether you're looking for a relaxing beach holiday or an adventure-filled trip. Some of the top places to visit in Byron Bay include the iconic lighthouse, the stunning beaches, and the lush rainforest. There's also a great nightlife and plenty of restaurants and cafes to enjoy. If you're looking for an amazing Australian getaway, be sure to add Byron Bay to your list!.

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Wellington, New Zealand

If you're looking for a little slice of heaven on earth, look no further than Wellington, New Zealand. With its gorgeous landscape and plethora of activities, there's something for everyone here. Whether you're a nature lover or a city slicker, Wellington has something special to offer. Top Wellington attractions include the Zealandia eco-sanctuary, the cable car up to the Botanic Gardens, and the sprawling Te Papa museum. For those who love getting out into the great outdoors, there are plenty of hiking and biking trails, as well as lovely seaside towns and villages to explore. And of course, no trip to Wellington would be complete without trying some of the delicious local cuisine  be sure to sample a traditional Maori hangi feast! So what are you waiting for? Book your flight to Wellington today and start planning your perfect holiday!.

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Saint Louis, MO, United States

If you're looking for a fun place to visit with a rich history and plenty of things to see and do, look no further than Saint Louis, Missouri. This vibrant city is home to a variety of interesting attractions, including the Gateway Arch, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. There's also no shortage of restaurants and shopping options in Saint Louis. So, whether you're looking for a place to explore new cultures and cuisines or you're just looking for a place to have some fun, Saint Louis is a great option.

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Bloomington, IN, United States

The city of Bloomington, Indiana is home to a variety of attractions and places to visit. The Indiana University campus is a popular destination, as is the city's historic downtown district. Monroe County Courthouse
We are blessed to have such a large and fine park so close to home. You can walk in it, or ride your bicycle, or drive your car through it. Whichever way you choose can be a very pleasant experience. Because I had relatives in south Walker County my dad drove us through it - down "old" U.S. Hwy. 27 - nearly every Sunday in the 1930's, all of the '40's and a part of the 1950's. (This "old" route went in a straight line through the park; the "new" route is a by-pass).

I was always impressed by the stately old trees which stood so calmly, imparting a feeling of restfulness, and maybe even laziness, which are good qualities for a Sunday afternoon. While an Art student in both high school and university, I thought the park to be a worthy subject both for artists and photographers. When I look at the works of the famous English landscapists such as Sir Thomas Gainsborough, the trees in those landscapes remind me of our Chickamauga park - and vice versa. It is hard to imagine that a bloody war was once fought in so tranquil a setting...

To really appreciate the park you should leave your wheels somewhere and walk the trails. It is only then that you happen upon a hidden monument - or a view that is not apparent from the road. You can find streams to walk beside, or wide fields to cross, or the solace of seemingly deep woodlands. Add the pleasantries of discovering wild flowers, hearing bird songs, and glimpsing wild deer. Once we parked the car on the top of Snodgrass hill and noticed several beautiful does grazing. When we got out they were still grazing but sensed danger and had moved a bit further away. Take your Nature book(s) when you go!

Especially along U.S. 27 (the older route which went straight through the park) there were two or three log cabins. I want to dispel any notion that they may be "modern copies" of the original cabins, but can tell you that they are the same identical ones I have known all my life. Some modifications have been made to at least one of the chimneys - once in an effort to make it look like the supposed original "stick and mud" creation, but this did not last, and the people skilled in doing that kind of work soon died off. So, today's chimneys may not be quite so authentic yet have been re-constructed favorably well along both aesthetic and economic lines. Any rail fencework around these cabins, however, IS totally modern.

When I was still very small, my dad took me once or twice to visit "Uncle" Mark Thrash who lived very near U.S. 27 inside the park. He was one of the last black people born into slavery, and was very old. In my childhood it was customary for anyone to "pay respects" to any elderly person by stopping for a short visit. Part of this old custom was to call your host "Uncle", if a man, or "Aunt", if a woman. Race did not matter, and so this venerable gentleman we visited was universally called, "Uncle Mark Thrash". I do not remember his wife at all; I actually do not remember much about him, either. What I do remember is that the walls of the cabin were covered with newspaper! Apparently that was more unusual to my child's mind than either of the people we had gone to visit! I think there is a marker indicating where the house once stood.

I was recently trying to explain that old custom of visiting the elderly to a grandson. I had to explain that life could be extremely lonely in the days before radio and/or television, or in the times when many people, through no fault of their own - could neither read nor write. Younger people understood that fact and therefore remembered their elders by paying them occasional "pop-in" visits.

Sometime in the early 1980's I was working on an Art project - an historical painting of some sort, I believe. I needed some professional opinions and was told I should see the Chickamauga Park Superintendent, as he was "up" on all phases of local history. It would be a distinct asset to my project if "Hobie" (Hobart Cawood) could give me some input. There were several people who seconded that motion, because Hobie was a live-wire and if he got excited about it then many others would follow. So I called Park Headquarters to arrange an appointment with Superintendent, Hobart Cawood. "Very sorry, sir, he has gone to a new out-of-town assignment". I was very let down, to say the least...

But, a few years later I went to Philadelphia to accept a job there. After settling-in, one Sunday I walked over to the Old St. George's United Methodist Church near my apartment - where I soon made the acquaintance of Independence Mall National Park Superintendent, "Hobie" Cawood! When he found out I was from Chattanooga he greeted me like a long-lost brother! In Philadelphia he was in charge of all the buildings on Independence Mall, including the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Carpenter's Hall, Betsy Ross House, etc. And yet - for all those high-sounding duties, when the flag got stuck at Independence Hall, he would personally shinny up the pole to un-stick it, thereby saving one of his staff-members some embarrassment and perhaps an injury. And at St. George's Church he would don an apron to wash and dry the dishes after the simple meals served between Sunday School and Church! I will be forever sorry I did not get to meet this remarkable man while he was here at Chick-Chatt. There are few people like him anywhere.

Inside Chickamauga Park I have always had some favorite monuments. Perhaps the one I like best is the bronze soldier of the Florida monument who has stood at attention under his cupola on the east side of U.S. 27 for at least the 80+ years I have known him. And I also like the "Riderless Horse" statue below Wilder Tower. Wilder Tower - the grey limestone structure - has always impressed me as well, and I make sure when we have house-guests from Europe (or Queens!) that they see it, too. There are also some fine vintage relief sculptures along the Battle-line drive, as well. When I was very young the stacks of cannonballs were not cemented together as now, but vandalism unfortunately forced rangers to make changes. Through the years I have seen a good deal of said vandalism in the park, yet it IS remarkable that so much is left after 100 years and more. There is also a handsomely polished granite "Lone Star" monument on the east side of U.S. 27 near the south end of the park - doubtless given by the State of Texas.

The National Park Service people call our park, "Chick-Chatt", to shorten the name. It was the first National Military Park in the country. That name implies two major battles, and I have neglected in this article the one that happened on Lookout Mountain - the so-called "Battle Above The Clouds". That one is commemorated at Point Park, atop Lookout Mountain, and I have written about it elsewhere. My favorite monument there is very artistically placed, near the point of the mountain, and was given by New York State. It is visible for miles. Great amounts of thought and care must have been used to place it so pleasingly, so as not to conflict with the geological point of the mountain, but to enhance it. Our park has always been staffed by the very highest quality personnel...

Park dedication in September, 1895 was the first instance of my parents being together in a social situation: my mom was taken by her parents as a newborn, and my dad went with his parents as a 10 year old! There was a mob of people in attendance, reportedly, and I doubt that they even sat together!

(Chester Martin is a native Chattanoogan who is a talented painter as well as local historian. He and his wife, Pat, live in Brainerd. Mr. Martin can be reached at cymppm@comcast.net )
Which new third-party iPhone keyboard should I download?

Two of Apple's biggest competitors, Google and Microsoft, are using fancy keyboards to get closer to iOS users. One is better for wordsmiths, while the other can help you find just the right GIF, and faster.

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Google's Gboard and Microsoft's Word Flow replace the iPhone's standard keyboard and offer new features. Since launching in the last month, the free apps have been among the most popular utilities for iOS.

Microsoft's Word Flow keyboard (Microsoft)

"We're definitely seeing more custom keyboards that are offering more than just look-and-feel customization, like colors and fonts," said Mark Baldino, co-founder of Chicago user experience design firm Fuzzy Math. "What you see in the Word Flow tool and in Gboard are actual functional enhancements to the phone itself."

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He said the two keyboards likely appeal to different kinds of people. Word Flow, with its ability to swipe-type and a curved keyboard designed for one-handed typing, is best for those who prioritize ergonomics. It also lets users customize the look of the keyboard with color and pattern themes.

Gboard similarly offers swipe-typing, but its real value is in the embedded Web, image and GIF search functionality, Baldino said. It even includes an emoji search field.

"It's important that [Microsoft is] offering an ergonomic enhancement to the keyboard, but I think the Gboard is more powerful in general, because you're hooking into a really impressive search ecosystem," he said.

The new keyboards are fun and mostly easy to use, but not without faults. Baldino noted that there's a learning curve for people adjusting to swipe-typing and said he racked up many typos when first using Gboard.

Then there's the question of privacy.

"Now my data's going to Google. Everything I type in is going to Google," Baldino said. "That's scary for a lot of people who are worried about how much data big companies have."

Google says it only collects search information and nothing else that users type with Gboard, even though it asks for full permission during installation to transmit any and all information. Microsoft also asks for that level of permission.

aelahi@tribpub.com

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Beryl Satter knew something like this was bound to happen. Or, rather, to happen again.

The Rutgers historian wrote the book on an obscure form of predatory lending from the mid-20th century that victimized black home buyers when banks would not lend them mortgages. Her book, "Family Properties," came out in 2009, on the heels of the housing crash. And as she traveled the country talking about it - about families defrauded from the homes they thought they owned, about sellers who promised home ownership but collected deposits and evictions instead - people kept approaching her.

"Pretty much everywhere I go, people say 'I've been hearing about this,'" Satter says. "Contract" selling is making a comeback.

In this model, buyers shut out from conventional lending are offered an alternative: They can make monthly payments on a home directly to the seller, instead of a bank, with the promise of receiving the deed only once the property is entirely paid off, 20 or 30 years down the road. In the meantime, they have few of the legal protections of a typical home buyer but all of the responsibilities of one. They don't build equity with time. They can be easily evicted. And if that happens, they lose all of their investment.

According to the Detroit Free Press, more homes were bought in Detroit last year using such "land contracts" or "contracts for deeds" than conventional mortgages. In a series of recent stories, the New York Times has reported that Wall Street is now betting on this market, with investors buying foreclosed homes by the thousands and selling them on contract. Earlier this week, the Times reported that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is now investigating the practice's resurgence, although it is not by definition illegal.

What is particularly alarming about the trend, though, is that we've seen it before. In its earlier incarnation, it was an explicitly racist form of exploitation. And now it is victimizing the same groups again: mostly lower income and minority home buyers who can't access traditional credit.

"There's nothing new here in the slightest," Satter says. "This is just a continuation of the same old game. That's what's so disturbing."

In the earlier era when this was common, between the 1930s and 1960s, contract lending was in some cities the primary means middle-class blacks had to buy homes. Real estate agents and speculators jacked up the price of properties two- or threefold. Then when families fell behind on a month's payment or on repairs, they were swiftly evicted. The sellers kept their deposits and found the next family.

Satter's father, Chicago lawyer Mark Satter, helped organize black Chicagoans to fight the practice in the 1950s. He estimated then that about 85 percent of homes bought by black in Chicago were bought on contract. "It was the way you bought," Beryl Satter says. "There was no other way." Many of those families then struggled to keep their homes in a system that was not sustainable by design.

Atlantic writer Ta-Nehisi Coates based his blockbuster 2014 article "The Case for Reparations" around the story of Chicago blacks who suffered under this system, the outgrowth, as he put it, of a segregated city with "two housing markets - one legitimate and backed by the government, the other lawless and patrolled by predators."

The Times reports of what's happening today sound eerily similar. Writers Matthew Goldstein and Alexandra Stevenson report that an estimated 3 million people have bought homes through contracts, although the numbers are hard to track given that the deals are regulated differently in each state and are not subject to the same disclosures as mortgages.

The practice is particularly common, they report, in distressed Midwestern communities like Akron and Detroit, where the government offered hundreds of foreclosed properties to investors in bulk sales. Those same investors, the Times reports, have turned around and sold the properties on contract to moderate-income buyers for sometimes four times as much.

Why now?

But why, though, would a financial scheme created in an era of sanctioned racial discrimination be making a resurgence today? Since Satter's father tried to sue over the tactic a half-century ago, the Fair Housing Act and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act were passed. And the end of legal discrimination opened up legitimate lending to more blacks who were no longer forced into the housing market's rapacious underworld.

But a crucial similarity between the two eras exists: Many people still can't get loans today.

Now, this is the case because lenders have tightened their credit standards since the crash, overcorrecting for the bubble's exuberance with historic stinginess. The Urban Institute has counted more than 5 million loans currently "missing" from the housing market - mortgages that would have been made between 2009 and 2014 if lenders used the kind of credit standards that were common back in 2001, a benchmark for more reasonable lending prior to the housing bubble.

Millions of Americans over this same time have had their credit ruined by foreclosures - in many cases because of predatory subprime lending that has now put them in the crosshairs of predatory land contracts. Minorities who were disproportionately targeted for the former are not surprisingly concentrated among those caught up in the latter.

"When the banks close down, people still need to buy," Satter says. And so they find a way. Just as creative investors find a way to meet their demand. Land contracts are to housing what payday loans are to banking and Rent-A-Centers are to furniture. What people in need can't access through credit someone is always willing to provide - for a price.

A lawyer for Harbour Portfolio Advisors in Dallas, one of the larger players in the new wave of contract lending, told the Times that the firm's business model is "to purchase unproductive residential properties and sell them to other people who will make them productive again." But Satter frames this differently.

"Choices that black Americans have had for housing loans have been predatory loans, or no loans," she says. And when banks choose not to loan, she adds, this is who they choose not to loan to. "The result," Satter says, "is a complete revival of redlining in a slightly different guise."

This is why she wasn't surprised to see the practice she'd studied as a historian (and lived through with her family in the 1950s) re-emerge as front-page news.

One other factor, though, helps explain why contract selling is back again. The demand among buyers who can't get mortgages is deep. But so is the supply of houses that might accommodate buyers at the moderate end of the market. The foreclosure crisis created a vast stock of vacant homes, many of which have deteriorated through neglect. Steven Brown, an affiliated scholar at the Urban Institute, has shown that the number of homes worth less than $50,000 has been growing.

So an investor who has bought up thousands of distressed foreclosures for $10,000-$20,000 a piece has to get creative. These properties need expensive repairs, meaning there likely isn't much profit in repairing and renting them. They aren't likely to appreciate much over time in stagnant markets like Detroit or Akron, so an investor can't simply sit on them waiting for a recovery. And these homes can't easily be sold at a profit to buyers - even with some modest flipping - because buyers in this market can't get mortgages.

Contract selling, in other words, is just about the most profitable thing an investor could do with these homes. And that opportunity is colliding right now with a time of desperation for would-be buyers.

One way to look at this situation - today or in the 1950s - is that a market failure exists. Something is not working right in the world of legitimate home lending that's causing families to reach for dubious alternatives, and that's prompting dangerous models to proliferate. Satter, though, doesn't see it this way.

"It's a market success," she says, viewed from the standpoint of the investors. "They figured out a great way to make a huge amount of money in this situation."

As for market failures, she says, maybe we should rethink the term. "If you're looking at how a market works, this is how it works - people saw an opportunity, they came in and grabbed it," she says. "The market doesn't care about fair housing for people, or that families need a place to live."

And that is the other lesson of history that is repeating itself.
A Southwest Airlines jet takes off at Midway Airport in Chicago. (Scott Olson / Getty Images) ** OUTS - ELSENT, FPG, CM - OUTS * NM, PH, VA if sourced by CT, LA or MoD **)

Southwest Airlines marks its 45th year in business next month, but to hear Chief Executive Gary Kelly tell it, the carrier can still undergo a major growth spurt.

"We still have tremendous opportunities to expand," the CEO of the Dallas-based airline said Monday during a meeting with the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board.

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Southwest serves 98 destinations, of which 87 are in the United States. The latest is Long Beach, Calif., where service begins next month.

In 2014, it launched international flights and currently serves 11 foreign markets, with the focus mostly on Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. About three international flights depart daily from Chicago's Midway Airport, where it has one of its biggest operations.

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Southwest, which consistently gets high service scores, has one of the world's largest fleets.

It has 714 Boeing 737s and, "with the expansion opportunities that have now been created, we have potentially 50 more destinations we can add to our route map, all in North America with some, maybe a half a dozen cities, that are a potential for us in South America," said Kelly, who is in Chicago for his company's annual shareholder meeting.

"Hawaii, Alaska are both in scope, and Canada is easily within our scope," Kelly said.

Additional opportunity exists in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America, he said, but, "having said that, over the next 15 to 20 to 25 years, I'll bet most of our expansion will be in the 48 states because we fly point to point and there are still a lot of major" cities that Southwest doesn't serve.

Besides travelers who are fans of Southwest, that could also be good news for Chicago-based Boeing, maker of the 737.

"Those growth opportunities equate to maybe 500 airplanes on top of the 714 we already have," Kelly said, not committing to a timeline for those airplane orders.

byerak@tribpub.com

Twitter @beckyyerak
Gannett boosted its all-cash offer to acquire Tribune Publishing to $15 per share, raising the stakes after the Chicago-based owner of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and other major newspapers earlier this month rejected an unsolicited $12.25-a-share bid.

The revised offer, disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday, values Tribune Publishing at $864 million, rather than $815 million, including the assumption of debt.

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The sweetened bid is nearly double the price that Tribune Publishing's stock was trading at before Gannett made its initial offer public on April 25. It increases pressure on Tribune Publishing's board to open the door to discussions in advance of the company's annual meeting June 2, where Gannett is enlisting shareholders for a mostly symbolic proxy fight.

"We're looking for the board to  move forward so that we can get in and start our due diligence," said Robert Dickey, president and chief executive officer of Gannett. "We're ready to go tomorrow, if they give us the heads-up."

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Tribune Publishing confirmed receipt of the higher bid Monday and said in a news release its board will "thoroughly review" Gannett's revised proposal.

The higher offer reflects additional analysis of Tribune financial statements filed earlier this month, and Gannett's "greater confidence in its ability to yield additional operating improvements" in the transaction, the company said. Gannett previously said it would save $50 million annually through the Tribune Publishing acquisition.

Cowen and Co. analyst Lance Vitanza said Monday the increased bid should get both sides talking, with perhaps a less hostile dynamic.

"It's certainly a step in the right direction," Vitanza said. "It leaves us increasingly confident that a consensual transaction will ultimately occur."

Gannett and Tribune Publishing leadership met Thursday in Chicago, but reported no progress, according to a Gannett filing Friday.

At the meeting, Tribune Publishing Chairman Michael Ferro detailed a recently unveiled digital strategy named "Tronc" that he said would create more value for shareholders, Dickey said Monday.

Monday's increased offer was based on financial information gleaned from Tribune Publishing's first-quarter earnings report, which revealed more cash on the books, slightly lower debt and reduced pension liability, Dickey said. It was not based on Tribune Publishing's revised long-term earnings projections or Tronc.

"We met with Michael last Thursday for two hours," Dickey said. "He spent most of his time focused on Tronc. Having been in this business for a number of years, I walked away not convinced that Tronc was going to solve the problems, based on some of the infrastructure issues that Michael pointed out."

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Tribune Publishing CEO Justin Dearborn defended the company's new digital strategy in a statement Monday afternoon.

"There's no question that the publishing industry has been turned upside down, and we have been very clear that a fundamentally new approach is necessary to succeed," Dearborn said. "We are leveraging new technology to enable us to monetize our content and dramatically expand revenue and profitability going forward."

Ferro became Tribune Publishing's largest shareholder in early February when his investment firm, Merrick Media, bought a 16.6 percent stake in a $44.4 million deal that priced the stock at $8.50 per share.

McLean, Va.-based Gannett, publisher of USA Today and more than 100 other newspapers, initially offered to buy Tribune Publishing for $12.25 per share in an all-cash deal that included the assumption of $390 million in debt. Tribune Publishing's board voted unanimously to reject the offer May 4. Tribune Publishing's board adopted a "poison pill" May 9, which could discourage Gannett from going directly to Tribune Publishing shareholders with a tender offer.

Tribune Publishing's second-largest shareholder, Los Angeles investment firm Oaktree Capital Management, said earlier this month it wants the Chicago-based newspaper to explore a possible sale to Gannett. Oaktree owns 14.8 percent of Tribune Publishing.

Gannett is launching a proxy campaign among Tribune Publishing shareholders, asking them to withhold their votes to elect the company's board for the annual meeting. It is also talking directly with the larger Tribune Publishing shareholders to try to move a deal forward.

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"Our team has had conversations with shareholders and I think they're very concerned about a scenario where a deal does not get done here," John Jeffry Louis, chairman of Gannett's board of directors, said Monday. "I think they want this Tribune board to engage with us, to begin a conversation, let us get through the door and begin to do our due diligence, so we can understand exactly what these two companies look like together."

Dickey said combining Gannett and Tribune Publishing would create a "sustainable model" in an industry that has seen declining revenues for years, as legacy newspapers struggle to navigate the evolving digital media landscape.

"We want to be the largest digital news network in America, and we're on track to do that," Dickey said. "And by doing that, we can build a model that gives our employees some stability and gives our shareholders value."

In his statement, Dearborn acknowledged the "tremendous synergies" of combining the companies, but said Tribune Publishing's new strategy would lead to sustainable success.

"The path to success requires an innovative new approach that reinvents the publishing business model  you can't cut your way to growth and sustainable profitability," Dearborn said. "We are confident that we have the plan, technology and the team necessary to drive growth."

Tribune Publishing's stock was up nearly 23 percent to close at $14.08 per share Monday.

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Twitter @RobertChannick
Bill Rotter, who after finding a lump in his breast had a single mastectomy, now tries to bring awareness to this rare but possible form of cancer in men by openly talking and writing about what he went through. (Darren Hauck / For The Washington Post)

Joe Scholten's sister had already beaten breast cancer and was battling ovarian cancer when she tested positive for a genetic mutation linked to both. He responded by doing something unusual: He got tested, too.

That's how the District of Columbia resident discovered that he also carried the defective BRCA gene. He quickly told his brothers, other relatives and, hardest of all, his daughter. "Getting tested was a no-brainer," he said, wondering what steps his sister would have taken if she'd learned early on about her own genetic risk. She was 54 when the ovarian cancer killed her. He realizes now that not knowing your medical pedigree is "clearly a danger."

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Yet Scholten's action makes him an outlier. Many women are acutely aware of the stark dangers posed by mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes - the kind that prompted actress Angelina Jolie to have her breasts and ovaries removed preemptively. Few men, however, know that the same genetic defects can have deadly consequences for them as well as their children.

New research could prompt a major rethinking. BRCA mutations were already linked to prostate cancer, and a growing body of studies suggests they might play an even bigger role than early findings indicated. Men with these mutations are more likely than non-carriers to contract aggressive, lethal prostate cancer, to be diagnosed at a more advanced stage and to ultimately die of the disease, researchers say. Just last week, a new analysis showed that men with BRCA2 mutations had a higher rate of late-stage prostate cancer at the time of diagnosis and worse outcomes.

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"We are only just beginning to truly understand how these genes could impact a man's risk," said Brian Helfand, a urologic oncologist with NorthShore University HealthSystem in Evanston, Ill.

The latest studies suggest that a man's BRCA status can be an important piece of information, especially at a time when many doctors are taking a less aggressive stance in screening and treating prostate cancer.

The two genes produce proteins that help repair damaged DNA, and alterations in either diminish the body's defense against cancer. Besides being linked to breast, ovarian and prostate cancers, BRCA defects have been implicated in melanoma and pancreatic cancer. If a parent has the mutation, a child has a 50 percent chance of inheriting it.

Although many people who have these mutations won't ever get cancer, the risks are still much higher. They differ by individual cases, race and gender.

An estimated 12 percent of women will develop breast cancer during their lifetimes, according to the National Cancer Institute. That proportion rises to as high as 65 percent of women who inherit a BRCA1 mutation and about 45 percent for those with a BRCA2 defect. Almost 40 percent of women with a BRCA1 mutation and up to 17 percent with a BRCA2 defect will get ovarian cancer.

Men's risk of getting breast cancer, generally one in 1,000, rises to about 7 percent for BRCA2 mutation carriers. That's "significantly elevated," said Marc Schwartz, co-director of the cancer prevention and control program at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. A BRCA1 mutation also appears to increase the risk, but it's not clear by how much.

As for prostate cancer, the analysis presented last week at an American Urological Association meeting found that 17 percent of patients with BRCA2 mutations already had advanced disease, four times the rate of patients without the mutation. In a study on African American men, researchers at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center examined more than 850 archived blood samples and found that blacks were more likely than whites to have a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, as well as more aggressive disease.

"The problem is, everyone associates this with women and their cancers," said Bruce Montgomery, an oncologist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance/University of Washington Medical Center. "In men's minds, BRCA is about breast cancer, so they don't see it as relevant."

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Bill Rotter, 63, of Mequon, Wisconsin, wishes he had known earlier about his BRCA2 mutation. He probably wouldn't have ignored the pea-sized lump he discovered next to his right nipple in late 2013. When he finally had a mammogram, ultrasound and then biopsy, invasive ductal carcinoma was found, making him one of about 2,200 American men diagnosed with breast cancer each year. About 400 die of the disease annually.

Rotter had a mastectomy on his right side and a second surgery a few weeks later to remove 13 lymph nodes because the cancer had appeared in a "sentinel" node. Chemotherapy and radiation followed. He learned of his genetic mutation in between the two surgeries and wonders if earlier action could have prevented the disease from spreading.

In retrospect, he said, the finding shouldn't have been a surprise: His father died of prostate cancer at 64, and two of his father's brothers also died of the disease. A male first cousin he had never met died of breast cancer in his 30s. Plus, his family's Ashkenazi Jewish heritage increases the chance of being a mutation carrier by tenfold.

The father of two sons is now what Boston College sociologist Sharlene Hesse-Biber calls a "BRCA warrior," one of a small group of men determined to alert others to the dangers of inherited genetic defects. "My passion is to create awareness about the genetic component of cancer," said Rotter, who writes occasional blog posts for Ambry Genetics, a company that offers testing. "It is amazing how many people, even in the field of medicine, have no clue."

BRCA mutations have testing and treatment implications for men, who, for starters, should be screened for prostate cancer starting at age 40, according to Theodora Ross, director of the cancer genetics program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

In addition, drugs called PARP inhibitors, which have been shown to benefit some ovarian cancer patients with BRCA mutations, may be of use for prostate cancer patients with the gene defects.

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But if men embrace more genetic testing, they'll inevitably face the kind of questions women have been dealing with for years. Not all families want to discuss their health risks, as Vincent Moltisanti of Staten Island realized when his breast cancer was diagnosed in 2005.

He put together a family medical history - no easy task - and underwent genetic counseling. "In Italian families, no one gives out information about their health; it's on a need-to-know basis," said Moltisanti, who is now 68. "You have to kind of guess what your great aunts and uncles had and what caused their demise."

When testing showed he had a BRCA mutation, his daughter, Jaime, was tested and told she was positive as well. She planned to have her breasts and ovaries removed at some point but died of lung cancer in 2014.

Moltisanti urged his two older brothers to take action. Neither was interested. "You'd think they would want to know," the retired longshoreman said, adding that he worries not only about both of them but about his nieces and nephews and their children.

Scholten understands the risks of family secrets. His sister, a lawyer who lived in Alabama, contracted breast cancer in the early 2000s but kept it to herself because their mother had dementia, and she didn't want to upset her. She didn't know that a male cousin had died of breast cancer.

If her doctors had known about their cousin, maybe they would have ordered testing much earlier, Scholten said. As it happened, his sister didn't undergo testing until after her ovarian cancer was diagnosed.

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"The dots," he said, "didn't get connected."
Guests take a walk on the wild side on the outer rim of the CN Tower, nearly 1,200 feet above the streets of Toronto. (CN Tower)

Here are some of the more interesting deals, websites and other travel tidbits that have come across our desk recently:

The seven-day Sahara Adventure from Foreign Independent Tours travels across Morocco by four-wheel-drive vehicle, spending two nights in Marrakesh and one night each in Boumalne, Ouarzazate, Zagora and Erfoud. It's priced from $1,419 per person double occupancy, including lodging, breakfast and dinner each day, an English-speaking guide and a variety of tours. International airfare is extra. 800-248-3487, http://tinyurl.com/zzq95hw

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RELATED: TRENDING LIFE & STYLE NEWS THIS HOUR

The Three-Centre Tour of Ireland from Irishtourism.com is a 10-night self-drive package. From July to September, it's priced as low as about $1,016 per person, double occupancy for three nights' lodging each in Kilkenny and Dublin or Galway, four nights' lodging in Kerry and a rental car. Airfare is extra. 877-298-7205, http://tinyurl.com/gstxocm

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Wyndham Extra Holidays has savings of up to 40 percent this summer for resort family suites at a variety of locations across the U.S. Bookings must be made by Aug. 14 for travel through Sept. 30. http://tinyurl.com/z2jgeff

The new USAbreaks from Liberty Travel are three-night getaways to major U.S. cities such as San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, Boston and Las Vegas. Pricing includes round-trip air from a variety of places, lodging and in some instances tours. 877-823-8888, http://tinyurl.com/hvg3utv

The new Best of Sri Lanka tour from Friendly Planet Travel includes round-trip air from New York, 10 nights' lodging, most meals, and escorts and guides throughout. Price is from $3,699 per person, double occupancy for an Oct. 24 departure. If you book by June 28 and use code GoSriLanka you can get $100 off. http://tinyurl.com/jdgum3s

Bicyclists looking to tour in Michigan can find information at http://tinyurl.com/zst39nf.

Untours, which specializes in packages in foreign destinations that include apartment rental and a means of transportation, is adding Scotland to its roster of destinations. Beginning in September, rentals will be available in Stirling, in central Scotland, with or without a rental car. http://tinyurl.com/zbfcnc8

Think you've got a good eye? Enter your best wildlife photos at http://tinyurl.com/jamlca5 for a chance to win a wildlife photo tour from Natural Habitat Adventures.

Check out culinary cooking vacations in Michigan at http://tinyurl.com/jppn32s.

Visitors to Toronto with nerves of steel can try EdgeWalk, a walk around the outside roof of the CN Tower, 1,168 feet above ground. You can buy tickets (about $152) in advance at www.edgewalkcntower.ca.

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Germany is celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 and is mounting three stateside exhibitions relating to the work and life of Martin Luther. They'll open in October this year in New York, Minneapolis and Atlanta. http://tinyurl.com/j9jk2pv

The Festival d'ete de Quebec music celebration will be July 7-17 in Quebec City. www.infofestival.com

Prices include taxes and fees unless otherwise noted. Deals and websites listed here have been checked for availability as of press time, but the listings are not endorsements.

Phil Marty is a freelance writer.

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Chicago police are warning Rogers Park residents about a group of people who have been robbing commuters as they walk from neighborhood Red Line stops.

The most recent robbery was about 7 a.m. Friday in the 7000 block of North Sheridan Road, according to police.

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In the robberies, people were walking from the Morse or Loyola Red Line stops when several people approached them, hit them and took their belongings, according to an alert issued by Area North detectives. The robbers have taken items including cash, wallets, a backpack, a cellphone and work uniforms.

In addition to the robbery Friday, the thieves also have struck:

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In the 1400 block of West Lunt Avenue between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on Tuesday

And in the 6900 block of North Glenwood Avenue about 8:20 p.m. on May 7

Police did not release detailed descriptions of the robbers in the two earlier robberies, but said four men or boys were in the earliest attack, and five men ages 21 to 29 were behind the second. In the most recent attack, the robbers were described as a black man, age 35 to 40, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, a white T-shirt, blue jeans and black gym shoes, and a black woman, age 25 to 30, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans.

Police said there were no surveillance photos yet available of the robbery suspects.

Anyone with information about the robberies is asked to call 911 or call Area North detectives at 312-744-8263.
Four years ago, renowned Chicago restaurateur and chef Tony Hu boasted to the Tribune that his empire of Chinese restaurants would someday be big enough to earn a spot on the New York Stock Exchange.

But in federal court Monday, the man nicknamed "Mayor of Chinatown" for his business and political prowess saw his stock sink to an all-time low.

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In a raspy voice, Hu, 48, whose given name is Hu Xiaojun, pleaded guilty to felony fraud and money laundering charges alleging he hid more than $10 million in cash receipts at nine of his restaurants to skirt paying $1.1 million in sales taxes to Illinois.

Hu faces from probation up to 51 months in prison when he is sentenced Aug. 22 by U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve. He also agreed to pay restitution of $1,087,000 to Illinois.

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The swift guilty plea came just three days after charges were announced and closes a federal investigation that dates to at least mid-2012, when authorities won court authorization to intercept and search messages on an email address connected to Hu's business.

As part of the probe, agents dined while undercover at two of Hu's restaurants to try to learn more about how a record of transactions was maintained, even questioning waiters on the subject, the court records show.

The probe became public in October 2014 when FBI and IRS agents raided eight of Hu's restaurants in Chicago and a ninth in suburban Downers Grove. The restaurants had to be shuttered for several hours as agents carted out boxes of records.

In court Monday, Hu stood at a lectern dressed in a dark suit and eye glasses, at times asking for a translation of the proceedings by a Mandarin interpreter. He told the judge he'd graduated from community college in China and taken English classes after moving to the United States in 1993.

When the judge asked him what he did for a living, Hu said "80 percent" of his time was spent doing community service work and the rest of the time he worked at his restaurants. Later, when St. Eve asked Hu how he pleaded to the charges of wire fraud and money laundering, he said "guilty, your honor," in a thick accent.

Hu declined to comment after court. His attorney, Sheldon Zenner, said that by pleading guilty and making restitution Hu hoped to restore faith in him "as an upstanding member of society who cares deeply about his family, his friends, his community and the city he loves, Chicago."

"He has had a career of community service and good works well before any of this ever happened," Zenner told reporters in the lobby of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. "We intend to bring all of that to the judge's attention (at sentencing)."

In his 23-page plea agreement with prosecutors, Hu admitted he schemed to defraud the state revenue department for nearly five years, from January 2010 until at least September 2014.

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According to the plea, Hu "modified" daily summaries of each day's sales at nine of his restaurants to conceal transactions conducted in cash. Hu, his managers and employees discarded "close-out reports" that detailed the cash transactions as well as most of the actual receipts for cash sales.

With the cash sales removed, Hu had the remaining receipts totaled and then reported those numbers as the restaurants' sales figure, authorities charged.

Hu admitted in the plea deal that he used cash generated from the restaurants' sales to pay restaurant employees and suppliers without recording the expenses in the restaurants' financial records. He also used the cash he saved in the scheme to pay for personal expenses.

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The money laundering count stems from a $50,000 check he wrote in 2011 to buy his Lao Hunan restaurant in the 2200 block of South Wentworth Avenue, according to the plea agreement. Hu admitted he knew some of those funds had been derived from the false-reporting scheme.

It's unclear how many restaurants Hu now runs, but at one time his empire numbered as many as a dozen restaurants, the bulk of them concentrated within a half-square-mile area near the heart of Chinatown.

He was best known for the Lao Sze Chuan franchise, but he also owned restaurants in the north and west suburbs and even Connecticut and Las Vegas at one time.

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A 2012 Tribune feature on Hu indicated he had ambitious plans for the next five years, including opening restaurants in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles and even having his company, Tony Gourmet Group, traded publicly on the stock market.

Hu is a naturalized U.S. citizen and will not face deportation because of the felony conviction, Zenner said.

jmeisner@tribpub.com

Twitter @jmetr22b
Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is escorted by soldiers to a waiting helicopter in Mexico City on Jan. 8, 2016, after he was recaptured from breaking out of a maximum security prison in Mexico. (Rebecca Blackwell / AP)

MEXICO CITY  A second Mexican judge has ruled that the extradition of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States can go forward, judicial authorities announced Monday.

The process still awaits approval of Mexico's foreign ministry and it can be appealed.

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The judge's decision was on an extradition request from a federal court in Texas. Last week, another judge made the same determination on a separate extradition request from a federal court in California.

The second decision starts another 20-day period during which the foreign affairs ministry can decide to allow the extradition. If it approves the extradition, Guzman's lawyers could appeal, making it possible that the extradition of the leader of the Sinaloa cartel could still be months away.

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The courts said Monday that the second case is related to charges for conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and marijuana, money laundering, arms possession and murder.

Guzman faces charges from seven federal prosecutors in the U.S., including Chicago, New York, Miami and San Diego.

Guzman was arrested in January after almost six months on the run following his escape from a maximum security prison through a mile-long tunnel that opened to the floor of his shower.

He had already escaped once before in 2001 and spent more than a decade as one of the world's most wanted fugitives until he was recaptured in 2014.

After his latest capture, authorities returned him to the same Altiplano prison of the brazen tunnel escape. They said they had reinforced the prison's security.

But earlier this month, Guzman was suddenly transferred to a prison near the U.S. border in what the government said had to do with new efforts to improve security at Altiplano.

Associated Press
Listen to the 911 call made by former Elk Grove Village police officer Jeffrey Hawkins on April 25, 2016, after he says he fatally shot his wife in Ohio. (Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune)

An Ohio judge has kept bond at $3 million for a suburban Cincinnati man who called 911 and reported: "I just shot and killed my wife."

Fifty-seven-year-old Jeffrey Hawkins pleaded not guilty Tuesday, a day after a Hamilton County grand jury indicted him on aggravated murder and murder counts. His attorney called the situation "an anomaly."

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Hawkins surrendered at his home April 25. He told authorities 59-year-old Jo Ann Hawkins took money from their bank account and refused to talk with him before he shot her multiple times with a handgun.

Hawkins calls himself a public safety and security professional.

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Elk Grove Village Police Chief Stephen Schmidt says Hawkins resigned in 1999 when the suburban Chicago department he joined in 1990 began investigating a complaint that he used unnecessary force.

Associated Press
Recently, I've been rereading "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." In this political season, William L. Shirer's mammoth history of Hitler's Germany seems a useful guide to how a skilled demagogue can seize and destroy a great nation.

Hitler's rise, as narrated by Shirer, was the triumph of an unlikely messiah  "the man with the Charlie Chaplin mustache, who had been a down-and-out tramp in Vienna in his youth, an unknown soldier, the somewhat comical leader of the Beer Hall Putsch, this spellbinder." How did this preposterous upstart bend one of the most cultured of nations to his will?

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He did it partly through the ballot box. In the early 1930s, Hitler's National Socialist Party, the Nazis, rose through a series of free elections. It never won a majority in any of them, but emerged as the strongest of several parties in the Reichstag, or parliament. Hitler then connived his way to the office of chancellor, or prime minister, playing on the vanity, foolishness, ambition and greed of non-Nazis to out-maneuver them all.

The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.  William L. Shirer

"No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler," Shirer wrote. "The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it."

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Hitler never got more than 37 percent of the vote. "But the 63 percent of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out."

Hitler's rise owed everything to the 1929 stock market crash and the global Depression that followed it. Under the Republic, Germany had begun to recover from its defeat in World War I. Then, suddenly, "millions were thrown out of work. Thousands of small business enterprises went under."

According to Shirer, Hitler "was both ignorant of and uninterested in economics. But he was not uninterested in or ignorant of the opportunities which the Depression suddenly gave him. The suffering of his fellow Germans was not something to waste time sympathizing with, but rather to transform, cold-bloodedly and immediately, into political support for his own ambition."

Hitler played on this in the 1930 election, when the Nazis became the second biggest party. "To all the millions of discontented, Hitler in a whirlwind campaign offered what seemed to them, in their misery, some measure of hope. He would make Germany strong again  stamp out corruption, bring the money barons to heel (especially if they were Jews), and see to it that every German had a job and bread. To hopeless, hungry men seeking not only relief but new faith and new gods, the appeal was not without effect."

Hitler needed money and he turned his charm on the "politically childish men of the business world." Communists and socialists were strong and feared by business leaders. "They may not like the party's demagoguery and its vulgarity, but on the other hand it was arousing the old feelings of German patriotism and nationalism. It promised to lead the German people away from communism, socialism, trade-unionism and the futilities of democracy."

One of these "futilities," Shirer wrote, was a polarized and paralyzed parliament, "breaking down at a moment when the economic crisis made strong government imperative." Even the democratic government had begun ruling by decree.

Actually, the Republic had pampered the businessmen, bankers and landowners. Despite this, "with a narrowness, a prejudice, a blindness which seems inconceivable, they hammered away at the foundations of the Republic until, in alliance with Hitler, they brought it down."

Hitler also courted the army, still stung by its defeat in the war, and promised it new power in exchange for its support.

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In this way, Shirer wrote, Hitler, "a leader of the lower-middle-class masses, rallied, in addition to his own followers, the support of the upper-class Protestants of the north, the conservative Junker agrarians and a number of monarchists."

In 1932, Hitler ran for president against the octogenarian Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. "He flew from one end of Germany to the other. In the first campaign, he had harped on the misery of the people, the impotence of the Republic. Now he depicted a happy future for all Germans if he were elected: jobs for the workers, higher prices for the farmers, more business for the businessmen."

"In the Third Reich," he promised, "every German girl will find a husband."

He finished a strong second in a three-man race. Then, in a parliamentary election, the Nazis became the largest party, with 230 out of 608 seats. From this base, he played his enemies against each other and then persuaded the weary Hindenburg to make him chancellor.

Shirer wrote: "In this way, by way of the back door, by means of a shabby political deal with the old-school reactionaries he privately detested, the former tramp  became chancellor of a great nation."

Shirer, who published his book in 1960, was a Chicagoan and former foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. He was writing about Germany, not his own country. Because, as we all know, it can't happen here.

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Richard C. Longworth, a former chief European correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, is a fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.
A train ride, art made entirely out of jelly beans and a store filled with sweet delights have been drawing candy fans to the Jelly Belly Visitor Center in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, for 15 years. Today, it's become a popular tourist stop and a hub of family fun.

The confectionary adventure begins aboard the Jelly Belly Express, a complimentary 30-minute train tour where guests learn how the company creates delicious Jelly Belly jelly beans. The ride features video of the jelly bean-making process and fun facts about candy making. And no tour is complete without a free bag of Jelly Belly beans at the end of the ride!

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Inside the Jelly Belly Store, visitors can sample Jelly Belly jelly bean flavors and other confections, shop the fudge counter and discover new favorites for sale throughout the store.

This summer, the Jelly Belly Carnival is back July 7 to July 10. Families can enjoy carnival rides, a deal on fan-favorite Belly Flops, and extended store and tour hours. Times vary each day. Visit jellybelly.com for more details.

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The Jelly Belly Visitor Center is located at 10100 Jelly Belly Lane and is open daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tours operate 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For information and directions, call the 24-hour recorded line 866-868-7522, or go to JellyBelly.com.
Stephen Thurlow, music director at Marmion Academy in Aurora, accepts a salute from students, alumni and parents at his final concert. (Tom Strong / The Beacon-News)

After 33 years leading the Music Department at Marmion Academy in Aurora, Stephen Thurlow had an emotional last appearance as its director.

A "Mr. Holland's Opus" concert was celebrated for Thurlow, who worked with students at Marmion and Rosary High School and also led the Aurora All City Jazz Ensemble.

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The 1995 film "Mr. Holland's Opus" depicted alumni musicians returning for their beloved director's final concert, and Marmion and Rosary alums returned in a similar way to honor Thurlow.

Band alumni used the words "energetic," "passionate," and "family" when describing Thurlow.

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"Mr. Thurlow had the amazing ability to engage any student and bring out the best in them," said Mark Mackeben, a member of Marmion's graduating class of 2005.

Kate Purl said working with Thurlow was special.

"I was able to play as a professional for many years, and there were very few directors like him," she said. "If you look at the number of professional musicians who have come out of his program, it's a real testament to his career here."

Being at Marmion for 33 years, Thurlow's roots run deep at the academy.

"I met Mr. Thurlow on his first day here at Marmion," said Rich Lazarski, of the graduating class of 1986. "He took the band from a good program to a great one. Because of his influence, I made sure my kids were exposed to music as much as possible. It was very important to me during my time here."

As a one-time leader of the band parents at Marmion and Rosary, Delia Basile had similar memories.

"Mr. Thurlow was always so energetic and made you feel that same way," she said. "There wasn't anything you wouldn't do for him. There was always a way to get things done."

Marmion Academy Principal Tony Tinerella was a senior band member when Thurlow arrived as the new director in 1983. He remembered the young teacher very well.

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"When we met him at the beginning of senior year, we found this young ball of energy filled with passion and music desire," Tinerella said. "He inspired all of us to be better musicians and persons right from the beginning. Everything he does is high octane and high energy.

"He would bring his young family to rehearsals, and we felt we were part of his family as well," he said. "He's one of the most dedicated staff members we have ever had. We are naming a new most dedicated musician award in his honor."

After Tinerella invited the surprise visitors at Thurlow's last concert Thursday to be seated with the current students, Thurlow conducted the combined group in playing the school song, and was asked to say a few words.

"I remember one year we had the president of Notre Dame come to speak at commencement," he said. "Part of his address included the words 'surround yourself with excellence, and you have nothing to worry about.' That's what I did.

"I want to thank the Benedictine community especially. If you listen to them, it keeps you on the straight and narrow and keeps you focused," he said. "It's been an incredible family. They've shown incredible support over the years, and there's nothing better than that."

Seeing many of his former students at the concert was special, he said.

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"Thank you to all my students who have come back," he said. "It's a real celebration.

"Seeing the grads come back was fantastic," he said. "To feel the appreciation, but also their friendship."

He said even though he is retiring, he isn't finished with music.

"There are no final thoughts as I don't think there's finality here," he said. "There are open windows of opportunity. It might be conducting or writing, and spending more time with my family. I have grandchildren, and was appreciative that they were able to come to the concert."

Tom Strong is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
Sudie Gordon holds a T-shirt honoring her son, Emmanuel Johnson, in this 2015 photo taken prior to legal procedings against Antwane Nash, who was charged with his 2009 shooting death. (Frank Abderholden / Lake County News-Sun)

"I'll be out in a minute," Antwane Nash said over his shoulder moments after he was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday for a 2009 North Chicago murder.

His comment was part of a short back-and-forth with the victim's family and friends after the sentencing, an exchange that was quickly quashed by Judge Mark Levitt.

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After Nash was sentenced, someone in the gallery said "good luck with that" as corrections officers were leading Nash away, prompting the brief exchange.

Saying he would not allow outbursts in court, Levitt looked at the gallery and said "one more comment and you will be joining him."

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Nash pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of 23-year-old Emmanuel Johnson of North Chicago in exchange for the 20-year-sentence, which must be served at 100 percent. He could have faced 45 years to life in prison if convicted at trial.

Assistant State's Attorney Ari Fisz said Nash shot Johnson 15 times while standing behind him on June 24, 2009. The shooting occurred a few blocks from Johnson's home.

Prosecutors made no allegations with regard to a motive, but Fisz said the shooting was not gang-related.

Johnson's mother, Sudie Gordon, who cried while making a statement in court Monday and needed assistance stepping down from the stand, had previously told the News-Sun "the person who killed my son just hated him."

"We're very pleased that Mr. Nash has finally taken responsibility for killing Emmanuel Johnson," Fisz said after the negotiated plea was finalized.

Attorney David Weinstein, who represented Nash, had no comment after the sentencing.

Nash, 33, was indicted in 2014 on murder charges after the case had appeared to go cold. He had pleaded not guilty to three enhanced counts of first-degree murder.

Before his arrest, the case was turned over to the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force, which worked leads until they ran into a dead end. It was then transferred back to North Chicago police and became a cold case assigned to a detective.

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The break in the case came when Chicago police executed a search warrant and turned up a gun in the city, and ballistic tests identified it as the weapon used in Johnson's murder, according to North Chicago police.

The gun was reportedly linked to Nash, who was in prison on unrelated drug charges at the time.

Antwane Nash (Lake County Sheriff's Office / HANDOUT)

During her statement, Gordon said "a part of me was taken when Emmanuel was killed. My life has changed since that day."

Gordon said she has raised Johnson's daughter, and it has been the only thing to keep her going.

"Not only was my son taken, but my granddaughter's father was also taken," she said. "She will never know how special her father was. Every day I look at her and see my son."

Gordon said she has started a support group for parents and families of murder victims.

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"I wanted something good to come out of his death," she said. "This is the good that has come out of Emmanuel's death."

Nash has been held in Lake County Jail in lieu of $3 million bond since his arrest. He will be given credit toward his prison term for serving 824 days in jail.

jrnewton@tribpub.com

Twitter @jimnewton5
Everybody likes Jim McKay. He's swell. Happy, affable, intelligent, organized. He's got killer managerial skills.

Teachers in Lakes and Antioch high schools, which he jointly administers as superintendent, seem to like him. Parents and students, too.

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The school board that signs his Community High School District 117 paycheck really liked him.

So they gave him what will become a $258,824 bonus.

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Two weeks ago  after he announced his intention to retire in 2020 at age 55  the board tore up his old contract and gave him a new one to cover the last four years of what almost no one believes will be the end of his managerial life.

In the inter-community nuclear arms race of Illinois public school superintendent's salaries, almost no one quits at age 55. They go next door and make 200 G's for another public school district. And the cumulative-millionaires-in-waiting get pensions there, too.

They all become pension millionaires.

Getting that new contract did not make McKay a millionaire. He was already going to be a multi-millionaire presuming he lived the expected life span of 79 years. Based on numbers supplied by the state pension system, this bonus will give him $3,152,055 in accumulated benefits, instead of the $2,893,231 he would have gotten previously.

In the first year of his retirement, McKay will receive $96,462, which is twice the median household income in Illinois. Then the money spirals upward by 3 percent every year with a mandated compounded cost-of-living increase.

When he's 79, he'd get $195,000.

By jacking McKay's salary from $200,000 to $238,000 in four years, the board made that raise a permanent aspect of his pension.

This practice of "spiking" administrator contracts to drive up pensions has produced a postdated disaster for the Teachers Retirement System (TRS) of the State of Illinois pension fund.

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It's an easy gift because school boards don't have to pay for it. But the people who vote them into office do.

The unannounced pension juicing had become so ubiquitous and costly that the state was forced to charge a financial penalty on any district that jacked salaries more than 6 percent. District 117 slid under the legal wire.

The state's multiple public-employee pensions will not directly bankrupt the state, but millions in income taxes that should go to operate Illinois programs will be siphoned to fulfill pension obligations. It's bank-shot bankruptcy.

This is why Illinois seems broke and broken.

Cost shifting is a shell game that drives the lurking disaster. Hometown school boards pass pension obligations and then shift them for the state to pay. Not our problem. But the state is not "them" in these transactions. It's all the people whose elected school boards did just what District 117 did.

But the president of 117's board insists they did no such thing. In fact, Wayne Sobczak claims board members discussed all the financial ramifications and were informed that raising McKay's salary would have no effect on his pension. It's unclear who told them that.

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"The increases don't get added to his pension," Sobczak said. "That was fixed from two years ago. There's a (pension) freeze on administrators. In any case, he's well worth the expense, because he would get more money from other districts."

If District 117 believes administrator-pension increases have been frozen, that's a stunning surprise to Dave Urbanek, official spokesman for the TRS, which handles pensions for all administrators and teachers, excluding Cook County. That's 300,000 pensioners.

"I have no idea what the term 'freeze' means," Urbanek said. "There is no 'cap' or 'freeze.' The pension system treats administrators and teachers the same. The pension is the average of their four highest salaries over the last 10 years. That's the state law. There has been no change in the law."

Whatever District 117's board believed it approved, every member had different views three years before the elections. When asked about "spiking," they all condemned the concept in Daily Herald candidate questionnaires.

Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

"This scenario ('spiking') doesn't exist in our district," Sobczak responded then. "However if (it) did, it would not be an action that I would support. It just isn't acceptable or appropriate."

Responded victorious board candidate Bart Winkler: "Renewing a contract to put additional stress on an already stressed pension fund is not fiscally responsible for anyone."

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Whether taxpayers in District 117 believe they should pay half their property taxes to run their schools (they do) is irrelevant.

Whether they intended to make a competent administrator into a multi-millionaire for his service also is irrelevant. They have.

And will for the next 25 years.

They all really like Jim McKay.

David.Rutter@live.com
Stay on top of the news all day with the Tribunes web notifications. Well let you know  right in your web browser  when theres big breaking news happening, and also share our editors top picks so you see the best of what the Tribune has to offer.
In this 2015 file photo, waving at the news helicopter from the roof are, from left, Annie Marchiafava, a Glenview Police 911 shift dispatch supervisor, Neva Lewis, also of dispatch, and Sgt. Jeff Ader at the Glenview Dunkin' Donuts at 1750 Milwaukee Ave. at the Cop on a Rooftop to benefit Special Olympics Illinois May. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)

The Morton Grove Police Department this year for the first time has joined the list of hundreds of police departments across the state that send officers to the rooftops of Dunkin' Donut locations for one day in May to help raise money and awareness for Special Olympics Illinois.

By volunteering a few hours before and after their shifts on May 20, Morton Grove cops will begin staking out the rooftop of the Dunkin' Donuts shop at 5843 Dempster Street starting at 5 a.m. and continuing until 2 p.m.

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The event, known as Cop on a Rooftop and involves more than 230 police departments across the state, is designed to get people's attention by putting uniformed cops in a highly-visible, unlikely location along high-traffic areas, said Officer Gina Lietz of the Morton Grove Police Department.

And despite cops' reputation for being die-hard donut lovers, there's actually no connection to the event's location at a donut shop.

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"The Special Olympics partnered with Dunkin' Donuts for this, so we didn't' have anything to do with that decision," Lietz said. "We want to get people's attentionnot only to raise money for a good cause, but to get officers get to interact with people in the community so people get a chance to see cops in positive atmosphere."

Aside from a chance to bond with residents of the community, the event also presents a chance to increase camaraderie among officers, who don't actually spend much time together on the job.

"We all work different shifts so it's a nice chance to hang out together," Lietz said.

On the day of the event, a squad car will be parked outside the store and cops will use a megaphone to talk to people on the ground below.

Everyone who stops at Dunkin' Donuts and makes a donation will get a coupon for a free donut, and customers who donate at least $10 will get a travel mug advertising for the annual Law Enforcement Torch Run, which is the largest year-round fundraising event benefiting Special Olympics Illinois.

The Morton Grove Police Department host several events throughout the year to benefit the Law Enforcement Torch Run event, including "ButterBurgers and Badges" with Culver's restaurant franchise in June and the "O'Hare Plane Pull" in September. Police across the state have helped raise more than $22 million for Special Olympics Illinois athletes during the past 25 years, according to the organization.

Morton Grove Police will carry the torch, called the "Flame of Hope" on July 5 along Dempster Avenue between Milwaukee and Lockwood avenues.

More than 3,000 law enforcement officers in the state will help carry the flame 1,500 miles to its final destination in downstate Normal for the Opening Ceremonies of the Special Olympics Illinois Summer Games.

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Natalie Hayes is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
An ex-convict who is accused of forcing women to engage in commercial sex acts inside his Naperville townhouse and beating them when they refused to do so remained Monday in custody in Colorado.

Benjamin D. Biancofiori, 36, of the 1900 block of Golden Gate Lane in the Bridgewater area of Naperville's northwest side. faces a federal felony charge of sex trafficking by means of force, fraud and coercion, according to a release from the U.S. attorney's office.

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Biancofiori allegedly "used the promise of financial security to entice women into performing commercial sex acts on his behalf," a criminal complaint read in part. Biancofiori ran the operation "primarily out of his townhouse in Naperville," according to a court filing in U.S. District Court.

After Biancofiori persuaded the victims to work for him, "he would post their information in commercial sex advertisements on Backpage.com," the complaint declared. "He recruited one of his victims through an online messaging service on Facebook, the complaint continued.

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He then arranged for the women "to travel to meet clients at various locations in the Chicago area," according to the complaint.

Biancofiori "often beat and punched the women, and  arranged for one of his victims to be returned to him at gunpoint after she tried to run away," the complaint alleged. Biancofiori personally "kept a vast majority of the proceeds earned by the women," the complaint stated.

"For the past several weeks, Biancofiori has been traveling in the western U.S." the complaint said. He allegedly "advertised one of his victims on Backpage.com while in Phoenix and Denver in March."

It was not immediately clear where or how Biancofiori was taken into custody in Colorado. His preliminary appearance in court in Chicago has not yet been scheduled.

Phone numbers associated with Biancofiori on Monday were not in service, according to recorded messages.

An examination of court documents revealed Biancofiori has been arrested or ticketed at least 60 times since 1992 in DuPage and Kane counties. He was sentenced to three years in state prison in August 2013, after being convicted of a felony charge of unlawful use or possession of a weapon or ammunition by a convicted felon, after threatening a man with a gun in May 2011 during a party in Wood Dale, DuPage County court records showed.

He was sentenced to 120 days in DuPage County jail in July 2009 on a misdemeanor charge of false impersonation of a peace officer. That stemmed from his September 2008 arrest in Wheaton, after he told an assistant principal of Franklin Middle School he was "a Naperville police officer assigned to a prostitution task force," records indicated.

Biancofiori also was sentenced to 18 months of probation on a charge of felony retail theft, for shoplifting in July 2003 from the Jewel-Osco store at 127 E. Ogden Ave. in Naperville, according to records.

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He also was sentenced to five years in the Illinois Department of Corrections' boot camp program for his first felony offenses, which involved robbery and aggravated battery on separate occasions in Glen Ellyn and Wheaton, records showed.

The sex-trafficking charge was announced by U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Zachary T. Fardon; Michael J. Anderson, special agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago office; and James D. Robnett, special agent-in-charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division's Chicago office.

The charge carries a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life in prison upon conviction.

wbird@tribpub.com
With the scope and penalties of Chinas social credit system being further clarified in 2021, legal and regulatory compliance has become more important than...
Editor's note: Although there's only a small Chinese presence at this year's Cannes Film Festival, China.org.cn can still take you back to look at some fond memories of Chinese filmmakers in previous years at the festival.

"The Enchanting Shadow" by director Li Han-Hsiang in 1960 [File photo]

1959

The first time a film made in China went to Cannes was in 1959, when "Slut and Saint," directed by Tian Chen, made its debut. The movie, which depicted the experiences of a woman during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, was China's first time in competition for the prestigious Palme d'Or.

1960

"The Enchanting Shadow" by director Li Han-Hsiang competed for the prestigious Palme d'Or.

1962

"The Magnificent Concubine" by director Li Han-Hsiang competed for Palme d'Or. It was the first Chinese-language film to win the Grand Prix for Best Interior Photography and Color, thanks to its sumptuously decorated palace scenes and beautiful costumes.

1963

"Empress Wu Tse-Tien" by director Li Han-Hsiang entered the main competition for Palme d'Or.
Veteran South Korean actress Song Hye Kyo, who played a leading role on the popular TV drama "The Descendants of Sun," has recently refused an offer to endorse a famous Japanese brand.

South Korean actress Song Hye Kyo [File photo]

Her refusal has won a big applause from a South Korean woman who is about 88 years old.

Recalling her miseries when she worked in a Japanese factory in 1944, the granny sent a letter to Song, saying that Madam Song has done something that even the President cannot do.

The Japanese factory mentioned in the letter belongs to the corporation whose offer Song denied.

The granny, who was falsely promised that she could enter a junior high school in Japan and earn lots of money before she embarked on her trip towards the country some forty years ago, found instead she was treated like cheap labor, working under difficult circumstances day and night and always on the verge of starvation. During her miserable life in Japan, she witnessed six of her colleagues die during a strong earthquake.

Tears came pouring out when she learned of Song's refusal to the Japanese company's offer, which according to her, helped her vent anger that had been harbored at the bottom of her hearts for so many years.

"Thank you Madam Song for being so resolute in making this choice," the granny wrote in her letter.

The sentiments in the granny's complimentary letter were echoed by a huge number of South Korean people when it was shown to the public.

"We feel so proud that Song is an actress from South Korea," some South Korean people commented.
Long Yongtu, former vice minister of China's Ministy of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, addresses a sub-forum with the theme of "Has Globalization Reached its Peak" during the 2016 Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in Boao, south China's Hainan Province, March 24, 2016. [Xinhua/Yang Guanyu]

The non-legislative resolution passed on Thursday by the European Parliament denying China's market economy status (MES) goes against globalization and signals the heavy presence of trade protectionism across the world, China's former chief negotiator for World Trade Organization (WTO) entry Long Yongtu said Sunday.

The EU lawmakers voted on Thursday (May 12) against granting China the status of market economy, pre-empting the proposal being prepared by the European Commission. Until China has fulfilled the EU's five criteria for market economy status, its exports to the EU must be treated in a "non-standard" way, said the MEPs.

The European Parliament made the resolution in the interests of European nations, but it chose the wrong topic and target, Long, former Chinese vice minister for trade, said at a forum on China and globalization.

A country does not need anyone else to recognize whether it is a market economy or not, Long said, stressing the European Parliament resolution is in essence protectionist and anti-globalization.

China's entry into the WTO has given people in many countries access to both inexpensive and fine-quality Chinese products, he added.

The resolution does not mean something has gone wrong with China's MES, and neither will it have any real impact on China, said Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian institute at the National University of Singapore.

The rise of populism in European and American countries that are now facing tremendous economic difficulties has taken the form of protectionism in external trade, Zheng noted.

China has replaced these countries as a main driver of globalization, and will remain so in the future, he said.

Long also stressed the importance of continuing globalization, saying that China will have a favorable environment for opening up only if globalization is sustained.
A bullet train leaves Shijiazhuang Rail Station, north China's Hebei province on May 15, 2016. [Photo: Xinhua]

A high-speed train left impoverished Sanjiang county in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Sunday and three hours late arrived in Guangzhou, 400 kilometers away.

Sunday witnessed China's biggest railway expansion for ten years with nearly new 300 pairs of trains.

Most of the new trains link small cities in central and west China with metropolises and hopes are high that better connectivity means increased prosperity.

Wu Yunsong, Party chief of Pingyan village in Sanjiang expects to see visitors from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.

In fact, the county has benefitted since 2014 from a high-speed train service between Guiyang, capital of Guizhou Province, and Guangzhou via Sanjiang.

"The train brings more than 2,000 visitors to Sanjiang each day," Wu said. "About 60 percent of villagers are profiting from tourism, at least 100 yuan (about 15.3 U.S. dollars) a day."

Better transportation has also helped farmers. A cargo service has brought fruit and vegetables from Guangxi directly to Beijing since the end of 2013.

In the last five years, about 1.85 trillion yuan was spent on railways in central and western areas, with about 23,000 kilometers of new lines opened. Last year, 9,531 kilometers of new lines went into operation at a cost of 824 billion yuan (about 127 billion U.S. dollars).

China plans to spend 3.5 trillion yuan in the next five years on more than 30,000 kilometers of new track, with central and western parts key to the plan.
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Photo taken on the morning of May 16th, 2016 shows Apple CEO Tim Cook taking a taxi hailed via Didi Chuxing to an Apple Store in Wangfujing, downtown Beijing with Didi president Liu Qing. [Photo: Tim Cook's Weibo Post]

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc, visited an Apple store in Beijing on Monday morning. He was accompanied by Liu Qing, president of Didi Chuxing, the largest ride-hailing service provider in China.

His visit came shortly after the California-based company announced on Friday it had pumped US$1 billion into Didi Chuxing, which is battling with Uber Technologies Inc for supremacy in the booming car-hailing sector.

Sources told China Daily that Tim Cook was in Beijing for an Apple Store developer activity where Liu acted as an emcee.

The two executives came to the Apple store by hailing a taxi via Didi's mobile platform.

Didi handles more than 11 million rides a day and has an estimated valuation of $25 billion.

Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation.
Police have dismantled a pyramid scheme involving more than 5,800 victims from 28 provinces and millions of yuan, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

Wantong Qiji, which became Global Unity, was run by World Capital Market Inc and claimed to sell third-party cloud computing services, according to a ministry statement.

The company promised investors returns of 60 to 80 percent in 100 days.

Xie, a businessman from south China's Guangdong Province, said he was asked to pay US$1,999 for company membership and would be rewarded with at least 32 digital assets, each worth a dollar, every day. He was told he could cash half of them in and spend the rest on the company's shopping website.

Between March 2013, when the scheme started, to August 2014, about 5,000 people invested. With the increase in membership and more "assets" being cashed in, the company shifted to other strategies, such as increasing fees and making excuses to delay payment. It also encouraged investors to trade digital assets among themselves.

In 2015, the company set up a string of new companies and persuaded investors to convert their digital assets to shares in the new companies. Eventually, most investors did not receive any return and many lost their original investment.

The scheme was run from Beijing by a small group led by WCM's president, surnamed Xu. They posed as high-profile investment bankers and venture capitalists and, to impress investors, organized trips for them to Hong Kong and Dubai.

Last June and August, police received alerts from the People's Bank of China and the Guangdong branch of China Securities Regulatory Commission that the company and its owners were not qualified to conduct public financing, and a criminal investigation began.

The ministry said the company did not invest any money from investors in any projects, nor could the capital it held have sustained the stated returns.

Xu is now in custody.

China has seen a rapid increase in illegal financing, from 2,000 cases a few years ago to 10,000 cases last year. In the first quarter of this year, police opened investigations into about 2,300 cases, including online peer-to-peer broker Ezubao, which cheated about 900,000 investors out of more than 50 billion yuan.

The Internet has made such schemes harder to detect and easier to operate, the ministry said. An increasing number involve foreign suspects and websites or servers registered abroad. A spokesman said police would be launching special operations into such schemes.
Recruited by a children's home in Chongqing, Li Chenghong, 52, is raising four children, aged between 3 and 14 years old. All have some disability and, before being put in the care of Li and her husband, 53-year-old Zhou Huagang, all lived in the orphanage.

Chongqing's foster parents give children a family

Li applied to be a foster parent six years ago after seeing an advert on TV. Now she and her husband live in a four-bedroom apartment at the home and are paid 2,000 yuan a month to care for the children.

"When I first came here, I had so many difficulties. I lost 10 kilograms of weight in the first month," Li said. Her daughter is a nurse, but Li had no experience of looking after disabled children.

Yesterday was China's national day for disabled people on May 15, an opportunity for child-care institutions to show how such arrangements have succeeded where conventional care often fails.

Chongqing was among the first to make use of foster parents and over the past nine years, more than 20 couples have worked with about 100 children.

Foster parents have to be at least 35 years old, with grown-up children who no longer need support. The mother must be a full-time housewife and if the father has a job, he must return home every day.

"We want the children to feel closeness, continual care and the integrity of a family," said Li Pengmei, director of the children's home.

Luo Jiaojiang, director of the social development institute at Wuhan University, said that finding full time parents can create a loving and stable family unit for the children. "Surrounded by caring adults, children have a better chance of emotionally healthy lives," she said.

China has more than half a million orphans and disabled children institutionalized for one reason or another in the care of almost 900 approved organizations.

Of the 500 children living at the Chongqing home where Li Chenghong works, around 90 percent have severe disabilities. Those who live with foster parents are generally the least severe cases.

"We are always looking for more couples willing to help us," said Li Pengmei."These foster parents really deserve so much credit."
Twenty three years after Samuel Huntington's popular article "The Clashes of Civilizations?" was published and caused calls for discussions between different civilizations, the initiative for talks is as relevant as ever in the current era of regional confrontations and inter-religious mistrust.

The second Changan Forum on Dialogue of Civilizations is held in the ancient capital Changan, today known as Xian, in Chinas northwestern province of Shaanxi between May 13 and 14. [Photo by Guo Yiming / China.org.cn]

In this context, and with the initiation of social activists like Gao Ping, president of the China's Qiaology Institute on Dialogue of Civilizations, the second Chang'an Forum was held in the ancient capital (Chang'an), today known as Xi'an, in China's northwestern Shaanxi province on May 13 and 14. Over 30 representatives from academia, think tanks, civil society, business circles and the media discussed ways of promoting mutual understanding, inclusiveness and connectivity between civilizations.

The initiative answers the call of the country's policymakers to boost regional cooperation and development as President Xi Jinping proposed a conference between Asian nations last year at the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), which, in his words, can act as a platform to enhance interactions among young people, local communities and the media and to form a network of cooperation.

At the Chang'an Forum, Ambassador Mussie Hailu from the Economic, Social and Cultural Council of the African Union (AU-ECOSOCC) and Regional Director of United Religions Initiative-Africa, said he believes that the time has come to promote peaceful coexistence and harmony through constructive dialogue and that mutual respect is the essence and one of the golden rules to deliver good results.

"Dialogue of Civilizations represents the general trend of our times and is something that is impossible in times of war or revolution," said Chen Keqin, senior journalist with China's Guangming Daily and an expert in Israeli civilization. He also said that it is vital to find common interests during the talks, as with the case of promoting the "Belt and Road" Initiative.

Fang Weigui, a professor at Beijing Normal University, agrees with Chen and thinks it is quite hard for sides with different views to sit down for sincere talks.

"Dialogue and exchanges between different cultures and civilizations should be based on common interests," argued Fang who finds it pointless to share and introduce one's culture without an understanding of the target audience, particularly when it comes to promoting Confucius Institutes and the "Belt and Road" Initiative, which have brought about something of a backlash in the western world due to a lack of mutual understanding and measures of their introduction.

During the discussion, Dr. Beatriz Bissio at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) suggested drawing inspiration from the "Bandung Spirit," which highlights mutual respect, equality, non-intervention and non-interference, in order to to find new answers to today's challenges and drive the dialogue of civilizations.

Chen Dan, a representative from the business world and president of Zhengbang Ltd, a brand strategy solution provider, said that the commercial prosperity incubates a more spiritually oriented civilization and is thus the basis for dialogue. He reemphasized the need to find common interests with all stakeholders when driving the "Belt and Road" Initiative and calls for inclusiveness, straightforwardness and an openness to criticism during the talks.

Participants at the event proposed for the "Conference for Dialogue of Asian Civilizations" to be inaugurated in Xi'an due to its rich culture and history and to help make the city a capital of dialogue for civilizations from around the world.

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Voluntary organ donations by citizens have risen 120 times in past six years since China began the trial in 2010, making the country No 1 in Asia in the number of voluntary organ donations.

China began a voluntary organ donation trial in 2010 and promoted the practice across the country in 2013. [Photo/Xinhua]

The figure was made public at 2016 China International Organ Donation and Transplantation Forum co-organized by the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee and the China Organ Transplant Development Foundation in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, on May 15.

China recorded 2,766 voluntary organ donations, with 7,758 large organs acquired in 2015, said Guo Yanhong, deputy director of the medical administration bureau, the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

More than 1,000 organ transplantations, including relatives' donations, were made in 2015, breaking a historic record, she said.

There were only 34 voluntary organ donations and 88 organ transplantations in the trial year 2010. Previously China mainly relied on executed prisoners as a major source of organ donations.

China has banned the use of prisoners' organs for the purpose starting 2015, making citizen donation the only legitimate channel.

Though great development has achieved, there are still 30,000 patients awaiting transplants each year, said Huang Jiefu, the chairman of the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee and president of the China Organ Transplant Development Foundation.

There is still a great gap between the number of donations and patients, he said.
Last week, as I was correcting my students' midterm exams from an advanced English writing class, I was shocked by the incoherence and lack of logic in their compositions.

This prompted me to take a moment to reflect on my twelve years of experience teaching in China

My main objective was to come to terms with the reason behind my shock. Logic would lead me to believe that by now I should be accustomed to the poor quality of Chinese students' English writing abilities.

I realized that the reason for my perplexity was the fact that my students were in an advanced English writing course, meaning they were attending the class to polish their writing skills, not to learn the basics.

Bearing in mind the fact they have been learning English for more than eight years (most of my students have been studying English for somewhere between eight and 10 years), they should have acquired the fundamentals of writing in English, including coherence and logic.

In an attempt to figure out the reasons behind their failure to use logic in their writing, I gave them a simple exercise that consisted of puzzling out the sequence of events in a short story. Unfortunately, they had a hard time coming up with the right sequence.

From my years of teaching in China, I've learned that Chinese students are taught to memorize.

In a discussion with foreign professors during a seminar I attended several years ago, I was informed that they were aware of the intelligence and diligence of Chinese students. However, they witnessed the misuse of these qualities to become memorizing machines instead of coming to complete comprehension of subjects through analysis and critical thinking.

To emphasize their points of views, they mentioned that a Chinese student will be able to memorize a whole book but be incapable of critically analyzing a single page.

Of course, they might have been exaggerating in their assessments of the capacities of Chinese students. However, one must acquire the courage to admit that their evaluations may be partly true.

The fundamental question that should be asked is: "Do the Chinese methods of teaching foreign languages need an overhaul?" Certainly, for the sake of saving the invaluable time of our students, they need to be altered, or at least modified.

Is the task of changing foreign language teaching methods easy? Not by a long shot. Actually, it requires a great deal of effort and time. However, the rewards could be tremendous.

The following question may creep into our minds: "How could we launch an overhaul of the methodology of teaching foreign languages in general, and English in particular?"

Linguistic experts ought to hold seminars or conferences to discuss the issue in detail in order to come up with an effective and efficient plan to accomplish this task.

The Chinese government and Chinese educational institutions should play essential roles in achieving that objective.

The government could select competent Chinese teachers of English and send them abroad to collaborative programs with English-speaking countries to advance their comprehension of English-speaker's thinking patterns and their familiarity with the latest advances in the methodology of teaching English. These same approaches could be applied to other foreign languages.

Upon their return to China, they can share their knowledge and experiences with other teachers at their schools, colleges or universities.

Both government and educational institutions could invite foreign linguistic experts to come to China to give workshops to Chinese foreign language teachers.

All middle, high schools and universities must put a great deal of emphasis on the importance of critical thinking.

Universities with departments of foreign languages ought to exert every possible effort to be selective in admitting students to foreign languages majors.

They must do their best to choose qualified teachers to educate these students, bearing in mind the fact that most of them will become foreign language teachers in the future.

Students have a major responsibility. They must acquire enough courage to get rid of their illogical fear, useless apprehension and utter timidity to be active in class and to make sure that their teachers are fulfilling their responsibilities.

This article has not been written to offend anyone. It is intended to open a forum of discussion to improve the quality of education received by our students, who are the future of our beloved China.

Sava Hassan is a Canadian Egyptian author, poet and educator. He had published three books and written numerous articles on various topics in Canada, USA and China. Currently, he is residing and teaching in China.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
It is official now. Pakistan's top foreign policy aide to the prime minister and de facto foreign minister, Sartaj Aziz, told parliament that relations with the United States have been deteriorating for the last three months. The immediate reason is refusal by the U.S. Congress to provide funds for eight F-16 jets.

The two sides agreed in October 2015 on the sale of eight Block-52 F-16 planes worth $700 million. Under the deal, Pakistan was required to pay $270 million, while the remaining $430 million was supposed to be provided by the U.S. from its Foreign Military Financing (FMF).

It was apparently a done deal until Congress intervened earlier this year to block the funding through FMF. The deal is still intact but it is facing delay over who will foot the billl.

Also indicated by Mr. Aziz in his briefing to parliament was the fact that the issue is essentially political. But for Pakistan it is a matter of prestige due to Indian attempts to influence the U.S. to stop equipping Pakistan with modern aircraft and weaponry.

U.S. politicians are unhappy with Pakistan for several reasons. There is a general perception that Pakistan avoided taking any meaningful action against the Haqqani network of militants who were involved in several lethal attacks inside Afghanistan. The latest one killed more than 60 people in the heart of Kabul last month.

The Haqqani group allegedly operated from Pakistan's ill-governed tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. Pakistan says that actions by its armed forces uprooted the rebels who escaped to Afghanistan through the porous border. There are not many who take this assertion seriously outside Pakistan. Senior officials from the U.S. and Afghanistan allege that the rebels are still active in the border regions.

Another major issue is the imprisonment of Dr. Shakil Afridi. It is believed that Afridi helped the CIA track down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan's Abbottabad town by organizing a fake vaccination campaign. The powerful Pakistani defense establishment was kept in the dark about it. Bin Laden was killed in a secret U.S. mission in May 2011 to the huge embarrassment of Pakistan and its army. The U.S. has been demanding his release, but so far Pakistan has refused.

Mr. Aziz said that the anti-Pakistan Indian lobby played a key role in blocking the funding for the F-16s. India and its supporters in the U.S. believe that the jets could be used by Pakistan against India in case of war. But Pakistan has insisted that it needs the jets to enhance precision strike capabilities against terrorists hiding in forested mountains.

The interesting part of the controversy is that U.S. has no issue in selling the F-16s to Pakistan; the only problem is that it is not ready to fund the purchase. Therefore, the argument that the sale was blocked as the jets might be used against India is not entirely valid. The real issue is Afghanistan where the U.S. wants Pakistan to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table for talks with the Afghan government and to take military action against those rebels who are against peace.

Pakistan-U.S. relations have a history of mistrust. The key issue is that the two sides have different sets of expectations and demands from one other. While U.S. officials accuse Pakistan of not doing enough in the war against terror, there are many Pakistanis who consider Washington as "untrustworthy."

The years since the killing of bin Laden in 2011 have been difficult. But it is the responsibility of both sides to repair the cracks. For Pakistan, the ties with the U.S. still constitute an important part of foreign policy.

Mr. Aziz was right when he said that "this seven-decade-old relationship, while robust and wide ranging, is characterized with occasional vicissitudes. Despites its inherent challenges, both sides have managed to keep a pragmatic, working relationship over the course of years."

Pakistan, being the junior partner, should see the relationship from a new perspective. The ongoing Strategic Dialogue mechanism can be the centerpiece, as it provides for a broader framework of cooperation not only on security issues but also in other areas like economy, energy, education, science and technology, climate change, regional integration, culture and democracy.

Sajjad Malik is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SajjadMalik.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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Japan has relaxed visa restrictions on visitors from China, Russia and India in a bid to boost the number of visitors to the country to 40 million by 2020, the Japanese government confirmed on May 13, Beijing Times reported.

On April 30, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on its website an official announcement about the eased visa policy for Chinese visitors.

For business, cultural and academic groups, multiple entry visas will be valid for 10 years, instead of just five years as it has previously been, and restrictions for such visas will be further loosened, said the statement.

Moreover, undergraduate and graduate students, as well as those who have graduated for no more than three years, from 75 universities directly affiliated to the Chinese Ministry of Education, will enjoy simplified single-entry visa procedures.

Last month, while meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said Japan will grant up to 10-year visas to certain groups from China and ease restrictions on Chinese university students.

In the past, Japan has favored China's high-income groups in granting multiple entry visas. The latest policy shift will benefit business, cultural and academic groups the most, the paper said.

According to the Japanese embassy in Beijing, eligible business people include those who work with China's large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises, Chinese listed companies, joint ventures and subsidiaries invested in by Japanese listed companies. Also included are those who serve as directors or managers or hold higher positions, or work for at least a year continuously in an enterprise that has frequent business contact with a Japanese listed company.

Cultural and academic groups cover well-known artists, scholars in humanities and natural sciences, athletes, government officials, and professors and associate professors and lecturers at universities, among others.

Liu Junhong, a research fellow at the Institute of Japanese Studies under the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, attributed the new policy to Japan's efforts to revive its economy by boosting its tourism industry.

"Economic growth as a result of consumption by overseas tourists actually has helped reverse a negative growth in Japan's nominal GDP," Liu said, adding that Japan also wants to attract China's high-end talent to work and live in the country.

Data from the Japan National Tourism Organization showed that the number of overseas visitors hit a record high of 21.36 million in the fiscal year of 2015, up 45.6 percent from the previous year. It helped narrow Japan's service trade deficit to 1.21 trillion Japanese yen.

The number of Chinese visitors to Japan reached 5 million last year, up 107 percent over 2014. Although the number of Chinese visitors only accounted for one-fourth of the total number of visitors Japan received last year, their spending accounted for 41 percent of the total.
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The detention of a Russian yacht by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was due to misunderstanding, a Russian diplomat said Sunday.

"The explanation (given by the DPRK) is that there was a misunderstanding," said Yuri Bochkarev, Russia's consulate general in Chongjin, capital of DPRK's North Hangyong Province.

A Russian Elfin yacht with five crew members on board was detained by a DPRK coast guard ship in international waters late Friday. The vessel was on the way from the South Korean port of Pusan to Russia's Vladivostok after an international yachts race.

Pyongyang informed Russia Sunday that the yacht was allowed to leave the country at 10:00 a.m. local time (01:30 GMT), RIA Novosti news agency quoted Bochkarev as saying.

The vessel is expected to arrive in Vladivostok in 24 hours.
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Jordan and the United States on Sunday discussed cooperation and joint efforts to combat the Islamic State (IS), the state-run Petra news agency reported.

U.S. Major General Ralph H. Groover (R) and Jordanian Brigadier General Fahed Al-Damen attend a press conference on the 2016 "Eager Lion" joint military exercise in Amman, Jordan, on May 15, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

Jordan's Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Judeh and U.S. President Barack Obama's envoy to the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Brett McGurk discussed at a meeting in Amman the efforts to eradicate the terrorist group and other terrorist organizations.

They underlined the need for continued coordination with all the international community to uproot terrorism.

"Jordan supports all efforts to fight terrorism and will always be at the forefront when it comes to these efforts. Jordan considers the war on terrorism as the war of all Muslims to defend Islam and defeat the outlaws," said the minister.

The U.S. official stressed on the key role Jordan plays in regional stability and fighting terrorists and radical groups.

Jordan is part of the U.S.-led international coalition to fight the IS, which controls large areas in Iraq and Syria.
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The death toll in Sunday's suicide bombing attack that took place near the gate of a registration camp for police recruits in Yemen's southeastern province of Hadramout rose to 30, a provincial security source said.

"The latest report concerning the casualties from today's suicide bombing attack that occurred near at the main gate of a police recruitment center in Mukalla mounted to 30 deaths and 70 wounded," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The Yemen-based affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) group has officially claimed the suicide bombing that targeted police recruits in Hadramout.

According to the short statements revealed by the IS accounts on Twitter "about 40 apostates were killed when an Islamic State fighter detonated his explosive belt inside their military base in Mukalla."

The bloody attack occurred as a suicide bomber mingled with a group of new recruits in a police base near the presidential compound in the coastal city of Mukalla, Hadramout's provincial capital, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The toll could rise even higher as ambulances were evacuating the victims and dozens of critically injured people to nearby military hospitals and medical centers, according to the sources.

Meanwhile, witnesses told Xinhua that the commander of Hadramout's police forces Brig. Mubarak Obthani escaped a roadside bomb near his office in Mukalla.

On Thursday, three suicide bombers launched coordinated attacks by explosive-laden cars against a key military base in eastern outskirts of Mukalla, killing about 16 soldiers.

Over the past few weeks, Yemeni government forces and the Saudi-led coalition have been conducting well-planned and unprecedented attacks on key bastions of the al-Qaida terrorist group in the country's southern and eastern regions.

Hundreds of Yemeni soldiers newly trained by the Saudi-led coalition and supported by United Arab Emirates's special troops managed to recapture the coastal city of Mukalla in April after intense fighting and air raids on al-Qaida positions.

Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East.

The Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot, also known as Ansar al-Sharia, emerged in January 2009. It had claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on Yemen's army and government institutions.

It took advantage of the current security vacuum and the ongoing civil war to expand its influence in Yemen's southern regions.

The fragile security situation in Yemen has deteriorated since March 2015, when a war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullash Saleh, and the government backed by a Saudi-led coalition.

More than 6,000 people have been killed in ground battles and airstrikes since then, half of them civilians.
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The Presidency on Sunday denied rumours that President Jacob Zuma has made changes in his cabinet.

"The Presidency condemns the actions of information peddlers who keep spreading rumours about alleged changes in the Cabinet of President Jacob Zuma," presidential spokesperson Bongani Ngqulunga said.

The Sunday Times reported that a cabinet change would be imminent because Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan could soon be arrested after anti-crime unit, the Hawks, reportedly handed a docket over to the National Prosecuting Authority for his involvement in the SA Revenue Service's (SARS) "rogue unit"which was allegedly spying on taxpayers during his time as SARS' commissioner.

"Ministers serve at the pleasure of the President. He has the prerogative to hire and fire Ministers at any time. Despite that, the Presidency issued a statement recently communicating that there were no plans to change the Minister of Finance," Ngqulunga said in a statement.

Information peddlers have also been spreading false rumours about changes in the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), he said.

A statement was also issued recently rebutting the DTI rumours.

The president and government are focused on the goal of uniting business, labour, government and the whole country behind the mission of strengthening the economy and reigniting growth during the current difficult economic climate, said the spokesperson.

A lot of progress is being made in this regard and work will continue to fight the slow growth so that jobs can be saved and created, he added.
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Somalia Intelligence officials on Sunday displayed explosives and flags linked to the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) in the capital, Mogadishu.

The officials confirmed to journalists the explosives alongside seven laptops, a desktop computer and literature associated with IS were seized in Mogadishu's Howlwadag District.

General Ali Hersi, the Mogadishu police chief said the explosives could have been used to kill and maim innocent people in the Somalia capital.

He said members of the public alerted the police on the explosives that were hidden in a vehicle. Intelligence officials have intensified search for IS sympathizers and collaborators.
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Former London mayor and leading Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson sparked fury Sunday after he compared the European Union (EU) to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.

His remarks, viewed by Remain campaigners as inflammatory, fuelled a war of words in both camps, with some 'Leave' members of Prime Minister David Cameron's Downing Street cabinet leaping to Johnson's defense.

Johnson made his remarks in an article in the Sunday Telegraph in which he warned 'that while bureaucrats in Brussels are using "different methods" from the Nazi dictator, they share the aim of unifying Europe under one authority'.

Johnson said that the past 2,000 years of European history had been characterised by repeated attempts to unify Europe under a single government.

He says the EU's "disastrous" failures have fuelled tensions between member states and allowed Germany to grow in power, "take over" the Italian economy and "destroy" Greece.

"Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods. But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe." said Johnson, adding : "There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void."

His comments led to an immediate row between anti- and pro-EU campaigners, with fellow Conservative and cabinet minister Chris Grayling saying: "Boris is a historian. He was doing a piece of historical analysis."

In a media interview in London later Grayling said he was concerned that if Britons vote to stay in the EU, "10 years down the road there are clear plans to create a federation in the Eurozone which will dominate, it will look like the United States of Europe".

Other senior Conservatives backing 'Brexit' also rallied to support Boris Johnson after the former London Mayor compared the European Union to Hitler's Nazi Germany.

Former Conservative Cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Lamont, as well as Respected Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, defended Johnson's comments.

Johnson, seen by many as a successor to David Cameron as Conservative leader, put pressure on Cameron by challenging him to a face-to-face television debate.

Leading opposition politicians from the Labor party attacked Johnson's remarks. Hilary Benn, Labor's shadow foreign secretary, said Johnson's comparison of the EU to the Third Reich was "offensive and desperate".

Benn said: "Leave campaigners have lost the economic argument and now they are losing their moral compass. After the horror of the Second World War, the EU helped to bring an end to centuries of conflict in Europe and for Boris Johnson to make this comparison is both offensive and desperate."

Labor MP John Mann said Johnson should be sacked from the Vote Leave campaign, saying on social media Sunday: "Boris Johnson's absurd and offensive Hitler comments mean he should immediately be sacked from the leave campaign."

As the June 23 national referendum gets closer, both sides are expected to win supporters, with pollsters saying the in and out camps neck-and-neck.
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Sudan and China agreed on Sunday to expand their existing cooperation in oil fields to include other domains like agriculture and industry.

The agreement was signed in Khartoum between Sudan's State Minister for Foreign Affairs Kamal-Eddin Ismail and Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang Ming.

"The two sides discussed steps on how to enhance cooperation in various fields," Sudan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"China attaches a special concern to building partnership with Sudan in agricultural and industrial sectors," the Chinese deputy minister was quoted as saying.

The talks also reviewed the situations in Sudan's neighboring countries and the stability in South Sudan, Libya and the Horn of Africa region, as well as uniting visions regarding the reform of the United Nations and the UN Security Council.

Earlier Sunday, Sudan's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour received Zhang who is visiting Khartoum and leading his country's delegation to bilateral political talks. Endit
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Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Sunday extended amnesty to Al-Shabaab militants who renounced terrorism and violence.

Speaking during the 73rd anniversary of the Somalia youth league that was instrumental in the country's liberation struggle, Mohamud said his government will not punish Al-Shabaab fighters who laid down arms.

"Our amnesty offer to the youths who have joined Al-Shabaab remains and appeal to them to renounce violence and join us in the task of nation building," said Mohamud.

The Somalia government announced an amnesty for Al-Shabaab fighters last year and has been re-integrating the ones who heeded the offer to surrender arms into the society.
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China's Middle East Foundation for Peace and Development (MEFPD) launched Sunday the Middle East Peace Forum to promote peacemaking efforts in the turmoil-stricken region.

The Chinese peacemaking institution launched the forum in cooperation with the China-Arab Exchange Association to enhance methods of resolving Middle East issues and pushing for the development in the region.

Qin Yong, secretary-general of MEFPD, said the pro-peace forum has been established to work on collecting the efforts of peace lovers in the Middle East to face regional political issues and spread peace in the region.

"Since its establishment in December 2015, the foundation directed all its efforts to support peace, and among its activities was initially the establishment of schools in the refugees area in Jordan," Qin said in his speech during the opening of the forum, noting his foundation will agree with the Chinese government to expand in building more schools throughout the Middle East.

Qin added that the Middle East Peace Forum is launched as a step forward to realize Chinese President Xi Jinping's recommendation at the Arab League in Cairo during his visit to Egypt in January 2016, when he said, "We should be builders of peace, promoters of development... in the Middle East."

In 2013, President Xi proposed the Belt and Road Initiative, which comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, with the aim to build a trade and infrastructure network reconnecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road.

Qi Qianjin, Minister Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Cairo, said that peace and development are interrelated and strongly sought by all nations in the world, stressing that the Belt and Road Initiative can greatly contribute to the development in the region.

"The Belt and Road Initiative developed well and bore noticeable fruits to attract more countries to join, as more than 30 states so far have signed memorandums of understanding to join the initiative, including Egypt," Qi said.
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Nigerian troops combating Boko Haram terrorists repelled an early morning attack by the terrorists while on harbor inside the Sambisa forest, a military spokesperson has said.

In a statement made available to Xinhua on Sunday, Col. Sani Usman, the Army spokesman, said the troops comprised elements of 21 Brigade and the Armed Forces Special Forces (AFSF) on "Operation Crack Down".

Usman said the troops while on harbor for refitting, came under Boko Haram terrorists attack at about 1:45 a.m. local time on Saturday.

He said the troops followed up the attack with mopping up operations of the general area before advancing further into the forest.

Usman said two corpses of the attackers, two AK-47 rifles, two Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) bombs, five rifle magazines, mortar bombs and belts of Machine Gun rounds were recovered from the terrorists.

He added that five soldiers were wounded as a result of mortar fired into the harbor area by the Boko Haram terrorists and were evacuated to the rear for treatment.

Usman also said troops operating deep inside the Sambisa forest have arrested one of the Boko Haram leaders, declared wanted by the military.

According to him, the suspect was arrested at about 1.35 p.m. local time on Friday by troops of 143 Battalion.

He said the suspect was moved to 28 Task Force Brigade Headquarters for further investigation.

Usman said troops of 21 Brigade have intensified clearance operations at Yerimari, while troops of 22 Task Force Brigade Garrison have also embarked on patrols along Dikwa-Mafa-Maiduguri road.

Usman said a number of clearances and mop up operations were ongoing simultaneously across the theater to rid the general area of the presence of the insurgents.

He said due to increased security, the theater had witnessed increased humanitarian activities by various government and non-governmental agencies.
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Top diplomats from Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the United States are scheduled to meet in Islamabad on May 18 to discuss ways how to start the peace talks in Afghanistan, officials and diplomats said on Sunday.

Soldiers take part in a military operation in Nahr-e-Saraj district of Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 11, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

This would be the first meeting of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) since the Taliban have refused to take part in the direct talks with the Afghan government. The QCG in its last meeting in Kabul in February had invited the insurgents to join the process by the first week of March.

The meeting is seen very important as Afghanistan is now pushing for action against the Taliban as they are unwilling to come to the negotiation table and launched their annual Spring Offensive.

The Taliban huge suicide bombing in Kabul on April 19 that killed 64 people and injured nearly 350 has badly affected efforts for the peace negotiations. President Ashraf Ghani in his parliament speech on April 25th had prioritized war with the Taliban.

The Afghan government now wants the QCG to opt for action against the Taliban. However, Pakistan still insists on the political negotiations.

Pakistan has been impressing upon the US and Afghan side that the reconciliation process needs to be given a fair chance and more time, Pakistan Foreign Affairs adviser, Sartaj Aziz, recently told the Senate.

Irreconcilable elements can be targeted after concerted efforts of negotiations have failed. We hope to discuss these issues in detail during the upcoming round of the QCG in Islamabad on 18-19 May, Aziz further said.

Afghan ambassador in Islamabad, Omar Zakhilwal, said on Sunday Kabul now calls on the QCG to pronounce the Taliban as "irreconcilable because they have publicly rejected the talks.

Zakhilwal told Xinhua on Sunday that the QCG in its meeting in Kabul had agreed on a roadmap in February and that Kabul hopes the grouping will implement its decisions.

The roadmap is precisely about the steps that the QCG member countries needed to in their respective relevant domains in both during peace talks if they began and also if Taliban refused to join talks. Now that the Taliban publicly refused to join talks and opted for more violence the second scenario is applicable, Zakhilwal said.

A delegation of the Taliban political negotiators from the Qatar office had arrived in Pakistan in late April for exploratory talks on the possible peace process.However, the Afghan government refused to sit with the Taliban in the wake up of increased Taliban violence.
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The Islamic State (IS) militant group launched attacks to recapture an ancient city in Syria after losing it to government forces several weeks ago, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Opposition fighters drive a tank in a rebel-held area of the southern Syrian city of Daraa, during re-newed clashes with regime loyalists on May 10, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

The IS has cut off the only road leading to the millennia-old oasis city of Palmyra in central Syria, threatening to besiege the UNESCO world heritage site, the UK-based monitoring group said.

The Syrian army and allied groups are fighting to re-open the strategic route and secure its surroundings from the IS attacks, it added.

Seized by the IS last May, Palmyra, about 242 km northeast of the Syrian capital Damascus, was recovered by the government with the help of Russian airstrikes in March.

The victory has enhanced the image of the Syrian government and portrayed it as a guardian of the cultural heritage, in contrast to the IS, whose fighters have wrecked havoc in Palmyra, destroying several centuries-old monuments and antiquities.

On May 5, the Russian Mariinsky orchestra played for the first time in the ancient Roman amphitheater in Palmyra since the IS was defeated.

The concert, dubbed "With a Prayer for Palmyra," included Bach's Chaconne for solo Violin, a cello piece by Rodion Shchedrin and Sergei Prokofiev's First Symphony.

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke via a video from Moscow to the audience, saying that "the event is ... a sign of memory, hope and a sense of gratitude."

On May 6, the Syrian presidential palace organized a similar event performed by several Syrian orchestras.

"Gate of the Sun" was the name of the event that was held late on the day at the Roman amphitheater.

It was held under the auspices of President Bashar al-Assad, and was a tribute to the Syrian martyrs who are commemorated on the 6th of May every year.

However, the IS group's advance on Palmyra this week raised concerns that the IS is making a comeback.

On Tuesday, The IS claimed to have downed a Syrian military helicopter over the town of Huwaysis in the countryside of Homs, Syria's third largest city.

The terror-labeled group took control of the town early this month, following battles with the Syrian troops, who have reportedly withdrawn to the nearby Jub al-Jarah area, only a few kilometers from Homs.

The report came as intense battles raged on Tuesday between the Syrian army and the IS militants in the vicinity of the T4 airbase east of Homs, near Palmyra.
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Australian authorities are expected to seek the extradition of five men charged with terrorism offences for allegedly planning to travel to Syria via Indonesia and the Philippines in a fishing boat from northern Australia after being arrested last week.

The men, all aged between 21 and 31 face a Cairns magistrates court on Monday, to face extradition to Melbourne for prosecution after charged with making preparations for incursions into foreign countries "for the purpose of engaging in hostile activities" at the weekend.

If convicted, the men, all originally from Melbourne, face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Australian Attorney General George Brandis confirmed to reporters in Brisbane on Sunday that the men's passports were cancelled several months ago as their intentions to travel to the Middle East to engage in "terrorist war fighting" was known, and subsequently put under increased surveillance.

"When it became clear to them that they wouldn't be able to leave the country in an orthodox way, they remained under surveillance so that if they attempted to leave the country in this very unusual way they would be able to be stopped and they were," Brandis said.

The men were arrested after towing a seven-meter fishing boat from Melbourne to Cairns in the tropical north of Queensland state.

Authorities are seeking to prosecute the men in Melbourne as that is where they had bought the fishing boat and allegedly plotted their route, Brandis said.

Though Brandis and Australian authorities stress there are no current or impending threat of possible terror attacks in Australia, the country has been on heightened alert since September 2014 with authorities arresting numerous persons in connection to domestic terror plots.

It's believed approximately 100 people had left Australia for Syria to fight alongside organisations such as Islamic State (IS), and fears are growing battle hardened operators could entice domestic attacks via online communications.

Authorities are becoming increasingly concerned about online "grooming tactics", similar to those used by sexual predators, being used in Australia to radicalise young teenagers.

Late last month, an Australian teenager was arrested and charged with plotting to commit a terror attack on the nation's national day of remembrance for its service men and women, also known as ANZAC day.

The plot was described by a senior politician as "chilling" given the age of the suspect.

In early December 2015, Australian counter-terrorism authorities arrested a 20-year-old man and a 15-year-old teenager in connection with an alleged plot targeting Australian government buildings, including the Australian Federal Police (AFP) headquarters in Sydney.

The two men and three others already in jail on related charges are believed to be associates, of those who radicalized 15-year-old Farhad Jabar who executed police accountant Curtis Cheng in early October 2015. Jabar's sister fled to Syria the day before the attack.

In late February, the teenage bride of an Australian terrorism suspect was arrested by counter-terrorism authorities for allegedly possessing a knife, an Islamic State flag and documents relating to a terror attack. Her husband is already in custody on terror related charges.
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Delegates from more than 30 political parties in 24 European countries will gather in Beijing on May 17-18 to attend the 5th China-Europe High-Level Political Parties Forum, the International Department of CPC Central Committee (IDCPC) announced on Friday. The forum is an opportunity to discuss reform and common development.

Zhang Jianguo, director-general of Department for West Europe Affairs at the IDCPC, gives a briefing on the upcoming 5th China-Europe High-Level Political Parties Forum in Beijing on Friday. [Photo by Chen Boyuan/China.org.cn]

The China-Europe High-Level Political Parties Forum is a top level platform for multilateral and strategic consultations for strengthening the all-around development of a China-Europe comprehensive strategic partnership.

The upcoming forum, themed "Forging Partnership for Reform and Development, New Prospect of China-Europe Cooperation," will host two panel discussions: "Green Development: New Opportunities for China-Europe Cooperation" and "Open Development: China-Europe Cooperation under the Framework of Belt and Road Initiative."

The themes of the two panel discussions have been specially designed to cater to the interests of political parties from different countries, said Zhang Jianguo, director-general of Department for West Europe Affairs at the IDCPC, the organizer of the forum, at a preliminary briefing on May 13.

"Generally, Eastern European countries have higher expectations for the 'Belt and Road' while Western and Northern Europe are more interested in green and sustainable development. We decided upon the two topics so that our European friends can choose which panel discussion to attend," said Zhang.

Last year, China and the European Union celebrated their 40th anniversary of relationship. As the bilateral relationship is entering the second forty-year period, the dialogue platform is expected to facilitate Europe's understanding of China's "Four Comprehensives" strategic layout and its 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), to increase European political parties awareness of the cooperation potential in China's development and to stick to nonpartisan mutual respect irrespective of ideological differences.

Making friends with other countries' political parties is a major task for the IDCP. Amicable relations with foreign political parties mean that they are likely to introduce favorable China policies when in power and no anti-China sentiment when part of the opposition, according to Zhang.
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Brazil's newly-installed interim government is expected to strengthen trade and investment ties with China, among many other measures to get its economy back on track.

After former vice president Michel Temer was sworn in as acting president of the South American country on May 12, the new government said it would launch a slew of new initiatives to restore economic growth.

Local economists and lawmakers all voiced belief that in striving for that goal, China has a pivotal supporting role to play.

"Brazil and China enjoy a long friendship with robust development (and) our Foreign Affairs Ministry has a very good relationship with its Chinese counterpart, so from that perspective I think the new government will only improve ties, not make them worse," Brazilian Senator Cristovam Buarque told Xinhua.

Bilateral trade between China and Brazil stood at 86.67 billion U.S. dollars in 2014, making China Brazil's largest export destination and source of imports.

"We are waiting for everything to return to normal in politics as well as the economy," said fellow Senator Helio Jose. "If that happens, there will be sustainable growth in areas where Chinese investment is concentrated, such as infrastructure.

"We welcome more Chinese investment," he added.

Over the years, China has purchased large sums of raw materials from Brazil, where it has also invested heavily in infrastructure, including hydropower facilities and automobile production.

Ronnie Lins de Almeida, director of the Brazilian Center for China Studies, said "all manufacturing industries should be prepared for changes" following the political shift.

"I think this is a good opportunity, as China, India and Russia have technological advantages. Information exchange can benefit all the countries, especially in the fields of technology and trade," said Lins.

As members of the BRICS bloc of emerging economies, China and Brazil have much in common.

"Officials, including our foreign minister, will strive to tap our trade ties with BRICS countries," said Senator Jose, adding "I know the importance of China and other BRICS countries.

"China is the most important economic entity in the world, with a huge investment in Brazil (and) Brazil is very much interested in enhancing its trade (ties) with China," said Jose.

Chinese business owners and others living and working in Brazil expressed hope for an early end to the political crisis.
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Invited by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Argentine Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra will pay an official visit to China from Wednesday to Friday.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei made the announcement on Monday.
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The Chinese Foreign Ministry congratulated the Philippines' presumptive President-elect Rodrigo Duterte on Monday.

With an unofficial vote count showing Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte has won the Philippine presidential election, spokesperson Hong Lei said at a regular press conference that China has noted the smooth election and congratulates Duterte on his victory.

"Developing a sound and stable China-Philippines relationship is in the fundamental interests of both countries and meets the common aspirations of people in the two countries," Hong said.

Stressing China values maintaining ties with the Philippines, Hong said China hopes the country's new government will properly handle differences through friendly dialogue and put bilateral ties back on track.

Hong hopes the new government will have the same willingness and attitude and make joint efforts with China. Endi
Tong Qihua, the founder of GanQiShi Bao Bao, plans to open his first restaurant in Havard Square in Boston.GAO ERQIANG/CHINA DAILY

To Tong Qihua, the founder of the GanQiShi Bao Bao chain of steamed bun shops in China, nothing is more important than excelling at one's craft and being respected for it.

To achieve this, the perfectionist ensures that his restaurants are equipped with temperature-controlled kitchens and his employees adopt a meticulous approach in making the brand's famous buns.

For instance, each piece of dough used to create a bun must be made using whole wheat. It must also weigh 60 grams, with the permitted deviation being less than 2 grams. The fillings in the buns, which can range from sweet paste to meat or vegetables, must be 40 grams.

It may sound like an easy recipe to follow if one uses a weighing scale, but all the chefs at GanQiShi craft every single bun by hand, using muscle memory and a keen sense of touch to meet these standards.

Convinced that the perfect bun can only be crafted by hand, Tong himself spent two years learning how to do so before he opened his first restaurant. He would then painstakingly train the chefs he hired before having them pass down their skills to the subsequent batch.

In fact, Tong has such a reverence for the art of bun-making that he refers to his employees as craftsmen instead of chefs. When it comes to steaming the buns, the restaurants use traditional bamboo steamers instead of high-tech kitchen appliances. Furthermore, Tong's directive to all of the brand's restaurants is that cooked buns which are not sold within two hours have to be immediately discarded.This dedication to quality is without doubt what sets GanQiShi apart from the rest of the competition. It is also the main reason behind its phenomenal success in China. In just seven years, Tong has opened nearly 200 restaurants in Hangzhou and Shanghai, selling a combined 70 million buns every year and generating about 200 million yuan ($30.7 million) worth of revenue.

Unlike vendors who sell buns in small shops or along the streets, GanQiShi offers diners a clean and comfortable environment to enjoy their meals. The brand's restaurants look more like cafes than typical steam bun stalls, and this has proven critical in drawing the crowds.

In downtown Hangzhou, GanQiShi restaurants are located a 15-minute walk from one another. Young white collar workers and students can be found in these eateries throughout the day.

Born and raised in Wenling, a small town in Zhejiang province, Tong remembers steamed buns, or baozi, as a very popular food among people in the countryside. To him, a delicious steamed bun was a treat reserved for special occasions. Every bite was precious.

When he grew up, Tong was an enterprising man who had experimented with running several businesses. Some of his previous ventures include a clothing shop, a beauty salon and an Internet bar. But it was ultimately his undying love for steam buns that convinced him to open a restaurant selling just that in 2009.

Having tasted success in his own country, Tong has now set his sights beyond China's borders. Later this month, he will open his first restaurant in Havard Square in Boston. His second overseas branch on Rhode Island will commence operations in August. Tong said that he plans to open between 20 and 30 branches in the East Coast's New England region in the US by 2020.

One of the main reasons behind his overseas expansion is his desire to share with the world the beauty of traditional Chinese food culture.

"I was surprised to find out during my first business trip to the US many years ago that the locals viewed the steamed bun as a delicacy. With this overseas expansion, I'd like to view myself as a messenger of traditional Chinese food culture," said Tong.

While the buns in the US will be prepared exactly the same way as before, the menu offerings and the restaurant settings will slightly differ. In order to cater to the local palate, Tong said that his American outposts will also sell buns stuffed with fillings such as chicken and lobster. Patrons can even choose from a variety of beers to go with their buns.

Meanwhile, the people tasked with making the buns at GanQiShi's US restaurants will be predominantly American. Tong said that these employees will have to undergo a three-month training program in China before they begin work in the kitchens.

But Tong is not simply focused on foreign markets. Apart from his US expansion, he is also in search of business partners who can bring his brand to more cities across China.

"I think the culture of eating baozi should be promoted to a wider range of modern Chinese cities where locals should slow down their pace of life and spend some time savoring delicious food made from the heart," said Tong.
A saleswoman promotes a bottled French wine to a customer at mall in Yiwu, Zhejiang province.ZHANG CHENGJIAN/CHINA DAILY

When Rob Bevis launched Roque Fine Wine, an importer and wholesaler of fine wine, in China three years ago, he was told the country's wine market was nearing a tipping point.

The government crackdown on corruption had led to curbs on officials' extravagant, taxpayer-funded banquets. The clean-up heralded long-term benefits for the society, but had an immediate adverse impact on wine consumption in the country.

"At that time, my clients such as restaurants were primarily concerned about somehow maintaining the same level of profit margin. Diners who used to spend 2,000 yuan on a bottle of wine, were spending only 600 yuan," said Bevis.

So, sales of high-end and expensive imported wines, which were common at lavish banquets, fell in terms of both volume and revenue. Traders lost a lot of corporate and government clients. This pushed wine traders to shift their focus to individual consumers.
A Miao ethnic woman attends the recent Zimei Jie (Sisters' Day), a five-day festival similar to Valentine's Day, in Taijiang county, Guizhou province.CHINA DAILY

"Zimei Jie" (Sisters' Day), a five-day festival similar to Valentine's Day, is helping boost tourism in an ethnic county in Southwest China.

Chinese of Miao ethnicity in Guizhou's Taijiang county, in which 97 percent of the 168,000 residents are Miao, concluded the annual event on April 19-23, with tens of thousands of locals donning traditional attire in parades, musicians playing the reed-pipe lusheng, and performancers presenting drum dances. Group weddings and bullfights were also held, according to the county government.

According to folklore, a Miao couple were not given permission to be together by their parents and tribe leaders. They continued their romance regardless and when they met in secret, the girl would give her lover a bowl of glutinous rice, known as Sister's Rice.

Miao ethnic people of all ages dress in festive costumes and wearing silver, gather at the Zimei Jie (Sisters' Day) festivities.CHINA DAILY

The two overcame adversity and became an official couple. Sisters' Day is celebrated annually in honor of their love.

The occasion, which reportedly reflects the ancient lives of the Miao people during the transition to patriarchy from matriarchy, drew more than 50,000 tourists this year.

"The stories are so romantic," said Xia Xiaohui, a painter from east China's Zhejiang province. "The distinctive Miao culture is really inspirational."

For tour guide Li Mei, Sisters' Day gives tourists the opportunity to "have a glimpse of Miao culture."

"In recent years, many foreign visitors have come to Taijiang to admire the culture," she said.

Daniel, an Italian tourist, said he came to Taijiang to enjoy the "colorful glutinous rice."

"I was curious about Miao folklore," he said. "This is the first time that I have seen Miao people, I just adore their culture."

The event was also great for local businesses.

Wu Dongxiong, who operates a silverware store on Sisters' Street in the county, said tourists swarmed his store to buy souvenirs.

"I have sold a pretty good amount of silverware this year," said the silversmith. "Because tourism has exploded in recent years, all of my 12 siblings now work in the souvenir business."

The local government named Wu an "inheritor of intangible cultural heritage" to encourage him to pass on the craftsmanship to the next generation and to attract more young people to the industry.

"I have accepted six apprentices recently," he said.

Liu Yongying, another local, chose to cash in on another unique productMiao embroidery. Liu said she usually collects handmade embroidery from local women and sells it during Sisters' Day. This year her embroidery was snapped up very quickly.

"Tourists love Miao embroidery, which usually features goats, dogs, snowflakes and swallows," Liu said.

Sisters' Day was named a national intangible cultural heritage in 2006.

In the first three months of 2016 alone, Qiandongnan Prefecture, which administers Taijiang, has welcomed more than 14 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 57.6 percent, according to official statistics. Tourism revenue rose 62.6 percent to 12.4 billion yuan ($1.9 billion).

To take Taijiang's tourism to the next level, the local government decided to bring in more investment, with 13 projects worth almost 1.2 billion yuan already inked at this year's event.

The projects will help develop tourism, agriculture and health recovery industry, according to the government.

"We plan to invest more in our ethnic culture, such as Miao silverware and embroidery," said county mayor Du Xianwei. "We will also develop 'mountain tourism,' featuring mountain lakes and parks."

Li Feiyue, Qiandongnan's Party chief, said events like Sisters' Day are not just about boosting economic growth.

"I hope similar festivals will pass on the Miao culture and traditions," Li said.
Known as "workaholic", 39-year-old Yu Jiang from China has been dedicated to the construction of the first urban elevated railway in Vietnam's capital Hanoi for the past five years.

Since the construction of the Cat Linh-Ha Dong railway project in Hanoi started in 2011, Yu often went on business trips to Vietnam.

From January 2015, Yu then moved to work in Vietnam as project manager of the Cat Linh-Ha Dong railway project, taking charge of the project's quality, progress, external relations, among other responsibilities.

The Cat Linh-Ha Dong urban elevated railway route has a total length of 13.5 km and runs through 12 stations. The sixth bureau of China Railway Engineering Corporation is the EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) contractor of the elevated railway project.

As project manager, Yu, the hardworking engineer, hardly ever goes on holiday. "My leisure activities include exercise and learning Vietnamese and English," he said.

In other people's eyes, Yu is a "workaholic." He almost takes no rest at the weekends either. Though the company allows him to have 10 days off for holidays every three months, Yu has rarely returned to China, except for the traditional Lunar New Year festival and business meetings. Working daytimes seems not to be enough for Yu, either.

"After dinner, I often come back to the office to finish documents, which have not been completed during the daytime," Yu said. Besides office work, Yu spends a lot of time on inspecting the construction site.

"Only field inspections can help us find out potential problems and figure out measures to solve them during construction," Yu said.

"In Vietnam, land use rights are permanent, therefore it is difficult to relocate private houses along the rail route. We had to conduct many inspections so as to bring out the final adjustment of the design," he said.

During his stay in Vietnam, Yu has spent time on studying languages.

"I have no problem reading documents written in Vietnamese and communicating with my Vietnamese business partners in their language," Yu said, adding that he now always makes phone calls to some minister-level Vietnamese officials, in Vietnamese.

"I know almost everything, including the number of Vietnamese provinces and cities, even the number of banks in the country. When I talk to my Vietnamese business partners, they are all surprised about my understanding of Vietnam," he said.

"For me, working and learning are kind of fun, not a burden. How to perfectly balance life and work is also a kind of art," Yu said.

"Yu's professional life has seen him work far away from home for nine years. My daughter often asks me 'When will you come home'. I can only say, 'I don't know'."

The project is also expected to help in accumulating experience for similar projects in the future in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China, he said.
Aaron Hsin, president of Teradata Greater China Area.China Daily

Six years on, chief of Teradata's China unit reviews the company's show as well as his own performance

Asked about his work over the past six years, Aaron Hsin, president of Teradata Greater China Area, thought for a moment. And then some. It appeared he had much to say about his work and his employer.

"I really appreciate Teradata's corporate culture and the company's atmosphere of cherishing talents," he said finally.

During a recent interview in Beijing, he said he is now leading a 1,000-plus team at the China unit of the international software company that provides big data and analytic data platforms, marketing applications and related services.

The company's revenue has quadrupled in the Chinese market since he joined it in 2010. He credits that partly to the university education he received in the United States about 30 years ago.

Hsin received two master's degrees: one in computer sciences from Stanford University and another in information management from the State University of New York. Both the degrees have helped him to serve two US software companiesMicrosoft and Teradatawell in Beijing for 14 years, he said.

"Of course, there is also a cooperative, talented, supportive team, and my passion for the tech work I do."

Working with Microsoft as a senior manager and now at Teradata, he said, gave him opportunities to use his knowledge for China's economic development. "At the same time, I've built close links with many industrial experts and made many friends here."

He is now a member of the China Big Data Expert Committee and the China Cloud Computing Technology & Industry Alliance under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Owing to downward pressure exerted by a feeble global economic growth recovery, Teradata's full-year global revenue for 2015 fell 7 percent to $2.53 billion yuan.

But Teradata's business in China has seen unprecedented growth, according to Hsin. He, however, declined to disclose the China unit's financials.

"The decline in Teradata's global revenue had nothing to do with the slowdown in China's economic growth. On the contrary, I saw greater market demand in the Chinese market for our data warehousing and analytical products," Hsin said.

He said he saw increasing business opportunities in China for analytical products of cross-industrial sectors. For example, Teradata's market research found products that can monitor both manufacturing and marketing at the same time are needed.

So, the company is studying its customers' plans to develop such products as soon as possible so that the enterprises could innovate, he said.

Tony Baer, a senior analyst with Ovum, a market-leading research and consulting business focused on convergence of IT, telecoms and media markets, said the value of Teradata's products comes from 40 years of experimental experience. The products help customers deal with data management and see business values in these data set in different environments.

"Teradata has proved its passion by doing only one thing, the data analytical product, for over 40 years," Hsin said. "So, I am deeply affected as a member of the company. My passion at Teradata encourages me to lead my team to achieve one business success after another in the Chinese market."

Hsin said his team once achieved double-digit revenue growth for three consecutive years. Positive growth over six consecutive years is another feather in its corporate cap.

Teradata's analytical products have helped its enterprise customers greatly improve their business, he said. For example, a leading Chinese telecom operator which is a client of Teradata's analytical products, is providing well-processed data service for a local banking institute to decide where and when it needs to set up new branches in China, said Geoffrey Jiang, GCA regional solutions director of Teradata Information Systems (Beijing) Ltd.

Many Chinese banks used to hire consulting businesses for feasibility studies before opening branches in remote areas. Typically, such studies took several months to complete. Now, with analytical data, the institute needs only two to three weeks before it gets the solution.

As for Teradata's future development in China, Hsin said: "We are not afraid of competition but we prefer cooperation."

Before he joined the company, Teradata's customers were mainly from three sectors: communications, financial services, and internet. Now, it has built a customer base involving about 12 industrial sectors across the country with new clients coming from many industries including manufacturing, automotive, retail and insurance.

"Teradata has not only engaged its cooperation deeper with top-ranked State-owned companies but is also growing its customer base in the country's booming private business sector," Hsin said.

Along with China's fast-growing e-commerce, Teradata is cooperating with many business-to-customer and business-to-business websites, including eBay Shanghai and a local leading e-commerce company.

"Now, we are working on introducing our advanced cloud computing technology to the Chinese market. Through cooperation with our software development partners, we are expecting to have a formal announcement in this development later this year," Hsin added.

According to a recent Teradata report, the US now contributes 60 percent of the company's annual revenue, with the remainder coming from other markets.

Data analytical products make up 42 percent, while consulting and other services account for 58 percent of revenue.

Teradata now has more than 2,500 corporate customers worldwide. For example, it has been helping a growing number of utilities analyze the vast amount of data produced by their "smart" meters and power grids, which can help increase company efficiency and reduce customer costs, officials said.

CLOSE-UP

Aaron Hsin

President of Teradata Greater China Area

Born in Taiwan

Education:

Master of Computer Sciences, Stanford University. Master of Information Management, the State University of New York

Career:

Hsin has around 30 years of work experience, and is now also a key member of the China Big Data Expert Committee and the China Cloud Computing Technology& Industry Alliance. He once served as the Microsoft Greater China General Manager of Microsoft Enterprise& Partner Group business before joining Teradata as president of Teradata Greater China Area in 2010.
On a sunny Thursday, just around the Malbec World Day on April 17, Jevgenils Suscinskis, regional director of EMEA/APAC region at Bodega Achaval-Ferrer, sprang a surprise on oenophiles in Shanghai. He brought bottles of Argentina's world famous Achaval Ferrer wines for tasting, to celebrate their launch in China.

Suscinskis said he has ample confidence the affordable wine, considered among the finest of Argentina, will be welcomed by China's seasoned consumers, given its value-for-money proposition. Some of Achaval Ferrer wines sell for more than 1,000 yuan ($153.8) per bottle.

What he is not certain about, however, is which among the aged wines, the ones with higher tannin and the younger ones would sell the most in China.

"Tasting wine is an extremely personal experience, so you really need to rely on your own judgement. And drinking it is the only way to tell if you like it," said Suscinskis.

Supplies of the famed wine to China are limited, so only higher-end Chinese consumers may get to savor it. It will be sold to fine dining restaurants, fine wine importers, and to private clients.

Achaval Ferrer and some vineyards have been trying to change the notion that Argentina is a source of inexpensive wines with jammy taste. They have been growing the Malbec, a premium purple grape variety used to make red wine, taking advantage of some of the country's geographical features like high altitude, the right type of soil and availability of high-quality water from the Andes mountain range.

For vineyards, stony, sandy and relatively infertile soil, like the one in Argentina's Mendoza region, is considered better because such conditions encourage vines to grow stronger. Vines have to work hard and absorb nutrition. In fertile soil, they get "spoilt" and grow "lazy" and weak, vineyard experts said.

Bodega Achaval Ferrer is not the only Argentine vineyard that is seeking to reach out to Chinese consumers. Other wine makers too are targeting China, which has become one of Argentina's top 10 wine export destinations.

In 2015, Argentina exported $19.98 million worth of wine to China, up from $9.09 million in 2010.

"The potential for Argentina's wines in China is great considering that China has 20 million frequent wine consumers. Their number is expanding fast. If each consumer spends 100 yuan on Argentina's wines each year, the market size will be 100 times its current number," said Mao Yufen, a Xi'an-based wine trader with Qin An Wine Trade Co Ltd.

As Chinese consumers become more wine-savvy, they will likely buy more quality products. In this context, Argentina's wines will likely stand a good chance to gain market share because they are considered affordable quality products, said Mao.

In recent years, New World wine regions have been increasingly popular among Chinese consumers as they get to know more about the culture and heritage of the countries concerned, such as Chile, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Some wine consumers have even visited these regions.

"In January 2015, I was in Argentina for the first time for a business trip, and was deeply amazed by the wines produced in Mendoza. When I returned to China, I became a frequent drinker of Argentina's wines," said Yang Peng, a Shanghai-based food importer.
SEOUL -- More business hotel chains are preparing for their branches in and near Myeongdong, the shopping mecca of downtown Seoul, as they try to cater to a growing number of Chinese tourists who visit South Korea as individuals instead of package tours.

Industry officials estimated that up to 60 percent of visitors from China are now coming on self-guided tours rather than group tours, raising the demand for business-class accommodations.

"Unlike group travelers, independent tourists prefer business hotels that are usually closer to subway stations," an industry official was quoted by Yonhap on Monday. "Business hotels are 100,000 won (85 U.S. dollars) to 200,000 won cheaper than luxury hotels but offer rooms that are not much below par."

Courtyard Marriott will open a branch in Namdaemun, near a popular traditional market in central Seoul within walking distance from Myeongdong, on May 23, its third business hotel in the country. It has 409 rooms, an executive lounge, an all-day dining restaurant and conference rooms.

Hana Tour is also setting up shop this month in the Namdaemun area, opening Tmark Grand Hotel that offers 576 rooms plus a swimming pool, a fitness center and a VIP Lounge.

Lotte City Hotel Myeongdong and L7 Myeongdong, both run by Lotte Hotel, have already been in business since January. Lotte City has 430 rooms, while L7 has 245.

Louvre Hotels Group of France landed in Myeongdong in January in partnership with Seoul M Hotel to run the Golden Tulip M Hotel, a more posh four-star hotel that has 430 rooms.

Starwood Hotel 7 Resort will join the ranks in February next year with the opening of its business hotel Aloft. The 223-room hotel will sit in the middle of Myeongdong.

Nearly 6 million Chinese travelers came to South Korea last year, a number that would have been higher if not for the scare from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), according to tour agencies.
GF Xinde Investment Management Co Ltd, the private equity arm of China's leading securities firm GF Securities Co, plans to expand into foreign markets by setting up a PE fund in the United States that will focus on investment in life science.

GF Xinde signed a strategic cooperation agreement in New York last Friday with Bay City Capital LLC, a US life sciences investment institution, to jointly manage the fund that will invest in innovative life science companies with high growth potential in the United States, Europe and China, according to an official press release.

The fund will facilitate the cross-border mergers and acquisitions in the life science industry and will serve to introduce the world's leading technology to Chinese enterprises. It will also allow Chinese companies to gain access to competitive global products and technology, the statement said.

The official announcement did not reveal the initial value of the fund. But it said the fund has attracted major listed Chinese pharmaceutical companies, including health supplement maker By-Health Co Ltd, State-owned pharmaceutical company Jinling Aodong Medicine Group Co Ltd, Nanjing Pharma Co Ltd, and Nanjing New Industry Investment Group, the major shareholder of Jinling Pharma Co Ltd as initial investors.

Sun Shuming, chairman of GF Securities, said that the fund is the first investment fund that combines "international technology and Chinese backing".

Fred Craves, founder and managing partner of Bay City, said the US fund has been closely following the initiatives put forth by the Chinese government for improving the quality and accessibility of universal health care.

"The current speed of development in China's pharmaceutical industry is much higher than that of Europe and America, thus the country is expected to become the world's largest pharmaceutical market soon. This will provide many opportunities for international medical investment institutions to enter China," Craves said.
2016 Demo China Spring Summit & Spring Innovation Festival lowered the curtain at the Beijing National Conference Center, on May 12, 2016. [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The three-day 2016 Demo China Spring Summit & Spring Innovation Festival held by cyzone.cn lowered the curtain Thursday at the Beijing National Conference Center. More than 30,000 entrepreneurs and investors participated in this event.

The summit, which originated in the US and has been held for 10 years in China, for the first time adopted a new mode of being held with an innovation festival. More than 300 top domestic and foreign technology and Internet companies set up exhibits.

Under the theme of "The Supernova Era", the summit involved 11 sessions, including an Investors Forum, Enterprise Service, Robot Session, Mobile Life, E-health Care, New Content, Enterprise Forum, Smart Transportation, AR/VR, overseas, and Bang Camp Graduation Show.

And the service robot radar produced by Benewake Co Ltd from the Robot Session won the Demo God Award after defeating eight entrepreneurship projects in the finals.

At the opening ceremony, Nan Lixin, CEO of cyzone.cn, said the next wave of entrepreneurship will boom in the field of science and technology and technological innovation is the foundation of economic restructuring and economic growth.

Demo can offer entrepreneurs and investors a communications platform, Xiong Xiaoge, founding partner of IDG Capital Partners said. Demo China has surpassed its American counterpart in both scale and influence after 10 years of development.

He pointed out internationalization is an important direction for entrepreneurship.

"Strongly supported by government and forced by the weak economic environment, innovation and entrepreneurship are facing their best time. Entrepreneurs in China, numerous and enthusiastic, are provided with increasing choices because China owns the largest social capital in the world," he said.

Zhang Ying, founding managing partner of Matrix Partners China, thinks China is the world's innovation center.

"If the top 100 entrepreneurs in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei competed with American entrepreneurs in the same market, the latter would be completely defeated," he said.

Sharing his own entrepreneurship experience and opinions on the sector, Feng Xin, chairman and CEO of Beijing Baofeng Technology Co Ltd, said Baofeng's three key words in the next 10 years are "Cross-border", "Connection" and "Data Technology (DT)".

"Cross-border is necessary for expanding formats, connection means all the scene of 2C (To Customer) in the future will be connected, and DT will be the only reliable asset of all companies after 2020", he explained.

Since 2006, Demo China has assisted more than 500 enterprises in raising $3 billion in funding. It is the largest innovation enterprises show staged in China.

Zhu Lingqing contributed to this story.
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei signed an agreement with the UK government on Monday in London to further incorporate UK suppliers into its network of clients, and in the process become more local in its operations.

The memorandum of understanding was signed with UK Trade and Investment, the UK government's trade and investment arm, at the firm's annual suppliers' conference, which is attended by 130 industry representatives, mostly Huawei's existing and potential suppliers and partners.

The MoU focuses on identifying the best UK technology partners for Huawei's global supply chain and supporting Huawei's investment and business development in the UK.

Gordon Luo, CEO of Huawei UK and Ireland, said at the conference that the firm's local suppliers are very important. "We are not just focused on doing business, but also creating a harmonized ecosystem," said Luo.

Michael Boyd, managing director of strategic investment and accounts at UKTI, applauded Huawei's strong relationships with local suppliers. "This event shows very clearly the strength of a relationship between a major company and its supply chain, and that it wants to bring its supply chain together to celebrate the success of what it has achieved."

With 15 years of history in the UK, Huawei already has a large UK supply chain. In 2012, it promised to invest 1.3 billion pounds in the UK in the following five years, of which 650 million pounds will be procurement in the UK market.

The company has already invested 226.9 million pounds in 2013 and 295.1 million pounds in 2014. If Huawei maintains current procurement levels, its procurement investment between 2013-17 would amount to 1.41 billion pounds.

"It's fantastic to work with Huawei because they share our values of working with partners to share success and grow the overall industry," said Pete Hutton, executive vice president and president of product groups at ARM, a Cambridge-based firm that designs the processors for Huawei's smart phones.

ARM supplies a few smartphone manufacturers with a basic form of processor, and each smartphone manufacturer build additional functions on it to suit their needs. As ARM makes a profit based on units of smartphones sold, supplying Huawei is very significant because Huawei is currently the world's third largest smartphone brand, said Hutton.

Hutton's views are shared by Alan O'Prey, managing director of Telecoms at the British engineering firm MJ Quinn Integrated Services Limited, who adds that Huawei's global vision and open attitude makes it a great partner.

MJ Quinn started working with Huawei in 2010, and it currently has about seven projects with Huawei, one example being to provide smart cities solutions to Britain's local governments.

Under this partnership, Huawei is providing the equipment and technology connections to local governments, for solutions like smart lighting and smart healthcare, so effectively helping the governments to understand needs from its citizens better and supply them more efficiently. MJ Quinn is the engineering firm to put the equipment in place.

Huawei also has extensive cooperation with key industry bodies in the UK, and last year it joined Tech UK, a British telecommunications trade association.

Paul Hide, director of operations at Tech UK, said having Huawei as a part of the association helps more of its members, who are British telecom industry firms, to work with Huawei and potentially find areas of cooperation.

To contact the reporter: cecily.liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com
According to a recent survey of 37 automakers in China, many commercial vehicles are not being sold

Experts are warning of structural overcapacity in China's automotive industry after a survey released on Wednesday showed that 37 automakers in China had a combined capacity of 31.22 million cars by the end of 2015.

The survey shows automakers had 25.75 million units of passenger cars, 5.47 million units of commercial vehicles, and will be adding another 6 million units annually through its production facilities.

Eighty percent of the passenger car capacity were utilized, a reasonable level, but nearly 49 percent of the commercial vehicle capacity went idle in 2015, said Huang Yonghe, an official at the China Automotive Technology and Research Center.

The survey was done by the center, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and the National Development and Reform Commission.

With China's auto industry slowing, experts are urging automakers to be cautious about expanding their capacity, especially commercial automakers.

China sold 343,000 commercial vehicles in April, a 5.4 percent growth year-on-year, lower than the overall auto growth rate of 6.3 percent, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

The larger picture is even more disheartening: 1.2 million commercial vehicles were sold through the first four months this year, a mere 2.7 percent increase year-on-year.

Another segment that is prone to overcapacity is the new-energy vehicles, according to the survey, though sales of new-energy cars have been strong. Sales of NEVs reached 31,772 units in April, a 190 percent rise year-on-year, according to CAAM statistics.

A total of 90,529 new-energy vehicles were sold through the first four months of the year, a 131 percent surge from the same period last year.

But the survey shows that companies producing key components of new-energy vehicles can basically meet market demand.

By the end of 2015, 19 battery makers could deliver 30.5 million kilowatt-hour, 12 major companies could roll out 700,000 electric motors a year and 680,000 controllers a year.

That should sound a warning to automakers, especially new ones to the industry, and local governments who have been enthusiastic about attracting investment, said experts.

They encouraged better usage of existing capacity by partnering with large automakers, like NextEV's 10 billion yuan ($1.54 billion) deal with JAC earlier last month to produce smart and electric cars.

Xu Heyi, chairman of BAIC Group, said the automaker is willing to work with new forces in the industry at a forum earlier this year.

Experts say traditional automakers will be more and more willing to better utilize their capacity now that auto sales in the country are slowing down.

In line with expectations

Statistics show that 8.65 million cars were sold in the first four months, a 6.1 percent growth from the same period last year.

Shi Jianhua, CAAM's vice-secretary-general, said the growth over the first four months of the year is consistent with the association's estimate of about 6 percent, which would translate into 26 million vehicles sold.

SUVs have kept their momentum. Nearly 610,000 SUVs were sold in April, a 31.6 percent surge year-on-year, the highest of all segments in the Chinese auto market.

Three of the five most popular SUVs, according to the China Passenger Car Association, are from Chinese manufacturers: the H6 and H2 from Haval and the CS75 from Changan.

Sales of MPVs are healthy , with nearly 180,000 units sold in April, a 7.49 percent rise year-on-year. Sales of sedans and crossovers were not as strong. In April, 900,000 million sedans were sold, a 2.91 percent fall year-on-year. Crossovers saw their sales in April slump more than 20 percent year-on-year to 85,000 units.

China's favorable policy on small-engine cars is still going strong, with 1.28 million cars with engines at or below 1.6 liters sold in April.

That accounts for 71.9 percent of passenger vehicles sold in the month, a similar percentage to that of the previous three months.

Chinese passenger car brands saw their market share edge 1.4 percentage points to 42 percent in April, the lowest point this year.
German luxury car maker BMW highlighted its shift toward becoming a high-tech company, and demonstrated its connected vehicles and future gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show Asia in Shanghai.

While celebrating its centennial this year, BMW Group has a clear vision of how to remain a leading provider of premium mobility solutions over the next 100 years.

"We do substantial scouting in the fields of technology, design, digitalization and of developments in society, in order to identify future trends and adjust our company strategy accordingly," Olaf Kastner, president and CEO of BMW Group Region China, said in his keynote speech at CES Asia on Thursday.

"Given the long development cycle for cars followed by multi-year product lifecycles afterwards, this is a prerequisite for future success. This is why we are not just looking back at the past 100 years, but are looking forward over the next 100 years."

Nowadays, the accelerating digitalization of automobiles is seen as disruptive for the existing automotive industry, as it is introducing new competition from technology companies.

"The world of mobility appears to be going through iconic changes once again other companies, many of them with digital roots, are joining the competition around e-mobility," said Kastner.

He said, BMW is likewise entering the tech field as it expands into the fields of highly autonomous driving, or HAD, digitalization and mobility on demand.

For instance, BMW presented its Mobility Mirror for the first time in China at CES Asia. It serves as both an ordinary mirror and an internet connected high-definition display.

Through the Mobility Mirror, one can control connected smart appliances at home. For example, a user can turn on or off the lighting system, check whether the windows and doors are shut, or set the security alarm. The mirror also allows the user to schedule and plan his or her route.

The BMW i Vision Future Interaction concept car brought a realistic embodiment of the future of driving to the exhibition, demonstrating what a sustainable and fully interconnected mobility car of the future looks like.

The concept car is a complete mobility eco-system and possesses all the prerequisites for fully autonomous driving, or FAD. It is linked to the web and provides comprehensive services that start at the user's home and includes autonomous parking at destinations.

BMW has been heavily involving in the future of HAD and FAD, and test cars have made the journey between the German cities of Munich and Nuremberg at speeds up to 120 km/h.

In China, BMW is cooperating with Baidu on a HAD project using cloud services and maps.
Nissan Motor may have to burden itself with restoring Mitsubishi Motors' reputation now it is acquiring a one-third stake in the scandal-hit automaker, said analysts.

The two signed a basic agreement on Thursday, under which Nissan will purchase 506.6 million newly-issued Mitsubishi shares for $2.2 billion and become its largest shareholder.

The deal is still subject to the signing of a definitive agreement, as well as shareholders' and regulators' approval, but it is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

According to the agreement, Mitsubishi will propose Nissan nominees as board directors in proportion to Nissan's voting rights, including a Nissan nominee to become chairman of the board.

"This is a breakthrough transaction and a win-win for both Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors," said Carlos Ghosn, president and CEO of Nissan. "We will support MMC as they address their challenges and welcome them as the newest member of our enlarged Alliance family."

Mitsubishi's market value has nosedived since April 20, when it admitted cheating on the fuel economy data of four models sold in Japan, including two made for Nissan.

There was some speculation that the scandal was a plot by Nissan, after it emerged that Nissan did its own mileage tests on the two models and raised questions.

But analysts believe that is unlikely.

"It is hard to tell if the deal is good or bad for Nissan, so I don't agree that Nissan set a trap to buy Mitsubishi," said Zhang Zhiyong, a Beijing-based auto analyst.

On the contrary, he said, there was a good chance that it was Mitsubishi that approached Nissan for its help as the two have been in partnership for five years.

Osamu Masuko, chairman of the board and chief executive of Mitsubishi, said: "This agreement will create long term value needed for our two companies to progress towards the future."

Other shareholders, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Corporation and The Bank of Tokyo - Mitsubishi UFJ, have agreed to support the deal.

Yale Zhang, managing director of consultancy Automotive Foresight, said the move will further enhance Nissan's competitive edge in SUVs and four-wheel drive technology.

The downside is that Nissan has to help repair Mitsubishi's tarnished reputation, said Zhang, who had suggested before the Nissan deal surfaced that Chinese automakers purchase Mitsubishi.

"But Ghosn has long been known as a trouble shooter. He helped save Nissan from a mess."

Zhang Zhiyong said both Nissan and Mitsubishi should be careful as the fuel economy scandal was not the first time Mitsubishi had been caught lying. In the early 2000s, it was embroiled in a scandal involving a cover-up of defects such as failing brakes and faulty clutches.

"Money alone will not solve the problem if customers no longer trust you. Trust is the very basis of business," he said.

Mitsubishi had a partnership with Daimler Chrysler AG in 2000, which failed to reverse the Japanese brand's debts and lagging sales. The collaboration ended five years later.
The BMW China Training Academy and its first academic partner in China have celebrated the 10th anniversary of a leading industry-academy cooperative education program, boasting more than 6,000 graduates.

The BMW Education of Service Technology, also known as BEST, has trained personnel with product knowledge and professional skills for the Chinese auto industry. About 30 percent of its graduates have joined BMW dealerships working in sales and after-sales services.

"BMW has become the first ever high-end automobile manufacturer that conducted a program in the form of college-enterprise cooperation in China," said Joachim Geissler, vice-president of qualification and retail human resources for the BMW AG.

"BMW introduced Germany's mature vocational education to the Chinese market, and focused on talent training and cultivation with forward-looking ideas and innovative thinking."

The BEST program, which was launched in 2006, covers five general courses - mechatronics, vehicle bodies, paint, service and parts - with the dual education system combining theoretical studies and apprenticeships in dealerships running through the whole process as guidelines.

The dual education system, an approach extensively adopted in Germany, has produced a large number of skilled professionals for German enterprises and effectively promoted the rapid growth of the German economy.

"BMW takes healthy dealer development and top-level customer satisfaction as two of its priorities," said Jochen Goller, senior vice-president of sales and marketing for BMW Brilliance Automotive.

"The BEST program has produced a large number of graduates equipped with comprehensive knowledge of BMW brand culture and specialized knowledge of automobiles, as well as the skills indispensable for their career success at the dealerships for the after-sales market and BMW dealership networks."

The trainees use equipment and tools identical to those in BMW dealerships, advanced workshop internet diagnostic systems that have been fully introduced to BMW training bases and the latest technical maintenance booklets.

The leading industry-academy cooperative education program was initiated after the Chinese government called for developing vocational education, and BMW cooperated with local vocational schools to launch primary and secondary education accreditation programs.

Reports show that the high level of professional knowledge and practical skills are widely welcomed and recognized by the automotive industry.

The past decade has witnessed fruitful achievements for the BEST program with more than 15 partner institutes. During its 10 years of practice, the BEST program has contributed to positive outcomes for schools, businesses, students and dealers.

Laura Wang, the newly appointed vice-president of the Shanghai-based BMW China Training Academy said: "In the future, the BEST program will dedicate itself to facilitating and accelerating cooperation between various academies.

"It could better benefit the trainees and store up more teacher reserves, so as to further promote the sustainable development of the whole auto industry."

BMW has established 15 training bases across 13 provinces, with cooperation from more than 300 dealers nationwide, to help improve vehicle service technology and related industry skills of students.

With those joint efforts, BMW and its academic partners set a benchmark for industry-university cooperation. The school's theoretical education and social practices are more closely intertwined than ever.

Nanjing Jinling Secondary Vocational School, BMW's first BEST program partner, has provided Jiangsu and adjacent regions with high-level personnel with adept hands-on practice and independent problem-solving abilities.

Zhang Qiang, a deputy secretary-general with the Nanjing government, said the program has also equipped its partner schools with many teachers with professional training capacities, international ideas on training and knowledge of the most advanced auto technologies.

"The BEST program further demonstrates that BMW acts responsibly as a corporate citizen and serves as a role model and driver for developing Chinese vocational education," he said.
When Hanteng Auto unveiled its brand image and first production models in Beijing on Monday with the slogan "Build high quality cars that meet Chinese preferences", it was a case of deja vu for some attendees.

"Hanteng is focusing on the two hottest segments - sport utility vehicles and multi-purpose vehicles," said Li Xueming, general manager of the Jiangxi province headquartered car manufacturer.

The company, established in November 2013, announced an ambitious plan to boost its annual production and sales to 500,000 units by 2020.

It plans to launch two compact SUV models in the world's largest car market this year, and another four in 2017, with two compact MPVs and a sub-compact full electric model planned for 2018.

It was the turbo-charged combustion engine powered Hanteng X7 SUV, now in production, that sparked the sense of deja vu at the ceremony as the exterior reminded reporters of the Volkswagen Tiguan. While the vehicle's display, the touch screen, central console design and the gear shift knob all mirror those found in a BMW.

But Hanteng is not shying away from such comparisons.

"To learn from the successful examples and mature cases is a must," said Zhu Zhiping, product planner for Hanteng Auto, in a speech at the news event.

Even the badge of the brand, a red inverted trapezoidal in a silver circle, recalls the Fiat logo, although it has something else in the center - a prancing horse.

In recent years, Chinese brands have filled the burgeoning SUV markets with products similar to popular ones by well-known automakers, who invest billions of dollars in designing and testing.

For example, the Zoyte T600 and Z500 echo the designs of the Volkswagen Tiguan and Honda Accord respectively. And the Land Wind X7 looks so similar to the Land Rover, that owners can pretend it is a Range Rover Evoque just by removing the badge.

"It is an approach used by the companies to push the limits of their design without immense input into the research and development," said Ling Ran, an independent automotive designer. "There's almost no legal restriction on such behavior, and no punishment will be imposed in the short-term."

haoyan@chinadaily.com.cn
Industry experts say having both national and local standards would be unfeasible

An emissions plan proposed by the Beijing environmental authorities has been scrapped, a move that experts believe will save automakers from repetitive research and testing costs.

The city's draft, which was released in November for public opinion, has been aborted as the Ministry of Environmental Protection is working on national standards, said Wei Honglian, an official in charge of the vehicle emissions department at the ministry.

The Beijing plan was based on California's Low Emission Vehicle III standards, while national standards that have been adopted for decades in China follows the European standard.

Beijing's environmental authorities did not comment on the scrapped plan and a Beijing official advocating for local emissions standards turned down interview requests, according to Caixin magazine.

Despite much secrecy around the plan's abandonment, experts say one thing is clear - automakers will be heaving a sigh of relief.

If the Beijing plan went into effect, automakers would have had to prepare their cars to meet two sets of standards, which would entail a great deal of spending on research and development, said Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association.

"Chinese brands have a narrower profit margin and a stricter budget. To prevent cost hikes, they might have to wait until the national standards are implemented, but that will affect their supplies of vehicles to dealers and result in the shrinkage of the market share of Chinese cars."

Wu Jian, deputy head of GAC Automotive Engineering Institute, said the biggest problem resulting from two sets of standards mean automakers have to choose between two technical solutions.

"Because you cannot work out two solutions for one model. The cost is unreasonably high."

Cui said even if cars were able to meet two sets of standards at the same time, testing all cars available in the market twice would cost billions of yuan, resulting in "a huge waste of money".

Dong Yang, executive vice-president of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said local emissions standards go against the interest of consumers.

He said the potential increase in R&D costs from multiple standards could have led to customers paying more to own a vehicle.

Dong is one of the earliest opponents of Beijing's local emissions plan.

"I agree with the stricter than current emissions standard applied in Beijing, but not Capital VI, as it is illegal," Dong wrote on his blog after the draft was released in November.

He said quality fuel supplies are vital to meeting emissions standards.

Cui also suggested that national standards should not be updated too often as it usually takes at least three years to develop a model.

The National V standards was implemented in April in 11 provinces and municipalities in eastern China and will not take effect nationwide until Jan 1, 2018.

"If the standards are implemented two years after they are finished, they will be able to better meet the requirements."

Some are demanding more time.

"If the authorities publicize the VI standards in 2016, they should not implement it before 2022," said Yan Ping, chairman of Yuchai, China's largest internal combustion engine producer.

lifusheng@chinadaily.com.cn
Representatives of nearly 50 car dealerships demonstrated in front of GAC Gonow's headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Tuesday.

A public letter posted by the dealers online said the carmaker has stopped providing cars since March 2015, causing heavy losses for dealers, even after representatives for dealers held negotiations with the company management on March 15.

In the letter dated May 9, the dealers requested the automaker solve its after-sales problems, buy back unsold cars and spare parts and compensate the dealers for their losses including the costs for rent and promotions.

They demanded a reply by the noon of May 10 and threatened to "take action of which the consequences the automaker should be held accountable for".

GAC Gonow did not comment by press time.

The letter came two days after the automaker issued a statement to its dealers that all its equipment, real estate property and plants have been mortgaged to banks to pay off debt that had been accruing for years.

Last year, the automaker sold 11,438 cars, a 55.43 percent nosedive from the previous year, while China's passenger car segment saw an overall growth of 7 percent year-on-year.

News portal Tencent.com reported that the automaker's production lines were almost closed throughout 2015 after GAC made public its plan in March 2015 to make the automaker a wholly owned subsidiary to help produce its Trumpchi cars and SUVs, both of which sell well in the market.

Trumpchi sold 79,400 cars in the first quarter this year, a 171-percent surge year-on-year, and the automaker said it will launch at least six new models this year.

It sold nearly 200,000 units in 2015. The sales could have been higher if it could produce more, said head of the brand Wu Song.

GAC Gonow was established in 2010 as a joint venture between GAC and Gonow, with the latter holding a 49 percent stake.

Two months ago GAC made it clear in a statement that it would acquire the 49 percent stake at 262 million yuan ($40.2 million) and spend another 3.5 billion yuan to enhance the carmaker's production facilities.

That is part of GAC Group's effort to realize a goal set in 2014: to expand the annual production capacity of its Chinese brands, Trumpchi, Gonow and ZX, to 1 million units by 2020.

Zeng Qinghong, the group's general manager, said Trumpchi sold well in 2015 and urged the other two brands to better integrate and utilize their resources this year.
Tim Cook (third left), CEO of Apple Inc, and Liu Qing (first left), president of Didi Chuxing visit an Apple store in Beijing on Monday morning. [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc, is in China again. His eighth visit to Beijing since taking over the helm of Apple in 2011 highlights how important the world's largest mobile arena is to the United States tech giant.

On Monday morning, Cook visited an Apple store in Beijing, accompanied by Liu Qing, president of Didi Chuxing, the largest ride-hailing service provider in China.

His visit came shortly after the company announced on Friday it had pumped $1 billion into Didi Chuxing, which is battling with Uber Technologies Inc for supremacy in the booming car-hailing sector.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc, takes a taxi hailed via Didi Chuxing on the morning of May 16, 2016.[Photo: twitter.com / tim_cook]

When asked about why Apple invested in Didi, Cook said on Monday "because Didi has a very great management team and its objective is also environmental, hoping to help reduce pollutions by making more efficient use of cars."

Cook was in Beijing for an app store developer activity where Liu helped moderate the panel discussion.

Apple Inc also confirmed with China Daily that Mu Rongjun, senior vice-president of Meituan- Dianping; Stan Xu, CEO of Tap4Fun; Norma Chu, Founder of DayDayCook; Wu Xinhong, Founder and CEO of Meitu; Zhang Yiming, Founder and CEO of Toutiao, have attended the developer activity.

"China-based developers have now earned over $7 billion, and what is more impressive, over half of that came in the past 12 months alone. The momentum is quite strong," Cook said.

Tim Cook (left), CEO of Apple Inc talks with Liu Qing, president of Didi Chuxing on May 16 in Beijing. [Photo: twitter.com / tim_cook]

"The thing I like to do most in China is to spend time with entrepreneurs. There are so many entrepreneurs that are driving the next wave of innovations," he added.

To help local developers go global, Cook said they are already technically strong and Apple will make more efforts to help them in the marketing side.

Cook's visit also came at a time when Apple is wrestling with declining smartphone sales in China, its second-largest market. Last month, the government shut down Apple's iTunes and iBooks services in the mainland.

It is not immediately known whether Tim Cook will meet any high-level officials to discuss regulatory issues during this trip.
Recruits enrolled at Fudan University in this 2015 file photo. [Photo/IC]

Provinces with greater resources asked to take more students from poor regions

The Ministry of Education has told parents its efforts to ensure more children from poor backgrounds get a college education will not hurt the chances of students from more affluent parts of China.

The ministry said its changes to this year's gaokaothe national higher education entrance examwill not mean children from developed parts of China lose out.

The comments follow a heated discussion in China about the ramifications of changes to the gaokao. A recent directive from the ministry means there will be a redistribution of cross-provincial quotas for some provinces. Universities and colleges in some more developed provinces with rich tertiary education resources, such as Jiangsu and Hubei province, will this year have to take a larger number of students from less developed regions, such as Tibet and Xinjiang, who have passed the gaokao.

For instance, universities in Hubei province will enroll 40,000 students from less developed regions this year. Jiangsu will take 38,000. The quantities are understood to be significantly larger than previous years, but there are no hard numbers available.

The directive created a public outcry from parents in the two provinces, with some protesting in front of local education bureaus last week, claiming the redistribution will mean fewer local students will go to colleges and universities.

But the ministry said this will not happen because fewer students in the two provinces are taking the entrance exam these days, so there will be plenty of places to fill with students from poorer provinces.

In Jiangsu, 390,000 students registered to take the gaokao in 2015, with a pass rate of 89 percent. This year, 360,000 students registered for the exam. With far fewer local students taking the test, the ministry said it will be possible to take more students from poorer provinces without affecting the prospects of local students who want to attend a university.

However, not all parents bought the explanation.

One man, who declined to be named, in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, whose child is studying at a high school in the city's Jiangning district, said the decision was totally "unacceptable".

"The competition to gain admission to college, especially to some of the prestigious universities, was fierce enough, even before the quota was changed," he said. "I can't imagine what will happen if fewer places are offered to the children of Jiangsu."

But Xiong Bingqi, vice-president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said parents should not be worried.

"Because the number of students taking the gaokao in provinces like Jiangsu and Hubei has been falling during the past several years, it's normal that the education ministry would plan for fewer students to be recruited in these provinces and regions," he said.

Xiong said the chances of students in Hubei and Jiangsu being accepted into colleges and universities will remain the same.

The ministry explained that it made the change to the gaokao to further boost equal access to higher education and narrow the gap between developed provinces and their poorer counterparts.

The university entrance exam is seen by millions of students and parents in China as one of the most important milestones in life.
Doctors transplant the heart from a donor in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, to a patient in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province on May 8, 2016. [Photo/IC]

China is to increase the number of organ transplant hospitals from 169 to about 300 by 2020, according to the chairman of the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee.

Huang Jiefu said the increase will enable the nation to become the world leader in terms of the number of lifesaving procedures performed.

Huang, the former deputy minister of health, was speaking on Sunday at an annual awareness-raising event held by the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the Red Cross Society of China in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province.

In 2010, the two organizations set up China's public organ donation system in an attempt to end long-term dependence on death row inmates as major organ donors for transplants.

By February, 6,238 Chinese citizens had donated organs after death, saving 16,827 patients, according to the Red Cross.

"China has achieved a transition from relying on executed prisoners as a major source of organ donations," Huang said. "To improve access to the procedure, we're opening more transplant centers, and will have about 300 by 2020."

China currently has 169 organ transplant centers, performing about 10,000 surgeries annually. However, there are 30,000 patients awaiting transplants each year.

In contrast, the United States has more than 300 transplant centers, performing the most transplants worldwide.

Ye Qifa, director of the transplant center at Central South University in Wuhan, said Chinese organ transplant surgeons are highly capable but in short supply.

Huang said more surgeons are being trained, and with increasing organ donation awareness, "we'll open more centers to save more lives".

The number of organ donations will be made public on the website of the China Organ Transplant Development Foundation.

"Fairness and transparency are crucial to encouraging and sustaining public organ donations," Huang said.

But he also said cost is a major barrier for people wanting access to transplants. As a result, the health authority is carrying out research to initially cover kidney transplants under health insurance.

He said that in China a kidney transplant costs more than 300,000 yuan (about $46,000) and a liver transplant about 630,000 yuan.
The weibo account of the platform to help find missing children.[Photo/Sina Weibo]

Emergency Response System, similar to US' Amber Alert, expected to help

A high-tech system to help find missing children was put into operation on Sunday as a result of joint efforts by Chinese police and Internet companies.

The Emergency Response System, led by the Ministry of Public Security, is similar to Amber Alert, a system for emergency information broadcasts about missing children in the United States. It also is the way that authorized government information is released on missing children.

Chinese police working on cases of missing children first post messages, including photos and physical characteristics, on an internal system developed by Alibaba, the e-commerce giant. The information can then be posted on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like service.

The identities of officers from public security departments are verified at each level to ensure the veracity of what's posted, according to Chen Shiqu, deputy inspector of the ministry's criminal investigation bureau. Meanwhile, it is also intended to simplify complicated reporting procedures and help officers do their jobs more efficiently and effectively, he said.

"In the past, the broadcast range of child abduction information was limited, as it was posted only in places where the kids were lost. But now it is extended and covers cyberspace, which is a quicker way to find missing children," Chen said.

The system helps spread information in an effective manner by specifying the broadcast range, said Chen Jianfeng, director of the bureau's anti-abduction office.

Information is broadcast to areas 100 kilometers from the place a child went missing within one hour, Chen Jianfeng said.

The range is extended to more than 500 kilometers if a child is missing for more than three hours, he said.

On Sunday, the weibo account of the platform already had attracted more than 90,900 followers.

Cao Zenghui, vice-president of Sina Weibo, said the platform will deter the posting of fake information on missing children by netizens.

"Untrue or inaccurate information is a negative effect of public participation and is also a waste of web resources," Cao said.

Liu Zhenfei, chief risk officer at Alibaba, said it should lead to more family reunifications across the country.

"It's a good combination of our technical skills in information integration and the ministry's determination to fight child abduction," Liu said. More than 10 of the company's engineers voluntarily worked in their spare time since November to set up the internal system.

A publicity campaign and a DNA database set up by the ministry in 2009 helped in the recovery of more than 440 abducted children last year, officials said.

Chen Shiqu said that the new online platform was created to improve the capacity for finding children, not because the number of such cases has greatly increased.
Over the May Day holiday, I returned to Shanghai for the first time after two years in Beijing.

The weather was glorious, and the city was clothed in its finest spring attire.

Flowers ran riot, and crowds were out and in a festive mood. Some Shanghainese women were startlingly gorgeous, as if teleported from a catwalk in Paris or Milan.

Though time was too short, we stayed with some friends and had a great visit.

Of course, I'm well aware of the animosity between the cities, and this column may even get some hackles up. A Beijing friend confided that she "hates" Shanghai. A Shanghai friend offered me condolences when I said I'd been living in the North Capital.

An article I read online asked readers if they were on "Team Beijing" or "Team Shanghai", as if answering that question would define your personality.

Oddly, as we set out on our little holiday, I brooded a little on the bullet train after it left Beijing South Railway Station to head south. Sure, it had been an adjustment to leave Shanghai, but as I spent more time in Beijing, I became more and more comfortable.

The truth is, in some ways, I had never felt quite young, wealthy or cool enough for the Shanghai scene. Chinese people in Shanghai (including a Beijing native) had told us that the knock on Beijing is that everyone here is concerned about power, whereas Shanghai is a mercantile city, where compromise is paramount.

Well, like most stereotypes, there seems to be a grain of truth and a dollop of oversimplification to that. I liked a lot of the Beijingers I met, and mostly they seemed like the "regular" people that I'm comfortable with. Even the professionals I met did not seem stuck up.

While Beijing largely lacks the turn-of-the-century charm of Shanghai, it has amazing historical architecture and fascinating hutong areas.

As for weather, I actually like a drier climate, but, for comfort, Beijing's frigid winters pretty much offset Shanghai's humid summers.

The only real problem I have with Beijing is, of course, the higher level of air pollution some days. It is especially onerous once you have some blue-sky days here and see how gorgeous a city it is.

These two rival sisters have different climates, cuisines, personalities, advantages and disadvantages, but the wonderful thing is that they are a living demonstration of China's variety. China is not a simple place, and the definition of "Chinese" doesn't fit into a neat little box.

When I tell friends and family back in the States about these cities, I tell them to imagine Beijing as Washington and Shanghai as New York. It's a useful tool to help them understand, but it just barely scratches the surface of what these places are.

I feel very fortunate to have lived in both these world-class cities.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with a little friendly rivalry. When my wife rhapsodizes about Shanghai, you'll usually find me sticking up for Beijing.
Students in traditional costumes perform during the annual memorial ceremony for the Yan Emperor in Gaoping, Shanxi province, on Saturday. Sun Ruisheng / China Daily

About 2,000 people, more than half of them from Taiwan, attended an annual memorial ceremony on Saturday for the Yan Emperor in what is thought to have been his hometown in Gaoping, Shanxi province.

The Yan Emperor was a legendary Chinese ruler who lived about 4,500 years ago. He is also known as Shennong, or holy farmer, and is credited with spreading farming technology, inventing tools, finding herbs and collecting grain seeds.

The eighth day of the fourth month on the Chinese lunar calendar, which fell on Saturday this year, is believed to be the birthday of the Yan Emperor. The ceremony was held at a newly renovated tomb and adjacent temple, which consists of about 300 halls covering 11 hectares.

Yok Mu-ming, president of Taiwan's New Party, who was a keynote speaker, said: "Chinese from the two sides of the Taiwan Straits have the same ancestors. The purpose of our joint memorial for the Yan Emperor is peace and harmony for future generations. The two sides should help each other's economy for the rise of China."

It is estimated that there are 146 Yan Emperor temples in Taiwan.

Some delegates of the temples took part in the ceremony and will take back incense ashes as a symbol of the two sides' sharing the same root.

Residents offered ritual sacrifices before a statue of the Yan Emperor, and some students from Taiwan who attend a school in Dongguan performed for the ceremony.

Song Heping, spokesman for the Gaoping government, said there are hundreds of ancient temples, stone tablets and historical sites, as well as a strong folk culture surrounding the Yan Emperor in Gaoping, dating to at least 2,000 years ago. The county - specifically the region around Yangtou Mountain - was believed to be the emperor's birthplace, main region of activity and burial site.
China began a voluntary organ donation trial in 2010 and promoted the practice across the country in 2013. [Photo/Xinhua]

Voluntary organ donations by citizens have risen 120 times in past six years since China began the trial in 2010, making the country No 1 in Asia in the number of voluntary organ donations.

The figure was made public at 2016 China International Organ Donation and Transplantation Forum co-organized by the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee and the China Organ Transplant Development Foundation in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, on May 15.

China recorded 2,766 voluntary organ donations, with 7,758 large organs acquired in 2015, said Guo Yanhong, deputy director of the medical administration bureau, the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

More than 1,000 organ transplantations, including relatives' donations, were made in 2015, breaking a historic record, she said.

There were only 34 voluntary organ donations and 88 organ transplantations in the trial year 2010. Previously China mainly relied on executed prisoners as a major source of organ donations.

China has banned the use of prisoners' organs for the purpose starting 2015, making citizen donation the only legitimate channel.

Though great development has achieved, there are still 30,000 patients awaiting transplants each year, said Huang Jiefu, the chairman of the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee and president of the China Organ Transplant Development Foundation.

There is still a great gap between the number of donations and patients, he said.
A job seeker looks through employment information at a job fair held for fresh graduates in Liaocheng city, East China's Shandong province, March 14, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua]

Employees in the finance sector earned more money than those in other industries in 2015, according to the data released Friday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The annual average income of finance in the previous year is as much as 114,777 yuan ($17,584), 1.85 times than that of the 53,615 yuan national average level.

The other two high-income sectors following finance are the information transmission, software and IT services at 112,042 yuan, and the scientific research and technology services at 89,410 yuan.

The bull stock market drove the whole capital market high in the first half of last year. It pulled up the added value of the finance industry and the growing rate of tax revenue, in line of which was the salary of the employees in this industry, so it is within the expectation of the public that finance tops the list, according to the analysis by China Business News.

The NBS data also indicates that the gap between information transmission, software and IT services and finance has been narrowed from 7,476 yuan in 2014 to 2,735 yuan. It illustrates that internet information sustains stronger momentum in the background of Internet Plus and industrial restructuring.

Compared with that, the income of those industries is much lower which involve more physical work and provide low entrance threshold.

The lowest income industries are farming, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery with 31,947 yuan, accommodation and catering industry with 40,806 yuan and water conservancy, environment and public facilities management with 43,528 yuan.

The income gap between the highest-income industry and lowest-income sector has been narrowed a bit as the ratio of the two is 3.59, lower than the 2014 figure of 3.82.

Due to the excess production capacity, the average annual income of mining industry dropped 3.7%, the first industry of negative growth in many consecutive years.
The "Dunhuang Express", starting from Gansu, has arrived in Beijing on May 14, 2016. The train is decorated with artistic patterns bringing Dunhuang culture to Beijing as well as to the 30 stops along the route. China Railway Engineering Corporation plans to put another 106 tourism expresses into operation this year. The 106 routes will all lead to the Silk Road area. [Photo/Weibo.com]
NANNING - Police in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region have detained four people for their roles in the capture and sale of a whale shark, a species under state protection.

On May 7, photos were posted online of a shark being pulled from the sea off Beihai city's Weizhou Island, prompting a police investigation.

A spokesperson for Beihai police said on Sunday that those detained were the captain and owner of a fishing boat and two others who bought the shark.

The captain and owner of the boat "Yuelianyu 12888" were apprehended when law enforcers boarded the vessel on Saturday, after the captain refused to approach the shore as directed by police.

Captain Qiu said he saw a gill net in the water on May 5 and when the crew pulled it aboard they found a "big fish" caught in it.

Qiu claimed the fish was dead and stank when they brought it on board, and that he had no idea that it was a protected animal.

When the boat arrived at Beihai Port on May 7, the crew sold the net for 2,200 yuan (about $340) and the boat owner sold the 370-kg shark for two yuan per kg to a buyer known as Liao, who sold it on to Huang for five yuan per kg. Huang is alleged to have turned the meat into fertilizer and sold it.

Whale shark is considered "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and is a Class-B protected species in China. They are frequently seen in waters off Guangxi and Guangdong in May and June.
China National Petroleum Corporation has announced the discovery of more corruption cases among its top executives and pledged no respite in the fight against graft.

The corporation, which is the country's largest oil and gas producer and supplier, on Monday published a memo to its staff stating that all suspects involved in the corruption of Jiang Jiemin and Wang Yongchun, former top leaders of the company who are now in jail, would be dealt with impartially under the law.

Some of the unnamed suspects have been punished using Party disciplinary measures, while others have been referred to Party disciplinary departments for further investigation.

No further information about the suspects was available.

Jiang Jiemin, former chairman of the corporation, was arrested in 2013 shortly after leaving the company to head a government body overseeing state-owned companies.

He was charged with accepting bribes and abuse of power and in October was sentenced to 16 years in prison for taking bribes of around 14 million yuan ($2 million).

Meanwhile, Wang Yongchun, former vice general manager of the corporation, was given a 20-year sentence in October for taking bribes of nearly 50 million yuan and abuse of power.
BEIJING - Jing Chunhua, a former senior official in North China's Hebei province, has been indicted for taking bribes, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) said on Monday.

The SPP designated Changchun Municipal People's Procuratorate in Jilin province to initiate the prosecution at Changchun Intermediate People's Court.

Jing is also charged with holding a large amount of property which he could not account for.

Prosecutors have informed Jing of his litigation rights, questioned the defendant, and listened to representations from his lawyer, according to a statement from the SPP.

According to the indictment, Jing took advantage of his posts to seek benefits for individuals and illegally accepted a huge amount of property from them. His property and expenditure obviously exceeded his legal income, and he could not explain how he came by the money.

Jing is alleged to have committed these crimes through the years while he had been deputy Communist Party of China (CPC) chief of Chengde city, mayor of Chengde city, Party chief of Hengshui city, and standing committee member and secretary general of the CPC provincial committee of Hebei, .

Jing was put under investigation for "suspected serious discipline and law violations" by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in March 2015.
With less than one month before the national college entrance examination, the news that Jiangsu province would offer some of its college enrollment quota to students from less developed regions created panic among students and parents in the province.

The local education authorities later stated that the 38,000 university places being offered to students from the central and western regions would not mean fewer students from the province would be enrolled in colleges.

Both the education authorities and some media outlets are responsible for the angry response to the news, as the former failed to give clear explanation about the reform, while the latter misinterpreted it.

Lacking a detailed explanation about the change, many parents and students assumed it would mean the quota for students from the central and western regions would be at the expense of children in Jiangsu.

The education authorities should have made clear when they released the news that only 9,000 of the 38,000 students will be recruited as undergraduates, and the remainder will be enrolled for junior college education and vocational training.

Jiangsu's actual college enrollment quota from the province may only be reduced by 5,000 at most, and the reduction for key universities may be only 2,000 to 3,000, with colleges in other provinces recruiting more students from Jiangsu province to compensate for this.

Some students and parents supposed the reduction in the number of exam candidates would mean that it would be even harder than before to pass national college entrance examination in Jiangsu. In fact, the number of candidates for the exam this year decreased by 32,500 compared with that of last year. Indeed, over the past seven years, the number of exam candidates has fallen by about 160,000.

If the college enrollment quota in Jiangsu province doesn't reduce accordingly, the college enrollment rate in Jiangsu province will increase.

It's unreasonable to only take the reduction of the enrollment quota into consideration while ignoring the fact that the number of candidates taking the exam is declining.

China is pushing education reform to promote greater fairness. It is good for the country that the educational authorities are adjusting the college enrollment to help those students from areas with less educational resources. But the educational authorities should also draw a lesson from the panic of parents and students in Jiangsu this time.

First, educational authorities should better explain their plans to the public in timely manner, because college enrollment is related to the interests of students and their families.

Second, there should be a unified standard of college enrollment adjustment in the developed regions. Students and parents of Jiangsu province were strongly opposed to the adjustment this time in part because of the unbalanced enrollment rate in different regions. The educational authorities should directly face the issue of unfairness in the college enrollment process.

It will be a huge challenge for the education authorities to map out a plan that balances the interests of the developed and the underdeveloped regions. But it's time for them to come up with a solution.

The author is vice-president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute.
A birthday party was held for a special "student" at a class in Caotang Primary School in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan province on Friday. The party was unusual, because the star of the celebration was a dog.

Xile, a homeless dog, was found by the students and teacher of Class 3, Grade 2 at a corner on the campus three years ago. The palm-size puppy was adopted by the class after they gained the school dean's approval. Xile joined the class and the day he was found became his "birthday".

Three months after Xile settled into his new on-campus home, the dog fell very ill with an infectious disease. To save Xile's life, the class raised up to 6,000 yuan ($920) for treatment and took turns looking after the dog at a veterinary hospital during recovery.

"The treatment cost 1,500 yuan. We set up the Xile Fund with the remaining money for its daily care", said the students' teacher who is nicknamed Duoduo.

Xile lives in a fenced-in kennel built by the students to make sure he can't get out and bother others. The pet developed a friendship with the class and students are allowed to visit Xile only when supervised by teachers.

Looking after Xile makes the students understand what love is, their teacher said.

"Students learn how to show their love, take responsibility and care for others," Duoduo said.
A concert is held at the founding ceremony of of the Zhejiang Conservatory of Music on May 8, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

The Zhejiang Conservatory of Music was officially founded by Zhejiang provincial government and the Ministry of Culture on May 8, 2016.

It's a public, full-time college focusing on undergraduate education while undertaking the task of developing postgraduates. In March, the conservatory independently recruited students nationwide for the first time.

The Zhejiang Conservatory of Music also focuses on internationalizing their school. Cooperating with the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, the conservatory will promote music communication between China and Austria.

Construction preparation started in 2012 and Zhejiang provincial government put the Zhejiang Conservatory of Music in a prominent position to achieve the aim of building a great cultural province.

One hundred years ago, Zhejiang was one of the birthplaces of Chinese modern music, cultivating many famous musicians, like Li Shutong, Gu Xilin, Zhou Dafeng and Shi Guangnan.
Zhang Huoding is known for her performances in The Legend of the White Snake and The Jewelry Pouch.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Acclaimed artist Zhang Huoding will bring the curtains down on this year's Meet in Beijing arts festival with a Peking Opera classic. Chen Nan reports.

As Zhang Huoding walks to the stage, cameras follow her and the crowds get excited. The 45-year-old is one of a few Peking Opera performers who can get the attention usually reserved for a pop star.

Her shows are sold out and fans, especially young people, love her performances of the traditional art form, which is facing a decline today.

On May 24, Zhang will present a Peking Opera classic, The Legend of the White Snake, at Chang'an Grand Theater in Beijing, to mark the end of the monthlong Meet in Beijing arts festival for the year, one of the capital's biggest cultural events.

The Legend of the White Snake is about a love affair between a female snake named Bai Suzhen, who turns into a beautiful woman, and a man called Xu Xian. They meet, fall in love and get married. But a monk, who considers Bai evil and jails her in a tower, gets in the way of the couple's happy life.

"I like the role of Bai Suzhen very much. The woman is strong, crazy for love and brave," says Zhang, who was born in Baicheng city in Northeast China's Jilin province.

She began her studies in Peking Opera in Tianjin in 1986. Upon graduation three years later, she focused on the Cheng schoolone of the four major Peking Opera styles that emerged in the early 20th centuryunder accomplished performer Zhao Rongchen (1916-96).

The Cheng school, founded by famed Peking Opera master Cheng Yanqiu (1904-58), is known for its sorrowful and graceful singing, especially when portraying vulnerable and constrained female roles.

In 2000, Zhang performed the role of Bai for the first time when she was working with the China National Peking Opera Company.

To play the role, she adapted the classic piece to the Cheng style. This performance brought her great acclaim and made her a representative figure of the school.

Then, in 2007, she was the first Peking Opera performer to hold a solo concert at the Great Hall of the People.

A highlight of her upcoming show is that Zhang will perform with four actors from different generations of Peking Opera performers, who play the role of Xu Xian. The actors include Ye Shaolan, Song Xiaochuan, Zhao Rao and Zhang Bing.
Ecotourists from Beijing venture into Hebei province's wilderness not only for sightseeing but also to learn about the importance and methodologies of environmental protection.[Photo provided to China Daily]

A nonprofit organizes camping trips where children bring home wolf feces as souvenirs, after they howl like the canines to terrify boars. Yang Feiyue reports on these expeditions.

Beijinger Hou Yanlin spent April's Tomb Sweeping holiday tromping the wilderness, hunting for wild animals to shootwith infrared cameras, rather than guns. To protect rather than kill them.

The ecotourists ventured into Hebei province's wilderness not only for sightseeing but also to learn about the importance and methodologies of environmental protection on the trip organized by the Beijing-based nonprofit, Black Leopard Wildlife Conservation Station.

That said, she did enjoy the views of green mountains bursting with pink peach blossoms and white apricot blooms.

"It was a different experience from anything I'd done before," she says.

"And I learned a lot about life sciences."

Organizers taught participants how to track wild animals and monitor bird movements, while explaining environmental protection's significance in-depth.

Hou learned to detect wild boars' traces left and how to install infrared cameras to capture different species on film.

She was one of about 100 people who signed up for the monthly eco-tour.

"Our activities are designed to help people find themselves in nature," says the station's head, Li Li.

"Urbanites face tremendous pressure. Most live monotonous existences between work and daily tasks. They've forgotten the joys of engaging nature."

The nonprofit was founded in 2000 to undertake and raise public awareness about biodiversity protection. The idea of bringing visitors to project sites developed 13 years later.

It runs operations in Beijing's Nanhe and Sibeiyu villages, and Hebei's Yeshanpo town and Caishu'an village.

The nonprofit now focuses on protecting black storks, migratory birds and their habitats. It claims to have saved more than 2,100 animals under first- and second-tier State protection. The base's stork numbers have grown from two or three to 60.

"They're beautiful big black birds with red eyes, beaks and feet. They look purplish-green in the sunlight," Li says.

Tourists who join its trips view the fowl through telescopes. They can examine the slight differences in their eyes.

"If they're lucky, they can see them breed," Li says.

Black Leopard has taught local aquaculturalists to deepen their ponds so the storks won't snatch their fish.

The endangered storks' proliferation draws birdwatchers and photographers.
Chinese director Jia Zhangke at Cannes. [Photo/Xinhua]

The development of Chinese art film s should not just rely on the state's subventions, but also on the establishment of a complete industrial system, Chinese director Jia Zhangke said in Cannes.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua during the 69th Cannes Film Festival, Jia said a complete industrial system will "allow art films not only to reach a larger audience, but also to promote their commercialization".

For the Chinese director, it is "regrettable" and "shocking" to see that no Chinese films were in the official selection of this year's Cannes Film Festival.

Stressing that this might be just a coincidence, Jia didn't deny the fact that there are few young Chinese filmmakers who can represent China in important international film festivals in recent years.

"Also, most of the Chinese audience prefer going to watch the entertaining movies instead of supporting art films," Jia said.

According to Jia, who won Best Screenplay of the 66th Cannes Film Festival and served as a jury member of the main competition in the 67th Cannes Film Festival, "the increase of artistic quality of the films depends on the overall promotion of the cultural level of filmmaking".

"It requires both strengthening the artistic level of the filmmakers themselves, and improving spectators' appreciation," Jia added.

He suggested the government introducing more measures to support art films, including favorable tax rates or offering specific subventions.

China also should further provide platforms to support young Chinese directors to show their works across China, and mobilize all the cinemas to create a favorable atmosphere to the commercialization of art films, Jia proposed.

The development of art films should not totally rely on the government, it is necessary that the filmmakers seek to better exploit the market, Jia told Xinhua.

"Compared with the United States or European countries, the development of the film industry in China has a short developing history," he said, adding that it takes a gradual process to form a globally high artistic level of the films.

Related:

Gong Li at Cannes: China's film industry too focused on entertainment
[Photo/Xinhua]

China is planning to increase the number of hospitals carrying out organ transplants from 169 to 300 in the next five years.

Medical expert Huang Jiefu said the number of donation coordinators, whose job is to convince relatives of potential donors and help with the entire process of donation, will double in the same period.

China now has the most registered organ donors in Asia and the second highest number globally.

China began a voluntary organ donation trial in 2010 and promoted the practice across the country in 2013.

Each year, about 300,000 patients need transplants but last year only 2,766 people donated major organs to be used after their death. That was however almost double the number in 2014. In all 10,057 transplants were performed.

On January 1, 2015, China banned the harvesting of organs from prisoners.
Members of the European Parliament take part in a voting session in Strasbourg, France, April 12, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

On Thursday, the European Parliament passed a resolution refusing to treat China as a market economy. The resolution, which is not legally binding, is intended to help the European Commission, the EU's executive body, make a final decision.

Out of the members present, 546 voted against treating China as market economy, 77 abstained and only 28 members voted in favor. As a result, many hailed it as a "landslide" decision.

Despite the numbers, the vote is actually not convincing at all.

First of all, trade rules, anti-dumping and cost calculations are extremely technical and, to some extent, most European Parliament members are no different from passers-by on the streets in terms of their knowledge of the issues involved.

They are prone to be influenced by biased reports (bear in mind one of the widely-circulated reports on this topic is from a think tank based in the United States) and many of them have not set foot in China. They don't know the reality of the Chinese economy or that market-oriented reforms are still being advanced.

Second, European businesses, especially those investing and trading in China won't agree with the parliamentarians who voted against market economy status for China.

Of course, some European industries that are struggling may be happy about the voting. But statistics indicate that more than 80 percent of European businesses in China are profitable. If China is not a market economy, how are those European investors managing to survive, and indeed prosper, in the increasingly sophisticated market environment there?
Members of the European Parliament take part in a voting session in Strasbourg, France, April 12, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

Semantics are often the cause of misunderstandings, and this is true of the debate in the European Union over whether or not to grant China market economy status.

When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, it agreed to a 15-year transitional period during which other WTO members were allowed to apply the "nonmarket economy methodology" in anti-dumping procedures concerning China.

Under this methodology, the trade officials of the EU Commission are entitled to estimate by analogy the domestic production cost and prices of export products, instead of basing their investigation on domestic market prices.

The Chinese government argues that when the transitional period ends on December 11, 2016, the trade officials from the Commission will no longer be entitled to apply the nonmarket economy methodology.

Conversely, some lawyers argue that until the other WTO members grant market economy status to China in their national legislation, their anti-dumping investigators can continue to use the nonmarket economy methodology. That, in a nutshell, is what the whole China market economy status debate is about.

The interpretation of the WTO agreement could be tested in a dispute settlement procedure. But is this advisable? Let us not forget the political and symbolic dimensions of the debate. According to the Mission of China to the EU, more than 80 countries, including New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Chile and Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries, have already granted China market economy status. Their choice was primarily dictated by political reasons, including the conclusion of free trade agreements.
"China follows a national defense policy that is defensive in nature. Moves such as deepening military reforms and the military buildup are aimed at maintaining China's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, and guaranteeing its peaceful development."

Defense Ministry Spokesman Yang Yujun on Saturday expressed his "strong dissatisfaction" and "firm opposition" to a Pentagon report about China's military development.
John Ross at the book launch ceremony.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The launch of Big Chess, by John Ross, the former Policy Director of Economic and Business Policy of London, and currently full-time foreign senior researcher of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, was held on May 15.

Ross has studied international economies, including Chinas, for over thirty years, giving him a deep and broad perspective.

In an inclusive interview with China Daily website, Ross explained that the book is in three parts: why the Chinese economy has grown so fast, why the US economy grew quickly in the past and why its failing now, and what the economic relationship is between China and the US. As the name of the book indicates, the book is mainly about the strategic game between these two major players.

Ross described some of his experiences over so many years. For example, in 1992 he traveled to Russia and wrote an article called Why economic reform will succeed in China but fail in Russia. At that time, Ross had had almost no contact with China; the article was theoretical analysis. But it created a great sensation in Russia. The public responded deeply to his opinion,even Vice President expressed his response to Ross personally. Actually, Ross predictions for the Russian economy were amazingly accurate. He has brought the same insight and analytic skill to Chinas on-going economic reform in Big Chess.

He explained that his analysis looks closely at four economic factors. The first and most powerful force of economic development is direct division of labor expressed in the growth of products used up in a single production cycle  intermediate products. This factor is strongly developed in the most advanced economies. The second most powerful force of production is fixed investment  that is, products of labor used up over more than one production cycle. Thirdly, as an economy develops, the role played by improvements in labor quality (through training and skill development) rises relative to increases in labor quantity (total hours worked by the labor force). Lastly, total factor productivity (TFP) accounts for about 10% of growth due to Solow factors of production  individual entrepreneurship is included in this 10%.

When asked whether Chinas economy would grow in an L shape, he said it depends on the numbers at the bottom of the L. As the goal set for the 13th Five Year Plan indicates, if GDP growth rate stays within 6.5%-7%, theres no big problem. If the international economic situation improves, Chinas economy will definitely grow faster. But he is not optimistic about international economic development within the next five to seven years.

Various economists and scholars have expressed their admiration for Ross new book in exclusive comments to the China Daily website. Wei Benhua, former deputy director of the Administration of Foreign Exchange, highly recommends Ross book for its neutral and objective view from an international economist with a great passion for studies in the Chinese economy.

Liu Zhiqin, former chief representative of Zurich Cantonal Bank, feels that we should especially value the two main points of this book: firstly, part of the US economys slowdown can be contributed to the USs attempt to create a policy based on individual entrepreneurship, while, by contrast, China, because it has based its economic development on socialization or division of labor, has been able to gather the most powerful forces of production and has therefore experienced the most rapid economic growth in world history. This difference has extremely practical significance when our authority is implementing policies that encourage people to do business creatively and drive innovation. Secondly, Ross thinks that consumption can hardly contribute to GDP growth; what really matters is to increase investment share. So when it comes to policy making, he suggests giving priority to investment and letting consumption play a subsidiary role. This point is similar with Justin Yifu Lin, the former vice president of the World Bank.

Liu also said he was impressed by Ross calm and accurate analysis of the current situation: he is neither too optimistic nor negative; he confronts the problems rather than avoiding them.

All in all, Ross confidence and analysis are based on both his fruitful experiences and solid theoretical work: he firmly believes that China stands on the economic foundation of Adam Smith as continued by Karl Marx. This demonstrates that division of labor to use Adam Smiths term, or socialization of labor to use Karl Marxs, is the most powerful productive force. This analysis is fully confirmed by modern econometrics, and has been developed in its modern form in China. Up to now, findings not only of Marxism but also of modern Western economic research entirely confirm Xi Jinpings conclusions regarding the correctness of Marxist economics and an emphasis on the supply side. It is socialized labor, the working class, that is overwhelmingly the most powerful force in increasing production.

John Ross, Wei Benhua and Liu Zhiqin are researchers at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China ( RDCY).
A view of Hong Kong's Central business district. Edmond Tang / China Daily

Several groups seeking "Hong Kong independence" have emerged in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the past few months. However, the opinions they express and their activities in pursuit of this aim are unlawful behavior in the guise of freedom of speech and freedom of association.

Although residents in Hong Kong enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of association under the Hong Kong Basic Law, the Basic Law also states such freedoms must be carried out according to the Basic Law, other laws and ordinances, with the Basic Law taking precedence.

The words and behavior of these groups are not in accordance with the law as they not only challenge the principle of "One Country, Two Systems", they violate the Hong Kong Basic Law, as well as the Hong Kong Crimes Ordinance and the Hong Kong Societies Ordinance.

In any country, freedom of speech and forming associations face boundaries, that means, they should not violate the interests of the country, society and the legal freedom and rights of other citizens.

People and organizations promoting "Hong Kong independence" not only defy the Basic Law and the SAR government, they challenge the interests of the country, the SAR and the Chinese people.

Some people suppose that the absence of Article 23 in the Basic Law, which stipulates the SAR enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, means it is impossible to hold accountable those responsible for criminal behaviors that challenge the Basic Law. But that is not the case.
Brazil's interim President Michel Temer gestures during a ceremony where he made his first public remarks after the Brazilian Senate voted to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, May 12, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

BRASILIA -- Brazil's newly-installed interim government is expected to strengthen trade and investment ties with China, among many other measures to get its economy back on track.

After former vice president Michel Temer was sworn in as acting president of the South American country on May 12, the new government said it would launch a slew of new initiatives to restore economic growth.

Local economists and lawmakers all voiced belief that in striving for that goal, China has a pivotal supporting role to play.

"Brazil and China enjoy a long friendship with robust development (and) our Foreign Affairs Ministry has a very good relationship with its Chinese counterpart, so from that perspective I think the new government will only improve ties, not make them worse," Brazilian Senator Cristovam Buarque told Xinhua.

Bilateral trade between China and Brazil stood at 86.67 billion U.S. dollars in 2014, making China Brazil's largest export destination and source of imports.

"We are waiting for everything to return to normal in politics as well as the economy," said fellow Senator Helio Jose. "If that happens, there will be sustainable growth in areas where Chinese investment is concentrated, such as infrastructure.

"We welcome more Chinese investment," he added.

Over the years, China has purchased large sums of raw materials from Brazil, where it has also invested heavily in infrastructure, including hydropower facilities and automobile production.

Ronnie Lins de Almeida, director of the Brazilian Center for China Studies, said "all manufacturing industries should be prepared for changes" following the political shift.

"I think this is a good opportunity, as China, India and Russia have technological advantages. Information exchange can benefit all the countries, especially in the fields of technology and trade," said Lins.

As members of the BRICS bloc of emerging economies, China and Brazil have much in common.

"Officials, including our foreign minister, will strive to tap our trade ties with BRICS countries," said Senator Jose, adding "I know the importance of China and other BRICS countries.

"China is the most important economic entity in the world, with a huge investment in Brazil (and) Brazil is very much interested in enhancing its trade (ties) with China," said Jose.

Chinese business owners and others living and working in Brazil expressed hope for an early end to the political crisis.
BEIJING - The release of an annual report by the United States to hype up China's "military threat" will only undermine the strategic mutual trust between the two major countries.

For starters, the United States has no right to "monitor" the military strategy and force development of such a sovereign country as China.

China follows a national defense policy that is defensive in nature. Like any other country in the world, it has every legitimate reason to develop military forces to safeguard its sovereignty and peaceful development.

In the report based on flawed information, the Pentagon "estimates" that China's total military-related spending for 2015 exceeded 180 billion US dollars, saying it seems that China will sustain defense spending growth in the foreseeable future despite its economic growth deceleration.

But the Pentagon failed to notice that Beijing announced its plan in March to raise the 2016 defense budget by only 7.6 percent, the lowest percentage in six years, to about 146 billion dollars in the face of rising economic headwinds and following last year's massive reduction of service people.

The 146 billion dollars is in fact only about a quarter of that of the United States, whose defense budget for the 2017 fiscal year is 582.7 billion dollars. This contrasts the fact that China's GDP is already two thirds of that of the United States.

The great gap between the two countries' defense budgets easily reveals who is more likely to be a "military threat" to the world.

Secondly, the report, released amid rising tensions around the South China Sea issue, smears China's legitimate activities in the East China Sea and South China Sea.

China's sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and related rights in the South China Sea were formed in history and have long been widely recognized.

China's construction on the Nansha Islands serves mostly civilian purposes, and helps fulfil its international responsibilities and obligations by providing more public services.

In fact, it is Washington's pivot to Asia and its meddling in the waters of the Asia-Pacific that have stoked tensions in the South China Sea.

The United States, an outsider of the maritime disputes, has frequently sent military aircraft and warships to the region on excuse of exercising "freedom of navigation" based on the innocent passage stipulated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which it is not even a signatory.

As a matter of fact, the UNCLOS states very clearly that passage is innocent only if "it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State."

The UN law also stipulates that foreign ships exercising the right to innocent passage through a territorial sea shall comply with related laws and regulations of the coastal State.

According to the "Law of the People's Republic of China Concerning the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone" enacted in 1992, foreign warships entering China's territorial waters should obtain prior approval from the Chinese government.

Obviously, the US warships' incursion into China's territorial sea violated both Chinese and international law.

Besides, the US suspicion about Chinese military missions abroad as expressed in the report is unfounded. As a responsible major country, China has increasingly been engaged in overseas missions for peacekeeping, disaster relief, among others, to contribute to global peace and stability.

In essence, the United States is attempting to expand its global military presence and increase weapon exports by making and hyping up China's "military threat".

Washington should be reminded that its involvement in the maritime territorial disputes would make things worse and its imagined contention with China would sow the seeds of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

For the interests of both countries and the world at large, the US side should take tangible actions to promote healthy and stable development of its relations with China and refrain from harmful deeds.
BEIJING -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with visiting Pakistani Army Chief General Raheel Sharif on Monday to enhance bilateral economic and security ties.

Military-to-military relations have reinforced China-Pakistan ties, especially economic cooperation, Li said, calling on both sides to strengthen high-level contact and deepen exchanges in various fields.

Economic cooperation and security collaboration between the two should be pushed forward "like two wheels," according to the premier.

Li also hopes China and Pakistan will increase communication and coordination on global and regional issues to safeguard peace and promote common development and prosperity.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is not only a flagship project between the two sides, but also conducive to development and prosperity of the whole region, stressed Li, saying China appreciates the strong support from Pakistan's government and military.

The premier said the two countries will share opportunities and overcome challenges through joint efforts to benefit the two peoples.

The Pakistani army appreciates Pakistan's profound friendship with China, Raheel Sharif said, stressing the Pakistani side expects achievements from the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor and is ready to provide security for cooperation.

Vice Chairman of China's Central Military Commission Fan Changlong also met with Raheel Sharif on Monday to promote military-to-military ties between the neighboring countries.
Chinas Relations With the West: Straight Line Decline

There are those who believe China's ongoing Party Congress will bode well for companies that do business in or with China. I am firmly convinced that the opposite is true and that it will used as yet another opportunity by China to show that it will not be cowered by the declining relations and sanctions/counter-sanctions between the United States / EU / Australia / Japan on the one hand, and China on the other. I see China using this Congress to let the world (domestic and external) know that it fully intends to fight back and fight back hard. In other words, this Party Congress will lead to China's decoupling from much of the world accelerating, not slowing down.
It has been nearly three years since we did a post on foreigners being held hostage in China. Since our China lawyers still regularly get contacted regarding China hostage situations, that has undoubtedly been too long. To make matters worse, we have recently started hearing of a new and horrific twist. But before I go into that, I will set the typical seen by harkening back to a 2009 article, entitled, China Hostage Situation. Now IS A Good Time To Pay Your Debts [link no longer exists]. That article dealt with an email I had received setting forth the following scenario:

Consumer product company had a rep office  staffed with people with US passports. Company had financial problems and needed to file for bankruptcy. The company sent one of their executives to China to advise their suppliers that they were declaring bankruptcy and would be unable at this point to pay their outstanding balances.

As you can imagine, the Chinese suppliers did not take this well, and they stormed the rep office and are now holding the US citizens hostage  literally. Its been days now -and neither the police nor the embassy will help to extract the people.

The whole thing was obviously not handled properly from the start  but this has turned ugly pretty quickly. Each factory is mainland owned.

Ill let you know how this turns out  Im not involved  just hearing most of this second-hand.

I hope to write a happy ending to this story when/if it resolves itself in a safe way that protects both the US people as well as the suppliers  but I am not so sure it will be.

Have you encountered similar experiences?

I responded to that email by saying that my firm has been involved in similar situations countless times and that had we been retained on this one, our advice would have been so different that I would like to think things would have never reached this point. We would have told this company to get ALL its personnel out of China before letting suppliers know (from far far away) about the bankruptcy filing and the upcoming slow payments. That is actually always our first advice (both orally and in writing) whenever a foreign company contacts us for help with their China debt issues.

I then went on and discussed a somewhat similar situation my firm had handled and how I had written on that in a post, entitled, China, We Have A Problem. A Mostly True Story. The key takeaway from that post was the need to get everyone out of town. The situation in that post was as follows:

Young Chinese Child falls from a window in a room in which an American employee of our client is one of the few adults. Child is very badly hurt. Very badly. It now appears the childs injuries will probably not be permanent, but he also may be in recovery for a year. His medical expenses by US standards were fairly low, but they are astronomical by Chinese standards, particularly for this less than large city. A day later, the parents of the child come with a lawyer to tell this employee that they want six figures (in US dollars, not RMB) from him and from his employer for the injuries that have befallen their child. They also go to the police and make the same request of this employee and his American employer.

The parents make clear to the employee that many in the town are behind them and that things will get much worse if payment is not received. The employer calls us and we immediately spring into action. We determine that the police do not seem to be buying into the parents story of guilt, yet they have not told this employee and our clients other employees that they must remain in town as either witnesses or suspects. We learn that our client is not terribly happy with its joint venture partner in this town and that it has no problem taking its employees out of there and sending them home to sit this whole thing out. Though they feel terrible about the injuries that have befallen the kid, they do not consider themselves responsible. Our research of the facts and the law all indicate our client is not liable. However, as everyone who has ever been involved in litigation anywhere in the world knows, not being liable and not being subject to an expensive and time consuming lawsuit are two entirely different and only tangentially related things.

We determine the best course of action is to get the employees out of this town as quickly as possible and on their way back to the United States. We figure that getting them out will change the leverage game entirely. The employees leave and the settlement amount demanded by the parents immediately plunges. Now we can talk with the childs parents and the joint venture partner (who actually owns and maintains the building from which the child fell) from afar, pretty much stripped of any imminent threats. Our client agrees to pay the parents something towards the medical bills and we (fairly publicly) ask that instead of the Chinese joint venture partner paying what it owes to our client, that it instead pay all of that to the family of the injured child. Written agreements in Chinese are signed on all of this and we move on.

If you are a foreign company without a China presence and you owe money to a Chinese company, you do not need to worry about a hostage situation (so long as you never send anyone from your company to China), but you do probably need to worry about Sinosure, and for how to deal with that you should read China Sinosure: What You NEED to Know.

Chinese Law Prof blog did an excellent post on this same topic, entitled, Debt Hostages. That post is on how the police often look the other way (or even assist) with these kidnappings:

When is kidnapping not kidnapping? Apparently when its for the purpose of getting a legitimate debt paid. This, at least, seems to be the social understanding of kidnapping in China, and theres even legal support for it (the law calls it unlawful detention in that case). The latest case is reported in the Dongguan Times: a couple cant pay the hospital bill for the wifes delivery of a baby, so the hospital is holding the baby hostage until the parents pay up. Theyve had the baby for over 100 days so far. One amazing thing about it is that this is apparently a government-run hospital, and the hostage-takers have even held a press conference to justify their actions (apparently they felt the father had not been sincere in his efforts to pay). The other amazing thing about it (to me) is that this is seen as relatively acceptable. The newspaper report uses quotation marks around the word hostage, as if the baby somehow is not really a hostage. And the most a local lawyer can bring himself to call this is inappropriate.

The post goes on to note how taking debt hostages just isnt that big a deal in China and the police even sometimes assist:

Ive been seeing reports of creditors taking debt hostages for years, and they are always similar in key points: the creditor keeps a human being in forcible detention and demands payment of a debt as a condition for release. Whats more, the hostage-taking and the identity of the kidnapper are not secret; that would defeat the whole purpose. And finally, the police do nothing. They think of it as a civil dispute having nothing to do with them. For example, back in 1992 I read of a case where a jilted suitor took a womans baby as hostage for the return of over 1,000 yuan in gifts. The police didnt immediately arrest this known kidnapper; instead, the go-between, the village committee, and judicial departments tried for five months to persuade him to return the child. Only then did they finally give up and arrest him.

Actually, I was wrong to say the police do nothing  sometimes they actively assist in taking debt hostages. In a book entitled One Hundred Strategies for Using Law to Clear Up Debts (), the writer mentions as an aside that a plaintiff trying to collect a debt asked the police and the procuracy to assist. They helpfully detained three people from the defendant organization for up to eight months, but were unsuccessful in collecting.

So what is the new twist? We are increasingly hearing of situations where someone calls up the partner (with that term so broadly defined as to include a life partner and a business partner and really anyone else who might be relevant) of the hostage and says if that person pays x dollars (usually  to  of what is actually owed), the hostage will be released. The partner then pays the money and the company owed the debt then claims it never received a yuan of it. Lacking any proof that any money was paid on the debt and without anything in writing actually from the company, the hostage and its partner(s) are right back where they started from in terms of getting the hostage released, but now they are out a good chunk of money.

So what are the takeaways from all of this?

1. If you are in a debt dispute with a Chinese company and you have people in China, you should try to get them all out of China as quickly as possible.

2. If you are in a debt dispute with someone in China you should not go to China to try to resolve it.

3. If you must go to China or if your employee(s) must remain in China, think about using a bodyguard or two and think very carefully about where you or your employee(s) stay and go. Most importantly, be careful with whom you meet.

4. Consider preemptively suing the alleged creditor somewhere (preferably in US Federal Court) so that you can very plausibly claim to the Chinese police and other authorities that you or your employee(s)  have been seized and held hostage not because of a debt owed, but out of retaliation for your having sued. If you are going to sue, carry proof of your lawsuit with you at all times while you are in China.

5. Take these situations very seriously and get experienced assistance immediately.

6. Do not pay money to anyone without a good mechanism in place (and in writing) to ensure that your payment will resolve the debt and immediately lead to a release of the hostage. We typically structure these resolutions where full payment of any settlement amount does not occur until all hostages have been released and are out of China.

What are you seeing out there?
(Photo : Andrew Burton/Getty Images) Microsoft has released an update that will allow the Xbox One support multi disc games.

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The gaming community applauded Microsoft when it first launched the backwards compatibility feature for the Xbox One. This allowed gamers to play some of their favorite video game titles of yester-years on the current-generation console. However, Xbox One's backwards compatibility feature had one flaw, it does not support multi-disc games. Microsoft has put an end to this imperfection after releasing an update that will make the Xbox One support multi-disc games.



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In a statement, an Xbox spokesperson said, "We know fans were asking for this feature and our engineers worked hard developing a solution to enable it so we could further expand the titles included in Xbox One Backward Compatibility."



According to The Verge, 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut' is already working with the Xbox One backwards compatibility multi-disc support feature.



This new feature from Xbox One has created quite a stir in the gaming community.



By supporting multi-disc video games, some of Xbox 360's most revered and iconic games may soon find their way onto the Xbox One console. Some of these titles are 'Blue Dragon' and 'Lost Odyssey,' both were released in multiple discs during the early days of the Xbox 360.



Gamers are also looking forward to seeing titles such as 'Mass Effect 2' and 'Mass Effect 3' make the leap to the current-generation console via the backwards compatibility program.



'L.A. Noire,' developed by Rockstar, is also a fan favorite to be added to the backwards compatibility program. Speaking of Rockstar, the storage demanding game 'Max Payne 3' may finally find its way to the Xbox One console, thanks to the new multi-disc support.



Additionally, a lot of gamers have been waiting for 'Red Dead Redemption' to be added to the Xbox One backwards compatibility list. Rumors had it that a new game based on the 'Red Dead Redemption' concept is currently under development. If this is true, it would only be a matter of time before Xbox One users can finally get their hands on the well-beloved classic title.



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TagsMicrosoft, Xbox, Xbox One, backwards compatibility, multi-disc game, Xbox multi-disc, Microsoft news, Xbox One multi-disc
(Photo : Reuters) Security experts have released the personal of information of thousands of OkCupid users, claiming that the data was already in the public domain.

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Online security and privacy experts are expressing their concerns regarding how tech companies protect their customers' personal data. Recently, a group of researchers released a set of data containing personal information of more than 70,000 users from the online dating website OkCupid.



The Denmark-based researchers released information including usernames, gender, location, personality traits, and thousands of profile questions used by OkCupid. The group had no intention to anonymize the dataset since they claim that it was already public.



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The data taken from OkCupid was subsequently posted to the online peer-review forums of Open Differential Psychology. The dataset was also uploaded on Open Science Framework, an online forum that encourages researchers to share their data to enhance collaboration.



In a statement, Aarhus University graduate student and head of the research group Emil O. W. Kirkegaard said, "Some may object to the ethics of gathering and releasing this data. However, all the data found in the dataset are or were already publicly available, so releasing this dataset merely presents it in a more useful form."



Many in the tech community are uncertain about the logic behind "public data." For professionals dealing in online security, this is a hard pill to swallow as it affects research ethics and privacy.



The "public data" excuse has been used by security researchers in the past. One of the most prominent occasion was back in 2008, when Harvard researchers released a dataset of four years worth of Facebook profiles acquired from more than 1,700 college students.



The same excuse was used in 2010 when a former Apple engineer used a flaw in Facebook's architecture to put together a massive database of names, fan pages, and list of friends from more than 215 million public Facebook accounts. The engineer, Pete Warden, revealed that he was able to amass more than 100GB of user data and laid out his plan to release the data publicly to aid future academic researches.



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TagsOkCupid, online security, online security researcher, security and privacy, Online privacy, OkCupid data, OkCupid dataset
(Photo : Reuters) Verizon has stated that its new set of prepaid plans will take effect on Monday, May 15.

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Verizon has announced that it is upgrading the data allocation for its prepaid customers. The network provider said that subscribers of the $45 monthly plan will now receive 2GB of mobile data starting Sunday, May 15. For the $60 plan, users will get an upgrade from 3GB of data to 6GB.



There is one crucial requirement to be eligible for this data upgrade. Verizon stated that users will have to enroll their account in auto-pay to get these upgrades. If users do not opt-in to have their account in auto-pay, their monthly data allowance will drop by 1GB.



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Verizon's new plans include unlimited text service to Mexico and Canada. Unlimited calls are not part of the deal - customers need to subscribe to a next tier plan to get that.



In a statement, Verizon vice president of consumer pricing Rob Miller said, "Whether you're just starting out with your own wireless plan or simply love to have complete control of your wireless spending, prepaid plans give you the best network on the latest phones."



Verizon prepaid plans do not require subscribers to sign contracts. No activation fees and credit checks are needed. Moreover, Verizon also offer free next day shipping.



These new prepaid options were first released back in February as a limited promotion. Verizon announced that these plans will be part of the company's permanent list of available plans.



For prepaid subscribers who need more data, Verizon is selling an extra 500MB for $5, 1GB for $10, and 3GB for $20. Verizon is still offering a basic plan that includes unlimited talk and text for $30 per month. However, this plan relies solely on Wi-Fi.



In terms of subscriber count, Verizon is the largest network provider in the United States. However, stiff competition from rivals like AT&T and T-Mobile has forced the company to offer more affordable rates and competitive pricing plans.



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Tagsverizon, Verizon data, Verizon news, Verizon data usage, Verizon data allocation, Verizon prepaid, Verizon prepaid news, Verizon prepaid data
(Photo : NASA) Contestants building Mars mining robots at a previous RMC

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Martian pioneers will have to live off the land in Mars to survive but how will that be possible in a world without plants, trees, animals, water and good old Earth?



That's the thorny and life-threatening question a NASA competition called the 7th Annual NASA Robotic Mining Competition (RMC) now taking place in Florida is trying to answer.



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Living off the land today is referred to as "In-Situ Resource Utilization" or ISRU by NASA and those in the space community. Competitors at RMU are focusing their brain power on developing the technologies necessary to extract consumables such as oxygen and water to support human life on Mars. These consumables will also allow colonists to produce methane fuel for their spacecraft.



These as yet undeveloped technologies can also be used to mine source materials in-situ for building landing pads, buildings and other important infrastructure. All these activities will need mining tools, specifically smart mining robots that can act on their own. Hence, the need for RMU.



RMC challenges college students to design and build a mining robot that can travel over a simulated Martian surface, excavate regolith (or the Martian soil) and deposit as much of it as possible into a bin, all within 10 minutes.



Team members may control their bots remotely from a trailer where their only line of sight is via a computer screen. Or, they can control their robot autonomously using their programming skills. NASA is basically crowdsourcing ideas from smart college students that want to be part of NASA's journey to Mars.



NASA directly benefits from RMC with the clever ideas and solutions that could be applied to an actual excavation device or payload. The unique physical properties of basaltic regolith on Mars and the reduced, one-third gravity make excavation a difficult technical challenge.



NASA will use data from this competition to improve its Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot or RASSOR.



One critical resource on Mars is water ice, which can be found buried in the regolith where it is well insulated. During RMC, teams have to dig for gravel under the soil surface that simulate this ice. NASA says there's at least five percent water in the Martian soil.



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TagsNASA, Robotic Mining Competition, In-Situ Resource Utilization, Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot, RASSOR
The AK-74, the modern incarnation of the iconic AK-47, with its accessories

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Russia's largest arms maker, the Kalashnikov Concern, has diversified from making AK-47s into men's fashion. It will begin selling a new line of military style, military-themed casual clothing and accessories for men at its own store network before the end of this year.



The maker of 95% of all small arms in Russia will produce a "professional clothing line" under the brand "CK" to be sold within Russia. The firm plans to open a network of 60 retail fashion stores throughout the country.



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Kalashnikov also recently unveiled its new CK logo, a red-and-black graphic that represents the letters for Kalashnikov Concern in Cyrillic. And, yes, CK does remind one of Calvin Klein.



The Kalashnikov Concern has also created two different slogans for its product rebranding. It's now calling its military and civilian firearms as "Weapons of Peace" or "Weapons of the World."



Kalashnikov said its menswear line will capitalize on "the rapid growth of patriotism in Russia related to the theme of war."



"Kalashnikov is a global brand and we rightly believe that clothing and souvenir products with our symbol will be in demand among buyers," said Vladimir Dmitriyev, Kalashnikov's marketing director.



"I do not understand how it could be that we do not have our own line of branded clothing and accessories."



The diversification is being forced on Kalashnikov as it deals with the mounting business challenges created by economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the West. The sanctions prevent Kalashnikov from selling its popular firearms in the West.



Expect chic camos and gun-metal outfits to garb guys sporting AK-47s or hunting and civilian guns under the brands Baikal and Izhmash (sporting rifles) that Kalashnikov also owns.



Kalashnikov is probably the best known Russian brand on the planet thanks to its ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifle and its variants, the most widely produced automatic firearms in the world.



But doesn't Kalashnikov men's fashion sound, well, unmanly?



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TagsKalashnikov Concern, Kalashnikov, AK-47, menswear, Men's Fashion, Vladimir Dmitriyev
(Photo : Getty Images) The desktop counterpart of WhatsApp is essentially the same as the mobile version.



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WhatsApp has launched desktop clients for Mac and Windows following its release of first web app.



The Facebook-owned company announced in an official blog statement that the new app will include features like desktop notifications, keyboard shortcuts, and a lot more.



The new desktop app has made this even a better app for people who continue to use the Internet for communicating with people in other departments across the countries. This new tool makes the service more accessible and is likely aimed at helping to accelerate growth. WhatsApp already counts more than 1 billion monthly active users, but that number could soon be surpassed by its messaging cousin at Facebook.



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WhatsApps desktop app works on computers with MacOS X 10.9 and Windows 8, or higher. After installing the app, users have to scan a QR code using the WhatsApp app on their mobile device, which is located under Settings > WhatsApp Web. If the QR code is recognized, users will be able to authenticate on the desktop. WhatsApp for desktop connects to users phone to sync messages, so potentially quite a bit of data will be transmitted, depending on usage. The company advises that users should connect their phone to Wi-Fi.



The desktop counterpart of WhatsApp is essentially the same as the mobile version. Users can see and check their contacts as well and attach emojis and files to messages. Voice dictation is supported as well. Users will be able to send the cross files to each other even if they are on Windows and Mac.



Just like WhatsApp Web, the new desktop app lets you message with friends and family while your phone stays in your pocket, WhatsApp stated in a blog post.



The new desktop app puts WhatsApp more on par with competitors like Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Telegram.



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TagsWhatsApp, messaging app, Mac, windows, WhatsApp dekstop app, Facebook Messenger, Skype
(Photo : Getty Images) China claims a Pentagon report released last Friday has 'severely damaged' the ties between Beijing and Washington,

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China is furious over the latest Pentagon report which focused on China's military activities in 2015, saying it was grossly inaccurate, highly distorted, and an attempt to exaggerate China's military activities in the disputed South China Sea.



The report, which was released last week Friday, said Beijing has poured large investment into 'weaponizing' its structures in the contested territories in a bid to increase its maritime power in the South China Sea.



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The annual report was submitted by the US Defense Department to Congress detailing China's military activities in the region.



Mutual trust



China's Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said the report has 'severely damaged' mutual trust between Washington and Beijing as he condemned the outrageous information the US released to the media.



Yang said the report 'unfairly' depicted the Chinese military activities in the East and South China Sea, manufactured information about China's growing military threat and its apparent lack of transparency, and grossly distorted Chinese defense policies.



"China follows a national defense policy that is defensive in nature," Yang said. He added that Beijing's focus on military reforms and build-up is aimed at upholding and defending its sovereignty, protecting its territorial integrity, and maintaining security.



A high-ranking US Defense official said in the Pentagon report that China has been preparing for a possible conflict in the Taiwan Strait, a strait situated in the disputed South China Sea that separates Taiwan and the mainland.



People's Liberation Army



"Additional missions such as contingencies in the East and South China seas and on the Korean Peninsula are increasingly important to the People's Liberation Army," said Abraham Denmark, US deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia.



Denmark said the report documents the kind of military activities Beijing has been conducting in the past year.



"Let the facts speak for themselves," said Denmark as he underscored in the report that China will be building more military facilities in the hotly contested international waterway following the end of its reclamation work in the region last October.



Denmark said Beijing's military spending spiked between 2006-2015 at an average rate of 9.8 percent each year.



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(Photo : China Photos/Getty Images) Pioneer of Chinese Organ Transplantation Qiu Fazu Dies on June 18, 2008

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China is now considered the number one country in Asia whose citizens have actively taken part in voluntary organ donations.



Organ donations in the mainland have risen 120 times over the past six years since the Chinese Government implemented a program which encouraged its people to become organ donors, China Daily reported.



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This was revealed during the 2016 China International Organ Donation and Transplantation Forum held last May 15 at Wuhan, the capital of Central China's Hubei province.



The event was co-organized by the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee and the China Organ Transplant Development Foundation.



According to Guo Yanhong, deputy director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission's Medical Administration Bureau, China recorded 2,766 voluntary organ donations, with 7,758 large organs received in 2015.



Guo said that China had also broken a historic record with the more than 1,000 organ transplants done in the country.



To recall, China previously relied on executed prisoners as the main source of organs.



In fact, there were only 34 voluntary organ donations made and 88 organ transplants carried out in China in 2010.



In 2015, the Central Government banned the use of prisoners' organs and made citizen donation as the only legitimate channel to secure organs for transplants.



Despite the major strides achieved by China in the field of organ transplants, there are still 30,000 patients who await transplants each year,



Huang Jiefu, chairman of the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee and president of the China Organ Transplant Development Foundation, noted that there is still a big gap between the number of China's voluntary organ donations vis-a-vis patients who need to undergo the procedure.







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(Photo : South Australian Museum) A rare beaked whale was found in Waipinga beach in South Australia.

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Scientists were extremely surprised to spot a mysterious whale that washed up on a shore of beach in South Australia, possessing extra teeth. This rare beaked whale was discovered in Waipinga beach last February that left researchers confused as they have never seen two extra teeth in the marine mammal species.



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Now, Australian researchers and scientists are asking for help from fellow international colleagues to help clear this mystery however, they are still searching for clues about the existence of these two extra fangs on the whale.



Experts now believe that this can be considered as an "evolutionary throwback" or a trait remnant that skips generations. According to Catherine Kemper from the South Australian Museum, this new finding prompted her to search for answers.



Kemper says that during the investigation, after dissecting the creature, obtaining measurements and captured photos, the team began to observe and examine its jaws since it is one of the most distinct features of any beaked whale.



She adds that the beak looked odd and the teeth were so strange that it included something they have never seen before in the species. Kemper immediately thought they have something new here, suggesting a crucial discovery.



Scientists discovered that these two larger, extra teeth beneath were indeed new, and also confirmed that this whale does not belong to a new species.



Beaked whales dwell in deeper depths of the ocean which makes them a very elusive species, rarely seen alive by humans. According to South Australian Museum's collection manager, David Stemmer, they have stripped off the whale's skull to examine the tooth and were able to extract it, only to find another larger tooth underneath it.



This discovery means that this juvenile female whale was a unique specimen of an already known species. The team says that it has been an exciting finding, although from a species already known, however beaked whales are so rare that this is only the third specimen in South Australia.



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(Photo : Massachusetts General Hospital ) Thomas Manning

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The first successful penis transplant in the United States and the third in the world was performed by doctors at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on a 64 year-old man from Halifax. Massachusetts.



Thomas Manning received the penis from a deceased donor during a 15-hour operation last month. He should recover sexual function in the coming months, said Dr. Curtis Cetrulo, a plastic surgeon who took part in the operation. Manning might have normal urination restored in a few weeks' time.



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Dr. Certulo said the surgical team was "cautiously optimistic" about the surgery.



"Surgeons connected the intricate vascular and nerve structures of a donor penis with those of the 64-year-old transplant recipient," said the hospital in a statement. The hospital also called the surgery a "surgical milestone" and said it "holds promise for patients with devastating genitourinary injuries and disease."



Manning can take heart from the results of the world's first successful penis transplant performed at the Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa in December 2014. The girlfriend of the 21 year-old patient was reported being four months pregnant in June 2015 and should have given birth in October.



There has been no news, however, of this birth in the media. The second successful penis transplant took place in China but the patient had his new penis removed following severe psychological problems.



Manning's penis was removed in 2012 after an examination following a work accident found an abnormal growth on his penis. Manning said that with his penis mostly removed, sex was impossible and he had to urinate sitting down.



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BREAKING: ACLU piles on N.C. over transgender 'restroom law'; anything, or anyone goes 16 May, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , |

RALEIGH, N.C. (Christian Examiner)  The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina, and Lambda Legal  an organization dedicated to advancing the gay, lesbian and transgender agenda  filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court today asking the court to squash North Carolina's new "restroom law," known as House Bill 2.

Passed last month, HB2 prohibits those biologically male from using multi-occupancy women's restrooms and those biologically female from using multi-occupancy restrooms in government buildings (such as universities).

Gov. Pat McCrory has said the bill enhances public safety and also ensures that local governments cannot create laws unsupported by or contradictory to state law.

The ACLU, however, claims the law "targets transgender people for discrimination in single-sex facilities."

Medical science is clear that it is inappropriate to use chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics to override gender identity for purposes of classifying someone as male or female.

"HB 2 is causing ongoing and serious harm to transgender people in North Carolina and must be put on hold while it is reviewed by the court," said Chris Brook, legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina, said.

"The Justice Department has made it clear that HB 2 violates federal law. Gov. McCrory and the North Carolina Legislature wrote into state law discrimination against transgender people who just want to be able to use public facilities safely and securely."

The U.S. Justice Department notified North Carolina in a letter last week that the governor had to either alter the legislation significantly or do away with it or risk the loss of federal funding.

That is not, of course, how the making and enforcing of state law works. A governor cannot alter law or suspend a law duly created by the legislature.

McCrory in return sued the federal government, claiming it has no right to impose its will on the State of North Carolina on items such as public restroom ordinances. He asked the court for a declaratory judgment on whether or not the law was constitutional.

"The Obama administration is bypassing Congress by attempting to rewrite the law and set restroom policies for public and private employers across the country, not just North Carolina. This is now a national issue that applies to every state and it needs to be resolved at the federal level," McCrory said.

"They are now telling every government agency and every company that employs more than 15 people that men should be allowed to use a women's locker room, restroom or shower facility."

The governor's lawsuit was followed almost immediately by a lawsuit against the state by the U.S. Justice Department. Then came President Obama's "guidance" for school districts  which carried the imprimatur of an executive order mandating that students should be allowed to use the restroom for the gender with which they identify.

Gov. McCrory called the instructions "a massive executive branch overreach, which clearly oversteps constitutional authority."

"Both non-discrimination and privacy are basic tenets of our great country. States and local governments cannot have a myriad of different laws which cause confusion and inconsistent application," McCrory said. "However, the executive branch of the federal government does not have the authority to be the final arbiter."

The ACLU has sided with the federal government in the case to push the rights of transgenders, the latest iteration of the LGBT "human rights" crisis. It claims in the lawsuit that three transgenders have been "singled out for differential treatment by provisions of H.B. 2 that restrict access to single sex facilities, such as restrooms and locker rooms, based on the gender marker on one's birth certificate."

The new law, the filing claims, has caused the three  suffering from the mental disorder known as "gender dysphoria"  to experience "significant mental and emotional distress."

The filing also claims that gender identity, or a "person's core sense of belonging to a particular gender," is "fixed at a young age and cannot be changed."

Finally, the lawsuit offers up "medical science" to add weight to its claim that transgenders should have access to the bathroom of their choice.

"Medical science is clear that it is inappropriate to use chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics to override gender identity for purposes of classifying someone as male or female," the lawsuit said.

That is to say, according to the ACLU, all external and internal objective evidence about biological sex does not outweigh an individual's belief or feelings about gender identity.

Kyle Palazzolo, a staff attorney with Lamba Legal, said the transgenders forced to use the restroom conflicting with their gender identity are suffering "irreparable harm."

"As Attorney General Lynch said this week, 'none of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something they are not, or invents a problem that doesn't exist as a pretext for discrimination and harassment,' and we couldn't agree more," Palazzolo said.

Gov. McCrory maintains that the problem is one created by Washington and a president who is unaware of his constitutional role. The recent statement on public schools is a prime example, he said.

"President Obama's administration has instituted federally mandated edicts that affect employees as well as every parent and child within a public school system. This national bathroom, locker room and shower policy for almost every business, university and now K-12 school in our country changes generations of gender etiquette and privacy norms which parents, children and employees have expected in the most personal and private settings of their everyday lives," McCrory said.

"Most Americans, including this governor, believe that government is searching for a solution to a problem that has yet to be defined."
An Iranian pastor who was put on death row for apostasy in 2010 and then acquitted about two years later, was rearrested along with his wife and another church member on May 13, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

Youcef Nadarkhani was arrested in 2009 when he questioned the influence of the Islamic teachings in his child's school, which he believed was unconstitutional. He was also trying to register his church at the time. A year later, he was charged with apostasy and sentenced to death by hanging. During the court proceedings, he was repeatedly asked to renounce his faith, but he refused.

In September 2012, he was released from prison amid international pressure and acquitted of apostasy charges, but received three years of imprisonment for evangelizing to Muslims.

On Christmas Day, about three months later, he was re-arrested to complete his three-year sentence. He was again released in January of 2013.

After the pastor was released, his legal counsel and prominent human rights lawyer Mohammed Ali Dadkhah was put into prison for 10 years, and banned from law practice for keeping prohibited books at home and for "actions and propaganda against the Islamic regime." Dadkhah was also released, upon condition of adherence to strict state guidelines.

"Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for Christians who have been arrested on account of their religious beliefs to be released and re-arrested time and again, in a tactic designed to foster a sense of insecurity within the community," said CSW's Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas.

The Iranian authorities did not specify the charges against him, nor how long Pastor Nadarkhani will be in prison.

"We urge the authorities ensure Pastor Nadarkhani, Tina Nadarkhani and Yasser Mosayebzadeh receive due process, and once again call on Iran to fully respect its constitutional and international human rights obligations by ensuring that justice and equality before the law are guaranteed to all citizens, regardless of their religion or belief," Thomas added.

When Pastor Nadarkhani was set free in September 2012, he wrote an open letter of "gratitude" to the international community who worked for his release after being jailed for "the cause" he defended, which was to stand for Christ.

"Indeed I have been put to the test, the test of faith which is, according to the Scriptures 'more precious than perishable gold.' But I have never felt loneliness, I was all the time aware of the fact that it wasn't a solitary battle, for I have felt all the energy and support of those who obeyed their conscience and fought for the promotion of the justice and the rights of all human beings," he said.

A 2015 study by Christians in Parliament reported that arbitrary detention of believers continue unabated even after pre-election promises of president Hassan Rouhani to protect religious freedom of minorities. A simple prayer or Bible study gathering is regarded as a political maneuver against national security of Iran, for which Christians are put into prison where they face "severe physical and psychological torture."

Another Iraninan Pastor Behnam Irani, who has been serving a six-year sentence in jail since 2011 for crimes against "national security," is seriously ill and is suffering from an unknown sickness.

Pastor Saeed Abedini, an Iranian American Christian, was detained in 2012 and sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of undermining national security, but was released earlier this year after years of intense international lobbying on his behalf.
About 50 percent of Protestant pastors say ministers should temporarily resign if they are accused of adultery, but only a few thought that they should be banned permanently from the pastoral position, a new survey by LifeWay Research found.

Over 70 percent said that allegations of misconduct must be kept a secret until the investigations are complete, but as many as 86 percent said that the congregation must be informed if a pastor is disciplined for committing adultery.

The survey was conducted on 1,000 senior pastors over telephone.

Only about 24 percent of pastors said that misconduct should lead to "permanent withdrawal [of preachers] from public ministry."

About half (47 percent) of the pastors said the minister must refrain from duties until investigations into the allegations are confirmed or proven false.

Almost a third (31 percent) wanted the pastors to leave the pulpit altogether, while some 21 percent said they were not sure what needed to be done.

Older pastors aged 65 and above were more likely (36 percent) to say that it was okay for pastors accused of misconduct to stay in service while investigations were being carried out. Most of the younger pastors (73 percent) between the ages of 18 and 44 did not agree with that.

There was a marked variation in opinion among different denominations, as 35 percent of Baptists, 43 percent of Pentecostals, 24 percent of Methodists, and and 24 percent of Presbyterians said that pastors should be allowed to retain their positions during the time of investigation.

As many as 85 percent of Pentecostals said that allegations must be kept under cover until proved, but 63 percent of Methodists say that congregation should know about the accusations.

More Lutherans (47 percent) did not support reinstating adulterous pastors, while only 30 percent of Baptists, 13 percent of Methodists, 13 percent of Pentecostals, and 11 percent of Presbyterian pastors thought so.

Most of the pastors from all the denominations thought that church members need to know when a minister is disciplined for misconduct.

Kevin Cone, Director of City of Refuge that provides counseling services for pastors and their families in tough times, said that almost half of the pastors who come to them want to seek restoration from moral failure. And 75 percent of them return back to ministerial works.

"Our focus is never to get people back to the ministry. The idea is to get them healthy," he said.

"Whatever your struggle is, if it's anger or lust or greed, it's going to take its toll, and it's going to come out, and you're going to have a rough time," Cone added.

"The Scripture says pastors must be above reproach," said Ed Stetzer, executive director at LifeWay Research. "So it's not surprising that some want to see fallen pastors banned from ministry. Still, pastors are also people who talk about forgiveness regularly and, by and large, they want to see those who fall have a chance at restoration."
I had the privilege or reading a pre-release version of "God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church." Here are 20 quotes from the book, which you should pick up.
Update (May 19): The United Methodist Church, under rising pressure from both sides to decide whether to allow same-sex marriage or non-celibate gay clergy, squeaked out of this years General Conference with a decision to punt the question to a committee.

By a vote of 428 to 405, delegates agreed to appoint a commission to study the issue. The church may call a special General Conference in 2018 or 2019 to address the results, Council of Bishops president Bruce Ough told delegates.

We will coordinate this work with the various efforts already underway to develop global structures and a new General Book of Discipline for our church, the proposal stated.

We continue to hear from many people on the debate over sexuality that our current Discipline contains language which is contradictory, unnecessarily hurtful, and inadequate for the variety of local, regional and global contexts, the proposal said. We will name such a Commission to include persons from every region of our UMC, and will include representation from differing perspectives on the debate.

LGBT supporters generally saw the vote as good news, even though it wasnt clear howor whetherinfractions against the denominations ban on same-sex marriage and clergy in same-sex relationships will be disciplined in the meantime.

Conservatives were more cautious. Rob Renfroe, president of the evangelical Methodist movement Good News, stated that the commission is fraught with peril and cautioned that well-known and respected leaders of the traditionalist and orthodox renewal movement need to be included.

After rumors of a denominational split earlier in the week, the decision to wait effectively keeps the denomination together for a while longer, the Washington Post reported.

The UMC has voted to maintain the denominations ban on same-sex unions and non-celibate clergy for more than four decades, despite the movement of other mainline denominations to open the doors to the full participation of gay members.

-----

More than 850 Methodist delegates gathered in Portland, Oregon, were stuck.

With 100-plus proposals on what the United Methodist Church (UMC) should do about human sexualityfrom deleting its Book of Disciplines stance that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching to allowing local churches to choose whether or not to approve same-sex unions and non-celibate gay clergyorganizers of the denominations quadrennial conference tried to develop a special process to address the issue.

Last week, delegates then spent three days debating Rule 44, which proposed that instead of having a committee of delegates compile and shape the proposals into a final petition, as per usual, the issue of sexuality should instead be considered by all 864 delegatessplit into teams of no more than 15 people.

The small groups, meant to facilitate unity, would each report their petition recommendation to a six-person committee. In turn, that group would draft a final petition for all the delegates to vote on.

On Friday, delegates voted 355 to 477 against the proposal, in what is likely a preview of any vote taken on biblical sexuality. In general, Rule 44 was embraced by proponents of gay marriage and opposed by proponents of traditional marriage.

Thats probably because the usual method has been working pretty well for conservative Methodists who favor traditional marriage. Though other mainline denominations have opened the doors to the full participation of gay members, the UMCs General Conference spent the last 44 years consistently voting to maintain the denominations ban on same-sex unions and on ordaining non-celibate clergy.

The UMCs firm stance doesnt stem primarily from its American members; less than half of them (46%) agree with the current ban, while 38 percent oppose it. Almost all of the 100-plus proposals on changes to the UMC's stance on human sexuality came from American conferences.

Some even spent the preceding weeks practicing denominational civil disobedience: the day before the conference began, 111 Methodist religious leaders revealed their homosexual orientation in an open letter. A week earlier, 15 clergy and candidates for clergy in the New York Annual Conference did the same thing. And elder David Meredith married his partner at a Methodist church in Columbus, Ohio, on the weekend between the two.

Image: Photo by Kathleen Barry, United Methodist News Service

Some US congregations and conferences have also gone their own way. More than 750 churches have joined the Reconciling Ministries Network, an organization that works for the full participation of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities within the UMC.

The Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference recommended a married lesbian for commissioning as a provisional deacon in February, noting that it was not of one mind on the issue of ordination of LGBTQ individuals with the denomination. In March, the New York Conference announced it would welcome candidates for ministry regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

But others are pushing back. The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, which famously defrocked Frank Schaefer after he performed the marriage of his gay son, called on the General Conference to demand clergy accountability to the rules of our common covenant and to ask clergy to challenge the rules through legitimate channels of holy conferencing, rather than breaking that covenant. (Schaefer was later reinstated.)

The Alabama-West Florida Conference also passed resolutions in support of the denominations current stance.

The conservative conferences have a powerful allythe UMCs African contingent. Of the 864 delegates attending the convention in Oregon, more than 40 percent came from outside the United States. Of those, three-quarters hail from Africa.

In November, more than a dozen African Methodist bishops representing 5 million members set precedent by speaking out publicly against homosexuality.

We are deeply saddened that the Holy Bible, our primary authority for faith and the practice of Christian living, and our Book of Discipline are being grossly ignored by some members and leaders of our church in favor of social and cultural practices that have no scriptural basis for acceptance in Christian worship and conduct, the African bishops stated. The Christian marriage covenant is holy, sacred, and consecrated by God and is expressed in shared fidelity between one man and one woman for life.

The voices of African leaderswhich progressives have failed to sidelinewill likely only get stronger: African Methodist churches are growing by more than 200,000 members annually. The Methodists on that continent are multiplying so quickly that some predict they will overtake the US members in five to eight years.

American Methodist churches have lost more than 52,000 members each year since 1974. In the 2013-2014 reporting year, the US conferences lost more than 116,000 members. Only 4 of the 56 conferences saw an increase in members, and only two managed an increase in worship attendance. (Even in the United States, theologically conservative Methodist churches are among the fastest-growing.)

In a denomination of more than 7 million, the loss may look small. But overseas, Methodists now number more than 5 millionwith most in Africa. (In the United Kingdom, where Methodism was birthed, numbers dropped from 800,000 in 1906 to 600,000 in 1980 before dipping dramatically to 200,000 by 2015.)

In fact, a Methodist leader and economist warned US church leaders last year that they had only 15 years to turn around the decline before it would be impossible to do so. By 2050, the connection will have collapsed, Donald House Sr. told them.

While some of the loss can be traced to congregations that are leaving to protest the UMCs soft stance on disciplining those who allow same-sex marriage and practicing gay clergy, a 2014 poll found that most Methodists (90%) dont think issues of human sexuality are worth splitting over.

In fact, most (63%) said it was diverting the church from more important things, and, in a list of church priorities, ranked sexuality issues lower than creating disciples of Christ, spiritual growth, youth involvement, members spiritual growth, decline in membership, poverty, children at risk, and social injustice.

CT has reported on the UMC's attempt to sideline its churches outside America (which failed), and why some Methodist evangelicals have considered quitting while ahead. CT has also examined whether the UMC will schism over sexuality, and its debate on punishing pastors who break current rules.
The recent killing of another activist in Pakistan, Khurram Zaki, has exposed how the country is unable to protect its human rights defenders who are now seen as clearly vulnerable targets in an environment that's slowly becoming more and more hostile.

Zaki, a 40-year-old journalist and activist who was killed on May 7 in the southern port city of Karachi by unidentified gunmen, was an outspoken critic of the Sunni Muslim sectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Pakistani Taliban, and religious leader Abdul Aziz who justified the Peshawar school massacre in 2014. A Pakistani Taliban splinter group known as Hakeemullah claimed responsibility for Zaki's murder, but authorities could not verify their claim, according to Reuters.

"Activists are vulnerable targets," Pakistani lawyer and activist Jibran Nasir told Al-Jazeera. Nasir believes that the primary reason why Zaki was targeted was because of his constant and bold activism but added that Zaki was fully aware of what he was getting into since he had already received various threats. "We've registered an FIR [First Information Report] in Karachi after his murder and given the names of people who should be held responsible. Aziz has been named as the prime suspect in the FIR."

Nasir also shared that they have already previously filed charges against Aziz charging him of allegiance with the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL). They are also aware that Aziz knows them and have even led social media campaigns against the activists.

Human rights groups have since demanded a thorough and impartial investigation of Zaki's murder saying that the country is becoming more and more dangerous for human rights campaigners, lawyers, and journalists who are threatened by authorities, extremists, and militant groups.

"It's appalling that activists who are at the forefront of opposing violence by militant groups should themselves become targets," said Asia director at Human Rights Watch Brad Adams on their website. "Zaki's murder highlights the unacceptably dangerous climate that human rights defenders face across Pakistan."

Human rights lawyer Rashid Rahman was also shot dead two years ago while liberal activist Sabeen Mahmud was murdered on April 24 last year also in Karachi. Analyst and activist Raza Rumi was also targeted last year but survived the failed attempt.

"These three murders of well-known human rights defenders in as many years are just a few examples that raise serious questions about the Pakistani authorities' failure to tackle violent groups who brazenly declare their intention to silence those who criticize them," Champa Patel of Amnesty International said in a statement.
home World Canada cult leader 'The Prophet' faces trial after allegedly abusing church members

The leader of a cult-like church in Ontario, Canada faced trial in court on Tuesday, May 10 over several charges including sexual assault.

Fred King, also known as "The Prophet" to his followers, allegedly abused church members by punching, kicking, and spitting on them. At times, he would even make some of them strip naked before the rest of the congregation.

The 57-year-old leader of the Church of Jesus Christ Restored is facing charges from as far back as 1978 until 2008 when he was the head of the cult-like organization. He assumed leadership upon the death of his father, Stanley, whose wives were also passed to him.

The charges filed against King include issuing death threats and sexual interference. In 2012, former church members accused him of physical and sexual assault. He disappeared when the allegations surfaced. He was found hiding in a hotel in Hamilton and was arrested in 2014.

One of his wives, Carol Christie from Owen Sound, revealed in her book, "Property: The True Story of a Polygamous Church Wife," that she suffered sexual abuse from King.

"(The church) was just filled with bizarre, insane everything. It was a living hell," she said. "Your faith is based on fear because you're terrorized psychologically."

She said she suffered 40 years of torment from King's father. She and other former members had filed a lawsuit against King and won.

The cult-like organization began at a place near Sauble Beach. In the early 1980s, it transferred to an old ski resort. King's doctrines, such as the practice of polygamy, apparently were influenced by the doctrine of the Latter Day Saint Movement, according to Toronto Sun.

Christie hopes that the trial will cause the organization to end.

The sentence on King will be handed down on Sept. 14. His brother, Judson King, similarly faces charges of sexual assault and others, and will stand trial in June.
home Faith Church of England looks to help Yazidis gain recognition as an official religion

Senior leaders of the Yazidi community have met with the Church of England leaders who have agreed to help them gain official recognition as a religion. The aim is to get more protection and support from the international community for the Yazidis as a persecuted religious group.

"If we could invite the leading members of the Yazidi faith over here to speak to the senior members of the Church of England, who are obviously a very powerful body, certainly in the UK but also around the world, that they could begin to get some kind of ground swell of opinion to influence others," Robert Cole, director of communications at the AMAR Foundation, told Premier. He acknowledged the significant help the Anglican leaders can lend to the Yazidis.

Cole explained that one major obstacle for the Yazidis is their lack of a written text. He said that if only Yazidism has a religious book then it'll be easier to be recognized as a religion. He reasoned that the extremists of Daesh take liberties in persecuting the Yazidis because they are recognized more as a cult or devil worshippers.

The monotheist Yazidis, in fact, believe in only one God who rule the world together with seven angels, including Melek Taus or the Peacock Angel.

The minority group has been overtaken by Islamic State militants during their Iraqi invasion in 2014 and forced to take refuge in MountSinjar.

"Often they suffer because of their faith - it's a faith people don't know much about, it's not written down," Bishop of Derby Rev. Dr. Alastair Redfern told ITV News. He also said that the Church of England is currently working on listening and helping others understand what the Yazidi faith is all about, calling this endeavor as "part of the family of faiths in the world."

The Yazidis have also recently revised their rules regarding women and girls who have been raped by the Islamic State terrorists.

"What happened to them was forced on them, and they should not be shunned," said Mirza Haji Mirzi, head of the Sinjar Yazidis.
home US Death penalty drug news 2016: Pfizer drugs can longer be used for lethal injection

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer has tightened its reigns on the use of its drugs and will no longer allow them to be used in the execution chamber.

"Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment," the company said in a statement. "We are enforcing a distribution restriction for specific products that have been part of, or considered by some states for, their lethal injection protocols."

The American corporation explained that their mission is to apply their science and resources to improve people's health and well-being, and it is their obligation to make sure that their products are available to patients who rely on them for their medical needs. At the same time, they are restricting the use of seven products that are used for lethal injection in some states, namely: pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride, propofol, midazolam, hydromorphone, rocuronium bromide, and vecuronium bromide.

"Pfizer's distribution restriction limits the sale of these seven products to a select group of wholesalers, distributors, and direct purchasers under the condition that they will not resell these products to correctional institutions for use in lethal injections," the press release says.

Government bodies that purchase or acquire these products must certify that they will not be for penal use but only for medically prescribed patient care. Moreover, they will be required to certify that the products are for their own use and not for resale or for use of another party.

"Pfizer will consistently monitor the distribution of these seven products, act upon findings that reveal noncompliance, and modify policies when necessary to remain consistent with our stated position against the improper use of our products in lethal injections," the company says.

Pfizer, according to The Wall Street Journal, had already put in place restrictions in the use of their products but updated the policies following their acquisition of Hospira last year, the products of which might still be in use for such a purpose. Other companies have also already clamped down on the use of their drugs for lethal injection, with Pfizer being the last big pharmateucal company to make such a move.

While Pfizer's decision could have an impact on lethal injection and the death penalty, some say it is unlikely to stop the practice. Criminal Justice Legal Foundation's Kent S. Scheidegger said that some states acquire drugs from compounding pharmacies, which are no longer a part of Pfizer's chain of distribution. Moroever, some states are also setting up alternative measures if lethal injection cannot be used, such as a bill in Utah that goes for a firing squad or the 2014 Tennessee option of using the electric chair.
home US Franklin Graham thanks NC governor for standing firm on transgender bathroom law

Evangelist and North Carolina resident Franklin Graham has thanked North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory for standing firm on the recently passed bathroom law despite what he referred to as "bullying and intimidation" from the Obama administration.

"I'm thankful to North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory & other state legislators for standing up to the bullying and intimidation of the Obama Administration over HB2, NC's bathroom bill. Our president and his appointees aren't supposed to be making laws and bypassing Congress. That's dangerous," Graham wrote on a Facebook post.

He added, "This is far reaching a it impacts every state and every family in our nation, not just North Carolina. Let's pray for Gov. McCrory and all those fighting this battle for what is right."

The Department of Justice has already warned the state that its bathroom bill, House Bill 2, is in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. House Bill 2 stipulates that people are to use bathrooms according to their biological sex, which is in contrast to the transgender bathroom policy that the Obama administration is pushing allowing the transgender to use bathrooms according to their gender identity. The administration gave the state until May 9 to respond.

The lawmakers did not meet the given deadline and instead filed a lawsuit against the federal government. The Department of Justice has also filed a counter-suit against the state.

The state stands to lose more than $4.8 billion state-funded education budget in the midst of the frenzied lawsuits.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, the governor's Democratic challenger in the recent gubernatorial election, already announced that he will not render his service in support of the state's bathroom bill. Cooper reasoned in a video statement that he thinks the battle is not worth losing billions of dollars in education funding. He added that the governor is not doing the right thing and instead is doubling down on what he knows is already wrong.
home World Is BBC really 'too Christian' in its content? Review of religious programming could result in reduction of Christian coverage

The British Broadcasting Network, in an internal review, deems that their programming is "too Christian"; thus, they find that there is a need to give other religious views more airtime.

In a religious literacy committee meeting at the House of Commons, Aaqil Ahmed, the network's head of religion and ethics, said that he had made a report for Director-General Lord Hall that would address criticisms that non-Christian viewers are under-served. However, according to Breitbart, the network could not yet confirm which programs would be retained should there be a need to lessen Christian coverage in favor of other religions.

"We do look at the number of hours we produce, and measure that against the religious make-up of society. We also carry out checks to give us a better understanding of how we represent the different faiths across the various BBC channels and services," Ahmed said, as quoted by Breitbart. "Christianity remains the cornerstone of our output and there are more hours dedicated to it than there are to other faiths. Our output in this area is not static, though. It has evolved over the years and we regularly assess it."

The Church of England says comprehensive reviews have to go beyond arguments on proportions -- there is a need for more "resources to explore religious world views" and "greater religious literacy." Ibrahim Mogra of the Muslim Council of Britain, meanwhile, says that they do not wish for Christians to have less exposure, but said that Muslims could use a bit more. He suggests showing kids attending madrasahs and covering Friday prayers inside a mosque.

Lord Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, is more cautious in his views on increasing airtime of other religions.

"I don't think our liberal establishment appreciates what Christianity has done for the nation, and how much of a bedrock it is for democracy and the values we believe in," he said. "There is a real feeling by Christians of being let down by the Establishment. Christianity is fighting for its life in western countries."

It was announced previously that the government made changes in the structure of the BBC, including its board. There is a need for more diversity in its programming as well as representation on- and off-screen, and the network already pledged an increase of blacks, Asians and those of minority ethnic groups, women, members of the LGBT community, and the disabled in its workforce.
home World Islamist militant arrested over murder of gay rights activists

Bangladesh police have arrested a homegrown Islamist militant over the murder of two gay rights activists last month in a series of violent attacks that targeted liberal and secular activists in the country.

"We've arrested one man in connection with the murder of Xulhaz Mannan," Dhaka police spokesman Maruf Hossain Sorder told AFP, according to Al-Jazeeera. "He is a member of the Ansarullah Bangla Team."

The arrested suspect is identified as Shariful Islam Shihab, a recent member of Ansarullah Bangla Team and previous member of the banned Islamic militant group Harkatul Jihad. He was reportedly arrested in the southwestern district of Kushita.

His arrest came three weeks after Xulhaz Mannan, editor of the country's first and only magazine for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, and activist Mahbub Tonoy were hacked to death with machetes and guns by six attackers in a Dhaka apartment on April 25.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) as well as a group affiliated with al-Qaeda have claimed responsibility for the killings but Bangladeshi authorities are looking into homegrown militant groups.

Meanwhile, the secular government of Awami League's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed has blamed the opposition party Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islam for the killings, accusing them of destabilizing the country.

"Everybody knows who were behind such killings. The BNP-Jamaat nexus has been engaged in such secret and heinous murders to destabilize the country," she said during a meeting of Awami League nomination board at her official residence Ganobhaban last month, according to the Daily Observer.

The police said they have already identified five of the attackers from a video footage in the nearby buildings.

"We are checking the footage to determine whether Shihab is visible there," Munirul Islam, head of the newly created police counterterrorism unit, said in a news conference on Sunday, May 15.

Four secular bloggers and a publisher were also hacked to death last year. Since the beginning of April, there has been a series of similar killings, one of which involved a Buddhist monk whose body was found inside a temple this weekend.
home Faith Methodist clergy come out as LGBTQI

More than a hundred clergy members and candidates from the United Methodist Church have officially come out as lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and intersex (LGBTQI).

The 111 LGBTQI Methodist leaders publicly came out in a signed document published on Reconciling Ministries Network, a website supportive of the group's cause. The letter entitled "A Love Letter to Our Church From Your LGBTQI Religious Leaders" revealed that the group's purpose for coming out is to provide hope for young LGBTQI members in hostile Methodist churches.

"We are here because God has called us to serve in this denomination, and our souls are fed by the theology in which we've been raised," the signatories stated in their letter. The group also expressed their wish that the church would be more inclusive.

United Methodist Church, America's third largest Christian denomination, follows the doctrine of The Book of Discipline which teaches that being gay is incompatible with the Christian teaching and that homosexuality and officiating same-sex marriages are liable offenses.

"The United Methodist Church urges us to hide our light under a bushel basket, and God calls us to shine our light brightly," signatory Rev. Laura Young told The Columbos Dispatch. "The don't-ask-don't-tell policy is damaging to a person's soul, and we can't allow it to go on any longer."

The group's public statement came on the eve of the denomination's 10-day General Conference held every four years to discuss church policy. Incidentally, the announcement also came only two days after Methodist pastor Rev. David Meredith married his boyfriend of 28 years and a week after 15 Methodist leaders in the New York Conference also publicly came out as gay.

Support quickly came from a group of 500 LGBTQ clergy, future pastors, and faith leaders coming from different denominations who posted a letter on the website Believe Out Loud to stand in solidarity with their Methodist colleagues. "Though we come from different traditions, you are our family in Christ and our siblings in the common struggle to live fully and authentically into our God-given identities and callings," the letter read.
home Tech Palestinian makeup artist arrested for Facebook post

A 22-year-old Palestinian makeup artist was arrested last month by Israeli police on charges of incitement over a Facebook post hailing a bus bombing by a Hamas-affiliated suicide that killed several Israelis.

"The news of 20 settlers injured is nice," Majd Atwan posted on her Facebook page. This online post led to a 45-day imprisonment and a fine of 3,000 shekel ($800).

"Your occupation to our land does not need "incitement" for our People to revolt... I am part of an occupied People...so don't expect me to greet you with flowers instead of anger," Atwan said in response to the charges.

According to Al-Jazeera, prisoners' rights group Addameer records that Atwan is only one of nearly 150 Palestinians arrested over their Facebook posts. Another case involved Palestinian attacker Muhannad Halabi, who posted threatening statements on social media before attacking some Israelis in October 2015.

"We have been studying very closely those patterns of incitement in Palestinian society," Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesperson for Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Al-Jazeera. Nahshon confirmed that 59 Palestinians have so far been guilty of incitement online since last autumn.

Yousef Atwan claims that his daughter is not politically active and is really only involved in beauty. "Did she write stuff online? Yeah, like all other Palestinians. I really don't understand why they chose to arrest her," he said.

"It was two o'clock in the morning. If you saw the number of military jeeps, you'd think Osama bin Laden was in the neighborhood," Nidal Atwan said, recalling the fateful day her daughter was taken from them. She said she was shocked and furious about her daughter's arrest citing that her daughter was only interested in nails.

The young stylist has earned two certificates in cosmetology while working as a beautician straight from high school. Apart from applying makeup and manicures to clients, she also enjoys swimming and hangs out with her mom who said they're like sisters and best friends.
home Faith Pope Francis to study possibility of women deacons

Pope Francis stated that the Vatican should study the possibility of having women serving as deacons in the Catholic Church.

This was said during the pontiff's conference with some 900 senior nuns from all over the world at the triennial assembly of the International Union of Superiors General at the Vatican on Thursday, May 12.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, the women religious cited that women in the early church used to serve as deacons and asked the pontiff why they're being excluded now. They urged, "Why not construct an official commission that might study the question?"

"Constituting an official commission that might study the question?" the pontiff mused. "It would do good for the church to clarify this point. I am in agreement. I will speak to do something like this. It seems useful to me to have a commission that would clarify this well."

The pope also agreed that the women's involvement in the church has been very weak and that the Church should move forward.

"Opening a commission to study the diaconate for women would be a great step for the Vatican in recognizing its own history," the Women's Ordination Conference (WOC) said in a statement. "While WOC celebrates this step from the Vatican, until women are included in all decision-making structures and as priests and Bishops of the Church, equality remains painfully denied."

Vatican Radio reports that the pope wants women to be more involved in the decision-making positions in the Church. The pope believes that women look at life with true eyes and see things differently from men. Thus, women are complementary and should always be present whenever there are consultations. He is quoted to frequently refer to women as "feminine genius."

However, when it comes to preaching homilies at Mass, the pope was clear in stating that only priests can do so because they are acting in the person of Christ.
home World Survey gives glimpse into Israeli Christians' beliefs

A research organization has published a study that can give insight into the religious practices and beliefs of Christians in Israel.

The survey conducted by the Pew Research Center reveals that of the adult population in Israel, 2 percent said that they are Christians while 14 percent are Muslim. Majority of the Christians said that they are Arab by ethnicity, something they share with their Muslim countrymen.

Of the Christians in Israel, 94 percent said they have been baptized, and 83 percent have been anointed with holy oil. Sixty percent fast during Lent, 39 percent give tithes, and 81 percent have icons (of saints or religious figures) at home.

According to the report, Christians in Israel tend to be connected with people who are of the same faith -- 21 percent said that all their close friends are Christians while 65 percent said that most of their friends are Christians. Ninety percent of Christian parents would not be too comfortable and 79 percent would not at all be comfortable of their child marrying a Jew, while 80 percent would be uncomfortable if their child married a Muslim.

Meanwhile, 72 percent of Christian respondents have the same view as 63 percent of Muslims who believe that Israel cannot be both a Jewish state and a democracry. Eighty percent of Christians say that the government of Israel is not exerting sincere effort in order to have peace with Palestinians, 79 percent say that Israel's security is at risk by the continued building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and 86 percent say that the United States is too supportive of Israel. On the other hand, 72 percent, 61 percent, and 75 percent of Israeli Muslims share the same views toward the respective issues.

In terms of being religious, 57 percent of Christians claim that religion is important in their personal lives, lower than 68 percent of Muslims but higher than 30 percent of Jews. Thirty-four percent of Christians pray daily, a number between 61 percent of Muslims and 21 percent of Jews. In terms of attendance to religious services, 38 percent of Christians attend at least once a week, again a number between 49 percent of Muslims and 27 percent of Jews.

As of 2010, four percent of the population in the Middle East-North Africa region is Christian.
500 years after Reformation, it's time for reconciliation says Lutheran bishop

Catholics and Protestants should both celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation next year, according to Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD).

"With this clear distinction from all other commemorations of past centuries, we are sending a signal of reconciliation and a new beginning," Bedford-Strohm said at a press conference in Berlin announcing events leading up to the anniversary on 31 October 2017.

The day chosen for the commemoration is the anniversary of the day in 1517 when Martin Luther is said to have posted his 95 theses denouncing church abuses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

The Reformation that followed saw new Protestant Churches formed by Christians who split from the Roman Catholic Church in protest against what they said were its theological errors and moral corruption. A wave of warfare and persecution followed leading to religious and cultural divides which have persisted to this day.

However, in recent years Roman Catholics and Lutherans have reached agreement on the doctrine of justification, a key dividing issue between the papacy and Luther and his followers. Many doctrinal differences should no longer have a church-dividing character, said Bedford-Strohm.

The 500th anniversary celebrations will begin on October 31, 2016, with a service in Berlin. On the same day, Pope Francis and Bishop Munib Younan, president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), will celebrate an ecumenical service in Lund in Sweden, where the LWF was founded in 1947. They will pray for forgiveness and the healing of the wounds the confessions inflicted on each other over the centuries.

"We will celebrate with them in Berlin," said Bedford-Strohm. "What follows Lund, what kind of dynamic might be started there, nobody knows," he said.

This autumn, Protestant and Catholic leaders from Germany will undertake a common pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine. This will be followed in March 2017 by a joint service of penitence and reconciliation by the Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany.

One of the central events in Germany during the Reformation year will be a Kirchentag, or church convention, in Berlin in May 2017, gathering 100,000 people. Thousands more will join the Kirchentag participants for an open-air service on 28 May in Wittenberg, about 62 miles (100 kilometres) south of Berlin.

However, Bedford-Strohm stressed that the Reformation "is not just a German affair", pointing to the work of the 16th-century Reformers John Calvin in Geneva, Huldrych Zwingli in Zurich and Martin Bucer in Strasbourg, among others.

The European dimension of the Reformation will be marked by a storytelling journey beginning on November 3 in Geneva. A special truck will follow a European roadmap linking 68 towns and cities with a Reformation connection in 19 countries before arriving at Wittenberg on 20 May 2017 for the start of a four-month World Reformation Exhibition, 'Gates of Freedom'.
A second historic Christian cathedral hosts Buddhist ceremonies

The Dean and Chapter of York Minster today defended the practice of Buddhism in Minster buildings as details of Buddhist ceremonies in yet another of England's most beautiful and historic cathedrals emerged.

York Minster said the Zen Sangha was a group that meets for meditation and to explore common ground between Zen Buddhism and the Christian faith.

Commenting on concerns arising from emergence of the details at Pentecost, the Dean of York, the Very Rev Vivienne Faull, said: "The Zen Sangha group has been granted the use of a meeting space in the Old Palace  the Minster's Library located in Dean's Park  for the last two years. They do not and have never met in the cathedral.

"The Zen group is not a religious order of any kind and the Chapter of York would not give permission for any such religious order to be set up at York Minster. The meetings aim to offer an opportunity for Christians and others to come together to learn about and explore Zen meditation practices and the congruence of Zen with Christian faith."

At the same time it was revealed that only in March, eight monks from Tashi Lhunpo Buddhist monastery in South India spent three days at Durham Cathedral and made a sand mandala in the north transept.

A mandala is a traditional tantric design, using coloured sand to represent the palace of a Buddha.

After the mandala was made, the cathedral offered opportunities for anyone aged five or over to take part in workshops with the monks, exploring monastic art and culture and learning some Tibetan language. At the end, the monks said a prayer of blessing for the work they had done and swept away the sand to the centre of the table in a ceremony representing the impermanence of all things, and the quality of non-attachment.

Church of England clergyman Peter Ould, an influential evangelical, told Christian Today: "The use of mandalas by Buddhists is not just as a work of art but as an act of worship.

"A mandala is an icon of the Buddhist view of the spiritual makeup of the universe and its creation is accompanied by a liturgy that is the antithesis of Christian cosmology.

"The idea that a Cathedral should allow and encourage others to participate in a three-day act of worship that explicitly denies basic Christian truths displays either great theological naivety or, more seriously, a mendacious willingness to undermine the Gospel."
Aid worker says British government must be firm with migrants who don't want to abide by Christian law

With the influx of displaced migrants from conflict ridden areas of the Middle East flocking to refugee camps, aid workers have warned the British government to be tough in enforcing their own values on the refugees as they have shown resistance to adopting to the culture of their host nations.

While many nations have opened their doors to the asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa since last year, an aid worker lamented that they are still being viewed by the migrants in a derogatory manner, an unnamed source told the Express UK.

According to the source, who understands the migrants' native tongue, he often hears derogatory remarks being hurled against humanitarian workers, calling them "filthy Christian kuffars" which is a negative term meaning non believer.

"The difference is I know these people, I hear them. I'm sorry, I have to say it, I hear what they say when they speak to their own people - not what they say in English. I am not saying don't take them, I am saying your country needs to be strong, get tough."

He said that while host countries would very much like to accommodate the way of life of the migrants, they need to draw the line and be firm in imposing the rules for all, or else this will result in further conflict.

"You have to make it happen or it won't be your country anymore. They have no intention of living under Christian law," he said.

The source said that despite the fact that these migrants were also victims of abuse and persecution, they too harbour preconceptions about Christianity and the Christian workers who are doing their best to help them.

He recounted an incident wherein a group of Afghan men were given food, water and basic supplies by a Christian aid worker near Croatia but after receiving the supplies, the worker was shunned by the group because he was seen as a dirty Christian.

"This is how they repay you for help. You have to deal with this properly. Everyone here is helping. I am helping but that doesn't mean changing your country for them. They have to learn to respect Christian neighbours and Christian law," he said.
Ancient Christian city rises anew after surviving horrors of ISIS occupation

They have suffered the worst in the hands of Islamic State (ISIS) militants. They have seen some of the people they know kidnapped and killed for refusing to convert to Islam.

Now, Christians in the ancient city of Maaloula in Syria are beginning to pick up the pieces as they rise again through God's help after falling under ISIS control and surviving the atrocities perpetrated by Islamic militants.

Maaloula became an ISIS target because it is one of the oldest Christian cities in the world. The city is located 35 miles northeast of the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Last September, Islamic militants attacked and eventually occupied Maaloula.

Resident Maryam El Zakhm recalled the horrors of the ISIS takeover of their area. "They came here to convert the Christians to Islam, and they wanted to destroy Maaloula because it is Christian," she told CBN News. "They shouted 'Allahu Akbar!' They were from Chechnya, Egypt, Libya, from everywhere  Tunis, Algeria. They came with long hair, long beards and scary faces."

The resident also shared how ISIS militants barged into her house and insulted her faith, even threatening to rape her daughters.

"They attacked my house and started screaming 'come out you Christian pigs!' I knew they planned to take our daughters, rape and kill them," she recalled. "So, I thought of killing my daughters and then myself before they could get to us. I then prayed to God instead and asked Him to give us a chance to leave the house."

Father Toufic Eid, parish priest of St. George's Greek Melkite Catholic Church, also recalled how the city fell into a state of terror after the ISIS took over.

"We had a lot of fear, in fact, at that time and people began to leave Maaloula," he told CBN News. "In fact, six men were kidnapped. We still do not know their fate."

Thankfully, the Syrian army fought hard and managed to liberate Maaloula after being under ISIS' control for eight months.

Father Toufic said they were liberated mainly because of their Christian faith. The St. George's Church, one of the city's ancient Christian icons, for instance, remained largely intact.

"Of course, of coursenot only because they are Christians but because Maaloula became in the past a symbola symbol of Christianity itself and a symbol of living together between Christians and Muslims. That's why Maaloula was important and that's why it was attacked," he said.

For Maryam, it is through God's intervention that she and her family were able to survive such a horrific experience.
Church leaders slam Christian charity's attack on Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan

An attack on Sadiq Khan by a Christian charity has provoked anger from a number of bishops and prominent church leaders.

In a letter to the Church Times Mark Russell, the chief executive of the Church Army, five bishops and several others wrote to express "anger at both the content and tone" of an article published by the charity Christian Concern.

The article entitled Londonistan with Khan? drew links between the new mayor of London and Islamic extremism and warned he would fuel an "increase in Islamic segregation in London leading to increased radicalisation". The article also suggests Khan will not support police in upholding the law in areas with high Muslim populations.

Russell, alongside the bishops of Southwark, Chelmsford, Woolwich, Willesden and Beverley, branded the article "ill-informed, dangerous and wrong".

They wrote: "We believe this is deeply damaging to the cause of the gospel in London."

Speaking to Christian Today, Russell, who is a member of the Church of England's general synod, said the article was "misjudged and unwise".

He said he wanted to ensure no one thought Christian Concern spoke for the Church of England and called on the charity to apologise to Khan.

He added many other bishops and church leaders had wanted to sign it but had been unable to meet the deadline for the weekly newspaper.

The letter praised Khan's integrity and said he was "committed to inclusion". It praised Khan's decision to move his signing-in ceremony from London's City Hall to Southwark Cathedral and said it showed he would work for the whole city.

"We wish him well as mayor," they wrote. As well as the five bishops, other signatories included the dean of Southwark, Andrew Nunn, the prolocutor of the convocation of Canterbury, Simon Butler and seven others.

Andrea Minichello Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, said the authors of the letter did not engage with the main substance of the article but used the letter "as a platform to promote their own political message". She said Christian Concern expressed the views of many Christians and accused the authors of trying to squeeze them out of public life.

She told Christian Today: "At Christian Concern we are committed to praying for Sadiq Khan whilst continuing to speak of Jesus Christ in public life."

The letter comes after a heated campaign where Khan was repeatedly accused of having links with extremism by his Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith. Despite this Khan won convincingly with the highest personal mandate of any politician in UK history.
Clergy must be retrained to deal with abuse claims, bishops to be told

Senior clergy must be re-trained in order to properly tackle disclosures of sex abuse, bishops will be told next week.

The Bishop of Crediton, Sarah Mullally, will present an action plan to the Church of England's House of Bishops in York, according to the Guardian. In it she will recommend that bishops' local power be curtailed so that a consistent, nationwide response can be implemented.

The Archbishop of Canterbury asked Mullally to compile the report amid accusations the Church continued to ignore or even bully those who came forward with allegations of sex abuse.

One victim who has raised his right to anonymity said he experienced "enduring harassment, vilification and intimidation" from senior clergy when he tried to speak about his experiences.

The Church of England's devolved structure means each bishop retains control over the systems in their diocese. It is as yet unclear whether the House of Bishops will accept the reduction in control proposed by Mullally's report.

Phil Johnson, from the organisation Macsas who support survivors of sexual abuse in the Church, told the Guardian: "It's very difficult to get real change through the House of Bishops."

He said: "The church really needs to tackle and modernise its archaic structures to ensure more accountability."

The bishops may defer their decision on the plan until September.

A CofE spokesperson said: "The House of Bishops takes all safeguarding work very seriously and it is a standing item on the agenda.

"Bishop Sarah Mullally is working closely with the national safeguarding team to implement the recommendations of the Elliott review, and she will be presenting key messages on this to the House at its meeting this month."
Evangelical Christians condemn introduction of Zen Buddhism to York Minster

A leading adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that Buddhist meditation introduced by a key cathedral in the north of England breaches the bounds of Christian orthodoxy.

Dr Ian Paul, a highly-regarded conservative evangelical member of the Archbishops' Council, and also a regular commentator for Christian Today, writes on his Psephizo blog, says the setting up of a "sangha" or community for Buddhist meditation at York Minster illustrates the "nonsense" of the so-called "broad church".

The revelation of Buddhism being practised at York Minister was doubly embarrassing because it came on Pentecost, which this year was chosen by the Church of England as the culmination of a week of prayer for the evangelisation of the nation.

The 20 members of the Buddhist group, set up by Canon Chancellor Christopher Collingwood, meets each Friday to meditate for an hour and a half.

Collingwood told the Telegraph he was "religiously bilingual". He said: "There is a recognised phenomenon now which is explored in research, called 'dual religious belonging' where it is recognised that people have a foot in more than one religious camp."

If anything, he added, he had been surprised how uncontroversial the creation of the sangha had been.

"Funnily enough I have been quite surprised at the number of people who are really interested in it, who don't seem to raise their eyebrows. I'm sure there are those who think I'm an out and out heretic but it seems to me perhaps Zen poses fewer problems than other non-Christian customs because it doesn't claim to be a system of doctrine or belief."

Paul however says Zen Buddhism is directly at odds with Christian belief.

The York Minister sangha is led by Collingwood and his wife, under the direction of Fr Patrick Kundo Eastman Sensei, a Roman Catholic priest and Zen master from the Wild Goose organisation, who often does Zen days at York.

Paul accuses Collingwood of being "in breach of his ordination vows" in which he promised to minister "faithfully" so that people in his care can be "defended against error and flourish in the faith."

He writes: "As long as there are, in effect, no boundaries to what is considered orthodox Anglican Christian belief, and what it is acceptable for clergy to teachparticular clergy in prominent rolesand no mechanism for bishops to act to address this, then the Church is hamstrung in its commitment to discipleship and evangelism."

Andrea Williams, of Christian Concern, told Christian Today: "It is tragic to discover that another religion is being practised in York Minster and being promoted by a senior clergyman of the cathedral community.

"It clearly contradicts his ordination oath. It is a dangerous deception that undermines the gospel and dishonours Jesus Christ. The Church of England must take swift and decisive action to protect people. Not to do so will raise big questions about the credibility of its current prayer and evangelism initiatives."
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey comes out in support of Brexit

Christians on both sides of the Europe debate spoke out today after former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton backed the Brexit campaign.

Adrian Hilton, of Christians For Britain, said Europe had become a source of schism and social unrest.

He said Lord Carey had an absolute right to speak out.

"Former ministers, chancellors and governors of the Bank of England are all being wheeled out to give voters the benefit of their EU experience and insight, so why shouldn't a former Archbishop of Canterbury?

"Lord Carey's intervention elevates the national debate to include a few transcendent themes. He rightly distinguishes between the EU and Europe, and thereby preaches a different sermon from the dozen-or-so bishops who have declared their pro-EU convictions.

"Lord Carey's eye for the spiritual and eternal gives balance to the temporal rumours of war and endless obsession with GDP, because he understands that this referendum is about freedom, justice and democracy; not money or fear of the unknown.

"And his conclusion is lucid: that far from the EU fostering peace and harmony, it has become a source of schism and a primary cause of civil unrest. Voting to leave is a vote for hope, and that is his sincere Christian insight."

However, former Dean of Durham Michael Sadgrove, of Christians for Europe, accused Lord Carey of fanning the flames of fear.

"George Carey is fanning the flames of Project Fear. In the world of today, absolute sovereignty is a dangerous fantasy in an environment of high risks as John Major pointed out by referring to North Korea. By pooling our powers and acting together, we create the safer, more peaceful world he and I both long for. In particular, his analogy of the Exodus story from slavery to freedom is sheer hyperbole.

"To liken our membership of the EU, with all its faults, to terrible slavery and persecution is as inappropriate as Boris Johnson invoking Hitler. This inflated language doesn't promote a sensible debate about the referendum. Anyway, the Exodus story proves too much.

"It would imply 40 years wandering in the desert, and two centuries or more learning how to inhabit the promised land! If these are the consequences of Brexit we are far better off remaining. And I can't think our Jewish friends will welcome this use of their scriptures in such an extraordinary way."

Lord Carey intervened at a time when the churches are resisting advising voters on how to vote, although the Church of England did publish a prayer for the referendum.

Writing in the Mail, he said Brexit seems to be about division and disintegration so it was natural that religious leaders should oppose it. But he added: "What if the 'relationships' at stake in the EU were bringing about division rather than unity? Because that, reluctantly and sadly, is the view I have come to."

He said it was not strictly accurate to compare Brexit to divorce, and in any case the Church accepted the necessity of divorce in some circumstances.

"In the case of relationships within the EU, many of us feel that the current structures and arrangements are now causing the very division, conflict and unhappiness that they were created to cure."

He added: "For the British in particular, it is the loss of sovereignty and the inability of Britain or indeed any member state to reform and restore the democratic freedom of the nation state which have made the impositions of the EU such a running sore for many people.

"It is likely that a significant number of British people will always resent the loss of sovereignty and will be dragged eternally against their will into any further pooling of power in Brussels."

If the prospect of being in control of our own laws is not enough, Britain should prize the ability to control its borders if the vote is to leave on June 23, he argued.

"We are an island people, proud of our heritage and history. We have been generous; happy to share our riches with newcomers on the understanding that they own our history and share our values.

"Yet there is now huge pressure on our population, due to an unasked-for experiment in uncontrolled immigration that has seen millions added to the population of the UK in the past two decades. We now have no choice but to take back control of our borders."

To allow uncontrolled immigration is where danger lies, he said, warning that the population could grow by as much as 16 million in the next 25 years to more than 80 million.

"It is clear that neither local or national government can provide basic infrastructure, schooling and healthcare for our current growing population."

He also linked migration to terror.

"The disastrous effect of open internal borders due to the Schengen agreement means that the terror threat in mainland Europe is at an all-time high."
Iran arrests eight for 'un-Islamic' modelling on Instagram

Iran has arrested eight people for "un-Islamic" modelling online.

The arrests are part of a wider crack down by Tehran's cybercrimes court, according to the BBC. The operation has targeted women who have posted photos of themselves online not wearing headscarves  a legal requirement in Iran since 1979.

The individuals arrested were not named but were held for working for online agencies the authorities deemed to be un-Islamic, according to a prosecutor. The eight arrested were among 170 investigated for being involved in modelling. They included 51 salon managers and designers, 58 models and 59 photographers and make-up artists, according to a court statement.

Javad Babaei, the court's prosecutor, made the announcement in a state television broadcast on Sunday night that discussed the "threats to morality and the foundation of family" posed by social media.

Babaei said the agencies had been "making and spreading immoral and un-Islamic culture and promiscuity".

He went on to say that 29 people had been threatened with a criminal investigation but those who "reformed their behavior" did not face court action. "Eight out of the 29 have been arrested," he confirmed.

A spokesman for the Iranian Centre for Surveying and Combating Organised Cyber Crimes, Mostafa Alizadeh, said: "Sterilising popular cyberspaces is on our agenda.

"We carried out this plan in 2013 with Facebook, and now Instagram is the focus." He added that more crackdowns would begin in the coming days.
Iranian church pastor released from detention; three church members still held

An Iranian pastor arrested last week has been released along with his wife, but three members of their church remain in custody, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).

Youcef Nadarkhani, a pastor in the Church of Iran, was arrested with his wife during a raid on their home in Rasht in the north of the country on May 13.

According to CSW's sources, they were released on the same day, but three other church members are still being detained.

Yasser Mossayebzadeh, Saheb Fadaie and Mohammadreza Omidi (Youhan) have all been previously detained by Iranian authorities. Omidi was one of four Christians sentenced to 80 lashes in 2013 for drinking alcohol during a communion service and possessing a receiver and satellite antenna.

The homes of Fadaie and Omidi were raided on May 13, and their Bibles, computers and mobile phones were reportedly confiscated.

CSW say 10 Christian homes were raided on the same day.

Pastor Nadarkhani was first arrested in 2009 after he went to his children's school to question the Muslim monopoly on Iranian education, which he considered unconstitutional.

He was charged with apostasy and sentenced to death in 2010.

Despite being asked repeatedly in court hearings to renounce his faith in order to avoid the death penalty, Nadarkhani refused.

He was released from prison on 8 September 2012, following his acquittal on apostasy charges, though he was found guilty of evangelising Muslims, for which he received three years.

He was detained again on Christmas day 2012, and released on 7 January 2013.

Iran remains one of the most dangerous places to be a Christian, ranking ninth on persecution charity Open Door's list of countries where Christians are targeted for their faith. Converting from Islam  the state religion  to Christianity is punishable by death for men, and life imprisonment for women. Last year, more than 100 Christians were arrested or imprisoned, and a number of them physically or mentally abused.

Iran has a long history of human rights abuses and violence is rapidly escalating across the country, facilitated by laws which allow the legal persecution of minority communities such as Christians and Baha'i Muslims, who have been condemned by Iranian authorities as an "illegal cult".

"While CSW is relieved that Pastor and Mrs Nadarkhani have been freed, we remain deeply concerned for the welfare of Yasser Mossayebzadeh, Saheb Fadaie and Mohammadreza Omidi, who are still being held," said CSW's chief executive Mervyn Thomas.

"The government must be held to account for its harassment of Iran's Christian community, in particular the constant raids on homes and repeated arrests which are without basis.

"We continue to call on Iran to fully respect its constitutional and international human rights obligations by ensuring that justice and equality before the law are guaranteed to all citizens, regardless of their religion or belief."
Is Anne Graham Lotz right to say God allowed 9/11 'to show us we need him'?

Anne Graham Lotz is one of Billy Graham's daughters and she has a wide-ranging career as a speaker and author. In person she's delightful. On a platform she's mesmerising; her father said she was the best preacher in the family. She is thoughtful and spiritual.

She also believes that God has punished America for turning away from him by sending storms, earthquakes and terrorist attacks. Or, as PinkNews put it: "Pastor Anne Graham: God let 9/11 happen because of transgender people in bathrooms".

The comments that led to that headline were made in an interview with talk radio host Steve Deace about her book The Daniel Prayer. She said: "There is silliness, there is craziness, there's the most illogical rulings. The one in North Carolina on HB2, which is to protect our children in bathrooms and locker rooms, has become something where the justice department is suing us for something that's just common sense." America, she said, "seems to be shaking its fist in God's face and telling him to get out of our politics, get out of our schools, get out of our businesses, get out of our marketplace, get off the streets" and is "basically abandoning God as a culture and as a nation".

She continues: "[If we repent] I think he would begin to reveal the plots of terrorists before they are carried out, eventhe weather patterns he can control and protect us from violent storms."

Lotz adds: "I think that's why God allows bad things to happen. I think that'd why he would allow 9/11 to happen, or the dreadful attack in San Bernardino. To show us we need him."

Hence the PinkNews headline. They are not her exact words, but in their wince-inducing bluntness they are an accurate statement of what she means.

Lotz is not alone in reading the hand of God into tragedies. It's a common theme in her conservative evangelical tradition. But she's absolutely wrong, and here's why.

1. This view of divine judgment reduces people to counters on a board rather than the precious souls, fearfully and wonderfully made, that they really are. It panders to a conception of God as a brutal tyrant who will sacrifice the lives of his people for a perceived greater good, without a thought for their suffering and pain. The idea that God would deliberately cause or allow the deaths of 3,000 people in the World Trade Centre on 9/11 "to show us we need him" is monstrous. They are people, not object lessons. It would also be a miscalculation; as far as I know, there's no evidence churchgoing has risen since then.

2. It's based on a misreading of Scripture. On her website she has an article entitled It's time to get serious. She's rather more circumspect about judgment there, saying God's judgment is "not necessarily in the form of a nuclear dirty bomb, or another ISIS attack, or an economic collapse" but is a "Romans 1 judgment as God backs out of our national life and turns us over to ourselves". However, she goes on: "If God would judge His own beloved nation of Judah, why would we think America could escape?"

The trouble is that the comparison doesn't hold good. There's plenty in the Bible about God judging the nations. Generally speaking, though, the Old Testament is pretty Israel-centric. Israel is judged, yes, but other nations aren't judged by the same standards. They're judged not by how they treat their own people or by how good their laws are, but by how they treat Israel. America is Israel's staunchest ally, continuing to support her in spite of her morally problematic treatment of the Palestinians. On that basis, America is the last country in the world to be facing God's judgment.

3. It misunderstands America. There's a pervasive narrative in right-wing conservative political and religious analysis that says the US is worse now than it was in the past. On any serious consideration, though, that's simply not true. Take the single question of race: it's not yet 50 years since Martin Luther King was assassinated for daring to argue that black and white people were equal in the sight of God, and ought to be equal in law and society. That struggle is not over yet, but America has a black president. If God were to smite America for anything, surely it would have been for its ingrained and violence racism. America is better now, morally, than it was  and if conservatives really regard the widespread acceptance of homosexuality as a worse sin than the widespread acceptance of racism, they need to do some serious thinking.

4. It asks the wrong question. Implicit in Lotz's approach to incidents like 9/11 or the San Bernardino massacre or earthquakes or storms is, "Why did God do this?" Behind that there's the idea that God either deliberately chose to act, or deliberately chose not to act to stop whatever tragedy was unfolding.

But in fact, God usually chooses not to act. He choose to let the world unfold as it will. We can believe in an interventionist God without believing he always intervenes. We can believe in a sovereign God without believing he always exercises his sovereignty.

If we ask, "Why did God do this?" there's always a risk that we will start talking about judgment, usually on something we don't approve of. A better question is, "What can we learn from this?" We'd realise that God does not will death and destruction on anyone. He doesn't desire the death even of a sinner. Everyone is equally loved by him, and he walks with us on our journey of healing, understanding and redemption. No one is sacrificed to point a moral or adorn a tale.

I don't think Lotz would ever come right out and say, in the crude terms PinkNews put it, that 9/11 happened because transgender people were allowed in the "wrong" lavatories. But that's the logic of her position, and it doesn't stack up.

Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
Kendrick Lamar J. Cole album release date news: delay to long awaited collaboration may be down to individual projects

The much-talked-about collaboration album between hip hop mega-stars Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole may be stalled, but it does not mean that it will not see the light of day.

According to reports, Cole is busy rehearsing for his one-night only "Castle Lite Unlocks J. Cole" concert at the Ticketpro Dome in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 18. He will be joined by popular South African hip hop acts like Kwesta, Reason, and Emtee as well as famous DJs Vigilante and Speedstra.

Meanwhile, Lamar just spent time working on a collaboration with fellow hip hop artist Mistah F.A.B. in the latter's upcoming track called "Survive." The single, included on Mistah F.A.B.'s upcoming album "Son of Pimp" that will come out on May 27, talks about the dangers of lurking in the streets at night. Lamar's powerful verse in the track includes the words: "You ever been a victim of being a prisoner inside your own mind?/ The bright lights of the streetlights will make you go blind."

Lamar and Cole's collaboration has remained one of the hip hop world's most awaited projects since 2012, when Lamar teased that he and Cole will surprise their fans with their joint venture.

"We gon drop that out the sky," the "Hood Politics" rapper said in an interview with L.A. Leakers, as reported by BET in March 2013. "I ain't gonna give no dates, no nothing. I'm just gonna let it fall."

Cole, on the other hand, said in an interview on Jenny Boom Boom's radio show that the two of them already worked together in the studio several times.

At the moment, no other updates have been released about the status of highly anticipated hip hop collaboration.
Ofsted warning over discovery of religious 'illegal schools'

More than 100 illegal schools have been discovered by Ofsted, most of which are religious.

The school inspection body said the total was much higher than had previously been thought and comes after a crackdown on unregistered and illegal schools, according to the BBC.

The majority of the illegal schools discovered were Islamic or Jewish and are run by faith groups, said Ofsted's chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw. The revelation was made after an investigation by a team of seven inspectors alongside the Department for Education.

The team visited the sites of suspected illegal schools and 350 children were discovered on their premises in the last month.

"The evidence they have gathered so far during this short period firmly reinforces my belief that there are many more children hidden away from the view of the authorities in unregistered schools across the country than previously thought," said Wilshaw.

He added that such schools put children at risk and undo the government's drive to ensure all schools promote British values. The worry, Wilshaw said, was that children would be exposed to extremism and radicalisation without the government being able to intervene.

Parents are free to home educate their children but unregistered schools use this as cover for their activities.

Under the current law any school that offers more than 20 hours of lessons a week must be registered. However this may change as Wilshaw promised to take action against those who run illegal schools.

A Department for Education spokesman said nothing was more important than keeping children safe and added local councils have powers to take action where there are concerns.

"We have given new resources to Ofsted to investigate unregistered schools, and to prepare case files for prosecution by the CPS," the spokesman said.

"We have consulted on new measures to protect children in out of schools settings offering intensive education. We received a large number of responses, which we are now considering, and will make a further announcement in due course."

The government's promised regulation of out of school settings has raised fears among Christians that churches and youth groups could be inspected by Ofsted.

Shadow education secretary Lucy Powell said the government's policies had allowed dangerous practices to emerge in schools.

"The Tories' education policy has led to a fragmented schools system lacking robust local oversight to spot and tackle serious problems early on," she said.

"As a result, many children are dropping off the radar or ending up in illegal, unregistered schools for months or years, where they are at risk of being exposed to harm, exploitation, or the influence of extremist ideologies."
Pope Francis: 'We were made to be God's children, it is in our DNA'

God is always with us, Pope Francis said on Sunday, and he will never leave us to walk through life alone.

Speaking during his homily for Pentecost Sunday in Rome, the Pope reminded his audience of the day the early church first received the Holy Spirit, which "frees us from the condition of being orphans".

In our society today, many people live as though they are orphaned, Francis continued. We see this, he said, "In the interior loneliness which we feel even when we are surrounded by people, a loneliness which can become an existential sadness; in the attempt to be free of God, even if accompanied by a desire for his presence; in the all-too-common spiritual illiteracy which renders us incapable of prayer; in the difficulty in grasping the truth and reality of eternal life as that fullness of communion which begins on earth and reaches full flower after death".

But we are called to a different way of life.

"Being children of God runs contrary to all this and is our primordial vocation. We were made to be God's children, it is in our DNA," he said.

"But this filial relationship was ruined and required the sacrifice of God's only-begotten Son in order to be restored. From the immense gift of love which is Jesus' death on the cross, the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon humanity like a vast torrent of grace. Those who by faith are immersed into this mystery of regeneration are reborn to the fullness of filial life."

The Holy Spirit unites Christians to one another and to Christ, the Pope added.

"Strengthening our relationship of belonging to the Lord Jesus, the Spirit enables us to enter into a new experience of fraternity. By means of our universal Brother  Jesus  we can relate to one another in a new way; no longer as orphans, but rather as children of the same good and merciful Father.

"And this changes everything! We can see each other as brothers and sisters whose differences can only increase our joy and wonder at sharing in this unique fatherhood and brotherhood."

Pentecost, celebrated seven weeks after Easter Sunday  this year on May 15  commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on to Jesus' disciples after he ascended to heaven. The story is told in Acts 2, and is considered to be of profound importance in the history of Christianity.
'Prison Break' season 5 premiere date: announcement on air date due this week

It looks like the wait for the premiere for "Prison Break" season 5 will soon be over, as the official air date of the serial drama thriller's return is about to be revealed.

The writers of the show confirmed on Twitter that fans will finally learn about season 5's premiere date in the coming week after one of the fans asked them if there is any truth to the report that the people behind the show will make an announcement on May 16.

Yes, we will find out our air date next week. https://t.co/JskfhLOfHu  Prison Break Writers (@PBWritersRoom) May 11, 2016

But while waiting for the premiere date announcement, the production of "Prison Break" season 5 is currently in full swing. Behind-the-scenes photos of the show's production in Vancouver emerged online, which led to several speculations regarding the plot of the upcoming season. Some of the photos uploaded on Twitter show actor Wentworth Miller as he films several scenes at a Middle Eastern cafe. There is also a photo showing that another location was transformed into a Middle Eastern railway. This could mean that Miller's character Michael Scofield will be outside the country instead of spending time behind bars.

The international location of "Prison Break" season 5 was also teased by Morocco World News in early April, saying that some of the scenes for the reboot of the series will be filmed in three Moroccan cities, namely Rabat, Ouarzazate, and Casablanca.

The publication also teased the plot for the upcoming season, claiming that Scofield was actually imprisoned in Yemen while everyone thought that he was already dead. The report also said that Scofield's friends will likely plan to get him out of jail.

Meanwhile, actor Rockmond Dunbar teased that "Prison Break" season 5 could be better than its last two seasons.

"The first two seasons were amazing... How can you top amazing... But!!! You CAN match amazing. #waitforit," the actor who portrays the role of C-Note said on Twitter.
Raped, murdered and persecuted by ISIS: The plight of Yazidis in Iraq

Mirza Haj Mirza Qirani, chieftain of one of the Sinjar tribes, remembers the night Islamic State invaded on August 3, 2014. At about 2:20am, he received word that the jihadists had advanced and were attacking his village. Men immediately went out to fight, but had only light weapons  they were almost defenceless against ISIS' sophisticated weaponry. The battle continued for about five hours, when it became apparent that the only option was to flee. Militants captured and slaughtered around 350 of the villagers, while the rest  Qirani among them  were able to escape. He recalls the tens of thousands of people he saw on foot on their way to Sinjar mountain. The elderly, the disabled and children struggling to keep up, but having no choice but to push on.

Qirani was part of the most senior delegation of Yazidi religious leaders ever to visit the UK last week. Speaking at the Amar Foundation offices in Westminster, they told Christian Today that it's time for the world to wake up to the plight of their people.

Qirani's story is one of hundreds of thousands of similar testimonies. Harrowing scenes unfolded in Northern Iraq two years ago; as Sinjar town and its surrounding villages were overrun, hundreds of civilians were slaughtered and more than 400,000 forced to flee. Some 5,000 were taken captive, 3,000 of whom remain hostage, and disturbing accounts of their treatment at the hands of militants have emerged from those who have since been smuggled out or managed to escape. Women and children have been brutally raped and abused; bartered and sold among jihadists for as little as a packet of cigarettes. Men were rounded up and killed. Mass graves have been found, as well as underground dungeons where women were kept as sex slaves.

In the weeks following the insurgency, the world watched in horror as 40,000 members of religious minority groups were stranded on the Sinjar mountainside without food, water or sanitation. Some were Christians and Shia Muslims, but the majority were followers of Yazidism  an offshoot of Zoroastrianism, which blends ancient religious traditions with both Christianity and Islam. Yazidis, native to the northern Mesopotamian region where they have worshipped for millennia, have been targeted relentlessly by ISIS, who consider them to be "devil-worshippers".

Food and water drops were made by international agencies, but at least 300 people, most of them children, perished in the blistering temperatures. And two years on, the Yazidi community remains vulnerable to ISIS' advance. There were once more than 600,000 Yazidis in Northern Iraq, but there are now believed to be fewer than half that number. Thousands have been killed, and many more are forced to live hand-to-mouth in Iraqi refugee camps, or have fled further afield to Europe.

 We are a peaceful religion. We have no intention to take power, and we would prefer to be killed than converted.  - Mirza Haj Mirza Qirani

The European Parliament and the US administration has declared ISIS' atrocities against Yazidis, Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East to be genocide. The UK has failed to follow suit, though MPs voted unanimously in favour of the label in the House of Commons last month. Prime Minister David Cameron has said he hopes that the word 'genocide' will be used, but maintains that it is a matter for the International Criminal Court.

This isn't the first time the Yazidi community has been persecuted  staggeringly, they say this is the 74th time they have been the target of genocide. But despite a troubled history, none believed they could suffer to the extent they have under ISIS.

"We are a peaceful religion. We have no intention to take power, and we would prefer to be killed than converted," Qirani said, speaking through an interpreter. "The attack by ISIS was unexpected, unpredictable, and we thought that if such a thing would happen, there are foreign forces  the United States and the UK  who would intervene directly and stop such atrocities. But they came too late."

The delegation insisted they were thankful for the eventual intervention of Western forces, however. Without the US-led coalition air strikes, they said, the entire Yazidi and Christian community in Iraq may have been wiped out. But they called for stronger action: "We thank God that finally the air strikes came. Not only for Yazidis, but for Christians the same. Their [ISIS'] plan was to eliminate all minorities. It's time for this evil to be eliminated and stopped in its place."

Revenge, though, remarkably isn't on their radar. In the aftermath of the Sinjar massacre, there were some reports of Yazidis extracting revenge on local Arab villages, but the senior religious leaders insisted that reconciliation is the only way forward for Iraq.

"We must learn from each other how to forgive, and remove the darkness which is prevailing on this earth," Farooq Khalil Basheer, a member of the Yazidian religious council, said. "We must accept each other, and forgive, like brothers. That's the most important thing  how to live peacefully with each other."

 We must learn from each other how to forgive, and remove the darkness which is prevailing on this earth.  - Farooq Khalil Basheer

There was some discussion, and disagreement, about whether this was possible, given the scale of the atrocities against Yazidis, Christians and others. "This is our dream, but it's not possible. Not possible," Jameel Sulaiman Haider, an advisor to the religious council, said.

"God is there to punish the evil deeds of human beings," Basheer added, but he emphasised the importance of forgiveness. Without it, he suggested, there is no hope for Iraq's future.

Part of the reason the delegation were in London, supported by the Amar Foundation, was because the Yazidi leaders want to urge the international community to create a "marshal plan" for when ISIS is eventually defeated. The council has already begun to make changes in its own community. Reports surfaced last year that claimed women and girls taken captive and used as sex slaves by ISIS militants were having secret abortions and vaginal surgery to avoid being ostracised by their own communities when they escaped and returned home. Yazidi leaders therefore issued an official law which said women who had been raped and abused by ISIS must be welcomed back without fear of discrimination.

"They were raped, enslaved, assauted. Why should we treat them like them [ISIS]?" Basheer said.

"They are members of our community and we respect them... nobody is an outsider."

"We want the UK to acknowledge these attacks as genocide against the Yazidis, but [also] to move beyond that border," added Dr Mamou Othman, a former Iraqi minister and now director of the European Studies Centre at the University of Dohuk. "When ISIS is defeated, and Iraq is liberated, how do we let people go back? And more than that, how to give them a feeling of security that they can continue living there. We don't want our people to leave the country."

The delegation were adamant that it be made possible for Yazidis, Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East to live there in peace without fear of persecution. Yazidism, Basheer explained, holds connection with the land highly. It is therefore vital that Yazidis remain living in their Mesopotamian homeland. "We are hoping that the UK government will be involved more and try to do more for the indigenous of Mesopotamia to let them continue their lives and practise their festivals, their rituals, their religions, because we are connected with the land," Basheer said.

"Our shrines are there, our festivals, our rights and rituals, everything... If we go abroad, we are afraid they will be lost.

"It's just like a tree without roots, it will die."

The religious council were in the UK supported by the AMAR International Charitable Foundation. For more information on their latest appeal on behalf of persecuted communitues in Iraq, click here.
Sadiq Khan attacks 'divisive and dangerous' Trump as feud intensifies

Sadiq Khan has attacked Donald Trump for a second time as the hostility between the pair intensified.

The new Muslim Mayor of London said the Republican presumptive nominee for US President would fail in his campaign because of his "ignorant, divisive and dangerous" views.

The bitter feud was resurrected after Trump called Khan "ignorant" and "nasty" in an interview with ITV's Good Morning Britian.

A spokesman for Khan hit back: "Donald Trump's views are ignorant, divisive and dangerous  it's the politics of fear at its worst and will be rejected at the ballot box, just as it was in London.

"Sadiq has spent his whole life fighting extremism, but Trump's remarks make that fight much harder for us all  it plays straight into the extremists' hands and makes both our countries less safe."

Trump's comments came after he apparently offered a hand of peace to Khan, saying there would always be exceptions to his call for a "total and complete shutdown on Muslims entering the US".

But in his interview aired on Monday morning Trump said he would remember the response he got from the mayor who rejected Trump's offer of an "exception".

Trump said: "He doesn't know me, hasn't met me, doesn't know what I'm all about.

"I think they were very rude statements and, frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements.

"When he won I wished him well. Now, I don't care about him, I mean, it doesn't make any difference to me. Let's see how he does, let's see if he's a good mayor."

He went on: "I have many Muslim friends... I was with one the other day, one of the most successful men, he's Muslim and he said, 'Donald you have done us such a favour, you have brought out a problem that nobody wants to talk about'."
Twitter and Trump: Why Christians in Politics want to end 'hyperbole and caricature' in debate

Twitter and Trump: Two aspects of modern politics that have fuelled toxicity and embittered debate.

But a new initiative has been launched to overcome the so-called Trump-effect that has emerged in political engagement. The cross-party group Christians in Politics have launched a "disagree with tea" video in an attempt to overcome the "hyperbole and caricature" that surround politics.

The video features Andy Flannagan, director of Christians on the Left, Gareth Wallace, executive director of the Conservative Christian Fellowship and Sarah Dickson, director of the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum.

"We are team players in our own individual tribes," Wallace says in the video. "But as Christians we owe our primary allegiance to a higher King."

Flannagan says: "For us it has to be Kingdom before tribe every time, but that is not always easy to work out."

Asked what that means in practice, Flannagan told Christian Today it was about avoiding a knee-jerk tribal reaction to any situation and instead responding after reflection and prayer.

"We need better tone in our political discourse but better tone only comes from better relationships," he said.

"When you put relationships with political enemies first, you will continue to disagree but better language and better discourse will follow. What happens is a sharpening of each other's opinions in a better way."

The video is part of a wider effort from Christians in Politics to encourage "disagreeing well". Flannagan said good disagreement was something Christians could offer as an alternative to "the punch and judy we see at things like Prime Minister's Questions".

The attempt to get Christians involved in politics is supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In a foreward to a book by Flannagan encouraging Christians to "show up", Justin Welby said: "Politics would be extremely dull if we all agreed on everything. There is joy in diversity, and we should not be afraid to disagree with one another, but in a way that models the reconciling love of Jesus.

"Good disagreement is a gift that the church can offer the world around it - and our political system could certainly do with a healthy does of it."

The video also encourages Christians to join a political party and engage in the debate.

"If we're not careful we can easily be lured into thinking any difference of opinion is a split or a rift," Dickson says in the video.

"We start to think acceptance and agreement are the same thing. It just takes reading one newspaper article and you can be forgiven for thinking any two people or two groups of people who disagree on an issue can't also accept anything.

"That is just not the case. We can disagree and extend the arms of embrace at the same time."

You can watch the full video below and for more information on the Christians in Politics page on the EU debate, click here.
Tyrese Gibson says he's still a Christian after visiting mosque in Mideast to learn 'how to properly pray'

"The Fast & Furious" star Tyrese Gibson recently raised a lot of eyebrows concerning his faith when he visited a mosque in the Middle East purportedly to learn "how to properly pray."

On his Instagram account (@tyrese), he posted a photo showing a Muslim man kneeling down in prayer inside a mosque. He captioned it, "My first visit ever to a Grand Mosque. My heart is ... beating so fast, and I felt vulnerable just by walking inside. I was given my first course on HOW to properly pray and I truly feel blessed."

"Shout to all of the believers around the world... Inshallah my visions will be blessed for the Middle East," he wrote.

His post drew over a thousand comments, with many asking him if he had converted to Islam. Others simply told the actor that he has "finally lost it."

But later, Gibson shared a follow-up post and assured his fans that he is still a Christian. "From the beginning and end I will always give the Lord Jesus Christ all the glory!!!!!!!! Nothing more inspiring than making history with people who make you feel most welcome," he writes.

He explains that he went to the Middle East for business reasons. Gibson says he plans to create a movie studio in the United Arab Emirates called Voltron Studios and invest around $700 million to help boost its movie-making industry.

"Trust me when I tell you I'm in the Middle East not even remotely caught up in titles, money, and materialistic things," he says. "You will see one day I'm a man with a mission on my heart. I came here to change things. I came here to create better relations and bridge understandings between the East and West. Inshallah!!"
U.S. elections 2016: In Trump vs. Clinton tie-up, over quarter of born-again Christians ready to abstain

An ongoing interactive "polling explorer" by Reuters news agency indicated that as of Friday, May 13, 25.9 percent of "born again Christians" will neither vote for Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton, and will vote for a third candidate or abstain from voting instead.

With the "born-again Christian" filter applied for the May 13 Reuters polling, Trump was favoured by 43 percent of 422 respondents while Clinton registered 30.8 percent.

However, without any filter, the polling results showed Clinton getting the vote of 38.1 percent of the respondents while Trump had 34 percent. The "Other/wouldn't vote/refused" sector registered 27.9 percent.

The Reuters online page shows the respondents' choice for president, if the 2016 presidential election was between Trump and Clinton.

Viewing the results, users can filter responses by several different demographic factors, like race, age, socioeconomic status, etc.

Relevant Magazine isolated the results to include only those who identify as "born again Christians." This resulted in the 25.9 percent figure mentioned earlier.

Moreover, that percentage appears to be climbing, according to the magazine.

"It's starting to look like the angst among some Christian voters surrounding the 2016 election could end up being a major factor," Relevant Magazine quipped.

Meanwhile, Todd Starnes, the host of "Fox News & Commentary," noted that the Trump campaign is worried not just by the #NeverTrump crowd but also by the unknown number of evangelicals who may stay home on Election Day, Charisma News reports.

He also noted a trending quote made by renowned Pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon who said, "Of two evils choose none."

"But is that really our best and only optionto throw in the towel? Do Christians get to claim the moral high ground by electing President Hillary Clinton?" Starnes asked.

Starnes collected the views of a number of renowned Christian leaders on the matter.

"It is silly to talk about not voting for either candidate. Every single Christian should vote," according to Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

"You don't just stay home and not voteyou vote for the candidates (who) best support biblical truth and biblical values," said Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

"But what if your candidate is not exactly an altar boy in good standing?" Starnes asked.

"In some races, it may not always be clear," Graham replied. "You may have to hold your nose and choose of the two."

"Is it OK for Christians to vote for Donald Trump? That's a decision for each individual Christian to make for himself or herself," said Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary.

Land said he plans to "vote against Hillary Clinton, and I don't believe in third-party candidates."

He added that he's "deeply perturbed that I'm presented with such a lousy choice, but that's who the American people have selected."
The number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty nationwide dropped by nearly 20 percent in 2015, with 41 officers killed as a result of criminal acts, according to preliminary figures released Monday by the FBI.

Figures were not available yet for Texas, but one officer was killed in Harris County in 2015, the same as in 2014. Five officers were killed in Texas in 204 in the line of duty.
Houston's taco options continue to grow. And this fall the taco market will get a little more crowded when Austin-based Tacodeli opens its first Houston store at 1902 Washington.

While it's been known since December that Tacodeli planned to expand to the Houston market, there was no firm date for the Houston opening. Today Tacodeli gave a vague "fall 2016" as its opening date. Still, it's good news to those who are familiar with the Austin brand that prides itself on using organic eggs, high quality proteins (HeartBrand Ranch akaushi beef, organic and certified humane pork, and antibiotic-free chicken), and non-GMO organic corn tortillas and chips. The company also promotes seafood responsibility, builds long-term relationships with local farmers and ranchers, and offers vegetarian and vegan options on its menu.
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A man accused of fleeing police and ramming his pickup into a car carrying two teenagers leaving their prom has been charged with murder and evading arrest

Edin Palacios, 26, was arrested at the scene of the fatal crash about 1 a.m. Saturday on the North Freeway service road near Tidwell, Houston police said.

The accident claimed the life of Jocelynn Valero, 18, a passenger in a Dodge Charger struck by Palacios' Ford F-150. Valero's friend, who was driving the Dodge, survived the crash and was hospitalized in unknown condition.

Police said officers tired to stop the white Ford pickup when they believed the driver was intoxicated. The driver, later identified as Palacios, sped away with the officers in pursuit.

During the chase, Palacios made a U-turn, hopped a curb and barreled through the parking lot of a Fiesta grocery store, police said. He then turned onto the North Freeway service road. At Tidwell, Palacios ran a red light and smashed into the Dodge Charger.

Valero died at the scene. The driver of the Dodge,also 18, had broken bones and internal injuries. He was rushed to Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital.

Palacios was also rushed to Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital. Details of his injuries and condition were not released.

Valero and her friend had just attended the prom for Yes Prep North Central high school before the crash occurred. Afterwards, they had stopped at an IHOP restaurant.

"Our entire community is mourning the heartbreaking loss of one of our bright shining stars and praying for the recovery of another student critically injured in the same incident," .YES Prep officials said in a statement. "We hope that the person responsible for the reckless behavior that prematurely ended a precious life and endangered another will be held accountable through our justice system and we will support the investigation in every way possible."

Chronicle reporter St. John Barned-Smith contributed to this report.
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Amy Howard, of Memphis-based Amy Howard at Home, has a mission: to rescue neglected, old furniture and bring it back to life.

"Over 11 million tons of furniture is thrown away every year," Howard said. "That's why one of our taglines is 'Rescue, restore, redecorate.' "

With more than 30 years of experience in home decor and furniture design, Howard has poured her heart into creating a new line of paints and craft tools that are perfect for any DIY novice or veteran. Her products can be found in ACE Hardware stores nationally and internationally.

Her journey began at a Paris flea market, where she sought out the stories behind each furniture piece.

"It was an almost spiritual experience," Howard said. "I kept thinking, 'Who used this piece? What was the political situation at the time? The fashion styles?' "

So she started to combine her passion for art history with her love for interior design. Howard has taken midcentury modern looks and enhanced them with 17th-century finishes. She also has studied Oriental lacquer finishes and explored their natural ingredients for her own product development.

With her new line, she hopes to help people create a high-end aesthetic with affordable prices and an easy, hands-on approach.

"Our paints and our finishes are natural, which is a beautiful aspect," Howard said.

While most people do gravitate towards beautiful things, they're not necessarily willing to pay top dollar.

Increasingly, people are scouting out furniture at garage sales, estate sales and flea markets. One radical step can lead to a wondrous transformation.

Howard's One-Step Paint requires only that the piece of furniture be wiped free of dirt or grime; there's no stripping, sanding or priming necessary. You just tackle the dilapidated thing with a brush, and the results are stunning.

Howard is obsessed with finishes and the way they play with texture. For a faded industrial look, her liming wax can create a feathery finish on cabinets or a table. The wax must be painted in a diagonal direction, Howard said, starting from the upper left top corner. This technique is called cerusing, and Howard believes it is a massive trend in the DIY movement, an $817-billion-dollar industry.

"But for example, people still want to redo their kitchens for reasonable prices," Howard said. "On average, people spend $5,000 for painting kitchen cabinets. I can redo an entire kitchen for less than $250."

When designing a room, Howard recommends a neutral background and a few objects (lamps and pillows) with bright pops of color, a major trend. That way, you can freshen up the room by changing out the inexpensive items.

Yet another trend that Howard champions is glass backsplashes. Instead of tile, people are increasingly interested in glass or lacquer backsplashes stamped with pretty patterns.

"There's a resurgence of people wanting to learn how to do things themselves," Howard said. "They want to be able to say, 'I did it!' and enjoy the bragging rights."

She also helps people replicate items they've found on Pinterest, though she has some concerns about that website and app.

"Women will go on it for hours, and then it makes them unhappy with everything in their house," she said. "But I would like them to make their houses an impression of theirs through simple DIY projects that will give their homes a soul."
The Texas Southern University board of regents is expected to decide late Monday night who will be the college's next president.

The regents are trying to wrap up a search to succeed President John Rudley, who has led the school since 2008 and plans to step down in August. The board spent nearly 12 hours behind closed doors in a small Marriott meeting room Thursday, interviewing two finalists for the job. They debated until 3 a.m. Friday who would be the right person to lead the university but didn't make a decision.

The regents had originally planned to meet at 11:30 a.m. Monday, but the agenda posted online Friday was taken down over the weekend. As of 11 a.m. Monday, no new agenda had been posted, but board chair Derrick Mitchell said the board will meet at the originally planned time and recess until 8:30 p.m.

Mitchell said the delay is due to a scheduling conflict on the board. The chair said he wanted every regent to be available at the meeting, where they will pick the university's next president.

"This is about the president, so we want all of our board to be available," Mitchell said. "We're not trying to hide anything. We're really trying to act."

By Texas law, whomever the regents select as sole finalist won't be able to take the president's position for 21 days.

During his tenure, TSU President Rudley has raised admissions standards, found ways to fund construction including a new dorm despite cuts in state funding, and pushed for other university improvements. Despite those successes, Rudley has butted heads with regents in recent months and the faculty senate passed a vote of no confidence in him.

Rudley suggested at a recent regents meeting his upcoming departure was largely due to change on the board.

"I've been around this business for over 20 years," Rudley said during a contentious March meeting of the board. "I know how when boards change, the winds change, relationships change ... From a personal standpoint, I should be smart enough to know the table is laid out, and the table laid out was not conducive for me to stay at TSU any longer."

Despite the tension with regents and faculty, the university presented Rudley with a medal of honor at the TSU graduation ceremony on Saturday.
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Peli Peli owners Michael Tran, Thomas Nguyen and chef Paul Friedman are planning to bring some South African flavor to Katy.

The "Houston Press" reports that the trio have signed a lease at 23501 Cinco Ranch in retail center La Centerra, where Kenzo Sushi Bistro once stood.

RELATED: First look at Restless Palate in Katy

Nguyen tells the Houston newspaper that they look forward to offering the Houston suburb a new fine-dining establishment.

"I feel that we were destined for Katy because I went to school there (Mayde Creek, 1994) and two of the owners currently live in Cinco Ranch, less than two miles away from La Centerra," Nguyen told the "Press."

The owners appeared on CNBC's "Restaurant Startup" in January, in which restaurateur Elizabeth Blau pledged $1.25 million, an investment that eventually fell through.

SEE ALSO: Local restaurateur gives cancer patients the prom he never had

Still, the company is going forward with a widespread expansion for the city. The original location is at Vintage Park, and the second restaurant is in the Galleria. Casual offshoot Peli Peli Kitchen is expected to open at 9090 Katy Freeway in late summer or early fall.

"While there will be 1-2 Peli Peli's in every city, the Peli Peli Kitchen concept will be our franchise model that allows for growth into the suburban areas with possibilities for 10-plus locations in every major city," the partners said on their Kickstarter page (a campaign they later deserted).

Tran, Friedman and Nguyen have brought on architectural firm Collaborative Projects to design this interior. The company is known for creating some of the city's most popular bars and restaurants, and it's the firm behind the Bernie's Burger Bus in Katy, also in La Centerra.
Early voting began Monday in elections for two judicial seats in Montgomery County.

In the Republican primary runoffs, Montgomery County First Assistant District Attorney Phil Grant is facing Conroe attorney Kate Shipman Bihm for the 9th District Court. Meanwhile Associate Judge Jennifer Robin and Conroe attorney Kristin Bays are vying for the 410th District Court.

The winners will not be opposed by Democrats in the November general election.

The 9th District seat is open because Judge Kelly Case decided not to seek re-election amid a rocky first term, one in which he clashed with prosecutors and lost the support of the tea party activists who helped him unseat an incumbent. Higher courts, meanwhile, overturned at least five of his rulings.

The court specializes in criminal cases. Case, a criminal defense attorney before becoming judge, presided over several high-profile ones, such as the death penalty case of Larry Swearingen, who has had five execution dates halted since his 1998 conviction in the murder of a college student.

Grant has been endorsed by the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Association, Sheriff Tommy Gage and District Attorney Brett Ligon, who hired him in 2009 as his top assistant, responsible for the office's day-to-day management, public integrity division and major crimes unit.

Critics worry that Grant is too closely aligned with law enforcement to be an impartial judge. But he said that he played a role in crafting a 2014 state law designed to prevent wrongful convictions by forcing district attorneys to be more transparent in criminal cases. The law is named after Michael Morton, an Austin man who spent nearly 25 years wrongfully imprisoned for his wife's murder.

Bihm said that she is uniquely qualified for the position because of her years as a prosecutor and defense attorney. She sparred with Ligon while defending a teen charged with criminal trespassing and burglary of the district attorney's vehicle.

The 410th District seat is also open because longtime Judge K. Michael Mayes is retiring. Robin has touted her experience as an associate judge for the 418th District Court to pick up endorsements from Gage, Ligon and local tea party groups.

Bays, formerly president of the Montgomery County Bar Association, said she will work to clear the current backlog of cases and save taxpayers' money.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Friday at six locations in Montgomery County. Election Day is Tuesday, May 24.

For more information, visit the Montgomery County Elections Administration website here.
Hours after a two-alarm fire broke out at a west Houston apartment complex on Monday, a man was fatally shot there, police said.

Houston Police Department Investigator Nina Sharp said police were dispatched to an apartment in the 2100 block of Hayes around 4:40 p.m. after a woman shot an unidentified man.

RELATED: Small dog rescued from W. Houston fire

Sharp said the woman is believed to be a resident of the complex. It's suspected the man did not live there.

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The woman is in police custody waiting to be questioned.

According to initial information, the man was shot after trying to kick in the woman's front door.

Emotions ran high among some of the other residents, who were seen crying and yelling in disbelief that the man had been shot.

Neighbors who did not want to be identified believe the man and woman had been in a relationship but broke up.

"I saw him running to the car. There were three shots," a neighbor said. "I called 911 and they told me to give him CPR."

The neighbor said she does not know how to administer CPR. Another resident living in the complex said the man was shot in the back with an exit wound in his chest.

The identity of the woman accused of shooting the man has not been released. HPD is investigating.
Jennifer Reynolds/Photo Editor

Federal agents are investigating the death of a Texas mother of four who was lost at sea after apparently tumbling off the deck of a Carnival Cruise ship traveling from Galveston to Cozumel, Mexico.

The ship, named Liberty, was docked at Galveston Monday as authorities looked into the death of Samantha Broberg,33, of Arlington, whose body has not been found.
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A convicted car thief who led police on a deadly chase last week has a history of mental illness, his lawyer said Monday.

Joshua Deangelo Myles, 27, faces one charge of felony murder, which means causing a death while committing a felony, and a charge of evading arrest.

He is accused of killing a 61-year-old man and seriously injuring his passenger by T-boning the car they were driving while fleeing police in a stolen car.

Murray Newman, a lawyer appointed to represent Myles, said in court Monday that his client has a history of mental illness. He said Myles will undergo testing for competency and sanity, which could take months of assessments.

Prosecutor Alison Baimbridge said she would consider the test results when they come in. In court Monday, she laid out the allegations against Myles, including that he was involved in three wrecks as he fled police around lunchtime on May 12.

The chase began about 10:30 a.m Thursday in the 5800 block of Schroeder when Houston police officers spotted Myles driving a stolen silver GMC Envoy.

Police said Myles sped away from the officers, who followed him in cars and with a police helicopter.

Baimbridge said Myles caused a minor wreck as police pursued him. He then ran a red light on Scott at Yellowstone and slammed into a white Nissan Versa that was traveling westbound on Yellowstone, according to the Houston Police Department. He continued on and caused a third wreck by hitting a black Kia Soul that was stopped at a red light on Scott.

Myles jumped out of the disabled Envoy and ran, but offices captured him a short distance away.

A man and woman who were in the Nissan were injured and were rushed to a nearby hospitals. The driver, Darryl Barefield, later died. His passenger remains in critical condition, Baimbridge said.

The woman driving the Kia was not hurt.

State District Judge Denise Bradley kept bail for Myles at $150,000 despite a defense argument that it be lowered, in accordance with the county's bail schedule. The judge cited the allegations of the crime as well as Myles lengthy criminal record for keeping the bail high.

Prosecutors said Myles has been arrested at least four other times for car theft. He has also been arrested in the past for fleeing police and assault, Baimbridge said.

Myles, who appeared in an orange jail uniform, did not speak in court.

brian.rogers@chron.com

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A San Antonio Police Department officer received a 40-day suspension in March after a heated encounter with an off-duty officer during a traffic stop in last year, and later issuing threats against the officer via text message.

According to suspension paperwork obtained by MySA.com, Officer Gary Nel pulled over Officer August Primera in the 100 block of Northeast Loop 410 on Sept. 11 of 2015 for driving recklessly and other traffic violations.
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.
In the wacky world of California politics, its a virtual certainty that no Republican will make it past the June 7 primary in the race to succeed retiring U.S. senator Barbara Boxer. California attorney general Kamala Harris has a comfortablebut not overwhelminglead over fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez, a congresswoman from Orange County. Three Republican candidates trail far behind. Due to Californias unusual election rules, the top two vote-getters in the primaryregardless of party affiliationwill face each other in November. If the current polling stands, the general election to fill the senate seat Boxer has held since 1992 will likely be a contest between two liberal Democrats: Harris (now at 27 percent) and Sanchez (at 14 percent).

The most popular Republican currently in the racewith a scant 5 percent in the pollsis Ron Unz. A gadfly businessman-activist and former 1994 gubernatorial candidate, Unz espouses an eclectic platform that includes raising the minimum wage to $12 an hour, restricting immigration, and challenging the science behind climate change. Unz, who admits that his primary reason for running is to head off efforts to repeal Proposition 227, the 1998 ballot measure he championed to dismantle Californias ruinous bilingual education system, has the endorsement of Ron Paul. Former California Republican Party chairman George Duf Sundheim, a Bay Area attorney, languishes at 2 percent. The previous Republican frontrunner, GOP state assemblyman Rocky Chavez, who had been polling in the single digits, dropped out in February due to fundraising difficulties.

The Democrats poll rankings have remained relatively steady for months, despite the millions raised and spent by Harris. Demographic shifts and an exodus of middle-class voters have turned California into a one-party state. In statewide races, the GOP has become irrelevant; Republican candidates regularly lose by over a million votes. Accepting the lesser-of-two-evils reality of California politics, the right-leaning Orange County Register recently endorsed Sanchez, largely because of her opposition to the Iraq War, USA PATRIOT Act, and the $700 billion bank bailout.

Its a testament to liberal hegemony in California that Sanchez is considered a moderate. She has a 100 percent score from Planned Parenthood, a zero rating from the American Conservative Union, an F from the National Rifle Association, and a record of voting with Nancy Pelosi (when she was House speaker) 97.8 percent of the time. Sanchez has taken flack for her suggestionbased on experts estimatesthat between 5 and 20 percent of American Muslims are potential radicals who support the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. Her statement, issued in the wake of the San Bernardino terrorist attack in December, was immediately (and predictably) criticized by the Council on Islamic-American Relations and other Muslim groups. Harris, by contrast, has called opposition to resettling Syrian refugees purely anti-Muslim rhetoric. We have to embrace our Muslim brothers and sisters wherever they are and not assume that because of the God they pray to and believe in that they are terrorists that are going to harm us when they come here, she declared in a recent debate.

Given the Lefts dominance in California, Republican Sundheims warning that the stylish Harris is an unprincipled tool of the public employee unions, trial lawyers, and environmentalistsnot to mention an enemy of law enforcementwont have much effect on her support among Democrats. She is a popular two-term attorney general and the medias darling. Her record as a consumer advocate who favors gun control and comprehensive immigration reform has great appeal to her partys core voters.

In the final weeks of the primary campaign, Harris and Sanchez will campaign as the unabashed liberals they are, almost certainly finishing first and second in a crowded field of 34 candidates. November, however, may be a different story. Harris, who will out-poll Sanchez in June, could nonetheless lose in November. Sanchez has several advantages heading into the general election. Southern Californias large Hispanic population will likely turn out for her. Moreover, Golden State Republicans, having no candidate of their own to support, will be forced to choose between Harris and Sanchez. GOP voters in California are a minority but they still number in the millions. In a presidential election year, they will turn out in force. Expect them to vote for the least liberal of the Senate candidates on the ballotLoretta Sanchez.

Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images
Peste 300 de liceene s-au inscris in Startup School si sunt gata sa invete bazele antreprenoriatului tehnologic. Vezi cum a fost la evenimentul de lansare a programului national de educatie antreprenoriala
Glenn Renwick, president and chief executive officer, will retire after more than 15 years as CEO and almost 30 years with the company, effective July 1, 2016. The Progressive Corp. announced that Tricia Griffith, currently Personal Lines chief operating officer, will succeed Renwick as CEO and president and will join the board of directors.

Renwick will continue as executive chairman of the board.

Stephen Hardis, lead independent director of Progressives board of directors, said the transition is the result of a process initiated by Renwick several years ago. He said the leadership change comes at a time of strength for the company.

Under Glenns leadership, Progressive has become one of the most successful, innovative and respected insurance companies, said Hardis

Renwick joined Progressive in 1986. He was named CEO of insurance operations in 2000 and has served as the CEO of the parent company since 2001. He has served in a variety of operating roles during his tenure at Progressive, including product manager, the head of the companys marketing organization and business technology leader.

The Progressive Corp. announced that ,Renwick was given the additional role of chairman following the death of previous chairman Peter Lewis in November, 2013.

Since Renwick became CEO in 2000, the companys market capitalization has increased by approximately 155 percent to more than $19 billion and written premiums have more than tripled. Renwick, a former Bell Labs engineer, made Progressive a leader in e-commerce and telephone direct sales, online price comparisons, and consumer technologies including the usage-based Snapshot, which monitors drivers driving habits. In 2008, Progressive received a U.S. patent for one of its methods of processing vehicle damage claims, which it calls its concierge level of claims service. Progressive holds several other patents, including three for its usage-based insurance programs and one for its online policy servicing capabilities. .

In 2015, Renwick expanded the insurers business and its ability to bundle personal lines products with the acquisition of home insurer ARX Holding last year. It was the first carrier to offer its auto customers pet injury coverage.

It has been a privilege to lead this extraordinary organization  surrounded by the smartest, most entrepreneurial, and innovative people in the insurance industry, said Renwick.

Progressive has had a combined distribution model, selling both directly y phone and online as well as through independent agents, a strategy that has not sit well with all independent agents over the years. It has supported its channels with aggressive advertising that rivals that of exclusive agent auto insurers such as GEICO, State Farm, Allstate and Nationwide.

Over the years, some independent agents have questioned Progressives commitment to the independent agency distribution channel even as the company was among the largest sellers of auto insurance through agents. In 2004, the company launched a new branding effort expressly for independent agents and brokers: Drive Insurance from Progressive. But the company dropped the separate Drive brand name in 2007 and gathered all sales under the Progressive name in 2007.

Renwicks successor, Griffith, joined Progressive as a claims representative in 1988 and has served as Personal Lines chief operating officer, responsible for the companys personal lines, claims and customer relationship management groups, since April 2015. She held several managerial positions in the claims division before being named chief human resources officer in 2002. In 2008, she returned to claims as the group president, overseeing all claims functions. Before her current position, she served as president of Customer Operations, overseeing claims and the customer management group, which comprises the companys contact center group (sales and delivery), as well as the customer experience, systems experience and workforce management groups.

Progressive provides insurance for personal and commercial autos and trucks, motorcycles, boats, recreational vehicles, and homes. Home insurance is underwritten by select carriers, including American Strategic Insurance Corp. and subsidiaries (ASI), our majority owned subsidiaries. Progressive is the fourth largest auto insurer in the country.
When a settlement is reached in a personal injury lawsuit, a written settlement agreement is prepared, and, if medical expenses for the injured party have been paid by Medicare, a Medicare Set-Aside Account (MSA) may be created to reimburse Medicare for past, and potentially future, medical payments.

The purpose of a MSA is to ensure that Medicare will not pay bills for plaintiffs injuries where there is other insurance available. The rationale is that since plaintiff received settlement money from an insurance company to cover future medical expenses, Medicare wants to ensure that a portion of the settlement money is spent on injury-related care before the taxpayers start paying through Medicare.

Attorneys and claim representatives need guidance to advise clients and comply with Medicares demands. This article discusses the ramifications of a recent federal decision, Aranki v. Burwell, as well as other federal and state cases on personal injury settlements when dealing with the issue of the potential need for MSAs for future medical expenses.

History

Until 1980, Medicare was the primary payer for all services covered by Medicare except those covered by workers compensation. In 1980, in an effort to shift costs from the Medicare program to private payers, Congress enacted the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (MSPA), 42 U.S.C.  1395y(b), which made Medicare a secondary payer to certain plans, including liability insurance. Regulations implementing the nuts and bolts of the MSPA have been codified at 42 C.F.R. Part 411. As the secondary payer, Medicare provides coverage for any amount not covered by a primary payer or primary plan. Under the MSPA, a primary payer includes a tortfeasor and the tortfeasors private insurer.

The importance of MSAs in todays litigation realm

There is no federal rule or statute that requires the creation of MSAs for future medical expenses in third-party personal injury actions. Attorneys and claim representatives need guidance to advise clients and comply with Medicares demands. Some commentators believe that MSAs for future medical expenses are required in personal injury actions where the injured party is either a Medicare recipient or is Medicare eligible. Others believe no such requirement exists, reasoning that the federal government has no right to claim an interest in future medical expenses as part of a settlement given the absence of any enforceable regulations. So what is the answer?

Case law and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services policy memoranda

A recent case out of the U.S. District Court in Arizona, Aranki v. Burwell, makes it very clear that MSAs are not required for future medical expenses in personal injury cases, unlike such requirements in workers compensation cases. The following is an excerpt from the Aranki case:

To comply with the provisions outlined in the MSP statute, in workers

compensation cases CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)

mandates the creation of a Medicare Set Aside (MSA) account.

(42 C.F.R. 411.) The purpose of a MSA is to allocate a portion of a workers compensation award to pay potential future medical expenses resulting from

the work-related injury so that Medicare does not have to pay. However, no

federal law or CMS regulation requires the creation of a MSA in personal injury settlements to cover potential future medical expenses.

The Aranki case involved the issue of whether a MSA is necessary in a medical malpractice case. The court held the case was not ripe for review because no federal law mandates CMS to decide whether plaintiff is required to create a MSA. As such, the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear this case. As the court noted, there may be a day that the CMS requires the creation of MSAs for future medical expenses in personal injury cases, but that day has not yet arrived.

Those having to deal with MSAs and future medical expenses in liability settlement cases can also look to other recent court decisions for some guidance. For example:

Berry v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. (2015) The parties asked the court to determine whether there was a need for a MSA in connection with a settlement. Specifically, the parties sought a determination that CMSs interests had been adequately taken into account by the settlement to which the parties had agreed. The Berry court found there was no need for a MSA as part of the settlement of this case. Based on the evidence of plaintiffs treating medical providers and correspondence from CMS, Medicare had been reimbursed for all conditional payments that it made for plaintiffs accident-related treatment. Since it was not reasonably anticipated that plaintiff would receive any future accident-related treatment, the court found that Medicare would not be called upon to pay for such are in the future.

Tye v. Upper Valley Med. Ctr. (2014) The Ohio Supreme Court decided that the parties were not required to set aside any portion of the settlement proceeds for future benefits which may be paid or payable to Medicare. In its decision, the Court noted several reasons for its holding, including: (1) the plaintiffs injuries were paid by a private health insurance carrier, (2) the private health insurance carrier would continue to pay plaintiffs medical expenses in the foreseeable future, and (3) Medicare did not have an established policy or procedure in effect for reviewing or providing an opinion regarding the adequacy of the future medical aspect of a liability settlement.

Warren Frank v. Gateway Ins. Co.(2012) The United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana held Medicare does not currently require or approve MSAs when personal injury lawsuits are settled.

Sipler v. Trans Am Trucking, Inc. (2012) The court determined that no federal law requires set-aside arrangements in personal injury settlements for future medical expenses.

Big R Towing, Inc. v. David Wayne Benoit, et al.(2011) The United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana found that a set-aside for future medical expenses in a liability case was appropriate.

Along with the above case law, CMS policy statements offer additional guidance in terms of when to set up a MSA account for future medical expenses. Although these statements do not have the force of law, they do reflect a body of expertise and informed judgment to which courts may properly resort for guidance. (See Anderson v. Burwell, (2016) F.Supp.3d (U.S. Dist. MI))

CMS policy memoranda

CMS has issued several policy memoranda on how Medicares interests must be protected in liability cases. In 2011, CMS issued a 3-page handout with internal guidance addressing liability settlements and MSAs where no future injury-related care was required. Although not legal authority, the handout provides some guidance when dealing with parties respective responsibilities with respect to future medical expenses. With respect to the obligations of plaintiffs counsel, the handout advises that when a plaintiff attorney determines decides that a settlement is intended to pay for future medicals, he or she should see to it that those funds are used to pay for otherwise Medicare-covered services related to what is claimed and/or released in the settlement.

According to Medicare Regional Coordinator Sally Stalcup:

There is no formal CMS review process in the liability area as there is for

Workers Compensation, however Regional Offices do review a number of

submitted set-aside proposals.If there was/is funding for otherwise

covered and reimbursable future medical services related to what was

claimed/released, the Medicare Trust Funds must be protected. If there

was/is no such funding, there is no expectation of 3rd party funds with

which to protect the Trust Funds. Each attorney is going to have to decide,

based on the specific facts of each of their cases, whether or not there is

funding for future medicals and if so, a need to protect the Trust Funds.

They must decide whether or not there is funding for future medicals.

If the answer for defense counsel or the insurer is yes, they should make sure

their records contain documentation of their notification to plaintiffs counsel

and the Medicare beneficiary that the settlement does fund future medicals

which obligates them to protect the Medicare Trust Funds. It will also be part

of their report to Medicare in compliance with Section 111, Mandatory Insurer Reporting requirements.

On September 30, 2011, CMS Acting Director Charlotte Benson issued a policy memorandum outlining the possible requirement of MSA funds in liability cases. This memo provided first-time guidance for MSA amounts related to liability insurance settlements, judgments, awards, or other payments. In discussing settlements of injuries related to liability insurance, the memo states:

Where the beneficiarys treating physician certifies in writing that treatment

for the alleged injury related to the liability insurance settlement has been completed as of the date of the settlement, and that future medical items

and/or services for that injury will not be required, Medicare considers its

interest, with respect to future medicals for that particular settlement,

satisfied. If the beneficiary receives additional settlements related to the underlying injury or illness, he/she must obtain a separate physician

certification for those additional settlements.

In late 2014, the United States Department of Health & Human Services (the federal agency CMS reports to and takes direction from) issued the following:

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has no current plans

for a formal process for reviewing and approving Liability Medicare Set-Aside

Arrangements. However, even though no formal process exists, there is an obligation

to inform CMS when future medicals were a consideration in reaching the Liability

Settlement, judgment, or award as well as any instances where a liability judgment

or award specifically provides for medicals in general or future medicals.

Similar to the 2011 CMS handout discussed above, this letter is not legally binding, but is useful for attorneys handling the issue of future medical expenses and settlements.

To what extent are attorneys responsible for establishing MSAs for future medical expenses?

As of the date of this article, there is no statutory requirement that attorneys establish MSAs in liability settlements if the plaintiff is not a Medicare beneficiary. Personal injury settlements are clearly distinct from workers compensation settlements. As one court noted, in contrast to the workers compensation scheme that generally determines recovery on the basis of a rigid formula, often with a statutory maximum, tort cases involve noneconomic damages not available in workers compensation cases, and a victims damages are not determined by an established formula. (Sipler v. Trans Am Trucking, Inc. at p. 638) However, that does not mean attorneys can ignore this issue and then plead ignorance. Medicares interests must still be protected, which may involve setting up a MSA. Otherwise, the attorney may face severe penalties of up to $1000 per day, per claim.

When MSAs are required

For a MSA to be appropriate, (1) the plaintiff must be a Medicare beneficiary and (2) it must be determined that plaintiff will incur future care related to the underlying lawsuit or injury which would otherwise be covered by Medicare. If these two requirements above are met, then the parties should determine what amount of the settlement should be allocated to future medical care.

According to the Garretson Resolution Group (GSG), we now have some clarity about what the federal government considers material when it comes to future medical expenses under the MSPA. GSG, a neutral private provider of services to parties settling personal injury claims involving MSA and MSA custodial account services, has recently published a guide on how to handle future medicals in 2016 and under the MSP Statute. The 20-page guide lays out what GSG considers to be the best practices on the future medicals issue today. GSG explains the best practice is to (1) identify whether the amount of compensation from the primary plan exists within the settlement award, (2) identify the exact amount of compensation for future medical expenses, and (3) ensure Medicare is not billed until that amount is exhausted.

Arguments for and against establishing these accounts for future medical expenses

For MSAs

At present, there is a heated debate among practitioners over whether MSAs are even required. Federal law explicitly states that if dealing with a recovery in a personal injury case, the interest of Medicare must be considered. (42 U.S.C. 1395y(b)(2)) By setting up MSAs, parties will avoid costly penalties if Medicare determines the parties improperly billed Medicare, including double damages in a claim by the U.S. for recovery of conditional payments, as well as a debt collection action by the Department of Treasury. MSs are cost effective, are easily accessible, and bring finality to the liability claim. They are not required by law, but it is a reasonable approach that parties can adopt to protect themselves from MSP liability. As noted, if MSA accounts are not set up but should have been, the attorney may face fines of $1000 per day, per claim. The $1000 per day, per claim fine is associated with the reporting requirements of Section 111 of the Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP Extension Act (MMSEA) and has no direct correlation with MSAs. (See When to Use a Liability Medicare Set-Aside Arrangement (LMSA) by Roy A. Franco)

Against MSAs

As noted above, there is no federal regulation nor does the United States Code specifically require that MSA fund be created. The federal regulations dealing with Medicare as a secondary payer to post-settlement medical expenses apply only to workers compensation cases. Medicare does not currently have an established policy or procedure in effect for reviewing or providing an opinion regarding the adequacy of the future medical aspect of a liability settlement or recovery of future medical expenses incurred in liability cases.

Based on CMSs policy memoranda and recent case law, there seems to be a distinction being drawn between cases that require a MSA and those that do not. MSAs are not required where (1) the claimant is being compensated only for past medical expenses, and future medical expenses are not at issue; and (2) the claimant is not receiving Medicare, nor is expected to do so in the near future. Those against MSAs argue that a requirement to have personal injury settlements specifically apportion future medical expenses would prove burdensome to the settlement process and, in turn, discourage personal injury settlements. Medicare may refuse to pay future medical expenses related to the claim for which a responsible reporting entity has already assumed liability. Some believe that MSAs increase cost of the claim; however, MSA supporters remind those who oppose MSAs that the Medicare Set Aside comprises a portion of the settlement amount, and therefore there are no increased costs.

While no regulation or statute currently requires the creation of a MSA for future medical expenses in a third-party injury settlement, given the current trends as discussed in this article, it would seem prudent to create a MSA in any case that involves a reasonable likelihood of future injury-related medical care arising out of the underlying events covered by the settlement. The wise practitioner or claim professional should make this part of his or her settlement checklist in personal injury cases.

Richard M. Williams, partner with Gray Duffy, LLP, has more than 35 years of complex litigation experience. His practice covers a breadth of litigation matters including product and premises liability, catastrophic and other personal injury, public entity defense, professional negligence, real estate, intellectual property, employment and unfair business practices. He successfully represents a wide range of clients including insurance companies, business service firms, collection services, higher education organizations, major grocery stores, school districts, contractors, steel manufacturers and property management firms.
Intact Financial Corp. may post insured losses of as much as C$1.1 billion ($850 million) from the wildfires in Alberta, which could dent the Canadian economy harder than Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S.

Intact, Canadas biggest property and casualty insurer, said the damage claims will lead to net losses of C$130 million to C$160 million, or as much as C$1.20 a share, according to a company statement Monday. Jaeme Gloyn, an analyst with National Bank of Canada Financial, estimated the C$1.1 billion figure based on the companys per-share data. The Toronto-based insurer had net income of C$147 million in the first quarter.

The devastation brought on by the wildfires is unprecedented, Intact Chief Executive Officer Charles Brindamour said in the statement. The scope of the damage and destruction that we have observed in recent days is a reminder of the important role we play in getting our customers back on track.

The fires have covered 965 square miles and devastated the town of Fort McMurray, which was evacuated last week. Its likely to be the costliest natural catastrophe in Canadian history, Fitch Ratings said Monday in a statement.

Insured Losses

Industrywide insured losses could reach C$9 billion, according to reports from Bank of Montreal and others. With Canadas 2016 gross domestic product estimated at $1.8 trillion, or about 10 percent of U.S. GDP, the disaster could be bigger on a relative basis than Katrina, based on an analysis by Imperial Capital. Katrina, the storm that hit New Orleans in 2005, cost $60.5 billion, according to data from Munich Reinsurance and the Insurance Information Institute.

The flames are scorching a region thats home to oil and gas producers including Suncor Energy Inc. and Cnooc Ltd.s Nexen. At least 1,600 homes and structures have been damaged. Thats more than triple the number from the Slave Lake Fire in Alberta in 2011, previously the countrys most costly fire and third-most expensive catastrophe, according to Aon Plc.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley plans to tour the city Monday to assess the damage. Losses could be multiples higher than the Slave Lake fire, in part due to the greater average home price in Fort McMurray, Fitch said.

Intacts Estimates

Intacts damage estimates imply industry-insured losses of C$4 billion to C$7 billion, according to a report Monday from National Bank of Canada.

Intact rose 0.5 percent to C$87.92 at 3:04 p.m. in Toronto after falling four straight days last week, the longest streak since January, as the fires spread.

Intact will easily earn their way through the impact of Fort McMurray wildfires, Gloyn wrote in a report.

Intact said the assessment of insured damages, which was made using satellite imagery and exposure geocoding technology, is still early and assumes the wildfires wont return to Fort McMurray. The company received about 19 percent of its premiums from Alberta as of last quarter. RSA Insurance Group Plc and Allianz SEs Canadian unit are among other insurers that have been hurt by losses and claims from the fires, which forced the evacuation of more than 80,000 people.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
Andrew J. Heymsfield has an affinity for thunderstorms, particularly those nasty spring-born storms that darken the plains and drop hailstones similar to millions of tiny ice bombs, leaving crushed crops, car hood dings and dimples, and billions of dollars of damage in their wake.

Visit the senior scientists offices at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and youll find one of his prized possessions is a cast replica of the largest hailstone ever recorded  a nearly 2-pound monster measuring 18.5 inches that fell July 23, 2010, in the small central South Dakota town of Vivian. The real one resides in a laboratory freezer down the hall, the Rapid City Journal reported.

Im interested in all aspects of ice phases, snow, precipitation, and hail just happens to be one of them, says Heymsfield, who first began studying the icy phenomenon in 1978.

For the past few years, his research center has been working in tandem with the Insurance Institute of Business & Home Safety, a consortium of insurers seeking ways to strengthen homes, businesses and communities and reduce the estimated 9 million claims for hail losses totaling more than $54 billion they received from 2000 to 2013.

And, thanks to studies by the insurance institute and armored airplanes that have penetrated hailstorms for more than 30 years collecting data for studies conducted by the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City, scientists are gaining a greater understanding of how hail is produced, and what can be done to mitigate the billions of dollars in damages it does to crops and property.

At the outset, Heymsfield says he was astonished that previous studies used outdated mathematical models to determine the characteristics of hail and to forecast thunderstorms that might produce hail. One such study widely used to calculate the relationship between the size of hail and the speed at which it falls was conducted in the 1960s using data collected in the 1920s, he said.

The thing that really surprised me was that there was a kind of disconnect between the insurance industry and the science from standpoint they perhaps took things from some very old results, but not things we had learned more recently, Heymsfield explained. Now we are starting to look at the properties of hail in a more realistic way.

Ian Giammanco, a meteorologist and Heymsfields counterpart at the institutes state-of-the-art research facilities in Richburg, South Carolina, 45 minutes south of Charlotte, said the studies are intended to not only identify the properties of hail, but to replicate storm conditions with the goal of improving the resiliency of products used in construction that might reduce damage from the icy projectiles.

Its an exciting time in hail research, said Giammanco, whose wife, Tanya, is a fellow scientist working on the project. The goal is to make measurements of hail, multiple dimensions, evaluate shape, weigh hail and understand how size and mass change as hailstone shapes change, which plays an important role in aerodynamics.

That makes a difference in how fast hail falls and subsequently, the damage inflicted when it hits roofs, Giammanco added.

Working in institute laboratories that include 3-D scanners and printers, as well as a massive hail-making machine, Giammanco and his associates this month for the first time replicated individual hailstones, then measured strength and density in their effort to develop stronger building materials more resistant to hail damage.

The scientist said the studies had found that, while hailstones smaller than 1 inch in diameter tended to be more spherical, larger hailstones became less round as they got bigger, and larger hailstones can even feature spikes and other unusual shapes.

On the strength side, small stones typically are the strongest, Giammanco added. The strongest took 3,000 psi (pounds per square inch) to fracture it, which is somewhat amazing when you consider the typical car tire is inflated to 38-40 psi.

While smaller hailstones might take 10 minutes to be produced in a thunderstorm, larger hailstones take an arcing path to the ground, collecting super-cooled water and other bits of atmospheric ice and even colliding with other hailstones on their journey earthward, he said.

Its mind-blowing to consider the size of some hailstones a thunderstorm can produce, getting bigger and bigger, and the fact that 100 mph winds are needed to suspend those giant hailstones in the atmosphere for the 20 to 30 minutes they might be up there, Giammanco added.

Andy Detwiler, a research scientist associated with the School of Mines for nearly 30 years, said he is proud the Rapid City institutions work is now playing such an instrumental role in studies designed to understand hail and reduce damages from thunderstorms.

Noting South Dakota is one of five states most prone to hail storms, Detwiler said the Mines studies using an armor-plated T-28 with a bullet-proof canopy for more than 30 years, and a modified Air Force A-10 more recently, have led to a greater understanding of what actually occurs inside a hailstorm.

Our work began with a grant from the National Science Foundation in 1968, said Detwiler, whose doctorate is in atmospheric sciences. At that time, there was no way to get measurements of storms and this was an attempt to do that.

Praising Heymsfields hail studies and subsequent scientific papers as groundbreaking, Detwiler said aircraft used by the School of Mines and the data they helped produce were just two tools in the arsenal scientists are using to understand our natural environment.

Were trying to deal with the environment as effectively as we can and preserve and protect our standard of living, he said. The airplane is just one tool. It takes airplanes, scientists, data and computer modeling to make the big picture understandable.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Former Massey Energy CEO Donald Blankenship is headed to prison even as he appeals his conviction for conspiring to flout mine-safety laws in connection with the worst U.S. coal industry disaster in almost 40 years.

The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, on Thursday turned down Blankenships bid to stay out of prison while it weighs his challenges to a jurys 2015 finding that he plotted to speed up production at a West Virginia mine by ignoring safety rules. An explosion linked to a build up of coal dust ripped through the Upper Big Branch Mine in 2010 and killed 29 workers.

The ruling means Blankenship, who owns a mountaintop castle in West Virginia, must report to a federal prison in California sometime on Thursday. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons hasnt publicly specified where the former CEO will be imprisoned.

Im happy the system is making Mr. Blankenship start serving his sentence, Judy Jones Petersen, sister of one of the miners killed in the 2010 blast, said Thursday. I hope he spends the next year reflecting on how his greedy behavior created an environment that wound up taking the lives of 29 workingmen.

Exceptional Circumstances

Federal prosecutors in Charleston, West Virginia, had opposed Blankenships request to stay free on a $1 million bond, saying U.S. law only allows service of criminal sentences to be delayed for exceptional circumstances. Blankenships case didnt meet that test, the prosecutors said.

William Taylor, Blankenships lead defense lawyer, didnt immediately return a call for comment on the appeals courts decision.

The former CEO was convicted on a misdemeanor conspiracy charge, which carried a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a $250,000 fine. Blankenship has already paid the fine, according to court filings. Jurors acquitted him of two felony charges which carried more substantial jail time.

The conviction capped a five-year effort by federal prosecutors to hold Blankenship accountable for safety violations that led to the explosion at the mine about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of the state capital of Charleston.

Blankenships lawyers contend in his appeal the government didnt prove the former CEO committed criminal acts, including intentionally violating mine safety laws, and that U.S. District Judge Irene Berger didnt properly instruct jurors on what constituted reasonable doubt about his guilt.

Substantial Questions

Those issues raised enough substantial questions about his guilt that the appeals panel shouldve let Blankenship remain free, his lawyers said.

To know that he is going to be put behind bars is a relief to me, said Gary Quarles, whose son was killed in the Upper Big Branch explosion. I had been wondering how long this was going to go on with his lawyers, his money and everything.

The case is U.S v. Blankenship, No. 16-4193, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit (Richmond).

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
bereart .jpeg

Patrons of last year's Berea Art Walk enjoy the festivities.

BEREA, Ohio -- The city is about to host two different art festivals on the same day. Mayfest and the Downtown Berea Art Walk will both occur on Saturday, May 21 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in downtown Berea.

The Mayfest Fine Art Show, is being sponsored by the Berea Fine Arts Club. The club provides a creative outlet for artists in the Berea area.

The Downtown Berea Art Walk is sponsored by the Berea Arts Fest Inc. The mission statement of the non profit is to encourage involvement in the arts by sponsoring and promoting activities and opportunities which foster creativity and enhance appreciation of arts.

"This is the second year in a row both organizations have come together to hold two distinct events on the same day, so that patrons can enjoy both events all within walking distance," said Jane Palmer, who is the chairperson of the Downtown Berea Artwalk.

"By having them on the same day, these events are able to showcase fine art and crafts from many local artists at very reasonable prices. Many of the businesses sponsor new and emerging artists, which gives them a first hand exposure to the community," said Roy Jenkins, longtime member and current President of the Berea Fine Arts Club.

The Mayfest Fine Arts Show will be located in the triangle in Downtown Berea. It will feature over 40 artists in various media. The Downtown Berea Art Walk will feature 20 artists at 18 Downtown Berea business locations. There will be a passport raffle for those who visit all 18 locations "with over $500 in gift cards and other items provided by participating merchants," Palmer said.

Performing near the triangle, Victor Samalot will be on acoustic guitar. There will also be a quartet blending jazz, blues, and pop called Hip to That. In the Parkway Shops Gazebo, The group called Front Porch, will be playing folk music with their string band.

"Patrons are encouraged to plan their day around both events, with plenty of time given to shopping or eating at participating businesses," Palmer said.
F28AERO

In this file photo, Gov. George Voinovich was on hand at the opening of the Ohio Aerospace Institute in 1992.

(Plain Dealer file photo)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker presented six Ohio firms, Ohio Aerospace Institute being from Cleveland, with the President's "E" Award at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

The President's "E" Award is the highest recognition any U.S. entity can receive for making a significant contribution to the expansion of U.S. exports. "E" Star Awardees are previous recipients of the President's "E" Award that have since shown four years of successive export growth.

"Congratulations to companies in Ohio for their achievements in exporting," said Pritzker in a press release. "These Ohio companies demonstrate the opportunity inherent in selling Made-in-America products to the broad customer base that exists outside our borders. Their success contributes to growth, job creation, competitiveness, and the success of the American economy."

According to the press release, for the first time in its 54-year history, award winners represent every state and the District of Columbia. Of this year's 123 honorees, 105 are small and medium-sized businesses, and 64 firms are manufacturers.

The Ohio companies that received the President's "E" Awards are:

Daavlin - Bryan - "E Star" Award for Exports

The Fremont Company - Fremont - "E" Award for Exports

Grand-Rock Company Inc. - Painesville - "E" Award for Exports

Ohio Aerospace Institute - Cleveland - "E" Award for Export Service

Ohio Development Services Agency - Columbus - "E" Award for Export Service

Technibus, Inc. - Canton - "E" Award for Exports

President John F. Kennedy created the President's "E" Award in 1961 to recognize persons, firms, and organizations that significantly contribute to increasing U.S. exports.

This year's awardees contributed to the United States' exporting $2.23 trillion worth of goods and services in 2015, and the estimated 11.5 million American jobs supported by exports.

American companies are nominated for "E" Awards through the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service office network, located within the Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration. Record years of successive export growth and an applicant's demonstration of an innovative international marketing plan that led to the increase in exports is a significant factor in selecting the overall winners.

The "E" Award ceremony is one of the highlights of World Trade Month, a month-long celebration of the benefits that U.S. exports bring to national, state, and local economies through job creation and growth.

For more information about the "E" Awards, visit the website.
2105 4th of July fireworks, downtown Cleveland, Ohio

The Downtown Cleveland skyline as seen from the Lake Erie waterfront in this Plain Dealer photo. Ohio's economic outlook is sunnier than the nation as a whole, with executives from the state's middle market companies reporting that their companies are making more money and hiring more workers than the rest of their peers, and that they are more confident in the local and national economy, according to the National Center for the Middle Market.

(Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ohio is preparing to enter the spotlight of the Republican National Convention with an economic outlook that's sunnier than the rest of the nation as a whole.

Ohio executives say their companies are making more money and hiring more workers than the rest of their peers, and that they are more confident in the local and national economy, according to the National Center for the Middle Market, based in Columbus.

The NCMM, housed at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business, is the leading source of research about middle market businesses, nearly 200,000 predominantly privately held companies with annual revenues between $10 million and $1 billion. They are smaller than the Fortune 500 companies, but too large to be considered small businesses, and if they were their own country, they would make up the the world's fifth largest economy.

Its latest quarterly report, based on extensive first-quarter 2016 surveys of more than 1,000 middle market executives, found that Ohio is outpacing the nation in several key areas, including:

-- Revenues: Ohio companies' revenues grew 10.9 percent during the past 12 months, nearly double the 6.3 percent growth reported by the nation as a whole.

Not only that, but Ohio executives say they expect revenues to increase by 9.2 percent during the next 12 months, versus only 4.6 percent expected by their peer executives across the nation.

-- Employment: Ohio companies expanded their employment by 6.4 percent over the past year, and expect to increase by another 5.1 percent over the next year.

Nationwide, middle market executives say their employment grew by 3.6 percent last year, and that they expect to increase employment by only 2.7 percent in the coming year.

-- Confidence in the economy: Ohio middle market executives are considerably more confident in the global, national and local economies, with 71 percent saying they are confident in the global economy, versus only 51 percent among executives as a whole.

Eighty-eight percent of executives are confident in the national economy, compared with 73 percent among executives in the rest of the nation. And 95 percent of Ohio executives expressed confidence in the local economy, compared with only 80 percent of their national peers.

As a result, 64 percent of Ohio executives say they expect to invest in capital projects over the next year.

"Ohio's middle market is outperforming the nation basically across the board," said Thomas A. Stewart, executive director for the National Center for the Middle Market, sharing some of what he told the Downtown Cleveland Alliance last week. "If you wanted to pick a place to invest in the industrial Midwest, Ohio would seem to have the least negatives and the most positives."

For one thing, the State of Ohio has a balanced economy that isn't overly dependent on a single industry, such as Texas is on oil, for example, he said. The middle market includes: manufacturing (23 percent), wholesale trade (12 percent), retail (11 percent), healthcare (10 percent), construction (7 percent), professional services (6 percent), finance and insurance (5 percent), and transportation and warehousing (3 percent).

Ohio's middle market is comprised of nearly 5,400 businesses that together generate more than $225 billion in annual revenue and employ 28 percent of the state's workforce.

Surprisingly, despite Cleveland's extensive preparations to welcome more than 50,000 visitors for the Republican National Convention this July, middle market CEOs aren't especially worried about the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

Of much greater concern, occupying four of the top five concerns, is international unrest, such as the uncertainties posed by China as a source of competition and as a market for consumer goods.

"Most middle market executives think that if the U.S. economy is going to hit a roadblock, it'll be something international," Stewart said.

He noted that the survey was conducted in the first half of March, when U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, and Gov. John Kasich were all still candidates for the Republican nomination.

In general, "people give too much credit -- or blame -- to politics in business," Stewart said.

Other highlights from the National Center for the Middle Market's national report:

"For the first quarter of 2016, year-over-year revenue growth is up in the middle market and employment growth remains stable, representing the end and possible reversal of the downward trajectory in growth rates that defined the middle market in 2015. While middle market revenue and employment both grew last year, consistently outpacing the growth of larger businesses, the rate of that growth declined steadily over the course of 2015."

"The short-term business outlook, based on anticipated business climate, forecasted demand, and expected sales, is better than at any other time during the past year," the center reported. "Almost half (46 percent) of middle market businesses, and especially small firms, expect sales to increase, and fewer firms expect an increase in costs in the next three months. Most companies foresee the size of the workforce holding steady."

"Looking further into the future, companies, and especially smaller middle market businesses, forecast a significant increase in the rate of year-over-year revenue growth. The construction, financial services, and healthcare sectors are particularly optimistic about future growth."

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Citing projections from previous research, the report states that by 2070, the Indian cities Kolkata and Mumbai will head the list of conurbations whose populations are "most exposed to coastal flooding," with 14 million people in Kolkata and 11.4 million in Mumbai threatened.

A dangerous cocktail of extreme weather, rising sea levels and storm surges is set to expose more than a billion people - about a seventh of the world's population, which is just over 7 billion - to coastal flooding by 2060, the report, "Act Now Or Pay Later: Protecting a billion people in climate-threatened coastal cities", said.

Over one billion people living in coastal cities are under serious threat from flooding thanks to climate change, according to a study from Christian Aid.

In terms of the financial risk, the study says that Miami could have $3.5 trillion of assets exposed to coastal flooding by 2070, with Guangzhou, China, facing exposure of $3.4 trillion.

"We are facing a head on collision between the growth of coastal urban areas and climate change which makes coastal flooding more likely," Alison Doig, principal climate change advisor for Christian Aid and the report's author, said in a statement.

"This perfect storm is likely to bring about a heavy human and financial toll unless we do something about it," Doig added.

The report comes hot on the heels of data from NASA which shows that this April was the hottest on record.

Only last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that between January and April this year the contiguous United States had an average temperature that was four degrees Fahrenheit "above the 20th century average, making this period the second warmest on record."

For Christian Aid's Doig, while there is clear cause for concern, work can still be done to mitigate impacts. "There is a chance this horrifying vision of the future can be avoided," she said.

"It is striking that the cities facing the most severe impacts are in countries with high contributions of carbon emissions. The first thing we can do is speed up the global transition away from dirty fossil fuels to the clean, renewable energy of the future."

Hastening the transition to renewables as well as increased spending "on reducing the risk of disasters" would also save money and lives, Doig said.
watch now

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Quite the last few days for Donald Trump. The New York Times ran a long piece on the mogul's often grotesque treatment of women; Trump continued to deny that he used fake names to call reporters in the 1980s and 1990s to talk about himself even though he previously admitted to doing it; Trump continued to refuse to release his tax returns while claiming there is nothing to learn from them; and Trump continued to say he is completely "flexible" on promises he made to GOP voters in the primaries. Oh and remember all of Trump's primary campaign railing against candidates who solicit big donations being in the pocket of special interests? Never mind. Trump will now happily take millions from the likes of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. The Wall Street Journal reports that this is probably because Trump lacks the liquid assets to cover the $700 million to $1 billion it will take to compete in the general election The question, as ever with Trump, is will any of this hurt him?

Donald Trump Jim Urquhart | Reuters

So far at least, nothing really has. Trump survived questioning John McCain's war hero status, proposing a ban on Muslims entering the United States and basically shredding all previous notions of decorum on the campaign trail, hurling crude insults at anyone who criticized him. He likened Ben Carson to a child molester. He later won Carson's full endorsement. But Trump is entering a different arena in which he will have to convince a much larger audience than the one he commanded in the primaries. Thus far, Trump has won close to 11 million votes. He will set a record for Republican support in a primary campaign. But to win the White House, Trump probably needs 50 million to 60 million votes. And he will need to appeal to women and minority voters to carry swing states like Florida, Ohio and Virginia. Trump already has an enormous climb ahead of him to even limit his losses among these voters. He has a 70 percent negative rating among women and fares even worse with African-Americans and Latinos. Hillary Clinton has very high negatives as well but does far better than Trump with women and minorities. And a poll over the weekend showed Clinton running close to even with Trump in Georgia, a state Democrats haven't carried since Bill Clinton did it in 1992. If Clinton can peel off states like Georgia and North Carolina, Trump stands almost no chance. A generic Democratic presidential candidate begins the presidential race with 190 safe Electoral College votes out of the 270 needed to win and another 57 that lean heavily to the Democrats. If Clinton simply holds these states she would need just 23 more electoral votes to win. And at the moment, there are 100 more electoral votes that lean Democratic, including Ohio and Florida. Clinton could even lose Ohio and Florida and still win if she cobbles together a few other smaller states such as Virginia and Colorado. You can play with the electoral map for yourself and you will quickly see how tough the road is for Trump.


Industry watchers have speculated that the nation's largest cable provider could soon compete directly against the big four wireless providers  AT&T , Verizon , T-Mobile and Sprint . In October, a number of reports said Comcast was likely to exercise an option in its 2012 spectrum deal with Verizon that allows the cable provider to resell mobile service on Verizon's network. A Comcast representative declined to detail the company's plans, a Recode report said at the time.

Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts on Monday said his company has many ways to keep its options open to compete in the wireless arena.

Comcast also has filed to participate in an upcoming auction of wireless spectrum.



However, Comcast is not expected to use additional spectrum to operate the LTE cellular technology the big four offer. Instead analysts see Comcast leveraging a network of Wi-Fi hot spots it has built out in recent years to provide wireless service.

On Monday, Roberts said he didn't have any news to offer on whether Comcast would actually buy new spectrum. However, he said the deal with Verizon and its Wi-Fi network gives it plenty of options to compete in mobile.

"What I would report to you is I think we have more hot spots than any company with Xfinity Wi-Fi, and we've found it to be a fantastic way to get your content. It works better on Wi-Fi," he told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on the sidelines of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association's annual conference.

"People find Wi-Fi hotspots and they love it. If we can give you more of them, that's a winning strategy," he added.

Roberts said he is happy with the company he has now. He said Comcast is focusing on making sure it has access to consumers wherever they are through technology as well as content. As an example, he cited its recent deal to purchase DreamWorks Animation .
Mark Cuban David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

While Mark Cuban once praised Donald Trump for his brash, unrehearsed rhetoric, the Dallas Mavericks owner seems to have changed his tune.

"I like the guy, but that doesn't mean I agree with his position," Cuban said on MSNBC's "MTP Daily" on Monday. Cuban isn't convinced that Trump has the entrepreneurial chops. "He is a savant when it comes to real estate, but, he hasn't really demonstrated that ability in other business ventures," Cuban said. "He puts his names on products that make no sense. The products he put his name suggests that he just needed the money. Steaks, suits, water, university, there's no rhyme or reason there."

Cuban cites Trump's "Seinfeld candidacy" and inability to evolve as key reasons that he doesn't fit the bill. "I don't see him as a reflection of a CEO or a reflection of an entrepreneur," Cuban said. "He's good at what he's good at, but I don't know that that's applicable." Representatives for Donald Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. Still, Cuban does think that the skills of a business leader makes for a good president.

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Three French organizations say they will file legal complaints against Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube service for failing to remove 'hateful content' posted on their sites.

The French Jewish students union UEJF, SOS Racisme and SOS Homophobie say the internet giants have only removed a small portion of inappropriate content posted in a measured period.

In France, there is a legal requirement for internet firms to report racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic material and also remove it from their platforms.

In a joint presentation, the three associations said of offensive material posted between the end of March and May 10, Twitter removed only four percent, YouTube seven percent and Facebook 34 per cent.

In a French television interview, UEJF president Sacha Reingewirtz said it was strange that the process of moderating comments wasn't better understood.

"We don't know who they are, which is strange from companies like that. Companies with such amazing technology and who pay little tax in France, but yet the practice of moderation remains such a mystery," he said.

All three internet firms have been contacted by CNBC. At this time, Google's YouTube had responded to say it had no statement to make other than the company has clear guidelines on hate speech.
Exercise bike meets virtual reality meets video game. Sound crazy? The idea has raised close to $3 million already from venture capital veterans, and its biggest potential investor audience has been blessed by regulators, starting Monday. VirZOOM works with virtual reality hardware to turn fitness into a VR gaming experience. If the company's marketing plan is right, it could make overpriced gyms with boring workout equipment sweat some new competition. The key is a bike accessory compatible with virtual reality headsets like Facebook's Oculus Rift and Sony's Playstation VR (Samsung Gear is coming soon). Motion sensors on the bike work so that the harder someone pedals, the faster the VR game moves through its universe, which currently includes a horse race, Formula 1 race and even a mythical environment. To get VirZOOM up and running, exercise buffs need to invest $400 for the bike and another $1,500 for the Oculus Rift and compatible PC. "It's not the person who does triathlons, but more the average person who spends $70 a month on a gym membership they never use," said Eric Janszen, co-founder and CEO of VirZOOM. Janszen points to the popularity of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. "What people grasp very quickly and is an easy way to pass time is always a good idea," he said. "The key is to take something traditionally boring, like working out, and make it fun." The key to the millions raised in the company's early days (it only set out with a goal of $750,000) is equity crowdfunding, which allows accredited investors and venture capitalists to invest equity stakes in private companies.

A new door opens for equity investors

Unlike a classic crowdfunding campaign, such as a Kickstarter or Indiegogo project, where many individuals unknown to the project creator invest, VirZOOM's initial equity crowdfunding success can be attributed almost entirely to Janszen's close connections in the world of venture capital, where he has worked for a long time (he is currently on hiatus from the iTulip Investor Group because of VirZOOM's launch). It is typical in equity crowdfunding for early funding to have a "friends and family" flavor. The money already raised by VirZoom ranks it No. 3 on CNBC's Crowdfinance 50 Index, which tracks investments made on equity crowdfunding platforms (see list at bottom of story). Future success, though, will depend on attracting investors Janszen doesn't personally know, and Janszen said the heavy tilt to personal connections in the early funding should decrease over time.

Ryan Feit, CEO and co-founder of SeedInvest, an equity crowdfunding platform on which VirZOOM is listed, said that after initial funding like VirZOOM experienced from a tight group, new investors will come on board and typically end up providing 25 percent to 50 percent of overall funding.

Feit thinks a big part of future success for companies like VirZOOM will come from Title III of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which starting Monday allows any investor to take part in equity crowdfunding projects. (SeedInvest has been involved in the legislative process for Title III and the JOBS Act for nearly five years.) "We've spent three years facilitating investments with just accredited investors, but a big part of our mission has been to open up investing in private companies to everyone and not just the wealthiest 2 percent," said Feit.

Until now, only accredited investors and venture capitalists, such as Janszen's network, with a net worth of at least $1 million or an annual income of at least $200,000 could purchase ownership stakes in private companies. Now someone making less than $100,000, for example, has the option to invest up to 5 percent of their annual income, or $2,000  whichever is greater  in private companies in the same way wealthy investors have been able to do for a long time. Janszen said the biggest fundraising issue is the novelty of virtual reality itself, and that is what has had him concerned. Though the industry is growing, start-ups in the virtual reality sector have very little precedent to learn from.

"The problem with venture capitalism is that there are a very small number of firms that take big risks," said Janszen. In order to convince those firms to invest in their company, the team has to formulate a very particular type of pitch, and even then, "because the concept of [virtual reality] itself is so new, that makes it difficult for your typical venture capitalist, who may not be well versed in the field, to invest in the idea."

Source: VirZoom

Title III of the JOBS Act will give companies like VirZOOM access to a significantly larger group of potential investors instead of just concentrating that risk with a small number of players. Equity crowdfunding backers say new investors may be more knowledgeable and passionate about the industry than a select number of accredited investors. Critics have countered throughout the Securities and Exchange Commission review process that it will expose relatively inexperienced investors of limited means to a high degree of risk.

"There's this notion that if you're rich, you must be smart and that you can afford losses if you make bad decisions," Janszen said. Title III takes another view. "It opens the door for you if you're very smart and in the know about a particular industry but you're not that rich," he said. "And if you're smart, you can also get rich," Janszen said.

Equity crowdfunding to the public will also change the rules of start-up marketing. Pitching a company to the public rather than to an elite few will require start-up executives to pivot toward less conventional guerrilla marketing. Janszen said tailoring pitches to venture capitalists and the wealthiest of investors typically requires entrepreneurs to adopt very particular and tedious marketing strategies.

"I had a close relationship with everyone I was approaching [to invest in VirZOOM], and in many ways that's something you have to do because you're pitching to such a small group," he said. Now "I can get my name and my product out there just by putting a bumper sticker on my car. Doesn't get any easier than that," Janszen said. Though he added that social media marketing already done by VirZOOM, such as YouTube, had very low return for the company and it has for the time pulled back on that approach.

Janszen acknowledged the risk to a much broader group of potential investors.

Venture firms have an increasingly stringent background-check process that involves a combination of data to assess a company's health, including current financials and financial models covering everything from expenses to headcount and growth plans. Venture investors also review marketing strategy and competition.

We've spent three years facilitating investments with just accredited investors, but a big part of our mission has been to open up investing in private companies to everyone. Ryan Feit CEO and co-founder of SeedInvest
A shopper looks at a purse in a Macy's department store in New York. Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The last few weeks of the earnings season have pointed to a new retail trend. While big names such as Macy's and J.C. Penney have reported disappointing earnings, the U.S. retail sales reported its biggest rise in over a year. So where are consumers spending? "If you look at the composition of the retail numbers, people are eating out, people are shopping online," Stacey Widlitz, President, at SW Retail Advisors told CNBC. "Department stores are crumbling, which is in line with the numbers we saw, so people are shopping differently and again we have talked about this so many times that they are spending on experience." U.S. retail sales figure last week showed consumers are spending plenty on sectors such as auto vehicles and sporting goods but not at traditional department stores. A string of disappointing earnings from retailers such as Macy's, J.C Penney and Nordstrom slammed retail stocks and put pressure on the Wall Street. Macy's had its biggest one-day loss since 2008, as the department store chain reported a 36 percent year-over-year drop in operating income. During the first quarter, Macy's said its comparable sales fell 5.6 percent. That marks a deceleration from its fourth-quarter same-store sales decline of 4.3 percent, and represents its most severe decrease in this metric since the second quarter of 2009. During that quarter, Macy's comparable sales slid 9.5 percent. This has led to concern among analysts who think a growing and recovering economy should encourage more spending. But it looks like consumers have other plans with their money and high street shopping is not one of them. "Stores like Macy's and JC Penney reported weak earnings and their stocks fell between 10-15 percent and then we got the best retail sales in more than a year," Widlitz said explaining that most of the growth is happening online.



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That certainly seems to be true in the case of UK. A recent report compiled by Markit on behalf of Visa Europe suggests that online spending has grown at the fastest rate for 16 months with e-commerce growth rate of 8.4 percent year-on-year. The report that reflects overall consumer spending across the UK showed total consumer spending in April saw an increase by 2.5 percent year-on-year. Clothing and footwear saw the biggest fall since September 2014 but some of the strongest rates of expansion were seen across recreation and culture (up 7.9 percent), hotels, restaurant & bars (plus 6.6 percent) and household goods (3 percent). "Growth in consumables remains evident, but consumer spending is increasingly focused on the experience economy," Kevin Jenkins, Director at Visa Europe said in a note. "Eating out, booking holidays and discovering new experiences are all driving spending growth at a time when the lower cost of living is creating higher disposable incomes. In a month of mostly growth, the only sector to disappoint was clothing and footwear, again highlighting this shift." The trend was highlighted in the UK retail sales this month that reported the sharpest drop in data in April after sales fell 0.9 percent on a year earlier, the biggest drop since last August. However, online spending continued to rise. "April saw retailers growing their online non-food sales by 6.6 percent which, despite being a healthy increase, is the slowest growth since April 2013," Helen Dickinson, chief executive at British Retail Consortium, said in an analysis note. "However, online remained a significant proportion of total non-food retail sales at 20.9 percent; only fractionally down on the highest on record."



While a number of retail analysts blamed the cold weather in April for keeping shoppers away from the high street, some have pointed to shoppers moving away from high street stores to online shopping. Data shows that an increasing number of consumers also registered higher expenditure on day trips, meals out and home furnishings. Separate figures from a report done by Barclaycard shows consumer spending rose just 1.9 percent in April, well below a rolling 12-month average of 3.7 percent. While a decline was seen in essentials causing weaker earnings from supermarkets such as Sainsbury's and Next, leisure spending such as on air travel and restaurants went up. "With unseasonably cold weather delaying the sales of spring ranges in the month, consumers chose to spruce up well-worn winter warmers with jewellery and accessories from the comfort of the living room rather than hitting the high-street for new outfits," David McCorquedale, head of retail at KPMG said. "Health and beauty also fared well as retailers extended online ranges and promotions."

McCorquedale explained that as we head into summer and consumers start to make their way back into high street shops, online retailers may need to bolster offerings. A bit like Amazon that has continued to remain higher? The online retailer posted a 28 percent increase in its sales year-on-year highlighting the growing increase in online shopping among consumers globally. SW Retail Advisors's Widlitz told CNBC that Amazon is gaining massively from the growth happening online. "Amazon you cannot underestimate. You can order as much as you want and if you are a Prime customer, as 25 percent of the US households are, you can order it, it reaches your home and you can return it." This has made it easier for customers to order what they like from the comfort of their home. However, Widlitz explains that the problem with retailers today is they are all chasing the same thing, be it leisure, beauty or lingerie. "And when everybody goes after the same thing, growth eventually hits the wall."
U.S. stock-index futures were mixed early on Monday after Goldman Sachs raised its price forecast for WTI crude oil in 2016 but cut it for 2017.

The bank now sees crude averaging $45 per barrel in the second quarter of 2016 and $50 per barrel in the second half of the year. It forecasts light crude prices will average $52.5 per barrel in 2017, down from its previous forecast of $57.5. "The oil market has gone from nearing storage saturation to being in deficit much earlier than we expected and we are pulling forward our price forecast  However, we expect that the return of some of these outages as well as higher Iran and Iraq production will more than offset lingering issues in Nigeria and our higher demand forecast," Goldman said in a report sent to CNBC on Monday.

Energy Futures



WTI and traded more than 2 percent higher, with U.S. crude near $47.27 a barrel and brent just below $49 a barrel as of 8 a.m. ET.

European stocks were slightly lower in early morning trade ET. German markets were closed for a holiday. Disappointing official data out of China on Saturday raised further concerns about the health of the world's second-biggest economy. The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics reported that investment, factory output and retail sales all grew slower than expected in April.

Read More Early movers: AAPL, RRC, JCP, BAC, TPUB, GOOGL, TEX, ANAC & more

U.S. economic data due on Monday include the Empire State Manufacturing report was minus 9.02 in May versus positive 9.56 in April. Treasury yields held higher, with the 2-year yield around 0.77 percent and the 10-year yield near 1.73 percent as of 8:31 a.m. ET. The National Association of Home Builders housing market index is due later in the day. No major earnings are expected on Monday. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis will host its second "Too Big to Fail" symposium on Monday, with speakers including Neel Kashkari, the president of the Minneapolis Fed and Ben Bernanke, the former chair of the Federal Reserve.

Stock watch

Investment bank KBW cut its rating on Bank of America to "market perform" from "outperform" on Monday, saying BofA has "more work to do to improve returns and drive shareholder value higher longer-term." In tech news, Apple 's chief executive, Tim Cook, met with Chinese app developers in Beijing on Monday. This followed last week's announcement that Apple had invested $1 billion in Didi Chuxing, a Chinese app that offers ride-hailing services similar to Uber in the U.K. and the U.S.

Meanwhile, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Amazon will launch a new private-label brand in the coming weeks that will include perishable food items. BP shares rose 0.5 percent early on Monday on the London Stock Exchange after the oil supermajor doubled its stake to 32 percent in a development in the U.K. North Sea.

Outside the US
Millionaire investors said a Hillary Clinton victory in November would be a better investing opportunity than a Donald Trump win. But like the rest of the country, the group is sharply divided along partisan lines.

CNBC's "Millionaire Survey," which in March surveyed 750 people with $1 million or more in investable assets, found that 42 percent of millionaires view Clinton's election as a "good opportunity for investments." By comparison, only 36 percent said a Trump victory would provide a good investing opportunity.

Yet millionaires' investor outlooks were highly dependent on their politics. While 82 percent of Democratic millionaires said Clinton would offer a good investing opportunity, only 10 percent of Republicans agreed. When it comes to Trump, 62 percent of Republicans said his election would be a good opportunity for investments, compared with just 13 percent of Democrats.

For both candidates, independent millionaires were largely split.
President Barack Obama is casting Donald Trump's positions on immigration, trade and Muslims as part of an ignorance-and-isolation philosophy that the president says will lead the U.S. down the path of decline.

Obama used his commencement speech Sunday at Rutgers University to tear into the presumptive GOP nominee, without ever mentioning his name. Repeatedly the president invoked specific Trump policies to denounce a rejection of facts, science and intellectualism that he said was pervading politics.

Obama says that in politics and life, ignorance isn't a virtue. He says not knowing what you're talking about is different than "keeping it real" or "telling it like it is."

The president is invoking Trump's calls to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. He says walls and drawbridges can't solve America's problems.
The Treasury Department said Monday that Saudi Arabia held $116.8 billion in U.S. debt at the end of March, revealing for the first time the holdings of the world's biggest oil exporter.

The pile puts Saudi Arabia among the largest foreign nation holders of American debt. Still, it sits well behind countries like China and Japan, which both had more than $1 trillion in Treasury securities at the end of March.

Saudi Arabia's holdings could be even larger than officially listed, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the total.

Saudi Arabia has about $587 billion in foreign reserves and central banks often put about two-thirds of their stashes in dollars, Bloomberg said. Some countries list Treasury holdings offshore and they show up under other countries.
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Chief financial officers (CFOs) from some of the world's largest firms are largely lukewarm on the economic shakeup Saudi Arabia is currently undertaking, according to a new survey conducted by CNBC.

Nearly 40 percent of global CFOs across a wide range of industries said there was "no change" when asked whether the new measures made Saudi Arabia a more attractive investment proposition. Nearly 35 percent said it would only make the country "slightly" more attractive for investment. Over 5 percent of the respondents said it would be "slightly less" attractive.

In April, Saudi Arabia's government unveiled a long-term economic blueprint for life in a low-oil-price world. Titled "Saudi Vision 2030," the plan includes regulatory, budget and policy changes that will be implemented over the next 15 years in the hope of making the kingdom less reliant on crude. The commodity has suffered a dramatic fall in price since mid-2014 and the bulk of Riyadh's state revenues come from energy exports.

Launching the plan, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman detailed the future of privatization in Saudi Arabia and the creation of what would be the "largest sovereign wealth fund in the world." The planned economic diversification also involved localizing renewable energy and industrial equipment sectors and creating high-quality tourism attractions. It also plans to make it easier to apply for visas and hoped to create 90,000 jobs in its mining sector.

Close to none of the global CFOs that responded said the plans would make Saudi Arabia a "more attractive" investment and the overhaul has received mixed reviews from analysts. Some say that it would be a struggle for the Kingdom to wean itself off its reliance on oil. However, Timothy Ash, the head of emerging markets at Standard Bank, believes the vision creates huge potential for foreign companies to help with the transition.

"The key question is can Saudi society cope with such an ambitious plan/ambition which could strain society to the core?," he said in a note in April, shortly after the announcements. On Saturday, ratings agency Moody's downgraded Saudi Arabia's credit rating by one notch, noting the fall in oil prices. It said the government had "ambitious and comprehensive" plans to address the shock by diversifying its economic and fiscal base, but added that those plans are at an early stage of development and their impact remained uncertain.

The effects of a Brexit

Another country panning for a potential economic transition is the United Kingdom which heads to the polls on June 23 to decide whether it should remain part of the European Union.

Chief financial officers (CFOs) overwhelmingly signaled that a so-called "Brexit" would have a "negative" impact on the rest of the European bloc. A majority of the chief execs also said it would have a "negative" or "very negative" impact on the country itself. Conversely, most respondents thought a U.K. exit from the EU would have no measurable impact on the United States.

In CNBC's last survey, conducted in March, over 70 percent of global CFOs said there would be "no change" on their perspective on how likely they would be to do business with the U.K. in the event of an exit. Although, 14.6 percent of respondents said they would be "slightly less likely" to do business with the country.

The fierce debate in the U.K. has strained relationships and seen major political heavyweights like Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson put forward opposing views. Bookmaker Ladbrokes is currently predicting there's a 29 percent chance that Britons will vote to leave the European bloc in an upcoming referendum. Just 14 percent of CNBC survey respondents believed that the U.K. would vote to leave the bloc, with 14 percent saying that it would.
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Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump may not be perfect, but he'd be much better for the country than Hillary Clinton, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday, explaining his endorsement for the New York businessman. Abbott, who spoke with CNBC's "Squawk Alley," had previously voiced his support for home state Sen. Ted Cruz, but he threw his support behind Trump after the other GOP presidential hopefuls dropped out. And although he was light on specific praise for Trump, Abbott was emphatic about the need to support him.

Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas Bill Clark | CQ Roll Call | Getty Images

"I may or may not agree with everything that Donald Trump says  I didn't agree with everything that (2012 GOP presidential nominee) Mitt Romney stood for or that (2008 nominee) John McCain stood for," Abbott said. "But here's what I do know, ... Hillary is far worse for America than Donald Trump would be."

The Texas governor particularly cited Clinton's positions on energy industry regulation, fighting the Islamic State and immigration in explaining his opposition to the former secretary of state. Clinton has not officially wrapped up the Democratic presidential nomination, but most pundits say it is mathematically unlikely that her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, could overtake her lead in delegates. And on the Republican side, Abbott said he isn't worried by the party divisions.
Tom Williams | CQ Roll Call | Getty Images

A change is coming to private investing markets, and it could revolutionize how small businesses are financed: unaccredited investors can start buying stock in start-ups. The JOBS Act took effect in 2012, helping pry open the initial public offering pipeline that was effectively welded shut in the wake of the global financial crisis, fostering millions of dollars of investments in burgeoning start-ups. The only ones left out of the equation were ordinary Americans. But based on President Barack Obama's speech, they probably didn't expect it. "Because of this bill, start-ups and small business will now have access to a big, new pool of potential investors  namely, the American people," Obama said at the signing ceremony for the act. "For the first time, ordinary Americans will be able to go online and invest in entrepreneurs that they believe in." For years, this portion of Obama's JOBS Act pledge went unfulfilled, as the Securities and Exchange Commission dragged its feet in the final stages of the regulatory process that would allow unaccredited investors to begin backing growing companies. As of Monday, it all changed.

Title III of the Jobs Act has gone into effect, and with it, unaccredited investors are now allowed to invest alongside accredited investors (people with a net worth of $1 million, or who meet other income designations) in equity of start-ups  not just their products. In other words, ordinary Americans with a lower net worth are no longer excluded from the same investment opportunities as wealthier, accredited, investors. They're not relegated to being able only to back a Kickstarter project, to receive a product when it's complete. And that means Americans can take the same crack at a hot start-up's prospects as if they were Marc Andreessen, the Silicon Valley investor who has backed start-ups like Facebook and Airbnb. Prior to the rules change, investors could crowdfund for products like the Oculus VR headset, which took in $2.44 million in 2012, but didn't issue a share to its consumer-investors. Read More'Shark Tank' judge: What entrepreneurs should never do Oculus, however, sold shares to Andreessen Horowitz, the investor's venture capital firm, which generated a reported eight-times cash return. There have already been crowdfunding successes for accredited investors like the ones that bet on Zenefits through online investment platform WeFunder, according to Nick Tommarello, who founded the website more than four years ago. One Zenefits backer, who bought in for $5,000, turned a profit of more than $1 million on the health-care start-up's stock by selling shares before its $4.5 billion valuation was . "Banks don't take risks and VCs only invest in hot start-ups," Tommarello said, adding, "but the expectation is probably that you're going to lose money."
In the week or so since Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, a theme has emerged among conservative writers. Numerous commentators and political leaders we respect, and with whom we often agree, have concluded that the two worst things that could possibly happen to the country would be a Hillary Clinton presidency and a Trump presidency.

Opinion remains split as to which of these options would be the absolute worst and which would be only second worst. From there, many of their discussions become unhinged, as the authors question the morality, sanity, commitment, and integrity of those who fail to rally behind the appropriately-designated second worst fate that could befall America.

A bit more perspective might be in order.
This is America exporting its finest to our most important allies and trade partners. And it's anything but reassuring to voters who fear Trump's unpredictable behavior puts our country at risk.

It's one thing for Trump to not get along with Democrats. He can even alienate some women and minorities, believing he will make up the vote with other constituencies.

But when he enters the international stage with the same bullying tactics he used in the GOP primaries, he diminishes the office of the United States and alienates other countries and cultures without concern for consequences.
Jason Demant, CEO and co-founder of the food-delivery service Bento, is a big fan of crowdfunding. The restaurant delivers fresh Asian dishes via an app in the San Francisco Bay area. So to power his company, Demant turned last year to the equity crowdfunding site Funders Club and investor start-up connection hub Angel List, both of which tap into wealthy, accredited investors. The company, which launched in March last year, ended up raising $2 million over 15 months, including contributions from other investors. "We're looking toward the future," said Demant. "This is a concept that could work nationally and internationally. Los Angeles is next."

Bento aside, VCs and wealthy investors have mostly shunned restaurant investing, though. According to Crowdnetic research, only 30 percent of restaurants and specialty eateries who have turned to angel and VC investors have had successful crowdfunding campaigns. But the food game is set to change this week, once the long-awaited Title III JOBS Act is released. The new regulation will allow anyone to invest in start-ups, rather than just wealthy, accredited investors. Experts think that restaurants will find a foothold with small investors. Restaurants aren't the venture capitalists' sweet spot, said Sherwood Neiss, a principal at Crowdfund Capital Advisors. "They want a unicorn, a big exit and low-hanging fruit," Neiss said. "They won't fund restaurants unless they're building a chain." Restaurant failure rates, which are as high as 60 percent in the first year, also dampen VCs' funding interest, Neiss said. And so the only deals that get funded are ones like Bento, which are typically in California, according to Crowdnetic data. The new equity crowdfunding rules will change that funding logjam, Neiss said, since investors can now invest in their own local restaurants. "Customers who are turned into investors have a vested interest in your business," he said. "Unlike banks, these investors will be marketing and sales agents. This will be great for food trucks and restaurants."

Some crowdfunding platforms are even offering eatable incentives to investors. EquityEats, a restaurant crowdfunding platform based in Washington, D.C, helps restaurants turn to their passionate foodie customers for funding help. A $1,000 investment reaps a $1,750 return in free food and beverages over five years. For $5,000, investors get $5,000 back and $5,000 in free food.

"Paying back investors with food means you can be more generous," said Johann Moonesinghe, CEO and founder of EquityEats. "They love that. They can also be brand ambassadors." If the restaurant fails, though, investors lose all their food credits and their investment, he pointed out. EquityEats is also very selective. The crowdfunding platform only ends up working with 5 percent of the restaurants that apply.

Restaurateur Luc Chamberland turned to EquityEats last year when he wanted to expand his California restaurant Saltwater Oyster Depot. The rustic eatery features oysters and clams, harvested a few hundred feet from the restaurant, along with specialties, like smoked fish and salted cod. Chamberland ended up raising $175,000 in 90 days, and most of that money came from existing customers, he said. "Restaurants aren't known as being safe investment vehicles," said Chamberland, who started the restaurant in 2012. "So you have to have a rich uncle, be self-funded or look to a traditional marketplace and show sustained returns."

Crowdfunding platforms have been another money-raising venue. But only about 25 percent of food companies that start campaigns on Kickstarter meet their funding goals, according to Kickstarter data. Indiegogo doesn't collect stats on restaurant or food crowdfunding campaigns. But some food and restaurant campaigns there have thrived. Last year funding for restaurants on equity crowdfunding sites reached nearly $2.4 million, according to Crowdnetic. This year through May 5, $1.147 million has been raised.
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It's difficult to take a material stake in Yahoo these days, said an RBC managing director, Mark Mahaney, on CNBC's "The Pulse" on Monday morning. Mahaney  confident in the internet sector  voiced his skepticism over Yahoo amid news that Warren Buffett and Dan Gilbert had joined up to buy the troubled tech company.

"One of the biggest broad themes across the internet sector today is have-mores and have-lesses," said Mahaney. "We're seeing it in retail, travel and we're certainly seeing it in advertising. Almost 60 percent of global ad budgets are going to two names: Facebook and Google ." These tech giants continue to expand and generate revenue while Yahoo has had zero growth rate in advertising for five years. "It's a very difficult investment," he said.

However, Mahaney is optimistic about other tech companies like Netflix and Yelp , which are both RBC's large and small cap "number one buys," respectively. In particular, Netflix was able to achieve more than 10 percent of the household broadband markets all over the world. "This is a global company, we've got 130 launches in the beginning of this year," said Mahaney. "These will take the time to build out, but they're gonna build out big. You want to buy it before the market realizes that."

Yelp, on the other hand, hit an "inflection point," said Mahaney, and saw a host of improvements, including a "reacceleration of local ad revenue growth." "This thing is still one of the least expensive names you can find in the internet group," he said. "We like it on value, we like it on growth, we like it on the inflection point."
The logo for Medical Answering Services, LLC (MAS), which is visible near the front desk of the firms location at 375 W. Onondaga St. in Syracuse. The New York State Department of Health has awarded MAS a five-year contract extension for its Medicaid transportation services in the Hudson Valley region. The extension means MAS can retain 350 local jobs and create 50 new ones. (Eric Reinhardt / BJNN)

SYRACUSE, N.Y.  Medical Answering Services, LLC (MAS) will continue providing Medicaid-transportation services to the Hudson Valley region.

The New York State Department of Health has extended its contract with MAS for an additional five years, Russ Maxwell, CEO of MAS, announced in a news conference Thursday morning.

Im proud to announce here today that we have been awarded a five-year extension for our Hudson Valley contract. That saves 350 jobs right here in Syracuse, said Maxwell.

With the new contract, MAS will also create an additional 50 positions, he added.

Launched in 2004, MAS is headquartered at 375 W. Onondaga St. in Syracuse. It also has a Buffalo office, where it employs 50 people.

MAS serves Medicaid recipients who cant afford to travel to their doctor appointments, said Maxwell.

Their health plans, he noted, include a benefit that helps them travel to those appointments.

The firms most recent contract to serve the Hudson Valley was scheduled to expire at the end of May, he said.

The state Health Department near the end of 2015 solicited bids for the next contract. MAS reapplied, along with other New York and out-of-state organizations, Maxwell said.

MAS manages transportation options that could include a bus ticket, a taxi-cab ride, or an ambulette (a specially equipped van) for someone who needs assistance.

Or it might be an ambulance for someone who needs to go from an acute-care setting to another acute-care setting for a treatment that may not have been available in their rural-hospital system, said Maxwell.

MAS manages Medicaid transportation for a total of 55 counties, having won contracts in four consecutive bid solicitations with the state Health Department dating back to 2011, the company said.

In the Hudson Valley contract over the last five years, weve saved the state over $100 million. Statewide, over $200 million from 2011 to today, Maxwell contended.

The company has developed a web-based application that allows it to manage close to 15 million trips a year, he added.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
Photo credit: Federal Reserve Bank of New York website

Manufacturing activity in New York state contracted in May after two months of expansion, according to results of the latest Empire State Manufacturing Survey issued today.

The surveys general business-conditions index plunged 19 points to -9.0 in May after posting positive readings in both April and March, following seven months of negative index levels.

The results of the May survey indicated that business activity declined for New York manufacturers, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in its survey report. A negative reading indicates a contraction in manufacturing activity, while a positive reading on the index indicates expansion in the sector.

The May general business-conditions index level was much worse than economists were expecting. A MarketWatch.com poll of economists had forecast an index reading of 5.8.

The New York Fed said that 19 percent of New York manufacturers reported that conditions had improved over the latest month, while 28 percent said that conditions had worsened.

The new orders and shipments indexes also fell below zero, according to the manufacturing survey.

Employment levels appeared to be little changed, while the average-workweek index pointed to a decline in hours worked.

The six-month outlook among New York manufacturers was somewhat less optimistic than last month, and the capital-spending index plummeted to 3.1, its lowest level in more than two years.

The New York Fed distributes the Empire State Manufacturing Survey on the first day of each month to the same pool of about 200 manufacturing executives in New York. On average, about 100 executives return responses.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com




modified 13-May-16 15:35pm.







Gerry suggested having a look at EF, and I would personally agree. You can bind EF to a Stored procedure, if that's where you heart is, or to tables. You can also have multiple database contexts with multiple connection strings. I would also advise that you take a look at it.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

- Benjamin Disraeli







I agree that doing the database joins from entity framework is the correct way to go. Now, the biggest problem is the stored procedures not only do table joins but also access several database views. The relational design of these databases is crazy. I have a team that are writing all of the database stored procedures but what I can't find is an example of a SQL stored procedure doing the actual database joins for the entity framework model. Also, how would the additional views play into this? I do see how it is done directly in Entity Framework but if someone has an example of the the SQL stored procedure entity join syntax that would be very helpful.



modified 15-May-16 16:58pm.







When you handle objects in Entity Framework, the underlying SQL is abstracted and, frankly, immaterial. You can treat a table, SP, or view in exactly the same manner, they're mapped out in the .edmx file. Since you're clearly using Database first, you'll want a look at Entity Framework Relationships - EF Designer[^]. In Entity Framework there aren't really "Joins" (since that's more of a database concept) there are "Associations" (as a more OOP concept) that are defined in your application, and parsed into joins by Entity Framework when querying the data source.



What this allows you to do is ignore the relational structure of the database and implement your own within the confines of your application. It doesn't change the database itself, just how your application looks at it. The best part is that it doesn't lean on the database to provide those details; ie the implementation of a store procedure has no impact on the functionality of Entity Framework.



For my money, it's generally best to use tables as a data source, but that's not always possible. In my mind it gives the purest look at the current state of the data and avoids some of the "gotchas" that can creep up when calling code (functions or SPs) rather than the data itself, or the holes that are often created by views. As a final caveat, tables are the only clean way to write transactions to the database. You can use Functions or Stored Procedures for that, but the implementation and business rules are dependent on the DBA, and I'm not a giant fan of handing off application critical items to a third party; at least in a data-driven, enterprise system. If those are your only options, though, you can work with them seamlessly.



Regardless of the underlying method used to derive the data, it is consumed in exactly the same way in an application context. You will have a collection of entities, defined as classes in your application, mapped to the database by your .edmx file, and instantiated as called by Entity Framework.



So the short answer (that I meandered greatly from) is that it doesn't matter what a Stored Procedures looks like or how it is invoked, as long as it exposes the data that you need in your application, to include the data that you need to form concrete Associations.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

- Benjamin Disraeli







I think I understand and was making things more complicated then they are. Because the stored procedure uses a main database to pull back the data then I only need to map to that one database an not worry about the other databases or views that the stored procedure it pulls from. I am sorry for all of the posts back and forth I have causes but now I have learned something I did not know before. Thank you very much!



I am new @ asp.net ,please answer my problem..

How to use Datarelation to Create Menu in c# asp.net?





There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.





There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.



I am taking input from the keyboard of Emp Date,Expiry Date. Here I am trying to calculate number of days between insurance date and Expiry date.and I am trying to display the value in a text box named as "days left".and also trying to save the data in the table and it should bind to MVC grid Simultaneously.

we are using 'Java script' to achieve the above Task by using "DayDiff()" function.but we are not get it what we are expecting.Please suggest me the best way of approach to achieve the task.



thank you.......



modified 13-May-16 2:03am.





Also follow the rules that Richard has given to make sure that whatever you do it has to adhere to best practices.



Has anyone tried to use the Metro-UI-CSS framework with ASP.NET 5.0 in Visual Studio Community 2015?



If so, were you successful? What parts of Metro-UI did you use? Did they work straight out of the box or did you have to add extra code to make them work?



My own experience, which was a very simple test, did not work. I was testing the "slide" capability of a tile where the text changes by sliding down when the cursor is placed within the tile. The initial condition displayed my text at the chosen font size. When the cursor was placed over the tile, the text slid down displaying the new text at my chosen font size, but it also displayed the text at the default font size over the top, thus making it unreadable.



In addition, the footer section, which should be displayed underneath the body section, was placed within the body section of the page; something I have never experienced before.



back in March[^]?





"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer











It seems to me that something fundamental is wrong if the classic footer section is placed inside the body section.



i'm using dropdownlist statically for gender field its not showing me proper data when im trying to update pls help..

Database doesn't contain any special Gender DB table..



Controller code for Edit:



public ActionResult Edit(int id = 0)

{

EmployeeCrud emp = new EmployeeCrud();

var empval = emp.FindById(id);

var empentity = new EmployeeEntity();

if (empval != null)

{

empentity.EmpID = empval.EmpID;

empentity.FirstName = empval.FirstName;

empentity.LastName = empval.LastName;

empentity.ContactNo = empval.ContactNo;

empentity.EmailID = empval.EmailID;

empentity.Address = empval.Address;

empentity.Dob = empval.dob;

empentity.Gender = empval.gender;

empentity.DeptName = empval.DeptName;

empentity.DeptID = empval.DeptID;

empentity.Desination = empval.desination;

empentity.Joining = empval.joining;

empentity.Salary = empval.salary;

Copy Code } ViewBag.DeptID = new SelectList(db.Depts, " DeptID" , " DeptName" , empentity.DeptID); return View(empentity); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult Edit(EmployeeEntity employee) { if (ModelState.IsValid) { EmployeeCrud emp = new EmployeeCrud(); var empval = emp.UpdateEmp(employee.EmpID,employee.FirstName,employee.LastName,employee.ContactNo,employee.EmailID,employee.Address,employee.Dob,employee.Gender,employee.DeptID,employee.Desination,employee.Joining,employee.Salary); db.SaveChanges(); return RedirectToAction( " Index" ); } ViewBag.DeptID = new SelectList(db.Depts, " DeptID" , " DeptName" , employee.DeptID); return View(employee); }

Create View Code:

@model MvcEmpCrud3.Models.EmployeeEntity



@{

ViewBag.Title = "Create";

}

Create

@using (Html.BeginForm()) {

@Html.ValidationSummary(true)

Copy Code <fieldset> <legend>Employee </ legend > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.FirstName) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .TextBoxFor(model => model.FirstName, new { placeholder = " Enter First Name here" }) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.FirstName) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.LastName) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .TextBoxFor(model => model.LastName, new { placeholder = " Enter Last Name here" }) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.LastName) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.ContactNo) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .TextBoxFor(model => model.ContactNo, new { placeholder = " Enter Contact No here" }) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.ContactNo) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.EmailID) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .EditorFor(model => model.EmailID, new { placeholder = " Enter EmailId here" } ) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.EmailID) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Address) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .TextAreaFor(model => model.Address, new { style = " width: 300px; height: 70px;" , placeholder = " Enter title here" }) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Address) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Dob) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .EditorFor(model => model.Dob) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Dob) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Gender) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .DropDownList( " Gender" , new List<SelectListItem>{ new SelectListItem{ Text= " Male" , Value= " Male" }, new SelectListItem{ Text= " Female" , Value= " Female" } }, " Select Gender" ) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Gender) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.DeptID, " Dept" ) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .DropDownList( " DeptID" ,@ViewBag.DeptID as SelectList, " Select Department" ) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.DeptID) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Desination) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .TextBoxFor(model => model.Desination, new { <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/placeholder" >@placeholder </ a > = " Enter Designation here" }) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Desination) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Joining) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .TextBoxFor(model => model.Joining) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Joining) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Salary) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .TextBoxFor(model => model.Salary, new { <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/placeholder" >@placeholder </ a > = " Enter Salary here" }) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Salary) </ div > <p> <input type= " submit" value = " Create" /> </ p > </ fieldset >

}

@Html .ActionLink("Back to List", "Index")

@section Scripts {

@Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jqueryval")

Copy Code <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/scripts" >@Scripts </ a > .Render( " ~/bundles/jqueryui" ) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/Styles" >@Styles </ a > .Render( " ~/Content/themes/base/css" ) < " script type=" text/javascript " > $(document).ready(function () { $(" #Dob " ).datepicker({ changeMonth: true, changeYear: true, dateFormat: 'dd/mm/yy' }); $(" #Joining " ).datepicker({ changeMonth: true, changeYear: true, dateFormat: 'dd/mm/yy' }); }); </script>

}



Edit View Code:



@model MvcEmpCrud3.Models.EmployeeEntity



@{

ViewBag.Title = "Edit";

}

Edit

@using (Html.BeginForm()) {

@Html.ValidationSummary(true)

Copy Code <fieldset> <legend>Employee </ legend > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .HiddenFor(model => model.EmpID) <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.FirstName) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .EditorFor(model => model.FirstName) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.FirstName) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.LastName) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .EditorFor(model => model.LastName) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.LastName) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.ContactNo) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .EditorFor(model => model.ContactNo) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.ContactNo) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.EmailID) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .EditorFor(model => model.EmailID) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.EmailID) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Address) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .EditorFor(model => model.Address) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Address) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Dob) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .TextBoxFor(model => model.Dob) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Dob) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Gender) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .DropDownListFor(model => model.Gender, new List<SelectListItem> { new SelectListItem{Text= " Male" ,Value= " Male" }, new SelectListItem{Text= " Female" ,Value= " Female" } }) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Gender) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.DeptID, " Dept" ) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .DropDownList( " DeptID" , String .Empty) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.DeptID) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Desination) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .EditorFor(model => model.Desination) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Desination) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Joining) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .TextBoxFor(model => model.Joining) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Joining) </ div > <div class = " editor-label" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .LabelFor(model => model.Salary) </ div > <div class = " editor-field" > <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .EditorFor(model => model.Salary) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/html" >@Html </ a > .ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Salary) </ div > <p> <input type= " submit" value = " Save" /> </ p > </ fieldset >

}

@Html .ActionLink("Back to List", "Index")

@section Scripts {

@Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jqueryval")

Copy Code <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/scripts" >@Scripts </ a > .Render( " ~/bundles/jqueryui" ) <a href= " http://www.codeproject.com/Members/Styles" >@Styles </ a > .Render( " ~/Content/themes/base/css" ) < " script type=" text/javascript " > $(document).ready(function () { $(" #Dob " ).datepicker({ changeMonth: true, changeYear: true, dateFormat: " dd-mm-yy " }); $(" #Joining " ).datepicker({ changeMonth: true, changeYear: true, dateFormat: " dd-mm-yy " }); }); </script>

}





There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.







Are you expecting the dropdown showing the correct gender by default while Edit view in the page?



C# Copy Code Hi to Everyone What I want to do is read from a database a list of already entered data which has a date as part of the record, I am fine with that, then using the standard ASP controls + free AJAX controls or other free controls where there is no caveat to their use. Display in a calendar control or the like a standard month style layout but with all the previously used/ selected days highlighted in some way so the user knows what dates have been previously used. So with the current date being 09/May/2015 (UK Time) if data had been previously entered against (02/05/2016), (05/05/2016), (08/05/2016) Those days would be highlighted in the calendar control or similar I could of course provide a side list of previously used dates in a separate control but where is the challenge in that. I am not a seasoned ASP person my background is desktop development in VB3, VB5, VB6 VB.Net and C# and T-SQL so I know a thing or two about programming just not the ASP controls or what they can accomplish. Thanks to all who reads this


May 16, 2016

 The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame inducted its 15th class of space shuttle veterans Saturday (May 14), adding a commander and a spacewalker to the institution's ranks.



Brian Duffy and Scott Parazynski were honored during a public ceremony at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Standing in front of an audience that included their families, friends, space program co-workers and past Astronaut Hall of Fame inductees, the two men were celebrated under the retired space shuttle Atlantis, a spacecraft on which they both flew missions.



Over the course of their overlapping NASA careers, Duffy and Parazynski helped to advance research in Earth orbit, deployed satellites and contributed to the assembly of the International Space Station.





"The new heights we've reached thanks to astronauts like Brian and Scott have become so engrained in our culture that we don't always think about just how incredible  how absolutely incredible  all that we have achieved actually is," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, an astronaut and 2006 inductee. "One of the wonderful gifts of this Hall of Fame is it gives an opportunity to hit the pause button, to take a step back, take a deep breath for a moment and reflect on just how far we've really come."



Out-of-the-limelight leader and true explorer



Between them, Brian Duffy, a veteran U.S. Air Force pilot, and Scott Parazynski, a medical doctor, flew on board nine space shuttle missions between 1992 and 2007.



Duffy was the commander two of his four flights, including the 100th space shuttle mission, STS-92, which delivered a docking port and installed a segment of the International Space Station's backbone truss.







Kevin Chilton (right) welcomes Brian Duffy into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. (Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex)

"I call him an out-of-the-limelight leader," said Hall of Fame astronaut Kevin "Chili" Chilton, who flew with Duffy in the Air Force and presented him for induction. "An out-of-the- limelight person who pursues excellence, [and] an out-of- the-limelight person who does nothing but his duty, which he can never be asked to do more of, and always, always with good humor."



Parazynski conducted seven spacewalks over the course of his five shuttle missions. He flew with Mercury astronaut John Glenn on STS-95, helped to install the Canadarm2 robotic arm on the space station and repaired to a tear in one of the orbiting outpost's solar arrays.



He was also the first astronaut to summit Mount Everest, making Parazynski the only person to have both seen the world from orbit and stood on top of it.



"I have never seen a more vigorous adventure seeker than Scott Parazynski," said astronaut Kent Rominger, who flew with Parazynski on STS-100. "And so when I look at him amongst all of the astronauts I have been around, he truly represents an explorer."







Dan Brandenstein (right) and Kent Rominger (left) welcome Scott Parazynski into the Hall. (Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex)

Both Duffy and Parazynski said they were honored to join the ranks of the men and women they considered their role models.



"This is truly a humbling experience to be here joining my heroes," Duffy remarked. "These are the folks [who] as I was growing up, I watched do all these great things and I dreamed about what it might be like but never thought I'd have the chance. Joining you is a special treat for me."



More than 20 Hall of Fame astronauts attended the event to welcome the new inductees, including Apollo veterans Fred Haise, Al Worden and Charlie Duke, Skylab residents Owen Garriott and Jack Lousma, Apollo-Soyuz pilot Vance Brand and early shuttle fliers Bob Crippen, Robert "Hoot" Gibson and Rhea Seddon.



"There are so many emotions that flip through you as you stand here on a day like today," shared Parazynski. "I am standing in front of men and women who have been my inspiration since I was a little kid."



Plaque preview



Though now enshrined, Duffy and Parazynski will need to wait a bit longer to physically enter the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.







2016 Astronaut Hall of Fame inductee Brian Duffy stands with the plaque that will represent him in the Hall. (collectSPACE)

The Hall's previous location in Titusville, Florida, closed in October 2015 so that it could move to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.



"Astronauts are such an important part of the NASA story. Through their eyes and stories we all have the chance to experience spaceflight as an insider. Soon their stories will be brought to life in an entirely new way," Therrin Protze, the chief operating officer of the visitor complex, said. "The [new] U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame will be a component of the new 'Heroes and Legends' attraction opening later this year."



"Through state of the art technology, guests will have the opportunity to virtually interact with the astronaut inductees and experience the thrills of our space program like never before," he said.



At the close of Saturday's induction ceremony, Protze and Dan Brandenstein, chairman of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, revealed the plaques that will represent Duffy and Parazynski in the relocated Hall of Fame.







Scott Parazynski poses next to his Astronaut Hall of Fame plaque. The display features his portrait and patches. (collectSPACE)

"I think it is fantastic," Parazynski said of his display. "The colors of the [space mission] patches are so high fidelity, I thought they really knocked it out of the park."



"It keeps you forever young," said Duffy of his likeness on the plaque. "I guess [that] is the way to look at it, because I may age a little bit but it's not going to."
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Attorneys in Fiji case given until December to suggest trial date

Judge gives defense and prosecuting attorneys until Dec. 19 to suggest trial date and duration.
Best of Business 2022: Learn Who Won Our 15th Annual Reader Poll

Local professionals chose their favorite business and professional services, products, healthcare, dining and more. Find out who their top picks are.
State workplace safety office has cited FedEx for Nov. 22, 2015 fatal accident at Memphis hub, but FedEx is appealing.

By Wayne Risher of The Commercial Appeal

State regulators propose to fine FedEx $4,000 for a fatal workplace accident last Nov. 22 at the Memphis hub.

A cargo tug operator, Christopher Higginbottom, 39, was found crushed to death by a loaded dolly he was towing.

It was the second fatal accident within 18 months at the FedEx Express world hub at Memphis International Airport. Material handler Chandler Warren, 19, was crushed by a giant cargo lift on July 2, 2014.

FedEx is appealing the citation and proposed fine, handed down April 18 by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development's Division of Occupational Safety and Health (TOSHA).

Investigators say they believe Higginbottom fell off his tug and was run over by the first in a train of three loaded dollies, according to documents obtained under a public records request.

There were no witnesses or video surveillance coverage, but FedEx security officers found Higginbottom beneath a dolly holding a 2,300-pound cargo container. His chest was crushed by the dolly's weight. The report showed Higginbottom's tug veered across an oncoming lane and clipped a tractor-trailer parked in a loading dock before coming to a halt.

TOSHA has focused on seatbelts as an issue in Higginbottom's death, with an investigation summary concluding, "The company did not ensure the tug operator properly fastened the seatbelt around his waist while operating the tug."

The violation, classified as "serious," is based on state and federal standards requiring employers to protect workers from serious or potentially lethal hazards such as ejection while operating a vehicle.

The citation said the violation was "corrected during inspection."

"The employer corrected the violation during the inspection by holding a training session for all tug operators that stressed the importance of always properly wearing the seatbelts while operating the tugs," inspectors reported.

FedEx spokesman Jim Masilak said, We remain saddened over the tragic accident involving Mr. Higginbottom, and reiterate our condolences to his family. Safety is a priority for FedEx, and all of our tug drivers receive safety training that includes the required use of seat belts. We will appeal the proposed fine.

FedEx's notice of appeal didn't cite a specific grounds. During a May 2 informal conference with TOSHA, FedEx disputed that the personal protective equipment standard included seatbelts.

During a May 2 informal conference, FedEx Express director of safety Tom Lopez told TOSHA officials that Memphis International Airport did not require use of seatbelts.

"He also said new tugs are ordered from the manufacturer with seatbelts installed and that they were researching retrofitting existing tugs that did not have seatbelts," TOSHA's Wade Gowan wrote in a memo.
This large brick of of cocaine seized in Queretaro is but a drop in the ocean of the multi-billion dollar drug business. Photo Courtesy of Noticias newspaper, Queretaro, Mexico.

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By Katie Fretland of The Commercial Appeal

A jury has convicted a 51-year-old Memphis man of conspiring to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine, the office of Edward L. Stanton III, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, said Monday.

Daniel Scott Sr., also known as "Old School," also was convicted of conspiring to launder drug money. He pleaded guilty to a dog fighting charge earlier this month.

The cocaine conspiracy occurred between March 2014 and May 2015, according to a news release.

"Over the same time period, Scott conspired with others to locate and develop various properties to serve as the staging area for housing and training American Pit Bull Terriers and hosting dog fighting gambling shows," Louis Goggans, a spokesman in Stanton's office, said in a news release. "Additionally, pit bulls were purchased, trained and bred for participation in the dog fight gambling shows."

Sentencing is set for Aug. 5.
Methodist University Hospital (Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal)

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By Sydney Neely, sydney.neely@commercialappeal.com

Methodist University Hospital has agreed to improve its communication procedures for people who are deaf or have hearing disabilities after allegations of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. Edward L. Stanton III, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, announced the settlement Monday.

The settlement comes after a federal investigation revealed that a hearing-impaired woman spent nine hours at the Methodist Hospital emergency room without an interpreter. The woman entered the emergency room and wrote notes to explain why she was there, but the emergency room personnel failed to ask for an interpreter. They actually thought the woman had left after she did not respond to her name being called. Even after the mistake was discovered, an interpreter never came to the hospital to assist the patient.

Methodist will pay $8,000 in damages to the person who filed the complaint

Under the settlement, the hospital says it will improve its procedure for identifying and tracking the needs of hearing-impaired patients and its procedures for using interpreters.

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires businesses serving the public to provide the means for effective communication with hearing-impaired people. Depending on the length and complexity of the communication that can range from exchanging written notes to using a sign language interpreter.

"Protecting citizens by ensuring full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act remains a priority for the U.S. Attorney's Office," said U.S. Attorney Stanton. "We appreciate the cooperation of Methodist Healthcare in quickly resolving this matter and recognizing the importance of communicating effectively with its hearing-impaired patients."
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By Jody Callahan of The Commercial Appeal

Three people were wounded when shooting erupted as police were shutting down a party near the University of Memphis campus early Sunday morning, officials said.

The incident happened just before 1 a.m. at 3655 Southern, Memphis police said. That's the address of the Gather on Southern apartment complex. According to police, the party took place at the complex but the shooting happened in an adjacent parking lot.

Gather on Southern appears to be a private entity offering housing to students. It's across Southern and the railroad tracks from the main U of M campus.

As Memphis police joined U of M police in clearing out the party, someone in the parking lot to the east of the complex opened fire, police said. Officers ran to the scene and found three victims.

A 19-year-old man shot in the abdomen was taken to the Regional Medical Center in critical condition. A 20-year-old woman shot in the leg was also taken to the Med, but in noncritical condition. A 19-year-old was also wounded, police said, but declined to be taken to the hospital.

Police had made no arrests late Sunday.
Memphis will audit City Council's grant program

The Memphis City Council is moving to audit its grant program.
Gov. Bill Haslam (AP Photo/Erik Schelzig)

By Richard Locker of The Commercial Appeal

NASHVILLE  Gov. Bill Haslam said Monday that he disagrees with the Obama administration's directive last week on transgender restrooms for students and said such policies should continue being made at the local level.

The governor's office issued a statement on the controversial action last week by the U.S. departments of education and justice directing public schools across the nation to allow transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. The "guidance" from Washington outlines how the U.S. Department of Education will enforce Title IX, the federal law banning discrimination in education, in regard to the transgender restroom issue.

The directive does not carry the force of law but because Title IX is tied to federal education funding, it does threaten loss of federal money. "This guidance further clarifies what we've said repeatedly  that gender identity is protected under Title IX," U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. said Friday.

Haslam did not use the angry rhetoric of some top officials in other states but did call the directive a "heavy-handed approach."

He said: "The White House itself has said what they issued last week is not an enforcement action and does not make any additional requirements under the law. Congress has the authority to write the law, not the executive branch, and we disagree with the heavy-handed approach the Obama administration is taking.

"Decisions on sensitive issues such as these should continue to be made at the local level based on the unique needs of students, families, schools and districts while working closely with the local school board counsel, understanding that this is an emerging area of law that will ultimately be settled by the courts."

Later on Monday, state Sen. Mark Green, R-Clarksville, a likely candidate for governor in 2018, circulated a letter signed by 26 of the 28 Senate Republicans that encouraged Haslam to join other states in taking legal action "if necessary" against the Obama administration. "We take this opportunity to share our view that the new guidance from the Department of Education and the President be of no legal force nor effect. We also request that you will do nothing to give it effect except in accordance with the law under the state and federal constitutions...," Green's letter says.

All Senate Republicans except Sen. Steve Dickerson of Nashville and Doug Overbey of Maryville signed the letter. Overbey said he agrees with the governor's view "that the approach the Obama administration is taking in issuing guidance... is heavy-handed and does not carry the force of law. Our local schools, administrators, parents and teachers, who best understand student needs, are also the best suited to work out such issues. The action by the Obama administration to bully states into compliance with guidance issued from them usurps that local control. It should not stand."

When asked if the governor is encouraging local school districts to disobey or ignore the guidance, his press secretary, Jennifer Donnals, said Haslam, "is saying that the White House itself has said the guidance is not an enforcement action and does not make any additional requirements under the law."

Last month, when the state Legislature was considering a controversial bill that would have required transgender students in Tennessee's public schools, colleges and universities to use the restrooms of the gender listed on their birth certificates, Haslam expressed concern about the bill and its potential loss of federal funding and said he hadn't heard from parents and school administrators across the state that there's much of a problem. The bill was eventually withdrawn by its House sponsor, Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet.

"Personally, I am not hearing about problems out in the districts. I'm hearing that our school boards have figured out how to adjust to each situation that arises," Haslam said before Lynn withdrew the bill. "I've said all along I have some concerns about potential loss of funding. But the reality is we live in a changing world and our schools are dealing with a lot of situations that they haven't dealt with in the past," he said at the time.
Thur 14 Jan 10 (Photo by Mike Brown) (l-r) Kevin Kilpatrick spreads asphalt on Collierville-Arlington road near Little Oak while a fellow TDOT worker steps out of the way of a passing gravel truck.

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By Tom Charlier of The Commercial Appeal

A section of Collierville-Arlington Road in East Shelby County will be closed for repairs Tuesday, state officials said.

The closure, scheduled for 8 a.m. through 6 p.m., will be in effect between George R. James and Seward roads. The repairs include replacing a deteriorated pipe beneath the road and shoring up the eroded slopes on both sides of the pavement.

Collierville-Arlington Road, also known as Tennessee 205, carried an average of 820 vehicles a day in that area during 2014, according to Tennessee Department of Transportation traffic counts.
SHARE Robert Williams/The Commercial Appeal Elvis fans queued up, hoping for the chance to get his autograph on the night of May 15, 1956, at Ellis Auditorium, where Elvis performed for more than 7,000. His performance was a feature of Cotton Carnival opening night.

May 16

25 years ago: 1991

The national board of Ducks Unlimited Inc. gave final approval Wednesday to a plan to move its headquarters to Memphis. Now based in suburban Chicago, Ducks Unlimited plans to build a 100,000-square-foot office building on county-owned land next to Agricenter International. Construction is expected to begin this summer with completion by the summer of 1992. The 500,000-member organization develops and protects wetlands for waterfowl habitat in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

50 years ago: 1966

Nearly 2,000 Cotton Carnival air show spectators watched for 30 agonizing minutes yesterday afternoon while rescue workers struggled in vain to save the pilot of an airplane which crashed into the swift Mississippi River off the southern tip of Mud Island. Jack Cedric Caldwell, 39, a part-time flying instructor from Jonesboro, Ark., had cut a streamer of tissue paper four times with his airplane and was attempting a fifth cut when the craft went out of control and nosed downward into the water. "It looked like probably structural failure," said Morse Rose of 2944 South Perkins, who was in his plane on the downtown Airport runway, waiting to follow Mr. Caldwell.

75 years ago: 1941

E.H. Crump yesterday brushed aside Shelby County Clerk Gerald Stratton's break with the Memphis organization as "nothing to worry about. We are awfully sorry he's displeased with us, that we haven't suited him all around," Mr. Crump said after Mr. Stratton announced he would not seek re-election.

100 years ago: 1916

PARIS  A strong wave of conciliation is sweeping over the belligerents. At no moment since August, 1914, has there been so much peace talk and never before has the peace talk been so devoid of flamboyant language or so much impregnated by a spirit of moderation.

125 years ago: 1891

The Iron Mountain is the first road running into Memphis to announce excursion rates to this city during the race meeting under the auspices of the Shelby County Horse-Breeders' Association, to be held May 19-23.
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By Jennifer Pignolet of The Commercial Appeal

The Tennessee Department of Education on Monday announced an emergency contract with Pearson to score and report this year's TNReady testing results.

Pearson will score high school end of course exams, Part I grade 38 tests, and any completed Part II grade 38 exams for the current year only. The state is still determining which vendor will operate the test moving forward, according to a letter sent to district leaders.

The state canceled its contract with Measurement, Inc. last month after the company failed to have the test ready to be taken online and then experienced delays distributing paper tests to schools, resulting in the state suspended testing for grades 3-8 for math and English language arts for the rest of the year.

Pearson previously developed, administered, and scored grades 38 tests and high school end of course exams in Tennessee from 2003 through 2014 and is the state's current vendor for the SAT-10 test, an optional test in grades K-2.

"The department carefully considered vendor ability to quickly begin large-scale scoring as well as experience in scoring and reporting large-scale assessments," the state said in the letter to district leaders. "Pearson was chosen as the vendor based on their capacity to move quickly in this unforeseen situation and complete scoring and reporting within the expedited time frame."

State officials anticipate Pearson's work costing $18.5 million, according to the office of Commissioner of Education Candice McQueen.

McQueen will brief media on the new vendor this afternoon. Her office did not immediately respond to a question about the value of the contract with Pearson.

The contract ends Dec. 15.
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By Staff

Matt Adler, a vice principal at Bolton High, will serve as the first administrator of the new Lakeland Middle Preparatory School, Ted Horrell, Lakeland School System superintendent, announced Monday.

Adler will begin his duties July 1, providing him a year to prepare for the 2017-18 opening of the new school serving grades 5-8.

"I believe Mr. Adler's skill set and personality will be a great fit for the kind of culture we intend to build at Lakeland Middle Preparatory School," Horrell said in a release.

Adler received his bachelor's degree from South Carolina and has master's degrees in curriculum and instruction, along with educational leadership.

"Developing a school that continues the exemplary standard set for by Lakeland Elementary School is one of my top priorities as LMPS principal," Adler said.

Construction of the middle school east of Canada Road and north of U.S. 70 will begin in the coming weeks. Groundbreaking is set for May 26.

The Lakeland School System has only one school  Lakeland Elementary. The city's school board initially wanted to build a combination middle/high school to serve Lakeland students from kindergarten through their senior year. However, a group of citizens forced the bond issue for the school to a referendum, which rejected the bond issue, leaving the district to compromise on a middle school.
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By Daniel Connolly of The Commercial Appeal

Collierville leaders might boost pay for police officers, firefighters and some other workers in the hopes of better competing for talent with nearby suburbs such as Germantown.

Town leaders have not specified the amounts, said Mayor Stan Joyner. "We have to know whether we can pay for it or not with the existing tax rate we've got," he said. Staffers are researching that question.

He notes the proposed town budget already includes "merit" raises of up to four percent for employees  the exact amount depends on their performance evaluation.

Merit raises go to employees who already worked their way through the automatic step increases that govern salaries in an employee's early years. The town is considering whether to change the pay scale for step increases, too.

When town officials started the pay scale discussion, they focused on the police department, which has lost some officers recently. Collierville's pay for police officers starts at about $34,000, then rises slowly for five years before maxing out at about $57,000.

That top scale is slightly more than the rates offered by other suburban departments such as Bartlett, Germantown and the Shelby County Sheriff. But the rate of increase in Collierville is slower. For instance, some other departments give a big pay raise when new officers complete an important certification called P.O.S.T. (Peace Officers Standards Training), and Collierville doesn't, according to a work sheet prepared by the town.

In a meeting last month, Jay Jeffries, town human resources director, discussed a report reviewing 150 departures from the police department since 1995.

Jeffries and other officials say pay isn't the only thing motivating decisions to stay or go. Studies show 29 of those 150 departures were due to pay and benefits. The rest were for other reasons, ranging from "unknown" to perceived lack of advancement in the department. Police Chief Larry Goodwin said two police staffers left recently because their wives got jobs in other cities. The chief said he supports pay raises for his officers, adding benefits matter too. Alderman Tom Allen said in a meeting last month retaining police officers helps maintain Collierville's quality of life. "This is what makes Collierville what it is, is safety. Once that safety's gone, a $95 million school just went out the window," he said, referring to the town's plans to build an expensive new high school.

Alderman John Stamps said that in more recent talks, the discussion about pay raises expanded from police officers to fire department and public works employees.

Joyner said town officials haven't decided a specific pay raise proposal or which employees to cover.

A public hearing on the budget is scheduled for Monday.
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The closing gavels have come down in state legislatures across the South, but every week seems to bring more fallout from the effort to institute state-sponsored discrimination against gays, lesbians and transgender people.

Last week it was a new lawsuit in Mississippi challenging that state's "religious freedom" law and the cancellation of an American Counseling Association meeting in Nashville to protest a new Tennessee law that grants therapists the right to turn away patients based on religious values and personal principles.

These new measures are, of course, a reaction to the United States Supreme Court decision granting same-sex partners the right to marry. They help elected officials prepare for the next election by establishing their "family values" bona fides and conform to political party dogma.

It would be wrong to dismiss them as political theater without much practical application, however. Their effects on the individuals they target for discrimination can be harsh and immediate. And their impact on a state's economy can be significant, as North Carolina is discovering in the wake of that state's passage of House Bill 2, which prohibits transgender citizens from using bathrooms assigned to their sexual identity.

The new Mississippi case was filed by the plaintiffs represented by the Campaign for Southern Equality, which had challenged the state's ban on same-sex marriage in federal court. The group's new filing requests the reopening of its original action to include objections to a hastily passed measure that allows private businesses and government officials to deny services to same-sex couples if doing so would violate their religious views.

The new law, the plaintiffs argue, "authorizes, indeed encourages, discrimination against (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Mississippians."

In Tennessee, the American Counseling Association condemned the state's new law excusing therapists from serving clients they object to as a "hate bill" that, in effect, represents an attack on the profession.

CEO Richard Yep said the decision to cancel its expo in Nashville next March was made after careful consideration and hearing from the organization's members.

It would be easy to dismiss a few concert and convention cancellations as insignificant in the larger scheme of things, but difficult to predict how much taxpayers' money will be wasted in the form of rising legal bills.

And who knows how much farther lawmakers can take state-sanctioned discrimination before larger, more impactful boycotts develop? What will the effect be, they should ask, on the New South's primary goals  attracting new business investment?

As U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has pointed out, "State-sanctioned discrimination never looks good in hindsight." It's just as true today as it was in the Civil Rights Era: Lawmakers should give some thought to consequences before they impulsively lash out against minority groups.
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By E.J. Dionne

WASHINGTON  Blaming President Barack Obama for the rise of Donald Trump is popular among Republican leaders. They don't want to take responsibility for the choices made by their own voters or their complicity in tolerating and even encouraging the extremism Trump represents.

They also don't want to face the fact that many Trump ballots were aimed at them.

It should be said that many conservatives are resisting the blame-Obama-first temptation by trying to come to terms with what has happened to their cause. National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru offered an admirably sober assessment of his side's role in Trump's emergence that included this observation: "We have come to reward the expression of resentment and anger more than the mastery of public policy."

This is an accurate and powerful critique of a movement that once claimed to have all the new ideas.

Now their main insight is that Obama is wrong about everything. The Wall Street Journal drew on dialectic to editorialize on the Obama-leads-to-Trump concept: "Every thesis creates its antithesis."

Just last Friday, Barry Sternlicht, a big-time investor, said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that "Obama basically apologized for us" on the world stage, and that Americans are "tired of apologizing." Trump, he explained, has tapped into a "deep vein," the desire of the United States to win.

Now it's true that every president ends up with responsibility in some way for everything that goes awry on his (or, someday soon perhaps, her) watch. And you can make a case that Democrats, in the brief period under Obama when they held a filibuster-proof Senate majority  they lost it, remember, in January 2010, after Ted Kennedy's death  should have done more to stimulate the economy, lift working-class incomes and thus reduce the level of anger in parts of the electorate.

But what's maddening here is not just the incongruity of indicting Obama for the success of the man who denied his very right to be president. It's also that Obama has consistently stood for the things that conservatives say they want liberals to stand for  starting with a robust patriotism.

No one who heard Obama's 2015 speech in Selma, Alabama, could doubt his belief that the United States is a special place, "strong enough to be self-critical" and thus capable of extraordinary moments of self-improvement and self-correction.

But it goes beyond this. Obama's commencement address this month at Howard University, which has received less attention than it deserved, was a compendium of arguments that conservatives have wanted to hear.

Conservatives worry that liberals, on university campuses and elsewhere, are inclined to shut down speech they disagree with. Obama is worried, too.

"There's been a trend around the country of trying to get colleges to disinvite speakers with a different point of view, or disrupt a politician's rally," Obama said. "Don't do that  no matter how ridiculous or offensive you might find the things that come out of their mouths. ... If the other side has a point, learn from them. If they're wrong, rebut them. Teach them. Beat them on the battlefield of ideas."

Don't conservatives want to argue that to deny racial progress is to ignore what's happened over the last 50 years? Obama thinks this, too.

"Let me say something that may be controversial, and that is this: America is a better place today than it was when I graduated from college. ... If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, 'young, gifted, and black' in America, you would choose right now.

"To deny how far we've come would do a disservice to the cause of justice, to the legions of foot soldiers ... your mothers and your dads, and grandparents and great-grandparents, who marched and toiled and suffered and overcame to make this day possible."

Conservatives regularly criticize self-righteous moralism on the part of progressives. Well, Obama insisted that "change requires more than righteous anger. It requires a program, and it requires organizing. ... In particular, it requires listening to those with whom you disagree, and being prepared to compromise."

"Listening to those with whom you disagree." Now there is a bracing idea at a moment when the politician getting all the media attention is famous for attaching nasty adjectives to the names of his opponents and urging his followers to strong-arm dissident voices out of his rallies.

Blaming Obama for that guy is like condemning someone who's trying to stop the fight for starting it. It's sad. Very weak, too.

E.J. Dionne is a columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group. Contact him at ejdionne@washpost.com.
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By Noah Feldman

Secrecy and justice don't mix. Just look at the latest contortions in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

Mohammed's lawyer has filed a motion alleging that, at the prosecutor's request, the judge allowed the government to destroy evidence that Mohammed could have used in his own defense. The proceedings of the special military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay are so secret that no one is allowed to say what the evidence was or to read the motion.

Reporters covering the trial surmise, with good reason, that the evidence probably relates to secret sites maintained by the Central Intelligence Agency where Mohammed and others were waterboarded. That was torture within the meaning of U.S. law, far in excess of what was permitted even by Justice Department memos justifying harsh interrogation techniques.

Mohammed's lawyer, Major Derek Poteet, proposes that the judge and the prosecutor should be disqualified as a result of what he considers collusion to destroy evidence. That remedy is probably too extreme in the light of what we know  or should I say in its shadow, since what we know is pretty dark.

But the exercise of trying to decide what to think about the motion proves something much deeper: The Guantanamo tribunal is looking like a shadow of the rule of law, not the real thing. The combination of extreme secrecy and confirmed facts of government torture make it hard to recognize familiar aspects of a criminal trial, even one for crimes as heinous as the World Trade Center attacks.

So what evidence might have been destroyed? Two possibilities loom large.

One is that the evidence destroyed was a torture site itself.

In 2013, the Guantanamo tribunal judge issued an order requiring the government "to ensure the preservation of any overseas detention facilities still within the control of the United States unless otherwise ordered."

It seems possible that subsequently, the government asked the judge, without informing the defense, for permission to destroy such sites. It isn't hard to imagine the rationale for keeping such a request secret. The sites are a national embarrassment, and revealing them would be a national security liability. And the government might well have a compelling national security reason to destroy them. (I mean, a reason other than that the U.S. was no longer torturing people there.)

According to Mohammed's lawyer, after the evidence was destroyed  whatever it was, since he knows but we don't  the judge required the government to provide a "summary of a substitute for the original now-destroyed evidence." That could be photos or descriptions of the black site.

The other possibility is that what was destroyed was not the site itself, but video, audio or photographic evidence of waterboarding. The CIA said in 2009 that it destroyed interrogation videotapes four years earlier. The Department of Justice later declined to prosecute the destruction.

But the fact that some videotapes were destroyed doesn't exclude the possibility that other evidence might exist. In response to a freedom of information act request, the CIA identified 580 documents relating to what was on the videotapes; none has been released.

What seems knowable is that evidence was destroyed without giving the defense the chance to argue that it should have been preserved, and that a summary substitute would be inadequate.

In an ordinary criminal trial, that would usually count as grounds for appeal. Ex parte proceedings  that is, legal submissions made without telling the other side  are almost unheard-of during criminal trials. The government would no doubt respond that it couldn't trust the defense with state secrets. But the defense lawyers are military officers who possess high-level clearances. They were chosen and cleared precisely so that they could have access to government secrets.

It's worth noting that in a normal criminal trial, an evidentiary violation like this wouldn't ordinarily lead to the removal of the judge or prosecutors. The remedy proposed by the defense is therefore probably too extreme. A better course under ordinary circumstances would be to preserve the issue to be raised on appeal  where it might be enough to get a conviction reversed.

But this isn't an ordinary trial. And that's what's so troubling. My analysis, and that of others, will be based on nothing but vaguely informed speculation  by design of the trial itself. It is absurd that observers cannot know the contents of the motion, the nature of the evidence destroyed or the procedures by which all this happened.

Some secrecy in criminal trials is permissible when evidence is classified for the right reasons. But it's perverse when the secrecy is driven by the fact that the U.S. government itself violated the law in its treatment of the defendant. It was always going to be difficult to give a fair trial to defendants who had been unlawfully tortured. And it was always going to be a challenge to manage the secrecy around the trial. But this new motion shows that we are rapidly approaching the point at which the trial will no longer have even the appearance of conforming to the rule of law.

The prosecutors are honorable people trying to do a difficult job. We are approaching the point where that job is becoming impossible  and where the Guantanamo tribunals can no longer claim the title of "legal proceeding."

Noah Feldman, a Bloomberg View columnist, is a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard.
Select Commodity All Ajwan Alasande Gram Almond(Badam) Alsandikai Amaranthus Ambada Seed Amla(Nelli Kai) Amphophalus Antawala Anthorium Apple Apricot(Jardalu/Khumani) Arecanut(Betelnut/Supari) Arecanut(Betelnut/Supari) Arhar (Tur/Red Gram)(Whole) Arhar (Tur/Red Gram)(Whole) Arhar Dal(Tur Dal) Ashgourd Astera Avare Dal Bajra(Pearl Millet/Cumbu) Bajra(Pearl Millet/Cumbu) Balekai Bamboo Banana Banana - Green Barley (Jau) Bay leaf (Tejpatta) Beans Beaten Rice Beetroot Bengal Gram Dal (Chana Dal) Bengal Gram(Gram)(Whole) Ber(Zizyphus/Borehannu) Ber(Zizyphus/Borehannu) Betal Leaves Bhindi(Ladies Finger) Bitter gourd Black Gram (Urd Beans)(Whole) Black Gram Dal (Urd Dal) Black pepper BOP Bottle gourd Bran Brinjal Broken Rice Broomstick(Flower Broom) Bull Bunch Beans Cabbage Calf Capsicum Cardamoms Carnation Carrot Cashewnuts Castor Seed Cauliflower Chapparad Avare Chennangi Dal Cherry Chikoos(Sapota) Chili Red Chilly Capsicum Chow Chow Chrysanthemum Chrysanthemum(Loose) Cinamon(Dalchini) Cloves Cluster beans Cock Cocoa Coconut Coconut Oil Coconut Seed Coffee Colacasia Copra Coriander(Leaves) Corriander seed Cotton Cotton Seed Cow Cowpea (Lobia/Karamani) Cowpea (Lobia/Karamani) Cowpea(Veg) Cucumbar(Kheera) Cummin Seed(Jeera) Custard Apple (Sharifa) Dalda Dhaincha Drumstick Dry Chillies Dry Fodder Dry Grapes Duck Duster Beans Egg Elephant Yam (Suran) Field Pea Firewood Fish Foxtail Millet(Navane) French Beans (Frasbean) Galgal(Lemon) Garlic Ghee Gingelly Oil Ginger(Dry) Ginger(Green) Gladiolus Cut Flower Goat Gram Raw(Chholia) Gramflour Grapes Green Avare (W) Green Chilli Green Fodder Green Gram (Moong)(Whole) Green Gram Dal (Moong Dal) Green Peas Ground Nut Oil Ground Nut Seed Groundnut Groundnut (Split) Groundnut pods (raw) Guar Guar Seed(Cluster Beans Seed) Guava Gur(Jaggery) He Buffalo Hen Hippe Seed Honge seed Hybrid Cumbu Indian Beans (Seam) Indian Colza(Sarson) Isabgul (Psyllium) Jack Fruit Jaffri Jamun(Narale Hannu) Jarbara Jasmine Jowar(Sorghum) Jute Kabuli Chana(Chickpeas-White) Kacholam Kakada Kankambra Karamani Karbuja(Musk Melon) Kartali (Kantola) Khoya Kinnow Knool Khol Kodo Millet(Varagu) Kulthi(Horse Gram) Lak(Teora) Leafy Vegetable Lemon Lentil (Masur)(Whole) Lilly Lime Linseed Lint Litchi Little gourd (Kundru) Long Melon(Kakri) Lotus Lotus Sticks Lukad Mahedi Mahua Mahua Seed(Hippe seed) Maida Atta Maize Mango Mango (Raw-Ripe) Marasebu Marget Marigold(Calcutta) Marigold(loose) Mashrooms Masur Dal Mataki Methi Seeds Methi(Leaves) Millets Mint(Pudina) Moath Dal Mousambi(Sweet Lime) Mustard Mustard Oil Myrobolan(Harad) Neem Seed Niger Seed (Ramtil) Nutmeg Onion Onion Green Orange Orchid Ox Paddy(Dhan)(Basmati) Paddy(Dhan)(Common) Papaya Papaya (Raw) Patti Calcutta Peach Pear(Marasebu) Peas cod Peas Wet Peas(Dry) Pegeon Pea (Arhar Fali) Pepper garbled Pepper ungarbled Persimon(Japani Fal) Pigs Pineapple Plum Pointed gourd (Parval) Pomegranate Potato Pumpkin Raddish Ragi (Finger Millet) Raibel Rajgir Ram Rat Tail Radish (Mogari) Raya Resinwood Rice Ridge gourd(Tori) Ridgeguard(Tori) Rose(Local) Rose(Loose) Rose(Loose)) Round gourd Rubber Sabu Dan Sabu Dana Safflower Sajje Same/Savi Season Leaves Seemebadnekai Seetafal Seetapal Sesamum(Sesame,Gingelly,Til) Sesamum(Sesame,Gingelly,Til) She Buffalo She Goat Sheep Snake gourd Snakeguard Soanf Soapnut(Antawala/Retha) Soapnut(Antawala/Retha) Soji Soyabean Spinach Sponge gourd Squash(Chappal Kadoo) Sugar Sugarcane Sunflower Sunhemp Suram Surat Beans (Papadi) Suva (Dill Seed) Suvarna Gadde Sweet Potato Sweet Pumpkin T.V. Cumbu T.V. Cumbu Tamarind Fruit Tamarind Seed Tapioca Taramira Tender Coconut Thinai (Italian Millet) Thogrikai Thondekai Tinda Tobacco Tomato Toria Tube Rose(Double) Tube Rose(Loose) Tube Rose(Single) Turmeric Turmeric (raw) Turnip Walnut Water Melon Wheat Wheat Atta White Peas White Pumpkin Wood Yam Yam (Ratalu)

Select State

Select Market
Last time, I griped about Windows Update on Windows 7. Turns out, I left some gripes on the table.

Installing the most recent round of bug fixes, released May 10th, many experienced continued performance problems.

Despite installing the four recommended patches I wrote about previously, Windows Update still ran for a long time for me.

Windows Update does a lot of computing, but no downloading

On one Windows 7 machine, after it had detected the missing patches, I clicked the button to install them, and waited. And waited. For what seemed like an eternity, the download process sat at zero percent complete (see above), while Process Explorer showed the CPU was busy running Windows Update.

As before, Woody Leonhard had a suggestion; install a single patch manually, before running Windows Update. The patch, KB3153199, was released this month. It comes in both 64 bit and 32 bit editions. I took Woody's advice and Windows Update ran much faster on subsequent machines. Thanks again, Woody.

But this illustrates an important issue with Windows Update - don't trust it.

The Defensive Computing approach is not not to install patches the day they are released. Too many Windows patches have caused too much grief over the years. Let others find the problems Microsoft did not.

Waiting a few days, gives Microsoft time to pull back or fix any bad patches. It also gives experts, such as Woody Leonhard, time to come up with workarounds to whatever issues crop up.

Don't install updates automatically and don't take recommended updates from a stranger

This approach translates to the settings shown above - Windows Update never runs automatically and recommend updates are not accepted.

Just last week, this would have saved Windows 7 users with Asus motherboards. As Woody Leonhard reported, Microsoft changed KB3133977 from an optional to a recommended patch. It's a long story, but the end result was that installing KB3133977 caused a Secure Boot Violation and Windows would not run.

Recommended updates also made news recently when Microsoft abused them to nag and/or install Windows 10 on machines running Windows 7 and 8.1.

Brian Krebs has his own defensive strategy for Windows updates. Writing a few days ago, about the last batch of bug fixes, he said

Anytime theres a .NET Framework update available, I always uncheck those updates to install and then reboot and install the .NET updates; Ive had too many .NET update failures muddy the process of figuring out which update borked a Windows machine after a batch of patches to do otherwise, but your mileage may vary.

Lessons learned the hard way.

Trusting Windows Update is part of a larger trust issue that Microsoft faces. For more on that see an article I linked to previously by Trevor Pott in The Register, The 'new' Microsoft? I still wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.
Google could face a record fine of up to 3 billion (US $3.4 billion) as soon as early next month as part of a six-year European Commission antitrust investigation into the company's search engine dominance, according to a news report.

A fine in the European Commission's long-running investigation, launched in November 2010, is expected by summer, according to a report in The Telegraph, which cited anonymous sources.

The $3.4 billion fine cited in the report would be less than the maximum allowed, which is 10 percent of Google's worldwide revenue, or about $7.5 billion.

A report from Politico questioned the timing of the potential fine laid out The Telegraph article, suggesting the commission wasn't close wrapping up its investigation.

The search engine investigation is one of two antitrust queries targeting Google at the European Commission. The commission is also investigating whether Google uses its Android operating system to hinder alternatives to its own smartphone mapping, search, and app store services.

A Google spokesman declined to comment on The Telegraph story.

A representative of competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the Google search investigation continues. "We have no comment on the press speculations," the representative said by email.

The commission, in April 2015, charged Google with abusing its dominant position in Internet search services in Europe by systematically favoring its own comparison shopping product, Google Shopping.
Apple Pay remains the killer app for Apple Watch, but a new home security solution from Dutch smart home firm, smanos, means you may soon have another app to wrap around your wrist.

Watch your home

Thats because the company has introduced its L020, W100 and W020 apps for the Apple Watch. The three apps integrate with the companys home security solutions for door and window entry, flood detection and home/office motion sensing so you will be alerted when sensors are triggered, meaning youll know if theres some miscreant in your home within seconds of illegal entry taking place.

In a press release, Brian Stark, general manager of North America for smanos says: The immediacy and convenience Apple Watch apps provide to consumers cant be overlooked when it comes to home security. With the new app, smanos users can stay even more connected to whats going on at their homes.

How it works

Which is all very nice, but in order to use the apps you must also purchase and install one or more of the companys home security systems the cost of which is between $129 to $199, though there is no monthly fee for the security they provide.

Once installed, users can use the Apple Watch app to arm and disarm their system and receive activity alerts, so they can check for unauthorized activity in their offices or homes. The systems use a home hub to connect the devices, supplemented by Wi-Fi, a landline phone and Ethernet connectivity on the more expensive models.

Now I cant guarantee that these solutions are effective as Ive not looked at them. It is also worth pointing out that these are not the first home security products to ship with support for an Apple Watch app  Alarm.com got there last year and the expanding range of HomeKit devices already includes things like Watch-controlled door locks, lighting systems and more.

Building the ecosystem

Whats key however is that each of these apps builds on what is already available to create a stronger, fitter, more vibrant supporting ecosystem around Apple Watch and iOS in general. Thats pretty critical as we approach WWDC 2016, where I think Apple is quietly preparing a few big surprises for us all.

What matters is that you can expect the first generation iOS smartwatch apps to become more effective once the much-improved next-generation Apple Watch is introduced. Recent stats from Fluent claimed over three in five Apple Watch owners will upgrade when the next edition ships.

With millions already sold this could mean the company will see three million or more sales even before new users reach for their wallet. Not so bad for a product the first version of which already outsold the iPhone  and certainly pretty good for one that is only actually usable by an iPhone owner.

Broadening the reach

Apple Watch is gaining ground on the Swiss watch industry, according to recent Strategy Analytics figures that show Apple shifted 5.1 million of the things in contrast to 7.9 million Swiss watches sold.

Thats even before Apple broadens its market as its watch range expands into different segments. (I can imagine low cost Apple Watch devices fighting Swatch for sales in airport shops, for example).

As the functionality of the device expands to encompass payments, health and fitness, security and personal protection, mapping, TV remote control and car keys the appeal of the device will inevitably grow in direct response to its expanding versatility.

What weve learned

It is interesting to reflect on what apps appear to be the most widely used on the first generation device. All of them seem to be about personal identity and fast access to the most important information. So you can predict more focused apps (like Apple Pay, or home security) in future. And that was what developers needed to learn when working with Apple Watch 1...that was only the beginning.

Google+? If you use social media and happen to be a Google+ user, why not join AppleHolic's Kool Aid Corner community and join the conversation as we pursue the spirit of the New Model Apple?

Want Apple TV tips? If you want to learn how to get the very best out of your Apple TV, please visit my Apple TV website.

Got a story? Drop me a line via Twitter or in comments below and let me know. I'd like it if you chose to follow me on Twitter so I can let you know when fresh items are published here first on Computerworld.
For a conference that has been used to advance Android and Chrome, and introduce Google Glass with users parachuting from a plane, people are expecting to hear about virtual reality and artificial intelligence at this week's Google I/O conference.

"This year's focus will be virtual reality, no doubt," said Jeff Kagan, an independent industry analyst. "I believe Google wants to be a leader in virtual reality and, in this marketplace where there are no leaders yet, I think they will try and secure their place in the front of the line."

Kagan said Google may even roll out its own early- generation virtual reality device at I/O, the company's annual developer conference, which generally draws more than 6,000 attendees.

The conference is being held from Wednesday through Friday in Mountain View, Calif., the same city where Google is headquartered.

One of the big differences for this year's conference is that it's not at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Shoreline Amphitheater The Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Calif., where this year's Google I/O conference will be held.

Google has not given a reason for the change of venue, to the Shoreline Amphitheatre, though many anticipate that the company is looking to use the outdoor fairplex to display advances in its work on autonomous cars, robotics or drones.

"I expect it means Google will be showing off its skills at defining and powering autonomous vehicles -- not just cars but drones and devices of all sorts," said Jack Gold, an analyst with J.Gold Associates. "Cars seem to be getting the headlines but there are a number of autonomous things that Google wants to power."

Gold added that those smart devices could range from autonomous garbage trucks to systems that find an open parking space for your car and autonomous wheelchairs for people with disabilities.

"Think of this as the same kind of race we went through in trying to power smartphones," he said. "Google won big there against the competition, and it is trying to position itself as the power inside the next wave of autonomous vehicles and robotic gadgets, as well."

Scott Strawn, an analyst with IDC, said he thinks Google is likely to show off driverless cars.

Google had pushed hard into robotics back in 2013, scooping up Boston Dynamics, the maker of the Atlas humanoid robot and the Big Dog, along with a string of other robotics companies. When reports hit that Google is trying to unload Boston Dynamics, it left many observers wondering how committed the company still is to developing its own robotics technology.

"After Andy Rubin [former head of Google's robotics division] left, it isn't clear how much progress they've made with their robotics program," Strawn said. "But their cars have been in the media quite a bit, which might suggest some kind of unveiling this week."

And with Google's increasing interest in autonomous vehicles and virtual reality, there's a natural push for the company to invest heavily in artificial intelligence and machine learning to support those efforts.

Many industry analysts are expecting to hear more about that this week.

"What's most important to me are the efforts Google has around cognitive computing and artificial intelligence," said Gold. "We are seeing major pushes by IBM, with Watson, and Microsoft and others. I'd really like to see how Google plans to counter these efforts."

He added that he's interested to see if Google will talk about or show off an advance to Apple's Siri, or Amazon's Echo.

Strawn, too, thinks Google might focus on a smart personal assistant.

"Google is working hard to create an interactive digital assistant," said Strawn. "If you've ever seen the movie Her, that would give you a good idea of the type of interaction they are trying to create. Mostly it would be to help organize people's lives, kind of like an ever-present assistant that you can have a conversation with."

Of course, it wouldn't be Google I/O without talk of Android and Chrome but most aren't expecting huge news out of those areas this week.

"Google always has some type of updates that will be revealed about the next version of Android, even though this year some Android N features have been announced already," said Brian Blau, an analyst with Gartner. "There have been rumors for many years that Android and Chrome OS will be merged or will interoperate to some degree. And while some developers want this merging to happen sooner than later, Google may only look at some interoperability versus a more substantial merging."

Google's cloud efforts also are likely to get some attention. And Project Tango, a technology that enables mobile devices to be aware of their position in the world, is expected to be updated during the conference.

"I believe [Project Tango] was demonstrated at last year's conference, so I expect to see some refinements and further packaging of this intriguing idea," said Brad Shimmin, an analyst with Current Analysis. "Clearly, mobile devices are not just ubiquitous but also heterogeneous in shape, size and purpose. If Google can deliver a set of APIs that engage those devices directly with the physical world around them and with their users, we could be in for something much more momentous than even virtual reality."
Land O'Lakes picked Google to run the backend when it decided to launch a new application that connects a bunch of different cloud services to one another for the sake of improving farmers' decisions.

It's something of a surprising choice for the decades-old company. Much of the company is built on Microsoft technology, said Teddy Bekele, the vice president of IT for Land O'Lakes's WinField division. While Microsoft's Azure cloud platform was in the running to host the new WinField Data Silo tool, Microsoft ended up losing out to Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

It's a major win for Google, which has been trying to entice more large companies over to its cloud platform. And Land O'Lakes's decision is emblematic of the way that companies -- especially those with decades of technology history -- are approaching the public cloud.

Rather than going all in on one provider, companies are looking for a diverse set of platforms on which they can build their business. Land O'Lakes has workloads running on Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and its own on-premises data center, Bekele said.

The agriculture conglomerate has built its Data Silo application on top of GCP with the help of consulting firm Cloud Technology Partners. The application is designed to use information from a variety of sources, including third-party data providers like John Deere and Monsanto, along with farmers' own data. Farmers then get recommendations, like which crop they should grow in a particular field.

The company chose Google for the WinField Data Silo in part because of its deep Maps API integration, which will overlay data from the application onto a map to make it easier for users to digest the information. For this application, WinField looked at Google, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Box, before deciding to go with GCP.

If Google's solution ever becomes unsuitable for Land O'Lakes's purposes, the company has built the WinField Data Silo to be capable of moving to competing cloud platforms, along with its other applications, Bekele said.

However, that doesn't mean he's unhappy with the way things are going now. If other people inside Land O'Lakes asked him if they should use Google Cloud Platform, he says he'd absolutely recommend the provider if he believed Google's capabilities were well-suited to the application.

Looking forward, Bekele is taking a pragmatic approach to figuring out which cloud provider will power Data Silo.

"I mean, even now, for us, going forward, we definitely plan on staying on GCP for the moment," Bekele said. "But if there are other capabilities [we need] as we start rolling this out to customers, and some other needs come up that are kind of critical, we might consider something else instead."

That said, he's also interested in some of the intelligent functionality built into Google's cloud for future development.
Cllr Daniel Moylan represents the Queens Gate Ward on Kensington and Chelsea Council.

Sadiq Khan has swept into City Hall with the bountiful good wishes of a relieved Labour Party and its broader chorus of sympathisers. There is no doubt that he and the formidable London Labour machine deserve congratulations for an effective campaign, well fought and professionally carried through.

There are, of course, elements in the Conservative firmament that are having huge fun tearing into Zac Goldsmiths campaign. But when their soundbites have faded, those of us who have to live with a Khan Mayoralty will realise that, carping apart, they have so far offered not a single practical suggestion as to how Conservatism in London can weather the next four years.

The facts are that we hold about a third of Londons parliamentary constituencies, a third of borough council seats, fewer than 30 per cent of borough councils and only a quarter of the capitals MEPs. In London, we poll well below what the party achieves nationally and we have relied in many ways, politically and administratively, on the comfort blanket of our hold on City Hall during Boris Johnsons eight-year term. We will find the winds blowing very bitterly at us with that bastion now in Labours hands.

So here are a few practical proposals that cover just the basics.

1. In the coming reshuffle, the Prime Minister must appoint a Minister for London, ideally located in the Cabinet Office or the Treasury, with the right to attend Cabinet and all relevant Cabinet Committees. A Minister for London existed happily alongside the Mayor from 2000 to 2010, under a Labour government. The Government needs a perspective and a focus on London that is not simply that represented by Sadiq Khans City Hall.

2. The London Conservative organisation must be brought out of its zombie-like catalepsy. While activists worked their socks off on the ground for Zac, it is a terrible indictment that practically no-one can name the chairman of London Conservatives. Is there such a person? There should be and it should be someone who can speak for the Party in London with authority and vigour, while helping to build up the activist base and reforming a constituency association structure that in parts of the capital needs fresh blood and greater effectiveness in campaigning. The Chairman of London Conservatives should be there to power up the party politically and as a campaigning force, much as Sadiq Khan was able to do for Labour in his recent campaign.

3. London Conservative MPs need to put more heft into their informal grouping, chaired by Stephen Hammond, Wimbledons MP. They need in particular to forge an active link with colleagues in the boroughs, forming a political platform that can speak with one voice on London policy matters and articulate a pan-London message and a narrative that meets Londoners needs and matches their experience of life in the capital. Ministers who represent London seats should be as obliged to involve themselves as backbenchers. All London MPs should be measured in part by their commitment to this common effort.

4. Assembly Conservatives offered effective opposition to Livingstone but their Labour counterparts, after early efforts, rather gave up bothering to attack Boris, perhaps when they realised they were no match for him. The Liberal Democrats and Greens have been more energetic in assailing the Mayor than Labour in recent years. The new Conservative Group on the Assembly must emulate their fellows from 2000-8 and not allow themselves to think that the pattern set by Labour under Boris is the one to follow.

5. Assembly members and London MPs (and the handful of Tory peers with London experience) should also work more closely together, meeting jointly, deciding jointly on major topics to pursue, co-ordinating questions to the Mayor with questions in Parliament, sharing research.

Khan has said that you win elections by offering something to everybody and his campaign commitments certainly do that, many of them in direct opposition to each other. Most obviously, he has yet to explain how he can take large sums out of Transport for Londons investment budget to fund a fares freeze and still deliver to the same timetable the improvements so many hard-working Londoners are relying on.

As a boxer, he has got through life on skilful dodging and fancy footwork. If Conservatives allow that to continue unexposed, he will only be all the more formidable when he achieves the next step in Project Khan and jettisons the capital for the Westminster office of the Leader of HM Opposition.

We owe it to London and the country to keep him to account. We can only do that with clear messages, recognised voices, single-minded focus, and feet on the ground.
Nadhim Zahawi is a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and MP for Stratford On Avon.

The British people have heard many fantastical stories in the last few weeks, as the Remain campaign seeks to win over the minds, if not the hearts of the voters. Unfortunately, however, they dont seem to give the intelligence of those minds much credit.

Weve been bombarded with warnings about the potential for genocide, and the possibility of a new world war ravaging Europe. Revelations have come forth that those who wish to leave are extremists and not British; that we want to turn our back on the world and become Little Englanders. And, swathed in glorious irony, Gordon Brown, our never-elected former Prime Minister, has told us that we must stay because the EU hasnt made universally bad laws, and we cant trust the British electorate not to throw it all away!

But amongst this frothing hyperbole, there have also been some arguments that are intended to sound more reasonable. One example is the claim that some businesses have said we must vote to remain, and that we should listen because they must know what theyre talking about. But who is it actually saying this, and should we really listen to them this time?

The CBI are regularly mentioned when business opinion is discussed, and it grandly states that British business wants the UK to remain in the European Union. Oddly enough, the CBI was saying much the same about joining the Euro. At the start of the millennium they were telling Tony Blair they were disappointed with his wait and see approach, and that he must get off the fence and campaign to join the currency. Even as late as 2010 the former President of the CBI, Sir Mike Rake, was saying that the Euro is a great success, and in todays global economy, the pound is no longer an important currency. I think its fair to say that the CBI does not have the best record when it comes to considering the EU, which it has almost never seen fit to criticise.

And does what the CBI says really represent British business? In their most recent survey 73 per cent of respondents had over 250 employees, compared to just 0.1 per cent of businesses having more than 250 employees. SMEs represent the other 99.9 per cent of businesses in the UK, as well as 60 per cent of employment, but the CBI has claimed a position for British business based on the opinions of an unrepresentative sample.

The British economy is not built upon large multinationals but on hard-working small business owners, the men and women who employ just a handful of staff or, like 76 per cent of businesses, only themselves. The reality of doing business for most of Britain is taking on every role yourself, and fighting hard to survive and succeed. You open up in the morning, do the buying, do the marketing, do the sales  and then shut up shop in the evening to work on the accounts.

Unlike these small business owners, the large multinational companies which the CBI is speaking for can afford to employ hundreds of staff to ensure compliance with EU rules and regulations. These laws create inefficiency in the system for everyone, but the large companies can absorb it. For an SME, trying to compete inefficiency, unnecessary regulation and inflexible rules means losses, closure and redundancy.

Not only can big businesses employ large compliance departments, but they can also engage lobbyists to try and influence both new legislation and the enforcement of current ones. Both of these facts, as a direct result of the heavy hand and complexity of opaque EU law, provide these massive multinationals with a perverse form of competitive advantage against smaller employers  regardless of whether they provide better products or services. This not just entrenches the position of the largest companies, but it can strangle at birth innovative businesses that could have challenged this hegemony, and prevents potentially world changing products from coming to fruition.

What is even worse is that these swathes of SMEs are forced to comply with every EU law. This is despite only six per cent of UK businesses exporting to the European Union, 100 per cent are still required to undertake the cost of compliance. We should not stay because big businesses say we should. The burdens and costs of membership are affordable for them, but they destroy SMEs.

If we take the option to seize control and vote to leave the European Union, we can create a well-targeted, agile regulatory system that provides protection for consumers while avoiding unnecessarily tying up our SMEs in red tape. Our economy is built upon and depends SMEs; they hugely outnumber and provide more employment than these multinational corporations. We have to make the choice that protects them, helps them thrive, and gives our economy the best chance.
While his brother is peering through the mists of history at Adolf Hitler, Jo Johnson is wading through swamps of jargon towards the future. New high quality providersa teaching excellence frameworkinnovative provisionquality assurance: yes  it can only be proposals for university reform. There was a Green Paper, which this site previously considered. Now there is to be a White Paper  and, according to yesterdays Sunday Telegraph, a bill for the Queens Speech. Boris is never very far from front of stage, but his brother is briefly to have his name in lights too  before vanishing into the darkness of committee, as he steers his bill through the Commons.

Johnsons plans fall into three main parts. First, he wants to bust restrictive practices, as he sees them, wide open. That a new university must obtain validation from other universities is, as he put it last summer, akin to Byron Burger having to ask permission of McDonalds to open up a new restaurant. He proposes to break this closed shop wide open. Famous institutions abroad, such as Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and rather newer arrivals, such as Facebook and Google  all these could have degree-awarding powers for courses run in Britain.

Second, the Universities Minister wants students themselves to drive change, through a Steve Hilton-type accountability and transparency revolution. Institutions must publish, publish, publish: information about the jobs its graduates get, their average earnings after graduation, how much time they spend in classes. There is to be a new Office for Students, which will oversee the workings of the system. And there will also be the Teaching Excellence Framework, to uphold standards. It will be easier to switch courses. Inspection will be reformed. There will be more two year degrees, more degree apprenticeships, more provision that involves employers. Universities deemed successful will be able to raise their tuition fees above 9000 from 2017.

Third, that information will include the gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background of Universities students: Ucas, the university admissions service, will publish it. This will be a means of cranking up the sector to admit more. The Prime Minister takes a lively interest in the matter, stating earlier this year that if youre a young black man, youre more likely to be in a prison cell than studying at a top university. Those who take a lively interest in statistics  or in truth more broadly  may have seen this claim exploded by Fraser Nelson, who revealed that if youre a young black man, youre at least twice as likely to be in a top University as prison (using Camerons methodology, at any rate).

At this point, it is worth standing back from Johnsons plans, and looking more widely at the current state of the sector. There has been an explosion of student numbers: last year, over half a million entered the system, the highest number ever recorded. They pay more than previous generations did, stumping up for tuition fees  but there is little sign of the competitive and innovative education market that we were promised, with more higher education institutions charging the maximum fee. Government also spends more, subsiding the loans system to the point that, for some students, it turns out not to be such a system at all.

But all the while, employers complain that many graduates are not up to the job. It rather depends which ones. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, there are no fewer than 23 universities whose average male graduate earns less than those who had not been to university at all. This suggests either that, as the ConservativeHome Manifesto argued, the sector is too big (we made the case for a shift of resources to vocational education) or that other institutions could do better. Hence Johnsons determination to open up a relatively closed system. He will know that if more would-be students had better information about future earnings they might not go to University at all.

There is a free market critique of Johnsons proposals  namely, that deciding which Universities can raise fees on the basis of bureaucratic inspection is lumbering and unwiedly. According to this view, set out on this site by Peter Ainsworth, Universities can more simply be measured on earnings value added. The Universities Minister might counter that this plans will make that information available. This raises a bigger question still: is it really the function of a University to churn out graduates for industry, rather than teach to broaden minds and develop people?

For better or worse, it was answered long ago  at roughly the time when the University Grant Committee was set up in 1919. If the state is to pay the piper, it will call the tune, which means getting a tangible, material return on its investment. This morning, Chris Patten warns that any attempt to enforce ethnic or other quotas will endanger standards, saying that if you want high class universities you should expect them to lower their standards in order to make up for some inadequacies in our secondary education systemnobody will explain to me how you can make a system of quotas work while retaining the highest admissions standards.

He thus makes a point briefly that the Fair Access to University Group of MPs made at more length in its manifesto  namely, that barriers to social justice, when it comes to university access, are less likely to be thrown up by racist dons (it is rather easier to find politically correct dons) than bad schools and low expectations. Johnson will know this perfectly well. One may hold that his ideas lean too heavily on state inspection. But he is certainly not lounging on his oars. Unlike some ministers, he is striving to drive change. He wants to see a wind of change gust through a secretive system. More than one Johnson brother is knocking on the doors of Cabinet to seek admission.
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The study carried out by the researchers at the university in Australia suggests that dementia usually goes from bad to worse conditions because of the overactive immune system. Even though it is known that the immune system helps to prevent the spread of various diseases, the study reports that the system acts in contradiction when it comes to the neurological situations. The research has claimed that a joint disease-causing mechanism for the neurodegenerative disease exists, which leads to the degeneration of the brain cells.

"The researchers suggest that the innate immune system is initially activated to eliminate a perceived threat of brain cell abnormality in neurodegenerative diseases," reported Express. "But it cannot remove the threat, meaning the immune system remains active, causing low-level prolonged damage and, ultimately, progressive brain cell death."

The researchers included in the study also said that the neurodegenerative diseases are caused due to the stimulation of various surveillance pathways. "It is the cumulative result of chronic activation of the innate shadowing ways, triggered by endogenous or environmental danger or damage associated molecular patterns in a progressively expanding cascade of inflammation, tissue damage, and cell death," reported Science Daily.

Further, the research lead professor, Robert Richards, said that the immune system cause progressive damage to the brain cells and it leads to diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

"Our interest in the body's own immune system as the culprit began when we discovered that immune system agents become activated in a laboratory model of Huntington's disease," said Robert, as reported by Psych Central. "Remarkably, researchers from other laboratories were at the same time reporting similar features in other neurodegenerative diseases. When we pulled the evidence together, it made a very strong case that uncontrolled innate immunity is indeed the common cause."

But, some researchers have claimed that the recent study does not hold much weight. Australian Journal reported that the research activity carried out at the university cannot be considered as accurate as it was conducted by using drugs on rats. Also, there is no evidence whether the same diagnosis holds true for humans. The main reason behind this is reported to be the incorrect evaluation method used to prove the point.

"This review doesn't pretend to be anything other than a collection of evidence supporting a hypothesis," reported NHS. "It provides a useful range of evidence-based points exploring potential trigger molecules, genetic susceptibility, and how the underlying biology might work. As any reputable scientist will tell you, a hypothesis needs to be tested by experimentation before it can advance into a credible theory."

The study was carried out at the University of Adelaide and was funded by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. In addition to all the above-mentioned information, few reports suggest that by 2050 Australia will have almost twice the number of current dementia patients.

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
Discharge Of Sadhvi Pragya And Others In The Malegaon Blast Case: Saffronization Of Constitutional Agencies

By Coordination Of Democratic Rights Organisations

16 May, 2016

Countercurrents.org

The month of May began with the BJP demanding action against the water mafia in Mumbai underthe Maharashatra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA). On the 10th of May Atikh Khan, Rafiq Khan and Javed, all three ragpickers, were charged with MCOCA for allegedly causing the fire in the dumping ground at Deonar Mumbai. This was of course followed by the big story- the dropping of charges by the National Investigation Authority under MCOCA against all the accused belonging to the Abhinav Bharat in the Malegaon blast case (MCOCA Special Case No. 1 of 2009), and discharging 5 of the accused including Sadhvi Pragya. The Malegaon blasts which killed 7 and injured 101, apart from causing damage to property, took place during Ramzan on 29th September 2008, opposite Shakil Goods Transport Company between Anjuman Chowk and Bhiku Chowk. The casualties were all Muslims. The blast took place through an explosive device fitted on an LML Freedom motorcycle bearing No. MH-15-P-4572. The FIR was filed by the ATS against 14 accused, including 3 absconding accused when investigations revealed that that the motorcycle used in the blast belonged to Accused No.1 Pragyasingh Chandrapalsingh Thakur @ Swami Purnachetanand Giri, and the blasts were conducted by the wanted accused and others. Intercepted phone conversations revealed conspiracy and the charge-sheet further disclosed dates and details of meetings wherein the blasts were planned and the execution details worked out. The charge-sheet which was published (available on the EPW website), discloses that Rakesh Dhawade, a core member of Abhinav Bharat, was involved in conducting bomb blasts since 2003 and details of his two pending cases were provided in the chargesheet. Explosives were recovered from Colonel Purohit. The chargesheet was filed by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) under Sections 3(1)(i), 3(1)(ii), 3(2), 3(4) and 3(5) of MCOCA, 1999; along with Sections 302, 307, 326, 324, 427, 153-A, 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, r/w 3, 5, 25 Arms Act, r/w 3, 4, 5, 6 of Explosive Substance Act, r/w 15, 16, 17, 18, 20 and 23 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (Amended) 2004. The NIA, which took over the investigation in 2011, filed a chargesheet on 13th May 2016, calling the methods used by the ATS dubious and questionable and discharged 5 of the accused and dropped charges of MCOCA on the grounds that the induction of the charges against Rakesh Dhawade in the two cases was questionable as they were done after his arrest in the present case. The dropping of MCOCA renders the confessional statements recorded by the DCP as permissible under MCOCA inadmissible. This will lead to the abandonment of the statement of Sudhakar Dwivedi which provided details of the conspiracy. The NIA also held that the confessions were obtained by way of torture and were retracted and hence had no evidentiary value. This reasoning of the NIA would have been welcome had it applied to all cases. The use of torture to obtain evidence and confessions that are used to convict accused is routine, and this concern for the human rights of the accused in other cases where there is ample evidence of torture, is missing, not only on the part of the investigating agencies but also the judiciary. The dropping of the charges against the Sadhvi resulted from the reliance on the statement of the Sadhvi that though the motorcycle belonged to her, the same was not used by her; and on the retraction of other witness statements. Such susceptibility to believe the accused by the investigating agency has hitherto not been seen in any judgment of any court. The chargesheet claimed that "The incident took place on

September 29, 2008, came to NIA for investigation on April 13, 2011. This has led to a situation wherein no additional evidence could be collected from the scene of crime and the veracity of the evidence collected by the previous investigation agency could not be fully substantiated. Thus the NIA took on the role of the judiciary in examining the evidence gathered by the ATS.

The difference between the stand of NIA in the present case where it dubbed the evidence of the ATS as dubious and sought discharge of accused and watering down of charges, and its position before the court in the 2006 Malegaon blast case where it opposed the discharge of the Muslims accused by ATS of conducting the blast, in opposition to its own chargesheet and counter case against the Hindu accused. In a turnaround on its position on April 8, 2014 (a month before Modis election), the NIA counsel Prakash Shetty told the court while arguing the discharge application filed by the accused on 13th April 2016 that Three independent machinery have investigated the case. The state Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have named one group. The investigation by NIA is conflicting, but whether the accused investigated by the earlier agencies can be discharged it cannot be done. The court will be looking into what evidence has been collected, what is the evidence against them. At this stage, it (discharge) cannot be allowed. Mumbai has seen the communalization of the executive especially the police since the 1992 riots and the nexus between the police and the Hindutva elements has been recorded by the Srikrishna Commission. The NIAs turnaround is not surprising considering the interview of the NIA lawyer Rohini Salian given in June 2015, where she accused the NIA of pressurizing her to go soft on the accused in the present case against the Sadhvi and others, immediately after the present government came to power, leading her to quit the case. The present discharge application targets the late Hemant Karkare, chief of ATS who was responsible for the disclosure of the Hindutva involvement in the two Malegaon blasts, and was one of the prime exposers of Hindu terror.

While CDRO considers MCOCA a draconian law that needs to be erased from legal text, we condemn the manner in which the NIA has abdicated its constitutional and ethical role by dropping charges against those involved in the killing of Muslims. The plain reading of the Section 2 (e) which defines "organised crime" as any continuing unlawful activity by an individual, singly or jointly, either as a member of an organised crime syndicate or on behalf of such syndicate, by use of violence or threat of violence or intimidation or coercion, or other unlawful means, with the objective of gaining pecuniary benefits, or gaining undue economic or other advantage for himself or any person or promoting insurgency, reveals that the law is applicable. The constitutional validity of Section 2(1)(e) of the MCOC Act was challenged, and the said challenge has been negatived by the Supreme Court in the case ofZameer Ahmed Latifur Rehman Sheikh vs. State of Maharashtra which was filed by the Muslims accused in the Malegaon (2006), Aurangabad and the Mumbai train blasts. The Supreme Court defined insurgency as a serious form of internal disturbance which causes grave threat to the life of people, creates panic situation and also hampers the growth and economic prosperity of the State". The question of applicability of MCOCA has been recurring in the present case since the trial court by an order dated 31st July, 2009, discharged the accused of offences punishable under the MCOC Act. The order of the trial judge was set aside by the Bombay High Court in 2010, stating that cognizance was taken of the offence and not the offender, and hence the applicability of MCOCA could not be challenged on ground that the accused was named in a supplemental chargesheet in an existing case. The Supreme Court by its judgment dated 15th April 2015 upheld the applicability of MCOCA in the present case stating that A conspectus consideration of the above facts discloses that insofar as A-7 was concerned, he had a nexus with the member of an 'organized crime syndicate' and also had every nexus with the offence in the nature of an 'organized crime' of the two earlier cases, namely, Parbhani and Jalna and also direct involvement in the present bomb blast at Malegaon. In such circumstances, there is no difficulty in coming to a definite conclusion that insofar as, A-7 is concerned, his activity and involvement in all the three occurrences, namely, Parbhani, Jalna and Malegaon disclose nexus with the crime and also with the other accused involved in the crime and thereby the satisfaction of the definition of 'continuing unlawful activity' of an 'organized crime' on behalf of an 'organized crime syndicate' is satisfactorily shown. The move of the NIA would have been welcome had this concern for the rights of the accused and truth been universal. However this selective application of separate standards of proof for different cases and the bending of rules for Hindutva terror, and the application of the standard of proof of collective conscience of the people when it comes to the rights of accused belonging to Minority community and those who are seen as anti-nationals, shows the nexus between the state agencies which are meant to uphold the rule of the law and the Hindutva forces. This not only undermines the right to equality before the law and equal protection of the law as stated in the Indian Constitution but also the democratic right to justice. The NIAs actions not just impinge on the creation of a highly hierarchical society where some are above the law, but also seek to rewrite and distort history.

C. Chandrasekhar (CLC, Andhra Pradesh), Asish Gupta (PUDR, Delhi), Pritpal Singh (AFDR, Punjab), Phulendro Konsam (COHR, Manipur) and Tapas Chakraborty (APDR, West Bengal) (Coordinators of CDRO). Constituent Organisations: Association for Democratic Rights (AFDR), Punjab; Association for Protection of Democratic Rights APDR), West Bengal; Bandi Mukti Morcha (BMC), West Bengal; Campaign for Peace & Democracy in Manipur(CPDM), Delhi; Civil Liberties Committee (CLC), Andhra Pradesh; Civil Liberties Committee,(CLC)Telengana; Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR), Mumbai; Coordination for Human Rights (COHR), Manipur; Human Rights Forum (HRF), Andhra Pradesh; Jharkhand Council for Democratic Rights (JCDR), Jharkhand; Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti (MASS), Assam; Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR); Organisation for Protection of Democratic Rights (OPDR), Andhra Pradesh; Peoples Committee for Human Rights (PCHR), Jammu and Kashmir; Peoples Democratic Forum (PDF), Karnataka; Peoples Union For Democratic Rights (PUDR), Delhi; Peoples Union for Civil Rights (PUCR), Haryana, Committee forProtection of Democratic Rights (CPDR),Tamilnadu.












Social Status Of Minorities And The Hindu Nation

By Nagesh Chaudhary

16 May, 2016

Countercurrents.org

M. S. Golwalkar, the second RSS chief, was the most revered ideologue who induced in RSS and combines other organs complexes of extra superiority. His views on minorities are vivid examples of this mindset in his book We or Our nationhood Defined(1939). In that book he denies even the citizens rights to the minorities. He equates them with enemy or calls them enemies. But, his views about their social status in the scheme of Hindu social order are not known so widely. The social status of the minorities in the minds of Hindu nationalists can be gauged from the views of Golwalkar because they are not individual views, they represent viewpoint of the entire RSS combine.

Golwalkar has instilled a sort of arrogance in the RSS cadres. During his tenure as RSS chief (1940-1973) the plan to murder Gandhi was hatched and he was one of the accused. The conspiracy to murder Gandhi was hatched by Hindu nationalists of different organisations.

The hatred towards Muslim was infused among the RSS cadres mainly by Golwalkar and among Hindu Sabha cadres by V. D. Savarkar. Both wrote books and articles against Muslims, Islam, and Christianity, Christians. Golwalkars book, We or our Nationhood Defined and Savarkars book, Hindutva had a lasting impact on the cadres and even in day to day dialogues in RSS daily Shakhas the hatred towards Muslim was evident. Gandhi was also hated in the Shakhas (daily gatherings) of the RSS and in their writings. Nathuram Godse, killer of Gandhi was follower both of Golwalkar and Savarkar. He was running/editing the journal named Hindu Rashtra

How Golwalkar attributes the lowest status to the minorities in his scheme of Hindu nation is evident from the following sermons he has given to the cadres in various parts of the country during his journey to spread the Hindu nation ideology.

i) Superiority of Brahmin peon over Non-Brahmin Officer:

In his book, Vichar Navanit, (Hindi translation of Bunch of Thoughts, p.135, Lokhit Prakashan, Rajendra Nagar, Lucknow-4, 1979) he has narrated the following story: There was an English officer somewhere in the South (India). His assistant officer was one Naidu. One day the English officer and his Brahmin peon were on their way to office. Assistant officer Naidu was coming from opposite direction. Naidu shook hands with the English officer. But, when he saw the Brahmin peon he took out his turban and fell flat into the feet of the peon  the Brahmin. Seeing this act of Naidu the English officer was aghast and asked Naidu, You shook hands with me but fell flat on the feet of my peon. Why did you do so? Naidu replied, Sir, you may be my superior officer but you are Mlenchha . He is peon but he is a person of our society whose class is being respected from many centuries. It is my duty to bow before him and respect him. Golwalkar comments, That was the right thing the Deputy Collector had done. That shows how he was for superiority of Brahmin caste. Even if a Brahmin is inferior in ranking in administrative position, position in society is to be followed.

Prince of Wales (England) Untouchable?

ii) In a book, Smriti Parijat (in Hindi, Published by, Bharatiya Vichar Sadhana, Dr. Hedgewar Bhavan, Mahal, Nagpur, 1986) his memoirs are collected. The memoir dated 1st February 1969 was told to the RSS cadre. According to Golwalkar, Prince of Wales (England) visited Nagpur city (date not mentioned) and he wanted to visit a Rama temple in Ramtek town near Nagpur. The Prince was taken to temple with his officials. The priest of the temple came to know about this visit. He was very old and was furious because a non-Hindu was visiting and thereby polluting the deity. When the staff of the Prince came closer to the temple the priest warned them not to walk further. The staff members said the Prince was the Emperors son. The priest said, He may be Prince or Emperor himself but as he is Mlenchha (foreigner) he cannot enter the temple. He can take a look of deity from the spot where you are standing. The low caste people of our society take Drashan - look from that distance only. If you try to enter by force you will have to walk over my dead body.

This shows how the Prince was treated as Shudra (lower caste) or untouchable in the Hindu temple. Golwalkar supports this behaviour of the priest.

Golwalkar remarked, the Prince returned back seeing the determination of the priest. He praises the act of the priest as he maintained the purity of the deity without caring for the authority. (Smriti Parijat, p.170).

There is a recent case of 1980s. When Indira Gandhi, late Prime Minister, wanted to enter the temple to take Darshan of the deity of Jagannath temple at Puri in Odisha. She was denied entry in to the temple and was forced to go back by the priest.

iii) Mlenchhas below Shudras/lower castes:

In another memoir when he was touring Kerala (1969) he says, We have committed a blunder by placing lower castes people below Christians and Muslims. In our four Varna division Mlenchhas were placed below Shudras. He cites the example of a Professor of Sanskrit- Telang Shastri, (the name of college or year is not mentioned) who was serving in a college. Principal of the college was a Christian. Whenever the Principal used to come to the staff room the Sanskrit Professor used to leave the room. The Principal was upset by this insult. He asked the Professor why he behaved like that. The Professor replied, See, you are a Mlenchha and in Hinduism you are lower than the lowest. I can sit with the Shudra but not with you - the Mlenchha (op cit p.167-168).

iv) Golwalkar was asked by the ex-minister of Madhya Pradesh, did he want to dominate the Jan Sangha? He replied, I want to dominate the whole country. (Hindu Sanghatan by-M.G. Vaidya p.13, pub. Bharatiya Vichar Sadhana, Dhantoli, Nagpur-440012, 1980)

v) We, Hindus came into this land from nowhere, but are indigenous children of the soil always, from time immemorial and we are natural masters of the country. (We...., M. S. Golwalkar, p.8)

vi) Sangha is not only a form representing the Hindu Nation but is a model of Hindu Nation. It is because of this the whole land should belong to RSS. We should live here as masters and lead the happy and secure life. (Shri Guruji Samagra Darshan, Bhag-1, p.108)

vii) B.G. Tilak in his book, Arctic Home in the Vedas has proved that the abode of Aryans was near the arctic zone, the north pole and he also said that we the Aryans have come from the North Pole area. Golwalkar not only countered Tilak but said that his knowledge was inadequate. These are his exact words, But it may be said Lok. Tilak propounded the Arctic origin of the Aryans. Quite so. We may agree with him that originally the Aryans i.e. the Hindus lived in the region of the North Pole. But he was not aware that in ancient times, the North Pole and with it the Arctic zone was not where it is today. .... The North Pole is not stationary and quite long ago it was in that part of the world, which, we find, is called Bihar and Orissa at the present; that it moved north east to that position. If this be so, did we leave the Arctic Zone and come to Hindustahan or were we all along here and the Arctic Zone left us and moved away northwards in its zigzag march?....The Arctic Zone in the Vedas was verily in Hindusthan itself and that it was not the Hindus who migrated to that land but the Arctic Zone which emigrated and left the Hindus in Hindusthan. (We or Our Nationhood Defined, p.8)

This shows how Golwalkar falsified Tilak and gave the North Poles migration a turn as he liked. Can Poles of the earth migrate in few thousand years? He has twisted the science for proving indigenous status of the Aryans.

Those not subscribing to Hindu Nation are aliens:

Golwalkar asserts- At the outset we must bear in mind that so far as nation is concerned, all those, who fall outside the fivefold limits of that idea, can have no place in the national life, unless they abandon their differences, adopt the religion, culture and language of the Nation and completely merge themselves in the National Race. So long, however, as they maintain their racial, religious and cultural differences, they cannot but be only foreigners.. Further, he says, Culturally, linguistically they must become one with the National race; they must adopt the past and entertain the aspirations for the future of the National Race; in short they must be Naturalised in the country by being assimilated in the Nation wholly. (We...p. 45-46)

This arrogance pertains not only to the minorities but, for those also who do not subscribe to the National race, its culture, religion, or language. He wants to tell to all others to shed aside all differences and merge in the so called National Race. It means the people should behave as the master race wants them to behave. In a way he is asking them to be slaves.

Brahmins as Gurus (Teachers) of the world?

Golwalkar says how Hindus i.e. Aryans are Gurus to the whole world. Says he, There seems to be much evidence to show that Hindu culture had penetrated to the whole of the Southern archipelago, to Asia and probably America as well. ....all peoples followed Hindu religion and evolved Hindu culture and where any of these peoples had any doubt they came to Hindusthan, the cradle of Religion and Culture, to take their instructions. It is this fact which made the first and greatest law giver of the world-Manu, to lay down in his code, directing all the peoples of the world to come to Hindusthan to learn their duties at the holy feet of the Eldest born Brahmans of this land. (We or our Nationhood Defined ... p. 55-56)

Here, arrogance of Golwalkar or leaders of the Hindu nationalists is clearly seen. Among so called majority Hindu population of India Brahmans claim superiority over all other non-Brahman castes. Not only that they arrogantly say they will be the Gurus of the whole world. Is it because Hindu Gurus are establishing their centres world over in the garb of teaching Yoga or Samadhis or spirituality? Beware, peoples!!

Hitler rule temporary but Hindu nation lasting phenomenon

Hitlers Nazi rule did not last beyond his life span. Aryan ruling or hegemony is more than Hitlers racial rule. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar very aptly compared Nazi and Brahmin rules. He says. The Nazis had indeed a great deal to learn from the Hindus. If they had adopted the technique of suppressing the masses devised by the Hindus they would have been able to crush the Jews without open cruelty and would have also exhibited themselves as humane masters. (Dr. B R , Ambedkar Writings and speeches, vol. 3, p.127, Govt. Of Maharshtra publication, Mumbai)

The RSS thoughts and actions are for maintaining the supremacy of one caste not only over Indian people but over even the people from foreign countries. Their arrogant claim of becoming Guru of the world speaks of their mindset.

About author: Editor of Marathi fortnightly, "Bahujan Sangharsh" from Nagpur. He has written books in Marathi, Hindi & English.Some of his books are: RSS Parivar:Akramaktechi Rang Rupe, Hindutva:Desh Todnare Sootra, Jati vyavastha va Bharatiya Kranti, Golwalkar's Hindu Nation.An Analysis etc. He is involved in satyashodhak movement.












Global Warming Threshold Crossed Is Another Red Flag For Planet

By Greenpeace Australia Pacific

16 May, 2016

Countercurrents.org

Sydney, 16 May 2016 - As another key global warming threshold was passed with baseline readings of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Greenpeace Australia Pacific today urged Labor and the Coalition to take more ambitious positions on climate change and Australias coal industry.

This is yet another red flag for our climate, said Greenpeace Climate and Energy Campaigner, Nikola Casule.

This year alone we have broken average temperature records month after month. We have seen the worst bleaching ever of the Great Barrier Reef and 1000 year old rainforests destroyed by bushfires in Tasmania. This is what climate change looks like. Its real and its happening right in front of our eyes.

The CSIRO monitoring station at Cape Grim has some of the cleanest air in the world. It is as pure as youll find on the planet - and its this air thats giving us a baseline reading of 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide.

We know that anything above 350ppm poses a threat to our planets climate. With the crossing of the 400ppm threshold, we are now in uncharted territory.

As politicians focus on the short term, trying to get elected, people in the real world are furious that our future is being put at risk, as coal mines and other fossil fuel projects are being bankrolled with federal subsidies, while the climate suffers.

Its time for both major parties to get serious about climate change and put in place plans to phase out the mining and burning of coal before its too late, said Dr Casule.

The Cape Grim monitoring site, jointly run by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, has recorded the first baseline reading of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Ice core readings show levels have fluctuated around 280 ppm until the industrial revolution, when they began steadily increasing. When Cape Grim began recording levels in 1976 they were around 330 ppm.



For interviews, contact Greenpeace Climate and Energy Campaigner Nikola Casule on 0428 769 307

For more information, contact Greenpeace Media Officer, Louise Fraser on 0438 993 068

--

Communications & Media Desk

Greenpeace Australia Pacific

+61 2 9263 0320












AFSPAs Impunity: Vitiating Democracy

By Ravi Nitesh

16 May, 2016

Countercurrents.org

Though there are few adherents who advocate for its necessity, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) seems an abortive effort of government on the name of curbing insurgency and has been proved as failed act.

AFSPA provides extra-ordinary powers to security personals, operating in disturbed areas. To deploy forces with such arbitrary powers, disturbed areas are notified and in line with this act, these disturbed areas are presently falling in J&K (under AFSPA 1990) and in North East States (under AFSPA 1958). No other Indian state has this act in force.

With the powers under AFSPA, a security personal can shoot someone on mere suspicion as per power granted in section 4 of this act and its section 6 states that no prosecution, suit or other legal proceeding shall be instituted, except with the previous sanction of Central Government, against any person in respect of anything done or purported to be done in exercise of powers conferred by this act.

In a common note, hundreds of incidents of human rights violations, ranging from torture to rape and killing have been made through (mis)using this impunity granted to security personals. Many protests have had happened against such human rights violations and still organizations and individuals are raising voice against this act in their capacity. Just a few days ago, a Member of Parliament also raised voice in Parliament on the issue.

It is also a fact that despite hundreds of cases of such human rights violations documented and reported in AFSPA imposed regions, none could get justice. Even in cases that got highlighted through media and human rights campaigns and also in cases where even Apex court intervened and government agencies like CBI investigated the case and found security personals as guilty, nothing could be done to punish them. Their impunity is such that on the same crime where a common person may get life term and even death under IPC sections through trials in civilian courts, security personals may not get even a month jail. It is also told that instead, they continued with their job.

Sometimes, when case becomes too strong to control peoples anger, state governments also try to get permission for inquiry and lodging case against accused security personals, but after having data given by Defence Ministry of India, it seems that even democratically elected state governments fail. At times, when even state governments, after sent cases to central government for granting sanction of prosecution against accused, it could not be worked out well.

When in Rajya Sabha, question no 59 was answered by Ministry of Defence on 24.02.2015, Mr. Manohar Parikkar stated that total 38 requests for sanction of prosecution have been received under Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (from 16.06.1991 to till date).

Out of 38 cases received, sanction has been denied in 30 cases and 8 cases are still pending. Year and State-wise details of these pending cases shows that these 6 cases are from J&K [J&K: 1993: (1 no.), 1996 (2 no.), 1998 (01 no.), 1999 (01 no.), 2000 (01 no.)] and 2 cases from North East States [ 2008 (01 no.), 2010 (01 no.)] . With the statement, it is clear that no sanction was given by government in a single case at least since 1993.

With such a situation, where not a single sanction was given on requests of state governments, it seems that centrally deployed security forces have indirectly took over the democratically elected state. The intensity of ground situation can be understood with this fact and struggle of common persons can be imagined.

AFSPA has caused a serious damage to reputation of army itself. It is a fact that all army personals cannot be in one tone to wear AFSPA and do whatever. But it cannot be ignored that there are personals who did it and that resulted a loss to people of the region. Also, with the traditional impunity, it is seen that no punishment was awarded to security personals even if they did wrong, and it has probably pushed many more among them, to act without thinking of its results.

With the time, many families of J&K and North East received such sufferings that even cannot be told. An everyday psychological pressure about safety also runs in minds of people, whenever their family members are out of home. These are places where children are exposed to every day stories of deaths, torture, rape, bullets, shells etc.

Though the act is in operation since more than decade, it is a failed act, as told by government panels, police officials and activists. Even many within the army team advocated for its revocation or atleast review and replacement with more humanitarian law.

In the line of AFSPA, UPA and NDA both have adopted same line till now. A new government in J&K under PDP-BJP collaboration as well as demands of BJP state leadership of Manipur and even of few other MPs from AFSPA imposed regions of J&K and North East, could not bring any change in mind of central government yet.

Central government should take note of review panels of governments and in view of many other recommendations from national and international human rights organizations, including of UN and to take steps of revoking this act. By doing this, it may bring a confidence on the hearts and minds of hoi polloi.

Ravi Nitesh is Human Rights Activist, Convener- Save Sharmila Solidarity Campaign (for Repeal AFSPA), Freelance Writer

www.ravinitesh.blogspot.in








Release The Arrested Activists In Kerala, Repeal UAPA And Other Draconian Laws

By Radical Study Circle

16 May, 2016

Countercurrents.org

As part of the Indian states war against peoples movements and freedom of expression, five more activists have been arrested and charged with UAPA in Kerala on 3rd May, 2016. The arrested activists are accused of putting up posters calling for the boycott of the upcoming assembly election in Kerala. Among the arrested, Ajithan, Sabu and Chathu are members of an organization called Porattam which had given a call to boycott elections in Kerala, Dileep is a students activist and editorial committee member of a students magazine called Padantharam and Gouri is part of Adivasi Samara Sangam. While four of them were arrested for putting up the posters to boycott elections, Dileep was dragged with them while he was talking to Ajithan Sabu, in Kerala Sahitya academy compound where he had gone to attend a meeting regarding the rape and murder of a dalit student named Jisha.

Kerala police has started Operation Thunder Bolt in 2013 in the Western Ghats said to be against the Maoist insurgencies. But in the name of the same, the state is witch hunting activists who have spoken against resource plunder and anti-people policy of the government. Comrade Ajithan was a worker and also a trade union activist in the diamond workers factory. Furthermore, he has also been part of many movements like Anti BOT-toll collecting agitation in Paliyekkara, Kathikoodam agitation against illegal mining, Ambattan Tharissu anti-mining agitation and peoples movement against money lending mafia in Kerala. Dileep was organizing students and parents who were trapped in student loans, and also was part of protests against the autonomy of colleges. Gauri and Chathu are from the adivasi community and have been condemning the state atrocities in the Adivasi colonies.

The Supreme Court verdict on the case, PUCL vs Union of India, states that not to vote and campaign to not vote is as much a right as to vote and campaign to vote. It is an irony that while the Kerala police has been manipulating evidences in the case of the murder and rape of a Dalit girl Jisha, yet the police is quick to charge draconian laws like UAPA on activists only putting up posters. In the time of corporate loot and resource plunder lead by the state and union government it is natural for the people to search for alternative movements than to blindly believe in a system of parliamentary election. Charging UAPA on activists is part of a larger agenda to silence any movement which cant be bribed by the existing power structure.

 We urge the democratic right activists to immediately intervene for the release of the arrested activists  We demand the immediate and unconditional release of activists Aithan, Sabu, Dileep, Gouri and Chathu and all other political prisoners across the country  We demand to repeal UAPA and all other draconian laws

RADICAL STUDY CIRCLE, TISS MUMBAI

 with Additti Munshi, Sandeep Suresh, Kulajit Maisnam, Sushmita Verma, Divya Kalathingal, Farhana Latief, Shefali Saini, Sukriti Shukla, Baljeet Kaur, Jenny Sulfath and Ajmal Khan.










How Obama Aims To Conquer Crimea

By Eric Zuesse

16 May, 2016

Strategic-culture.org

When U.S. President Barack Obama perpetrated his coup detat in Ukraine in February 2014, and even had his agent Victoria Nuland select the person who was to rule Ukraine after the coup, it was with the expectation that the new government would renegotiate, and soon end, the Russian lease of the naval base at Sebastopol in Crimea, which wasnt due to expire until 2042. (Up until 1954, that base had been in Russian territory because Crimea was part of Russia; but, after the Soviet dictator Khrushchev in 1954 arbitrarily transferred Crimea to Ukraine, and then the Soviet Union itself broke up in 1991, Russia was keeping its navy there by paying a lease on it from Ukraine.)

However, instead of the U.S. winning control of Crimea as had been planned, the racist-fascist anti-Russian Right Sector forces, which Obamas people had hired to carry out the coup in Kiev under the cover of democratic demonstrations in Kiev against the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych (who had received over 75% of Crimeans' votes in the Presidential election, prior to his being overthrown), terrorized Crimeans during the coup, and this terrorizing of them, simply added insult to their injury. On February 20th, Right Sector forces massacred Crimeans who were escaping from Ukraines capital, fleeing the rabid sentiments in Kiev against supporters of Yanukovych, such as they, who populate Crimea and the many other parts of the former Ukraine that had elected Yanukovych (very unpopular in the Kiev region) into office. Right Sector caught up with them at the town of Korsun, burned some of their buses, and murdered some of the escaping Crimeans, though most survived  some of them severely injured.

Also, early in March of 2014, shortly prior to Crimea's referendum on whether to remain within Ukraine, a Crimean who had served in Kiev as a prosecutor in the democratically elected Ukrainian national government that had just been overthrown, and who had likewise escaped from Kiev, was now safely back home in Crimea, and did a Crimean TV interview. This former prosecutor, Natalya Poklonskaya, took questions from the live TV audience. The interview was posted to youtube on 12 April 2014, and, as I described it, linking to the youtube, she proceeded there to:

inform her fellow Crimeans what she had seen happen during the overthrow, and why she couldnt, in good conscience, remain as a Ukrainian official in Kiev, and swear loyalty to the new Ukrainian Government. She had heard the chants of the Maidan protesters and smelled their piles of burning tires, and seen their marches in Kiev with nazi symbols and salutes, and she didnt want to become any part of that. So, she quit and was now unemployed back home in Crimea at the time of this interview.

The Obama Administration, in planning for the coup, had had polling done prior to the coup, throughout Ukraine, and supplemented the sample in Crimea because, naturally, taking control of the Sebastopol naval base was of particular concern to Obama.

USAID and the International Republican Institute of the Republican Party (not the National Democratic Institute, because funding from them might have suggested the White Houses backing) polled 500 Crimeans, during 16-30 May 2013. As I have reported elsewhere, the first stage of preparation for the upcoming coup was already active inside the U.S. Embassy in Kiev on 1 March 2013; and so, this was a very coordinated Obama Administration operation. (Most Washington-based accounts of the overthrow allege that it was democratic and started after Yanukovych rejected the EUs offer on 21 November 2013.) On 27 December 2014, I compared the results of that Crimean poll versus the results of a poll covering all areas of the former Ukraine, which was taken, also, for the U.S. government, but, to Obamas inevitable disappointment, neither poll found a U.S.-friendly, Ukraine-friendly, Russia-hostile, Crimea.

Gallup polled 500 Crimeans during May 16-30 in 2013, and found that only 15% considered themselves Ukrainian. 24% considered themselves Crimean. But 40% considered themselves Russian. Even before Obamas February 2014 coup which overthrew the Ukrainian President whom [nearly] 80% of Crimeans had voted for, the Crimean people overwhelmingly wanted to secede from Ukraine  and, especially now they did, right after the President for whom they had overwhelmingly voted, Viktor Yanukovych, had been overthrown in this extremely bloody coup. Furthermore, in April 2014, Gallup again polled Crimea, and they found that 71.3% of Crimeans viewed as Mostly positive the role of Russia there, and 4.0% viewed it as Mostly negative; by contrast, only 2.8% viewed the role of the United States there as Mostly positive, and a whopping 76.2% viewed it as Mostly negative. During the intervening year, Crimeans favorability toward America had plunged down to 2.8%, from its year-earlier 6%. Clearly, what Obama had done in Ukraine (his violent coup in Kiev) had antagonized the Crimeans. And, as if that werent enough, the 2014 poll provided yet more evidence: The 500 people that were sampled in Crimea were asked [and this is crucial] Please tell me if you agree or disagree: The results of the referendum on Crimeas status [whether to rejoin Russia] reflect the views of most people here. 82.8% said Agree. 6.7% said Disagree. In the hearts of the local residents, Crimea was still Russian territory, after an involuntary hiatus of 60 years; and so the Russian Government accepted them back again, into Russia  this was not as Corey Flintoff droned, Russias seizure of Crimea. It was Russias protection of them from the invasion of Ukraine by the United States in a bloody coup.

On 20 March 2015, even Kenneth Rapoza at the anti-Russian magazine Forbes, headlined, "One Year After Russia Annexed Crimea, Locals Prefer Moscow To Kiev, and he concluded that, "Despite huge efforts on the part of Kiev, Brussels, Washington and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the bulk of humanity living on the Black Sea peninsula believe the referendum to secede from Ukraine was legit. At some point, the West will have to recognize Crimeas right to self rule.

However, Barack Obama refuses to accept this. After all, if he were to accept it, then he would have to terminate the anti-Russia economic sanctions he initiated on the basis of Russias seizure of Crimea, and he would have to acknowledge that the massive U.S.-led military buildup of NATO forces on Russias borders in order to protect against Russias aggression needs to stop and, indeed, be withdrawn. But Obama doesnt accept any of this; to do that would negate the whole purpose of his coup, and even his anti-Russian policy, including, perhaps, his refusal to cooperate with Russian forces that are trying to stamp out jihadist groups in Syria.

On 6 February 2016, I headlined U.S. Now Overtly at War Against Russia and reported that both U.S. Defense Secretry Ashton Carter and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had announced the U.S. was initiating a quadrupling of U.S. troops and weaponry on Russias northwestern borders.

On 4 May 2016, Dmitriy Sedov headlined at Strategic Culture, "NATO to Form Allied Fleet in the Black Sea: Plans Fraught with Great Risks and he opened:

Finally, it has become clear what the world has been set to expect from the NATO summit to be held in Warsaw on July 8-9. Summing things up, it is clear that the Alliance is moving to the east. It plans to create a Black Sea allied fleet. It should be done quickly  the standing force should be formed by July.

Sedov closed by saying that Ukraines President Petro Poroshenko "is impatiently waiting for the July NATO summit. The event can ultimately do away with whatever is left of detente, reset etc. and bring the world back to the days of uncompromised mutual assured destruction.

There is a backstory to that, and, naturally, it goes back to Barack Obama:

As I have previously explained, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had told Poroshenko, on 12 May 2015, to stop saying that Ukraine would restart its war against the separatist Donbass region and would invade Crimea and retake that too; but, Kerrys subordinate, Hillary Clintons friend Victoria Nuland, told Poroshenko to ignore her boss on that, and then U.S. President Obama sided with Nuland and sidelined Kerry on Ukraine policy by making clear that he thought Poroshenko was right to insist upon retaking Crimea and re-invading Donbass.

In other words: the Minsk peace process for Ukraine, that had been initiated by Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, was grudgingly accepted by Obama but he really had no intention of its being anything more than a pause in the war, after which NATO itself would become engaged in facing-down Russia over its aggressive invasion and seizure of Crimea.

Games on for World War III, is Obamas message to Russian President Vladimir Putin. At some point, either the American side or the Russian-NATO-EU side will have to back down on the Crimea matter, or else the bombs, on one or both sides, will be released against the other. Kerry has been trying negotiation, but his real enemy is his own boss.

There is every indication that, if Hillary Clinton, a super-hawk against Russia, becomes the next U.S. President, then the policies that Obama has been implementing will be carried out. 2016 could thus turn out to be a very fateful election in the U.S., and not only for the U.S. but for the entire world.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of Theyre Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRISTS VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.








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A construction worker walked up to the reception desk at a doctor's office and was asked why he was there.

"I have shingles," he replied.

She asked for his name, address and insurance information and told him to have a seat.

Ten minutes later, a nurse called his name, took him back to the examining room and asked him again why he came to the office. Again, he answered, "I have shingles." She asked him some medical questions and told him to stay there until he could be seen.

Another fifteen minutes passed, and a different nurse entered the room, took his blood pressure and temperature, and asked him to change into a gown. She assured him the doctor would see him shortly.

Thirty minutes later, the doctor finally appeared. He said, "I understand you have shingles. Where are they?"

The construction worker replied, "Outside in my truck. Where do you want them? And can I get dressed now?"

Talk about a breakdown in communication!

It's been said that a message sent is only as good as the receiver's perception of it.

Verbal communications tend to create confusion and misunderstanding for a very simple reason: the 500 most commonly used words in the English language have more than 14,000 definitions.

To make communication really work, we have to make sure the people we're talking with understand what we are saying as well as we do. Communication requires both effective sending and receiving. To avoid a breakdown in communications, break down your message so that everyone can understand it.

The most basic yet crucial leadership skill is communication. From time to time, re-evaluate your performance in these fundamental areas: speaking, listening, writing, leading meetings and resolving conflict. Let's examine those one at a time.

Good verbal skills are essential. You have to be able to explain your requests and instructions, your ideas, and your strategies to people inside and outside your organization. Look for opportunities to hone your speaking skills at conferences, in meetings, and among friends.

Pay attention to the people around you. Repeat and paraphrase what they say to make sure you understand  and to show that you take their opinions seriously.

The paper trail you leave tells people a lot about how clearly you think and express yourself. Don't send even the simplest email without rereading it critically to be sure it says exactly what you want.

Sharpen your ability to keep meetings on track and elicit productive comments. You should encourage other people to share their ideas without letting discussions meander aimlessly. Remember that every meeting should begin with a solid agenda and conclude with a commitment for action. And it is helpful to circulate a written recap so that no details are overlooked and everyone has the same information.

Conflict can be subtle, but you still must defuse it if you want things to get done. You'll use a lot of the skills already discussed to encourage people to open up and clear the air about their disagreements. Maintaining good communication is most important when conflicting ideas arise. Don't shy away from the disagreements: often a combination of ideas can result in a great outcome.

Finally, never underestimate the value of not saying something. Silence can be a very effective form of communication, and can prevent problems. Even carefully chosen words can be turned against you. As the Greek philosopher Publius said, "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence."

Consider the challenge facing Thomas Edison. The Western Union Company wanted to buy his newly invented ticker. But Edison had no idea how much he should ask for it, so he requested a few days to think about the price.

Edison and his wife discussed the offer. He was stunned when his wife suggested he ask for $20,000, a huge price tag in those times. But he agreed to float that figure.

When he met with the Western Union representatives, he intended to ask for $20,000. But he just couldn't get the number out, and remained silent. After an uncomfortable silence, the Western Union rep finally said, "How about $100,000?" For the second time in a few days, Edison was stunned. His silence said much more than his words.

Mackay's Moral: Talk is cheap, but misunderstandings can be costly.
Other than "Sweet Dreams," one of my favorite Patsy Cline songs is "Leavin' On Your Mind," her last single before she died in a plane crash in March 1963.

"If you've got leavin' on your mind, tell me NOW, get it over  hurt me now, get it over."

I thought of those lyrics as I flipped through Midwest Living magazine's vacation issue listing the "Best of the Midwest" cities and travel destinations.

Indiana's third-largest city was as invisible as Willard Library's Grey Lady ghost.

"If you've got plans to ignore us, tell us NOW, get it over."

It's a shame because Evansville has nice museums and parks, a modern arena, a high-tech planetarium, a zoo, even a warship and casino.

But perhaps "nice" is the problem. Missing is what's known in the news business as a HOOK  something so unusual or eye-catching it becomes your brand.

For instance, Jasper, has its excursion train and Owensboro, Kentucky, an attention-grabbing riverfront park. In West Baden, there's a domed hotel from 1902. Columbus has buildings by famous architects and a Greek soda fountain. And we all know what's in Santa Claus: Holiday World.

Even Metropolis at the tip of Southern Illinois bills itself as the Home of Superman with a June festival, Super Museum and newspaper dubbed the Planet.

You can develop a helluva campaign around a hook.

Why, if Evansville had a P-47 fighter plane and a World War II Museum to go with its LST 325, I could see us becoming "The World War II City."

But what do I know? My past ideas to give Evansville some oomph  a lighthouse restaurant on the waterfront, a Downtown musical bell tower, the return of Thunder on the Ohio  fell as flat as New Coke in the 1980s.

But since I have a mind for fun, here's a tongue-in-cheek suggestion.

Let's become Home of the Underdog, celebrating the long shots, dark horses and sleepers of the world. After all, this is the Year of the Political Underdog. How many Americans a year ago gave Donald Trump a snowball's chance?

Plus, if Metropolis can have Superman to save the day, why can't our hero be that 1960s cartoon character Underdog?

Remember, he spoke in rhyme, ducked into a phone booth to transform from shoeshine boy to superhero dog, then crashed sheepishly into something. He was ahead of his time, swallowing a super energy pill (don't know if it was blue) that made him strong, gave him strong breath and who knows what else.

It'd be a long shot, but we could invite Tom Hanks to return to the city where he filmed "A League of Their Own" 25 years ago. It'd make up for the insults his co-star Madonna slung at us. And Hanks knows about underdogs, playing the quintessential one in "Forrest Gump."

I know what you're thinking. We are NOT an underdog, despite our bad habit of naysaying. Interstate 69 is open after just 50 years of wishing, the med school and convention hotel are underway, the zoo's planning a carousel and a penguin exhibit and a new casino will bring the LST dock closer to Downtown.

That's swell, but at the end of the day does it feel like we're Indiana's third-largest city? Or that Evansville is what outsiders associate with Southern Indiana?

Several decades ago, after Indiana's state boundary dispute with Kentucky was settled in court  giving Hoosiers at least part of the Ohio River  an official declared: "There will NEVER be an Evansville, Kentucky."

Well, of course, being part of Kentucky would be a sweet dream for some of you, but I prefer to see Evansville evolve into a more interesting Indiana city.

So put on your thinking caps while I hunt for my Underdog cape.
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Alzheimer's Association Program: "Legal and Financial Planning for Alzheimer's Disease," 6-8 p.m. Tuesday at the Newburgh Senior Center, 529 Jefferson St. ($5 donation suggested). Registration required by calling 800-272-3900.

Welcome to Medicare Seminar: 4 p.m. Wednesday at St. Mary's Senior Connection, 951 S. Hebron Ave., Suite C (between Bellemeade and Washington avenues) adjacent to the Senior Connection Office. The seminar will be presented by Gina Downs, director of St. Mary's Senior Connection. It is free but registration is required. Call St. Mary's Senior Connection at 812-473-7271 or toll-free at 800-258-7610 for reservations and directions.

NAMI Dubois County family support group: Meeting 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday at Jasper Memorial Hospital.

Alzheimer's Association Program: Living with Alzheimer's," 10 a.m. to noon May 24 at the Alzheimer's Association, 701 N. Weinbach Ave., Suite 510. Registration required by calling 800-272-3900.

FA (Families Anonymous): a 12-step fellowship for the family and friends of those individuals with drug, alcohol or related behavioral issues. Meetings are at 10 a.m. Saturdays at Methodist Temple, 2109 Lincoln Ave. Use the Kelsey Avenue entrance, second floor. Information: 812-550-5777.

Bereavement support group: Meeting 5:30-7 p.m. the fourth Tuesday of each month in the large group meeting room, second floor of Central Library, 200 SE MLK Blvd.

Men's bereavement support group: Meeting 9-10:30 a.m. the second Monday of each month in Room 204 at Deaconess VNA Plus, 610 E. Walnut St.

Support group for bipolar/manic-depressive disorder: Meeting 7 p.m. the first and third Wednesday of each month, Kempf Bipolar Wellness Center, third floor of St. Mary's Rehabilitation Institute, 3700 Washington Ave. Information: 812-485-4934.

Survivors of Suicide support group: Meeting 6:30 p.m. the first and third Monday of each month, Methodist Temple, 2109 Lincoln Ave. Information: Mental Health America at 812-426-2640.

Mending Hearts pregnancy loss support group: Meeting 6:30 p.m. the first Tuesday of each month, Gift Conference Room, off the lobby of St. Mary's Hospital for Women & Children, 3700 Washington Ave. Information: 812-485-4204.

Men's cancer support group: Meeting 5:30 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month, St. Mary's Epworth Crossing Community Conference Room, 100 St. Mary's Epworth Crossing, Newburgh. Information: 812-485-5725.

Stroke support group: Meeting 10 a.m. the fourth Wednesday of each month, St. Mary's Community Education Room at Washington Square Mall, 5011 Washington Ave. Information: 812-485-5607.

ALS support group: Meeting 6:30 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month, Meeting Room E, Deaconess Gateway Hospital. The support group is for patients, caregivers and survivors who have lost someone to Lou Gehrig's disease.

Women's cancer support group: Meeting 5:30 p.m. the second and fourth Monday of each month, St. Mary's Epworth Crossing Community Conference Room. Information: 812-485-5725.

Pulmonary fibrosis support group: Meeting 4 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month, Room 1420, Deaconess Hospital, 600 Mary St. Information: 812-450-6000 or deaconess.com/calendar.

COPD/asthma support group: Meeting 4 p.m. the fourth Tuesday of each month, Room 1420, Deaconess Hospital, 600 Mary St. Information: 812-450-6000 or deaconess.com/calendar.

Parkinson's support group: Meeting at 5:30 p.m. the first Tuesday of each month, Room 350, Deaconess Physician Center, 600 Mary St. Information: 812-450-6000 or deaconess.com/calendar.

Tri-State Multiple Sclerosis Association support group meetings: 10 a.m. the second Saturday of each month, Tri-State MS Association Office, 971 S. Kenmore Drive, Evansville (contact Nita Ruxer at 812-479-3544 or Sharon Omer at 270-333-4701); 10 a.m. the fourth Saturday of each month, Gibson General Hospital, fifth floor, first room on the right, 1808 Sherman Drive, Princeton, Indiana (contact Alice Burkhart at 812-782-3735); 11 a.m. the second Tuesday of each month, Twilight Towers, in the cafeteria, 1648 10th St., Tell City (contact Terri Hasty at 812-649-4013 or Gayle Taylor 812-719-2417); 10 a.m. the third Saturday of each month, Daviess Community Hospital, Washington, Indiana (contact Cindy Kalberer at 812-254-6735 or Fran Neal at 812-259-1565); 10 a.m. the first Saturday of each month, Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, 2360 Green River Road, Henderson, Kentucky, (contact Meg Burnley at 270-826-9507 or Debbie Whittington at 270-827-8298); 6 p.m. the second Monday of each month, Owensboro Health Healthpark, 1006 Ford Ave, Owensboro, Kentucky; and 11 a.m. the first Saturday of each month, Fairfield Memorial Hospital in the board room of Horizon Clinic, 303 NW 11th St., Fairfield, Illinois (contact Kathie Hill at 618-847-8452).

Compiled by Leah Ward, leah.ward@courierpress.com.
SHARE Brett Woodrow Schutz

By Max Roll of the Courier and Press

A man who crashed a truck into a utility pole is to blame for a power outage at an Evansville subdivision, police said.

According to a Vanderburgh Sheriff's news release, Brett W. Schutz, 53, of Evansville, crashed a black 2004 Chevrolet Silverado while driving on Petersburgh Road around 10:50 p.m.

Schutz walked away from the scene before a deputy arrived, according to the release. He was found at his residence in nearby Eagle Crossing subdivision. Police said his blood alcohol content level was 0.16 percent.

Power went out at Carringotn Meadows subdivision for nearly an hour as a result of the wreck, according to Vectren.
Mary Hollingsworth is drinking water branch chief of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.(Photo: Provided by IDEM)

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Mary Hollingsworth, the state's top regulator of drinking water, took special interest in at least one item from a recent survey of Indiana water systems and their lead service lines.

In Winchester, an estimated 45 percent of service lines  the spokes that deliver water from the main to customers  are made of lead or have lead components. Lead is a health risk, especially for babies, young children and pregnant mothers.

Winchester is Hollingsworth's hometown.

"I drank that water for years," said Hollingsworth, drinking water branch chief of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. "So I understand it's important to replace these lead lines."

But the extent to which federal government regulations should push water systems to replace lead lines, often 60 or more years old, is a matter of debate. That's not to mention the question of who's going to pay.

Water systems and state governments will have to come to grips with the issue in the wake of lead-poisoned water in Flint, Mich., and with new federal regulations on lead in drinking water expected next year. That's part of what motivated IDEM to do the survey on lead service lines now.

IndyStar obtained responses to the survey  possibly unique among states  through a public records request. An analysis of 91 of the state's largest water systems showed an estimated 8 percent of customers had service lines made of lead or lead components. That's almost 100,000 customers, and the total in Indiana could be significantly higher, because IndyStar looked at only the larger water systems.

The highest percentage was more than half of the service lines at City of Decatur Water. A water system in Fort Wayne, Three Rivers Filtration Plant, reported 101,000 service connections  28,000 of which contain lead.

Citizens Water, which serves Indianapolis, reported 23,000 lead service lines, 6 percent of its service connections.

But the severity of the immediate threat is in question.

Indiana American Water, which operates Winchester's water system, noted that the city's drinking water registered below the federal benchmark, or "action level," for lead in all five government-mandated tests since 2004.

That benchmark, however, is not a cutoff for what's considered safe. The federal Environmental Protection Agency hasn't told states what amount of lead it considers an acute health risk. The "action level"  15 parts per billion  is only a regulatory trigger for corrosion control and additional testing. The EPA and scientists say no level of lead is completely safe. The Food and Drug Administration's requirement for bottled water is a maximum of 5 parts per billion of lead.

Yanna Lambrinidou of Virginia Tech University has criticized federal lead-testing standards as lax and easily manipulated, giving a false sense of security. Regardless of federal test results, she wrote as part of an EPA advisory committee, people in homes with lead service lines are "at a daily risk of exposure to high levels of lead in their water."

Hollingsworth said IDEM has not yet analyzed its survey results. Reacting to IndyStar's analysis, including the 8 percent of service lines containing lead, she noted that anti-corrosion chemicals can mitigate the threat.

"Unless a lot of money is provided for utilities to replace the lead lines, we will not have 0 percent," Hollingsworth said. "I don't like 8 percent; I would like 0. But I don't know if that's attainable now."

Complex, expensive problem

No regulators or providers IndyStar spoke with favored the status quo.

Joe Loughmiller, a spokesman for Indiana American Water, which operates 31 water systems in Indiana, said the company is "working toward establishing programs to implement full lead service line replacements." It also is participating in a national effort to "evaluate and address this issue on a broader scale."

Lead does not get into drinking water at a treatment plant or through water mains. Service lines can be a source. So can a building's plumbing.

Dan Considine, a spokesman for Citzens, said the company does not have "a comprehensive plan" to replace lead service lines. But he noted one of the things that makes it a complex issue.

"The removal of lead service lines often involves property issues that are not under Citizens' direct control," he said.

Part of the service line is owned by the water system and part is the responsibility of the property owner. Where that line is drawn varies. Generally, the water company's responsibility is the part that goes from the main to the property line. The rest is the property owner's responsibility. The IDEM survey included a question about the laws governing the issue in each community.

Adding to the complexity of the issue is cost. Replacing all lead service lines would be a massive and expensive undertaking. Many homeowners would not be willing to pay. And a partial replacement of service lines could make the problem worse by breaking lead loose from pipes.

The city of Milwaukee estimated that replacing its 70,000 lead pipes would cost $511 million to $756 million.

Madison, Wis., is the only major American utility to have replaced all of its lead service lines. The city started in 2001, and it took more than a decade. The city picked up half of the cost for homeowners up to $1,000. Lansing, Mich., is completing a similar effort.

Adding to the complexity is the poor or nonexistent record-keeping when lead service lines were installed decades ago. Water systems can't be sure how many lead service lines are in their system or where they're located. They're often discovered while fixing a break in the system.

The IDEM survey had a question asking about the source of water systems' information on lead service lines.

The answer to that question from Jasper Municipal Water, "No records  just past repairs," was typical of many systems.

Indiana American-Johnson County listed this as a source: "Retired employees."

'A very slow process'

So how do people know if their drinking water is being delivered by a lead service line?

Boston has a map. Properties with lead service lines are shaded in yellow.

In Indiana and most other places, it isn't as easy as an Internet search, with customer privacy cited as the overriding consideration.

"We are able to inform customers about the service lines leading to their property if they request this information," Loughmiller of Indiana American said. "However, we do not disclose this on a wider scale as it is considered customer-sensitive information."

Considine of Citizens cited Indiana public records law, which gives utilities the discretion to decide whether to release utility customer addresses. The law does not, however, prohibit release of such information.

"We have always maintained that it is inappropriate to release any personal information or details about a customers utility account to the general public," Considine said, adding that individual customers can contact the company to get information about their specific service line.

IDEM also cited public records law as guiding its actions on public disclosure of lead service lines. But Hollingsworth said the department takes the issue seriously and will soon analyze the survey results, giving extra attention to the places with large percentages of lead service lines.

"I have to see where their lead levels are at (from federal tests)," she said. "If they do corrosion control to help stop the lead, and their results are way below the action level, then they're doing what they need to do. Eventually, they will start replacing those lines."

Hollingsworth said IDEM's role would be to lobby for federal money for replacement of lead service lines and to help speed up the process of gaining state and local permits to do the work.

Otherwise, the lead service lines will remain, maybe for more decades.

"When they break, they're going to replace them," Hollingsworth said of water systems. "When they need to have meters replaced, they'll replace those lead lines. And it's going to be a very slow process."
Investigators look at a squad car in the 500 block of South Vine in Mahomet, Ill., on Sunday, May 8, 2016, after a Mahomet police officer was shot there Saturday night. A Champaign County judge on Sunday issued an arrest warrant for Dracy "Clint" Pendleton, accusing him of aggravated battery with a firearm. Authorities say Pendleton fled the area in a stolen pickup truck., Police were not releasing the name of the injured officer, but he was released from a local hospital on Sunday morning. (John Dixon/The News-Gazette via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

By Len Wells of the Courier and Press

The suspect wanted in connection with the shooting of a Mahomet, Ill. police officer May 7 in Champaign County, Ill. and the wounding of an FBI agent Sunday morning is dead.

Darcy "Clint" Pendleton, 35 of Bellflower, Ill. was found dead inside an abandoned house near the Sulphur Springs General Baptist Church in rural Pope County early Sunday morning.

Illinois State Police Captain Bill Sons spoke briefly to reporters Sunday afternoon, giving only a few details about the death of Pendleton.

"Darcy 'Clint' Pendleton is no longer a threat," said Sons. "At approximately 12:09 Sunday morning, SWAT officers observed Pendleton running south from the Sulphur Springs Baptist Church cemetery. He was armed with a rifle and bandoleer. He ran into a dense woods where he was tracked about a half mile to an abandoned house. At approximately 5 a.m., Pendleton opened fire, striking a member of an FBI SWAT team."

The FBI agent, not identified, was flown from the scene to Deaconess Hospital in Evansville and later transferred to a hospital in St. Louis. "The FBI agent will be OK," said Sean Cox, Special Agent in Charge of the Springfield, Ill. Bureau. "We are incredibly grateful that the Mahomet police officer is going to be OK and the FBI agent will be OK." The name of the agent has not been released.

After the FBI agent was shot, a massive influx of additional police resources poured into the area, setting up a perimeter around the house where Pendleton was believed to be holed up. "We sent in a remote control robot and found Pendleton's body in a room on the second story. We eventually confirmed his identity." The cause of Pendleton's death has not been released.

The manhunt for Pendleton started the night of Saturday, May 7. Police say the suspect was pulled over by a Mahomet police officer in front of his home for a traffic infraction. A confrontation ensued and the Mahomet officer attempted to shoot Pendleton with a Tazer. "Pendleton pulled a gun and shot the officer," said Sons. "Pendleton then went into his home and retrieved a firearm and ammunition."

From there, police say Pendleton drove to a nearby quarry where he stole a pickup and drove to Pope County where he was spotted by a local resident last Sunday night. The first confirmed sighting of Pendleton came around 9:15 last Monday night. Police were told that Pendleton had apparently suffered a gunshot wound to his neck from the exchange of gunfire with the Mahomet officer. He had shaved his beard, trimmed his hair.

Authorities in Champaign County said Pendleton previously lived in Pope County. Court records show that in February of 2012 he was arrested in Pope County after he threatened an individual with a gun. He was initially charged with aggravated assault with a firearm, stalking and four counts of criminal trespass. In November of 2012, he entered a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of aggravated assault of a person over age 60 and drew a 30 day jail sentence and was ordered to pay $3,000 in fines, fees and court costs.

Illinois State Police say their investigation into Pendleton's death is ongoing. The area where his body was found will remain sealed off until at least Monday night, police said. FBI officials said a team from Washington D.C. will also join the investigation into the shooting of one of their agents.
SHARE Terry Tyre, photo from 2009, provided by Warrick County Sheriff's Office

By Shannon Hall of the Courier and Press

A Boonville man was charged with multiple sex offenses in Warrick County last week.

Terry L. Tyre, 41, was charged with two counts of child molesting, two counts of sexual misconduct and one count of rape.

Tyre currently has a warrant out for his arrest with a $25,000 cash bond set. No court date has been scheduled.

The alleged victim in the case told Warrick County deputies that Tyre had sex with her May 10, but it wasn't the first time he's touched her inappropriately, according to court documents. The girl said she reported that Tyre fondled her in middle school as well, documents state.

She said that Tyre told her that if she didn't tell anyone, he would buy her cigarettes, according to the probable cause affidavit.

Tyre told deputies that he's never touched the girl in a sexual nature, but has bought her cigarettes.
SHARE

By John Bacon, USA TODAY

Paramedics in Boca Raton rushed a beachgoer to the hospital with a two-foot-long nurse shark clinging to her arm after efforts to disengage it failed.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that the 23-year-old woman calmly walked up to a lifeguard station Sunday with the shark's jaws locked on her arm. Her boyfriend was helping hold the shark.

Boca Raton Ocen Rescue told the newspaper that paramedics were called, but were unable to free her arm, even after the shark had died. So they loaded woman and shark into the ambulance and head for Boca Raton Regional Hospital.

"I have never seen anything like it," Ocean Rescue Capt. Clint Tracy Tracy told the Sun-Sentinel. "Never even heard of anything like this."

The woman was treated for her injuries and released.

Nurse sharks, common off of Florida's coast, are about 1 foot in length at birth and generally grow to about 7 feet long. The maximum length recorded is 13 feet, according to the National Park Service.

The Park Service says people swim near nurse sharks every day without realizing it and without incident. "Attacks" are rare and typically are the result of the shark being bothered with a hook, spear or hand.

"The bite reflex is such that it may be some minutes before a quietly re-immersed nurse shark will relax and release its tormenter," the park service says. "The small teeth seldom penetrate deeply but are razor sharp. Holding still reduces damage to both shark and man. Leaving sharks alone is the best tactic.

Joshua Chavers, who works for WPTV in West Palm Beach, according to Twitter, tweeted a close-up of the shark.
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The new Ovation of the Seas from Royal Caribbean International made its maiden call to the Port of Piraeus, and was welcomed by the Secretary General of Greek National Tourism Organisation Dimitris Trifonopoulos and other cruise stakeholders.

During the formal ceremony welcoming the ship, Piraeus Port General Manager Stavros Hatzakos exchange a plaque and gifts (books) with the captain of the ship.
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NEW HAVEN  The bankrupt developer of two downtown Farrel sites in Ansonia claims he has a possible deal to revitalize the project.

Moustapha Diakhate told Holley Claiborn, the U.S. Trustee in his bankruptcy case, that an agreement to pay off his mortgage and redevelop the site could come as soon as this week.

I expect an offer to come in the next couple of days, Diakhate told Claiborn under oath during a creditors meeting Monday in his U.S. Bankruptcy Court case.

Any deal you want to make requires Bankruptcy (Court) approval, Claiborn informed him. There needs to be an end game to this.

Afterward, Diakhate repeated his plan to Hearst Connecticut Media, saying if he gets the new money, I would develop the buildings as planned.

Those plans include his firm, Washington Management, redeveloping the vacant former Farrel Processing Laboratory at 501 E. Main St. and the current Farrel offices at 65 Main St. into 93 luxury lofts and nine business spaces.

Claiborn continued the meeting to May 24, at which time she ordered Diakhate to bring documentation of several items.

Claiborn asked for proof that Diakhate closed a Washington Management Bank of America account; obtained specialized debtor-in-possession checks to pay bills; transferred two other former Farrel properties in Ansonia from Washington Management to another business he owns; documentation on a $152,000 lien agreement with a debtor; income and expense reports for March and April on the two buildings; payment of his quarterly Bankruptcy Court fee and a written agreement allowing Shaw Growth Ventures to collect rents on the foreclosed properties. Diakhate had been allowing the latter without receiving Bankruptcy Court approval.

On four occasions, Milford Superior Court Judge John Moran approved Shaws foreclosure on the two properties in lieu of more than $2.5 million it is owed. Diakhate filed for bankruptcy in March.

Absent from Mondays meeting were representatives of the city of Ansonia, which holds nearly $2 million in blight liens on the vacant former Farrel Processing Labatory. Under the law, the citys liens take precedence over Shaws claim to reccover its unpaid $2 million mortgage.

Diakhate said he offered the city $200,000 to pay off those liens but was turned down.

The two buildings are part of the four Farrel complexes Washington Management purchased in downtown Ansonia in January 2013.

Now known as Farrel-Pomini, the iconic century-old Valley manufacturer plans to move from its old 65 Main St. site into new headquarters being built in the Fountain Lake Industrial Park.

For nearly an hour Monday afternoon, Claiborn questioned Diakhate about his delays and lack of filings.

She pointed out that he has not filed monthly income and expense reports or paid the quarterly bankruptcy fee.

Im not really impressed with the answers Im getting, she said at one point. This process needs to move along. ... You cant sit there and do nothing.

mmayko@ctpost.com
BRIDGEPORT  Nearly the entire senior class at Kolbe Cathedral High School was told to go home and change Monday when they came to school dressed in pajamas.

Some seniors already had a change of clothes with them. Other seniors complied with the order, while still others just stayed home and were marked absent for the day.

Student-athletes who failed to return to school were not allowed to compete in sports Monday afternoon under school and South-West Conference rules.

Each of our high schools handles senior prank day in their own way, said Brian Wallace, a spokesman for the diocese.

Wallace said parents were emailed to give them them a heads up about the plans, although the event still came as a surprise to some.

Despite what some students have claimed, school officials said they are not taking away any senior privileges or class events as a result of the prank.

Jo-Anne Jakab, president of the school, said Kolbe Cathedral will still have its traditional senior breakfast for its 71 graduating seniors and seniors will still have their class trip to Port Jefferson on Long Island.

No activities have been canceled, she said.

Seniors wanted to go to Times Square in New York for their class trip, but the idea didnt gain any traction with the administration.

Yasmine Rivera, a senior from Bridgeport, said the class had been promised a dress down day, but the administration never followed through on the idea.

Pajama day, she said, seemed like a playful thing to do.

Nobodys pajamas were inappropriate, Rivera said.
The Sherman man who was arrested last week after 48 years on the run is out on bail and talking to the media.

Robert Stackowitz spoke to CBS This Morning in an interview that aired Monday morning.
What a shame that the governor and the legislators of Connecticut decided to reduce the deficit by eliminating a program that assists veterans and their families.

The Military Support Program provides free confidential mental health services to the families of military service members. It also provides monthly support groups to military families and free counseling services.

Anyone who has watched the news would know that veteran suicides and mental health issues are at an all time high as we continue to see the effects of the 10-plus years war in Afghanistan and the continued deployment of military into the Middle East.

The Military Support Program was started after there were a number of suicides of National Guard members in Connecticut and it was determined that the services that were available were not adequate.

In addition, the program embedded therapists in the National Guard units themselves to provide support to the members serving our country.

This program is only $900,000 and will barely make a dent in the deficit.

At the same time that we are eliminating a program that benefits our military active and veterans and their families, we are finding ways to provide in-state tuition to illegal immigrants so they can attend our state colleges.

It would seem that some legislators have their priorities mixed up.

I am asking our legislators to reconsider and retain or reinstate this valuable program for our military and their families.

Ed Marczyszak

Seymour
Pa. is about to vote. Here's what to know about voting and ballot access in 2022
Takeaways from the DeSantis-Crist debate

Democrat Charlie Crist came out swinging against Republican incumbent Ron DeSantis in the only televised debate in the Florida gubernatorial race.
The power suit has moved out of the office and onto the street in a variety of colours with the celebrity support of Julia Roberts and Cate Blanchett.

by Damien Woolnough
Sir John Chilcot whose commission was, it is worth recalling, Gordon Browns version of the EU referendum

The Chilcot Commission was, it is worth recalling, Gordon Browns version of the EU referendum. Back in June 2009, the skeletal claw of the Iraq War clung grimly to Labours ankle: the party could not rid itself of internal recrimination, accusation and counter-accusation, engrained division and lingering bile.

It could not move on. It needed a way out. So, under the faux-statesmanlike cover of producing a marker for history, Mr Brown announced an independent inquiry into the conflict  just as David Cameron has landed us with a national poll on Britains EU membership, ostensibly to give the country an overdue say but in reality to tackle his own partys monomaniacal obsession with Brussels.

Its healthy and British to view both mens motives with cynicism  Mr Brown, that strange human cocktail of indecision and rage, was desperate to distance himself from his hated predecessor and, of course, to boot an awkward issue into the long grass ahead of the 2010 election.

Mr Cameron, having failed to win an overall majority in that same election and pressured by the rise of Ukip, perhaps for the duration of his premiership felt unable to resist the impassioned demands of his Eurosceptic backbenchers and party members that they finally get their chance to deliver Britains own Independence Day.

But while the eternal politicians art of saving ones own skin was certainly at play, its also reasonable to agree that, just as Britain deserved a forensic investigation into a complex and controversial military adventure in which the outcome did not match the initial aim, the country likewise deserves a vote on its longstanding membership of a complex and controversial supranational institution where the outcome has not matched the initial aim.

Arguments

We will know the result of the latter on June 23 and the former shortly afterwards, on July 6  the order of scheduling is, of course, entirely intentional. But will either settle the respective arguments?

The EU debate seems only to have inflamed tempers and dramatically tribalised the issue. As with the Scottish independence referendum, a Leave vote will be a once-and-for-all verdict, while a Remain vote will be seen by its opponents merely as victory delayed (this, by the way, is a compelling argument against referendums  they exacerbate existing enmities and decide nothing).

We might expect the publication of Chilcot to occupy different territory: that it will carry with it the satisfying weight of finality. The Commission took evidence over years from prime ministers, cabinet members, civil servants, intelligence officials, diplomats and military top brass.

The report itself runs to a few million words and is said when piled up to stand taller than the average British male. It will have been seven years in the making (lasting almost as long as the war itself), a period during which one commissioner has died and another retired. Although the Commission faces some limitations on July 6, such as only being allowed to publish the gist or at best redacted versions of conversations between Tony Blair and George Bush in the run-up to the 2003 invasion, they are relatively few.

It seems one-eyed to argue that the report will not be as close to exhaustive and definitive as we will ever see or might reasonably expect. It will also, surely, be supremely daft to dismiss it on the day either as an establishment whitewash or to claim it represents a savage attack on Mr Blair. It will be neither of those things. That is not its purpose.

Rather, it will be a carefully pieced together, forensic narrative of how Britain went to war and why, as told by all the main players involved.

Memos, advice notes, intelligence briefings, emails and foreign communiques have been scoured. Judgements by those who were empowered to make them have been measured against the information they used to do so. Key participants have been challenged. Were the right questions asked? Were the responses rigorously probed and tested? Could a different path have been followed on this or that occasion? Had it been, would it have made any difference to the outcome?

Then, the harder calls. How much weight can be attached to the unknowable? When is it right and fair to criticise? After all, the Commissions task is not to demonise individuals who found themselves faced with horrendously difficult choices, but to discover what went on and draw conclusions that may help future governments perform better.

Im sure the report will make some sharp points and leave some bruises. One of the reasons publication has been delayed has been for the Maxwellisation process to take place, where those who will be criticised in the final draft are shown that criticism in advance and invited to respond.

I havent spoken to anyone on either side of the Iraq debate who expects Tony Blair to have avoided this fate, or similarly the spy chiefs whose intelligence on weapons of mass destruction played such an important role in taking Britain into the conflict and which later turned out to have been heavily flawed.

But lets be honest: its unlikely Chilcot will change many, if any, minds on Iraq. We will see a perfect example of confirmation bias. Those who were against the war will remain so and home in on the bits that back their case.

Those who are still convinced that, despite the messy aftermath, it was worth removing Saddam Hussein will doubtless find succour in the relevant passages. The newspapers and the columnists will foam and rant, according to their preadopted positions. Twitter will go bananas. Mr Blair, whose lavish post-prime ministerial lifestyle has attracted staggering levels of vitriol, will provide his usual easy target.

Mr Blair could have pulled Britain back on a number of occasions and refused to join the invasion, but the US would have cracked on anyway

As someone who at the time supported and wrote in favour of the invasion, I continue to wrestle with my conscience all these years on. Theres no point in pretending that the war went to plan, although, as Mike Tyson says, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Theres surely very little new to say about the terrible post-war chaos other than to fill in some detail.

Rigorous

The dogs in the street know that not enough preparation for the aftermath was done in advance  but then the American neo-conservatives who engineered the war had little interest in reconstruction.

Yes, Mr Blair should have pushed George Bush harder on this aspect, as Margaret Thatcher, with her rigorous eye for detail, might have done  but equally, would she have been as insistent on pursuing UN authority, the lack of which still leads opportunists such as Alex Salmond to demand Mr Blair faces war crimes charges?

Mr Blair should have pushed George Bush harder regarding the aftermath

Mr Blair could have pulled Britain back on a number of occasions and refused to join the invasion, but the US would have cracked on anyway, with potentially grave consequences for the special relationship and for the broader international compact. Where do right and wrong really lie?

I think I still cant be sorry Saddams in his grave. In 2003, we had the prime minister we had, with his strengths and flaws, doing what he thought was right  indeed, we elected him again in 2005, with another big majority.

We might have had a different PM, with different strengths and flaws, making different mistakes, but we didnt. Hell, we might have had a different president, had Floridas hanging chads not played so vital a part in the 2000 US election. Whos to say what that would have meant?

We can chase our tails on all of this for ever. But for all the murky political calculations that led to the Chilcot Commissions creation, the most important lesson lies in its inherent nobility. It tells you that we in Britain are our own toughest and most rigorous critics; that we hold ourselves accountable for the outcome of our actions and try to learn, so that next time, if we fail, we fail better.
Hes only been in the job a week but a power base is already being built around London Mayor Sadiq Khan as his supporters hope to see him replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader as soon as possible.

With a personal mandate of more than 1.3 million votes  ten times more than Corbyn got in last years leadership election, even with the help of all those hard-Left infiltrators  Khan is the rising hope of the large rump within the party who think Corbyn is a disaster.

Donors who backed the party under Tony Blair have noted the Mayors emollient words about the former PM and Blairs wide-ranging electoral appeal  and Khans distancing of himself from Corbyn.

Hes only been in the job a week but a power base is already being built around London Mayor Sadiq Khan as his supporters hope to see him replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader as soon as possible

Cleverly, Khan is also busy hiring some of Labours brightest (and most disillusioned) staff to work for his City Hall machine.

Im told he will create a Labour government in exile, in an attempt to show voters across the country how Left-wing policies can attract middle class and ethnically diverse voters.

Khans supporters have pointed out he will be up for re-election as mayor in May 2020, the same date as the next General Election.

This offers them an intriguing opportunity. Under one scenario being discussed, Corbyn could be toppled in 2019  which would allow Khan to be parachuted into a safe Labour parliamentary seat  just in time for a leadership contest to choose Jezzas successor.

A bottle of champagne at a House of Lords charity auction last week was signed by Jeremy Corbyn  triggering much merriment about him being a champagne socialist. However, it sold for just 20  half the price it would have cost in a shop!

Trouble brews for Goofy George

How apt that a brewery in EU-worshipping Chancellor George Osbornes constituency has created a new beer to honour King Canute, who hilariously showed that he could not hold back the advancing tide.

To mark 1,000 years since Canute became King of England, Tatton Brewery is making Knutty King (described as an English Mild Ale). What next? A continental-style lager called Goofy George?

How apt that a brewery in EU-worshipping Chancellor George Osbornes constituency has created a new beer to honour King Canute, who hilariously showed that he could not hold back the advancing tide

On the same day that applications were invited for the role of Lord Speaker  as Baroness DSouza is stepping down (salary 101,038 plus a free suite of apartments in the Palace of Westminster)  one contender, former Tory MP bore Lord Cormack, was spotted snoozing in the chamber. His braces were under some strain because of the size of his girth.

Baroness Anne Jenkin has been encouraging her Tory MP husband Bernard to support her latest pet cause: a new app called Gone for Good that allows people to donate unwanted items to charity. The main thing that anti-Brussels Bernard wants is the UK to be Gone for Good from the EU.

A mischievous riposte from the independent-minded Tory MP Michael Fabricant to David Camerons absurd warning of the danger of World War III if we vote to leave the EU.

He asked whether Commons Speaker John Bercow had made provision for fire service or missiles of defence  should war immediately break out.

He added, entertainingly: I see myself in a tin hat manning the stirrup pumps on the roof of Westminster Hall as a fire-watcher.

The Church of England is advertising for a national vocations adviser to help encourage more people to take holy orders. Astonishingly, the role does not have an occupational requirement to be a Christian.

Prince Charless wardrobe is famous for its patched suits and multi-repaired shoes

A smart move for Charles?

Prince Charless wardrobe  famous for its patched suits and multi-repaired shoes  could cut more of a dash after the appointment of his new communications secretary, Julian Payne  Burberrys ex-head of PR.

Paynes also worked for the BBC where he had to play a very tricky role during the Corporations debacle over vile DJ Jimmy Savile.

After BBC2s Newsnight mysteriously dropped an investigation into Saviles evil activities, an independent inquiry concluded that BBC bosses were out of control and mired by rivalries and infighting.

As head of press at the time, Payne was accused of dirty tricks  suggesting that Newsnights editor should be made a scapegoat.
Cleared: Tiffany Carter was acquitted by a jury in little more than an hour but will have to live with the the consequences of the police's obsessive pursuit of 'historic' child abuse

Lurid and salacious court cases have always compelled the public's attention. Much of the nation will therefore have been gripped by the recent trial of a woman accused of paying a 12-year-old boy for sex  with Mars Bars as the currency  while working decades ago as a matron at a boarding school in Eastbourne.

So for day after day we saw photographs alongside court reports of the now 46-year-old Tiffany Carter entering and leaving Lewes Crown Court, beneath such headlines as 'Private school matron 'paid 12-year-old boy for sex with MARS BARS' '.

But last week the jury took little more than an hour to acquit Ms Carter, who wept as the foreman read out the verdict.

He and his fellow jurors had heard the judge point out that while the 'victim' claimed the abuse at the school had carried on for six months, records showed that Ms Carter had worked there, when she was just 17, for only four weeks in September and October 1986.

They also heard that the 'victim' and his mother had altered their accounts when it became clear there was documentary evidence refuting the original claim about the period the abuse purportedly occurred.

And they heard from Ms Carter's lawyer that the alleged victim made the claim to police 'because he is suing the prep school for 120,000 compensation . . . he knows perfectly well his solicitor called the police to use it as a stepping stone to try to make a civil claim'.

It would be nice to think Ms Carter left Lewes Crown Court with her reputation intact. But that would not be true.

Millions of people will have picked up on the sensational claims as the prosecution made their case, but might not have maintained sufficient attention to know that the jury rapidly rejected its credibility.

This nightmare for Ms Carter began in October 2014, when she was arrested: DC Phil Cracknell of Sussex Police told the court that she looked 'shocked' when he went to arrest her at her home. Why wouldn't she? Especially as the arrest related to what she was supposed to have done almost 30 years earlier, as a 17-year-old.

This is just the latest legal fiasco resulting from the police's response to the recognition that Jimmy Savile had abused countless young people for decades, with impunity.

Scroll down for video

Painfully aware that they had failed to take seriously accusations against the television presenter during his lifetime, the police called on anyone who thought themselves to be a victim of 'historic' abuse to come forward, and declared that all those who did so 'will be believed'. Ms Carter's accuser  who, of course, cannot be named  said he 'came forward' as a result of this.

While there must be many instances of sexual abuse of children that have remained hidden, for reasons of shame or the desire not to relive such trauma, it is clear that the deluded or even criminally inclined see this invitation to accuse as a risk-free money-making opportunity.

There has been a tidal wave of claims of historic child abuse since Jimmy Savile's crimes came to light, including 286 investigations against the dead

It's not just the police who are tempting such people. Advertisements are appearing, like this from the legal firm Tozers: 'We specialise in abuse claims and we have significant experience in obtaining compensation for the victims of abuse. Should you or a family member wish to discuss a potential claim, please call our specialist team for a free and confidential discussion.'

The result is that the criminal justice system is drowning under a tidal wave of such claims. Operation Hydrant, the police unit co-ordinating historic child abuse inquiries, has an estimated 2,228 investigations in train. We are told that 'the suspects involved include 286 dead people'.

This is where the police seem to have lost all common sense and even an understanding of what courts can and can't do. It is a principle of English law that dead people cannot be put on trial.

There are various reasons for this  and not just the obvious fact that exhuming corpses and putting them in the dock would be reminiscent of ninth-century Vatican practices. A corpse cannot instruct a lawyer, or plead  two of the disqualifying disadvantages, in the eyes of any judge, of a dead defendant. That being the case, there is no point in charging any corpse, no matter how serious its alleged offence.

You may think I am labouring the point. But the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, last week felt it necessary to remind our police forces of this.

To quote one report, Saunders 'has been forced to remind chief constables that the dead cannot be charged with criminal offences, amid a huge increase in investigations into historical child abuse'.

The exasperated Ms Saunders has been obliged to issue this 'guidance' because the Crown Prosecution Service lawyers are being 'bombarded with files of evidence from police seeking charging decisions on deceased suspects'.

Which brings us to the former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath. Who is, definitively, dead. Since July 2005.

Yet, last week, the Chief Constable of Wiltshire told the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee that he would be indefinitely continuing his force's investigations  involving 16 officers working full-time  into claims that the late PM had abused children in his Salisbury home (apparently under the very noses of the police who guarded him around the clock).

Operation Conifer has already cost almost 400,000 and the expense to the taxpayer is expected to run into millions of pounds.

Alison Saunders has been forced to remind chief constables that dead people, including Sir Edward Heath who is currently under investigation by the Wiltshire force despite dying in 2005, cannot be charged

If the police adopt the same attitude to the other 285 'dead suspects', the cost of investigating the alleged previous conduct of corpses will run well above 10 million.

The ghost of Ted Heath has, though, been allowed to escape from the tentacles of the now closed Operation Midland, a Met investigation lasting 16 months into the uncorroborated claims of a deluded fantasist (known only as 'Nick') that the ex-PM was responsible for abusing and murdering boys in a Westminster apartment block in the Seventies.

That case had everything: everything that is, except dead bodies, the identities of the alleged victims or, indeed, any evidence at all other than the claim by a single man of what he believed he witnessed as a child 40 years ago. Yet the officer put in charge of the investigation had insisted 'Nick's' claims were 'credible and true'.

At least Heath is not alive to suffer the ignominy of being painted as a predatory paedophile. The former school matron Tiffany Carter, by contrast, will live with the consequences of the police's obsessive pursuit of 'historic' child abuse.

Donald Trumps former butler, 84-year-old Anthony Senecal, is being investigated by the U.S. Secret Service after he wrote on Facebook that President Obama should have been taken out by our military and shot as an enemy agent.

Later, Mr Senecal  who looks for all the world like Bruce Waynes butler Alfred in the Sixties Batman TV series  said Obama should be hung outside the White House.

He obviously went to the same charm school as his former boss. But, as far as assassination goes, I think Trump has more to worry about if he becomes president.

His sheer fame, cultivated through deliberate unpleasantness, will, I fear, be an irresistible lure for the lethal individual who seeks his own celebrity through murder.

Prince Charles admitted last week that he had used homoeopathic treatments on cattle and sheep

The Royal Familys attachment to homeopathy goes back generations. But Prince Charles is the first of his family to give cows the placebo treatment.

Last week, in front of the chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies (who told a parliamentary committee that homeopathy was rubbish), the heir to the throne said hed been successfully using homeopathic  yes, homeopathic  treatments for my cattle and sheep.

Homeopathic remedies, since they contain no active ingredients, are less harmful than inappropriately prescribed chemicals. But the homeopathic theory  that water has a memory of an active ingredient thats been diluted down to nothingness and this memory cures the itch of illness  is the domain of cranks. The sort who think flowers grow better when they are engaged in conversation.

The Princes spokesman explained later: Homeopathy is used on a case by case basis at Home Farm [Highgrove], in combination with more conventional medicine.
Invoking the ghosts of Hitler and the Nazis in any political argument is a profoundly dangerous strategy.

Trying to compare organisations or individuals  with the possible exceptions of Stalin and Pol Pot  to that uniquely evil regime can be at best invidious, at worst downright offensive.

So Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson played a risky card when he likened the EUs bid to force Europe into a single superstate to the expansionist ambitions of Hitler and Napoleon.

Invoking the ghosts of Hitler and the Nazis in any political argument is a profoundly dangerous strategy

The backlash from the Remain camp was predictably shrill. Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn said Mr Johnson had lost his moral compass. Former Labour minister Yvette Cooper accused him of cynicism and hysteria. Ex-Lib Dem leader Lord Campbell said he was grossly misrepresenting history.

But was he? Beyond all the sound and fury, what did Mr Johnson actually say that was wrong?

He argued that for 2,000 years there had been successive attempts to unify Europe in a bid to rediscover the golden age of peace and prosperity the continent enjoyed under the Roman empire.

Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods, he added.

In trying to weld together the disparate countries of Europe into a fundamentally undemocratic union, Mr Johnson believes the EU is now seeking to impose its own form of dictatorship.

In that sense, he suggests it is acting like the totalitarian regimes of the past and trampling on the rights and wishes of ordinary citizens.

There is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe and no authority that anyone respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void, Mr Johnson said. The EU is getting out of control, he concluded.

Is this really a cynical, hysterical argument, or simply the voice of logic and common sense? On June 23, the British electorate will give their democratic answer to that question.

The Former Mayor of London Boris Johnson during a rally in Bristol on the Vote Leave Campaign

Matter of life or death

Midwives hold a special place in the publics affection for their role in helping women through the hazards of pregnancy, childbirth and the early months of bringing up baby.

But this wholesome image risks being shattered by the news that the Royal College of Midwives has thrown its weight behind a campaign to legalise abortions at any time up to a babys birth  sweeping away the current 24-week limit.

The RCM did not consult its members before taking this extraordinary decision, saying it was for the board and chief executive to set strategic objectives.

And who is the chief executive? One Cathy Warwick, who is also chair of the highly-politicised abortion provider and lobby group, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which actually launched the legalisation campaign. Could there be a clearer conflict of interests?

Hundreds of ordinary midwives are now demanding the policy be reversed and there are calls for Professor Warwick to stand down. The Mail hopes she will.

The RCM was established in 1881 with the motto, Life is the Gift of God. How deeply depressing that to its current board, life seems to be a mere commodity, to be preserved or extinguished at will.
A senior who is campaigning for justice after she claims she was raped by a fellow student and let down by her college has written an emotional letter to her attacker a year after the alleged attack.

Madeline Wilson, 22, a nursing student at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, has told how the alleged assault has 'irrevocably changed me' and said in a 'sick, twisted way' she sometimes wonders how her attacker is doing.

In a moving open letter, published in XO Jane, Madeline, from Colorado, addresses her attacker, saying she hopes his alleged actions will 'haunt' him.

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Determined: Madeline Wilson, 22, a nursing student at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, pictured, has written about the impact of being raped - a year after the alleged attack

Impact: Addressing the alleged attacker, Madeline, pictured second from right, tells how 'in a sick, twisted way' she sometimes wonders how he is doing

She writes: 'I will never thank you. For though I am a better person today because of what you did to me, it will never have been worth it.

'You didn't carry me here, nor did you make me strong. That was me. I made myself strong.'

She adds: 'But sometimes, in some sick, twisted way, I wonder how you're doing. How you're actually doing behind your impenetrable facade.

'The way you've portrayed yourself to the world as we navigate the college's sexual misconduct process is strong, callused, and unhindered by the hours you've spent trying to discredit me.'

Madeline, who said she was raped in May last year and reported the incident to her college administration in September, claimed there were 'a variety of procedural errors' and that her college 'refused to protect me'.

Writing on her website, she said she decided to speak out because her college has 'completely failed to address my sexual assault or protect me from further harassment and abuse from my rapist' and said she is 'deeply hurt by the betrayal of a community I trusted'.

The student, who is planning to move back to her home state Colorado and is soon to become a nurse, has been campaigning to change the way her college addresses rape on campus and wearing T-shirts that read: 'Ask me how my college is protecting my rapist'.

In her open letter she said regardless of how many times he denies her accusations, she claims 'it's only to cover up that deep, gnawing recognition that you did do it.'

She writes that even if he has 'happy experiences' in his life, her alleged attacker will remember her.

'When you are with other girls, when any nurse treats you...When you have daughters of your own and you warn them not to drink too much and to be careful because the world is cruel and scary, you will think of what you did to me. I hope this haunts you,' she writes.

In another article for XO Jane, she told how 'within weeks' of reporting the alleged rape, she got a call from an ex-boyfriend who said he had been contacted by private investigators 'working on behalf of my assailant'.

She said the investigators, who she claimed also called her ex-boyfriend's parents, her friends and her boss, were 'clearly attempting to portray me as sexually promiscuous, dishonest person'.

Madeline said: 'The school failed to find my rapist guilty.'

Campaign: Madeline, pictured far right, said she hopes his alleged actions will 'haunt' him and vowed to 'fight to the end of the world' to force him never to forget her face

She told Daily Mail Online that she decided to write the open letter because she had 'a lot of thoughts and feelings about it that I wanted to express but I have a no contact order with the student so I couldn't send it to him'.

In the open letter she claims she is a 'different person' following the night of the alleged attack and says it has made her 'more careful', less trusting of strangers, and has 'forced me to grow up really damn fast.'

She said friends have told her that she has 'lost the spring in my step' and her 'glimmer in my eye'.

Madeline writes that she goes into 'flight or flight response' when she sees him and that she goes into a 'low-key panic' when she gets into a 'lofted bed' or when her head is touched in a particular way.

She said she can no longer drink vodka because 'even the slightest scent' prompts a 'continuous reel' of what happened before she said she blacked out. 'When maybe I could have changed something, playing over and over in my head,' she writes.

I swear to God that as long as we share this campus, you will not forget for a single day what you did to me

She writes that he many think he won because he was not forced to leave college, but defiantly claims: 'You still didn't win'.

She said 'after the relief wore off' and she claims his family spent 'tens of thousands of dollars' on two private investigators, lawyers and a forensic toxicologist, it did not feel like a victory for him.

She writes: 'I bet there's still a deep core of guilt you can't seem to shake...And I know that if you have any shred of decency in you then the kind of guilt you hold doesn't just wear away.'

She vowed to 'fight to the end of the world' to force him never to forget her face.

'I swear to God that as long as we share this campus, you will not forget for a single day what you did to me,' she writes.

She said it has been 'a long and silent fight to be ok' but that she is starting to regain the 13 pounds she lost, the dark circles under her eyes are disappearing and she is 'welcoming the moments and hours that I'm able to set aside the complicated grief I feel and appreciate the good in my life'.

She said she is starting to find the 'power you took away from me'.

Madeline said gaining her strength has been 'painfully heart-wrenching' and also 'cathartic' and helped her realize that her world is 'bigger and richer' than she had thought before.

She writes: 'I'm looking forward to this new year with hope and serenity and the spirit of a warrior who will continue to fight for justice.'
Crown Princess Mary of Denmark has visited labour wards in Burkina Faso in West Africa to raise awareness of women's rights.

The Danish royal smiled as she greeted locals as part of a tour of the country to raise awareness of sexual and reproductive health.

The 44-year-old was accompanied by Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Kristian Jensen for the trip which also focused on Denmarks development and aid efforts in the nation.

The Danish royal visited the country to focus on women and girls' sexual and reproductive health and rights

The princess seemed eager to listen to the stories of the locals as she joined them in the hospital

Princess Mary traded her usual high glamour for a more casual look as she paired a breezy paisley blouse with navy slacks and suede slippers for her engagement.

Her Royal Highness was initially due to visit the country alongside Jensen in January this year but the trip had to be postponed until April following a terror attack in Ouagadougou.

However, she was finally able to visit the country to promote the powerful message at the end of last month.

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark looked happy and relaxed during a visit to Burkina Faso in West Africa

The royal was joined by Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Kristian Jensen (pictured right holding a baby)

Jensen said that he was 'very pleased' with the princess describing her as 'deeply engaged'

During her visit the princess visited the labour wards in local hospitals where she greeted new mothers and spoke with doctors.

Jensen said that he was proud of the princess's efforts and was keen to get the message across.

He said: 'Im very pleased that the Crown Princess, who is deeply engaged in womens health, and I have managed to depart for Burkina Faso.

The pair were originally due to visit the country in January but had to cancel the trip following a a terror attack in Ouagadougou. Pictured: Mary chats with a new mother

Mary, who is a mother-of-four herself, seemed to be a natural with the children in the labour ward

The royal visited the labour wards in local hospitals where she greeted new mothers and spoke with doctors

'Denmark supports Burkina Faso because it is one of the world's poorest nations in which thousands of women die in connection with pregnancy and birth every year.

'It's completely unacceptable that women are dying in 2016 while giving new life.'

The visit comes ahead of The Women Deliver 2016 Conference to be held later on this month in Denmark.

The 44-year-old traded her usual high glamour for a more casual look as she paired a breezy paisley blouse with navy slacks and suede slippers for her engagement

She visited the country ahead of The Women Deliver 2016 Conference to be held later on this month. Pictured: Mary chats with locals outside the hospital

The Crown Princess is the official patron for the conference and so was eager to spread her message ahead of the event. Pictured: Mary shakes hands with a smiling local

The princess was seen enjoying conversation with a group of mothers as greeted them and their children

The witty princess seemed to steal the show as she was seen laughing and joking with the women

The doting royal couldn't help but coo over the adorable babies at the event in April

The conference will be held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen from 16-19 of May and will be attended by thousands of world influencers, advocates, researchers, journalists and activists.

It is the largest conference on girls and women's health and rights and the Crown Princess will be the official patron.

The princess also acts as a patron for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Danish Maternity Foundation and is a member of the High-Level Task Force for ICPD.

The princess also acts as a patron for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Danish Maternity Foundation and is a member of the High-Level Task Force for ICPD

The princess is pictured joining discussions with representatives from Burkina Faso

At the 2016 conference there will be a specific focus on maternal, sexual, and reproductive health and rights  and the inter-connections with gender equality, education, environment, and economic empowerment.

Among other areas, Denmarks aid efforts focus on providing Burkinabe families access to information, prevention and health benefits in connection with pregnancy and birth.

Denmark also aims to tackle issues such as violence against women, gender equality and female circumcision.
Cant decide between a city break and an out-of-the-way hideaway? Why not break your long-haul flight and create a dual destination holiday.

ICELAND AND NEW YORK

Break up the nine-hour flight to New York and enjoy Icelands scenery and sulphurous lagoons

Break up the nine-hour flight to New York and enjoy Icelands scenery and sulphurous lagoons.

INSIDER TIP: Take a dip in Nautholsvik, Reykaviks geothermal hot spring with its own beach. Pop into New Yorks Whitney Museum of American Art, Greenwich Village, whitney.org.

DETAILS: Iceland Air flies from London to New York via Reykjavik with a stopover from 679, icelandair.co.uk. Price includes three nights in Reykjavik. Rooms at The Jane, in New Yorks West Village, from 172 a night, thejanenyc.com.

HONG KONG AND BALI

Live the hectic high life in Hong Kong then laze on Balis beaches

Live the hectic high life in Hong Kong then laze on Balis beaches.

INSIDER TIP: Sai Ying Pun, in north- west Hong Kong, where the British military once resided, is full of lively restaurants. On Bali, whip up fragrant Balinese food at Anikas cookery school, anikacookingclass.com.

DETAILS: Western & Oriental offers seven nights B&B at the Conrad in Bali and three nights room- only at the Harbour Grand Kowloon from 1,655 pp, including flights and transfers, westernoriental.com.

DUBAI AND SOUTH AFRICA

En route to Cape Town, stop to visit Dubai Mall, the worlds largest shopping centre, before a safari in Kariega Game Reserve in South Africas Eastern Cape

En route to Cape Town, stop to visit Dubai Mall, the worlds largest shopping centre, before a safari in Kariega Game Reserve in South Africas Eastern Cape.

INSIDER TIP: Seek out low-key Al Quoz for Dubais galleries and fashion studios. See Kariegas bush scenery from the river on a boat trip.
The Princess completed her outfit with drop earrings and nude high heels

During the party, the Australian Ambassador to Denmark opened the event

For the occasion, the stylish Royal opted for a striking blue jumpsuit

It's been a busy 24 hours for the Crown Princess, who after looking stylish at the Royal Danish Yacht Club's 150th anniversary on Saturday, turned up to the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen on Sunday without so much as a hair out of place.

Opting for a fashion-forward Royal blue jumpsuit and nude heels, Princess Mary was the guest of honour at the Sunday afternoon event.

While many originally thought the Princess was wearing a simple, classic shirt dress, it soon became apparent when she moved that the blue ensemble was in fact a jumpsuit, cut from cobalt blue chiffon.

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Royally blue: The Crown Princess rocked a fashion-forward jumpsuit at the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen - the jumpsuit only became apparent when she walked (pictured)

Smart and chic: The Princess paired her cobalt blue chiffon outfit with her hair loose and striking drop earrings (pictured)

The Princess dressed up her fashion-forward outfit with a pair of nude stilettos, a slim belt and striking drop earrings.

She let her hair hang loose for the occasion.

During the party, the Australian Ambassador to Denmark Damien Miller officially opened the residence for the small Australian party.

Event proceedings: During the party, the Australian Ambassador to Denmark Damien Miller officially opened the residence for a small Australian party

Labour of love: Princess Mary is the patron of the Women Deliver conference; and it is something that is close to her heart, thanks to its focus on women's rights and health

Princess Mary is the patron of the Women Deliver conference; and it is something that is close to her heart, thanks to its focus on women's rights and health.

The chic royal later posed for photos with Mr Miller and the Australian Ambassador for Women and Girls, Natasha Stott Despoja.

Ms Despoja opted for a pretty floral two piece suit made by world-renowned Australian designer, Carla Zampatti.

Photo call: The chic Royal later posed for photos with Mr Miller and Natasha Stott Despoja, who wore a pink, floral two piece suit by Carla Zampatti for the occasion (pictured)

Fashion kudos: Princess Mary added a slim belt (pictured) to the jumpsuit

The occasion had a further note of celebration, after Australia's second place performance at the Eurovision Song Contest just 16 hours previously.

However, that did not stop the rain from falling, which meant that the 44-year-old princess had to move - and quickly - in order to shield herself from the bad weather.

It was during this moment that her dress/jumpsuit hybrid became clear; prompting plaudits from fashion critics with regard to Princess Mary's as ever impeccable style nous.

Earlier in the week, the Princess attended the opening of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit 2016.

Party time: The occasion had a further note of celebration, after Australia's second place performance at the Eurovision Song Contest just 16 hours previously
The term superfood has taken the world by storm over recent years, making foods like kale and quinoa common place in our everyday vocabulary.

However, while new superfoods are great, there's nothing better than new actual food or drink.

The Australian has put together a bunch of new foods and drinks that you may see on your plate very soon and some of them are worth getting excited about.

RAKIA Let's start with the good stuff.

A new fruit brandy which originated in Europe is now being made in Australia, just as the popularity and diversity of cocktails increases.

Called '36 Short' it is being described as a 'new world' rakia, with the addition of McLaren Vale wine grapes creating a smoother taste than the usually potent drink found in Greece, Croatia and Macedonia.

36 Short: Two South Australian brothers have created their own rakia, a drink more common to Europe

Started by Jon and Con Lioulios, a team of brothers from South Australia, they have honoured their father in the creation of the rakia, naming it after his suit size.

'Our father first brought the recipe from Macedonia to Australia over 50 years ago,' Jon said.

'In his honour, we have brought to fruition our fathers dream of distilling a traditional rakia with a modern twist.'

The brothers say their creation is enjoyed best on either side of a meal, or mixed with crushed ice, tonic water and fresh grapefruit juice.

CHICKPEA TOFU

The Burmese have long used chickpeas in creating their delicacy Shan tofu, and now one Australian farmer is bringing the idea Down Under.

Nathan Harris, a farmer in Victoria's Mallee region, has moved away from using soybeans to create tofu, instead opting for chickpeas.

The owner of Australian Eat Well, a vegetarian food business, said it was an obvious decision to use a plant high in protein in his creation.

'For years weve produced an organic soy-based tofu; it seemed only logical to try to make tofu from another high-protein plant,' he said.

No ordinary tofu: A Victorian farmer is using chickpeas to produce tofu, increasing the protein content

The chickpea creation reportedly has a richer taste than normal soy tofu.

'There are some similarities in making both (soy and chickpea) products,' Harris said.

'But we soon discovered it was not just a matter of following the same steps as making soy tofu.

'This presented quite a few challenges along the way but our persistence has paid off and were pretty proud of the result.'

Chickpea tofu will be available in selected stores from next month.

ROYAL RED PRAWNS

A regular delicacy at Christmas time may soon be a darker shade of red if these creatures continue to rise to the surface.

The royal red prawn, a deep-water prawn found along the east coast of Australia, are generally caught by bottom trawling at depths of 400-500 metres.

Doing Paul Hogan proud: Australian's may soon opt not to chuck a regular prawn like those pictured on the barbeque, with deep sea red prawns priced at only $10 per kilogram

At just $10 per kilogram, red prawns are a cost effective alternative to their shallow water cousins.

Their mild flavour makes them an ideal choice for noodle dishes, however they spoil quickly so are often sold frozen.

Unfortunately for Paul Hogan, don't chuck another one of these prawns on the barbeque, because they won't bode well in the heat.

CAMEL MILK

They carry water in their humps, but camels are apparently also a popular source of milk in the Middle East and parts of Africa.

A typical camel produces more than seven litres of milk a day, a market Aussie husband and wife farmers Stan and Deb Corbett are keen on tapping into.

The Corbett's bought 11 camels in 2006 and by 2009 had started to make camel milk products such as soap.

'There was no camel milk industry prior to us starting this,' Mrs Corbett said.

Camels milk: They've got water in their humps, but did you know camels also produce milk which has healing powers?

'Many people do not realise that camels actually produce milk. But they do  and have four teats, not two.'

Mrs Corbett said the demand for camels milk in Australia had increased as people became aware of its healing properties.

The milk from the couple's farm is currently used to produce cosmetics, but can also be used just like any other milk.
Bella Hadid dazzled at the Misha Collection showcase in a pale pink corset-inspired dress and sheer black number

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Day two of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia went off without a hitch, with 10 designers showcasing their new season collections both offsite and at Sydney venue Carriageworks.

Sister duo Ginger & Smart kicked off the the day with their Resort 17 collection with models donning an array of over-sized resort wear and glamorous pieces for those moving from pool to bar.

Models wore a selection of stunning pleated silk pieces, metallic numbers and sheer lace pieces as they stormed the runway in front of the fashion pack.

Bold looks: Day two of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia kicked off on Monday morning with sibling designer duo Ginger & Smart who showcased oversized sleeves (left and centre) and sheer lace cover-ups (centre)

The flying nun? The show saw models wear giant floppy sun hats that covered their faces like a veil

Eye-popping resort wear: Other looks included teal cover-ups with ribbon embellishments (right) and off-the-shoulder swimsuits (left) with stunning high-waisted skirts

Two of the models paraded enormous habit-style black and white hats in front of Sydney's fashion elite - the large sun hats flopping over the models' faces as they stormed the runway in sandals embellished with fur.

Other looks included strappy one-piece swimsuits with high-waisted sheer skirts, galaxy print cover-ups and sheer teal cover-ups with matching striking swimsuits.

Many of the models also stepped out wearing modern versions of the bum-bag (fanny pack), where they attached purses to their waists as belts.

Elegant monchrome: Dion Lee kept it simple and sharp with clean lines and embellishments during his Monday night show

Leggy: His Resort 17 collection featured short skirts and modern jackets paired with high heeled boots

Sexy statement: There were also standout statement pieces like dresses covered in glass crystals (left) and a pale yellow flowing dress (centre)

Fringe is back: Fringing was a popular look, with two of the models stepping out in chic ivory fringe numbers

Rainbow styling: It wasn't all black and white however, with a series of eye-popping sheer rainbow striped dresses

Fierce in the front row: Model Kate Peck (left) showed off her lean physique in a Sandro Paris skirt and top with a fiery red lip, while fellow model Nikki Phillips (right) arrived in a black and white pleated jumpsuit with a bow neckline

Eye-popping fringe pieces, rainbow striped numbers and earthy coloured garments were also recurring themes on the catwalk.

Celebrities also dressed to impress, with those in the front row snapped in bold colourful numbers and striking jumpsuits.

Model Bella Hadid stunned at the Misha Collection showcase - one of the most highly anticipated shows of Fashion Week.

The striking brunette showed off her enviable physique in stunning sheer black dress that left little to the imagination, and a pale pink corset-inspired mini with an ankle-length nude trench coat.

Dare to bare: International model Bella Hadid stunned at the Misha Collection showcase in a fitted corset paired with a sheer skirt

Winter hues: Misha Collection opted for a neutral colour palette with soft beige and blacks dominating the catwalk

In the nude: Pale pink and nude hues were front and centre as models wore a range of tailored pantsuits (right), plunging dresses (left) and pinstriped minis paired with trench coats (centre)

Other models stormed the catwalk in an array of earthy tones, pale pink jumpsuits and plunging pink dresses with stunning knot detailing down the centre.

One model wore a textured black mini with small diamond shaped holes cut throughout while two others wore metallic fringe mini dresses - one rocking an off-the-shoulder look while the other kept it simple.

The sheer black lace look was a common theme on the Misha Collection runway, a number of the models donning racy sheer numbers that showed off their curves.

Bright like a diamond: One model wore a textured black mini with small diamond-shaped holes cut throughout

Edgy: Metallic fringe mini dresses made a statement on the runway with short hemlines and off-the-shoulder cuts (left)

Sheer lace: Black ensembles with sheer panelling set the tone for the season ahead, as models showcased a range of flesh-baring pieces

They were bound to make a statement on the runway, and fashion powerhouse Zhivago did not disappoint.

The Australian based label made sure they stood out from the rest with a range of dresses and pantsuits that featured plunging necklines, sheer paneling, thigh-high splits and shoulder pads.

More than just fashion, the runway was studded with leotard-clad dancers who sparkled in sequinned one-pieces against the stage lights.

The models themselves were given an edgy look with heavily done eyes and lips, their faces cut in to segments using what appeared to be a thin string.

Making a statement: Australian based label Zhivago made a statement on the runway with sequinned pieces and heavily done up models

Metallic moments: Models lit up the runway in metallic dresses that featured bold shoulder pads, plunging neckline, thigh-high splits and short hemlines

Here come the LBDs: The designs featured a range of daring cuts, from thigh-high splits (left, centre), to plunging necklines (right)

Zhivago showed a range of metallic and gold sequinned mini dresses that featured plunging necklines, padded shoulders and thigh-high splits.

They followed with a range of LBDs that were daring in their cut and design, with one heavily detailed black dress featuring a textured skirt with thigh-high splits, structured shoulders, sheer paneling across the bust and three-quarter length sleeves.

Black and gold were the dominate colour themes for Zhivago, who did anything but play it safe.

Fashion and a show: More than just fashion, the Zhivago show featured dancers and a singer who shone bright in a gold sequinned leotard

Wowing the crowd: Dancers took the runway as they carried a leotard clad singer across the stage

New Zealand-based designer Georgia Alice is known for her wildly edgy yet simplistic designs and did not disappoint with her show on Monday afternoon.

The unique collection was dominated by black pieces and oversized smocks and jumpsuits in white and powdered blue.

Each of the smock looks were embellished with ribbons, black chest pieces and accessorised with simple black sandals.

Midriffs and mini skirts: New Zealand-based designer Georgia Alice showcased a range of edgy designs on Monday afternoon

Voluminous: The over-sized pieces featured extra long sleeves, wide leg pants and high necklines and included oversized smock (left) and jumpsuits (centre, right)

Sheer metallics: Some designs were so sheer they left little to the imagination, and were paired with metallic skirts (left) and layered minis (right)

The models also left little to the imagination in sheer black tops paired with metallic silver skirts and black skirts.

Full body black pieces were also on show, with many of the models storming the runway in head-to-toe black opaque dresses, off-the-shoulder pieces or sheer black cover-ups perfect for wearing over a swimsuit.

Two models wore contemporary pant suits and wore figure-hugging crops under their blazers.

Midnight hues: Full body black pieces were also on show, with many of the models storming the runway in head-to-toe black

Suit pants: Models showcased wide-leg suit pants in black and grey paired with sequinned crop tops

Albus Lumen is all about simplicity and is known for their refusal to bow to current trends or colour schemes.

Their off-site installation saw models pose in position in their simplistic yet striking pieces.

Looks included short maroon dresses, long white pieces and conservative pieces with red ties.

Making their own rules: Albus Lumen is all about simplicity and is known for their refusal to bow to current trends or colour schemes

Stepping away from the rest: The show saw models pose in position in their simple, yet striking, pieces rather than walk the catwalk

Layers: The designs were given texture with lace-up detailing and high necklines

Korean-born Australian designer Yeojin Bae's collection was made up of structured silhouettes, stunning monochrome dresses and bold pops of colour.

The modern dress designs featured coloured panels, playful necklines and tailored shoulder straps that accentuated the models' figures.

For a contemporary twist some of the dresses also featured large fringing at the bottom and eye-popping prints that drew attention for all the right reasons.

True to form: Korean-born Australian designer Yeojin Bae's collection was made up of structured silhouettes, stunning monochrome dresses and bold pops of colour

Racy in red: One of the models wore a stunning figure-hugging red dress stamped with a unique blue print

Racy in lace: Lace also played a major role in the collection, with sheer lace dresses appearing on the catwalk multiple times in pink, green, white and black

Lace also played a major role in the collection, with sheer lace dresses appearing on the catwalk multiple times in pink, green, white and black.

The lace dresses featured a large zipper from top to bottom and each of the models wore black swimwear underneath for a resort, by the pool feel.

One model stepped out in a stunning black and white off-the-shoulder monochrome dress which she paired with simple grey heels.

Monochrome madness: One model stepped out in a stunning black and white off-the-shoulder monochrome dress which she paired with simple grey heels

Fierce in fringe: Two of the models also wore chic black and white dresses with large fringing detailing at the hem

The label is known for its effortless approach to glamour, tough femininity and disheveled elegance - and Aje did not disappoint on day two of fashion week.

Aje, which was founded by designers and best friends Adrian Norris and Edwina Robinson, showcased a real mix of masculine cut jackets and soft lace pieces.

The label combined distressed denim with lace, soft whites with dark blue denim pieces and comfortable looking t-shirts with a range of mini skirts for a ready-to-wear collection that turned heads on the runway.

Tough femininity: Fashion powerhouse Aje showcased a ready-to-wear range of soft lace pieces and contrasting distressed denim

Women in white: Sheer and lace white pieces made a statement on the runway and were embellished with flowers (left, second right), feathers (second left) and voluminous sleeves (right)

Dashing in denim: Soft white paired with a heavy dark denim gave the transition from pool to bar an edgy twist

Aje also showcased a range of distressed, over-sized t-shirts that they paired with mini skirts.

The t-shirts were worn casually, almost hanging off one shoulder, to give an effortlessly chic street-style look.

The fashion powerhouse finished their collection with a range of jackets that featured structured shoulders and were heavily adorned with chunky zips and studs.

Effortless: Aje showcased a range of over sized t-shirts that were worn loose over white leather (right) or sequinned (left) mini skirts

All zipped up: They finished the collection with a range of chunky jackets adorned with large zips and studs

When Rebecca Vallance launched her self-titled label in 2011, she did so on the catwalks of Paris.

One year later she returned to Australia, and ever since has worked to secure a name for herself in the fashion industry.

The resort collection she showed on Monday at Sydney's Carriageworks was a mix of white lace, black-and-white stripes and monochrome, broken up with bright yellow statement pieces.

Her collection included fun mini skirts, mid-length dresses that oozed class and well-tailored pantsuits.

While her colour-scheme was mainly black-and-white, she kept the designs fun by using lace fabrics, understated cutouts and detailed hemlines.

Ladies in lace: Australian designer Rebecca Vallance showed a primarily monochrome range that included lace minis

Black, white and striped all over: Bell sleeves (centre), mid-length hemlines and stripes were a recurring theme

Sunshine yellow: The talented designer broke up her otherwise monochrome collection with a range of bright yellow designs
As one of the most highly anticipated shows of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia, Misha Collection's Resort '17 catwalk offering did not disappoint.

Not least for the presence of Bella Hadid, who opened and closed the show for the Melbourne-based brand in two thigh-skimming outfits.

The 19-year-old It girl dazzled in both, before a front row that included the likes of Kate Peck, Nikki Phillips and Elle Ferguson.

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Sexy and demure: Bella Hadid stunned the crowds when she donned this black body and sheer skirt at Misha Collection's fashion show this afternoon

Storming the catwalk: Bella Hadid (pictured) was the main draw to the show, and she opened it

First appearance: The model and sister of Gigi Hadid also appeared in a short, light pink-coloured dress and long trench coat (pictured)

Finale fun: She led out the finale, in which the other models also wore nude and black

The model and sister of Gigi Hadid appeared both in a short, pink-coloured corset-style dress and long coat, and a striking, leg-revealing sheer black ensemble that is sure to go to the top of every buyer's shopping list this season.

Bella dominated the show's finale which was played out to Beyonce, when she led out the models who wore nude and black in a scene that looked like something from a Balmain show.

But Bella wasn't the only thing that delighted the crowds.

Star turn: Bella appeared on the catwalk with designer, Michelle Aznavorian, herself after the show

Instead, the entire collection was a hit.

Featuring plenty of structured evening wear and sculptural outfits with delicate ruffles, the collection was a perfect fusion of sleek and sexy.

After Bella opened the show, other models showcased striking trench coats, glitter and dramatic hemlines.

Most rocked a centre parting and neck details, and often the tops were low cut or skirts were hoiked up to the models' thighs.

Unlike some of the other outfits Fashion Week has thrown up so far, however, Misha Collection's offering was often quite wearable.

But Bella Hadid wasn't the only thing that delighted the crowds - there was a perfect fusion of sleek and sexy in the collection

Pretty in pink: Many outfits were quite wearable, including this pink long coat

Wearable feel: The entire collection was deemed a hit

Peek a boo: Another rather revealing version of the corset skirt was paired with a near see-through top

After the show, Bella appeared on the catwalk with Misha Collection designer, Michelle Aznavorian.

Ms Aznavorian had said previously of Bella's involvement with Fashion Week Australia that:

'Bella Hadid is one of todays foremost models. Bella has an alluring sense of self, she is both charming and confident.

'Bella is not afraid of making a statement, expressing herself through her thoughtful style choices. She perfectly embodies the Misha Collection woman.'

After stunning Sydney editors and fashion buyers at Carriageworks, we think most would agree.
She is now able to see about 30

The moment little Myfanwy McIntyre saw properly for the first time, she broke in to the biggest smile.

The 14-month-old let out a giggle as she looked at her fingers, and her face lit up with excitement as she reached out for a toy.

Myfanwys mother Heather McIntyre told Daily Mail Australia her daughter was born with a number of eye conditions, including congenital cataracts, that meant she would not react to things as close as 10 centimetres in front of her face.

But in September last year Myfanwy was fitted with special aphakic glasses, leaving her able to see colours and light for about 30 centimetres.

Gorgeous: Myfanwy McIntyre, 14 months, was fitted with specially designed glasses that allowed her to see properly for the first time

Beautiful moment: When she first had the glasses put on she broke in to a smile as she held up her hands in front of her face to look

'Her little face had a really huge smile on it,' Mrs McIntyre, who lives in Penrith west of Sydney, recalled.

'Straight away she put her hands in front of her face and looked at her hands.

'She reached out for the toy and was so excited, her little face was so smiley.'

Life changing: 'She reached out for the toy and was so excited, her little face was so smiley,' her mother Heather McIntyre said

Poor vision: Before she got the glasses, Myfanwy would not react to things that were as close as 10 centimetres in front of her face

Doctors at The Childrens Hospital at Westmead said Myfanwy went from having no reaction to things just 10 centimetres in front of her face to having a reaction and being able to see.

Its made her more mobile around the house, shes not as scared, she never used to crawl,' Mrs McIntyre said.

Also because of her having low vision, she never used to roll over but with the glasses she now does.

Pretty in pink: The adorable tot was born with congenital cataracts and small pupils that could not be fixed through surgery

Because of her low vision Myfanwy was unable to see what others were doing around her, meaning her development in terms of crawling and walking was delayed.

But with her glasses she is able to see, and Mrs McIntyre said she is now crawling and has started to reach up to the lounge to try and pull herself on to her feet.

She can probably only see maybe 30 centimetres in front, which I know is not a lot but for my Myfanwy thats heaps, she said.

Starting to crawl: Now she has the glasses, she is able to see about 30 centimetres in front of her which has had a huge impact on her development

Moving forward: Now she is able to see, little Myfanwy has started to crawl and is even trying to walk by pulling herself up

Myfanwy was born with congenital cataracts and small pupils, the same conditions her mother, who is legally blind and uses a guide dog, also has.

Doctors performed surgery twice on Myfanwy's eyes to remove the cataracts and the lenses, but the scar tissue grew back.

Because Myfanwys eyes are so small doctors would be unable to perform surgery to place a lens in her eye to correct her vision, meaning she will always wear glasses.

Gift of sight: The special aphakic glasses help teach her brain how to see and were donated by Essilor

The special aphakic glasses were donated by Essilor, a world leader for prescription lenses.

Mrs McIntyre said the glasses essentially teach Myfanwys brain how to see.

The toddler is the youngest of 10 siblings, and Mrs McIntyre said five of her children have problems with their vision.
Socialite Pandora Delevingne has revealed a decades-long battle with heroin addiction and depression that's so crippling, that she has contemplated suicide.

The mother of fashionistas Cara, 23, Poppy, 30, and Chloe, 32, has told how her battle with drugs affected her relationship with her children - admitting that she was forced to move out of the family home at 'low points'.

Mrs Delevingne is set to reveal all in a new tell-all memoir, Shadows On My Wall, which is currently being edited while Delevingne, 56, looks for a publisher.

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Pandora Delevingne, 56, (pictured with husband Charles) has written a book called Shadows On The Wall about her life as a London socialite including her addiction to heroin

United: Despite periods away from her three daughters as she fought her addiction to Class A drugs, Pandora says the family are still close - and that she wishes her youngest, Cara, 23, would 'sometimes just come home'

In an interview with Times2, the former Selfridges personal shopper has described how her 'bad behaviour' and a long-term addiction to heroin has blighted her life.

The one-time friend of Princess Margaret says her battle with depression is ongoing, with the downs still looming large in her life. As recently as last year, an episode left her so debilitated that she considered taking her own life.

She said: 'A year ago I was lying on a mattress in a room with a swinging light bulb above me and I just wanted to die.'

She added that when her depression is in full flight, death seems a preferable choice to life and has admitted in the past that her high profile daughters, supermodel Cara, model and socialite Poppy and mother-of-two Chloe 'have had to live with me being too ill to mother them'.

Talking about her battle with heroin addiction, which is under control and which supermodel daughter Cara has also spoken publicly about, Mrs Delevingne said: 'I think Cara has been honest. It wasn't much of a secret anyway'.

She reveals that her problem was once so bad that her own father, the late Sir Jocelyn Stevens, spent 'half his life' trying to track down the people who were feeding her addiction, which began when she was a young debutante under pressure to shine in high society.

She wasn't diagnosed as being bipolar until she was 30, something which the society grande dame thinks may have contributed to her drug problem.

Her magazine publisher father often attributed her heroin addiction to growing up with a disabled brother; the family lost their son Rupert aged just 22.

At her worst, Pandora would leave the family home for long periods of time and go and stay with zoo owner John Aspinall until his death in 2000.

Of the addiction's origins, she says: 'I don't want to be the poor little rich girl, but actually I was in a lot of pain for a lot my life.'

Pictured recently at middle daughter Poppy Delevingne's 30th birthday party at Chiltern Firehouse, Pandora, who's currently running a pop-up store at her house, says that she rarely goes out since turning 50

Family affair: While Pandora is still struggling with being bipolar, she says she 'takes it one day at a time' and appreciates that Cara has been honest about her problems

Recent struggles: The London socialite, a one-time friend of Princess Margaret and friends with Sarah Ferguson says she contemplated suicide as recently as a year ago

The Delevignes pictured during the early nineties when sisters (from left, Chloe, Poppy and Cara) were small

Cara herself has spoken out about her mother's addiction in the past, telling US Vogue last year: 'You grow up too quickly because youre parenting your parents.

'My mothers an amazingly strong person with a huge heart, and I adore her. But its not something you get better from, I dont think. I know there are people who have stopped and are fine now, but not in my circumstance. Shes still struggling.

The supermodel has also revealed her own struggles with self-harming during her teenage years: All of a sudden I was hit with a massive wave of depression and anxiety and self-hatred, where the feelings were so painful that I would slam my head against a tree to try to knock myself out.

I never cut, but Id scratch myself to the point of bleeding. I just wanted to dematerialise and have someone sweep me away.

She's confessed that she thinks she has 'the addict gene', saying: 'I definitely have that addict gene. For me it comes out in an addiction to work. Id probably have done more drugs back then if I hadnt been working like mad.'

As for Pandora, it's a deeply honest admission from a woman who was once described by Tatler magazine as 'being known throughout the land for her skills at dancing on tables and present-giving.

While Pandora says she rarely goes out since she turned 50, leaving husband Charles to enjoy London's social scene alone, the family did appear together earlier this month to celebrate middle daughter Poppy's 30th birthday at London's Chiltern Firehouse.

Cara, Chloe and their parents joined a crowd of celebrities marking the socialite's big birthday.

Cara, pictured with her older sister Poppy has admitted that she has the 'addict gene'

In a photo posted by the supermodel on Instagram, Cara is seen with her eldest sister Chloe, whom she remains fiercely close to...

Previously, Cara has spoken out about her own battles with depression and how she had to 'parent' her mother at times during her childhood

Cara, 23, is dating singer St Vincent, aka Anne Clark: Pandora says the family are happy for the couple

Pandora says her three daughters are 'tolerant' and try to understand their mother

The Delevingnes' outlandish fashion sense was on display with Charles wearing an ornate silk coat and matching gold slippers as Pandora paired harem-style trousers with a bright waistcoat and clashing handbag.

The well-connected style star, who rose through the ranks at Selfridges and now has her own pop-up shop at the family home, has a firm friendship with the Duchess of York.

Pandora's new book also looks set to lift the lid on Londoner Pandora's time as a party girl during the Eighties London circuit.

She is the daughter of the late newspaper magnate Sir Stevens and Jane Sheffield, who was Princess Margarets lady-in-waiting.

When Pandora fell into drugs, Sir Jocelyn took action, dragging his daughter out of squats and tracking down her dealer and ensuring he was jailed.

He came to every hospital, Pandora previously told Tatler. He once hauled me out of the overdose ward in New York, and put me into a loony bin in Switzerland and used to sit there, wherever I was, holding my hand and saying, Blood is thicker than water.

While the Delevingne girls appear to have inherited the magnetic qualities of Sir Jocelyn and the beauty of their mother, it is their father, Charles, who is said to give them their dynamism.
It's usually Kate's bold fashion choices that get tongues wagging, but today Prince Harry showed off his own sense of style with an unusual pair of blue-soled lace up shoes.

Harry, 31, wore the suede loafers at the inaugural Heads Together event, which brings together some of the country's leading mental health charities.

The unusual footwear with a bright blue sole was something of a departure for the royal, who usually relies on a trusty pair of beaten brown loafers.

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Harry, 31, wore a pair of unusual blue suede shoes at the inaugural Heads Together event today

From US brand Cole Haan, the eye-catching loafers probably set the royal back around $180 (120).

The Great Jones Wingtip Oxford in Black Nubuck are currently on sale on the website for a discounted $120 (80).

The royal teamed the lace-up loafers with a classic navy blue suit and crisp white shirt for the launch at London's Olympic Park.

He touched down in London less than 24 hours ago after flying back from the hugely successful Invictus Games in Florida.

The footwear was something of a departure for the royal, who usually relies on a trusty pair of brown loafers

Harry attended the event with Prince William and Kate to launch the new mental health campaign

Ever the good sport, Harry tried his hand at Jenga at the launch event for the campaign, which he attended with Prince William and Kate.

The Duchess of Cambridge wore a long sleeved white blouse and 105 knee length skirt with a geometric pattern from Banana Republic for the occasion.

The project is the trio's most ambitious to date and emphasises the importance they place on mental health issues.

The Duchess of Cambridge wore a long sleeved white blouse and 105 knee length skirt with a geometric pattern from Banana Republic for the occasion

Speaking about the importance of the campaign, Prince Harry said: 'We do not want prejudice and fear to stand in the way of people getting the help they need to cope with life.

'As the year progresses, the three of us  working with all of you in this room and others who will join us along the way  want to come up with practical ways of providing everyone who needs help with the right support and care.

'We want to build on the great work that others are already doing, but make it even more ambitious. By putting our heads together, we can all make a big difference.'

Believed to be from Cole Haan, the blue suede loafers probably set the royal back around $180 (120)
Between her time as a design consultant and a charity ambassador - not to mention being Britain's first lady -there's no doubt Samantha Cameron is a busy woman.

But this morning, she was spotted heading out on the school run with Arthur, ten and Florence, five. Wrapping up against the spring chill, the mother-of-three looked effortlessly stylish in a double-breasted grey wool coat, cropped navy trousers and Nike trainers.

She wore her chestnut hair clipped back and carried a black leather tote, as well as a canvas bag and a blue cross-body purse.

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Mother-of-three Samantha looked effortlessly stylish in a double-breasted grey wool coat, cropped navy trousers and Nike trainers as she headed out on the school run with Arthur, ten and Florence, five

Stylish Sam wore her chestnut hair clipped back and carried a black leather tote, as well as a canvas bag and a blue cross-body purse

Samantha, who is also mother to Nancy, 12, announced in May 2010 that she would be stepping down from her full-time role as the creative director of luxury leather goods designers Smythson - for which she won a British Glamour Magazine Award for Best Accessory Designer - to work for two days a week as a consultant.

She is also an ambassador for Save the Children and the British Fashion Awards, and in 2010, the 45-year-old was named in Tatler's top 10 best-dressed list for her faultless sartorial choices.

Samantha is frequently seen out and about in London with her children, despite the family employing an Australian nanny in 2012.

Sam announced in May 2010 that she would be stepping down from her full-time role as the creative director of luxury leather goods designers Smythson to work two days a week as a consultant

Working mum: Samantha is frequently seen out and about in London with her children despite the family employing an Australian nanny since 2012

Last month, she and her husband David were spotted celebrating her 45th birthday in a trendy restaurant in Notting Hill.

They joined friends at West Thirty Six on Golborne Road, which serves up 'US-accented British fare' such as gourmet burgers, steaks and cocktails - also selling Cristal champagne at 360 a bottle.

While David kept it casual in a dark blue polo shirt and colarless jacket, his wife upped the glam factor with a stylish midi skirt, pointed heels and a smart black overcoat.

Samantha recently celebrated her birthday in a trendy Notting Hill restaurant with David

Speaking of his and Sam's 'date nights' in 2010, Mr Cameron told Now magazine: '[Sam and I] have one night a week where we either stay in and do nothing or go out on our own.

'We have a couple of favourite Italian restaurants in north Kensington but I can't tell you about them.'
With birth of her second child is just weeks away, plus-size model Tess Holliday can't exactly jet off to the islands for a last-minute vacation  so she brought the islands to her.

On Sunday, the 30-year-old threw a tropical-themed baby shower  which doubled as a housewarming party  and invited her nearest and dearest to come celebrate with her and her fiance Nick Holliday.

There at their Long Beach, California home, guests were treated to a faux-Hawaiian getaway, complete with straw umbrellas, pineapple-shaped desserts, drinks with cute cocktail umbrellas.

Celebrate! Tess Holliday and her fiance Nick Holliday had a combined housewarming and baby shower this weekend

Get the party started: The party had a tropical theme, from the decor to the food

Too cute: Tess dressed up for the occasion, as did her dog Winston (pictured)

The couple went all-out for the festivities, starting with Tess' perfect-planned look. Styled by friend Tiffany Kaelin, the mom-to-be dressed her baby bump in a frond-print maxi dress, which she topped off with a statement-making headpiece featuring a mini pineapple and tropical flowers.

She got her nails done, too, enlisting Priscilla Ono to give her a themed mani. Her ten different nails features pineapples, palm trees, sunsets, and the phrase 'Oh baby'.

Her man also got in on the action, donning a tropical shirt  and strangely hiked-up jeans  for the occasion.

Around their backyard, the couple hung straw decor, leaves, and flower garlands, and set up straw umbrellas for shade.

They also set out plenty of food, which naturally fit the theme as well.

Yum! The food stuck with the theme, too, from lunch to dessert

Adorable: California Donuts made these treats shaped like pineapples and decorated with palm trees

So fun! Guests ate pulled pork and sushi and had cocktails with umbrellas in them

Love it: It seems that no detail was overlooked, and guests were totally impressed

After a lunch that included pulled pork and sushi, guests hit the dessert bar, which was packed with adorable Hawaiian-decorated sweets.

There was a bright tiered cake with a flamingo and a palm tree, giant pineapple-shaped cookies, and treats from hotspot California Donuts, which made pineapple-shaped and palm tree-topped donuts for the party.

'When Momma says "it's tropical themed",' the bakery wrote on Instagram with pineapple and palm tree emojis. Some of the donuts also spelled out the word 'aloha baby'.

Finally, Tess opened the gifts. She shared one snapshot on Instagram, which showed sweet bunny slippers and three onesies  including one gray one that says 'gender is a drag' and a white one that has the hashtag #sh**girlplease.

Luau style: Several of Tess' guests dressed for the theme, and she wore a cute headpiece

All the little details: She had her nails done at Priscilla Ono to match the motif

Nailed it! Each finger was individually painted, including pineapples, sunsets, and the words 'oh baby!'

Fond friends: She was given plenty of gifts, including a 'gender is a drag' onesie

'We had such a magical day celebrating our little sprouts impending arrival!' the Instagram star wrote after the party, later adding: 'Our (soon to be) baby is already so loved (& well dressed!).'

Tess, who was born Ryann Hoven, is already a mom to a ten-year-old son, Rylee, whom she had with a previous boyfriend.

She's spoken out about how she is happier in her pregnancy this time around, and also more at ease with her body.

'Even though I've had a baby before, I didn't love myself entirely. So now every kick, every pain, is incredible to me,' she explained in March.

But it hasn't been easy. The expectant mom finds herself attacked and called out for her size again and again: 'I get constantly shamed & criticized for existing in this body.'

Cute dog: Nick said that their pup, wearing a floral lei, was the star of the party

Good times: Friends, including stylist Tiffany Kaelin (center), shared pictures on Instagram from the event

Happy in her skin: Tess, who has been outspoken in advocating for body positivity, kept her hand on her belly for several photos

That's made her an even more vocal advocate for body positivity, as she encourages followers to love themselves as they are.

'I'm embracing my stomach getting bigger, stretch marks, & loving this little life I'm growing,' she said, adding: 'What I've had to be learn to be okay with (WHICH IS NOT COOL) is the fact that people still think it's okay to comment on my body: "you don't look pregnant", "you must be have quadruplets", "you are putting your baby at risk".

'I'm not the first plus size woman in the public eye to have a baby & share it with the world, & I certainly won't be the last. However I'm part of a small minority that's telling you it's okay to not have a perfect baby bump, or not show at all, to be plus size & have a healthy child, & most importantly to find a care provider that doesn't shame you about your size.
A Place in the Sun presenter Jasmine Harman is thrilled to have welcomed baby Albion into the world - but revealed that his arrival was far from smooth.

Jasmine and her husband, TV cameraman Jon Boast, who already have a two-year-old daughter, Joy, told OK! Magazine that they had been hoping for a home birth.

However, due to Albion Peter Jenson's erratic heart rate during labour, the couple had to be rushed to hospital.

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A Place in the Sun presenter Jasmine Harman (pictured here with husband Jon and daughter Joy, two) is thrilled to have welcomed baby Albion into the world - but revealed that his journey was far from smooth

Jasmine, aged 40, said: '[Arriving at the hospital] was quite dramatic.

'There were lots of consultants bustling around, monitoring the baby's heart rate and I distinctly remember someone saying: "I've never seen anything like it!"

Jon added: 'I felt very helpless.'

Thankfully their son was none the worse for his ordeal and he was born at 10.24pm on Sunday December 6.

Jasmine got her big TV break in 2004, when she beat hundreds of applicants to a job presenting A Place In The Sun, despite having no TV experience

The job involves spending six months of the year travelling to foreign climes, helping would-be expats find their dream home. She described giving birth as 'he most euphoric moment' of her life

'It was the most euphoric moment of my life,' said Jasmine.

'I hadn't experienced a natural birth with Joy - she was born by Caesarean - so this was just like a miracle. I don't even remember any pain.'

Speaking to OK! Magazine, Jasmine said she had been hoping for a home birth

'It was so emotional. I felt so in awe of Jas,' said Jon.

Both Joy and Albion were conceived on the same day via IVF.

Jasmine said: 'He was a frozen egg and she was put in fresh!'

Jasmine got her big TV break in 2004, when she beat hundreds of applicants to a job presenting A Place In The Sun, despite having no TV experience.

The job involves spending six months of the year travelling to foreign climes, helping would-be expats find their dream home.

But in 2011, Jasmine took on an entirely different presenting gig - a BBC documentary series called My Hoarder Mum And Me, featuring her mother Vasoulla.

In an interview with The Daily Mail in 2013, she said: 'When I started out in TV it was my biggest fear that someone would find out about how Id grown up. I lived in dread of someone discovering about my mum, and all the... weirdness.'

Mum would keep spent batteries and old speakers, broken bits of doll and baskets shed picked up in the street. Nothing would be thrown away in case it was useful and woe betide you if you ever tried to clear up.'

Jasmine has since fronted the documentary Britain's Compulsive Shoppers, and presented The Truth About Your Teeth as well as the second series of Collectaholics - all on BBC.

Jasmine has since fronted the documentary Britain's Compulsive Shoppers (pictured), and presented The Truth About Your Teeth and the second series of Collectaholics - all on the BBC
Some regard their clean-eating recipes as being out of this world but it appears the latest superfood to be championed by the Hemsley sisters has been influenced by the planets.

Jasmine, 35, and younger sister Melissa, 29, last night demonstrated how to make a baked full English breakfast - using astrologically farmed eggs.

On their Channel 4 programme Eating Well with Hemsley and Hemsley they lifted the lid on the latest food fad, using biodynamic eggs which have been produced by using the moon as a guide.

Some regard their clean-eating recipes as being out of this world but it appears the latest superfood to be championed by the Hemsley sisters has been influenced by the planets. Pictured: Melissa (left) and Jasmine

The programme saw the sisters visiting their local farmers market in Crystal Palace, south London, where they bought the eggs and biodynamic vegetables from Ellie Woodcock of Brambletye Farm in Sussex.

Biodynamic farming is the latest development in the trend for healthy eating and ethical produce, with some working in the superfood industry seeing it as the next step on from organic foods.

Biodynamic farming is based on the theories of 19th century Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who said the best time to plant crops is two days before a full moon for a good yield.

The eggs are stocked in wholefood shops and sold at farmers markets at approximately 10 pence more per box than organic eggs.

Liz Cotton, 47, has worked as a buyer for Infinity Foods in Brighton for 23 years, which sells Orchard Eggs, the same brand used by the Hemsleys.

She says: Biodynamic is similar to organic but these farms are self-sufficient in compost, manure and feed for the animals. They use an astrological calendar to determine when to plant. Its a bit strange but the eggs taste amazing - the yolks are bright sunset yellow and they taste better than organic.

She adds that the eggs are one of the most popular products stocked in the shop, where they are sold for 2.35 for a box of six large eggs, whereas a box of organic eggs costs 2.25.

Miss Woodcock, 32, who can be seen selling the Hemsleys two boxes of eggs, courgettes and chard in the programme, did an apprenticeship in biodynamic farming before joining Brambletye Farm.

Jasmine, 35, and younger sister Melissa, 29, baked full English breakfast - using astrologically farmed eggs (stock image of normal eggs)

She says: The prices are higher than organic produce because of the labour involved and the space for the anmals.

Its also not as easy as organic which is just not using pesticides or chemicals. The Hemsleys came out to the farm a few years ago and the programme helps with getting the idea into peoples minds but I dont want 100 people in my store wanting my eggs because I dont have enough!

Last night Amanda Cryer, a spokesperson for the British Egg Information Service, said: There is no difference in the nutritious value in eggs from different production systems and this has been shown in government tests.

If people want to be more environmentally conscious with the types of eggs they buy thats fine. The only difference in eggs from different production systems may be a slightly different taste or colour but there is no difference in nutrition, even with organic.

The astrological calendar used to determine when to plant is adapted each year and is specific to certain crops. Daniel Hoeberichts, 30, the manager of Orchard Eggs, says: Its about the constellation of the moon and other planets - the tides of the sea are guided by the force of the moon - other planets have forces too and the majority of plants are water based.

He adds: Its all about the equity of the farm. Each bird has 50 square feet of space - on organic farms they might have 3,000 birds in every barn but we wouldnt have more than 500 in one space. All the grain in their feed has been planted according to the astrological calendar.
Talks over Jeremy Hunt's controversial junior doctors' contract will continue today

Talks aimed at resolving a bitter dispute over a new contract for junior doctors will continue today.

Leaders from the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Government met all last week for discussions to try to break the deadlock and prevent a fresh round of strikes.

The talks were due to end on Friday - but Acas - the conciliation service mediating the negotiations - extended the 'constructive and positive' discussions in the hope a new deal can be thrashed out.

All sides are expected to meet at 9am this morning with up to three more days of negotiations planned.

Medics met in London this weekend for the BMA's junior doctor conference.

Dr Johann Malawana, chairman of the junior doctors committee, told the conference a more conciliatory tone had been struck but no agreement reached.

He said: 'Our attitude in these negotiations has been not to trade grievances but to resolve them.

'Our aim has been to rediscover the common ground that is so great but so easily neglected - the shared interest of everyone in the health service to improve care for our patients.

'The temptation has been to relive the resentments, which are many, but instead we have tried to rediscover the opportunities.'

Dr Malawana has said that any contract - whether agreed or not - should be put to a referendum of junior doctors.

It follows a statement by Dr Brendan Barber, chairman of Acas, who has chaired the discussions, who said last weeks' discussions had been positive.

'The talks have been conducted in a constructive and positive atmosphere,' she said on Friday.

'In my judgement some real progress has been made to address outstanding issues.

'I reached the view, however, in the last 24 hours that a limited amount of additional time would be needed to give the process a chance of reaching a successful conclusion.

'I proposed to the Secretary of State, and to the BMA that the talks should be continued up until next Wednesday, and to allow this to happen, that each side should renew the commitments they made for this process to start.'

Our attitude in these negotiations has been not to trade grievances but to resolve them Dr Johann Malawana, BMA

The Government agreed to pause the introduction of the new contract - due to come into force in August - so the negotiations could continue, he said.

And the BMA said it would continue to suspend any further industrial action.

Dr Barber said he asked both parties to keep the talks confidential and refrain from making 'hostile or negative' comments about the other party.

Junior doctors stopped providing emergency care for the first time in NHS history during their most recent walkout.

More than 125,000 appointments and operations were cancelled and will need to be rearranged, on top of almost 25,000 procedures cancelled during previous action.

The BMA and the Department of Health had been negotiating the new contract for three years.

Around 90 per cent of the contract had previously been agreed, but the main bone of contention was over whether Saturdays should attract extra 'unsocial' payments, among other issues.

The British Medical Association (BMA) and the Department of Health are trying to resolve sticking points in the new deal, including Saturday pay and unsocial hours - and have made progress after last weeks' talks

Before the talks began, Mr Hunt demanded a 'written agreement' from the BMA's junior doctors committee that discussions over unsocial hours and Saturday pay would be held in 'good faith'.

The views of NHS Employers and the Government are being represented by Sir David Dalton, who was involved in the original talks and heads up Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust.

The resumption of negotiations has been brokered by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges in an effort to end the dispute.

It began when the Government took steps to introduce its manifesto commitment of a seven-day NHS.

Mr Hunt wants to change what constitutes 'unsocial' hours for which junior doctors can claim extra pay, turning 7am to 5pm on Saturday into a normal working day.

Currently, 7pm to 7am Monday to Friday and the whole of Saturday and Sunday attract a premium rate of pay for junior doctors.

The Government proposed to offset this change with a hike in basic pay of 13.5 per cent, but the BMA rejected these plans.
A mother has told of her horror after her 11-year-old son accidentally got splashed with petrol at a bonfire and caught alight  leaving him with legs like 'raw meat'.

The incident last month left Hunter Simmons with agonising third degree burns spanning his left hand and both legs.

All the fat on his left leg had to be removed because it was so damaged.

The brave schoolboy has since undergone a skin graft  but his mother Stefanie Simmons, 33, fears he will require further surgery, as his wounds could potentially tear back open when he grows.

Hunter Simmons suffered agonising third degree burns on his left hand and both legs (pictured) after being splashed with petrol and catching alight at a bonfire

'When skin grafts heal, they harden so the skin isn't as stretchy as usual,' said Mrs Simmons, who works in manufacturing.

'When Hunter has a growth spurt, his skin could possibly split open and tear, or tighten to the point where it's too painful for him to stand up straight.

'His legs at the moment are just like raw meat.

'It's been really tough on him, but he's so brave.'

Hunter, his father, who doesn't wish to be named, and some of their neighbours were helping try and fell a large, dead tree on the afternoon of April 3.

After trying everything, including pulling it out with a truck, which had no affect, they decided to try and weaken it with fire.

But, unknown to Hunter's father, somebody threw gasoline on the flames in an attempt to stoke them.

His first instinct was to take off running, but a neighbour grabbed him and helped him get onto the ground, patting out the flames Stefanie Simmons, 33

'From what I've been told, somebody had an open bucket of gasoline and threw some on the fire,' said Mrs Simmons, of Ogden in Utah, USA.

'Droplets of gasoline were spilt and left a little trail on the grass, which then caught alight. I think this must have startled whoever was holding the bucket, because they dropped it.

'Gasoline then splashed on Hunter's legs and he caught fire.

'His first instinct was to take off running, but a neighbour grabbed him and helped him get onto the ground, patting out the flames.'

The first Mrs Simmons, who is also mother to Niomii, seven and Jazlyn, 10 months, heard of the incident was when she was telephoned and told, 'I need you to remain calm but Hunter has had an accident and paramedics have been called.'

She had spoken to her son just 20 minutes earlier.

Frantic, she raced to meet him in the emergency room of nearby McKay-Dee Hospital.

The family were then transferred to the University of Utah's burns centre for specialist treatment.

A neighbour grabbed Hunter and rolled him on the ground to put out the flames on his legs and hand

Hunter remained in the burns unit for 23 days, during which time he underwent a skin graft. It is expected to be another 12 to 16 months before Hunter, who is now out home, is fully recovered

Hunter Simmons, pictured with his mother, stepfather and siblings, is undergoing daily physiotherapy and may need further surgery as he grows as his skin grafts could tear, the taller he gets

There, doctors determined that 11 per cent of Hunter's body had been burnt, including his left hand and both his legs.

The injuries to his hand were superficial and have since healed, but his legs had been ravaged by third degree full thickness burns, meaning every layer of skin was destroyed.

In total, Hunter remained in the burns unit for 23 days, during which time he underwent a skin graft.

He hasn't returned to school since the accident, and is still struggling to walk.

From what I've been told, somebody had an open bucket of gasoline and threw some on the fire

'Hunter is healing well from the skin graft. There's no infection so far, thankfully,' said Mrs Simmons.

'But he's finding it really hard to get around. He still can't walk properly.

'His body is working overtime to improve his skin so he tires easily. For him, walking 20ft is like running half a mile.'

Now, Hunter undergoes daily physical therapy at home, as well as at hospital three times a week.

It is expected to be another 12 to 16 months before he's fully recovered.

But, as he has not yet undergone a growth spurt, Mrs Simmons fears he'll need further surgery in the future, as his skin grafts could tear as he gets taller.

To fund her son's ongoing care, she has set up a GoFundMe page called 'Helping Hunter heal.'

She is also sharing her story to raise awareness of the dangers of using gasoline to ignite fires.

'When this first happened, I was frustrated, but I since spoke to the person responsible, who I don't want to name, and told him that I forgive him,' she said.

'It was a silly mistake, but I want people to realise that using gasoline around fires is dangerous, and the outcome can be awful.

'Hunter has such high spirits and tries to be the happy kid he's always been, but I can't even begin to explain the pain he's has had to endure.'
His penis had become bent, was swollen and

A man has described the agonising moment his penis snapped while having sex.

The 32-year-old was rushed to hospital in New Delhi after he heard a loud snapping sound during vigorous sexual intercourse  and then felt severe pain.

When he arrived at hospital his penis was bent at an odd angle and had turned completely black.

Doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi  who described the case in the journal BMJ Case Reports  said the man had what is known as an eggplant deformity.

The 32-year-old man was rushed to hospital after he snapped his penis during vigorous sex. He was taken for emergency surgery immediately (file photo)

They carried out ultrasound scans which showed he had torn the wall of the right corpora cavernosa.

The penis does not have a bone - but instead the corpus cavernosa - two tubes made of spongy material - run along its length.

Blood flows into this tissue, which is what makes the penis hard during an erection.

The snap had led to a tear in the corpus cavernosas sheath, which meant blood leaked out, creating the swelling and turning it black.

He was immediately rushed for emergency surgery to drain away the excess blood gathered in the penis and correct the tear.

A penile fracture occurs when the appendage is subject to a sharp, blunt force trauma, which can occur during vigorous intercourse or masturbation.

Since 1924, 1,600 cases have been recorded worldwide - roughly 16 instances per year, the Telegraph reports.

The man heard a loud 'snapping sound' during sex and felt severe pain. When he arrived in A&E was bent at an odd angle and was completely black - and doctors said he had an 'eggplant deformity' (file photo)

And last year, Brazilian researchers found the 'woman on top' or 'cowgirl' position is to blame for half of all penile fractures that occur during sex.

In comparison, 'doggy style' or the woman on all fours is responsible for 29 per cent of injuries, while 'man on top' or 'missionary' is only liable for 21 per cent.

Doctors have previously warned breaks in the penis can lead to problems including erectile dysfunction, as scar tissue known as fibrous plaques can form in the penis, preventing blood from flowing in to sustain an erection.

It is also possible to suffer a curve or bend in the penis, and damage to the nerves in the genitals.

Since 1924, some 1,600 penile fractures have been recorded worldwide - roughly 16 per year (file photo)

Last year, MailOnline reported the story of a 42-year-old who had to undergo emergency surgery after snapping a fibrous membrane inside the organ.

His erect phallus had inadvertently collided with his partners perineum, the area in front of the anus.

The man heard a snap, felt his penis become immediately flaccid, and noticed a rush of blood from the tip.

He was rushed to the A&E department of a Boston hospital as he was suffering severe pain, according to a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

There was also the story of Alan Parke, from Donegal, who heard his penis 'snap' during intercourse with his girlfriend Clarissa and 'saw blood spurt everywhere'.

'I've never known pain like it. It was absolutely excruciating,' Mr Parke told the Irish Mirror.

The couple rushed to Letterkenny General Hospital where Mr Parke was immediately transferred to another hospital in Galway.
A 31-year-old woman had a hairball weighing almost 7lbs removed from her stomach - which had left her unable to eat or even take a sip of water.

The woman, from a small village in Punchkula, near Chandigarh, northern India, was admitted into a local government hospital last week with severe stomach pain.

After scans revealed the mass she admitted she had been pulling out and eating her own locks for two decades, doctors discovered.

She couldn't let anything pass through her lips without immediately vomiting.

After surgery to remove the 3kg ball of hair, doctors were astonished to find it was 40cm long - and she is now finally able to eat proper meals again.

A 31-year-old woman had a hairball weighing almost 7lbs (3kg) from her stomach - which left her unable to eat or even take a sip of water

Dr Hardeep Singh, 30, a general surgeon said: When she came to hospital we asked her if she had a habit of chewing her hair to which she said no.

'But when we got her ultrasound done, it confirmed a huge mass in her stomach that demanded immediate attention.

After surgery last Friday, the mother-of-three confessed she had been chewing her hair since she was nine years old.

Dr Singh said: Her stomach and intestines were filled with hair so there was no way she couldve digested food or water.

'Whatever she consumed was not getting absorbed and she would vomit.

Dr Singh said hed never seen anything like it. It was around 40 cm long. She is now having proper meals without any issue and will be discharged from hospital after three days once her stitches are removed.

Her stomach and intestines were filled with hair so there was no way she couldve digested food or water Dr Hardeep Singh, general surgeon

And after the mother's hair-eating addiction was revealed, one of her children went on to confessed to eating large quantities of cement every day.

Dr Singh said: Once we understood the mothers condition, we inquired about her children just to be sure they had not been affected.

'And one of her daughters admitted eating cement.

'We will do some reports on her condition now.'

The mother was diagnosed with Rapunzel syndrome, a rare condition in which a hairball (called a trichobezar) is found in the stomach, with its tail in the colon.

The syndrome is rare, with less than 120 cases reported in the medical literature, and almost always affects young women, according to doctors writing in the journal BMJ Case Reports.

Dr Singh said: 'This condition is usually found in young girls where they suffer some kind of depression in their early years.'

The woman was diagnosed with Rapunzel syndrome, a rare condition in which a hairball (called a trichobezar) is found in the stomach, with its tail in the colon. She had surgery to remove the 17cm wide mass of hair

Surgeon Dr Hardeep Singh said: Her stomach and intestines were filled with hair so there was no way she couldve digested food or water. Whatever she consumed was not getting absorbed and she would vomit

Her daughter may be suffering from Pica - a disorder where people experience cravings for non-edible items of food.

Dr Singh said: 'Some of them eat chalk, cement, jute and stones. It demands immediate attention. If not noticed, it can be fatal.

The news comes after last month MailOnline reported on the story of a 17-year-old girl who was rushed to hospital as she could unable to eat and could barely walk.

Eventually, she too was found to have a hairball weighing 2.2lbs (0.9kg) in her stomach.

The teenager, known only as Komal, arrived at Shree Hospital in Pune, western India, complaining of a severe stomach ache, and said she had lost her appetite and was too ill to walk.

Doctors discovered she had been chewing on her hair for five years - and had swallowed so much she had started to vomit every time she ate.

They immediately carried out surgery to remove the 17cm wide giant mass of hair.
Loneliness and losing your sense of smell have been included on a list of hidden killers that could deny you a long and healthy life.

Broken sleep and difficulty in walking also appear on the list, compiled by Chicago researchers.

Odd as it may seem, even something as seemingly innocuous as an arm broken in middle-age may affect the odds of dying years later.

The researchers say these factors are just as important as obvious medical conditions such as weight, blood pressure and heart disease.

A long and healthy life is not just about being free from medical conditions such as obesity and heart disease, researchers claim. Factors such as a broken bone may affect the odds of dying years later (file photo)

In fact, being obese wont necessarily send people to an early grave. And age, it seems, really is just a number.

Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Chicago University researchers said we must look at a person as a whole if we are to accurately judge their health.

The team, which included psychologists, sociologists and doctors specialising in the care of the elderly, analysed a mountain of data on the health and habits of 3,000 men and women aged between 57 and 85.

This included details about standard conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, as well as information about factors such as loneliness, ease of walking and the strength of the various senses, including smell.

Including the extra information provided a much more accurate picture about which of the volunteers was likely to have died or become very infirm over the following five years.

It also allowed the researchers to divide the men and women into six groups, from the most healthy to the least healthy.

These contained some surprises.

THE HIDDEN KILLERS THAT LEAD TO AN EARLY GRAVE A broken bone Loneliness Loss of sense of smell Trouble walking Broken sleep

For instance, the members of the healthiest group were all overweight.

And despite them having only a 6 per cent chance of dying or becoming very unwell, high blood pressure was also common.

However, psychological health, mobility and the sense of smell were all good and the researchers said that if an older adult is otherwise healthy, obesity seems to pose very little risk.

Another group, with a 14 per cent chance of death or very bad health, was distinguished by its members having broken a bone after the age of 45.

These men and women were at higher risk of osteoporosis in old age. However, they were very active and mobile and so it isnt entirely clearly that a break in middle age is a harbinger of ill health to come.

A third group had 19 per cent odds of death or very bad health, and was plagued by mental health problems, including stress, depression and loneliness, as well as sleep problems.

Everything from the size of a person's social circle to the sharpness of their sense of smell is just as, if not more, important, than suffering from obesity, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure

Previous research has found loneliness to be as bad for health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, with social isolation weakening the immune system and a persons resistance to disease, while pushing up blood pressure.

A shift of attention is needed from disease-focused management to overall well-being across many areas Martha McClintock, of the University of Chicago

Past studies also suggest poor sense of smell may be a warning of impending ill health.

It is thought that the health of the olfactory nerve, which carries information on smell from the nose to the brain, is a sign of overall health.

And if the nerve has become old, damaged and unable to repair itself, the brain and body may be in the same position.

Lead author Martha McClintock said: The new comprehensive model of health identifies constellations of health completely hidden by the medical model.

Researcher Dr William Dale said: From a health system perspective, a shift of attention is needed from disease-focused management, such as medications for hypertension or high cholesterol, to overall well-being across many areas.

Finally, age was a poor guide to health.

However, doctors cant throw away their rulebook just yet.
Thousands of people suffer from chronic bronchitis and while there is no cure, a new procedure may improve the symptoms. Jayne Hewitt, 49, from London, was the first person in the UK to undergo it, as she tells ADRIAN MONTI.

THE PATIENT

Breathing problems have affected me since I was a child. At 12, I was diagnosed with asthma, which got worse as I grew older.

It didn't help that I started smoking at 13, eventually having 20 a day, even though I knew it was bad for my lungs.

Thousands of people suffer from chronic bronchitis and while there is no cure, a new procedure may help

My breathing became so bad that in 2009 I had to give up my job as an administration officer. Getting to work and speaking to people was difficult because I was so breathless.

In 2012, Dr Pallav Shah, my respiratory consultant, diagnosed chronic bronchitis. The airways to my lungs had been so badly damaged by my smoking that they were permanently inflamed, producing extra mucus. This is what was making me breathless.

Dr Shah said it would get worse over time. Although the diagnosis didn't come as a surprise, it wasn't good to hear. I was given medication to make the mucus easier to cough up, and was taught exercises to improve my breathing.

Doctors were also always urging me to give up smoking, which I finally managed two years ago.

But the damage had been done. Everything became a huge struggle - I'd even get breathless making the bed, and my partner Paul had to help me in and out of the bath. I was constantly coughing to try to clear the mucus, and suffered lots of chest infections.

Jayne Hewitt, 49, from London, who quit two years ago, was the first person in the UK to have it [FILE PHOTO]

My chest felt as if it had a heavy weight on it, and I had memory lapses because my body and brain wasn't getting enough oxygen. I also had poor digestion and circulation. The whole thing made me feel depressed.

When I saw Dr Shah in March this year, he told me about a new treatment he'd been researching, using liquid nitrogen to freeze some of the cells that produce mucus in the airways. This would mean I wouldn't produce as much and my breathing would become easier.

They insert the nitrogen via a tube down the throat.

I can move around and breathe more easily. I don't sound as hoarse when I speak, and I don't have as much mucus

Dr Shah said it was the first treatment to tackle the causes of chronic bronchitis rather than just the symptoms, and I was keen to try it.

I had tests a week later to check I was suitable - which I was, because I had given up smoking and was producing a lot of mucus. They would do the procedure in stages, starting with my lower right lung.

Doctors would take biopsies beforehand and 60 days afterwards, so they could monitor how well it had worked.

I had the first session in March at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital under general anaesthetic. I woke up with a mild sore throat and went home that day.

So far only a small section of my airways has been treated but I feel a big improvement already.

I can move around and breathe more easily. I don't sound as hoarse when I speak, and I don't have as much mucus.

This month, the airways to my upper right lung will be treated, and later this year they will treat my left. I'm sure it will feel like having a new pair of lungs.

With chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, long-term exposure to irritants, such as tobacco smoke, causes the airways to become inflamed

THE SPECIALIST

Dr Pallav Shah is a consultant respiratory physician at London's Royal Brompton Hospital and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

There are about 900,000 people in Britain diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a collection of lung diseases.

The most common is chronic bronchitis, which is most prevalent in men over 40.

With this condition, long-term exposure to irritants, such as tobacco smoke, causes the airways to become inflamed and produce more mucus than normal. The inflammation and excess mucus reduces air flow, causing coughing and shortness of breath.

Eventually this can lead to permanent lung damage.

The condition is different from acute bronchitis, which is caused by an infection and lasts only a few weeks.

In 90 per cent of cases the cause is smoking, but other irritants such as chemicals and dust can have the same effect. When people smoke, the noxious chemicals in cigarettes knock out the tiny cilia hairs that line the airways. These hairs play a vital role in clearing mucus.

Smoking also affects mucus production. Mucus is made by cells - called goblet cells - on the epithelium, which is the top layer of tissue on the airways.

Smoking damages the goblet cells, meaning they start to make large amounts of mucus, which the cilia cannot move effectively.

It usually takes years before a smoker develops chronic bronchitis, but once they have it, it's as if a switch is broken, so they keep producing excess mucus even if they stop smoking.

The big challenge is how to treat the condition and not just the symptoms.

Until now, all we've been able to offer is medication such as carbocysteine, which thins the mucus and slows production of it.

We believe that by freezing and killing off the top layer of cells in the damaged airway, the stem cells below - which have the potential to develop into new goblet cells - are preserved

This new approach - which we are trialling at the Royal Brompton Hospital and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital - is designed to treat the excess mucus production, which is a much better solution.

We are offering it only to patients who have stopped smoking, otherwise the symptoms would start again.

It is a variation on a procedure developed in the U.S. to treat some cancerous lung tumours, where liquid nitrogen is used to freeze the diseased part of the lung.

We believe that by freezing and killing off the top layer of cells in the damaged airway, the stem cells below - which have the potential to develop into new goblet cells - are preserved.

It means new, healthy cells can regenerate.

The technique we're using - the RejuvenAir System - is more accurate than the cancer treatment in the way the liquid nitrogen enters the diseased cells.

Jayne had a general anaesthetic. Then a bronchoscope, which is a narrow instrument with a light and camera attached, was threaded down her throat into her airways.

A precise quantity of liquid nitrogen was passed down the tube inside it.

The liquid nitrogen is at about -196c, which instantly freezes and kills off all the goblet cells.

'The technique we're using - the RejuvenAir System - is more accurate than cancer treatment'

Because an exact dose is delivered, other cells are not damaged. Biopsies and scans will double check this.

In Jayne's case, 19 sprays of liquid nitrogen were applied to the diseased part of the airways. The entire procedure took 30 minutes.

Great care is taken, because once liquid nitrogen leaves the bronchoscope it returns to its natural state as a gas. If this were to build up, it could endanger the patient by depriving them of oxygen.

So the patient has to be ventilated throughout the procedure with a tube to ensure the nitrogen escapes.

Once the diseased tissue has been killed, new cells will regenerate and replace it within 48 hours.

As a potential treatment it is very interesting... but it must be shown to be totally safe

We hope they will almost be as good as the ones you were born with.

At this stage we don't know how long these regenerated cells will last. But it's a fairly straightforward procedure to carry out again if needed. Patients shouldn't feel any serious side-effects afterwards.

We're treating this small section of lung to prove the technique is safe, before proceeding to the upper right airways of the lung.

Our London team is working alongside one in the Netherlands. Each team plans to do a clinical trial on 12 patients and we later hope to carry out a larger international trial.

WHAT ARE THE RISKS?

The most serious risk is pneumothorax, when a puncture in the lining of the lung allows air between the chest wall and the lung. But this can usually be treated by draining the air.

The patient could also suffer a chest infection as a result of the procedure.

Dr Richard Russell, a consultant respiratory physician at the NHS Lymington New Forest Hospital, Hampshire, believes the treatment has significant potential, especially in tackling excess mucus production in chronic bronchitis patients.

'As a potential treatment it is very interesting,' he says, 'but it must be shown to be totally safe.

'Those of us involved in treating bronchial disease are very excited about it.'

For more information about the trial, visit www.rbht.nhs.uk/COPDresearch




After standard antibiotics failed to shift a severe lung infection, Jane Allan was more than happy when her GP suggested she move onto a stronger antibiotic, ciprofloxacin.

Jane, who suffers from asthma, was a hospital pharmacist and remembered the excitement when ciprofloxacin became available in the early Nineties.

'It caused quite a buzz as it was one of a new class of powerful antibiotics that could be given as a pill, so patients could have treatment at home, and it quickly became very popular,' she recalls.

Jane Allan, 50, from Essex a took stronger antibiotic, ciprofloxacin, for her persistent lung infection

Yet Jane now blames the drug for the litany of health problems she suffers, including widespread muscle pain and weakness and severe fatigue.

Three years on, the once fit and sporty 50-year-old is unable to work. After 25 years in the NHS, she retired early on health grounds.

'Within four days of taking the first tablet, every joint, muscle and bone in my body felt like they were on fire,' recalls Jane, who lives in Romford, Essex, with her husband, Tony, 56, a lorry driver, and their sons, Jack, 24, and Harry, 21.

'I had a burning, stinging and tingling sensation all over my body. I couldn't sleep because it felt like burning hot water had been poured down my back. I couldn't sit in the car as I was in so much pain.'

Jane read the patient information leaflet and found serious side-effects, including those she was experiencing.

'One of the side-effects listed was neuropathy (nerve pain). It said the symptoms could continue months after taking the pills. Other side-effects included eyesight problems. I was horrified and stopped taking the pills immediately.'

Blames the drug for health problems she now suffers, including widespread muscle pain and weakness

Jane went to A&E and said she thought she was having an adverse drug reaction, but the doctor suggested she see her GP, who prescribed painkillers.

'The GP said there was no test he could do or treatment he could offer and seemed sceptical that my symptoms had been caused by ciprofloxacin,' recalls Jane.

'A few days later I developed terrible groin pain and had pins and needles and numbness in my hands, meaning I couldn't hold a phone, type a text or hold a cup.

Within four days of taking the first tablet, every joint, muscle and bone in my body felt like they were on fire

'I began to worry these side-effects might be permanent and felt very let down by the drugs - which I'd always trusted.

'I used to love swimming and badminton - but now even a walk around the supermarket wipes me out,' she says.

She lays the blame squarely at the door of ciprofloxacin.

It's one of a family of antibiotics which are known as fluoroquinolones (others include levofloxacin and moxifloxacin). Jane has since come across others with similar long-term effects believed to be linked to these antibiotics.

Fluoroquinolones are broad-spectrum antibiotics, meaning they work against a large number of bacteria, such as salmonella, E.coli, gonorrhoeae and pseudomonas (bacteria that can cause serious lung infections).

The antibiotics were a godsend when they were introduced, as other commonly used antibiotics, such as penicillin, ceased to work for everyday infections such as urinary tract and skin problems.

Once fit and sporty, Jane is unable to work. After 25 years in the NHS, she retired early on health grounds

The fact that fluoroquinolones could be given in tablet form, rather than intravenously as was the case with many other strong antibiotics, added to their popularity.

At their peak, prescriptions for fluoroquinolones from GPs and other community practitioners reached 1.35 million a year, although numbers began to fall as the drugs were associated with the hospital superbugs MRSA and clostridium difficile.

But in 2014 there were still more than 750,000 fluoroquinolones dispensed in the community (more are used in hospitals).

And there is a problem with their side-effects.

Although these are much less likely than with penicillins, the most commonly prescribed antibiotics (the side-effect rate for fluoroquinolines has been put at just 0.09 per cent, compared with 3.5 to 5 per cent for penicillins), the side-effects of fluoroquinolone are potentially more serious and disabling and may be permanent.

A few days later I developed terrible groin pain and had pins and needles and numbness in my hands - I couldn't hold a phone, type a text or hold a cup

A recent study in the BMJ found fluoroquinolones may contribute to aortic tears and aneurysms (damage and rupture of the aorta, the main artery in the body), which can result in life-threatening bleeding.

More recently, a 2012 study published in the journal JAMA showed people who'd had the drugs had a five-fold increased risk of retinal detachment, which can lead to blindness.

In the U.S., since 2008 the drugs have carried a black box public health warning (a boxed-out warning on the information leaflet) about side-effects, highlighting the risk of tendonitis and tendon rupture. Another black box warning was added to ciprofloxacin in 2013, saying it may worsen symptoms of a rare muscle weakness condition, myasnthia gravis.

It's thought the side-effects may be the result of the drugs degrading collagen, a protein found in muscles, skin and bones and which acts as a scaffolding structure for strength and stability.

Dr Beatrice Golomb, a professor of medicine at the University of California, recently reported in the journal BMJ Open the experiences of four formerly healthy patients who reported widespread symptoms, including joint and muscle pain, brain fog, mood problems, concentration difficulties, memory problems, anxiety and confusion after a course of fluoroquinolones.

The symptoms persisted even after discontinuing the drugs.

'Tendon problems appeared to be the most distinctive problem and these can appear up to a year after discontinuing fluoroquinolones,' says Dr Golomb. 'But because fluoroquinolones act on cell mitochondria - powerhouses in cells responsible for energy release and respiration - the effects can be felt all over the body, including the musculoskeletal system, the central nervous system and the brain.

Ciprofloxacin is one of a family of broad-spectrum antibiotics which are known as fluoroquinolones

'Organs with high energy demands tend to be the most affected, including the brain. These are very powerful drugs with the potential for serious toxicity,' she says.

Last week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued new advice on fluoroquinolones, saying the drugs 'are associated with disabling and potentially permanent serious side-effects that can occur together. These side-effects can involve the tendons, muscles, joints, nerves and central nervous system.'

The FDA said that for patients with sinusitis, bronchitis or uncomplicated urinary tract infections, the risks of the drugs outweighed the benefits, and they should not be given unless there are no alternative treatments.

Here, Public Health England says ciprofloxacin should be used only for treating acute inflammation of the prostate gland or a kidney infection.

The UK's drug watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), says 5,962 adverse drug reactions have been reported for fluoroquinolones in the UK since 1990, with more than 4,500 for ciprofloxacin, the most frequently prescribed fluoroquinolone (although this may be seriously under-reported).

33m Antibiotics prescriptions written by GPs last year

Dr David Healy, professor of psychiatry at the University of Bangor, and director of the patient drug safety group RxISK, says serious fluoroquinolone side-effects have been reported since they were introduced.

'Their use was justified on the grounds that they were really strong antibiotics that could be reserved to treat serious infections,' he says. 'They were then used for everything, including trivial infections and even to prevent infections.

'The problem is most members of the public regard these antibiotics as safe, and don't connect their symptoms with them. But they're not safe - all of them are tricky, and fluoroquinolones have the worst side-effects.'

A spokeswoman for the MHRA said they will work with European regulators to consider any new evidence on fluoroquinolones, but added it was important that patients should not stop the drugs and should speak to their doctors.

Bayer, manufacturers of Ciproxin (the branded version of ciprofloxacin) in the UK said the company 'would carefully review the information the FDA had posted and continue to work closely with the agency on this topic'.

Jane has since come across others with similar long-term effects believed to be linked to these antibiotics

While she is convinced the antibiotics were to blame for her ill-health, Jane Allan's battle for diagnosis has been protracted. After six weeks, her GP referred her to a rheumatologist who ruled out rheumatoid arthritis. She then saw a neurologist who tested her for thyroid disorders.

She was also tested for Lyme disease and given an MRI. All tests came back normal.

'The neurologist was sympathetic and admitted he didn't know what was causing my symptoms,' she says. 'But he did say often patients do have a hunch as to what's wrong, but there was no test or scan he could do to prove it,' says Jane.

'More recently I saw a pain consultant who said it was highly plausible my symptoms may have been caused by an adverse reaction to cipro.'

She's joined a newly formed online support group, Quinolone Antibiotic Toxicity Support UK, which has more than 35 members.

'Most of us were young or middle-aged and previously healthy, and yet we all feel a course of antibiotics completely wrecked our health,' says Jane.

She wants more prominent warnings about the side-effect risks from fluoroquinolones and greater awareness among prescribers and pharmacists.

'We also want them reserved for where they are no alternative treatments,' she adds.

'Side-effects may be rare, but with millions of these drugs being prescribed over the years, the number of people who have been "floxed" is growing and there doesn't appear to be any treatment for us.'
Death, for most people, is a rumour - something that happens to others, far away. But it is, of course, the last thing you will 'do' or which will happen to you.

The modern ideal of dying is this: after a lifetime of achievement and happiness, having contracted an illness that conveniently does not rob your faculties, your ability to communicate or enjoy food, you gather family and friends, raise your hand to say 'Goodbye', close your eyes and die immediately.

The reality is all too often brutally different. I work as a consultant gastroenterologist and have to conclude after 32 years of practice that most of what I read about dying bears little relation to what I see every day in my work on the hospital wards.

Dr Seamus O'Mahony says hospitals are ill-equipped to meet the needs of the dying

I deal with death in many guises - from the rapid and messy death in the emergency department resuscitation room, to the slow, painful death from liver disease on the general ward, to the high-tech, 'digital' death in the intensive care unit (ICU) - and the deaths I see are frequently undignified.

The dying often have not accepted or under-stood their situation, the truth denied them by well-intentioned relatives and doctors.

Death in modern hospitals still has the faint whiff of an industrial accident: it is seen as a failure of medicine.

When I was a student, treatment of the dying was briefly and fleetingly covered - death being a 'negative outcome'.

We, the medical profession, had begun to believe the delusion that we could tame nature, that all illnesses were potentially curable.

During my first three years as a doctor, I was often part of the cardiac arrest team. Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation was then (and still is) spectacularly unsuccessful. Very often we were cardiac-massaging people who were well and truly dead, the team called only to keep up appearances.

'The culture, the ambience, the tone is of haste, bustle and frayed tempers. Care of the dying is not a priority'

But without exception, the worst type of hospital death is acute death on the general ward, which is occupied mainly by elderly, highly dependent patients. This is where most hospital deaths occur. The patient might not be recognised initially as being sick enough to require admission to the ICU or there may be no ICU beds.

The nurse may have several other sick patients to attend to, and the first port of call for medical help is often an inexperienced and terrified junior doctor.

On the cardiac arrest team, I was struck on more than one occasion by the sheer terror of those few patients who were still conscious near the end. One man has stayed in my memory. It was a Saturday afternoon in Bradford Royal Infirmary. I was summoned to see a man in the coronary care unit.

He was in his mid-50s, admitted with a heart attack. He had severe chest pain and breathlessness.

There is a risk that, during the course of your dying, you will be subjected to procedures and treatments that are painful, degrading and ultimately futile

I gave him morphine, but it didn't work, and he looked at me with fear. His heart stopped beating and we failed to resuscitate him.

He died, his last conscious sensations being those of pain, the struggle for breath as he drowned in his own bodily fluid, and terror.

Hospital death is not always like this, but the end is robbed of its significance by our medical rituals. Most people who die in the hospital where I work do so after several days of morphine oblivion.

As in most other momentous events of human life, the professionals have taken over, turning a profound life event into a technological and medical one.

Hospitals are ill-equipped to meet the needs of the dying. The culture, the ambience, the tone is of haste, bustle and frayed tempers. Care of the dying is not a priority.

Yet the likelihood is this is where you will die, your death orchestrated by strangers. You will have little say in its pace or its manner.

There is a risk that, during the course of your dying, you will be subjected to procedures and treatments that are painful, degrading and ultimately futile because doctors will fail to discuss with you the inevitable outcome.

He says: 'The likelihood is this is where you will die, your death orchestrated by strangers'

A good doctor sometimes has to tell patients things they do not want to hear. But doctors are no longer brave enough to have the Difficult Conversation with patients and their families about when to call 'enough'.

And many patients and families do not want to have the Difficult Conversation, anyway. They do not want to hear that the illness cannot be survived, that they will die.

Is there a better option than dying in hospital? Dying at home has become an ideal, but may not be suitable for everyone. Many patients and families can't cope at home if the illness ravages them with incontinence, confusion and pain.

Caring for a dying person at home, perhaps for months, is exhausting. For the dying and their families, moments of tenderness (or even 'spirituality') are far fewer than the periods of despair, loneliness and terror. My father-in-law died at home from cancer in October 2013. I arrived with our two children two days before he died.

By that time, he had been started on morphine, given slowly and steadily by the syringe-driver - a mechanical means of delivering drugs automatically.

A better option? Dying at home has become an ideal, but may not be suitable for everyone

When we arrived, he was semi- conscious. I'm not sure if dying at home was what he wanted. He hated the thought of his grand- children seeing their Papa so diminished. There were episodes when his body let him down, which were deeply distressing to him. His wife, exhausted and bewildered, accompanied him to the end.

His dying at home was partly dictated by the fact there was no local hospice. Though only a small minority of people in Britain die in a hospice, half of all people dying in the U.S. do so.

This may be in part down to limited access to hospice beds in Britain. But it also reflects an unwillingness on the part of the sick and dying to embrace the relatively new rituals of the hospice.

By that, I mean patients receiving treatment from the hospice have accepted their condition is not curable and that, sooner or later, they will die from it.

Many of my patients are unwilling to accept or make this judgement. By the time they are reconciled, it is too late, and they die in the acute general hospital.

For some, even speaking the name of the hospice is tantamount to giving up.

When a patient is admitted to a hospice, there are no longer questions about ICU admission, further investigations or more chemotherapy.

Hospice doctors work at a less frenetic pace than their colleagues in the general hospitals. 'Saving lives' is not their job description. The environment is notable for the absence of chaos, squalor, frayed tempers and shabbiness.

I have seen enough of the kind of death that happens in hospitals to know that, when my time comes, I will embrace wholeheartedly the rituals of hospice care.

A study from Johns Hopkins University in 2003 examined doctors' preferences for their own care at the end of life. The overwhelming majority did not want to have cardiopulmonary resuscitation, dialysis or major surgery. They were unanimous in their enthusiasm for painkilling drugs.

The uncomfortable conclusion is that doctors routinely subject patients to treatments they wouldn't dream of having themselves.

Caring for a dying person at home, perhaps for months, is exhausting. For the dying and their families, moments of tenderness are far fewer than the periods of despair, loneliness and terror

I like to think that when faced with my own inevitable end, my medical knowledge will at least spare me the indignities of self-delusion and futile treatments.

While I am a supporter of the concept of hospice care, I also believe, however, that 'palliative care' should be at the centre of what all doctors do.

It should not be something we delegate to death specialists - no matter how caring, intuitive and charismatic they may be - when doctors have run out of ideas and potential treatments.

Like many doctors, I have tended in the past to move quickly on from the dying patient on ward rounds, pausing briefly to check with the nurse that they are 'comfortable'.

Studies have shown that when patients are classified as 'DNACPR' (Do Not Attempt Cardio- Pulmonary Resuscitation), the frequency of visits from a doctor declines. It is as if we are ashamed to acknowledge our 'failures'.

Palliative care specialists are expert at symptom relief, but patients trust doctors they know.

When I qualified, it was common for a patient's GP to visit them in hospital. This is now almost unheard of, which is a shame, for hospital staff could learn about the patient from a doctor who has known them for many years.

There is an old Mediterranean tradition that a wise person needs an amicus mortis, a 'death friend'; one who tells you the bitter truth and stays with you to the inexorable end.

Doctors must once again return to their role as the amicus mortis. And let us not hesitate to be brave.
Green tea has been tested as a treatment for acne.

In a month-long study, women given a green tea supplement, equivalent to a glass of the tea a day, had less acne than a placebo group.

Acne is caused by an over-production of oil, which blocks microscopic hair follicles and provides the ideal breeding ground for the bacteria that cause spots.

In a month-long study, women given a green tea supplement, equivalent to a glass of the tea a day [file photo]

Researchers from National Yang-Ming University, Taiwan, found that women who had green tea extract had less acne around the problematic nose, mouth and chin areas.

It's thought that an antioxidant in green tea, called epigallocatechin-3-gallate or EGCG, has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects.

Electric glasses may stave off sight loss

Could stimulating the eye electrically prevent vision loss?

That's the thinking behind a new study in people with the inherited condition retinitis pigmentosa.

This occurs when photoreceptors in the retina - the cells that detect light - gradually stop working and die due to a genetic fault.

It affects one in every 3,000 people over the age of 45.

Could stimulating the eye electrically prevent vision loss? That's the thinking behind a new study

Scientists have developed a new device that looks like a pair of glasses, but has tiny electrodes that feed into the eye to provide constant gentle stimulation to the retina, making cells stronger to prevent them dying.

In a year-long study at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia, 210 patients will wear the Okustim device or a placebo for 30 minutes once a week.

Botox jabs can help men with groin pain

Botox jabs might offer a new way to treat chronic pain that affects one in 20 men.

In a new study at Mount Sinai Hospital in Canada, 64 men with chronic scrotal pain will be given a single Botox jab, or a placebo, and their symptoms will be monitored for six months.

The pain - which is defined as chronic if it lasts for more than three months - may be due to a number of underlying conditions or infections.

It can also occur after a vasectomy.

Just how Botox works in treating such problems is unclear, but it possibly stops the brain chemicals involved in pain.
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore has been promoting India's film industry in Cannes

Union MoS for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore met UK Minister of State for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries Ed Vaizey and other key stakeholders in the international film industry at the Cannes Film Festival.

He apprised them about the new initiatives taken by India in the sector and the myriad opportunities available for the global film industry here.

Rathore took up the issue of the UK's participation in the International Film Festival of India, held every year in Goa.

Baba Ramdev's courtesy call

Yoga guru Baba Ramdev on Sunday met ruling Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav days after meeting RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav was also present during the meeting.

The Yoga guru lauded the work undertaken by the state government. He appreciated certain welfare and development schemes being undertaken in the state, sources claimed, describing the meeting as a courtesy call.

Ramdev was in the state capital to meet Sahara chief Subrata Roy, who lost his mother recently.

Sonia's letter to UPSC topper

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi wrote a letter to UPSC topper Tina Dabi, saying she shared her interest in issues like womens empowerment and gender equality.

These issues are close to my heart as they are to yours, said Sonia, while expressing hope that Dabi would be an inspiration to other young women.

Sonia said she would follow Tinas career and hoped to see her working as a district magistrate in the near future.

Nadda calls J&K 'crown of India'

Union Health Minister JP Nadda termed J&K as the crown of the country.

The Centre, along with the state government, has planned to start a new chapter of development in Jammu and Kashmir. Your presence in such large numbers here and the warm welcome that you gave us. I assure you, on behalf of the PM and the PDP-BJP government, that we will put in all strength, to take forward J&K on the way of development and prosperity, Nadda said.

Bandaru's phone goes missing

Union minister Bandaru Dattatreyas mobile phone was reportedly stolen from his house at Ramnagar in Hyderabad. The phone was apparently taken when it was being charged in the visitors room.
India's big corporate houses have failed to come forward to support the Modi governments flagship projects, Swachh Bharat and Namami Gange.

The two cleanliness projects have received a lukewarm response from the private sector, with companies spending little under their corporate social responsibility obligations.

Data prepared by the corporate affairs ministry has shown that among all the projects of the Narendra Modi government, these two have received the least amount of funding from private companies in the year 2014-15.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi pictured during a cleanliness drive. According to the Niti Aayog report, the Swachch Bharat Mission needs an investment of nearly Rs 2.23 lakh crore over a five-year period.

Altogether, the two projects have not even got 1 per cent of the total spending of Rs 6,337 crore.

While Swachh Bharat Abhiyan got a meager 0.68 per cent of the total spending, the Clean Ganga Mission got only 0.25 per cent.

Companies have spent over Rs 42 crore towards 'Swachh Bharat Kosh' under their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in 2014-15. Money was given to improve cleanliness levels in rural and urban areas, including schools.

As many as 460 companies spent a little over Rs 6,337 crore for CSR activities. This included 51 PSUs which spent Rs 2,386.60 crore.

Of the Modi government's projects, the corporates have shown the most interest in education and livelihood enhancement schemes, which have received over Rs 1,462 crore of the CSR fund.

Similarly, schemes to eradicate hunger, poverty and healthcare have also received about Rs 1,421 crore from business houses.

The Centre has devised a Rs 51,000 crore plan to clean the Ganga under the Namami Gange project

The two ambitious cleanliness projects require big funds. As per the Niti Aayog report, the Swachch Bharat Mission, which was launched on October 2, 2014, envisages an investment of nearly Rs 2.23 lakh crore over a five-year period for constructing household toilets, community and public toilets, and scientific waste management.

The government is also considering long-term, tax-free Swachh Bharat bonds to raise funds.

Planning

Similarly, the government has devised a three-phase plan spanning nearly 18 years at Rs 51,000 crore to clean the Ganga under the Namami Gange project.

The Union Cabinet has already approved Rs 20,000 crore for the next five years for the Namami Gange Programme which integrates the efforts to clean and protect the Ganga river in a comprehensive manner.

However, despite massive estimates, business houses have not come forward with funding under the CSR.

Keeping in mind that the government will require major sums for these projects, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs had included donations to the Swachh Bharat Kosh and the Clean Ganga Fund as part of the CSR spends by India Inc in October 2014, but the response has not been encouraging so far.

Provision

The new Companies Act requires every company with a net worth of Rs 100 crore to set aside a minimum 2 per cent of its three-year average annual net profit for CSR activities.

To make PM Modis dream projects Clean India and Clean Ganga a success, the finance ministry had made a provision for 100 per cent tax deduction for contributions made towards the Swachh Bharat Fund.

Under the Clean Ganga project, a few companies have shown an interest in taking up the work in Varanasi, which happens to be the Prime Ministers Lok Sabha constituency.

While campaigning in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi had vowed to clean the Ganga.

Moreover, the government is also working on 30 per cent of CSR spends on Swachh Bharat which might be announced soon.
Sonia Gandhi moved to the Italian town of Orbassano as a girl, at the end of the second world war

Blame it on the distance. In India, the beleaguered Congress party and its first family are facing relentless political heat for the VVIP helicopters purchase scam. In northern Italys Orbassano, life looks far removed and easy.

Few remember Sonia Gandhi here, and fewer still are aware of the Agusta scam. The mercury is at a cool 18. With dusk approaching, the winds skimming the surrounding snowcapped Alps promise to take it down further.

Among foreign locations that have left a profound impact on Indias history, Orbassano must rank highly.

At the end of the second world war, a battle-hardened Stefano Maino chose the town near the booming Turin, which is among Italys biggest cities and a car manufacturing hub, to start his second innings. With him were his wife and three daughters. One daughter, bright as she was, chose to go further, to Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Before the end of 1968, Prime Minister Indira Gandhis son, Rajiv, and Stefanos daughter, Sonia, were betrothed.

Do you know who Sonia Gandhi is? was my question to the young waitress at the bar. She did not know.

An elderly woman paying the bill did. You walk for 5 minutes and her home reach, she said in broken English, obviously not a language she uses often.

Bypassing an elegant church in the main square by the town mayors office, I started walking towards house 14, Via Visenjo Belini - that is how they name a street in Italiano.

Stefano, known as a mason, a contractor, and a builder, is said to have built the house himself with a small team of labourers.

The house in Italy's Orbassano where Congress president Sonia Gandhi grew up with her parents and two siblings. She came to India in 1968 as Rajiv Gandhis wife and Indira Gandhis daughter-in-law.

A street named after Orbassano's favourite son-in-law, the late Rajiv Gandhi

Last week, there was a rare reference to Italy by Sonia Gandhi. Speaking at an election rally in Thiruvananthapuram, she said: Yes, I was born in Italy and have a family there. I have a 93-year-old mother and I am not ashamed of it. I came to India in 1968 as the daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi. I was born to proud and honest parents. I will never be ashamed of them. I have spent 48 years of my life in India, this is my home and this is my country. It is here that I will breathe my last and my ashes will mingle with my loved ones in India.

In the park, along the route, while seeking directions at the newspaper stand, I repeat the question I had asked the waitress. The response is mixed. Some say they know Sonia, others look towards the sky and nod their heads.

Sonia Gandhi is not the household name I thought her to be.

The steel door guarding the Maino residence disallows more than a slight peep. They are a private people. In the quiet neighbourhood, hearing my conversation, a curious neighbour stepped out and quickly went back in.

In a bid to speak to the family, I travelled 2 km further to the Pyramid shopping complex at the outskirts of Orbassano where Sonias niece, Aruna, runs a store.

They sold this place to us, said the new owners.

The town square at Orbassano, where Sonia Gandhi is not a household name despite her links to the town

Though my initial days of trying to get interviews had yielded little, I was now getting a first-hand feel of just how the family wants to react to the AgustaWestand controversy  by not reacting at all.

Frankly, given how little the issue is being reported in Italian cities, I had my doubts if folks in the countryside would have heard about it at all. If they did, they werent ready to bare their hearts to me.

Before leaving, I took a municipal bus to the eastern edge of the town, to the most odd-sounding among all streets of Orbassano - Via R Gandhi.
After car rationing during the Odd-Even scheme, the Delhi government and other government agencies will do a four-day-long trial to restrict motorised vehicle in the Capital's busy Chandni Chowk market.

The experiment will decide the fate of the area, which is facing huge problems of congestion and encroachment.

As per the decongestion plan, the market will become pedestrian-friendly with only rickshaws and e-rickshaws allowed, and a ban on the movement of scooters, cars and other motor vehicles.

The Delhi government will conduct a four-day-long trial to restrict motorised vehicles in the busy Chandni Chowk area

The joint initiative by the Shahjahanabad Development Board, the PWD, traffic police and municipal corporation will ban the motorised vehicles from Red Fort to Fatehpuri Masjid between May 22 and 25 from 9am to 9pm.

Every day, thousands of shoppers and tourists visit the market, which has nearly 600 small and large shops on the main road. Close to 25,000 motorised vehicles use this stretch in a day.

Several decongestion plans likes one-way traffic movement or a rickshaw-free zone have been made in the past, but did not see the light of day.

A senior official associated with the project told Mail Today that a joint meeting with all the stakeholders was held on Friday. It was decided to restrict vehicular movement for 12 hours, and then shopkeepers can use the 12 hours of night to manage the transport of goods and raw materials. This is a trial project, and based on the results it may be made a permanent affair.

The redevelopment plan of Chandni Chowk only remained on the paper and nothing much happened on the ground. For the last one year, we have been working on decongesting it and this time, all the agencies have come together to strictly implement it, said Alka Lamba, AAP MLA from the area.

She explained that on May 12, the Delhi HC asked the transport department to notify a non-motorised zone in Delhi which included Chandni Chowk.

Taking measure, we have decided to implement it on a trial basis from May 22-25. It is already no-parking zone but nobody follows it. It will be strictly implemented this time as streets and parking lots have been identified to park the vehicles, Lamba said, adding that earlier it was planned till May 29.

According to the plan, e-rickshaws are allowed this time but at a later stage will be replaced by e-buses.

A demand has been made to the Delhi government to provide two electric buses to ferry passengers this time.

Once the traffic is restricted by the police, marshals and volunteers, encroachment from the pavement and streets will be removed by the civic agency so that dedicated lanes for pedestrians, rickshaws and e-buses are marked.

The proposal to construct trams on this stretch has been scrapped now.

Chandni Chowk Redevelopment Project included constructing a 4-km-long tram line but the cost of project exceeded Rs 800 crore and was time-taking due to which decision is made to scrap the project, a senior officer said.
Subrata Roy was sent to jail on March 4, 2014, for contempt in not paying the sum of Rs 10,000 crore. It was ordered that he would not be released until he provided Rs 5,000 crore in cash and Rs 5,000 crore by way of bank guarantee.

On May 6, he and another Sahara Group colleague were allowed parole for four weeks till June 4, 2016, because of the death of his 95-year-old mother. Perhaps the last gift his mother gave him.

On May 11, the court ordered his release for a further period if he pays Rs 200 crore by July 11.

On May 6, Subrata Roy was allowed parole for four weeks, following the death of his mother

Rulings

Why was he put in jail when the punishment for contempt is a possible 6 months and a Rs 2,000 fine?

A new form of continuing coercive contempt, traced to obscure rulings from Australia and America and unused in India, was created to order an indefinite jail term until conditions are complied with.

If this is the law, many civil servants, police, politicians, businessmen, and others would be jailed every day.

The original jail order was peremptorily passed without these rulings. Justices Radhakrishnan and Kehar went over the top, even against the lawyers who argued his case forcefully.

Privately, Radhakrishnan distanced himself from the tone of Kehars judgement.

Judicial irritation, exacerbated by long hearings, is never a good ground for severe indefinite incarceration.

The Sahara case arises out of taking cash investments through two companies: Sahara Housing and Investments, nominally to give small investors a chance to invest.

On August 31, 2012, the Supreme Court passed a huge order eventually asking (i) Sahara to make good the amount, and (ii) SEBI to verify payments.

SEBI steadfastly refuses to verify the payments made by Sahara, although 40 trucks of material was sent to it and was later digitalised at Saharas expenses.

In December 2012, Sahara made good Rs 5,000-odd crore, promising the rest of the principal amount - which it was not able to provide.

On March 4, 2014, three directors were thrown in jail unless they produced another Rs 5,000 crore in cheques and Rs 5,000 crore as a bank guarantee.

By this time all major accounts and properties of the entire Sahara group were frozen. Sahara asked to sell 71 properties. But Justices Thakur, Dave and Sikri permitted the sale of nine plus the three hotels the group owned abroad, including Grosvenor House in London and two in New York.

Up came SEBIs counsel with a harbour rule that the properties must be sold at not less than 5 per cent of the valuation price.

Order

This was accepted peremptorily by the court, ignoring Saharas objections, but allowing future modifications of the order.

Could these sales have been made in a falling market, with hungry predators looking for distress sales? The answer has to be no. But, Sahara sold five out of the nine with difficulty.

Had the court permitted Sahara to sell all 71 properties as distress sales, the problem would have been resolved. But the court was hugely suspicious. To allay this, Sahara suggested independent auditors to monitor each sale. SEBIs lawyers countered every proposal, whether on instructions or not, I cannot say.

Was SEBI interested in money, or preventing the Sahara honchos' release?

This left the sale of the foreign hotels to arrange for the Rs 5,000 crore bank guarantee. The hotels were heavily mortgaged, especially to the Bank of China. Running hotels and mortgaged properties are not easy to sell. Each attempt to sell the hotels failed. The Sultan of Brunei reneged. A young Indian adventurer from California failed as an option.

The Bank of China debt was bought off by European financers. A further bid by a consortium defaulted, partly because of the Supreme Courts conditions. In any event, no one can afford to have Rs 5000 crore locked up in an Indian bank to be cashed at will.

SEBIs lawyers made every initiative more difficult.

Properties

Finally came a new proposal for SEBI to sell these properties. Earlier, they demurred. Now they have set up a system to sell 60 properties through e-auction on the basis of not less than 10 per cent of the circle rate.

SEBIs affidavit against Subrata Roy's release application is vindictive in its adjectival vehemence, allowing no latitude for release.Nor has the Amicus been objective by insisting on his ideas on what to sell.

SEBI steadfastly refuses to examine Saharas payment documentation even though the judgment of August 31, 2014 clearly requires this. It is sitting on huge sums claiming exorbitant interest not adjusted against the principal.

Subrata Roy's indefinite incarceration is an affront to civil liberties. He has had no trial. He had not been adjudged guilty by due process. Even criminals get bail and parole more easily.

Some people compare Roy with Lalit Modi and Mallya, with no shame to hide and no soul to damn. Let corporate marauders and adventurers be treated with the full force of the law.

Mallya has been advised to pay. Lalit Modi is in a class of his own. Roy does not want to be a refugee abroad. He wants to pay his properly quantified debts. If released, he will accelerate payments if given the leeway to do so.

Keeping him in jail serves neither a pragmatic solution, nor justice.
It has long been believed that rail journeys take you to 'real India'.

Mahatma Gandhi, the moment he arrived in this country from South Africa in 1914, was advised by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, his political guru, to board a train and criss-cross the country.

The journey prepared him well for understanding the idea of India.

Over 100 years later, a train journey still provides the true status of where the country stands, and also appraises the governments big-ticket promises.

The Swachh Bharat mission is PM Modis big-ticket hygiene scheme, but two years after his government took office, people are still defecating along India's railway lines

My recent train journey from Delhi to Jaipur did something similar, as I could see chinks in Prime Minister Narendra Modis Swachh Bharat Abhiyan armour.

The Swachh Bharat mission is Modis big-ticket social game-changer, intended to transform millions of lives in both rural and urban areas, so people no longer defecate in the fields and instead opt for closed-door toilets.

But the reality, even as the Modi government is about to complete two years, remains grim, with people still openly defecating along railway tracks.

As the Ajmer Shatabdi started chugging from New Delhi Railway Station and soon after it crossed Sadar Bazar and entered Sarai Rohilla, many passengers opted to pull the window curtains down to avoid these dirty pictures along the tracks.

There was, however, a bigger embarrassment in store for me. My co-passenger, Murad Akhtar, a Bangladeshi businessman, was appalled to see so many people openly defecating in India.

Bahut gandgi hai yahan (Its too dirty here), said he matter-of-factly as he referred to using rail tracks as open-air toilets.

How can the women also come out on tracks to relieve? In my country (Bangladesh), this is near impossible for many years now, and we are almost zero open defecation country in South Asia," he claimed.

Akhtar was right. A recent report on country-wide sanitation status says that in Bangladesh, which was once described as bottomless basket, open defecation has been reduced to nearly 1 per cent, from almost 42 per cent in 2003.

India, on the other hand, is still a country where about 50 per cent of its population - 595 million - dont use toilets. Even Pakistan, with 21 per cent not using toilets, is better placed.

Sri Lanka is next to Bangladesh in achieving the house with a toilet target. Indias toilet use is worse than those of Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Burundi and Rwanda.

PM Modi embarked on his Swachh Bharat mission with the target of building nearly 12 crore toilets by 2019. But as per the latest figures presented in Parliament, just about a quarter of the year-wise target is in sight.

As an idea, there is nothing wrong with Modis Swachh Bharat mission. It is at the execution stage where things get flawed.

Perhaps the execution strategy needs to be changed and made more result-centric. Keep out the politicians who want to hold brooms and clean toilets only to post their pictures on social media; the right approach would be to tap community leaders, NGOs at the grassroots, and local unemployed youths to build the much-needed toilets.

The dirty picture wont change overnight; the government should be prepared for the long haul.

Even Bangladesh took nearly 13 years to reach this level of zero defecation in the open.

But the battle has to be incessant and non-compromising. For the malaise is as much about poverty as it is about the culture where filth and open defecation is readily accepted.

The issue should also be connected with health, and people should be told in no uncertain terms how nearly 400 children die every day from diarrhoea, which is linked with poor sanitation.

As an Indian, I was embarrassed when the Bangladeshi guest called my Incredible India dirty. And he had reason to say so. But whats worse is that along with the photographs of the famous Taj Mahal, he would also take back the images of "dirty India".

Its time to correct this image and put the Swachh Bharat mission on a fast-track. A beginning in this regard can be made from the railway tracks themselves.

In the meantime, one can take solace from the fact that young rural girls have started refusing to get married in homes without toilets.

Bihar's booze ban boosts business in neighbouring states

Prohibition on liquor in a particular state has resulted in a boon for its neighbours.

The case here is that of Bihar, where tourism revenue, mostly from conferences, business travel, and banquet weddings, has recently started finding new markets in neighbouring states.

Uttar Pradesh is not the only one making fast bucks thanks to Bihar going dry. More interesting trends are emerging from Jharkhand, with Ranchi becoming the new favourite weekend destination for many.

Jharkhand is becoming the preferred location for high-end Bihari weddings

Recently, a doctors conference scheduled in Bihar was cancelled as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced a complete liquor ban. Some people involved with hospitality sector, including weddings and banquets, in Bihar revealed several liquor vendors have shifted to Jharkhand due to the sudden rise in demand.

The hotels in Ranchi, Koderma, Deoghar and many other bordering cities of Jharkhand are packed every weekend with many from Bihar crossing over to have a wet weekend.

Jharkhand has emerged as the new destination for many high-end upper-class Bihari weddings, which were earlier planned for Patna hotels and farmhouses.

I visited Bihar last month and realised why Jharkhand is making up for Bihar under prohibition. A famous Patna hotel refurbished its restaurant and bar and stocked up its alcohol inventory, but the day it was about to open to public, the state went under prohibition and all its stocks were reportedly seized.

Another very popular restaurant of a multi-star hotel in Patna is doing no snack business in the evenings as the very famous chilli chicken has no takers without spirits on table.

Patna had witnessed a new business culture, bringing in top brands, banks, hospital chains, real estate and the retail sector, as well as all the big Public Sector Units (PSUs) opening up their regional offices there.

This only resulted in high-spirited evenings in the resto-bars and restaurants mostly booked for business, and investors ending their banquets over cocktails.

Liquor isnt completely unavailable in Bihar. I checked in one wedding and the locals told me that a bottle priced at Rs 850 is available at Rs 3,000.

Nitish Kumars move to ban booze was a bold step at a time when the state was earning Rs 5,000 crore in annual excise revenue, and was employing nearly five lakh people in the liquor business. Unfortunately, the execution showed the CM's colleagues and officers lack his own zeal.
BJP chief Amit Shah attacked the previous Congress-led UPA government, saying it left a dearth of cash after a 10-year rule which was posing difficulties for the NDA's pro-poor agenda.

The UPA government had left us with empty coffers because of which it was not possible for the present government to do anything for the poor, Shah said.

The BJP President was speaking at the launch of the second phase of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana at Dahod in Gujarat.

(L-R) Vasundhara Raje, Anandiben Patel, Amit Shah, and Dharmendra Pradhan with an LPG beneficiary

Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, Chief Minister of Gujarat, Anandiben Patel, Madhya Pradesh CM, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje were present on the occasion.

The BJP chief compared Prime Minister Narendra Modi's campaign urging well-off people to give up their LPG subsidy to former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri's call for voluntarily giving up one meal to deal with food shortage.

As soon as the prime minister took over, he took steps to remove corruption and curb black marketing by direct transfer of Rs 13,000 crore into the bank accounts of poor people. He also initiated give it up scheme and appealed to the well-to-do people to give up gas subsidy for the sake of countrys poor. The response to the appeal was unprecedented, Shah said.

Highlighting the benefits of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, Shah said no other scheme can provide a bigger boost for women's empowerment.

Six crore women will get gas connections, which is the best example of women empowerment and poverty alleviation, he said.

Modi had launched the programme from Ballia in Uttar Pradesh on May 1. It aims to cover five crore beneficiaries, and a budget of Rs 8,000 crore has been earmarked.

The tribal beneficiaries from Jhabua in MP, Pratapnagar and Dungarpur in Rajasthan, and from Dahod and Panchmahals in Gujarat were given LPG connections.

Pradhan said that within three years, five crore families will get LPG connections, for which Rs 8,000 crore finance will be provided.

This financial year alone, one crore new connections will be provided for which Rs 2,000 crore have been earmarked. In Gujarat, in the coming days, we will provide 25 lakh new connections, most of which will be targeted at, Pradhan said.
Three days ago, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur was given a clean chit in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case by the National Investigative Agency (NIA).

On Monday, she began an indefinite fast - a protest against the Madhya Pradesh police's refusal to let her visit Ujjain to attend the Simhastha Kumbh, citing security concerns.

Thakur also wrote a letter to PM Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, as well as chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, seeking their intervention.

Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur is suffering from breast cancer. Her family and lawyer have expressed concern over the effect a hunger strike could have on her fragile health.

Thakur is paralysed below the waist, allegedly due to prolonged torture by the police, and is suffering from cancer. Her family and lawyer have expressed concern over the effect of the hunger strike on her health.

If she dies, her blood will be on the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, said Upama Singh, her eldest sister.

The Dewas sessions court on May 4 had allowed Thakur to attend Simhastha Kumbh at Ujjain.

The court order, accessed by Mail Today, said Thakur should be taken from Khusilal Ayurvedic Chikitsalaya in Bhopal to Ujjain Simhastha under police protection before May 21.

An ailing Thakur had expressed her last wish to attend the Kumbh, according to her advocate, as she fears she will not see another such kumbh in her lifetime.

On May 13, jail authorities had written to the court saying that Bhopal police are stretched to capacity with the presence of around 850 officials and jawans in Ujjain. They said adequate forces would not be available for Sadhvi Pragya.

It is shameful that the Madhya Pradesh police have failed to provide the Sadhvi with some sort of police protection so that she can attend the Simhastha Kumbh. It is highly unbecoming for the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government that it has not been able to provide a few guards in 11 days since the Dewas sessions court on May 4 allowed her to attend the Hindu religious event. We are moving a contempt petition in the high court, JP Sharma, Thakur's lawyer, told Mail Today from Bhopal.

Sharma accused the police of dragging their feet, supported by the MP government.

Meanwhile, Sharma also told Mail Today that Thakurs health has been deteriorating.

Since the morning, no doctor has examined her. There can be no bigger an instance of apathy.
The Government recently celebrated Dr BR Ambedkar's 125th birth anniversary - but not all of his ideas have been acted on yet

There is a saying that truth often gets tormented but never gets defeated - and in the end, it always wins.

In the case of Dr BR Ambedkar, this proposition is yet to be verified, even as the government has recently celebrated his 125th birth anniversary.

Besides everything, he was intellectually honest and always vocal about right and wrong. He had always been upfront about fighting for womens liberation, annihilation of caste, and breaking the superstition barrier.

Barrier

Ambedkar did not care about the establishment when he had a tryst with the truth. Standing for equal rights to property for daughters was not at all easy in the 1950s. It was quite obvious that the masses would be against whoever spoke about equal rights to property.

Ambedkar introduced the Hindu Code Bill in Parliament after consulting Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The Hindu Code Bill embodied the provision of equal shares in ancestral property for sons and daughters. There was a lot of criticism in the country over the Bill. This forced the Congress to pull back and the Bill was defeated.

Similarly, when Sheikh Abdullah and other like-minded people approached Nehru to include a special provision for Jammu & Kashmir in the Constitution, he agreed. However, he suggested that Abdullah should meet Ambedkar for an agreement.

When the Kashmiri leader met Ambedkar, he was bluntly told that if Jammu & Kashmir as a border state should get special provisions, then even Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Bengal and provinces of the North-East, which are also border states, should get similar provisions.

Here it needs to be emphasised that Article 370 was framed, but it wasnt done by Ambedkar. Though he wrote most provisions of the Constitution, he was neither allowed to write Article 370, nor did he support it.

Ambedkar stood for the annihilation of caste, but are his followers doing that today? Rather, there is activism for further consolidation of caste identity. By creating caste identities, it is much easier to have personal gain and bargaining power with institutions and the government. The truth that he wanted to prevail has not found its place yet.

Association

On December 12, 1935, Babasaheb received a letter from the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal in Lahore, inviting him to be its president. He thought that it was an association of upper caste Hindus whose only idea was to reform the caste system. At first, Ambedkar refused to accept the invitation, but later on, when persuaded, he gave his consent.

The association was supposed to meet during Easter, but it was postponed till May 1936. There was, however, huge resentment in Lahore over Ambedkar's inclusion.

Bhai Parmanand (ex-president of Hindu Mahasabha), Mahatma Hansraj, Dr Gokulchand Narang, and Raja Rajendranath, among others, sidelined the then Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal secretary, Santram.

The leaders of the Mandal wanted to get a written draft of Ambedkars speech in advance. There was constant pressure on Ambedkar to get his essay, Annihilation of Caste, vetted in Lahore before the conference, but he remained firm.

One must realise that during that period, Lahore was the centre of northwest India, and had Ambedkar agreed to the suggestions of the Mandal, a large number of upper caste Hindus would have accepted his leadership. He did not fall prey to this temptation, and later on his essay Annihilation of Caste was published in Mumbai and was translated into many languages.

Truth

Ambedkars truth has not become empirical to date. As a matter of fact, these days, even the so-called Scheduled Castes try to strengthen the caste system for political gain.

Maintaining intellectual honesty means putting oneself at risk, and a high price might have to be paid for it. There is no certainty that Ambedkars truth is being incorporated, practised or even debated. Usually, people are against change, and its not necessary that truth always prevails.

There have been statesmen like Kabir who spoke the truth, but they remain confined to books and talks. Very few are practically followed these days.

This truth has kept haunting Ambedkar, who is still not understood and accepted by people - not even the downtrodden.

Had the poor walked on his path of truth, they would have at least achieved partial success, if not a complete victory.

What has never been done until now, may still be done tomorrow. The day is eagerly awaited when a casteless society is established and India joins the ranks of developed countries.
After several highly-politicised rows over cow slaughter, the Narendra Modi government is working on a new law to combat illegal cow transport and slaughter.

The Centre on Monday organised a first-of-its-kind national conference where central ministers supported the mission to save cows, as propagated by the BJP and other Hindu groups.

A report has been sought from the Animal Welfare Board in two months on how cruelty can be avoided in animal transport, and also how it can be empowered through law to deal with illegal cow slaughtering, Prakash Javadekar, Union minister for environment said.

Union ministers Radha Mohan Singh and Prakash Javadekar at the Gaushala meeting in New Delhi

Countering the argument that old cows can be sent to slaughter houses since their usefulness in terms of milk production is over, Union ministers Prakash Javadekar and Radha Mohan Singh called for restrictions on killings, saying even in older cows can be financially viable.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEFCC) and Department of Animal Husbandry organised a national conference branded Gauvansh / Gaushala ("cow clan / cowshed") on Monday.

Held at the Capitals premiere convention centre, Vigyan Bhawan, it drew a jam-packed auditorium.

Among the senior scientists and bureaucrats who attended the seminar were saffron-clad sadhus (holymen) and activists.

Taking a cue from Gujarat, cow hostels and sanctuaries are being established across the country. Five new veterinary colleges have been set up to take care of old and ailing cows, Singh said.

Javadekar and Singh were interrupted amid sloganeering from participants who claimed to be cow workers and not affiliated to any political party.

The activists claimed to have been working for the welfare of cows for several years.

Members of a group called Gau Sanstha said: We have been rescuing cows all on our own without the help of police or any laws in our favour. On receiving secret information about cattle-carrying trucks, we venture out at night and wait for these trucks for hours. The beef-lobby goons carry guns, sticks and stones. So many of us have been done to death.

Even as the agriculture minister was listing his departments good initiatives, including giving aid to farmers with cows as livestock, especially during drought-like calamities, the conference erupted in anger.

Several people from Rajasthan protested that they had received none of the subsistence allowance. They claimed they have never received any funds or facilities to protect cows or gaushalas in their state, and that central funds also did not reach them.

As Javadekar began speaking about how a cow could be financially viable even after outliving its utility, many activists in the audience took offence. They began shouting that officials are doing nothing about curbing illegal smuggling of cows and cattle across the Indian border.

One even screamed: You all only give lectures. When we call you at 2 or 3am on catching trucks with cattle for slaughtering, no one picks up our phone.
History is in the making in Assam, there are no winds of change in West Bengal, the Left is on the rise in Kerala - and a shocker is in store for J Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu.

The exit polls have predicted major setbacks for the Congress in the five states that went to the polls this gruelling summer.

The BJP, meanwhile, is all set to make a power debut in Assam, ousting three-term Congress chief minister Tarun Gogoi.

Kerala CM Oommen Chandy takes a selfie with his family after casting his vote. The exit polls suggest his Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) is likely to lose to the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the state.

And Mamata Banerjees Trinamool Congress is likely to retain power in West Bengal, according to India Today-Axis My India Exit Poll.

The real surprise will come from Tamil Nadu, where the exit poll has predicted victory for the DMK against the much-expected win for J. Jayalalithas AIADMK.

Kerala will see a clear victory for the Left Democratic Front (LDF) over the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).

In Assam, the BJP-AGP combination may win 79-93 sets, the Congress 26-33 seats, and Badruddin Ajmals All India United Democratic Front 6-10 sets in a house of 126 seats.

If the survey is proved right, union minister Sarbananda Sonowal is likely to be the next Assam chief minister.

Mamata Banerjee is expected to hold onto power in West Bengal, with exit polls forecasting a landslide victory

In West Bengal, the ruling TMC is likely to win 233 to 253 seats in a house of 294, with the Left combination winning 38-51 seats and the BJP 1-5 seats, and others 2-5.

The TMC and the Congress-CPI-M combination fought a bitter and violent election this time.

In southern India, Karunanidhis DMK and the Congress alliance will wrest power from chief minister J Jayalalithas AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, while the Left Democratic Front may upstage the Congress- led UDF in Kerala.

As per the survey, in Tamil Nadu, AIADMK could get 89-101 seats, while the DMK-Congress combination could be a winner with 124 to 140 seats in a house of 234. The BJP may win 0 to 3 seats.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa may lose the Chief Minister's chair, with voters unimpressed by her record on development

The DMK is also likely to make a comeback in Puducherry, with the party getting 15 to 21 seats, AIADMK 1 to 4 seats, and AINRC 8 to 12 seats.

In Assam, the BJP looks set to wrest power from the Congress, riding on a strong anti-incumbency wave, a consolidation of Hindu votes and a split in Muslim votes, according to the India Today-Axis My India poll.

Of the total 126 seats, the BJP and its allies are tipped to win between 79 and 93, and the Congress tally is plummeting to anywhere between 26 and 33 from 79 seats it won in the 2011 last assembly elections.

On its own, the BJP is expected to bag 56-75 constituencies this time, a steep rise from its single-digit account in 2011.

Three-term chief minister Tarun Gogoi said he did not agree with the exit poll and claimed the Congress would emerge as the single-largest party on May 19, when votes are counted.

Gogois former number two, Hemanta Biswa Sarma, who joined the BJP before the polls, blamed the Congress for dilly-dallying with the AIUDF.

In Kerala, CPI-M leader VS Achuthanandan is likely to be the next chief minister with the LDF projected to win 88-101 seats, the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front 38-48 seats, the BJP 0 to 3 seats, and 1-4 going to others in a house of 140. In 2011, the UDF had won 72 seats and LDF 68.

In Tamil Nadu, as DMK veteran Karunanidhi is 92 years old, his elder son Stalin could lead the next coalition government. The poll campaign saw money flow freely in the state, with both the DMK and AIADMK luring voters with a long list of freebies.

Karunanidhis daughter and party leader Kanimozhi said her party was development-oriented and voters realised that.

The AB Nielsen has given 81 seats to the BJP coalition, 33 to the Congress and 10 to the AIUDF in Assam.

ABP Ananda has predicted that the Trinamool Congress is poised to get 178 of the 294 seats in West Bengal  it had 184 in the outgoing assembly  while the Left-Congress combination would get 110. The BJP will get one seat, while others will bag five seats.
The Enforcement Directorate has asked the banks with which Kingfisher Airlines has loans to furnish details of all financial transactions involving the company and its top executives.

The fresh evidence is needed to further investigate money laundering accusations against Vijay Mallya.

Until now the ED was focusing on the Rs 900 crore IDBI Bank loan taken by Kingfisher Airlines to establish whether money laundering has taken place.

The Enforcement Directorate has asked all the banks that have lent money to Vijay Mallya's now defunct Kingfisher Airlines to furnish details of all financial transactions involving the company and its top executives

The request for more details from the consortium of banks led by the SBI widens the investigation to the entire gamut of loans taken by Kingfisher Airlines.

The outstanding amount now stands at around Rs 9,500 crore after the inclusion of interest and penalties for non-payment.

A senior ED official confirmed that some of the banks had already provided details of the financial transactions involving the movement of funds to overseas accounts.

The ED will now investigate whether the movement of these funds was for the intended purpose for which the loan was taken, or whether any money laundering or diversion of funds to tax havens has taken place.

The banks have been asked to furnish details of all domestic and foreign inward and outward remittances of Kingfisher Airlines.

According to a senior official, since Mallya is yet to appear for questioning, the new strategy is to move ahead with the investigation based on concrete evidence that shows up in the paper trail.

Vijay Mallya is said to owe Rs 9,500 crore after the inclusion of interest and penalties for non-payment

The Enforcement Directorate has asked for financial details from both public and private sector banks.

Last month, the special court dealing with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act had issued a non-bailable warrant against Vijay Mallya in the IDBI case.

Market regulator Sebi has also expanded its probe into possible siphoning of funds by the promoters on suspicion of lapses in financial dealings of various listed companies in the Mallya-led UB Group.

The market watchdog has flagged the matter to other agencies and government departments, including the Corporate Affairs Ministry and its probe agency for white-collar crimes - the SFIO (Serious Fraud Investigation Office).

The market regulator is looking into the violation of securities market regulations, including the strict disclosure requirements about 'insider dealings' with the promoters and related parties.

Sebi is also investigating any possible violation of norms aimed at checking fraudulent and unfair trades and comprising the interest of minority shareholders.

Mallya, who is reported to be holed up in a country mansion at Hertfordshire near London, recently lost control of his lavish Kingfisher Villa in Goa.

The King of Good Times: Mallya recently lost control of his lavish Kingfisher Villa in Goa

The North Goa Collector passed an order in favour of the banks which took possession of the seaside Kingfisher Villa on May 12.

The Service Tax Department has also put Mallyas personal jet up for auction to recover dues of over Rs 500 crore.

The Airbus A319-133CJ Airbus plane, grounded for over three years, is parked at the Mumbai airport.

The auction of the aircraft, originally scheduled for May 12- 13, has been postponed to June 29-30 as only one bidder turned up in the earlier attempt.

The response to the proposed sales of Mallya's other assets has not been encouraging either.
With the BJP's popularity in Gujarat continuing to slide, the party is considering an overhaul of its faction-ridden state government.

Gujarat is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and is due for Assembly elections in 2017.

But the BJP took a massive blow to its image when a young man, Hardik Patel, mobilised five lakh people for a protest rally to demand job reservations for the influential Patidar community in the state last year.

A number of senior BJP leaders are said to fear that Anandiben Patel (centre) may be a liability in next years state elections

Hardik Patels agitation stunned the BJP, both in Gujarat and Delhi, and asked serious questions of namesake Chief Minister Anandiben Patels political and administrative skills.

India Today has accessed an internal party report, which Modi commissioned his close lieutenant Om Prakash Mathur to prepare, on Gujarat's current political situation.

Mathur, formerly in charge of the BJP in Gujarat, submitted his report to the prime minister and party president Amit Shah on April 25, along with recommendations.

In his findings, Mathur advised the BJP not to underestimate or overlook the Patidar stir. He also recommended major changes in the state government and emphasised immediate measures to be taken to narrow down the gaps in coordination between the party and the administration.

Mathur underscored the need to end internal factionalism in the BJP as well as its government in Gujarat, according to the report.

Hardik Patels agitation stunned the BJP both in Gujarat and in Delhi

Besides, he recommended the party be involved in the state government's decision-making and that the central leadership regularly review its performance.

Party sources say the PM may take a call on the BJPs Gujarat leadership, both in the party and in the government.

A number of senior BJP leaders are said to fear that Anandiben Patel may be a liability in next years state elections, party sources disclosed to India Today.

Any electoral loss for the BJP in Modis stronghold of Gujarat will be a huge setback to the PMs personal reputation.

The BJP seems to have lost ground to the Congress already, at least in rural Gujarat, as indicated by its slump there in local council elections after the Patidar protests in 2015.

Meanwhile, Shah has stepped up his Gujarat visits, holding a series of meetings with state ministers and leaders to discuss options to rebuild the organisation.

Modi, Mathur and the BJP chief also met twice in Delhi within a week to brainstorm a revival of the partys fortunes in the state ahead of the 2017 vote, the sources said.

Modi would not want to risk Gujarat, they said.

Any upset in his home state may have far-reaching repercussions on the BJP's national prospects in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the sources admit.

Shah also recently met all state BJP MPs and senior Gujarat leaders as part of frantic efforts to stop the party's slide in popularity.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has advised his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Akhilesh Yadav to ban liquor in his state.

Nitish, who was in Lucknow to attend a function organised by the Kisan Manch to support liquor prohibition, said: Earlier people thought that my decision would invite all-round protest and the state would suffer a huge revenue loss. But we did not face any protest and slowly our economy will come back on track.

Advising Yadav, Nitish said: Waqt ke saath doosre tareekon se iski poorti ki jaa sakti hai (The losses incurred (due to revenue loss) can easily be made up slowly by other developmental works).

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has advised his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Akhilesh Yadav to follow his lead and ban liquor in his state

Nitish went on to say that he got no support from the neighboring states of Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh after he imposed the prohibition in Bihar.

Before imposing the ban, we wrote to both the governments for their assistance in implementing it effectively. However, we received no response and the number of shops have also increased in the bordering districts, he said.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav

Taking a jibe at senior Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav, Nitish said: Woh din kabhi nahi aaega ki hume katora le kar bheekh mangni pade (We will never ask for money from any one due to the revenue loss; instead our economy will strengthen).

Ram Gopal Yadav had said on Saturday: Liqour is a huge source of revenue and within a year, Nitish will be seen asking for money (from the centre) to run the state.

Nitish also called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to set an example by banning liquor in BJP-ruled states.

Those who talk about morals should also set an example for others. He (Modi) should take the initiative for banning liquor in BJP-ruled states and gradually across the country, Nitish said.

Liquor traders, however, opposed Nitishs demand for prohibition in Uttar Pradesh.

A local association of liquor traders claimed to have waved black flags to Kumar for suggesting imposition of prohibition in Uttar Pradesh.

Lucknow Sharab Association leader Kanhailal Maurya claimed that slogans were shouted against Nitish and black flags were shown.

Police, however, did not confirm the incident.

JD(U) MP, KC Tyagi, who had accompanied Nitish to Lucknow, referred to the incident during his speech at a Kisan Sammelan addressed by the Bihar chief minister.

Nitishs latest visit and his other recent tours of the state did not go down well with the ruling SP leaders.

Nitish had visited Varanasi a few days back.

SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said the manner in which Nitish has been targeting UP, coming here every now and then, and his comments against the SP government will embolden communal forces.
After accusing the Punjab government of hushing-up a Rs 12,000 crore food-grain scam, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said it will protest against the government and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in Chandigarh on Monday.

Social Activist Sanjay Singh said that the situation is the biggest food-grain scam in Indian history, and the state and the Centre were both trying to cover up the embezzlement.

We challenge the Badals to tell the people of Punjab where the Rs 12,000 has gone? In the pockets of Badals or officials. We demand a probe into the scam by the sitting judge of Supreme Court, Singh said.

AAP leaders have accused the Badals of lining their pockets and those of Punjab's officials

AAP leaders also accused the Punjab government and police of victimising the party's workers.

Sanjay Singh said that the Punjab police picked up its workers and booked them in false cases so that they are not able to join the state-level protest on Monday.

An Akali Dal leader murdered our party worker Dharmendra in Malerkotla," he alleged.

"Navdeep Singh Vachoa, Seema Sirohi and Jaswant Singh were slapped with false cases and warned not to join the protest. The bus owners who were providing us with buses to ferry party workers to Chandigarh are also being victimised. I challenge the Badals to arrest me, Bhagwant Mann, and Sucha Singh Chotepur besides others - and not to victimise our workers, Singh said.

AAP Punjab convener Sucha Singh Chotepur claimed that while the states farmers were committing suicide and were not paid by the state government, the Badals were spending lakhs of public money on advertisements stating that the AAP is maligning their image by raking up the Rs 12000 crore food-grain scam.

AAP leaders claimed that more than one lakh party volunteers from various parts of Punjab will join the partys protest, which will begin at Mohali.
It is one of the biggest film festivals in the world and attracts screen stars from across the globe.

And during the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, India's own Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor have graced the red carpet several times.

Arriving at the screening of the flick Ma Loute on Friday, 42-year-old Bollywood star Aishwarya stunned in a glimmering gold Ali Younes gown.

Bollywood beauties: During the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, India's own Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (L) and Sonam Kapoor (R) have graced the red carpet several times

The delicate floor-length number was encrusted with shiny beads, while a sheer cape was attached and also featured the sparkly embellishments.

Making her way down the red carpet, the wife of Abhishek Bachchan certainly had heads turning.

Her luscious locks were worn out in loose waves, while her makeup was applied to picture perfection.

Bold blue eyeshadow and a slick of pink lipstick took the movie star's dramatic look to the next level.

Glamorous: Arriving at the screening of the flick Ma Loute on Friday, 42-year-old Bollywood star Aishwarya stunned in a glimmering gold Ali Younes gown

Dazzling: The delicate floor-length number was encrusted with shiny beads, while a sheer cape was attached and also featured the sparkly embellishments

And she continued to pull out all the style stops when attending subsequent events during the prestigious film festival.

Opting for a floor-length beige Elie Saab gown at the BFG screening on Saturday, Aishwarya's outfit was a red carpet success once again.

Her gorgeous dress was overlayed with delicate pink flowers, and cinched at the waist with a thin belt.

Strutting in a pair of matching Salvatore Ferragamo heels, the mother-of-one contrasted the soft colour of her outfit with a bold, vampy red lipstick.

Photographer's dream: Her luscious locks were worn out in loose waves, while her makeup was applied to picture perfection

Epitome of elegance: Making her way down the red carpet, the wife of Abhishek Bachchan certainly had heads turning

But when it came to making a striking statement on the red carpet, Aishwarya's third Cannes look stole the show.

The award-winning actress sported a purple pout, the dramatic lipstick drawing all attention to her lips at the Mal De Pierres premiere.

Meanwhile the rest of her red carpet attire aligned with a more classic Hollywood style, as she glided along in a pretty pastel-coloured Rami Kadi dress.

The off-shoulder number revealed her petite upper frame, falling to the floor with delicate pleats throughout.

Beautiful: Opting for a floor-length beige Elie Saab gown at the BFG screening on Saturday, Aishwarya's outfit was a red carpet success once again

Pastel perfect: When it came to making a striking statement on the red carpet, Aishwarya's third Cannes look stole the show

Intricate embroidered and beaded detail featuring splashes of purple, red and green, provided a contrast to her statement makeup.

Meanwhile her dark locks were pulled back in a chic ponytail, and dustings of smokey eyeshadow only highlighted her blue-green eyes.

Aishwarya is a Cannes regular and has attended the event for 15 years.

However, despite her stunning figure, Aishwarya admitted in a Twitter Q&A video chat last year that she loved eating ice cream and croissants when she comes to Cannes.

Bold move: The award-winning actress sported a purple pout, the dramatic lipstick drawing all attention to her lips at the Mal De Pierres premiere

Selfie time: The actress was spotted taking a quick photo on the red carpet

She said: 'I know there is a red carpet here, but I enjoy my croissants and ice creams. I enjoy life and live in the moment. You should do it too.'

The Bollywood beauty also chatted about bringing her now four-year-old daughter Aaradhya to the festival on the French Riviera.

She said: 'The first time I brought her here, she was six months and now she's three. I take her to these little play areas at Cannes.

'It's my 14th year at Cannes and before Aaradhya, I don't think I've even looked at that side of it (entertaining children). Over the last three years, I go to the carousel and all the little play areas, and I've discovered them and they are really sweet.'

Wonderful in white: Sonam Kapoor attended the Mal De Pierres event as well, in a beautiful white Ralph & Russo gown

Picture perfect: As she sashayed down the red carpet on Sunday, the daughter of actor Anil Kapoor took moments to pause and pose for the cameras

Since being crowned Miss World back in 1994, Aishwarya has forged a successful modelling and subsequent acting career in Bollywood, making her one of the most sought-after actresses in the Indian film industry.

In 2003 she became the first Indian actress to be a Cannes Film Festival jury member, following the success of her flick Devdas which was screened at the film festival in 2002.

Proving her versatility as an actress, she leant her onscreen talents to Hollywood in 2004.

The beauty starred opposite Grey's Anatomy star Martin Henderson in the film Bride And Prejudice, an adapted version of Jane Austin's classic Pride And Prejudice, but with a spicy twist.

Magnificent style: Her glamorous gown featured an extravagant cape, with a leafy print splashed right across

Attention to detail: Cut-outs across the shoulders and a choker feature added a sophisticated touch to the L'Oreal Paris ambassador's look

She also went on to star in The Pink Panther 2 and Provoked.

Meanwhile another Bollywood beauty who was dressed to impress for the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival was Sonam Kapoor.

The 30-year-old attended the Mal De Pierres event as well, in a beautiful white Ralph & Russo gown.

Beautiful in blue: Sonam also wore a Rimzim Dadu outfit on Sunday for a portrait photo session

As she sashayed down the red carpet on Sunday, the daughter of actor Anil Kapoor took moments to pause and pose for the cameras.

Her glamorous gown featured an extravagant cape, with a leafy print splashed right across.

Cut-outs across the shoulders and a choker feature added a sophisticated touch to the L'Oreal Paris ambassador's look.

Meanwhile her dark tresses were worn out sleek and straight, with glimmering gold eyeshadow perfectly complementing her divine dress.
Dyslexia is an unfamiliar word in India. Most parents are either entirely unaware of the term, or have a partial - often misguided - understanding of it.

This is particularly true of rural areas where there is hardly any recognition of the condition at all.

However, in recent times awareness has been growing and the media has played a role in making dyslexia a part of the public discourse.

Between seven and 20 per cent of school children are estimated to suffer from dyslexia in India

This awareness has meant that parents and teachers are now more sensitive to the condition, and more likely to seek resources to learn about it.

Some schools like Vasant Valley School, New Delhi, have recognised the need for resources to help children who find reading and writing difficult, and have employed a language therapist for more than a decade.

Children who have difficulties in these areas are referred to a language therapist for assessment, intervention - and, thereafter, some help to address their challenges.

This support enables children with dyslexia to follow a mainstream curriculum.

But despite the growing awareness, such examples are rare. Even in cities like New Delhi, school teachers are often unable to recognise the condition and are unable to provide the right assistance when it is recognised.

The film Taare Zameen Par started a national discussion on dyslexia in India

Bright, talented students are often subjected to bullying because they are unable to read or write at the level of their peers, and are then left with low self-esteem and low confidence in class.

Among children with siblings, low self-esteem often manifests in strong sibling rivalries, with parents feeling frustrated and helpless.

In India, multilingualism exacerbates the condition. In almost every case, children will speak their mother tongue at home while English is the medium of instruction in school, impairing proficiency in both languages.

In rural India, where resources are limited, children with dyslexia are neglected and school drop-out rates are high.

The symptoms of dyslexia are varied and the condition affects each child differently. As a result, given the absence of a standard set of symptoms, many parents and teachers find the condition difficult to cope with.

Children are often labelled dumb and slow when they are unable to read. When a child reads saw as was, or writes b for d, or cannot write words he knew one day correctly the next day, he or she needs to be referred to a language therapist for an assessment.

Further steps can then be taken to help and support them.

All over the world, experts and scientists are working hard to better understand and deal with dyslexia, but many aspects of the condition are still not understood.

Between seven and 20 per cent of school children are estimated to suffer from dyslexia.

Current research indicates that the problem is genetic and possibly even hereditary. Research has also shown that children with dyslexia need language therapy as soon as they start using words.

All schools need to have processes in place to ensure that children with reading and writing difficulties are referred to language therapists as early as is possible.
Julia Roberts stars as television director Patty Fenn in the movie

Julia Roberts felt like she was going to the theatre every day when she shot Money Monster.

The 48-year-old actress stars as television director Patty Fenn in the movie, which sees George Clooney portray financial guru Lee Gates, who is taken hostage by Jack O'Connell's Kyle Budwell.

Julia's role in the film saw her shoot solo, with a headpiece communicating between her character and George's.

But the benefit was that the actress was able to observe the action unfold on the set when she wasn't required for the scenes.

"He (Jack) worked so hard. And it was so great for me because it was almost like going to the theatre every day, going to work," Julia smiled during an interview on Good Morning Britain on Monday.

"I just sat up, on a little chair, up high above the set and I had my headphones on, and I was off camera, and I had my knitting, and I just watched and did my dialogue. So it was like watching a play every day, with George and Jack."

But the downside of having different scene times was evident when Jack was called to set after just eating a burger.

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Sheryl Sandberg recalls the horrors of loss

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg encouraged graduating seniors at the University of California, Berkeley to persevere in lifes challenging times.

For the first time, she spoke publicly about her husbands death during a commencement speech.

Sandberg, whose husband, Dave Goldberg, died in a treadmill accident while on vacation last year in Mexico, said she was swallowed up in the deep fog of grief.

Dave's death changed me in very profound ways, she told 4,700 graduating seniors.

I learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss.

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Father link to birth defects

A growing body of research is revealing associations between birth defects and a father's age, alcohol use, and environmental factors, say researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center.

They say these defects result from epi-genetic alterations that can potentially affect multiple generations.

The study, published in the American Journal of Stem Cells, suggest both parents contribute to the health status of their offspring.
Tom Stevenson (left) is a touch crumpled and rumpled. His hair is unkempt, his Harry Potter specs smeary and his eyes are a bit pink around the edges. Frankly, it's little wonder, though, because Tom's usually quiet life - of university lectures, badminton, vegetarian meal deals and watching Eurovision repeats and gentle TV quiz shows with his mum - has been turned upside down. Instead, over the past two weeks or so, the 21-year-old has been popping up on TV chat shows, the radio and news outlets around the world. He's been feted on Twitter as 'an idol' and 'a hero' and hailed 'an inspiration' by one of his teachers at secondary school. Tom triumphed on Countdown, the cult Channel 4 programme which has been beloved by students, pensioners, housewives and anyone with nothing better to do at ten past two every weekday afternoon for 86 series over the past 40 years. He did not just triumph, though: Tom smashed two existing and highly coveted records. For highest score in a round ever - 154 (right) - beating the 152 points secured by Elliott Mellor in 2019. And for becoming the first octochamp (winning eight heats) without losing a single of his 120 consecutive rounds - and propelling him into the grand final, which was recorded earlier this month and will be aired at Christmas.
Home Ministry official Anand Joshi, who went missing soon after the CBI registered a case against him for allegedly blackmailing foreign-funded NGOs, could lead investigators to widen the scope of their probe.

CBI sources say other officers are likely to be questioned if Joshi continues to make counter-allegations against senior officers in the ministry.

Joshi, who apparently tried to flee the country, is now in the CBI's custody for five days.

Home Ministry under-secretary Anand Joshi at a court in New Delhi

He will be grilled about the functioning of the Home Ministry, while dealing with foreign funded organisations registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).

He was linked to the investigation of the NGO Sabrang Trust, which belongs to activist Teesta Setalvad, and is accused of stealing the file related to the probe.

The CBI sources claimed that Joshi stage-managed his disappearance as the probe began.

Joshi went missing after leaving a note for his wife soon after the CBI called him for questioning.

The investigators are not ready to believe the story he allegedly weaved to explain his disappearance.

Joshi has told the CBI that between May 5 and 7, he was in Ujjain to attend the Kumbh - where he says he lost his mobile phone during a stampede.

His lawyer informed the court that Joshi was available for questioning for three days starting May 8, before the CBI called him for interrogation after a case was registered on May 9.

Opposing the CBIs plea for custodial interrogation, Joshis lawyer said that since his phone was lost in Ujjain, he could not be contacted. He denied that Joshi switched off his phone to evade investigators.

Seeking Joshi's custody, the CBI argued that a few important files relating to NGOs that had gone missing from the Ministry offices have been recovered from his house.

Joshi was not officially supposed to take them to his residence.

It contended that he was neither cooperating in the probe nor disclosing the relevant facts, and thus his custodial interrogation was required to find out how those files came to be at his house.

Joshi has rejected the charge and instead accused his seniors of pressuring him to give a clean chit to NGOs.

In a note which he left before leaving home, Joshi claimed he had been subjected to mental harassment in recent months.

The CBI alleged in court that Joshi laundered ill-gotten earnings in various immovable assets as well as certain private companies, and that his wife was one of the directors in them.

Joshi, who had disappeared on 11th May from his home in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, was picked up from the Tilak Nagar area of West Delhi and taken to the CBI headquarters for questioning.

It is alleged that he served 60-70 notices to NGOs arbitrarily in November 2015, without getting the proper approvals.

Sources said it is being verified whether he acted in an individual capacity or kept his seniors in the loop.
The first decade of this century saw record activity for inward investment in Britain through foreign takeovers. A limited number, such as Tatas purchase of Jaguar Land Rover, have been roaring successes, but others have been negative if not ruinous.

Selling off privatised utilities has been particularly vexatious. What we are discovering is that in several cases the buyers bought on borrowing, overpaid and are now strapped for cash. Take Engie, the French successor company to GDF Suez, which last year reported a loss of 4.6bn and has written off 24bn of assets in the last two years.

In August 2010 it snaffled up the UKs International Power which specialised in building and exporting British power generation know-how overseas. Now it is part of a struggling French-based energy group caused by a sharp fall in electricity prices in the European market.

Double act: The pillage of the nations utilities is among the most appalling legacies of the Blair-Brown years

It joins a number of other hard-pressed UK utilities under foreign ownership. Most in the headlines is British Energy, sold to Frances EDF in 2009, in the hope that the French state-controlled group would be willing to invest heavily in Britains next generation nuclear.

What we actually have is a stop-go process with real questions over the price of building a super-reactor at Hinkley Point in Somerset and the French government wanting to lower the guillotine on the project because of the high costs. The betting must be that if Paris does decide to call it a day it will blame the uncertainty of Brexit. Poppycock. The real reason is EDFs stretched balance sheet and the scale of Frances budget deficit.

Last week the European Commission blocked the merger of O2 with Hutchison-owned rival Three. O2 was sold to Spanish owner Telefonica for 18bn in 2005.

After 11 years of ownership, and weighed down by debt, Telefonica is only too happy to dump O2. What is certain is having an overseas owner burdened by debts is not very helpful to investment in the future of networks or R&D. That was one of the few reasons to think it would be better if it had merged with Three.

Tata lost its patience with Corus (owner of the old British Steel) and wants out as soon as possible amid struggles with a ballooning pensions deficit of 485m which is regarded as a key blockage to a rescue.

Meanwhile, Vampire Kangaroo Macquarie is seeking to offload its 26 per cent stake in Thames Water for 3bn having bought it, with a consortium of other investors, from German utility RWE for 8bn.

In its decade of ownership the company has paid out 3bn of dividends to investors and the debt on its balance sheet has soared from 1.6bn to 10bn. No wonder Thames is having to pass the hat around to build the much-needed Thames Tideway, or super-sewer, required to update the capitals over-burdened Victorian system. And surprise, surprise, even as large dividends have been removed from the enterprise the deficit in the pension fund has climbed to 249m.

The ill-equipped Pensions Regulator, humiliated at the BHS hearings, needs to make sure that Macquarie has a quick action plan to meet its part of the pensions deficit before it triggers a sale. The Pensions Protection Fund cannot possibly be expected to pick-up another huge bill because rapacious owners refuse to do the right thing.

The pillage of the nations utilities is among the most appalling legacies of the Blair-Brown years.

The regiments of future retirees and pensions should not be forced to pick up the bill for a grotesque mistake.

Taking a byte

There was a time when the Sage of Omaha Warren Buffett wouldnt go near tech stocks. In spite of a billionaire friendship with Bill Gates of Microsoft, he preferred to put his money in brands he recognised and loved from Coca-Cola to Disney and more recently railroads and insurers. That looks to be changing.

After a torrid time for Apple shares, which have tumbled one third since a peak in April 2015, Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway has snapped up a $1bn stake.

Not only that, Buffett is offering to provide financial backing to fellow billionaire Dan Gilbert, founder of internet mortgage provider Quicken Loans, in his pursuit of the internet services giant Yahoo. Buffett joins a crowded field in pursuit of Yahoo including Verizon, various private equity consortia and potentially DMGT, owner of the Daily Mail.

Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer is discovering that while the crown jewel is the 15 per cent stake in AliBaba, worth a cool $28bn, there is still value in the companys free standing internet services.

Paper trail

The decline of the printed annual report, treasure troves of information, is one of the great losses of the digital age. So it is comforting that German media group Bertelsmann, owner of TV giant RTL, music producer BMG and Penguin Random House, is not only sticking with tradition but has released a boxed set of reports, including a wall poster.
Britain's largest water company has run up a 250m black hole in its pension pot while its foreign owners have pocketed almost 2bn in dividends.

When it was sold to a consortium of investors, led by Australias Macquarie, in 2005 Thames Water Utilities had a 38m pension deficit. But in the last decade this has ballooned by more than 655 per cent to 249m  an increase of 211m.

At the same time, in echoes of the BHS scandal, the consortium is thought to have extracted at least 1.6bn in dividends and interest.

Springing a leak: In 2005 Thames Water had a 38m pension deficit, but this has ballooned by more than 655 per cent

Now MPs have vowed to look at the scheme as part of a wider shake-up of the pensions industry. It could see bosses of the utility company forced to account for their actions in Parliament.

Outrage is spreading at predatory shareholders who bleed their companies dry, after the owners of shopping giant BHS earned 423m from the company between 2001 and 2004. The firm has a 571m gap in its pension scheme.

The Work and Pensions Select Committee is investigating  and its inquiry will expand beyond the failing retail chain in coming months. Its chairman Frank Field said: We will certainly be looking at Thames Water.

He said the committees investigations would look at how much money was being taken out of companies by their owners. Thames Water passed into private hands in 2001 after being bought by German utility company RWE.

It was sold five years later to a consortium of investors led by Macquarie  known as the Vampire Kangaroo due to its asset-stripping reputation.

The size of the black hole has been investigated by Martin Blaiklock, a former utilities director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

He believes it raises serious questions about the sustainability of the company.

This deficit is being propped up by you and me because were paying for it in our water bills.

When they negotiate with the regulator about water prices, they can say they need to pay the deficit down and have to be allowed to charge more. The regulation for water companies isnt very strong.

Macquarie has also aggressively focused on cutting its tax bill. It loaded Thames Water with loans, increasing the amount of debt on its balance sheet from 1.6bn ten years ago to around 10bn today.

The company has only paid 100,000 in corporation tax since 2006, partly due to high debt levels and partly because of tax-deductible investments to replace pipes. Bosses sparked outrage in 2013 after saying it might be a decade before Thames Water next paid tax. And they have also been criticised for financing some operations through the Cayman Islands  a noted tax haven.

Despite these concerns, Thames Water chief executive Martin Baggs picked up a 2.1m pay packet last year, up from 1.3m a year earlier.

Macquarie is looking to sell its remaining 26 per cent stake in the company and is believed to be seeking more than 3bn from buyers.

Some of the proceeds will be used to pay down Thames Waters debts but the Australians will pocket the rest.

Thames Water said its pension deficit had been run up due to a fall in the value of gilts  British Government bonds heavily backed by most pension schemes.

A spokesman said: A recovery plan has been agreed with our pension trustees, under an independent chair, and annual deficit contributions of 20.3m are being paid.

The company, with shareholders funds in excess of 1.4bn, remains committed to meeting all of its pension obligations and has reiterated to our joint trade unions that the deficits are solely the responsibility of the company.
Warren Buffett has taken a major gamble on the tech industry by making a 695m bet on Apple and offering to bank-roll a bid for struggling search engine Yahoo.

Tycoon Buffett is the worlds most successful investor. Nicknamed the Sage of Omaha, he is worth 46.4bn. He bought 9.81m Apple shares through his firm Berkshire Hathaway.

The investment was disclosed in a regulatory filing and prompted a rise in Apples share price of 2.5 per cent. This compares to a fall of 19.6 per cent in the past six months.

Sage advice: Buffett is the worlds most successful investor and bought 9.81m Apple shares through his firm Berkshire Hathaway

But it comes as other investors, most notably hedge fund boss Carl Icahn, have ditched the stock. And though Buffett, 85, has investments in IBM, he has largely shunned investments in tech companies until now, saying in 2012: I just dont know how to value them.

Apple revealed in April that iPhone sales fell by 10m in the first quarter of this year, and last week it made a 700m investment in the Chinese equivalent of taxi-hailing app, Uber, named Didi Chuxing.

Yesterday Apple boss Tim Cook appeared in China to trumpet the partnership, which has sparked speculation that Apple could soon move into services or into other areas of tech, such as driverless cars.

As well as taking a stake in Apple, Buffett yesterday offered to back a bid for Yahoo by fellow billionaire Dan Gilbert, who founded Americas second largest mortgage lender.

Yahoo is valued at 27bn but its core business was put up for sale in February, after ditching plans to spin off its 21.7bn stake in ecommerce group Alibaba.

Yahoo has struggled in recent years against rivals such as Facebook and Google, and reported a loss of 3bn in its latest accounts.
Lonmins shares shone through by climbing almost 20 per cent after it turned a 4m first-half loss a year ago into earnings of 25m.

In its half-year results the precious metals producer said cost savings were well ahead of schedule and it now had 80m in net cash, compared to debts of 128m six months ago.

Lonmin, the third largest producer of platinum in the world, offered shareholders 270m of shares in a rights issue last November as the price of the precious metal plummeted and high costs pushed the firm to the brink.

The business offered 27bn shares at 1p each, a fraction of the price they closed at. A year ago its shares were priced at 1692p.

It was the third time in six years the group had turned to investors for a cash boost.

Yesterday chief executive Ben Magara said of the results: Weve done what we said wed do.

Some 5,433 employees have left the group, with 1,428 more redeployed within the business.

The group produced some 348,885 ounces of platinum, a third more than a year ago. It expects to sell 700,000 ounces this year. Despite its progress, Liberum has a sell rating on the stock. It said South Africa remains a difficult place to do business.

Unions in the country are meeting later this week to discuss wages ahead of forthcoming negotiations. Lonmin said it expects firm demand for platinum from the automotive and chemical industries, though diesel and Chinas economic slowdown are concerns.

Its shares strengthened 19.9 per cent, or 32.25p, to 195p. Lonmin wasnt the only mining company having a good day, the sector kept the FTSE 100 just about in the black, up 0.2 per cent, or 12.9 points, to 6151.40.

Anglo American was the biggest climber of the day, its shares advanced 5.4 per cent, or 31.3p, to 609.5p. Bank of America Merrill Lynch almost doubled its target price for the miner from 415p to 800p.

Antofagasta gained 3.4 per cent, or 13.8p, to 425.6p despite a setback in its progress getting an environmental permit for its mine in Chile.

It was the first day of trading for newly-created EVR Holdings. Investment company Armstrong Ventures acquired virtual reality content creator Melody VR in a reverse takeover deal (where a smaller company buys a larger one) back in April for 5.1m.

After the acquisition was complete Armstrong cancelled its shares and EVR Holdings, borne out of the merger of the two businesses, started trading yesterday. Melody VR creates virtual reality music experiences.

It means you can feel like youre at a concert, even on stage with the artist, when really youre wearing a headset in your own home.

The firm says it allows people to experience an event even if they cant get to it because of location, cost, age restrictions or because it has sold out.

Virtual reality is expected to become increasingly popular. Google released a head-mounted display in 2014 and reported 5m headset sales in the subsequent 18 months. It also said some 25m virtual reality apps had been downloaded from its store.

Since then Samsung and HTC have also released similar headsets. Some estimates show that more than 83m virtual reality devices could be sold by 2018.

It was a positive first day on the market for EVR, investors werent imagining things when shares ticked up 5 per cent, or 0.05p, to 1.05p.

Satellite data communications firm Avanti was on investors radars after chairman Paul Walsh bought up 230,000 shares in the company at 89.5p each.

In a third quarter trading update yesterday the firm said revenue was up nearly 15 per cent on the year before at 13.5m.

Avanti said it was on track to deliver revenue growth of 50 per cent in 2016. Last week the company revealed it had won a 20m contract to supply EE.
The victim had just been baptized at Seventh-day Adventist Church

60-year-old Hawaii man was shot in the back by an

A man was shot in the back moments after he was baptized inside a Honolulu church, police said.

Paramedics treated 60-year-old Tali Talitonu for a gunshot wound to the back during a mass ceremony at the Samoa-Tokelau Seventh-day Adventist Church on Saturday, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

The suspected shooter, Vieolesolo Tavita, 59, was charged Sunday with attempted murder and gun offenses, according to the Star-Advertiser.

A 60-year-old man was shot by a woman after he was baptized during a mass ceremony in Honolulu, Hawaii

The man was shot in the back Saturday and treated for his injuries. The suspected shooter, Vieolesolo Tavita, 59, was charged Sunday

The shooting happened at the Samoa-Tokelau Seventh-day Adventist Church (pictured)

The victim's nephew, Taleni Asuega, said up to 100 people, including many children, were spilling out into the courtyard when a woman pulled out a gun and shot Talitonu once in the back, near his right shoulder.

A church elder grabbed the shooter's gun hand, pointing the weapon away from the victim and the crowd, and disarmed her, Asuega said.

Asuega told the newspaper that the woman is also a member of the congregation. He says he doesn't know what prompted the violence.
An SUV packed with 15 suspected illegal immigrants has crashed into a naval air base in Texas, injuring six after a high-speed chase.

The van was being pursued by Border Patrol agents when it rammed a barrier blocking access to Naval Air Station Kingsville at around 8pm on Saturday.

The vehicle had already passed the base's entry gate and was inside the Navy outpost's grounds.

An SUV packed with 15 suspected illegal immigrants has crashed into Naval Air Station Kingsville in Texas, injuring six after a high-speed chase

The van was being pursued by Border Patrol agents when it rammed a barrier blocking access to the base

Six of the 15 people - who military officials believe entered the country illegally - were taken to hospital, including one who was so severely injured that they had to be airlifted there.

Three of the injured were still in hospital on Sunday evening.

Two women and a man fled the scene and ran into the base where they hid for hours before finally being caught, KVUE reported.

All of the 15, except the three who remain in hospital, have been taken into custody.

The vehicle had already passed the base's entry gate (pictured) and was inside Navy grounds

Naval Air Station Kingsville spokesman Kevin Clarke said border agents believed the SUV's occupants entered the country illegally but did not state what country they came from.

The naval air base is 100 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.

'Our entry consult points are manned 24/7 and our security forces are trained. They have the protocol and the force protection protocols in place to keep the base and the base personnel safe,' Clark said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not comment.
Two dozen whales died after getting stranded on a beach in Baja California, Mexico, this weekend.

Authorities tried to rescue them for 15 hours from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning, but only three of the 27 pilot whales that originally came ashore could be saved.

Members of the navy worked with soldiers, agents of the environmental ministry agents and fishermen to try to get them back into deeper water off the western shore of the Gulf of California.

Some whales returned to the beach even after being brought back to into the sea, becoming stranded again, Mexico's navy said Sunday.

Scroll down for video

Two dozen whales died after getting stranded on a beach in Baja California, Mexico, this weekend (pictured). Authorities tried to rescue them from Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening

Men were pictured knee-deep in the ocean, trying to push the whales away from the coast.

They kept trying to rescue them from 3pm on Saturday to 6am on Sunday, the navy said.

Two adult whales and one baby survived.

The 27 whales appeared disoriented by the time they came ashore according to the navy, who said there were no signs of injuries.

They didn't display any marks from fishing or any other human activities that could have influenced their behavior, the navy added.

Only three of the 27 pilot whales that came ashore could be rescued. Men were pictured in the water trying to get them back into deeper waters

Some of the whales came back towards the beach even after being brought back in a safer environment and became stranded again during the rescue mission (pictured)

Pilot whales can be either short-finned or long-finned. The 27 that came ashore this weekend belonged to the short-finned species.

They are protected in the United States under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and have a special protection status in Mexico.

Pilot whales have strong social connections, meaning they won't abandon other members of their species if they're in danger, even in deadly situations, the navy said.

Short-finned pilot whales measure on average 12 feet for females and 18 feet for males and can weigh between 2,200 and 6,600 pounds according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

They reach maturity at 10 years old. Males can live up to 45 years old, while females can reach 60 years old.
The bees abandoned their hive on Friday and then wreaked havoc on Janke's neighborhood, killing two daschunds and stinging several humans

It's believed that one of his hives of honey bees was infiltrated by a swarm of African killer bees - a more

A California neighborhood was overtaken by a swarm of aggressive bees this weekend, killing two dogs and stinging many more people.

The invasion of the Concord, California neighborhood happened Friday, when amateur beekeeper Arthur Janke, 41, tried to move one of his hives and found that it had been overtaken by a more aggressive species of bees, believed to be African killer bees.

The bees then abandoned their hive to fly freely through the community, stinging a child, a postal worker, and news reporters. The bees also stung two dachshunds, which died from the stings.

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A neighborhood in Concord, California was overtaken by a swarm of aggressive bees this weekend, killing two dogs and stinging several humans

It's believed that the bees are Africanized killer bees which are much more aggressive than regular honey bees

Neighbor Mike Malley told the San Francisco Chronicle, that he had been stung more than a dozen times, including on the inner arm and on the face.

'I could hear the mail lady screaming from my house,' Malley said. 'She took off screaming and ran down the road. Two guys in a pickup truck stopped to help her, and the bees attacked them. So they ran the other way and left their pickup idling for about two hours.'

Bee experts helped Janke deal with the bees over the weekend, and its believed that the neighborhood is now considerable safer since they did not make it back to their cluster on Sunday.

Norman Lott of the Mount Diablo Bee Keepers Association said he was called to the Concord neighborhood after an amateur beekeeper got rid of a hive after being attacked, leaving a swarm of possibly Africanized bees flying around, the East Bay Times reported.

'Very few bees were left flying around that didn't make it back to the cluster (Saturday) night,' Lott said. 'I don't anticipate going out there.'

Concord police Capt. Chris Blakely said the problem was first reported Friday when Arthur Janke, an amateur beekeeper, went to check on his backyard hives and bees attacked him.

He got rid of the hive, leaving a lot of agitated bees in the area. He later went to the hospital with minor injuries from bee stings.

The bees were accidentally set loose on the neighborhood by an amateur bee keeper whose honey bee hive was infiltrated by the more aggressive species of bees

Concord resident Mike Malley is seen above with one of his may stings, and swatting one of the bees away

'The real tragedy was Friday,' Janke told the San Francisco Chronicle. 'The bees would be all over people. They'd be in your hair.'

Lott said the bees are possibly swarms of Africanized honeybees, a subspecies known as killer bees that migrated north from South America.

Lott collected sample DNA from some of the bees that may prove his hunch.
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The RAF's Dambusters squadron will take the lead in the nation's defence again - more than 70 years after its key role in World War Two.

Aircrew the iconic 617 Squadron have recreated the famous pictures of Guy Gibson's flying heroes in their state-of-the-art 2.5billion superjets.

The government has ordered a first batch of 14 of the fighters known as Lightning 11s which are capable of vertical take off and landings at a cost of 2.5bn.

A composite image of a Second World War RAF Lancaster bomber crew of 617 Squadron with some of the next generation of the squadron and one of their F35B Lightning II jets. Modern day aircrewmen are pictured from left to right: Cpl Patrick Bearefield, CPO Gary Lister, Lt Rich Pavie, Wing Cdr Jon Butcher (current Commanding Officer), Sqn Ldr Hugh Nichol, Chief Tech Gary Gibbons and AET Alfred Burrows

Wing Commander Guy Gibson is pictured wearing his flying overalls while working as Commanding Officer of RAF Squadron 617 (The Dambusters) in 1943 (left). Pictured right: Wing Commander Jon Butcher, of the current 617 Squadron, stands in front of an F-35B Lightning II jet today, striking the same iconic pose as his Second World War predecessor

The new aircraft are very different from the Lancaster bombers which carried out some of the most dangerous raids during Operation Chastise.

The raids on three dams in Germany led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson on May 16, 1943, disrupted much of the country's war production.

The Dambusters of 1943 were crews of British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and American personnel.

Wing Commander John Butcher, 35, is leading Britain's first F-35B Lightning Squadron and was named after his grandfather who also flew Lancasters in World War Two.

He said: 'Leading 617 Squadron as it starts this new chapter in its history is a huge privilege.

'If I could show Gibson around the F-35B Lightning and introduce him to the team, I hope he would feel the same spirit and determination that he created in 1943.

'I also think he would be very happy to see the Squadron once again re-forming for a very special purpose, staying true to the heritage of being at the cutting edge of aviation; I think he would like that.'

A 617 Squadron Lancaster Bomber crew are pictured sat next to the airfield at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire during the Second World War

Aircrewmen of 617 Squadron strike the same iconic pose of their Second World War predecessors on the grass beside the airfield at MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina, USA. From left: Rich Pavey, Wing Cdr Jon Butcher, CPO Gary Lister, Chief Tech Gary Gibbons, Cpl Patrick Bearefield, AET Alfred Burrows

Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his crew board their Avro Lancaster A3-G (ED 932/G) aircraft for the Dambusters raid in 1943. Pictured from left to right: Flight Lieutenant R D Trevor-Roper DEM; Sergeant J Pulford; Flight Sergeant G A Deering RCAF; Pilot Officer F M Spafford DFM RAAF; Flight Lieutenant R E G Hutchinson DFC; Wing Commander Guy Gibson and Pilot Officer H T Taerum RCAF

Members of the modern day 617 Squadron emulate the famous picture of the Second World War Squadron members with an F-35B Lightning II stealth jet at MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina, USA. Pictured from left to right: Lieutenant Rich Pavey, Wing Cdr Jon Butcher (Cockpit), Sqn Leader Hugh Nichol, CPO Gary Lister, Chief Tech Gary Gibbons, Cpl Patrick Bearefield, AET Alfred Burrows

He added: 'Gibson and his men flew at very low level to the target, with limited enemy awareness of what they were doing.

'When I flew the Harrier, much of our training was at low level preparing us to avoid enemy radars by hiding in the terrain.

'The F-35B Lightning uses stealth technology to hide from enemy radar systems, effectively making the aircraft invisible.

'This is a significant tactical advantage as an enemy cannot fight what he cannot see.'

'In 1943 Gibson's Lancasters had VHF radio telephones installed so that he could have direct speech communication with all of the aircraft.

Wing Commander Guy Gibson with members of his crew at RAF Scampton ahead of the Dambusters raid in 1943. Pictured from left to right: Guy Gibson, Pilot Officer P M Spafford, Flight Lieutenant R E G Hutchinson, Pilot Officer G A Deering and Flying Officer H T Taerum

Members of the modern day 617 Squadron emulate the famous picture of the Second World War Squadron. Pictured at MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina, from left: Wing Cdr Jon Butcher, Sqn Leader Hugh Nichol, Lt Rich Pavey, Chief Tech Gary Gibbons and AET Alfred Burrows

This was unusual for bomber aircraft at that time, but it was essential for him to co-ordinate the mission.

'Today in the F-35B Lightning we have a datalink that automatically shares information between pilots in real time, without even the need for voice communications.

'It's a little like all of us using smart phones at the same time, we all see the same information on the same apps.

'It's similar to the way your smart phone picks dates and times out of your emails and puts them in your calendar.'

Pilots from 617 squadron are currently training to fly Britain's first F-35B fighters which are regarded as the world's most sophisticated stealth fighters. The Lockheed Martin aircraft is pictured at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire

The government has ordered a first batch of 14 of the fighters known as Lightning 11s which are capable of vertical take off and landings at a cost of 2.5billion

A Lockheed Martin F-35 is pictured resting on the runway at RAF Fairford, Fairford, in Gloucestershire.

The squadron has been working along the US Marines and the US Air Force and US Navy during training.

The new 617 Squadron will be a combined team of Royal Navy and RAF personnel who will fly from both land and sea, based from RAF Marham and deployed periodically on the Queen Elizabeth Class Carriers.

They will return to the UK in 2018 from their current training base of United States Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina, USA.

Wing Commander John Butcher and members of 617 Squadron will bring the F-35B Lightning to the UK for the first time this Summer, flying role demonstrations at the Royal International Air Tattoo and Farnborough International Air Show.
Horrified midwives are mutinying after their union boss signed them up to an abhorrent plan to scrap the time limit on abortions  without asking them.

Cathy Warwick is facing calls to quit as chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) over what critics say is a blatant conflict of interest.

As well as leading the nations 30,000 midwives, Prof Warwick is chairman of the countrys biggest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).

Cathy Warwick, who is the The Royal College of Midwives Chief Executive and General Secretary

And without consulting members, she signed the union up to the services campaign to decriminalise abortion by scrapping the 24-week legal cut-off for terminations.

Last night, appalled MPs said Prof Warwick should resign, and thousands of midwives and members of the public signed a Not in our name petition, demanding that she reverses the policy which represents a disgraceful betrayal of her profession.

Under the 1967 Abortion Act, women can abort an unborn baby up until 24 weeks gestation, with exceptions after that allowed on medical grounds.

But the BPASs We Trust Women campaign  launched in February  proposes that the abortion time limit be removed from criminal law.

Critics fear such a radical change would lead to healthy foetuses being aborted late in pregnancy for the convenience of the mother or because they were the wrong sex.

It also flies in the face of calls to actually tighten the 24-week cut-off following advances in medical science that mean more premature babies survive.

Last week, the RCM formally joined the campaign, saying it has the unions full support and adding: The continued criminalisation of abortion in the UK may drive women to access abortion services which are neither safe nor legal.

But midwives are in open revolt.

The British Pregnancy Advice Service 'We Trust Women' campaign document (pictured) states: 'The abortion time limit would be removed from criminal law. There is no doubt that abortions post viability raise particular moral concerns for many...but there is no evidence that [it] leads to an increase in later terminations'

Only a tiny proportion of abortions take place at 24 weeks or later: there were 211 such terminations in 2014

Judith Smyth, a midwife from Northern Ireland, said: Anyone advocating allowing abortion up to birth, I think is so sad and tragic, but to have my own representative body coming out in support of this extreme view is very disappointing.

I know shes our chief, but there is clearly a conflict of interest. On something as big as this, she should have consulted us.

Labour MP Robert Flello said: I am utterly and completely appalled by this abhorrent proposal. This wasnt a minor policy shift by the Royal College of Midwives, it was a fundamental change and the reason they didnt ask their members is because they knew they wouldnt get it past them.

It is unacceptable that the RCM is led by someone so closely aligned to the biggest provider of abortions.

Jim Shannon, a Democratic Unionist MP in Ulster, vowed to put down a question in Parliament this week.

It is unacceptable that the RCM is led by someone so closely aligned to the biggest provider of abortions Labour MP Robert Flello

He said: I will ask the Secretary of State for Health what discussions he has had, or will have, with the RCM and BPAS. My concern is that scrapping the 24-week cut-off would be absolutely disgraceful.

I would have thought the RCM should be protecting unborn life. Its chief executive has this dual position and many people would say you cant have that.

Professor Warwick was on a walking holiday yesterday but an RCM spokesman admitted she did not consult its members on the issue, saying: The constitution allows for our members to elect the RCM board and for this body to set our strategic objectives.

Anne Scanlan, of pro-life group Life Education, said: This would legalise abortion-on-demand throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy, for any reason whatsoever. We know multitudes of midwives who will feel completely alienated and disenfranchised by this extreme and unnecessary move.

We are deeply disappointed in the Royal College of Midwives for adopting this extreme policy without any consultation with its members whatsoever.

Left, The RCM Abortion Position Statement and right, The Royal College of Midwives badge. The college was established in 1881 with the Latin motto Vita Donum Dei, meaning Life is the gift of God

She said a survey in 2012 found that only 2 per cent of British women wanted the time limit increased beyond 24 weeks, while 59 per cent favoured a reduction in the time limit.

Sally Carson, a midwife from Chester, said: Midwives are for delivering live babies wherever possible and trying to preserve the lives of those born prematurely. These babies are not tumours that they can just remove.

Michelle Viney, a midwife of 15 years standing, added: Why could the RCM think it could do this without asking any of their members? I find it so shocking.

'I financially support it, but I wouldnt want to be paying a fee towards an organisation which is going to be campaigning for something which, morally, I 100 per cent disagree with.

BPAS chief executive Ann Furedi (pictured), said abortion should be accepted as a form of family planning. She is married to sociology professor Frank Furedi, a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party

BPAS, which receives 25 million of public money to carry out 63,000 terminations a year on behalf of the NHS, is led by Ann Furedi, its 145,000-a-year chief executive.

She is a former Cosmopolitan journalist who once said abortion should be accepted as an essential method of family planning, and who is married to a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

Professor Warwick became BPAS chairman in 2014, and has been a trustee for five years. Her BPAS position is unpaid, but she receives 155,000 a year for her RCM job.

Andrew Percy MP, a Conservative member of the Commons health select committee, said: It is clearly a conflict of interest if she is doing the two roles. Its pretty disgusting. She represents midwives, many of whom will absolutely not agree with this campaign, and she should think very hard about whether or not her position is sustainable.

Dr Peter Saunders, head of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said: It is bitterly ironic that the RCM, the supposed champion of safe childbirth and antenatal care, should be backing a campaign seeking to legalise the killing of unborn children up until birth.

'It is even more extraordinary that their chief executive, who also chairs BPAS, should be spearheading this initiative without apparently even consulting her membership. It is an extraordinary abuse of power.

James Mildred, of the campaign group Christian Action Research and Education, added: What sort of message does the RCMs radical stance on abortion send to pro-life midwives? It is tragic.

Campaigners said that if Britain scrapped its abortion laws altogether, it would find itself in company with China, Vietnam and North Korea, which have no restrictions.

The RCM spokesman said: If we are to be advocates for women then we must advocate for choice on all aspects of their care.

The RCM is not for or against abortion. It is for women, and respecting their choices about their bodies. NHS policy is explicit that high-quality maternity services include respecting womens right to make reproductive choices. The RCMs stance on decriminalisation of abortion is compatible with this.

Guy Adams: Left-wing midwives' chief as arrogant and unaccountable as a Seventies union boss

Radical agenda: Cathy Warwick sparked a backlash from midwives

One morning last month, Britains 30,000-odd midwives woke up to a piece of shocking news: their entire professional future depends on Britain voting to remain in the EU.

That, at least, was the verdict of Cathy Warwick, the chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM).

In a hard-hitting statement, she claimed that being in the EU underpins much of the protection that pregnant women receive and is vital for the profession, arguing that the economic shock of a Brexit vote is likely to severely damage the NHS.

Professor Warwicks comments came as the RCM announced that it will be formally supporting the Remain campaign  on the apparent grounds that, as she sees it, the nations midwives will all be better off in.

She was, of course, perfectly entitled to that opinion  though many in the Leave camp strongly disagreed with her analysis.

Yet whether it might reflect the view of a majority of the RCMs actual members, who each support the organisation to the tune of 244-a-year, was anyones guess.

Strangely, given the highly charged nature of the EU debate, Professor Warwick hadnt bothered to ballot them democratically before deciding to take a side so publicly in this increasingly heated campaign.

Members were not even asked to decide if the Royal College, a professional organisation which supposedly exists to uphold standards of care and represent the career interests of midwives, ought to be in the business of becoming embroiled in such a partisan political controversy as the EU referendum debate.

It was a similar story yesterday, when it emerged that Professor Warwicks RCM has decided to join forces with a motley crew of abortion activists and radical feminists by supporting a campaign to abolish legal limits on abortion.

Again, her members were not balloted on whether their organisation should support this highly controversial move. The College was unable last night to say whether the decision to endorse the We Trust Women campaign had even been properly sanctioned by its nine-strong board of directors.

A spokesman said Professor Warwick was in Scotland, her native country, for the weekend and couldnt be contacted.

There was no answer at the 1.5 million home in Balham, South London, from which she commutes to the organisations well-appointed offices in Marylebone.

Little wonder that around 200 members of the RCM have already signed a letter to the board condemning the policy as utterly unacceptable and stating that the Royal College of Midwives does not speak in our name.

To many, Professor Warwick, who is 63 and has been running the midwives organisation since 2008, is seeking, stealthily, to make her organisation pursue a Left-wing political agenda.

In doing so, she has at times behaved with the brand of arrogance and unaccountability you might expect to find in old-fashioned trade union power-broker.

Paid 155,000 a year  around five times the salary of a normal midwife  Professor Warwick certainly does not appear to have been entirely open about her formal links to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the pro-abortion charity running the We Trust Women campaign.

The fact that she happens to be chairman of the BPASs board of trustees is strangely absent from the lengthy CV which she publishes on the Royal Colleges website.

So too is her apparent support for the liberalisation of abortion law.

Perhaps thats because her stance would appear to be entirely at odds with not just the view of many RCM members, but also with the traditional ethos of the College, which was founded in 1881 and has the Latin motto Vita Donum Dei, meaning Life is the Gift of God.

Certainly in years gone by, the RCM was scrupulous about upholding the spirit of that motto. While generally supportive of the right of women to choose, within the confines of the law, it steered clear of advocating for British abortion law to be relaxed.

In the 1980s, it instead argued for the lowering of the abortion limit from 28 to 24 weeks, since medical advances meant foetuses were viable from an earlier age.

During the 1990s, the College was accused of siding with anti-abortion fanatics by backing a ban on harvesting of ovarian material from dead foetuses.

Under the leadership of Professor Warwick, who is married with three grown-up children, recent years have seen creeping politicisation. The RCMs members went on strike over pay in 2014, and last year joined a notorious TUC protest at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester which saw journalists and delegates spat on and barracked as they attempted to gain access to the event.

More recently, the College has vigorously supported the junior doctors strike.
Congestion is costing Australian commuters $1000 a year as commute time is expected to grow 20 per cent in 15 years.

In the campaign 'Keep Australia Moving', Australians revealed their main transport and motoring concerns were safety, affordability, environmental damage, congestion and transport infrastructure.

Estimates have put the cost of congestion at around $1,000 per person a year in major capital cities. Adding up the costs of delays, different type of trips, vehicle operating expenses and motor vehicle emissions

Due to the growing populations in these same areas, commute time in congestion corridors is expected to grow 20 per cent in 15 years.

The campaign ' Keep Australia Moving ' was commissioned by the AAA and looked into specific concerns Australian had about motoring and transport

Estimates put the cost of congestion at around $1,000 per person a year in major capital cities, with commute times expected to increase 20 per cent by 2031

In the report commissioned by the Australian Automobile Association, affordability and road congestion were both rated as an important concern by 88 per cent of Australians.

Australians paid almost $28 billion in a range of road-related taxes and charges to all governments in 201314.

Now with Australia's population expected to grow to 30.5 million in 2031, road travel times in in areas like Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Canberra are set to grow by at least 20 per cent by 2031.

Australian motorists were also concerned about road safety in the report, with 94 per cent rating it as an important concern.

In the year to March 2016, 1,255 people were killed on Australian roads, an increase of more than 11 per cent on the previous 12 months. It' s estimated that road trauma costs $27 billion a year.

Demand for public transport in Australia's capital cities is set to almost double over the next 20 years.

The AAA wants the next Australian Government to establish a transport infrastructure fund, commitment to fund public transport and local active transport projects, smart technology and strong project governance

Demand for public transport in Australia's capital cities is set to almost double over the next 20 years. while the population is expected to grow to 30.5 million in 2031

AAA Chief Executive Michael Bradley says the next Australian Government cannot build an economy of the future on the transport infrastructure of the past

Chief Executive Australian Automobile Association Michael Bradley demanded in the research release that the next government make our cities move faster.

'Effective and efficient transport systems including roads, and public transport, will continue to be the lifeblood of our economy.

'We cannot build the economy of the future on the transport infrastructure of the past.'

The apolitical organisation with nearly eight million members wants $90 billion spent on 'priority transport projects across all jurisdictions' and Federal Government funding for solutions to traffic congestion and a lack of public transport options.

'Australian motorists will this year pay more than $18 billion in federal road-related taxes and they are currently getting a very bad return on that investment, mainly because too little of this enormous financial contribution is finding its way back into our infrastructure budget.'




Aldi's advertising spend has gone up to $34.7million in the past year as it continues to take on established supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths.

In the 12 months to April 2, the German-based supermarket chain increased its advertising spend in Australia to account for 17 per cent of the sector's ad spend, while its competitors cut back.

For supermarket shoppers, that means more Aldi ads on television, radio and cinema, more printed ads in newspapers, magazines and in the mail, and more online.

Scroll down for video

German supermarket chain Aldi has increased its advertising spending in Australia as it continues to grow (stock image)

It comes as the $90billion supermarket industry competes in a price war and Aldi continues a rapid expansion (stock image)

For supermarket shoppers, the increase ad spending means more Aldi ads on television, radio and cinema, more printed ads in newspapers, magazines and in the mail, and more online (stock image)

It comes as the $90billion supermarket industry competes in a price war and Aldi continues a rapid expansion.

While Aldi's spend went up from $28.9m in the 2015 calendar year, for the same comparative periods, Woolworths decreased ad spending by $87.9m to $74m and Coles from $53.6m to $48m, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The figures from Nielson APX showed that Aldi's favoured method of advertising was television.

But the amount it spend on digital advertising was proportionately large compared with that of Coles and Woolworths who had larger budgets.

Although Aldi is growing, Woolworths still dominates the supermarket industry, despite a slight slump recently (stock image)

Coles has the second largest market share in the Australian supermarket industry (stock image)

Aldi spent $1.37million on digital compared to Coles' $1.7m and Woolworths' $3.7m.

While its advertising spend has increased, so has its sales, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Between 2013 - 2016 its spending increased 60 per cent to $8billion.

It's expected to hit $15b by 2020.

Despite Aldi's increased advertising and its competitors cuts, Ben Willee, media director at Spinach Advertising, told the Herald there was more to the story.

Because supermarkets have some of the best customer databases in the country, ad spending could drop while while their database mining improved.

Earlier in 2015, it was reported that Aldi's claim on the country's supermarket industry had grown from 11.6 per cent to 12.2 per cent from March 2015 to December, according to consumer research company Roy Morgan.

While Woolworths was still the supermarket leader, its market share had declined from 38.5 per cent to 37.3 per cent, News.com.au reported.

Coles was in second place with an increase in market presence from 31.8 per cent to 32.5 per cent.

Aldi's claim on the supermarket industry increased from 11.6 per cent to 12.2 per cent between March and December 2015 (stock image)
One morning last month, Britains 30,000-odd midwives woke up to a piece of shocking news: their entire professional future depends on Britain voting to remain in the EU.

That, at least, was the verdict of Cathy Warwick, the chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM).

In a hard-hitting statement, she claimed that being in the EU underpins much of the protection that pregnant women receive and is vital for the profession, arguing that the economic shock of a Brexit vote is likely to severely damage the NHS.

Professor Warwicks comments came as the RCM announced that it will be formally supporting the Remain campaign  on the apparent grounds that, as she sees it, the nations midwives will all be better off in.

Cathy Warwick, the chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) - who claimed that being in the EU underpins much of the protection that pregnant women receive

She was, of course, perfectly entitled to that opinion  though many in the Leave camp strongly disagreed with her analysis.

Yet whether it might reflect the view of a majority of the RCMs actual members, who each support the organisation to the tune of 244-a-year, was anyones guess.

Strangely, given the highly charged nature of the EU debate, Professor Warwick hadnt bothered to ballot them democratically before deciding to take a side so publicly in this increasingly heated campaign.

Members were not even asked to decide if the Royal College, a professional organisation which supposedly exists to uphold standards of care and represent the career interests of midwives, ought to be in the business of becoming embroiled in such a partisan political controversy as the EU referendum debate.

It was a similar story yesterday, when it emerged that Professor Warwicks RCM has decided to join forces with a motley crew of abortion activists and radical feminists by supporting a campaign to abolish legal limits on abortion.

Again, her members were not balloted on whether their organisation should support this highly controversial move. The College was unable last night to say whether the decision to endorse the We Trust Women campaign had even been properly sanctioned by its nine-strong board of directors.

A spokesman said Professor Warwick was in Scotland, her native country, for the weekend and couldnt be contacted.

The British Pregnancy Advice Service 'We Trust Women' campaign document (pictured) states: 'The abortion time limit would be removed from criminal law. There is no doubt that abortions post viability raise particular moral concerns for many...but there is no evidence that [it] leads to an increase in later terminations'

Only a tiny proportion of abortions take place at 24 weeks or later: there were 211 such terminations in 2014

There was no answer at the 1.5 million home in Balham, South London, from which she commutes to the organisations well-appointed offices in Marylebone.

Little wonder that around 200 members of the RCM have already signed a letter to the board condemning the policy as utterly unacceptable and stating that the Royal College of Midwives does not speak in our name.

Professor Warwick, 63, has been running the midwives organisation since 2008

To many, Professor Warwick, who is 63 and has been running the midwives organisation since 2008, is seeking, stealthily, to make her organisation pursue a Left-wing political agenda.

In doing so, she has at times behaved with the brand of arrogance and unaccountability you might expect to find in old-fashioned trade union power-broker.

Paid 155,000 a year  around five times the salary of a normal midwife  Professor Warwick certainly does not appear to have been entirely open about her formal links to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the pro-abortion charity running the We Trust Women campaign.

The fact that she happens to be chairman of the BPASs board of trustees is strangely absent from the lengthy CV which she publishes on the Royal Colleges website.

So too is her apparent support for the liberalisation of abortion law.

Perhaps thats because her stance would appear to be entirely at odds with not just the view of many RCM members, but also with the traditional ethos of the College, which was founded in 1881 and has the Latin motto Vita Donum Dei, meaning Life is the Gift of God.

Left, The RCM Abortion Position Statement and right, The Royal College of Midwives badge. The college was established in 1881 with the Latin motto Vita Donum Dei, meaning Life is the gift of God

Certainly in years gone by, the RCM was scrupulous about upholding the spirit of that motto. While generally supportive of the right of women to choose, within the confines of the law, it steered clear of advocating for British abortion law to be relaxed. In the 1980s, it instead argued for the lowering of the abortion limit from 28 to 24 weeks, since medical advances meant foetuses were viable from an earlier age.

During the 1990s, the College was accused of siding with anti-abortion fanatics by backing a ban on harvesting of ovarian material from dead foetuses. Under the leadership of Professor Warwick, who is married with three grown-up children, recent years have seen creeping politicisation. The RCMs members went on strike over pay in 2014, and last year joined a notorious TUC protest at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester which saw journalists and delegates spat on and barracked as they attempted to gain access to the event. More recently, the College has vigorously supported the junior doctors strike.
It's not just women who have a biological clock  men are being warned to become fathers by 40 or face a greater risk of having children with serious illnesses.

Fertility specialists said men were not as immune to reproductive ageing as they might have thought.

They advised them to complete their family before they hit 40 to minimise the chance of having a child with Down's syndrome, autism or mental illness.

The warning follows a review of studies into the effect of a father's age and lifestyle on his child's health.

Men are being warned to become fathers by 40 or face a greater risk of having children with serious illnesses (stock photo)

One found that children of men aged at least 40 were almost six times more likely to be autistic than those of fathers under 30.

It is thought that as a man gets older, the sperm he makes is more likely to be damaged.

Worryingly, some of the effects may pass through the generations, with a man's grandchildren being affected as well as his children.

The review also warns that the amount of alcohol a man drinks may affect children he conceives.

For instance, a baby can be diagnosed with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which causes attention problems, hyperactivity and poor co-ordination, even if the mother never touched booze.

Study author Joanna Kitlinska said: 'Up to 75 per cent of children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder have fathers who are alcoholics, suggesting that pre-conceptional paternal alcohol consumption negatively affects their offspring.'

Research also links parental alcohol use with smaller brains and lower intelligence, while smoking may also be damaging.

Dr Kitlinska's round-up also highlights studies linking male obesity with diabetes and brain tumours in the next generation and paternal stress with behavioural problems.

The US research by Georgetown University in Washington DC was published in the American Journal of Stem Cells.

It is thought that as a man gets older, the sperm he makes is more likely to be damaged (stock photo)

Allan Pacey, a fertility expert at Sheffield University, said: 'The best advice to men, in order to maximise their chances of fathering a healthy baby, is to try and have a family before they are much older than 40. Above this age, we know that attempts at pregnancy are generally less successful.

Even with a younger partner, rates of miscarriage increase in frequency and there are measurable increases in the incidence of some disorders, such as schizophrenia, autism and birth defects in their children.'

But other experts claim almost all children born to older fathers are healthy  and 'no one needs a licence to reproduce'.

Professor Alastair Sutcliffe, a child health expert at University College London, said: 'It may well be that the downsides of older fatherhood can be offset by the upsides, such as being calmer and economically generally better off.'

However, Professor Adam Balen, chairman of the British Fertility Society, said: 'Young people need to be aware of the factors that affect fertility.
Two pupils at Prince Charless old boarding school have been expelled for having sex on a music teachers desk.

The scandal only emerged after a three-year campaign by the 16-year-old girls mother to sue Gordonstoun.

She took the 36,000-a-year school to a tribunal, claiming disability discrimination on the grounds that her daughter had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

But the Additional Support Needs Tribunal for Scotland said the girl was not disabled.

The scandal has emerged after a three-year campaign by the 16-year-old girls mother to sue Gordonstoun (pictured), in Moray, northern Scotland

It accepted that she had ADHD, but said that did not lead her to have sex, and that such activities deserved expulsion from boarding school.

So the mother took the case to court. Only now, three years on, has it ended with a judge ruling in the schools favour.

The girl had lost her virginity a year earlier to another Gordonstoun boy, and had a relationship with a third.

Prince Charles nicknamed the school, in Moray, northern Scotland as Colditz in kilts for its tough regime of cold showers and open windows in the dorms in winter.

Pupils are expected to help out the local fire brigade and coastguard.

The mother claimed in court that her daughter  known only as M  was barely able to cross the road in safety and suffered from impulsivity.

But teachers said M was sufficiently capable to have been sailing at sea. M said other girls were excited for her when she planned to have sex on the music desk, and congratulated her afterwards.

The girl was forced to leave the school after the incident in March 2013.

In her judgment at the Scottish Court of Session, judge Lady Smith said: During the evening M had sexual intercourse with a male student on a teachers desk. Their meeting was planned. Emails dating back over more than a year disclosed sexually explicit exchanges, and there were references to prior sexual contact having occurred.

In a state of undress, they were discovered by a member of staff. Both were suspended immediately.

Prince Charles nicknamed the school as Colditz in kilts for its tough regime of cold showers and open windows in the dorms in winter

Two days later, principal Simon Reid decided to expel both pupils, and wrote to Ms mother. He invited her to withdraw M to avoid there being an expulsion on her record, said the judge.

Ms mother withdrew her daughter, and pupils were told why she and the boy had left.

Gordonstouns relationships policy states: If students are found having, or having had, sexual intercourse, they are likely to be expelled.

The court heard it was not the first time that M had sex with a fellow pupil  as the girls mother herself had told deputy principal Diana Monteith a few months earlier.

The judge said: She told the deputy principal M had lost her virginity to a boy at Easter 2012, when she was at his home. She was concerned that he was making life difficult for M at school. She did not suggest ADHD had played any part in Ms sexual activity at that time.

Ms ADHD disability came to light when her mother demanded that Gordonstoun apologise for having discriminated against M, and train all staff to ensure no similar incident occurs in future.

She claimed her daughter needed to be supervised while washing and going to the toilet, and was on the Pill because she would be unable to cope with menstruation.

M was in danger of starting a fire every time she cooked and could not be trusted to cross the road alone, she claimed.

In a written statement, M said she had sex on the music room desk because she was confused, young and stupid. She confirmed that she and the boy had agreed to meet, and said medication for ADHD made my mood whacko.

The courts judgment said: She was unhappy and the relationship made her feel better and more confident.

The judge rejected the mothers appeal, noting that M went about her normal day-to-day activities in an entirely normal fashion.
Australians are among the highest users of antidepressants anywhere in the world, but there is growing evidence they do not work as well as first thought.

Experts have said that as more studies have been analysed on antidepressants the drugs have been found to be ineffective for 30 to 40 per cent of people who use them.

People being treated for moderate depression should be offered sessions with psychotherapists to help boost their chances of recovery before being prescribed medication directly.

Ten per cent of Australian adults take antidepressants each day, with the usage rate having doubled since 2000 (stock). Out of that 30 to 40 per cent of people who use them do not find them beneficial

Growing evidence has been found against the usage of antidepressants (stock) suggesting that the 'placebo response' can be a key factor - as patients taking medication automatically expect they will get well

Specialist's from the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health and the University of Melbourne have said while antidepressants have a role to play in treating depression, combining them with psychotherapy is more effective than using either alone.

Dr Christopher Davey and Prof Andrew Chanen wrote in the Medical Journal of Australia: 'All patients should be offered psychotherapy where it is available.

'Medication should be considered if the depression is of at least moderate severity and psychotherapy is refused or hasn't been effective.'

Their results are based on a review of studies examining the effectiveness of antidepressants and psychotherapy for treating adults and children with depression.

Experts (stock) from the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health and the University of Melbourne have said although antidepressants have a role in treating depression but are more effective with therapy

Ten per cent of Australian adults take antidepressants each day, with usage doubling since 2000.

Dr Davey and Prof Chanen said several studies have shown that antidepressants aren't as effective as previously thought with many suggesting that the 'placebo response' can be a key factor - as patients taking medication automatically expect they will get well.

Studies looking at psychotherapies, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, have also found a decline in effectiveness.

Dr Davey and Professor Chanen wrote: 'The modest effect sizes for depression treatments ... suggest that combining treatments might provide the best outcomes for patients.

Experts (stock) have said people being treated for moderate depression should all be offered sessions with psychotherapists

'In adults, the effect of combined treatment compared with placebo is about twice that of medication only compared with placebo.

'The effects of psychotherapy and medication appear to operate independently of each other, providing a good rationale for their combination,' they added.

Combined with psychotherapy, healthy lifestyles including good eating habits and exercise have also been shown to contribute to positive mental states.

Vanessa Lavars, 37, is a single mother who was diagnosed with depression after having her first child and said she believes exercise was 'underrated' as a potential treatment for mental illness.

Exercise (stock) and healthy eating has also been suggested to work as a form of treatment, when combined with psychotherapy and in some cases medication

Ms Lavars was doing CrossFit every day at dawn and felt more awake and strong in her mind and body before becoming a mother, reported The Age.

The former CrossFit fanatic suspects her inability to continue her intensive exercise regime has contributed to her depressive state and said endorphins and psychological changes triggered by exercise helped maintain her healthy mind.

Currently Ms Lavars is taking an antidepressant and seeing a counselor once a fortnight but told The Age: 'I feel like I don't need drugs, I need exercise.

'There has to be something in it,' she added.

If you are feeling depressed or know someone going through depression please contact your local health professional of Beyond Blue on for support and advice on 1300 22 4636.
Oliver Curtis, the investment banker husband of PR queen Roxy Jacenko, is expected to come eye-to-eye with his former best mate and childhood friend on Monday at his insider trading trial.

John Hartman is due to give evidence against his one-time friend as the prosecution's star witness in the New South Wales Supreme Court.

The finance industry workers are alleged to have made $1.433 million between May 2007 and June 2008 thanks to insider tips from Hartman, an equities manager.

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Olive Curtis is seen here arriving at the NSW Supreme Court on Monday with wife Roxy Jacenko

Oliver Peter Curtis (pictured right) is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit insider trading. He is pictured with wife Roxy Jacenko last week

Mr Curtis' defence lawyer, Murugan Thangaraj, SC, told a jury last Thursday there would be 'no case' without Hartman's evidence.

Mr Thangaraj told the court Crown prosecutors would 'heavily' rely upon his evidence.

Prosecutors last week alleged in court that Mr Curtis used the money from the tips to buy Hartman a $20,000 Ducati motorcycle and a $60,000 Mini Cooper.

The pair also allegedly used the money to go on an 'extensive' trip to Las Vegas and Whistler, Canada, with friends.

Senior Crown prosecutor David Staelhi SC told the court last week Hartman lived in Perth and would travel to appear at court.

The prosecution has told the court Hartman was imprisoned for 15 months over charges relating to 'illegal dealing'.

Mr Curtis's former 'good mate' John Hartman - who lived together with Mr Curtis in Bondi - is the prosecution's star witness and is expected to testify on Monday

Prosecutors said he struck a deal with authorities for a discounted sentence and had agreed to speak about Mr Curtis, described in court as his former 'good mate'.

'They're not so friendly now, probably,' Mr Staelhi told the jury last week.

Mr Curtis has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit insider trading.

The Crown must prove the charge beyond reasonable doubt.

Mr Curtis was last week accompanied to court by wife and PR queen Roxy Jacenko, the founder of influential Sydney firm Sweaty Betty PR.
An 87-year-old woman told her great-grandson and his friend to behave themselves in prison before they were jailed for abducting her and driving 200 miles with her bound and gagged in the trunk.

Hazel Abel sympathized with the boys during their sentencing in Benton County Superior Court in Washington on Thursday, but said: 'It could have ended so much worse if you'd carried out the plans you had for me.'

Great-grandson Dyllan Martin, 17, and Billy Underwood, 16, stuffed Abel into the trunk of her car along with her chihuahua Tessa, and drove from Kennewick, Washington, to Wood Village, Oregon, before she managed to escape.

The two confessed to investigators they had considered killing Abel and setting fire to the car with her body still inside. An affidavit revealed they had also considered releasing her three miles into a canyon or knocking her unconscious.

Martin was sentenced on Thursday to nine and a half years for his role in the November 2015 kidnapping, and told the court it was the worst decision he has ever made.

Underwood, who admitted to executing most of the plot to gag, bind and kidnap the woman, was sentenced to 10 and a half years. He also apologized during the sentencing.

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Dylan Martin, 17, (pictured) wipes his eye after he was sentenced on Thursday to nine and a half years for his role in kidnapping his 87-year-old great-grandmother, Hazel Abel, in November 2015

Billy Underwood, 16, (pictured as he leaves court) who admitted to executing most of the plot to gag, bind and kidnap the woman, was sentenced to 10 and a half years

Abel (pictured), was thrown in the trunk of her car by her own great-grandson, Underwood and a third co-defendant, KateLynn Kenfield. During the sentencing on Thursday, she told her great-grandson: ''Behave yourself in prison and maybe some day you will have a good life'

Both boys pleaded guilty to kidnapping, burglary and theft of a motor vehicle charges, and they were both charged as adults.

In a statement read to the judge, Abel said, 'I can't begin to tell you boys how sorry I am for what you've all been through these past few months,' the Tri-City Herald reported.

'It could have ended so much worse than it did if you'd carried out the plans you had for me.

'People have been so angry about what you did to me that it has been safer for you to be in jail.

'I've asked why so many times and yet haven't been able to be given an acceptable answer.

'Behave yourself in prison and maybe some day you will have a good life.'

Deputy Prosecutor Andrew Howell recommended a 14-year sentence, saying the teenagers deliberately planned the kidnapping and took measures to avoid getting caught, like driving with the car lights turned off.

Martin's attorney asked for leniency, arguing the great-grandson had mental health problems.

Underwood's mother, Kandi Jaramillo, said in court on Thursday that her son is not a 'bad boy' and that he would never hurt an elderly person, according to the local newspaper.

Martin apologized while avoiding eye contact with his great-grandmother in court, and called it 'the worst decision I have ever made,' the Tri-City Herald reported.

In a separate hearing, Underwood said: 'Im going to do everything and anything I can to better my life. I just hope Ms. Abel can forgive me in the future for what I have done.'

KateLynn Kenfield, a 15-year-old who was also involved in the plot, was found guilty of first-degree kidnapping and second-degree theft of a vehicle in April.

She was ordered to serve up to two and a half years in a state juvenile institution. She is appealing.

Both boys pleaded guilty to kidnapping, burglary and theft of a motor vehicle charges, and they were both charged as adults. In court, Martin (left) and Underwood (right) both apologized

Kenfield (right), 15, who was Underwood's girlfriend at the time, was the first of the three to be sentenced. She was ordered to serve up to two and a half years in a state juvenile institution in April

Abel did not know who her kidnappers were during her six-hour ordeal because her great-grandson deliberately unscrewed the light on her porch before they abducted her on November 2, 2015.

Abel told authorities she heard a knock at the door of her home around 8pm just as she was getting ready to watch Dancing with the Stars.

Court documents state that as soon as she opened the door, someone threw dirt in her face, covered her eyes and mouth with their hands and pushed her to the ground.

Underwood claimed he was the one who put an apron over Abel's head and tied her hands after great-grandson Martin threw dirt in her face.

The teens then walked her to the garage and forced her  and her dog Tessa  into the trunk of her car, taking a butcher knife from Abel's kitchen with them.

They drove 200 miles and stopped at a Walmart in Wood Village, outside Portland, Oregon, when Abel escaped by untying her hands, pulling a cord to pop the trunk and running inside the store for help.

Abel told authorities she heard a knock at the door of her home around 8pm just as she was getting ready to watch Dancing with the Stars. She did not know who her kidnappers were during her six-hour ordeal because her great-grandson deliberately unscrewed the light on her porch

Court documents state that as soon as she opened the door, someone threw dirt in her face and covered her head. The great-grandmother was stuffed into the trunk of her own car along with her dog Tessa (pictured)

They drove 200 miles and stopped at a Walmart in Wood Village, outside Portland, Oregon, when Abel escaped by untying her hands, pulling a cord to pop the trunk and running inside the store for help

She was not physically injured in the incident, but Martin and Underwood confessed to investigators they had considered killing Abel and setting fire to the car with her body still inside.

An affidavit revealed they had also considered releasing her three miles into a canyon or knocking her unconscious.

Kenfield, who was Underwood's girlfriend at the time, told police the friends had wanted to run away to Portland so Martin had suggested they steal his great-grandmother's car.

She claimed the boys had kidnapped Abel while she waited outside. She added that she had opened the trunk slightly during the trip to check she was still breathing.

Abel recalled the terrifying incident, saying: 'I had no idea where I was, where they were going to take me and what they were going to do once they got me there, because I felt they would kill me.'

At the time, Abel said she had been praying her assailants would run out of gas.

She does not understand why she was a target, but told KOIN: 'I just cannot understand why and the only reason I can give for it that they wanted money and they wanted my car.'

Martin said he had stolen $60 of cash from his great-grandmother the week before.

She was not physically injured in the incident, but Martin and Underwood confessed to investigators they had considered killing Abel and setting fire to the car with her body still inside, or releasing her into a canyon. Pictured, Abel's home

The elderly woman also questioned whether she would ever be able to forgive her great-grandson.

'I don't know how he could that to me,' she previously told KPTV. 'This is family.'

She added: 'I had told Dyllan that I love him and things but I guess that doesn't matter.'

When she escaped, she ran into the Walmart and told staff to call the police. There, she was given clothes and food by employees.

The teenagers, who were buying toiletries in the store, fled when they saw Abel had escaped and was talking to a store employee.

But police recognized them from the store's surveillance footage and they were tracked down at a garage across the street.

Abel's neighbors said later they had become concerned about her after they noticed her garage door was open and her car was missing.

She typically only left home to go to the local store or hair salon.
Australians are heading to bed earlier than people from any other country in the world, according to the latest global study on sleep patterns.

Research put out by the University of Michigan used data from a free smartphone app aimed at reducing jetlag to analyse the sleeping patterns of 5,400 people across 100 countries.

The results showed a direct correlation between an early bedtime and a quality night's sleep - bad news for Spaniards, who recorded the latest bedtime (11.45pm) and well under 8 hours of shut-eye.

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Australians have the earliest bedtime of all the nations (10.45pm), while Spaniards have the latest (11.45pm)

A graph showing results from a survey of 5,400 people across 100 countries. People from Japan and Singapore reported the least amount of sleep each night (7.5 hours)

The results showed a direct correlation between an early bedtime and a quality night's sleep (stock image)

SLEEP DEPRIVATION AND THE BODY A lack of sleep can cause damage to your body in the short-term. Over time it can lead to chronic health problems. The average adult needs about 7-9 hours sleep per night. Symptoms in children: Moodiness and irritability Temper tantrums The tendency to emotionally explode at the slightest provocation Over-activity and hyperactive behaviour Symptoms in adults: The tendency to doze off when not active for a while; for example, when watching television Grogginess when waking in the morning Sleepy grogginess experienced all day long Poor concentration and mood changes Source: Better Health, Victoria Government

The Dutch reported the most amount of sleep of any nation, averaging 8 hours and 12 minutes, while sleep-deprived people from Singapore and Japan managed just seven hours and 24 minutes.

People from the United Arab Emirates enjoyed the longest sleep-in, waking up at 7.45am on average, compared to Americans who were hitting their alarm clocks at just after 6.45am.

Most Australians called it a night at 10.45pm, followed closely by Belgians and Kiwis, all reporting average bedtimes earlier than 11pm.

The United Kingdom were remarkably average with their results, sitting in the middle of the pack for bedtime (11.10pm), wake time (7.10am) and sleep duration (7.95 hours).

Daniel Forger, co-author of the study published in the journal Science Advances, told The Sydney Morning Herald that cultural pressures were linked closely to wake-up times.

'Across the board, it appears that society governs bedtime and one's internal clock governs wake time, and a later bedtime is linked to a loss of sleep,' Mr Forger said.

TOP 20 COUNTRIES IN STUDY The study used sleeping data from 5,400 respondents across 100 countries. People regularly waking up before 3am or after 11am were excluded from the research, as were people who reported regular sleep durations of shorter than four hours or more than 11 hours. The nationalities most represented in the study were: United Kingdom, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, United Arab Emirates, Germany, Canada, France, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Brazil, Denmark, Switzerland, China, Hong Kong, Italy and Mexico

'At the same time, we found a strong wake-time effect from users' biological clocks  not just their alarm clocks. These findings help to quantify the tug-of-war between solar and social timekeeping.'

The body has a natural built-in clock, known as a circadian rhythm, which works on a 24-hour schedule and synchronises with daily signals from the environment, mainly light and darkness.

The global study also found that women slept about 30 minutes more than men across all age groups, by 'both going to bed earlier and waking up later.'

Pictured is a spread of the responses to the global study. One pin stands for every city that users could choose as their locale; darker colors indicate more responses from that location
Members of South Australia's police band were part of the 1,500 performers at the final nights show for the Queen's 90th birthday celebrations at Windsor Castle on Sunday.

The ABC reports that the band left Adelaide a week ago for England where they were the only Australian group performing at the celebrations.

A series of concerts were held last week paying tribute to Her Majesty's life and her love of horses. It culminated in Sunday nights gala finale which as well as the 1,500 performers, also featured 900 horses.

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South Australia's police band go through a practice session despite the bad weather on their trip to Britain

The Queens 90th Birthday celebrations took place in the private grounds of Windsor Castle on the evenings of May 12-15. Each evening event was attended by a member of The Royal Family, with The Queen attending on the final evening on Sunday.

Unfortunately, due to continuous heavy rain the preview performance that was due to be staged in front of a live audience on Wednesday evening had to be cancelled.

Luckily there was an improvement in the weather and the first 90-minute performance of the four went ahead as scheduled.

The 38 police band members had several days of final rehearsals before performing to an audience of more than 5,000 people each night.

The band appeared at Windsor Castle on the evenings of May 12-15 to celebrate the Queen's 90th birthday

The 38 police band members had several days of final rehearsals before performing to an audience of more than 5,000 people each night

During the week they were also interviewed by members of the media about the event and their participation

They also performed in several other events while they were in England.

One of the other Australian highlights of the night was a performance by Australian pop queen Kylie, who sang a version of her song I Believe In You.

As she performed, Jean-Francois Pignon, introduced as the horse whisperer of France, enthralled the spectators with his command of a group of horses including a Shetland pony.

Kylie Minogue wore a flowing white gown during the celebrations where she gave a performance of her hit 'I Believe In You'

The Australian pop princess wore a white flowing gown during the celebrations where she was accompanied by a band

The Queen shook hands with Kylie Minogue, who curtseyed, as Her Majesty thanked the performers for taking part

Other bands performing at the birthday events were New Zealand and Fiji's army bands, the Royal Cavalry of Oman, the Band of the Irish Guards and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Military bands from across the Commonwealth performed but the New Zealand Army Band stole this part of the show playing Vangelis' theme from the film Chariots Of Fire, which had the spectators laughing as two of the band ran in slow motion.

Members of the royal family were in force to honour the Queen at a special gala to mark her 90th birthday with a colourful display of military pomp and animals galore.

As the royal couple took their seats, a gun salute sounded prompting the Duke of Edinburgh to jokingly cover his ears

The Duke of Edinburgh and the Duchess of Cambridge continue to laugh following his joke as the Queen watches the proceedings

The Duchess of Cambridge wore a white dress and kept warm from the chilly night by layering a red cape coat over the top

Her Majesty arrived at the event in a horse-drawn carriage, wearing a a sea green dress with lace overlay, and matching jacket by Angela Kelly accompanied by her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, .

The extravaganza featured 900 horses, a host of songs and dancing with Princess Anne, Prince Edward, Zara Tindall and Lady Louise Mountbatten taking part in the parade of horses.

The finale saw all the acts - from countries as diverse as Azerbaijan to Fiji - assemble in the main arena for the closing moments when a birthday cake was brought before the crowds.

The Queen's granddaughter Lady Louise Windsor took part in the parade of horses alongside her father Prince Edward

Also riding in the show to celebrate the Queen's birthday were Princess Anne, left, and her daughter, Zara Tindall, right
His cousin is state District Judge Emily Tobolowsky and is also related to Groundhog Day actor Stephen Tobolowsky

Tobolowsky was from a prestigious family that has been active in the Jewish community

There are claims a former client with an axe to grind may be

A Dallas judge has been told to be on high alert after a prominent attorney was killed in a house fire that police are investigating as a revenge arson attack.

Judge Hon. Eric V Moye from the 14th Judicial District and his staff have been warned to be cautious and have been advised to arm themselves after father-of-three Ira Tobolowsky's mysterious death.

The married 68-year-old's burned body was found inside a garage at his $800,000 North Dallas home on Friday after firefighters extinguished a blaze.

Police now believe he was doused in fuel and set alight.

Dallas judge Eric V Moye (left) has been told to be on high alert after prominent attorney Ira Tobolowsky(right) was killed in a house fire that police are investigating as a revenge arson attack

There are claims one of his former clients with an axe to grind may be behind the attack.

Sources told WFAA that gasoline was found inside the garage and that the case has been handed over to arson investigators.

Tobolowsky's law partner, Faith Burk, told the station he had recently been involved in very contentious litigation.

As a result of the investigators, the Dallas County Sheriff's Office has provided additional deputies to patrol Moye's residence.

The burned body of married 68-year-old Tobolowsky was found inside a garage at his $800,000 North Dallas home on Friday after firefighters extinguished a blaze

Firefighters are pictured at the scene. An arson unit is believed to have taken over the investigation into the lawyer's death

They have also alerted the bailiffs in his court and staff in his office of an increased threat, according to a statement sent to Fox 4.

Tobolowsky came from a prestigious Dallas family that has long been active in the Jewish community and the legal profession. He is also related to Groundhog Day actor Stephen Tobolowsky

Daily Mail Online has contacted his re-election campaign team for comment. They are yet to respond.

According to reports, a woman started following the judge a short time after the death.

However she stopped when he put a pistol on the passenger seat of his car.

He is licensed to carry a firearm.

The link between Moye and Tobolowsky is not known. It's also not known whether any other litigators in the area have been warned of potential attacks.

Tobolowsky came from a prestigious Dallas family that has long been active in the Jewish community and the legal profession.

His cousin is state District Judge Emily Tobolowsky.

According to the Dallas Morning News he is also related to Groundhog Day actor Stephen Tobolowsky and University of North Texas professor Peggy Tobolowsky.

He graduated from law school at Southern Methodist University and had practiced law for more than 40 years.

He and his family had lived in the North Dallas neighborhood where the fire broke out for at least 17 years, property records show.

Tony Militello, who is one of Tobolowsky's former neighbors, told NBC5 that Tobolowsky was known as a good neighbor.

'They're a great family, good people, good family man,' Militello said. 'Husband and wife have always been super friendly, they have three great boys that I know.
Canberra should join Adelaide and Hobart as a 'safe haven' zone for asylum seekers, according to advocates.

A push to recognise the Australian Capital Territory as a Safe Haven Enterprise Visa (SHEV) zone has gained momentum and supporters say 150 refugees living in Canberra could benefit from the move.

A safe haven visa allows refugees to stay in Australia for five years and grants full access to Medicare and Centrelink benefits.

A push to recognise the Australian Capital Territory as a Safe Haven Enterprise Visa zone has gained momentum. Above, asylum seeker advocate signs are seen after the High Court of Australia ruling on refugees to Nauru in Canberra earlier this year

A safe haven visa allows refugees to stay in Australia for five years and grants full access to Medicare and Centrelink benefits. Pictured, Rohingya migrants off the coast near Kuala Simpang Tiga in Indonesia's East Aceh district of Aceh province before being rescued

The scheme was introduced last year as an alternative to permanent protection visas, which people who are deemed to have arrived in Australia illegally can not apply for.

Under the SHEV program, refugees who arrived illegally are eligible for a visa.

ACT Community Services Minister Yvette Berry is asking the federal government to include the Territory as a safe haven zone.

'I look forward to continuing this conversation with an incoming Commonwealth immigration minister,' Ms Berry said, according to The Canberra Times.

'By designating the ACT as a SHEV zone they [the federal government] will be allowing those who are part of our flourishing multicultural community to study, work and continue to contribute to our society with a greater sense of security.

ACT Community Services Minister Yvette Berry is asking the federal government to include the Territory as a safe haven zone. Above, Rohingya migrants resting on a boat after being rescued

Refugees can apply for a safe haven visa if at least one member of the family unit declares an intention to work or study in regional areas. Pictured Adam Bandt, addresses the crowd during a Free the Refugees rally in 2010

'The program also provides a pathway to permanent residency.'

Refugees can apply for a safe haven visa if at least one member of the family unit declares an intention to work or study in regional areas.
Police and security guards are called out to deal with vulnerable dementia patients four times a day, figures reveal.

They are increasingly summoned by hospital and care homes staff struggling to cope.

One frightened patient was handcuffed to his hospital bed and told he had caused criminal damage for accidentally knocking over an oxygen cylinder.

Several hospital trusts say they routinely summon security guards when patients wander off down the corridor, say they want to go home or are unwilling to go to bed.

David Steele (pictured with his daughter Jill Parr), was handcuffed to his bed at Tameside Hospital, Greater Manchester, and was told he had caused criminal damage for accidentally knocking over an oxygen cylinder

Experts say such forceful measures should be used only as a last resort and that it is far better to sit patients down and talk to them reassuringly over a cup of tea.

Figures obtained by the Mail under the Freedom of Information Act show police and security guards were summoned by hospitals and care homes to deal with dementia sufferers on 1,378 occasions in 2015.

But these are almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg as three quarters of forces and hospitals did not record data, or failed to supply it.

The investigation coincides with a report by the Alzheimers Society revealing how thousands of sufferers are putting off diagnosis by up to a year. It says dementia is the most feared illness in the UK with two thirds believing their life would be over if they were diagnosed.

Figures obtained by the Mail show police and security guards were summoned by hospitals and care homes to deal with dementia sufferers on 1,378 occasions in 2015 (file photo)

The charitys George McNamara said: It is deeply worrying that police and security guards are being called in to restrain people with dementia so frequently. This would be distressing for anybody, let alone a person with dementia who may be confused and frightened.

Use of force should only ever be a last resort  Aggressive behaviour might be a sign of a person with dementias discomfort, pain, or lack of stimulation when they arent able to communicate.

CUFFED WHEN ALL HE NEEDED WAS A CUP OF TEA Restrained: David Steele, 64 A dementia sufferers daughter has told how he was restrained by police three times, when all he needed was to be calmed down with a cup of tea. On one occasion David Steele, 64, was handcuffed to his bed at Tameside Hospital, Greater Manchester, and was told he had caused criminal damage for accidentally knocking over an oxygen cylinder. Daughter Jill Parr, 50, said he was in agony as a result of an abscess but was unable to tell staff because of his condition. She added: The staff there had no idea how to treat someone with dementia. The ward werent giving him his medication, they werent giving him his food  just leaving it next to his bed  They treated him like a criminal.

Caroline Abrahams of Age UK said: Its hard to imagine just how frightening and upsetting it must be for an older person with dementia to be forcibly restrained.

Our common humanity as well as good professional practice demands that older people with dementia are only restrained when absolutely unavoidable  these rising figures surely call this seriously into question.

The frequency of call-outs exposes a lack of training among doctors, nurses and care home staff on how to cope with dementia symptoms.

About 850,000 adults in Britain have the illness and the figure is expected to double in 40 years as the population ages.

Last year the Government announced mandatory dementia training for all NHS staff, including porters and cleaners, to enable Britain to become a world leader in tacking the condition. But relatives say many nurses still regard sufferers as troublemakers.

One hospital trust, Luton and Dunstable in Bedfordshire, said security guards were summoned if patients said they wanted to leave, were confused or refused to go to bed.

Others including North Cumbria and Rotherham call security if patients wander off down wards.

Figures from 153 hospital trusts in England show security guards were summoned on 790 occasions last year. But fewer than a quarter were able to supply data suggesting the true numbers may be four times higher.

A similar investigation for 2014 showed they had been summoned only 320 times over a two-year period. The huge rise may be due partly to better recording of the call-outs. Figures from police show they attended hospitals to deal with dementia patients 144 times in 2015 and to care homes on 444 occasions. But only 8 of the 39 forces supplied data as most do not record specific incidents.

Katherine Murphy of the Patients Association said: This is hugely distressing for dementia patients  We dont have enough staff with the compassion and special skills that these patients need.

A Department of Health spokesman said: The safety and dignity of patients is vital and we have issued guidance to help staff understand challenging behaviour and create compassionate caring environments.
It was one of the greatest British stories ever put to film.

But the sequel to Chariots of Fire has been left to the Chinese to fund after no UK-based company would back it.

The original, which followed two young British runners training for the 1924 Paris Olympics, won an Oscar in 1981 and is widely seen as one of this country's great cinematic achievements.

But Joseph Fiennes, the actor who is picking up the role of Scottish athlete Eric Liddell in The Last Race, has now spoken of his frustration at the lack of support from his home country.

The original, which saw Ian Charleson (pictured) play Eric Liddell, won an Oscar in 1981 and is widely seen as one of this country's great cinematic achievements

He is at the Cannes Film Festival to publicise the film, which will tell the true story of how Liddell moved to China as a Christian missionary after the Olympics before being captured and held prisoner during the Second World War.

Liddell, who was played by Ian Charleson in Chariots of Fire, was often referred to as 'the Flying Scotsman' and was born in China to missionary parents and lived in the country until the age of five.

At the Paris Olympics his religious beliefs meant he refused to run in the 100 metre heats because they were on a Sunday. He instead competed in the 400 metres, which he won, while his English rival Harold Abrahams won the 100m gold medal.

This is the point at which Chariots of Fire ends.

After this, Eric Liddell quit sprinting and returned to the country of his birth to follow in his parents' footsteps - the story taken up in the new film.

Despite the British pedigree of the story, it may not even ever be shown in UK cinemas, as no one has been willing to back it.

Shakespeare in Love star Fiennes, 45, said over the years a number of British producers had attempted to make the story but had found it 'impossible' to secure the funds needed. Instead, the responsibility has fallen to a joint Chinese and American production team

He added: 'I know one or two producers who have known the story, and one in particular who very much wanted to make it.

'But making a film, an independent movie, is so so incredibly difficult. It's not that no one knew about the material, it's just so impossible to get financing into place.

The film featured Ben Cross as Harold Abrahams, Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell, Nicholas Farrell as Aubrey Montague, Daniel Gerroll as Henry Stallard and Nigel Havers as Lord Andrew Lindsay

'It was always in the consciousness of many producers, but it takes such monumental effort.

'That's why I have to applaud our director and producers, to get this film realised in the right place in China. And I'm sure Eric Liddell would applaud that.'

Revealing the responsibility he feels to Chariots of Fire, Fiennes admitted he approached its director Hugh Hudson for advice on whether to take the role and had also spoke to both Liddell's daughter and a surviving prisoner of war during his preperations.

He said: 'I think it [Chariots of Fire] is an amazing film, and depicts famously the moment up until the Olympics.

'What we're doing now is the continuation of the Eric Liddell story, which also explores other characters.'

He added: 'It picks up and finishes in a place that I knew nothing about: Eric at the height of his fame went back to where he was born, in the country he loved.

'He continued his work as a missionary. Because of that work and that belief, he found himself in a Japanese concentration camp, amongst many others.

'Unknown to me at the time, Winston Churchill apparently have him a free card but he decided to give that opportunity of escaping to a pregnant woman.
South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia had already opted out

It is in response to the government not

Abuse survivors angry at the government's failure to implement a national independent redress scheme have protested outside the Liberal Party headquarters in Victoria.

Survivors protested outside the Victoria Liberal Party headquarters in Exhibition Street in Melbourne's city centre at 11am on Monday.

A national redress scheme would allow victims to 'be heard' and gain counselling, receive an apology from the responsible institution and a monetary payment determined by the severity of the abuse.

Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) executive Leonie Sheedy (pictured) said child abuse survivors were hurt and angry at the federal government for ignoring the main recommendation of the Royal Commission

A national redress scheme proposed by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse (stock) said it would allow victims to 'be heard', gain counselling and receive a monetary payment

Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) executive Leonie Sheedy said child abuse survivors were hurt and angry at the federal government for ignoring the main recommendation of the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The commission recommended a national scheme run by an independent panel as the best way to deliver justice for people still suffering as a consequences of childhood abuse.

The government opted instead for the second best option - a nationally consistent scheme run by each state and territory.

Ms Sheedy said CLAN called this option the 'nationally inconsistent scheme' because three states, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia had already opted out.

Abuse survivors (stock) angry at the Turnbull government's failure to implement a national independent redress scheme protested outside the Liberal Party headquarters in Victoria at 11am on March 16

She said: 'What is the point of spending $500million on a royal commission if the federal government doesn't respect the commission's number one recommendation on redress?'

With this approach Ms Sheedy feels that the federal government have sent the message to churches, charities and state governments that 'they can get away with committing these heinous crimes against children'.

Ms Sheedy called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is a patron of CLAN, to show real leadership on this issue.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured), who is a patron of Care Leavers Australian Network, has been called on to show real leadership on this issue

She said: 'Care Leavers across the country are determined to ensure this issue is placed firmly on the federal election agenda - and we will never, ever go away.'

A bi-partisan approach was called for to redress and point out the federal Labor Party and the Greens to be committed to establishing a single national scheme.

Labor has committed $33million in seed funding for the scheme which would see the institutions - state and non-state - contributing their share to cover claims against them.

The Catholic Church has also supported a single national scheme and has said it expects it will cost the church up to $1billion over the next 10 years.
A baby girl was saved during an emergency C-section just moments after her mother died in a car crash while on her way to give birth.

Sarah Iler, 26, of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, was driving south on the Interstate 55 with her husband Matt Rider, 34, on Wednesday morning.

Iler was already dilated and one day past her due date, and was extremely excited to welcome her first child, according to a Go Fund Me set up for the family.

But a tanker truck crashed into a Nissan SUV, which in turn hit the couple's vehicle, a red Chevrolet Blazer, around 8:04am, the Southeast Missourian reported.

Sarah Iler (left), 26, of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, died in a car crash on the I-55 on Wednesday morning while on her way to give birth. Her daughter Maddyson (right) was born shortly after

The tanker truck then crashed into the Chevrolet and pushed the SUV into the median strip.

The Chevrolet overturned, throwing Iler and Rider. The mother-to-be died on impact but rescuers still gave her CPR to save her child.

They took her to the Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau and performed an emergency C-section.

Iler's daughter, Maddyson, was born weighing four pounds and 15 ounces and was initially in critical condition according to the family's Go Fund Me page.

Doctors put her on a ventilator at first but she has now started breathing on her own.

Maddyson also opened her eyes and grabbed a nurse's finger, but doctors say she could still suffer from long-term brain and lung damage.

Doctors worry she lacked oxygen for too long but it is too early to tell what the consequences will be, Iler's sister Kasandra told the Southeast Missourian.

Meanwhile, Rider, who had recently reconciled with Iler after being estranged for a time, is recovering too.

He has had several surgeries and all of his limbs were broken, as well as some of his ribs.

Matt Rider, Iler's husband (pictured left with her and right in a Facebook shot) survived the crash with fractures on all of his limbs and on some of his ribs. He had written recently that he couldn't wait to welcome the baby even though she wasn't his biological daughter

A tanker truck crashed into a Nissan SUV, which in turn hit the couple's vehicle, a red Chevrolet Blazer, around 8:04am on the I-55 near the Diversion Channel bridge (file picture)

Rider wrote on Facebook last month that he couldn't wait to welcome Maddyson even though he wasn't her biological father.

'I thank God for Sarah every day,' he added in his post.

Iler's sisters and mother said they did not know yet who would take care of the little girl.

Kasandra told the Southeast Missourian they hadn't visited Rider in the hospital in St Louis and that they had kept in touch via pictures instead.

The Ilers are hoping to raise $5,000 to organize Iler's funeral in Poplar Bluff, where she is from originally.

Iler, who once worked as a cashier at Taco Bell, did not have life insurance according to her family.

'The thought never once entered my head that that baby might die,' Kasandra told the Southeast Missourian.

'I felt my sister gave her life to save this baby. That's how God wanted it. We've been calling her our little miracle.'

Iler (pictured along with her pregnant belly in two shots shared by Rider on Facebook) died on impact but rescuers gave her CPR to save her baby. Doctors performed an emergency C-section to deliver Maddyson
A father-of-six who was killed in the Shoreham air disaster had to be buried in two separate funeral services after police identified more of his remains two months after the first memorial.

Window cleaner Mark Trussler, 54, was killed along with 10 others when the Hawker Hunter jet lost control and smashed into a busy A-road during the air show in West Sussex last August.

He was buried by his family a month after the horrific air crash but two months after the memorial police identified more of his remains and contacted the family about organising another burial.

His fiancee Giovanna Chirico, 33, has now told how she grieved twice for her partner of 12 years, as she called for the jet's pilot, Andy Hill, to be jailed for '11 counts of manslaughter' over the incident.

Window cleaner Mark Trussler, 54 (pictured with fiancee Giovanna Chirico), was killed along with 10 others when the Hawker Hunter jet lost control and smashed into the A27 during the Shoreham air show last August

Speaking about the pilot who miraculously survived the crash and has been keeping a low-profile since, she told The Sun: 'In my hearts of hearts I blame him. He was showing off and messed up.'

Ms Chirico also revealed her heartache at having to hold two funerals for her beloved partner, after police kept identifying more of his remains in the several months following the horror crash.

She said: 'It was like being in a nightmare.

'We had already had one funeral but later they found more of Mark and the police told me, 'We're going to need another coffin'.

'The second service was more for close family and friends but seeing that grave dug again and seeing them put Mark in for a second time . . . it broke me.'

Ms Chirico said her long-term partner, a keen motorcyclist and window cleaner from Worthing, had taken his bike for a spin as he wanted to see the Vulcan flight perform at the annual air show.

He sent her a final text message telling her 'I love you too, forever' just moments before he was killed when the jet failed to pull out of a loop-the-loop stunt and crashed down onto the A27.

Mr Trussler, 54, was killed along with 10 others when the Hawker Hunter jet lost control during a loop-the-loop and smashed into cars on the A27 during the air show in West Sussex last August. Pictured: The aftermath

A part of the fuselage of the Hawker jet aircraft is lifted by crane at the scene in Shoreham, West Sussex

In a tribute released in the aftermath of the tragedy, Ms Chirico said: 'It was a nice day and I text him when the flight was due.

'He replied saying I should get the kids ready so we could take them out to lunch on his return. I said I loved him and he replied 'I love you too, forever'. I didn't hear from him again.

'He was an amazing dad who had a passion for motorbikes and rugby. He would do anything for his kids and they couldn't have asked for a better dad.

Mark Trussler's fiancee has called for the jet's pilot Andy Hill (pictured) to be jailed over the horror crash

'He loved all his family. He was happy-go-lucky and if you were down he would cheer you up. We are going to miss him terribly.'

Ms Chirico was forced to wait six full days until police were finally able to confirm her partner had been killed in the incident. Officers arrived at her home at 2am in the morning to confirm he had been identified by his jaw remains. Police later recovered his right torso and tattooed arm.

She said she viewed police photographs of his remains so she could 'know he was really gone'.

As well as Ms Chirico, Mr Trussler leaves behind the couple's four children - Luke, 12, Mia, ten, Sophia, four, and Alicia, three  as well as his two other children from a previous relationship.

At his funeral late last year, Mr Trussler's biker friends led the cortege before Charlie Puth's See You Again was played during the service. Ms Chirico also read a poem to the congregation.

She is now calling for pilot Mr Hill to be held accountable for the crash, as an inquiry into the air disaster continues.

An interim report released by the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) found that he started his loop-the-loop hundreds of feet lower than his licence allowed despite their being no obvious issues with the plane.

Inquests into those killed in the crash, which were due to start next month, will now not happen for at least a year since the police were forced to apply to the High Court to access material held by the AAIB.

Organisers have already cancelled this year's display out of respect for those affected by the crash.

Shoreham Airshow Ltd said it remained 'fully committed' to the investigation and there had been 'careful consultation and consideration' given to whether any display should go ahead this year.

The organisers said: 'The decision has been taken primarily out of respect for all those affected by last August's tragedy and also in view of the ongoing Air Accidents Investigation Branch investigation - and any review of their regulations that the Civil Aviation Authority may subsequently undertake.

Giovanna Chirico, 33, has revealed how she grieved twice for her partner of 12 years, Mark Trussler (pictured together), after more of his remains were identified by police following his first funeral a month after the crash

'We understand that this decision may be disappointing for many who have been part of the extended Shoreham Airshow family over the years.

'We would like to thank everyone who has supported the air show for the last 26 years, particularly local volunteers and the surrounding community.'

The company said it would consider if an event should take place in 2017 'when and if it is appropriate to do so'.

The disaster was the deadliest at a British airshow since the 1952 Farnborough crash when a de Havilland DH.110 hit spectators, killing 31. New rules covering vintage aircraft were brought in by the Civil Aviation Authority following the Shoreham air crash in August but these only relate to air displays.

Mr Hill was voluntarily interviewed under caution by officers from the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team in connection with last year's accident, but not arrested.
Senior Conservative figures rallied to the defence of Boris Johnson last night after he was accused of comparing EU efforts towards building a federal superstate to Hitlers plans to dominate the continent.

Remain campaigners seized on the former London mayors comments in an interview  and claimed that by comparing Brussels to the Third Reich he had proved he was unfit for office.

But Brexit supporters said he was simply stating a historical fact of life about the failure of successive attempts over the centuries to establish a greater Europe.

David Cameron attends Boris Johnson' leaving party on Thursday at the Transport Museum in London

Both Cameron and Boris looked very happy to see each other even though Boris is campaigning against him to leave the EU

The latest row erupted a week after David Cameron was attacked by Leave campaigners for suggesting that British withdrawal from the EU could lead to the outbreak of the Third World War.

Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown said Mr Johnsons comments showed he was nothing more than a tuppenny tinpot imitation Churchill, while D-Day hero Lord Bramall said the analysis was laughable.

But a Vote Leave spokesman said: This synthetic row has been whipped up by the Remain camp who only a week ago were telling us that if we vote to Leave, it will lead to war.

Mr Johnson, the most senior figure in The Leave campaign, said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph that the past 2,000 years had been dominated by doomed attempts to unify the continent under a single government to recreate the golden age of the Romans.

Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically, he said. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.

But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void.

Sources close to the former mayor said he had not compared the EU and its methods to Hitlers methods, and he had done no more than put forward a view of the continents history that suggests that efforts to centralise European power have all failed.

A string of pro-Brexit Tories came out yesterday to defend Mr Johnson following a flurry of criticism. Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, said he was simply stating a historical fact of life.

I think the whole process of trying to drive Europe together by force or by bureaucracy and democratic means ultimately makes problems, he told BBC Ones Sunday Politics.

All he is doing in the interview is he is talking about the trend towards the idea of this kind of concept of some kind of greater Europe, thats all. Chris Grayling, the Leader of the Commons, told BBC Radio 4s World This Weekend: Boris is a historian and he was doing a piece of historical analysis.

What Boris was making was a historical point, a bit of historical analysis, and of course Boris is, among his many skills, an effective historian.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, said he was simply stating a historical fact of life

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Tory backbencher and classical scholar, said Mr Johnsons analysis was absolutely true and that he had drawn a very interesting historic parallel

28 MILLION LEAFLETS SENT OUT TO ENCOURAGE US ALL TO VOTE Households will this week receive a 2.4million mailshot from the Electoral Commission as part of a mass campaign to encourage people to vote in the EU referendum. Some 28 million homes will receive the eight-page leaflet, which gives details of the question and tells people how to register to vote if they have not done so. The document includes a page each devoted to the arguments for both sides  Remain and Leave. The wording was contributed directly by the two campaigns, and last night neither Vote Leave nor Britain Stronger in Europe said they had any problems with it. Electoral Commission spokesman Alex Robertson said: This is a historic event and we dont want anyone to miss out. The commission launched a television campaign last night before sending out the leaflets. It will follow up with billboard, radio and social media campaigns. The commission is also urging people who will be away on June 23 to apply for a postal vote or proxy vote, which allows someone else to vote for you. Before the 2014 Scottish referendum, there was a huge surge in registration, but more than 11,000 people applied too late and missed out. About 7.5million people in the UK are not registered to vote. Advertisement

Speaking to Sky News, former Chancellor Lord Lamont said there had been fascist theorists who believed very strongly in a united Europe: I dont think he was saying people who favour the European Union were comparable to Nazis.

He was simply saying that historically, from the Romans, Charlemagne, Napoleon, there have been all sorts of attempts to dominate Europe and these have all floundered because Europe is not naturally one entity.

And Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Tory backbencher and classical scholar, said Mr Johnsons analysis was absolutely true and that he had drawn a very interesting historic parallel.

He told ITVs Peston On Sunday: Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV of France, Napoleon and Hitler all wanted to create a single European power. What Boris has said is the EU is following the footsteps of these historic figures but using different means. Mr Johnsons comments were, however, condemned by Remain campaigners, with Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn branding them offensive and desperate.

Leave campaigners have lost the economic argument and now they are losing their moral compass, Mr Benn said. After the horror of the Second World War, the EU helped to bring an end to centuries of conflict in Europe and for Boris Johnson to make this comparison is both offensive and desperate.

Chris Grayling, the Leader of the Commons, told BBC Radio 4s World This Weekend: Boris is a historian and he was doing a piece of historical analysis'

EX-ARCHBISHOP: EU MIGRANT INFLUX A DANGER FOR BRITAIN Immigration has reached dangerous levels, former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said yesterday. Dr Carey announced in The Mail on Sunday that he was backing the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union. Estimates that the population could grow by ten million over the next 25 years were truly frightening, he said, adding that such an influx could have a terrible effect on the standards of living of many Britons. Dr Carey said that while many Christians were inclined to stay in due to the fundamental religious impulse for unity, he believed the EU was causing the very division, conflict and unhappiness it was created to cure. Comparing our relationship with the EU to a divorce, he said there comes a time when such harm is taking place within the marriage that there is no choice but to end it. Noting that official projections contained an alternative high-migration figure of an increase of 16 million over 25 years, Dr Carey asked: Does anyone seriously believe that this rate of population growth is truly sustainable for our small and crowded island? Advertisement

Field Marshal Lord Bramall, a former head of the Armed Forces who took part in the D-Day landings, said Mr Johnsons remarks were simply laughable.

He added: I know only too well, this comparison of the EU and Nazi Germany is absurd.

Hitlers main aim was to create an empire in the East and violently subjugate Europeans.
Sir Patrick Sheehy, former chairman of British American Tobacco

More than 300 business leaders have called on Britain to vote to leave the European Union  arguing that membership is undermining the countrys competitiveness.

They say Brussels red tape stifles every one of Britains 5.4 million businesses. A Brexit vote would allow them to create more jobs, they claim.

The letter is signed by Superdrug co-founder Peter Goldstein, former Sony vice president Steve Dowdle, Goldman Sachs MD David Sismey and Sir Patrick Sheehy, former chairman of British American Tobacco. All signed in a personal capacity.

It has also been signed by dozens of small and medium-sized business owners and managers. Between them, the signatories employ hundreds of thousands of staff.

The letter will give more ammunition to the Brexit camp, which has been hit in recent weeks by Remain campaigners attempting to portray Brexit as an economic disaster.

Last week the International Monetary Fund warned a Brexit vote could be very, very bad for the economy.

But the letter, published by the Daily Telegraph, states: Year-on-year the EU buys less from Britain because its economies are stagnant and millions of workers are unemployed.

According to Mervyn King, the former Bank of England governor, the euro might explode. Brussels red tape stifles every one of Britains 5.4 million businesses, even though only a small minority actually trade with the EU.

It is business  not government  which generates wealth for the Treasury and jobs for our communities. Outside the EU, British business will be free to grow faster, expand into new markets and create more jobs. Its time to vote Leave and take back control.

One signatory is Lord Farmer, a former Tory Party treasurer. In an article, he writes: Warnings of disaster if we leave are misguided. Britain, the worlds fifth-biggest economy, should be confident that others will want to trade freely with it especially if, like the EU, they already do so.

Europe has a surplus of nearly 70 billion with us and no reason to put up barriers.

Nor will EU countries want to restrict their access to the London markets. Canary Wharf alone does more business than Frankfurt and we are Europes financial outlet to the world.

Everyone benefits when London booms. We can see the possibility now for a bright new beginning. By voting to leave, we will be taking back democracy and this will benefit everyone.

Last week it emerged Britain Stronger in Europe is being handed hundreds of thousands of pounds by Americas biggest banks  Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan, all of which paid fines worth billions for their role in the financial crash.
Queensland's health minister says he's open to the idea of a lifetime smoking ban for anyone born after 2001 in an effort to gradually stop the bad habit altogether.

However, Cameron Dick said before considering any age ban, he wanted to see how the state's new anti-smoking laws plays out first when it comes into force from September.

Parliament recently passed laws to ban smoking at bus and taxi stops, outdoor pedestrian malls, and in or near childcare facilities and kids' sporting events and skate parks.

Children born after 2001 could be banned from smoking in an effort to gradually stop the bad habit altogether (stock image)

Cameron Dick (pictured) said he's open to the idea of a generational smoking ban but wants to see how the state's new anti-smoking laws plays out first when it comes into force from September

'Let's see how that goes. We've gone from 30 per cent to 12 per cent of adults smoking daily in 15 years  I think that's a significant improvement,' Mr Dick said.

'Clearly smoking is becoming socially unacceptable in Queensland.'

The new laws comes as Cancer Council Queensland has suggested a complete ban on smoking for all children born after 2001  meaning anyone turning 15 this year will never be allowed to smoke.

Mr Dick said he was willing to discuss Cancer Council Queensland's idea, despite obvious barriers, including the difficulties surrounding enforcement.

'There might be unintended consequences  you'd have to think through the issues, particularly in tourism areas like the Gold Coast,' he said.

'Happy to talk to them about that and consider that in the future, but I'd like to see how our laws work first.'

Parliament recently passed laws to ban smoking at bus and taxi stops, outdoor pedestrian malls, and in or near childcare facilities and kids' sporting events and skate parks (stock image)

Cancer Council Queensland has suggested a complete ban on smoking for all children born after 2001  meaning anyone turning 15 this year will never be allowed to smoke

The new law will also see residents in the state's aged-care facilities banned from smoking in their rooms for the first time, and will only be allowed to light up in designated areas.

Cancer Council Queensland CEO Jeff Dunn applauded the government's tough anti-smoking stance, but questioned whether it could do more by implementing the phase-out.

'This would mean that young people turning 15 this year would never legally be allowed to smoke  providing a glide path to end the scourge of cigarettes,' Prof Dunn said.
A Florida deputy shot and killed an armed man inside a car after he allegedly refused instructions to put down his gun.

The Volusia County Sheriff's Office said in a press release that Deputy Miguel Kent, 37, fatally shot the man late Saturday night in Osteen.

Police said the shooting occurred shortly before 11pm along the 14 00 block of State Road 415, according to spokesman Gary Davidson.

Florida Deputy Miguel Kent fatally shot and killed an armed man Saturday night after the man allegedly refused to put down his gun (file photo)

Kent and Deputy Djhon Knight approached what they thought was an abandoned vehicle along the road, but discovered a man in the driver's seat with a gun lying in the back seat, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

The gun was within reach of the man, who was ordered to remain still and not reach for the gun as the two deputies posted on each side of the car.

But instead, the man allegedly took off his shirt and draped it over the driver's side window in an apparent attempt to obstruct the deputies' view, according to police.

Moments later the shirt fell from the window and the man was in the back seat holding the gun.

The statement said Kent, an employee of of the sheriff's office since 2003, shot the man after he refused to put the gun down around 10.57pm.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene and authorities haven't released his identity.

Kent was placed on paid temporary leave as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates.
Doctors have admitted the official guidelines for what are the safe number of alcoholic drinks for men and woman were 'pulled out of the air' and have no scientific basis.

A 1987 report by Royal College of Physicians in London was the basis of Australia's drinking guidelines, which recommended that men consume not more than four standard drinks a day, and women not more than two.

But Doctor Richard Smith, who helped form the English guidelines, has now revealed the recommendations were guesstimates at best made up by scientists who knew they had to come up with a simple answer for people who wanted to know how much they could drink and stay healthy.

'There was no science behind our advice. We pulled the guidelines out of the air,' Dr Smith, a former editor of British Medical Journal, told The Australian.

Few people follow the drinking guidelines. One standard drink of red wine, about 13 per cent, should be 100mL, - but tends to be 150mL (top). A schooner of full-strength beer is 1.6 standard drinks (NOTE: not to scale)

And as it turns out, few people follow the guidelines anyway - in part because the definition of a 'standard drink' is widely misunderstood and is almost never the measure served in pubs and bars.

One standard drink is half a pint of beer, 100mL of a glass of wine (11.5  13.5 per cent alcohol), or one shot of spirits.

But most of us aren't following those guidelines and are drinking more than we realise.

Most glasses of wine are in fact 150mL, making them 1.5 standard drinks.

A full-strength schooner of beer is 1.6 standard drinks.

The Royal College of Physicians had been responding to health risks caused by alcohol in 1987, when one of the members said 'we have to come up with safe limits', Dr Smith remembered.

'There was no science behind our advice. We pulled the guidelines out of the air,' Dr Richard Smith, who helped develop the English guidelines and a former editor of British Medical Journal, said

'We knew that patients would ask us: "How much should I drink?" What do you do? Do you say to them: "I have no idea, come back in 20 years and we will have something?"

'If you accept the argument that you have to keep to safe levels, you have to offer some guidance. We felt it was better to offer people some advice rather than no advice,' Dr Smith said.

One shot of spirits is one standard drink

University of Melbourne's Professor Robin Room said he believed the Australian team also 'didn't have any particular basis for where they would draw the line' when drinking guidelines were devised in 1987.

Australian guidelines originally recommended men drink up to four standard drinks daily, and women two.

The guidelines have since been revised to suggest both men and women drink no more than two standard drinks.

National Health and Medical Research Council are working with the Department of Health to review its drinking guidelines.

According to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the total apparent consumption of alcohol per capita has fluctuated over the past 50 years.

Apparent consumption peaked at 13.1 litres of pure alcohol per person aged 15 years and over in 1974-75.

At 2013-14, apparent consumption dropped to the lowest level since the 1960s at 9.7 litres of pure alcohol per person.

National Health and Medical Research Council figures showing standard drinks per alcoholic beverage
Thousands of pet-owners across Australia have taken part in the RSPCA's biggest annual fundraising event, Million Paws Walk.

People and their pets took to the streets on Sunday to raise money for the RSPCA to support of animals in need and fight animal cruelty.

So far over $800,000 has been raised across Australia, with Victoria raising the most, almost reaching their $500,000 donation target

Thousands of pet-owners across Australia have taken part in the RSPCA's biggest annual fundraising event, Million Paws Walk

The sun was shining and tails were wagging as owners took their furry friends for walks across Australia on Sunday

So far over $800,000 has been raised across Australia, with Victoria raising the most, almost reaching their $500,000 donation target

At Queens Park in Mackay, Queensland, 600 animal lovers and their furry friends turned up to take part in the 2 km walk.

Volunteer co-ordinator Leanne Hoban told the Daily Mercury that attendance surpassed the number of walkers seen at last year's event.

'Everyone was in good spirits, and I am so happy about the number of dogs and supporters who came along.

'We have received so much positive feedback about where it was held this weekend, but it's definitely an event that couldn't have been made possible without the help of the volunteers.'

More than 20,000 people were expected to take part in Queensland in 22 different locations.

Across the country at Sir James Mitchell Park in Perth, a record 9000 people and 5000 dogs had a choice of a 1km, 2.5km or 5km course.

RSPCA chief executive David van Ooran said he was very pleased with the fundraising efforts.

'It was a beautiful day and the weather worked in our advantage,' he told Perth Now.

'I have never seen such diversity and the dogs were all well-behaved.'

RSPCA Western Australia relies on donations generate more than 90% of the funds required to sustain animal protection work, as only six per cent is covered by a grant from the State Government.

This year is the 20th anniversary of the event being held in Western Australia.

Volunteer co-ordinator Leanne Hoban (not pictured) said the event that couldn't have been made possible without the help of the volunteers

More than 20,000 people with their pets were expected to take part in Queensland in 22 different locations

This year is the 20th anniversary of the event being held in Western Australia. RSPCA Western Australia relies on donations generate more than 90% of the funds required to sustain animal protection work

Last year, owners and their pets raised over $2 million to fund the RSPCAs care of thousands of animals.

Participants could raise money for RSPCA by posting a fundraising page, sponsoring a Walker and their pet, and through buying merchandise.

Over $800,000 has been raised across Australia in this years Million Paws Walkso far, with more expected to be added to the tally as donation pages remain open.

The next Million Paws Walk will take place in all states and territories across Australia on Sunday 21 May 2017.

Last year, owners and their pets raised over $2 million to fund the RSPCAs for their care of thousands of animals

Over $800,000 has been raised across Australia in this years Million Paws Walkso far, with more expected to be added to the tally as donation pages remain open
The Nevada Democratic Convention turned into an unruly and unpredictable event, after some Bernie Sanders supporters started throwing chairs in protest of 58 would-be Sanders delegates being ruled ineligible.

Thousands of people gathered at the Paris casino in Las Vegas to pick delegates to send to the national convention in July.

But friction between Sanders' supporters and state Democratic Party leaders had flared throughout the day on Saturday.

The convention was scheduled to end by 7pm and when it hadn't wrapped up by 10pm, authorities at the casino informed party organizers they could no longer provide the security necessary to handle the crowd.

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Thousands of people gather at the Paris casino in Las Vegas for the Nevada State Democratic Convention on Saturday to pick delegates to send to the national convention in July

Sanders national communications director Michael Briggs didn't have an immediate comment on the events in Nevada when reached by phone on Sunday morning.

The hostilities began when Sanders supporters accused state party leaders of putting them at a disadvantage, and they objected to procedural votes to approve the rules of the event on Saturday.

They also questioned a credentials committee's disqualification of 58 would-be Sanders delegates.

State party officials said the would-be delegates didn't provide acceptable identification and did not meet the May 1 deadline to register as Democrats.

State party officials said some Clinton-supporting delegates were ruled ineligible too, although in lower numbers.

Friction between Sanders' supporters and state Democratic Party leaders had flared throughout the day

The hostilities began when Sanders supporters accused state party leaders of putting them at a disadvantage, and they objected to procedural votes to approve the rules of the event on Saturday

Clinton has a five-delegate advantage over Sanders in Nevada, 20 to his 15, and is expected to win a majority of the state's eight unpledged superdelegates - party officials who can vote for the candidate they choose.

Going into Tuesday's primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, Clinton has 1,716 pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses, compared with 1,433 for Sanders.

Some Sanders supporters upset with Saturday's proceedings protested against state party chairwoman, Roberta Lange, outside the Nevada State Democratic Party headquarters on Sunday.

Her cellphone number was posted on social media and officials said Lange had received hundreds of phone calls and text messages, including death threats.

Sanders tried to tamp down the tensions roiling even before the convention.

He issued a statement on Friday, reminding supporters that all Democrats shared the common goals of defeating Donald Trump and electing Democrats to office.

'Working together respectfully and constructively on Saturday at the Nevada Democratic convention will move us closer to those essential goals,' he said.
Police then found the remains of the woman in the back of the car

A few minutes later, he slammed into a tree and died at the scene

He started blowing through red lights and ignoring police requests

They arrived his apartment to find the man driving away from the property

A 54-year-old driver who was killed during a high-speed chase with police had the body of a 41-year-old woman in his car.

The man, who has not been named, died after he plowed his car into a tree in El Cajon, California, on Friday night.

The chase began when cops got a call about a domestic dispute at the man's apartment.

A 54-year-old driver who was killed during a high-speed chase with police in El Cajon, California, had the body of a 41-year-old woman in his car. Her remains are censored in this picture from the scene

The chase began when cops got a call about a domestic dispute at the man's apartment. Just a few minutes later he crashed

When officers arrived, they found the man driving away from the house in a red Mazda truck, Fox 5 reported.

Police officers tried to pull the driver over at around 9:55 p.m, but he refused to yield and ran a red light.

The pursuit then carried on, and the driver continued to ignore police requests.

After just a few minutes, he hit the tree and died at the scene, police have said.

Law enforcement then made the grisly discovery when they found the woman's body. Investigators have initially said she died hours before the crash and her injuries seemed suspicious.

The coroner had not performed an autopsy as of Sunday night.

The name of the two victims has not been released.
One of Australia's most powerful property developers claims that West Australian Treasurer Mike Nahan got into a fight at Parliament and is plotting a leadership spill against Premier Colin Barnett.

Perth property tycoon Nigel Satterley - who admits he was annoyed Dr Nahan didn't roll back land tax increases in last week's budget - made the explosive allegations on ABC radio on Monday.

'That's the rumour going around that Mr Nahan on Tuesday is planning to ask for a spill in the party room and we believe he's going to ask that his candidate, Mr Francis [Emergency Services Minister Joe Francis] be put up,' Mr Satterley said.

Mr Satterley also said the Treasurer had been 'sneaking around the back door against Mr Barnett' and 'had a dust up with Nigel Hallett in the courtyard of parliament house.'

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Perth property tycoon Nigel Satterley (pictured) claims that WA Treasurer Mike Nahan got into a fight at Parliament and is plotting a leadership spill against Premier Colin Barnett

Treasurer Mike Nahan (pictured) has denied the accusations, saying 'this is just bizarre' - adding he had a 'frosty relationship' with Mr Satterley

WA Premier Colin Barnett said he will lead the government to the next state election despite a record deficit and a disastrous result in the latest opinion poll

Dr Nahan, 65, has dismissed the allegations as bizarre - adding he had a 'frosty relationship' with Mr Satterley.

'I know he's whingeing about paying land tax. He's on record about that but you know he's an extremely wealthy man who's made a lot of money on land, buying and selling land,' he said.

Dr Nahan was unable to explain what would have caused Mr Satterley to make the claims.

'Maybe he's having a Donald Trump moment I don't know. Maybe he's contemplating going into politics, but I think his rhetoric should be a bit more accurate than that,' he said.

'Colin and I go way back. And I am one of his strongest supporters.'

It comes just days after Premier Barnett announced he would lead the government to the next state election despite a record deficit and a disastrous result in the latest opinion poll.

The WA government unveiled an unprecedented $3.9billion deficit for 2016/17 in Thursday's Budget, with the debt expected to hit $40billion in 2018/19.

A Newspoll this week revealed Mr Barnett's personal popularity had slumped to a record low as Labor extended its lead over the Liberals, but the premier remains confident he will lead the party to the March election

A Newspoll last week revealed Mr Barnett's personal popularity had slumped to a record low as Labor extended its lead over the Liberals, but the premier remains confident he will lead the party to the March election.

The Newspoll, which was published in The Australian, shows Labor is ahead of the government by 54 per cent to 46 per cent in two-party-preferred terms.

Labor leader Mark McGowan leads Mr Barnett as preferred premier 46 per cent to 32 per cent with 22 per cent undecided.

But Mr Barnett insisted that if anyone was dissatisfied with his performance they would tell him.

'If any member was dissatisfied with my leadership or thought they should be leader or could do a better job they would come and talk to me about it,' he told reporters on Friday.

'They're all my friends. No one has raised the issue with me at all.'

Treasurer Mike Nahan said he had not heard rumblings about backbenchers agitating for a spill.

Dr Nahan said he was 100 per cent confident in Mr Barnett's leadership and 'definitely' ruled out any interest in the top job or the deputy premier role.

'We have a beautiful deputy (in Liza Harvey). She just got appointed a month or so ago and Colin is the leader,' he said.
It has been a whirlwind 24 hours for Sydney PR queen Roxy Jacenko, soaking up the opening day of Fashion Week one moment and holding her husband's hand at his insider trading trial just hours later.

Dressed in a red Gucci frock, Ms Jacenko and her daughter Pixie watched her favourite designer Toni Maticevski's opening show at Barangaroo on Sunday.

The next morning, she posted a picture of a '6am' Bondi Beach photoshoot with model Natalie Roser.

Later on Monday, Ms Jacenko walked hand-in-in in a little black dress with her husband Oliver Curtis as he appeared in the New South Wales Supreme Court on a charge of insider trading.

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At court: Investment banker Oliver Curtis is seen here (left, right) arriving at the NSW Supreme Court on Monday with wife Roxy Jacenko

Mr Curtis had been expected to come eye-to-eye with his childhood friend and star prosecution witness John Hartman in court on Monday.

But Justice Lucy McCallum postponed proceedings until Tuesday as one of the 12 jurors had taken ill.

The court heard last week that the finance industry workers are alleged to have made $1.433 million between May 2007 and June 2008 thanks to insider tips from Hartman, an equities manager.

In a black dress and heels, Ms Jacenko strides outside of the courtroom following the news a juror was ill on Monday morning

Ms Jacenko speaks to a journalist, left, and leaves the court with her husband's legal team, right

Mr Curtis and Ms Jacenko are pictured leaving the court following the short session on Monday

The proceedings on Monday were pushed back until 10am Tuesday. The pair are seen leaving the court

Watching the catwalk the night before: Ms Jacenko and her daughter Pixie soaked up a Fashion Week show on Sunday

Ms Jacenko and her daughter pose for a picture for her popular Instagram account on Sunday evening

A scene from the Toni Maticevski show. Ms Jacenko posted this picture to Instagram on Sunday

Mr Curtis' defence lawyer, Murugan Thangaraj, SC, told the jury last Thursday there would be 'no case' without Hartman's evidence.

Mr Thangaraj said Crown prosecutors would 'heavily' rely upon his evidence.

Prosecutors have alleged in court Mr Curtis used the money from the tips to buy Hartman a $20,000 Ducati motorcycle and a $60,000 Mini Cooper.

The pair also used some of the money to go on an 'extensive' trip to Las Vegas and Whistler, Canada, with friends, the court heard.

Senior Crown prosecutor David Staelhi SC told the court last week Hartman lived in Perth and would travel to give evidence.

The prosecution has told the court Hartman was imprisoned for 15 months over charges relating to 'illegal dealing'.

Oliver Peter Curtis (pictured right) is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit insider trading. He is pictured with wife Roxy Jacenko last week

Mr Curtis's former 'good mate' John Hartman - who lived together with Mr Curtis in Bondi - is the prosecution's star witness and was expected to testify on Monday

Prosecutors said Hartman struck a deal with authorities for a discounted sentence and had agreed to speak about Mr Curtis, who was described in court as his former 'good mate'.

'They're not so friendly now, probably,' Mr Staelhi told the jury last week.

Mr Curtis has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit insider trading. The Crown must prove the charge beyond reasonable doubt.
A man quit his corporate job of 10 years and sold his house to travel around Australia with his pet cat, Willow, in a van.

For 12 months, Richard East, from Tasmania, has been travelling with Willow, who he adopted from his ex-girlfriend, in his Volkswagen Transporter after he was unhappy with his life and wanted to make a change, the ABC reported.

So far they have made it up the east coast to north Queensland and plan on travelling across to the Northern Territory at a pace Mr East refers to as the 'worlds slowest land speed record attempt'.

Richard East, from Tasmania, quit his corporate job of 10 years and sold his house to travel around Australia with his pet cat, Willow, in his van. Both pictured

For 12 months, Mr East has been travelling with Willow in his Volkswagen Transporter after he was unhappy with his life and wanted to make a change

Mr East documents the pair's journey on Instagram account VanCatMeow, which has almost 1,500 followers.

They have been to popular Australian tourist spots such as The Big Banana, Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsunday Islands.

Mr East adopted Willow after he and his ex-girlfriend broke up, and she was not in a position to take her.

'Sometimes you don't know the bond you share with someone until you are placed in an extraordinary situation with them,' he wrote on The Shoko Show last year.

'Well that was the case with Willow and I. She was adopted from a rescue centre at age two by my ex-girlfriend.

'The ex wasn't in a position to keep her so I offered to look after her. Willow and I got along alright.'

Mr East documents the pair's journey on Instagram account VanCatMeow , which has almost 1,500 followers. They are pictured here on the Great Barrier Reef at Michaelmas Cay

Mr East said he had met a 'quite a few people' travelling with a furry friend. He and Willow are pictured with 'Samara and Glen with their meow meows Batman and Kitty'

Willow started to squat at his house before Mr East decided to adopt her

They now live out of this van. It is parked here in Queensland with Willow using a tree as a scratching pole

And even though she was the one who needed a new home, Mr East felt it was Willow who was his saviour.

'The little black adventure cat... really took a chance when she rescued me,' he said in a Facebook post that marked a year since the pair embarked on their trip last week.

'We have been very fortunate to have made it through the past year with no more troubles than two flat tyres, 3 stitches on my head, and a sore paw.'

But Mr East is not the only one with a cat riding shotgun.

And even though she was the one who needed a new home, Mr East felt it was Willow who was his saviour

A photograph of the sunset over the Great Barrier Reef in north Queensland

Here is Willow dressed up to celebrate Halloween last year

Since starting their journey a year ago, the pair have only had a few incidents, including two flat tyres, three stitches on Mr East's head, and Willow's sore paw

Willow and Mr East have travelled up the east coast. Here they are at Coffs Harbour's The Big Banana

Despite travelling to some remote places that 'have that Wolf Creek feel', Mr East said he always had 'the safety bubble of my van'

Mr East said he had met a 'quite a few people' travelling with a furry friend.

Despite travelling to some remote places that 'have that Wolf Creek feel', Mr East said he always had 'the safety bubble of my van'.

The Tasmanian man said he had found his idea of the perfect life.

'It's a cosy campervan with everything I need,' Mr East said.
It took just over two hours for a struggling farming couple's dream home to burn to the ground on Friday night.

All that was left Andres and Maria Montero's house in rural North Island, New Zealand, was a pile of debris, charred building material and buckled roofing steel.

The home was so new they and their three young sons hadn't even moved into it yet and the power hadn't been connected.

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This is all that is left of the Montero's home in a rural area of New Zealand's North Island after it burned down on Friday

This is what the family's dream home looked like before it was destroyed in a fire

Maria and Andres Montero with their three sons. The family moved to New Zealand from Costa Rica 13 years ago

The couple, dairy farmers, had been working towards owning their own property since moving to the country from Costa Rica 13 years ago, and now find it hard to believe their dream has gone up in flames.

Mr Montero told Daily Mail Australia 2016 had been challenging for the family because they earned their living by milking cows and payouts on milk products had been low.

He described their life this year as 'struggling to survive'.

'It's been our dream to own our own property - own our own farm,' he said.

'It's hard to believe. We would never expected something like this [the house burning down] to happen... it's a hard feeling to describe,' he said.

They'd had the opportunity to buy the 87 hectare plot of land last July.

An investigation into what caused the fire is underway, and Mr Montero said investigators found indications an accelerant had been used

The family had purchased the house in December last year and had it moved to their new property recently

'We bought the property but we had to start from the bottom and develop [the] small block.'

It'd had been forestry land and it had to be cleared, have fences put in, a dam created and pastures sown.

The house itself they had purchased after searching for the right home and transported it to their block of land, located next to a quiet country road.

He didn't know how the fire had started, but fire investigators at the scene had found indications an accelerant had been used, he said.

Investigators had taken samples away for testing.

Luckily, the home was empty at the time of the fire and the family had insurance.

Mr Montero said the family hadn't been put off living at the site and would start looking for a new home for the property once insurance had been dealt with.

'We hope to find out [what happened]. It's definitely going to be on our minds for a while... but we have to move on.'

For the meantime, the family luckily still have a house to live in and friends who have been supporting them.

People from their community have also been calling and offering to help.

Mr Montero said it was hard to believe the house had burned down and that his family would never expected something like the fire could have happened
Hundreds of books banned in Australia are hidden in archives in libraries across the country, after being deemed too outrageous to be read by the public.

The largest collection, full of books and material that is completely off-limits, is said to be held in the National Library of Australia (NLA) in a padlocked room.

The collection features more than 200 books including unauthorised biographies, true crimes, a guide to euthanasia, plus books on Schapelle Corby and Eddie Obeid that courts have deemed to be defamatory, reported the ABC.

The largest collection of books that are off-limits to the public are kept locked up in a secure cabinet at the National Library of Australia (pictured)

The material in the cabinet includes unauthorised biographies, true crimes, a guide to euthanasia, plus books on Schapelle Corby and Eddie Obeid that courts have deemed to be defamatory

The director of Australia Collections Management at the National Library of Australia in Canberra (pictured) it is important the books are kept for historical value, instead of being destroyed

An NLA spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the books are kept in a secure, locked cabinet.

Director of Australian Collections Management at the NLA Alison Dellit told the ABC the collection also features text books and other materials that contain potentially dangerous errors, for example some that accidentally recommend toxic combinations of chemicals.

Ms Dellit said it's important that the books are not destroyed, but kept for historical value.

'Part of the role of the library is to keep the history of Australian publishing and part of this history of publishing is that sometimes people publish things that shouldn't have been published,' she said.

The Library of New South Wales does not currently hold any books that are off limits to the public, but has done in the past.

Books once banned in NSW include Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence, Grapes of Wrath by John Steinback, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and Love Me Sailor by Robert Close, who was charged with obscene libel and spent three months in prison in Victoria in the 1940s.

The room in the National Library of Australia where the off limits material is kept in a secure cabinet

Love Me Sailor (pictured) was once completely banned in NSW, but is now held in the restricted access section. The author Robert Close was charged with obscene libel and spent three months in prison in Victoria in the 1940s

Queensland is the only state that still has outright bans on books in their collections, while the others have restricted access material available to over-18s.

A report by the Brisbane Times outlined the list of banned books including American Psycho, a book on euthanasia called Final Exit, The Firework Cookbook and a picture book by American artist Jeff Koons.

Most of the publications banned in Queensland date back to the 1980s and 1990s, but 69 publications have been restricted in 2015.

While most Australian states have restricted access to some titles, Queensland is the only state that still has outright bans on books, including Final Exit (pictured), a book about euthanasia

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis is another title that is completely banned in Queensland

In Tasmania, books such as Puppetry of the Penis, a text on Russian tattoos and American Psycho are only available to over-18s. In South Australia the state library has restricted access to papers of iconic retailers John Martin and Co, who were taken over by David Jones in the 1990s.

There is also a 'supressed' collection of 1970s printed pornography.

In the Northern Territory software allows Indigenous communities to manage their own online collections and decide who can access culturally sensitive material.

The State Library of Victoria also has a magic tricks collection of magazines, books, photos and posters only available on request.

The Trial of Lady Chatterley by DH Lawrence is another title that was once banned in NSW
Police are hunting a granny bandit who has robbed three banks during a two-day crime spree in New Jersey.

The elderly woman, believed to be in her 60s, has walked into three different banks and handed over a note to tellers demanding cash.

The woman, who was wearing black clothes and bizarrely draped a scarf over her head, is not believed to be armed but was carrying a bright green handbag at each of the three brazen heists.

Granny bandit: Police are hunting an elderly woman who has robbed three banks in two days in New Jersey

Rampage: The woman, believed to be in her 60s, has walked into three different banks and handed over a note to tellers demanding cash

Do you know this gran? The woman, who was wearing black clothes and bizarrely draped a scarf over her head, is not believed to be armed but was carrying a bright green handbag at each of the three brazen heists

The unidentified elderly woman started her rampage on Friday morning when she walked calmly into a Wells Fargo bank in Willingboro, New Jersey, Fox 11 reported.

Surveillance footage shows her walking towards the counter at 11.41am with the scarf partially obscuring her face.

Police said the woman walked up to a teller and handed over a piece of paper demanding cash.

The 5ft 6ins blonde woman was handed a wad of notes and left the bank.

Just hours later, a TD Bank in Hamilton, New Jersey, was also robbed.

Bank staff told the police that a white woman walked into the bank at 6.31pm and also handed over a note demanding money.

The bank is around 17 miles from the Wells Fargo that was targeted earlier that day.

Target one: The unidentified elderly woman started her rampage on Friday morning when she walked calmly into this Wells Fargo bank in Willingboro

Just hours later, this TD Bank in Hamilton, New Jersey, was also robbed by a woman of the same description

The woman walked into a second TD Bank (pictured) in Hamilton and again handed over a note telling the employee to give her cash

A woman of the same description and wearing similar clothes to the first robbery held up a third bank on Saturday.

She walked into a second TD Bank in Hamilton and again handed over a note telling the employee to give her cash.

The woman was wearing dark sunglasses and was again carrying a green handbag but did not appear to have a weapon.

Police believe the three robberies are linked and are appealing for help tracking the suspect down. Cops said she may be driving an old black Honda Sedan.

It is not known how much the woman has taken from each bank.
Police aresseted Jacob Young, 25, after he choked his sister and set her on fire using motor oil

An Oklahoma man is accused of choking his sister before dousing her with motor oil and setting her on fire.

Police said Jacob Young, 25, has a history of arson, but this time he set his sister on fire.

'Her brother had choked her out in her mobile home.

'She came to and he was dousing her with motor oil and tried to light it on fire,' Jenny Wagnon, of the Edmond Police Department told ABC 7.

Wagnon also said that other residents know about similar issues that have gone on in the area.

'The sister told us he had lit some other things on fire previously in the area,' Wagnon told KFOR.

After a frantic 9-1-1 call, Edmond police and firefighters arrived at the scene of a mobile home park near 15th and Fretz.

The victim was able to put the fire out herself with several buckets of water.

Authorities said there was motor oil everywhere.

Crime scene investigators spent the day collecting evidence as police scoured the neighborhood for Young, according to KFOR.

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Young is being held at the Oklahoma County Jail and is facing charges of first-degree arson and domestic abuse

Edmond police put nearby Sunset Elementary on lock down until Young was apprehended

Police arrested Young later that day when he returned to the scene of the crime to grab food from the mobile home he tried to burn down.
Small told reporters: 'I lost it. I hurt someone I love' and apologized to her family, which includes four children and seven grand-children

At least three had to be rescued from second floor, and several had to seek medical attention for smoke inhalation

Small ignored her cry for help and 'left her in there to die,' police said

He allegedly threw gasoline in her face while she was smoking, starting a fire that killed her and raged through the motel for half an hour on Sunday

He was seen purchasing gasoline at convenience store across the street from The Lincoln Motel in Bucks County, Pennsylvania

Kevin Small, 46, was reportedly angered after girlfriend Mellissa Bacon-Smith laughed at him, police said

A man who set his girlfriend on fire by throwing gasoline in her face as she was smoking walked off as the flames killed her and spread through a motel outside Philadelphia, police said.

Kevin Small, 46, was allegedly angered by something Mellissa Bacon-Smith said, and was seen purchasing gasoline at a Wawa convenience store across the street from The Lincoln Motel in Bucks County before dousing her with it on Sunday, police said.

Small, who was arraigned on homicide, arson and other charges, walked away from the mother of four as she cried for help, and later told reporters: 'I lost it. I hurt someone I love.'

Kevin Small, 46, (right) set girlfriend Mellissa Bacon-Smith (left) on fire by throwing gasoline in her face as she was smoking in The Lincoln Motel in Bucks County, Pennsylvania on Sunday

Small, who was arraigned on homicide, arson and other charges, walked away from the mother of four as she cried for help, and later told reporters: 'I lost it. I hurt someone I love'

It is unclear what triggered Small's fury, although Lieutenant Robert Bugsch told ABC: 'He claimed she laughed at him earlier in the night, but that's his side of the story.'

Small was spotted buying gasoline at a Wawa before he reportedly doused her with it while she was smoking on the ground floor of the motel at 2.30am.

'We believe she reached out to him and yelled his name, and he left her in there to die', Bugsch said.

Small, who was later found nearby, called his mother after the incident admitting he threw gasoline in Bacon-Smith's face before saying she looked 'like Freddy Kruger', ABC reported.

Small, who has a criminal history of drugs and theft, appeared at his arraignment on Sunday afternoon in shackles, with his hands in bandages after they were burned in the incident.

He repeatedly said, 'I lost it', and when reporters pressed him on what happened, he responded: 'Bad things. I hurt someone I love.'

When asked what he would say to Bacon-Smith's family, which includes four children and seven grand-children, he said: 'I'm sorry'.

At least three people had to be rescued from the motel's second floor, and several were taken to Aria Health Torresdale for smoke inhalation.

Heavy smoke filled the motel as firefighters rushed to the scene. The fire was out by around 3am.

Police said many of the motel customers had to be displaced, with the Southeaster Pennsylvania Red Cross assisting.

At least three people had to be rescued from the motel's second floor, and several were taken to Aria Health Torresdale for smoke inhalation
Roy Lee Wells Jr (pictured) was arrested after he allegedly kidnapped and attempted to sexually assault a woman

A woman escaped the clutches of a man, who is accused of kidnapping and attempting to sexually assault her, by faking a heart attack.

Roy Lee Wells Jr, 41, of Fort Worth, was arrested Saturday after Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest Medical Center officials contacted police, according to the Dallas News.

Wells, who is accused of kidnapping the woman in Fort Worth and bringing her to Waco, assaulting her and attempting to sexually assault her, was charged with aggravated kidnapping and attempted sexual assault and assault.

He remained in McLennan County Jail on Thursday.

The woman told investigators that Wells 'stopped the car in an area described to have a lot of trucks and some cars but was not a gas station,' which an officer thought was likely a rest stop, according to the Waco-Tribune- Herald.

She said Wells attempted to have sex with her when they stopped.

But she screamed and said no, which angered him.

Wells then hit her with a belt repeatedly, according to an affidavit.

The victim told Wells that she thought she was having a heart attack because of a history of heart problems.

Wells then took her to Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest Medical Center, where he was arrested.

A patient told medical staff she was afraid to be with the man who brought her to the hospital, according to Dallas News.

The woman said she did not know where she was because she was taken against her will and was not familiar with the area, according to the newspaper.

Police arrested Wells at the hospital and took him to McLennan County Jail.

He's being held on nearly $100,000 bail.
A teenager charged with killing a mother-of-two with his mini-motorbike has been granted bail despite repeatedly breaching a court-imposed curfew and 'acting disrespectfully' toward his victim's family.

Melbourne Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg once again granted Caleb Jakobsson, 19, bail at a hearing on Monday after prosecutors asked for it be revoked because of the curfew breaches.

The ruling came even though the magistrate said Jakobsson had 'an attitude that can only be described as insolent'.

'Not only have you breached your bail conditions but you do so in a way that is disrespectful to the family and loved ones of the deceased,' Rozencwajg told the teenager.

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Caleb Jakobsson (pictured), 19, accused of striking a mother-of-two with his mini-motorbike as she crossed a pedestrian crossing will avoid going back to custody despite breaching bail conditions

Jakobsson was first granted bail last year after being charged with culpable driving causing the death of nurse Andrea Lehane, 34, in September.

The teen is accused of striking Ms Lehane with his mini 'monkey' motorbike as she walked across a pedestrian crossing at a shopping centre in Carrum Downs - It's alleged the teen then sped away.

The mother-of-two died on September 25 when her family turned off her life support after being told she wouldn't survive her brain injuries.

When Jakobsson was granted bail, his conditions included a curfew between 10pm and 9am.

Prosecutors applied in April to have his bail revoked after it was revealed the teen had breached his curfew multiple times - and that the relative he is staying with had not immediately reported it to police.

Mr Jakobsson fronted the Melbourne Magistrates Court last month after the relative he was staying with, who cannot be identified, reported him to police for breaching his curfew.

At the April hearing, Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg added more conditions to Jakobsson's (pictured) bail, including he attend court for regular reviews

Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg told Jakobsson that he would not not revoke the teens bail this time at a bail review hearing, but mentioned that Jakobsson had a an attitude that can only be described as 'insolent'

At the April hearing, Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg added more conditions to Jakobsson's bail, including he attend court for regular reviews.

The teen's relative said she had failed to report Jakobsson's breaches, despite giving an undertaking to the Supreme Court that she would, because she was trying to show mercy.

She said: 'I didn't think he was a threat. In every one of those instances he was somewhere local.'

Jakobsson is scheduled to attend a review in June before facing a committal hearing in July.

Andrea Lehane(left), 34, died on September 25 2015 leaving behind a son and daughter (right)
University researchers are hailing their world-first scanning helium microscope as a game-changer for new discoveries.

The microscope was developed by a team from University of Newcastle, 170 kilometres north of Sydney, alongside the UKs University of Cambridge over the past 20 years.

Instead of using light as a source, the microscope uses helium, which doesnt penetrate or change a microscopic sample so scientists can study it in its true state.

The medical and pharmaceutical applications are very exciting. For the first time in mankind's history we have a microscope that can study human samples in their true, unmasked state. It will enable a new point of view for things like parasites, cell cultures and bacteria, lead researcher Associate Professor Paul Dastoor said.

Lead researcher Associate Professor Paul Dastoor developed the helium microscope over 20 years with a team from University of Newcastle and UK's University of Cambridge

Delicate structures, such as biological samples, suffer degradation under existing microscopes because they use light as the source. So the act of observation can destroy or change the properties of the sample being studied, he said.

Helium can create an image of a sensitive structure with zero damage, he said.

It allows us to study many surfaces for the first time.

Major industries such as medical, defence, automotive and electronics will potentially benefit from the new technology, Prof Dastoor said.

The microscope has been hailed as a 'great Aussie scientific invention' by Peter Cosgrover, Australia's Governor-General

The helium microscope can even examine objects that have an electrical charge, which traditional electron microscopes can't do because they put an electrical charge into the sample, changing the way it works.

Using this technology we should be able to accurately see electrical circuitry whilst it is running and see clearly where the current is not flowing, Prof Dastoor said.
The photo shoot aims to break down gender

They want to encourage self-expression and creative freedom

Mr Keatinge responded by doing a photo shoot with his close friends

like the makeup and dress Isaac was wearing

The victim of a homophobic attack that left him bloodied and bruised has had his final say against his attackers in a photo shoot.

Newtown resident Isaac Keatinge, 25, was brutally attacked after leaving a party in Redfern, in Sydney's inner west, in April because a group of men didn't like the 'gorgeous gown' and makeup he was wearing, SameSame reported.

The photos were captured by Heaps Gay photographer Bradley Tennant who met with Mr Keatinge and a group of his close friends.

Isaac (pictured) told Heaps Gay that while Sydney has given him a platform to explore his creative side, he has been the subject of targeted attacks in the area

Isaac and his friends pose for a photo shoot that helps break down gender binaries of clothing

Isaac was brutally attacked in Sydney's inner west in April because a group of men didn't like the dress and makeup he was wearing

The aim of the fashion shoot is to break down gender stereotypes and encourage self-expression.

'Of course dressing is a means of expression, but not everyone has the means to dress the way they feel. It's interesting, because when I was younger I didn't have any exposure to alternative fashion. It's been a really new thing for me,' Isaac told Heaps Gay.

'Growing up in an isolated rural area as I did really allows one to exercise the imagination. At the same time it's easy to become hyper-aware of oneself. The biggest impact practically speaking is a lack of shared cultural knowledge and references.'

Isaac said that while Sydney has given him a platform to explore his creative side, he has also been attacked.

'It's pretty gross living among all these rats and roaches (looking at you Slurry Hills). Socially I'm starting to feel a support network and community around me, particularly with the response to The Incident.'

Api: The aim of the fashion shoot is to break down gender binaries of clothing and encourage self-expression

Olly, one of Isaac Keatinge's close friends, poses for a photoshoot by photographer Bradley Tennant for Heaps Gay

During the April incident, Isaac was pushed and punched and had abuse yelled at him.

Isaac's forehead was split open in the assault, leaving him in hospital.

Isaac said he almost needed plastic and reconstructive surgery for nerve damage.

Jason and Isaac pose in traditional female clothing and makeup to show to encourage creative and sartorial freedom

Adelash: Isaac works as a design assistant for a small fashion label, House of Cannon, and is pursuing his own design practice

Isaac works as a design assistant for a small fashion label, House of Cannon, and is pursuing his own design practice.

He advised people to stay safe, even around Newtown - which has a large LGBTI community.

'While I don't ever want people to feel like they can't express themselves, do stay with others. Safety in numbers.'

Isaac said the situation would not have occurred if he wasn't wearing a dress..

Isaac was walking home from a party in Redfern wearing a 'gorgeous gown' before he was confronted by straight men

Isaac (pictured) said he almost needed plastic and reconstructive surgery for nerve damage and that his doctors and nurses at the emergency department at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital had been 'amazing'

Keatinge (pictured) advised people to stay safe, even around Newtown - which has a large LGBTI community




The Coast Guard has suspended the search for a Texan woman who fell off a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico three days ago.

Samantha Broberg, 33, was seen on ship surveillance footage scaling a railing on the Carnival Liberty's 10th deck moments before she fell overboard at around 2am on Friday.

A desperate search ensued but after almost three days and 4,300 square miles covered, rescuers called off their search at 8.15pm on Sunday.

The Coast Guard was not called in to help with the search until 5pm on Friday after a count of passengers confirmed that she was missing.

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Missing: Samantha Broberg, 33, was reported missing and fell overboard. She is pictured here with her husband. It is not known if he was on board the cruise

The Coast Guard has suspended the search for Ms Broberg, who fell off a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico three days ago

'Based on the video analysis, we can confirm that it appears she climbed up and sat on a deck railing and subsequently fell backwards,' Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer De La Cruz told ABC News.

Carnival Liberty departed from Galveston, Texas, for a four-day cruise to Cozumel, Mexico on Thursday and is due to return on Monday morning.

A Coast Guard aircraft was dispatched from Mobile, Alabama, to search the area about 200 miles southeast of Galveston.

Search efforts continued into Sunday evening as experts said warm waters around the Mexican Gulf meant she could have survived, however the search has now been suspended.

The ship reported that a surveillance video showed a woman falling overboard about 2 a.m. Friday. Pictured here is a search on board the Carnival cruise to Mexico

Ms Broberg's traveling companions, who have not been identified, notified staff that she was missing but it is not known if she was traveling with her husband

Ms Broberg's traveling companions notified staff that she was missing - sparking a ship-wide search. The cruise liner's surveillance footage was reviewed and the Coast Guard was notified after she was seen falling backwards into the Mexican Gulf.

It is not known if she was traveling with her husband.

A Coast Guard statement says its district command center in New Orleans was contacted by the master of the cruise ship Carnival Liberty.

'Authorities were notified including the U.S. Coast Guard which has been conducting search and rescue efforts in the area the ship was located when the individual was last seen,' Carnival said.

'Carnival's CareTeam is providing support to the guest's traveling companions and family. We are keeping our guest and her loved ones in our thoughts during this difficult time.'

'Unfortunately, it appears the guest may have gone overboard early this morning. Authorities were notified including the U.S. Coast Guard which is initiating a search effort in the area where the ship was located when the individual was last seen.

Location: A Coast Guard aircraft was dispatched from Mobile, Alabama, to search the area about 200 miles southeast of Galveston (pictured)

Statement: 'Carnival's CareTeam is providing support to the guest's traveling companions and family. We are keeping our guest and her loved ones in our thoughts during this difficult time'

Passengers described feeling saddened about hearing the news of Ms Broberg's disappearance.

'Our steward came into our room, checked the closets, checked the bathroom, looked under the bed looked out on our balcony. I mean, they did a very thorough search,' passenger Jo Trizila of Dallas told NBC.
A woman who was fleeced for $25,000 after falling for a man she met on a dating site realised she was swindled when he asked her to strap $200,000 to her body and fly to Kuala Lumpur.

When Ruth Robertson met a dashing construction engineer on dating website Be2.com.au last August, she thought she found love again after her marriage of 25 years ended.

The 64-year-old artist from Victoria said the falsely named 'Jeff Thomas' appeared keen to share every aspect of his life with her when he called and emailed everyday despite never seeing him in person.

'He sent me photos of himself  he was distinguished, handsome, rich and he looked like a professional,' Ms Robertson told Daily Mail Australia.

Ruth Robertson (pictured) was fleeced for $25,000 after falling for a man she met on an online dating website

The fraudster who falsely claimed his name was 'Jeff Thomas' stole the name and photograph (left) from the internet and sent it to Ms Robertson (right). The man in the image had nothing to do with the scam

They exchanged messages on a daily basis and she even spoke to him via Skype  but there was always a technical problem when she was supposed to see him during the video chats.

'He could see me but I could never see him because he said there was always some technical reason,' she said.

'At one stage, I bought a ticket to Malaysia but at the last minute, he told me he had to go to Hong Kong. He kept making up reasons that he couldn't see me.

'He would also get angry and say "you're disrespecting me" and that "you need to be patient until I get back to Australia".'

Within less than a month into their relationship, 'Jeff' started requesting money from her, claiming his credit card had been stolen or that he needed the money to finish off his construction in Malaysia.

He also asked her to hand over the deed of her humble cottage, located in Victoria.

'I kept thinking this was crazy,' she said.

'He sent me photos of the bridge he was supposedly building in Malaysia.

'I wanted to see more proof that he was real so he sent me copies of the awards he got for his jobs, copy of his passport and I even got a phone call from his accountant  everything seemed sophisticated and very organised.

'He claimed he had units in Point Piper [one of Sydney's exclusive suburbs].'

The 64-year-old artist from Victoria said the falsely named 'Jeff Thomas' appeared keen to share every aspect of his life with her when he called and emailed everyday despite never seeing him in person (stock image)

Little did the divorcee know, the man was not who she thought he was  but she had unwittingly become involved in an online romance scam after transferring $25,000 overseas in October.

But the alarm bells didn't ring until the fraudster demanded she strap $200,000 to her body and fly to Malaysia when she realised she had been duped.

HOW TO AVOID DATING AND ROMANCE SCAMS Run a Google Image search to check the authenticity of any photos provided - scammers often use fake photos theyve found online

Dont send money or your personal details to someone you meet online - no matter how convincing their story is

Never share intimate photos of videos with someone you meet online - they could later use it to blackmail you Source: Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

'He asked me to strap the money to my body to get it to him,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'His accountant said the money had been raised from assets in Australia and it was desperately needed to complete 'Jeff's' railway bridge. I flatly refused and even made a joke about how big I would look with that much money strapped to my body as I am only 5 foot 2 inches tall.

'I'm a former air hostess so I knew that I would get into a lot of trouble at the airport. I'm not a criminal and I don't do things like that. This was getting too weird for me. I realised he was fake so I ran for the hills.'

She realised the photograph of falsely called 'Jeff Thomas' was stolen from the internet. The man, whose identity was taken and distributed to Ms Robertson without his knowledge or permission, had nothing to do with the scam.

By telling her story, Ms Roberson hopes she would warn other women not to fall for the same thing.

'I was angry and hurt. You just feel angry with yourself. I was embarrassed and humiliated but I became vulnerable and I was dealing with a psychopath saying all the right things,' she said.

'There were a lot of red flags and I should've been smarter than this. I didn't tell a lot of my friends. I did something so stupid but I'm just lucky I have a good support network.

'I just want to warn other women going through the same thing. You hear about people losing all their life savings. I can't even imagine what they're going though emotionally and losing all your money  it's devastating that it's happening more often than you think.'

Ms Robertson is just one of more than 2,500 Australians who have fallen victim to dating and romance fraudsters, with nearly $23 million reported lost in the last year (stock image)

And Ms Robertson is just one of more than 2,500 Australians who have fallen victim to dating and romance fraudsters, with nearly $23 million reported lost in the last year.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's Targeting Scams Report revealed that $5.6 million was lost to victims aged over 55.

'Dating and romance scams (link is external) take advantage of people looking for romantic partners, often via dating websites, apps or social media,' ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said.

'Scammers spend months and even years establishing a relationship with their victims before making up a reason they need to borrow money, such as medical emergencies or travel expenses.

'Never send money to someone you have met online  chances are you will be left with a broken heart and an empty bank account.
Mr Abbott and his friends and asked them to stop drinking and control their behaviour

A man accused of breaking a sailor's nose on a train on Anzac Day in April has pleaded not guilty to his assault.

Guy Ross Abbott, 27, appeared in Campbelltown local court on Monday morning charged with the alleged unprovoked assault, reported The Daily Telegraph.

Able Seaman Corey Evans, 24, was in full uniform on a train heading towards Sydney's south west when he approached a group of men who were 'consuming alcohol and harassing the other commuters'.

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Able Seaman Corey Evans, 24, was allegedly attacked by Guy Ross Abbott on a train heading towards Sydney's south west on Anzac Day

After Mr Evans asked Mr Abbott and his friends to stop drinking and control their behaviour, one of the men punched Mr Evans in the face as he was leaving Glenfield train station (pictured)

The officer asked the men to stop drinking and control their behaviour, but one of the men took offence and punched him in the face as he was leaving the train at Glenfield station.

Mr Evans' girlfriend, Emma Novotny, was with him when the incident took place.

In an appearance on Monday Mr Abbott pleaded not guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm, common assault and offensive behaviour.

However, he pleaded guilty to a charge of drinking in public.

Mr Evans is at sea but his mother Rachael Evans and Ms Novotny were in court.

Ms Novotny said she was 'very angry and disappointed' and she hoped justice would be served.

'(It was) very horrific, it wasnt something you want to witness or see your partner go through.'

Ms Evans said her son was recovering well and she was proud of how he had handled himself.

The case will return to court on June 27.

Mr Evans was with his girlfriend Emma Novotny when the incident took place. In court on Monday she said she was 'very angry and disappointed' and she hoped justice would be served

Mr Evans (pictured) was at sea during the court hearing but both his mother Rachel Evans and his girlfriend Ms Novotny were present in court
Television and radio star Glenn Wheeler was photographed enjoying a cup of coffee and a stroll in the sun, over a year after the horrific scooter crash that left him with significant brain injuries.

Wheeler, who was a presenter on The Morning Show, held onto a female friend for assistance as he walked through the streets of his hometown Cronulla, a beachside suburb on Sydney's south coast.

The much-loved media personality appeared to be in his usual good spirits as he interacted with friends and fans on the street, dressed in a stripey pair of shorts and a loose fitting white tee.

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TV and radio star Glenn Wheeler was spotted enjoying a cup of coffee and a stroll in the sun this month - over a year since the horrific scooter crash that left him with significant brain injuries

Wheeler, 56, held onto a female friend for assistance as he walked through the streets of his hometown Cronulla in Sydney's south

Wheeler appeared to be in his usual good spirits as he interacted with friends and fans on the street

The 56-year-old, who recently celebrated his birthday, spent 321 days in hospital after he was tragically struck by a van when on his way to work on January 31, 2015.

He was placed into an induced coma after suffering serious injuries to his brain and pelvis, as well as a severed artery in one leg.

On the evening of the accident, police told Wheeler's colleagues at the radio station that he may not survive the night.

Since his release from St George Hospital on December 17, 2015, Dane Wheeler, one of Glenn's three adult children, has posted updates detailing his father's improving condition.

In the photographs, Glenn can be seen ticking off milestones like enjoying family dinnersr, watching his favourite NRL team the Cronulla Sharks play at home, mowing the lawn and going for a swim.

The much-loved media personality was tragically struck by a van when on his way to work on January 31, 2015

Deborah Levy (left), 60, pleaded guilty to negligent driving occasioning grievous bodily harm and driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. She shielded her face during the court appearances (right)

'Long way to go but who would have thought he would be taking back control of his lawns. Bring on the next phase in 2016': Wrote Dane Wheeler, one of Glenn's three adult children

Wheeler was placed into an induced coma after suffering serious injuries to his brain and pelvis, as well as a severed artery in one leg

Wheeler (with his fellow Morning Show hosts Larry Emdur and Kylie Gillies) after waking from induced coma

Deborah Levy, the 60-year-old who hit Wheeler with a van in 2015, pleaded guilty to negligent driving occasioning grievous bodily harm and driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol.

She was given a seven-month suspended jail sentence, a two-year good behaviour bond and disqualified from driving for three years when she fronted court in April, 2016.

The sentence was slammed by Wheeler's Radio 2GB colleague and friend Ben Fordham, who labelled it inadequate.

'He will never be the same, life will never never be the same for Glenn Wheeler or his family and friends,' Fordham told listeners.

Wheeler leaving hospital for the first time in 321 days - an emotional moment celebrated by his family

56th birthday celebrations: Wheeler's trademark grin and cheeky behaviour has remained untouched by the horrific scooter crash
Sadiq Khan today predicted Donald Trump would lose the White House race in November as he continued a war of words with the Republican nominee over his policy on Muslims.

The billionaire tycoon reignited the row today by claiming Mr Khan was 'ignorant' about his policy to stop Muslims entering America until the threat from terrorism was understood - and even suggested London's new Mayor should take an IQ test.

But Mr Khan immediately hit back at the presumptive Republican nominee, branding him 'nasty and rude' and warning his 'politics of fear' would fail at the ballot box as surely in America as it had in London.

Mr Trump's latest intervention on British politics came in an interview with Piers Morgan for ITV's Good Morning Britain.

Angry: Donald Trump told Piers Morgan today that London Mayor Sadiq Khan is 'ignorant' and said he should take an IQ test

Mr Khan, who was mobbed by Londoners wanting selfies this morning, hit back at Mr Trump to warn ignorance was not the same as intelligence

The White House contender also warned the special relationship could be in danger if David Cameron continued to refuse to apologise for dubbing him 'stupid, divisive and wrong'.

Downing Street today said Mr Cameron would continue to stand by his remarks and had not changed his view that blocking Muslims from entering America was the wrong thing to do.

Mr Khan said while campaigning that he would be banned from America if Mr Trump was elected.

He said that Trump's comments 'plays into the hands of the extremists' and called him 'ignorant'.

Today the hotel mogul responded by saying: 'When he won I wished him well. Now, I don't care about him, I mean it doesn't mean any difference to me, let's see how he does, let's see if he's a good mayor.'

Mr Trump continued: 'He doesn't know me, hasn't met me, doesn't know what I'm all about.

'I think they were very rude statements and, frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements.'

Asked if he was offended by Mr Khan's public denouncement he replied: 'Yeah, I am.'

A spokesman for Mr Khan rejected the new intervention.

He said: 'Donald Trump's views are ignorant, divisive and dangerous - it's the politics of fear at its worst and will be rejected at the ballot box just as it was in London.'

Targets: Mr Trump has criticised David Cameron and Sadiq Khan in a new interview and also said Britain should leave the EU

The spokesman continued: 'Sadiq has spent his whole life fighting extremism, but Trump's remarks make that fight much harder for us all - it plays straight into the extremists hands and makes both our countries less safe.'

Asked if Mr Khan would take up the offer of an IQ test, the spokesman said: 'Ignorance is not the same thing as a lack of intelligence.'

In other remarks, Mr Trump also weighed in to the EU referendum battle and said the UK should leave because: 'What do you need it for?'

Asked whether Mr Cameron was concerned about Mr Trump's suggestion that they might not have a good relationship, a Downing Street spokesman said: 'The Prime Minister has made his views on Donald Trump's comments very clear. He disagrees with them, and I haven't got anything further to add.

'He continues to believe that preventing Muslims from entering the US is divisive, stupid and wrong.'

The Number 10 spokesman said that Mr Cameron was 'committed to maintaining the special relationship' whoever wins the presidential election.

'He has been clear that he will work with whoever is president of the United States,' said the spokesman.

No proposal had been made for a phone call between the PM and Mr Trump, but Downing Street would be willing to consider it, the spokesman added.

Mr Trump has been in a war of words with British politicians since December when he called for 'a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States'

The billionaire's statement after the killing of 14 people by two ISIS sympathisers in California were branded 'stupid' and 'divisive' by Mr Cameron.

He told Mr Morgan that he might struggle to get on with the Prime Minister if he is elected president.

He said: 'It looks like we're not going to have a very good relationship, who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him but it sounds like he's not willing to address the problem either'.

Controversial: The Republican nominee made his latest incendiary claims about Mr Khan in an interview with ITV's Good Morning Britain

In today's interview, Mr Trump denied he was 'at war' with Mr Khan but said: 'I just think it's very rude of him. In fact it's the opposite. I wished him well when I heard he won, he's a Muslim... I think it's ignorant for him to say that.'

The United States is Britain's closest ally and political leaders from both nations often speak of how the countries' enjoy a special relationship.

Cameron earlier this month refused to retract his 'divisive, stupid and wrong' comment but said that Trump deserved respect for making it through the gruelling Republican primary process.

Mr Trump was asked if he wanted to retract his proposed ban on Muslims.

'We have a tremendous problem with radical Islamic terror,' he said.

'The world is blowing up and its not people from Sweden that's doing the damage okay. So we have a real problem.'

He also weighed in to the EU battle and said: 'What do you need it for?'

He added: 'I've dealt with the European Union, it's very very bureaucratic, it's very very difficult. But again, let people make up their own mind.'

Anti-Brussels: He also weighed in to the EU battle and said: 'What do you need it for?'

Mr Trump sparked a huge row when he announced his policy on a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United State.

He said: 'Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victim of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad.

'We should definitely disallow any Muslims from coming in. Any of them. The reason is simple: we can't identify what their attitude is.'

Mr Trump used the terror attacks in Paris to bolster his argument, saying: 'They have sections in Paris that are radicalised, where the police refuse to go there. They're petrified. The police refuse to go in there.'

He added: 'We have places in London and other places that are so radicalised that police are afraid for their own lives.'

Mr Trump currently trails in most opinion polls behind his likely Democrat rival Hillary Clinton ahead of November's general election

The Home Secretary joined David Cameron and Boris Johnson in criticising Mr Trump but some serving police officers told MailOnline he was right.

The proposal provoked outrage and inspired the then largest biggest petition to Parliament demanding Mr Trump be banned from Britain.

The Government refused to endorse the petition directly but several senior politicians, led by Mr Cameron, took the opportunity to enthusiastically condemn the then outsider for the White House.

In the same Piers Morgan interview Mr Trump said a post-Brexit UK would not be sent to the back of the queue to secure a trade deal with the US should he become president.

His comments contradict those of President Barack Obama who on a visit to Downing Street warned last month that Britain would be 'at the back of the queue' in terms of a trade deal. Mr Trump repeated his opinion that the UK should leave the EU and said: 'I think if I were from Britain I would probably want to go back to a different system.'

Asked if the UK would be at the front of the queue for a trade deal under a Trump presidency, he replied: 'I don't want to say front or anything else. I mean, I'm going to treat everybody fairly but it wouldn't make any difference to me whether they were in the EU or not.'

He added: 'You'd certainly not be back of the queue, that I can tell you.'
The identities of three young Americans who fled a sheltered life growing up in Ohio and California to join ISIS have been revealed in a new report.

Jaffrey Khan, 24, is believed to have fled the U.S. for Syria in 2014 along with his wife Zakia Raihan, a former class valedictorian, and her brother Rasel, who once aspired to enroll at Harvard.

The trio made their way to Raqqa, according to NBC News, where Zakia and Jaffrey had a baby daughter and began working at the main hospital serving the terrorists' so-called Caliphate.

Jaffrey Khan, 24, is believed to have become radicalized through his step-father before meeting Zakia Raihan (right) online, marrying her, and then converting her to an extreme from of Islam

Meanwhile Rasel, described by his family as a straight A student who loved to play computer games, is believed to have been killed in an airstrike, though the circumstances are unclear.

According to NBC, the trio's descent from privileged kids growing up in liberal America to die-hard jihadis began with Jaffrey, described by those who knew him as someone who 'struggled to fit in.'

Jaffrey's father told the station that his son was disruptive in school, found it hard to concentrate, was diagnosed with ADHD and proscribed a course of Ritalin to help calm him down.

Rasel Raihan, Zakia's younger brother, moved in with his sister in 2013 during a bout of depression, months before the trio left for Syria

The boy also grew up between households after his father and mother split at a young age, before both going on to remarry.

He turned to drugs, smoking pot as a teenager, and listened to hip-hop records with friends.

Disaffected with life, bored by school, and frustrated with his lack of achievement, it was not until his mother's new husband introduced him to religion that Jaffrey's life took on a purpose.

Within months he had grown a bear, began referring to Americans as 'non-believers', became angry at society and spoke of leaving the West to live in a Muslim country.

During this time he met Zakia online, herself a gifted student who aspired to become a doctor and was enrolled at Ohio State University.

During their conversations, however, Jaffrey managed to persuade her away from that life and into marrying him. She left Ohio for California to live with him, cut ties with her old friends, began wearing a headscarf and following a fundamentalist form of Islam.

Rasel, also a gifted student, was sucked into their web after pressure got to him at school.

Friends say a B grade on one report caused him to withdraw from social life, before a failed chemistry test drove him to depression and he started cutting classes.

After being placed on anti-depressant medication, Rasel is reported to have turned to his sister for comfort, before moving in with her and Jaffrey around fall 2013.

From there the trio moved quickly. In May 2014 the left their house and within two months were reported to be in Raqqa, where Zakia and Jaffrey live as husband and wife.
From popping bottles of Veuve Clicquot in helicopters to cruising around the Hollywood Hills in Bentleys and Rolls Royces - this man may be Australia's answer to the 'Rich Kids of Instagram'.

The extravagant life led by millionaire activewear businessman Tony Beig, 31, has been laid bare in scores of glitzy pictures posted to Instagram.

There are images of first class travel, Hollywood pool parties and shoulder-rubbing with the likes of senior Indian ministers and Instagram personality Dan Bilzerian.

Also common are Rolex watches, gym selfies and pictures where he is seen standing atop of luxury cars well outside the price range of most people.

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Partyboy lifestyle: Businessman Tony Beig (centre, backwards cap) enjoys a pool party with several bikini girls

Fancy taste: Mr Beig waves about a bottle of Veuve Clicquot during a helicopter flight above Rio De Janeiro

Bottle of wine, anyone? Tony Beig sits on the edge of a boat armed with a couple of beverages

Fast cars: The entrepreneur poses here with various flash cars at Malibu Beach, California

Hey, Beig spender! Dressed in a gold chain and white suit, Mr Beig poses in his Halloween costume one year

Mr Beig - who describes himself as a self-made man - told Daily Mail Australia in an interview: 'The lifestyle doesn't come easy. You have to work a lot for it.'

Born in Kashmir and raised in Melbourne, the businessman is the founder of the Dioz Group, an umbrella group of about a dozen companies, including the Alanic activewear brand.

Mr Beig graduated from Victoria University with a business degree. He started his company on the side at university and moved to California about four or five years ago.

There, he lives in a four bedroom home in the Hollywood Hills, drives a Bentley and an S550 Mercedes and is working to obtain a Rolls Royce Ghost.

It's the lavish lifestyle that motivates him to work hard.

'When you fly first class, have a private jet, a Bentley or Rolls Royce, that's what motivates you go to work on Monday,' Mr Beig said.

It's partytime: Mr Beig enjoys a moment with friends while partying in Las Vegas for New Years celebrations

'When you fly first class, have a private jet, a Bentley or Rolls Royce, that's what motivates you go to work on Monday,' he said

Poolside: From first class flights to jaunts in infinity pools, Mr Beig soaks in the life of a millionaire

Mr Beig (left, in G-Star raw T-shirt) hangs out with so-called 'King of Instagram' Dan Bilzerian (front left)

With around 55,000 followers on Instagram Mr Beig has increasingly turned his hand to sharing his wisdom with supporters.

He regularly posts inspirational quotes to his social media accounts, much as former Auburn council deputy mayor Salim Mehajer does.

Mr Beig captioned the picture of the Veuve bottle in the helicopter: 'Just sitting in the office is not the only kind of work.

'You can work smart and be working while sipping #VeuveClicquot and flying over #IpanemaBeach #RioDeJaneiro in a private Helicopter'.

Another motivational slogan he published said: 'If you like me, raise your hand. If you don't raise your standards'.

Mr Beig sips a cocktail while poolside at the Beverly Hilton in California in this picture. He advised his followers: 'Work hard so you can chill on your birthday'

Here, he enjoys caviar and a glass of wine during his first class flight

Chilling out in Las Vegas, Tony Beig plays with a flask of a considerable size

Behind the wheel of his Bentley! Mr Beig told Daily Mail Australia he owns one of the luxury cars as well as a Mercedes S550. He's also in the market for a Rolls Royce Ghost, he said

The son of the Deputy Inspector General of police in the province of Kashmir and Jammu, Mr Beig previously came to public attention when pictures of his father getting his shoes put on went viral.

The post was captioned: 'Real King - My Dad!!' and said the 'last time he put (on) his shoes himself was almost 15 years ago'.

It sparked a social media backlash but Mr Beig said: 'Media got it all wrong they didn't interview me or dad.'

'They thought who I am is because my father gives me money... It doesn't work like that.'

He said he had not received a dollar from his father since he was 18.

He said he could not enjoy his father's perks of office because he only sees him a few times a year for two days at a time.

Shakeed Beig, Tony's father, is a top official in the Indian police force - the Deputy Inspector-General

When asked who he looked up to, Mr Beig told Daily Mail Australia: 'I just am so motivated I look up to just the sky.

'You've got to aim high. I don't feel I have competitors.

'You look up to something... it's just I'm a bit different in that regard.

'I'm focused on myself so much I need to water my ground and make my grass green rather than checking other people's grass.'

Mr Beig said he is the producer of a forthcoming Hollywood movie, Glass Jaw, and his company runs other online retail and clothing companies outside of activewear.
her death and will prepare a report for the coroner

A teenager who leapt from a moving car during an argument with her brother has died in hospital after her family made the heartbreaking decision to turn off her life support.

Carmen Pua suffered serious injuries after projecting herself from the back seat of a graffiti-covered van travelling at speeds of 60 kilometres during a row with her brother Kevin Pua last Wednesday.

The 17-year-old, from Durack, a south-west suburb of Brisbane, was rushed to Princess Alexandra Hospital where she remained on life support for five days before she succumbed to her injuries on Sunday.

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Carmen Pua suffered serious injuries after projecting herself from the back seat of a graffiti-covered van travelling at speeds of 60 kilometres

The 17-year-old leapt from the vehicle after getting into an argument with her brother Kevin Pua

Her grieving friends have told of the last moments they shared with the 'kind-hearted' teenager as she lay unconscious in hospital fighting for her life.

'Your last day on life support today. I went and touched you for one last time, I sat by your bed for hours and hours... You were so peaceful,' one friend wrote, adding Ms Pua was the type of person to do anything to make her friends smile.

'You fought so hard. Today really made me question how is this fair. Where was God when I was praying for you to wake up,' another asked.

Her brother posted a status on social media to advise her friends she was in a coma following the incident, where he also said that he loved his sister very much and begged the teen to wake up.

Her grieving friends have told of the last moments they shared with the 'kind-hearted' teenager as she lay unconscious in hospital fighting for her life

'Your last day on life support today. I went and touched you for one last time, I sat by your bed for hours and hours... You were so peaceful,' one friend wrote

The 17-year-old was sitting in the back seat of the graffiti-covered vehicle with her grandmother as the trio headed along Progress Road, Richlands on Wednesday night

'She's in a coma right now and will be under the intensive care unit, please pray for her and sorry I won't be explaining any more,' he wrote.

Mr Pua told reporters of the frantic attempts to save his sister who was found 20 metres from their car on Progress Road, in Richlands, with serious head and chest injuries.

He said he was only minutes from home, with Ms Pua and their 71-year-old grandmother sitting in the back seat, when they started to have an argument.

'Just had a brother and sister talk, give her a bit of a lecture and she didnt want to listen,' he told Seven News.

Mr Pua told reporters of the frantic attempts to save his sister who was found 20 metres from their car on Progress Road, in Richlands, with serious head and chest injuries

He said he was only minutes from home, with Ms Pua and their 71-year-old grandmother sitting in the back seat of the graffti-covered van, when they started to have an argument

Mr Pua (right) said he had no idea that the 17-year-old (left) was about to launch herself out the rear door.

The Forensic Crash Unit is investigating the incident and will prepare a report for the coroner

He said he had no idea that the 17-year-old was about to launch herself out the rear door.

'It shocked everybody, didn't expect that to happen,' Mr Pua said.
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U.S sailors will defend their shores with one of the 'deadliest' warships on the seas as the navy takes control of the USS Zumwalt.

The destroyer - which has guns designed to pummel enemies from nearly 100 miles away - is the largest in the fleet but its state of the art design makes it so hard to detect that on radar it resembles the size of a fishing trawler.

It is believed that the Zumwalt, considered the fleet's most technologically advanced destroyer, will cost taxpayers around $4.4billion when it is finished and should be ready for active service by October.

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U.S sailors will defend their shores in one of the most technologically advanced warships on the seas as the navy takes control of the USS Zumwalt (pictured)

Sailors' uniforms and personal effects, supplies and spare parts are being moved aboard the 610-foot warship in anticipation of crew members taking on their new charge.

The Zumwalt is the first new class of warship built at Bath Iron Works, in Maine, since the Arleigh Burke slid into the Kennebec River in 1989. The shipyard is expected to turn the destroyer over to the Navy this week.

Electrician John Upham said: 'We've overcome lots of obstacles to get to this point. I think everybody in the shipyard is proud of the work we've done.'

The ship features an angular shape that makes it 50 times more difficult to detect on radar and it's powered by electricity produced by turbines similar to those in a Boeing 777.

Advanced automation will allow the big ship to operate with a much smaller crew than on current generation of destroyers.

The original concept for the land-attack destroyer was floated more than 15 years ago then underwent several permutations.

The ship's unique angular shape makes it 50 times more difficult to detect and on radar its size looks similar to that of a fishing trawler

The final design called for a destroyer with a stealthy shape and advanced gun system that can fire rocket-propelled projectiles with pinpoint accuracy.

But the growing cost forced the Navy to reduce what was originally envisioned as a 32-ship program to just three ships. The loss of economies of scale drove up the cost of the individual ships.

The slow-going and rising costs were little surprise after the General Accounting Office warned that the Navy was trying to incorporate too many new technologies into the ship.

'Zumwalt was a challenge to assemble because of all the new technologies, but sea trials show it is a world-class warship with unique capabilities,' said Loren Thompson, senior defense analyst with the Virginia-based Lexington Institute.

Some of the ship's 143 crew members have been in Bath for more than two years to prepare for the day they take control of it.

The Zumwalt is the first new class of warship built at Bath Iron Works, since the Arleigh Burke slid into the Kennebec River in 1989

The sailors will continue training to prepare the ship to be formally commissioned into service as USS Zumwalt at a ceremony in Baltimore, Kirk said. From there, the ship will travel to its homeport in San Diego for further tests and trials.

Shipbuilders in Bath are busy on the second ship in the class, the Michael Monsoor, which will be christened next month. Work also is underway on the third and final ship, the Lyndon B. Johnson.

Jay Wadleigh, president of the largest union at the shipyard, said Bath Iron Works was selected for the job because the Navy knew it would be done right.

'I think the way the Zumwalt performed on the three different sea trials was better than anybody expected - us, the Navy and the company,' he said.
A driver is in critical condition in hospital after suffering a heart attack when he was pepper sprayed by police, it has been claimed by witnesses.

The 44-year-old was taken to Westmead Hospital on Monday afternoon shortly after the altercation in Kellyville, north west Sydney.

Police approached his damaged Jaguar after noticing it parked on the side of the road with the driver still inside.

Officers asked him to get out of the car and an altercation ensued, a police spokesman confirmed.

A driver was taken to hospital in critical condition after going in to cardiac arrest when he was allegedly 'pepper sprayed' by police who approached his car on the side of the road in Kellyville, north west Sydney (above0

They would not confirm whether pepper spray was used in the scuffle as reported by Fairfax Media. It is now the subject of a Critical Incident investigation.

A NSW Ambulance Service spokesman told Daily Mail Australia they were called to the scene shortly before 2.30pm.

'We were called to an incident shortly before 2.30pm. Paramedics treated a patient who had gone in to cardiac arrest.

'He was consequently taken to Westmead Hospital.'

The man remains there in a critical condition, police said on Monday afternoon.

The 44-year-old man remains in a critical condition in Westmead Hospital (above) after the incident

'Police observed a vehicle with collision damage on just after 2pm Monday 16 May and it was stopped,' a force spokesman said.

'When officers approached the car, the driver, a 44-year-old man, exited the vehicle and an altercation took place.

'The man subsequently required medical treatment by NSW Ambulance Paramedics at the scene. He was taken to hospital where he remains in a critical condition.'
Aviatrix Tracey Curtis Taylor is no stranger to misfortune during her ambitious airborne adventures.

Last year the Bird in a Biplane raised more than a few eyebrows when her plane crashed into a parked helicopter.

But now it seems that the 53-year-old has courted disaster once again after crashing her vintage plane in America.

Journey: Tracey Curtis-Taylor re-created British aviatrix Amy Johnsons 1930 flight from England to Australia

Wood and plastic: The pilot crashed in the Arizona desert after refuelling in Winslow, saying later that the the 5,000ft altitude and high temperatures at Winslow airfield made take off difficult for the old plane

Last night The Times reported that Miss Curtis-Taylor escaped with just bruises after her 1942 Boeing Stearman descended after take-off, hitting a bush and flipping upside down.

The pilot, who is currently completing the pioneering US postal flights from Seattle to Boston, crashed in the Arizona desert after refuelling in Winslow.

She told the paper that the 5,000ft altitude and high temperatures at Winslow airfield made take off difficult for the old plane which is made out of wood and plastic.

She said: It seemed to accelerate normally down the runway and climbed normally initially but within a very short space of time it became obvious we werent going anywhere.

Adventurous: The 53-year-old pilot is currently completing the pioneering postal flights from Seattle to Boston

Success: Miss Curtis-Taylor, 53, arrives in Sydney in January after flying from London in an antique biplane

It wouldnt climb. It never got about 50ft. It was just a choice of a gradual turn and put the thing down and then it went into a bush.

It did a full flip and ended up the right way up. The aeroplane is just destroyed Tracey Curtis Taylor

She added: It did a full flip and ended up the right way up. The aeroplane is just destroyed.

Miss Curtis-Taylor was travelling with Ewald Gritsch, her Austrian passenger for that leg of the journey, when the plane came down.

Both managed to clamber out of the aircraft before waiting 20 minutes for emergency services to arrive.

Miss Curtis-Taylor, who grew up in Canada and has also lived in New Zealand, first made news flying the Spirit of Artemis 10,000 miles from Cape Town to Goodwood, West Sussex, in 2013.

Aviatrix: Miss Curtis-Taylor, who grew up in Canada and has also lived in New Zealand, first made news flying the Spirit of Artemis 10,000 miles from Cape Town to Goodwood, West Sussex, in 2013

'Bird in a Biplane': Miss Curtis-Taylor flying her 1942 Boeing Stearman Spirit of Artemis over Uluru in Australia

Last year she re-created British aviatrix Amy Johnsons 1930 flight from England to Australia.

The fuss made now with health and safety - you get completely bogged down with bureaucracy. That's what I'm dealing with now - a blizzard of paperwork Tracey Curtis-Taylor

She said at the time: 'The fuss made now with health and safety - you get completely bogged down with bureaucracy. That's what I'm dealing with now - a blizzard of paperwork.'

But her preparations took an unfortunate turn when she ploughed her Boeing Stearman into a stationary helicopter while she was taxiing at Goodwood Aerodrome.

Her antique biplane was damaged in the smash while the entire front of the Robinson helicopter was ripped off the planes propeller.

Miss Curtis-Taylor has been offered another Stearman which was used to train US aviators in the Second World War but she wants to complete her latest adventure in the original.
Thieves arrested outside a McDonald's less than one mile away

Bungling robbers try to fire a weapon, which jams several times

This is the moment two bungling robbers carry out what may be the most amateur jewellery heists ever caught on camera.

The robbery took place inside a shopping mall in a suburb to Sweden's capital Stockholm shortly after 10.30am last Friday.

In addition to struggling to open the door to the shop, the weapon jamming and using IKEA bags to carry their loot, the pair were later arrested outside a nearby McDonald's.

Dumb and dumber: The two men were filmed as they robbed a jewellery and watch shop in Kista Galleria shopping centre in Stockholm, Sweden

The two men arrive on a moped wearing nylon stockings over their heads, armed with a crowbar and what looks like a pistol in Kista Galleria in Stockholm.

Video shows the men park up outside a Klockmaster watch and jewellery shop, having somehow managed to get their moped inside the shopping centre.

'I saw two guys with nylon socks over their heads, but they hadn't pulled them down over their faces, and looked like they were following some weird fashion trend,' Mario, the witness who filmed the robbery, told Expressen.

Mario's mobile phone video shows the men running into the shop, after which one of them runs back out to back the moped in through the door.

Poor Hardy: The portlier of the robbers tried several times to fire his pistol into the ceiling, but the weapon jams and he can be seen looking at it incredulously

Epic fails: In addition to their gun jamming and decision to park the moped in the doorway of the shop, the pair had brought IKEA bags to carry their spoil

Facepalm: After first parking the moped inside the store, one of the robbers run outside again after realising they need their crowbar to actually get to the jewellery

The first robber then threatens staff with the gun, and appears to try to fire it, but the weapon fails him.

'The guy looked like he wanted to fire the gun into the cieling, but he can't really make it work. The pistol looks like it's jammed,' he added.

The second robber runs out to get a bigger plastic bag and a crowbar and they begin to grab watches from behind the counter.

Satisfied with their loot, they leave the shop and attempt to make a quick exit, but struggle to start their moped.

The bungling robbers were armed with the broken gun and a crowbar, and threatened staff in the shop

Amateur criminals: As his companion breaks the glass fronts and fills their huge plastic bag with loot, the robber with the pistol keeps trying to figure out what is wrong with the gun

If at first you don't succeed: The robbers try to make a swift exit, but the moped won't start properly and it takes them a few moments before they're on the run

The pair finally speed down the hallway, with the bag of jewellery trailing behind the moped as they go.

Stockholm police later reported that a significant amount of the spoil was found along the robbers' escape route.

They were arrested shortly after the robbery outside a McDonald's less than a mile down the road from the shopping centre.

The two men have been charged with aggravated robbery.
Comes as more than 300 business figures sign a letter warning that EU membership is hurting

David Cameron has reached out to Labour supporters amid fears they could support Brexit just to evict him from Downing Street.

The Prime Minister stressed the benefits of the EU for 'working people' and the cross-party nature of the Remain campaign as he warned that a vote to leave on June 23 could trigger 'national decline'.

The intervention, in a rare article written for the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror newspaper, came as the referendum battle became increasingly nasty.

Prime Minister David Cameron makes his point at an EU campaign rally in his Witney constituency yesterday.

Among the key developments with little more than five weeks to go until the poll:

Brexit's Tory big beast Boris Johnson faced a furious backlash after suggesting that Brussels had the same goal as Hitler of creating a European superstate.

More than 300 business leaders have signed a letter warning that the UK's competitiveness is being undermined by EU membership.

George Osborne has appeared alongside old Labour foe Ed Balls to stress the economic catastrophe that could follow Brexit.

The Confederation of British Industry has cut its growth forecasts for UK plc, saying that firms were putting investment plans on hold because they were worried about the result of the EU vote.

In his article, Mr Cameron admitted that it was 'not every day' a Tory premier wrote in the Mirror.

'But then it's not every day we face a decision of this magnitude: whether to stay in the EU or walk away,' he said.

'It's been an extraordinary time. I've teamed up with Brendan Barber of the TUC. I've shared a stage with David Miliband.

'Midwives and manufacturers, lawyers and labourers, farmers and phone companies, unions and universities - they've spoken with one voice, proving the strength of feeling about Britain staying in Europe.

'I don't speak out of any love for Brussels - just a deep-hearted love for Britain. When I look at the EU I see 500 million people we can trade with and a network of countries we can combat crime with.

'In times of economic uncertainty, when the threat of terrorism is so grave, I know we need those things more than ever.'

Senior Tories including former pro-EU former chancellor Ken Clarke have argued that Mr Cameron would not last 'five minutes'

But Mr Cameron urged voters to focus on the wider picture rather than his own future.

'We're fighting for our children's opportunities. As parents, we want the world to be their oyster. We want them to be able to travel, live and work abroad if they wish,' he

'EU membership has opened Europe up to the younger generation. Flights have fallen in price by 40% ...

'As parents we should be continuing to open doors, not close them. And we should be laying the foundations for their future financial security.

'Yet the Treasury has said that, outside the EU, our economy would be 6% smaller than it would have been. That's a cost of 4,300 to every household.'

Mr Cameron said some viewed Brexit as an act of 'national defiance' but it could 'lead to our national decline'.

'I've been in this job six years now. Whatever you think of me I know how Britain gets things done in the world. I've seen how free trade in Europe benefits working people,' he said.

'It's my steadfast belief leaving Europe would be a national error.'

Former London Mayor Boris Johnson on the campaign trail for the Leave campaign

EU countries could have credit ratings downgraded after Brexit



Other EU countries could have their credit ratings downgraded following Brexit, a leading agency has said.

Fitch Ratings said a Leave vote on June 23 would weigh on the other economies in the bloc and increase political risks in Europe.

While suggesting scores were unlikely to change in the near-term, it said negative actions could become more likely in the medium-term if the impact was severe or if significant political risks materialise.

Fitch has previously said that a vote for Brexit would trigger a review of Britains AA+ rating. Rival agency Standard & Poors has also said that the UK faces a greater chance of a downgrade over the coming two years if it leaves the EU.

In todays report Fitch said the effect on the UK would depend on whether it negotiates a favourable or unfavourable exit if it leaves the European bloc.

If favourable exit and trade agreements were reached swiftly, Fitch believes the effect would be mildly negative after initial market volatility,' it said.

However, protracted negotiation resulting in unfavourable trade terms would be more negative.

The report said the countries most exposed to Britain leaving the EU would be Ireland, Malta, Belgium, the Netherlands, Cyprus and Luxembourg, all of whose exports of goods and services to the UK are at least 8% of gross domestic product.

Fitch added that a British departure from the EU would create a precedent for such a move, possibly boosting the appeal of anti-EU parties.

The precedent could be even more significant if Britain were to thrive outside the EU, Fitch added.

Fitch also noted that a vote for Brexit could also lead to Scotland leaving Britain, which might intensify nationalist pressures in other parts of the EU, such as Catalonia in Spain.

Brexit could shift the centre of gravity of the EU, making it more dominated by the eurozone core, poorer, more protectionist and less economically liberal, Fitch said.

Though the potential economic impact of a British exit would be greater for the UK than the EU, Fitch said the impact on the EU would still be palpable.

Fitch also highlighted the risk of a fall in EU exports to Britain. The extent of that drop would depend on factors such as the speed and make-up of any ensuing trade deal between Britain and the EU and the extent to which the British pound falls against the euro.

A higher euro would make eurozone exports more expensive in Britain.
A council banned one of its bin lorries from the road out of fear the Union Flag emblazoned on it could influence votes in the EU referendum.

Concerns were raised that the refuse truck looked like one of Boris Johnson's Brexit battle buses, but the decision to take it out of service it has been branded 'political correctness gone mad'.

Brighton and Hove Council in Sussex had hired the 26 tonne lorry from Trash UK Ltd because of a shortage of refuge trucks. It was painted to match the waste company's logo.

Controversial move: Brighton and Hove Council in Sussex has banned one of its bin lorries from the road out of fear the Union Flag emblazoned on it (pictured) could influence votes in the EU referendum

Other vehicles needed urgent repairs, but shortly after the replacement was used for its first rounds it was banned from the road when local union members suggested it was 'too political'.

Council chief executive Geoff Raw made the call to take it out of action and it has now been collected by Trash UK and replaced with a plain truck.

GMB union branch secretary Mark Turner said 'it did look like a Brexit battle bus and people were questioning if the council was being impartial'.

But former Brighton mayor Lynda Hyde said it was 'political correctness gone mad', adding: 'We have used this company before and it is their logo.

'It is our national flag anyway. I don't see that it shows any allegiance to any party, and Brexit or the stay in campaign.'

Trash UK's boss, Chris Wood, said: 'I have never had a complaint before.

'We thought it looked nice, it never even crossed my mind that it could support Brexit.

'Since we have had trucks on the road we have always used the Union Jack as our logo. I only found out that it had been taken out of service on Friday.

Not impressed: Former Brighton mayor Lynda Hyde (pictured) branded the decision to ban the Union Flag emblazoned lorry 'political correctness gone mad'

'I think it's political correctness gone mad.'

He added: 'If the council are not happy with it then I have to respect that, they are my customer.

'If it causes this much grief then we will have to change it, but we've used it since 2004 and never had any problems before.

'No other councils have had a problem with it. It has been on the side of trucks for 12 years.

'I completely understand where the politicians were coming from on this but it did waste time and money.

'The truck was just there to collect rubbish.'

Mr Wood, who launched the Evesham-based firm in 1999, said his three by four metre Union flag logos 'simply reflect his pride to be British in an industry where most trucks are made in Europe'.

He added: 'I've only had two complaints about it in ten years - one from Brighton and one from an Army colonel who said the flag was upside down.

'There is only one way I will be voting in the referendum, and that is to stay in the EU.'

The council paid 200 to hire the truck for a day to replace other vehicles which were under warranty and needed new parts. That vehicle manufacturer will cover the cost.

After the refuse van had been used earlier this month members of the GMB Union sent out a tweet saying the south coast local authority was not remaining impartial by using a Union Flag bin van.

Local GMB union branch secretary Mark Turner said: 'We raised the issue because it had a Union Jack on it.

'The local authority should be impartial.

'All we did was tweet about it and then the next thing we knew the vehicle had been taken out of service.

'We are quite surprised that the council had hired a vehicle that the Union Jack on the side.

Brighton and Hove Council in Sussex had hired the 26 tonne lorry (pictured) from Trash UK Ltd because of a shortage of refuge trucks. Other vehicles needed urgent repairs but the replacement was later banned

'Too political': Concerns were raised that the refuse truck looked like one of Boris Johnson's Brexit battle buses (pictured), but the decision to take it out of service has been branded 'political correctness gone mad'

'It sends the wrong impression and it did look like a Brexit battle bus.

'A number of the work force raised concerns asking whether it was the right thing to be doing considering that we are in the middle of deciding about Europe.'

A spokeswoman for Brighton and Hove Council said: 'Councils have to pay particular attention to publicity during periods of heightened sensitivity before and during any election.

'We have to take care not to publish material which appears to be designed to influence voters and to consider suspending hosting third party material.

'Publicity is defined as any communication, in whatever form, addressed to the public at large or to a section of the public."'

She added: 'Concerns were raised on social media by members of the public that the council was promoting a political campaign, so some people clearly did think the image on one of the councils refuse trucks was of a political nature.
The mother of one of the 14-year-old Florida boys who went missing at sea has requested that a forensic investigation of their fishing boat be carried out, amid fears the may have been abducted.

Pamela Cohen, mother of Perry Cohen who vanished when out fishing with a friend Austin Stephanos, and her family believe that the teens may have been abducted.

She has requested the investigation be carried out soon, as the 19-ft boat arrived on a cargo ship at Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Sunday evening, and was due to be unloaded this evening.

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Perry Cohen vanished at sea when fishing nine months ago. His mother, Pam Cohen, has filed a request for the boat subjected to a full forensic examination as if officials were investigating an abduction or a homicide

Austin Stephanos and Perry (pictured) went missing on July 24 last year after setting out on a fishing trip from Jupiter, Florida, but never returned. A Snapchat (right) sent by the boys to their friends as they left the Florida coast was revealed last month

Mrs Cohen has written via her lawyer to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission requesting the examination, NBC reported.

Austin and Perry vanished on a fishing trip nine months ago and their bodies have never been found. Family members have suggested they may have been abducted.

Their capsized boat was finally located last month 100 miles off Bermuda and Austin's iPhone 6 was intact inside despite being submerged in salt water.

The discovery prompted renewed hopes for answers about the boys' disappearance as well as a legal wrangle between the two families over what should be done with the phone.

However, according to NBC, Apple found the phone not to be salvageable due to the length of time it had been in water.

The two boys' disappearance off the coast of Jupiter on July 24 last year sparked a an eight-day Coast Guard search of the Atlantic spanning 50,000 nautical miles, as well an an enduring, tragic mystery.

Their 19-ft single engine boat was spotted several times but only retrieved in March Norwegian supply boat.

Official reports into Perry and Austin's disappearance reveal that the two families had differing theories from the offset, with Perry's stepfather Nick Korniloff immediately raising fears they had been abducted.

Florida boys Austin (pictured) and Perry vanished on a fishing trip nine months ago and their bodies have never been found. Apple cannot recover Austin's phone because the device is severely water damaged

The discovery of the boys' boat - and Austin's phone - prompted renewed hopes for answers about the boys' disappearance as well as a legal wrangle between the two families over what should be done with the phone

He and Ms Cohen have wanted the boat subjected to a full forensic examination, as if officials were investigating an abduction or a homicide, for some time.

Ms Cohen also filed a lawsuit to prevent officials from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commision (FWC) from handing back the recovered iPhone to Stephanos and Austin's mother, Carly Black.

Officials had long closed their investigation, however, and duly gave the phone to Stephanos, who said he would have experts comb through it for clues before notifying the other family of the findings.

The Cohens insisted that they should have full access and the spat was settled by a Palm Beach County judge who ordered that the iPhone should be couriered to Apple and a full report sent back to the court.

Austin and Perry were last seen at about 1.30pm on July 24 when they went on a fishing excursion to Bermuda without adult supervision.

The pair had stocked up on $110 worth of fuel and the alarm was raised when they did not return to shore that night.

Their 19-ft single engine boat was spotted several times but only retrieved on March 18 by a Norwegian supply boat and is due to be returned to the United States in the next week

After just two days, the Coast Guard found the teens' vessel capsized some 67 miles off the shore of Daytona Beach however they were unable to retrieve it due to bad weather.

Items missing from the boat - including a white Yeti cooler and life jackets - gave the impression that the boys made improvised flotation devices, while a missing engine cover suggested they may have tried to work on the engine.

Also missing were a translucent Plano tackle box and a pair of white Royal brand fishing boots.

Two life jackets and a boat cushion were later found off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, but they could not be linked to the missing teens.

The families used a GoFundMe page to raise almost $500,000 for a private search, but that was also cancelled after it failed to yield any new evidence.

An official report concluded that the boys' boat had probably been overwhelmed by a huge storm that passed over the region that day. They remain classified as missing persons.




Fayez al-Sarraj said the West was partly to blame for the collapse of his country after the 2011 war

Libya's new prime minister today accused the west of abandoning the country after helping overthrow Colonel Gaddafi.

Fayez al-Sarraj said countries including Britain bear a responsibility for helping solve the resulting chaos and rejected any future foreign intervention.

His stark remarks - some of the first since he was brought into power - came as leaders gather in Vienna today to discuss bolstering support to his newly formed UN-backed government.

European ministers and the US secretary of state John Kerry will discuss the security situation in the war-torn country, which descended into chaos following western intervention in 2011.

Mr al-Sarraj said the international community's subsequent lack of support left the country mired in civil war.

He accused the west of losing interest after the toppling of dictator Colonel Moammar Gaddafi, which helped create a power vacuum that allowed militias to take control of areas of the country.

'The international community has its responsibilities towards Libya', he wrote in an article for the Telegraph.

He added: 'After 2011 they just let go. This allowed many countries to intervene and led us to where we are today.'

His critical comments followed those of President Barack Obama who earlier this year accused David Cameron of being 'distracted' by domestic concerns as Libya turned into a 'mess'.

British military officials have examined plans to send 1,000 training troops into the country as part of an Italian-led mission.

In his article, Mr Sarraj rejected any proposal of foreign boots on the ground, calling instead for more military training and the lifting of a UN-imposed arms embargo.

He wrote: 'When it comes to defeating ISIS, I remind our friends that this will be achieved by Libyan efforts and without foreign military intervention.

'Terrorists will be defeated by our armed forces uniting under civilian command.'

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and US Secretary of State John Kerry will discuss Libya's security situation with Mr al-Sarraj in Vienna today

Local forces are preparing for a major offensive against Islamic State in the coastal town of Sirte, where it is thought there are up to 6,000 jihadists.

The terror group has been able to spread in the lawless country, and has established it as its African 'caliphate' after being pushed out of Iraq and Syria by the western bombing campaign.

The EU is desperate to be able to extend its naval mission in Libyan waters to help stop the flow of migrants, but needs the Libyan government's authority.
She insists on nothing but the best, whatever the price. And what Marcela Temer wants, Marcela Temer gets.

Brazil's glamorous new first lady might have just found herself in the world's spotlight, but the 33-year-old appears to have long been practicing for her superstar role.

Her extravagance and excesses - and often extraordinary demands - have been known about for years.

Lauded as the Brazilian Carla Bruni, the stunning former model is 42 years younger than husband Michel, 75, who became Brazil's interim president last week after Dilma Rouseff's suspension pending an impeachment trial.

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Glamorous: Marcela Temer, 33, is Brazil's new First Lady after her husband Michel, 75, took the top job and has been raising eyebrows for her wanton spending of public money (and the age difference with her husband)

Flush: Marcela, who is 42 years younger than her husband, spent millions of public cash on house renovations

Despite the country's economic turmoil, Marcela Temer has refused to compromise on her opulent lifestyle

Dilma, who led the country since 2011, is accused of illegally manipulating finances to hide a growing public deficit ahead of her re-election in 2014.

But as Marcela settles into her even more privileged position, many in Brazil might not feel quite as proud to have, as one newspaper described her, 'the world's most most beautiful first lady.'

With the Latin American nation in economic free fall, and rocked by scandals involving greedy politicians, few will forgive the ostentatious first lady who seems dangerously disconnected from the woes of her country.

As she stood next to her husband at last week's inauguration ceremony, Brazilians were already venting their anger at the women who, for many, symbolises the country's gaping social inequalities.

'Look at that stuck-up woman, now we'll be paying for her shopping trips in Milan and Paris,' commented one.

'Great, now there's no hope for reducing the national debt. Her expenses will see to that,' said another.

It doesn't seem to bother Marcela though.

Even as her country slipped into recession, with millions losing their jobs and businesses closing by the minute, the wife of Brazil's new president refused to compromise on her opulent lifestyle.

When Michel, on taking office as vice-president in 2011, was given the keys to his official residence, she reportedly demanded a long list of multi-million pound refurbishments before agreeing to move in - to make her toddler son feel at home.

They included improvements on the swimming pool at the Jaburu Palace, all paid for by public money.

So for a year she stayed at Temer's 2million home in Sao Paulo, accompanied by her mother, while Temer lived in Brasilia on his own and visited Marcela and their son on weekends.

Once she did move there, expenses paid from the public purse shot up.

The good life: Marcela's mum Norma joined Marcela and her son on a shopping holiday to New York and another to Miami, just to celebrate Brazil's 'children's day'. Above, the family enjoy a fancy meal out

Mama: Marcela's mother Norma, who at 62 is thirteen years younger than her son-in-law, posts pictures of the results of plastic surgery around her eyes as well as photos of her flying first class with her daughter

Cheers: She has spent hundreds of thousands of her husband's (and the public's) money on treating her family to the high life she has enjoyed since marrying millionaire husband and now President Michel Temer

Travel: Marcela's sister Fernanda Tedeschi (left), leads an exotic life of champagne, shopping and holidays

Carnival: Marcela's mother stays with her daughter in Brasilia along with the nanny, a cook and two maids

Lavish: Her sister and her friends are regularly seen on lavish shopping sprees at local malls

The family-of-three have four chambermaids just to wash and iron their clothes.

Then, when she insisted her mother and younger sister join her living in the capital Brasilia, Michel bought a 1.5million five-bedroom mansion on the same street, and rented another four-bedroom nearby property for nearly 5,000 a month, so they could be close by.

And while the family only visited Sao Paulo on some weekends, they still insisted on a full-time army of staff at their house there.

Tattoo: She has her husband's name tattoed on her neck, which was first spotted in a 2011 appearance

Again, public money was used to rent an entire house close to their home in the upmarket Alto dos Pinheiros district, with an incredible 52 members of staff, including a team of elite bodyguards. The total cost of the Temer 'support house' was more than 20,000 a month.

According to observers, mother Norma and sister Fernanda also now appear to be living the high-life on the back of the millionaire politician, and are regularly seen on lavish shopping sprees at local malls.

While Marcela, her mother and sister used to dash around the capital doing manicures, facials, hair and beauty treatments, they mysteriously stopped frequenting their preferred clinics a few months later, amid rumours that she had contracted a team of professionals to do the job at home.

It would certainly fit the vain persona remembered by her childhood friends.

Thathiany Ferraz Pereira, 31, said: 'When we were young we imitated Xuxa (Brazilian children's TV star). She was the one who went to the greatest lengths, dressing herself, doing her make-up. She would spend ages in front of the mirror. She was and seems to still be very vain.'

Last year divorced Norma, who at 62 is thirteen years younger than her son-in-law, revealed on the internet the results of a plastic surgery procedure around her eyes. She also posted photos of herself enjoying first-class international flights.

She also joined Marcela and her son on a shopping holiday to New York and another to Miami, just to celebrate Brazil's 'children's day'.

Sister Fernanda, meanwhile, posed nearly naked in a provocative shoot for Playboy magazine - although, apparently under pressure from Temer, pulled out of the deal at the last minute and the photos were never published. They were later mysteriously leaked on the internet.

Even when she goes out for dinner, Marcela's diva antics are worthy of the most grandiose celebrities.

Palace: Marcela reportedly refused to move to Jaburu Palace, the official residence of Brazil's Vice President and only moved in when it had undergone multi-million pounds worth of renovations paid for by the public purse

She then insisted her mother and younger sister join her living in the capital Brasilia, so husband Michel bought a 1.5million five-bedroomed mansion on the same street, and rented another four-bedroom property nearby

Staff: The family only visited Sao Paulo on some weekends, but still employed full-time army of staff there

High-life: Improvements included work on the swimming pool at the Jaburu Palace, all paid for by public money

Property mogul: Not only does President Temer own a 2million house in Sao Paolo, but he rents a house nearby for family at a rate of 20,000 a month - including salaries for 52 members of staff

Recently, when she wanted a quiet meal with her husband at the exclusive Antiquarius restaurant in Sao Paulo, instead of having to share the upmarket space with other diners, she closed it for the entire evening.

As the couple shared an intimate dinner together, four bodyguards - one in the kitchen, one in the bathrooms, one at the entrance and one in the dining room - made sure they were not interrupted, according to reports.

Back home, the 33-year-old reportedly has a nanny, a cook and two maids, as well as her mother and sister, just to help her look after her only son, Michelzinho, now seven.

Even the school run and the daily walk of her Golden Retriever, Thor, has now been delegated to her staff.

And no wonder. With a full agenda of almost daily hair and beauty treatments, manicures, sessions with personal trainers, dermatologists and nutritionists, as well as those extravagant lunches and shopping trips - always accompanied by up to five security guards - Brazil's new first lady has a punishing schedule.

Diva: High-maintenance Marcela is known to shut down restaurants to get some privacy when she eats

Hangers-on: She moved her mother and sister in a mansion on the same street and they frequently accompany her on shopping trips, first class flights, as well as hair and beauty appointments

Saucy: Revealing photos of Marcela were also for sale from a mystery source in her hometown who claimed to have 18 photos of his wife in revealing attire, demanding 5,000 for their return. Temer didn't pay up

Vain: Friends from childhood have brandy the former beauty queen as vain, and don't think she's changed

Brazilians voters were not sold on the prospect of their new First Lady, who has a knack for spending public money. 'Look at that stuck-up woman, now we'll be paying for her shopping trips in Milan and Paris,' commented one. Above, Marcela's sister Fernanda outside the Louvre museum in Paris

And its something friend's say she'll be loathe to give up for her new official role.

Friend Patricia Nakahodo, who also worked as Marcela's dermatologist, said: 'Her routine is to do normal things, go to shopping malls, buy her own clothes.

'She doesn't have a personal stylist, because Marcela has her own unique style of dressing. I don't know if things will now be different, but she's not one to stay confined to her home.'

Although it's not a bad step-up for a girl who grew up on a dirt road and who only has 'receptionist' and 'beauty contest runner-up' on her CV.

Marcela was 19 and living in her home town of Paulinia, 70 miles from Sao Paulo, when she first met Michael Temer, then a well-known congressman, who was guest of honour at the launch of a local politician's candidature in 2002.

The pretty young girl, who had come second in the town's Miss Paulinia contest that year, was accompanied by her uncle, who encouraged her to ask to take a photo with the congressman. She left with a photo and the politician's phone number.

Days later, Marcela sent an email to Temer's office, who forwarded it to him by fax - and romance blossomed.

Humble beginnings: Marcela met Michel when she was modelling in a beauty pageant when she was just 19

Home: The former swimwear model met her millionaire congressman husband when he was visiting her hometown of Paulinia, 70 miles from Sao Paulo. He gave her his number and she sent him an email

Marcela's mother Norma reportedly accompanied her daughter - who until then had never even flown by plane - on her first date with the congressman, who is reportedly worth over 3 million.

A year later, the couple married but, perhaps wary of what people would make of their unlikely relationship, the nuptials were kept secret and only 20 guests were invited to the secret ceremony.

Temer's new wife was at least ten years younger than all of his other children from previous relationships, who are aged 43, 45 and 47.

But to her proud father Carlos Araujo, who is now separated from her mother, Marcela's her critics are just jealous of his perfectly preened daughter who bagged herself a millionaire.

'People say these things because they are burning up with jealousy.

'I have no regrets about my daughter meeting Michel,' he said in an interview.

'People say these things because they are burning up with jealousy. I have no regrets about my daughter meeting Michel.' Carlos Araujo, Marcela Temer's father

'My daughter is very happy. She is simple, reserved and [has her] feet on the ground. She knows she is only the wife of a vice-president. She knows she is not the star.'

Marcela first became a national talking point in 2011, after the inauguration ceremony of president Rousseff, where she appeared alongside the new vice-president.

Cameras also noticed a tattoo on the back of her neck inscribed with husband Michel's name, along with that of their son, Michelzinho.

Gossip columns and the internet went into overdrive, and for days Marcela was the No1 trending subject on Twitter in Brazil, while newspapers compared her to Carla Bruni and even Jackie Kennedy.

The interested was so great that, a week later, Temer broke off an interview to try to halt the media attention about his wife, insisting that she was nothing like the French first lady: 'She is incredibly discreet, she is my wife and the mother of my son,' he said.

It didn't help that, a year later, he published a book of poems called 'Anonymous Intimacy' inspired by Marcela, in which the then 72-year-old appeared to talk about his exhausting sex life.

'My mind, my soul, in embers, my body, burned up, consumed, dissolved, finally, leaving only ashes, spilled on the bed, to sleep', one of them writes.

Soon afterwards, the first saucy pictures of Marcela emerged, after a mystery source in her hometown claimed to have 18 photos of his wife in revealing attire, demanding 5,000 for their return.

Temer refused to pay up and they were later offered to journalists for 2,500.

For many Brazilians, Marcela and her family's lavish life symbolises the country's gaping social inequalities

The women treat themselves to manicures, facials, and beauty treatments while the country suffers poverty

Meanwhile, Marcela's contribution to public life mirrors her personal one - during the UN conference on sustainable development in 2012, she held a jewellery catwalk show for the wives of world leaders, exhibiting items made with precious stones worth up to 10,000 each.

Then last month the vice-president had to deal with another potentially embarrassing episode after a hacker reportedly retrieved three 'intimate' photos of Marcela from her mobile phone and demanded 70,000 for their return. Temer went to the police and last week the hacker was arrested, before any of the photos leaked out.

Perhaps his biggest headache, though, will be trying to rein in his high-maintenance wife while, as the country's new 'austere' president, he attempts to show the country he is reining in excessive spending.

Taking office at the swearing-in ceremony last week, Temer said: 'First of all, we need to balance our public spending. The sooner we are able to balance our books, the sooner we'll be able to restart growth.'

Already unpopular with voters after himself being named in Brazil's corruption investigations, and nicknamed The Butler because he is said to resemble a horror movie character, having a glamorous wife who continues to live a life of unashamed opulence, could be more a liability than an asset.

But Brazil's problems run much deeper and will take much longer to fix.

Unemployment skyrocketed in 2015, with economists predicting the number of those out of work to go into double figures in the coming months.

About a third of unemployed Brazilians have been out of work for more than six months, the highest rate the country has seen in ten years.

Yummy mummy: The then vice-president had to deal with another potentially embarassing episode after a hacker reportedly retrieved three 'intimate' photos of Marcela from her mobile phone

Little Michel: The couple's seven-year-old son is doted upon by a nanny, and his grandmother - who is younger than her President son-in-law. Abover, Marcela with her son, she is said to want a second child

Michel Temer has appointed an all white, all male cabinet - the first since the end of the dictatorship in 1985

To add to the turmoil, more than two million Brazilians are now expected to lose unemployment benefits by June, potentially pushing hundreds of thousands of families back below the poverty line.

Last year, more than 191,000 businesses went bust in the once booming Latin Amercian country as Brazil's GDP shrank by 3.8 per cent, worse than almost any other mayor economy.

Meanwhile, the country is battling a number of other crises.

It suffered its biggest ever ecological disaster in 2015 when two mining dams collapsed, unleashing 50 million tons of highly toxic sludge, including chemicals such as arsenic and mercury, into one of the country's main rivers.

Perhaps most urgent is the country's Zika virus epidemic which continues to sweep the country since being declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation.

An estimated 1.5million people have already been infected, while at the last count there have been 1,113 cases of brain-deforming microcephaly in newborn babies since October last year. Nearly 4,000 other possible cases are still being investigated.

But the amount of money put aside to fight the Zika crisis is 16 times less than what has been spent on hosting the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, which start on August 5.

The Olympics, which have so far cost over 7billion, and was supposed to be a 'coming out party' for once-booming Brazil, is another massive headache.

With a surge in violent crime in Rio, and worries over the Zika epidemic, terrorism and protests amid the country's political upheaval, only half of the 7.5million tickets have been sold. A global travel warning ban is advising pregnant women not to travel to Brazil

And there is potential for more violence street protests as political uncertainty, anger at the growing gap between rich and poor, and clashes between supporters on the right and left, continue to escalate.

One thing is for certain - the turmoil won't effect Marcela Temer, whether she decides to curb her public displays of excess or not.
Beatrice Lorenzin has also called for higher payments for second children

Italy is set to double the rate of child benefit handed out to families in a bid to halt the country's declining birth rate.

The move comes after fewer babies were born in 2015 than in any year since the state was founded 154 years ago.

Italy's health minister Beatrice Lorenzin has called for lower income families to be given double the 80 (60) currently handed out by the state, while also stating that higher payments should be given out for second and subsequent children.

Ms Lorenzin told La Repubblica newspaper: 'If we carry on as we are and fail to reverse the trend, there will be fewer than 350,000 births a year in 10 years' time, 40 per cent less than in 2010 - an apocalypse.

Pope Francis kisses a baby after delivering his blessing to the palms and to the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City

'In five years we have lost more than 66,000 births... If we link this to the increasing number of old and chronically ill people, we have a picture of a moribund country.'

The minister hopes to make the payments available for children under the age of three, but the changes could cost around 2.2 billion over six years.

In February, it was revealed that Italy's population had decreased for the first time in decades in 2015, as the number of deaths jumped more than nine per cent on the previous year.

That left Italy with its highest mortality rate since World War Two, and life expectancy levels unexpectedly dropped.

With the economy stagnating, the slump in productivity has increasingly affected potential parents as well over the past five years, national statistics office ISTAT said.

'Just as the lack of positive prospects for manufacturers puts a brake on investments, difficulties young couples face, above all with work and housing, hamper their plans to have children,' ISTAT said in its annual demographic report.

'A general sense of insecurity at many levels of society' was making people wait longer to have fewer children, ISTAT said.

Italy peeped out of recession last year, but growth rates remains weak and joblessness high.

The number of births fell to 488,000 in 2015, down almost three per cent on the year, while deaths jumped to some 653,000, up 9.1 per cent.

The move comes after fewer babies were born in 2015 than in any year since the modern state of Italy was founded 154 years ago

ISTAT said this increase was particularly marked during the winter months, when the flu virus is most active, and in July, when Italy was hit by a heat wave.

The average age fell from 85 to to 84.7 years for women and 80.3 years for men to 80.1 -- the sharpest drop since records began in 1974.

Immigration had kept Italy's population stable in recent years, but the number of migrants obtaining residency has almost halved since 2007 to some 245,000.

By the same token, 100,000 Italians emigrated last year, up 12.4 percent on 2014, as Italy 'loses its attractiveness both for foreign citizens and its own countrymen', ISTAT said.
by the Boston Public Library in order to preserve them for generations

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A fascinating collection of black and white photos show the chaos on roads during the dangerous early days of the automobile.

The stash of pictures, displaying the precarious nature of life behind the wheel for Americans in the 1930s, were taken by Leslie Jones, a photographer for the Boston Herald-Traveler newspaper.

The snapper, who worked for the Herald from 1917 to 1956, took hundreds of photos, capturing destroyed motors in the aftermath of often fatal crashes.

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Boston Herald-Traveler photographer Leslie Jones had an eye for a dramatic scene, including when this seven-tonne dump truck plunged through the Warren Avenue bridge, in Boston

Among the vast collection is this shot of a truck crashing through a garage several storeys up in the East Cambridge area of Boston

Often the dramatic and tragic scenes that Jones captured involved fatalities and in this shot a policeman tries to pull out a car that has crashed into icy water in the Boston area

Aaron Schmidt, of the print department at Boston Public Library, where Jones' images have been digitized, said: 'Leslie Jones had something that can't be taught, which turns a technology into an art - a great eye.

'He would arrive at the scene and instead of snapping off a series of indistinguishable informational photographs, he would create dramatic compositions for his camera using the wreck to tell the visual story of an intimate catastrophe.

'While he would highlight and dramatize the destruction of the auto, as evidence of the violence of event, he would also work in telling details to add emotional impact to the photograph.

'Streets signs, debris from the crash and interested bystanders in the background would be used to humanize the scene.'

Such was the dramatic and brutal nature of driving on the nation's roads that President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to state governors, asking them to curtail the number of deaths linked to car crashes.

In April 1938, photographer Jones even took pictures of an accident involving a motorcycle that was part of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's motorcycle escort.

This photo powerfully coveys the danger of driving on roads in the 1930s during winter. The icy roads appear to have been too much for this car to handle and it is literally wrapped around a tree after a crash in the village of Auburndale in Massachusetts

A number of the shots in the Jones collection involve cars being hauled out of water and here a car lies completely upright before it is taken out of a canal

This shot captures an accident that took place as a woman was being rushed to hospital. The car taking her to get treatment jumped a curb and careered into the steps of a nearby house

However, despite the crashes, the 1930s was an era of advancement in the motor industry, with features such as hydraulic breaks slowly being introduced.

Jones' family managed to salvage tens of thousands of glass plate and film negatives from the snapper's extensive career and as Boston Public Library continues to digitize Jones' collection, it is hoped that the images will keep providing a great insight into American life.

Although he was telling stories through his images, Jones, who died in 1967, preferred to be referred to as a cameraman, rather than a photojournalist.

Aaron added: 'Car accidents seem to have been one of the most heavily re-posted subjects from the online collection.

The 1930s was a decade of advancement in the motor industry with additions like hydraulic breaks coming into use - however, this motorist seems like they may have had their foot on the gas pedal rather than the break

In this interesting photo, members of the fire and police departments try to rescue people from a car stuck in Boston's Fort Point Channel

The mail could have been a little late after this crash. The photo also offers a compelling insight into the design of early automobiles - which by the looks of the truck - were very limited

Aaron Schmidt, from the Boston Public Library, said Leslie Jones had a 'great eye' for a dramatic scene as this great shot shows

'People seem to be drawn, in general, to tragedy and disaster, but I also think they appreciate the aesthetics of the images themselves.

'As a daily press photographer, his job was to document the history of his community in real time.

'His photographs were seen by thousands of people every day - creating, for the public, virtual memories of places and events.
The German government has launched a sex education website aiming to teach asylum seekers about everything from consensual sex and orgasms to porn and prostitution.

Newly launched Zanzu.de teaches migrants and refugees about sexual norms in their new home country, as well as sexual health, gender equality and LGBTQ rights.

The website, which cost German taxpayers 94,775, also has a section on pornography which explains that 'sex in reality is not often like this'.

Helping hand: The government-funded Zanzu intends to educate migrants and refugees on sexual norms, sexual health, gender equality and LGBTQ rights in Germany

Zanzu's porn section explains that 'in pornographic materials people always have slim bodies, big penises or big breasts'.

It goes on to teach that in most cases the bodies of porn actors have been 'surgically altered; and that while pornstars 'want and can have sex all the time and do not show any emotions', this is not a realistic expectation of sex with a partner.

The website,, launched by the German Federal Centre for Health Education, is part of a wider government effort to help integrate the more than 1.1million asylum seekers who have arrived in Germany in the past year.

Zanzu is intended to help bridge the gap between the conservative attitudes to sex found in many of the countries of origin of the migrants, and the more open German approach.

The website offers blunt and straight to the point information which a Western European would take for granted, but which may be new to a migrant or refugee.

The website covers everything from first-time sex and masturbation to honour culture and prostitution

Unrealistic expectations: Zanzu also has a section on porn which explains that sex 'is not often like this'

Communication is key: The website also has a dictionary section where new arrivals can translate words from their mother tongue to German

For example, its section on sexual orientation leaves no space for misinterpretation, stating 'No one can choose his/her sexual orientation.

'Parents cannot influence through upbringing whether their children become homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual.'

It also has a section on prostitution, a profession which is legal in Germany, where it is explained that: 'Men and women are only allowed to be prostitutes if they do so voluntarily. It is not allowed to force someone into prostitution in Germany.

'Even a marriage partner cannot force his/her partner into working as a prostitute.'

The website also tackles issues of honour culture, which is prevalent in some Middle-Eastern nations, informing migrants that this is punishable by law in Germany.
Teenager, 16, charged with assault and 18 year-old boy is to be interviewed

Two nurses and a security guard taken to the emergency ward with injuries

One nurse was allegedly kicked in the back of the head and punched

Up to 14 hospital staff were involved in detaining two teenagers

Police called to a hospital after reports of a brawl with a patient and family

One teenager has been charged after four nurses and a security guard were allegedly bashed in a hospital melee that involved up to 14 people.

Police were called to Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, in Herston, after a fight broke out between a male patient, family members and hospital staff just after 3pm on Sunday.

A 16-year-old boy has been charged with two counts of assaulting a public officer performing a function. An 18-year-man involved is yet to be interviewed by police.

Police were called to Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, in Herston, after a fight broke out between a male patient, family members and hospital staff just after 3pm on Sunday

A 16-year-old boy has been charged with two counts of assaulting a public officer performing a function. An 18-year-man involved is yet to be interviewed by police

Reports say up to 14 hospital staff were involved in detaining two teenagers involved in the brawl. It is unknown what sparked the assault.

Police will allege that a female nurse was punched in the arm and kicked in the back of the head, a male nurse was left with scratches and another male nurse sustained abrasions.

A security officer also sustained a fractured elbow and two nurses did not return to work on Monday.

A window was also smashed during the melee before the two teenagers were detained by security staff.

Queensland Nurses Union secretary Beth Mohle told brisbanetimes.com.au two nurses and the security had been taken to the hospital's emergency ward.

'This is absolutely a breach of the trust relationship so the psychological injuries can be quite significant and long-standing arising out of these sorts of (alleged) assaults,' she said in the news report.

A window was also smashed during the melee before the two teenagers were detained by security staff

'That's why we all as a community have to send a message that this sort of violence against health workers is totally unacceptable, will not be tolerated and swift action would be taken to address it.'

In a statement, Metro North Hospital and Health Service chief executive Ken Whelan condemned the behaviour and deemed it 'another act of senseless violence'.

'Our hospitals are places where people receive health care, not venues for bad behaviour and violence,' Mr Whelan said.

Metro North Hospital and Health Service chief executive Ken Whelan (pictured) condemned the behaviour and deemed it 'another act of senseless violence'

'Verbal abuse, threats and physical assaults against our staff are not acceptable and will not be tolerated.'
As she celebrated her 90th birthday with a star-studded extravaganza, the Queen surrounded herself with familiar faces  and some not-so-familiar ones.

In the front row of the Royal Box were many of her immediate family  Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.

But also seated in prime position was the King of Bahrain  a controversial figure who would have been unknown to many viewers of the televised celebrations.

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Front-row seat: King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, left, was seated in the Royal Box between the Queen and the Duchess of Cornwall for Her Majesty's 90th birthday celebrations at Windsor Castle last night

Light-hearted conversation: The King was seen speaking to Princesses Eugenie, left, and Beatrice last night

The Queen sits with her legs crossed as she sips tea with the late Emir of Bahrain, Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, on a jalsa , or low sofa, during a royal visit to the Middle East in 1979. The Emir is the father of the current King

Royal guests: The then Crown Prince Sheik Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, left, rides down the course at Royal Ascot, accompanied by Prince Charles, centre, and his father, the Duke of Edinburgh, in 1989

However the English-educated King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa are far from strangers to the British royals. In fact, the families have developed a close relationship that spans several decades.

King Hamad and his son, Salman, have been seen with Queen in the Royal Box at Ascot and have hosted visits from both the Prince of Wales and Prince Andrew in the past.

And they have continued to build their relationship even in the wake of public criticism, including widespread outrage over the Bahraini's treatment of protesters during the 2011 Arab Spring.

Born in 1950, King Hamad is the eldest son of the late Emir Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa and his wife, Hessa bint Salman Al Khalifa.

The Emir, who ruled the Gulf state from 1961 until his death in 1999, spent time with the Queen and Prince Philip during their highly publicised tour of the Middle East in 1979.

Royal visit: The Queen with Sheikh Isa bin Sulman Al-Khalifa during her trip to the Middle East in 1979

Lavish gifts: Resplendent in a pink evening gown, the Queen accepted a present from the Emir in 1979

Building a relationship: Prince Charles and Princess Diana visited the Emir during a Middle East trip in 1986

There was intense interest both in Britain and around the world to see how the rulers in the Gulf would welcome a woman monarch - and to see how the public would react.

The visit passed without controversy, perhaps partly due to the fact that, as a racegoer and horse breeder, the Queen already knew some of the Emirate leaders from their time at British stud farms.

Photographs taken in Bahrain show the Queen, sporting sunglasses and a light-blue dress, sitting with her legs crossed as she sips tea alongside the leader on a jalsa, or low sofa.

Another shows Her Majesty graciously accepting a gift from the Emir, dressed in a dazzling gown.

Less than a decade later, Prince Charles and Princess Diana enjoyed a week-long trip to the region, visiting Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudia Arabia in November 1986.

Royal guest: Returning the welcome, the Queen received King Hamad at Buckingham Palace in 2004

Generous: The Prince of Wales is given an ornate sword by the King of Bahrain during a trip to Bahrain in 2007

Host: Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were welcomed by King Hamad during a visit in 2007

The prince has since paid three visits to Bahrain, most recently in 2007.

Prince Andrew - who works around the world to promote economic growth and job creation in the UK - has also been hosted by the Bahraini royals, including a visit in 2014.

On that occasion he was presented with a decorative metal box from the Crown Prince of Bahrain, Sheik Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.

Other gifts Andrew received during his official trip included a floral display from Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa - who has been Bahrain's Prime Minister for more than 40 years.

In January 2012, the Countess of Wessex came under pressure to return lavish jewels given to her by the Bahrain royal family during a pre-Christmas visit to the country.

One set of jewels came from the king and another from the prime minister, who is also the king's uncle.

Personal tour guide: Prince Charles escorted Crown Prince Salman around Poundbury, Dorset, in 2007

Royal welcome: Prince Andrew was joined by Crown Prince Salman as he arrived at Royal Ascot in 2010

Family time: The Duke of York introduced the Crown Prince to his daughters, Eugenie and Beatrice, in 2010

Controversial: The Queen welcomed King Hamad to a Diamond Jubilee lunch at Windsor Castle in May, 2012

Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa looks set to continue his father's work in building a relationship with the British monarchy, having already attended Ascot as a guest of the Queen.

Photographs of the event show him arriving in an open carriage alongside Her Majesty, Prince Philip and the Duke of York. He was later seen chatting to the Duke's daughters, Eugenie and Beatrice.

Last month the Crown Prince stood in for the Queen as he presented the Sword of Honour at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy. Bahrain is one of a number of nations that sends officers to train at Sandhurst.

However, the relationship has also been the subject of widespread public criticism.

Just days before the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011, the Crown Prince's staff told the Palace that he was withdrawing his acceptance.

The 11th-hour change of heart spared the couple potential embarrassment as human rights activists had threatened to disrupt Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifas stay in London, insisting he was the chief architect of the crackdown on the Arab Spring uprising.

The couple had invited the Prince as part of a long-standing protocol in inviting the 'Crowned Heads of the World' and their staff had sought Foreign Office advice.

Prominent role: Crown Prince Salman stood in for the Queen as he presented the Sword of Honour to Kidane Cousland, 24, at Sandhurst last month. Bahrain sends its officers to train at the military institution

Relaxed: The Queen and King Hamad shared a joke while attending the Royal Ascot Horse Show last week

King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa is greeted by Prince Andrew ahead of the Queen's 90th birthday celebrations in the grounds of Windsor Castle last night. Prince Andrew has visited Bahrain on a number of occasions

The following year, the Queen was criticised over her decision to invited King Hamad to a celebratory Diamond Jubilee lunch at Windsor Castle, with human rights groups raising similar opposition to his treatment of pro-democracy protesters.

Another of the King's sons, Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, faced a legal challenge in London to strip him of diplomatic immunity over allegations that he was implicated in the alleged torture of protesters during an uprising against the ruling family at the height of the Arab spring in 2011.

The Bahraini government has strongly denied these claims.

However any controversy seemed far from Her Majesty's mind as she took in last night's extravaganza alongside King Hamad, with whom she also attended the Royal Windsor Horse Show.
A retired detective claims to have uncovered significant evidence linking serial child killer Robert Black with the disappearance of a British toddler who vanished in Germany 35 years ago.

Katrice Lee was snatched from a supermarket while out shopping with her mother and aunt in Paderborn, in the north east of the country, in November 1981.

She has never been seen since, with police convinced she was either drowned in a nearby river or taken by a childless couple.

But those findings do not tally with child abduction expert Chris Clark, who has been ruthlessly studying the crime over the last four years.

The former detective believes that for the first time young Katrice's disappearance can be linked to one of Britain's most ruthless child murderers, Robert Black.

A retired detective claims to have uncovered significant evidence linking serial child killer Robert Black (left) with the disappearance of British toddler Katrice Lee (right) who vanished in Germany 35 years ago

Clark is adamant that the swiftness and subtlety of the way the toddler vanished bears all the hallmarks of Black's killing spree.

But as well as that, he has now found evidence that the Scotland based poster worker was in the Paderborn area at the time of Katrice's kidnapping.

He claims petrol receipts in Black's as yet unreleased police file show he had travelled to the outskirts of the German city to plaster up posters in the lead up to advent, 1981.

Speaking to The Mirror, Mr Clark said: 'Katrice disappeared just a few weeks before Christmas, when Black would have been travelling to Germany to put posters out for alcohol and cigarette firms.

'He'd have been visiting British Army camps along the Rhine, including Paderborn. I'm quite convinced Black quietly befriended Katrice Lee, took her to his van outside the NAAFI and took her away.'

The historical German city lies just off the delivery route Black would have used visiting the country - Highway 33.

Katrice disappeared from a supermarket aisle in Paderborn - where her family were stationed through her soldier father Richard's role with the British Army - on her second birthday.

She was with her mother Sharon and aunt Wendy buying party supplies when she vanished. Both women had taken their eye off her for mere seconds when she was snatched.

Clark, 70, added: 'This was a child abduction by a paedophile and the manner in which she disappeared was exactly the way Black had been able to make children vanish.'

Black (pictured, left) worked as a delivery driver and cruised the length of the UK looking for victims to abduct in the 1970s and 1980s. His reign of terror ended in 1990 when he was caught by police with a barely alive six-year-old girl

Katrice's father Richard Lee (pictured with a photograph of his daughter) said of the link: 'It is a new avenue which is well worth looking into'

Black was serving 12 life sentences for murdering four girls in the 1980s when he died of natural causes in prison in Northern Ireland earlier this year.

The 68-year-old was strongly suspected of killing another 13 children. If involved in Katrice's abduction, it would bring his potential murder spree up to 14.

Black worked as a delivery driver and cruised the length of the UK looking for victims to abduct in the 1970s and 1980s.

His reign of terror ended in 1990 when he was caught by police with a barely alive six-year-old girl.

Katrice disappeared from a supermarket aisle in Paderborn while shopping with her mother Sharon (pictured) and aunt Wendy on her second birthday

She was found hooded, bound, gagged and stuffed in a sleeping bag in the back of his van in the Scottish village of Stow.

In 1994 he was found guilty of the murders of Susan Maxwell, 11, Caroline Hogg, five, and Sarah Harper, ten. Black was also found guilty in 2011 of abducting Jennifer Cardy, nine, in his van as she cycled to a friends house in 1981.

He sexually abused and killed her before dumping her body in a nearby beauty spot.

Only Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley  whose five victims were aged ten to 17  killed more children in modern British criminal history.

Black's file is held by Devon and Cornwall Police, who were set to charge him with the murder of Genette Tate, 13, before he died of a heart attack in January.

The serial killer is also considered the prime suspect in 10-year-old Silke Garben's brutal murder. The schoolgirl vanished from near her home in Detmold, 20 miles outside of Paderborn, in 1985.

Her lifeless body was discovered dumped on a roadside weeks later. She had been strangled.

Mr Clark believes the disappearance of another girl, Ramona Herling, 11, was also in the Black mould. She was taken just 14 miles from where Katrice was last seen eight years earlier.

Katrice's father Richard said of the link: 'It is a new avenue which is well worth looking into.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman added: 'The Royal Military Police are following a number of lines of inquiry and it would be inappropriate to comment further while these efforts continue.'
A paranoid schizophrenic who pushed a 'computer genius' under a Tube train has been sent to a secure psychiatric unit indefinitely.

Devindra Ferguson, 29, shoved software developer Kamlesh Ramji, 40, onto the tracks on the southbound platform at Kentish Town underground station in north London.

Mr Ramji, a business development manager at software firm Sage, was struck by an oncoming train in front of horrified commuters at 11.40am on December 2 last year.

He was rushed to St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, in a critical condition but miraculously survived.

He suffered a traumatic brain injury to his frontal lobe area, a fractured skull, which caused bruising, bleeding and air on the brain, punctured lungs, multiple rib fractures, a fractured scapula, broken arms and legs and fractured his pelvis in three places.

Devindra Ferguson (pictured on CCTV stills), 29, shoved software developer Kamlesh Ramji, 40, onto the tracks on the southbound platform at Kentish Town underground station in north London

Devindra Ferguson, 29, shoved software developer Kamlesh Ramji (right), 40, onto the tracks on the southbound platform at Kentish Town underground station in north London

Ferguson, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, had stopped complying with treatment in the weeks before the incident.

Judge Peter Clarke detained Ferguson under Section 37 of the Mental Health Act and imposed a Section 41 restriction order at Blackfriars Crown Court.

Ferguson will stay at Chase Farm Medium Secure Hospital for an indefinite amount of time until two experts and a judge deem him fit for release.

Prosecutor Julian Jones told the court that Ferguson and Mr Ramji were complete strangers.

The court was shown CCTV footage of Ferguson travelling up an escalator at the station and immediately turning and travelling back down again.

As he is standing on the down escalator Mr Ramji walks past him and Ferguson follows him onto the platform.

Once on the platform Ferguson walks past Mr Ramji, turns, walks back and stands behind him.

The CCTV footage shows Ferguson slowly walking behind Mr Ramji. At this point they made brief eye contact, the court was told.

Ferguson waits for the train to approach and shoves Mr Ramji in the back with two hands.

Mr Jones told the court: 'The push was so ferocious Mr Ramji ended up halfway across the tracks before being stuck by the train.'

The court was shown CCTV footage of Ferguson travelling up an escalator at the station and immediately turning and travelling back down again. He then waits for the train to approach and shoves Mr Ramji in the back with two hands

The CCTV footage showed other people waiting on the platform not even realising it had happened as it was over so quickly.

Ferguson remained on the platform for a few moments and then sprinted to the northbound platform.

He handed himself into Lewisham Police Station at 7pm that night, telling officers he had pushed a man under a train.

When cautioned, Ferguson told officers: 'All you need to know is that it was my intention.'

During interview he admitted to pushing Mr Ramji under the train but said little else.

Mr Ramji said in an impact statement read to the court: 'I was on my way to work to cash a cheque, it was a normal part of my day.

He was rushed to St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, in a critical condition but miraculously survived. He suffered traumatic brain injuries, punctured lungs, multiple rib fractures, a fractured scapula, broken arms and legs and fractured his pelvis in three places. He is now too scared to leave his own home (pictured after the incident)

The court was told how Mr Ramji woke up late on Christmas Eve and didn't know where he was or how he had got there. His injuries were so severe at one point doctors told his parents he might not survive

'It has had a severely devastating physical and emotional effect on me.

'I am finding it hard to come to terms with or understand why a complete stranger would push me on to the tracks.'

'I have had traumatic, life changing injuries to my body.

'The incident destroyed my independence and career I have been working on for 15 years.'

'I do not go out anymore and stay at home where I feel safe.'

The court was told how Mr Ramji woke up late on Christmas Eve and didn't know where he was or how he had got there.

It has had a severely devastating physical and emotional effect on me. 'I am finding it hard to come to terms with or understand why a complete stranger would push me on to the tracks. Victim Kamlesh Ramji

His injuries were so severe at one point doctors told his parents he might not survive.

Ferguson does not accept he has a mental illness and says he doesn't need treatment, the court heard.

His doctors have said that he has a severe and enduring paranoid schizophrenia.

He suffers from psychosis, irrationality, delusions, and hallucinations and does not have the ability to show insight.

There were no indicators that something so terrible like this could happen and that Ferguson, when taking his medication, is not at all aggressive, the court was told.

The incident was inexorably related to the offence, the court heard.

If Ferguson was sent to prison he would not comply with treatment and he would be a danger.

Judge Clarke said: 'When looking at a horrendous act like this you would expect it to lead to many, many years imprisonment.

'This doesn't just get put on the back shelf, this is something that is under scrutiny.

'He (Mr Ramji) has suffered from the longest list of internal injuries I have seen in 42 years.

Ferguson remained on the platform for a few moments and then sprinted to the northbound platform. He handed himself into Lewisham Police Station at 7pm that night, telling officers he had pushed a man under a train

'He has been in excruciating pain.

'It is something that happens in the flash of an eye so speedy was the attack.

'There has been much medical examination of Mr Ferguson since that time that indicated he was suffering from mental illness before this offence but had not been taking medication.

'I am quite satisfied that the appropriate course of action is to make an order 37 of the mental health act with a section 41 restriction order.'

'He will not be released until experts in law and experts in medicine decide he is fit to do so.

'In cases of extreme mental illness it comes out of the control of the justice system.

'In certain circumstances I have no choice and the law has no choice but to make a mental health order.'
Sir Michael Wilshaw (pictured) warned that thousands of children are hidden from authorities in unregistered schools - more than previously thought

Thousands of children are hidden from authorities in unregistered Islamic and Jewish schools and are vulnerable to 'extremism and radicalisation,' Ofsted has warned.

Inspectors have identified 100 suspected unregistered schools across the country since a team was set up in January to investigate the problem.

But Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw has warned that the number is likely to 'represent only a small proportion of the illegal schools operating across the country'.

The 100 unregistered schools identified is much higher than previously thought.

A school must be registered if it teaches more than 20 hours of lessons a week.

Unregistered schools are those that operate outside the supervision of the Department for Education, local authorities and Ofsted inspections and many of those identified are understood to be Jewish or Islamic.

Sir Michael has written to Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, to say he is 'deeply alarmed' by the number of unregistered schools - the vast majority of which are faith schools that teach children a religious education.

Some of the schools have been found to be exposing children to literature about 'extremist, sexist or partisan views' and for failing to teach basic facts about British institutions.

Inspections also found dangerous conditions in unregistered schools, including 'serious fire hazards' and one case where chemicals were found in an unlocked food cupboard in a room where children ate their lunch.

Last month, inspectors issued seven warning notices to suspected illegal schools in London, Birmingham, Luton, Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent, where they found around 350 children on the premises.

In his letter to Mrs Morgan, Sir Michael wrote: 'The evidence that they have gathered so far during this short period firmly reinforces my belief that there are many more children hidden away from the view of the authorities in unregistered schools across the country than previously thought.'

Sir Michael added: 'What we have found so far is likely to represent only a small proportion of the illegal schools operating across the country. Inspectors are hearing about suspected new cases every week.

'I therefore remain extremely concerned about the number of children and young people attending these schools who may be at significant risk of harm and indoctrination.'

Inspectors have identified 100 suspected unregistered schools across the country since a team was set up in January to investigate the problem

Ms Morgan asked Sir Michael last year to set up a new Ofsted taskforce to investigate suspected illegal schools, and pursue those responsible for running them.

Inspections uncovered 'serious fire hazards, including obstructed exits and inaccessible fire escapes', as well as schools with unsafe and unhygienic premises.

One case involved the discovery of 'chemicals and chemistry equipment in an unlocked food cupboard in a room where children ate their lunch', Sir Michael said.

Staff and volunteers were also found to have not been properly checked or cleared to work with children.

There is also a 'clear link' between the growth of unregistered schools and the steep rise in children being home-educated in England in the past few years.

Sir Michael said those operating unregistered schools are 'unscrupulously' using the freedoms parents have to educate their children at home as a cover for their activities.

He wrote: 'They are exploiting weaknesses in the current legislation to operate on the cusp of the law. Many are charging parents thousands of pounds to send their children to these unregistered schools.

'In doing so, many are providing a sub-standard education, placing children at risk and undermining the Government's efforts to ensure that all schools are promoting British values, including tolerance and respect for others.'

He called on local authorities to show vigilance and share intelligence with agencies including Ofsted so unregistered schools can be quickly identified and investigated, and said he has asked inspectors to write to councils after an inspection of an unsafe or unsuitable setting.

In November, Sir Michael asked Ms Morgan for Government support to ensure Ofsted has the resources to identify and support the prosecution of illegally operating schools, and in his letter said he was 'grateful' for the what she had made available.
Janine Hipkins lured her ex to her home when he was beaten up to 'scare him off'

A woman has avoided jail despite luring her ex-boyfriend to her home where he was beaten, bound and humiliated by two other men.

Janine Hipkins, 19, subjected her ex to a 20-minute ordeal in which he was punched, kicked, stamped on and tied up by her new boyfriend Joshua Glasper and his friend Darren Cosgrove.

The three attackers all avoided prison on suspended sentences this week after admitting causing actual bodily harm (ABH).

Teesside Crown Court heard the victim was invited to Hipkins's home in Stockton in July last year before he was attacked.

Glasper and Cosgrove emerged and punched the victim to the head before Cosgrove kicked his legs from under him.

As the victim curled up into a ball to protect himself, the men shouted 'come on big man, get up' and 'haway then, fight me', grabbed him by the neck and pulled him into the house where he was punched and stamped on.

Glasper wielded a hammer and threatened: 'If you say anything, I'll break your fingers.'

The victim was hit with the hammer shaft - then had his wrists and legs tied.

Prosecutor Paul Newcombe said: 'All three watched him in this pathetic state laughing and drinking. He was shaking, crying and begging for them to stop.'

The victim escaped with a bloody nose and bruises to her head, arms and torso, but the attack had a lasting impact on him.

He had been in a one-year relationship with Ms Hipkins, which ended 'on a sour note' when their families 'had words' at a Christening, the court was told.

Hipkins claimed she was not involved in the violence, which she said was to 'warn him off, scare him off' and stop him 'hassling' her.

The attack ended when Ms Hipkins called her father David Hipkins, 48, to the house, and he untied and released the victim.

But Mr Hipkins also punched the victim to the head and was fined 250 for assault this week.

Joshua Glasper (left) and Darren Cosgrove (right) laughed at the victim as he was being beaten up

The judge, Recorder David Dobbin, said: 'A plan was hatched to teach the complainant a lesson, and he would quite clearly receive a beating.

'This was a nasty assault. There may have been some history but that's absolutely no excuse for what happened.

'It is perhaps fortuitous that he didn't receive greater injuries than he did.'
Attack: Neah Tuohy, 24, of Chigwell, Essex, was jailed for 12 years for glassing a man in the face

A hairdresser screamed the system is f***ed as she was jailed for 12 years for glassing a man in the face as he lay unconscious in the street after a taxi rank fight.

Neah Tuohy, 24, joined a friend for drinks at a bar in Gants Hill, Essex, to celebrate St Patricks Day - before the pair were removed when a row broke out with Levi Miller and his girlfriend.

Tuohy wandered off clutching her drink but a huge fight began at a nearby taxi rank, during which she reached for her glass and thrust it into Mr Millers face twice when he was knocked out.

Mr Miller was left with permanent scars by his left eyebrow and just below his chin. Tuohy denied wounding with intent but was convicted by a Snaresbrook Crown Court jury after a trial.

She has a history of violence and has previously been convicted of offences including common assault, using threatening behaviour and causing actual bodily harm.

Tuohy, of Chigwell, Essex, was once jailed for setting fire to her former boyfriends front door and in 2012 she was sent to prison for knifing a man in the buttocks at a house party.

The licence period on that sentence had barely expired before she carried out her latest offence after drinking at Sidneys Bar and Lounge in March last year.

Sentencing her to 12 years in prison, Judge Sheelagh Canavan said: For a 24-year-old woman you have what can only be described as an appalling history of violence.

Sentenced: Tuohy (pictured) joined a friend for drinks at a bar in Gants Hill, Essex, to celebrate St Patricks Day - before the pair were removed after an argument broke out with a man and his girlfriend

Guilty: Tuohy denied wounding with intent but was convicted by a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court after a trial

From the age of 14 you have regularly throughout your lifetime lost your temper. When you lose your temper you react by being violent towards others.

At times that has manifested in making threats of violence towards people but on a number of occasions you have gone beyond that and you have been physically violent towards others.

It is luck more than judgement you did not blind him or indeed kill him Judge Sheelagh Canavan

You lose your temper - you respond violently. If you are in drink it is that much worse. It is clear to me that at this point Mr Miller was particularly vulnerable.

'He was lying unconscious on the floor. You then armed yourself, I am sure for the purpose of stabbing Mr Miller in the face, because - once again - you had lost your temper completely.

It is luck more than judgement you did not blind him or indeed kill him because that is how dangerous what you did to him was.
Ludwik the guinea pig has gone from abandoned rescue animal to beloved pet and Instagram star in less than a year - and now poses for thousands of fans every day.

Ludwik's owner Agata Nowacka, from Warsaw, Poland found him abandoned in a pet store, riddled with fungal infection and diseases, and took him in and nursed him back to health.

About a year ago, she set up an Instagram account for Ludwik, who is a skinny guinea pig. They are a hairless breed so Ludwik needs weekly baths and a strict moisturising regime to stay healthy.

Ludwik has now garnered more than 57,000 followers by posing in cute outfits and next to props for weekly snaps.

'I photograph him every day so it can be hard to have fresh ideas, but Ludwik inspires me a lot,' Ms Nowacka said.

'I get a very positive reaction - most people think he's really cute or funny.'

Popular guy: Ludwik the guinea pig has more than 57,000 followers on Instagram

Adorable: Ludwik is a 'skinny guinea pig', a special hairless breed of guinea pig

Global sensation: Ludwik poses with a miniature globe in this snap

Ludwik's owner Agata Nowacka, from Warsaw, Poland, found Ludwik abandoned in a pet shop

When she found him in the shop, Ludwik had a fungal infection and suffered from other diseases

Ms Nowacka nursed Ludwik back to health and opened an Instagram account for him

Glamorous: Ludwik the naked guinea pig poses with a piece of fabric with Gucci logos

Cute: The little guinea pig looks coyly at the camera while munching on some potpurri
World powers have pledged to lift an arms embargo so that Libya can defend its people against the growing threat presented by ISIS militants.

Diplomats met at a summit in Vienna where they also promised to help supply the Libyan armed forces with weapons, to combat the terrorists who had overrun its Mediterranean coastal city of Sirte.

The conference was co-chaired by US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni whose country has faced a major influx of migrants from Libya fleeing violence and poverty.

War-torn: Libya has been in a state of chaos since the death of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011

A statement said: 'The Government of National Accord has voiced its intention to submit appropriate arms embargo exemption requests to the UN Libya Sanctions Committee to procure necessary lethal arms and materiel to counter UN-designated terrorist groups and to combat (IS) throughout the country.

'We will fully support these efforts.'

The North African nation was plunged into chaos after the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival militias vying to control the oil-rich country.

Taking advantage of the mayhem, the Islamic State group has carved itself a bastion and transformed Sirte into a training camp for militants.

A unity government was formed in late March after months of negotiation by UN mediators in a bid to end the political chaos that has undermined the fight against IS.

But while the Government of National Accord has received backing from key institutions like the central bank and the National Oil Corporation, it still faces resistance from rival administrations in the east and west of Libya.

In a bid to stabilise the country, the fledgling regime of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj drew up a list of requests for Western partners to assist its forces with arms, training and intelligence.

Summit: US Secretary of State John Kerry (right) meets and Libyan Prime Minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj during the talks in Vienna today

The demands were presented at the Vienna conference, whose attendees included the UN's special envoy to Libya Martin Kobler and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

Europe fears the jihadists, who have in recent weeks made new advances, will use Sirte's port and airport as a springboard to launch attacks on the continent.

'We look forward to partnering with the GNA and neighbouring countries to tackle the threat posed throughout the Mediterranean and on its land borders by criminal organisations engaged in all forms of smuggling and trafficking, including in human beings,' the world powers including Russia and Saudi Arabia said in their statement.

'We are ready to respond to the Libyan government's requests for training and equipping the Presidential Guard and vetted forces from throughout Libya.'

Libya's leader, who was also present at the Vienna talks, insisted his country needed assistance, not intervention.

Islamic State group militants are shown parading in a street in Libya's coastal city of Sirte in this image from Islamist media outlet Welayat Tarablos in early 2015

'We are not asking for foreign boots on the ground, but we are requesting assistance with training, and lifting the arms embargo on Libya,' Sarraj wrote in a column published in the The Telegraph on Monday.

Libya's divisions have once again deepened in recent days, with the GNA and Haftar's forces each announcing their own plans to fight IS and 'liberate' Sirte.

'This is a mistake. It must be prevented... we can no longer accept this division,' said Nicola Latorre, chairman of the defence committee of the Italian senate and an IS expert.

Claudia Gazzini, a Libya analyst at the International Crisis Group, has also warned that the race for Sirte is pushing any hope of a political solution further away.

IS is estimated to have around 5,000 fighters in Libya, and it is trying to enlist hundreds more.

This month the jihadists launched suicide attacks on key checkpoints in government-held territory along the Mediterranean coast.
A service station attendant was robbed by a masked raider wielding a propane blowtorch on Saturday.

Terrifying CCTV footage of the incident shows the man casually walking into the service station in Tuggeranong, ACT, before waving the weapon in the attendants face and demanding cash.

After the robbery the man ran into a nearby nature reserve and police are still on the hunt for him, reported the Canberra Times.

CCTV footage shows the masked man threaten a service station attendant by waving a blowtorch in his face

The man walks slowly into the service station in Tuggeranong, ACT, with a blue blowtorch in his right hand

The robbery happened around 10pm on Saturday at the Woolworths petrol station on Norman Lindsay Street in the suburb of Conder.

The man, wearing a large grey hooded sweatshirt, baggy black jeans and a balaclava, walks into the store and slowly makes his way to the counter.

He repeatedly points at the till with his free hand, before gesturing at the attendant with the blue propane blowtorch.

The man points at the till with his free hand before gesturing at him with the weapon

After the cash is handed over, the man walks out of the store before running across the forecourt into a nearby nature reserve

After the attendant hands over cash from the till, the robber walks from the store before running across the petrol stations forecourt.

ACT Police have described the man as a slim Caucasian with an Australian accent.

They said he was about 170 centimetres tall and was likely to be in his early 20s.
Darcy 'Clint' Pendleton, 34, was killed in a shootout with authorities on Sunday in an abandoned house

A man suspected in the shooting of a police officer during a traffic stop has been shot and killed in an incident that also left an FBI agent wounded, Illinois State Police said.

Dracy 'Clint' Pendleton, of Bellflower, Illinois, was killed in a shootout early Sunday at an abandoned house near the Shawnee National Forest, southern Illinois, police said in an emailed statement.

'Pendleton is no longer a threat to the communities of southern Illinois,' the statement said.

The name and condition of the wounded federal agent was not immediately disclosed.

The News-Gazette cited FBI special agent Sean Cox saying the injured agent 'is going to be OK'.

Pendleton was charged with attempted murder in the May 7 shooting of a police officer in Mahomet, Illinois.

The incident also sparked a fatal collision when a trooper pursuing Pendleton struck and killed a 26-year-old woman in Decatur, some 45 miles to the southwest.

The manhunt lasted for more than a week. Authorities had closed off a portion of the national forest since May 9 when they found a stolen pickup truck they believed Pendleton was using.

State police said Pendleton was seen just after midnight running into woods near a church cemetery, carrying a rifle and wearing a bandolier shoulder belt that holds bullet cartridges.

He was found inside the home about a half-mile away around 5am, when a firefight with state police and FBI officers ensued.

Pendleton's troubles with the law started last week when Officer Jeremy Scharlow stopped him for a minor traffic violation. He pulled a gun and fired multiple shots at Scharlow. Above police investigate the first crime scene on May 8

Scharlow was struck once in the arm before returning fire at Pendleton, who ran into his home and retrieved his rifle to fire more shots at the officer. Above police investigate the first crime scene on May 8

A relative said Pendleton, the father of two sons, both under two, had recently separated from his wife and moved out of their home.

Pendleton's troubles with the law started last week when Officer Jeremy Scharlow stopped him for a minor traffic violation on Sunday night around 11pm.

Pendleton was let off with a warning but moments later did something that caused Scharlow, 35, to go back over before a fight broke out between the pair.

Police say Scharlow, who is a nine-year veteran of the force, was hit in the head and tried to use his Taser on Pendleton without having an effect.

Pendleton then pulled out a handgun and fired multiple times at the officer, who was struck once in the arm before returning fire.

The suspect then ran into his home where he retrieved the rifle and came back outside before firing several more rounds at the officer.

Two other cops nearby heard the gunfire and were able to drag their wounded colleague to safety as Pendleton jumped into a pickup truck, rammed the officer's car, and fled, police say.

Scharlow was treated and released from a hospital the following morning.
A cancer sufferer has received America's first ever penis transplant after undergoing experimental surgery to attach a dead man's member.

Thomas Manning, 64, underwent the revolutionary operation at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, enduring an incredible 15-hours on the operating table.

The surgery was carried out as part of a study to help combat victims, cancer patients and those injured in accidents, reports the New York Times.

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Thomas Manning, 64, (pictured) underwent America's first penis transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, enduring 15-hours on the operating table

Mr Manning, who is not married and does not have any children, said the operation had 'quite literally saved his life'.

'In 2012, my life changed forever when I suffered a debilitating work accident, followed by a devastating cancer diagnosis,' he said, in a statement.

'Today, I begin a new chapter filled with personal hope and hope for others who have suffered genital injuries, particularly for our service members who put their lives on the line and suffer serious damage as a result.'

He added that the ground-breaking surgery allowed him a 'second chance' he had never believed was possible.

Doctors had first noticed Mr Manning was suffering from cancer after he suffered severe injuries in an accident at work involving heavy equipment. During his treatment, medics noticed a growth on his penis and he was later diagnosed with an aggressive form of penile cancer.

During surgery doctors at the hospital (pictured) connected nerves, veins and arteries from the donor penis to Mr Manning

While it is rare, there are bout 2,030 new cases and 340 deaths expected in the US in 2016, the consequences of the cancer can destroy a sufferer's life.

Many find the loss devastating for their confidence and sense of identity, a feeling Mr Manning can relate to.

He said: 'Men judge their masculinity with their bodies.'

Dr. Dicken Ko ,a leader in transplants at the hospital, said that not only did genital amputee patients suffer loss of urinary and sexual function, they also suffered a 'loss of identity.'

'Many of these patients suffer in silence. And this patient has now found his voice,' he said at a press conference at Massachusetts General today.

To save his life doctors were forced to remove most of Mr Manning's penis, leaving him with just a stump about one-inch in length.

Men judge their masculinity with their bodies Thomas Manning

The circumstances of the amputation would be life-altering, he would have to urinate sitting down and could not be intimate with anyone.

He said: 'I wouldn't go near anybody. I couldn't have a relationship with anybody. You can't tell a woman, 'I had a penis amputation.'

However, Mr Manning never gave up hope of a transplant - despite the fact surgeons had not even considered such a procedure at the time - and a year after his surgery, doctors got in touch.

He endured a grueling year of tests and psychological evaluations, but was eventually put on the waiting list and after just two weeks a donor with the right blood type and skin color was found.

During surgery doctors connected nerves, veins and arteries from the donor penis to Mr Manning.

During surgery doctors connected nerves, veins and arteries from the donor penis to Mr Manning and nerves are expected to grow into the organ at the rate of an inch per month

Nerves are then expected to grow into the penis at a rate of about one inch per month, eventually enabling sexual function.

'We are cautiously optimistic,' said Dr. Curtis L. Cetrulo, a leader of the surgical team at Massachusetts General Hospital, 'It's still early days but we're hopeful.'

He added that the patient was already out of bed while emotionally, he was 'doing amazing.'

However, it was by no means plain sailing from there - after the operation Mr Manning began to hemorrhage and was taken back to the hospital for treatment.

Thankfully, the complication did not prove to be fatal and after recovering he began to dream of getting his love life back and working again.

However, he admits he is still too scared to check out the results of the surgery.

He said: 'If I'm lucky, I get 75 percent of what I used to be,' he said. 'Before the surgery I was 10 percent. But they made no promises. That was part of the deal.'

Dr. Curtis L. Cetrulo (pictured), a leader of the surgical team, at Massachusetts General Hospital said transplants can transform and even save lives

Mr Manning, who will be on immuno-suppressants for the rest of his life, has thanked his 'extraordinary medical team' at Mass General, 'who helped not only make this possible, but quite literally saved my life.'

He also thanked the family of the donor, 'whose wonderful gift has truly give me the second chance I never thought possible.'

'I thank my mother for standing by my side and helping me through each step of the way,' he added. 'In sharing this success with all of you, it's my hope we can usher in a bright future for this type of transplantation.'

Alexandra Glazier, president and CEO of the New England Organ Bank, said that the transplant was made possible because the donor family had the strength to look past its own grief and see the ability to help someone in need.

'To this donor family, we offer our thoughts as they struggle with their loss and our humble thank you, deep appreciation and admiration for the humanity they showed,' Glazier said at the conference.

'They wish the recipient to know that they feel blessed and are delighted to hear his recovery is going well and are praying that his recovery continues.'

While Mr Manning is breaking ground in the US he is by no means the first to have such an operation worldwide.

Last year a 21-year-old man in South Africa underwent nine-hours of surgery to have a donor member attached, after he was left with just a 1cm stump for a penis due to a botched circumcision.

Miraculously after his life-changing surgery he later announced he had impregnated his partner.

However, not all of the donations have a happy ending - sadly ten years ago, a man in China received a transplant, but asked surgeons to remove the donated penis two weeks after the operation.

Back in the United States another patient will hope to benefit from the same surgeons that helped Mr Manning.

The patient's penis was destroyed by burns in a car accident and he is now waiting for a transplant, while surgeons at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore, are hoping to operate on a combat veteran who suffered injuries in Afghanistan.

Armed forces veterans are a concern in the United States due to the alarming rise in suicide rates involving those with severe penile injuries

The estimated cost of the operations can be as much as $75,000 but Johns Hopkins and Massachusetts General are footing the bill and the doctors are working for free.

In particular armed forces veterans are a concern in the United States due to the alarming rise in suicide rates that effect those with damage to their penises - from 2001 to 2013, 1,367 suffered such injuries.

Dr. Cetrulo said that a transplant can save a life.

'They're 18- to 20-year-old guys, and they feel they have no hope of intimacy or a sexual life,' he said of the veterans. They can't even go to the bathroom standing up.'

'We are hopeful that these reconstructive techniques will allow us to alleviate the suffering and despair of those who have experienced devastating genitourinary injuries and are often so despondent they consider taking their own lives,' said Cetrulo, of the MGH Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the Transplant Center.

'The entire transplant team has worked tirelessly to ensure that our patient is on the path to recovery, thanks in part to the gift of organ donation.'

The doctor said he hoped that the pioneering surgery, which had been inspired by wounded veterans, will become 'a common part of reconstructive surgery moving forward.'
A chiropractor has been banned from treating children after producing a viral video which shows him cracking a premature baby's spine to treat colic.

Dr Ian Rossborough triggered a statewide clampdown on 'rogue chiropractors' in Victoria after videoing himself cracking a four-day-old child's back and neck in a controversial treatment.

He is being investigated by the Chiropractic Board of Australia after Victoria's Health Minister wrote to them expressing concerns about his 'unsafe procedures', reported the Herald Sun.

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One video shows Dr Rossborough (pictured) sitting with his daughter Isla on his lap. He says, 'I'm just going to go ahead and adjust this', before jerking the child's neck

The Melbourne practitioner, who works at a clinic in Parkdale, has agreed not to treat any patients under the age of 18 while the investigation continues.

The Chiropractic Board will conclude its investigation on June 2, when it will hold an inquiry into Dr Rossborough's conduct.

A spokeswoman for the board said they could not comment on individual cases.

Dr Rossborough has agreed not to treat any children while the Chiropractic Board of Australia continues its investigation

Victorias Health Minister Jill Hennessy recently wrote to the Chiropractic Board of Australia raising concerns in relation to recent reports of unsafe procedures being performed on young children.

Ms Hennesseys concerns were prompted by a video which emerged on YouTube of Dr Ian Rossborough manipulating a premature babys spine to treat colic and reflux.

The Victorian MP wrote: It is very clear that chiropractors cannot treat autism, [they] cannot treat colic and I'm deeply concerned to see very young babies and children being treated in this way.

I want to know that the chiropractic board is investigating these, and I want to know that they are policing their code of conduct because there are things that might, on the face of it, sound like innocent claims, but they are potentially very, very dangerous.'

Victorias Health Minister Jill Hennessy (pictured) wrote to the Chiropractic Board of Australia raising concerns after a video emerged of Melbourne chiropractor Ian Rossborough, manipulating a babys

In a response to Ms Hennessey the Chiropractic Board of Australia said that they recognise and understand the Ministers concerns.

They said: The public are entitled to receive safe, ethical and competent care from chiropractors.

The Chiropractic Board of Australia regulates individual chiropractors and sets the standards they must meet.

The requirement for chiropractors to provide care to the public that is evidence-based is a key component of the professional standards, codes and guidelines to which the Board expects practitioners to adhere.

Practitioners have also been warned to practise within the limits of their competency.

In a response to Ms Hennessey the Chiropractic Board of Australia said that they recognise and understand the Ministers concerns raised when a four-day-old was seen having her back cracked (pictured)

The young infant in the original video which raised concerns is seen crying after the procedure. The Chiropractic board of Australia has said an investigation is underway

The board wrote: AHPRA and the Board have a number of investigations underway, particularly in relation to advertising claims being made by chiropractors.

While we cannot discuss individual matters to protect the integrity of the processes, we will provide updates within the requirements of the National Law.

On Rossborough's website he describes himself as a doctor who has been a 'health care professional for over 30 years'

Dr Andrew Lawrence, deputy president of the Chiropractors' Association of Australia told the ABC that Melbourne chiropractics could be part of a treatment for autism.

He said: They're complex conditions and they have lots of parts to them, so chiropractic can be involved in part of the delivery of treatment to children and adults on the autism spectrum.

Mr Lawrence agreed that the video showing a babies back being manipulated did not look good as this type of adjustment on a four-day-old would not be recommended, he added.

President of the College of GPs, Dr Frank Jones told the Daily Mail Australia that this is an unnecessary and seemingly almost cruel process when referred to the video by Dr Rossborough.

Dr Rossborough posts many videos of him treating patients to his YouTube channel, however the video, which now has over a million views, showing him cracking the back of a four-day old baby girl caused particular concern.

In this footage he is seen holding the baby girl and wiggling her around as he talks the parents through the adjustment.

He stretches out her tiny body and there is a loud crack, followed by crying from the child.

On his website, Dr Rossborough describes himself as a doctor who 'has been a health care professional for over 30 years.'

Another video shows him sitting with his daughter Isla on his lap in the video.

He says: 'I'm just going to go ahead and adjust this,' in the footage, while his hands are placed on either side of her tiny head.

He then sticks one of his fingers into one side of her neck, jolting her little head to one side.

The chiropractor then turned his daughter around to show the difference in her posture commenting dont cry and make daddy look bad.

In this footage he is seen holding the baby girl, wiggling her around as he talks the parents through the adjustment
Kirk Browning, pictured, 16, was ordered to remove his Help for Heroes wristband because it was classed as 'jewellery' by staff

A teenage army cadet was ordered to remove a Help for Heroes charity wristband at school after staff classed it as 'jewellery'.

Kirk Browning, 16, plans to follow in the footsteps of his uncle and his father by joining the Army as soon as he finishes his GCSEs.

But he was stunned when the 'draconian' school rules at Community College Whitstable, in Kent, meant he could not express his support for the charity by wearing the famous Air Force blue, Army red and Navy blue band.

He said: 'The school actively encourages us to support charities so you think it would be a good thing.

'And how can a simple rubber wristband in aid of such a good cause be considered jewellery?

'I have been wearing charity wristbands for years but there have always been school rules about not wearing earrings and other jewellery, which I understand and now they are being enforced more rigorously.

'But I think it is disgusting to be forced to take off a charity band which is made of rubber. They even took me out of class to tell me.

'If it wasn't for those brave men and women that fought for our country and unfortunately had their arms and legs blown off, these teachers might not have the freedom to tell me to take my 'jewellery' off.'

Mr Browning, from Whitstable, posted the incident on Facebook and received a lot of supportive comments.

He is set to leave the school this summer and go to Army Foundation College in Harrogate, Yorkshire.

The college offers two courses - one 49 weeks, the other 23 weeks - which aims to train cadets to become junior solider for various corps and army regiments.

A Help for Heroes spokesman said: 'A school's uniform policy is a matter for the principal and governors.

Mr Browning, who plans to join the Army after finishing school, said he was 'disgusted' to be told to remove the plastic bracelet, pictured, which shows support for wounded soldiers

'More than six million wristbands are proudly being worn in support of our wounded servicemen and women.

'We have not heard of a single health and safety incident connected to them and they are a fantastic way to raise money and show support for members of the Armed Forces who are wounded, injured or sick.'
Concern: Shona MacLeod had complained about working conditions at the 13th century Eilean Donan Castle which worsened her health problems

A bullied tour guide at a castle who was told to keep it zipped and wind her neck in after being forced to work in the cold and breathe second-hand smoke has won a 40,000 payout.

Shona MacLeod, who worked at the 13th century Eilean Donan Castle in the Scottish Highlands, had complained about employment conditions which worsened her health problems.

The 49-year-old worker from the Isle of Skye has emphysema and suffered discrimination at the castle in Kyle of Lochalsh which risked putting her health, perhaps her life, in danger.

She had to work in cold, damp conditions and was subjected to second-hand smoke because her manager David Win and a colleague flouted smoking laws and lit up within the grounds.

Mr Win also shouted at her that she knew where the door was at a meeting and she had to resign - but has now won her case against Conchra Charitable Trust, which runs the castle.

Employment judge Chris Lucas awarded her 38,378.24 for constructive dismissal and disability discrimination.

A judgement says: The cause of the claimant terminating her employment was the combination of a breach by the Trust of Ms MacLeods contract of employment by discriminating against her and a breach constituted by a series of failures by the Trust to deal with her grievances and of bullying at the hands of Mr Win.

Ms MacLeod began working at the castle in March 2012 and made it clear at that point that she suffered from emphysema.

But within a few months she felt picked on by Mr Win and believed he was going out of his way to make life difficult for her.

In 2013, a new exhibition centre was opened at the castle which was exposed to the elements.

Her doctor wrote a letter to bosses explaining that it would be best if she avoided working in such conditions, but no action was taken.

Ms MacLeod also complained almost daily about colleague Tom Chittick smoking inside the castle buildings. Both Mr Win and deputy manager Morven MacLean were aware of this but took no action.

Colleague: She complained about colleague Tom Chittick (left) smoking inside the castle buildings. Both castle manager David Win (centre) and deputy manager Morven MacLean (right) were aware of this but took no action

Tourist destination: The 49-year-old worker from the Isle of Skye suffered discrimination at the castle (above) in Kyle of Lochalsh which 'risked putting her health, perhaps her life, in danger'

The final straw came in August 2014 during a meeting between Ms MacLeod and Mr Win.

Judge Lucas wrote: Mr Win shouted at the claimant, accused her of harassing Mr Chittick and, in the context of her having made complaints about Mr Chitticks smoking, told her to "wind your neck in" and "keep it zipped".

Ms MacLeod told Mr Win she found him impossible to work for and he then chased her out of the meeting shouting keep moving, keep moving. The guide resigned the following day.

The tribunal heard that other members of staff also raised concerns about Mr Win and described him as a bully. Ms MacLeod asked the tribunal to reinstate her, but the judge decided against this.
Al Qaeda is encouraging lone wolf jihadis to kill American business leaders and entrepreneurs in a bid to dent the country's economy.

The latest issue of Inspire, the terrorist group's propaganda magazine, focuses on 'assassination', which it claims was a hallmark strategy of the Prophet's holy war.

Describing the killings as adhering to its policy of 'cutting the nerves and isolating the head' of the U.S, it told followers to target those who invest wealth in the country.

Al Qaeda, formerly headed by Osama Bin Laden (pictured), has called on jihadis to carry out lone wolf attacks. The organisation's magazine said jihadis should attempt to assassinate business leaders in the U.S.

It claimed the attacks on entrepreneurs would disrupt the country's economy, as it claimed the 9/11 attack (pictured) on the Twin Towers had done

These people included the 'intelligentsia, economic and influential personalities of America', the article stated. Microsoft founder Bill Gates was among those pictured in the article.

'The lifeline of big countries is its economy, and the economy is based upon the economic institutions and companies that hold it up.

'And these institutions and companies are led by groups of individuals, thus being the cream and essential unit of the economy. These easy targets bring about great results.

'Imagine every CEO, BOD's and company owner feel threatened in America, imagine them not knowing who will be next to be targeted by the Mujaheddin.

'This will bring about a dent in the American economy, sending ripples to all policy makers and policies in the US.'

The magazine goes on to provide a layman's guide to assassinations, describing methods one could use to track down the target to their home.

It tells jihadis to practice their shooting in gun clubs, while suggests using drones fitted with cameras to monitor areas which cannot be seen at ground level.

The author continues: 'The cost to the American economy, in all aspects, will be unspeakable.
The mother of a three-year-old boy who was horrifically beaten by his carers before he died from his grievous injuries has retold her daughter's harrowing first hand account.

Nicola Dally-Paki had known Tania Shailer since she was 16 and entrusted the woman and her partner to take care of her two young children in Taupo, on New Zealand's North Island, while she stayed at Aukland's Starship Hospital to look after their older brother in August last year.

But the two children were victims of sickening abuse at the hands of Shailer, 26, and her partner David William Haerewa, 43, which saw three-year-old Moko Rangitoheriri have his stomach stomped on, kicked, slapped and have faeces rubbed in his face.

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Nicola Dally-Paki (pictured), the mother of a three-year-old boy who was horrifically beaten by his caretakers before he died from his grievous injuries has retold her daughter's harrowing first hand account

Three-year-old Moko Rangitoheriri had his stomach stomped on, kicked, slapped and have faeces rubbed in his face by his two abusers

Ms Dally-Paki says she failed to notice warning signs after she had trouble contacting Shailer two weeks before her son died, in an interview with New Zealand'sTV3.

'(Shailer) said 'your f**king son smashed the window, I'm so mad right now',' Ms Dally-Paki said, recalling a phone conversation with Shailer.

'I couldn't ring that day or her phone was off, but the next day I did get in contact and he (Moko) was quiet but she said that was just because it was near bed time.

'Those are the signs that I should have picked up on.

Ms Dally-Paki had known Tania Shailer (pictured) since she was 16 and entrusted the woman and her partner to take care of her two young children in Taupo, on New Zealand's North Island

The two children were victims of sickening abuse at the hands of Shailer, 26, and her partner David William Haerewa, 43

'(Shailer) portrayed to be loving,' Ms Dally-Paki said. 'I didn't know about them to be mentally unstable.'

The eight-year-old daughter, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told her mother that Shailer in fact hated her.

'(The daughter said) 'she used to punch me in the face when I'd smile, because I looked like you when I smiled,' Ms Dally-Paki said.

Moko's sister tried to stay home when the pair locked him in a bathroom for two weeks.

'She tried to use toilet paper, to wipe his bleeding eyes,' Ms Dally-Paki said.

'She tried to use toilet paper, to wipe his bleeding eyes' - Ms Dally-Paki's daughter only told her mother what had happened once she knew the pair were in jail

'(Shailer would) drag her by the hair to get to school, when all my daughter wanted to do was stay home to help fix Moko.'

Her daughter only told her mother what had happened once she knew the pair were in jail.

'She was told to tell the police that she had hurt Moko, and if she didn't, Tania got in her face and told her if you don't, I will do to your mum what I did to your brother.'

Moko Rangitoheriri (pictured) was three-years-old when he was sent to stay with Tania Shailer, a family friend who worked as an early childcare teacher

On the evening of Moko's death, Ms Dally-Paki was next to the hospital bed where her other son was sleeping in the Starship Hospital when the nurse came in at 1am and told her she needed to talk to her.

She said she 'lost the plot' upon hearing the news of her son's death.

The young sister told her aunt that she was forced to deliver the final blow that would end her brother's life, and she wishes that she had died too, according to stuff.co.nz.

'Do you know how upsetting it is to have a child, an eight-year-old child, tell you she wishes she was killed with her brother? And that she wants to kill herself so she won't be sad and miss her mother?', the child's aunt said.

According to court documents, child witnesses said Moko died after four days of physical abuse.

On Thursday, August 6, 2015, Shailer, who worked as an early childcare teacher, stomped on Moko's stomach and abdomen  causing him to soil himself uncontrollably.

On the evening of Moko's death, Ms Dally-Paki was next to the hospital bed where her other son was sleeping in the Starship Hospital when the nurse came in at 1am and told her she needed to talk to her

This continued for the next four days, as Moko lost the ability to walk, and Shailer's partner, Haerewa, kicked him in the back after he defecated on Sunday August 9. After he was kicked, Shailer held Moko's mouth shut to silence him.

By Monday, Moko could barely speak and was unable to move. It wasn't until 3pm, after Shailer had gone out for the day that she called for medical assistance, claiming the three-year-old had fallen from a woodpile.

CHILD ABUSE IN NEW ZEALAND New Zealand has the fifth worst child abuse record out of 31 OECD Countries.

On average one child is killed every 5 weeks.

Most of these children are under five and the largest group is less than a year old.

Ninety percent of all child deaths are perpetrated by someone the child knew.

Child Abuse costs NZ around $2 billion each year.

Nearly 9,000 children per year are born 'at risk' (1 in every 30). Source: childmatters.org.nz

When he finally arrived at hospital, Moko's face was swollen to the point where it was not possible for him to open his eyes.

His stomach was bloated and he was covered in bruises and cuts, which include what appeared to be human bite marks on his face and arms.

His eyes had both haemorrhaged and his bowel was ruptured.

It was difficult to determine the cause of Moko's death due to the extent of his injuries. Both extreme damage to his abdomen, which resulted in septic shock, and swelling of the brain from repeated blows to the head were considered as potential causes.

Neither would have proved fatal if an ambulance had been called sooner.

Moko's face and body were so badly beaten that his mother, Nicola Dally-Paki, and Allen struggled to identify him at the hospital morgue.

The court heard that the couple had egged each other on in their attacks on Moko, and the viciousness increased over time.

On May 2, nine months after Moko's death, his carers, Shailer and David Haerewa, pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges in the Rotorua High Court.

'I changed Moko at the morgue, I saw what they did to him. That wasn't manslaughter,' said Allen.
An Iranian man has been sentenced to 74 lashes for killing a dog, after he was filmed hurling the animal against a car and beating it to death with a shovel.

The man was reported to police in online video showed him hurling the animal repeatedly against his car.

The man was arrested earlier this year in the northwestern province of Ardebil following a complaint by the local head of the society for the protection of the environment.

The unnamed man was filmed hurling the animal against a car and beating it to death with a shovel in the northwestern province of Ardebil, Iran (not pictured)

A video went viral on social networks showing the man hurling the dog against his car and then beating him to death with a shovel.

The court also ordered the man to take weekly lessons for a year on how to care for animals, a local news agency reports.

It said the man was apparently the dog's owner but did not say why he killed it.

It was the latest in several recent cases of animal abuse in Iran that were brought to light by online videos.

The man was sentenced to 74 lashes for animal cruelty and ordered to take weekly lessons in animal care

Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, who also heads the Environmental Protection Organisation of Iran, has frequently denounced the ill-treatment of animals.

In April last year she called for an investigation after a short film showing several stray dogs being brutally killed went viral prompting protests outside her office.

Dog ownership is controversial in Iran as Islamic custom regards the animals as unclean.
An Italian comedian turned politician has caused controversy after joking that Sadiq Khan is a suicide bomber.

Beppe Grillo said he couldn't wait to see the new Muslim mayor of London 'blow himself up at Westminster' during a televised event in Padua on Saturday.

Grillo, founder of Italy's Five Star Movement (MS5), was quickly criticised for the comment, which comes after Labour candidate Khan was named mayor of London earlier this month.

Beppe Grillo, pictured, said he couldn't wait to see the new Muslim mayor of London 'blow himself up at Westminster' during a televised event in Padua

Opponents accused Grillo of making the incendiary joke to draw attention away from corruption scandals currently engulfing MS5.

The anti-establishment movement has gained much ground in Italy's political scene since 2009, winning local council elections across the country with its stance on cleaner politics.

However two MS5 mayors have come under investigation for corruption, despite protesting their innocence.

Italian Member of European Parliament Lara Coni said Grillo was 'trying to recover from the highly embarrassing situation with [Parma Mayor] Pizzarrotti with a sad joke about London's new mayor'.

Grillo also described Khan, who is British and whose family originates from Pakistan, as 'Bangladeshi' during the live event.

The comedian first noted how Khan's story of becoming the first Muslim to be mayor of London proved that life can be full of surprising and that one should not stop dreaming.

Sadiq Khan waves to members of the public as he campaigns outside Tooting Broadway Underground station this morning

He then joked: 'Now I want to see when he blows himself up in Westminster.'

Mr Khan was officially declared mayor of the capital earlier this month after comfortably defeating Tory rival Zac Goldsmith.

The bitterly contested battle had seen Mr Goldsmith and David Cameron repeatedly raise Mr Khan's ties to extremists - a tactic which was roundly criticised by Tories after the election loss.

Mr Khan's 57 per cent support after second preferences were counted amounted to a landslide victory on the largest turnout in the history of directly-elected mayors in London.
Delays on the London Underground have been blamed on excess sunlight stopping drivers from seeing their CCTV screens.

Passengers on a Piccadilly train at South Harrow Station were told they were being delayed because the bright morning sun was obscuring platform-mounted monitors that let operators know when it is safe to close the doors.

Without being able to know where passengers were, the driver was unable to safely move off until given the all clear when extra staff were brought in to inspect the platform.

Commuters were delayed at South Harrow Underground Station, pictured, after the glare from the sun prevented a train leaving safely (file picture)

A train driver's view when obscured by bright sun prevents them seeing monitors which let them know if it is safe to pull the train away from the station

Sunny skies over Harrow proved a real problem when it blocked a driver's view of station monitors

It is the latest in a series of incident, with the low winter sun similarly affecting services in Lewisham in January.

Delays have also been experienced on the District, Central and Jubilee lines due to the natural phenomenon.

Commuters said they were informed of the sunlight problem over the public address system and were told they were waiting for another member of staff to help.

Film editor Dan Haythorn told the Evening Standard: He [the driver] was apologetic about it but it seemed a bit ridiculous to me.

Anthony Goldsmith, 37, an IT engineer from South Harrow, told the Standard: Its just a bit of sun and they must have door sensors too.

Piccadilly line bosses said such incidents are rare but that safety had to be the priority.

General manager Tony Matthews said: The safety of our customers and staff is our number one priority.

Piccadilly line bosses said the delay was necessary because passenger safety was a priorty (file picture)

On rare occasions when a driver's vision is impaired by sunlight and they can't check the platforms, they are instructed to keep the train in the platform whilst another member of staff helps the driver carry out platform safety checks.

The extra staff will then stay on the platform until drivers are not hampered by sunlight.

Finn Brennan, district organiser for train drivers union Aslef, said sunlight can also hamper operators ability to see signals.

He said: Bright sunlight can cause real problems. If train drivers cannot see the signals clearly, then they have to reduce speed to safe levels so that they do not risk passing a signal at danger.

'Bright sunlight can also make it difficult, or impossible, to see if passengers are clear of the platform edge on the monitors that drivers use.

'This can cause delays but it is genuine safety issue, despite the jokes about the wrong sort of sunshine. As ever, as a trade union, the safety of passengers and staff is our main concern.

In January 11 mainline services were delayed by up to 10 minutes at Lewisham, according to operator Southeastern.

It left commuters seething at the inconvenience and asking why drivers 'can't wear sunglasses?'

Several Southeastern trains were delayed by glare from low winter sun earlier this year (file picture)

In 2009, rail operators were mocked for blaming the 'wrong type of snow' on a series of disastrous cancellations and delays.

Eurostar blamed 'fluffy' snow for bringing its cross-Channel services to a halt and plunging 100,000 people into chaos.

Train bosses said 'very fine' snow flakes had brought their trains grinding to a halt, leading to the total cancellation of the high-speed services from London to Paris and Brussels.

And autumnal delays are regularly blamed on 'leaves on the line'.

Delays occur when locomotive wheels slip on the mush left by wet leaves that have dropped from trackside trees.
A former girlfriend of Donald Trump blasted The New York Times on Monday for fabricating part of a front-page story about the Republican presidential candidate's history with women, calling the paper's retelling of her story 'false' and demanding an apology.

The Saturday Times story described the billionaire's first meeting with the young model as 'a debasing face-to-face encounter between Mr. Trump and a young woman he hardly knew.'

'Donald J. Trump had barely met Rowanne Brewer Lane when he asked her to change out of her clothes,' the newspaper reported, describing a moment where he offered her a swimsuit to wear at a pool party.

Monday on 'Fox & Friends,' Lane said Trump 'never made me feel like I was being demeaned in any way. He never offended me in any way.'

'He was very gracious. I saw him around all types of people, around all types of women. He was very kind, thoughtful, generous. You know, he was a gentleman.'

Asked if Trump had ever mistreated women, she answered without hesitation: 'Not that I've ever seen. Absolutely without a doubt, no.'

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'FALSE': One of Donald Trump's ex-girlfriends said Monday that a New York Times 'hit piece' about the billionaire's treatment of women 'misquoted's her and 'spun' her positive story into a negative

PUSHING BACK; Trump, shown over the weekend on Britain's ITV network, blasted the Times for its 'hit piece cover story'

NO APOLOGY: Confident New York Times reporters Michael Barbaro (left) and Megan Twohey (right) defended their story on CNN and insisted 'none of the facts are in dispute'

TWEET-GLOAT: Trump ran victory laps on Twitter, calling the yonug reporters' article 'a fraud' and blasting the Times as a 'failing' newspaper

'I think that  they're just reaching for straws?' Lane suggested.

Trump leaped into the controversy minutes later on Twitter  misspelling his old paramour's name but leaving no doubt about his enthusiasm.

'Wow, Rosanne [sic] Brewer Lane, the most prominently depicted women in the failing @nytimes story yesterday,is on @foxandfriends saying Times lied,' he tweeted.

'The @nytimes is so dishonest. Their hit piece cover story on me yesterday was just blown up by Roseanne [sic] Brewer, who said it was a lie!'

Trump later replaced the tweets with new ones, correcting the spelling.

But Lane said the Times, considered by some as America's newspaper of record, misquoted her and took her story out of context in order to portray Trump as a misogynist.

The paper 'told us several times that they would make sure that my story that I was telling came across,' she recalled on Fox. 'They promised several times that they would do it accurately. They told me several times, and told my manager several times, that it would not be a hit piece.'

In the late morning on CNN, she doubled down.

'The way that the article was depicted, and as many times as they promised me they weren't going to do exactly what they did, they probably owe me an apology. And probably him,' she said, referring to Trump.

Times reporters Michael Barbaro and Megan Twohey, who penned the story, insisted minutes later on CNN that they have nothing to apologize for.

'None of the facts are in dispute,' Barbaro said, adding that 'we quoted her warmly and at length.'

'We really stand by our story. We believe we quoted her fairly and accurately, and we believe the story stands for itself.'

Twohey dodged a question about the use of the word 'debasing' to describe Trump's interactions with Lane that she later called positive.

'Rowanne was one of many voices that we included in the story,' she said.

BACHELOR DAYS: In the wake of his 1990 separation from Marla Maples, Trump was seen in the company of Lane at social events in New York City and beyond

STILL FRIENDLY: The pair posed together at a spring 2011 fashion show, long after splitting up

Trump himself disputed the overall theme of the article, which lined up nearly a dozen negative anecdotes about the 69-year-old real estate tycoon's interactions with women after conducting more than 50 interviews.

Talking specifically about the swimsuit episode in the Times article: 'A lot of things get made up over the years. I have always treated women with great respect. And women will tell you that.'

The Times quoted Lane recalling the moments after she changed into a swimsuit.

'He brought me out to the pool and said, "That is a stunning Trump girl, isnt it?"' she told the paper.

The following paragraph framed that comment as a demeaning objectification.

'Donald Trump and women: The words evoke a familiar cascade of casual insults, hurled from the safe distance of a Twitter account, a radio show or a campaign podium,' the Times reported, setting up what was the follow. 'This is the public treatment of some women by Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president: degrading, impersonal, performed.'

Lane said Monday that she hadn't spoken with Trump since the Saturday article was published, but that the episode left her sleepless: 'I don't like what they did.'

'They did take quotes from what I said, and they put a negative connotation on it. They spun it to where it appeared negative,' she said of the Times' treatment of her.

'I did not have a negative experience with Donald Trump. And I don't appreciate them making it look like that I was saying it was a negative experience. Because it was not.'

'The part where I went back out to the pool party and he made a comment, "Now that's a stunning Trump girl right there," I was actually flattered by,' she said.

'I didn't feel like it was a demeaning situation or comment at all. And that's what I told the Times. And they spun it completely differently.'

BAIT AND SWITCH: Lane told CNN that Barbaro and Twohey promised her repeatedly that they weren't working on exactly the kind of Trump 'hit piece' they turned in

'BLOWN UP': Trump tweeted his amazement at Lane's testimonial as he watched it air on the Fox News Channel

FRONT PAGE: Trump was pilloried in the Times story that Lane says was unfair

NO APOLOGIES: The Ti mes continued to promote its front-page Saturday feature after the Fox & Friends interview aired

Lane retold the entire swimsuit story on Fox, portraying it as a charming moment at the end of a long day posing for a fashion photographer.

'I was at a pool party at Mar-a-Lago with my agency and a lot of other people, and it was a night party and I had a photo shoot that I had done all day, and I had another photo shoot the next day, but I almost didn't go but my agent asked me if I would please come up and just enjoy for awhile, and so I did,' she recalled.

'And I didn't wear a bathing suit. I didn't have a swim suit. I came from a shoot, like I said.

'And I started talking with Donald, and chatting with him over the course of the first 20 minutes I was there, and we seemed to get along in conversation nicely. And it just very normally and naturally evolved into a conversation.'

'We started walking around the mansion. He was showing me the architecture. We were having a very nice conversation. And as we gat into a certain part of it  and he asked me if I had a swimsuit. And I said I didn't.

'I didn't know that I had planned  I wasn't really gonna plan on swimming. And he asked me if I wanted one. So I said, "Oh, okay." You know, "Sure." And I changed into one.'

Lane blasted the Times' portrayal of her story, speculating about why the paper's reporters got her all wrong.

'Well, honestly, they feel like they need to do something to make him look bad or go along with their article. ... I don't know how many other girls feel like they were misquoted. But I know that for a fact I was,' she said.

On CNN, Barbaro defended his reporting of that moment 25 years ago.

'She didn't have a bathing suit. She had just met Donald Trump. He asked her to put on a bathing suit. Pulled out a drawer. She put it on. He expressed admiration for her appearance, and brought her out to a predominantly male group out by the pool. And said she was a stunning-looking Trump person. I think that story speaks for itself,' he said.

'We thought it was a powerful anecdote and that's why we put it in the story.'

But he insisted that despite leading his story with Lane  who says the Times got her all wrong  'we're talking about a pattern of behavior, the way Donald Trump interacts privately with women.'

Asked on Fox whether she planned to vote for Trump in November, Lane said: 'I think Donald is doing a great job, and he is ... a very successful businessman. He is a great leader because of that. He has a lot going for him, let's face it. And I'm supporting him.'

An hour after her live interview aired, The New York Times returned to promoting was had been seen as a bombshell series of revelations on Saturday's front page.

'How did Donald Trump behave around women in private over four decades? We interviewed dozens,' the paper's Twitter account proclaimed.

Trump fired back after the CNN broadcast with another tweet.
Donald Trump tells Megyn Kelly he does not think of himself as a powerful man during his exclusive interview with Fox News host that will air Tuesday, saying he is just a 'messenger' and a man 'fighting for survival'.

When asked by Kelly about how he perceives himself, Trump replies; 'I mean, I view myself as a person that  like everybody else  is fighting for survival. I, thats all I view myself as.

'And I really view myself now as somewhat of a messenger You know, this is, um This is a massive thing thats going on. These are millions and millions of people that have been disenfranchised from this country.'

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Everyday people: Donald Trump described himself as a 'messenger' and a man 'fighting for survival' in his interview with Megyn Kelly that will air Tuesday (pair above in promotional image)

Going in: Kelly (above on GMA) shared a new clip from her highly anticipated interview with Trump where she accuses him of bullying her on Monday morning

Firing back: Trump (above in preview from Megyn Kelly's special), responds to this by saying: 'You know, it happens right. You gotta get over it'

Watch the latest video at <a href="http://video.foxnews.com">video.foxnews.com</a>

Kelly promoted the interview on Monday when she stopped by the set of Outnumbered on Fox News and brought along a very special guest - her husband Doug Brunt.

The couple held hands for most of the interview and Brunt gushed about his love and admiration for his wife, saying that the two grew closer during her feud with the Republican front-runner.

Brunt also said that Trump and Kelly have much in common, noting: 'The ball comes to him and you just know he's got it. And that's the way it is watching her go out there. She's the most prepared person in the business.'

Despite this though, Brunt said Trump still was not strong enough to throw his wife off her game like he did with his political rivals.

'These are seasoned politicians with teams of advisers and he broke them down. But not Meg. She stayed on the high road, never engaged and kept her eye on the ball the whole way,' he said.

Kelly also appeared on Good Morning America Monday and shared a new preview from her upcoming special which is set to air on Fox Broadcasting Tuesday night.

In the clip, the Fox News host asks Trump about 'bullying,' and then accuses him of bullying her at times during their months-long feud that started this past August.

Trump responds to this by saying: 'You know, it happens right. You gotta get over it. Fight back. Do whatever you have to do.'

'Most kids between the ages of six and 16 have been bullied in their lives. Were you ever bullied?' Kelly asks Trump at the start of the clip.

'No I wasnt. but I have seen bullying,' responds Trump.

'And bullying doesnt have to just be as a child. It can happen when they're 55 years old.'

That is when Kelly interrupts Trump and tells him, with a laugh: 'It can happen when you're 45.'

Trump, who does not seemed amused, then launched into his response about getting over it and fighting back.

He then went on to address some of the comments he has made over the past year that could be perceived as bullying by saying: 'I've been saying during this whole campaign, that I'm a counter puncher, you understand that. I'm responding.'

Trump went on to say: 'Now, I then respond times 10. I dont know. I respond pretty strongly. But in just about all cases, I've been responding to what they did to me.'

Kelly, who wore a $2,295 Narciso Rodriguez dress, was then asked after the clip had played if viewers should expect to see a new side of Trump when her interview with him airs on Tuesday.

'I think so. I think you will see him as you havent seen him before,' said Kelly.

'I tell you, it was fascinating doing the interview because that was the first time we ever discussed what happened between us. I didnt discuss that in his office. So this is the first time it happens, on camera, and there are some tense moments.'

Kelly added that viewers will also get 'some honest moments and some contentious moments' before saying: 'I will say overall the tone was cordial but there will be a few moments where people will feel uncomfortable.'

So in love: Kelly and her husband Doug Brunt held hands during an interview on Monday (above)

Explanation: The Republican front-runner (above in special) then said he is a 'counter puncher,' and any bullying comments he might make are just a response to attacks on him

Must see TV: Kelly (above in special) said her interview with Trump will be 'uncomfortable' to watch but that viewers will get to see a new side of the Republican front-runner

The visit to Good Morning America also gave Kelly a chance to talk about what Trump needs to do win the election and how he is perceived by female voters.

'I think Republican women have warmed a little to Trump, although his unfavorables even with Republican women are still unusually high,' said Kelly.

She then pointed out that Romney lost to President Obama by 11 points with women in the 2012 election, saying that Trump would likely have to narrow that gap if he wants to win.

Kelly explained that Trump is performing so strongly among white men in the election that he could potentially make up the difference though if he loses the female vote by even that much.

'I think what the [Trump] campaign is saying is that women dont vote based on womens issues, and I think with the Republican women thats true,' said Kelly.

'They dont vote on abortion or birth control or one of these other traditional issues that Democrats try to tout.'

Kelly added however: 'It remains to be seen whether they will vote or it will impact their vote to have a candidate who speaks in the way that Trump does and has for most of his lifetime about women.'

When asked by host George Stephanopoulos about Trump's comments about women, Kelly said: 'His defense is, "Look, I said a lot of that stuff when I was an entertainer, when I was doing Celebrity Apprentice or [being] a playboy around Manhattan," but of course the truth is he said a lot of those comments within the past year.'

Stephanopoulos then interrupted and said to Kelly that she in particular had been a part of some of those comments.

'I've been on the receiving end of a few,' said Kelly.

She later said to Stephanopulis: 'As you know as a journalist you dont want to be the story you want to cover the story.'

Analysis: Kelly (above speaking with George Stephanopoulos on Monday) also spoke about Trump's chances of winning the presidential election and how female voters perceive him

Despite their history, Trump and Kelly both had nothing but positive things to say about one another in People last week.

In that interview, Kelly spoke about meeting Trump at his Fifth Avenue penthouse to try and convince him to do her upcoming special following some of the less than kind things he has said about her in the press.

'He could not have been more gracious. He was very complimentary and kind,' said Kelly.

Trump meanwhile said of the Fox News host: 'I have great respect for the fact that Megyn was willing to call me. Few people would have been able to do that.'

He then went on to shower her with praise, saying: 'She has natural showbiz ability with unlimited potential. I know people will enjoy [the interview].'

Kelly also revealed what she thinks will be the highlight of the interview.

'I think the most electric moment will be when I ask him about this past year and what's happened between the two of us,' said Kelly.

'It's one thing to have somebody else ask him about what he's done and it's quite another to have me ask him.

'I think people want to see that.'

Kelly shared the first clip of the pair's highly anticipated interview when she appeared on Live With Kelly and Michael earlier that week.

'You seemed to stay angry for months. Was that real or was that strategy?' asked Kelly in the clip.

'Well, I'm a real person. I don't say, "Oh gee I'm angry tonight but tomorrow you're my best friend,"' said Trump.

'See I do have a theory though when somebody does it... Look, it could happen with us again. It could be even doing this particular interview.

'I have great respect for you that you were able to call me and say, "Look, let's get together and let's talk."

'To me, I would not have done that.'
Islamists have pleaded for online donations to pay for the legal fees of the five men charged with terror offences after they were caught allegedly attempting to leave Australia for Syria in a tin boat.

Brothers Behind Bars, a Facebook group which 'provides help to Muslims incarcerated in Australia', launched an appeal on Monday as the group were charged.

Musa Cerantonio, Shayden Thorne, Kadir Kaya and two others have been extradited to Melbourne to face trial accused of making preparations for incursions into foreign countries for the purpose of engaging in hostile activities.

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Brothers Behind Bars Facebook group has launched an appeal for donations to pay for the 'legal fees' of five men charged with terror offences after they were caught apparently attempting to sail to Indonesia from Cairns

Within hours police's decision to charge the group on Friday an administrator of the Facebook group pleaded with followers for funds, writing: 'We need not emphasize on the importance of showing your support.'

They later returned to the page to tell fans an account for donations to be sent to would be set up in due course.

'They will be needing money for legal fees, and their families need money for rent, food, etc,' they said.

'Currently we are organizing for them what we can, but all help is welcomed and appreciated. If you can help in any way, please inbox this page and we will get in contact with you.

The group, which 'provides help to Muslims incarcerated in Australia', asked followers to send money to an account online

The men were stopped after driving from Melbourne to Cairns with this boat towed to their car. Police allege they were planning to sail to Indonesia in it then sneak in to Syria to join ISIS

'May Allah release these brothers and all Muslim prisoners from the shackles of the Kuffaar, and may he grant them justice in this life before the next.'

Kuffar is a derogatory Arabic term used to describe 'non believers' of Sharia law.

The five men, who are aged 21 to 33, were arrested by Australian Federal Police in Cairns last week after driving to far north Queensland from Melbourne.

Police alleged they were planning to sail a tin boat to Indonesia before sneaking in to Syria to join ISIS fighters.

Musa Cerantonio, one of the men accused of plotting to join the terror group, was arrested in the Philippines in 2014. The preacher, who converted to Islam after being raised in a Catholic household in Melbourne, previously claimed he had fled the country for Syria.

In social media photographs he posed outside The Vatican wielding an Islamic State flag. Another of those arrested is believed to be the brother of notorious Junaid Thorne.

One of the accused is notorious preacher Musa Cerantonio (above) who was jailed in 2014 in the Philippines

The preacher previously posted photographs of himself on social media holding an Islamic State flag outside The Vatican

CCTV captured the man at a service station (above) as the group made their way to far north Queensland

The men appeared at Cairns Magistrate Court on Monday where they were remanded in custody to be extradited to Melbourne. They will appear before the city's Magistrates Court on Thursday.

All of the men's passports were previously cancelled, police confirmed. If found guilty they could all be handed life sentences.

On Monday British preacher Abu Haleema released an impassioned video slamming Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, Grand Mufti of Australia, for not supporting the men.

Appearing in the clip on YouTube, the man, who has had his passport seized by authorities in the UK, said: 'We see now that the brothers from Melbourne have been arrested and charged.

'Once again we see the Australian government oppressing Musa Cerantonio.'

He took at the Grand Mufti of Australia who he said had travelled to Indonesia for 'two Kuffars' but 'can't walk down the road to Supermax to support the Muslims'.

'We say to all the people in Australia - look to Mustafa Cenantonio. Look at all he has done. Look who he is. How can you remain silent when this man is being oppressed this much?'
A drunken farmer caused 1,000 of damage to an ambulance vehicle when she climbed its bonnet and started dancing on the windscreen while anxious paramedics cowered inside.

The woman, who has not been identified, was filmed jumping and dancing on the windscreen of a North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) rapid response car near Blackpool Promenade.

In the footage, filmed on Sunday May 8, the woman can be seen wearing a t-shirt with the slogan 'NFYFC AGM' - an event held by the National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs in Blackpool on the same day.

The ambulance service said the woman left dents on the bonnet and roof of the rapid response vehicle which - will now cost the best part of 1,000 to repair.

A spokesman added: 'What may have seemed a bit of fun at the time has now unfortunately resulted in an emergency vehicle being taken off the road for repairs, which in turn will cost the NHS hundreds of pounds.

'This also has significant repercussions for the service, as while this vehicle is being repaired it is not available to respond to patients.

'We have reported the incident to the police and we will assist them with their enquiries as necessary.'

The footage, which appears to have been taken using Snapchat, was filmed by a member of NWAS staff inside the vehicle.

It has since been posted on the ambulance service's Twitter page. It was uploaded witha tweet reading: 'This partygoer caused 1,000 damage to an RRV in Blackpool. It won't be so fun when @LancsPolice catch up with her.'

The woman, who has not been identified, was filmed jumping and dancing on the windscreen of a North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) rapid response car near Blackpool Promenade

Several tweeters commented showing their dismay at the video and frustration with the young woman.

Jon Butler tweeted: 'What's wrong with some people, lack of respect for others. Hope she gets hit the full force of the law.'

Jen called the video a 'disgrace' and another, Ian Robinson, said: 'Looks like a young farmers top dancing on the RRV. Shame a few ruin it for the others.'

The rapid response car was not responding to a specific medical emergency at the time, and was parked when the woman scaled its bonnet.

Lancashire Police confirmed the incident has been reported and that they are currently investigating.

The rapid response car was not responding to a specific medical emergency at the time, and was parked when the woman scaled its bonnet (stock photograph)

As yet no-one has been arrested.

It is unclear whether the woman has any further affiliation with the National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs beyond the t-shirt she was wearing.

A spokesman for the National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs said: 'The NFYFC completely condemns the actions of the individual in this video.

'This level of behaviour is not reflective of our Federation and has tarnished the reputation of the members who did attend our Annual Convention weekend - the vast majority of whom behaved impeccably.
Ken Livingstone has waded into the row over Boris Johnson comparing the EU to Hitler - accusing his Tory former rival of getting his facts wrong.

The Labour ex-Mayor of London insisted the Nazi dictator had wanted to absorb other countries into Germany rather than create a United States of Europe.

The bizarre row broke out with Mr Livingstone still facing a disciplinary process for suggesting that Hitler had a pact with Zionists to send Jews to Israel 'before he went mad'.

Senior Conservatives rallied to the defence of Mr Johnson last night after he was attacked by Remain campaigners over his controversial comments.

Ken Livingstone, left, has criticised a claim by Boris Johnson that Hitler had a similar goal to the EU

Mr Johnson, the most senior figure Brexit supporter, told the Sunday Telegraph that the past 2,000 years had been dominated by doomed attempts to unify the continent under a single government to recreate the 'golden age' of the Romans.

'Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically,' he said. 'The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.

'But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void.'

Remain campaigners seized on the former London mayor's comments insisting he had proved he was unfit for office by comparing Brussels to the Third Reich.

Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown said Mr Johnson's comments showed he was nothing more than a 'tuppenny tinpot imitation Churchill', while D-Day hero Lord Bramall said the analysis was 'laughable'.

But Brexit supporters said he was simply stating a 'historical fact of life' about the failure of successive attempts over the centuries to establish a 'greater Europe'.

According to the Evening Standard Mr Livingstone has now stepped in to criticise Mr Johnson's historical knowledge.

'What I said was perfectly true,' Mr Livingstone said. 'But Boris is a lot better informed about Ancient Greece and Rome than about modern history.

'There was never a plan for a United States of Europe under Hitler. What he wanted was actually a Greater Germany that absorbed neighbouring states, with Britain and France rendered subservient.'

Jeremy Corbyn bowed to pressure to suspend his fellow left-winger last month after he triggered a storm while trying to defend Labour MP Naz Shah for suggesting Israel should be relocated to the UK.

Mr Livingstone fueled a raging anti-semitism row by suggesting Hitler had supported Zionists 'before he went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews'.

The remarks sparked an extraordinary on-camera showdown with Labour backbencher John Mann, who branded the ex-mayor a 'Nazi apologist'.
Patricia Arquette has launched an attack on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, claiming that he would plunge the United States back into its days of internment camps.

The Oscar-winning actress' comments on Saturday referred to Trump's vow to deport 11million undocumented immigrants living in the United States if he is voted in as president.

She compared it to when tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans were interred during World War II.

Arquette. 48, said that the nation 'cannot return to anything like' the Japanese internment camps and said that the country can do without the billionaire's brand of 'Make America Great Again'.

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Patricia Arquette has raised fears that Donald Trump could bring internment camps back to the United States after he vowed to deport 11million undocumented immigrants living in the United States

Arquette called internment camps 'not a great part of American history', and that returning 'to anything like that' would be 'a blight on the honor of America'

When asked about Trump at a gala dinner on Saturday at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, she told Daily Mail Online: 'It is funny because we are here at MOCA.

'Right next door is the Japanese American Museum where they have a building left from an internment camp from when Americans interned Japanese Americans.

'And they cannot return to anything like that. It is such a blight on the honor of America. We don't need that kind of "Make America Great Again".

'America is great. And that is not a great part of American history.'

During World War II, in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan, President Franklin D Roosevelt ordered the internment of more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast.

Sixty-two per cent of the internees were US citizens and the move was later widely considered to be based on racism rather than any security risk posed by Japanese Americans.

The episode is still seen widely as a stain on US history, and Boyhood star Arquette believes Trump is leading the country down a similar path.

Asked if she would leave the country as other celebrities have vowed to do if Trump is voted into the White House, however, she said: 'I understand that sentiment, but someone is going to have to set up soup kitchens and help people.

'So you are going to have to stay around and help everybody who is getting rounded up.'

Arquette also said she fears that the United States could enter a new depression if Trump is elected president.

She said the billionaire tycoon believes that US workers are paid too much, yet many people are 'struggling to feed their kids'. Arquette is estimated by Celebrity Net Worth to have a net worth of $24 million.

'Trump said American workers are already paid too much,' she said. 'There's a lot of people that are struggling to feed their kids and they don't have enough money for one little emergency, one extra bill.

'That would just be devastating. It would be like having the Depression all over again.'

Arquette (pictured with husband Eric White) made her comments at the MOCA Annual Gala in Los Angeles on Saturday

THE TRAGIC EXPERIENCE OF 110,000 JAPANESE AMERICANS DURING WWII In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan, rumors spread across the United States of a plot among Japanese-Americans to sabotage the war effort. Because of the spreading rumors, the US Department of Treasury froze assets of citizens and immigrants who were born in Japan, and the Department of Justice arrested about 1,500 religious and community leaders who were seen as potential enemies, according to Britannica. US military commanders petitioned for Secretary of War Henry Stimson to intervene, and pressured the Roosevelt administration into removing more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. President Franklin D Roosevelt then signed Executive Order 9066, which forced the thousands of people of Japanese ancestry - half of whom were children - to leave their homes and quit their jobs to move to camps in remote areas of the United States. It was there that they lived in squalid, communal cabins and did hard labor for $5 a day. During World War II, in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan, President Franklin D Roosevelt ordered the deportation and incarceration of more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast They were put into ten camps, located in: Amache, Colorado; Gila River, Arizona; Heart Mountain, Wyoming; Jerome, Arkansas; Manzanar, California; Minidoka, Idaho; Poston, Arizona; Rohwer, Arkansas; Topaz, Utah; and Tule Lake, California. Some died because they were unable to cope in the 100-degree Fahrenheit desert conditions and freezing nights. Sixty-two per cent of the internees were US citizens, while a third of those in the camps had been born in Japan and were not allowed to own land in some states or become naturalized US citizens, according History.com. The final internment camp wasn't closed until 1946. A 1948 law provided reimbursement for property losses for people who were held in the camps. It was not until 1988, however, that President Ronald Reagan and Congress apologized to those interned and awarded $20,000 restitution payments to each survivor of the camps. Sixty-two per cent of the internees were US citizens and the move was later widely considered to be based on racism rather than any security risk posed by Japanese Americans

Arquette used her Oscar acceptance speech to voice concerns about wage inequality for women when she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2015 for her role in Boyhood.

Speaking at Saturday's gala, Arquette said she believed her speech had 'probably' affected roles she had been offered since.

Several other celebrities, including George Clooney and Lena Dunham, have also spoken out in opposition of Trump.

Clooney, a steadfast Democrat who has helped raise millions for Hillary Clinton's campaign, spoke out against Donald Trump during a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday, where he is promoting his new film Money Monster.

'There's not going to be a President Donald Trump,' said Clooney, who held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton last month in Los Angeles where tickets reportedly went for $353,400 per couple.

'That's not going to happen. Fear is not going to be something that drives our country. We're not going to be scared of Muslims or immigrants or women. We're not actually afraid of anything.'

Clooney previously spoke out against Trump at the Toronto Film Festival last September, and his comments about Mexicans, saying; 'Anyone who says intolerant words should be laughed at, and I think that's what history will do.'

Dunham went so far to say she would leave the country if Trump is elected president.

She said last month at the Matrix Awards that 'I know a lot of people have been threatening to do this, but I really will.'

'I know a lovely place in Vancouver and I can get my work done from there,' she added.

The star of HBO's Girls has been a vocal Hillary Clinton supporter, campaigning with the Democratic front-runner on several occasions.

Cher, Eddie Griffin, Barry Diller, Al Sharpton, Jon Stewart, Samuel L Jackson and Omari Hardwick have all publicly discussed moving outside the United States if Trump wins.

Arquette's comments on the real estate mogul came at the same event in which political artist Shepard Fairey, who designed the 'Obama Hope' campaign poster, questioned Trump and his policies. He said that if he were to create a similar campaign poster for Trump, it'd read 'Manifest Density'

Arquette's comments on the real estate mogul came at the same event in which political artist Shepard Fairey, who designed the 'Obama Hope' campaign poster, questioned Trump and his policies.

He blasted the presumptive GOP nominee for having no policies and being a likely winner in the 'race to the bottom'.

Asked if he were to create a poster commenting on Trump's standing, similar to his Obama work, Fairey said: 'It would probably just say "Manifest Density". I think in the race to the bottom he is going to be the winner.

'The density that allows facts not to penetrate, he is the poster guy for that... showbiz, not science, not fact.'

Fairey added: 'The US is a place for a lot of different ideas and I think that is great. I am not an isolationist.

'I don't want to just surround myself with people that agree with me. And sometimes adversity brings out the best conversations and the best in people and other times it brings out the darkest in people.

'I am an optimist. Whatever happens with Trump maybe it is going to make people take a step back, take a deep breath and think where they could make a better case for an alternative.'

Fairey said that Bernie Sanders is his favorite candidate, buts admit he may not gain the Democratic vote.

He said: 'I did a T-shirt graphic for Bernie, that's my guy. I don't know if Bernie is going to make it. But he has shifted the conversation.'

Fairey praised Sanders' drive for 'pure-form democracy' and reducing the leaders' campaign away from money.

He and Arquette attended the gala to celebrate the recent exhibition Don't Look Back: the 1990s curated by Helen Molesworth.
Opinion poll data today revealed 43 is the age where the Brexit divide tips in favour of Euroscepticism.

Analysis of YouGov results suggested people aged over 43 are likely to vote Out on June 23 by an increasing margin.

By contrast, voters under 43 are more and more likely to back the In campaign.

Evidence of how likely different voters are to turn out lays bare the challenge for the Remain campaign as they will be dependent on less reliable young voters.

Analysis of the YouGov opinion poll panel by The Times revealed at age 43 more people start to be in favour of quitting the EU than staying in. Younger voters - marked by red bars - back In by a decreasing margin up to the early 40s. Older voters, marked blue, become increasingly Eurosceptic

Prime Minister David Cameron revealed earlier this year his biggest concern about winning the referendum and keeping Britain inside the EU is turn out.

The Britain Stronger in Europe campaign has pursued a strategy of recruiting young campaigners to try and convince their older relatives to stay In.

The age divide among British voters, produced through analysis by The Times Red Box email, found coincidentally it is 43 years since Britain voted to join the EEC - the forerunner to today's EU.

It means a majority of voters alive the last time Britain was outside European institutions are now the ones who want Britain to leave again while younger voters back staying In.

In the latest campaign event for the In campaign, Chancellor George Osborne joined forces with Lib Dem Vince Cable, left, and Ed Balls, right, to claim there was 'consensus' about the economic risks of Brexit

Overall opinion polls have the race to polling day on June 23 as neck and neck.

Surveys conducted online have tended to show a lead for the Leave campaign while telephone polls have shown a lead for Remain.

JOLIE LECTURES THE UK TO STAY IN THE EU SO WE CAN HELP SOLVE THE REFUGEE CRISIS Angelina Jolie today told British voters to reject the case for Brexit so we can help solve the refugee crisis engulfing Europe. But she immediately launched a blistering attack on the EU's response to the humanitarian crisis and condemned member states for creating a 'race to the bottom' over accepting migrants by competing to be the toughest on immigration. The Hollywood actress and the UN's special envoy for refugees accused European countries of neglecting their responsibilities to the humanitarian crisis triggered by the five-year civil war in Syria. And Jolie took aim at EU leaders for 'preying on the fear' that uncontrolled migration can cause. In a speech at the BBC's headquarters in London this morning as part of a day of coverage on global migration, the American actress sent a very clear message to British voters ahead of the June 23 referendum. She said: 'After so many years of failed attempts by governments and leaders to do the right thing we are angry, we feel cheated and we feel confused. 'We are starting to think that maybe it is simply not possible to make a lasting difference. 'But the worst possible choice we could now make is to decide to step back from the world.'

In the latest campaign developments, George Osborne mocked Brexit 'conspiracy theorists' as he joined forces with former foe Ed Balls to back staying in the EU.

The Chancellor and his old counterpart warned that leaving would have a catastrophic impact on trade as they appeared together at Stansted Airport.

Standing alongside Mr Balls and Liberal Democrat former Business Secretary Vince Cable, Mr Osborne hailed the 'consensus' over the benefits of membership.

The Chancellor said: 'There is a reason the three of us are standing here today putting aside out very obvious differences. It is not a conspiracy, it is called consensus.

'The economic argument is beyond doubt. Britain will be worse off if we leave the EU.'

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson shook off the row over his remarks about Hitler to brand the EU 'pants' on a visit to an underwear factory in the Midlands.

The Vote Leave champion said: 'We have no way of kicking these people out, we dont know who they are.

'They are taking far too much of our democracy away, and its time we took it back.

'I think when you look at the EU now, it reminds me - walking around this wonderful factory - it makes me think of some badly-designed undergarment that has now become too tight in some places, far too tight, far too constrictive, and dangerously loose in other places.

'Now, is that the kind of undergarment we make here at David Nieper? Absolutely not, absolutely not. Thats why are you are continuing to do so well.'
Angelina Jolie praised a Polish schoolgirl who asked the actress a question on how to improve the integration of young immigrants.

Paulina, 12, moved to the UK with her family six years ago and now attends the Thomas Aveling School in Rochester.

She drew a smile from the Hollywood star at an event at the BBC's headquarters in London.

Mrs Jolie replied: Well, that is a lovely question. I think I would say that the best thing you can do, especially at your age, is that school is hard regardless with fitting in, so the greatest thing is to be a real friend.

Paulina, 12, moved to the UK with her family six years ago and now attends the Thomas Aveling School in Rochester

Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, interviewed by the BBC's Mishal Husain today, took aim at politicians for 'preying on the fear' that uncontrolled migration can cause

The Hollywood actress condemned European leaders for taking part in a 'race to the bottom' over their response to the refugee crisis engulfing the continent as she urged them to reject 'isolationism'.

She said concerns over uncontrolled migration had allowed a politics of fear to grow and countries were 'competing to be the toughest in the hope of protecting themselves whatever the cost or challenge to their neighbours'.

Jolie and the UN's special envoy for refugees accused European countries of neglecting their responsibilities to the humanitarian crisis triggered by the five-year civil war in Syria.

And she took aim at politicians for 'preying on the fear' that uncontrolled migration can cause.

In a speech as part of a day of coverage on global migration, the American actress hinted that she wanted British voters to back staying in the EU in June's referendum.

Her comments were immediately attacked by Tory Eurosceptics, who hit out at Jolie for appearing to 'tell us how to vote in the referendum'.

Jolie said this morning: 'After so many years of failed attempts by governments and leaders to do the right thing we are angry, we feel cheated and we feel confused.

'We are starting to think that maybe it is simply not possible to make a lasting difference.

'But the worst possible choice we could now make is to decide to step back from the world.

BBC ACCUSED OF SUPPORTING MASS MIGRATION TO BOOST TV LICENCE FEE REVENUE The BBC was today accused of supporting mass migration to the UK to boost its TV licence fee revenue. The broadcaster has been staging a World On the Move day of coverage dedicated to migration across the world. It has hosted speeches by the UN's special envoy for refugees Angelina Jolie and Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said the BBC was more welcoming to migrants and asylum seekers than the British public because it had a 'vested interest' in growing the population as it would mean more people paying the 145.50 licence fee. He told MailOnline: Its very unsurprising that the BBC have pro-migration into the UK since every extra household means extra revenue for the BBC through the licence fee system. 'Theyve got a clear vested interest and I think theyve always been reluctant to be critical of the migration figures. The BBC has a clear financial interest in more households because this increases their revenue stream and following the creation of the charter renewal we know just how keen the BBC are in protecting and enhancing their revenue stream, dont we? However the BBC dismissed Mr Bridgen's suggestion it was biased on migration and pointed out that it had given a voice to figures such as Mr Dearlove, who has warned about the risks of mass migration on national security. Advertisement

'The last time there was this number of refugees was after World War Two, when nations came together to forge the United Nations, the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

'I believe this is again that once-in-a-generation moment when nations have to pull together.

She added: 'It would be naive to think that we can protect ourselves selectively, alone, from challenges in a globalized world, by pulling away from other countries or peoples.

'As with any global problem in the 21st century, uncoordinated national responses are not the answer. An unstable world is an unsafe world for all.

'There is no barrier high enough to protect from such disorder and desperation. If your neighbors house is on fire you are not safe if you lock your doors.

'Isolationism is not strength. Fragmentation is not the answer. Strength lies in being unafraid: in working with others, and living up to our highest ideals.'

Jolie is close to former foreign secretary William Hague - who backs continued EU membership despite a long history of Euroscepticism - and she has been a semi-regular member of the British political scene as a result.

She appeared frequently alongside Lord Hague while he was at the Foreign Office and also visited the House of Lords to see a key aide, Baroness Helic, get sworn into Parliament in 2014.

Brexit campaigners said Jolie's comments amounted to 'another American coming over here telling how to vote in the referendum'.

Tory MP and leading Eurosceptic Peter Bone said Britain would have the capacity to take in more vulnerable migrants if we were no longer part of the EU's freedom of movement rules.

He told MailOnline: Staying in the EU is being little-Europeans; people who want to come out of the EU look to the world; we want to trade with the world, we want an immigration system thats fair for the whole world and doesnt discriminate against people from different backgrounds and were outward looking, whereas the European Union is an inward looking closed shop.

Angelina Jolie (pictured at the BBC today) launched a blistering attack on the EU's response to the refugee crisis today and condemned member states for taking part in a 'race to the bottom' over accepting migrants

Angelina Jolie, the Hollywood actress and the UN's special envoy for refugees (pictured visiting a Syrian refugee camp) accused European countries of neglecting their responsibilities to the humanitarian crisis triggered by the five-year civil war in Syria

Angelina Jolie (pictured visiting a Syrian refugee camp earlier this year) took aim at EU leaders for 'preying on the fear' that uncontrolled migration can cause

Coming out of the EU well obviously continue to be part of the UN, well continue to be part of the G8 and we will continue to play a major role as the fifth biggest economy in the world.

'With all our links with countries around the world  not least the Commonwealth  we will be more outward looking and well stop having to concentrate on this ever-shrinking European Union market and look to the rest of the world.

And Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: Its just what the people were looking forward to: another American coming over here telling how to vote in the referendum.

The British public need to understand that ultimately all countries are in competition with each other and act in their own interests and its clear that its in the Americans interests to have us remain in the EU given the strength of anti-American feeling that is on the continent.

However, this is not in Britains interests to have this ultimate sacrifice. We can be a stronger and better ally for American and the free world as an independent, sovereign nation.

In an emotional appeal, she warned that the ongoing threat of war meant 'none of us are immune to becoming refugees', adding: 'So all refugees merit equal respect and compassion.'

Her comments echoed the UN's high commissioner for refugees, who this morning criticised the EU for its 'disorderly' response to the migration crisis.

In an emotional appeal during a speech at the BBC's headquarters in London as part of a day of coverage on migration, Angelina Jolie (pictured this morning) warned that the ongoing threat of war meant 'none of us are immune to becoming refugees', adding: 'So all refugees merit equal respect and compassion'

Angelina Jolie (pictured left with her husband Brad Pitt) also sent a message to British voters to reject the case for Brexit and to stay in the EU, saying the 'worst possible choice' would be to 'decide to step back from the world'

Angelina Jolie appeared to criticise German Chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured with other EU leaders at a preschool at a Turkish refugee camp) for opening Germany's borders to Syrian refugees, saying the move only added to the EU's disorderly response to the humanitarian crisis

Filippo Grandi said the EU was sufficiently large and wealthy to be able to share the burden of the influx of migrants from the Middle East without making it a political issue, but had failed to find a solution and was largely to blame for the fact that fewer than 1 per cent of refugees had been resettled.

Urging EU leaders to work closer together to find a solution to the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled to the continent, Jolie said: 'I believe this is again that once-in-a-generation moment when nations have to pull together.

'How we respond will determine whether we create a more stable world, or face decades of far greater instability.'

Jolie appeared to criticise German Chancellor Angela Merkel for opening Germany's borders to Syrian refugees, saying the move only added to the EU's disorderly response to the humanitarian crisis.

Asked whether Ms Merkel's response to the crisis was pragmatic, the actress said: 'It was a beautiful, beautiful thing that said something to the world. But I do think we need to have a real order, and we need to be explaining how things are being done in a clear way.'

'It is also important that the process is clear so that people in the receiving country understand and have better confidence in the system.'

Ms Jolie and William Hague struck up a close friendship in recent years and worked together on a series of issues while Mr Hague was Foreign Secretary

EU boasts that number of migrants arriving in Greece drops by 90% - while ignoring UN report saying more now arrive in ITALY since Macedonia closed its borders

The EU has boasted the number of migrants arriving in Greece has dropped by 90 percent but is ignoring the fact vast numbers are now pouring into Italy.

Claiming the reduction was due to its agreement with Turkey, the EU said the 'dramatic' change showed asylum seeker numbers last month were much lower than last year.

However, this may be due to the Greek borders with the Balkan states are closed - forcing many to turn to Italy as their proxy state to enter Europe.

The EU claims the number of migrants arriving in Greece has reduced but thousands are still trying to reach Europe by boat. Pictured is an inflatable boat of asylum seekers on a sinking ship in April

The UN says more than 9,000 asylum seekers arrived in Italy last month - almost three times that which reached Greece. Pictured here is a group of migrants arriving in the Sicilian port of Palermo

The UN says more than 9,000 arrived in Italy last month, compared with just 3,600 in Greece - the first time this has happened since May 2015.

Frontex, the EU's border agency, said today that fewer than 2,700 people had entered Greece in April.

It put the drop down to the effect of the EU's migrant agreement with Turkey and tight border controls at the Greek Macedonia border.

Fabrice Leggeri, the Frontex chief, said 'the drop in the number of arrivals on the Greek islands was dramatic'.

He said April's total was well below the daily figure arriving on the island of Lesbos alone during the peak months last year.

The agency said the number of migrants traveling along the Balkans route from Greece north toward preferred destinations in Austria, Germany and Scandinavia had also dropped as a result.

Meanwhile, Italy's coastguard said it helped rescue 801 migrants from two boats off western Sicily yesterday, including many Syrians, amid signs that refugees from the Middle East are increasingly shunning the Greek route into Europe.

More than a million migrants, many from Syria, have entered Europe via Turkey and Greece in the past year but the number has fallen sharply since March, when Ankara agreed with the European Union to take back refugees landing on the Greek islands.

The EU claims its new agreement with Turkey is the reason why fewer migrants are entering Greece

However, the borders to Macedonia have been closed since March, causing a blockage among those arriving in Greece and hoping to travel the Balkan route

Other security measures in the Balkans involve extra fencing between countries, such as this imposing barbed wire barrier between Greece and Macedonia

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said the two boats, which were also carrying some Iraqis, represented the largest such attempted mass migration from Syria and Iraq to Italy for at least a year.

An Italian coastguard statement said 515 people had been plucked from one boat and a further 286 people rescued in another operation involving a Finnish naval vessel.

A coastguard spokesman said most of those taken to safety in the first operation were Syrian, while he was unable to give the nationalities of those saved from the second boat.

Another coastguard spokesman had previously said the second operation had rescued around 380 people.

UNHCR spokeswoman Carlotta Sami said the Syrians and Iraqis had set sail from Egypt rather than Libya, the launchpad for most migrants heading to Italy.

As of May 10, 31,250 migrants had reached Italy by boat this year, a 14 percent decline from the same period last year, according to the Interior Ministry.

The vast majority came from African countries, led by Nigeria, Gambia, Somalia and the African Coast.
Oprah Winfrey's commitment to the education of young girls in Africa paid off in a big way over the weekend with the first group of her 'daughter-girls' graduating from American colleges.

Tabitha Ramotwala got her degree from Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts on Sunday as did Noluthando Dlomo and Nompumelelo Nobiva, who both attended Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The three young women were all part of the inaugural class at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, and on Sunday the TV titan not only paid tribute to them but also gave the commencement address at Noluthando and Nompumelelo's graduation.

This meant Winfrey had a very busy Sunday, starting off her morning at Mount Holyoke before flying to Johnson C. Smith and then later to Spelman College in Atlanta to watch as another one of her Academy for Girls alumnae got her diploma.

Winfrey said she made a promise to Nelson Mandela back when her school first opened that she would attend the graduations of the first group of girls.

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Big day: Four of Oprah Winfrey's 'daughter-girls' graduated from college yesterday (Tabitha Ramotwala on left) and the TV titan attended all three ceremonies and on (on right l to r: Nompumelelo Nobiva, Winfrey and Noluthando Dlomoon)

Winfrey also gave the commencement speech at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina (above), where Noluthando and Nompumelelo attended college

Promise: She attended all the graduations after making a promise to Nelson Mandela (above at the Spelman College ceremony in Atlanta)

'Proud Happy Day! 2 graduations done. Tabitha at Mt.Hollyoke. Mpumi and Thando at JCSU. Congratulations to my beautiful and brilliant "daughter-girls,'" wrote Winfrey on instagram Sunday, posting a photo of herself with the girls.

'Now onto Spelman!'

Winfrey, 62, not only spoke at the Johnson C. Smith graduation but also received an honorary doctorate of humane letters.

There had been some calls for the former talk show host to skip the ceremony in response to the North Carolina's controversial transgender bathroom law, but Winfrey said she never for a second thought about missing the big day.

'I got calls from members of the press asking me was I going to boycott being here today because of North Carolina and yalls issues,' she told the graduating class and their families and friends in her speech.

'And I said, "Listen, anybody that knows me knows: I dont believe in or support any law discriminating against anybody, ever. But I will be at J-C..."'

At that point the graduating class jumped in and yelled back 'S-U' according to The Charlotte Observer.

She then told the crowd; 'Nothing would keep me from being here to celebrate the promise that I made to Nelson Mandela over 10 years ago.'

Winfrey, who was joined by longtime boyfriend Stedman Graham at all two of the day's ceremonies, spoke for 37 minutes, and according to reports never once looked at her notes.

She also quoted Martin Luther King Jr. ('Not everybody can be famous, but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service'), James Baldwin ('Your crown has been bought and paid for. All you must do is put it on') and Reverend Jesse Jackson ('Excellence is the best deterrent to racism and sexism') during her remarks.

Winfrey said she first heard Jackson's quote when she was a teenager, telling the audience; 'From that day forward, that became my mantra, and Ive tried in everything I do to be excellent.

'Cause even if you flippin fries at McDonalds, if you are excellent, everybody wants to be in your line. Whatever you do that is excellent, people notice you, and they talk about you, and they say, "Did you see that girl over there?"'

She closed by saying to the graduating class; 'You make me proud, and your futures so bright, JCSU, it burns my eyes. Go with God.'

Travelling companion: Winfrey was joined by longtime boyfriend Stedman Graham (above in North Carolina) for two of the ceremonies

Big day: Winfrey, 62, not only spoke at the Johnson C. Smith graduation but also received an honorary doctorate of humane letters (ABOVE)

Noluthando and Nompumelelo spoke about their big day and having Winfrey be there in an interview with WSOC.

'Just being here was enough me, and now the fact she's here with me is awesome,' said Noluthando.

Nompumelelo, who was seen crying during the ceremony, said; 'I'm excited to graduate today. It's a fabulous experience. To have Mom Oprah here to be here with us and support us is beyond us, really.'

She later spoke about what she went through to get to where she is today, and the obstacles she had to overcome, saying; 'This is a huge success for young Zulu girls who grew up in townships raised by grandmothers, single mothers. Im an AIDS orphan, and it's just a tremendous achievement to stand before you all today.

'Mom Oprah was very specific in the sort of women she wanted to raise. She called it the "it girl," but now we understand that it really stands for grit and tenacity, a girl of strength who can stand in her truth and be validated in the world.'

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa is a girls-only boarding school that opened in 2007 near Johannesburg.

Winfrey said she wanted to open the school given her own struggles in her youth.

There were 72 girls in the first graduating class, who began at the school when they were in the eighth grade.
A socialite who won a 20million payout after claiming she was the secret wife of a Saudi king has been forced to battle his son to get hold of the fortune.

Janan Harb said she secretly married King Fahd of Saudi Arabia - then still a prince - in 1968, but was banished from the kingdom in 1970 because of objections from his family.

Last year, the High Court ordered that the King's son, Prince Abdul Aziz, pay damages of 15million and give her two luxury flats to honour an alleged agreement that she'd be 'looked after for the rest of her life'.

But the Prince is now appealing that judgment, insisting he was acting as an agent for his father in talks with Mrs Harb and is not personally liable.

Janan Harb was awarded 15million and two apartments worth 5million after a judge found that the late king of Saudi Arabia had promised to look after her for the rest of her life

Ms Harb had told the court she became the 19-year-old teenage wife of King Fahd in a secret ceremony under sharia law in March 1968 at the Al Sharafiya Palace.

She said members of the family of King Fahd were opposed to their relationship because she was from a Christian family in Palestine.

She was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1970 and, despite both she and the king later remarrying, she maintains he promised to look after her for the rest of her life.

Last November, High Court judge Mr Justice Peter Smith ordered the Prince to pay damages of 12m with interest of 3.25m for keeping her out of the money for years as her dispute raged on.

He was also ordered to transfer into her name two luxury Chelsea flats worth around 5million - making a total award of 20.25million.

Her claim that the Prince had reneged on a 2003 agreement to pay her the 12million and transfer the flats went ahead last July after the Prince failed to get sovereign immunity to stop it going ahead.

But the King's son Prince Abdul Aziz, who was also ordered to pay legal costs estimated at more than 1million, is asking the three Appeal Court judges to throw out her claim 'in its entirety.'

His counsel Lord Anthony Grabiner QC claimed the judge erred in law in finding there had been a binding agreement.

But Ms Harb has been forced into another court battle of the fortune after Prince Abdul Aziz (right), the son of King Fahd (left) insisted the previous court case was biased against him

It is also claimed the trial judge was biased against the Prince who refused to give evidence in person.

Scientologist Mrs Harb, a 68-year-old mother of two, received substantial payments from the late King during his lifetime.

After the alleged 1968 marriage, he opened a bank account for her with 25,000 in it as 'spending money.'

She married a Lebanese lawyer in 1974 and had two daughters and claims the late King gave her money to help support them and 1million to buy one of the Chelsea flats.

She also purchased the second flat and later sold them back to the King for 1.9million.

The court heard that, in 2001, the late King gave her 5million through his agent Faez Martini who kept 100,000 for arranging the transfer.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Smith said she used 3million of that to pay off debts including an 85,000 gambling debt, and then gambled away or spent the balance of 1.9million within two years on her 'lavish lifestyle.'

Ms Harb was also awarded two apartments in this building on the banks of the River Thames in Chelsea

The judge said: 'It is fair to say that she maintained a high maintenance lifestyle as she says to which she had become accustomed whilst being supported by the late King.'

He said the millions were 'plainly payment to buy her silence in respect of her relationship with the late King.'

He was satisfied she was telling the truth and that the Prince was acting on behalf of his late father and was liable to pay the damages and transfer the properties to her as agreed.

She has threatened to 'spill the beans' on her relationship with the late King if she does not get the money and two London properties she claims she was promised. She has written two books which have not yet been published.

The King died in 2005 aged 82, and the High Court ruled that her multi-million pound maintenance claim died with him.

But in June 2003 at a meeting at the Dorchester Hotel in London - two years before he died - she claims his son Prince Abdul Aziz agreed to honour his father's promise and pay her 12million and transfer to her two multi-million pound properties in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, South West London, at 108 and 129 Pier House.

A judge found the king's family had promised to take care of Ms Harb after their relationship in the 1960s

Mrs Harb, who lives in another flat at Pier House, said once that happened she would preserve the confidentiality of information gained during her relationship with the late King.

The Prince, a Government minister and possible future leader of the oil-rich country, did not come in person to give evidence at the trial. He claims this was in deference to the wishes of King Salman who ordered him not to appear.

The latest hearing is set to last for two days with judgment being reserved.
This is the moment a man caused widespread panic in Asda after announcing on the public address system that there was a 'paedophile on the loose'.

Gary Bryce was shopping at the supermarket in Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire last month when he got his hands on a store microphone.

After greeting shoppers in a calm voice, he asks them to evacuate the store because there is a 'paedophile on the loose'.

Gary Bryce, left, caused panic in an Asda in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland, after announcing there was 'a paedophile on the loose' over the public address system, right

The incident went viral with a video uploaded to the internet and several people talking about what happened on social media, pictured

Concerned families can be heard screaming in the background as Mr Bryce bursts into laughter.

The 20-second clip has gone viral online, with over 141,000 views in the space of a month, but enraged parents have also hit out at the 'sick' prankster.

The video, taken by Mr Bryce himself, begins with a shot of the supermarket floor as he walks down an aisle.

It appears as if he knows one of the workers there, as he can be heard asking 'Is it on, yeah?'

The camera pans around to his face, and he can be seen holding a store microphone as a friend in a high-vis jacket appears behind him.

Putting on a calm voice, he speaks into the device and says: 'Attention valued shoppers. Please evacuate the building.

'There is a paedophile on the loose. I repeat, there is a paedophile on the loose.'

Screams and shrieks can be heard in the background as the video ends and Mr Bryce descends into fits of laughter.

Thousand of people have found the video 'hilarious', and commended Mr Bryce for the joke.

Laura Walton said: 'Shouldn't find it funny but I do.'

The 20-second video clip has received more than 140,000 views but has divided viewers with some finding it hilarious and others 'sick'

Naomi Brown wrote: 'Haha that's hilarious. Folk are screaming in the background.'

Rory Morgan added: 'Would expect nothing less of Bearsden.'

However, some didn't find the video quite so side splitting.

Sarah Ainsley said: 'Not in the slightest bit funny. I was in Asda at this time with my little girl and I heard this.

'My heart sank. Saw other parents grab their kid's hands in complete shock. Sick individual.'

One of Mr Bryce's friends, James Alphonsus, wrote: 'You'll end up in the nick.'
A Christian woman who was kidnapped in Pakistan last week is believed to have been forced to marry her Muslim captor, her family claims.

Student Maryam Mushtaq, 24, was abducted as she was walking with her younger brother on her way home from college in Lahore last month.

Her family reported the kidnapping, however, police told them that Miss Mushtaq was not being held against her will, but had married the Muslim man who abducted her.

Kidnapped: Christian student Maryam Mushtaq, 24, was abducted in Lahore in May and her family claims that she has been forced to marry her Muslim abductor, Muhammed Ali, 32

Miss Mushtaq, who had hoped to study to be able to become a teacher, was abducted in front of her 11-year-old brother by two Muslim men and bundled into a car.

Her mother Mussarat Mushtaq, 53, reported the abduction and gave police a description of the kidnappers' vehicle and a licence plate number.

Two days later she received a phone call from the local police, who told her that her daughter was not kidnapped but married.

A man named Muhammed Ali, 32, who Miss Mushtaq's family claim is her kidnapper, had entered the police station and provided a marriage certificate.

However, Miss Mushtaq's family claim that she would never voluntarily marry a Muslim, and say that she is being held against her will and has been forced into marriage.

Miss Mushtaq's mother Mussarat Mushtaq, pictured with her brother-in-law Zain Maish, says that none of her other children had ever seen Miss Mushtaq with Ali, and that she would never marry a Muslim

'Proof': Miss Mushtaq's alleged kidnapper provided police with this marriage certificate, where she is listed as being a Muslim

Despite the Mushtaq family all being devoted Christians, the marriage certificate for Miss Mushtaq and her alleged kidnapper lists her religion as Islam.

'Three years ago my husband died of cancer, two years ago Maryam's sister died. Now kidnappers have taken away my daughter, I am devastated,' her mother, Mrs Mushtaq, says.

'Maryam was a good intelligent hard working girl, she went back to college to improve her chances for employment so that she could support her family. The kidnappers have destroyed her future.

'Maryam had a good relationship with her brother Romail and remaining sister Khusboo, 23, they would know if she had been interested in this man. None of them have ever even seen him before.

'Maryam like the rest of us attends church every week there is no way she would give up her whole life and salvation to marry a Muslim man. Jesus has always been the centre of her life.'

The British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA), which has been helping the family, says that local police are bringing Miss Mushtaq and Ali to court for a hearing this week.

Investigation: The ID card for the alleged kidnapper Muhammad Ali, and the police's investigation

However BPCA fears that as Miss Mushtaq is still living with her alleged kidnapper, she may be forced to tell the court that she is in a lawful marriage.

'Yet again an innocent Christian girl has been kidnapped and forced into Islamic marriage,' Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the BPCA, said.

'We do not know the depravity or the brutality she has had to face but her entrapment will have a sordid edge to it no doubt.

'Police have responded relatively quickly, but had to in circumstances of a traumatic daylight abduction that was witnessed by many.

'The abductors are known and yet the girl still has not been returned to the family and it is feared that corrupt police could collude with the kidnappers if bribed significantly.

'A justice system that does not permit the release of an abductee to her family is indicative of a flawed and failing rule of law.
Radio legend John Laws is back on the air just two days after he collapsed while eating at a Chinese restaurant and was taken to hospital.

The 80-year-old shock jock was taken to hospital after collapsing during a meal at the China Doll restaurant in Woolloomooloo, Sydney, on Sunday.

'Lawsie' was back on 2SM on Monday, saying: 'I did my best, but Christ it hurts,' reported The Daily Telegraph.

Radio presenter John Laws, 80, (pictured) collapsed at China Doll in Wolloomooloo Sydney at 11.30pm on Saturday and was escorted home by staff at the restaurant

He said: 'It isn't too bad. I'm very flattered (by the concern).

'I didn't think anyone really cared anymore. I've got three buggered-up ribs and I'm in a bit of pain and they don't strap you up anymore, it just has to get better.'

Laws said he was at pains to remember the incident, but assured his listeners he was taking it in his stride.

He said: 'I stood up. I really don't know because I knocked my head very badly and I woke up in hospital so I don't really know what happened.'

'It is going to take more than that to kill me.'

A spokeswoman said that a few weeks before he broke several ribs with his walking stick. In February Laws (right) was hospitalised in Rome while enjoying a holiday in Europe with his wife Caroline (left)

It is believed that restaurant staff escorted Mr Laws back to his house after the incident - an $18million pad within walking distance.

A spokeswoman for the radio veteran said Mr Laws was taken to St Vincent's Hospital as a precaution and he was not seriously injured.

The spokeswoman added that Mr Laws broke several ribs a few weeks ago when his walking stick jarred into his chest.

The incident at China Doll (pictured) is not the first time Laws has collapsed in a restaurant. In 2013 he collapsed at Sydney's Otto Ristorante and was taken to hospital

The incident is the latest in an unlucky run for Laws.

In February he was hospitalised in Rome while enjoying a holiday with his wife Caroline.

And in 2013 the popular radio host collapsed at Sydney's Otto Ristorante and was again taken to hospital.

At the time friends told the Telegraph that they were increasingly worried about his heavy drinking and failing memory.
Frustrated New Zealanders have launched a campaign to have visitors display 'T-Plates' on their rental cars to indicate they are a tourist driver.

The founder of 'T-Plates for Tourists,' known only as Josh, said foreigners should be made to complete a driving test to understand the 'unforgiving terrain' before being given their specialised plates.

The group has more than 3,000 likes on Facebook and have penned a petition to Prime Minister John Key to urge the concept be enforced.

'People who come to this country are given the right to drive despite many of them not knowing our driving rules or regulations -- hence the number of crashes that occur on our roads,' Josh told Newshub.

Frustrated New Zealanders have launched a campaign to have visitors display 'T-Plates' on their rental cars

According to the group's Facebook page, the plates will be identical to a Learner driver plate, but with a large 'T' printed on the yellow background.

The petition has had 200 signatures and many have commented urging others to support the cause.

'It is just awful that so many foreigners on our roads kill innocent New Zealanders each year because they don't bother learning about and/or sticking to our road rules,' one woman wrote after signing the petition.

'There are way too many tourists causing accidents. If they want to drive here they need to learn our rules... let's help make our country a safer place guys,' another penned.

On Facebook, one woman suggested each foreign driver have a New Zealand local drive them around for 'the first week of their holiday so they can observe the correct way of driving'.

The founder of 'T-Plates for Tourists,' known only as Josh, said foreigners should be made to complete a driving test to understand the 'unforgiving terrain'

The petition has had 200 signatures and many have commented urging others to support the cause

On Facebook, one woman suggested each foreign driver have a New Zealand local drive them around for 'the first week of their holiday so they can observe the correct way of driving'

A few slammed the concept as 'ridiculous,' but others hoped 'T-Plates' would be introduced to Australia in the near future

The group has more than 3,000 likes on Facebook and have penned a petition to Prime Minister John Key (pictured) to urge the concept be enforced

A few slammed the concept as 'ridiculous,' but others hoped 'T-Plates' would be introduced to Australia in the near future.

'I'm from Tasmania Australia and got to say this is such a great idea. Good on you people,' one woman wrote.

According to the latest data from the New Zealand Transport Agency, overseas drivers contribute to six per cent of crashes even though tourists make up about one per cent of road traffic, The Courier Mail reported.
Doctors are disputing the autopsy of a 16-year-old girl who died after a bathroom brawl at her high school, saying she might not have succumbed due to a heart condition.

Amy Inita Joyner-Francis, a 16-year-old sophomore at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington, Delaware, died following an early-morning fight on April 22.

An autopsy reported her cause of death was due to an atrial septal defect, also known as a hole in the heart, which caused sudden cardiac death, according to Delaware Online.

Atrial septal defect is a hole in the wall the heart that separates the top left and right chambers and causes freshly oxygenated blood to mix with deoxygenated blood.

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An autopsy reported the death of Amy Inita Joyner-Francis, 16, (pictured) as caused by an atrial septal defect, also known as a hole in the heart

Doctors are disputing this, however, saying it is unlikely the hole, regardless of size, would cause the sudden cardiac death of a healthy young person. A memorial for Joyner-Francis was held earlier this month (pictured)

It causes the heart and lungs to work extra hard.

The medical examiner determined Joyner-Francis's condition was a 'large' hole.

Still doctors believe this is a hard determination to make unless the medical examiner is an expert in cardiac deaths.

'Oftentimes, medical examiners, when they discover there is a congenital problem, will be willing to attribute the outcome to that problem and it may or may not be the case,' Dr Robert H. Beekman, chair of the American College of Cardiologys Adult Congenital and Pediatric Council told Delaware Online.

He said the condition is typically missed in routine checkups but still would likely not cause a person to be more susceptible to sudden cardiac death, in his opinion.

Beekman said especially in healthy young people, the condition - regardless of the size of the defect - wouldn't cause an issue.

The doctors believe determining sudden cardiac death due to atrial septal defect is extremely difficult

The condition is typically missed in routine checkups but still would likely not cause a person to be more susceptible to sudden cardiac death, one doctor said

Many people in the community feel the charges against the three 16-year-olds involved in the fight that killed Joyner-Francis (pictured) are weak

'Atrial septal defect is not a cause of sudden death,' said Dr Samuel Gidding, chief of cardiology for Nemours/A.I duPont Hospital for Children, told the paper.

Gidding believes the assault should be the focus in Joyner-Francis's death - not her heart condition.

Other doctors and medical examiners say the coroner is supposed to gather as much information as possible to come to a conclusion, but there is some guesswork involved and medical opinion is often warranted.

None of the doctors critical of the cause of death finding had access to the autopsy report, which is not available to the public under Delaware law.

The Attorney General's Office would not address the doctors' contentions and a spokeswoman for the Delaware Division of Forensic Science said they would not comment to Delaware Online.

Many people in the community, who are mourning the shocking death of the teen, feel the charges against the three 16-year-olds involved in the fight are weak.

The state Department of Justice said it had charged Trinity Carr, 16, with criminally negligent homicide and would seek to have her tried as an adult. She faces up to eight years in prison.

Trinity Carr (pictured), 16, could be tried as an adult for criminally negligent homicide after hitting Joyner-Francis in their high school's bathroom

This is the horrific moment high school Joyner-Francis (right) was allegedly beaten by Carr (left)

Joyner-Francis (left and right) died after being attacked by Carr, Zion Snow and Chakeira Wright, all 16, in the women's bathroom at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington, Delaware, Thursday morning

Carr was the only girl to strike Amy, though all three girls planned the confrontation, according to the department.

The other two girls, Zion Snow and Chakeira Wright, have been charged with criminal conspiracy, which carries up to one year in prison. They will be tried as juveniles.

An autopsy concluded that Joyner-Francis died from a 'cardiac incident' that stemmed from a pre-existing heart condition but was brought on by the stress of the attack, according to the department.

'The cardiac incident would not have occurred if she had not been assaulted,' the Department of Justice said in a statement.

The fight broke out around 8.15am on April 22 before classes at Howard High School of Technology.

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.

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

Authorities questioned Carr, Snow and Wright 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.

'My heart bleeds for the family,' Williams told a news conference.

Speaking a day after her shocking death, the victim's 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.'

Her friends and neighbors knew her as the quiet teen who would focus on her homework.

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
Human rights activists have projected an ISIS flag along with the words 'Daesh Bank' on the side of Saudi Arabia's embassy in Germany.

The projection was beamed on to the side of the building in Berlin as part of a campaign accusing the Kingdom of having links with terror groups.

A second message was projected on to the embassy, saying '10 years and 1000 slashes just for blogging #FREERAIF.'

Human rights activists have projected an ISIS flag along with the words 'Daesh Bank' on the side of Saudi Arabia's embassy in Germany

A second message was projected on to the embassy, saying '10 years and 1000 slashes just for blogging #FREERAIF'

This was an apparent reference to Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and years in prison in Saudi Arabia for insulting Islam.

In March last year, Badawi spoke for the first time since being jailed, saying it was 'miraculous' that he had survived his first 50 lashes.

According to RT, the stunt in Berlin was organised by artist Oliver Bienkowski and the Pixel Helper collective.

Writing on their Facebook page, the activists made alleged links between Saudi Arabia and terror groups.

But last year the Saudi embassy in Berlin said the Kingdom was interested in countering the radicalisation of young people.

A statement said: 'Like Germany, we are part of the anti-Islamic State coalition and fighting side by side against terror.'

The second message was an apparent reference to Raif Badawi (pictured), who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and years in prison in Saudi Arabia for insulting Islam

The Saudis have cracked down on jihadists at home and cut militant finance streams.

The Berlin stunt comes after US Secretary of State John Kerry held talks in Saudi Arabia to secure its support ahead of a potential showdown with Russia at talks on the Syrian conflict.

In talks with his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir, Kerry discussed 'regional issues... mainly developments in Syria,' the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

The monarch discussed 'aspects of cooperation between the two countries and developments in the region and efforts in that regards,' SPA reported.
A Holocaust survivor who overcame the horror of his entire family's murder by the Nazis to make millions in Britain has been posthumously cleared of tax evasion by a judge.

David Hamilton, who died in 2007 aged 84, fled the Nazis in 1938, arriving in England as a 'penniless boy refugee' on one of the last Jewish evacuee ships from Germany.

He was just 15 at the time and his sister, Hannah, was not allowed on board because she was over 16. She and both their parents died in Nazi concentration camps.

David Hamilton (pictured right in 1938), who died in 2007 aged 84, fled the Nazis in 1938, arriving in England as a 'penniless boy refugee' on one of the last Jewish evacuee ships from Germany

Mr Hamilton was an intensely secretive man but his history was raked over in open court as his son Alan (left) and daughter Carolyn (right) fought over a 3.2million offshore fund he left behind

Mr Hamilton died an 'extremely wealthy man' after a glittering career in the rag trade and as a property developer, Mr Justice Henderson told the High Court.

But he never got over his family's murder and always 'felt guilty' that Hannah and his parents were left behind in Germany to die.

The business tycoon, boss of London real estate company, Hamilton & Ray Ltd, owned almost 40 per cent of a 12million London property portfolio when he died.

But despite his spectacular success, he fervently believed to the very end that the events of the holocaust 'could recur at any time'.

Mr Hamilton was an intensely secretive man but his history was raked over in open court as his son and daughter fought over a 3.2million offshore fund he left behind.

Alan Hamilton, 68, is a global tax accountant, based in New York's exclusive Madison Avenue, and his sister, Carolyn Hamilton, 64, a distinguished lawyer and professor emeritus at Essex University.

Carolyn reaped a 2.2million share of the millions her father put into a Liechtenstein foundation before he died, but Alan received less than half that sum.

Fighting to equalise his share in court, Alan claimed the foundation was invalid from the start - because his father had set it up to evade UK tax.

The whole 3.2million should have fallen into David Hamilton's UK estate for equal division between him and his sister, Alan claimed.

Coming to the rescue of the businessman's reputation, however, the judge ruled that fiddling tax was not the Holocaust survivor's motive for building up an offshore fund.

His principle aim in setting up the foundation was to provide him and his family with an 'escape fund' if the horrifying events of his childhood were ever repeated.

Millionaire: Mr Hamilton died an 'extremely wealthy man' after a glittering career in the rag trade and as a property developer, Mr Justice Henderson told the High Court (pictured)

The judge pointed out that Mr Hamilton never gave up his 'domicile of origin' in Germany and throughout his life in England enjoyed 'non dom' status for tax purposes.

He said: 'Any evasion by him of UK tax which would have occurred was incidental. It was emphatically not the driving force which led David to establish the foundation.'

The foundation could not be viewed as 'a sham' under English law and Mr Hamilton was entitled to give a bigger share to Carolyn than Alan, the judge concluded.

In his will, Mr Hamilton bequeathed 500,000 to his widow, Laura, and the remaining UK wealth - about 4million - was split equally between Alan and Carolyn.

Alan told the court it was only four years after his father died that he discovered that his sister had got more than double his share of the Liechtenstein cash.

He argued that the foundation, as a tax evasion vehicle, was invalid and that the 3.2million should have been split 50/50 in line with his will.

Mr Justice Henderson said Mr Hamilton 'stood accused' by his own son of setting up the foundation to evade UK tax.

Carolyn's QC, David Halpern, described Alan's case as a 'deeply unattractive claim by a brother against his sister to set aside their late father's wishes'.

Carolyn Hamilton insisted that her father came to love Britain after it gave him sanctuary from the holocaust and would never have cheated the taxman

And the barrister told the court that Alan had spent around 1million in his 'single-minded determination' to win a bigger slice of his father's fortune.

However, Alan's lawyers told the court that Carolyn had tried to hide from him the scale of her inheritance and all he wanted was justice.

The judge described how, a month after their father's death, Alan and Carolyn flew to their father's bank in Switzerland.

They were shown into two separate rooms to be told about their share of the assets in the foundation.

Carolyn admitted that, when Alan later asked her about the size of her share, 'she gave an untruthful answer'.

She gave him the impression that she had received 'somewhat less' than he had.

Alan, the court heard, only found out the truth years later when Carolyn disclosed it to Revenue and Customs on her accountant's advice.

Carolyn insisted that her father came to love Britain after it gave him sanctuary from the holocaust and would never have cheated the taxman.

Having lost his family and everything he had to the Nazis, he wanted to salt away some money as an 'escape fund in case history repeated itself'.

Asked why her father gave more of his offshore assets to her, she explained that he viewed her as a 'good daughter' who had helped out in his business.

Carolyn denied loathing her brother or trying to do him down. Pleading with him across the court, she said: 'I only hope that there might be a way back now, Alan?'.

Their feud had 'ripped the family apart', the court heard, with their elderly mother 'conflicted by it all'.

Steven Thompson QC, for Alan, insisted he only wanted justice and claimed Mr Hamilton had treated the foundation 'like a piggy bank - away from the eyes of the English taxman'.

But Carolyn said her father was a 'man of principle' and Mr Halpen told the court: 'She finds this litigation abhorrent.'

'That is not just because it pits a brother against his sister but because Alan's case now depends on him showing that their father was a fraudster.'

Carolyn told the court: 'My father was heavily affected by his pre-war experiences. He lost his family, his home, his country and his community. He lost everything.
He may hold the highest office in the land.

But President Obama needed struggled to stretch past his own height to wrap a medal around the neck of a hero police office.

The Commander-in-chief, who is 6ft 1in, used his tip toes to honor LAPD bomb technician Donald Thompson with the Medal of Valor.

The cop received the award after pulling an unconscious man from a burning car - but Obama could only smile as he placed the medal on his shoulders.

It was a light-hearted moment in an otherwise emotionally charged speech where Obama called on the nation Monday to support and listen to its law enforcement officers.

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President Obama used his tip toes as he wrapped a medal around Officer Donald Thompson from the LAPD. He was honored for pulling an unconscious man from a burning car

The Commander-in-chief used every inch of his 6ft 1in frame to award the LAPD bomb technician

On Monday, president Barack Obama presented the Medal of Valor to brave officers from around the country. Pictured, from left: Santa Monica College Police Capt. Raymond Bottenfield, Santa Monica Police Officers Jason Salas and Robert Sparks, who subdued a mass shooter at a community college campus in 2013

Mario Gutierrez, left, was stabbed multiple times while subduing a suspect who threatened to set off an explosion in Miami

He bestowed the Medal of Valor on 13 officers who risked their lives to save others.

In a ceremony in the East Room, Obama draped the purple-and-yellow ribbons around the necks of officers who intervened in shooting rampages, hostage situations and an armed robbery.

He pledged to keep working toward a bipartisan overhaul to make the criminal justice system fairer, smarter and more effective so that officers are well-equipped to enforce the country's laws.

'We can show our respect by listening to you, learning from you, giving you the resources that you need to do your jobs,' Obama said. 'Our country needs that right now.'

Three Santa Monica, California, officers  Jason Salas, Robert Sparks and Capt. Raymond Bottenfield  were honored for their response to a 2013 rampage on a community college campus that left five people dead. Confronting 23-year-old gunman John Zawahri in the campus library, the officers shot and killed him when he pointed his assault weapon at them.

Obama also honored Gregory Stevens of suburban Dallas, who exchanged gunfire with two armed men outside an exhibit hall holding a provocative contest for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Both gunmen were killed, heading off what investigators suspected was a planned mass shooting.

The Medal of Valor ceremony comes amid a simmering public debate about police tactics and racial disparities in the justice system. Obama has walked a careful line on the issue  expressing support for most law enforcement officials, while also endorsing protesters' complaints about racial profiling and mistreatment by police.

In his remarks on Monday, Obama steered that conversation toward his push for a sentencing overhaul and other changes to the justice system, an effort that has found backing in both camps.

Left: Gregory Stevens of Garland, Texas, killed two gunmen suspected of planning a mass shooting. Right: FBI special agent Tyler Call, who while off-duty rescued a woman held at gunpoint by her ex-husband

Left: Louis Cioci of Johnson City, New York captured a gunman who killed a cop. Center: David Huff of Midwest City, Oklahoma saved a two-year-old girl being held at knifepoint. Right: Niagara County Sheriff's Deputy Joey Tortorella prevented a killer from threatening an elementary school

Left: North Miami police officer Niel Johnson captured a suspect who shot a cop and two bystanders. Right: Coral Walker of Omaha shot and killed a man who had killed multiple people during a shooting rampage

Obama presented Constance Wilson, grandmother of fallen Philadelphia Police Department Sgt. Robert Wilson III (right) with his posthumous Medal of Valor for giving his life to protect others during an armed robbery

Obama said he holds out hope that legislation can be passed this year despite the heavily politicized climate ahead of the November election.

MEDAL OF VALOR AWARDED TO COURAGEOUS COPS SINCE 2001 The Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor, authorized by the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor Act of 2001, is the highest national award for valor presented to a public safety officer. The medal is awarded to public safety officers who have exhibited exceptional courage, regardless of personal safety, in the attempt to save or protect human life. The Medal of Valor is awarded by the President of the United States, or his designee, to public safety officers cited by the Attorney General. Public safety officers are nominated by the chiefs or directors of their employing agencies and recommended by the Medal of Valor Review Board. Source: White House

The need for change has been a rare point of common ground between Democrats and Republicans, and though momentum appeared to have sputtered earlier this year, a new Senate proposal has raised hopes that the issue could be successfully revived.

One of those honored, Police Maj. David Huff of Midwest City, Oklahoma, saved a two-year-old girl being held at knifepoint after negotiations with her captor deteriorated.

'Obviously, the last few moments were tense. There was a countdown going on,' Huff told reporters after the ceremony. 'There was just no way I was going to let that little child get hurt.'

Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the nation's top law enforcement official, said there were no words or medals that could begin to pay the debt the country owes the officers.

'It has often been said that the price of freedom is constant vigilance,' Lynch said. 'Know this: they pay that price on our behalf.'

One Philadelphia officer died from a gunshot wound and was honored posthumously.

Sgt. Robert Wilson III drew fire from assailants during a robbery while saving store employees and customers. Wilson's family accepted the award on his behalf.

'We honor those who didn't come home,' the president said.
Investigation led to pharmacy which sold James drugs with a prescription

Police were called to the hotel to investigate and found prescription drugs

The 47-year-old Brit was discovered dead in his hotel room by paramedics

British tourist Mark Jevis James, 47, died in his hotel room while on holiday with his wife in Marmaris

A British woman woke up to find her husband lying dead in bed next to her the morning after he was 'illegally sold prescription drugs' while on holiday in Turkey.

British tourist Mark Jevis James, 47, had told hotel staff he felt ill the night before his sudden death and had even collapsed in front of them in the lobby.

Mr James eventually got back up and the couple went to their room together for the night.

The couple had gone to the quiet tourist resort for a relaxing holiday together in Marmaris, a port town south-western Turkey's Mediterranean coast.

But the holiday turned into a nightmare when Mrs James woke up to find her husband lying dead in bed the next morning.

A medical team rushed to the hotel but were only able to confirm his death.

Police were called to the hotel to investigate and officers found prescription drugs in the couple's hotel room.

Their investigation led them to a local pharmacy where they found out that the drugs had been sold without a prescription, and therefore illegally, by a pharmacy technician.

Police have since detained the technician, whose name was not released.

According to local media, Mr James' wife had refused an offer to call emergency services after he collapsed in the hotel lobby, saying her husband was fine.

Mr James's body was sent to the Mugla Forensic Medicine Institute for an autopsy. The cause of death has not yet been established and an investigation is ongoing.
Byrom also claimed benefits without declaring any income for six years

She earned 64,000 from racket and hid it in her sister's bank account

Cathryn Byrom, pictured, hid 64,000 she earned from running a prostitution racket in her sister's bank account, Bradford Crown Court heard

A benefits cheat avoided jail after stashing 64,000 she earned managing a prostitution racket in her sister's bank account.

Cathryn Byrom, 44, used her sibling's account to hide money she received from managing and running diaries for around 90 women working as escorts.

Bradford Crown Court heard Byrom had admitted five charges of controlling prostitution for gain and five of transferring criminal property, the proceeds of prostitution between July 2011 and August 2015.

Bashir Ahmed, prosecuting, told the court that downloads from a seized phone connected to the defendant's phone.

There was a contact list for 90 women, covering areas across Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Mr Ahmed said there were text messages in relation to organising prostitution appointments, with times and addresses.

Mr Ahmed also explained Byrom had not declared income in the last six years and had been in receipt of benefits for most of that period - with provisional calculations suggested tax evasion of almost 20,000.

The court heard how Byrom's offences came to light in August last year when Proceeds of Crime investigators looked into Byrom's sister's account.

They found that 64,250 had been deposited in cash over a period of time and subsequently transferred to the defendant's bank account.

He said 15,000 remained in Byrom's account, which had been seized.

When investigators confronted the defendant's sister she repeatedly told them Byrom had been using her account.

She was unaware of how the money deposited by Byrom had been earned.

Mitigating, Mark Watterson said the money earned by his client were 'wages for acting as a receptionist,' which was different to someone who owned an escort agency, or worked as a 'madam.'

Mr Ahmed confirmed the criminality was linked to an organisation which was established before the defendant became involved.

Sentencing Byrom to 14 months imprisonment, suspended for two years, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall, QC said Byrom was wrong when she said it was a 'recognised trade doing no harm'.

Byrom was given a 14-month suspended sentence and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work

Bradford Crown Court, pictured, heard Byrom also failed to declare income for six years while claiming benefits (file picture)

The judge told her she had been on the cusp of going to prison but guidelines permitted him to suspend the sentence, as there was no element of coercion or trafficking involved.

He said had that been the case she would have gone to prison for a long time.

Judge Durham Hall said: 'I hope the message goes out, that it isn't just a job, it is running prostitution. The police are very anxious to crack down and stop it.'
Was removed from the psychologists register in 2007 for misconduct

said he is not registered as a medical

A former chronic pain consultant and psychologist, who was deregistered for misconduct towards a patient is facing court after allegedly using a protected medical title.

On Monday the national health watchdog accused Marek Jantos, 61, of illegally holding himself out to be a specialist, when he is not registered as a medical practitioner, The Advertiser reported.

On his website Mr Jantos says that he has dedicated almost three decades to bringing relief to patients with pain, with a focus on female chronic pelvic pain.

Being willing to think outside the bounds of convention, while maintaining a commitment to evidence-based practice, has posed some unique challenges, he says.

Mr Jantos' company has also been charged.

Behavioural Medical Institute of Australia in Adelaide is accused of using a title indicating a person in its employ is authorised or qualified to practice specialty medicine, the publication reported.

The offences allegedly occurred in Adelaide and at other locations between April 17, 2014 and March 6 last year.

The offences carry a maximum $10,000 fine for companies and $5000 for individuals.

The Medical Board of Australia records the names of all authorised heath practitioners on its national register by law.

Anyone found to be holding themselves out as a practitioner that isnt on the register has committed an offence.

Mr Jantos was removed from the psychologists register in 2007 after being found guilty of gross professional negligence, malpractice and misconduct.

It was found he subjected a female patient to invasive treatment and inappropriate touching, without dignity or proper hygiene, in 2003, The Advertiser reported.

Jantos denied the claims at the time and the publication understands that he is seeking a review of the South Australian Psychology Boards decision.

He did not attend his hearing in person at Adelaide Magistrates Court on Monday.
A mother-of-two who is accused of killing her newborn baby when she wouldn't stop crying had already served time for abusing her older child.

Jocelyn M. Nordin is charged with felony child abuse over the death of her month-old daughter Elayna on May 2, Omaha.com reports.

The 24-year-old is accused of shaking her child and dropping her on her head when she wouldn't stop crying, court documents state.

Jocelyn M. Nordin (left) is charged with felony child abuse over the death of her month-old daughter Elayna (right) on May 2

Nordin was living with Linda Kovarik, the mother of her boyfriend, Turner Sherman, 29, in North Loup, central Nebraska, when the incident occurred. She had moved in while pregnant after Sherman, who she met while on parole, returned to jail after testing positive for drugs.

Kovarik claims that at around 3pm on May 3, she texted Nordin to check up on her and the baby. She replied saying she and Elayna were fine and cuddled up in a chair.

But, just a few hours later, Nordin called 911 to report that her baby wasn't breathing.

The infant was rushed to Methodist Hospital in Omaha where she declared brain dead. Sherman, who has never met his daughter and is serving time for a burglary, asked for her to be taken off life support after medics found no signs of improvement.

Doctors discovered the baby had suffered a catalog of injuries including a fractured skull, bleeding on the brain and ruptured retinas - all consistent with child abuse.

Nordin admitted shaking the child and said she had twice dropped her on her head by accident when interviewed by Valley County police. She said that she's been frustrated because the baby wouldn't stop crying.

The 24-year-old (pictured in hospital with her baby) is accused of shaking her child and dropping her on her head when she wouldn't stop crying, court documents state

She could face life in jail if she is convicted of killing her daughter through child abuse

The 24-year-old could face life in jail if she is convicted of killing her daughter through child abuse.

Nordin has already served time for the abuse of her older child after her son was found with a broken arm and a bruised face when he was only five weeks old in 2014.

She was jailed for seven months after she admitted yanking the baby out of his bassinet by his wrists and hitting him when he wouldn't stop crying.

Her son's father, who Nordin has stayed with on-and-off was granted custody. The toddler has now been placed in state custody.

Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services called the death a 'tragic situation'.

A funeral for Elayna was held on Saturday in Chalk Hills Community Church in Scotia.

Kovarik was devastated by the loss of her granddaughter.

'She was the sweetest little baby you would probably ever meet,' she said. 'She was rarely ever fussy.'
He's selling 'front-row seats' for people to watch in person for $5,000 each

Salo, who's lived in Asia since 1989, said: 'Sure, some people might be upset, but we deserve to find out what happened'

Paul Salo, 51, wants the money to buy a Boeing 767 or similar and crash it at 500mph into an empty building similar to one of the twin towers

An American expat who lives in Thailand is raising money to recreate the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in an effort to prove conspiracy theories right or wrong.

In a video detailing his plans, Paul Salo described how he wants to buy a Boeing 767 or a similar plane that is going out of service and crash it at 500mph into an empty building similar to one of the twin towers.

Salo claims that it is an 'important project' to prove or disprove conspiracy theories about the horrific terror attacks 'once and for all.'

In the video to promote the 'reconstruction' of the tragic day, Salo said: 'If you doubt anything about 9/11 we want to blast this to smithereens or we want to prove you completely right.'

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Paul Salo (pictured above in Thailand) is raising money to recreate the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City on the World Trade Center in an effort to prove conspiracy theories right or wrong

In a video detailing his plans, Salo described how he wants to buy a Boeing 767 that is going out of service and crash it at 500mph into an empty building similar to one of the twin towers (pictured right during terror attacks)

Salo claims that it is an 'important project' to prove or disprove conspiracy theories about the horrific terror attacks 'once and for all'. Above people flee the lower Manhattan area during the September 11, 2001 attacks

'We're going to purchase a 747 or equivalent aircraft that's about to go out of service, we're going to fill it full of jet fuel, we're going to purchase a building that's about to be torn down in the countryside ... and we're going to crash it at 500 miles per hour into that building,' he says in the video.

'If there's just a smoking hole in the building and nothing happens, you pretty much know it was a hoax, right? Cause it's obvious, right?

'Sure, some people might be upset, but we deserve to find out what happened.'

Salo, who grew up in San Clemente, California, is attempting to raise $1.5million for 'the event' through a crowdfund and is selling what he calls 'front-row seats' for people to watch in person for $5,000 each.

The American entrepreneur, who has lived in Asia since 1989, added that he thinks his reconstruction will find that there was 'similar physics' that caused the twin towers in New York to collapse.

The 51-year-old said cameras will live stream real-time footage from both inside the airplane and building.

The terror attacks killed 2,996 when two Boeing 767 planes hit the towers on September 11, 2001 in New York. Conspiracy theorists have suggested the US government was involved in the attacks that also injured thousands

In addition, he plans to have experts inspect both the building and plane to confirm the re-enactment is as close to what really happened during the tragic terror attacks.

The horrific terror attacks killed 2,996 and injured thousands more when two Boeing 767 planes hit the towers on September 11, 2001 in New York.

Since the attacks, conspiracy theorists have claimed that the two planes striking the twin towers were not the only cause for them to fall, suggesting that the US government was involved.

Filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, added more suspicion to those theories after it detailed alleged links between the US government, the Bin Laden family and former president George Bush's family.

In addition, another 9/11 documentary, Loose Change, claimed that the heinous attacks were planned by US government insiders.
Jailed: John Davies, 58, pocketed vast sums in tax relief paid by the government by organising Gift Aid repayments through two foundations

A conman father and son who used a charity Gift Aid scam to steal 5million from HMRC by claiming tax breaks on non-existent donations have been jailed for a total of 15 years.

John Davies, 58, of Esher, Surrey, pocketed tax relief by organising repayments through the Sompan Foundation, which provided relief for women and children in poverty, and the Kurbet Foundation, which helped migrants' well-being.

Many individuals said to have donated to the charities did not exist - and Davies was jailed for 12 years at Southwark Crown Court on Friday.

His son Benjamin Davies, 31, was given three years and a third man named Olsi Vullnetari, 38, got seven years. John Daviess daughter Melody Davies, 28, was earlier cleared of wrongdoing.

The court heard that fraudulent tax repayments were claimed on behalf of Sompan worth 3.3million between March 2007 and January 2014 while Kurbet received 1.7million.

Money was sent to 15 countries including the US, Ireland and United Arab Emirates from Sompan with almost half the funds being diverted to Hungary.

The Davies family owned a holiday home in Balastya, Hungary, where a significant part of the money was sent to the 'Tosk Foundation'.

John Davies claimed he bribed immigration officials with caviar and Viagra in order to further the cause of Sompan.

Vullnetari had been a trustee of Sompan from 2004 until 2008 when Benjamin Davies became a trustee until he resigned in August 2012.

He carried out some of the transactions by hijacking the identity of a Thomas Hamilton and had a fake passport which he used to pretend this was his true identity.

Also behind bars: Davies's son Benjamin Davies (left), 31, was given three years and a third man named Olsi Vullnetari (right), 38, got seven years. His daughter Melody Davies, 28, was earlier cleared of wrongdoing

David Hughes, prosecuting, insisted that John Davies and Vulluntari should face long sentences. He said: John Davis is a cheat and a long term offender, who warrants a long term sentence.

For Olsi Vullnetari, as a trustee, and as someone authorising and making bank transfers his role is also a leading one.

GIFT AID: CHARITIES CLAIM BACK TAX YOU'VE PAID ON DONATIONS Gift Aid was introduced in 1990. It was supposed to encourage more people to give to charity by making it tax-free. It works by allowing charities to claim back the 20 per cent basic-rate tax you've already paid on the money you donate. So, if you donate 80, it's worth 100 to the charity. This is the 20 income tax you were charged before your salary or pension was paid. Higher-rate 40 per cent taxpayers and top-rate 45 per cent taxpayers can claim back the extra tax they paid. On an 80 donation, the charity would get 100 and the higher-rate taxpayer could claim back a 20 tax rebate for themselves by filling in a self-assessment tax return. Under Gift Aid rules, if you sign a form the charity should be able to claim 20 per cent directly from HMRC if the claim meets its criteria. If it does, it pays the money into the charity's account. Last year, HMRC paid out 1.2 billion to charities in Gift Aid. BY VICTORIA BISCHOFF Advertisement

He has been found guilty on two counts, and therefore he should be charged on the totality of both counts, which makes it a leading role.

Hannah Wyatt, defending, said jail would not be easy for John Davies. She said: He suffers from depression, anxiety and paranoia which he has received medication for.

Prison will not be easy, it will be a tall order, and I ask for a lower sentence.

Rachel Darby, representing Benjamin Davies, told the court his father was to blame for his involvement. She said: Hes only got involved in this due to his relationship with his father.

He is now irrevocably estranged from his father, they have not spoken since the day of his arrest. Since this, he has continued to work in charity for Syria Relief, where he is head of fundraising, and worked to raise over 6million.

David Hislop QC, for Vullentari, said: Mr Davies was like a father to him, they became a family. Theres no evidence from this trial that Vullentari benefited from this fraud.

Judge Stephen Tomlinson told John Davies: You are an arrogant individual, with a vestige of self-righteousness, you sought to steer them away by letting them know all the good work you were doing and criticising HRMC.

This bordered on the outer limits of hypocrisy, and this fund was still ongoing. It is the country that has been harmed, and people like the tax paying jurors in this case.

Then turning his attention to Benjamin Davies, Judge Tomlinson said: You were possibly unaware about the nature of the donations, but it is inconceivable you did not have suspicions.

HOW DID THE SCAM WORK? John Davies submitted tens of thousands of fake charity Gift Aid donation forms to HMRC and pocketing the cash. Along with Olsi Vullnetari, he claimed he was a trustee and associate of two charities, the Sompan Foundation and Kurbet Foundation. The charities had been legitimately set up to support women and children in crisis and poverty, but Davies took over when the founder died, and turned the charity into a money-making goldmine. For six years they made Gift Aid repayment claims based on fake donations - including using dead peoples names on the forms. The fraud proceeds were then laundered through bank accounts - before being sent back to their home country of Hungary. The Tosk Foundation, whose headquarters are near the Davies family home in Hungary, received around 1.6million in payments. Advertisement

You converted funds and moved them to multiple places, aside from the places that needed them.

Turning to Vullantari, Judge Tomlinson said: You were no longer a vulnerable individual when you agree to take part in this scheme as a trustee, and you did so for material gain.

In a statement, David Margree, assistant director of the HMRC fraud investigation service said: These fraudsters despicably extorted 5 million from honest British taxpayers.

Gift Aid is in place to support legitimate charities and offer extra funding, not for the financial benefit of criminals who abuse the system.

John Davies was jailed for 12 years and Vullnetari, of Abingdon, Oxfordshire, was jailed for seven years after being found guilty of two counts of cheating the public revenue and one of money laundering.

Benjamin Davies, of Wythenshawe, Manchester, was jailed for three years after being found guilty of money laundering.
But it adds further weight to claims Russian separatists were responsible

However, it does not confirm the Russian system actually fired the missile

New satellite images have placed the air missile system used to down MH17 near to Donetsk just hours before the jet was shot down.

The damning evidence gives further weight to claims that Russia-supplied separatists shot down the passenger plane on July 2014.

Russia has always maintained that a Ukrainian missile was responsible for the crash which killed 298 people.

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The analysis by Stratfor revealed the location of the Buk defence system just hours before MH17 was downed. This corresponded to previous research identifying it as the missile system which most likely shot the jet

However, the imagery published by Stratfor shows the Buk surface-to-air missile system was mounted atop a transloader in Donestsk five hours before MH17 was shot down.

This corresponds to work carried out by British investigatory blog Bellingcat, which claims the Buk system entered the separatist-controlled region from a military base in Russia.

They believed they had singled out the weapon responsible after analyzing footage of the BUK - seen in the launch area of rebel-held Ukraine on the day the passenger jet was shot down.

By comparing features such as the wheel type, a dent in the panel and even soot marks, the report claimed it could only be the Russian BUK numbered 332 from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade based in the Russian city of Kursk.

Verifying the evidence had been harder because one of the three identifying digits on the BUK was missing, leading it to be named BUK 3x2.

The Bellingcat team said: 'We reviewed materials going back over five years to determine various characteristics unique to this BUK before finally identifying the mystery middle digit that was obscured when the missile launcher was last seen in 2014.'

The report added: 'Therefore, on 17 July 2014, the Russian BUK TELAR numbered 332 of the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade based in Kursk was filmed and photographed in eastern Ukraine.

'This specific BUK, previously identified as Buk 3x2, was filmed moving to the centre of the launch area estimated by the Dutch Safety Board for the missile that downed MH17.'

The Bellingcat investigation follows on from its report in November 2014 that the Russian military did supply separatists with a BUK missile launcher and that rebels were most likely to have been responsible for the atrocity.

A team of journalists from Bellingcat say they singled out the weapon responsible after analysing footage of a BUK (above) seen travelling to the launch area in Ukraine on the day the passenger jet was shot down

Bellingcat claims the BUK launcher was under control of Russian separatists after being supplied by Moscow

Meanwhile, dozens of families of those killed on the flight are now considering suing the carrier for compensation, their lawyer told AFP.

All 298 passengers and crew - the majority of them Dutch - died when the Boeing 777 was hit on July 17, 2014.

'We are still negotiating the case. But the offers that Malaysia Airlines are making are almost offensive for our clients,' lawyer Veeru Mewa said.

His office, Beer Advocaten, represents the families of 91 people killed in the disaster. But he is also leading a core group of Dutch lawyers, acting for the families of some 168 people who died on the ill-fated flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

Under a 1999 international accord dubbed the Montreal Convention, the families have until the second anniversary of the disaster - July 17 - to decide if they want to press a lawsuit.

Mewa said the airlines' insurers were 'taking advantage of Dutch law' under which if someone dies in an accident then you can only claim 'compensation for the funeral costs'.

'According to international standards that would mean a Dutch life is worth less than any other life,' he said.

The lawsuit, if it is filed, would seek damages for the loss of earnings as well as compensation for the 'psychological' trauma of those who lost loved ones.

The legal team was also thinking of holding Malaysia Airlines 'liable for flying over Ukraine' which was in the middle of a conflict with government forces fighting pro-Russian rebels.

The reconstructed wreckage of the jet is pictured on display last year after the presentation of the final report into its destruction

A pro-Russian separatist stands guard over a piece of the plane after it crashed in the rebel-held territory
Students from University of Sydney's prestigious Wesley College have deemed the institution a haven for rampant sexism and an 'en masse' drinking culture, when speaking out after a 'slut-shaming' journal was revealed.

Three Wesley College students spoke anonymously on ABC's 7.30 program and said they feared the Camperdown college, in Sydney's inner-west, put their reputation ahead of the health and safety of students.

The crux of the girls complaints stemmed from a section in the Wesley College Journal, the Rackweb, an intricate map that reveals details about the sex life of women on campus.

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Three Wesley College students spoke anonymously on ABC's 7.30 program and said they feared the Camperdown college, in Sydney's inner-west, put their reputation ahead of the health and safety of students.

The University of Sydney Women's Collective Facebook page uploaded a photo of students demanding the names of the editors of the journal to be revealed

'There was no consent to having our names in the Rackweb, it was just kind of expected of us that it was part of college, it was part of a tradition that all of us would just be OK with it being published in the journal,' a girl known as Jane said.

'I think it's quite disgusting that people of our generation are still so sexist, I thought that we'd moved passed this, and coming from an out of Sydney area I never experienced this back at home.'

'At times I feel that maybe the college puts their reputation before the health and safety of individuals and I think there are examples to illustrate that,' a girl known as Sally said.

Another girl, Mary, said as part of an initiation exercise she and other girls had to lie on the ground and have cask wine poured into their mouth, and the more they could drink, the more they were commended.

The publication is funded by students of the college and includes awards for 'Best A**', 'Best Cleavage', 'Biggest Pornstar' and 'Kinkiest Collegian', while the woman deemed to have slept with the most men is awarded the title of 'Mrs RackWeb'.

In a statement, the Master and Council of Wesley College said they 'refute absolutely that there is a culture of misogyny at Wesley College'.

Producers of the Wesley College journal were slammed by students at Sydney University after including a section named 'The Rackweb' - an intricate map that reveals details about the sex life of women on campus

The University of Sydney Women's Collective Facebook page uploaded a photo of students demanding the names of the editors of the journal to be revealed.

'We are calling for the names of the editors of Wesley Journal 2014 to be released so that the University can take disciplinary action,' the post read.

'We want all college students to undergo mandatory sex and consent training so that harassment and assault can be prevented in the future.

The students comments come just days after the master of Wesley College, Lisa Sutherland, would not co-operate with University of Sydney and release the names due to privacy policy, according to Sydney Morning Herald.

Female students from Wesley College have spoken out about the shocking case of 'slut shaming'

It was also reveaeld students had used a massage parlour as part of an initiation activity, causing distress to employees and members of the community.

'Wesley College has informed the vice-chancellor at the University of Sydney that the college is not in a position to provide the names because of its adherence to its policy on privacy,' Ms Sutherland said.

'Wesley College is a privately operated institution that provides a residential community for adult students, and part of the development of students through their university years is to have the opportunity to lead and self-govern within the supportive and values-driven environment that Wesley provides.'

The university is said to be 'frustrated' at Ms Sutherland's response, as it has brought a halt to the institution's investigation.

The journal, which is funded by a compulsory fee, defines a woman's worth by their 'willingness to put out' or their ability to enable hook ups for 'sleazy, pussy-hungry' seniors, according to Pulp.

The journal's producers willingly admit the content is sexist, stating that: 'We might be sexist, but you lovely b***hes and h*es should know we're trying to correct this'.

Students who have been featured in the publication have spoken out about its vile content, with some claiming their inclusion has caused them significant upset and embarrassment

The journal, which is funded by a compulsory fee, defines a woman's worth by their 'willingness to put out' or their ability to enable hook ups for 'sleazy, pussy-hungry' seniors

Sydney University Women's Officer Anna Hush-Egerton said it is important for instances like these to be made public so those responsible can be held accountable.

'It is really important to bring to light the culture of colleges which is deeply misogynistic and shapes the day to day experiences of all the women who live there,' Ms Hush told Daily Mail Australia.

She called on the university to take a preventative approach toward the widespread sexism and sexual harassment on campus, instead of waiting for severe cases like this to highlight the problem.

Ms Hush-Egerton said the university had committed to running bystander training, where students would be taught how to intervene if they witnessed sexism or harassment, however it has not yet been implemented.

The journal's producers willingly admit the content is sexist, stating that: 'We might be sexist, but you lovely b***hes and h*es should know we're trying to correct this'.
A 23-year-old pregnant mother-of-two has been stabbed to death in her own home allegedly by her own husband, who fled the scene with his children before eventually turning himself in.

Lyuba Savenok, from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, died on Saturday morning, not long after police were called to her house over a domestic-disturbance incident.

Her 30-year-old husband, Yeveginy Savenok, subsequently fled the scene in an SUV with their two children, aged three and four, and later turned himself into police, according to a police report.

Eden Police Sgt. David Becker told Dailymail.com that the suspect is being held at the Hennepin County Adult Detention Center in Minnesota and is expected to be charged either today or early tomorrow.

Lyuba Savenok, 23, was stabbed to death Saturday at her home in Eden Prairie. She was pregnant and had two children, Vivienne aged 3 (left) and Matthew, aged 4

Her 30-year-old husband, Yeveginy Savenok, (pictured right) fled the scene in an SUV with their two children, aged 3 and 4

Savenok, from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, died on Saturday morning, not long after police were called to her house (pictured) over a domestic-disturbance incident

Eden Police Sgt. David Becker told MailOnline that the suspect is being held at the Hennepin County Adult Detention Center in Minnesota and is expected to be charged either today or early tomorrow. Pictured: Savenok with husband Yeveginy, right

Happier times: Lyuba and Yevginy (pictured center) on their wedding day back flanked by friends; her brother said the couple had been married for nearly six years

Loving mother and wife: Her Instagram and Facebook pages are filled with adorable pictures of her two children as well as shots from her wedding day

An ambulance took Savenok to Hennepin County Medical Center where she died of multiple stab wounds, according to KARE-11.

Sgt Becker told MailOnline that a weapon had been recovered at the scene but would not specify what it was.

Savenok's brother, Aleksandr Katane, who identified her body on Sunday, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune his sister was 26 weeks pregnant with her third child, a boy.

He described her as a 'loyal wife and a loving mother to her children' and said the couple had been married for nearly six years. Her social media pages are filled with adorable pictures of her two children.

'Her greatest passion was being a mom and doing everything she could to enrich their lives,' he said.

Police spokesman Greg Weber said Saturday that officers had been called to the house for a domestic disturbance at least one other time in the past year.

Savenok's brother described her as a 'loyal wife and a loving mother to her children' and that the couple had been married for six years

Sgt Becker told MailOnline that a weapon had been recovered at the scene but would not specify what it was. Pictured: The Savenok couple in happier times

Police spokesman Greg Weber said Saturday that police had been called to the house for a domestic disturbance at least one other time in the past year. Pictured: Mourners gather at a home for the vigil

Mr Katane also shared a message on the social media site and directed mourners to a GoFundMe page that has been set up in her honor. It has already attracted more than $36,000 in donations.

He wrote: 'We wish to honor Lyuba and her son and bury them in a beautiful place where they may be visited by friends and family.

'Lyuba's greatest passion in life was to enrich her children's lives. With your help her immediate family will care for Matthew and Vivienne and do everything in their power to set them up for success.'

The funds will be used to help with funeral expenses and to help with raising and providing for her son Matthew, 4, and daughter Vivienne, 3.

A candlelight vigil led by her brother was held for the 23-year-old at sunset yesterday at Clover Meadow in Chaska.

Lyuba was born in Valga, Estonia, in 1993, but lived most of her life in Eden Prairie and Chaska.

She enrolled in the University of Minnesota at the age of 16 and had only just begun work as a realtor back in February.

Tragic loss: A candlelight vigil led by her brother was held for the 23-year-old at sunset yesterday at Clover Meadow in Chaska

Community in mourning: Brother Katane said her greatest passion 'was to enrich her children's lives'

Police spokesman Greg Weber said Saturday that police had been called to the house for a domestic disturbance at least one other time in the past year. Pictured, police at the scene of the incident Saturday

Brother Aleksandr Katane (pictured) said: 'We wish to honor Lyuba and her son and bury them in a beautiful place where they may be visited by friends and family'

Her company Keller Williams Realty Elite posted a tribute to her on their Facebook page.

'Yesterday our KW Family lost a bright and talented up and coming real estate star.

'We want to say: Thank you sweet Lyuba for the short time we had together at work.

'Your amazing spirit, energy and positivity were exactly the kind of attitude and culture we celebrate. You will be missed.- KW Realty Elite.'

Tributes were left on her most recent Facebook post, which came on May 6, a black-and-white video featuring her two children and her husband.

'When you're the star of the week at school and you get to bring some special guests. This kid brought his little sister and papa. Just a little something ot pull on those heart strings on Friday,' she wrote.

Several people wrote under the video, including Agnes Savenok, who said: 'So so tragic and heart breaking. Enjoy the angels singing Lyubachka. You will be terribly missed.'

Neighbors of the Savenok and her family told the site Saturday that the couple had moved to the yellow two-story house a year ago and 'mostly kept to themselves'.

They also said that the police had shown up to the home on several occasions over the course of that year.
So far, no one has accepted the challenge

Group of Republicans who don't want Trump have been plotting, polling

RNC boss Reince Priebus warns the effort could wreck the country for 'generations'

Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus is warning that a third-party conservative challenge to Donald Trump could wreck the country 'for many generations,' amid fears such an effort would serve only to hand closely contested states to Hillary Clinton.

He compared the effort to a 'suicide mission.'

'What it means is that you're throwing down not just eight years of the White House, but potentially 100 years on the Supreme Court and wrecking this country for many generations,' Priebus told 'Fox News Sunday.'

'And so, I think that's the legacy these folks will leave behind,' he warned. 'I think it's very dangerous, and there's other ways to get assurances on the things that they're worried about,' he added.

Fortunately for Priebus, the forces searching to counter Trump haven't succeeded yet in finding a candidate who will take up the charge.

Suicide mission: Priebus wants to get the presumed party nominee elected without an independent challenge

The Washington Post reported on an ongoing effort among disaffected members of the 'stop Trump' movement to find an acceptable conservative nominee who could run against the real estate mogul.

Former Massachusetts Governor MItt Romney has been reaching out to potential candidates to gauge their interest, the paper reported.

Among those Romney tried to recruit is Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, who like Romney has said he won't back Trump. The first term lawmaker is telegenic and considered to have strong future prospects in the party.

But so far, it doesn't look like Romney's effort is working.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse's office is throwing cold water on a report he could run as an Independent

Failed GOP presidential candidate Ohio Governor John Kasich says he won't run as an Independent

Sasse spokesman James Wegmann said the office 'will decline to comment on the senator's conversations,' without knocking down a report that they spoke.

'Sen. Sasse has been clear about this when asked before: He has three little kids and the only callings he wants -- raising them and serving Nebraskans. The answer is no,' he told CNN.

Another potential candidate is Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

His spokesman told the Post Kasich isn't entertaining the idea and won't run as an independent.

Kasich is also under consideration to be Trump's vice presidential running mate, Trump advisor Dr. Ben Carson has said, so he has strong reasons not to consider any long-shot efforts.

'The idea of running someone as a third party, particularly the way they're going about it, is not going to be effective and is not practical,' Kasich strategist John Weaver told the Post.

For the moment the movement appears to consist of disappointed conservatives, consultants, and opinion makers, but no one of the stature to mount a run.

A leader of the effort is William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard.

'I think a Republican of integrity and honor who people like me will feel comfortable voting for,' he told CNN last week.

Also reportedly involved in the effort are conservative blogger Erick Erickson, former Romney advisor Stuart Stephens  who clashed with Trump during the primaries  and former advisor to Senator John McCain Mike Murphy.

Another possible candidate for the effort is wealthy Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, but he told the Post, 'I don't see it happening.'

The highest-ranking official to refuse to back Trump is House Speaker Paul Ryan, although Ryan left the door open for a possible endorsement after the two men's staff meet on policy issues.

Part of the idea behind the effort is not to have the independent candidate win outright necessarily, but prevent Hillary Clinton from getting the requisite 270 electoral votes, which would throw the election into the U.S. House of representatives.

The main problem with the theory is that a conservative would be more likely to draw votes from Trump, who actually runs left of Hillary on some issues, than from Clinton.
These are the child assassins being trained at an ISIS terror camp to kill with machine guns almost as big as they are.

Footage shows boys from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines firing Kalashnikov rifles and handguns at a camp in the terror group's stronghold of Hasakeh, northeastern Syria.

Under the watchful eye of adult extremists, the children step forward and fire their weapons and take part in physical training exercise.

Footage has emerged of child assassins being trained at an ISIS terror camp to kill with machine guns almost as big as they are

Footage shows boys from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines firing Kalashnikov rifles and handguns at a camp in the terror group's stronghold of Hasakeh, northeastern Syria

Under the watchful eye of adult extremists, the children step forward and fire their weapons and take part in physical training exercises

The 15-minute propaganda video, called 'The Generation of the Epic Battles' is accompanied by hypnotic music and concludes with the youngsters burning their passports.

According to Vocativ, the video starts with an ISIS extremist called Abu Naser al-Indonisi calling the boys the sons of terror group's caliphate.

It includes footage of the children quoting the Koran and urging ISIS supporters to move to the 'land of Islam', insisting 'our path is jihad'.

Chillingly, the video also includes a threat made against Indonesia and Malaysia that they will 'never be able to defeat' ISIS fighters.

Training: The 15-minute ISIS propaganda video is called 'The Generation of the Epic Battles'

At one point in the video, the boys - from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines - are forced to wrestle each other

The video is accompanied by hypnotic music and concludes with the youngsters burning their passports

The children dump their passports on the ground before one of their mentors sets them alight

The children then dump their passports on the ground before one of their mentors sets them alight.

It comes a day after barbaric ISIS militants released footage purporting to show two French boys executing prisoners in a remote forest.

The video, released by ISIS's propaganda wing in an attempt to lure French nationals to its territory, is titled 'In the Footsteps of My Father'.

The video includes footage of the children quoting the Koran and urging ISIS supporters to move to the 'land of Islam', insisting 'our path is jihad'

The video is the latest to be released by ISIS extremists showing children being trained as terrorists

Two French-speaking boys are the focus of the video as it shows them training with weapons and given an education in the group's fanatical interpretation of Islam.

But it also purports to show them killing two men while the prisoners are kneeling with their heads bowed.
Cigarette reward system introduced after shut down of the facility ordered

A reward scheme-turned-black market trade between detainees on Manus Island and town locals has left Australian taxpayers footing a $1.5 million bill each week.

According to detainee Behrouz Boochani, the 900 asylum seekers on the Papua New Guinea island are rewarded with several free packets of cigarettes when they go on beach excursions, fishing trips or take language classes,The Daily Telegraph reported.

Many then travel into the main township of Lorengau and sell the cigarette packets for up to $10 each, using the money to buy marijuana, alcohol and electronics.

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A black market trade between detainees on Manus Island and town locals has left Australian taxpayers footing a $1.5 million bill each week

According to detainee Behrouz Boochani, the 900 asylum seekers on the Papua New Guinea island are rewarded with several free packets of cigarettes when they go on beach excursions, fishing trips or take language classes

'Cigarettes are money in this prison,' Mr Boochani told News Corp on Sunday.

'Lots in here are smoking marijuana, drinking home brew, and trading cigarettes with locals for money to buy new clothes, phones, electronics, televisions, everything'.

The cigarette reward system came into effect after Papau New Guinea's Supreme Court ruled the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island is illegal two weeks ago.

The detention centre authorities decided to allow detainees more freedom for their 'state of mind'.

One official said some of the asylum seekers are purchasing smartphones with the money from selling the cigarette packets and using them to film protests from inside the centre.

Many detainees into the main township of Lorengau and sell the cigarette packets for up to $10 each, using the money to buy marijuana, alcohol and electronics

The cigarette reward system came into effect after Papau New Guinea's Supreme Court ruled the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island is illegal two weeks ago

The detention centre authorities decided to allow detainees more freedom for their 'state of mind' and gave them cigarette packets as 'rewards'

'Some of them are also paying local girls to have sex which is causing lots of tension within the island community,' he said.

Last month, it was announced Manus Island detention centre would be closed, but Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has insisted the 900 men held on the island would not be brought to Australia.

However PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said that they will immediately ask the Australian government to make 'alternative arrangements'.

'Respecting this ruling, Papua New Guinea will immediately ask the Australian government to make alternative arrangements for the asylum seekers currently held at the regional processing centre,' Mr O'Neill said.

Mr O'Neill said his government had never expected the asylum seekers to be kept for so long on Manus Island.

'For those that have been deemed to be legitimate refugees, we invite them to live in Papua New Guinea only if they want to be part of our society and make a contribution to our community,' he said.

Last month, it was announced Manus Island detention centre would be closed, but Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has insisted the 900 men held on the iland would not be brought to Australia
A self-proclaimed cannibal who bit off part of a stranger's ear, boasted 'it was chewy, yum yum' and told police he had saved some in his pocket 'for later' has been jailed.

Garth Anderton, 24, who had an obsession with cannibalism, vampires and serial killers attacked Euan Turner as he walked home from a New Year's Eve party with his brother and their partners in Paignton, Devon.

Anderton, from Manchester, admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent and three assaults, and was branded a danger to the public as he was jailed for six years at Exeter Crown Court.

Exeter Crown Cout (pictured) was told self-proclaimed cannibal Garth Anderton, 24, bit off a stranger's ear, boasted 'it was chewy, yum yum' and told police he had saved some in his pocket 'for later'

The court was told that Anderton had been living rough and had attacked Mr Turner because he thought his victim had been laughing at him.

He then kicked his victim over, climbed on top of him and beat him around the head before biting off the bottom third of his ear.

When police arrived he told them: 'I bit his ear off and I ate it. I am a cannibal.'

After officers found part of the ear in the zip pocket of his tracksuit bottoms he said: 'It was chewy. I was saving it for later.'

He also gave police the false name of Richard Trenton, the first two names of a notorious American mass murderer Richard Chase, who was known as the Vampire of Sacramento.

Anderton told a psychiatrist he was fascinated with serial killers and vampirism and had even drunk his own blood in the past.

He was jailed for six years with a five year extended licence by Recorder Mr Andrew Maitland, who said Anderton appeared to be proud of what he had done.

He said: 'One thing which causes me great concern is that when you were arrested you gave the name Richard Trenton. That was no coincidence. The psychiatrist established you have a pre-occupation with serial killers.

'They include Chase, who was known as the Vampire of Sacramento. There seems to be a significant link between the way you behaved and giving this name just moments later. It gives an understanding of what was driving you.

'You told the probation that you enjoyed every second of it. You said you taught Mr Turner a lesson and felt pretty proud. You said it was better than losing your virginity.

'You admitted you had said the ear was chewy and had said "yum yum". The probation officer concluded you pose an extremely high risk to the public.

'The psychiatrist referred to your fantasies of violence including in part cannibalism and repeated threats to hurt others. You are also pre-occupied with serial killers and in the past have self harmed and drunk your own blood.
Hillary Clinton has slammed her bitter rival Donald Trump as a 'show horse' as she addresses supporters just a few blocks from the Kentucky Derby.

Clinton was campaigning in Louisville not far from the site of the famous horse race on the Churchill Downs when she took another pot-shot at the billionaire tycoon, reports ABC.

Speaking during an event at the Union of Carpenters and Millwrights Training Center, she said: 'There's a saying in the senate, there are two kinds of Senators: There are show horses and work horses.

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Hillary Clinton has slammed her bitter rival Donald Trump as a 'show horse' as she addresses supporters just a few blocks from the Kentucky Derby

'You all know a little bit about that here in Louisville, don't ya?'

She made the digs as she worked her way through Kentucky as part of a campaign push ahead of Tuesday's primary.

Remarking on Trump's financial policies, Clinton said: 'Honesty, the things he said about the economy are just frightening. This is scary, dangerous talk.'

The barbs came as top Democratic advisors and consultants warn that Clinton's chief obstacle is her own personality, or at least how voters perceive it, after a year of relentless criticism from right and left.

Clinton's likeability numbers are lower than they were at the start of the campaign, notwithstanding countless efforts by her team to boost her numbers through advertising, soft interviews, and warm chats in diners and living rooms around the country.

Her allies raise concerns that Clinton is 'scripted and thin-skinned.' That could be a problem going against a candidate as improvisational as Trump.

Republican Donald Trump is in a statistical dead heat with Hillary Clinton in a new Reuters national poll

NBC's early electoral college forecast puts the Democrats on track to win 253 electoral votes at the outset and Republicans set to take 190 in the battle to reach 270 electoral votes.

And Trump could prove to be even more unlikeable once he gets in front of an electorate consisting of Democrats and Republicans.

However, Dan Pfeiffer, a former top Obama advisor, said: 'They're dealing with 20 years, almost 30 years now, of public narratives about her.

'I don't think that's fixable in the next six months. You have to turn it from a referendum on her trustworthiness to a contrast.'

While, Clinton's own pollster, Joel Benenson, is hardly declaring victory.
The families of Lindt Cafe siege victims Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson have sought an independent report into police negotiations for the current inquest, catching police off guard.

Police have expressed concern about the move due to providing confidential documents to a third party to investigate after it emerged at the inquest into the 2014 siege that negotiators did not speak directly with gunman Man Monis, according toThe Daily Telegraph.

The families have reportedly commissioned international expert Dr Andrew Brown, a former senior Scottish police officer who recently taught the FBI Crisis Negotiation Course.

The families of Lindt Cafe siege victims Tori Johnson (pictured left) and Katrina Dawson (pictured right) have sought an independent report into police negotiations for the current inquest, catching police off guard

'We are troubled about the circumstances of the commissioning of the Brown report,' counsel for the NSW Police, Dr Ian Freckelton QC, told the inquest on Friday, according to the news report.

'We have been taken by surprise by it. We are considering an appropriate response on behalf of the police.'

Police are reportedly looking at avenues to commission another independent report, in addition a report by a panel of five terrorism experts including Britain's head of armed policing.

Police are reportedly looking at avenues to commission another independent report, in addition a report by a panel of five terrorism experts including Britain's head of armed policing

Dr Peggy Dwyer, counsel for Mr Johnson's family, reportedly told the inquest on Friday the families wanted closure on all questions and said Dr Brown's report was not 'accusatory' but aimed to provided information for recommendations about negotiating.

Police stormed the cafe at 2.13am after on December 16, 2014, after Mr Johnson was shot dead by Monis. Ms Dawson was found to have been killed by fragments of police bullets.

Police negotiators are expected to give evidence when the inquest resumes on Monday.
Donald Trump said Sunday that an anticipated flood of Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S. by the Obama administration will being with them a new wave of terror attacks unleashed by Islamist groups.

'Bad things will happen. A lot of bad things will happen. There will be attacks that you wouldnt believe, the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting said on a podcast hosted by the National Border Patrol Council.

'There will be attacks by the people that are right now coming into our country, because  I have no doubt in my mind,' Trump predicted.

WARNING: Donald Trump, pictured speaking with Piers Morgan on the British ITV network, said in a podcast run by a border patrol officers' union that Syrian Refugees entering the U.S. could be ISIS in disguise

HORDES: Countless Syrians fleeing from clashes between ISIS militants and their own government's forces are streaming into Turkey and then throughout Europe, and the Obama administration says it will accept 10,000 of them for resettlement

The Obama administration has committed that by the end of September it will resettle 10,000 Syrians in the United States following a lengthy vetting process overseen by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. That number will likely expand in 2017 unless Trump were to move into the Oval Office.

'We would be very, very strict. We would be very vigilant,' he said on the podcast.

'And frankly, the easiest way to solve the problem  and it's gonna be a big problem if they keep doing this, and it already is a big problem  is to just not let it happen.'

The National Border Patrol Council endorsed Trump on March 30, marking the first time the 49-year-old union of front-line federal officers had ever taken sides in a presidential election.

Trump has spoken publicly in the past against accepting Syrian refugees, but raised the specter on Sunday of the ISIS terror army infiltrating the U.S. along with them.

'Our country has enough difficulty right now without letting the Syrians pour in,' he said. 'And again, we don't know that they're Syrians. We don't know where they're coming from. We have no idea.'

'They could be ISIS. They could be  who knows? But we're going to stop that immediately.'

He said last November on CNBC that 'we have no idea who these people are; we are the worst when it comes to paperwork. This could be one of the great Trojan horses.'

Two months later in South Carolina, Trump said refugees from the war-torn Middle Eastern country 'could be ISIS ... and by the way, it is turning out that they probably are ISIS.'

'There's so many men, they're so young, they are very strong,' he told a rally audience.

'Where are the women? Where are the children?'

Last month in Rhode Island he ratcheted up his rhetoric.

'We all have hearts and we can build safe zones in Syria and we'll get the Gulf states to put up the money,' he pledged during a campaign speech. 'We're not putting up the money, but I'll get that done.'

'But you know what? We can't let this happen. But you have a lot of them resettling in Rhode Island. Just enjoy your  lock your doors, folks!'

The 69-year-old billionaire, who is preparing to become the GOP's standard-bearer at its July nominating convention in Cleveland, Ohio, pointed on Sunday to pictures of Syrian migrants who have smartphones as an indication that they might be funded by nefarious Islamist groups.

'So they don't have money. They don't have anything  they have cell phones? Who pays their monthly charges, right?' Trump asked.

'They have cell phones with the flags, the ISIS flags on them. And then we're supposed to say, "Isn't this wonderful, that we're taking them in?"'
There are fears of a new surge of refugees arriving in Greece over the summer after it emerged the number of migrants being sent back to Turkey has fallen short of EU expectations.

Statistics released by Greek authorities show fewer than 400 have been sent back across the Aegean - because Athens deems the vast majority as being deserving of asylum.

Under a controversial deal between the European Union and Ankara in March, migrants not entitled to asylum are to be deported back to Turkey.

There are fears of a new surge of refugees arriving in Greece over the summer after it emerged the number of migrants being sent back to Turkey has fallen short of EU expectations

It went into effect on March 20 after the bloc was overwhelmed by the arrival of more than 1.25 million refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere since the start of 2015.

The Financial Times reports that some 8,500 people have arrived on Greek islands since the deal came into force, according to the country's migration co-ordination unit.

Athens officials have given the greenlight to just under a third of the 600 asylum applications from Syrians who have been assessed since the deal was brought into effect in March.

There are fears that the slow rate of returns could put the deal between the EU and Turkey at risk - sparking a fresh influx of migrants.

But the Financial Times quotes Maria Stavropoulou, the head of Greece's asylum service, as saying: 'We fully understand the [EU] concerns but if you look at it from the perspective of the rule of law, it is going exactly as it should.

Statistics released by Greek authorities show fewer than 400 have been sent back across the Aegean - because Athens deems the vast majority as being deserving of asylum

'We have many vulnerable people on the islands... a lot of very sick people. By law they are exempt from the return process.'

It comes as a UN human rights official said Greece must regulate and improve conditions for thousands of migrants - many of them children - detained in camps for weeks as they wait for asylum.

Francois Crepeau, the United Nations' special rapporteur on migrant human rights, said the 'perceived lack of information, plus overcrowding, creates confusion, frustration, episodes of violence, fear.'

In a written statement, Crepeau also urged Greece to 'renounce the idea' of detaining migrants for long periods except in cases of documented danger to others or flight risks.

There have already been flare-ups of violence in camps, mainly in the Moria facility on Lesbos island, where people increasingly desperate to be allowed to continue their journey to a better future in northern Europe

A UN human rights official has said Greece must regulate and improve conditions for thousands of migrants - many of them children - detained in camps for weeks as they wait for asylum

On Monday, a group of migrants set fire to garbage bins in front of the camp's asylum service. Police dispersed them with stun grenades, the state ANA agency said.

Last week, six migrants fed up with being stuck on the island of Chios tried to swim back to Turkey.

Lack of information is a major reason for the anxiety among the migrants, said Crepeau, adding that detaining children was flat-out unacceptable.

'Greece implements detention of children. Children should not be detained, period,' said the Canadian lawyer, who visited camps and detention centres in Athens, the islands of Lesbos and Samos, and Polykastro in northern Greece.

Crepeau's statement on Monday said the EU-Turkey deal was 'without mandatory value in international law' and of 'undetermined' legal basis.

There are over 54,000 people on Greek territory, including some 45,000 migrants who arrived before the EU-Turkey deal took effect and were stuck after other Balkan countries began closing their borders in mid-February.

Greece on Monday said it would begin preliminary registration of migrants who arrived prior to the EU-Turkey deal, and who wish to apply for asylum.

'The pre-registration exercise will take several weeks to conclude, but all those who arrived in Greece before 20 March, wishing to apply for international protection in Greece and are currently residing on the mainland will be able to pre-register,' the government said in a statement.
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Shocking scenes of violence erupted in Kenya today as police fired tear gas to break up demonstrations urging electoral reforms ahead of the general elections next year.

Police were caught on camera beating some protesters who had gathered outside the offices of Kenya's electoral commission in the capital Nairobi.

In the horrifying scenes that ensued, officers then chased them through downtown streets and alleyways.

Some protesters hid in nearby buildings but riot police flushed them out toward waiting colleagues who then beat them with wooden clubs and kicked them as they tried to flee.

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The scenes in Kenya as police used violent tactics to break up demonstrations urging electoral reforms ahead of the general elections next year

Police were caught on camera beating some protesters who had gathered outside the offices of Kenya's electoral commission in the capital Nairobi

Some protesters hid in nearby buildings but riot police flushed them out toward waiting colleagues who then beat them with wooden clubs and kicked them as they tried to flee

There were battles in the streets between anti-riot police and demonstrators and hundreds of protesters were forced to run away from the police during the clashes in Nairobi, Kenya

There have been several such protests in recent weeks.

Protests were also held in other Kenyan towns including Kisumu and Kisii, with police there firing tear gas to break up the crowds, local media reported.

Raila Odinga, a former prime minister who lost his latest bid for the presidency in 2013, accuses the commission of being biased towards President Uhuru Kenyatta.

He has demanded that a new slate of commissioners be named ahead of the next election in August 2017.

Kenyatta beat Odinga by more than 800,000 votes to win the presidency in 2013.

Odinga and civil society groups accused the electoral commission of a series of irregularities that they said skewed the results.

The election nonetheless passed off peacefully, in contrast to the country's disputed 2007 elections which degenerated into fierce inter-ethnic violence that killed more than 1,100 people after Odinga's supporters challenged his defeat by Mwai Kibaki.

The next election in August 2017 is shaping up as a rematch of the 2013 election, with 71-year old Odinga expected to try to unseat Kenyatta, 54.

Paul Wanjama, police chief for Nairobi central police station, said officers detained at least 15 demonstrators who will be charged tomorrow

Violence: Riot police kicked protesters during the clashes, which had started ahead of next year's general election

The protests are led by opposition leader Raila Odinga (not pictured), who lost the most recent election in 2013 to President Uhuru Kenyatta. He said polls in 2017 cannot be free and fair if the current election commission remains in place

Protesters were seen running from water canons after Kenya's opposition supporters demonstrated in Nairobi

Opposition protesters led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga had gathered outside the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission building

Paul Wanjama, police chief for Nairobi central police station, said officers detained at least 15 demonstrators who will be charged tomorrow. He did not say what charges they face.

Odinga said polls in 2017 cannot be free and fair if the current election commission remains in place and called for the commissioners to be removed from office.

'We have said now and again and we repeat here: (Electoral Board) commissioners must get out of office, they cannot be trusted to conduct a credible election,' said lawmaker James Orengo, one of the protest leaders, to a crowd of about 500.

Odinga was about to address the crowd when the police intervened, forcing the gathering to disperse.

Kenya does not hold its next presidential and parliamentary polls until August 2017, but politicians are already trying to galvanise their supporters in a nation where violence erupted after the 2007 vote and the opposition disputed the 2013 result.

The opposition CORD coalition, led by Odinga, has accused the IEBC of bias and said its members should quit. IEBC officials have dismissed the charge and say they will stay.

'For free and fair election, IEBC must go,' read a banner held aloft by one demonstrator.

An injured man, covered in blood, crawls out of a building after he was beaten by baton-wielding police officers

Opposition supporters staged a protest two weeks in a row against the country's electoral body in an attempt to push for the reforms ahead of the next year's general elections

A riot police officer kicks a man while other officer beats him with a baton as they chase supporters. Officers armed with batons confronted hundreds of protesters outside the offices of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), the third clash over the issue in less than a month

Several opposition supporters, some carrying rocks, flee from exploding tear gas grenades fired by riot police

Kenyan police fired tear gas and beat protestors with truncheons to prevent opposition demonstrators from storming the offices of the electoral commission to demand its dissolution

A man is knocked off his motorbike by Kenyan riot police officers. The area has seen similar violent protests in recent weeks

As numbers grew, police fired tear gas and water cannon from trucks parked nearby at protesters. One witness reported seeing a protester carrying a bag of stones, while others threw them at police ranks. Police struck some protesters with batons.

Last week, police fired tear gas and water cannon at hundreds of protesters, some of whom threw stones. Police also used tear gas to disperse a protest last month.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is expected to seek re-election next year for a second and final term, has urged opponents not to take to the streets.

Despite the 2013 legal challenge, that vote proceeded smoothly and Odinga accepted the court ruling in a nation where ethnic loyalties usually trump policy among voters.

After the disputed 2007 vote, about 1,200 were killed in ethnic fighting. Western diplomats have urged the authorities to work carefully with citizens to ensure peaceful.

Kenya's main opposition party also said that its leader Raila Odinga's car was hit by a bullet during protests against the electoral commission today.

Violent scenes: Kenyan riot police officers raise batons over a man during a demonstration (left) and officers try to detain a suspected supporter of the Kenya's opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (right)

Policemen beat a protester inside a building during the clashes. Kenya does not hold its next presidential and parliamentary polls until August 2017, but politicians are already trying to galvanise their supporters

An elderly woman caught up in the clashes holds her hands in the air as a riot policeman approach amidst clouds of tear gas

Opposition supporters, some carrying rocks, flee from clouds of tear gas fired by riot police, during a protest in downtown Nairobi

Politicians are trying to galvanise supporters - in a nation where violence erupted after the 2007 vote and the opposition disputed the 2013 result

Horrifying: A man injured and distressed man runs away from tear gas following clashes with Kenyan riot police officers

Kenya's main opposition party also said that its leader Raila Odinga's car was hit by a bullet during protests against the electoral commission today

The leader of the opposition, Raila Odinga, had last week instructed his supporters to turn up in large numbers for a peaceful demonstration against Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) - but the events took a violent turn

As numbers grew, police fired tear gas and water cannon from trucks parked nearby at protesters. Witnesses reported seeing a protester carrying a bag of stones, while others threw them at police ranks

An opposition supporter is beaten with a wooden club by riot police as he tries to flee, while two other officers stand nearby
Bernie Sanders called on the Federal Reserve today use its authority restructure Puerto Rico's debt.

Sanders said the US agency could invoke the 'unusual and exigent' circumstances clause of the Federal Reserve Act to loan money to the struggling U.S. territory that owes $70 billion.

'If the Federal Reserve could bailout Wall Street, it can help the three and a half million American citizens in Puerto Rico,' Sanders said.

The U.S. senator proposed the plan at town hall meeting this morning, the first of several campaign stops he's making in San Juan today, and promoted a new referendum to determine the territory's future.

He did not, however, address the Zika virus that is plaguing the island and no attendees of his mid-morning town hall brought it up.

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Bernie Sanders called on the Federal Reserve today use its authority restructure Puerto Rico's debt

Sanders compared the plight of Puerto Rico's 3.5 million residents to bailouts that Wall Street banks got

Sanders blasted 'vulture capitalists' on Wall Street and claimed their 'greed,' 'reckless' and 'illegal behavior has caused enormous problems' for Americans on the mainland in in Puerto Rico.

'These Wall Street banks have profited off the people suffering on this island,' Sanders declared.

He told a crowd of 298 supporters at his morning event, 'People in Puerto Rico should not be forced to suffer even more so that a handful of wealthy investors who have done so much bad in this this world can make even more money.'

Sanders forcefully called on the Fed 'to use its emergency authority' to approve a debt restructuring plan for the island commonwealth.

The institution has the authority in unusual and exigent circumstances to lend money to individuals, partnerships and corporations outside the banking system that are unable to secure adequate credit accommodations from other banking institutions, he stated.

An independent audit of Puerto Rico's finances is also necessary, the Democratic presidential candidate said.

And if it is determined that any of Puerto Rico's 'debt was incurred in violation of its constitution, it must be immediately set aside,' he asserted.

'I believe Congress should act immediately to give Puerto Rico the same authority granted to every municipality in this country to restructure its debt under the supervision of a bankruptcy court,' he told a cheering audience.

Taking aim at the competing political party, Sanders added, 'Unfortunately the Republicans in Congress continue to oppose this.

'The people of Puerto Rico cannot wait any longer. It is time for the Federal Reserve to act.'

Sanders lambasted the Republican plan to help the territory that is currently making its way through Congress.

They plan to to create an 'un-elected oversight board that would be given the power to slash pensions, cut education and healthcare, increase taxes on working families is not the answer,' Sanders said.

'In fact this would be not only be a major anti-democratic effort...it would move this island exactly in the wrong direction and it must be rejected.'

Sanders struck a defiant tone throughout the event toward the United States' treatment of the territory, which came under its control in 1898 as part of the treaty that ended the Spanish-American War.

'It is unacceptable,' he said, 'for the United States to treat Puerto Rico like a colony.'

The senator waded into a longstanding debate in Puerto Rico about its status and said, 'In my view the people of Puerto Rico must be empowered to determine its own destiny.'

Sanders struck a defiant tone throughout the event to the United States' treatment of the territory, which came under its control as part of the treaty that ended the Spanish-American War in 1898

He admitted that he is 'not a great expert' on the history and politics of the Caribbean island and that there is a difference of opinion on its future.

On that note, Sanders promised that in during his first year in office he would do everything in his power to bring about a referendum that would give Puerto Ricans three options: become a state, become an independent nation or reform the existing commonwealth relationship.'

'That is a decision that must be made by the people of Puerto Rico,' he said.

In 2012 a majority of the territory's residents voted in favor of changing the island's status.

A second question on the referendum asked about statehood. It was the preferred options of the majority of Puerto Ricans who answered it. But nearly half a million did not, leading to a stalemate.

Congress and the White House could act to make Puerto Rico a state but so far have opted not to do so given the conflicting positions of Puerto Ricans.

Laws governing its relationship with the United States strictly prohibit a bailout. Congress is working on legislation that would allow it to restructure its finances without putting taxpayers across America on the hook.

Sanders also joined Puerto Ricans in calling for the release of Oscar Lopez Rivera, an island native who was arrested 35 years ago this month and convicted of seditious conspiracy for participating in a 1970s movement to turn his home a communist state.

At the San Juan town hall Sanders, an avowed democratic socialist, said President Barack Obama should pardon Lopez Rivera during his final year in office.

He also threw his support behind marijuana legalization after a questioner asked him in Spanish for his stance.

'Si,' said Sanders, who had earlier apologized for his poor pronunciation of the island's second official language. 'See my Spanish is good enough to know that word.'

Puerto Rico votes on June 5 and has 60 pledged delegates in the Democratic race.




Two 19-year-old girls have been found hanged after they were forced to marry against their will in India.

Police discovered Asha Shrikant Burud and Swati Umesh Zanjare hanging from a tree in a jungle and instantly described their deaths as suicide.

The two young women were married off in a mass ceremony at the start of the month in Ambegaon taluka, western India, and had gone missing 10 days later.

Tragic: Police discovered Asha Shrikant Burud (left) and Swati Umesh Zanjare (right) hanging from a tree and instantly described their deaths as suicide

Their families, from the village of Asane, last saw them when they set off to gather wood and fruit in a nearby forest and reported them missing three days ago.

Police said they probably committed suicide because they were married off against their wishes.

Inspector Girish Dighavkar of the Ghodegaon police station said, 'Based on the primary investigation, we believe that the two have committed suicide.

'Though we are yet to ascertain the exact reason behind the deaths, we suspect that the two ended their lives as they were married against their wishes.

'We are yet to record the statements of the family members, relatives and others. It is only after the probe we would be able to confirm the reason.'

Inspector Dighavkar said both the girls were from farmer families and were married into a similar households.

The case has shocking parallels to a similar incident in Badaun in May 2014 when two teenage Indian girls were found hanging from a tree.

In that incident in northern Uttar Pradesh state it was widely believed that the girls had been murdered after being gang raped, although Indian officials insisted it was a suicide.

The United Nations had even issued a statement condemning the gang-rape and murders saying: 'There should be justice for families of the two teenage girls... Violence against women is a human rights issue, not a women's issue. Violence against women is preventable, not inevitable.'

Lise Grande, the UN's Resident Coordinator for India, also added: 'There should be justice for the families of the two teenage girls and for all the women and girls from lower-caste communities who are targeted and raped in rural India.'
A small private plane crashed shortly after taking off from a regional airport in Mississippi killing all four people on board on Monday.

The plane crashed about a half-mile from the north end of the runway at Tupelo Regional Airport in a field adjoining the Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo, the Daily Journal reported.

It was registered to Henry 'Jack' Jackson of Kerrville, Texas, who was on board the plane with his wife, Gwynn, and another couple, according to tweets from NBC29.

'The log at the airport said there were three people on board, in addition to the pilot,' Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre.

'We did not see any survivors. There is quite a bit of debris. The plane was broken up.'

A small plane crashed in Mississippi on Monday morning that was registered to Henry 'Jack' Jackson (left) of Kerrville, Texas. He was flying the plane and his wife, Gwynn (right), was also on board with another couple

The plane crashed about a half-mile from the north end of the runway at Tupelo Regional Airport in a field near the Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo. Smoke from the scene is pictured above

Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre said: 'We did not see any survivors. There is quite a bit of debris. The plane was broken up.' Above a piece of the aircraft is pictured at the scene

The Bonanza B36 single-engine six-seater plane (file pictured above) arrived in Tupelo on Sunday from Kerrville Municipal Airport

'We found some bodies on the scene. Right now, we are waiting for the (Federal Aviation Administration) to arrive and begin their investigation.'

The Bonanza B36 single-engine six-seater plane arrived in Tupelo on Sunday from Kerrville Municipal Airport and the flight plan that was filed showed it was scheduled to take off at 8.30am on Monday with a destination of Charlottesville, Virginia from Tupelo.

According to NBC 29, Jackson was an experienced pilot and was a commander in the Texas Civil Air Patrol.

The weather was overcast with a light wind at the time the plane took off.

'All that will be determined by the FAA,' Aguirre said. 'We are holding the scene for them.

'Once they release the scene, the coroner will be allowed to go in and do what she has to do.'

The flight plan that was filed showed it was scheduled to take off at 8.30am on Monday with a destination of Charlottesville, Virginia with Henry Jackson (left) as the pilot and his wife, Gwynn (right), and another couple aboard

The tragic crash has been described as a 'worst case scenario' by Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton. Above firefighters look over the scene of a plane crash in Tupelo

The tragic crash has been described as a 'worst case scenario' by Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton.

'We send out heartfelt condolences for the pilot and passengers on the plane,' Shelton told the newspaper.

'No information has been released but no survivors have been located. It appears to be a worst case scenario. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.'

Lee County officials did not immediately release the names of the dead and it's unclear if Jackson was the pilot of the flight.

Laurie Carwile, who works in the gift shop at the Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo, said she heard the crash and later saw smoke.

'We actually thought it was thunder,' Carwile said. 'I was in the gift shop and this man came beating on the door telling me to open the door.

'I thought we were being robbed. He was actually trying to tell me the plane had come down and to call 911.'

Carwile said no animals were hurt at the park, where buffalo, zebras and camels live, but 'they all seem to be on edge a little bit'.

Above law enforcement and emergency personnel respond to the scene of a plane crash Monday morning

Above emergency vehicles patrol Colonial Estates Road, north of the runway at the Tupelo Regional Airport in Tupelo




A primary school teacher sacked for standing by her paedophile headmaster husband after he was jailed over indecent images of children has won the right to thousands of pounds in compensation.

Sarah Pendleton said her marriage vow was a 'sacrosanct' promise to God and refused to leave her husband Matthew after he was jailed for filming boys while they changed for swimming lessons.

Her stance resulted in her being sacked from Glebe Junior School, in South Normanton, Derbyshire, despite her 'exemplary' teaching record and the fact she knew nothing of her husband's actions before his arrest.

Sarah Pendleton was sacked from Glebe Junior School, in South Normanton, Derbyshire (pictured), after standing by her husband when he was jailed for making indecent images of young boys. However, a a top employment judge has now ruled her dismissal was unfair and amounted to religious discrimination

Now, in a landmark decision, a top employment judge has ruled her dismissal was unfair and amounted to religious discrimination.

Judge Jennifer Eady QC's ruling at the High Court in London means Mrs Pendleton is now entitled to claim substantial damages from the school's governing body and Derbyshire County Council.

Her husband, a former head of Kirkstead Junior School, in Pinxton, Derbyshire, was jailed for 10 months at Derby Crown Court in July 2013.

He took a secret camera, disguised as a pen, into children's changing rooms and filmed boys while they were getting changed for swimming lessons.

Pendleton admitted voyeurism and 12 counts of making indecent images of children - but his crimes came as a 'bolt from the blue' to his devoutly Christian wife.

She said she had, 'in the presence of God', promised to stay by her husband's side 'for better or worse'.

And she told the governors she would stick by him so long as he showed 'unequivocal repentance' for his crimes.

But they said her decision to 'support' her husband could be viewed as 'condoning his behaviour'.

Matthew Pendleton resigned as headteacher of Pinxton Kirkstead Junior School (above), near Alfreton, Derbyshire, after he was arrested for possessing indecent images of young boys. He was jailed for 10 months

Despite her 12 years of unblemished service, continuing her relationship with her husband meant she was 'not suitable to be a teacher'.

Mrs Pendleton said 'her marriage vow was sacrosanct, having been made with God' but was dismissed from Glebe Junior School in August 2013.

Upholding her religious discrimination claim, Judge Eady told the Employment Appeal Tribunal this week that she had been faced by 'a crisis of conscience'.

She had, in effect, been forced to choose between the end of her career and abandoning her marriage vow.

The decision to dismiss Mrs Pendleton was also 'outside the band of reasonable responses' open to the governors.

They failed to adequately consider alternatives to sacking her and she had been placed at 'a particular disadvantage' because of her religious convictions.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn admitted he was 'not particularly good' at the theatrical aspects of PMQs

Jeremy Corbyn has admitted his entire team thinks he should spend longer preparing for his weekly battle with David Cameron in the House of Commons.

The Labour leader, who has been regularly mocked for his lacklustre performances on a Wednesday lunchtime, often uses questions emailed in by members of the public.

The session is regularly brought to a halt by jeering at Mr Corbyn as he battles to be hard without the backing of most of his MPs.

By contrast, the Prime Minister has frequently used the weekly contest to turn around difficult political issues.

In a lengthy profile with the New Yorker, Mr Corbyn admitted: 'I am not particularly good at or interested in this theatrical-riposte stuff.'

Asked how long he spends preparing for the session, the Labour leader added: 'Everybody in the office says not enough. Everybody.'

Mr Cameron is known to have a dedicated preparation session with key advisers every Wednesday morning and has admitted to being nervous every week.

The magazine watched Mr Corbyn's performance in the week after the bombshell resignation of Iain Duncan Smith.

He had been derided for failing to mention the embarrassing row at a major Commons statement earlier in the week.

And by the time of PMQs, Mr Cameron had received a leaked list apparently dividing Labour MPs by their loyalty to the leader.

In a devastating attack, the PM quipped: 'I thought I had problems.'

Mr Corbyn left his MPs in despair as recently as last week when his long rambling questions about Europe seemed to leave most MPs confused.

The profile revealed allies of Mr Corbyn believe he remains firmly opposed to the European Union - despite his public conversion to the cause of Labour's In campaign for the referendum.

Left wing writer Tariq Ali, who knows the Labour leader well, said: 'Jeremy is completely opposed to the EU.'

Mr Corbyn acknowledged yesterday he had a different argument on Europe to the Prime Minister.

He told ITV: 'They can listen to both of us and make up their own minds.

'I want to chase down tax evasion, I want to chase down companies that exploit people, I want to chase down those that are denying the extension of equal rights all across Europe.

' want Europe to respond to the refugee crisis in a decent, humane way which shares out the responsibility for helping those people.'

Mr Corbyn used the New Yorker interview to insist any administration he forms after a successful election would not be 'under Jeremy Corbyn'.

He said: 'I am hoping there will be a Labour Government, of which I will be obviously a big part. But its about empowering people.

'That is what democracy is about. Is it going to be complicated? Sure. Is it going to be difficult? Absolutely. Are we going to achieve things? Oh, yes.'
The ex-banker husband of Kimora Lee Simmons was spotted this weekend for the first time since being subpoenaed two months ago in connection to a money laundering scandal in Malaysia.

Former Goldman Sachs banker Tim Leissner was seen taking an afternoon stroll with the fashion designer and their kids in New York on Sunday.

The couple beamed with happiness as their one-year-old son, Wolfe, peaked over the edge of his stroller. Kimora Lee Simmons' other son, six-year-old Kenzo, was also on the walk.

Former Goldman Sachs banker Tim Leissner and fashion designer wife Kimora Lee Simmons were seen on an walk in New York on Sunday

Kimora Lee Simmons beamed with happiness as she pushed son, Wolfe, in a stroller through New York City

Kimora Lee Simmons' six-year-old son Kenzo (left) was also on the walk with his mother, half-brother, and stepfather

Leissner, 45, left his position as the Singapore-based chairman of Goldman's Southeast Asia operations in February as an investigation into a state fund unfolded.

In March, Leissner was subpoenaed by the US Justice Departments as part of the investigation into Malaysia's snowballing corruption scandal.

People close to the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at the time that Leissner, was called to testify relating to the payments scandal that surrounds Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Based in Singapore as Goldman's Southeast Asia chairman, Leissner advised the state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB, for which Goldman Sachs received commissions for bond sales.

The state investment fund is now at the center of allegations of secret transfers of hundreds of millions of dollars to Najib's private accounts.

Najib has denied accusations of corruption, which have embroiled the government for months.

Kimora Lee Simmons was all smiles as she crossed a crosswalk with her youngest child and two women who appeared to be walking with the family

Leissner, 45, left his position as the Singapore-based chairman of Goldman's Southeast Asia operations in February as an investigation into a state fund unfolded

This is the first time the couple has been spotted since Leissner was subpoenaed by the US Justice Departments as part of the investigation into Malaysia's snowballing corruption scandal

Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali said in January the transfer was a gift from Saudi Arabia's royal family and that most of it was returned.

The 1MDB fund has denied any of its funds went to the prime minister. The parliamentary report did not name Najib or link any transaction from 1MDB to his private bank accounts.

Najib said the report showed the opposition's allegations against him were false, but that 'action will be taken if any evidence of wrongdoing is found'.

According to one AFP source, Leissner, a German national, was suspended by Goldman in January for violating company policies on a matter separate from the 1MDB case. Leissner then left Goldman in February.

The New York Post reported in February that the FBI were investigating all the fund's transactions due to money-laundering allegations in five countries.

Three bond sales for 1Malaysia Development Berhad in 2012 and 2013 amounted to $6.5billion.

Goldman Sachs took fees and commissions that totaled $593million.

Based on that figure, the bank received a cut of 9.1 per cent, when the typical amount is five per cent.

The couple's one-year-old son, Wolfe, peaked out of his strollers to watch passersby during the family's stroll

Kimora Lee Simmons and Leissner wed in 2014 - he is the fashion designer's third husband. They have one child together

The family was based in Singapore until Leissner stepped down from his position with Goldman Sachs earlier this year

After Leissner stepped down from his position, the family was believed to be in Los Angeles. It is unknown as to why the family was on a walk in New York this weekend

'People are smelling something here,' Gary Swiman, head of compliance and regulatory consulting services at EisnerAmper, told The Post. 'This has been a disaster for Goldman.'

Late last year the US Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating the accusations of corruption and money laundering.

Authorities in several other countries are also investigating the money flows.

Swiss authorities have said they believe $4billion may have been stolen from Malaysian state firms and have frozen millions of dollars in accounts linked to 1MDB.

At the beginning of February Singapore seized 'a large number of bank accounts' in its 1MDB investigations, vowing not to let the global banking hub become a refuge for illicit funds.

'Singapore is also cooperating closely with relevant authorities, including those in Malaysia, Switzerland and the United States,' said a joint statement from the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the police Commercial Affairs Department.

Leissner worked for Goldman Sachs for 18 years, and has yet to be charged with any offense relating to the state fund.

The fund was started in 2009 to bolster Malaysia's coffers, however it quickly took on a lot of debt.

Leissner worked for Goldman Sachs for 18 years before stepping down from his chairman position in Feburary

Baby Wolfe was bundled up as the family took their stroll - temperatures in New York on Sunday only reached a high of 57

Leissner was connected to the Malaysian corruption scandal after advised the state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB

Leissner was called to testify relating to the payments scandal that surrounds Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (pictured center)

In early 2015, it missed $11billion of payments it owed to banks and bondholders.

Kimora Lee Simmons, the former wife of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, is believed to be friends with the wife of the Malaysian Prime Minister.

Lee and Simmons split in 2006 after eight years of marriage and having two daughters together, Ming, 16, and Aoki, 13.

Lee married actor Djimon Hounsou in the summer of 2008 and the two had a son together, Kenzo. The couple separated four years later in 2012.

The businesswoman then began seeing Leissner, who she married in early 2014. Last year the two welcomed their son Wolfe.

Not long after the birth of Wolfe, Lee paid tribute to her husband in a Father's Day post on Instagram, describing him as the 'backbone' of the family.

'Thank you for being so selfless, without ego and nurturing to all of our kids!' the post said.

'Thank you for helping them realize the sky is the limit!! I couldn't have wished or hoped for anyone more amazing! We love you and appreciate you so much!'

Kimora Lee Simmons has four children - Ming (right), 16, and Aoki (left), 13, with Russel Simmons; six-year-old Kenzo with actor Djimon Hounsou; and one-year-old Wolfe with Leissner
Matthew Green was 26 years old when he was reported missing from his home in Sittingbourne, Kent in 2010. He's now been found in Spain but police won't tell his parents where he is or how to contact him

A roofer who went missing for six years before being found in Spain slipped into drink and drugs after he was falsely accused of rape, his family have revealed.

Matthew Green's parents say they have been left in limbo after being told he was found in Spain but authorities refused to give them contact details for him under data protection rules.

Matthew was 26 when he went missing from his home in Sittingbourne, Kent in 2010 and his parents Pauline, 63, and Jim, 64, have spent sleepness nights ever since wondering where he is.

The couple told today how a false allegation of rape levelled at their son when he was just 17 sparked a downward spiral in a previously 'outgoing, happy' boy.

Matthew was investigated by police following an allegation of rape made by a girl, then aged 16.

Police surrounded his home and he spent 10 hours in custody as officers investigated the case.

But video footage taken from CCTV cameras showed that Matthew was at a petrol station in east London at time the alleged attack took place some 40 miles away in his hometown of Sittingbourne.

The girl then admitted her story was a complete fabrication and police dropped the case against Matthew.

His father Jim said today: 'I think after everything that happened, it pushed him to the limit. From that time [his arrest] the boy we knew as outgoing, football and girls mad - he seemed to just stop.

'From that he was never the same. Police officers came round to apologise after, I said look at that young boy. That's what you've done to that young lad.

'He became very withdrawn. His social life just went to nil. He packed up playing football, he wouldn't go out. He began isolating himself in his bedroom and ate meals upstairs.'

Mr Green added: 'He had issues 18 months before he left home. He was assessed by medics and taken to Maidstone Hospital where he was treated through medication and detoxification. It was all down to drink and drugs when he got in with the wrong crowd. It was mainly down to cannabis and alcohol.'

It also emerged today that a court in Madrid asked police last year to track down Matthew so they could summons him over an alleged petty theft.

Jim and Pauline Green have spoken of their relief at the news that their son has been found alive in Spain - but frustration at not being able to bring him home

Officers in Spain were asked to make inquiries in a bid to provide court officials with the British expat's address.

A source in Spain said: 'The court made the request last year. Court officials in Madrid wanted to know Matthew's address and ordered police to help them. It was in relation to a petty theft case the court had been looking into.

'Details are a bit sketchy at the moment but it's possible that was the reason Mr Green was tracked down.'

Workers at the court in question - Investigating Court Number 4 - were unable to provide any immediate details about the case and whether the order had led to Matthew being found.

Matthew went to visit a friend in London in 2010 but mysteriously never came home, sparking a frantic search by his parents Pauline, 63, and Jim, 64.

After six years, Mr and Mrs Green - who say they never gave up hope their son was still alive - were told this month he has been 'found' in Spain.

But their joy turned to anger after authorities refused to reveal where he is or even release a photo of him, citing 'data protection laws'.

Matthew, pictured left before he went missing, is said to have been taken into Spanish social services care

It also emerged today that Matthew, who reportedly gave Spanish authorities a number of names including his own when he taken in, may have frustrated his parents' hope of a reunion by telling the authorities he did not want information on his whereabouts being made available to his loved ones.

A well-placed Spanish source told MailOnline: 'I'm not in a position to comment on this individual case.

'But authorities are duty-bound to honour the wishes of adults who have been reported missed and indicate they don't want their loved ones to be told where they are if they are subsequently found.

'One of the first things police or any other official agency would do if they found a person who was on a missing list would be to tell them they had been officially reported as missing and ask them if they wanted their families to know where they were.

Matthew with his nephew Oliver, who he hasn't seen since he was a baby

'If they said 'no' and there were no mental health issues, those wishes would have to be respected.

'Only if they have mental health issues would the situation be any different, and then appropriate case measures would have to be put in place and the family informed of the situation.'

The parents of Mr Green, who went missing when he failed to turn up for his work as a roofer in April 8 2010, believed he is in the care of Spanish social services after 'concerns about his welfare' earlier this year.

Speaking yesterday, Matthew's mother Pauline said: 'All I want to do is see him. We've had this for six years. We've been on a roller coaster and now we're stuck at the top.

'We're overjoyed, but they won't tell us anything. The police have closed the book now, so it is with the authorities in Spain.

'I've written him a letter and sent it to the consulate in Madrid. But they won't even tell me if Matthew has read it - citing data protection.

'It is just a waiting game now. We want him to phone home, then we can find out where he is.'

His brother, Nathan, told MailOnline: 'We just want him home. My parents want to see him and, if he is unwell, home is the best place for him.

'I'm angry at Kent Police for not giving us more information. If feels like that are holding something back.

'Our biggest worry is that he might be released in Spain and, once again, we'd have no idea where he's gone.'

Father-of-one Mr Green says his brother Matt has a six-year-old nephew, Oliver, who he has only seen as a baby.

Pauline Green, 63, said all of her 'Christmases came at once' when police knocked on her door to say that her son had been found alive in Spain

After Matt disappeared, a search of his personal items revealed he had taken his passport, birth certificate, driving licence, bank card, 1,700 in cash and a card which allows him to work on construction sites. His mobile phone was left behind.

His family had no idea what has happened to him or where he has been in the six years since.

When he was found in Spain, authorities there got in touch with Interpol and carried out a finger print match - and they're 99 per cent sure the man they have is Matthew.

Mrs Green added: 'We had a call from Kent Police and a lady came round to say that they had located Matthew as being in Spain.

'Apparently this guy came across as acting a bit strange and their social aid - like our social services - had come across him and he didn't know who he was. He gave two alias names and also Matthew Green.

'They got in touch with Interpol and they've done a finger print match and they're 99.9 per cent sure it's Matthew. Everything has snowballed from there.'

Matthew's family did not give up and made posters which were issued to publicise his disappearance in 2010

Matthew's father described it as a heart-stopping moment when they were told the news.

He said: 'When we got the knock on the door and she said it's about Matthew but it's nothing to worry about, my heart nearly stopped. We didn't know what to say or do.'

Mr Green said there are so many unanswered questions that him and wife Pauline are desperate to know.

Mr Green added: 'I know he's a grown man, but put yourselves in our place.

'After all this time it would be such a relief (to see him) for all of us, all the family and friends that we know have been concerned. I'd give him a hug and a cuddle.'

The family have previously tried to track down a woman, called Jodie, who Matt went out with and then split up with shortly before his disappearance.

Relatives are now hoping to enlist the help of a private investigator to help get in touch with their long lost son.

Frustratingly, Matthew's parents have not even been shown a photo of their son (pictured before his disappearance) so do not know what he looks like now

The family has approached criminologist and former detective Mark Williams-Thomas.

Kent Police confirmed that Mr Green has been located in 'Europe'.

A force spokesman said: 'Matthew Green was 26 years old when he was reported missing, and European authorities confirmed in May 2016 that he had been located in Europe.

'His family has been informed and Kent Police has closed its missing person inquiry as of 16 May 2016.'
The man accused of taking his nine-year-old niece out of school and disappearing with her for more than a week has said he doesn't understand why he is charged with kidnapping.

Gary Simpson was found with the girl in a remote area of Hawkins County in East Tennessee on Friday after an eight-day manhunt.

Simpson, 58, had shared custody of Carlie Trent and her sister until last year, while the girl's father was jailed on drug charges.

On Monday, he told a judge in court that he does not get why he is being charged for something that the girlfriend of his niece's father also has done.

The judge appointed an attorney to defend Simpson, who is being held on $1 million bond pending a hearing next week.

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Gary Simpson (above) is accused of taking his nine-year-old niece out of school and disappearing with her for more than a week - but has said he doesn't understand why he is charged with kidnapping

Carlie went missing after Simpson checked her out of Hawkins High School under false pretenses, telling staff her father had been in a car wreck, before going on the run with her

Carlie went missing after Simpson checked her out of school on May 4 under false pretenses, telling staff her father had been in a car wreck, before going on the run with her.

After an intense eight-day search the pair were discovered Thursday afternoon by Roger Carpenter, Donnie Lawson, Stuart Franklin and Larry Hamblen.

The four friends were searching an isolated tract of land on ATVs when they saw Carlie wandering around with a teddy bear.

Carpenter, a Baptist minister, was reported to have held Simpson at gunpoint while another called police, who took him into custody.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn said: 'I think this is just heroes that went on to the property just to see, by chance, could they be there, and they were.

'Carlie is safe tonight because of an entire community pulling together and working with law enforcement to bring her home.

Carlie Trent has been reunited with her family 10 days after she was abducted by her uncle, Gary Simpson, from her school in Rogersville, Tennessee

The nine-year-old girl returned to Simpson's home after spending a night in the hospital following her rescue

On Thursday, the TBI had added Simpson to its Top 10 Most Wanted list and warned that Carlie was in imminent danger.

Simpson is Carlie's uncle by marriage and was previously granted custody over Carlie while her father, James Trent, served time in prison. Custody had recently been transferred back to Trent.

'[Simpson] had access to her every day, he was obsessed with her, he wanted her and he wanted her all to himself,' Trent said in a previous interview.

'Thats a scary thing to think about.

Simpson currently is charged with especially aggravated kidnapping, but District Attorney Dan Armstrong said the criminal investigation is ongoing and there could be more charges in the future.

He is married to the sister of Carlie's father. The families live close to one another in rural Hawkins County.

The uncle and his wife had custody of Carlie and her little sister while their father was jailed on drug charges, but the girls went back to live with their father in 2015, TBI spokesman Josh DeVine said earlier Thursday.

Investigators had not been able to find any work history for Simpson.

Authorities issued the call to check remote areas or campgrounds based on surveillance video showing Simpson stocking up on items from an area Wal-Mart including a bikini, two tubes of colored lip gloss, nail polish, an outdoor chair and a child's nightgown.

After she was found, medical exams were carried out following Carlie's rescue to determine the extent of Simpson's crimes.

Carlie spent the reunion playing with her little sister Katie and doing cartwheels on the trampoline at the home of her aunt Linda Simpson, who is married to Gary

Carlie was all smiles as the car pulled up to her aunt's home on Friday from the hospital

Linda said Carlie (pictured right with her mother Shannon and sister Katie) has yet to talk about her abduction, and that the family had no immediate plans to ask her about it

Carlie returned to the home of her aunt Linda, who is married to Simpson, after spending Friday night at a nearby hospital.

When asked what she wanted to do first on her return home, Carlie shyly told the WCYB reporter: 'I don't know'.

But within minutes Carlie was playing with her little sister Katie, doing flips on the trampoline, trying to score a basket on their net in the backyard and showing off her hula hoop skills.

'I can do it on my neck,' she told Katie, demonstrating her technique before her sister said, 'Now let me do it'.

Carlie was especially happy to see her pet rabbit, named Alligator, who she said she 'mostly takes care of' and well as her aunt's dog Pat.

'We're all glad that Carlie's home,' said Katie.

Linda said Carlie, who lives nearby with her dad, has yet to talk about her abduction, adding that the family had no immediate plans to ask her about it.

'We just have to let Carlie do what she wants to until she decides when she wants to go back to school or whatever,' Linda told the station.

'We just want to love her and hold her, take care of her and support her.'

As for her husband, Linda only had one thing to say: 'He's where he deserves to be.'

Simpson was discovered hiding on an isolated tract of land on Thursday, just hours after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation added him to their ten most wanted people list
Up to three million EU citizens living in the UK could lose their right to stay here if voters back Brexit in June's referendum, Downing Street indicated today.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said it was 'possible' that a vote to leave the EU would affect the rights of people who came to the UK under the EU's freedom of movement rules.

But the suggestion was dismissed as an 'absurd' scare story by Brexit campaigners, who reassured EU citizens they would 'absolutely have the right to remain here'.

Up to three million EU citizens living in the UK could lose their right to stay here if voters back Brexit in June's referendum, Downing Street indicated today

EU freedom of movement rules allow around 500 million EU citizens to move freely between the 28 member states.

Campaigners in favour of leaving the EU insist that only new arrivals could face restrictions on their right to come to the UK to work.

The comment from Number 10 today came after a Home Office minister said there would be 'no requirement under EU law' for residence rights to be maintained by any settlement reached after negotiations following an Out vote in the June 23 referendum.

Any change to existing rules could affect around three million nationals of other EU countries currently living in the UK, as well as 1.2 million Britons living in other 27 member states.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said it was 'possible' that a vote to leave the EU would affect the rights of people who came to the UK under the EU's freedom of movement rules. Boris Johnson (pictured left visiting a clothing manufacturer in Alfreton, where he ironed a Vote Leave flag) is one of the leading voices on the Vote Leave campaign

In a written response to a parliamentary question, Lord Keen of Elie said the withdrawal process was 'unprecedented' and there was 'a great deal of uncertainty' about how Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty - which sets out the process for leaving the EU - would work.

But he added: 'UK citizens get the right to live and work in the other 27 member states from our membership of the EU.

'If the UK voted to leave the EU, the Government would do all it could to secure a positive outcome for the country, but there would be no requirement under EU law for these rights to be maintained.'

Leading Brexit campaigner Jacob Rees Mogg (pictured) says it's 'really grubby politics' to spread doubt among EU nationals in the UK

Asked to clarify the Government's position on whether EU nationals would face deportation following a Brexit vote, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said: 'Clearly, we don't know what changes there would be to the rules on migration if we were to vote to leave.

'It's possible that there would be reciprocal implications if we were to change the rights of people to move.

'That would be subject to decisions in the event of a vote to leave. The Government is arguing for us to remain so I can't speculate on exactly what would happen.

'But is possible that there would be changes to the rights of people who have moved under the existing free movement rules.'

The prospect of deporting EU nationals already in the UK was dismissed by leading Brexit campaigner Peter Bone, who said: 'Clearly any EU citizen that is legally here if we come out of the EU would absolutely have the right to remain here.'

And fellow Tory Eurosceptic Jacob Rees Mogg told PoliticsHome that it was 'really grubby politics' to spread doubt among Britain's EU nationals who had established 'a legitimate right to be here'.

He demanded the Government rows back on the comments and to give a public guarantee to EU nationals that they will be allowed to stay in the UK following a vote to leave.

He said: 'It would be straightforwardly immortal to deport people who have come here legally and who have established their lives here,' he said.

'I don't believe any government would do that and even to hint at it is dishonourable.'

The row came on another day of dramatic interventions in the EU referendum, with little more than five weeks until polling day.

George Osborne mocked Brexit 'conspiracy theorists' as he joined forces with former foe Ed Balls to back staying in the EU.

The Chancellor and his old counterpart warned that leaving would have a catastrophic impact on trade as they appeared together at Stansted Airport.

Standing alongside Mr Balls and Liberal Democrat former Business Secretary Vince Cable, Mr Osborne hailed the 'consensus' over the benefits of membership.

'There is a reason the three of us are standing here today putting aside out very obvious differences. It is not a conspiracy, it is called consensus,' he said.

'The economic argument is beyond doubt. Britain will be worse off if we leave the EU.'

George Osborne is flanked by Lib Dem Sir Vince Cable, left, and former shadow chancellor Ed Balls during the pro-EU event at Stansted Airport today

The intervention comes as the Remain side launches an all-out offensive to shore up Labour support for the EU.

Amid fears the party's supporters could support Brexit just to evict David Cameron from Downing Street, the Prime Minister has written a rare article for the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror newspaper.

He stressed the benefits of the EU for 'working people' and the cross-party nature of the Remain campaign as he warned that a vote to leave on June 23 could trigger 'national decline'.

Mr Cameron wrote: 'It's been an extraordinary time. I've teamed up with Brendan Barber of the TUC. I've shared a stage with David Miliband.

'Midwives and manufacturers, lawyers and labourers, farmers and phone companies, unions and universities - they've spoken with one voice, proving the strength of feeling about Britain staying in Europe.

'I don't speak out of any love for Brussels - just a deep-hearted love for Britain. When I look at the EU I see 500 million people we can trade with and a network of countries we can combat crime with.

'In times of economic uncertainty, when the threat of terrorism is so grave, I know we need those things more than ever.'

Mr Osborne meets Ryanair cabin crew on board the pro-EU branded plane today

Senior Tories including former pro-EU former chancellor Ken Clarke have argued that Mr Cameron would not last 'five minutes' if voters back Brexit in June.

But Mr Cameron urged voters to focus on the wider picture rather than his own future.

'We're fighting for our children's opportunities. As parents, we want the world to be their oyster. We want them to be able to travel, live and work abroad if they wish,' he

'EU membership has opened Europe up to the younger generation. Flights have fallen in price by 40% ...

'As parents we should be continuing to open doors, not close them. And we should be laying the foundations for their future financial security.

'Yet the Treasury has said that, outside the EU, our economy would be 6% smaller than it would have been. That's a cost of 4,300 to every household.'
Pierce (pictured in a police mugshot) is accused of grabbing the woman by the hair and smacking her head during the politically-charged at an Atlanta hotel

Wendell Pierce has pulled out of a graduation ceremony at a prestigious New Jersey college after his arrest for allegedly attacking a female Bernie Sanders supporter.

Rutgers University-Newark announced Monday that The Wire actor would no longer be speaking at Wednesday's event as he did not want to create a distraction.

TV news anchor Soledad O'Brien will be stepping in to take his place.

Pierce was arrested outside the Loews Hotel at 3.30am yesterday, an Atlanta Police Department spokesperson told Daily Mail Online.

The 52-year-old actor is accused of grabbing the alleged victim by the hair and smacking her head during the apparent politically-charged row.

Jail records show Pierce was charged with simple battery and a misdemeanor offense.

He has been released on a $1,000 bond.

The actor - best known for his role on The Wire as Detective Bunk Moreland and his appearance in Confirmation alongside Kerry Washington - was a guest at the hotel, police said.

'The incident did not rise to anything significant so no special notification was made... it was treated like any other arrest a patrol officer conducts,' cops told Daily Mail Online.

'Mr Pierce made no indication he was famous nor did the officer inquire,' an officer added.

The 28-year-old woman claims that she and two friends had been sitting in the 23rd story hallway when Pierce exited the elevators accompanied by his girlfriend.

They had begun talking but as the conversation turned to politics, Pierce got 'upset', according to a police report obtained by DailyMail.com.

The alleged victim claims the actor had began to 'push' her so she and her friends tried to return to their rooms.

Wendell Pierce played Detective William 'Bunk' Moreland n HBO's long-running hit series 'The Wire'

Pierce recently portrayed Justice Clarence Thomas in the drama Confirmation. The actor was arrested Saturday night after allegedly fighting at an Atlanta hotel, police confirmed

But Pierce had followed them and when she tried to shut the door, he had stopped it closing with his arm and tried to enter, the report states.

When she and her friends tried to push The Wire star out, 'he began to hit her in the head and grab her hoodie, ripping the hood off' she told police.

Pierce denied following the women and told detectives the alleged victim had grabbed him and had been trying to drag him into her room.

He had simply been trying to get away, he claimed.

Both Pierce and the woman declined medical help after the emergency services arrived.

A source said the couple went back into their hotel room and called police.

Pierce is in Atlanta to shoot the upcoming movie One Last Thing, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Wendell Pierce has pulled out of a graduation ceremony at Rutgers University-Newark (pictured) after his arrest for allegedly attacking a female Bernie Sanders supporter

TV news anchor Soledad O'Brien will be stepping in to take his place at the ceremony

Pierce has previously voiced his support for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and said Sanders' plans for the United States were 'empty'.

He has praised Clinton for her 'clarity of purpose, a clarity of the platform and policies', compared to Sanders.

The actor has also tweeted about his work for the Alliance for a Healthier Generation campaign, which was created by the Clinton Foundation.

Last fall, after being asked on Twitter to 'pick one candidate worthy to consider', Pierce replied 'Hillary Clinton'.

But he has also tweeted favorably of Sanders. After asking for specific details on Sanders' policy plans, Pierce wrote in mid-February: 'I appreciate and share Sen. Sanders beliefs.'

Efforts to reach a representative for Pierce were unsuccessful.
Hillary Clinton plans to put her husband in charge of rebooting the American economy  the top issue of her presidential campaign.

'My husband ... I'm going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy because you know, he knows how to do it,' Clinton told a crowd in Kentucky Sunday. 'And especially in places like coal country and inner cities and other parts of our country that have been really left out,' she added, the Washington Post reported.

The comment is a reminder that Clinton's election could amount just as much to a 'third term' for her husband than it would for President Obama, who already started campaigning for Clinton in effect with a slashing attack on Donald Trump during a commencement speech at Rutgers University Sunday.

Clinton has long said she would make use of her husband's expertise if she got elected, but she hasn't done much to spell out exactly what he would do, where he would work, or what limits if any would be placed on his portfolio.

Third term? Hillary Clinton says her husband will be tasked with revitalizing the economy

The president typically relies on a range of advisors for guidance on the economy. Most are on the public payroll and some, such as the secretaries of Treasury, Housing, and Commerce, are subject to confirmation by the Senate.

Clinton frequently points to the strong economy and temporary budget surplus of the 1990s while on the stump.

'When my husband was president, incomes rose for everybody,' she said.

The Clinton camp regularly dispatches Bill Clinton to struggling areas to pitch for his wife. Often the former president finds himself in hardscrabble towns where Clinton isn't personally popular.

Bill Clinton can relate to voters hit by economic changes by talking about his time growing up in rural Arkansas, a state he represented as governor.

'I was governor when the Ozark mountains where I lived had three of the four poorest counties in America. I get this,' he told a Kentucky crowd last week. 'I know it's hard when places are physically isolated. I'm not pretending.'

'All I'm telling you is, I volunteer that if Hillary got elected president, I would like to be tasked with the responsibility to take you along for the ride to America's future,' he said.

Clinton said at a debate last year that the economy would be part of her husband's role, but mentioned it as part of a series of project areas. She also said she would most likely maintain a task associated with the office of the First Lady: Selecting White House china and engaging in other social aspects of the job.

Clinton said in Kentucky her husband will focus on struggling areas like coal country

In 2012 President Obama said he should appoint Bill 'Secretary of 'Splaining Stuff'

Double Trouble: Bill Clinton said in 1992 it was 'two for the price of one'

The office of first lady comes with no salary, but does come with an office and staff  plus job security

'I am probably still going to pick the flowers and the china for state dinners and stuff like that. But I will certainly turn to him as prior presidents have for special missions, for advice, and in particular, how we're going to get the economy working again for everybody, which he knows a little bit about,' Hillary Clinton said.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest, asked about Bill Clinton's emerging role Monday, responded that 'Democrats will have to decide' whether they approve.

He said the role would 'factor into the decision that some Democrats will have to make in terms of choosing a nominee,' trying to stay as far away as possible from any controversy over a Clinton restoration.

Earnest then called attention to Bill Clinton's lengthy defense of Obama at the Democratic National Convention in 2012.

Earnest said Clinton 'articulated an economic strategy and an economic vision entirely consistent with what President Obama has fought for.'

Obama himself was so thrilled with the speech at the time that he dubbed Clinton his 'Secretary of 'Splaining' Stuff.'

Bill Clinton famously said during his 1992 campaign that elect him 'and you get two for the price of one.'

He put Hillary Clinton in charge of health care reform, although the effort imploded. But she maintained an important advisory role with an office in the West Wing. She was a key defender during his impeachment, and ended up winning election to a U.S. Senate seat in New York.

In picking the economy as her husband's area of focus, she is delegating the issue on which the election likely hinges.

'Hillary believes the defining economic challenge of our time is raising incomes for hardworking Americans,' according to Clinton's campaign website.
Diane Meek never believed she would find certain members of her family, including her birth mother, but all that changed recently when she enlisted the help of a DNA website.

The subscription-based genealogy research website, ancestry.com, was able to match Meek with her first cousin, Andrea Conley. From there, she was able to find her mom.

Meek spoke to her mother, Sharon Aelling, on the phone, before organizing a family reunion near her home in Highland, Utah, in order to meet for the first time.

'I just never thought this day would happen and I'm very excited,' Meek told Fox 13 Now before the meeting on Saturday.

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Meeting for the first time: Sharon Aelling (left) was able to meet her birth daughter Diane Meek (right) for the first time in Highland, Utah, on Saturday after finding each other through a genealogy and DNA website

Meek spoke to her mother, Sharon Aelling, on the phone, before organizing a family reunion near her home in Highland, Utah, in order to meet for the first time on Saturday

'You think all these years that nobody knows, nobody cares,' Sharon Aelling said of never knowing her daughter, Diane Meek

The mother and daughter have agreed to keep in contact after meeting for the first time at the weekend

Meek added: 'I'm just grateful and blown away from what the DNA testing can accomplish.'

Much like her biological daughter, Aelling did not believe such a moment would ever happen.

'You think all these years that nobody knows, nobody cares,' she said.

'Then you find out different.'

The meeting was incredibly emotional for all involved. Aelling was not only meeting her daughter, but also her granddaughters and great-granddaughters.

Mother-daughter: It is unclear what caused the mother and daughter to separate, but they have finally been brought back together

Bizarrely, Meek and her first cousin, Andrea Conley, actually discovered they have been just two blocks away from each other for over 10 years, but were complete strangers to each other.

'She's been living there 18 years, and I've been living here 13 years,' Conley said.

'That close, and had no idea we were that closely related.'

'Wow, we're first cousins, and we hugged and we cried, and we hugged some more.'

The family have agreed to stay in contact.

Ancestry.com is based in Provo, Utah.
Hugh Hefner is being sued over claims he 'conspired' with Bill Cosby to drug and sexually assault a teenager at the Playboy Mansion, Daily Mail Online can reveal.

The 90-year-old Playboy boss is named in new legal papers filed on Monday in Los Angeles by a dancer who alleges Cosby attacked her at a party in 2008 at the mansion, when she was just 18.

Chloe Goins claims Cosby gave her a drink and that she later awoke to find herself naked with Cosby biting her toes and with his pants around his ankles.

But she also alleges in papers filed at Los Angeles Superior Court that it was Hefner who told her to lie down because she felt ill after Cosby gave her the drink.

Her attorney Spencer Kuvin told Daily Mail Online that Hefner needed to be held to account for what he said was 30 years of Cosby's sexual conduct.

'We believe that Mr Hefner not only knew but at the very least should have known what Mr Cosby has been doing to these women over the last 30 plus years,' Kuvin said.

'Thus far no one has been held to account for tacitly standing by knowing what this man was doing.'

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Hefner and Cosby are known to be longtime friends, and the head of Playboy has previously said he's 'saddened' by the sexual assault accusations made against the comedian. Goins has now accused them both of negligent infliction of emotional distress and conspiracy to commit sexual battery

Chloe Goins claims Bill Cosby 'conspired' with Hugh Hefner in 2008 before allegedly drugging and sexually abusing her at the Playboy Mansion. She filed a lawsuit on Monday in Los Angeles naming Cosby and Hefner as defendants

The case is the first to sue Hefner. It comes after a separate case sought to have him deposed over another allegation of sexual assault by Cosby at the Playboy Mansion, this one in 1974.

Goins' allegations against Hefner are a fresh twist in her long-running claim that was she was assaulted by Cosby.

The allegations have been investigated by Los Angeles police and a file sent to federal prosecutors, but no action has been taken against him.

She also brought a federal lawsuit, but dropped that and has now refiled in Los Angeles County Court.

Her attorney said that dropping the federal lawsuit had allowed them to bring new action naming hefner.

We believe that Mr Hefner not only knew but at the very least should have known what Mr Cosby has been doing to these women over the last 30 plus years Spencer Kuvin lawyer for Chloe Goins

'After filing the original lawsuit we continued our internal investigation of the case and came to the opinion that we felt there were additional actors that were involved in this particular incident, namely Mr Hefner,' Kuvin said.

'Based upon the long standing relationship between Mr Hefner and Mr Cosby, as well as the specific allegations and facts of this case and how the two men approached our client together, in addition to our independent investigation, we felt it was necessary to include Mr Hefner in the complaint.'

Kuvin believes the close relationship between the Playboy supremo and Cosby's close friendship is 'integral' in discovering the people who were 'assisting' Cosby and helping him carry out his alleged sex assaults on women over the years.

Kuvin said: 'We believe that Mr Hefner not only knew but at the very least should have known what Mr Cosby has been doing to these women over the last 30 plus years.

'Thus far no one has been held to account for tacitly standing by knowing what this man was doing.'

Goins claims that in 2008, when she was 18 years old, she met Cosby and Hefner together at a party at the Playboy Mansion.

Cosby gave her a drink, after which she began to feel ill, so Hefner told her to 'lie down' at a bedroom in the house, according to the lawsuit. Soon after, she lost consciousness and 'does not have any recollection of what happened'.

The model, who turns 26 on Tuesday, then recalls waking up and finding Cosby biting her toes with his pants around his ankles, according to the lawsuit.

She says that she also noticed she was 'naked and that she felt a wet and sticky substance on her breasts as though a person had been licking them' the lawsuit says.

Goins accuses Cosby of sexual battery, gender violence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Goins accuses Cosby of sexual battery, gender violence and intentional infliction of emotional distress following the alleged incidents at the Playboy Mansion (pictured) eight years ago

At home: Hefner posted this picture this weekend of him having 'movie night' at the Playboy Mansion with his wife Crystal (left)

She also accuses the comedian as well as Hefner of negligent infliction of emotional distress and conspiracy to commit sexual battery.

Goins says in her lawsuit: 'In 2008 Defendants Hefner and Cosby both knowingly and willfully agreed and conspired to host parties, invite minors or young adults under the age of 21, provide them with alcohol and or foreign substances.'

She claims that the incident left her 'shocked, hurt, and psychologically impacted and damaged'.

Hefner and Cosby are known to be longtime friends, and the head of Playboy has previously said he's 'saddened' by the sexual assault accusations made against the comedian.

'Bill Cosby has been a good friend for many years and the mere thought of these allegations is truly saddening,' Hefner said in a statement in 2014, shortly after the first series of claims about the comedian were made.

'I would never tolerate this kind of behavior, regardless of who was involved.'

Prosecutors in Los Angeles decided not to file criminal charges against Cosby over Goins' accusations, noting that some details could not be corroborated.

She cannot recall an exact date for her presence at the Mansion. Her lawyer claimed one date, which was looked at by law enforcement for CCTV.

They found no footage of either Goins or Cosby outside the party from video studied by the investigators in the case.

However the attorney later said he had mis-spoken and that at no time had Goins suggested a precise date, simply that she was invited to a summer party at the Mansion.

A search of the guest lists from other parties that year at the Mansion also showed that Cosby had only been there on one occasion, in February.

Goins' lawyer claims the Hefner and Cosby 'approached our client together', and after an investigation, felt it 'necessary to include Mr Hefner in the complaint'

The model, who's turning 26 on Tuesday, claims Cosby (pictured during pre-trial hearings in February) gave her a drink, and after she started to feel ill, Hefner told her to lie down, the lawsuit says. She later awoke to find Cosby biting her toes and saw that his pants were around his ankles, according to the lawsuit

Hefner remains the owner of the Mansion although he put it on sale in January with the provision that the buyer allows him to live and work in it until his death.

Hefner, now 90, lives there with his third wife, Crystal Harris, 30. He is asking $200 million for the Mansion.

Cosby is now facing a massive weight of litigation over allegations of sexual misconduct, including a string of rapes.

More than 50 women have accused him of drugging and assaulting them.

One of them, Judith Huth, claims she was attacked at the Playboy Mansion in 1974 and wants Hefner deposed over what he knew.

So far there is one criminal case proceeding against him, over the allegation that he raped Andrea Costand when she was an employee of Temple University in Pennsylvania.

Just last week, Cosby's lawyers asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for another chance to have the case thrown out.

The defense argued that the current district attorney cannot go back on the word of a predecessor who has said he promised Cosby wouldn't be charged in the case.

The defense said Cosby relied on that pledge when he testified in a civil lawsuit about his contact with the accuser and other women who have accused him of drugging and molesting them.

Cosby was arrested last year after his deposition in the decade-old case became public and Montgomery County prosecutors reopened the case.

He is charged with felony sexual assault over his 2004 encounter with a former Temple University employee.

He has been free on $1million bail since his arrest in December.

He has a May 24 preliminary hearing scheduled unless the Supreme Court grants his appeal. A county judge and the state's Superior Court have previously rejected the defense arguments.

Cosby has not entered a plea in the case but said in the deposition that the encounter was consensual. Lawyers for the accuser say she was drugged and could not give consent.
George Zimmerman is once again trying sell the gun he used to kill an unarmed black teen, after his auction was hijacked by prank buyers.

Zimmerman, who shot dead Trayvon Martin in 2012, was forced to delete the controversial posting internet trolls with screen names such as 'Racist McShootFace', 'Donald Trump,' and 'shaniqua bonifa' falsely pushed the bidding to $65 million.

But the former neighborhood watch captain is planning to run a new auction on the same website, UnitedGunGroup.com, starting at 9am ET Tuesday which will end at noon the following day.

Scroll down for video

George Zimmerman (pictured) is once again trying to sell the gun he used to kill an unarmed black teen, after his auction was hijacked by prank buyers

Zimmerman had sparked outrage on social media last week when he offered to sell the Kel-Tec PF9 9mm handgun, which he described 'an American firearm icon' that he had used to defend his life against Martin

The new starting price will be $100,000 compared to just $5,000 when he first posted the ad last week.

Buyers will also have the option to 'buy it now' for $500,000.

United Gun Group owner Todd Underwood told CNN on Monday that the website would continue to facilitate lawful sales despite the criticism it has faced for allowing Zimmerman to list his gun.

Zimmerman had sparked outrage on social media last week when he offered to sell the Kel-Tec PF9 9mm handgun, which he described 'an American firearm icon' that he had used to defend his life against Martin.

Martin's family has said the black 17-year-old was simply walking home after buying a drink and candy from a local store before his fatal encounter with Zimmerman.

He deleted his listing after the auction was hijacked by trolls but has reposted the sale with a starting price of $100,000.00. Bidding begins 9am tomorrow

Other screen names of bidders (above) on the site included 'Donald Trump,' 'shaniqua bonifa' and 'Tamir Rice,' the name of a black 12-year-old who was shot and killed by Cleveland police in 2014

Early Friday, the bidding surpassed $65 million with the leading bidder using the screen name 'Racist McShootFace' before a person named Craig Bryant overtook the bidding on UnitedGunGroup.com (above)

Zimmerman was later acquitted of murder in a case that sparked protests and ignited debates on race relations, gun control and American justice.

A lawyer for the family denounced Zimmerman's effort to sell the gun, and another auction site, GunBroker.com, rejected the listing.

Two of America's leading auctioneers of guns said they also had refused on ethical grounds to handle the sale after Zimmerman called their establishments recently hoping to consign the gun with them.

Bidding on the 9 mm Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol began at $5,000 on Thursday afternoon, but by 9.30am on Friday the highest bid was $65 million, apparently inflated by bogus buyers with names such as 'Racist McShootFace.'

In the listing, Zimmerman wrote: 'Prospective bidders, I am honored and humbled to announce the sale of an American Firearm Icon.

'The firearm for sale is the firearm that was used to defend my life and end the brutal attack from Trayvon Martin on 2/26/2012.'

Critics called the auction an insensitive move to profit from the slaying.

Tragic: An undated handout photo released by the Martin family public relations representative shows 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman

Zimmerman explained that he planned to lock it in a safe to eventually give to his grandchildren if the Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm didn't sell

Zimmerman said the pistol was returned to him by the US Justice Department, which took it after he was acquitted in Martin's 2012 shooting death.

His listing said a portion of the proceeds would go toward fighting what Zimmerman calls violence by the Black Lives Matter movement against law enforcement officers, combating anti-gun rhetoric of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and ending the career of state attorney Angela Corey, who led Zimmerman's prosecution.

The listing ended with a Latin phrase that translates as 'if you want peace, prepare for war.'

In both listings of the weapon, he has claimed that the 'many have expressed interest in owning and displaying the firearm including The Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C.'

However, the museum said in a statement it had not done so and had no plans to display it.

Zimmerman, now 32, has said he was defending himself when he killed Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old, in a gated community near Orlando.

Martin, who lived in Miami with his mother, was visiting his father at the time.

Zimmerman, who identifies as Hispanic, was acquitted in Martin's February 2012 shooting death.

The Justice Department later decided not to prosecute Zimmerman on civil rights charges.

Lucy McBath, the mother of another black teenager shot by a white man during an argument at a Jacksonville convenience store in 2012, said the auction reflected a 'deplorable lack of value for human life.'

He tried to first sell it on GunBroker.com before they pulled the auction Thursday morning before it started

The former neighborhood watchman was acquitted in Martin's February 2012 shooting death. The Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm is pictured above during the trial in June 2013

Amy Siewert, from FDLE, showed the jury how George Zimmerman's gun can be fired during his trial in Seminole circuit court, in Sanford, Florida in July 2013

'I am deeply disappointed that the man who killed Trayvon Martin is trying to sell the very gun he used to cut that precious life short to raise money,' McBath said in a written statement.

The slaying of her son, 17-year-old Jordan Davis, by Michael Dunn drew parallels at the time to the Zimmerman-Martin case.

Dunn told police he had felt threatened by Davis. Unlike Zimmerman, Dunn was convicted of murder.

Since Zimmerman was acquitted, he has been charged with assault based on complaints from two girlfriends.

Both women later refused to press charges and Zimmerman wasn't prosecuted. His estranged wife, Shellie Zimmerman, also accused him of smashing her iPad during an argument days after she filed divorce papers.

No charges were filed because of lack of evidence. They were divorced in January.

Orlando-based attorney Mark O'Mara has previously represented Zimmerman. A receptionist in O'Mara's office said Thursday that he no longer represents Zimmerman and had no comment.

Martin's parents declined to address Zimmerman's actions in statements made through representatives.

Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, said through an attorney that she would rather focus on her work with the Trayvon Martin Foundation than respond to 'Zimmerman's actions.'

Daryl Parks, whose firm represented the Martin family during the trial, is now chairman of Fulton's foundation. He says Fulton is pushing for policies that protect youth and address gun violence.

Fulton also founded the Circle of Mothers conference, a three-day event to help mothers who have 'lost children or family members' to gun violence.



Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will be keynote speaker at the event in Fort Lauderdale starting May 20.
A man who stole a car from a Melbourne garage earlier this month may have left behind the best clue police could hope for - a photo of himself.

On May 1, a red Alfa Romeo was stolen from a home in Templestowe in Melbourne, along with some items from a Mercedes Benz that was also in the garage.

A week later police saw the red vehicle speeding down the street in Hawthorn, but when the driver dumped the vehicle and fled after a pursuit he left his mobile phone in the front seat.

Police have released this image of a suspected car thief after he left his phone in a stolen Alpha Romeo

He had been spotted driving along Auburn Road before turning on to the Monash Freeway when the front left tyre flew off.

'The driver then got out of the car and fled on foot', Victoria Police said in a statement.

Police have released an image found on the phone which shows a man, being kissed on the cheek by a woman, in the hopes of identifying the thief.
Someone complained to the health department about him saying an '

After George Ankar passed away in April from esophageal cancer, his 20-year-old son, Andrew, became the co-owner of the family's restaurant Ankar's Hoagies in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Andrew, who was born with Down syndrome, works day in and day out at the restaurant, greeting all of his customers and treating them with nothing but kindness.

'He works open to close, all day every day from 8am to 9pm,' his mother Judy told Us Weekly.

'He knows his customers by name and treats all of them like family. People come in looking for Andrew. If they don't see him, they ask, "Where is he?"'

The young restaurant owner said that he loves working at his family's business.

Fun spirit: Andrew Ankar (above), who was born with Down syndrome, has worked day in and day out at his family's restaurant in Tennessee, since his father died from cancer in April

Brother's love: When a customer filed a complaint with the health department, claiming that an unauthorized person, Andrew (left), was in the kitchen, his brother Alex (right) and mother rallied around him

Family: Alex, who is a student at Quillen College of Medicine in Johnson City, shared a photo of Andrew (above) in the kitchen cooking and wrote a Facebook post defending his brother on May 5 that his since gone viral

'I love the people that work here, and I like doing like daddy did at the shop,' he told Us Weekly. 'I like to make grilled chicken on the grill.'

But when an unidentified customer filed a complaint with the health department, claiming that an unauthorized person, Andrew, was in the food prep area of the kitchen, his brother Alex and mother became enraged and rallied around him.

Alex, who is a student at Quillen College of Medicine in Johnson City, shared a photo of his brother in the kitchen cooking and wrote a lengthy Facebook post defending his brother on May 5 that his since gone viral.

'Ever since my dad passed away, my little bro (sic) has been working day in and day out at Ankar's Hoagies to ensure that my father's legacy keeps going strong,' Alex, 24 wrote in the post that's been shared over 19,000 times.

'From greeting customers to cleaning the dining room to working the grill, Andrew works tirelessly to make sure our business is a success - and he does it all with a smile on his face.

Of his brother, Alex wrote: 'It makes my blood boil that there are people in this world who don't have an ounce of kindness in their heart to appreciate what an amazing person he is.' The restaurant is pictured above

His brother also wrote: 'Sometimes I sit back and marvel at Andrew's ability to love everyone... even people who aren't deserving of his kindness. He knows no hate.' Above Andrew is pictured left inside the restaurant

'When I learned that someone had the audacity to file a report with the local health inspector over an adult with Down syndrome being in the kitchen of a restaurant that he is not just employed at, but that he owns, I was floored.

'It makes my blood boil that there are people in this world who don't have an ounce of kindness in their heart to appreciate what an amazing person he is. The fact that there are people out there in this world that view people with disabilities as sub-human disgusts me.

'Sometimes I sit back and marvel at Andrew's ability to love everyone... even people who aren't deserving of his kindness. He knows no hate.

'If the people out there who constantly ridicule people with disabilities had even half of Andrew's capability to love EVERYONE, this world would be a better place.

'I challenge every single person who reads this to take a minute to put all differences aside. Whether it's ability, race, sexual orientation, religion, whatever - try to put your differences aside and love one another.

'Trust me, the world would be a much better place if everyone had Andrew's ability. He's not the disabled one, we are.'

He ended the post with telling his brother that he loves him.

Their mother, Judy, added that 'Andrew is the purest of the pure.'

'He is what God intended the world to be, perfect in every way,' she told Us Weekly.

'The only thing he wants out of life is to drive a fast car with two pedals and two steering wheels and to have a black iPhone! How would life be if we all lived like Andrew?'

According to the News Channel 9, the Hamilton County Health Department's report shows that the restaurant did not have any violations.

Andrew is continuing on his father's legacy, as he works 13 hour shifts at the eatery alongside his mother, who says her son wanted to be 'just like' his father in 'every way'.

'George was Andrew's hero,' Judy told Us Weekly. 'He would go at night after school and stay and close the shop with him. He dressed just like him by wearing the same color T-shirt with jeans.

'He has his dad's work ethic. Everything has to be done right.'
The official cause will be determined when the meeting concludes and after the board votes

Officials will meet Tuesday to detail the probable cause of the derailment

said an engineer was distracted by radio transmissions before the crash

An official speaking on the condition of

An official briefed by investigators says an Amtrak engineer was distracted by radio transmissions before his train derailed in Philadelphia last year, killing eight people.

The official was not authorized to comment publicly because of the ongoing probe and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

Federal investigators of the National Transportation Safety Board are scheduled to meet Tuesday to detail the probable cause of last year's fatal derailment.

The cause won't be determined officially until the board's vote at the conclusion of that meeting.

Federal investigators will meet Tuesday to detail the probable cause of the derailment of an Amtrak passenger train that killed eight people on May 12, 2015 in Philadelphia (pictured)

It's unclear what radio transmissions investigators are citing.

Engineer Brandon Bostian told investigators after the accident that he recalled radio transmissions that night from a local commuter train in the area reporting that its windshield had been busted by rocks.

He told investigators that he was concerned for his safety.

Just a little more than a year has passed since the crash that killed eight and injured 200 people.

Investigators said the train entered a sharp curve at 106 mph  more than twice the posted speed limit  when it crashed on May 12, 2015.

Federal officials have said the evidence showed no issues with the tracks, signals or the locomotive and they didn't find any signs that the train had been stuck by a rock or that the engineer was using his cellphone.

Aaron Levine, 80, the oldest survivor of the derailment, emerged with his shoulders and ribs crushed, a punctured lungs and spinal fractures that left him partially paralyzed.

An official briefed by investigators says an Amtrak engineer was distracted by radio transmissions before his train derailed. Police officers and first-responders are pictured last year blocking the way to the track

Investigators said the train entered a sharp curve at 106 mph  more than twice the posted speed limit  when it crashed (pictured), injuring more than 200 people

He spent three weeks in an induced coma and it took months before he could walk or move his hands.

Aaron, an active lawyer, art collector and world traveler, and his 77-year-old wife, Barbara, of Washington, DC, were heading to New York for an art show when the train left the tracks.

A few days after the derailment, the Levines were supposed to jet off for Europe.

Instead, Aaron lay in intensive care in Philadelphia considering what his life had become and how it would end.

He called one of his sons and asked him to research assisted suicide. When his son refused, Aaron threatened to jump out of the window.

'My son said, "You can't get to the window,''' Aaron said. 'After that happened, I kind of had my mind set  I decided to live.'

Barbara, thrown from her aisle seat, had her pelvis fractured in five places.

The Levines said they may attend Tuesday's NTSB meeting in Washington, but are hesitant to believe the investigators' findings.

The couple worries about crumbling infrastructure and a lack of adequate funding for public transportation.

Aaron Levine, 80 (pictured right with his wife Barbara, left) is the oldest survivor of the derailment. He spent three weeks in an induced coma and it took months before he could walk or move his hands

Surviror Robert Hewett, 58 (pictured embracing his daughter Emily next to his wife Judy, right), said the past year has been 'terrible' - an endless series of doctors' appointments, physical therapy and nightmares

Aaron, who made a career of representing women harmed by defective pharmaceuticals and medical devices, wants someone held accountable.

'It wasn't an act of God. It was an act of stupidity,' he said.

Robert Hewett, 58, who also survived the crash, said Thursday on the anniversary of the derailment that the past year has been 'terrible' - an endless series of doctors' appointments, physical therapy and nightmares.

He was texting his wife, Judy, about vacation plans from his seat in the front car of the train when the car started to tip.

He remembers being thrown from his seat and hitting the luggage rack before crashing headlong into another passenger.

When he regained consciousness, Hewett was on a pile of rocks, unable to move. First responders eventually found him and transported him to a Philadelphia hospital, where he spent the next seven weeks in a medically-induced coma.

'I have pain 24/7,' Hewett told reporters at a press conference through labored breaths, explaining that his rib cage has not fully healed and that his lungs cannot fully expand. 'The two outcomes for me were paralyzed for life, or death.'

The railroad has apologized for the crash and an emotional Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman told Congress afterward that Amtrak was responsible. The train's engineer has said he couldn't explain why the train kept accelerating after he applied the brake.

Hewett said he plans to watch the hearing on television from his home in New Jersey. He said no one from Amtrak, including the train's engineer, has apologized or contacted him since the crash.
Oh no, Ed Balls was back! Former Labour economics genius Ballsy returned to frontline politics yesterday when he accompanied George Osborne to a pro-EU event at Stansted airport.

Behind them was a Boeing 737, its fuselage painted with a Remain slogan. This aircraft was swiftly nicknamed Scare Force One.

The Chancellor was again on Project Fear manoeuvres, claiming that we will lose 200billion in trade if we vote for British independence. Or was it 400billion? The difference need not delay us  billions, schmillions. Round it up to the nearest hundred and say it with a deathly grimace.

The event was held in a hangar occupied by Ryanair, the Irish airline best known for its money-grubbing boss, Michael O'Leary. Young Ryanair cabin crew lined up to welcome us, the girls pinging Colgate smiles, the boys smelling faintly of Lynx deodorant.

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne (centre) is joined by former adversaries Ed Balls (right) and Sir Vince Cable (left) in the Ryanair hangar at Stansted airport

Further cabin crew were sitting inside the hangar. Enter Mr O'Leary. It was disconcerting how, at the sight of him, his smartly-dressed employees fell into an obedient, almost cowed silence.

He blurted some threats about how leaving the EU would make air fares pricier. These claims might have been more convincing had they come from an altruistic champion of consumers rather than a bloke whose airline whacks on costs seemingly at every point of the booking process. O'Leary! We can all form our own view of his honesty and his concern for British voters.

From the far end of the hangar, three hombres approached: Mr Osborne, Mr Balls and that other pin-up of youthful optimism, Sir Vince Cable. Was this a campaign rally or a Woodstock reunion? Mr Osborne opened with a speech about economic calamity if we left the EU. 'Disaster...let me tell you... lower incomes... higher prices in shops...' etc. Leaving the EU would be 'a one-way ticket' to ruination.

Mr Balls's turn arrived. 'Well, well, this is quite a surprise,' he said  meaning he had never expected to share a platform with his foe Osborne. He claimed that if we left the EU, Adidas training shoes might cost 17 per cent more and Lacoste shirts would rise by 12 per cent. It was as though he had never been away: the long sentences, the chunky neck, the wine connoisseur's way of relishing delicious ideas inside his lip, a hint of drollness in his pout.

Leaving the EU would be 'a one-way ticket to a poorer Britain'. Sir Vince, trim and tanned, pooh-poohed 'juvenile caricatures' of the EU put about by Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.

He, too, said Brexit was a 'one-way ticket' to some terrible fate. At this point a Ryanair captain rose from his seat and hurried for the exit. Perhaps he was in search of one of those air-sickness bags.

Former Labour MP Ed Balls (right) accompanied George Osborne (centre) to the pro-EU event at Stansted airport

For some reason Sir Vince started talking about exports of porridge. I wondered at first if the noise of aircraft zooming down the nearby Stansted runway had made me mishear but a Guardian colleague confirmed that Sir Vince was indeed talking about porridge  and at some length.

Whoever knew the continentals were so keen on Quaker Oats? You live and learn.

Boris's recent mention of the Third Reich (which has set off the faux-outrage brigade, bigtime) was raised. Mr Balls called it 'such an ill-judged lack of judgement'. Ballsy, lad, how we have missed ye.

Nice Faisal from Sky News pointed out that 12 months ago both Sir Vince and Mr Balls lost their seats to just the sort of vicious, Osbornian Project Fear campaign we are again seeing in this campaign.

Mr Balls momentarily looked like a frog that had just swallowed a bumble bee but he recovered his poise and gallantly said that life was about winning and losing.
A major slump in global supplies caused by the death of millions of fish is sending salmon prices leaping, according to a new report.

The latest research shows that Chilean salmon prices are up by over 60 per cent year on year after an algal bloom hits the country's waters in February, releasing powerful toxins and starving the water of oxygen that killed fish.

In addition, salmon production in Norway has been hit by extreme weather as well as the impact of sea lice in some areas.

Trade magazine The Grocer said yesterday: 'Retailers should prepare themselves for a further hike in salmon prices as global supplies feel the pinch from Chile's toxic algae attack.'

The latest research shows that Chilean salmon prices are up by over 60 per cent year on year after an algal bloom hits the country's waters in February (stock photo)

Market analyst Luana Clapis, of commodity analysts Mintec, told The Grocer: 'Algal blooms contain large numbers of marine algae which occur naturally in the ocean but usually in lower concentration.

'However, abnormal high ocean temperatures fuelled by El Nino have allowed the bloom to flourish.'

The bloom affected Chile's salmon region and millions of fish were killed with the country suffering losses equivalent to 123,500 tonnes of salmon to date.

'Chilean salmon production is expected to decline 16per cent year on year in 2016, to 494,000 tonnes,' said Clapis.

Although Chilean authorities claimed the algae was diminishing and salmon mortality had ended in mid-March, the country is now battling a second algae attack that is killing bivalves and marine biologists say it could take months for the blooms to dissipate entirely.

The magazine says that the Chilean disaster follows an outbreak of sea lice in Norway last year which prompted salmon farmers to mass harvest, hitting 2016 stocks.

'Since salmon takes, on average, two years to fully grow, the early partial harvest of 2014's salmon generation is likely to limit the 2016 harvest,' said Clapis.

In addition, salmon production in Norway has been hit by extreme weather as well as the impact of sea lice in some areas (stock photo)

'In January 2016, the biomass of 2014 generation was down 17per cent year on year.'

The Grocer said that extreme weather in Norway and the ongoing presence of the sea lice in some areas - prompting further early harvests - have also resulted in lower average salmon weights this year.
Advertisement

The largest cruise ship in the world  measuring more than four football pitches in length with a maximum capacity for 6,780 passengers  has docked in Southampton for final preparations before its maiden voyage.

A small crowd of well-wishers, including some dressed in their pyjamas, welcomed the 800million Harmony of the Seas as it arrived just after dawn today, but tens of thousands of people are expected to visit the coastal city this week to catch a glimpse of the gigantic vessel before it carries paying customers for the first time.

After sailing from a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France, and spending the day yesterday cruising the English Channel, Harmony of the Seas sailed up Southampton Water and arrived at Southampton shortly after 6:15am.

It will depart on a short cruise on Sunday  a four-day taster voyage to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands  and on 29 May will make its maiden voyage to Barcelona, where it will be based for 34 seven-night tours of the western Mediterranean this summer. It will sail between Florida and the Caribbean this winter.

Royal Caribbean Internationals 18-deck ship has set new records for length (1,1188ft), gross tonnage (227,000), width (215.5ft), passenger capacity (5,479 at double occupancy or a maximum of 6,780) and staterooms (2,747).

With a crew of 2,100 from 77 countries, the floating city boasts seven 'neighbourhoods', a 10-storey slide that is the tallest at sea, 23 swimming pools, 20 dining venues, 52 trees, surf simulators, robot bartenders, a casino and climbing walls.

Scroll down for video

Welcome: A small crowd turned out to wave in the Harmony of the Seas as it sailed into Southampton shortly after 6am this morning

The Harmony of the Seas, pictured arriving into Southampton, is the biggest cruise ship in the world, with a length of 1,188ft

The largest cruise ship in the world measures more than four football pitches in length with a maximum capacity for 6,780 passengers

Stunning aerial photos of Harmony of the Seas' arrival in Southampton reveal the scale of the 227,000-ton cruise ship

Harmony of the Seas is slightly larger than Allure of the Seas and Oasis of the Seas, two sister ships from Royal Caribbean International

Well-wishers, still wearing their pyjamas, rushed out of bed to welcome the ship as it sailed up Southampton Water, the tidal estuary

The gigantic vessel's amenities include the 10-storey Ultimate Abyss (pictured at the back of the ship), the tallest slide at sea

Harmony of the Seas (right) dwarfs many other vessels of its kind. Royal Caribbean now has the world's six largest cruise ships

Royal Caribbean says 2,500lbs of fresh salmon and 2,100lbs of lobster tails will be eaten on board on an average seven-night cruise

Harmony of the Seas: The impressive ship will spend the week in Southampton for final preparations ahead of its maiden voyage

It took 32 months to build Harmony of the Seas, which is the 25th cruise ship in Royal Caribbean International's fleet

Miami-based Royal Caribbean International ordered Harmony of the Seas in December 2012 and it took 32 months to build the ship

Harmony of the Seas represents a shift by cruise lines to push the boundaries when it comes to size, passenger capacity and amenities

The Ultimate Abyss, a 10-storey slide that is the tallest ever built on a cruise ship, takes thrillseekers on a 100ft plunge

Tens of thousands of people are expected to visit Southampton this week to catch a glimpse of the ship before its inaugural cruise

Harmony of the Seas will spend a few days at port in Southampton before paying customers are taking on two brief cruises

Harmony of the Seas left a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France, on Sunday and spent the day yesterday sailing in the English Channel

In addition to the tallest slide at sea, the massive ship boasts 23 swimming pools, 20 dining venues, a casino and two surf simulators

The 18-deck ship has set new records for staterooms (2,747) and passenger capacity (5,479 at double occupancy or a maximum of 6,780)

Harmony of the Seas will make its maiden voyage on Sunday  a four-day taster cruise to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and back

On its seven-night tours of the western Mediterranean, Harmony of the Seas will stop at destinations such as Marseille, Rome and Naples

After short cruises to the Netherlands and France, Harmony of the Seas will leave Southampton and head to Barcelona, its summer base

From Barcelona, the cruise ship will spend the summer sailing the Mediterranean before moving to Florida and the Caribbean for winter

Harmony of the Seas's port of registry is Nassau, Bahamas. It will make its debut there after it sails across the Atlantic in October

Stood on its stern the Harmony of the Seas would soar above London's Shard, Paris' Eiffel Tower and the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai

From September 2013, it took 2,500 workers at STX France a total of some 10 million work hours to complete the enormous vessel

Harmony of the Seas will go on a pair of short cruises from Southampton before its maiden voyage to Barcelona on 29 May

BY THE NUMBERS: THE LARGEST CRUISE SHIP IN THE WORLD Owner: Miami-based Royal Caribbean International Ordered: December 2012 Builder: STX France, Saint-Nazaire Construction time: 32 months Cost: 800million Decks: 18 (16 guest decks) Gross tonnage: 227,000 gross registered tons Length: 1,188ft Width: 215.5ft Cruising speed: 22 knots (25 mph) Capacity at double occupancy: 5,479 passengers Total capacity: 6,780 passengers Crew: 2,100, representing 77 nationalities Staterooms: 2,747 Dining venues: 20 The Ultimate Abyss slide has a 100ft, 10-storey drop 4,700,000lbs of water used in 23 pools and other attractions A park with 10,587 plants, 48 vine plants and 52 trees 11,252 works of art on display throughout the ship The 25th ship in Royal Caribbean International's fleet Advertisement

The cruise ship that makes Titanic look a minnow and as it docks in Britain, our man braves its thrilling (and terrifying) 100ft slide

By Mark Palmer for The Daily Mail

What on earth will these cruise ship companies conjure up next? Not so long ago, they were busy launching floating cities with an improbable number of pubs, restaurants, swimming pools and even adventure playgrounds.

Then along came theme parks, shopping malls, surf simulators, aqua theatres, robotic barmen, zip lines and faux forests with canned birdsong.

Now? Well, I am standing on a glass platform on Deck 17 of the newest and biggest cruise ship the world has ever seen  and Im about to crawl into a stainless steel tube and hurtle down the tallest slide at sea, arriving (hopefully) on the boardwalk 100 ft below.

Royal Caribbean has invited me to be the first member of the public to experience the Ultimate Abyss before the 1,188 ft cruise ship Harmony Of The Seas is due to dock at 5.30am today at Southampton in preparation for her maiden voyage next week.

Tube strike: Mark Palmer is 100 feet above the boardwalk as he climbs into the mouth of the Ultimate Abyss, the tallest slide at sea

The slide's adrenaline-fuelled 12-second descent is hair-raising. The Ultimate Abyss takes the form of a ferocious anglerfish with a huge dorsal fin and two spindly bodies

Tens of thousands watched from the shore and from a multitude of little boats as she left Saint-Nazaire in Brittany yesterday. The ships three pilots have been trained on simulators to cope with the job of manoeuvring her into port.

All set? shouts the slides German project manager, Dr Stephan Spiller. Absolutely! I shout back with bravado.

It reminds me of the scene in the movie Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid when, just before the two outlaws leap off a cliff into a swirling river, Sundance (Robert Redford) turns to Butch (Paul Newman) and says: I cant swim. For me, its: I cant do heights.

No matter, I tell myself. Just enjoy the views across the Loire in Saint- Nazaire, where the ship has been built, and marvel at the engineering of this 227,000-ton sea monster.

The Ultimate Abyss takes the form of a ferocious anglerfish with a huge dorsal fin and two spindly bodies.

The Ultimate Abyss: To reach the double tubes, you walk past the aptly named Wipeout Bar and climb some stairs that take you through the fishs open mouth, complete with 40 giant pointed teeth, until you reach the glass floor

There are nearly 3,000 cabins (sorry, staterooms)  for which prices start at around 900 per person for a weeks cruise up to 2,760 for a luxury suite  some with bunk beds for families with children, and most have balconies

To reach the double tubes, you walk past the aptly named Wipeout Bar and climb some stairs that take you through the fishs open mouth, complete with 40 giant pointed teeth, until you reach the glass floor.

You are handed a black mat with an open sack at one end into which you place your feet.

You then lean back while holding on to a strap and wait for the Go sign to turn green.

Anyone less than 3 ft 8 in tall or weighing more than 23st is not allowed down the Ultimate Abyss.

I am short, but unfortunately not that short, and Im overweight, but cant claim to top the scales quite to that extent. In other words, theres no escape.

The 227,000-ton sea monster: The 800million cruise ship as it set sail from the STX Saint-Nazaire shipyard in France on Sunday

So I am reduced to delaying tactics by asking all sorts of nerdy questions. The green Go light keeps flashing, but Im going nowhere.

How long does it take to get down?

12.5 seconds is the record, but 14 seconds is normal, says Dr Spiller in that wonderful matter-of-fact Germanic way.

How fast do you go?

You can reach speeds of 35kph [22mph].

Is it completely dark in there?

There are a number of light options, with three colour modes and one variable mode. You will also hear a lot of different sounds  but do feel free to scream.

Many thanks. Actually, I cant wait to get off this windswept platform at the stern of the ship  150 ft above sea level  even if it means twisting and turning down a tube with minimum head room. So I shuffle forward on the mat, holding on to the strap as if clinging to life itself.

A little further, advises Dr Spiller, and it strikes me this must be how the cartoon Road Runner felt when he sprinted off the edge of a cliff and hung in mid-air, knowing he was about to plunge to his doom.

The auditorium: In the 1,300-seater main theatre, there will be West End performances of Grease, and the indoor ice rink should be a good place to cool off if the excitement becomes too intense elsewhere

The ship also has 16 restaurants, including Jamies Italian, swimming pools in all shapes and sizes, and the 1,300-seat main theatre

Less is never more: New Yorks Central Park is on board, with more than 10,000 plants and 52 trees, flanked by shops ranging from Kate Spade and Bulgari to Cartier and Hublot (pictured departing Saint-Nazaire, France)

And suddenly Im off! The first turn is steep and dark, then theres a straight section with bright, silver lighting. Quite pleasant, in fact  until I plunge again sharply, my weight lending momentum to the downward spiral.

As I plummet, I cant sit up when I try because the forces press me against the sides.

I have a good old scream as the seconds tick by and close my eyes as I roar towards Deck 5.

This helter skelter on steroids spits me out on the boardwalk  panting, but exhilarated  where I come to a gradual stop on the flat of the deck and find myself sandwiched between a hamburger joint called Johnny Rocket and a tequila bar called Sabor.

I can see a quaint and gentle carousel in the distance and behind me is the Aqua Theatre, where professional divers will perform dare-devil stunts of the kind that would make Tom Daleys double pike with twist look tame.

Job done  and Im ready to rumble in the jungle of Harmonys seven separate neighbourhoods and explore what 800 million buys you in the world of humungous cruise ships.

Stand this one up on its stern and it would soar way above the Shard in London, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Burj Al Arab luxury hotel in Dubai. It is 330 ft longer than the Titanic and can carry a human cargo of 8,880, of whom 6,780 will be paying customers and 2,100 crew from 77 countries.

The finishing touches are applied to the Ultimate Abyss last week. The tallest slide at sea takes passengers from deck 16 to deck six

Harmony of the Seas is essentially a floating city, with nearly 2,750 staterooms over 16 guest decks, 20 dining venues and 23 pools

Passengers won't run out of activities on the ship, which has a casino, giant climbing wall, rope slide, minigolf and floating Jacuzzis

Getting lost is not an issue because you are given GPS-style wristbands that track your whereabouts. If little Johnny wanders into the Bionic Bar and orders a double mojito or wants to vanish into the Adults-only Solarium, his parents will quickly be alerted.

There are 16 restaurants, including Jamies Italian  and Jamie Oliver himself will be on board for the first official sailing on May 22.

One restaurant is called Wonderland and is themed on Alice In Wonderland. Built on two floors, it invites you to venture down the rabbit hole and then pick from the molecular menu (in other words, a clever fusion of science and cooking), where instead of courses you order from categories  fire, ice, earth, water and dreams.

Swimming pools are everywhere, in all shapes and sizes, with three water slides (one features a huge champagne bowl that whizzes guests around before dispatching them through the final flume). This is in the Perfect Storm zone near Splashaway Bay, where younger children can, well, splash away.

In the 1,300-seater main theatre, there will be West End performances of Grease, and the indoor ice rink should be a good place to cool off if the excitement becomes too intense elsewhere.

Harmony of the Seas, the widest cruise ship ever built, boasts 18 decks in total, with 16 dedicated to passenger staterooms and suites

The gigantic cruise ship was ordered in December 2012 and was built for Royal Caribbean at a cost of more than 800million

New Yorks Central Park is on board, with more than 10,000 trees and plants, flanked by shops ranging from Kate Spade and Bulgari to Cartier and Hublot.

Size matters on the Harmony Of The Seas. Less is never more.

There are nearly 3,000 cabins (sorry, staterooms)  for which prices start at around 900 per person for a weeks cruise up to 2,760 for a luxury suite  some with bunk beds for families with children, and most have balconies.

Those without windows or a port hole have virtual balconies  real-time footage of the views outside, streamed through the TV.

Back at the Ultimate Abyss, Dr Spiller tells me the speed and scariness of the ride is affected by the weather and by how warm the steel becomes. The hotter it is, the less friction  and the faster you go.

Nearly a couple of hours have gone by since my descent  and the weather has improved. Apparently, the ride is speeding up nicely.

So, he says, would you like another go?
Careers Australia will repay the Federal Government more than $44 million after it made 'false and misleading' statements to persuade students to sign up to 'free' courses.

The private education provider admitted on Monday it had breached Australian Consumer Law after Careers Australia misrepresented VET FEE-HELP courses as free and offered inducements such as iPads and laptops to get 'vulnerable' Australians to sign up for classes.

Careers Australia offers courses in hospitality, nursing, construction, childhood education, hairdressing and business.

Careers Australia will repay the Federal Government more than $44 million after it made 'false and misleading' statements to persuade students to sign up to 'free' courses

Between August 1, 2013 and March 31, 2015, Careers Australia received and processed applications from about 40,000 students.

Of these students, 20,242 were enrolled and incurred a debt to the Federal Government.

The provider received about $190 million worth of payments from the Commonwealth for the students, according to the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC).

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said the actions of Careers Australia impacted on 'some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups of consumers'.

'For example, it is unacceptable that Career Australia allowed 80 consumers from a remote Aboriginal community in Yarrabah, Queensland to be enrolled into courses and incur debts when they were offered inducements to sign up but not alerted to the debts they would incur,' he said.

'It is also unacceptable that significant Commonwealth money went to fund courses that were often not undertaken.'

ACCC chairman Rod Sims (pictured) said the actions of Careers Australia impacted on 'some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups of consumers'

Careers Australia has already cancelled the enrolment of at least 12,130 students who have not completed a unit of study and repaid any amounts received as a result of those enrolments.

It has either repaid or partially repaid the Commonwealth amounts totalling at least $44.3 million.

The provider invited other students who may have been misled to approach them should they want to have their enrolment and debt cancelled.

If the enrolments had not been reversed, Careers Australia could have received payments totalling more than $300 million from the Federal Government.

'The ACCC acknowledges that Careers Australia cooperated with our investigation and worked to address the problems, which is why we have accepted the undertaking rather than taking court action,' Mr Sims said.

'[We] will continue to investigate the education sector and take appropriate action to ensure consumers are not misled about the nature of courses and the debts they will incur.'

The ACCC is working closely with other Commonwealth and State agencies to address problems in the VET FEE-HELP sector.
James Chapman, 73, was charged with domestic violence after witnesses say he overzealously disciplined his two 10-year-old grandchildren

A grandfather is facing domestic violence charges after allegedly excessively disciplining his two grandchildren at a McDonald's in Scottsboro, Alabama.

James Chapman, 73, was arrested on May 10 after officers watched videotape of the incident at the fast food restaurant and determined that he had gotten too violent with his grandchildren.

'Officers get there and did an investigation and an individual was arrested for two counts of domestic violence,' Lt. Erik Dohring of the Scottsboro Police Department told WAFF.

A bystander called police when Chapman's discipline with his two 10-year-old adopted grandchildren became unbearable for him to witness.

'I followed him [into the parking lot] and just confronted him and told him I didn't, he wasn't going to do that in front of me. I didn't want to see somebody treating their kids that way,' said Brian Harper. 'He grabbed them up by one arm, he had their finger up in their face, and smacking them.'

The incident happened at the Scottsboro, Alabama McDonald's (pictured) on May 10 - witness Brian Harper said he confronted Chapman in the fast food joint and said he 'didn't want to see somebody treating their kids that way.'

Harper said when he saw Chapman grab the 10-year-old girl by one arm and drag her to his vehicle, he called police.

He added that when police showed up, they said they didn't see any bruises on the children, so they were about to let the man, who was also with his wife, go home. But Harper asked cops to have children protective services watch surveillance video from the restaurant.

'She said two minutes is all she could watch. She told them she did not want to see anymore,' Harper told WAFF, though it's unclear who he is referring to. 'I mean you can discipline them without hitting them.'

Dohring said that several witnesses at the McDonald's came forward in agreement that the discipline was excessive.

Chapman's lawyer, Justin Lackey, disagrees.

'Someone butted in on a situation and overreacted to what was really a minor thing,' he told WAFF. 'If there were more people disciplining their children instead of overreacting to people doing that kind of thing we wouldn't have near the problems that we have.'
David Cameron speaking at the Mansion House in London today. A pact between the PM and big business has been exposed

Boris Johnson called for an inquiry into what appeared to be 'collusion' after it emerged that David Cameron secretly plotted with big business to fight Brexit.

The former London Mayor said the revelation showed Mr Cameron's EU renegotiation bid was 'fiction' as he had already decided to campaign for a remain vote.

The secret mobilisation plan involved asking FTSE 500 companies to put in their annual reports warnings about the dangers of Brexit.

The strategy was discussed in a letter from Serco boss Rupert Soames to Mr Cameron 11 days before the latters renegotiation deal with the EU was complete. This followed a meeting a few days earlier.

The PM had been telling the Commons that he ruled nothing out unless he won concessions from the EU.

Responding to the claims today Mr Johnson said they made Britain look like a 'banana republic'. Serco has multi-billion-pound contracts with the Government.

'This is the biggest stitch up since the Bayeux Tapestry,' Mr Johnson said. 'It stinks to high heaven. FTSE 100 chiefs are seeing their pay packets soar while uncontrolled immigration is forcing down wages for British workers.

'Now we learn that some fat cats have been secretly agreeing to campaign for remain while angling for lavish Government contracts. It makes us look like a banana republic. And it is also now beyond doubt that the so called renegotiation was a fiction designed to bamboozle the public. It was a meaningless mime, a ritual, a kabuki drama in which the outcome was utterly preordained. This is not the far-reaching and fundamental reform we were promised.'

In another frantic day as the referendum battle heats up:

Lord Heseltine accused Mr Johnson of behaving irresponsibly and recklessly and said he would be surprised if he became PM;

Mr Johnson warned that the government's living wage was having a 'magnetic' effect on migration from Europe;

Mr Cameron claimed that both the leader of Islamic State and Vladimir would be happy if Britain voted for Brexit;

The CBI business group was accused of being anti-democratic after orchestrating a pro-EU lobbying campaign of 800,000 workers;

Energy minister Andrea Leadsom warned that Britain was being overwhelmed by EU migrants.

Nigel Farage has said he wants another referendum to be held unless Remain wins by a huge margin on June 23

Insurance group Lloyds of London has supported EU membership, arguing its business would be severely damaged if we leave

Czech supermodel Eva Herzigova has become the latest celebrity to lecture Britons on which way to vote, saying Brexit would be 'disastrous'

WHAT THE PRIME MINISTER TOLDS MPs ... AS HE SCHEMED IN PRIVATE I am not arguing  and I will never argue  that Britain couldnt survive outside the European Union. We are the fifth largest economy in the world. The biggest defence player in Europe with one of the most of extensive and influential diplomatic networks on the planet. The question is not could Britain succeed outside the European Union, it is how will we be most successful? How will Britain be most prosperous? How will we create the most jobs? ... How will we be most secure? And Ive always said the best answers to those questions can be found within a reformed European Union. But let me say again, if we cant secure these changes, I rule nothing out. Thank you for a very useful meeting last week. There were two points I thought I might follow up on. The first is how to mobilise corporates to look carefully at the risks Brexit represents. I am working with Peter Chadlington and Stuart Rose (the head of Britain Stronger in Europe) with a view to contacting FTSE 500 companies who have annual reports due for publication before June and persuading them that they should include Brexit in the list of key risks... During the Scottish referendum campaign we managed to garner a lot of publicity as a series of companies formally stated in their annual reports that independence for Scotland was a major risk. TO HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEB 3 LETTER FROM SERCO BOSS, FEB 8 Advertisement

The talks between Mr Cameron and Mr Soames  an EU supporter who is the brother of the Tory MP Sir Nicholas Soames  took place in early February.

A leaked letter Mr Soames sent to Mr Cameron afterwards, dated February 8, reveals the explosive topic of their conversation.

It states: There were two points I thought I might follow up on. The first is how to mobilise corporates to look carefully at the risks Brexit represents.

I am working with Peter Chadlington and Stuart Rose (the head of Britain Stronger in Europe) with a view to contacting FTSE 500 companies who have annual reports due for publication before June and persuading them that they should include Brexit in the list of key risks. All public companies are required to set out in their annual report an analysis of key risks.

Later that month, global security firm Serco was one of 200 businesses to sign a public letter in support of EU membership.

Lord Chadlington is regarded as one of Mr Camerons oldest political allies and is the chairman of the Prime Ministers local constituency association.

Pro-Europeans: Rupert Soames (left) with his Tory grandee brother Nicholas (right)

He donated 10,000 to Mr Cameron personally to fund his 2005 run for the Conservative leadership. He has donated more than 60,000 to the party since then.

Last night, No10 said it did not comment on leaked documents.

The meeting took place shortly before Mr Cameron delivered a speech on February 8 on the need for sweeping prison reform.

Mr Soames argued in the letter that the private sector only having 15 per cent of the prisons market was a wasted opportunity.

Tory MP Steve Baker said: This is proof that big corporates are being asked to gang up on hard-working British families to try to bully them into staying in the EU. There is a coordinated attempt to use company reports as campaigning documents.

And Labour Leave campaigner Gisela Stuart said: Today George Osborne accused the Leave campaign of inventing conspiracies. Now we see that David Cameron is knee deep in one.

There are serious issues for the Prime Minister to answer. We now know he has been doing deals with businesses to exaggerate the risk of a vote by the UK to leave the EU.

Prime Minister David Cameron (left) and Boris Johnson, as voters trust Mr Johnson to tell the truth about Europe more than they trust Mr Cameron, a new poll revealed yesterday

He must now tell us urgently how many businesses has he cut secret deals with? Who are they and what were they promised in return? Mr Baker added: This should come as no surprise  big corporates do well out of the EU because they can afford well-paid lobbyists and lawyers to stitch up the rules.

The same cannot be said for hard-working families who have to wait longer for NHS treatment and have seen living standards fall.

Serco denied there was any link between support for the EU and trying to secure state contracts.

The company said: We have contracts worth around 130million a year with European institutions such as the European Commission and the European Space Agency, and it is part of a strategy to build the business we do with European institutions.

CBI: BOSSES SHOULD TELL STAFF WHAT A BREXIT WOULD MEAN FOR THEIR JOBS CBI chief Carolyn Fairburn said bosses should explain to employees the implications of Brexit on their businesses Businesses should be writing to their employees and spelling out what a Brexit vote would mean for their jobs, the CBI said today. The business organisation, which represents around 190,000 firms, backs staying in the European Union. Microsoft today became the latest firm to follow the advice, writing to all 5,000 of its UK staff advising while the decision is one 'for individual voters to make' Microsoft's view 'is that the UK should remain in the EU.' Vote Leave blasted the CBI's advice and said it was 'highly regrettable' to see 'bosses gang up on staff'. CBI director general Carolyn Fairbairn insisted the move was 'not about telling people how to vote' but rather about responsible business leaders explaining 'what impact a Brexit would have on company growth, their jobs and their communities'. Vote Leave business chief Jon Longworth said: 'This is an anti-democratic abuse of power by the EU-funded CBI which supported the ERM and the single currency. 'Its own business surveys have been condemned as 'pretty dodgy' by the British Polling Council.' Advertisement

We believe that if Britain left the EU, it would be more difficult for us to win EU government contracts, and we regard this as a risk to the business.

Yesterday, Mr Johnson also attacked big businesses over the way they are lobbying to keep Britain inside the EU.

He said: There is a parade of big businesses coming out from Downing Street signing letters saying that they agree with every jot and tittle of EU regulation.

Well, of course they agree with an open-border immigration policy because it means they dont, for instance, have to worry too much about us getting local people.

They think they can just get a steady supply of unskilled or skilled labour from abroad and what is the result? Mr Soames, who is the grandson of Winston Churchill, said he would argue ferociously for the UK to remain in the EU whatever the result of the PMs renegotiation.

He was also a signatory to No10s pro-EU business letter in February this year.

In recent years, Serco has secured contracts worth 3.2billion to run private prisons in England and Wales. It has also won contracts with the Home Office worth 704million to run immigration removal centres and accommodation for asylum seekers.

Since joining the company in 2014, former Eton pupil Mr Soames has been entitled to a salary and pension worth more than 1.1million a year.

He can also pocket an annual bonus of up to 1.275million.

Last night, the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign seized on comments by Daniel Hannan MEP, who sits on Vote Leaves campaign committee.

Mr Hannan said the UK could adopt a model similar to Switzerland or Norway.

Remain campaigners said this would mean continuing to allow the free movement of EU migrants.

Addressing a World Economic Forum event at the Mansion House in central London today, Mr Cameron set out a series of 'myths' he wanted to bust about how things would be better outside the EU.

Among them was the idea that there could be a 'bonfire' of regulations without the influence of Brussels.

Answering questions from journalists afterwards, the premier expanded on his concerns about security if we were not members of the bloc.

Name checking Isis chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi alongside Vladmir Putin as beneficiaries from Brexit, Mr Cameron said:'It is worth asking the question: Who would be happy if we left?

'Putin might be happy, I suspect al-Baghdadi might be happy.

'Our friends around the world are giving us a very clear message, they are saying 'it's all up to you, it is your sovereign choice'.

Czech supermodel Eva Herzigova joins lectures on Brexit

Eva Herzigova starred in the traffic-stopping 1994 'Hello Boys' adverts for Wonderbra

Supermodel Eva Herzigova has become the latest foreign figure to lecture the British people over the EU referendum.

The Czech - known for starring in the 'Hello Boys' Wonderbra adverts in the 1990s - said it would be 'disastrous' if we voted to leave.

The endorsement comes after Abba star Bjorn Ulvaeus waded into the debate at the weekend saying Brexit would make him 'sad'.

International big hitters such as US President Barack Obama have previously sparked fury among leave campaigners by advising the electorate to stick with Brussels.

Herzigova is among more than 30 Czechs who signed an open letter pleading for the UK to stay in the EU.

'Without the British legacy of democratic institutions, entrepreneurial spirit, common sense and pragmatic approach to problem-solving, the West as we know it would be much weakened, politically and spiritually,' it said.

'Britain, under the exit scenario, would fare no better. It would be stranded in the middle of the Atlantic, unable to draw on the synergies of the European project. It would be left alone to deal with the ever-present threats of nationalism, populist politics, migration issues and ethnic intolerance. Closing its doors to workers from the EU, it would have to look for manpower, most likely less qualified and less adaptable, in other parts of the world.'

However, the missive - also signed by Cold War dissidents and renowned conductor Jiri Belohlavek - also acknowledges that 'many Europeans, in the East and in the West, are frustrated with the decreasing ability of the EU to cope with the current problems'.

British playwright Tom Stoppard - who was born in the Czech Republic - was sent the open letter by former ambassador to London Michael Zantovsky and has made it public.

Stoppard told the Guardian: 'A lot of the debate in this country is about the arithmetic and it is as well to be reminded that arithmetic isn't everything. Geopolitics in the 21st century weigh more heavily than they ever have done.'

In an interview to coincide with the Eurovision song contest - which Abba won with Waterloo in 1974 - Bjorn said: 'It would really make me sad if Britain would leave and what that would mean. It's like someone you love leaving you. It's emotional.'
A Sydney man acquitted of killing his young boyfriend, Matthew Leveson, was secretly recorded by a mutual friend after the 20-year-old's disappearance, an inquest has heard.

The recording was played at the NSW inquest on Monday after it was discovered with a stash of other evidence in a box by police on February 25.

The friend, labelled with the pseudonym 'Sally White', wore a police wire when she approached Michael Atkins with questions about his missing boyfriend over a dinner at his home on December 5, 2007.

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A secret recording of Michael Atkins (left) talking about his 20-year-old boyfriend Matthew Leveson's (right) disappearance in 2007 was played at an inquest on Monday in Sydney

Matthew Leveson (pictured) was last seen leaving a Sydney nightclub on September 23, 2007. An inquest is being held into his disappearance

Mr Leveson was last seen leaving Darlinghurst's ARQ nightclub with Mr Atkins, 44, in the early hours of September 23, 2007.

In the recording Ms White said police showed her CCTV of Mr Atkins buying duct tape and a mattock the day Mr Leveson disappeared, the inquest heard.

'I told them that,' Mr Atkins responded.

The recording of Mr Atkins (right), who was acquitted of killing Mr Leveson (left) in 2009, was made by a mutual female friend of the couple

The relationship between Mr Atkins (left) and Mr Leveson (right) was said to be deteriorating at the time of Mr Leveson's disappearance

But Ms White pressed further: 'You told me that you were sleeping at that time'.

He said he had been sleeping, but only a part of the day.

'I just want him to be next to me,' he later added.

Ms White then said she wanted answers and had been crying herself to sleep.

'If you have done something, and I'm not saying you have ... you better hope police don't find anything,' she says.

Michael Atkins and Matt Leveson left a club together on the day the 20-year-old disappeared

Video footage was reportedly recorded of Atkins purchasing a pick axe and gaffer tape the day of Mr Leveson's disappearance

Mr Atkins faced trial over his lover's death but was acquitted by a jury in 2009.

A previously unseen excerpt of video footage from a search warrant of the pair's home on September 27, 2007, was also played at the inquest.

The inquest heard the 48-minute excerpt wasn't played because it showed drugs and cash being seized from the home.

Matt Leveson (far right) is photographed with his two brothers, Pete and Jase, prior to his disappearance

Footage showed police searching the pair's home as they discovered drugs, believed to be ecstasy and GHB, in the kitchen, along with $3755 cash.

'It's Matt's,' Mr Atkins tells police.

'He's been doing it a while.'

The inquest is set to resume on Tuesday.
A cafe gutted by fire after an explosion which forced up to 50 residents to flee their apartment block was likely targeted, police say.

Emergency services were called to a health food cafe on Anzac Parade, near Maroubra Road in Sydney's eastern suburbs, about 2am on Tuesday after multiple reports of an explosion.

Police have been interviewing owners of the 'family run' cafe, believed to be Nutrition Station Maroubra, and an investigation into the fire is underway, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Although police had no suspects by about 1pm on Tuesday, Acting Superintendent Stacey Malone said the explosion had occurred near an accelerant, which caused the suspicious blaze.

Emergency services were called to a health food cafe in Maroubra on Tuesday morning after reports of an explosion. They arrived to find the shop engulfed in flames

Up to 50 residents were evacuated from the apartment block above the cafe. Firefighters were able to quickly extinguish the flame, and no one was injured

Fire crews and police had arrived to find the cafe engulfed in flames and evacuated a large number of people residing above the store as a precautionary measure.

A Fire and Rescue NSW spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia more than 20 firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze and rescued people who were trapped in a stairwell.

She described the blaze as 'quite ferocious'.

Information about the extent of the damage was not available on Tuesday morning.

Fire & Rescue NSW's Superintendent Paul Johnson said he couldn't confirm if there was an explosion, but did say the noise could have been glass windows exploding due to the heat.

No one was injured and residents have been allowed to return to their homes.

Police are treating the fire as suspicious and are calling for anyone with more information to come forward

Emergency services outside the scene of the fire at a cafe in Maroubra, in Sydney's eastern suburbs, early on Tuesday morning

Drew McPherson was one of many locals who heard an explosion before the fire.

'It was pretty loud,' he told the ABC.

'I was probably ... 400, 500 metres down the road and I could hear it pretty clearly.

'It's pretty full on. The shopfront's blown all over the front of the street.'

Other witnesses reportedly told 7 News that they smelt accelerant.

The Transport Management Centre said that three of four city-bound lanes were initially closed to assist with the police investigation, causing huge headaches for morning commuters.

'Only one of four north-bound lanes is available for traffic to slowly pass,' a spokesman said.

'Motorists travelling city-bound on Anzac Parade via Maroubra should expect delays and follow the directions of emergency services and traffic controllers on site.'

Detectives from Eastern Beaches Local Area Command are investigating the incident and would like to speak with anyone who may have information that can assist.
Boris Johnson campaigning for 'Vote Leave' ahead of the EU referendum

Britain is not able to crack down on tax avoidance because of the European Union, Boris Johnson claimed yesterday.

He said the UK could not stop big businesses 'sluicing money' off Luxembourg - and that a scheme designed as a solution to tax avoidance was failing because of the EU.

Research by Vote Leave showed British taxpayers have been left out of pocket by 2.36billion since 2012 after EU judges overhauled UK tax laws.

The figure was enough to have paid for an additional 29,205 more NHS nurses, according to the research.

A European Court judgment in 2006 ruled that the UK could not tax subsidiary companies located in countries with low tax laws in the EU.

The ongoing cost - after the UK had to make changes to its taxing of foreign companies - is 840million a year.

Leave campaigners said the judgment had 'encouraged artificial schemes'.

They said even the European Commission had admitted 'single market' rules 'allow for even greater mobility of tax bases and profits', allowing multinational companies to avoid tax by shifting profits and losses within the 'single market'.

The Government's solution to multinational tax avoidance, the so-called diverted profits tax (DPT) , had raised no revenue to date, Vote Leave said.

The total revenue forecast to be raised between 2016-17 to 2020-21 is now 0.5billion, down from 1.36billion when it was announced in December 2014.

The money generated is expected to be just 6.8percent of what HMRC expects to pay big businesses as a result of EU law challenges to UK tax legislation.

Mr Johnson said: 'We can't stop them sluicing money off Luxembourg and the diverted profits tax doesn't seem to be yielding the revenues that it should and that is because of the way the EU works'

'We are not able to crackdown on tax avoidance.'

Many experts have doubted whether the DPT is compatible with EU law itself - raising fears it could be struck down by the European Court.

Boris Johnson takes part in a Q and A at a visit to 'David Nieper', a clothing manufacturers, in Alfreton

Vote Leave chair Gisela Stuart said: 'The EU works well for businesses but not for hard working families.

'The EU's rulings have helped multinational businesses to avoid paying billions in taxes here in the UK.
Ex-MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove said the European Unions response to the influx of migrants has been hesitant, unsure and perverse

Europe risks importing the terrorist virus and sparking popular uprisings if it cant control its borders, a former spy chief warned last night.

Ex-MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove said the European Unions response to the influx of migrants has been hesitant, unsure and perverse.

This failure was fuelling the risk of the resurgence of far-Right movements, he said.

He added that millions of migrants from the Middle East and Africa are set to head to the continent in the next five years  many of whom will then be able to take advantage of Brussels free movement rules.

And he said it was inevitable that a few of these would carry what he called a terrorist virus.

He heavily criticised the EU bid to solve the migrant crisis by offering visa-free access to millions of Turks, saying it was like storing gasoline next to the fire one is trying to extinguish

Sir Richard rejected David Camerons claim that Brexit would make the UK less safe, saying there would actually be some security gains if we left.

High levels of immigration, particularly from the Middle East and freedom of movement inside the EU make effective border control more difficult, he said. Terrorists can exploit these circumstances, as we saw recently in their movement between Brussels and Paris and to and from Syria. With large numbers of people on the move, a few will inevitably carry the terrorist virus.

And he warned: In the real world there are no miraculous James Bond-style solutions. Human tides are irresistible unless the gravitational pull that causes them is removed. Pointing to the resurgence of the far-Right in Austria, he warned: If Europe cannot act together to persuade a significant majority of its citizens that it can gain control of its migratory crisis then the EU will find itself at the mercy of a populist uprising, which is already stirring.

He described the Brexit referendum as the first roll of the dice in a bigger geopolitical game, adding: I still do not find convincing the argument that we would be less secure if we left the EU.

In or out, the difference would be marginal with some security gains if we left. The UK would be its own master in its own house but European counter-terrorist co-ordination including the UK would continue as it has done before.

Sir Richard was head of MI6  a role known as M  from 1999 to 2004, meaning he was in charge for the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the Iraq War two years later.

Speaking as part of the BBCs World on the Move day, he said: The numbers of immigrants into Europe over the next five years from the Middle East and Africa could well run into the millions and once established inside the EU these new arrivals will have freedom of movement across the 28 member countries.

The geopolitical impact is set to reshape Europes political landscape as those citizens who feel, rationally or not, that their interests and cultural identity are threatened assert their influence.

This has already happened in Austria with the resurgence of the defunct Freedom Party. Other extreme Right populist parties in other European countries will follow.

Sir Richard rejected David Camerons claim that Brexit would make the UK less safe, saying there would actually be some security gains if we left

Sir Richard also criticised the EU response as hesitant and unsure, saying: For the EU to offer visa-free access to 75million Turks to stem the flow of migrants across the Aegean seems perverse, like storing gasoline next to the fire one is trying to extinguish.

The failure of the EU to respond effectively shows that it may well have outlived its historical role.

He said that, unlike the UK, the EU has no operational counter-terrorist capability to speak of  meaning that claims about Britain being less safe outside the EU carried little validity.

And he said the European Court of Human Rights had hampered the Governments handling of some terrorist related suspects.
A woman in China has been dubbed the 'most beautiful mother' for nursing an abandoned baby girl who had been discovered crying on the street.

The unnamed mother, who is reported to be 26 years old, volunteered to breastfeed the child who is thought to have been just a few days old, reports the People's Daily Online.

The newborn was first discovered by a passerby on a street at Beiwei village in Xianyang city, north-west China's Shaanxi province, on May 11.

Selfless mother: The woman has been praised for breastfeeding the newborn on the streets of Xianyang, China

According to the report, a woman named Wei, who worked at a local property company, saw a storage box outside her company at around 8am last Wednesday.

At first she thought it was just rubbish and did not investigate further.

However before long, Wei heard a baby crying and then she realised that it was coming from the storage box.

The crying child attracted some passersby, some opened the box and found the baby girl wrapped in bedding with around half a bag of milk and 100 yuan (10).

The baby seemed unharmed.

Someone onlookers pulled the baby from out of the sun and looked around for some water for her. They realised that the child was hungry.

A passing young woman, who happened to be a new mother, carefully put the baby in his arms, sat down in the corner and breastfed the child to give her some much needed milk and to stop her from crying.

Xianyang City Public Security Bureau said police arrived at the scene to see the child lying quietly in the young mother's arms with many passersby stuffing money in the baby's sleeves.

According to social welfare workers in Xianyang City, the baby has suspected cerebal palsy and possibly other conditions that will require further examinations.

Tragic story: The baby girl was discovered by a passerby crying in a cardboard box on the street of a village

The story has gained a lot of attention and comments from people online, who hailed the woman as the 'most beautiful mother'.

On news site 163.com people have been praising the mother for her actions.

'Sui feng qu envy' said: 'She is indeed the most beautiful mother'.

While 'Mo lu yi wang' wrote: 'Praise this mother'.

However 'Chao xiao wu mao zhi shang' commented: '[She] is kind, but her behaviour is not appropriate.

'Breastfeeding can carry several diseases.

'Had the baby been abandoned due to a serious infectious disease, then this mother and her child would be exposed to the disease too'.

The child has been taken to the Xianyang City Social Welfare institute.
Google faces a recordantitrust fine of around 3 billion ($3.4 billion or 2.3 billion) from theEuropean Commission in the coming weeks.

The European Union has accused Google of promoting itsshopping service in internet searches at the expense of rivalservices in a case that has dragged on since late 2010.

Following three failed attempts at a compromise in the past six years, Google is believed not to have any plans to settle the allegations unless the EU's Antitrust Commission changed its stance.

Google (stock picture of employee under Google logo) could be hit with a record antitrust fine over allegations it promoted its own shopping service in internet searches at the expense of rivals. The European Union wants search engines to be more transparent about how they promote adverts in search results

The Sunday Telegraph reported sources close to the case as saying officials planned to announce a fine as early as next month, but the bill had yet to be finalised.

Google will also be banned from continuing to manipulatesearch results to favour itself and harm rivals.

A TIMELINE OF EVENTS 2007 - US Federal Trade Commission investigates Google's acquisition of online advertising firm DoubleClick and rules it can go ahead. 2008 - US Justice Department blocks a deal to allow Yahoo to run Google search ads on Yahoo sites. 2009 - Rivals file complaints against Google to national regulators in Europe, citing competition concerns. 2010 - European Commission launches formal antitrust probe of Google's search business. This is still ongoing. 2013 - FTC drops its two-year investigation of Google, concluding it had not manipulated search results to damage rivals. 2014 - European politicians pass a non-binding resolution calling for the break-up of Google's search engine business from the rest of the company. 2015 - New EU antitrust commissioner Ms Vestager charges Google with distorting search results to favour its own shopping services over rivals and reveals that she is also investigating Google's Android business.

The Commission can fine firms up to 10 per cent of theirannual sales, which in Google's case would be a maximum possiblesanction of more than 6 billion (4.7 billion).

The biggest antitrustfine to date was a 1.1 billion fine imposed on chip-makerIntel in 2009.

But the Telegraph reported the fine was likely to be in the region of 3 billion.

The Commission and Google both declined to comment.

It comes just a month after the EU Anti-Trust Commission accused Google of 'stifling competition' by abusing the dominant position of its Android operating system.

The commission claims Google was making manufacturers pre-install Google Search and the Chrome browser.

Officials said Google has allegedly given financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators if they exclusively pre-installed Google Search on their devices.

It has also blocked some manufacturers from selling smartphones which ran on 'competing operating systems based on the Android open source code'.

The Commission believes these moves have stopped other mobile browsers from being able to compete with Google in the rapidly growing smartphone and Android markets.

It comes after Google also faced criticism earlier this year for the amount of tax it pays in the UK.

The company has agreed to pay the UK treasury 130 million in back taxes and interest dating back to the previous decade, but has been criticised over the amount.

The European Union's antitrust commission can fine firms up to 10 per cent of their annual sales, which could mean Google (Google headquarters in Mountain View, California pictured) may face a possible maximum possible sanction of more than 6 billion (4.7 billion)

The European Union's digital chief has also warned that he wants search engines - such as Google's and Microsoft's Bing - to be more transparent about advertising in web search results.

European Commission vice-president Andrus Ansip, said he was worried about how transparent some search engines are when displaying ads in search results.

The Commission is also looking into the transparency of paid-for reviews as well as the conditions of use of services such as Google Maps and Apple's iOS mobile operating system.
In the story of Snow White a young princess is tricked into eating a poisoned apple, which places her in a deep sleep until she is awoken by a prince.

Since the Brothers Grimm made the concept famous over two hundred years ago, the idea of using 'suspended animation' has appeared in countless science fiction films to help humans travel to the stars.

But now Nasa is funding an aerospace engineering company to develop technology for putting humans into a state of deep sleep for use in space transportation.

Scroll down for video

A space company in Atlanta is developing a space habitat (pictured) for putting humans into a state of deep sleep for use in space transportation. Nasa has just awarded the project $500,000 (350,000) to take it to the next stage

The US space agency has awarded SpaceWorks $500,000 (350,000) to develop the project.

Films like Interstellar and Alien have all used cryosleep as a way to allow humans to travel deep into space on journeys that can take years.

In real-life space missions, human crew and everything that goes along with it have a direct impact on mission mass, as well as number of launches required for the trip.

But putting astronauts into short-term hibernation could make space travel more efficient.

THE POINT OF 'CRYOSLEEP' In space missions, human crew and everything that goes along with it have a direct impact on mission mass, as well as number of launches required for the trip. But putting astronauts into short-term hibernation could make space travel more efficient. The habitat design is capable of placing the crew in an inactive, 'torpor' state for the duration of the in-space mission segments. A torpor state a state of short-term hibernation, when physiological activity is decreased, usually by a reduced body temperature and metabolic rate. This substantially reduces the mass and size of the habitat, which ultimately leads to significant reductions in the amount of mass needed on board. Advertisement

The habitat designed by Atlanta-based SpaceWorks is capable of placing the crew in an inactive 'torpor' state for the duration of the in-space mission segments.

This substantially reduces the mass and size of the habitat, which ultimately leads to significant reductions in the amount of mass needed on board.

'The idea of suspended animation for interstellar human spaceflight has often been posited as a promising far-term solution for long-duration spaceflight,' said Dr John Bradford, CEO of SpaceWorks.

'It was very exciting to receive notice of our selection, I know there is always a lot of competition for these awards,' Dr Bradford told MailOnline.

'We have a great project plan outlined and really appreciate NASA giving us the opportunity to further explore and develop this idea.'

The SpaceWorks habitat design a very small, pressurized module that is docked around a central node/airlock permitting direct access to the Mars ascent/descent vehicle and Earth entry capsule by the crew.

'We believe the crew habitat mass can be reduced to only 5-7 metric tonnes (mt) (11,000 - 15,000 lbs) for a crew of 4 to 6, compared to 20-50 mt (44,000 - 110,000 lbs) currently,' Dr Bradford said.

'The total habitat module volume would be on the order of 20 square metres (215 square feet), compared to 200 square metres (2150 square feet) for most current designs.'

The habitat designed by Atlanta-based SpaceWorks is capable of placing the crew in an inactive, 'torpor' state for the duration of the in-space mission segments. This substantially reduces the mass and size of the habitat, which ultimately leads to significant reductions in the overall architecture size

Since the Brothers Grimm made the concept of 'suspended animation' famous in 1812 with the story of Snow White, the concept has remained firmly in the realm of fiction, until now. An 1852 depiction of Snow White laid in a glass coffin during her period of magically induced suspended animation shown

The SpaceWorks habitat design a very small, pressurized module that is docked around a central node/airlock permitting direct access to the Mars ascent/descent vehicle and Earth entry capsule by the crew (pictured)

While the crew members are in a hypothermic state, various sensors would be hooked up to them so their conditions can be monitored.

They would receive nutrition intravenously through total parenteral nutrition (TPN) - where a liquid containing all the essential elements needed for a human body to function and catheter to drain urine.

The crew would be in this medically induced hypothermic state for 14 days at a time, with crew members taking turns being awake for two or three days at a time to ensure the needs of the crew and ship are met.

Medically induced hypothermia is already used to treat a variety of conditions, including after heart attacks or brain and spinal cord injuries.

While the crew members are in a hypothermic state, SpaceWorks has said various sensors would be hooked up to them so their conditions can be monitored. They would receive nutrition intravenously from a liquid that would contain all the essential elements for a human body to function

In the 2014 film 'Interslettar, hypersleep pods (pictured) are used to slow the aging process of the human body so that astronauts do not incur excessive senescence and not overly consume limited supplies while on their missions

The project is part of Nasa's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program, with 8 projects in total selected to proceed to the next stage of development, each receiving as much as $500,000 (350,000) for a two-year study.

THE FINAL EIGHT PROJECTS Nasa has funded eight projects as part of its Innovative Advanced Concepts Program. Here is the final list: Spaceworks Engineering - Advancing sleep inducing habitats for humans on deep space missions Robert Youngquist - Cryogenic selective surfaces Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Flight demonstration of novel atmospheric Satellite Concept MSNW - Magnetoshell aerocapture for manned missions and planetary deep space orbiters University of California, Santa Barbara -Directed Energy for interstellar study University of Missouri -Experimental demonstration for plasmonic force propulsion Texas Engineering Experiment - Approaches to creating a growable habitat Northwestern University - Development of an aperture for an 'extremely large reflective telescope' Advertisement

'The NIAC program is one of the ways Nasa engages the US scientific and engineering communities,' said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of Nasa's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington.

'[This] including agency civil servants, by challenging them to come up with some of the most visionary aerospace concepts,' said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator at Nasa.

'This year's Phase II fellows have clearly met this challenge.'

SpaceWorks said it will use the funding to better understand the effects of prolonged hypothermia, and consider the technology's impact on other exploration missions.

'We will be working on both the engineering/aerospace aspects required for the system as well as the medical research,'Dr Bradford told MailOnline.

'On the engineering front, we will be refining our technology and the torpor habitat designs.

'We will also be looking at destinations beyond Mars,'We have expanded our team to include leading researchers and experts in the field.'

Another project involving cryogenic preservation is called 'Cryogenic Selective Surfaces', led by Dr Robert Youngquist, lead scientist at Nasa's Kennedy Space Flight Center.

The project is aimed at creating a material that can thinly coat the space ship, reflecting more than most of the light and allowing it to reach incredibly low temperatures, and it could also be used for cryogenic storage.

The coating, called 'Solar White' is predicted to reflect more than 99.9 per cent of the sun's energy when used in deep space.

'The ramifications of such a coating are broad and significant, ranging from enabling long-term cryogenic storage to allowing passive high temperature superconductor operation in space,' he said.

'As we venture into the solar system we would like to take oxygen with us,' Dr Youngquist told MailOnline.

'Right now we have to do this with heavy pressurized containers, but if we could make the oxygen cold enough it becomes a liquid and storing large amounts of it becomes much easier. The cryogenic coatings I've proposed appear to allow these very cold temperatures to be reached, potentially allowing us to bring liquid oxygen (LOX) out into the solar system.

This could cool fuel tanks in space down to 300F below zero (-184C), with no energy input needed.

'My cryogenic coatings should allow cryogenic temperatures to be reached in space, something that is difficult to do now,' he said.

'So any application of cryogenics we have on earth, be that operating superconductors or preserving people, will now be possible in space.'

The 'Cryogenic Selective Surfaces'project is aimed at creating a material (pictured) that can thinly coat the space ship, reflecting more than most of the light and allowing it to reach incredibly low temperatures, and it could also be used for cryogenic storage

The project is part of Nasa's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program, with 8 projects in total selected to proceed to the next stage of development, each receiving as much as $500,000 (350,000) for a two-year study

Nasa says it selected these projects for their 'innovativeness and technical viability.'

'Phase II decisions are always challenging, but we were especially challenged this year with so many successful Phase I studies applying to move forward with their cutting-edge technologies,' said Jason Derleth, the NIAC program executive at Nasa Headquarters in Washington.

Also included as part of the portfolio is a dual aircraft platform that may be able to stay aloft for weeks or even months at a time. The work is being led by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and consists of two glider-like unmanned aircraft which are connected via a thin, ultra-strong cable.

A separate group is working on parachute made of plasma that can be trapped in a magnetic field to help probes glide safely back to Earth. Aerospace firm MSNW of Redmond, Washington, won a Nasa grant to demonstrate the technique on a CubeSat.

Meanwhile, Texas Engineering Experiment is working on the design of a rotating habitat with a robotic system that constructs the structure allowing to 'grow' while in space.

Engineers are developing a dual aircraft platform that may be able to stay aloft for weeks or even months at a time. The work is being led by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and consists of two glider-like unmanned aircraft which are connected via a thin, ultra-strong cable

A separate group is working on parachute made of plasma that can be trapped in a magnetic field to help probes glide safely back to Earth. Aerospace firm MSNW of Redmond, Washington, won a Nasa grant to demonstrate the technique on a CubeSat

'Whether it's tensegrity habitats in space, new ways to get humans to Mars, delicate photonic propulsion, or any one of the other amazing Phase II studies NIAC is funding, I'm thrilled to welcome these innovations and their innovators back to the program.

'Hopefully, they will all go on to do what NIAC does best - change the possible.'

All projects are still in the early stages of development, most requiring 10 or more years of concept maturation and technology development before use on a Nasa mission.
This year continues to be a record breaker as new figures show global temperatures are spiralling upwards.

Climate data released by Nasa this weekend has confirmed that last month was the hottest April on record, following similar records set for the previous three months.

Figures from the space agency showed April was 1.11C than historical temperature averages.

Rising trend: Nasa's latest climate data shows April was more than one degree Celsius (1.8F) warmer than the global monthly average from 1951 to 1980. Pictured are Nasa climate projections released earlier this year which predict how warming is set to continue worldwide

Nasa's climate dataset shows the past few months have been record breaking and confirms predictions that 2016 may become the warmest on record.

Its latest figures for April show the average temperature for the month was warmer than the monthly average from 1951 to 1980.

Climate scientists have voiced alarm at the figures, claiming the temperature increase beats previous records by the largest margin ever.

Speaking to the Guardian, Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of New South Wales, said: 'Climate scientists have been warning about this since at least the 1980s. And it's been obvious since the 2000s. So where's the surprise?'

Climate scientists have been posting the latest findings on Twitter, with meteorologist Eric Holthaus tweeting 'Global heatwave continues' (pictured). April marks several record-breaking warm months in succession

At the start of the year, data release by Nasa and a host of other meteorological and climate agencies confirmed that 2015 was the warmest on record.

The latest figures so far show that 2016 will likely beat this record.

THINGS ARE HEATING UP Satellite climate data from Nasa show April was 1.11C above monthly average recorded from 1951-1980. The latest finding continues the trend of several consecutive months ranked as the warmest on modern climate records. Climate scientists have said that the temperature increase beats previous records by the 'largest margin ever'. Advertisement

Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist and science writer, told The Independent: 'It's scary. I'm at the point where I don't know what will happen next.

He added: 'We knew an El Nino would impact things, but I don't think anyone expected this jump.'

The record warm spell follows in the wake of one of a large El Nino event, spreading warmer water currents in the southern Pacific Ocean with far reaching effects on weather systems around the globe.

Scientists believe that the record breaking warming trend has been a major contributing factor to widespread coral bleaching seen in Australia's coral reef as well as the rapid melting of the Arctic ice shelves, and may be impacting on migratory species and prolonged droughts seen in some regions.

Scientists have voiced alarm at the latest figures, and have said that the temperature increase beats previous records by the largest margin ever

Large swathes of coral reef have been left white as the colourful algae which inhabit them die or are displaced by increasing water temperatures and ocean acidification.

Climate concern is climbing up the agenda with a series of reports from the charity sector warning of the inevitable humanitarian impact of climate-related emergencies.

In a report this weekend, Christian Aid warned of increased flooding affecting more than one billion people in coastal regions around the world by 2060.

While Oxfam has warned that global climate agreements struck in Paris last year are hollow, with the world's richest nations failing to 'include meaningful mechanisms' for developing nations to adapt to the shifting global climate.

Of the $100 billion a year in funding pledged to help poorer nations adapt, Oxfam estimates just 16 per cent has been paid, and should be boosted to at least 35 per cent by 2020 to help developing nations adjust to shifting climate and cut their carbon emissions.

Rising water levels, which are linked with warming average temperatures, are already having an impact on islanders in the Pacific.

An Australian study released earlier this month revealed a number of the low-lying Pacific Solomon Islands have already disappeared due to rising sea levels and coastal erosion.

The Solomon Islands are of key scientific interest as they lie in a 'hotspot', with sea levels rising higher than the global average.
For those who believe in a higher power, having a religious experience can be life changing.

Exactly what goes on in their brain when it happens has largely remained a mystery, with neurological studies typically based on scans taken long after the event has occurred.

But an Israeli team may have caught the brain in the act, with one man's experience of 'seeing God' being captured on the doctor's table.

Exactly what happens in their brain's of people who 'see God' has largely remained a mystery (pictured is an illustration of Moses seeing God). But an Israeli team may have caught the brain in the act, with one man's experience being captured on the doctor's table, with tests showing a spike in activity in the left temporal lobe

Researchers at Hadassah Hebrew University report a rare case in which they were treating a patient for a form of epilepsy when he had a religious experience in which he saw and conversed with God.

The intriguing case study offers a sliver of insight into what might be going on in the brains of those who claim to have 'seen God'.

Dr Shahar Arzy and Dr Roey Schurr were reportedly treating a 46-year-old man for temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), carrying out a battery of tests including an online electro encephalogram (EEG) which measured his brain activity.

In the run up to the tests the patient, a Jewish man who had reportedly never been especially religious, had stopped taking anticonvulsant medication for seizures.

The intriguing case study offers a sliver of insight into what might be going on in the brains of those who claim to have 'seen God'. Pictured is a still from Bruce Almighty, in which Jim Carrey (right) sees and speaks to God, played by Morgan Freeman (left)

The intriguing case study offers a sliver of insight into what might be going on in the brains of those who claim to have had intense religious experiences. Stock image

ONE MAN'S INSIGHT INTO SEEING THE DIVINE Researchers at Hadassah Hebrew University have reported a rare case study of a patient being treated for of epilepsy when he had a religious experience in which he reportedly saw and conversed with God. In the run up to the tests the patient, a 46-year-old Jewish man who had reportedly never been especially religious, had stopped taking anticonvulsant medication for seizures. Just before the incident, the doctors measured a spike in EEG activity in the patient's left prefrontal cortex - an area previously linked to religious and mystical experiences. The Israeli team believe the man suffered the visions as a result of a psychotic episode following a seizure. Intense religious experiences are well documented throughout history, with recorded instances of smells - such as roses - and other sensory events accompanying their visions. Such visions and smells have been also been reported by patients with types of epilepsy as 'auras' which may precede their epileptic seizures. Advertisement

But during testing, the researchers report the man froze and stared at the ceiling for several minutes, saying he felt like 'God was approaching him', before exclaiming 'Adonai', the name of the Hebrew God.

The man then removed the wires from his head before taking off and marching around the hospital trying to recruit followers, saying 'God has sent me to you', convinced his creator had singled him out to bring redemption to fellow patients and medical staff.

Just before the incident, the doctors measured a spike in activity in the patient's left prefrontal cortex.

The prefrontal cortex is a region of the brain associated with a number of higher functions, including planning and perception, and has been previously linked to religious and mystical experiences.

However, according to The Epilepsy Foundation, case studies of patents experiencing TLE seizures report the world seeming 'more real' and a dreamlike, disconnected state, with audio and visual 'warning' hallucinations not uncommon.

The Israeli team believe the man suffered the visions as a result of a psychotic episode following a seizure.

In a blog post on the case study for Discover magazine, Neuroskeptic explained that the patient's experience of seeing and being chosen by God bears a resemblance to key religious figures, from Moses to Jesus to Mohammed.

Neuroskeptic wrote: 'Of course, this doesn't mean that any of those leaders had epilepsy, but it is interesting that this phenomenology can occur in this disease.'

The findings were published in the journal Epilepsy and Behaviour.

Doctors were testing a 46-year-old man for his long-standing temporal lobe epilepsy, carrying out a battery of tests including an online electro encephalogram (EEG) which measured his brain activity. Pictured is a child receiving the EEG test during an experiment to monitor brain activity in response to different scenarios
In billions of years, the sun's zone would cover Jupiter and Saturn

But new model suggests where the zone would be for hotter stars

The icy worlds of Enceladus and Europa are thought to have oceans buried deep beneath their surfaces, making them two places in our solar system thought to have the most potential for alien life.

Because of how far they are from the sun, both moons are extremely cold which means sustaining any form of life would be difficult.

But this is all going to change in a few million years, according to a new study.

As the sun turns into a much bigger and hotter star, engulfing Mercury and Venus and turning Earth and Mars into sizzling uninhabitable rocks, the icy moons of Europa and Enceladus (pictured) might just turn into a place perfect for life to exist

As the sun turns into a much bigger and hotter star, engulfing Mercury and Venus, turning Earth and Mars into sizzling uninhabitable rocks, the icy moons might just turn into a place perfect for life to exist.

The habitable zone is a term astronomers use when searching for exoplanets that could be possible hosts to alien life.

Also known as the Golidlocks zone, the term refers to a planet that sits the perfect distance from its host star for liquid water to exist on the surface.

Earth sits in the habitable zone from our sun - not too hot like Mercury or Venus, and not too cold like Jupiter and Saturn.

Throughout the universe there are stars in varying phases and ages.

Some of these burn brighter and hotter than others, meaning their habitable zone would be further away than our distance to the sun.

Now scientists have modelled the different locations planets would have to be around different types of stars, and how long they could stay habitable for.

The habitable zone (shown in green) is a term astronomers use when searching for exoplanets that could be possible hosts to alien life. Also known as the Golidlocks zone, the term refers to a planet that sits the perfect distance from its host star for liquid water to exist on the surface

In a few billion years our sun will become a red giant, warming distant worlds like Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune - and their moons. This will create a newly-established red giant habitable zone, around Jupiter, Saturn (pictured) and their moons like Enceladus and Europa

Astronomers usually looked at middle-aged stars like our sun, but to find habitable worlds people need to look around stars of all ages, according to said Dr Ramses Ramirez, lead author of the study and research associate at Cornell's Carl Sagan Institute in New York.

THE GOLDILOCKS ZONE Exoplanet hunters are especially interested in identifying planets that might be home to life, and the prime consideration for that is liquid water - the key ingredient for all life on Earth. For each star there is a habitable zone where any orbiting planet could support oceans. This must be not too hot (too close) or too cold (too far away), but 'just right'. For that reason, it is sometimes called the Goldilocks Zone. Habitable zones might also exist in orbits around massive planets, where heating takes place from gravitation forces. In our own solar system, the Jupiter moon Europa and the Saturn moon Enceladus both have liquid water oceans. On Titan, another moon of Saturn, oceans of ethane and methane have been found. Some speculate that these liquids could also support life, but it would be very different from any known life on Earth. Advertisement

'When a star ages and brightens, the habitable zone moves outward and you're basically giving a second wind to a planetary system,' Dr Ramirez said.

'Currently objects in these outer regions are frozen in our own solar system, and Europa and Enceladus, moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn, are icy for now.'

Depending on the mass of the original star, planets and their moons can loiter in this red giant habitable zone for up to 9 billion years.

Earth, for example, has been in our sun's habitable zone so far for about 4.5 billion years, and it has been teeming with changing forms of life.

The oldest exoplanets found using Nasa's Kepler telescope are about 11 billion years old.

'Our model predicts that when stars eventually leave the "main-sequence" of stellar evolution, becoming red giants, the habitable zone (HZ) expands outward,' Dr Ramirez told MailOnline.

'The HZ is currently in a region that approximately spans between just beyond Venus' obit to just beyond Mars' orbit.

'However, during the red giant stage, which for our sun will occur some 7 billion years or so from now, stars will get much bigger and brighter, so the HZ will move outward to the outer regions of the stellar system, during which time outer worlds and moons will be within it for some time.

'Any initially frozen worlds (e.g. Europa and Enceladus analogues) would melt, allowing any pre-existing subsurface life to be exposed to the atmosphere to be potentially detected. Thus, the red giant stage may be akin to giving a "second wind" to life in the stellar system.'

Launched in March 2009, Kepler is the first Nasa mission to find potentially habitable Earth-size planets. For four years, Kepler monitored 150,000 stars in a single patch of sky, measuring the tiny, telltale dip in the brightness of a star that can be produced by a transiting planet

But he also told MailOnline that as the habitable zone moves outward, other strange things also happen that are not good for habitability.

These include intense stellar winds that will erode planetary atmospheres and planets will move outward as the red giant star loses mass.

'However, even with all of these things happening, we show that some planets can at least partially retain (if not completely retain) their atmospheres during the entirety of the red giant stage of stellar evolution.'

'It is certainly my hope that our current work here will also be used by astronomers immediately upon publication,' Dr Ramirez told MailOnline.

'With our new work, astronomers can compile a list of known red giants and use our model predictions, assuming that the stellar ages are approximately known.'

Kepler recently discovered 1,284 new exoplanets, doubling the number of known alien worlds. 'This gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth,' said Ellen Stofan, chief scientist at Nasa. This artist's concept depicts a selection of planetary discoveries

The planetary diversity suggests around other stars, initially frozen planets could be the size of Earth and might even turn into habitable worlds once the star becomes older.

In a few billion years our sun will become a red giant, warming distant worlds like Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune - and their moons.

This will create a newly-established red giant habitable zone, around Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons like Enceladus and Europa.

'Long after our own plain yellow sun expands to become a red giant star and turns Earth into a sizzling hot wasteland, there are still regions in our solar system - and other solar systems as well - where life might thrive,' said Professor Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute.

'For stars that are like our sun, but older, such thawed planets could stay warm up to half a billion years in the red giant habitable zone. That's no small amount of time,' said Dr Ramirez.

'In the far future, such worlds could become habitable around small red suns for billions of years, maybe even starting life, just like Earth. That makes me very optimistic for the chances for life in the long run,' said Professor Kaltenegger.
Air pollution drifting from East Asia out over the world's largest ocean is leading to falling oxygen levels in tropical waters thousands of miles away.

Researchers have found that for decades iron rich airborne particles pumped into the air by human activity is triggering a chain reaction that is stripping the oceans of the essential gas.

They say this is exacerbating the loss of oxygen from the oceans caused by global warming and risks leaving some areas of sea unable to sustain life.

Scientists have warned that pollution released into the atmosphere from East Asia is causing oxygen levels in tropical oceans to drop. The pollution acts as nutrients for plankton in the ocean, which use up much of the oxygen in the deep water. They say this has been happening for decades

The scientists, based at The Georgia Institute of Technology, modeled the impact that pollutants released into the atmosphere could have as they spread out over the ocean.

They found human activity has raised levels iron and nitrogen in the ocean off the coast of East Asia. These are key nutrients for marine life and can be carried by currents to tropical regions.

Here they are consumed by photosynthesizing phytoplankton, which then release oxygen into the atmosphere.

CLIMATE CHANGE IS REDUCING OXYGEN LEVELS IN THE OCEAN It is the essential ingredient needed by every animal on the planet, but oxygen levels in the world's oceans are running critically low, a recent study has warned. Researchers have found climate change may already be causing a reduction in the amount of the life-giving gas that is dissolved in sea water. They warn this could start to leave many sea creatures, including fish, squid, crabs and shellfish, struggling to breathe. The effects of this loss of oxygen will start become noticeable across widespread areas of the oceans between 2030 and 2040, the scientists said. But in some areas around the tropics, the decline may already be taking hold. It suggests that the warming of the planet due to human activities is exacerbating the impact of pollution highlighted in the new study by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Advertisement

However, this process had a negative impact on the dissolved oxygen levels deeper in the ocean.

But while the tropical phytoplankton may have released more oxygen into the atmosphere, their consumption of the excess nutrients had a negative effect on the dissolved oxygen levels deeper in the ocean.

Professor Taka Ito, from the Georgia Institute of Technology who led the study, said there is growing belief that oxygen levels in the ocean might be changing over time.

He said: 'One reason for that is the warming environment - warm water holds less gas.

'But in the tropical Pacific, the oxygen level has been falling at a much faster rate than the temperature change can explain.

The study, published in Nature Geoscience, was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, a Georgia Power Faculty Scholar Chair and a Cullen-Peck Faculty Fellowship.

In the report, the researchers describe how air pollution from industrial activities is exacerbating the impact of warming waters by increasing the amount of microalgae growth.

These in turn produce more organic matter which causes bacteria to grow deeper down in the ocean, which turn use up oxygen within the water, converting it to carbon dioxide.

'If you have more active photosynthesis at the surface, it produces more organic matter, and some of that sinks down,' said Professor Ito.

While the microalgae (pictured), or phytoplankton, do release oxygen into the atmosphere as they consume the excess nutrients from air pollution, the organic matter they also produce causes more bacteria to grow deeper down in the ocean, which turn use up oxygen within the water by converting it to carbon dioxide

'And as it sinks down, there's bacteria that consume that organic matter.

'Like us breathing in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, the bacteria consume oxygen in the subsurface ocean, and there is a tendency to deplete more oxygen.'

That process plays out all across the Pacific, but the effects are most extreme in tropical areas, where dissolved oxygen is already low.

Professor Athanasios Nenes, from the School of earth and atmospheric sciences, and chemical and biomolecular engineering, at Georgia Tech, worked with Ito on the study.

He said the research is the first to describe just how far reaching the impact of human industrial activity can be.

'The scientific community always thought that the impact of air pollution is felt in the vicinity of where it deposits ,' said Professor Nenes.

East Asia has some of the most polluted cities in the world that blanket places like Palembang, Indonesia in smog (pictured). This is passing out over the ocean and providing nutrients that are driving oxygen loss from the oceans

Oxygen levels in the oceans are decreasing, and in some areas this drop is already having a noticeable impact. Tropical regions may already be suffering from oxygen loss while much of the Pacific and Atlantic will be hit in by around 2040 (illustrated in the graphic above)

'This study shows the iron can circulate across the ocean and affect ecosystems thousands of kilometers away.'

While evidence had been pointing to the suggestion global climate change has an impact on future oxygen levels, Ito and Nenes wanted to search for an explanation for why oxygen levels in the tropics had declined since the 70s.

They developed a model that combines atmospheric chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, and ocean circulation.

Their model maps out how polluted, iron-rich dust, which settles over the Northern Pacific, gets carried by ocean currents east toward North America, down the coast and then back west along the equator.

In their model, the researchers accounted for other factors that can also impact oxygen levels, such as water temperature and ocean current variability.

Whether due to warming sea waters or an increase in iron pollution, the complications caused by growing oxygen-minimum zones are large for marine life.

'Many living organisms depend on oxygen that is dissolved in seawater,' said Professor Ito.

'So if it gets low enough, it can cause problems, and it might change habitats for marine organisms.'

Occasionally, waters from low oxygen areas move towards the coastal waters, killing or displacing populations of fish, crabs and many other sea creatures.

China has struggled to keep polllution under control as industrial activities have pumped more particulates and gases into the atmosphere. A woman wearing a face mask in a smog filled street in Beijing is pictured

Ito said this event may become more common as the oxygen-minimum zones grow.

The increasing phytoplankton activity is a double-edged sword, he added. 'Phytoplankton is an essential part of the living ocean.'

'It serves as the base of the food chain and absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide.'

If the pollution continues to supply excess nutrients, the process of the decomposition depletes oxygen from the deeper waters, which is not easily replaced.

The study also expands on the understanding of dust as a transporter of pollution.

'Dust has always attracted of a lot of interest because of its impact on the health of people,' Professor Nenes said.

'This is really the first study showing that dust can have a huge impact on the health of the oceans in ways that we've never understood before.
Old paper licences were discontinued last year

Britain's DVLA has revealed it is working on a prototype digital driving licence (pictured) that can be carried in the Wallet app of Apple's iPhone

If you're forever mislaying your driving licence, help may be at hand.

Experts have begun to develop a version of the UK licence for smartphones, so you'll always have to to hand.

This means that in the future, you could keep it in the Apple Wallet app on your iPhone, for example.

Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency's (DVLA) chief executive Oliver Morley showed off an image of a 'prototype' of the digital driving licence on Twiiter, where the licence appears as a 'pass' in the Apple Wallet.

Mr Morley said it would be used as an 'add-on' to the existing photocard and insisted that security is the DVLA's 'priority'.

However, there is no timeline for when the digital licence will be launched.

The paper part of the licence was abolished in June last year as part of the Government's drive to reduce unnecessary red tape.

However, the UK is not the only country to be exploring the idea of digital documents.

Iowa in the US is currently trialling the use of digital ID cards instead of physical papers.

Digitised British passports are also a new avenue being explored by developers.

Earlier this year De La Rue, the passport manufacturer, announced their plan to make it possible to store passports on smartphones.

This move would mean the end of carrying a jumble of paper documents and follows the introduction of electronic boarding passes.

Still in the development phase, De La Rue, is trying to find ways to make the digital passport secure enough to be accepted by governments - a problem faced by all forms of digital identification, including driving licences.

Australia and New Zealand made the first move in the lean towards cloud passports and has been in discussion about trialling them.

So here's a little prototype of something we're working on #drivinglicence pic.twitter.com/a5eItrdiNI  Oliver Morley (@omorley1) May 13, 2016

Experts have begun to develop a version of the UK licence for smartphones, so that you could one day keep the important document in the Apple Wallet app on your iPhone. A prototype is shown above
Womens sexuality is far more fluid than mens - and this may be a result of evolutionary design, according to a new theory.

Evolutionary psychologist Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa proposes that sexual fluidity arose in women as a mechanism for 'reducing conflict and tension among co-wives in polygynous marriages'.

Being sexually fluid would have allowed women to have sex with their co-wives while still successfully reproducing with their husband, the theory suggests, and thus has reproductive benefits.

Womens sexuality is far more fluid than mens, and this may be a result of evolutionary design, according to a new theory. Evolutionary psychologist Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa proposes that sexual fluidity arose in women as a mechanism for reducing conflict and tension among co-wives in polygynous marriages

WHAT THE THEORY SUGGESTS The researcher analysed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to determine the differences between sexual fluidity in men and women. With this information, Kazanawa was able to construct measures of adult sexual attraction.' The study confirmed his predictions, including one which proposed that women who experience increased levels of sexual fluidity have a larger number of children, and that women who experience marriage or parenthood early in adult life also experience increased levels of sexual fluidity. The researcher says this suggests that womens sexual fluidity may have been evolutionarily selected as one method for facilitating polygynous marriages. Sex among co-wives may have worked to ease conflict and tension in scenarios where multiple wives shared one husband. According to Kanazawa, the theory may also help explain many other puzzles in human sexuality, including male arousal to lesbian sex, and menstrual synchrony, in which the menstrual cycles of female companions align over time. Advertisement

In the new proposal, published to Biological Reviews, Kanazawa explains that sexuality differs between men and women.

People of both genders have been known to be sexually fluid, meaning they may not adhere to particular sexual identity, and can switch between homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual identities.

But, studies have found that this is more common in women.

The theory suggests that women may not have sexual orientations in the same sense as men do, said Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa.

Rather than being straight or gay, to whom women are sexually attracted may depend largely on the particular partner, their reproductive status, and other circumstances.

Sexual fluidity can be defined by self-identified labels, actual sexual behaviour, sexual feelings, and genital or brain responses.

Kanazawa explains that genital and brain responses are the most objective and accurate measures of sexual orientation.

He also extends upon these definitions with three different facets: nonexclusively, change, and variance.

The researcher from London School of Economics and Political Science analysed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to determine the differences between sexual fluidity in men and women.

The study measured sexual orientation of American youths in four waves, following them for more than 10 years.

In Wave III, when respondents were between 18 and 28, they measured self-identified sexual feelings, among a given set of labels  100% straight, mostly straight, bisexual, mostly gay, 100% gay.

In Wave IV, when respondents were between 25 and 34, they were asked to describe sexual identity.

With this information, the researcher was able to construct measures of adult sexual attraction.'

The analysis revealed that women are more fluid in all of the proposed facets.

And, the study confirmed his predictions, including one which proposed that women who experience increased levels of sexual fluidity have a larger number of children, and that women who experience marriage or parenthood early in adult life also experience increased levels of sexual fluidity.

The researcher says this suggests that womens sexual fluidity may have been evolutionarily selected as one method for facilitating polygynous marriages, in which a husband can have more than one wife.

Even though humans have been mildly polygynous throughout evolutionary history, polygynous marriages are often characterized by conflict and tension among co-wives, Kanazawa writes.

I propose that occasional sex among cowives may have reduced such conflict and tension, and increased their reproductive success. Female sexual fluidity may have evolved as an adaptation to facilitate it.

The researcher also acknowledges earlier research which explains that historically, women left their homes in order to marry, while boys stayed in their natal groups for their whole lives.

Evolutionary psychologist Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa proposes that sexual fluidity arose in women as a mechanism for reducing conflict and tension among co-wives in polygynous marriages. Being sexually fluid would have allowed women to have sex with their co-wives while still successfully reproducing with husband

This meant that women were exposed to unrelated strangers for their entire adult lives, while men were not.

Sexual fluidity may have arisen to help women establish bonds and key alliances in their new group, where they were surrounded by strangers.

Since friendships and alliances can have reproductive benefits, sexual fluidity that facilitates such friendships and alliances among women is expected to be evolutionary selected, the researcher writes.
Advertisement

Dawn breaks on the Nile on the Mundari cattle camp and a young tribesman begins his daily routine - after cleaning his teeth with a stick he douses his head under a stream of a urine from a cow.

The act will not only help prevent infection but will also tinge his hair orange.

Life in the little-documented Mundari tribe in South Sudan revolves around their prized bulls - who represent their wealth, status and dowry - and photographer Tariq Zaidi is one of the few people to capture the tribe's fascinating way of life on film.

A Mundari man takes advantage of the antibacterial properties of a cows urine, which will turn his hair orange

A Mundari boy drinking milk straight from the cows udder. They are dependent on their cattle for nourishment, status and their livelihood

A Mundari man guards his precious Ankole-Watusi herd with a rifle. About 350,000 cattle are stolen and more than 2,000 people killed each year by cattle rustlers

The tribesman continues his daily ritual.

Next he sucks fresh milk straight from one of his cow's udders then bangs a drum to alert the rest of the tribe that it's time to graze the animals.

It is not just the cows' urine that provides protection for the Mundari people. Tribesmen smear peach-coloured ash on their skin - and that of their cows - from dung fires.

It has the consistency of talcum powder and is a natural antiseptic and mosquito repellent, offering both man and bovine protection from the scorching Sudan heat.

Describing the tribe's relationship with the creatures, Zaidi said: 'Their cows are the most important thing in their lives. And they will protect them at all costs.'

As such, the tribe use rifles to watch over their large-horned herds, as a single cow or bull can be worth up to $500 (348).

Every year in South Sudan around 350,000 cows and bulls are stolen, and over 2,500 people killed by cattle rustlers.

'These animals are treated like members of the family,' says the photographer. 'When the cattle return back from the pasture they know exactly where their masters are and where their home is  they are like dogs in that way.

'Families will sleep with their animals, wash them in ash and make sure the ground is soft and clean for them.'

A Mundari woman (left) with ritual facial scarring, typical of their tribe, and covered in ash, a natural antiseptic which also protects the skin from insects and the sun. A Mundari man (right) wakes up next to his animals and brushes his teeth with a stick

A Mundari man relaxes in the soft, peach-coloured ash and dust of a dung fire. The substance has the texture of talcum powder and offers both man and cow protection from the scorching Sudan heat

A Mundari girl helps a lamb suckle on a cows teat. It is not just the Mundari people who benefit from the prized cows' milk

With distinctive V scars on their foreheads, the Mundari people value tradition, particularly when it comes to wrestling and music.

The tribe, located just north of the South Sudanese capital of Juba, live communally, sharing everything from blankets to instruments.

They are among the tallest individuals in the world, and are said to tower over their prized herds. These include cattle called Ankole-Watusi  a distinctive white animal with curved horns, also known as 'the cattle of kings'.

The creatures' horns can stretch up to 8ft and the biggest bulls are adorned by the tribe with tassels.

'Every Mundari man I met had his favourite cow,' says Zaidi. 'It is his most prized possession and a reflection of himself.'

The cattle are used as both currency and as a status symbol, and form a key part of a family's pension or dowry.

After the civil war ended, thousands of men are said to have returned to South Sudan looking for wives. This return has seen an increase in 'bride price'  making these cows even more valuable and susceptible to lethal raids.

A Mundari settlement in the early evening when the cows have returned from grazing. Every cow knows to return to its master

A Mundari man washes his cows with ash to protect them from insects during the night. The camp drums can be seen in the background

On the move: The Mundari encourage their cattle to cross the Nile to get to an island where they will graze for the next few months

A Mundari tribeswoman washes herself in the Nile at sunset. After the civil war ended, thousands of men are said to have returned to South Sudan looking for wives. This return has seen an increase in 'bride price'

Tariq Zaidi has spent the last 10 years photographing tribal and indigenous people in over 30 countries in Africa. South Sudan is arguably the most unstable of these.

At least 50,000 people are estimated to have been killed since conflict began in the country in December 2013, with over 2.2million people being displaced and certain areas on the brink of famine.

The conflict has caused the nomadic Mundari people to continue to herd their cattle across the banks of the Nile.

'The ongoing war in South Sudan has cut off the Mundari tribe from the rest of the world,' says Zaidi. 'They don't venture into the town, they stay in the bush, and it why their unique way of life endures.'

For more of Zaidi's breathtaking work, visit his website and Facebook.

A young Mundari man keeps watch over the fire and his cows during the night. Cows are extremely valuable and susceptible to lethal raids

A young Mundari boy holds his precious Ankole-Watusi cow in the middle of the camp. The distinctive white animal is known as 'the cattle of kings' and has horns that can stretch 8ft

A Mundari woman clears the ground of sticks and dung before the cattle return home from the pastures. Women also milk the animals and look after the children
A Lufthansa Airbus A330 was stranded on the runway at Mumbai airport for 22 hours after four of its main tyres burst during landing.

Flight LH-764, which travelled from Munich, had 163 passengers on board - none of whom were injured.

However, due to the time it took to get the aircraft off the runway, a number of airlines due to travel the following day had to cancel their flights.

Four of the main tyres on the Lufthansa flight from Munich to Mumbai burst during landing (pictured above)

The plane was stranded on the tarmac for 22 hours while engineers replaced the tyres with borrowed equipment (pictured)

Several engineers are seen examining the wheels while the firemen stood to the side (right), ready to douse any more flames. From the image above, it appears as though the right front tyres had burst while the front left tyres completely came off the aircraft

The incident took place at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport on Friday 13 at around 10.50pm local time.

Four of the eight tyres on the plane burst after a suspected issue with the anti-skid system of the landing gear according to Aerotelegraph.

Eye-witnesses said that small flames were seen around the tyres, which were doused with foam by emergency services.

SanuzR, who was on the flight at the time, Tweeted: 'Scary landing. Fire on landing gear LH764 @lufthansa. Thank god all are safe.'

The plane landed around 10.50pm local time. All 163 passengers on board were unharmed and evacuated

SanuzR , who was on the flight at the time, posted the picture above, showing the foam that had run off from the fire extinguisher

According to a passenger, there was a small fire at the scene. Above, two of the damaged tyres after they were removed

However, due to the number of tyres that burst in this situation, there were significant delays to moving the aircraft off the runway.

Hindustan Times reported that the Lufthansa Airbus A330 blocked the main runway for 22 hours in total, 12 of which were because there were no staff and equipment available to deal with the issue.

Lufthansa reportedly asked Jet Airways engineers for help at 7am the next day and a team was dispatched at 8.30am.

A spokesman from Jet Airways told MailOnline Travel: 'Jet Airways was approached by Lufthansa on Saturday morning requesting help to rectify the landing gear to enable shifting of the aircraft from the Mumbai airport runway.

'A team from Jet Airways engineering was mobilised along with equipment and spares to carry out the task. '

Several jacks were required to lift the plane off the ground so that the wheels could be replaced and Lufthansa had to ask for help from other airlines

Stranded: Although the plane arrived on Friday the 13th, it couldn't be moved until mid-afternoon the next day

An official was reported saying: 'Until now, Air India has the best technical infrastructure for aircraft recovery, but in this case, they were only able to provide two aircraft jacks. The work wouldnt have been possible if Jet had not stepped in'.

All four tyres had to be replaced and the brakes had to be fixed before the plane could be moved.

Flights to and from Mumbai had to divert to the airport's second and shorter runway, causing delays of up to 40 minutes and cancellations to other airlines, including a Singapore Airlines Airbus 380.

The Lufthansa Airbus A330 was booked on a return flight on May 14,which was cancelled.

All 223 passengers scheduled to be on the return flight were taken to hotels accord to Aviation Herald.
A British father and businessman has lashed out against American Airlines after he says his flight was cancelled, his luggage was lost and he was unable to fly home early to see his family.

More than half a million people have watched Dave Carruthers videos in which he criticises the airlines CEO, Doug Parker, and demands that it reimburse him for $2,000 in costs he says he incurred during a calamitous week of transatlantic travel.

It started when Carruthers was set to fly from Birmingham to New York, but the flight was cancelled due to a mechanical issue after a four-hour wait and he had to make emergency arrangements to get to business meetings on time.

In his first video, British businessman Dave Carruthers directs his rant towards airline CEO Doug Parker

In his first video, Carruthers tells the camera: I believe, Doug, your strapline is going for great, unfortunately my experience with American Airlines over the past seven days has been nothing short of abysmal.

He also hit the airline, based in Fort Worth, Texas, with a barrage of tweets, including one that read: Could you explain to my 5yr old daughter why Daddy cant fly home early?

Carruthers, who founded a company called Voxpopme, said he spent nearly 1,500 to travel to Londons Heathrow Airport by taxi and fly to New York from there.

He tells the camera: Your company has refused to refund me that money and only have refunded me half of that money.

He said his bag wasnt forwarded on time and he spent a week without his belongings, forcing him to buy new luggage and new clothes.

Carruthers wanted to fly back to the UK a day early so he could spend time with his family, but he claims the airline wouldnt change his return because he wasn't on the original flight from Birmingham.

In a second video, Carruthers claims he was confronted by an extremely rude employee at the airport

He said in the video: I think thats absolutely disgraceful. The only reason I didnt get the outbound flight with your airline was because you cancelled the flight.

I would really like if someone could get in touch with me about the problems Ive been having with American because right now youre nowhere near great.

In an update in a second video, Carruthers said the airline later said he could take the earlier flight, but by then it was too late as he was in a meeting and didnt have enough time to go back to the hotel to collect his belongings and make it to the airport.

In the video, which was recorded in front of a check-in desk, Carruthers said he asked for an upgraded seat and a waived fee for his second checked bag, but was confronted by an extremely rude employee.

He claimed the employee threatened to sue him because he was recording their conversation, and she told him there was no way they could give him an upgrade and to take it up with customer service.

Carruthers said staff refused to check his second bag for free and made him pay a fee of $94 (65).

He said: The only reason I have that bag is because they lost my original bag.'

Carruthers added: I just find the whole experience with American absolutely disgraceful. Ive been nothing other than polite to their employees despite the situation and have been treated with utter contempt.

The second time I spoke to the lady she actually just walked off mid-conversation and said she didnt care.

He wound up flying back to the UK as scheduled, and said American Airlines has asked him to send his receipts while it reviews his complaints.

An American Airlines spokesman said: 'Mr. Carruthers flight from Birmingham was unfortunately cancelled due to a mechanical issue.

'I can confirm that Americans customer relations teams are in ongoing contact with Mr. Carruthers to resolve his complaint.'

During his time in the US, Carruthers corresponded with the airline over email and Twitter, but wasnt satisfied with the way the situation was handled.

After he first complained on Twitter, an American Airlines employee wrote: We always want to provide a great and smooth service from start to end.

Were truly sorry to hear that we missed the mark.
A father and son, who were visiting Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, have been criticised for reportedly putting a bison calf in the back of their car, claiming that they feared it was cold and needed help.

An image of the incident was shared on Facebook this week by visitor Karen Olsen Richardson, who stumbled upon the duo as they went looking for a ranger.

She uploaded the image with the caption: 'Dear tourists: the bison calf is not cold and it is not lost. Put it back!'

Tourist Karen Richardson came across a father and son who had put a bison calf in their car in Yellowstone National Park. She uploaded the picture to Facebook with the caption: 'Dear tourists: the bison calf is not cold and it is not lost. Put it back!'

'They were demanding to speak with a ranger,' Richardson told EastIdahoNews.com. 'They were seriously worried that the calf was freezing and dying.'

Rob Heusevelet, who was chaperoning a fifth-grade school trip to Yellowstone's Lamar Buffalo Ranch with Richardson, advised the men to remove the bison from their SUV.

'They didn't care,' Heusevelet said. 'They sincerely thought they were doing a service and helping that calf by trying to save it from the cold.'

Rangers were summoned and the father and son, who are said to be from another country, were reportedly fined for the act.

Heusevelet said that rangers followed the pair back to where they had found the lone bison in the 2.2million acre park, and the animal was released.

Impending threat: Rangers have warned about the dangers of getting too close to the national park bison. Pictured is a still taken from a video in 2014 which shows a bison charging at a group of children

'Do not approach!' A pamphlet distributed by the National Park Service at Yellowstone National Park warns visitors not to get too close to bison

On its website, the National Parks Service warns of the dangers of large wildlife.

It states that visitors must stay at least 25 yards away from bison.

'Bison can run three times faster than humans can sprint and are unpredictable and dangerous,' they explained.

'Visitors must give the animals enough space and alter their own behaviour to avoid interacting with an animal in close proximity.

'Do not approach wildlife, no matter how tame or calm they appear.

'Always obey instructions from park staff on scene.'

Just last year Yellowstone National Park officials issued a graphic pamphlet drawing of a man being gored by bison in a bid for tourists to use common sense around the creatures.

Rangers distributed the flyer to people as they entered the park.

A male American bison can weigh up to 2,000 pounds which is heavier than a Smart car.
A hungry man with a hankering for Greek food got the surprise of his life when the Mediterranean meal he was craving turned up on his doorstep 2,263 miles away in England.

Andrew Tsirtsikos, 27, was at home in Hull while his brother Alexander, 31, was on family holiday in Greece and kept bombarding him with mouth-watering photographs of his favourite Greek cuisine.

To stop his younger brother feeling completely left out, Alexander packaged up a portion of souvlaki, a popular dish of grilled meat, wrapped in pitta bread with salad, and jetted it thousands of miles to England.

Scroll down for video

A takeaway was delivered from Kranidi at 11.50pm on Thursday May 5, to Hull the next day at 5pm (pictured)

Andrew Tsirtsikos, 27, (pictured) received the Greek speciality from his brother Alexander, 31, who was visiting the Mediterranean country 2,263 miles away

Alexander had thoughtfully packed up some souvlaki, a popular dish of grilled meat which had been wrapped in pitta bread with salad and chips then delivered it in an ice cream container

Surprisingly the ice cream container of souvlaki, which had left Greece at 11.50pm on Thursday May 5, arrived in England the following day at 5pm.

Footage shows Andrew's amazed reaction as he opens the 3 parcel to reveal the tasty dish he had been craving.

Alexander said to MailOnline Travel: 'My brother said it was perfect as it was less than a day old, he said it was still fresh.

'My brother loves souvlaki and he couldn't get the time off and was craving it so much.

'It was a surprise and we always joked about it.'

Andrew said: 'It tasted amazing, obviously would have been better if I ate it the night it was cooked, but the tzatziki somehow kept it moist, it tasted great!'

Andrew's amazed reaction was captured on camera as he opened the parcel to reveal the tasty dish he had been desiring

The Greek dish of souvlaki is usually served on a skewer. As it only took a day to arrive, it was still fresh for consumption (file image)

The dish was sent to Andrew (left) from a small town in the Peloponnese called Kranidi, where Alexander (right) had been visiting family over the Orthodox Easter break

In the clip Andrew can be heard saying: 'This is the best present I could have had. It's like I am back in Greece, that is quality.'

He raises the dish to the camera so the contents of the box are revealed, as his friends erupt with laughter around him.
It looks like paradise in these photographs, but the Thai island of Koh Tachai has been ruined by tourists, say officials - and theyre barring visitors before its lost forever.

From October 15, the beaches will be closed indefinitely so that the environment can recover.

Tunya Netithammakul, director general of the department of national parks, said that unless this course of action is taken, Koh Tachai could suffer irreversible damage.

Scroll down for video

It looks like paradise in these photographs, but the Thai island of Koh Tachai (pictured) has been ruined by tourists, say officials - and theyre barring visitors before its lost forever

He told the Bangkok Post the islands popularity had resulted in overcrowding and the degradation of natural resources and the environment.

Making the island off-limits is a measure designed to give the eco-system on the island and in the sea a chance to regenerate without being disturbed before the damage is beyond repair.

Asst Prof Thon Thamrongnawasawat, deputy dean of the Faculty of Fisheries of Kasetsart University, pointed out that beaches able to accommodate up to just 70 people were sometimes choked with a thousand holidaymakers.

Tunya Netithammakul, director general of the department of national parks, said the islands popularity had resulted in 'overcrowding and the degradation of natural resources and the environment'. Pictured is one of the island's soft-sand beaches

The island, in the Andaman Sea, is 4.6 square miles and costs 500 Thai Baht (10) to enter

He said: If its not closed now, well lose Koh Tachai permanently.

Koh Tachai was rated by website beachmeter.com as Thailands most beautiful island.

It said: It takes one and a half hours with speedboat to reach the island, and it is certainly worth the boat trip. A beautiful white sand beach and crystal clear water awaits you.

The island, in the Andaman Sea, is 4.6 square miles and costs 500 Thai Baht (10) to enter.

The island has received dozens of positive reviews on TripAdvisor, with user Yammon praising the sand and water clarity.

He said: The island was magnificent. Pure, white sand and some of the bluest water I have seen. The snorkelling opportunities were great with plenty of aquatic life to see.

However, he did also point out that his trip there was tainted by crowded snorkelling areas.

He added: The only negative aspect of the experience was that it did get a little crowded at times in the designated snorkelling areas with many tour groups there at once and there were many seemingly inexperienced swimmers splashing about, getting in the way and scaring the fish.

Ironically, tourists are attracted to fragile ecosystems because of their beauty but the presence of tourists can destroy the very thing that they came to enjoy Professor John Fletcher, Bournemouth University

Professor John Fletcher, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation, from Bournemouth University, highlighted the risk to fragile ecosystems that large numbers of tourists pose.

He told MailOnline Travel: 'The events in Koh Tachai reflect the tension between the exotic environment, its attraction to tourists and the impact they have.

'There has been a similar debate over closing Maya Bay on the island of Phi Phi which gained notoriety after the film The Beach was shot there. Ironically, tourists are attracted to fragile ecosystems because of their beauty but the presence of tourists can destroy the very thing that they came to enjoy.

'In larger destinations this tension between the tourism industry and the environment can be managed to ensure that they can live in harmony  however, in the case of Koh Tachai the size of the island makes it so vulnerable to negative impacts it is likely to suffer rapidly even with small numbers of tourists.

'The tourism industry  is just that, it is an industry and it often needs volume to thrive and the tour operators often set out their stalls on the basis of large tourist numbers. Fragile ecosystems cannot be sustained in the face of large tourist numbers and there are many destinations that can testify to this including those as diverse as Mount Everest, The Galapagos Islands, Antarctica, Uluru (Ayres Rock) that have all been put at risk by the volume of tourists.'

Professor Carolyn Roberts, Professor of Environment, Gresham College, London, added: 'This island sits within a Marine Preservation Zone, where the Thai Government are making, in my view, a genuine attempt to preserve some of the rare and exotic marine species. The Andaman area is noted for coral reefs, turtles and rare crabs. Visitors cause damage in the sea by breaking off pieces of corals and disturbing the larger marine species.

'Inland, away from the beaches, they can inadvertently damage ecosystems by trampling, disturbing the wildlife and pulling down timber for beach fires. They also tend to leave litter, and obviously toilet facilities are limited and human waste is damaging to local flora. All in all, I would applaud efforts to allow the island time to recover.'

Italy, meanwhile, plans to slash the number of tourists visiting the Cinque Terre U.N. World Heritage park this summer because the rugged coastal area risks being wrecked by coach parties.

About 2.5million tourists poured into the picturesque park in northwest Italy last year to visit the five small fishing villages, which are connected by narrow cliff trails.
They may be busy solving mysterious deaths in their new film, Nice Guys.

But Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling took time out to enjoy some more light-hearted fun at the movie's premiere in Cannes, on Sunday.

The dapper duo opted for extremely contrasting styles with new father, Ryan sporting a traditional white tuxedo, while Russell looked much more casual for the outing in a buttoned down shirt.

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Handsome: Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling took time out to enjoy some more light hearted fun at the movie's premiere in Cannes, on Sunday

Playing it cool! Russell looked casual for the outing in a buttoned down shirt

Ryan, 35, looked every inch the film star at the event as he topped off his crisp white shirt with a silky navy bow-tie.

And the Drive star tied his outfit together with some carefully coordinated navy chinos that were perfectly tailored to his slender frame.

The handsome actor swept his blonde hair to one side and showed off his trademark designer stubble at the event.

Taking the plunge: All eyes were on actress, Geena Davis, who flaunted her gravity defying cleavage in a plunging red ball gown

But Russell, 52, was much less perfectly coiffed for the occasion, in a loose fitting black suit jacket and white shirt, which he left buttoned down to showcase his broad chest.

The Gladiator hunk also let his greying hair fall casually down around his face, with a single lock curling effortlessly across his forehead.

However, the men needn't have worried too much about their appearance as all eyes were on actress, Geena Davis, who flaunted her gravity-defying cleavage in a plunging red ball gown.

Lady in red: The 60-year-old cut an extremely youthful figure in the lame dress which clung to her curvaceous figure in all the right places

Taking sides: The asymmetric cut of the gown meant that it fell gracefully to one side, with an elegantly flowing train

Perfect pins: The Thelma And Louise star contrasted her ruby outfit with a pair of black ankle strap heels, which added some height to her already endless legs

Red hot! Geena made sure she oozed Hollywood glamour right from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair

Simple and chic: Rather than drawing attention to her decolletage with a necklace, Greena chose to simply sport a pair of shoulder-grazing earrings

The 60-year-old cut an extremely youthful figure in the lame dress which clung to her curvaceous figure in all the right places and accentuated her already ample assets.

And the asymmetric cut of the gown meant that it fell gracefully to one side, with an elegantly flowing train.

The Thelma And Louise star contrasted her ruby outfit with a pair of black ankle strap heels, which added some height to her already endless legs.

True blue: Ryan, 35, looked every inch the film star at the event as he topped off his crisp white shirt with a silky navy bow-tie

Looking lean: The Drive star tied his outfit together with some carefully coordinated navy chinos that were perfectly tailored to his slender frame

All white on the night: The handsome actor swept his blonde hair to one side and showed off his trademark designer stubble at the event

Playful: Ryan strikes a pose with co-star, Angourie Rice, as they prepare to watch the Nice Guys premiere

But Geena made sure she oozed Hollywood glamour right from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair, as she wore her honey-coloured tresses in voluminous waves that fell glamorously around her shoulders.

And rather than drawing attention to her decolletage with a necklace, Geena chose to simply sport a pair of shoulder-grazing earrings.

The dashing trio were also joined on the red carpet by castmembers including Murielle Telio, Angourie Rice and Matt Bomer.

Making an entrance: The crew waved to the crowds as they entered the film screening

Multicultural: New Zealander actor Russell Crowe, Australian actress Angourie Rice, US actor Matt Bomer and Canadian actor Ryan Gosling were reunited at the festival

Meet the gang! The dashing trio were joined on the red carpet by cast members including, Murielle Telio, Russell Crowe, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer

While the film's director, Shane Black and producer, Joel Silver, were also present.

In the film Ryan play a private eye who investigates the apparent suicide of a fading porn star in 1970s Los Angeles and uncovers a conspiracy.

However, things go slightly awry and he is thrust into an unlikely partnership with Russel's hired enforcer.

Ladies man: Russell cut a dapper figure next to a glamorous Angourie Rice and Murielle Telio

Let me take a selfie! Russell pulled a shocked expression as he took a photo of himself on the red carpet
Roald Dahls much-loved childrens book The BFG has been turned into a new film, but the authors family has an equally compelling story to tell.

His daughter Lucy, 50, attended the Cannes premiere with her daughters, Phoebe, 27, and Chloe, 25.

They have both come out as lesbians and Chloe brought her fiancee, Hawaiian restaurateur Nikki Booth.

Roald Dhals' grand-daughter Chloe posed with her fiancee Nicki, her mother Lucy and her sister Phoebe at The BFG premiere in Cannes Film Festival

Here we come! said Lucy, whose sister Ophelia, 51, declared that she was a lesbian some years ago.

Phoebe marked the occasion by wearing a black dress slashed to the navel, which looked like it had been put on back to front and exposed her bra.

Sadly Phoebe broke up last December with her own fiancee, Australian actress Ruby Rose, 30, who stars in prison drama Orange Is The New Black.

Lucy says one of her earliest memories is of Roald sitting on the end of the bed, telling her bedtime stories. At 6ft 6in he was, she adds, the real Big Friendly Giant.

While the Middletons enjoy being flown to the Caribbean on friends private planes, Princess Anne prefers less ostentatious holidays.

Property tycoon Anton Bilton and his wife, model Lisa B, have slashed the asking price of their country retreat by 5.5 million

She is to embark on another boating trip off the Scottish coast next month as part of her quest to bag every one of the 205 lighthouses in Caledonia.

The Princess has been fascinated by lighthouses since the age of five when the Queen took her to Tiumpan Head on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides.

Since then, her ambition has been to see all the lighthouses in Scotland. Its believed she is past the half-way point.

Is this Britains biggest house price cut?

Property tycoon Anton Bilton and his wife, model Lisa B, have slashed the asking price of their country retreat by 5.5 million.

Tyringham Hall in Buckinghamshire first went on the market for 18 million in 2013.

After the architectural masterpiece failed to fetch the asking price, the Biltons, took it off the market. Anton paid just 2.5 million for the 25-bedroom, Grade I-listed house in 2001, but is reported to have spent up to 10 million on renovations. So the Hall, above, is a snip at 12.5 million.

The family dont use the property and have decided to put it back on the market as they really want to sell, explains estate agent Crispin Holborow, of Savills.

Chancellor Osbornes stamp duty rises have a lot to answer for.

Tyringham Hall (pictured) in Buckinghamshire first went on the market for 18 million in 2013

Hugh's the joker behind the mask?

As the Earl of Grantham in Downton Abbey, Hugh Bonneville has been involved in some scandalous cover-ups. In real life, the 52-year-old actor is also seen hiding his identity behind a mask.

Bonneville posted this picture online of himself wearing frightening, zombie-style make-up while on a trip to Finland.

Everyone tells me my make-up artist has done a terrific job, joked Bonneville. I said I wanted to go with natural but a subtle hint of glamour.

Isnt Hugh the most frightful old tease?

Downton Abbeystar Hugh Bonneville posted this picture online of himself wearing frightening, zombie-style make-up while on a trip to Finland

The Duke of Marlboroughs cousin Alexander Spencer-Churchill, 32, has long been one of Britains most eligible bachelors, but Society girl Scarlett Strutt, 31, has convinced the wealth manager to settle down.

Rather than the splendour of Blenheim Palace, where Alis kinsman Sir Winston Churchill was born, the couple chose Scars local church in Suffolk for their wedding on Saturday.

Guests included film director Guy Ritchie and his wife, Jacqui.

She is pictured catching up with fellow model Florence Brudenell-Bruce who was once courted by Prince Harry.
She was one of the few stars who didn't wear black or white to the Toni Maticevski show.

So Demi Harman stood out in the crowd as she attended the designer's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week show at Sydney's Barangaroo Reserve on Sunday.

The 23-year-old actress chose to show off her trim pins in a strapless floral mini dress that featured a bright yellow flower pattern teamed with bright white Adidas sneakers.

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Colourful! Demi Harman managed to stand out in the crowd as she attended Toni Maticevski's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week show at Sydney's Barangaroo Reserve on Sunday

Demi dressed for the Autumn temperatures, keeping warm by draping a long khaki trench coat over her shoulders.

The former Home And Away starlet kept her long two-tone tresses out in loose waves for the event while opting for a more natural make-up look with only a hint of mascara, blush and a dark pink lipstick.

While her Home and Away actor boyfriend Alec Snow was no where to be seen at the event, Demi posed with designer pal Joshua Cappellari as the pair arrived at The Cutting.

Daytime date: While her Home and Away actor boyfriend Alec Snow was no where to be seen at the event, Demi posed with designer pal Joshua Cappellari as the pair arrived at The Cutting

Joshua, who works for the Misha Collection label, sported an all-black ensemble for the opening Fashion Week show, wearing a leather jacket over his buttoned-up shirt and fitted black pants.

He completed his look with a pair of black boots.

The Melbourne-based designer's show was a star-studded event, with Delta Goodrem, Jennifer Hawkins, Terry Biviano and Lindy Klim all in attendance.

Designer pal: Joshua, who works for label Misha Collection, sported an all-black ensemble for the opening Fashion Week show, wearing a leather jacket over his buttoned-up shirt and fitted black pants

PR guru Roxy Jacenko also added a spot of colour, attending the event in a bright red Gucci blouse and flowing skirt.

Her Instagram sensation daughter, Pixie Curtis, four, also went to the show with her mother wearing a colourful Dolce and Gabbana dress.

Meanwhile, the show wasn't without drama after one of the statuesque models took a tumble on the catwalk as she walked in yellow high heels.

Seeing the humour in the situation, the model got back up and laughing off the incident.

Mother-daughter duo: PR guru Roxy Jacenko added a spot of colour in a bright red Gucci blouse and flowing skirt. While daughter, Pixie Curtis, four, also went to the show wearing a colourful Dolce and Gabbana dress

Star studded: Jennifer Hawkins was among the attendees at the fashion show

New couple! Model Lindy Klim and new boyfriend Adam Ellis posed together at the event




She gave birth to her son six months ago.

And Nadia Bartel had not an inch to pinch on her tiny frame as she celebrated her birthday over the weekend.

The Melbourne footy WAG stunned in a black lace Asilio number while enjoying a night out with her husband, Geelong Cats star, Jimmy Bartel.

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Yummy mummy: Nadia Bartel showcased her very slender figure in a selfie as she celebrated her birthday over the weekend in Melbourne

In a post shared to Instagram, Nadia flaunted her slim physique and glowing complexion while enjoying the low-key date night.

'Night out for my birthday at our favourite @crownresorts with @jrb03 #totallyspoiled #missingaston wearing @asiliothelabel,' she captioned.

Her long-sleeved fitted dress, appropriately named Asilio's 'supernormal' dress, sat just above her knee, revealing her slender pins.

Stunner: The Melbourne footy WAG is often hailed on social media for her chic style

The frock's shoulder cut-outs revealed a hint of Nadia's defined collarbone and her wavy blonde mane complimented her bronzed glow.

The couple, who welcomed the birth of their son Aston James in November last year, enjoyed a child-free night out at the luxurious Crown Resorts.

Earlier this month, the fashion blogger raised eyebrows when she revealed she underwent a spray tan during labour.

Happy family: Nadia and Jimmy welcomed the birth of their first child in November 2015

While for most women in labour, such beauty procedures are of little importance, Nadia admitted that tanning and shaving were priorities, but she also conceded that they probably shouldn't have been.

'At 5 am I got up and had a shower, shave my legs and decided to apply some spray tan,' she wrote via her Chronicles of Nadia blog.

'Errr, so I know applying spray tan because you think you are going into labour isn't normal, but I couldn't handle anyone (apart from Jim) seeing my bumpy, fluid retentive and hairy legs, and yes before you comment to say the doctors wouldn't notice and I need to get my priorities right. You are probably right, but I blame those pregnancy hormones.'

Gorgeous mane: The fashion blogger almost never has a hair out of place
The theme of Sunday's gala dinner in Cannes was celebrating women in film.

And actress Salma Hayek certainly showcased her womanly figure to full effect in a very-low dress.

The Mexican beauty, who turns 50 in September, looked amazing in a delicate pink dress with a tiered skirt and corset top.

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Va-va-voom! Salma Hayek looked amazing as she arrived at the Kering Women in Motion gala dinner in Cannes on Sunday night

Handsome couple: Salma arrived on the arm of her French fashion mogul husband Francois-Henri Pinault, who was hosting the bash

The mother-of-one's famous cleavage was impossible to miss due to the low-cut nature of the ensemble as she arrived at the Women In Motion dinner, adding some sparkle with Boucheron jewellery.

Salma's waist looked tiny as it was cinched in with a sequinned belt and rose, while her raven locks were swept into a chic updo.

She completed her red carpet ensemble with a navy clutch bag and was dripping in diamonds.

Oops! The actress seemed to suffer a slight make-up fail with her forehead looking a different shade

Beauty: The mother-of-one's cleavage was impossible to miss due to the low-cut nature of the ensemble

What a line-up: Salma and Francois-Henri were joined by the two guests of honour Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis

The Dusk Til Dawn star arrived on the arm of her French fashion mogul husband Francois-Henri Pinault, who was hosting the bash on the French Riviera.

The evening was honouring two Hollywood stars Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, who famously co-starred alongside each other in feminist road movie Thelma & Louise 25 years ago.

Like Salma, it appeared Susan and Geena had also opted for put their impressive decolletage on show in their low-cut gowns.

Red hot: The actress showed some skin in a v-neck sparking red floor-length number

Hello boys! Susan looked fabulous as ever in a low-cut navy dress and killer heels

Old pals: The two women have aged beautifully since starring in Thelma & Louise 25 years ago

Strike a pose: Susan and Genna cosy up for a candid selfie on the red carpet

Redhead Susan, 69, looked stunning in a navy off-the-shoulder satin number, while Geena, 60, was red hot in a V-neck creation.

Earlier that evening, Geena had walked the red carpet at the Palais Des Festivals in the same gown for the screening of The Nice Guys.

The Pinault family's company Kering - which owns a host of designer fashion houses - has been hosting a series of talks on women in film during the festival.

Salma is due to speak on Monday, while actress and director Jodie Foster kicked off the talks last Thursday.

Let's party! All of the women are speakers at the Kering Women In Motion talks at Cannes this week

Still winning: Susan and Genna were all smiles as they held onto their awards

Striking: Kirsten Dunst looked great in a black ballerina-print Salvatore Ferragamo maxi dress

Oriental inspiration: The jury member added height to her look with strappy open-toe heels and accessorised with a red satin clutch

Smart: French-Italian actress Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi (left) and Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal (right)

Brunette beauties: Salma was seen posing alongside stunning actress Frieda Pinto

Big grin: And the actress was clearly pleased to see Vanessa Paradis, who stunned in a black ensemble

Androgynous chic: French actress Juliette Binoche put on a busty display in a black suit as she took a snap with actor Mads Mikkelsen
Former Midnight Oil frontman and Federal Minister Peter Garrett will release a solo record on July 15, his first new material in 14 years since the rock group broke up in 2002.

The outspoken rocker said his first solo album, A Version of Now, was the result of lyrics and melodies flooding into his mind while writing his autobiography, Big Blue Sky.

'As I was finishing my memoir, melodies and lines kept dropping into my head and, big surprise, I ended up writing a few songs,' he said.

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He's back: Former Midnight Oil frontman and Federal Minister Peter Garrett will release a solo record on July 15, his first new material in 14 years since the rock group broke up in 2002

Once these tunes were out in the sunlight I decided I might as well jump into a studio and record what I had along with a few other bits and pieces.

The 63-year-old produced the album in a series of secret recording sessions in January with his three daughters Emily, May and Grace singing and playing on several tracks.

Midnight Oil guitarist Martin Rotsey, former Jet bassist Mark Wilson, RockWiz drummer Peter Luscombe, The Jezabels keyboardist Heather Shannon and Sydney musician Jamie Hutchings also contributed to the project.

Iconic band: Midnight Oil formed in 1976 and produced 11 studio albums before breaking up when Garrett decided to pursue his short-lived political career

'Lines kept dropping into my head': The outspoken rocker said his first solo album, A Version of Now, was the result of lyrics and melodies flooding into his head while writing his autobiography Big Blue Sky

Outspoken: Garrett was an outspoken activist while playing music, with many of his song politically charged. He was elected to parliament in 2004 and served for nine years

While Midnight Oil are planning a reunion tour next year, Garrett said the songs were more personal in nature and thus better suited to a solo release.

The songs are reflections of turbulent decades on the rack, and the people and things that meant the most to me, he said.

The first song Tall Trees was released online on Monday and a documentary, Peter Garrett: A Version of Now (The Full Story), will come out three days before the album launch.

Creative process: Once these tunes were out in the sunlight I decided I might as well jump into a studio and record what I had along with a few other bits and pieces

Personal inspiration: While Midnight Oil were planning a reunion tour next year, Garrett said the songs were more personal in nature and thus better suited to a solo release

'I didnt expect to make a record either. Thats really one of the most amazing things about this whole experience, he said in the MAX-produced documentary.

Songs have dropped out of the sky, if you like. I have had to pull them out and work on them but they just appeared.

The former Environment Minister said the record was a time pillar that represents my emotional and creative existence at this stage of my life.

Coming soon: The first song Tall Trees was released online on Monday and a documentary, Peter Garrett: A Version of Now (The Full Story), will come out three days before the album launch

He also spoke of his excitement for the Midnight Oil reunion but admitted they dont know quite what it will turn out to be.

We enjoy it when we get together and make music together, we make that sound. Thats pretty special to have that after all this time, he said.

Midnight Oil formed in 1976 and produced 11 studio albums before breaking up when Garrett decided to pursue his short-lived political career.

Controversial tenure: As Environment Minister he oversaw the infamous pink batts program, which subsidised the installation of home insulation and was associated with the deaths of four workers

Team player: A prominent environmental and indigenous activist, Garrett had to tone down his rhetoric while in parliament where he was a frontbencher during the turbulent Rudd-Gillard years. Pictured with Julia Gillard after the 2010 election

A prominent environmental and indigenous activist, Garrett had to tone down his rhetoric while in parliament where he was a frontbencher during the turbulent Rudd-Gillard years.

As Environment Minister he oversaw the infamous pink batts program, which subsidised the installation of home insulation and was associated with the deaths of four workers.
She was all smiles in front of the camera during the filming of the latest I'm A Celebrity.. Get Me Out Of Here series.

But now Julia Morris has revealed she was battling a skin cancer scare behind the scenes.

While walking the Logie Awards red carpet, the 47-year-old told New Idea she was made aware of the scare as she boarded the plane to South Africa.

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Health scare: Julia Morris has opened up about her latest skin cancer scare, explaining she was made aware of it before boarding a plane to South Africa ahead of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!

'I got the phone call getting on the plane,' she told the publication, adding she knew the awaiting news 'wasn't going to be good'.

The House Husbands actress went on to explain that the doctor confirmed the cancer wasn't an immediate threat, allowing her to continue with hosting duties abroad.

'Luckily, it wasn't impending doom,' Julia said, adding: 'When I returned, I had to see him immediately.'

Continuing on route: She explained to New Idea, 'I got the phone call getting on the plane,' but was lucky 'it wasn't impending doom'

The aftermath: Following the surgery she was left with numerous 15 centimetre scars on her right shoulder, which she claims don't worry her because 'they saved my life'

Following a day in surgery, the media personality was left with numerous 15 centimetre scars on her right shoulder.

She told the glossy magazine that she isn't worried about showing off her wounds because 'they saved my life'.

Last month, the I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! co-host shared numerous selfies to Instagram following the removal of her skin cancer.

In one image, the comedian was seen scrunching up her face, captioning the shot: 'Gang, seriously... Can you please look after your skin in the sun with proper sunscreen.

'You are too awesome not to,' she added.

She laid on the bed at the doctors office, with medical supplies seen in the background and a fresh scar just below her right shoulder.

Taking it seriously: Last month, the I'm A Celebrity co-host shared numerous selfies to Instagram following the removal of her skin cancer

Seeing the lighter side: Her sense of humour was evident as she snapped another selfie, this time with her doctor joining in on the fun

Her sense of humour was evident as she snapped another selfie, this time with her doctor joining in on the fun.

As Julia reclined on the surgery bed, Dr Chris Kearney placed his blue covered glove fingers above her shoulder to make it look like they had been attached.

With a scared look on her face, she was seen peering over at her shoulder and mocking disgust across her face.

'My beautiful Dr Chris Kearney pretended he had sewn his fingers into my shoulder', Julia captioned her second selfie from the experience.

This was not the first time the TV personality has gone under the knife to remove a skin cancer.

In May 2015, the comedian revealed the extensive details of her treatments after fans noticed scaring on her abdomen and accused the star of getting gastric banding.

Not the first time: In May 2015, the comedian revealed the extensive details of her treatments after fans noticed scaring on her abdomen and accused the star of getting gastric banding

Revealing: On her post she explained to fans: 'I have been having removed since I was nine-years-old'

Julia informed fans in response to the uproar: 'For the benefit of all who are concerned... the scarring on my tum is from all the skin cancer moles...

'I have been having (sic) removed since I was nine-years-old,' the comedienne wrote in response to the flurry of comments made on her swimsuit-clad Instagram image.

Julia went on to explain that she has had a total of nine moles and compound naevi (raised moles), removed including one large one on her back and six on her arms.

Adding that she is always sun safe she writes: 'I have 50+ sunscreen on in this shot and since both of my malignant melanomas, I am fully checked by a cancer specialist every 12 months.'
Let's Do It: A Tribute To Victoria Wood (ITV)

Rating:

Burma's Secret Jungle (BBC2)

Rating:

Most misunderstood adolescents settle for writing a diary or harbouring a crush on their geography teacher.

But the pathologically shy Victoria Wood spent her time teaching herself to play the piano in secret.

Young Vic opted to practise the largest, loudest instrument in the orchestra, without telling anyone. As metaphors go, this was big and glorious enough to be emblazoned in lights across London's West End.

She did so well that, shortly after leaving university, she was appointed resident musical turn on BBC1's Saturday night ratings-buster, That's Life. She always looked, though, as if she'd be more at ease alone in the front room, with the curtains drawn, while her parents were at the supermarket.

Let's Do It: A Tribute To Victoria Wood (ITV) was full of revelations about the scale of her talent

Let's Do It: A Tribute To Victoria Wood (ITV) was full of revelations about the scale of her talent. The pity was that it was only an hour long, and we barely had time to admire one facet before another was dazzling us. We didn't even hear the whole of the hilarious number that gave the show its title  just snatches, half a verse here and there, and a bit of the chorus.

That alone should have warned the schedulers that two hours should have been the minimum to showcase Victoria. She was actress, stand-up comedian, playwright, sketchwriter, when any one of those talents could have sustained a career.

She did it all with such modesty that most people didn't really grasp, until her death from cancer last month aged just 62, how outrageously gifted she was.

When she died, that talent was far from spent. Her most recent success, the musical rom-com That Day We Sang, had announced her as a screenwriter whose visions could fill the cinema screen.

Her next project might have been a film script. Others certainly believed her capable of it: actress Anne Reid wished her friend could have written for Meryl Streep and Anthony Hopkins. Another colleague, actress Alison Steadman, summed up the essence of Victoria's comedy: 'Everyday life is funny. She examined it with such accuracy, and then put a magnifying glass on it.'

The Streeps and Sir Anthonys of this world had no appeal for her, of course: what would an everyday woman from Bury say to them?

Her close friend and collaborator Julie Walters can hobnob with anyone from charladies to First Ladies, which is why she worked in Hollywood while Victoria stayed in England and honed her craft while raising two children.

No doubt those Streeps and Sir Anthonys would have queued up to pay their tribute, but it was better that the people who worked most closely with her, such as Celia Imrie and Duncan Preston (the actor from Dinner Ladies and Acorn Antiques), said the most.

Christopher Stevens said it was a pity that the show about Victoria Wood (right) was only an hour long

David Threlfall also said a few words, but nobody knows what, because we were all staring at his long white beard, flowing locks and moustache. He looked like Father Christmas after smoking high-potency cannabis. In fact, he's playing Don Quixote at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, and if the production is half as good as his facial hair someone should film it for TV, quick.

Not everything deserves a space on television, though. Mountaineer Joe Simpson was retracing his father's war-time career with the Chindits, in Burma's Secret Jungle (BBC2), and though his admiration for his dad was palpable, this two-part documentary was less than inspiring.

VILLAIN OF THE WEEKEND: Benedict Cumberbatch relished every word as he butchered Henry VI in The Hollow Crown (BBC2) and held up his blade dripping with blood  'See how my sword weeps for the poor king's death!' Next week, he's crowned Richard III. He won't get any nicer.

Partly this was because Burma's modern-day unrest made it too dangerous for a camera crew to explore the remote jungle where Britain's forces waged a non-stop onslaught on the Japanese occupiers during World War II.

And partly it was because Simpson and his fellow explorer Ed Stafford were not appealing companions. When these two grouchy men strode into a village, they were greeted by a dog clearly intent on earning itself a bone by barking the alarm.
They vowed to make their divorce a 'conscious uncoupling' for the sake of their two children.

And two years down the road Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin have been as good as their word.

On Sunday, the actress and her Cold Play frontman ex were together again at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, where daughter Apple celebrated her 12th birthday.

Too much fun: Friendly exes Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin took their children Moses and Apple to Disneyland on Sunday for their daughter's 12th birthday. The actress shared this snap jokingly captioned, 'When your parents can't handle #thundermountain anymore so they wait for you at the bottom'

Their son Moses, who turned 10 last month, was no doubt along to help his sister have fun.

And it seems the rides may have been a bit much for Gwyneth and Chris.

The 43-year-old posted a snap on Instagram showing half of her smiling face and half of 39-year-old Chris's face and body as they waited for Apple.

The Iron Man star captioned it: 'When your parents can't handle #thundermountain anymore so they wait for you at the bottom. #disneyland #thehappiestplaceonearth #birthdayweekend' with an Apple emoji.

On Saturday, Gwyneth hosted a sleepover posted picture of her daughter Apple (LEFT) with Beyonce's daughter guest Blue Ivy (2nd LEFT) to celebrate Apple's 12th birthday

The beautiful blonde didn't appear to be wearing any make-up allowing her natural beauty to shine while her ex was wrapped up in a blue beanie, a matching wool scarf and a light blue puffa jacket.

Gwyneth made sure it's been a weekend of fun for Apple, hosting a sleepover and birthday brunch at home on Saturday with pals including Beyonce and Jay-Z's four-year-old daughter Blue Ivy.

On Saturday the actress also posted an adorable snap of her daughter wearing pussy cat face paint looking up at the camera with her big blue eyes.

Purrfectly pretty: On Saturday the actress posted a snap of Apple wearing pussy cat face paint saying, 'Here she is 10 years ago today on what was her second birthday. Happy birthday, Apple Martin, great love of my life'

Gwyneth captioned it: 'Here she is 10 years ago today on what was her second birthday. Happy birthday, Apple Martin, great love of my life.'

In March 2014 Gwyneth announced that she and Martin had separated after 10 years of marriage, describing the process as 'conscious uncoupling.'

The couple appeared to be in no great hurry to finalise their divorce, which only came through last month.

They have both moved on to new relationships: Gwyneth is dating 45-year-old producer Brad Falchuk and Martin is with English actress, Annabelle Wallis, 31.
After weeks of speculation, Foxtel's Arena has confirmed The Real Housewives of Sydney will begin next year.

The announcement was made on Sunday via the reality show's Facebook page, alongside an 11-second teaser trailer.

It also revealed that 'casting is underway' for the Sydney spin-off based on The Real Housewives of Melbourne.

The video clip features a sweeping view of the Sydney skyline, along with the text: 'New series of Real Housewives coming 2017'.

Meanwhile, as the casting process begins in New South Wales, the fate of the Melbourne franchise remains uncertain.

RHOM's third season wrapped on Sunday night with a reunion special hosted by Alex Perry, but Foxtel has yet to announce a fourth season.

More drama! As Foxtel announces spin-off The Real Housewives of Sydney, they have yet to announce a new season of Real Housewives of Melbourne (cast pictured), which finished its third season last week

The Housewives are coming to Sydney! Foxtel released a teaser trailer featuring a sweeping view of the Sydney skyline, along with the text: 'New series of Real Housewives coming 2017'

The show was recently hit by a major departure as Chyka Keebaugh announced this week she would not be returning if another series was commissioned.

Despite these uncertainties, it would seem Foxtel is determined to go ahead with The Real Housewives of Sydney - and it is understood several local identities are already being considered.

According to The Daily Telegraph, Skye Leckie is among those on the producers' wishlist, as secret meetings were held with number of ladies over lunch in the posh suburb of Woollahra.

'I've been on the list since day one': Skye Leckie confirmed recently she was among the names being considered by producers for The Real Housewives Of Sydney

The wife of ex-Seven Network boss David Leckie, seemed to confirm reports, telling The Telegraph: 'I've heard I've been on the list since day one but I dont know, you've caught me unawares.'

The couple celebrated their 20 year wedding anniversary in January this year along with their family on holiday in Hawaii.

'This new years I resolve to be less awesome since that is really the only thing I do in excess,' the confident blonde posted on social media of her 2016 aspirations.

Arty: Christa Billich, who is married to artist Charles Billich is also named as a potential star of the new show

Another likely cast member is Christa Billich, who is married to artist Charles Billich, and is also best pals with RHOM star, Gamble Breaux.

Because of their friendship, she has already appeared a number of times on the Melbourne series as a guest star.

Daily Mail Australia understands Matty Samaei, a cosmetic beauty therapist and TV star who is the beauty adviser and a judge for the Miss Universe Australia pageant, is also among contenders.

While Daily Mail Australia can confirm PR maven Roxy Jacenko will not be on the show, it's not yet certain whether former WAG Nation starlet Terry Biviano will be among the mix.

Beauty queen: Daily Mail Australia understands cosmetic beauty therapist, TV commentator and Miss Universe Australia beauty adviser Matty Samaei is still be in talks for a spot on the show

Brains and beauty: Model-turned-businesswoman Michelle Walsh, who's husband Martin runs the modelling agency Chadwicks, is also believed to be one of the top candidates for the spin-off series

No go? While Daily Mail Australia can confirm Roxy Jacenko (left) will not be part of the series, it's not known if former WAG Nation star Terry Biviano (right) will be part of the show

The Sydney Morning Herald first reported on Matty's screen tests last October, which Daily Mail Australia understands are still on-going with no contracts given out as yet by Foxtel.

It's understood Foxtel are yet to officially commission the spin-off but have been running a range of castings to find the right mix of feisty personalities.

Other names believed to be contenders for a spot on the upcoming series including model-turned-business woman Michelle Walsh, who ran online kid's clothing company Mrs Walsh, which was relaunched as a lifestyle blog in 2010.

Bringing the edge: Make-up and tattoo artist Gordana Willesee-Poljak (left), is the ex-wife of TV journalist Mike Willesee and could bring an edge to the series

Hats a good look! Former One Nation politician David Oldfield's wife Lisa Oldfied was in talks with producers

Designer dresses galore: Designer Charlie Brown name has been thrown into the mix

Hairdresser to the stars Jo Bailey's long-time business partner Marylin Koch has been reported on more than one occasion to be among the top contenders.

While fashion designer Charlie Brown is believed to have been in talks at some stage, as was former One Nation politician David Oldfield's wife Lisa Oldfied.

Ex-wife of TV journalist Mike Willesee, Gordana Willesee-Poljak, a make-up and tattoo artist, has also confirmed she was speaking to producers.

Meanwhile, Lanolips founder Kirsten Carriol and comedian Vince Sorrenti's wife, Kate, were also believed to be in talks.
Her second child, a daughter, is due in just over two months, having made the happy announcement she was pregnant in February.

But fashion blogger and reality star Kate Waterhouse says she hasn't even begun to think about baby names yet.

Speaking with Daily Mail Australia from the Ginger & Smart runway at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in Sydney on Monday, the 31-year-old said she's just been too busy.

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'I'm a little disorganised!' Pregnant Kate Waterhouse says she hasn't even begun to think about baby names yet despite her daughter's due date in August

Still working it: Kate wears a Christopher Esber coat, Smortmax dress, Fendi handbag and Dita Eyewear sunglasses arrives ahead of the Ginger and Smart show at Fashion Week on Monday

'I'm a little disorganised!' she laughed.

'It's funny how you have so many names for the first one... I've got to sit down with my husband [Luke Ricketson] and work that out.'

She said that while her daughter Sophia, who will be turning two at the end of May, can't fully comprehend that she'll soon be a big sister, she's nonetheless excited about it.

Bumping along nicely: She and pal Nadia Fairfax messed around over the size of her growing bump

'I don't know how much she actually knows': She said her daughter Sophia, who is two this month, doesn't fully comprehend being a big sister quite yet

Breaking the news: The fashion blogger shared a cute snap with her first-born in February to announce she was pregnant again

'She touches my tummy and says "baby",' revealed Kate, adding that she 'loves' being read a book at bedtime about being a big sister.

'[But other than that] I don't know how much she actually knows,' she smiled.

Taking to Instagram in February to share the happy news, the fashion blogger uploaded a photo of her daughter staring at what appears to be an ultrasound scan.

Strike a pose: The friends showed off their best sides on Monday for Sydney Fashion week

'I've got to sit down with my husband and work that out': Kate said over the coming weeks she will sit down with her husband Luke Ricketson (pictured) to think of baby names

Kate, who can be seen grinning in the photo, wrote in the caption: 'Telling Sophia she is going to have a baby sister! So excited.'

She also made sure to tag her husband Luke Ricketson, who shared a similar photo to his Instagram account.

In the caption, he wrote: 'Yes Sophia - You are getting a sister! @katewaterhouse7 #houseofpink #prouddad'.
Former Australia's Next Top Model contestant Simone Holtznagel has opened up about just how much she misses mentor Charlotte Dawson following her tragic death in February 2014.

Appearing on Channel Seven's The Morning Show on Monday, the 22-year-old said there are times she desires to simply speak with the late star, who guided her through the early stages of her modelling career.

'I would stay with her any time I was in Sydney and she was great. I miss her a lot, just now I'm more like "I wish I could just call you and tell you about all the great stuff that's been happening",' Simone said during her television appearance.

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Guardian angel: Former Australia's Next Top Model star Simone Holtznagel has said she wishes she could simply call late mentor Charlotte Dawson an update her on her life and career - pictured in October 2011, before Charlotte's tragic death in February 2014

Simone had previously revealed she had received 'visits' from Charlotte following her death, and on Monday she commented on those claims.

'I know I sound crazy but I've definitely seen her one time.

'It was almost so weird it was like that had to happen, like I didn't make that up, that definitely happened,' she told The Morning Show hosts Larry Emdur and Kylie Gillies.

Last year Simone told Fairfax Media that she'd been visited by the ghost of former mentor Charlotte, saying 'she comes over and sits down, she talks and reaches out to touch me'.

Still connected: Simone has previously revealed that she's been visited by the ghost of Charlotte three times since the TV host's tragic passing in February 2014

'It's not scary, it's just nice to see her,' she explained.

'It's happened once at my grandma's house, again when I moved into my place in LA and then just the other night in my hotel room in Amsterdam.'

Simone was a standout on the third season of the popular reality TV program in 2011 - three years before Charlotte's passing at the age of 47 in 2014.

Back in February last year, on what would have been Charlotte's 48th birthday, Simone wrote of her former mentor on Instagram: 'I love you, I miss you & I wish you were here, just like every other day'.

Mentor: Charlotte, who was a judge on Australia's Next Top Model, is seen here with the former contestant. Simone said that 'it's nice to see her' when she visits

Charlotte, who was a judge on the show from 2007 to 2013, tragically committed suicide in February 2014 in her Woolloomooloo apartment.

Last year's ninth cycle of Australia's Next Top Model, was dedicated to the former Getaway and Contender host.

'This season will have something missing,' franchise founder Tyra Banks said in the debut episode.

'Charlotte Dawson was a champion of the series and the models and she will be very missed. So on behalf of the global Next Top Model family, this season is dedicated to Charlotte.'

For advice or to talk to an expert about suicide, contact Suicide Prevention Australia on 02 9262 1130.
Last week she put on a heavenly display in a glittering Zimmerman creation at the InStyle Awards.

And Isabelle Cornish continued to up the ante in the style stakes as she attended the Ginger & Smart show at Australian Fashion Week 2016 on Monday in Sydney.

The 21-year-old opted for a quirky Sixties-inspired look, wearing a leather trimmed printed crepe dress by luxury designer brand, Miu Miu.

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Front row! Isabelle Cornish continued to up the ante in the style stakes as she attended the Ginger & Smart Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week show on Monday in Sydney

The detailed dress featured a print of green and white faces, with black peasant sleeves and a red and black leather collar.

It also contributed to the on-trend layered look, with longer white and blue checked sleeves and a collar visible underneath Isabelle's ensemble.

The Puberty Blues actress was seen sitting front row at the show for the Sydney-based designers.

She matched her make-up to her dress, donning a green eye shadow and winged liner, to go along with her bronzed cheeks and nude lip.

Stylish: The 21-year-old went for a 60s-inspired look in a leather trimmed printed crepe dress by luxury designer brand Miu Miu

She kept her brunette tresses straightened and completed the retro look with a black and white headband.

The younger sister of Abbie Cornish further accessoried with a brown snakeskin-look handbag and detailed purple heels.

On Sunday she was also seen enjoying the opening Toni Maticevski show at Bangaroo Reserve.

Isabelle went on-theme to the star studded event, wearing a white dressed with ruffled detail and a black leather jacket draped over her shoulders.

Ready to go: Before going into the show, the actress took to Instagram to share a snap of her stunning designer outfit

On trend: On Sunday she was also seen enjoying the opening Toni Maticevski show at Bangaroo Reserve, wearing a white dressed with ruffled detail and a black leather jacket draped over her shoulders
She's the property developer and author known for her role on The Real Housewives of Melbourne.

And aside from her successful career, Pettifleur Berenger is equally proud of her role as mother to her 'wonderful' three sons.

In an inspiring Instagram post on Sunday, the 51-year-old revealed she 'loves' her cesarean scars as they remind her of the joys of parenting.

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Confident: Real Housewives of Melbourne star Pettifleur Berenger is a proud mother-of-three and spoke about how she 'loves' her cesarean scars in the caption of a recent workout snap posted to her Instagram account

As the RHOM season three reunion was broadcast on Foxtel's Arena over the weekend, Pettifleur offered her thoughts on being a 'mum with scars'.

The fashionista shared a snap of herself working out with a medicine ball in a Melbourne gym while wearing figure-hugging workout clothes.

She captioned the image: 'Tummy scars from our wonderful babies! Love it and own it! Three cesarean sections. Here's to all the mums with scars!'

Dazzling: The 51-year-old beauty opted for a stunning lace gown at the 2016 TV Week Logie Awards recently

Pettifleur's cesarean scars are not on display in the social media image.

Meanwhile, fans praised Pettifleur's inspiring message in the comments section, with one writing: 'Work it! We are loving you right now'.

Another follower commented, 'Looking fabulous girl!' and a further fan declared: 'You are an inspiration.'

Meanwhile: Tensions flared on Sunday night's reunion special of The Real Housewives of Melbourne

Pettifleur later wrote in response: 'Thank you, really appreciate your love and support.'

Her adult son Nathan appeared on RHOM last year, delivering a speech at his mother's 50th birthday party.

The Melbourne banker told a charming story about how his grandparents first met and heard the song Petite Fleur, adding 'they just knew' it was the right name for their daughter.

Her boys: Earlier this year, Pettifleur shared this throwback photo of her three sons on Facebook

Also on Sunday, Pettifleur shared a video of herself on Instagram, celebrating ahead of RHOM's season three reunion special that was hosted by fashion designer Alex Perry.

She was shown singing along in the car to Billy Ocean's track Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car.

It seems Pettifleur was en route to a screening party with friends, as she was later photographed with model Emma Cochrane and Melbourne socialite Jack Kelly at a private bar.
They had laughed at her boasts of being the Mother Of Dragons.

But the Great Khals' arrogance came back to burn them after Daenerys Targaryen incinerated all her rivals as she became the queen of all Dothraki on Game Of Thrones on Sunday.

And, as if that were not enough, it looks like Jon Snow will finally get to engage the dirty rotten scoundrel Ramsay Bolton on the battlefield after the former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch was challenged to a fight by the arrogant usurper.

Naked ambition: Daenerys completed her transition from prisoner to queen of the Dothraki on Sunday's Game Of Thrones

Daenerys ended up pulling off a master stroke when she was summoned before the leaders of the nomadic tribes, who were under the impression they were going to decide her fate during a hearing at the temple of the Dosh Khaleen.

However it was they who ended up being served up to the gods as a burnt offering after the former wife of Khal Drogo tipped over the fire torches in the temple, which caused an uncommonly large inferno to suddenly erupt.

Just before she set them alight, Emilia Clarke's character said: 'What great matters do the Great Khals discuss? What little villages you'll raid, how many girls youll get to f***, gow many horses you'll demand in tribute?

'You are small men none of you are fit to lead the Dothraki But I am so I will.'

This prompted much laughter among the powerful warlords, who then decided they would rape her to death, even threatening to share her with their horses.

Big pow wow: The Great Khals thought they were in charge during the meeting at the temple of Dosh Khaleen

No time for jokes: It is easy to see why Dothraki humour is not renowned around Westeros

Burning ambition: She was in her element when she realised she was surrounded by conveniently placed fire torches

Leader of men: She belittles their manhood before informing them she is now in charge

Taking matters into her own hands: And before they could exact justice on her she grabbed the burning ornaments and toppled them over

However their unchivalrous behaviour came back to bite them, as an incensed Daenerys started to push over the torches assembled around her, a move which caused the ground around them to spontaneously combust.

Screams were heard from inside and Ser Jorah and Daario, who had bolted everyone inside to prevent them escaping, watched with satisfaction as the massive structure was engulfed in flames.

And when their beloved queen emerged in the nude, surrounded by the flames, it was enough to make all present decide to bend the knee and submit to the glory of her superior fire retardency.

It completed a remarkable turnaround for the self-styled Breaker of Chains, as she has gone from captive to ruler of the Mongol-style people in the space of a mere four episodes.

Queen of asbestos: Her remarkable resistance to fire came in handy as she burned her rivals alive

Kill the Khal: Rhalko had thought he was the one in charge but got a rude awakening

Insurance buster: The Dothraki are sure to lose their no claims bonus after the fiery incident

She knows how to make a dramatic exit: The people gasped as she emerged from the inferno

Like a Greek goddess: Hestia herself would have been proud of Daenerys' fiery appearance

And she had certainly earned her victory, refusing to be carried away by her rescuers Ser Jorah and Daario, who had managed to sneak inside the city Vaes Dothrak at the cost of only two Dothraki, instead telling them she had a superior idea to escape.

Her fiery power grab certainly proved to be an unlikely work of genius, and was a memorable callback to the last episode of their first season, where she seemed to incinerate herself on her dead husband Khal Drogo's funeral pyre, only to emerge unscathed with three dragon hatchlings under in her arms.

Meanwhile Jon Snow was enjoyed an emotional reunion with his seeming half-sister Sansa Stark, who managed to arrive at Castle Black just after he handed in his notice as the leader of the Night's Watch.

The nude queen on the block: King Tommen will surely be worried when he learns about his rival's latest move

Averting their eyes: The gathered masses fell to their knees in adulation at their new regent

Calm down lads: But love-struck Ser Jorah and Daario seemed transfixed by the naked Mother Of Dragons

Fast worker: Just four episodes ago Daenerys was being whipped as a Dothraki prisoner

The pair enjoyed a touching discussion on the merits of pies and soup, before Sophie Tuner's princess revealed six seasons of physical and emotional abuse had taken their toll, admitting that she had 'spent a lot of time thinking what an a** I'd been to you.'

Thankfully her father Eddard's purported bastard child told her that while she was 'occasionally awful,' he was more than happy to let bygones be bygones.

One thing he was not prepared to do was rope in his Wildling allies into a battle to retake Winterfell, however this all changed when he received a frightening threat from Ramsay Bolton.

In a letter, which was seemingly delivered by one of his men and which bore his family seal, he accused Jon of being a traitor.

Must have been sent first class: Somehow Ramsay had a missive delivered to Castle Black in extra quick time

Letter of demand: Ramsay Bolton threatened to kill Jon and his siblings Sansa and Rickard if he did not hand his sister over

He also boasted he had placed his little brother Rickon Stark in a dungeon while turning his direwolf into a fireside carpet, and demanded he hand over Sansa so she can once again serve as his wife.

In his purported letter, Ramsay said: 'Keep her from me and I'll ride north and slaughter every Wildling man, woman and babe living under your protection. You will watch as I skin them living.'

Even more frighteningly, he said he would force him to watch as his whole army raped Sansa, feed Rickon to his wolves, then gouge out his eyeballs and feed him to his hounds as well.'

Displaying an uncharacteristic yellow streak, Jon initially tried to get out of meeting his family's usurper head on, only to be finally persuaded by his sister.

Not impressed: Sansa was unhappy at her brother's sudden cowardice when it comes to fighting

Shamed into it: Eventually Jon agreed to do his duty and procure Tormund's help to try and retake Winterfell

She told him: 'You're the son of the last true Warden Of The North. Northern families are loyal, theyll fight for you if you ask.

'A monster has taken our home and our brother. We have to go back to Winterfell and save them both.'

It was certainly quite the characteristic turnaround, as Jon has previously marched without fear into the heart of Wildling territory to complete a secret mission, took on and destroyed a group of turncoat Night Watchmen and even bravely took on an army of White Walkers so the Wildlings could flee to safety within Westeros.

Interesting plan: Rickon's bodyguard Osha decided seduce Ramsay so she could grab a nearby knife

Just the one death this week: Unsurprisingly she was beaten to the punch by the sadistic murderer

Given people are said to lose a part of themselves when brought back to life by the Lord Of Light, perhaps he has simply misplaced his courage.

On the other hand he does seem to have a point on a logistical point - the once gargantuan Wildling army is currently only 2,000 strong, while Ramsay is somehow able to muster a force of 5,000, at least according to super-scout Sansa.

Thankfully help seems at hand in the form of Petyr Baelish, who decided to use his hold over young Lord Robin Arryn, whose mother he of course threw to her doom, to call the Knights Of The Vale to arms.

Oh dear: Tyrion proved to be a not-so-canny linguist as he attempted some diplomacy in a foreign tongue

Buying them off: But a gift of some women and a seven-year phase in period to the abolition of slavery seems to have been successful

Angry: But his companions Grey Worm and Missandei are unhappy about his wheeling and dealing

It certainly sets in motion a spectacular pincer movement on Ramsay's forces, especially as Petyr seems to use his patented Valaryian rocketpack to meet up with Sansa in next week's episode, despite being quite some distance away.

Meanwhile Tyrion was once again putting his diplomatic skills to use, this time offering the slavers a seven year phased withdrawal of slavery in their other cities, in return for them withdrawing their support for the Sons Of The Harpy, and recognising it straight away in Meereen.

His antics proved to be unpopular with his queen's allies, however he managed to persuade Grey Worm and Missandei to signal their support for his plan, even though they strongly counselled against it themselves.

A tale of the tortoise and the hare? The glacial pace of the Kings Landing storyline continued as Cersei and Jaime hatched a plan to take care of the High Sparrow

Progress! But at least they seem to have got Kevan's agreement not to prevent the Tyrell forces from tackling the Faith Militant

The Lannister plan to overthrow the High Sparrow continued to move at a glacial pace, though at least Cersei and Jaime seemed to get the agreement of their uncle Kevan to not scramble the castle guard if the Tyrell's bring their massive army to destroy the Faith Militant and the High Sparrow.

If the plan comes to fruition it will certainly please the foppish Ser Loras, who tells his sister and fellow captive Queen Margaery 'I cant stay strong, I never was strong,' and seemingly ready to confess all to escape captivity.

A brief interlude saw Ser Davos finally ask the Red Woman Melisandre what happened to his lord Stannis Baratheon, not to mention his beloved princess Shireen.

Finally: Ser Davos at last got round to asking Melisandre about the fate of his beloved Princess Shireen

Not again: But before she could answer Brienne Of Tarth butted in to explain how she had executed his boss

However it looks like he will have to wait another day to find out, as Brienne Of Tarth butted in to explain how she had executed his boss after his forces were destroyed by those of Ramsay Bolton.

Meanwhile it seems there may soon be no male rulers left in the world of Game Of Thrones after Theon Greyjoy promised he would support his sister Yara's attempt to become the first ever queen of the Iron Islands.

It certainly sets up a delicious, if somewhat unlikely, feminist cultural moment, which could see the female-led navy of the isles ferry across the Dothraki hordes so Daenerys Targaryen can finally regain her family's traditional seat of power on the Iron Throne.

Reek of sea salt: Theon Greyjoy held his nose as he finally arrived at his home at the Iron Islands
Tully Smyth may need to reconsider feeling like she is the least fashionable person at Australian Fashion Week 2016.

The former Big Brother housemate turned heads at the Sydney extravaganza of style in a sparkly silver dress that flaunted her enviable figure.

At the festival to host the Twitter Blue Room, the reality star-turned-fashionista paired the ensemble with some sexy suede thigh high boots.

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Minimal accessories: The blonde beauty pulled her shoulder length locks out tight behind her ears in a ponytail, revealing she was wearing just a simple gold nose ring and no earrings

While the dress covered her neck and arms down to her wrists, it was completely see-through down to her cleavage.

The blonde beauty pulled her shoulder length locks out tight behind her ears in a ponytail, revealing she was wearing just a simple gold nose ring and no earrings.

The 28-year-old also opted for an ostentatious gold ring bigger than a 50 cent piece.

Revealing: While Tully's dress covered her neck and arms down to her wrists, it was completely see-through down to her cleavage

Chat show: The Young Blood Runs Wild blogger will spend the week on a grey couch surrounded by Twitter-branded pillows and cardboard cutouts hosting an online video series

The Young Blood Runs Wild blogger will spend the week on a grey couch surrounded by Twitter-branded pillows and cardboard cutouts hosting an online video series.

Ill be chatting to some of the hottest designers, a couple of models and maybe, if were lucky, a few celebrity guests, she said in a short promotional video on Monday.

Earlier, Tully shared her preparation and arrival in Sydney with her 77,000 twitter followers.

Sparkle: Former Big Brother housemate Tully Smyth turned heads as she arrived at Australian Fashion Week 2016, in Sydney, on Monday, wearing a sparkly mini dress and thigh high suede boots

After getting over a cold that she feared would leave her a sneezy, snotty mess just in time for Fashion Week, it was time to start packing.

You would think by now that I'd be an efficient packer but nope...pushing my luggage allowance to the absolute max kg, she tweeted.

Then she caught an Uber to Melbourne airport and marvelled at how the driver had to ask where they were going after watching me struggle down the driveway with two massive suitcases.

On the plane she showed a moment of self-doubt about her upcoming host duties: Not nervous at all. Also, def the least fashionable person heading to Fashion Week.
It's been a whirlwind few days for Kendall Jenner.

And by Sunday night the model was seen partying with Scott Disick in Cannes at Gotham Nightclub.

The duo were seen heading into the hotspot as Kendall rocked a sheer top and silk hooded kimono while The Lord looked especially tanned.

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Making the rounds: It's been a whirlwind few days for Kendall Jenner and by Sunday night the model was seen partying with Scott Disick in Cannes at Gotham Nightclub

The model shared a shot on Snapchat of the father-of-three drinking what appeared to be an alcoholic beverage with family friend Leon Starino Anderson.

In the photo, Scott leaned on his pal's shoulders, tapping his drink as he posed for the shot.

For his night out, the 32-year-old wore a dark polo shirt, necklace and bronzed-coloured wrist watch.

Prior to his arrival in Cannes, the Keeping Up With the Kardashians' star documented his trip on social media.

The duo were seen heading into the hotspot as Kendall rocked a sheer top and silk hooded kimono while The Lord looked especially tanned

Leading the way: Kendall got out first as Scott followed

Careful: The model wore a split dress which made it difficult to get out of the car

In one snap, Scott is resting comfortably on-board a private jet. He was joined by three other pals, including Leon.

'When it's time 2 start hitting your guy friends asking what they plan 2 wear,' he joked.

The reality star was referring to pal Richard Myerson who was dressed similarly as the star.

Going out: Scott Disick, 32, joined pal Leon Starino Anderson for a night of partying in Cannes on Sunday

The DJ has arrived: Paris Hilton made an entrance to the club

Here to interview vampires? Kirsten Dunst came in a chic Salvatore Ferragamo dress to Gotham

En route: The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star left LAX on Friday evening

On Thursday, Scott joined Kendall's sister Kylie at the Nylon magazine party in L.A.

Earlier that day, news broke that the 18-year-old and her rapper boyfriend split for good.

It was most likely comforting for the young teen to spend time with a familiar face, especially one who has been in her shoes before.

Scott previously split with the girls' sister Kourtney last summer.

Enjoying the ride: Prior to his arrival in Cannes, the father-of-three documented his trip on social media

'Not the worst': On Instagram, Scott shared a beautiful view overlooking water

Consoling her: On Thursday, Scott joined Kendall's sister Kylie Jenner, 18, at the Nylon magazine party in L.A.

Dressing up: Kendall Jenner, 20, attended a dinner in France on Sunday




He became one of the most talked-about personalities on Australian television after walking away with the coveted Gold Logie at the 2016 TV Week Logie Awards, earlier this month.

But despite heightened interest in his life, Waleed Aly has managed to remain a private person, enjoying family life with his wife Dr. Susan Carland and their two children.

In a rare interview with TV Week this week, the 37-year-old opened up about his nine-year-old son Zayd's autism, revealing he is improving as he grows older.

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'He's coming in leaps and bounds': Waleed Aly opened up about his son Zayd's autism in an interview with TV Week, published on Monday

'Because of the early diagnosis, he was able to get the support he needed. He's just coming on in leaps and bounds,' The Project host said.

'Hes a lovely little man, and its lovely watching him grow through all these things.'

Zayd was diagnosed in 2011, which Waleed says was a 'major' thing for the family.

The TV star added that he had initially decided not to discuss their son's condition publicly, but a discussion with his wife changed his mind.

Diagnosis: Zayd was diagnosed with autism in 2011

Debate: Waleed and his wife Susan debated whether to talk about their son's condition publicly

'I'd decided I wasn't going to talk publicly about it partly because I thought it was his [Zayd's] call,' he said.

'But I had a really good chat with Susan, and we spoke about whether it would be a good thing for us to do.'

Waleed has discussed the topic of Autism several times on his award-winning show, The Project, and he said he felt like the stigma associated with the condition was beginning to wane.

So cute! The couple also have a daughter, Aisha, who is 13 (but was one when this picture was taken)

Heightened interest: Waleed became one of the most talked-about personalities on Australian television after walking away with the coveted Gold Logie, earlier this month

Waleed and Susan were married in 2002 and their first child, Aisha, is 13.

The couple remain exceptionally private, and unlike many high profile identities do not have an overly active life on social media.

The down-to-earth journalist and academic accepted the Gold Logie Award for Best Personality on Australian Television at the awards ceremony in Melbourne on May 8.
Country brothers Luke and Cody have left their small cottage in Dalby, Queensland in the hands of the fellow House Rules contestants for the fourth renovation round on Monday's episode.

But the other couples were left puzzled by the twin's 'house rules', which featured some rather unusual requests - including a bedroom inspired by Hollywood actor George Clooney.

Elsewhere, they asked their rivals to add some 'city shine' to their 'country gem' located in in the Darling Downs, approximately 200km from Brisbane, and also hoped for 'blokey' colours and stone.

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Their turn: Country brothers Luke and Cody have left their small cottage in Dalby, Queensland, in the hands of the fellow House Rules contestants for the fourth renovation round on Monday's episode

LUKE AND CODY'S HOUSE RULES RULE 1 - Add city shine to our country gem RULE 2 - Give Luke a classic gentleman's master suite RULE 3 - Channel George Clooney in Cody's room RULE 4 - Bloke it up with blue and put stone in every zone RULE 5 - Throw in a porch to yarn on

Meanwhile, House Rules design expert Carolyn Burns-McCrave had a extra challenge for the contestants when she visited the site as they began renovations.

Carolyn told the teams that, as the reveal is scheduled to take place on the brothers' birthday, they must arrange a surprise present.

As the house itself is so small, she suggested the group had enough spare time to build a shared deck area Luke and Cody can enjoy.

Chosen one: Eventually, Australian Navy logistics officer Rob was chosen to oversee the project, but not everybody was happy with his military-style leadership skills

But unlike their zone work, all five couples must work together and allocate a project leader to complete the job.

Eventually, Australian Navy logistics officer Rob was chosen to oversee the project, but not everybody was happy with his military-style leadership skills.

There was certainly tension as Rob tried to marshal the contestants, with Adelaide father Brooke saying: 'God, he's unreal!'

FOURTH RENOVATION ZONES ZONE 1 - Bathroom and front porch - Rose & Rob ZONE 2 - Entry and hallway, living room and walk-in robe - Fil & Joe ZONE 3 - Luke's master bedroom and laundry - Brooke & Michelle ZONE 4 - En-suite and Cody's bedroom - Dan & Nancy ZONE 5 - Guest bedroom, kitchen and dining area - Claire & Hagan

Not happy: There was certainly tension as Rob tried to marshal the contestants, with Adelaide father Brooke saying: 'God, he's unreal!'

Meanwhile, as the renovations continued in earnest, there was one funny highlight as blonde contestant Claire couldn't stop laughing when talking about handling 'wood'.

During an on-camera segment, Claire and her fiance Hagan, who both hail from Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, were discussing their choice of timber for the guest bedroom.

'I don't have a lot of knowledge with wood,' she said before her wry smile caused the couple to both burst into laughter.

Sense of humour: Meanwhile, as the renovations continued in earnest, there was one funny highlight as blonde contestant Claire couldn't stop laughing when talking about handling 'wood'

Cracking up: During an on-camera segment, Claire and her fiance Hagan, who both hail from Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, were discussing their choice of timber for the guest bedroom

The scene then cut away, and Claire tried a second attempt: 'I don't have a lot of knowledge when it comes to building beds and using wood, so...'

But the couple, once again, started cackling at the sexual innuendo. ('Wood' is sometime used colloquially to refer to a male's erect penis).

Eventually, she gave up on using the term 'wood' completely, but the cheeky pair still couldn't help laughing.

For the THIRD take, Claire began, 'When it comes to timber I...,' before swearing and the pair started to giggle again.

And for the fourth and final try, she said simply: When it comes to timber, I don't have any knowledge'.

Luke and Cody's renovation continues on House Rules on Tuesday night at 7:30pm on Seven.
She's one of the hottest bikini models on Instagram with almost 500,000 followers.

And Natalie Roser was once again flaunting her fabulous figure as she took part in a sizzling photo shoot in Bondi Beach, Sydney this week.

The 25-year-old was seen displaying her sun-kissed frame in a skimpy two-piece on Monday afternoon.

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Beach body ready! Instagram sensation Natalie Roser (pictured) was once again flaunting her curves as she took part in a photo shoot in Bondi Beach, Sydney on Monday

Natalie, a former body double of Jennifer Hawkins, looked simply flawless as she struck several poses for photographer Josephine Clough.

The blonde beauty showed off her washboard abs and enviable figure in the black and blue floral patterned bikini.

Meanwhile, the former Miss Universe Australia contender put her ample 34C-cup breasts on full display in the cleavage-baring ensemble.

Touch up! The 25-year-old was seen displaying her sun-kissed frame in a very skimpy two-piece, as a stylist was spotted applying some sand to her ripped-yet-feminine physique

Ready for her close-up: The blonde beauty showed off her washboard abs and enviable hourglass figure in the black and blue floral patterned bikini

Natalie, who is based in Sydney and previously took part in Fox8's The Face, also flaunted her shapely derriere in the tie-side Brazilian bottoms while soaking up the sun's rays.

Having recently signed with a New York modelling agency One Management, the gym-buddy of Jesinta Campbell looked particularly well-toned for the trip.

Opting for simple make-up which highlighted her striking natural beauty, she also appeared refreshingly cool despite temperatures reaching heights of 23C.

Bottoms up! Natalie, who is based in Sydney and is a former Miss Universe Australia contender, also flaunted her shapely derriere in a pair of tie-side Brazilian bottoms while soaking up the sun's rays

Accessoriser: Natalie flaunted a set of colourful nails while posing for the cameras on behalf of beauty brand Manicare in collaboration with Australian swimwear designers We Are Handsome

At one point, a stylist was spotted applying some sand to her ripped-yet-feminine physique and touched up her hair and make-up.

Natalie notably accessorised with a set of colourful nails while posing for the cameras for beauty brand Manicare in collaboration with Australian swimwear designers We Are Handsome.

Meanwhile, she has been dating celebrity personal trainer Dan Adair since 2014 and recently revealed on Instagram the couple were doing 'wedding research' together.
She's rarely afraid to flash her assets in revealing outfits and swimwear.

But Angelique 'Frenchy' Morgan took things to another level during a yoga session on the sands of a beach in Malibu over the weekend.

While doing a variety of different poses, the 40-year-old slipped out of her bikini top - which was already struggling to contain her ample assets - flashing her nipples.

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Oh dear! Angelique 'Frenchy' Morgan took things to another next level during a yoga session in Malibu over the weekend, slipping out of her bikini top while practicing her poses

Keeping in her usual theme, Frenchy donned a Barbie pink strapless bikini top and bottoms that featured a risque zipper in front.

Even her long blonde locks matched her attire, with bright pink highlights at the ends.

The glamour model also sported the unusual choice of pink Ugg boots for her beach session.

Barbie pink! Keeping in her usual theme, Frenchy donned a Barbie pink strapless bikini top and bottoms that featured a risque zipper in front

Stretching session: Even her long blonde locks matched her attire, with bright pink highlights at the ends

Sunning herself: Despite the unusual yoga wear, the former UK Big Brother star still managed to look beachy with an oversized pair of dark sunglasses

Despite the bizarre yoga wear, the former UK Big Brother star still managed to look beachy with an oversized pair of dark sunglasses perched on her face.

Frenchy made sure to get in a good stretching session under the sunshine, doing the splits and posing in several different positions, all while texting on her phone at the same time.

The former exotic dancer looked at peace as she sat on her knees and pressed her palms pressed together.

Multi-talented! Frenchy made sure to get in a good stretching session while enjoying the sunshine, doing the splits and managing to pose in several different positions, all while text at the same time

Peaceful: The former exotic dancer looked at peace as she sat on her knees and pressed her palms pressed together

No troubles: She continued to practice her yoga throughout her time at the beach

She was also seen frolicking in the ocean and flashing her pert derriere to the cameras as she bent over.

Unfortunately for onlookers, Frenchy's rumoured girlfriend Gabi Grecko was no where to be seen.

She began dating the estranged wife of Australian businessman Geoffrey Edelsten last month, with the pair posing for a series of shocking photo shoots together.

Solo trip: Unfortunately for onlookers, who got a glimpse of the French-born reality star on the beach, Frenchy's rumoured girlfriend Gabi Grecko was nowhere to be seen

Full frontal: She began dating the estranged wife of Australian businessman Geoffrey Edelsten last month, with the pair posing for a series of shocking photo shoots together

Day dreaming: The reality star looked to be enjoying herself during the outing

Talking about her feelings towards her 26-year-old love, Angelique recently told Daily Mail Australia: 'We talk everyday, we are together as BFFs and dating.

'And, yes, I am bisexual,' she added.

While Frenchy is based on the west coast of the United States, Gabi relocated back to New York after her split from the controversial 72-year-old Australian.

Taking a dip: She was also seen frolicking in the ocean and flashing her pert derriere to the cameras as she bent over

Opening up: Talking about her feelings towards her 26-year-old love, Angelique recently told Daily Mail Australia: 'We talk everyday, we are together as BFFs and dating'

Long distance love: While Frenchy is based on the west coast of the United States, Gabi relocated back to New York after her split from the controversial 72-year-old Australian

Bouncing along: Frenchy channeled her inner-Baywatch chick as she ran along the foreshore in the shallow water

Odd choice: The glamour model sported the unusual choice of pink Ugg boots for her beach session

Settling in: French looked comfortable on the sand
The survivors finally reached the picture-postcard Mexican compound promised by Victor Strand on Sunday's episode of Fear The Walking Dead.

Their destination however turned out to be less than an idyllic setting.

Victor was heartbroken to find his wealthy partner Thomas Abigail, who owned the paradise-like villa, slowly dying after being bitten by one of the walking dead.

Fond farwell: Victor Strand bid farewell to lover Thomas Abigail on Sunday's episode of Fear The Walking Dead

As he tenderly held and nursed his lover, Victor initially offered to 'go with' him as they hatched a plot to be poisoned by Celia Flores, the matriarch of the villa who treated Thomas as much as a son as a boss.

'How very Shakesperian of you,' Thomas teased him of the plot, with Victor replying earnestly: 'There's nothing left for me here when you're gone.'

As Celia brought them two posioned wafers for their suicide plot, she happily told Victor: 'I never thought you were good enough for him.'

'I'm aware,' he replied, before she praised him for the 'brave and beautiful thing you have decided to do.'

Villa matriarch: Celia proposed some wild ideas about life and death as the survivors entered the compound

'I want you to know how proud I am. I was wrong about you,' she insisted, kissing him on the cheek as she left the room.

After stroking his lover's face and kissing him on the head, Victor slowly stood up - and a gunshot was soon heard but not seen.

The next scene showed Victor holding a pillow over Thomas's head, tears running down his face as the pool of blood widened on the sheets.

Fatal infection: Thomas was bit after going to a church to warn parishioners about to attack his villa

Earlier, Celia's own son, Luis, had been shot dead in a gun battle in the final part of the group's journey to reach land - but his mother made it clear she was not worried because he had not been shot in the head.

'He'll find his way back,' she smiled after being told he was 'one of them now.'

Yacht death: Luis was killed on the yacht and asked not to be stabbed in the head

On land: Victor lead the survivors to a church only to find the parishioners had been massacred

Her remark suggested that she will be devastated by Victor's actions, as shooting Thomas in the head no longer allows him to make his return.

She soon took Nick Clark under her wing, laying out her philosophy to him when he told her he was 'sick of it - all the killing.'

'None of this is new, Nicholas,' she insisted. 'We are just visitors. Our dead - and they are our dead - they have always walked amongst us. The only difference is now we can see them.'

Bowl of pozole: Celia offered Nick a bowl of pozole and shared her thoughts about the dead with him

'It's a pretty big difference,' Nick's mother Madison said, walking in on the chat and clearly suspicious of Celia and her motives.

Later, Celia told Nick that 'they are not dead,' insisting: 'They are what comes next.'

Earlier, a church congregation was seen bleeding from the eyes before being mauled by the walkers, with the priest telling Thomas it was Celia's fault.

Bloody eyes: The parishioners started bleeding from the eyes after being poisoned

Kill or be killed: Daniel Salazar hesitated before killing a priest who had turned

Zombie girl: Nick was forced to kill a little girl zombie

The congregation was preparing for an assault on Thomas's compound, but he intervened and came to warn them but they already had been poisoned.

Daniel Salazar - who only begrudgingly agreed to hand over his weapons upon entering the compound - later found a jail cell of walkers in the villa's cellar, with Celia telling him they were 'family' of people who had worked there.

'Over my dead body was I going to refuse them shelter,' she told him. 'It wasn't safe for them out there, the were being hunted - like monsters.'

In the cellar: Celia had zombies who were family or people who worked a the villa caged in the cellar

Being hunted: Daniel listened as Celia said the zombies were being hunted like monsters

'By bringing death close you endanger us all,' he warned.

Meanwhile, Travis Manawa confronted son Christopher about accusations that he killed Reed back on the yacht even though he 'wasn't sick' - seemingly sending the youngster over the edge.

As they all were confronted by walkers outside the church upon first reaching dry land, Chirs saw Madison pinned and close to being bitten - and stood back and watched, before her daughter Alicia leaped in and killed the walker on top of her.

No help: Alicia and Madison looked at Chris after he just watched as a walker nearly killed Madison

When Alicia confronted him later, Chris insisted he just 'froze' - and warned her off telling anyone what she claimed to have seen.

'I don't want to hurt anyone,' he insisted menacingly.

It created friction between Madison and Travis when she told him what Alicia had seen, with Travis insisting his son at most needed help.

Making a threat: Chris threatened Alicia not to tell anyone about him not helping Madison

At odds: Madison told Travis about Nick's behaviour and he asked for her help with the boy

'When Nick was at his worst I was there for him. Every search, every rehab, who was there for him?' Travis asked.

Madison seemed unconvinced, and stayed the night away from Travis, instead cuddling up to her daughter - with Chris then coming into their room while they slept and picking up a blade.

They were awoken by the gunshot as Victor killed Thomas and the episode ended with them screaming for Chris to leave their room.
She's still coming down from the whirlwind high of her fairytale wedding to musician Gary Clarke Jnr. in Palm Springs last month.

And Australian supermodel Nicole Trunfio touched down in Australia on Saturday to visit her ill father, who was too sick to make it to her nuptials and walk her down the aisle.

Nicole, 30, uploaded various snaps to Instagram of herself and her one-year-old son Zion on the plane from Los Angeles, and captioned it 'next stop' with the hashtag 'Sydney', then another later with the caption 'Made it'.

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Made it! Nicole Trunfio arrived in Australia after the long flight with her son Zion on Saturday

Her 'idol': The Australian supermodel is in the country visiting her sick father, Joe, who was diagnosed with appendix cancer five years ago, according to The Daily Telegraph

While it was initially thought the fashionista was heading homebound to take part in Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Sydney,The Daily Telegraph reports she is actually visiting her father.

Nicole's father Joe was diagnosed with appendix cancer five years ago when he was told he only had 11 months to live.

In 2014, the beauty opened up to The Sunday Times about the important role her father has played in her life.

Watch out! The doting mother uploaded various snaps to Instagram of her and her one-year-old son Zion, on their way to Sydney

'My dad is my Idol. He is a hardworking family man who built such a solid foundation for all his children,' she said.

The West-Australian native married American musician Gary Clark Jr. three weeks ago in a star-studded ceremony in California.

For the nuptials, Nicole wowed in a white Steven Khalil wedding dress and the guest list boasted a whole host of their celebrity friends.

Baby on board: The 30-year-old joked that her son looked like an angel and acted like a devil, implying that all mothers would understand what flying with a baby is like

And although her father and 'idol' was not present during her wedding, the Perth-born model said she felt 'blessed' to be surrounded by other close family members and friends.

Fellow Australian models and close pals Gemma Ward and Jessica Gomes served as bridesmaids on the big day.

Nicole and Gary announced their engagement in November 2014, and they welcomed their son in January last year.
When it comes to red carpet glamour, Lady Victoria Hervey rarely puts a foot wrong with her fashion choices.

The blonde beauty, 39, made sure she made quite the impression on Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival by making three outfit changes - going through two dress before ending the day in a plunging jumpsuit.

The British socialite later changed into a demure white bridal style gown as she attended the Land of the Moon premiere, before slipping into a silver satin one-piece for The Art of Elysium event.

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Making a statement? Lady Victoria Hervey made sure she made quite the impression on Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival by making three outfit changes - going through two dresses and a plunging jumpsuit

Good things come in threes? The socialite, 39, went for a daring sheer gown before changing into a white bridal dress as she attended the Land of the Moon premiere, finishing the day in a silver satin jumpsuit

Heading to the event - held by Tim Headington and Elyssium Bandinin studios - Lady Victoria, made sure that she stood out from the crowd with her third outfit of the day.

Switching up her sartorial theme from ball gowns to something a little more quirky, the blonde beauty slipped into a plunging silver Julia Clancey satin jumpsuit.Featuring a dramatic neckline, the socialite and one-time actress sizzled in the evening air as she flashed a tantalizing amount of flesh.

Turning heads: Heading to the event - held by Tim Headington and Elyssium Bandinin studios - Lady Victoria, made sure that she stood out from the crowd with her third outfit of the day

Stealing the show with her stylish sass? Featuring a dramatic neckline, the socialite and one-time actress sizzled in the evening air as she flashed a tantalizing amount of flesh

With a cinched in waist accentuated by a glittering embellished belt, the daring one-piece also featured ruffled sleeves and tapering legs which served to add a retro vibe to the garment.

She added a pair of towering silver heels to the mix too, while she added an opulent diamond statement necklace to her look; she accessorised further with a collection of jewellery and a copper clutch.

Lady Victoria kept her blonde locks coiffed and style in the sweeping back do, she'd sported throughout the day.

Bold: For her first look - at American Honey premiere - Victoria went all out to impress in her daring ensemble which had strategically placed diamantes around her bust.

For her first look - at American Honey premiere - Victoria went all out to impress in her daring ensemble which had strategically placed diamantes around her bust.

Delicate sparkling beading adorned the arms of her unique ensemble as she stepped out on the sunny Croisette in the south of France.

Victoria showed off her toned torso through her garment, which fell to the floor in a sheer train as she walked.

Legs appeal: She wore a glitzy miniskirt underneath it to make the most of her gym-honed physique and her long, tanned legs

Layered look: She wore a glitzy miniskirt underneath it to make the most of her gym-honed physique and her long, tanned legs

Victoria's trim figure could be seen through the sheer material as she put on a very leggy display on the night.

She wore a glitzy miniskirt underneath it to make the most of her gym-honed physique and her long, tanned legs.

Meanwhile, her hair was swept up in an elegant updo, with cascading curls falling down her back.

She completed her showstopping outfit with a pair of alluring diamond heels with red jewels on the straps.

Stunning: Victoria's sheer figure hugging frock featured a thigh split which showed off Victoria's best assets as she strutted her stuff on Sunday at the American Honey official screening

Backless: The daring frock showed off plenty of flesh through its backless cutout on the red carpet

Victoria joined a host of stars to watch the screening of the comic drama about a teenage girl who joins a traveling magazine sales crew, and gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying and law bending.

The film, which stars Shia LaBeouf, McCaul Lombardi and Arielle Holmes, and is directed to Andrea Arnold, is in competition at the 69th Annual Cannes Film Festival.

The socialite was recently promoting her book, Lady In Waiting, the first title in the Wristband Diaries series.

Lady Victoria is known for being a model, socialite and aristocrat but she has now been signed on a three book deal with publishers, Totally Entwined.
Her hair evolution has ranged from long blonde tresses to a sleek bob.

And Lily Collins took a break from her usually brunette locks as she shared her boldest look yet - flaming fuchsia - on her Instagram page on Sunday.

Unveiling a quirky selfie, the 27-year-old actress sported the bright shoulder-length hairstyle which she captioned: 'Fueling the fire within. Red hair don't care #timeforachange #KrazyinKorea...'

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Hair today: Lily Collins took a break from her usually brunette locks as she shared her boldest look yet - flaming fuchsia - on her Instagram page on Sunday

'Slice open this massive Korean watermelon and I bet my hair would fit right in': The actress, 27, poked fun at her new hair colour as she posed with the heavy fruit in a fun snap

One large fluttery eye was on show as she looked directly down the lens, while her freshly blow-dried locks fell in front of the other- showing off the daring colour as it caught the light.

Not done with showing off her latest look, the daughter of British musician Phil Collins and former model Jill Tavelman, went on to share two more similar poses.

In one she ensured the locks were swept off her face as she looked down and captioned it: 'Let the flames burn, I'm ready for the fumes #KrazyinKorea...'

Fiery beauty: The daughter of British musician Phil Collins and former model Jill Tavelman teasingly looked down the lens while her newly bold locks fell across her face

Look at those features: A yellow-tinted filter and contrasting balck Z Supply tee also added more depth to the colour and showed off her razor sharp cheekbones

Paving way to a different side of her personality to emerge, she captioned the next image: 'Too many colors in the rainbow to stay the same #KrazyinKorea #alteregoemerges...,' as she posed side on with strands teasingly placed across her face.

The hashtags stamped on her images have suggested that the Surrey born actress has taken inspiration from the fashion scene of Korea.

Since her image overhaul, she has been littering her social media feed with snaps of her soaking up the culture with jokey captions relating back to her hair.

In one image she poses alongside her Lancome make-up ad, which featured the brand's representative putting on a flirty display in a hot pink feathery number.

'Living life through rose tinted locks': She even spotted her hot pink Lancome ad and compared her locks to the flirty image

'#Timeforachange': Lily's hair evolution has ranged from long blonde tresses to a sleek bob and now, wild bright pink locks

'When your vibrant hair color matches your dress and lipstick. Shaking things up and living life through rose tinted locks @lancomeofficial #lancome #juicyshaker...,; she enthused.

In another she held on to a large watermelon and stated: 'Slice open this massive Korean watermelon and I bet my hair would fit right in #fruitinspired #itsabnormallyheavy #supermarkettourist...'.

She opted for a spot of shopping in another wacky image and posed with a sleeveless top and stated her concern: ' Twinning with Frida Khalo's dog but not sure how I feel about it.

'To wear or no to wear? I say, Fri-da-puppy...'.

While she seems to be having the time of her life, she's arrived in Korea to film for her new adventure flick Okja, which also stars Jake Gyllenhall and Tilda Swinton.

Twinning: Lily opted for a spot of shopping in Korea - where she's filming her new flick Okja alongside Jake Gyllenhall and Tilda Swinton - when she came across a top featuring Frida Khalo's dog

Lily is a passionate follower of fashion and has previously revealed she draws inspiration from her father, British rocker Phil Collins, and her mother, American former model Jill Tavelman, when it comes to her own personal style.

Speaking in a recent interview with Yahoo Style, she explained: 'I remember [my dad and I] used to go to Abercrombie and Fitch together. We'd have Abercrombie shopping trips together - go figure.'

But while her father enjoyed sharing with her his love of simple main street designs, Lily's mother Jill, with whom she moved to Los Angeles following her parents divorce, passed on a love of vintage fashion finds, making sure to introduce her daughter to some of the world's best-loved brands.

'When I was growing up, I was really into vintage,' Lily added. '[My mom] has all the vintage Vivienne Westwood and all these cool pieces that are so hard to find.'
It was a devilishly difficult pressure test - trying to re-create returning hero Reynold Poernomo's spectacular 'Moss' dish.

And the pressure proved too much for Olivia Robinson who was eliminated from MasterChef Australia after falling over in the final minutes of plating up the 10-element, seven-page dessert.

This is the second time in two nights that contestants have gone flying in the kitchen, with Chloe Bowles tripping over another competitor's foot in a battle over the freezer on Sunday night.

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Out of the competition: Olivia Robinson (pictured) was eliminated from MasterChef Australia on Monday

In the frantic final minutes of the pressure test on Monday, Olivia was seen sprinting between the freezer and her work bench as she went head-to-head with Chloe and Karmen Lu.

Olivia then slipped on the floor of the kitchen and did not have enough time to take her Matcha balls out of the blast chiller.

'I realise I've left my Matcha balls in the blast chiller. So, I start to run over to get it...and I slip and I stacked it.

'Time's up my Matcha balls are in the freezer and I'm really worried.'

'I stacked it': Olivia fell over in the kitchen in the frantic final minutes of finishing the dish

Woops! Olivia went flying across the kitchen floor and was not able to get her Matcha balls out of the chiller

Emotional farewell: Olivia was seen in tears when she left the MasterChef kitchen on Monday night

Returning hero: Reynold Poernomo set the competitors a difficult pressure test on Monday night

Signature dish: The competitors had to re-create Reynold's intricate 'Moss' dish

She was not able to recover from the mistake and was told she would be leaving the competition.

Judge Gary Mehigan told her: 'We've loved having you here, Olivia and I hope you've loved being here too.

'But now, I'm afraid, it's time to leave the MasterChef kitchen. Say goodbye to your friends.'

Blinking back tears, Olivia said: 'I've had such an amazing time here. I've met incredible people. I have learnt so many new skills.

'I've proved to myself that I am good at cooking and now it's time to move on to my next adventure.'

Woops! Chloe Bowles tripped over one of her fellow contestant's legs in the MasterChef Australia kitchen on Sunday

Reynold, 22, who was dubbed the dessert king of last season, put the contestants though their paces with an intricate 40-step dessert.

His signature dish, Moss, combines pistachio sponge cake, dried fennel fronds, apple sorbet, yogurt foam, dulce crema, and an apple blossom pearl.

There was also a tricky sphere of pistachio mousse, coated with Matcha with a caramel gel inside.

When he walked back through the doors, he said it was 'weird' standing with the judges.

He told the waiting contestants how much his life has changed since he appeared on MasterChef as he now runs Koi Dessert Bar in Sydney's Chippendale,

What an entrance: Reynold, 22, was dubbed the dessert king of last season

Tough competition: Olivia went head-to-head with Karmen Lu and Chloe Bowles (l-r)

'So, I had a pop-up restaurant, that went pretty crazy,' he said.

'My emails just went full within five minutes. So, my brothers and I started to collaborate together, so we've got a dessert bar, that's down in Chippendale in Sydney.'

Karmen said she was 'inspired' at seeing how MasterChef has changed Reynold's life.

She said: 'Seeing him opening his own dessert bar and living his dream is something that clicks for me. He's living proof that I can achieve that as well.
Kelly Brook has been left fuming after easyJet lost her bags - leaving the model with nothing to wear once she touched down in Cannes for the Film Festival.

The 36-year-old beauty took to Twitter to vent her anger at the budget airline, which mislaid her bag on a flight from Gatwick to Nice on Sunday.

But the mishap does not seem to have dampened her spirits too much, as the English actress later posted sultry snaps with her French beau Jeremy Parisi of the pair enjoying the sun on the French Riviera.

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Angry: Kelly Brook took to Twitter to vent her anger at easyJet, after her baggage was mislaid on a flight from Gatwick to Nice on Sunday as she made her way to the Cannes Film Festival

In a series of angry tweets, Kelly wrote: 'Hey @easyjet any chance you can find my Bag that you never tagged and put on the conveyor belt this morning!! Gatwick/Nice.

She added: '@easyjet I hope you compensate your customers for the lack of Care and customer service. Nothing Easy about your Airline. The Worst.'

Before ending the exchange with: '@easyJet airline and customer service is the worst. Told to let my bag go on a belt without a tag and when I tried to take it was told off.'

The tweets have since been deleted by Kelly, who is enjoying some down time in France.

While some of her close to a million followers were sympathetic with her plight, others were incredulous.

Furious: In a series of angry tweets, Kelly wrote: 'Hey @easyjet any chance you can find my Bag that you never tagged and put on the conveyor belt this morning!! Gatwick/Nice

Sultry: The mishap does not seem to have dampened her spirits too much, as the English beauty later posted snaps with her French beau Jeremy Parisi of the pair enjoying the sun on the Riviera

One exasperated user wrote: 'Why you even flying with them? You can afford better no?? X'

Kelly is clearly smitten with her man Jeremy, with whom she posted a snap by the pool in Cannes.

He often accompanies her on her overseas adventures, to make sure she enjoys the mantra of 'work hard, play harder'.

The Piranha 3D star is yet to officially deny or confirm whether she is engaged to the Frenchman after she was spotted wearing a diamond ring earlier this year.

Fun in the sun: The tweets have since been removed by Kelly, who is enjoying some down time in France

However, she appeared to dismiss any binding rumours in February by sharing a retro themed greeting card on Instagram, depicting a woman reading a bedtime story to her daughter.

Kelly was previously engaged to actor Billy Zane before splitting in 2008, and called off her engagement to CBB star David McIntosh in 2014 after a whirlwind few months together.

A spokesperson for the airline said: 'EasyJet can confirm that the bag was found and sent on the next service to Nice and delivered to Kelly Brook last night. We would like to apologise for the delay to the bag.'
He recently sparked rumours he had moved on after posting an image on social media with a pretty blonde.

And James Stewart added fuel to the fire that there is a blossoming romance as he was spotted canoodling with Jessica Nock earlier this month during an outing with pals in Bondi.

The 40-year-old actor put on an amorous display as the pair locked lips as they cosied up on a balcony.

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Not acting: James Stewart added fuel to the fire that he is enjoying a blossoming romance with Jessica Nock earlier this month as they were spotted kissing during an outing with friends in Bondi

James looked smart in a fresh white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to flaunt his toned forearms.

The Home And Away actor grey trousers matched with stylish brown shoes to complete the casual look.

His dark locks were effortlessly styled with a small amount of product for a tousled look and he looked smitten with his companion.

Stylish: The 40-year-old actor looked smart in a fresh white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to flaunt his toned forearms

Heating things up: The Home And Away star put on an amorous display as he locked lips with the blonde on a balcony

Jessica opted for a casual look and showed off her slim figure in a pair of skintight black jeans that featured rips at the knees and thighs.

Adding to her look she wore a black plunging top with simple detailing across the chest.

She finished her look she wrapped an Aztec printed cardigan around her shoulders and donned a pair of beige boots.

Enjoying himself: His dark locks were effortlessly styled with a small amount of product for a tousled look and he looked very happy to be next to the pretty blonde

Keeping close: James and Jessica appeared to be very engaged in a lively chat and laughed as they cosied up together next to a brick wall and shared several kisses

Getting cosy: The pair appeared very comfortable in each others company and Jessica reached over to place her arm on him several times

Her wildly curled locks were swept dramatically to one side and breezed around her face as they spent time together on the balcony.

The pair appeared very comfortable in each others company and Jessica reached over to place her arm on him several times.

James and Jessica appeared to be very engaged in a lively chat and laughed as they cosied up.

Low-key style: Jessica opted for a casual look and showed off her slim figure in a pair of skin tight black jeans that featured rips at the knees

New flame: Her wildly curled locks were swept dramatically to one side and breezed around her face as they spent time together on the balcony

Eyes on the prize: At one point they both leaned over the brick wall of the balcony to admire the view, although James had his eyes fixated on Jessica

Jessica looked adoringly at James and flaunted her pretty features as her hair was swept off her face behind her shoulders.

At one point they both leaned over the brick wall of the balcony to admire the view, although James had his eyes fixated on Jessica.

Earlier in the day the pair made their way to the Bondi residence where they enjoyed their afternoon of socialising with friends.

Social pair: Earlier in the day they made their way to the Bondi residence where they enjoyed their afternoon of socialising with friends

In good company: James looked delighted to be spending time with fellow actors Ryan Corr and George Mason who walked in front of him down the suburban street

The actor shielded his eyes behind a pair of dark shades and flashed a cheeky grin as he and Jessica walked down the street.

James looked delighted to be spending time with fellow actors Ryan Corr and George Mason who walked in front of him down the suburban street.

Cradled tight in their hands, both Ryan and George both held on tight to a six-pack of beers ahead of their afternoon.

Prepared: Cradled tight in their hands, both Ryan and George both held on tight to a six-pack of beers ahead of their afternoon

Local haunt: James and Jessica were also seen leaving the popular Bondi hotspot Porch and Parlour and appeared to be in high spirits

Another outing: The former Packed To The Rafters star took to social media earlier this month to share a picture as he enjoyed time with friends, and Jessica who appears to be his new flame

James and Jessica were also seen leaving the popular Bondi hotspot Porch and Parlour and appeared to be in high spirits.

The former Packed To The Rafters star took to social media earlier this month to share a picture as he enjoyed time with friends, and Jessica who appears to be his new flame.

She is the first woman that James has been linked to following his split with former partner who interestingly shares the same name, Jessica Marais.

Moving on? Jessica is the first woman that James has been linked to following his split with former partner who interestingly shares the same name

Cheeky: During the outing James notice a pal on the street and put on a dramatic display pointing at what he was looking at with Jessica beside him

The pair announced they had split in May last year, and their management released a statement at the time revealing the news, saying that the two actors were focusing on their daughter Scout.

'Jessica Marais and James Stewart have amicably separated. Their main focus at this time is the co-parenting of their daughter and they ask that media respect their privacy,' it read.

The couple met on set of Channel 7 family drama Packed To The Rafters in 2009, and made their first public appearance as a couple at the Logies nomination breakfast in March 2010.

Enjoying time together: The pair appeared involved in plenty of animated conversation and James wildly moves his hands to emphasise a point during their chat

They got engaged in October that year and announced they were expecting their first child in November 2011, with Scout born in May 2012.

After a brief stint in Hollywood, where Jessica tried to crack into the market, the small family returned home, with the actress starring in a leading role on popular series of Love Child.

James has also gone on to land a role in the iconic Australian soap Home and Away and his character is set to appear on the small screen in coming episodes.

Over: James and his former partner Jessica Marais (pictured) announced they had split in May last year, and their management released a statement saying that the two actors were focusing on their daughter Scout
She shot to fame as the boisterous and outspoken mouthpiece for 'girl power' in the Spice Girls in the nineties.

And it seems that Geri Horner is more than content to leave her alter-ego, Ginger Spice, in the past after finding love with husband, Christian.

After posting a series of loved-up tributes to the F1 supremo on their first wedding anniversary, the 42-year-old spoke about her desire to 'move on' from her famous persona in an interview with Monday's G2.

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'You've got to move it on': It seems that Geri Horner is more than content to leave her alter-ego, Ginger Spice, in the past after finding love with husband, Christian

Speaking about finding happiness with Christian she explained that she found happiness and love alter on in life, as she felt she was 'emotionally stunted' at the height of her pop success in the '90s.

And with one year of domestic bliss under her belt, she explained that she no longer identifies as her public persona, Geri, rather she sees herself as Geraldine Horner.

'That's who I am, deep down I am Geraldine Horner,' explained the mother-of-one.

Call me Mrs. Horner! After posting a series of loved-up tributes to the F1 boss on their first wedding anniversary, she spoke about her desire to 'move on' from her famous persona in Monday's G2

And while she is still keen to release music as an artist, her new direction has also influenced the direction of her work.

'You've got to move it on,' She said of herself as a performer. 'I'm not going to be in my hotpants going: "Still got it!"'

And speaking of the new phase in her life, she revealed she feels more positive about herself than before.

Explaining her viewpoint, she said: 'I think I definitely am in a phase where I like myself a bit better now.'

'That's who I am, deep down I am Geraldine Horner': With one year of domestic bliss under her belt, she explained that she no longer identifies as her public persona, Geri, rather she sees herself as Geraldine Horner

Over it all? 'You've got to move it on,' She said of herself as a performer. 'I'm not going to be in my hotpants going: "Still got it!"'

What a weekend: And from Geri's series of loved-up snaps over the weekend, celebrating her first anniversary and a weekend at the Grand Prix, she has definitely found happiness with Christian

And from Geri's series of loved-up snaps over the weekend, celebrating her first anniversary and a weekend at the Grand Prix, she has definitely found happiness with Christian.

Taking to Instagram on Sunday she posted a throwback picture to mark her first year as Mrs. Horner, sharing a black and white snap from her wedding day with her followers.

Pictured in her bridal gown, having apparently just said 'I do', Geri can be seen kissing Christian - who is wearing full morning dress.

She captioned the sweet snap: 'Happy anniversary, to my darling husband Christian, one year !.'

And while Christian may have been hard at work in his role as an F1 team boss in Barcelona, he still found time to pose for a selfie with his wife - who was enjoying life in the pits with her daughter Bluebell and mother, Ana Maria.
She reportedly kicked out her toyboy lover Count Nikolai von Bismarck and ordered him to go to 'rehab'.

But Kate Moss didn't seem to have a care in the world as she was spotted arriving solo at Nice airport in France on Monday.

The supermodel cut a typically stylish figure in an all-black ensemble as she prepared to join in with the fun being held during the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival.

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'Single': Kate Moss didn't seem to have a care in the world as she was spotted arriving solo at Nice airport in France on Monday

The make-up free beauty was seen sporting black biker boots and carrying a black handbag while she held onto a large wrap.

Her blonde locks were left naturally straight as she strutted through the airport.

Kate has allegedly warned her toyboy lover that his riotous lifestyle has to go out the door with him.

The supermodel, 42, has had enough of her 29-year-old lover's debauched ways and sent him packing from her country home after 'erratic' behaviour during a week away in the Cotswolds.

Time to party: The supermodel cut a typically stylish figure in an all-black ensemble as she prepared to join in with the fun being held during the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival

Over it: Kate has reportedly kicked out her toyboy lover Count Nikolai von Bismarck (both pictured) after his wild ways became too much to handle

The final straw came when the blood-drinking Count Nikolai was said to be hallucinating on the trip and jumped out of a window to chase an imaginary intruder, reports the Sun.

Kate, who has had her fair share of bad boy lovers in the past, has growing concern for her partner and it is believed he has been shipped off to a rehab clinic while she promotes a skincare range in Canada.

The pair started dating after Kate split from her musician husband Jamie Hince, 47, in July, and since then they have been seen enjoying a holiday together in Brazil.

Past loves: Before separating from guitarist Jamie Hince (left) Moss formerly dated with drug addict rocker Pete Doherty

It is also believed that Nikolai has also moved into her 4million pad in Highgate, north London.

Unlike her previous high profile partners, Nikolai, the great-great-grandson of Prince Otto von Bismarck, the 19th-century Iron Chancellor of Prussia, is a society photographer and once admitted he drank 'cow's blood' while spending time with a tribe in Ethiopia.

During her younger days Kate was well known for her party lifestyle with claims that she would enjoy drink and drugs, such as cocaine, on wild nights out.

However, her current beau's behaviour has become too much for the fashion icon.

Model behaviour: Izabel Goulart was also spotted jetting into Nice Airport on Sunday ready for the fun and frolics of Cannes Film Festival

Jet-set style: The Brazilian supermodel looked incredible in tight-fitting jeans, a crisp white shirt and a camel coat, topped off with a bright purple oversized handbag

Off he goes: Meanwhile Ryan Gosling was seen leaving Nice Airport after his appearance at Cannes Film Festival

Head down: The actor, who has reportedly welcomed his second child with Eva Mendes, was seen keeping a low profile in casual ensemble

A source said: 'Nikolai was acting a bit crazy in the Cotswolds and it has brought everything to a head.

'She wants him sorted out. Nikolai does not look great at the moment, he looks generally the worse for wear and his face is a bit bloated.

'There are definitely problems which he will have to sort out or they will be over. Friends have warned him that he will lose Kate if he doesn't change.'

Kate is no stranger to dating men with a wild streak, before marrying The Kills guitarist Hince in 2011, she famously embarked on a tumultuous relationship with Libertines frontman Pete Doherty.

Doherty, who also played in indie band Babyshambles, has battled addiction to crack cocaine and heroin for some years and the pair often found their relationship splashed across the front pages.

Beaming beauty: Another famous face arriving in Cannes was Barbara Palvin

Chic and simple: The Hungarian beauty looked simply stunning in a casual monochrome ensemble

Travelling light? The model appeared to only arrive with a quirky leather handbag, however, it's safe to assume she had at least one case along for the ride

Striking: With her long dark hair tied back into a long ponytail, Barbara allowed her striking and featured to shine through

Fan-damonium: She was greeted by a hoard of fans, and couldn't help but smile as she signed autographs for her fans

Meanwhile the world of pop also descended into Cannes - with Motown legend Diana Ross leading the way.

The former Supremes singer, 72, looked glamorous wearing her over-sized sunglasses and a slick of pink lipstick as she arrived with her daughter.

Chart-topping singer Jason Derulo was next to arrive - flanked by a fair sized entourage.

The Talk Dirty To Me singer, 26, showed off his toned arms in a sleeveless baggy black vest and black combat trousers.

Actor Viggo Mortensen, 57, cut a handsome figure as he arrived at the 69th Cannes Film Festival.

The Captain Fantastic star rocked a smart casual look wearing blue jeans with a dark top.

A grey suit jacket added a touch of class to his ensemble as he touched down on French soil on Monday.

Chain reaction: Diana Ross was the latest in a string of celebs to arrive at Nice for the annual festival

Family time: Diana was accompanied by her daughter as she arrived on Monday to the south of France

A sprinkling of pop magic: Talk dirty to me singer Jason Derulo arrived in Cannes ready for the summer weather

Trendsetter: Jason was chaperoned by his entourage as he arrived for the famous film festival

Cannes bound: A toned Jason showed off his ripped arms in a sleeveless vest at the airport
He's partial to showing some suave sartorial sensibilities when it comes to the red carpet.

And Joel Edgerton made sure he scored high in the style points when he attended the photocall for his latest film, Loving, at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday morning.

Stepping out into the Mediterranean sunshine with his co-star Ruth Negga, the 41-year-old Aussie screen star cut a dapper figure in a salmon pink suit.

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Suited and booted for the summer: Joel Edgerton made sure he scored high in the style points when he attended the photocall for his latest film, Loving, at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday morning

Clearly taking some style inspiration from the gentleman of the French Riviera, the Australian star opted for a summery and jazzy spin on a classic two piece suit.

Pairing a jacket cut in a modern fashion with a pair of fitted trousers, the Black Mass star ensured he looked the definition of suave.

He added a more classic look to his wardrobe by wearing a crisp white shirt with a maroon knitted tie.

Riviera style: Stepping out into the Mediterranean sunshine with his co-star Ruth Negga, the 41-year-old Aussie screen star cut a dapper figure in a salmon pink suit

Joel complete his look with a pair of tan Oxford lace-ups, while he kept his look breazy and uncluttered with minimal accessories.

The actor wore his short locks wept up into a smart quiff, but added a rugged edge to his chiseled features with a smattering of stubble.

Ruth meanwhile went for shimmering golden maxi dress, which subtly accentuated her slender curves.

All smiles: His co-star Ruth meanwhile went for shimmering golden maxi dress, which subtly accentuated her slender curves

Cheeky chap: And while Ruth looked picture of sensibility, Joel couldn't resist hamming things up for the cameras as he larked about pulling faces

What a pout: The Aussie star couldn't resits mucking around outside in the sunshine

While the 33-year-old Ethiopian-Irish actress looked sensational in the metallic blouse-style dress, the garment also allowed the Preacher star to retain a demure edge to her look.

Rounding her look off with a high fashion twist, the actress wore a pair of towering golden stilettos.

Wearing her short hair in a sweeping pixie cut, the pretty star allowed her striking features to shine through with a natural palette of make-up.

Terrific trio: The duo were joined by Loving's director, Jeff Nichols, who took the reigns on the biographical romance

And while Ruth looked picture of sensibility, Joel couldn't resist hamming things up for the cameras as he larked about pulling faces.

The duo were joined by Loving's director, Jeff Nichols, who took the reigns on the biographical romance.

Set in Virginia in the '50s, it tells the true-to-life tale of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple from Virginia, who are faced with prison after they marry.
Rebel Wilson is suing magazine publisher Bauer Media for defamation over a series of articles which accused her of lying about her age and background to get ahead in Hollywood.

The Australian actress, who has starred in Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect, claimed articles in Woman's Day, The Australian Women's Weekly, NW and OK! made her out to be a serial liar.

According to a writ filed in the Victorian Supreme Court on Monday, Wilson says she has been 'humiliated and embarrassed' and 'gravely injured in her feelings, credit and reputation'.

Claims: Rebel Wilson (pictured) is suing magazine publisher Bauer Media for defamation over a series of articles which accused her of lying about her age and background to get ahead in Hollywood

She claimed her reputation has been damaged and is suing for special damages, claiming she missed out on roles and others were terminated because of the articles.

The Age reported that the complaint was centered on a Woman's Day article published in May last year.

The article included claims that the actress lied about her age, her real name, her upbringing and the fact she had lived in Zimbabwe for a year.

Legal battle: The Australian actress, who has starred in Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect, claimed articles in Woman's Day, The Australian Women's Weekly, NW and OK! made her out to be a serial liar

Hit back: She initially took to social media to respond to the claims that she lied about her name and age

A Women's Weekly article also questioned whether Rebel was telling the truth about where she was brought up.

Wilson claimed the articles were timed to coincide with the release of Pitch Perfect 2, to attract maximum attention nationally and overseas.

In the writ, she claimed she was not contacted before publication of the articles.

She is seeking damages, permanent injunctions stopping Bauer Media from publishing the articles involved, interest and costs.

Bauer Media Pty Ltd and Bauer Media Australia Pty Ltd are named as defendants in the writ.

She initially took to social media to respond to the claims that she lied about her name and age.

'OMG I'm actually a 100 year old mermaid formerly known as 'CC Chalice' ....thanks shady Australian press for your tall poppy syndrome' she Tweeted.

Star: Wilson claimed the articles were timed to coincide with the release of Pitch Perfect 2, pictured in the first film

'Okay but all jokes aside now...my real name is Fat Patricia x'

In February this year she also opened up about the saga and insisted that she 'doesn't have skeletons in her closet'.

'If I was guilty of something which, I mean, I don't really have any skeletons in my closet  which is why it's quite hard for people to write bad stuff about me,' she told Julia Zemiro's Home Delivery.

'You know, I don't have a drug addiction, or secret child. But I think, when I did go to America, I kind of just stopped saying my age.'

Rebel, originally from Sydney, continues: 'It's Hollywood, come on, people.
Kate Hudson may be in Cannes for work, but she seemed to be in full-on holiday mode on Sunday.

Hitting the shops in an ethereal maxi dress, the actress took a break from her responsibilities at Cannes Film Festival, and couldn't have looked more pleased at the prospect.

Kate, 37, went braless, channeling hippie vibes as she floated down the street in a loose floor-skimmer and a patterned headband.

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Hippie chic: Kate Hudson flashed sideboob as she relaxed with a shopping trip in Cannes on Sunday

Kate was fancy-free in her ditsy-print floral garment, turning a blind eye to the gaping arm holes of the dress that almost gave onlookers a glimpse of more than she bargained for.

She flashed major sideboob on her leisurely stroll, holding her handbags and purchases to one side and with her other hand readjusting the dress to make sure her neckline didn't slip.

The How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days actress left her hair unstyled with natural waves and tipped a pair of mirrored shades on her nose to meet the sun.

Ethereal: She floated through the high street in a ditsy floral maxi dress and sandals

Keeping an eye out: She kept a hand on her neckline as she went braless beneath

Kate arrived in Nice on Saturday and has already been hitting the Film Festival's parties, though she's yet to hit one of the red carpet premieres.

On the day she arrived, the star attended Saturday night's Vanity Fair and Chopard after-party at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.

She rubbed shoulders with the ever-glamorous Heidi Klum, all the while looking radiant herself in a tangerine dress.

Going braless: Her arm holes were gaping, making it a perilously low neckline

Downtime: After so many public appearances, Kate was flying solo for a shopping trip

Earlier this week, Kate praised the women of Hollywood, saying that she looked to her own mother, Goldie Hawn, as a trailblazer in the film industry.

Kate told Female First: 'In Hollywood, everyone wants to build you up and tear you down. My mother had a driver who came to the house to take her to work and I hated it.

'He would take my mother away. But what it taught me was how hard she worked to create opportunities for other women. She was a trailblazer in Hollywood.'

Relaxed: Her hair was worn in relaxed, natural waves with a hippie headband

Hanging out: On Saturday night, Kate went straight out, hitting the Vanity Fair and Chopard after-party at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc with model Heidi Klum
She's been making the rounds at the Cannes Film Festival, taking in the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera.

And Chloe Sims looked to have thoroughly enjoyed her evening out at the Gotha nightclub on Sunday evening, as she made her way out with multi-millionaire property tycoon, Robert Tchenguiz.

The 33-year-old TOWIE star looked a little bleary-eyed as she left the hot spot in the South of France, but it was Chloe's plunging nude gown which ensured all eyes were on her.

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A daring display: Chloe Sims looked to have thoroughly enjoyed her evening out at the Gotha nightclub on Sunday evening, as she made her way out with multi-millionaire property tycoon, Robert Tchenguiz

Slipping into a fitted nude dress, which featured an extremely plunging neckline, allowed the ITVBe star to show off her fantastic figure as she left the club with the 55-year-old multi-millionaire.

Chloe was lent some support on her way out of the club by Richard's driver, who helped her along through the throng of people to a Range Rover, while her companion hopped into the passenger seat.

The beauty entrepreneur ensured all eyes were on her as the pair made their exit, thanks to her dress; which featured a deep V slash nearly to the navel, displaying more than a hint of her ample cleavage.

However, Chloe's dress also featured a flourish of high-fashion inspiration, thanks to the short cape detail at the back.

Dynamic duo: Slipping into a fitted nude dress, which featured an extremely plunging neckline, allowed the ITVBe star, 33, to show off her fantastic figure as she left the club with the 55-year-old multi-millionaire

Chloe's made sure to define her waistline with the help of metal belt, which cinched in the figure-hugging dress at the waist.

She completed her glamorous and racy look with a pair of towering heels, which she ensured were colour coordinated with the rest of her wardrobe - although Chloe had kicked them off by the time she left the club.

Adding a sparkling silver clutch and a smattering of jewellery to her look, the TOWIE stalwart ensured that her outfit stood out.

With her blonde locks tied up and off of her face, the reality star ensured her pretty features were perfectly highlighted with a subtle palette of make-up.

A little support: Chloe was lent some support on her way out of the club by Richard's driver, who helped her along through the throng of people to a Range Rover, while her companion hopped into the passenger seat

A VERY busty display: The ITVBe star ensured all eyes were on her as the pair made their exit, thanks to her dress; which featured a deep V slash nearly to the navel, displaying more than a hint of her ample cleavage

Figure-flaunting fashion: Chloe's made sure to define her waistline with the help of metal belt, which cinched in the figure-hugging dress at the waist

Skyscraper heels: She completed her glam and racy look with a pair of towering heels, which she ensured were colour coordinated with the rest of her wardrobe - although Chloe had kicked them off by the time she left

Richard meanwhile appeared to have opted for a Riviera staple,going for an open-necked shirt with a blazer.

Chloe and the Iranian-born tycoon have set tongue's wagging in recent weeks, with the duo having been spotted out and about in the South of France together - although there is no suggestion the two are romantically linked.

And it seems the Essex native has been introduced to Robert's family, as she shared snaps on her Instagram of herself, the tycoon and his sister, Lisa, partying.

MailOnline have contacted a member of Chloe's team for comment.

Riviera nights: Richard meanwhile appeared to have opted for a Riviera staple,going for an open-necked shirt with a blazer

Just friends? Chloe and the Iranian-born tycoon have set tongue's wagging in recent weeks, with the duo having been spotted out and about in the South of France together

While the TOWIE star was last linked romantically to her co-star Jon Clark, their relationship faltered on-screen and she has been single ever since.

Robert is believed to have a combined worth of 850million alongside his brother Vincent, with the duo accruing much of their wealth through their property empire.

Seperated from his wife Heather Bird in 2010, Robert - who is known to friends as Robbie - has two children.

The couple married in 2005 after dating for five years before that and they share two children, however, they separated in 2010, with Heather telling MailiOnline at the time:

While the TOWIE star was last linked romantically to her co-star Jon Clark, their relationship faltered on-screen and she has been single ever since

Society man: Born to Iranian-Jewish parents, he is also said to have dated Caprice and is rumoured to have helped introduce Dodi Fayed to Princess Diana, while he also has two children with model Natasha Bird

A real tycoon: Robert is believed to have a combined worth of 850million alongside his brother Vincent, with the duo accruing much of their wealth through their property empire

I walked away from the marriage because I couldnt bear, as a mother, to have our children witness any more of a lifestyle I felt was not good for them, says U.S.-born Heather, who lived with Tchenguiz for ten years and married him five years ago.

I dont want my children to be brought up surrounded by private jets, glamorous parties, vast yachts in the South of France and endless hangers-on. I want them to develop proper values in life.'

Born to Iranian-Jewish parents, Robbie is also said to have dated Caprice and is rumoured to have helped introduce Dodi Fayed to Princess Diana.

However, it's not always been clear-sailing for Robbie or his brother - whose family came tot he UK following the 1979 Iranian revolution - as the Evening Standard reported the dynamic businessmen had lost 1billion in the financial slump.

When their backers Icelandic bank, Kaupthing, called in its loans they are said to have had to sell off valuable property in London.

Blonde bombshell: Chloe slipped into a slinky silver gown, which highlighted her impressive cleavage, as she headed out for dinner in Cannes over the weekend
Model and MTV VJ Kate Peck has revealed why her long distance romance with England-based beau James White works.

The 28-year-old told Daily Mail Australia at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Sydney on Monday that the distance 'keeps things exciting.'

The blonde attended the Misha Collection runway show in a plunging and cut-out black dress, featuring a daring thigh-high split.

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Glamourous: Kate Peck has revealed why her long distance romance with England-based beau James White works when attending the Misha Collection show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Sydney on Monday

Kate told DMA that while she's made a few more visits to Europe than she expected and found the travelling time from Australia to Europe a 'hassle' but sadded it was worth it.

'You could probably live in Alaska and it wouldn't take as long but yeah, it's a bit of a hassle, but it keeps things exciting and I get time and space to focus on my things here and he can do what he wants over there,' Kate said.

'And we can come together and have a really nice time.'

Loved-up: Kate is seen here with her man, James White, who is originally from Sydney

The pair have been dating over a year, with Kate previously telling DMA they met in Shoreditch in London's east end.

Kate previously told The Daily Telegraph she put her plan move to the UK to join him on hold for a year because of a new project lined up for twelve months in Australia.

She told DMA on Monday that she is staying in Australia for the next year but was 'excited' for the project, which she can't yet reveal.

Meanwhile, she shared her excitement at having her 'face on a tampon box,' as part of a new collaboration with Her Collective, a brand that promotes change in society.

A good cause: Meanwhile, she shared her excitement at having her 'face on a tampon box,' as part of a new collaboration with Her Collective, a brand that promotes change in society

Kate is taking part in the project with products being donated to women in developing countries for every product being sold in Australia.

'It'll be me in the sanitary napkin aisle, me, me, me, me, me,' she said with a chuckle.

'The concept is that it's kind of a one for one project. So every box we sell here, we donate products back into developing countries.'

'It means girls can stay in school. Because when they get their period they, they take days off, they take a week off and they fall far behind and it has this terrible rippling affect into the communities.

'So it's basically about female empowerment and positive social change and giving something back.'

At the Misha fashion show on Monday, the former Myer ambassador turned heads in her figure-hugging outfit.

The top featured cut-outs which gave a glimpse of her washboard abs, and the skirt featured leg splits.

She teamed the look with strappy pointed heels and wore make-up including a striking red lip.

Hot to trot: At the Misha fashion show on Monday, the former Myer ambassador turned heads in her figure-hugging outfit, with the top featuring cut-outs which gave a glimpse of her washboard abs




She spends most of her time in New York City, often praising the concrete jungle for its international flare.

But over the weekend Bethenny Frankel left her great metropolis for a little time in the Nevada desert as she popped into Las Vegas.

The 45-year-old Real Housewives Of New York City star proved she knew how to get in the mood for a fun time as she shared a selfie in a bikini.

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Sinful: Bethenny Frankel showed off her bikini body while in a Las Vegas hotel over the weekend

She loves her yoga sessions: The 45-year-old reality star said she was going to 'do this right'

Too bad the Bravo star was not by the pool.

Rather the mother-of-one took the snap in her hotel bathroom in front of a mirror.

The ex of Jason Hoppy looked toned to perfection with impressive abs, sculpted arms and lean thighs. She smiled as she looked into the camera, seemingly satisfied with what she saw.

Flown in from Manhattan: The TV personality was in Vegas for the launch of the Beauty And Essex bar

Rock on Bethy: Showing off her incredibly toned body, the Skinnygirl boss slipped into a very daring cut-out dress

The former talk show host also had on what appeared to be a headband with butterflies on top.

And, curiously, the single woman wore a big diamond ring, which must have been a right-hand ring as she is not engaged.

The TV personality was in Vegas for the launch of the Beauty And Essex bar inside the Cosmopolitan.

Showing off her incredibly toned body, the Skinnygirl boss slipped into a very daring cut-out dress for the bash.

The black number showed off her generous cleavage as well as her toned abs as she struck a pose at the party.

All biz here: Days before she was in New York City with Piers Morgan at the Daily Mail & Elite Daily 2016 NY Newfront

With her dark hair shorter and lighter, she looked every inch the hot Housewife.

She gave the younger guests a run for their money in the racy number, which seemed to be the dress code.

Days earlier the stunner was seen with Piers Morgan at the Daily Mail & Elite Daily 2016 NY Newfront.

Romantically, Bethenny was last linked to toyboy Michael Cerussi, with whom she enjoyed a romantic beach vacation in December.
In modern life, it's incredibly difficult for many individuals to go without looking at their phone every few minutes.

And it seems that Idris Elba couldn't resist having his device on him at all times as he filmed his new movie The Dark Tower, a Western thriller, in Cape Town last week.

The 43-year-old British actor looked every inch the cowboy in his period drama get-up, but the phone in his hand in-between takes certainly ruined the effect a touch.

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From gunslinger... to phone-slinger! Idris Elba couldn't let go of the mobile device in his left hand while getting in character on the Cape Town-based set of new movie The Dark Tower last Wednesday

The Luther star cut a handsome figure in his costume, including dark jeans, a white shirt and waistcoat worn with a red scarf around his neck.

He also had an ammo belt slung around his waist and a gun in a holster sitting to his side as he strolled across the South African set.

With a look of determination on his face, Idris appeared slightly distracted as he meandered across the sun-soaked location, before stripping off to reveal his incredibly large, muscular arms.

Quite the anachronism: The Luther star cut a handsome figure in his costume, including dark jeans, a white shirt and waistcoat worn with a red scarf around his neck, but the phone in his hand ruined the effect slightly

Getting into character: The 43-year-old British actor also had an ammo belt slung around his waist and a gun in a holster sitting to his side as he strolled across the South African set

Pulling at the scarf around his neck - his beloved phone still firmly in his left hand - he appeared to be feeling the heat in the South African city on Wednesday.

Can't let go: While in-between takes, Idris couldn't be parted with his phone

Idris is playing the lead role of gunslinger Roland Deschain in the big-screen adaptation of Stephen King's famous series of Dark Tower novels.

Billed as a science-fiction fantasy horror, the movie - directed by Nikolaj Arcel and set for release in 2017 - tells the story of Deschain, a frontiersman knight who goes head-to-head with the villainous Walter Padick, played by Matthew McConaughey.

The movie will be based on the first in legendary writer King's eight-book series, entitled The Gunslinger: there will also reportedly be a TV spin-off series based on the saga.

The Jungle Book star was seen arriving in Cape Town on Tuesday after making headlines at the TV BAFTAs just days before, where he publicly reunited with his ex-girlfriend and mother of his 23-month-old son Winston, Naiyana Garth.

He was seen walking the red carpet at Londons Royal Festival Hall with his arm around the 28-year-old make-up artist as they made their first public appearance together this year, the two of them looking happier than ever.

They began dating in 2013, with the pretty brunette soon falling pregnant, but they split in February this year.

However, despite his happy demeanour at the prestigious awards ceremony with his partner, Idris missed out on a BAFTA that night: he had been nominated in the Best Actor category for his role in Luther, but he lost out to Wolf Hall's Mark Rylance.

Sun's out, guns out! Clearly feeling the heat in the South African city, Idris stripped off and showed off his hulking arms

Hard at work: Idris is playing the lead role of gunslinger Roland Deschain in the big-screen adaptation of Stephen King's famous series of Dark Tower novels

He looks the part! Billed as a science-fiction fantasy horror, the movie tells the story of Deschain, a frontiersman knight who goes head-to-head with baddie Walter Padick, played by Matthew McConaughey

Taking a breather: A day after flying from London to Cape Town, Idris made sure to take some time out between takes

Meanwhile, the busy actor is also said to be in talks to join Jessica Chastain in upcoming movie Molly's Game.

He is being touted to play a criminal defence lawyer in the Aaron Sorkin project, adapted from Olympic skier Molly Bloom's memoirs.

Aaron told Variety: 'The casting of Jessica and Idris in the two lead roles is any filmmaker's dream come true. They're two of the greatest actors of their generation, paired for the first time, and their chemistry will be electric.'
She's not shy about a wardrobe malfunction.

A smiley Heidi Klum revealed some extra skin in a ripped skirt at Vanity Fair's star-studded 2016 Cannes Film Festival Party on Saturday.

The 42-year-old supermodel first accidentally flashed her pert derriere in the event's official Instagram portrait studio and then confidently shared the cheeky shot on her own social media feed.

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Wardrobe malfunction: A smiley Heidi Klum, 42, revealed some extra skin in a ripped skirt at Vanity Fair's star-studded 2016 Cannes Film Festival Party on Saturday

Cheeky display: The supermodel first accidentally flashed her pert derriere in the event's official Instagram portrait studio and then confidently shared the shot on her own social media feed

Heidi opted for a Balmain creation for the big bash.

Unfortunately, during the night the supermodel managed to tear the design and flash her bare bum.

The top half of the ensemble included a tight black long-sleeved velvet blouse.

While her pert derriere was dressed in a slim-fitting miniskirt which featured sequin tiles and a jagged hemline.

Bare bum: During the bash, Heidi's Balmain creation tore. The top half of the ensemble included a tight black long-sleeved velvet blouse, while the slim-fitting miniskirt featured sequin tiles and a jagged hemline

Unfazed: She captioned the Instagram video with: 'Getting cheeky in #Balmain at the @vanityfair party last night. Oops!' The blonde beauty included the funny hashtags, 'my best side' and 'is there a draft'

Unfazed by the exposure, she captioned the Instagram video with: 'Getting cheeky in #Balmain at the @vanityfair party last night. Oops!'

The blonde beauty included the funny hashtags, 'my best side' and 'is there a draft.'

In the playful Instagram video, Heidi waves and winks at the camera before releasing a pink balloon in her hand as a French song plays in the background complimenting the gorgeous Mediterranean coastline behind her.

Playful: In the video, Heidi waves and winks at the camera before releasing a pink balloon in her hand as a French song plays in the background complimenting the gorgeous Mediterranean coastline behind her

Blonde beauty: Her make-up was flawless and accentuated her big brown eyes while her pout remained neutral with just a gloss

She teamed the ripped number with a pair of black closed-toe pumps which tied around her ankles with gold straps.

The mom-of-four finished the sexy look off with her long blonde tresses styled straight and parted down the middle.

Her make-up was flawless and accentuated her big brown eyes while her pout remained neutral with just a gloss.

Sexy look: The mom-of-four teamed the ripped number with a pair of black closed-toe pumps which tied around her ankles with gold straps and styled her long blonde tresses straight with a middle part

The star-studded event also included Kendall Jenner which Heidi was photographed with during the evening.

Meanwhile, the blonde stunner has been making the most of her South of France visit during the Cannes Film Festival.

Heidi's 29-year-old art dealer boyfriend, Vito Schnabel, joins her in the French Riviera. The pair have been spotted sunbathing in between party hopping to A-list festivities.

The couple were among the guests invited to the private luncheon hosted by Len Blavatnik and Harvey Weinstein aboard the Odessa II yacht.

A-list festivities: The star-studded event also included Kendall Jenner which Heidi was photographed with during the evening
As a social media sensation, four-year-old Pixie Curtis is often seen looking preened to perfection in a variety of adorable snaps.

So it was perhaps just another day in the office for the youngster when she was filmed getting her hair styled into pigtails before attending Australian Fashion Week with her mother, Roxy Jacenko.

The flame-haired cutie was seen giggling and eating snacks while hairdresser Craig Beaglehole brushed and tied back her locks in the video posted to her 110,000 followers.

Social media sensation: Pixie Curtis was filmed getting her hair styled into pigtails before attending Australian Fashion Week

Her new 'do' was, of course, completed with one of her own line of chic Pixiebows.

'A quick Sunday do for an afternoon fashion show! Thanks @craigbeaglehole for the 'do'!!' the video was captioned.

The hairdresser also posted, saying: 'Had fun doing @pixiecurtis hair on Sunday with @roxyjacenko #pigtails #toocute #timelapse.'

Preened to perfection: Pixie was seen getting her hair brushed and styled in the adorable video

Girls' night: PR maven Roxy Jacenko and her four-year-old daughter Pixie cut stylish figures in their designer outfits at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 2016 opening show in Sydney on Sunday

Stylish: Pixie donned a patterned Dolce and Gabbana dress in shades of blue and red for the fashionable event

Pixie was later seen sitting front row with her PR guru mother at the Toni Maticevski opening show at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Sydney on Sunday.

She donned a patterned Dolce and Gabbana dress in shades of blue and red for the fashionable event.

The social media star paired it with some cute Marc Jacobs gold mouse sling back shoes.

Roxy's red Gucci frock showed off the 34-year-old's trim figure and fell in pleats around her calves while it buttoned at the front.

She was also sporting a pair of platform heels with ankle straps and her signature blonde locks fell in loosely around her face.

Like mother like daughter: Pixie, who was wearing Dolce and Gabbana, appeared excited to be at the high-profile Toni Maticevski show with her doting mother

'Fav show': Roxy uploaded various shots of her and her daughter ahead of attending the fashion event

Roxy accompanied her husband Oliver Curtis to court on Friday for day three of his trial.

Prosecutors allege Mr Curtis conspired with his former best friend, John Hartman, to commit insider trading offences between 1 May 2007 and 30 June 2008.

The alleged offences netted the pair a reported $1.433 million, prosecutors told the New South Wales Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Just prior to jury selection, the 30-year-old pleaded not guilty to the charge telling Justice Lucy McCallum and potential jurors: 'Not guilty, your honour.'

'Wingman': The girls snapped away before leaving for the show, which Roxy referred to as their favourite

Conservative chic: Roxy cut a sombre figure as she arrived at NSW Supreme Court for the first day of her husbands trial on Wednesday
Her phenomenal figure cleavage earned her the title of Playboy Playmate of the Year.

And two decades on, Victoria Silvstedt is as provocative as ever.

The stunning Swede, 41, is currently in the French Riviera for the annual Cannes Film Festival and has proven a flirty addition to the event.

On the boardwalk: Victoria Silvstead looked sensational as she headed to a yacht in Cannes

The leggy platinum blonde was heading down the dock to board a speedboat on Sunday, when a gust of wind left her somewhat exposed.

The model was wearing a playful summer mini-dress which blew up, leaving her pert behind and thong underwear on display.

Quickly taking action, Victoria grabbed the skirt and pulled it back securely into place.

Thanks to her 5ft10in frame allowed her to flaunt her endlessly lithe legs, which she further accentuated with a pair of nude Louboutin heels.

Oh la la! The stunning Swede, 41, is currently in the French Riviera for the annual Cannes Film Festival and has proven a flirty addition to the event as she suffered a Marilyn moment over the weekend

Bottoms up! The leggy platinum blonde was heading down the dock to board a speedboat on Sunday, when a gust of wind left her somewhat exposed

Oops! The model was wearing a playful summer mini-dress which blew up, leaving her pert behind and thong underwear on display

She kicked off the shoes before stepping down onto the boat with the help of a crewmate.

Victoria recently revealed to Stumped Magazine about the reasoning behind her fun-filled red carpet display where she admits to playing up to the camera.

'Im just speaking from my own experience, being tall, blonde, buxom and Swedish and most people think not too bright. Its obvious that people think that.

Walk this way: Thanks to her 5ft10in frame allowed her to flaunt her endlessly lithe legs, which she further accentuated with a pair of nude Louboutin heels

Looking heely good: She kicked off the shoes before stepping down onto the boat with the help of a crewmate

Provocative: Victoria recently revealed to Stumped Magazine about the reasoning behind her fun-filled red carpet display where she admits to playing up to the camera

'You know I dont mind it. Im just kind of playing it up and enjoying it. I make fun of myself too. I honestly dont really care. Some girls are really sensitive about that, but I know who I am and I have fun. So what if I look like this.'

The leggy blonde has enjoyed a stint in acting, having starred in American TV series Malibu, CA and Melrose Place.

She is currently participating in the Swedish reality series Stjarnorna pa godset.
Now that he's an Academy Award winner, it must feel good to be back at Cannes Film Festival.

But nothing much seemed to have changed for Leonardo DiCaprio on Monday, as he was spotted lurking in the shadows at Antibes' famous Eden Roc Hotel.

Still rugged, unshaven and disguising his high profile appearance under a flat cap, the 41-year-old seemed to be avoiding the traditional glamour and public outings of the annual red carpet event.

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Low-key: Leonardo DiCaprio avoided all of the public appearances on Monday as he hung out at Antibes' famous Eden Roc Hotel during Cannes Film Festival

Consumed with either business or pleasure, Leonardo was seen deep in conversation on the telephone as he sought shade at the popular beach hotel.

Just this week, the actor has been linked to stunning Polish model Ela Kawalec, with whom he was spotted riding bicycles with in New York this week.

But the handsome The Revenant star didn't seem to have any female company as he lunched outside with men in business suits on Monday.

Getting some food: He seemed to have flown under the radar for his arrival

Just hanging out: The actor returns this year as an Academy Award winner

A bite to eat: The Oscar-winning actor appeared in good spirits as he enjoyed his al fresco luncheon in the sunshine with a group of pals

He was dressed in a short-sleeved polka dot shirt, with his hair distinctively slicked back into his signature style.

It was a surprise sighting, since the big screen heartthrob had flown into Nice under the radar, unlike many of his famous contemporaries, including Ryan Gosling, Kate Hudson and Blake Lively.

Leonardo will catch the end of the Cannes Film Festival, though it's not yet clear whether he will turn out for any of the high profile screenings this May.

Boys' day out! Leonardo and his friends chose one of the French Riviera's most exclusive eateries as his luncheon destination

Things have changed: Leonardo scooped one of the industry's greatest accolades this February (pictured)

Another league: His Best Actor role in The Revenant (pictured) puts him in another league for actors

A tough choice: The star seemed struggling to decide from the plentiful items on offer on the menu

Though he's a regular attendee of the Cannes Film Festival, Leonardo finally became an Oscar-winning actor this February.

After three unsuccessful Best Actor nods and one Best Supporting Actor nomination, the star can now claim ownership of the former title.

He therefore puts himself in a whole new category of leading men, meaning that talks surrounding his next role are no doubt rife as film makers, actors and directors gather in the south of France.

Sun-seeker: Just this week, his relationship with an exquisite Polish model Ela Kawalec has been revealed
She had just performed for her Anti World Tour 2016 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.

So Rihanna decided to celebrate - with opener Travis Scott - by heading to V Live strip club in the early hours of Monday morning following her show.

And much like in her 2012 single Pour It Up, the 28-year-old showed how she 'balls out,' reportedly dropping $15k during her two-hour visit, according to TMZ.

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Throw it up, throw it up: Rihanna celebrated after a great show on Sunday evening by hitting V Live strip club in Houston, Texas, where she reportedly dropped $15k

Business meets pleasure: Earlier that night the star had performed at the Toyota Center in Houston (pictured at her Anti World Tour 2016 concert in San Diego on May 9)

Rihanna dressed casually for the outing, sporting a loose-fitting, black, graphic print short-sleeved T-shirt.

She coupled the T-shirt with a pair of figure-hugging light wash jeans, and hid her eyes behind white sunglasses.

The pop star wore her long, raven tresses styled straight, and accessorized with a collection of bracelets.

Color her impressed: The hitmaker showed off a surprised faced as she stood in the club with her hands filled with a wad of cash

Time to unwind: Following her concert, Rihanna and her opener Travis Scott made their way to this strip club in Houston

Late night: The pair reportedly showed up around 3:30am, and stayed for two hours

She looked to be having a blast as videos on TMZ's site showed the club played music from her popular Anti album as she danced while throwing money.

The star - and her fellow performer - showed up at the Houston club around 3:30am, much to the crowd's enjoyment.

Rihanna could be seen entertaining the crowd as she danced along to her own songs while cheering on the performers and sharing the large sum of bills she had brought with her.

Laid-back: Rihanna kept comfortable for the night out, sporting a graphic print T-shirt, figure-hugging jeans, and white sunglasses

Center of attention: Crowds went wild for the star, who could be seen dancing at the club as her own music - from new album Anti - was played on the speakers

Sharing the wealth: Videos showed the star throwing wads of money to the performers and the crowd

That same night Rihanna had posted about performing in Houston, gushing: 'HOUSTON It don't get no betta than the way y'all went up tonight!!! Thank you from the bottom of my lil ratchet heart #ANTIWORLDTOUR.'

The star also shared a video of fans dancing as she could be heard off-screen performing hit B***h Better Have My Money.

Rihanna will next continue her tour as she travels to the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Normally she wears her long raven locks ironed to perfection with not a hair out of place.

But on Monday Vanessa Hudgens let her mane go wild as she showed off festive curly tendrils while at the NBC Universal upfronts held at the Radio City Music Hall in NYC.

The 27-year-old star was there to promote her new show Powerless.

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We like it! Vanessa Hudgens let her hair down when stopping by the NBC Universal upfronts in NYC on Monday

A new vibe: The TV vet wore her hair in curls that added intense volume

The High School Musical vet looked ready for summer in a yellow outfit that consisted of a tank top that was slightly cropped and pocketed wide-legged slacks.

Strappy beige heels added even more of a summer feel.

And on her shoulder was a black and gold YSL purse that retails for about $2,500.

She has a new show: The 27-year-old star was there to promote her new show Powerless

On her own: The looker has had a bumpy year with the death of her father and being fined $1,000 for writing on a rock in Arizona

Based on characters from the DC universe, Powerless is a workplace comedy set at one of the worst insurance companies in America.

The twist is that it also takes place in the universe of DC Comics.

The show is about the reality of working life for a normal, powerless person in a world of superheroes and villains.

Hudgens will play Emily Locke, an insurance claims adjuster who loves her job because she gets to help people.

Her cast: The siren captioned this Instagram: 'SQUAD @nbcpowerless @alantudyk @sauerkraut13'

Also at the event was Kyle Richards.

The 47-year-old Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills star went the extra mile to show off her body.

The aunt of Paris and Nicky Hilton - who has four children - modeled a plunging pink dress that made the most of her cleavage.

Showing it off: Kyle Richards gave a good view of her chest when at the NBC Universal upfronts

Look at my chest please: The Bravo bombshell had on a long diamond necklace that guided the eye toward her cleavage

The dress didn't only have a plunging front, it also chad an opening in the front that gave a good look at the diva's legs.

The reality wonder wore heavy bronzer on her gams and added much shine with her silver pumps.

Her glam was not off either as the wife of real estate agent Mauricio Umansky had her hair parted to the side in soft curls with pink lipstick and heavy eyeliner.

Another view: The dress didn't only have a plunging front, it also chad an opening in the front that gave a good look at the diva's legs

Made up to matter: Her glam was not off either as the wife of real estate agent Mauricio Umansky had her hair parted to the side in soft curls with pink lipstick and heavy eyeliner

Also at the event was Khloe Kardashian, sure knows how to grab all the attention when on a red carpet.

The 31-year-old Keeping Up With The Kardashians star wore a tight beige mini dress that showed off not just her legs but also her cleavage.

Alongside the ex of Lamar Odom was her older sister Kourtney, 37, who covered up more with a white suit.

Me Jane: Khloe Kardashian wore a Tarzan inspired look when on the blue carpet

Her favorite sister: The 31-year-old bombshell dwarfed her older sister Kourtney

Khloe's dress had a safari-girl-meets-1OAK look.

The material appeared to be a soft suede and there was a lace-up section on the chest. Pockets on the front added that Out Of Africa vibe.

But there was so much va-voom going on - the cleavage, the legs, the heels - that no woman would dare wear this outfit when looking for zebras and giraffes.

Suede sister: Khloe's dress had a safari-girl-meets-1OAK look. The material appeared to be a soft suede and there was a lace up section on the chest. Pockets on the front added that South African vibe

Not good for the bush country: There was so much va-voom going on - the cleavage, the legs, the heels - that no woman would dare wear this outfit when looking for zebras and giraffes

The siren, who was at the event to represent NBC's cable channel E!, wore her long blonde locks down and had on neutral toned makeup to complement her Tarzan-inspired dress.

The reality star also had in several rings and her nails were pale pink in color and filed to look like claws.

Kourtney covered up for a change in her white double breasted suit with the jacket worn open.

Though instead of a top, the mother of three wore just a lacy bra that revealed not only her decolletage but her tummy.

The rumoured lover of Justin Bieber, 22, seemed to be in good spirits.

Blanco: Kourtney covered up for a change in her white double breasted suit with the jacket worn open. Though instead of a top, the 36-year-old mother of three wore just a lacy bra that revealed not only her decolletage but her tummy

At the event Khloe talked to E! about how her siblings are all good now.

'Rob is back, which I think fans love to get that insight because he's been gone for so long,' Khloe said. 'The last few seasons were really emotional and hard because we went through some hard stuff.'

The Calabasas native added: 'It's natural for people to have ups and downs in life, and we give full access to ours/ We're now finally in a good place all of us. We're all back together.'

It keeps chugging on: Keeping Up With The Kardashians is in its 12th season and more spinoffs are expected

Keeping Up With The Kardashians is in its 12th season and more spinoffs are expected.

Also at the upfront event was Jennifer Lopez, who has her cop drama Shades Of Blue on NBC.

And Kyle Richards of The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills fame was present, showing off her chest in a racy pink number.

Jaimie Alexander of Blindspot had on a vest and slacks in grey while Mandy Moore was pretty as a princess in a black lace dress.

She still has an amazing body: Also at the upfront event was Jennifer Lopez, who has her cop drama Shades Of Blue on NBC

They both get As! Jaimie Alexander of Blindspot (left) had on a vest and slacks in grey while Mandy Moore (right) was pretty as a princess in a black lace dress
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The colour red is a symbol of danger or love.

So with her relationship apparently in turmoil, perhaps Kate Moss had both in mind when she chose her red carpet outfit for Cannes on Monday night.

The English supermodel, 42, looked amazing in an asymmetrical red toga-style dress as she arrived at the screening of Loving.

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Making an entrance: Kate Moss looked amazing in an asymmetrical red toga-style dress as she arrived at the screening of Loving

Red hot: The supermodel showed off her long legs in the gown's thigh-high split and towering high heels

The mother-of-one showed off her long legs in the thigh-split gown and black peep-toe heels as she made her way up the famous red carpet outside the Palais Des Festivals.

Kate was in good company as she was joined by her younger half-sister Lottie, who also went for the same colour gown.

Unlike Kate's revealing number, the 18-year-old was more covered up in a high-necked, floor-length number.

Sister act: Kate was joined on the red carpet by her younger half-sister Lottie Moss, who also wore a red gown

Showing some skin: The 18-year-old's dramatic long gown was backless

The model sisters were just two of a host of stars who attended the screening of the new film, which tells the story of an interracial couple living in 1958 Virginia.

The movie is directed by Jeff Nichols and stars Australian actor Joel Edgerton and Ethiopian-Irish actress Ruth Negga.

Also in attendance were Colin Firth, Toni Garrn, Mischa Barton, Kristen Dunst and Sonam Kapoor. Mischa wore Atelier Swarovski bracelet and ring and Ruth Nega sported Atelier Swarovski Peter Pilotto earrings.

Whoa mumma! Kate was certainly giving a sexy twist to the red carpet with her fabulous legs

All that glitters: The 42-year-old completed her ensemble with diamond earrings and bracelet and a simple black envelope clutch bag

Taking her mind off things: Kate's arrival in Cannes comes after she has allegedly thrown out her toyboy lover Count Nikolai von Bismarck

Feeling nervous? At one point, the Croydon-born clotheshorse seemed to chew her clutch bag

The supermodel's arrival in Cannes comes after she allegedly kicked out her toyboy lover Count Nikolai von Bismarck and ordered him to go to rehab.

Kate is said to have had enough of her 29-year-old lover's debauched ways and sent him packing from her country home after 'erratic' behaviour during a week away in the Cotswolds.

The Croydon-born clotheshorse, who has had her fair share of bad boy lovers in the past, has growing concern for her boyfriend and it is believed he has been shipped off to a rehab clinic.

The model sisters were just two of a host of stars who attended the screening of the new film, which tells the story of an interracial couple living in 1958 Virginia

Making her return: This is Kate's first Cannes Film Festival since 2011

All eyes on me: Kate made sure her legs were the main focus of the event - sticking out her pins at every opportunity

The pair started dating after Kate split from her musician husband Jamie Hince, 47, last July, and since then they have been seen enjoying a holiday together in Brazil.

A source said: 'Nikolai was acting a bit crazy in the Cotswolds and it has brought everything to a head.

'She wants him sorted out. Nikolai does not look great at the moment, he looks generally the worse for wear and his face is a bit bloated.

Posing up a storm: The photographers went mad for Kate and her sexy ensemble

Up I go: Kate ascended the famous carpeted steps of the Palais Des Festivals on the Croisette

Vying admirers: Kate is well used to life in front of the camera, explaining her ease and ability in front of the lenses

Who, me? Far from distracted by the lights camera and action, Kate revelled in the masses of attention she received

A sea of black: Kate's blonde hair and red gown stood out among the jet black sea of photographers

Legs eleven: Jutting out her thin pins made for a stunning addition to her look and helped highlight her model physique

A moment of distraction: Kate looked like she forgot herself as she momentarily masked her leg

Blowing in the wind: Kate took a moment to stare at her surroundings as she nearly blended into the red carpet

Oops! A kiss from a fellow left an embarrassing lipstick mark on Kate's flawlessly made-up face

'There are definitely problems which he will have to sort out or they will be over. Friends have warned him that he will lose Kate if he doesn't change.'

Meanwhile, Kate wasn't the only one at the screening showing some leg as German model Toni Garrn let her lithe limbs take centre stage in her daring gown.

The blonde beauty showcased her slim figure in a black floor-length number with thigh-high split and sweetheart neckline, completing her look with red lipstick and a silver jewellery.

Bringing sexy back: German model Toni Garrn showed some serious leg in a slinky black number

Pristine: Juror Kirsten Dunst looked lovely in a delicate white gown with applique detailing and spaghetti straps

A vision in black: Former The OC actress Mischa Barton looked stunning in a sheer black gown

Coupled up: Actor Colin Firth looked dapper in a black tuxedo as he joined his wife Livia, who looked lovely in a delicate beige number

Drama: The movie is directed by Jeff Nichols (left) and stars Australian actor Joel Edgerton (centre) and Ethiopian-Irish actress Ruth Negga (centre)

Fighting for attention: Kate was one of a host of glamorous women making their way up the red carpet

Standing out: There was no missing Indian actress Sonam Kapoor in her flowing gown
She had an ugly split from rock star husband Ryan Adams in 2015.

But it looks as if Mandy Moore has been distracting herself nicely this year as she's set to star in the TV series This Is Us.

On Monday the 32-year-old actress looked happy as she posed with her 'TV hubby' Milo Ventimiglia at the NBC/Universals Upfronts in NYC.

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Bouncing back: Mandy Moore looked happy as she posed with her 'TV hubby' Milo Ventimiglia at the NBC/Universals upfronts in NYC on Monday

Shining again: The actress, who is starring on TV's This Is Us, has been doing well since her 2015 split from musician Ryan Adams

The Tangled actress wore a nicely fitted blue lace dress that was sheer on the arms and fell to just below her knees. Black pumps looked elegant.

The New Hampshire native wore her highlighted locks short and is loose barrel curls and had on a pretty pale pink lipstick.

Milo was handsome in a dark suit with white shirt and his hair worn longer than normal.

Classy: The Tangled actress wore a nicely fitted blue lace dress that was sheer on the arms

Sharp: Milo was handsome in a dark suit with white shirt and his hair worn longer than normal

Her new show looks pretty sad: The actors are starring in This Is Us for NBC

Mandy is still in the middle of a messy divorce battle with her ex-husband, Ryan Adams.

TMZ has reported that Mandy has been unable to reach a divorce settlement with her ex because the musician refuses to pay spousal support.

The website reported in early December that she has filed new legal documents asking for Adams, 41, to be ordered to pay her $37,000 a month while they finalize an agreement. It was added the Red Band Society alum also wants him to take four of the couple's six cats. '

Trio: Moore captioned this snap: 'Sterling, Milo and I. Can't stop us now!! @nbcthisisus @nbctv'

Another: Mandy added this Instagram as well that read: 'Early morning prep with these beauties-- @sarahpotempa and @kerrieurban. Let's do this upfronts!! #thisisus'

Although I love our pets, it is overwhelming for me to take care of eight of them all of the time,' the actress states in court papers.

She added that she has not been able to work as much as she would like because of her duties as caretaker of the pets.

The two wed in March 2009 after dating on and off for a year. They have no children.

Sisters: Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian attended the NBC/Universal upfronts as well

Wowzers: Kyle Richards showed off her chest in this pink number to promote RHOBH

In March she dealt with a stalker.

TMZ reported the Tangled actress was granted a three year order against Salahudin Moultaali, 42, after he was arrested three times within two weeks as he ranted outside her Hollywood Hills home about Satan.

According to the site, the court order says Moultaali must remain 100 yards away from Mandy, her home, vehicles and anywhere she's working.

White angel: Jennifer Lopez had on a mini and pumps to talk up Shades Of Blue
She will celebrate her first wedding anniversary to Mark Wright next week.

Yet Michelle Keegan was spied heading up the aisle once again - although this time she was filming scenes for forthcoming BBC drama Our Girl in her native Manchester on Monday.

The 28-year-old former Coronation Street star's turn in a wedding dress comes at a rather inopportune time as she has been plagued with recent reports of strife in her marriage.

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Second time round: Michelle Keegan was spied heading up the aisle once again - although this time she was filming scenes for forthcoming BBC drama Our Girl in her native Manchester on Monday

Stunning Michelle began dating the former TOWIE hunk, 29, in late 2012 before heading up the aisle in a blissful ceremony at Hengrave Hall in Suffolk on 24 May last year.

She has just returned from a prolonged stint filming in South Africa, for the show in which she plays Corporal Georgie Lane in the second series where she has replaced Lacey Turner in the lead.

On Monday, just a week shy of her anniversary, the Stockport-born beauty slipped into an exquisite dress, which was near-identical to her own wedding gown from a year previously.

Featuring a bust-enhancing sweetheart neckline and a fitted body, the gown mirrored her own in its mermaid-style hemline while she also wore a similar dreamy veil.

Seeing double? The 28-year-old former Coronation Street star's turn in a wedding dress comes at a rather inopportune time as she has been plagued with recent reports of strife in her marriage, after she wed Mark last May (pictured left)

Simply stunningFeaturing a bust-enhancing sweetheart neckline and a fitted body, the gown mirrored her own in its mermaid-style hemline while she also wore a similar dreamy veil

Bride and groom: Stunning Michelle began dating the former TOWIE hunk, 29, in late 2012 before heading up the aisle in a blissful ceremony at Hengrave Hall in Suffolk on 24 May last year

A vision: Holding an exquisite bunch of roses, Michelle looked simply glowing as she stepped out of the car

Having a laugh: It is uncertain who Michelle's oncreen husband will be due to the closely guarded script of the show

Unlike her own big day, Michelle's hair was pinned up into an elegant chignon as opposed to the billowing curls topped with a beehive - the style she sported when she married Mark.

Speculation had been rife for some time that Michelle had split from her husband of 12-months after failing to wear her ring in several snaps, but it's reported she had kept the diamond in a safe place.

A source told The Sun: 'Michelle left her wedding ring at home in her safe because she was scared of losing it while filming.'

Elegance personified: On Monday, just a week shy of her anniversary, the Stockport-born beauty slipped into an exquisite dress, which was near-identical to her own wedding gown from a year previously

Catching the train: Every inch of Michelle's phenomenal figure was on display in the stunning gown

Picture perfect: A glam team ensured Michelle looked her very best for her walk along the aisle

Giving her away: Michelle seemed to be escorted by her on-screen father

Surrounded: Michelle was the centre of attention - a position she knows so well

Oozing sophistication: Michelle was the epitome of style and sophistication as she stepped on set

It had been rumoured her marriage to Mark, who soared to fame during TOWIE's 2010 inauguration, was on the rocks after the actress was spotted without her wedding ring in a series of selfies while filming Our Girl in South Africa.

The situation was only worsened by a previous story from New! magazine that claimed the Heart presenter was concerned when fans linked Michelle to her handsome actor Ben Aldridge, who Michelle stars alongside in the upcoming drama.

Michelle had innocently shared a group picture with some of the cast at their read through which was captioned: Me and some of the boys at our cast read through for Our Girl 2! X

With the lads: Michelle had innocently shared a group picture with some of the cast at their read through which was captioned: Me and some of the boys at our cast read through for Our Girl 2! X'

Focused: Michelle is currently focused on her role in military drama 'Our Girl', a role she has taken over from Lacey Turner, and thinks it will show fans a different side to what they saw when she played Tina McIntyre on 'Coronation Street'

Don't look back... Michelle looked as though she may have left something in the vehicle

An emotional moment: Michelle seemed to reach into her co-star for a hug as the scene grew emotional

Sweeping:

But a representative for Mark told MailOnline: 'It's a completely fabricated and made up story written by people desperate for content.'

Michelle is currently focused on her role in military drama 'Our Girl', a role she has taken over from Lacey Turner, and thinks it will show fans a different side to what they saw when she played Tina McIntyre on 'Coronation Street'.

She told Closer magazine: "It's such a contrast to anything I've done before, it's so active. I watched 'Our Girl' when Lacey Turner was in it and loved it. You'll get to see me in a totally different light."

Different: She told Closer magazine: "It's such a contrast to anything I've done before, it's so active. I watched 'Our Girl' when Lacey Turner was in it and loved it. You'll get to see me in a totally different light."
She is looking more like her mom with each passing day.

And 10-year-old Suri Cruise looked the spitting image of her mother Katie Holmes as they two went to Starbucks in Manhattan on Monday.

The 37-year-old actress was likely drinking coffee but there's no telling what the adorable grade schooler had chosen.

Warming up: Katie Holmes and her daughter Suri Cruise called in for a hot beverage at a Starbucks near their home in Manhattan, New York on a chilly Sunday

The former Dawson's Creek star and her mini-me little girl both wrapped up warm on a chilly day in New York.

Katie, who wore white sneakers for the walk, threw a sand-coloured trench coat over a blue, high neck wool sweater and distressed baggy jeans.

She pulled a dark blue canvas hat over her long brunette tresses and accessorised with a pink leather bag.

Comfy chic: The 37-year-old actress and her daughter were warmly dressed for their outing

Suri is developing her own sense of style and she layered up with a grey, round-neck jacket over a light pink cardigan and dark pink dress.

Taking no chances with the cold, Tom Cruise's daughter also wore blue leggings, white socks and white ballet flats with colourful beads.

A brunette like her mum, she pinned her side-parted hair back with a clip-on bow.

Walking in lock step: Katie wore a blue canvas hat plus a sand-coloured trench coat which she wore over a blue, high neck wool sweater and distressed baggy jeans

The duo both wrapped their arms around themselves as they walked to Starbucks to keep out the chill but evidently warmed up once they had their drinks.

They continued their walk holding hands while carrying their takeaways in the other.

Katie is just back from Toronto, Canada where she is filming upcoming Reelz TV miniseries The Kennedys After Camelot.

Her own sense of style: Suri, 10, layered up with a grey, round-neck jacket over a pink cardigan and dark pink dress. Taking no chances with the cold, Tom Cruise's daughter also wore blue leggings and white ballet flats

She is reprising her role as Jackie after playing her in 2011 miniseries The Kennedys and she is also directing one of the four episodes.

The series follows Jackie's life after the November 1963 assassination of first husband President John F. Kennedy and the subsequent death of second husband Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1975.

Jackie's last romance was with long-term companion and diamond merchant Maurice Templesman who she started dating in 1980.
Loving

Rating:

When Richard Loving, a white bricklayer from Virginia, married his black girlfriend, Mildred Jeter, in 1958, a firestorm of publicity and a prominent footnote in the Constitution of the United States were the last things either of them expected.

Or wanted. Richard, certainly as depicted by Joel Edgerton in writer-director Jeff Nichols wonderful film, was a simple soul, who married Mildred (Ruth Negga) for uncomplicated reasons.

They loved each other, and she was pregnant.

Loving: Ruth Negga as Mildred Loving and Joel Edgerton as Richard Loving (right), an interracial couple sentenced to prison in Virginia in 1958 for getting married

But interracial marriage was prohibited by Virginias miscegenation laws. They sidestepped that by tying the knot in Washington DC, only to find themselves arrested and jailed on their return home.

The judge deemed that Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

He gave the Lovings a stark choice; either annul the marriage or leave the state for 25 years. They left, but secretly returned for Mildred to give birth, and were arrested again.

Their lawyer used his friendship with the judge to keep them out of jail but told them there would be no further leniency.

When Richard Loving married his black girlfriend, Mildred Jeter, in 1958, a firestorm of publicity and a prominent footnote in the Constitution of the United States were the last things either of them expected

Although they were country folk who yearned to go back to their roots, the Lovings were compelled to raise their growing family in the city.

A few years later, stirred by the spirit of the burgeoning civil rights movement, Mildred wrote to the attorney-general, Robert Kennedy, who referred their case to the America Civil Liberties Union.

An ACLU lawyer, Bernard Cohen (Nick Kroll), saw their predicament as perfect leverage for an appeal to the Supreme Court, and although Richard in particular recoiled from being leverage for anything, they duly became a legal precedent, a cause celebre.

Journalists descended on them. Life magazine sent a photographer.

And inevitably, the grotesque notion, long enshrined in Virginias law, that interracial marriage was against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth, was overturned.

It is a poignant tale, but then civil rights stories always are. Nichols great skill is in maintaining its integrity.

There are no eloquent, barnstorming speeches about injustice, least of all by the Lovings themselves.

Edgerton and Negga are both superb, giving heartrendingly fine performances as two people bewildered by the events that have engulfed them

This is not the America of Guess Whos Coming To Dinner?, Stanley Kramers 1967 film in which Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn played the gnarled old liberals grappling with their daughter Joannas decision to marry Sidney Poitiers urbane doctor.

This is an America in which you can practically hear the cogs turn when people think.

Edgerton and Negga are both superb, giving heartrendingly fine performances as two people bewildered by the events that have engulfed them.

Either or both of them could well be in the frame for Oscar nominations next year.

Director Jeff Nichols, Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton - who could well be in the frame for Oscar nominations next year

Director Jeff Nichols, actress Ruth Negga and actor Joel Edgerton attend the premiere of Loving at the Cannes Film Festival

When their lawyer asks Richard if he has a message for the Supreme Court justices, it is a plain one: tell them that I love my wife.

His surname gave Nichols a conveniently plain title, too, and the narrative doesnt need much adornment either.
She is known to sport impeccable red carpet ensembles.

And Kate Hudson ensured she brought her very best look for perfumery The Harmonist's star-studded bash at The 69th Annual Cannes Film Festival on Monday evening.

The 37-year-old Almost Famous actress was a vision in an elegant lilac gown with a slight train and delicate beaded details for her turn at the star-studded soiree.

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Blonde beauty: Kate Hudson ensured she brought her very best look for perfumery The Harmonist's star-studded bash at The 69th Annual Cannes Film Festival on Monday evening

Kate was glowing as she made her way along the red carpet in the dress which accentuated her statuesque height and tiny waist.

The slash neck on the gown provided a demure addition to the look while a thick sash at the waist acted to show off her trim physique - the result of hours in the gym.

While seemingly muted at first glance, a deeper inspection of the dress' fine detailing showed off the delicate bead-work extending in vertical stripes along the length of the gown.

Sure to show off every inch of her frame, Kate turned around to show the crossover back of the garment which flashed a hint of flesh in the otherwise muted ensemble.

Stunner: Proving her intricate attention to detail, the famed actress wore a light outline of lilac eyeshadow - the exact hue of the dress - paired with a dab of pink lipstick

A vision in lilac: The 37-year-old Almost Famous actress was a vision in an elegant lilac gown with a slight train and delicate beaded details for her turn at the star-studded soiree

Perfect and poised: Kate's hair and make-up were ideal for the look as she ensured she went for neutral tones and styles to help add to the dreamy finish of the ensemble

Kate's hair and make-up were ideal for the look as she ensured she went for neutral tones and styles to help add to the dreamy finish of the ensemble.

Her blonde tresses fell from a centre parting into a framing fringe which tickled her cheekbones in length while the rest graduated into perfect waves.

Proving her intricate attention to detail, the famed actress wore a light outline of lilac eyeshadow - the exact hue of the dress - paired with a dab of pink lipstick.

Completing the ensemble was a boxy metallic clutch to perfectly offset her stunning drop diamond Atelier Swarovski earrings and ring which fell into her blonde locks to give a hint of shimmer.

Elegant: Her blonde tresses fell from a centre parting into a framing fringe which tickled her cheekbones in length while the rest graduated into perfect waves

Earlier on: Kate was slightly less poised as she headed into the bash

Sexy in silver: A host of stars joined Kate at the glamorous affair, including supermodel Heidi Klum who looked super chic in a sizzling silver gown to show off her figure

Later on... Heidi dazzled under the bright lights of the event

A host of stars joined Kate at the glamorous affair, including supermodel Heidi Klum who looked super chic in a sizzling silver gown to show off her figure.

Yet another model was Czech beauty Karolina Kurkova who went for a sexy black cut-out gown with her blonde tresses scraped back into a tight ponytail.

Donald Trump's ex wife Ivana upped the veteran glamour in a skin-tight poloneck mini worn with shimmering tights while her hair was styled into a staggering up do.

Sexy stuff: Yet another model was Czech beauty Karolina Kurkova who went for a sexy black cut-out gown with her blonde tresses scraped back into a tight ponytail

Looking glorious: Inglorious Basterds beauty Melanie Laurent went for an androgynous look

Shimmering: Donald Trump's ex wife Ivana upped the veteran glamour in a skin-tight poloneck mini worn with shimmering tights while her hair was styled into a staggering up do

All the way from UK: British pop starlet Charli XCX was a rather bizarre edition to the red carpet as she strutted her stuff in a tight black gown with her hair scraped into an aggressive ponytail

Looking all white: Socialite Lady Victoria Hervey was looking sensational in a white gown with a sexy split extending up the length of the gown

Dashing: Another star flying the flag for the Brits was Orlando Bloom who looked dapper in a suit and open necked shirt

British pop starlet Charli XCX was a rather bizarre edition to the red carpet as she strutted her stuff in a tight black gown with her hair scraped into an aggressive ponytail.

Another star flying the flag for the Brits was Orlando Bloom who looked dapper in a suit and open necked shirt.

Socialite Lady Victoria Hervey was looking sensational in a white gown with a sexy split extending up the length of the gown.

Wild thing: Mischa Barton looked stunning in a plunging leopard print dress which featured ruffled detailing along the neckline

Stylish star: The former OC star completed her look with a quilted black clutch and a chic up-do

In great company: Kate was seen posing with Oscar-winning rapper Common

Getting jiggy with it: Get Ugly hitmaker Jason Derulo entertained guests as he performed his energetic set

Down the hatch: Heidi was seen holding onto a large black orb which had been filled with drinks

Rubbing shoulders: Karolina Kurkova was sure to take some snaps with Mischa Barton and Adriana Karembeu

Heading home: She parted the crowds to leave the event with a glamorous air

Easy does it: She navigated the uneven pavements with grace, even on a late night

Show of support: The blonde went arm-in-arm with a smart male companion

Stunning: She still looked especially radiant as she left the bash
He's known for playing wild child Jesse Pinkman from AMC's critically acclaimed series Breaking Bad.

So it's no wonder Aaron Paul can throw a good party, taking his brother to a $5k a night Airbnb mansion in Park City, Utah for his bachelor party.

However, the service kindly picked up the bill for the 36-year-old, who also uses Airbnb to rent out his own swanky Boise, Idaho pad.

In the lap of luxury: Aaron Paul celebrated his brother's bachelor party by renting out a $5k a night Park City, Utah Airbnb mansion

On the house! The Breaking Bad star didn't have to worry about the lavish price, however, as he posted on Instagram that Airbnb got the bill (pictured in Los Angeles on May 7)

The stunning mansion featured a host of amenities such as a large in-ground pool, a hot tub, and a pool table.

An open layout likely gave the AMC star plenty of space for bachelor party festivities, and the mansion featured a large deck from which to view the stunning surroundings.

Spacious bedrooms boasted queen-sized beds and gorgeous stone fireplaces with wall-mounted flat screen TVs.

Care for a swim? The stunning mansion featured a large, outdoor swimming pool with an array of outdoor seating, as well as a hot tub

Game room: The property boasted a game room which featured floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the pool, as well as a pool table

Ready to play: The rustic room also featured a fireplace and wall-mounted flat screen TV

And Aaron took to Instagram following the celebratory weekend to gush about the luxurious getaway.

The Path actor shared a photo of a collection of eight Polaroid snapshots spread out on a carpet, showcasing the festivities.

'What an incredible weekend!!' he gushed in the caption. 'Thank you so much @airbnb for picking up the tab on this beautiful property in Park City. Unreal! Thank you, thank you and thank you.'

Keeping warm: In addition to the pool, the Park City mansion boasted a hot tub

Wide open spaces: The rental property offered an open floor plan, which likely provided plenty of space for guests of the bachelor party

What a view! The kitchen and living room areas looked out onto a large deck that gave a view to the home's stunning surroundings

Meanwhile, the actor also uses the site to rent out his own Idaho property, which is located just 45 minutes from his hometown of Emmett.

And it costs only $395 a night for up to four guests to live like a movie star, though there's also a $200 cleaning fee and a $1,000 deposit.

His rental property is walking distance from downtown, and the house is powered by geothermal hot springs.

Sleek: The Park City place was decked out in sleek, silver appliances, which went well with the modern, open floor plan

Spacious: The bedrooms featured queen beds, stone fireplaces, and their own bathrooms

What a sight! The bedrooms featured large windows, giving their own glimpse at the gorgeous, mountainous view

Grateful: After the getaway Aaron took to Instagram to share his gratitude to Airbnb, gushing: 'Thank you so much @airbnb for picking up the tab on this beautiful property in Park City. Unreal! Thank you, thank you and thank you'

The two bedroom, two bathroom house features a pool and indoor fireplace, and the only caveat is that the star requests that renters do not have parties.
Bethenny Frankel has revealed the surprising secret behind her changing face - she gets Botox injections in her jaw.

The Real Housewives of New York star and Skinnygirl mogul made the revelation in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com following speculation she's had invasive plastic surgery.

The 45-year-old admits her appearance has changed dramatically in recent years, but says it's a result of getting treatment for teeth grinding and clenching.

'I do look different. Ive had Botox in my jaw,' she said at DailyMail.com's 2016 Newfront in New York. 'You can see that my jaw has completely changed.'

Changing face: Bethenny Frankel, pictured left in New York last week and right, in 2013, has revealed her jawline has softened as a result of Botox injections used to treat teeth clenching and grinding

'About three years ago, my dermatologist said to me, why don't we try injecting your jaw because its so tense,' she explained.

The treatment relaxes muscles that have become bulky through being overworked from years of teeth grinding and clenching, also known as bruxism.

It has soften her once strongly defined square jawline and altered the shape of her face.

'My jaw from grinding for so many years was like this,' she says, holding her fist tightly to illustrate. 'Its like a muscle, its like working out with weights.'

She's pleased and 'excited' by her new look, noting: 'I think its why I can take a shorter haircut.'

VIP guest: The Skinnygirl mogul joined DailyMail.com's columnist Piers Morgan at the 2016 Newfront in New York on Thursday

Bethenny said her dentist had been advising her to wear a night guard for more than 15 years. She finally started wearing one about eight years ago, and it helped 'calm' her clenching.

But it wasn't until she had Botox that the overdeveloped muscles in her lower face started to change.

Bethenny, who has previously admitted to having a boob job, also said that she occasionally gets injections elsewhere on her face to address wrinkles.

'I dont do it religiously,' she says. 'Maybe once a year when I think of it, lll be like, oh I look like a Shar Pei, let me do that.'

But she shot down claims she'd gone under the surgeon's knife for major work on her face.

 Slide me  'I do look different': The reality TV star and Skinnygirl mogul admits her once square jawline has been softened by the injections, and she's pleased with the results

'I have not had invasive plastic surgery, I have not had a nose job,' she said.

Alongside her role on RHONY, Bethenny is continuing to build her SkinnyGirl empire, which includes books, cocktails, snacks and now protein shakes.

She has her own two-hour weekly radio program, B Real with Bethenny, on Andy Cohen's Sirius XM channel, 102.

She also has her own TV production company and executive produces the FYI Network show, Food Porn.
As with many of Sydneys glamorous ladies, Nikki Phillips has turned heads while enjoying the lavish sights on offer at the Mercedes-Benz Australian Fashion Week 2016.

And the 31-year-old was a noticeable presence when she attended the star-studded Swarovski show, which was held at Sydneys Carriageworks on Monday evening.

Cutting a flawless figure, the model exuded style and glamour in a striking black Misha Collection dress which drew attention to her lean and slender frame.

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Style star! Nikki Phillips was a noticeable presence when she attended the star-studded Swarovski show during Mercedes-Benz Australian Fashion Week 2016, which was held at Carriageworks on Monday

The tight caped-dress, which boasted a bold off-the-shoulder detail and a tight waistline, was accessorised with a statement gold choker and simple heeled courts.

She wore her glossy blonde tresses in a chic half-up topknot, while showing off her pretty features with a light coverage of make-up.

Nikki - who is married to musician Dane Rumble - appeared to be in fantastic spirits as she worked her magic on the arrivals carpet ahead of the exclusive preview.

Preened perfectly: Cutting a flawless figure, the model exuded style and glamour in a striking black Misha Collectoin dress which drew attention to her lean and slender frame

Attention to detail: The tight caped-dress, which boasted a bold off-the-shoulder detail and a tight waistline, was accessorised with a statement gold choker and simple heeled courts

Earlier on in the day, the Australian stunner made appearances at the Dion Lee and Misha show as well as heading to the Ginger and Smart viewing.

At the latter, she dazzled in a flowing monochrome halter-neck gown, designed by Carla Zampatti, which featured a frilly neckline and fell loosely over her slender figure.

During the days fancy proceedings, the presenter rubbed shoulders with guests including David Jones ambassador Jesinta Campbell and fashion designer Yeojin Bae.

Finishing touches: She wore her glossy blonde tresses in a chic half-up topknot, while showing off her pretty features with a light coverage of make-up

During the days proceedings, the presenter rubbed shoulders with guests including David Jones ambassador Jesinta Campbell at the Dion Lee preview

Social scene: Earlier on in the day: Nikki made appearances at the Dion Lee and Misha show as well as heading to the Ginger and Smart viewing (pictured here)

Nikki was also seen hobnobbing with Bachelor star Anna Heinrich, shoe designer Terry Biviano and fashion blogger Kate Waterhouse.

On Sunday, she went bra-less in a chic two-piece ensemble - consisting of figure-hugging trousers and a gaping blouse - for the Toni Maticevski debut.

Nikki has kept a busy schedule so far this year, as she's a regular on the social scene as well as keeping up with her runway commitments for Myer as an ambassador.

She's a knockout: Australian presenter and model Erin Holland also made a fabulous appearance at the Swarovski show on Monday

Racy in lace: Isabelle Cornish showed plenty of skin as she flaunted her enviable figure in a sheer pink number

Crowning moment: Imogen Anthony opted for a sophisticated white frock which was teamed with an incredible headpiece for the event

Going monochrome! Neighbours star Sarah Ellen worked her magic in a chic black and white outfit

She's in fashion: Aussie model Tanja Gacic worked her magic in a white lace blouse and a two-tone skirt

Glitz and glam: Models seen posing on the runway during the Swarovski show on Monday

Fancy collection: Lots of embellished items and bold statements were made on the runway
She is often seen looking worse for wear outside clubs in Essex.

So it comes as no surprise that Chloe Sims appeared to have partied hard after getting to attend the star-studded Chopard dinner on Monday night during the 69th Annual Cannes Film Festival.

While The Only Way Is Essex star might have been an unlikely candidate to rub shoulders with the number of A-list stars in attendance, the 33-year-old ensured she made the most of her night at the glamorous event.

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Someone had fun: Chloe Sims appeared to have partied hard after getting to attend the star-studded Chopard dinner on Monday night during the 69th Annual Cannes Film Festival

Chloe was still in very high spirits as she made her way to her waiting taxi and was happy to chat away with photographers and blow kisses at the cameras.

She then got comfortable at the back of her taxi as she was seen hugging her legs to her chest as she waited for the car to move on.

On arrival earlier in the night, the reality star had wowed in a show-stopping canary yellow gown, which kept her ample assets under wraps, while no doubt turning the heads of many guests.

Job done: While at the back of her taxi as she was seen hugging her legs to her chest as she waited for the car to move on

Having a ball: While The Only Way Is Essex star might have been an unlikely candidate to rub shoulders with the number of A-list stars in attendance, the 33-year-old ensured she made the most of her night

Off you go: Chloe was still in very high spirits as she made her way to her waiting taxi and was happy to chat and pose for photographers

Mwah: The star blew kisses at the camera as she was escorted to her car by a male companion

Chloe managed to hide any lingering effects from the night before after partying at Cannes' legendary Gotha nightclub on Sunday evening.

The mother-of-one appeared to have cemented her flourishing friendship after her night of the town, when she was seen leaving with multi-millionaire property tycoon, Robert Tchenguiz.

Yet it was another night, another dress as she opted for the uber glamorous yellow gown which boasted a demure high neck and floor-sweeping hemline.

Block panels of colour were sandwiched between ribbed material which proffered a glimpse at her slender thighs, taut stomach and a hint of surgically-enhanced cleavage.

Mellow yellow: TOWIE's Chloe Sims ensured she held her own at The 69th Annual Cannes Film Festival as she headed to the star-studded Chopard dinner on Monday night

Oozing glamour: The 33-year-old reality star wowed in a show-stopping canary yellow gown, which kept her ample assets under wraps, while no doubt turning the heads of many guests

Proving the clue was in the detail, Chloe grasped a cute boxy clutch in a bold magenta hue - adding another dash of colour to the already eye-popping ensemble.

Preparing to rub shoulders with some of the biggest stars in the showbiz stratosphere, the Essex-born beauty managed to maintain a steely exterior.

Her peroxide blonde tresses were styled into a voluminous beehive before cascading into loose curls which tumbled around her shoulders gracefully.

Pink to make the boys wink: Proving the clue was in the detail, Chloe grasped a cute boxy clutch in a bold magenta hue - adding another dash of colour to the already eye-popping ensemble

Blonde beauty: Her peroxide blonde tresses were styled into a voluminous beehive before cascading into loose curls which tumbled around her shoulders gracefully

The beauty salon owner's make-up was typically flawless with her cosmetically-enhanced pout slicked with a matte pink lipstick and her eye make-up heavily applied.

In a wholly less demure display the night before, Chloe slipped into a fitted nude dress, which featured an extremely plunging neckline, allowed the ITVBe star to show off her fantastic figure as she left the club with the 55-year-old multi-millionaire.

Chloe was lent some support on her way out of the club by Richard's driver, who helped her along through the throng of people to a Range Rover, while her companion hopped into the passenger seat.

Stunner: The beauty salon owner's make-up was typically flawless with her cosmetically-enhanced pout slicked with a matte pink lipstick and her eye make-up heavily applied

Chloe and the Iranian-born tycoon have set tongue's wagging in recent weeks, with the duo having been spotted out and about in the South of France together - although there is no suggestion the two are romantically linked.

And it seems the Essex native has been introduced to Robert's family, as she shared snaps on her Instagram of herself, the tycoon and his sister, Lisa, partying.

MailOnline have contacted a member of Chloe's team for comment.

Also living it up in Gotha was French movie star Olivier Martinez, who looked dashing in a leather jacket as he hit the same club Chloe has been in one night previously.

Home time: In a wholly less demure display the night before, Chloe slipped into a fitted nude dress, which featured an extremely plunging neckline, allowed the ITVBe star to show off her fantastic figure as she left the club with the 55-year-old multi-millionaire
She is engaged to American DJ Greg Andrews - best known as DJ Ruckus.

So it's no surprise Australian model Shanina Shaik knows how to have a good time.

Over the weekend, the 25-year-old let her hair down and enjoyed a girl's trip to Las Vegas to celebrate her close pal Jocelyn Chew's birthday.

Party animal: Model Shanina Shaik let her hair down and enjoyed a girls trip to Las Vegas over the weekend to celebrate her close pal Jocelyn Chew's birthday

During her quick trip to Sin City, the Victoria's Secret model stripped down to a teeny tiny black bikini as she soaked in the warm sunshine.

The triangle swimsuit showed off her super toned and slender frame.

While clutching tightly onto a beverage, Shanina displayed a cheeky smile as relished in spending time with her gal pals.

Flaunt it: During her quick trip to party central, the Victoria's Secret model stripped down to a black teeny tiny bikini as she soaked in the warm sunshine

Day attire: Earlier in the day she covered up her model figure with a black dress which featured random cut-outs and a low back

Relatively makeup free at the event, she wore her thick brunette hair out with a natural curl while tucking her tresses behind her ears.

Earlier in the day, she covered up her model figure with a black dress featuring random cut-outs and a low back.

After returning to her American-based home on Sunday evening, Shanina was quick to board another flight the following morning.

The model enjoyed the luxury life of Etihad airway's first class as she ventured to her native country of Australia to attend the annual Fashion Week events in Sydney.

Hitting the town: During her time in Vegas Shanina (R) hit up numerous night clubs with her girl pals

Living the life: Days after her trip to the party town she boarded a flight to Australia ahead of Sydney Fashion Week 2016

Upon boarding the long-haul flight, the beauty showed off her blemish free complexion as she posed for a makeup free close-up selfie.

In the flawless shot she slicked her dark hair back into a tight high bun while dressing in a black jumper and matching scarf.

Shanina also shared an image of her seat area which featured a pull-out bed and a flat screen TV.

Next to the photo, she wrote: 'Im going to be well rested for the show in Sydney #Etihad #MBFW #RunwaytoRunway.'
The new president of the Philippines has vowed to bring back the death penalty, in particular advocating executions by hanging as part of a ruthless law-and-order crackdown promised during his campaign.

Rodrigo Duterte said he would ask Congress to reimpose capital punishment, which has been suspended since 2006, for major crimes such as drug trafficking, rape, murder, robbery and kidnapping-for-ransom

The 71-year-old president-elect said that criminals convicted of two major crimes, such as a rape and murder, should be hanged twice.

Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte, 71, has vowed to bring back the death penalty, and said that criminals convicted of two major crimes, such as a rape and murder, should be hanged twice

Duterte said he preferred death by hanging to a firing squad because he did not want to waste bullets, and because he believed snapping the spine with a noose was more humane.

'After you are hanged first, there will be another ceremony for the second time until the head is completely severed from the body. I like that because I am mad,' he said.

In back-to-back press conferences since his landslide victory in May 9 elections, the mayor of southern Davao city said security forces would be given 'shoot-to-kill' orders and that citizens would learn to fear the law.

'Those who destroy the lives of our children will be destroyed,' Duterte said in wide-ranging comments to reporters in Davao on Monday afternoon as he outlined on his war on crime once he is sworn into office on June 30.

'Those who kill my country will be killed. Simple as that. No middle ground. No apologies. No excuses.'

Popular: Duterte has also promised a 2am curfew on drinking in public places

Duterte also vowed to roll out Davao law-and-order measures on a nationwide basis, including a 2am curfew on drinking in public places and a ban on children walking on the streets alone late at night. Smoking in restaurants and hotels will also be banned.

The centrepiece of Duterte's stunningly successful election campaign was a pledge to end crime within three to six months of being elected.

Duterte vowed during the campaign to kill tens of thousands criminals, outraging his critics but hypnotising tens of millions of Filipinos fed up with rampant crime and graft.

He said on one occasion that 100,000 people would die, and so many bodies would be dumped in Manila Bay that the fish would grow fat from feeding on them.

In an initial press conference late Sunday, Duterte said his 'shoot-to-kill' orders would be given for those involved in organised criminals or who resisted arrest.

'If you resist, show violent resistance, my order to police (will be) to shoot to kill. Shoot to kill for organised crime,' he said.

Duterte said the military as well as the police would be used in his war on crime.

Big promises: Rodrigo Duterte promised to eliminate crime and police corruption withing six months if he won the election, which he subsequently did

'I need military officers who are sharp-shooters and snipers. It's true. If you (criminals) fight, I will have a sniper shoot you,' he said.

On his ban on children walking alone late at night, Duterte warned the parents of repeat offenders would be arrested and thrown into jail for 'abandonment'.

The current president, Benigno Aquino, warned repeatedly during the election campaign that Duterte was a dictator in the making and would bring terror to the nation.

However his preferred successor, Mar Roxas, an establishment politician who promised to continue Aquino's slow but steady macroeconomic reforms, ended in a distant second place.

Duterte has been accused of running vigilante death squads during his more than two decades as mayor of Davao, a city of about two million people that he says he has turned into one of the nations safest.

Rights groups say the squads - made up of police, hired assassins and ex-communist rebels -- have killed more than 1,000 people.

They say children and petty criminals were among the victims.

Duterte boasted on one occasion during the campaign of being behind the squads, saying they killed 1,700 people. But other times he denied any involvement.

Duterte also made international headlines for constant use of vulgar language, including on one occasion branding the pope a 'son of a whore'.
Cannes film shines light on Chad's 'torture factories'

There is a heart-stopping moment in a new documentary about the survivors of Chadian dictator Hissene Habre's torture chambers, when one of the torturers kneels down in front of his victim and begs for forgiveness.

"I had to follow orders," mumbles "Mahamat the Cameroonian" -- now a broken man himself living on the streets as an outcast.

"Then why did you have to beat me so badly?" his victim asks, handing the former gendarme the rubber pipe he used to flail his prisoner's leg to a pulp.

Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun presents a new documentary about the survivors of dictator Hissein Habre's torture chambers on May 16, 2016 during the 69th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes Loic Venance (AFP/File)

"Your superiors told you to stop, but you went on and on," adds the man, who lost the leg.

The scene is typical of the muted but unflinching encounters that fill "Hissein Habre, A Chadian Tragedy", Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's quietly dignified film about one of Africa's least known mass killings, which premieres at the Cannes film festival Monday.

Some 40,000 people were murdered during Habre's eight-year reign of terror, a Chadian commission concluded, while the West looked the other way, more worried about the Cold War and Moamer Kadhafi in neighbouring Libya.

Habre was their ally and American and French money even paid for the country's political police, the feared DDS, to torture on an industrial scale, said Clement Abaifouta, who leads a survivors' group in the capital N'Djamena.

- Habre verdict -

The group has spent 15 years trying to bring the former rebel leader -- who was deposed in 1990 -- to trial. Habre will finally be judged later this month at a special tribunal in neighbouring Senegal, where he had fled into exile.

One of the victims featured in the film, Adimatcho Djamai, who was tortured so badly he spent more than two decades on the flat of his back in a corrugated iron shack, died the day he was due to testify at Habre's trial.

Haroun told AFP he wanted to cast a light on what he calls "this genocide" largely ignored by the outside world "because it was some business of the blacks" carried out behind closed doors.

The director uses Abaifouta as his narrator, visiting his fellow survivors and gently coaxing the horrific stories of their torture from them.

A hugely cultured man, he was chosen by the guards to bury those who died around him in the packed cells from hunger, thirst and torture.

- Forgiveness -

Sometimes he would wake to find another inmate dead beside him and "be glad that it meant a little more space. That is what we were reduced to" he said. "We were beasts."

"I had to pull my life together with a rake" afterwards, he said.

Haroun said most of the people who were rounded up by Habre's DDS henchmen "were innocent. They were arrested for no reason, the random victims of a bloodthirsty regime."

One, Robert Gambier, trying to explain the terrible things done to them, thought Habre might have wanted to appease the spirits with human "sacrifice so he could hold onto power".

Haroun -- Chad's foremost filmmaker whose film "Grigris" competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2013 -- told AFP he wanted to see "if was it possible to still live together after such monstrosities. Can survivors still find a place for forgiveness in their hearts?"

While "Mahamat the Cameroonian" is forgiven by his victim, another survivor Haroun filmed was convinced his former torturer would one day try to murder him so he wouldn't have to see pass him in the street again.

Asked by Abaifouta if he would kill the man if he had the chance, he said he would.

While the victims pray that Habre will be punished by the judges in Dakar, they are under no illusions that it will make their pain any more bearable.

One man who was once rich enough to have five wives said he was now a "vegetable", his brain shrunk by the lack of vitamins while in jail. "Only one of the wives has stayed."

For those who still have their minds, the torture continues in the memories they carry. "I carry the dead around my head like a turban," one said.

The president of Chad Hissene Habre reviews a presidential guard and the Chadian army in 1984 in N'Djamena Joel Robine (AFP/File)
Philippines' Duterte says communist leader welcome home

The leader of the Philippines' communist insurgency will be welcome to return home after nearly three decades in exile and participate in peace talks, president-elect Rodrigo Duterte has said.

Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison wrote in a Facebook post last week he hoped to come home following the landslide May 9 election win of Duterte, with whom he has maintained ties while living in the Netherlands.

"I do not begrudge the NPAs (communist New People's Army) in looking for firearms. But when I reach my oath-taking... they must realise I am the government and I am the enemy but I offer my hand in peace and we can talk," he said at a press conference on Monday.

Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte will be sworn into office on June 30 Ted Aljibe (AFP)

Duterte previously said late Sunday that Sison's return to the Philippines would be important in helping to end the rebellion.

The insurgency was one of Asia's longest and has claimed an estimated 30,000 lives since the 1960s.

"Yes, he is welcome. I am happy with the statement that he is coming home. I would very much want to talk to him about resolving the insurgency problem," Duterte told reporters in the southern city of Davao where he has served as mayor for most of the past two decades.

Duterte also said communist figures would be considered for cabinet posts.

Sison, now 77, fled to Europe soon after peace talks failed in 1987.

The communists armed wing, the NPA, is believed to have fewer than 4,000 soldiers, down from a peak of 26,000 in the 1980s, according to the military, however it retains support among the deeply poor in the rural Philippines.

Communists killed three soldiers in the central Philippines on Saturday, according to the military, in the first outbreak of deadly violence between the two sides since Duterte's election win.

Duterte is due to be sworn into office on June 30.

Incumbent President Benigno Aquino revived peace talks soon after taking office in 2010 but shelved them in 2013, accusing the rebels of insincerity in efforts to achieve a political settlement.

The talks got bogged down after the communists demanded the release of scores of their jailed comrades whom they described as "political prisoners", which the Aquino government rejected.

Duterte, who was Sison's student at a Manila university in the 1960s, said he was even willing to comply with the communists' demand to release their captured members.

"If I am satisfied we are dealing in good faith, I will consider releasing all political prisoners," he said.
Malaysia accused of rights abuse for barring activist's trip

Malaysia's government faced fresh allegations of trampling rights on Monday after the leader of a massive demonstration last year calling for the premier's ouster over a graft scandal said she was prevented going abroad to accept an award.

Maria Chin Abdullah, who heads the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections -- Malaysia's leading political pressure group -- said she was stopped Sunday night from travelling to South Korea to accept the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights on behalf of her group.

"It's outrageous and shows a desperate government clutching on to power when it should be accountable," she told AFP.

Malaysia prevented activist Maria Chin Abdullah from travelling overseas to accept an award Mohd Rasfan (AFP/File)

Chin said she was given no explanation and that the refusal violated her constitutional rights.

Prime Minister Najib Razak's government is accused of cracking down on civil liberties following a 2013 election setback and amid allegations that billions of dollars were stolen from a state development fund he founded called 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Najib and 1MDB both deny wrongdoing.

Chin's organisation -- known in Malaysia as "Bersih", the Malay word for "clean" -- is an alliance of NGOs that has staged large demonstrations in recent years to demand reform of an electoral system it says is rigged in favour of the ruling coalition.

Last August it orchestrated protests by tens of thousands to press for Najib's ouster over the graft allegations and demand anti-corruption reforms.

Chin's travel refusal drew criticism of the government on Malaysia's hyperactive social media Monday, and opposition leader Wan Azizah Wan Ismail vowed to call for a protest against "this shameful, desperate act".

Immigration authorities and Najib's office could not immediately be reached for comment.

In the past three years dozens of activists and government critics including Chin have been investigated on a range of charges, typically sedition, and authorities banned Bersih's yellow shirts as a "national security threat" following last August's anti-Najib protests.

Last year, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was jailed for five years on a sodomy conviction that the United States and others said raised troubling questions about Malaysia's judiciary and rule of law.

An appeals court was to rule Monday on the sedition conviction last year of prominent anti-government activist Hishamuddin Rais, who said in 2013 that Najib's government should be otherthrown.
Cultural Revolution demons haunt Chinese billionaire

His father killed himself in prison after being branded a counter-revolutionary, but during the Cultural Revolution Huang Nubo became a Red Guard himself, humiliating and beating others. It was the making of him and his generation, says the billionaire -- yet he dreads a repetition.

One of China's richest men, who climbs mountains to relax and has summitted Everest three times, Huang is best known overseas for a controversial and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to buy a swathe of Iceland.

But under the pseudonym Luo Ying, he has written two volumes of poetry describing his experiences during Mao Zedong's decade of social upheaval known as the Cultural Revolution that began 50 years ago on Monday.

Chinese poet and billionaire Huang Nubo at Pekin University in Beijing Nicolas Asfouri (AFP)

His father Huang Junfu -- a colonel who fought for Communist forces in China's civil war -- fell victim to one of Mao's earlier purges, and was jailed and abused. He saved up medicine to take a fatal overdose when his son was only three.

"When they buried him in the dunes, his eyes were still staring," Huang describes in verse.

"An enemy got no gravestone, so he rotted like a nameless dog."

Despite enduring years of stigma from villagers in the northern region of Ningxia, during the Cultural Revolution Huang became an enthusiastic Red Guard. One poem describes him punching a landowner -- who later died -- with his "steel fists".

Later he was one of some 20 million youngsters "sent down" by Mao to toil alongside farmers in the countryside and correct their elitist ways.

With neighbour pitted against neighbour, individuals condemned by their colleagues at "struggle sessions", and children denouncing parents, the era was a complex web of victimhood and complicity.

"I am a victim, a participant and a perpetrator; I denounced others and was denounced," Huang told AFP.

The last line of his second book -- banned on the mainland -- reads: "For people who lived through the Cultural Revolution, its no use trying to figure out whos a human and whos a ghoul.

"We're all demons. Myself included," he said at Peking University, where he has funded a poetry research centre.

- Wolf in poet's clothing -

China's rise in recent decades -- triggered by the Communist party's repudiation of Mao's ideas and the introduction of market forces -- was built on the foundations of the period's most destructive legacy, Huang believes.

"The Cultural Revolution taught this generation of mine that you must act like a wolf in order to survive," he explained.

It destroyed old value systems and replaced them with the belief "that winner takes all, that if you can beat someone, then you're a hero, that if you're rich, you're in the right."

Huang's own life followed a similar trajectory to the ruling party: he left a job in its propaganda department to set out on the capitalist road to riches with his Zhongkun real estate and tourism conglomerate.

Now 59, his fortune is estimated at $1.3 billion by Chinese wealth publisher Hurun.

But he has never found the bones of his father, settling instead for carving his name in the mountainside tomb he built for his mother once he became rich.

In 1981 the Communist Party officially pronounced the Cultural Revolution a grave error that "led to domestic turmoil and brought catastrophe to the Party, the state and the whole people".

It ascribed chief responsibility to Mao, avoiding the question of the party's own culpability, and now it limits discussion of the period to prevent undermining the legitimacy of its rule.

Huang's first book, "Diary of a Sent-Down Youth", is also less directly critical and is freely available on the mainland.

But censors barred "Memories of the Cultural Revolution", which is filled with visceral recollections: corpses torn open, female bodies floating downriver with sticks in their genitals as testament to their rape, and the execution of an elderly woman for singing the wrong lyrics to a patriotic song.

- Turn to brutality -

As many of the era's horrors are slowly forgotten, nostalgia for some aspects persists in certain quarters: television shows romanticise the lives of sent-down youths, and there are more than 50 museums about them around the country.

Six of the seven members of the party's Politburo Standing Committee, the most powerful organ in China, were sent to the countryside during the period, including President Xi Jinping.

An anniversary concert earlier this month at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing stirred controversy for an uncritical presentation of the period's anthems and propaganda imagery.

Huang decries the whitewashing of history.

"If we continue on like this and don't reflect on this past, there will be another Cultural Revolution," he said.

"If the impression left behind is that the Cultural Revolution was so romantic... people won't be afraid to turn once again to brutality."

As a poet he feels a responsibility to record what he witnessed.

"When at the end you look at your current position in society, you'll think back and wonder whether the nightmare you lived through was in fact right or not," he said.

"But the harm it's brought to your heart can never be got rid of in a lifetime."

Chinese poet and billionaire Huang Nubo was one of some 20 million youngsters "sent down" by Mao to toil alongside farmers in the countryside and correct their elitist ways Nicolas Asfouri (AFP)
Pavement glued down in Hong Kong for China official visit

Paving stones in central Hong Kong have been glued down to prevent protesters using them as missiles, as authorities roll out elaborate security measures ahead of a high-level Chinese visit that could stoke resentment over mainland rule.

The measures, which include barricades in central Hong Kong, come as Beijing tightens its grip on the semi-autonomous city where a fledgling independence movement in recent months has angered China.

Running battles with police in February, which included "localist" protesters in favour of more autonomy for Hong Kong, saw demonstrators dig up bricks from the street and throw them at officers.

A woman walks over pavement reinforced with glue to prevent the bricks from being dug up and used as projectiles during expected protests in Hong Kong Isaac Lawrence (AFP)

Glue has been poured into the cracks between paving stones around the harbourfront convention centre where Zhang Dejiang, who chairs China's communist-controlled legislature, will speak at an economic conference on Wednesday.

Explaining the decision to glue the pavement, Hong Kong's highways department said they might be "subject to vandalism".

A Hong Kong man linked to the city's pro-democracy opposition was also arrested in China on Sunday over a suspected plot to use a drone to disrupt Zhang's visit, according to Chinese state media.

Zhang is the most senior official to visit Hong Kong in four years in a trip seen as an attempt to ease tensions and gauge the political temperature -- he will meet with a group of pro-democracy legislators during his visit.

But some activists have voiced fury over the ensuing security clampdown, with water-filled plastic barricades and metal fencing cordoning off central roads and flyovers.

"Keeping protesters away is... ridiculous. It makes you feel like you are in North Korea," said Sham Tsz-kit of Civil Human Rights Front, which organises Hong Kong's major annual July 1 political rally where residents air their grievances against the government.

"Zhang Dejiang is coming here to understand the situation in Hong Kong but now his eyesight will be completely blocked."

The group says activists will "proactively get close to the convention centre" despite a no-protest security zone set up by police.

Police have termed the security moves "counter-terrorism measures".

"The security threat is higher than the past," said a police source.

"Activists have become more violent."

Frustrations have grown among young activists since largely peaceful mass pro-democracy rallies in 2014 failed to bring political reform.

Some now say they will not stop at violence to force change.

Zhang's visit is also expected to help Beijing assess whether unpopular city leader Leung Chun-ying is a viable candidate for a second term -- his current term ends in March.

Hong Kong is semi-autonomous after being handed back by Britain to China in 1997 and enjoys freedoms unseen on the mainland.

But there are growing fears those freedoms are being eroded by Beijing.

The disappearance last year of five Hong Kong booksellers known for publishing salacious titles on Chinese political leaders tapped those deep-seated concerns.

All five men resurfaced on the mainland, where four are facing criminal investigation.
A determined Clinton woos wary voters: blue-collar whites

No Democratic presidential candidate has won Kentucky since 1980 except Hillary Clinton's husband Bill, but she is treating the state as an opportunity to appeal to a demographic that has consistently snubbed her: working-class white men.

The Bluegrass State holds its Democratic primary on Tuesday, and Clinton's rival Bernie Sanders is gunning for a victory here like his one last week in neighboring West Virginia, as he battles to keep his long-shot nomination bid alive.

The two states are linked to coal as is much of Appalachia, the largely white, long-struggling eastern US region where many feel they have been given the cold shoulder in the lukewarm recovery from the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton addresses the crowd during a campaign stop at the Union of Carpenters and Millwrights Training Center May 15, 2016 in Louisville, Kentucky John Sommers II (Getty/AFP)

The Clintons have made several trips to coal country to try and contain the damage from comments Hillary made in March, when she said she aimed to "put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business."

That stung for many in Appalachia in particular, and she has sought amends on the campaign trail.

"It's important to say that there are a lot of people in our country who are feeling frustrated, they're feeling anxious -- some of them are feeling angry -- that they are not yet recovered from the great recession," she told a get-out-the-vote rally Sunday in Fort Mitchell, in northern Kentucky.

"That they're not yet on a path that they can see will take them and their families into a more prosperous future, and I think we have to understand that."

With the Democratic nomination in sight, Clinton is no doubt repositioning herself for a bruising general election campaign battle against Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

After the better part of a year trying to win over the party's liberal wing, she has broadened her economic message and turned to blue-collar voters.

"They're not giving up on Kentucky -- not now, not in November, not ever," local congressman John Yarmouth, speaking of the Clintons, told a union-heavy crowd in Louisville before the former first lady spoke.

Clinton made three stops in Kentucky on Sunday, and was to make at least three more Monday.

In Fort Mitchell she noted how she has time and again pledged to help coal country.

"They made it possible for us to industrialize, to turn on the lights, to power our factories, to build the biggest economic engine and middle class the world had ever seen," she said.

"And we can't and we must not walk away from them."

- 'They see through her' -

Truman Burden, a 58-year-old retired pipe-fitter and a one-time coal miner, said in Louisville he hoped to steer his former colleagues away from Trump.

"What I'm trying to tell blue-collar workers is, you know where Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton stand," he told AFP.

"If you want to take a chance on an unknown, then you may have buyer's remorse."

Exit polls in several states have shown Hillary Clinton losing the white male vote by substantial numbers to Sanders.

In a November face-off, the billionaire businessman appears destined to hold an advantage over Clinton, at least initially, with working-class whites.

"They see through her," said real estate manager Bill Dunn, speaking of blue-collar workers, as he ate dinner at a barbecue joint in Paducah, a city in southwestern Kentucky.

"They like honesty, and she's missing that."

Clinton's West Virginia loss to Sanders was a sober reckoning for a candidate who crushed Obama there in 2008.

One Clinton strategy appears to be to target voters who have been turned off by Trump's harsh rhetoric and policy positions.

"This is scary, dangerous talk. This is the talk of a loose cannon who is making statements and creating confusion," Clinton said.

"We can't afford that."

For Cuban-born Lazaro Marti, a truck driver in Louisville, November will bring a tough decision.

"I don't like Hillary but I'm afraid of Mr. Trump, so oh my God," he said, shaking his head and acknowledging Trump's belligerence towards immigrants.

But he said many of his white working-class acquaintances in Kentucky, whom he called "tough people," have already circled the wagons.

"They talk about Hillary like they're talking about the devil," Marti said.

A campaign supporter shows his support for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during a campaign stop May 15, 2016 in Louisville, Kentucky John Sommers II (Getty/AFP)

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton meets her supporters after a rally on May 11, 2016 in Blackwood, New Jersey Kena Betancur (AFP)
Philippine Islamist kidnappers set new ransom deadline

Islamist extremists in the Philippines who last month beheaded a Canadian man say they will kill another Western hostage if a multi-million dollar ransom is not paid within four weeks.

A video released by Abu Sayyaf -- whose leaders have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group -- shows Canadian Robert Hall and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad wearing orange shirts in a jungle setting, surrounded by hooded, armed men.

The men say their captors have threatened to kill at least one of them if no payment is received by June 13.

Philippine soldiers march on a rice field as they end an operation against Islamic Militants Mark Navales (AFP/File)

A caption on the video, carried by the terror-monitoring SITE Intelligence Group, says Abu Sayyaf is demanding 600 million pesos ($12.8 million).

In April, the group killed Canadian John Ridsdel after a ransom deadline passed.

Ridsdel, Hall, Sekkingstad, and Hall's Filipina girlfriend were abducted in 2015 from a resort on Samal island, hundreds of kilometres (miles) from Abu Sayyaf's traditional strongholds.

The group has been blamed for the worst terror attacks in Philippine history.

Although its leaders have pledged fealty to the Islamic State group, analysts say they are more focused on lucrative kidnappings-for-ransom than on setting up a caliphate.

The group is believed to have just a few hundred militants but has withstood repeated US-backed military offensives, surviving by using the mountainous, jungle terrain of the southern islands to its advantage.
China says Taiwan fraud suspects deported from Malaysia 'confess'

A group of Taiwanese fraud suspects deported from Malaysia to China have confessed and will be tried on the mainland, according to Chinese authorities, despite an angry Taipei demanding they face justice at home.

The expulsion of the 32 suspects from Malaysia in April came after another group of Taiwanese fraud suspects were sent to China from Kenya, a move described by Taiwan as "abduction".

The deportations are seen by observers as a means of exerting pressure on self-ruling Taiwan's new president Tsai Ing-wen, who takes office on Friday and has a far more sceptical approach to relations with Beijing than her China-friendly predecessor did.

Masked alleged fraud suspects arrive at Taoyuan Airport in Taiwan last month Sam Yeh (AFP/File)

Taiwan has lodged formal complaints with China over the deportations and has insisted its nationals face investigation and trial on the island.

Beijing says it wants to try the suspects deported from Malaysia on the mainland because they were part of a telecom fraud ring that targeted Chinese victims. China's Ministry of Public Security said they will undergo proceedings under the "mainland judiciary".

"The 32 Taiwanese suspects confessed to committing fraud and have been detained according to law," mainland police said, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The report quoted a 72-year-old cancer patient who was tricked into depositing two million yuan ($152,835) into a "safety account" as part of the fraud scheme.

"This is my medical savings and it's all been cheated," said the woman surnamed Guo.

"I hope Taiwan will hand these crooks over to the mainland so they can be punished by law," she said.

Taiwan's Ministry of Justice, which has been leading negotiations with the mainland over its detained nationals, was not immediately available for comment.

Taiwan sent a delegation to meet mainland police and discuss the Malaysia case over the weekend.

Twenty other Taiwanese suspects arrested in the Malaysia raids were deported back to Taiwan last month and are currently under investigation.

Chinese state media has also said previously that the Kenya suspects have admitted their guilt and will be tried on the mainland.
Models in Iran have been arrested and forced to grovel in public for posting glamorous pictures of themselves online without headscarves.

Police have arrested eight models in a new crackdown targeting 'un-Islamic acts' such as women exposing their hair.

One famous beauty, Elham Arab, known for her wedding-dress portraits, was interrogated on camera at the Iranian Revolutionary Court with her blonde hair hidden under a black chador.

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Models in Iran have been arrested and forced to grovel in public for posting glamorous pictures of themselves online without headscarves. Among them is, Elham Arab (pictured) known for her wedding-dress portraits

She was charged with 'promoting western promiscuity' and forced to give public 'self-criticism.'

'All people love beauty and fame,' Arab said. 'They would like to be seen, but it is important to know what price they will pay to be seen.'

The arrests were made in a sting operation code-named Spider-2 which particularly targeted users of the picture-sharing site Instagram.

Arab (pictured) was interrogated on camera at the Iranian Revolutionary Court with her blonde hair hidden under a black chador (left)

The sting is said to have identified 170 people running Instagram pages - 59 photographers and makeup artists, 58 models, 51 fashion salon managers and designers, and two active institutions.

'We found out that about 20 per cent of the (Iranian) Instagram feed is run by the modelling circle,' Javad Babaei said on state television on Sunday.

They have been 'making and spreading immoral and un-Islamic culture and promiscuity', he added.

Babaei said it was the judiciary's duty to 'confront those who committed these crimes in an organised manner'.

In addition to the eight arrests, criminal cases have been opened against 21 other people, he said.

The sting operation has homed in on a database of over 300 popular Iranian Instagram accounts and connected accounts.

Police have arrested eight models in a new crackdown targeting 'un-Islamic acts' such as women exposing their hair online. Pictured is model Niloofar Behboudi

The arrests were made in a sting operation code-named Spider-2 which particularly targeted users of the picture-sharing site Instagram (pictured, Behboudi)

Prosecutor Javad Babaei accused models of 'making and spreading immoral and un-Islamic culture and promiscuity' during an address on state television on Sunday (pictured, Behboudi)

According to reports those arrested include Melikaa Zamani, Niloofar Behboudi, Donya Moghadam, Dana Nik, Shabnam Molavi, Elnaz Golrokh and Hamid Fadaei.

The hijab has been compulsory in public in Iran since its 1979 Islamic revolution.

Arrests follow the detentions of artists, poets, journalists and activists as moderate President Hassan Rouhani's administration secured a landmark nuclear deal with world powers.

They signal that hard-liners in the police and judiciary, who were unable to stop the accord and fear looser social norms will weaken the Islamic Republic, still hold significant power in the country.

Those targeted saw their businesses shut down, as well as their pages on Instagram and Facebook removed. Arab's Instagram account could not be accessed on Monday.

Prosecutor Babaei said an investigation found 20 per cent of the Instagram feed in Iran is run by the modelling circle. Pictured, Elnaz Golrokh, a model and professional makeup artist who has 638,000 followers

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, women have been prohibited from going out in public without their hair covered (pictured Golrokh)

The sting is said to have identified 170 people, including photographers, makeup artists, fashion salon managers, designers and two active institutions in addition to models (pictured Golrokh)

The previous Spider operation targeted 'pornography and insulting Islamic sanctity,' officials have said.

In recent years, Iranian women - especially in the capital, Tehran - have worn the mandatory scarf loosely on their head, drawing the ire of conservatives in the Islamic Republic.

Tehran police chief Gen. Hossein Sajedinia in April announced his department had deployed 7,000 male and female officers for a new plainclothes division - the largest such undercover assignment in memory - to enforce the government-mandated Islamic dress code.

According to reports those arrested include Melikaa Zamani, Niloofar Behboudi, Donya Moghadam, Dana Nik, Shabnam Molavi, Elnaz Golrokh and Hamid Fadaei (pictured)

In addition to the eight arrests, criminal cases have been opened against 21 other people (pictured, Fadaei)

The model crackdown is just the latest move by authorities to control online expression in Iran.

Nearly 40 percent of Iran's 80 million people can access the Internet, though the U.S.-based watchdog Freedom House describes web access as 'not free' in the Islamic Republic due to censorship and filtering.

In May 2014, authorities arrested a group of young Iranian men and women for an online video of them dancing to Pharrell Williams' song 'Happy.'

While the arrests drew widespread criticism, including from the musician himself, those involved each received suspended sentences of six months' imprisonment and 91 lashes.

Shabnam Molavi, (pictured) is noted for modeling in Tehran for California-based magazine FSHN in 2013 without the permission of the government. It is said to have been one of the first photoshoots in the country for an international magazine since a 1969 edition of Vogue

Nearly 40 percent of Iran's 80 million people can access the Internet, though the U.S.-based watchdog Freedom House describes web access as 'not free' in the Islamic Republic due to censorship and filtering. Pictured, Melikaa Zamani, who was among the eight arrested

The average monthly income for a successful model is 100 million rials (2317.20) Elham Arab told Tehran's prosecutor.

Instagram is extremely popular in Iran. Unlike Facebook, Twitter and YouTube which remain blocked, Instagram is accessible to Iranians.

The site, owned by Facebook, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In recent years, Iranian women - especially in the capital, Tehran - have worn the mandatory scarf loosely on their head, drawing the ire of conservatives in the Islamic Republic. Pictured right is Elham Arab

The arrests were made under an scheme called 'Spider II', targeting models who post photos online in which they are not wearing a hijab (stock image)
'Dead panda' scare over animal gifted to Taiwan by China

Taipei Zoo was forced to deny reports that a giant panda gifted by China as a symbol of unity had died on Monday, in what initially appeared to be a frightening portent for cross-strait ties.

Tuan Tuan was one of two pandas given to the island in 2008 in a move seen to endorse the presidency of Beijing-friendly leader Ma Ying-jeou.

The animal's name means "reunion" and was interpreted as a reflection of China's ambition to reunite self-ruling Taiwan with the mainland.

Reunion gift: Tuan Tuan was one of two giant pandas that Beijing gave to Taiwan in 2008 following the election of China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou as the island's leader

But as Ma prepares to step down and Taiwan ushers in new China-sceptic leader Tsai Ing-wen -- intensely disliked by Beijing -- reports circulated online that Tuan Tuan had died of distemper.

News of the death in Chinese media, including huanqiu.com and People's Daily, triggered laments on the mainland that Beijing's propaganda machine had failed.

"Tuan Tuan is dead. Propaganda is hopeless," said one post on People's Daily Twitter feed.

Others welcomed the news, with one post on Taiwan's Liberty Times website saying: "It's good... we don't have to spend so much money raising a Chinese panda."

As the story spread, Taipei Zoo insisted Tuan Tuan and his fellow pandas were very much alive.

"All three pandas are in good health," said zoo spokesman Eric Tsao.

Huanqiu.com later issued a correction and apology to the zoo and Internet users.

People's Daily also posted a correction via Twitter saying it had been "misinformed".

Some in Taiwan slammed the false reports -- others joked China would have gone to war with Taiwan if the panda had actually died.

"Haha, in the future history will report that China attacked Taiwan because of a panda," one message on the Apple Daily website said.

Another speculated that pro-indepedence groups would have been blamed for the panda's death.

Although a fully fledged democracy, Taiwan has never formally declared a breakaway from China.

Taiwanese pro-independence groups criticised the Ma government for accepting Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan in 2008, saying they were part of Beijing's pro-reunification push.

But political scepticism did not taint public acceptance and they became a star attraction.
European vote against China market status not 'constructive': Beijing

A European Parliament vote against granting China market economy status in the World Trade Organization was "not at all constructive", Beijing's foreign minister said Monday as he met his French counterpart.

The designation would make it much harder for Brussels to fight Beijing over alleged unfair trading practices.

China joined the WTO in 2001. It argues that accession protocols dictate that it will automatically switch over to market economy status by this December, 15 years later.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault (left) shakes hands with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi ahead of talks in Beijing, on May 16, 2016 Jason Lee (Pool/AFP)

But European lawmakers in Strasbourg last week voted overwhelmingly against issuing the designation, concerned that doing so would cost Europe job losses in key industries such as steel.

"We believe that this European Parliament decision was not at all constructive," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a joint press conference with his visiting French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault.

Wang urged the EU to take an "objective look" at the issue and respect WTO rules.

"As a member of the WTO, the EU must fulfil its promises and not deny or avoid the issue," he said, adding: "China's wish is clear, simple and reasonable: that everyone should remember the commitments they have made."

China is the world's second-largest economy and the EU's second-largest trading partner, with daily trade flows of over $1 billion.

It is also the world's top steelmaker, producing more than half of global output, and has been accused of flooding the world market with oversupply sold at below cost in violation of global trade rules.

The industry is under state control, and government policy often plays a more important role in business decisions than market factors.

Chinese steel output hit a record 70.65 million tons in March, according to data from China's National Bureau of Statistics. The industry is suffering a massive overcapacity problem.

In the non-binding resolution, MEPs urged that Chinese exports be treated in a "non-standard way" so as to "ensure a level playing field for EU industry and defend EU jobs", the European Parliament said on its website.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, has given itself until this summer to decide whether China should be granted market economy status.
Interracial marriage drama prompts Oscar buzz at Cannes

US filmmaker Jeff Nichols said Monday he hoped his rapturously received Cannes contender "Loving", about an interracial couple's landmark marriage-rights case, would help change the current vicious tone of America's culture wars.

The movie, which prompted early Oscar buzz after a press preview, tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a Virginia couple who battled before the Supreme Court in 1967 for their right as a white man and an African-American woman to live together as husband and wife.

Critics praised the film's restrained style and knock-out lead performances by Joel Edgerton ("Zero Dark Thirty") and Ethiopian-Irish actress Ruth Negga, best known for the BBC miniseries "Criminal Justice".

US director Jeff Nichols, Irish-Ethiopian actress Ruth Negga and Australian actor Joel Edgerton, present the film "Loving" on May 16, 2016 at Cannes Film Festival Alberto Pizzoli (AFP)

Reporters peppered both stars and Nichols with questions as to whether they had already prepared their Academy Award acceptance speeches, to which the director quipped: "Let's get through the press conference first."

The Arkansas-born Nichols, who made the breakout hit "Take Shelter" and previous Cannes competition entry "Mud", said overheated US debates in an election year tended to ignore "the people at the centre of these things".

"I hope this is the quiet film of the year. I didn't want to make a courtroom drama, I wanted to make a movie about two people in love," he said.

"I truly believe this is one of the most pure love stories in American history."

The film was inspired by the HBO documentary "The Loving Story", which Nichols said his wife admired so much that she told him: "If you don't make this movie I'm going to divorce you."

- 'Hidden violence to oppression' -

Edgerton, who has also appeared in the "Star Wars" franchise, said he had been drawn to the "quiet and meditative" screenplay's relevance at a time when marriage equality was being hotly debated in his own country, Australia.

"To me a lesser screenwriter or someone really drawn into the patina of Hollywood may have rearranged the truth in order to make it more Hollywood - 'let's have them high fiving each other in the courtroom'," he said.

He said that the Lovings deserved to take up a bigger chapter in the history books but that stories like theirs had long been neglected "when they don't involve bloodshed or massive acts of violence".

"There's something so gentle about this and yet there's a kind of a hidden violence to the oppression of situations like this," he said.

Negga said she found it "quite shocking" that Alabama took until 2000 to become the last US state to wipe a law against interracial marriage from the books.

She noted it was only last year that Ireland voted in a referendum to allow gay marriage.

"Having a very Catholic history, I think that we showed the world that it's possible to evolve in having discussions about equality," she said.

Nichols said he had hoped to complete "Loving" before the US Supreme Court heard a pivotal gay marriage case last year, in the hope that it could "influence it" by spurring the public debate on the issue.

"And then when we were making the film, the verdict came in the way we all hoped and then there was this idea that this issue is just going to be taken care of and of course it's not," he said.

"Soon you get religious liberty laws added (permitting unequal treatment of gay couples) and all these other things and you realise the Supreme Court can only do so much. It takes a long time for society to get it right."

"Loving" is one of 21 films vying at global cinema's biggest showcase for the Palme d'Or top prize, which will be awarded on Sunday.

"Loving" by US director Jeff Nichols (pictured) tells the story of a Virginia couple who battled before the Supreme Court in 1967 to live in matrimony as a white man and an African-American woman Laurent Emmanuel (AFP)
Philippines' Duterte vows hangings in war on crime

Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte vowed Monday to introduce executions by hanging as part of a ruthless law-and-order crackdown that would also include ordering military snipers to kill suspected criminals.

In back-to-back press conferences since his landslide victory in May 9 elections, the tough-talking mayor of southern Davao city said security forces would be given "shoot-to-kill" orders and that citizens would learn to fear the law.

"Those who destroy the lives of our children will be destroyed," Duterte said in wide-ranging comments to reporters in Davao on Monday afternoon as he outlined on his war on crime once he is sworn into office on June 30.

Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to reintroduce capital punishment Ted Aljibe (AFP)

"Those who kill my country will be killed. Simple as that. No middle ground. No apologies. No excuses."

Duterte also vowed to roll out Davao law-and-order measures on a nationwide basis, including a 2:00 am curfew on drinking in public places and a ban on children walking on the streets alone late at night. Smoking in restaurants and hotels will also be banned.

Duterte said a central part of his war on crime would be to bring back the death penalty, which was abolished in 2006 under then-president Gloria Arroyo.

Duterte said he would ask Congress to reintroduce capital punishment for a wide range of crimes, including drug trafficking, rape, murder, robbery and kidnapping-for-ransom.

He said he preferred death by hanging to a firing squad because he did not want to waste bullets, and because he believed snapping the spine with a noose was more humane.

For people convicted of two major crimes, Duterte said he wanted them hanged twice.

"After you are hanged first, there will be another ceremony for the second time until the head is completely severed from the body. I like that because I am mad," he said.

- Shoot to kill -

The centrepiece of Duterte's stunningly successful election campaign was a pledge to end crime within three to six months of being elected.

Duterte vowed during the campaign to kill tens of thousands criminals, outraging his critics but hypnotising tens of millions of Filipinos fed up with rampant crime and graft.

He said on one occasion that 100,000 people would die, and so many bodies would be dumped in Manila Bay that the fish would grow fat from feeding on them.

In an initial press conference late Sunday, Duterte said his "shoot-to-kill" orders would be given for those involved in organised criminals or who resisted arrest.

"If you resist, show violent resistance, my order to police (will be) to shoot to kill. Shoot to kill for organised crime," he said.

Duterte said the military as well as the police would be used in his war on crime.

"I need military officers who are sharp-shooters and snipers. It's true. If you (criminals) fight, I will have a sniper shoot you," he said.

On his ban on children walking alone late at night, Duterte warned the parents of repeat offenders would be arrested and thrown into jail for "abandonment".

The current president, Benigno Aquino, warned repeatedly during the election campaign that Duterte was a dictator in the making and would bring terror to the nation.

However his preferred successor, Mar Roxas, an establishment politician who promised to continue Aquino's slow but steady macroeconomic reforms, ended in a distant second place.

- Death squad fears -

Duterte has been accused of running vigilante death squads during his more than two decades as mayor of Davao, a city of about two million people that he says he has turned into one of the nations safest.

Rights groups say the squads -- made up of police, hired assassins and ex-communist rebels -- have killed more than 1,000 people.

They say children and petty criminals were among the victims.

Duterte boasted on one occasion during the campaign of being behind the squads, saying they killed 1,700 people. But other times he denied any involvement.

Duterte also made international headlines for constant use of vulgar language, including on one occasion branding the pope a "son of a whore".

After scorching criticism in the mainly Catholic nation, Duterte sent a letter of apology to Pope Francis and said he would visit the Vatican to make a personal apology, but on Sunday reneged on that pledge.

Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has promised a 2:00am curfew on drinking in public places Ted Aljibe (AFP)
Rwanda genocide perpetrator gets life in prison in Sweden

A Stockholm court on Monday sentenced a Swede of Rwandan origin to life in prison for genocide and war crimes for his involvement in the 1994 massacres.

Claver Berinkidi, 61, moved to Sweden in 2002 and was naturalised in 2012.

In 2007 a Rwandan court sentenced him in absentia to 30 years behind bars, and authorities later tracked him down to Sweden, where officials opened an inquiry.

At least 800,000 people were killed during the Rwanda genocide in 1994 Steve Terrill (AFP/File)

Basing its decision mainly on the testimonies of survivors, the Swedish court said Berinkidi had a commanding role and took part in five attacks in April and May 1994, including an assault in the Nyamure hills that killed thousands of civilians.

"While the genocide took place 22 years ago, this category of crime is so grave that the sentence should be life in prison," the court said in a statement.

Berinkidi, who was also ordered to pay compensation to Rwandans whose property was damaged, is the second Swede of Rwandan origin to be sentenced over crimes committed during the genocide.

Stanislas Mbanenande was also sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for his role as a low-level commander.

According to the United Nations some 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, were killed in the Rwandan genocide, which began after the assassination of Rwanda's Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana in April 1994.

Rwandans have also been sentenced in the United States, Canada, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France for their role in the killings.
UN says 9.2 million Lake Chad residents need food aid

More than nine million people in the Lake Chad region are in desperate need of food aid as the violent insurgency being waged there by Boko Haram rages, the UN said Monday.

Half of the region's residents are facing "chronic food insecurity" and malnutrition as the violence around Lake Chad "continues to deteriorate", the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.

"(Fighting) has catastrophically worsened their vulnerability," said the statement, which blamed Boko Haram's violent campaign to carve out a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria and beyond for triggering "the largest crisis of displaced people in Africa".

Nigerian refugees wait outside a tent of UNHCR in the Nigerian refugees camp named "Dar-es-Salam" near Baga Sola in the Chad lake region on April 7, 2015 Philippe Desmazes (AFP/File)

Over 2.4 million people have been forced from their homes due to the violence in the region that has claimed more than 20,000 lives, according to the UN.

Since 2015, the four countries that share Lake Chad -- Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger -- have significantly weakened Boko Haram but have been unable to vanquish the Islamists entirely.

UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs Stephen O'Brien began a four-day tour of the region on Monday to raise awareness of the crisis.

On Tuesday he will visit Diffa in southeast Niger which is home to 200,000 refugees and people internally displaced by the violence before travelling to Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria, a city that has been on the frontline of the battle against Boko Haram.

Lake Chad itself has several islands which have been evacuated at the request of the Chadian army to help it fight against insurgents.

The area around the lake has thick vegetation which has helped jihadists to move undetected.
Zuckerberg to meet with conservatives on bias claims

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has invited conservative leaders to a meeting this week to discuss allegations that the social network has been suppressing some political views.

A Facebook spokeswoman told AFP Zuckerberg would meet with about a dozen conservatives including political commentator Glenn Beck and talk show host Dana Perino.

The meeting comes in the wake of a report by tech news website Gizmodo alleging that articles from politically conservative outlets were deliberately omitted from Facebook's "trending" news stories.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to meet with about a dozen conservative leaders over accusations that the social network has been suppressing some political views Lluis Gene (AFP/File)

Facebook has denied the allegations and Zuckerberg has promised to investigate the matter.

"If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post last week.

Beck said in a post on Facebook that he had been contacted by Zuckerberg and asked to meet Wednesday at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

"Mark wanted to meet with 8 or ten of us to explain what happened and assure us that it won't happen again," Beck wrote.

"The question that needs to be answered Wednesday is: Will Mark see this as an opportunity to free all points of view but at the same time unify America and the world."

Others invited include Zac Moffatt, a political consultant who worked for former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney; Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute; and Barry Bennett, an advisor to presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Kenya police break up opposition protests

Kenyan police fired tear gas and beat opposition demonstrators with truncheons Monday to stop them storming the offices of the electoral commission to demand its dissolution.

Hundreds of protesters were prevented from reaching the offices of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). Some of the demonstrators threw stones at police.

There have been several such protests in recent weeks.

Kenyan riot police clash with protesters during an opposition rally in Nairobi, on May 16, 2016 Carl De Souza (AFP)

Protests were also held in other Kenyan towns, including Kisumu and Kisii in the southwest, with police there firing tear gas to break up the crowds, local media reported.

"Police are using unnecessary excessive force on peaceful demonstrators, they are not justified at all," said former prime minister Raila Odinga, promising to hold protests every Monday.

Odinga, who lost his latest bid for the presidency in 2013, accuses the electoral commission of being biased towards President Uhuru Kenyatta.

He has demanded that a new slate of commissioners be named ahead of the next election in August 2017.

The windscreen of Odinga's own car was damaged during Monday's protest. He later said he was not inside the vehicle at the time.

Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinet denied rumours that police had fired on the car.

Police spokesman George Kinoti said only teargas had been used to disperse the protesters, stressing that "no live bullets were used".

Kenyatta beat Odinga by more than 800,000 votes to win the presidency in 2013.

Odinga and civil society groups have accused the electoral commission of a series of irregularities that they said skewed the results.

The election nonetheless passed off peacefully, in contrast to the country's disputed 2007 elections which degenerated into fierce inter-ethnic violence that left more than 1,100 people dead after supporters of Odinga, who is from the Luo people, challenged his defeat by Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu.

The next election in August 2017 is shaping up as a rematch of the 2013 election, with 71-year old Odinga expected to try to unseat Kenyatta, 54.

President Kenyatta recently organised a meeting with several party faithful to discuss the possibility of reorganising the electoral commission.

A man is knocked off his motorbike by Kenyan riot police during an opposition rally in Nairobi, on May 16, 2016 Carl De Souza (AFP)
S. African university hall torched in latest campus attack

South African university authorities said Monday that the firebombing of an auditorium in Johannesburg was part of an "organised set of attacks" targeting educational institutions.

The overnight arson attack at the University of Johannesburg caused about 100 million rand ($640,000) damage, destroying an auditorium, computer laboratories and equipment.

No arrests have yet been made over the attack, which follows months of sporadic violence, protests and clashes at universities around South Africa.

South African authorities have increased police presence after a spate of violent protests at university campuses across the country Alexander Joe (AFP/File)

A statement from the university said arsonists had "fire bombed" the 1,000-seater auditorium as well as computer laboratories full of equipment.

"This is just the latest in a set of criminal acts directed at our country's basic and higher education institutions," Vice-Chancellor Ihron Rensburg said.

"We are calling on the police, the intelligence services and the judiciary to re-double their efforts in getting to the bottom of this organised set of attacks."

South African universities were rocked last year by violent student protests over tuition fees, with many campuses temporarily shut down.

The protests by students, many of them so-called "born frees" who grew up after apartheid, forced the government to abandon planned tuition fee hikes.

Violence has also erupted at student demonstrations this year, with buildings in February torched at the North West University's Mafikeng campus.

Other campus unrest has focused on allegations of racism and a dispute over the use of the Afrikaans language.

In recent weeks, teaching has been suspended in the Vuwani district of the northern province of Limpopo after about 20 schools were burnt down by local residents.
Maid to measure: Lebanon domestics take to the catwalk

Anna Fernando struts down the black-and-white tiles of a trendy coffee shop in the Lebanese capital, dressed in high heels and a strapless ball gown of caramel gauze ribbons.

The 43-year-old left her native Sri Lanka 21 years ago to work as a maid in Lebanon, determined to provide her children with better opportunities in life than her own.

On her day off this weekend, she joined a dozen other domestic workers at a modelling show in central Beirut organised by local NGO Insan, Arabic for "human being".

Marcelita Dominga, working as a housemaid, checks her make-up before a fashion show in Beirut on May 15, 2016 Patrick Baz (AFP)

"Even if I work like a maid, I'm a human being," Anna says backstage, her eyes thick with mascara before her name is called to show off the work of young Lebanese designers.

Sunday's fashion show is part of an effort to humanise an estimated 250,000 foreign domestic workers who toil in the kitchens and living rooms of Lebanese families.

Now in its fourth year, the show aims to give participants the opportunity to be seen as something other than the hired help.

"In Lebanese society, they live like all other women when they're not at work," says Randa Dirani, one of the organisers.

Rights groups often accuse Lebanon and Gulf states of racist and degrading treatment of migrant domestic workers, who are often referred to simply as "servants" or "Sri Lankans", regardless of their actual nationality.

- 'Not only domestic workers' -

Most overseas workers work under a restrictive sponsorship system called "kafala" that leaves them dependent on their employer's goodwill and unable to escape abusive work relationships.

Domestic workers are not protected by Lebanese labour law, despite the efforts of a new union begun for them early last year with the support of the country's federation of labour unions.

"At this fashion show we want to tell all these people we are not only domestic workers," Sumy Khan from Bangladesh says.

The 22-year-old with short hair and tattoos says she would have loved to have studied journalism at home in Bangladesh, but that she had to leave two years ago to support her family.

As she paraded down the catwalk in a short cream-and-white onesie between Lebanese and foreigners huddled along its edge, cameras in hand, her friends whooped and clapped in support.

The fashion show is just one of several civil society initiatives that seeks to combat often discriminatory and exploitative attitudes towards domestic workers.

Last year, a domestic help agency in Lebanon put out an ad on Mother's Day that was slammed by activists as racist and wildly dehumanising.

"For Mother's Day indulge Ur Mom & offer her a housekeeper. Special offer on Kenyan & Ethiopian nationalities for a period of 10 days," read a text message sent to thousands of mobile phone users and subsequently picked up by media.

The American University of Beirut last year surveyed 1,200 employers in Lebanon on their views of domestic workers, and Lebanese rights group Kafa has turned the results into an online campaign.

"Fifty-one percent of Lebanese women think (their) domestic worker is not trustworthy -- although she takes care of their children," goes one line.

- 'Now a migrant chef' -

Standing out among the models on Sunday, Alix Lenoir, a 20-year-old Franco-Lebanese student of industrial design, says she decided to join to connect with other participants.

"I think it's a shame that these women in our society in Lebanon have had a little of their confidence taken away from them," she says.

"When they go out, they go out among themselves -- not with other people."

By the end of the evening, Lenoir is hugging one of her fellow models -- 18-year-old Iman Bachir, the daughter of migrant workers from Sudan -- and promising to meet up soon.

Fernando says her sacrifice of living away from her family for two decades has paid off.

Today, her 21-year-old daughter is studying pharmacology and her 22-year-old son is about to graduate as an army officer in Sri Lanka.

And she is starting up a small catering business.

"People love Sri Lankan food. It's delicious, full of spices, and very good for you," reads her business card, on which her name sits in a circle of fresh herbs, chillies and spices.

She cooks Sri Lankan, Indian and Nepali dishes, the card says, and Lebanon-based foodies can order fluffy rice and fragrant curries by phone, via email or Facebook.

"I'm now a migrant chef," she says.

Domestic workers take part in a modelling show in Beirut organised by local NGO Insaan, on May 15, 2016 Patrick Baz (AFP)

Iman Bachir, the daughter of migrant workers from Sudan, models a creation during a fashion show in Beirut on May 15, 2016 Patrick Baz (AFP)
US Supreme Court punts on contraception coverage case

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that lower courts should decide an emblematic case on women's access to contraception, the latest in a series of challenges to the divisive "Obamacare" health care reform.

The court was considering whether the government was violating the religious freedom of certain faith-based groups by providing health insurance covering birth control to their female employees.

It was the fourth time in as many years that a challenge to President Barack Obama's flagship health reform ended up before the justices, this time in the midst of a heated election cycle and a partisan standoff over filling an empty seat on the Supreme Court bench.

Supporters of employer-paid birth control rally in front of the Supreme Court on June 30, 2014 Chip Somodevilla (Getty/AFP/File)

In a unanimous ruling, the justices said remanding the issue to lower courts was "more suitable" and noted that they expressed "no view on the merits of the cases."

"In particular, the Court does not decide whether petitioners' religious exercise has been substantially burdened, whether the government has a compelling interest, or whether the current regulations are the least restrictive means of serving that interest," the decision said.

Religious organizations can opt out of the Obamacare birth control mandate by providing written notification of their opposition on faith grounds.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that family-owned private companies -- including arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby -- could also choose not to provide contraceptive coverage to female employees on religious grounds.

In such cases, insurance companies and the government become responsible for providing the coverage directly to the concerned women.

But religious non-profits had argued that the government's accommodation still burdened their free exercise of religion by making them complicit in providing contraception, contrary to their beliefs.

- Closely watched -

The plaintiffs in the seven combined lawsuits had argued that the Obamacare requirement violates a federal law protecting religious freedom.

All but one federal appeals court had ruled in favor of the government in earlier decisions in the cases.

Monday's ruling came after the parties showed in briefs to the court that they could reach a compromise on how women could obtain contraception coverage from insurance companies without direct involvement by their employers.

"Petitioners have clarified that their religious exercise is not infringed where they 'need to do nothing more than contract for a plan that does not include coverage for some or all forms of contraception,' even if their employees receive cost-free contraceptive coverage from the same insurance company," the decision said.

Plaintiffs in the case, Zubik versus Burwell, included schools as well as the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic charity.

The White House said it was "pleased" with the Supreme Court's decision.

"It will allow millions of women across the country to continue to get the health care coverage that they need," spokesman Josh Earnest said.

In passing the law requiring contraception coverage, Congress sought to address a nationwide problem, namely that women pay more than men for preventive care and therefore often do not seek such services.

The latest case was being closely watched as a test of a court that has been evenly split across ideological lines since the death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia in February.

A 4-4 tie would have left lower court rulings in effect.

Senate Republicans have refused to vote on a replacement for Scalia until US President Barack Obama leaves office next year.

Earnest said Obama continued to be concerned about the vacancy although it did not seem to have influenced Monday's decision.

"But I haven't heard anybody make the argument that leaving the Supreme Court of the United States short-staffed is somehow good for the country," he said.
Myanmar religious tolerance activists face police action

Myanmar police said Monday that they have begun legal action against five protesters over a weekend rally intended to promote religious tolerance.

The move came as rights groups raise concerns about efforts by the new pro-democracy government to amend draconian laws on demonstrations.

Dozens of activists and students marched through Yangon on Saturday in a rare gesture of religious solidarity in the diverse nation, where rising Buddhist nationalism has stoked anti-Muslim sentiment and sporadic bouts of bloodshed in recent years.

Myanmar police are posted outside the US embassy during a rally by supporters and monks belonging to the hardline Buddhist group Mabatha in Yangon, Myanmar on April 28, 2016 Romeo Gacad (AFP/File)

Police said they decided to take action against five rally leaders -- believed to be three women and two men of several faiths -- because the campaigners had deviated from the agreed protest route.

They now face a charge that could land them in jail for up to six months under a controversial law, currently being reviewed by the new government led by political prisoner-turned-politician Aung San Suu Kyi.

"We have started legal action against five protest leaders under Section 19 of the Peaceful Assembly Act," police Lieutenant Major Win Tin from Kyauktada township told AFP.

Suu Kyi's party is stacked with former dissidents who served prison time for their opposition to Myanmar's military governments during decades of repressive rule.

They are now in government following a landslide November election victory.

Since taking the helm the administration has freed scores of activists and political prisoners and signalled its determination to repeal oppressive laws.

But rights groups have raised the alarm over a number of provisions in a draft amendment to the Peaceful Assembly Act. They fear these will continue to penalise non-violent demonstrations, albeit with shorter jail terms.

"You don't need these punishments in your draft. If you remove these three or four things then it's pretty good and you won't be condemning another generation of peaceful protesters for breaking a flawed law," said David Mathieson of Human Rights Watch.

He said the revised law would still give "carte blanche to abusive local officials" to prosecute activists and urged a rethink.

The proposed draft would mean protesters must still give local police 48 hours' notice of the place and time of any rally, as well as details of planned speeches and slogans.

Those who protest without giving prior notice could be imprisoned for three months, while repeat offenders could face a year behind bars.

Parliament is due to debate the law in the coming days.

Yangon police have also begun legal action against seven leaders of an unauthorised protest by Buddhist nationalists outside the US embassy last month.

They were demonstrating against the US use of the term "Rohingya" to refer to the persecuted Muslim minority in the western state of Rakhine.
Moroccan ex-inmates demand probe into Casablanca blasts

Former Moroccan Salafist prisoners protested on Monday outside parliament to demand the reopening of an investigation into bombings in Casablanca in 2003, and accused the government of "shirking its responsibilities".

Some 150 former prisoners and their families answered a call by the "joint committee for the defence of Islamist detainees" to demand that the probe into the bombings that they called "the biggest lie Moroccans have ever known".

Salafists adhere to a strict Sunni interpretation of Islam.

Supporters of Moroccan Salafist prisoners protest on May 16, 2016 outside the parliament in Rabat to demand the reopening of an investigation into bombings in Casablanca, 13 years later Fadel Senna (AFP)

Monday's demonstration comes 13 years to the day after the wave of suicide bombings in the country's commercial capital killed 33 people.

In the wake of the attacks, the authorities arrested more than 8,000 people and more than 1,000 were later sentenced, including 17 given the death penalty.

"We demand a transparent and impartial investigation into the events of May 16, 2003," committee coordinator Osama Boutahir told AFP.

"We ask Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane to meet this demand that he himself expressed while in opposition."

Some who attended the protest accused the government of "shirking its responsibilities" towards the former prisoners.

Other Moroccans convicted after the attacks are still languishing in jail.

"We are still waiting for our husbands and sons to be released," some of whom are in prisons hundreds of kilometres (miles) from their families, a spokesman for the committee said.
World powers ready to arm Libya in fight against IS

The United States, Italy and Libya's friends and neighbours agreed Monday to arm the war-torn country's fledgling unity government to fight the Islamic State threat.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said a 25-member group had agreed to exempt the Government of National Accord from the UN arms embargo imposed to halt the Libyan conflict.

Along with Italy's Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Kerry said there are no plans to deploy an international military force in Libya to support the new government.

Libya has been in a state of chaos since the death of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011 Mahmud Turkia (AFP/File)

But he said Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj had come to Vienna with a request for equipment and training which the international ministers present were ready to support.

"The United States stands ready to provide humanitarian, economic and security support to the new Libyan government on their request," Kerry said.

World powers, he said, will support the GNA's exemption "from the UN arms embargo to acquire those weapons and bullets needed to fight Daesh and other terrorist groups."

The Islamic State group, or Daesh, has seized upon the chaos in Libya to carve out a sizeable enclave around the Mediterranean city of Sirte and to launch attacks beyond.

The international community, particularly European powers, are also concerned about a stream of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Libya's unsecured coast.

Gentiloni told reporters in Vienna that "the stabilisation of Libya is the key answer to the risks that we have, and to stabilise Libya we need a government."

He hailed Sarraj's decision to create a "presidential guard, which we will support" and a joint operations centre to coordinate a Libyan campaign to defeat the IS menace.

Sarraj thanked the ministers for their support and insisted the Libyans would take the lead in defeating the militants, while seeking weapons and training from abroad.

"The situation in Libya is extremely bad, I'll be very frank, economically, financially and security-wise. It requires the collaboration of all parties," he said.

The three were speaking after a meeting of senior officials from 21 governments and four international organisations, called by Gentiloni and Kerry to address the crisis.

The group included the permanent members of the UN Security Council as well as Libya's neighbours, ensuring that a move to exempt the GNA from the embargo are likely to succeed.

The broader ban on supplying weapons to Libya's other warring factions will remain in place, and even be strengthened, the ministers said.

- Struggle against rivals -

Libya fell into chaos after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi. Now, rival militias vie to control the oil-rich country.

Last year, the Islamic State group seized the coastal city of Sirte -- Kadhafi's hometown -- and transformed it into a training camp for militants.

The unity government was formed in late March after months of negotiation by UN mediators.

But while the Government of National Accord has received backing from key institutions like the central bank and the National Oil Corporation, it still faces resistance.

Rival administrations in the east and west of Libya -- along with armed militias and a would-be army under a rogue general -- still refuse its authority.

- Springboard for attacks -

Europe fears the IS jihadists, who have in recent weeks made new advances, could use Sirte's port and airport as a springboard to launch attacks on the continent.

In their joint statement the ministers placed their support behind the GNA as sole Libyan authority and threatened more economic sanctions against factions that resist its rule.

"We are ready to respond to the Libyan government's requests for training and equipping the Presidential Guard and vetted forces from throughout Libya," they said.

Libya's divisions have once again deepened in recent days, with the GNA and renegade general Khalifa Haftar's forces each announcing their own plans to liberate Sirte.

IS is estimated to have around 5,000 fighters in Libya, and it is trying to enlist hundreds more.

This month the jihadists launched suicide attacks on key checkpoints in government-held territory along the coast.

The move allowed them to build a defensive line along part of the coastal highway that links the east of Libya where Haftar is based with Tripoli in the west.

Islamic State group militants are shown parading in a street in Libya's coastal city of Sirte in this image from Islamist media outlet Welayat Tarablos in early 2015
South African cabbies scuffle with Uber rivals

A group of South African metred-taxi drivers clashed with their Uber rivals in Johannesburg on Monday as a provincial government launched a process to formally licence the car-hailing app service.

The handful of taxi drivers, some wearing yellow uniforms, confronted several Uber drivers who were leaving a meeting with a provincial minister of Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg.

The provincial government said the fracas was caused by "extremely aggressive" cabbies, adding that Gauteng transport minister Ismail Vadi was hurried away from the scene.

Taxi drivers, some wearing yellow uniforms, confronted several Uber drivers who were leaving a meeting with a provincial minister of Gauteng province Paballo Thekiso (AFP/File)

An Uber spokeswoman confirmed the "disruption" of the meeting and said "we are relieved nobody was seriously injured".

Vadi was launching a process to issue operating licences for Uber taxis.

Uber drivers in South Africa, and in many other countries, have faced threats from metred-taxi drivers who accuse them of stealing business and posing unfair competition due to low fares.

"We're highly tired about Uber. We don't want it in South Africa, they must close this app," said Jabu Sepele, 43, adding Uber was "robbing us, it's killing our business."

The Gauteng government -- which is in charge of the capital Pretoria and economic hub Johannesburg -- vowed not to reverse its new licensing policy.
Yemen bans qat on weekdays in Aden

Authorities in south Yemen have banned the sale of the mild narcotic qat on working days, and it will be only allowed into the city of Aden on weekends, witnesses said Monday.

Checkpoints have been set up around Aden to stop qat shipments from entering the port city, as patrols roamed markets to enforce the ban on sales, the witnesses said.

Security forces said in a statement that they had decided to "ban the sale of qat in Aden and its suburbs during the week".

A Yemeni man harvests Qat, a mild drug used daily by many Yemenis, on a farm on the outskirts of Sanaa on April 15, 2016 Mohammed Huwais (AFP/File)

The statement said the ban was prompted by complaints from citizens and due to "security, social and health" concerns, adding that qat markets caused traffic jams.

Aden has served as the temporary capital of Yemen since forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi recaptured it and four other southern provinces from Shiite rebels in the summer.

Southern militias that fought alongside Hadi's loyalists have been mostly assimilated in security forces.

Chewing wads of the evergreen herb has a stimulant effect similar to drinking numerous cups of strong coffee, and it is part of the social fabric of Yemen.
Clinton woos blue-collar voters in Kentucky, raps Trump

Presidential primaries in Oregon and Kentucky on Tuesday will give Hillary Clinton a chance to bolster her almost insurmountable delegate lead over Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, who has vowed to slog on despite long odds.

Sanders is gunning for victory in the Bluegrass State, building on his win last week in neighboring West Virginia as he battles to keep his long-shot nomination bid alive.

West Virginia and Kentucky are linked to coal, as is much of Appalachia -- the largely white, long-struggling eastern US region where many feel they have been given the cold shoulder in the lukewarm recovery from the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton addresses the crowd during a campaign rally at La Gala in Bowling Green, Kentucky on May 16, 2016 John Sommers II (Getty/AFP)

The northwest state of Oregon on Tuesday also holds its Democratic and Republican primaries, where limited polling has indicated Clinton is ahead. Sanders, however, leads in Kentucky.

Clinton sees Kentucky as an opportunity to appeal to a demographic that has consistently snubbed her: working-class white men.

No Democratic presidential candidate has won in the state since 1980 except for her husband Bill Clinton.

On Sunday the former first lady appeared to indicate he would play a role in her administration if she were elected, promising to put him "in charge of revitalizing the economy."

And during a stop Monday at a diner in Paducah, a city in southwestern Kentucky, she reasserted that he would be her ally in office.

"I've already told my husband that if I'm so fortunate enough to be president and he will be the first gentleman, I'll expect him to go to work... to get incomes rising."

Sanders has also been investing time in Kentucky.

He was in Paducah on Sunday and Bowling Green Monday, holding much bigger rallies -- each more than 2,000 people.

- 'Risky and dangerous' -

The Clintons have struggled to contain the damage from comments Hillary made in March, when she said she expected to "put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business."

She made the comment during a speech on renewable energy but the soundbite stung many in Appalachia.

In Fort Mitchell at the weekend she emphasized her determination to help coal country, saying: "We can't and we must not walk away from them."

Clinton made three stops in Kentucky on Sunday and another four Monday.

"We've got to turn a lot of people out," she told diners in Paducah. "I'll tell you this, I'm not going to give up on Kentucky in November!"

Clinton shook hands, took selfies, offered hugs -- and even chatted with Trump supporters who vowed never to vote for her.

With the Democratic nomination in sight, Clinton is repositioning herself for a bruising general election campaign battle against Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

At a later rally in Hopkinsville, Kentucky's secretary of state and close Clinton friend Alison Lundergan Grimes made the succinct case for a steady hand over Trump's unpredictability and the Republican Party's reluctance to unite around their presumptive nominee.

"They have dysfunction. We have a candidate with a plan," Grimes said.

Clinton used the rally to pummel the "risky and dangerous" Trump, suggesting he is unqualified to handle tough foreign policy decisions.

"I think that we will have in this general election about as clear a contrast as you can imagine when it comes to this issue," she told a crowd of about 500, adding that Trump would be ineffective at the "boring" but important diplomacy that solves crises.

She pointed to her work in late 2012 in helping to defuse sky-high tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, in part by negotiating at length with Egypt's then-president Mohamed Morsi.

"Now ask yourself: how hard would it be for America's secretary of state to negotiate with a Muslim leader if someone running for president -- or heaven forbid were president -- was spending a lot of his time denigrating the religion of the people we had to deal with in a flashpoint region?" she said.

In a November face-off Trump appears destined to hold an advantage over Clinton, at least initially, with working-class whites.

Exit polls in several states have also shown Clinton losing the white male vote by substantial numbers to Sanders.

"She's not trustworthy," Jerry Armaigo, a 68-year-old retiree from the Navy, told AFP at the Paducah diner Clinton visited.

But he acknowledged Trump is not trustworthy either.

In November, "I will vote Republican," he said. "I don't want another four more years of Obama."

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton greets supporters during a campaign rally in Louisville, Kentucky on May 15, 2016 Michael Mathes (AFP/File)

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes a selfie with supporters during a campaign stop at the Union of Carpenters and Millwrights Training Center in Louisville, Kentucky on May 15, 2016 John Sommers II (Getty/AFP)

People peer through the window to catch a glimpse of US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during a campaign rally at the La Gala restaurant in Bowling Green, Kentucky on May 16, 2016 Michael Mathes (AFP)

People protest against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on May 16, 2016, in Bowling Green, Kentucky Michael Mathes (AFP)
UN concerned by rise in Burundi detentions

The United Nations is deeply concerned by a surge in violence in Burundi and a rise in the number of detentions in recent days, a UN spokesman said Monday.

The heightened tensions came around the one-year anniversary of an attempted coup to overthrow President Pierre Nkurunziza.

"We are deeply concerned by the hike in violence and the reports of an increased number of detentions in recent days," said UN spokesman Farhan Haq.

Demonstrators march during a rally in Bujumbura on May 14, 2016, commemorating the one-year anniversary of the failed attempt of a goverment coup

UN officials are closely monitoring the situation, he said.

The United Nations renewed its appeal for dialogue to overcome the crisis sparked by Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term which he went on to win in elections in July.

Around a hundred people were arrested in Bujumbura on Friday in a series of roundups by security forces targeting opposition strongholds, according to officials and witnesses.

Dozens of police and soldiers went door-to-door, street-by-street, compiling lists of residents and visitors and taking many away for questioning, mostly young men, according to witnesses.

On Wednesday in Bujumbura security forces again arrested more than 100 people. Most were released soon afterwards but witnesses said about a dozen detainees have not been seen since.

Burundi's Supreme Court last week sentenced 21 army officers who were allegedly involved in the coup plot in May last year to life in prison.

Burundi has been in crisis since April of last year, raising fears that the country could slide into ethnic warfare similar to the violence that tore apart Rwanda in 1994.
IS has lost nearly half the area it once claimed in Iraq: Pentagon

The Islamic State group has continued losing control over territory across Iraq and Syria, a Pentagon spokesman said, including almost half of what it had once held in Iraq.

The Defense Department had previously estimated that IS fighters had lost control of about 40 percent of the territory they claimed in Iraq and about 10 percent of the land they held in Syria.

Those tallies had gone up in recent weeks, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said.

Fighters from the Iraqi pro-government forces flash the sign for victory as they drive vehicles in the Albu Aitha area, north of Ramadi, on May 12, 2016 Moadh al-Dulaimi (AFP/File)

"The number right now in Iraq is about 45 percent of the territory they once held has been recovered," Cook said.

"The number in Syria is anywhere between 16 to 20 percent."

IS jihadists stormed across large parts of Iraq and Syria in early 2014, meeting little resistance from Iraqi security forces and exploiting the chaos in civil-war-torn Syria.

Since August 2014, the United States has led an international coalition fighting back against the IS group, using a combination of air strikes and training and equipping local partners.

IS fighters have lost control of Ramadi and Heet in Iraq, but still control other important cities including Mosul and Fallujah.
Snowden files set for wider release

The full cache of secret documents from former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden is being opened to journalists and organizations willing to work with the news organization holding the archive.

The Intercept, the news site launched by journalist Glenn Greenwald -- who was part of the team that first interviewed Snowden in 2013 -- announced on Monday that it would "invite outside journalists, including from foreign media outlets, to work with us to explore the full Snowden archive."

The move could vastly increase the disclosures from Snowden, who fled the United States with a trove of documents detailing vast surveillance programs by the NSA and other intelligence agencies from around the world.

US-journalist Glenn Greenwald, pictured on December 1, 2014, said The Intercept has already begun to provide archive access to secret documents from Edward Snowden to French daily Le Monde Tobias Hase (DPA/AFP/File)

"From the start of our reporting on the archive, a major component of our approach has been to partner with foreign (and other American) media outlets rather than try to keep all the material for ourselves," Greenwald said.

"We have collectively shared documents with more than two dozen media outlets, and teams of journalists in numerous countries have thus worked with and reported on Snowden documents," in addition to other media outlets with some documents such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, ProPublica and the Guardian.

Greenwald said that under an agreement with Snowden, the journalists reporting on these documents must agree to certain rules.

"There are still many documents of legitimate interest to the public that can and should be disclosed," he said.

"There are also documents in the archive that we do not believe should be published because of the severe harm they would cause innocent people."

Greenwald said The Intercept has already begun to provide archive access to French daily Le Monde and other media outlets, and added that "we are excited by the reporting this new arrangement will generate."

- NSA and Guantanamo -

The Intercept also on Monday released dozens of internal newsletters from the National Security Agency including one highlighting the secret agency's role in interrogation of Guantanamo prisoners.

The report said the NSA's role had not been previously disclosed in the interrogation of prisons rounded up and held at US naval base in Cuba suspected of collaboration in attacks on the United States.

The documents showed the NSA had a liaison official "responsible for interfacing with the... interrogators on a daily basis in order to assess and exploit information sourced from detainees."

The US administration of George W. Bush began bringing prisoners to Guantanamo in 2002 following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Intercept released 166 copies of the NSA's Signals Intelligence Directorate newsletter called SIDtoday, with some redactions, and promised to publish more covering nine years of editions from the archive.

"The SIDtoday documents run a wide gamut: from serious, detailed reports on top secret NSA surveillance programs to breezy, trivial meanderings of analysts' trips and vacations, with much in between," Greenwald said.

"Many are self-serving and boastful, designed to justify budgets or impress supervisors. Others contain obvious errors or mindless parroting of public source material. But some SIDtoday articles have been the basis of significant revelations from the archive."

The NSA did not respond to an AFP query about the latest release.
UN proposal would ask EU ships to enforce Libya arms embargo

France and Britain are preparing a UN resolution that would authorize EU ships in the Mediterranean to intercept vessels suspected of carrying weapons to Libya, diplomats said Monday.

The European Union's Operation Sophia would be tasked with enforcing a UN arms embargo that was imposed on Libya in 2011, during the uprising against Moamer Kadhafi.

European powers are also looking at building up Libya's coast guards to ramp up operations against migrant smugglers operating off the coast of the north African country.

Rebel fighters hold their weapons aloft to welcome a Turkish ship arriving from Misrata to the port of Benghazi to evacuate the wounded on April 3, 2011 Mahmud Hams (AFP/File)

The two measures could "come up pretty soon" at the Security Council, said a senior diplomat, who spoke on condition that he not be named.

Operation Sophia's enforcement of the arms embargo would be aimed at shoring up the UN-backed government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.

Many deliveries of weapons by sea have been destined for Sarraj's rival government in eastern Libya.

Sarraj won backing from the United States, European powers, Egypt and others on Monday for exemptions to the arms embargo that will allow his government to purchase weapons and confront the threat from the Islamic State group.

The draft resolution on expanding the EU naval mission would first require a decision from the European Union, said the diplomat, adding that this should take "weeks, not days."

Operation Sophia's new UN mandate would be limited however to the high seas off Libya's coast. It would authorize EU military action without the consent of the vessel's flagged state.

"If they spot that weapons are coming into Libya by sea, then they would be able to interdict the vessels carrying those weapons," he said.

- Loosening the arms embargo -

World powers hope the new UN-backed government will be able to put an end to years of chaos in Libya since the fall of Kadhafi and confront IS jihadists who have expanded their foothold in the lawless country.

Sarraj's government has the backing of the central bank and the national oil corporation but the House of Representatives has refused to endorse the new leadership.

Libya has had two administrations since mid-2014 when the militia alliance overran Tripoli, setting up its own authority and forcing the parliament to flee to the country's remote east.

A UN panel of experts reported in March that the Tobruk-based government in the east had recently received MIG-21F jets apparently from Egypt. Cairo told the panel the information was "incorrect".

The panel is also investigating weapons deliveries from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan to various Libya factions.

Last year, seven council members led by Spain put on hold Libya's request for UN approval of a major delivery of weaponry.

Libya had asked an exemption for deliveries of eight helicopters, six fighter jets, four fighter-bombers, 150 tanks, 150 personnel carriers mounted with machine guns, 10,000 automatic grenade launchers, 1,000 sniper rifles along with ammunition and mortar shells.

The UN experts had advised the council to reject the request, arguing that the arms shipments could fall into the wrong hands.
First South Korean wins Man Booker International Prize

South Korean author Han Kang won the Man Booker International Prize, sharing the 50,000 ($72,000, 63,500 euros) award with her translator -- who had only taught herself Korean three years before.

Han Kang, 45, an author and creative writing teacher who is already successful in South Korea, is likely to enjoy a spike in international sales following the win for "The Vegetarian".

"I'm so honoured" she told AFP. "The work features a protagonist who wants to become a plant, and to leave the human race to save herself from the dark side of human nature.

Man Booker International Prize winners, Korean author Han Kang (R) and translator Deborah Smith, pose for a photograph with the book "The Vegetarian" in London on May 15, 2016 Leon Neal (AFP)

"Through this extreme narrative I felt I could question... the difficult question of being human."

She was the first South Korean to win the prize.

Described as "lyrical and lacerating" by chairman of the judges Boyd Tonkin, the tale traces the story of an ordinary woman's rejection of convention from three different perspectives.

It was picked unanimously by the panel of five judges, beating six other novels including "The Story of the Lost Child" by Italian sensation Elena Ferrante and "A Strangeness in My Mind" by Turkey's Orhan Pamuk.

"This is a book of tenderness and terror," Boyd told guests at the award ceremony dinner at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Han Kang's first book to appear in English, "The Vegetarian" was described by newspaper The Guardian as a shock to the system.

"Across the three parts, we are pressed up against a societys most inflexible structures -- expectations of behaviour, the workings of institutions -- and we watch them fail one by one," Daniel Hahn wrote in a review.

- 'Climbing a mountain' -

For the first time this year, the award went jointly to the translator, Deborah Smith, 28, who only started learning Korean three years before she embarked on the translation.

"This was the first book that I ever translated, and the best possible thing that can happen to a translator has just happened to me," an emotional Smith told AFP.

"When I was 22 I decided to teach myself Korean I felt that I was limited by only being able to speak English. I'd always read a lot of translations, and you get the sense of this whole world being out there, very different perspectives, different stories," she said.

"It felt as thought I looked up almost every other word in the dictionary. It felt a bit like climbing a mountain. But at the same time just falling into this world that was so atmospheric and disturbing and moving -- it was a wonderful experience."

The international edition of Britain's Man Booker Prize was introduced in 2005 and up to now has been awarded in recognition of a body of work by a living author whose work was written or available in English.

But from this year, it will be presented annually for a single work of fiction that has been translated into English and published in Britain.

Once the poor relation in the English-language literary world, translations are becoming increasingly popular.

New research by Nielsen for the prize organisers revealed physical book sales of translated fiction in Britain rose 96 percent between 2001 and 2016, despite the market as a whole falling over that period.

Translated fiction is still a very small genre, representing just 1.5 percent of fiction and 3.5 percent of literary fiction, but it provided five percent of fiction sales and seven percent of literary fiction sales last year.

Growth in translated Korean fiction in Britain was particularly strong.

Korean author Han Kang signs a copy of her book "The Vegetarian" in London on May 15, 2016 Leon Neal (AFP)
Top China official visit stirs anger in Hong Kong

One of China's most powerful officials lands in Hong Kong Tuesday in an attempt to build bridges in the divided city, but the trip has already stirred anger among opponents.

The three-day visit by Zhang Dejiang, who chairs China's communist-controlled legislature, is the first by such a senior official in four years and comes as concerns grow in semi-autonomous Hong Kong that Beijing is tightening its grip.

While Zhang is ostensibly visiting to speak at an economic conference on Wednesday, the trip is widely seen as a bid to take the temperature in an increasingly febrile political climate which has fostered a fledgling independence movement, riling China.

A three-day visit to Hong Kong by Zhang Dejiang, who chairs China's communist-controlled legislature, is the first by such a senior official in four years Greg Baker (AFP/File)

As part of the trip, Zhang will meet with a group of veteran pro-democracy lawmakers Wednesday evening, a rare move observers say is designed to defuse frustrations.

"It is really time for him to meet with non-establishment legislators... to hear our analysis of how Hong Kong ended up where we are today, and what are the ways forward," Civic Party lawmaker Alan Leong, who is part of the invited group, told AFP.

However, only four pro-democracy legislators will gather with Zhang and protest groups voiced anger they were being kept away from the venue where he will speak.

The harbourfront conference centre is barricaded off and demonstrators will be confined to designated areas out of sight.

"Zhang Dejiang is coming here to understand the situation in Hong Kong but now his eyesight will be completely blocked," said Sham Tsz-kit of Civil Human Rights Front.

Paving stones in the area have been glued down to prevent protesters using them as missiles.

That comes after demonstrators dug up and threw bricks during running battles with police in February.

Zhang's visit is expected to help Beijing gauge whether unpopular city leader Leung Chun-ying should stand for another term -- his current stint ends in March 2017.

Like all Hong Kong leaders, Leung was chosen by a 1,200-member committee stacked with Beijing loyalists.

Mass rallies in 2014 for fully free leadership elections failed to win political reform.

Since then, young campaigners have become increasingly frustrated with intransigence in Hong Kong and Beijing, with some now saying they will not stop at violence to force change.

Pro-democracy legislator Emily Lau, one of the group to meet Zhang, said she would portray Leung as a divisive force.

"I'm going to tell him (Zhang) that Hong Kong is facing the most difficult situation since the handover," she added.

Hong Kong is semi-autonomous since it was handed back to China by Britain in 1997, with freedoms unseen on the mainland, but there are fears they are being stripped away.

Those concerns were exacerbated by the disappearance at the end of last year of five Hong Kong booksellers known for publishing salacious titles about China's political leaders.

The five men resurfaced in the mainland and four are now under criminal investigation.
After manhunt, suspect in Illinois cop shooting is killed

ST. LOUIS (AP)  An Illinois man suspected of shooting a police officer after a traffic stop was shot and killed in an incident that also left an FBI agent wounded, Illinois State Police said Sunday.

Authorities said at a news conference that Dracy "Clint" Pendleton of Bellflower, Illinois, was killed in an early morning shootout inside an abandoned house in southern Illinois near the Shawnee National Forest. The name and condition of the wounded federal agent, who is expected to survive, was not immediately disclosed.

Pendleton was charged with attempted murder in the May 7 shooting of a Mahomet, Illinois, police officer. The incident also sparked a fatal collision when a trooper pursuing Pendleton struck and killed a 26-year-old who was driving her van in Decatur, Illinois.

The manhunt continued for more than one week, with a portion of the national forest closed since Monday after authorities located a stolen pickup truck believed to have been used by Pendleton.

State police said Pendleton was seen just after midnight running into woods near a church cemetery, carrying a rifle and wearing a bandolier shoulder belt that holds bullet cartridges. He was found inside the home about a half-mile away around 5 a.m., when a firefight with state police and FBI officers ensued.

An extended family member said previously that Pendleton, the father of two sons, both under 2, had recently moved out of his marital home after separating from his wife.

The central Illinois police officer was shot in the arm after a traffic stop initiated by a different police officer. He was treated and released from a hospital the following morning.

___
Police: Man threw gas on woman as she smoked, killing her

BENSALEM, Pa. (AP)  Authorities on Sunday charged a Philadelphia man accused of throwing a cup of gasoline on his girlfriend while she was smoking, starting a fire that killed her after a dispute between the two.

Kevin Small, 46, of Philadelphia, was arraigned on homicide, arson and other charges Sunday afternoon in the death of Mellissa Bacon-Smith, 46.

The fire started in a room of the Lincoln Motel in the Philadelphia suburb of Bensalem, police said. Small told authorities he bought the gasoline from a convenience store across the street from the motel, according to a criminal complaint.

The blaze was reported around 2:30 a.m. Sunday. Fire crews reported thick black smoke coming from two rooms. The blaze was declared under control in about a half-hour.

When reporters asked Smith if he had anything to say to Bacon-Smith's family, he responded, "I'm sorry."

It wasn't immediately clear if he had an attorney to comment on his behalf.

At least three people were rescued from second-floor rooms following the fire. Several people were treated for smoke inhalation, but their injuries were not considered life-threatening.
Police: Actor Wendell Pierce arrested at Atlanta hotel

ATLANTA (AP)  Police say actor Wendell Pierce has been arrested at an Atlanta hotel where he was a guest.

Atlanta Police Department spokesman Donald Hannah says in a statement that Pierce was arrested early Saturday morning at the Loews Atlanta Hotel.

New Orleans native Pierce is known for his television roles as Detective William "Bunk" Moreland on "The Wire" and Antoine Batiste on "Treme."

FILE - In this March 31, 2016, file photo, Wendell Pierce arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of "Confirmation" at the Paramount Theatre. Police say Pierce has been arrested at an Atlanta hotel where he was a guest. Atlanta Police Department spokesman Donald Hannah says in a statement that Pierce was arrested early Saturday, May 14, at the Loews Atlanta Hotel. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

Hannah's statement says the incident was not significant and was treated as "any other arrest." He says Pierce never indicated he was well-known.

Online Fulton County Jail records show Pierce was arrested on a charge of simple battery Saturday and released the same day on $1,000 bond.
US Navy poised to take ownership of its largest warship

BATH, Maine (AP)  The U.S. Navy is ready to take ownership of the Zumwalt, its largest and most technologically sophisticated destroyer.

Sailors' uniforms and personal effects, supplies and spare parts are being moved aboard the 610-foot warship in anticipation of crew members taking on their new charge, said Capt. James Kirk, the destroyer's skipper.

The Zumwalt is the first new class of warship built at Bath Iron Works since the Arleigh Burke slid into the Kennebec River in 1989. The shipyard is expected to turn the destroyer over to the Navy this week.

In this Thursday, May 12, 2016, photo, early morning sun shines on the Zumwalt at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine. The shipyard will soon hand over the largest missile destroyer to the Navy. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

"We've overcome lots of obstacles to get to this point," said electrician John Upham, of Litchfield. "I think everybody in the shipyard is proud of the work we've done."

The ship features an angular shape that makes it 50 times more difficult to detect on radar; it's powered by electricity produced by turbines similar to those in a Boeing 777; new guns are designed to pummel targets from nearly 100 miles away. Advanced automation will allow the big ship to operate with a much smaller crew than on current generation of destroyers.

The final cost of the Zumwalt is expected to be at least $4.4 billion.

The original concept for the land-attack destroyer was floated more than 15 years ago then underwent several permutations. The final design called for a destroyer with a stealthy shape and advanced gun system that can fire rocket-propelled projectiles with pinpoint accuracy.

But the growing cost forced the Navy to reduce what was originally envisioned as a 32-ship program to just three ships. The loss of economies of scale drove up the cost of the individual ships.

The slow-going and rising costs were little surprise after the General Accounting Office warned that the Navy was trying to incorporate too many new technologies into the ship.

"Zumwalt was a challenge to assemble because of all the new technologies, but sea trials show it is a world-class warship with unique capabilities," said Loren Thompson, senior defense analyst with the Virginia-based Lexington Institute.

Some of the ship's 143 crew members have been in Bath for more than two years to prepare for the day they take control of it. The sailors will continue training to prepare the ship to be formally commissioned into service as USS Zumwalt at a ceremony in October in Baltimore, Kirk said. From there, the ship will travel to its homeport in San Diego for further tests and trials.

Shipbuilders in Bath are busy on the second ship in the class, the Michael Monsoor, which will be christened next month. Work also is underway on the third and final ship, the Lyndon B. Johnson.

Jay Wadleigh, president of the largest union at the shipyard, said Bath Iron Works was selected for the job because the Navy knew it would be done right.

"I think the way the Zumwalt performed on the three different sea trials was better than anybody expected  us, the Navy and the company," he said.

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Follow David Sharp on Twitter at https://twitter.com/David_Sharp_AP . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/david-sharp .

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Man linked to French Connection ring battles feds over case

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP)  A Connecticut man who federal authorities say was a player in the notorious French Connection heroin ring of the 1960s and 1970s has forced a delay in his sentencing for a 2012 drug bust by continuing to battle authorities over the facts in his case.

Alfred Catino, 75, of Danbury, was among 16 people busted in Connecticut in 2012 for distributing marijuana, cocaine and oxycodone in Fairfield County. Although he pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy charge in 2014, he has insisted that warrants issued for wiretaps and his arrest were based on misleading information submitted by investigators.

He was scheduled to be sentenced Monday in federal court in New Haven to at least five years in prison. But the hearing was postponed to June 16 because he is contesting part of a presentence investigation report that may affect sentencing guidelines to be considered by Judge Jeffrey Meyer, said Frank Riccio II, Catino's lawyer.

Riccio declined to say which part of the report Catino is contesting. The report by probation officials is sealed from public view. In letters to the judge in recent months, however, Catino has disputed the types and amounts of drugs linked to him in the case.

When he pleaded guilty, Catino admitted he was part of a group involved in a failed effort to distribute about 200 pounds of marijuana from California to Connecticut and sell cocaine and oxycodone. All the other defendants also pleaded guilty.

Riccio has asked the judge to impose the mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence for the drug conspiracy charge. Prosecutors are seeking a 10-year sentence.

Another judge previously denied Catino's bid to exclude the wiretap evidence and certain testimony by law enforcement officials.

Catino's criminal record is a colorful history of drug dealing and prison sentences dating to the 1960s, when federal authorities say he was part of the French Connection heroin smuggling ring that spawned the 1971 Oscar-winning movie of the same name starring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider.
Afghan capital locked down for large minority Hazara rally

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP)  Tens of thousands of Afghanistan's ethnic Hazaras marched on Monday through downtown Kabul, demanding the government reroute a planned power line through their poverty-stricken province so they can get more access to electricity. The massive protest reflected widespread dismay with the administration of President Ashraf Ghani.

Concerns that the protest could turn violent prompted the police to block off roads leading into the city's central commercial district. Stacked shipping containers prevented the marchers from reaching the presidential palace. A November rally by Hazaras protesting the beheadings of members of their minority by militants had turned violent.

Most of Kabul's shops were shuttered as armed police fanned out and authorities restricted the protest organizers to a specific route that would bypass the palace.

Protesters run during a massive anti-government protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

The rally passed without major incidents but the protest underscored the political crisis facing Afghanistan as Ghani becomes increasingly isolated amid a stalled economy, rising unemployment, and an escalating Taliban insurgency, now in its 15th year.

Since taking office in 2014, Ghani has made little progress in keeping promises to bring peace and prosperity to the country. Instead, his administration seems to lurch from one crisis to another.

Though the power issue is specific to Hazaras, Ghani has also been criticized for not getting Afghanistan's ethnic, sectarian, and geographically diverse groups on the same page  even as he casts himself as a leader of a "national unity government."

Daud Naji, a protest leader, said the Hazaras were demanding access to a planned multimillion-dollar regional electricity line.

The so-called TUTAP line is backed by the Asian Development Bank with the involvement of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The original plan routed the line through Bamiyan province, in the central highlands, where most of the country's Hazaras live. But that route was changed in 2013 by the previous Afghan government.

Leaders of Monday's rally say the rerouting is evidence of bias against the Hazara minority, which accounts for up to 15 percent of Afghanistan's estimated 30 million-strong population. They are considered the poorest of the country's ethnic groups, and often complain of discrimination.

Bamiyan is poverty stricken, though it is largely peaceful and has potential as a tourist destination. Hazaras, most of whom are Shiite Muslims, were especially persecuted during the extremist Sunni Taliban 1996-2001 regime.

Afghanistan is desperately short of power, with less than 40 percent of the population connected to the national grid, according to the World Bank. Almost 75 percent of electricity is imported.

Ghani was heckled on the issue of the TUTAP power line during a speech at a think tank in London last week. His Cabinet members have largely failed to address the issue publicly, allowing it to fester and forcing Ghani to deal with a full-blown crisis when he returned on Saturday.

As some of Afghanistan's other ethnic groups  including Tajiks  seem to be backing the Hazara demands, political commentator Haroun Mir said that what started as an isolated grievance from one minority is gaining momentum as an umbrella issue for the many opponents of Ghani's unpopular government.

"This is a mobilization and I know many Tajiks are supporting Hazaras, not because absolutely they want this thing to go through Bamiyan but because they hate this government and this is an opportunity for them to further weaken it," he said.

Abdul Malik, a 53-year-old ethnic Pashtun from southern Kandahar province, said he joined Monday's protest "to show unity."

"In the past 15 years very little has been done for Hazaras, and people need electricity in their homes," he said.

Karim Khalili, a Hazara leader and a former Afghan vice president, spoke to the protesters from the back of a truck, saying the "people will never keep quiet when facing injustice."

He called on Ghani and chief executive Abdullah Abdullah to change the decision on the power line.

In a live television address late afternoon, as protesters disbursed and the shipping containers were being removed, Ghani said he wanted to ensure development benefited everyone in the country equally.

In an effort to assure Hazaras they were not being discriminated against in plans for infrastructure development, he said: "This is a year of active development and I will work to ensure that all citizens benefit from balanced development."

Officials of the defense and interior ministries said the road blocks had been necessary following threats of possible attacks.

The U.S. Embassy closed its consular section and warned Americans to limit their movement within Kabul, cautioning in an emergency message that "even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and escalate into violence." Other embassies, the U.N. compounds and non-government organizations were also locked down.

___

Associated Press writers Lynne O'Donnell, Rahim Faiez and Mirwais Khan contributed to this report.

Protesters wait on a bridge for a massive anti-government protest to arrive, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

A protester, second right, kicks a container during a massive anti-government protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Afghans run during a massive anti-government protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

A Afghan watches a massive anti-government protest from the space between two containers, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Protesters march during a massive anti-government protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Protesters and police forces run during a massive anti-government protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Protesters run during a massive anti-government protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Afghans run during a massive anti-government protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

An elder protester holds a poster during a massive anti-government protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Protesters run during a massive anti-government protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Protesters wait on a bridge for a massive anti-government protest to arrive, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Women march during a massive anti-government protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Crowds gather on the street in Kabul, Afghanistan for a massive anti-government protest Monday, May 16, 2016. Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of members of an ethnic minority group marched through the streets to protest the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Afghan police block a road in Kabul for a massive protest march by members of an ethnic minority group over the proposed route of a power line on Monday, May 16, 2016. Afghanistan's capital was locked down on Monday as authorities prepared for a massive protest march by members of an ethnic minority group over the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Hazara demonstrators gather to start march toward the center of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Afghanistan's capital was locked down on Monday as authorities prepared for a massive protest march by members of an ethnic minority group over the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Afghan police use shipping containers to block the road during a demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Afghanistan's capital was locked down on Monday as authorities prepared for a massive protest march by members of an ethnic minority group over the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photos/Rahmat Gul)

Hazara demonstrators gather to start march toward the center of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Afghanistan's capital was locked down on Monday as authorities prepared for a massive protest march by members of an ethnic minority group over the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

Afghan police use shipping containers to block the road during a demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Afghanistan's capital was locked down on Monday as authorities prepared for a massive protest march by members of an ethnic minority group over the proposed route of a power line. (AP Photos/Rahmat Gul)
Nepal ethnic protesters clash with police for 2nd day

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP)  Supporters of ethnic minority groups demanding changes in Nepal's new constitution clashed with police Monday and blocked main streets near the prime minister's office, as their newly started protests entered their second day.

About 500 demonstrators gathered, chanting anti-government slogans and attempting to push through a police barricade. Riot police using batons and demonstrators with sticks briefly clashed, but no serious injuries were reported on either side.

Security was stepped up around Singha Durbar, a fortified complex in Kathmandu that houses the prime minister's office and government offices, with hundreds of riot police guarding the streets.

Supporters of Nepals minority ethnic group wearing headbands with the name of the group try to break through a police cordon, as they protest in a main street leading to the prime minister's office in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, May 15, 2016. Hundreds of minority ethnic group supporters scuffled with police in Nepal's capital on Sunday, restarting protests against the government and the Himalayan nation's new constitution. No one was injured.(AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

On Sunday, hundreds of protesters scuffled with police and blocked a main street leading to the prime minister's office, but no injuries were reported.

The Madhesi minority group, which is leading the protests, wants a bigger state than assigned in the constitution adopted last year. At least three other minority groups that joined the protests want separate states for their populations as well.

Nepal, with a population of only 28 million, has more than 100 ethnic groups.

Madhesi-led protests from September to February left more than 50 people dead and blocked key border points with India that resulted in severe shortages of fuel, medicine and other supplies.

Several rounds of talks with the government have failed to reach any agreement.

Supporters of Nepals minority ethnic group waving their respective flags try to break through a police cordon, as they protest in a main street leading to the prime minister's office in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, May 15, 2016. Hundreds of minority ethnic group supporters scuffled with police in Nepal's capital on Sunday, restarting protests against the government and the Himalayan nation's new constitution. No one was injured.(AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
PICTURED: Editor selections from the past week in Asia

North Korea wrapped up its 7th Workers' Party Congress last week  its first since 1980  touting leader Kim Jong Un's successes on the nuclear front and with promises of economic improvements, despite the weight of international sanctions over the North's development of nuclear weapons.

Afterward, hundreds of thousands of people celebrated with marches they had practiced for weeks and a massive parade featuring floats bearing patriotic slogans.

Filipino voted in elections that according to unofficial results gave bombastic Rodrigo Duterte a wide margin of victory in the presidential race. On the campaign trail, the controversial mayor of Davao peppered his speeches with obscene remarks, tales about his sexual adventures and outlandish plans.

In this Monday, May 9, 2016, file photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un listens during the party congress in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea has brought in more than 100 journalists from around the world to make sure that the 7th Congress of its ruling Workers' Party gets global attention. Four days into the event, they allowed a small number of foreign journalists into the convention hall where the congress was taking place. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)

Nissan said it was taking a 34 percent stake in scandal-ridden Mitsubishi Motors in what Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said was "a win-win" deal.

Indians continued to suffer under a sizzling heat wave, with temperatures hovering above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). And in Bangladesh, the country's largest Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, called a strike to protest against the execution of its chief.

A naked Hindu holy man sat outside his tent during the month-long Kumbh festival at Ujjain, where thousands of pilgrims have gathered for a ritual dip in the River Shipra.

___

This gallery was curated by Associated Press photo editor Shuji Kajiyama in Tokyo.

In this Tuesday, May 10, 2016, file photo, North Koreans wave flower bouquets and balloons as they march during a parade at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans celebrated the country's newly completed ruling-party congress with a massive civilian parade featuring floats bearing patriotic slogans and marchers with flags and pompoms. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)

In this Monday, May 9, 2016, file photo, front-running presidential candidate Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is interviewed by the media shortly after voting in a polling precinct at Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School, Matina district, his hometown in Davao city in southern Philippines. Duterte was the last to vote among five presidential hopefuls. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)

In this Monday, May 9, 2016, file photo, a Filipino man votes at a polling center in Manila, Philippines. Millions of Filipinos went to election centers Monday to pick a new president, vice president and thousands of other officials amid tight security across the country. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

In this Thursday, May 12, 2016, file photo, Nissan Motor Co. President and CEO Carlos Ghosn, right, and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Osamu Masuko, left, walk in the venue of their joint press conference in Yokohama, near Tokyo. Nissan is taking a 34 percent stake in scandal-ridden Mitsubishi Motors in what Ghosn said was "a win-win" deal. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

In this Wednesday, May 11, 2016, file photo, shaven-headed children look at rays at the Lotte World Aquarium in Seoul, South Korea. Ten children chose to experience a monk's life for two weeks as a part of program to celebrate Buddha's upcoming 2,560th birthday on May 14. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

In this Friday, May 13, 2016, file photo, a homeless person braves a sudden dust storm in Jammu, India. In spite of moderate rains in the hilly regions, much of northern India is still reeling under a heat wave. (AP Photo/Channi Anand, File)

In this Friday, May 13, 2016, file photo, an Indian laborer carries a load through a busy street on a hot afternoon in New Delhi, India. The national capital sizzling today as heat wave-like conditions prevailed across the city with mercury hovering above 40 degree Celsius, making life tough for the Delhiites. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri, File)

In this Friday, May 13, 2016, file photo, Indian women cover themselves and their children with scarves as they brave a dust storm in Jammu, India. In spite of moderate rains in the hilly regions, much of northern India is still reeling under a heat wave. (AP Photo/Channi Anand, File)

In this Thursday, May 12, 2016, file photo, a couple of passengers waits on the roof of a bus during a nationwide day-long strike called by Bangladesh's largest Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The strike was called to protest against the execution of party chief Motiur Rahman Nizami who was executed early Wednesday for war crimes. (AP Photo/A.M Ahad, File)
Australians in court charged with plot to take boat to Syria

BRISBANE, Australia (AP)  An Australian firebrand preacher deported from the Philippines and four other suspected jihadists appeared in a northern Australian court on Monday charged with planning to head for Syria in a 7-meter (23-foot) boat to fight for the Islamic State group.

Philippine authorities said Robert Cerantonio, also known as Musa Cerantonio, was deported in 2014 because of his suspected links to terrorists based on YouTube videos allegedly showing him advocating jihad and urging local Muslims to support militants in the Middle East.

On Monday, the Cairns Magistrates Court ordered the extradition of Cerantonio and his four co-accused from Queensland state to their hometown of Melbourne to face a federal charge outlawing Australian foreign fighters. Entering or preparing to enter a foreign country to engage in hostile activity is a crime in Australia punishable by life imprisonment.

Cerantonio and co-accused Shayden Thorne, Kadir Kaya, Antonio Grenata and Paul Dacre have not entered pleas.

Police allege that the defendants, aged 21 to 33, towed a half-cabin fiberglass power boat with a car 3,100 kilometers (1,900 miles) from Melbourne to Laura in Australia's tropical north before they were arrested last Tuesday.

Police say they planned to travel by boat through Indonesia to the Philippines. Police have not specified how they allegedly planned to get from the Philippines to Syria.

All had their passports canceled to prevent them leaving the country to fight for extremist groups such as the Islamic State.

Philippine authorities said Cerantonio was deported in 2014 for being an "undocumented foreign national" after the Australian government canceled his passport. He was arrested two weeks earlier in the Philippines' central Cebu province's Lapu-Lapu city but faced no formal charges.

Philippine police alleged Cerantonio had called for jihad on YouTube and lectured Filipino Muslims to support the Islamic State group.

Australian police said at the time that Cerantonio's social media postings were "offensive and disturbing," but did not violate Australia's law.

Authorities allege Cerantonio bought the boat in the first suspected attempt by would-be foreign fighters to leave Australia by sea.
Even on US turf, culture clashes make China firms tough foes

WASHINGTON (AP)  U.S. companies have found it can be tough to do business in China. Now, as more Chinese firms invest in the United States, U.S. companies are finding it can be hard to contend with the Chinese on American turf, too.

Chinese companies can hide behind complex corporate structures. They can keep assets back home. And they can use connections to Beijing to assert immunity from America's legal system.

Consider one Texas company that thought it had scored a victory.

In this Friday, May 6, 2016, photo, Tang Energy CEO Patrick Jenevein poses for a photo in his office in Dallas. Several months earlier, Tang Energy won an arbitration case arising from a contract with Aviation Industry Corp., a conglomerate owned by the Chinese government. AVIC has challenged the ruling in federal court, arguing that as an arm of the Chinese government, it isn't subject to American arbitrators. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Five months ago, an arbitration panel awarded Tang Energy Group at least $69 million after a contract to build wind farms collapsed and left Tang fighting for survival.

The celebration didn't last long.

The company the panel ruled against  Aviation Industry Corp., a conglomerate owned by China's government  challenged the award. AVIC argued that the arbitration panel was stacked against it and that it wasn't directly involved in the wind project, though its subsidiaries were.

AVIC had another argument, too: As an arm of China's government, it said, it isn't subject to the authority of American arbitration panels  or courts.

Such disputes are destined to grow as Chinese companies invest more in the United States and sign more contracts on U.S. shores. China's investment in the United States reached a record $15.7 billion in 2015, the Rhodium Group consultancy reports.

"Chinese companies are flush with cash," says AVIC's lawyer, Cedric Chao of DLA Piper in San Francisco.

Disputes with Chinese companies are complicated by China's blurry lines between public and private. Many Chinese companies with the clout to export and invest overseas are owned by the state or enjoy powerful ties.

The Chinese government backed two companies that were accused of rigging the price of Vitamin C in the U.S. market. The Chinese Commerce Ministry said the companies were following Chinese law when they set prices. The companies lost in 2013, but the case is on appeal.

There's some hope that the task of fighting Chinese companies in U.S. courts will ease as they deepen their investment in the United States and their assets become easier to seize.

And as they increasingly expand internationally, they will need to manage their reputation and won't want to be known for eluding courts and skipping out on legal bills, says Dan Harris with the law firm Harris Moure in Seattle.

But for now at least, Harris says the Chinese can't always fathom how U.S. courts operate, aren't used to judges who are mostly immune to bribes and don't understand the consequences of defying court orders.

Several state-owned companies have invoked the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The act says foreign government agencies can claim immunity unless they're directly involved in commerce  a status that's subject to dispute.

"Being sovereign," says Anthony Balloon, a lawyer who specializes in international business, "means you don't have to say you're sorry."

Consider the toxic drywall case.

Chinese-made drywall, installed after hurricanes struck the Southern United States in the mid-2000s, caused damage ranging from foul smells to corroded pipes. Thousands of homeowners sued a Chinese commission that oversees state-owned companies that made the drywall.

Chinese officials countered that the commission is a government agency with immunity from U.S. courts.

In March, another defendant in the drywall case, China National Building Materials Group, convinced U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon it was immune because it, too, belongs to China's government.

AVIC, tangled in the dispute with Tang, has also claimed sovereign immunity in a case brought by Global Technology, a Michigan company that's U.S. sales rep for an AVIC subsidiary. Global Technology says it was wrongly left out of a deal in which AVIC acquired an American auto supplier.

In the meantime, the United States is seeking an investment treaty with China. Researchers at the Peterson Institute for International Economics has suggested that negotiators require China's state-owned companies to accept the jurisdiction of foreign countries.

In some ways, the very fact that Chinese companies are fighting in U.S. courts represents progress. In the past, many didn't even recognize the American legal process.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission, a watchdog, complained last year that Chinese companies in the United States hid behind a "legal firewall" by claiming that Chinese secrecy and banking laws exempted them from U.S. complaints.

And when American plaintiffs took their cases to China, they got nowhere.

"We call it retreating to Fortress China," says Balloon, a partner in Atlanta with the firm Alston & Bird.

Some plaintiffs and judges are deploying other tactics against the Chinese companies. Judge Fallon, presiding over the drywall case, found the Chinese company Taishan Gypsum in contempt of court in 2014 for refusing to appear and defend itself. Faced with being barred from business in the United States, Taishan Gypsum returned to court.

In Dallas, Tang is still awaiting its award from AVIC.

A corporate colossus, AVIC has 500,000 employees and 140 subsidiaries in businesses from aircraft manufacturing to financial services.

"We follow the rule of law," says Tang CEO Patrick Jenevein. "They follow playground rules when the teacher is not around."

The Tang-AVIC relationship had begun promisingly. In 1997, the two agreed to build a gas-fired power plant near China's Great Wall. Later, Tang and two AVIC subsidiaries started producing wind turbine blades in China. In 2008, they agreed to form a company to develop wind projects.

Then the partnership soured.

Tang suggested that AVIC consider a partnership with Cirrus Aircraft, a Minnesota aircraft maker that wanted to enter the wind-turbine business. AVIC considered it  and then acquired Cirrus on its own, leaving Tang out of the deal.

AVIC also bypassed Tang when it invested in wind projects in the United States. And it developed its own projects from Australia to South Africa.

Tang argued that the AVIC projects violated their agreement to develop wind projects exclusively together. The arbitration panel agreed in December. It found that AVIC and its subsidiaries operate as a single entity and that AVIC used its subsidiaries to commit "fraud or injustice."

AVIC has appealed to a federal court. Among other things, it argues that it "was beyond the jurisdiction of the panel and now this court as an undisputed 100% state-owned enterprise."

"We've seen in the last three to five years Chinese companies becoming more sophisticated in the way they deal with the West," Balloon says.

___

AP writer Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans contributed to this report.

___

Follow Paul Wiseman on Twitter at https://twitter.com/PaulWisemanAP

In this Friday, May 6, 2016, photo, Tang Energy CEO Patrick Jenevein poses for a photo in his office in Dallas. Several months earlier, Tang Energy won an arbitration case arising from a contract with Aviation Industry Corp., a conglomerate owned by the Chinese government. AVIC has challenged the ruling in federal court, arguing that as an arm of the Chinese government, it isn't subject to American arbitrators. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

In this Tuesday, May 3, 2016, photo, a delivery man talks on his phone as he rides past the headquarters of Aviation Industry Corp., in Beijing. AVIC is a state-owned corporate colossus. It has 500,000 employees and 140 subsidiaries in businesses ranging from aircraft manufacturing to financial services to auto production. Several months earlier, Tang Energy Group, of Dallas, won an arbitration case arising from a contract with AVIC. But AVIC has challenged the ruling in federal court, arguing that as an arm of the Chinese government, it isn't subject to American arbitrators. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Hillary Clinton and the 2-for-1 presidency

HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. (AP)  The notion of a 2-for-1 Clinton presidency is back.

Recalling sunnier days of growth, low unemployment and budget surpluses under her husband, Hillary Clinton is telling Americans that Bill Clinton will be "in charge of revitalizing the economy" if she wins the White House.

What his work would be remains unclear: not a cabinet post, she indicated. But, as she has been saying for months, she expects him to play a leading role.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton greets patrons at the Lone Oak Little Castle Restaurant in Paducah, Ky., Monday, May 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Bill Clinton reigned over a strong economy, especially in the final years of his presidency, yet his economic legacy is mixed.

The late 1990s were the last period to see sustained income gains for the typical American household. Middle-income wages have stagnated since then.

But his refusal to step up regulation of exotic financial instruments known as derivatives was blamed in large measure for the collapse of the financial sector years later. The tech bubble of his time burst. And his agenda was driven by support for free trade deals, including one that gave China better access to the U.S. market, that are held responsible by elements of both parties for driving jobs out of the country.

Still, in those pre-9/11 days, it's a stretch of peace and prosperity like Americans haven't seen since and with her latest remarks, in Kentucky, Hillary Clinton is more firmly laying out how important he would be to her agenda.

The situation is highly unusual: Not only would Clinton be the first president to have a "First Dude," she'd also be the first to have a former president in the East Wing.

Now, facing a two-front fight against Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, she's stressing that Bill Clinton would be an asset in her administration, particularly with the kind of Southern white voters who once backed him but now are drawn to Trump.

"Tell me anybody else who's been here as much or knows us as well," said Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, of Bill Clinton, during a campaign event in West Virginia. Hillary Clinton lost that primary  a state her husband won by double digits  earlier this month to Sanders.

The GOP front-runner and his team are making a different political bet. They see Bill Clinton's history of scandal as ripe for exploitation.

Still, in recent weeks, Clinton has begun sketching out a bit more of a role for her husband, though there is great ambiguity. She told West Virginians that he'd focus on helping economically distressed communities, like those in coal county, reinvent themselves in a changing economy.

"You'll get sick of seeing him," she said earlier this month. "This gets him really, really excited."

Spokesman Nick Merrill said Monday that despite the candidate's description of her husband's in-charge role, Clinton would be getting ahead of herself to talk about "any sort of formalized role for anyone." But, he added, Bill Clinton "has a lot to offer and it would be foolish not to use that in some capacity."

More any other political couple in recent American history, the Clintons have long viewed themselves as a joint package. Shortly after entering the White House, Clinton appointed his wife to head the administration's effort to pass a major health care bill. The failed measure became known as "Hillarycare."

But as the party has shifted to the left during the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton repeatedly found herself forced to repudiate key pieces of her husband's legacy during her primary campaign. She's distanced herself from the North American Free Trade Agreement, the federal law that defined marriage as between one man and one woman, and the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that banned gays and lesbians from military service. Hillary Clinton has also faced criticism for backing the 1994 crime bill, which led to tougher sentencing for drug offenses.

Her campaign is calculating that in the general election, Bill Clinton's strong economic record outweighs the criticism. Over the next 10 days, Bill Clinton is scheduled to campaign in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, New Mexico, California, South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana.

Late in Clinton's presidency, unemployment dropped to 3.9 percent, its lowest level since 1970. It's 5 percent now  and he set a record in monthly job growth in the post-World War II era. Growth averaged 3.8 percent, better than the record under Ronald Reagan and a far cry from the 0.5 percent of the last quarter or the 1.4 percent of the quarter before. But Clinton also came to office when a recession was ending; Barack Obama stepped into a worsening one that would be unrivaled since the Depression.

Broadly-shared prosperity is what President Clinton is known for, so I am thrilled Hillary is deploying my old boss," said former Clinton aide Paul Begala. "Wherever two or more are gathered, there, too, should he be."

Campaigning in a smoky diner in Paducah, Kentucky, on Monday, Clinton was surrounded by people who affectionately recalled previous visits by the Clintons. Bill Clinton campaigned in the town right before the 1992 election that made him president.

Joanne Clark, 54, exclaimed that she had shaken hands with Bill Clinton all those years ago. "He's gotta get out of retirement!" replied Hillary Clinton.

___

Lerer reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Julie Bykowicz and Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton greets patrons at the Lone Oak Little Castle Restaurant in Paducah, Ky., Monday, May 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Officer testifies for the prosecution in Freddie Gray case

BALTIMORE (AP)  A Baltimore police officer on Monday testified that a colleague who faces criminal charges in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray wasn't involved in the man's detention and only touched Gray after he'd been placed in handcuffs.

Officer Garrett Miller took the stand in the nonjury trial of Officer Edward Nero, who faces assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment charges stemming from Gray's arrest, which prosecutors say was unlawful. Miller faces identical charges.

Prosecutors also say Nero was negligent when he failed to buckle Gray into a seat belt after he, Miller and another officer slid Gray head-first onto the floor of a police transport van, handcuffed and shackled.

Chief Deputy State's Attorney Michael Schatzow, left, and Deputy State's Attorney Janice Bledsoe, walk to the courthouse on Monday, May 16, 2016, for the trial of Officer Edward Nero, one of the Baltimore city police officers charged in connection to the death of Freddie Gray. (Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP) WASHINGTON EXAMINER OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT

Miller told Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams that he alone arrested and detained Gray, and that Nero didn't touch Gray until after the man was in custody. Gray died April 19 of last year, a week after his neck was broken in the van.

Miller is awaiting trial. The state's highest court recently ruled that an officer facing charges in the Gray case, Officer William Porter, could be compelled to testify against his colleague, and Williams determined that the ruling extended to other officers in the case. The Maryland Court of Appeals has yet to release a written opinion explaining the basis for its ruling.

Miller testified Monday that he had already caught, detained and placed Gray in handcuffs when Nero made physical contact with the man for the first time, helping to prop Gray up after he asked for an inhaler. Miller said Nero touched Gray only once more, when he assisted Miller and Lt. Brian Rice, another officer charged in the case, in lifting Gray, who was screaming and refusing to cooperate with officers, back into the van after Rice and Miller had taken him out of the compartment and shackled his feet.

Nero grabbed the man's feet, Miller said, while he and Rice lifted his torso. But Nero didn't help put Gray in plastic cuffs or leg irons, Miller said.

During cross-examination, Nero's attorney Marc Zayon asked Miller why he used the word "we" when describing the arrest to investigators last April.

"Because we did everything together," Miller said of Nero. "It was a wording question, to be all-inclusive."

But when Zayon asked directly who apprehended Gray and placed him in handcuffs Miller was adamant that he acted alone.

"That was me," he said.

Miller was the state's final witness in the case. Prosecutors finished presenting their case to the judge Monday afternoon.

On Friday, prosecutors played a videotaped statement Nero made to police investigators shortly after Gray's arrest. Nero told them that he and Miller worked together to apprehend Gray, which prosecutors said showed that Nero was partially responsible for the arrest.

On the morning of April 12, Gray took off running after making eye contact with Rice, who then called over a police radio that he needed backup for a foot chase. Nero and Miller responded. But prosecutors say once Gray surrendered, the officers should have made an effort to find out why Rice was chasing him in the first place, and had no basis or probable cause to arrest him.

The assault and misconduct charges Nero faces stem from Gray's arrest, while the reckless endangerment charge stems from the officers' failure the buckle Gray into a seat belt. Nero's attorney, Marc Zayon, has argued that Nero wasn't involved in Gray's arrest, and that it's the wagon driver's responsibility to make sure a prisoner is secure inside the van.

Miller's testimony bolstered Nero's defense by confirming the officer's limited contact with Gray. But during direct examination, Miller did concede that although Gray was uncooperative, screaming and shaking the van, he did not pose a threat to the officers.

As to why the officers chose to transport Gray to Western District headquarters rather to central booking to be processed  a choice prosecutors say implies that the officers knew Gray's arrest was questionable  Miller testified that suspects are typically first taken to the station house to be debriefed about crime in the area.

After the state rested its case, Zayon asked Williams to acquit Nero of all charges. Williams denied the request.

Additional defense witnesses will take the stand Tuesday.
Black women at West Point caught up in photo controversy

Self-expression is hardly a part of life for cadets at the U.S. Military Academy.

So it was far from ordinary when 16 black women put their own spin on the traditional graduation photo, hoisting their fists in the air while posing in their dress uniforms, swords at their sides.

A social media firestorm followed. So did an internal inquiry at the school.

In this photo taken May 13, 2016, Mary Tobin, wearing her West Point class ring, poses for picture in Washington, Friday, May 13, 2016. Self-expression is hardly a part of life for cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point.Tobin, who has mentored other black women cadets since graduating in 2003, said the experience is one rarely discussed publicly. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Some viewed the cadets' pose as a gesture of racial solidarity and strength. Others questioned whether it was a statement of support for Black Lives Matter.

West Point officials decided last week that the photo was not politically motivated and no punishment was warranted. Still, that outcome left some black female graduates confused: Why would anyone see controversy in how those 16 women celebrated their experience in the Long Gray Line?

"When I saw it, I said, 'I wish me and my classmates had taken a picture like that,'" said Shalela Dowdy, a 2012 graduate and a friend of some of the women in the photograph. "But something clicked in my mind that not too many people would be happy about that picture. The fist stands for unity and solidarity, but some people are going to take this the wrong way."

None of the 16 women would agree to be interviewed for this story. Speaking through black alumnae, they cited a need to focus on their graduation next Saturday, when Vice President Joe Biden will give the commencement address, and life after West Point. For some, that will mean active-duty service in the Army. They will become Army officers after leaving the academy.

The picture was one of several the women took in their traditional dress uniforms. A different photo, without the raised firsts, was tweeted by the chairwoman of West Point's Board of Visitors.

Mary Tobin, who has mentored other black female cadets since graduating in 2003, said few are inclined to discuss their experiences publicly.

"To be a black woman at West Point is essentially to make a choice going in ... that the majority of the time, you can never fully express your womanhood or your blackness," Tobin said. "We're told we're all green. We don't ever talk about it, because it's hard enough for everyone at West Point to graduate."

The cadets pictured are joining a rare but proud group of black women who have broken barriers on dual fronts at West Point. In interviews with The Associated Press, black alumnae describe a rewarding experience with challenges that included navigating racial incidents.

Established in 1802, West Point went co-ed in 1976. Four years later, there were 62 female graduates. In that class were the first black female graduates, Joy Dallas and Priscilla "Pat" Walker Locke. West Point has graduated 357 black women in its 114-year history, and the Class of 2016 includes 18 black women.

Blacks have contributed to West Point's legacy for centuries, from the first African-American cadet, Henry O. Flipper, who graduated in 1877, to 2nd Lt. Emily Perez, a black woman who was the first member of the "Class of 9/11" to die in combat, in 2006.

According to admissions director Col. Deborah McDonald, about 15,000 students apply to West Point each year, and about 9 percent enroll. There were 1,859 black applicants for the incoming freshman class, and 14 percent of them were accepted, McDonald said.

West Point's numbers are mirrored at the other U.S. military service academies. The Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, counts 20 women who identify as African-American in its 2016 graduating class of 1,215. The Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has a graduating class of 827, of whom 11 are African-American women. The Coast Guard Academy, in New London, Connecticut, didn't have a gender breakdown by race, but said three students identifying as African-American are in the graduating class of 186.

The application process at West Point is rigorous. Most cadets get in with a letter of recommendation from a member of Congress or the vice president. A medical and physical test is required.

Once enrolled, students are immersed in a campus environment that doesn't focus on individuality, explained Donald Outing, West Point's chief diversity officer.

"It's about adopting the culture and the values of the military as an institution," Outing said. "The mission requires us to develop soldiers and leaders to function and fight as one team."

Sakima Brown, a 1998 graduate who was the first person from her hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York, to attend West Point, said making it at the storied military academy meant you had to "shrink your blackness." When she and the other eight black women in her class saw each other on campus, they would greet each other briefly and move on.

Brown, Dowdy and Tobin described a campus life where even the most casual interactions among black students piqued curiosity. For example, they said, fellow cadets, and sometimes staff or faculty, took notice when more than a handful of blacks came together for meals on Sundays, when cadets were not required to eat with their companies.

"There were times we would sit at a table, and if there were more than two or three African-Americans, it was a problem," Brown said. "People would come over and ask, 'What are you guys doing?' I have never seen 10 African-Americans sitting together at West Point. At three or four, the table would get broken up."

Still, forging friendships was possible. Brown recalled the day an upperclassman stopped her on campus and whispered quickly, "Join the gospel choir."

"She didn't ask if I could sing or not sing," Brown said. "You just joined the gospel choir. It wasn't just about the singing. It was praying together, the support system. That was the only place you were allowed to be together, and it was once a week for two hours. During that time, you could talk about what was going on. It was the only place we were safe being together."

Dowdy, now stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, said when Barack Obama was elected the country's first black president  and the cadets' new commander in chief  in 2008, some on campus "were mad, they were disrespectful, saying the n-word."

Dowdy said she was often the only black woman in her company. Sometimes, she was the only black person or the only woman in her classes. Support from other black women on campus helped her get through.

"They motivated me when I doubted myself," she explained. "Sometimes things happen at the school and you don't know if you want to bring it up, but they were family. I talk to all of them every day still, right now."

Which is why, Brown said, the backlash over the photograph was hurtful.

"I couldn't understand why they didn't see the pride that I saw," Brown said.

Tobin, who has served as a mentor to some of the women pictured, said she believed all along that their motive was simply to express their joy over graduation.

"You're looking at each other like, 'We made it and we did it together,' and we did it in an environment that still fights the ghosts of discrimination, sexism and homophobia," said Tobin. "You raise your fist as a sign of victory."

___

Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela in New York contributed to this report.

___

Online:

United States Military Academy at West Point: http://www.westpoint.edu

___

Errin Haines Whack covers urban affairs for The Associated Press. Follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/emarvelous and read more of her work at http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/errin-haines-whack

In this photo taken May 13, 2016, Sakima Brown poses for a portrait in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Self-expression is hardly a part of life for cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Brown, a 1998 graduate who became the pride of her hometown as the first person from Poughkeepsie, to ever attend West Point. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

In this photo taken May 13, 2016, Mary Tobin, wearing her West Point class ring, poses for picture in Washington, Friday, May 13, 2016. Self-expression is hardly a part of life for cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Tobin, who has mentored other black women cadets since graduating in 2003, said the experience is one rarely discussed publicly. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Night-time blast wounds 4 in Istanbul

ISTANBUL (AP)  Turkey's state-run news agency says four people were wounded overnight when a homemade device exploded in Istanbul.

Citing security sources, Anadolu Agency said Monday the explosion was under an overpass in the Maltepe district on the Asian side of the city.

The agency said two passengers in a car and two pedestrians waiting for a taxi were wounded by flying pieces of metal and hospitalized. Passing vehicles were also damaged.

Turkey is facing an array of security threats including blowback from the war in neighboring Syria and renewed conflict with Kurdish militants in the southeast.
Trump says he expects poor relationship with UK leader

LONDON (AP)  U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump says he may have a poor relationship with Prime Minister David Cameron in light of the British leader's criticism of Trump's call for all Muslims to be temporarily banned from entering the United States.

Trump's comments, broadcast Monday on ITV's "Good Morning Britain" made headlines in Britain, which claims a "special relationship" with America. Trump's suggestion of a temporary Muslim ban led to a petition signed by half a million people demanding that Parliament hold a debate on whether he should be banned from the country. Lawmakers held the debate, but rejected a ban.

"It looks like we are not going to have a very good relationship," Trump said in the interview conducted in New York. "Who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him (Cameron) but he's not willing to address the problem either."

FILE - In this May 3, 2016, file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in New York. Trump is now his party's presumptive nominee, but in many ways, he's breaking the Republican mold. On a handful of issues, from trade to national defense, Trump has the potential to run to the left of likely Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. And on others, from taxes to social security, he sounds an awful lot like a Democrat. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

Cameron has refused to retract comments describing Trump's proposed Muslim ban as "divisive, stupid and wrong." But Cameron's spokesman, Dan York-Smith, told reporters that the prime minister was "committed to maintaining the special relationship" no matter who wins the presidential election.

"He has been clear that he will work with whoever is president of the United States," York-Smith said.

In the interview conducted Saturday, Trump also describes London's new mayor, Sadiq Khan, as "rude" for calling him ignorant. The real estate tycoon said he would "remember" the mayor's hostile reaction to the idea that Khan, a Muslim, would be given an exception to the temporary ban.

"He doesn't know me, hasn't met me, doesn't know what I'm all about. I think they were very rude statements and, frankly, tell him I will remember those statements," Trump said. "They are very nasty statements."

Trump denied he was "at war" with Khan.

"I just think it's very rude of him. In fact it's the opposite," he said. "I wished him well when I heard he won, he's a Muslim, I think it's ignorant for him to say that."

Khan's office said American voters would reject Trump's views.

"Sadiq has spent his whole life fighting extremism, but Trump's remarks make that fight much harder for us all  it plays straight into the extremists' hands and makes both our countries less safe," his office said in a statement.

When reminded Khan has described Trump as ignorant, Trump shook his head and said: "Let's do an IQ test."
Mom of missing teen fisherman wants boat examined for crime

PORT EVERGLADES, Fla. (AP)  The mother of a missing teen fisherman wants the recovered boat her son and his friend took to sea when they disappeared last summer examined as a possible crime scene.

Pamela Cohen's attorney Guy Rubin made public a letter Monday that he sent to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conversation Commission last week asking its investigators to examine the 19-foot vessel to see whether there is evidence that a crime led to the disappearance of 14-year-old friends Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos during a July storm off Jupiter, Florida. The commission investigates accidents and crimes on Florida water.

The capsized boat, which was recovered off Bermuda in March, arrived onboard a cargo ship Sunday at Port Everglades near Fort Lauderdale. Longshoremen began unloading the Yorktown Express on Monday evening, lowering container after container onto trailers that were trucked to a storage yard. In one nondescript container was the boys' boat. Port spokeswoman Ellen Kennedy said the container would be claimed in private by commission investigators.

"The FWC has indicated publicly it would 'take a look' at the boat when it arrives at Port Everglades, however my client would like FWC to do more than just 'take a look,'" Rubin wrote. If the wildlife commission refuses, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement should take control of the boat and the investigation, he wrote.

"This is not to say we believe a crime was committed, but rather nothing should be ruled out until the vessel is fully examined," Rubin wrote. He said Stephanos' mother, the boat's registered owner Carly Black, also wants it examined. Her attorney, George Harris, did not return a call seeking comment.

The wildlife commission on Monday reiterated its position that this is not a criminal case.

"The FWC will examine the vessel for any new information, and return the boat to the (Stephanos) family," spokesman Robert Klepper said in an email.

Austin's cellphone was also found on the ship, but Apple said the iPhone was too damaged and no text messages or other data could be recovered.
Iran cracks down on models posing without headscarves online

TEHRAN, Iran (AP)  Iranian police have arrested eight people in a new crackdown targeting "un-Islamic acts" online such as female models posting images of themselves without their hair covered, state media reported Monday, part of a larger cultural struggle in the Islamic Republic over the country's future.

The arrests follow the detentions of artists, poets, journalists and activists as moderate President Hassan Rouhani's administration secured a landmark nuclear deal with world powers.

The arrests and harsh sentences handed down signal that hard-liners in the police and judiciary, who were unable to stop the accord and fear looser social norms will weaken the Islamic Republic, still hold significant power in the country.

State television said this latest operation, called Spider II, particularly targeted users of the Instagram picture-sharing application. Instagram, owned by Facebook, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The television report included footage of model Elham Arab, known for her portraits in wedding dresses, speaking before Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi in a conference room, her blonde hair hidden under a black chador.

"All people love beauty and fame," Arab said. "They would like to be seen, but it is important to know what price they will pay to be seen."

Arab could not be immediately reached for comment. It wasn't immediately known if she had a lawyer.

The TV report did not say what charges she faced, nor did it identify the other seven people arrested. It said police identified some 170 people in the operation through social media activity as being involved in modeling, including 58 models, 59 photographers and makeup artists.

It said those targeted saw their businesses shut down, as well as their pages on Instagram and Facebook removed. Arab's Instagram account could not be accessed Monday.

"We must fight with enemy's actions in this area," Dowlatabadi was quoted by the state-owned IRAN newspaper as saying. "Of course our actions in this area will continue."

The previous Spider operation targeted "pornography and insulting Islamic sanctity," officials have said.

In recent years, Iranian women  especially in the capital, Tehran  have worn the mandatory scarf loosely on their head, drawing the ire of conservatives in the Islamic Republic. Tehran police chief Gen. Hossein Sajedinia in April announced his department had deployed 7,000 male and female officers for a new plainclothes division  the largest such undercover assignment in memory  to enforce the government-mandated Islamic dress code.

The model crackdown is just the latest move by authorities to control online expression in Iran. Nearly 40 percent of Iran's 80 million people can access the Internet, though the U.S.-based watchdog Freedom House describes web access as "not free" in the Islamic Republic due to censorship and filtering.

In May 2014, authorities arrested a group of young Iranian men and women for an online video of them dancing to Pharrell Williams' song "Happy." While the arrests drew widespread criticism, including from the musician himself, those involved each received suspended sentences of six months' imprisonment and 91 lashes.

Meanwhile, journalists, filmmakers, writers and activists also have been detained, sentenced or imprisoned.

On Monday, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported authorities arrested Mahdi Boutorabi, the manager of an Iranian blogging service called persianblog.ir. The ISNA report did not elaborate on the case of Boutorabi, who previously was arrested following Iran's disputed 2009 presidential election.

___
Jennifer Lawrence has some unkind words for Donald Trump

LONDON (AP)  It appears we know who Jennifer Lawrence won't be voting for this fall.

During a Friday appearance on the BBC's "Graham Norton Show," the 25-year-old Academy Award-winning actress said she was at a concert where she heard Donald Trump was in attendance.

She says she was "adamant" about finding Trump so she could make a video of herself shouting an expletive and making an obscene gesture at him. She says she thinks the likely Republican presidential nominee knew she was looking for him.

FILE - In this Nov. 18, 2015, file photo, actress Jennifer Lawrence attends a special screening of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2" at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square in New York. Lawrence told the BBC's "Graham Norton Show" during a May 13, 2016, appearance that she tried to track down Donald Trump at a concert in order to make a video of herself shouting an expletive at him and giving him the finger. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
Sweden: Refugee from Rwanda convicted in 1994 genocide

STOCKHOLM (AP)  A Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda was sentenced to life in prison Monday for his role in the 1994 genocide in the African country.

Claver Berinkindi was found guilty of genocide and gross violation of international law.

Some 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists during the Rwandan genocide, according to the U.N.

This is Sept. 16, 2015 file picture shows Claver Berinkindi, second from right a Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda. Claver Berinkindi on Monday May 16, 2016 was found guilty of genocide and gross violation of international law. The Stockholm district court said the 61-year-old was an informal low-level Hutu leader who took part in massacres of civilians in Muyira and Butare in southern Rwanda.. (Jessica Gow/TT via AP) SWEDEN OUT

The Stockholm district court said Berinkindi, 61, was an informal low-level Hutu leader who took part in massacres of civilians in Muyira and Butare in southern Rwanda.

Berinkindi was ordered to pay a total of 81 million Rwandan francs (about $110,000) in damages to 15 plaintiffs who survived the attacks or whose close relatives were killed.

"Never before has a Swedish court awarded damages for victims of acts of genocide," the court said in a statement.

Berinkindi's lawyer, Hanna Lindblom, said her client, who denied the charges, would appeal the ruling.

"He was in his home village when these horrible events took place. But he has not participated in genocide. He was at home," Lindblom told The Associated Press.

Rwandan authorities initially wanted to prosecute Berinkindi there but since he's a Swedish citizen he couldn't be extradited.

He and his family came to Sweden as refugees in 2002 and he became a Swedish citizen 10 years later.
18 killed as overcrowded boat sinks in eastern India

KOLKATA, India (AP)  Rescuers have recovered 18 bodies from a river in eastern India's West Bengal state where an overcrowded boat sank following a village fair over the weekend, an official said Monday.

The vessel overturned Saturday night as the villagers were returning to their homes across the river despite the crew's warning that the boat was overcrowded, said District Magistrate Saumitra Mohan.

The rescue work was completed Monday, with dozens of people rescued and 18 bodies recovered in Burdwan district, about 105 kilometers (65 miles) north of Kolkata, the state capital, Mohan said.

He said the boat became unstable and sank at a depth of 28 meters (70 feet) amid a strong current.

The accident triggered protests in the area, with dozens of angry villagers torching several boats on Sunday. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to quell the protesters, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
China: Afghanistan backs Beijing stance on South China Sea

BEIJING (AP)  China on Monday said landlocked Afghanistan has expressed support for Beijing's stance on the South China Sea dispute, the latest country from outside the region to line up behind China's calls for bilateral talks on the issue.

The Foreign Ministry said Afghanistan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah made the statement in a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing that also touched on security cooperation along their border in China's volatile western region of Xinjiang.

"Our Afghan counterparts expressed their gratitude for China's long-term support over the years, and also said they support China's position on the South China Sea issue and support China's efforts to resolve the South China Sea issue through bilateral channels and through peaceful means such as negotiation and consultation," the deputy director general of the ministry's department of Asian Affairs, Hou Yanqi, told reporters following the talks.

China Premier Li Keqiang, right, talks with Afghanistan Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah at a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, May 16, 2016. (Kim Kyung-Hoon, Pool Photo via AP)

Hou said Li also expressed China's willingness to help with Afghanistan's national reconciliation process, provide assistance for projects including the construction of low-cost housing and boost imports of Afghan agricultural projects.

China has been seeking support from friendly nations for its bilateral approach to settling South China Sea territorial disputes, largely to counter efforts by the U.S., Philippines and others to challenge China's claim to virtually the entire sea and creation of new islands out of coral reefs. Russia has so far been the most prominent nation to publicly endorse China's position.

China has refused to participate in international arbitration on the matter brought by the Philippines and undermined efforts to approach the issue multilaterally through the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Hou said Abdullah pledged Afghanistan's support for China in its fight against extremist groups blamed for attacks in Xinjiang and elsewhere in the country.

Beijing has long provided Kabul with financial support and Chinese companies have invested in Afghan mining projects that hope to exploit the country's estimated $3 trillion in mineral and petrochemical deposits.

Beijing's state-run China Metallurgical Group struck a $3 billion deal in 2008 to develop a mining town at Mes Aynak with power generators, road and rail links, and smelting facilities. Workers built a residential compound, but were pulled out because of security concerns. President Ashraf Ghani's government says it is determined to finish that project.

The sector is badly hampered by a lack of expertise in exploration, extraction and processing, along with inadequate infrastructure and the country's chronic insecurity. A bitter feud between Abdullah and Ghani has also hobbled the Kabul government, leaving interim ministers in critical positions while the U.S. ally struggles to confront lawlessness, corruption and the Taliban's resilient and perhaps expanding insurgency.

China has also hosted talks between the Kabul government and its opponents, although Abdullah was quoted as telling China's official Xinhua News Agency last week that such contacts have failed to bear fruit because of Taliban intransigence.

Before returning to Kabul, Abdullah is to visit Xinjiang's regional capital of Urumqi, a major Central Asian business hub.

China Premier Li Keqiang,rear right, and Afghanistan Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah, rear left, applaud while Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, left, and China Foreign Minister Wang Yi exchange documents during signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, May 16, 2016. (Kim Kyung-Hoon, Pool Photo via AP)

Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, left is escorted by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during a welcoming ceremony held outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Monday, May 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, second from left walks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang past the honor guard during a welcoming ceremony held outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Monday, May 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, center right, walks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during a welcomin ceremony held outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Monday, May 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, second from left, walks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang past the honor guard during a welcoming ceremony held outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Monday, May 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Sen. Bernie Sanders visits Puerto Rico amid debt crisis

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)  Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders warned Monday of a humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico, calling on the U.S. government to support a debt restructure in the territory as he blasted what he called "vulture" funds for demanding austere measures.

Addressing a crowd in San Juan ahead of Puerto Rico's June 5 primary, Sanders called upon the U.S. Federal Reserve to authorize emergency loans and use its authority to allow for a restructuring. The Vermont senator also said hedge funds that hold a significant portion of the island's $70 billion public debt should take a "massive haircut" as the island continues to default on multimillion-dollar bond payments.

Hundreds of students gathered Monday night at the University of Puerto Rico to hear Sanders speak at the last of his three events.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., holds a town hall meeting at the Luis Munoz Marin Foundation in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, Monday, May 16, 2016. (Eric Rojas/El Vocero via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT - PUERTO RICO OUT - NO PUBLICAR EN PUERTO RICO

"In the midst of this terrible human and economic crisis, it is morally repugnant that we are seeing vulture funds on Wall Street ... demanding that Puerto Rico fire teachers, close schools, cut pensions and abolish the minimum wage," he said to a wave of cheers.

The island is mired in a decade-long economic crisis and smothered by a public debt load that the governor has said is unpayable and needs restructuring.

Sanders said he would alleviate Puerto Rico's economic woes in part by rebuilding local infrastructure to create jobs and establish a clean economy by harnessing the island's solar and wind resources. He also called for an independent audit of Puerto Rico's debt and said that if any of the debt violated the island's constitution, it should be immediately set aside.

Sanders said he also would create a clear, binding referendum to give Puerto Ricans the chance to determine the island's political future.

He rejected a proposal by the U.S. Congress to create a fiscal oversight board to help Puerto Rico manage its debt, calling it anti-democratic.

"When you establish a federal control board that says these unelected officials have the power to make major, major decisions impacting millions of people and they are accountable to nobody ... that's wrong," he said to deafening applause during his first event.

Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla also has rejected creation of such a board. At an unrelated event Monday, he criticized the U.S. for not helping Puerto Rico when the federal government also faces what he said was trillions of dollars of debt.

"It's cynical," Garcia told reporters.

Some 250 people crowded into Sanders' first event, including former Puerto Rico governor Anibal Acevedo Vila and other supporters who expressed frustration with Puerto Rico's economic situation.

"I never thought the crisis would reach this level," said Maria Oliveras, a 63-year-old nutritionist with Puerto Rico's education department, who added that she found Sanders very promising.

Those sentiments were echoed by Jeffrey Rivera, a 36-year-old souvenir store owner. "He's the only candidate to have a solid plan for Puerto Rico," he said.

Puerto Ricans can vote in U.S. primaries but not in U.S. presidential elections. More than 200,000 Puerto Ricans have left the island in the past five years to escape a worsening economic crisis. The majority of them have moved to the U.S. mainland.

Among those who lived abroad was Jose Hernandez, a 62-year-old retiree, who arrived early to set up signs supporting Sanders.

"Bernie pushed me into action," he said. "I was gone from Puerto Rico for 17 years and when I came back everything was the same or worse. His message convinced me. It's the first time I hear a candidate speak with such humanity, dignity and respect."

Congress has stalled on approving a plan to help Puerto Rico manage a debt incurred over decades as government spending went unchecked. House Speaker Paul Ryan said he expects to introduce a revised bill in coming days.

Sanders' visit comes a day before former President Bill Clinton arrives to campaign for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She released a statement Monday saying all U.S. citizens should have the right to vote for president regardless of where they live. She also said she supports a referendum to decide Puerto Rico's political future.

"It is time to bring this issue to closure," she said.

Puerto Rican Democrats will choose 67 delegates to the party's national convention. Clinton has 2,240 delegates and Sanders 1,473 delegates. A candidate needs 2,383 delegates to win the nomination.

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Danica Coto on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danicacoto

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., arrives for a town hall meeting at the Luis Munoz Marin Foundation in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, Monday, May 16, 2016. (Eric Rojas/El Vocero via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT - PUERTO RICO OUT - NO PUBLICAR EN PUERTO RICO

Jose Hernandez, a supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders, sets up signs outside an event where the Democratic presidential candidate is scheduled to speak in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Monday, May 16, 2016. Sanders arrives in Puerto Rico on Monday to talk about the U.S. territorys worsening debt crisis ahead of the June 5 primary. (AP Photo/Danica Coto)

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., holds a town hall meeting at the Luis Munoz Marin Foundation in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, Monday, May 16, 2016. Sanders arrived in Puerto Rico on Monday to talk about the U.S. territorys worsening debt crisis ahead of the June 5 primary. (Eric Rojas/El Vocero via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT - PUERTO RICO OUT - NO PUBLICAR EN PUERTO RICO
Trump's questioning of the value of data worries Republicans

ATLANTA (AP)  Donald Trump says he plans to win the White House largely on the strength of his personality, not by leaning heavily on complex voter data operations that have become a behind-the-scenes staple in modern presidential campaigns.

Shortly after Trump explained his approach in an Associated Press interview  data is "overrated," he said  one of the presumptive Republican nominee's top advisers tried to clarify the remarks. Rick Wiley told AP the Trump campaign will indeed tap the Republican Party's massive cache of voter information.

The national Republican Party has spent massive sums of money to develop the database since President Barack Obama's election set a new standard for using data in national campaigns, from deciding where to send a candidate and how to spend advertising dollars to making sure supporters cast a ballot.

FILE - In this May 10, 2016 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in his office at Trump Tower in New York. Trump plans to win the White House largely on the strength of his personality, skipping a heavy investment on what he calls the "overrated" use of data to shape campaign strategy and get out the vote. Should he hold to that approach, which the billionaire businessman outlined last week in an interview with AP, Trump will flout all conventions of what it takes to win a modern-day presidential campaign. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

The back-and-forth in the Trump camp leaves Republicans and Democrats alike wondering just how committed the candidate actually is to what has become accepted wisdom among political professionals. Some Republicans worry that Trump risks ceding potential advantages to likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton if he's not willing to invest the money required to keep updating the data, and then use it effectively.

"It's a big risk," said Chris Wilson, who ran an expansive data operation for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump's stiffest competition in the Republican primaries. Jeremy Bird, who worked for President Barack Obama's data-rich campaign, said: "Flying blind is nuts."

The use of data has evolved over the past several presidential campaigns into a shorthand for using information  starting with simple lists of potential voters, then mated with extensive details about their habits and beliefs  to guide a campaign toward its ultimate goal: the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

In his AP interview, Trump discounted the value of data: The "candidate is by far the most important thing," he said. He said he plans a "limited" use of data in his general election campaign and suggested Obama's victories  universally viewed by political professionals as groundbreaking in the way data steered the campaign to voters  are misunderstood.

"Obama got the votes much more so than his data processing machine, and I think the same is true with me," Trump said, explaining that he will continue to focus on his signature rallies, free television exposure and his personal social media accounts to win voters over.

Buzz Jacobs, who was on the losing end of Obama's success in 2008 as an aide to GOP nominee John McCain, said Trump oversimplifies the president's victories.

"We lost in large part because Obama's ability to use data was so much better than ours," Jacobs said.

According to South Carolina's Republican chairman, Matt Moore: "Elections to a great degree are won on ... that last 1 or 2 percent that shows up or stays home. That group on either edge turns out because of data and digital. That's a known fact."

Republicans and Democrats with experience running campaigns question why Trump would give up a chance to reinforce with data his ubiquitous presence on television and inarguable success with large-scale rallies  a platform of personality that Clinton has yet to match.

Bird, whose consulting firm now works for the Clinton campaign, said Trump is giving himself a false choice.

"At a big picture level, sure, Barack Obama got the votes  his bio, his policies, his ability to communicate," Bird said. "But we wanted to do everything we could to get him and get his message to the right people."

Jacobs, who worked this year for a former Trump rival, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, said Trump is an outlier in being uninterested in data. The RNC and private groups, such as the billionaire conservative activist brothers Charles and David Koch, have spent hundreds of millions on their data programs since Obama's election.

"It would be silly to leave those on the sidelines," Jacobs said.

To be sure, Trump has not wholly abandoned data. His campaign spending disclosures show payments to multiple data firms, and the campaign maintains contact information collected when voters register for tickets to his rallies.

Wiley, a recent addition to the Trump team who previously worked for the national party, said he is "working with the RNC, putting together a state-of-the-art program." He predicted it would be able to match what "Obama was able to do in 2008."

But Trump's in-house data shop is thin, and the candidate has said that he does not give priority to the ground game. Trump's most significant loss of the primary season came in the leadoff Iowa caucuses, a victory for Cruz that was largely credited to the Texas senator's sophisticated campaign effort to turn out voters.

Wilson said he used the Cruz campaign's data to run nightly "models" leading up to the caucuses, which predicted turnout and outcomes and allowed the campaign to adjust its approach every day.

That means if Wiley and Trump's other campaign staffers are able to persuade him to pay attention to the data, they'll also need to persuade him to raise and spend the money to use it effectively in competitive states.

"He has to be convinced," South Carolina chairman Moore said. Then again, he said, "We've all been wrong about Trump for pretty much this entire campaign."

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Associated Press reporters Jill Colvin and Julie Pace in New York and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

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Campaign data: What it means, how it's used to win elections

ATLANTA (AP)  Since President Barack Obama first won the White House in 2008, political professionals of all ideologies have accepted as truth the importance of using data to win elections.

But presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has expressed doubts about that wisdom, saying he'll use data in a "limited" way in the general election. He argues it's his personality that will carry the day.

Here's a look at data in the context of political campaigns.

FILE - In this May 3, 2016, file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in New York. Trump is now his party's presumptive nominee, but in many ways, he's breaking the Republican mold. On a handful of issues, from trade to national defense, Trump has the potential to run to the left of likely Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. And on others, from taxes to social security, he sounds an awful lot like a Democrat. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

WHAT IS IT?

Generally speaking, "data and digital" information is used by campaigns to shape strategy and tactics, including early voting and Election Day voter-turnout efforts. It can tap detailed information about individual voters.

Campaigns use the information and their analysis of it to make decisions. Among them: When and where the candidate should campaign? How should advertising dollars be spent? On which television stations (and even which shows) should ads be placed? Which households should get a piece of direct mail? Which should get extra in-person visits from campaign volunteers?

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WHO'S DOING THE WORK?

It's a big business. Both the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee have spent millions to develop extensive databases of essentially every American voter.

The conservative activist brothers Charles and David Koch have invested their own money in a similar program. And there is an endless list of political consulting firms that help develop and analyze data for parties and campaigns.

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WHAT'S INCLUDED?

Databases start with public records: voter rolls, including voters' participation history and, in states where the information is available, their party registration and race. Census information and other records help identify potential voters who are not yet registered. Also included: a voter's publicly available social media profile.

A typical database has data about consumer habits, the same kind of information that businesses use in marketing.

Campaigns don't necessarily know what a voter bought last week on Amazon, but they almost certainly know what magazines or newspaper a voter reads and might track what a voter says on Twitter during a presidential primary debate.

Every voter in the database is "scored"  or given a numerical assessment that aims to predict how likely he or she is to support a given candidate, party or cause.

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WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

That baseline data doesn't do much by itself. The value comes in how the analysis of the information guides campaigns to act.

For example, campaign staff and volunteers will make individual contact with voters already identified as likely or possible supporters. They'll record what voters say about candidates, issues and their intentions at the ballot box.

Voter scores are then updated, and additional outreach is planned based on that new set of information.

The DNC's database contains what individual voters told canvassers in past elections, and the RNC recently updated its database with individual voter opinions  even from Democratic voters  about Obama's nomination of federal appeals court Judge Merrick Garland to serve on the Supreme Court.

Campaigns also have other ways to supplement the data. For example, Ted Cruz's GOP primary campaign developed a mobile phone app that collected detailed data from every user who registered to use it.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

The best information is when a voter commits to vote for a specific candidate or, in the case of early voting, confirms he or she has already voted. This and the other information gathered are used by campaigns to "model"  or predict  election results.

In 2008 and 2012, Obama's campaign ran daily models in the months leading to Election Day, with early voting totals added during the final weeks. In 2008, Obama aides said they were not surprised by his victories in GOP-leaning Indiana and North Carolina.

Similarly, Cruz aides said they were not surprised by his victory in this year's Iowa caucuses, despite late polls finding Trump in the lead.

In both cases, the campaigns said, their data operations predicted those results.

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Prep school grad convicted of sex assault free during appeal

CONCORD, N.H. (AP)  A prep school graduate convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old freshman girl as part of a game of sexual conquest called Senior Salute will again be free pending appeal.

Owen Labrie's bail was revoked in March after he admitted violating his curfew. He appealed to the state Supreme Court, which last week returned the matter to the trial court. On Monday, a Merrimack County Superior Court judge said he'd allow Labrie to be released with electronic monitoring via GPS.

Labrie's attorney, in arguing for his release, said that being locked up for two months has been a "life-changing" experience for him and that he will comply with any additional conditions.

Owen Labrie is escorted out of the Merrimack County Superior Courtroom Monday, May 16, 2016, in Concord, N.H. after a judge agreed to new bail conditions. Labrie, a prep school graduate convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old freshman girl as part of a game of sexual conquest called Senior Salute, will again be free pending appeal and now required to use electronic monitoring via GPS.(AP Photo/Jim Cole, Pool)

"He's gone through a wave of emotions, from being sad about his situation to being scared, being nervous, being bored at times ... but it's all been a learning experience," attorney Jaye Rancourt said.

But Deputy County Attorney Catherine Ruffle argued that little has changed since the judge's original order.

"The only thing that's changed is the defendant doesn't like it in jail," she said.

Ruffle said she was concerned about Labrie returning to live with his mother in Tunbridge, Vermont, because his mother likely knew he was violating curfew. And she said Labrie could pose a public safety risk given that he has not undergone a psychosexual evaluation.

Labrie's attorney said that requirement was part of his sentence he has not started serving.

Labrie, who's 20 years old, was 18 when he was arrested in 2014 days after graduating from St. Paul's School in Concord.

During his trial, he testified that he and the girl had consensual sexual contact, but he denied having sexual intercourse with her. He acknowledged he had boasted to the contrary to friends, in profane emails and social media posts that were shared with the jury.

The encounter between Labrie and the girl took place in a nearly deserted building whose roof had a panoramic view of the school's 2,000-acre campus. After a brief time on the roof, the girl testified, Labrie led her to a dark mechanical room, they consensually kissed and touched each other and he raped her.

The New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence said it worries the judge's decision will discourage crime victims from coming forward.

"When there is a lack of respect for our court system, people should be held accountable," coalition community relations director Maureen McDonald said. "When offenders do not face consequences for their actions, victims are the ones that pay the price."

Labrie had been bound for Harvard University and had planned to take divinity classes before his arrest put everything on hold. He wept upon hearing the verdict last year.
Czechs call on Brits to vote to stay in EU

PRAGUE (AP)  A group of Czech scientists, artists and other personalities have called on British citizens to vote to keep the United Kingdom inside the European Union, warning its exit could have "catastrophic" consequences for both Europe and Britain.

Former Czech ambassador to London Michael Zantovsky penned the open letter released Monday which is formally addressed to Tom Stoppard, a British playwright of Czech origin.

It has been signed by dozens of Czechs, including Academy of Science head Jiri Drahos, conductors Jiri Belohlavek and Jiri Pesek, and Olympic champion Vera Caslavska. They say they fully respect the right of the British citizens to decide but wanted to share with them their worries and hopes.
West Virginia officials investigate coal miner death

GRAFTON, W.Va. (AP)  West Virginia officials are investigating the death of a coal miner.

State Department of Commerce spokeswoman Leslie Smithson says preliminary information suggests the miner at the Leer Mine in Grafton may have suffered a medical condition. She says a full investigation is under way by the state Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training.

WBOY-TV (http://bit.ly/27rEmaH) reports an emergency call to the Harrison-Taylor 911 Center was made at 4:15 a.m. Monday.

The miner's name wasn't immediately released.

It marks the second reported death at a West Virginia coal mine this year. A miner died in an accident at a Wyoming County mine on Jan. 4.

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PICTURED: Highlights of the 2016 race for the White House

The candidates in the race for the White House are making the case to voters across the country in a fight to win the Republican and Democratic nominations. Here's a look, as seen in images made by Associated Press photographers on the campaign trail.

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See the latest AP photo galleries: http://apne.ws/TXeCBN

Bunting blows in the wind as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the home of Nathan Smith during a campaign stop in Fort Mitchell, Ky., Sunday, May 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The Archive: Top photo highlights from previous weeks: http://apne.ws/13QUFKJ

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Follow AP photographers on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP/lists/ap-photographers

Follow AP Images on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Images

Visit AP Images online: http://www.apimages.com

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attended his daughter Tiffany Trump's graduation ceremony, accompanied by his wife Melania Trump, second right, and former wife, Marla Maples, second left, Sunday, May 15, 2016, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, center, stands in the audience as she attends a sermon at Canaan Missionary Baptist Church during a campaign stop in Louisville, Ky., Sunday, May 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton waves as she arrives to speak at the Union of Carpenters and Millwrights Training Center during a campaign stop in Louisville, Ky., Sunday, May 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton signs the cast of a young member of the audience after speaking during a campaign stop in Louisville, Ky., Sunday, May 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
4 die in small plane crash in Mississippi, authorities say

TUPELO, Miss. (AP)  Four people died Monday when a small plane crashed shortly after taking off from Tupelo Regional Airport in Mississippi.

The pilot and three passengers all died when the single-engine plane crashed in a wooded area near a sewage pumping station and the Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo. No one on the ground was hurt.

"We don't have any survivors," Tupelo Fire Department public information officer Cathy Gault told The Associated Press.

Firefighters look over the scene of a plane crash near the Tupelo Regional Airport on Colonial Estates Road, Monday morning, May 16, 2016, in Tupelo, Miss. The pilot and three passengers all died when the single-engine plane crashed in a field adjoining the Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo. (Thomas Wells/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

Tupelo city spokeswoman Leesha Faulkner said emergency officials were called to the site about a half-mile north of the airport about 8:30 a.m.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Arlene Salac said the pilot reported smoke in the cockpit of the Beechcraft Bonanza before the crash. She said the FAA will investigate and the National Transportation Safety Board will determine the crash's cause. Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre told reporters in an afternoon news conference that officials were awaiting the arrival of federal investigators.

Officials did not immediately release the names of the dead. Lee County Coroner Carolyn Green said the bodies would be taken to the state crime lab in Pearl for autopsies and said DNA might be needed to identify them. The plane was loaded with fuel just after takeoff and burned when it crashed, producing a plume of black smoke.

"There's quite a bit of wreckage. The debris is very broken up," Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre told reporters. "We did find some bodies on the scene."

FlightAware.com shows that a Beechcraft Bonanza plane, registered to a man in Kerrville, Texas, had flown from there to Tupelo on Sunday. It was scheduled to continue to Charlottesville, Virginia, on Monday.

The weather was overcast with a light wind at the time the plane took off.

Laurie Carwile, who works in the gift shop at the Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo, said she heard the crash and later saw smoke.

"We actually thought it was thunder," Carwile said. "I was in the gift shop and this man came beating on the door, telling me to open the door. I thought we were being robbed. He was actually trying to tell me the plane had come down and to call 911."

Carwile said no animals were hurt at the park, where buffalo, zebras and camels live, but "they all seem to be on edge a little bit."

A section of an aircraft is visible through the brush along Colonial Estates Road, near the Tupelo Regional Airport in Tupelo, Miss., Monday morning, May 16, 2016, following an airplane crash. The pilot and three passengers all died when the single-engine plane crashed in a field adjoining the Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo. (Thomas Wells/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

Emergency vehicles patrol Colonial Estates Road, north of the runway at the Tupelo Regional Airport in Tupelo, Miss., Monday morning, May 16, 2016, following an airplane crash. The pilot and three passengers all died when the single-engine plane crashed in a field adjoining the Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo. (Thomas Wells/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
Residents in northern New England awaken to snow in mid-May

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP)  Leaves are coming out on trees, daffodils are starting to bloom and snow is falling in parts of Northern New England a month before the start of summer.

The National Weather Service says 3.4 inches of snow were recorded in the northern Maine town of Caribou early Monday, setting a record for the most snow this late in May.

Vermont's Mount Mansfield set a record with 5.6 inches of snow, beating the old record of 4 inches in 1984.

A dusting of snow covers young leaves and the ground on Perry Hill in Waterbury, Vt., on Monday May 16, 2016, and Mount Hunger in the background. The National Weather Service said 3.4 inches of snow were recorded in far north Caribou, Maine early Monday, setting a record for the most snow there this late in May. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring)

The Vermont towns of Middlesex and Hyde Park and near Pomfret got 2 inches while the northern New Hampshire town of Pittsburg recorded 2.5 inches.

But much of the snow was short-lived. The forecast calls for temperatures to rise, with rain in northern New Hampshire and Maine.
PICTURED: 125 vintage trams evoke bygone era in Milan

MILAN (AP)  Against the backdrop of Milan's 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-year-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles.

A full 125 of the original 502 trams built from 1927-1930 are still in service in the Italian city -- having survived a World War II depot bombing and the test of time to ply the rails alongside sleeker, modern models.

Powered by electric lines overhead and following metallic rails, the welded carriages first call attention with their rattling sound, then with the screech of the breaks. Inside, passengers sit on slatted wooden benches against panoramic windows, jostling along the city's tramways at a maximum speed of 38 kph (23 mph), while the driver works brass levers from a glass-enclosed cabin.

In this photo taken on Saturday, March 5, 2016, passengers sit on a vintage tram in Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-year-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Most are a distinctive orange, but one has been painted green and has been retrofitted with linen-cloth covered tables to host 20 diners for an atmospheric dinner service every night. While eating an Italian meal prepared by the on-board chef, passengers ramble past some of the city's most famous sites, including the Sforza Castle, the triumphal Arch of Peace, the Duomo cathedral and La Scala opera house.

The trams were built in Italy based on an American design by Peter Witt, the former Cleveland transition commissioner whose aim was to facilitate quicker boarding by having passengers enter from the front and exit from the center doors. Nine of the Milan originals have been exported to San Francisco where they are in service to Fisherman's Wharf.

In this photo taken on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2016, a vintage tram stops in front of the Peace Arch in Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Thursday, May 5, 2016, a passenger sits on a slatted wooden bench of a vintage tram while running through Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-year-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Wednesday April 27, 2016, a vintage tram runs through Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-year-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Friday, Jan.29, 2016, an inside view of a vintage tram restaurant in Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-year-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Friday, Jan.29, 2016, a waiter prepares sets up tables for clients on a vintage tram restaurant in Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-year-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Thursday, March 3, 2016, a man holds onto a passenger strap of a vintage tram while running through Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Thursday, March 3, 2016, women get on a vintage tram in Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Friday, Jan.29, 2016, tram driver Roberto Cundari manually adjusts metal rails in Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Friday, Jan.29, 2016, tram driver Roberto Cundari maneuvers along downtown streets, in Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2016, a vintage tram runs on tracks, in Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Saturday, March 5, 2016, a passenger sits on slatted wooden benches on a vintage tram in Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Saturday, March 5, 2016, passengers sit on slatted wooden benches, on a vintage tram in Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Friday, Feb. 5 2016, passengers stand on a vintage tram in Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Friday, Jan.15, 2016, a tram driver maneuvers a vintage tram through Milan, Italy. Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Friday, Jan.29, 2016, tram driver Roberto Cundari operates the mechanical brass levers while running along downtown streets, in Milan, Italy, Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

In this photo taken on Friday, Jan.29, 2016, tram driver Roberto Cundari operates the mechanical brass levers while running along downtown streets, in Milan, Italy, Against the backdrop of Milan's cobblestone streets, arched gateways and 19th-century stone architecture, a fleet of nearly 90-yer-old trams contribute to the aura of a bygone era that still permeates the city from certain angles. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Detroit's automakers, sensing a threat, embrace mobility

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP)  For Detroit, the days of simply making cars are over.

Automakers are facing multiple threats to their business from nimble tech firms like Apple and Uber. In response, carmakers are reinventing themselves as "mobility" companies that can accommodate all the different ways people get around.

Already this year, General Motors Co. has announced a long-term alliance with ride-hailing company Lyft and started a car-sharing service called Maven. Ford created a technology-focused division based in Silicon Valley that will invest in promising transportation startups. It also launched FordPass, a smartphone app that helps users find parking or share their cars. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is partnering with Google to test self-driving software in 100 of its minivans.

In this Wednesday, April 27, 2016, photo, a smartphone displaying the Maven app, a General Motors car-sharing service, is shown, in Ann Arbor, Mich. Automakers are reinventing themselves as "mobility" companies that can accommodate all the different ways people get around. Already this year, General Motors Co. has announced a long-term alliance with ride-hailing company Lyft and started Maven. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

In congested and expensive cities, people are increasingly content to share cars or summon rides using their smartphones. In five years, 35 million people globally will be using car-sharing services, up from 5.8 million now, according to Boston Consulting Group. That means 550,000 fewer cars sold each year. Within another few decades, fleets of self-driving taxis could replace the need for personal car ownership altogether. Automakers that don't adapt risk being supplanted by high-tech competitors.

"We're investing in future-proofing," says Elena Ford, who led the development of FordPass and is the great-great-granddaughter of Ford's founder.

There are dangers. Making vehicles is complicated and expensive, and car companies have stumbled when they've taken on new businesses. GM bought software maker Electronic Data Systems Inc. in 1984 but sold it 12 years later. Ford owned Hertz rental cars but sold it a decade ago. Chrysler owned airplane-maker Gulfstream in the mid-1980s. In each case, the companies sold those businesses to refocus on car-making.

There's also the open question of whether drivers want automakers to do more than make cars. Ford CEO Mark Fields is confident they do.

"It goes back to Henry Ford and one of his favorite quotes: 'If I asked people what they wanted, they'd say they wanted a faster horse,'" Fields told The Associated Press. "We want to transform, fundamentally, the relationship between an automaker and a customer."

Fields adds that the financial case is too compelling to ignore. Global revenue at traditional automakers totals $2.3 trillion a year, he says; the transportation business, including taxis, buses and car-sharing, is worth $5.4 trillion.

Companies are targeting people like Shannon Serenko, 32, who works at Johnson & Johnson and lives in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. Paying for parking, insurance and gas for a car she barely uses would be a hassle, she says. Instead, she rents a Chevrolet Volt from Maven for $42 a day when she wants to run errands.

"I'd just rather be spending all that money on other things than parking a car for six out of seven days," she said.

Detroit carmakers aren't the first to offer mobility services to compete with the likes of ZipCar and Uber. German automaker Daimler AG launched Car2Go, a car-sharing service, in 2008; it now operates in 29 cities in Europe and North America. BMW started a New York-based mobility venture capital firm in 2011. Toyota has 70 tiny electric cars zipping around Grenoble, France, as part of its own car-sharing service.

But after surviving the recession, Detroit is enjoying record U.S. sales and plowing the profits into mobility experiments.

GM has been the most aggressive of the Detroit companies. In January, it invested $500 million in Lyft and said it will co-develop a service that lets customers summon self-driving cars. Three months later, it paid a rumored $1 billion for Cruise Automation, a startup that makes autonomous vehicle software. Around the same time, it launched Maven, a car-sharing service in Ann Arbor and Chicago.

GM President Dan Ammann said that when GM sees potential value, it can't afford to sit back and see where the market heads.

"We believe in speed," Ammann said.

So far, Wall Street is on board. Colin Langan, an auto analyst with UBS, said investors understand the need to invest in new mobility, and expect companies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year doing so. But alarm bells may go off if they're routinely spending more.

"Historically, automakers have not been good allocators of cash," Langan said.

Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne says it's dangerous for automakers to place big bets on one solution. He stresses that FCA's partnership with Google is open-ended and not exclusive. If the companies decide to keep working together, they will eventually hammer out details like licensing fees for the software.

"Walking in a collaborative fashion with people who have historically been viewed as intruders and potential enemies of our business  walking with them at their speed  is the best possible solution for us in terms of determining what our future state will be," he said.

Ford has done much of its mobility work in-house. The company has run more than 30 global mobility experiments over the past 18 months, including a concept in India that lets multiple families or co-workers share a car and a ride-hailing van service for workers on its Dearborn campus.

But Fields says Ford is flexible and open to partnerships. The FordPass app was developed alongside Pivotal, a Silicon Valley software company in which it has invested $182 million.

FordPass lets Ford owners remotely start their cars and make car payments. Users of the free app  who don't have to own Fords  can also reserve and pay for parking spots, get help from a live operator, rent their cars through FlightCar and earn points at partners like McDonald's.

Ford will continue adding features; one day, users might be able to summon a self-driving vehicle or borrow a Ford-made bike.

"People spend about 4.5 hours per year in a dealership, but they spend 900 hours per year being mobile. So how can we have an ongoing dialogue?" Elena Ford said.

___

AP Reporter Mike Householder contributed from Ann Arbor.

This Wednesday, April 27, 2016, photo, shows the Maven logo on a General Motors car-sharing service automobile, in Ann Arbor, Mich. Automakers are reinventing themselves as "mobility" companies that can accommodate all the different ways people get around. Already this year, General Motors Co. has announced a long-term alliance with ride-hailing company Lyft and started car-sharing service Maven. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

This Wednesday, April 27, 2016, photo, shows the Maven logo on a General Motors car-sharing service automobile, in Ann Arbor, Mich. Automakers are reinventing themselves as "mobility" companies that can accommodate all the different ways people get around. Already this year, General Motors Co. has announced a long-term alliance with ride-hailing company Lyft and started car-sharing service Maven. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

This Wednesday, April 27, 2016, photo shows a smartphone displaying the FordPass app, in Ann Arbor, Mich. Automakers are reinventing themselves as "mobility" companies that can accommodate all the different ways people get around. Ford created a technology-focused division based in Silicon Valley that will invest in promising transportation startups. It also launched FordPass, a smartphone app that helps users find parking or share their cars. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
3rd suspect arrested in slaying of 9-year-old Chicago boy

CHICAGO (AP)  A third suspect has been arrested in the slaying of a 9-year-old boy who was lured from a Chicago playground into an alley with the promise of a juice box and shot to death.

Kevin Edwards was stopped for a traffic violation Saturday in Vermilion County, 150 miles south of Chicago, and arrested on charges of resisting arrest and obstruction of justice. Police say he'll be returned to Chicago, where he faces a first-degree murder charge.

Edwards is suspected in the Nov. 2 killing of Tyshawn Lee. Authorities say Tyshawn's shooting was apparently a gang war killing related to his father, in retaliation for the slaying of the brother of one of the three suspects.
Guyana cracking down on contraband in prisons

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP)  The South American nation of Guyana is trying to impose more order on its overcrowded prison system following an uptick of people hurling contraband to inmates in recent days.

Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan said Monday that wardens are conducting frequent lockdowns and more searches after suspected weapons, drugs and phones were pitched over prison walls.

He says authorities will show inmates "who is the real boss."

Ramjattan says no guns have been found in recent searches. But wardens have found screwdrivers and other improvised weapons.
Pakistan's PM defends his finances, suggests Panama probe

ISLAMABAD (AP)  Pakistan's prime minister defended his financial record Monday, denying that he used any Pakistani funds to buy property in London or establish a steel mill in Saudi Arabia.

Nawaz Sharif's speech came against the backdrop of the Panama papers, leaked financial documents indicating that his children hold offshore assets worth millions of dollars.

Speaking to parliament after he faced mounting pressure from the opposition to clarify his financial situation, Sharif denied any wrongdoing.

Supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf rally against Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, May 16, 2016. Sharif has denied taking out any money from the country to purchase property in London or establishing steel mill in Saudi Arabia in the backdrop of allegations about his family in so called Panama papers. Banner reads "Nawaz Sharif respond to the nation, give accounts to the nation". (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

Sharif said his father built up the family business before the premier entered politics and established a steel mill abroad while he was in exile. The Jeddah steel mill was then sold in 2005 for $17 million, and the proceeds were used to buy the apartments in London, Sharif said.

He also presented details of his and his family's tax affairs.

Yet shortly after Sharif's speech concluded, leader of the opposition Syed Khursheed Shah accused him of dodging questions and led a walk-out in protest. The opposition had wanted more details on Sharif's finances, included the money trail leading to his overseas properties.

Sharif said a committee comprising government and opposition lawmakers should be formed to prepare for a judicial probe into all those mentioned in the Panama papers  a trove of leaked documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca  including members of his family. He has already written to the country's chief justice to create this probe, and to look into corruption and tax evasion by politicians and others.

The opposition argued that it wants the judicial probe to be confined to the Panama papers and to largely focus on Sharif's family. The leaked papers have also named other Pakistani politicians and businessmen alleged to have substantial undeclared overseas assets.
Ex-nurse accused of filing bogus records on patient's death

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP)  A Louisiana nurse was arrested Monday on charges that she falsified records about a death at a nursing home for veterans.

Cheryl Poirrier, 58, of LaPlace was being held at a jail in St. John the Baptist Parish following her arrest on charges of filing false public records and malfeasance in office, Louisiana Inspector General Stephen Street's office said in a statement.

Poirrier, an employee of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs, was working as a licensed practical nurse at the Southeast Louisiana War Veterans Home in Reserve when a resident died in January 2015 several hours after falling in his room, a court filing said.

After the resident died, Poirrier allegedly filed reports that falsely stated she had performed four neurological checks on the man after he fell. Investigators said surveillance video showed she didn't perform any checks.

The man, whose name and age were not released, had complained of head and back pain after he fell and was found on the floor of his room with his wheelchair on top of him, the statement from Street's office said.

"The resident was returned to his bed," it added. "Some eight hours later, the resident was found unresponsive in his room and it was determined that he had died during the night."
It is enough to make you feel dizzy, but the International Space Station passed a significant milestone in its lifetime this week, completing its 100,000th orbit around Earth.

Since the first module of the ISS launched 17 years ago, the station has racked up more than 2.6 billion miles as it constantly falls around the planet in low-Earth orbit - equivalent to 10 round trips to Mars, or almost one way to Neptune.

In a recorded a video message for YouTube, US astronaut Jeff Williams said: 'This is a significant milestone and is a tribute to this international partnership, made up of the European Space Agency, of Russia, Canada, Japan and the United States.'

Scroll down for video

This week the International Space Station made its 100,000th orbit of Earth. NASA says the combined orbital distance is akin to travelling more than 2.6 billion miles - or almost to Neptune

The Flight Engineer highlighted the 15 and a half years of continuous human presence on-board, with more than 220 crew members from around the partner nations visiting or living on the orbital outpost.

'It's a tribute to the teams that designed it, that put it together,' added Williams, giving a nod to the crew on the ground which keep things running smoothly.

He added: '100,000 orbits, the journey continues.'

The ISS officially started its 100,000th loop of the planet on Monday morning at 6:10am (GMT). Each orbit of the planet takes about 90 minutes, with 16 orbits making up one day on the station.

In a video message from the ISS, US astronaut and current crew member Jeff Williams (pictured) said: 'This is a significant milestone and is a tribute to this international partnership, made up of the European Space Agency, of Russia, Canada, Japan and the United States'

ORBITAL MILESTONE REACHED Early yesterday morning, the International Space station embarked on its 100,000th orbit of Earth. Since the first module of the ISS launched 17 years ago, the station has racked up more than 2.6 billion miles - equivalent to 10 round trips to Mars, or almost one way to Neptune. Each orbit of the planet takes roughly 90 minutes, with 16 orbits making up one day for the crew aboard the station.

Astronauts have been living continuously aboard the 250-mile-high complex since 2000.

Construction began in 1998, and since then 222 people have lived or visited there, the vast majority of them men, according to NASA.

Altogether, there have been 47 permanent crews representing the US, Russian, Canadian, Japanese and European space agencies.

The current crew - Expedition 47 - comprises two Americans, three Russians and the UK's Tim Peake.

They recently achieved a photographic milestone, snapping the 3 millionth picture taken over the years from the scientific outpost.

Major Peake used Twitter to congratulate the station and crews past and present, he wrote: 'Today the ISS completed its 100,000th orbit of our beautiful planet Earth - congratulation space station.'

The Expedition 47 crew poses for the 3 millionth image taken aboard the International Space Station. On the front row, from left to right are Esa's Tim Peake, NASA's Tim Kopra and Roscosmos cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko. On the back row, from left to right, are Roscsomos' Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin and NASA's Jeff Williams

British astronaut Tim Peake is one of the crew members of Expedition 47, currently aboard the station. Major Peake tweeted his congratulations from the ISS (pictured)

Nasa also teamed up with Snapchat to celebrate the station's achievement, streaming video from the ISS as part of its 'Day in Space' story.

As part of the social media feed, US astronaut Commander Tim Kopra featured in the videos as users were given a tour of the station and how the crew go about their daily lives.

Jeff Williams also tweeted a video highlighting snaps dating back to the first expedition crew.

Celebrating the 100,000th orbit of Earth from the International @Space_Station.https://t.co/AxKWvago8x  Jeff Williams (@Astro_Jeff) May 16, 2016

Over the course of the space station's lifetime astronauts have captured an incredible array of photos of earth's surface.

A recent timelapse video offered viewers an astronaut's eye view of Earth, as seen from the International Space Station.

The video is made up of still snaps taken from the ISS as it tears through space at more than 17,500mph (27,600kph), orbiting 250 miles (400km) above the Earth's surface.

Lightning flashes can be seen in the thick storm clouds below, and the atmospheric halo burns blue-green to orange, reflecting the multiple sunrises and sunsets the crew experience each 24-hour period.
Colombia claims largest cocaine seizure in its history

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP)  Colombian authorities say they've made the biggest cocaine seizure in the history of a country long plagued by traffic in the drug.

The National Police agency said Sunday that 50 commandos backed by helicopters seized about 8 tons of cocaine on a banana plantation in the northwestern department of Antioquia.

It said the drug belonged to a gang known as the Clan Usuaga and was apparently destined for the Caribbean and then to the United States.

This photo released by Colombia's National Police shows packages of cocaine on display in Necocli, in the northwestern state of Antioquia, Colombia, Sunday, May 15, 2016. The National Police agency said commandos backed by helicopters seized about eight tons of cocaine on a banana plantation belonging to a gang known as the Clan Usuaga and was apparently destined for the Caribbean and then to the United States. Authorities say its the biggest cocaine seizure in Colombia's history. (Colombia National Police via AP)

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos sent a tweet congratulating police on what he called the largest cocaine seizure in the history of Colombia, one of the world's largest producers of the narcotic. Colombian police said they've seized more than 86 tons in all so far this year.

Seizures of that size are rare but not unprecedented on a global scale. In March 2007, the U.S. Coast Guard seized nearly 20 tons of cocaine found on a cargo ship, the "Gatun," headed from the Panama Canal to the Mexican port of Topolobampo.
The Latest: Jury selection begins for Alabama House speaker

OPELIKA, Ala. (AP)  The Latest on the ethics trial of Alabama House speaker(all times local):

10:30 a.m.

Jury selection is beginning in the ethics trial of the Alabama House speaker.

Republican Speaker Mike Hubbard faces removal from office if convicted of felony charges that he used his current office and his past position as chairman of the Alabama Republican Party to benefit his printing and consulting companies.

Hubbard says his lobbying and other transactions were both proper and legal.

A judge began questioning about 100 prospective jurors on Monday for the public corruption trial.

Two other top Alabama officials also face trouble. Gov. Robert Bentley faces an impeachment push amid a sex-tinged scandal. Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is suspended after being accused of violating judicial ethics.

---

3:11 am

The speaker of the Alabama House is going on trial on felony ethics charges that could result in his removal from office.

Jury selection is set to begin Monday for state Rep. Mike Hubbard of Auburn. He's facing 23 counts of using his office and past position as chairman of the Alabama GOP for personal gain.

Hubbard says he didn't do anything illegal. A jury pulled from as many as 140 prospective jurors will decide his fate in a trial that officials say could last three weeks.

Hubbard's trial comes as two other top Alabama officials are also at risk of losing their jobs.
Prince's death: Key players in investigation and aftermath

MINNEAPOLIS (AP)  Since Prince's sudden death at age 57 on April 21, a host of figures have emerged as key players in the investigation of how he died and in the ultimate division of his estate, which is worth millions. A brief look at those figures:

DR. HOWARD KORNFELD

A northern California doctor who specializes in addiction treatment and pain management, Howard Kornfeld has championed the use of buprenorphine, a drug similar to methadone that is often used to treat opiate addiction. His attorney says Prince's representatives reached out to Kornfeld on April 20, the day before Prince was found dead in his studio compound in suburban Minneapolis. Unable to immediately fly to Minnesota, Kornfeld sent his son Andrew in an effort to convince the musician to seek long-term care at his Recovery Without Walls center in Mill City, California. William Mauzy, the Kornfelds' attorney, said Howard Kornfeld sent with his son a small dose of buprenorphine, which is used to ease withdrawal symptoms and cravings.

FILE - In this May 19, 2013 file photo, Prince performs at the Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Prince was found dead at his home on April 21, 2016, in suburban Minneapolis. He was 57. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

ANDREW KORNFELD

The younger Kornfeld, a 26-year-old pre-med student, was one of the three people who found Prince at his Paisley Park studio on April 21. Sent on behalf of his father, Andrew Kornfeld was carrying a small dose of the drug buprenorphine. Advocates of the drug say the opiate can help addicted patients by offering pain relief with reduced possibility of overdose and addiction. Andrew Kornfeld is listed as a consultant with his father's clinic and is a pre-med student, according to his attorney William Mauzy. Mauzy said the mission Andrew Kornfeld was sent on was consistent with the work he has done for his father's clinic for years.

DR. MICHAEL TODD SCHULENBERG

In the weeks before Prince's April 21 death, the musician met twice with Dr. Michael Todd Schulenberg, a 46-year-old family care physician who worked at a Minnetonka clinic a few miles from Prince's Paisley Park studio and home, according to search warrant documents. Schulenberg is no longer working for the health care system connected to the clinic, but the health care system won't say why and his attorney isn't commenting. Investigators interviewed Schulenberg the day Prince died and searched the health care system's flagship hospital for Prince's medical records. The warrant documents say Schulenberg prescribed Prince medications in recent weeks, but what they were and whether Prince took them is unknown.

KIRK JOHNSON

A longtime friend of Prince, Kirk Johnson was a drummer and the estate manager at Paisley Park. Johnson, 51, hasn't spoken publicly since Prince's death. He also hasn't returned to a local gym where he teaches classes, according to his fellow personal trainers. According to search warrant documents, investigators interviewed Johnson sometime after Prince's death. He told them that Prince had gone to a local medical center for an illness in 2014 or 2015. The Star Tribune, citing a source with knowledge of the investigation, reported that Schulenberg was Johnson's doctor and that Johnson recommended him to Prince. Johnson's attorney, F. Clayton Tyler, has declined to comment.

TYKA NELSON

Tyka Nelson, 55, is Prince's only full sibling, and she has taken the lead in the initial work to settle her older brother's estate. Both are children of John L. Nelson and Mattie Della Shaw, who divorced when Prince and Tyka were young and who later died. Tyka Nelson lives in a north Minneapolis home and has shied away from the press, but she appeared in court with four of Prince's five half siblings earlier this month for the first hearing to start sorting out Prince's estate. Nelson said Prince left no known will. Under Minnesota law, those siblings would share Prince's estate equally unless a will emerges or an unknown child of Prince comes forward and is confirmed through paternity tests.

OTHERS MAKING CLAIMS TO ESTATE

Given the current value of Prince's estate and its vast earning potential even after his death, claims have been rolling in. A Colorado inmate, Carlin Q. Williams of Kansas City, Missouri, has claimed to be Prince's biological son. Another Kansas City resident, Darcell Gresham Johnston, has claimed to be a half sister. A district judge has set up a process to handle paternity claims with DNA testing. Meanwhile, the work of settling Prince's estate is being carried out behind closed doors by lawyers who aren't discussing it. Bremer Trust, which was named special administrator of Prince's estate last month, will tally the assets Prince left behind  financial accounts, real estate, recording catalog and the unreleased recordings in his vault at Paisley Park. Trust workers will also tackle the complicated job of trying to assign a value to them. No hearings are scheduled, but within the next six months, someone is likely to petition the court to appoint a personal representative, who would have authority to make the big decisions regarding the estate.

AUTHORITIES

The Carver County Sheriff's Department is the local agency responsible for investigating Prince's sudden, unwitnessed death. The U.S. Attorney's Office and Drug Enforcement Administration have also said they would be assisting. The day after Prince was found dead, Sheriff Jim Olson said investigators would "leave no stone unturned" while looking for answers. Authorities returned to Paisley Park on last Tuesday, 2 weeks after first searching the property the day of Prince's death, but declined to say why.

MEDICAL EXAMINER STROBL

Dr. A. Quinn Strobl, the chief medical examiner at the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office since late 2009, performed the autopsy on Prince. Her office is the official coroner for 19 counties in Minnesota, including Carver County, where he was found dead. Strobl has been a practicing forensic pathologist since she finished her fellowship in 2005 and is board-certified in anatomic, clinical and forensic pathology. In a 2009 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Strobl spoke about how she works with families. "Hopefully, I deliver answers," she said.

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Follow Kevin Burbach on Twitter at https://twitter.com/KevinBurbach

In this June 1, 2006 photo, drummer Kirk Johnson during the first rehearsal by members of the new band The Truth in Minneapolis. A longtime friend of Prince, Johnson was a drummer and the estate manager at Paisley Park. Johnson, 51, hasn't spoken publicly since Prince's death and also, according to his fellow personal trainers, hasn't returned to a local gym where he teaches classes. (AP Photo/StarTribune,Jeff Wheeler)

FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office in Ramsey, Minn., shows Dr. A. Quinn Strobl, the chief medical examiner at the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office. Strobl performed Prince's autopsy. Strobl has been a practicing forensic pathologist since she finished her fellowship in 2005 and is board-certified in anatomic, clinical and forensic pathology. (Midwest Medical Examiner's Office via AP, File)

FILE - This undated booking photo released by Missouri Department of Corrections shows Carlin Q. Williams. Williams is seeking DNA testing to determine if Prince is his biological father, according to papers filed in Carver County District Court in the Minneapolis suburb of Chaska that were released Tuesday, May 10, 2016. In an accompanying affidavit, Williams' mother, Marsha Henson, contends that she conceived Williams while having sex with Prince at a Kansas City, Mo., hotel in July of 1976. (Missouri Department of Corrections via AP, File)

This undated frame from video shows Dr. Michael Todd Schulenberg. In the weeks before Prince's April 21 death, the musician met with Schulenberg, a family care physician who worked at a Minnetonka clinic a few miles from Prince's Paisley Park studio and home, according to search warrant documents. Schulenberg is no longer working for the health care system connected to the clinic. (AP Photo)

FILE - In this April 22, 2016, file photo, Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson gives an update at a news conference in Chaska, Minn., on the death of Prince. Investigators with the Carver County Sheriff's Department are the local authorities tasked with solving the mystery surrounding Prince's sudden, unwitnessed death. They're joined by the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration, who announced earlier this month they would be assisting. (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)

FILE - In this May 2, 2016, file photo, Tyka Nelson, center, the sister of Prince, leaves the Carver County Courthouse in Chaska, Minn., where a judge confirmed the appointment of a special administrator to oversee the settlement of the entertainer's estate. Nelson is Prince's only full sibling, and she has taken the lead in the initial work to settle her older brothers estate. Nelson said Prince left no known will. Under Minnesota law, those siblings would share Prince's estate equally unless a will emerges or an unknown Prince child steps forward and is confirmed through paternity tests. (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)
Fire that raged in vast Spanish tire dump now under control

MADRID (AP)  Authorities say a fire that has been raging since last week at a tire dump outside Madrid is now completely under control.

The regional government of Madrid said Monday 14 firefighters are working on tamping down the remaining flames at the 11-hectare (27 acres) dump before decisions will be made about how to dispose of the leftovers.

Thousands of local residents were evacuated after the fire broke out Friday on the dump containing 100,000 tons of tires. Most were allowed to return Saturday.

A man walks alongside a fence as smoke billows from a fire in Sesena, central Spain, Friday, May 13, 2016. Spanish officials have ordered the evacuation of 9,000 people living in a sprawling apartment complex close to a raging tire dump fire in a town near Madrid. (AP Photo/Paul White)

A regional government statement said four air-quality measuring stations have analyzed pollutants on an hourly basis since the fire broke out.

Carlos Velazquez, mayor of the nearby town Sesena, said it could take 10-12 days for the embers to cool.

Smoke billows from a fire as a man wearing a mask, points in the direction of apartment blocks in Sesena, central Spain, Friday, May 13, 2016. Spanish officials have ordered the evacuation of 9,000 people living in a sprawling apartment complex close to a raging tire dump fire in a town near Madrid. (AP Photo/Paul White)

A man walks across a street between two apartment blocks in Sesena, central Spain, Friday, May 13, 2016. Spanish officials have ordered the evacuation of 9,000 people living in a sprawling apartment complex close to a raging tire dump fire in a town near Madrid. (AP Photo/Paul White)
The Latest: Father, son not sent to Utah yet in kidnap case

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  The Latest on the arrest of a father and son suspected of tying up a woman and her teenage daughters (all times local):

3:45 p.m.

A father and son arrested in Wyoming after a five-day manhunt won't immediately return to Utah to face charges alleging they trapped a woman and her four daughters in a basement.

This May 14, 2016, photo provided by the Sublette County Sheriff's Office shows Flint Wayne Harrison. Officers culminated a manhunt late Saturday night with the arrest of Dereck James "DJ" Harrison, 22, several hours after the surrender of his father, Flint Wayne Harrison, 51, the Sublette County Sheriff's Office said. A woman and her four teenage daughters who were lured to a Utah house and tied up in the basement were thrilled and relieved to learn the father and son charged in the bizarre attack were in custody in Wyoming, authorities said Sunday. (Sublette County Sheriff's Office via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

Fifty-one-year-old Flint Wayne Harrison and Dereck James "DJ" Harrison both declined to waive extradition during a hearing on Monday in Pinedale, Wyoming.

Sublette County sheriff's Sgt. Katherine Peterson says a judge set a $750,000 cash-only bond for each of the two men. They are facing 16 charges each in Utah, including kidnapping and drug possession. They haven't been charged with any crimes in Wyoming.

Dereck Harrison's mother, Maryanne Harrison, is accused of violating her parole when she left the state to try and help her 22-year-old son. She did waive extradition and is set to return to Utah within 10 days.

___

3:30 p.m.

Police are investigating whether a father and son accused of tying up a woman and her four teenage daughters fled a police manhunt in a truck that belongs to a missing maintenance worker.

Investigators said Monday that the worker disappeared from the same area where the suspects were hiding out near Salt Lake City. The Sublette County Sheriff's Office in Wyoming wants the public to look for a Utah Transit Authority truck.

The 63-year-old worker, Kay Porter Ricks, was last seen Thursday morning.

Police in Utah say there's little evidence that Ricks' disappearance is connected with the kidnapping case, but they haven't yet determined how the father and son traveled 250 miles to Wyoming.

The men were arrested Saturday after a five-day manhunt, but authorities say they aren't telling police many details.

___

10:40 a.m.

A father and son accused of trapping a woman and her four teenage daughters in a basement before they escaped are set to have a hearing Monday in Wyoming.

Authorities are expected to ask 51-year-old Flint Wayne Harrison and his 22-year-old son Dereck James "DJ" Harrison to agree to be returned to Utah to face kidnapping, drug possession and other charges.

Flint Harrison turned himself in Saturday morning as a multi-state manhunt for the two entered its fifth day. His son was caught that night near the campsite where the two had been hiding out in western Wyoming.

Dereck Harrison's mother, Maryann Dalrymple Harrison, is also set to appear in court Monday. Police say she violated her parole when she traveled to Wyoming to try and help her son.

This May 14, 2016 photo provided by the Sublette County Sheriff's Office shows Dereck James "DJ" Harrison. Late Saturday night, law officers arrested Harrison, several hours after the surrender of his father, Flint Wayne Harrison, accused of luring a woman and her teenage daughters to a Utah house and tying them up in Wyoming, the Sublette County Sheriff's Office said. (Sublette County Sheriff's Office via AP)
The Latest: Coroner: DNA will identify plane crash victims

TUPELO, Miss. (AP)  The Latest on a plane crash in Tupelo, Mississippi, that killed four people (all times local):

1:30 p.m.

A Mississippi coroner says she will use DNA to identify the people killed in the crash of a small plane Monday near Tupelo Regional Airport.

Lee County Coroner Carolyn Green tells multiple media outlets that DNA will be used because there was a fire. She says each of the bodies will be sent to Jackson for an autopsy.

Tupelo city spokeswoman Leesha Faulkner says the pilot and three passengers in the single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza died after the plane crashed at about 8:30 a.m. Monday. Authorities haven't released their names.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating.

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11:15 a.m.

A Federal Aviation Administration official says a pilot reported smoke in the cockpit after taking off Monday from a Mississippi airport and then crashing.

The pilot and three passengers in the single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza died after the plane crashed in a field about a half-mile north of Tupelo Regional Airport. Authorities haven't released their names.

FAA spokeswoman Arlene Salac says the FAA will investigate and the National Transportation Safety Board will determine the crash's cause.

Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre says the plane "was broken up."

FlightAware.com shows the plane flew from Kerrville, Texas, to Tupelo on Sunday. It was scheduled to continue Monday to Charlottesville, Virginia.

Laurie Carwile, who was at the nearby Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo, says she heard what sounded like thunder and later saw smoke.

___

10 a.m.

Officials say four people are dead after a small private plane crashed north of the runway at the Tupelo Airport in Mississippi.

Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre tells the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (http://bit.ly/1rP6nbE) that the pilot and all three passengers were killed in the crash Monday morning.

Deputy Fire Chief Jimmy Avery described the aircraft as a Bonanza B36 single-engine, six-seater plane.

He says the plane took off at 8:32 a.m. Monday, headed to Charlottesville, Virginia.

Other details about the crash were not immediately available.

___
Gunmen in green uniforms attack police station in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)  A few dozen gunmen wearing green uniforms attacked a police station in Haiti's southern peninsula before dawn Monday, killing an officer and wounding at least two others before fleeing.

The Haitian National Police said some of the assailants tried to escape in a white van that swerved off a road and tumbled into a ravine, killing three of the attackers. Four men survived and were captured. One gunman died in a shootout with officers at the station.

Octave Jean, chief police inspector in coastal Les Cayes, said there were as many as 50 attackers wearing camouflage or faded green uniforms that appeared to be from Haiti's long disbanded military.

It wasn't immediately clear if the gunmen were demobilized soldiers.

Jean said the assailants ransacked the Les Cayes police station, stole guns and "tortured" officers. One of the wounded police officers was taken for emergency treatment in Port-au-Prince, the capital about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.

"We were caught off guard but this will not happen again," Jean said from Les Cayes. "We have control of the situation now and our investigation is under way."

Jean and a police official in Haiti's capital gave only the broadest outline of the probe.

One of the captured men told local reporters in Les Cayes that Senate candidate Guy Philippe, an ex-paramilitary who helped lead an uprising against then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, was behind the attack.

Phone calls to Philippe at his remote enclave in southwestern Haiti went unanswered.

There have been a number of recent disturbances by ex-Haitian soldiers and their younger supporters that appear designed to ramp up tensions amid an electoral impasse. But Monday's violence shook many Haitians.

"What are they trying to do? Start a war?" said furniture seller Davidson Jean-Destin.

Calls to a spokesman for Haiti's military veterans went unanswered.

In early February, a band of former soldiers clashed with a far larger gathering of anti-government demonstrators in Port-au-Prince, resulting in the mob killing of one of the ex-soldiers. The former soldiers wore faded green uniforms and carried rifles and pistols.

Earlier this month, a group of mostly young men wearing boots and green uniforms blocked an entrance to Haiti's defense ministry to demand work protecting the border.

Haiti's military was abolished in 1995 under Aristide because of its history of toppling governments and crushing dissent. Small groups of veterans have complained that they are owed money in pensions and lost wages.

Former President Michel Martelly, who left office in February to pave the way for an interim government in the absence of elections, repeatedly pledged to revive the military to protect Haiti's land border, coast and few remaining forests. His preferred successor, Jovenel Moise, also supports that plan.

It would require a vote by Parliament to officially reconstitute the military.

___
Son of ex-Honduran president pleads guilty to US drug charge

NEW YORK (AP)  The son of former Honduran President Porfirio Lobo pleaded guilty Monday to a cocaine trafficking conspiracy charge, admitting teaming up with drug traffickers and Honduran police to try to ship cocaine into the United States.

Fabio Lobo, 44, spoke through an interpreter in Manhattan federal court as he confessed to a conspiracy that stretched from 2009 to 2014, nearly matching the years when his father served as president from 2010 to 2014.

Lobo told U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield that no one forced him to plead guilty even though he was placing himself at the mercy of the court to decide his fate on a charge that carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life. His sentencing was set for Sept. 15.

Lobo was brought to the United States in May 2015 to face an indictment charging him with conspiring to smuggle over 5 kilograms of cocaine into the United States.

Defense attorney Manuel Retureta said outside court that his client was accepting responsibility for his "grave misstep."

"He got close to individuals that were large-scale drug traffickers," Retureta said. "He is stepping forward and accepting responsibility for what he did."

Lobo, who remains in custody, was told by the judge that he will most likely be deported after he finishes serving his sentence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Emil Joseph Bove III told the judge that Lobo in late 2013 worked with others, including members of the Honduran police, to allow cocaine to pass safely through Honduras on its way to the U.S.

Members of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration posed as members of the conspiracy and were taken to a meeting with Honduran police employees, Bove said.

He said a high-ranking official of the government of Honduras was approached during the conspiracy, but the official refused to participate.

Lobo was arrested in the spring of 2015 when he went to Haiti, where he thought he was going to receive money for his role in the scheme, Bove said.
Mom who drove kids into ocean denied visitation _ for now

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP)  A Florida judge says a South Carolina mother who drove her three young children into the Daytona Beach surf can't yet visit them.

Volusia County Judge Leah Case said Monday that while she agrees Ebony Wilkerson is ready to see her children, she won't grant her visitation request until a solid plan is in place.

Local media outlets are reporting the judge wants a licensed professional to oversee the reunion. The judge asked the defense lawyers to select someone.

Wilkerson has been receiving mental health treatment since she drove her minivan into the ocean in March 2014. Beachgoers rescued the family as waves crashed against the vehicle.
After 3 months, Congress ready to act on Obama's Zika call

WASHINGTON (AP)  Congress is ready to act on President Barack Obama's long-stalled request for emergency funds to combat the Zika virus, which has been linked to serious birth defects and other major health problems.

Obama requested $1.9 billion three months ago for several purposes, including creating a vaccine for the disease, taking steps to control the mosquitoes that spread Zika and helping other countries battle the virus. House Republicans Monday released legislation to provide $622 million; the Senate is likely to endorse a $1.1 billion measure on Tuesday.

Here are things to know about Zika and the government's efforts to battle it:

FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2016 file photo of aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen in a mosquito cage at a laboratory in Cucuta, Colombia. Congress is ready to act on President Barack Obamas long-stalled request for emergency funds to combat the Zika virus, which has been linked to serious birth defects and other major health problems. Obama requested $1.9 billion three months ago for several purposes, including creating a vaccine for the disease, taking steps to control the mosquitoes that spread Zika and helping other countries battle the virus. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan, File)

___

THE DANGERS OF ZIKA

For adults, the Zika virus can cause relatively mild symptoms such as fever, rash and joint pain. But during pregnancy, Zika can cause a serious birth defect called microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects, as well as eye problems, hearing deficits, and impaired growth. Zika is commonly spread by mosquitoes and can also be contracted through sexual contact.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that pregnant women not travel to areas with Zika and that if they live in a Zika area to strictly follow steps to prevent mosquito bites and to prevent sexual transmission.

Zika is likely to spread more widely during the summer mosquito season, but officials say outbreaks in the U.S. are likely to be limited. The South is likely to have the most cases since the mosquitoes that can transmit Zika are more prevalent there.

To date, there have been more than 500 cases of Zika in the continental U.S., all of which so far have been associated with overseas travel.

Last week, the first Zika-related microcephaly case acquired on U.S. soil was reported in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory. The island's health secretary said a fetus turned over by an unidentified Puerto Rican woman to U.S. health officials had severe microcephaly and tested positive for Zika.

___

WHAT IS THE GOVERNMENT DOING TO FIGHT ZIKA?

There is currently no vaccine or medical treatment for Zika. The government is working to develop a vaccine and better tests for Zika and is delivering funding to state and local governments to control the mosquitoes that spread it.

Under pressure from Republicans controlling Congress, the Obama administration has transferred almost $600 million in previously appropriated funding to anti-Zika efforts such as research on the virus and Zika-related birth defects, response teams to limit Zika's spread, and helping other countries fight the virus. Most of the money used so far has come from unspent funds from the $5 billion provided in 2014 to battle Ebola.

The administration says more money is needed for mosquito control, purchasing diagnostic tests and developing and manufacturing a vaccine.

___

THE BATTLE BEFORE CONGRESS

Obama made his $1.9 billion request almost three months ago. Republicans say he has padded the request, for instance with a $246 million request for Medicaid funding for Puerto Rico. Democrats complain of GOP foot-dragging.

Republicans have slated action for this week, starting Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has scripted three votes, with Obama's request and a GOP alternative likely to fall short of the 60 votes required to turn back a filibuster. A $1.1 billion bipartisan alternative, however, is expected to advance despite grumbling by Democrats who think it's not enough and conservative Republicans who believe it should be offset with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. The Zika funds would be attached to a separate spending bill for the departments of Transportation, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development that McConnell hopes can be finalized for Obama's signature before Congress goes on vacation in mid-July.
The boycotts began three weeks ago at UPNG in an effort to compel ONeill to stand down in the face of corruption allegations against him.

Yesterday, the PNG electoral commission had invalidated student voting which seemed to legitimate boycotts on classes at a number of universities.

AS armed police in troop carriers moved on to the campus of the University of Papua New Guinea before dawn this morning, prime minister Peter ONeill was providing the clearest sign that as long as he is around no dissent will be brooked.

This commissions action is interpreted as an exercise of political influence that casts a shadow over the prospects of a free and fair general election which is due next year.

Meanwhile,the universitys vice chancellor, Albert Mellam, has issued a notice saying that the Waigani and Taurama (medical) campuses have been sealed to secure the safety of staff and students due to increased activities by some students that border on criminality.

The vice-chancellor, whose command of English suffered in his haste to issue the instruction, added that police is called upon to exercise ots constitutional duty to protect lievs and properties.

Mellam said the arrangement will restore normalcy and students will return to classes immediately.

Mellam did not make it clear exactly how police will ensure that students return to classes.

Activist Noel Anjo who observed the invasion of the UPNG campus said it is time for students parents to protest.

We are not criminals, a student told Loop PNG. We didnt break any laws. Our only intention was not to attend class.
Facebook CEO to meet with Glenn Beck, other conservatives

NEW YORK (AP)  Radio host Glenn Beck and American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks are some of the conservative leaders Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to meet with this week.

The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, follows a report that Facebook employed bias in the way it selected stories for its "Trending Topics" feature. A report in the tech blog Gizmodo claimed that Facebook downplays conservative news subjects. Facebook denies that report, which relied upon a single anonymous individual with self-described conservative leanings.

Nonetheless, Zuckerberg said the Menlo Park, California, company is investigating the matter and has invited conservative leaders to meet with him. Others invited include Zac Moffatt, the co-founder of conservative technology company Targeted Victory, and Dana Perino, co-host of The Five on Fox News Channel.

In this Saturday, March 19, 2016, file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a panel discussion held as part of the China Development Forum at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. Zuckerberg is meeting with conservative leaders, including radio host Glenn Beck, on Wednesday, May 18, 2016, in light of a report that Facebook downplays conservative news subjects in its "Trending Topics" feature. Facebook has denied the claims, but Zuckerberg said the company is investigating it nonetheless. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

"I want to have a direct conversation about what Facebook stands for and how we can be sure our platform stays as open as possible," Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post last week.

Facebook has said that a series of checks and balances  involving both software formulas and humans  ensures that stories displayed in the "trending topics" section aren't biased. In a blog post last week, the company also linked to a 28-page internal document it uses to determine trending topics, after the Guardian published a similar document that was leaked to it.
Ukrainian hacker admits plotting to use stolen news releases

NEWARK, N.J. (AP)  A Ukrainian hacker pleaded guilty Monday to his role in an international scheme that used stolen unpublished news releases to make $30 million in profits.

Vadym Iermolovych entered the plea in Newark, New Jersey, to a complaint charging him with aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire and computer hacking. The 28-year-old Kiev man faces up to 20 years in prison when he's sentenced Aug. 22.

Iermolovych was one of several people arrested in August in the U.S. and Ukraine. The Securities and Exchange Commission also charged them and 23 other individuals and companies in the U.S. and Europe.

The U.S. attorney's office said that from 2010 to 2015, the group gained access to more than 150,000 press releases that were about to be issued by Marketwired; PR Newswire in New York; and Business Wire of San Francisco. The press releases contained earnings figures and other corporate information.

The defendants then used roughly 800 of those news releases to make trades before the information came out, exploiting a time gap ranging from hours to three days, prosecutors have said.

The group was able to get inside the news services' computer systems by phishing, a well-known practice in which hackers send an email with a seemingly innocuous link that, if clicked on, can eventually lead to the divulging of the user's login and password information.

The hackers were routinely paid a cut of the profits.

Prosecutors said the traders generally traded ahead of the public distribution of the stolen releases, and their trading activities shadowed the hackers' capabilities to get stolen press releases. In order to execute their trades before the releases were made public, the traders sometimes had to execute trades in extremely short windows of time.

The charges were filed in federal court in Newark because some of the trades were done in New Jersey.
UN creates education fund for refugee children

UNITED NATIONS (AP)  Former British Prime Minster Gordon Brown on Monday announced the creation of the United Nations' first humanitarian fund for the education of refugee children.

Acting in his role as U.N. special envoy for global education, Brown said the fund hopes to reach many of the estimated 20 million school-age refugees and displaced persons around the globe who are being denied an education as part of "the largest population of displaced girls and boy since 1945."

Brown said the number of children who are missing out on schooling due to displacement is becoming a global crisis that will haunt the world for generations.

"When we ask ourselves what breaks the lives of once thriving young children, it's not just the Mediterranean wave that submerges the life vest and it's not just the food convoy that does not arrive in Syria, it's also the absence of hope  the soul crushing certainty that there is nothing to plan or prepare for, not even a place in school," Brown said, speaking by telephone to reporters at the U.N.

The initiative, entitled "Education Cannot Wait," will be formally launched at next week's World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul and seeks to raise $3.85 billion from some 100 donors in the public and private sectors over the next five years.

The initiative, which has been in the works for three years, was inspired by the refugee crisis in Syria, but funds will be available for refugees around the globe.

Brown said that the vast majority of people fleeing the war in Syria remain in the region and if parents believed their children could get an education there, they would be more likely to stay in place, rather than undertake the risky passage to Europe.
Israeli leaders clash over army's role in public discourse

JERUSALEM (AP)  A public spat between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister has exposed a simmering rift between Israel's security establishment and its hard-line government, pitting the Israeli leader in a risky showdown.

The dispute has spotlighted the sensitive debate over the military's role in public discourse in Israel, where security figures have occasionally served as a moderating element to nationalist governments. The surprising and normally discreet dynamic has burst into the public sphere at a time when Israelis are wrestling with a sense of being at loggerheads with much of the world.

After a series of public disagreements with security figures in recent months, Netanyahu urgently summoned his defense minister Monday to rebuke him for encouraging top military generals to continue speaking their mind in public, even if their comments contradict government sentiments.

FILE - In this Feb. 16, 2015 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, speaks with Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon during a ceremony for new Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem. A public spat between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister has exposed a simmering rift between Israels security establishment and its hard-line government, pitting the Israeli leader in a risky showdown. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)

The controversy was prompted by comments this month by Israel's deputy military chief, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, who compared recent trends in Israeli society to the atmosphere in Nazi-era Germany. Netanyahu called Golan's statement, made in a speech marking Holocaust memorial day, as "outrageous"  while Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon supported the general's right to speak.

In Israel, top officers are respected household names who often transition smoothly into politics after shedding their uniforms. Because the army is generally the country's most admired institution, top brass have been forgiven the occasional inclination to discuss history, education and troubling trends in society.

But a series of recent comments, highlighted by Golan's, have irked the government. Yet Yaalon on Sunday told a gathering of high-ranking officers to remain independent in thought and speech.

"Do not be afraid. Do not hesitate," he said. "A good army is an army whose commanders, junior and senior alike, feel confident in their ability to speak their mind at all times. Continue to act in keeping with your human conscience and compass, and not to follow the way the wind is blowing."

An outraged Netanyahu countered that military officials can speak freely in closed circles, but should not delve into political disputes in public. Ministers in his Cabinet largely lined up behind him on Monday.

"The political echelon is above the military echelon and decisions of the political echelon need to be respected," Cabinet Minister Gila Gamliel told Israel Radio.

Following their meeting, Netanyahu and Yaalon issued a joint statement denying any dispute and asserting that "officers are free to express their opinions in the relevant forums."

The dispute with the generals has dominated headlines and seems likely to continue  partly driven by increasing malaise among many over the government's apparent complacency regarding Israel's half-century entanglement in the West Bank. Under the ongoing situation, Israel rules millions of Palestinians who cannot vote in its elections.

War-hardened generals who have learned the limits of force often tend to be more pragmatic than the hardliners who have been dominant in politics in recent years.

Since taking office in 2009, Netanyahu has repeatedly clashed with his security chiefs over key matters. The late Mossad chief Meir Dagan is widely credited with preventing Netanyahu from ordering a pre-emptive military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities  with the backing of other key security figures.

The differences have been especially stark in dealing with the Palestinians  particularly since the outbreak of a wave of violence last fall.

Since September, 28 Israelis and two Americans have been killed in Palestinian stabbings, shootings and car rammings. Nearly 200 Palestinians have also been killed, most said by Israel to be attackers. In several cases, armed Israeli civilians have killed the attackers, winning praise from politicians but drawing accusations from Palestinians and some Israelis of vigilante killings.

Earlier this year, the military chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, came under fire from parliamentary hard-liners  Netanyahu's base  for calling on soldiers to use only "necessary force" against attackers and to not kill "every girl with a pair of scissors."

In March, military leaders criticized a soldier who was caught on video fatally shooting an already-wounded Palestinian attacker in the head  and he is now on trial for manslaughter. But hard-liners and much of the public labeled the soldier a hero and accused the military of getting soft. Netanyahu, for his part, called the soldier's family to express sympathy.

Golan's comments widened that gap when, on the eve of the country's Holocaust memorial day, he warned of "nauseating processes" that he identified in Israel which reminded him of Nazi-era Germany. "There is nothing simpler and easier than hating the foreigner," Golan said.

Netanyahu said Golan's words "cheapen the Holocaust" and one Cabinet minister called for Golan to be fired.

Golan's humanist bona fides were bolstered Sunday when a decade-old recording surfaced in which he is heard telling future army recruits they must avoid harming innocent civilians, even at the cost of a risk to other soldiers' lives.

Zvi Barel wrote in the liberal Haaretz newspaper that Netanyahu was driving the military into a contradictory role as defender of democracy and even raised the hitherto taboo  and extremely unlikely notion of a military coup.

"He clearly hears murmurs that indicate that those responsible for the country's defense are fed up with the circus he is running," he said.

____
The Latest: FBI agent displays checks in Rep. Fattah's trial

PHILADELPHIA (AP)  The Latest on the corruption trial of U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (all times local):

4 p.m.

An FBI agent is showing jurors copies of the checks that moved between nonprofit groups and other entities linked to a Pennsylvania congressman on trial in a racketeering case.

FILE- In this March 11, 2016, file photo, Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., walks from the federal courthouse in Philadelphia. Opening statements are set for Monday, May, 16, in the federal corruption trial of the veteran Pennsylvania congressman. Fattah is accused of accepting bribes and misusing campaign funds and federal grants to enrich his family and friends. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Prosecutors on Monday sought to show that Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah (SHAW'-kah fa-TAH') obtained an illegal $1 million campaign loan and misused federal funds and charitable grants. They say he moved large sums of money through consulting firms or nonprofit groups he controlled so he could use them for campaign or personal expenses.

Four associates are on trial with Fattah. They include a woman who served as his campaign treasurer during the failed 2007 mayoral bid that left him with apparent money problems.

The co-defendants' lawyers say they took direction from Fattah.

The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.

___

1:30 p.m.

A lawyer for a Democratic congressman from Philadelphia on trial for corruption charges says the government's case rests on the word of two convicted felons.

U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah's (SHAW'-kah fa-TAHS') lawyers on Monday put the blame on two political consultants who have pleaded guilty in the case.

The 59-year-old Fattah says he did nothing wrong in getting federal funds and charity grants for several nonprofit groups he set up.

But federal prosecutors say he used the money to enrich himself and his family and friends.

The defense also questioned Monday whether friends can really bribe other friends or whether checks from co-defendant Herbert Vederman to Fattah's family were nothing more than favors.

Fattah recently lost a primary race to retain the congressional seat he had held for two decades.

___

11:15 a.m.

Federal prosecutors have told a jury that a U.S. congressman from Pennsylvania took an illegal $1 million loan to prop up an ailing mayoral bid and used $200,000 on Election Day alone.

Chaka Fattah (SHAW'-kah fa-TAH') Sr. nonetheless lost the 2007 race for Philadelphia mayor.

Prosecutors said in opening statements at his corruption trial Monday that he was soon under pressure to pay back the loan to former Sallie Mae chief executive officer Al Lord.

So they say he returned the $400,000 left over and steered charitable grants and federal funds to Lord to repay the other $600,000.

The campaign loan is just one of five alleged schemes that prosecutors outlined in opening statements.
Gazans say Jordan restricting movement

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP)  Gazans who endured a border blockade by neighboring Egypt and Israel for almost a decade thought they were finally catching a break when Israel slightly eased restrictions on travel from the Hamas-ruled territory in recent months.

But now Jordan appears to be emerging as an obstacle, routinely denying transit permits for Gazans and effectively preventing patients, university students and others with business abroad from leaving the territory.

With the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing  Gaza's main gateway to the outside world  all but shuttered, Jordan has emerged as a key player in enabling Gazans to travel abroad. Over the past year or so, Israel has begun to allow growing numbers of Gazans to cross through its territory and the West Bank into Jordan, where they can catch flights to their final destinations.

In this Tuesday, May 10, 2016 photo, Mohammed Al-Hissi, 25, who won a scholarship for a Master's program in physics at the University of Triesta in Italy poses for a photo, at his family house in Gaza City. Gazans who have endured a border blockade by neighboring Egypt and Israel for almost a decade thought they were finally catching a break when Israel slightly eased restrictions on travel from the Hamas-ruled territory in recent months. But now Jordan appears to be emerging as an obstacle, routinely denying transit permits for Gazans and effectively preventing patients, university students and others with business abroad from leaving the coastal territory. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

But Gazans can only cross through Israel if they have a special visa from Jordan known as a "no objection" letter. And travelers and human rights groups say that Gazans are experiencing difficulties receiving these permits like never before.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has urged Jordan to facilitate travel for Palestinians from Gaza to third countries.

"Those seeking transit from Gaza are seeking just that  transit," Ken Roth, executive director of the New York-based rights watchdog, wrote in a letter to Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour in April.

Roth said that before last summer, Jordan would "routinely grant" these transit permits. Then, beginning last August, individuals, lawyers and human rights organizations began to observe "wide scale refusal" by the Jordanians, he wrote.

Human Rights Watch said it has not received a response from Jordan.

But Jordanian government spokesman Mohammed Momani told The Associated Press that there has been no change in the government's visa policy and that his country, which has a large population of people of Palestinian origin, will do everything it can to facilitate the movement of Gazans.

He called on "other countries to share their responsibilities when it comes to facilitating Palestinians' right of travel"  an apparent reference to Egypt.

Egypt has kept the Rafah crossing largely closed since 2013, when ties with Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, worsened after the ouster of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. Last week, Egypt opened the crossing for the first time in nearly three months.

During the two-day opening, just 750 of the more than 30,000 people waiting to leave Gaza managed to exit.

Israel, which has maintained a land, air and naval blockade of Gaza since Hamas took power in 2007, says the measures are needed to prevent the Islamic group from smuggling in weapons.

Jordanian officials refused to say how many applications they receive for transit visas from residents in Gaza, or how many are approved or rejected. The Gaza company that helps residents submit applications to Jordan, named "Friends for Express Transportation," also declined comment.

Speaking to foreign journalists in the West Bank on Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said his government was working with Jordan to find a solution.

The restrictions are just another source of frustration for Gaza's 1.8 million residents, who complain of feeling imprisoned in a densely populated territory, with few jobs or opportunities.

In 2014, Mohammed Al-Majayda and his two-year-old son, Majd, traveled to the Netherlands and sought asylum. After he settled there, he managed to get a visa for his wife Heba to join them.

She said she submitted a visa application to Jordan in March, but has not received an answer yet. She said she called the Jordanian representative office in the West Bank, but an agent refused to discuss her case.

"My husband is not with me. I'm lost without him," said the 29-year-old mother.

"I miss my son," she added, bursting into tears. "He needs me and I need him. He is growing up and needs follow up."

For Mohammed al-Hissi, 25, time is running out. He must be in Italy by June 1 to start a master's program in physics. He has an Italian visa, scholarship documents and travel insurance but said he has not heard back about the status of his Jordanian transit visa since March.

Trying to find another way around, al-Hissi said he received an admission letter from a Jordanian university last week that he can use to enter Jordan. Although he said he does not intend to study there, he said the admission letter is his "last option" for arranging travel to Italy.

"I will try to persuade the university in Italy to wait for me and give me a new chance to arrive by early July," he said.

In this Tuesday, May 10, 2016 photo, Mohammed Al-Hissi, 25, poses for a photo while holding scholarship documents of his Master's program in physics at the University of Triesta in Italy, at his family house in Gaza City. Gazans who have endured a border blockade by neighboring Egypt and Israel for almost a decade thought they were finally catching a break when Israel slightly eased restrictions on travel from the Hamas-ruled territory in recent months. But now Jordan appears to be emerging as an obstacle, routinely denying transit permits for Gazans and effectively preventing patients, university students and others with business abroad from leaving the coastal territory. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
Airlines report fewer delays, cancelations; complaints fall

Airlines canceled and delayed fewer flights in March and consumer complaints were down.

The Department of Transportation said Monday that 81.5 percent of flights on the main airlines arrived on time during March, up from 78.7 percent in March 2015. Hawaiian Airlines was the best performer, while Spirit Airlines finished last.

About 1 percent of flights were canceled during the month, an improvement from 2.2 percent a year earlier.

The figures don't include more recent periods, in which thousands of passengers have missed their flights because they were stuck in long security-checkpoint lines.

The report covers the 12 largest U.S. airlines.

Flights on Hawaiian, which routinely operate in good weather, arrived on time 89.9 percent of the time. Delta Air Lines was second-best at 87.9 percent.

Budget carrier Spirit arrived on time just 64.6 percent of the time, followed by Virgin America at 73.8 percent. Another discount airline, Frontier, had the highest cancellation rate, while Delta and Hawaiian canceled the fewest flights.

The government said that it got 1,055 consumer complaints about U.S. airlines, down from 1,378 in March 2015. That reversed a trend of rising complaint rates earlier this year but was still a tiny fraction of the roughly 60 million people who boarded planes.

ExpressJet, which operates regional flights for bigger carriers, had the lowest complaint rate while Spirit had the highest.

There were also fewer reports of mishandled bags and of passengers being bumped from flights than a year earlier.

___

Online:
UN envoy calls for end to political infighting in Kosovo

UNITED NATIONS (AP)  The election of a new Kosovo president and the return to power of Serbia's government provide "an excellent opportunity" to end political infighting and focus instead on challenges facing the region, the U.N. envoy for Kosovo said Monday.

Special Representative Zahir Tanin told the U.N. Security Council that he appreciated "the conciliatory messages and vision" presented by Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci and Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic following their recent electoral victories.

He expressed hope that the peaceful transitions of power "will help the political scene to settle" and ensure that greater energy is devoted to tackling unemployment and inequality, promoting economic development, building up its legal institutions and overcoming impunity.

Kosovo came under U.N. and NATO administration after a 1999 NATO-led air war halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. The Security Council resolution that established the interim U.N. administration left the final status of Kosovo, a province of Serbia, in question.

Kosovo's predominantly ethnic Albanian leadership declared independence in 2008, and Kosovo has now been recognized by 111 countries. But Serbia rejects its secession and Russia, a close ally of Belgrade and a veto-wielding Security Council member, has blocked Kosovo from becoming a member of the United Nations.

For months, Kosovo's opposition has disrupted Parliament and held protests against a deal with Serbia that gives more powers to ethnic Serbs in Kosovo and a border demarcation pact with Montenegro.

Tanin said that both Kosovo and Serbia see their future in the European Union  and stressed that this is key to their future.

Last year, Kosovo signed a stabilization and association agreement with the EU that is expected to promote economic growth in one of Europe's poorest countries, and earlier this month the European Commission recommended a visa-free travel regime for Kosovo. Serbia's EU stabilization and association agreement entered into force in September 2013.

The U.N. envoy said, "Kosovo's recent advancement in its European perspective should reinforce and enhance the dialogue process between Belgrade and Pristina, which is fundamental to Kosovo's future security, and to peace in the region."

With electoral processes nearly concluded on both sides, he said it's "a propitious time" to re-energize the EU-facilitated talks which should remain a key objective during the coming months.

Tanin noted that Kosovo's Thaci in his inaugural address "stressed themes of reconciliation, and spoke of the difficulty but also the necessity of leaving the past behind."

Serbia's Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told the Security Council that the government considers the commitment to European integration "the driving force for the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina."
Acting Brazil leader rebuffed by 2 unions over impeachment

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)  Two of Brazil's biggest unions refused an invitation to meet with acting President Michel Temer on Monday, underscoring the challenges facing the interim leader of Latin America's largest nation amid a divisive impeachment process. Four other unions sent representatives to meet with Temer in Brasilia.

Temer, who had been vice president, took over the presidential powers last week after President Dilma Rousseff was impeached by the Senate and suspended for allegedly employing accounting tricks to hide gaping deficits in the federal budget.

Rousseff has said she has done nothing wrong and will fight during a Senate trial to take place within six months. Temer will be president while that process takes place, and he will finish Rousseff's term that runs through 2018 if she is convicted and permanently removed.

Brazil's acting President Michel Temer speaks during a meeting with trade unions, on the government's proposal for Social Security reform, at the Planalto Presidential Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, May 16, 2016. Temer assumed the presidency last week after President Dilma Rousseff was impeached and suspended for allegedly employing accounting tricks to hide gaping deficits in the federal budget. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Just a few days into his job, Temer is coming under sharp criticism for his Cabinet choices, his ideas about reforming the pension system and a proposal to raise taxes to shore up the budget.

The goal of Monday's meeting was to build consensus around reforming Brazil's generous pension system, something that analysts say is necessary to begin pulling Brazil from its worst recession since the 1930s. In Brazil, many public workers can retire by their early 50s.

The Central Workers Union, the largest in the country and deeply connected to Rousseff's Workers' Party, did not attend. The union "won't recognize putschists as governors," it said in a statement that also demanded Rousseff's reinstatement. The third largest union, Central of Workers of Brazil, also rebuffed Temer.

Combined, the two unions cover about 42 percent of the nation's 9 million unionized workers, according to the Labor Ministry. The four that did meet with Temer represent about 35 percent of unionized workers.

Deputy Paulo Pereira da Silva, head of the union Forca Sindical, which did attend, said the participants agreed to create a task force to discuss pension reform over the next month.

The no-shows underscored the possibility of strikes in the near future, said Barbara Castro, a labor specialist and political science professor at the University of Campinas.

"This shows that more problems are coming," Castro told The Associated Press, adding that "today was a dress rehearsal."

That wasn't the only rough spot for Temer on Monday.

The new justice minister gave an interview to the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo suggesting Temer shouldn't pick his chief prosecutor from a list compiled by fellow prosecutors.

Doing it that way allows for legal independence because the president can't just put in somebody who will do his bidding, and the suggestion drew a firestorm of criticism. Temer's press office later told TV Globo that the acting president was not going to follow his minister's advice.

Over the weekend, Temer was criticized by business leaders angry about the finance minister's suggestion of new taxes in the near future. Temer was also criticized by several South American leaders who said they won't accept him as Brazil's president.

In an interview with Globo Sunday night, Temer sought to answer critics. Speaking about his Cabinet of all white men, he said he wanted to bring people from the "the feminine world" into his government, a comment that raised hackles on social media sites.

As Temer spoke, people in many major cities banged pots, a protest tactic in Brazil aimed at drowning out television sets broadcasting somebody they disagree with.

By late Monday, Temer had chosen a woman to take an important role in his administration. Economist Maria Silva Bastos Marques will be the president of Brazil's investment bank, BNDES, Folha de S. Paulo reported.

"The first signs (of the new government) are not encouraging. An all-male, all-white Cabinet, a series of decisions he reverses in a few hours," Carlos Eduardo Lins da Silva from the Sao Paulo Research Foundation said during a round table discussion on Brazil at the Wilson Center in Washington. "The question is, do we have another option right now?"

___

Associated Press writer Mauricio Savarese reported this story from Rio de Janeiro and AP writer Peter Prengaman reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A poster with the photo of Suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is seen at the Planalto Presidential Palace, during a meeting bewtween Brazil's acting President Michel Temer and trade unions, on the government's proposal for Social Security reform, at the Planalto Presidential Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, May 16, 2016. Temer called for the unions to meet Monday to discuss reforms to the country's pension system. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Brazil's acting President Michel Temer arrives to attend a meeting with trade unions, on the government's proposal for Social Security reform, at the Planalto Presidential Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, May 16, 2016. Temer assumed the presidency last week after President Dilma Rousseff was impeached and suspended for allegedly employing accounting tricks to hide gaping deficits in the federal budget. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Brazil's acting President Michel Temer arrives to attend a meeting with trade unions on the government's proposal for Social Security reform, at the Planalto Presidential Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, May 16, 2016. Temer assumed the presidency last week after President Dilma Rousseff was impeached and suspended for allegedly employing accounting tricks to hide gaping deficits in the federal budget. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
Workers rescue 3 cubs from tree after mother is electrocuted

GARDNER, Mass. (AP)  Massachusetts environmental workers have come to the aid of three bear cubs after their mother was electrocuted by a transformer.

The Telegram & Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/1V6l8T8 ) state environmental and wildlife workers and the Gardner Fire Department rescued the cubs Monday morning from a nearby tree.

The bears' mother was killed Sunday evening when it came in contact with a transformer.

In this photo provided by Paul N. DeMeo, bear cubs sit in a tree Monday, May 16, 2016, in Gardner, Mass. Environmental workers rescued the cubs after their mother died after being electrocuted by a transformer on Sunday. Wildlife officials said the cubs are in good health. (Paul N. DeMeo via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

Wildlife officials say the cubs are in good health. It's unclear what will be done with the bears.

Environmental police say sunflower seeds were found in the area where the bear and cubs were located. Police are reminding homeowners not to feed bears.

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Information from: Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Mass.), http://www.telegram.com
KEITH JACKSON

THE Papua New Guinean government is to reverse its decision not to grant visas on arrival to Australian tourists.

It is an impediment to attracting tourists in the country, said Tourism Minister Tobias Kulang

We will withdraw our position and reinstate visa on arrival for our Australian friends when they arrive at Jacksons international terminal.

Mr Kulang said Peter ONeill had taken the original decision but this twist of decision was made in the best interest for the tourism industry in the country.
Wind topples Ben Franklin statue on Boston's Freedom Trail

BOSTON (AP)  When Ben Franklin famously flew a kite in a lightning storm, he made history, but a wind storm over the weekend proved too much.

The Boston Globe reports (http://bit.ly/23VlFaT) an 1856 bronze statue of Franklin positioned along the city's Freedom Trail toppled over after a particularly blustery Sunday.

A city spokeswoman says high winds pushed a nearby tent into the statue, causing it to fall off its pedestal.

In this photo released by the City of Boston Mayor's office, a statue of Benjamin Franklin lies on the concrete outside where it landed when knocked off its pedestal outside Old City Hall in Monday, May 16, 2016, in Boston. A spokesperson for the mayor said high winds pushed a nearby tent into the statue, causing it to fall off its pedestal. (City of Boston via AP)

She says the Boston Arts Commission is working with a professional curator on the repair plan.

Crews were seen placing the statue into what looked like a body bag on Monday.
Andretti drivers sweep top 4 spots at 1st Indy 500 practice

INDIANAPOLIS (AP)  After Marco Andretti jumped atop the speed chart during Monday's first Indianapolis 500 practice, he tried to put the brakes on the expectations.

The 29-year-old driver from one of the world's best-known and most cursed racing families turned a fast lap of 228.978 mph on the 2.5-mile oval, leading the way for a four-car sweep by Andretti Autosport drivers.

"It's definitely too early to get confident or to read into things," Andretti said. "Today is a picture perfect day and next week it's going to be like 83 or 84 (degrees) and that will change things completely, so you can't read too much into this at all."

Marco Andretti climbs into his car during a practice session for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Monday, May 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Andretti's promising start was a dramatic change in what has been a challenging season. After five races, the son of team owner Michael Andretti still has not qualified or finished in the top 10.

Marco Andretti wasn't the only big surprise at Indy.

Honda outdueled rival Chevrolet by taking each of the top four spots and six of the top eight. Colombia's Carlos Munoz was second at 228.945, 2014 Indy winner Ryan Hunter-Reay was third at 228.033 and rookie Alexander Rossi was fourth at 226.865. Andretti's fifth driver, Townsend Bell, finished sixth at 226.724.

New Zealand's Scott Dixon had the best Chevy. The four-time series champ from Target Chip Ganassi was fifth at 226.835.

But the hardest part of deciphering what happens early in practice is figuring out what strategies teams are using. And with a 60 percent chance of rain Tuesday, Andretti acknowledged his team did things a little differently than others might have.

"We moved things forward on the test plan," he said, noting the gloomy forecast. "So I think we'll see how things shake out."

Qualifying for the 100th running of the 500 will be held Saturday and Sunday. The race is scheduled for May 29.

WHO'S HOT: Graham Rahal. The Ohio native has already had a solid month here. He qualified third for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, and after being pushed to the No. 24 starting spot because of a failed post-qualifying inspection, Rahal still managed to finish fourth. On Monday, Rahal produced the best Honda speed by a non-Andretti driver. He was eighth at 225.326.

WHO'S NOT: Buddy Lazier. At one time, the 1996 Indy winner seemed to be a master of this track. He produced five straight top-seven finishes from 1996-2000. But the 48-year-old Colorado resident has struggled here lately. In 2013, he started 32nd in the 33-car field. In 2014, he qualified 33rd. Last year, he missed the field and on Monday he completed only seven laps and had the slowest car on the track at 212.641.

ROOKIE ROUNDUP: Each of the five rookies trying to make the race passed all three phases of their rookie orientation. Rossi was the fastest rookie of the day.

NEW NUMBER: Ganassi driver Charlie Kimball announced Monday he would change his car number for this year's race. Instead of donning the usual No. 83, he will switch to No. 42 as a tribute Kyle Larson's cousin, who like Kimball is diabetic, and to help make the sales pitch for a new insulin product for adults called Tresiba. After taking one insulin injection for eight consecutive days, sponsor Novo Nordisk said the product stays in the system for 42 hours. Novo Nordisk will donate $4,200 to diabetes associations in Indiana and Charlotte on behalf of whomever leads each of those May 29 races on Lap 42. Larson races for Ganassi's NASCAR team.

UP NEXT: Six more hours of practice Tuesday. Drivers are scheduled to be on the track from noon to 6 p.m. ET.

Alexander Rossi puts on his gloves during a practice session for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Monday, May 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Carlos Munoz, of Colombia, climbs into his car during a practice session for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Monday, May 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
Senate confirms Obama judicial nominee for Maryland

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Senate on Monday narrowly confirmed one of President Barack Obama's nominees to be a federal judge in Maryland, overcoming opposition from some conservatives who felt nominee Paula Xinis was too tough on law enforcement in her career as a lawyer and assistant federal public defender.

Senators confirmed Xinis by a 53-34 vote, shortly after Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions noted on the floor that her law firm had represented the family of Freddie Gray, who died last year after his neck was broken while he was handcuffed and shackled in the back of a Baltimore police van. Gray's death prompted riots in Baltimore, and his case has been frequently mentioned in the ongoing national conversation about police brutality.

The confirmation fills a vacancy in the Maryland district that the courts have declared a "judicial emergency" because of the number of cases pending there. The seat has been vacant since October 2014, and Obama nominated Xinis in March 2015.

Backed by her state's two Democratic senators, Xinis won support from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. But other Republicans noted her record as an examiner for the Office of Police Complaints in Washington from 2006 to 2011.

"She has built a career in dealing with lawsuits against police and police departments and dealing with complaints against the police," Sessions said. He said the frequency with which she ruled against the police made him uneasy.

Other Republicans shared Sessions' concerns. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said he voted against Xinis after law enforcement groups contacted his office.

Xinis's confirmation could be among the last this year. In recent decades, the Senate has slowed  and gradually stopped  its approval of judges nominated by a president of the opposing party in the later months of a president's final year in office.

Forty-four of Obama's nominees to district courts and seven to the appeals court remain in limbo, as does the president's choice of Judge Merrick Garland for the vacancy created by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death in February. Republicans say the next president should choose the high court nominee.

Democrats have complained that Republicans have confirmed too few nominees in the last year. Xinis was the 18th federal judge the chamber has approved since the GOP took control of the Senate in January 2015.

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Early childhood program expands amid Flint's water crisis

FLINT, Mich. (AP)  The University of Michigan-Flint's early childhood education program will be offered for free to more Flint families amid the city's crisis with lead-tainted water, officials said Monday.

The program is ideal for lead-exposed children in part because of the emphasis on providing healthy food to students every two hours, Michigan-Flint early education teacher Starletta Rett-Henry said during a news conference at Holmes STEM Academy. Lead can cause developmental delays, learning disabilities and health problems in children.

"One thing that we do know about lead exposure is that having your bellies filled with fresh fruits and vegetables helps to deter or mitigate the lead," Rett-Henry said.

Robert Barnett, dean of the University of Michigan-Flints School of Education and Human Services, speaks at a news conference Monday, May 16, 2016, at Holmes STEM Academy in Flint Mich. Barnett announced that a new partnership means that Michigan-Flints early childhood education program will be offered to more Flint families amid the citys crisis with lead-tainted water. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)

The new early education offering at Holmes is called the Great Expectations Early Childhood Program. The university and the Flint public school district said the program offers the same teaching methods used at the university's on-campus Early Childhood Development Center, which has a waiting list of more than 300 children.

Bilal Tawwab, the superintendent of Flint Community Schools, said Great Expectations will initially accommodate up to 48 children.

"We now have 20 children enrolled and plan to open our third and final classroom at Holmes STEM Academy on May 23," Tawwab said, adding that discussions are underway to expand the program within the district later this year to include birth to kindergarten and space for up to 250 children.

Ashley Smith said she's thrilled at the progress her 4-year-old daughter, Tionna Nelson, has made in the brief time she has been enrolled in the program.

"I have to bribe her to come home at the end of the day. She does not want to leave," Smith said.

Great Expectations runs all year, including during the summer when school is not in session, and its hours of operation extend beyond the traditional school day, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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Stepping down: Green Party leader Natalie has announced she will no longer lead the party from the end of August. She has been leader for four years

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett has said she is going to stand down in the summer after four years at the helm of the party.

Ms Bennett said that she would not stand for re-election when her second two-year term in office expires at the end of August.

'There have been times when I got things right, and times when I got things wrong, but that's because I'm not a smooth, spin-trained, lifelong politician,' she told the Guardian.

'It's both my strength and my weakness that I answer the question.'

The Australian former journalist came to prominence during the televised leaders' debates in last year's general election.

But while the party membership rose from 13,000 to 60,000 under her leadership, it failed to make the hoped electoral breakthrough - just holding its single parliamentary seat.

She famously had to apologise to members following an excruciating radio interview in which she blamed 'brain fade' for her inability to explain a series of party policies.

In a statement, Ms Bennett said that she intended to remain 'fully engaged' in Green Party politics.

'I have been proud to lead a party through a period of phenomenal expansion and increased impact. With the support of our passionate members and supporters we have been able to achieve much in a relatively short period,' she said.

'There's greatly increased public understanding that when you want the honest, caring, committed view - one that isn't guided by the views of the latest focus group or fear of a tabloid backlash but by fundamental principles and values - you should come to the Green Party.'

Nominations for Ms Bennett's successor will open on June 1 and close on June 30.

A one-month balloting period will begin on July 24 with the result to be announced at the party's autumn conference in September.
Remain campaign 'not conspiracy, but consensus', says George Osborne

Chancellor George Osborne has accused the Leave camp in the EU referendum of indulging in conspiracy theories, as he insisted that there was an "overwhelming consensus" among economists and world leaders that Brexit would be bad for the UK.

Mr Osborne was speaking alongside Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary, who warned that withdrawal from the EU would force up the price of flights and holidays and put his company's latest 1 billion investment in the UK at risk.

But Vote Leave campaigners dismissed Mr Osborne's comments as "lurid scare stories" which would not be seen as credible by voters taking part in the June 23 referendum.

Chancellor George Osborne, centre, is joined by former adversaries Ed Balls and Sir Vince Cable

Meanwhile, more than 300 business leaders signed a letter urging Britain to vote to leave the EU, warning that the UK's competitiveness is being undermined by its membership.

And the pro-Brexit ex-mayor of London Boris Johnson hit the road again in his battlebus, visiting Alfreton in Derbyshire amid controversy over his comparison between the EU and the dreams of pan-European government pursued by Napoleon and Hitler.

Second World War veteran and former chief of the defence staff Lord Bramall dismissed the comparison as "absurd", while Labour's former cabinet minister Ed Balls said the comments were "ill-judged and irresponsible".

But Mr Johnson brushed off the criticism, insisting the EU was "fundamentally anti-democratic" and was " operating by stealth and taking away the powers and prerogatives of the people of this country". He was defended by Ukip MEP Gerard Batten, who said the European Economic Community established in 1957 was "very similar" to a proposal drawn up by officials in Hitler's Germany.

Mr Osborne was joined by Mr Balls and Liberal Democrat former business secretary Sir Vince Cable at Stansted Airport to make the case for a Remain vote in front of a Ryanair Boeing 737 emblazoned with the slogan "stronger, safer and better off in Europe".

The Chancellor said Treasury analysis showed that if the UK was forced to rely on World Trade Organisation rules following Brexit, it could expect to lose trade worth 200 billion a year and overseas investment worth 200 billion within 15 years.

"Credible" observers ranging from the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund to the OECD and US president Barack Obama had judged that "Britain will be poorer and British people will be poorer" if the UK votes to leave the EU, said the Chancellor.

But he said the Leave camp treated the warnings as "a massive conspiracy", implying that a series of international organisations and world leaders were part of "some global stitch-up to give misinformation to the British people".

"The next thing we know, the Leave camp will be accusing us of faking the moon landings, kidnapping Shergar and covering up the existence of the Loch Ness monster," said Mr Osborne.

"The response to the sober economic warnings from around the world by those who want to leave the EU has not been credible or serious."

Mr Osborne added: "It's not a conspiracy. It's called a consensus. The interventions of the last couple of weeks, from the IMF to the Bank of England, make very clear that the economic argument is beyond doubt - Britain would be worse off if we leave the EU, British families will be worse off, equivalent to 4,300 a household.

"Leaving the EU is a one-way ticket to a poorer Britain."

Announcing the creation of 450 new jobs in Britain as part of a 1.4 billion US dollars (976 million) investment in Ryanair bases, Mr O'Leary warned: "It is exactly this type of investment that will be lost to other competitor EU members if the UK votes to leave the European Union."

It was "a certainty" that the cost of flights and holidays would rise if the UK leaves the single market, he said.

But pro-Brexit Cabinet minister Chris Grayling dismissed Mr Osborne's claims, telling BBC News: "The reality is there's no conspiracy here at all. In fact, the conspiracy theories around the European Union are there in black and white, you don't need any hidden elements to it - there is a clear plan to create a federation of the eurozone."

And Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliott highlighted Mr O'Leary's previous criticism of the European Commission as an "evil empire".

"George Osborne is panicking about his failing campaign so he is resorting to ever more lurid scare stories," said Mr Elliott.

"His problem is that he's told so many tall tales that people no longer believe what he and David Cameron say on the EU any more."

The Leave.EU campaign noted that Mr O'Leary suggested last week that the "extreme volatility" which would follow a vote for withdrawal from the EU could force air fares down, in the same way they fell after the September 11 terror attacks in 2001.

Arron Banks, co-chairman of Leave.EU, said: " Low costs and high wages are obviously bad news for the big bosses at multi-nationals like Ryanair, but they're great news for ordinary people.

"Add in the return of duty-free when travelling to EU countries, and Brexit looks like a great deal all round for British travellers."

Signatories to the pro-Brexit business letter included Peter Goldstein, a founder of Superdrug; Steve Dowdle, a former vice-president Europe of Sony; David Sismey, a managing director of Goldman Sachs, and Sir Patrick Sheehy, the former chairman of British American Tobacco.

"Brussels's red tape stifles every one of Britain's 5.4 million businesses, even though only a small minority actually trade with the EU," they said.

Mr Johnson likened statements of support for the Remain campaign by high profile figures and business chiefs to "hostage videos".
Police Federation warns over shortage of firearms officers

A national shortage of armed police is leaving Britain vulnerable to terror attack, the Police Federation of England and Wales has said.

Officers are not volunteering to carry guns because they fear being "hung out to dry" and treated like a suspect if they discharge their weapon, the federation claimed.

Its chairman Steve White warned that Government's plans announced last month to train another 1,500 firearms officers to deal with the terror threat looked doubtful.

Police officers are not volunteering to carry guns because they fear being "hung out to dry" if they discharge their weapon, the Police Federation claimed

The warning comes as a survey of 16,800 officers shows that while 40% fear they will be attacked at work, just half this number (20%) have or want personal firearms.

Mr White told the Press Association: "Before we even start talking about recruiting the extra 1,500, we are struggling to fill the vacancies we have currently got because of the lack of understanding and protection that officers would have if they have to discharge their firearm.

"That's what this survey says - we do fear violence, but officers don't want to carry firearms because they are concerned that if they discharge it, they are going to get arrested for murder.

"But it is all connected with how officers are feeling - they are feeling vulnerable, they are feeling under threat. And if they are feeling like that ordinarily, why would they take the extra step to volunteer to carry guns? It is just more pressure, it is just more potential criticism.

"The Government has got to provide a message to the service, not that it has a get out of jail free card, but that officers will be supported appropriately and fairly in order to encourage officers to step forward and take on additional responsibility."

David Cameron announced last month that money will be ring-fenced to boost the number of firearms officers after terror attacks in Brussels and Paris.

Mr White warned there are "worrying" inconsistencies in the service nationally that have left some forces without firearms officers and reliant on neighbouring forces for coverage.

He added: "This isn't necessarily about the individual police officers, this is about our ability as a service to provide the level of protection that members of the public quite rightly expect.

"I think many members of the public think we have a lot more firearms officers than we actually have. I think they probably think we are all equipped with Tasers. It simply isn't the case.

"The inconsistency around the service is worrying, because no longer can we assume that if there is some kind of terrorist outrage that it is going to happen in the capital."

Mr White's comments come days after the threat from Northern Ireland-related terrorism in Britain was raised from moderate to substantial.

He was speaking ahead of the federation's annual conference this week, with Home Secretary Theresa May expected to get a tense reception when she addresses officers on Tuesday.

The federation said officers are being "let down time and again" by ministers who are not providing them with kit such as Tasers and body-worn video.

The poll found that for many police officers, abuse, assaults and the threat of violence have become quite common.

About 44% of officers said they had received verbal threats at least once a month, while 7% said it happened daily.

More than a third (35%) experienced unarmed physical attacks at least once a month, while 6% said they were attacked with a potentially lethal weapon such as a bottle or gun at least once a month.

Police minister Mike Penning said: "It is vitally important that the police and intelligence agencies have the resources and kit they need to respond to the evolving threats we face. Following the terrorist attacks in France last year, we have announced an additional 143 million over the next five years to provide a national uplift in armed policing capability.

"We ask our firearms officers to do a vital and uniquely challenging job on behalf of the public - to put themselves in harm's way, in situations where they may have to decide in a split second whether to shoot and, in certain circumstances, to take the life of a person who poses a threat to others.

"We will always ensure firearms officers are supported to take the difficult decisions necessary to protect the public, and that is why, earlier this year, the Home Secretary commissioned a review of the legal and procedural framework governing police use of firearms and post-incident investigation, which is ongoing.
Nico Rosberg ponders clear-the-air talks with Lewis Hamilton following crash

Nico Rosberg will decide in the coming days whether he needs to hold clear-the-air talks with Lewis Hamilton following their spectacular collision in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix.

Both Mercedes cars failed to progress beyond the fourth turn of a race eventually won by 18-year-old Max Verstappen after Hamilton lost control of his car and crashed into his team-mate.

It marked the latest low in a relationship which has become increasingly strained as the former childhood friends fight for the world championship for a third successive year.

Mercedes were pointless at the Spanish Grand Prix following an opening-lap collision between Nico Rosberg, right, and Lewis Hamilton, left

Rosberg, the son of 1982 world champion Keke, boarded his private jet to his residence in Monaco to have dinner with his parents in the aftermath of Sunday's crash.

And it is from there where he will determine if he needs to speak to Hamilton ahead of the next round of the championship, which takes place in Rosberg's adopted home.

"That is something I need to think about in the days to come," said Rosberg. "I can't tell you now as I am extremely gutted.

"It is very tough because it was my race to win. I am not just gutted for myself but I am gutted for everybody because we are one team and we are together in this.

"I know how much they work for these two cars and for us both to end up in the gravel trap is the worst possible thing."

Hamilton, who apologised to his team but refused to accept blame for the crash, attempted to pass Rosberg on the exit of turn three.

With Rosberg in the wrong engine mode and down on power, Hamilton suddenly closed on his team-mate. Rosberg moved to his right to defend the lead, Hamilton ended up on the grass, before slamming into his team-mate.

While Niki Lauda, Mercedes' non-executive chairman, was quick to point the finger at Hamilton, the paddock was divided as to who was at fault. Indeed the FIA, the sport's governing body, declared it a racing incident.

Despite both of their cars failing to make it to the end of the race, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff refused to apportion blame, and instead insisted they would be free to race for the remainder of the season.

Alain Prost, the four-time champion, who formed one half of Formula One's greatest-ever rivalries with Ayrton Senna, lauded Mercedes' decision to allow Hamilton and Rosberg to continue their battle on the track.

But the Frenchman warned that they may be forced into a re-think if reigning champion Hamilton, who remains 43 points behind his team-mate with a possible 400 still to play for, and Rosberg are involved in another crash.

"The consequence is big but thanks to Mercedes to let the drivers be free," said Prost. "When you dominate and you do that once or twice again, for sure, they are going to say you are number one and you are number two because they don't want to lose the championship, which is normal.
Manuel Pellegrini could remain in Premier League

Manuel Pellegrini has hinted he would be happy to stay in the Barclays Premier League as he starts preparing for life after Manchester City.

Pellegrini's final game in charge on Sunday, a 1-1 draw at Swansea, effectively booked City's place in the Champions League next season when Pep Guardiola will be the manager.

Manchester United need to beat Bournemouth by a 19-goal margin in their rearranged home fixture on Tuesday to deprive City of fourth spot in the Premier League.

Departing Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini has not ruled out the idea of managing in England again.

But Pellegrini admits his focus will be elsewhere as he begins reviewing his job options after three years at the Etihad Stadium.

"I will now starting thinking about the future," Pellegrini said.

"I don't want to decide just in one week. I will see different options."

Pellegrini has extensive experience managing in Spain with Villarreal, Real Madrid and Malaga all on his CV.

But the 62-year-old Chilean, who is among the bookmakers' favourites to be appointed the next Everton boss, does not rule out managing in England again.

"I am fortunate to work in five countries," Pellegrini said.

"But the Premier League is the most important in the world.

"The stadiums are full capacity, a party every game, fans uniting and singing.

"The atmosphere. It is important for managers to have this experience."

Pellegrini also revealed he would not speak to his successor Guardiola about the challenges facing the Spaniard next season following his move from Bayern Munich.

"I don't think that we need to speak," said Pellegrini.

"He knows perfectly what is this club, he has friends inside here.

"He is a very important manager in Europe, so I am sure he will have all the information.

"This team in the last five seasons always plays Champions League.
Ofsted warns over children at risk of 'indoctrination' in illegal schools

Thousands more children than previously thought are at risk of "harm and indoctrination" and face dangers from "unsafe" premises in illegal schools, Ofsted's chief inspector warned.

Inspectors have identified 100 suspected unregistered schools across the country since a new investigatory team was set up in January, and Sir Michael Wilshaw said "many more children" than previously thought are hidden from authorities in unregistered schools.

Investigators were "deeply alarmed" by what they found, he said, and warned the "sub-standard education" in many unregistered schools undermined Government efforts to ensure schools promote "British values".

Many more children are hidden from authorities in unregistered schools across the country than previously thought, Sir Michael Wilshaw says

Sir Michael said he was "extremely concerned" about the number of pupils attending these schools, saying they may be at "significant risk of harm and indoctrination".

Inspections have uncovered serious fire hazards, including obstructed exits and inaccessible fire escapes, and schools with unsafe and unhygienic premises.

One case involved the discovery of "chemicals and chemistry equipment in an unlocked food cupboard in a room where children ate their lunch", Sir Michael said.

Staff and volunteers were also found to have not been properly checked or cleared to work with children.

The unregistered schools uncovered so far are only a small proportion of the illegal schools operating across the country, Sir Michael said, with suspected new cases every week.

Last month, inspectors issued seven warning notices to suspected illegal schools in London, Birmingham, Luton, Wolverhampton and Staffordshire - where they found around 350 children on the premises.

In a letter to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, who charged Sir Michael last year with setting up a new Ofsted taskforce to investigate illegal schools and those running them, he said: "The evidence that (inspectors) have gathered so far during this short period firmly reinforces my belief that there are many more children hidden away from the view of the authorities in unregistered schools across the country than previously thought."

And there is a "clear link" between the growth of unregistered schools and the steep rise in children being home-educated in England in recent years.

Sir Michael said those operating unregistered schools are "unscrupulously" using the freedoms parents have to educate their children at home as a cover for their activities, " exploiting weaknesses" in the current legislation to operate on the cusp of the law.

He said: "In doing so, many are providing a sub-standard education, placing children at risk and undermining the Government's efforts to ensure that all schools are promoting British values, including tolerance and respect for others."

He called on local authorities to show vigilance and share intelligence with agencies including Ofsted, so unregistered schools can be quickly identified and investigated, and has asked inspectors to contact councils after an inspection of an unsafe or unsuitable setting.

Independent schools offering full-time education in England must register with the DfE and accept inspection by Ofsted.

They are required to meet standards on education quality; the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of students; welfare, health and safety; suitability of staff, premises and accommodation; and leadership and management of the school.

Failure to register a school attracts a maximum six-month jail sentence and 5,000 fine.

The Department for Education said it had given new resources to Ofsted to investigate unregistered schools and support prosecutions, and is considering responses to a consultation on measures to protect children in out-of-schools settings that offer intensive education.

A spokesman said: " We are taking steps to ensure the system is as robust as it can be when it comes to protecting young people, while at the same time safeguarding the rights of parents to determine how and where to educate their children."

But s hadow education secretary Lucy Powell said the Government had been "asleep at the wheel" by allowing "extremely worrying and potentially dangerous practices" to develop in schools.

Attacking the Tories' education policy for lacking "robust local oversight" to spot and tackle serious problems early on, she said: " We urgently need the Government to take tough action and instil a robust system of local oversight and accountability of all local schooling, regardless of type, so that communities can work together to improve standards and stop children from ending up in harm's way."

The NSPCC said parents could not be certain illegal schools were able to ensure their children's safety.

A spokesman said: " When picking these institutions, some parents might not know that such 'schools' are unregistered and employees haven't had the proper background checks or safeguarding training, and are unaware of the risks these pose to their children.

"It's vital that every individual who works with children passes these checks to help keep every child safe."

The British Humanist Association said it has launched a whistleblowing service for former and current pupils who have experienced indoctrination, misinformation, discrimination, neglect, and abuse in their schools.
Regardless of what you do or where your life takes you, it is always important to engage in cognitive thought. While on tour in Venice, Italy, NYIDE Senior Associate Devon McLeod takes a moment to study and garner new cognitive skills to apply to the ever changing world she is a part of at NYU Stern School of Business and beyond. How will you organize your thought this #MTMonday?
Norway helicopter crash report finds 'sudden catastrophic failure'

An initial report into the Norway helicopter crash which claimed the lives of 13 people has found the flight appeared normal until a " sudden catastrophic failure developed in 1-2 seconds".

Eleven passengers, including oil worker Iain Stuart from Laurencekirk in Aberdeenshire, and two crew members were killed after the Super Puma aircraft came down near the city of Bergen on April 29.

The Accident Investigation Board Norway's report released on Monday found the black box recorder, officially known as a combined cockpit voice and flight data recorder (CVFDR), recovered from the wreckage revealed the tragedy unfolded in seconds.

Iain Stuart was among 13 people who died when a helicopter crashed off the Norwegian coast (PA/Police Scotland)

The report said: " The recordings on the CVFDR showed that everything appeared to be normal until a sudden catastrophic failure developed in 1-2 seconds.

"The CVFDR recordings ended abruptly at the same time. There are no indications that flight crew actions were a factor in the accident.

"The helicopter was cruising at 2,000ft when the main rotor head (MRH) and mast suddenly detached. The helicopter impacted on a small island and caught fire.

"The main wreckage thereafter ended in the sea where it came to rest at a depth of 1-9 metres. The accident was not survivable."

The preliminary report is intended to give an update on the investigation and includes no conclusions or safety recommendations.

Investigators said examination of the wreckage is ongoing and a land and sea search is continuing to find "several key components" which are still missing, after the crash impact scattered pieces across a wide area.

The probe currently centres on the main rotor head, its suspension bar assembly and the main gearbox.

The report said: "At this preliminary stage of the investigation, detailed metallurgical examinations have not been performed. The examinations so far have not shown any sign of fatigue failure."

Previously, the board said the crash investigation indicated sudden mechanical failure.

The Super Puma was travelling from the North Sea Gullfaks B oil field, about 74 miles (120 kilometres) off the Norwegian coast, when it crashed en route to Flesland Airport.

The aircraft shattered into pieces when it smashed into the rocky shoreline of Turoey, a tiny island outside Bergen, western Norway.

Mr Stuart's family have said they are "heartbroken" by the death of the 41-year-old father-of-two.
Call for 'invisible' armed forces community to be recorded in next census

The next UK census should include new questions on the armed forces community, the Government has been told.

Little is known about the exact numbers, location and needs of serving personnel, veterans and their families - estimated to number between 6.5 million and 6.7 million, according to the Royal British Legion.

The organisation is now calling for the community to be recorded in the next census, which will be carried out in 2021.

Veteran Darren Fuller painted by body artist Carolyn Roper to appear invisible to launch the Royal British Legion's campaign

To mark the launch of the campaign - called Count Them In - four veterans have been painted into their surroundings to highlight their "invisibility" in current census data.

The pictures show them hidden at the Houses of Parliament, a library in Manchester, a cafe in Plymouth and a rugby ground in Cardiff.

Chris Simpkins, director-general of the Legion, said: "As a nation we promise to provide lifelong care and support for those who serve our country, yet we currently know more about the UK's 'Jedi Knight' population than we do about our own armed forces community.

"By adding questions to the 2021 UK census we can help public bodies and charities to deliver the best services they can for our armed forces community where they are needed most.

"It's time to make the next census count for our armed forces community. We count on them, let's count them in."

Veteran Mike Jarvis after being painted for the The Royal British Legion's Count Them In campaign

Veteran David Iveson was also painted for the campaign at Cardiff Arms Park

Darren Fuller being painted by body artist Carolyn Roper
Heather Watson beaten in three sets in first round at Strasbourg

British number two Heather Watson lost 6-3 0-6 6-1 to Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine in the first round at the Internationaux de Strasbourg.

After breaking Watson at 4-3 to take the opening set, Bondarenko found herself on the back foot as the 23-year-old from Guernsey reeled off six straight games to level.

However, following an interruption for rain it was the world number 62 who regained control of the match with another break chance, as she went on to close out victory in just over an hour and a half on Court One, breaking Watson three times in the final set.

Great Britain's Heather Watson failed to progress in Strasbourg

British number three Kyle Edmund retired from his first-round match at the Nice Open against Alexander Zverev of Germany, with the match tied one set all.

After both men were broken in their opening service games, qualifier Edmund moved 5-4 ahead only for the number eight seed to level.

Edmund, 21, survived a break point against him in game 11 and then went on to close out the set when he broke the German, number 48 in the world.

The second set went with serve until 19-year-old Zverev converted a break chance to lead 5-4, only to then lose the next game.
Boris Johnson says more evidence for Loch Ness Monster than Treasury forecasts

Boris Johnson has rejected conspiracy claims levelled against Leave campaigners, arguing there is "considerably better" evidence proving the Loch Ness Monster exists than the Government's Brexit forecasts.

The former London mayor bemoaned the "colossal, glutinous tide of nonsense" from Remain as the campaigns continued to belittle and discredit the increasingly frenetic warnings they have issued ahead of next month's referendum.

Mr Johnson's remarks came as Vote Leave attempted to move attention onto concerns over the ability of the UK to deal with tax avoidance while Britain remains in the EU.

Boris Johnson called the row over his comments an "artificial media twit storm"

They claim the NHS and other services have been denied investment as EU rulings have helped multinational businesses "avoid paying billions" in taxes in the UK.

But these warnings followed a second day in which questions and concerns were raised over Mr Johnson's comparison of the EU with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's plans for domination of the continent.

George Osborne also accused the Leave camp of treating economic warnings as a "massive conspiracy".

The Chancellor added: "The next thing we know, the Leave camp will be accusing us of faking the moon landings, kidnapping Shergar and covering up the existence of the Loch Ness monster."

But Mr Johnson hit back and mocked the reliability of the research issued by the Treasury in support of Britain remaining in the EU.

During a visit to Nottingham, he told reporters: "It's bit rich from those who said World War Three will break out if we leave the European Union and the economy will fall off a cliff.

"I'm concerned there is now so much talking down of the UK that it's positively counter-productive. It's ludicrous.

"The Prime Minister before the renegotiations in Brussels was saying there was no question we'd get a fair trade deal, he said he was perfectly prepared to walk away - what's changed?"

Later asked if the moon landings were faked, Labour MP and Vote Leave chairwoman Gisela Stuart joked: "The ones with Elvis Presley? Yeah, those were."

Mr Johnson replied: "They were about as reliable as Treasury forecasts."

Questioned if the Loch Ness Monster exists, Mr Johnson joked: "The evidence for the Loch Ness Monster is considerably better than Treasury forecasts."

On the Hitler remarks, Mr Johnson was pressed to say whether he would make them again if he knew the controversy it would cause.

He noted: "Previous attempts to unify Europe have been done by force and have ended tragically. There are various historical illustrations of that point, which need no elaboration.

"What the Roman Empire had and the EU doesn't have is a single pole of authority that everyone understood and recognised and felt an allegiance to. That was the crucial point.

"Under the Roman Empire, people felt Roman. Under this European system, nobody actually feels European - some people might do, but very few people do, and that is the core of the problem."

Mr Johnson also blamed EU regulations for benefiting a minority of businesses who can deal with policy makers while freezing out others, adding the increasing gap between the pay packets of FTSE 100 chief executives and lower-paid staff is "nauseating".

The Vote Leave battle bus tour will continue on Tuesday in the Midlands, with Mr Johnson and Ms Stuart attempting to switch the focus on to their campaign's belief that the EU is hampering efforts to tackle tax avoidance.

It is relying on estimates from a 2011 Government document to suggest reforms to rules related to foreign subsidiaries of British companies, following a European Court ruling in 2006, have reduced corporate tax revenues by 2.36 billion since 2012.

The Leave camp has also raised concerns about the effectiveness of the diverted profits tax, which was introduced in 2015 to impose levies at a higher rate on sums believed to have been shielded from corporation tax.

Ms Stuart said: "The EU's rulings have helped multinational businesses to avoid paying billions in taxes here in the UK.

"That's money that could be invested in our NHS.
Colombia's war-weary farmers head home amid hopes and fears

By Anastasia Moloney

LA HORMIGA, Colombia, May 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - W hen gunfire and cylinder bombs erupted around their farmhouse, nestled in the jungle in Colombia's southern Putumayo province, Jesus Alebio Portillo and his family took refuge under a bed and, trembling with fear, waited until the fighting stopped.

A decade ago, battles between paramilitary groups and their most bitter enemies, the Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), took place almost every week as the two sides fought for territorial control.

The unrelenting violence prompted an exodus of thousands of villagers from the farmlands around the town of La Hormiga and across Putumayo during the peak of violence in early 2000s.

"We were caught in the middle of the crossfire," Portillo, a farmer and father of two children, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"Once the FARC told us we had to leave as there would be a confrontation with the paramilitaries. They gave us two hours to leave. The whole village left, 80 to 100 people," he said, recalling the first of four times his family had to flee.

More than five decades of conflict have forced 6.7 million Colombians to flee their homes, many of them poor farmers like Portillo, making the country home to the second biggest internally displaced population after Syria.

Some of the land left behind was abandoned, left idle for years as farmers sought refuge in nearby towns. Other land was seized by paramilitary forces with farmers often pressured by the armed groups to sell out at cut-rate prices.

The government itself estimates that 6.5 to 10 million hectares of land - up to 15 percent of Colombian territory - have been abandoned or illegally acquired through violence, extortion and fraud.

HOMECOMING

Portillo is one of the lucky ones, back on his land as part of a 10-year government programme launched in 2011 to return millions of hectares of land, address unequal land distribution and reduce rural poverty.

The national effort to restore ownership and tenure is unfolding as peace talks, now in their third year, continue between the government and the FARC, the country's largest guerrilla group, in Cuba.

How Colombia ensures those who were displaced can return safely to their lands and rebuild their lives is a measure of state territorial control and prospects for lasting peace in war-torn provinces like Putumayo, experts said.

Under a historic land restitution law passed five years ago, the government of Juan Manuel Santos has handed back 200,000 hectares of land, together with land titles awarded by judges, benefiting about 20,000 Colombians.

But this accounts for just a fraction of the millions of hectares of land stolen and abandoned.

Of the 80,000 land claims lodged so far with the government authorities less than half are currently being processed, hampered by bureaucratic red tape and sorting out who legally owns disputed and abandoned land.

For Portillo, returning to his plot of land means the promise of a better future.

Under the land restitution scheme, he has received a grant, fertilizer and seeds, and an agronomist visits the pepper farm every month to provide technical support.

"When we came back everything was covered by the jungle. We lost everything. We had to start all over again," said Portillo, as he and his wife tend to rows of pepper trees surrounded by dense jungle where parrots and monkeys chatter.

"The land is how I breathe, live and survive. Working the land is the only thing I know how to do. I can't survive in the city. I can only beg for food there."

Portillo, 56, hopes the hip-high pepper trees will bear their first harvest in eight months time, bringing in an income of about 990,000 Colombian pesos ($335) a month, nearly double the monthly minimum wage.

LINGERING FEAR

The trickle of families returning to their small vegetable and cattle farms around La Hormiga is a showcase of government efforts to help displaced families rebuild their lives.

A 2003 peace accord led to around 35,000 paramilitary fighters handing in their weapons, largely bringing an end to battles between rebel and paramilitary forces.

Attacks by the FARC have also largely stopped in recent months after rebel commanders declared a unilateral ceasefire last July as part of ongoing peace talks, encouraging more displaced farmers to return to their lands as violence has ebbed.

But many are still too afraid to return to deserted villages surrounding La Hormiga as the shadow of violence lingers.

Bullet holes and faded graffiti scrawled by armed fighters remain on some of the facades of abandoned brick homes.

"Some neighbours haven't come back. It's too painful for them to return. Many innocent people, women and children, were killed," Portillo said.

ROOT OF CONFLICT

Unequal land distribution was a key reason why the FARC took up arms back in 1964 as a Marxist-inspired agrarian movement that fought to defend the rights of landless peasants.

Today just over one percent of Colombia's landowners hold more than half of the country's agricultural land, making land distribution in Colombia among the most unequal in the world, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

It is an issue at the centre of the peace talks. The FARC and the government have agreed to promote rural development and create a land bank through which farmland would be redistributed.

If a peace accord is signed, it would likely pave the way for a deluge of new land claimants and encourage more displaced farmers to return home.

Another successful land claimant, Andrea Gomez, who was displaced three times, hopes her new one-hectare pepper farm will bear its first produce next year.

Reached by a narrow dirt path cut through humid jungle, her wooden hut on stilts is surrounded by pepper plants irrigated by a drainage canal, along with orange, plantain and cacao trees.

"It's changed my life and that of my family. The land gives me everything I need, all my food. Without it I don't have anything," Gomez said.

Gomez, 30, says she felt emboldened after she received a land title in her name in 2013.

"Having a land title makes me feel important. I feel valued. I now have rights. I can decide about the future of my farm. No one can take it away from me," she said.

Returning land in the cases of Portillo and Gomez was relatively easy because it involved unoccupied farmland and there was no one to dispute their ownership.

But other land claims involve plots snatched by organised crime networks and guerrilla groups, bent on maintaining control of their fiefdoms, cocaine-smuggling routes and illegal mining.

DEATH THREATS

In recent months, renewed violence against land rights campaigners threatens to undermine gains made in Colombia's land restitution efforts.

While paramilitary groups have demobilised, thousands of former paramilitary fighters morphed into new drug gangs, known as BACRIM, which the government now regards as Colombia's biggest security threat.

These groups "are still systematically violating human rights ... and interfering with the restitution of (stolen) land," Todd Howland, the U.N.'s human rights representative to Colombia, said in March.

Last year 105 community leaders, including land rights activists, were killed in Colombia - a 35 percent rise compared to 2014 - according to the Conflict Analysis Resource Centre, a Bogota-based think tank.

Around 3,000 community leaders, including land campaigners who have received death threats, receive protection from the government, ranging from bodyguards to bullet-proof vests.

In Putumayo, returning land is also slow and difficult because parts of the province remain under guerrilla control, and the region's vast coca fields - the raw ingredient used to make cocaine - are controlled by criminal gangs and FARC rebels.

Heavily armed police standing behind sand-barricade checkpoints and army tanks stationed along the partly unpaved main road that reaches Colombia's border with Ecuador, are signs of the government's tenuous control here.

Another is the sight of several plain-clothed guerrillas belonging to the FARC's network of thousands of urban-based informants hanging around on a street corner, less than a kilometre away from the nearest police checkpoint.

"It hasn't been easy. In some areas it's not possible for the state to enter because the FARC still have a very strong presence," said David Narvaez, who heads the Putumayo office of the government's land restitution agency.
Refiners struggle to stay afloat as Asia drowns in gasoline

By Henning Gloystein

SINGAPORE, May 13 (Reuters) - Asia's refined product markets are being swamped by a wave of gasoline as a long-lasting crude oil glut spills into the one fuel market refiners had hoped would save them, ruining margins and dragging down share prices across the region.

Singapore's benchmark gasoline margins - long the bright spot for Asia's oil processors amid rock-bottom profits earned on diesel, jet and shipping fuel - have more than halved since the beginning of 2016, when they were near at least a seven-year high for first-quarter values.

With gasoline's slump, overall refining margins in Singapore have dropped nearly 60 percent since the beginning of the year, buckling under the weight of the fuel products pumped out of oil plants as refiners feasted on crude prices that were as low as three-quarters of their mid-2014 levels.

Besides dragging down crude refiners' share prices, this drop in margins could also undercut global oil prices that have struggled up from 12-year lows hit early this year, and refiners say the situation will not improve anytime soon.

"We don't expect 2016 refining margins to improve. In fact, the situation could worsen from second-half of 2016 as the peak maintenance season in Asia will be over," said KY Lin, spokesman for Formosa Petrochemical Corp, meaning that more fuel would hit the market once shutdown refineries restart.

In a sign of just how bloated the market has become, Singapore's light distillate stocks, which includes gasoline, hit nearly 16 million barrels late last month, the highest on record, according to government figures. The stocks have dropped back since, but there's still enough gasoline in the tanks to fill up almost 50 million average-sized vehicles.

Lin said some of the main contributors to the gasoline glut have been private Chinese refiners, known as "teapots", that have started exporting their surplus petrol, overwhelming demand.

The collapsing margins are a sharp reversal from expectations of a few months ago. Just in February South Korea's SK Innovation, a major Asian refiner, said its margins would remain strong as demand for gasoline and naphtha offset weaker markets for other fuels.

Formosa Petrochemical operates a 540,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery in Mailiao, Taiwan, the island's largest and one of the 10 biggest in Asia. Formosa produces about 3 million barrels of gasoline a month, over half of which it usually exports.

FUEL STOCKS UP, EQUITY STOCKS DOWN

The impact of tumbling refining profits has been reflected in the stock markets.

The market capitalization of SK Innovation has fallen by half a billion dollars in the last three weeks to 14.6 trillion won ($12.5 billion) as its share prices dropped by 15 percent.

The trend has been similar for Formosa Petrochemical and others - such as Japan's major refiners JX Holdings, TonenGeneral, Cosmo Energy and Idemitsu Kosan - with shares down between 5-10 percent so far in May.

The slumping processing profits are fallout from a crude glut that emerged in 2014 as exporters around the world raced to ramp up output in a fight for Asian market share.

With daily output last year eventually exceeding demand by as much as 2 million bpd, crude prices fell by around 75 percent between mid-2014 and early 2016.

This was a signal for refiners to ramp up operating rates across Asia to profit from still strong demand for fuel, especially from China and India.

"That caused global oversupply and refining margins to tumble as demand couldn't (keep) supporting the increasing supply," said Kim Woo-kyung, an SK Innovation spokeswoman, adding that her company now had high volumes of unsold fuel.

($1 = 1,170.5000 won)
S.Korea says Nissan manipulated emissions, proposes fine and recall

By Hyunjoo Jin

SEOUL, May 16 (Reuters) - South Korea said it would punish Nissan Motor Co with a fine and a recall of its Qashqai diesel sport utility vehicles after accusing it of manipulating emissions, an allegation that the Japanese automaker denied.

The finding is an embarrassment for Nissan, which blew the whistle on Mitsubishi Motors Corp's mileage-cheating scandal and last week announced it was buying a $2.2 billion stake for de facto control of Mitsubishi.

South Korea's environment ministry said it believed Nissan had used a so-called defeat device in Qashqai to turn off its exhaust reduction system under regular driving temperatures.

The ministry said it would fine Nissan 330 million won ($279,920), and order a recall of the 814 new Qashqai vehicles sold in the country so far. It also plans to file a complaint against the head of its local operations with prosecutors.

Nissan disputed the finding and denied any wrongdoing.

"Nissan has not and does not employ illegal defeat or cheat devices in any of the cars that we make," it said in a statement, adding that testing using similar methods by European Union regulators found that Nissan had not used a defeat device.

Investors in Nissan shares seemed to have shrugged off the news, with its shares in Tokyo ending up 0.5 percent, in line with the broader market.

"It's too early to judge in terms of what the impact on the brand is. Nissan denied any wrongdoing. It's not a huge number," said Koji Endo, senior auto analyst at Advanced Research Japan.

South Korea tested 20 diesel vehicles, after Volkswagen AG's falsified emissions tests became known last year.

The South Korean ministry said its investigation applied to new Qashqai models with Euro 6 engines, and that it would test older models with Euro 5 engines.

James Chao, Asia-Pacific managing director at IHS Automotive, said the risk for Nissan was that the issue could snowball.
Kabul locked down as Afghan authorities face power line protest

By Mirwais Harooni

KABUL, May 16 (Reuters) - Stacked-up shipping containers blocked the streets leading to Kabul's government and diplomatic area on Monday as Afghan authorities prepared for a rally by thousands of members of the Hazara minority over a multi-million dollar power line project.

Demonstrators are demanding that the route for the 500 kV transmission line linking Turkmenistan with Kabul be changed to pass through two provinces with large Hazara populations, an option the government says would cost millions and delay the badly needed project by years.

As well as the potential for violence, the rally underscores the political tensions facing Ghani's government as it fights the Taliban-led insurgency and tries to get an economy shattered by decades of war back on its feet.

The latest protest follows one in November against the murder of a group of Hazara people that became the biggest anti-government demonstration in Kabul for years.

Organisers have urged protesters to "shake the palace of despotism". Authorities have closed access to the presidential palace, fearing a repeat of last year's violence, when demonstrators tried to scale the walls.

The mainly Shi'ite Hazara have long faced persecution but they are politically well organized and thousands of demonstrators are expected.

Hazara leaders, who include senior government members, say the route chosen for the transmission line discriminates against their people, something President Ashraf Ghani and national power company DABS deny.

Only around 30 percent of Afghanistan is connected to electricity. Modernising the creaking power system, which is subject to frequent blackouts, has been a top priority.

The transmission line, intended to provide secure power to 10 provinces, is part of the wider TUTAP project backed by the Asian Development Bank to link the energy-rich Central Asia republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Under current plans, due to implemented by 2018, the line would pass from a converter station in the northern town of Pul-e-Khumri through the mountainous Salang pass to Kabul.

Demonstrators want an earlier version of the plan that would see a longer route from Pul-e-Khumri through the provinces of Bamyan and Wardak to the west of Kabul.

DABS says the current plan ensures ample power to Bamyan and Wardak and that switching the route would add tens of millions of dollars to the cost and delay the project by as much as three years, leaving millions without secure electricity.
Romania - Factors to watch on May 16

Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Monday.

DEBT TENDER

Romania plans to sell 300 million lei ($75.58 million)of July 2017 treasury bonds.

CONFIDENT ON GROWTH

Romania sees no need to delay planned 2017 tax cuts, as suggested by the IMF, because buoyant economic growth will be sufficient to curb the budget deficit gradually, Finance Minister Anca Dragu said on Friday.

GDP - Romania's economy beat market expectations in the first quarter, growing 4.3 percent on the year, a flash estimate from the national statistics board showed.

CURRENT ACCOUNT - Romania's current account balance recorded a deficit of 1.47 billion euros ($1.67 billion) in the first quarter, compared with a surplus of 524 million euros in the same period of last year.

COMPANY RESULTS * Power utility Electrica will publish first quarter half financial results. * Power grid operator Transelectrica is due to release first quarter financial results. * State-owned gas pipeline operator Transgaz is due to release first quarter results.

MISSILE SHIELD

A ballistic missile defence shield which the United States has activated in Europe is a step to a new arms race, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, vowing to adjust budget spending to neutralise "emerging threats" to Russia.

CEE MARKETS

The zloty and Polish government bonds firmed amid hopes that Moody's will only worsen the outlook of Poland's credit rating later on Friday rather than cutting the rating itself.

For the long-term Romanian diary, click on

For emerging markets economic events, click on

For an index of all diaries, click on
Dominican Republic's Medina cruising to second term: partial results

By Jorge Pineda

SANTO DOMINGO, May 15 (Reuters) - Dominican Republic President Danilo Medina appeared to have easily won re-election, with partial results late on Sunday showing his record of a surging economy and social projects swayed voters in the Caribbean nation despite graft accusations.

Results counted by hand from 18 percent of polling stations showed Medina's coalition won 62 percent of the vote, a margin that if sustained would be enough to avoid a runoff election.

His closest rival, businessman Luis Abinader, had 35 percent in the early results, a sign Dominicans were unwilling to ditch Medina for untested promises of more social spending and lower crime.

The remaining six candidates combined had about 3 percent of votes, including the first two women running for the presidency in a Dominican election.

A noisy motorcade of Medina's supporters drove through the capital on Sunday night, blaring reggaeton music in celebration of his apparent win. Medina did not declare victory and his rival did not concede.

The election was marred by a shootout at a voting center, long lines and grumbles by the opposition over the method of counting and releasing results.

Final results were not expected until Monday, with the paper ballots laboriously counted by hand.

A left-of-center economist, Medina has had high popularity ratings during much of his four-year term in the country of 10.4 million. Electoral rules were changed to allow him to run for a second consecutive term.

"I won't be satisfied until progress reaches everyone, when growth means a table full of food for everyone," Medina, 64, said at a rally to close his campaign on Thursday.

Medina's Dominican Liberation Party has been continuously in power since 2004.

Abinader's campaign called for change and focused on allegations of corruption over a power plant awarded to Brazilian engineering conglomerate Grupo Odebrecht.

Medina's campaign chief, Joao Santana, returned to Brazil in February to face charges Odebrecht paid him funds siphoned from Brazil's state oil company, Petrobras, to finance the 2014 poll campaign of suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

Medina has not referred to the Petrobras scandal, but did admit the Brazilian strategist was his top adviser. Santana has called the allegations "baseless."

The Dominican Republic was the fastest growing economy in Latin America in 2014 and 2015, and has about eight times the GDP of Haiti, its poor neighbor on the island of Hispaniola.

Medina has overseen the repatriation of thousands of people with roots in Haiti. The policy is popular at home but condemned by human rights groups.
When the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced Friday that 14 candidates have been added to its Red to Blue program, the list didn't include the party's challenger in the 21st Congressional District race.

Mike Derrick, a Democrat who is running against U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, remains in the DCCC's Emerging Races program. He was added to the initiative in April.

The DCCC said they will continue to work with Derrick, a U.S. Army veteran, as he challenges Stefanik, a freshman Republican from Willsboro.

Last month, DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Lujan praised Derrick and said he's assembled a "strong campaign."

"This November, I am confident that voters will elect Colonel Mike Derrick in New York's 21st Congressional District and oust Congresswoman Elise Stefanik," Lujan said.

But the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP's campaign arm, is using the DCCC's announcement Friday to hit Derrick.

The NRCC noted that Derrick was one of two Democrats not to be promoted in the Red to Blue program  a sign, they say, the DCCC has "abandoned" their candidate in the 21st District.

Chris Pack, a spokesman for the NRCC, said Derrick's views on an array of issues make him "unelectable."

"Washington Democrats have realized this and that is why they have abandoned Mike Derrick's campaign for Congress," he said.

Both parties view the 21st District race as one of the most important contests in New York. Republicans are looking to retain the seat and secure a second term for Stefanik, who succeeded former U.S. Rep. Bill Owens, a Democrat.

Three of the top political prognosticators believe Stefanik is in position to win re-election.

Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball rate the 21st District race as "likely Republican." The Rothenberg and Gonzales Political Report lists the seat as "safe Republican."
(OFFICIAL)-UPDATE 1-Malaysia's Felda says palm fruit output drops as El Nino bites

By Emily Chow

KUALA LUMPUR, May 16 (Reuters) - Malaysia's Felda Global Ventures Berhad, the world's third largest palm plantations operator, said its output of palm fresh fruit bunches has dropped 17 percent so far this year as dry conditions from the El Nino weather pattern hit crops.

A broad decline in harvests around the key-producing region of Southeast Asia will boost crude palm oil prices by up to 10 percent by August and then by as much as 20 percent further down the road, Felda's newly-appointed chief executive Zakaria Arshad said on Monday.

"Lower yields are due to the El Nino effect," Zakaria said at a media briefing. The El Nino weather phenomenon dries fields across swathes of Asia.

Zakaria said crude palm oil prices would climb to between 2,600 ringgit ($644.50) and 2,800 ringgit per tonne by August this year. They stood around 2,566 ringgit on Monday.

Arshad, a Felda Group veteran of 32 years, was appointed as the company's head in a surprise move in April.

He takes over as the palm industry comes under increasing pressure from environmental groups, who blame it for chronic deforestation, as well as for a polluting haze that often engulfs chunks of Southeast Asia.

Zakaria said a long-pending transaction to take a 37-percent stake in Indonesian firm PT Eagle High Plantations Tbk for $680 million was still under negotiation. But he added that there would not be a deal in the immediate future.

"Growth will be in our existing business, not M&As, for now. We want to stop for a while - maybe until (the end of) this year - and then we will look at it again," he said.

The deal was earlier criticised by shareholders for being too expensive.
'Avengers' threaten new insurgency in Nigeria's oil-producing Delta

By Tife Owolabi and Ulf Laessing

YENAGOA/ABUJA, Nigeria, May 13 (Reuters) - They call themselves the Niger Delta Avengers. Little is known about the new radical group that has claimed a series of pipeline bombings in Nigeria's oil-producing region this year and evaded gunboats and soldiers trawling swamps and villages.

Their attacks have driven Nigerian oil output to near a 22-year low and, if the violence escalates into another insurgency in the restive area, it could cripple production in a country facing a growing economic crisis.

President Muhammadu Buhari has said he will crush the militants, but a wide-scale conflict could stretch security forces already battling a northern rebellion by hardline Sunni Muslim group Boko Haram.

Militancy has been rife over the past decade in the Delta, a southern region which is one of the country's poorest areas despite generating 70 percent of state income.

Violence has increased sharply this year - most of it claimed by the "Avengers" - after Buhari scaled back an amnesty deal with rebel groups, which had ended a 2004-2009 insurgency.

Under the deal, more state cash was channelled to the region for job training and militant groups were handed contracts to protect the pipelines they once bombed. But Buhari cut the budget allocated to the plan by about 70 percent and cancelled the contracts, citing corruption and mismanagement of funds.

The "Avengers" have carried out a string of attacks since February that reduced Nigerian oil output by at least 300,000 barrels a day of output, and shut down two refineries and a major export terminal.

On Thursday the group emailed journalists a statement saying it was fighting for an independent Delta and would step up its attacks unless oil firms left the region within two weeks.

"If at the end of the ultimatum you are still operating, we will blow up all the locations," it said. "It will be bloody. So just shut down your operations and leave."

"To international oil companies, this is just the beginning and you have not seen anything yet. We will make you suffer," it said.

Authorities have no hard facts about the group - such as its size, bases or leadership, Nigeria-based diplomats say.

Diplomats and security experts say it has shown a level of sophistication not seen since the peak of the 2004-2009 insurgency, which halved Nigeria's oil output. They say it must be getting help from sympathetic oil workers in identifying the pipelines to cause maximum damage.

"Its scary. Their demands are impossible to meet so there will be probably more attacks," said a security expert, asking not to be named.

GUNBOATS

In February the group claimed an attack on an undersea pipeline that forced Shell to shut a 250,000 barrels a day Forcados terminal. Last week, it took credit for blasting a Chevron platform, shutting the Warri and Kaduna refineries. Power outages across Nigeria worsened as gas supplies were also affected.

There have been other smaller attacks and this week another explosion, which bore the hallmarks of the group, closed Shell's Bonny Light export programme.

Reuters, like other media, has been unable to reach the group, which mainly communicates via Twitter, with the location tracker switched off, and on its website.

Its members describe themselves there as "young, well travelled" and mostly educated in eastern Europe.

Given the lack of intelligence about the militants, the army launched a wide-ranging hunt across the Delta this week, sending gunboats into mosquito-infested creeks and searching villages in the middle of the night.

But some residents say such a heavy-handed military approach stokes dissent in the Delta where many complain of poverty despite sitting on much of Nigeria's energy wealth. They say some villagers help militants to hide in the hard-to-access swamps.

"The military came at 12.30 am with two gunboats ... they went from house to house. Many ran into the bush," said Godspower Gbenekemam, chief of the Gbaramatu area.

"The military stayed on until about 5.30 am, during which nobody was able to move out," he said. "We are not part of the people blowing up pipelines. We do not know them so the military should leave our community alone."

Alagoa Morris, an environmental activist based in the Delta, said unless soldiers acted with restraint, more people would join the militants, with a risk of "the Niger Delta returning to another round of full-scale militancy".

Even oil majors, which have long pressed for better pipeline protection, worry the tactics could backfire.

Executives met Vice President Yemi Osinbajo this week and one of them warned the government was being "too direct and blunt" and needed to find some balance, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

ULTIMATUM

The military has not said how many soldiers have been involved in the sweep. The army searched several villages around Gbaramatu because that part of the Delta is home to former militant leader Government Ekpemupolo, better known as Tompolo.

Some officials have linked Tompolo to the "Avengers", pointing to the fact that the attacks began after authorities issued an arrest warrant for Tompolo on graft charges in January.

Tompolo has denied any ties, saying he himself is a victim as the group had asked him to apologise for criticising it.

For Buhari, the campaign against former militants is a part of his election promise to fix a country gripped by graft and mismanagement, but many locals in the Christian south see him, a Muslim northerner, as an oppressor.

Buhari's cutting of the amnesty plan's budget has also caused widespread resentment in the Delta, as it helps fund job training for the unemployed.

Tapping into such anger, the "Avengers" point out that the former military ruler has never visited the Delta, where many roads are pot-holed and some villages are polluted from oil spills.

In a flurry of statements, the militants have published a list of demands, from cleaning up oil spills to keeping the amnesty plan, leading up to Thursday's ultimatum.

Diplomats say some of Tompolo's followers have probably joined the "Avengers" and that the group's ranks could be swelled by an army of unemployed willing to work for anyone.

But, adding to the confusion surrounding the group, some former rebels have denied knowledge of the militants and say they have brought unwanted military attention to the area.
Trump says unlikely to have good relationship with UK's Cameron

By Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Donald Trump said he was unlikely to have a good relationship with David Cameron because the British prime minister cast the U.S. presidential candidate as "divisive, stupid and wrong" for proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

Cameron criticised Trump in the British parliament over his call for the ban on Muslims and suggested that the New York billionaire, who is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, would unite Britain against him if he visited.

"It looks like we're not going to have a very good relationship, who knows?" Trump told Britain's ITV television station in an interview aired on Monday when asked how ties would fare if he won the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8.

"Well number one, I'm not stupid, okay. I can tell you that right now. Just the opposite. Number Two, in terms of divisive: I don't think I'm a divisive person. I'm a unifier, unlike our president right now," Trump said, referring to Barack Obama.

Cameron's spokesman said the prime minister stood by his original comments.

The United States is Britain's closest ally. U.S. companies are the biggest foreign direct investors in Britain and the so- called 'special relationship' with Washington has been the cornerstone of British diplomacy since World War Two.

Trump's often controversial comments on everything from Muslims and women to the future of NATO and relations with Russia have drawn criticism from Berlin, Paris and other European capitals.

But neither Germany's Angela Merkel nor France's Francois Hollande have gone as far as Cameron in chiding Trump who, if he wins in November, would be in charge of the world's most powerful nation and largest economy from January 20 next year.

"DIVISIVE, STUPID AND WRONG"

Cameron will work with whoever is elected U.S. president and is committed to maintaining the special relationship, the prime minister's spokesman said.

"The PM has made his views on Donald Trump's comments very clear. He disagrees with them," the spokesman said. "He continues to believe that preventing Muslims from entering the U.S. is divisive, stupid and wrong. He stands by his comments."

The spokesman refused to answer questions on who Cameron would like to see win in November but said there was no telephone call or meeting planned with Trump, adding: "If one is proposed we will consider it."

On a more conciliatory note, Cameron has said Trump deserves respect for making it through the gruelling Republican primary process. The Times newspaper also reported last month Cameron had ordered diplomats to attempt to repair relations with Trump.

"I hope to have a good relationship with him but it sounds like he's not willing to address the problem either," Trump told ITV.

Trump also criticised London's newly elected Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan for making "very rude statements".

Trump had initially welcomed Khan's election and said he would make an exception in the event of a ban on Muslims for him entering the United States, drawing a sharp reply from Khan.

"Donald Trump's ignorant view of Islam could make both our countries less safe - it risks alienating mainstream Muslims around the world and plays into the hands of the extremists," Khan said.
Czech Republic - Factors To Watch on May 16

PRAGUE, May 16 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Czech financial markets on Monday. ALL TIMES GMT (Czech Republic: GMT + 2 hours) =========================ECONOMIC DATA========================== Real-time economic data releases.................... Summary of economic data and forecasts........... Recently released economic data.................. Previous stories on Czech data............. **For a schedule of corporate and economic events: http://emea1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/Apps/CountryWeb/#/2E/events-overview ==========================NEWS================================== DUKOVANY: Czech electricity producer CEZ has reconnected Unit 4 of its Dukovany nuclear power plant on Saturday after a planned outage, a spokesman said. Story: Related stories: CEE MARKETS: The zloty and Polish government bonds firmed amid hopes that Moody's will only worsen the outlook of Poland's credit rating later on Friday rather than cutting the rating itself. Story: Related stories: =======================PRESS DIGEST============================ STATE BONDS: Foreign investors held 24.7 percent, or 347 billion crowns ($14.53 billion), of state bonds at the end of March, up from 21.2 percent at the end of 2015 and 14.5 percent in 2014. E15, page 3 Reuters has not verified the stories, nor does it vouch for their accuracy. For real-time stock market index quotes click in brackets: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX For updates on CEE currencies TOP NEWS -- Emerging markets Prague Newsroom: +420 224 190 477 E-mail: prague.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com ($1 = 23.8860 Czech crowns) (Reporting by Prague Newsroom)
Thousands of Afghan Hazaras join power line protest in Kabul

By Mirwais Harooni

KABUL, May 16 (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators from Afghanistan's Hazara minority marched in protest through Kabul on Monday, accusing President Ashraf Ghani's government of cutting them out of a multi-million dollar power transmission line project.

Protesters demanded that the planned route for the 500 kV transmission line linking Turkmenistan with Kabul be changed to pass through two provinces with large Hazara populations, an option the government says would cost millions of dollars and delay the badly needed project by years.

It says the current plan ensures that the two provinces of Bamyan and Wardak will get ample electricity even if the main transmission line does not pass through them directly.

The line, intended to provide power to 10 provinces, is part of a wider TUTAP project backed by the Asian Development Bank linking the energy-rich Central Asia republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Despite fears of violence, the demonstration passed largely peacefully, with only isolated reports of trouble and Ghani thanked the protesters. A commission to review the plan will report within 10 days.

However, the demonstration underscored the political tension facing the administration as it fights the Taliban-led insurgency and tries to get the shattered economy to its feet.

The protest followed a rally in November against the murder by militants of a group of Hazara that became the biggest anti-government demonstration in Kabul for years.

Authorities, fearing a repeat of last year's violence, when demonstrators tried to scale the walls of the presidential palace, blocked streets into the main government area with stacked-up shipping containers.

The mainly Shi'ite Hazaras have long faced persecution but they are politically well organised and thousands gathered in a square away from the city centre chanting "TUTAP is our right!" but they dispersed peacefully.

Only about 30 percent of Afghanistan is connected to electricity and modernising the creaking power system, which is subject to frequent blackouts, has been a top priority.

Under current plans, due to be implemented by 2018, the line would pass from a converter station in the northern town of Pul-e-Khumri through the mountainous Salang pass to Kabul.

Demonstrators want an earlier version of the plan that would see a longer route from Pul-e-Khumri through Bamyan and Wardak, to the west of Kabul.
Miner Lonmin reports core profit after cost savings

By Barbara Lewis and Mamidipudi Soumithri

LONDON/BENGALURU, May 16 (Reuters) - South Africa-focused platinum producer Lonmin reported a core profit on Monday after cost savings, and said it expected firm chemical and car industry demand for the rest of the year despite the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal.

Its shares rose more than 14 percent in early trading, outperforming the wider mining sector, which was around 2 percent higher.

Lonmin's shares have lost around 90 percent of their value over the last year, hit by a strike, rising costs and plunging platinum prices. In December, the company raised $400 million from selling new shares.

In its first-half results statement, Lonmin said it had cut losses per share to 1.8 cents from a loss of 164.6 cents the same time a year ago, and reported a core profit of $36 million versus a loss of $6 million in the first half of 2015.

Cost-cutting is ahead of schedule, with close to 70 percent of the full-year target of savings of 700 million rand ($45 million) already achieved.

Net cash improved to $114 million at the end of March, compared with $185 million net debt at the end of September.

CEO Ben Magara said in a conference call he did not anticipate further job cuts at current market conditions, but added conditions may change.

Volkswagen's admission last year that it cheated U.S. diesel emissions tests could, analysts have warned, hit sales of diesel cars, which need platinum for catalytic converters.

But Lonmin predicted emerging markets would spur demand as they seek to catch up with the "ever tightening emission standards of developed markets".

It also said it saw firm chemical industry demand, while the jewellery market could remain static during the year.
Britain's FTSE slips, Brexit worries weigh on British Land Company

By Kit Rees

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - UK shares slipped on Monday as concerns surrounding Britain's European Union referendum weighed on British Land Company, though a rise in mining stocks helped to offset losses.

The FTSE 100 index retreated 0.3 percent to 6,121.63 points by 0910 GMT, slightly outperforming the broader European market.

The declines were broad-based, with property developer British Land among the top fallers, down 1.7 percent after reporting results.

While the company posted a rise in its full-year portfolio value, investors voiced concerns about the impact on the sector of Britain's June 23 referendum on whether to leave the EU.

"Despite a positive overall outlook, the group cites recent slowdown in office occupational demand, likely due to the EU referendum, as well as weaker consumer confidence and retail sales since the beginning of the year," analysts at Liberum said in a note.

"This is the first sign of occupational weakness in the sector and we would expect it to weigh on the shares."

BT Group was also down 1.6 percent, with investors citing a media report on Sunday that three UK broadband operators had called for reforms for BT's Openreach business.

"Any talk of BT having to give up its monopoly on the infrastructure and potentially having to divest Openreach will be seen as a negative driver for the share price," said Dafydd Davies, partner at Charles Hanover Investments.

However, British mining companies were in positive territory as metals prices edged higher. Data showing an improvement in China's property sector offset several softer gauges of China's economy that had raised concerns over the demand prospects for industrial metals.

Anglo American's, Antofagasta, Glencore and BHP Billiton all gained between 1.5 percent and 5.6 percent.

Anglo American jumped after a double upgrade from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which raised its rating on the stock to "buy" from "underperform" and also its target price.

Apart from the blue chips, platinum producer Lonmin surged 14 percent after reporting a first-half core profit of $36 million, up from a loss of $6 million the same time a year ago following cost savings.

"Lonmin's results continue to provide fuel for the idea that the mining sector is past the worst, even if much of the improvement has come from cost-cutting, with platinum prices so far stubbornly refusing to respond," Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst at IG, said in a note.

ADVISORY- Reuters plans to replace intra-day European and UK stock market reports with a Live Markets blog on Eikon (see cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets for site in development). In a real-time, multimedia format from 0600 London time through the 1630 closing bell, it will include the best of our market reporting, Stocks Buzz service, Eikon graphics, Reuters pictures, eye-catching research and market zeitgeist. Breaking news and dramatic market moves will continue to be alerted to all clients and we will continue to provide a short opening story and comprehensive closing reports.

If you have any thoughts, suggestions or feedback on this, please email mike.dolan@thomsonreuters.com.
Sweden sentences man to life imprisonment for genocide in Rwanda

STOCKHOLM, May 16 (Reuters) - A Swedish court sentenced on Monday a 61-year-old man to life in prison for genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the second such case brought by the Nordic country over crimes during the conflict.

The Stockholm District Court said Claver Berinkindi, a Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda, was convicted of genocide and gross crime under international law consisting of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping in Rwanda.
Sweden sentences man to life imprisonment for genocide in Rwanda

STOCKHOLM, May 16 (Reuters) - A Swedish court sentenced on Monday a 61-year-old man to life in prison for genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the second such case brought by the Nordic country over crimes during the conflict.

The Stockholm District Court said Claver Berinkindi, a Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda, was convicted of genocide and gross crime under international law consisting of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping in Rwanda.

"This relates to participation in a large number of massacres during the 1994 genocide where the defendant had an informal role as a leader," the court said in a statement.

Under Swedish law, courts can try Swedish citizens and other nationals for crimes committed abroad.

The court said fifteen crime victims had been awarded damages ranging from 3 million Rwandan francs ($3,781) to 10 million francs ($12,602). It was the first time a Swedish court had awarded damages to victims of genocide.

An estimated 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi ethnic minority but also moderates of the ethnic group Hutu, were killed by Hutus over three months in 1994 after years of civil war. The massacres raised questions about the ability or will of international organisations or states to intervene to halt mass killings of civilians.

According to the Stockholm court verdict, Berinkindi, who arrived in Sweden in 2002 and became a Swedish citizen in 2012, was convicted in absentia of genocide-related crimes by a Rwandan Gacaca community court in 2007.

He was charged in Sweden in September 2015.

The district court ruling can be appealed.

A number of Rwandan genocide-related crimes have been tried in recent years in Rwanda and other countries.

In 2013, a Swedish court sentenced another man to life in prison for genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It was the first time a person in Sweden had been convicted of genocide.
India's mobility revolution is driving global oil demand: Kemp

By John Kemp

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - "India is taking over from China as the main growth market for oil," the International Energy Agency observed in its latest petroleum market update ("Oil Market Report", IEA, May 2016).

India's oil consumption has grown at an average annual rate of 5 percent over the last decade and climbed over 4 million barrels per day for the first time in the year ending in March 2016.

India is currently the world's fourth-largest oil consumer after the United States, China and Japan, and set to overtake Japan for the third slot within the next 12-18 months (http://tmsnrt.rs/1Tgtums).

Diesel remains the largest end market, accounting for more than 40 percent of all petroleum consumed in the country, according to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

Liquid petroleum gas for cooking and petroleum coke for power generation are other major markets, each accounting for about 10 percent of final demand.

Gasoline, by contrast, accounts for only 12 percent of total consumption, but is the fastest-growing segment, with demand rising by 10 percent a year for the last decade (http://tmsnrt.rs/1TgtHpu).

Gasoline demand has been accelerating, with consumption up 11 percent in 2014/15 and more than 14 percent in 2015/16 (http://tmsnrt.rs/1Tgtwur).

Growing gasoline demand is directly linked to the explosion in vehicle ownership among the country's rapidly expanding middle and lower-middle class (http://tmsnrt.rs/1NvrhGA).

The number of registered vehicles on India's roads has been doubling every seven years and hit 182 million in 2013, according to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways ("Road Transport Yearbook", 2012/13).

The majority of registered vehicles were motorcycles (133 million) with a much smaller number of cars, jeeps and taxis (25 million) and goods vehicles (9 million).

The balance between two-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles has remained fairly constant since the turn of the millennium.

India still has a relatively low vehicle penetration rate compared with other developing countries let alone richer economies.

There were just 149 vehicles for every 1,000 people in 2013 compared with 273 in Brazil, 277 in Mexico, 593 in Japan and 781 in the United States.

With so many registered two-wheel vehicles, the penetration of passenger cars is exceptionally low by international standards.

India has just 17 passenger cars per 1,000 people compared with 215 in Brazil, 450 in Britain and 540 in Germany.

There is enormous potential for a further increase in both vehicle ownership and gasoline consumption as more and more households are able to afford to drive.

The largest number of vehicles are registered in the major urban centres of Delhi, Bengalaru, Chenai, Pune and Mumbai, and the large states of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, all of which have a large number of relatively wealthy households.

But the fastest growth rates in vehicle ownership over the last 10 years has been in relatively poor and peripheral states such as Tripura, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh, which suggests vehicle ownership is rapidly spreading to a much wider cross-section of the population.

Provided India's economy continues to grow, and fuel prices remain moderate, India's thirst for gasoline will be the most important source of oil demand growth over the next few years. The country is set to join the United States and China in a new group of Big 3 oil consuming countries.
A former Syracuse police officer and congressional staffer paid restitution and won't serve jail time after a state investigation found he stole more than $32,000 in wages he wasn't entitled to.

Tom Connellan, 50, pleaded guilty to third-degree grand larceny, a felony, Monday in Onondaga County Court.

An inquiry conducted by state Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott found Connellan, who worked part-time as an ATM inspector for the state Department of Financial Services, filed hundreds of false ATM inspection reports between Jan. 1, 2011 and June 30, 2015.

During that 54-month period, Connellan received $32,561.16 in wages.

The false reports, Scott's office said, were used to cover for work Connellan didn't perform. He also claimed he conducted several of the inspections while he was supposed to be on duty as a Syracuse police officer.

Upon entering his guilty plea, he paid $32,561.16 in restitution to the state.

"I would like to commend the inspector general on their work regarding this investigation," said Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, whose office prosecuted the case. "Our office will continue to work with the inspector general to prosecute this type of fraud and protect the taxpayers' money."

Scott Brenneck, Connellan's attorney, declined to comment.

In addition to the crime, Connellan never informed the Syracuse Police Department he was working as a state ATM inspector. The department's policy requires officers to disclose outside work.

The wage theft could impact Connellan's state pension. Scott said her office has shared its findings with state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's office and recommended that they recalculate Connellan's pension benefits.

"As a former high-profile law enforcement officer, this criminal defendant corrupted his positions in public service, violated the trust placed in him and may have accumulated additional pension credits that he absolutely does not deserve," Scott said in a statement.

"He has now reimbursed the state for this unearned income and I will work to assure New York taxpayers are not burdened with public pension payments based on any credits he did not truly deserve. I will also continue using all of the resources at my disposal to vigorously pursue anyone who defrauds the state and steals from taxpayers."

Connellan was an 18-year veteran of the Syracuse Police Department and served as the agency's spokesman before he retired in 2015. He stepped away from law enforcement to become U.S. Rep. John Katko's district director  a position he held until his abrupt resignation in late 2015.
Suicide bombing hits southern Yemen city of Mukalla - residents

DUBAI, May 16 (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up at a security headquarters in the southern Yemeni city of Mukalla on Monday, residents said, killing and wounding several people a day after an Islamic State suicide bombing killed 25 police recruits there.
Kenyan protesters demand replacement of election oversight body

By George Obulutsa

NAIROBI, May 16 (Reuters) - About 300 opposition protesters rallied on Monday to demand the scrapping of an election oversight body they say is biased and its replacement with a new one.

Police used teargas and water cannon to disperse two similar rallies in the past month. On Monday police backed by trucks with water cannon flanked the protesters gathered outside the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

Kenya does not hold its next presidential and parliamentary polls until August 2017, but politicians are already trying to galvanise their supporters in a nation where violence erupted after the 2007 vote and the opposition disputed the 2013 result.

The opposition CORD coalition, led by Raila Odinga who lost the 2013 vote and unsuccessfully challenged the result in court, has accused the IEBC of bias and said its members should quit. IEBC officials have dismissed the charge and say they will stay.

"For free and fair election, IEBC must go," read a banner held aloft by one demonstrator on Monday.

Last week, police fired teargas and water cannon at hundreds of protesters, some of whom threw stones. Police also used teargas to disperse a protest last month.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is expected to seek re-election next year for a second and final term, has urged opponents not to take to the streets.

Despite the 2013 legal challenge, that vote proceeded smoothly and Odinga accepted the court ruling in a nation where ethnic loyalties usually trump policy among voters.
Betting on a Trump win or a N.Korea H-bomb: a predictions site gains traction

By Anjali Athavaley and Charlotte Greenfield

NEW YORK/WELLINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) - Erik Duhaime is a passive stock market investor, but he isn't afraid to short Donald Trump or go long on Hillary Clinton.

The 28-year-old from Cambridge, Massachusetts, trades on PredictIt, an online political stock market that allows users to wager small amounts of money on "yes" or "no" predictions about whether an event will occur. That includes who will win the U.S. presidential election in November.

"This is probably one of the ways I restrain myself from being active in the stock market," said Duhaime, a PhD student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, who checks the site a few times a week for fun.

PredictIt, which was launched in 2014, now has more than 30,000 traders registered, up from 19,000 at the end of 2015, and has received shout-outs from pundits and presidential campaign advisors alike. Users must be U.S. residents and registered voters.

PredictIt says it is not like an online gambling site because it mainly exists to supply its data to universities for academic research, one of the main reasons the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission allows it to operate legally, according to a letter issued by the regulator in 2014. It is jointly run by Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, and a Washington-based political consulting firm Aristotle International Inc.

Unlike mainstream financial markets, bets are not big: The CFTC caps each participant's position at $850 per market, and the average deposit when people sign up is just $100.

The regulator hasn't been as friendly to such betting sites in the past. In 2012, the CFTC filed a civil complaint against the now defunct Intrade for violating a ban on off-exchange options trading. The Ireland-based market also allowed people to wager money on "yes" or "no" questions, but it wasn't tied to an academic institution and didn't have a cap on the maximum amount that could be traded.

MARKET BEATS POLLING

Predictions markets like PredictIt and a similar venue run by the University of Iowa have emerged as an alternative to polling for election forecasters. PredictIt is bigger than the Iowa Electronic Markets, which has only about 2,000 active traders with access to its political markets.

"Polling is very expensive," said David Rothschild, an economist at Microsoft Research who runs a predictions-market aggregator called PredictWise, which draws heavily from PredictIt. "It's a slow process. It's not very flexible."

Knowledge of polls does also feed into betting decisions on PredictIt. "Predictions markets translate this and other information into probability," said Rajiv Sethi, professor of economics at Barnard College. "The basic intuition is that it's a 'wisdom of crowds' effect."

For example, Trump's chances of securing the Republican nomination for the presidential election swung dramatically on the site over the past three months as the primary season progressed. A Trump share shot from 30 cents in early February when he lost to rival Ted Cruz in the Iowa primary to 80 cents a month later when Trump dominated on Super Tuesday. They then lost half their value by early April as Cruz appeared to regain momentum with a big win in Wisconsin. With Cruz and another rival, John Kasich, now out of the race, Trump had risen to 94 cents by Monday.

For graphic showing Trump's ascendancy on PredictIt during primary season, see http://tmsnrt.rs/1WmRq

For November's election, though, Trump is trailing on PredictIt with 40 cents against Clinton's 59 cents.

While PredictIt's precision has yet to be closely examined by academics, other predictions markets such as the Iowa Electronic Markets, have proven to be just as accurate as polls, experts who have studied them said.

PredictIt markets go beyond topics related to U.S. elections. Users also put the probability of a North Korea hydrogen bomb test this year at only 29 cents, and a British exit from the European Union by 2017 at just 30 cents.

The idea for PredictIt was first thought up in the mid-1990s by Lew Evans, professor of economics at the University of Victoria.

It took until 2008, for the market, called "iPredict" in New Zealand, to get up and running.

Early on, it focused primarily on New Zealand politics, and research showed iPredict out-performed the majority of polls in predicting the results in two of New Zealand's last three general elections. However, new anti-money laundering laws in New Zealand put an end to iPredict last year after the cost of verifying users' identities to comply with the rules threatened to blow through iPredict's shoe-string budget.

PRIMARY PARTY

PredictIt attracts everyone from campaign volunteers to political junkies.

In mid-April, about 30 PredictIt traders gathered at a bar in New York to watch the state's primary results roll in.

"I think it's a good source of collective wisdom," said Brian Hegarty, who was at the event.

Hegarty, who worked for Kasich's campaign, reads political news, but also relied on picking up information through his campaign experience. That didn't always translate to a bet in favor of Kasich. He said he put money on Republican candidate Marco Rubio to win the Minnesota caucus because he had overheard someone who was working for the Florida senator express confidence about Rubio's chances. It turned out to be one of the few states Rubio won before dropping out in mid-March.

Duhaime, the MIT student, said he usually bets against candidates he believes are likely to flame out.

"For me, Trump was one of those people," he said. "I shorted Trump way back in July, and it hasn't been fun watching."

After Trump's win in Indiana in early May, Duhaime was down nearly $1,000, about a third of the money he put into PredictIt.

"I still think it was a one in a hundred thing," Duhaime, who doesn't identify as a Democrat but is a fan of President Barack Obama, said of the Trump phenomenon. "Obviously I'm bummed, but I'm sort of more concerned for other reasons."
Pfizer to buy Anacor in $5.2 bln deal for access to eczema gel

By Amrutha Penumudi

May 16 (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc is buying Anacor Pharmaceuticals Inc in a $5.2 billion deal to add an eczema gel to its portfolio, just a month after the U.S. drug major scrapped plans to acquire Allergan Plc.

Anacor shares surged as much as 56 percent to $99.94 on Monday, above the offer price of $99.25 per share in cash. The net-of-cash deal value assumes conversion of Anacor's outstanding convertible notes, the companies said in a statement.

The deal hints at a shift in Pfizer's M&A strategy from lowering taxes - the rationale behind its $160 billion bid for Dublin-based Allergan - to strengthening its drugs portfolio ahead of a decision on selling or spinning off its generic medicines business by late 2016.

The recent pullback in valuations of biotech firms could stimulate Pfizer's appetite for deals, analysts said. The company is also reported to be in talks to buy cancer drug maker Medivation Inc.

The equity value of the Anacor deal is $4.45 billion, based on the company's outstanding fully diluted shares as of March 31. Anacor stock had fallen 43 percent this year to Friday's close.

The acquisition will give Pfizer access to a non-steroidal topical gel, crisaborole, which is currently under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of mild to moderate eczema.

Pfizer said it believed crisaborole had the potential to reach or exceed peak sales of $2 billion.

In the past 15 years, there have been no new molecules approved for eczema - or atopic dermatitis - a common, relapsing, inflammatory skin disorder that affects 18-25 million people in the United States.

SURPRISE BUYER

Some analysts said they had expected Anacor to be acquired by Allergan, which has a stronger presence in the dermatology market, or by Novartis AG's Sandoz unit, which sells Anacor's toenail fungus drug in the United States.

Wedbush analyst David Nierengarten, however, said that Pfizer was strong in primary care and pediatric treatments, the target markets for crisaborole.

He said other bids were possible, given that the $180.8 million termination fee was relatively low for a deal this size.

Pfizer's current inflammation and immunology drugs portfolio includes Enbrel and Xeljanz, which target auto-immune diseases.

Enbrel, marketed by the company outside North America, lost patent protection in Europe last year. The U.S. patents for the drug, sold in the country by Amgen Inc, are set to expire in 2028.

Centerview Partners and Guggenheim Securities advised Pfizer advisers and Citi advised Anacor. Wachtel Lipton Rosen & Katz was Pfizer's legal adviser, while Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP advised Anacor.
Philippines incoming president offers olive branch, posts to rebels

DAVAO, Philippines, May 16 (Reuters) - Philippines President-Elect Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday he would pursue peace talks with Marxist guerrillas and as an olive branch would offer government roles to the Communist Party of the Philippines, including its exiled founder.

The mayor and self-styled sheriff of Davao City said it was time to put an end to hostilities with the CPP and its armed wing, the New People's Army, which has been embroiled in decades of on-off fighting with government troops in the south and east of the country that has killed 40,000 people.

Duterte's peace offer would include a ministerial post to Jose Maria Sison, the CPP figurehead who lives in the Netherlands and was once listed by the United States as a "person supporting terrorism".

"I offer my hand in peace to Sison and to others and we can talk," Duterte told a news conference in Davao, where he has remained since a May 9 election for which an unofficial vote count shows him a clear winner.

In a television interview, Sison said he was felt proud to see Duterte win but ruled himself out of serving in his cabinet. He said the CPP would seriously consider his offer.

"No, I don't want any position for myself, but you know there are many people who are very competent," he told CNN Philippines.

Duterte said he would seek a referendum in two years on a plan for federalism to empower and develop provinces and he floated names of possible cabinet ministers.

They included vice-presidential running mate Alan Cayetano as justice or foreign minister and a post for former defence minister, Gilbert Teodoro.

Duterte, 71, said he wanted former agriculture secretary Carlos Dominguez to be his finance minister, but was having trouble convincing him.

Nicknamed "the punisher" for his measures to tackle crime, Duterte also said he would beg Congress to re-introduce a death penalty that was repealed in 2006.

Crime is endemic in the Philippines and Duterte's promise of a war that would wipe out gangs and drugs within six months struck a chord with Filipino voters.

In a comment that spiralled into one of his trademark tirades, Duterte reiterated his priority was crushing crime, although not at the expense of economic reform.

"Stop messing with me because I have this sacred promise to save the next generation from the evil of drugs. That is my priority," he said.
Chevron Thailand to cut 800 jobs under $500 mln cost-savings plan

By Khettiya Jittapong

BANGKOK, May 16 (Reuters) - U.S. oil firm Chevron plans to lay off 800 staff this year in Thailand as it looks to cut $500 million in costs at the Thai business to weather the fall in global oil prices, the company said on Monday.

Chevron has slashed costs worldwide but the cuts were not deep enough to prevent the firm reporting its biggest quarterly loss in 15 years.

Chevron is Thailand's largest oil and gas producer, supplying about half of the Southeast Asian country's natural gas demand. Thailand relies on gas to fuel around 60 percent of its power generation capacity.

Output would not be impacted by the cuts, Chevron Thailand Exploration and Production President Pairoj Kaweeyanun told reporters on Monday after meeting with Thai energy ministry officials.

"The cuts will help the company to continue operations in Thailand," he said. Chevron aimed to make savings of $500 million in Thailand this year, he added.

The cuts would take effect on Aug. 1, the company said in a separate statement. Chevron Thailand employs about 2,200 staff and another 1,700 contractors, the statement said.

The staff cuts are in addition to the laying off earlier this year of around 100 staff, mostly expatriates, Pairoj said.

Chevron operates several oil and gas licence blocks in the Gulf of Thailand and is in discussion with the Thai government on extending concessions for some of them beyond the expiry dates of 2022-2023.

Chevron has submitted proposals to the energy ministry on the concessions and hoped for a government decision in early 2017 to ensure it could make investments needed to maintain production, Pairoj said.
Ireland's Kenny aims for full term as prime minister

DUBLIN, May 16 (Reuters) - Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny intends to serve a full term before stepping aside to allow a new leader take his Fine Gael party into the next parliamentary election, the recently re-elected premier said on Monday.

Kenny, 65, became the first European leader to implement a bailout programme and be returned to office earlier this month as head of a much weakened minority government that is scheduled to run until at least the end of 2018.

Kenny had said he would not seek a third term after 14 years as Fine Gael leader and commentators saw him stepping down well before 2018 to allow a new leader prepare for the next election after the party lost a third of its seats in February.

"I've always said that my intention would be to serve the full term but not to lead the party into the next general election. I've made that perfectly clear and that's where I am," Kenny told national broadcaster RTE.

Ireland's second-largest party, Fianna Fail, has agreed to abstain in key parliamentary votes to let the minority government serve its term.
EU's Mogherini says to meet Armenia, Azerbaijan leaders in Vienna on Monday

MOSCOW, May 16 (Reuters) - The European Union's foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said on Monday she would be meeting the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan later on Monday for talks in Vienna.

Relations between the two countries are at a multi-year low after a flare-up in fighting between Armenian-backed separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azeri forces last month killed dozens.
Burundi says Rwanda expels 1,300 Burundians as relations fray

By Clement Manirabarusha

BUJUMBURA, May 16 (Reuters) - Rwanda has expelled more than 1,300 Burundians in the past week after they refused to move to refugee camps, senior Burundi officials said on Monday, amid signs a political crisis is testing relations between the neighbouring countries.

Rwandan officials were not immediately available for comment on the reported removals of Burundians who had been working there, many of them for years - an account confirmed by one of those affected.

Rwanda has been hosting tens of thousands of people who have fled more than a year of political violence in Burundi - and others who have crossed the border for years for work, often without formal permission.

"They were asked to go to refugee camps or return back to Burundi," the governor of Burundi's Kirundo province next to the Rwandan border, Melchior Nankwahomba, told Reuters by phone.

"Those who refused to go to refugee camps were chased ... and stripped of their possessions," he said, adding that they were pushed out by local officials.

Burundi has accused Rwanda of interfereing in its political crisis - which has seen Burundian government forces clash with protesters and rebels who say the president violated the constitution by standing for a third term last year.

Rwanda has denied Burundi's accusations.

But the violence in Burundi has rattled Rwanda and other countries across the central African region were there are still fresh memories of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which like Burundi has a Hutu majority and Tutsi minority.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, has said in the past he would not allow a repeat of the genocide in the region and has been critical of the handling of the crisis by President Pierre Nkurunziza, who led a Hutu rebel group in Burundi's civil war.

Western diplomats say Rwanda could intervene if Tutsis became a target, although Burundi's crisis has so far largely divided opponents on political lines rather than ethnic splits.

One of those told to leave Rwanda, a 45-year-old man who only gave his name as Gilbert, said the Rwandan authorities said he could return to retrieve his belongings if he secured permission once he had returned to Burundi.

"We came without anything," he said.

Nankwahomba put the number expelled at 1,300, while a Burundian Interior Ministry official said the total was around 1,500, with 1,300 coming from Kirundo province alone.
Unions say Colombia's not enforcing U.S. trade deal labor standards

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) - U.S. and Colombian labor unions said the Colombian government failed to enforce worker protections in a free trade agreement with the United States, raising questions about similar provisions in a massive pan-Pacific deal.

The complaint, to be filed with a division of the U.S. Labor Department, said threats and acts of violence against trade unionists in Colombia were neither properly investigated nor prosecuted, according to an advance copy that Reuters saw on Monday.

The AFL-CIO and four Colombian unions said in the complaint that since the U.S.-Colombian trade deal took effect in 2011, some 99 Colombian workers and worker advocates were killed as they tried to exercise their rights. Six workers were kidnapped, and 955 death threats were received, the complaint said.

The unions, which also include Colombia's USO for oil workers and Sintrainagro for farm workers, also said the Colombian government ignored protections for workers who want to unionize and allowed the rampant use of labor subcontractors that obscure the direct relationship between companies and those who perform their work.

The complaint said the oil and sugar sectors were among the businesses where workers remain oppressed.

"The failure to enforce fundamental labor rights artificially distorts the cost of labor in the oil sector because Colombian companies face different conditions of competition than they would face were the laws effectively enforced," the unions said in the complaint to be filed with the Labor Department's Office of Trade and Labor Affairs.

The free trade deal was to guarantee Colombian workers the right to freely unionize and collectively bargain with employers. The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal has similar provisions but also requires all 12 members, which include Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico and Peru, to establish minimum wages, working hours and occupational safety requirements.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called the TPP labor provisions negotiated last year a "near carbon copy" of those in the Colombian trade deal and said they, too, would probably fail, driving down wages and standards in the United States

"Four years after the U.S.-Colombia trade deal took effect, anti-union blacklists persist, 99 more worker advocates have been assassinated and employers continue to create obstacles to workers' right to unionize," Trumka said in a statement.
Did you know that around 95 percent of homes in the city of Auburn were built before 1978?

Why does that statistic matter? Because if you live in a home built before 1978, then there is a good chance your home has lead paint. Having lead paint in your house is not an immediate health hazard as long as it is not chipping, peeling or flaking off, and as long as there is no paint dust. The year 1978 is important, because that is when lead was removed from household paints.

Before you start your spring cleaning and renovation projects around the house, the Cayuga County Health Department is taking this time to remind the community about about lead poisoning and potential lead hazards in our homes. Both homeowners and renters should be extra cautious about lead hazards since we have so many older homes in our community.

If lead paint is chipping or peeling, or if you have sanded or knocked down walls and there is dust in your home, then the lead paint can become a hazard, especially if you have young children in the home. Children tend to be crawling around on the floor and putting things in their mouths, and if there are paint chips or dust on the floor, then the child may be lead-poisoned. Most lead poisoning occurs when children lick, swallow or breathe in lead dust or lead paint. This is why it is important for children to be kept away from peeling or chipped paint.

Pregnant women also need to be careful when it comes to lead paint or lead dust. Women who are pregnant should stay away from home projects that disturb old paint until the area is cleaned using wet cleaning methods and a HEPA vacuum (not dry sweeping).

New York state requires doctors to do a blood lead test on all children at 1 year of age and again at 2 years of age. Testing usually occurs in the doctors office or a laboratory. Some local doctors have a machine, called the Lead Care II, which allows the testing to be done in the office simply by pricking the childs finger. If your childs doctor gives you a prescription and sends you to a laboratory for testing, it is important that you as the parent or guardian make sure that the testing takes place. If you are not sure if your child has had a lead test, contact their doctor to find out or call the Cayuga County Health Department.

The only way to know if a child is being lead-poisoned is by testing the blood for elevated lead levels. Most children show no physical signs or symptoms of lead poisoning, even at higher levels. Lead poisoning can harm a childs growth, behavior and ability to learn. Once lead poisoning has occurred, the damage to the childs central nervous system (brain) is irreversible.

If you would like your child tested for lead, the health department offers lead testing. Please give us a call for an appointment at (315) 253-1560. To learn more about lead poisoning and ways to prevent it, talk with your childs doctor or nurse, or you can call the Cayuga County Health Department at (315) 253-1560 or visit cayugacounty.us/lead.
Anger, fear sweeps Turkish border town under attack from Islamic State

By Humeyra Pamuk

KILIS, Turkey, May 16 (Reuters) - Turkish shopkeeper Mehmet Baykal knew he had less than 10 seconds to dive under his desk when he heard another rocket being fired from Islamic State-held territory across the border in Syria.

Once a safe haven for tens of thousands of Syrian refugees, this tiny Turkish border town has now become a frontline in its war. So frequent is the rocket fire across what is in effect also NATO's front line that residents know instinctively how long they have to take cover.

"It feels like a powerful earthquake. The ground shakes with pressure and then it is dust everywhere," Baykal, 45, who has lived all his life in Kilis, said as he stood on its main shopping street, several of its stores shuttered.

"Kilis never knew what terror was. We opened our homes to those who fled war. But now the war is at our doorstep."

The town has been hit by rockets from a patch of Syria controlled by Islamic State more than 70 times since January, killing 21 people including children, in what security officials say has gone from accidental spillover to deliberate targeting.

Some houses have been reduced to rubble. Others, their rooms exposed to the open air where walls have collapsed, are still inhabited. Streets are largely deserted and schools are on an informal break as families refuse to send their children.

"I say goodbye to my wife every night before I go to bed, in case I don't make it to the morning," said Resul Sezer, whose five-year old granddaughter was killed two weeks ago when a rocket struck the house she was standing outside.

"The talk in the tea house every day is where the rocket might fall today," he said. "We want the state to do something."

Turkey, a NATO member, EU aspirant and part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, has stepped up retaliatory fire into northern Syria in recent weeks. But security sources say it is difficult to hit the militants, sometimes firing from the back of vehicles, with the heavy artillery stationed on the border.

Coalition air strikes have increasingly targeted militant positions close to the Turkish border and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last month that U.S. mobile rocket launchers would soon arrive. But so far there has been no concrete sign of the assistance arriving.

In Kilis, frustration with President Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AK Party is starting to boil over. Police used tear gas to disperse dozens of residents protesting last month after a rocket attack killed one person and wounded 26.

"Where is the state?" said Omer Ciloglu, an AKP supporter and party member, standing in what was left of his third-floor apartment after the building was hit by a rocket.

"Nobody from the state called me. Nobody told me 'do not leave your hometown, we are with you'. Instead they say do not gather, do not protest," he said.

EVEN PRISONERS WANT OUT

Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu say Turkey is taking every necessary measure to secure its border, a promise echoed by Kilis mayor Hasan Kara.

"This is hardly Turkey's problem alone," Kara told Reuters in his office in Kilis. "Unless this bog of terrorism is dried up...this problem will continue to hit Kilis but it will also strike other capitals in Europe too," he said.

Turkey has long pushed for creation of a safe zone in northern Syria but the idea has found little support from Western allies. The United States and Turkey have for months been discussing a military plan to drive Islamic State from the border but there has been little concrete sign of progress.

Earlier in Syria's war, Turkey, eager to see President Bashar al-Assad toppled, faced criticism from Western allies for failing to prevent foreign fighters crossing its border and joining what would become Islamic State. But, as well as the threat to its border, Turkey has been hit by a spate of suicide bombings blamed on the militant group this year.

Erdogan said last week Turkey was making necessary preparations to clear the area across the border from Kilis and that it would not refrain from taking steps on its own if it was unable to get the support it wants from allies.

Lawmakers from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) have warned of 'serious security lapses and breaches of the border' in Kilis and the surrounding area, calling for the town to be declared part of a 'terror zone'.

"For the first time, the war is spilling over to Turkey with Kilis coming under attack," said CHP MP Ozturk Yilmaz, who was abducted by Islamic State with other officials when he was Turkey's Consul General in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014.

"If this continues, we could see Gaziantep, Urfa or other cities going through this with Turkey's national security seriously at stake."

Hundreds of Syrians are thought to be among the tens of thousands of people who have fled Kilis over the past few months.
White male cabinet raises fears of backsliding in diverse Brazil

By Paulo Prada

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 16 (Reuters) - To the people who benefited most from the long, recently truncated rule of Brazil's leftist Workers Party, the look of the successor government could not be more disheartening.

Whereas cabinet posts over the past 13 years were often filled by women and blacks, new Interim President Michel Temer last week presented a group of 23 ministers that looked a lot like him - white, male and mostly old.

"I am not represented," says Bruno Leao, a 24-year-old business student in Rio de Janeiro, who is part of a generation of black Brazilians who earned unprecedented access to education and other socioeconomic gains because of Workers Party policies.

"All those years of struggle and it's like it didn't happen," he adds, noting that advances in civil rights, education and purchasing power remain tenuous.

Temer, a 75-year-old centrist and constitutional scholar, took over the presidency after the Senate forced the suspension of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's first woman leader, by voting on Thursday to put her on trial for breaking budget laws.

Most Brazilians backed Rousseff's impeachment but in one of the world's biggest racial and cultural melting pots, where more than half the 200 million people identify themselves as black or mixed, the makeup of Temer's government raised alarm.

Leftists, minorities and many lower-income Brazilians fear that a deep economic recession, and the spending cuts that the new government says are essential to spur a recovery, could mean rolling back progressive policies.

"The rallying cry right now is the economy and that can become an excuse to scrap anything related to matters of inclusion, equality or culture," says Esther Solano, a sociologist at the Federal University of Sao Paulo.

She points to one of the first decisions by Temer: to fold a ministry of women, racial equality and human rights into the far-bigger ministry of justice, led by a man.

Rousseff's downfall marks a stunning defeat for the left in Brazil.

The Workers Party had managed for the best part of a decade to combine economic growth and fiscal responsibility with social programs that attacked poverty and promoted diversity. But its support frayed under Rousseff as the economy fell into recession and huge corruption scandals rocked the country.

In his first term, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the party's icon and Rousseff's mentor, included Marina Silva, a black environmentalist who toiled as a rubber tapper in her teens, and Gilberto Gil, an internationally acclaimed black songwriter.

Rousseff had so many women ministers and aides that male operatives in Brasilia scoffed at the number of pant suits.

OLD STATUS QUO

While Brazil's constitution enshrines social benefits similar to those in Western Europe, Temer has already said pension and social security laws are the very first that need to be streamlined. He also plans labor reforms, a set of priorities that have some Brazilians worried the new government has no interest in the poor.

"It won't be hard to return to the old, exclusionary status quo when you don't even consider inclusion in the new government," says Djamila Ribeiro, a black philosopher and columnist for Carta Capital, a leftist magazine.

A commodities-fueled boom helped the Workers Party lift more than 30 million people from poverty before Brazil's economy ground to a halt.

Policies like affirmative action programs and broader scholarship opportunities, which increased enrollment at universities from around 2 percent of the young black population in 2003 to about 10 percent in 2013, created new opportunities for many once marginalized.

Yet Brazil remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. Among those who escaped poverty during the boom, most from racially mixed backgrounds, some still earn little more than $6 a day and are at risk of sliding back.

The popularity of social programs is one reason leftist candidates continue to outpoll conservatives in forecasts for 2018 presidential elections.

In an April survey by polling institute Datafolha, Lula and Silva, the former environment minister who now leads her own party, tied for the lead with about 20 percent support each. Temer, who has said he will not run, only got 2 percent of those polled.

In his first address as interim president, Temer promised to pursue business-friendly policies but keep the programs that were Workers Party hallmarks, like income assistance for poor families who keep their kids in school.

Aides say the new Cabinet was selected quickly from the ranks of parties who would support the new government. "We tried to look for women," said Eliseu Padilha, Temer's new chief of staff, "but it wasn't possible."

Some of the new government's allies and supporters say the hand wringing overlooks the need for swift economic measures.

"At the moment, more urgent than a grand discussion about the sex and color of ministers, is knowing whether the ministers have the capacity to succeed," wrote Mansueto Almeida, a well-known economist, in a widely read blog post.

Still, critics say the cabinet also includes politicians whose past actions and discourse are at odds with the very ministries they will command.

The new agriculture minister, a wealthy soy grower who has long clashed with environmentalists because of the crop's encroachment on Amazon rainforest, is charged with regulating farming. The education minister hails from a party that sued at the Supreme Court to try to block affirmative action.

The shift risks backfiring, especially if it helps rally disillusioned leftists who fragmented because of corruption scandals and policy missteps that weakened the Workers Party.
Libyan government of national accord seeks arms

VIENNA, May 16 (Reuters) - Libya's U.N.-backed unity government will soon seek exemptions from a U.N. arms embargo to help establish its authority over the strifetorn country, a group of states supporting the government said on Monday.

"The Government of National Accord has voiced its intention to submit appropriate arms embargo exemption requests to the UN Libya Sanctions Committee to procure necessary lethal arms and materiel to counter UN-designated terrorist groups and to combat Daesh throughout the country," said a joint communique issued after a ministerial meeting in Vienna said, using an abbreviation for Islamic State.
IMF: Slovenia must boost private sector, privatise banks swiftly

By Marja Novak

LJUBLJANA, May 16 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Monday that Slovenia, which narrowly avoided having to ask for an international bailout in 2013, needs to encourage private investment and swiftly privatise its banks.

In a report, the IMF also urged the government, which is struggling to reduce the budget deficit and public debt, to agree a deal with unions that would keep a lid on wages.

"To sustain the reasonable growth rates from 2014-15 given the expected drop in public investment, private investment needs to play a much stronger role than at present," the IMF said.

After injecting more than 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) of state money into the banking sector in 2013 to prevent banks collapsing under the weight of massive bad loans, Slovenia managed to return to growth in 2014, with GDP at 3 percent.

Last year growth eased to 2.9 percent while the IMF sees it at 1.9 percent in 2016, mainly because European Union funds have diminished, hitting public investment.

It urged fast bank privatisation in the country where successive governments had refused to sell banks in the name of the national interest. As a consequence the government still controls about 50 percent of the banking sector.

"Continued state control of banks creates risks of interference in their lending decisions," the IMF said, noting that the government should reconsider its plan to limit potential investors' stakes.

Last week Slovenia said it planned to float its largest bank, Nova Ljubljanska Banka, but stuck to an earlier decision that the government would keep a 25-percent stake and no other investor would be allowed to have a bigger stake than that.

The IMF also criticised the government's plan not to sell Slovenia's second largest bank, Abanka, until July 2019, saying that was "an unnecessary delay that would miss an opportunity to restore a fully competitive market for bank services and may negatively affect the bank's performance".

The IMF warned that the budget deficit and debt, both due to shrink this year, "will start rising again in 2017 under current policies", adding that a wage deal and reforms in the public health and education sectors were necessary to prevent that.
Pakistan PM proposes Panama Papers probe in parliament, opposition walks out

ISLAMABAD, May 16 (Reuters) - Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked parliament on Monday to form a commission to investigate allegations stemming from the Panama Papers leak but opposition lawmakers walked out, saying he had evaded questions about his family's affairs.

Sharif has been under pressure since documents released as part of the Panama Papers data leak showed his children owned several off-shore companies and used them to buy properties in London. He denies wrongdoing, as do his children.

The opposition has seized on the Panama Papers scandal as a fresh opportunity to try to unseat Sharif, who told parliament that his wealth was acquired legally in the decades before he entered politics and no money was siphoned off-shore.

"I can say with surety that ... not a single penny went out of Pakistan," Sharif told the parliament.

Sharif asked the opposition and other lawmakers to help form a parliamentary commission.

Previous efforts to have a retired or sitting Supreme Court judge chair a judicial commission have stalled as all the judges rejected the offer.

It is not clear if the opposition will take up Sharif's latest offer. They walked out soon after Sharif stopped speaking, angered that seven questions they posed to him ahead of the parliamentary session were not answered.

"Not a single question has been answered by the PM," said Khursheed Shah, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly.

Imran Khan, leader of the opposition PTI party, said: "We didn't need to hear such a long story. He could have shown the documents as I have done so."

Opposition politicians said they would announce on Tuesday their response to Sharif's speech.

Analysts say opposition attacks on Sharif have lost some of their bite since Khan on Friday admitted he once owned an off-shore company to buy a London flat and avoid paying British taxes.

The leak of documents from a Panamanian law firm has captured global attention, uncovering among other things the use of off-shore businesses by wealthy individuals and corporations worldwide. While such off-shore companies are often not illegal per se, their use spurs suspicions of illegal activity, such as money-laundering, corruption, and tax evasion.
Wary of hitting limits, ECB holds back on Portuguese, Irish bond buys - sources

By Balazs Koranyi and John Geddie

FRANKFURT/LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - The ECB limited its sovereign debt buys of Portuguese and Irish bonds last month due to concerns about hitting its purchase caps, central banking sources said, in a move that could mean those countries stand to benefit less from the scheme.

With almost a year left of its quantitative easing programme, the ECB is already nearing a self-imposed limit of holding a third of the countries' debt due to the large amounts of bonds it bought under previous crisis-fighting measures.

This became an issue when the ECB increased its monthly asset buys to 80 billion euros in April from 60 billion euros. Data shows that so far purchases have increased by more than 50 percent in most euro zone countries but only by 16 percent in Portugal and 33 percent in Ireland.

Two sources familiar with the situation said the ECB and national central banks that conduct the buying had supplemented Portuguese and Irish bonds with the debt of supranationals to avoid having to curtail buying of their debt more radically or even having to cut them off completely once it hits its limits.

The curtailed buying means that the ECB's sovereign debt purchases will deviate slightly from the countries' shareholding in the central bank, called the capital key, possibly muting the positive market impact of the scheme in Portugal and Ireland.

The ECB declined to comment, while the Bank of Ireland said it is "purchasing a limited amount of supranational bonds on behalf of the Eurosystem, along with a number of other national central banks". The Bank of Portugal was not immediately available to comment.

Euro zone central banks can top up their QE purchases of sovereign bonds with the debt of development banks or the bloc's bailout fund to maintain asset purchases in proportion to their ECB shareholding. These so-called 'supranational' bonds can be from institutions without any ties to the particular country.

While QE has pushed borrowing costs in the euro zone to record lows in many countries, some investors say that uneven purchases of sovereign debt could mean vulnerable countries like Portugal do not benefit as much as the bloc's largest economy, Germany, thereby escalating political tension in the region.

"If the ECB is going to target purchases on some sovereigns at the expense of other sovereigns, then effectively you have got an unequal application of that monetary policy," said Mark Dowding, a portfolio manager at BlueBay Asset Management.

"In extremis, you are saying that this is going away from a trend where you are trying to bring Europe together, and it is looking more like something that could push Europe apart."

LEFTOVERS

The sources said the ECB was keen to keep both countries in the programme until the projected end of the scheme in March 2017, but said that the buying could still fluctuate over time and that the ECB also reviews its issuer limit every six months.

Left over from its Securities Markets Programme, a scheme launched in 2010 to tackle an escalating debt crisis, the ECB held 9.7 billion euros of Irish debt at the start of 2016 while its Portuguese holdings stood at 12.4 billion euros. Since the start of QE, the ECB has bought 11 billion euros of Irish debt and 16.2 billion in Portugal.

The ECB's issuer limit also suggests that if Greece joins the programme, ECB purchases will be severely curtailed as the bank is already one of the bigger holders of Greek debt.
Son of former Honduran president pleads guilty to U.S. drug charge

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - The son of former Honduras President Porfirio Lobo pleaded guilty on Monday to conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, a year after his arrest in Haiti as part of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration probe.

Fabio Lobo, 44, faces a mandatory 10-year minimum prison term when he is sentenced on Sept. 15, and could get up to life behind bars following his plea to a single count of conspiring to import cocaine.

At a hearing in federal court in Manhattan, Lobo admitted to participating in a drug trafficking scheme that a federal prosecutor said also involved Honduran police officers.

"I knew that it was illegal," Lobo said.

Lobo's father was elected president of Honduras in late 2009 after a military coup ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya. Porfirio Lobo left office in January 2014, when Juan Orlando Hernandez assumed the presidency.

At the time of his son's arrest, Porfirio Lobo said he hoped his son was innocent, "but if he is guilty, he should take responsibility for his actions."

In court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emil Bove said evidence showed that beginning in late 2013, Lobo began discussing drug trafficking activities with confidential DEA sources posing as drug traffickers.

The goal, he said, was to profit from facilitating drug-running through Honduras. The notoriously violent Central American country has long served as a major transshipment point for U.S.-bound cocaine smuggled out of South America.

As part of the scheme, Lobo introduced confidential sources to a "high-ranking official" who declined to participate in the deal, as well as police officials who could take steps to help them, he said.

Manuel Retureta, Lobo's lawyer, declined outside of court to discuss those allegations, but said his client "made a mistake" by getting close to individuals involved in large-scale drug trafficking.
Peru presidential candidate to question alleged money laundering probe

LIMA, May 16 (Reuters) - Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori will ask the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration about a local report that the agency is investigating a senior figure in her party over money laundering, she said on Monday.

A report broadcast on America Television on Sunday night featured comments from a man identified as a DEA informant who said the agency was investigating audio he recorded in 2013.

In the audio, he said, the secretary general of Fujimori's Fuerza Popular party, Joaquin Ramirez, stated he had laundered $15 million for the presidential candidate during previous political campaigns.

Ramirez and Fujimori have both denied the allegations.

"I categorically reject having handled or handed over money to ... Ramirez," Fujimori told local TV in Cusco, where she was campaigning ahead of the June 5 vote.

"Of course we will formally ask the DEA's opinion, if there really is such an investigation," she said, adding that the request would be presented to the U.S. embassy within hours.

The allegations threaten to damage Fujimori's campaign. Most recent polls indicate that the daughter of disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori and her rival, centrist technocrat Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, are running neck and neck.

Although Fujimori easily won the first round of the election in April, she faces stiff opposition from Peruvians who say she is too closely associated with her father.
Rhode Island congregation owns oldest U.S. synagogue -judge

By Scott Malone

May 16 (Reuters) - The Rhode Island congregation that worships at the United States' oldest synagogue owns that house of worship and its assets, a federal judge ruled on Monday, rejecting a New York synagogue's claim to oversight.

The ruling follows a four-year legal battle that began when members of the Touro Synagogue in Newport tried to sell a set of ritual bells worth some $7.4 million and New York's Congregation Shearith Israel attempted to block the deal, citing an 18th century agreement that named it a trustee.

The historic building was consecrated in 1763, when the town had one of the largest Jewish populations in the American colonies, including many who had fled the Spanish Inquisition. It was vacated in 1776 when most of the city's Jewish population fled at the start of the Revolutionary War.

Members of the synagogue at that time shipped a pair of valuable silver bells used in rituals to the New York synagogue, and asked its leaders to act as trustees for the vacant temple. Worshippers returned by the 1870s and the New York group's influence waned.

"For at least the past 20 years, Shearith Israel has not taken any meaningful action in its capacity as trustee for the Touro Synagogue and lands," U.S. District Judge John McConnell wrote.

Shearith sued Newport's Congregation Jeshuat Israel when it learned the Rhode Island group had reached a deal to sell the bells, known as "rimonim," to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. The Touro congregation had planned to use the funds to create a reserve to pay for maintenance of the building, after the congregations its finances had been hard hit by the 2008 credit crisis.

The deal has since been canceled.

The New York congregation also claimed ownership of the bells and charged that the Newport group was violating Jewish tradition by selling ritual objects.

McConnell wrote that Shearith had gone against its duty as a trustee of the Newport synagogue.

Deming Sherman, an attorney for the New York congregation, said his clients were still reviewing the judge's ruling and had not decided whether to take additional legal steps.

"We're obviously disappointed," Sherman said in a brief phone interview.

Gary Naftalis, a lawyer for the Rhode Island congregation, in a statement called the decision an "important victory."
Russia: Armenia, Azerbaijan agreed on need for full Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire - RIA

VIENNA, May 17 (Reuters) - The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed in a meeting in Vienna on Monday on the need for a full ceasefire to be observed in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, the RIA news agency quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.

The two men also agreed they would fix the time and place of their next meeting in June and that the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) would draw up a plan to investigate ceasefire violations in Nagorno-Karabakh, Lavrov said.

The Vienna meeting was the first between Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev since a dramatic flare-up in violence between Armenian-backed separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azeri forces last month which killed dozens of people and pushed relations to a multi-year low.

The existing ceasefire may have stopped the short conflict becoming an all-out war a month ago, but gunfire and shelling still echo nightly, residents say, and people are still being killed.

Lavrov said he sensed there was now a desire on both sides for a compromise and that Russia was ready to do what it could to broker a more satisfactory deal. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was also involved in the talks.
Mystery and thriller novels are a hugely popular genre. Many authors publish a book each year, some writing a series of books featuring the same cast of characters and then once in a while writing standalone books featuring a new character. There are three recent additions to standalone books by popular authors that merit mentioning.

Laura Lippman writes the Tess Gerritsen series, about a female private investigator in Baltimore. Her newest mystery is a standalone crime thriller, Wilde Lake. The novel is also set in Baltimore, but in the suburb of Wilde Lake. The main character is Lu Brant, Howard Countys first female states attorney.

Lu Brant is a recent young widow and mom to twin 8-year-olds. She moved back into her fathers home in Wilde Lake after her husbands death. Her father is a retired beloved states attorney who raised Lu and her brother on his own after his wife died one week after Lus birth.

Lu's first big case as states attorney is the brutal murder of a woman in her apartment. A mentally ill homeless man is arrested, and Lu believes this case is a slam-dunk. Then an incident from her familys past comes back into play and may be tied to the case.

Wilde Lake tells the story in two different time frames: When Lu was 8 years old and her brother was involved in a fight that resulted in the death of a young man, and the present day. It is beautifully written, with fully realized characters, and Lippman said she was inspired by Harper Lees To Kill A Mockingbird. Fans of that classic novel will enjoy Wilde Lake.

Lisa Lutzs Spellman Files series is a comic look at a family of private investigators. Those light-hearted books are a world away from her latest, The Passenger, which begins with a woman on the run after her husband dies falling down the stairs.

It is not the first time Tanya has been on the run. The story of her background slowly unfolds and she has to deal with someone from her past who wants to kill her. But why?

Tanya meets another mysterious woman named Blue, who also appears to be on the run, she claims from an abusive husband. The two reluctantly team up  but is one of them using the other to cover up another crime?

Tanya ends up on the run again, taking different identities along the way. She moves from place to place, shedding her identity like a snake sheds its skin. She has to decide who she can trust, and just when Tanya decides she has had enough of life on the run, she returns home to face her past  and Blue is there, too.

The Passenger is a twisty, cant-stop-turning-the-page thriller that will have the reader trying to figure out exactly what happened to start Tanya on this path and what kind of person she truly is. You have to ask yourself, Would I go as far she did to save myself?

Harlan Coben takes a break from his Myron Bolitar P.I. series with his newest thriller, Fool Me Once. Julia Roberts has already optioned this fast-paced thriller and is set to star as Captain Maya Stern, a special-ops pilot who flew missions in Iraq.

Mayas husband, Joe, was murdered during a robbery gone bad in Central Park, with Maya running for her life at the scene of the crime. Her sister Claire had been murdered a few months earlier, when Maya was away fighting in the Middle East.

She has trouble sleeping as she is haunted by an incident that happened during a firefight. Video from that firefight, during which civilians were killed, caused Maya to leave the service and return home to teach flying lessons at a local airport in New Jersey.

Two weeks after her husbands death, Maya is looking at her new nanny cam and sees her dead husband playing with her two-year-old daughter. Is Joe still alive? He had a closed casket funeral, so she never saw his dead body.

Fool Me Once continues Cobens streak of writing books that you race through, unable to put it down once you start. There are a lot of characters, and it is a complicated plot with an ending that is completely shocking. You will hold your breath until the end and shake your head at all of the crazy things that happen.
Swedish firm first to seek listing for investment in Iran

By Jonathan Saul

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - A Swedish firm is looking to launch the first initial public offering to raise capital for investments in Iran since international sanctions on Tehran were lifted.

But the precautions it takes to demonstrate that its dealings are legitimate show that the undertaking, even on this small scale, is time-consuming and costly.

Although global trade sanctions against Iran were lifted in January in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear programme, the United States still forbids its own nationals and firms to do business in Iran, and prohibits dealings with a list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) deemed to engage in undesirable or terrorist activity.

For those reasons, Pomegranate Investment AB, set up in Sweden in 2014, is entering the Iranian market cautiously.

Chief executive Florian Hellmich told Reuters on a visit to London on Monday that the firm, which has raised 80 million euros ($91 million) from European investors since 2014 in anticipation of sanctions easing, hopes to launch its IPO in Sweden within 12 months, for investments in Iran's consumer technology sector.

He declined to say how much it might raise, but U.S. and Canadian citizens and corporations will be excluded from the offer.

To avoid any risk of infringing a ban on dollar payments to or from Iran passing through U.S. financial institutions - one that still frightens European banks, some of which received heavy U.S. penalties for doing business in Iran - all transactions are done in euros.

The main challenge for any international company, however, is vetting Iranian partners to ensure they are not on the U.S. blacklist.

"We have learned to operate in a sanctions environment, which means we have had to engage in a high amount of KYC ("Know Your Customer"): legal due diligence of all our partners, including the banks we do business with," Hellmich said on a visit to London.

Many Iranian companies have beneficial owners who are not easily traceable, making it hard to be certain that investments will not end up, for instance, going into the wide-ranging business empire of the hardline Revolutionary Guards Corps, which the United States accuses of sponsoring terrorism.

"We have engaged an armada of lawyers who have been advising us in terms of disclaimers and due diligence. Again it comes back to the cost of doing business. It is time-consuming," Hellmich said.

"This is also where the opportunity is - everyone could have done the work we have done, but nobody has."

Hellmich, a veteran of emerging markets including Russia who was previously with the Moscow-headquartered investment bank Renaissance Capital, said Pomegranate was working with a "combination of Swedish banks and Swiss banks", but declined to be more specific.

"We found regional banks with no U.S. exposure a lot more accommodating in how we do business," he said.

Around 50 percent of Pomegranate's shareholders are from Sweden, including the prominent investor Per Brilioth, and others come from Britain, Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe.

"There are plenty of liquidity pools in Europe to be successful," Hellmich said.
Peru presidential candidate questions alleged laundering probe

LIMA, May 16 (Reuters) - Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori said on Monday a report linking her and a senior aide to money laundering was "dirty" politics and an attempt to smear her three weeks before a closely-fought election.

The report broadcast on America Television on Sunday night featured comments from a man who was identified as a pilot and informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), who said the agency was investigating audio he recorded in 2013.

In the audio, he said, the secretary general of Fujimori's Fuerza Popular party, Joaquin Ramirez, stated he had laundered $15 million for her during a previous political campaign.

The report said it had verified with the DEA that the agency was investigating Ramirez.

The U.S. anti-drugs agency said in a short statement on Monday "Keiko Fujimori is not currently, nor has been previously, under investigation by DEA." The DEA declined to confirm or deny any further allegations contained in the television report.

Fujimori said she would ask the U.S. agency about the report but categorically denied she had given money to Ramirez.

"Of course we will formally ask the DEA's opinion, if there really is such an investigation," Fujimori told local TV in Cusco, where she was campaigning ahead of the June 5 vote.

"I have to be suspicious about this accusation...I think it's part of a dirty war."

Property businessman Ramirez also denied the allegations, saying that he had met the supposed informant some years ago over a failed plane purchase deal.

"It is being used politically to damage Keiko Fujimori's campaign," he told America Television in a telephone interview following the Sunday night report.

Neither Fujimori nor Ramirez were immediately available for further comment.

Most recent polls indicate that the daughter of disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori and her rival, centrist technocrat Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, are running neck and neck ahead of the June 5 run-off election.

Although Fujimori easily won the first round of the election in April, she faces stiff opposition from Peruvians who say she is too closely associated with her father.
The May issue of Maharashtra governments official publication, Lok Rajya, carries an article on revenue minister Eknath Khadse, calling him the peoples man. A week after the issue, Khadse finds himself embroiled in a controversy after his alleged aide Gajanan Patil was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs 30 crore from a land developer in lieu of transferring a piece of land in his name.

Khadse has washed off his hands from the episode saying he has not appointed Patil as his assistant.

Fadnavis says all is well in his government and the rift is nothing but a media fantasy.

Over the past six months, one after another minister in the Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Fadnavis colleagues are facing charges of corruption, nepotism, high-handedness and apathy towards the common people. Only last month, health minister Deepak Sawant was in the dock after his department purchased medicines worth Rs 280 crore when there was no demand for them. Earlier, women and child development minister Pankaja Munde, education minister Vinod Tawde and food and civil supplies minister Girish Bapat attracted the oppositions ire for irregularities in purchasing in their concerned departments.

Political observers believe Fadnavis dislike of some of his senior colleagues is leading towards a tussle between the CMs office and the ministers. Seniors in BJP, such as Khadse, Tawde, Bapat and finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, had hoped Fadnavis would consult them before taking any major decision.

Fadnavis seeks suggestions from bureaucrats and several experts on policy matters, but keeps his colleagues out of the consultations. It has created a virtual rift in the government as a feeling of being left out is growing among the ministers. As a result, they do not stand as a team.

A senior minister says Fadnavis wants to control every department through the bureaucracy. Environment minister Ramdas Kadam of Shiv Sena was shocked when his personal secretary informed him that secretary to the department, Malini Shankar, had left for a foreign tour after getting consent from the CMs office. Technically, she should have sought permission from Kadam - her immediate boss. The minister was relieved when she was recently transferred out of his department.

Another minister, Ravindra Waikar, also from Shiv Sena, has so far written 17 letters to Fadnavis seeking an appointment to discuss the states housing policy. Fadnavis did not even acknowledge the letters.
If the United States backing Indias membership to the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) last week was an encouraging sign for New Delhi ahead of next months plenary, a rather considerable Chinese wall still stands in the way.

That was made clear in clear terms on May 16, when Beijing declared its view that it was "a compulsory standard" of the NSG, a body that governs nuclear trade, that "members must be signatory states to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)".

This followed a May 13 statement from Washington that reiterated its support to Indias membership to the group. This was first voiced during US president Barack Obama's 2015 visit, when he said it was the US view that India was ready for membership.

During Barack Obama's 2015 visit, he said US was of the view that India was ready for membership.

The group will hold a plenary session in June, during which it is expected to consider Indias application.

But China on May 16 spelled out in no uncertain terms that a rather considerable Chinese wall still stands in the way.

"The Nuclear Suppliers Group has made serious political and technical standards wth regard to accepting new members and one compulsory standard is that NSG members must be signatory states to the NPT," foreign ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

Hong described the NSG as "an important part of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime". "Like other non-proliferation regimes, the NSG is based on the NPT," he said.

"This is a consensus that has long been upheld by the international community and was also reaffirmed in last years non-proliferation treaty review session. All multilateral non-proliferation regimes including the NSG all take the NPT membership as a requirement to accept new members."

Hong was careful to point out that such a position "targets no particular country" and "this position applies to all non-NPT countries".

Yet it has been no secret that Beijing has been angered by Indias gradual acceptance into the nuclear mainstream, starting with the civilian nuclear deal with the US that was made possible by a waiver granted by the NSG - one that Beijing opposed until the last minute.

That waiver, however, also triggered a renewed effort by Beijing to support Pakistan with exports of nuclear reactors, despite its non-NPT status. The NSG bars transfer of technology to non-NPT countries.

Beijings message was if the US could seek an exception, it would not only do the same, but bypass the group entirely and do away with the pretence of seeking a formal waiver.

While China did not seek a waiver as the US did, Beijing told the NSG that its deal with Pakistan was under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and that the sale of three reactors was actually "grandfathered" under an earlier deal that predated its commitments as a member of the NSG.

Despite the fact that few NSG members have found that argument credible - the deal for the fifth reactor, in fact, involved technology that was non-existent at the time China and Pakistan signed their first deal - neither the US nor other members pressed China on the agreements.

Now, China has taken its argument against Indias membership a step further, linking it to Pakistans aspirations to join the NSG. Beijing pointed out in 2015 that as it did with India, it noted Pakistans "aspirations" for membership.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Barack Obama called on the nation Monday to support and listen to its law enforcement officers as he bestowed the Medal of Valor on 13 officers who risked their lives to save others.

In a ceremony in the East Room, Obama draped the purple-and-yellow ribbons around the necks of officers who intervened in shooting rampages, hostage situations and an armed robbery. He pledged to keep working toward a bipartisan overhaul to make the criminal justice system fairer, smarter and more effective so that officers are well-equipped to enforce the country's laws.

"We can show our respect by listening to you, learning from you, giving you the resources that you need to do your jobs," Obama said. "Our country needs that right now."

Three Santa Monica, California, officers  Jason Salas, Robert Sparks and Capt. Raymond Bottenfield  were honored for their response to a 2013 rampage on a community college campus that left five people dead. Confronting 23-year-old gunman John Zawahri in the campus library, the officers shot and killed him when he pointed his assault weapon at them.

Obama also honored Gregory Stevens of suburban Dallas, who exchanged gunfire with two armed men outside an exhibit hall holding a provocative contest for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Both gunmen were killed, heading off what investigators suspected was a planned mass shooting.

The Medal of Valor ceremony came as Obama holds out hope that legislation reforming the justice system can be passed this year despite the heavily politicized climate ahead of the November election. The need for change has been a rare point of common ground between Democrats and Republicans, and though momentum appeared to have sputtered earlier this year, a new Senate proposal has raised hopes that the issue could be successfully revived.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the nation's top law enforcement official, said there were no words or medals that could begin to pay the debt the country owes the officers.

"It has often been said that the price of freedom is constant vigilance," Lynch said. "Know this: they pay that price on our behalf."

Police Maj. David Huff of Midwest City, Oklahoma, saved a 2-year-old girl being held at knifepoint after negotiations with her captor deteriorated. Speaking to reporters after the ceremony, he described the thoughts running through his head in the moment he was called to action.

"Obviously, the last few moments were tense. There was a countdown going on," Huff said. "There was just no way I was going to let that little child get hurt."

The president said all of the officers acted "without regard for their own safety." Because of their courage and instincts, he said, the rest of society can go about their lives each day "like it's any other day."

"If they could go back in time, I suspect they'd prefer none of this had happened," Obama said.

One Philadelphia officer died from a gunshot wound and was honored posthumously. Sgt. Robert Wilson III drew fire from assailants during a robbery while saving store employees and customers.

Wilson's family accepted the award on his behalf.

"We honor those who didn't come home," the president said.

The other officers honored with the medal Monday are:

 Miami-Dade police Officer Mario Gutierrez, who was stabbed multiple times while subduing a knife-wielding man who tried to set off a massive gas explosion that could have caused massive casualties.

 Johnson City, New York, Patrolman Louis Cioci, who chased and captured at a crowded hospital a gunman who had just killed a fellow officer. Investigators believe Cioci saved the lives of hospital staff, patients and visitors.

 Los Angeles police Officer Donald Thompson for, while off duty, crossing two freeway dividers and braving first- and second-degree burns while pulling an unconscious man from a burning car to safety.

 Omaha, Nebraska, police Officer Coral Walker, who shot and killed a man who had killed and injured multiple people during a shooting rampage.

 North Miami, Florida, police Officer Niel Johnson, who endured gunfire from an assault weapon in pursuing and capturing a man who had shot a Miami police officer and two bystanders.

 FBI Special Agent Tyler Call, who while off duty with his family helped rescue a woman whose ex-husband was holding her at gunpoint.

 Niagara County, New York, sheriff's Deputy Joey Tortorella, who confronted and subdued a gunman who had shot and wounded his parents inside their home, preventing the gunman from threatening the safety of students at a nearby elementary school.
State police in Auburn arrested a Moravia man May 13 after a five-month investigation into a burglary in Locke.

Scott R. Morey, 26, allegedly stole jewelry and cash from a Locke residence on Dec. 14, officials said. He was charged with second-degree burglary, a class C felony.

District Attorney Jon Budelmann said investigators were waiting on cell phone records before charging Morey with the crime.

Morey had already been facing drug charges after allegedly selling heroin less than a month after the burglary. Police charged Morey in January with two counts of third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance.

At that time, Morey was arraigned to the Cayuga County Jail in lieu of $20,000 cash or $40,000 bond. Budelmann said he believed Morey was released in March to receive in-patient treatment at White Deer Run, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Pennsylvania, which Morey would likely have finished around April or May.

Budelmann said Morey's alleged drug sale charges are awaiting grand jury action.

Morey was arrested Friday in Moravia on the burglary charge and arraigned in the Town of Fleming Court. He was remanded to the Cayuga County Jail in lieu of $10,000 cash or $20,000 bond. He's due to appear Tuesday in the Town of Locke Court.
Garlos Pies takes to the skies

Posted by AFN Staff Writers on 16th May 2016

Garlos Pies are now available on Emirates flights between Auckland to Dubai.

It is the first time Garlos Pies will be exported to New Zealand.

Garlos Pies are already available on Etihad, Malaysian Airlines, Qantas and other Emirates flights.

Managing Director and Founder of Garlos Pies, Sean Garlick, said the new supply agreement marked two years of catering to airlines.

Were constantly seeking ways to diversify our product offering, Garlick said.

The expansion into inflight meals increases our reach, and offers more people the opportunity to try the unique taste of an Australian pie. he explained.

The news follows on from Garlos Pies April 2016 announcement that it will be upgrading its Australian-based production facilities and opening a second LA-based shop.

Garlos Pies was established 15 years by NRL player Sean Garlick with his brother Nathan Garlick.
How many more restructure plans before Metcash is restructured?

In 2013 Ian Morrice assumed office as Chief Executive Officer of Metcash. Morrice was formerly the Group CEO and Managing Director of New Zealand retail chain The Warehouse.

In 2012 he was appointed Non-Executive director on the Board of Metcash and in July 2013 took up his position as CEO.

Since 2013 the supermarket game has not been a walk in the park for Metcash with stiff competition from Coles and Woolworths and the growing prominence of Aldi.

2013

For the 12 months ended 30 June 2013, Metcash reported mixed financial results in what it described tough trading conditions.

The company announced a drop in sales in its food and grocery sector of 2.3 per cent from AUD $9.3 billion to AUD $9.1 billion, which it said was largely due to the closure of several of its Campbells branches, and a number of Cornetts and Walters stores in Far North Queensland and Western Australia.

At the time, Morrice said the results were credible considering the economic conditions but that he had indicated a strategic planning process.

I have initiated a strategic planning process, which will be complete by the end of 2013, Mr Morrice said. This process will develop our strategic priorities, growth opportunities and build on the great platform that Andrew (Reitzer, prior CEO to Morrice) and the team have created, he said at the time.

A key priority will be to review the Food and Grocery operations to respond to the ongoing deflationary and competitive market conditions. There is an ongoing focus for the group as we continue to invest in our core logistics capabilities, and optimise the value of recent acquisitions and supply contracts, Morrice said in 2013.

By the end of the year, Metcashs Food and Grocery was split into two separate divisions described by the company as necessary to drive execution of the strategic plan currently being finalised.

2014

In March 2014 Metcash revealed its strategic plan, a five year plan called Project Diamond. As part of project Diamond Metcash said it would generate growth through inventory replanning, re-structuring of private labels and various price reductions due to the introduction of a Price Match pilot.

Prices on 2500 items were cut in 34 pilot stores to see impacts on sales growth. A reduction on inventory also occurred to make room for new products.

Metcash also said at the time it aimed to convert more independent retailers into its liquor, hardware and automotive banners.

2015

In 2015, Metcash entered what it described as the Working Smarter phase of its transformation plan.

It came as the company announced an overall; 20 per cent increase in profit after tax for the six months ended the 31 October 2015 but a decline in food and grocery profit.

In announcing the results Morrice said that Metcash continued to invest in the groups turnaround.

We have commenced Working Smarter, the next stage of the Groups Transformation Plan, designed to reduce complexity, make it simpler for customers and suppliers to do business with Metcash and to reduce our cost of doing business, Morrice said.

In addition, we will look to develop future growth opportunities and invest in new channels. Recently we have begun exporting Australian product, sold direct to consumers in China through Alibabas online Tmall platform, Morrice stated at the time.

In 2015 Metcash also reported its Diamond stores which under the Diamond Project signed up for store refreshments and addressed issues surrounding price and fresh produce availability, were experiencing increased sales.

Additionally, in June Metcash 2015 decided to sell the automotive division of its company which included Autobarn and Midas brands.

2016

According to Fairfax, Metcash is now currently planning a new restructure which will see it set up various service hubs to support its private labels instead of the state and national support centres it has now.

It is expected more details will be revealed when Metcash announces it financial results for the 12 months ended 30 June 2016.
As Earlysville residents David and Gini Parker watched the news in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, they were struck by the thousands of people unable to quickly inform friends or family of their whereabouts. Gini Parker also felt the tragedy of lost pets.

The pets really got me, she said.

In response, the husband and wife invented a system to address the communication crises that follow large-scale disasters. The couple received a patent in January for a method to reunite lost pets with their owners. The system extends the capabilities of the Parkers original person-to-person messaging system, which was awarded a patent in 2013.

The patent is the long-awaited result of a lot of late nights, Gini Parker said.

David Parker is a patent agent, so the couple wrote and filed the patent themselves.

A lot of research goes into it, he said.

That research centered on crisis communications after Hurricane Katrina, which David considered inadequate and, in some cases, even futile.

The storm destroyed nearby cellphone towers, and calls by military and emergency workers crowded airwave frequencies, limiting the number of calls that displaced persons and their families could make.

Internet services were well-intentioned but hardly user-friendly: A CNN webpage to help families locate missing loved ones listed 28 links to possible sources of information. Organizations such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross created databases to connect victims with relatives, but the systems required in-person registration and did not provide expedited identification of the deceased, according to the Parkers patent application.

Pets, too, were dislocated in vast numbers.

The Louisiana SPCA estimates that more than 15,500 animals were rescued but that only about 15 percent to 20 percent were reunited with their owners. When Louisiana facilities overflowed, pets were transported to shelters and fostering agencies across the country.

They were shipping pets to anywhere that would take dogs and cats, Gini Parker said.

To solve these challenges, David Parker devised a large-scale, person-to-person messaging system. The system envisions a mailbox associated with individual telephone numbers, but one with a three-digit prefix specific to the disaster attached to each number.

Anyone with the individuals telephone number could dial in the prefix  sort of like an additional area code  followed by the persons number, and call or leave messages, and anyone else whos interested can call [the number] and play the messages, David Parker explained.

In a letter to FEMA, Gini Parker described the emergency phone number as a bulletin board of information about dislocated, deceased or missing persons.

The technology for reconnecting lost pets with their owners is similar.

For instance, if pet owners have a microchip in their animal or a phone number on the animals ID tag, then messages about the pets whereabouts also can be left at that number.

The Parkers describe their model as having a different philosophy of being more open. Their system makes information available to a wider group of people than FEMAs National Emergency Family Registry and Locator System. It also supports more detailed information than the American Red Crosss Safe and Well program.

David Parker acknowledges that this relative openness would require some safeguards, such as something equivalent to a do not call [list] for advertisers and similar groups. However, to him, the benefits of the system outweigh such potential drawbacks.

The Parkers next step is to find a sponsor to implement their ideas.

Our goal now is to get Google or FEMA or somewhere to take it on to set up software, Gini Parker said.

She said she mailed FEMA an outline of their idea but has not yet heard back.

Without formal feedback, it is difficult to measure the merits and viability of their system.

However, the fact that the couple obtained a patent suggests that their design has considerable potential.

While the U.S. Patent Office is unable to comment on individual patents, its website states that an invention must have a useful purpose and  operativeness and be sufficiently different from what has been used or described before in order to receive a patent.

Chelsea Mitchell, marketing and promotions coordinator at the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA, agreed that the Parkers invention addresses an important issue.

Any person wants a pet to be reunited with its owner. [The separation] is so traumatizing for both parties, she said.

Housing large numbers of lost pets also presents a considerable expense for shelters, she said, as the organizations must work to track down pets owners, transport the pets to their owners location and provide medical care and upkeep in the interim. The longer lost pets remain at shelters, the more taxing they are on the facilities resources.

For now, the Parkers are waiting for a response from FEMA and considering other institutions to pitch their work to, including the national SPCA.

Its very difficult to sell as an individual inventor, David Parker acknowledged.

However, the pair is determined to give it their best shot.

Elise Hansen is a correspondent for The Daily Progress.
LONDON - England - George Osborne today made a pro-EU speech at Stansted Airport alongside Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary where they claimed that air fares would rise if we left the EU. O'Leary has previously described the EU as an 'evil empire' and has also, along with many other airline bosses, made clear that air fares would not be affected by a leave vote.

Responding, Vote Leave Chief Executive, Matthew Elliott said:

These warnings lack credibility given that Mr OLeary said the complete opposite just a few months ago.

George Osborne appeared today alongside one man who thinks that the EU is an evil empire and another who said that the Chancellor does not understand economics.

George Osborne is panicking about his failing campaign so he is resorting to ever more lurid scare stories. His problem is that hes told so many tall tales that people no longer believe what he and David Cameron say on the EU any more.

Here are the FACTS

The Chief Executive of Ryanair has previously been highly critical of the EU and admitted air fares would not rise if we take back control.

Michael OLeary of Ryanair has previously been very critical of the EU, which he has called an evil empire:

You work in the Commission and pay higher prices by law because, lets face it, the European taxpayer is going to pay for it anyway. The European Union spends most of its time either suing me, torturing me, criticising me or condemning me for lowering the cost of air travel all over Europe and making life really difficult for their favourite airlines Any hint of innovation is left at the door when you walk in to become politicians and bureaucrats. Its certainly not going to be a conference held in Brussels, where the last innovative idea came in 1922.

OLeary previously said that Will a Brexit on its own cause air fares to rise? No. His current warnings therefore are simply not credible.

The Head of British Airways has said airfares will not go up if we Vote Leave and that British airlines will still be able to fly between countries within the EU.

The head of British Airways parent company, Willie Walsh, has made clear he does not foresee leaving the EU as having any impact on our business.

Bjorn Kjos, Chief Executive of Norwegian Air, was asked whether he would employ fewer people in the UK in the event of a vote to leave. He said: no. He was asked whether he would fly fewer routes. He said no. He was asked whether airfares would go up. He replied No, I dont think so. We are here providing low fares to everybody whether you are in the EU or not thats not the problem.

There are serious questions about the aircraft that has been painted with the Britain Stronger in Europe (BSE) campaigns slogan, stronger safer & better off in Europe (sic).

Ryanair has not registered as a permitted participant with the Electoral Commission.

This means it is unlawful for Ryanair to incur more than 10,000 on Advertising of any nature (whatever the medium used), The provision of any services or facilities in connection with press conferences or other dealings with the media, and Rallies and other events, including public meetings organised so as to obtain publicity in connection with a referendum campaign or for other purposes connected with a referendum campaign.

Estimates of the cost of painting an aircraft are over $50,000. Ryanair is thus acting in an illegal and unlawful manner during this current EU referendum contravening the law.

EU membership undermines international cooperation in aviation.

In December 2011, the European Court upheld a Directive which allowed the EU to regulate aircraft registered in third countries while they were in transit in international airspace.

These attempts to extend the EUs jurisdiction extraterritorially could place airlines under conflicting regulatory obligations and are liable to undermine international cooperation.

The Association of European Airlines has suggested that the EUs policies could cause a trade conflict between the EU and third countries.

The Chancellors claim that trade would fall by 200 billion in the event of a vote to leave are contradicted by the Prime Minister who dismissed such warnings as scaremongering.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has admitted: If we were outside the EU altogether, wed still be trading with all these European countries, of course we would  Of course the trading would go on  Theres a lot of scaremongering on all sides of this debate. Of course the trading would go on.

The UKs former Ambassador to the EU and leading supporter of the BSE campaign, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, has admitted: there is no doubt that the UK could secure a free trade agreement with the EU. That is not an issue.

Even the pro-EU CBI has said: the UK is highly likely to secure a Free Trade Agreement with the EU, and such an agreement would be likely to be negotiated at an extremely high level of ambition relative to other FTAs [free trade agreements].

The pro-EU Centre for European Reform has accepted that, given the importance of the UK market to the eurozone, the UK would probably have little difficulty in negotiating an FTA.

Being in the EU means that we have lost control of our air transport policy.

Being in the EU means that the UK has lost control of air transport. Under the EU Treaties, the EU institutions have the power to make laws on air transport. The UK does not have a veto. A vote to leave will make the UK a more influential voice for international cooperation, since we will regain our right of veto.

The EU is increasingly attempting to supersede the UKs voice in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The Commission argues that a more co-ordinated EU external aviation policy is the logical consequence of the EU internal market and associated common rules. Since aviation policy is an EU competence, the EU can force the UK to adopt common EU positions in the ICAO. The safer option is to Vote Leave and to take back control of aviation policy.

Those campaigning on the same platform today have previously said they cannot be trusted on the economy. We should not listen to their advice now.

Ed Balls has previously said the Chancellor of the Exchequers economic policies are irresponsible, and dangerous.

Osborne has said for the last decade in the good years, Germany fixed the roof when the sun was shining and he [the Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls] did not when he was in government (ITV News, 17 May 2012, link).

Vince Cable has said the Chancellor is extremely cynical, and that he didnt really engage with economic stuff  he took that from the Treasury. The economy turned out alright, but I dont think that was because of him.

Vince Cable has also condemned George Osbornes austerity agenda, talking about the need to protect the things you will take a cleaver to.

Ed Balls has previously said of Vince Cable that: The business secretary knew this plan would fail. He now knows he is deeply implicated in the failure, but he doesnt have the courage to stand up and say it. No wonder in yesterdays Budget he was ignored. It is a personal tragedy as well as a national tragedy.
LONDON - England - George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has suggested that window tax may be reintroduced in Britain as early as next year.

I want to reintroduce the window tax that was first imposed in 1696 where anyone who owned a property had to pay tax for the number of windows in their homes. At that time it was a mere few shillings, but today it will be about 200 per window per annum. In addition to council tax, income tax, fuel tax, road tax, value added tax, pasty tax, national insurance, TV tax, business rates, stamp duty, and all the other taxes, I am sure you will enjoy this new addition to our revenue stream, Mr Osborne announced on the BBCs breakfast show today.

Daylight Robbery

In anticipation of the new window taxes, millions of Britons are now bricking over their windows to ensure they pay a minimum amount of window taxation.

Weve only got two windows in our home but weve had to concrete over them both because with all the other taxes we are paying we cant afford to pay anymore taxes, Giles Wetherington, 48, from East Grinstead, told the Daily Mail.

Anne Seebore, 58, from Barnet, London said on the BBCs news at six: We dont get much sunlight in the winter months anyway, I suppose getting no sunlight is just another part of living in modern-day Britain. Oh well, heres to rickets and darkness.


Flagstaff police are asking for the publics help in locating a vehicle last seen being driven by a suspected murderer out of Colorado and considered armed and dangerous.

The car is a white 2014 Toyota Corolla with a temporary paper plate in back window: CO 888-ZVE and a black front bumper.

Police have identified the driver as Kenneth Ray Bastidos, 30, who is described as a Hispanic male, 5 feet, 8 inches tall, 180 pounds, with black-brown hair who is wanted for a homicide that occurred May 4 in Adams County, Colo.

The Corolla was last seen around 1:30 p.m. Sunday heading westbound on Interstate 40 at the Interstate 17 interchange. The driver outran a police chase that began on East Route 66 in Flagstaff after a passenger notified police she was traveling with a wanted suspect out of Colorado.

The suspect is believed to be armed and dangerous and has threatened suicide by cop. The Flagstaff Police Department is asking for the publics assistance in locating this vehicle and the driver. If located do not approach and call 911 immediately.
Travel Magazine, by Liz Gill

Holiday-makers have been steering clear of Egypt recently. Liz Gill found her trip to be plain sailing





I have always wanted to discover Ancient Egypt, to see the sheer scale of the great sites, such as Karnak  some 60 acres in size  for myself. Theres 5,000 years of history to discover, building techniques, mummification processes, the meanings of hieroglyphs and the extraordinary complexities of the Ancient Egyptians religion with all its divinities, sacred animals, obsession with and preparation for life after death. Its spellbinding.

However, holiday-makers have been steering clear of Egypt recently and the shooting down of the Russian plane last November though hundreds of miles away in Sinai has meant numbers plummeted even further, down by as much as 90 per cent. Whats more, out of the 350 cruise ships on the Nile only 70 are currently sailing.

Nevertheless, I boarded one of them  the five star vessel the Oberoi Philae. On the flight to Luxor and transfer to the ship everyone was desperately keen to stress their security measures: the bank of cameras in a control room in Luxor which scan almost every inch of the place (one foiled an attempt to put a bomb in car park last year); the guards on every Egyptair flight, the sniffer dogs, the scanners, the barriers at hotel grounds and attractions.

Oberoi Philae luxury Nile cruiser  Oberoi Hotels & Resorts

No guarantees can be given of course and the bizarre hijacking a month ago did not help the situation but it is worth remembering that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office does not advise against travel to Egypts main tourist areas. We all felt safe but we also felt sorry for all those welcoming strangers who begged us to tell people to please come to Egypt.

I was glad I did. Tarek our guide talks about the origin of the phrases light-hearted or blue-blooded or where the idea of haloes came from or who decided on circle with a cross on the bottom as the symbol for a woman? The answers, he tells us, may come from ancient Egypt.

After death, a persons soul was weighed against a feather, bad deeds would weigh it down, good ones buoy it up. Divinities were painted blue hence an association over the years with high rank. They were also depicted with the sphere of the sun god Ra on their heads which Christians, hiding from Roman persecutions in the old temples, might have adapted for their new religion. And some academics think our sign for the female came from the ankh, the symbol of life and birth.

Perhaps one of the most astonishing aspects of ancient Egypt is how contemporary they were. They practised advanced dentistry, obstetrics and orthopaedics, who had female rulers as well as males and drew pictures with such simple lines that they were Picasso-esque. They also built extraordinary constructions to which todays engineers still pay their respects.

Karnak has massive stone temples, giant statues, huge obelisks. The hand of one fallen statue currently being reassembled is the size of a man. To walk among them is to feel you have shrunk Alice-in-Wonderland style. And across the Nile on the West bank in the valleys of the dead are more than 700 tombs of pharaohs and their queens, of nobles and artisans. But even this number, say the experts, may be only a third of the still hidden total.

Karnak Temple, Luxor, Egypt (c) wikimedia/Marc Ryckaert

The temples at Luxor and Karnak are joined by a three kilometre avenue of rams headed sphinxes. They were impressive, but how much more so would they have been 3,500 years ago when the obelisks were topped with gold and every inch of stone covered with pictures and hieroglyphs in dazzling colours? Ongoing restoration work forbids retouching but even without that it is possible to see from the colours that have been revealed so far just how vibrant they must have been in their glory years.

The countrys dry heat has helped preserve the sites as has the fact that many of them were abandoned for centuries, submerged beneath the silt of the flooding Nile or the sands of the desert and largely ignored.

Three royal tombs are open at any one time plus the most famous of them all  that of the boy king Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 by the British archaeologist Howard Carter. The house where he lived during his long years of study and searching supported by his patron Lord Carnarvon (whose seat, incidentally, Highclere Castle is the setting for Downton Abbey) is now open to the public and houses the young pharoahs actual mummy: small  just over five feet  and slight, blackened and shrivelled by mummification, a poignant contrast to the glorious gold death mask, golden sarcophagus and 4,000 pieces of treasure entombed with him.

Carter though must have had a sentimental streak. He found the circle of withered flowers left by the young widowed queen as beautiful as the wondrous things and regal splendours. There was for me something similarly touching in the scenes of domesticity on the walls of the artisans tombs. For these husbands and wives, buried together in contrast to the lonely splendour of their rulers, the afterlife was an idealised version of this life with all its comforts and joys and none of its sorrows.

The cruise ended at Aswan where we took a boat across to the temple of Philae. This originally stood on a site which would have been submerged when the great dam was built so it was completely dismantled, each one of its 41,000 stones marked with a letter and a number and the entire edifice relocated to its current location. Only one stone, our guide Tarek shows us, was wrongly placed upside down.

Philae Temple, Aswan, Egypt (c) wikimedia/Mohammed Moussa

We say goodbye to him before flying to Cairo for a whistle-stop tour of the Pyramids and the Sphinx and the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. This houses 120,000 items so we concentrate on a few highlights particularly the Tutankhamun treasures.

Cyplon Holidays offer a night in Luxor at the Maritim Jolie Ville hotel, four nights on the Oberoi Philae with full board and an English speaking Egyptologist on all excursions and two nights at the Conrad Hotel in Cairo, all five star, from 2489 per person. Price includes return flights from Heathrow with Egyptair and private transfers.
This page may be updated if the event is repeated

Past Event - Saturday, May 21, 2016 This page may be updated if the event is repeated

Free Event

Everybody at Scene75 is ready to get down for the Hoedown!

Join us for this country themed party on Saturday May 21st starting at 8pm on the Scene75 Dayton Sand Volleyball Courts & Patio. Well have line dancing, drink specials, a mechanical bull, corn hole, horseshoes and everything country to make your Saturday night amazing!

Where: Scene75 Dayton Sand Volleyball Courts & Patio (6196 Poe Avenue Dayton, OH 45414)

Time: Saturday May 21st 8pm  1am

Cost: There is no cover charge for this event

This event does not have an age requirement, but this event is not intended/directed for children.
Free Event

Join us at the Annual Canal Music Fest and enjoy an evening of food, friends and great music! This is a FREE event!

Canal Music Fest 2022

The second annual, all local Canal Music Fest will be held on June 11, 2022, at City Park in Tipp City, Ohio and will feature local favorites "Stranger" and more. Join us as we go all local, all night! Food and beverages will be available for purchase. No coolers or backpacks are permitted. The Canal Music Fest is a FREE, family-friendly event.
Hyderabad: Apple CEO Tim Cook will visit India later this week and is likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as the iPhone maker seeks to cash in on the huge potential in the worlds second largest smartphone market. He is also likely to visit Hyderabad.

Mr Cook is expected to discuss matters pertaining to manufacturing in India and the potential of the Indian technology market, according to sources. However, Apple declined to comment on his schedule when contacted. The Apple CEOs visit comes at a crucial time when the US-based firm is focusing on new growth markets like India after posting its first-ever decline in iPhone sales.

In an interview earlier this month, Mr Cook had said Apple sees a huge market potential for its products in India and that it is really putting energy in the country. Apple has sent in a proposal to the Centre for selling refurbished phones in India. No official call has been made.

Cook to visit India to boost sales

Mr Cooks visit, following a trip to China, comes at a crucial time as Apple looks for new growth markets after posting its first ever decline in iPhone sales, and as India has denied it permission to sell refurbished phones  a move seen as key to appealing to price-sensitive local consumers.

However when Apple spokesperson in India was contacted by this newspaper he refused to confirm the visit. We neither deny that Apple CEO Tim Cook is coming to India nor we confirm it, said Apple spokesperson.

With no official confirmation about Mr Cooks schedule available, there was some confusion about his arrival date. A report by Reuters suggested that Mr Cook will meet Mr Modi on Tuesday, while Indian news agency PTI claimed that the Apple CEO would be visit India later this week.

Though he is also expected to meet employees and partners, all the details were kept secret. If he happens to visit India later this week, there is a possibility of Mr Cook visiting Hyderabad as Apple is scheduled to inaugurate its R&D centre in the city.

During their meeting with Mr Cook, government officials may try to find out if Apple plans to set up factories in India for the local market. If they can make in China to cater to the Chinese market then they can make for Indian markets here, said Reuters quoting its source.

The Apple CEOs visit comes at a crucial time when the US-based firm is focusing on new growth markets like India after posting its first-ever decline in iPhone sales.

In an interview earlier this month, Mr Cook had referred to a huge market potential for its products in India and that it is really putting energy in the country.

Addressing analysts in a conference call, Mr Cook had said that India presents a really great opportunity but slow networks and the informal retail structure across the country is holding the company back from realising its full potential.

While its sales in China, its second-largest market after the United States, fell 11 per cent, in India iPhone sales were up 56 per cent from a year ago. But I view India as where China was maybe seven to ten years ago. From that point of view, and I think theres a really great opportunity there, Apples top official had said.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
The brokerage has upgraded IT sector to overweight given its realistic earnings expectation and reasonable valuations.

Mumbai: With the valuation premium of Indian equity markets over their Asian peers shrinking during the last few months, global brokerage house HSBC has upgraded Indian equities to neutral stating that green shoots are emerging with demand for cement, long consumption steel and power showing signs of improvement. HSBC has raised its year-end Sensex target to 26,000 from its earlier estimate of 25,000.

Although green shoots are emerging, there remains some moderate downside risk to earnings. We now expect Indian equities to move in line with the rest of Asia. As such, we upgrade India to neutral in a regional portfolio, said Devendra Joshi, equity strategist, Asia-Pacific, HSBC.

Global investors use credit ratings assigned by organisations like Moodys to make their investment decisions. A neutral outlook means Indian equity markets are not overpriced or underpriced.

HSBC had an underweight outlook since April 2015 as the Indian equities were selling at a premium in expectation of Prime Minister Narendra Modis reforms agenda.

With investors expressing concern over the slow pace of reforms, the Indian equities have lost their premium and are now in line with other Asian markets.

India has underperformed MSCI Asia ex-Japan by 2.5 per cent till date in 2016.

This, according to HSBC, was because valuations were high, rising crude oil and commodity prices helped commodity exporters more than commodity importers, and mutual funds portfolio positions were already significantly overweight at the start of the year.

By the end of last year, the markets were pricing in diminished prospects of reform under the Narendra Modi government, the key reason for us being underweight since April 2015. We believe this underperformance will now come to an end, HSBC said in its India strategy report.

According to it, Indias valuation premium to Asia has declined and is now approaching a 10-year average premium. While domestic liquidity has improved due to several measures announced by the central bank, HSBC pointed out that investor holdings have also come down, which is positive for the markets.

The brokerage has upgraded IT sector to overweight given its realistic earnings expectation and reasonable valuations. We downgrade healthcare sector to neutral on high earnings expectations and rich valuations. We remain overweight on consumer staples and utilities, neutral on energy and consumer discretionary and underweight on financials (we prefer private banks), the brokerage said.
The film, Hum Hain Naughty Naughty, has been refused permission for release after it was found to be showing the god-woman in bad light.

New Delhi: The Central Board of Film Certification has rejected certification to a Hindi movie based on the life of a self-proclaimed Hindu god-woman. The film, Hum Hain Naughty Naughty, has been refused permission for release after it was found to be showing the god-woman in bad light.

Sources stated that the protagonist has been shown to be of promiscuous nature and indulging in immoral activities. The film was submitted to the CBFC twice and has been rejected by its revising committee, sources added. In the film produced by Naughty Nautanki Enter-tainment, the lead actor is known as Anuradhey Maa who has an uncanny resemblance to a controversial Hindu god-woman. The certification has been denied by the CBFC as it was felt that it could affect public order, decency or morality.

While the film awaits clearance from the CBFC, its trailers are already doing the rounds of YouTube. The producers of the film are now expected to approach the courts or the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal.
Raveena Tandon has finally decided to hit the silver screens again this year, after a prolonged break. Recently spotted in New Delhi for the shoot of her upcoming release Maatr: The Mother, the actress talks in detail about her role and how the movie is all set to address the judicial system of our nation.

The movie is a depiction of the growing violence against women in India. Sharing the intention behind the plot, the actress states, The movie, to a great extent, speaks about our system failure. The idea is to portray what can happen, what should happen and what can be done in situations such as these.

Distressed with the rampant increase of violence against women in recent times, the actress explains, It is common to hear about brutal cases in every city and state these days. We know that it has happened in Delhi multiple times and recently even in Kerala. And it is very disheartening to see when the system fails to provide justice to the victims and their families in such incidents.

Voicing her concern she shares, Violence against women does not solely include rape. It includes incidents of domestic violence, molestation and even eve teasing. The problem is that there is no stringent punishment or deterrent, where people actually end up fearing the repercussions of such inhuman acts.

She adds, In other countries the age for juveniles has been moved down to 14 or 16. India is one among the few countries where the bar is still set at 18. If the boy is old enough to rape, he is most certainly old enough to take the punishment. I am not saying that death should be the answer to all such crimes, but a psychological evaluation must be done of the person and the extent of brutality should be analysed to conclude the type of punishment these people deserve.
English model Cara Delevingne was detained by railway security in Paris while she was travelling back to London, after she reportedly swore at an official.

A source told The Sun, It was a full-on meltdown in the middle of security.

There were at least 20 people around and she didn't seem to care who saw, and added that Cara had said f*** you to a security official when she was randomly selected for a security check. Cara was said to have been detained for over an hour by security, after which she emerged from their room with red eyes as though she had been crying.
Thulasi who started her career as a child artiste in Sankarabharanam, went on to act with the likes of Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan and Karthik. The talented actress, who quit acting post her wedding, returned to the big screen a few years later as she gave her nod for a mother role in Kannada film Excuse Me, which was a big hit. Ever since, she has become a sought after maternal figure in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada.

Recently, she had a surprise visitor on the sets of Brahmo tsavam, in which, she essays the mother of Kajal Agarwal. And the visitor was none other than Shah Rukh Khan, who gave a pleasant shock to those who were working on the sets.

Close sources said he was heaping laurels on Thulasis performance and even took a selfie with the Pannayaarum Padminiyum actress.
In Tamil Nadu where cinema and politics go hand- in-hand (and where Ktown has had its share of chief ministers) election campaigns are truly incomplete without the involvement of movie stars to add an extra dose of glitz and glamour!

Now that the big day is finally upon us, DC takes a look at the various stars who campaigned for various parties in the most innovative and quirky ways possible.

Even as the Election Commission roped in some celebs like Suriya for their voting awareness videos, few star speakers like Kushboo, Vindhiya, Senthil and others resorted to the tried-and-tested traditional methods of campaigning. Others like Partheipan, Simbu and rapper Blaaze chipped in their bit, by composing songs spreading the message of voting responsibly. Some were even more progressive, putting their clout on social media to good use!

If the votes received by politicians are a reflection of their popular agenda, then film stars too, should wield considerable power as their popularity can sway the minds of voters  whether this holds true or not, we shall see.

Kushboo, the spokesperson for Congress, Vindhiya and Senthil, who support AIADMK, Vijayakumar, and Gangai Amaren from BJP all opted to the usual strategy of hitting out at their opponents  but this has its own share of pros and cons. One only needs to recall how top comedian Vadivelu was dumped by film producers after the party he supported failed to win in the last assembly elections!

Suriyas dubsmash video wherein he enacts Rajinikanths popular Muthu dialogue followed by a message urging the voters to exercise their franchise was a huge hit. But the actor who is away on vacation, may not be here on the polling day! In a statement issued, Suriya has extended his apologies for the same. He said, I have never missed franchising my vote so far. This time, I tried my level best to return to Chennai, but unfortunately, I could not make it. Having urged the people of TN to vote through my awareness videos, I feel bad for not being there. My sincere apologies!

Trying to come out of his Beep Song controversy, Simbu released a Vote Song urging people to vote today. The song, which starts off with the lines Vote Podu Mama, has been crooned and composed by STR himself. Targeted at the youth and first time voters, the Election Commission also brought out a song as well  Vote Podu in collaboration with rapper Blaaze.

Parthiepan who does everything in his inimitable style requested people to vote, at least for NOTA. The director-actors message is clear  I oppose all free things that are given to the people to garner votes. We have rights to get free amenities but not in this way. It is governments duty to provide all people with free hospitality and free quality education. When NOTA (none of the above) becomes popular, the political parties will definitely consider doing something useful for people.

With the advent of technology, poll campaigning also has advanced this time with social media, Whatsapp, and YouTube playing a major role in propelling various parties ideas. While it was Stalins son-in-law who was behind the highly creative DMK campaign, Dr Azhagu Tamil Selvi, daughter of late actor and politician Isari Velan came up with some unique ideas for the AIADMK candidates with gadgets like LEDs and iPads explaining Ammas welfare schemes. The DMDKs IT wing led by Sudheesh, were also predominantly active on Whatsapp media outreach schemes.

It is safe to say that these elections, as always, have a staggering dash of star power added to them!
Kameela Nassers tweet raised many an eyebrow. A few days ago she had tweeted, Please dont cast Nasser in role invisible in the total film. Unable to answer calls since morning. Respect friendship. Ko 2 after effect (sic).

When DC contacted Kameela, she said with a laugh, Oh, its not because I was not happy that Nasser didnt have a substantial role to play in the movie. Though its a small role, it forms an important part of the story. But I am really tired of people who were asking me why Nasser wanted to do blink-and-miss roles. After I tweeted, nobody called me.

However, Kameela was generally not happy with the limited screen presence being offered to her husband these days.

I cant name who they are. But big names and producers convince my husband even if its a cameo role or guest appearance. He has been in the industry for a long time and to him; only the friendship and goodwill matters. He really doesnt have any complaints about doing so. He tells me, I am an actor. No matter how big or small the role is, Ill still do it, she clarified.
The study is published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

London: You may want to consider putting your potential partner into the friend zone first as a new study suggests so.

According to the US psychologists, being friends in a relationship is the "most important factor" for satisfying sex life and longevity.

One of the authors, Laura VanderDrift, told The Independent that finding a partner who was "first and foremost a friend" was a good predictor of the long-term success of a relationship.

The study, carried out at Purdue University in Indiana, surveyed 184 people who had been in relationships for 16 months or more and asked them what they valued most about their relationship.

Dr VanderDrift noted that couples trying to improve their relationship could solve several problems at once simply by focusing on being friends and having more shared interests and "friendship-type experiences."

The study is published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
After falling in love with Indian street food during his Kolkata trip, Chef Angus Denoon decided to give Londoners a taste of what they had been missing by setting up The Everybody Love Love Jhalmuri Express stall. Denoon, who has made a film on Kolkatas roadside food stalls in the past, went on to Jhalmuri for the first time during a pilot for a cooking show in London.

Chef Angus Denoon managed to impress Londoners with his special Jhalmuri dish. (Credit: YouTube)

The only dish that I felt confident to cook was Jhalmuri because there is no cooking, he shares on his website. Encouraged by seeing the Indian snack becoming a hit with the local people, he decided to set up a stall and started selling Jhalmuri on the streets of London.

Chef Angus Denoon now takes his van to parts of London to give people a taste of authentic Indian food. (Photo: Facebook)

Not only has his stall now evolved into a colourfully decorated van, his menu has also expanded to other street delicacies from India like Gathia, Pulcha, Gujarati Dal and others. Heres an old video about Denoons extraordinary journey that has gone viral again.
The police are probing the possibility of a bigger racket involving Uzbek women flourishing in the area. (Representational image: PTI)

New Delhi: A woman, whose husband allegedly raped a 23-year-old lady from Uzbekistan, has been arrested for blackmailing and trying to force her into flesh trade in New Delhi.

The accused Anjali has been arrested but her husband Altaf is absconding, the police said.

According to the police, the woman alleged she was raped by Altaf, who introduced her to his wife Anjali and the couple blackmailed her and tried to force her into flesh trade.

It said Altaf had befriended the Uzbek woman on Facebook and she flew down to Delhi on May 6 after being lured by him on marriage promise.

Altaf then took her to a hotel where he allegedly raped her and filmed the act, the police said, adding that he then began to blackmail her with his wife.

The couple, she alleged, had snatched her passport, visa and money. They also confined her into a room and allegedly beat her up regularly. She was forced to attend to the guests, the woman claimed, it said.

The complainant confided into a friend living in Delhi and they approached the Vasant Kunj (north) police station.

A case has been registered under IPC Sections 370 (buying or disposing of any person as a slave) and 376 (rape). A case under the immoral trafficking act has also been registered and the police are probing the possibility of a bigger racket involving Uzbek women flourishing in the area.
Hyderabad: A day after Union minister Bandaru Dattatreyas official mobile phone was stolen from his residence, police said they could not track the mobile as it was switched off.

After the ministers Samsung phone was stolen from his Ramnagar residence on Sunday morning, police collected clues and launched an investigation. The dysfunctional CCTV cameras at the minister's residence also delayed tracking the thief.

The CCTV footage collected from Srinivasa Textiles, located opposite the minister's residence also did not help the police. However, the SIM card was not blocked. Sources close to the minister said that they did not block the SIM as that would make the job of tracking the mobile phone difficult.

Meanwhile, Musheerabad police investigating the case said the investigation is going on. There are no leads so far. We are investigating the case, central zone DCP V.B. Kamalasan Reddy said.

On Sunday morning, the ministers Grey colour mobile Samsung J7 phone was stolen from his residence. The minister was in the house and there were around 30 visitors. The phone kept ringing immediately after the assistants found it missing and called it but no one answered the call. After a few minutes, the phone was switched off.
Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary said that expenditure of print media stood at Rs 1.67 crore while an amount of Rs 3.72 crore was spent to advertise the road-rationing policy on electronic media.

New Delhi: Delhi's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government spent nearly Rs 15 crore on advertisments in the print media during the 91-day period till May 11, according to an RTI reply.

The list of publications which had received money from the Kejriwal government for carrying the advertisements interestingly included dailes from Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha and Tamil Nadu among other states.

The Delhi government disbursed a total amount of Rs 14.56 crore for advertising excluding broadcast from February 10 to May 11, according to a reply provided to a RTI query by advocate Aman Panwar.

The AAP government came under attack from the opposition Congress on Monday for its advertising campaigns. "On one hand we don't have money to pay to safai karamcharis for salary, on one hand we don't have money even to pay for pension but on the other they are spending huge amounts (for advertisements) for self publicity," Congress Leader Ajay Maken said.

The Delhi government spent around Rs 5 crore in publicising the two rounds of the odd-even scheme, implemented for 15 days each in January and April respectively, the Lok Sabha was told recently.

Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary said that expenditure of print media stood at Rs 1.67 crore while an amount of Rs 3.72 crore was spent to advertise the road-rationing policy on electronic media.

"As informed by the government of NCT of Delhi, the total expenditure on odd and even campaign so far is Rs 539.41 lakh (Rs 5.39 crore)," the Minister said in reply to a question.

The Opposition has targeted Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over the odd-even measure, enforced as an anti-pollution initiative by the AAP government, terming it as a "publicity stunt".
New Delhi: The Supreme Court's order to have a single entrance test NEET for admissions to medical and dental colleges was on Monday welcomed by almost all states though some of them flagged concerns over holding it in the current year itself as Centre kicked off the consultation process on the issue.

Amid reports that Centre may bring an ordinance to bypass the apex court's ruling making NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) mandatory, Union Health Minister J P Nadda held deliberations with state health ministers on the common gateway during which some states sought more time to implement it.

Nadda said the future course of action will be thought of "soon" as the Centre was committed to bringing in transparency in medical education system and remove alleged malpractices.

Health Ministers and representatives of 18 states and Union Territories attended the meeting.

The Union Health Minister said although most states are in favour of NEET "in principle", some have talked about logistical issues that are "impeding" its implementation.

"Most States are in favour of NEET in principle. However, some states have expressed that there are some logistics issues that are impeding its implementation, and therefore they have desired for some more time.

"We will need more discussions with the state governments on the NEET issue. Today, we had discussions on language, syllabus and state governments' concerns over state medical entrance examinations. We have to solve all the problems of the states before NEET is conducted across the country," Nadda said.

He said his Ministry will apprise the Supreme Court of the state governments' apprehensions on NEET only after arriving at a conclusion.

At the meeting, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain came out in full support of the Supreme Court order and requested the Centre to implement it at the earliest to bring in reform.

The Supreme Court had ruled that starting this academic session, students would have to appear in NEET to seek admission to medical or dental colleges in the country.

The apex court order had implied that all government colleges, deemed universities and private medical colleges would be covered under NEET and those examinations which had already taken place or were slated to be conducted separately stand scrapped.

Nadda said all states agreed that the NEET was a welcome move for bringing in transparency and removing several malpractices in the field of medical education.

However, during the meeting some states said the examination process was either underway or was soon to commence for admission to various state government medical colleges.

Others referred to the issue of the syllabus of the CBSE being different from that of the State Examination Boards.

The states also said NEET should be allowed in regional languages in addition to Hindi and English to give a level playing field to students who have taken the State Board exams.

"The views and concerns of the states shall be collated and soon a future course of action shall be thought of. The Government is committed to bring about transparency in medical education and remove malpractices," he said.

Earlier this week, the apex court had turned down a batch of appeals by states seeking to conduct their own medical admission tests and ruled that "only NEET would enable students to get admission to MBBS or BDS studies".

Following the apex court's ruling, opposition parties raised concerns that students passing out from state boards in vernacular languages and living in remote areas may not be able to perform well in common entrance exam despite being competitive.

Several MPs had demanded that the government promulgate an ordinance to defer the NEET for the current academic session.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while referring to protests by many states over the Supreme Court decision on NEET had earlier today asserted that the manner of holding the test is essentially an executive matter.

"It is the case of some of the states that boards are unequal, their languages are dissimilar. Can those who are dissimilar in language and unequal be placed on the pedestal of quality and asked to give the same exam?" Jaitley asked.

"I think this matter is essentially in the Executive domain. We now have a Supreme Court judgment. We will have to see how we deal with that particular issue," he said.
The windshield of the car of BJP Coimbatore South candidate Vanathi Srinivasan broken by AIADMK men at RG Street here on Sunday. (Photo: DC)

Coimbatore: The BJP state vice-president and candidate for Coimbatore South constituency, Vanathi Srinivasan, was allegedly attacked and her car was damaged by AIADMK men at RG Street in Coimbatore on Sunday afternoon.

Three BJP cadres including a woman have been hospitalised following the attack, the BJP candidate claimed. Immediately, the AIADMK candidate for Coimbatore South Am man Arjunan, came up with a counter-complaint, alleging that five AIADMK cadres were hospitalised in the attack by BJP men.

Addressing media persons, Vanathi Srinivasan claimed that around 40 AIADMK workers led by councillor K.A. Adhina rayanan surrounded her car, abused her in a filthy language and refused to give way when she came out of a condolence meeting in the prayer hall near a Jain temple at RG Street. Police did not turn up to provide protection for her even 45 minutes after the incident, she alleged.

The AIADMK men also broke the windshield of the car and damaged a rear portion using sharp weapons. Though I tried to convince them that I did not canvass votes and just attended the condolence meet, the AIADMK cadres behaved in an unruly manner. I was almost held up for ten minutes and I was rescued and taken away from the spot by another party cadre on a two-wheeler. Police did not turn up even 45 minutes after the incident, she said.

As AIADMK is afraid of facing a defeat in the constituency, they think that they can threaten the voters who are in favour of the BJP by indulging in violence against a woman candidate, she charged.

The party has lodged a complaint with the police and Election Commission demanding action against the AIADMK workers for the attack. In a quick counter-allegati on, the AIADMK candidate said that Vanathi Sri nivasan was engaged in canvassing, when a few AIADMK men objected to it.

Then the BJP party workers resorted to violence, which left five of our cadres including two women with injuries. They are now hospitalized and we will be lodging a complaint against them with the police and election department, he said.
New Delhi: Despite two successive years of deficient rainfall, Gujarat has recorded 95 per cent crop production because of measures taken by the state government. The figures came to fore during a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the state's drought situation.

The meeting attended by Chief Minister Anandiben Patel here was also intimated that the work done by the state government for the water grid has resulted in only 568 tankers being required for water distribution in some remote tail areas, according to a PMO statement.

The Prime Minister, while appreciating this effort, called for further action to completely eliminate the need for tanker supply, the statement said.

Patel gave details of the work done by the state government towards water conservation, recharge and creation of water bodies.

She said 1.68 lakh check dams, 2.74 lakh farm ponds, 1.25 lakh Bori Bandhs have been made with storage capacity of 42.3 billion cubic feet water, benefitting 6.32 lakh hectares.

Piped water supply is being provided to 77 per cent of households in the state, the Chief Minister said.

The meeting was also informed that the measures undertaken have resulted in a reasonable amount of drought-proofing, despite deficient (about 80 per cent of long-term average) and skewed temporal distribution of rainfall, it said.

Despite two successive years of drought, crop production in the state has been estimated at 95 per cent of the normal, the meeting was told.

The meeting was told that the state has made significant progress in micro-irrigation, with 100 per cent coverage of drip or sprinkler irrigation being achieved in 3789 villages.

The creation of an elaborate canal network under the Sardar Sarovar Irrigation Scheme, has led to a significant increase in crop yields, and a positive impact on farm incomes, the Prime Minister heard and emphasized on value addition in horticulture and cash crops.

Measures to boost progress in fishery, bee-keeping, pearl culture, and seaweed, were also discussed.

The meeting ended with a resolve on the part of the Centre and state to work together, the PMO said.

The Prime Minister is in the process of meeting Chief Ministers of 11 drought-hit states. He has already met eight Chief Ministers.
Speaking from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Modi said those villagers had been "deprived of the rays of development," promising to finish the job within 1,000 days and saying the country was "not ready to wait for 10 years" (Photo: AFP)

Anandpur: Ram Kishore searched long and hard to find a suitable wife for his son, but his efforts only paid off when electricity finally came to Anandpur village this year.

It was not until the power pylons were installed as part of a government scheme to connect thousands of villages to the national grid that Kishore could persuade a prospective bride's parents to part with their daughter.

Now he is all smiles as he sits under a glowing light bulb in his single-room home in Anandpur village. Just 230 kilometres from Delhi, it has never had electricity -- until now.

"I will personally invite my daughter-in-law's family to visit us and look at the electricity meter," the 60-year-old former labourer told AFP proudly after his house was connected.

Anandpur is a beneficiary of an ambitious plan PM Narendra Modi announced in his Independence Day speech last August to bring electricity to 18,452 villages.

Government figures released last year showed that more than 300 million people in India -- the world's fastest-growing major economy -- still had no access to electricity. Per-capita electricity consumption is barely one third of the global average.

Speaking from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Modi said those villagers had been "deprived of the rays of development," promising to finish the job within 1,000 days and saying the country was "not ready to wait for 10 years".

Dinesh Arora, who runs the scheme for the power ministry, says the communities targeted are the "the toughest villages in most extreme corners of the country". Two of Arora's engineers were kidnapped and roughed up by Maoist guerrillas, while another team had to swim across a river to reach their destination.

Even once they reached the villages, some were given a hostile reception by residents suspicious of local governments that had given them little help in the past.

Each state has its own, often loss-making power providers, which are not always eager to extend provision to the poorest villages where revenues are unlikely to justify the cost.

Nonetheless, since Modi launched the scheme, over 7,700 villages have been connected to the grid.

As the main power line to Anandpur is switched on, the local men who had gathered excitedly round the visiting officials to watch the run screaming towards their mostly mud and brick houses yelling, did it come?

"My husband has promised that we will now buy a fan and sleep peacefully at night, without mosquitoes," said Urmila Devi, who lived in a village with electricity before she married and has had to get used to kerosene lamps in Anandpur.

Each of the village's 120 residents has a different take -- some women are looking forward to being able to cook indoors even after dark, which has been impossible without electric lighting.

For farm labourer Neeraj Singh, electricity means having a mobile phone that works. "Having to use a solar cell to charge was time consuming and my phone battery would stay flat for days every month," he says.

For the children of the village, electricity means being able to carry on playing even after sunset.

"I had once watched television at my aunt's place and really enjoyed it," said Lakshmi. "Now, I will ask my father to get us one."

Only 18 of the 25 households in Anandpur agreed to get connected and have the free electricity metre installed -- the other seven were unsure they could afford the monthly bill of between $1 and $2.

But 55-year-old Devi is certain that the arrival of electricity is a boon for her village. "Everything will change now," she said.
The Election Commission has made additional efforts in the polling booths to provide cover for the voters to come and exercise their franchise without getting drenched in the possible rains in these states (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Amid the ongoing assembly polls in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday urged the voters to vote in record numbers.

"Urging all voters in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry to vote in record numbers today & be a part of this festival of democracy," he tweeted.

Tamil Nadu is going on polls on 233 seats, with voting for Aravakurichi constituency having been deferred.

Kerala would see polling for its 140 seats assembly. In Puducherry, 30 seats would go for polls. The polling started at 7 am and would end at 6 pm.

The Election Commission has made additional efforts in the polling booths to provide cover for the voters to come and exercise their franchise without getting drenched in the possible rain.

The Election Commission introduced many innovative measures during this election in Tamil Nadu, including getting booth slips through the helpline number 1950 in electronic mode, knowing the queue status before polling booths through smart phone apps and getting navigation help through Google maps to locate the booths by the voters by feeding their election identity card number in the apps.

Thousands of youth volunteers at grass-root levels are also being pressed into service to help the election authorities to ensure ethical voting and to remind people to come out and exercise their franchise today.

The Kerala Government has made elaborate arrangements for smooth and peaceful conduct of polls. In all, 2.56 crore electors including 1.33 crore women are expected to cast votes.

A total of 1, 203 candidates including 109 females are in the fray. There are 21,646 polling booths across the state. Special arrangements have been made for sensitive and vulnerable polling stations, especially in Kannur district.

Over 9 lakh voters will exercise their franchise in Puducherry on Monday. Voting will take place in 930 polling stations spread over four regions of the Union Territory .

5,382 officials are deputed for polling duties. Over 6,000 police personnel including the central para military forces will provide security for assembly polls.

The Commission has identified 148 polling stations and deployed micro observers and Central forces for additional security.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has wished a speedy recovery to Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who is down with high fever, Health Minister J P Nadda said on Monday.

"Got to know that Sh Rahul Gandhi is not well from Honble PM, who was quite concerned about his health. In view of the concerns of Honble PM, I enquired about his health and wished a speedy recovery for him," Nadda tweeted.

Rahul Gandhi had last week cancelled his two-day election visit to Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, saying he was down with high fever.

Congress sources said Gandhi is still suffering from high viral fever and the doctors have advised him to take rest. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has wished a speedy recovery to Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who is down with high fever, Health Minister J P Nadda said on Monday.

"Got to know that Sh Rahul Gandhi is not well from Honble PM, who was quite concerned about his health. In view of the concerns of Honble PM, I enquired about his health and wished a speedy recovery for him," Nadda tweeted.

Rahul Gandhi had last week cancelled his two-day election visit to Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, saying he was down with high fever.

Congress sources said Gandhi is still suffering from high viral fever and the doctors have advised him to take rest.
Web cameras are being placed at the polling booths to keep track of the elections at Chintadripet. (Photo: DC)

Chennai: The seizure of a mountain of cash may have ended on a farcical note Friday night as the money was being transported legitimately enough by the country's leading bank. The very fact that Election Commission officials believed, even for a while, that so much money could be the medium of cash-for-votes in Tamil Nadu is emblematic of the corruption of the minds of voters systematically carried out by the Dravidian majors who have been ruling the state for 49 years.

It is a comment on the state of mind of the citizens of the southern tip of the country that the two states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, along with Puducherry union territory, which go to the polls today, should think nothing of graft in public life.

The two states also have demonstrated the power of the strongest anti-incumbency phenomenon in India in the last few decades when the alternative has been invariably voted in.

And yet this is the first time the question arises, with more than passing interest, over whether Ms J. Jayalalithaa and Mr Oomen Chandy will be able to beat back the anti-government vote and dispel the jinx that rulers have faced in states with literacy rates well above the national average.

The Damocles sword of graft, dangling by a thread, hangs over Tamil Nadu with the CM facing a cause celebre in her assets case and important members of the main opposition also up against several investigative and penal processes in the 2G spectrum scam.

The national ruling party, BJP, has taken an unusual interest in trying to build a bridgehead into the southern peninsula, but more so with an eye on the future as it appears it can expect little progress in states where two clear parties or alliances still hold the electoral edge.

While in Kerala, the battle is always between the two fronts, UDF and LDF, the Tamil Nadu electorate is facing multi-cornered choices with many alliances or parties seeking to break the Dravidian duopoly.

In a very important poll, Ms Jayalalithaa is up against the challenge of proving she has the charisma and the vote-pulling power of her political mentor MGR, even as she squares off against a 93-year-old who still believes he is in the prime of political life.

The scenario is much the same in Kerala, where the protagonists are the sprightly chief minister and his bete noir V.S. Achuthanadan, 92 years young.

Ironically, the electorate is getting younger and younger, in line with Indias demographics, even as veteran and stalwarts battle it out, with Mr Achuthanandan carrying the torch to keep communism and likeminded left-leaning politics relevant in the country at a time when the red hue is fading in Russia and China too, even as modernism is dictating the fast pace of change.

In neighbouring Puducherry, incumbent Chief Minister and leader of the All India

NR Congress, N Rangasamy is battling to hold his seat too, while the DMK has conceded a major part of the seats in the 30-member house to the Congress as part of their electoral pact.

The AIADMK is again on its own there, with Ms Jayalalithaa harping in her campaign how Rangasamy had betrayed in befriending the BJP after coasting to power in the 2011 polls with Ammas support.

The third front of the PWA curiously sees the CPI in Puducherry dominating the alliance, as opposed to the DMDK and MDMK playing that role in Tamil Nadu.

Such is the electoral politics of India that the old still has the hold, regardless of whether the battle is not anymore about ideologies, save in Delhi where a fledgling party is in power.

The question is whether in constant or in change, Indias electorate is better served by its political parties and their leaders.
EVMs being transported by coracle (a flat bottomed local boat made of the bark of trees) across the river Moyar in the Nilgiris for election day. Only such transportation is available to some remote places in the hill district. (Photo: DC)

Chennai: Tamil Nadu votes on Monday in an epic Assembly election. This is the first time that the state will be witnessing six-cornered fierce contests with the Dravidian majors  AIADMK and DMK  being pitted against a formidable Third Front of six regional parties, evoking political interest across India.

An estimated 5.82 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise to seal the fate of 3,740 candidates in 233 constituencies across the state. Elections to Aravakurichi constituency in Karur district will be held on May 23 after Election Commission postponed the polling citing huge flow of money.

Elaborate arrangements have been made at all 66,007 booths across the state and 1.72 lakh Electronic Voting Machines have reached the polling stations for the elections on Monday. Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar constituency from where Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa is seeking re-election has maximum number of 45 candidates in fray.

The election, which is being touted as the fiercest contest for decades in Tamil Nadu politics, has seen many firsts with a notable one being parties contesting the elections by projecting a Chief Ministerial candidate.

The PMK was the first to anoint its youth leader Anbumani Ramadoss as the presumptive CM followed by the DMDK-PWA-TMC alliance, which has projected actor Vijayakanth for the top post.

Ms Jayalalithaa has shown her political guts by fielding candidates in all 234 constituencies, a bold move that even AIADMK founder M.G. Ramachandran never attempted. The DMK aligned with its old friend Congress and an amalgamation of six political parties entered the poll fray as one alliance projecting themselves as an alternative to the Dravidian parties which have ruled the state alternately since 1967.

Besides, the PMK is fighting the elections on its own and the BJP is facing the high-stakes poll in alliance with lesser know parties. While the DMK and AIADMK are banking on their traditional party vote bank to emerge victorious in the Assembly elections, the DMDK-PWA-TMC alliance is pinning its hopes on first-time voters and youngsters who they claim want an end to the 50 years of rule of the Dravidian majors. The PMK also claims it has the support of majority of the neutral voters and youngsters besides women.

The major issue that drew the attention of the electorate this election is the promise to implement prohibition by almost all the political parties.
The victims were part of a group of students from the home that visited the Marina beach. (Representational image)

Chennai: The bodies of two teenaged boys who drowned in the Marina Beach on Saturday evening were spotted and brought to the shore during an operation by the Indian Coast Guard on Sunday.

According to the police, the two boys drowned in the bay on Saturday evening when they went beat the heat with their friends. An Indian Coast Guard helicopter traced the bodies on Sunday afternoon.

Police identified the victims as Srinivasan (17) and Sivagurunatha (14), inmates of a childrens home on Velachery Main Road. Srinivasan was an Industrial Training Institute (ITI) student while Sivagurunathan was a class VIII student in a private school.

The victims were part of a group of students from the home that visited the Marina beach. Around 5.30 pm, when the boys were playing on the beach behind Gandhi statue, a giant wave sucked the two away, police said. The other boys panicked and alerted the locals nearby. Police and personnel from the Fire and Rescue department rushed to the scene on information and attempted to rescue the boys, but in vain. The Coast Guard Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre, Chennai was also alerted by the police.

The search for the bodies was continued on Sunday with Indian Coast Guard helicopters flying for nearly three hours before the two bodies were spotted and then recovered, police said. The bodies were handed over to the Marina police and later sent to the Government Royapettah Hospital for post mortem.
Significantly the 50 per cent limit of reservation, as directed by the Supreme Court, has already been met and an amendment to the constitution would be needed to grant reservation to Muslims (Photo: PTI)

Lucknow: In a move that is designed to assuage the feelings of Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, the Akhilesh Yadav government is preparing to send a resolution to the Centre, urging it to amend the Constitution and make way for 13.5 per cent reservation for Muslims.

In its 2012 election manifesto, the Samajwadi Party had promised to give reservation to Muslims in proportion to their population. The Muslim population in the state is an estimated 20 per cent.

The state government had also announced a 20 per cent share for Muslims in all developmental schemes but the proposal did not translate into reality.

The Samajwadi Party has been facing criticism on this issue and rival political leaders are accusing the ruling party of betraying the faith of Muslim minorities.

In the proposal that is being sent to the Centre, the government has borrowed from the findings of the Ranganath Misra Commission and the Sachar Commission, both of which point towards the backwardness of Muslim minorities in the country.

Significantly the 50 per cent limit of reservation, as directed by the Supreme Court, has already been met and an amendment to the constitution would be needed to grant reservation to Muslims.

Political analysts feel that this is a move that not yield any substantial returns and the only purpose is to appease Muslims.

Amending the constitution on this issue will have far reaching ramifications and will open the proverbial Pandoras Box for the Central government. The SP government knows that this cannot be done but is only trying to tell the Muslims that it is concerned about their interests and it is the Modi-led government which is not allowing this, said a senior political analyst.

Muslims, particularly the educated ones, are not taken in by the move. This has come at a time when there are a few months left for the polls and constitutional amendment cannot take place at such a short notice, said Dr Khalid Masood, a degree-college teacher in Allahabad.

If the Samajwadi Party was sincere on this issue, why did it wait for the election to move the proposal? It is clear that the ruling party wants to play the blame game with the BJP on this issue but Muslims are not going to get conned this time, said Dr Khalid Masood, a degree-college teacher in Allahabad.

(This story originally appeared in the Asian Age as may the case be)
Vijayawada: The TS governments failure to release water from the Nagarjunasagar project to AP till now is likely to ignite passions between the two states once again.

While AP had released 9 tmc ft water from Srisailam about 10 days ago (6 tmc ft for AP and 3 tmc ft for Hyderabad) following directions of the Krishna River Management Board, the TS irrigation department, which controls the dam gates, has not yet released water from Nagarjunasagar.

The wait is particularly agonising for the parched parts of the Krishna delta which is facing severe drinking water scarcity. The water was supposed to reach Prakasam Barrage three days ago, but when the TS irrigation department did not release the 6 tmc ft, the AP irrigation department took the issue to KRMB and the water resources ministry.

The told the apex bodies that at present, the water level at the Prakasam Barrage is only 3.3 feet, the lowest ever recorded. Krishna district irrigation superintending engineer C. Ramakrishna said that when they contacted the TS irrigation department, they were told that orders to release the water were awaited.

TS irrigation Engineer-in-Chief C. Muralidhar said, I told the KRMB meeting that whatever decision on release of water from Nagarjunasagar is taken, it will have to be approved by the TS government. So far, we have not received any instructions in this regard. The water level at Nagarjunasagar on Monday was 507.9 ft.

He added, We have to consider the fact that pump sets are being installed by the Hyderabad Metro Water Works to lift water from the dead storage levels of 505 ft at Nagarjunasagar to Puttamgandi reservoir. This work is on and it will take two to three days to complete. Once that is done, we may operate NS Dam spillway gates to release the water. Unless the alternative arrangements to supply water to Hyderabad are in place, we cannot release the water.

Meanwhile, Nagarjunasagar chief engineer Purushottam Raju said he has not received any orders from the TS government on release of water to Prakasam Barrage so far.
Patna: The Bihar government on Monday night recommended a CBI probe into the May 13 killing of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan in Siwan, bowing to the wishes of his family and mounting outrage over the incident, but Chief Minister Nitish Kumar rejected oppositions charge that jungle raj was prevailing in the state.

States Home department issued a notification in this regard, a Chief Ministers Secretariat official said. As per the notification, the state government has requested the CBI to take over the investigation of the murder case.

Earlier, speaking on the issue Bihar DGP P.K. Thakur said that We are still investigating the murder incident so we cannot reveal much about the case.

He also spoke about special branch receiving information about a hit list which was prepared by Shahbuddin in the year 2014. He said the authenticity of the list was under question as the caller did not reveal his identification.

We could not verify the information as the list was not provided to the police. The caller had said that two persons who figured in the list were murdered but the third one survived, the top cop said.

He said the caller had informed that BJP worker Srikant Bharti and Siwan based businessmans son Rajeev Raushan who was murdered in June 2014 figured in the hit list while the third person on whom the attempt was made had survived. The police had hinted that Rajdeo Ranjans murder was also an act of organised gang.

Earlier, chief minister Nitish Kumar said no effort has been spared in investigating the killing of Rajdeo Ranjan, the Siwan district bureau chief of Hindustan, and in the Gaya road rage incident in which a youngster was shot dead allegedly by the son of a JD(U) MLC.
While reviewing the situation, municipal administration minister K.T. Rama Rao expressed his unhappiness at the delay in restoring power.

Hyderabad: Forty-eight hours after gales and heavy rain felled electricity poles and trees at several places, officials said power was restored at all affected localities on Monday.

Central Discom chief general manager A.G. Sathish Kumar said nearly 35 damaged electrical poles had been replaced in Secunderabad and 10 in Hyderabad.

Initially, we set right the connections for 33KV lines followed by 11KV lines, high tension lines and local lines. By evening Monday, 100 per cent restoration was complete, he said.

While reviewing the situation, municipal administration minister K.T. Rama Rao expressed his unhappiness at the delay in restoring power.

I have received many complaints over social media and Whatsapp. Officials have to improve coordination between departments, he said.

He said that a call centre 040-21111111 would work for round the clock along with the emergency helpline Dial 100 for receiving complaints from the public.

The city has nearly 9.8 lakh electric poles and as many as 1,500 electrical poles were affected. Till this afternoon, 99 per cent of the damaged poles had been replaced, he said.

Officials told the minister that only 1,000 staff was working for 40 lakh electrical consumers. At most of the places, there was no chance of entering narrow streets with vehicles to transport new poles to be fixed, they said. The minister directed them to procure mobile units to overcome such situations. As per requirements, procure additional staff from other departments, he said.
NEW DELHI: Manohar Parrikar will become the first-ever Indian defence minister to visit the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on May 18, which in itself is quite surprising given the huge presence of Indians in the UAE.

His visit has the ostensible aim to substantially further ties in defence and security, especially relating to the rise of ISIS.

The rise of ISIS and Shia-Sunni turmoil in the region has set in new thinking in the Arab world and they are looking towards India. The need to capitalise this opportunity and seek even greater cooperation in combating fundamentalist elements is what the defence ministers visit will seek to achieve, an MoD official told this newspaper.

While traditionally Indias ties with Arab nations and the Gulf had been largely focused on the economics, counter terror had taken the backseat with Kashmir and ties with Pakistan being the stumbling blocks.

That is why we hope to break new ground with the defence ministers visit this time, the official said. The scourge of ISIS has not left India unaffected, albeit on a much lower scale.

According to Indian intelligence sources, of the more than 20 youth who have left to join ISIS, at least six have been killed in fighting in Iraq-Syria.

Mr Parrikar will be in UAE from May 18 before travelling to Oman. He will return to India on May 22. This will be an Indian defence ministers first visit to Oman in six years. The visit also assumes significance in the backdrop of unprecedented cooperation with the Arab nations on counter-terror with dozens of wanted individuals being handed over to Indian authorities recently.

Earlier, the ball was earlier set rolling by PM visiting the UAE in September last year which was followed by the visit of the UAE prince to India.
Hyderabad: A year ago, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao picked up a broom and lifted garbage at Parsigutta in the city and launched the states ambitious civic programme Swachh Hyderabad. A year down the line, statistics reveal that the city is far from clean.

Mr Rao announced that Swachh Hyderabad drives would be held on the 10th of every month. A logo was created, an FB page was set up, a song was composed and a CD was released.

After announcing that they would spend Rs 200 crore on Swachh Hyderabad  the Centre gave Rs 75 crore as special aid  the government and GHMC seems to have abandoned the programme.

The city was divided into 425 zones including 17 industrial and eight cantonment areas. Each zone was handed over to a patron. A review by this newspaper reveals that most patrons rarely if ever returned to their wards.

Even Parsigutta, that the Chief Minister had selected, lies in a state of neglect.

Despite having a distinct and unique identity, Hyderabad lacks a mechanism for sanitation and cleanliness. To bridge this gap, the Telangana state government has launched the Swachh Hyderabad campaign to turn Hyderabad into a clean and green city, Mr Rao had said on the occasion on May 16 last year.

Mr Rao returned to the area two months later, in July 2015. Except for a small stretch of BT road laid ahead of the Raghav Function Hall and a structure in front of the Parsigutta Nala, no work has been carried out. The condition of the road leading to the Tower of Silence is pathetic. He had announced that Parsigutta would be turned into another Banjara Hills.

Mr B.T. Srinivas, general secretary of the United Federation of Resident Welfare Associations, said that immediately after Swachh Hyderabad began, teams were constituted which interacted with colony associations and collected data on civic problems. Major issues were prioritised and money was sanctioned to address them.

The common issues were drainage overflow or leakage, damaged roads, non-functioning streetlights, lake cleaning and providing ration and pension cards. The data ran into hundreds of papers and was submitted to the Chief Minister. Some works were grounded. The failure was that the patrons did not return to the areas to check if the problems were solved.

Mr Srinivas wanted an audit of works executed. Prof. J.N. Naidu, environmentalist and expert in solid waste management, said that the government had announced that 6,000 volunteer change agents would be deployed to ensure that the city becomes clean and green. When will they be deployed, he asked.

The city needs garbage-free colonies and roads, no open defecation and safe water. What we see is piles of garbage, overflowing drains, debris-filled streets and plastic strewn on roads, he said.

Toilets: The Centre has ranked Hyderabad among the top six cities that fare poorly on the cleanliness scale. Slum development activist V. Sudhakar said, The Sama-gra Kutumba Survey said that 35,000 houses do not have toilets. According to the GHMC urban community development wing, each toilet costs Rs 12,000. If the government had spent Rs 42 crore of the Rs 75-crore Central aid, every household in Hyder-abad would have had toilets. The city has 86 public toilets, and more are being added, and 48 Sulabh complexes.

Garbage: A GHMC report on May 13 said 923 of the 1,116 open garbage points had been removed. GHMC commissioner Dr B. Janardhan Reddy was irked by deputy commissioners failing to oversee the shifting of the waste. The GHMC has introduced the two-bin system and introduced auto-tippers.

An official from LICs health insurance division at Abids, who did not want to be named, said, Garbage is being deposited near our office opposite Surya Theatre. It is the duty of the GHMC to look into such matters and keep the city clean.

Construction debris: Thousands of tonnes of construction debris are dumped within the city, when the designated site is the construction and demolition waste yard. But then, the GHMC does not have a C&D waste yard at all.

As per rules, construction debris cannot be dumped in the garbage dumping yard, as it has concrete, plaster, broken bricks and silt. The plan to set up a C&D yard remains on paper. More than five years ago, the GHMC had proposed setting up the yard, but nothing much happened after it identified a 10-acre site.
Leaders from other parts of RR district are demanding that the government announce Vikarabad as district headquarters (Representational Image)

Hyderabad: Amid speculation over new districts, people from several parts of the state are holding demonstrations demanding that their localities be made the headquarters of the new district.

People from Ibrahimpatnam have started a mass movement demanding their locality be made the headquarters for the proposed Hyderabad East district. The government, it is said, would announce Bhuvanagiri as the headquarters for a proposed district, but, the locals of Bhuvanagiri are opposing the inclusion of their locality in Hyderabad and is demanding a Yadadri district.

Leaders from other parts of RR district are demanding that the government announce Vikarabad as district headquarters while there is another demand from the same district for making Rajendranagar as headquarters. Leaders from Kamareddy are demanding district headquarters status for the proposed Medak district.

Meanwhile, people from Jukkal and Bhansuwada do not want to join Medak district. Former minister DK Aruna has called on CCLA Raymond Peter and requested him to announce Gadwal as a district against the governments proposal for Vanaparthi. People from Kodangal are opposing the move of the government to include their locality in Vanaparthi district.

They said that the distance between Kodangal and Vanaparthi is 120 km and they need to cross two districts to reach it. They are demanding merger with RR district. An online movement is active in Bhadrachalam demanding a district and headquarters.

Discussions and speculations are continuing in a Whatsapp group "Save Bhadradri". However, the government is responding positively to the demand for a Bhadradri district and it is focusing on Kothagudem as its headquarters.

Similarly, there is demand for headquarters status for Mancherial and Kagaznagar for the proposed Mancherial district. People from Warangal district are demanding Manukota and Mahabubabad districts.

Protest programmes are being held by locals in Siricilla and Jagitial demanding new districts as also headquarter status. People from Siricilla are opposing the governments proposal to include them in the proposed Siddipet district.a
Allu Arjun avoiding to talk about Pawan Kalyan has angered the latters fans. At the success meet of his film in Vijayawada and during a later interview, the actor refused to talk about Pawan Kalyan and spoke only about Chiranjeevi. When asked about PK, he only said, cheppan brother.

This has been trending on social media and Pawans fans are taking a dig at him, saying that the collections of Arjuns blockbuster would be equal to that of PKs flop film.

But even then the actor has refused to comment on the incident. Apparently the actor has been wrongly advised by his PR people. Before the interview, the PR told the actor not to react on the PKs issue. So when the journalist asked about the incident he said, Ippudu kooda cheppanu and cheppanu, says a source.

Arjun, of course, has nothing against Pawan Kalyan. The actor could instead have said that he respected Pawan Kalyan a lot and he would speak about it at an appropriate time. That would have resolved the issue. But now the actor is in the middle of an unnecessary controversy, adds the source.
The court directed the counsel representing union government to file its reply to the petition filed by the mother of the girl. (Photo: PTI)

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Tuesday reserved orders on a public interest litigation which had sought a judicial probe into the alleged Handwara molestation incident that led to widespread protests, resulting in death of five persons.

A Division Bench comprising Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey and Justice Tashi Rabstan, reserved orders after hearing arguments of petitioner Kashmir High Court Bar Association and the state counsels.

The lawyers' body had filed the PIL last week seeking investigation by an official of IGP rank into the killings in Handwara and Kupwara towns. They had also sought that the probe be monitored by a sitting High Court Judge.

Bar Association president Mian Abdul Qayoom submitted that there is discrepancy in the age recorded in the girl's statement before the magistrate where her age is shown as 19 years while as per school records she is only 16.

"It is a manipulation by the police," Qayoom claimed.

The Advocate General, respresenting the state, said the Bar Association had no right to file the PIL as a case has already been moved before the High Court by the mother of the victim.

"Certain facts at this stage need not to be made public which are under investigation. However as and when directed by the court, diaries and other relevant material can be placed at the disposal of the Hon ble Court," he said.

The court directed the counsel representing union government to file its reply to the petition filed by the mother of the girl.

The mother's petition was clubbed with the PIL on the court directions on April 20 as the Division Bench was already seized of the matter.

Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society said the girl will continue to remain in "police custody" against her will.

"For the third time, the case of the 16 year old girl under unlawful police detention and subject to daily intimidation and harassment was heard by the Division Bench with a simple prayer: that she be set free.

The Handwara minor girl has been video recorded, slapped, spat at, had her phone snatched, personal space violated, randomly moved around, been under constant surveillance and kept detained.

All of this against her will," the organisation said in a statement.

Massive protests were witnessed in Handwara town of north Kashmir on Arpil 12 following allegations that a girl was allegedly molested by an army soldier.

Three persons were killed in security forces firing on protestors on the same day while two other persons were killed in similar action over the next three days of protests.

The girl, in her statement to police as well as before a judicial magistrate, has not mentioned anything about molestation but named two local youths for harassing her while she had gone to a public lavatory to answer the call of nature.

One of the youths has been arrested while the other youth is on the run. The state government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident.
KANNUR: Switzerland is the first country with which India signed a Treaty of Friendship, way back in 1947. The Nettur Technical Training Foundation (NTTF), started at Nettur in Thalassery with Swiss co-operation in 1959 to provide purposeful quality education with excellent employment opportunities, is one of the existing and successful examples of this friendship.

The NTTF is also one of the rare exemplars where an institution became the "brand ambassador" of a village across the globe. The alumni of this institution even started a tooling company in the USA with the name Nettur. With nearly 10,000 students studying across 30 centres in India, the NTTF is one of the pioneer institutions in technical education.

The Institution was started by Hilfswerk der Evangelischen Kirchen Schweiz (HEKS), a Swiss NGO, in association with Church of South India (CSI) to meet the requirements of Swiss industries which faced a dearth of technical experts. The Institution also got generous assistance from Swiss Development Co-operation and Swiss Confederation government.

Alfred Frischknecht, a Swiss expert, was the founder principal of the NTTF. German scholar and linguist Hermann Gundert's residence Illikkunnu Bungalow is also part of the campus. Over the years, the Institution produced many technical experts in many fields including Asias first lady toolmaker Rajalakshmi.

Even during the early years, the NTTF was considered as the most sought after institution by major companies and when they call for vacancies, they used to specify for those who have passed out from NTTF, remembered E.K. Latheef, a senior faculty member. Mr Latheef had won a national award at All India Skill Test when he was a student here in 1970.

The workshops of NTTF are equipped with most modern machinery and the Institution is also having tie-ups with foreign institutions and companies. We associate with various government and private firms in different fields where they require our expertise. Many thousands attend the entrance exam for the NTTF each year and this proves the importance of our institution, principal of Thalassery centre R. Ayyappan said.
Both states welcomed the Neet as it would streamline medical education but sought exemption for this year. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: The Telugu speaking states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state have sought exemption from National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for this year.

The Centre has said it will bring the views of various states to the Supreme Courts notice.

Union health minister, J.P. Nadda held a high-level review in this connection in New Delhi on Monday. AP health minister Kamineni Srinivas, health principal secretary Rajeshwar Tiwari and Kaloji Health University vice-chancellor Karunakar Reddy from Telangana attended the meeting and voiced their concerns.

Both AP and Telangana state highlighted the lack of NCERT books in Telugu language, the problem for Telugu medium students, uncertainty over conducting exams in regional languages and disparities between the state and NCERT syllabus.

Dr Srinivas spoke about concerns among students and parents about the new test. The Eamcet had been conducted and it would be difficult for them to prepare for Neet within two months.

The TS delegation raised the Article 371(D) issue, which would hamper the admission process in both Telugu states unlike in other states, where no such provision exists.

Both states welcomed the Neet as it would streamline medical education but sought exemption for this year.

Dr Nadda said there was overwhelming support for Neet from all states but a majority of them want it to be conducted from 2017 onwards.
The influx of various party workers marks the end of the campaigning for the Assembly polls at Peroorkada Junction in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday (Photo: A.V. MUZAFAR)

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With poll officials taking control of 2,203 booths in Thiruvananthapuram, the district will officially be ready for polls on Sunday. Mock polls will be held by 6 a.m. on Monday to ensure that the three-layer quality control is in place before the actual election. All the 9,692 poll officials will be randomised three times before being allotted duty. Posting orders for the booths will be given through SMS by 10 a.m. on Sunday.

The election counters will open at 7 a.m. on Sunday and around 8 a.m. the sectoral officers will assemble. Once posting orders are received, buses will ply them to the respective booths. Catalogues regarding their buses will be given. All the officials, including observers and micro observers, have already been trained. Kudumbashree food stalls will be available at polling stations until the end of elections and jail chappathis will also be available, district collector Biju

Prabhakar said.

Around 34 booths will be managed and run entirely by women in four constituencies- Nemom, Kazhakoottam, Thiruvananthapuram and Vattiyoorkavu. Around 70 polling booths will have all basic amenities, including arrangement to sit in queue. Thiruvananthapuram district has dedicated wireless network established during National Games that will help in poll coordination.

Ban on outsiders, bulk SMS

Soon after the conclusion of public campaigning on Saturday, bulk SMS in favour of any candidates have been banned. No party worker or leaders from other districts should be seen in Thiruvananthapuram. If they dont leave we will use force to remove them, Mr Prabhakar said. Liquor outlets that were closed on Saturday evening will be shut until the polls are over.

Many new initiatives

For the first time, new VVPAT (Voters Verifiable Paper Audit Trial) voting machines will show printouts to voters confirming the name and symbol of candidate to whom they have voted. The printed slip cannot be taken and will fall inside a ballot box after being visible to the voter for seven seconds.

From this year, Braille election slips have been manually given to over 600 visually impaired voters. Earlier, they had to get a helper to vote or check the names of candidates inscribed in voting machines in Braille.

Election apps, software

The voters can download the Android application e-voter Kerala to search many details, including electoral rolls, constituency list among others. Results will also be available in the application that can be downloaded from Google playstore.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Tribals and local people belonging to Thodumala ward in Amboori have to walk almost eight kilometres and then cross the river to reach the polling booth on Monday. During the 2015 local bodies elections, they could cast their vote at the nearest Karikuzhi Community Hall, which has since been stopped.

More than 1,300 voters which include 750 tribals are forced to boycott the elections this time due to the election commission's apathy. People living on both banks of the Neyyar reservoir use the Kumbichal Kadavu at Thodumala ward in Amboori. If Kanikar tribe inhabits one side, in Mayam settlement colony, local people throng the other side.

Amboori comes under the Parassala constituency where A. T. George (Congress), C. K. Harindran (CPM) and Karamana Jayan (BJP) are the main contenders. Locals allege that even though all the three candidates had approached them seeking votes, due to the steep roads, they did not spend more than one hour in the constituency. J. Saaju, 51, who has been operating the country boat since the last 16 years at the Kumbichal Kadavu, told DC that the tribals would have to walk to and fro eight hours to reach the Karikuzhi Community Hall where the polling booth has been arranged now.

There are over 750 voters which include the tribal community of Mayam colony. They would have to take the country boat for a few kilometres and then hire a jeep to reach the current polling booth which is not economically viable for them, said Mr Saaju.

During the civic elections, it was BJP that won the Amboori grama panchayat. P. V. Jose, a local CPM leader who lost the elections, told DC that it was the tribals who form a significant chunk of voters here.
Thiruvananthapuram: Congress leader AK Antony on Monday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's controversial Kerala-Somalia comparison will impact the prospects of BJP, which has been pulling out all the stops in its bid to open its account in Kerala Assembly.

"Modi had compared Kerala to Somalia, which is infamous for starvation deaths and sea pirates. The pride of Keralites has been hurt," Antony told reporters after exercising his franchise at a booth here.

Read: PM insulted Kerala by likening it to Somalia: Chandy

"The Prime minister had an opportunity to apologise for the remark, but he did not do that," the former Defence Minister said, adding the remark would affect the BJP's prospects.

Modi, while addressing an election rally in Kerala, had compared the infant deaths in some tribal areas in the state with that to Somalia.

Read: Modi in Kerala: PM gets trolled for his Somalia simile

However, BJP defended the Prime Minister, saying people were "twisting facts" and he had only highlighted the plight of the tribal community in the state and his desire was to improve their living conditions.

Expressing confidence that Kerala will create history by voting to power the UDF government again, Antony said the Marxist-led LDF will have to sit in the opposition for the next five years and BJP will not open its account.

Read: BJP backs Modis Somalia remarks, hits out at Oommen Chandy

This will be a vote against the politics of violence and communalism and it will be a vote for peace, he said. The attack on RMP candidate K K Rema at Vatakara will prove dangerous for the LDF, he added.

Kerala would see polling for its 140 seats assembly. The polling started at 7 am and would end at 6 pm.

All non-sensitive booths would have a policeman each for providing security and central paramilitary force personnel would give security cover for the sensitive and hypersensitive booths.

Meanwhile, the election authorities are bracing for the possibility of unusual rains today. The Election Commission has made additional efforts in the polling booths to provide cover for the voters to come and exercise their franchise without getting drenched in the possible rain.

The Kerala Government has made elaborate arrangements for smooth and peaceful conduct of polls.
Jayalalithaa, DMKs Karunanidhi, Captain Vijayakanth, actors Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan and Khushboo showed up during the early hours of the day. (Photo: Twitter)

Chennai: Tamil Nadu recorded over 69.19 per cent voter turnout by 5 pm even as voting was hampered in some districts due to heavy rain, a top election official said. He said appropriate recommendations would be made on extending the voting time in rain affected areas. In Chennai, Pulianthope area was affected due to rains, he added.

"We received representations from DMK, AIADMK and Congress parties to extend time to cast vote in rain hit regions," Chief Electoral Officer Rajesh Lakhoni said on Monday, adding, "We have sent a recommendation to EC (to consider it). However rains have started receding and after considering the situation, further steps will be taken," he said.

Read: DMK, AIADMK, Cong request EC to extend voting time in rain-affected areas

Over 25 percent voters came out to cast their votes till 11 am as Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, DMKs Karunanidhi, Captain Vijayakanth, actors Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan and Khushboo showed up during the early hours of the day. The Election Commission earlier deferred polling in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur to May 23 following allegations of bribing of voters. The counting of votes will take place on May 25.

Meanwhile, an estimated 57.54 percent voters exercised their franchise till 3 pm in Kerala as polling steadily picked up pace with three hours left for the close.

The politically sensitive northern district of Kannur continued to be on top with 62.12 per cent voting, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer said. The state capital Thiruvananthapuram recorded the lowest of 44.93 per cent till 3 pm, it said.

After a slow start with 12.11 per cent till 9 am, the percentage picked up later in the day and touched 43.88 per cent at 1 pm.

Here are the live updates:

6:10 pm: 69.19 per cent voter turnout recorded till 5 pm in Tamil Nadu.

4:30 pm: 71.08 per cent polling recorded till 4 pm in Puducherry.

3 pm: 57.54 per cent voter turnout recorded till 3 pm in Kerala.

1.15 pm: Over 42 per cent voter turnout was recorded till 1 pm in Tamil Nadu while Kerala registered a 45 per cent turnout.

12.45 pm: Kerala witnessed brisk polling for the 140 Assembly constituencies with 28.46 per cent voting recorded till noon. According to Election Commissioner officials, Waynad registered 31.03 polling followed by Kannur and Alappuzha which registered 30 per cent polling while Thiruvananthapuram district recorded the lowest with 23.10 per cent.

11.05 am: 25.2 per cent voter turnout was recorded till 11 am in Tamil Nadu. While Kerala noted 30 per cent, Puducherry recorded 27.52 per cent.

10.30 am: After casting his vote in Kottayam, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said, "Going by the ground situation, there is no sign of BJP."

10.15 am: Rain in parts of Kerala did not deter voters to cast their vote. Cricketer-turned-politician S Sreeshanth posted a selfie after casting his vote in Thiruvananthapuram.

10 am: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa casts her vote at Chennai's Stella Maris College. "In two days, you will know as to what is the judgement of the people," said Jayalalithaa after casting her vote.

Read: Coming two days will decide Tamil Nadu's fate: Jayalalithaa

9.45 am: 13.5 per cent voter turnout recorded till 9.30 am in Kerala, while 14 per cent polling was registered in union territory of Puducherry till 9.30 am.

9.05 am: 20 per cent polling recorded till 9 am in Tamil Nadu; voter turnout in Chennai was13 per cent.

9 am: Despite heavy rain in South and Central Kerala, 5 per cent voter turnout was recorded.

8.45 am: DMK Treasurer MK Stalin casted his vote in SIET College, Chennai.

I just cast my vote.Request all to come out & vote tdy.It is everyone's right&duty to uphold democracy #TN100percent pic.twitter.com/usW9Di5p0S  M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) May 16, 2016

8.30 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday urged the voters to vote in record numbers. "Urging all voters in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry to vote in record numbers today & be a part of this festival of democracy," he tweeted.

Urging all voters in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry to vote in record numbers today & be a part of this festival of democracy.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 16, 2016

7.45 am: "Everyone should vote, that is a duty," said Rajinikanth after casting his vote in Chennai's Stella Maris College.

Read: Rajinikanth urges people to vote, evades query on money row

7.30 am: "We will win enough number of seats, our winning prospects are bright," said DMK president M. Karunanidhi after casting his vote.

DMK chief Karunanidhi and actor Rajinikanth caste their vote in Chennai. (Photo: Twitter)

In Kerala, 2.56 crore electors, including 1.33 crore females, will cast their votes. A total of 1, 203 candidates, including 109 females, are in the fray. There are 21,646 polling booths across the State.

A total of 1.12 lakhs polling officials have been drafted for polling duty. A reserve of 20 to 25% Electronic Voting Machines will be available in all the constituencies as a standy arrangement, he said adding that for the first time Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) will be introduced in 12 constituencies spread over 10 districts.

Read: 52,000 police personnel deployed to oversee polls in Kerala

In Puducherry, over 9 lakh voters will exercise their franchise. Voting commenced at 930 polling stations spread over four regions of the Union Territory. As many as 5,382 officials are deputed for polling duties.

Over 6,000 police personnel including the central paramilitary forces will provide security for assembly polls.

This is the first time Tamil Nadu will be witnessing six-cornered fierce contests with the Dravidian majors  AIADMK and DMK  being pitted against a formidable Third Front of six regional parties, evoking political interest across India.

Elections to Aravakurichi constituency in Karur district will be held on May 23 after Election Commission postponed the polling citing huge flow of money.

Elaborate arrangements have been made at all 66,007 booths across the state and 1.72 lakh Electronic Voting Machines have reached the polling stations for the elections on Monday. Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar constituency from where Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa is seeking re-election has maximum number of 45 candidates in fray.

The election, which is being touted as the fiercest contest for decades in Tamil Nadu politics, has seen many firsts with a notable one being parties contesting the elections by projecting a Chief Ministerial candidate.

Read: Tamil Nadu assembly elections: Its change vs constant

The PMK was the first to anoint its youth leader Anbumani Ramadoss as the presumptive CM followed by the DMDK-PWA-TMC alliance, which has projected actor Vijayakanth for the top post.

Ms Jayalalithaa has shown her political guts by fielding candidates in all 234 constituencies, a bold move that even AIADMK founder M.G. Ramachandran never attempted. The DMK aligned with its old friend Congress and an amalgamation of six political parties entered the poll fray as one alliance projecting themselves as an alternative to the Dravidian parties which have ruled the state alternately since 1967.

Read: Thanjavur poll too postponed

Besides, the PMK is fighting the elections on its own and the BJP is facing the high-stakes poll in alliance with lesser know parties. While the DMK and AIADMK are banking on their traditional party vote bank to emerge victorious in the Assembly elections, the DMDK-PWA-TMC alliance is pinning its hopes on first-time voters and youngsters who they claim want an end to the 50 years of rule of the Dravidian majors. The PMK also claims it has the support of majority of the neutral voters and youngsters besides women.

The major issue that drew the attention of the electorate this election is the promise to implement prohibition by almost all the political parties.
New Delhi: The BJP high command is considering replacing Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel owing to her reported lack of performance and failure to handle the Patel agitation in her state.

The BJPs poor performance in last years civic polls had also gone against the CM. Ms Patel met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday morning, apparently to discuss the drought situation.

Ms Patels recent meeting with RSS man Sanjay Joshi also did not go down well with the party high command. Mr Joshi is considered to be in the anti-Modi camp and many senior party leaders avoid meeting him in public. Ms Patel could be appointed as a governor. As the party is looking for a change of guard in the state, there is a demand from the state unit to replace Ms Patel with BJP president Amit Shah. The state unit reportedly conveyed to the party high command that only Mr Shah, regarded as a master strategist, could retain the state for the BJP in the Assembly election next year.

The other name doing the rounds was Mr Nitinbhai Patel, in charge of a slew of ministries. The reported failure of the Chief Minister was also helping the Congress make inroads into the state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a seasoned practitioner of cultural diplomacy. In the past two years, he has leveraged the unifying connections between Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam to serve Indias foreign relations. The latest instance of this strategy is the Simhasth Kumbh Mela in Ujjain, that was graced by Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and a host of dignitaries from Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh on May 14. Mr Modis intent of gathering South Asian notables to strike common ground on universal values, righteous conduct and simple living is to situate India as the fulcrum of the eternal quest for a better life. He has mainstreamed spirituality and cultural linkages that had hitherto found only lip service in Indian foreign policy.

Mr Modi often sings paeans to saints and savants and invokes inclusive ancient Indian maxims like Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family) and Tena Tyaktena Bhunjitha (enjoyment through sacrifice and renunciation). In Ujjain, he defined the Indian ethos as seeking everyones good and everyones welfare. This kind of messaging counters narrow interpretations of India as a self-interested nation-state that wishes to dominate its smaller neighbours.

By adding metaphysical substance to the materialistic nitty-gritty of economic and strategic calculations, Mr Modi is projecting India to the world as a civilisational entity with accumulated wisdom of millennia that is the solution to todays global crises. Mr Modi showcases an India that is a microcosm of the world, a broad multicultural platform and a moral force  the way Swami Vivekananda envisaged it in the 19th century. Mr Sirisenas comment at the Simhasth Kumbh that, as leader of a country with a majority Buddhist population, I have special reasons to be happy as Mr Modi was leaving no stone unturned towards respecting Buddhism, reflects how this well-branded cultural diplomacy is yielding dividends.

Sri Lanka still gets economic help from China and could also host further Chinese naval submarine visits. But on the Buddhism front in China, there is nothing but total devastation to be seen. The suppression of the Dalai Lama and the cultural genocide China has conducted in Tibet is in sharp contrast to India, where a Sri Lankan President can come and unveil a statue of Buddhist revivalist gurus like Anagarika Dharmapala.

Mr Sirisenas visit to India this time was memorable not just because he was chief guest at the Kumbh, but also because he commemorated Dharmapala, who opposed chauvinistic Hindu priests and gave Buddhism a second innings in India in the late 19th century. For an island nation where Buddhist fundamentalism and Sinhalese chauvinism have grated against the aspirations of the largely Hindu Tamil minorities since independence, the need of the hour after decades of bloody warfare is reconciliation.

Mr Modis idea of inviting both Mr Sirisena and Sri Lankas Opposition leader R. Sampanthan, of the Tamil National Alliance, to Ujjain and mixing Hindu and Buddhist motifs during their visits manifested the humanistic-cum-political purpose behind his cultural diplomacy. As Mr Modi said during the International Conference on Universal Message of Simhasth, with both Mr Sirisena and Mr Sampanthan in attendance, India has an inherent conflict management system because we are not bound by stubbornness and bigotry, but guided by insight derived from millennia of coexistence.

It was a powerful reminder that India, warts and all, is the template for multi-ethnic peace, federalism, constitutionalism and democracy. If Sri Lanka is to emerge from the embers of a devastating war, it needs to look no further than India to end the destructive clash of civilisations between the Sinhalese and Tamils.

Mr Modis championing of the Ramayana trail and the Buddhist circuit is at one level a clever contraption to boost tourism and people-to-people ties in South Asia and Southeast Asia. But at another level, it is an effort to form a combined cultural construct that would restore Indias centrality in Asia. At the Global Hindu Buddhist Conclave in September 2015, Mr Modi had declared: My government is doing everything to facilitate and promote Buddhism in India. His view  Buddha is present in everything and everywhere and we need to follow his principles in order to rid ourselves of war  speaks volumes about Indias accommodative magnanimity.

Besides Buddhism, the other religious community that Mr Modi has consciously striven to draw into the zone of his cultural diplomacy is Islam. At the World Sufi Forum in New Delhi in March, he proudly remarked: Sufism from India spread across the world and this tradition that evolved in India belongs to the whole of South Asia. His projection of Sufism as an antidote to terrorism and extremism has been well received in the Muslim world, particularly West Asia, where the demand for moderate Indian maulvis is on the rise.

No one missed the enormous symbolism of Mr Modi visiting the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in the United Arab Emirates in August 2015 and clicking selfies there with the rulers of Abu Dhabi. References to Indian Muslims as role models who are integrated and eclectic, and engagements with Muslim non-resident Indians are part and parcel of Mr Modis overseas visits. These have helped change Islamic nations impressions of Mr Modis India, especially in the Persian Gulf region. Is it not ironic that a man berated by his critics as a Hindu fundamentalist has managed to present a convincing picture of an India with diverse ancient truths to the wider world? Before Mr Modi, Indias leaders  most of whom wore a secular tag  had practically no achievements to boast of in cultural diplomacy, barring mouthing cliched lines about Indias age-old relations with various nations.

The paradox of a so-called Hindu nationalist winning the hearts and minds of non-Hindu countries and communities globally is explained by Mr Modis uninhibited and uncomplicated attitude towards religious expression. Instead of hiding behind a facade of repression and avoiding of public references or associations with religion and spirituality, he has engaged openly with all faiths and upheld their positive traits and contributions. Indias soft spiritual power is on the rise as Mr Modi exudes confidence in being a Hindu who deeply respects and nurtures all other denominations with a sense of equality. Heres wishing many more Kumbh-like events with multi-faith agendas to cover Indias heritage with glory.
Pandoras box of reservations was opened long ago. The history of affirmative action in India goes back may be a couple of centuries, but given the caste system inherited from time immemorial, such action was always seen as socially relevant, and justifiably so. Quotas for dalits and adivasis were fixed some 65 years ago and their success may have emboldened the Mandal Commission to order more of the same for others.

And despite the social upheaval caused by the Mandal panels recommendations, the system of reservations has worked wonders for a majority of the people who benefited from being given a push to make up for centuries of discrimination. However, what it has led to is the present when relatively well-off communities are demanding their pound of flesh.

Fast-forward from 1920s in the Madras Presidency when the first quota was decreed for dalits, Christians and Muslims, and 1932 when Ramsay MacDonald, the British PM, introduced the Communal Award in India, to 2016 and the qualitative and quantitative progression of reservations makes clear the success of affirmative action as social reform, which is why no one can stop the quota agitation from spiralling out of control.

Haryanas Jats, a community of prosperous landowners, the Kapus in Andhra-Telangana, a not-so-badly-off, middle-level agrarian community, and the Patidars in Gujarat, known for their enterprise and height in the social ladder, have held the administration to ransom with violent demands for quotas. Playing up to such demands is to be thought of as essentially political activity, with a greedy eye cast on the ballot box more than the intention of rendering justice to those who really deserve the breaks to climb out of poverty or general backwardness through education and jobs.

There are states like Tamil Nadu and AP where the reservation in education is already as high as 69 per cent and 66.5 per cent, respectively, and there is an insatiable demand for more. The Supreme Court had ruled in 2015 that the Jats could not be included among OBCs, with a clear direction that caste alone cannot be the criterion for backwardness. The Gujarat governments clever ordinance making the Patidar quota of 10 per cent as one for economically backward classes introduced another element, although such a move appears logical because the poor deserve quotas on grounds of poverty.

Religion is also returning as a focal point in reservation demands, as witnessed in the UP Chief Ministers resolution urging the Centre to amend the Constitution to permit 13.5 per cent reservation for Muslims. The scene calls for a complete review of the criteria for reservations. The question is will politics ever allow caste to be taken out of the equation of quota demands and look primarily at economic criteria now.
Google will pay around $20 per hour for not driving the self-driving cars, and only take control when needed.

Google has just made a dream job available in their car division for those living in Phoenix, Arizona. The job involves not driving their cars. Funny as it may sound, the job involves testing their self-driving cars and only taking control if the situation needs a manual intervention. The job fetches its drivers a whopping $20 per hour, which works out for a 5-day week and a 1  2 year contract.

According to a job-listing website HireArt, Google is looking for vehicle safety specialists to be part of their self0-driving car project. The applicant/employee would be responsible for operating a vehicle for 6  8 hours a day and collect information (data) for the engineers of the self-driving car project.

Develop a unique set of operational skills using vehicles running proprietary software and hardware. Operate comfortably in a fast-paced environment, sometimes managing up to four communication channels simultaneously via various high- and low-tech mediums. Work on cutting-edge technology and provide engineers with detailed, accurate feedback, says the job listing site.

Must pass a number of training checkpoints, both in and out of the car. Expected to keep all project details confidential. Clean driving history required, are additional requirements.

Here are the duties and requirements for the job:

Summary of Primary Duties:

Drive 6-8 hours a day, five days a week.

Working individually and in small groups of 2-10 people.

Monitor software systems with constant focus.

Provide concise written and oral feedback to the engineering team.

Complete daily reports and document procedures and tests.

Be open to travel (up to a month at a time).

Raise the bar of excellence for the rest of the team!

Requirements:

BS/BA degree.

Excellent verbal communication skills.

Excellent written communication skills. Must be able to type at least 40wpm.

Clean driving history and no criminal history

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When asked if he thought it would take an attack similar to 9/11 for the country to "wake up about border security," Trump answered in the affirmative. (Photo: AFP)

Washington: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has warned of a 9/11-like attack on the US if refugees continue to be allowed into the country and alleged that they carry ISIS-funded cell phones.

"Our country has enough difficulty right now without letting the Syrians pour in," the 69-year-old real estate tycoon told the National Border Patrol Council podcast.

On The Green Line podcast, Trump also suggested ISIS is paying for refugees' cell phone plans.

"They all have cell phones so they don't have money, they don't have anything, they have cell phones. Who pays their monthly charges, right? They have cell phones with the flags, the ISIS flags on them," he alleged.

"And then we're supposed to say, 'Isn't this wonderful that we're taking them in?' We're led by people that are either incompetent or they don't have the best interest of our country at heart," Trump said.

When asked if he thought it would take an attack similar to 9/11 for the country to "wake up about border security," Trump answered in the affirmative.

"Bad things will happen; a lot of bad things will happen. There will be attacks that you wouldn't believe. There will be attacks by the people that are right now coming in to our country," he warned.

Trump also spoke about Hillary Clinton's agenda for immigration reform and his own plans for border control, including his proposal to build a wall at the Southern border with Mexico.

The National Border Control agents' union made its first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate when it backed Trump in March.

Trump had proposed a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," in December but just this week he said the ban was "only a suggestion."

Trump has also said that he may set up a counter-terrorism commission to study his immigration policies and his controversial proposal to ban foreign Muslims from entering the US until America's security has been assured.
Philippine soldiers march on a rice field as they end an operation against Islamic Militants. (Photo: AFP)

Manila: Islamist extremists in the Philippines who last month beheaded a Canadian man say they will kill another Western hostage if a multi-million dollar ransom is not paid within four weeks.

A video released by Abu Sayyaf -- whose leaders have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group -- shows Canadian Robert Hall and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad wearing orange shirts in a jungle setting, surrounded by hooded, armed men.

The men say their captors have threatened to kill at least one of them if no payment is received by June 13.

A caption on the video, carried by the terror-monitoring SITE Intelligence Group, says Abu Sayyaf is demanding 600 million pesos ($12.8 million).

In April, the group killed Canadian John Ridsdel after a ransom deadline passed.

Ridsdel, Hall, Sekkingstad, and Hall's Filipina girlfriend were abducted in 2015 from a resort on Samal island, hundreds of kilometres (miles) from Abu Sayyaf's traditional strongholds.

The group has been blamed for the worst terror attacks in Philippine history.

Although its leaders have pledged fealty to the Islamic State group, analysts say they are more focused on lucrative kidnappings-for-ransom than on setting up a caliphate.

The group is believed to have just a few hundred militants but has withstood repeated US-backed military offensives, surviving by using the mountainous, jungle terrain of the southern islands to its advantage.

The Abu Sayyaf are also believed to be holding four Malaysians, a Dutch bird-watcher and four Filipinos, seized in separate raids.
It owes more than half its 25,000 investors a total of 5.2 billion yuan (USD 800 million) said the broadcaster, which is based in the commercial hub. (Representational image)

Shanghai: The alleged mastermind of a scam which cost Chinese investors hundreds of millions of dollars lived in a penthouse flat featuring peacocks and fountains, reports said after he was paraded on television confessing the crime.

Xu Qin, described as the controller of Zhongjin Asset Management and its linked companies, was among 35 executives and employees formally arrested last week in connection with the scheme, state-run Dragon Television reported at the weekend. It owes more than half its 25,000 investors a total of 5.2 billion yuan (USD 800 million) said the broadcaster, which is based in the commercial hub.

Xu, 35, was shown saying that the firm paid back previous investors' principal and interest with money from new investors.

It is actually a typical Ponzi scheme, he admitted. He squandered around 500 million yuan of investors' money on luxury houses and cars with his wife, the report alleged. It was the latest example of a suspect being shown on Chinese state television confessing to crimes, often before he or she has appeared in court.

Rights groups have condemned the practice and say the interviews may be carried out under duress, with some senior Chinese lawyers also expressing concern. Xu and his wife rented a 1,200 square metre penthouse at one of Chinas most expensive developments, Tomson Riviera in Shanghai, where he raised peacocks and built fountains in his living room, Jiefang Daily reported.
The Harmony of the Seas docks at the STX Shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, western France. (Photo: AP)

Saint-Nazaire, France: Tens of thousands of people turned out on Sunday in France to see off the worlds biggest-ever cruise ship, the 120,000-tonne Harmony of the Seas, as it set sail for the first time.

At 66 metres (217 feet), it is the widest cruise ship ever built, while its 362-metre length makes it 50 metres longer than the height of the Eiffel Tower.

As the massive boat pulled away from a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, where it was built on Frances Atlantic shore, some 70,000 people watched from along the coast, local authorities said.

The crowd waved, cheered and clapped as the boat -- built for the US-based Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCCL) -- eased away from France.

Its gone, said Christine, who did not give her full name. We watched it develop and grow over three years. Its like a child leaving home.

The floating town, which cost close to one billion euros (dollars), has 16 decks and will be able to carry 6,360 passengers and 2,100 crew members.

The ship is headed for Southampton in southern England and is to embark on its official maiden voyage on May 22 to its new home port of Barcelona.
Turkish authorities on Monday detained seven suspected members of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, including figures described as a senior leader and an executioner, the state-run Anatolia news agency said. (Photo:AFP)

Istanbul: Turkish authorities on Monday detained seven suspected members of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, including figures described as a senior leader and an executioner, the state-run Anatolia news agency said.

The seven suspects were detained during raids on addresses in the eastern region of Elazig. Large numbers of documents were also seized, it added.

Anatolia said the suspected executioner -- named only as F.S. -- carried out several killings in Syria on behalf of the group.

Over the last two years, IS has carried out execution-style killings in Syria of locals and foreign hostages as a warning and as part of its aggressive propaganda efforts.

Dogan news agency said the suspected jihadists had come from Syria to Elazig with the aim of attracting new recruits for the group.

No further details were given on the suspects.

Turkey was long accused by its Western partners of not doing enough against the threat of IS, even as it seized territory in Syria right up to the Turkish border.

Turkey always insisted it was making every effort to ensure security on the border.

But after several deadly attacks on Turkish soil blamed on jihadists, Ankara has noticeably stepped up a clampdown on jihadists inside the country.

According to figures published by Anatolia earlier this month, Turkey has placed under arrest 454 IS suspects, including 190 in the last four months alone.

Turkish armed forces have also launched near daily artillery strikes on IS targets inside Syria after the border town of Kilis was repeatedly hit by deadly rocket fire.
Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Jeddah. (Photo: AFP)

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: US Secretary of State John Kerry held talks in Saudi Arabia on Sunday to secure its support ahead of a potential showdown with Russia at talks on the Syrian conflict.

After his Saudi meetings, Kerry was due in Vienna which this week will host the international contact groups engaged in efforts to halt fighting in Syria and Libya.

Riyadh is the key backer of rebels fighting to overthrow Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, and Kerry is keen to keep the opposition on board with a shaky ceasefire in force since February.

Saudi allies Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are also major supporters of the administration in eastern Libya which is withholding its support from a UN-backed unity government in Tripoli.

Kerry met Saudi Arabia's King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef at the royal court in a palace in Jeddah.

"I want to thank you for the many things that Saudi Arabia is working on with us to great effect," he told King Salman as the pair sat down, before reporters were ushered out.

"On Syria, the secretary provided an update of the situation on the ground following last week's reaffirmation of the cessation of hostilities," a US spokesman said.

"The secretary also gave an update on Libya," he said.

In talks with his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir, Kerry discussed "regional issues... mainly developments in Syria," the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

The monarch discussed "aspects of cooperation between the two countries and developments in the region and efforts in that regards," SPA reported.

Kerry also discussed cooperation in "fighting terrorism" with the Crown Prince, who is also interior minister.

Bin Nayef had orchestrated the kingdom's crackdown on Al-Qaeda, which launched a wave of attacks on foreigners and government targets between 2003 and 2006.

Focus on Libya security

After his talks in Vienna, Kerry will fly on to Brussels on Wednesday for a NATO foreign ministers' meeting and talks on the full range of challenges facing the Western allies.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said Kerry and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni will jointly host the Libya conflict meeting on Monday.

Participants will "discuss international support for the new Government of National Accord, with a focus on security," according to US officials.

The unity government was formed after months of negotiation by UN mediators in a bid to end the chaos of rival administrations in the east and west of Libya that has undermined the fight against the Islamic State group.

It has slowly asserted its authority in Tripoli since late March, taking over key institutions such as the central bank and the National Oil Corporation, but it still faces a rival administration in the east.

Officials say the fledgling regime is drawing up a list of requests for Western partners to assist its forces with arms, training and intelligence.

After the Libya meeting, Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will lead a meeting of the 17-nation International Syria Support Group.

The State Department's Kirby said last week the goal is to "ensure humanitarian access throughout the country, and to expedite a negotiated political transition."

The ISSG, chaired by Kerry and Lavrov, is pushing Syrian Assad's regime and a coalition of opposition groups to respect the fragile three-month-old ceasefire.

Officials hope next week's meeting will inject new life into the peace process and -- if the ceasefire holds -- secure talks on forming a unity government.

Syrian pro-government newspaper Al-Watan reported on Sunday that peace talks might resume on May 23, citing sources it did not identify.

On the ground, clashes between rival Islamist rebel factions near Damascus since late last month has killed more than 300 fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said on Sunday.
The 33-year-old Pakistani administrative manager with a real estate company in Dubai is accused of luring the Indian jobseeker, who is a housewife, to his flat where he claimed he wanted to train her on computer skills and molested her. (Photo: Representational Image)

Dubai: A Pakistani manager in the UAE has been accused of molesting a 19-year-old Indian woman on the pretext of providing her job, media reports said.

The 33-year-old Pakistani administrative manager with a real estate company in Dubai is accused of luring the Indian jobseeker, who is a housewife, to his flat where he claimed he wanted to train her on computer skills and molested her, Gulf News reported.

The woman was said to be looking for a job on internet when she was contacted by the man, identified only with his initials AN. He said his company needed a secretary.

The woman had agreed to meet with AN for an interview at Al Rashidiya locality in Dubai. AN took her to a flat that he claimed to be the Dubai International City-based company.

However, after she entered the flat, she learnt that it was the man's residence. AN took her into the bedroom where he molested her, the report said.

Prosecutors accused AN of molesting the woman and said he took advantage of the fact that he and the woman were alone in the flat. The judgement will be pronounced on May 26.
Five journalist of a newspaper sentenced up to 12 years. (Photo: PTI)

Beijing: Five Chinese journalists of a newspaper and its website were on Monday sentenced to up to 12 years in jail for extorting USD 125,000 from government officials by blackmailing them in central Hunan Province.

Zhang Huanrui, Vice President of Modern Consumer News, and four of his subordinates were found guilty of blackmailing half a dozen government departments and officials for 815,000 Yuan (USD 125,000) by threatening them with negative news reports, said the Yanfeng District People's Court in Hengyang city.

The defendants used the potential consequences of the negative reports to coerce the agencies and officials to pay money, promising in return to delete negative reports or not to conduct follow-up reporting, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported, citing the court.

Zhang was sentenced to 12 years in prison. One subordinate was given a six-year jail term. Two were sentenced to two years, four months and 20 days behind bars.

The other was given a three-year suspended sentence.
The judge also imposed a fine of Rs 7,50,000 on him and if he failed to pay the amount, he will have to undergo an additional two-years imprisonment. (Representational Image)

Lahore: An Anti-Terrorism Court in Pakistan court on Monday sentenced an activist of a banned group to over 12 years imprisonment for distributing anti-Shia pamphlets in Punjab province.

The Anti-Terrorism Court in Bahawalpur district sentenced Abubakar Zarar, an activist of banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, to 12 years and four months imprisonment for distributing anti-Shia pamphlets in the district.

Zarar distributed the pamphlets to the local people in the area calling Shias "infidels" and also posted the same on walls.

The judge also imposed a fine of Rs 7,50,000 on him and if he failed to pay the amount, he will have to undergo an additional two-years imprisonment.
Initially the group was supposed to meet after the conslutation between Taliban and Afghan officials. (Photo: AP)

Islamabad: The US, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China will meet here this week to discuss a roadmap for negotiating a peace deal with the Afghan Taliban to end the 15-year insurgency, amid a surge in violence in the war-torn country.

It would be the first meeting since the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) met in Kabul on February 23 and announced talks would start in the first week of March, but the process could not begin as Taliban refused to join.

Official sources said special envoys of China and the US and senior officials of Pakistan and Afghanistan were expected to attend the meeting schedule on May 18 in Islamabad.

"The group would discuss how to make more concerted efforts for peace talks to start," said the sources.

Initially the group was supposed to meet after the conslutation between Taliban and Afghan officials. But the process ran a dead end following the terrible Kabul bombing last month which killed more than 64 people.

The Express Tribune reported that Afghanistan wants the Taliban to be declared 'irreconcilable' as they have publicly refused to engage in talks.

Afghan Ambassador to Islamabad, Omar Zakhilwal, said this yesterday ahead of the upcoming QCG meeting.

"We expect the QCG meeting to agree on implementation of the roadmap the group had agreed upon in its meeting on February 6," Zakhilwal said while referring to the quartet call for the Taliban to shun violence and join direct talks by the first week of March.

"The roadmap is precisely about the steps the QCG members were to take in their respective domains both during peace talks, if they commenced, as well as if the Taliban refused to join talks. Now since the Taliban have publicly refused to join talks and opted for more violence the second scenario is applicable," the daily quoted Zakhilwal as saying.

"They must be declared 'irreconcilable' and action taken against them as was agreed in the roadmap," he added. Zakhiwal travelled to Kabul following his meeting with Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif where they agreed to reopen the Torkham border crossing. The border remained closed for four days after Afghan security forces objected to the fencing of the border by Pakistani authorities.

After years of denial, the Pakistani government recently admitted that the Taliban leadership enjoys safe haven inside the country.

Taliban insurgents in recent months have repeatedly seized control of parts of the more than 2,000-mile-long Ring Road network, which connects major Afghan population centres.
The girl's mother told the doctor that she wanted to improve her daughter's marriage prospects, which would happen only if she was cured of her illness. (Photo: AFP, Representational Image)

Karachi: In a shocking incident, a fake self-proclaimed exorcist doctor has been accused of brutally raping and torturing a girl in Pakistan before leaving her to die.

The incident took place in Pakistan's Karachi city when the young unwell girl was brought to the doctor by her mother who was looking for help in curing her daughter's psychosis.

The girl's mother told the doctor that she wanted to improve her daughter's marriage prospects, which would happen only if she was cured of her illness.

Read: Woman screams, spits blood as she is 'exorcised of demonic possession'

According to a report in the Mirror, the girl's mother left her alone with the doctor, popularly known as 'Pir baba' in rural areas.

The self-proclaimed exorcist then took the girl to his home where he repeatedly raped her and tortured her for several days before she succumbed to her injuries.

Imam performs exorcism on a teenage girl on a road. (Photo: YouTube ScreenGrab)

Her body was returned to her family claiming that the evil spirits who had possessed the girl had killed her.

The exorcist told the victim's family that her death was nothing but God's will and that they should accept it.

Although the victim's family and the locals have not registered her death with the police, a group of campaigners against such evil practices have called in for a probe into the teenager's death. An official case has not been registered yet.
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today asked Parliament to set up a committee to probe all those whose names figure in the 'Panama Papers' after his family was accused of stashing money in offshore entities.

Sharif asked the Speaker to thrash out a detailed procedure to probe those mentioned in the Panama Papers, in consultation with the opposition.

He addressed parliament after the opposition had demanded that he should face the house to clear his name after his family members were mentioned in the Panama Papers.

Sharif dwelt at length on the issue of his family business which he said was established much before Partition.

He rejected the charge of money laundering and said his family did not transfer any money from Pakistan but used proceeds from the family business in UAE and Saudi Arabia to buy properties in the UK.

He said he was ready for accountability but demanded that all others involved in corruption should also face probes.

"The speaker should set up a committee of parliament in consultation with all parties to prepare terms of reference and detailed procedure for probe into Panama Papers," he said.

However, his offer was rejected by opposition parties which staged a walk out after Sharif's address. Sharif also claimed that he had set up his business first and subsequently joined politics unlike those who make money through politics.

The opposition has been demanding Sharif face parliament and respond to various questions regarding how his family transferred money from Pakistan to set up businesses abroad.

Sharif's two sons Hussain and Hassan own businesses in UK and Saudi Arabia.

His critics want him to reveal the channels through which the funds were transferred from Pakistan along with the exact amount and whether any taxes were paid or not.

But pressure has eased on Sharif after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf chief Imran Khan admitted having an offshore company while several other leaders were also found owning such entities, including Moonis Elahi, son of former deputy premier Pervaiz Elahi, and Pakistan People's Party senator and ex-interior minister Rehman Malik besides others.
In what appears to be an interesting electoral battle in the making, rationalist Prof K S Bhagwan is contesting election to the Legislative Council from South Graduates constituency, as an independent. He will be filing his nomination on May 16, for the election scheduled to be held on June 9.





Announcing this to the media on Sunday here, Bhagwan said: I have been practicing the principles of Buddha, Basava and Ambedkar throughout my life in the last 40 years. I appeal to the voters to support me.



Shantaraju, president of the Dalit Welfare Society, said: When the Upper House of the state legislature is considered a perfect forum for thinkers, of late, real estate developers, industrialists and businessmen were becoming its members, thereby spoiling its sanctity.



Several organisations like the Federation of Dalit Organisations, Federation of Progressive Dalit Organisations, Kannada Sene and Buddha, Basava and Ambedkar Balaga have extended their support to Bhagwan.
A woman, whose husband allegedly raped a 23-year-old lady from Uzbekistan, has been arrested for blackmailing and trying to force her into flesh trade here.





The accused Anjali has been arrested but her husband Altaf is absconding, the police said.



According to the police, the woman alleged she was raped by Altaf, who introduced her to his wife Anjali and the couple blackmailed her and tried to force her into flesh trade.

It said Altaf had befriended the Uzbek woman on Facebook and she flew down to Delhi on May 6 after being lured by him on marriage promise.



Altaf then took her to a hotel where he allegedly raped her and filmed the act, the police said, adding that he then began to blackmail her with his wife.



The couple, she alleged, had snatched her passport, visa and money. They also confined her into a room and allegedly beat her up regularly. She was forced to attend to the guests, the woman claimed, it said.



The complainant confided into a friend living in Delhi and they approached at the Vasant Kunj (north) police station.



A case has been registered under IPC Sections 370 (buying or disposing of any person as a slave) and 376 (rape). A case under the immoral trafficking act has also been registered and the police are probing the possibility of a bigger racket involving Uzbek women flourishing in the area.
In an apparent bid to thwart attempts by his rivals to dent his partys Muslim vote bank ahead of next years assembly polls in the state, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav was mulling reservation for the community in government jobs and education.





According to the sources here, the Samajwadi Party (SP) government could soon send a proposal to the centre to amend the constitution to provide 13.5% reservation to the Muslims in the state.



The SP had promised reservation to the Muslims during previous assembly elections in UP in 2012 according to their population and the same was also included in the election manifesto of the party.



The SP government was under pressure from the muslim outfits to fulfil its election promise. A delegation of Muslim scholars had also met Akhilesh a few days back to press him on this count.



Sources in the SP said that the party was not very hopeful of the proposal being accepted by the centre. We can only send the proposal. The final decision has to be taken by the centre, said a senior SP leader here while speaking to Deccan Herald.



SP sources also confided that the decision was prompted by the defeats in the recently held by-polls in two assembly constituencies, where Muslims were in sizeable numbers that indicated disenchantment of the community with the SP. The SP had lost Muzaffarnagar and Deoband assembly seats in the recent by-polls.



SP leaders were more worried over the Congress' victory in Deoband, which housed Darul Uloom, one of the most important Islamic seminaries in the country. SP leaders also admitted that a division in Muslim votes and the partys failure to get support of the other communities resulted in losing Muzaffarnagar to BJP. What compounded the misery of the SP was the performance of Asauddin Owaisis All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which managed to secure 17 thousand votes at Bikapur assembly seat in the by-polls.



The opposition parties however termed the move as a desperate attempt to keep the Muslim vote bank intact but doubted if it would succeed. The people of the state are wise enough to see through the move. They will vote for development, said BJP leader Vijay Bahadur Pathak.




In a second case of sexual crime against a foreigner here in a week, an Uzbek national has accused an Indian man of raping her on the pretext of marriage and forcing her into prostitution.





Last Saturday, a Belgian woman had accused an Ola-cab driver of molesting her in the cab while she was going to her friend's house in south east Delhi's CR Park area.

In the present incident where an Uzbek woman has alleged being raped by an Indian man, a case has been registered in south Delhis Vasant Kunj police station, and the woman has been sent for medical examination, police said.



The accused is absconding and police is raiding multiple locations where he could be hiding, said a police officer.



Met on Facebook

The woman in her mid twenties alleged in her complaint that she had met a person

Altaf on Facebook a few weeks back.



During their interactions on the social media site, Altaf expressed his love for the woman and proposed to marry her, the woman said in her complaint.



Convinced by the promises of her alleged lover, the woman arrived in India a week back thinking of marrying him.



In Delhi, the woman met Altaf in a hotel where they had sex for some days. The woman also alleged that Altaf took her to his house where they spent some nights together.

However, after living together for a few days, the woman got to know about the real intentions of Altaf when he tried to push her into prostitution.



She also alleged that Altaf had claimed to her that he was a bachelor when they first met on facebook. But in India she came to know that he was married to a woman named Anjali and have children with her.



We are trying to ascertain the claims of the woman. We are also finding out whether Altaf was already married or not, said a police officer.



Physically tortured

The woman also alleged that she was physically tortured by Altaf during her stay with him, and her passport, visa, mobile and money were snatched by him.



The woman told police on Saturday that she contacted her Uzbek friend who lives in Delhi, and told her about the ordeal she had been going through since her arrival in India.



The womans friend took her to the Vasant Kunj (north) police station where her case was registered on Saturday night.



According to police, there are several cases registered against the alleged wife of the prime accused Altaf, but whether or not they two are married is a matter of investigation.


President Barack Obama has taken a swipe at presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's plans to ban Muslims from entering America and build walls between the US and other nations, saying the biggest challenges cannot be solved in isolation.





Though he did not name Trump, Obama made it clear what he thinks about the 69-year-old real estate tycoon's campaign and policy proposals in a highly political commencement speech at Rutgers University yesterday.



"The world is more interconnected than ever before, and it's becoming more connected every day. Building walls won't change that," Obama said apparently referring to Trump's proposals to build a wall at the US-Mexico border.



The President also told the graduates to stand up to those who say that America was better in the past. He also asked graduates to tout their knowledge and not brag about their ignorance.



"Just as America is better, the world is better than when I graduated. Since I graduated, an Iron Curtain fell, apartheid ended. There's more democracy. We virtually eliminated certain diseases like polio. We've cut extreme poverty drastically. We've cut infant mortality by an enormous amount," he said.



"Now, I say all these things not to make you complacent. We've got a bunch of big problems to solve."



"Look, as President, my first responsibility is always the security and prosperity of the United States. And as citizens, we all rightly put our country first. But if the past two decades have taught us anything, it's that the biggest challenges we face cannot be solved in isolation," he said amidst applause.



"When overseas states start falling apart, they become breeding grounds for terrorists and ideologies of nihilism and despair that ultimately can reach our shores. When developing countries don't have functioning health systems, epidemics like Zika or Ebola can spread and threaten Americans, too. And a wall won't stop that," Obama said.



"If we want to close loopholes that allow large corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, weve got to have the cooperation of other countries in a global financial system to help enforce financial laws," he said.



Obama said building a wall is neither going to create jobs nor accelerate economy.

He also challenged the notion that Muslims should be banned from the United States, something Trump proposed in December.



"Isolating or disparaging Muslims, suggesting that they should be treated differently when it comes to entering this country, that is not just a betrayal of our values. That's not just a betrayal of who we are -- it would alienate the very communities at home and abroad who are our most important partners in the fight against extremism," said the outgoing American president.





"Suggesting that we can build an endless wall along our borders, and blame our challenges on immigrants -- that doesn't just run counter to our history as the world's melting pot; it contradicts the evidence that our growth and our innovation and our dynamism has always been spurred by our ability to attract strivers from every corner of the globe," Obama said.

Obama also took a dig at Trump's views on climate change.



"When our leaders express a disdain for facts, when theyre not held accountable for repeating falsehoods and just making stuff up, while actual experts are dismissed as elitists, then we've got a problem," he said.


An elerly man died of cardiac arrest this morning while waiting to cast his vote at a polling station in Perambra, about 38 kms from nere, police said.





Kunhu Abdullah Haji (70) who was standing in queue to exercise his franchise at a booth near C K G College in Perambra, all of a sudden collapsed, Perambra police said.



He was rushed to Perambra government hospital where the doctors declared him brought dead.



Polling started in the city and suburbs in a brisk note with many polling booths witnessing huge crowds amidst overcast condition.
Rains lashed various parts of Tamil Nadu today, causing inconvenience to voters who queued up at polling booths to exercise their franchise in assembly elections.





Light rainfall occurred in several places in districts of Chennai, Tiruchirappalli, Sivaganga, Tiruvallur, Villupuram and Kancheepuram while some parts in Ramanahtpram district received heavy rainfall.



Voters reached the polling stations with umbrellas like former Union Minister P Chidambaram in Sivaganga district.



The rains were caused by a low pressure over the Indian Ocean, which continued to remain stationary.



"The low pressure area over Indian Ocean and adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal had become wellmarked and lay over the southwest Bay of Bengal and adjoining Sri Lanka," a bulletin from the Met department said.



In its forecast for the next 24-48 hours, Met office said heavy to very heavy rainfall was likely to occur at one or two places over South Tamil Nadu.



"Heavy rainfall is also likely to occur at one or two places over North Coastal Tamil Nadu and Puducherry", it said.



For Chennai and its neighbourhood, the bulletin said that sky is likely to be partly cloudy.

"Light rain is likely to occur in some areas", it said.



Meanwhile, DMK Legal wing secretary R S Bharathi in a representation to Chief Electoral Officer Rajesh Lakhoni appealed the Election Commission to extend the polling time by one hour from 6 PM to 7 PM as many places in Tamil Nadu were receiving rainfall.




Donald Trump today indicated that he may end up having a bad relationship with David Cameron after the British Prime Minister criticised his controversial proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US as "divisive, stupid and wrong".





"It looks like we are not going to have a very good relationship," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said.



"Who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him [Cameron] but he's not willing to address the problem either."



Cameron, 49, has refused to retract comments he made about the American billionaire tycoon's temporary ban proposal, which he had branded as "divisive, stupid and wrong".



In an interview with Britain's ITV television, Trump responded to his criticism: "Number one, I'm not stupid, I can tell you that right now, just the opposite. I don't think I'm a divisive person, I'm a unifier, unlike our president now."



Trump's comments are likley to cause unease among Britons about their ties with their closest ally, the US.



Trump, 69, also went on to take a dig at the newly-elected Muslim mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who had snubbed Trump's offer of making him an exception to his Muslim ban plan.



"When he [Khan] won I wished him well. Now, I don't care about him, I mean it doesn't make any difference to me, let's see how he does, let's see if he's a good mayor," he said.



In reference to a question about Khan's comments branding Trump as having an "ignorant view of Islam could make both of our countries less safe  it risks alienating mainstream Muslims around the world and plays into the hands of extremists, he added: "He doesn't know me, hasn't met me, doesn't know what I'm all about. I think they were very rude statements and frankly tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements I think it's ignorant for him to say that."



Asked if he was offended by Khan's public denouncement he replied: "Yeah, I am."

However, soon after the telecast a spokesperson for Khan reiterated the London mayor's stand against Trump.



"Donald Trump's views are ignorant, divisive and dangerous  it's the politics of fear at its worst and will be rejected at the ballot box just as it was in London. Sadiq has spent his whole life fighting extremism, but Trump's remarks make that fight much harder for us all  it plays straight into the extremists' hands and makes both our countries less safe," his spokesperson said.



Trump is also at odds with the UK government stand in favour of staying in the European Union (EU).



In direct contrast to US President Barack Obama's call for Britain to vote "Remain" in the June 23 referendum, Trump favours "Leave".



He said: "A lot of the migration and a lot of the acceptance of people is because of the European Union, I think that's been a disaster.



"I think if I was from Britain I would want to go back to a different system. I've dealt with the European Union and it's very bureaucratic. Personally, in terms of Britain I would say, what do you need it for?"



Trump looks set to battle for the White House against Democrat Hillary Clinton after he won many of the key primaries in the US.
A Delhi court today sent to five- day CBI custody an under secretary in the Union Home Ministry in connection with a case against him of allegedly dishonestly issuing FCRA notices to several NGOs for financial gains.





Special CBI Judge Vinod Kumar allowed the probe agency to quiz Anand Joshi, who was arrested yesterday from west Delhi, in its custody till May 20.



Seeking Joshi's custody, CBI argued that files relating to several NGOs had gone missing from the Home Ministry and they were recovered from his house and he was not supposed to take them away.



It contended that he was neither cooperating in the probe nor disclosing relevant facts and his custodial interrogation was required to find out how those files came to his house.



CBI alleged in court that Joshi had been issuing notices dishonestly to a large number of NGOs/ societies registered under the FCRA 2010, which have been receiving significant amount of foreign contributions, in an arbitrary manner.



It said some of these organisations are Care India, Snehalya Charitable Trust, Indian HIV/AIDS Alliance and All India Primary Teachers Federation and alleged that the representatives of some of these organisations were called and Joshi demanded and obtained illegal gratification.



It further said when the CBI team had gone to his house, he not present there and even his mobile phone was switched off from May 11 to May 15 and he had left his house leaving a false letter behind.



The custody plea, however, was opposed by Joshi's counsel who said his mobile was not switched off and he had lost his phone in Ujjain and in his 24 years long career he was not even issued an office memo.



Joshi was arrested yesterday after he allegedly gave unconvincing answers to the questions posed by a team of Special Crime division of the CBI, including those related to disappearance of files related to Sabrang Trust of activist Teesta Setalvad.



Joshi, who had disappeared on the morning of May 11 from his home in Indirapuram in Ghaziabad, was yesterday picked up from Tilak Nagar area of West Delhi and taken to the CBI headquarters for questioning.



The case was slapped against Joshi and some other unnamed persons for allegedly indulging in corrupt practices and arbitrarily issuing notices to several NGOs, registered under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), which were receiving foreign contributions, including activist Teesta Setalvad's Sabrang Trust.
A veil-wearing girl, presented by an NGO as the one who was at the centre of Handwara protests last month, today claimed that police had "pressurised" her to make a statement before a magistrate in which she exonerated an army man of molestation charges.



Addressing the media here, the girl demanded registration of a case against the police and anyone else found responsible for recording and circulating her video statement and for the "wrongful confinement and hostile treatment" from April 12 to May 12.



She made a statement, narrating what, according to her, had happened on April 12 and the subsequent developments. The media persons were discouraged from asking questions to her.



Handwara town and adjoining areas of Kupwara district of Kashmir had erupted last month after allegations that a 16-year-old girl had been molested by an army man.



In a video-recorded "statement" released by police later, the girl had said no soldier was involved in any molestation and had blamed a local boy for misbehaving with her.



Today, Khurram Parvez of NGO Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, organised a press conference here in which the veil-wearing girl made the allegations of pressure from the police.



The parents of the girl at the heart of the controversy were also present at the press meet.



"In the morning of April 16, a policeman told me and my father that we have to give a statement as per his instructions before the court. He pressurised me to say that I was born in 1997 and also to stick to the statement in the recorded video," the girl claimed.



"We were forced to sign on documents and our statements were forcibly recorded before a court," she alleged.



"My statement and that of my father before the court was therefore not a voluntary statement. When I gave my statement before the court, my father was not allowed inside with me," she charged.



The girl demanded registration of an FIR against the police for recording the video, circulating it and intimidating her and her family.



"I demand an FIR be registered for a video that was recorded of me and then widely circulated in the public against my will. I and my family members were also kept in police detention against our will for one month and we were abused, intimidated and harassed by the police," she said.



About the incident that happened on April 12, the girl said that after leaving her school, "I had to go to the (Handwara main) chowk as I had left my phones there at a shop named 'Information Hub' as we were not allowed to take phones into the school."



The girl said after taking the phones, she went to a toilet located at the main chowk. "Unfortunately, the toilets at my school had been shut and therefore I had no option but to visit the public toilet," she claimed.



"I entered the toilet and at that point there was no one else inside. As I was exiting, an army soldier forcibly held my hand. I screamed and ran away from the bathroom area. He was in uniform and so there was no mistaking him to be a soldier," the girl alleged and demanded punishment to the soldier for his "actions of sexual assault".



In the meanwhile, the girl said, a crowd gathered and she was taken to police station against her will.



"The behaviour of the police personnel towards me as I arrived at the police station was of hostility. The police personnel were abusive and threatening. I narrated to three masked policemen what the Army soldier had done to me. They asked me not to tell anyone the real story as it would endanger my life and the lives of my family members," she claimed.



She alleged that when she resisted, one of them slapped her and told her to change her statement which "I agreed to" because of the pressure.



"Later, SP (Superintendent of police Ghulam) Jeelani came after 20-25 minutes and asked what had happened? I told him what had happened and then he went out and returned with a mobile phone and recorded the statement," she alleged.



"The statement that I gave on the video was what policemen had asked me to say. The SP took the video deceitfully. No one from my family was with me at that time," she claimed.



She added, "I pleaded with him (the SP) to not to release the statement to media which he promised. But he made the statement public without my knowledge. How could he do so?"



She charged that "in order to save the Army, he put my honour at stake."



The girl claimed that she and her family were kept in police custody at different houses and their movements were controlled by the police.



"We were under constant surveillance, and we were being intimidated, harassed and blackmailed by police," the girl said.
Drug major Pfizer Inc today said it will acquire biopharmaceutical firm Anacor Pharmaceuticals for around USD 5.2 billion in an all-cash deal.





Pfizer and Anacor Pharmaceuticals have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Pfizer will acquire Anacor for USD 99.25 per Anacor share, in cash, for a total transaction value, net of cash, of approximately USD 5.2 billion, Pfizer Inc said in a statement.



The Boards of Directors of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction, which also assumes the conversion of Anacor's outstanding convertible notes, it added.



Anacor's flagship asset, crisaborole, is currently under review by the USFDA for the treatment of mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis, commonly referred to as eczema.



Group President of Pfizer Global Innovative Pharma and Global Vaccines, Oncology and Consumer Healthcare Businesses Albert Bourla said, "We believe the acquisition of Anacor represents an attractive opportunity to address a significant unmet medical need for a large patient population with mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis, which currently has few safe topical treatments available."



Crisaborole is a differentiated asset with compelling clinical data that, if approved, has the potential to be an important first-line treatment option for these patients and the physicians who treat them, Bourla added.



Anacor Pharmaceuticals Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Paul L Berns said the deal will deliver significant value to the company's shareholders.



"We have a deep respect for Pfizer, and it is clear that they share our commitment to addressing the significant unmet medical needs in inflammatory disease... we are confident that Pfizer will help accelerate Anacor's important mission given the strength of its global platform and resources," he added.



In March 2016, the FDA accepted to review Anacor's New Drug Application seeking approval of crisaborole for the potential treatment of mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis in children and adults, the company said.



The Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) goal date for the completion of the FDA's review is January 7, 2017. If approved, Pfizer believes peak year sales for crisaborole have the potential to reach or exceed USD 2 billion, it added.



Pfizer said it anticipates to finance the transaction through existing cash and it does not expect the transaction to impact its current 2016 financial guidance.



Under the terms of the merger agreement, a subsidiary of Pfizer will commence a cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of Anacor common stock for USD 99.25 per share in cash.



The company said the closing of the tender offer is subject to customary closing conditions, including US antitrust clearance and the tender of a majority of the outstanding shares of Anacor common stock.



"The merger agreement contemplates that Pfizer will acquire any shares of Anacor that are not tendered into the offer through a second-step merger, which will be completed promptly following the closing of the tender offer," it said.



Pfizer expects to complete the acquisition in the third-quarter of 2016.



Pfizer has been looking at inorganic route of growth to enhance its position as the leading drugmaker in the world. In April this year, Pfizer had terminated its proposed USD 160 billion merger deal with Botox manufacturer Allergan following crackdown by the US government over tax avoidance deals.



Earlier in May 2014, Pfizer's USD 117 billion takeover offer for AstraZeneca was rejected by the British pharma major stating that it undervalued the company.
About 1,000 Madhesis and demonstrators from other minority groups seeking more rights and representation in Nepal's new Constitution scuffled with police today, even as Prime Minister K P Oli warned that the government will not keep quiet if the protests become violent.





Protesters chanting anti-government slogans picketed near the Prime Minister's office and tried to break a police barricade, triggering a clash with the police on the third day of their protest.



Riot police used batons to disperse demonstrators. During the protest, three demonstrators and two pedestrians were injured.



Two students were injured as the members of the agitating groups beat them up, accusing them of being government's vigilantes.



The protesters chanted slogans like 'Down with incompetent government', 'Prime Minister K P Oli leave the country', 'We want our demands to be fulfilled' and 'Ensure our federal and ethnic rights'.



The major demands of Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, include re-demarcation of the seven province model of federal structure, inclusiveness and proportionate representation of marginalised groups and ethnic minorities including the Madhesis, indigenous groups and dalits in all the state bodies.



Meanwhile, speaking at a separate programme to pay tribute to CPN-UML's late leader Madan Bhandari, Prime Minister Oli asked the agitating groups to engage themselves in reconstruction of earthquake damaged structures across the country instead of taking to streets and creating traffic jams in the busy streets of the capital.



The Madhesi protesters jammed roads here after they were rejected by the people of southern Nepal, where their protests led to border blockade for six months, Oli said.



The government will not keep quiet, if the protest becomes violent, he warned.



Stating that the government is ready to address all the demands through talks, the Prime Minister asked the dissenting parties to arrive at the negotiating table.



"The government wants solution to the problem through dialogues. For that, we requested the agitating parties for talks time and again," he said.



The Federal Alliance, the grouping of seven Madhes-based political parties and 22 other ethnic groups, also announced that they would picket the Prime Minister's official residence in Baluwatar during their fourth day of protest tomorrow.



About 1,000 protesters picketed near the Singhdurbar Secretariat, the main administrative complex that also houses the Prime Minister's Office, today to protest the Constitution that divides the country into seven federal provinces.



Hundreds of riot policemen were deployed at the protest venue, which comes under restricted area.



The Federal Alliance will stage their protest in front of the Prime Minister's residence as part of its efforts to exert more pressure on the Premier to fulfil their demands.



Federal Alliance spokesperson Parashu Ram Tamang said police personnel stopped "hundreds of leaders and cadres" heading to join the protest, interrogated them, seized flags and banners and frisked them unnecessarily.



They want the government to re-write the Constitution to meet their demands. The alliance started their Kathmandu- centric fresh protests on Saturday.



Madhesis earlier had launched six-month-long agitation from September to February in which more than 50 people were killed. The agitation had also crippled the landlocked country's economy as supplies from India were blocked.



Nepal had accused India of imposing an "economic blockade", which India strongly denied.



The alliance has this time changed its strategy and focused their protest in the capital city in an attempt to draw attention of the government and other stakeholders to their demands.




With 'Panama Papers' showing British Virgin Islands as most-favoured location of Indians for offshore accounts, Income Tax Department has asked its field officers to be specific in their information requests to the authorities there and reply promptly to their queries.





Noting that a large number of information requests are pending with the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and the clarifications sought by them have not been provided in a timely manner, the Department said the replies must be given to them within 15 days to expedite the process.



The I-T Department on May 12 issued an internal guidance to officers on requests for exchange of information (EOI) made to BVI in order to achieve better outcome from the requests.



It has asked the officers not to opt for 'Request to refrain from notifying the taxpayer' in the proforma for sending EOI request.



A request to 'refrain from notifying' the taxpayer should not be made in a routine manner and such request should be made only if it is essential and can be justified on the basis of documentary evidences, the department said.



"The reason that the taxpayer concerned is likely to file an appeal against the supply of information would generally not be a valid reason for making such a request," it said.



Field officers, it said, should keep in mind that this option should not be exercised while seeking information that is not likely to be in possession of the BVI tax authorities, but instead is likely to be available only with the taxpayer.



"In such a situation, if the request to refrain from notifying the taxpayer is made, then the BVI authorities may not be able to approach the taxpayer to obtain the requested information," it said adding information like details of bank account, immovable property etc are generally not readily available with tax authorities.



Only under exceptional cases, a request can be made that the taxpayer/holder of information may not be so notified. This may be justified by stating that the information is of a very urgent nature and the process of prior notification to the taxpayer will delay supply of information and undermine the investigation, it said.



"Even though the EOI Cell of India has been making continuous efforts to improve the efficiency and efficacy of the information exchange process with BVI, a large number of deficiencies are being observed in the EOI requests sent by field officers," the guidance note said.



Commenting on the guidelines, Rakesh Nangia, Managing Partner, Nangia & Co, said, "Currently, the EoI request sent to BVI is vague and general in nature, which leads to the request being considered as having been made in a casual and perfunctory manner and hence do not receive adequate attention by the BVI authorities.



"These guidelines will surely help the field officer understand the structuring of BVI companies, ask the right questions and thereby making the EoI request more efficient and effective."



The guidance also provides background to field officers on the procedure for incorporating a company in the BVI and shareholding / directors of BVI companies.



It also highlights that the details of shareholders of BVI company are not publicly available as well as cites unique legal provisions in BVI of "keeping shares registered in the name of nominee and not in the name of actual owner".



The Department wanted officers to seek agreement/ correspondence between actual owner/beneficial owner and nominee shareholders to assess if the offshore holdings are legal or illegal.



BVI licensed Mossack Fonseca is the law firm at the center of an unprecedented leak of confidential information - The Panama Papers.



With respect to demonstrating foreseeable relevance under India-BVI Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA), I-T Department recommended that while making initial EOI request all the relevant facts and background of the case are clearly brought out and the relevance of information for the purposes of administration and enforcement of Indian tax laws is described out in sufficient detail.



A large number of EOI requests are pending with the BVI and one of the main reasons for delay in receipt of information from BVI is that the clarifications sought by BVI are not provided in a timely manner.



"Such delays are viewed unfavourably by the BVI Competent Authority. Also, in such cases, requests are sometimes treated as 'closed' by the BVI Competent Authority for want of clarifications, depriving us of the valuable information which would have been useful for investigation/assessment," it said.



The Department said whenever a clarification is sought by the BVI authorities, the same must be provided within 15 days.



Investigators, probing the 'Panama Papers', have found that a number of Indians offshore asset investments have been made in the tax haven of British Virgin Islands (BVI).



The North Caribbean island country has figured a number of times in cases of black money and overseas probes of various investigative agencies like the I-T department, Enforcement Directorate and the CBI.
Leopards are reclusive and known for their ability to adapt, traits that have led some wildlife biologists to assume that the animals remained relatively abundant in the wild. But a study published recently suggests that leopards have lost as much as 75% of their historic range since 1750.





At that time, the big cats roamed over about 13.5 million square miles in Africa, Asia and parts of the Middle East. But that vast area has shrunk to about 3.3 million square miles, according to the study, conducted by a team of 14 scientists representing 15 universities and organisations, including the Zoological Society of London, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Iranian Cheetah Society, National Geographic and Panthera, the global wildcat conservation organisation.



The study, which appears in the journal PeerJ, is believed to be the first to assess the leopards status globally across 9 subspecies and won immediate praise from other scientists for its scope and detail. Partly on the basis of the findings, the cat specialist group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature has recommended that the leopard (Panthera pardus) be reclassified on its Red List of threatened species as vulnerable, indicating that stronger conservation efforts are needed, said Andrew B Stein, an author on the study who is a member of the group. The species is currently listed as near threatened with 3 subspecies classified as critically endangered and 2 others as endangered.



Disappearing animals



Luke Hunter, president and chief conservation officer of Panthera, said that the studys findings highlighted the fact that many of the worlds most iconic animals are disappearing from the wild. Their trajectory is just the same, he said. Lions and tigers are faster to disappear than leopards, and yet its exactly the same process.



Like lions, leopards have been threatened primarily by human activities, including the destruction of habitat; the hunting of smaller animals that leopards depend on for prey; revenge killings by farmers who have lost livestock; illegal trade in leopard skins and parts; and, to a lesser extent, trophy hunting in countries where it is allowed.



The researchers analysed 6,000 records from 2,500 locations and more than 1,300 sources to map the leopards current and past ranges (1,750 was picked as a starting point because it was before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the colonial era in Africa). The records included studies, reports, photographs and newspaper clippings. Overall, the study found, the leopards range had decreased by 63% to 75%, with the difference representing areas where the data was less clear-cut. But of the 9 subspecies, only three were represented in 97% of the cats current range.



Three other subspecies  the Arabian leopard, the North Chinese leopard and the Amur leopard, a shaggy cold-weather cat found in far eastern Russia  retained only 2% of their historic range, the researchers found. In large parts of Asia, including Southeast Asia and the Middle East, leopards had almost vanished. Only about 17% of the big cats current range was protected land.



Even in places where leopards still had expansive ranges, the researchers found, they were often fragmented, their habitat broken up by farms, villages or other human development. That did not augur well for some leopard subspecies, which had only a few patches left, the researchers wrote. In general, the more clusters of dense population there are of a species, and the more corridors of land that exist, allowing animals to travel from one area to another, the more likely the species is to survive, they noted.



Need for strong action



This is a sophisticated and very comprehensive study, said Tim Caro, a professor of wildlife biology at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the study. Tim called the tiny pockets of leopards that the researchers found still existed particularly depressing. Without strong action by governments, their fates are sealed, he said.



Theodore N Bailey, a retired wildlife biologist and the author of a 1993 book, The African Leopard: Ecology and Behavior of a Solitary Felid, said the study was the most comprehensive and detailed analysis of the status and distribution of the leopard to date. He noted that, although the leopard could adapt to a wide variety of landscapes, from rain forest to desert, and to different type of prey, the study found that its loss of range was greater than that of other predators.



I think the biggest threat to the leopard on a global scale is that its been just under the radar, said Philipp Henschel, the lion programme survey coordinator for Panthera. Nobody really cared about the leopard because everybody assumed they were really abundant and widespread.



That neglect was reflected in the scientific literature. Although scientific reports had increased steadily since 2000, the new study found that of 330 articles on leopards published from 2000 to 2015, 69% dealt with only two subspecies. Three subspecies had fewer than 5 research articles each devoted to them. Philipp said that the subspecies that were listed as critically endangered could be lost in the next five years or so. We really have to act urgently, he said.




India is blessed with the tallest and the most gallant mountains of the world. These mountains, apart from being aesthetically beautiful, also host a wide variety of flora and fauna that sustain the livelihood of the people in the region.





The mighty Himalayas, the Aravalli range, the Satpura range, the Vindhya range and the world famous Western Ghats  all have their own unique biodiversity co-existing with the indigenous human populations, forming coupled human and natural ecosystems. Humans have been living in harmony with the native flora and fauna until the boom in demand for mountain plant and animal products in the recent years. This has hampered the peaceful co-existence and resulted in the destruction of the flora and fauna. There is also an upsurge in the livestock population to meet the increasing demands for wool and other exotic products.



Conservation of the native biodiversity always faces constant conflicts with the local pastoralists of these mountains. Restriction of grazing lands, overgrazing, introduction of invasive species, deforestation and climate change are a few of the many problems, which are common to most of the mountain habitats in India.



Professor Sumanta Bagchi and his team at the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru have extensively studied the concept of Coupled human-and-natural ecosystems, probing how humans and wildlife are both dependent on factors like food resources and soil fertility. The teams work is focused on the region of the Trans-Himalayas, covering the states of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Himalayan Ibex (Capra sibirica hemalayanus) is an indigenous animal in this region and the availability of pastures for native grass-eating animals like the Ibex was restricted by domesticated animals like goat, sheep, etc. The team has developed an integrated scientific approach towards conservation of the Ibex that does not compromise human livelihoods. In close partnership with the government of Himachal Pradesh, these research findings were translated into applicable management plans.



Similar to the conflicts in the northern mountains, other hotspots like the Western Ghats have long faced the ill effects of being a biodiversity-rich region. Community forest management practices taken up by various organisations with the help of villagers have proved their efficacy through conservation of endemic species like the Nilgiri tahr (Nilgiritragus hylocrius) and the lion-tailed macaque (Macaca silenus). These villagers mainly depend on Non Timber Forest Products (NTFP) for their livelihood and have also shown interest in learning about new techniques to sustainably use NTFPs.



Another major factor often ignored in most conservation studies is the impact on soil. For example, the increased livestock in the Trans-Himalayas has lead to overgrazing in this region, which in turn has adversely affected the nutrient content of the soil. Grazing can substantially influence the stored green house gasses (GHGs) as soil carbon. A huge loss of soil carbon via overgrazing can lead to the release of these GHGs.



Although the climatic conditions of the Western Ghats and the livelihoods of the locals here are entirely different from that of the Trans-Himalayas, it is apparent that both these places have similar issues of nature conservation along with the issue of protecting the livelihoods of the locals. While all these issues may not be of immediate importance to the people living elsewhere, the damage to the ecosystem is a universal problem. Sooner or later, its ripples will spread and we will all be caught up in the whirlpool.



The changing environment shows us the mirror to our own deeds and the footprints that we leave behind for the ones yet to come. The need of the hour is to mend our ways regarding how development is being carried out, have better policies in place, consume natural resources responsibly and be ecologically aware citizens.




The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy will not only incentivise entrepreneurship and innovation in the country, but will aid in the conversion of copyrights and patents for commercial use, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said today.





Last week, government announced a comprehensive national IPR policy, which calls for updating intellectual property laws, including Indian Cinematography Act to remove anomalies and inconsistencies in consultation with stakeholders. It also aims to curb the manufacturing and sale of counterfeits.



Indian courts have kept up the rule of law and protection of patents and rights of patent holders have never been undermined, Sitharaman told reporters here.



"But now with this policy, we have given a direction to it, to the whole idea of how we are going to sustain and build on the interest for innovation, how R&D is going to strengthen India's patent related matters and how as a government we are going to help them strengthening awareness," she added.



The Minister further said, "Also, most importantly in India, conversion of copyright of patents for commercial use has never been a vibrant space."



Very few people even bother to register a patent or apply for a copyright and those who did thought that converting it for commercial use was not their cup of tea, she said.



"That dichotomy had undermined the potential that existed. This policy, the way in which we have drawn the action plan for startups and trying to link it all up to creativity and to the larger public, that's where I think the policy has come very well.



"Make it possible for every patent that has the potential for commercial use, make it possible for every copyright that has the potential for commercial use," Sitharaman noted.



Sitharaman said another area where the policy has focused is a "systemic or systematic way" for filing of patents.



"There will be a layer of people who can explain how this can be done (patents and copyrights). How it can be part of your R&D, understand the process, its legal framework under which it works, renewal, if there is litigation over it then a set of lawyers who can help, all this," she added.



Another aspect with this is that India is not going to lose out on its traditional knowledge, the Minister said.



Citing examples, she said India has successfully tested with traditional ways of conserving water and the IPR policy has space for that also.



Countries across the globe are looking at sustainable methods of conserving natural resources and in that India has a wealth of information, which was not saved, she added.



"If Nobel prize could be given to a Chinese herbal expert and world over there is in acceptance that there is a scientific remedy available using these herbs.



"And if Chinese could break through, why is that India, in Ayurveda, has not gone to that extent. If it is possible now, with this policy been announced, we will give encouragement for that," she said.



Asked if the government will register such traditional practices or knowledge, Sitharaman said, "Government is not going to do any of them. We will encourage people who are going to do it.



"But, at the same time, we will ensure that this is not patented by someone who does not have a historical legacy claim to that system. Like turmeric, like neem.



Nobody will hold a proprietary right over it. Everybody can use it. Its been a public right always and it shall remain like that."



There is a need to make sure that there is an organised systematic way to recognise such traditional practices and knowledge, she added.



"Patent right cannot be held on traditional knowledge and it is for public good. No one can claim a proprietary right over it. Through the policy, a system will be created that will keep an eye on such patents," the Minister said.



This way the government will try to exclude instances of commercialisation of traditional knowledge or practices that are available for common good, she added.



On the US' Special 301 report on IPR, Sitharaman said: "We don't even recognise it as their right. It is a unilateral action. The US may do it if they want to do it, but no country has a right to have a oversight mechanism over any policy which prevails in a particular country on their own.



It has been alleged that India's IPR regime is not in compliance with global norms, a charge India strongly contests at all forums.



On India's move to file 16 cases against the US for violating WTO treaties as certain programmes of the western nation in the renewable energy sector, which are inconsistent with global norms, Sitharaman said it is being taken up and will "happen soon".



India believes that certain renewable energy programmes in the US at the sub-federal level are inconsistent with WTO provisions, particularly with respect to obligation under GATT 1994, Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and/or TRIMS Agreement.




Major political parties today favoured deferring implementation of Supreme Court-ordered NEET as the sole medical and dental entrance test by at least a year as the Centre kicked off consultations on the issue, asserting the matter was essentially in "executive domain".





As the parties addressed concerns by several state governments, which wanted their exams to be the basis for admission for their 85 per cent quota seats for this year too, Union Health Minister J P Nadda made it clear private medical colleges and deemed universities cannot have their entrance exams and will have to take students through the NEET route.



After separate meetings with State Health Ministers and political parties on the Supreme Court order, the government said it was in favour of implementing NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) but it has to take on board the issues being raised by the states on holding a common gateway test from this year itself.



Separately, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while referring to protests by many states over the Supreme Court order asserted that what should be the manner of holding the examination across the country is essentially an executive matter as it is in policy domain.



While Nadda chaired the consultations with the state health ministers, Jaitley presided over the meeting with the political parties. The consultations came amid reports that Centre may bring an ordinance to bypass the apex court's ruling making NEET mandatory from this year.



"We are in favour of implementation of NEET. We are trying to address the issues of states. There are mainly three concerns of the states. All states have different syllabus and therefore a common syllabus needs to be formed so that students can prepare accordingly.



"Secondly, the exams should also be conducted in regional languages whereever required and lastly the ongoing exams of the states needs to be looked at," Nadda said after the all- party meet tonight.



Nadda said the Supreme Court's order was welcomed by almost all states but some of them flagged concerns over holding it in the current year itselfThe Health Minister said the future course of action will be formulated "soon" as the Centre was committed to bringing in transparency in medical education system and remove alleged malpractices.



Earlier, during an interaction with the media, Jaitley said, "It is the case of some of the states that boards are unequal, their languages are dissimilar. Can those who are dissimilar in language and unequal be placed on the pedestal of quality and asked to give the same exam?



"I think this matter is essentially in the executive domain. We now have a Supreme Court judgement. We will have to see how we deal with that particular issue," Jaitley told reporters. Several states want NEET to be implemented only from the 2017-18 academic session.



Jaitley, however, said the judiciary and executive are "on the same page" over maintaining the fairness and integrity of exams at all costs.



Nadda said although most states are in favour of NEET "in principle", some have talked about logistical issues that are "impeding" its implementation.



"Most States are in favour of NEET in principle. However, some states have expressed that there are some logistics issues that are impeding its implementation, and therefore they have desired for some more time.



"We will need more discussions with the state governments on the NEET issue.



Today, we had discussions on language, syllabus and state governments' concerns over state medical entrance examinations. We have to solve all the problems of the states before NEET is conducted across the country," Nadda said.He said his Ministry will apprise the Supreme Court of the state governments' apprehensions on NEET only after arriving at a conclusion.



At the meeting, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain came out in full support of the Supreme Court order and requested the Centre to implement it at the earliest to bring in reform.



Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the NEET issue, amid concerns raised by parents and students. "I have assured parents that I will meet PM Modi on NEET issue. We are trying our best to resolve the issue," he told reporters in Mumbai.



The Supreme Court had ruled that starting this academic session, students would have to appear in NEET to seek admission to medical or dental colleges in the country.



The apex court order had implied that all government colleges, deemed universities and private medical colleges would be covered under NEET and those examinations which had already taken place or were slated to be conducted separately stand scrapped.



Nadda said all states agreed that the NEET was a welcome move for bringing in transparency and removing several malpractices in the field of medical education.



However, during the meeting some states said the examination process was either underway or was soon to commence for admission to various state medical colleges.



Others referred to the issue of the syllabus of the CBSE being different from that of the State Examination Boards.



"The views and concerns of the states shall be collated and soon a future course of action shall be thought of. The Government is committed to bring about transparency in medical education and remove malpractices," he said.



INLD leader Dushyant Chautala said students should be given time to prepare for the common exam.



Chautala said that every party that was present at the meeting has opposed the NEET because the time is very short and students are also not prepared to handle the common entrance test as all state boards have different syllabus.



"Therefore we request the government to conduct NEET with the postgrad exam next year and come with a common syllabus so that every student has equal right in all regional languages which the government accepts in the coming year 2017-18," he added.



Earlier this week, the apex court had turned down a batch of appeals by states seeking to conduct their own medical admission tests and ruled that "only NEET would enable students to get admission to MBBS or BDS studies".




Zenify, a home aggregator and rental management startup based in Bengaluru, is targeting at adding 4,000 properties in next 10 months available for rent across the city.





Speaking to Deccan Herald, Sudarshan Purohit, Co-founder and CEO of Zenify said, We are adding over 300 properties each month, which will go up in the coming months. With this, we are taking the total number of properties available for rent to 6,000 in Bengaluru by the end of this financial year.



Started in 2012, the company recently raised pre-Series A funding of Rs 6 crore from high networth individuals (HNI), who have a minor stake in the organisation. The company will be using the raised funds to further expand its range of services in India and strengthen its team to compliment their capabilities. The company had earlier raised Rs 4 crore in angel funding from Srikanth and Bharath from K12 Techno Service and Atul Jalan, Founder and CEO of Mathan Software Service.



Talking about its uniqueness, he said, We manage the entire rental process end-to-end, including all paperwork, and contracts. We charge one-month rental to the owner and not to tenants. Our homes come with prescribed standards and analytics-driven pricing, ensuring a fair deal to the tenant. All documentation is handled by us. Besides, we provide prompt, fair quotes and assistance for repairs and maintenance.



Sharing future plans, Purohit said, We are looking at listing 1.5 lakh properties in 9 top cities across India in next 4 years. Besides Bengaluru (40,000 properties), we are looking at Mumbai (30,000), Delhi (30,000), Pune (10,000), Hyderabad (10,000), Chennai (20,000), Kolkota (20,000), Ahmedabad and Surat (10,000). With this, we are targeting rental transaction to the tune of $5 billion (Rs 3600 crore) by 2020.



Commenting on opportunities, he pointed out that India has an untapped market of 4.5 billion for managed home rentals with 40 lakh unattended NRI properties.



We strongly believe that the real estate industry has a lot of potential for change and growth and the impending years will bring about the required changes, the industry so greatly needs.




Al-Qaedas top leadership in Pakistan, badly weakened after a decade of CIA drone strikes, has decided that the terror groups future lies in Syria and has secretly dispatched more than a dozen of its most seasoned veterans there, according to senior US and European intelligence and counterterrorism officials.





The movement of the senior al-Qaeda jihadis reflects Syrias growing importance to the terrorist organisation and most likely foreshadows an escalation of the groups bloody rivalry with the Islamic State (IS), Western officials say.



The operatives have been told to start the process of creating an alternative headquarters in Syria and lay the groundwork for possibly establishing an emirate through al-Qaedas Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, to compete with IS, from which Nusra broke in 2013.



This would be a significant shift for al-Qaeda and its affiliate, which have resisted creating an emirate, or formal sovereign state, until they deem conditions on the ground are ready. Such an entity could also pose a heightened terrorist threat to the US and Europe.



Al-Qaeda operatives have moved in and out of Syria for years. Ayman al-Zawahri, the groups supreme leader in Pakistan, dispatched senior jihadis to bolster the Nusra Front in 2013. A year later, al-Zawahri sent to Syria a shadowy al-Qaeda cell called Khorasan that US officials say has been plotting attacks against the West.



But establishing a more enduring presence in Syria would present the group with an invaluable opportunity, Western analysts said. A Syria-based al-Qaeda state would not only be within closer striking distance of Europe but also benefit from the recruiting and logistical support of fighters from Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.



The combination of an al-Qaeda emirate and a revitalised al-Qaeda central leadership in northern Syria would represent a confidence boost for the jihadi organisations global brand, Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, wrote in Foreign Policy.



Al Qaeda would present itself as the smart, methodical and persistent jihadi movement that, in contrast to the Islamic State, had adopted a strategy more aligned with everyday Sunni Muslims, Lister wrote.



Al-Qaeda and the IS have the same ultimate objective to create an Islamic state, but they have used different tactics, Lister and other scholars said. The IS moved quickly to impose harsh, unilateral control over territory in Iraq and Syria and declare its independence. The Nusra Front has painstakingly sought to build influence over areas it wants to control and with other Syrian rebel groups opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.



US officials say the IS has largely eclipsed al-Qaeda in the global jihadi hierarchy, with al-Qaeda haemorrhaging members to its more brutal and media-savvy rival. Many of the Khorasan operatives, including their leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, have been killed in eight US airstrikes in northwest Syria since September 2014.



Different ambitionsThe IS has between 19,000 and 25,000 fighters, roughly divided between Iraq and Syria, US intelligence analysts estimate. The Nusra Front has about 5,000 to 10,000 fighters, all in Syria. An emirate would differ from the IS caliphate in the scale of its ambition, in that a Nusra emirate would not claim to be a government for all the worlds Muslims.



Some senior US and European intelligence and law enforcement officials say the small but steady movement of important al-Qaeda operatives and planners to Syria is a desperate dash to a haven situated perilously in the middle of the countrys chaos.



Theres always been a steady trickle, and it remains, said Colonel Steve Warren, a military spokesman in Baghdad for the US-led campaign in Iraq and Syria.



Nonetheless, the presence of a senior cadre of experienced al-Qaeda leaders in Syria has raised alarms in Washington as well as in the allied capitals of Europe, West Asia and North Africa.



It is unclear how and when al-Qaeda might form an emirate in Syria that would hold territory and most likely harden its position toward more moderate Syrian opposition groups. The Nusra Front was created in 2012 as an offshoot of al-Qaedas affiliate in Iraq  which under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi later declared itself the Islamic State  to fight Assads government. That same year, the US designated the Nusra Front as a terrorist organisation.



But in 2013, the Nusra Front balked at joining al-Baghdadi when he announced the creation of the IS and instead pled-ged allegiance to al-Zawahri in Pakistan.



This ignited an often bloody rivalry between Nusra and IS fighters in Syria.Now al-Qaedas top leadership is looking to stanch its losses in Pakistan and score a propaganda coup in Syria by establishing a formal emirate. A portion of Nusras leadership, however, supports continuing the groups more pragmatic strategy of cultivating local support.



The fundamental disagreement is over how far al-Qaedas long-game strategy should be sustained before revealing more and more of Nusras real face and solidifying territorial control through the formation of an emirate, Lister said.




Carry your raincoat and umbrella each time you step out in the next two days as the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast rainfall and cloudy sky in Bengaluru and most parts of south interior Karnataka over the coming 48 hours.





This is because of a system formation in the Bay of Bengal which is common during May, before the arrival of southwest monsoon, said Geeta Agnihotri, director in-charge, IMD, Bengaluru.



There is a well-marked low-pressure area over the southwest Bay of Bengal and the adjoining Sri Lanka which has moved slightly north-westwards and now lies over Sri Lanka and the adjoining Gulf of Mannar and the southwest Bay of Bengal.



The system is likely to move north-northwestwards and concentrate into a depression over the next 48 hours, she said.



The temperature in the city has dipped because of the cloud cover.

The maximum and minimum temperatures on Monday were 30.6 and 23.8 degrees Celsius, respectively.



The maximum and minimum temperatures at HAL airport were 30.1 and 23 degrees Celsius, respectively, and at the international airport were 31.2 and 23.2 degrees Celsius, respectively.



The normal maximum and minimum temperatures are 33 and 21 degrees Celsius, respectively.



Monsoon arrival



The southwest monsoon models suggest that the rainy season will hit the Kerala coast on June 7 (plus or minus four days), Agnihotri said.



This means the monsoon will arrive in Karnataka late, while the normal forecast date is June 5. The onset of monsoon in Karnataka will depend on its arrival in Kerala. So, we have to wait and watch, she said.



The formation of systems, however, will not have an impact on the arrival of monsoon. The IMD has forecast a normal monsoon this season.


The Centre is planning to introduce common entrance test for admissions to veterinary colleges across the country on the lines of NEET for medical courses.





The Agriculture Ministry has written to the state governments asking them to sign up for the common entrance test for admissions to 44 veterinary colleges and universities.



At present, the Veterinary Council of India conducts the All India Pre-Veterinary Test (AIPVT) for 15% of all-India quota seats for veterinary courses with the balance 85% is filled up by states through a separate test.



A brainchild of Minister of State for Agriculture Sanjeev Balyan, the AIPVT for the 2016 academic year was held last week in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur and Rajasthan.

I hope other states follow suit and sign up for a common entrance test from the next academic year, Balyan told reporters here.



He argued that a common entrance test would help provide quality healthcare to the livestock sector.



Balyan also voiced concern over the lack of facilities and faculty at most veterinary as well as agriculture colleges run by the state governments.



Many agriculture or veterinary colleges have infrastructure in place, but no faculty, he said and claimed that most of the states were not recruiting faculty citing lack of funds for payment of salary and other allowances.



Balyan suggested that the state governments can recruit faculty from the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ASRB) test conducted for central agri-colleges attached to ICAR.



Once ASRB announces the cut off list, the rest can be recruited by the state governments, he said.



Currently, the NDA government is grappling with the Supreme Courts order for a common entrance test for medical courses, a move opposed by the most state governments.




A woman who went to a hospital with severe abdominal pain on Christmas Eve 2013 remembered feeling out of it after getting a dose of morphine. But as she came to, she realized her hospital gown was open and a male nurse was touching and kissing her.

The woman said she lay still, seemingly frozen. She says when she was discharged, her nurse, Thomas Mark Moore, told her, Ill find you, Sweetie.

She told nobody, even when Moore sent her a Facebook friend request days later. A year and half after her discharge from Poudre Valley Hospital, she reported Moore to police in Fort Collins.

That report in August set off an investigation that turned up eight other women who alleged that Moore, 43, had fondled, groped or kissed them at hospitals in Colorado and Nebraska over a two-year period, according to court documents.

Moores case highlights how easy it can be for nurses who are fired or forced out of their jobs over alleged misconduct to find work elsewhere, in part because some states  Colorado is among a handful  dont require hospitals to report nursing law violations to regulators.

Colorados nursing board also doesnt have the power to conduct criminal background checks for license applicants.

The hospitals apparently knew about some alleged misconduct by Moore. He was terminated from three hospitals before he was arrested, and a Nebraska hospital reported an unspecified incident involving him in 2013 that never led to charges.

But without any prosecution pending, it doesnt seem that they shared the information with other facilities.

He also held nursing licenses in Alaska and Wyoming.

Lawyers representing Moore, who is due back in court Monday on some of the allegations, did not return telephone calls seeking comment. Telephone numbers for his home and for possible relatives have been disconnected, and he did not respond to a letter sent to him in jail.

The Associated Press generally does not name victims of alleged sexual abuse.

Victims may not speak up

Brie Akins, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said sex offenders often go undetected because most victims dont go to authorities because they dont want to be subjected to scrutiny and they may blame themselves for what happened.

There is still a lot of shame around that, she said.

In Moores case, Akins said, some of the women also may have wondered whether they would be believed since they were under the influence of painkillers.

But even when the patients risked speaking out and authorities were notified, nothing happened.

Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff, Neb.  a city of 15,000 in the states panhandle  reported an unspecified complaint involving Moore and a female patient to police in June 2013. No charges were filed at the time, but its not clear why. Moore is now charged with abusing three women at the hospital in 2014 and 2015.

In August 2014, a woman told police that Moore had tried to grope her breasts a few months before at the Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center in Greeley. She wanted to warn authorities but didnt want to press charges.

However, after Moore was arrested in the Fort Collins case in December, Greeley Detective Dave Arpin contacted her again. Since other women had stepped forward, she decided to pursue charges, too.

Complaints remain secret

In Colorado, complaints to the nursing board are confidential, and officials say they cant even confirm whether a complaint exists. Any disciplinary actions taken as a result of a complaint, however, are made public.

Citing those regulations, Rebecca Laurie, a spokeswoman for the Division of Regulatory Agencies, refused to say how many complaints were filed against Moore while he worked in Colorado.

After police began investigating the 2013 case in Fort Collins, a nursing board investigator told a detective that Moore was fired after two complaints against him at the Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center in March 2014 and April 2015, court records state.

Moore also once held a license to work in Alaska but, according to records there, agreed to surrender it in March 2014 amid an investigation into undisclosed convictions on his license application. The state denied a request from The Associated Press to disclose the details.

Last year, before his arrest, Moore was fired from the company that owns the Poudre Valley and Greeley hospitals and also lost his job in Nebraska. The hospitals will not say why he was terminated.

Still, he was able to get a nursing license in Wyoming and find a job at a Denver-area hospital. North Suburban Medical Center said it hired an outside firm to do a background investigation on Moore, including checking with his previous employers.

He lost that job after his arrest, and his Colorado nursing license was suspended. Wyomings nursing board eventually suspended his license there after being notified of his arrest through a national database of information shared by boards.
Colorado has become the first state to establish a holiday celebrating public land.

Starting in 2017, the third Saturday in May will be Colorado Public Lands Day under a bill passed by state lawmakers. Gov. John Hickenlooper is expected to sign it this month.

Conservation Colorado, along with hunting and fishing groups, pushed the measure, partly in response to the seizure of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon by armed militants.

Colorado lawmakers passed the bill this month on a 36-29 vote in the House and a 25-8 vote in the Senate.

It adds to the National Public Lands Day on Sept. 24.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell welcomed the effort to celebrate open space.

Public land is integral to our economy. It provides for thousands of jobs. And it is the basis for the Colorado brand, Conservation Colorado spokeswoman Jessica Goad said.

Colorado has 24 million acres of federal public land covering mountains, deserts, forests and prairie. Outdoor recreation is linked to 125,000 jobs and generates an estimated $13.2 billion a year in Colorado.
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Ron Wilson, Altera

An air mass that begins life as a single huge cloud may separate, under the complex interactions of wind, temperature, pressure, and humidity, into several distinct strata with different characteristics. Similarly, todays seemingly uniform cloud data centers are being transformed, through the emerging pressures of big-data computing and the Internet of Things (IoT), into multiple, distinct layers of computing, networking, and storage, reaching from the heart of the data center all the way to the myriad sensors and actuators strewn through the real world. Papers at Aprils Open Server Summit in Santa Clara, California offered a unique cross-section view into this developing cloud stack.

An unusual feature of this stratification is that it appears to be driven not by the need for concentrated computing powerthe usual force behind architectural changebut by constraints on the movement of data. Increasingly, bandwidth and latency, rather that giga floating point operations per second (GFLOPS), are determining the gross structure of the cloud.

Click here to read more ...














Sonakshi, Malaikas Trip To Nepal Seems To Have Stirred Some Trouble
Fine of 3 - 6.6 billion may be imposed as punishment of the European Commissions anti-trust law.

The European Commission reportedly aims to impose a fine of 3 billion on Google for abusing its dominant web-search engine. The EU has accused Google of promoting its own shopping service, at the expense of competing services. It's worth noting that the EU can impose fines of up to 10 percent of a company's annual sales, which, in Google's case can be up to 6.6 billion. According to media reports, the commission will make an official announcement in June.

In a recent press release by the European Commission, Margarethe Vestager, the Competition Commissioner, also raised the issue of Googles monopoly abuse related to Android smartphone software. This issue cropped up after the completion of a separate one-year investigation on Android software and this increases the possibility of additional charges being levied on Google.

This will also be a solid case in the competition between Silicon Valley and Brussels, since Vestager, in her speech referred to the European commissions previous battle with Microsoft, a 12-year long battle, in which the company was fined 1.64 billion. Notably, in the same anti-trust breach, the micro-chip giant Intel was also fined 1.1 billion.

Google has the option of to fight the European Commission over the fine issue in the European Court of Justice.
Apple CEO, Tim Cook is currently in China and will reportedly visit India on Tuesday

Apple CEO, Tim Cook may visit India and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week, according to a report by Reuters. Cook is currently in China after announcing a $1 billion investment in Chinese ride-hailing app, Didi Chuxing, and sources told Reuters that he will fly down to India on Tuesday. His visit comes at a time when Apple posted its first ever quarterly decline in revenue in 13 years, in addition to the first ever decline in iPhone sales. Further, the companys growth has slowed by 32% in Greater China and 11% in Mainland China in the first quarter of 2016. By comparison, iPhone sales in India grew by 56%.

It was earlier reported that the Indian government has rejected Apples request to import and sell refurbished iPhones in the country. It was said that Apple had filed the application earlier this year, and would have included the setting up of a facility that would renovate used iPhones shipped from China. In addition, reports suggest that Foxconn may be in talks with the Indian Government to manufacture iPhones in India. Foxconn has reportedly proposed a $10 billion facility in Maharashtra and the company is seemingly scouting for about 1,200 acres of land to set it up. Foxconn currently assembles Xiaomi, OnePlus, and Gionee devices at its Sri City facility in Andhra Pradesh.
The Mi Max has a 6.44-inch 1080p display, and is available in Snapdragon 650 and 652 variants.

Xiaomis latest edition in its smartphone lineup, the Mi Max will be going on its first flash sale in China tomorrow and the company has received more than 8 million registrations for the phone. Further, the phone is now available for pre-orders internationally, via the Gearbest website. The 3GB RAM, 32GB ROM variant of the phone, powered by a Snapdragon 650, is priced at $325.89 (Rs. 21,760 approximately), and is available in grey and gold colours. However, the official price of the Chinese variant is 1,499 Yuan (Rs. 15,300 approximately). If you are interested, the Gearbest website will start shipping after June 11. Launched alongside MIUI8, the Mi Max is the biggest phone Xiaomi makes currently.

The Mi Max has a large footprint and has a 6.44-inch display on offer. It boasts a 1080p resolution and the display covers 74.8% of the total area of the body. The device is available in two Snapdragon 650 and Snapdragon 652 variants. Xiaomi has further made variations in RAM and on-board storage as well. The most affordable option is the Snapdragon 650 powered variant, with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Xiaomi's Redmi Note 3 is also powered by the same SoC. There are two variants of the Snapdragon 652, powered by the Mi Max. This includes 3GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage, and a 4GB RAM and 128GB storage, option.

A larger phone also means a larger battery and the Mi Max offers a 4850mAh battery, which supports Qualcomms Quick Charge 3.0 technology. At the back, the phone features a 16MP camera, aided by PDAF (Phase detection autofocus) and dual-LED flash. There is a 5MP camera on the front.
Motorola is going to announce the next iteration of its succesful Moto G smartphone on May 17, tomorrow. There are rumors, renders and a lot of information about the phone doing the rounds on the Internet, and you may not have heard even half of it. Some rumours suggest that the phone may have a larger 5.5-inch display, while some point towards a better camera. All things considered, it is more than likely that the upcoming smartphone will be priced under the 20K price point, and will be available via Amazon India exclusively. Here is a recap of what we know so far about the Moto G4 aka the Moto G (4th Gen)

Two to tango

First of all, it is rumoured that Moto may actually announce two variants of the Moto G, including the Moto G and a Moto G Plus variant. Rumours suggest that the two phones may have similar design and form factors, but the Plus may feature a little stronger hardware. So, instead of calling the better equipped phone Turbo, it would be called Plus.

Looks

From all the leaked images and renders we have seen so far, the design of the G4 looks similar to the Moto G (2nd Gen), rather than the Moto G (3rd Gen). However, rumours suggest that the phone may feature a metal frame around the display. Leaked images suggest that the camera module will have a metal ring around it as well.

Display

Both the Moto G and Moto G Plus smartphones may have 5.5-inch displays, offering 1920 x 1080p resolution. Currently the Moto G and the Moto G Turbo have 720p display only. In fact, Moto G devices have so far always had 720p displays. Hence, a 1080p will be good update to the lineup.

Processor and memory

According to a recent Geekbench sighting, the Moto G4 will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 SoC. This the same SoC that HTC uses on its One A9 smartphone. It is a powerful SoC, but may fall short of the Redmi Note 3s Snapdragon 650. The leaked benchmark also suggests 3GB of RAM. In terms of storage, the device is likely to be unveiled in 16GB and 32GB storage variants. Motorola is already teasing that the phone will be fast and will handle the most resource intensive games.

Camera

Motorola is also teasing the camera of the Moto G4 on its Twitter page. Rumours suggest that the Moto G lineup will also get an upgrade in the camera department. The device is expected to have a 13MP rear camera, and the G4 Plus is expected to have a 16MP rear camera. Motorola has been teasing that the new phone will have better resolution, better auto-focus and more. We can expect a newer camera module and laser autofocus to boot. The company is even touting the front facing selfie camera this time.

Camera ruined his holiday view. Bye failed selfies, #EpicFail Block your date - 17th May, 2016 at 3PM. 2 days to go! pic.twitter.com/y2TYL8f3aS  Moto India (@Moto_IND) May 15, 2016

Battery

The battery of the G4 has remained a mystery till now. There are no indications whether the phone will have a similar or larger battery pack as its predecessors. According to various tweets by Moto itself, we can assume that the phone will have a larger battery. Currently, the Redmi Note 3 features a 4000mAh battery and the Meizu M3 Note features a 4100mAh battery and both are priced under the 10k price mark.

Left stranded on the highway with a dead battery.stop #MissingOut out on support Block your date - 17th May, 2016 pic.twitter.com/nlU4dDom0Y  Moto India (@Moto_IND) May 14, 2016

OS

Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box is almost a certainty, given that this is a Motorola device. It will be layered underneath Motos own UI, which is very similar to the Google launcher. We can also expect the phone to be highly optimised, to derive the best performance out of the Snapdragon 617 SoC.

Other features

From all that we've seen till now, the Moto G4 should have a fingerprint scanner. Going by the leaked images and renders of the phone, the fingerprint scanner should be on the front, doubling up as a home button. The device is more than likely to have dust and water resistance, just like the Moto G (3rd Gen) and Moto G Turbo.

Pricing

Rumours suggest that the two variants of the phone should cost about 240 and 280, which is roughly Rs. 18,100 and Rs. 21,100 respectively.

If you want to catch the phone/phones being launched live, here is the link.
This year, 20th February marked the 30th anniversary of the launch of the historic Mir Space Station. Owned and operated by Russia (then known as the Soviet Union), this low earth orbit space station orbited the earth for about 15 years until it was finally deorbited on 23rd March, 2001. For almost the entirety of its existence, Mir was the largest artificial satellite in orbit until it was succeeded by the International Space Station (ISS), which also broke Mirs record longest continuous human presence in space at 3,644 days. Mir Still holds the record for the longest single human spaceflight, an honor that goes to Valeri Polyakov who spent 437 days and 18 hours on the station between 1994 and 1995.

The success of space stations like Mir marked a pivotal point in the mainstream success of space exploration programs. Suddenly, every superpower wanted to put an astronaut on their own extraterrestrial home to help forward the progress of science and space exploration. In fact, the concept of the orbiting space station was first conceived as early as the 60s by scientists on both sides of the Cold War, who were fighting their own battles to decide who would be the first to rule the frontiers of outer space.

The Race to the first space station

Devised in part as a response to the United States successful Apollo program, a program that saw them place the first man on the moon, the Russians launched the Salyut space program, which aimed to launch and sustain the first manned orbiting space station. Under this program, they constructed and successfully launched the Salyut 1, on April 19, 1971. The Salyut 1 would go on to be the first of many stations under this pioneering program.



Model of Salyut 7 with two Soyuz spacecrafts

Featuring a monolithic design, Salyut 1 had several compartments that included three pressurized cabins, two of which were usable by the crew. Like all space stations that would come after it, accessing the Salyut 1 required the use of a docking spacecraft. For this the Russians used their Soyuz 7K-OKS spacecraft, which had already seen numerous successful launches. The launch of the Soyuz 10 on April 23rd, 1971, marked the first ever manned expedition to the Salyut 1, and the spacecraft comprised a crew of three Soviet cosmonauts (a Russian-coined term for astronaut). Unfortunately, their attempts to hard-dock the spacecraft were unsuccessful, and they were forced to abort the mission.

June 6th of the same year saw the Soyuz 11 perform the first successful attempt to dock a spacecraft on the Salyut 1. The Soyuz 11 flew 362 orbits in a duration of 23 days. but owing to technical problems on board the Salyut, the crew had to cut short their mission and were transferred back to Soyuz 11 for re-entry to Earth. Tragically, a pressure relief valve on the spacecraft malfunctioned during re-entry causing a loss in cabin pressure and the death of the brave cosmonauts.

Americas entry into the space station race

Seeing the success of the Salyut program, the United States was not one to hand in the towel, especially when it meant conceding to the Russians. Unfortunately, funding for space programs were at a premium, especially after the severe dent the Apollo program caused in Americas fiscal budget. As the program began to lose steam in the early 70s, NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) started the Apollo Applications Program, which aimed to launch unused hardware (leftover from the Moon missions) into space for research and exploration.

It was in this program that rocket engineer Wernher von Braun conceived the idea of building a space station from an unused rocket stage. Despite reduced funding, NASA scientist tested and tweaked various prototypes until they landed on the final design of what would be the United States first-ever orbiting space station: Skylab.

Houston, we have a problem

The day of the launch of Skylab, May 14 1973, is a day that will go down in the history books of NASA as one where Murphys Law reigned supreme. The myriad of technical issues faced by the astronauts and ground crew of Skylab is almost legendary. It all began 63 seconds into its launch, when the earths atmosphere tore off the ships meteoroid shield taking with it two primary solar panels and damaging the third one, thus depriving Skylab most of its electrical power. The situation only seemed to get worse as additional damage to the ships antenna confirmed that the ships communications system had severely malfunctioned.



Skylab: NASA's first-ever orbiting space station

The ground crew at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center rushed to stabilize the situation by putting the station at an altitude that would minimize overheating. Crew members were forced to conduct emergency repair procedures that included manually deploying a solar array, erecting a sunshade to avoid overheating and conducting an improvised docking procedure after a failed initial docking attempt. While definitely looked at as a sour note in the history of American Space Exploration, Skylabs botched launch also proved that fixing a damaged space station while still in orbit was not an impossible task.

During its orbital lifetime, Skylabs crews were able to conduct a number of crucial scientific experiments, including confirming the existence of coronal holes in the Sun and using sensors to recorded data in the visible, infrared, and microwave spectral regions of earth. Skylabs last crew departed the space station in February 1974, leaving it in unmanned orbit. Despite NASAs repeated plans to send additional crews, budgetary restrictions and the advent of additional space programs meant focus had to be shifted elsewhere.

Russias re-entry into the space station game

The United States withdrawal from manned space station programs left the door open for the Russians, who were itching to discover the next technological breakthrough in space exploration. Enter the Mir space station. Famous for setting numerous space-related records, Mir will be best remembered for two truly pioneering feats. It was the first space station that boasted a modular design and was constructed in space by engineers who had to assemble individually launched modules  starting with its core module that was launched in 1986.



Russia's anti satellite missile launches sucessfully

Secondly, instead of following traditional protocol that involved bringing home all cosmonauts posted on the station and subsequently launching a new crew, the Russians decided instead to conduct changing of guard that would take place on board the outpost itself. This gave Mir its famous moniker of being Earths first ever permanently manned extraterrestrial outpost. However, this so-called permanent status was severely tested in April 1987, when Mir cosmonaut Aleksandr Laveikin was diagnosed with potential cardiovascular problem and was in danger of being shuttled back to earth. Russia was steadfast in their resolve, and instead of putting an end to long-standing expedition record, they sent within three months a replacement cosmonaut along with a support crew to the station in July in order to preserve Mirs permanent manned outpost status.

Despite their best efforts, Mir could not sustain its permanent expedition status, and had to be eventually abandoned for a few months in 1989 when ground testing damaged a Soyuz spacecraft headed to the station. This incident proved to be only a small blip in the record, as Mir would go on to remain occupied for near a decade.



Space laser satellite defense system concept

ISS and the new age of cooperation

Despite the success of the Mir space station, there were numerous reports emerging about the apparent and imminent end of the Soviet space program owing to the collapse of the Soviet Union. These rumors were squashed after the creation of the Russian Space Agency, the leaders of which quickly moved to make an agreement of cooperation with NASA for a joint space venture. The likes of such a venture were not thought of since the conception of the ApolloSoyuz Test Project in 1972, a space program that marked first joint U.S.Soviet space flight as well as the last flight of an Apollo Program spacecraft.

The first of these new cooperative programs was the ShuttleMir program, which saw a total of nine American astronauts visit Mir between 1995 and 1998. These missions gave NASA astronauts their first exposure to long-duration spaceflight since Skylab, while teaching both nations the importance of cooperating towards building a new and more-improved modular manned space station. For the betterment of space travel, these plans did eventually come to fruition and marked the birth of a space program that would bring to life to the now world-famous International Space Station (ISS).



Mir on 12 June 1998

Similar to the Mir, the ISS is an low Earth orbit man-made satellite and is currently the largest artificial body in orbit (which, in the right circumstances, can be seen with the naked eye). True to the programs spirit of international cooperation, early modules for the ISS were launched by Russian Soyuz rockets as well as American Space Shuttles (until the latter program was shut down in 2011). In fact, the ISS program is a joint venture that includes not just NASA and Roscosmos (Russian Federal Space Agency) but also JAXA (Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency), CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and ESA (European Space Agency), which includes 22 member nations.

One of the main objectives of the ISS is to provides a unique platform for conducting scientific research, chief of these being microgravity conditions and exposure to the harsh, unforgiving conditions of space. In addition, space stations like ISS offer an environment in which studies can be performed for potentially decades, something that was not previously possible with manned spacecraft. This opportunity has paved the way for extremely interesting experiments from developing technology for more advanced space exploration to studies on the effect of space-like conditions on human health.

Reports on 28th March 2015 claimed an agreement had be orchestrated between Roscosmos and NASA to collaborate on the development of a replacement for the ISS. This report was based primarily on an announcement by Igor Komarov, the head of Russias Roscosmos, who stated that Roscosmos together with NASA will work on the programme of a future orbital station. He also stated that the first step towards this would be to continue operations on the ISS up to 2024. While this sounds like exciting news, NASA spokesman David Weaver stated that the agency appreciated the Russian commitment to extending the ISS but he did not confirm any plans for a future space station.

Bringing the final frontier closer to home

Space stations like the ISS also serve as a destination for newer spacecrafts designed by space agencies including national bodies like NASA and JAXA as well as private-owned ones like SpaceX. Since its launch, the ISS has welcomed a variety of space vessels including prominent ones like NASAs Space Shuttle, Russias Soyuz, Japans HTV (H-II Transfer Vehicle), the ESAs ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle), and most recently SpaceXs Dragon capsule. We havent even mentioned the potential applications for space tourism, highlighted by Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corporations plans to dock their manned CST-100 capsule and Dream Chaser space plane, respectively, with the ISS. With the increased interest in space travel and the tangible advances in space exploration technology, it seems only a matter of time before feasible commercial space tourism becomes a reality.

Also read our article on the new space race here.

This article was first published in the March 2016 issue of Digit magazine. To read Digit's articles first, subscribe here or download the Digit e-magazine app.
These were the movements in the most widely-followed 10-year sovereign bond yields:

US: 1.75% (+5bp)

UK: 1.40% (+2bp)

Germany: 0.14% (+2bp)

France: 0.49% (+2bp)

Spain: 1.60% (+0bp)

Italy: 1.48% (+0bp)

Portugal: 3.14% (-2bp)

Greece: 7.40% (-2bp)

Japan: -0.10% (+1bp)

Yields mover higher across the board on Monday after a top US central bank official said there were "good arguments" in favour of a Jne rate hike by the Federal Reserve.

In an interview with The Washington Post, the president of the Federal Reserve bank of Richmond, Jeffrey Lacker, said the case for raising rates in June looked to be pretty strong and that policymakers were very far from the benchmarks they had to guide them of where rates ought to be at the moment.

Nonetheless, he cautioned but as I said, I dont make up my mind until the meeting comes."

Yet not all observers were quite as sanguine.

Steven Major, head of fixed-income research at HSBC said: the yield curve itself signals that things are not good looking into the future and talking about recession risk.

He was referring to the fact that the spread between yield on two and ten-year US Treasury notes was just above its lowest level since December 2007.

Im worried about how far that curve has gone because as I am more on the steepening camp at the moment, I think this is probably too much too soon, he added.

Yields on two-year US Treasury notes, which are more sensitive to expectations for Fed policy was four basis points higher to 0.78% as of 20:07 BST.

The above took place against the backdrop of considerably weaker than expected data releases out of China over the weekend which prompted the People's Bank of China to issue a statement saying that monetary policy would continue to be conducted in a prudent manner so as to create an appropriate financial and monetary environment to facilitate steady economic growth.

Rate-setters in Beijing also explained that weak credit data published on 13 May were in part the result of a swap programme put in place to local governments to swap more loans for cheaper municipal debt.

Chinese government borrowing surged in April and a measure of TSF adjusted to take that into account reached a 26-month high in April, Capital Economics's Julian Evans-Pritchard explained in a research note sent to clients on the same day.
Norway's massive sovereign wealth fund is to sue car maker Volkswagen over its cheating on emissions testing, the Financial Times reported.

The $850bn fund wants to join a class action suit in the German courts, the reported cited Petter Johnsen, chief investment officer for equity strategies at Norges Bank Investment Management, the manager of the oil fund, as saying.

We have been advised by our lawyers that the companys conduct gives rise to legal claims under German law. As an investor it is our responsibility to safeguard the funds holding in Volkswagen, Johnsen said.

The lawsuit, expected to be filed in the coming weeks, the report said. The fund holds a 1.64% stake in VWs ordinary voting shares, according to Bloomberg data and is the biggest investor not to hold a seat on the carmakers supervisory board. Its holding was worth $750m at the end of last year.

The emissions scandal first came to light last September and has led to VW making 16bn in provisions already to cover potential payouts. There are several class-action lawsuits in the US and Germany as well as a legal dispute in the Netherlands involving multiple institutional investors.

The oil fund is still deciding which of the actions to back in Germany, a jurisdiction it has chosen because that is where it holds most of its stake in VW rather than through American Depositary Receipts. It is estimated to have suffered losses running into hundreds of millions of dollars on its stake since last autumn and is seeking compensation for this damage, the report said.

It is sceptical about VWs claim that the defeat devices that helped its diesel vehicles cheat in emissions tests were the work only of rogue employees.

Volkswagen management should have known about the manipulative engine-management devices, Johnsen said.

VW is also being sued by the US Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and its own dealers, among others. It offered to buy back 480,000 cars in the US and provide money for a fund promoting green automotive technology in April as part of a provisional settlement in one of its main legal cases.
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Despite sequential revenue gains by most of Taiwan's flat panel makers in May, the display industry still faces a weak outlook in the end-market in the second quarter, and panel prices,...
Franklin County officials slam Ohio election security mandate

Franklin County commissioners, all Democrats, criticized GOP Secretary of State Frank LaRose's election security mandates and their $375,000 cost.
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.
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Homes in London and Hong Kong are sitting on the market longer and prices in Dubai are down 25 percent, but places like Portland, Auckland and Altanta are seeing a surge.



By JOSH BOAK

AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON  The global luxury housing market lost some of its sheen last year as financial markets became unsettled and many wealthy buyers began to look for less expensive homes.

The return of realism, is how Dan Conn, chief executive of Christie's International Real Estate, described the high-end market that stretches from San Francisco to Singapore.





. . .
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FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP)  The president of the University of Alaska is calling for a broad restructuring of the institution to deal with financial woes that he says could amount to a 22 percent reduction in funding.

Jim Johnsen in an email to campuses announced Thursday he would push to combine the three main UA campuses into a single university, ending independent administration and accreditation at UA Fairbanks, UA Anchorage and UA Southeast, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.





. . .
EU antitrust regulator to fine Google record 3 bn for manipulating search results

The European antitrust regulator will impose a record 3 billion ($3.4 billion) fine on Internet search giant Google in the coming weeks for abusing its dominance of the online search market in the region, the UK's Telegraph newspaper today reported.

The 3-billion fine would surpass the 1.1 billion fine levied by the European Commission (EC) on US chipmaker Intel.

The report said that officials at the EC aimed to make an announcement before the summer break and could make their move as early as next month, although the bill on Google's online competition practices had not been finalised.

The maximum fine that can be levied on the search giant is 6.6 billion, or a tenth of Google's annual revenues.

Apart from the massive fine, Google will also be banned from continuing to manipulate search results to favour itself and harm rivals, the report said.

In 2010, the EC launched an anti-trust investigation against Google following complaints from three European internet companies alleging that the internet search giant suppresses competition by using penalty filters to place certain sites from its search results so far down the rankings that they are hardly found found.

The Brussels-based anti-trust regulator has asked Google to explain how its search engine operates and has questioned the way it sells advertising after it received complaints from three companies - UK price comparison site Foundem, French legal search engine called ejustice.fr, and shopping site Ciao, owned by Microsoft.

Google controls over 90 per cent of the online search market in Europe, which is much in excess than the 65 per cent in the US.

Foundem had alleged that Google's algorithms demote their site in Google's search results because they are a vertical search engine, and being a direct competitor to Google, while ejustice.fr 's complaint echo these concerns.

Foundem had earlier said in a blog post, ''Google has always used various penalty filters to remove certain sites entirely from its search results or place them so far down the rankings that they will never be found.''

''Whereas these penalties used to be reserved for spam, or sites caught attempting to cheat Google's algorithms, they are now increasingly targeted at perfectly legitimate vertical search and directory services.''

''It may not be coincidence that, collectively, these services present a nascent competitive threat to Google's share of online advertising revenues.''

Vertical search is different from keyword-based, horizontal search used by Google. In Google search, a search for flights will return with a list of sites that sell flights, while a vertical search engine like Foundem will perform a highly specialised search that will search more extensively and return with results detailing all actual flights.

Google blamed competitors for raising these issues since Foundem is a member of an organisation called Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace, which is funded partly by Microsoft, while Ciao did not have a problem as long as it was an AdSense partner with Google, but it started receiving complaints after Microsoft acquired Ciao in 2008.

Jaoquin Almunia, the previous Competition Commissioner, sought to agree to a deal without bringing formal charges, but Competition Commissioner Margarethe Vestage has brought a new, more aggressive style to the role, the report added, citing lawyers in Brussels.


China has denounced interpretations of its military operations in the East and the South China Sea contained in a new US Defense department report that spotlights cyber warfare. The report "deliberately distorted" China's defence policy and legitimate actions, spokesman Yang Yujun said in a statement posted on Saturday on the Chinese defence ministry's official feed on Weibo, the popular Chinese microblogging site. At issue is the Defence Department's annual report to Congress on China's capabilities, published on Friday. China typically responds sharply to the US assessments. The 156-page document was released ahead of a visit to Vietnam and Japan this month by President Barack Obama amid increasing tensions between the US, China and Southeast Asian nations over sovereignty claims in the South China Sea. The report asserts that China's military conducted cyber probes and intrusions against US computer networks to support intelligence collection and electronic warfare. "China is using its cyber capabilities to support intelligence collection against the US diplomatic, economic, and defence industrial base sectors that support US national defence programmes," the defence department said in the report. Highlighting what the Pentagon describes as China's focus on improving cyber capabilities to counter a "stronger foe", the report said information gleaned by hackers "could inform Chinese military planners' work to build a picture of US defence networks, logistics, and related military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis". "The accesses and skills required for these intrusions are similar to those necessary to conduct cyber attacks," according to the report. The intelligence gathering could also provide the ruling Communist Party "insights into US leadership perspectives on key China issues." Yang, the Chinese defence ministry spokesman, warned in response that China wants the US to stop using words or actions detrimental to maintaining mutual trust between the US and Chinese militaries. In the same statement, Yang said that China is reinforcing its military along defensive lines, to protect its sovereignty, security and territorial integrity. And the artificial islands being built in the South China Sea are mostly for civilian needs, said Yang. Artificial islands

The Pentagon report said that President Xi Jinping's military in 2015 "accelerated land reclamation and infrastructure construction at its outposts in the Spratly Islands", which when complete "will include harbors, communications and surveillance systems, logistics facilities, and three airfields". "Although artificial islands do not provide China with any additional territorial or maritime rights within the South China Sea, China will be able to use its reclaimed features as persistent civil-military bases to enhance its presence in the South China Sea significantly and enhance China's ability to control the features and nearby maritime space," the report said. China claims more than 80 per cent of the South China Sea. Several other nations, including Vietnam and the Philippines, have competing sovereignty claims in the region. Adding to tensions, Chinese naval vessels followed and sent warnings to the USS William P Lawrence this week as the vessel sailed within the 12 nautical mile (22 kilometre) territorial zone around Fiery Cross Reef, a feature in the Spratly Islands where China has dumped hundreds of thousands of tons of sand and coral to create an island on which it has built an airstrip. China called the US warship's manoeuvres "a naked challenge," while the US said it was a "freedom of navigation" operation in international waters, one of many it has taken near contested reefs and outcrops. Chinese officials held a video conference on the tensions on Friday with Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Pentagon's report also highlighted what it described as an "extraordinarily rapid" expansion of China's long-range precision strike capabilities. While China has a no-first-use policy toward nuclear weapons, the report suggested -- based on Chinese media reports and military writings - that the country intends to build a stealth bomber to carry nuclear weapons. "If it does, China would develop a 'triad' of nuclear delivery systems dispersed across land, sea and air - a posture considered since the Cold War to improve survivability and strategic deterrence," according to the report. The US has plans to modernise its long-standing nuclear triad. One of the Chinese military capability developments being most closely watched is when its first JIN-class submarines start to said armed with JL-2 intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles capable of striking the US. These patrols have been forecast for at least two years in the Pentagon report and in Defence Intelligence Agency congressional testimony. According to Friday's assessment, "this platform represents China's first credible, sea-based nuclear deterrent." US Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia Abraham Denmark told reporters on Friday that China has not yet conducted a "deterrence" patrol. "China will probably conduct its first" nuclear-missile armed submarine patrol sometime in 2016, the report said.










Halloween creatures  owls, crows and bats  all live at Crossroads, and that makes us very happy, for these scary animals make a positive contribution to the habitats of the preserve. We don't even mind black cats, IF they are kept indoors. Feral and outdoor cats are exceedingly harmful to wildlife ... and that's not a superstition! But to tamp down superstitions, we at Crossroads will spend the week demystifying Halloween creatures.

On October 28, 2022, at 6 p.m. will be our Evening with Owls. The Open Door Bird Sanctuary will be at Crossroads, offering a one-hour presentation followed by the opportunity to meet and greet live birds. Learn all about owls and the other incredible birds in the care of the Sanctuary!

Down through the centuries, in many cultures throughout the world, owls have been associated with evil and death. Truth is, owls probably are not smart enough to be evil. But researchers agree that owls are about as dim as the nighttime forests in which they hunt.

Owls don't need to be smart. They have everything else going for them. They are muscular. They fly silently. Their huge eyes enable them to see in the dark. Their beaks and talons are strong and wickedly sharp. But their sensitive ears are what make owls extraordinary hunters.

Most people assume that the plumicorns (a.k.a. "horns) of an owl are its ears. Not so.

The actual ears lie under feathers on the sides of the head, and they aren't symmetrical. Because one ear is higher than the other and the ears are unequal in size, sound is different from different directions, helping owls locate prey, which they do almost unfailingly, even in total darkness.

Owls do not smell their prey. As with most birds, the sense of smell is insignificant, if it exists are all. Great Horned Owls frequently prey on skunks. Enough said.

But well-developed intelligence? Researchers have observed owls beating their wings on bushes to try to flush out little birds. Is this learned behavior? Is it problem-solving?

Maybe.

For the most part, owls do not have a lot of problems to solve. They appropriate abandoned nests of other birds, so they don't need building skills. They are stealthy by nature, and they pounce on and usually catch anything they hear, so they don't need hunting techniques.

In spite of ghost stories, legends of American First People, and superstitions from Europe and India, hooting owls do not foretell impending death, although their nocturnal calls are spooky. We hear them now and then this time of year, but we will regularly hear those eerie calls at Crossroads in January or February.

In contrast to owls, crows are noisy all year round and they are amazingly intelligent. They can learn. They can remember. They can solve problems. They can even identify individual humans. And they detest owls, though whether this is innate or learned behavior is not clear.

Those curious about crows will want to attend the Crossroads Book Club on Wednesday, October 26, at 10:00 a.m. This month, the book Crow Planet, Essential Wisdom for the Urban Wilderness by Lyanda Lynn Haupt will explore the fascinating world of these remarkable birds. The program is free and open to all, whether or not they have read the book.

So bring the family to our program on owls, learn about crows at the Crossroads Book Club, or learn about bats at our pre-school Junior Nature Club on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. or our Family Science Saturday program at 2:00 p.m. Costumes are encouraged but not required at Junior Nature Club and Science Saturday, and adult visitors are welcome.
Jacqueline Mary Meister, Jackie to all who knew and loved her, 91, of Sturgeon Bay, was called Home to be with the Lord, Monday evening, October 10, 2022 at Door County Medical Center in Sturgeon Bay.

She was born January 20, 1931 in Algoma, the daughter of Melvin Jacob Blahnik, Sr. and Emeline Caroline (Schmitz) Blahnik. Jackie grew up attending St. Mary Catholic Church and Grade School in Algoma. She graduated from Algoma High School, the class of 1948. Jackie first met her husband, James Howard Meister while working at the bowling alley (for $0.10/game) in Algoma. They were united in marriage on May 25, 1948 at Jims parents home (off State Highway 42 between Maplewood and Forestville). They eventually moved to Sturgeon Bay and lived on Juniper Street on the west side of Sturgeon Bay where they raised their family of nine. Jackie attended Corpus Christi Catholic Church with her family and eventually St. Joseph Catholic Church, both in Sturgeon Bay.

She was employed at various establishments in Sturgeon Bay throughout her life - initially at Ray's Grocery Store (where Bridgeport is currently located); then with Krueger canning (where Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding Co. is now located). She also worked for Chico's Cherry factory, then Jolins Drug Store (downtown), before going to work for Isaaksens Laundromat (on the west side)

Jackies primary and final employment was with the Door County Senior resource Center in Sturgeon Bay where she was the first bus driver, initially providing transportation with her own van. She drove residents and area community members around the county until her eventual retirement in 1992.

Jackie and Jim moved to Bay Shore Drive just outside the city limits of Sturgeon Bay, in the Town of Sevastopol in 1990. They were blessed with over 43 years of marriage. Jackie resided there until late spring of 2021 when she moved into the Pine Crest Village in Sturgeon Bay.

She was a member of Saints Peter and Paul Parish in Institute as well as the A Doorable Red Hatters (of Door County). In the 1950s and 1960s, Jackie and Jim were members of the Door Devils Motorcycle Club. Earlier in life, she enjoyed bowling in various leagues at Cherry Lanes in Sturgeon Bay. Jackie looked forward to playing cards with her friends in their card club that got together regularly. She also liked traveling with friends as part of the Retired Persons Traveling Club.

Jackie will be missed by her four children, Kathy Meister of the Town of Sevastopol, Michael (Dale) Meister of Clifton, VA, Robert (Jerrilynn) Meister of California City, CA, and Patricia (Brent) LaVigne of Valmy; ten grandchildren, Jordan (Missy) Whipple and Zachary Meister, Lindsay and Michael Dylan Meister, Jennifer (Joe) Gomez and Kimberly (Chad) Adkinson, Tom (Jackie) LaVigne and Michael (Lisa) LaVigne, Tim Meister, and Christie Meister; and a large number of great-grandchildren. In addition, shell be missed by her brother, Melvin (Janet) Blahnik, Jr. of Florida; other relatives; and friends.

Jackie was preceded in death by her husband James Meister; three sons, Richard, Thomas, and Jerome Meister; two grandsons, Peter Meister and Timothy Meister; sister, Barbara (Ervin) Stahl; sister-in-law, Jean Meister; and other relatives.

Her life will be honored with a Mass of Christian Burial celebrated at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, November 4, 2022 at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Institute, 4767 E. Dunn Rd., Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235 with Fr. Robert Stegmann as celebrant. The Rosary will be prayed at the church at 9:10 a.m. on Friday, November 4, 2022 with visitation for family and friends following from 9:30 a.m. until the time of Mass.

Jackie will be laid to rest next to her late husband in the Forestville Town Cemetery.

Memorials may be given in Jackies name for the Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) of Door County.

Our family would like to express our heartfelt thanks to Dr. Richard Hogan and staff at Door County Medical Center, the Pine Crest Village staff, and the Unity Hospice staff for the wonderful care given to our mother.

Huehns Funeral Home, Inc & Door County Crematory LLC in Sturgeon Bay are assisting the Meister family. Expressions of sympathy, memories, and photos of Jackie may be shared with her family through her tribute page at www.huehnsfuneralhome.com.
dpa ElectionsData

With dpa ElectionsData you get access to a unique collection of data. Via a programming interface (Rest-API), your developers can access detailed information, candidate profiles and live results for all national elections in the European Union and important international elections, like the US Midterm elections etc.

The data pool also includes all heads of state and government as well as about 20,000 elected members of parliament throughout the EU. In addition to their data (name, party, constituency or list position), we collect social media profiles and official websites of individuals and parties.
Nissan and Mitsubishi will work together to build more competitive utes under an alliance proposed by Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn.

Nissan announced plans to buy a $3 billion, 34 per cent stake in Mitsubishi this week after the troubled brand admitted to cheating in Japanese fuel economy tests.

Ghosn, head of the Renault Nissan alliance, says the brands would work together in the future to save on research and development costs for cars such as the next-generation Nissan Navara and Mitsubishi Triton utes.

"It's very possible that we're going to use the same platform," Ghosn says.

"But we're going to develop the car differently, because the customer of Mitsubishi is not the same as the customer from Nissan.

"The specification of the Nissan pickup truck is not the same. But instead of having different platforms we can have on the same platform two completely different products, which would allow the cost of investment to be lower.

"Also, [it would allow] a lower purchasing cost because some of the parts which are not visible to the customer can be common - a common platform, with different developments."

Nissan is not new to sharing the Navara's underpinnings, as the current-generation car will be the basis for utes sold by Renault and Mercedes-Benz.

Other companies such as Ford and Mazda share key hardware underneath the latest Ranger and BT-50 utes. Just as those cars have different characters, Ghosn reiterated that a jointly developed Triton and Navara would be more than clones.

"The product development will be very specific to each brand, but the technology development will be common," he says.

The arrangement could extend to other vehicles, such as shared Mitsubishi Lancer and Nissan Pulsar small cars that could be based on Renault's next-generation Megane.

Ghosn says the potential merger is a "win-win" situation geared toward investing in both sets of companies by finding cost efficiencies in parts supply and engineering as opposed to shutting down vehicle production plants.

"We have no worries about shutting down plants," he says.

"It's going to be separate  each one is going to have its own plant.

"But what may happen is that in the plant of Nissan we may build, if it makes sense, some Mitsubishi product. Or, in the Mitsubishi plant, we can also assemble some Nissan products if it makes sense."
A STUDENT fashion designer from Dundalk was among eight finalists who competed in the Persil Irish Fashion Awards 2011.

A STUDENT fashion designer from Dundalk was among eight finalists who competed in the Persil Irish Fashion Awards 2011.

Laura Gilsenan, aged 22, from Oaklawns impressed judges with her design at the grand final, which took place on Sunday, April 20 in The Marks & Spencer Grafton Street Rooftop Cafe.

Persils Red Alert brief required the finalists to design in red, machine-washable fabric for

spring/summer 2011.

The students designed what they felt fashionable Irish women would like to wear, using a variety of shades of red and textures of fabric.

The dress Laura designed was inspired by some research she did about pianos and the circus; then she moved onto manipulating the button stands.

Laura began working on the dress last December. She had to make two of the same dress for the competition and each dress took two weeks to make.

A student at the National College of Art & Design, Laura was joined in the final by fellow NCAD students Mona Atkinson, Mary Lennon and Aoife Conroy.

Helen Lalor, Rionnaigh Condon and Lynne Rutherford from Limerick School of Art & Design were also in the final, along with Aisling Richards-Scully from The Grafton Academy.

It was Monaghan student, Mary Lennon who walked away with the top prize of e10,000.
Australias female entrepreneurs are facing key barriers when it comes to realising their ambitions for business growth, EY has found.

The global professional services organisation conducted a survey of 143 female entrepreneurs as part of its Entrepreneurial Winning Women (EWW) Asia-Pacific program, which assists female-led businesses to become global market leaders.

An overwhelming majority (90%) of respondents reported plans to grow their business, with 60% planning to grow internationally and 16% working towards an initial public offering (IPO).

Entrepreneurs intimidated

Almost two-thirds (58%) of entrepreneurs had explored external financing options but most (73%) admitted finding the process intimidating.

Further, more than half (53%) lacked a clear exit strategy to help attract prospective investors and more than a quarter had not yet replaced themselves in operational roles, instead spending 40% of their time working in  rather than on  the business.

While building an advisory network has been shown to yield new opportunities and ways of thinking for businesses, only 35% of respondents reported having a network of trusted advisors. A majority, however, said establishing an advisory network was a priority.

For entrepreneurs seeking to expand globally, building a public profile has been shown to accelerate growth. However, only 10% of respondents felt they were very prominent and two in five (43%) spent less than 10% of their time on self-promotion.

Behavioural barriers

Annette Kimmitt, EYs global middle market leader said female entrepreneurs contribute enormous economic value to the Asia-Pacific region, with this years 15 EWW Asia-Pacific participants alone generating a combined US$5.5b in 2015 revenues.

Despite this, our ground-breaking survey identifies some key behavioural barriers among women entrepreneurs that could prevent them from reaching their full potential, she said.

Research has shown that the most successful entrepreneurs accelerate growth through a set of key behaviors, including their ability to evaluate financing for expansion, establish key advisory networks and build a public profile.

Through the EWW program, EY aims to provide the tools, guidance and networks needed to promote these behaviors among high-potential women entrepreneurs and help ensure that they are limited only by their own definition of success.

About the EWW program

Last week, participants in the EWW program came together at a two-day conference in Shanghai, where they also joined EY for the Strategic Growth Forum China 2016. Throughout the year, they will participate in a series of e-conferences, in-country business sessions and workshops.

According to EY, the EWW program helps female entrepreneurs:

expand knowledge through the latest information, research and executive dialogues

identify and building strategic alliances

access formal and informal guidance and support networks

strengthen executive leadership skills and identify opportunities for business growth

increase their visibility and that of their companies.
Born: January 2, 1930, Died: May 14, 2016

Mrs. Margaret Winstead Sawyer Brooks, age 86, a resident of Belhaven died Saturday May 14, 2016 at the Golden Living Nursing Center of Greenville, NC.A funeral service will be held 3:00 p.m. Wednesday May 18, 2016 at West Belhaven Church of Christ officiated by James Scheffler. Entombment will follow in Belhaven Community Cemetery. Jeremy Eldridge, Christopher Eldridge, John P. Brooks III, Allen Hubers, Brian Jackson and Will Brooks will serve as pallbearers. Honorary pallbearers will be Marshall Marslender, Danny Marslender, Delbert Armstrong, Jr., Darren Armstrong, Kevin Armstrong, Doug Stalls and Jimmy Stalls.The family will receive friends 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Tuesday May 17, 2016 at West Belhaven Church of Christ. The family will also receive friends other times at the home of Mrs. Margaret's sister: Joan Armstrong located at 757 Latham Street, Belhaven.Mrs. Margaret was born in Beaufort County on January 2, 1930 daughter of the late Thad Sawyer and the late Ernestine Aleene Jackson Sawyer. On September 9, 1946 she married John Petegrew "J.P." Brooks who preceded her in death on February 15, 2000. Her loving spirit was evident by when the need arrived she gladly welcomed two nieces and a nephew into her home and raised them as her own children. In the work force Mrs. Margaret was an employee of the month at National Spinning in 1963. She later was co-owner/operator of Brooks' Grill and Trailer Park in Pantego. There she was a role model for many children of northeastern Beaufort County. Mrs. Margaret also was a volunteer at Pungo District Hospital. Mrs. Margaret was a member of West Belhaven Church of Christ where she was also a longtime choir member.Survivors include a son: John P. "Johnny" Brooks, Jr. and his wife Trudy of Greenville; a daughter: Deborah B. Eldridge of Belhaven; two nieces who became her daughters: Kathleen B. Hubers and her husband Roy of Pantego and Christine B. Jackson and her husband Raymond of Washington and a nephew who became her son: Buddy Brooks and his wife Amy of Washington; a brother: Thad Thomas "Tommy" Sawyer of Chesapeake, VA; three sisters: Aleene S. Stalls of Plymouth, Lucille S. Brockinton of Chesapeake, VA and Joan S. Armstrong of Belhaven; eight grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Mrs. Margaret was predeceased by a grandson: Mark David Brooks.Flowers are welcome and appreciated and the family kindly asks for any memorial contributions to be made to West Belhaven Church of Christ, Building Fund, 1080 West Main Street, Belhaven, NC 27810.Online condolences may be offered to the family by visiting www.paulfuneralhome.com.Paul Funeral Home of Belhaven is honored to serve Mrs. Margaret's family.
Yahoo on Wednesday announced that it has reached a deal with Starboard Value to add four independent directors, thus avoiding a proxy fight with a key investor that has been seeking radical changes at the company.

Under the agreement, Starboard CEO Jeff Smith will join Yahoo as an independent director and will be a member of the companys Strategic Review Committee, which has been in negotiations with several suitors for Yahoos core Web business.

Eddy Hartenstein, former DirecTV and Tribune CEO; Richard Hill, chairman of Tessera Technologies; and Tor Braham, former global head of technology mergers at Deutsche Bank, also will join as independent directors, Yahoo said.

As part of the agreement, Starboard has withdrawn its slate of nominees to the Yahoo board.

Get Down to Business

The constructive resolution will allow management and the board to keep our focus on our extremely important objectives, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said, adding that management is looking forward to working with the entire board, including the new directors, to increase shareholder value.

The board and management remain focused and dedicated to the exploration of strategic alternatives and the execution of strategy for the operating business, Yahoo spokesperson Rebecca Neufeld told the E-Commerce Times.

The new board members were looking forward to working closely with existing board members and management right away to maximize shareholder value, Smith said.

Starboard, which owns about 1.7 percent of Yahoo, has been one of its chief critics, calling out the company for its failure to produce acceptable results, its poor acquisitions and its compensation practices.

Pressure Point

The announcement of a new board structure is the first step toward necessary changes among the top management, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

One of Yahoos problems is a board that really didnt understand Yahoos business or could execute well on any of the options they had. This change should address that problem, he told the E-Commerce Times.

The announcement comes at a critical time for the company, as it received bids from numerous suitors for its core Web assets. Among the companies making a bid for Yahoo is Verizon, which reportedly wants to integrate Yahoo with AOL and turn itself into a major provider of online content.

Other companies that have expressed an interest in Yahoo include Microsoft, IAC and Time Warner; however, it was not immediately known which companies had submitted official bids.

Two incumbent directors, Lee Scott and Sue James, will not stand for re-election at the companys annual meeting, bringing the total number of board members to 11, Yahoo said. Scott and James have agreed to relinquish their respective committee responsibilities immediately to board members who will be up for re-election.

The board committee responsibilities have been restructured with Maynard Webb continuing as chairman.

Eric Brandt will chair the Audit and Finance Committee, joined by Braham and Tom McInerney. Cathy Friedman will chair the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, joined by Jane Shaw and Richard Hill. McInerney will head the Strategic Review Committee, joined by Smith and Brandt. Shaw will lead the Compensation and Leadership Development committee and will be joined by Webb, Friedman, Smith and Hartenstein.

The full agreement will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an exhibit to the companys 8-K report.
Five months after being outed  and subsequently investigated by police and tax authorities  Craig Steven Wright on Monday stepped forward to claim that he really is the cofounder of bitcoin who operated in secret for years under the name Satoshi Nakamoto.

Wright unveiled himself by penning a lengthy blog post and giving extensive interviews to the BBC, The Economist and GQ, apparently in the hope of convincing the world that he is the legitimate founder of bitcoin, a controversial cryptocurrency that has caused head-scratching from Silicon Valley to Wall Street.

I have been staring at my screen for hours, but I cannot summon the words to express the depth of my gratitude to those who have supported the bitcoin project from its inception  too many names to list, Wright wrote in the post claiming to authenticate his identity.

Although the persona of Satoshi was no more, Wright had much more to give to the community, he continued. He then set about explaining the process of verifying a set of cryptographic keys.

Wright originally was outed in late 2015 by stories published in Wired and Gizmodo. The reports referenced an extensive list of emails, transcripts and other documentation linking Wright to Nakamoto.

Public Support

Wright is who he claims to be, affirmed Gavin Andresen, chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation.

Andresen traveled to London a couple of weeks ago to meet with Wright, in order to authenticate him as the same person he communicated with in 2010 and 2011, Andresen wrote in a blog post.

He is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Wright is actually Satoshi, Andresen said.

Andresen not only verified through cryptography that Wright signed messages that no one but Satoshi should have possessed, but also recognized in Wright character traits specific to Satoshi.

We love to create heroes  but also seem to love hating them if they dont live up to some unattainable ideal, Andresen wrote. It would be better if Satoshi Nakamoto was the codename for an NSA project, or an artificial intelligence sent from the future to advance our primitive money. He is not, he is an imperfect human being just like the rest of us.

The Unconvinced

Wrights claims have their doubters, including Electronic Frontier Foundation Fellow Joseph Bonneau, a postdoctoral researcher in the Applied Cryptography Group at Stanford University.

The publicly posted evidence is completely fraudulent and intentionally designed to be deceptive, he told the E-Commerce Times.

The only thing holding Wrights story together is Andresens claim that he privately saw proof of knowledge of cryptographic keys from the early days of bitcoin, Bonneau said, adding that Andresen has a sterling reputation so he would have no reason to participate in a deception.

Still, why would Wright, if he were Satoshi, post such scammy evidence when legitimate evidence would be easy to post? he wondered.

Wright either really is Satoshi and wants to destroy Andresens reputation while making himself look like a con artist, or Wright is a con artist and Andresen got tricked, maintained Bonneau.

Anyone making such an audacious claim is going to be subjected to a microscopic level of scrutiny, said Paul Teich, principal analyst at Tirias Research, but he is nevertheless a bit more accepting of Wrights story.

I agree that the evidence Mr. Wright recently presented to the BBC, The Economist and apparently GQ presents a strong circumstantial case that Mr. Wright is bitcoins founder, Tirias told the E-Commerce Times. However when a founder starts a project with the explicit intent of remaining anonymous, there will always be pieces of the puzzle missing or that cant be adequately verified.

What could be much more interesting is why Mr. Teich was forced into admitting he was the bitcoin founder, suggested Teich.

The inclusion of GQ is one aspect of the admission tour that looks like it may be a sophisticated publicity stunt, he pointed out.

If the Wright claim is just a ruse, then the real founder of bitcoin is likely to remain out of sight, and out of mind, Tirias said. In other words, the true founder is extremely unlikely to challenge Mr. Wrights claims.
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(Athit Perawongmetha / Reuters)A blood sample during a free HIV test that is part of a campaign to prevent HIV infection.

The latest study in search of HIV and AIDS cure has claimed that patients that have the sexually transmitted disease could potentially be cleared if they adhere to their treatments properly.

According to the newly released study from the journal Lance Infectious Diseases, eliminating new infections is possible. This is what the the UCLA researchers found out after conducting a decade-long study on HIV cure in Denmark since the year 1995.

They found out that 98 percent of patients strictly follow their medications when they were observing men who engage in sexual contact with other men. They also learned that when more treatments became available in the late 1990s, there was a decline of HIV infections. The results showed that for every 1,000 men in 2013 there were only 1.4 infections in Denmark.

"The Danes have done what nobody else in the world has been able to do," said Sally Blower, senior author and the director of the Center for Biomedical Modeling at UCLA, in a press release. "They have almost eliminated their HIV epidemic, and they have achieved this simply by providing treatment."

Blower also pointed out that the study was also possible because of Denmark's capable healthcare system. "Even in resource-rich countries, this would take a huge amount of money and effort. The goal of elimination through treatment is aspirational, but Denmark has shown that  at least in resource-rich countries  it's achievable," she added.

In other related news, an HIV and AIDs-infected patient, Loreen Wallenberg, has shared on CBS Sacramento that although she has been living with the disease for 23 years, she never felt sick nor has shown symptoms. She admits feeling fine despite not taking her medication.

"In a clinical sense, I'm not progressing towards AIDS. I'm not progressing towards the disease stage," she told CBS. Apparently, she has been part of 13 different studies on HIV cure.
Considered to be the Ten Best UFO Photos Ever Taken I am sure that we could add more pictures to this list but these are considered ten o...
Indian youth wants to join start-ups , where both employees and young employers are flexible in terms of how and where to work, said a panellist on the sidelines of a discussion on the Future of Work in India in Delhi recently. The new generation likes to work from anywhere, not necessarily in a formal set-up.

One does not want a big cabin of any kind, said Rudraksh Mukta Kulshreshtha, co-founder of a four-month-old Delhi-based venture at the event organised by the ministry of labour and employment, VV Giri National Labour Institute and the International Labour Organization. Many young people dont want money. They want recognition. They wish to change the scenario and be known for it. Money, managerial roles and promotions are not their priorities. Its less about choosing a career and more about exploring the path you love.

Also, the new employee seeks job security as well as a number of jobs in his/her life, said Lianmawii Hauhnar, an advocate from Mizoram.

Participants discussed how, being able to access information and awareness of the world around them, young Indians wish to transition from school to contribute to the countrys progress through employment. Others emphasised that there should be more career awareness programmes not only for the metros but also for rural areas where people were not familiar with employment opportunities outside the government sector.

Hauhnar said, There should be a platform where young and budding entrepreneurs can access information about various careers and sectors.
Easy as it may sound, its all about a students choice. As the admission season draws near, students and parents alike are caught in the debate  course or college  which gains preference and why. While a course of ones liking gives students the freedom to study their desired area and thus, excel in it, a colleges reputation can mean credibility and an all-round positive approach, given the environment, extracurricular activities and quality faculty necessary for ones overall growth.

Most students like to study their preferred course in an institution of their choice. However, many do not qualify due to stiff competition. One is then faced with the dilemma of settling for the second or third course option to accommodate the institution of ones choice or opting for the chosen course in another institute. But, ideally, a student should never compromise on his/her choice of course over a particular college, especially in the undergraduate humanities and science streams. Passion and drive are likely to help the student in the long run, both academically and professionally. Institutions are important, but not to such an extent that students give up on their preferred subjects, says Argha Banerjee, dean of arts, St Xaviers College , Kolkata . However, the institution may be the deciding factor in the case of professional courses or streams like commerce, he adds.

The right course and college are two crucial career-related decisions, say academicians, emphasising the role interest plays. A student should pursue what s/he is keen to study. While a good college is important, how will it help if the course is not to ones liking? College alone cannot ensure a successful career, says Someshwar Sati, associate professor, department of English, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi.



>> Futuristic approach

In reality, however, college often takes precedence over a course. That is because the college, its alumni and social standing can make a difference, especially in career-oriented fields such as management studies. The colleges brand, membership to old boys club as also social capital help secure a good job or aid in starting a business. This guides the choice of college over course unlike in the West. The college one attends goes on to become an integral part of ones identity. It carries a lot of weight when one is from a well-known college. A good institute will have superior faculty. As far as the course is concerned, one must be keen on it. Academic excellence is not enough anymore. Students as well as faculty must constantly update themselves since we dwell in a world of flux, says M Gnana Bharathi , assistant professor , department of media arts , Loyola College , Chennai .

Sumit Mitra, professor, IIM Kozhikode, indicates it is a question of what the options are. A college is ranked high among students on the basis of the excellent courses it offers. However, while its reputation may be built on these, the rest of the courses may not be of the same standard  a trade-off between courses and colleges arising thereof. In the case of management education in India, especially in institutes like the IIMs, the focus is on their flagship course curriculum, which is structured similarly across the institutes. In such cases, one would compare institutions/colleges before enrolling.



>> Recent shift

However, there has been a recent change. Fortunately, there is a steady increase in the number of students who refuse to compromise on the course of their choice. I hope this continues and becomes a trend, adds Sati.

Quality faculty, ready to begin new and better programmes, are a prerequisite for such courses gaining preference over colleges. The presence of private business schools shows promise, with students finding opportunities to opt for specific courses/ streams. Thus, there is a clear shift from choosing colleges over courses, adds Mitra.

Whether it is the course or college, clarity is key. Amit Sinha, co-ordinator apparel design and merchandising, NID says, I think it is subjective. Firstly, it is the subject that the student needs to connect with and move forward. If you believe a certain course is right for you, then you should try to seek a college offering the best in such a subject. Applicants should always research where such courses are offered, who comprises the faculty, its strengths and facilities that make it the best for the chosen subject. Such efforts will save one from going to a college because of its rank while feeling disconnected with the chosen discipline that leads to confusion.

 With inputs from Irene Saha
Faced with the prospect of working on education policy in a presidential administration headed by Donald Trump, some veterans of past Republican education departments, aides to GOP members of Congress, and other old policy hands are saying, No thanks.

After eight years working outside of government during President Barack Obamas presidency, many had pondered joining the U.S. Department of Education under a Republican administration or advising a GOP presidentperhaps one headed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush or another of Trumps former rivals for the White House.

But these same policy experts say Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee, is simply too unpredictable, offends their personal beliefs about presidential conduct, or hasnt expressed the kind of grasp of or interest in education policy that would provide a clear sense of direction for those under him.

Such a widespread refusal wouldnt just impact a Trump-led Education Department, but the entire power structure of education policy in Washington, said Vic Klatt, a former GOP staff director at the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee who worked in the Education Department in Republican administrations under Secretaries Lamar Alexander and Lauro Cavazos.

I think its unprecedented. I cant ever remember a situation like this, said Klatt, who is now a principal at the Penn Hill Group (a Washington lobbying firm) and who said he will not work for or otherwise help Trump. My theory of how education policy will work, if Trump is elected, is that the details of policy more than ever before will be determined by Congress. My view is that education is not an issue high on Trumps list, and as a result, hell cede it to others.

Sense of Obligation

Others in the field, however, say that theyd be eager to work for a President Trump, however uncertain that work might be. They cite a sense of obligation, or said they might have more freedom to shape the views and actions of a president who has largely ignored education as a campaign and policy issue.

Im never going to divorce myself from the opportunity to influence the president of the United States, said James Guthrie, a former state superintendent of Nevada and former director of education policy studies at the George W. Bush Institute whos now a professor of education at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla. I dont know if I like him or dislike him.

Trump, who has no remaining Republican rivals for the GOP presidential nomination, has not put education policy at the center of his campaign. His campaign has not responded to repeated requests for comments about his plans for education and who he is consulting with as he gears up for a general election run.

Like several other candidates, Trump has not released a detailed education policy platform. But he has expressed his viewpoints in debates, speeches, and online statements.

For example, he has said that he plans to get rid of the Common Core State Standards if he becomes president, despite the fact that states, and not the Education Department, adopt content standards. In fact, Trump has also talked about drastically cutting or eliminating the department itself, even though at one point in a March GOP town hall event he called education one of the three top priorities for the federal government. He has also said that under his presidential administration, local school boards would have more influence.

Unclear Agenda

At a recent dinner of about 25 conservative policy veterans of President George W. Bushs administration and K-12 staffers in Congress, Frederick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, recalled that fewer than five of them said that theyd want to work in education under Trump.

Compared to the prospect of working in Washington under Jeb Bush or some other of the Republican White House hopefuls who have fallen by the wayside, Hess said, I dont think there would be the same level of interest, nowhere close. (Hess writes an opinion blog for edweek.org.)

Its the way Trump has discussed various groups of people, along with his non-existent education platform, that leads John Bailey, the vice president for policy at the Foundation for Excellence in Education (founded by former Gov. Jeb Bush), to swear off working for or providing counsel to Trump.

I just dont believe he has an agenda, Bailey said. It troubles me greatly how dismissive he is of many key groups, whether its women, immigrants, or minorities.

And while Andy Smarick said hes happy to provide advice to any elected official who asks for it, the former official in the Education Department under President George W. Bush said hes ultimately baffled by Trump.

Ive never been in a position of not knowing what the North Star of a major candidate is on education policy, said Smarick, whos now a partner at Bellwether Education Partners, a Washington consulting firm.

Some clarity about what Trump means when he makes sweeping statements about ditching or gutting the Education Department, for example, might be helpful to people pondering work in a Trump administration, Klatt indicated.

Does that mean he wants to get rid of all student loans, and Pell grants, and Title I, and the [Individuals With Disabilities Education Act]? Well, thats a problem, Klatt said. But if he means something different than that, like moving those programs over to a different agency, well thats a different issue.

Hearing the Call

Hess said even though some might recoil from Trump as a political candidate, they might also feel a certain noblesse oblige and work in his administration, in order not to leave Trump rudderless. And Klatt noted that while he wont work for Trump, or Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton if she wins, You dont just work for your president, you work for your country.

The chance to bolster support for school choice programs around the country is enough for Anna Egalite, an assistant professor of educational leadership at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C., to say shed take a job working in the Trump administration. She sees him supporting programs like education savings accounts, for example.

Yet shes also wary of Trumps unpredictability.

There so much uncertainty about what his administration would create or destroy, Egalite said.

When someone from the Trump campaign called her recently to discuss advising it about education policy, Jeanne Allen flat out declined.

The founder of the Center for Education Reform, which supports charter schools and school choice for parents, among other issues, and a former official in the Education Department under President Ronald Reagan, Allen said, I dont want my issues coming out of his mouth. (Allen declined to identify who on Trumps campaign contacted her.)

Allen said that after advocates have spent years working to build a broad and diverse set of supporters for school choice, Trump would damage hers and others efforts in that area. Rather than lean on Trump in the White House, Allen said shed rather influence states to continue expanding options for parents. And its a pipe dream, she argued, to think that Trump and an Education Department that answers to him would present a clean slate that education policy experts could put their stamp on easily.

Whats particularly disturbing to Allen about Trumps support for local boards is that if he followed through, it would, in her view, effectively roll back years of progress in education policy.

I dont believe that you can actually steer him. I dont believe that you can steer people he is involved with, Allen said. Hes going to get a bunch of second and third stringers.
Local safety experts offer advice for keeping Trick-or-Treat fun for everyone

As families prepare for fun night of Trick-or-Treating, local safety experts are offering some tips on how to stay happy and healthy this Halloween season.
Ely, Cambridgeshire is best known for its majestic cathedral dubbed the 'Ship of the Fens' because it dominates the flat landscape. The city, which is the second smallest in England, is about 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about 80 miles by road from London.

05:00, 25 OCT 2022
Cruise passengers to be given a 'Manx welcome'

Cruise passengers are being offered a 'Manx welcome' at the Sea Terminal's Welcome Centre.

The staff there are manning a stand which boasts a display of local food, drink, crafts and Manx tartan.

The project is a collaboration between the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture - as part of its Food Matters strategy - and Mostly Manx.

Marketing officer Audrey Fowler says it's an opportunity to promote the Island's produce:

Media

Audrey Fowler
In a rather bold move, Emil Kirkegaard, a Danish researcher published 70,000 user profiles from popular dating site OKCupid on the Open Science Framework Forum on May 8. The data included the user's names, age, gender, location, as well as the users' sexual preferences.

While the data is public in a sense, the massive leak was nonetheless met with quite a bit of controversy. After all, though the data could be pulled from the dating site without much effort, the compilation of user data was so massive that a number of fellow researchers felt that Kirkegaard's release of the data violated the ethics of research.

Oliver Keyes, a research analyst at the Wikimedia Foundation, was among the data leak's critics. In a blog post, he wrote about his sentiments about the Danish researcher's release of the users' data.

"Yesterday morning I woke up to a Twitter friend pointing me to a release of OKCupid data, by Kirkegaard. Having now spent some time exploring the data, and reading both public statements on the work and the associated paper: this is without a doubt one of the most grossly unprofessional, unethical and reprehensible data releases I have ever seen," he wrote.

"A fundamental underpinning of ethical and principled research - which is not just an ideal but a requirement in many nations and in many fields - is informed consent. The people you are studying or using as a source should know that you are doing so and why you are doing so," he added.

Kirkegaard, for his part, believes that his decision to leak the OKCupid profiles to the public was not unethical at all, considering that the data was available for public viewing in the OKCupid site.

"Some may object to the ethics of gathering and releasing this data. However, all the data found in the dataset are or were already publicly available, so releasing this dataset merely presents it in a more useful form," the Danish researcher stated.

Since the controversy started, however, Kirkegaard has already password-locked the document files involved in the massive leak. He has also denied further reports, stating that he is not very keen on fanning the flames as the controversy continues.
America's reckoning and Donald Trump

By Dr. Peter Morici



America's economy is a mess and social fabric fraying.

Powerful computers, handheld devices, robots and artificial intelligence make our lives easier and workers more productive but destroy jobs at an alarming pace. The new opportunities created require a better education than most Americans receive.

These pressures are exacerbated by competition from Germany and other northern European countries where job training is better and Asia where labor is much cheaper. This is multiplied yet again by Washington's failure to negotiate good international trade agreements and adequately defend Americans from foreign cheating on those agreements.

Politicians at all levelsobsessed with political correctness, victimhood and identity politicshave dumped billions into failing public schools and universities, financed an increasing array of entitlements instead of adequate public investments in R&D and the infrastructure needed to support a technology-based economy, sowed divisions and suspicion among ethnic groups, between men and women, and the successful and those deserving a genuine hand up.

No surprise, high schools churn out students unprepared for college or vocational programs, and many university graduates lack the critical thinking and technical skills needed to prosper in a technology-intensive workplace. Businesses constantly complain about the shortage of adequately skilled job applicants.

Since 2000, annual GDP growth has slowed to 1.7 percent, new business startups and the percentage of adults working are down and average annual family incomes have slipped $4000. During the Reagan-Clinton years, the economy grew at twice the rate and otherwise performed much better.

The middle class is shrinking, suicides and drug abuse are up, fertility has dropped precipitously, millions of college graduates are stuck at places like Starbucks, and home ownership is at a 48 year low.

The Obama Administration has doubled down on the policies that manufactured these conditions. It intensified pressures on businesses and universities on racial and gender quotas, and imposed political indoctrination of employees and students through mandatory diversity and sexual harassment training and the like.

It has expanded Medicaid, food stamps, the earned income tax credit and other income support programs, and increased loans and grants to students ill-prepared to acquire much of anything at college except burdensome debt and an impulse to vote for more government handouts.

Now, Hillary Clinton wants to further expand these initiatives, for example, by generalizing to the national level the California Fair Pay Act, which would require businesses of all sizes to justify virtually every hiring and salary decision to the Labor Department, jacking up the minimum wage to unstainable levels, extending Medicare to Americans over 50, establishing broad federal funding for child care, and making tuition, room and board virtually free to students at state universities. All this funded by further raising what are among the highest taxes on business in the industrialized world.

Donald Trump indicts the tyranny and destructive consequences of political correctness and identity politics but no politician can run and win the presidency by promising to cut social programs. He does promise to do something about bad trade agreements and high taxes smothering new business startups and investment.

Trump's language may be crude but after 40 plus years in the trenches of academia, managing bureaucrats and in policy battles of Washington and advising corporate leaders, I can attest he is absolutely right.

The big problem he or any Republican faces running for president is that too many poorly- educated Americans, minorities and women have become dependent on government largess and preferences for employment opportunities, and none can speak honestly without being branded a racist, sexist, homophobe and otherwise ridiculed to their demise in the New York Times, Washington Post and major network newscasts.

Simply, there are more Americans on the dole and in government mandated sinecures than engaged in productive activities.

The takers can outvote the makers to block any effort to end the madness.

This is the kind of dysfunction that brought down Rome.

Peter Morici is an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland, and a national columnist. He tweets @pmorici1
I am Barack Obama By Selwyn Duke

It's always hard coming out. But it's even harder not being true to yourself. So, inspired by Bruce Jenner and other intrepid souls, I've decided to finally start living the life I was meant to: I identify as Barack Obama.

Mr. Selwyn Duke Oh, I can hear the cynical statements now. "Duke, your I.Q. is 50 points too high." "Duke, you can speak fluently without a Teleprompter." "Duke, you know there aren't 60 states and can pronounce "corpsman." "Duke, your melanin compromised." All these things are inconsequential details, the stuff of tiresome prigs  sort of like genitalia on a man. Given my identity, compassion dictates I be allowed to use the bathroom of my choice. My preferred bathroom happens to be in the White House. The same is true of my preferred bedroom, kitchen, living room, Blue Room, Green Room and Map Room; and my preferred chef, servants and security detail. I'll have my preferred executive orders, too. Some backward thinkers will insist I use the facilities appropriate to my station; others, thinking themselves reasonable, will offer to paint my place white and erect four majestic columns at its entrance. To them I will say, you're insensitive, bigoted, narrow-minded, unscientific, ambition-phobic racists who should be killed with fire. As with the children and youths for whom the Obama administration (my administration) has so courageously taken up the cudgels, it is unconscionable to suggest I shouldn't be allowed to use the facilities consistent with my identity. Many, though, in the grip of white "male" (whatever that is) linear thinking, will dismiss my righteous claim by flippantly saying I'm not Barack Obama. Well, this is my reality  not yours. As American Thinker's James Arlandson recently pointed out, philosopher Immanuel Kant informed that "we can't know the thing-in-itself' without our mind filtering it." Fellow enlightener Friedrich Nietzsche further clarified that "[e]verything is Interpretation: ... Against those who say There are only facts,' I say, No, facts are precisely what there is not, only interpretations.' We cannot establish any fact in itself." And my own personal, provisional fact is that I have strong and persistent feelings I'm really Barack Obama. If you say feelings aren't facts, you're not paying attention. "Everything is relative to a reality that isn't really there." Besides, don't be an unscientific fascist. When a born-male sentient biped informs us he's really a girl  which is now old hat and needn't even be questioned  rightful deference is shown to his reality because, as PsychCentral.com puts it, he has exhibited "gender dysphoria," which is defined by "strong and persistent cross-gender identification." Oh, I know you've heard that intrauterine anomalies might cause the brain of a developing XY-biped to not be fully masculinized. Ze may then end up with a "female brain." Of course, a recent scientific study purports to have debunked the very notion of male and female brains, but it doesn't matter. There is no brain scan used to confirm the "realness" of a gender dysphoria diagnosis. There's no genetic test used. There's no hormonal test. There's no medical test of any kind. Rather, the diagnosis is based, again, on strong and persistent cross-gender identification  on strong and persistent feelings  lasting for more than six months, that you're really, deep down, a member of the social construction fascists call "the opposite sex." So don't waste time telling me a brain scan would reveal that I don't have the gray matter of a Barack Obama, that my brain is in a considerably more used condition. Don't tell me that "status dysphoria" is a mental disorder. I have feelings, too. And my feelings say I'm what fascists call "the guy I voted for." The point is that, scientifically, there's every bit as much medical proof a trans-status biped such as me is Barack Obama as there is that a "transgender" person is an opposite-sex member. Ze's stuck in the wrong body  I'm stuck in the wrong position. Our trans-status and transgender diagnostic methods would constitute malpractice in any other branch of medicine, you say? You may claim that recommending someone for "sexual-reassignment surgery" based on a gender dysphoria diagnosis is akin to a patient exclaiming to a cardiologist, "Doc, I have strong and persistent feelings I have heart disease! I need a bypass!" and the physician responding, "Have they lasted for more than six months? Yeah? Okay, well, medical tests show no signs of arteriosclerosis. But, what the heck, I'll cut your chest open." My response to this line of what fascists call reasoning is, you're an insensitive, bigoted, narrow-minded, unscientific, ambition-phobic racist who should be killed with fire. And be warned, we trans-statuses and transgenders will have many allies in our bonfire of the insanities. Psychologists also define something called "species dysphoria," which is when an individual identifies as a different kind of creature. Examples of people brave enough to live as their true animal selves may be Texas resident Wolfie Blackheart, who insists "I am a canine"; and a Norwegian woman called "Nano" who says she's a cat. (Question: if Wolfie and Nano met, would they fight likewell, you know? And would they identify it as a catfight?) Note also, there's every bit as much scientific evidence of trans-status' and transgender's validity as there is of trans-species' validity. In our camp also should be those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). These people insist that one or more body parts, such as their legs or eyes, don't belong on/in their bodies. Not only have some mutilated or blinded themselves on this basis, but there are enlightened physicians who, respecting these patients' identity, have agreed to perform amputations. And why not? Remove what's between your legs  remove your legs  whatever makes you happy. And remember, there's every bit as much scientific evidence of trans-status', transgender's and trans-species' validity as there is evidence that a BIID biped really should be a no-ped. Feelings uber alles. So I am Barack Obama. At least, that is, until January 20, 2017, at which time I may identify as Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. And they're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-ha. Or are they coming to take you away, bigoted, narrow-minded, unscientific, ambition-phobic racists who should be killed with fire? That all depends on the outcome of these refreshingly fact-free culture wars. May the strongest feelings win. Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com. Home
The New World Order Newsletter: I.C.E. By Michael Moriarty

A huge and ominous mountain of disaster is contained in this article by Newsroom. YOU MUST HUNT FOR IT BECAUSE IT HAS NO SEPARATE LINK IDENTIFICATION ON IT: https://www.superstation95.com/index.php/world/author/973-newsroom?start=5 It is an expose entitled: ICE agent commits suicide in New York City. This man's reasons for suicide are discussed in horrifying detail by a person who chose self-destruction as the only possible way to: Escape another kind of certain death from the government. To gain attention for the best kept secret in, perhaps, the history of the world: THE COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA AND INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM BY ITS OWN GOVERNMENT. All done for the sake of the United Nations and the Bush Family's, Clinton Family's and The Obama Nation's New World Order. The word is increasingly out, all over the internet: THE UNITED NATIONS' AGENDA 21 AND ITS NEW WORLD ORDER! How's this for an opening sentence to this, now-dead ICE employee's extraordinary article: "After writing a lengthy suicide note exposing terrifying plans the government has for American citizens, a US Customs Agent walked onto a pier in NYC and blew his brains out." Wow! Sounds like the opening to some Hollywood film. No. ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE is now something that President Barack Hussein Obama has icily decided should no longer do its job protecting America and Americans from illegal immigration. Such consistently reckless disregard and criminal behaviour by government employees has become undeniably, deliberately organized crime. Here, in the link, is one, most obvious and impeachable-offense within the Obama Administration. Here is a list of 64 more impeachable offenses. Why is the behaviour of what I now label as The Obama Nation so shamelessly criminal? The ultimate action within this New World Order to be constructed by the United Nations and The Obama Nation is not just cold-blooded murder! It is genocide. Homicide on a level that makes even the Nazis look shy. In his suicide note, the man writes: "The America I grew up in, and cherished, has been murdered by its own federal government. Our Constitution has become meaningless and our laws politicized so badly, they are no longer enforced except for political purposes. Our elected officials are, to a person, utterly corrupt and completely devoid of any love or respect for the country which pays them. To them, everything is about getting and keeping power, and making illicit money from backroom deals." The 42-year-old U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officer shot himself with a 40 caliber service pistol inside Pier 40 in Hudson River Park, New York City. He goes on to say: "I was hired to enforce the law; to capture and deport people who come to this country against our laws. But now, if I dare to do that, I face being suspended or fired because our President refuses to faithfully execute the duties of his office. Instead, I come to work each day, and collect a pay check twice a month, for intentionally doing little to nothing. I cannot and will not be party to this fraud; to this usurpation of the law, or to the despicable politicians betraying our nation." Here, however, comes the most terrifying essence of the dead man's revelations: "If the American people knew what this government is planning, they would rise-up and overthrow it. If I or anyone else in the federal government revealed what is coming, we would be killed anyway, so now I will reveal what I know. Therein rests the grounds for his despair. A sudden suicide in the middle of a public place would ordinarily get not a back-page mention but a headline!!!!!! Barely a mention of his death and no remarks about his warning note: "We in federal law enforcement have been drilling for several years to control riots and uprisings from a coming financial collapse and widespread bank failures. The drills involve life-sized images of American men, even women and children, whom we are told to shoot for practice' and to get used to it.'" The economy, as we know already, has been made, to quote this man's own phrase, "deliberately and terminally ill" by President Barack Obama and his Obama Nation's criminal policies for which he has not been held the least bit accountable by Congress. Why? The Bush Family's decades-old, "New World Order Prophecies". That pronouncement by the mouthpiece for the Yale University's and the entire world's most exclusive fraternity, "The Illuminati" , was made over 25 years ago. He and his "pals" had obviously considered a quarter of a century more than long enough to prepare America for this Fraternity's Lowering Of The Boom! Our poor, dead Whistleblower continues: "We have been told that the economy is terminally ill and will fail in 2016. We are also told the banks are all insolvent and the FDIC doesn't have nearly enough funds to bail out depositors. We are told these events are unavoidable and it is imperative that the government survive when people rise-up over this." The grounds for declaring America terminally ill? Obama's cold-blooded and intentional doubling of the national debt in less than seven years. The broken banks?! An utter and complete lie about what amounts to America's creme de la creme within The Illuminati. The form ICE operative continues: "When the collapse takes place, detention camps created under the FEMA REX-84 program in the 1980's to house illegal aliens whom we were going to deport, will instead be used to imprison American Citizens whom the government feels constitute a threat.' American citizens will be rounded-up without warrants and imprisoned without trial for God knows how long." No wonder this sudden "Arab Spring" and the invasion of the entire world by millions of ever-potentially homicidal Muslims! The soon-to-be dead Doomsday Prophet-of-The-New-World Order continues: "These camps have been equipped to carry out Hitler-scale killings! An actual "purge" of Americans citizens by the very government which they, themselves, created and pay for! I cannot be party to this." The Note goes on to talk about the state-level national guard being disarmed by the feds (4) and over 1 Billion rounds of ammunition purchased by the feds and the Military being shrunk and/or kept out of the country. "The government knows the military will rise-up to stop this, so our military is being deployed overseas, intentionally involved in foreign fights, and deliberately shrunk in size so they cannot be here or help Americans! This is why certain ammunition and weaponry has been removed from state-level National Guard Armories and over a Billion rounds of hollow point ammunition has been bought by the federal government. The states themselves have been disarmed of military-grade firepower so they cannot defend themselves from the federal activities. This is also why local police departments have been militarized and provided with armored vehicles and weapons of war" No wonder the Republican Party Establishment is so terrified of Donald Trump as its Presidential Candidate! Trump is not a member of the New World Order Elite!!!! Is he, in order to be supported by his own party, making promises and concessions that he can't or won't keep if indeed he has meant what he says about "deporting Muslims until we find out what the hell is going on?!" Trump must know by now "what the hell is going on!" Apparently Vladimir Putin of Russia certainly knows "what the hell is going on!" Our, by now, terrifyingly selfless and most tragic American hero of this Third Millennium, continues: "Armories and over a Billion rounds of hollow point ammunition has been bought by the federal government. The states themselves have been disarmed of military-grade firepower so they cannot defend themselves from the federal activities. This is also why local police departments have been militarized and provided with armored vehicles and weapons of war" This sounds so insane but, indeed, the creators of this formula for a New World Order have deliberately opened the floodgates to the most undeniably insane and homicidal religion in the history of the World: ISLAM! Islam provides the Storm-troopers for The New World Order Gestapo! Aren't The Illuminati, most of whom are New World Order Atheists of The Yale and Harvard, Ivy League Variety aren't they aware that Islam, once it is allowed to destroy America, Israel and all of Judeo-Christianity, will then begin to destroy the very likes of The Bushes, The Clintons and The Sexually Liberated Obama's?! The former ICE agent continues: "When the inevitable collapse begins to take place, electric power to the entire country will be shut off, as will all forms of communication. All banks will be immediately closed; no one will be able to get any money because all ATM's will be offline. Credit, Debit and EBT cards will not function. Anyone without cash will have no way to get any. The Emergency Alert System will be used to takeover all broadcast stations and tell the public this is a result of a cyber attack." They've thought of everything, right? "But while the American people patiently await things to get back to normal, the government will unleash round-ups of citizens they deem militants or dangerous. With all civilian communications out, and all TV and radio stations taken over by the Emergency Alert System, by the time word spreads of what is taking place, the government will already have the upper hand." How can they lose? "Every federal prison has been outfitted with lethal gas systems. When things go bad, all prisoners in all prisons will be placed in their cells on lock-down. Prison staff will depart the facility, and a certain designated person will trigger a lethal gas system. All federal prisoners, regardless of their crime or their sentence, will be gassed to death in their cells. Once the gas clears, the dead will be removed and the prisons will then be used to house citizens who fight against the federal onslaught." It will, as they say, take the time it takes to get everything done to finish the job, right? Here's a really sure-fire, catch-all for The New World Order: PRIESTS RECRUITED TO QUELL OPPOSITION The note makes mention about Priests, Rabbis and Clerics from various religious denominations having been recruited and trained to quell resistance: "So intent is the government to succeed they have recruited priests, rabbis and clerics from various religions to quote appropriate Scriptures about obeying government.' They are being trained to tell people not to fight back and that their best hope is to pray." That's enough from my New World Order Newsletter for now. Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@MGMoriarty. Home
Looking at the annual rankings of Polish universities and colleges, 2003-2015 (Part Two) By Mark Wegierski

I personally remember some very pleasant college-level studies on Polish Ethnography that I had attended in the summer of 1975 in Poland, in Kielce (in south-central Poland). Since I was highly fluent in Polish and quite bright for my age, I was able to meaningfully take part in the activities though being only in my mid-teens at the time. These types of initiatives were part of Edward Gierek's huge outreach to Polonia -- that is, communities of persons of Polish descent living abroad. There was an especially intensive effort towards American and Canadian Polonia. This coincided with a brief "ethnic studies" movement in America and Canada at the time  when, for the first and probably last time, so-called "white ethnics" like Polish-Americans were somewhat popular. One remembers that 1970s television series, Banacek, with a suave Polish detective  although it was marred by little research into actual Polish matters. (The name Banacek, for example, is typically Czech, not Polish.) There was also the iconic figure of Bobby Vinton, one of whose hit songs included major passages in Polish. The American television mini-series Roots was also referred to as representing a search for rootedness which Polish-Americans should also undertake, in respect of their Polish origins. Although there was obviously a "hidden agenda" behind the Gierek outreach, it was something that (as far as I can see) has actually never been matched  I refer of course as far as its positive aspects -- in the post-1989 period. I also note the major emphasis that was put on folk- and peasant-culture and native Slavic elements in Poland at that time  for example in widely-circulated art. It should be noted that I never visited Poland in the 1980s, especially after the declaration of martial law by Communist General Jaruzelski on December 13, 1981. I felt a distaste to go there during those years. Finally, the Eastern European revolutions of 1989 resulted in the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. I thought of visiting Poland again. However, I was discouraged by the dissolution of the patriotic Olszewski government in 1992. Around this time, I had also written a long cri-de-coeur letter to the new Polonia coordinating body, Wspolnota Polska (Polish Commonweal). Not receiving an answer, I mailed a copy of the same letter some months later. The fact that I never received even the most cursory reply discouraged me further. Because of various difficulties in the 1990s, I only managed to get out to Poland in the spring of 2002, twenty-five years since my last prior visit of 1977. I went with great expectations in regard to some personal matters. I returned in the fall of 2002, the fall of 2003, and the summer of 2004. These were probably the three happiest years of my adult life. The beauty of the Polish landscape and architecture, and, especially, the wonderful ambience of the countryside and smaller towns, was clearly a significant element of these moments of joy. However, things didn't work out as I had hoped, and I subsequently suffered great disappointment. I managed to go again in the summer of 2008, but it was a bittersweet trip. To be continued. (An earlier version of this article has appeared at Quarterly Review (UK) (September 28, 2012).) Mark Wegierski is a Toronto-based writer and historical researcher. Home
Roadside hookup results in slow Bern By Michael R. Shannon

Most of us don't normally associate tow truck drivers with humor. Anger, outrage, despair and generalized hostility, yes, but humor, no. That's why the story from Fox News in Asheville, NC is so interesting. Tow truck driver Kenneth Shupe received a call to pick up a woman who was stranded beside her wrecked car. The tow was shaping up to be a routine rescue. Just the usual concerns about expense exacerbated by additional worry regarding what to say to the driver during the awkward ride to the shop. Then, as he was completing his walk around Cass McWade's disabled car, Shupe came to an abrupt halt near the rear bumper. He paused briefly and then purposefully strode to the front and unhooked McWade's car. When she protested he explained that her Bernie Sanders sticker on the rear bumper meant she was "obviously a socialist." His parting words were if McWade wants help  she should call the government. As Shupe drove away, she was still fuming on the side of the road. Later our forthright entrepreneur told reporters the miniboycott was not a response to Sander's campaign to appropriate the wealth, so much as it was an economic decision by Shupe who previously had painful experiences with car owners who believe in utopia. "Every business dealing in recent history with a socialistminded person I have not gotten paid," he explained. "Every time I deal with these people I get 'Berned' with an 'e' not a 'u'." Evidently Shupe has a heart of gold in addition to being a perceptive judge of economic potential. In my experience every towing company treats everyone exactly the same  like dirt. Even ESPN reporters are forced to pay in full before driving off to enjoy a oneweek suspension. If Shupe isn't getting paid it must be because he's letting the collateral leave the lot. Our damsel in distress could have looked on the bright side. Her car was wrecked before Shupe arrived. That's more than the Trumpistas in Chicago could say after Bernie supporters smashed their windows as a penalty for displaying Trump bumper stickers. Today America is the land of the boycott. There's even an app called 2nd Vote that bills itself as the conservative shopping app. Users type in the name of the store and 2nd Vote returns a numerical rating on the store's record regarding 2nd Amendment rights, corporate welfare, the environment, marriage and abortion. Then it gives you recommendations for stores that have higher ratings, although in my view 7/11 isn't going to be an adequate replacement for Macy's, regardless of 2nd Vote's opinion. The antiTrump faction is forever recommending boycotts of companies with tenuous connections to the Orange One. As long ago as 2011, when Hillary still thought email was a message and not a potential indictment, outraged Facebook users were recommending boycotts of Celebrity Apprentice sponsors in an effort to punish Trump. Sanders himself boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress and then decided boycotting one Jew wasn't enough, so he refused to appear at the AIPAC conference, too. So Shupe's individual, impromptu boycott with immediate consequences is part of a rich tradition of withholding your money from those you find odious. Although in this instance, Shupe's principled stand cost him money. Fortunately, that's all it cost. If McWade had been on the way to a homosexual wedding, a sex change operation or a Target bathroom, Shupe could have been in real trouble. I doubt there's a jury in the country that wouldn't delight in ruling a tow truck driver had to pay the motorist. Instead a local lawyer grit his teeth and admitted, "We may not like it and we may not agree with it but I don't believe any laws were broken." McWade's mother wasn't so sanguine. She went on a  wait for it  Facebook rant and employed all the Trump accusations: "bigot," "dumb (bad word)" and "(bad word)." In her haste to spew, mom wasn't going to be troubled with something like accuracy. She blamed the wrong tow company for the Bernie boycott. Now that tow owner is fielding bomb threats and death threats from Bernie supporters whose cars are still drivable. The entire affair pretty much sums up leftists and leftism in a nutshell: Make your politics, proclivities or pronouncements as public as possible and then demand there never be any consequences. Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at mandate.mmpr (at) gmail.com. He is also the author of Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!). Home
Do unions cause inequality? By Dr. Robert Owens

We hear quite a bit about inequality today. This seems to be the mantra in the waning of the Obama Administration with the President saying, "Income inequality is "the defining challenge of our time." This is all code for another of President Obama's descriptions of the same policy, the need to, "Spread this wealth around," or in other words "From each according to his ability to each according to his need." Let's spread the wealth around and end inequality. One of the President's and the Democrat Party's most powerful allies in this long march to the promised land of a worker's paradise where everyone is truly equal are the unions. At one time it was dangerous to belong to a union in the United States. They were considered illegal combinations in restraint of trade even though freedom of association has long been considered a right under the First Amendment to the Constitution. People died organizing and participating in strikes. Names like the Matewan Massacre, the Haymarket Riot, and the Battle of Blair Mountain convey the very real image of war that was fought for the right to organize. This was a war that was decisively won by the unions. This war for the allegiance of American labor was not won through the superior organizing techniques of the union bosses. From the major battles of the 1800s and the early 1900s the unions were failing. The workers just didn't want to join. Then along came FDR and his New Deal. He passed pro-union legislation and with the patronage and support of the Federal Government unions not only flourished they triumphed. According to the Progressives monopolies are terrible. They benefit few and penalize many. Never mind that before Rockefeller established his powerful Standard Oil a gallon of kerosene cost 58 cents and after he had gained 90% of the market the price had fallen to 7 cents. Or that under Carnegie's US Steel, which controlled all steel production, the price of steel dropped. Monopolies in production were universally branded as evil and they were made illegal by the progressives under Teddy Roosevelt "The Trust Buster" as he rigorously enforced the Sherman Antitrust Act and saved the people from the exploitation of efficiency and lower prices. Monopolies were and are considered universally evil except when it comes to unions. Unions have been allowed to exercise absolute control of entire industries. Just ask yourself, how many auto worker unions are there? How about Electricians, plumbers, carpenters? How many unions compete with the NEA or SEIU? These powerful unions have gained strangleholds over entire sectors of our economy. They exercise coercive authority to allow some to work at their given professions and to deny others the same opportunity. Through their unlimited power to exact unwilling support from anyone in their grasp they gain billions to support the very politicians who pass laws giving them the power to extort the money. Through their government granted authority to become the sole negotiators of everyone's pay, even those who don't belong to the union, they effectively come to control the employers to a major extent. Using the government awarded monopolistic and coercive power to drive up wages and benefits they drive up operating costs and prices. By artificially driving up the wages of their members so that they can then collect bigger dues they distort the market place and artificially force down the wages of non-union workers. You see unions can force wages above the levels that would be achieved in a free market only by limiting the supply with the threat to withhold labor if their demands aren't met. Workers in the private sector have been rejecting the big union cartels for generations. Their participation rate has fallen from a high of 35% in the 1950s to its present dismal level of 11.1%. According to the Washington Examiner, "The job sectors with the highest unionization rates in 2015 were in "protective service occupations," primarily law enforcement, at 36.3 percent and education at 35.5 percent. The lowest rates were for retail sales at 3.3 percent and farming and forestry at 1.9 percent." And even this declining state of unionism is only possible because of the heavy hand of government patronage. Rick Berman, president of the business-backed Center for Union Facts, attributed the stability in the numbers to pro-union policies under President Obama. "Union membership is apparently receiving a boost from an activist National Labor Relations Board. By tilting the scales in favor of labor organizers, the board and the sympathetic Obama administration are propping up Big Labor rather than helping the rank-and-file." As private sector employees bailed out of unions every time they had a chance, the employees-for-life in the civil service bureaucracy organized to gain an inordinate level of power over the government. In 2009, for the first time in American history, government employees accounted for more than half the nation's union membership. Even FDR, the patron saint of unions warned about the distortions and disruptions of public sector unions. In the President's Aug. 16, 1937 correspondence with Luther C. Steward, the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees he said "meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government." He added, "All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management." And, "The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations." He continued, "The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters." He concluded, "The pay is fixed by Congress and the workmen are represented by the members of Congress in the fixing of Government pay. In other words, you would not have the representatives of the majority as the sole bargaining agents? Not in the government, because there is no collective contract. It is a very different case. There isn't any bargaining, in other words, with the government; therefore the question does not arise." This is in effect a money laundering scheme. The unions bargain with the politicians who raise the pay of their members which raises the dues collected by the unions who then contribute money to the very politicians who raise their pay. And even in the public sector when given the choice to remain in unions or leave when given the chance as in Wisconsin they are leaving in droves. So how do unions cause inequality? By controlling the labor in major industries they distort the free market by artificially raising the cost of labor over what it should be according to production costs and sales receipts. This in turn contributes to economic misallocations of resources and malinvestments which sets the stage for the creation of bubbles, booms, and busts. In America all people are equal before the law and all should have equality of opportunity. However, it is a fact apparent to anyone who has interacted with anyone else that all people are not equal in talent, motivation, experience, or desires. Therefore inequality as a result of the varying application of these four attributes will always exist. Such horror shows as the USSR, Cuba, and Venezuela have tried this through collectivist pipedreams that became the nightmares of their captive people. If unions are all about the free association of workers go to Chicago or New York and try to start a competing carpenters union. See how well that goes. I would suggest that you wear a hard hat. Dr. Robert Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com  2016 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens Home
False cries of voter suppression in Arizona and other GOP primaries By Rachel Alexander

After a few state presidential primary elections took place this spring, there were cries of voter disenfranchisement due to the surprisingly long lines some voters encountered at the polls. Now there is an outcry that voters were deliberately disenfranchised, with calls for election officials to resign, including hearings taking place in the Arizona State Legislature. But was there really voter suppression? And why would elected officials, under intense scrutiny with all the media today, risk something this illegal? Many of the accusations are from Donald Trump supporters, and since it is generally Democrats who are accused of voter fraud (hence their insistence on not requiring ID to vote), it makes no sense why Republican elected officials with long-standing reputations would risk their careers, reputations and prosecution in order to illegally interfere with an election  a felony that would likely result in prison time. Some of the loudest protests are taking place where I live, in Maricopa County, Arizona. I was the elections attorney for Maricopa County a few years ago, so I have a thorough understanding of the dilemmas that department faces, which the general public does not know about. It frustrates me greatly how this fiasco is being portrayed by the mainstream media. Helen Purcell, the county recorder who oversees elections, is a moderate Republican with an impeccable reputation who has held that position since 1988. I disagree with her on issues like abortion, so believe me, she holds no favoritism toward Cruz  not that she would ever do anything unethical to affect an election anyway. Purcell's longtime director of county elections, Karen Osborne, is a moderate Democrat who I also worked with closely. She is considered by everyone who knows her to be the salt of the earth and would never manipulate an election, I have personally had many conversations with her where she discussed how important it is to be extremely careful and neutral. Here is why there were long waiting lines at the polls on Arizona's presidential primary election day: Unlike previous elections, where there were generally frontrunners at this point in the race, Arizona's late primary in March remained very competitive on both sides of the aisle, so all four major remaining candidates showed up the weekend before the primary vote to campaign. This drove many more people out out to vote than in previous years. When the polling place locations were arranged earlier, no one, not even us politicos, could have predicted this rare scenario. Due to this increase in interest, registered Independents showed up en masse  yet Arizona's primary is a semi-closed primary, so registered Independents are prohibited from voting for Republicans or Democrats. They added to the lines and took up additional time at the polls trying to figure it out. Arizona has a high number of voters who vote automatically by mail, which should have been a tip-off to them when they did not get a ballot in the mail. Making things worse, at least one elected official went on television and encouraged Independents to vote in Arizona's presidential primary. When Purcell tried to explain the Independent factor afterward, she got slammed for "blaming the voters." But the reality is; at some point, if you are going to vote, you need to be aware of basic voting logistics, and if you aren't, don't scream voter suppression and fraud. Arizona has had a semi-closed primary for years. Compounding the problem is what the federal government has done to hamstring several states. Several Southern states, where incidents of voter discrimination against blacks were reported years ago, are held to almost impossible standards by the innocuously named Voting Rights Act. The law was passed with good intentions in 1965, but it has now morphed into a monstrous, unnecessary federal mandate. States like Arizona, which never had reports of discrimination against blacks, were lumped in with those Southern states and forced to comply as well, simply because the state has a large Hispanic population. No one dares speak up and oppose it for fear of being labeled a racist. As a result, Arizona has to spend exorbitant amounts of money on unnecessary tasks like printing all ballots in both Spanish and English, which is a nightmare when there are a lot of propositions on the ballot. The polling place requirements are frankly ridiculous; there must be large numbers of additional bilingual workers  which is not easy to find when it is temporary work and county elections is already burdened with other financial challenges from The Voting Rights Act. In reality, so many people vote absentee ballot that during most elections the polling places are generally empty. There is no valid reason why a Spanish-only speaking voter cannot call election headquarters and speak to a translator there. It is a complete waste of taxpayer dollars. Hypocritically, there was no outcry from these same complainants in 2012 when several precincts in swing states reported 100 percent voting for Obama, with more registered voters than actual residents. The latter cannot be explained away as anything other than fraud. In Wisconsin, in addition to complaints of voter suppression over long lines, there were also complaints that the new stricter voting laws, which include voter ID requirements, suppressed voters. This is ironic considering the laws were enacted in reaction to voter fraud  quite the opposite. The far left group Democracy for America has started a petition demanding that Purcell resign. The petition claims to have over 47,000 signatures, close to its goal of 50,000. Suspiciously, the names are all hidden  an indication they may all be fake. I haven't spoken to Purcell in years, but think it's a tragedy that progressives with an agenda would destroy her record of long years of service to Maricopa County. She is an innovator and one of first county recorders in the country to implement vote by mail. She was criticized at the time because Republicans thought it would turn out like motor voter and benefit Democrats. Instead it had the opposite result, increasing more registered Republicans than Democrats. She also recently implemented the ability to vote at any polling location countywide, so voters could have easily gone to a location in a less dense area and avoided the lines. By implementing vote by mail when it became clear most polling locations were usually deserted, Purcell wisely juggled the onerous, ridiculous requirements of The Voting Rights Act with making ends meet and not sticking it to the taxpayers. Instead of making false complaints about voter suppression, voters should sign up for the permanent early ballot list, where ballots are automatically mailed to them. If they want the full experience of going to the polls on election day, they can still take their ballot in that day and drop it off  avoiding any line. And Independents have no one to blame but themselves for not understanding Arizona's semi-closed primary system, which has been around for years. As a result of the whining, Maricopa County is going to unnecessarily increase the number of polling locations for the next election coming up for the May 17th Special Election, costing taxpayers extra money. Due to Purcell's efficiency, the polling locations had decreased from 200 to 60 since 2012. Now, Purcell is being goaded into increasing them back up to 120 for a mere Special Election, which will have much less voter turnout than a presidential primary and will not exclude Independents. Frankly, these whiners should be embarrassed of what they've caused. But they don't care about the truth, because it's all about their progressive agenda, which is to maximize Democrat votes and replace Republican election officials with Democrats. Rachel Alexander and her brother Andrew are co-Editors of Intellectual Conservative. She has been published in the American Spectator, Townhall.com, Fox News, NewsMax, Accuracy in Media, The Americano, ParcBench, and other publications. Home
The SWIFT network recently announced that a second bank has been hit by a malware attack similar to the one that led to the theft of $81 million from Bangladesh Bank in February, the Guardian reports.

In the newer instance, the attack specifically targets the PDF Reader used by customers to download statements.

Once installed on an infected local machine, the Trojan PDF reader gains an icon and file description that matches legitimate software, SWIFT said in a statement. When opening PDF files containing local reports of customer specific SWIFT confirmation messages, the Trojan will manipulate the PDF reports to remove traces of the fraudulent instructions.

The second attack, according to SWIFT, evidences that the malware used in the earlier reported customer incident was not a single occurrence, but part of a wider and highly adaptive campaign targeting banks.

The attackers clearly exhibit a deep and sophisticated knowledge of specific operational controls within the targeted banks  knowledge that may have been gained from malicious insiders or cyber attacks, or a combination of both, SWIFT added.

The methods of attack (both in the Bangladesh Bank case and in the more recent one) are as follows, acccording to SWIFT:

Attackers compromise the banks environment Attackers obtain valid operator credentials that have the authority to create, approve and submit SWIFT messages from customers back-offices or from their local interfaces to the SWIFT network Attackers submit fraudulent messages by impersonating the operators from whom they stole the credentials Attackers hide evidence by removing some of the traces of the fraudulent messages

Splunk security evangelist Matthias Maier told eSecurity Planet by email that the news of a second attack should be a wake-up call for banks worldwide. These are not isolated incidents, he said. Serious investigations must follow given the custom built nature of the malware used in these attacks.

It appears to have been created by someone with an intimate knowledge of how the SWIFT software works as well as its business processes, which is cause for concern, Maier added. However, basic system monitoring at the bank would have stopped this at the server endpoint by tracking system changes in real time, triggering alerts to analysts.

According to the results of the Financial Services Edition of the 2016 Vormetric Data Threat Report, 90 percent of IT security professionals in the financial services industry feel vulnerable to a data breach, and 44 percent have already experienced one.

The report, based on responses from 1,100 senior IT security executives at large enterprises, including more than 100 at U.S. financial services organizations, also found that the leading barriers to adoption of better data security include complexity (68 percent) and lack of staff (35 percent).

In response, 70 percent of respondents are planning to increase spending to protect sensitive data, and 48 percent plan to invest in data-at-rest defenses in the coming year.

Still, 66 percent view meeting compliance requirements as a very or extremely effective way to protect sensitive data.

Financial services organizations continue to feel the heat from cyber attackers, Vormetric vice president of marketing Tina Stewart said in a statement. They are investing to help solve the problem, but surprisingly, are failing to connect the dots about the best solutions to use.

With the worlds financial data in their custody, the most effective way to protect this information, once networks and systems are penetrated, is to enhance data protection investments, Stewart added.

A recent eSecurity Planet article offered advice on securing corporate data in a post-perimeter world.
1. Review: Docs legally allowed to inquire about guns, disclose information to third parties when necessary

Review clarifies statutes and addresses common barriers to counseling patients on the dangers of firearms

Free content: http://www.annals.org/article.aspx?doi=10.7326/M15-2905

Editorail: http://www.annals.org/article.aspx?doi=10.7326/M16-0968

URL goes live when the embargo lifts

Physicians are legally allowed to ask their patients about firearms, counsel them as they would on any other health matter, and disclose that information to third parties when necessary, according to a review published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

A growing body of evidence shows that having a firearm in the home or purchasing a handgun substantially increases a person's risk for violent death. While physicians have a responsibility to diagnose and treat illness, they also have a broader obligation to prevent illness and injury and to improve population health. Many prominent physicians' organizations believe that this includes counseling their patients on firearm safety. However, some physicians believe that it is against the law to discuss firearms with their patients and many are unsure what they are legally allowed to say about guns in practice.

Authors reviewed current federal and state statutes and found that none prohibit physicians from asking about firearms when that information is directly relevant to the health of the patient or others. As such, the authors recommend, at a minimum, that clinicians determine access to firearms for patients who fall into any of the high-risk categories for firearm violence, such as those who have suicidal or homicidal ideas or intent; those with a history of intentional or unintentional violence to themselves or others caused by alcohol or drug abuse, serious mental illness or other conditions that impair judgment; and patients who are members of high-risk demographic groups, such as middle-aged and older white men, young African American men, and children and adolescents.

The authors write that although many physicians believe they have the responsibility to counsel patients to help prevent firearm-related injuries, they lack the training to counsel patients in clinical practice. The physicians cite lack of familiarity with firearms, lack of knowledge about the risks and benefits of firearm ownership, and what to say to patients about the issue as the main barriers to intervention. The authors suggest that with training and the development of referral resources, physicians can overcome these barriers. They summarize a list of resources to assist physicians in educating patients about firearm safety.

Steven E. Weinberger, MD, MACP, FRCP, Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the American College of Physicians (ACP) authored an accompanying editorial. According to Dr. Weinberger, physicians should not shirk their responsibility to seek information about gun ownership. He writes that it is essential for individual physicians and other health care providers, the organizations that represent them, and the legal community to band together to ensure that clinicians understand what they can and should do to assess and mitigate the risk for firearm-related injury and death. Dr. Weinberger's words echo a policy position paper released by ACP in 2015 Firearm-Related Injury and Death in the United States: A Call to Action From 8 Health Professional Organizations and the American Bar Association (http://www.annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2151828).

Note: For an embargoed PDF or an interview with the editorialist from ACP, please contact Cara Graeff. For an interview with the lead author, Dr. Garen J. Wintemute, please contact David Ong at dong@ucdavis.org or 916-734-9049.

2. Tai Chi improves pain and well-being in patients with knee osteoarthritis

Abstract: http://www.annals.org/article.aspx?doi=10.7326/M15-2143

URL goes live when the embargo lifts

Tai Chi improves pain and related health outcomes in patients with knee osteoarthritis as well as standard physical therapy, according to a comparative effectiveness trial published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Tai Chi was also shown to produce significantly greater improvements in depression and the physical component of quality of life.

Knee osteoarthritis is a leading cause of age-related pain and disability. Over-the-counter pain medications often fail to relieve symptoms and are associated with serious adverse effects. Physical therapy is globally recommended, but benefits are modest. As such, identifying new and effective treatments is an urgent clinical and public health priority. Tai Chi, a multicomponent traditional Chinese mind-body practice that combines meditation with slow, gentle, graceful movements; deep breathing; and relaxation, has been shown to alleviate symptoms of knee osteoarthritis, but no trials have directly compared Tai Chi with standard care.

Researchers sought to compare Tai Chi with standard physical therapy for relieving pain, physical function, depression, medication use, and quality of life in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Just over 200 participants were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups: Tai Chi or standard physical therapy. Patients in the Tai Chi group performed Tai Chi with a trained instructor 2 times per week for 12 weeks. Patients in the physical therapy group had standard physical therapy 2 times per week for 6 weeks, followed by 6 weeks of monitored home exercise.

After 12 weeks, patients in both groups showed significant improvements in pain as measured by the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) score, with benefits maintained up to 52 weeks. In addition, patients in the Tai Chi group had significantly greater improvements in well-being compared to those in the physical therapy group. According to the authors, these findings support Tai Chi as an effective therapeutic option for knee osteoarthritis.

Note: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Cara Graeff. To schedule an interview with lead author, Dr. Chenchen Wang, please contact Jeremy Lechan at 617-636-0104 or jlechan@tuftsmedicalcenter.org.

3. Wells rule with age-adjusted D-Dimer test can safely rule out pulmonary embolism in some high-risk older patients

Abstract: http://www.annals.org/article.aspx?doi=10.7326/M16-0031

URL goes live when the embargo lifts

Using the Wells Rule with age-adjusted D-dimer testing can safely and effectively rule out pulmonary embolism (PE) in subgroups of older patients. The findings are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

PE cannot be diagnosed based on clinical features alone because symptoms are not specific. Objective imaging tests, such as computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA), are often warranted but are not appropriate first-line tests because of radiation exposure, cost, and risk for contrast-induced nephropathy. Since only about 15 to 25 percent of presenting patients have PE, clinicians need safe and accurate ways to assess which patients should be referred for imaging. One frequently used algorithm consists of the sequential application of the dichotomized Wells rule, which estimates the clinical probability of PE, and D-dimer testing. PE can be considered ruled out in patients with a Wells score of 4 or less and a negative D-dimer test result. It has recently been shown that the efficiency of this algorithm can be safely increased by applying an age-adjusted D-dimer test for patients older than 50, but important clinical questions still remain.

Researchers reviewed published research to evaluate and compare the efficiency and safety of the Wells rule with fixed or age-adjusted D-dimer testing for excluding PE in inpatients and persons with cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, previous venous thromboembolism, delayed presentation, and who were at least 75 years of age. The data showed that the proportion of patients managed without imaging and who have no need for anticoagulation can be safely increased from 28 percent to 33 percent by applying the age-adjusted D-dimer test in those who were unlikely to have PE based on their Wells score. The absolute increase was more prominent in patients with COPD and elderly patients presenting with suspected PE, but is less prominent in the remaining subgroups studied.

Note: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Cara Graeff. For an interview with the lead author, Dr. Nick Van Es, please contact the Academic Medical Center press office at pers@amc.nl or 00031-20-56-62929.

Also new in this issue:

Surveying the Landscape of Ovarian Cancer Research and Care

Ronald D. Alvarez, MD, MBA; Jerome F. Strauss, III, MD, PhD

Ideas and Opinions

http://www.annals.org/article.aspx?doi=10.7326/M16-0604

The Firearm for Protection? A Risky Bet

Erik A. Wallace, MD, University of Colorado School of Medicine

On Being a Doctor

http://www.annals.org/article.aspx?doi=10.7326/M15-2100

He Says You Are Finished

Christine Todd, MD, Southern Illinois University

On Being a Doctor

http://www.annals.org/article.aspx?doi=10.7326/M15-2009

###
San Diego, CA (May 16, 2015) -- The gastroenterology and hepatology community will gather in San Diego May 21 through 24, 2016, for Digestive Disease Week (DDW)http://www.ddw.org to hear cutting-edge science and presentations from leading experts in the field. For media attending DDW 2016, use this guide to find AGA's highlighted abstracts at the meeting. We've also outlined sessions on the gut microbiome, an exciting area of medical research where AGA has expanded its focus over the past several years.

All data presented during DDW is embargoed until the beginning of the presentation or an official DDW press conference, whichever occurs first. For information on DDW press activities, visit http://www.ddw.org/press.

All sessions will be held in the San Diego Convention Center (Pacific Time). For more information on presentations and data being presented, visit http://www.myddw.org.

Presidential Plenary

Hear from AGA Institute President Michael Camilleri, MD, AGAF, during the 2016 AGA Presidential Plenary, on Monday, May 23, 2016, 8 to 11:30 a.m. in Room 20BCD. Mixed in with high-level presentations on the topics of obesity management, hollow organ failure and upper GI cancers, the following seven abstracts will be highlighted:

Abstract 594: Final Results of Multi-Center, Prospective, Controlled Trial of the Duodeno-Jejunal Bypass Liner for the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Obese Patients: Efficacy and Factors Predicting a Suboptimal Effect; Marek Benes

Final Results of Multi-Center, Prospective, Controlled Trial of the Duodeno-Jejunal Bypass Liner for the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Obese Patients: Efficacy and Factors Predicting a Suboptimal Effect; Marek Benes Abstract 595: Post-Colonoscopy Colorectal Cancer Rates Have Decreased Over Time in Average-Risk Patients Aged 50 to 74: A Population-Based Study from Ontario, Canada; Sanjay Murthy

Post-Colonoscopy Colorectal Cancer Rates Have Decreased Over Time in Average-Risk Patients Aged 50 to 74: A Population-Based Study from Ontario, Canada; Sanjay Murthy Abstract 596: Detection of Pancreatic High-Grade Dysplasia and Cancer using Novel Methylated DNA Markers: Discovery and Tissue Validation; Shounak Majumder

Detection of Pancreatic High-Grade Dysplasia and Cancer using Novel Methylated DNA Markers: Discovery and Tissue Validation; Shounak Majumder Abstract 597: Molecular Markers Help Define Cyst Type in the Pancreas: An International, Multicenter Study of Over 300 Cysts; Anne Marie Lennon

Molecular Markers Help Define Cyst Type in the Pancreas: An International, Multicenter Study of Over 300 Cysts; Anne Marie Lennon Abstract 598: Efficacy and Safety of Naldemedine for the Treatment of Opioid-Induced Constipation in Subjects With Chronic Non-Cancer Pain Receiving Opioid Therapy: Results From Two Phase 3 Clinical Trials; Martin Hale

Efficacy and Safety of Naldemedine for the Treatment of Opioid-Induced Constipation in Subjects With Chronic Non-Cancer Pain Receiving Opioid Therapy: Results From Two Phase 3 Clinical Trials; Martin Hale Abstract 599: The Monoclonal Antibody, Bezlotoxumab Targeting C. Difficile Toxin B Shows Efficacy in Preventing Recurrent C. Difficile Infection (CDI) in Patients at High Risk of Recurrence or of CDI-Related Adverse Outcomes; Ciaran Kelly

The Monoclonal Antibody, Bezlotoxumab Targeting C. Difficile Toxin B Shows Efficacy in Preventing Recurrent C. Difficile Infection (CDI) in Patients at High Risk of Recurrence or of CDI-Related Adverse Outcomes; Ciaran Kelly Abstract 600: Multi Donor Intense Faecal Microbiota Transplantation is an Effective Treatment for Resistant Ulcerative Colitis: A Randomised Placebo-Controlled Trial; Sudarshan Paramsothy

Noteworthy AGA Clinical Abstracts

On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 AGA will highlight the most noteworthy clinical practice data presented at DDW 2016 during the Clinical Practice Distinguished Abstract Plenary, taking place from 8 to 9:30 a.m. in Room 32. Abstracts to be presented include:

Abstract 819: Black-White Disparity Trends in Colorectal Cancer Incidence and Stage at Presentation in the United States; Folasade May

Abstract 820: Gastrointestinal Safety of Direct Oral Anticoagulants: A Head-to-Head Study; Neena Abraham

Gastrointestinal Safety of Direct Oral Anticoagulants: A Head-to-Head Study; Neena Abraham Abstract 821: A Low FODMAP Diet Improves Quality of Life, Reduces Activity Impairment, and Improves Sleep Quality in Patients With Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Diarrhea: Results From a United States Randomized, Controlled Trial; Shanti Eswaran

A Low FODMAP Diet Improves Quality of Life, Reduces Activity Impairment, and Improves Sleep Quality in Patients With Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Diarrhea: Results From a United States Randomized, Controlled Trial; Shanti Eswaran Abstract 822: Prevalence and Predictors of Irritable Bowel Syndrome in the United States; Christopher Almario

Prevalence and Predictors of Irritable Bowel Syndrome in the United States; Christopher Almario Abstract 823: Increased Detection of Celiac Disease and Avoidance of Gluten Without a Diagnosis in the United States; Rok Seon Choung

Increased Detection of Celiac Disease and Avoidance of Gluten Without a Diagnosis in the United States; Rok Seon Choung Abstract 824: Project Sonar: Reduction in Cost of Care in an Attributed Cohort of Patients With Crohn's Disease; Lawrence Kosinski

AGA Basic Science Abstracts

Attend the AGA Basic Science Plenary on Sunday, May 22, 2016, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in Room 25, where the most noteworthy contributions to gastroenterology basic science research will be presented, including:

Abstract 431: Protease-Activated Receptor 2 Signals From Endosomes to Control Sensitivity of Nociceptors; Peishen Zhao

Protease-Activated Receptor 2 Signals From Endosomes to Control Sensitivity of Nociceptors; Peishen Zhao Abstract 432: ATG16L1 and XBP1 Coordinate Interleukin 22 Dependent Signals in Intestinal Epithelium; Konrad Aden

ATG16L1 and XBP1 Coordinate Interleukin 22 Dependent Signals in Intestinal Epithelium; Konrad Aden Abstract 433: ?Functional Enteric Nervous System in Human Small Intestine Derived From Pluripotent Stem Cells; Maxime Mahe

?Functional Enteric Nervous System in Human Small Intestine Derived From Pluripotent Stem Cells; Maxime Mahe Abstract 434: CD44 Is Required for Regeneration of the Gastric Epithelium in Response to Injury: A Mechanism Lost in the Aging Stomach; Joel Gabre

CD44 Is Required for Regeneration of the Gastric Epithelium in Response to Injury: A Mechanism Lost in the Aging Stomach; Joel Gabre Abstract 435: Microbiota-Dependent Signals Link ATF6-Driven Unfolded Protein Response to Colonic Tumorigenesis; Elena Lobner

Microbiota-Dependent Signals Link ATF6-Driven Unfolded Protein Response to Colonic Tumorigenesis; Elena Lobner Abstract 436: Transmissible Protection From Fructose Induced Hepatic Steatosis Using Microbiota From Mice With Defective Intestinal Chylomicron Production; Yan Xie

Microbiome Programming

Through the AGA Center for Gut Microbiome Research and Education http://www.gastro.org/about/initiatives/aga-center-for-gut-microbiome-research-education, AGA is committed to advancing research into the gut microbiome. To that end, there will be several AGA sessions at DDW 2016 focused on this important area of research, including:

Gut Bugs and Their Products: The Keys to Inflammatory Drive?, Saturday, May 21, 8-9:30 a.m., Room 29B Understanding the Microbial Host Interaction, Saturday, May 21, 2-3:30 p.m., Room 29B

Gut Microbiome in Pediatric Gastrointestinal Diseases, Sunday, May 22, 10-11:30 a.m., Room 29A

Active Learning Session on the Gut Microbiome: Fundamental Principles in Theory and Practice, Sunday, May 22, 4-5:30 p.m., Room 33

Learn more about AGA's highlighted sessions at DDW 2016.http://www.ddw.org/program/program-highlights-by-society/aga-highlights

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About the American Gastroenterological Association

The American Gastroenterological Association is the trusted voice of the GI community. Founded in 1897, the AGA has grown to more than 16,000 members from around the globe who are involved in all aspects of the science, practice and advancement of gastroenterology. The AGA Institute administers the practice, research and educational programs of the organization. http://www.gastro.org.

Like AGA on Facebook

Join AGA on LinkedIn

Follow us on Twitter @AmerGastroAssn

Check out our videos on YouTube

About DDW

Digestive Disease Week (DDW) is the largest international gathering of physicians, researchers and academics in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery. Jointly sponsored by the AGA Institute, American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT), DDW takes place May 21-24, 2016, at the San Diego Convention Center, CA. The meeting showcases more than 5,000 abstracts and hundreds of lectures on the latest advances in GI research, medicine and technology. More information can be found at http://www.ddw.org.

Follow us on Twitter @DDWMeeting; hashtag #DDW16. Become a fan of DDW on Facebook.
What is known: Vikings sailed to Greenland. They homesteaded there for a few hundred years, and likely experienced multiple famines. Many died. Some returned to European shores. And all of this happened during a time in Europe known to geoscientists as the Medieval Warm Period. The warmer, milder conditions that defined this time eventually ended too.

For many years, scientists have pondered if the Vikings' diaspora to Greenland was made easier by the warmer temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period. Climate data extracted from shells had indicated that this warm period extended to Greenland, but new research looking at glacial movements and using isotope data from terminal moraines suggests this may not necessarily be so.

As EARTH Magazine explores, based on the new data, scientists determined that glaciers grew from A.D. 926 to 1275, suggesting a much cooler regional temperature, and that the Medieval Warm Period was a distinctly European phenomenon. The new research also represented an opportunity to apply a method typically used to describe glacial growth on the scale of thousands to tens-of-thousands of years to scales of only a few hundred years. Read the full story in the May issue of EARTH Magazine: http://bit.ly/1XuT5NG.

From stories about chilly climates to new discoveries about dinosaurs, EARTH Magazine brings you the hottest stories from the geoscience community. The May 2016 issue, is available for download from http://www.earthmagazine.com, includes stories about how scientists are using the "hum" of Mesa's famous arches to monitor the stability of one of America's most scenic destinations; studies of Jupiter's atmosphere; and stories about the unique environment that recorded the footsteps of giant dinosaurs and what those footprints are revealing about the prehistoric beasts. All this, and more in EARTH Magazine.

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Keep up to date with the latest happenings in Earth, energy and environment news with EARTH Magazine online at: http://www.earthmagazine.org/. Published by the American Geosciences Institute, EARTH is your source for the science behind the headlines.

The American Geosciences Institute is a nonprofit federation of geoscientific and professional associations that represents more than 250,000 geologists, geophysicists and other earth scientists. Founded in 1948, AGI provides information services to geoscientists, serves as a voice of shared interests in the profession, plays a major role in strengthening geoscience education, and strives to increase public awareness of the vital role the geosciences play in society's use of resources, resiliency to natural hazards, and interaction with the environment.
BETHESDA, MD - The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) opposes the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) newly revised Regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA).

"These revisions will significantly weaken the patient privacy protections in the ADA and GINA," said Derek T. Scholes, PhD, ASHG Director of Science Policy. ASHG played a key role in the inception of GINA and supported the law's passage in 2008.

A key component of ADA and GINA is that they prevent workers and their families from being coerced into sharing sensitive medical or genetic information with their employer. For GINA, genetic information encompasses not only employees' genetic test results but also their family medical histories. According to a 2007 Senate report on GINA, Congress explicitly crafted the law to include spouses' medical histories to prevent employers from discriminating against employees because of the potential costs of their spouses' medical care.

ADA and GINA do allow employer-sponsored wellness programs to request medical or genetic information, but require that employee participation in such programs be entirely voluntary. Per the Senate report on GINA, Congress incorporated this wellness program provision so employees could take advantage of opportunities to improve their health without fear of workplace discrimination.

Under the final rules issued today, however, employers can require that employees who choose to keep their and their spouses' health information private pay significantly higher health insurance premiums. For plans that cover both the employee and the spouse, the employee could be required to pay a per-person penalty of up to 30 percent of the cost of self-only coverage. Given that the average cost of a self-only plan is $6,251 per year, the new rules would allow an employer offering such a plan to impose an annual $3,750 penalty for an employee and his or her spouse.

"The new EEOC rules mean that Americans could be forced to choose between access to affordable healthcare and keeping their health information private," said Dr. Scholes. "Employers now have the green light to coerce employees into providing their health information and that of their spouse, which in turn reveals genetic information about their children."

"One of the main reasons for enacting GINA was to reassure people that they could participate in medical research without employers gaining access to their genetic information," Dr. Scholes added. "So it is especially unfortunate that these regulatory changes coincide with the launch of the largest-ever genetics experiment in the United States, the Precision Medicine Initiative, which will provide participants access to their study results. People may choose not to participate out of fear that they will be coerced into reporting these results to their employers' wellness programs."

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ATS 2016, SAN FRANCISCO -- Greater collaboration between ICU nursing and medicine could help to minimize ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), according to a study presented at the ATS 2016 International Conference.

"Our results suggest that the nurse work environment is a significant predictor of VAP while controlling for ICU physician staffing," said lead study author Deena Kelly Costa, PhD, RN, from the University of Michigan School of Nursing and the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Two ICU characteristics--a better nurse work environment and a closed ICU physician staffing model (where an intensivist leads and manages care of all patients)--have been independently associated with lower mortality, the study authors wrote. However, it has not always been clear how these factors together may influence VAP.

Investigators conducted a secondary unit-level analysis of critical care nurse survey data from 25 ICUs collected in 2005 and 2006. Investigators modeled independent and joint effects of the nurse work environment and ICU physician staffing on VAP using a Poisson multivariable regression model. Investigators also tested an interaction between the nurse work environment and ICU physician staffing on VAP.

From the 25 ICUs, 462 of 866 nurses (53.5%) participated in the study. Twenty-one ICUs (84%) were classified as closed ICUs, the authors wrote. "Surprisingly, in our multivariable analyses, a better nurse work environment was significantly associated with a nearly six-fold increase in VAP risk," the authors wrote. Dr. Costa explained that this finding may be due to differences in the roles of the ICU team members.

"Nurses provide preventive VAP care once a patient is intubated, but patients are intubated by physicians. Without taking into consideration the physician staffing model, we are misattributing greater risk to nurses alone when in clinical practice, and as our results suggest, both nursing and medicine have the potential to influence VAP risk. "

Although a closed ICU physician staffing model was not significantly associated with VAP risk in the independent analysis, there was a significant interaction effect between the nurse work environment and ICU physician staffing on VAP.

The significant interaction suggests that better work environments for nurses may minimize VAP risk in open ICUs but actually increase VAP risk in closed ICUs. In the open ICU model, several doctors manage patient care. The number and variety of physicians in open ICUs, in addition to better work environments, may encourage nurses to standardize VAP preventive care to minimize VAP risk. But in closed ICUs with a better work environment, nurses may play a less central role in VAP preventive care since there is more focused management from the ICU physicians.

"These findings highlight a novel view that minimizing VAP depends on cultivating organizational collaboration between ICU nursing and medicine," the authors concluded.

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Abstract 4665

How the Nurse Work Environment and ICU Physician Staffing Influence Risk of Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia

Type: Scientific Abstract

Category: 15. ICU Management and Administration / Adult / Behavioral/Epidemiology/Health Services / Nursing (NUR)

Authors: D.K. Costa, J. Yang, M. Manojlovich; University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI/US

Abstract Body

Rationale: Two characteristics of the intensive care unit (ICU)- a better nurse work environment and a closed ICU physician staffing model - have been independently associated with improved outcomes but we know little about how these factors together may influence ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). VAP prevention interventions are delivered by ICU nurses and often require physician involvement and thus understanding how characteristics of nursing and medicine may influence VAP risk could identify potential ways to further minimize VAP. Thus, we sought to examine how the nurse work environment and ICU physician staffing influence VAP.

Methods: We conducted a secondary unit-level analysis of nurse survey data from 25 ICUs in 2005-2006. We modeled the independent and joint effects of the nurse work environment (Practice Environment Scale-Nurse Work Index) and ICU physician staffing (closed vs. open) on VAP using a Poisson multivariable regression model. We also tested an interaction between the nurse work environment and ICU physician staffing on VAP.

Results: Overall, 462 of 866 nurses (53.3%) nested in 25 ICUs participated in the parent study. Twenty-one ICUs (84%) were classified as closed ICUs. Surprisingly, in our multivariable analyses, a one-unit increase in the nurse work environment was significantly associated with a nearly six-fold increase in VAP risk [adjusted incident rate ratio (aIRR)=5.79 (1.33, 25.17), p=0.02]. A closed ICU physician staffing model was not significantly associated with VAP risk [aIRR=0.59 (0.25, 1.38), p=0.2]. We did find a significant interaction (p<0.001) between the nurse work environment and ICU physician staffing on VAP, such that in closed ICUs, a one-unit increase in the nurse work environment was associated with significantly higher risk of VAP but in open ICUs, a one-unit increase in the nurse work environment was associated with significantly lower risk of VAP.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that the nurse work environment is a significant predictor of VAP while controlling for ICU physician staffing.

Moreover, the effect of the nurse work environment on VAP may depend on ICU physician staffing. These findings highlight a novel view that minimizing VAP may depend on fostering organizational collaboration between ICU nursing and medicine. Our data suggest that future work should examine in more detail various aspects of the nurse work environment and ICU physician staffing together, to better understand how the organization of nursing and medicine collectively can minimize risk for VAP.

PRESS CONFERENCE: May 16, 2016, 11:15 a.m., Alcove E, Level 3, West Bldg., MOSCONE CENTER

Session C24: Critical Care: Can ICU Design Improve ICU Care?

Tuesday, May 17, 2016, 9 a.m.

Location: Room 3001 (West Building, Level 3), MOSCONE CENTER
ATS 2016, SAN FRANCISCO - Home-based pulmonary rehabilitation may be equally effective in improving fitness and quality of life as a traditional center-based program for COPD patients, according to new research presented at the ATS 2016 International Conference.

"We know that pulmonary rehab is a highly effective treatment for COPD because it improves exercise capacity and symptoms and keeps people out of the hospital," said Anne Holland, PhD, professor of physiotherapy at Alfred Health and La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. "But less than 10 percent of all COPD patients in developed countries enter a pulmonary rehab program."

According to Dr. Holland, a number of factors contribute to that fact, including lack of programs and inadequate or no medical reimbursement. Another factor, she said, is that for people who are short of breath, traveling to a hospital or other medical facility for rehabilitation on a regular basis "may seem impossible."

Dr. Holland and her colleagues created a unique 8-week at-home program and compared the results with their hospital's traditional outpatient program in a randomized controlled trial of 166 patients.

After an initial visit from a physiotherapist, those in the home program decided on their own exercise program and reviewed their fitness goals and progress on a weekly call with a health care professional. The caller was trained to motivate patients by asking questions that helped patients focus on what improvements were important to them. Those in the traditional program attended twice weekly sessions at the hospital. Each session included group exercise and education.

At the end of the pulmonary rehabilitation and a year later, blinded assessors measured change in six-minute walk distance (6MWD), the primary outcome. Patients also completed validated questionnaires to measure changes in dyspnea-related quality of life (Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire) and self-efficacy (Pulmonary Rehabilitation Adapted Index of Self-Efficacy, or PRAISE).

Results on all measures were comparable between participants in the two study arms immediately following program completion. Among home-based participants, 6MWD increased by 28 meters, compared to 29 meters for center-based participants. Neither group, however, retained primary or secondary gains 12 months later--a finding consistent with previous studies. Researchers also tracked hospital admissions and health care utilization and are currently analyzing that data.

The costs of the two pulmonary rehabilitation programs were similar: $219 (USD) for in-center; $209 (USD) for at-home. The low cost of at-home pulmonary rehabilitation makes it a viable option, said Dr. Holland, if clinical guidelines incorporate at-home pulmonary rehabilitation into their treatment recommendations.

"We would need appropriate funding models that recognize a telephone call from a health care professional can be a treatment," she said. "We're not there yet in Australia, and I suspect in most countries around the world."

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Abstract 5176

Low Cost Home-Based Pulmonary Rehabilitation for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Randomized Controlled Equivalence Trial

A.E. Holland1, A. Mahal2, C.J. Hill3, A.L. Lee4, A.T. Burge1, N.S. Cox5, R. Moore3, C. Nicolson6, P. O'Halloran7, A. Lahham5, R. Ndongo8, C.F.McDonald3

1La Trobe University, Alfred Health, Institute for Breathing and Sleep - Melbourne, VIC/AU, 2Monash University - Melbourne, VIC/AU, 3Austin Health, Institute for Breathing and Sleep - Melbourne, VIC/AU, 4Alfred Health, Institute for Breathing and Sleep - Melbourne, VIC/AU, 5La Trobe University, Institute for Breathing and Sleep - Melbourne, VIC/AU, 6La Trobe University and Alfred Health - Melbourne, VIC/AU, 7La Trobe University - Melbourne, VIC/AU, 8La Trobe University, Austin Health, Institute for Breathing and Sleep - Melbourne, VIC/AU

Introduction: Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is a cornerstone of care for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) but global access and uptake are poor. This study aimed to determine whether low cost home-based PR delivered equivalent outcomes to traditional center-based PR.

Methods: A randomized controlled equivalence trial with assessor blinding and 12 months follow up. Participants with stable COPD (n=166, mean FEV1 50 (SD 19) %predicted) received eight weeks of PR, delivered either by a standard outpatient center-based model or a home-based PR model which consisted of one home visit and seven once-weekly telephone calls using a motivational interviewing approach. The primary outcome was change in 6-minute walk distance (6MWD). Detailed documentation of direct program costs was undertaken.

Results: There were no significant between-group differences in clinical outcomes at any time point. The change in 6MWD post-intervention confirmed non-inferiority of home-based PR and the confidence interval (CI) did not rule out superiority (mean difference between groups 18.60 meters, 95% CI -3.55 to 40.71 metres). At 12 months the CI did not exclude inferiority of home PR (-5.14 meters, -29.40 to 19.13 meters). At end rehabilitation, dyspnoea-related quality of life on the Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire was non-inferior following home PR and superiority to center-based PR could not be excluded (1.57 units, -0.34 to 3.48 units), whilst results were equivalent at 12 months (-0.10 units, -2.16 to 1.97 units). Neither group had maintained post-rehabilitation gains at 12 months. Costs of delivery were $USD 219 for hospital PR and $USD 209 for home-based PR.

Conclusions: Low cost home-based PR delivers short-term clinical outcomes that are at least equivalent to traditional center-based pulmonary rehabilitation programs, but neither model maintained these gains at 12 months. Home-based PR could be considered for people with COPD who cannot access center-based PR programs.
ATS 2016, SAN FRANCISCO -- A new study investigating the health impact of the chemical components of air pollution is reporting that two metals, nickel and vanadium (Ni and V), may be damaging to the developing lungs of children. The results were presented at the ATS 2016 International Conference.

Prior research on the effects of air pollution on children's developing lungs has associated small particulates such as PM2.5, very small bits of dust and soot that can move easily into the lungs, with poor lung function. However, very few research studies have identified the specific components of particulate matter that are associated with the observed harmful effects.

Robert Urman, PhD, of the University of Southern California, and his co-authors examined health records of 1,911 elementary school-aged children from 8 Southern California communities who were part of the Children's Health Study. "Each community varied in concentrations of specific air pollutants including metals," said Dr. Urman. "Some of the highest levels of Ni and V were found in Long Beach, where significant port activity exists. Examining the differences in health of children across these communities allowed us to identify the effects of these metals. When we analyzed the data, we found that teenaged children in the most polluted communities had an estimated decrease of approximately four percent in their lung function compared to similar children in the least polluted communities."

In Southern California, Ni and V are mainly emitted by the burning of fuel oil from vessels and cargo ships such as those entering and leaving seaports along the Pacific coast. This includes the combined ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which comprise the largest seaport complex in the United States. Dr. Urman noted that the communities in this study show a wide range of PM2.5 exposures, with some areas among the most highly polluted in the U.S. (e.g., Mira Loma and Upland) while others were well below the national standard (e.g., Santa Barbara).

"More studies are needed to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between specific components of particulate matter and any health-related endpoint," said Dr. Urman. "A recent study from the Children's Health Study showed that reductions in overall levels of air pollution have been linked with significantly better lung function in children. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards currently regulate PM2.5 mass as a whole, but the United States EPA may consider taking PM2.5 composition into account in conducting health-risk assessments."

"This study adds to the epidemiological evidence on the health effects of PM2.5 components. If we could establish a link between these components and health- related outcomes, then more targeted regulations could be enacted to better protect the health of the general population," added Dr. Urman.

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Abstract 8592

Exposure to Transition Metals in Particulate Matter Air Pollution and Children's Lung Function in the Southern California Children's Health Study

Authors: R. Urman1, R. Habre1, S. Fruin1, J. Gauderman1, F. Lurmann2, F. Gilliland1, R. McConnell1; 1University of Southern California - Los Angeles, CA/US, 2Sonoma Technology, Inc. - Petaluma, CA/US

Abstract Body

Rationale: Numerous studies have reported adverse effects of particulate matter (PM) on lung function in children, but there has been little investigation of the chronic effects of PM composition. Transition metals are biologically plausible agents contributing to these effects. Aerosol size and water-solubility may be important determinants of metal toxicity.

Methods: As part of the Children's Health Study, repeated measurements of forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) were assessed on 1,911 children between the ages of 11 and 15 in eight Southern Californian communities. Size-resolved PM samples were collected at participants' elementary schools using modified Harvard cascade impactors with multiple collection stages to capture quasi-ultrafine (PM0.2), accumulation mode fine (PM2.5-0.2), and coarse (PM10-2.5) fractions. The total and water-soluble concentrations of copper (Cu), iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), vanadium (V), and zinc (Zn) were measured with inductively-coupled plasma mass-spectroscopy (ICP-MS) at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene. The water insoluble fraction of each metal was calculated by taking the difference of the water soluble fraction of a particular metal from the total concentration. Adjusted linear regression models were used to assess the relationship between lung function and these exposures.

Results: Water-soluble Ni and V in the fine fraction were associated with a 4.4% (95% confidence interval: 6.5% to 2.2%) and 3.9% (6.2% to 1.6%) deficit in attained FVC level at age 15 across the 5%-95% distribution of each metal. Associations of similar magnitude were observed for total Ni and V in the fine fraction and with water-soluble V in the coarse fraction. In the ultrafine fraction, water-insoluble Zn was associated with deficits in attained FVC. Ni and V associations in each size fraction were generally robust to adjustment for total PM mass. Associations of FEV1 were observed with fine PM mass but not with any of the metals.

Conclusion: These results suggest that specific water-soluble transition metals in PM, generally those related to fuel oil burning, might explain some of the adverse effects of PM exposure on childhood lung function. These findings can inform PM air quality standards that are based on composition and not mass alone.

Session: B15 Health Effects of Indoor/Outdoor Pollution in Childhood

Monday, May 16, 2016, 9:45-10 a.m.

Location: Room 2006/2008 (West Building, Level 2), MOSCONE CENTER
JFK Partners at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, CO recently helped launch SPARK, an online research initiative designed to become the largest autism study ever undertaken in the United States. Sponsored by the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), SPARK will collect information and DNA for genetic analysis from 50,000 individuals with autism -- and their families -- to advance our understanding of the causes of this condition and to hasten the discovery of supports and treatments.

JFK Partners is one of 21 leading national research institutions chosen by SFARI to assist with recruitment. The SPARK effort is being led locally by Susan Hepburn, PhD, associate professor at CU School of Medicine and director of research at JFK Partners; Sandra Friedman, MD, MPH, professor of pediatrics, director of JFK Partners, and section head of developmental pediatrics at Children's Hospital Colorado; and Cordelia Robinson Rosenberg, PhD, RN, professor of pediatrics and psychiatry.

"SPARK empowers researchers to make new discoveries that ultimately will lead to the development of new supports and treatments to improve lives, which makes it one of the most insightful research endeavors to date, in addition to being the largest genetic research initiative in the U.S.," says Dr. Hepburn.

"We have seen a significant increase in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)," says Dr. Friedman. "We have over 6,000 patient visits in the Developmental Pediatrics' clinical program at Children's Hospital Colorado, many of which include diagnostic and medical assessments, follow-up, and different types of treatment for children with ASD. This project provides us with additional opportunity to improve our understanding of the genetics of this disorder and ultimately improve the lives of individuals with ASD and their families."

Autism is known to have a strong genetic component. To date, approximately 50 genes have been identified that almost certainly play a role in autism, and scientists estimate that an additional 300 or more are involved. By studying these genes, associated biological mechanisms and how genetics interact with environmental factors, researchers can better understand the condition's causes, and link them to the spectrum of symptoms, skills and challenges of those affected.

SPARK aims to speed up autism research by inviting participation from this large, diverse autism community, with the goal of including individuals with a professional diagnosis of autism of both sexes and all ages, backgrounds, races, geographic locations and socioeconomic situations.

SPARK will connect participants to researchers, offering them the unique opportunity to impact the future of autism research by joining any of the multiple studies offered through SPARK.

The initiative will catalyze research by creating large-scale access to study participants whose DNA may be selectively analyzed for a specific scientific question of interest.

SPARK also will elicit feedback from individuals and parents of children with autism to develop a robust research agenda that is meaningful for them.

Anyone interested in learning more about SPARK or in participating can visit http://www.SPARKforAutism.org/JFKPartners, email spark@ucdenver.edu or call us at 303-724-7366.

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About SPARK

SPARK (Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research for Knowledge) is a national autism research initiative that will connect individuals with a professional diagnosis of autism and their biological family members to research opportunities to advance our understanding of autism. SPARK's goal in doing so is not only to better understand autism, but to accelerate the development of new treatments and supports.

SPARK was designed to be easily accessible to the entire autism community and was fashioned with input from adults with autism, parents, researchers, clinicians, service providers and advocates.

Registering for this first-of-its-kind initiative can be done entirely online in the convenience of one's home and at no cost. DNA will be collected via saliva kits shipped directly to participants. Once the SPARK participant's family has returned their saliva samples and provided some medical and family history information, the SPARK participant will receive a $50 gift card. SPARK will provide access to online resources and the latest research in autism, which may provide participants and families with valuable information to help address daily challenges.

For researchers, SPARK provides a large, well-characterized cohort of genetic, medical and behavioral data, and will result in cost-savings for researchers by reducing start-up costs for individual studies.

SPARK is entirely funded by the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI).

About JFK Partners

JFK Partners is an interdepartmental program of the departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry of the University of Colorado School of Medicine located at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado. Designated as Colorado's University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) and Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) Program, JFK Partners has collaborative relationships with numerous organizations that are a part of Colorado's developmental disability and special health care needs communities.

The mission of JFK Partners is to promote the independence, inclusion, contribution, health, and well-being of people with developmental disabilities and special health care needs and their families through consumer, community, and university partnerships. At the core of this mission is a commitment to family and person-centered, community-based, and culturally competent programs and services. This mission is accomplished through the pursuit of excellence in education and training, consultation, technical assistance, direct service, research, program development, policy analysis, and advocacy.

About Autism

Autism is a general term used to describe a group of complex developmental disorders - autism spectrum disorders - caused by a combination of genes and perhaps environmental influences. These disorders are characterized by deficits in social communication (both verbal and non-verbal) and the presence of repetitive behaviors or restrictive interests. An estimated one in 68 children in the U.S. is on the autism spectrum. The wide range of autism manifestations makes it challenging to study potential causes or treatments, and thus a large cohort, which can be segmented, can substantially advance such efforts.

Media Contact

Elizabeth Whitehead

Sr. Media Relations Specialist

Children's Hospital Colorado

720-777-6388

Elizabeth.Whitehead@childrenscolorado.org
Cold Spring Harbor, NY - Biologists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have made an important discovery that helps explain how plants regulate the proliferation of their stem cells. The discovery has near-term implications for increasing the yield of maize and many other staple crops, perhaps by as much as 50%.

The newly discovered regulatory pathway is notable in that it channels signals emanating from a plant's extremities -- emerging young leaves called primordia -- to the stem cell niche, called the meristem, located at the plant's growing tip.

Plant biologists have long known of another pathway, called the CLAVATA-WUSCHEL pathway, that regulates stem cell proliferation from within a portion of the meristem itself, called the organizing center (OC). In this canonical pathway, "the receptor and ligand are [both] expressed in the stem cells, which send signals down to the cells just below, in the OC," explains CSHL Professor David Jackson, who led the team that found the new pathway.

WUSCHEL is a transcription factor that alters gene expression, and in so doing promotes the proliferation of stem cells, which are totipotent -- capable in plants, as in humans, of developing into cells of any type. In the canonical CLAVATA-WUSCHEL pathway, stem cells send back to the OC a negative signal, repressing the signal for proliferation.

A similar feedback is established in the newly discovered pathway, although its signal begins in leaves. Having a signal coming from the leaves is new, and exciting because it could act as a kind of environmental sensor, telling totipotent stem cells in the meristem to stop proliferating -- a brake, applied from the older, more developed parts of the plant, for example in response to environmental cues such as available light, nutrients or moisture.

Jackson and colleagues identified the receptor for these "braking signals from the leaves" in cells in the lower part of the meristem. They named the receptor FEA3. They also discovered the ligand that interacts with the receptor, a protein fragment called FCP1.

In a highly consequential extension of the work of discovery, Jackson's team studied maize plants in which FEA3 - the receptor for the signal from the leaves - was dysfunctional, owing to a variety of mutations in the FEA3 gene.

When FEA3 receptors in the meristem are not able to function at all, "it is as if they are blind to FCP1," says Jackson. The inhibitory signal FCP1 sends from the leaves to the meristem is not received, and stem cells proliferate wildly. The plant makes far too many stem cells, and they give rise to too many new seeds -- seeds the plant cannot support with available resources (light, moisture, nutrients). In such FEA3 mutant plants, maize ears develop that exhibit a quality called fasciation; from their greatly extended meristems, too many baby kernels are generated, which form misshapen, and ultimately yield-poor ears.

But when Jackson's team performed a genetic trick, growing plants with so called "weak alleles" of the FEA3 gene, function of the FEA3 receptor was only mildly impaired. This moderate failure of the braking signal from outside of the meristem gave rise to a modest, manageable increase in stem cells, and to ears that were significantly larger than ears in wild-type plants.

These ears, the product of maize plants grown from weak alleles of FEA3, had more rows of kernels, and up to 50% higher yield overall than wild-type plants.

Because the newly discovered FAE3-FCP1 pathway is highly conserved across the plant kingdom, the discovery by Jackson's team holds the prospect of translating into significant increases in yield in all the major staple crops.

Before such translational work can proceed, Jackson and colleagues plan to test the newly discovered FEA3 alleles in elite varieties of maize and other crops in agricultural trials.

This work was supported by the NSF Plant Genome Research Program; Dupont Pioneer; the Gatsby Charitable Foundation; Swedish Research Council; Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.

###

"Signaling from organ primordial regulates stem cell proliferation and maize yields, via the FASCIATED EAR3 receptor-like protein" appears online in Nature Genetics on Monday, May 16, 2016. The authors are: Byoung Il Je, Jeremy Gruel, Young Koung Lee, Peter Bommert, Edgar Demesa Arevalo, Andrea L. Eveland, Qingyu Wu, Alexander Goldshmidt, Robert Meeley, Madelaine Bartlett, Mai Komatsu, Hajime Sakai, Henrik Jonsson and David Jackson. The paper can be obtained at: http://www.nature.com/ng/index.html

About Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Founded in 1890, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has shaped contemporary biomedical research and education with programs in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology and quantitative biology. Home to eight Nobel Prize winners, the private, not-for-profit Laboratory employs 1,100 people including 600 scientists, students and technicians. The Meetings & Courses Program hosts more than 12,000 scientists from around the world each year on its campuses in Long Island and in Suzhou, China. The Laboratory's education arm also includes an academic publishing house, a graduate school and programs for middle and high school students and teachers. For more information, visit http://www.cshl.edu.
UPTON, NY--For years, scientists have been trying to emulate photosynthesis, the process by which plants, algae, and some bacteria harness light from the sun to chemically transform water and carbon dioxide into energy that is stored for later use. An artificial version of photosynthesis could provide a clean, renewable source of energy to help satisfy society's growing demands. For artificial photosynthesis to become a viable alternative to fossil fuels, the efficiency and speed of water oxidation--the reaction that turns water into oxygen gas, hydrogen ions, and electrons--is one of the processes that must be improved.

Now, a team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Adam Mickiewicz University, and Baruch College, City University of New York, has synthesized two new molecular catalysts for water oxidation. The catalysts--complexes of ruthenium surrounded by binding molecules (ligands) containing phosphonate groups--accelerate the formation of the oxygen-oxygen bond, usually the most energy-intensive and slowest step of water oxidation. Initial studies, described in a paper published on May 11 in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, demonstrated that these ruthenium complexes could offer a low-energy pathway to faster water oxidation.

"Storing solar energy as hydrogen fuel or carbon-based fuels like methanol requires catalysts that can oxidize water at fast rates, with high efficiency, and for long periods of time," said Javier Concepcion, an author of the paper and a chemist in the artificial photosynthesis group at Brookhaven Lab. "Our ruthenium complexes catalyze the oxygen-oxygen bond formation faster than any other known catalysts, generating hundreds of oxygen molecules per molecule of catalyst per second. With these catalysts, the electrical potential required to start the reaction is approximately 10 times less than that of a AA battery."

Forming the oxygen-oxygen bond

In water oxidation, four protons and four electrons--required in a subsequent reaction to convert carbon dioxide into usable energy--are removed from two water molecules, and an oxygen-oxygen bond is formed. For water oxidation to occur, the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the two water molecules must be broken. In the case of artificial photosynthesis, a chemical catalyst triggers this molecular breakup.

"Water is a very stable molecule, so getting two water molecules to react with each other is very difficult," explained first author Yan Xie, a doctoral candidate at Stony Brook University and a research assistant in Brookhaven's artificial photosynthesis group. "Our ruthenium complexes provide the reactivity needed to break those bonds."

The paper describes details of the series of steps through which the catalyst initiates and completes the reaction. In short, one of the water molecules binds to the ruthenium complex and loses protons as the complex is oxidized (loses electrons), resulting in an electron-deficient ruthenium-oxo group. Then, with the assistance of a phosphonate group, the other water molecule reacts with this highly reactive ruthenium-oxo to release molecular oxygen (O2).

"The phosphonate group accepts protons, or hydrogen ions, from water," said coauthor David Shaffer, a research associate in Brookhaven's Chemistry Department. "It is positioned near the active site of the ruthenium complex where water oxidation occurs. Incorporating the phosphonate group and ruthenium in a single complex makes it easy for the water molecule to find that one site and react." Eventually, the protons are transferred from the phosphonate group to the surrounding solution.

Studying the electrochemistry of the ruthenium complexes

To determine the efficiency and rate of water oxidation with the ruthenium catalysts, the team studied the electrochemistry of each oxidation state by applying different voltages and measuring the amount of current flowing through the system at various pH values (the concentration of protons in the solution).

"The voltage at which catalysis starts tells you about the energy efficiency of water oxidation, while the current tells you how quickly water oxidation is occurring," explained Concepcion. "Our ruthenium complexes minimize the amount of energy lost as heat, both in terms of the voltage and the rate that would be required for the catalyst, if incorporated into a device, to make use of all incoming sunlight."

The team also used computational modeling to study the activation parameters--the energy and molecular order--required to break and make bonds during the key reaction between the water molecule and the ruthenium-oxo group.

The computational studies showed why the phosphonate group resulted in faster catalysis. "Phosphonate is a good proton acceptor, so it energetically favors the reaction. Because it is part of the ligand, it is already positioned and ready to interact with water, removing the need for a more ordered arrangement of molecules," said Concepcion.

From separate studies, the scientists were able to tell that one of the oxidation steps--not the oxygen-oxygen bond formation step--was limiting the rate of the catalysis. The team is now developing second-generation catalysts to optimize this step.

Eventually, they hope to make equally reactive catalysts using metals such as iron and cobalt that are more abundant and less expensive than ruthenium, but whose chemistries are much more complicated.

"By incorporating these catalysts into systems capable of absorbing sunlight and combining them with catalysts that reduce carbon dioxide or water into fuels, artificial photosynthesis could become a practical approach for storing solar energy as fuels," said Concepcion.

###

The research was supported by the DOE Office of Science.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
As climatologists closely monitor the impact of human activity on the world's oceans, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found yet another worrying trend impacting the health of the Pacific Ocean.

A new modeling study conducted by researchers in Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences shows that for decades, air pollution drifting from East Asia out over the world's largest ocean has kicked off a chain reaction that contributed to oxygen levels falling in tropical waters thousands of miles away.

"There's a growing awareness that oxygen levels in the ocean may be changing over time," said Taka Ito, an associate professor at Georgia Tech. "One reason for that is the warming environment - warm water holds less gas. But in the tropical Pacific, the oxygen level has been falling at a much faster rate than the temperature change can explain."

The study, which was published May 16 in Nature Geoscience, was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, a Georgia Power Faculty Scholar Chair and a Cullen-Peck Faculty Fellowship.

In the report, the researchers describe how air pollution from industrial activities had raised levels of iron and nitrogen - key nutrients for marine life - in the ocean off the coast of East Asia. Ocean currents then carried the nutrients to tropical regions, where they were consumed by photosynthesizing phytoplankton.

But while the tropical phytoplankton may have released more oxygen into the atmosphere, their consumption of the excess nutrients had a negative effect on the dissolved oxygen levels deeper in the ocean.

"If you have more active photosynthesis at the surface, it produces more organic matter, and some of that sinks down," Ito said. "And as it sinks down, there's bacteria that consume that organic matter. Like us breathing in oxygen and exhaling CO2, the bacteria consume oxygen in the subsurface ocean, and there is a tendency to deplete more oxygen."

That process plays out in all across the Pacific, but the effects are most pronounced in tropical areas, where dissolved oxygen is already low.

Athanasios Nenes, a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech who worked with Ito on the study, said the research is the first to describe just how far reaching the impact of human industrial activity can be.

"The scientific community always thought that the impact of air pollution is felt in the vicinity of where it deposits ," said Nenes, who also serves as Georgia Power Faculty Scholar. "This study shows that the iron can circulate across the ocean and affect ecosystems thousands of kilometers away."

While evidence had been mounting that global climate change may have an impact on future oxygen levels, Ito and Nenes were spurred to search for an explanation for why oxygen levels in the tropics had been declining since the 1970s.

To understand how the process worked, the researchers developed a model that combines atmospheric chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, and ocean circulation. Their model maps out how polluted, iron-rich dust that settles over the Northern Pacific gets carried by ocean currents east toward North America, down the coast and then back west along the equator.

In their model, the researchers accounted for other factors that can also impact oxygen levels, such as water temperature and ocean current variability.

Whether due to warming sea waters or an increase in iron pollution, the implications of growing oxygen-minimum zones are far reaching for marine life.

"Many living organisms depend on oxygen that is dissolved in seawater," Ito said. "So if it gets low enough, it can cause problems, and it might change habitats for marine organisms."

Occasionally, waters from low oxygen areas swell to the coastal waters, killing or displacing populations of fish, crabs and many other organisms. Those "hypoxic events" may become more frequent as the oxygen-minimum zones grow, Ito said.

The increasing phytoplankton activity is a double-edged sword, Ito said.

"Phytoplankton is an essential part of the living ocean," he said. "It serves as the base of food chain and absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide. But if the pollution continues to supply excess nutrients, the process of the decomposition depletes oxygen from the deeper waters, and this deep oxygen is not easily replaced."

The study also expands on the understanding of dust as a transporter of pollution, Nenes said.

"Dust has always attracted of a lot of interest because of its impact on the health of people," Nenes said. "This is really the first study showing that dust can have a huge impact on the health of the oceans in ways that we've never understood before. It just raises the need to understand what we're doing to marine ecosystems that feed populations worldwide."

###

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. OCE-1242313. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

CITATION: Takamitsu Ito, Athanasios Nenes, Matthew Johnson, Nicholas Meskhidze, and Curtis Deutsch, "Acceleration of oxygen decline in the tropical Pacific over the past decades by aerosol pollutants," (Nature Geoscience, May 2016).
EAST LANSING, Mich. - New advances in packaging at Michigan State University can help produce stay fresh longer.

Eva Almenar, with MSU's School of Packaging, focused on onions, one of the highest-volume vegetables sold worldwide. Her team's results, featured in a recent issue of International Journal of Food Microbiology, show that improvements can enhance the safety and improve the quality of the ubiquitous vegetable.

"We focused on ready-to-use onions, which have grown to become one of the five most commonly sold vegetables in the last decade," said Almenar, who also is an MSU AgBioResearch scientist. "We've found a package and sanitizer combination that led to diced onions being acceptable for purchase after two weeks of storage."

Typically, preprepared onions have short shelf lives. Once packaged, they quickly turn color, go soft, lose nutrients and flavor, and become translucent. Microorganisms also thrive as onions decompose, and pathogens, such as salmonella, can cause severe problems.

Controlling the package's atmosphere and sanitizing vegetables are not new techniques. However, finding the optimum combination of existing methods has never been tested. To that end, the scientists conducted the most-extensive evaluation of techniques that has ever been conducted.

The best packages were ones that helped maintain an atmosphere of elevated carbon dioxide and reduced oxygen. When combined with a sanitizing treatment of sodium hypochlorite, which is a common bleaching agent, onions could endure two weeks in a package yet still satisfy a panel of trained consumers.

"Of all the variations that we tested, this one reduced microbial growth, respiration and discoloration, and preserved the desired aroma," Almenar said. "Packaging vegetables is hard, but that is why I like it - the difficulty!"

This technique won't solely benefit onions, either. It will provide insights into other packaging advances for many vegetables, she added.

Already, Almenar is conducting research on gas composition packaging and containers made from renewable resources and others from egg whites and whey protein isolate, byproducts from the egg and cheese food industry, respectively. These practical advances - many that go directly to market - are part of the reason for the School of Packaging's top ranking by U.S. News & World Report.

"We produce the materials, fill and sell the packages, and run all of the testing here; it's like being a partner with industry," Almenar said. "We take into consideration the conditions in the supply chain in which the product will be exposed, and we build packages to endure those conditions. There's so much science to make it all work, I truly enjoy the challenge of it all."

Additional MSU scientists contributing to this study include Natalie Page, Elliott Ryser and Janice Harte. Jaime Gonzalez-Buesa, with the University of Zaragoza (Spain), also was part of this study.

###

Michigan State University has been working to advance the common good in uncommon ways for more than 150 years. One of the top research universities in the world, MSU focuses its vast resources on creating solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges, while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 200 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.

For MSU news on the Web, go to MSUToday. Follow MSU News on Twitter at twitter.com/MSUnews.
Nematode worms may not be from Mars or Venus, but they do have sex-specific circuits in their brains that cause the males and females to act differently. According to new research published in Nature, scientists have determined how these sexually dimorphic (occurring in either males or females) connections arise in the worm nervous system. The research was funded by the NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

"For decades, there has been little focus on the impact of sex on many areas of biomedical research," said Coryse St. Hillaire-Clarke, Ph.D., program officer on this NINDS project. "This study helps us understand how sex can influence brain connectivity."

In nematode worms, (known as Caenorhabditis elegans or C. elegans), a small number of neurons are found exclusively in male or female brains. The remaining neurons are found in both sexes, although their connection patterns are different in male and female brains. Oliver Hobert, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences at Columbia University in New York City, and his colleagues looked at how these wiring patterns form.

Dr. Hobert's team observed that in the worms' juvenile state, before they reach sexual maturity, their brain connections were in a hybrid, or mixed state, comprised of both male and female arrangements. As they reached sexual maturity, however, their brains underwent a pruning process, which got rid of particular connections and led to either male or female patterns.

"We found that differences in male and female brains develop from a ground state, which contains features of both sexes. From this developmental state, distinctly male or female features eventually emerge," said Dr. Hobert.

Next, Dr. Hobert's team showed that sex-specific wiring in the brain results in dimorphic behavior. They discovered that PHB neurons, chemosensory brain cells that detect chemical cues in the environment such as food, predators or potential mates, work differently in males and females. In males, these neurons proved to be important in recognizing mating cues while in females, the neurons helped them avoid specific taste cues. However, early in development, PHB neurons in males also responded to signals regulating taste, suggesting that even though those neurons are found in all nematodes, in adults, their functions differ as a result of sex-specific wiring in the brain.

Dr. Hobert's team used genetically engineered nematodes to look more carefully at individual connections between brain cells. The researchers found that swapping the sex of individual neurons changed wiring patterns and influenced behavioral differences in males and females.

Additional experiments helped to identify genes involved in regulating the pruning process during development. Dr. Hobert's group discovered that certain transcription factors, which are molecules that help control gene activity, are present in a dimorphic state and may help establish male or female connections in the brain. In future experiments, Dr. Hobert and his colleagues plan to examine how these molecules target specific connections for pruning.

###

This research was supported by a Senator Jacob Javits Award in the Neurosciences to Dr. Hobert. The Javits Award provides up to seven years of funding to exceptional scientists who are nominated by the NINDS. The award is named for the late Senator Jacob Javits, who was a strong proponent of neuroscience research.

This work was supported by the NIH (NS039996).

Image caption: Male and female brain connections. Male and female worms engage in different behaviors, which may result from sex-specific wiring patterns in the brain. Image courtesy of Oliver Hobert, Ph.D., Columbia University.

References: Oren-Suissa M et al. Sex-specific pruning of neuronal synapses in Caenorhabditis elegans. Nature. May 4, 2016. DOI: 10.1038/nature17977

The NINDS is the nation's leading funder of research on the brain and nervous system. The mission of NINDS is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Nearly everybody thinks that presidential candidates routinely dodge hard-hitting questions, providing evasive answers to simple questions.

But a new study that analyzed the full transcripts of 14 U.S. presidential debates from 1996 to 2012 provides some surprising insights that might temper that belief -- and help explain why people believe politicians are evasive.

The research found that presidential candidates accused their rivals of evasion quite often -- 54 times in the 14 debates analyzed.

But rivals were actually guilty of some form of evasion no more than 35 percent of the time that they were accused, the study found.

"The candidates aren't really good at accurately identifying when their opponent was evading a question," said David Clementson, author of the study and doctoral student in communication at The Ohio State University.

"In fact, candidates often accuse their opponent of evasion when they themselves are avoiding the question they were asked."

The study appears in the June 2016 issue of the Journal of Language and Social Psychology.

Accusing candidates of evasion is a timeless tactic in political debates, right up to today, Clementson said.

"You have yet to answer a single serious question," Sen. Marco Rubio told Donald Trump during a Republican presidential primary debate on March 3.

Journalists, too, often see candidates as evasive. "Senator, you didn't answer the question," NBC reporter Lester Holt told U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders during the Democratic debate on Jan. 17.

To learn more about presidential candidate evasion, Clementson did a content analysis of 810 question-answer sequences during the 14 presidential debates from 1996 to 2012. He looked specifically for cases where one candidate accused the other of not answering the question asked, dodging the question, or refusing to answer the question.

Accusations of evasion were bipartisan -- Democrats made 26 such allegations while Republicans lodged 25.

When Clementson analyzed the answers of candidates when they were accused of evasion, he found that 35 percent of the time they did discuss an off-topic issue during the answer, which indicates evasion. Still, in every case in which they were accused of evasion, the candidates at least briefly mentioned the topic of the question.

"There wasn't any case where the candidate didn't at least make some effort to talk about the question at hand," he said.

But if candidates aren't constantly evading the questions -- at least in debates - why do so many Americans think they are?

Clementson said it may be because of humans' psychological tendency to believe what they are told, especially by members of their own in-groups - such as members of the same political party.

"When Americans continually hear the political candidates they support saying that their opponents are dodging the question, they probably have a tendency to believe them," he said.

Many of the accusations of evasion in the debates came when candidates tried to answer questions about controversial issues that come close to evenly dividing the nation, such as gun control.

"We like politicians to take firm stands on controversial issues, but if they do that they won't be successful as politicians and won't often get elected and re-elected," Clementson said.

"It's not surprising that candidates try to straddle the fence to some degree."

Another common situation that provoked accusations of evasion was when the candidates were asked complex questions.

"Analyzing the transcripts, there were times when I laughed out loud, because the candidates were asked amazingly complex questions and given very little time to respond. It is very easy in situations like this to be accused of not answering the question, when they simply don't have the time," Clementson said.

Even if accusations of evasion are often overblown, Clementson said it is understandable why candidates make them about their opponents.

The human desire to be seen as honest and trustworthy may make accusations of evasiveness particularly troublesome to candidates.

"Candidates may have incentives to preemptively accuse their opponents of dodging questions as a way of keeping themselves from being accused," he said.

"And the public's propensity to believe these politicians only serves to make the problem of evasiveness seem worse than it really is."

###

Contact:

David Clementson

Clementson.3@osu.edu
Paris, France - 16 May 2016: EuroPCR 2016, the annual course of the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI), will run from 17 to 20 May at the Palais des Congres in Paris, France. More than 12 000 interventional cardiologists, nurses, technicians, scientists and industry innovators from around the world are meeting to share the latest research, developments and best practice in coronary interventions, interventions for valvular disease and heart failure, peripheral interventions and interventions for hypertension and stroke.

EuroPCR 2016 provides a unique opportunity for participants to:

Hear about research that will change clinical practice and advance interventional cardiology for the future, with 920 abstracts providing new knowledge to improve outcomes for patients.

Share best practice and develop clinical skills in more than 50 hours of live case demonstrations in which experts demonstrate cardiovascular interventions from 12 state-of-the-art centres in nine countries around the world.

Improve presentation skills in the innovative 'PCR's got talent' competition that is aiming to revitalise how researchers report their findings. This was so popular when first introduced last year that it is now open to all researchers choosing to enter. More than 120 Course participants have signed up to take part, with those who win through the early rounds receiving coaching in how to really engage audiences and report research with maximum impact.

Share in keynote lectures from world leaders in interventional medicine, 'all you need to know' updates, practical learning sessions and debates on current controversies in the field. In the 2016 Great Debate top interventionists and cardiac surgeons Darren Mylotte (Ireland), Jean-Francois Obadia (France), Lars Sondergaard (Denmark), Thomas Walther (Germany), Gerhard Wimmer-Greinecker (Germany) and Stephan Windecker (Switzerland) go head-to-head in the question of the moment: extending transcather TAVI to low-risk patients.

What's hot at EuroPCR 2016: Insights from EuroPCR Course Director Professor William Wijns

"Once again, EuroPCR will be a vibrant testimonial to the commitment and creativity of the interventional healthcare community to improve and expand our knowledge base," says Professor Wijns. Hot topics at this year's meeting include developments in mitral and tricuspid valve interventions, research with new devices for percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) that can be used in a wider range of patients than in the past and interventional approaches to treat heart failure and stroke.

"We are really witnessing a boom in the numbers of research centres and companies working to find percutaneous solutions for mitral and tricuspid interventions," he points out. "The success story of TAVI for treating aortic valves is now moving on to the two other types of heart valves. It's amazing to see how much is going on and we can anticipate that it will deliver benefits to patients."

Professor Wijns adds, "On the practice side, what's really new is the impact of the recent positive trial comparing TAVI to surgical aortic valve replacement in intermediate risk patients. This really means if colleagues haven't engaged in valvular interventional techniques yet, now is the time to do so." Several learning and teaching sessions at EuroPCR 2016 are dedicated to this.

"In terms of coronary devices, there is a continuing balancing act between anticoagulation and bleeding. The LEADERS FREE trial is reporting encouraging results from a sub-study in patients with acute coronary syndromes using a stent without polymer, showing this offers an effective anti-restenosis device that does not need prolonged antiplatelet therapy," Professor Wijns notes. "This is really new and is going to change practice, with a strong impact on the outcome of elderly patients in particular."

He considers new data from a study comparing optical coherence tomography (OCT) and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) for assessing coronary lesions will be compelling for reimbursement of OCT in Japan and potentially other countries and sets the ground for developments in Europe in the future.

"In terms of expanding the role of PCI, we continue to make progress in what was considered a 'no go' indication for us in the past - chronic total occlusion (CTO) and left main coronary artery stenosis," he explains. He also welcomes new developments in interventional approaches for treating heart failure and stroke. "The emphasis on stroke prevention and treatment is very strong this year, including interventions on the carotid artery and left ventricular appendage closure, even in combination with ablation for atrial fibrillation," but he cautions, "More needs to be done in trying to implement acute interventions for the treatment of ischaemic stroke in the context of a multidisciplinary approach."

###

Help for journalists to cover EuroPCR 2016

For any press-related inquiries, please contact:

EuroPCR Press Coordinator, Isabelle Uzielli iuzielli@europcr.com

Register and attend EuroPCR 2016 as a journalist

Press registration for EuroPCR is open to accredited journalists, free of charge. Journalists must hold a valid press card and/or provide a letter of assignment from a recognised publication. To register as press go to http://www.europcr.com/page/press/960-press.html

EuroPCR press releases

EuroPCR press releases can be found at http://www.pcronline.com/

Attend press briefings

For the press briefing schedule check http://www.europcr.com/page/press/960-press.html

EuroPCR abstracts

Abstracts are available online at http://www.pcronline.com/eurointervention/AbstractsEuroPCR2016_issue/abstracts-europcr-2016/

Notes to Editors

What is EuroPCR?

EuroPCR, the official annual meeting of the European Association for Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI), a registered branch of the European Society of Cardiology, is the world-leading course in interventional cardiovascular medicine. PCR has established a distinctive format for educational activities in the field of cardiovascular interventions. Beyond its flagship course in Paris that gathers more than 12,000 participants every year, PCR organises annual courses in Singapore, London UK, Dubai EAU, Johannesburg RSA, Istanbul Turkey, Chengdu China and Tokyo Japan. For further information on EuroPCR, AsiaPCR/SingLIVE, PCR London Valves, GulfPCR-GIM, AfricaPCR, PCR Istanbul Peripheral, PCR-CIT China Chengdu Valves, PCR Tokyo Valves & PCR, please contact: Anne-Sophie Lartigau at aslartigau@europa-organisation.com.

For more information, please visit http://www.pcronline.com/Courses/EuroPCR and follow us on Twitter #EuroPCR
HOUSTON - (May 16, 2016) - After months of near silence regarding Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's "increasingly hostile" comments about Mexico, the country, through its foreign ministry, is now trying to protect its image and respond more vigorously to anti-Mexican rhetoric, according to a new issue brief from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

"Mexico's Diplomatic Strategy and Anti-Mexican Climate in the United States" describes how Mexican diplomats' new mission is to soften the Republican Party's stance toward migrants, especially Mexican migrants, and to exploit current divisions among Republicans. The brief was authored by Isidro Morales, nonresident scholar in the Baker Institute's Mexico Center, a senior professor and researcher at the School of Government and Public Transformation at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Santa Fe campus, and editor-in-chief of the journal Latin American Policy.

Morales said this is not the first time the Mexican government has dealt with anti-Mexican sentiment in the U.S. For example, in 1986, former Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., denounced the Mexican government and disparaged the Mexican people during a congressional hearing on drug trafficking and other problems related to Mexico.

"What is new in the latest wave of anti-Mexican rhetoric is that Mexican migrants have been criminalized and called drug traffickers and rapists, and Mexico's positive economic performance has been attributed to the 'theft' of U.S. jobs," Morales wrote. "Given this attitude toward Mexican migrants, the Mexican government for the first time has openly recognized a 'hostile climate' in the U.S. and directed its diplomats to deal with the situation before it gets worse."

On April 5, when Trump unveiled his plan to bill Mexico for the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Mexico's government announced it had reshuffled its U.S. diplomatic staff. Gone was Mexico's ambassador to the U.S., Miguel Basanez, a respected academic specializing in Hispanic public opinion who had been appointed to the position only seven months earlier. His replacement is Carlos Sada, a career diplomat who previously served as Mexico's consul general in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Antonio. Sada officially became Mexico's ambassador to the U.S. May 12. In addition, the Mexican government named its foreign press secretary and "country brand" coordinator, Paulo Carreno, to the high-profile position of deputy secretary of foreign relations in charge of North American affairs.

Morales said Mexico's diplomatic turnover is a response to what the country's secretary of foreign affairs, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, told the El Universal newspaper is an "exacerbated mood" against Mexicans in the U.S. and the fear that "this spirit can grow and overflow and may generate hostilities."

"Mexico's newly appointed diplomats must prove their skills by separating rhetoric and opportunistic attacks from very real flaws in their own government," Morales concluded. "Opportunistic attacks are usually cyclical; they come and go. Well-informed criticism, supported by facts and credible sources, becomes more poisonous if government authorities do not directly respond to the issues raised."

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For more information, to schedule an interview with Morales or to receive a copy of the brief, contact Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.

Related materials:

Issue brief: http://bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/fc99bab7/BI-Brief-051016-MEX_Relations.pdf.

Morales bio: http://bakerinstitute.org/experts/isidro-morales.

Follow the Mexico Center via Twitter @BakerMexicoCtr.

Follow the Baker Institute via Twitter @BakerInstitute.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Founded in 1993, Rice University's Baker Institute ranks among the top five university-affiliated think tanks in the world. As a premier nonpartisan think tank, the institute conducts research on domestic and foreign policy issues with the goal of bridging the gap between the theory and practice of public policy. The institute's strong track record of achievement reflects the work of its endowed fellows, Rice University faculty scholars and staff, coupled with its outreach to the Rice student body through fellow-taught classes -- including a public policy course -- and student leadership and internship programs. Learn more about the institute at http://www.bakerinstitute.org or on the institute's blog, http://blogs.chron.com/bakerblog.
Frequently attending religious services was associated with a lower risk of death for women from all causes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, according to a new study published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

Religious practice is common in the United States but the effects of religious practice on health are not clear.

Tyler J. VanderWeele, Ph.D., of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public, Boston, and coauthors used data from the Nurses' Health Study in an analysis examining attendance at religious services and subsequent death in women. Attendance at religious services was assessed in questionnaires from 1992 to 2012; data analysis was conducted from the 1996 questionnaire to 2012 for a 16-year follow-up.

Among 74,534 women at the 1996 study baseline with reported religious service attendance, 14,158 attended more than once a week, 30,401 attended once per week, 12,103 attended less than once per week and 17,872 never attended. Most of the study participants were Catholic or Protestant. Women who frequently attended religious services tended to have fewer depressive symptoms, were less likely to be current smothers and more likely to be married.

Among the 74,534 women, there were 13,537 deaths, including 2,721 from cardiovascular disease and 4,479 from cancer.

Women who attended religious services more than once per week had a 33 percent lower risk of death during the 16 years of follow-up compared with women who never attended religious services. Women who attended services weekly had a 26 percent lower risk and those who attended services less than weekly had a 13 percent lower risk, according to the results.

The study indicates women who attended religious services more than once a week had a 27 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a 21 percent lower risk of death from cancer compared with women who never attended.

The authors note depressive symptoms, smoking, social support and optimism were potentially important mediators of the association between attending religious services and death.

However, the authors note limits in the generalizability of their results because the study mainly consisted of white Christians and the participants were nurses with similar socioeconomic status and who were health conscious. This observational study also cannot imply causality and the authors note that a randomized clinical trial of attendance at religious services is neither ethical nor feasible.

"Religion and spirituality may be an underappreciated resource that physicians could explore with their patients, as appropriate," the authors conclude.

(JAMA Intern Med. Published online May 16, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.1615. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)

Editor's Note: The article includes funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.

Commentary: Empirical Studies about Attendance at Religious Services, Health

"In this issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, Li et al report a clear and moderately strong association between attendance at religious services and decreased mortality during a 16-year follow-up of a subgroup from the Nurses' Health Study. ... First, readers and investigators must, as do these authors, focus on the data, no more and no less, and not attempt to generalize beyond the evidence. ... So what can we learn from this study? In this well-designed secondary data analysis, attendance at religious services is clearly associated with lower risk of mortality. This finding should not be ignored but rather explored in more depth," writes Dan German Blazer, II, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., of Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C., in a related commentary.

(JAMA Intern Med. Published online May 16, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.1626. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)

Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.

###

Media Advisory: To contact corresponding study author Tyler J. VanderWeele, Ph.D., call Karen Gail Feldscher at 617-432-8439 or email kfeldsch@hsph.harvard.edu. To contact commentary author Dan German Blazer, II, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., call Sarah Avery at 919-660-1306 or email sarah.avery@duke.edu.

To place an electronic embedded link in your story: Links will be live at the embargo time: http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.1615; http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.1626
Carbon nanocoils (CNCs) are an exotic class of low-dimensional nanocarbons whose helical shape may make them suitable for applications such as microwave absorbers and various mechanical components such as springs. Typical thicknesses and coil diameters of CNCs fall within the ranges of 100-400 nm and 400-1000 nm, respectively, and their full lengths are much larger, on the order of several tens of micrometers. Despite earlier pioneering work, the relationships between the geometric shape of natural CNCs and their mechanical and electrical properties, particularly the electrical resistivity, are not well understood.

Now, researchers at Toyohashi Tech, University of Yamanashi, National Institute of Technology, Gifu College, and Tokai Carbon Co., Ltd. have established that the resistivity of CNCs increases with coil diameter. This required the development of a precise resistivity measurement method, using a focused ion beam (FIB) and nanomanipulator technique to select a sample CNC with the desired coil geometry and then make firm electrical connections to the instrument's electrodes. All the resistivity data obtained with CNCs were well fitted by a curve predicted by a theory known as variable range-hopping (VRH), which is suitable for disordered materials at low temperatures.

The research shows that the interior of the nanocoil contains material that affects its electrical properties. The scientists examined 15 individual CNCs, and three CNCs that had been artificially-graphitized to give them lower resistivity (G-CNCs). Although the resistivity of the CNCs increased with coil diameter, it was almost unchanged for the G-CNCs. As a consequence, for the CNCs with the largest diameters, the resistivity was almost two orders of magnitude larger than that of the graphitized versions. This large discrepancy in the resistivity between CNCs and G-CNCs indicates a significant structural complexity inside the CNCs. Our results imply that the interior of CNCs with large coil diameter is filled with a highly-disordered carbon network that consists of many small regions (known as sp2 domains) embedded in a sea of amorphous carbon. To verify this theory, the temperature dependence of the resistivity between 4 K and 280 K was examined. The resistivity data obeyed two different versions of the VRH theory; the regime in the temperature range of 50-280 K was found to be the so-called Mott-VRH version, while that in the range of 4-20 K was the Efros-Shklovskii-VRH version. Interestingly, the resistivity curves shifted smoothly between regimes as the coil diameter was changed.

"We found this behavior three years ago. Owing to the efforts of two students, we included the resistivity data for G-CNCs and straight carbon nanofibers (CNFs), and compared them to the data for the CNCs", explains Associate Professor Yoshiyuki Suda, "I am so glad that Prof. Hiroyuki Shima and Dr. Tamio Iida joined this study. We obtained the low-temperature measurement data and discussed it using the VRH theory. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that this behavior is a unique phenomenon for CNCs and can be fitted by VRH."

The first author, Master's course student Yasushi Nakamura, commented on how they went beyond the CNC resistivity measurements of other groups. "It was a long and challenging task. I had to prepare many single CNC samples using a focused ion-beam apparatus. Our finding was achieved by establishing a precise measurement system using a scanning electron microscope and acquiring resistivity data for many single CNCs."

The group's present results on resistivity are in qualitative agreement with their previous findings on the mechanical properties of CNCs: Tensile load experiments showed that their shear modulus increases with coil diameter. The positive correlation between the shear modulus and coil diameter is possibly caused by the fact that in large-diameter CNCs, the population of sp2 domains, which are fragile against shear stress, is reduced in comparison to small-diameter CNCs.

These results imply that, with nanocoils, the resistance as well as the inductance are defined by geometric factors. In particular, coil diameter, pitch, and length are important. The correlation found can be used to improve control over the peak frequency of electromagnetic wave absorption, in which a particular range of frequencies (~GHz) is absorbed, dependent on the impedance properties.

These findings pave the way for CNC-based nanodevices, ranging from electromagnetic wave absorbers to nano-solenoids and extra-sensitive mechanical springs.

###

Funding agency: This work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 24360108, 25390147, and 15K13946, and the Toyota Physical and Chemical Research Institute.

Reference: Yasushi Nakamura, Yoshiyuki Suda, Ryuji Kunimoto, Tamio Iida, Hirofumi Takikawa, Hitoshi Ue, and Hiroyuki Shima (2016). Precise measurement of single carbon nanocoils using focused ion beam technique, Applied Physics Letters, 108, 153108. 10.1063/1.4945724

Further information

Toyohashi University of Technology

1-1 Hibarigaoka, Tempaku

Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, 441-8580, JAPAN

Inquiries: Committee for Public Relations

E-mail: press@office.tut.ac.jp

Toyohashi University of Technology, which was founded in 1976 as a National University of Japan, is a leading research institute in the fields of mechanical engineering, advanced electronics, information sciences, life sciences, and architecture.

Website: http://www.tut.ac.jp/english/
Chronological age itself plays almost no role in accounting for differences in older people's health and well-being, according to a new, large-scale study by a multidisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Chicago.

The work, part of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health, is a major longitudinal survey of a representative sample of 3,000 people aged 57 to 85 done by the independent research organization NORC at UChicago. The study yielded comprehensive new data about the experience of aging in America that formed the underpinning of the research and its conclusions.

The research presents a sharp departure from the traditional biomedical model's reliance on a checklist of infirmities centered on heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cholesterol levels.

Using what they call a "comprehensive model" of health and aging, the team has shown how other factors such psychological well-being, sensory function, mobility and health behaviors are essential parts of an overall health profile that better predicts mortality.

"The new comprehensive model of health identifies constellations of health completely hidden by the medical model and reclassifies about half of the people seen as healthy as having significant vulnerabilities that affect the chances that they may die or become incapacitated within five years," said UChicago biopsychologist Martha McClintock, lead author of "An Empirical Redefinition of Comprehensive Health and Well-being in the Older Adults of the U.S.," in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"At the same time, some people with chronic disease are revealed as having many strengths that lead to their reclassification as quite healthy, with low risks of death and incapacity," co-author and demographer Linda Waite added.

The paper is based on the results of a major longitudinal study of aging Americans, funded by the National Institute on Aging, that is the first of its kind to collect this sort of information from a scientifically selected group of people.

The comprehensive model reflects a definition of health long advanced, but little studied, by the World Health Organization that considers health to include psychological, social, and physical factors in addition to the diseases that are the basis for the current medical model of health.

McClintock is the David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology. Waite is the Lucy Flower Professor in Sociology. Other members of the team are geriatrician William Dale, associate professor of medicine, and chief, Section of Geriatrics & Palliative Medicine at UChicago Medicine; and sociologist Edward Laumann, the George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor in Sociology.

In addition to finding that chronological age itself plays little or no role in determining differences in health, the research also found that:

Cancer by itself is not related to other conditions that undermine health.

Poor mental health, which afflicts one in eight older adults, undermines health in ways not previously recognized.

Obesity seems to pose little risk to older adults with excellent physical and mental health.

Sensory function and social participation play critical roles in sustaining or undermining health.

Having broken a bone since age 45 is a major marker for future health issues in people's lives.

Older men and women have different patterns of health and well-being during aging.

Mobility is one of the best markers of well-being.

Six new ways of looking at aging

The comprehensive model's healthiest category represented 22 percent of older Americans. This group was typified by higher obesity and blood pressure, but had fewer organ system diseases, better mobility, sensory function, and psychological health. They had the lowest prevalence of dying or becoming incapacitated (six percent) five years into the study.

A second category had normal weight, low prevalence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, but had one minor disease such as thyroid disease, peptic ulcers, or anemia and were twice as likely to have died or become incapacitated within five years. Two emerging vulnerable classes of health traits, completely overlooked by the medical model, included 28 percent of the older population. One group included people who had broken a bone after age 45. A second new class had mental health problems, in addition to poor sleep patterns, engaged in heavy drinking, had a poor sense of smell and walked slowly, all of which correlate with depression.

The most vulnerable older people were in two classes, one characterized by immobility and uncontrolled diabetes and hypertension. A majority of people in each of these categories were women, who tend to outlive men.

"From a health system perspective, a shift of attention is needed from disease-focused management, such as medications for hypertension or high cholesterol, to overall well-being across many areas," said Dale.

"Instead of policies focused on reducing obesity as a much lamented health condition, greater support for reducing loneliness among isolated older adults or restoring sensory functions would be more effective in enhancing health and well-being in the older population," said Laumann.

###
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A new study reveals that police recruits and experienced officers are more likely than others to subscribe to colorblind racial beliefs -- the notion that they - and people in general -- see no differences among people from different racial groups and treat everyone the same.

The findings appear in the journal Race and Social Problems.

The U.S. police force is roughly 75 percent white and male, said University of Illinois anthropology professor Cris Hughes, who led the research with colleagues in anthropology, psychology, advertising and the U. of I. Police Training Institute.

"People who hold colorblind racial attitudes tend to think that racism is no longer a meaningful factor in people's lives and that everyone has equal access to jobs and other resources across all walks of life," Hughes said. "Another component of that is denying that blatant racism still exists."

"Many people, including police, perceive that they should be colorblind, that that is something they should aspire to," said U. of I. psychology professor Carla Hunter, a co-author of the study. "Police recruits want to help people; they want to treat people fairly. They want to maintain what they see as a just world. They believe, perhaps, that if they don't see color, that means everyone is on a level playing field. The problem is that when you deny color, you also deny systemic biases."

For the study, the researchers recruited 93 experienced police officers, 33 police recruits and 1,401 laypersons, who filled out an anonymous online survey that collected demographic information and asked them a series of questions about their attitudes towards race. The police personnel were from precincts in Florida and Illinois.

An analysis of the responses found that experienced police officers and recruits (officers on the job two years or less) were equally likely to endorse colorblind racial beliefs. The analysis also revealed that all police were much more likely than laypersons to endorse a colorblind racial ideology, strongly agreeing with statements such as "Talking about racial issues causes unnecessary tension," or "Racial problems in the U.S. are rare, isolated situations."

Previous studies suggest that people with strong colorblind racial beliefs are more likely than those who acknowledge that racism and racial differences exist to have problematic interactions with members of racial minorities, Hunter said. A 2004 study, for example, found that therapists who reported colorblind racial attitudes also had less empathy and were more likely to think that black, but not white, clients were responsible for the solutions to their problems. A 2011 study found that black students performed worse on cognitive tests after interacting with white students who expressed colorblind racial beliefs, but not after interactions with white students expressing multicultural values.

Other research has associated colorblind racial attitudes in whites with fear of racial minorities and greater levels of racial and gender intolerance, the researchers said.

"A high level of colorblind racial attitudes tells me that police don't understand the racism that exists in society today," said study co-author Michael Schlosser, the director of theU. of I. Police Training Institute. "It also tells me that they are less likely to be aware of their own assumptions, biases and stereotypes involving race, which could affect their behavior and decision-making."

There is reason to hope that training can overcome biased police responses to members of minority groups, he said.

Schlosser points to a 2007 study that compared police with community members who were asked to decide whether to shoot or not shoot black and white "targets" paired with guns or other objects. On average, police officers were faster at detecting weapons and more careful when determining whether to shoot. Police and community members all demonstrated bias, however, in the speed with which they made the decision to shoot black targets, the study reports.

"The cops did better than lay people at not shooting inappropriately," Schlosser said. "I think that this shows that training can make a big difference."

Schlosser oversees training for more than 300 police departments across Illinois, and is working to develop scenario-based training that will specifically address police interactions with racial minorities.

"First of all, we want the police basically to try to be aware of their own social identities and racial beliefs. Everybody has them," Schlosser said. The program also will familiarize police officers with research related to police misconduct and train them in techniques to de-escalate potentially volatile interactions, he said.

Hughes said she is hopeful that new training approaches will begin to address the disconnect between police racial attitudes and the day-to-day experiences of many racial minorities.

"If you're saying that racism doesn't exist and that certain inequalities are not a result of racism or institutional biases, you are basically alienating people who are experiencing those inequalities," she said. "That's going to handicap you in your dealings with those groups."

###

The research team also included advertising professor Patrick Vargas, who conducted many of the statistical analyses, and anthropology professor Ripan Malhi. The U. of I. Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research provided funding for this research.

Editor's notes:

To reach Cris Hughes call 217-333-9694, email

To reach Carla Hunter, call 217-244-0671, email

To reach Michael Schlosser, call 217-333-2337, email

The paper "Police Endorse Color-Blind Racial Beliefs More than Laypersons" is available online or from the U. of I. News Bureau.
Activism alone can't change public perception of human rights abuse, a new book on Soviet dissenters and British human rights organisations suggests.

In the book, entitled British Human Rights Organizations and Soviet Dissent 1965-85 (Bloomsbury, 5 May 2016) University of Kent historian Dr Mark Hurst critically evaluates how effective UK-based activists were in campaigning to publicise the plight of Soviet dissidents.

Amnesty International, founded in 1961, was among the organisations that experienced rapid development in this period. However Dr Hurst concludes that, despite the campaigning efforts of such organisations, it was a change in the international order - particularly a change in US foreign policy - that changed the way human rights abuse was viewed by the public.

A number of global factors, including the election of US President Jimmy Carter in 1977, contributed to higher awareness of the Soviet dissident movement in the West, he argues.

Drawing on extensive archival material and interviews with key individuals from the period, Dr Hurst's research presents the first comprehensive analysis of the factors that led to Soviet dissidents being considered within the context of international realpolitik, rather than as a result of campaigning by human rights campaigners.

Among those interviewed for the book were Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, a political dissident who spent over a decade in Soviet prisons, labour camps and psychiatric institutions before being released to the West in December 1976, and English playwright Sir Tom Stoppard, who was involved in a number of campaigns for Soviet dissidents and wrote several plays on the subject.

###

For further information or interview requests contact Martin Herrema at the University of Kent Press Office.

Tel: 01227 823581/01634 888879

Email: M.J.Herrema@kent.ac.uk

News releases can also be found at http://www.kent.ac.uk/news

University of Kent on Twitter: http://twitter.com/UniKent

Note to editors

Established in 1965, the University of Kent - the UK's European university - now has almost 20,000 students across campuses or study centres at Canterbury, Medway, Tonbridge, Brussels, Paris, Athens and Rome.

It has been ranked: third for overall student satisfaction in the 2014 National Student Survey; 16th in the Guardian University Guide 2016; 23rd in the Times and Sunday Times University Guide 2016; and 22nd in the Complete University Guide 2015.

In the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2015-16, Kent is in the top 10% of the world's leading universities for international outlook and 66th in its table of the most international universities in the world. The THE also ranked the University as 20th in its 'Table of Tables' 2016.

Kent is ranked 17th in the UK for research intensity (REF 2014). It has world-leading research in all subjects and 97% of its research is deemed by the REF to be of international quality.

Along with the universities of East Anglia and Essex, Kent is a member of the Eastern Arc Research Consortium (http://www.kent.ac.uk/about/partnerships/eastern-arc.html).

The University is worth 0.7 billion to the economy of the south east and supports more than 7,800 jobs in the region. Student off-campus spend contributes 293.3m and 2,532 full-time-equivalent jobs to those totals.

In 2014, Kent received its second Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education.
Written by ACM





*Strasbourg/University Palace/Angelo Marcopolo/- EU - China Cooperation in Scientific Research is a "very Interesting" recent Development, and it can be "Facilitated", in this and other cases, by the Creation of "European Campus", bringing Together many Universities from vartious European Countries, starting by the 1st Example given Today around Strasbourg's "Superior Rhine" area, between France, Germany and Switzerland, to Boost Modern Collective Research, replied, in substance, EU Commissioner for Science, Research and Innovation, Carlose Moedas, to "Eurofora"s Questions, and he was joined, particularly on the 2nd Point, also by a Strong Plaidoyerie by the President of that New Legal Structure of an "EU Group for Territorial Cooperation", Professor Hans-Jochen Schiewer, Dean of Freiburg University at nearby Germany, (See Infra).



--------------------------------------------------



- "Eurofora" reminded the Fact that, during the latest EU - China SUmmit last July 2015 in Brussels, (See relevant "Eurofora"s NewsReports from the spot, f.ex. : .....), it was discussed, for the First Time, a New Economic Strategy focused no more on Trade and/or Industrial Production alone, but also and mainly on Joint Scientific Research and Technological Innovation, (on the occasion of which EU Commissioner Moedas had Started to Sign 2 conrete initial Agreements with his Chinese Minister counterpart), and asked the EU Commissioner how things are going in that field, and whether this could be Facilitated by the Creation of "European Campus" bringing together many Universities from various EU Countries, as the 1st one, just established Today around Strasbourg's "Superior Rhine" area, between Germany, France and Switzerland.





- Indeed, "We (EU and China) have, in fact, a Co-Financing System, which allows both Chinese Researchers to work here (in Europe), and Our (EU's) Researchers to work in China", Moedas confirmed.



- "For that purpose, We (EU and China) Created Together a Mechanism, according to which, we (EU) Pay our Part, and they (China) Pay their Part, in order to work on Joint Research projects", he explained.



- All "this is Very Interesting", both for China and "for Europe", "because the Cooperation with Countries liks China is very Important", underlined Positively EU's Science, Research and Innovation Commissioner.



- In fact, "they (China) have some Interesting contributions to make in Research, and, Vice-Versa, we (EU) have too, effectively", Carlos Moedas stressed.



- Also, because, as a matter of principle, "Science, as you know, Science is Build by Opening up to the World, since it is developing in All Frameworks, in All Countries, and that's cery Important, per se, to be effectively Able to Benefit from each other's Research".



- In this regard, the Creation, Today, of the 1st "European Campus" around Strasbourg, which Brings Together 3 Countries (France, Germany, Schwitzerland) with 5 Universities, accross the Superior Rhine river Euro-Region), "I think, that it's a Good Example, of what can, indeed, Facilitate such effective International Cooperations in Scientific Research with Countries like China", he observed.



- "For the Time being, this is the 1st Case of such an Eucopean Campus" throughout all EU's 28 Member Countries, "but there are at least anOther 2 Similar Projects currently prepared, among other EU Countries, even if they have Not Yet been Decided" until now.



- "That's the way to make Science Today ! It's not by staying Closed inside a Laboratory...", the competent EU Commissioner pointed out in Conclusion.



-------------------------





+ Speaking, later-on, during an Official Ceremony for the Creation of this "1st" example of a "European Campus", bringing Together the Infrastructures, Researchers, Professors, Administrative Staff and Students of 5 French, German or Swiss Universities, in the Legal Framework of a European Group for Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), witha Unique Legal Personality, able to apply for Joint Research Projects to be Funded by EU's "Horizon 2020" RST Prfogram, as well as from National Budgets, Moedas made a Strong Plaidoyerie for International Cooperation in RST :



- "Today, the way Science works has Evolved towards Collecrtive, Networked methods", the Research, Science and Innovation EU Commissioner stressed from the outset, as a matter of general principle.



- F.ex., already, as early as since back on 1911, for the First Time, 24 Top Scientists on Physics and Chemistry, (including, f.ex. Poincare, Curie, Max Planck, etc) had Gathered Together at Brussels' Metropole Hotel, for a Conference which was due to bring Big Changes : Not only for passing from Classical to Quantum Physics, but also in order to develop "a New way to Work Together", starting what cand be called an "Open Science".



- On the Contrary, just a few Years Earlier, Back on 1905, f.ex. Einstein had published his Findings on the Relativity theory, as well as on the Photon, etc. after Working "Alone", as a Unique Researcher, Moedas reminded.



- But, "Now", when, f.ex., New Findings were recently published on "Gravitational Waves", this was done "by about 1.000 Scientists from Various Countries", who had worked Together, he observed.



=> Thus, "Science Changed : It's No more a matter for One Man Alone. The Age of Individual Research has gone. We are, Today, in an Age of Collective Research, Based on Openess".



+ This "also a Political concept, against Closed areas and Protectionism", pointing at "an Open Future", the competent EU Commissioner concluded.



____________________________





+ Meanwhile, 1st "European Campus"' President, Professor Hans-Jochen Schiewer, who Chairs also the Superior Rhine Euro-Region around Strasbourg, and serves as Dean to Freiburg University at nearby Germany, speaking earlier to "Eurofora", sharply Backed the Idea that International Cooperations with Big Countries such as China, Russia, USA, etc., would be greatly Facilitated by Bringing Together 5 European Universities from 3 important Countries (France, Germany and Switzerland), with all their Infrastructures, as well as a 2,3 Billions  Total Budget, 15.000 Researchers, 11.000 PhD Candidates, and 115.000 Students, but also by making possible interesting Synergies both for EU Funding of Joint Projects, and for New kinds of Education and Research potential :



- F.ex., in Addition to attending a Summer School session in Germany's Feriburg University, Foreign Students and/or Researchers, could also Visit and Work at France's Strasbourg University, as well as Switzerland's University of Balle, etc., since they have become all now Members of that "European Campus" at the Superior Rhine area. While, on the Contrary, if they went f.ex. to Berlin, they woukd be Limited Only to the Berlin University alone, he compared.





----------------------------------



- "I know quite well China !", boasted, later-on, NOBEL Prize Winner in Chemistry, French Professor Jean-Marie Lehn, Director of Strasbourg's Supra-Molecular Research Institute, speaking to "Eurofora".



According to the vice-President of Strasbourg University for International Relations, Professor Francis Kern, in Canton region there is even a Chinese University which has reportedly adopted Lehn's name.

(Shanghai's Bund - "New China" Aerial Photo)



Lehn didn't exlude for the New, "European Campus" Franco-Germano-Swiss confederation, which brings Together 5 Universities from 3 Neighbouring Countries located accross the Rhine River, (Comp. its' President, German Professor Hans-Jochen Schiewer's replies to "Eurofora" Questions, at : .......), to develop its already declared wish to Boost its International Visibility by using a kind of Representations abroad, not only in Brussels and New York, or Geneva, etc., but also on Shanghai, host city of various Universities and Institutes, including of the Famous Global Ranking of Universities world-wide, as well as Shanghai's International Relations Institute, etc. He only warned that he, personaly, "didn't have enough Time" to undertake the responsibiity of such a mission nowadays.



+ Last, but not least, as it was characteristicaly said by the experienced Professor of Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT), and long-time President of German niversities' Conference of Deans, Horst Hippler, (on the Occasion of the attributions of 3 "Honoris Causa" PhD Degrees by Strasbourg's University to himself, as well as to Swiss Professor of Egyptology, Antonio Loprieno, together with the New "European Campus" President, Profedssor Schiewer, Dean of Feiburg University at nearby Germany : Comp. Supra), - "Minds are like Parachutes : They only function when they are Open !"...

(../..)





------------------------------------------





***



(Fast Translation from the Original in French. + "DraftNews", as already send to "Eurofora's Subsribers/Donors. A more accurate, full Final Version, might be published asap).



***




Our Discovery Institute colleague Cornelius Hunter has offered a response to Dr. Joshua Swamidasss arguments for human-ape common ancestry. Hunter points out that Darwinian evolution doesnt really predict any particular degree of genetic similarity between rats and mice, or between humans and apes, undercutting Swamidasss argument for common ancestry. While Dr. Hunters post was focused on the theoretical side of things, there are evidential arguments to make as well, many of which weve seen in the past here at Evolution News.



(1) Swamidass argues that humans and chimps are only about 1.5 percent different. However, by some metrics human and chimps are much more genetically dissimilar.

As weve discussed before (see here or here), depending on how you measure genetic similarities, human and ape genomes might be far greater than 1 percent (or 1.5 percent) different. For example, Casey Luskin wrote:

While recent studies have confirmed that certain stretches of human and chimp DNA are on average about 1.23% different, this is merely an estimate with huge caveats. A recent news article in Science observed that the 1% figure reflects only base substitutions, not the many stretches of DNA that have been inserted or deleted in the genomes. In other words, when the chimp genome has no similar stretch of human DNA, such DNA sequences are ignored by those touting the statistic that humans and chimps are only 1% genetically different. For this reason, the aforementioned Science news article was subtitled The Myth of 1%, and printed the following language to describe the 1% statistic: Studies are showing that [humans and chimps] are not as similar as many tend to believe;

the 1% statistic is a truism [that] should be retired;

the 1% statistic is more a hindrance for understanding than a help;

the 1% difference wasnt the whole story;

Researchers are finding that on top of the 1% distinction, chunks of missing DNA, extra genes, altered connections in gene networks, and the very structure of chromosomes confound any quantification of humanness versus chimpness.' Indeed, due to the huge caveats in the 1% statistic, some scientists are suggesting that a better method of measuring human/chimp genetic differences might be counting individual gene copies. When this metric is employed, human and chimp DNA is over 5% different. But new findings in genetics show that gene-coding DNA might not even be the right place to seek differences between humans and chimps.

Moreover:

Far from being but a hand-breadth away from our evolutionary cousins at the DNA level, the evidence shows that the genetic differences between humans and chimps amount to 35 million base-pair changes, 5 million indels in each species, and 689 extra genes in humans. Such a level of differences is not known to exist for human/human intraspecies genetic variation. Moreover, as geneticist Richard Buggs has explained, the genetic similarity between humans and chimps may be even lower than 95%.

Swamidass further writes: As predicted by common ancestry, human and chimpanzee genomes are extremely similar (greater than 98% similarity in coding regions), much more similar than we would expect without common descent.

At first glance this seems to be a standard mistaken argument that a high degree of similarity indicates common ancestry. It would seem to ignore common design as a perfectly good explanation for human/chimp common ancestry.

But Swamidass isnt only making the typical simplistic argument that 1.5 percent genetic similarity between humans and chimps (if real) implies were related. Rather, hes arguing that humans are more similar to chimps than are species we already agree are related, like mice and rats.

Here, Swamidass echoes Dennis Venema who argued that human intraspecific genetic variation is as much as 2 percent, and yet everyone believes that all humans are related. So if apes are only 1.5 percent genetically different, why not think were related to them? Casey Luskin has responded:

Initially, I must point out that Venemas post provides no citation for his claim that human intraspecies genetic variation is as much as 2%. I contacted Dr. Venema privately and asked for citations that back this claim, but neither of the two papers he provided proposed an official percentage of human intraspecies genetic variation. One paper suggested that there are about 10 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and about 1.5 million insertion and deletion polymorphisms (INDELs) in the human genome. But the other paper, published in 2011, provided the highest estimates for human intraspecies genetic variation, stating: Like known SNPs, which affect ~15 Mb of DNA  our INDEL variants affected 11.9 Mb of the human genome. Looking at the latter article, if we add those amounts together and round up to about 27 million base pairs, that implies that only about 0.9% of the human genome is known to vary  not 2%. This statistic is corroborated by the National Institutes of Health website which states Human DNA consists of about 3 billion bases, and more than 99 percent of those bases are the same in all people.

Swamidass probably realizes that extrapolating from human intraspecific genetic variation to common ancestry of humans and chimps doesnt work as an argument. Why? Because human intraspecific similarity is probably greater than human-chimp genetic similarity. Thus, he changes his argument and looks instead at more tractable genetic statistics: mice and rat genetic similarities. He asks: If were more genetically similar to apes than mice are to rats, and if we believe that mice and rats share a common ancestor, then why not reason that humans and chimps do as well? This brings us to our next error.



(2) Theres good evidence that genetic differences between humans and chimps could not arise by standard evolutionary mechanisms.

Lets assume for the sake of argument that Dr. Swamidass is correct that mice and rats are about 15 percent genetically different whereas humans and apes are only 1.5 percent different. The much bigger problem is that even in humans and chimps, those few percent differences still equate to tens of millions of base pair differences, plus millions of larger differences that entail indels, etc. And when were looking at humans and chimps, if just two of those specific differences were required before giving any functional advantage, then that would have taken over 200 million years to arise. So even very small genetic differences can still take a long time to arise. Casey Luskin explains here, writing in response to Dennis Venemas similar argument:

Venema has badly overstated the case for Darwinian evolution, as no one has any idea if these changes are easily accessible to evolutionary mechanisms. In fact, we still dont understand what the vast majority of these differences mean. When speaking of human/chimp genetic differences, David Haussler, a biomolecular engineer at UC Santa Cruz, writes To sort out the differences that matter from the ones that dont is really difficult. And there are good reasons to believe that some (or many) of these differences might encode features not amenable to stepwise Darwinian evolution under known timescales. In 2008, Michael Behes critics Rick Durrett and Deena Schmidt tried to refute him in the journal Genetics with a paper titled Waiting for Two Mutations: With Applications to Regulatory Sequence Evolution and the Limits of Darwinian Evolution. But Durrett and Schmidt found that to obtain only two specific mutations via Darwinian evolution for humans with a much smaller effective population size, this type of change would take > 100 million years. The critics admitted this was very unlikely to occur on a reasonable timescale. In other words, if any of the 35 million base pair changes between humans and chimps entail adaptive changes that require two or more specific mutations before providing any advantage, then they would be extremely unlikely to evolve by random mutation and natural selection in the mere 6 or 7 million years since we shared our alleged most recent common ancestor with chimps. Durrett and Schmidt found that it would take too long to wait for two specific mutations to gain an advantage. How does Venema know that there arent many differences between humans and chimps that would require two (or perhaps many more  dozens, hundreds, millions?!) mutations before any benefit arises? Venemas claim that the genetic differences between humans and chimps are easily accessible to evolutionary mechanisms is difficult to accept, because frankly, no one knows that this is true. We should not assume that naturalistic evolutionary explanations are correct; we should test them, and hold on to them only if they are valid.

Humans and chimps supposedly shared a common ancestor 6-8 million years ago (Ma) yet there are millions of genetic differences. If only 2 of those were required to give some advantage, then it would take over 200 Ma to become fixed into a hominid population. This means theres not enough time for humans and chimps to have evolved via selection and mutation.

Now its true that this rebuttal undercuts Darwinian processes, and Swamidass isnt arguing specifically for an unguided origin of humanity. Hes only arguing for common descent. But how does he establish common ancestry? He tries to establish it by assuming that the genetic similarities between humans and chimps (or between mice and rats) arose by unintelligent evolutionary mechanisms  random mutations that were passed from a common ancestor on to diverging lineages through unguided evolutionary processes  with no interference by any intelligent agency. In other words, his argument is predicated upon the assumption that our genetic code diverged from apes through strictly undirected mechanisms. His case for common ancestry isnt based upon design; its based upon random mutation and unguided evolution.

But if humanitys origin isnt unguided, and if there has been design in the genome, then theres no basis to argue that any particular genetic similarity between humans and chimps necessarily reflects an undirected evolutionary history  this includes both Darwinian/neutral evolutionary processes and its implication of common ancestry. Why? Because of the possibility of common design  where a designer re-uses similar functional components (i.e., genes) in different designs (i.e., species).



(3) Swamidass doesnt appreciate the power of arguing from common design.

Swamidass asks, What design principle can explain why humans are 10 times more similar to chimpanzees than mice are to rats? No one knows. Again, ID proponents have long-identified such a principle: common design. As Paul Nelson and Jonathan Wells explain:

An intelligent cause may reuse or redeploy the same module in different systems, without there necessarily being any material or physical connection between those systems. Even more simply, intelligent causes can generate identical patterns independently. (Paul Nelson and Jonathan Wells, Homology in Biology, in Darwinism, Design, and Public Education, (Michigan State University Press, 2003).)

Intelligent agents re-using parts and components that perform common functions can readily explain how different systems come to have similar properties. Swamidass doesnt ignore the possibility of common design  in fact he tries to demean it by calling it a lawyerly objection to common ancestry.

Clever though his rhetorical retort may be, he never attempts to explain why common design cant account for functional genetic similarities between species, such as humans and chimps.



(4) Swamidass never establishes that mice and rats are related.

Swamidasss main argument is rhetorical. He claims that humans are about 10 times more similar to chimpanzees than mice are to rats, and since (in his own words) we readily accept mice and rats are related, we must therefore also agree that humans and chimp are genetically related. He thus writes that we appear more closely related to chimpanzees than mice are to rats, as if we share a common ancestor with them.

Despite his protests against lawyerly arguments, its Swamidass who sounds a little like a lawyer here. Again, his argument goes like this: Humans and chimps are more similar than mice and rats. You accept the shared evolutionary ancestry of mice and rats. So why dont you accept the common ancestry of not humans and chimps?

Perhaps mice and rats do share a common ancestor, but when exactly did we readily accept this? Indeed, molecular clock data is all over the map when it comes to explaining the degrees of genetic similarity between mice and rats, indicating their supposed divergence dates. Papers gives dates ranging from as high as 33 or 35 million years ago to as low as 12 million years ago. That uncertainty doesnt necessarily mean that mice and rats arent genetically related. But it does reflect much uncertainty about how to properly interpret the meaning of mouse-rat genetic similarities and differences.

More importantly, a careful analysis of mice and rat genomes shows that huge patterns of genomic similarities cannot always be explained by common ancestry. A few years ago here on Evolution News, evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg discussed unexpectedly similar lineage specific SINE DNA in the mice and rat genomes which cannot be explained by common descent:

Lets do a thought experiment. Consider the surfaces of two moons that were once part of the same planetary body 22 million years ago. Since their separation, both have been subjected to independent collisions with asteroids, meteorites, and other pieces of space debris. Question: Would you expect the scar patterns on both to be different or identical? (It may seem like a silly question, but bear with me.) Replace now the word moons with the mouse and rat genomes and asteroids and meteorites and other pieces of space debris with SINEs, and you will see what I am asking. So Ill rephrase my question. What should we expect regarding the linear distribution of independent SINE impacts along mouse and rat chromosomes? A. Completely independent patterns  like meteorite impact sites on moons;

B. A few overlapping patterns, due to chance; or

C. Nearly identical patterns. And the Mystery Signal Is



This is a second figure from the article co-authored by Francis Collins. (From Fig. 9c of Ref. 1.) The scale on the x-axis is the same as that of the previous graph  it is the same 110,000,000 genetic letters of rat chromosome 10. The scale on the y-axis is different, with the red line in this figure corresponding to the distribution of rat-specific SINEs in the rat genome (i.e., ID sequences). The green line in this figure, however, corresponds to the pattern of B1s, B2s, and B4s in the mouse genome. Was it what you expected from a degenerative process? Why? At this point the theistic evolutionist might say  Silly Rick: Common descent explains this pattern! Wrong, wrong, wrong. Let me repeat  each graph denotes only lineage-specific mutational insertions.

The mutational signal from mouse B1s, B2s, and B4s is equivalent to the mutational signal of rat IDs. It almost looks as if, say, the rat graph was copied, slightly redrawn, labeled mouse, and then pasted above the previous line. (Of course, it wasnt.) How strange that two independently-acting degenerative processes  affecting mostly junk DNA  would lead to the same higher-order pattern. Its a bizarre pattern. And this correlation occurs throughout both genomes. Not a Secret, Folks: Collins et al. Discussed This Unusual Finding The Rat Genome Consortium  and thus Francis Collins  apparently thought it worthy to devote a whole section to the phenomenon. Titled Co-localization of SINEs in rat and mouse, the section states: Despite the different fates of SINE families, the number of SINEs inserted after speciation in each lineage is remarkably similar: ~300,000 copiesFigure 9c displays the lineage-specific SINE densities on rat chromosome 10 and in the mouse orthologous blocks, showing a stronger correlation than any other feature. The cause of the unusual distribution patterns of SINEs, accumulating in gene-rich regions where other interspersed repeats are scarce, is apparently a conserved feature, independent of the primary sequence of the SINE and effective over regions smaller than isochores. [Italics mine.] The potential signal in these two genomes, then, should be obvious. If not, I will belabor the point: The strongest correlation between mouse and rat genomes is SINE linear patterning.

Though these SINE families have no sequence similarities, their placements are conserved .

. And they are concentrated in protein-coding genes. Am I suggesting that extraterrestrials were fiddling with rodent DNA? No. Am I implying that we are seeing the language of God in rodent-script? I havent the foggiest notion. What I am saying is that we know a lot about the genome that is being glossed over in the popular works that the theistic evolutionists write.

Sternbergs point is exactly applicable to Joshua Swamidasss post, which vaguely asserts a single general statistic of genetic similarity between mice and rats and assumes that those similarities must be explained by common ancestry. But as Sternberg says, these similar patterns cannot be explained by common ancestry because they are not related to similar sequences.

Rather, the similarities in the signal show similar densities of SINE elements across a huge stretch of over 100 million base pairs. Similar genomic structure, very different sequences. Because of the differences in sequence, these highly similar patterns in the mouse and rat genomes cannot be explained by common ancestry. This should make us cautious before we readily interpret genetic similarities between mice and rats as necessarily indicating common inheritance.

If not common ancestry, then what does explain these similar broad-scale genomic patterns in mice and rats? Sternberg continues to explore this question:

That Strange SINE SignalAgain

The almost one-to-one correspondence of mouse-specific and rat-specific SINE insertion events along homologous regions of the two genomes is almost as remarkable as the matching geographical distributions of the monoliths in the analogy of the two moons. Remember the graph (from Figure 9c of Ref. 1):



We have two genomes that went their separate ways 22 million years ago. We have two lineages that have been subjected to different historical events. Yet, when we compare the chromosome locations of mouse B1s/B2s/B4s with those of rat IDs, they look almost the same. Where the ID SINEs rise in density, so do the B1s/B2s/B4s SINEs; where the ID SINE levels decrease, so also do the B1s/B2s/B4s SINE levels. Independent mutational events have generated equivalent genomic patterns. How can we causally account for this striking pattern? In the paper written by Francis Collins and his colleagues, under the heading Co-localization of SINEs in rat and mouse, we read: The cause of the unusual distribution patterns of SINEsis apparently a conserved feature, independent of the primary sequence of the SINE [Italics mine.] Lets unpack this part of the sentence. We have: 1) A cause of some sort.

2) A cause that is conserved between the mouse and rat.

3) A cause that is independent of SINE primary DNA sequences. Thats all very well and good, but the specific cause is never mentioned. Where, then, can we find it?

Sternberg doesnt identify a cause, other than to say that whatever it is, its outside the BioLogos box. But we have already seen such a cause that we can identify: common design. Such a high level of genetic convergence is much better explained by common design than by common descent. And this is no mere lawyerly rhetoric. Its a principled argument based upon our knowledge that intelligent agents can independently generate the same pattern in different systems that are not genetically related  perhaps including the similar SINE patterns between mice and rats.



(5) Swamidass tries to rule out the option of responding to him through common design.

Despite his protests against lawyerly arguments, Swamidass sounds rather lawyerly himself in his response to Cornelius Hunter. He tries to rule out contrary arguments before they can be made. He thus calls for a response from skeptics of human/ape common ancestry to explain why humans and apes are so genetically similar  but he places this restriction on what can be said in response:

All papers that simplistically conclude that design explains that humans and chimps are similar will be rejected.

This is like an attorney who tries to exclude contrary evidence from a courtroom trial.

Swamidass then qualifies his requirement and says you may argue for common design so long as you explain why humans and apes are more similar to one another than mice are to rats. This is basically a no designer would do it that way argument. In fact, if a designer wants to make some systems more similar than others, theres no problem with that. In human-designed technology, we see all sorts of variations on themes all the time  iPhones are more similar to one another than they are to an Android, and Androids are more similar to one another than they are to iPhones. Differing degrees of similarity dont refute design.



(6) Swamidass points to pseudogenes as evidence for common ancestry, even though many pseudogenes show evidence of function, including the vitellogenin pseudogene that Swamidass cites.

Swamidass repeatedly cites Dennis Venemas arguments for common ancestry based upon pseudogenes. However, as weve discussed here in the past, quite a few pseudogenes have turned out to be functional, and were discovering more all the time. Its only recently that weve had the technology to study the functions of pseudogenes, so we are just at the beginning of doing so. While its true that theres a lot about pseudogenes we still dont know, an RNA Biology paper observes, The study of functional pseudogenes is just at the beginning. And it predicts that more and more functional pseudogenes will be discovered as novel biological technologies are developed in the future. The paper concludes that functional pseudogenes are widespread. Indeed, when we carefully study pseudogenes, we often do find function. One paper in Annual Review of Genetics tellingly observed: Pseudogenes that have been suitably investigated often exhibit functional roles.

One of Swamidasss central examples mirrors Dennis Venemas argument that the vitellogenin pseudogene in humans demonstrates were related to egg-laying vertebrates like fish or reptiles. But a Darwin-doubting scientist was willing to dig deeper. Good genetic evidence now indicates that what Dennis Venema calls the human vitellogenin pseudogene is really part of a functional gene, as one technical paper by an ID-friendly creationist biologist has shown.



(7) Swamidass lauds Dennis Venemas arguments from synteny, ignoring the strong genomic evidence that the 3D structure of the genome is important.

Synteny refers to large-scale similarities between genomes. Venema and Swamidass argue that large-scale 3D features of the genome carry no functional significance. This is simply incorrect. Many papers show that the 3D large-scale organization of the genome is vital for genomic function. As the revolution in epigenetics has taken hold, molecular biologists now know that the structure of chromosomes, and their 3D arrangement(s) within a cell, are important parts of genomic regulation.

Casey Luskin has recounted asking an ID-friendly scientist for papers showing that chromosomal structure and gene ordering can be functionally important. The response was impressive:

Jachowicz et al., Heterochromatin establishment at pericentromeres depends on nuclear position, Genes & Development , 27: 2427-2432 (2013);

, 27: 2427-2432 (2013); Verdaasdonk et al., Centromere Tethering Confines Chromosome Domains, Molecular Cell , 52: 1-13 (December 26, 2013);

, 52: 1-13 (December 26, 2013); Filion et al., Systematic Protein Location Mapping Reveals Five Principal Chromatin Types in Drosophila Cells, Cell , 143: 212-224 (October 15, 2010);

, 143: 212-224 (October 15, 2010); Giacomo Cavalli, From Linear Genes to Epigenetic Inheritance of Three-dimensional Epigenomes, Journal of Molecular Biology (2011);

(2011); Justin M. OSullivan, Chromosome Organizaton in Simple and Complex Unicellular Organisms, Current Issues in Molecular Biology , 13: 37-42 (2011);

, 13: 37-42 (2011); Dirar Homouz and Andrzej S. Kudlicki, The 3D Organization of the Yeast Genome Correlates with Co-Expression and Reflects Functional Relations between Genes, PLoS One, 8: e54699 (January, 2013);

Stephen A. Hoang and Stefan Bekiranov, The Network Architecture of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Genome, PLoS One, 8: e81972 (December, 2013).

(8) Dr. Swamidass lauds Venemas arguments regarding chromosome 2 fusion, wrongly thinking that fusion in modern humans or Denisovans shows were related to apes.

As Casey Luskin has shown, the fusion evidence only shows that there was a fusion event along the human line; it does not show our lineage leads back to apes. We now know that the nearly modern-human Denisovans also had a fused chromosome 2. But for the same reasons, the fusion evidence doesnt show that they were related to apes either. We might be just as unrelated to apes as the Denisovans were.



Postscript: Dr. Swamidass has now appended a Q&A to his original post. After some debate, he seems to accept common design as a possible explanation, writing that: At a high level, just looking at the >98% similarity between humans and chimp coding regions, design is a plausible explanation. He then quickly adds: However, design does not explain why humans and chimps are 10 less different than mice are from rats.

His comment makes no sense. Why is it so hard to conceive that humans and chimps are more similar than mice and rats? Humans and chimps are also more similar than jellyfish and bananas. So what? Different designs can have varying levels of similarity and difference  we see this all the time in technology and none of it bears upon (a) the merits of whether those systems were designed, or (b) whether those systems share some genetic naturalistic common ancestry.

Dr. Swamidass also attempts to respond to a less sophisticated version of this sort of argument:

Out of the gate, in what world is 6 million years a short time? That is an absurdly long time. Our subjective understanding of what is short and long, anyways, is beside the point. It is really just a matter of math. Let me show you the formula. The basic pattern is that we multiply the number of generations between us and chimpanzees (by way of the common ancestor) times the number of mutations we see per generation along each leg. To be clear, we can directly measure the number of mutations we see per generation in human and chimps as a starting point, so we are not just pulling numbers out of thin air. Of course generation time is more complicated, but for most of human history was probably less than 20 years. One can get substantiated estimates for all of these terms from the literature, and compute the expected difference between genomes. You can work this the other way around. Using your numbers (which are a bit off), we can see that there are 12M (2 times 6M) years of mutations between us and chimpanzees. We observe 30M mutations between us, so that means there are 2.5 mutations per year (30M divided by 12M). For generation times of about 20 years, we compute an upper bound of about 50 mutations per generation (2.5 times 20),7 which compares favorably (within an order of magnitude) to the experimentally determined generation mutation rate for humans (about 10 per generation). Our computed expectation is absurdly close to the experimentally observed mutation rate. For a back-of-the-envelope calculation, this is remarkable agreement between theory and experiment. Any discrepancies are easily explained by errors in the numbers, or shifts in these numbers of over 6M years of time. Better formulas and numbers only improve on these results. Why did God make our genomes so consistent with this math?

This is not exactly how population genetics works. Population genetics must explain how particular mutations get fixed into populations, not just how they appear within individual lineages. It takes a very short time for mutations to accumulate in individual lineages. It takes a very long time for mutations to become fixed into populations. This is why we have pointed out that if any two of those 30 million base pair differences were required to provide some advantageous trait that got fixed into our populations, then it could never arise in 6 million years. If you dont believe us, ask anti-ID scientists Richard Durrett and Deena Schmidt, writing in the journal Genetics:

[I]n humans, a new transcription factor binding site can be created by a single mutation in an average of 60,000 years, but, as our new results show, a coordinated pair of mutations that first inactivates a binding site and then creates a new one is very unlikely to occur on a reasonable timescale. To be precise, the last argument shows that it takes a long time to wait for two prespecified mutations with the indicated probabilities. (R. Durrett and D. Schmidt. 2008. Waiting for Two Mutations: With Applications to Regulatory Sequence Evolution and the Limits of Darwinian Evolution. Genetics, 180: 1501-1509)

So if you just want to say that 30 million unspecified mutations can arise in two lineages of primates in 6 million years, then perhaps thats correct. But thats not the issue here: If only two of those 30 million mutations are required for some advantageous trait, then suddenly the math becomes a fatal barrier to Darwinian evolution.

Update: Six million years is not an an absurdly long time to fix two specified mutations into a typical hominid population. It would be more accurate to say that its an absurdly short time.



Image credit:  creativenature.nl  stock.adobe.com.
As foreign exchange traders await US ecostats the Euro to US Dollar (EUR/USD) exchange rate maintains a push fractionally higher.

The Euro to US dollar exchange rate has been positive today, owing to the recent US inflation rate stats.

While the US dollar exchange rates has recently been supported by rising inflation in April, this may have actually had a negative impact on the USD overall.

This could be on account of wages not rising in line with inflation, or because the question has once again been raised of when the Federal Reserve could raise the national interest rate.

Foreign exchange markets continued to focus attention on the Greek bailout review after the IMF indicated that its ongoing role in the bailout may be conditional on the country receiving debt relief until 2040.

As this suggestion is unlikely to be received with particular enthusiasm by other creditors the appeal of the euro exchange rate was consequently dented.

With expectations of a resolution to Greek debt negotiations strengthening the euro to dollar exchange rate, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has expressed further confidence in the Greek recovery.

According to the PM, Greece could begin selling bonds again in 2017, with Tsipras claiming this could enable to country to exit the troika bailout programme early.

Despite ongoing concerns that the European Central Bank (ECB) will look to ease monetary policy further in 2016, the EUR/USD exchange rate ticked fractionally higher on Monday.

The appreciation is mostly the result of US political uncertainty as controversial Presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to dent investor confidence.

With many headwinds facing the Euro, however, analysts at Citibank predict Euro exchange rate losses to come.

Other Pound Sterling / Currency Exchange News

Latest Pound/Euro Exchange Rates

On Tuesday the Pound to British Pound exchange rate (GBP/GBP) converts at 1

The pound conversion rate (against pound) is quoted at 1 GBP/GBP.

FX markets see the pound vs us dollar exchange rate converting at 1.13.

The pound conversion rate (against australian dollar) is quoted at 1.786 AUD/GBP.

The pound conversion rate (against new zealand dollar) is quoted at 1.978 NZD/GBP.

NB: the forex rates mentioned above, revised as of 25th Oct 2022, are inter-bank prices that will require a margin from your bank. Foreign exchange brokers can save up to 5% on international payments in comparison to the banks.

US Dollar Weakness Provokes Slight Euro Exchange Rate Uptrend Today

Albeit fractionally, the Euro ticked higher versus a number of its major peers today despite heightened demand for high-yielding assets. The slight uptrend is likely the result of US Dollar weakness, especially given the complete absence of influential European ecostats.

Analysts at Citibank forecast Euro weakness to come, however, as the ECB looks increasingly likely to ease policy further. Political uncertainty in various Eurozone countries is also predicted to weigh on demand for the single currency.

Major countries such as Germany and France saw obvious economic growth only because short-term factors such as monetary easing and weather supported the growth. Euro Area's capital investment only accounts for 20.2% of GDP, much lower than long-term average and other countries, reflecting that the ECB still needs to expand policy easing to boost the economy, which may undermine EUR. Austrian Chancellor, Werner Faymann suddenly resigned, which may prompt the rise of anti-EU parties in other European areas. Political uncertainty may undermine EUR.

US Dollar Exchange Rates Comparatively Static ahead of Empire Manufacturing Report

Safe-haven demand was reduced on Monday morning after rising Asian stocks and crude oil price gains supported demand for high-yielding assets.

As a result, the safe-haven US Dollar softened versus a number of its major peers, although thin trade has ensured that the downtrend is only minimal thus far. However, as one of the few nations today to publish domestic ecostats, US data may cause volatility.

Even if risk-appetite dampens significantly and domestic data prints positively the US Dollar may still fail to sustain gains. This is because political uncertainty has dented investor confidence as controversial Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to garner support.

Today's Euro-Dollar Exchange Rate News

Markets are equally cautious towards the US Dollar (USD) ahead of the latest Empire Manufacturing Survey and NAHB Housing Market Index figures.

The manufacturing sector of the worlds largest economy is expected to have weakened somewhat on the month, a result which would further discourage talk of a Fed interest rate hike coming in the near future.
OK, I'm back. One possible option your daughter might have is to "bridge" to high school graduation using a F-1 visa. Essentially she'd be an exchange student. So it'd work something like this:



(a) Your husband hangs on until your daughter finishes her junior year;

(b) You leave the U.S., but (with the school's pre-agreed cooperation) you help your daughter apply for and obtain a F-1 visa;

(c) She returns to the U.S. without you to finish her senior year on the F-1, probably staying as an exchange student with another family;

(d) Assuming the next L-1 comes through, you move back to the U.S. at some point after she graduates. (Or not -- that part is optional/not guaranteed.)



The F-1 is limited to 12 months when applied to secondary education. It'd be best to spend those 12 months in the form of her senior year since that'd be the most reliable continuity if your husband just has to quit, but that 12 months doesn't have to be spent on her senior year. Also, it's not free to do this. There'd probably be some boarding cost with the host family, and the public school (I assume) has to charge some tuition, by law -- presumably whatever the total school budget is divided by the school's enrollment.
Bevdeforges said: You're probably getting a bit ahead of yourself here. First of all, if you have your US passport through your Dad, there's a reasonable chance that you already have a social security number. If your birth was registered with the consulate at the time, they normally also process a social security number at the same time. So that might be the first thing you want to look into. Click to expand...

thx for your help,im planning this stuff but planning to leave germany in about 3-4 years...i already have passport and a passport card.but i never had a social securtiy number.last time i was in the states was 2month ago.about my wife i found out there is a visa called DCF ( Direct Consular Filing ) like twostep saidit costs about 1000 from what i read... we can try to do it here in germany (frankfurt)..what do you mean by sponsor?about the tax i found so many diffrent posts online so im really not sure about that.. .some say only have to pay if lived there, some only if i ever worked there, and the irs page says u always have to pay...i think i will contact a tax lawyer or something in the near future..what can i expect im 31 years old and i never paid?i worked for about ten years of my life each year had a income of about 12000...are there any fees or penalitys i will have to face?@twostep how much assests should i have? i cant prove income if i dont have a job there already... also her job would probably is better then mine...yes shes a arzthelferin after googeling it medical assisatant should be the closest there is to this job...the stories on forums i read online all of the women made their certificate for medical assistant when they moved to the states..last time i was in the states i was in california i noticed all of these mexicans with out a passport, and thought hey if they can make it, i could too! i really liked it over there better.. but what scares me are the prices...i could go back to germany anytime if i get health problems or other problem etc... but until that happens, for me its almost the same in germany then in the states working for minimum wage... the diffrence is the lifestyle and the houses with the yards... in germany everything is packed theres not much green...my cousin told me we should just come for a month to visit, and we probably could work everything out in this time ... but im not that optimistic i would like to plan my stuff...but what bbc watcher said sounds good to me maybe its better to get to ohio for 1-2 years first to get the things rolling... but i dont know how they can help me? maybe for a few formal things... but in the end its all about money? or am i missing a few things?the cheaper living in ohio is really the only thing got me thinking about going to ohio first...
Hi there! Hoping if anyone could clear my doubts on these q...greatly appreciated!





(1) I am filing my application soon in malaysia and have inserted several original documents. I read from a few forums that I need to include a courier waybill with my application. Is this necessary (I opt to receive my passport at the visa centre)?



(2) has anyone tried the premium lounge service? Do they include a preliminary doc vetting service or is it just better chairs and bigger smiles?



Thanks in advance!
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SEATTLE  In April, Kellen Wadach, general manager at Amazons warehouse in Middletown, Delaware, told hundreds of workers at the cavernous facility a troubling story about his family being abandoned by his fathers union.

Flashing a photograph of himself as a boy with his father, Wadach said the union did not help his family financially after his father died suddenly in front of their house, not even sending a condolence card, according to three workers who heard him speak and asked for anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.

The problem with Wadachs story was that much of it appears to have been untrue.

For years, Amazon has successfully battled to keep unions out of the company. And the incident involving Wadach was an illustration of how important it was to Amazon  or at least to some of its employees  to keep it that way.

Days after a reporter approached Amazon about inconsistencies in Wadachs story, Scott Stanzel, an Amazon spokesman, said Wadach was no longer with the company.

Wadach did not respond to repeated messages sent to his email address and Facebook account.

In the United States, Amazon employs more than 90,000 people in what the company calls fulfillment centers, giant warehouses where customer orders are prepared and shipped.

Some Amazon fulfillment center workers see unions as a way to gain more influence on pay, how job assignments are doled out, and the handling of workplace complaints. Amazon worries unions will burden its operations with red tape, hurting the nimbleness of facilities it is constantly adjusting to be more efficient with robots and other innovations.

Amazons culture and business model are based on rapid innovation, flexibility and open lines of direct communication between managers and associates, Stanzel said. This direct connection is the most effective way to understand and respond to the wants and needs of our associates.

Union officials think Amazon fights so hard to keep them at bay to prevent a domino effect among its warehouses.

This is Amazons biggest fear, said Andy Powell, a district organizer for the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers who is trying to organize Amazon fulfillment center workers in Delaware and nearby states. The minute one falls and people see they got a better deal, its going to be a cancer for them.

Unions have not made much progress at Amazon after years of campaigns, which union officials and warehouse workers blame partly on the high turnover in its fulfillment centers.

In 2014, the machinists union helped organize a union vote by a small number of technicians and mechanics who worked on order-fulfillment equipment at the fulfillment center in Middletown, a community of about 19,000 about a half-hour from Wilmington. Workers voted 21-6 to reject the plan, which was opposed by Amazon. The company said there are about 3,000 full-time workers at the facility.

Since late fall, representatives of the machinists union, including Powell, have passed out leaflets outside the fulfillment center. Some employees have encouraged co-workers to consider potential benefits of joining a union.

In many cases, pay and benefits are not the top concerns of workers  pay at the Middletown warehouse starts around $13 an hour, and health care and parental leave benefits are the same for warehouse workers as for senior executives. The company said full-time workers at the facility make, on average, more than $15 an hour in compensation when including base pay, bonuses and stock awards.

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.

However, workers want things like better protection from termination and mechanisms for contesting favoritism by managers. Stanzel said the company has a process for employees to appeal terminations and an open-door policy that encourages workers to bring their concerns to managers.

Like many other companies, Amazon employs union avoidance techniques, telling workers in gatherings that they will no longer be able to communicate directly with Amazon if a union represents them, union officials said. Around Christmas last year, managers began making the rounds at the Middletown warehouse, probing workers for their thoughts on unions, said employees.

In June, Scott Gragilla, a former Amazon fulfillment center employee at the warehouse, began asking why workers were not receiving bonuses they had gotten in the past. Not long after, he said, he was reprimanded for his job performance for the first time.

He began openly promoting the idea of unionizing the warehouse to co-workers. But in December, Gragilla said, he was told he was being fired for his work performance, including leaving early for lunch and failing to return after being ordered back to work by two managers. He denies either is true.

Amazon maintains no employee has been terminated as a result of union activity, said Stanzel.

Gragilla filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. He said he was unable to gather enough former co-workers to testify on his behalf, and the board declined to take the case to a judge.
AUSTIN  Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday rebuffed a month-old request from the federal government that Texas review its Iran sanctions in light of the nuclear agreement negotiated by the United States with other world powers.

Instead, Abbott said he remains determined to increase Texas sanctions against Iran, as he outlined in January when he visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Because the Iran deal is fundamentally flawed and does not permanently dismantle Irans nuclear capability, Texas will maintain its sanctions against Iran. Further, because your administration has recklessly and unilaterally removed critical sanctions, I have called on the Texas Legislature to strengthen the Iran sanctions that Texas already has in place, Abbott wrote Monday.

Current state law prohibits pension funds from making investments in Iran. Abbott wants to expand that to prohibit local governments from investing in Iran or entities doing business with Iran and to require all state entities to follow the states divestiture policy.

The federal government also has had sanctions but lifted those aimed at affecting Irans nuclear program in light of the pact.

Stephen D. Mull, lead coordinator for Iran nuclear implementation at the U.S. Department of State, said in the April 8 letter to Abbott that the agreement will verifiably ensure that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon and that its nuclear program is and will remain exclusively peaceful.

Citing the end of federal nuclear-related sanctions, Mull asked Abbott to consider whether the agreement addresses the underlying concerns with Iran articulated in any state law.

Abbott, in a letter to President Barack Obama, instead slammed the deal and said that as a staunch supporter of Israel, I am committed to doing everything in my power to oppose this misguided deal with Iran. Accordingly, not only will we not withdraw our sanctions, but we will strengthen them to ensure Texas taxpayer dollars are not used to aid and abet Iran.

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac
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Each case was completely different and yet alike, the details as repulsive as the sense of familiarity.

On April 29, near midnight, Bexar County sheriffs deputies rescued two toddlers, ages 3 and 4, who had been tied up like dogs and left outside for hours in a storm. They and six other children found unhurt in a filthy home were taken into state custody. Two mothers and a father were arrested.

Five days later, Blanco police found 1-year-old Sunny Dakota Flade-Bort unresponsive on the floor in her mothers home, with wounds to her head, a spinal injury and broken arm. She died the next day of a cerebral hemorrhage. The mother and her boyfriend were arrested.

On May 5, Arjunkumar Rana, 19, was charged with capital murder in the March 24 asphyxiation death of his infant son, to which he confessed  then recanted. And on Wednesday, Bexar County sheriffs deputies arrested two more parents, Marquita and Qwalion Busby, in the Dec. 23 death of their infant son, who investigators had found malnourished and dehydrated.

The natural impulse of those outside Bexar Countys child welfare system was to search for a common thread in the recent cases, some over-arching truth about child abuse.

Some could point to just-issued statistics from the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities that found 27 percent of children in Bexar County live in poverty. Others could observe that Bexar County had 9.9 confirmed child abuse victims per 1,000 population, compared to a rate of 5.3 and 8.6 for Harris and Dallas counties, respectively.

But many who work with abuse cases say theyre too inundated to hunt for explanations or identify corrections or reforms. Several doubted there were any to find that havent been known for decades.

Outside the crowded courtroom Wednesday where a weeping Cheryl Reed, 30, the mother of the two chained-up children, had been told she had no right to see them, her court-appointed attorney, David Willis, said he was likely to have 20 to 35 open cases with Child Protective Services any time of the year.

Ive been doing this about 25 years, and I dont have the answers, Willis said. I dont take everything home with me each night. Im able to sleep. But  weve always had this number of horrible cases.

Kim Abernethy said spikes in publicized child abuse cases dont often spur an increase in volunteers at the offices of ChildSafe, the non-profit that helps CPS caseworkers and law enforcement help abuse victims, where she is CEO.

Sometimes we get a spike in giving, she said. You would think raising money for abused children would be easy, but its still an uncomfortable subject for a lot of people.

We see this level of extreme cases all the time, Abernethy said. But its unusual that so many hit the media all at once. I hope the cases are coming to light because weve raised so much awareness  and really worked on prevention, but with (more reporting) we also thought that cases might go up before they came down because now more people are prepared to speak up.

State District Judge Peter Sakai, who has dealt with such cases as a prosecutor and a judge for some 30 years and has long sought remedies to CPS worker turnover and burdensome caseloads, said society cant ignore underlying issues such as generational poverty, homelessness and job loss that can combine to make some parents feel hopeless.

But the top three factors we find in most child abuse cases have never really changed over the years  alcohol and drug addiction, lack of mental health services and the culture of domestic and family violence, Sakai said Thursday.

Asked if he knew of a major U.S. city with extensive poverty such as San Antonios that doesnt also have elevated rates of child abuse, Sakai paused and said: No, I do not.

But I reject the premise that poverty causes child abuse and neglect, he added. People hear that and say, Hey, I grew up poor and our parents didnt abuse us.

Sakai said San Antonios poverty does create a huge demand on services.

But we also live in a city with a lot of heart. We have people and businesses with a lot of compassion, which we see in their support of non-profits. And I think thats why you wont see the crisis in our local CPS system that has been seen in places like Dallas or Houston.

Drugs and alcohol are involved in a large number of child abuse cases, Sakai said, adding, If we can just get people to be clean and sober, they have a very good chance of getting their children back. Bexar Countys family drug court, where defendants are drug tested weekly, has shown early success in curtailing further criminal behavior and those lessons could be applied to the child welfare system, he said.

When told that new figures show the San Antonio region for Child Protective Services experienced nearly a 25 percent turnover rate for staff in 2015, Sakai was unsurprised.

If theres anything consistent, said the judge, it is that CPS is underfunded, the caseloads are way too high and theres far too much turnover.

Susan Skaer, a former CPS caseworker, in a recent Express-News opinion column, said she put a note in her employment file that she could not be held accountable for a workload of 50 cases that included legal matters, foster care children, home services following abuse and neglect, and investigations of new complaints. With fewer cases, I could have helped so many more people live more secure lives  I plead with the Legislature to increase funding for CPS.

Abernethy said when caseloads rise, she watches for staff burnout. We call it secondary trauma, she said. And when bad things happen out there, like the deaths of children, we pull in our people and talk to everyone. No one here says, Oh, its just another week.

Yet, as several local child advocates pointed out, a fully-funded, low-caseload CPS doesnt guarantee prevention of the kind of egregious cases that have captured the publics attention.

None of those accused in the recent child beating deaths and chaining of toddlers had prior CPS involvement in this area, to Sakais knowledge. In particular, with Reeds tied-up children and the other kids found unattended April 29 in the house in the Camelot II subdivision, I know the community is horrified by that case, but the CPS system worked and I am very proud of them, he said.

First, we had neighbors call 911 and report the abuse, then we had deputies look over their fence and save those children, and then finally we saw the CPS system put those children in a better place, Sakai said.

Sally Justice, appointed as the ad litem attorney for all eight of the children has said the siblings found chained in the yard were adjusting well with their temporary foster families and were eating like they had not seen food before.

Such improvement is among the rewards of her job, Abernethy agreed.

Within about six months a lot of these abused kids show real progress, she said. We have to remember that the average length of time that abuse goes on without it being reported is about two years, so the sooner we get them, the better they do.

But we do get to see some of them walk out of here. They graduate from high school. They send us photos. They get scholarships. Kids really are very resilient.

bselcraig@express-news.net
As the Obama administration renews a focus on deportations and courts weigh licensing day care in immigration detention centers, activists and organizers like Esmeralda Baltazar have been delivering new messages about the abuses immigrant women seeking asylum suffer on their journeys north.

Baltazar, a native San Antonian whos on staff at the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee, describes sexual violence and trauma among female asylum-seekers that few are addressing. Its a part of the humanitarian crisis that will be long-term and generational.

While they spend too little time in San Antonio shelters to be seen by case workers, these women and their children will need care wherever they land, she said. They tell of being raped by smugglers, some in front of their children, and requests for abortions. They face precarious situations, especially as they reunite with family in the United States.

Baltazar says the most astonishing story came from a woman told by her smuggler to submit to his sexual demands because being pregnant will get her released from detention in 21 days.

It pains Baltazar that the woman didnt know that the 21-day stay can happen anyway if a creditable case for asylum is met, though some are detained longer.

Immigrant activists such as Rebecca Flores, now long retired from the United Farm Workers, has heard such stories and reports high levels of sexually transmitted diseases among women detainees.

We have to figure out a way of handling this, Flores said. I really dont know how to do it. At least its out in the open. We cant leave that hanging out there."

Such stories haunt Baltazar, who worked as an organizer for Fuerza Unida after earning a bachelors degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Lee High School graduate also holds a masters degree in educational leadership from New York University.

But, she said, what are the options these women have while making their way to safety?

Theyre still thinking, Im going to die, and theyre going to kidnap my kids, she said. The trauma is deeper than you can see with a blind eye.

The sense of desperation also tells of a survival instinct in them. In comparison to what theyve left behind, what they endure in getting here is worth it, she said.

A recent story in The Atlantic said the average stay in the Dilley detention center, for example, was 22 days in 2015, though some immigrants have been kept a year. More than half the detainees are children who arent permitted outside the prisonlike facility, and their average age is 9. Three times a day, a head count includes children.

Upon release from detention, the women are given a court date and affixed with an ankle monitor to ensure their appearance wherever they land. Its how they get the shackles removed, Baltazar said.

With a bus ticket in hand, they leave San Antonio with little else.

Theyre all young, she said. Their kids were all little. Only one woman had a 14-year-old son.

Baltazar said she will be able to keep tabs on at least one woman she met in San Antonio. Shes headed to Tennessee, a few hours from Highlander, an institution with deep roots in the Great Depression and the civil rights movement.

She gave the woman a list of organizations that can help her in Nashville.

Im left with a sense of responsibility that comes from my family story on this side of the border, Baltazar said. Another part of her family stayed on the other side.

Im a very hopeful person, she said. Part of the work at Fuerza and Highlander is developing economic models that support community. Highlanders network stretches across the country.

My hope is that she becomes part of the local Latino community there and becomes part of that network, she said. It would be awesome if she became a leader.

Baltazar saw some hope in her.

The first question she asked about Tennessee was about enrolling her children in school.

eayala@express-news.net

Twitter: @ElaineAyala
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SEATTLE  Authorities cleared railroad tracks of protesters and arrested 52 climate activists Sunday morning in Washington state after a two-day shutdown.

About 150 people spent the night in tents and sleeping bags on the tracks near two refineries in northwest Washington, according to Burlington Northern Santa Fa spokesman Gus Melonas.

They were asked to leave about 5 a.m., and most gathered their belongings and left the area near Anacortes, Melonas said.

The 52 people arrested were cited for trespassing, the Skagit County Department of Emergency Management reported. One person also was cited for resisting arrest.

Emily Johnston, a spokeswoman for the protesters, said demonstrations continued around Anacortes on Sunday but that she didnt expect people to return to the tracks.

Johnston, who had participated in a blockade of the Seattle harbor to protest Shell Oils plans to drill for oil in the Arctic, said the success of protests such as the one in Anacortes can mostly be seen in the way they inspire people to speak out about climate change.

People power matters, Johnston said.

She also spoke about the contrast between arresting people for protesting about saving the planet and what she called a lack of government action against the fossil fuel industry.

We really need to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable, Johnston said.

The rail line has been closed since Friday because of the protests, and trains began running again Sunday afternoon after a cleanup and safety sweep of the tracks.

Protesters in kayaks and canoes and on bikes and foot also demonstrated near Anacortes, about 70 miles north of Seattle, to demand action on climate and an equitable transition away from fossil fuels such as oil and coal.

Hundreds marched to the refineries Saturday, and a smaller group blocked the railroad, all demanding energy policy changes. BNSF knew about the protest in advance and rerouted rail traffic to avoid the area.

The railroad spur provides rail transportation for the nearby Shell and San Antonio-based Tesoro oil refineries, as well as animal feed and other products.

The protests are part of a series of global actions calling on people to break free from dependence on fossil fuels. Similar demonstrations were held around the country during the weekend.

Bud Ullman, 67, who lives on Guemes Island, near Anacortes, participated in Saturdays march, which he described as good-spirited and peaceful.

The scientists are right. We have to get away from our dependence on fossil fuels, and it has to be done in a way that takes into serious consideration the impact on workers, families and communities, he said.

Many of the nearly 40 groups involved in organizing the event also participated in large on-water kayak protests against Shells Arctic oil drilling rig when it was parked last year at a Seattle port.
LOUISVILLE, Ky.  Hillary Clinton is making a big final push in this state, where rival Bernie Sanders hopes to extend his winning streak and further delay her clinching the Democratic presidential nomination.

Big-name surrogates have been sent, television ads are playing and Clinton is touring the state in advance of Tuesdays primary voting. On Sunday, the former secretary of state dropped in at churches in this city and held rallies here and in Fort Mitchell. Sanders on Sunday made a swing through Kentucky as well.

We need a president who will work every single day to make life better for American families, Clinton said at a union training center in Louisville. We want somebody who can protect us and work with the rest of the world. Not talk about building walls, but building bridges.

While Clinton leads Sanders by nearly 300 pledged delegates going into Tuesdays primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, the senator from Vermont continues to win contests and has pledged to stay in the race until the partys July convention. With Donald Trump set as the presumptive Republican nominee, Clintons team would like to turn its attention to the general election contest but still cant fully make that shift.

A win in at least one of the two upcoming contests would give Clinton momentum heading into the primaries in California and New Jersey in early June. Oregon is favorable terrain for Sanders, but Clintons campaign thinks the race is competitive in Kentucky, where she planned to spend Sunday and today courting voters.

It will be close, but either way, as with all the contests this month, we will gain additional delegates and move that much closer to clinching the nomination, Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said in an email.

Clinton easily won the Kentucky primary over President Barack Obama in 2008. But this time she has come under criticism in parts of the state after saying in March that were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business. Clinton later said she misspoke, but the comment has drawn fire in mining communities.

On Sunday in Louisville and in Fort Mitchell, Clinton touted her plan for coal country. Her proposals include protecting miners health care coverage and retirement programs, investing in infrastructure in mining communities and repurposing mines. Before a cheering crowd in a Fort Mitchell backyard, Clinton pledged to put her husband, Bill Clinton, who won the state in 1992 and 1996, in charge of revitalizing the economy. She provided no further details, but during Bill Clintons administration, economic growth averaged 4 percent per year, median family income rose and the budget deficit was turned into a surplus.

Clinton said that when people feel left behind, they become very interested in easy answers and the kind of demagoguery weve seen in this election.

Clinton only briefly mentioned Sanders at both events, repeating a critique that he did not vote to fund the auto industry bailout. Sanders has accused Clinton of mischaracterizing his record on the issue.

Clinton focused most of her fire on Trump, calling him a loose cannon. She said his record will be a big part of the general election, because Americans, regardless of our political affiliation, have to really take this vote seriously.

High-profile advocates campaigning for Clinton in Kentucky include Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, James Clyburn of South Carolina, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, and Hakeem Jeffries and Joe Crowley of New York.

Clinton is spending about $325,000 on Kentucky ads. Sanders, after seeing her reserve airtime, followed with $126,000 in ads, according to advertising tracker Kantar Medias CMAG.

Going into Tuesday, Clinton has 1,716 pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses, compared with 1,433 for Sanders.
(Updated at 2 p.m., with new info. from DRC).

SALEM, Ohio  The sale of dairy cattle from Ohios prison farms is scheduled to begin this week in Holmes County, following the April 12 decision by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to close and sell the farms.

According to a schedule provided by the DRC, the first sale is planned for 5 p.m. this evening, May 16, at the Mount Hope Auction barn, where 42 head of dairy cows from the Marion Correctional Institution are scheduled to sell.

Buying milk

As of May 10, the state also began seeking bids to provide about 1.3 million gallons of milk through November, packaged mostly in half-pint containers, and delivered to nearly 30 of the state prison institutions.

About 1,000 head of dairy cattle are involved in the herd liquidation, which, according to Ohio procurement documents, the department plans to have gone by June 9.

The cattle had previously supplied milk for the states milk processing facility in Pickaway County, and was then packaged and distributed across the prison farm system for consumption by inmates.

The department said its cows had produced about 1.5 million gallons of milk over the past two years.

More efficient

The DRC maintains that even with the cost of buying milk, it can buy it for less than the total cost of production, when all factors are considered.

The state prison farm system also owns 2,300 head of beef cattle and 12,500 acres of farmland. Decisions are still being made as to how much of those assets will be sold.

To sell land, the department will first need the approval of the Ohio legislature.

Pending lawsuit

The union that represents prison farm staff sued the state May 5, for a restraining order and injunction on selling prison farm cattle and land. The Franklin County Common Pleas Court ruled against granting a restraining order, but the case for an injunction will be heard May 27.

Reason for sale

The department said the decision was made to better align Ohios prison system to its core mission, by making sure that inmates received meaningful rehabilitation, and that prison properties are kept safe and secure. The department said the farms had become a security issue, with inmates using them to bring contraband into prison property.

Reactions

The sale has the support of some key Ohio lawmakers, who say the state can operate more efficiently by relying on the private sector to produce milk and food.

Ohio Sen. President Keith Faber, R-Celina, said he prefers that local farmers be given the option to lease the land.

I understand the administrations desire to become more efficient and effective, Faber said. It does appear that this is a prime example of where government has not been as efficient as the private sector.

Faber said some of the land may be better situated for other uses, but any future use of the land will need legislative approval, and as a capital item should never be used to fund ongoing prison operations.

Ohio Sen. Bob Peterson, R-Sabina, a farmer, said he understands the value of hard work and teaching that to prisoners, but he believes the inmates will be more secure and safe without the farms, and that the private sector can farm more efficiently.

I have a strong belief the (prison farm) land should be held privately, not publicly, he said. The efficiency is just much better in the private sector.

Peterson said he had not looked at the numbers, but was confident the cost to purchase the food needed would be less than the total cost of producing it.

Selling land

Peterson said the legislature should be involved with the sale of land, and that it should be well-publicized in advance. He said one thing the DRC plans to continue is vegetable production.

That could bring some relief to Ohios network of foodbanks, which were surprised to learn of the sale, because the foodbanks relied on a 10-year-old agreement with the prison farms to produce food for Ohios hungry.

Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, said she has received a memorandum of understanding that the program will continue this year. Historically, the inmates have grown the produce for the foodbanks with funds from the sale of grain commodities grown on the prison farms, like corn, soybeans and wheat.

She said the partnership has been a win-win for inmates and for Ohios hungry, and she hopes something can be figured out for the future.

We just hope the parties come together and can figure all of this out, she said.

Hungry Ohioans are hoping for the best possible resolution to all of this and the state of Ohio has a lot invested in these prison farms, she said.

Updated schedule of upcoming dairy sales:

5/16 Dairy Auction at Mt. Hope Auction in Millersburg.

5/23 Dairy Auction at Mt. Hope Auction in Millersburg.

6/8 Dairy Auction at Lebanon Correctional Institution.

6/9 Dairy Auction at London Correctional Institution.
The Tenant Farmers Association is continuing to push ahead with its FBT10+ campaign for longer term Farm Business Tenancies.

The Tenant Farmers Association launched the campaign under the banner "FBT10+: Too short for too long", aimed at more than doubling the average length of term offered by landlords on Farm Business Tenancies.

The campaign was launched in January 2015 to coincide with the 20th anniversary year of the coming into force of the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995 which ushered in Farm Business Tenancies.

TFA Chief Executive George Dunn said: "We were really pleased with the traction gained through the campaign year.

"We certainly raised the level of debate and most people now accept the need for longer term tenancies although there is still some disagreement about how that should be achieved.

"However, no one has yet come forward with a better model than the changes the TFA has proposed to the taxation framework within which landlords make decisions about letting land."

"We were delighted that our campaign was the focus of a House of Commons debate in Westminster Hall last week led by the Conservative MP for Wealden, Nusrat Ghani.

"In all bar one of the speeches and interventions in the debate, including from DEFRA Minister George Eustice responding to the debate, there was support for the objectives of the TFAs campaign.

"Not surprisingly, taxation was a major focus in the debate and it was disappointing that there was no Treasury representation on the Government benches who could have responded to the issues raised.

"The cross party and cross country support that we are receiving for our campaign indicates that the TFA is on the right tracks and we will continue to press ahead with our campaign," said Mr Dunn."
Prince Charles has revealed to a gathering of scientists and government officials in London that he treats his own cows and sheep with homeopathy to help reduce reliance on antibiotics.

Speaking at a summit, he said: "It was one of the reasons I converted my farming operation to an organic, or agro-ecological, system over 30 years ago, and why incidentally we have been successfully using homeopathic - yes, homeopathic - treatments for my cattle and sheep as part of a programme to reduce the use of antibiotics."

One of the delegates in attendance was the government's own chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies, who once said homeopathy in humans was 'rubbish'.

Homeopathy is a 'treatment' based on the use of highly diluted substances, which practitioners claim can cause the body to heal itself.

'Incredibly frustrating' to see antibiotics in farming

Charles said it must be 'incredibly frustrating' to witness the fact that antibiotics have too often acted as a substitute for basic hygiene.

"I find it difficult to understand how we can continue to allow most of the antibiotics in farming, many of which are also used in human medicine, to be administered to healthy animals."

In November last year, 20 senior representatives from health and medical organisations co-signed a letter calling on the the government and European Commission to put an end to routine, purely preventative antibiotic use in groups of healthy animals - referred to as inconsistent with all responsible-use guidance.

Farm animals account for almost two thirds of all antibiotics used in 26 European countries.

Selective antibiotic administration

Babulal Sethia, President of the Royal Society of Medicine said: "While GPs strive to curb prescribing practices, the farming sector also needs to move towards more selective antibiotic administration.

"The preventative treatment of groups of healthy animals when no disease has been diagnosed is not responsible use."

Medical experts have now set out their wish for the current revision of the EU Veterinary Medicinal Products legislation to introduce a ban on the purely preventative treatment of groups of animals where no disease has been diagnosed in any of the animals being treated.

According to Defra, there are 500 farmers trained in homeopathy and 38 homeopathic vets.

A spokesperson for Defra said the remedies must be registered in accordance with the Veterinary Medicines Regulations to ensure they are safe and labelled appropriately before they can be sold in the UK.

But Charles funds Homeopathy at Wellie Level (HAWL), a group that trains farmers to use homeopathy on animals that feel stress from separation, transportation, weaning, and similar situations.
Sheep farming and the British lamb industry would be under threat if the UK left the European Union, Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss warned today.

Forty per cent of all the lamb and mutton produced in the UK went to the EU in 2014, bringing 290m to the industry, including Cumbrian farmers of the iconic Swaledale and Herdwick breeds.

Ahead of a visit to meet Cumbrian hill farmers, Elizabeth Truss highlighted that outside the EU tariffs could add an additional 155m to the cost of lamb and mutton exports, making British lamb a less attractive prospect for Europeans compared to New Zealand and Australian competitors.

British lamb still does not have access to the US and China markets, so the EU is a particularly important export destination.

Without this market - which accounts for 97% of all lamb and mutton exports - prices of British lamb could crash and put the sustainability of the industry and the livelihoods of 10,000 sheep farmers in jeopardy.

Lamb exporters could also face a red tape double whammy of different rules for animal health, food safety and labelling to sell abroad and at home  two sets of regulations, rather than one - which would add additional costs and affect their profits.

These impacts would be particularly felt by hill farmers such as those in Cumbria - as 40% of the UKs sheep breeding flocks are based in the uplands.

'Sheep farmers vital part of British countryside'

Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss said: "Sheep farmers in Cumbria and across the uplands are a vital part of the British countryside, but without the benefits the industry enjoys from our membership of the EU the very future of this iconic industry could be under threat.

"The single market is essential for British lamb - forty per cent of all the lamb reared in the UK goes to Europe.

"Outside the European Union, farmers could face quotas and tariffs as well as a red tape double whammy of having to follow both UK and EU rules.

"Less trade could result in significant price falls, damaging the incomes of the 10,000 sheep farmers who depend on it.

"This makes a vote to leave the EU a huge leap into the dark for our food and farming industry and threatens the livelihoods of thousands of British farmers.

Through the UK's EU membership, exporters of lamb and mutton have easy and tariff-free access to the single market of 500 million people.

There is also a level playing field between the UK and the EU on common standards on welfare, safety and labelling, which the UK has a say in.

Forty per cent of all UK lamb and mutton was destined for European tables in 2014 - over 50% of those exports went to France, with the remainder reaching Germany, Belgium, and the Irish Republic.

'Sleep walking into the unknown'

John Geldard, the owner of the farm where the Environment Secretary visited, and a former Chair of the National Sheep Association, said: "An exit would mean sleep walking in to the unknown, a totally unacceptable scenario.

"Many sheep farming and rural businesses are working on very thin margins with little spare capacity.

"To exit the EU with an accompanying four to five years of complete uncertainty would be reckless. To remain in the EU would ensure security and strengthen our current positioning.
Green MEPs have received test results confirming the presence of weedkiller glyphosate in their urine.

Glyphosate is the worlds most widely used herbicide. Scientific opinion on it is divided, however, the World Health Organisation confirmed last year that the substance is "probably carcinogenic" to humans.

Keith Taylor, MEP for the South East, Molly Scott Cato, MEP for the South West, and Jean Lambert, MEP for London, were among a group of 48 MEPs that took part in a urine test ahead of the European Parliament vote last month to oppose the EU Commissions proposal to relicense the controversial toxic substance until 2031.

The inspiration behind what was labelled the #MEPee test was the results of a recent study in Germany which found that 99.6% of people tested were found to have glyphosate residue in their urine.

The results reveal that every MEP tested has been found to have glyphosate traces in their urine, with the average concentration being 1.73ng/ml.

That level is more than 17 times the safe limit for drinking water. The lowest level found among the group was 0.17ng/ml, almost double the safe level.

Keith, Molly, and Jean have written to Liz Truss urging the UK government to respect the decision of the European Parliament when it is asked to vote on re-approval next week.

Keith Taylor, a member of the European Parliaments Environment and Health Committee whose personal test results show a glyphosate contamination level of 0.4 ng/ml, said:

"The urine test might seem like an attention-grabbing stunt, but it has proven our worst fears about glyphosate.

"I, and every one of my colleagues, have been found to be contaminated by the controversial substance, at levels far higher than those deemed safe for drinking water.

"This is rather worrying considering the World Health Organisation has concluded, following a comprehensive review of the published scientific data, this toxic substance is 'probably carcinogenic'.

"That's why I am calling on the European Commission to consider not only the widespread opposition to reapproving the weedkiller but also just how prevalent it is in our environment."

'Fundamental' that the agricultural sector is able to use glyphosate

However, the European Parliament voted in favour of re-authorising the use of glyphosate last month, but limited this approval to seven years.

Glyphosates current European license was set to expire in June, but following last month's vote, it has been granted authorisation until 2023.

Nearly 700 MEPs voted on the licensing of glyphosate and the vote was passed by 374 votes in favor to 225 votes against.

The NFU said it was pleased with the result, following intense discussions on the importance of the herbicide between the NFU President and MEPs in Strasbourg and letters sent to MEPs from the farming community.

NFU President Meurig Raymond said: "Its fundamental that the agricultural sector is able to use glyphosate responsibly in order to produce healthy products across the sector entering the food chain, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and continue to farm sustainably.

"We prioritised meeting with MEPs ahead of the vote in Strasbourg this week to make absolutely sure that they are aware of the importance of glyphosate for farming and adding balance to any skewed views on the issue.

What is glyphosate?

Glyphosate is an active substance widely used in herbicides.

Patented in the early 1970s, it was introduced to the consumer market in 1974 as a broad-spectrum herbicide and quickly became a best seller.

Since its patent expired in 2000, glyphosate has been marketed by various companies and several hundred plant protection products containing glyphosate are currently registered in Europe for use on crops.
The House of Lords EU Committee has today published a report investigating what needs to be done to boost the resilience of the farming sector in the face of challenges such as volatile prices.

It calls on the European Commission to reform the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to primarily support the provision of public goods, such as increased food security, high animal welfare standards and stewardship of the land.

The Committee says that the delivery of such public goods should be the main objective of support from the CAP budget granted to farmers.

It argues that although the current income support payments to farmers under the CAP will continue to play a role in helping farmers to withstand periods of low prices, they can also discourage innovation and prevent the entry of new farmers into the sector.

The report concludes that adverse effects at farm level are caused more by unanticipated periods of sustained low agricultural commodity prices than by an increase in levels of price volatility as such.

The Committee argues that price volatility is a normal market risk to be managed by farmers, and that it is no greater now than in the past.

The Committee argues that occasional public support is needed to protect farmers from unpredictable market disruption, such as the recent Russian ban on EU imports, or extreme weather events.

In the long term, however, policy should focus on building farmers resilience and capacity to manage risks.

The Committee found that subsidised insurance schemes should not replace the current system of Direct Payments to support farmers incomes.

It concludes that despite the fundamentally different contexts in which agriculture is practiced in other countries, the EU can learn lessons from the US and Canada on where and how subsidised insurance and disaster compensation may be applied.

'Time for the Common Agricultural Policy to be reformed'

Commenting Baroness Scott of Needham Market, Chairman of the Committee, said: "Farmers across the EU do a vital job in ensuring the safe supply of food, managing the land and contributing to the wider rural economy.

"They do so in the face of risks including price volatility and unpredictable political decisions.

"Evidence we received suggested it is time for the Common Agricultural Policy to be reformed to more fully recognise the holistic service farmers provide for society by directing funding towards the provision of public goods, including environmental management, food security and stewardship of the land.

"We believe that income support for farmers in the UK and in the wider EU should continue as the conditions for agriculture are more challenging than in many other major producing countries. Nevertheless, public money should not be used to simply prop up inefficient farmers.

"Direct Payments still have a role to play and we do not propose a move to a US style insurance based approach.

However, there is a real risk with the pronounced focus on blanket income support, as opposed to more targeted subsidies, that innovation is stifled and new farmers are discouraged from entering the industry.

"Last year we saw catastrophic flooding in parts of the UK which caused real hardship for farmers in the affected areas.

"One-off support packages can help farmers through such episodes beyond their control, but a long-term policy should focus on building the sectors resilience to withstand a wide range of risks including low prices.

"Our inquiry found that better business skills are key to competitive farm businesses."

Government must 'respond positively' to House of Lords report

The Tenant Farmers Association has welcomed the report, stating it has identified a number of 'unique issues faced by the tenanted sector of agriculture'.

TFA Chief Executive George Dunn said: "These issues being the costs of negotiating rent reviews, short lengths of tenancy term and issues with landlords being unwilling to grant consents for farm diversification.

"All of these issues enhance the vulnerability of tenant farmers to price volatility in comparison to their owner occupier colleagues.

"Agriculture is a capital intensive business which needs investment and short lengths of term are hampering the sustainable development of many farm businesses based on tenancies.

"Through the TFAs FBT10+ campaign the TFA has been arguing for changes in the taxation environment within which landlords make decisions to encourage longer term tenancies building in a greater degree of resilience to tenanted businesses within agriculture and their ability to invest.

"We would therefore urge the Government to respond positively to the House of Lords recommendation.

"Although the TFA has had useful discussions with the Treasury we have yet to see any willingness on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to bring forward suggestions or proposals for how long term security within the tenant farming sector could be encouraged through the use of fiscal levers.

"This report from their Lordships underlines the importance of addressing this issue without further delay.

"We know the Government understands the need for business investment and growth but if tenant farmers are not provided with a good level of security they will not be able to contribute to the wider economic growth goals of the Government," said Mr Dunn.
The miscanthus market is growing at a rapid rate and one Lincolnshire producer has planted 1000 hectares of the crop to service a handful of lucrative markets.

The Wilson family, now dedicated miscanthus growers, are inviting anyone interested in planting the crop to take a look at their set up and hear about their hugely successful business model, at a Terravesta and NFU hosted event, taking place on June 30.

"It took us around five years to plant up 1000 hectares of miscanthus, between 2003 and 2008. This was quite a big step then, because it was a relatively new crop," says Gary Harrison, farm manager at the Wilson family farm.

"Now the market has developed, there are a number of destinations for the crop. We sell the harvested cane to fuel local power stations, supply chicken farmers and equine businesses with the crop for bedding.

"We also grow it uniquely to split out the rhizome to sell to other growers to plant, we also offer a precision planting service with precision planters that weve purpose built for miscanths.

"The latest venture is fitting biomass boilers for farmers to help them to plant miscanthus to generate their own sustainable home grown heat."

Miscanthus 'much more lucrative'

The miscanthus is split between two farms, one in Bonby and one in Market Drayton. "We completely converted from arable crops to miscanthus on both sites, due to miscanthus being much more lucrative.

"Its thriving on a mixture of sandy loam through to heavy clay soils and like any crop it does better on higher quality soils but it also yields well on the poorer quality land. On the heavy clay soils it copes well with drought.

Gary says that they harvest between 10  18 tonnes per hectare and last year Terravesta came on board taking 1,500 tonnes of harvested crop destined for power stations as biomass.

"This year were supplying them with 5,500 tonnes  the company is expert in miscanthus supply chain management, with the ability to negotiate the best price for growers."

"Theres a sustainable future in miscanthus  it does very well on marginal land, on difficult to establish, heavier soils and areas that are hard to travel on.

"As the crop matures the rhizome actually increases the grounds stability, making it easier to travel over, come harvest time.

"Yields generally increase until about year five then they stabilise. This years harvest has been very late because of extensive rain fall. Despite this, at Bonby, the crop has yielded 25% higher than in 2015, with a total of 2000 tonnes," he adds.

'Growing miscanthus gives producers more flexibility'

Jonathan Scurlock, chief renewable energy adviser at the NFU, is positive that farmers interested in planting miscanthus should not miss the opportunity to find out more about it.

"Because it thrives on lower grade, marginal land, with little or no inputs required, miscanthus offers a viable option to farmers looking to diversify.

"This farm walk will showcase a number of fields of different ages, so farmers can understand the technical aspects of the crop.

"Growing miscanthus gives producers more flexibility, in their use of land, complementing food crops in light of the highly volatile prices and currently low net margins from most other agricultural commodity enterprises," says Jonathan.

The farm walk is free to attend and takes place on June 30th at Hall Farm, Bonby, Lincolnshire DN20 0NR.

And guest-speaking on the day is Rob Wood, director of biomass at eco2 renewable energy plant, based in Brigg, who will be presenting on why miscanthus is fundamental to the future of the business.

The day starts with coffee at 10.30 am and will kick off with a presentation covering an overview of the miscanthus market in the UK from Terravesta and a talk from Rob Wood.

There will be an opportunity to walk a number of fields of mature crop and speak to existing growers and the day will conclude with a Q and A session over a light lunch at 14:00.
Massey Ferguson will have two exclusives at this years Royal Highland Show  including the first UK outing for its MF 5700 SL Series tractor.

The MF 5700 SL is a whole new genre of tractor in the 100hp-130hp sector, combining the compact dimensions required by livestock and mixed farmers with the performance and power needed for arable work

The tractor has also been entered in to the Royal Highland Shows Technical Innovation Award for its AGCO Power 4.4 litre, four cylinder engine with All in One Selective Catalytic Reduction technology that helps it meet the latest Stage IV/Tier 4 Final emissions regulations.

Also on show for the first time in the UK will be the new MF 5700 Global Series tractor  a range that further increases Massey Fergusons strength in the below 130hp sector.

MF 5700 SL

With a 2.55m wheelbase and weighing just 4.8t, the MF 5700 SL tractors build on the success of the MF 5600 Series and combine a great power to weight ratio.

Awarded Tractor of the Year 2016 in the Best Utility Sector at Germanys Agritechnica Show, the tractors are available in three versions  Essential, Efficient and Panoramic.

With four models ranging in max horsepower from 100hp-130hp, they are ideally suited to a wide range of field and transport duties.

The range benefits from the most advanced AGCO Power 4.4 litre, four cylinder engine featuring unique All in One, maintenance free, Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) with Diesel Oxidisation Catalyser (DOC)  helping to meet strict Stage IV/Tier 4 Final emissions regulations.

The compact system also tucks neatly away under the right-hand side of the cab, improving visibility.

The tractors include a choice of renowned Dyna-4 or Dyna-6 transmissions, with brake to neutral function to help make light work of loader applications.

Meanwhile, a Massey Ferguson designed and built front axle suspension option is also available.

The MF 5700 SL Series comes with a unique choice of three hydraulic systems that offer high flow rates and comprehensive control to suit every application.

All models are equipped with an efficient two pump system that delivers 58 litres/min for the spool valves and linkage, with a separate pump for all internal services.

But for those requiring extra flow to boost loader performance there is also a 100 litre/min combined flow option.

A 110 litre/min closed centre load sensing (CCLS) system is another option  delivering flow and pressure on demand for optimum output, control and economy.

The MF 5700 SL Series benefits from the same cab comfort as larger models, while offering visibility across the steep nosed bonnet and providing straightforward control.

A new Speedsteer option makes it possible to vary the number of steering wheel revolutions needed to turn the wheels from lock-to-lock  helping loading operations and ensuring headland turns can be made quicker and with less effort.

An Auto-Guide 3000 automatic steering option is available as well as the AgCommand telemetry system.

The recently introduced Go Mode on Auto-Guide 3000 also enables users to choose between four steering paths.

All MF 5700 SL Series tractors can be loader ready straight from the factory, with a huge range of features to enhance ease of fitting, use and control.

MF 5700 Global Series

The 100hp MF 5710 and 110hp MF 5711 are the latest models to join the innovative MF Global Series range.

Powered by the latest four cylinder engine technology, the new models have a 2.43m wheelbase and are the only tractors purpose built in the 21st Century for their lower power bracket.

The modern, straightforward design makes the machines ideally suited to a range of operations on livestock, dairy and mixed farms.

Their modern features and ease of operation also mean they are the perfect loader tractor.

Both new tractors are powered by the state of the art AGCO Power 4.4 litre, four cylinder engine, featuring unique All in One, maintenance free, Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) with Diesel Oxidisation Catalyser (DOC)  helping meet strict Stage IV/Tier 4 Final emissions regulations.

The compact system also tucks neatly away under the right-hand side of the cab, improving visibility.

Specialist engineers have designed a super smooth shifting gearbox purpose built for the MF 5700 range  providing six synchromesh gears in two ranges with 12 forward and reverse speeds.

Gears are changed easily with the help of hydraulic clutch activation, while the gearbox provides seven gears in the main 4-12km/hr field working range and offers a top speed of 40km/hr.

A class leading air conditioned cab  designed and built in Massey Fergusons Beauvais facility specifically for the new MF 5700 range - provides superb visibility, comfort and control.

AgCommand  the advanced telemetry monitoring system  can be retro-fitted as an option.

An advanced open-centre hydraulic system with tandem pump and combined option flow can supply 58 litres/min for the rear linkage and auxiliary spool valves and 27 litres/min for auxiliary circuits including the steering, four wheel drive and diff lock engagement as well as PTO control.

For those requiring extra flow  to boost loader performance  the MF 5700 series can be specified with 100 litre/min combined flow system.

The new MF 5700 series tractors benefit from the same robust rear axle design used in the wellproven MF 5600 Series.

Meanwhile the rugged three-point linkages maximum lift capacity of 4,300kg ensures modern implements can be handled with ease, operated via Massey Fergusons tried and tested electronic linkage control (ELC).

The MF 5700 Series is equipped with a two-speed 540/540E rpm as standard, but also comes with the option of a 540/1000 rpm speed PTO, or a 540/540Eco/1000 rpm.

Both the MF 5710 and MF 5711 are fully compatible with the Massey Ferguson 900 and Massey Ferguson 900X loader ranges, available with parallel and non-parallel lifting.
A new 3.5m fund to help repair and improve Cumbrias public rights of way damaged by Storm Desmond in December was launched today by Floods Minister Rory Stewart.

The Cumbria Countryside Access Fund will help to attract tourists back to Cumbria by making it easier to explore the Lake District and Cumbrias countryside on foot as well as directly benefiting residents.

Individual grants from a minimum of 100,000 are available for landowners or public bodies and will cover reinstating and improving rights of way for rural towns and villages, visitor attractions, long distance trails and those passing through environmentally sensitive areas such as Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

The maximum grant that can be offered is 1 million in each of the North, East and South Lake District areas and 500,000 in rural areas of Cumbria outside of the Lake District National Park.

The fund launch comes after Floods Minister Rory Stewart reopened the storm-damaged A591 last week  ensuring the Lake District is open for business this summer.

'Most beautiful scenery in England'

Floods Minister Rory Stewart said: "This money will help re-open many walks and areas that suffered in the dreadful December floods, providing a great boost for local communities and getting the message out loud and clear that Cumbria is very much open for business.

"The countys landscapes are some of the most precious and beautiful in the country and I would recommend to anyone that they come and see what they have to offer."

Chief Executive of the Rural Payments Agency Mark Grimshaw said: "The Cumbrian countryside, including the Lake District National Park, includes some of the most beautiful scenery that England has to offer and is a major feature of the local tourist economy.

"Creating this new Cumbria Countryside Access Fund will help restore rights of way popular with locals and visitors, as well as protect them from any future instances of flooding."

The Cumbria Countryside Access Fund will provide

 3m for reinstating and improving pathways in the Lake District National Park,

 500,000 for pathways in rural areas of Cumbria outside of the National Park.

This is part of the EU funded Rural Development Programme for England and the fund will be open for applications from Monday 16th May and will close at 5pm on 13th June.
Milking, yogurt tasting and butter making were just a few of the activities on offer at this years Nottinghamshire County Show.

The National Farmers Union hosted a range of dairy based activities to help raise awareness about the dairy farming industry.

The British dairy industry is going through a rough period at the moment with milk prices falling and debt for farmers across the county rising.

With this in mind the NFU decided to dedicate their stalls at this years show to all things dairy.

Visitors were able to make butter from scratch, try their hand at milking a cow and see two Montbeliarde cows close up.

Andy Guy, the NFUs county advisor in Nottinghamshire, said: "By raising awareness of what is involved in dairy farming and producing a single pint of milk or a pack of butter, hopefully the consumers will be more understanding and make sure they buy British."

He said that people now are less aware of where their food comes from.

Through teaching people about the process all the way back to the field, he hoped that people would become more engaged and interested in the origins of their food.

The annual show was held at Newark Showground and attracted thousands of visitors over the weekend.

FarmingUK TV was there to capture it.
A system developed originally to explore Mars has been transformed into an agricultural monitoring device for testing the quality of soil.

It has the potential to reduce the environmental impact of farming.

The device consists of a mobile rover platform with a robotic arm which carries a soil sensing instrument.

It is based on technology developed by STFCs RAL Space and will be used in a new project being run by a team at the University of Strathclyde.

The Strathclyde researchers, working with partners in the UK and China, will demonstrate in trials, the feasibility of the devices agricultural operation by using an integrated, force feedback-controlled robotic system on the ground during the project.

STFCs RAL Space team has not only designed and built the robot platform for technology demonstration but it will also design and build the Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument for soil quality characterisation.

In addition the team will provide equipment and logistics support for the field trial in China that will demonstrate the technology.

It is also working on aspects of the robot arm and navigation.

Versatile space technology

Aron Kisdi, a space systems engineer for RAL Space, said: "With this novel instrument design we are tackling multiple challenges at once.

"First we have to miniaturise an instrument that is normally the size of a large wardrobe to fit on a small mobile robot so the measurements can be completed on-the-go.

"Second we are looking for nitrogen based fertiliser that can take multiple forms and is hard to measure accurately."

"At STFC RAL Space we have taken our existing expertise in developing and building space technology for NASA, ESA and other major science organisations and we will be applying it to this Earth bound project.

"It is a brilliant example of just how versatile our space technology can be and demonstrates once again that the UK is a world leader in these pioneering technologies."

Professor Xiu Yan, of Strathclydes Space Mechatronic Systems Technology Laboratory (SMeSTech), in the Department of Design, Manufacture and Engineering Management, is the Principal Investigator in the research.

"This project is a combination of frontier research programmes in space robotic technologies.

"It focuses on a unique soil sensing technology, developed and built with UK capability; its also based on space instrumentation and the deployment of a UK-developed, intuitive master robotic control system.

"By harnessing space technology for a new application in farming, and engaging in this research collaboration with China, this project will deliver many benefits around the world."

The project for the device, known as the AgriRover, is funded through the UK Space Agencys International Partnerships Space Programme (IPSP).
Three universities across Europe have announced they have initiated first steps for a partnership to discover new and effective treatments for parasitic diseases which affect companion animals and livestock.

The universities consist of The Drug Discovery Unit of the University of Dundee, Scotland, the Institute of Parasitology and Tropical Veterinary Medicine (IPTVM) of the Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany, and Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health, Germany.

Parasites are a major cause of disease in animals, often impacting animal welfare and leading to significant economic loss for farmers.

The intention of the three parties is to intensify their partnership in the near future.

'Desperate need' to find new drugs to combat diseases

"The situation with these diseases is not dissimilar to what we see in neglected human diseases.

"Existing treatments are often ineffective and increasingly subject to parasitic resistance," said Professor Paul Wyatt, Director of the Drug Discovery Unit at the University of Dundee.

"So we desperately need to find new drugs that can treat these diseases.

"At the Drug Discovery Unit we have an established reputation in the delivery of potential new drug treatments for devastating parasitic diseases in humans, including malaria.

"That expertise is being utilised through this project to find new treatments for animal diseases."

"Furthermore, the increasing problem of antiparasiticide resistance, which represents a major threat for animal health and productivity, is a key research area at our institute in Berlin.

"The finding of novel, resistance-breaking compounds is of ultimate importance for the successful future control of parasitic diseases.

"There is a continuous need for innovative antiparasitic solutions for animals.

"Therefore, Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health is excited to partner with two world leading institutions towards the discovery of new antiparasitics for the benefit of our customers," said Professor Paul M. Selzer, Head of Antiparasitcs Research & Development at Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health.
House of Prayer Christian Church has GI Bill eligibility revoked

House of Prayer Christian Church on Hodge Street in Fayetteville remains open despite having its GI Bill eligibility revoked.
An Amsterdam-based oil services company said in a U.S. securities filing last week the DOJ has asked it questions in connection with the Unaoil investigation.

Core Laboratories was one of about a dozen companies named in a report in late March by the Huffington Post and Fairfax Media.

The report alleged that Monaco-based Unaoil paid bribes on behalf of large companies in the oil and gas sector.

Core Labs said it is cooperating with the DOJ.

The disclosure came in a registration statement filed with the SEC.

In addition to Core Labs, HuffPo named FMC Technologies, Rolls-Royce, and Weatherford as beneficiaries of Unaoils network in the Middle East.

Also named were Saipem, MAN Turbo, SBM Offshore, ABB, Cameron/Natco, Leighton Offshore, and Petrofac, among others.

UK-based Petrofac said in April it launched an investigation into allegations of bribery to win contracts Kazakhstan and the Middle East.

KBR and FMC Technologies said in early May the Justice Department had contacted them with questions about Unaoil. Both said they were cooperating.

Police in Monaco raided Unaoils offices after the Huffington Post/Fairfax Media report appeared.

Unaoil has denied the bribery allegations.

HuffPo and Fairfax Media said their report was based on leaked Unaoil emails and memos.

Core Labs has more than 70 offices in about 50 oil-producing countries. It uses technology to help oil producers increase total recovery from existing fields.

* * *

Core Laboratories N.V. Form S-3 filed with the SEC on May 11, 2016 said:

[I]t has been reported that the United States Department of Justice (the DOJ) is conducting an investigation of Unaoil, a Monaco based company, related to activities Unaoil may have engaged in related to international projects involving several global companies, including Core Lab. The DOJ has contacted us in connection with that investigation, and we are cooperating with its requests for information.

____

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. Hell be the keynote speaker at the FCPA Blog NYC Conference 2016.
A Delaware judge Friday dismissed a shareholder lawsuit against the directors of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that alleged the directors failed to conduct a proper investigation into allegations of bribery in Mexico.

Chancery Court Judge Andre Bouchard said the shareholders had already lost a federal lawsuit in Arkansas on the same claims.

In 2012, the New York Times alleged that in Mexico Walmart paid $24 million in bribes to public officials. The bribes allegedly help Walmart win approvals to open more stores.

After the New York Times story appeared, Walmart stockholders filed fifteen law suits asserting derivative claims on behalf of company. The suits were consolidated into two actions, one in federal court in Arkansas and the other in the Chancery Court in Delaware.

Two lead plaintiffs in the Delaware action were the California State Teachers Retirement System and the New York City Employees Retirement System.

They claimed board members stopped an investigation of bribery in Mexico and covered up the allegations until the New York Times published its story.

In a 58-page decision Friday, Chancery Court Judge Bouchard said the Arkansas complaint and the Delaware complaint alleged the same facts. Because the case was fully litigated in federal court in Arkansas and dismissed there, Judge Bouchard said he was bound to dismiss the Delaware complaint.

The Delaware plaintiffs had said the case in Arkansas wasnt fully litigated because the plaintiffs there didnt have access to some of Walmarts internal documents. The Delaware plaintiffs gained access to those documents after two years of legal battles.

But Judge Bourchard said,

The Arkansas plaintiffs neither sought Wal-Marts records nor waited for the outcome of the Section 220 [document discovery] case in Delaware. They instead proceeded with their case, which defendants moved to dismiss. In March 2015, before plaintiffs in Delaware had completed the Section 220 litigation and filed their amended complaint, the district court in Arkansas granted defendants motion to dismiss.

Walmart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, spent about $700 million over three years investigating potential FCPA offenses and enhancing its anti-bribery compliance program.

In October 2015 the Wall Street Journal reported that a three-year investigation by the DOJ and SEC found little or no evidence of large-scale bribery.

The Wall Street Journal said it spoke to multiple sources at the DOJ. The federal investigation and Walmarts own internal probe found evidence of bribery only in India, the WSJ said, and then only relatively small payments, mostly under $200 each.

The DOJ and SEC havent commented on the Walmart investigation or the Wall Street Journal report.

____

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. Hell be the keynote speaker at the FCPA Blog NYC Conference 2016.
The decision by the Supreme Court of Canada issued on April 29 in World Bank v. Wallace underscored the value of the Banks work in the fight against corruption.

On May 26, the World Bank Integrity Vice Presidency will host a panel discussion, Beyond Ottawa: The Impact of a Supreme Court Decision on Global Anti-corruption Efforts.

The event is from 10:00 am to 11:30 am at the World Bank (MC 2  800) in Washington, DC.

The decision in World Bank v. Wallace endorsed the integrity efforts of international organizations while upholding the privileges and immunities of the World Bank.

The case serves as a reminder that better results in the fight against corruption can be achieved when all the actors in the global fight come together in their respective roles.

Panelists will include Stephen Zimmermann, the Director of Operations at the World Bank Integrity Vice Presidency.

Hell be joined by:

Alan Lenczer, a partner at Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP

Nancy Boswell, the the Director of the Anti-Corruption Law Program at AU Washington College of Law, and

Anna Chytla, the Deputy General Counsel of Knowledge and Research in the World Banks Legal Vice Presidency.

The event will be moderated by Jessica Tillipman, a Senior Editor of the FCPA Blog and Assistant Dean and Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School.

Please RSVP to [email protected].

The event website is here.

_____

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. Hell be the keynote speaker at the FCPA Blog NYC Conference 2016.
Gad Elmaleh has confirmed he's split from Monaco's Charlotte Casiraghi.

Charlotte Casiraghi

The 45-year-old stand-up comedian's relationship with the eighth-in-line to the throne, with whom he has two-year-old son Raphael has been the subject of speculation for the past year following rumours they had ended their three-year romance, but now he's finally set the record straight.

When asked by Women's Wear Daily whether Charlotte had accompanied him to New York City, he said: "No, they're in Europe. I go there a lot to see my family. I go to see my child,. Me and Charlotte are not together any more but I go to see my baby. He also comes to see me."

But, despite calling time on their relationship, Gad and Charlotte try to remain amicable for the sake of their son.

He added: "We stay close. We are a family."

Charlotte - whose grandmother was the late Princess and actress Grace Kelly - met Gad at a party in 2011 and had sought to keep their relationship as private as possible.

The former couple made their first public appearance in 2013 at the Bal de la Rose and are thought to have split their time between living in France and LA.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth was treated to a horse extravaganza at Windsor Castle as part of a belated celebration for her 90th birthday on Sunday night (15.05.16).

Queen Elizabeth

The long-reining monarch reached the impressive milestone almost a month ago but her birthday shenanigans are still ongoing as she, her family, 7,000 spectators and a live television audience watched a fantastic equine display as part of a musical tableau of her life in Berkshire, England.

Elizabeth arrived at the royal residence with her husband Prince Philip in the horse-drawn Scottish state carriage, before she took her seat and watched 900 horses - 10 for each decade of her life - prance around the grounds.

The monarch had a beaming smile plastered across her face as she watched performances from the likes of James Blunt, Gary Barlow, Beverley Knight and Kylie Minogue.

Katherine Jenkins delivered the patriotic song 'I Vow to Thee My Country', while a choir version of the coronation anthem 'Zadoc the Priest' filled the stunning grounds.

The Earl of Wessex, his daughter Lady Louise and the Princess Royal also treated the queen to a special surprise as they appeared at the show on three of her ponies in the grand final, ahead of the speculator fireworks display.

Queen Elizabeth's final birthday celebration will take place next month with a Service of Thanksgiving, Trooping the Colour and a huge street party in London.
'Benidorm's Tim Healy has spent the last four weeks "fighting for his life" in hospital after falling ill in Spain.

Tim Healy as Lesley in Benidorm

The 64-year-old actor has spent almost a month in a clinic in Costa Blanca after he contracted a mystery illness while shooting the next series of the popular sitcom over there.

But, although doctors seemed to think he was at death's door a few days ago, his condition is now said to be stable and he was deemed well enough to be airlifted back to a hospital in Manchester over the weekend.

A source told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "Tim has been in a bad way for a while and had to pull out of filming 'Benidorm'. He was in hospital for three and a half weeks, and at one point he was fighting for his life. But he was flown to Manchester on Saturday and his condition has improved. His wife Joan has been by his side throughout the ordeal. He's still in hospital but is making progress. The doctors are keeping a constant eye on him."

Tim's condition deteriorated so much that his ex-wife Denise Welch, whom he was married to from 1988 until 2012, is believed to have jetted across to Spain to be at his bedside.

Meanwhile, although the legendary star has been showing signs of improvement, Tim's traumatic illness has left bosses with no choice but to shift filming schedules around.

A source for 'Benidorm' said: "Filming schedules have been adjusted to accommodate Tim's absence on screen. Everyone on 'Benidorm', both cast and crew, just wants him to rest up and recover well in his own time."

Tim is known for playing cross-dresser Lesley, a role he's held since 2010, in the popular comedy.
Archroma recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Textile Institute of Pakistan (TIP) in a ceremony at Karachi, for a period of three years.

As part of the MoU, the students of TIP will gain access to Archroma's Center of Excellence in Karachi through periodic training programmes as a part of the MoU. The technical team of Archroma will share the latest research knowledge with TIP students in a lecture series also through the collaboration.

Mujtaba Rahim, CEO, Archroma Pakistan, said, We, at Archroma, believe in continuous improvement and through this initiative we will impart latest knowledge and technical developments to the students who have chosen to make career in textiles. The experience gained through our hands-on training programmes, textile product knowledge and operating systems at our Center of Excellence in Karachi will go a long way in enhancing academic acumen of the students.

Archroma recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Textile Institute of Pakistan (TIP) in a ceremony at Karachi, for a period of three years.As part of the MoU, the students of TIP will gain access to Archroma's Center of Excellence in Karachi through periodic training programmes as a part of the MoU. The technical team of Archroma will #

Our students will benefit from the wide exposure in Archroma labs as well as highly specialised latest equipment used in textiles chemicals testing. They will also be able to get management training widely used in the corporate sector. We hope that our collaboration with Archroma will continue for mutual benefit in many years to come,said, Humayun Zafar, president, TIP. (HO)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PRGMEA) has voiced its concern at Bangladesh's rising garment exports that is eating into Pakistan's markets.

In a statement, Shaikh Mohammad Shafiq, Central Chairman of PRGMEA said that at present total export of Bangladesh is $33 billion out of which textiles is $27.5 billion which includes $26.5 billion of garments only.



We feel our share has been taken by Bangladesh. We need to fight for it and bring it to our advantage. Their exports are now increasing at $3.5 billion per year and expected to hit $50 billion per year by 2020, and whatever they have been giving in their budget estimate in last three years is coming true, he said



According to the statement, Pakistan ranks 138 out of 189 on ease of doing business, slipping two place from last year's position. The cost of making garment in Pakistan is almost double to that of making in Bangladesh. The 60 per cent cost component of wages has a vital impact which is two times in Pakistan, the other costs that includes energy and financials also burdened due to high tariff.



Shafiq said the Government must realize that time has gone when raw material used in textiles (yarn, fabric etc) could be exported. This trend is not going to continue and it is the reason Pakistan is facing serious downfall. Countries have to use their raw material and export only possible in the form of finished products - garments. We must believe in concept that countries have to be completely vertically integrated to use their raw materials in completely finished product, he said in the statement.



If we see the exposure of these economies towards value added sector, cost is one of the key factors that Pakistan's garment export is only 10 per cent of Bangladesh's woven garment sector, which shows keen interest of Bangladesh Government and other low cost wages countries to boost up this sector and to offer different incentives and schemes to further enhance and growth of this industry, he said.



He also said that low cost of labour in Bangladesh goes in favor of employers. While the minimum wage is around $68 in Bangladesh, in Pakistan it is $125 and rising. Additionally the lower utilities cost further benefits the manufacturer, he pointed out.



According to the PRGMEA It is now the need of the hour for the Pakistani government to develop a coherent plan that allows some sort of exemption/concession to the garment sector to arrest its decline.



Shafiq reiterated that the garment sector immediately needs zero-rated regime that had been announced by the Prime Minister. He also sought the release of pending refunds against sales tax, duty drawback and drawback on local taxes and levies (DLTL). Tariff of electricity, gas and water for export sectors should also be brought down, he said. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The Sri Lankan cabinet has approved a government proposal to establish mini garment factories in under developed provinces to empower the women in rural areas, according to media reports in the island nation.According to proposal made by Industry and Commerce Minister, Rishad Bathiudeen, the government will establish 150 mini garment factories in selected districts including Eastern and Uva Provinces.

The Sri Lankan cabinet has approved a government proposal to establish mini garment factories in under developed provinces to empower the women in rural areas, according to media reports in the island nation. According to proposal made by Industry and Commerce Minister, Rishad Bathiudeen, the government will establish 150 mini garment factories #

Under the programme, rural women will be selected through a transparent method and the priority will be given to those who belong to displaced families and who became widows due to the civil war.The selected women will be given training in tailoring by the Sri Lanka Institute of Textile and Apparel while National Entrepreneurship Development Authority and the Industrial Development Board will train them in entrepreneurship development. Assistance in designing will be provided by the National Design Centre and the Jathika Shilpa Sabawa.The programme is designed to encourage small and medium scale entrepreneurs in approaching the international market and provide job opportunities for rural women. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Nepal will give preferential access to Bangladeshi readymade garments following a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the two countries. Readymade garments are among 50 Bangladeshi products that Nepal will provide preferential treatment.A nine-member team led by Nepalese Commerce Secretary Naindra Prasad Upadhyaya and a Bangladeshi team led by Senior Commerce Secretary of Bangladesh Hedayetullah Al Mamoon signed a MoU to this effect.

Nepal will give preferential access to Bangladeshi readymade garments following a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the two countries. Readymade garments are among 50 Bangladeshi products that Nepal will provide preferential treatment. A nine-member team led by Nepalese Commerce Secretary Naindra Prasad Upadhyaya and a Bangladeshi team led by#

The two sides decided to form a secretary level mechanism to enforce the provision, according to which at least 108 Nepali products will have duty-free access to Bangladesh.The Nepal-Bangladesh commerce secretary-level talks also agreed to remove Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) to expand trade volume between the two countries.Commerce Secretary Upadhyaya said the mechanism will propose the modality on implementation of the agreement.Upadhyaya said the two countries also agreed to take initiative to implement a previous bilateral agreement. He said the two countries also discussed issues like promoting bilateral trade, trade facilitation, development of trade related infrastructure and removing non-tariff barriers. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Itema, a global leader of advanced weaving solutions, is exhibiting at the biannual ITM trade fair for textile industrials and will be showcasing airjet and rapier looms at ITM 2016, to be held in Istanbul, Turkey in hall 2, booth 213 on June 1 - 4.

On display at ITM are the R9500, R9500p and R9500terry rapier and A9500 airjet loom. The R9500 can weave the widest range of applications from 170cm to 540cm, with the wider versions specifically developed to match demanding technical fabric market requirements. The R9500 includes the newest rapier developments the Rapier Weft Transfer 2.0.

The R9500p, the premium rapier machine has a production speed of 750 rpm and offers unmatched solution in terms of machine speed, performance, efficiency and fabric quality. The R9500p is equipped with SK Rapiers 2.0 for improved flexibility at the highest speeds.

Itema, a global leader of advanced weaving solutions, is exhibiting at the biannual ITM trade fair for textile industrials and will be showcasing airjet and rapier looms at ITM 2016, to be held in Istanbul, Turkey in hall 2, booth 213 on June 1 - 4. On display at ITM are the R9500, R9500p and R9500terry rapier and A9500 airjet loom. The R9500 can weave #

The third Itema rapier loom showing at ITM, is Itemas new R9500terry offers positive pile back rest roller and guarantees a significant optimisation of the pile warp tension, drastically reducing the friction during cloth displacement.

The A9500 airjet machine on display at ITM is designed for high productivity, whilst ensuring reduced levels of energy consumption and guaranteeing air savings, as well as top machine reliability. The A9500 provides immediate, easy and perfect control of the weft insertion parameters.

At Itema innovation is a must. We are the only company in this sector to have 2 R&D departments. We remain focused not only on meeting and exceeding weavers needs, but on going beyond, anticipating future market requirements. We continue to concentrate our extensive R&D efforts on offering better, smarter, faster solutions, increased performances, unparalleled flexibility, reduced consumption and enhanced user-friendliness, commented Carlo Rogora, CEO Itema Group.

Original spare parts can substantially increase machine life span and efficiency, guaranteeing the highest return on investment. Itema supplies a substantial local spare parts stock in Turkey, in order to serve and accomplish in real time every Customers request, commented Piero Colombelli, Itema regional head of sales. (NA)

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India
Thailand's Ambassador to Pakistan, Suchart Leingsaengthong is hopeful that a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two countries would be finalized by the end of 2016. He said the FTA would boost trade, and particularly help Pakistan's textiles sector because of large demand for Pakistani textile products in Thailand.He said given the size of Pakistan's economy, Thailand considered it a promising country for business relations. He assured that that the Thai Embassy would facilitate businessmen in improving trade volume between the two countries.

Thailand's Ambassador to Pakistan, Suchart Leingsaengthong is hopeful that a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two countries would be finalized by the end of 2016. He said the FTA would boost trade, and particularly help Pakistan's textiles sector because of large demand for Pakistani textile products in Thailand. He said given the size #

His comments came when a delegation of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) led by its President Atif Ikram Sheikh recently called on him to discuss various options to enhance trade relations between Pakistan and Thailand, the trade body said in a press release.Leingsaengthong told the ICCI delegation that Thailand considered Pakistan an important country for strengthening economic cooperation as both countries have great potential to offer a lot to each other. He said the current volume of bilateral trade between Pakistan and Thailand was around 1 billion dollars and added that there existed good scope to increase it to $ 2 billion by improving connectivity between their private sectors.ICCI President Atif Ikram Sheikh stressed upon the need of strong linkages between the private sectors of both countries to increase trade volume. He said that the exchange trade delegations and holding single country exhibitions on reciprocal basis was the best way for promoting bilateral trade between Pakistan and Thailand. He said many Pakistani products including textiles and readymade garments could find good market in Thailand and it should focus on importing these products from Pakistan, according to the press release.He said close cooperation between Pakistan and Thailand would be a win-win situation for both countries as they could facilitate each other in getting better market access in their respective regions. Pakistan could facilitate Thailand in promoting trade with South and Central Asian countries whereas Thailand could help Pakistan in accessing to the ASEAN region.Sheikh stressed that governments of both countries should work together to provide leading role to private sectors for improving bilateral trade. He assured that ICCI would like to work with the Thai embassy for bringing both countries even closer in trade and economic relations. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan blew us away with her different looks at the Cannes film festival 2016.

And we have got some behind the scenes pictures of Aishwarya Rai from the prestigious festival and we must say, even while getting ready she is looking damn beautiful! Dying to see the pictures? Then click on VIEW PHOTOS!



Talking about her Cannes appearances, Aishwarya Rai told a leading news agency, "I was not nervous (for the look at the Cannes) as it has been 15 years representing L'Oreal here. I have been a part of the jury here for two years or so and had come here for Devdas. "I belong to showbiz forever so plain dress up has become a way of life depending upon the occasion.''

Also Read: Like Mother Like Daughter! Navya Nanda's New Picture With Shweta Bachchan Is Beautiful Beyond Words!

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan further added, "I am an actor by my career choice. I enjoy fashion and I treat it like art and I have a life, a family. So, I am not focusing on all of this. So it (look) doesn't stress me out.. It doesn't get me nervous.. I am a professional. I did not had the time to look at all the choices that the fashion industry was wonderfully keen on spoiling me with, because I was very busy with Sarbjit promotions.''

"But within the little collection I had gone through I was prepared for some pieces that had come handy," Aishwarya Rai Bachchan revealed.

Sarbjit is scheduled to release on May 20th and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is playing the rold of Sarabjit's sister Dalbir Kaur in the film. It is based on the real life story of prisoner Sarabjit Singh.

The movie also stars Randeep Hooda and Richa Chaddha.
Gauri Khan is not a Bollywood actress but she is no less! The diva is equally beautiful and talented. Recently, Gauri was clicked by ace photographer Avinash Gowariker for an upcoming venture.

She is looking gorgeous in the picture and is seen picking out her sandals in a blue gown. And after seeing her new picture, only one thing came to our mind that is 'Shahrukh Khan you are indeed a lucky man'! Click on VIEW PHOTOS to see Gauri's new picture.



Gauri Khan is a famous interior designer and an entrepreneur. She is currently busy with her clothing line in association with Satya Paul. She has also launched her store in Mumbai called the Design Cell. The famous star wife also endorses a furniture brand along with superstar husband, Shahrukh Khan.



Also Read: Hottie Aryan Khan Looks Exactly Like Father Shahrukh Khan In These Latest Pictures

Talking about her work, Gauri Khan told a leading website recently, "You can't put a limit to growth. There are a lot of areas that I haven't ventured into, and I look forward to making the most of everything that comes my way. My first store has taken off, and I hope to do plenty of collaborations, be it in interior design or in fashion."

When asked, if the work pressure interferes with her personal life, she said, "The key here is to know how to prioritise your commitments, and make optimum use of the time you give to everything you do."

She also said SRK also supports her in whatever she does!
Tinsel town is abuzz with rumours that Salman Khan is all set to tie the knot with the love of his life, Iulia Vantur. The Romanian beauty, had accompanied Salman Khan at Preity Zinta's reception, and now people are wondering if the duo has gone a step further, in terms of love and commitment.

Zareen Khan, is happy if Salman settles down and feels that the Sultan star, will make for a good husband. When asked about Salman-Iulia relationship, Zareen Khan was quoted as saying,

"I am not here to judge. I am happy if things are happening between him and Iulia and I wish them all the best. The whole country has been waiting for him to get married, so it'll be something to look forward to."

Red Hot Pictures! Shruti Haasan Braces The Cover Page Of GQ Magazine

So is Zareen Khan hinting that Salman Khan and Iulia Vantur will get married and settle down soon? Or is she just casually wishing the couple, a good life? Well we never know, and we will have to wait and watch.

Hot Hotter Hottest! Richa Chadda's Maxim Pictures Can Make You Sweat

Zareen Khan, is a close friend to the Sultan star, and the actress had debuted alongside Salman in 2010 for the movie Veer: An Epic Love Story Of A Warrior. Since then, Salman Khan has more or less guided the actress in her career and helped her bag a few roles in Bollywood movies.

Rare & Unseen Pictures Of Salman Khan!

However, if Zareen Khan wished Salman all the very best, Daisy Shah has a different take on the whole issue of marriage. Daisy Shah, says she is against marriage and wouldn't encourage her friends to take that step in life. "I am against marriage. So I wouldn't want my friends to get married as well." says Daisy Shah.

Pictures! Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt & Shahid Kapoor Attend Baaghi Success Bash
Striving for a 100 percent voter turnout in the state of Tamil Nadu, many famous celebrities are encouraging their fellow citizens to get out and vote as the state is witnessing its Assembly elections today (May 16).

Actors and actresses took to their social media pages to post the pictures of their inked fingers and requested others to vote as well.

Among early voters were superstar Rajinikanth, politician-writer M Karunanidi and Thala Ajith. Ulaganayagan Kamal Haasan came forward to cast his vote along with Gauthami and daughter Akshara Haasan.

Suriya, who couldn't vote today as he is stuck in the USA along with his family, released a press note seeking an apology. The 24 actor said he was embarrassed as he coudn't make it to Chennai on time.

While everyone are busy encouraging others to vote, actor Arya is busy planning to start his own political party along with one of his best buddies, Vishal.

Vishal and Arya stepped out together to vote. "Well da D day is here. Polling day. On da way to vote wit my bestie @arya_offl. Pls do step out and cast your vote. gb," Vishal tweeted before casting his vote.

After some time, the actors showed off their inked fingers by posting selfies on their Twitter pages. "Jus done casting our votes. @arya_offl n me. Pls go and cast your vote. Gb," Vishal once again wrote on his social media page.

Arya, known for his jovial nature, was quick to reply to Vishal's tweet. He said, "Thalaivaaaa... Building katroom apparam Katchi Arambikiroom aduthe election jaikroom #PuraitchiThalapathy."

Going by his tweet, looks like Arya is all set to start his own party with Vishal. What more, he even intends to win the next Assembly elections. Is he just joking around or is he serious about his plans? Only time will tell.

Also Read: Movie Theatres Are Indestructible For A Reason: Why You Should Say No To Piracy
Superstar Rajinikanth, actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasan and Thala Ajith Kumar cast their votes on Monday (May 16) in the ongoing Tamil Nadu legislative assembly elections.

While Rajinikanth cast his vote at Stella Maris College, Ajith along with his wife Shalini exercised their franchise at a government school on Kuppam Beach Road. Ilayathalapathy Vijay was in Neelankarai when he cast his vote.

Ulaganayagan Kamal Haasan, who had earlier said he might miss voting due to the shoot of his upcoming trilingual film Sabaash Naidu, stayed back to cast his vote at Corporation School in Teynampet.

The Uttama Villain star was joined by his younger daughter Akshara Haasan.

Actor Suriya skipped voting as he could not return from the USA, where he is currently holidaying with his family. In a statement, Suriya apologised for being not able to present to cast his vote.

"I want to convey my sincere apologies here!! In spite of my best efforts to come and cast my vote, I feel a deep sense of regret that I'm unable to make it on the 16th May. This is the first time, I will be missing it as I'm caught in between an unforeseen situation. I feel really embarrassed. Please pardon my absence," Suriya said in a press release.

Suriya's father and veteran actor Sivakumar, along with Karthi and rest of his family members made sure to cast their votes.

Other famous celebrities like Vivekh, Jiiva, Gautham Menon, Raadhika, Udhayanidhi Stalin and Sivakarthikeyan came forward to cast their respective votes as well.

Former actress and current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, J Jayalalitha and her arch rival M Karunanidhi, who is still active in Kollywood as a writer, made their presence felt at voting booths early in the morning.

Stay tuned for further updates.

Also Read: '24' Decoded: Editor Prawin Pudi Confirms '24' Part 2!
Tamannaah's upcoming trilingual, which has been titled as Abhinetri in Telugu, will be simultaneously shot in Tamil and Hindi as well.

Being directed by AL Vijay of Thalaivaa fame, the movie also stars Prabhu Deva and Sonu Sood in important roles. Portraying Tamannaah as an actress for the first time, Abhinetri is a woman-centric movie.

At a time when South Indian film industry is hardly churning out woman-centric movies (it is gradually improving though), this upcoming Tamannaah-starrer not only does differ from the usual set of films, but is also being made with a lavish budget, that only superstars get to act in.

According to a source, the film is being made with a whopping budget of 70 Crore rupees. Yes, you read that right! If this turns out to be true, Abhinetri will probably be the first woman-centric Indian movie, made with such a high budget.

Meanwhile, chassy actress Amy Jackson recently joined the set of the film to shoot for a song sequence. The Madrasapattinam actress will be seen shaking a leg along with Prabhu Deva.

"My last day on set before Summer kicks in! Of course the shoot had to be trilingual to go out with a bang. Shooting for a guest appearance & special song today.. GUESS WHO for? Here's a clue - he's my guru!" Amy Jackson wrote on her official social media page.

She then went on to reveal that it is indeed for AL Vijay's film, she will make a guest appearance in. "It's AL Vijay! My first director who discovered me when I was 16 & launched me in my first movie #Madrasapattinam."

She then wrote about Prabhu Deva and his dancing skills.

"Another reunion on set today for #2in1 song shoot. Shaking a leg with India's M.J @PDdancing. Fab few days shooting with the #2in1 team. It's like working with family with Dir. Vijay & it was incredible to watch @PDdancing," she said.

Also Read: Anirudh All Set To Go International, Signs Up With Sony Music!
Bank of China, the countrys fourth-largest lender by assets, launched an initial public offering for its aircraft leasing business on Monday, targeting HK$8.7 billion ($1.13 billion) from the sale of both new and existing shares.

With shares tentatively scheduled to begin trading on June 1, BOC Aviation looks set to steal a march on rivals CDB Leasing and Minsheng Financial Leasing, which are both also preparing to list in Hong Kong later this year, according to bankers familiar with the situation.

BOC Aviation will be the second aircraft leasing company listed in Asia after China Aircraft Leasing Group (CALC) floated its shares in Hong Kong two years ago. BOC Aviation's fleet is nearly four times bigger than CALC's though, at almost 230 planes, while its expected market capitalisation is over six times greater.

The business is going public at a time when the Chinese economy is cooling after years of investment-led and debt-fuelled breakneck growth. The worlds second-biggest economy grew by 6.9% in 2015, the slowest rate in 25 years.

However, aviation leasing is generally regarded as a counter-cyclical business and lessors sometimes benefit when their airline customers experience higher levels of risk aversion, according to aviation specialists.

That is especially true for BOC Aviation which has tended to expand its fleet during market downturns, acquiring new aircraft at a lower cost with the implicit backing of state-owned Bank of China, which bought the business in 2006.

In 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis for example, the company grew its portfolio by 62% to 118 aircraft, recording the highest growth per year since Bank of Chinas acquisition.

Terms

BOC Aviations IPO consists of 208.2 million shares equally split between new shares and existing shares sold by Bank of China. The shares on offer equate to 30% of the companys enlarged share capital on a pre-shoe basis.

There is a standard 15% greenshoe option that made up entirely of existing shares held by Bank of China, which could potentially increase the free float to 34.5% post-shoe.

The offer price is fixed at HK$42 per share and implies a post-listing market valuation of $3.76 billion, representing a discount of 20.8% and 19.1% to the fair value estimates given by BOC International and Goldman Sachs, joint sponsors of the IPO, respectively.

BOC Aviation will also be valued at 1.25 times its end-2015 book value, compared with pure-play aircraft lessors such as AerCap and Air Lease, which trade at 0.85 times and 0.96 times their respective book values.

Syndicate bankers said the premium for what is a highly capital-intensive business could be justified by BOC Aviations lower funding costs, given its state-backed banking parent. The company also owns a relatively young fleet with an average aircraft age of 3.3 years, which means lower depreciation costs and better fuel efficiency.

Senior management of BOC Aviation highlighted the high return on equity as another of the IPO's key selling points. The company has achieved an average ROE of 15% since 2008 compared with AerCap at 12.5% and Air Lease at 7%.

According to one of the bankers familiar with the situation, BOC Aviation aims to distribute 30% of its net profit as dividends, which would translate into a dividend yield of 3.1%, based on estimated earnings of $384 million for the 2016 financial year.

By comparison, Air Leases dividend yield was 0.7% while AerCap did not declare any dividend last year.

Cornerstones

Similar to other recent billion-dollar IPOs in Hong Kong, BOC Aviation has lined up cornerstone investors to subscribe for $583 million, or 52% of the deal before the order book was opened to public institutional and retail investors.

But instead of an all-Chinese lineup, BOC Aviation brought in a number of foreign institutions, which differentiates it from other heavily cornerstoned companies criticised as friends and family deals.

International funds including Oman Investment Fund, Boeing and Fullerton Fund Management, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singaporean state investment fund Temasek Holdings, have pledged to invest a total of $118 million in the IPO.

The other Chinese cornerstone investors are CIC, Silk Road Fund, CDB International, China Life Franklin, Hony Capital, Elion Resources Group, Fosun International, and China South Industries Assets Management.

All cornerstone investors are prohibited from selling their shareholdings for six months.

BOC Aviation will take institutional orders until May 23 while the company's senior management conduct global roadshows in Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, and London. The Hong Kong public offering will run from May 19 to May 24.

Joint sponsors of the IPO are BOC International and Goldman Sachs. They are also joint bookrunners with BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and China Securities International.

For more information on BOC Aviation, please refer to FinanceAsias coverage here.
Indonesian independent power producer Cikarang Listrindo started bookbuilding for an initial public offering in Jakarta on Monday, potentially offering investors a new defensive play in an emerging market that is usually more focused on earnings growth.

The West Java-based electricity producer is looking to raise up to Rp4.75 trillion ($357 million), rising to $477 million if a greenshoe option is exercised, which would make it the country's biggest IPO in more than five years.

It is also coming to market at a time when other Indonesian sectors are struggling due to low commodity prices, a weak rupiah, and higher import costs -- including agriculture, mining, and consumer goods.

Against this backdrop, investors have turned to defensive stocks that generate stable income. For example, the share price of Telekomunikasi Indonesia, the countrys largest telecommunications operator, has surged by 24% since the start of the year, far outpacing the Jakarta Composite Indexs 4% gain.

As the first publicly listed power producer in the country, the IPO of Cikarang Listrindo will offer fund managers a prime opportunity to rebalance their portfolios, seeing as most defensive stocks in Indonesia are telecommunications-related.

Given its large size, Cikarang Listrindos IPO in June will be an important test of demand for Indonesian equities. The deal could potentially be the largest Indonesian IPO since national airline Garuda Indonesia raised $520 million in January 2011.

Terms

According to the terms of the IPO, 2.41 billion shares, or 15% of the companys enlarged share capital, are being marketed at an indicative price range of Rp1,430 to Rp1,930 per share. A third of the shares on offer are existing shares.

There is also a greenshoe equating to a further 5% of the enlarged share capital.

Based on syndicate consensus earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation of $287 million next year, Cikarang Listrindo will be valued at 7 to 9 times EV/Ebitda and an equity value of $1.7 billion to $2.4 billion on a post-money basis.

On a price-to-earnings basis the company will be valued at 11.5 times to 15.8 times 2017 earnings.

The indicative valuation implies a dividend yield of 3.8% to 5.2% for the 2017 financial year. That compares with 2.6% for Telekomunikasi Indonesia and 6.3% for natural gas distributor Perusahaan Gas Negara Persero, although the latter's relatively high yield is mainly the result of its heavily underperforming stock performance since January last year.

Cikarang Listrindos stable income originates from its exclusivity in power distribution in five industrial estates in Cikarang, West Java. According to an investor presentation, the industrial estates are only 55% electrified and therefore could provide further room for power distribution.

In order to cope with increasing electricity demand, the company is building a new 280 megawatt coal-fired power plant that is expected to complete by the end of this year. Completion of the new plant will boost the companys total installed capacity by 32% to 1,145 megawatts.

According to the indicative timetable, Cikarang Listrindo will collect institutional orders until May 26, followed by a two-day Indonesian public offer on June 7 and June 8. Listing is slated for June 14.

Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, UBS, and Indo Premier Securities are joint bookrunners on the IPO.
HKTDC Communication and Public Affairs Dept Joe Kainz Tel: +852 2584 4216 Email: joe.kainz@hktdc.org

HONG KONG, May 15, 2016 - (ACN Newswire) - The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year. Since its establishment in 1966, the HKTDC has been creating opportunities for Hong Kong's SMEs and promoting Hong Kong as a global business platform. With the theme of "Golden Jubilee - Golden Partnerships", the HKTDC will roll out a series of activities and promotions from now until December, to share with the public and the business community five decades of extraordinary economic achievements driven by the city's enterprising individuals.Margaret Fong, Executive Director of the HKTDC, said, "For 50 years, the HKTDC has worked in close partnership with the local business community to contribute to Hong Kong's economic development. This incredible journey has been made possible by the creativity and hard work of the people of Hong Kong. In celebrating our past achievements, we hope to continue this spirit of enterprise well into the future."Befitting our theme, we have chosen to launch our 50th anniversary programme at the Entrepreneur Day which was held on 13 and 14 May, continuing with a series of fun and interactive programmes throughout the next seven months until our grand finale at World SME Expo in December."Passing down the legacy of entrepreneurshipHKTDC's 50th anniversary programme kicked off at Entrepreneur Day at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, where additional prizes were awarded to winners of the Entrepreneur Arena start-up pitching competition. Co-organised with the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, this business-pitching competition for start-ups awarded three winners with the Entrepreneur Day Outstanding Start-up Award and cash prizes. They will also be invited for a one-on-one "Power Lunch" with either the current HKTDC Chairman Vincent HS Lo, or former chairmen Victor Fung or Jack So. Through this unique opportunity for exchange, the winners can gain valuable insights and obtain advice from the business leaders.A dedicated 50th anniversary website will chronicle rare historic photos charting Hong Kong's economic transformation through the eyes of the HKTDC, with numerous success stories of local enterprises in different sectors from different eras. The HKTDC will also create opportunities for the public, especially the younger generation, to engage with the Council through a variety of traditional and new media platforms.Realising dreams through creativityAn interactive feature of the 50th anniversary website is "Snap A Story," where the public is invited to add a motivational phrase denoting their interpretation of being an entrepreneur to a selfie photo. This photo can be uploaded and shared through the Internet or their mobile devices. Available in a range of languages, this web application provides a fun way for people in Hong Kong to choose their definition of entrepreneurial success and share it with friends around the world.Stepping out of the business world and into the creative arena, the HKTDC will collaborate with the Cultural and Leisure Services Committee of the Wan Chai District Council, the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association of Hong Kong and Baptist Oi Kwan Social Service to launch a large-scale art jamming activity curated by internationally-acclaimed Hong Kong artist Simon Ma. This activity, to be held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in July, will engage youngsters to collaborate and create an art piece under the theme of "Fly Together", reflecting the notion that creativity has no boundaries. The completed art piece will be unveiled at the 50th anniversary grand finale event in December.Reaching out & sharing our success with Hong KongTo raise awareness about the HKTDC's work, a range of community activities will be organised to engage the general public. The HKTDC's Design Gallery, promoting original Hong Kong designs and designers, will roll out a number of 50th birthday shopping special offers to promote more innovative quality products from Hong Kong to consumers. In addition, games related to the Golden Jubilee will be hosted on HKTDC social media platforms, giving out prizes including Super Passes for Book Lovers for the Hong Kong bok Fair and entry tickets for the HKTDC Food Expo.50th Anniversary Website: http://50.hktdc.comPhoto download: http://bit.ly/27oxc79To view press releases in Chinese, please visit http://mediaroom.hktdc.com/tc.About HKTDCA statutory body established in 1966, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is the international marketing arm for Hong Kong-based traders, manufacturers and services providers. With more than 40 offices globally, including 13 on the Chinese mainland, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a platform for doing business with China and throughout Asia. The HKTDC also organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to provide companies, particularly SMEs, with business opportunities on the mainland and in overseas markets, while providing information via trade publications, research reports and digital channels including the media room. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus. Follow us on Google+, Twitter @hktdc, LinkedIn.Google+: https://plus.google.com/+hktdcTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/hktdcLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/hong-kong-trade-development-councilSource: HKTDCContact:Copyright 2016 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
HKTDC Communication and Public Affairs Dept. Joe Kainz Tel: +852 2584 4216 Email: joe.kainz@hktdc.org

HONG KONG, May 15, 2016 - (ACN Newswire) - Organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), the eighth Entrepreneur Day was held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) on 13 and 14 May. The two-day event gathered more than 270 exhibitors from various sectors while the number of visitors increased by seven per cent from last year to more than 17,000, setting a new fair record.The two-day Start-up Runway and celebrity sharing sessions featured more than 40 business elites and entrepreneurs from different sectors discussing their success stories. On the opening day (13 May), Jason Chiu, Founder and CEO of cherrypicks, Ir Allen Yeung, Government Chief Information Officer of the HKSAR Government and Alan Yip, Co-founder and Chairman of Guru Online (Holdings) Limited, led the plenary session entitled 'Big Wave, New Wave'.Learning from failureJason Chiu, who founded mobile solutions company cherrypicks in 2000, shared his thoughts on 'failure' and the lessons that should be learned from it. "In the early days of running our business we had difficulty with financing. When, in 2004, we obtained HK$200 million of capital, we seized the opportunities to expand our business," said Mr Chiu. It was a time when social media was beginning to take off, and the company launched usitecn.com on the mainland. "We had 900 employees and a running cost of US$1 million per month. HK$200 million would only last us for two years," recalled Mr Chiu. At that time, similar portals such as 'xiaonei.com' and 'campus.qq.com' had already been launched. While 'usitecn.com' had five million users, it did not generate any income and its operation could only be sustained by refinancing. "There were only two solutions: go bankrupt, or sell the business." Mr Chiu said he decided to sell the business and buy back the shares from the original investors, so they would not lose everything.Mr Chiu believes that entrepreneurs should embrace failure. "Once I read a motto from the spirit of kendo. Its gist was: 'Reflect when your opponent strikes and thank him when you're struck'," he said. When the company ran the online voting system 'TVB Fun' for the Miss Hong Kong Pageant, it had to make a public apology due to a technical failure of the system. "Failure is the norm. The key is to fail forward and pilot," he said.As the company was quick to review its failings after suffering a setback, it rebounded and maintained its position in the tech and app industry, said Mr Chiu, who added that the company introduced the Chinese online business giant NetDragon as one of their shareholders in 2014. "It's like standing on the shoulder of a giant as we develop our business in the mainland market and beyond," he said.Four principles of survival for start-upsGuru Online (Holdings) Ltd. listed on the Hong Kong stock market last year. Co-founder and Chairman Alan Yip used "a hike along the MacLehose Trail" as a metaphor for "being employed". He said, "Many have gone hiking along the MacLehose Trail, where they can take the mini-bus and leave anytime they want. You can quit your job if you're not happy in it. Starting a business is like finding yourself in a barren landscape with no one around and enough food supply for only two or three days, and you must look about for food to survive."From his experience of starting a business, he derived four principles for survival for start-ups. He noted that many new entrepreneurs believed they will succeed by identifying what customers are looking for. "The goal should be making your business five times better than existing ones." He referred to restaurants posting recruitment bills on the streets as an example. In most cases, there may not be a single applicant even after two days, said Mr Yip, who added that the recently launched recruitment app is much more effective for this purpose as users start applying for the post within 25 minutes, making it a good example of what makes a new business far superior to existing ones.Secondly, Mr Yip believes that entrepreneurs should bend the rules. He referred to Snapchat, a popular app among young people, as an example. "This app has the same target demographics as Facebook. The latter makes its users save their memories, while the former is about the moment. This explains the success of Snapchat," he said. He also believes that, in addition to using the convenience of the Internet, a company's business concept must also possess structural advantages. For instance, stock trading websites are able to tap into the same market as large banks by processing a small amount of transactions. Mr Yip's fourth principle is that, beyond developing its business in the local Hong Kong market, a company must plan to expand on the mainland and overseas.Government to lend comprehensive support to start-upsIr Allen Yeung, Government Chief Information Officer of the HKSAR Government, pinpointed the challenges that new and budding entrepreneurs face in terms of attracting new talents, expanding networks and raising capital. In view of this, he said the government organises various exhibitor groups to participate in overseas fairs, as well as business matching services for the exhibitors to build their networks. Promoting Internet business studies on university campuses is another important initiative. Students are encouraged to take part in international competitions, and the award-winning concepts are commoditised for the business sector to look for and recruit suitable talents, according to Mr Yeung.He added that there are many funds in Hong Kong that support the development of start-ups, including the start-up fund offered by The Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation and the Innovation and Technology Venture Fund under the government's Innovation and Technology Bureau. He also encouraged new entrepreneurs to "Dream Big".Winners of Entrepreneur Arena to meet HKTDC chairmanAnother highlight of this year's Entrepreneur Day was an enhanced Entrepreneur Arena pitching competition. Co-organised by the HKTDC and The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, young entrepreneurs presented their business ideas and plans in the Arena. In celebration of the HKTDC's 50th anniversary in 2016, the Entrepreneur Arena was scaled up with more than 50 start-up applications received this year, about double the number last year. The 10 finalists presented their business ideas on stage yesterday (14 May) at Entrepreneur Day with experts offering valuable feedback. Judges included Dr Samson Tam, Chairman, Hong Kong Business Angel Network, Dr Edwin Lee, Founder and CEO, Bridgeway Fund Group and Rono Kwong, Chairman, Hong Kong General Chamber of Young Entrepreneurs.The three winners, Felix Wong, Founder, Acquaintance Enterprises creates a new platform 36Link which solves the pain point of the logistics industry; Twiggy Chan and Odilia Kan, Founders, Boaz International Education Institute create special courses for children with dyslexia, and Trevor So, Founder, Handlebook Education Solutions creates Handlebook e-learning platform to enhance students learning motivation received the Entrepreneur Day Outstanding Start-up Award as well as cash prizes. The winners will also be invited to a Power Lunch with either the current HKTDC Chairman, Vincent HS Lo, or a former chairman, either Victor Fung or Jack So.Fair Website:- HKTDC Entrepreneur Day: www.hktdc.com/eday- Startup Week Events: www.internationalstartupweek.comPhoto Download Link: http://bit.ly/1TbtlpATo view press releases in Chinese, please visit http://mediaroom.hktdc.com/tc.About HKTDCA statutory body established in 1966, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is the international marketing arm for Hong Kong-based traders, manufacturers and services providers. With more than 40 offices globally, including 13 on the Chinese mainland, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a platform for doing business with China and throughout Asia. The HKTDC also organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to provide companies, particularly SMEs, with business opportunities on the mainland and in overseas markets, while providing information via trade publications, research reports and digital channels including the media room. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus. Follow us on Google+, Twitter @hktdc, LinkedIn.Google+: https://plus.google.com/+hktdcTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/hktdcLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/hong-kong-trade-development-councilSource: HKTDCContact:Copyright 2016 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
JAKARTA (dpa-AFX) - Japan will on Monday release April numbers for producer prices and machine tool orders, highlighting a modest day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. Producer prices in March were down 0.1 percent on month and 3.8 percent on year. Tool orders tumbled an annual 21.2 percent in March. New Zealand will see April results for its Performance of Services Index; in March, the index score was 54.8. Indonesia will provide April numbers for imports, exports and trade balance. Imports are expected to fall 9.7 percent on year after sliding 10.41 percent in March. Exports are called lower by 12 percent after falling 13.51 percent in the previous month. The trade surplus is pegged at $100 million, down from $490 million a month earlier. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/16 -- Ithaca Energy Inc. (TSX: IAE) (LSE: IAE)

TSX: IAE

Not for Distribution to U.S. Newswire Services or for Dissemination in the United States

Ithaca Energy Inc.

First Quarter 2016 Results

16 May 2016

Ithaca Energy Inc. (TSX: IAE, LSE AIM: IAE) ("Ithaca" or the "Company") announces its results for the three months ended 31 March 2016 ("Q1-2016" or the "Quarter").

Resilient cashflow generation during the Quarter

Average production of ~9,000 boepd - in line with guidance

$44 million cashflow from operations, driven by reduced operating costs and hedging gains (cashflow per share $0.11)

Material reduction in operating costs to $25/boe, 17% below 2016 forecast of $30/boe prior to Stella start-up

Earnings of $18 million (earnings per share $0.04)

Continued deleveraging during the Quarter and strong liquidity position

Substantial deleveraging - net debt reduced from a peak of over $800 million in the first half of 2015 to $630 million at end Q1-2016

Over $100 million of funding headroom maintained following the RBL redetermination in April 2016, with total debt availability in excess of $730 million

Significant commodity price protection - 8,800 boepd hedged from end Q1-2016 until mid-2017 at an average price of $61/boe, with a mark-to-market value of $94 million at end Q1-2016

Material near-term step-change in production and cashflow from the Greater Stella Area ("GSA")

On track for first production from the Stella field in September 2016, with FPF-1 sail-away in June, in line with previous guidance

Production set to more than double to 20-25,000 boepd

Company unit operating costs set to reduce to $20/boe

Les Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"Ithaca has maintained the strong momentum generated in 2015 throughout the first quarter, with Stella progressing on track, further downward pressure on operating costs and reaffirmation of our financial strength. We have a solid foundation to take us forward beyond the start-up of Stella, enabling execution of a balanced and flexible future investment programme that can be tailored for the commodity price environment while meeting our priority of reducing debt."

Greater Stella Area Development Update

The FPF-1 modifications programme, which is being undertaken by Petrofac in the Remontowa shipyard in Poland, is on track for first production from the Stella field in September 2016, with FPF-1 sail-away in June, in line with the previous guidance window. Commissioning operations on the vessel are well advanced and close out of the marine work to ensure the vessel satisfies the required sail-away certification standards is progressing to plan. Completion of the modifications programme is the critical path item for start-up of production from the Stella field, with the five well development drilling programme and subsea infrastructure installation campaign associated with start-up of the Stella field having both been successfully completed in 2015.

Handover of the various processing, utilities and accommodation systems on the vessel from the modifications to the operations teams is on-going. The next key milestone will be the completion of deep water trials immediately prior to commencing the tow to the field. This involves the FPF-1 being moved to a location off the coast of Gdansk in order to undertake the necessary marine system commissioning trials that cannot be done in the shallow waters of the shipyard.

It is anticipated that the period from sail-away to first hydrocarbons will be approximately three months. Following towing of the FPF-1 to the field, the vessel will be moored on location using twelve pre-installed anchor chains. The dynamic risers and umbilicals that connect the subsea infrastructure to the vessel will then be installed. Thereafter, commissioning of the various processing and utility systems that can only be undertaken on location with hydrocarbons from the field will be completed.

Production & Operations

Average production in Q1-2016 was ~9,000 boepd (91% oil), reflecting the cessation of production from the Athena and Anglia fields and reduced production due to planned maintenance activities on the Pierce field and completion of a chemical treatment campaign on several wells in the Dons Area fields.

Full year base production guidance, excluding any contribution associated with start-up of the Stella field during the year, remains unchanged at 9,000 boepd. The additional production contribution during the year resulting from the start-up of Stella will depend on the exact timing of first hydrocarbons from the field. Prompt ramp up of production is anticipated following first hydrocarbons, leading to an expected initial annualised production rate of approximately 16,000 boepd net to Ithaca.

Production in the second quarter of 2016 is expected to remain in line with 2016 full year guidance, with increased volumes associated with the recommencement of full production on the Pierce field broadly offsetting reduced production from the Dons and Causeway Area fields resulting from a planned two week shutdown of the Brent system in June 2016.

During the Quarter the Company took over operatorship of the Cook field (61.345% working interest) following completion of Shell and ExxonMobil's sale of the Anasuria floating production, storage and offloading vessel (and associated feeder field interests), which serves as the host facility for the field.

Financials

Hedging

The Company's future commodity hedged position remains unchanged from that announced at the previous quarter's financial results. Following the realisation of a $39 million gain in Q1-2016, in the remaining nine months of 2016 a volume of 9,900 boepd (50% oil) is hedged at an average price of $60/boe. In the first half of 2017 approximately 7,000 boepd (50% oil) is hedged at an average price of $62/boe.

As of 1 April 2016 the Company's commodity hedges were valued at $94 million based on the prevailing oil and gas forward curves at that time.

Operating Expenditure

Operating costs in the first quarter of 2016 continued on the downward trend established in 2015, with an average unit cost of $25/boe for the Quarter. This represents a substantial 17% saving on forecast unit operating expenditure for the existing assets prior to Stella start-up (of $30/boe). This has been achieved as a result of cost reductions secured across the portfolio, with the Cook and Wytch Farm fields delivering the most significant savings. This continued downward pressure on operating costs increases the likelihood of achieving a sub-$30/boe unit cost for the existing producing fields over the course of the year.

Capital Expenditure

Planned capital expenditure in 2016 remains unchanged at $50 million, the majority of which relates to the GSA, including activities required to prepare the Vorlich Field Development Plan for approval.

Beyond 2016, Ithaca forecasts an average underlying capital expenditure of $10-25 million per annum on its producing asset portfolio. This relates to facilities maintenance and low cost production enhancement activities. In addition to this, the Company has a diverse set of further investment opportunities within its existing portfolio and the flexibility to tailor its capital programme to the economic outlook at the time. It is anticipated that the average annual capital expenditure required to develop these opportunities will be between $25 -75 million.

Tax

The Company had a UK tax allowances pool of approximately $1,600 million at 31 March 2016. At current commodity prices, the pool is forecast to shelter the Company from the payment of corporation tax prior to 2020.

Debt Funding

Net debt at 31 March 2016 was $630 million, down from $665 million at 31 December 2015, reflecting the strong operating cashflow generation during the period. This reduction continues the deleveraging trend commenced in 2015, with net debt having being reduced from a peak of over $800 million in the first half of 2015.

Deleveraging of the business continues to remain a core priority of the Company, with a step change in the debt reduction profile achievable upon the start-up of Stella production.

The business is fully funded with strong liquidity, having over $730 million of available debt ahead of planned first hydrocarbons from the GSA, providing in excess of $100 million of funding headroom.

Q1-2016 Financial Results Conference Call

A conference call and webcast for investors and analysts will be held today at 12.00 GMT (08.00 EDT). Listen to the call live via the Company's website (www.ithacaenergy.com) or alternatively dial-in on one of the following telephone numbers and request access to the Ithaca Energy conference call: UK +44 203 059 8125; Canada +1 855 287 9927; US +1 866 796 1569. A short presentation to accompany the results will be available on the Company's website prior to the call.

Glossary

boe Barrels of oil equivalent

boepd Barrels of oil equivalent per day

RBL Reserves Based Lending facility

The unaudited consolidated financial statements of the Company for the three months ended 31 March 2016 and the related Management Discussion and Analysis are available on the Company's website (www.ithacaenergy.com) and on SEDAR (www.sedar.com). All values in this release and the Company's financial disclosures are in US dollars, unless otherwise stated.

- ENDS -

Enquiries: Ithaca Energy Les Thomas lthomas@ithacaenergy.com +44 (0)1224 650 261 Graham Forbes gforbes@ithacaenergy.com +44 (0)1224 652 151 Richard Smith rsmith@ithacaenergy.com +44 (0)1224 652 172 FTI Consulting Edward Westropp edward.westropp@fticonsulting.com +44 (0)203 727 1521 Tom Hufton tom.hufton@fticonsulting.com +44 (0)203 727 1625 Cenkos Securities Neil McDonald nmcdonald@cenkos.com +44 (0)207 397 1953 Nick Tulloch ntulloch@cenkos.com +44 (0)131 220 9772 Beth McKiernan bmckiernan@cenkos.com +44 (0)131 220 9778 RBC Capital Markets Daniel Conti daniel.conti@rbccm.com +44 (0)207 653 4000 Matthew Coakes matthew.coakes@rbccm.com +44 (0)207 653 4000

Notes

In accordance with AIM Guidelines, John Horsburgh, BSc (Hons) Geophysics (Edinburgh), MSc Petroleum Geology (Aberdeen) and Subsurface Manager at Ithaca is the qualified person that has reviewed the technical information contained in this press release. Mr Horsburgh has over 15 years operating experience in the upstream oil and gas industry.

References herein to barrels of oil equivalent ("boe") are derived by converting gas to oil in the ratio of six thousand cubic feet ("Mcf") of gas to one barrel ("bbl") of oil. Boe may be misleading, particularly if used in isolation. A boe conversion ratio of 6 Mcf: 1 bbl is based on an energy conversion method primarily applicable at the burner tip and does not represent a value equivalency at the wellhead. Given the value ratio based on the current price of crude oil as compared to natural gas is significantly different from the energy equivalency of 6 Mcf: 1 bbl, utilising a conversion ratio at 6 Mcf: 1 bbl may be misleading as an indication of value.

All references to dollars ($) in this press release refer to the United States dollar (USD).

About Ithaca Energy

Ithaca Energy Inc. (TSX: IAE, LSE AIM: IAE) is a North Sea oil and gas operator focused on the delivery of lower risk growth through the appraisal and development of UK undeveloped discoveries and the exploitation of its existing UK producing asset portfolio. Ithaca's strategy is centred on generating sustainable long term shareholder value by building a highly profitable 25kboe/d North Sea oil and gas company. For further information please consult the Company's website www.ithacaenergy.com.

Non-IFRS Measures

"Cashflow from operations" and "cashflow per share" referred to in this press release are not prescribed by IFRS. These non-IFRS financial measures do not have any standardised meanings and therefore are unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. The Company uses these measures to help evaluate its performance. As an indicator of the Company's performance, cashflow from operations should not be considered as an alternative to, or more meaningful than, net cash from operating activities as determined in accordance with IFRS. The Company considers cashflow from operations to be a key measure as it demonstrates the Company's underlying ability to generate the cash necessary to fund operations and support activities related to its major assets. Cashflow from operations is determined by adding back changes in non-cash operating working capital to cash from operating activities.

"Net debt" referred to in this press release is not prescribed by IFRS. The Company uses net drawn debt as a measure to assess its financial position. Net drawn debt includes amounts outstanding under the Company's debt facilities and senior notes, less cash and cash equivalents.

Forward-looking Statements

Some of the statements and information in this press release are forward-looking. Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") are based on the Company's internal expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and beliefs as at the date of such statements or information, including, among other things, assumptions with respect to production, drilling, construction and maintenance times, well completion times, risks associated with operations, future capital expenditures, continued availability of financing for future capital expenditures, future acquisitions and dispositions and cash flow. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of such information may prove to be incorrect. When used in this press release, the words and phrases like "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "project", "plan", "should", "believe", "could", "target", "in the process of", "on track","set to" and similar expressions, and the negatives thereof, whether used in connection with operational activities, sail-away of the FPF-1 vessel, Stella first hydrocarbons, drilling plans including ramp up timing, production forecasts, budgetary figures, future operating costs, anticipated net debt and continued deleveraging, anticipated funding requirements, anticipated characteristics of the Company's future investment programme, planned capital expenditures, potential investment opportunities including the expected development costs thereof, potential developments including the timing and anticipated benefits of acquisitions and dispositions, the Company's expected tax horizon or otherwise, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are not promises or guarantees, and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in those forward-looking statements are reasonable but no assurance can be given that these expectations, or the assumptions underlying these expectations, will prove to be correct and such forward-looking statements included in this press release should not be unduly relied upon. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. Ithaca Energy Inc. expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in its expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any forward-looking statement is based except as required by applicable securities laws.

Additional information on these and other factors that could affect Ithaca's operations and financial results are included in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for the quarter ended 31 March 2016 and the Company's Annual Information Form for the year ended 31 December 2015 and in reports which are on file with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities and may be accessed through the SEDAR website (www.sedar.com).

Contact:

RNS

Customer Services

0044-207797-4400

rns@londonstockexchange.com

http://www.rns.com




Stockholm, 2016-05-16 08:01 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --- Net result for the period was USD 4.14 million (mln) (January 1, 2015-March 31, 2015: 12.83). Earnings per share were USD 0.06 (0.17).- The net asset value of the Company was USD 507.59 mln on March 31, 2016 (December 31, 2015: 503.44), corresponding to USD 6.91 per share (December 31, 2015: 6.85). Given a SEK/USD exchange rate of 8.2389 the values were SEK 4,135.43 mln (December 31, 2015: 4,204.90) and SEK 56.26 (December 31, 2015: 57.21), respectively.- The group's net asset value per share in USD increased by 0.83% over the period January 1, 2016-March 31, 2016. During the same period the RTS index increased by 15.74% in USD terms.- The Company has invested USD 20 mln into Propertyfinder, the leading property vertical in the MENA region. Vostok New Ventures is the sole investor in this primary funding round and owns 10% of the shares in Propertyfinder. USD 5 mln was paid in December 2015 and the remaining payment of USD 15 mln was disbursed during the first quarter 2016.- The number of outstanding shares at the end of the period was 73,499,555.- After the end of the period, Vostok New Ventures has invested USD 1.2 mln (SEK 10 mln) in Swedish-founded Carable (Garantibil), which aims to become a fully automated peer-to-peer marketplace for used cars.- After the end of the period, the Board of Directors has resolved to mandate the Company to repurchase up to 10% of the outstanding shares of the Company.The Company will hold a telephone conference with an interactive presentation at 16:00 CEST (10:00 a.m. EDT) Monday, May 16. For call-in details, see separate press release issued Friday, May 13, at www.vostoknewventures.com.Attachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=571818
Sanchez de Betak Brings The Luxury Collection's Iconic Hotels in Greece to Life With a Suitcase Design Inspired by her Travels to Santorini, Mykonos, Athens and Costa Navarino

With the summer travel season fast-approaching, The Luxury Collection Hotels Resorts, part of Starwood Hotels Resorts, Inc. (NYSE:HOT), unveils its first-ever collaboration with British luxury luggage brand Globe-Trotter: an exclusive, limited-edition suitcase collection. Imagined by designer and creative director Sofia Sanchez de Betak, the collection is inspired by her recent summer vacation in Greece, where she experienced four destinations through the lens of The Luxury Collection brand's indigenous hotels and resorts, including Santa Marina in Mykonos; The Romanos in Costa Navarino; Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens; and Vedema and Mystique in Santorini. The collection is available for retail at www.luxurycollectionstore.com.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516005478/en/

THE LUXURY COLLECTION HOTELS RESORTS COLLABORATES WITH SOFIA SANCHEZ DE BETAK TO CREATE LIMITED-EDITION LINE OF GLOBE-TROTTER LUGGAGE (Photo: Business Wire)

"As a creative force, fashion muse, and world traveler, Sofia embodies the values and spirit of a global explorer, and like our guests, she is a traveler who truly understands and personifies experiential luxury," said Meredith Dichter, Global Brand Director, The Luxury Collection Hotels Resorts. "Our hotels and resorts define their destinations, and we are thrilled that our portfolio in Greece inspired Sofia to create this one-of-a-kind luggage collection for Globe-Trotter."

The four unique pieces of luggage include: 'Santorini,' inspired by Sofia's stay at The Luxury Collection's Vedema and Mystique, both truly unique hotels located on one of the world's most celebrated islands; 'Mykonos,' influenced by her experience at the brand's exclusive beachfront oasis, Santa Marina; 'Athena,' which celebrates Sofia's visit to the iconic Hotel Grande Bretagne, which overlooks the fabled Acropolis and Syntagma Square in Athens; and 'Messinia,' a tribute to the beautiful destination of Costa Navarino, where Sofia stayed at The Romanos, The Luxury Collection's stunning resort situated among the olive groves and sparkling turquoise waters.

"For me, traveling is a treasure hunt-I love exploring new places and creating my own memorable experiences," said Sofia Sanchez de Betak. "For the design of this luggage collection, I wanted to create a scavenger hunt map inspired by my trip to Greece for fellow travelers to follow. A combination of insider tips from The Luxury Collection concierges and personal recommendations from locals and experts allowed me to curate the 'must sees' on my maps for global explorers to find!"

Influenced by Greece's characteristic colors, the collection's exterior features shades of blue and white, accented by touches of black as well as Globe-Trotter's iconic handmade leather trim and gold hardware. The interior of each piece is lined with cotton linen and features a colorfully illustrated scavenger map of the destination of which it was inspired, highlighting the hidden treasures and off-the-beaten-path experiences that Sofia discovered while exploring The Luxury Collection's destinations in Greece.

"This project is very close to Globe-Trotter's heart. The journey with Sofia literally and figuratively has been a special one for me; as a designer for a company so passionate about telling stories about travel, the opportunity to distill somebody's real experiences into physical products has been a great journey," said Charlotte Seddon, Designer, Globe-Trotter. "For me personally, the project also has real meaning I honeymooned across the Greek islands, and some of my most special memories were captured in these places. The result, we hope, is that a genuine and personal sense of warmth lives within these cases."

Exclusively offered at www.luxurycollectionstore.comGlobe-Trotter's flagship boutique in London and www.globe-trotter.com, the individual luggage pieces retail for USD $2,005. The limited-edition luggage collection comes in one convenient size, 22x15x8", and each piece was made with wheels and a retractable handle for practical travel.

About The Luxury Collection Hotels Resorts

The Luxury Collection brand is comprised of world-renowned hotels and resorts offering unique, authentic experiences that evoke lasting, treasured memories. For the global explorer, The Luxury Collection offers a gateway to the world's most exciting and desirable destinations. Each hotel and resort is a unique and cherished expression of its location; a portal to the destination's indigenous charms and treasures. Originated in 1906 under the CIGA brand as a collection of Europe's most celebrated and iconic properties, today The Luxury Collection brand is a glittering ensemble, recently surpassing 100 of the world's finest hotels and resorts in more than 30 countries. All of these hotels, many of them centuries old, are internationally recognized as being among the world's finest. For more information and new openings, visit theluxurycollection.com or follow Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

About Globe-Trotter

Synonymous with great British design, Globe-Trotter is a luxury travel lifestyle brand producing handcrafted luggage and leather collections. Established in 1897, all Globe-Trotter suitcases and travel accessories are handcrafted in Hertfordshire, England by highly skilled artisans using original manufacturing methods and machinery that date back to the Victorian era. For 120 years the brand philosophy has remained unchanged: an uncompromising integrity of craftsmanship. Globe-Trotter cases have been used by an enviable client list over the years from Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Sir Winston Churchill and HM Queen Elizabeth II to Daniel Craig, Eddie Redmayne and Kate Moss. Collections are available to purchase online at globe-trotter.com and in the Globe-Trotter flagship stores, along with a bespoke service, at 35 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4JD, UK and 5-2-1 Ginza, Chuo-Ku, Tokyo, Japan.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516005478/en/

Contacts:

Press

Simon Neggers, 212-380-4029

Simon.Neggers@starwoodhotels.com

or

Sarah Pallack, 646-442-5661

sarah@bpcm.com
Lumee' tissue-O2 monitoring system slated to be available this year in Europe

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, California, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --Profusa, Inc. announced today that it was selected by Pioneers, the global business relationship builder, to showcase the company's "wear-and-forget" Lumee' biosensor technology at the Pioneers Festival held at the prestiAgious Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna, Austria, May 24th-25th.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151215/296354LOGO

Making health and disease monitoring as easy as turning on your smart phone, the company's tissue-integrated sensors for long-term, continuous tracking of body chemistry will be highAlighted by Ben Hwang, Profusa's chairman and chief executive officer, in a talk entitled, "Beyond Fitness Trackers: Let Your Body Speak."

In a recent TEDX Vienna interview, Hwang explained how the company's tiny injectable sensors may soon enable real-time detection of our body's unique chemistry, providing actionable, clinical-grade data for personal and medical use. This capability to provide a continuous stream of live data could have the power to revolutionize the relationship we have with our bodies.

"Most of us only get a once-a-year peek at what's happening inside our body when we visit our doctor," said Hwang. "Yet the most valuable and important information comes from having a 'conversation' with your body in order to make timely choices and action corrections when your body data is available in real time and when it matters. What this technology will mean is that the entire spectrum of stakeholders in the health care system will fundamentally alter the way they do things."

Tissue-integrating Biosensors

With grant support by DARPA, the National Institutes of Health, and other funding agencies, Profusa's technology and novel bioengineering approach overcomes the effects of the largest hurdle in long-term use of biosensors in the body: the foreign body response. Placed under the skin with a specially designed injector, each tiny biosensor is a flexible fiber, 3-to-5 mm long and approxiAmately 500 microns in diameter. Rather than being isolated from the body, Profusa's biosensors work fully integrated within the body's tissue - without any metal device or elecAtronics - overcoming the effects of the foreign body response for more than one year.

Each biosensor is comprised of a bioengineered "smart hydrogel" (similar to contact lens materAial) forming a porous, tissue-integrating scaffold that induces capillary and cellular in-growth from surrounding tissue. The smart gel is linked to a light-emitting molecule that continuously signals the presence of a body chemical such as oxygen, glucose, or other biomarker.

Optical Reader

Adhered to the skin's surface or held by hand, a separate optical reader is used to read the fluorescent signal from the embedded biosensor. The reader sends excitation signals through the skin to the biosensor, which then emits fluorescent light proportional to the concentration of molecules of interest. The data is relayed to a smart phone for an encrypted personal record and historical tracking. Data can be shared securely via HIPAA-compliant digital networks with healthcare providers.

Lumee Oxygen Sensing System'

Profusa's first medical product, the Lumee Oxygen Sensing System, is a single-biomarker sensor designed to measure dissolved oxygen in the tissue. The system is being commercialAized as the only long-term monitoring technology that guides therapeutic action and measures tissue oxygen levels during the treatment and healing process for peripheral artery disease (PAD). Pending CE Mark, the Lumee system is slated to be available in Europe in 2016 for use by vascular surgeons and wound-healing specialists.

PAD affects 202 million people worldwide, 27 million of whom live in Europe and North America, with an annual economic burden of more than $74 billion in the U.S. alone. As the disease advances, patients can experience significant leg pain with impaired mobility (claudication), and in its most severe form, critical limb ischemia (CLI), gangrene and limb amputation.

About Pioneers

Pioneers, based in Vienna, Austria, is a global relationship builder in technology that provides infrastructures and services to facilitate meaningful business relationships within its juried community. These services inspire, empower and connect the most promising early-stage technology companies with corporations, investors, industry experts, and international media with the goal to increase their rate of economical success and positive impact on society. For more information, please visit www.pioneers.io

Profusa, Inc.

Profusa, Inc., based in South San Francisco, Calif., is leading the development of a new generation of tissue-integrated sensors that empowers an individual with the ability to monitor their unique body chemistry in unprecedented ways to transform the management of personal health and disease. Overcoming the body's response to foreign material for long-term use, its technology promises to be the foundational platform of real-time biochemical detection through the development of tiny bioengineered sensors that become one with the body to detect and continuously transmit actionable, medical-grade data for personal and medical use. See http://www.profusa.com for more information.
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Taiwan's solar industry has struggled in the wake of U.S. import duties on Taiwanese cells, which were first imposed in mid-2014. All of the nation's largest PV cell makers plunged into the red during Q3 2014, and remained unprofitable for several quarters thereafter. However, today Taiwanese PV cell and module maker Neo Solar Power's (NSP) results showed that the company has definitively returned to profitability, with Q1 serving as the company's second consecutive quarter of positive results. While revenues remain below 2014 levels at US$181 million in Q1 sales, NSP reports a 2.7% operating margin and $3.3 million in net income. The company's revenues are still ...

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
According to the latest market study released by Technavio, the global oil filter marketis expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 4% during the forecast period.

This research report titled 'Global Oil Filter Market 2016-2020' provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue and emerging market trends. This market research report also includes up to date analysis and forecasts for various market segments and all geographical regions.

Request sample report: http://goo.gl/FpXJuF

The report categorizes the global oil filter market into the following end-user segment: passenger cars, commercial vehicle, two wheelers, and others. The top three segments are:

Passenger cars

Commercial vehicle

Two wheelers

Global oil filter market by passenger cars

Improving economic situation, evolving lifestyle, rising income levels, and high consumer confidence have resulted in higher demand for new, fuel-efficient, and technologically advanced cars equipped with more safety features. The low auto loan rates in the developed and developing countries are also influencing automotive sales positively.

"MNC automobile manufacturers such as Ford, Volkswagen, BMW, Toyota Motors, Honda Motors, Daimler, Fiat, and Tata Motors have made substantial investments in production facilities in developing countries, including India, Thailand, and Mexico," says Anju Ajaykumar, a lead analyst at Technavio for tools and components research.

Rising sales and demand for automobiles and increased investments in the automotive sector will fuel the growth of the global oil filter market. For instance, the global passenger vehicles sales rose from 85 million units in 2014 to 91 million units in 2015.

Global oil filter market by commercial vehicles

Generally, most medium or heavy-duty trucks are installed with diesel engines. For instance, in the US, more than 93% of heavy-duty trucks in the country are diesel-powered, and the remaining gasoline-powered. The new clean diesel truck technology is gaining popularity among end-users. In 2014, the diesel-fueled truck segment accounted for nine million vehicles, wherein large trucks were recorded to hold 38% share.

Over the years, there have been improvements in vehicle design to enhance efficiency. Diesel vehicles manufactured after 2010 have been able to achieve 5% improvement in fuel economy. Fuel efficiency standard jointly proposed by the US EPA and the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2014 is applicable for medium and heavy-duty vehicles. This standard is aimed at ensuring energy security and driving manufacturing innovations. As a result, diesel vehicle manufacturers have adopted additional fuel-saving strategies such as improved engine refinements and vehicle aerodynamics to increase their market penetrations. Such measures propel market growth and drive the demand for oil filters.

Global oil filter market by two-wheelers

The global two-wheeler segment has been witnessing slow growth for the past couple of years, and it is projected to grow at a moderate pace during the forecast period. The two-wheeler segment is expected to account for a low CAGR compared to other segments due to decrease in sales of two-wheelers, mainly in major economies of APAC, such as China, Indonesia, and Thailand.

In APAC, China is the largest market for two-wheelers followed by India and Indonesia. The two-wheeler market has been declining in China; two-wheeler sales in China accounted for 18.8 million units in 2015, down by 11.6% from the previous year.

India is predicted to be the major market for two-wheelers. India and China accounted for a market share of more than 45% of the global two-wheeler market in 2015. However, the growth rate of two-wheelers is expected to reduce during the forecast period due to weak demand from the rural market in India as untimely rains affected agriculture yield and farmer revenues in 2015, thereby impacting motorcycle sales.

The top vendors highlighted by Technavio's research analysts in this report are:

Ahlstrom

Clarcor

DENSO

MAHLE

MANN+HUMMEL

Browse Related Reports:

Global Automotive Oil Filter Market 2015-2019

Oil Filter Market for Automobile in APAC 2015-2019

Electric Vehicle Charging Station Market in China 2016-2020

Purchase these three reports for the price of one by becoming a Technavio subscriber. Subscribing to Technavio's reports allows you to download any three reports per month for the price of one. Contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and a link to our subscription platform.

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516005538/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 630 333 9501

UK: +44 208 123 1770

www.technavio.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/16 -- Grande West Transportation Group Inc. (TSX VENTURE: BUS) ("Grande West" or the "Company"), a manufacturer of heavy-duty mid-sized transit buses for sale in Canada and the United-States, announced today that it was awarded a firm $1.4 million CAD order from Grande Prairie, Alberta for the supply of four 30-foot Vicinity buses.

Grande West is also pleased to announce a multi-year nearly $800,000 CAD contract from the City of Lethbridge, Alberta for two 30-foot Vicinity buses.

The company is delighted to receive these awards from the Cities of Grande Prairie and Lethbridge. This order further enhances Grande West's leadership position in the Canadian heavy-duty low floor mid-size bus market.

Grande West is currently experiencing the highest level of bid activity in its history. "We are extremely pleased to be filling orders for over 100 buses that will be delivered in 2017. Grande West is proud to have the confidence of so many Canadian Transit Operators and we continue to bolster our reputation in the U.S. To date, we have not lost a competitive tendered bid that we have submitted. Our Vicinity product is gaining trust, respect and market share," stated William Trainer, President and CEO.

About Grande West Transportation Group

Grande West is a Canadian bus manufacturer which designs, engineers and manufactures Vicinity buses for transit authorities and commercial enterprises. With little competition in the "mid-size" bus range, Grande West has set itself apart from others with the Vicinity bus - a heavy duty mid-size, true community transit bus for the North American market.

The Vicinity is designed with affordability, accessibility and global responsibility in mind. It costs significantly less than a regular 40 foot transit bus, burns less fuel and emits less harmful emissions.

Neither the TSX-V nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including without limitation, statements regarding the use of proceeds from the Private Placement, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.

Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Grande West's expectations include uncertainties relating to the receipt of final approval from the TSX-V; and other risk and uncertainties disclosed in Grande West's reports and documents filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time. Grande West's forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made. Grande West assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements or beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law.

Contacts:

Grande West Transportation

Dan Courtney

1-604-607-4000

dcourtney@grandewest.com

www.grandewest.com



The Howard Group

Jeff Walker

1-888-221-0915

jeff@howardgroupinc.com

www.howardgroupinc.com



Paradox Public Relations

Carl Desjardins

1-866-460-0408

carldesjardins@paradox-pr.ca

www.paradox-pr.ca




WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Crude oil futures surged higher Monday after Goldman Sachs said the global supply glut as rapidly dwindled. In a note to the clients, analysts Damien Courvalin and Jeffrey Currie of Goldman Sachs said it expects a nearly balanced market in the second quarter of this year. In Nigeria, there were pipeline outages that reduced the production to multi-year low. Wildfires curtailed production in Canada, while in Libya sectarian conflict is interrupting supplies. In a seperate report, the EIA said U.S. shale oil output will fall by 113,000 barrels a day in June. June WTI oil settled at $47.72/bbl on Nymex, up $1.51, or 3.3%, marking the highest settlement price since November 3. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
GATINEAU, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/16 -- Commissioner of Official Languages Graham Fraser will release his 2015-2016 annual report on Thursday, May 19, 2016, at 10:15 a.m. at the National Press Theatre, 150 Wellington Street, in Ottawa. A technical briefing on the report will be held at the same location at 9:15 a.m.

Media representatives are invited to attend both events.

This annual report launch includes the release of a report on the Commissioner's interventions in the courts over the past 10 years, as well as detailed report card results for 33 federal institutions regarding their compliance with the Official Languages Act.

Date: Thursday, May 19, 2016 Time: 9:15 a.m. EDT - Media room opens. Embargoed materials will be available for journalists participating in the technical briefing. 10:15 a.m. EDT - Statement by Mr. Fraser and embargo lifted. What: Release of the Commissioner of Official Languages' 2015-2016 annual report Who: Graham Fraser, Commissioner of Official Languages Where: National Press Theatre, 150 Wellington Street, Ottawa

Follow @OCOLCanada and officiallanguages

Contacts:

Nelson Kalil

Manager, Strategic Communications and Media Relations

Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages

819-420-4714 / Cellular: 613-324-0999

nelson.kalil@clo-ocol.gc.ca

www.officiallanguages.gc.ca




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/16 -- NOVAGOLD RESOURCES INC. (TSX: NG) (NYSE MKT: NG) is pleased to announce the detailed voting results on the items of business considered at its Annual General Meeting of Shareholders held on May 13, 2016 (the "Meeting"). A total of 259,716,288 or 81.24% of the Company's issued and outstanding shares were represented at the Meeting. The nominees listed in NOVAGOLD's Management Information Circular were elected as directors of the Company. Detailed results of the votes are set out below:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Proposal 1 Votes by Ballot Outcome of Election of Directors the Vote Votes For Votes Withheld ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sharon Dowdall Carried 203,412,887 798,724 (99.61%) (0.39%) Dr. Marc Faber Carried 202,800,781 1,410,830 (99.31%) (0.69%) Dr. Thomas Kaplan Carried 202,226,435 1,985,176 (99.03%) (0.97%) Gregory Lang Carried 202,782,128 1,429,483 (99.30%) (0.70%) Gillyeard Leathley Carried 202,155,836 2,055,775 (98.99%) (1.01%) Igor Levental Carried 201,995,665 2,215,946 (98.91%) (1.09%) Kalidas Madhavpeddi Carried 203,479,807 731,804 (99.64%) (0.36%) Gerald McConnell Carried 187,657,337 16,554,274 (91.89%) (8.11%) Clynton Nauman Carried 203,569,632 641,979 (99.69%) (0.31%) Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse Carried 177,317,871 26,893,740 (86.83%) (13.17%) Anthony Walsh Carried 192,991,666 11,219,945 (94.51%) (5.49%) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Proposal 2 - Appointment of Auditors

The vote was carried for the Appointment of the Auditors. The votes were as follows:

Votes For 258,108,955 99.38% Votes Withheld 1,606,852 0.62%

Proposal 3 - Say-On-Pay Advisory Vote

The vote was carried on the Say-On-Pay Advisory Vote. The votes were as follows:

Votes For 190,909,858 93.49% Votes Against 11,785,609 5.77% Votes Withheld 1,515,661 0.74%

Full details of all proposals are fully described in the Company's Management Information Circular available on the Company's website at www.novagold.com, on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov and the detailed results of voting on each proposal are included in the Report of Voting Results filed on SEDAR and on EDGAR.

About NOVAGOLD

NOVAGOLD is a well-financed precious metals company engaged in the exploration and development of mineral properties in North America. Its flagship asset is the 50%-owned Donlin Gold project in Alaska, one of the safest jurisdictions in the world. With approximately 39 million ounces of gold in the measured and indicated resource categories (541 million tonnes at an average grade of approximately 2.2 grams per tonne), Donlin Gold is regarded to be one of the largest, highest grade, and most prospective known gold deposits in the world. According to the Second Updated Feasibility Study (as defined below), once in production, Donlin Gold should average approximately 1.5 million ounces of gold per year for the first five full years, followed by decades of more than one million ounces per year on a 100% basis. The Donlin Gold project has substantial exploration potential beyond the designed footprint which currently covers only three kilometers of an approximately eight-kilometer long gold-bearing trend. Current activities at Donlin Gold are focused on permitting, community outreach and workforce development in preparation for the construction and operation of this top tier asset. The Donlin Gold project commenced permitting in 2012, a clearly defined process expected to take approximately five years. NOVAGOLD also owns 50% of the Galore Creek copper-gold-silver project located in northern British Columbia. According to the 2011 Pre-Feasibility Study (as defined below), once in production, Galore Creek is expected to be the largest copper mine in Canada, a tier-one jurisdiction. NOVAGOLD is currently evaluating opportunities to sell all or a portion of its interest in Galore Creek and would apply the proceeds toward the development of Donlin Gold. NOVAGOLD is well positioned to stay the course and take Donlin Gold through permitting.

Scientific and Technical Information

Scientific and technical information contained herein with respect to Donlin Gold is derived from the "Donlin Creek Gold Project Alaska, USA NI 43-101 Technical Report on Second Updated Feasibility Study" compiled by AMEC with an effective date of November 18, 2011, as amended January 20, 2012 (the "Second Updated Feasibility Study"). Kirk Hanson, P.E., Technical Director, Open Pit Mining, North America, (AMEC, Reno), and Gordon Seibel, R.M. SME, Principal Geologist, (AMEC, Reno) are the Qualified Persons responsible for the preparation of the independent technical report, each of whom are independent "qualified persons" as defined by NI 43-101.

Certain scientific and technical information contained herein with respect to Galore Creek is derived from the technical report entitled "Galore Creek Project British Columbia NI 43-101 Technical Report on Pre-Feasibility Study" dated effective July 27, 2011 (the "2011 Pre-Feasibility Study"). The Qualified Persons responsible for the preparation of the independent technical report are Greg Kulla, P. Geo., Principal Geologist (AMEC Americas Limited), and Jay Melnyk, P. Eng. (AMEC Americas Limited), each of whom are independent "qualified persons" as defined by NI 43-101.

Clifford Krall, P.E., who is the Mine Engineering Manager for NOVAGOLD and a "qualified person" under NI 43-101, has approved the scientific and technical information related to the Donlin Gold and Galore Creek projects contained in this press release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, the timing of permitting and potential development of Donlin Gold, statements relating to NOVAGOLD's future operating and financial performance, outlook, and the potential sale of all or part of NOVAGOLD's interest in Galore Creek are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding the 2016 outlook; perceived merit of properties; anticipated permitting timeframes; exploration results and budgets; mineral reserve and resource estimates; work programs; capital expenditures; timelines; strategic plans; completion of transactions; market prices for precious and base metals; or other statements that are not statements of fact. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties.

There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from NOVAGOLD's expectations include the uncertainties involving the need to obtain permits and governmental approvals; the need for additional financing to explore and develop properties and availability of financing in the debt and capital markets; uncertainties involved in the interpretation of drilling results and geological tests and the estimation of reserves and resources; the need for continued cooperation with Barrick Gold Corporation and Teck Resources Limited for the continued exploration and development of the Donlin Gold and Galore Creek properties, respectively; the need for cooperation of government agencies and native groups in the development and operation of properties; risks of construction and mining projects such as accidents, equipment breakdowns, bad weather, non-compliance with environmental and permit requirements, unanticipated variation in geological structures, ore grades or recovery rates; unexpected cost increases, which could include significant increases in estimated capital and operating costs; fluctuations in metal prices and currency exchange rates; and other risk and uncertainties disclosed in NOVAGOLD's Annual Report filed on Form 10-K for the year-ended November 30, 2015 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, Canadian securities regulators, and in other NOVAGOLD reports and documents filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time. NOVAGOLD's forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made. NOVAGOLD assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law.

Cautionary Note to United States Investors

This press release has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the securities laws in effect in Canada, which differ from the requirements of U.S. securities laws. Unless otherwise indicated, all resource and reserve estimates included in this press release have been prepared in accordance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM)-CIM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, adopted by the CIM Council, as amended ("CIM Definition Standards"). NI 43-101 is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators which establishes standards for all public disclosure an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. Canadian standards, including NI 43-101, differ significantly from the requirements of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and resource and reserve information contained herein may not be comparable to similar information disclosed by U.S. companies. In particular, and without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the term "resource" does not equate to the term "reserves". Under U.S. standards, mineralization may not be classified as a "reserve" unless the determination has been made that the mineralization could be economically and legally produced or extracted at the time the reserve determination is made. The SEC's disclosure standards normally do not permit the inclusion of information concerning "measured mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" or "inferred mineral resources" or other descriptions of the amount of mineralization in mineral deposits that do not constitute "reserves" by U.S. standards in documents filed with the SEC.

Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of "measured" or "indicated resources" will ever be converted into "reserves". Investors should also understand that "inferred mineral resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the "inferred resources" will ever be upgraded to "indicated resource", "measured resource", or "mineral reserve" status. Under Canadian rules, estimated "inferred mineral resources" may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies except in rare cases. Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an "inferred mineral resource" exists or is economically or legally mineable. Disclosure of "contained ounces" in a resource is permitted disclosure under Canadian regulations; however, the SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute "reserves" by SEC standards as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit measures. The requirements of NI 43-101 for identification of "reserves" are also not the same as those of the SEC, and reserves reported by NOVAGOLD in compliance with NI 43-101 may not qualify as "reserves" under SEC standards. Accordingly, information concerning mineral deposits set forth herein may not be comparable with information made public by companies that report in accordance with U.S. standards.

Contacts:

NOVAGOLD RESOURCES INC.

Melanie Hennessey

Vice President, Corporate Communications

604-669-6227 or 1-866-669-6227



NOVAGOLD RESOURCES INC.

Erin O'Toole

Analyst, Investor Relations

604-669-6227 or 1-866-669-6227




PORTLAND, OR -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/16 -- Eastside Distilling, Inc. (OTCQB: ESDI) ("Eastside" or the "Company"), a producer of award-winning master-crafted spirits, reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2016.

First Quarter 2016 Financial Highlights vs. Year-Ago Quarter

Revenues up 46% to $621,882





Gross profit up 93% to $207,305





Net loss totaled $1,014,679 versus a loss of $831,018 in Q1 2015





Adjusted EBITDA totaled a loss of $631,941 in Q1 2016 compared to a loss of $845,629 in Q1 2015





First and Second Quarter 2016 Operational Highlights

Total case shipments increased 79% to 3,148 cases in Q1 2016 from 1,754 cases in Q1 2015. Initial case shipments in Q2 2016 are off to a very strong start.





Barrel Hitch American Whiskey and its companion Barrel Hitch American "Oak Whiskey" introduced in July of 2015 are now 3rd in combined sales behind Burnside Bourbon and Portland Potato Vodka, in a spirits portfolio comprised of 11 brands including Below Deck Rums, and a distinctive line of infused whiskeys.





Extended national product rollout with Blackheath Beverage Group, which has a track record of helping independent brands like Eastside establish a nationwide presence.





Expanded national roll out distribution network to 16 states (and further expanded to 20 states in Q2 2016) with other states in the development stage.





Expanded marketing relationship with Comcast SportsNet Northwest, the home of the Trail Blazers, for new broadcast marketing campaign.





Showcased the Company's award-winning spirits at the 27th Annual ROTH Conference, which was attended by more 6,000 members of the financial community.





In April 2016, the Company completed two separate financings, including initial closings on its Series A preferred offering and a convertible note bridge financing, totaling net cash proceeds of $642,000 to provide working capital, purchase inventory and support growth.





First Quarter 2016 Financial Results

Revenues in Q1 2016 increased 46% to $621,882 compared to $424,910 in Q1 2015. The increase in revenue is primarily attributable to expanded sales into new states along with continued strong growth in the Oregon market.

Gross margins in Q1 2016 increased to 33% from 25.2% in Q1 2015. The increased gross margin is primarily attributable to the sales mix as well as much better spreading of the fixed facility costs due to the higher sales volumes.

Net loss in Q1 2016 totaled $1,014,679 or ($0.02) per diluted share, compared to net loss of $831,018 or ($0.02) per diluted share in Q1 2015. The wider net loss is primarily due to increases in marketing and professional fees.

Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, and change in fair value of derivative liabilities) for Q1 2016 totaled a loss of $631,941 versus a loss of $845,629 in the year-ago period (see discussion about the Company's presentation of adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP term, and its reconciliation to the nearest GAAP metric, below).

Cash at March 31, 2016, decreased to $12,000 compared to $368,000 at March 31, 2015, with the decrease resulting from cash used for operations. In April 2016, the Company conducting closings on two separate financings, raising net cash proceeds of $642,000.

Further details about the Company's results in fiscal first quarter 2016 are available in its quarterly report on Form 10-Q, which is available for download from the investor relations section of the Company's website at www.eastsidedistilling.com.

Management Commentary

"While the first quarter is typically our slowest quarter of the year, we generated 46% sales growth over the same year-ago period as we continued to build upon the momentum of our record holiday sales both at our Portland based retail locations but also across our expanding national distribution network," said the Company's CEO, Steven Earles.

"We are more convinced than ever that we are in the right market at the right time. Sales of distilled spirits in the U.S. climbed 14% over a five-year period to a record 210 million cases sold in 2014. According to The Distilled Spirits Council, whiskey sales have been the number one fastest growing category in the distilled spirits segment in the United States, rising 4 percent in 2014 to $23.1 billion from the year earlier. This increase was driven by strong growth in 'brown' spirits particularly, Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey, where volumes rose by 7.4 percent. Furthermore, sales of 'craft' American whiskey and Bourbon brands, grew 41.6% in 2014, versus a 2.8% overall growth for the big distillers.

"As the research confirms, whiskey is the fastest growing segment of the spirits market and we see significant opportunity to grow our sales within this expanding category. Additionally, as a craft producer we believe we are particularly well positioned to leverage the momentum and appeal in this category, as evidenced by our consistent quarter over quarter double digit growth, to further drive sales as we expand nationally.

As reported in Q3 last year, we launched our newest brand, Barrel Hitch American Whiskey and its companion Barrel Hitch 'Oregon Oak' American Whiskey to capitalize on these strong trends. Barrel Hitch was carefully created to compliment our already highly regarded Burnside Bourbon and Burnside 'Oregon Oaked' Bourbon as well as our line-up of award winning flavored whiskies, Marionberry and Cherry Bomb. A lighter whiskey bottled at 80 proof, Barrel Hitch was designed to be a smooth and approachable spirit at an affordable price that would have appeal to a wide cross section of whiskey enthusiasts.

We are pleased to report that since the launch of these two award winning spirits they've combined to become our number 3 top seller after our Burnside Bourbon and Portland Potato Vodka and the demand momentum for these brands continues to grow.

"A key aspect of our national roll-out campaign is to insure production efficiency and quality control remains intact as demand increases. That said, we are pleased to report that our operations led by Master Distiller, Mel Heim continues to earn high marks for production quality and efficiency and we believe we are well structured to meet increased demand as it develops.

"Our relationship with Blackheath Beverage Group, has been instrumental in assisting us in implementing a comprehensive national sales and distribution strategy. It is a strategy we remain committed to as we believe strong national distribution is essential to creating both short and long term sales success.

"We are also committed to expanding our 'digital presence' through various social media channels including, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. These channels support building engagement with a younger demographic, as well as being a cost efficient way to reach a broad audience supporting sales as well as establishing a broader brand presence nationally.

"There is tremendous momentum in the spirits category and we believe we are well positioned to continue to drive sales growth. We see opportunities to expand sales in the markets we are now in as well as to further develop our presence both nationally and internationally. We are also pleased to have completed the recent financings to help support our continued growth and drive toward bringing the company profitable," concluded Mr. Earles.

2016 Q2 Preview

Management is pleased to report that case sales volume for the month of April has been very strong, further reflecting sales traction in existing markets and additional sales from the introduction of our products to a number of new states. As reported in April 2016, the Company is now selling in 20 states up from 16 states in Q1.

About Eastside Distilling

Eastside Distilling, Inc. (OTCQB: ESDI) is located in Southeast Portland's Distillery Row, and has been producing high-quality, master crafted spirits since 2008. Makers of award winning spirits, the company is unique in the marketplace and distinguished by its highly decorated product line-up that includes Barrel Hitch American Whiskies, Burnside Bourbon, Below Deck Rums, Portland Potato Vodka, and a distinctive line of infused whiskeys. All Eastside spirits are master crafted from natural ingredients for unparalleled quality and taste. The Company is publicly traded under the symbol OTCQB: ESDI. For more information visit: www.eastsidedistilling.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain matters discussed in this press release may be forward-looking statements. Such matters involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including the following: changes in economic conditions; general competitive factors; the Company's ability to continue as a going concern; acceptance of the Company's products in the market; the Company's success in obtaining new customers; the Company's ability to obtain additional capital, the Company's success in product development; the Company's ability to execute its business model and strategic plans; the Company's success in integrating acquired entities and assets, and all the risks and related information described from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including the financial statements and related information contained in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 13, 2016. Examples of forward-looking statements in this release may include statements related to our strategic focus, product verticals, anticipated revenue and profitability. The Company assumes no obligation to update the cautionary information in this release.

Fiscal First Quarter 2016 Financial Summary Tables

The following financial information should be read in conjunction with the unaudited financial statements and accompanying notes filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 12, 2016 in its Annual Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2016, and which can be viewed at www.sec.gov and in the investor relations section of the company's website at www.eastsidedistilling.com.

Use of Non-GAAP Measures

Eastside Distilling's management evaluates and makes operating decisions using various financial metrics. In addition to the company's GAAP results, management also considers the non-GAAP measure of adjusted EBITDA. Management believes this non-GAAP measure provides useful information about the Company's operating results.

The Company defines adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss), plus interest expense, provision for income taxes, depreciation and amortization, loss from discontinued operations (goodwill impairment), and stock-based compensation. The table below provides a reconciliation of this non-GAAP financial measure with the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure.

Three Months Ended March 31, 2016 2015 -------------- -------------- Net (loss) income $ (1,014,679) $ (831,018) Add: Interest expense 22,981 2,900 Gain on Spin-off (52,890) Provision for income taxes Depreciation and amortization 164,818 4,379 -------------- -------------- Adjusted EBITDA $ (826,880) $ (876,629) ============== ============== Stock-based compensation 105,839 31,000 Stock issued for services 89,100 -------------- -------------- EBITDA less stock-based expense $ (631,941) $ (845,629) Eastside Distilling, Inc. and Subsidiary Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets March 31, 2016 and December 31, 2015 March 31, December 31, 2016 2015 (unaudited) (1) -------------- -------------- Assets Current assets: Cash $ 12,800 $ 141,317 Trade receivables 183,180 142,206 Inventories 622,468 683,824 Prepaid expenses 99,755 163,506 -------------- -------------- Total current assets 918,203 1,130,853 Property and equipment - net 113,382 112,005 Other assets 48,000 49,000 -------------- -------------- Total Assets $ 1,079,585 $ 1,291,858 -------------- -------------- Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 1,292,720 $ 1,300,532 Accrued liabilities 868,553 563,814 Deferred revenue 2,108 727 Current portion of note payable 4,204 4,098 Related party note payable 12,500 12,500 Convertible notes payable - net of debt discount 467,125 455,958 Total current liabilities 2,647,210 2,337,629 Preferred stock deposit 151,200 - Note payable - less current portion 16,450 17,842 -------------- -------------- Total liabilities 2,814,860 2,355,471 -------------- -------------- Commitments and contingencies (Note 10) Stockholders' equity: Preferred stock, $0.0001 par value; 100,000,000 shares authorized; no shares issued and outstanding at March 31, 2016 and December 31, 2015 Common stock, $0.0001 par value; 900,000,000 shares authorized; 46,726,000 and 46,195,000 shares issued and outstanding at March 31, 2016 and December 31, 2015, respectively 4,673 4,620 Additional paid-in capital 6,836,482 6,493,518 Accumulated deficit (8,576,430) (7,561,751) -------------- -------------- Total stockholders' equity (1,735,275) (1,063,613) -------------- -------------- Total Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity $ 1,079,585 $ 1,291,858 -------------- -------------- (1) Derived from the Company's December 31, 2015 audited financial statements Eastside Distilling, Inc. and Subsidiary Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations For the three months ended March 31, 2016 and 2015 (unaudited) Three Months Ended ------------------------------ March 30, March 30, 2016 2015 -------------- -------------- Sales $ 621,882 $ 424,910 Less excise taxes 158,408 99,840 -------------- -------------- Net sales 463,474 325,070 Cost of sales 256,169 217,862 -------------- -------------- Gross profit 207,305 107,208 Selling, general, and administrative expenses 1,050,926 987,163 -------------- -------------- Income (loss) from operations (843,621) (879,955) Other income (expense) - net (171,058) 48,937 -------------- -------------- Income (loss) before income taxes (1,014,679) (831,018) Provision for income taxes - - -------------- -------------- Net income (loss) $ (1,014,679) $ (831,018) -------------- -------------- Basic and diluted net income (loss) per common share $ (0.02) $ (0.02) -------------- -------------- Basic and diluted weighted average common shares outstanding 46,568,451 45,512,500 -------------- --------------

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3006682



Company Contact:

Eastside Distilling Investor Relations

Tel 971-888-4264

inquiries@eastsidedistilling.com




Caribou Biosciences, Inc., a Berkeley, California-based developer of CRISPR-Cas technologies for genome engineering, completed a $30m Series B funding round.

Backers included new investors Anterra Capital, Heritage Group, Maverick Capital Ventures, and Pontifax AgTech as well as existing investors F-Prime Capital Partners, Novartis, Mission Bay Capital, and 5 Prime Ventures.In conjunction with the funding, Philip Austin, Founding Partner at Anterra Capital, joined Caribous Board of Directors.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand the CRISPR gene editing technology platform and accelerate efforts in additional application areas in agriculture, therapeutics, biological research, and industrial biotechnology.

Led by Rachel Haurwitz, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, Caribou is a developer of cellular engineering and analysis solutions based on CRISPR technologies, which provide enhanced capabilities to therapeutic development, agricultural biotechnology, industrial biotechnology, and basic and applied biological research.

The company is founded by pioneers of CRISPR-Cas biology based on research carried out in the Doudna Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

FinSMEs

16/05/2016
PebblePost, a NYC-based provider of a programmatic direct mail platform, raised $5.125m in venture capital funding.

According to a regulatory form filed with the SEC, 26 investors participated in the offering.

Backers in the company include Tribeva Venture Partners, FF Venture Capital, Alpine Meridian Ventures, Mantella Venture Partners, Kickstart Seed Fund, Black Point Investments, Are Traasdahl, Bob Ellis, David Rodnitzky, Erik Matlick, Frank Barbieri, Geoff Judge, Jeff Stewart, Michael Liou, Oren Michels, Sanjay Chadda, Slava Rubin, Yen Lee, Dan Offner and John Ramey.

Led by Lewis Gersh, PebblePost provides a programmatic direct mail platform that leverages patent pending technology to capture clickstream data from site visitors, segment and send mail to them within 24 hours. Analytics assesses the real-time performance of mail that is sent.

FinSMEs

16/05/2016
Renovo Financial, a Chicago, IL-based private lender that assists real estate investors who acquire, renovate and manage residential properties, closed an incremental $25m commitment from Victory Park Capital (VPC).

VPCs total investment now reaches $75m following an existing $50m investment which VPC closed with Renovo in March 2015.

The company will use the funds to continue to grow its lending platform to provide service to investors in this underserved marketplace.

Founded in 2011 by its CEO Kevin Werner, Head of Lending Daniel Rosen and Granite Creek Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm, Renovo offers short-term acquisition-and-construction loans as well as long-term financing for rental property investors.

Clients are experienced investors and project managers who pursue a buy-fix-flip strategy for short-term profit or a buy-fix-hold approach to build a long-term portfolio.

FinSMEs

16/05/2016
Amrita Rao tied the knot with longtime boyfriend RJ Anmol in a private ceremony in Mumbai on Sunday, 15 May. Only immediate family and a few close fiends were present on the occasion. The coupe has plans to host a big celebration when their schedules permit.

Reports that Amrita had indeed married Anmol were confirmed by the latter, in a Facebook post.

The duo met seven years ago, when Anmol interviewed Amrita, and have been inseparable ever since.

For a while now, rumours that Amrita and Anmol had wed were doing the rounds. Mid-Day had reported back in February that sources close to the couple had said that they were married in a secret ceremony. The report pointed out that Amrita had been by Anmol's side when he had been recently hospitalised and also that the duo had moved into a new apartment in the suburb of Vakola in Mumbai (previously, Amrita had lived with her parents in Versova).

However, neither Amrita  who has kept the relationship under wraps for all these years  nor Anmol, had confirmed or denied the report.

Anmol has said that the nuptials took place on Sunday and in his Facebook post dated 15 May, said: "An interview that started seven years back,continues...Only to get stronger today! Just married! Amrita and I need your good wishes."

Amrita was seen in Hindi films like Main Hoon Na and Vivaah, but hasn't been seen in a major role in a film of late. She moved to television with the show Meri Awaaz Hi Pehchaan Hai. Amrita's sister Preetika Rao is incidentally a very popular actress on the small screen.

RJ Anmol has been associated with popular shows like Purani Jeans.
Is there anything Ranveer Singh can't do?

Currently in Paris shooting with Vaani Kapoor for YRF's Befikre, the buzz around his next couple of releases in tremendous. Rumours include an upcoming film with Sanjay Leela Bhansali (possibly with or without Shah Rukh Khan; only time will tell), and Dhoom 4 with Salman Khan.

However it is one piece of speculation that particularly has our interest. According to Mumbai Mirror, Ranveer Singh is allegedly going to be the lead in Zoya Akhtar's next film, where he plays a rapper. The film, tentatively titled Gully Boy, will graph Singh as an underdog from the streets of Mumbai who rises to the top as a city rapper.

Ranveer's role is modelled upon Mumbai-based rappers Naezy and Divine, who also came out with an anthem for Mumbai, titled Mere Gully Mein. Both have gone on to work with All India Bakch*d and bass king Nucleya, after having started out as 'gully' rappers from the slums of Mumbai.

The film is currently in the scripting stage (helmed by Akhtar and Talaash directed Reema Kagti) and has a variety of sources for its lead character, some of whom include "politically incorrect" rappers Muck Fodi (Ashwini Mishra), Vik Sen aka Feyago, Bangalore-based Brodha V aka Vignesh Shivanand and BK from Tripura, all of whom do underground, politician bashing and very popular on social media.

The film is all set to start rolling next year, after Ranveer finished his prior commitments, and will also have another actor in the cast.

This is probably what Akhtar and Ranveer Singh were discussing when they met before he left for Paris to shoot for Befikre.

Read this Mumbai Mirror report for further details.
Ever since it was announced that Vidya Balan would be a part of Kahaani 2, speculation around the project has been high. Vidya's sporadic tweets from Kolkata  where she had returned to shoot the film (incidentally, she had also shot there for the original Kahaani)  provided updates on how far the shoot had progressed in the City of Joy.

Now, Vidya has announced that her portion of the film has been completed. Vidya shared the news with her followers on micro-blogging platform Twitter, thanking her director Sujoy Ghosh for giving her "another mother of a story" to work on.

Aaschi Sujoy da...Dhonnobaad for 'another mother of a story '!! pic.twitter.com/OVLskql4os  vidya balan (@vidya_balan) May 15, 2016

Sujoy also confirmed that Vidya's part of the shoot had ended, commending her on her "mother of a performance".

the @vidya_balan wraps K2 .. leaves behind a mother of a performance... https://t.co/N5KvWqlReX  sujoy ghosh (@sujoy_g) May 15, 2016

The report that Vidya had finished her segment of Kahaani 2 came a little after a leading daily published photos of her on the sets of the film.

In the photos, Vidya is dressed in a drab outfit, with a stole over hear head. A burn scar obscures part of her face. She is seated in a yellow taxicab with what seems like a wheelchair stuffed in the boot.

Vidya's Kahaani 2 co-star Arjun Rampal was also seen in the photos, in character as a policeman.

News agencies had reported that Vidya started work on the film in March. Arjun, however, started the shoot only last week. The film is expected to release on 29 November 2016.

Apart from Kahaani 2, Vidya has several other high-profile films coming up. TE3N, in which she stars opposite Amitabh Bachchan will be in theatres on 10 June.

She will also start work on Begum Jaan, helmed by Srijit Mukherjee, soon.
New Delhi: The Met department on Sunday predicted a six-day delay in the onset of monsoon that was scheduled to strike Kerala on 1 June. The news comes as a disappointment to the drought-hit parts of the country.

"Forecast suggests that monsoon onset over Kerala this year is likely to be slightly delayed. The Southwest monsoon is likely to set over Kerala on 7 June with a model error of plus or minus four days," the India Metereological Department (IMD) said in its forecast released here.

June 1 is the official onset date of monsoon in India when it hits Kerala.

The delay in the arrival of the monsoon is not good news for the country, which is suffering due to intense heat and is eagerly awaiting the rains. The government recently told the Supreme Court that about 330 million people, or nearly one fourth of the country's population, in 256 districts have been affected by the drought. Many have also died due to sunstroke and dehydration.

Interestingly, forecast of monsoon onset issued during the past 11 years (from 2005-2015) except 2015, has proved to be correct. This includes the error margin of plus or minus four days.

IMD Director General Laxman Singh Rathore said the delay in the monsoon onset was not an "unusual" phenomenon.

He, however, said that there would be some relief to South Indian states from the intense heat as there could be some rainfall in the coming days.

"Currently there is a low pressure area in the Bay of Bengal, which will become a depression and hit Tamil Nadu coast by tonight. This will bring good amount of rainfall to the state, parts of South Interior Karnataka and parts of Kerala," Rathore said.

"...We cannot rule out the possibility of a depression forming in the Bay of Bengal which will help monsoon to set over south Andaman Sea around May 17 and over north Andaman Sea on May 20. This will cause increased rainfall activity in the southern peninsula," S Pai, deputy director general (climate division), Pune IMD, has been quoted a saying in a report in The Indian Express.

Skymet, a private forecasting agency, in its forecast for monsoon onset, had said that monsoon will hit Kerala between 28 and 30 May.

The IMD has already made a forecast that monsoon will be "above normal" this year.

With PTI
Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said the killing of a senior journalist was an attack on him and that he will recommend a CBI probe if the grieving family insisted.

Saying he was saddened by the murder of Rajdeo Ranjan, the chief minister told the media, "The killing of the journalist is an attack on me."

He said he had full faith in Bihar police and its investigation.

"We have not left any stone unturned. The investigation is being carried out with highest diligence. Those who committed this crime (will get the strictest punishment)."

Nitish Kumar said he told the police chief on Sunday night to meet the victim's family and ask if they were satisfied with the action taken thus far.

"If they are not satisfied, we will ask for a CBI probe," he added.

Nitish Kumar said, "I have said earlier too. Anyone can commit a crime. But the law has to take its own course."

Ranjan, 46, the Siwan bureau chief of Hindustan, was shot dead at a busy market near the Station Road on Friday night.

Siwan Superintendent of Police Saurav Kumar Shah said nearly a dozen suspects, including Munshi Mian, had been detained in connection with the case.

According to police, Munshi Mian was detained from Pratappur, the village of jailed former MP Mohammad Shahabuddin.
Kolkata: With almost no rain in the last two months and temperature hovering near 50 degrees Celsius in many districts of West Bengal, the state government is taking stock of the situation there before declaring them drought-hit.

The situation in the several districts, especially Purulia, West Midnapore, Bankura and Burdwan, is "pretty bad", state Agriculture minister Purnendu Basu told PTI.

"Crops are damaged because of no rainfall and water bodies have dried up resulting in massive water crisis in these four districts. We have sought reports from the concerned departments before declaring which districts are drought-hit. We will take a decision by next week," Basu said.

According to him, the DMO's report on the situation in each of the 19 districts has been sought. While the report of Purulia district is complete, compilation in other districts is on and will be over in another couple of days.

"These reports will help us estimate the crop loss in these places and accordingly help us plan how to compensate the farmers. And depending on them , we will also be able to place our demands before the Centre," Basu said.

He alleged that the Centre had not responded to the state's plea last year for relief for drought-hit districts.

The Agriculture minister pointed out that a farmer would be compensated if only more than 33 per cent of his crop was destroyed.

Talking about damage to crops, Basu said that cultivation of boro paddy, maize and pulses would be badly affected if the current "drought-like" situation continued for another couple of weeks.

"The situation will surely improve if there is some rainfall for a week or so. Definitely, we are praying for rains and the total situation will reverse," he said.

The Supreme Court last week criticised the role of few state governments for their "ostrich-like attitude" in declaring drought despite having a rainfall deficit.

The state government has decided to allot Rs 75 lakh to the 19 districts barring Kolkata to repair tube wells and drinking water pipelines.

"With no rainfall, water crisis is definitely a huge problem. We are taking all precautionary measures and have decided to allot Rs 75 lakh each to all the 19 zilla parishads for repairing of tube wells and treated-water pipelines immediately and ensure adequate supply of drinking water," Public health engineering (PHE) Minister Subrata Mukherjee said, when contacted.

He said that over 30 lakh people in 28 blocks in four districts of Purulia, West Midnapore, Bankura and Burdwan were facing "serious drinking water crisis".

"Most of the water bodies have either dried up or are on the brink of drying up. We have to make it a point that people get enough drinking water. If they do not get enough of it, it can lead to serious health problems.

"Cultivation will also be affected very badly... The situation is, however, still under control. There is no reason to panic," he said.

The PHE department has deployed around 19 mobile treatment units with the ability to produce around 70,000 litres of drinking water from water bodies in an hour.

"This drinking water is being distributed in 250 ml pouches to villagers in affected areas to prevent breakout of enteric diseases. We are also using tankers to carry drinking water," Mukherjee said.

The PHE minister said that his department in the past ten days had distributed 12.65 lakh drinking water pouches in West Midnapore, Bankura and Burdwan.

In fact, a quick response team is working 24X7 to tackle any eventuality in coordination with the district administrations, the minister said.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Jamnagar Poonamben Madam fell into an 8-foot deep drain where she had gone to oversee a demolition drive.

41-year-old Madam fell into an 8-feet deep drain when a thin concrete crust covering it cracked under her feet and suffered a gash on her head.

Police said she was standing on the concrete sheet which was made to cover the drain while meeting people when it broke and she fell.

According to her doctor, S Maheshwari, the leader suffered a 4-inch deep gash on her head and has hurt her shoulder and foot.

Madam had gone to meet the residents of Jalaram slum who were opposing to the demolition drive and had entered into an altercation with the employees of the Jamnagar Municipal Corporation (JMC).

The drive was being conducted by the Jamnagar Municipal Corporation at the Jalaram slum. The residents were not letting the employees carry the demolition upon which Madam rushed to the spot to talk to them.

BJP MP from Jamnagar Poonam Madam had a nasty fall after she slipped and fell into a drain during demolition drivehttps://t.co/lDNO2HXcDT  News18 (@CNNnews18) May 16, 2016

Madam's doctor said that her condition was stable.

"She has suffered a 4-inch wound on her head that caused bleeding which is now under control. We have not detected any fracture in X-Ray reports but CT scan remains to be done," Maheshwari said.

"She has hurt her left shoulder but has not sustained a fracture. All in all, her condition is stable, her vitals normal, and she is conscious and there is nothing to worry about. She will be able to go home earliest by tomorrow morning", he said.



With inputs from PTI
Friedrich Nietzsche once said: There is a certain right by which we many deprive a man of life, but none by which we may deprive him of death; this is mere cruelty. As the debate over euthanasia gains renewed traction from the draft bill drawn up by the union government on passive euthanasia, we may do well to recall Nietzsches profound words.

According to media reports today, the Union health ministry last week put up the draft of the Terminally Ill Patients (protection of patients and medical practitioners) Bill, on its website, inviting responses from people to its provisions. The current draft bill on euthanasia seeks to provide patients with the right to "withhold or withdraw medical treatment to herself or himself" and "allow nature to take its own course". The bill provides protection to patients and doctors from any liability for withholding or withdrawing medical treatment and states that palliative care (pain management) can continue.

Like elsewhere in the world, in India too, the right to die is a deeply fraught subject; a subject people do not want to engage with, directly or publicly  let alone be seen as support the contentious idea. If society at large talks about euthanasia at all, it does so only behind closed doors and not as a matter of public discourse. Ending this culture of silence on the right to die  a concept that has such an important bearing on our lives  has been long overdue. The truth is that allowing a person the right to have agency over her life or death should be treated as a marker of compassion rather than cruelty.

The right to die with dignity is an intimate decision that should be left to the choice of the individual and not government or state agencies. Its indeed an ironic situation, where India has retained death penalty in its statute books but has refused to give a human being the right to take ownership of her own life and death. The very state which executes death a sentence - does not at the same time allow a person to exercise the right to end her life, even when she is confronting the agony of prolonged terminal illness.

We often make the mistake such a decision to be a manifestation of what we like to believe is Indian societys innate compassion. The reality however belies such an assumption. As a society we are yet to live up to the values of compassion that we so ardently and arrogantly lay claims to. Consider in this context, the ruthless practice of sending widows to exile which Indian society has sanctioned without demur.

Cutting across the class spectrum - sons and daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, send off widows in their families to Vrindavan. Exiled to a life of loneliness, it is there  in the land of the Bhakti movement - the widows breathe the last; an act of cruelty that has gone on for decades without causing the state or the families of the exiled, any anguish. It may be found that these very families that exile their own also publicly oppose passive euthanasia.

The fractious debate over euthanasia however is not peculiar to India. After an animate debate, the British Parliament, in September 2015, rejected a bill that would have allowed assisted suicide. The legislation, known as the Assisted Dying Bill, would have mandated doctors in England to prescribe lethal injections to some terminally ill patients who had less than six months to live. Put to vote in Parliament, the bill was overwhelmingly rejected by 330 votes to 118.

Supporting the Assisted Dying Bill, Cambridge scientist Stephen Hawking, in a media interview had confessed to having briefly contemplated and even attempted suicide in 1985. Diagnosed with a motor neuron disease at the age of 21, Professor Hawking caught pneumonia in 1985. His lungs, already debilitated from his condition, were unable to cope. The scientist had to undergo a tracheostomy operation, during which a tube was inserted into his windpipe through his neck, which irreversibly removing his voice.

I admit that when I had my tracheostomy operation, I briefly tried to commit suicide by not breathing. However, the reflex to breathe was too strong, Hawking candidly admitted in the BBC interview. Hawking also described the opposition to the bill as discrimination against the disabled to deny them the right to kill themselves that able bodied people have.

As of 2015, euthanasia was only legal in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Assisted suicide was legal in Switzerland, Germany, Albania, Colombia, Japan and in the American states of Washington, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico and Montana.

True, the will to live usually transcends the will to die  a general law of human nature. Also, the very reason why allowing those wish to go against this law of human nature, their will, is so important. Without that individual choice we are reduced to being shuffled around as pawns in the hands of state agencies.
A month on, the Handwara girl who was at the centre of violent protests in Srinagar in April, has changed her stand entirely on the incident. Rejecting her earlier statement, the teenage girl held a press conference alleging that the police forced her to give a statement to the magistrate, saying that it was not army personnel but local boys who had molested her.

Police told me not to give my original statement, they said that will be safe for my family. To save their army man, my image was kept at stake. Why?, ANI quoted the girl as saying.

Addressing the media, the girl demanded a case against the police and anyone else who were found responsible for recording and circulating her video statement and for the "wrongful confinement and hostile treatment".

She further made a statement about what happened on 12 April, while the media was discouraged from asking her questions.

According to NDTV, the girl was in protective custody for 27 days and was released only after the court ordered the cops to do so.

"They made me sign blank papers. I can't write in Urdu. They made my write in Urdu and took our signature," NDTV quoted her as saying about her forced stay in the police station.

The mother of the 16-year-old girl had earlier claimed that her daughter was pressurised into giving a video statement denying she was molested and has approached court seeking an independent probe into the incident.

While her lawyer had earlier told the press that she was being pressured to make statements to save the army personnel, this is the first time the girl came forward to tell her end of the story of the original incident and the subsequent abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of the police.

India Today quoted the girls retelling of the incident: "When I came out from the washroom, an armyman held my hand. I managed to free myself from his clutches and ran outside screaming. Then I was taken to the police station. She also reportedly stated that one policeman actually spat on her.

Every police officer who met me would insult me and leave. They never thought, she is a young child, how can we insult her?, the girl said.

Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), which represents the girl and her family, had claimed on 18 April that neither of her statementsone made in a video recorded by police and the other made before the CJM under Section 164-A of CrPCwere made voluntarily.

"The minor girl's statement under Section 164-A CrPC was recorded before the judicial magistrate at Handwara. Her father was not present in court during the recording of the statement. No lawyer was present in court accompanying her, a spokesperson for JKCCS had said.

Protests broke out on 12 April when news spread that army personnel had allegedly molested the teenager. Army men used force to quell the protests killing three civilians in the process. The protests had spread to nearby areas, resulting in death of two more persons forcing authorities to clamp curfew for a week. Soon after, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti intervened and called for calm, saying that her government will see to it that the guilty are punished.

With inputs from PTI
New Delhi: A Delhi Police Head constable deployed at Union Minister Uma Bharti's residence here allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself with his service gun on Sunday night.

The incident took place around 10.30 PM, following which police teams were rushed to the residence of Uma Bharti, the Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation in New Delhi's Ashoka Road.

The official, identified as Head Constable Brijpal of Delhi Police's security unit, was rushed to the nearest hospital, but was declared dead at the hospital, a senior police official said adding that the reason why he took the extreme step could not be ascertained yet.

The head constable allegedly shot himself with his official gun which has been recovered from the spot.

"He was declared dead at the hospital," DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said adding an inquest has been initiated into the matter.

Prima facie the official shot himself sitting inside his personal car parked inside the premises of Bharti's bungalow. Brijpal is survived by his wife and three children.
Ranchi: Two people have been arrested in connection with the killing of TV journalist Akhilesh Singh in Jharkhand's Chatra district, a police officer said on Monday.

"We have arrested two people as part of our investigation into the murder of the journalist," Chatra Superintendent of Police Anjani Jha told IANS.

Asked about motive behind the murder, Jha said, "We are interrogating and will later disclose the details".

Indradeo Yadav alias Akhilesh Singh, a local television reporter in the Chatra district, was shot dead on Thursday when he was returning home.

The killing has caused widespread outrage, occurring as it did a day before another journalist, Rajdeo Ranjan, was murdered in neighbouring Bihar.

Journalists' associations across the country have condemned the killings and demanded immediate arrest of the culprits.

Akhilesh Singh is the fourth journalist to be killed since the creation of Jharkhand in November 2000, according to the records kept by media watchdog agencies such as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

None of the previous three murders has been solved or the culprits brought to justice. A few people who were arrested in these cases managed to walk away free later.

Freelance journalist Adhir Rai was killed in Deoghar district in March 2000.

Pramod Kumar Munna, who worked for local newspaper Samkalin Tapmaan, was also killed in Deoghar district in December 2007.

The decomposed body of Nalin Mishra, editor of fortnightly Jharkhand Today, was recovered in Ranchi in April 2006.
Siwan/Lucknow: Amid the outrage over the killing of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan in Bihar, his family on 15 May demanded a CBI probe into the incident as BJP took to streets across the state in support, holding protest marches.

According to a report by News Nation, cops detained one more person for questioning in connection with the murder.

Three persons, including Upendra Singh, a history sheeter allegedly linked to RJD strongman and former Lok Sabha MP from Siwan Mohammed Shahabuddin had been detained earlier in connection with the incident but no arrests have been made so far.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who was in Lucknow, has expressed "sadness" and said the "guilty will not be spared".

The slain journalist's family, including his wife and father, have demanded CBI investigation, saying they have no faith in the local police.

"There is indeed a political angle to my husband's murder two days ago as he did not have personal enmity with anyone. But there could also be professional reasons,"

Ranjan's wife Asha Devi said, and demanded a CBI probe. She sought death sentence to the culprits and vowed to fight till her last breath for justice. Ranjan's 75-year-old father Radha Chaudhary and brother Gautam echoed her demand.

"The state government should bear cost of education and related needs of 16-year-old Ashish Ranjan and his eight year-old sister Sakshi Ranjan as their father will no more be with them to secure their future," Gautam Ranjan told PTI.

BJP, meanwhile, staged protest demonstrations across the state with its Bihar unit chief Mangal Pandey staging a dharna in Siwan to demand the arrest of culprits and a CBI probe.

The journalist's family alleged that he was murdered by incarcerated RJD leader Shahabuddin's men and Bihar Police lacked the will to conduct a free, fair and impartial probe in the matter, Pandey told reporters in Siwan.

Under the circumstances, the murder case should be handed over to CBI, he said and demanded security to Ranjan's family besides a compensation of Rs 25 lakh to his kin.

Police sources said three people, including Upendra Singh, the main accused in the killing of Shrikant Bharti, the spokesman for sitting BJP MP from Siwan, Om Prakash Yadav, who has a running feud with Shahabuddin, have been detained but not yet arrested. Bharti was gunned down in November 2014.

"Whatever is happening in Bihar has saddened me. I assure the people of the state that whoever is guilty will not be spared," Kumar told reporters in Lucknow.

Representatives of several unions of journalists met Kumar and handed over memoranda seeking action against the perpetrators, compensation and a government job to the kin of Ranjan.
In a complete U-turn, the NIA on Friday had diluted the role of Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit in the Malegaon blasts case. However, Purohit's role continues to be under a cloud, particularly on the issue of whether he kept authorities in the loop about his infiltration in the Abhinav Bharat.

The chargesheet cites a letter in which the Army claimed that Purohit never kept the authorities in the loop about his infiltration in the organisation. While Purohit remains an accused in the case, the NIA has dropped charges under the stringent MCOCA against him.

The Indian Express reported that the confidential letter written by the Deputy Directorate General of Military Intelligence in 2011 to the then Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Rakesh Maria stated that there was "no input available" on official communication by Purohit to his superiors on terrorism-related activities, or about meetings of the organisation.

However the report quotes sources close to Purohit that the letter was selectively chosen by the UPA government to book Purohit in the case. They also claim that the letter won't stand as evidence against Purohit.

Defending his actions in the Malegaon blasts, Purohit had in an interview to Outlook in 2012 had said that that he had infiltrated Abhinav Bharat and had kept his bosses in the loop.

Purohit had said that had "done by job properly" and that he had kept his bosses in the loop. "Those who need to know, know the truth," he was quoted as saying.

Seven people were killed in twin blasts when people were coming out of prayers during Ramzan on 29 September 2008.

There have been a lot of twists and turns in the probe into the Malegaon blasts, which has seen both Muslim and Hindu extremists having been accused of the crime.

The case was investigated initially by Joint Commissioner of Mumbai's ATS Hemant Karkare, who was killed during the 26/11 Mumbai attack. Before the NIA took over the case in 2011, ATS had booked 16 people but filed chargesheets on 20 January 2009 and 21 April 2011 against 14 accused in a Mumbai court.

Purohit and Pragya had moved several applications before the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court challenging the chargesheet and applicability of stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the case.

Shiv Narayan Kalsangra, Shyam Bhavarlal Sahu, Praveen Takkalki, Lokesh Sharma and Dhan Singh Choudhury are the other five accused against whom charges have been dropped, besides Sadhvi.

The agency also said during investigation that it has been established that no offence is attracted in this case under the Maharashtra Control of Crimes Act (MCOCA), in which any statement given before a SP level officer is admissible as an evidence.

"In furtherance of same, the confessional statements recorded under provisions of MCOC Act by ATS Mumbai have not been relied upon by the NIA in submitting the present Final report," the agency said in its chargesheet.

Lt Col Purohit and nine others will now be tried for charges including murder and conspiracy under the provisions of anti-terror law UAPA, IPC, Arms Act and Explosives Substance Act.

With inputs from PTI
New Delhi: Corruption is pervasive and has "engrossed" most of the government departments, a Delhi court has observed while sentencing an New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) official to three years in jail for accepting Rs 10,000 bribe from a shop owner in New Delhi.

The court, while sentencing Arjun Singh, the then senior assistant at NDMC's Estate Department, also said that a clear message should be given to society that corruption shall not be tolerated in any form and will be sternly dealt with.

"I am fully in agreement with the counsel for CBI that corruption is pervasive and has engrossed most of the government departments. Citizens who are entitled to services provided by the government are deprived of that on account of the menace of corruption.

"Not only this, menace of corruption has created imbalance in society and helped the rich people in society to usurp the entitlements which their fellow poor citizens are entitled to. Clear message should be given to society that corruption shall not be tolerated in any form and punishment should be given in such a manner which has a deterrent effect," Special CBI Judge Gurdeep Singh said.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 80,000 on Singh and directed him to return the "tainted money" while holding him guilty of offences under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988.

The court's verdict came on a corruption complaint lodged by Sushil Kumar Bansal, a shop owner, on 10 May 2012 alleging that Singh had demanded Rs 10,000 bribe for renewing his licence to run the shop at Gole Market in New Delhi.

The NDMC had in March 2012 proposed to issue eviction notices to some shops here whose licence had expired. Bansal's shop was one of them.

The court, while convicting Singh, said, "The prosecution has succeeded in proving that the accused was dealing with files pertaining to renewal of licences of shops at Gole Market area and by abusing his position as public servant, obtained Rs 10000 for himself as bribe from the complainant Sushil Kumar Bansal. Essential ingredient to constitute offence under PC Act stands proved against him."

During the trial, Singh had denied the allegations and claimed that some of the shopkeepers, whose licences had expired, had refused to agree for eviction, so the complainant and others started pressurising the estate department to hurriedly renew their licence deeds.

According to the prosecution, Bansal lodged the complaint before Anti-Corruption Branch of CBI, alleging that Singh demanded a bribe of Rs 10,000 from him for renewing licence of his shop which expired on 31 March 2012.

"During the said telephonic conversation, accused directed the complainant to meet him on 11 May 2012 at Estate Office, NDMC Building, Palika Kendra in New Delhi," the agency said, adding that a trap was laid by the ACB officials who caught Singh and the bribe amount was recovered.

Charges under PC Act were framed against Singh on 29 November 2012, to which he pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.

Seeking stringent punishment to Singh, counsel for CBI argued that society at large is suffering from the menace of corruption and no work in the government department takes place without greasing palm.

The defence counsel denied the allegations and sought a lenient view towards Singh contending that he was not a previous offender and because of this case he was evicted from government accommodation and has no place to go.

The court, however, held him guilty of the offences saying he could not explain the recovery of money.

"The accused has completely denied having received any illegal gratification but had not given any explanation of the same. Hence, he failed to rebut the presumption. Therefore, the said money was accepted and obtained by the accused as a motive or reward for doing the official act," it said.
New Delhi: The Delhi government on Monday came out in full support of the Supreme Court order on single entrance test NEET for admissions to the medical and dental programmes across the country and requested the Centre to implement it at the earliest to check alleged irregularities in the enrollment process.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said the judgment of the Supreme Court was major reform to improve medical education in the country and the order should not be circumvented by an ordinance as demanded by one section.

In a series of tweets, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, "Del govt favors NEET. Central govt, in collusion wid most state Govts, planning to kill NEET to favor mafia.

"Kudos to @SatyendarJain who singlehandedly opposed efforts to kill NEET in Central n state Health Ministers' meet today."

Jain presented Delhi government's views on matter at a meeting of State Health Ministers convened by Union Health Minister JP Nadda to discuss the issue.

"The Delhi government welcomes and strongly supports the decision of the Supreme Court that the admission for undergraduate medical and dental courses across the country would be purely on the basis of the NEET from this academic session," said Jain.

He said Delhi government requested the Centre to immediately implement the Supreme Court order so as to "put an immediate end to widespread malpractices allegedly involved in the admission process of medical institutes in various parts of the country".

"Health Ministers of many states have not opposed the decision of the Supreme Court in toto, but some of them expressed strong reservations that NEET should not be conducted and the states should be allowed to conduct their own admission tests," he said.

"There is now a reasonable apprehension that the Supreme Court judgement could be circumvented by way of an ordinance to do away with NEET for this academic year to begin with," Jain said.

Del govt favors NEET. Central govt, in collusion wid most state Govts, planning to kill NEET to favor mafia(1/2)  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 16, 2016

Kudos to @SatyendarJain who singlehandedly opposed efforts to kill NEET in Central n state Health Ministers' meet today(2/2)  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 16, 2016

AAP demands from Badal Govt- arrest Majithia n Tota Singh, pay all dues to farmers- within a week, else resign n let next govt do it  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 16, 2016

In the meeting, Delhi government strongly opposed any dilution of the Supreme Court judgement on the NEET issue and demanded that it should be implemented immediately.

"Delhi government agrees with the view that medical education in the country is allegedly a Rs 20,000 crore industry marked with capitation fee and widespread corruption.

"Currently the scenario is grim with businessmen and politicians without any medical background owning and managing private medical colleges in a system endemic with huge corruption, denying genuine meritorious students lacking financial resources an opportunity to pursue medical education," Jain said.
In a recent Mann Ki Baat address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed that every government should focus on quality learning and outcomes rather than the school enrolment.

 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 24, 2016

His concerns, expressed on April 24, 2016, are not unfounded.

As many as 62% of children in India attended a government primary school in 2014, compared to 72.6% in 2007-08indicating a surging preference for private schoolsaccording to an IndiaSpend analysis of data in a recent survey on education released by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).

At the upper primary level, the percentage of students in government schools reduced from 69.9% in 2007-08 to 66% in 2014.

An urban-rural divide is evident: Only 31% of children attended government primary schools in urban areas, against 72.3% in rural in 2014. Yet, this does not mean learning outcomes have improved, IndiaSpend reported last year.

<a href='#'><img alt='More Students Prefer Private Schools Than Before ' src='https://public.tableau.com/static/images/ed/education1_desktop/Dashboard1/1_rss.png' style='border: none' /></a>

Source: National Sample Survey Organisation No more than 26% of children in class V can do division, a drop of more than 10% over four years, according to the 2014 Annual Status of Education Report by Pratham, an education NGO. Despite spending Rs 586,085 crore ($94 billion) over the last decade on primary education, India has been unable to arrest the decline in learning, IndiaSpend reported.

<a href='#'><img alt='edu2_desktop ' src='https://public.tableau.com/static/images/ed/edu2_desktop/edu2_desktop/1_rss.png' style='border: none' /></a>

Source: Annual Status of Education Report, 2014

Government schools shunned, rising demand for government colleges

Till Class XII, students prefer private institutions over government, with 58.7% citing better environment for learning as the major factor for studying in private schools at the primary level.

Only 11.6% cited English as a medium of learning as a reason for studying in private schools.

However, when it came to graduation, post-graduation and diploma studies, many enrolled in private institutions because they did not get admission to a government institution.

For instance, 43% of respondents pursuing a diploma cited inability to get admission in a government institution as the reason to enroll in a private institution, while the same number was 27.5% for students pursuing graduation degrees and above.

The trends were uniform in rural and urban areasalthough the demand for English-medium instruction in urban areas was higher by 7% at the primary levelpointing to growing educational and career aspirations.

<a href='#'><img alt='edu3_desktop ' src='https://public.tableau.com/static/images/ed/edu3_desktop/edu3_desktop/1_rss.png' style='border: none' /></a>

Source: National Sample Survey Organisation

26% of students across India sign up for private coaching

As many as 71 million students (26% of all students) enroll for private coaching in India: 273 of every 1,000 males and 243 of every 1,000 females.

Further, 89% of them cited augmenting basic education as the reason for additional tuition.

Indias private coaching market was likely to touch $40 billion (Rs 2.6 lakh crore) by the end of 2015, according to a report by Associated Chambers of Commerce in India (ASSOCHAM), a trade watchdog.
Abortion among girls under the age of 15 in Mumbai has risen by 144 percent over the last three years, recent data by BMC has shown. According to a report in The Times of India, there has also been a double-digit increase in the overall number of medical termination of pregnancies in 2015-16 which the BMC has said is because of an evolved reporting system.

In 2015, abortions among teenage girls had seen an alarming rise at 67 percent. Civic data accessed through RTI act by Chetan Kothari further showed that out of nearly 31,000 women who opted for medical termination of pregnancy, 1,600 were below the age of 19. The 2015-16 data from BMC showed that 34,790 women underwent medical or surgical abortion which is a 13% jump from last year's figures. In 2014-15, number of women who underwent medical or surgical abortion stood at 30,742.

While health activists have shown worry at the rise in the numbers, BMC said it is a positive trend. Quoting a senior BMC official, The Times of India report said, "There is an obvious increase in women accessing safe abortions through registered centres and the registration system is better."

Doctors and activists have always expressed worry at the idea of rise of abortions among teenagers. In 2013, doctors in Gurgaon said that there was almost a 50 percent rise in teen pregnancies over the past 4 to 5 years. Data collected by the UNFPA's State of the World Population in 2008 suggested that teen pregnancy in India is high with 62 pregnant teens out of every 1,000 women. In comparison, 24 British teens get pregnant before their 19th birthday while the figure is 42 in the US.

The UN, in a report released in 2013, said that every year some four million teenage girls in India have babies. For every 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19, there were 76 adolescent births in India in 2010 compared to 49 worldwide and 53 in less developed regions.

Comparatively, in Pakistan there were 16 births for every 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19 and 24 in Sri Lanka.

The UN report suggested that approximately 70,000 teenage girls die every year from complications in pregnancy and childbirth, mostly in the developing world.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal in 2013, Frederika Meijer, UNFPA representative for India, said, "The whole issue of how you get pregnant is not really known to many young people so there is a low demand for contraceptives. In India, contraceptives used by young people is only nine percent of the overall use so a lot needs to be done about raising awareness, what contraceptives are, what family planning is and what is best for them."

The rising numbers bring the focus back on imparting better sex education in schools and junior colleges. Activists voiced their concern and said that despite there being an increase in sexual activity among youngsters, it alone cannot contribute to more than doubling of abortion statistics. Health activists were quite alarmed at the staggering rise in the numbers.

Interestingly though, as teen pregnancy saw a sharp rise only in the under-15 category, MTPs among girls aged 15-19 registered a near 50 percent dip in 2015-16, "after showing a 47 percent increase in the year before.
On 19 May, election results of four major states in India will be out. There could be some surprises; the eventual outcomes may be somewhat different from what the exit polls said or what the political analysts predicted. And there will be several post-election explanations about the nature of the electoral outcome. But one thing is certain: It will be difficult to explain any specific state result in terms of a fallout of the corruption crusade by the Opposition.

This assertion is borne out of the electoral experience of the past.

In the General Election (to the Lok Sabha), there were occasions when the electoral outcome was predicated, in popular perception, on corruption issues. The disastrous defeat of the Congress in 1989  after the landslide victory in 1984 when Rajiv Gandhi won a two-third majority  was clearly linked to the Bofors bribery issue, the Swedish revelation that Rajiv Gandhi was paid a bribe of Rs 64 crore for clinching the gun deal, a charge that could never be proved in a court of law.

Even the ignominious defeat of the Congress in 2014 elections  dropping to its lowest ever tally of 44 on the floor of the Lok Sabha, not even a tenth of the strength of the House to legitimately claim the Leader of the Opposition designation for itself  is perceived to be the direct outcome of a series of corruption scandals involving the Commonwealth Games, spectrum allocation and the coal block allotment.

But there are not many instances when a political party has lost an election roundly in a state on account of corruption charges. Take the case of Lalu Yadav. He was embroiled in the fodder scam in 1996, a year after winning his second term, and went to jail. Despite the jibe of the Opposition against him that a benefactor of the cowherds was implicated in the embezzlement of the fodder meant for the cows  nothing could be a bigger irony, Lalus party, with his wife Rabri Devi as chief minister, went on to win its third term.

The history of state electoral outcomes abounds in such examples. This trend is likely to be repeated in the current elections to four major states  Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Of all the four states, one heard the loudest noise about corruption in West Bengal, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees Trinamool Congress (TMC) had to contend with two major corruption scandals  the Saradha scam and Narada sting operation.

In the first scam  that involved thousands of Bengalis being duped of their lifes savings, the transport minister Madan Mitra and MP Kunal Ghosh were arrested by the CBI, due to unimpeachable evidence against them in siphoning-off money in cahoots with the founders of the fraudulent Saradha group. Many other TMC leaders have been implicated with varying degrees of involvement in this scandal.

The second is a visual reaffirmation of the corruptibility of the TMC leaders: Eleven top functionaries of the party such as former Union ministers, sitting cabinet ministers, the mayor of Kolkata, MPs were shown accepting wads of notes in lieu of the promise to help a fictitious Chennai-based consultancy group to get contracts from the state government.

Nothing more could be a greater indictment of a partys corrupt credentials. It should have been enough to write the obituary note for the party in the current elections. But the Saradha scandal did not affect the electoral fortunes of Mamatas party in the past three years. The scam involving TMC leaders came to the public domain in 2012, a year after Mamata stormed to power. The Saradha group collapsed in April 2013 and its founders were sent to jail. But in July 2013, the TMC went on to win 13 of the 17 zilla parishad elections.

Two years later, in April 2015, even after a minister and an MP were arrested by the CBI and several other top TMC leaders prosecuted, Mamatas party won a sweeping victory in the civic polls  it captured 70 of 92 municipal corporations (including the coveted Kolkata Municipal Corporation). The extent of the victory can be gauged from the fact that the Left Front only managed six and the Congress five (there were no clear winners in 11 municipalities).

Some would try to explain this paradox by alluding to Mamatas own teflon image; but then Manmohan Singh was also personally incorruptible; but that did not prevent the Congress from sinking in the anti-corruption tornado that engulfed the General Election.

Of course, there are some who believe that Mamata is no longer unassailable in the current state election. They predict that she would face defeat on 19 May, but then this prediction is not on account of the success of the corruption campaign against her, but because of the index of Opposition unity  strategic alliance in this election between the Congress and the Left Front, which together always polled more votes than TMC in the past five years but suffered defeat each time because they contested separately.

Tamil Nadu is one state where the contest is largely bipolar and both the parties have to seriously account for the corruption charges against them. J Jayalalithaa, the chief minister, went to jail in the disproportionate assets case last year, and was reinstated as chief minister only because of what has been widely panned as a dubious decision of the high court. The matter is in the Supreme Court and there is every possibility that she will be back in jail again. But her main rivals, M Karunanidhi and his son MK Stalin, have refused to make Jayalalithaas corruption an election issue, partly because there are corruption charges against many DMK leaders as well.

But the major reason that the DMK is silent about Jayalalithaas trips to jail and its likely repetitions in the days to come is because they surmise that it would be politically counter-productive to harp on them. The disproportionate assets case had surfaced in a big way before the 2011 state elections and Karunanidhi had played it to the hilt at every campaign stop. But that did not prevent Jayalalithaa from registering one of the most impressive victories in Tamil Nadu's history. If some believe that DMK will swing back to power in this election, it is on account of their firm belief that voters in Tamil Nadu will continue to opt for the musical chair tradition.

Kerala is another state where the alternative musical chairs between the Congress and the Left Front is a standard electoral outcome for a long time. Going by that precedent, the Congress should give way to the Left Front there. But there is little evidence to suggest that this process would be pre-ordained because of the corruption charges (solar scam) against the chief minister, Oommen Chandy. Many believe that corruption issues will not stick in the voters mind as the charges have been levelled by someone who has herself spent time in jail on charges of fraud and loot of public money.

Assam is a classic case where Tarun Gogoi does not face any discernible corruption charge even after three terms as the Congress chief minister. If he wins, it will be on the strength of his delivery on the ground. If he is voted out this time, it will be only on account of the anti-incumbency fatigue. In that case, it will be one state where the BJP will come to power. The irony will be that the architect of the BJPs victory will be a Congress minister  Himant Biswa Sarma  who defected to the BJP after he was implicated in the Saradha scam. (The BJPs chief minister-designate, Sarbananda Sonowal, had even asked for Sarmas resignation from Tarun Gogoi ministry as he had accused him of involvement in the Louis Berger bribery case as well. The irony is that both are on the same side of the fence now and campaigning for a corruption-free government!). A BJP victory in Assam will only reinforce the perception that the corruption issues would not hinder the prospect of a party or a leader in the state elections.
After voting in four states and one Union Territory came to an end on Monday after more than a month long exercise, various exit polls have announced their predictions either which party or alliance will come to power in the five regions. While they differed on who will win Tamil Nadu, the pollsters were quite sure that the BJP alliance will win Assam, the Left in Kerala, the DMK in Puducherry, and they were unanimous in saying that Mamata Banerjee will retain West Bengal.

Heres who predicted what, statewise:

Assam

Three exit polls have stated that BJP will win Assam and end Tarun Gogois 15-year chief ministership. Axis-India Today predicted BJP will win 79-93 seats, ABP-Nielsen gave BJP 81 seats and NewsX-Chanakya gave BJP 90 seats. According to TimesNow C-Voter exit poll, the BJP and allies would get 57 seats, the Congress 41, AIUDF 18 and others 10. However, Gogoi is confident of a victory. I don't see why there will be anti-incumbency. I trust the people of Assam, they know how much development has happened under us, Gogoi told ANI.

Tamil Nadu

Exit polls are divided over the results of this state, that saw 69.19 percent polling till 6 pm. NewsNation and the Axis-My India exit polls predict that the DMK will win the state, thereby ending the reign of Jayalalithaas AIADMK. However, C-Voter claims that Ammas party will retain power in the state. The News Nation TV exit poll gave 95-99 seats in the 234-member assembly to AIADMK and 114-118 to the DMK-Congress alliance. The People Welfare Front (PWF) alliance, made up of six parties, was set to get 14 seats and the BJP four, it said. Nine seats could go to others. The Axis-My India exit poll predicted 124-140 seats to the DMK-Congress alliance, 89-110 to the AIADMK, 0-3 to the BJP and 4-8 to others. The CVoter exit poll, however, said the AIADMK would bag 139 seats, leaving the DMK-Congress alliance at the second place with 78 seats. The BJP was unlikely to win any seat in Tamil Nadu, the exit polls said.

Kerala

The voter turnout in the state was 71 percent till 6pm with the EC saying that it is likely to go up. The Axis-India Today and India TV-C-Voter exit polls both predict that the CPM-led LDF will come to power in the state, thereby toppling the Congress-led UDF. The India Today-Axis exit poll gave 88 to 101 seats to the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the 140-member house and 38-48 to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). The BJP could get zero to three seats while one to four seats may go to others. The India TV C-Voter exit poll predicted 74-82 seats to the LDF, which is led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM).

CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, however, stayed cautious, especially as the same polls predict his party will lose West Bengal. Exit polls never turned out to be true as we've seen in Delhi and Bihar. We should wait for final result, he told ANI.

West Bengal

Polling was conducted across the state in five phases and after compiling information from all of them, four exit pollsters have predicted just one thing: Mamata Banerjees TMC will retain power in the state. ETV, NewsNation, Chanakya and ABP-Nielsen are all sure that it will be Mamata again. Chanakya even predicted that the Trinamool Congress will win between 210 and 224 seats while the Left-Congress alliance will gain only 70 to 79 seats and the BJP between 14 and 19 seats. According to ABP-Nielsen, the Trinamool would win 163 of the 294 assembly seats. The CPI-M-led Left Front and the Congress combine would get 126 with a solitary seat going to the BJP. Others would get four seats. But it warned that in 25 constituencies the margin of victory was set to be less than five percent, and the final outcome could drastically change depending on the results in these seats. C-Voter also predicted a whopping 167 seats for the Trinamool, 75 for the Left, 45 for the Congress, four to the BJP and three to others.

Looks like atleast one politician will get a good nights sleep tonight.

Puducherry

Overall polling percentage of 81.94 percent was recorded in till 5 pm, ANI quoted the Election Commission as saying. Exit polls predicted a win for the DMK-Congress alliance in Puducherry too, ousting the ruling All India NR Congress.

With inputs from IANS
13:41 (ist)

42.1% polling till 1 pm in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu recorded 42.1 percent polling till 1 pm, Chief Electoral Officer Rajesh Lakhoni said. "Chennai recorded 38 percent voting till 1 pm, which is good and still there is time till evening," he said, adding, authorities expected a good turnout.

Meanwhile, officials said power supply, which had hampered voting, was restored in Royapuram and Harbour Assembly constituencies in Chennai.

"In Harbour constituency there was power cut for 10 minutes. Now it is fine, polling was not stopped," an official said.

Earlier, Lakhoni had said voting was hampered in some districts due to heavy rains and appropriate recommendations would be made on extending voting time in rain-affected areas.

Moderate to heavy rains in parts of Ramanathapuram, Madurai, Dindigul, Tiruchirappalli, Cuddalore, Thanjavur and Nagapattinam districts had hampered polling.

In Chennai, Pulianthope area was also affected.

Lakhoni had said the rains resulted in power cuts in some areas and some problems but the polling process would continue.

"A decision on extending voting time would be taken after considering the situation between 1 PM to 2 PM and if needed, appropriate recommendations would be made to the higher EC authorities," he had said.

Lakhoni had also said there were some glitches in Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail in 17 constituencies which were addressed.

Meanwhile, two groups clashed in a polling booth at Kamudi in Ramanathapuram district and an Electronic Voting Machine was pushed off a table during the spat, police said.

Police intervened and dispersed both groups. Polling resumed after half-an-hour break.

A report from Ariyalur district said a 38-year-old woman was struck dead by lightning when she was returning home after casting her vote in Pudukodi.

PTI
Lucknow: After imposing liquor ban in his state, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday advocated total prohibition in Uttar Pradesh, drawing instant flak from the ruling Samajwadi Party, which accused him of making "negative comments against the state" and thereby "strengthening communal forces".

During his day-long visit here on Sunday, Kumar demanded that prohibition be imposed in Uttar Pradesh, which goes to polls early next year.

His visit on Sunday and other recent tours of the state, however, did not go down well with ruling SP leaders.

Kumar had visited Varanasi a few days back.

"The manner in which Nitish Kumar has been targetting UP, coming here every now and then, his comments against the SP government will embolden communal forces against which the UP government is fighting," SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said.

He said Kumar has joined the "league" of MIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, who visit UP frequently and criticise the state government and the ruling party, which is fighting "communal forces".

By making "frequent trips" and "misleading" the people here, Nitish Kumar is "strengthening communal forces", he said.

Chaudhary said Kumar spoke of prohibition but did not say a word on development.

"Don't worry Akhileshji (the UP Chief Minister)...ensure total prohibition. When liquor was banned in Bihar, people had problems for a few days. But, subsequently there was no problem," Kumar said addressing a farmers' conclave here.

He urged his UP counterpart to ensure liquor is not available within a distance of five km from UP-Bihar border to discourage people from his state to consume alcohol.

"I have written to the UP chief minister in this regard," he said, adding he was awaiting a reply to his letter.

Earlier, addressing a farmers' conference here, Kumar asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to implement total prohibition in all BJP-ruled states like in his home state Gujarat.

The Bihar Chief Minister expressed hope that the liquor ban in his state would be replicated in other states with equal success.

He said country liquor as well as Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) have been totally banned in Bihar, and to ensure

its success, existing laws amended.

Commenting on Kumar's anti-liquor campaign, BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said, "It appears more of a case to divert attention from his failure on law and order front in Bihar."

During his day-long stay here, Kumar also visited Ambedkar Mahasabha, apparently to send out a message to Dalits, who constitute a sizeable vote bank in UP, where JD(U) is likely to filed candidates in Assembly polls scheduled next year.
Chennai: South Indian superstar Rajinikanth on Mondya urged people to vote, saying it is the duty of all citizens to exercise their franchise.

He, however, declined to comment on allegations of distribution of money by candidates in Tamil Nadu. "Everybody should vote and that is our duty," he told reporters after voting at Stella Maris College premises.

Asked about allegations of distribution of money and postponement of elections, he merely said, "No comments".

EC has postponed polls in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur seats following allegations of distribution of money.

Another veteran actor Kamal Haasan said, "Higher the polling percentage, it is good for democracy and my feeling too is that it should be higher." Asked who should come to power, he said "good people".

He voted at a polling station in Teynampet along with actress Gowthami. Actor Ajith Kumar, hailed as "Thala" (leader), cast his vote along with wife Shalini.

Actor turned politician Kushboo and her actor-director husband Sundar C also cast their votes.

Comedian Vivek, actors Prabhu, Sivakarthikevyan, Jeeva, Meena, lyricist Vairamuthu too exercised their franchise.

Actor-turned politician and chief of Nam Tamizhar Katchi, Seeman, said those who distributed money were "sinners," and asked all the people to exercise their franchise.
Beijing: On Sunday, China accused the US of "severely damaging" mutual trust as it hit back at the Pentagon for issuing a "hyped up" report on Chinese military capabilities that "deliberately distorts" its defence policies.

China also expressed "strong dissatisfaction" and "firm opposition" to the annual report, which it said, has misrepresented the country' military development.

In its report submitted to the Congress on Friday, the Defence Department noted that China is using "coercive tactics" and fostering regional tensions as it expands its maritime presence in the disputed South China Sea (SCS) and elsewhere. It said China is focussing on the militarisation of artificial islands built by it in the SCS in a bid to assert its control.

China hit back, with the Defence Spokesman Col Yang Yujun accusing the Pentagon's annual report as is representation of its military development that "hypes up China's military threat".

The report on China's military and security developments has "severely damaged" mutual trust between the two sides, Yang said, urging the US side to take tangible actions to promote the healthy and stable development of relations between the two countries and their armed forces.

The US which accused the Chinese military of lacking in transparency, "deliberately distorted" China's defence policies, and "unfairly depicted" its activities in the East China Sea and SCS, Yang said.

"China follows a national defence policy that is defensive in nature. Moves such as deepening military reforms and the military buildup are aimed at maintaining sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, and guaranteeing China's peaceful development," Yang said in a statement.

He added that the US side has always been suspicious.

In his statement, he said it is the US which has been flexing military muscles by frequently sending military aircraft and warships to the region.

Despite its call for the freedom of navigation and restraint for peace, the US pushed forward the militarisation in the SCS with an intention to exert hegemony, Yang said.

China has unswervingly made contributions to global peace and stability by increasingly engaging in overseas missions such as peace-keeping and disaster relief, he added.

Yang stressed China's construction on the Nansha (Spratly) Islands in the SCS serves mostly civilian purposes, and helps fulfil its international responsibilities and obligations by providing more public goods.

The SCS has become a major flash point for military tensions between China and the US in recent years as Beijing which claims sovereignty over almost all of the disputed waters sought to assert its claim by building artificial islands with military facilities. The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan contest China's claims.
London: Former London mayor Boris Johnson's comparing the EU to Adolf Hitler highlights how Britain's in/out referendum campaign is growing increasingly bitter, with six weeks to go and polls suggesting a dead heat, experts said Monday.

The comments by Johnson, a leading campaigner for Britain to leave the European Union, are also linked to securing support for his ultimate ambition  succeeding David Cameron as prime minister after the 23 June vote, they added.

The row started when Johnson  whose remarks have drawn comparisons to US presidential hopeful Donald Trump  said European history had featured repeated efforts to create a single government on the continent.

"Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods," he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

Pro-EU campaigners quickly lined up to fight back.

The main Opposition Labour party said Johnson's comments showed the "Leave" campaign was "losing its moral compass", while Johnson was branded a "tin-pot imitation Churchill" by former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown.

But as the dust settled, commentators suggested that, while Johnson may have been out of line, his remarks were part of a pattern of hyperbole on both sides of the campaign.

"Britain deserves better than the shrill point-scoring into which this debate has descended," The Times newspaper said in an editorial Monday. "Leave Hitler out of it."

Moon landings and Nessie

It was not the first time that Johnson  known for his witty soundbites and historical references  has walked into a high-profile referendum row.

Last month, as Barack Obama urged Britons to stay in the EU, Johnson suggested the US president had moved a bust of World War II leader Winston Churchill out of the Oval Office because of his "part-Kenyan" heritage.

While few would expect such a high-stakes campaign to be without controversy, the "Remain" in EU camp  dubbed "Project Fear" by opponents  has also drawn flak for some of the Brexit scenarios it has presented.

Last week, Cameron was accused of suggesting a new world war could be triggered by Britain leaving the 28-nation bloc when he said he would never assume that "peace and stability on our continent are assured".

Apparently stung by the criticism, finance minister George Osborne hit out at "Leave" campaigners who accuse the "Remain" advocates of spinning the economic case for EU membership with interventions from the likes of Obama and the IMF.

"The next thing we know, the 'Leave' camp will be accusing us of faking the moon landings... and covering up the existence of the Loch Ness Monster," Osborne said Monday.

The closeness of the opinion polls is part of the reason why the debate is moving towards a bitter climax, experts say.

Excluding undecideds, "Remain" and "Leave" each have 50 percent support, according to an average of the last six opinion surveys by the What UK Thinks academic project.

"It's very close," said Steven Fielding, professor of political history at Nottingham University. "It's core message time. That means extreme presentation of views."

Paul Taggart, a politics professor at Sussex University, added that the complexity of the debate may also be a factor.

"Both sides are having to simplify a complex story to make palatable what's quite an unpalatable dish," he said.

For Fielding, Johnson specifically has his mind on life after the referendum, when Cameron is expected to face a leadership challenge in the Conservative Party if he loses.

References to World War II and Hitler are popular with older party members whose support will be key if Johnson is to make it to Downing Street, he said.

"The more fuss there is about it, the more his message is getting through," Fielding added.
Islamabad: The US, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China will meet in Islamabad this week to discuss a roadmap for negotiating a peace deal with the Afghan Taliban to end the 15-year insurgency, amid a surge in violence in the war-torn country.

It would be the first meeting since the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) met in Kabul on 23 February and announced that talks would start in the first week of March, but the process could not begin as Taliban refused to join.

Official sources said special envoys of China and the US and senior officials of Pakistan and Afghanistan were expected to attend the meeting schedule on 18 May in Islamabad.

"The group would discuss how to make more concerted efforts for peace talks to start," said the sources.

Initially the group was supposed to meet after the consultation between Taliban and Afghan officials. But the process ran a dead end following the Kabul bombing last month which killed more than 64 people.

The Express Tribune reported that Afghanistan wants the Taliban to be declared 'irreconcilable' as they have publicly refused to engage in talks.

Afghan Ambassador to Islamabad, Omar Zakhilwal, said this yesterday ahead of the upcoming QCG meeting. "We expect the QCG meeting to agree on implementation of the roadmap the group had agreed upon in its meeting on 6 February," Zakhilwal said while referring to the quartet call for the Taliban to shun violence and join direct talks by the first week of March.

"The roadmap is precisely about the steps the QCG members were to take in their respective domains both during peace talks, if they commenced, as well as if the Taliban refused to join talks. Now since the Taliban have publicly refused to join talks and opted for more violence the second scenario is applicable," the daily quoted Zakhilwal as saying.

"They must be declared 'irreconcilable' and action taken against them as was agreed in the roadmap," he added.

Zakhiwal travelled to Kabul following his meeting with Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif where they agreed to reopen the Torkham border crossing. The border remained closed for four days after Afghan security forces objected to the fencing of the border by Pakistani authorities.

After years of denial, the Pakistani government recently admitted that the Taliban leadership enjoys safe haven inside the country.

Taliban insurgents in recent months have repeatedly seized control of parts of the more than 2,000-mile-long Ring Road network, which connects major Afghan population centres.
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday asked parliament to set up a committee to probe

all those whose names figure in the 'Panama Papers' after his family was accused of stashing money in offshore entities.

Sharif asked the Speaker to thrash out a detailed procedure to probe those mentioned in the Panama Papers, in consultation with the Opposition.

He addressed parliament after the opposition had demanded that he should face the house to clear his name after his family members were mentioned in the Panama Papers.

Sharif dwelt at length on the issue of his family business which he said was established much before Partition.

He rejected the charge of money laundering and said his family did not transfer any money from Pakistan but used proceeds from the family business in UAE and Saudi Arabia to buy properties in the UK.

He said he was ready for accountability but demanded that all others involved in corruption should also face probes.

"The speaker should set up a committee of parliament in consultation with all parties to prepare terms of reference and detailed procedure for probe into Panama Papers," he said.

However, his offer was rejected by Opposition parties which staged a walk out after Sharif's address.

Sharif also claimed that he had set up his business first and subsequently joined politics unlike those who make money through politics.

The Opposition has been demanding Sharif face parliament and respond to various questions regarding how his family transferred money from Pakistan to set up businesses abroad.

Sharif's two sons Hussain and Hassan own businesses in UK and Saudi Arabia.

His critics want him to reveal the channels through which the funds were transferred from Pakistan along with the exact amount and whether any taxes were paid or not.

But pressure has eased on Sharif after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf chief Imran Khan admitted having an offshore company while several other leaders were also found owning such entities, including Moonis Elahi, son of former deputy premier Pervaiz Elahi, and Pakistan People's Party senator and ex-interior minister Rehman Malik besides others.
Colombo: At least three people were missing in torrential rains and flash floods that have been lashing Sri Lanka for the last two days, prompting authorities to issue an alert, officials said Monday.

"Three people are reported missing in the Dehiowita area," Disaster Management Centre spokesman Pradeep Kodippily said.

Relief operations are well underway and even the military had been deployed in the hill country areas to provide relief, he said, adding that the men went missing from the country's southwestern district of Kegalle.

Rains lashed the country throughout Sunday, flooding most of the roads in Colombo. Besides, several roads have been cut off due to floods with the Sri Lanka Red Cross saying its employees have been placed on alert to assist anyone who may be affected by the bad weather.

The armed forces have also been put on alert. As many as eight districts have been issued landslide warnings.

Katunayake, just outside Colombo, had recorded the highest rain fall, over 260 millimeters between 8.30 am Sunday and 5.30 am Monday, the Meteorology Department said.

However, the rains were to ease somewhat on Monday.

"The low pressure area is moving away from Sri Lanka, so the rainy conditions over the island will be reduced to some extent, but strong wind conditions will continue for a few more days," Malinda Millagoda, a meteorologist said.

On Sunday, three international flights were diverted to Kochi due to bad weather conditions prevailing in Sri Lanka, airport officials said.
Washington: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has warned of a 9/11-like attack on the US if refugees continue to be allowed into the country and alleged that they carry ISIS-funded cell phones.

"Our country has enough difficulty right now without letting the Syrians pour in," the 69-year-old real estate tycoon told the National Border Patrol Council podcast.

On The Green Line podcast, Trump also suggested that ISIS is paying for refugees' cell phone plans.

"They all have cell phones so they don't have money, they don't have anything, they have cell phones. Who pays their monthly charges, right? They have cell phones with the flags, the ISIS flags on them," he alleged.

"And then we're supposed to say, 'Isn't this wonderful that we're taking them in?' We're led by people that are either incompetent or they don't have the best interest of our country at heart," Trump said.

When asked if he thought it would take an attack similar to 9/11 for the country to "wake up about border security," Trump answered in the affirmative.

"Bad things will happen; a lot of bad things will happen. There will be attacks that you wouldn't believe. There will be attacks by the people that are right now coming in to our country," he warned.

Trump also spoke about Hillary Clinton's agenda for immigration reform and his own plans for border control, including his proposal to build a wall at the Southern border with Mexico.

The National Border Control agents' union made its first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate when it backed Trump in March.

Trump had proposed a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," in December but just this week he said the ban was "only a suggestion."

Trump has also said that he may set up a counter-terrorism commission to study his immigration policies and his controversial proposal to ban foreign Muslims from entering the US until America's security has been assured.
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While Samsung did cut down on the number of models this year especially when it comes to the S7 lineup, it seems that they have plans to introduce 5 flagship products for the year 2017.

The most important of the new smartphones will be the Galaxy X which is expected to be the first ever smartphone to have a truly foldable display. Samsung has been releasing models with pre-flexed or curved displays ever since the Note Edge however, this time around, the user will be able to fold in or fold out the device based on his/her usage.

Essentially, we could be getting a smartphone sized device that can be unfolded to reveal a large screen device that has enough surface area as a tablet for example. The Galaxy X is expected to pack a 4K resolution screen with a diamond PenTile sub pixel arrangement.

Other than that, the lineup will include the Galaxy S8, S8 Edge, Note7 and Note7 Edge as well. This year too, Samsung is expected to introduce two models in the Galaxy Note lineup with one of them being an edge model. All of these will come with 2.5K resolution SuperAMOLED displays with RGB sub-pixel arrangement.

It is nice to see that Samsung is trying to simplify the lineup, but the addition of the Galaxy X smartphone could make the decision a bit more difficult for buyers. One thing is for certain, the Galaxy X will take the crown position in Samsungs lineup and is also expected to cost a lot more than even the Note7 Edge smartphone considering the technology that it is packing.

Source | Via
Google has appointed Amit Singh as the Vice President of business and operations for virtual reality (VR) division. He moves to VR after heading Google for Work for almost 2 years.



Amit had joined Google in 2010 following his long stint at Oracle. He has been working with Google services, including Google Apps, Google Cloud Platform, and Chromebooks for business and education. His exact role as head of business and operations at VR is not known as of now. In November last year, the company appointed co-founder and former CEO of VMWare, Diane B. Greene as head for its cloud business.

Google has been focusing on VR for a long time and CEO Sundar Pichai also mentioned the importance of VR and AI in his first Founders letter. The company is expected to release a standalone Android VR headset at the I/O conference this week.

There is no word about who will replace Amit as the head of Google for Work.

[HTML1]

via
There is a possibility that Google might get fined over the European Union (EU) antitrust lawsuit. According to a latest report from The Telegraph, the company could face a record suite of 3 billion euro.

Last month, the EU had filed formal antitrust charges on Google over claims that it abuses the dominant position of its Android operating system. The EU accused Google of using Android OS, which runs more than 80% of the worlds smartphones, with unfair business practices for forcing phone makers to install its apps in return for access to Googles Play Store.

The fine could be issued within weeks and Google will also be banned from continuing to manipulate search results to favour itself and harm rivals. The company will have to tweak its search practice to be in sync with the European Law.

source
Apple CEO Tim Cook is said to visit India this week, according to a latest report from Reuters. Cook will meet PM Narendra Modi as per two sources familiar with the matter.

Cook was in China as Apple invested a whopping $1 billion in ride hailing service Didi Chuxing. As per the report he will visit India this week following his visit to China. The company has been targeting India which is an important market which is the reason why it is aggressively entering the country. Apple is close to getting DIPP approval for opening single brand retail stores in India and recently the DIPP panel has recommended to exempt the company from 30% sourcing condition for retail stores. Last month, it was reported that Apple is evaluating investment options in the country.

Apple recently appointed Sanjay Kaul as head for Indian operations and earlier this year, the company merged its product division and split the business into two in order to align it with the retail strategy. Apple recently became the fastest growing smartphone vendor in India in Q1, 2016, according to Canalys report. The company recorded 56% growth in iPhone sales YoY in India in FY Q2 2016. Earlier this month government of India has rejected Apples request to sell refurbished iPhones in the country.

Cook had earlier met PM Narendra Modi in September last year when he had a positive response to set up manufacturing unit in India. Earlier this month, it was reported that Foxconn is nearing a deal to set up $10 billion iPhone manufacturing plant in Maharashtra, India.

source
Check out the new FoneArena Daily video that gives you a quick roundup of todays technology news.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjdvYb-eP3Q

According to reports, Apple CEO Tim Cook will visit India this week to meet PM Narendra Modi.

Google might get fined of 3 billion euro over the European Union (EU) antitrust lawsuit. The fine could be issued within weeks and Google will also be banned from continuing to manipulate search results to favour itself and harm rivals.

Micromax today launched Canvas Evok E483, the companys latest 4G smartphone in the Canvas series with a 5.5-inch HD 2.5D curved glass screen and a 1.4GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 415 processor.

Google has big plans for its Project Tango and wants to use the technology for indoor 3D mapping.
If you're working and drawing Social Security, your benefits may be subject to income limitations. For those who won't reach normal retirement age by the end of 2016, any earnings in excess of $15,720 ($1,130 per month) could reduce your Social Security benefits by $2 for every $1 above this threshold. Beneficiaries who will reach retirement age during 2016 are subject to a higher exemption amount.

Here are the details of the Social Security earnings test, and what it could mean to your monthly benefits as well as your future Social Security income.

Three categories of Social Security beneficiaries

In order to determine the effects of working on Social Security benefits, the Social Security Administration (SSA) separates beneficiaries into three categories.

The first category includes people who receive benefits, but will attain their normal retirement age after 2016. In this group, the first $15,720 of earnings are exempt and will have no effect on the ability to collect benefits. Any earnings above this amount will result in a benefit reduction of $1 for every $2 in excess earnings.

The second category includes beneficiaries who will attain their normal retirement age during 2016. This group has a higher exemption amount of $41,880, as well as a more favorable reduction formula. Their benefits are reduced by $1 for every $3 in excess earnings. What's more, only earnings before the month of reaching normal retirement age are counted.

The final group includes Social Security recipients who have attained their normal retirement age (66 for those reaching retirement age now). This group is free to work and earn as much as they can without any benefit reduction.

Examples

First, consider a 63-year-old whose calculated Social Security benefit is determined to be $1,000 per month. If this person also receives a salary of $30,000 from working, the excess over the $15,720 threshold, or $14,280 will be counted for benefit reduction purposes. Because of their age, this individual's benefits will be reduced by $1 for every $2 of excess earnings, so this translates to a $7,140 annual benefit reduction, or $595 per month. Therefore, their $1,000 calculated monthly benefit will be reduced to $405 because of their earnings.

Next, consider a 65-year-old beneficiary who will turn 66 in September, and who receives a $1,500 monthly Social Security benefit. Let's say that this individual has a job with a $60,000 annual salary -- or $5,000 per month. Although this salary is above the $41,880 earnings cap, the only earnings that count are those from January through August, or eight months' worth. Since this only represents $40,000 of the total salary, there will be no benefit reduction.

You can get it back later

Finally, it's important to point out that even though the Social Security earnings test can reduce your monthly benefit amount, there's a positive trade-off later. For every month's benefits that the SSA withholds, you're treated as having taken benefits a month later than you actually did.

If your Social Security benefits are withheld because of your earnings, the effect is that your monthly benefit will be permanently increased once you reach normal retirement age and the earnings test no longer applies to you.

In other words, don't let the fear of losing some of your benefits prevent you from filing for Social Security early if you want to do so. As you can see from the example, you could still potentially receive some Social Security income in the meantime, while boosting your benefits for later on when you've reached normal retirement age.
Business owners in the Golden State are complaining that a ballot measure is hurting business. A year and a half ago, the California shoplifting law changed so that any stolen item below $950 would be charged as a misdemeanor. Law enforcement says this may be a reason for a spike in crime.

When you normalize criminal behavior, youre going to get more of it. When you punish criminal behavior, youre going to get less of it, said Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke to the FOX Business Networks Stuart Varney.

According to Clarke, since the ballot measure was imposed, the ten largest cities in California have seen a 10% increase in violent crime and a rise in 9 of the 10 largest cities in property crime.

They look at these individuals, these criminals, as victims now. They are no longer looked at as being a stain on civil life in the state of California They feel sorry for them and they dont want to stigmatize criminal behavior  but you have to keep criminal behavior stigmatized otherwise youll see a total collapse of the social order The cops are now the bad guys and the criminals are the victims, he said.
You've probably heard the following warning time and time again: Start saving for retirement or risk running out of money once you're no longer part of the workforce. But if the idea of enjoying a financially secure retirement isn't motivation enough for you, consider this lesser-known drawback of failing to save: If you don't accumulate enough savings to support yourself, your children might take a huge financial hit.

IMAGE SOURCE: PIXABAY.

According to a study by TD Ameritrade, 22% of Americans provide financial support to a parent and/or adult child. And while the latter practice may not be all that shocking (we're all more than familiar with the routine of millennials graduating college and moving back into their parents' basements), it's the former that's far more concerning. After all, it's one thing for parents to support their adult children at a time in their lives when, presumably, the parents are earning more money than they were in years past. But those supporting their own parents are less likely to have reached their peak earning period, which means they could be compromising their own financial well-being by being generous.

It's not a small amount of money, either

It'd be one thing if we were talking about a few hundred dollars a year in financial support, but according to the TDstudy, over the course of a year, those who supported their parents and/or adult children gave out $12,000 on average. And that's a lot of money. Interestingly enough, those who support their parents were almost twice as likely to help a mother as compared to a father. Not only that, but moms received an average of $5,000 more in financial support than dads.

Handing out money while still in debt

Here's the other very frightening piece of this puzzle: Those who provided financial support held close to $100,000 in debt on average, only $75,000 of which consisted of mortgage debt. The remaining estimated $22,000 in debt came in the form of student loans and credit card balances. And while student loan debt is still considered the good kind of debt, credit card debt is very much not.

In other words, many of those who stretched themselves to support their parents probably did so at the expense of their own financial health. Let's take that $22,000 average figure and assume that half of it stems from credit card debt. That's $11,000 we're talking about. We also just learned that most people who provided financial support did so in the amount of $12,000 over the course of a year. Imagine if that sum was used to pay off credit card debt instead. Those carrying hefty balances could've saved hundreds of dollars in interest payments had they not been quite as openhanded with their hard-earned cash.

Save for your children's sake

If you've been neglecting your retirement savings thus far, let this be a wakeup call to start getting your act together -- if not for your own sake, then for that of your children. By taking money from your kids, you're not just subjecting them to a potentially lengthy period of debt. You're also limiting their ability to save for their own retirement, thus perpetuating a very vicious cycle.

Imagine that at age 40, your child gives you $12,000 instead of putting it aside for retirement and investing it. With a stock-heavy strategy, that $12,000 could quite easily generate an average annual return of 8% over the course of 25 years, leaving your child with an extra $82,000 for retirement. Accepting even a one-time financial gift from a child can have long-term repercussions.

It's not too late

Even if you're already retired, there are ways to improve your financial situation without having to rely on a child for support. Lifestyle changes, like downsizing your living space or eliminating a car, can shave hundreds of dollars off your monthly bills. Even small adjustments, like cooking at home versus eating out, can put a few hundred dollars back in your pocket month after month. You might also consider part-time work to generate extra income. Even just a few hours a week will help.

If you're not yet retired, you have even more options for saving. Stay in the workforce an extra year or two, and max out on tax-advantaged contributions to your retirement account. This year, those 50 and older can contribute up to $24,000 to a 401(k) and $6,500 to an IRA. Even though that money won't have much time to grow, it could mean the difference between supporting yourself completely in retirement and having no choice but to ask a child for help. And while you may very well have earned the right to be taken care of by your children in your old(er) age, whether you really want to exercise that right is a completely different story.

The article If You Don't Save for Retirement, Your Kids Might Suffer originally appeared on Fool.com.

Maurie Backman has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends TD Ameritrade. 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.
T. Rowe Price is regarded as one of the best mutual fund managers in the business. At the end of 2015, its clients entrusted it with more than $760 billion of their hard-earned wealth. But with more than 50 stock funds under its umbrella, and a host of other bond funds, blended funds, and target-date funds, selecting the right ones for your retirement account can be a headache.

It doesn't have to be so hard to choose. These three funds have proven to be solid performers, relatively inexpensive, and fitting for a retirement account:

1. T. Rowe Price Dividend Growth Fund

Over its history, the T. Rowe Price Dividend Growth Fund has proven capable of beating the broad market by focusing on dividend stocks that have the potential to raise their dividends over time. Fund management takes a buy-and-hold approach, only turning over about 25% of the portfolio each year.

Over the 10-year period leading up to March 31, 2016, the fund has outperformed the S&P 500 Indexby approximately 0.5 percentage points each year. It fared even better over a 15-year period, in which it outperformed by about 0.7 percentage points.

Active management comes at a price, however. Annual net expenses add up to about 0.64% of assets each year, but the fund's size at less than $5 billion of assets suggests that management still has plenty of opportunity to be nimble and select among less popular stocks.

2. T. Rowe Price Equity 500 Index Fund

There's nothing fancy to see here. TheT. Rowe Price Equity 500 Index Fund simply tracks the performance of the S&P 500 Index, which is roughly comprised of the 500 largest companies on U.S. stock exchanges. By definition, this fund will never be a star performer, as it's designed to simply track the returns of that broad index, minus a small fee, amounting to about 0.27% of assets.

Note that while its expense ratio is very low, other S&P 500 index funds can be even less expensive. Read through your investment choices carefully to see if you can find an even lower-fee fund. If you can't, getting "stuck" with this one certainly isn't the worst possible outcome.

Being less expensive than virtually all actively managed funds, this S&P 500 index fund already give you a leg up on the competition, in that it has a lighter fee weighing down on your annual returns.

3. T. Rowe Price International Discovery Fund

Diversify your portfolio by looking outside the United States' borders. TheT. Rowe Price International Discovery Fund selects from small- and mid-cap companies all around the world, and seeks to generate capital appreciation in emerging and developed markets alike. As of early 2016, Japanese stocks made up 22% of the portfolio, followed by U.K. stocks at 17.4% and Chinese stocks at 8%.

The fund has done well in its category, outperforming competing funds by more than 1 percentage point over periods as short as three years and as long as 15 years.

The fund is small enough to be able to venture into less-covered regions, and into smaller-capitalization stocks with assets of less than $5 billion. Unfortunately, it carries a net expense ratio of about 1.2% annually -- on the high end for a domestic stock fund, but hardly out of line for an actively managed international fund.

The article The 3 Best T. Rowe Price Mutual Funds for Your 401(k) originally appeared on Fool.com.

Jordan Wathen has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: SolarCity.

With all of the questions facing SolarCity Corp , it's important to hear what management has to say about the direction of the business going forward. And there may not be a more important conference call in the company's public history than the one it gave after the first quarter. Here were my five takeaways.

The disappointment in Q1

When first-quarter earnings were released, there's no doubt the numbers were a disappointment to investors. CEO Lyndon Rive said:

He would go on to say that regulatory uncertainty affected sales and a price increase pulled bookings into Q4 2015 and out of Q1 2016. And those dynamics had a huge effect on costs too.

Why costs soared in Q1

The cost to deploy a watt of solar in the first quarter jumped from $2.67 to $3.18 sequentially. The big jump was explained by the slow bookings, but Rive thinks this will be more than a one-quarter problem.

Rising sales costs were really what hit the stock hard in late 2015, so knowing that sales costs aren't going to normalize until late in 2016 is concerning. And it's reason to wonder if management will really be able to control costs long-term.

Loans are on their way

One of the things that's been lacking from SolarCity's business is an alternative to the lease or power purchase agreement. So, the loan announcement from Rive was key to the conference call:

Simple, fixed-cost financing for solar is a big step in the right direction for SolarCity and it could be good for investors as well. Loans mean SolarCity will be recording sales and margin up front rather than playing the financing engineering game long-term. And if you want SolarCity to be a profitable company, that's good news long-term.

The move into utility services is about more than solar

SolarCity announced recently that it was moving into utility-scale solar and grid services. The announcement was sort of strange given the company's focus on small-scale solar and the structural advantages competitors have in the utility space. But CTO Peter Rive explained the move this way:

More than just low-cost solar

Another comment that was telling on the utility side was that SolarCity doesn't want to compete to be the low-cost supplier. Instead, it wants to provide a more comprehensive solution to utilities. Peter Rive put it this way:

That's a little reassuring since the utility-scale solar business is highly competitive today. And with customers looking to own solar systems rather than sign 20-year contracts to buy energy, this should help the company with sales in the future.

The article 5 Things SolarCity Corp's Management Wants You to Know originally appeared on Fool.com.

Travis Hoium has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends 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.
Apple Store Amsterdam. Image source: Apple.

This has been a long time coming, but it looks like Apple may finally be setting up physical shop in the world's second-most-populous country: India.

FactorDaily is reporting that Apple plans on opening three retail locations in India over the next 18 months, citing an anonymous source. The locations would be in Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai. The stores will reportedly each occupy 10,000 square feet and naturally be located in areas with a lot of foot traffic, much like all of the company's other retail stores.

It's about time.

Rules are rules

India has long had regulations in place that prohibit foreign companies from owning and operating single-brand retail stores. That all changed in 2012 when India's Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion changed the policies and opened the way for foreign companies to own 100% of single-brand retail stores. However, there was a catch: The company must source at least 30% of the total value of products sold from within the country.

That's a hurdle for Apple, since it has no meaningful suppliers in India, and its contract manufacturing partners are mostly located in China and other countries. Earlier this year, the Indian government said it would consider waiving the sourcing requirement on a case-by-case basis, and Apple had filed an application to open branded Apple Stores.

A carrot?

Meanwhile, FactorDaily also says that Apple will soon announce a local start-up accelerator in India, in order to nurture developers that want to build iOS apps and services.

If Apple needed to bring something to the negotiating table to get the sourcing requirement waived, it seems possible that this start-up accelerator could have been a useful bargaining chip. Perhaps Apple was able to sway regulators with this investment, with the hopes that nurturing the local development community could potentially translate into an economic windfall for the region. Apple often points to the App Store as a powerful engine of job creation, noting that it has 380,000 paid members of its development program while attributing 627,000 jobs created to the broader iOS ecosystem.

Also, a start-up incubator in India would help also benefit Apple by creating localized content, which is a critical strategic piece of its success in any given market. Having a strong catalog of apps and services that are catered to local languages and culture goes a long way with selling iPhones.

The Indian opportunity

On the last call, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke at length about the opportunities in India. He pointed to iPhone unit sales growth of 56%, the fact that 4G LTE hasn't even been deployed in the country yet, and the fact that India is already the third-largest smartphone market in the world, behind the U.S. and China.

Cook believes that India looks a lot like China did seven to 10 years ago, and now that Apple is putting a lot more emphasis there, it has plenty of growth opportunities to unlock.

The article Apple, Inc. Might Finally Set Up Shop in India originally appeared on Fool.com.

Evan Niu, CFA owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. 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.
Like life's other big decisions, retirement is often a personal one. The big decisions like where and when will vary according to each individual's wants and needs. Some may choose to remain in the communities they've spent their lives in. Others may search for sunny skies and sandy beaches, looking for a change of pace.

But whatever your personal tastes are, there are a few financial considerations worth taking into account as you choose where to spend your golden years. Among those are where your money will go the furthest and balancing concerns like cost of living with quality of life. Below are three cities ranked among the best for retirement in the U.S.

1. Prescott, Arizona

Featured among best cities to retire in on lists from Bankrate.com to Escapehere.com, Prescott is a hidden gem among retirement communities. For those not keen on the desert heat, Prescott is located in a cooler climate in Arizona's north where temperatures from a high of 52 in January to 89 in July.

Prescott offers plenty of options for the outdoorsy adventurer, and this old mining town has a downtown full of buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.According to realtor.com, the median listed home is $189,900, or $79/sq. ft. lower than Arizona's average of $209,900 and the national average of $216,102. With a median age of 53, the community is also ideal for retirees looking to be around other seniors. Retirees can also benefit from a friendly state tax policy as Social Security is untaxed and its top income tax rate is just 4.5%. Finally, the average annual property tax in Prescott is $1,317, significantly less than the national average of $2,193.

2. Asheville, North Carolina

Ranked No. 1 by TopRetirements.com and listed on bestboomertowns.com, it's easy to see why Asheville is a popular retirement destination. The city combines a moderate climate with beautiful surroundings, plenty of local and cultural activities, and an affordable cost of living. The town has long served as a getaway and is home of the Vanderbilts' enormous Biltmore estate.

The median closing price for homes was $225,000 according to realtor.com,above the average price in North Carolina of $164,500 and the national average as well. State income tax rates range from 6% to 8.25%. However, Social Security benefits are not taxed. The property tax rate is $1.13 per $100 of value, meaning a $225,000 home would cost $2,542 a year, though there is a homestead exemption for those with combined income less than $19,700 a year. While Asheville may not be the cheapest retirement destination, its combination of outdoor activities, cultural events, and comfortable climate may be hard to beat.

3. Sarasota, Florida

Among one of many cities listed on various retirement sites on Florida's west coast is Sarasota. It's ranked No. 2 by TopRetirements.com and is a top pick of Kiplinger.com. Kiplinger raves about its tax-friendly environment, affordable cost of living, and beautiful beaches. For those looking for access to a bigger city nearby, Sarasota is a short drive from Tampa/St. Petersburg.

Florida is famous among retirees not only for its sun and sand but for being one of only seven states that don't have an income tax. The median home price according to Kiplinger.com is $218,000, in line with the national average,and annual property taxes are similar to the norm also at $2,266. For those considering a move to Sarasota, a number of other nearby cities are ranked as top retirement destinations including Venice, Fort Myers, and Naples.

The article The Best 3 Cities to Retire In 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.
People around the world are expected to make 726 billion transactions using digital payment technologies by 2020, according to a recent study from Capgemini and bank BNP Paribas. With the world becoming more digital every day -- and with 85% of global transactions still being made in cash -- this massive market should only continue to grow larger in the decades ahead.

PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) and Mastercard (NYSE: MA) are two businesses particularly well positioned to profit from these trends. But which is the better buy today? Let's find out.

Financial fortitude

Let's look at some key metrics to see how PayPal and Mastercard stack up in regard to financial strength.

Metric PayPal Mastercard Revenue $12.3 billion $11.9 billion Operating income $1.7 billion $6.5 billion Net income $1.6 billion $4.6 billion Operating cash flow $3.6 billion $4.7 billion Free cash flow $3.0 billion $4.3 billion Cash and investments $7.1 billion $7.4 billion Debt N/A $5.4 billion

Mastercard and PayPal have similar revenue bases, but Mastercard is the far more profitable business. The credit card titan's operating and net margins check in at 54% and 39%, respectively, compared twith14% and 13% for PayPal. Still, while both Mastercard and PayPal have more $7 billion in cash and investments on their balance sheets, Mastercard has over $5 billion in debt while PayPal has none. So I'll give PayPal a slight edge in terms of financial strength.

Advantage: PayPal.

Growth

PayPal's revenue and operating profit growth has exceeded that of Mastercard in recent years.

Wall Street expects this trend to continue; PayPal is projected to grow its revenue by more than 18% in 2018, while Mastercard's sales growth is anticipated to come in at less than 13%. Moreover, analysts' forecasts have PayPal increasing its earnings per share at about 20% annually over the next five years, fueled by the growth of mobile commerce. Mastercard, meanwhile, is expected to grow its EPS by less than 18% annually during that same time.

With its recent past -- and, more importantly, expected future -- growth exceeding that of its larger rival, PayPal has the edge here.

Advantage: PayPal.

Valuation

No better-buy discussion should take place without a look at valuation. Let's check out some key value metrics for PayPal and Mastercard, including price-to-earnings (P/E) and price-to-earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratios.

Metric PayPal Mastercard Trailing P/E 61.48 37.11 Forward P/E 34.82 29.45 PEG 2.06 1.91

On all three metrics, Mastercard's shares are less expensive than PayPal's. Though on a PEG basis, these two payment titans' valuations are closer than I expected.

Advantage: Mastercard.

The better buy is...

PayPal and Mastercard are both excellent ways to profit from the boom in digital payments. But with its superior financial strength and greater growth prospects, PayPal is the better buy today.

10 stocks we like better than PayPal HoldingsWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now... and PayPal Holdings wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

Click here to learn about these picks!

*Stock Advisor returns as of January 2, 2018

Joe Tenebruso has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Mastercard and PayPal Holdings. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image Source: National Grid.

On the surface, National Grid Transco (NYSE: NGG) looks like a boring old utility. But once you look a little closer, you see that it's really a U.K. utility expanding across the pond into the U.S. market. This expansion is obviously an opportunity, but it's also the biggest threat National Grid faces today.

Not your grandma's utility

National Grid's roughly $50 billion market cap ranks up there with U.S. utility giants like Southern Company and Duke Energy , which weigh in at roughly $45 billion and $53 billion, respectively. The yields of all three are all around the same, too. But National Grid's 4.5% or so is at the top-end of the list, which might draw some attention from a few income investors.

The problem with this is that Duke and Southern are a little different because they are focused on the U.S. market; National Grid's big business is in the United Kingdom. In fact, the company's U.K. electric and gas operations make up roughly two thirds of its operating profits. That's a vastly different picture, and you need to be well aware of this fact if you're going to invest in National Grid.

Here's how the company is thinking about its businesses going forward:

Image Source: National Grid.

Growth ahead?

Which brings us to the biggest risk facing National Grid today: growth. The U.K. market is mature and pretty small, relatively speaking, when you compare it to the United States (it's about the size of Texas). So National Grid has been investing in its U.S. business, focused around transmission assets, to push growth. The U.S. accounts for about 20% of the utility's operating profits, but in the first half of fiscal 2015/2016, roughly half of its capital spending went into its U.S. business.

In fact, when National Grid discusses its priorities across its various business segments, only the goals for the U.S. business include the word growth. And based on the outsized commitment being made to the U.S. market, this U.K. utility is serious about growing in the United States even though it already has a sizable business in the northeast.

But if you buy National Grid, you'll need to pay close attention to where the company is putting its money. If it falters in its U.S. push, it could mean that growth doesn't live up to expectations. Investors would likely take a dim view of that.

Image Source: National Grid.

What could go wrong?

So it makes sense to ask what could go wrong. First and foremost, National Grid is in the process of asking regulators to allow it to increase what it charges customers. That's a delicate dance, which includes spending money on infrastructure. If spending plans don't work out as hoped, there's no guarantee that regulators will let National Grid recoup all of what it spent. And even if National Grid executes well, there's still no way to ensure that it will get the rate hikes it's hoping for.

Than there's expansion via acquisition. There have been a number of big mergers in the utility space, including gas utility purchases by both Southern and Duke. If National Grid really wants to kick up its long-term growth, investing in its existing businesses will only get it just so far. So more U.S. acquisitions could easily play an important role in National Grid's future. Since it's focused on transmission, and not power generation, however, it could be hard to find purchase opportunities.

Utility mergers can also be complicated and expensive. Regulators in every area in which a utility operates have to approve a deal. It's not unusual for concessions to be made, which usually jacks up the cost for the acquirer in some way.

In the end, there are two big issues to think about with National Grid. First, it's really a U.K. utility expanding in the U.S. market. This leads to the second issue, and the really big risk: The company is pretty much pinning its growth on the United States.

Should anything go wrong, National Grid's results probably won't live up to expectations. Don't forget about the company's large U.K. exposure, but the real risks reside in the U.S. business.

The article The Biggest Threat to National Grid Plc Stock originally appeared on Fool.com.

Reuben Brewer has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends National Grid and Southern Company. 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: GoPro.

Investors of GoPro may want to check and see if there's a rewind button on the stock's price action this month. The leading maker of wearable cameras plunged 19% during the first week of May after announcing disappointing quarterly results and delaying its entry into a once booming market. That's now been followed by a 15% drop last week, as a potentially superior rival product has been unveiled, an important supplier received an analyst downgrade, and concerns about GoPro's growth prospects continue to mount.

The LG LTE Action Camera will make streaming easier than any of the existing products on the market because it comes with its own LTE chip. This sets it apart from other cameras including GoPro's wares that need to be tethered to an existing Wi-Fi or smartphone to push out video in real-time.

LG didn't provide pricing information for the new cellular-connected camera. That will be available closer to launch, slated for South Korea next month and the rest of the world later this year. It is unlikely to be cheaper than some of GoPro's entry-level gadgetry, and obviously wireless providers get a piece of LTE-tethered devices. However, the market is naturally concerned that someone other than GoPro is raising the bar on wearable high-def cameras by providing built-in 4G streaming support.

We also had Pacific Crest slash its earnings forecast for Ambarella , the lone provider of GoPro's video processing chips. Pacific Crest also cut its price target on Ambarella from $62 to $53. Ambarella makes chips found in dashboard cams and surveillance gear, but it also derives a big chunk of its business from GoPro's wearable camears. Pacific Crest sees GoPro's sharp decline in revenue continuing in the near term, weighing on Ambarella's prospects.

Freeze frame

GoPro was already reeling after a very challenging financial report. Revenue plunged 49.5% since the prior year's first quarter. GoPro tried to sugarcoat the gloomy report by pointing out that the actual sell-through rate to consumers was a lot better than that, but that only highlights the already crummy holiday quarter where too much inventory was left unsold at the retail level. With gross margins contracting and the bottom line checking in with a large quarterly loss, it's hard to see a turnaround happening anytime soon.

Making matters worse, GoPro's Karma drone that was supposed to hit the market this summer is now being pushed to a holiday release. The drone market is already seeing falling prices in a highly competitive market. It's only going to get more cutthroat by the time Karma sees the light of day.

GoPro doesn't see things going as poorly as Pacific Crest is portraying the situation in talking down Ambarella. GoPro's guidance for revenue to clock in between $1.35 billion and $1.5 billion this year translates into a more modest 7% to 17% decline. There's a lot riding on the latest generation of its flagship HERO wearable cameras -- HERO5 -- and the now-delayed Karma drone.

GoPro in the single digits is a big deal for a stock that was mere ticks from hitting the triple digits shortly after its 2014 IPO. Value investors will be tempted to storm in after back-to-back weeks of double-digit percentage declines, but growth investors will want to wait and see turnaround catalysts gain some kind of traction.

The article Can GoPro Bounce Back After Last Week's 15% Drop? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Rick Munarriz owns shares of Ambarella. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ambarella and GoPro. 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.
If you think Social Security enjoys protection from garnishment -- that is, a court order that freezes bank account assets -- you're partly right.

Under section 207 of the Social Security Act, Social Security can be garnished to pay child support or alimony, civil penalties, overdue federal taxes, and other non-paid debts due to federal agencies, including student loans. Legal judgments against you can also trigger garnishment, but the government provides certain protections if your benefits are direct deposited into a bank account.

What happens when Social Security is garnished by the U.S. government

According to the Social Security Administration's official website, your benefits can be garnished under these circumstances:

For the enforcement of child support and alimony obligations

For satisfying civil penalties under the Victim Restitution Act

When a taxpayer is served with a "Notice to Levy" to collect overdue federal taxes

Through a 15%-per-month levy on each Social Security benefit payment to collect overdue federal taxes, via the "Federal Payment Levy Program"

Through withholding Social Security benefits to pay another federal agency for a non-tax debt (e.g., overdue or delinquent student loans)

It's important to understand that in the process of garnishment, a bank is obeying a government or court order and has to follow a federally mandated process. If any of the above instances listed above apply, a financial institution will essentially proceed with garnishment. Note that a state agency enforcing child support will enjoy the same level of authority as the federal government, and a bank will implement its order.

What happens when Social Security is garnished by a third party

If a third-party creditor wins a court judgment against you, it's true that your Social Security can be garnished. However, your bank will be required by the government to follow a slightly different procedure.

Under the law, if an account holder receives Social Security benefits via direct deposit, a bank must perform a review within two business days of receiving a garnishment notice. In this review, the bank begins with the day preceding the review, and performs a two-month "look-back," which ends on the corresponding date two months earlier.

If the bank finds no evidence of Social Security benefits directly deposited into the holder's account during the look-back period, it will proceed with garnishment.

If, however, the bank finds evidence of one or more directly deposited Social Security payments during the period, it must stop and perform a calculation for what the government deems a "protected amount."

The protected amount is equal to the lesser of the sum of benefit payments that posted to the account during the look-back period, or the balance in the holder's account at the open of business on the date the bank conducts the review.

Since the government makes Social Security deposits on a monthly basis, this means that recipients can have a maximum of two months' worth of deposits protected from garnishment. Once a bank determines the protected amount from the formula above, it will garnish available funds in a holder's account in excess of this amount.

Two important points to note

According to guidelines for banks issued by the Department of the Treasury's Financial Management Service, there are two additional points Social Security recipients should bear in mind. First, banks are required to perform an account review for each account held in the name of an individual against whom a garnishment order has been issued. Protected amounts in one account belonging to a bank customer become unprotected within the second account they are transferred to.

Second, banks are instructed to conduct one, and only one, account review upon notice of garnishment. They are prohibited from continually garnishing an account, and may not freeze any subsequent funds deposited or credited to an account, unless a new or different garnishment order is received.

In sum, while Social Security isn't beyond the reach of government agencies, in the case of third-party creditors, benefit recipients can at least hold on to up to two months' worth of benefits. And the biggest takeaway? To reap the advantage of these federally mandated protections, it makes sense to receive your benefits via direct deposit.

The article Can Social Security Be Garnished? 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.
One of last week's biggest winners was SodaStream -- yes, SodaStream -- soaring 24% after surprising investors with a much earlier resumption of growth than the market was expecting.

SodaStream's revenue clawed back into nine figures during the first quarter, rising 10% to $100.9 million. Wall Street pros were holding out for a 3% decline. It was a welcome return to growth after posting five consecutive quarters of year-over-year declines on the top line before that.

SodaStream's gross margin improved sequentially, and it sees gross margin staying north of 50% for the balance of the year. Its profit of $0.29 a share was nearly three times the $0.11 a share that analysts were targeting.

It had been a long way down for the company with its maker of carbonated beverages until last week's redemptive bounce. SodaStream stock traded as high as $77.80 three summers ago, as a business publication in SodaStream's home turf of Israel reported that PepsiCo was in talks to acquire SodaStream. It never happened. PepsiCo and SodaStream may have had meetings, but the only real development was a partnership where PepsiCo would put out select flavors of its beverages for SodaStream machines.

Unfortunately for SodaStream and PepsiCo, the rollout of Pepsi Homemade syrups came just as SodaStream starter systems and flavors were in a state of decline. Soda consumption in general has been waning, a trend that ultimately found SodaStream repositioning its machine as a maker of sparkling water.

The distinction may seem petty. SodaStream still keeps "soda" in its corporate and flagship product's name. However, it is fizzing up a lot of water that isn't being sweetened these days. SodaStream claims that 86% of the 375 million liters of its product that was consumed during the first three months of the year was non-flavored sparkling water. That's a robust 21% year-over-year spike in consumption. That's bad news for PepsiCo and SodaStream's high-margin flavors business, but it will obviously help propel sales of CO2 refills and starter systems higher.

More than syrup

Despite the shift away from pop in favor of seltzer, SodaStream's flavors did post its first year-over-year increase during the quarter in more than a year. Beverage maker sales also moved higher after a few quarters of going the wrong way. It was also SodaStream's first quarter of top-line growth in the Americas in more than a year, though it was a case of strength in Canada offsetting yet another period of decline in the U.S. market.

A lot of good things are happening, and SodaStream now expects to grow its revenue for all of 2016. It had previously been targeting flat growth. With cost savings continuing to shine, growth in the mid-teens in Western Europe, and the executive responsible for the turnaround in Canada now working on the U.S. recovery, SodaStream may be a sparkling water company these days but there's still a lot of ways for things to sweeten up for the stock in 2016.

The article Can SodaStream Keep Going After Last Week's 24% Pop? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Rick Munarriz owns shares of SodaStream. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends PepsiCo. The Motley Fool owns shares of SodaStream. 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.
Over the past five years, American Airlines has spent heavily on new aircraft to modernize its fleet. More recently, it has spent enormous sums on share repurchases, more than $5 billion since the beginning of 2015.

As a result, while American Airlines has become quite profitable, it has also accumulated a large debt burden, particularly compared to industry rival Delta Air Lines .

American Airlines has more debt than any other airline. Image source: American Airlines.

This reflects a fairly aggressive financial strategy at American Airlines. However, the company's high debt level is not as big a problem as it might appear, because its heavy spending on new airplanes is set to wind down starting in 2018. This will free up cash for American Airlines to pay off its debt thereafter.

American Airlines' debt burden rises

At the end of 2013, shortly after its merger with US Airways, American Airlines had $16.8 billion of debt on its balance sheet. Since then, its debt burden has steadily risen, reaching $21.7 billion as of the end of last quarter. On the plus side, American does have $6.9 billion of cash and investments on its balance sheet.

In addition to its debt, American Airlines also has substantial annual payments for airplanes that it leases. Financial analysts consider aircraft leases to be similar to debt in that the airline is required to make a long-term stream of payments. As a result, in evaluating an airline's debt burden, analysts typically use an adjusted figure that includes the value of its aircraft leases.

Using an industry-standard adjustment technique (seven times aircraft rent expense), the value of American Airlines' aircraft leases is $8.7 billion and American's net debt is a hefty $23.5 billion.

By contrast, Delta Air Lines has prioritized capital spending discipline and debt reduction in recent years. As a result, Delta ended 2015 with adjusted net debt of just $6.7 billion, down from $17.0 billion at the end of 2009.

Fleet age is a big difference

Delta Air Lines has clearly adopted more conservative financial policies than American Airlines. However, the advantage of American's heavy capital spending is that its aircraft fleet is getting much younger. In fact, by the end of 2016, American's average mainline fleet age will fall below 10 years. Meanwhile, Delta's average fleet age will likely remain near 17 years.

Delta Air Lines has kept older airplanes in its fleet.

As a practical matter, this means that American Airlines will be able to cut capex significantly in the future. In 2016, the company expects to spend $5.7 billion on capex, including $4.5 billion for aircraft purchases and deposits.

Capex will remain elevated next year, as American Airlines has $4.6 billion in aircraft purchase commitments for 2017. However, capital spending will fall rapidly thereafter. Aircraft purchase commitments average $3 billion for the 2018-2020 period. Furthermore, American has $4.5 billion of total commitments for the 2021-2023 period.

Indeed, capital spending is likely to remain quite low for American Airlines during the 2020s, unless favorable economic conditions support significant growth. About half of American's fleet is less than 10 years old today, and the carrier's more than 300 outstanding orders will replace most of the remainder of its fleet.

Low capex offsets high debt payments

American Airlines will have an extremely young fleet by 2020. This should allow it to keep annual aircraft spending around $1.5 billion during the following decade. Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines has been much stingier about capex in recent years, but its capital spending is now on an upward trajectory as it needs to replace the oldest planes in its fleet.

The sharp decrease in capex at American Airlines after 2017 -- and especially after 2020 -- will allow the company to use its operating cash flow to pay down the debt it has taken on recently. By funding its fleet replacement with debt rather than cash, American is effectively spreading the cost over a longer period of time.

A severe aviation industry downturn could still interfere with American Airlines' ability to make its scheduled debt payments. Nevertheless, the company's low capital spending needs for the decade after 2020 limit the risk of its debt-heavy capital structure.

The article Does American Airlines Have Too Much Debt? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Adam Levine-Weinberg is long January 2017 $40 calls on Delta Air Lines and long January 2017 $30 calls on American Airlines Group. The Motley Fool is long January 2017 $35 calls on American Airlines Group. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: Alliance Resource Partners.

Alliance Resource Partners LP is one of the better positioned coal miners. That, however, isn't saying much, since so many major coal miners are now working their way through bankruptcy. If you're looking at Alliance's high yield, you might be better off considering these four better dividend stocks.

Another carbon bugabooThe trouble with Alliance is coal; one of the dirtiest carbon-based fuels around. Environmental groups have targeted it for a long time, and now, with low natural gas prices and advances in solar and wind power, the world's view of coal has really begun to dim. While competitive alternatives were probably more of an issue than the environmentalists in coal's downturn, that doesn't change the fact that everyone is hating on coal today.

ARLP data by YCharts

That's a good reason to avoid the space. One alternative you should consider is oil. True, ExxonMobil is taking some environmentalist heat right now, but that doesn't change the big picture: Cars last a long time, and every new gas or diesel car that gets sold ensures demand will remain strong. The alternatives to gasoline just haven't made enough inroads yet.

ExxonMobil's 3.3% yield is probably too low to interest you if you are looking at Alliance, but you might findRoyal Dutch Shell's 7% and ENI's nearly 6% yield a bit more enticing.

Shell's yield is so high because there's a risk that it could cut its dividend, even though management has, so far, expressed its intentions to support it through the current oil price downturn. The problem goes beyond just oil prices, however. That's because Shell is in the middle of integrating BG Group, a $50 billion acquisition. It's highly likely that Shell will need to take on more debt to cover the dividend, pay for the deal, and continue to invest in the future. That said, Shell now gives shareholders the option of recieving dividends in cash or in shares of stock, which should help ease the cash outflow over the near term.

Still, there are dividend risks here, but Shell is increasing its focus on natural gas, where demand is expected to increase. In other words, it looks like Shell is making the right strategic moves. Speaking of strategy, ENI is an interesting story in the oil patch. For starters, it's already slashed its dividend. While that doesn't mean it won't cut again, the current payout is more in line with what ENI can afford to pay than before.

Image source: Royal Dutch Shell.

But the really interesting thing about ENI is that, unlike many peers, it has a history of venturing into riskier countries for deals. Although dealing with global bad actors may not be a low-risk investment approach, ENI has created important relationships in key markets before others have dared to enter them. That helps explain some of the relatively high yield, even after a dividend cut. But if you were looking at coal, which is probably the world's least loved fuel, ENI's ventures with politically unstable countries may not bother you so much.

If you are looking for even bigger yieldsAnother pair of companies you might want to consider are propane players Suburban Propane (NYSE: SPH) and Ferrallgas Partners (NYSE: FGP), which yield around 11% and 10.5%, respectively. That compares a bit more favorably with Alliance's lofty distributionthan any of the oil stocks mentioned. But why? Some of the yield is probably based on a misunderstanding of the partnerships' businesses -- providing a highly portable fuel to areas that either don't have good alternative options or where portability is key.

Image source: Suburban Propane.

You see, Suburban and Ferrallgas are both middlemen. They get paid to deliver propane, generally just passing the cost of the fuel on to customers. But they still have to buy propane, which has left the top line weak, since propane prices have been low. Only that's a net benefit for this pair, because it reduces the desire of customers to switch to alternative fuels, such as natural gas, fuel cells, or batteries. In fact, weather is a much more important metric to watch than propane prices. (The past couple of winters have been warm, so that's a problem, but a good, cold winter would quickly fix that.)

To give you an idea of what's going on, Suburban's top line fell nearly 27% between fiscal 2014 and 2015. But its net income declined only 10% or so. That's not a great bottom-line result (remember, the winter was a warm one), but it highlights the fact that the top line isn't the best way to track these middlemen. And that helps explain why both companies have long and strong distribution histories.

Suburban, for example, has increased its distribution in nine of the past 10 years. And while Ferrellgas only just started to increase its distribution last year, it held the rate steady, in good times and bad, over a decade before that point. So both are fairly reliable on the income front, which means the current price decline could be a good time to grab these high yielders.

Forget Alliance?For a really adventurous contrarian investor, Alliance's coal focus and high yield might be too good to pass up. But if you aren't willing to take on the risk that coal is really heading to the dustbin of history, you might want to switch gears to two fuels that appear to have longer lives ahead of them. In the oil patch, Shell is a high yielder worth looking at, and so is ENI, especially since it's already cut its dividend to a more manageable level.

Suburban and Ferrellgas, meanwhile, are key players in propane distribution. That's a misunderstood area, and the pair currently offer high yields because of it. If you're willing to do a little more homework to understand this duo, you'll find their yields are a step above what you'll come across in the oil patch and don't look to be at risk since both have increased their distributions recently.

In the end, if you're looking for alternatives to Alliance, these four stocks are all worth considering.

The article Forget Alliance Resource Partners LP: Here Are 4 Better Dividend Stocks originally appeared on Fool.com.

Reuben Brewer owns shares of ExxonMobil. The Motley Fool owns shares of ExxonMobil. The Motley Fool recommends Alliance Resource Partners. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise recently launched itsInternet of Things (IoT) platform for managing a wide array of connected devices. HPE states that the "universal" platform will convert data in various formats to more consistent ones for storage and analysis. The software is designed to run across multiple platforms, including on-site servers and public cloud services from Amazon and Microsoft .

Image source: Hewlett-Packard Enterprise

Of course, the idea of launching unified "IoT platforms" is far from new. Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco , and many other tech giants previously launched comparable solutions with similar goals. Will HPE's IoT platform stand out against these rivals, or will it further divide the growing but crowded market?

Why HPE needs IoT

Cisco predicts that the number of connected devices will double from 25 billion in 2015 to 50 billion in 2020 and that the global IoT market will be worth $14.4 trillion by 2022. This makes it an incredibly lucrative "next frontier" for aging tech companies dealing with sluggish enterprise demand.

Enterprise group (hardware and related services) revenue at HPE rose just 1% year-over-year to $7.1 billion last quarter. Most of that growth came from its acquisition of Aruba Networks, which boosted its networking revenue by 54% annually and offset declining sales of servers, storage devices, and tech services. Launching an IoT platform complements the growth of its networking business by streamlining the connections between its networking hardware and servers. Data collection and analytics can also strengthen its enterprise services division, where sales slid 6% year-over-year to $4.7 billion last quarter.

Focusing its efforts on IoT can also help HPE secure a foothold in the public cloud market, which it notably exited lastOctober due to fierce competition from Amazon, Microsoft, and other market leaders. HPE listed automakers, telcos, and energy companies as potential customers for its IoT platform, and is currently bidding for business from an unnamed car company.

Too little, too late?

While HPE's reasons for launching an IoT platform are sound, the company is arguably arriving a bit late in a crowded market of similar platforms. Cisco recently acquired Jasper Technologies, which also offers a unified IoT platform. By bundling its IoT solutions with its market-leading networking hardware, Cisco can quickly expand its in-house platform and marginalize the competition. Cisco notably used a similar bundling strategy to marginalize Aruba before it was acquired by Hewlett-Packard Enterprise.

Microsoft is leveraging its control of Windows to expand the presence of the Azure IoT Suite, which is tightly integrated into its Azure cloud platform. Meanwhile, Amazon is expanding its massive cloud platform AWS (Amazon Web Services) into the IoT market with Kindles, Fire TVs, Echo speakers, Dash buttons, and DRS-enabled smart appliances.

Amazon's Dash Buttons. Image source: Amazon

HPE lacks Cisco's networking muscle or Microsoft and Amazon's cloud strength. Theonly major advantage it has is its market-leading position in the data center market. However, HPE doesn't seem interested in competing against Microsoft and Amazon. By making its IoT platform compatible with Azure and AWS, HPE is encouraging compatibility between different standards, which might make its enterprise hardware and software more appealing.

Competition creates fragmentation

In a previous article, I discussed the problem of competition leading to fragmentation between communications standards. In the chip-making market, the Intel-led OIC (Open Interconnect Consortium) is challenging Qualcomm's AllSeen Alliance to launch "universal" communication standards between IoT devices. The irony is that neither standard is compatible with the other.

On the software side, companies like Apple, Alphabet, Samsung, and Amazon are all launching competing physical and digital hubs for smart home ecosystems. As for enterprise IoT analytics solutions, companies have to choose between AWS, Azure, Cisco's built-in analytics software, or other alternatives. All of this competition fragments the market and makes it tough for IoT devices and services to achieve mass adoption.

Why HPE has the right idea

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise isn't really trying to capture mindshare in the IoT market with its new universal platform. Instead, it could capitalize on the fragmentation of the IoT market by converting the various forms of data into a standardized version for easier analysis. That move could strengthen the bonds between its data center, networking, and software segments, enabling its entire business to tap into the growth of the IoT market.

The article Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co Launches an Internet of Things Platform originally appeared on Fool.com.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fools board of directors. Leo Sun owns shares of Amazon.com and Qualcomm. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon.com, Apple, and Qualcomm. The Motley Fool owns shares of Microsoft and has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool recommends Cisco Systems and Intel. 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: Veolia Environnement.

So you're interested in a company that's based in France? Well, shares of environmental-services company VeoliaEnvironnement have had a nice run in the past year. Here's a chart of share prices since the beginning of 2015, a year-and-a-quarter stretch that's been less than stellar for most.

VEOEY data by YCharts

The ultimate questions for investors are what has caused the rise in prices and whether the momentum will continue. Let's consider what the company does, how it has performed financially, and how its stock compares with the competition.

What is Veolia Environnement?The company operates three divisions: water, waste, and energy. Its water services division offers wastewater treatment and water distribution systems, as well as the construction of these systems. The waste services segment collects and processes household and industrial waste. The energy division develops management and integration systems for heating and cooling networks, industrial utilities, and public roadway electrical systems.

Nearly 80% of company revenue comes from the sale of services, with the remaining revenue mostly made up of construction and the sale of goods. Only about a quarter of revenue comes from France, 40% from the rest of Europe, and the balance coming from outside Europe, including the United States.

About those stock returns ...So how did the stock arrive at current levels in the past year? Let's compare 2015 results with those of 2014:

Metric 2015 Results (in Euros)

2014 Results (in Euros)

% Change Total revenue 24.96 billion 23.88 billion 4.5% Cost of sales 20.79 billion 19.92 billion 4.4% Operating income 1.02 billion 421 million 142.3% Net profit 551 million 326 million 69%

Chart data source: Veolia Environnement 2015 consolidated financial statements

While Veolia saw modest gains in revenue and costs, operating income and net profit soared over the course of the year. The spike in operating income, which translated into higher net profit, is attributable to a reduction in impairment losses on goodwill from purchased companies and in intangible assets, as well as property, plant, and equipment. There were high costs in these areas in 2014 from writedown costs in Central Europe, China, and Portugal, as well as an impairment in the value of subsidiary businesses. The company attributes these changes in 2015 to improving business conditions, especially in Europe, and one-time items in 2014 that hurt the bottom line.

A comparison against competitionWith the company's profits improving and the stock price rebounding, should investors buy in? Let's look at some competitors and do a side-by-side comparison:

1.80% 3.39% 1.81% 1.30 Waste Management (NYSE: WM) 5.81% 2.82% 6.22% 3.09 American Water Works (NYSE: AWK) 15.07% 1.97% 4.03% 3.26 Clean Harbors (NYSE: CLH) 1.35% N/A 3.87% 10.37

Chart data source: Yahoo! Finance.

In the last 12-month period, Veolia has mostly underperformed its peers on net profit and return on assets, a measure of how efficient the company is at using assets to generate profit. Other environmental companies, however, have very high current valuations as measured by their PEG ratios (forward price-to-earnings divided by expected earnings growth). Veolia, by comparison, has a lower PEG ratio, indicating a lower price for future growth expectations over the premium paid for future growth of comparable companies. In the meantime, Veolia also pays an above-average dividend currently floating around 3.5%.

Despite the nice run over the past year or so, I believe the company has more room to improve fundamentals. With the recent sale of less profitable segments in higher risk areas of Europe, reduction of debt, and the globalenergy andcommoditiesindustry starting to show signs of recovery,the company has emerged leaner, more profitable, and in a good position to focus on higher profit geographic regions.As a result,the stock should outperform those of competitorsin the years to come.

The article Is Veolia Environnement a Buy? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Nicholas Rossolillo has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Clean Harbors and Waste Management. The Motley Fool recommends Veolia Environnement (ADR). 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.
NVIDIA's P100, built on a 16nm process, aimed at high-performance computing. Image source: NVIDIA.

For the first time in roughly four years, graphics specialist NVIDIA is introducing a graphics processor built on a new chip manufacturing technology. Since the launch of its Kepler architecture in early 2012, NVIDIA has put out multiple graphics chips built on TSMC's 28-nanometer chip manufacturing technology.

Although TSMC went into mass production on a newer 20-nanometer chip manufacturing technology in late 2014 (to service a handful of mobile processor customers), NVIDIA skipped this technology for its stand-alone graphics processors in favor of TSMC's 16-nanometer FinFET Plus technology.

Apparently, per NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang on the company's most recent earnings call, manufacturing yields on the company's 16-nanometer Pascal graphics processors are "good."

NVIDIA's strategy in action

At NVDIA's last investor meeting, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang made it clear that NVIDIA would no longer be the first customers to use brand-new chip manufacturing technologies. Instead, it would wait for the big customers like Apple to use the latest technologies and then hop aboard afterwards, since the processes should be mature by the time NVIDIA gets to them.

In fact, note that on the call Huang made a point of this with the following statement: "This is now a year behind when the first 16-nanometer FinFET products went into production in TSMC."

Looking to quell the fear expressed by the analysts about yields, Huang said that "[NVDIA] wouldn't have announced [products built on 16-nanometer FinFET] if we didn't have manufacturing under control. So we're in great shape."

Do Huang's comments check out?

Although Huang's commentary is encouraging, "good" is a very subjective term. To get a better sense of the yield picture, I think it's important to look at NVIDIA's gross profit margin guidance for the coming quarter.

NVIDIA should transition over virtually all of its high-end gaming graphics processor shipments from the older 28-nanometer Maxwell architecture to the 16-nanometer Pascal architecture during the current quarter. If yields were bad (meaning cost structure is relatively poor), we would probably see a negative impact to gross margins sequentially.

NVIDIA's gross profit margins were 57.5% on a generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, basis in its most recent quarter and 58.6% on a non-GAAP basis. The guidance given for the coming quarter is 57.7% on a GAAP basis and 58.0 on a non-GAAP basis, give or take 50 basis points, respectively.

With gross profit margin guidance looking strong, there's little reason to doubt Huang's claims vis--vis 16-nanometer chip yields.

What's next?

The next step for NVIDIA will be to transition the rest of its product stack from 28-nanometer Maxwell to 16-nanometer Pascal. Fortunately, these chips should generally be smaller and cheaper to produce than the chips found inside of the recently announced GTX 1070/1080, so if yields are good on the larger chips, they should be quite good for the rest of the lineup.

The architecture that's supposed to come after Pascal is known as Volta. It's not clear yet what manufacturing technology NVIDIA will use with these products. On one hand, NVIDIA could try to wring out significant performance enhancements through architecture alone on the current 16-nanometer process.

However, TSMC is expected to go into mass production on its 10-nanometer process in early 2017, so it should be suitable for NVIDIA to use to build graphics processors intended to be sold in late 2017/early 2018.

The article NVIDIA Corporation CEO Says 16-Nanometer Pascal Yields Are "Good" originally appeared on Fool.com.

Ashraf Eassa has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple and NVIDIA. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. 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.
Oil prices are up, but two well-known producers are bankrupt in a mixed-news day in the oil industry.

What

Today (May 16, 2016) is a mixed bag for oil stocks, especially independent producers. To start, the market news is generally positive, at least for the going interests with strong enough balance sheets to ride out the ongoing downturn. Both Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices are up more than 2% today, with WTI trading above $47.50, and Brent approaching $49.00 per barrel.

But at the same time, two well-known oil producers that have been on the cusp of financial viability finally filed for bankruptcy earlier today, while another struggling producer released earnings that failed to meet expectations.

Here's a look at how a group of these oil stocks have fared today:

BBEP Price data by YCharts.

So what: "bad news" version

The biggest news is that bothBreitburn Energy Partners LP and SandRidge Energy(NYSEMKT: SDOC) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today.

SandRidge's filing was essentially a pre-negotiated one, which essentially awards control of the company to creditors in exchange for $3.7 billion in debt. And while this prepackaged deal all but assures the company's future under different ownership, and will wipe out common shareholder equity in the company, it still must be approved by a bankruptcy court.

Breitburn Energy's bankruptcy, however, isn't likely to go as smoothly. The company has reached preliminary agreements with some of its debt holders and creditors, but it's filing is far from "prepackaged," as the oil producer continues to negotiate with other senior debt holders over the particulars. However, it should be clear that, just as with Breitburn and other recent bankruptcy filers, common shareholders will almost certainly be left with no equity in the company when it reemerges from bankruptcy.

Also today,Penn West Petroleum Ltd (USA) released first-quarter financial results, and it wasn't pretty-- and I'm not even talking about the actual results of its operations. The big, scary part of Penn West's filing was that the company is getting close to pushing the limits of a number of debt covenants that would put it in default on at least a portion of its $1.8 billion in total debt. The company's senior debt to EBITDA ratio was 4.4, which was still below the 5-to-1 ratio in the covenant, but continually low oil prices put the company in a position where it could be in trouble as soon as the end of the current quarter.

How big of a concern is this? Pretty big, considering the company said, "Our ability to continue as a going concern depends on the ability to enter into amending agreements with our lenders," in a release.

EXCO Resources Inc shares also fell sharply earlier in trading, though its stock has since recovered. On Friday, EXCO announced that it had formed a "special committee" to "explore strategic alternatives" for the company. This is the same refrain that the market heard from many of the recent bankruptcy filers in the months before those companies ended up seeking court protection, so it doesn't bode well for EXCO's prospects. At the end of last quarter, EXCO reported $1.4 billion in long-term debt, and less than $50 million in cash. And while its stock has rebounded after falling sharply in early trading today, shares are down 60% since the announcement on May 13.

So what: "good" news version

Denbury Resources announced it was swapping $135.3 million in senior debt for $83.8 million in new secured senior debt and 3.8 million shares of common stock. While the dilution isn't great for existing investors, the market is happy with the move, which reduces the company's total debt slightly, while not impacting its liquidity at all.

Why would debt-holders agree to this move? In short, the new debt they received in the deal puts them "closer to the front of the line" in terms of the company's obligations to its debt holders. The common shares are nice icing if the company survives the downturn, but the real reason this happened was that these debt holders are better-positioned to get paid if things go from bad to worse for Denbury.

There's also some merger news happening today, asRange Resources Corp. andMemorial Resource Development Corp announced they will merge. In short, Range will acquire Memorial in an all-stock transaction that values Memorial at $4.4 billion, including $1.1 billion in net debt that Range will assume as part of the acquisition. Shares of Memorial are up 7% on the news, while Range Resources stock is trading down more than 9%.

The net effect of the new shares, which will be issued to Memorial Resource shareholders, will result in Range investors holding 69% of the merged company, with Memorial investors holding the 31% balance.

Whiting Petroleum Corp andPenGrowth Energy Corp (USA) shares are up 7% and 13%, respectively, today, though on no material news other than higher oil prices. The reality for both companies, frankly, is similar to many of their independent oil producer peers: High debt and low oil prices have them in an unenviable position.

PenGrowth Energy reported $1.3 billion in long-term debt last quarter, while Whiting had over $5 billion, and both companies saw their cash from operations fall around 40% over the past year, as oil and natural gas prices have come down sharply. Even after the recent recovery from decade-plus lows in February, many oil producers are still realizing prices that fail to cover their total expenses, particularly when heavy debt balances are figured in.

Now what

It's a sad day for shareholders of Breitburn and SandRidge Energy. While both company's stocks will continue to trade while bankruptcy proceedings and reorganization play out, shareholders need to understand that they are last in line now. In other words, every lender, vendor, or other creditor will get a piece of the company's assets or an equity holding in the company when bankruptcy is complete, before common shareholders. In other words, it's probably best to sell your shares soon and reclaim whatever pennies are left of your investing dollars before the shares are eventually de-listed, and you're left with absolutely nothing.

As to the rest of these independent producers, there remains a lot of risk. Oil prices have rebounded nicely over the past few months, but part of the more recent move up is related to production declines in Africa and Canada that are unlikely to be long term, while global demand growth remains very low. To put it bluntly, oil prices aren't guaranteed to keep going up, and they could actually decline again in the near term.

Furthermore, the bloodletting has started, but it's likely far from over. Oil prices are still relatively low for many debt-laden producers, and barring a strong recovery in the next couple of quarters, there will be more producers coming up short on their debt covenants.

Bottom line: If you choose to invest in any independent oil or gas producers, make sure you understand their debt picture, or you may end up taking on more risk than you realize.

The article Oil Stocks Moving Up and Down on Higher Prices, Bankruptcies, Uncertainty originally appeared on Fool.com.

Jason Hall has the following options: long January 2017 $1.5 calls on BreitBurn Energy Partners. The Motley Fool owns shares of Denbury Resources. 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.
Oracle and Alphabet 's Google have been locked in litigation regarding the programming language Java ever since Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010.

Sun Microsystems originally developed Java as an open-source language that could be written once and run on any device equipped with the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). In 2005, Google bought Android and developed it into its first mobile OS. Some parts of the OS used Java, but it wasn't considered a legal issue until Oracle acquired Sun and asked Google for a licensing agreement to use its Java APIs (application programming interfaces). Google refused on grounds that Java was an open-source OS and that APIs couldn't be copyrighted, and Oracle sued Google for copyright infringement.

Image source: Pixabay.

Google seemingly won the case in 2012, but the ruling was partially reversed in 2014, nullifying Google's claim that APIs couldn't be copyrighted. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case and it's been sent back to a lower court to let Google argue its case. The new case started on May 9, with Oracle now asking for $8.8 billion indamages.

What's Oracle's argument?

Google claims that its use of certain parts of Java are covered under "fair use," which allows for limited copying. Oracle claims that Google made a lot of money from Android, and that it isn't paying its fair share for the Java features it uses.

Google has never officially disclosed how much revenue the mobile OS generates, but Oracle claimsthat Google generated $31 billion in revenue and $22 billion in profit from Android over the past eight years. That revenue was generated by displaying mobile ads and taking a 30% cut of app sales from Google Play. Google has neither confirmed nor denied those figures, but requested that the court redact and seal those documents because they contained "extremely sensitive information."

$8.8 billion would represent a big share of what Oracle alleges Google has racked up in Android profits, and it would eclipse the $7.4 billion it paid for Sun and nearly match its $9.01 billion in total revenues last quarter. But before Oracle investors get too excited, they should remember that its previous request for $6 billion fromGoogle in 2011 was rejected by the judge for being too high.

Image source: Google.

How badly could this hurt Google?

An $8.8 billion charge would be equivalent to 10% of Alphabet's projected sales of $87.1 billion for the year. That charge would hurt, but the case will likely drag on for a few more years, and the final fine (if Google is found guilty) would likely be much lower. A large portion of any charge could also be offset by a potential $3.5 billion tax windfall for Alphabet from Intel's ongoing battle against theIRS.

A bigger issue would be reduced Android profitability as smartphone and tablet sales peak. Research firm Gartner expects smartphone sales to grow just 7% this year, compared to14% growth in 2015. IDC reportsthat tablet shipments have fallen for six consecutive quarters, and are expected to continue posting negative growth for the foreseeable future. This means that fewer new customers will view mobile ads or download apps on Android. Moreover, Android's profitability is greatly reduced in markets like China, which block the Play Store and allow OEMs to develop "forked" versions of Android which cut Google out of the loop. Google also faces a probe in the EU which could force it to "unbundle" certain first-party apps from Android.

If these pressures throttle Android's growth and Oracle wins a cut of future Android revenues, Google's mobile growth could suffer. However, Google's expansion of Android to other platforms -- like smart homes, TVs, and other connected devices -- might reduce its dependence on smartphones and tablets over the long term.

The key takeaway

Alphabet investors shouldn't worry too much about the Oracle lawsuit, which won't likely be settled anytime soon. However, they should keep an eye on any financial disclosures which come out of the trial that could provide deeper insights into Google's mobile business. Oracle investors should focus more on the company's stagnant sales growth and its sluggish transition to the cloud instead of dreaming about an $8.8 billion payday from Google.

The article Oracle Corporation Wants to Squeeze $9 Billion Out of Google originally appeared on Fool.com.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Leo Sun has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), and Gartner. The Motley Fool owns shares of Oracle. The Motley Fool recommends Intel. 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.
Social Security affects the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans. About 60 million people receive monthly benefits from the program, and roughly 168 million workers pay Social Security taxes to cover those benefits, according to the Social Security Administration. Yet despite those numbers, many people don't have a fundamental idea of what Social Security is. Below, we'll look at the basics of the Social Security program and what impact it could have on you and your finances.

What Social Security is

Social Security is a public government program that provides assistance to retired and disabled workers and their families. It's composed of two parts. The Old Age and Survivors Insurance program pays benefits to workers after they retire, as well as spousal and children's benefits to family members who qualify. It also provides funds to the surviving spouse and other qualifying family members after the worker's death. The Disability Insurance program makes similar payments of benefits to those who become permanently disabled.

How Social Security works

At its most basic level, Social Security is a simple program. Workers in jobs that participate in the system pay Social Security taxes to the federal government, and employers match the taxes that are withheld from workers' pay with an equal amount of their own money. The Social Security Administration then uses the tax money that it collects to pay benefits to those who are currently eligible to receive them.

Currently, most employees have 6.2% of their pay withheld from their paychecks to cover Social Security taxes. The employer then pays 6.2% of its employees' pay toward those taxes as well. If you're self-employed, then the federal government puts you on the hook for the total 12.4% amount as part of the self-employment taxes that you pay.

How do I become eligible for Social Security?

To receive Social Security benefits, you have to meet minimum work requirements. For retirement benefits, you have to earn 40 credits under the program. You can earn up to four credits each year, and it takes $1,260 in earnings during 2016 to collect a single credit. For most people, 10 years of work is enough to get full retirement benefits. If you qualify for retirement benefits, then your family will also potentially be eligible for spousal, children's, and survivor benefits on your work record.

Disability benefits work differently in terms of eligibility. Having 40 credits is always enough to get disability benefits, but lower requirements that vary according to age apply to younger workers to receive disability benefits for themselves and survivor benefits for family members after their death.

How much does Social Security pay?

The amount of benefits that you'll receive from Social Security depends on a number of factors. The most important is the amount of income you earn over the course of your career. The Social Security Administration takes into account up to 35 years of work history in determining your monthly benefit amount. In general, the higher your wages, the greater your benefits will be. However, in pursuing its policy goal of providing baseline financial assistance to participants, Social Security pays a higher percentage of average earnings in the form of benefits to those with lower incomes than to those with higher incomes.

In addition, when you claim Social Security benefits can affect how much you receive. For instance, with retirement benefits, you can start receiving payments at any age between 62 and 70, but the amounts are adjusted depending on when you claim. For example, someone who's eligible to receive $2,000 in monthly Social Security retirement benefits if they start collecting at age 66 would get $1,500 per month if they collected early at age 62, or $2,640 per month if they collected late at age 70. Similar adjustments may apply to spouses collecting spousal or survivor benefits.

How do I apply for Social Security?

To get Social Security benefits, you'll need to apply with the Social Security Administration. The easiest way to do so is to use the online application process at this SSA website. However, you can also visit a local Social Security office or use the toll-free number of 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778).

Social Security is a vital program that protects the financial security for millions of Americans. Knowing the basics will help you ensure that you get all the benefits that you've earned from Social Security.

The article What Is Social Security? 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.
Former Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson is taking on the New York Times after the newspaper published an extensive report about how presumptive nominee Donald Trump has allegedly acted with women in private.

Its disappointing when you see that some of our major media is so dishonest, but of course we all know that they are  thats why they dont rank very highly amongst the populace anymore in terms of honesty and trust, Carson told the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo.

Carson then weighed in on why he feels there needs to be a shift in how the media covers stories.

They should be working to be honest, decent, informed people about whats really going on, not manipulating the situation, not choose sides. Thats the reason that theyre the only business in America protected by our Constitution. Im sure that they probably wouldnt have been if people realized what they were going to become. But I appeal to some of the young people in the press to bring some integrity back to the profession, said Carson.

Bartiromo pressed Carson on perceptions of Trumps dealings with women and his use of name calling against them.

Probably you, probably me, wouldnt do that, wouldnt use those terms. But then again, were different people. Everybodys different and in a perfect world no one would do things like that, no question about it, but were not in a perfect world. Right now were in a terrible world, Carson said.

But while Carson points to changes he feels are necessary in the media, he also acknowledges freedom of the press is still an important part of the Constitution that should be protected.

Without question we need it. But Im just calling on the press themselves to rise above the temptation to have an agenda and to try to manipulate people and instead do what youre supposed to do, which is inform the people, said Carson.
Congressman Jason Chaffetz, (R-Utah), chair of the House Oversight Committee, is calling for Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes to testify at a hearing about the controversial Iran nuclear deal.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Rhodes admitted to misleading the press and the public with the diplomatic particulars leading up to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran deal.

Rep. Chaffetz said on FOX Business Networks Varney & Co. that he has invited Rhodes, along with Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), to have a rational discussion with Congress.

We are going to have a hearing regardless, but he [Rhodes] should show up. He hasnt indicated that he is not going to show up and we should have this dialogue, Chaffetz said.

Chaffetz, who opposes the Iran deal, says the misinformation used to sell it to the American public and the findings from the Times interview confirm Rhodes has misled the public.

The president has entrusted him [Rhodes] in a very powerful position and this article I think clearly lays out that he used that podium and used that position and the bowels of the White House there to mislead the American people.

The Iran deal is an international agreement that was reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015 between Iran and five members of the United Nations Security Council on the Middle Eastern countrys nuclear program.

Rhodes was asked to appear at a hearing on Tuesday, May 17 at 10 a.m.
Jimmy Kimmel didn't hold back asking the tough questions when he joined Kelly Ripa as her first guest co-host since Michael Strahan's exit from "Live!" on Friday.

Ripa pointed out on Monday's episode that Kimmel was also her first guest co-host when Regis Philbin left the ABC show in 2011. "I'm like the ex-boyfriend you go back to for sex after you break up with your husband," Kimmel quipped.

EXCLUSIVE: Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan Found 'Peace' Before His Controversial Live! Exit

From there, the late-night host started grilling Ripa and executive producer, Michael Gelman, as to the drama surrounding Strahan leaving "Live!" after he took a full-time position at "Good Morning America." He admitted that Howard Stern sent him with about 75 questions to ask after he appeared as a guest on his SiriusXM show earlier that day.

"Gelman, will you ever talk to Michael Strahan again?" Kimmel inquired. "I'm sure I will," Gelman replied. "You bet."

WATCH: Michael Strahan Bids 'Bittersweet' Farewell to Live! and Co-Host Kelly Ripa -- 'It's a Moment I Didn't Anticipate'

"Will he be back on this show as a guest?" Kimmel followed up. "At some point, it's possible," Gelman answered.

The 48-year-old comedian then turned his questions to Ripa, regarding her final episode with Strahan. "Everything on Friday's show was hugging and kissing. Was that genuine hugging and kissing?" he asked.

EXCLUSIVE: Brooke Burke-Charvet Would Love to Co-Host Live! With Kelly Ripa

"Yes, we don't fake hug and kiss," she assured Kimmel. "It wasn't air kissing."



Ripa also confirmed that all the images of Strahan backstage will be taken down but they just haven't gotten around to it yet.

The 45-year-old TV personality will have numerous guest co-hosts on the show until the daytime talk show finds a permanent replacement, and Kimmel brought along a mug that the stand-ins could write their name on so that they're included in the "Live! With Kelly" show title.

In addition, Kimmel brought along a wheel for Ripa to spin so that she could choose from seven possible co-hosts to replace Strahan. Kylie Jenner was a suggestion, because Kimmel said "Live! With Kelly and Kylie" had a nice ring to it. Ripa joked that her 14-year-old daughter, Lola, might actually watch the show if Jenner was a co-host.

Kimmel further suggested that the Duchess of Cambridge's sister, Pippa Middleton, take the job, as the show could be called "Live! With Ripa and Pippa." He also suggested Jon Bon Jovi, Derek Jeter, JoJo Fletcher from "The Bachelorette," Beyonce's "Becky With the Good Hair," and a party-size summer sausage as possible permanent co-hosts.

Ripa spun the wheel and it landed on the summer sausage. However, Kimmel joked that it had already taken a job at "GMA."

WATCH: Kelly Ripa on Michael Strahan's Live! Exit -- 'I Need Assurances That We're All Going to Be Fine'
In the 30 years since it was released in theaters on May 16,1986, its almost unimaginable to think "Top Gun" -- the Tony Scott-directed action film starring Tom Cruise as a hot shot fighter pilot whose cocky attitude puts him at odds with other students at the Top Gun Naval Fighter Weapons School -- wouldnt be a hit.

Despite mixed reviews -- the film has a 55 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes -- "Top Gun" was a box-office smash, earning $177 million in the U.S. (and another $177 million internationally) during its initial theatrical release. The movie not only cemented Cruises leading-man status, it also launched the careers of Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan and Anthony Edwards, who were all relative unknowns at the time.

"Top Gun" went on to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Berlins Take My Breath Away, spawned numerous video game adaptations, earned a place in the Library of Congress National Film Registry, and, ahead of its 30th anniversary, reportedly started moving forward with a highly anticipated sequel, marking Cruises return as Maverick.

You dont make 'Top Gun' without Tom Cruise, producer Jerry Bruckheimer told ET after he shared a photo of him and the actor in New Orleans, discussing a little Top Gun 2. But Bruckheimer, who has since launched the "Bad Boys" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchises, is the first to admit the cards were stacked against their ace pilot.

You know, movies about aviation had failed over and over again, the producer says, also pointing to TV where the CBS series, "Call to Glory," failed to find an audience. There was a TV series prior to 'Top Gun' coming out that didnt last more than a season. So, everybody was nervous that people dont want to watch airplanes or young pilots.

However, Scott pushed forward, finding ways -- from the casting of hot, young stars to filming the aerial scenes (He gave the Navy fits with the way he wanted those pilots to fly, Bruckheimer reveals) -- to make his aviation story exciting and appealing to a mass audience.

In fact, Scott had a very specific image in mind when it came to casting his leading men. Inspired by fashion photographer Bruce Weber, the director used one of his books ("Looking Good: A Guide for Men") for visual reference. Bruce had all these handsome, young guys and he saw the masculinity and fun in these men, Bruckheimer says. Tony kind of cast a picture around what he saw in the book.

Of course, it would also service the films most iconic scene: the shirtless volleyball match with Maverick and Goose (Edwards) playing against Iceman (Kilmer) and his co-pilot, Slider (Rick Rossovich). While Bruckheimer simply calls it OK, the scene has become film iconography thanks to its homoerotic subtext. Vultures Kyle Buchanan recently dubbed it "one of the gayest scenes ever committed to film" while TV personality Dave Holmes joked, I am gay because of that volleyball scene in 'Top Gun', during an episode of Funny or Dies "Gay of Thrones."

I didnt have a vision of what I was doing other than just doing soft porn, Scott recalled in an interview featured in the films 30th anniversary Blu-ray/DVD and Digital HD release. I knew I had to show off all the guys, but I didnt have a point of view so, I just shot the sh*t out of it. I got the guys to get all their gear off and their pants and sprayed them in baby oil.
Actor Wendell Pierce was arrested over the weekend at an Atlanta hotel after reportedly attacking a woman who professed her support for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders.

Atlanta Police Department spokesman Donald Hannah said in a statement that Pierce, 52, was arrested early Saturday morning at the Loews Atlanta Hotel.

TMZ reported that Pierce, best known for his role as Baltimore Police Detective William "Bunk" Moreland on "The Wire", struck up a conversation with the woman and her boyfriend that eventually turned to politics. When the woman said she was backing the Vermont senator, TMZ claims, Pierce pushed her boyfriend away before grabbing the woman's hair and hitting her in the head.

The woman and her boyfriend reportedly went to their room and alerted hotel security, who called the police. Hannah's statement says the incident was not significant and was treated as "any other arrest." He says Pierce never indicated he was well-known.

Hannah says the police will share the incident report once it has been completed.

Online Fulton County Jail records show Pierce was booked on a charge of simple battery Saturday and released the same day on $1,000 bond.

Pierce, a supporter of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, most recently portrayed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the HBO TV movie "Confirmation."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
There's nothing worse than suffering from debilitating chronic painexcept, perhaps, not knowing why you're in pain or how to cope.

Treating these mysterious aches has become the mission of Gary Kaplan, DO, a pioneer of integrative medicine and director of the Kaplan Clinic for Integrative Medicine in McLean, Virginia. He treats people with chronic pain every day. In Kaplan's new book, Total Recovery: Breaking the Cycle of Chronic Pain and Depression, he addresses the root causes of chronic pain, and how most doctors are going about treating it in all the wrong ways.

More: 4 Ways Women Can Fight Chronic Pain

"Treating chronic pain is never as straightforward as treating a bacterial infection," he writes. "As a medical scientist, I was convinced that when patients in chronic pain had a history of emotional, physical, and infectious assaults, all of those assaults must somehow be working together."

In his decades of treating chronic pain, he's found some surprising causes of people's misery, such as these six:

1. Emotional trauma

Doctors are increasingly realizing that deep-seated emotional pain from a past trauma, be it abuse or post-traumatic stress, can manifest itself as chronic physical pain. Dr. Kaplan notes that research hasn't yet uncovered what links the two, but in his practice, he writes, he's found that patients who have chronic pain that doesn't respond to traditional treatments have, upon further evaluation, often had some traumatic experience in their lives.

One prevailing theory, he says, is that emotional trauma, physical injury, or environmental toxins appear to stimulate microglia, molecules that live in the central nervous system that spew out a continuous supply of inflammatory chemicals whenever they're stressed. Your body's response to this constant inflammation manifests itself in two significant ways: chronic pain and psychological disorders like depression and anxiety.

2. Painkillers

Surprising, but true: Overusing pain killers dulls your body's response to pain, so you need more, and more potent, painkillers to alleviate chronic pain. But that just leads to increased sensitivity to pain in the long run. Dr. Kaplan says this problem is particularly bad with prescription opiod painkillers, such as Vicodin or Oxycontin. Using painkillers to deal with chronic pain is "shortsighted," Dr. Kaplan says.

3. Poor-quality sleep

Our perception of pain increases when the quality of our sleep is poor, Dr. Kaplan writes. Deep sleep is a time when your muscles have an increased blood supply, which helps with tissue growth and repair. You can see an increase in generalized muscle pain, he adds, within just a week of not getting regular deep sleep.

And sleeping pills don't help, since they just put you to sleep without improving the quality of sleep, which means you might not reach those deep, pain-relieving stages you need to feel better. Instead, try any of these 50 ways to sleep better tonight for higher quality zzz's that'll help fight pain.

4. Your leaky gut

Seventy percent of your immune system is located in your gut, which is filled with nerves as well as tiny hairs in the walls known as villi that prevent your body from absorbing too many toxins. Taking too many painkillers, or even having food sensitivities like gluten sensitivity, can damage both the nerve endings and those villi, leading to a condition known as "leaky gut," and are some of the strange things that are killing your gut.

When your gut "leaks," undigested food (with sometimes problematic proteins like gluten), bacteria, and other environmental chemicals that can cause those microglia to get stimulated and lead to chronic pain.

5. Magnesium deficiency

Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body, Dr. Kaplan notes, and good health is practically impossible if you don't have enough. And most of us don't. In fact, 57 percent of Americans don't get enough. But this vital mineral blocks your brain's receptors of glutamate, a neurotransmitter that can cause neurons to be hypersensitive to pain. Dr. Kaplan says he prescribes intravenous magnesium to many of his chronic pain patients, but you can get your daily recommended amount easily if you load up on margnesium-rich foods like leafy greens, dried apricots, avocados, brown rice, almonds, cashews, and bananas.

6. Lyme disease

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States, carried predominantly by the black-legged, or deer, tick. Roughly 32,000 cases are diagnosed every year, and that number will surely rise as climate change allows ticks to survive longer and travel into new regions.

Kaplan writes that the standard treatment for Lyme disease is a two- to four-week course of antibioticswhich can damage your gutbut as much as 20 percent of treated Lyme sufferers develop Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome, which is characterized by achy joints and can linger six months or longer after treatment. Research into this syndrome is ongoing, he adds, but many scientists theorize that Lyme can provoke an autoimmune response that continues long after the antibiotics have killed the bacteria, leaving people suffering from debilitating pain even as tests don't detect any lingering signs of the disease.

This article originally appeared on RodaleWellness.com.
John Caltabiano was collecting disability benefits for a 2006 workplace accident that he said left him blind when investigators caught him on video reading, driving, and holding a door open for someone, ABC News reports.

The 49-year-old New York man had said in his benefits application that he couldn't do basic things like cook for himself, exercise, shave, or get around the house.

"I sit in the dark and listen to TV," he wrote. But based on a tip, US Attorney Richard Hartunian and investigators at the Social Security Administration gave Caltabiano a closer look.

He had indeed lost sight in one eye in a workplace accident, they found, but video evidence showed he wasn't homebound. Aired Friday on Nightline, the evidence helped authorities in October convict Caltabiano and girlfriend Colleen J.

McCarten, 43, of fraud and theft in faking an on-the-job-injury, the New York Daily News reports. Hartunian says the New York man was on track to steal half-a-million dollars over the course of his life.

In April, Caltabiano was sentenced to 57 months and McCarten to three years' probation, per a press release; his lawyer says he plans to appeal.

As for his attempted fraud, it's not all that unusual. "It costs the county a lot of moneya lot of money," Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple tells ABC News 10.

"And then if you start thinking about having to hire all these investigators to investigate itpaying their salary and benefitspeople wonder why their taxes are so high. Well, here you go.

This article originally appeared on Newser: 'Blind Man' Getting Disability Caught Driving Around

More From Newser
Doctors who receive payments or gifts from pharmaceutical companies are more likely to prescribe brand name medications, a new study suggests.

The rate at which doctors prescribed brand name drugs increased with the amount of money or gifts like dinners they received from drug companies, researchers found.

Lead author Dr. James Yeh, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said doctors are taught how and what to prescribe during medical school.

"After you leave, sometimes that kind of knowledge is derived from pharmaceutical salespeople," he told Reuters Health.

Along with communications with pharmaceutical salespeople, doctors may also receive meals, subsidies or grants for continuing education and speaking fees from pharmaceutical companies.

Yeh and his colleagues write in JAMA Internal Medicine that some states require doctors to report what they receive from drug companies. In 2013, under the Affordable Care Act, the U.S. created the Open Payments database to collect those reports from across the country.

For the new study, the researchers analyzed 2011 data from Massachusetts payment reports and the prescription drug program of Medicare, the U.S. public health insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

Of the 2,444 Massachusetts doctors in Medicare's prescribing database, about 37 percent received payments from the drug industry.

About 71 percent of doctors reported receiving meals paid for by drug companies, about 51 percent reported receiving grants, about 27 percent received other services and about 11 percent reported receiving educational training.

Average payments to doctors ranged from $100 to $1,188, the researchers report.

Then the researchers looked at whether those payments were tied to doctors' prescribing patterns. Specifically, they wanted to know whether doctors who received more gifts prescribed more brand-name cholesterol lowering drugs - known as statins - rather than less expensive generic medications.

Overall, an average of 17.8 percent of statin prescriptions were for brand name drugs. Every $1,000 of additional funds doctors received was tied to a 0.1 percent increase in the rate of brand name prescribing.

While a 0.1 percent increase may not seem like a lot, the researchers note that the financial effects for patients and the healthcare system can be substantial since brand name statins cost between two and four times more than generic medications.

There was no connection between brand name prescribing and industry payments when doctors received less than $2,000.

"Not surprisingly, the payments that were categorized as educational trainings seemed to most impact brand name prescribing," said Yeh.

The researchers say their findings are limited by the fact that doctors who prescribe a high number of brand name medications may be sought out by drug companies to promote those products. Also, the findings are based on self reporting by doctors.
A baby who was saved in an emergency C-section last week after her 26-year-old mother was tragically killed en route to the hospital to give birth has begun breathing on her own. According to an update on a GoFundMe page, Maddyson Iler opened her eyes for the first time and was able to squeeze a nurses finger over the weekend.

Maddysons mother, Sarah Iler, was 39 weeks pregnant and dilated when she was killed on May 11, 2016. Iller was traveling with her husband, Matt Rider, when they were struck on a highway in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the Southeast Missourian reported. Iler was declared dead at the scene, but emergency personnel performed CPR on Maddyson.

She was transported to Saint Francis Medical Center where doctors performed an emergency C-section, the news station reported. Maddyson was born weighing 4 pounds, 15 ounces, and she was immediately placed on a ventilator, which she has since come off of. The family is waiting to see if Maddyson sustained any brain damage due to a lack of oxygen during the ordeal.

The thought never once entered my head that that baby might die, Kasandra Iler, Sarahs sister, told the Southeast Missourian. I felt my sister gave her life to save this baby. Thats how God wanted it. Weve been calling her our little miracle.

Rider, who survived the accident, but broke every limb and multiple ribs, has not met his daughter as he is receiving care in another hospital. The family has been exchanging pictures, the Southeast Missourian reported.

She had her whole life ahead of her, Patricia Knight, Sarahs mother, told the Southeast Missourian. And now the baby has to grow up without a mother.

A GoFundMe page was set up to help cover the costs of Sarahs funeral, as she did not have life insurance.
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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Two-day-old Ellie Bailey squirms in a hospital bassinet and cries as her tiny left heel is squeezed and then pricked with a needle to draw a blood sample. An Indianapolis hospital technician quickly saturates six circles on a special filter card with the child's blood.

Ellie is among some 4 million newborns in the United States who will have blood drawn this year to screen them for serious inherited diseases such as sickle cell anemia, which can cause organ damage, and the metabolic disease phenylketonuria, or PKU, which can lead to mental disabilities.

Newborn screening saves or improves the lives of about 12,000 newborns each year by swiftly identifying therapies they might need, said Jelili Ojodu, director of newborn screening and genetics with the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

But what happens to the dried blood samples on those cards after the testing that's mandatory in all 50 states is completed has sparked legal battles in some states. Minnesota and Texas have destroyed some 6.4 million samples following lawsuits. And in Indiana, the parents of a 9-year-old suburban Indianapolis girl are seeking the same for up to 2.5 million samples collected over two decades and stored in 600 boxes at a state warehouse.

"Her parents' main concern is that down the road who knows what could happen with these samples?" said Jonathan Little, an attorney for parents of the girl, identified in court documents only as A.B. Doe.

The case poses a dilemma: How can society balance the right to privacy with the needs of science and medical research?

The Indiana lawsuit was dismissed by a trial court last year and in April by the Indiana Court of Appeals. Both courts found the girl was in no imminent danger of suffering harm from the state holding onto her sample. Her attorneys plan to appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court next week.

In an era of increasingly sophisticated genetic analysis, some privacy advocates fear insurance companies could access blood samples and charge higher premiums for people found to have a genetic predisposition to diseases such as Alzheimer's.

"The question is, 'These cards are being collected for a very specific purpose, and once they have met that purpose what's the necessity for keeping these blood stains?" said Sheldon Krimsky, acting executive director of the Cambridge-Massachusetts-based Council for Responsible Genetics.

He said law enforcement could also potentially access states' newborn blood stores to use them to create DNA databases of law-abiding citizens.

Such worries are "really a far stretch" and not based on actual threats to a person's genetic privacy, said Natasha Bonhomme, vice president of strategic development for the Genetic Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit health advocacy group.

Scott Kelly, an attorney who represented some of the families who sued Minnesota over its blood-retention policies, said more than 50,000 of Minnesota's dried blood samples and test results were used for research, including third-party research by drug companies and manufacturers. That suit led Minnesota in 2014 to destroy 1.1 million newborn blood samples and another 900,000 test results.

In 2009, Texas destroyed some 5.3 million newborn blood samples as part of a settlement of a similar lawsuit, and Texas lawmakers also set into law an opt-out policy for parents who object to the state using their child's blood for research.

Attorneys for Indiana say the 2.5 million blood samples at the heart of the pending lawsuit won't be used for medical research, but argue the state has an interest in holding onto them, such as for evidence in missing persons or medical malpractice cases.

Starting in June 2013, Indiana tried to solve the dilemma by asking the parents of newborns for permission to use their infant's blood for medical research. The parents of just over 63,000 infants - about a quarter of the babies born in Indiana in the past three years - have consented to that, said Jennifer O'Malley, an Indiana State Department of Health spokeswoman.

Those now include 27-year-old Jessica Bailey - the mother of Ellie. She checked the "yes" box on Indiana's consent form and signed it Thursday, authorizing the state to use her daughter's blood for medical research.

She and her husband, Mark, said they don't share concerns about the blood's possible misuse and believe there's great potential in allowing its use for medical research.

"I personally feel the benefits with the research outweigh the risks," Jessica Bailey said as she and Mark prepared to leave Community Hospital North in Indianapolis with their second child. "For us, It was kind of an easy decision because it might help somebody in the future."

Indiana has posted a form on the state health department's website allowing parents to request that their child's blood sample be destroyed, no matter when it was collected. That's not enough for the father of the 9-year-old girl who sued the state. He asked The Associated Press not to use his name because it would identify his daughter.

He said he supports disease-screening for newborns, and said his daughter has even taken part in a medical research project for stomach ailments. But he believes it's time for the state to dispose of the blood samples collected between 1991 and May 2013 that it held onto without alerting parents.

"Somebody obviously has some kind of plans for it, if they've gone to the expense of storing it and keeping it," he said.
Researchers posing as patients with skin problems sought help from 16 online telemedicine companieswith unsettling results.

Some of the online doctors misdiagnosed syphilis, herpes and skin cancer, and some prescribed medications without asking key questions about patients medical histories or warning of adverse effects, the researchers found. Two sites linked users with doctors located overseas who arent licensed to practice where the patients were located, as required by state law.

The services failed to ask simple, relevant questions of patients about their symptoms, leading them to repeatedly miss important diagnoses, said Jack Resneck, a dermatologist with the University of California, San Francisco, and lead author of the study, published online in JAMA Dermatology on Sunday.

Ateev Mehrotra, an associate professor of health-care policy at Harvard Medical School who wasnt involved with the current study, said it identifies a number of egregious quality issues that raise significant concern.

He added that studies have identified quality issues with in-person visits as well, and that because many dermatologists dont accept Medicaid, the online visits, which generally cost $35 to $95, may be all that some patients can afford.

Direct-to-consumer telemedicine services have exploded in recent years, with more than one million virtual medical visits expected this year, according to the American Telemedicine Association, a trade group. Many insurers cover the services and promote them as a convenient and low-cost way for plan members to get care.

But some physician groups are concerned that the services are eroding doctor-patient relationships, lowering the quality of care and further fragmenting the health-care system.

Click for more from The Wall Street Journal.
When breast cancer patients and their doctors discuss chemotherapy, they need to talk about complementary and alternative medicines like supplements and herbs, researchers warn.

The use of such medicines has increased among women with breast cancer over the past two decades, but a new study published in JAMA Oncology found that breast cancer patients who use a lot of these unconventional therapies are more likely to skip recommended chemotherapies.

"From a public health perspective, there really needs to be a discussion between patients and providers about whether women are using (complementary and alternative medicine) therapies, why are they using them and are their goals realistic," said lead author Heather Greenlee of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York.

Greenlee and colleagues studied 685 U.S. women with invasive breast cancer that had not spread. The women were under age 70 and had enrolled in the study between 2006 and 2010.

When they first joined the study, 87 percent of the women reported using vitamins and/or minerals, herbs and/or botanicals, other natural products, mind-body self practice or mind-body practitioner-based practice.

About 45 percent of the women should have received chemotherapy based on National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines. The other women fell into a discretionary category where the decision to undergo chemotherapy is based on a discussion with their doctors.

Overall, 89 percent of the women who should have received chemotherapy did so within 12 months of starting the study. About 36 percent of those in the discretionary group also chose to undergo chemotherapy.

In the discretionary group, use of complementary and alternative medicine was not tied to women's decisions about chemotherapy.

But in the group for which there was evidence to support a benefit of chemotherapy, women who were using supplements or a lot of complementary and alternative medicines were about 84 percent less likely to have received chemotherapy compared to women who didn't use those alternative approaches.

When the researchers looked at individual types of complementary and alternative therapies, they found mind-body practices weren't tied to the decision to undergo chemotherapy.

Greenlee and her colleagues can't say why women who used supplements or a lot of complementary and alternative methods were less likely to undergo guideline-supported chemotherapy. It could be that women were choosing these other methods as alternatives to chemotherapy.

"The good news is that 89 percent of the women who were clinically indicated to receive chemotherapy, received chemotherapy," Greenlee told Reuters Health.

In a commentary accompanying the new study, Robert Zachariae of Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark writes that doctors who treat cancer need to discuss use of complementary and alternative therapies with their patients.

Only by acknowledging that complementary and alternative medicines are important to cancer care will oncologists be able to help patients to make sufficiently informed choices, Zachariae writes.
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Every Monday, Fox News contributor Karl Rove wraps up the last week in politics and offers an inside look at the week ahead.

Coincidence? Recently, both Hillary Clinton and President Obama challenged the media to more closely examine Republican presumptive frontrunner Donald J. Trump.

Clinton went first on May 4. She opined in a CNN interview I think reporters have a chance to ask some tougher questions. Of course, she was not thinking of herself but of Mr. Trump, Being a loose cannon doesnt in any way protect him, I hope, from being asked the hard questions.

Mr. Obama followed in his May 6 press conference, declaring, Every nominee needs to be subject to exacting standards and genuine scrutiny and making it clear he would be watching. The one thing that Im going to really be looking for over the next six months, he said, is that the American people are effectively informed.

The New York Times obediently responded to these two dog whistle blasts with a largely nothing-burger of a story on Donald Trumps boorish ways with women.

But surprise, surprise, CNNs Jake Tapper also blistered Ms. Clinton over her claims that she was absolutely permitted to use a private email server to communicate sensitive information while Secretary of State.

Next Up, Oregon and Kentucky. While the Democratic House of Lords (a/k/a/ Super Delegates) have already settled that partys nomination battle, Clinton may still be worried about these two contests Tuesday. Now, USA Today reports Clinton is looking for a running mate who will excite and conciliate voters who feel the Bern. Incidentally, 524 of the 712 Super Delegates have announced for Clinton, 40 for Sanders. Thats 93 percent to 7 percent.

Way to Celebrate! All those attending Rutgers University graduation exercises Sunday must have been delighted to have President Obama treat the event as an excuse to launch a partisan attack on the presumptive GOP nominee. All those hard years of study by students and sacrifice by their parents were honored by a speech better suited to the Cook County Democratic Central Committee meeting.

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! Saturday, the Washington Post reported that the Clinton campaign is committing extra staff and resources to three states Democrats have carried in the last six elections  Michigan (which Obama carried in 2012 by 9.5 percent), Pennsylvania (where his margin was 5.4 percent) and Wisconsin (7 percent).

Imagine the uproar if Republicans announced they were concerned about losing Arizona (which Romney carried by 9 percent), Georgia (which Mitt grabbed by 7.8 percent) and Missouri (9 percent).

A Process, Not An Event. That was the smartest thing said last week by a Trump spokesman asked to comment on the meeting between the New York businessman and House speaker Paul Ryan. Every presidential nominee has to work to unify their party and Trump goes into this process with fewer of the tools and assets previous candidates have.

Hes not a long-time Republican who has labored in the vineyards to help elect lots of GOP candidates. Hes never held elective office that brought him into contact with other elected officials.

He voted for Sen. John Kerry for president in 2004, backed Hillary Clinton in 2008 until she lost her nomination battle, and labored mightily to see that Nancy Pelosi was elected House speaker in 2006.

So, of course, its to be expected that conciliating the GOP will be harder than usual. Trump apparently understands this now, dropping his thinly veiled threats, exuding confidence and issuing a joint statement with Ryan after the meeting saying, There's a great opportunity to unify our party and win this fall.

The GOPs Major New Problem. After saying for almost a year he was self-funding his campaign and condemning Super PACs, Trump has now changed his mind and says he will raise money for his general election campaign and, it appears, sanction a Super PAC.

But Clinton has a large fundraising lead, having raised $187 million through April with the Priorities USA Super PAC reporting another $67 million raised with tens of millions more in pledges. She has millions of donors to draw on and her Super PAC has plenty of liberal millionaires.

There is a certain irony in the wealthiest candidate running in 2016 having a smaller list of donors and the biggest deficit to overcome in raising funds.

Priorities USA begins running ads Wednesday in Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Nevada. Also interesting is the Clinton campaigns practice of buying ads on-line where #NeverTrump shows up in a postings text. They are trying to poach Republicans who are #NeverTrump.
The White House confirmed Monday that Obama adviser Ben Rhodes will not be allowed to testify before House lawmakers on the Iran nuclear deal, after a last-ditch attempt by Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz to pry the controversial aide loose for the hearing.

Chaffetz and the White House have been engaged in an escalating feud, all on the heels of a New York Times Magazine piece where Rhodes was quoted boasting about the administrations success in crafting a public narrative for the Iran deal. The profile on Rhodes quotes him saying they built an echo chamber of experts who sold that narrative to young, often inexperienced reporters.

Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, wanted the deputy national security adviser to testify at a hearing set for Tuesday titled, White House narratives on the Iran Nuclear Deal.

Were planning as if he is attending, and hell have a comfortable seat awaiting his arrival, Chaffetz said Monday afternoon of Rhodes.

But W. Neil Eggleston, White House counsel, sent a letter to Chaffetz late Monday saying Rhodes would not attend.

He cited what appeared to be an executive privilege-related claim, asserting that such a senior presidential advisers appearance threatens the independence and autonomy of the President, as well as his ability to receive candid advice and counsel. For those reasons, he said, we will not make Mr. Rhodes available to testify.

Chaffetz earlier had made a last-ditch attempt to pressure Rhodes into appearing. After White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest initially said he should invite GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, whom he accuses of spreading false information about the deal, Chaffetz did exactly that -- inviting Cotton to testify, on condition that Rhodes appeared as well.

[Earnest] suggested that you should be invited to appear at the hearing as well, because you have some 'interesting insight' into the JCPOA [the Iran deal]. Therefore your appearance before the Committee would be contingent on Mr. Rhodes appearance at that hearing, Chaffetz said in a letter Friday.

Asked earlier Monday about the possibility of a Rhodes appearance, Earnest did not rule it out but expressed what he called "thinly veiled skepticism about the whole exercise" and reiterated his claim that it is Republicans who should answer "for saying a lot of things about the Iran deal that turned out not to be true."

The letter from Eggleston later made clear Rhodes would not attend. Though Eggleston cited an executive privilege claim, Earnest told Fox News just four days earlier that this has nothing to do with executive privilege.

Sources tell Fox News that the committee was keen for Rhodes to appear voluntarily so they avoid the territory of a possible subpoena.

The magazine article that touched off the controversy outlined how Rhodes created a narrative of the deal coming out of the 2013 election of moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Irans subsequent openness and willingness to negotiate.

In fact, the story stated, the majority of the deal was hammered out in 2012, well before Rouhanis election. However, the Rhodes narrative was politically useful to the administration as it presented them as reaching out to the moderates who wanted peace.

Fox News James Rosen and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
The CIAs internal watchdog claims it accidentally deleted its only copy of the controversial torture report outlining the agency's use of enhanced interrogations techniques, the latest wrinkle in the saga over the reports publication.

The Senate Intelligence Committees 6,700-page report has not yet been made public by the Obama administration and has been at the center over a years-long fight to make the report public. There are other copies of the report at other federal agencies.

Former Chair and current ranking Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein has been pushing for the report to be released while Republican Chairman Richard Burr has opposed even distribution of the full report to the executive branch, let alone the public.

Yahoo News first reported Monday that the CIA inspector general had "mistakenly" deleted both the electronic and hard copy of the report. Yahoo reported that officials deleted the uploaded version of the report and then accidentally destroyed a disk that contained the report.

Other agencies have been given copies of the report but the development has alarmed Feinstein, who immediately wrote to CIA Director John Brennan and Attorney General Loretta Lynch calling for the IG to be given another copy immediately.

"Your prompt response will allay my concern that this was more than an 'accident,'" Feinstein wrote pointedly to Brennan and Lynch.

The error comes just days after a federal appeals court Friday rejected efforts to release the full version of the report, upholding a lower court decision that said the report is a congressional record exempt from disclosure laws.

The committee released a 500-plus-page summary of the report to the public in 2014, but the American Civil Liberties Union sued to obtain the full version.

Fox News' Kara Rowland and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The classified details behind Irans treatment of several U.S. sailors who were captured by the Islamic Republic during a tense standoff earlier this year are likely to shock the nation, according to one member of the House Armed Services Committee, who disclosed to the Washington Free Beacon that these details are currently being withheld by the Obama administration.

Rep. Randy Forbes (R., Va.) told the Free Beacon in an interview that the Obama administration is still keeping details of the maritime incident under wraps. It could be a year or longer before the American public receives a full accounting of the incident, in which several U.S. sailors were abducted at gunpoint by the Iranian military.

Ive had a full classified briefing from military officials, Forbes told the Free Beacon. It could be as long as a year before we actually get that released.

Details of the abduction are likely to start an uproar in the nation and call into question the Obama administrations handling of the incident, which many experts say violated international and maritime law.

I think that when the details actually come out, most Americans are going to be kind of taken aback by the entire incident, both how Iran handled it and how we handled it, Forbes disclosed. I think thats going to be huge cause for concern for most Americans. Thats why Ive encouraged members of Congress to get that briefing so they do know exactly what did take place.

Forbes suggested that Irans treatment of the U.S. sailorswhich included filming them crying and forcing them to apologize at gunpointmay have been much worse than what has been publicly reported.

Click for more from The Washington Free Beacon.
Former GOP presidential candidate John Kasich said Monday that he will not launch a third-party White House bid, ending speculation about him re-entering the race to challenge Donald Trump.

"I'm not going to do that," the Ohio governor said in a CNN interview, his first since leaving the GOP primary in early May.

Kasich declined to confirm reports that 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney tried to recruit him to be the partys conservative alternative to Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, saying only that somebody called him.

A third party candidacy would be viewed as kind of a silly thing, he said. And I don't think it's appropriate. I just don't think it would be the right thing to do."

Any candidate would have a difficult time mounting a credible independent bid, with no campaign or fundraising infrastructure in place and time expiring to get on state ballots.

Kasich, a former congressman, was popular among Washington conservatives, sometimes seen as the level-headed alternative to Trump.

However, he won only his home-state primary and with Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz dropped out of the race after Trump trounced them in the May 3 Indiana primary.

"I gave it my best where I am, Kasich said Monday. I just think running third party doesn't feel right. I think it's not constructive."
Despite pledges from the Obama administration to accelerate the war against the Islamic State and a top envoy claiming this perverse caliphate is shrinking," the Pentagon admitted Monday it had retaken only 5 percent of ISIS-held territory in Iraq in the past five months.

President Obama announced at the Pentagon in December that 40 percent of ISIS-held territory in Iraq had been recaptured by Iraqi security forces backed by thousands of airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, a number officials repeated for five months.

But on Monday, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said 45 percent of ISIS territory had been taken back in Iraq, or a modest 5 percentage-point gain from December.

Cook said 16-20 percent of ISIS-held territory had been taken from ISIS in Syria, a similar estimate given in January.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said last week that it was unlikely ISIS would be pushed out of Mosul, Iraqs second-largest city, during the Obama administration.

Despite the modest gains against ISIS, Cook said Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was satisfied with the pace of operations. When asked why the hundreds of additional forces announced by Carter last month were not on the ground in Iraq, Cook said, We always anticipated there would be some sort of lag time between decisions and ultimately implementation.

Speaking earlier Monday from Amman, Jordan, the presidents envoy in the ISIS fight, Brett McGurk, said "this perverse caliphate is shrinking."

In recent months, the U.S. military reported it had destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars in ISIS cash and robbed the group of 50 percent of its oil revenue.

In another sign of the challenge to liberate Mosul from ISIS, Col. Steve Warren, a military spokesman based in Baghdad, said 50 percent of the Iraqi security forces were in Baghdad to keep order amid recent uprisings against embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. A slew of recent bombings in Baghdad claimed by ISIS have killed dozens.

Cook also told reporters the Pentagon had not been asked to help arm Libyan government forces or rebels to battle ISIS. There has not been any particular marching orders to us, he said.

Cook did acknowledge publicly there were a small number of U.S. troops on the ground in Libya coming and going from the country. It is not a permanent presence, he said describing the troops.

Speaking in Vienna Monday after meeting his Libyan counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry said world powers would support an exemption to the United Nations arms embargo into Libya, a sign that weapons could one day be shipped to help Libya battle ISIS.

Since December, the Pentagon has dispatched a small number of special operations forces to identify players on the ground to help combat the growing threat from ISIS in Libya.

This is simply an effort to try and collect information on people on the ground, the situation on the ground. This is not an effort to engage in training, Cook said, without elaborating.

When pressed if the group of U.S. forces could potentially arm vetted groups, Cook pushed back. Youre jumping the gun if you are talking about a training mission in Libya, thats not where we are, he added.
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Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have attended a graduation ceremony at the University of Pennsylvania, but not on the stage as politicians -- they were in the audience as parent and grandparent.



The Republican presidential candidate's daughter Tiffany Trump and the vice president's granddaughter Naomi Biden were among the 1,500 students who graduated Sunday evening from the School of Arts and Sciences. Donald Trump graduated from Penn's Wharton School of Business in 1968.



Biden was seen embracing his granddaughter at the ceremony. He was accompanied by his wife, Jill Biden.



Trump was accompanied by his wife, Melania Trump, and his former wife, Marla Maples.



Trump and Biden aren't expected to attend Monday's main graduation ceremony for the Ivy League school.


What divers found in a Florida sinkhole may help overturn a long-held theorythat people first colonized the Americas thousands of years ago by crossing the Bering Strait, the Guardian reports.

Scientists say that fossilized dung, mastodon bones, and a stone knife discovered at the site near Tallahassee suggest people lived there roughly 14,500 years ago. That's about 500 years before the ice-free corridorland sandwiched between ice sheets in the US and Canadaappeared, allowing those who crossed the Bering Strait land bridge to travel throughout the continent, Smithsonian notes.

"So the ice-free corridor is not our answer for how the Americas were initially colonized," says Jessi Halligan, an anthropologist whose team went searching in the Aucilla river sinkhole between 2012 and 2014.

More From Newser

We Read the Human Genome; Next Up, Writing It?

Slipping Away: 5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

They pulled out a few stone tools, including one known as a "biface" that Halligan says was "absolutely" made by people. They also re-analyzed a mastodon tusk retrieved earlier at the site and say deep marks in its surface were cut by humans.

Other animal bones found at the sinkhole include dire wolf, mammoth, horse, camel, giant armadillo, sloth, and even dogs, who may have accompanied or trailed the hunters, Discovery reports.

So if these people didn't come by Bering Strait, how did they? "The only logical way people could have come to Florida [from Asia] 14,600 years ago is if their ancestors entered the Americas by boat along the Pacific Coast," says anthropologist Michael Waters, who worked with Halligan.

"They could have traveled by boat to central Mexico, crossed and come along the Gulf Coast." Published in Science Advances, this is one of a few finds challenging the notion that people first came to the Americas about 13,000 years ago.

This article originally appeared on Newser: Florida Divers Bring Up Signs of People 14K Years Ago
More than 50 years after weird radio echoes were detected coming from Earth's upper atmosphere, two scientists say they've pinpointed the culprit. And it's complicated.

In 1962, after the Jicamarca Radio Observatory was built near Lima, Peru, some unexplainable phenomenon was reflecting the radio waves broadcast by the observatory back to the ground to be picked up by its detectors. The mysterious cause of these echoes was sitting at an altitude of between 80 and 100 miles (130 and 160 kilometers) above sea level.

"As soon as they turned this radar on, they saw this thing," study researcher Meers Oppenheim, of the Center for Space Physics at Boston University, said, referring to the anomalous echo. "They saw all sorts of interesting phenomena that had never been seen before. Almost all of it was explained within a few years."

More from Live Science:

Peculiar radar echoes

Though the other phenomena detected by the observatory got explanations, these radar echoes continued to baffle scientists.

To see what was happening at that altitude, researchers at the time sent rockets, equipped with antennas and particle detectors, through the region. The instruments, which were designed to detect radar waves, "saw almost nothing," Oppenheim said.

Adding more peculiarity to the puzzle, the phenomenon showed up only during daylight hours, vanishing at night. The echo would appear at dawn every day at about 100 miles (160 km) above the ground, before descending to about 80 miles (130 km) and getting stronger. Then at Noon, the echo would start to rise back again toward its starting point at 100 miles above the ground. When plotted on a graph, the echoes appeared as a necklace shape.

And in 2011, during a partial solar eclipse seen over the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory in India, the echo went silent.

"And then there was a solar flare, and it sort of went a little nuts," Oppenheim said. "There was a solar flare, and the echo got really strong."

The sun takes charge

Now, with a lot of supercomputing effort, Oppenheim and Yakov Dimant, also at the Center for Space Physics, have simulated the bizarre radar echoes to find the culprit  the sun.

Ultraviolet radiation from the sun, it seems, slams into the ionosphere (the part of Earth's upper atmosphere located between 50 and 370 miles, or 80 and 600 km, above sea level), where the radio echoes were detected, they said. Then, the radiation, in the form of photons (particles of light), strips molecules in that part of the atmosphere of their electrons, resulting in charged particles called ions  primarily, positively charged of their electrons, resulting in charged particles called ions, primarily positively charged oxygen  and a free electron (a negatively charged particle that is not attached to an atom or molecule).

That ultra-energized electron, or photoelectron, zips through the atmosphere, which, at this altitude, is much cooler than the photoelectron, Oppenheim said.

Making waves

Using a computer simulation, the scientists allowed these high-energy electrons to interact with other, less energized particles.

Because these high-energy electrons are racing through a cool, slow environment in the ionosphere, so-called kinetic plasma instabilities (turbulence, in a sense) occur. The result: The electrons start vibrating with different wavelengths.

"One population of very energetic particles moving through a population of much less energetic particles  it's like running a violin bow across the strings. The cold population will start developing resonant waves," Oppenheim explained.

"The next step is that those electron waves have to cause the ions to start forming waves too, and they do," Oppenheim said.

Though this last step isn't clearly understood, he explained that periodic waves of ions bunch up with no dominant wavelength winning out. "It's a whole set of wavelengths; it's a whole froth of wavelengths," he said.

That "froth" of wavelengths was strong enough to reflect radio waves back to the ground and to form the mysterious radar echoes.

"The reason it wasn't figured out for a long time is that it's a complicated mechanism," Oppenheim said.

As for why the rockets missed the bizarre echoes, Oppenheim pointed to the messy nature of the waves.

"Turns out, it looks like what the rockets saw is what we see with our simulation," he said. "You don't see strong coherent waves. What you see is sort of a froth of low-level waves, above the noise of thermal material," and those waves are sort of like "foam on the top of sea waves," he added.

Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
If you're a soldier, firefighter or even a hiker, a new soft robotic suit could one day help you carry hefty loads, a new study finds.

The wearable robot, or exosuit, reduces the amount of energy used while carrying a heavy weight by about 7 percent, on average, the researchers found. The suit also reduced the amount of work done by the hip, knee and ankle joints, all without affecting a person's stride, the researchers said.

"The goal wasn't to create a system to give someone superstrength, but rather to provide small levels of assistance during walking over a long period of time, with the goal of reducing fatigue and the risk of injury," said study senior researcher Conor Walsh, a professor at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University in Massachusetts.

More from LiveScience:

Unlike a rigid exoskeleton or even a flashy Iron-Man-like suit, the exosuit Walsh and his colleagues built consists of textiles and soft materials that attach to a person's legs, waist and back. The soft suit doesn't hinder people's movement, allowing them to walk like they aren't carrying a load at all, the researchers said.

Users simply have to put on a waist belt, two thigh pieces and two calf straps, which are connected by cables to two motors on a backpack. The motors' energy travels through the cables to the suit, and is then transferred back to the person.

This energy then helps the hip and ankle joints, which together provide about 80 percent of the power produced by the leg joints while a person is walking, the researchers said.

To test the suit, the research team examined people moving under three different conditions: while wearing a powered-off suit, while wearing a powered-on suit and while wearing a powered-off suit with the weight of the suit (14 lbs. or 6.5 kilograms) removed from the backpack.

Seven people walked on a treadmill at a constant speed of 3.3 mph (5.4 km/h) while carrying a load equivalent to 30 percent of their weight. The researchers used motion-capture technology and physiological measurements to study how people fared while walking, the investigators said.

Previous research found that muscles in the lower legs work harder when people carry heavy loads, largely to sustain the load and maintain balance, the researchers said. This increased muscle activity is associated with more metabolic cost, which can lead to fatigue, less maneuverability and reduced performance overall. [Watch a Video of the Exosuit in Action]

What's more, people are more likely to injure themselves when they carry heavy loads, the researchers said. And the suit is easy to wear, they added.

"It feels like the muscles in the leg are doing less work, and it becomes very noticeable if the system is turned off very quickly," Walsh told Live Science in an email. What's more, the exosuit could help military personnel, first responders, patients in rehabilitation centers and, of course, hikers, he said.

But don't expect to see the exosuit on sale anytime soon. It's still a research project, and engineers are still tweaking the design, Walsh said.

"A big unknown is how do the muscle and tendons in the body react and adapt to external assistance from a wearable robot," he said. "So, basic science studies that attempt to understand how the wearers neuromotor system responds will be important to maximize the benefit that can be achieved."

The study was published online May 12 in the Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation.

Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The nano age and space age have converged in a partnership that could usher in a new era of hope for cancer patients.

Like the advent of modern anesthesia and its impact on surgical research in the 19th century, a major research project aboard the International Space Station for the newly-created Houston Methodist Center of Space NanoMedicine could deliver major results.

We are on the verge of something big, Alessandro Grattoni, director of the Houston Methodist Center of Space Nanomedicine, told FoxNews.com. It could change the way chemotherapy is delivered.

A concept developed by Grattoni involves a reloadable implant, inserted under the skin, which is trained to attack tumors and ferret out hidden metastasized cells. The first experiment launched on Space X-8 last month and is expected to shed light on the mysterious way particles diffuse as they move through tight nanospaces. Grattonis team, working with particles 50,000 times smaller than the human hair, have previously only viewed their work via computer modeling.

Related: NASA identifies 1,284 new exoplanets, most ever announced at once

Part of our frustration has been working on this for 10 years, never being able to see it, thats why it was important to create a larger scale, he told FoxNews.com.

The project is studying the diffusion of drug molecules through nanochannels encased in DVD-sized panels, enabling scientists to view the movement of the 2.8-micrometer particles without gravitys tug.

Micro-gravity provides scientists with 3-D viewing of cell behavior. Fluorescent microscopes on the ISS are sending real-time images to NASAs Glenn Research Center and Grattoni and his team are seeing the fruits of their work for the first time.

Space is accelerating our research, said Grattoni. Its exciting knowing its actually going to be used by someone rather than just being a benchmark. Austin-based NanoMedical Systems has the license on the invention.

Related: Lockheed Martin makes major STEM push to inspire young space innovators

Since 1998, the ISS has facilitated projects by over 2,400 researchers from 83 countries. However, the new device, paired with the work of nanotechnology pioneer, Mauro Ferrari, offers a particularly bright beacon in a potential new age of nanotheraputics.

Ferraris landmark preclinical study cured lung metastases in 50 percent of breast cancers by creating the first drug to successfully eliminate lung metastases in mice. Thats equivalent to about 24 years of long-term survival following metastatic disease in humans, according to the nanotechnologist. The majority of cancer deaths are due to metastases to the lung and liver.

This may sound like science fiction, like weve penetrated and destroyed the Death Star, but what we discovered is transformational, Ferrari, president and CEO of the Houston Methodist Research Institute, told FoxNews.com. Were talking about changing the landscape of curing metastatic disease, so its no longer a death sentence.

Due to the bodys own defense mechanism, most cancer drugs are absorbed into healthy tissue, causing negative side effects with only a fraction of the medicine actually reaching the tumor, making it less effective, according to Ferrari. Like the moon launches during the Apollo program, he says the new strategy enables sequential passage of these natural barriers to transport a lethal payload into the cancers core.

Related: Buzz Aldrin eyes 2040 for manned Mars mission

Since publication of his results in Nature Biotechnology earlier this year, Ferrari says governments and over 2,000 people suffering with the disease have reached out to his team to participate in a clinical study that could begin next year.

Julie Robinson, chief scientist for the ISS, also cites the specialized needles and capsules developed by Virginia-based NuVue Therapeutics to mark tumors as a promising breakthrough.

A new cancer drug can take as long as 30 to 40 years, she told FoxNews.com. This is exciting because it doesnt include pharmaceuticals.

The original research, begun during the STS-95 space shuttle mission in 1998, has developed into a microencapsulation process in which a biodegradable micro-balloon delivers anti-tumor drugs in doses smaller than the pinhead of a needle. Researchers discovered that the specialized needles could also be used to deliver marking agents for enhanced ultrasound visualization during biopsies. Investigators hope to bring the products to market within three to five years.

Ferrari likens the partnership between science and space to President John F. Kennedys call for exploration. If we can truly cure the nastiest of cancers, we have the responsibility to do so not because its easy but because its hard, he said. If we do, Im confident the generation of my children will see an end to cancer deaths.
Administrators at the popular online forum Reddit have been accused of censorship after quarantining a subreddit titled 'european.'

Subreddits, which are also known as communities, are forums dedicated to specific topics.

The administration has decided to censor free speech for Europeans and they quarantined the subreddit on the 12th of May 2016, says a note on the subreddit link. With the subreddit set to private, the note adds that You must be a moderator or approved submitter to visit. Visitors to the subreddit were also urged to continue their discussions on Voat, another online forum.

The question of bias in social media has erupted recently. The Reddit accusation came just days after anonymous allegations that contractors at Facebook deliberately suppressed conservative news on the sites Trending Topics section. Facebook has denied any political bias, saying there is no evidence of the alleged activity.

Related: Zuckerberg denies Facebook has anti-conservative bias



Reddit told FoxNews.com that the 'european' subreddit violated the forum's content policy. "Quarantines on Reddit are rare - there are thousands of vibrant conversations flourishing on the site every day," it explained, in an emailed statement. "Subreddits are quarantined only when the content is clearly offensive to the broader Reddit community."

Quarantining aims to prevent the content from being accidentally viewed by those who do not wish to do so.

"A subreddit is quarantined when there are concerns that its content is extreme and could be offensive to people outside of that community," explained Reddit. "The quarantine process doesnt end the conversation; it adds an opt-in measure so that people have the choice to join the conversation," it added.

Restrictions on a quarantined subreddit include requiring an explicit opt-in, requiring an account with a verified email address, no use of custom images and the removal of revenue generation.

Related: Reddit updates content policy, bans a 'handful' of groups that exist 'solely to annoy' others

The european quarantining prompted a mixed reaction elsewhere on Reddit. Some users say that racist views were expressed on the subreddit, while others say that it hosted a range of opinions and cite the importance of open dialogue.

Reddit, which had over 277 million unique visitors last month, uses teams of volunteers to moderate subreddits.

The forum updated its content policy last year, consolidating multiple rules and policies into a single set of guidelines.

A blogger with an interest in numbers, who uses the name Curious Gnu, recently crunched a Reddit dataset of 4.6 million comments and noted that 78 percent of Reddit threads with over 1,000 comments mention Nazis or Hitler. The blogger found that around 2.6 percent of comments in the european subreddit mentioned Nazis or Hitler. A slightly higher percentage of comments on the AskHistorians subreddit mentioned Nazis or Hitler, with around 2.75 percent of comments on the history subreddit referencing the topics.

Related: No censorship in Chinese Internet, says China's top censor

Reddit prohibits illegal content, spam, publication of someones private and confidential information, sexually suggestive content featuring minors and anything that incites harm or violence against an individual or group of people. Content that harasses, bullies, or abuses individuals or groups is also banned.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
One of the most famous sites in Austria  a lake with emerald-green, but clear, water that goes from a depth of three feet in winter to more than 40 in the summer and creates an underwater park  is having a, how shall we put this, a pee-pee problem.

Locals are concerned that the Gruner See (or Green Lake) is turning colors from years of warmer weather  and from years of increasing visitors and a lack of bathrooms that has led tourists to relieving themselves in the lake.

Swimmers and divers love to explore the lake because of a natural phenomenon that occurs after every winter. Melting snow floods the lake, and the trees, benches and bridges are submerged in a stunning underwater park.

This unbelievable video says it all:

But now Mother Nature  and, uh, nature calling  are threatening the lake. Divers and swimmers have been banned from the lake until further notice in an effort to keep it clean.

The discoloration is mostly algae, according to the English-language paper in Austria, The Local.

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Gerald Weninger, from the Trago Tourism Association, the province in which the lake is located, said he thought the water just needs a break.

If it becomes cold, the algae goes away again. It always comes back after a warmer winter, he told the paper. But during a subsequent winter with minus 10, minus 20 degrees Celsius, it will die again. I think that the problem will solve itself.

Adding some bathrooms wouldnt hurt, either.
Tens of thousands gathered in Saint-Nazaire, France to see off the worlds biggest ever cruise ship: Royal Caribbeans Harmony of the Seas, as it set sail for the first time on Sunday.

At 1,187 feet long, the $1.5 billion ship is longer than the Eiffel Tower and holds the record for being the widest cruise ship ever built - boasting a 6,360-passenger and 2,100 crew capacity.

The ship has been likened to a floating city, with 16 decks, over 2,500 staterooms, 20 dining venues, 23 swimming pools, a skating rink, slides and a park with more than 10,000 plants and 50 trees.

Over 70,000 well-wishers gathered to see the ship out of the the French shipyard where it has been under construction fo the past 32 months. The ship was headed for Southampton in southern England and will embark on its official maiden voyage May 22 to its new home port of Barcelona.
Authorities said they had trouble figuring out why a California man on Saturday allegedly threw an explosive device at police officers before barricading himself in a nearby house with a firearm for several hours before peacefully surrendering.

Amphone Sayabouapheth, 36, faced charges including possession and detonation of a destructive device, child endangerment and attempted murder, KCRA reported.

Police responding to reports of loud explosions in Sacramento on Saturday afternoon reportedly found Sayabouapheth, who, upon noticing officers, allegedly lit an explosive device, tossed it and ran away. No one was hurt.

It was like an earthquake hitting you and you could feel it running from your feet all the way to your spine, area resident Kyle Saelee told KCRA.

Sayabouapheth then took refuge in a nearby home. Four people were inside, but police said it was not a hostage situation, as the quartet slowly emerged from the house one by one.

It sounds like they were friends, and once were able to interview those subjects, maybe well get a better idea of why they hung out so long inside, Sacramento Police Department Spokesperson Traci Trapani told KCRA.

After about five hours, Sayabouapheth surrendered to police and was booked into Sacramento County Jail.

This is the outcome we always look for in circumstances such as this, Trapani said.
China, with its bustling economy and continuing growth is managing to create their own version of Silicon Valley. Add in the financial support of the Chinese government and their desire to take risks, its only a matter of time before Chinas Silicon Valley will bypass the U.S. tech-hub.

China's venture capital economy is booming, and there is no denying the money pouring in. In 2015, government-backed venture funds swelled to $231 billion, tripling the amount under management in a single year. To put that into perspective, that's five times the amount raised by venture firms worldwide.

So what is it like to be a foreign venture capitalist looking at startups in China? I spoke with three active venture capitalists with funds focused on China to find out.

Surging venture capital.

Chinese entrepreneurs have greater access to venture capital than anyone in the world, and the risk-appetite in China now rivals the United States, says Phillip Kingston, Trimantium Capitals managing director.

Related: China's Effect on the U.S. VC Game

For Phillip Kingstons fund which focuses on fin-tech and health-tech startups that have the potential to scale globally, it isnt enough to be a source of capital for startups in China. With the nations own government pouring over $338 billion into Chinas startup economy since 2015, venture capital firms such as Trimantium Capital see a nation that is more sophisticated in its venture capital strategy than anywhere on earth.

Not only are ideas getting bolder and more original, but highly sophisticated domestic funds are being established at a dizzying pace. Globally theres unrivaled scale in China by sovereign entities, high net-worth families and smart diversified Chinese listed corporations, and I expect this to continue right through 2016 and beyond, says Kingston.

With capital so readily available, its little wonder that China would have its own Silicon Valley. In a 2016 report, the Chinese city of Shenzhen emerged as the nations priciest real estate market, with the average home prices elevating the city over Beijing and Shanghai. Dubbed Chinas Silicon Valley, this is where about 10 percent of all new startups are born, finding a home alongside the nations tech giants including Tencent.

There is still a ton of action concentrated in the large ecosystems such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and maybe Chengdu, Wuhan, says Rui Ma, 500 Startups Partner in China.

However there is a power law at work here and Beijing really dominates in terms of number of deals as well as active investors. Beijing is to Shanghai as Silicon Valley is to New York City in terms of the level of activity - anywhere between 2 to 4 times depending on what report you read, says Ma.

The biggest draw for investors in China, however, is likely to be the exit.

Chinese venture capital firms have several accepted ways of exiting, says Ma.

Related: 7 Tips For Businesses Looking for EB-5 Funding

For early stage investors (usually Pre-Series A), they tend to exit to series A or B investors. That usually doesn't happen in the US, but is very common in China. Because there are now so many listed companies (on NEEQ and on bigger main boards) who raised money through an IPO or follow on offerings, and because they trade at very high P/E or revenue multiples (at least compared to the U.S.), acquisitions are also now common exits.

But in spite of the perks of an exit, playing in Chinas startup scene doesnt come without its risks. High prices for startups due to the oversupply of capital relative to deal-flow is dangerous, says Ma, and the general slowdown of the economy is also a huge source of worry that affects all investors and players in the economy.

Confidence and tag-teaming in cross-border deals.

For U.S. investors and entrepreneurs looking to conquer Chinas Silicon Valley, the good news is that there are more cross-border deals. There is even a trend now for Chinese companies to acquire U.S. startups (as happened for example, in the case of Grindr).

The quality of deal flow in China is on par with the United States and Israel, says Kingston. Few Chinese companies focus beyond the Chinese-speaking world. The most likely transition will be more globally focused Chinese companies wanting to sell to Chinese outside of China, which means that there are more cross-border deals seeking investors like us.

There are also U.S. investors who are aggressively building relationships in Asia with partners who understand international markets -- from banking to bitcoin.

Related: The Sharing Economy Is Absolutely Blowing Up in China

"Software, and more specifically bitcoin and blockchain technology are permeating every corner of the world -- this is not a silo phenomenon but rather a global technology with global reach, so its important for us to build as many investment and entrepreneurial bridges to Australia and Asia as possible," says Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder of Winklevoss Capital & Gemini.

With the feverish confidence of Chinese venture capitalists and entrepreneurs giving Silicon Valley a run for its money, its become clear that the nation is no longer the country that merely manufactured your iPhone. Big name firms, like 500 Startups, Sequoia Capital and Trimantium Capital are investing in China and the world is realizing why -- that for the first time -- China might soon overtake our own Silicon Valley.
Almost a month after somebody murdered a fitness instructor inside a church in Texas, police on Friday signaled progress in the case, saying investigators were able to reconstruct video evidence from the crime scene.

That evidence could help the Tarrant County District Attorneys office give a more detailed physical description of the killer, KLRD reported. Police did not give any other details.

Investigators previously said surveillance video showed the suspect wearing a helmet, gloves and a jacket labeled "Police." They said the killer was so covered up that they could not determine whether it was a man or a woman.

Terri "Missy" Bevers had arrived at the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian early in the morning of April 18 to prepare for her class. Police said evidence of forced entry, including broken glass on the floor, pointed to a possible robbery.

Nearly two weeks ago, police revealed that Bevers and her husband, Brandon, both exchanged flirty messages with other people. The husband's mother last week described the news as "devastating" to the family. The couple had three daughters.

Two companies each pledged $10,000 rewards for information leading to an arrest in the woman's case, Fox 4 reported.

Click for more from Fox 4.
A graduating college student called to the commencement stage in Maine congratulated his peers then stunned them. Physical education major Timothy Babine announced he had something important to do, then left the stage to propose to his girlfriend in the audience.

Officials at the University of Maine at Presque Isle say fine arts major Hayley Hamilton to burst into tears Saturday as Babine dropped to one knee to pop the question. Hamilton shook her head to indicate "yes." The crowd cheered.

Babine had prefaced the act by saying from the stage that he had "a special someone here" and something important to do.

College President Linda Schott had been in on the surprise, as was Babine's family. Hamilton says she was stunned.
A man tried to rob a car wash in Northern California with an empty potato chip bag and an alleged handgun, authorities said.

Rohnert Park's Department of Public Safety said in a statement that the man entered KaCees World of Water car wash Friday night and dropped an empty potato chip bag on the counter.



He told the cashier to fill it with money, warning that he had a gun.



The man gestured that the weapon was in the empty bag, but the cashier saw it held only a piece of cardboard and called a co-worker for help.



Police said when the other employee approached, the suspect fled on foot.
President Barack Obama called on the nation Monday to support and listen to its law enforcement officers as he bestowed the Medal of Valor on 13 officers who risked their lives to save others.

In a ceremony in the East Room, Obama draped the purple-and-yellow ribbons around the necks of officers who intervened in shooting rampages, hostage situations and an armed robbery. He pledged to keep working toward a bipartisan overhaul to make the criminal justice system fairer, smarter and more effective so that officers are well-equipped to enforce the country's laws.

"We can show our respect by listening to you, learning from you, giving you the resources that you need to do your jobs," Obama said. "Our country needs that right now."

Three Santa Monica, California, officers -- Jason Salas, Robert Sparks and Capt. Raymond Bottenfield -- were honored for their response to a 2013 rampage on a community college campus that left five people dead. Confronting 23-year-old gunman John Zawahri in the campus library, the officers shot and killed him when he pointed his assault weapon at them.

Obama also honored Gregory Stevens of suburban Dallas, who exchanged gunfire with two armed men outside an exhibit hall holding a provocative contest for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Both gunmen were killed, heading off what investigators suspected was a planned mass shooting.

The Medal of Valor ceremony came as Obama holds out hope that legislation reforming the justice system can be passed this year despite the heavily politicized climate ahead of the November election. The need for change has been a rare point of common ground between Democrats and Republicans, and though momentum appeared to have sputtered earlier this year, a new Senate proposal has raised hopes that the issue could be successfully revived.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the nation's top law enforcement official, said there were no words or medals that could begin to pay the debt the country owes the officers.

"It has often been said that the price of freedom is constant vigilance," Lynch said. "Know this: they pay that price on our behalf."

Police Maj. David Huff of Midwest City, Oklahoma, saved a 2-year-old girl being held at knifepoint after negotiations with her captor deteriorated. Speaking to reporters after the ceremony, he described the thoughts running through his head in the moment he was called to action.

"Obviously, the last few moments were tense. There was a countdown going on," Huff said. "There was just no way I was going to let that little child get hurt."

The president said all of the officers acted "without regard for their own safety." Because of their courage and instincts, he said, the rest of society can go about their lives each day "like it's any other day."

"If they could go back in time, I suspect they'd prefer none of this had happened," Obama said.

One Philadelphia officer died from a gunshot wound and was honored posthumously. Sgt. Robert Wilson III drew fire from assailants during a robbery while saving store employees and customers.

Wilson's family accepted the award on his behalf.

"We honor those who didn't come home," the president said.

The other officers honored with the medal Monday are:

-- Miami-Dade police Officer Mario Gutierrez, who was stabbed multiple times while subduing a knife-wielding man who tried to set off a massive gas explosion that could have caused massive casualties.

-- Johnson City, New York, Patrolman Louis Cioci, who chased and captured at a crowded hospital a gunman who had just killed a fellow officer. Investigators believe Cioci saved the lives of hospital staff, patients and visitors.

-- Los Angeles police Officer Donald Thompson for, while off duty, crossing two freeway dividers and braving first- and second-degree burns while pulling an unconscious man from a burning car to safety.

-- Omaha, Nebraska, police Officer Coral Walker, who shot and killed a man who had killed and injured multiple people during a shooting rampage.

-- North Miami, Florida, police Officer Niel Johnson, who endured gunfire from an assault weapon in pursuing and capturing a man who had shot a Miami police officer and two bystanders.

-- FBI Special Agent Tyler Call, who while off duty with his family helped rescue a woman whose ex-husband was holding her at gunpoint.

-- Niagara County, New York, sheriff's Deputy Joey Tortorella, who confronted and subdued a gunman who had shot and wounded his parents inside their home, preventing the gunman from threatening the safety of students at a nearby elementary school.
An item in the Milwaukee Public Schools' proposed budget listing $471,073 for Black Lives Matter has critics fuming, but district officials said Monday it is all a misunderstanding.

Although the budget draft lists the controversial activist group, whose members have called for attacks on police officers, as the recipient of the funds, school officials said much of the money would go to hiring and training three social studies teachers.

No funding is going to any Black Lives Matter organization, Tony Tagliavia, a spokesman for Milwaukee Public Schools told FoxNews.com in a statement. "The specific expenditures, which are also outlined in the budget proposal, are for three social studies teachers and staff development for other employees.

The funding would also pay for a cultural studies curriculum which aims to [ensure] that culturally responsive teaching practices are in place at all schools, enhancing the district vision for student participation in a wide range of after-school activities..."

When asked what role Black Lives Matter would play in the training and curriculum development, school officials said the budget is funding both staff and curriculum that is being developed by staff in conjunction with an advisory council that includes community, parents, educators, staff and students.

"The focus is on racial disparities and inequities in education that must be addressed," the Milwaukee School District official said to FoxNews.com in a written statement.

Kyle Olson, founder of Wisconsin-based schools watchdog Education Action Group, said the Milwaukee School District has a reputation for wasteful spending and poor performance. If Black Lives Matter is involved in training and curriculum, taxpayers and parents alike should be worried, he said.

All Ive seen from Black Lives Matter is a fomentation of hatred against the police, increased racial division and making excuses for the combination of poor parenting and failed policies from big city liberal politicians, said Olson.

The story was initially reported by local radio station WISN 1130 AM, which cited the line item in the proposed 2017 school budget listing $471,073 for Black Lives Matter.
The mother of a missing teen fisherman wants the recovered boat her son and his friend took to sea when they disappeared last summer examined as a possible crime scene.

Pamela Cohen's attorney Guy Rubin made public a letter Monday that he sent to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conversation Commission last week asking its investigators to examine the 19-foot vessel to see whether there is evidence that a crime led to the disappearance of 14-year-old friends Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos during a July storm off Jupiter, Florida. The commission investigates accidents and crimes on Florida water.

The capsized boat, which was recovered off Bermuda in March, arrived onboard a cargo ship Sunday at Port Everglades near Fort Lauderdale. Longshoremen began unloading the Yorktown Express on Monday evening, lowering container after container onto trailers that were trucked to a storage yard. In one nondescript container was the boys' boat. Port spokeswoman Ellen Kennedy said the container would be claimed in private by commission investigators.

"The FWC has indicated publicly it would `take a look' at the boat when it arrives at Port Everglades, however my client would like FWC to do more than just `take a look,"' Rubin wrote. If the wildlife commission refuses, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement should take control of the boat and the investigation, he wrote.

"This is not to say we believe a crime was committed, but rather nothing should be ruled out until the vessel is fully examined," Rubin wrote. He said Stephanos' mother, the boat's registered owner Carly Black, also wants it examined. Her attorney, George Harris, did not return a call seeking comment.

The wildlife commission on Monday reiterated its position that this is not a criminal case.

"The FWC will examine the vessel for any new information, and return the boat to the (Stephanos) family," spokesman Robert Klepper said in an email.

Austin's cellphone was also found on the ship, but Apple said the iPhone was too damaged and no text messages or other data could be recovered.

A massive sea and air search never found the boys' bodies.
A judge on Monday found a retired Navy veteran guilty of charges including intentional damage to a monument after he admitted he stole a neighbor's flag because he was upset with its appearance at night.

John Parmele Jr. had complained that his Virginia Beach, Va. neighbor, Michael Anderson, was leaving the flag attached to a mailbox after sunset without installing a light.

"Traditional guidelines call for displaying the flag in public only from sunrise to sunset. However, the flag may be displayed at all times if its illuminated during darkness," Parmele said.

Anderson said Parmele wrongly took matters into his own hands, personally stealing flags off the mailbox. He showed photo and video evidence in court. Four other neighbors appeared in court to support Anderson, The Virginian-Pilot reported.

"Even if what you say is correct, it does not give you the right to trespass," District Court Judge Teresa Hammons told Parmele.

The judge also found him guilty of petty larceny and trespassing. She fined Parmele $300 and ordered him to repay his neighbor nearly $100 for the stolen flags and stay off his property.

Click for more from The Virginian-Pilot.
A woman who went to the hospital with severe abdominal pain on Christmas Eve 2013 remembered feeling "out of it" after getting a dose of morphine. But as she came to, she realized her hospital gown was open and a male nurse was touching and kissing her.

The woman said she lay still, seemingly frozen. She says when she was discharged, her nurse, Thomas Mark Moore, told her "I'll find you Sweetie."

She told nobody, even when Moore sent her a Facebook friend request days later. A year and half after her discharge from Poudre Valley Hospital, she reported Moore to police in Fort Collins, an hour north of Denver.

That report in August set off an investigation that turned up eight other women who alleged that Moore, 43, had fondled, groped or kissed them at hospitals in Colorado and Nebraska over a two-year period, according to court documents.

Moore's case highlights how easy it can be for nurses who are fired or forced out of their jobs over alleged misconduct to find work elsewhere, in part because some states -- Colorado is among a handful -- don't require hospitals to report nursing law violations to regulators. Colorado's nursing board also doesn't have the power to conduct criminal background checks for license applicants.

The hospitals apparently knew about some alleged misconduct by Moore. He was terminated from three hospitals before he was arrested and a Nebraska hospital reported an unspecified incident involving him in 2013 that never led to charges. But without any prosecution pending, it doesn't seem that they shared the information with other facilities.

He also held nursing licenses in Alaska and Wyoming.

Lawyers representing Moore, who is due back in court Monday on some of the allegations, did not return telephone calls seeking comment. Telephone numbers for his home and for possible relatives have been disconnected, and he did not respond to a letter sent to him in jail. The Associated Press generally does not name victims of alleged sexual abuse.

Brie Akins, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said sex offenders often go undetected because most victims don't go to authorities because they don't want to be subjected to scrutiny and they may blame themselves for what happened.

"There is still a lot of shame around that," she said.

In Moore's case, Akins said, some of the women also may have wondered whether they would be believed since they were under the influence of painkillers.

But even when the patients risked speaking out and authorities were notified, nothing happened.

Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff, Nebraska -- a city of 15,000 in the state's panhandle -- reported an unspecified complaint involving Moore and a female patient to police in June 2013. No charges were filed at the time, but it's not clear why. Moore is now charged with abusing three women at the hospital in 2014 and 2015.

In August 2014, a woman told police that Moore had tried to grope her breasts a few months before at the Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center in Greeley, an agricultural and college town about 35 miles from Fort Collins. She wanted to warn authorities but didn't want to press charges.

However, after Moore was arrested in the Fort Collins case in December, Greeley Detective Dave Arpin contacted her again. Since other women had stepped forward, she decided to pursue charges too.

In Colorado, complaints to the nursing board are confidential and officials say they can't even confirm whether a complaint exists. Any disciplinary actions taken as a result of a complaint, however, are made public.

Citing those regulations, a spokeswoman for the Division of Regulatory Agencies, Rebecca Laurie, refused to say how many complaints were filed against Moore while he worked in Colorado.

After police began investigating the 2013 case in Fort Collins, a nursing board investigator told a detective that Moore was fired after two complaints against him at the Greeley Emergency and Surgery Center in March 2014 and April 2015, court records state.

Moore also once held a license to work in Alaska but, according to records there, agreed to surrender it in March 2014 amid an investigation into "undisclosed convictions on his license application." The state denied a request from The Associated Press to disclose the details.

Last year, before his arrest, Moore was fired from the company that owns the Poudre Valley and Greeley hospitals and also lost his job in Nebraska. The hospitals will not say why he was terminated.

Still, he was able to get a nursing license in Wyoming and find a job at a Denver-area hospital. North Suburban Medical Center said it hired an outside firm to do a background investigation on Moore, including checking with his previous employers.

He lost that job after his arrest, and his Colorado nursing license was suspended. Wyoming's nursing board eventually suspended his license there after being notified of his arrest through a national database of information shared by boards.
Four people are dead after a small private plane crashed north of the runway at the Tupelo Airport in Mississippi, officials said.

Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal that the pilot and all three passengers were killed in the crash Monday morning.



Deputy Fire Chief Jimmy Avery described the aircraft as a Bonanza B36 single-engine, six-seater plane.



He said the plane took off at 8:32 a.m. Monday, headed to Charlottesville, Virginia.



Other details about the crash were not immediately available.
A group of Georgetown University students is demanding the school pull its invitation to have Jeh Johnson speak to graduates, saying the Homeland Security secretary is directly responsible for separating the families of illegal immigrants.

Some 30 students led by a group called UndocuHoyas wrote the Washington, D.C., universitys School of Foreign Service's deans office last week to say Johnsons role in immigration enforcement makes him the wrong choice for a commencement address, The Hoya reported. Other students circulated a petition that also sought to have Johnsons speech, announced on May 6, canceled, the school paper reported.

We should not be forced to receive our diplomas from an individual who is directly responsible for separating our families, read the letter to the Foreign Service dean. Therefore, we strongly implore the university to rescind Secretary Johnsons speaking invitation and take meaningful action to ensure that graduation is an inclusive and safe experience for all members of the Georgetown community.

According to Class of 2008 graduate Hemly Ordonez, Johnsons visit could upset illegal immigrants attending the school.

Johnsons invitation is an insult to my family, to the myriad of Georgetown alumni from mixed-documented families, and to the undocumented students who are preparing to graduate this month. Graduation is supposed to be a safe, welcoming environment for students and families who have worked so hard to graduate, not a hostile or uncomfortable one, Ordonez wrote in the letter.

In a statement sent to The Hoya, Georgetown spokeswoman Rachel Pugh said the university hopes Johnsons visit will generate dialogue on freedom of expression and immigration.

Our university leadership will meet with students this week to hear their experiences and concerns and is committed to seeking forums in which Secretary Johnsons engagement on campus can foster even more dialogue on these challenging issues, Pugh wrote.

As head of Homeland Security, Johnson is in charge of border security. The department has been criticized in some quarters for lax border enforcement, but pro-illegal immigration advocates say it has been aggressive in deporting people who have entered the U.S. illegally.

In response to UndocuHoyas petition, Georgetown junior Reed Howard launched a change.org petition calling for the university to keep Johnson as the commencement speaker, The Hoya reported.

It would be a tragedy to let Georgetown go down the path of other universities that have allowed students obsessed with safe spaces and echo chambers to prevail at the cost of a diversity of opinions and beliefs, Howard wrote.

Click for more from The Hoya
Three people were recovering in a hospital Monday and 12 were in custody after a truck carrying 15 illegal immigrants crashed into a barrier at a Texas Naval Air Station on Saturday night, The Corpus Christi Caller Times reported.

The vehicle ran the initial entry gate at Naval Air Station Kingsville before crashing into the bases final denial barrier, a news release said. The vehicle was not the subject of a pursuit prior to the crash, air station spokesman Kevin Clarke told The Austin American-Statesman.

Six people initially were hospitalized after the crash, though three were subsequently released and arrested. Three passengers ran from the vehicle soon after impact, but authorities tracked them down and arrested them after a brief manhunt.

The occupants identities and country of origin were not immediately released.
A woman bitten on the arm by a shark during a swim in Florida on Sunday showed up to the hospital with some company  the shark still attached to her arm.

The unidentified 23-year-old woman was in stable condition at Boca Regional Hospital, Fire-Rescue Spokesman Bob Lemons told The Palm Beach Post.

A bystander on the beach killed the 2-foot nurse shark, but when she was admitted, the 23-year-old woman still had the toothy fish lodged in her arm.

The Boca Raton Regional Hospital operator told the Associated Press that the woman had been treated and was in the process of being released Sunday afternoon.

Nurse sharks are rarely unprovoked threats to humans, according to the National Parks Service. The fish have razor-sharp teeth and will often latch on to humans they bite for several minutes before letting go. Because of the size of their teeth, however, nurse sharks do not generally penetrate deeply into an individuals flesh.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The latest issue of Al Qaedas online magazine Inspire released Saturday calls on would-be jihadis to undermine the American economy by targeting business leaders and entrepreneurs, according to analysts who monitor web chatter from the jihadist organization.

The newest edition obtained by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) features a cover with the headline Professional Assassinations and the subhead Home Assassinations, which the depiction of a hooded killer watching an upscale home from the outside.

Additional photos include in the issue include one of Microsoft founder Bill Gates splatted in blood with a pistol nearby. The magazine is published by Al Qaedas main affiliate located in Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

MEMRI quotes Inspires editor, Yahya Ibrahim, as opening the issue by saying assassination is an effective toll in warfare, and notes that The prophet ordered the killing of many criminal leaders using this method  And here we are, following the footsteps of the prophet on how he dealt with his enemies and friends.

Ibrahim adds in this issue that the focus of the previous issue of Inspire was what he called "workplace" assassinations, and hopes to expand on the same topic in the current issue, which AQAP hopes will lead to training and preparing a more "professional" type of lone wolves.

We will never put down our weapons until we fulfill what Allah wants from us. We are determined to keep fighting and striking Americans with operations by organized jihadi groups and by Lone Jihad, [and] pursuing America in its homeland  by the will of Allah, MEMRI quotes Ibrahim as saying.

MEMRI also said an analysis of the issue provides detailed information and instructions on preparing for and carrying out various targeted assassinations. It stresses that an assassin should possess different options to carry out an attack, which gives him or her a greater chance for success, and elevates the operation to a more professional level.

In addition to the main section on professional assassinations, the magazine also features a section on bomb-making and encouraging radical Islamic terrorists to emulate the Palestinian stabbings of Israelis by walking up to Americans and stabbing them to death.

AQAP was the first to use English publications to reach out to supporters in the West, with the launch in 2010 of its English-language magazine, Inspire.

The online magazine featured commentary by a radical U.S.-born cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was also killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011.
A tip from the Central Intelligence Agency to South Africa's racist apartheid government led to the arrest of Nelson Mandela in 1962, a former CIA operative claims in a new documentary.

Donald Rickard, who also served as a vice-consul based in Durban, South Africa, told British film director John Irvin that the U.S. believed Mandela to be "completely under the control of the Soviet Union", making his arrest necessary.

Rickard's claims were first reported by the Sunday Times newspaper. Irvin's documentary, "Mandela's Gun", is scheduled to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival this week.

"He could have incited a war in South Africa, the United States would have to get involved, grudgingly, and things could have gone to hell," Rickard said of Mandela. "We were teetering on the brink here and it had to be stopped, which meant Mandela had to be stopped. And I put a stop to it."

Mandela was arrested after police stopped a car he was driving at a roadblock. One of South Africa's most wanted men, Mandela was posing as a chauffeur when he was detained.

"I found out when he was coming down and how he was coming," Rickard says. "That's where I was involved and that's where Mandela was caught."

A spokesman for South Africa's ruling African National Congress called the revelation "a serious indictment" and accused the CIA of working against the country's current government.

"We have recently observed that there are efforts to undermine the democratically elected ANC government, Zizi Kodwa alleged. They never stopped operating here."

Mandela served 27 years in prison for resisting apartheid. He was released in 1990 and was elected South Africa's first black president four years later. Acclaimed as one of the world's great statesmen, Mandela died in 2013 at the age of 95.

Mandela always denied that he had ever been a Communist. Rickard, the former CIA operative, died this past March.

Click for more from The Sunday Times.
Father Baret Yerezian recalls a time when he didnt have to walk through a minefield to pray at the traditional site of the baptism of Jesus.

We would take people, put a small boat in the river and bless them right there in the middle, said 69-year-old Mr. Yerezian, the director of real estate at the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem. It was easier then.

Such free access to the site where St. John the Baptist is said to have baptized Jesus more than 2,000 years ago has been rare in the 50 years since Mr. Yerezian was a teenage clergyman.

Israel wrested control of this West Bank area, known as Qasr al-Yahud, from Jordan in the 1967 war. It then mined the entire site on the banks of the Jordan River to ward off attacks from across the border. But Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994 and their border has been relatively quiet for more than 20 years.

Israel cleared a part of the baptismal site in 2011 and it has since become a popular attraction for visiting Christian pilgrims. Now Israeli and Palestinian officials have agreed to allow U.S. and U.K.-based demining group HALO Trust to clear the rest of the siteabout 136 acres. HALO and Israeli defense officials estimate the area is littered with more than 3,000 antipersonnel and antitank mines and an unknown number of improvised explosive devices. The plan is to clear all the mines within two years.

To reach their watery destination, pilgrims must pass through a ghost town of churches fenced off by menacing signs that read Danger! Mines! On a recent morning, 150 Ethiopian Christians clad in white robes adorned with depictions of Jesus baptism waded into the river for a ceremony. The atmosphere was festive as they banged drums, sang in Amharic and splashed in the murky brown waters.

On a wooden platform above the stream, Russian Orthodox Christians waited their turn under the shadow of palm trees. Nearby, a clergyman led another group of Chinese Christians in prayer. A few hundred yards away, an eerie quiet surrounded the old buildings covered by a tangle of thorny bushes, shrubbery and barbed wire.

Abandoned for nearly 50 years, the worn, sandy exterior of an Ethiopian Orthodox church matched the desert landscape. The ground on a Russian plot cracked in the sun. Through a gaping hole in the side of a Romanian church, light shone through a mural of an angel.

All told, eight Christian denominations will get access to land, five churches and monasteries, and a few outhouses that have lain dormant for almost five decades. More than 300,000 tourists already visit the site each year; officials say they expect that the mine clearance will only boost those numbers, something that could lead to further development in the area.

Click for more from The Wall Street Journal.
North Korea had few answers after the rogue nation stopped a Russian yacht and held it for nearly two days before letting the crew and the vessel go on Sunday.

The five crew members reportedly were headed to northeastern Russia after taking part in an international sailing competition in South Korea.

North Korea's coast guard seized the yacht in international waters Friday. North Korean officials ordered the boat towed to the port city of Kimchaek, northeast of Pyongyang.

The secretive regime ultimately claimed it was a giant misunderstanding, the BBC reported. Russian officials said North Korean tourists claimed they saw some kind of South Korean imagery on the yacht, the TASS news agency added.

North Korean officials did not explain exactly how the misunderstanding arose. The yacht left on Sunday morning.
Billionaire George Soros, who has spent millions of dollars financing Democrats and left-wing causes, used a controversial Panamanian law firm to establish a web of offshore investment partnerships that operate around the world and out of the scrutiny of U.S. regulators, according to leaked documents.

The so-called Panama Papers, a trove of 11.5 million financial documents tracing the Mossack Fonseca law firms efforts to help politicians, celebrities and criminals shield their money from taxes, contain links to Soros, who funds the journalism group that is disseminating the information. So far, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has been silent on its benefactors ties to the law firm.

Three offshore investment vehicles controlled by Soros are catalogued in the Panama Papers. Soros Finance, Inc. was incorporated in Panama; Soros Holdings Limited was set up in the British Virgin Islands and a limited partnership called Soros Capital was created in Bermuda.

The laws of Panama, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and a score of tax havens allow foreign firms to hide ownership of cash, real estate and other assets from securities regulators and tax collectors in the countries where they are physically headquartered.

On May 9, client data stolen from the Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama was published online by the ICIJ as part of its Offshore Leaks database. The searchable database contains a portion of the offshore financial records given to the journalists by anonymous whistle-blowers since 2013; it does not include leaked emails and other explanatory data that ICIJ reporters use to write about the offshore financial holdings of newsworthy individuals.

News stories about offshore bank accounts revealed by the Panama Papers brought down Icelands prime minister last month. Heads of state, Hollywood stars, heiresses, arms dealers and drug lords who established secret offshore companies and bank accounts are outed almost daily by the ICIJ. Incorporating a business offshore is not illegal, but President Obama has called for the tax loophole to be sealed shut, saying everyone should pay their fair share.

Soros, 86, is worth an estimated $25 billion. His Open Society Institute is one of ICIJs main funders, granting it $1.5 million last year. The Panama Papers data reveals only the tip of Soros' offshore iceberg, the Quantum Group of Funds. The ICIJs leader, journalist Gerard Ryle, said he had not noticed Soros companies in the Offshore Leaks database until FoxNews.com called the matter to his attention.

I suspect we would have more information [on Soros] because the public database  does not contain the underlying data, Ryle said in an email FoxNews.com.

FoxNews.com has requested access to that data.

Because it is based offshore, the Quantum Group of Funds is not normally subject to regulation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. But in the mid-1990s, Soros Capital bought several SEC-regulated firms, an act which required it to disclose the basic design of the Quantum network of interlocking offshore companies and bank accounts that shield Soros billions.

Soros Capital set up an offshore company in the Cayman Islands for the purpose of investing private equity with the Carlyle Group, alongside members of Saudi Arabias Bin Laden family. Carlyles partners include ex-heads of state and former CIA officials. The private equity partnership specializes in buying and selling weapons manufacturing and intelligence gathering companies with government and military contracts and it also uses secret offshore companies to conduct business.

Offshore Leaks does not include SEC information, but it reveals Soros Capital as a major investor and corporate officer of AIF (Indonesia) Limited. AIF combines private investments with public funding contributed by Asian governments to develop massive infrastructure projects. The database links Soros Capital to Dongya Ports Limited, owned by a tangle of offshore entities.

Soros is certainly newsworthy. In 1992, the self-styled philosopher-economist nearly bankrupted the Bank of England by manipulating the price of the pound. Five years later, he exacerbated a regional economic crisis by betting against Thai and Malaysian currencies. Billions of dollars in profits from Soros currency-pummeling moves flowed through the Quantum Group of Funds.

Soros is the sole proprietor of Manhattan-based Soros Fund Management LLC, which controls his offshore empire. In July 2011, Soros closed the multibillion-dollar fund to all but members of his immediate family, allowing him to escape the Dodd-Frank Act mandate for hedge funds to disclose investors and conflicts of interest. A few months later, Soros lost the final appeal of his 2002 conviction by a French court for insider trading. But he remains a potent political force.

In 2014, Soros donated $381 million of Quantum Group of Funds shares to his Open Society philanthropy. The New York-based charitable foundation supports hundreds of advocacy groups, academic research and investigative journalists that align with Soros oft-stated goal to promote globalized capitalism and democracy.

On the other hand, the Panama Papers leaker, known as John Doe, said that he had exposed the vast cluster of offshore firms and bank accounts, because income inequality and massive, pervasive corruption are the defining issues of our time.

Soros offshore companies may not pay U.S. taxes (his spokesperson, Michael Vachon, declined to answer that question), but the billionaire donates lots of money to Democrats who write and enforce the tax laws. In the 2004 presidential election, he contributed $24 million to George Bushs opponents. He is the largest donor to Hillary Clintons campaign for the presidency, plunking down $8 million, so far. He has donated up to $1 million to the Clinton Foundation. And Secretary of State Clintons emails reveal that Soros has lobbied her on behalf of his interests, which encircle the globe, mostly in the dark.
A man who stunned British police when he admitted to biting off a chunk of a man's ear because of his own cannibalistic ways is heading to prison, the BBC reported Monday.

Garth Anderton, 24, claimed that a stranger had been laughing at him early on New Year's morning in the town of Paignton -- so he attacked. Police said they found the victim's ear in one of the pockets of Anderton's track suit.

He told police he'd always been interested in cannibals and serial killers, even taking sips of his own blood.

Anderton described the ear as "chewy," adding, "Yum yum." He also claimed he zipped it up in his pocket to save for later.

Police said when they first encountered him, he gave a false name -- Richard Trenton, the name of the so-called "Vampire of Sacramento" who killed six people in the late-1970s.

The judge sentenced Anderton to six years behind bars.

Anderton had a history of mental illness, drank alcohol that evening and failed to take prescription medication before the attack, the BBC added.

Paignton is roughly 200 miles southwest of London.
The Obama administration's diplomatic point man in the fight against the Islamic State group (ISIS) said Sunday that the extremists have been losing control over territory and that "this perverse caliphate is shrinking."

Brett McGurk, presidential envoy to a 66-member anti-ISIS coalition, also told a news conference that the tide has turned in the ideological battle against the extremists.

He described a round-the-clock anti-ISIS propaganda campaign involving companies such as Facebook and YouTube and the governments of Jordan, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates.

"For every pro-Daesh Twitter handle, there are now six calling out its lies and countering its message," McGurk said, referring to ISIS by its Arabic acronym.

U.S. officials said earlier this year that the military had ramped up cyber operations against the group.

The officials said at the time that operations include efforts by U.S. Cyber Command at Fort Meade, Maryland, to prevent the group from using the Internet and social media to communicate and distribute propaganda aimed at attracting and inspiring recruits.

In his news conference, McGurk singled out Jordan as an example of what he called Washington's "sustainable strategy" of eschewing boots on the ground for local, regional and Islamic forces against ISIS.

He said Jordan has been conducting weekly air strikes against IS targets and is involved in intelligence gathering and anti-IS propaganda.

ISIS has suffered recent military setbacks and lost territory in both Iraq and Syria.

McGurk said the group is on the defensive and that "this perverse caliphate is shrinking."

But as ISIS militants are pushed back along front lines, the group is increasingly turning to insurgency-style terrorist attacks to keep pressure on the Iraqi government. Such attacks have left more than 100 dead in the past week,

IS launched a coordinated assault Sunday on a natural gas plant north of Baghdad that killed at least 14 people, while a string of other bomb attacks in or close to the capital killed 15 others, Iraqi officials said.

While IS is losing ground in Iraq and Syria, its global affiliates appear to have grown in strength in countries like Libya.


Card Connection Franchisee Grows Business by 18%

May 16, 2016 // Franchising.com // Leading greeting card publisher and franchisor, Card Connection, has announced Northern Ireland franchisee, Seamus Given, has grown his franchise by 18% in the past 12 months. Seamus who joined Card Connection as a franchisee 13 years ago supplies and merchandises Card Connections quality range of greetings cards and accessories to retailers in County Londonderry, and West Tyrone.

Former Spar retail owner, Seamus Given explains: I first discovered Card Connection as a franchisee supplied my stores. When the opportunity came up to purchase the franchise I jumped at the chance to take on a role with much more variety and far less stress!

Since start-up I have managed the franchise on my own, however, Card Connection secured a number of new national accounts last year, including stores belonging to SUPERVALU which is part of Musgraves, continues Given. After a successful pilot, I started supplying greetings cards to the stores on an ongoing basis. I have needed to take on part-time help to manage the increase in workload!

I normally start at about 8am and visit between 5-6 stores per day then am home mid-afternoon to complete any paperwork and prepare for the next days deliveries, confirms Given. Each day is a new challenge even though I have worked with some of the same retail managers for 13 years now! It is a testament to the team at Card Connection and the quality of the product that I am still able to continue to grow my franchise in this established market place.

Card Connections proven business model has enabled hundreds of franchisees to run successful businesses over the past two decades. Fifteen full-time head office staff manage 100 national retail accounts on behalf of the franchisee network.

Card Connection is part of UK Greetings, which is a subsidiary of American Greetings Inc., one of the largest greeting card publishers in the world and has limited vacancies for franchisees that are keen to run an expanding business. Since the franchise network in the UK is complete, the available opportunities now consist of acquiring an already-established territory from an existing franchisee. These vary in price according to their level of development, but start at 7k + Stock + Card Connection fee with earnings potential in excess of 50k per annum.

Territories currently available include: Bath, Coventry, Bournemouth, Northampton, Liverpool, Croydon, Windsor, Brighton, Plymouth, Edinburgh and Ireland South. For further information about franchises for sale, please see: www.card-connection.co.uk

About Card Connection

Card Connection is one of the UKs most successful card publishers and is the market leader in the franchised distribution of greeting cards.

The company was established in 1992 and became a Full Member of the British Franchise Association in 1995. It now distributes greeting cards to around 13,000 outlets through its network of 67 franchisees. www.card-connection.co.uk

SOURCE Card Connection

Contact:

Mel Betts

Grapevine PR Ltd

01544 318546

melanie.betts@grapevinepr.com

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Dwyer Group Welcomes New Board Member Imran Jooma

May 16, 2016 // Franchising.com // WACO, Texas  The Dwyer Group, Inc., one of the worlds largest franchising companies of trade service brands, has announced the appointment of Imran Jooma to the Board, effective immediately.

In his new appointment, Jooma will work with current board members to guide activities at Dwyer Group and the companys family of service brands as they continue to grow and expand on a global level.

Imran brings talent and experience we did not otherwise have at the board level, said Mike Bidwell, president and CEO at Dwyer Group. Our board is well represented in franchising, private equity and operating experience, and we wanted to expand our insight to even more aspects of the industry. Imran brings the voice of marketing, a passion for customer experience with a strong emphasis on digital and technology to our board. With his particular insight as part of the team, we feel our board is now very well rounded.

With a background working at some of the biggest names in business like Sears Holdings and OfficeMax, Jooma has a resume that spans almost 20 years in marketing and business. Jooma currently serves as the divisional president of omnichanel strategy at Finish Line, creating customer and enterprise strategy for short and long term sustainable growth. Jooma is also responsible for marketing, analytics and the customer experience across the entire enterprise.

Dwyer Group and its family of service brands is a highly regarded organization with a rapidly growing network. I am very honored to be joining the board at such an exciting time for the business, said Jooma. As Dwyer Group continues to push boundaries and raise the bar for the service industry, I look forward to helping the team go above and beyond their goals.

Jooma holds a bachelor of arts from The College of Wooster and a masters degree in business administration and marketing from the University of Akron.

About Dwyer Group

Dwyer Group, based in Waco, Texas, is a holding company of 12 franchise businesses, each selling and supporting a different franchise under the following service marks: Aire Serv, Glass Doctor, The Grounds Guys, Five Star Painting, Molly Maid, Mr. Appliance, Mr. Electric, Mr. Handyman, Mr. Rooter (Drain Doctor in the UK), ProTect Painters, Rainbow International, and Locatec. Collectively, these independent franchise concepts offer customers worldwide a broad base of residential and commercial services. In addition, Dwyer Group operates glass shops in New England under the Portland Glass brand name. Dwyer Group is a portfolio company of The Riverside Company, a global private equity firm. The firms international portfolio includes more than 75 companies. More information on Dwyer Group, or its franchise concepts, is available at www.dwyergroup.com.

Dwyer Group is also on Twitter at @DwyerGroup.

SOURCE Dwyer Group

Contact:

Monica Feid

BizCom Associates

(972) 490-8053

MonicaFeid@BizComPr.com

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Sixt Records A Good Start To The First Quarter 2016  Unbroken Dynamism In Foreign Business Operations

Consolidated operating revenue up by 15.1% to EUR 465.3 million

Foreign rental revenues up by 38%  share in rental revenues for the first time over 50%

Consolidated earnings before taxes (EBT) up 10.6% to EUR 31.1 million despite ongoing additional expenditures incurred for expansion measures

Managing Board confirms expectations for full year 2016

May 16, 2016 // Franchising.com // Pullach - During the first quarter of 2016 Sixt Group maintained its revenue and earnings growth, seamlessly following up the successful development of the record fiscal year 2015. Consolidated earnings before taxes (EBT), the Sixt Groups principal earnings parameter, climbed 10.6% over the previous years first quarter to EUR 31.1 million, despite ongoing extra expenditure for numerous expansion measures.

Foreign operations in the vehicle rental business proved once again to be the growth driver over the first three months, generating a 37.6% increase in rental revenues. With a share of 51.6%, foreign operations for the first time contributed more than half of all rental revenues, which climbed by 19.4% in total. Consolidated operating revenue from rental and leasing business (excluding revenue from the sale of used leasing vehicles) improved 15.1% to EUR 465.3 million in the period January to March.

Against the background of the strong first quarter, the Managing Board affirms its targets for the full year 2016.

Erich Sixt, CEO of Sixt SE: Following the preceding record years, Sixt has once more got off to a strong start in 2016. We keep outgrowing our key competitors and are thereby extending our market position at home and abroad. What is more, with foreign operations surpassing the 50 percent threshold in rental revenues, we have achieved an important strategic objective.

Group performance in the first three months of 2016

*Consolidated operating revenue (excluding revenue from the sale of used leasing vehicles) for the period January to March 2016 climbed 15.1% to EUR 465.3 million.

*Total consolidated revenue (including revenue from the sale of used leasing vehicles) came to EUR 537.5 million and was thus 15.7% higher than in the same period last year.

*Consolidated earnings before taxes (EBT) improved 10.6% to EUR 31.1 million. The result continued to be affected by ongoing high expenditures for the Groups various growth initiatives. They include:

extending and optimising the network of stations in the core markets in Western Europe and the USA,

expanding the transfer service myDriver outside Germany during the period under review,

further expansion of the premium carsharing service DriveNow, as well as

higher marketing expenses.

High level of investments

In the first quarter Sixt added 52,500 vehicles with a total value of EUR 1.38 billion to the rental and leasing fleet. The 1.8% increase in the number of vehicles reflects the ongoing demand and takes due account of the Companys cautious fleet policy.

Outlook for full year 2016

Following the good business performance in the first quarter, the Managing Board affirms its previous projections for the full year 2016. Upholding its cautious and demand-driven fleet policy, the Managing Board continues to expect to see slight growth in the consolidated operating revenues over the full fiscal year 2016. Allowing for the extra expenses for strategic expansion measures, the Managing Board expects to generate a stable to slightly higher Group EBT.

Developments in the operating business units

Vehicle Rental

The average number of vehicles in Germany and abroad (excluding franchisees) for the period of January to March of this year was 97,800 vehicles, thus 19.1% more than in the same quarter last year (82,100 vehicles). This growth correlates with the higher demand registered inside and outside Germany.

During the first quarter of 2016 the Vehicle Rental Business Unit generated rental revenue of EUR 364.1 million, a gain of 21.1% on the figure for the same period last year (EUR 300.6 million). Rental revenue expanded by 19.4% to

EUR 325.3 million (Q1 2015: EUR 272.5 million), as a result of the expansion in the Western European markets and the USA. In almost all foreign subsidiaries Sixt once again managed to generate significant double-digit growth rates. Even in Germany, rental revenue was up by 4.6% year-on-year on the back of the solid demand.

Despite significantly higher expenditures for expansionary measures, the Business Units EBT improved 2.9% to

EUR 22.4 million (Q1 2015: EUR 21.7 million).

Leasing

As of 31 March 2016 the Business Units total number of leases inside and outside Germany (excluding franchisees) came to around 105,000 and was thus 6.7% above the figure at the same reporting date in 2015 (98,400). The gain is essentially due to the ongoing dynamism registered in the Online Retail business field.

As falling petrol prices meant that income from fuel contracted, the leasing revenues for the first quarter of 2016 decreased marginally by 2.3% to EUR 101.2 million (Q1 2015: EUR 103.6 million). Total revenues for the Leasing Business Unit climbed 5.7% to EUR 172.1 million (Q1 2015: EUR 162.8 million) due to higher proceeds from the sale of used leasing vehicles.

The Business Units EBT improved 10.5% from EUR 7.3 million to EUR 8.1 million, which was essentially the result of specific measures taken to increase profitability in the Fleet Management business unit. In line with strategy, the operating return on sales climbed to 8.0% (Q1 2015: 7.1%).



SOURCE Sixt

Contact:

Frank Elsner

Sixt Central Press Office

T +49 (0)89/ 99 24 96 - 30

F +49 (0)89/ 99 24 96 - 32

E-mail: pressrelations(at)sixt.com

Note to editors:

The Group quarterly statement of Sixt SE as per 31 March 2016 can now be downloaded at

http://ir.sixt.de/interim-reports.

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The Luxury Collection Hotels & Resorts Collaborates with Sofia Sanchez de Betak to Create Limited-Edition Line of Globe-Trotter Luggage

Sanchez de Betak Brings The Luxury Collections Iconic Hotels in Greece to Life With a Suitcase Design Inspired by her Travels to Santorini, Mykonos, Athens and Costa Navarino

NEW YORK - May 16, 2016 - (BUSINESS WIRE) - With the summer travel season fast-approaching, The Luxury Collection Hotels & Resorts, part of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (NYSE:HOT), unveils its first-ever collaboration with British luxury luggage brand Globe-Trotter: an exclusive, limited-edition suitcase collection. Imagined by designer and creative director Sofia Sanchez de Betak, the collection is inspired by her recent summer vacation in Greece, where she experienced four destinations through the lens of The Luxury Collection brands indigenous hotels and resorts, including Santa Marina in Mykonos; The Romanos in Costa Navarino; Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens; and Vedema and Mystique in Santorini. The collection is available for retail at www.luxurycollectionstore.com.

As a creative force, fashion muse, and world traveler, Sofia embodies the values and spirit of a global explorer, and like our guests, she is a traveler who truly understands and personifies experiential luxury, said Meredith Dichter, Global Brand Director, The Luxury Collection Hotels & Resorts. Our hotels and resorts define their destinations, and we are thrilled that our portfolio in Greece inspired Sofia to create this one-of-a-kind luggage collection for Globe-Trotter.

The four unique pieces of luggage include: Santorini, inspired by Sofias stay at The Luxury Collections Vedema and Mystique, both truly unique hotels located on one of the worlds most celebrated islands; Mykonos, influenced by her experience at the brands exclusive beachfront oasis, Santa Marina; Athena, which celebrates Sofias visit to the iconic Hotel Grande Bretagne, which overlooks the fabled Acropolis and Syntagma Square in Athens; and Messinia, a tribute to the beautiful destination of Costa Navarino, where Sofia stayed at The Romanos, The Luxury Collections stunning resort situated among the olive groves and sparkling turquoise waters.

For me, traveling is a treasure huntI love exploring new places and creating my own memorable experiences, said Sofia Sanchez de Betak. For the design of this luggage collection, I wanted to create a scavenger hunt map inspired by my trip to Greece for fellow travelers to follow. A combination of insider tips from The Luxury Collection concierges and personal recommendations from locals and experts allowed me to curate the must sees on my maps for global explorers to find!

Influenced by Greeces characteristic colors, the collections exterior features shades of blue and white, accented by touches of black as well as Globe-Trotters iconic handmade leather trim and gold hardware. The interior of each piece is lined with cotton linen and features a colorfully illustrated scavenger map of the destination of which it was inspired, highlighting the hidden treasures and off-the-beaten-path experiences that Sofia discovered while exploring The Luxury Collections destinations in Greece.

"This project is very close to Globe-Trotter's heart. The journey with Sofia - literally and figuratively - has been a special one for me; as a designer for a company so passionate about telling stories about travel, the opportunity to distill somebody's real experiences into physical products has been a great journey, said Charlotte Seddon, Designer, Globe-Trotter. For me personally, the project also has real meaning - I honeymooned across the Greek islands, and some of my most special memories were captured in these places. The result, we hope, is that a genuine and personal sense of warmth lives within these cases."

Exclusively offered at www.luxurycollectionstore.com, Globe-Trotters flagship boutique in London and www.globe-trotter.com, the individual luggage pieces retail for USD $2,005. The limited-edition luggage collection comes in one convenient size, 22x15x8, and each piece was made with wheels and a retractable handle for practical travel.

About The Luxury Collection Hotels & Resorts

The Luxury Collection brand is comprised of world-renowned hotels and resorts offering unique, authentic experiences that evoke lasting, treasured memories. For the global explorer, The Luxury Collection offers a gateway to the world's most exciting and desirable destinations. Each hotel and resort is a unique and cherished expression of its location; a portal to the destination's indigenous charms and treasures. Originated in 1906 under the CIGA brand as a collection of Europe's most celebrated and iconic properties, today The Luxury Collection brand is a glittering ensemble, recently surpassing 100 of the world's finest hotels and resorts in more than 30 countries. All of these hotels, many of them centuries old, are internationally recognized as being among the world's finest. For more information and new openings, visit theluxurycollection.com or follow Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

About Globe-Trotter

Synonymous with great British design, Globe-Trotter is a luxury travel lifestyle brand producing handcrafted luggage and leather collections. Established in 1897, all Globe-Trotter suitcases and travel accessories are handcrafted in Hertfordshire, England by highly skilled artisans using original manufacturing methods and machinery that date back to the Victorian era. For 120 years the brand philosophy has remained unchanged: an uncompromising integrity of craftsmanship. Globe-Trotter cases have been used by an enviable client list over the years from Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Sir Winston Churchill and HM Queen Elizabeth II to Daniel Craig, Eddie Redmayne and Kate Moss. Collections are available to purchase online at globe-trotter.com and in the Globe-Trotter flagship stores, along with a bespoke service, at 35 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4JD, UK and 5-2-1 Ginza, Chuo-Ku, Tokyo, Japan.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160516005478/en/.

SOURCE: Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.

Media Contacts:

Simon Neggers

212-380-4029

Simon.Neggers@starwoodhotels.com

Sarah Pallack

646-442-5661

sarah@bpcm.com

###

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The teacher crisis is real, and were not going to work our way out of it simply by making it easier to hire teachers.
John Henderson Law Announces Free Consultations For Clients

Both bankruptcy and personal injury clients are welcome to set up appointments at their convenience, reports http://johnhendersonlaw.com/.

--

John Henderson Law, a bankruptcy and personal injury firm serving Springfield, Missouri and the surrounding areas, has recently announced that they are now offering free consultations to clients who need to secure an attorney's help with bankruptcy or personal injury cases. Those who are interested in booking a consultation with the firm are encouraged to give them a call or visit their website to fill out their short contact form.

John Henderson, the attorney at the helm of the law firm, stated "While many clients debate whether or not they need an personal injury or bankruptcy attorney, the truth is that these are two complex areas of the law. When these types of cases are handled in the wrong way, it can result in serious legal and financial ramifications for the client. The pain and anguish can be compounded if a client is dealing with a long-term illness or injury or facing the loss of their home or possessions. For this reason, our firm has opted to provide free consultations for clients who need legal help during such a difficult and confusing time. We'll be able to review their case, answer any questions they may have, and help them get some peace of mind about moving forward."

John Henderson is a highly experienced bankruptcy and personal injury lawyer. Having graduated from the University of Arkansas Law School in 1984, he has been practicing law for well over three decades. Over the years, John has remained true to his values of fairness and fresh starts, and this is what led him to concentrate his practice in the areas of bankruptcy and personal injury and begin fighting for those who are seeking recovery from financial hardship or fair compensation for an injury they sustained.

Henderson goes on to say, "Offering free consultations to our clients is our firm's way of staying true to the values we've held on to over the years. We are passionate about helping people. We want them to have access to the legal help that will allow them to get the fresh start they need or financial compensation they deserve so they can finally move on to the next chapter of their lives."

Those who would like to set up a free consultation with John Henderson Law can visit www.johnhendersonlaw.com.

About John Henderson Law:

The Law Firm of John Henderson provides experienced counsel that gets results. The firm specializes in Bankruptcy Law and Personal Injuries with over 30 years of experience. John Henderson takes pride in helping clients win their cases.

For more information about us, please visit http://johnhendersonlaw.com/

Contact Info:

Name: John Henderson

Organization: John Henderson Law

Phone: (417) 866-4505

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/john-henderson-law-announces-free-consultations-for-clients/115150

Release ID: 115150

For more information visit r



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GOMA Industries' New Selfie Kit Is Now Available Online

GOMA Industries releases unbreakable aluminium alloy Selfie Kit

--

For a limited time the Goma Selfie Kit can be bought for a discounted price on Amazon.com

GOMA Industries has just released the GOMA Selfie Kit, a 34" (almost 3 feet!) selfie stick with a plug and play audio jack, as well as free wide angle optics for iPhone and Samsung devices. It was carefully designed to be virtually unbreakable, so it can support the weight of any device attached to it without bending or breaking. The addition of a padded clamp means safe, no-slip mounting for any device. It has just launched on Amazon.com. They've even put together a short instructional video so that anyone can start taking high quality self-photos or videos immediately. Normally, this this type of high quality device would cost $24.99 plus shipping, but for a short time, GOMA Industries is offering the GOMA Selfie Kit for $12.99, including free shipping with Amazon Prime.

For all of the events in people's life that they would like to remember, the GOMA Selfie Kit can be the key to getting that perfect shot, every time. Its built-in shutter allows the user to concentrate on taking an excellent photograph or video instead of worrying about apps and compatibility. The plug and play audio jack wire allows people to use the kit without draining their device battery with Bluetooth usage, as well as ensuring high quality sound for videos. In addition, the rod is collapsible and lightweight, which makes it perfect for many travelling and/or sightseeing adventures.

Contact GOMA industries with any questions or for information on their other products at cam.mendoza@gomaindustries.com.

For more information about us, please visit http://www.gomaindustries.com

Contact Info:

Name: Cam Mendoza

Email: cam.mendoza@gomaindustries.com

Organization: GOMA Industries



Video URL: https://youtu.be/C9f8dPq0nkw

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/goma-industries-new-selfie-kit-is-now-available-online/114670

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Dog Toothpaste Website Offers One Stop Solution for Dog Teeth Cleaning Products

Dog toothpaste recently went live online, selling only the best in dog dental health care products. Dogs require regular exercise, good nutrition and excellent oral and dental health care. The new website gives owners access to all the teeth cleaning essentials in one place.

--

New Dog Toothpaste Website Offers One-Stop Solution for Dog Teeth Cleaning Essentials

A new shop that specializes in dental and oral health care products for dogs has recently went online. The online store, Dog Toothpaste - Dental Care for Dogs, aims to provide dog owners with a one-stop solution to all of their dog's dental and oral health needs. Because a healthy dog requires good nutrition, regular visits to his veterinarian, regular physical exercise, and excellent oral and dental health care, Dog Toothpaste makes sure that dog owners will gain access to all of the dog teeth cleaning essentials in a single place.

According to the official website, Dog Toothpaste aims to provide dog owners with the best toothpaste for dogs and other dog teeth cleaning products at the best possible prices dog owners can find on the web. Additionally, the company promises to update its stocks with fresher supplies. Dog Toothpaste provides four distinct dog dental cleaning essentials - dog toothpaste, dog toothbrush, dog chews, rawhide for dogs.

Quality Dog Dental Cleaning Products

A company official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confided that Dog Toothpaste is collaborating with leaders in dog dental health as well as leading manufacturers and suppliers of dog dental cleaning products and other essentials in an effort to advance Dog Toothpaste's aims of providing only high quality dental cleaning products for dogs. The company fully understands the predicament of many dog owners in not having a one-stop shop for all of their dental cleaning needs for dogs.

While there are online pet stores that provide dog teeth cleaning essentials, many provide these products as a part of a larger pet product line from dog food to dog bedding and other accessories. The company nonetheless acknowledges that there are online stores that do specialize in dog teeth cleaning essentials as well. It is for this matter that Dog Toothpaste deemed it necessary to establish themselves in this aspect of canine health.

Dog Toothpaste firmly believes that by focusing only on high quality dog dental cleaning products and other dental essentials, they are helping dog owners care for their pet's teeth a lot better. By providing products that have been exhaustively researched to be beneficial to every owner's dog's teeth, Dog Toothpaste is hoping to make a significant contribution in ensuring the general health and welfare of dogs as well as the peace of mind of their owners.

Wide Array of Choices

Dog Toothpaste - Dental care for Dogs is providing dog owners with dog toothpastes that come in a variety of flavors such as beef and poultry, among others. They also carry dog tooth brushes and dog tooth brush sets that already comes with a safe and effective dog toothpaste. As dogs cannot use human toothpastes because the chemical contents can be particularly dangerous, Dog Toothpaste assures dog owners that its line of dog toothpastes have been scientifically proven and are highly recommended by veterinarians as safe and effective for dogs' teeth especially in the prevention of periodontal or gum diseases.

Their range of dog chews include Benebone, C.E.T dog chews, Nylabone, deer antler dog chews, bully sticks, and Himalayan dog chews, among others, all of which have been sourced only from highly reputable suppliers especially for the organic types of dog chews like bully sticks and the Himalayan and deer antler dog chews. Dog chews and dog chew toys have been found to be particularly helpful in aiding regular tooth brushing in keeping the dog's teeth clean and healthy. Additionally, the dog chew provides for the dog's innate chewing tendencies to make it calmer and more well-balanced.

To complete the dental cleaning efficiency and chewing fun for dogs, Dog Toothpaste is also providing customers with a wide selection of rawhide chews and rawhide bones.

For dog owners who may want to check out Dog Toothpaste's products, they can get in touch with the company by logging onto dogtoothpaste.net

For more information about us, please visit http://www.dogtoothpaste.net

Contact Info:

Name: Paul Coulthard

Email: woofwoof@dogtoothpaste.net

Organization: Dog Toothpaste - Dental Care For Dogs

Address: broomy hill rd



Release ID: 115013

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Learn-To-Trade.com Inc. Announces Limited Seats for Next Complimentary Trading Workshops

Learn-To-Trade.com Inc. confirms the next dates for its free two-hour stock market trading workshop.

--

Learn-To-Trade.com Inc. (www.Learn-To-Trade.com), Toronto's leading provider of professional stock market trading courses designed to create successful traders on the financial market, is pleased to confirm that Tuesday, May 17 and Thursday, May 19 are the next dates for its free two-hour stock market trading workshops, but is also warning that seating is limited.

The first free two-hour stock market trading workshop will happen on Tuesday, May 17 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Learn-to-Trade.com Inc. head office at 885 Don Mills Road, Suite 200 in Toronto.

The second free stock market trading workshop takes place on Thursday, May 19 from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at Humber College North Campus located at the corners of Finch Avenue West and Highway 27.

"While the stock market remains near record highs, the underlying fundamentals supporting the broader markets are extremely fragile," says George Karpouzis, co-founder and director of education at Learn-To-Trade.com Inc. "In the first quarter, U.S. GDP advanced just 0.5%, the weakest performance in two years. On top of that, in the first quarter, the estimated earnings decline for S&P 500 companies was -7.1%. This is the first time the S&P 500 has recorded four consecutive quarters year-over-year declines since 2008, and the second quarter is not looking promising either." (Source: "Earnings Insight," FactSet.com, May 6, 2016; http://www.factset.com/websitefiles/PDFs/earningsinsight/earningsinsight_5.6.16.)

According to Karpouzis, while the markets remain fragile and the outlook bleak, there are still a large number of investing strategies investors can use to profit in this, or any, economic climate. Many of these strategies will be covered at the free two-hour stock market trading workshops presented by Learn-To-Trade.com Inc. on Tuesday, May 17 and Thursday, May 19.

Those who attend either of the two free stock market trading workshops presented by the licensed professionals at Learn-To-Trade.com Inc. will learn about safe and simple strategies to help them create consistently profitable results, all while maintaining 100% control of their capital.

"Whether a person is interested in trading stocks, stock options, or forex trading, Learn-To-Trade.com Inc. will prepare them to succeed in any financial market," Karpouzis concludes. "In addition to learning about trade concepts that profit regardless of market direction, those in attendance will also learn about our unique Lifetime Membership, which enables them to re-attend any part of the program as often as they like."

Those interested in attending the free two-hour Learn-To-Trade.com Inc. stock market trading workshop on Tuesday, May 17 or Thursday, May 19 can register online at www.Learn-To-Trade.com, by email at info@learn-to-trade.com, by calling 416-510-5560, or by visiting the Learn-To-Trade.com Inc. offices at 885 Don Mills Road, Suite 200, Toronto.

Learn-To-Trade.com Inc. is the leading provider of stock market training courses in the Greater Toronto Area. Led by licensed, industry professionals, its extensive courses provide its Members with the necessary tools to trade financial products in today's complex and fast-paced markets. Stock trading training courses with Learn-To-Trade.com, Inc. teach investors both basic and advanced stock market investing principles, including: how to read and understand stock prices and quotes, fundamental analysis and technical analysis, and various trading strategies. Through its Lifetime Membership, Learn-To-Trade.com Inc. also provides extensive training and knowledge in stock option trading, stock index trading, futures trading, futures option trading, forex trading, risk management, and capital preservation. Members utilize real-time, simulated trading platforms to paper trade until they gain the confidence to make independent market decisions and produce consistently profitable results. As the leading and oldest financial educator in Canada, Learn-To-Trade.com Inc.'s instructors are also educators for the Toronto-Montreal Exchange, through which its instructors host educational sessions for the major banks across Canada.

For more information about us, please visit http://www.learn-to-trade.com/

Contact Info:

Name: George Karpouzis

Organization: Learn to Trade Inc

Address: 885 Don Mills Road, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario M3C IV9 Canada

Phone: 4165105560

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/learn-to-trade-com-inc-announces-limited-seats-for-next-complimentary-trading-workshops/115196

Release ID: 115196

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Consultancy MackayWilliams has predicted an uptick in pan-European fund flows for the rest of the year, saying the slump seen at the start of 2016 was not severe enough to prompt revisions to its forecasts.

The firms joint chief executive, Diana Mackay, said the 20bn (15.7bn) in net outflows seen in the first quarter was broadly in line with MackayWilliams estimates, and predicted a return to growth later this year.

Fears of a global growth slowdown rattled equity markets in January and February, meaning significant redemptions for the funds industry.

The first-quarter outflows compare with net sales of between 100bn and 150bn for the first three months of 2014 and 2015 respectively.

Ms Mackay said the consultancy was maintaining a forecast of 100bn in net sales for 2016, though this figure would represent just a third of that seen in the previous two years.

We are expecting some recovery as the year wears on, if only because investors really have nowhere else to go. Having looked at the latest data were not inclined to change our forecast, she said.

Ms Mackay and publications editor Mark McFee noted that a recovery in flows in March was aided by a return to inflows for bond funds.

We began to see the green shoots of improvement in sentiment towards bonds back in January, Mr McFee said.

[It] appears to be linked to the market view that the US Fed may now be gradually rowing back its commitment to rate hikes earlier this year. The [European Central Bank] also contributed by committing to buying up a chunk of corporate debt each month.

The pair said they were forecasting further inflows into fixed income in both April and May, but Mr McFee said some strategic funds were struggling more than their traditional peers.

Theres still one fixed income sector thats really struggling, and thats flexible bonds. Flows in the past have been associated with just a handful of products, but recently the redemptions seen have been spread among a multitude of funds.

In total, 22 offerings in this space lost more than 100m in the first quarter, he said.

Mr McFee noted that underwhelming returns from such portfolios might have tested investor patience, given many products had been beaten by more conventional sovereign or corporate bond funds.

In keeping with the trend seen in the UK market, MackayWilliams emphasised that alternatives were becoming more popular among investors.

Aside from the ongoing strength in the asset allocation alternative space, the other area to watch is alternative equities, he added.
A policy paper from Royal London has criticised the goverments laissez-faire attitude to ensuring savers keep track of their pensions, calling on it to take a more active role in ensuring the delivery of a pensions dashboard.

The government has backed giving savers a virtual view of all their pension pots across all pension providers and schemes, known as a pension dashboard, to allow them to find any lost pots and estimate their retirement income.

But ministers have pushed responsibility for coming up with a working system for achieving this by 2019 onto the pensions industry.

Steve Webb, director of policy at Royal London, said citizens of countries such as Australia, Sweden and the Netherlands already have the benefit of access to pensions dashboards where they can see all their pensions in one place.

He said it is unacceptable that the UK is in the slow lane and our savers are being left behind.

Mr Webb said: Getting the many different parties involved to work together in the interests of the consumer is a big job and may even require legislation.

Government has been too hands-off to date and needs to drive this project forward, otherwise savers will continue to have far too little information about their overall pension position.

In Australia, Sweden and the Netherlands, each country has provided a single place where citizens can see all or most of their pension rights in one place.

In the UK it is not clear if the dashboard will cover all of the different types of pensions which an individual might hold, particularly the state pension.

In April this year, Paul Pettitt, managing director of Origo  which has been leading efforts to unite the industry behind a single vision of a virtual pension pot  expressed concern about the Department for Work & Pensions reluctance to confirm whether it will provide state pension data for the initiative.

Earlier this year, a conflict emerged between key players seeking to bring to market the government-backed pension dashboard, amid competing announcements over who is acting for the industry.

Technology provider Origo announced it was already building the engine to power such a consumer portal, revealing at the end of March it had the backing of big name providers Aegon, Ageas, Aviva, Axa Wealth, Friends Life, Just Retirement, MetLife, Legal & General, Prudential, Royal London, Scottish Widows, Standard Life, Unum and Zurich.

But the move surprised some in the industry, after the Tax Incentivised Savings Association revealed earlier the same month it has its own plans to deliver a pensions dashboard ahead of the 2019 target date put forward in the Financial Advice Market Review.

ruth.gillbe@ft.com
Story Highlights 58% favor replacing the ACA with federally funded healthcare system

About half would also be OK with keeping the ACA as is

Separate question shows that just over half would favor repealing the ACA

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Presented with three separate scenarios for the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), 58% of U.S. adults favor the idea of replacing the law with a federally funded healthcare system that provides insurance for all Americans. At the same time, Americans are split on the idea of maintaining the ACA as it is, with 48% in favor and 49% opposed. The slight majority, 51%, favor repealing the act.

Favor or Oppose Three Proposals Relating to the Affordable Care Act Please tell me whether you strongly favor, favor, oppose or strongly oppose each of the following. Favor % Oppose % No opinion % Replacing the ACA with a federally funded healthcare program providing insurance for all Americans 58 37 5 Repealing the Affordable Care Act 51 45 3 Keeping the Affordable Care Act in place 48 49 2 Gallup, May 6-8, 2016

Gallup included these three questions in its interviewing on May 6-8 to provide insight into how Americans might react to the three remaining presidential candidates' proposals for dealing with the ACA. Bernie Sanders calls for replacing the ACA with a single-payer, federally administered system that he calls "Medicare for All." Donald Trump has said he would repeal the ACA, and Hillary Clinton generally says she would keep the ACA in place. Americans were asked in the survey to react to each of these proposals separately, and there was no mention of the candidates in the question wording.

The results show that many Americans are OK with several ways of handling the ACA rather than favoring only one possibility. In particular, 35% of all Americans say they would favor keeping the ACA in place and separately say they favor the idea of replacing it with a federally funded universal health insurance system. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, 59% favor both of these approaches. In short, many Americans would apparently go along with Clinton's idea of keeping the ACA in place as it is now, or with Sanders' bolder proposal to replace it with a Medicare-for-All system.

Gallup also asked those who favor either keeping the ACA in place or replacing it with a federally funded system to choose between these two options. The federally funded system wins among this group by a 2-to-1 ratio, 64% to 32%, meaning this system garners the most support among the initial favor/oppose questions and wins when those who like both approaches are forced to choose.

Additionally, 27% of Americans say they favor repealing the ACA and say they favor replacing it with a federally funded system. This means the group of Americans in this survey who favor the law's repeal, a core policy proposal of many Republican presidential candidates during this campaign season, includes some who apparently want the ACA repealed to replace it with an even more liberal system. Only 22% of Americans say they want the ACA repealed and do not favor replacing it with a federally funded system.

Democrats Favor Keeping the ACA and Replacing It With Single-Payer System

The breakdown of reactions to these proposals by partisanship shows the expected patterns: Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are highly likely to favor the two options put forth by the Democratic candidates, while Republicans and Republican leaners are highly likely to favor Trump's position, repeal of the ACA.

Proposals to Deal With Affordable Care Act, by Partisanship Democrats/Leaners % Republicans/Leaners % Replacing the ACA with a federally funded healthcare program

providing insurance for all Americans Favor 73 41 Oppose 22 55 Repealing the Affordable Care Act Favor 25 80 Oppose 72 17 Keeping the Affordable Care Act in place Favor 79 16 Oppose 19 82 Gallup, May 6-8, 2016

One notable exception to the strong partisan skew in reactions to these proposals comes from Republicans when they are asked about replacing the ACA with a federally funded system. Forty-one percent of Republicans favor the proposal -- much higher than the 16% who favor keeping the ACA in place. This may reflect either that Republicans genuinely think a single-payer system would be good for the country, or that they view any proposal to replace the ACA ("Obamacare") as better than keeping it in place.

Approval of the ACA and What Should Be Done About It

Responses to other questions included in the May 6-8 survey show that Americans remain split in their overall views of the ACA, with about as many approving as disapproving of the law. Almost nine in 10 of those who approve of the ACA in general subsequently say they would favor keeping it in place, which is logical. But 72% of those who approve of the ACA also would favor replacing it with a single-payer federally funded health system. This reinforces the idea that ACA supporters can agree simultaneously with several different ways of dealing with this law.

Bottom Line

Americans express considerable support for the idea of replacing the ACA with a federally run national healthcare system, which is similar to the proposal championed by presidential candidate Sanders. To be sure, many Americans, primarily Democrats, also favor the idea of just keeping the ACA in place. But given a choice, those who favor both proposals come down on the side of the Sanders-type proposal. Four in 10 Republicans also favor the idea of a federally funded system.

Additionally, Americans have been more positive than negative in two previous Gallup measures of the idea of a single-payer federally funded system, although when given a chance to say so, a sizable percentage of Americans say they don't know enough about it to have an opinion.

The current survey used shorthand descriptions to describe the alternatives for dealing with the ACA, and it's possible that not everyone understands the implications of each approach. Instituting a universal healthcare system, in particular, would be one of the most significant overhauls of a major part of American life in modern U.S. history, and would create huge consequences and challenges. Additionally, other research shows that when given a choice, Americans are philosophically more inclined to favor a private healthcare system than one run by the government. Americans are generally satisfied with their personal healthcare, something that also could slow down the process of adopting a major overhaul of the healthcare system. Still, the general idea of a single payer system seems to play well with the majority of Americans, something both the presumed Democratic nominee Clinton and the Republican nominee Trump will need to keep in mind as they debate healthcare in the months to come.

Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.

Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 6-8, 2016, on the Gallup U.S. Daily survey, with a random sample of 1,549 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is 3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

View survey methodology, complete question responses and trends.

Learn more about how the Gallup U.S. Daily works.
'Ace Attorney' Phoenix Wright Will Be On Nintendo 3DS: Release Date, Storyline And A New Sidekick Revealed Here

Justice will be served, at least for the sixth "Ace Attorney" installment. Phoenix Wright: "Ace Attorney" - Spirit of Justice will lawyer up in September as previously announced by Capcom. It will be a Nintendo exclusive release for the 3DS in North America and Europe.

According to Nerd Reactor, the Nintendo title "Ace Attorney" Phoenix Wright will be addressing a big flawed court system. The "Ace Attorney" nemesis will be the Kingdom of Khura'in Royal Priestess. A rather tough battle rooted on her ability to have a special divination power that rewinds the final visions of the victim. With the power feature in mind, trials with lawyer grow scarce and opening loopholes in the justice system.

"Ace Attorney" is taking center stage but he will not emerge as a sole hero. The Wright Anything Agency is placed under the reins of a partner, Apollo Justice. Adventure Gamers reported that Apollo Justice will also co-star along the all-time favorite "Ace Attorney" as he will be solving cases of his own. The puzzles and investigative quality of previous "Ace Attorney" will be carried over in this brand new Capcom release.

Engadget stated that this "Ace Attorney" game will revive beloved characters like Miles Edgeworth, Ema Syke and Maya Fey. Fans are clamoring for "The Great Ace Attorney" release that will feature an investigative adventure for Phoenix Wright and infamous predecessor, Sherlock Holmes.

September cannot come soon enough for avid gamers, and Nintendo 3DS continue to thrive in game exclusive releases that will be a sure hit in the market along with the upcoming Pokemon. But there seems to be an injustice for some of the most loyal Nintendo-Capcom fans. Phoenix Wright: "Ace Attorney"- Spirit of Justice will come out only as an e-version found in the Nintendo digital stores. Maybe the "Ace Attorney" should fix that first?
Apple iOS 9.3.1 Jailbreak Release Status Updates: New Beta Firmware Downloadable; Fake Tools Make Rounds Online

Apple users waiting for an iOS 9.3.1 jailbreak update must be aware that existing tools, which claim to do the job, are all fake. The only claimed success we know at this point is the one built by Luca Todesco, but of course, he is not sharing. The Italian hacker is reportedly able to jailbreak an iPhone running iOS 9.3.

For instance an iOS 9.3.x jailbreak tool which goes by the name "3K Jailbreak" is nothing more but hoax, Redmond Pie notes. On top of being fake, it can also bring dangerous malwares and viruses, so users are advised to avoid it. Do not be confused, as it is not created by the 3K Assistant team.

This only means that to date, there is no fully-functional jailbreak tool available for iOS 9.3.1. Because Chinese jailbreak teams Pangu and TaiG do not usually provide pre-release updates, users on the lookout for available tools fall for scams and their common result in the form of malwares.

It has been reported that iOS 9.3 and 9.3.1 are using roughly the same level of security, which means exploits pushed in the earlier software can be carried out in the later build. Apple itself has written, "iOS 9.3.1 includes the security content of iOS 9.3."

It must also be noted that Apple has stopped signing some firmwares, Neurogadget reports. These include iOS 9.2.1, which disables downgrading from iOS 9.3 or 9.3.1, and iOS 9.3, which disables downgrading from a later software, such as when a jailbreak tool becomes available.

For those who may not know, Apple released the fourth iOS 9.3.2 beta earlier this month, MacRumors says, for developers and public beta testers. The update comes a week after release of the third beta. It can be downloaded over-the-air (OTA) or through the Developer site.

Note: Jailbreak tools are available for earlier firmwares. While the process is legal, it does not come without risks, so it is important to have complete understanding before initiating tools. If you change your mind, it is removable through restoration via iTunes.
Officers & Directors

Stefani Sackinger, community liaison to Linn and Benton counties for Benton Hospice Service, recently was appointed to serve a two-year term on the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization Professional Education Committee.

The committee is made up of hospice and palliative care professionals from across the nation.

The Professional Education Committee helps identify professional practice gaps in the field, identify educational needs, advise NHPCO staff on the development and delivery of professional development activities and assist in the evaluation of professional development activities and in evaluating the effectiveness of NHPCOs Professional Development program.

Sackingers background includes 10 years researching medical topics for health care professionals as a medical librarian. She has worked for Benton Hospice Service since August 2014.

Benton Hospice Service is an independent nonprofit organization providing compassionate care for seriously ill people and support for their families, as well as service to the community through caregiver and bereavement education and support groups. Benton Hospice has served Linn and Benton counties since 1980. To learn more about Benton Hospice Service or volunteering, call 541-757-9616 or visit www.bentonhospice.org.

People on the Move

Coldwell Banker Valley Brokers recently welcomed Mark Rudzik to its Albany team.

Rudzik is a longtime member of the community with much experience in buying and selling homes of his own. He is working with first-time home buyers or buyers who are new to the area. He can be reached at 541-974-5188 or mrudzik@valleybrokers.com.

Michelle Poturich, a 10-year professional in the investment services industry, recently joined Oregon State Credit Union as a CUSO financial services financial advisor.

Poturich comes to Oregon State Credit Union from San Diego, where she developed a track record of building relationships and working to provide solutions to members for more than a decade as a financial adviser and as a Regional Investment Platform manager.

She has been working in the financial services industry since 2005 and holds the Certified Retirement Counselor designation. Poturich has worked in large brokerage firms, banks and most recently for a CFS credit union in California. She is a 2002 graduate of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, with a degree in English education.

Take a Bow

The Oregon Academy of Science has made its 2016 awards for outstanding scientist and college educator.

Three Oregon State University professors won awards. OSU chemistry professor Mas Subramanian of the College of Science won the Outstanding Scientist Award. The Outstanding Educator in Science and Mathematics, Higher Education, Award went to OSU professor of mathematics Tevian Dray of the College of Science and OSU professor of physics Corinne Manogue, also of the College of Science.

These awards promote merit in research and education by recognizing individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to science. Academy officials say award winners serve as inspirational leaders to members of the Oregon Academy of Science, and embody the core values of serving students and advancing science for the common good.

Subramanian, OSUs Milton Harris Professor of Materials Science, was recognized for his innovative contributions to materials discovery, including discovering the first new stable blue pigment in nearly two centuries.

Dray and Manogue have co-authored dozens of publications addressing ways to improve mathematics and physics education.
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
Smoke detectors : Requirements soon in effect

Rauchmelder gehoren an jede Zimmerdecke. Feuerwehrleute zielen mit ihrer Aufklarungsarbeit jetzt verstarkt auch auf altere Leute. Denn oft geht es bei den Einsatzen der Feuerwehr um Senioren Foto: dpa

Bonn Many people in Bonn are not aware of the requirement to install smoke detectors in their homes. Landlords and renters both have obligations.

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Every year in Germany, around 600 people die as a result of smoke inhalation, most of them within their own four walls. It isnt the fire that kills but the highly poisonous smoke. Victims often die in their sleep through suffocation. City spokesperson Marc Hoffman emphasizes that smoke detectors can prevent the worst from happening, that they have proven to be a valuable preventative measure. The sound of a smoke alarm going off provides a warning that can help people take action in time.

Remarkably, many households in Bonn seem to have not received this message. Most states in Germany require people to have smoke detectors in their homes but this is not always put into practice. According to a Forsa poll taken in 2015, only 28 percent of private home owners in North Rhein Westphalia (NRW) had smoke detectors installed. In NRW, this has been an obligation since April 1, 2013 for both newly built and older homes. The grace period for mounting adequate smoke detectors runs out on December 31 of 2016.

While many rental apartment owners are normally well informed about the smoke detector requirements, private homeowners are not. Christian Rudolph, Chair of the forum Brandrauchpravention (fire smoke prevention), calls for residents to take action, We urge private homeowners especially to get your smoke detectors installed to protect your home adequately.
An opportunity for foodies and beer lovers to get lost in a world of food and drink from a hand-selected range of food trucks and breweries from around New Zealand.
5 Reasons Why Ranveer Singh Opted to Endorse the Vivo V3 Max Smartphone! Features oi -Ankit

Vivo India launched their flagship smartphones - the V3 and V3 Max - at a press event in Mumbai, just before this year's IPL. At the event, Vivo also announced that actor Ranveer Singh would be the company's brand ambassador.

10 Best Accessories for Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Smartphone

We got hold of the bigger unit, the V3 Max and decided to put it to use. Here are the reasons why we think the Vivo V3 Max is one of the coolest smartphones out there.

4GB RAM at an amazing price point

There is no doubt in the fact that the Vivo V3 Max has 4 gigabytes of RAM packed in at a price of just Rs. 23,980. This puts it in comparison with other such smartphones like the Xiaomi Mi 5, Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5, all of which come with 4GB of RAM but are priced much higher, some even 2x the price. This, relatively, makes the V3 Max one of the fastest and snappiest smartphones, on a budget.

Sophisticated camera optics

The latest technology in mobile camera optics, Phase Detection Auto Focus or PDAF is not quite common in smartphone options in this price range. Both the V3 as well as V3 Max equip this tech in their rear camera sensors. It is currently proving to offer the fastest focusing times in real-life testing scenarios. Samsung kicked off the PDAF tech with the Galaxy S5, followed by Apple introducing something similar under the marketing name 'Focus Pixels' on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Sony has the system in its newest IMX230 sensor as well, calling it hybrid autofocus.

The new kickass audio engine

Launched in India by Vivo, the AK4375 Hi-Fi audio chip is something that has always been the unique selling point for their smartphones, especially after the X5Max. It is a special audio chip that enhances sound quality by focusing on all highs and lows in the type of music you play with it, in short it manages the variations in your music automatically.

A brilliant 360-degree fingerprint sensor

Most smartphones now come with fingerprint sensors on them, providing extra security for your precious data. The Vivo V3 and V3 Max also follow suit but there is a feature that stands out. The fingerprint sensor on both these smartphones is placed on the rear and provides 360-degree feedback. This means that whatever way you use your finger to register a fingerprint; it will read it, irrespective of the angle of your finger. As complicated as it may sound, this feature is quite a nifty way to reduce phone unlocking time.

When we put it to use, we were surprised by the results. As a lot of you may know, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 has a fairly fast fingerprint sensor but we were astonished to find out that the Vivo V3 Max performed twice as better, both in terms of speed as well as accuracy.

The questionable pricing

While the Vivo V3 Max comes with 4GB of RAM, specficiations like a Snapdragon 652 and a Full HD display rank it a bit below the current market flagships, when it comes to benchmarks and performance tests. Despite the low specs, there doesn't seem to be a moment wherein the V3 Max lags or stutters while multitasking on it. Heavy usage is a breeze on the smartphone.

Best Mobiles in India

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CIA 'mistakenly' destroys 6,700-page torture report

Iran Press TV

Mon May 16, 2016 6:3PM

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has "mistakenly" deleted its only copy of a Senate report into the agency's brutal interrogation techniques.

The CIA Office of Inspector General (OIG), the spy agency's internal watchdog, told the Congress that the electronic copy of the Senate Intelligence Committee's 6,700-page report and a hard disk were destroyed last summer.

A 500-page summary of the report was released to the public by then-Senate Intelligence chair Dianne Feinstein in 2014.

Feinstein said in letters to the agency and Justice Department that the CIA inspector general "has misplaced and/or accidentally destroyed" its only copy of the report.

Last August, acting inspector general Christopher Sharpley uploaded the file onto the office's internal classified computer system and then destroyed the hard disk in what described as the standard protocol.

Meanwhile, someone else in the office misinterpreted the Justice Department's instructions not to open the file to mean that it should be deleted from the server. Both the original and the copy were both deleted.

At some point, CIA general counsel Caroline Krass told the watchdog that the Justice Department wanted all copies of the report to be preserved. The watchdog's officials then carried out a research to find its copy, but understood they don't have one.

Sharpley apologized for the destruction of the report and promised to ask CIA chief John Brennan for another copy.

Cori Crider, a director with the international human rights group Reprieve, described the destruction of the report as "stunning", saying the move was part of a bigger effort to remove the practices from history.

"One worries that no one is minding the store," Crider said in a statement.

The report includes details about the agency's brutal interrogation techniques such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation at prisones overseas.

The 500-page executive summary concluded that the spy agency's interrogation methods were far more brutal than what the agency had publicly acknowledged.

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.

The CIA reportedly paid $81 million to the psychologists to act as contractors to help run the torture program.

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U.S., Coalition Continue Strikes Against ISIL in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, May 15, 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 seven strikes in Syria:

-- Near Shadaddi, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL vehicle.

-- Near Manbij, four strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL mortar system, six ISIL artillery pieces and an ISIL vehicle.

-- Near Mara, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position.

Strikes in Iraq

Rocket artillery and bomber and fighter aircraft conducted nine strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:

-- Near Mosul, four strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, an ISIL assembly area and three ISIL vehicles.

-- Near Qayyarah, two strikes struck an ISIL vehicle-borne bomb storage facility and destroyed two ISIL boats.

-- Near Ramadi, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL supply cache, two ISIL rockets, an ISIL vehicle and two ISIL heavy machine guns.

-- Near Sinjar, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions.

-- Near Waleed, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL vehicle, an ISIL mortar system and three ISIL weapons storage facilities.

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, the region, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.

Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

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Difficult matters hinder deal between Yemeni warring parties: UN envoy

Iran Press TV

Sun May 15, 2016 6:10PM

The UN special envoy says a number of"difficult matters" remain unresolved to clinch an accord between Yemen's warring parties during ongoing UN-brokered talks in Kuwait.

United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said during a press briefing in Kuwait City on Sunday that some progress had been achieved in the talks between representatives of Yemen's Ansarullah movement and delegates loyal to Saudi-backed resigned president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

The envoy declined to elaborate on any progress made during the talks which began on April 21.

"Now, we have an opportunity to reach a peaceful settlement... the progress we have made on some points makes us optimistic," the UN envoy said, adding, "But there remains some difficult matters... the problem is reaching a clear political agreement."

The remarks come as foes have made no significant progress other than a preliminary agreement to release half of the prisoners before the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in the first week of June.

The ongoing peace talks on Yemen have failed to establish peace as delegations trade accusations of violation of ceasefire that took effect on April 11.

They are also being held against the backdrop of incessant airstrikes by Saudi warplanes against its impoverished neighbor.

In the latest aerial aggression, several people are feared killed as Saudi warplanes bombed civilian targets across Yemen's Saada, Sana'a and Ma'rib provinces, despite international warnings about deteriorating humanitarian crisis in the war-hit country.

Houthi Ansarullah movement has accused Saudi Arabia and its mercenaries of constantly violating the truce agreement across the country.

On Thursday, Ansarullah spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam in a Twitter post accused the Hadi camp of blocking UN-brokered Yemen peace talks in Kuwait.

Ansarullah leader Abdel Malek al-Houthi recently reiterated that a political solution to the Yemen conflict is close at hand, but the obstinacy of the invading countries is an impediment to that goal.

UN envoy to Yemen has called on the warring parties to "make concessions in order to strike a comprehensive peaceful solution" to the conflict.

Yemen has seen under almost daily military attacks by Saudi Arabia since late March 2015. More than 9,500 people have been killed in Saudi airstrikes during 13 months of Riyadh's military campaign against the impoverished Arab country.

Hundreds of schools, medical centers, fuel depots, power plants, airports, docks, harbors, bridges, roads, tourism centers, historical sites, mosques, food warehouses, water reserve tanks, communications towers and stadiums have been struck ever since Saudi Arabia launched its military strikes late March last year to bring fugitive former Yemeni president back to power.

The Britain-based Amnesty International and several other rights groups have documented grave violations of humanitarian and human rights law, including possible war crimes, during the ongoing Saudi aggression in Yemen.

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Azerbaijan to perform military drills with Turkey, Georgia

Iran Press TV

Sun May 15, 2016 5:44PM

The Republic of Azerbaijan has declared joint military drills with Turkey and Georgia, a move which is likely to increase tensions with neighboring Armenia prior to talks with Yerevan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

"To increase the combat capabilities and combat readiness of the Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia, we deemed it worthwhile to carry out joint military exercises," Azerbaijan's Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov said on Sunday, without specifying when the exercises would be carried out.

At least 46 people have been killed since April 1, when fighting broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Karabakh.

On Friday, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said an Azeri soldier had been killed by Armenian fire on Thursday.

On the Armenian side, a serviceman died of wounds on Saturday after reportedly being targeted by an Azeri sniper near southwestern Armenian border.

On April 3, Baku announced a "unilateral" ceasefire as a gesture of goodwill, warning, however, that it would strike back if its forces came under attack. Bouts of fighting were reported soon afterward.

The landlocked Karabakh region, which is located in the Azerbaijan Republic but is populated by Armenians, has been under the control of local ethnic Armenian militia and Armenian troops since a three-year war, which claimed over 30,000 lives, ended between the two republics in 1994 through mediation by Russia.

The presidents of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as diplomats from Russia, the US and France, are to meet in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Monday to discuss the situation in the volatile Nagorno-Karabakh.

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Germany Taking Part in NATO War Games Close to Russian Borders

Sputnik News

19:36 15.05.2016(updated 23:08 15.05.2016)

NATO has organized a large-scale military exercises in Estonia which are being carried out directly on the border with Russia. German soldiers are also actively taking part in the maneuver, German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) reported.

More than 5,000 soldiers from Germany, Estonia, the USA, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Lithuania and Latvia are currently taking part in NATO maneuvers in Estonia, DWN wrote, citing Delfi.

The maneuver "Spring Storm" is taking place 30 kilometers away from the Russian border and will last until May 20.

Germany's participation in NATO's military activities comes only a couple of weeks after the Bundeswehr announced its plans to deploy soldiers in Lithuania as part of NATO's mission aimed at "containing" possible Russian aggression.

Previously, Raimonds Graube, commander of the army of another Baltic state, Latvia, called Russia's political leadership "unpredictable" and appealed to NATO to be ready for a corresponding response.

The US has activated a new component of its missile defense shield in Europe at the Deveselu military base, in Romania, earlier this week. The move raised concerns among Russian politicians who view NATO's military buildup along the Russian borders as a threat to the country's security.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the system could be used to launch cruise missiles, thus violating the 1987 INF Treaty between Washington and Moscow and criticized the West for a very one-sided approach to the issue of missile defense.

 Sputnik

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US Surveillance Plane Reportedly Approaches Russian Border Over Baltic Sea

Sputnik News

18:18 15.05.2016

An RC-135V surveillance aircraft of the US Air Force came close to the Russian border, over the Baltic Sea, RIA Novosti reported citing Baltic Watch.

The aircraft, side number 64-14844 and call sign ELGIN33, took off from the Mildenhall airbase in Britain and flew to the southern part of the Baltic Sea.

According to the report, a Su-27 jet was scrambled to intercept the US plane.

The Sunday flyover is the latest in a series of incidents with the RC-135 aircraft and Russian warplanes in the Baltic Sea in the past few weeks.

Earlier this week, a USAF reconnaissance aircraft also flew over the Baltic Sea, near the Russian border.

The RC-135W US surveillance plane was tracked down flying over the southern area of the Baltic Sea near the Russian border. The plane's tail number, 62-4131, was tracked as it flew over the territory of the United States less than 24 hours ago, according to the website planefinder.net.

The aircraft reportedly conducted a 10-hour observation flight at an altitude of more than 10,000 meters.

Late last month, Pentagon officials claimed that the Russian fighter jet Su-27 allegedly performed a "barrel roll" within about 24 feet of a US Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane.

In mid-April, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said all flights by airplanes from Russia's Aerospace Forces were completed in accordance with international norms. His comments came in response to statements that Russia completed dangerous actions over the Baltic Sea.

 Sputnik

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Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia to Hold Joint Military Drills

Sputnik News

13:27 15.05.2016(updated 15:10 15.05.2016)

Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia will hold joint military drills, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov said Sunday.

BAKU (Sputnik)  The defense ministers of Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan met in Qabala, Azerbaijan, earlier Sunday.

"In order to increase combat capabilities and readiness of the Azerbaijani, Turkish and Georgian armed forces we considered it appropriate to hold joint military exercises. [We] also stressed the need for close cooperation in the field of cybersecurity and the protection of oil and gas pipelines. I think this is why we should have joint military exercises," Hasanov told a press conference with his counterparts from Turkey and Georgia.

Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia intend to sign a memorandum of understanding in the defense sector, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov said Sunday.

"We intend to sign a Memorandum of Understanding in the defense sector. It will become a legal basis for our trilateral cooperation and will become the basis for a new stage of our trilateral cooperation. We are planning new projects in the future based on this format," Hasanov told a joint press conference with his counterparts.

 Sputnik

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Maduro: Venezuela to Hold Military Exercises to Prepare for 'Any Scenario'

Sputnik News

08:23 15.05.2016

Venezuela will hold national military exercises to prepare the country for "any scenario", President Nicolas Maduro said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that military exercises would begin in the country to repel any threats.

"Today the Bolivarian National Armed Forces issued a very clear and strong statement, and I have called for national military exercises next Saturday for the armed forces, for people and the military to prepare ourselves for any scenario," Maduro said Saturday as quoted by the Panorama newspaper.

On Friday, Maduro extended the economic state of emergency in the country for three more months.

Maduro declared an economic emergency in Venezuela in January. The announcement came two days after Venezuela's oil price dropped to $24 a barrel, the lowest mark in 12 years. Up to 96 percent of Venezuela's budget depends on oil revenues.

The initial economic emergency decree was valid for 60 days. It was subsequently extended for two more months in March.

 Sputnik

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Afghan Security Forces Push Back Taliban Advance on Northern City

by Ayaz Gul May 15, 2016

Afghanistan security forces said Sunday they have halted advances overnight by the Taliban on a key northern city and inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy.

The fighting on the outskirts of Pul-e-Khumri, capital of Baghlan province, erupted when the Taliban overran several villages and security outposts, residents and insurgent sources said.

The hostilities temporarily closed the main highway, which links the national capital of Kabul with eight northern provinces as well as neighboring countries.

After security forces led successful counterattacks and forced the rebels to retreat, the road was reopened, provincial officials said.

A Taliban spokesman in a statement sent to reporters denied official claims and alleged the Afghan government was trying to hide its "defeat and losses" through such propaganda.

Insurgents in recent months have repeatedly seized control of parts of the more than 2,000-mile-long Ring Road network, which connects major Afghan population centers. The seizures occasionally disrupt traffic.

Peace talks

Meanwhile, government peace negotiators have concluded weeks of talks on a peace deal with another insurgent group that has for years fought alongside the Taliban.

Negotiators of the militant Hezb-i-Islami faction, which is led by fugitive Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, remained in Kabul to conduct further meetings.

However, officials cautioned it may be weeks before an agreement is reached.

But rights activists and many Afghans have criticized President Ashraf Ghani's reconciliation attempts with Hekmatyar.

The 68-year-old former prime minister is best known for allegedly killing thousands of civilians and committing human rights abuses during the Afghan infighting of the 1990s.

Hekmatyar's whereabouts

Afghan authorities believe that Hekmatyar is hiding in neighboring Pakistan. The United States has designated him a terrorist and his name is also included in a U.N. blacklist.

"You don't make peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies," Afghan first lady Rula Ghani said in responding to the criticism while speaking at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington on Friday.

Rula Ghani defended her husband's peace bid, saying he is not giving away any kind of "privilege or concession" on peoples rights.

"These [Hekmatyar] are now old people. They are ending their lives and they want to come to Afghanistan and finish their lives where they were born. ... So it is a hard one to swallow, I agree, [but]  we need to move on," she said.



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Military Strikes Target ISIL Terrorists in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, May 16, 2016  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

Bomber, fighter and attack aircraft conducted six strikes in Syria:

-- Near Abu Kamal, a strike struck an ISIL financial headquarters.

-- Near Tanf, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle and damaged an ISIL supply cache.

-- Near Manbij, a strike destroyed an ISIL rocket rail.

-- Near Mara, three strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed four ISIL fighting positions.

Strikes in Iraq

Bomber and fighter aircraft conducted eight strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:

-- Near Albu Hayat, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

-- Near Rutbah, a strike destroyed eight ISIL fighting positions and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Habbaniyah, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, an ISIL bunker, an ISIL front end loader, an ISIL artillery piece and an ISIL recoilless rifle.

-- Near Kisik, a strike suppressed an ISIL mortar position.

-- Near Mosul, three strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL vehicles and three ISIL assembly areas.

Additionally, a May 13 strike in Iraq near Albu Hayat was not reported due to administrative error. The strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle bomb-making facility.

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, the region, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.

Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

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'Extremely Aggressive' Russia Endangers Lives, Work Says

By Lisa Ferdinando DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2016  In buzzing the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea last month, Russia engaged in reckless actions that unnecessarily endangered lives, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work said.

"It's clear that the Russians are becoming extremely aggressive in both the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea," Work told reporters May 12, as he traveled from Romania to Poland.

Russian aircraft performed multiple, aggressive low-altitude flight maneuvers April 11 and April 12 near the Donald Cook, a U.S. Navy destroyer operating in international waters, U.S. European Command officials said.

Crews at Risk

"Those guys were coming in hot and close," Work said, adding those maneuvers put the Russian crews at risk for a crash into the sea. "When you're going that fast that close to the water [and you encounter] any type of a problem -- a bird strike, a seagull, anything like that -- you're cartwheeling in the drink."

The United States, he said, is going to ensure Russia understands the area is in international waters and the U.S. will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.

Not only were the actions irresponsible, Work said, but if a crash did occur, Russia would immediately think the United States shot the plane down -- and the actions that would follow cannot be predicted.

"We often go out and look at Russian ships," he said. "But we generally do it at a safe altitude and without simulating attack runs -- that is a surefire way to have an accident, and once an accident occurs, you don't know what [would happen] afterwards."

Work was in Romania and Poland last week to participate in two Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense site ceremonies.

Throughout his trip, Work stressed the ballistic missile defense capabilities were not directed at any Russian threat. The Aegis Ashore sites, he said, are part of NATO's missile defense system to protect the alliance from a ballistic missile attack from outside the Euro-Atlantic region.

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Over nine million people in Lake Chad need food aid: UN

Iran Press TV

Mon May 16, 2016 5:59PM

The United Nations (UN) says more than nine million people living in the Lake Chad region are in dire need of food aid, blaming the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group for triggering the unrest in the area.

In a statement released on Monday, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said half of the region's residents are facing "chronic food insecurity" and malnutrition as the violence around Lake Chad "continues to deteriorate."

"Fighting has catastrophically worsened their vulnerability," the statement noted, saying the Boko Haram terrorist group is to blame for "the largest crisis of displaced people in Africa."

According to the UN, more than 2.4 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to the violence in the region which has claimed more than 20,000 lives.

In recent months, Boko Haram terrorists, who hail from Nigeria, have stepped up attacks and bombings on Chadian villages in the Lake Chad region as well as neighboring Niger and Cameroon.

In November last year, Chad declared a state of emergency in the flashpoint Lake region, which straddles Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger.

Regional countries have created a joint military force that plays a key role in helping Nigeria fight the terrorist group. Back in February, the four littoral nations of Lake Chad launched a military campaign, together with a contingent from Benin, to confront the threat from Boko Haram militants in the region.

Chad has the highest number of forces in the regional 8,700-strong military task force.

The Boko Haram terrorist group, which has pledged allegiance to the Daesh Takfiri militant group, has killed thousands of people, mostly civilians, since it launched its terrorist activities in Nigeria in 2009.

The Takfiri militant group has intensified its campaign of terror since President Mohammadu Buhari came to power in the African country in May 2015.

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Armenia, Azerbaijan Presidents To Meet In Vienna Over Nagorno-Karabakh

May 16, 2016

by RFE/RL

The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents are set to meet in Vienna to discuss a fragile cease-fire in Azerbaijan's breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The meeting between Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliyev will be their first face-to-face encounter since Nagorno-Karabakh in early April saw its worst violence in two decades.

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said on May 16 that she would meet with the presidents. Her announcement, made on social media, did not say if she would meet with them together or separately.

AFP reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry -- in Vienna for multilateral talks on Syria and Libya -- would also meet with the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents.

Diplomats from the co-chairs of the so-called Minsk Group of mediators in the conflict -- the United States, Russia, and France -- are to attend the talks.

"For now, the main aim for the mediators is to just calm down the tensions along the front line," Armenia-based political analyst Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan told the AFP news agency. "The signing of any documents or reaching of any other sort of agreements is highly unlikely."

"If the meeting in Vienna does not yield any results, then the likelihood of a repeat of April fighting increases," according to Elkhan Shainoglu of the Atlas think tank in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for years.

The region, populated mainly by ethnic Armenians, declared independence from Azerbaijan amid a 1988-94 war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

Internationally mediated negotiations with the involvement of the Minsk Group have failed to result in a resolution.

On April 2, Nagorno-Karabakh saw its worst violence since a shaky cease-fire was reached in 1994 between Azerbaijan and Armenia-backed separatists.

A fresh Russian-brokered cease-fire deal went into effect on April 5, but the sides in the conflict have been accusing each other of breaching the truce agreement.

About 75 soldiers from both sides were killed in April, along with several civilians.

And there are fears of a possible escalation, with Turkey strongly backing Azerbaijan and Russia, which has sold weapons to both sides, obliged to protect Armenia by a mutual security pact.

A day before meeting in Vienna, the defense ministers of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgia met to discuss joint military exercises.

"To increase the combat capabilities and combat readiness of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgia, we deemed it worthwhile to carry out joint military exercises," Azerbaijan's Defense Minister Zakir Gasanov said after the May 15 talks in the Azerbaijani city of Qabala.

"Georgia has expressed willingness to host several such exercises in 2017," his Georgian counterpart, Tina Khidasheli, said. "We have received consent, so we will prepare for spring 2017."

With reporting by AFP, TASS, and Civil.ge

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/armenia-azerbaijan-presidents- to-meet-in-vienna-over-karabakh/27736636.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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World Powers Back Lifting Libyan Arms Embargo

by Pamela Dockins May 16, 2016

World powers say they will back Libya's new government in its bid to lift a U.N. arms embargo, a move that could help the government combat internal security threats and fight Islamic State.

Secretary of State John Kerry announced the decision following a multi-nation meeting chaired by the United States and Italy.

The United States and the international community "stand ready, to provide humanitarian, economic and security support to the new Libyan government," Kerry said. But he said world powers are not talking about troops or "boots on the ground" in Libya.

The internationally recognized Government of National Accord is facing challenges from rival factions and Islamic State-affiliated militants who have established a base in the central city of Sirte and have used that base to launch attacks in neighboring Tunisia.

In a joint news conference Friday, Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj described the situation in his country as "bad" in terms of the economy and security.

He urged world powers to provide additional training and equipment for Libyan forces, saying Libya's neighbors would not be "spared" if terrorism grows inside the country.



"Libya is a keystone for access to the Sahel, the Maghreb, the Near East and the Mediterranean and Europe and to have Daesh have a foothold in Libya is bad for everybody," he said.

Libya has been grappling to overcome the chaos that followed the 2011 ouster and killing of leader Moammar Gadhafi. World powers are hoping the Government of National Accord can unite the country.

Representatives from 19 other countries in the region joined the talks, along with the United Nations, African Union, EU and Arab League.

Effort to help stabilize Nagorno-Karabakh

Another focal point was a multi-national effort to help stabilize Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan that was the scene of intense fighting in April.

The two countries accused each other of violating a cease-fire. The flare-up was partly fueled by a worsening economic situation in Azerbaijan because of the fall of oil prices.

Monday's sessions are the first time the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan have met since the flare-up.

A senior State Department official said the United States wants both countries to re-commit to a 1994 cease-fire agreement and a negotiating process that will lead to a comprehensive settlement.

"We would like to see an outcome where the presidents agree to certain steps that can reduce tensions along the line of contact," the official said Monday.

The official, who spoke before the talks, also said the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe needed enhanced monitoring for violations in the disputed region. The U.S., Russia and France serve as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, which has been working to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Ongoing concerns about Syria's stability

The talks in Vienna follow Kerry's visit to Saudi Arabia, where he sought that government's support in strengthening a ceasefire agreement between Syrian government forces and rebels before broader talks on Syria.

Tuesday, the 17-nation International Syria Support Group will convene in Vienna to discuss the stalled political talks, difficulties in maintaining the February cease-fire and uneven U.N. results in delivering humanitarian aid. U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has indicated he will await the results of the meeting before setting a date for the next round of proximity talks between the government and the opposition.

Kerry will also attend a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels and then will travel to Burma in a show of U.S. support for the country's newly elected government.

In the following week, Kerry will join President Barack Obama in Vietnam.

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Kenya Sees 3rd Week of Anti-Electoral Commission Rallies

by Jill Craig May 16, 2016

For the third Monday in a month, hundreds of protesters gathered in Nairobi to demand major reforms in the country's electoral commission, starting with the resignation of the commission members. Protests also took place in western Kenya.

The protesters, most of whom are supporters of the opposition CORD coalition, accuse the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, IEBC, of favoring the ruling Jubilee coalition. They say the commission is unable to conduct free, fair, and transparent elections.

James Orengo, a Kenyan senator with CORD who led the crowd in chanting, "no reforms, no elections," says a fair vote cannot be held with the current electoral commission in place.

"But, we are determined to make sure that if there's going to be an election at all, then the elections must be held in terms set out by the Kenyan constitution, which says that the elections must be free and fair," said Orengo. "An election where every vote counts, and [where] everybody has been given an opportunity to register as a voter."

The demonstration Monday never proceeded to speeches, as police began using tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters.

Orengo says one demonstrator, whom he accompanied to a hospital, was shot by police with a live bullet.

Ali Hassan owns a restaurant in the building where the IEBC is based and says he was victimized by both protesters and the police.

"The protesters broke into my restaurant, they have vandalized everything," Hassan said. "The police also have thrown live tear gas, into the restaurant, into the kitchen. "

Orengo disputes the protesters were unruly.

"No, that is propaganda, that is propaganda," said Orengo. "All our protesters, all our people were carrying twigs, they were told to carry twigs or carry handkerchiefs."

The protests will continue every Monday, said Orengo, until the government decides to sit down with the opposition and engage in meaningful dialogue about the electoral process.

Kenya is scheduled to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in August 2017.

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Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

1966-76

Students and teachers returning to high schools across the country in September 2020 found some changes to history textbooks and teaching materials on the topic of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The changes blurred the role of late supreme leader Mao Zedong in instigating and sustaining a decade of political violence and social turmoil in a bid to eliminate his political rivals, describing instead a decade of "arduous exploration."

In the new school year of 2019, the new textbook was first used in six provincial regions, including Beijing and Shanghai. The textbook will be adopted by all regions in the Chinese mainland by 2022. Previously, there were several different versions of history textbooks. Some talked more about the Cultural Revolution and some less, but all of them were based on the unified syllabus.

In the history textbook for high school freshmen published by the People's Education Press under the Ministry of Education, namely the "Outline of China and World history," the definition of the Cultural Revolution is still exactly from the decision concerning the historical questions about the event at the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC. "The Cultural Revolution did not in fact constitute a revolution or social progress in any sense, nor could it possibly have done so. It was initiated by a leader laboring under misapprehension and capitalized on by counter-revolutionary cliques, leading to domestic turmoil that brought catastrophe to the Party, the country and the whole people," it read.

The Cultural Revolution had its origin in a wide range of complex factors, but Mao Tse-tung unquestionably played the central role in setting off the upheaval. In an attempt to break with the Russian model of Communism and to imbue the Chinese people with renewed revolutionary vigor, Mao launched (1958) the Great Leap Foward. The program was a failure, and Mao withdrew temporarily from public view. The failure of this program also resulted in a break with the Soviet Union, which cut off aid. Mao accused Soviet leaders of betraying Marxism.

After the failure of Great Leap Forward, in 1960 Mao Zedong ceded control of China's government to three respected members of the CCP: Liu Shaoqi, an opponent of the Great Leap Forward, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. Liu, Zhou, and Deng were to repair China's economy and increase agricultural production.

Mao retained his chairmanship of the Communist party politburo. A campaign to reestablish Mao's ideological line culminated in the Cultural Revolution (196676).

But by 1966 Mao believed the Chinese revolution - his revolution - was running into the sands. Revolutionary enthusiasm and elan had been lost. Bureaucratic buck-passing and inertia were growing. Technical experts were vying with "revolutionary'" generalists for authority in making decisions. The problems of modernizing a huge, over-populated and backward country were growing rather than decreasing.

The "cultural revolution, " which lasted from May 1966 to October 1976, was responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the state and the people since the founding of the People's Republic. It was initiated and led by Comrade Mao Zedong. His principal theses were that many representatives of the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionary revisionists had sneaked into the Party, the government, the army and cultural circles, and leadership in a fairly large majority of organizations and departments was no longer in the hands of Marxists and the people; that Party persons in power taking the capitalist road had formed a bourgeois headquarters inside the Central Committee which pursued a revisionist political and organizational line and had agents in all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, as well as in all central departments; that since the forms of struggle adopted in the past had not been able to solve this problem, the power usurped by the capitalist-roaders could be recaptured only by carrying out a great cultural revolution, by openly and fully mobilizing the broad masses from the bottom up to expose these sinister phenomena; and that the cultural revolution was in fact a great political revolution in which one class would overthrow another, a revolution that would have to be waged time and again.

These theses appeared mainly in the May 16 Circular, which served as the programmatic document of the "cultural revolution, " and in the political report to the Ninth National Congress of the Party in April 1969. They were incorporated into a general theory-the "theory of continued revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" - which then took on a specific meaning.

The Communist Party of China's (CPC) official newspaper condemned the Cultural Revolution 50 years after it began, calling it "a mistake... that can not and will not be allowed to repeat itself." China has learned its lessons from the decade of tumult between 1966 and 1976 and is now determined to avoid any social unrest that would disrupt national progress, according to the commentary in the 17 May 2016 edition of the People's Daily.

"The Cultural Revolution was a major detour in the development path of the Party and the nation," it said. Since introducing the reform and opening-up policy more than 30 years ago, "the nation has been growing stronger and stronger and people's living standards have been improved markedly," according to the commentary.

"The historical lessons from the the Cultural Revolution must be firmly kept in mind" in this context, it said. "The Chinese people have never been so close to realizing the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," it went on, urging the CPC and the public to "dispel all disturbances" to ensure the goal is achieved.

The "cultural revolution," which lasted from May 1966 to October 1976, was responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the state and the people since the founding of the People's Republic. It was initiated and led by Comrade Mao Zedong.

His principal theses were that many representatives of the bourgeoisie and counterrevolutionary revisionists had sneaked into the Party, the government, the army and cultural circles, and leadership in a fairly large majority of organizations and departments was no longer in the hands of Marxists and the people; that Party persons in power taking the capitalist road had formed a bourgeois headquarters inside the Central Committee which pursued a revisionist political and organizational line and had agents in all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, as well as in all central departments; that since the forms of struggle adopted in the past had not been able to solve this problem, the power usurped by the capitalist-roaders could be recaptured only by carrying out a great cultural revolution, by openly and fully mobilizing the broad masses from the bottom up to expose these sinister phenomena; and that the cultural revolution was in fact a great political revolution in which one class would overthrow another, a revolution that would have to be waged time and again.

The "cultural revolution" was defined as a struggle against the revisionist line or the capitalist road. There were no grounds at all for this definition. It led to the confusing of right and wrong on a series of important theories and policies. Many things denounced as revisionist or capitalist during the "cultural revolution" were actually Marxist and socialist principles, many of which had been set forth or supported by Comrade Mao Zedong himself. The "cultural revolution" negated many of the correct principles, policies and achievements of the 17 years after the founding of the People's Republic. In fact, it negated much of the work of the Central Committee of the Party and the People's Government, including that of Comrade Mao and the arduous struggles the entire people had conducted in socialist construction.

The confusing of right and wrong inevitably led to confusing the people with the enemy. The "capitalist-roaders" overthrown in the "cultural revolution" were leading cadres of Party and government organizations at all levels, who formed the core force of the socialist cause. The so-called bourgeois headquarters inside the Party headed by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping simply did not exist. Irrefutable facts have proved that labelling Comrade Liu Shaoqi a "renegade, hidden traitor and scab" was nothing but a frame-up by Lin Biao, Jiang Qing and their followers. The political conclusion concerning Comrade Liu Shaoqi drawn by the 12th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party and the disciplinary measure it meted out to him were both utterly wrong. The criticism of the so-called reactionary academic authorities in the "cultural revolution" during which many capable and accomplished intellectuals were attacked and persecuted also badly muddled up the distinction between the people and the enemy.

Nominally, the "cultural revolution" was conducted by directly relying on the masses. In fact, it was divorced both from the Party organizations and from the masses. After the movement started, Party organizations at different levels were attacked and became partially or wholly paralysed, the Party's leading cadres at various levels were subjected to criticism and struggle, inner-Party life came to a standstill, and many activists and large numbers of the basic masses whom the Party has long relied on were rejected. At the beginning of the "cultural revolution, " the vast majority of participants in the movement acted out of their faith in Comrade Mao Zedong and the Party.

Except for a handful of extremists, however, they did not approve of launching ruthless struggles against leading Party cadres at all levels. With the lapse of time, following their own circuitous paths, they eventually attained a heightened political consciousness and consequently began to adopt a sceptical or wait-and-see attitude towards the "cultural revolution, " or even resisted and opposed it. Many people were assailed either more or less severely for this very reason. Such a state of affairs could not but provide openings to be exploited by opportunists, careerists and conspirators, not a few of whom were escalated to high or even key positions.

In the cultural revolution, rightist party officials were widely taken to mass meetings for denunciation and public humiliation. Sometimes they were forced to wear dunce caps, or have their heads shaved, or their faces painted with a big X. In one case Lius wife was forced to wear a slinky cocktail dress and a huge pearl-like necklace at a rally  publicly reenacting and mocking her non-revolutionary outfit worn on a foreign trip.

Mao opposed these methods (within the cultural revolution he had unleashed), but they were widely taken up  imitating the methods of peasants in land reform of cutting landlords down to size, speaking bitterness, and demonstrating how profoundly power relations had changed. Mao argued that it was one thing for peasants to do that after the guns of civil war had just stopped and the old society needed to be uprooted, but another thing for the Communist Party itself to adopt this as a method of struggle and criticism twenty years later.

Lin Biao, as Mao's "close comrade in arms", was a strong supporter of the Cultural Revolution. He displaced Liu Shaoqi in 1966 as the second-ranking member of the Communist Party of China, a position that made him Mao's heir. Lin Biao, Jiang Qing and others, were placed in important positions by Comrade Mao Zedong. They rigged up two counter-revolutionary cliques in an attempt to seize supreme power and, taking advantage of Comrade Mao Zedong's errors, committed many crimes behind his back, bringing disaster to the country and the people. Strangely, after 1969, Mao seemed to turn against Lin and his supporters.

The "cultural revolution" can be divided into three stages.

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5 Face Terror Charges Over Australia-Syria Boat Plan

by VOA News May 15, 2016

Australian authorities charged five men with terrorism-related charges Saturday after they were arrested earlier this week for attempting to sail to Indonesia and then travel on to join Islamist groups in Syria.

The men, including radical jihadist preacher Musa Cerantonio, could face a maximum sentence of life in prison if found guilty.

They are scheduled to appear in a Queensland state court Monday.

"The men ... were each charged with one count of making preparations for incursions into foreign countries for the purpose of engaging in hostile activities," the Australian Federal Police said in a statement.

All five men were arrested Tuesday after towing a seven-meter boat almost 3,000 kilometers from Melbourne to Cairns, where they planned to set sail to Indonesia.

The men's passports had been suspended several months ago, "because the relevant level of concern about their intentions were known to us," Australia's Attorney General George Brandeis said.

Under surveillance

"There is a number of people in Australia under surveillance, and in the event that they were to attempt a terrorist crime, or to attempt to leave Australia in order to perpetrate terrorist war fighting overseas, then they would be taken into custody," Brandeis said.

Australia has been on a heightened alert for homegrown terrorism since September 2014, when it raised its terror threat level to high.

Since then, it has passed several laws aimed at curtailing terrorism, including the law that allowed it to cancel the passports of suspected extremists.

During that time, authorities have also conducted a series of counterterrorism raids across the country, arresting at least several people on suspicion of planning domestic terrorist attacks and involvement with Islamic militants fighting in Iraq and Syria.

Cerantonio, the radical Islamic preacher and vocal supporter of the Islamic State group, was previously arrested in the Philippines in 2014 and deported to Australia due to his support for the extremist group.

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Why Islamic State Militants Care So Much About Sykes-Picot

May 16, 2016

by James Miller

One hundred years ago, on May 16, 1916, representatives from the United Kingdom and France (with the agreement of Russia) met in secret and signed what has come to be known as the SykesPicot Agreement. The pact, signed amid World War I, divided the Ottoman Empire into spheres of imperial control, and is often held responsible for establishing the current borders of the Middle East.

The agreement has been widely criticized in recent years, particularly after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, because to many its borders are not just a symbol of foreign imperialism but also reflect what they see as the lack of understanding of the Middle East -- then and now -- demonstrated by world leaders. Ethnic groups were split across borders and when sectarian violence erupted in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, many blamed Sykes-Picot for pitting ethnic groups against each other.

Understanding Sykes-Picot is also central to understanding the ideology (or at least the propaganda) of the Islamic State (IS) militant group. In the summer of 2014, the terrorist organization had seized large amounts of territory in both Iraq and Syria. The group had recently pronounced that it was changing its name from Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (Greater Syria) to just "Islamic State."

According to IS's well-crafted message, it was no longer an organization operating within two countries: It was its own state, and by establishing an Islamic caliphate in the region, it was actively destroying the vestiges of foreign imperialism. IS's English-language propaganda outlet, the Al-Hayat Media Center, released a video called The End Of Sykes-Picot, which showed the destruction of the border between Iraq and Syria. An IS fighter provided a video tour, in clear English, of the border crossing that Iraqi soldiers had abandoned. The "so-called border," according to the IS fighter, was established by Arab leaders and Western imperialists. There is no border, he said, the world belongs to Allah, "we are all one country," and IS-held territory should not be divided. He quoted IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as saying he was "the breaker of barriers."

In the propaganda video, IS was echoing and amplifying the sentiment that Sykes-Picot is a symbol of foreign meddling, but the militant group was also modifying this message for their own purposes, and crucially accusing Muslim leaders of complicity in these crimes, a key theme of IS propaganda.

The reality, however, is much more complicated. There's an argument to be made that the agreements made at the 1920 San Remo conference -- attended by leaders from Britain, France, Italy, and Japan -- rather than the Sykes-Picot deal, are ultimately responsible for the internal borders we know today. Regardless, those agreements didn't actually establish the internal borders -- only the larger imperial ones. As such, Sara Pursley, a historian who works on the modern Middle East, has pointed out that the map drawn by Sykes-Picot actually more closely resembles the map used by IS than the current geopolitical borders we're familiar with. The internal borders were established over a long period of time and the process had a great deal to do with local power struggles, rather than simply foreign imperial meddling.

There's another major flaw in IS's logic: Sykes-Picot actually placed Deir-ez-Zour -- the regional capital in eastern Syria and an IS stronghold -- outside of the territory that we now know as Syria. Pursley points out that it was actually an internal conflict that eventually landed Deir-ez-Zour in Syria. Pursley writes that the then-Ottoman province was placed on the French side of the border, but after a conflict with the Arab army in Syria local leaders appealed to the British to annex the region, which they did, but locals soon petitioned Damascus to reincorporate the region in Syria.

"Ironically, it was the Iraqi nationalist officers of al-Ahd al-Iraqi who were ultimately responsible for the inclusion of Dayr al-Zur within Syria. They hoped to use the region as a base for launching attacks from Syria on British occupation forces in Iraq -- and that is what they did, thereby helping to spark the 1920 revolt. In 1923, Baghdad-based Iraqi nationalist Muhammad Mahdi al-Basir explained the Dayr al-Zur decision: 'Iraqis [in Syria] were working for the liberation of Iraq, even if that required annexing much of its land for the Syrian government.' Leading British officials, including Acting Civil Commissioner in Iraq at the time, A.T. Wilson, later asserted that Britain's acquiescence at Dayr al-Zur -- i.e., the evacuation of its troops and relinquishing of the province to the Arab army in Syria -- helped precipitate the entire 1920 revolt, not only by providing the Iraqi nationalist officers in Syria a base for cross-border military operations but also by giving other opponents of the British Mandate within Iraq a sense of Britain's vulnerability."

In other words, discord between Muslims living in the heart of what is now IS territory led to the border being established where it is now. Western imperialism played a key role, but only in so much as they were reacting to political realities on the ground.

Crucially, however, IS's message is not working. If the militant group's goal is to inspire others to break down these borders and unify under a single Islamic state, there does not seem to be any sign IS is tapping into a wider collective desire.

Anthropology professor Jon W. Anderson of the Catholic University of America says that the borders established after World War I are widely accepted by those in the Middle East, and with each passing generation they become more firmly established.

In an interview with RFE/RL, Anderson said that, save for the wishes of Islamic State militants, "there doesn't seem to be much sentiment for revision" of the borders. He points out that "the longest-running internecine conflict, the Lebanese civil war, was over dominance within those boundaries and resulted in a settlement affirming them." Jordan and Israel are not going anywhere, either. Neither is Syria -- in fact, the Syrian opposition that opposes IS has also vocally opposed the breaking up of Syria, as has Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Despite IS's propaganda, and 100 years after Sykes-Picot, it seems there is little appetite to rewrite the map of the Middle East.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/why-islamic-state-cares- so-much-about-sykes-picot/27738467.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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China slams Pentagon's annual military report as distorted

Iran Press TV

Sun May 15, 2016 6:55AM

Beijing has expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with the US Defense Department's annual report on military and security developments involving China, calling it a deliberate distortion of Chinese defense policies.

In its annual report to Congress, the Pentagon said on Friday that China is expected to add massive military infrastructure, including communications and surveillance systems, to artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea this year.

China's Defense Ministry spokesman, Yang Yujun, said on Sunday that Beijing "follows a national defense policy that is defensive in nature."

He added that Beijing's "deepening military reforms and its strengthening of weapons and equipment building are aimed at maintaining sovereignty, security and territorial integrity and guaranteeing China's peaceful development."

The Pentagon report "unfairly" depicted Chinese activities in the East and South China seas and "willfully distorted China's national defense policy," Yang said, noting that the US was too suspicious.

The US report also claimed that China was focused on developing and weaponizing the islands in the South China Sea.

It accused Beijing of "increasingly assertive efforts to advance its national sovereignty and territorial claims and a lack of transparency about its military activities.

Yang said it was Washington that had been frequently dispatching military aircraft and warships to the South China Sea "to make a show of force," accusing the US of having an "intention to exert hegemony."

The South China Sea has become a source of tension between China, the US, and some other regional countries, who are seeking control of trade routes and mineral deposits there.

China has on different occasions asserted its sovereignty over the sea, parts of which are also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Washington has blamed Beijing with attempting to take advantage of the situation and gradually asserting control over the region.

China, however, rejects the allegations and says the US is interfering in regional affairs, deliberately stirring tensions in the South China Sea.

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Beijing Criticizes US Report on China's Military Development

by VOA News May 15, 2016

China's defense ministry expressed its "strong dissatisfaction" with the United States, criticizing an annual report by the U.S. Department of Defense as misrepresenting the country's military development.

The Defense Department report to the U.S. Congress, issued Friday, said that China was focused on developing and weaponizing the islands it has built in the disputed waters of the South China Sea so it will have greater control over the maritime region without resorting to armed conflict.

On Saturday, Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun told the state news agency Xinhua the U.S. report on China's military activities in 2015 had "willfully distorted China's national defense policy."

"China follows a national defense policy that is defensive in nature. Moves such as deepening military reforms and the military buildup are aimed at maintaining sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, and guaranteeing China's peaceful development," Yang said.

The Pentagon report accused China of "increasingly assertive efforts to advance its national sovereignty and territorial claims" and a lack of transparency about its growing military capabilities, which are causing tensions with other countries in the region.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have claims to parts of the sea. The U.S. has said it takes no side in the territorial disputes, but supports freedom of passage in the area, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year.

'Military threat'

Yang said the report hyped up "China's military threat" and unfairly depicted China's activities in the East China and South China seas. He accused the U.S. of being overly suspicious in its claims.

In speaking to reporters at the Pentagon Friday, Abraham Denmark, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, said the report's "facts speak for themselves. ... China continues to focus on preparing for potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait."

Denmark noted trends in the report.

 China's maritime activities.

He said Beijing had used assertive tactics to reclaim existing outposts and began building military facilities on large swaths of land in the South China Sea in 2015.

"China's leadership demonstrated a willingness to tolerate higher levels of tension in pursuit of its maritime sovereignty claims," Denmark said. "China's strategy is to secure its objectives without jeopardizing the regional peace that has enabled its military and economic development, which in tum has maintained the Chinese Communist Party's grip on power."

 China's growing global military presence.

"China's leaders are leveraging the country's power to expand its international influence -- and its military footprint overseas," Denmark said.

The report noted China's November announcement that it was establishing a military facility in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa. It said China was also expected to establish naval logistics hubs in countries with which it shares interests, including Pakistan.

"This is a big step forward for the PLA [People's Liberation Army], which has never had an overseas facility before," he said.

Denmark also said China's 2015 defense spending was higher than it publicly disclosed and had reached $180 billion, compared with an official Chinese of $144 billion.

Runways, ports

The Defense Department, in its most detailed assessment of China's island-building program to date, found that three of the land features in the Spratly Islands now have nearly 10,000-foot runways and large ports in various stages of construction.

It also found China has excavated deep channels, created and dredged harbors, and constructed communications, logistics and intelligence gathering facilities.

The report estimated that China's reclamation work has added more than 1,300 hectares (3,200 acres) of land on seven features it occupies in the Spratly Islands in the space of two years.

The report said additional infrastructure, such as communications and surveillance systems, is expected to be built on the islands in the coming year. "China will be able to use its reclaimed features as persistent civil-military bases to enhance its presence in the South China Sea significantly," it said.

The accelerated building effort doesn't give China any new territorial rights, the report stated. But it allowed that the airfields, ship facilities, surveillance and weapons equipment will allow China to significantly enhance its long-term presence in the South China Sea.

Chinese officials have defended the land reclamation by saying it is Beijing's territory, adding that the buildings and infrastructure are for public service use and to support fishermen.

Yang also accused the U.S. of flexing its military muscles by frequently sending military aircraft and warships to the region.

As recently as May 10, the U.S. Defense Department sent a Navy warship to carry out a freedom of navigation operation in the disputed South China Sea, sailing the USS William P. Lawrence within 12 nautical miles of Chinese-occupied Fiery Cross Reef.

While Washington has accused Beijing of militarizing the South China Sea, Yang said it is the U.S. that has increased the militarization in the region with such actions.

Also, the U.S. report renewed accusations against China's government and military for cyberattacks against U.S. government computer systems, a charge Beijing has denied.

The Pentagon said attacks in 2015 appeared focused on intelligence collection.

Some material for this report came from AP and Reuters.

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Russian yacht released by North Korea

Iran Press TV

Sun May 15, 2016 3:41PM

North Korea has released a Russian yacht that it had earlier impounded, with the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang confirming that the five-member crew of the vessel are now on their way home.

"The Russian yacht Elfin today left the North Korean port of Kimchaek and is headed for Vladivostok," Denis Samsonov, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang, told Russian state television on Sunday.

Yury Bokcharev, Russia's consul in the city of Chongjin, told Russian media that local North Korean officials had said the impounding of the boat had occurred as a result of a "misunderstanding."

Another diplomatic official in Vladivostok, Igor Agafonov, has confirmed that the five-member crew of the yacht are sailing home.

The Russian sailboat was impounded by North Korean coast guards late Friday as it sailed through the Sea of Japan from a competition in the South Korean city of Busan to its home city of Vladivostok.

Russia's Foreign Ministry had said Saturday that it had sent a note to North Korea asking for explanation regarding the impounding of the boat.

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Back to the Future? Why Germany is Building Up Its Military

Sputnik News

14:07 15.05.2016

For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Germany has enlisted additional soldiers in its army. The era of disarmament in Berlin seems to be over, Austrian newspaper Die Presse wrote.

For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the number of soldiers in the German army is expected to increase by about 14,300 servicemen and 4,400 thousand employees until 2023, the newspaper reported.

On Tuesday, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen publicly abolished the upper limit of 185,000 soldiers introduced in 2011.

"Today it is necessary," the minister said, cited by the newspaper.

Since the Day of the German reunification in 1990, the number of Bundeswehr soldiers decreased from 585,000 to 185,000. The large-scale reduction of armed forces has been accelerated by the financial crisis and subsequent austerity prescriptions as well as the "peaceful" spirit of the time, the newspaper wrote.

In 2011, Germany cancelled military duty which has led to a significant reduction in the number of troops. It has also introduced an upper limit of 185,000 soldiers, and as a result 177,000 soldiers have served in the Bundeswehr in the last couple of years.

The first changes became apparent in 2014, when von der Leyen called for Europe to share the burden within NATO with the United States that has always been covering a large part of the costs of the alliance.

According to NATO standards, a state should allocate two percent of its GDP for the purpose of defense, but for Germany such numbers still remain unreal.

"Germany's arms buildup is only a concession on the eve of the NATO summit in Warsaw in July," the newspaper wrote.

Previous reports stated that Berlin is likely to deploy its troops as a part of NATO's battalion in Lithuania. The mission will be aimed at "containing" Russia and preventing alleged Russian aggression against Baltic States.

 Sputnik

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India Successfully Test Fires First Supersonic Interceptor Missile

Sputnik News

14:32 15.05.2016(updated 14:53 15.05.2016)

India successfully test fired its supersonic interceptor missile from Odisha coast on Sunday, India's Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO) said.

NEW DELHI (Sputnik)  According to the DRDO, which has developed the missile, the interceptor was fired against a target simulated by a naval version of Prithvi missile fired from a warship anchored in the Bay of Bengal.

"Several countries has developed the missile interception technology. We have also successfully launched this missile. DRDO had been working on it for some time. It's a great capability that our defense forces has acquired after the successful launch of the Supersonic Missile Interceptor," Amit Cowshish, a former financial adviser in the Defense Ministry and currently a distinguished fellow in the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, told Sputnik.

Since the early 2000s, India has been developing its ballistic missile defense program, which was launched in the wake of the ballistic missile threat mainly from Pakistan, with which New Delhi was in three major wars, one undeclared war and numerous armed confrontations.

 Sputnik

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Iran keen on balanced defense relations with regional states

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, May 15, IRNA -- Defense Minister Brigadier-General Hossein Dehqan said on Sunday that the Islamic Republic of Iran is willing to develop balanced defense relations with the regional states.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Iranian ambassadors, diplomats and head of representative offices overseas in a conference on 'Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Economy of Resistance, Opportunities and Capabilities.'

The ill-wishers in the US and its allies have created roadblocks for implementation of the JCPOA, said the minister.

Meanwhile, he elaborated on achievements of the JCPOA.

Arrogant powers seek to dominate others by discriminationatory measures and injustice toward the free and independent nations, the minister said.

The Islamic Republic of Iran should broaden its defense cooperation with different countries based on a balanced and reasonable defense diplomacy, he said.

Iranian defense ministry and its armed forces are to present an exemplary model to broaden cooperation with different countries on defense, Dehqan said.

To attain the goal, the Iranian defense ministry should fully coordinate with foreign ministry to help broaden defense cooperation with various countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and Central Asia mainly after removal of economic sanctions and implementation of the JCPOA, the minister said.

1430**1416

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No compromise with US never ever, says commander

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, May 15, IRNA -- Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said the Islamic Republic of Iran would never make any concessions to the US.

Talking to journalists, Jazayeri made the remarks on the sidelines of the first national conference on defense culture.

Touching upon the martyrdom of top military commander of the Lebanese Resistance Movement, Hezbollah,Mustafa Badreddine, General Jazayeri said his martyrdom would have positive impact on future of the movement.

'Contrary to what the enemies, the Zionist regime in particular, believe martyrdom of a top commander would not have a negative effect on the resistance movement,' Jazayeri said.

Yesterday, Hezbollah said Badreddine was killed by Takfiri terrorist groups in Syria.

Hezbollah said investigation shows that Badreddine's death was caused by artillery shelling by the militants near the Damascus International Airport.

Commenting on dismissal of the commander of 10 American sailors who were detained after entering Iran's territorial waters, he added Tehran could have dealt with them harshly, but behaved peacefully.

He reiterated that the dismissal of the US commander indicates that Washington is angry about Iran's peaceful behavior.

Referring to the US worries on delivery of Russian S-300 missile defense system, he added the American are angry about equipping Iran with defense system.

On May 10, Minister of Defense Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan announced that S-300 missiles have been handed to the country's air defense system.

Last month, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said Tehran and Moscow had begun implementing a contract on the delivery of the Russian defense systems to the Islamic Republic.

Russia committed to delivering the systems to Iran under a USD 800-million deal in 2007 but delayed it, citing UN sanctions against Iran over the country's nuclear program.

9060**1771

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Iran Has No Plans to Buy Russia's S-400 Air Defense System After S-300

Sputnik News

19:10 15.05.2016(updated 21:18 15.05.2016)

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier-General, Hossein Dehqan, in response to a question by a reporter said that Iran has not demanded S-400 air defense systems from Russia.

Earlier, it was reported that after Russia had launched a military operation in Syria, the foreign demand for S-300 and S-400 missile systems had greatly increased.

Referring to the serious security situation in the region, Dehqan said that the Americans and the Israelis, along with Saudi Arabia were trying to eradicate the resistance movement.

Last week, Dehqan said that the Russian S-300 air defense system had been delivered to the country's air defense forces.

In April, Iranian military officials said that Tehran had purchased a batch of S-300 air defense systems. Local media reported at the time that Iran had displayed the Russian-made S-300 air defense systems during the annual military parade devoted to Army Day on April 17.

The $900-million Moscow-Tehran contract to deliver five Russian S-300 systems to Iran was signed in 2007. It was suspended after the adoption of UN Security Council sanctions on Iran in mid-2010.

In April 2015, Russia resumed talks on the S-300 deliveries following a framework agreement on the landmark deal ensuring the peaceful nature of Tehran's nuclear program.

Russia and Iran are expected to fully implement the S-300 contract in 2016, according to Iranian defense officials.

 Sputnik

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Payback Time: Iran to Sue US for 63 Years of Sanctions

Sputnik News

17:36 15.05.2016(updated 19:25 15.05.2016)

The Iranian parliament has given preliminary approval to a bill requiring the government to sue the US for the damage the country suffered as a result of the US' hostile moves over the past 63 years, IRNA news agency reported.

Of 290 lawmakers attending Wednesday's session of parliament, 181 voted in favor of the bill. The session was broadcast live on state radio.

The bill calls on the government to take legal action against the US government in an international court.

The vote followed the release of newly declassified documents containing details of the CIA-orchestrated ouster of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh 60 years ago.

Iran is also preparing international legal action to recover nearly $2 billion that the US Supreme Court has ordered to be paid as compensation to

American victims of terror attacks, President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday.

"We will soon take the case of the $2 billion to the international court," Rouhani said in a televised speech.

"We will not allow the United States to swallow this money so easily," the president said to a crowd of thousands in the southeastern city of Kerman.

Iranian MPs also demanded compensation for the moral and material damage the country suffered during its 1980-1988 war with US-backed Iraq, which claimed the lives of 223,000 Iranian soldiers.

 Sputnik

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Iran Negotiating Purchase of Navy Equipment From Russia

Sputnik News

12:31 15.05.2016(updated 12:34 15.05.2016)

Tehran is negotiating the purchase of equipment for its Navy from Russia, Navy Lieutenant Commander Admiral Gholam Reza Biqam said Sunday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Iran is interested in the purchase of naval equipment for marine rescue and relief, the official told the local Tasnim news agency. The negotiations are being carried out in the framework of contacts between the Russian and Iranian defense ministries.

He added that Iran was negotiating with other Caspian states on holding joint military drills.

The two countries stepped up their military cooperation last year after Iran reached a deal with six world powers to scale back its nuclear research in exchange for an easing of sanctions against it. The agreement took softened the UN arms embargo, allowing weapons to be sold to Iran provided they are reviewed by the United Nations on a case-by-case basis.

 Sputnik

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Russia to Make Every Effort to Deliver S-300 Air Defense Systems to Iran

Sputnik News

17:47 16.05.2016(updated 17:55 16.05.2016)

Moscow strives to deliver Russia's S-300 air defense systems to Iran.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Moscow expends its best efforts to perform a contract for deliveries of Russia's S-300 air defense systems to Iran, the director of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC) said Monday.

"Everything depends on both parties. We do our best to fulfill the contract," Alexander Fomin told reporters.

He added that the deliveries of the S-300 systems were ongoing, however, without the specific number of complexes, which had already been delivered to Tehran.

At the same time, he denied reports about a contract for delivery of advanced S-400 air defense systems to India.

The $900-million Moscow-Tehran contract to deliver five Russian S-300 systems to Iran was signed in 2007. It was suspended after the imposition of the UN Security Council sanctions on Iran in mid-2010.

In 2015, Moscow annulled the S-300 delivery ban, after Iran and six world powers, including Russia, reached a framework nuclear deal to lift the anti-Tehran sanctions in exchange for guarantees of the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities.

On April 27, Indian Minister of State Rao Inderjit Singh said that India and Russia had already signed a deal for the S-400s delivery.

 Sputnik

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15 killed in Daesh attacks in and around Baghdad

Iran Press TV

Sun May 15, 2016 5:34PM

Bomb attacks by Takfiri group Daesh in and around the Iraqi capital Baghdad have left at least 15 people killed.

Security and health officials said on Sunday that seven people, including two soldiers, were killed in a car bomb that targeted a shopping area in the town of Latifiyah, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad.

At least 18 people were also wounded in the attack, four of whom soldiers, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Police said three separate bomb attacks targeted commercial areas inside Baghdad, killing at least eight civilians and wounding 28 others. Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures.

The attacks were the latest in a new spate of bombings to have hit the Iraqi capital over the past days. Daesh, a terror group controlling areas in west and north, has claimed responsibility for the violence which has left more than 140 killed since Wednesday.

Earlier on Sunday, at least 11 people, including policemen, were killed and 21 others wounded when bomb attacks ripped through a state-run cooking gas factory in the town of Taji, located 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Baghdad.

Iraqis said that Daesh is trying to make up for its loss of ground to Iraqi security forces over the past months.

"Daesh is turning to targeting civilian facilities in cities after losing the battle on the front," said Colonel Mohamed al-Bidhani, of the government's "war media cell" on Sunday.

New estimates by the government show Daesh now controls only 14 percent of Iraqi territory, down from the 40 percent it held in 2014, with top officials vowing to clear the entire Iraqi soil from militants in 2016.

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Daesh Uses Chemical Weapons Against Kurds in Northern Iraq

Sputnik News

05:40 15.05.2016(updated 08:07 15.05.2016)

Daesh militants used chemical weapons in an attack on Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq on Saturday, injuring at least 14 people, local news agency Rudaw reported, citing military sources.

According to local Peshmerga Commander Gwer-Makhmour Sirwan Barzani, Daesh militants conducted their attack on Saturday. They used heavy equipment to diffuse the poisonous gas, he added.

"The state of those injured Peshmerga troops is stable," Barzani said as cited by Rudaw. "After a counter-attack by Kurdish forces, the situation at the battlefield has stabilized."

It was earlier reported that Daesh terrorists employed chemical weapons on May 9 in the course of battles in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The militants have allegedly set up production of chlorine service projectiles and other chemical weapons in the laboratories of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, considered the extremists' primary stronghold in the country.

Iraqi Kurdistan has been an autonomous region within Iraq since the 1990s. The region hosts the Kurdish government, including its parliament and president, as well as the military forces of Peshmerga, consisting of 120,000 servicemen.

Since 2014, Peshmerga has been fighting with Daesh, taking part in a number of bloody battles.

 Sputnik

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Islamists Claim Responsibility for Deadly Iraq Attacks

by VOA News May 15, 2016

Islamic State attacks across Iraq Sunday left at least 29 people dead and more than 70 wounded.

The most deadly attack for which IS claimed responsibility was launched against a state-run natural gas plant near Baghdad that killed at least 14 people and wounded 27, Iraqi officials said.

A suicide bomber exploded a car near the front gate of the gas production facility in Taji, about 20 kilometers north of Baghdad, about 6 a.m. local time. Following the explosion, another van carrying at least six more terrorists wearing explosive vests gained access to the facility.

After about an hour of shooting, security forces were able to neutralize the men. But not before they were able to set fire to three of the facility's gas storage containers, a spokesman for Baghdad Operations Command said.

The IS-affiliated Aamaq news service reported that a group of "caliphate soldiers" was responsible for the attack.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, three separate bomb attacks targeted commercial areas, killing at least eight civilians and wounding 28 others, police said.

Also Sunday in Iraq, seven were killed, including two soldiers, and 18 were wounded in a car bomb explosion in the town of Latifiyah, about 30 kilometers south of the capital. Police said it targeted a shopping area. Four of the wounded were soldiers.

These latest attacks follow others in the past week in Baghdad and elsewhere that have killed more than 140 people. They also come on the heels of Iraqi ground forces achieving a number of key territorial victories against the Islamic State terrorist group.

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Iran vows to continue advisory aid to Syria

ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency

Sun 15 May 2016 - 08:23

TEHRAN (ISNA)- Iran will continue its military advisory aid to Syria as per the Syrian government's request, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

"The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue its advisory assistance to the Syrian government at the level requested and required," Hossein Jaberi Ansari said on Saturday.

He added that the Syrian crisis should be settled through political approaches and emphasized that the Syrians' vote should finally solve the conflict in the Arab country.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran, since the outset of the Syrian crisis, has stressed the political settlement of this crisis and has repeatedly announced that the Syrian problem has no military solution," the Iranian spokesperson pointed out.

He added that foreign interference in Syria's internal affairs runs counter to objectives and interests of the Syrian nation.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has furthermore displaced over half of Syria's pre-war population of about 23 million.

End Item

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300 militants killed in Takfiri groups infighting near Damascus

Iran Press TV

Sun May 15, 2016 2:31PM

At least 300 militants have been killed during fighting between Takfiri groups over the control of a militant stronghold near the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam militant group has been fighting against the Faylaq al-Rahman and Jaish al-Fustat groups, which are led by al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, in Eastern Ghouta over the past few weeks.

Clashes erupted after Faylaq al-Rahman militant group launched several attacks on Jaish al-Islam's positions.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said over 300 militants killed in the fighting in the region since April 28, most of whom belonged to Jaish al-Islam or al-Nusra.

Ten civilians, including a doctor and child, were also killed in the battle, Abdel Rahman said.

The doctor, named as Nabil al-Da'as, was the only specialist gynecologist practicing in the area. The Syrian Arab Red Cross also confirmed his death.

Jaish al-Islam is the dominant Takfiri group in Eastern Ghouta. One of the group's leaders, Mohammad Alloush, is among the senior negotiators of the so-called opposition group at peace talks in Geneva.

United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict that has gripped Syria since March 2011. The conflict has also displaced over half of the Arab country's pre-war population of about 23 million.

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Syria forces take back hospital from Daesh in Dayr al-Zawr

Iran Press TV

Sun May 15, 2016 4:42AM

Syrian government forces have managed to take back a hospital in the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr from the Daesh Takfiri terrorists after thwarting the group's major offensive on the city.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said on Saturday that the government troops wrested control over the Assad Hospital after several hours of fierce fighting with the Daesh militants.

Russia's RIA state news agency also quoted a source in the Dayr al-Zawr airport as saying that the Daesh raid on the hospital had been repelled.

Meanwhile, a military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told China's Xinhua news agency that the Syrian army freed all doctors and nurses taken hostage by the terrorists inside the health care institution.

The recapture came on the same day that Daesh carried out a "major offensive" on the southwestern edge of Dayr al-Zawr, stormed the Assad Hospital and cut the supply route between a Syrian army base and the city's airport.

The observatory said the militants killed at least 35 members of the Syrian armed forces and detained some medical staff from the hospital. Two dozen Daesh terrorists were slain in clashes in and around the medical center.

In their Saturday attack, the terrorists also took control of a checkpoint, a fire station, university accommodation, grain silos and some territory near the Tayyam oil fields.

Daesh controls over half of Dayr al-Zawr, trapping about 200,000 civilians in the city. Dayr al-Zawr Province links the Daesh stronghold in the city of Raqqah with territory controlled by the militant group in neighboring Iraq.

United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict that has gripped Syria since March 2011.

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Why Russia May Not Need Hmeymim Base to Continue Crushing Daesh in Syria

Sputnik News

20:05 15.05.2016(updated 21:58 15.05.2016)

Russia has withdrawn the bulk of its forces from Syria and agreed with Washington a ceasefire in the country. However, Moscow would have to return its aircraft to the Syrian battlefield since Washington continues to supply arms to terrorist groups, an article on the foreign affairs analysis website Voltaire Network read.

Russia may reconfigure its aerial task force and deploy the country's only aircraft carrier The Admiral Kuznetsov to the Syrian coast, the author suggested. The deployment may take place in July.

Starting February 27, Russia pulled out 46 aircraft of its task force from Syria, including Su-24, Su-25, Su-30, and Su-34 jets. They were deployed to the Hmeymim airbase.

"At the same time, Washington has continued to ship advanced weapons to terrorists in Syria. As a result, after Palmyra was liberated the Syrian Army could not continue its advance on Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor," military expert Valentin Vasilescu wrote.

Within a month the Syrian Air Force lost three jet fighters. They were shot down by terrorists from the ground. Currently, the Air Force cannot provide enough support for the Syrian Army. Moreover, Russian airstrikes have been limited since President Vladimir Putin ordered a withdrawal from Syria.

"The only solution to help continue the anti-terrorist offensive would be to deploy Russia's The Admiral Kuznetsov to the Syrian coast," he wrote.

Earlier, this possible scenario was voiced by French political analyst Alain Rodier.

"In fact, Vladimir Putin doesn't seem to be ready to leave Syria without a Russian military presence. Rumors are going around that in summer Russia may send its only aircraft carrier  the Admiral Kuznetsov  to Syria. Putin may replace the airbase with an aircraft carrier," Rodier told Atlantico.

Currently, the air-wing of the Russian aircraft includes Su-33 and MiG-29K/KUB jet fighters. Last year, Russian pilots underwent special training in Crimea, learning to take off and land on the deck of an aircraft.

The Su-33 and MiG-29K jets are designed to taking air supremacy. This is why the deployment of the Admiral Kuznetsov to Syria would allow control over the Syrian airspace to be strengthened and aerial surveillance capacities to be increased.

Despite the fact that Su-33 and MiG-29K jets can carry the same amount of ammunition as Su-24 and Su-34 bombers, in the context of a ceasefire they would be still effective in combat. An additional group of jet fighters would increase control over the airspace and improve aerial reconnaissance missions.

In addition to aircraft and helicopters, the Admiral Kuznetsov carries a number of different weapons, including air defense systems, Granit anti-ship missiles, artillery guns, and anti-submarine bombs.

"The Russian aircraft carrier would be sufficient to continue the fight against terrorists in Syria, with the same efficiency as one of the 11 US aircraft carriers," Vasilescu wrote.

 Sputnik

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Kerry Seeks Saudi Support for Syrian Cease-fire

by Pamela Dockins May 15, 2016

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sought Saudi Arabia's support Sunday in strengthening a "cessation of hostilities" agreement between Syrian government forces and rebels ahead of broader talks on regional crises later this week.

Kerry, trying to shore up support for the shaky cease-fire in Syria, met with Saudi King Salman, whose country has been a key supporter of rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The top U.S. diplomat and his Saudi counterpart, Adel al-Jubeir, discussed developments in Syria, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

Later, the top U.S. diplomat will fly to Vienna where he and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni will co-host a ministerial meeting on security and support for Libya's new government.

Western powers hope Libya's Government of National Accord can unite the country, which has been in a state of chaos since leader Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed in 2011.

On Tuesday, the 17-nation International Syria Support Group (ISSG) will convene in Vienna to discuss the stalled political talks, difficulties in maintaining the February cease-fire and the U.N.'s uneven results in delivering humanitarian aid.

However, the Syrian government's recent military advances may diminish the ability to restart political talks seen as the best hope for ending the war.

"Not all of the trend lines in Syria are going in the right direction," said State Department spokesman John Kirby.

Kirby commented on Friday, shortly before Secretary of State John Kerry departed on a two-week trip to the Middle East, Europe and Asia, where he will focus on issues including unrest in Syria as well as in Libya.

In Syria, the U.S. and Russia began stepping in to broker a series of localized cease-fires in late April, to help keep a nationwide cessation of hostilities enacted in February from fraying.

While the overall level of fighting between the government and rebels is down, tensions between the two sides have continued to flare.

Syria talks

In late April, another round of U.N.-facilitated talks on a political transition in Syria ended with no face-to-face meeting between the government and the opposition. It is unclear when the next round of so-called proximity talks will take place.

In an interview with Russia's Sputnik news agency, U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said he would await the outcome of the Syria support group's session before convening another round of proximity talks.

Some analysts say Syria's military dynamics could hamper progress in proximity talks.

What matters is the "leverage that you bring into the room," said Atlantic Council Middle East analyst Nussaibah Younis. "With the backing of Russia, the Assad regime has managed to make some real progress in its fight against the rebels," and, as a result, will be unwilling to compromise, she said.

Russia said it would use Tuesday's session to call for an end to commingling between terrorist groups and rebels in Syria.

Other conflicts

Additionally, while Kerry is in Vienna, the U.S., Russia and France will focus on an effort to help stabilize Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which is officially part of Azerbaijan.

In April, the region suffered one of its worst outbreaks of violence in years.

After Vienna, he will attend a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels and then will travel to Myanmar in a show of U.S. support for the country's newly elected government.

In the following week, Kerry will join President Barack Obama in Vietnam.

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New Ceasefire in Syria's Aleppo Depends on Nusra Front's Actions

Sputnik News

12:28 16.05.2016(updated 12:35 16.05.2016)

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister said that the issue of ceasefire renewal in Syria's province of Aleppo depends heavily on the actions that could be taken by the Nusra Front terrorist group.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The issue of ceasefire renewal in Syria's province of Aleppo depends heavily on the actions that could be taken by the Nusra Front terrorist group, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday.

"More than 100 settlements and organizations observe the ceasefire regime. With regard to potential renewal of ceasefire regime in Aleppo, the point is how the Nusra Front and the organizations affiliated with it will behave," Ryabkov told reporters.

Moscow continues urging Washington to make a distinction between such groups and entities, but these attempts have not been successful so far, he added.

Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups.

A US-Russia-brokered ceasefire came into force across Syria on February 27, but it does not apply to terrorist organizations active in the country, such as Nusra Front, which is outlawed in many countries, including Russia. Despite the ceasefire agreement, violence has escalated in Syria in recent weeks, especially in the northern Aleppo region.

 Sputnik

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Defense budget sees growth over past three years: MND

ROC Central News Agency

2016/05/15 15:41:53

Taipei, May 15 (CNA) Although the funds allocated to national defense from the government's annual budget represented less than 3 percent of Taiwan's gross domestic product (GDP), the country has seen its defense budget trend upwards over the past three years, Ministry of National Defense (MND) spokesman Maj. Gen. Luo Shou-he () said Sunday.

Luo was responding to an annual report recently released on China's military and security developments by the U.S. Department of Defense, which stated that Taiwan's defense spending has dropped to 2 percent of GDP, while China's military spending has risen to 14 times that of Taiwan's.

Meanwhile, media reports said that Taiwan has only seen slight growth rates in its national defense budget in recent years, with its defense budget for the fiscal year of 2016 accounting for only 2.3 percent-2.4 percent of GDP.

Luo said that the ministry has made it clear several times that the government has considered the use of a reserve fund or other sources of funds for major arms procurement deals in the future to bolster its national defense and demonstrate its resolve to maintain an effective self-defense force.

The national defense budget was earmarked to respond to potential enemy threats while taking into consideration the country's military build-up plans, government finances and public opinion, according to the ministry.

It said that the military will continue to build up its defense capability to ensure national security, peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, based on a strong foundation of financial support.

In response to the U.S.' call for Taiwan to increase its defense spending, a senior military official said that whether the defense budget will increase usually depends on the government's general budget allocations. Taiwan will not engage in an arms race with China, but will focus instead on making optimal use of its available defense budget, the official added.

Therefore, even though Taiwan will increase its defense budget in the future, the growth rate will be limited, the official said, adding that the most important task the new government has to carry out is to ensure stability in the Taiwan Strait, promote economic growth and enhance the country's overall national competitiveness.

(By Hsieh Chia-chen and Evelyn Kao)

Enditem/ke

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One soldier, 6 PKK militants killed in Turkey southeast

Iran Press TV

Sun May 15, 2016 2:58PM

A Turkish soldier and six members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have been killed during a series of violent clashes in the country's volatile southeast, military sources say.

According to Turkish military sources, Turkish security forces on Sunday clashed with the PKK militants operating across the largely Kurdish-populated southeast.

The military, however, did not mention the exact location of the fierce fighting.

This came days after six Turkish soldiers were killed and eight others wounded in clashes with the militants in the Kurdish majority province of Hakkari on Friday. A military helicopter that had been sent to the region to support the soldiers crashed later in the day and its two pilots were killed.

The Turkish military has launched a large-scale military campaign against PKK militants in its southern border region since last year. The government has imposed curfew in the areas that have been targeted in the army's anti-PKK campaign.

The Turkish military has also been conducting offensives against the positions of the group in northern Iraq and Syria.

Turkey's operations against the militant group came after last July bombing in the southern town of Suruc. Over 30 people died in the attack, which the Turkish government blamed on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

After the bombing, the PKK militants, who accuse the Turkish government of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting the Turkish military operations.

The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey since 1984. The conflict has left thousands of people dead.

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Turkey covering routine Daesh border crossings from Syria: MP

Iran Press TV

Sun May 15, 2016 12:36AM

Leaked phone recordings allegedly show that the Turkish government has permitted over a thousand members of the Daesh terrorist group to cross its borders with Syria.

Turkish Opposition MP Erem Erdem who leaked 422 pages of transcriptions of the conversations to media outlets has accused Ankara of covering up the cross border activities.

The detailed phone conversations, mostly between a known Daesh member, Ilhami Bali, and his associates inside Turkish borders, were obtained from Turkish security forces, RT reported on Saturday.

Bali is a major suspect in a series of bombing attacks in Ankara and the southern Turkish town of Suruc, an ethnically Kurdish town located close to the border with Syria.

During the press conference where he presented the transcribed conversations, Erdem said that "these entries recorded comprehensive information such as which hotel the terrorists are going to stay in, where they will wait for their car, which gas station they will use  how many people and who exactly would be responsible for the preparation of a terrorist attack."

"Despite the fact that all this information was in the hands of the authorities, the security forces had not carried out any operations to detain terrorists," he added.

In one of the conversations, Bali asks one of his counterparts how many terrorists have crossed into Turkey, to which his associate replies"1,128."

In another conversation, Bali vents his dissatisfaction with another Turkish associate.

"What? Are you the one who is responsible that they got arrested? Don't lie to me! Don't lie to me. Eighteen people crossed the border last night. Fifteen of them got arrested when you tried to help them," he said.

On Friday, Syrian intelligence forces captured a haul of medical supplies near Aleppo, which came from Turkey and was destined for Daesh terrorists in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Turkey has time and again been accused of aiding and abetting militant groups operating in Syria with reports saying that Ankara actively trains and arms the Takfiri militants there, and facilitates their safe passage into the Arab country. Ankara has also been accused of buying smuggled oil from Daesh.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has also displaced over half of the Arab country's pre-war population of about 23 million.

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Cellnex has agreed to sell 1,100 sites in the UK to Wireless Infrastructure Group (WIG) as part of its plans to buy 6,000 passive infrastructure sites in the UK from CK Hutchison for US$4 billion.
Echelon Resources got the green light to proceed with developing Halifax Lofts Tuesday night when Halifax Town Council held a public hearing and approved a special use permit application request from project developer Edwin A. Gaskin.

Gaskin and his partner, J. Dave McCormack, are seeking to renovate the aging Halifax Elementary School into luxury market rate multi-family dwelling units known as Halifax Lofts that is located at 722 Mountain Road in Halifax.

A half dozen persons attended the hearing in Halifax Town Hall and listened as McCormack outlined plans to renovate the aging Halifax Elementary School into luxury market rate multi-family dwelling units.

Halifax County Board of Supervisors earlier agreed to sell the property to the Richmond-based firm specializing in historic renovation with more than a dozen successful projects under its belt.

Gaskin and McCormack have been working with supervisors and the Halifax Town Council for more than a year on Echelons proposal, and on Tuesday evening council held a public hearing before acting a recommendation from the Halifax Planning Commission and unanimously approving the special use permit.

Councilman Bill Confroy made the motion that was seconded by Bill Covington and unanimously approved.

During Tuesday nights hearing, McCormack outlined plans for transforming the former elementary school into 29 to 30 single and double bedroom apartments.

This will not be a low-income project by any means, McCormack said, adding, the plans call for a local realty company or manager to be hired to manage rentals and oversee Halifax Lofts property.

The purpose for the special use permit is to ensure the historic building is preserved, while giving the site a new purpose relevant to future generations, McCormack said.

In addition, he said Halifax Lofts will create a new economic benefit to the community while complying with state and federal design oversight and attracting private capital to assume the risk to do so.

He pointed out infrastructure burdens and any negative activity consequences should be far less than prior use when it was a school regarding transportation, parking, utilities, noise, activity, lighting and property management practices.

According to VDOT, a 29-unit apartment building would generate the following traffic: weekday average traffic 192 (96 entering and 96 exiting), morning peak hour traffic 16 (four entering and 12 exiting), evening peak hour traffic 19 (12 entering and seven exiting), Saturday average daily traffic 186, (93 entering and 93 exiting), Saturday peak hour traffic 16 (eight entering and eight exiting), Sunday average daily traffic 170 (85 entering and 85 exiting), and Sunday peak hour traffic 16 (eight entering and eight exiting.)

When compared to traffic use when the building housed Halifax Elementary School with a student enrollment of 232 and 20 staff and faculty members when the school closed in 2007, weekday average traffic was 314 with 157 entering and exiting, morning peak hour traffic 107 (58 entering and 49 exiting), and evening peak hour traffic 68.

In his PowerPoint presentation, Gaskin pointed out the proposed use of the facility as market-rate apartments will address a blighting element, will create new high-quality housing stock, will turn a county expense burden into new revenue, will create 50 construction and four to five permanent jobs and will be less-intense than its former use as a school with the project contributing to the towns general welfare and good zoning practices.

McCormack estimated Echelon, an experienced team that has completed more than $70 million in projects including four school redevelopments, will make a private investment of $2.5 to $2.8 million in this complex project.

The developer said his plans would have him closing on the property in late summer with construction to get underway in September and continue into the spring of next year..

He is shooting for Halifax Lofts to open in May 2017.

Following McCormacks presentation, Councilman Jack Dunavant questioned suppose it doesnt fill up, what then?

The project developer explained that is a risk taken for any business.

We would lose a little bit of money in that case, he said assuring council the company is required to keep a six month reserve in the bank at all times.

Well keep paying the bills. We feel we will be successful here, he added.

Dunavant said he and some of the neighbors worry the rent would be reduced to accommodate low-income renters in that case.

We dont want to see a bunch of jacked up cars sitting in that parking lot, Dunavant said.

That would be a death knell for us, McCormack replied. It really kills a project. Even if you only fill up half the building, we are better off to keep our credit high.

Halifax County Planning Commission member Mike Sexton, who lives at the end of a waterline near the project, sought clarity from council on who would oversee that all services (such as sufficient water flow) continue to be provided to town residents once the project is developed.

Will Carl be birddogging these surveys to make sure all these things are up to snuff? Sexton asked urging council to grant the special use permit.

That is an independent criteria by the HCSA, Town Manager Carl Espy explained.

The Halifax County Service Authority has issued a memo conveying a condition of Echelons special use permit will be for the authority to approve water/sewer connections that meet requirements for adequate flow, residual pressure and fire protection services for the project and customers on Mountain Road, Espy added.

Councilman Mike Trent pointed out approval of zoning is based on all these boxes being checked.

Another Halifax resident, Jean Bainbridge, explained her daughter is confined to a wheelchair and questioned if the apartments would offer handicap accessibility and comply with ADA standards for the disabled.

Although no elevator will be available, McCormack said the answer is yes.

We will meet all standards to be in ADA (Americans With Disability Act) compliance. We do that on every project, he added.

Replying to a question about how the current school gym would be used in the project, McCormack said the hope is to preserve the gym for use as common space.

Were not planning to cut it up, he added.

The developer anticipates having 13 to 14 apartments on the first floor with the balance on the top floor.

I hope it works, Dunavant told McCormack at the conclusion of the hearing.
Before burgers got trendy: with the lot (plus crunchy hot chips). Photo: Brett Stevens

Filled with memories of relaxed Friday night take-aways, naughty stuff that we bought on the way home from school, family road trips and icy treats at the beach, this new cookbook brings back favourite food moments of 1970s Australia.

In Jane Lawson's fun book you'll find recipes for the maltiest of milkshakes, banana splits, nostalgic lollies and take-away food - collected in chapters such as Milk-bar, Ice-cream Cabinet, Lolly Counter, Pie Shop and Fish 'n' Chip Shop.

Musk sticks

These musk sticks taste like the ones we had as kids. A little crisp on the outside, and tender in the centre, these are the 'goldilocks' of the musk-stick world  the aroma, flavour and texture are just right. I must warn you they are rather more-ish, and all my guinea pigs agreed "they taste like musk sticks, only better". You can double the batch if you have a big kid's party on. Or even a big-kids' party.

Make your own must sticks. Photo: Brett Stevens

mild-flavoured cooking oil spray

4 small gelatine sheets, each about 7cm x 11.5 cm

1 tablespoon liquid glucose

 teaspoon good-quality musk essence

a few drops of pure vanilla extract

2 drops of red food colouring (optional)

250g (2 cups) icing sugar mixture, sifted



Method

1. Spray two baking trays with cooking oil spray. Line the trays with baking paper. (Oiling the trays first will help the baking paper sheets adhere, so they don't slip around when you're trying to pipe the musk mixture onto them.)

2. Soak the gelatine sheets in cold water for 5 minutes, or until soft and pliable. Drain and squeeze out the excess water.

Photo: Murdoch Books

3. Put the gelatine in a saucepan with the glucose and 60ml cold water. Stir over high heat until the gelatine sheets have melted. Remove from the heat and tip into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment.

4. When the mixture is cool, add the musk essence, vanilla and food colouring, if using. Add 125g (1 cup) of the icing sugar and beat at low speed until well combined. Increase the speed to high and whisk for 1 minute, or until smooth and evenly coloured.

5. Turn your machine off and add the remaining icing sugar. Mix in slowly, then increase the speed to high for about 3 minutes to ensure is is all well incorporated, and a little like a thick, raw meringue mixture.

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6. Put the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm star-shaped nozzle and pipe 10cm lengths onto the baking trays. (If your mixture is too firm to pipe, simply tip it back into the electric mixer bowl and add extra cold water, just 1 teaspoon at a time, until you have a pliable consistency. Just be careful not to add too much  a little water goes a long way in this recipe.)

7. Leave in a cool, dry place to set overnight. The musk sticks should be crisp and dry all the way through.

They will keep in an airtight container for several months, but will soften over time, as sugar is a fickle medium and its natural moisture content depends on the weather.

Milkbar Memories' dairy milk chocolate ice cream. Photo: Supplied

Makes about 32 sticks



Beef burger with 'The Lot'

The name speaks for itself: this burger includes every optional topping available from an authentic, old-school Aussie milkbar. The Lot. It is packed full of flavour and layered with colour and texture. However, feel free to flick the beetroot or pineapple if you aren't into it. By all means play around with the layers - used minced lamb or pork in your patties, add pickles, relish, mayo, aioli or chilli sauce and change up your cheese choice. Make it your own.

500g good-quality minced (ground) beef, with decent marbling

olive oil, for pan-frying

1 small onion, finely sliced

4 pineapple rings, either fresh or tinned in natural syrup (optional)

4 streaky bacon rashers, cut in half

4 small eggs

120g cheese (I like mild cheddar or edam for this burger), sliced 34 mm thick

4 hamburger buns, split in half

softened butter, for spreading

lettuce leaves or shreds

4 slices ripe tomato

4 slices cooked beetroot

Tomato sauce or barbecue sauce, for drizzling

Double-crunch hot chips to serve

Method

1. Divide the beef into four equal amounts. Lightly compact each into a ball, then flatten each ball between squares of baking paper until they are about 6mm thick and 13cm in diameter. They may seem large, but will shrink a little on cooking.

2. Heat a little oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Gently saute the onion over mediumhigh heat for 1012 minutes, or until dark golden. Remove from the pan and keep warm.

3. If using fresh pineapple slices, give each side a good flash over high heat in the same frying pan until they are hot through and a little charred on the edges. If using tinned pineapple, just quickly warm through on each side. Cover and keep warm.

4. Meanwhile put the bacon in another non-stick frying pan and cook over mediumhigh heat until it is as crisp as you like it, then remove from the pan and keep warm.

5. Cook the eggs in the bacon fat, over medium heat, until the whites are set and the yolks are still a little runny  or to your desired doneness. Remove to a warmed plate and keep warm.

6. Carefully wash out both frying pans. Heat your grill to high so it is ready and waiting for your buns.

7. Return the clean frying pans to a fairly high heat and brush liberally with oil. When the pans are hot, season the burger patties on one side with fine sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper and cook two patties, seasoned side down, in each pan for about 80 seconds, or until well browned. Season the tops of the patties and flip them over, then top with the cheese slices and cook for a further 70 seconds. Do be careful not to cook the patties longer, as the beef can very quickly dry out. This timing yields a nice, juicy, flavoursome patty.



8. While the patties are cooking, pop the cut side of your burger buns under the hot grill until very lightly toasted. Butter the buns and place the bottom halves on your work surface. Top each with a little lettuce, a slice of tomato, slice of beetroot, and pineapple (if using).

9. As soon as the burger patties are cooked, place them, cheese side up, on top of the pineapple. Divide the sauteed onion over the patties, then top with the bacon and the eggs. Give each a good squirt of tomato or barbecue sauce and top with the bun lids.

Serve immediately, with double-crunch hot chips if desired.

Makes 4 burgers



Double Crunch Hot Chips

4 large floury potatoes, such as russet, king edward or coliban; they should weigh about 1kg all up

2 tablespoons sea salt

peanut or vegetable oil, for deep-frying; you can also use half oil and half lard or duck fat

fine sea salt, chicken salt or lemon, rosemary and garlic salt , for sprinkling

malt vinegar, to serve (optional)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C.

2. Peel the potatoes, then rinse. Using a large sharp knife, cut into thick, square chips, about 1.5 cm wide, and as long as the length of each potato. You can trim off the rounded ends of the potatoes for a more uniform look.

3. Spread the chips out evenly in a large roasting tin. Stir the sea salt into 2 litres boiling water until dissolved, then pour over the potatoes. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until very tender, but not breaking apart.

4. Using a slotted fish lifter or spatula, carefully transfer the chips-to-be in a single layer onto your work surface, or several baking trays that have been lined with clean, dry tea towels. Loosely drape some tea towels across the top to help the potatoes steam as you leave them to cool to room temperature. Refrigerate for 2 hours, or until completely cold.

5. One-third fill a deep-fryer or large heavy-based saucepan with oil and heat to 140C, or until a cube of bread dropped into the oil turns golden brown in 4550 seconds. Cook the chips in batches for 68 minutes, or until pale gold in colour.

6. Drain on paper towel, cool to room temperature, then refrigerate again for at least a couple of hours, or overnight  the chips must be completely cold. Allow your oil to cool in the pan, then cover if not using until the next day.

7. When ready to give the chips their final frying, heat the oil to 205C, or until a cube of bread dropped into the oil turns golden brown in 5 seconds.

8. In batches, add the chips. The temperature will drop to about 180C, so try to keep it consistently at this heat. Cook each batch for 45 minutes, or until deep gold and crunchy crisp. Drain on paper towel and sprinkle with your choice of salt. Serve with malt vinegar for traditionalists.



Serves 5



Dairy Milk Chocolate Ice Cream

This rich, smooth-as-silk chocolate indulgence is sure to become a household staple. Sorry.

300ml thin (pouring) cream

400ml full-cream milk

60g ( cup) brown sugar

75g caster sugar

1 teaspoons good-quality unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

200g good-quality milk chocolate, chopped

Method

1. Put the cream and milk in a saucepan. Bring almost to the boil over mediumhigh heat, then remove from the heat.

2. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, brown and caster sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla until well combined. Gradually pour in the hot milk mixture, whisking constantly until smooth.

3. Pour into a clean saucepan and stir over mediumlow heat for 1215 minutes, or until the mixture has thickened to a thin custard consistency and coats the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat, then add the chocolate and stir until it has melted and the custard is an even colour. Cool slightly, then strain into a bowl. Cover and chill for 2 hours, or until cold.

4. Set up an ice cream machine and churn and freeze the mixture according to the manufacturer's instructions. (Alternatively, you can pour the custard mixture into a large shallow cake tin and freeze for 23 hours, or until just frozen around the edges. Whisk to evenly distribute the ice crystals through the mixture. Repeat this every hour until the mixture is frozen and evenly textured.)

5. Transfer to a 1 litre plastic container. Smooth the surface over, top with a sheet of baking paper, then pop the lid on.

Note: The ice cream will keep in the freezer for up to 1 week, but tastes best if eaten within a few days.

Makes 1 litre



Recipes and images from Milkbar Memories, by Jane Lawson (Murdoch Books, May 2016), $39.99.
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Investigation began last year

By Anne Flippin Anne.Flippin@Gosanangelo.Com 325-659-8250

A series of arrests connected to methamphetamine distribution wound up Wednesday with 17 suspects having been processed through Tom Green County Jail.

Tom Green County Sheriff David Jones said a lengthy criminal investigation into distribution networks began late last year.

Investigators started to "connect the different people to different groups" and presented their case to a Tom Green County grand jury, which issued the indictments, he said.

There were 13 people arrested Monday, and the last four turned themselves in by Wednesday afternoon.

All were charged with engaging in organized criminal activity ? distribution of methamphetamine, and some faced additional charges.

"All of these cases are big puzzle pieces," Jones said, and the information gleaned from arrests and confessions should help in future cases, he said.

"Every arrest you make, you gain intelligence and information on different actors and members of the organizations."

Along with methamphetamine, deputies seized drug paraphernalia such as scales and small plastic bags, said Tom Green County Sheriff's Sgt. Billy Bloom. They also seized marijuana and other controlled substances, according to a news release from the Sheriff's Office.

SAN ANGELO AS A DISTRIBUTION CENTER

Investigators found drug ledgers during the arrests that were handwritten or in computer files, Bloom said. The information from those ledgers will help in future investigations, Bloom said, because they show where the methamphetamine comes from and who gets the drugs.

Jones said the main focus for the Sheriff's Office is not necessarily the end user, nor is it the out-of-country manufacturer.

Not much methamphetamine is made in the San Angelo area, according to the sheriff and Bloom. Rather, methamphetamine is brought in from Mexico, Jones said, where it is manufactured in super-labs using ingredients shipped from Asia.

Federal and state laws controlling sales of the solvents and catalysts for manufacturing methamphetamine have helped curb local manufacturing, Bloom said.

"It's easier for these distributors to obtain the methamphetamine from Mexico already prepared, already bundled up for distribution," he said.

Some of the indictments served in the roundup listed charges of allowing homes to be used for packaging and processing methamphetamine for distribution, in addition to the main conspiracy charge.

PRISON GANGS GETTING ALONG

Networks and connections made through prison gangs help bring methamphetamine from Mexico into the area to distribute, Jones said.

Jones said many of the people arrested this week hold ties to disparate, clashing prison gangs. However, gangs that are hostile toward other groups in prison somehow find a way to associate more peacefully with each other on the outside, Jones said.

"If they can make money from each other, they will," Jones said.

Jones and Bloom wouldn't discuss how many new cases might come out of the recent arrests, but the sheriff said the information provides leads into investigations of thefts, burglaries, counterfeiting, weapons trafficking and other crimes.

The sheriff gave credit to a number of other law enforcement agencies from the national to the local level.

Bloom said that information from the public has helped in this investigation and that he welcomes tips. Often, neighborhood residents notice suspicious activities that law enforcement may not know about, and sometimes he gets a lot of calls about specific areas.

"It's OK if we get flooded with calls," he said. "We want to get flooded. We can handle it."

-----

17 ARRESTED

Name Age Bail Released

Robert Wayne Bledsoe III 24 $100,000 No

Casey Nicole Bonneville 36 $50,000 Yes

Amanda Marlene Burney 27 $10,000 No

Angela Chavarria 31 $125,000 No

Charlotte Dehoyos 49 $125,000 No

Jon Curry Ducote 44 $75,000 No

Stacy K. Espinosa 29 $100,000 No

David Lee Garcia 28 $60,000 No

Alfredo Hernandez 34 $150,000 No

Jennifer Dawn Johnson 38 $60,000 No

Rebecca Lynn Lawler 44 $75,000 No

Gloria McLeod 51 $60,000 No

Paige Stroman Meyer 42 $60,000 No

Billy Wayne Pieper 50 $150,000 No

Robert Norman Shipman 35 $125,000 No

Gina Lynn Trammell 34 $10,000 Yes

Jackie Ray Trammell 36 $150,000 No
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A San Angelo girl, 15-year Hannah Greening, died in a crash in Utah over the weekend, according to Gephardt Daily, an online news organization.

She and three other people from San Angelo were traveling past the entrance to Arches National Park when another vehicle pulled out in front of them.

Greening died in a nearby hospital as a result of her injuries. The others in the car sustained minor injuries, Gephardt Daily said.

To read the complete story, click here.
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The following editorial appeared in the May 6 Dallas Morning News:

Sen. Ted Cruz and his most determined supporters are likely still licking their wounds and mending their broken hearts. Such a sudden end to his primary campaign for president has left marks that will heal but slowly.

Soon, though, Cruz will see that he has come through the hurricane of his first presidential campaign with his prospects enhanced, rather than retarded. We hope that knowledge gives him confidence and patience to reconsider his approach to the job he is returning to, as the junior senator from Texas. That's the work, after all, that Texas voters singled him out for in 2012.

We'd like to recommend two courses of action as Cruz considers his immediate future, and begins to mull whether  or how soon  he'll try again to become president.

We don't offer these suggestions because we, too, mourn his defeat. He was not our candidate. But he is our senator, and we believe he'd gain much if he learned to be a good one. We think these suggestions will make him a stronger, more capable public servant and more attractive candidate no matter how high his ambitions soar.

First, become the second senator Texas needs. Cruz did not arrive in the Senate in 2013 with the goal of being a good senator. His goal, as his fellow Texan Sen. John Cornyn remarked recently, was to run for president, a goal he took further than nearly anyone anticipated. At 45, he may well run again someday. But for now, his focus and his efforts belong to the Senate.

Instead of using his high office as a perch and a platform, he should use it as a tool to pass good bills that help Texans and to block bad ones.

He has a model nearby. Sen. John Cornyn can be as partisan as the next senator, and often his job as deputy leader requires it. But along the way he has steadfastly worked to advance legislation  sometimes compromising and sometimes not  aimed at making life better for people who count on him to help. From criminal justice reform, to advancing the nomination of our ambassador to Mexico, to the Justice for Victims of Sex Trafficking Act, Cornyn has worked hard at being a good legislator.

Cruz should pick his own priorities and then go to work building bipartisan relationships on Capitol Hill so he can pass his own laws. Such a path will require humility. Like it or not, success as a senator will require allies. ...

Secondly, we recognize that Cruz's ambitions will continue to stretch beyond the Senate. And we suspect he'll continue to be voice of protest against the White House, no matter who wins November. But we urge him to broaden his appeal beyond the evangelical voters he initially promised would make him president. If he cannot, his path to the White House will never get any easier than it was in 2016. And his influence on history will remain small.

This will require profound introspection. Cruz and his allies may be tempted to see in his near-miss reasons aplenty to continue again in the same vein. But for Donald Trump, they will counsel, this path might have succeeded!

That's a seductive falsehood. Trump did him favors this time around, clearing out all the better-known GOP rivals early on. Cruz shrewdly stayed on the sidelines, waiting for Trump to implode. That never happened, and by the time he engaged with Trump, it was too late. ...

By broadening his base, and developing a track record in the senate, Cruz can grow in stature between now and the next time he runs for president. But whether he ever wins that higher office, he owes it to Texas to do a better job in the office he already holds.
From California to Maine, voters will be faced with dozens of ballot measures this fall, ranging from instant-runoff voting to pharmaceutical regulation. But ballot initiatives arent just about the issues. They are also used to help get out the vote. In recent cycles, progressive groups have looked to topics such as minimum-wage increases and marijuana legalization to help drive voter turnout.The fact is that there are few other avenues for Democrats. Republicans dominate Congress and control big majorities in most state legislatures. People are recognizing that their legislatures arent helping them on issues that they care about, so theyre going directly to the ballot, says Kellie Dupree, director of programs for the liberal Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.Not to be outdone, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) has set up the Center for Conservative Initiatives. It was created early in 2015 in response to a very well-thought-out, very well-coordinated effort by Democrats and leftist groups to gain access to the ballot, says RSLC President Matt Walter.The new center helped defeat two education funding measures that were on the Mississippi ballot last November. But this year, Walter says, it will largely be playing defense as the center develops its own strategies and funding levels. Eventually, he adds, look for the group to back a raft of conservative measures.In the meantime, progressives are doing everything they can to further their causes. Minimum-wage increases will again be prominently featured on ballots, while a half-dozen states will likely cast votes on marijuana.Of course, legislatures arent sitting idly by, either. There are some issues that legislators are almost endemically allergic to, such as campaign finance regulation and sending redistricting responsibilities to an independent commission. When it comes to policy questions, advocates find that initiatives let them work their way around political branches that may be unfavorable. The legislature doesnt like people passing things through the initiative process, says Craig Burnett, an expert on ballot measures at Hofstra University. If youre a legislator, you think lawmaking power should be preserved within the legislature itself.That line of thinking is one reason why numerous states have passed laws to limit access to the ballot over the past decade or so. Legislatures are increasingly looking for ways to dampen these [initiatives], says Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML, a pro-pot legalization group. We marijuana reformers might not have voter initiatives available to us in 2018 or 2020 or 2022.In 2016, however, anyone with adequate funding for an initiative should have an unusually easy time getting an idea on the ballot. Why? Initiative campaigns generally have to collect a number of signatures that is equal to a percentage of the votes cast in the last election. In 2014, turnout was the lowest its been since World War II. It will certainly be a pretty busy ballot year, says Dupree of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.
Gov. Robert Bentley Thursday signed two bills restricting abortion clinic locations and banning an abortion procedure.The first bill could close two of the states abortion clinics, and both will likely land the state in federal court.The clinic bill, sponsored by Sen. Paul Sanford, R-Huntsville, prevents abortions clinics from locating near K-8 schools. The bill would likely lead to the closure of the Alabama Womens Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville and could also force the closure of the West Alabama Womens Center in Tuscaloosa. The two clinics accounted for 72 percent of all the abortion procedures in Alabama in 2014.Its targeted directly at access to reproductive choices and a womans right to choose, said Dalton Johnson, the administrator of the Alabamas Womens Center in Huntsville.
As the editor in chief of The San Francisco Chronicle, Audrey Cooper has overseen countless stories on homelessness. But the issue became personal three years ago when she was pushing her 6-month-old child in a stroller through the citys business district. A homeless couple in a tent on the sidewalk were having sex, tent flaps open, as their pit bull stood guard.Ms. Cooper expressed her outrage loudly and in colorful language.I probably shouldnt have started yelling at them, she said in an interview in her fishbowl office in the heart of the Chronicles newsroom. They let their dog loose.San Francisco residents have over decades become inured to encounters with the citys homeless population, the clumps of humanity sleeping on sidewalks under coats and makeshift blankets, or drug addicts shooting up in full view of pedestrians. There are also the tension-filled but common scenes of mentally ill men and women stumbling down streets, arguing with imaginary enemies or harassing passers-by.One particularly vocal group of residents, San Franciscos journalists, say they feel a sense of urgency in addressing the problem. They are banding together in an exasperated, but as yet vaguely defined, attempt to spur the city into action.Next month, media organizations in the Bay Area are planning to put aside their rivalries and competitive instincts for a day of coordinated coverage on the homeless crisis in the city. The Chronicle, which is leading the effort, is dispensing with traditional news article formats and will put forward possible solutions to the seemingly intractable plight of around 6,000 people without shelter.
A federal judge has struck down some of Kentucky's judicial conduct rules meant to keep nonpartisan judges and judicial candidates out of organized politics.On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Amul R. Thapar handed down a summary judgment largely in favor of Kentucky Court of Appeals Judge Allison Jones and 2014 judicial candidates Robert A. Winter Jr. and Cameron A. Blau.The plaintiffs, all from Northern Kentucky, sued the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission in 2014 to challenge its assorted prohibitions against political behavior by judges and judicial candidates. Thapar said Kentucky has a right to make judicial races nonpartisan, but the First Amendment's protection of free speech means judges and judicial candidates also have rights.Specifically, Thapar struck down parts of the code that prohibited publicly declaring membership in a political party; on giving political donations; on engaging in political activity in general; on speaking for or against a political organization or candidate, short of an official endorsement; and on pledging to act a certain way on given issues likely to come before the court."We do have a First Amendment in this country ... and that means states like Kentucky must be surgically precise when they enact what is in fact a speech code," Thapar wrote. "It also means that states cannot gag candidates from announcing their views on the important issues of the day. Thus, to the extent that the canons are too vague -- or limit what a judge or would-be judge can say about an issue -- they violate the First Amendment."Steven D. Wolnitzek, chairman of the Judicial Conduct Commission, did not return a call seeking comment Friday. The commission operates under rules set by the Kentucky Supreme Court.Christopher Wiest, attorney for Winter and Blau, said Kentucky cannot elect its judges while expecting judicial candidates to say little about themselves during their campaigns. If judicial candidates want to say they are a Republican or a Democrat or they want to do something about the state's heroin addiction epidemic, then that should be permitted, Wiest said."There's always this tug of war between some parts of the judiciary that don't want any partisanship being brought into the courtroom and candidates like Mr. Winter who recognize that political affiliation and personal opinions are just a fact of life," Wiest said. "Otherwise, why would we be having this big standoff in Washington right now over whether Merrick Garland gets to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court?"Kentucky's judicial conduct rules against partisan activity have suffered several defeats in recent years. Marcus Carey, an Erlanger lawyer who ran for the state Supreme Court in 2006, sued for the right to publicly share his political views as a judicial candidate. Carey was backed in 2010 by the 6th Circuit U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which warned Kentucky that its judicial conduct rules must be narrowly tailored to avoid infringing on anyone's free speech."There is room for debate about whether the election of state court judges is a good idea or a bad one. Yet there is no room for debate that, if a state opts to select its judges through popular elections, it must comply with the First Amendment in doing so," the appellate court ruled.
Hawaii has filed the first state lawsuit against Japanese manufacturer Takata Corp. and Honda Motor Co. Ltd. alleging they intentionally sold cars that were made with dangerous air bags.The lawsuit filed in First Circuit Court by the state Office of Consumer Protection for unfair and deceptive practices is seeking the maximum civil penalty of $10,000 per violation to be paid to the state. It is also demanding that Honda launch a campaign to alert consumers about the dangers of the defective air bags and the need to seek repairs.About 70,000 cars with Takata air bags have been sold to Hawaii consumers, though the state said it is not aware of any residents being harmed. Nationally, 45 percent of the faulty air bags in Honda vehicles have been replaced, according to a Honda website.Hawaii drivers are particularly at risk because of the state's high temperatures and humidity, which could lead to built-up pressure and cause the steel interiors of the air bags to burst, sending shrapnel through the vehicle.Honda says 10 individuals in the U.S. have been killed by metal debris when Takata air bags exploded in their cars, and more than a hundred have been injured."Takata made the decision to switch to cheaper ammonium nitrate to inflate its air bags knowing the risk of the chemical used to propel rockets and for mining and demolition," said Stephen Levins, executive director of the Office of Consumer Protection, at a press conference Friday. "Though Takata's own testing showed that the ammonium nitrate propellant was unpredictable and prone to explode, Takata sold its air bags to automakers knowing they would be installed in vehicles and sold to consumers."In addition, Honda continued to sell cars with Takata air bags even when it became aware of the problem, and failed to adequately pursue recalls while "subjecting consumers to an ongoing risk of serious injury and death.""We have companies come into our state and try to take advantage of citizens and put them at risk. Takata and Honda put their own profits and reputations ahead of honesty and their customers' safety," Levins said. "There's a situation that's intolerable, and we're not going to put up with it. We intend to hold them accountable for their conduct.""This is a very, very serious public health issue," Levins said. "There are serious consequences if this happens to someone."The complaint names Takata, American Honda Motor Co. Inc. and Honda of America Manufacturing Inc.Calls to Takata's office in Los Angeles and a company spokesman late Friday were not immediately returned.Honda hasn't yet received the lawsuit, so it can't comment, said Chris Martin, a spokesman for American Honda Co., in an email. Martin said Honda is cooperating with the government on the Takata air bag inflator issue.Levins said local dealerships have an obligation to fix the air bags, though many do not have a sufficient quantity of parts in the islands. Hondas might not be the only cars affected. Takata at one time had a 25 percent market share, and at least 11 car manufactures are possibly affected, Levins said.The state is urging consumers to check whether their vehicles are affected at safercar.gov and to make an appointment to have their air bags replaced as soon as possible."Authorized Honda and Acura dealerships will make appropriate repairs at no charge to the customer. If an owner requests alternative transportation while awaiting repair, while the repair is in progress, or if there is a delay in repairing an affected vehicle, Honda and Acura dealers are authorized to provide a free loaner or rental vehicle," according to the Honda-run website hondaairbaginfo.com.
A federal judge in Arizona has ruled that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio intentionally violated the judge's orders to end profiling of Latinos 19 times, a decision that raises the possibility he could face criminal charges.U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow found Arpaio and three of his top aides in contempt of court on Friday and wrote in his decision that Arpaio was less than truthful in a series of hearings last year."The Court finds that the Defendants have engaged in multiple acts of misconduct, dishonesty, and bad faith," Snow wrote.A hearing is scheduled May 31 to determine the civil penalties and examine whether Arpaio will face a criminal contempt case.In a 2011 civil case brought by Latino drivers against Arpaio and his aides, Snow determined that Arpaio had encouraged his deputies to subject Latino drivers to greater scrutiny during traffic stops than white drivers typically received. He ordered the sheriff to put an end to the practice.Two years later, Snow found that Arpaio had continued the practice in violation of the order. At a Houston rally the next year, Arpaio told supporters that he had violated the order "out of spite" and had arrested 500 people.He later said in court filings that he had violated the order unknowingly.In hearings last year, the octogenarian who calls himself "America's toughest sheriff" seemed to wither under questioning, particularly when asked about an effort he had made to investigate the judge.A lawyer for Arpaio had hired a private investigator to look into comments Snow's wife purportedly made in a restaurant, where an informant claimed she had said the judge didn't want to see Arpaio reelected.Arpaio apologized to Snow for the investigation, but Arpaio's attorneys also used the incident to argue that Snow was no longer impartial and should recuse himself from the case. Snow declined.In his contempt ruling, Snow said Arpaio and his aides failed to turn over video evidence to plaintiffs in the civil case, disobeyed orders to gather evidence and continued to profile Latinos.Arpaio was held in contempt on three counts. Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan was found in contempt on two counts, and retired Chief Brian Sands and Lt. Joe Sousa each were found in contempt on one count.Snow found that Arpaio hid thousands of pieces of evidence from the plaintiffs and deleted relevant digital evidence kept on hard drives.Longtime opponents immediately called for the sheriff to resign."Any public official who has been found guilty of racial profiling and ignores the orders of the court cannot be entrusted with the safety and well-being of the community and should step down in shame," the immigrant rights group Puente Arizona said in a statement Friday.The ACLU, which brought the original case against Arpaio, demanded stricter oversight and transparency from the Sheriff's Office."Strong remedies are needed to protect the community's rights, starting with internal investigations that root out and punish misconduct," said Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "Willing or not, the sheriff will be made to comply with the law."The ruling Friday was one of Arpaio's most serious defeats, but it doesn't bar him from holding office, and he had already announced his intention to run for a seventh term as sheriff in November.
Decline of Chinatowns in U.S.

Chicago: The exception

One of the first things Chinese immigrant Sau Fung Lam did upon arriving in Chinatown 24 years ago was go to the local grocery store to try to buy an apple.She approached the grocer and opened her mouth, as if the English words she didn't know would, by some miracle, slip out. They didn't. So she instead formed a circle with her fingers and thumbs, a gesture the grocer seemed to understand.She was handed a large onion.Since Lam moved from East China to Chicago in the early 1990s, Chinatown has flourished from a community that was partially Chinese where residents mostly spoke English into one where Lam can easily communicate in Chinese. Most businesses, restaurants and agencies operate bilingually, since the majority of residents speak a Chinese dialect, and nearly 65 percent are foreign-born, experts say.At a time when traditional urban Chinatowns in Manhattan, San Francisco, Boston and Philadelphia are fading due to gentrification and changing cultural landscapes, Chicago's Chinatown is growing larger -- becoming what experts say could be a model for Chinatown survival in the U.S. In Chicago, where several neighborhoods are no longer defined by the immigrant or ethnic groups that once occupied them, Chinatown is an exception, having anchored the area centered around Cermak Road and Wentworth Avenue since 1912.Local leaders say it has avoided gentrification because Chinese-Americans value a sense of belonging and choose to stay in the neighborhood. Few Chinese move out, and if they do, they sell their homes back to the Chinese.Between 2000 and 2010, Chinatown's population increased 24 percent and its Asian population increased 30 percent. Asians make up nearly 90 percent of the neighborhood's population, according to 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data. Experts also say that of all the foreign-born Asians living in Chicago's Chinatown, nearly 10 percent arrived in the last three years -- a stark contrast to New York and San Francisco, where immigrants no longer fuel Chinatowns.Walk through the Chinatown Gate and south on Wentworth, and you may see young Chinese professionals gathered at dim sum restaurants, clusters of Chinese children skipping to the playground for recess or hear a Chinese drama echoing from a dated television at the back of a bakery. The neighborhood allows Lam, now 81, to live comfortably in Chicago without having ever learned English. She spends her days eating at Cantonese restaurant MingHin Cuisine, buying savory turnip cakes from Hong Kong Market and singing alongside her sister in a Chinese choir on Wednesdays."I never think of Chinatown disappearing in Chicago," she said through a translator who works for a Chinese social service agency. "If that happened, it'd be very inconvenient. Life would be difficult."It's unlikely Chicago's Chinatown will succumb to national trends, experts say, and projections show the greater Chinatown area growing. Bordering neighborhoods have already seen an influx of Asian families moving in: Between 2009 and 2013, Bridgeport's Asian-American population grew from 26 percent to 35 percent, while McKinley Park's grew from just under 8 percent to 17 percent, according to an analysis of census data.Recognizing the national decline of other Chinatowns, city planners and local organizations are committed to investing in it, which could be why the neighborhood is thriving. In 2013, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning announced a plan to preserve Chinatown's cultural identity by improving public education and elderly care, bolstering transportation infrastructure and creating more public parks.And in August, the city opened a two-story, $19.1 million branch of the Chicago Public Library on South Wentworth. The building, with a steel and glass frame that forms a vessel of natural light, has both an architectural and civic presence, and has attracted about 1,500 people a day. It caters to Chinese-speaking patrons, as many residents turn to the library for English classes.The tight-knit fiber of greater Chinatown led to a historical feat in this year's March primary. Theresa Mah, D-Chicago, who faces no challenger in the November election, is poised to be what she and others think is the first Asian-American to serve in the Illinois General Assembly."It wasn't until changes in immigration laws that there was an increase in the number of people who were citizens, and eligible to vote," Mah said. "My hope is that an increase in population will mean more representation."Smaller Chinatowns, like that of Washington, D.C., have been diminishing for decades, and are now identifiable by just an ornate welcome gate or pocket of Chinese restaurants. And in the last few years, the large, traditional Chinatowns in San Francisco and Manhattan have decreased as well.Chinatowns first formed after the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882. The law barred Chinese laborers from immigrating to the U.S., though exceptions were made for merchants and scholars, said Huping Ling, a history professor at Truman State University who focuses on Asian-American studies. The Chinese already living in America suffered violent racism and discrimination, and were unable to assimilate into the country's social or economic fabric. Without the means to return to China, they relied on urban clusters -- Chinatowns -- to survive.The act was repealed in 1943, though there was an annual quota of 105 new entry visas, and the ethnic Chinese were still banned from owning property or businesses. It wasn't until 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act, that racial immigration restrictions were lifted, Ling said. The country's Chinese population in America soared in the following decades, especially in Manhattan and San Francisco, ushered by the rise of communism in mainland China.With the resulting economic growth of Chinatowns and boom in the Chinese restaurant industry, it wasn't long before Chinatowns began to be viewed as tourist destinations.Chinatowns have historically been home to poorer immigrants, who don't speak English and have few marketable skills, Ling said. This continues to be the case in Manhattan, though the number of jobs available for these immigrants, such as restaurant jobs, is declining. Immigrants who are more well-off tend to turn to the suburbs or newer Chinese enclaves in Brooklyn or Queens, occasionally visiting the traditional Chinatown to attend church or buy groceries, Ling said.In San Francisco's Chinatown, the nation's oldest, there was a 19.3 percent drop in Asians from 2000 to 2010, though the number of Asians living in the core fell by only 3 percentage points, according to an analysis of census data."You can see a pattern starting to form, and eviction and housing cases tell the rest of the story," said Cindy Wu, deputy director and planning commissioner at Chinatown Community Development Center in San Francisco.Chicago differs from Manhattan and San Francisco in that it doesn't have as high of a demand nor as tight of a supply of rentable apartments, according to a study released in 2015 by New York University and Capital One. But experts and local leaders agree that Chicago's Chinatown could also be thriving because of its commitment to Chinese traditions, which makes it attractive to both Asians and non-Asian visitors.Nancy Wong, 62, moved to Chicago in 1988 from Hong Kong out of fear the autonomous territory would join mainland communist China. She's since opened a flower shop on Archer Avenue, near Chinatown, and regularly visits Chinatown to work with clients.She believes Chinatown's numerous services and agencies for immigrants and Chinese speakers are what make it attractive. There are plenty of elderly housing options, employment training services and English classes, often taught at local churches. Residents' primary use of Chinese for business helps prevent the neighborhood from existing as just a tourist attraction."Some young people even work or live in Chinatown just to learn Chinese," she said.When Chinatown Square, a two-story outdoor mall, was introduced to the 2100 block of South China Place in 1993, the community buzzed about the possibility of gentrification, said Bernie Wong, the president of Chinese-American Service League, a social service agency that provides child education programs, employment training and elderly services."But I still don't see gentrification, it's mostly Chinese," she said. "And it's not just about having a Chinese neighbor. In Chinatown, you belong to organizations. You belong to social groups."Chinatown's population is on the rise, and from 2000 to 2010, it increased from 5,830 to 7,254 people, with the Asian population increasing from 4,969 to 6,447 people.In 2013, city planners announced a plan to develop more housing, public parks and road improvements in Chinatown. The library was completed last August, and in 2013, a boathouse and fieldhouse were added to Ping Tom Memorial Park, on the banks of the Chicago River.Another key component of the plan is improving workforce opportunities and public education. About 78 percent of Chinatown residents speak Chinese at home, and of that population, more than three-quarters report speaking English "less than 'very well,'" according to a May 2015 report from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, which oversees land-use and transportation planning for the region. Half of Chinatown residents are employed in three sectors: the food and hospitality industry, health care and social services, and manufacturing, according to the report.City planners hope to create more job opportunities for the Chinese community by expanding on the Chinese-American Service League's current adult job training programs, by coordinating English as a second language training and new job programs at the City Colleges of Chicago.Residents have also expressed a desire for better public high school options. The neighborhood's two high schools, Tilden and Wendell Phillips Academy, have low Asian attendance, at 1.7 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively, according to that metropolitan agency report. This suggests most Chinatown high schoolers choose not to attend neighborhood public high schools -- something city planners want to address.The possible development of a 62-acre stretch between 16th Street and the northern end of Chinatown also has Ald. Daniel Solis, 25th, hopeful a new public high school could be built on the space. The area could also be developed for commercial and residential use, he said.As alderman for nearly two decades, Solis believes the success of the area lies in its residents' dedication to the traditions that make the neighborhood vibrant."That's something that's not only unique to my ward, but also across the city," he said. "The Chinese don't need to be driven from their community, they just expand it."
On Saturday, in the morning, at Bulimba Barracks, Bulimba, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC attended the Commissioning Ceremony of HMAS Moreton where the Governor addressed guests.

Also in the morning, at St Andrews Anglican Church, Lutwyche, the Governor was represented by Honorary Aide-de-Camp, Lieutenant Gail Rogers, Royal Australian Navy Reserves, at the 73rd Anniversary of the sinking of the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur Commemorative Church Service.
Description

GIS - 16 May, 2016: The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) is organising the ninth edition of the Salon des Entreprises Mauriciennes from 19 to 22 May 2016 at the Swami Vivekananda International Convention Centre, Pailles. The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) is organising the ninth edition of thefrom 19 to 22 May 2016 at the Swami Vivekananda International Convention Centre, Pailles.

The Salon will provide a platform for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to showcase and sell goods produced locally. Some 125 SMEs involved in sectors, such as textiles, garments, footwear, furniture, handicraft, metal and light engineering, printing, food and agro-industry, plastic, chemicals and detergents, will participate in the event.

SME service providers, such as MauBank, the State Bank of Mauritius, the Development Bank of Mauritius, Enterprise Mauritius, the National Women Entrepreneur Council, the Mauritius Standards Bureau, the Food and Agricultural Research Extension Institute, the National Productivity and Competitiveness Council, and the National Institute for Cooperative Entrepreneurship, will provide free business advice, counselling, technical information and other related services to entrepreneurs.

The event will also provide an opportunity for entrepreneurs to share and demonstrate their know-how, acquire new skills in relation to innovation and technology. Some 177 stalls have been allocated to local entrepreneurs to exhibit their products.
Description

GIS  16 May 2016: A training programme on Product Development at the Pilot Plant Unit of the Food Tech Laboratory to boost agro-entrepreneuriat, an initiative of the Ministry of Agro-Industry and Food Security, kicked off this morning at Reduit. A training programme on Product Development at the Pilot Plant Unit of the Food Tech Laboratory to boost agro-entrepreneuriat, an initiative of the Ministry of Agro-Industry and Food Security, kicked off this morning at Reduit.

During the next three weeks, 45 participants will be trained in the transformation of four products, namely tofu, dumpling, pickled radish and cucumber.

The Food Tech Laboratory (FTL) is an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratory for selected chemical and microbiological tests of foods (pesticide residues, heavy metals, toxins), animal feeds and water for our export and import requirements. It is accredited since 2012 by MAURITAS and by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, India since December 2015.

FTL aims to support safe food production at both primary and processor levels. It became operational in 2007 and is the COMESA Food Safety Reference Laboratory since 2008. It also aims to ensure the safety and quality of both locally produced, exported and imported food products .

Present at the opening ceremony, the Minister of Agro-Industry and Food Security, Mr Mahen Seeruttun stated that Government wants to boost up the agro-business sector and new measures to assist the planters community will be announced in the next budget.

He pointed out that the Government has been actively encouraging agricultural and agro-industrial development to diversify the industry. Today, investments in this sector are oriented towards technology-driven and high-value activities, he said.

According to the Minister, the transformation and preservation of fruits and vegetables is about handling food in such a way as to stop or greatly slow down spoilage to prevent foodborne illness and extend its shelf-life. The FTL, he added, has been able to further exploit this concept through the support of the Chinese Agricultural Technical Team (CATT).

The CATT has been collaborating with Mauritius since 1974 and this has been possible due to the China and Mauritius cooperation programme. The past projects carried out with the support of the CATT include rice production, mushroom production, fruits and vegetables research and training. They have also collaborated in agro processing and composting technology.
Description

GIS  16 May 2016: A workshop focusing on Internet of Things (IoT) - Prospects and Challenges for Mauritius; and, ICT Entrepreneurship for Social Impact, will be held on 17 and 18 May 2016 at the Paul Octave Wiehe Auditorium, Reduit, to mark World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) 2016 .

O rganised by the Ministry of Technology, Communication and Innovation in collaboration with the Mauritius Research Council and the National Computer Board, the event will address the following issues: IoT in Cognitive Era ; IoT in Action ; Government Role in creating an enabling environment for ICT Entrepreneurs ; Role of ICT enabled Innovation in addressing key socio economic challenges ; and, Unlocking the value of ICT Entrepreneurship ecosystem: A global perspective.

Resource persons are from the University of Mauritius, University of Southampton, Ceridian, Mauritius Makers Community, ICT Advisory Council, University of Technology of Mauritius, Microsoft West East and Central Africa, Mauritius Post Ltd, and Mauritius Telecom.

About WTISD

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) was established in November 2006 by the International Telecommunication Union to help raise awareness on the possibilities that the use of ICT can bring to socio-economic development as well as of ways to bridge the digital divide.

The theme this year is ICT entrepreneurship for social impact

World Telecommunication Day

World Telecommunication Day has been celebrated annually on 17 May since 1969 , marking the founding of ITU and the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865. It was instituted by the Plenipotentiary Conference in Malaga-Torremolinos in 1973.

World Information Society Day

In November 2005 , the World Summit on the Information Society called upon the UN General Assembly to declare 17 May as World Information Society Day to focus on the importance of ICT and the wide range of issues related to the Information Society. The General Assembly adopted a resolution in March 2006 stipulating that World Information Society Day shall be celebrated every year on 17 May.
Los Angeles will become the first large city to connect to Californias 100 Gbps education network, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced May 12.The California Research and Education Network (CalREN), which is operated by the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), today connects schools, libraries, researchers and 10,000 member institutions. Connecting city departments to the network will open new data-themed opportunities for government, Garcetti said.The city of Los Angeles is already unmatched in digital transparency, but speed and accessibility are just as important in the 21st century, Garcetti said in a press release . This agreement means that young people, students of all ages, some of the worlds leading thinkers and educators can now access the citys digital resources up to 1,000 times faster. When we open our data to the public, and commit ourselves to making it more easily available, we create limitless potential for innovation, discovery and new understanding.The physical connection between the citys infrastructure and CalREN is expected to be complete within weeks, said CENIC President and CEO Louis Fox.One of the things that we do  is we connect to other research networks, the commercial Internet, but we also have settlement-free peering with most of the major networks that you can imagine  Amazon, Google, Microsoft and so on," Fox explained. "So this is simply another peering relationship where we interconnect our network and the city of LAs network."The origin of this partnership was a report published by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology earlier this year, said Los Angeles Chief Technology Officer Peter Marx.One of the core things about this report was this thing that cities  which are such big repositories of data, data used for understanding all of urban life, if you will, and Los Angeles obviously has a massive amount of data that it publishes, something like 1,100 data sets right now," Marx said. These data repositories and also cities as these digital service providers need to be connected not only to the educational institutions, but also the researchers, the innovators, all the different parts of [the ecosystem] at high speeds because demand is only going to get to be higher.And the hope, Marx added, is that more cities will follow in Los Angeles' footsteps and connect to the educational network in preparation of the coming data explosion.The amount of collaboration government regularly engages in with outside entities makes the handling of physical records an unwieldy undertaking, said Ted Ross, the citys general manager of Information Technology.This last year, we did a data analysis project at USC, Ross said. They had 23 graduate students and it was all around our vision zero program, which was analyzing traffic and police data, millions of records to be able to identify areas in which pedestrians and cyclists are being killed by traffic collisions. It was extremely hard to get millions of records of data physically over to USC. This type of connectivity allows us to share massive amounts of data between the city of Los Angeles and all these research universities. Thats just one tactical use of it.
Sought to Protect Net Metering

The Next Metering Alternative

A Potential National Model

Wherer the Donations Went

Fredette: Not Aware of Donation

(TNS) -- The Maine lawmakers who last month defeated a landmark bill that would have expanded solar energy had unusual allies: national companies that are the countrys largest installers of rooftop solar panels.The companies, led by California-based Sunrun Inc. and SolarCity , hired lobbyists to fight the bill, donated money to political action committees that benefit the bills opponents and used social media to push an alternative measure that created a smokescreen for the bills detractors.The conflict between national solar companies and their Maine counterparts reflects deep divisions over how to credit the homeowners and small businesses for the power they generate on rooftops and in backyards.Those credits are seen as essential to the expansion of solar power because they provide a payback for the upfront investments in solar equipment. A solar-electric system can cost $15,000 to $18,000 for a typical Maine home, with a payback period of up to 12 years after a 30 percent federal tax credit, depending on electricity prices.But the credit system, known in the industry as net metering, is also politically unpopular  especially with Gov. Paul LePage  because it is seen as a subsidy, funded by all utility customers, that increases the price of electricity.In the end, LePage vetoed the measure and the Legislature failed to override the veto by two votes.Assistant House Majority Leader Sara Gideon, a Freeport Democrat who was the principal champion of the bill, said national solar company support for a Republican effort to amend the bill  which the bills supporters rejected  created confusion around an already complex piece of legislation.Instead of fighting a lobbying effort with one opponent, she said, now there were multiple opponents, and one was the solar industry itself. Thats hard to overcome. It creates confusion and was the final nail in the coffin, when you come down to a two-vote margin.The Maine solar bill would have replaced net metering with an innovative but untested alternative credit system that was crafted by a coalition of local solar installers, top Democrats, the states public advocate, utility companies and the states clean-energy and conservation groups.But the national solar installers, committed to the net metering system, didnt like Maines alternative proposal. They were afraid it would catch on in other states where net metering is also under fire, so they came to Augusta to fight it.If Maine had abandoned net metering (for an alternative) it would have been unprecedented in New England and across the country, said Suzanne Merkelson, a spokeswoman for SolarCity. We just wanted to protect net metering, at all costs.Although the solar bill was defeated, the conflict over compensation for utility customers who generate power with small solar systems isnt over. Its moving now to a new battleground: the Public Utilities Commission.Under an existing Maine law, the PUC must review net metering once the amount of energy generated by the sun hits 1 percent of total power generation. That threshold was crossed on a hot day last summer in Central Maine Powers service area.The PUC is expected to announce its review plan soon, and the national solar installers will once again be fully engaged in the process.But their strategy is a gamble. The three PUC commissioners were appointed by LePage. Democrats and clean-energy advocates fear the panel will modify net metering in ways that will stunt the growth of solar power and the 400 jobs it now provides for local installers.The number of Mainers with solar arrays on their rooftops or in their yards is still relatively small  about 1,900 homes and 200 small businesses or institutions in CMPs service area in southern and central Maine.Customers who own those systems are getting a one-to-one credit on their electric bills at the so-called retail rate, the total of power supply, distribution and transmission costs. Maintaining this retail rate is the definition of net metering.The failed solar bill would have replaced the current form of net metering with an untested alternative that supporters dubbed next metering. Utilities would have bought the solar power in combined, long-term contracts at rates that would have decreased over time as prices fell and solar penetration grew. This idea had drawn national interest, as a possible model for updating net-metering policies.That was a threat to the national installers, SolarCity and Sunrun, the lead member of The Alliance for Solar Choice , a trade group made up of roughly 15 big installers and the countrys chief advocate for rooftop solar.Chris Rauscher, public policy director for Sunrun, said he worked with all sides to try to craft a bill that also maintained net metering in its current form, but he was unsuccessful in persuading lawmakers to embrace a side-by-side pilot program. He said the failed solar bill would have given excessive control to utilities and created uncertainty in the market over time.So now we will need the (PUC) to step in and ensure the full value of solar net metering to Maines economy is recognized, Rauscher said.Merkelson, the SolarCity spokeswoman, said Maines solar bill would have hurt rooftop customers in the long run. It would have favored larger-scale projects and given utilities too much control of solar. Thats why Central Maine Power and Emera Maine embraced it, she said, and why the utility industry saw Maines bill as a potential national model.SolarCity hired Steve Hudson, a lobbyist and partner at the Preti Flaherty law firm. Hudson declined to discuss his role, although he acknowledged making a minor addition to a letter to Senate Republicans from Ken Fletcher, a former Republican lawmaker and LePages first energy director. The letter detailed the high cost ratepayers would endure if the bill passed.The bill that was finally voted on by lawmakers contained compromises developed with the help of two Republicans on the Legislatures Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee. But LePage sought additional, last-minute concessions, including a request to slash the rate solar customers get for net metering in half over 18 months. Maine solar installers and environmental groups said that cut would kill the industry, and Democratic leaders rejected it.It was a climax to earlier attempts by Republicans to find an alternative that LePage would accept.During a mid-March public hearing on the solar bill, Rep. Nathan Wadsworth of Hiram, the ranking House Republican on the energy committee, surprised participants by releasing a statement asking the PUC to decide the fate of net metering.The statement was supported by House Minority Leader Ken Fredette, R-Newport, and, solar advocates suspect, orchestrated by him. Fredette said the solar bill was too complex to be considered so late in the session.Days later, that statement was transformed into an amendment to the solar bill, and sponsored by Wadsworth. While it was a non-starter with Democrats and was never voted on, it served as a tactic to distract solar supporters and conceal the true intentions of adversaries, said Vaughan Woodruff, the owner of InSource Renewables , a solar installer in Pittsfield.It gave shelter to opponents, said Woodruff, who was heavily involved in promoting the failed solar bill. It gave some Republicans cover to say they were for solar energy, and that the bill just needed some tweaks.Wadsworth said he worked on the alternative with the help of Patrick Woodcock, the governors energy director, Fredette, Republican Sen. Garrett Mason of Lisbon and Republicans on the energy committee. Both he and Fredette said the national solar companies werent involved.Wadsworth said he supported the full retail rate for net metering because the penetration rate of solar was so low that it didnt currently hurt ratepayers. That position is in conflict with LePage, however. Negotiations on the solar bill finally broke down because the governor insisted on a much lower compensation rate to replace net metering.For his part, Fredette said his goal was to find a compromise that LePage could support. He dismissed the idea of influence from SolarCity or Sunrun, saying lawmakers and state officials wrote the amendment.Whatever influence the national installers had, Sunrun spent the most money fighting the solar bill, as detailed in financial reports filed with the state ethics commission. Lobbyist disclosure reports for March show that Rauscher, the companys public policy director, was paid $8,614 for his work. Reports for April arent available yet.Disclosure documents also show Sunrun contributed $5,500 between November and March to political action committees that benefited Republican leaders. The largest single share  $2,500  went to Fredettes PAC; $250 went to a PAC benefiting Fredette and Rep. Ellie Espling, R-New Gloucester, the assistant minority leader.The company also donated $1,000 to a PAC benefiting Wadsworth, the freshman lawmaker from Hiram on the legislative committee that handles energy matters and a key player in defeating the solar bill.Sunrun gave $1,250 to PACs benefiting Senate President Mike Thibodeau, R-Winterport. It gave $250 each to PACs benefiting Sen. Tom Saviello, R-Wilton, and Sen. Andre Cushing, R-Hampden, the assistant majority leader.By contrast, Sunrun donated $750 so far this year to Democratic PACs, state records show, with $500 going to House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick.Rauscher said his company donates to both parties because it has learned from other states that all sides must be engaged to enact good solar policy.Asked about Sunruns donation to his PAC, Fredette said he wasnt aware of it because he doesnt go back and check on who donated and who didnt. Records show that in the last quarter of 2015, Sunruns $2,500 contribution to Fredettes PAC was topped only by $2,750 from Altria Client Services. Altria is the parent company of Philip Morris USA, the cigarette maker.Fredette also said he didnt know who Rauscher was.If he walked up to me today, I wouldnt recognize him, Fredette said.He also said he thought it was disingenuous for solar advocates to insinuate that the PUC cant be trusted to fairly rule on net metering.Lets see what the PUC gives us back, he said.What the PUC gives back will be critical to the national installers, who are laboring under a cloud of uncertainty over net metering.That uncertainty continues to cast a shadow over solar markets. Share prices in SolarCity and Sunrun fell for the quarter ending in March, and are down 66.8 percent and 45 percent, respectively, for the year.Fortunat Mueller, a co-founder of ReVision Energy in Portland, said he has come to understand why the national installers would come to Maine and side with politicians who actually are against the policy.They employed bare-knuckle tactics that local solar advocates probably wouldnt use, Mueller said. They think they can do better at the PUC. I hope thats true.
Even Dr Helmut Marko's arch rival Niki Lauda on Sunday had to tip his famous red cap to Max Verstappen.

As the Mercedes team chairman, Lauda was furious in Barcelona after the collision between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg opened the door for Red Bull's new recruit Max Verstappen to record an historic win.

"I have no answer except to take my cap off," the F1 legend, who still wears a red cap to cover his scars some 40 years after his 1976 Nurburgring crash, is quoted by the German news agency DPA.

"What we are seeing is a talent of the century," Lauda added, referring to Verstappen.

For once, Lauda and his compatriot Dr Marko - the architect of Red Bull's often controversial young driver programme - completely agree.

"It is unbelievable what he (Verstappen) did," Marko told the Austrian broadcaster ORF. "The way he kept the lead with someone like Raikkonen harrying him is incredible."

Writing for Italy's La Repubblica, correspondent Marco Mensura summarised Verstappen's shock breakthrough in Spain by declaring that - like or not the methods of Marko's brutal regime - Red Bull has uncovered a true F1 star.

"Winning a race like this at 18, at a circuit like this, with someone like Raikkonen attacking for 50 laps, not just anyone can do," he wrote.

"Congratulations to him and those who have understood the talent on their hands.

"That said, I would go against the ocean of rhetoric about this guy (Verstappen) to repeat what I have said before: I would have preferred Red Bull to handle this driver change differently.

"Betting on teenagers is good marketing, but from the sporting point of view it produces one Verstappen for every 50 Alguersuari. Sportingly speaking, it is carnage," Mensura added.

(GMM)
KCR Going Naidu Way In Land Acquisition!

Strongly condemning lathicharge on farmers of Kistapur, Leader of Opposition in Telangana State Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir on Sunday warned the TRS Government of mass agitation if it forcibly acquires land from farmers in the name of irrigation projects.

Shabbir Ali alleged that the State Government was using coercive methods to collect consent letters from farmers to acquire land for Mallanna Sagar reservoir in Medak district.

He said that the State Government was not willing to pay adequate compensation to the farmers as prescribed by the Land Acquisition Act 2013.

He alleged that the TRS Government has re-designed the Mallanna Sagar reservoir by increasing its capacity from 1.5 TMC to 50 TMC without calculating the economical impact in terms of payment of compensation. Now it wants farmers to settle for peanuts while denying them the deserved and promised benefits under the Compensation Act.

Shabbir Ali said that the land which state government proposes to acquire was fertile land which irrigate two crops every year.

He said that the State Government has replaced the GO. MS. No. 214 with GO. MS. 123 only to deny the farmers adequate compensation.

He said it was wrong on the part of State Government to suppress the voice of farmers by using police and lathicharge.

He demanded that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao convene a review meeting to resolve the issue and come up with clarity on rehabilitation and compensation packages.
I had to laugh out loud and shake my head when I received the news that Rowan-Salisbury school system will allow high schoolers to carry pepper spray.

This policy may be useful for students who encounter transgender classmates in the bathroom, said one person on the Rowan-Salisbury board.

Another said the spray is purely defensive; the sprays could help female students if they go to the bathroom and dont know whos coming in after them.

These legislators are voted in by you, the people. But, they are also voted in by you, the people, who overwhelmingly choose not to vote.

However, you, the people, are very good at assembling to protest after the fact.

Pay attention: Youll have another chance to vote June 7. Vet your candidates and protest by voting.

Gail Stroud

Greensboro
Brian OHalloran is best known for his roles in movies like Clerks and Clerks II  Kevin Smiths funny buddy films about two disenchanted, minimum-wage workers at a Quick Stop in New Jersey. But the comic and actor has done a lot more than those cult classics, including serious theater and plenty of stand-up.

Comedy is what hell focus on when he headlines a show at COMIX Mohegan Sun, followed by a Clerks Q&A/video event with actor/musician Scott Schiaffo (the Chewlies Gum rep from Clerks). Both events are fundraisers, aimed at finding a cure for blood cancers through the Westchester (N.Y.) Hudson Valley chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

OHalloran will cover a mix of current topics at his show on Wednesday, May 25, including assessments of some characters in the presidential race. The political climate in this election has generously fed comics throughout these last months, he said. Its a raw kind of atmosphere that this campaign cycle has brought to life.

But politicians arent the only ones OHalloran will skewer; hell also poke fun at some deserving celebrities. And then there will be my own foibles of being in this D- or C- kind of list in celebrity status.

Comedians Ryan Brauth and Geri Wulle will join OHalloran in that first show. Schiaffo, his Clerks castmate, will join him at the later event, where they will show some clips, including scenes with OHallorans character, Dante Hicks.

OHalloran said audience members can ask whatever they like at the video event; it doesnt have to be about the movie that launched Smiths career. But the film certainly has an interesting back story. Clerks was shot in 1993 for a little more than $27,000, most of which was borrowed on a bunch of credit cards. And it went on to earn more than $3 million.

More Information COMIX at Mohegan Sun, 1 Mohegan Sun Blvd., Uncasville. Wednesday, May 25, 7:30 p.m. Doors open 6:30 p.m. $20, 21 and over. VIP front row seats, meet-and-greet and photo opportunity, $100. "Clerks" Q&A/video event, 10 p.m. $20. 860-862-7000, COMIXcomedy.com, teamzombieleader.org See More Collapse

Smith was so hard up for money to make that film, he applied to take a course at The New School in Manhattan just so hed have a student ID to get a discount at the Kodak film lab, OHalloran said.

A Noreaster had blown through the area in late 92 and hed had a car washed out to sea. He got like $4,000 for the car from FEMA  this was when FEMA actually worked  and he invested that in the film, too.

OHalloran said if the director had not gotten Clerks into the Sundance Film Festival and then sold it to Miramax, Smith might still be paying off those credit cards. And he and Schiaffo wouldnt be at Mohegan Sun showing film clips and talking about characters like Dante and his pal, Randal.

Dante and Randal are beloved for their dirty but articulate banter, exchanged as they connect with each other over their dead-end jobs. They bond because theyre polar opposites, OHalloran said. Dante is very much a people pleaser, while the other guy likes to stir things up. Randal is the one who puts a mirror up to the ugly face that is the service industry.

During the event, Schiaffo and OHalloran will be interviewed by Todd Zavorskas, a candidate for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Societys Man of the Year. Zavorskas is a longtime supporter of the organization, and of other worthy causes, which he aids through his company, Zombie Leader. OHalloran said Zavorskas invited them to help out, and theyre happy to do so. Hopefully, it brings needed funds to find cures for blood cancers, OHalloran said.

Next up for OHalloran will be the filming of a sequel to 1995s Mallrats and then Clerks III, to be shot toward the end of 2017. But you can probably see him sooner than that, because hes also in Jeremy Londons new comedy short, Monsters Anonymous.

Its about how the classic horror monsters  Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, The Mummy and Bride of Frankenstein  are all in group therapy because theyre depressed, because theyre not considered scary anymore, he said. Were hoping to get it out into film festivals by the middle of the summer.

lkoonz@newstimes.com; Twitter: @LindaTKoonz
Just like the movie. Photo: @IPPUDO_JP

Captain America: Civil War is the second-highest-grossing film of 2016 so far, but when Marvel Studios looks back on this year it wont be celebrating the films box-office success as its greatest achievement of the year. As part of an ongoing collaboration with Marvel, Ippudo  which hosted an Avengers-themed pop-up here in New York  debuted Civil Warthemed noodles, the latest in unnecessary ramen advancements, at its Minami Aoyama branch in Tokyo. It comes as part of a $42 meal, which includes several dishes like Captain Americathemed panna cotta as well as two types of themed ramen served in bowls representing, respectively, the movies feuding Captain America and Iron Man factions. Bucking the trend of just serving a regular dish in themed tableware, Ippudo went the extra mile of actually tailoring the ramen to each faction, making black pepper noodles for Paul Rudds Ant Man and putting in, uh, a fried egg for Iron Man. Finally, Japanese comics fans will be able to live out their dream of eating their favorite superheroes.

[RocketNews24]
Popular messaging app Telegram has rolled out a new update that - among other things - brings along the ability to edit messages after they've been sent. The new feature - which can be used within 2 days after posting a message - works across all Telegram chats, including groups as well as one-on-one conversations.

"Simply tap and hold on a message, then press Edit. If you're on desktop, press the up arrow button to edit your last message," the company explained in a blog post. "The messages will display a small edited label so that it's easy to tell which were altered."

In addition, the update also brings along the ability to mention people even if they don't have a user name. "Just type the @ symbol and select whoever you would like to address."

Moving on, the update also includes a new People list in Search which can be used to get to your recent chats much faster, Telegram claims.

Among other changes, some interface improvements are also included, while accessing inline bots have also been made easy.

Source




Haiti - Diaspora : Flag Day, message from Consul of Chicago





Saturday, as part of activities for the 213th anniversary of the creation of the Haitian flag (18 May), the Consular Mission in partnership especially with the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti organized a social evening, cultural and patriotic at the Levy Center located at 300 Dodge Ave. - Evanston (Illinois) during which Lesly Conde, the Consul General of Haiti in Chicago issued a message that we invite you to share :



Message from Consul Lesly Conde

"Dear members of the Community,

Dear compatriots,

Dear friends,

Fre m ak se m yo,

Ladies and gentlemen,



On behalf of the Consulate General of Haiti in Chicago, I truly appreciate your company as we proudly celebrate the two hundred and thirteenth anniversary of our illustrious flag. With humility and deep respect, I extend my brotherly greetings to you, and urge you to always meditate on the powerful symbolism of our national emblem.



This year again, I congratulate the HAITIAN CONGRESS TO FORTIFY HAITI as well as all the other Community Organizations that are taking part in this patriotic event. This pleasant atmosphere of unity and collaboration is a fitting way to celebrate our flag, and pay tribute to our ancestors.



I can never insist enough on the unique status of our flag among those of all the other nations of the world. On May 18, 1803 in Arcahaie, our ancestors defied the powerful world order of the time, and did something that confirmed them as world heroes in the perennial fight for freedom and justice. They used the dreadful and unforgiving symbol of their oppression to create their own unifying flag. On May 18, 1803, when my ancestors made that gesture, they were fully aware of the fact that it was the beginning of the end for slavery and all exploitation of humans by humans. They did what they did for the generations of the future, and on behalf of mankind as a whole.



Today, our flag is talking to us. It is urging us to remember the unity that it symbolizes. It is also showing us the way to a destiny which is worthy of our ancestors since it represents the triumph of bravery over tyranny. I always tell myself that our history should be highly appreciated in a world that purports to be so in love with freedom and justice. However, we all know that is not the case. It is we who must be proud of our flag, and draw from it all the courage and determination we need in order to forge the destiny we deserve.



In closing, I want to thank all the participating Community Organizations. Their collaboration made this event a success. I urge you to always remember the powerful message of our flag, and the contribution our small nation made to the history of mankind. Please make the children proud of their identity.



THANK YOU! MESI!



Lesly Conde

Consul General"



Let's recall also that Sunday, May 22, the Haitian Catholic Mission of the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Consulate General invited the brothers and sisters of the Community to a Te Deum Mass Solennelle which will be celebrated at 5:30 pm to the Church of Our Lady of Peace, located at 7801 South Jeffery, Chicago. After the religious ceremony a reception will be held in the basement of the church. This invitation is extended to people of all religious denominations.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2016/05/15

Discover how Korea's youth have been represented in modern Korean cinema, Paul Quin reviews "Missing You - 2016" for Hangul Celluloid, one writer argues that Park Chan-wook's "Old Boy" is a modern Greek tragedy, and is the 4DX cinema technology developed in Korea really worth it?

Advertisement

"4DX Cinema: Gimmick Or Game Changer?"

Tom Bulter, writing for Yahoo Movies, casts a critical eye on South Korea's 4DX technology and asks if it's worth the price of admission: "Cineworld's punt is on 4DX. The technology, developed in South Korea, immerses cinemagoers in the film using seats that move, mirroring the action on screen while smoke, water, and scents are spayed at you in your seats".

...READ ON YAHOO MOVIES

"Youth Is Alive"

Representing Korea's youth has been an important aspect of modern Korean cinema. From young love stories to the hardships of school and life in general, the country's cinematic dreams have not shied away from youth-driven narratives that matter. In this piece, Jason Bechervaise examines the journey of youth in Korean cinema: "From the mid 1990s, some features moved away from social "Attack the Gas Station!" (1999) were more aesthetically vibrant through the use of colour tones, cinematography and soundtracks but again, focusing on the problems experienced by Korean youth".

...READ ON KOBIZ

""Old Boy", the Greek Tragedy: Adaptation & the Tragic Form"

Here's an unusual look at Park Chan-wook's award-winning film "Old Boy" by Justin Morrow. Is the film a kind of resurrection of Greek tragedy? "Park Chan-wook has managed to give the audience a story that stays with them far beyond the experience of the film, just as the effects of the film's causes will continue to resonate beyond the filmic universe in which they take place, affecting the characters forever".

...READ/WATCH ON NO FILM SCHOOL

[Film Review] "Missing You - 2016"

Hangul Celluloid's Paul Quinn reviews Mo Hong-jin's 2016 thriller "Missing You - 2016": "While many of the narrative elements of "Missing You" will be very familiar to fans of Korean cinema, its story of one young woman's need for revenge is engaging enough to make the film worth watching, its strongest point being its ultimate conclusion".

...READ ON HANGUL CELLULOID
Published on 2016/05/15

Learn more about why Jeju Island should definitely be on your travel itinerary, The Korea Times shares one writer's views on what it's like to be black in South Korea, a blogger has some advice from their trip to the DMZ, and CNN highlights three neighborhoods in Seoul that are on the rise.

Advertisement

"Jeju Island: from Exiled Criminal Island to Tourism Attraction"

One of the most popular destinations tourists want to visit in South Korea is the beautiful volcanic island of Jeju. This incredible island is simply a must-see for those planning a trip to South Korea, and in this post, Tempo highlights some of the island's fascinating history as well as its current attractions: "Jeju Islands natural tourism is presented to the traveler as an endless experience and a true Korean drama series lover must set foot on the island to admire its unspoiled nature and beauty".

...READ ON TEMPO

"It's complicated"

This is a sensitive topic that isn't often talked about: what kind of welcome can black individuals expect when they visit Korea? Casey Lartigue says it's complicated: "When blacks ask about my situation, I tell them that unlike America, I can be sure in Korea that my race lacks an affirmative action asterisk. I have created three different jobs for myself in Korea and have many loving Koreans around me".

...READ ON THE KOREA TIMES

"Visiting the South Korean Side of the DMZ"

Maureen St. George from Go! Girl Guides shares her experiences of visiting the infamous DMZ from the South's side with some basic tips to keep in mind if visiting the border is on your bucket list. "At the JSA, refrain from pointing and waving", good to know!

...READ ON GO GIRL GUIDES

"This isn't Gangnam style: 3 rising Seoul neighborhoods"

Late last year CNN's Violet Kim presented three rising Seoul districts to keep an eye on when planning your next trip to the Land of the Morning Calm. There is more going on in Seoul than just Gangnam (style), this massive city is crammed with exciting events all year round, a variety of bustling neighborhoods, as well as plenty of hidden gems to discover on your own if you decide to just get a little lost in Seoul. Go explore!

...READ ON CNN TRAVEL
Harlow is a former New Town in Essex with a population of 86,000. Located in the upper Stort Valley, it was built in the decades after the Second World War to ease overcrowding and London and provide homes for people bombed out during the Blitz. It includes Britain's first pedestrian precinct and first modern residential tower block, The Lawn. Old Harlow, the historic part of the town, was mentioned in the Domesday Book. David and Victoria Beckham's former home, Rowneybury House, nicknamed 'Beckingham Palace', is nearby.

15:16, 24 OCT 2022
Denmark cancels planned offshore wind farms because of expense

On May 13, the Danish government said it would scrap plans to build five offshore wind farms with a total combined capacity of 350-megawatts as their output would be too expensive for consumers. Subsidies for wind power producers rose 63% in 2015 and 2016, according to the leading Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten.

Stock image

Lars Christian Lilleholt, energy minister in Denmark's Liberal party government, said: "Since 2012 the cost of our renewables policy has increased dramatically. We cannot accept this, as the private sector and households are paying far too much. Denmark's renewable policy has turned out to be too expensive."

The government estimates it would cost consumers 70 billion Danish kronor ($10.63 billion) to buy electricity from the cancelled wind farms.



Denmark produced more than 40% of its electricity from wind power last year, a world record, and it had a goal of increasing this to 50% by 2020. According to Eurostat, Danish electricity prices are the highest in the EU, with consumers paying a significant premium for the high proportion of wind generated electricity in its energy mix.

In 2015 Lilleholt was faced with angry demands from companies and electricity customers after new figures emerged that showed the cost of green power taxes  the so-called Public Service Obligation (PSO)  would escalate to a record high of 8.4 billion kronor over the year. In response he called for a new spirit of green realism to bring down electricity charges.

The proposal to build the five offshore wind farms were part of an Energy Agreement drawn up by the then Government, electricity producers and other stakeholders in 2012. By dropping the offshore wind farm plans, the Government hopes to reduce green taxes on industrial and domestic electricity users by 5 billion kronor up until 2030, according to calculations by the Danish Energy Authority (DEA).

On April 26, Jyllands Posten editor Jrn Mikkelsen published a call to reduce the countrys reliance on wind power.

He said the wind industry had been claiming for more than 40 years that, with only a few more years of subsidies, prices would be comparable with traditionally-generated electricity.



It is certain that it is not possible to lie to the people forever that wind turbines can compete on equal footing with other forms of energy when the reality is that wind power will require billions in direct and indirect support for ever.



But Danish Wind Industry Association CEO Jan Hylleberg said the cancellation of the wind farms would have a devastating effect on the countrys successful wind industry, and many thousands could lose their jobs.


A high ranking union official has been held to account after the Federal Court took the unusual step of forbidding his union from paying a fine on his behalf.



Last week a Federal Court judge ordered Victorian branch vice-president Joe Myles from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union to pay an $18,000 penalty for unlawful conduct relating to the blockade of a building site in 2013.



Judge Debra Mortimer criticised Myles conduct, intimidatory behaviour and blatant disregard for the law.



In May 2013, Myles and 20 other people blocked the main entrance to a Regional Rail Project site in Victoria by parking nine vehicles across the entrance.



Boral trucks that were delivering 24.4 cubic metres of concrete were prevented from entering, resulting in the trucks contents as well as an additional 24.4 cubic metres that had already been poured, being wasted.



The site blockade followed requests by Myles to place a CFMEU delegate on this site, even though he had been told the Australian Workers Union was party to the site agreement and had a delegate on site, AFR reported.



Myles threatened a superintendent with "war" if he did not meet his demands.



Judge Mortimer opted to ban the union from paying Myles $18,000 penalty, and separately penalised the CFMEU $60,000.



"There are three factors which have emerged as consistent themes in these reasons," the judge said.



"First, the contumelious disregard for the restrictions the law imposes on industrial activities shown by those who control the CFMEU as a registered organisation and by individual union officials such as Mr Myles.



"Second, the repeated use of coercive and intimidatory behaviour in order to secure industrial outcomes the CFMEU desires.



"Third, the access the CFMEU has to large amounts of funds to pay penalties, predominantly sourced from members' contributions on an annual basis and cumulatively over many years, so that little or no adverse financial impact appears to be felt by orders the courts make.



Judge Mortimer said such an to prevent the union from picking up Myles tab would send a strong warning to Myles and "in my opinion it is capable of having a deterrent effect on the CFMEU".



"That is because, if indemnification of officials or other agents of the CFMEU for unlawful industrial action may be prevented by court orders, those responsible for decision making in the union may have cause to think about the penalties to which their own officials may be exposed when they consider engaging in conduct that may be unlawful," she said.



"Such orders are also capable of having a general deterrent effect on other individuals and unions for the same reason."




fany & Co. has come under fire after a former employee alleged she was dismissed for her controversial religious beliefs which are actually shared by millions of Catholics the world over.



Kristin Rightnour  who was once the director of marketing for the luxury retailer  says an innocent conversation with one Catholic colleague and one Jewish colleague about Easter plans had been taken out of context.



Rightnour claims the Jewish co-worker asked about Easter mass and, at the Jewish colleagues request, explained the crucifixion story.



The suit maintains that the Jewish colleague did not express discomfort and actually encouraged Rightnour  after hearing the story, Righnour claims the Jewish colleague laughed and said; They didn't teach us any of this in Hebrew school!



However, a co-worker complained, alleging that Rightnour had stated the Jewish people killed Jesus.



Eventually, the 35-year-old was reprimanded and put on one-year probation, based on Defendant's perception that as a practicing Catholic, Plaintiff held the belief that Jewish people killed Jesus, as well as Plaintiffs acknowledgment that many Catholics did indeed believe as much, the suit charges.



The 35-year-old complained about the punishment and claims she was later the subject of retaliation by means of a negative performance review before she was eventually fired.



What you have here is an employer engaging in a systematic, yet brutally transparent, scheme to punish an accomplished management-level employee for raising a good faith complaint  that she was treated disparately because of her religion," lawyer Alexander Coleman said in a statement.


The High Country Festival of the Book is pleased to welcome artist and author Noyes Capehart to an Author Tea to be held at the Watauga County Public Library on Friday, May 20 at 3:00pm. This fund-raising event will include a scrumptious assortment of tea sandwiches and sweets, a presentation by the author, and will be followed by a book signing. Tickets are $12 and will be available at the library. Proceeds support library outreach activities for both children and adults. Ticket purchase includes a chance to win a copy of The Private Diaries of Noyes Capehart filled with the authors stunning artwork and other fun prizes!

Noyes Capehart will discuss his recent suspense, Chameleon, which is a sequel to his 2014 novel, Devils Mark. The book takes the reader on a pulse pounding ride from Copenhagen to Florence through the world of art forgery, theft, and murder. Capehart has exhibited his artwork at such prestigious museums as The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The North Carolina Museum of Art and The Mint Museum of Art. His work has also appeared in the North Carolina Literary Review and in Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures. In 2006, Dancingfish Press published The Private Diary of Noyes Capehart, a fifty-year overview of the artists visual career. That same year, North Carolinas Our State magazine did a feature article on Noyes Private Diary pictures and UNC-TV followed with an Emmy-award winning program on his uniquely visual and literary approach to picture making. In addition to his professional involvement in art, Noyes has completed numerous short stories, five novels and a novella.

The High Country Festival of the Book is a committee of the Friends of the Watauga County Public Library. A wholly volunteer organization, the Friends of the Library promote the Watauga County Public Library and its goals, while inspiring a love of literature. They aim to enhance the quality of the Library by providing resources not covered by state and local funding.

For more information on the Friends of the Library and High Country Festival of the Book visit www.highcountryfestivalofthebook.com or call the library 264-8784. Tickets are available at the Watauga County Public Library circulation desk and the Western Watauga Branch.

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Today marks the anniversary of the largest aftershock Nepal felta 7.2 magnitude quakeafter experiencing its largest temblor in 80 years on April 25.



A few weeks ago, I returned from my first trip to the Himalayan country. I was there to cover the rebuilding process. At almost every turn, I heard stories that were borderline unbelievable: Women who escaped their homes seconds before collapse; groups who came together to build a road so ambulances could get in to treat the injured; a woman who saved her father-in-law only to realize she broke her ankle in the process.



I am privileged to travel for Heifer to gather these amazing stories, and each participant I meet I carry with me in my work. But the women I met in Nepal left an indelible impression on me. Each one showed such strength and courage in the face of incredible circumstances. And while they suffered an incredible set-back, they're picking up and moving forward.



Watch the video here for more of my impressions and stay tuned for the Fall edition of World Ark magazine where I'll tell even more of the story.

Annie Bergman visited project participants almost one year after the devastating earthquakes in May 2015 struck.
Together the Nordics are a superpower  not militarily, but when it comes to innovation, education, competitiveness, sustainable development and clean technologies. Seen together we are the world's 12th largest economy. Free trade is clearly in our interest, said Niinisto.

President Sauli Niinisto delivered the opening words as he and his fellow Nordic leaders visited the White House on Friday at the invitation of US President Barack Obama.

The Nordics, he added, also claim superpower status in regards to culture and sports. And, as you can see, we are champions in modesty too!

Niinisto also commented on the security situation in the Baltic Sea Region by estimating that appropriate dialogue with Russia is a key aspect of the necessary efforts to promote security and stability. The Nordics are according to him providers of security not only in a local but also in a global context and willing to continue their co-operation with the United States to promote security and stability.

We value highly the US commitment to Europe and our security, he said.

Finland, he highlighted, is proud of its long-standing and stable friendship with the United States. We are committed to strengthening this partnership even further, said Niinisto.

Obama similarly drew attention to the importance of dialogue with Russia.

We are united in our concern about Russia's growing aggressive military presence and posture in the Baltic-Nordic region, he said according to the BBC. We will be maintaining ongoing dialogue and seek co-operation with Russia, but we also want to make sure that we are prepared and strong.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Antti Aimo-Koivisto  Lehtikuva / Handout / Office of the President of Finland

Source: Uusi Suomi
Finland is one of the safest countries Europe. We aren't faced with any particular threats. Yet, we must understand that the world is unfortunately increasingly unsafe. It's also affecting Finland. We can't t be lulled into a false sense of security. We must respond to the change, he stated to the party council of the National Coalition on Saturday.

The global situation is more complex than it has been for some time, estimates Alexander Stubb (NCP), the Minister of Finance.

Stubb emphasised that threats should be neither exaggerated nor dismissed as irrelevant in Finland. The situation in the adjoining territories of the country has changed considerably, he added.

In the east is an increasingly unpredictable Russia that seems to shy away from no means to strengthen its position. Finland has open lines of communication with Russia, but it's not a guarantee if the situation in our adjoining territories becomes tenser irrespective of us, explained Stubb.

In the south, the Baltics have joined the European Union, the euro and Nato. In the north, interest is growing in the Arctic Region. In the west, and this is something Finland is unwilling to acknowledge, Sweden is on its way into Nato.

Finland must according to him change along with its near environment in order to avoid ending up in a difficult position.

Many are eager to assure that nothing has changed, but that isn't true, stated Stubb.

The Minister of Finance also underscored that the country should both foster its own defence capabilities and seek closer co-operation with all of its western partners.

The National Coalition has for a while been ready to take Finland into Nato. It would be a logical continuation of the post-war foreign and security policy of Finland. We've edged closer and become clearly part of the West ever since the days of [ex-Presidents Juho] Paasikivi and [Urho] Kekkonen, argued Stubb.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Mikko Stig  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
James Connolly would be saddened to see "families short of the necessities of life" 100 years after the rebellion, President Michael D Higgins told a commemoration event celebrating the Labour founder.

The President was speaking at the Capuchin Day Centre on Church Street, where he also revealed he had visited families who used the service.

He praised "the quiet, determined, great intellectual strength of James Connolly, the internationalist, the feminist, the person who cared for the poor, the kind person who dealt with young people and so forth''.

"We live a fragile existence on this planet and we're at our best when we care for each other," he added.

Echoed

His views were echoed by Siptu president Jack O'Connor, who told those who moved to Arbour Hill for the second part of the ceremony that the vision Connolly had for Ireland has not been realised.

"There are children in this very area and throughout Dublin returning to a hotel room or bed-and-breakfast hostel each night rather than a home of their own," he said.

"Their physical living conditions are not as stark as those of their great- grandparents, but they suffer from a similar sense of insecurity and second-class status in our society," he added.

A second commemoration event held in Glasnevin Cemetery to remember Daniel O'Connell urged that his contribution to modern Ireland not be forgotten.
Convicted killer Kelly Noble has been cleared of producing a fake bus pass to gardai who stopped her in the street, a court heard.

Ms Noble (35) produced the document "to evade justice" because there was a warrant out for her arrest, gardai claimed.

Judge Bryan Smyth dismissed the case against her after her defence showed that the prosecution did not have the bus pass in court.

Ms Noble, with an address at Sandyhill Avenue, Ballymun, pleaded not guilty to possession of a false document.

Garda Barry Moran told Dublin District Court he was on beat duty in the Temple Bar area on April 29, 2015.

He saw Noble and a man pushing a buggy at 6pm and approached them.

"As I came closer, the female gestured something to the male, then she took off running in the direction of the quays," Garda Moran said. "I approached the male and asked him why the female had run off and he could offer no explanation."

A couple of minutes later, Ms Noble returned and Gda Moran asked her name.

She gave another woman's name and produced a bus pass with a different name on it and became "nervous and agitated", the garda said.

Warrant

"I didn't believe these were the correct details; I carried out enquiries and they did not match.

"Eventually she informed me that her name was Kelly Noble and I established that there was a bench warrant out for her arrest," Gda Moran added.

The accused's solicitor asked Gda Moran if he had the allegedly false document in court.

"My submission is that [the accused] had this to evade justice because she knew there was a bench warrant," Gda Moran told the court.

"Do you have the document or anything in court to prove that it is a false instrument?" Ms Noble's solicitor asked the garda.

Gda Moran said he did not have the allegedly false bus pass.

"The document isn't in court so it can't even be proved there was any false instrument," the defendant's solicitor said.

"I think she is entitled to a dismissal," Judge Smyth said.

Ms Noble was convicted in 2007 of the manslaughter of 19-year-old Emma McLoughlin, who she stabbed to death outside Pat's Supermarket in Laytown, Co Meath, a year earlier.

The stabbing happened while Ms McLoughlin's screaming children were looking on.
'Flat Cap' and an associate dressed as a woman flee the Regency

Kinahan hitmen are in the North actively planning a revenge hit the suspected shooter nicknamed 'Flat Cap' from the Regency Hotel murder.

The dissident republican was pictured leaving the Drumcondra premises armed with a handgun alongside another man dressed in drag.

Gardai are working closely with the PSNI who have been carrying out surveillance on 'Flat Cap'.

Sources have also revealed that investigating gardai are preparing a file for the DPP, which recommends that this man is charged with the murder of David Byrne (33) at the hotel.

Warrant

Once the DPP returns with a direction, members of the PSNI will arrest the hitman and an extradition warrant will be sought so that he can be prosecuted in the Republic.

However, it has emerged that the Kinahan cartel has sent gang members to the North in a bid to carry out a hit on the individual before he is arrested.

Also pictured fleeing the Regency Hotel in the aftermath of the shooting was a raider dressed in drag, who was armed with a black handgun.

It is believed that this man fired the initial shots during the hotel hit.

Witnesses described how he acted as "a feeble old woman" before producing a firearm.

Senior detectives were last night continuing to question a man aged in his 20s, who they suspect was the gunman dressed in drag.

He is a close associate of slain Gary Hutch (34) and was arrested by members of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) on Friday night on the Malahide Road.

The elite unit 'hard stopped' a black Nissan Almera being driven by another criminal suspected of being involved in the Regency Hotel hit.

The gun-for-hire, who is aged in his late 20s, was arrested for road traffic offences. However, he was released without charge early yesterday morning.

Gardai investigating the Regency Hotel attack are also expected to make a number of further arrests in the coming weeks.

Sources have revealed that investigators used facial recognition software to formally identify the suspect, who is a close associate of Gary Hutch, whose murder by the Kinahan cartel in Spain last September sparked the current spiral of feud violence.

The same technology also confirmed the identity of the veteran republican hitman wearing the flat cap.

Meanwhile, it has also emerged that a number of other individuals are also likely to be arrested over their roles in helping the killers make their getaways and hide weapons after the attack.

Detectives have also discovered that a well-known veteran crime figure was also centrally involved in the planning of the Regency attack and drove members of the gang away afterwards.

Gardai suspect over a dozen people were directly involved in the shooting and subsequently driving getaway vehicles.

Five gunmen stormed the hotel - three dressed as fake garda ERU members and carrying AK-47s - during the February 5 hit.

Another individual drove a Ford Transit van from the scene, while a number of vehicles, including taxis, were used to collect the hit team from the Charlemont housing estate where the van was burnt out.

Gardai also believe a gang member acted as a spotter for the hit team.

More individuals were involved in other logistic aspects of the hit, including sourcing weapons and moving the firearms before and after the shooting.

The feud's most recent victim, Michael Barr (35), was shot dead after Kinahan associates suspected him of sourcing weapons for the hit.

He became the sixth feud victim, but gardai fear several more hits will be carried out.

Low-key

Security concerns have also caused the daughter of Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch to postpone her wedding over fears that the event could be targeted by the Kinahan cartel.

The Monk's youngest daughter was due to get married to her DJ fiance in Clontarf next month.

It is now expected to take place outside of Ireland and will be a low-key ceremony.

Gerry Hutch's eldest daughter previously got married in Clontarf in 2006, and the former crime boss briefly posed for pictures with the bride outside the church.

It is understood that The Monk's family - who are not involved in crime - were moved from the leafy Dublin suburb following the outbreak of the current gang feud.
A footbridge at the spot where a father and son drowned seven weeks ago will not be in place until some time next year.

Sean Sweeney and his son Tyler Joyce (3) were discovered drowned in a ditch on Easter Sunday.

Mr Sweeney was believed to have been taking a shortcut through Ashington Park in Dublin when the tragedy happened.

Repair

Many people had used holes in fencing and a broken wall to make a shortcut between Ashington and Pelletstown over a considerable time, despite continuing repair work to the fence and wall by Irish Rail and Dublin City Council Parks Department.

Speaking after the tragedy, Tyler's heartbroken mum Pamela called for a bridge to be installed at the site because it was constantly being vandalised in order to create a shortcut.

"Why can't they make a little walkway? It's not going to cost them much," she said.

"If they do something then we could say that Tyler's life wasn't lost, because somebody else was saved."

Members of Dublin City Council's north west area committee will consider a report about the possibility of building a footbridge at the spot in the coming months.

They are due to discuss the matter tomorrow.

Integrated

However, the report stated that a footbridge has already been planned at the location as part of the new Pelletstown train station which is hoped may finally begin construction next year.

The station will have two integrated footbridges, one which spans both the railway and the Royal Canal.

It is considered the best long-term solution to people risking their lives crossing the rail line and canal.

A meeting between the council's park department and Irish Rail staff on April 27 considered the possibility of building a temporary footbridge at the site or else seeking a prompt start to the railway station project.

The report stated it was unlikely that funding would be available to provide a temporary bridge.

It was also considered unlikely that the railway station project would be brought forward to this year.

An existing fence and wall at the location was intended to protect people within Ashington Park and to deter people from crossing the rail line.

The wall and fence have been breached many times over the years and repeatedly repaired.

Both the council and Irish Rail monitor the fence and repair it as breaches occur.

Funding has been provided by the National Transport Authority for the detailed design phase of the train station and this will be completed by the end of this year.
The controversial 600m Poolbeg incinerator - due to open late next year - is already oversubscribed for waste.

The operators have told Dublin City Council the project will work at full capacity when it is completed - without using any imported waste.

Dublin Waste to Energy Limited (DWTEL) has informed the council they have already signed two long-term contracts for up to 60pc of the facility's capacity.

The company said it is continuing to progress contract discussions with waste collectors to fill the remaining 40pc of the facility's capacity, for which they said they are "oversubscribed".

"It is, therefore, expected that the facility will operate at full capacity," the council said, in a written reply to Independent councillor Ruairi McGinley.

Controversy

The project, which has been dogged by years of controversy over environmental impact and capacity, will see the construction of a facility capable of burning 600,000 tonnes of waste per year.

Dublin city councillors had voted to scrap the proposed incinerator altogether.

The decision by the current management to proceed was one of the most significant taken since unelected Owen Keegan succeeded John Tierney as Dublin City Manager.

Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons once described the incinerator as a "most enormous step back" for Ireland.

The environmentalist and presenter of the multi-award- winning documentary Trashed, last year described incineration as "a very dangerous way to get rid of trash".

He pointed out that while making the film, he visited a village in France which once had an incinerator close by. Some 26pc of residents developed cancer, he said.

Another concern with the incinerator was that there would not be enough waste generated to feed it, with the possibility that waste would have to be imported from abroad.

However, a statement from Covanta, the US private partner in the project, to the Herald said that no waste will be imported for the plant.

The confirmation is significant, as last year the operators of the incinerator refused to rule out importing waste from abroad to burn in the power station.

Construction work commenced on the site in October 2014 and remains on schedule for completion in October 2017.

The civil designer and construction manager have estimated that the facility construction is now more than 50pc complete.

Civil works have so far focused on completing the installation of structural steel and cladding for the main building of the project.

However, the process systems designer has now focused on the management of equipment installation and facility commissioning through to the commencement of operations.

Meanwhile, the council's executive manager has said the 3pc to be given as community gain - to fund local community projects - has increased from 8m to 10.38m.

Unhappy

He rejected claims that the amount should be 15m as a percentage of overall capital costs.

Residents of Sandymount, Ringsend and Irishtown have remained unhappy and "disappointed" that the huge plant was given approval.

"The incinerator is an abomination and looks much bigger already than what I expected," life-long Sandymount resident Michael Flynn (60) said last month.

Covanta has argued that the plant will allow Ireland meet its EU obligations to divert waste from landfill and will make "a significant contribution" to the reduction of greenhouse gasses.
A young woman was shot in the neck after a crazed gunman fired at a house in Cork.

The 21-year-old victim - named locally as Ciara Sheehan from Ardcullen, Cork - was rushed to hospital yesterday after the incident at 12am on Sunday.

Gardai believe the attack is linked to a dispute between two members of different families.

It came after a chilling threat was made on Facebook by a man subsequently arrested in connection with the attack.

The young woman is believed to have no role in the dispute linked to the shooting. She underwent emergency surgery at Cork University Hospital yesterday.

She is said to be in a serious but stable condition.

One man (29) and one woman (22) were arrested shortly after the shooting and were being questioned at Gurranabraher and Bridewell Garda Stations in Cork last night.

It is believed the man was previously known to gardai.

Late on Saturday night, he posted on Facebook that he was looking for members of a family from the house that was shot at.

Shooting

The details of the message cannot be published for legal reasons, but he claimed it was time for a "war" with the other family and another individual.

The shooting took place less than two hours later.

At least one shot was fired at the front of a house in the Hollywood Estate in Knocknaheeney, on the north side of the city.

The bullet hole was visible in the sitting room window yesterday as gardai preserved the scene.

Neighbours and witnesses were unwilling to identify themselves for fear they would be targeted in a retaliation by the arrested man.

However, one witness said her daughter heard at least one gunshot before gardai arrived.

"I was listening to the radio with headphones on, but my daughter came in and told me she had heard a gunshot.

"I thought it was a car backfiring, but then I saw all the blue lights outside and knew something had happened.

"This dispute has been going on a while between two different families."

Gardai spent yesterday examining the scene. They questioned neighbours and combed the area for clues as children as young children played with their parents on the street.

The home has been the target of attacks in the past.

Another neighbour said she was worried about the dispute escalating to this level.

"I heard the shot between 12am and 12.30am. I got out of bed, but only heard one gunshot at the front of the house," she said.

"All the windows were smashed in that house last year.

"The victims are a lovely family, so it is terrible to see this go on," she told the Herald.

"We have been dealing with this for 15 or 16 years, but it has been getting worse and worse for a long time.

Escalated

"It started off as something small, but now it has escalated. It is very unpredictable and you don't know where you stand.

"Another family has been drawn into it now because she has been shot. It is terrible."

Neighbours said they were sick of tolerating violence in the area that was being perpetrated by a minority of residents.

"People have been attacked out walking and minding their own business," they said.

"Something will have to be done now because it is going on too long and it will go too far."

Local Sinn Fein Councillor Thomas Gould said the community was in shock.

"This is a nice estate, with a lot of young families. People have seen what is happening in Dublin and are worried about a lack of garda resources.

"The guards are overworked, under-resourced and underpaid," he said.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Verizon and union officials representing about 39,000 striking landline and cable workers in nine eastern states and Washington, D.C., agreed to restart negotiations, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said he met with both sides on Sunday in Washington, D.C.

"The parties had an open, frank and constructive dialogue about finding a comprehensive way forward to resolve disputed issues and get people back to work," Perez said.

The two striking unions, the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, represent installers, customer service employees, repairmen and other service workers in Connecticut, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., for Verizon's wireline business, which provides fixed-line phone services and FiOS Internet service.

Workers walked off the job on April 13. They had been working without a contract since August.

The unions have said they're striking because Verizon wants to freeze pensions, make layoffs easier and rely more on contract workers.

The telecom giant has said there are health care issues that need to be addressed for both retirees and workers as medical costs have grown.

Both sides agreed to return to the bargaining table on Tuesday to continue their discussions.

Perez said he's "heartened" by the parties' commitment to getting back to work on a new contract.

"I was singularly impressed by the parties' appreciation that time is of the essence, and their strong commitment to use the collective bargaining process to reach a mutually beneficial resolution," Perez said.

Some 45,000 Verizon workers went on strike for about two weeks in August 2011.

Verizon Communications Inc. has a total workforce of more than 177,000 employees.
Halloween is coming! Here's when to trick or treat in your town
Two years in the life of a government, elected for five, provides an opportune juncture for an assessment on performance both in respect of domestic as well as foreign policy.

In the case of foreign policy, the assessment must necessarily factor in and accord due importance to our relations with the countries in our immediate neighbourhood, in particular Pakistan and China. An understanding of the underlying trends and overall sense of direction is important.

No prime minister has devoted the kind of personal attention and determination to the conduct of foreign policy as Narendra Modi. In the contemporary global setting, he stands out, in this respect, among leaders of countries similarly placed as India.

Read | Pakistan may move towards second strike capacity for its nukes

There have been some notable successes, during the last two years, as for instance in relation to Bangladesh. There are, however, some worrying signs as well.

Since the time of Indias first prime minister, policy has been formulated in a restricted, paternalistic and hierarchical mould in which the prime minister, his/her office and a professional foreign service have contributed, in varying degrees. The only change now is that for the first time we have an additional constituency that seeks robust assertiveness and a pre-determined sense of direction, which often appears to be at variance with the other stated priorities of a government elected to office on the promise of delivering development, generating 10 million jobs annually and substantially reducing poverty. These domestic policy objectives require a calm and benign enabling environment. Many of those who advocate robust and assertive postures may be well meaning but do not display the requisite understanding even if they have had limited exposure and experience. Care needs to be taken not to raise any hype that makes the management of expectations just that much more difficult.

Read | After Jadhav, Pakistan claims arrest of another Indian agent

Nothing illustrates this dilemma better than the following true story. An alert journalist noticed an incongruity in one of the photographs on the occasion of the prime ministers swearing-in ceremony in May 2014. He wrote a piece saying that there had been some lack of coordination between the ministry of external affairs and Rashtrapati Bhawan. The so-called Tibetan government in exile promptly removed the photograph from its website. An important but inexperienced person called the editor of the concerned newspaper to suggest that the photograph, in fact, was a pointer to the future direction of policy. Such sentiment probably explains some of the flip flops that have continued to characterise our engagements with China.

It is the prerogative of a government to recalibrate its major foreign policy priorities. The leitmotif of Indias foreign policy in the last seven decades , strategic autonomy has not only provided the cover but an enabling framework that has not prevented us from significantly upgrading individual bilateral ties with considerable success. Such efforts have come in small incremental measures.

Should the government wish to seek enhanced strategic convergence with the United States or, with any other country, it would no doubt wish to consider doing so on its merits. Such strategic convergence cannot be based on the perception of difficulties in a relationship with another important country. The slow but sure emergence of Chinas all weather friendship with two additional neighbours of India, Nepal and Sri Lanka provides an illustrative example. We also need to ask ourselves to what extent some of these developments have been facilitated by our own actions.

Read | Trust deficit must be overcome for better ties with India: Pakistan

Should enhanced strategic convergence with the US be the objective, there should, at the very least, be a factoring in of the kind of leadership the US would be willing to provide after January 2017.

Enhanced strategic convergence is difficult to craft out of a transactional and mercantilist mindset apart from differences of interest in respect of developments in Afghanistan, West Asia, the South China Sea and elsewhere as well.

In so far as relations with Pakistan are concerned, anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with ground reality will advise that nuclear powers should not and cannot fight bush wars. There is no alternative to seeking engagement. This requires two to tango. Having drawn red lines, there has to be some reason for what appeared to be a willingness to kickstart a stalled dialogue. What has not changed and is unlikely to for a long time is that both sides must demonstrate a desire and capacity to sell the outcome of a negotiated package to their respective constituencies. It may be instructive to take a good look at the results of the back channel used by the previous government and conducted so ably by Ambassador SK Lambah from our side.

Read | After Chinas red flag, US backs Indias entry into nuclear club

The coming months might bring some focus on issues relating to caste, minority rights and religious freedoms. Some of this scrutiny will simply come because we allowed the eye to be taken off the ball. Little purpose will be served in entering a slugfest on any one of these. Christianity accounts for 31.5%, Islam 22.32% and Hinduism 13.95% of the worlds population. The not-so-well-informed will pick on the odd aberrations and suggest a pattern. Our response has to be that even one such case is one too many. That will earn us that respect that is rightfully ours.

Hardeep S Puri is a retired diplomat. The views expressed are personal
When Lalu Prasad as Bihar chief minister stopped BJP leader LK Advanis rath yatra in Samastipur in 1990, he became a hero of the Muslims overnight.

Similarly, it was Nitish Kumar who stopped the onward march of Narendra Modi 25 years later in 2015. He is now looked upon as a challenger to Modi.

He had broken ranks with the BJP in 2013 because he was not willing to accept Modi as the PM candidate of the NDA.

READ: CM Nitish orders CBI probe into Bihar journalists killing

However, the recent spate of crime incidents can scuttle his plans to become prime minister because politics is a matter of perception apart from numbers. His party, the Janata Dal (United), is not an all-India party but Bihar-based. The state has 40 parliamentary constituencies.

It is most likely that Nitish will fight the next Lok Sabha elections with the RJD and Congress. This means that the JD(U) will not contest more than 20 seats because the RJD and Congress will not settle for anything fewer than 15 and five, respectively. Even if the JD(U) wins all the 20, he would not be in a position to form the government at the Centre. Therefore, for him to become prime minister, he should be accepted as a leader by all the parties of the Third Front, if it is formed.

It is here that the allegations of Bihar becoming a Jungle Raj again can work against his interests. The PM aspirants, too many in the Third Front, might pitch themselves for the job, citing deteriorating law and order in Bihar.

READ: Bihar back to its lawless ways

Though Bihar does not come on top among the states on the cognisable crimes list prepared by the National Crime Records Bureau, what such data would not reveal is that Mohammad Shahabuddin, currently serving a life sentence for murder, was recently elevated to the RJDs national executive committee. Shahabuddin cannot contest election but he is in the top decision-making body in the RJD. Others in the national executive are Lalu Prasads sons Tejashwi and Tej Pratap, and his daughter Misa Bharti, his eldest child.

The Aditya Kumar Sachdeva murder will be counted, but what will not be recorded is that he was killed by the son of a JD(U) politician.

The latest crime incident is the Hindustan journalists murder, in which an RJD worker is a suspect.

Nitishs liquor ban might work well in Bihar and parts of eastern UP. But to be accepted as a national leader and an alternative to Modi he should rely on his trusted sushasan formula, which earned him the tag sushasan babu.

READ: Nitish pitches for liquor ban in UP, draws flak from Samajwadi Party

While reporting in a village in Bihars Baktiarpur district when I asked a 30-year-old whether he feared the return of the Jungle Raj, he said, Nitishji bahut kadak hain, unke samne kisi ka nahi chalta (Nitishji is a strict administrator, he wont allow anything wrong).

Its time he paid heed to the faith people have in him.

The views expressed are personal. The author tweets as @abhinavstweet

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The record drought ravaging large parts of Asia will end when the monsoon rains come in June. This will bring relief to the people in parched lands, from Vietnams Mekong delta to central India. The drought has already claimed hundreds of lives and destroyed vast swaths of rice paddies and other farms.

But make no mistake: This drought offers a telling preview of the hotter, drier future that awaits much of the continent. This likelihood largely arises from the costs that rapid development, urbanisation, large-scale irrigated farming and lifestyle changes are imposing on natural resources, the environment and climate.

Recurrent drought promises to exacerbate Asias already-serious water challenges. Asia has less freshwater per person than any other continent, and some of the worlds worst water pollution. A drought-laden future will increase risks of water-related conflict. Yet little policy attention has been paid to combating droughts because of their episodic character.

Read | What exactly is Maharashtras water policy?

Unlike other natural and human-made disasters, a drought is a silently creeping calamity. It knocks down no buildings yet wreaks high socio-economic costs. Droughts thus are deceptive disasters.

Water is not just the most undervalued resource; in the coming years it is likely to be the most contested resource in Asia. This has largely to do with the growing paucity of this life-sustaining resource and Asias distinctive water map.

The most important rivers in Asia traverse national boundaries and are thus international systems. Indeed, most Asian nations with land frontiers  with the prominent exception of China, which controls Asias riverheads by controlling the Tibetan Plateau  are highly dependent on cross-border water inflows.

Against this background, inter-country and intra-country water disputes have become common. Asia illustrates that trans-boundary water resources, instead of linking countries or provinces in a system of hydrological interdependence, are fostering sharpening competition for relative gain.

Asia is already the worlds most dam-dotted continent: It has more dams than the rest of the world combined. But this statistic doesnt tell the real story: Most of Asias dams are in China, which alone boasts 90,000 dams. With its massive hydro-engineering infrastructure, China has built an impressive capacity to stockpile water for the dry season.

Read | 6 yrs on, 41 Maha villages wait for their share of water

But Chinas over-damming of rivers has contributed to river fragmentation (the interruption of natural flows) and depletion. Chinas dying Yellow River exemplifies this problem. And its cascade of six giant dams on the Mekong, just before it leaves the Tibetan Plateau, is being blamed for accentuating the current Southeast Asian drought.

Asias vulnerability to droughts and other effects of climate change is being increased by other factors as well, including groundwater depletion and deforestation, especially in the upstream catchment areas. The extraction of groundwater at rates surpassing natures recharge capacity has resulted in a rapidly falling water table across much of Asia. Because groundwater is often a source of supply for streams, springs, lakes and wetlands, the overexploitation of this resource, creates parched conditions and thus fosters recurrent droughts.

Meanwhile, intensive irrigation in semi-arid regions, including northern China, Central Asia and Pakistan, has helped to create a boom in agricultural exports but exacted heavy trans-boundary environmental costs. It has caused soil salinity and waterlogging and fostered atmospheric humidity, with climate stability becoming a casualty and dry areas becoming drier.

The entire Asian belt stretching from the Korean Peninsula to the Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan region is becoming increasingly prone to the ravages of drought. But even before the current drought hit South and Southeast Asia, scientific studies on global drought risk hotspots showed that drought risks were the highest in these two regions, at least in terms of the number of people exposed.

Read | Drought cuts crop production by 70% in Marathwada

It is past time for Asian policymakers to start addressing drought risks, the core of which is the nexus between water, energy and food. For example, the current drought is roiling world food markets through its destructive impacts on crops. And by reducing cooling-water availability, it is decreasing generation by some power plants, just when electricity demand has peaked.

The drought risks can be reduced by ensuring the protection and ecological restoration of watercourses, securing water-efficiency gains through agricultural-productivity measures, developing drought-resistant crop varieties, improving water quality to offset decrease in water quantity, and utilising alternative cooling technologies for power generation. Increasing water storage by channelling excess water during the monsoons to artificially recharge aquifers, especially in Asias densely populated, economically booming coastal regions, holds promise for coping with droughts.

Policymakers must appreciate that drought risks cannot be lowered without tackling the serious problem of groundwater depletion. Unlike surface water, degradation of groundwater is not visible to the human eye. Surface water and groundwater, however, are linked hydrologically and should be managed as a single resource. A one-water approach is also essential to cut the overreliance on groundwater supplies.

Read | India must treat water as strategic resource, fight Chinas throttlehold

The spectre of permanent water losses is just one reason why Asias drought-related challenges demand an integrated, holistic approach. Water, food and energy, for example, must be managed by policymakers jointly so as to promote synergistic approaches. Also, ecological restoration programmes, by aiding the recovery of damaged ecosystems, can help bring wider benefits in slowing soil and water degradation, stemming coastal erosion, augmenting freshwater storage and supply, and controlling droughts.

Without such efforts, the linkages between water stress, sharing disputes, falling water quality and environmental degradation could trap Asia in a vicious cycle. Nature is indivisible: Communities and states cannot thrive for long by bending nature and undercutting environmental sustainability.

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and the author of Water: Asias New Battleground. The views expressed are personal
The last leg of assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry on Monday will decide the fate of chief ministers J Jayalalithaa and Oommen Chandy, and their arch rivals M Karunanidhi and VS Achuthanandan in multi-cornered contests in their states.

Counting of votes in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry -- where rival candidates fought a gruelling two-month campaign in peak summer along with West Bengal and Assam -- will be taken up on May 19 to decide the outcome of what is being described as mini general elections.

Read: Live: Rains in Tamil Nadu prompt EC to extend polling time by an hour

Here are 10 things to know about the candidates and the parties in the ongoing polls:

1) Age was never a bar in politics. But in this years Kerala and Tamil Nadu assembly polls, the veterans have further pushed the bar. Achuthanandan, 93, and Karunanidhi, 91, are in the fray as the senior-most candidates in the respective states. Both are CM-hopefuls in their partiesthe CPI(M) and the DMK.

2) In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, voters dont retain a party for two consecutive terms. From 1970, Kerala has switched between the communists and the Congress-led coalition every five years. The neighbouring Tamil Nadu followed the same pattern since 1980 between Karunanidhis DMK and Jayalalithaas AIADMK.

3) Tamil superstars Rajinikanth and Kamal Hassan stayed away from active politics despite a huge, dedicated fan-following. But Vijayakanth, who attained the nickname Captain after his 1991 movie Captain Prabhakaran, thought otherwise. Popularly called as the black MGR, Vijayakanth set up DMDK and this would be its second assembly election. In this poll, he is seen as the X-factor that can change many equations.

Read: Polling in Tamil Nadus Thanjavur constituency deferred to May 23

4) The incumbent Ommen Chandy government is curbing on liquor consumption in Kerala. In Tamil Nadu, hard drinks flow freely now but may become a thing of the past if Jayalalithaa retains power. She has already vouched for prohibition in the line of Gujarat and Bihar.

5) For the first time, Jayalalithaas party has put up candidates in all 234 seats. Although some of the candidates belong to alliance parties but they all have agreed to contest using Ammas electoral symbol of two leaves.

6) Luring voters with cash in Tamil Nadu has become a major issue. The Election Commission has already postponed polling in two constituencies. The police recovered at least Rs 100 crore unaccounted cash from different parts of the state.

Read: Elderly man dies while standing in queue to cast his vote

7) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to expand its foothold in both Kerala and Tamil Nadu. But in Puducherry, the union territory undergoing polling, the BJP has virtually no stake. Its a fight between All India NR Congress, the Congress, DMK and the AIADMK.

8) Karunanidhis DMK has suffered a split after he threw elder son Alagiri out of the party after the latters rebellion against his brother Stalin. Alagiri used to manage the southern Tamil Nadu for the party.

9) The common theory is if the BJP does well in Kerala, it will dent the Lefts prospects to return to power in the Gods own Country.

10) Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa, the arch rivals to Tamil Nadu politics, both have a connection with films. Jayalalithaa was a leading lady in Tamil films while Karunanidhi is credited with writing lyrics and scripts of films.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance in Assam was upbeat after exit polls said on Monday the saffron party was storming the northeast state to form its first elected government in the region. But the state Congress dismissed the forecast, saying it did not believe in exit polls as they have been proven wrong in most of the previous elections across the country.

The BJPs chief ministerial candidate for Assam, Sarbananda Sonowal, said: One thing is sure, our alliance will get absolute majority. Congress will be decimated. All this will be clear on May 19.

Atul Bora, president of BJP ally Asom Gana Parisad (AGP), said: There was a clear wave in our favourWe are happy with the predictions.

However, Ripun Bora, a parliamentarian and the chief spokesperson of the state Congress, dismissed the predictions. Exit polls are always faulty. Congress does not believe in exit polls. Yes, it was a tough election, but we still hope to emerge as single largest party and form the government, he said.

Read: BJP takes Assam, Jaya slips, Mamata back, Kerala turns Left: Exit polls

In West Bengal, the incumbent Trinamool Congress (TMC) chose to be a bit circumspect, though the Mamata Banerjee-led party was seen retaining power. We will wait for May 19 and the actual results. The people of Bengal will bless Trinamool abundantly, TMC leader Derek OBrien said.

The opposition CPI(M) rejected the predictions. Everyone has doubts regarding exit poll surveys in Bengal that were done outside polling booths, and it is likely that the true picture may not have come out, said Md Salim, a CPI(M) politburo member and a Lok Sabha MP.

Former Congress state president Pradip Bhattacharyya slammed the exit polls as bogus, adding he never trusted them in his career.

Both the ruling AIADMK and the opposition DMK were confident of forming the next government in Tamil Nadu, regardless of the predictions. Barring one exit poll, others have given the DMK a shot at power.

DMK treasurer MK Stalin said he was confident: We will win every seat other than the RK Nagar constituency. Chief minister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa is contesting from this seat.

For her part, Jayalalithaa, after casting her vote in the morning at the Stella Maris College, said: Victory is ours. Wait for two days, then we can know the peoples verdict.

A senior AIADMK leader, requesting anonymity, dismissed the exit polls saying that no amount of propaganda by the DMK can stop Amma from forming the government. We are winning 150 seats and forming the government.

In neighbouring Kerala, despite most surveys giving a clear mandate to the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front, Congress leaders put up a brave face and said it wont be that easy for the opposition.

There are many instances when exit poll surveys went wrong. (The)...last Bihar assembly election was a classic example. We still feel it is a close fight and we have a chance, said senior Congress leader TN Prathapan.

Like the Congress, state BJP leaders too rejected the predictions of the exit polls --- many of which gave a couple of seats to the party. We will improve our tally. We are expecting a 4-6% increase from the last local body elections 15% vote share, said BJP leader VV Rajesh.

However, the CPI(M) said all surveys clearly showed there was a strong anti-government wave in the state. We are sure of a three digit total, said party leader MV Govindan.

In the southern states. the last phase of polling ended on Monday.

(From HTC in Chennai, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, and Kolkata)
For all the hype around the so-called third front in Tamil Nadu, Elections 2016 could very well turn out to be yet another electoral joust between the usual suspects  the ruling AIADMK and arch rival DMK.

Voting for 232 seats in the state began briskly on Monday, with around 23% people exercising their franchise till 11 am. Though the results will be out only on May 19, there is a general perception that the state will stick to its bipolar politics  the AIADMK and DMK have alternately held power for most part of the time since independence.

The opposition DMK  its their turn to rule if all goes by history  is sure of victory.

Apart from RK Nagar, the DMK will win every constituency, said party treasurer MK

Stalin, shortly after voting began on Monday. RK Nagar is the constituency of incumbent chief minister J Jayalalithaas, challenged by 44 candidates.

The outcome of these elections will be as much a reflection of the former deputy chief ministers electoral strategy as it will of his father, M Karunanidhi, the grand old man of TN politics. The nonagenarian is seeking to be named chief minister for the fifth time.

Stalin has been at the forefront of DMKs campaign this time around, owing to the poor health and advanced age of his father, who is 93.

The heir apparent to Tamil Nadus oldest Dravidian party, Stalin has spearheaded all of the partys major rallies, and has been an active participant on social media, eschewing the traditional attire of chuttai-veshti (shirt and dhoti) for a more relaxed professional look, ostensibly to appeal to younger voters.

The Election Commission has estimated that there are between 10-15 million first time voters in Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa brushed aside questions on the outcome after casting her vote at Stella Maris college in Chennai, saying: We will know what the people have decided after 2 days.

This years elections may prove to be the most significant for the state. For the DMK, it is a chance to avenge the humiliating losses it endured in the last general elections in 2014.

For the AIADMK, it is a chance to have Jayalalithaa as the CM for a record 6th time.

And for the third front, led by the maverick actor-turned-politician Vijayakanth, it is the best chance to end a nearly 27-year-old reign of successive DMK and AIADMK governments.

But it is unlikely  not impossible -- that the people of the state will give Vijayakanth the chance to celebrate the biggest blockbuster hit of his career.

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Polling began at 7 am in the last leg of assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry on Monday.

The assembly elections will decide the fate of chief ministers Jayalalithaa and Oommen Chandy, and their arch rivals and nonagenarians M Karunanidhi and VS Achutanandan in multi-cornered contests in their states.

Counting of votes in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry -- where rival candidates fought a gruelling two-month campaign in peak summer along with West Bengal and Assam -- will be taken up on May 19 to decide the outcome of what is being described as mini general elections.

The BJP is seeking to make inroads in Tamil Nadu and Kerala where power has oscillated between the AIADMK, the DMK and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and the CPI-M led Left Democratic Front(LDF) respectively for decades.

Voting begins in Tamil Nadu, Rajinikanth casts his vote in Chennai's Stella Maris College pic.twitter.com/WNGGG14xoH  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

It is amid a campaign against misuse of money that Tamil Nadus 5.82 crore voters will get a chance to exercise their franchise on Monday to elect 233 members to the assembly. A total of 3,776 candidates are in fray, including 320 women and two belonging to the third gender. The total number of polling stations is over 65,600.

The Election Commission had deferred the process in Aravakurichi segment in Karur district of Tamil Nadu to May 23 due to unlawful activities of candidates in bribing voters. Counting of votes in Aravakurichi will be taken up on May 25.

Authorities have seized more than Rs 100 crore unaccounted cash in the state, the largest among the five states involved in the assembly polls.

In all there are four chief ministerial candidates, AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa, DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, PWF-DMDK-TMC combine choice film star-turned-politician Vijayakanth and Pattali Makkal Katchis Anbumani Ramadoss, a former union health minister.

Read | Poll panel seeks explanation from DMK chief on violating model code

But the fight is essentially between the two Dravidian majors  the AIADMK and the DMK. J jayalalithaaa is virtually going at it alone, barring a couple of minor allies, whereas the DMK has teamed up with its trusted old ally, the Congress and few other regional parties.

More than a lakh police and paramilitary personnel would man over 65,000 polling booths across Tamil Nadu, which is witnessing a multi-cornered contest also featuring BJP that is seeking to make a mark along with a few minor allies.

Jayalalithaa, seeking a second successive term in office, and Karunanidhi, eyeing to lead DMK to power after back-to-back drubbings in the 2011 assembly and 2014 Lok Sabha elections, are contesting from RK Nagar in Chennai and Thiruvarur respectively.

RK Nagar has the maximum number of candidates at 45, with DMK (Shimla Muthuchozhan) and VCK (Vasanthi Devi) also fielding women nominees to take on Jayalalithaa. BJPs MN Raja is also in the fray.

BJPs candidates include its national secretary H Raja and state president Tamilisai Sounderrajan.

Positioning itself as a viable third front, the combine of DMDK, Peoples Welfare Front comprising Vaikos MDMK, CPI-M, CPI and VCK and Tamil Maanila Congress led by GK Vasan has also attacked both DMK and AIADMK, that have ruled the state alternately in recent decades, and pushed for a change.

Tamil Nadu is known to generally elect one clear winner from the two Dravidian giants -- DMK and AIADMK -- since 1967.

In Kerala, the ruling UDF and LDF, which had gone hammer and tongs at each other during the electioneering, are keeping their fingers crossed even as BJP is hoping to get a toe-hold.

Read | Assembly polls: Three-cornered contest in Kerala set for photo finish

A total of 1,203 candidates, including 109 women, are contesting for the 140 assembly seats.

In Puducherry, the battle is between two Congress parties  the one led by Sonia Gandhi and the breakaway party led by N Rangasamy, who is the chief minister. There are a total of 334 candidates in fray including 21 women.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BIP) is set to make a formidable debut in the northeast by trouncing the ruling Congress in Assam, according to exit polls on Monday that also predicted powershift in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.

West Bengal is the only state likely to buck the trend with the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress poised to retain power, the polls say.

Opinion and exit polls in India have a chequered history but if Mondays forecast comes true on May 19 --- the result day --- it will have significant implications for both politics and governance at the Centre.

Assam

Party/Alliance India Today-Axis ABP Ananda Times Now-CVoter Chanakya News Nation Congress 26-33 33 41 27 (7) 47-51 BJP+ 79-93 81 57 90 (9) 63-67 AIUDF 06-10 10 18 8 (4) 7-11 Others 01-04 02 10 0 (1) 0 (1) Total seats 126 126 126 126 126

After a historic triumph in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJPs winning streak continued in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls. The general elections gave a clear majority to a single party after 30 years

But the party hit a trough in 2015, losing badly in the Delhi and Bihar polls.

The debacles were interpreted by the BJPs political adversaries as a sign of growing public disillusionment with the Narendra Modi government as well as the saffron party that had set out in 2014 with the slogan of Congress-mukt Bharat or Congress-free India.

A good show this election will set the stage for the BJP to go for the jugular in next years crucial state polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Gujarat and Goa. It will be booster shot too for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre.

West Bengal

Party/Alliance ABP Ananda Times Now-CVoter India Today-Axis Chanakya News Nation Trinamool Congress 163 167 233-253 210 (14) 153 Left+Congress 126 120 38-51 70 (9) 136 BJP 01 04 01-05 14 (5) 00 Others 04 03 02-05 0 (2) 03 Total seats 294 294 294 294 294

Hamstrung by a lack of majority in the Rajya Sabha, the Modi government has been unable to push major economic reforms requiring legislative approval.

Sensing a slide in the BJPs popular base because of its electoral debacles in 2015, the Congress sought to become a pivot for anti-BJP parties to rally around and has stalled the governments move to pass important bills  such as the goods and services tax for a uniform market.

If Mondays exit polls hold true, it will give enough political heft and manoeuvring space to the ruling NDA to split the Opposition parties in Parliament and outside. Also, the Congress could be the biggest loser in these elections. It is predicted to lose power in Assam and Kerala, leaving it to rule only six states.

Tamil Nadu

Party/Alliance News Nation India Today-Axis Times Now-CVoter Chanakya AIADMK 95-99 89-101 139 90 (9) DMK+ 114-118 124-140 78 140 (11) DMDK+ 14 -- -- -- BJP+ 04 00-03 00 00 Others 09 04-08 17 4 (2) Total seats 234 234 234 234

It was exactly two years ago, on May 16, that the Modi-led BJP swept the Lok Sabha polls. The Prime Minister had, in his election speeches, spoken of bringing a second Green Revolution in Assam.

The exit polls predicted a saffron revolution in the northeastern state by dethroning the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government that has been ruling the state for the past 15 years, or three consecutive terms.

BJP president Amit Shahs gambit of making illegal immigration the partys central plank, which reportedly resulted in polarisation along communal lines in a state with one-third Muslim population, seems to have paid off.

The CPI(M) strategy to go with arch-rival Congress in West Bengal was expected to damage its prospects in Kerala where the Left parties were ranged against the Congress-led ruling coalition. But exit polls predicted a victory for the Left-led front.

The CPI(M)s attempt to dislodge Mamata Banerjee might not fructify but the Left party might not be disappointed if it returns to power in Kerala.

Kerala

Party-Alliance India Today-Axis Times Now-CVoter News Nation Chanakya LDF 88-101 78 67-71 75 (9) UDF 38-48 58 68-72 57 (9) BJP+ 00-03 02 00-02 8 (4) Others 01-04 02 00 0 (1) Total seats 140 140 140 140

In Tamil Nadu, voters had a choice between nonagenarian M Karunanidhi of the DMK and chief minister J Jayalalithaa whose ill health restricted her movement during the campaign.

Her offer of freebies to voters might not make up for her frequent and prolonged retreats and failure to respond to last years Chennai floods. The Congress might get some solace from the Tamil Nadu poll predictions as its strategy to ride the DMK bandwagon could pay off.

But, it might not inspire much confidence in the partys rank and file as the grand old party shows little signs of recovery from a series of electoral debacle that started in 2014.

Puducherry

Party/Alliance Times Now-CVoter India Today-Axis Congress+DMK 14 15-21 AINRC 09 08-12 AIADMK 05 01-04 BJP 00 00 Others 02 00-02 Total seats 30 30
Polling ended in Tamil Nadu with a 70% voter turnout - 8 percentage points less than the 2011 elections - at 6pm on Monday.

Puducherry saw a healthy 80% voter turnout at the end of the day.

Till 5 pm around 69.19 percent of voters have exercised their franchise (in TN). Polling has come to an end in the state at 6 pm. Those who have reached the polling stations will be allowed to vote, Rajesh Lakhoni, Tamil Nadus chief electoral officer said.

Roughly half of Chennai didnt vote despite pleasant weather in the city. As per records only 57% voted.

The city was battered by floods, some months back, and poll pundits had predicted that people would vote in large numbers to express their anger over ruling partys apathy.

Other flood affected districts like Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur and Cuddalore recorded much higher polling percentages at 72, 68 and 74 respectively.

The highest polling percentage was recorded at Pennagram where 85% came out to vote. PMKs Andbumani Ramadoss, a chief ministerial candidate, is contesting from this constituency.

Chief electoral officer, Rajesh Lakhoni, said that polling was higher in rural areas as compared to the urban areas.

Polling began at a brisk pace in the morning but slackened towards late afternoon.

Around 58.2 million Tamil Nadu voters set out on May 16 to elect the new 234-member assembly in the polls. Polling was deferred to May 23 in two constituencies - Thanjavur and Aravakurichi.

In Tamil Nadu, as usual, it is a direct fight between the ruling AIADMK and the DMK with PWF-DMDK-TMC combine and PMK in the fray while in Puducherry it is a direct fight between the ruling NR Congress and the Congress.
The BJP will for the first time win power in Assam and AIADMK veteran J Jayalalithaa will be ousted in Tamil Nadu, according to most television exit polls on Monday.

West Bengal will stay with Mamata Banerjees Trinamool Congress party and the Left Front will return to power in Kerala, the polls said.

The India Today-Axis exit poll gave 79-93 seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party combine in Assam, 26-33 to the Congress and 6-10 to the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).

The ABP Ananda predicted 81 seats to the BJP coalition, 33 to the Congress and 10 to the AIUDF.

With growing scepticism about Modis popular appeal and party chief Amit Shahs image as a master electoral strategist, the BJP is desperate to win in Assam. If the Congress loses power in the state, the BJPs call for a Congress-free Bharat will become shriller and might gain further traction

Assam

Party/Alliance India Today-Axis ABP Ananda Times Now-CVoter Chanakya Congress 26-33 33 41 20-34 BJP+ 79-93 81 57 81-99 AIUDF 06-10 10 18 06-12 Others 01-04 02 10 00-02 Total seats 126 126 126 126

The ruling Trinamool Congress led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will retain power in West Bengal with a slightly reduced majority.

ABP Ananda predicted that the Trinamool was poised to get 178 of the 294 seats -- it had 184 in the outgoing assembly -- while the Left-Congress combine would get 110. The BJP would get one seat while others would bag five seats.

CVoter predicted 167 seats for the Trinamool, 75 for the Left, 45 for the Congress, four to the BJP and three to others.

West Bengal

Party/Alliance ABP Ananda Times Now-CVoter India Today-Axis Chanakya News Nation Trinamool Congress 163 167 233-253 210 153 Left+Congress 126 120 38-51 70 136 BJP 01 04 01-05 14 00 Others 04 03 02-05 00 03 Total seats 294 294 294 294 294

Around 40 million voted in Tamil Nadu, which saw multiple contests in all constituencies for the first time. The ruling AIADMK is pitted against the DMK-Congress alliance, a front led by the DMDK of actor-turned-politician Vijaykanth, the PMK and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Polling in two of the 234 constituencies has been postponed.

Tamil Nadu

Party/Alliance News Nation India Today-Axis Times Now-CVoter AIADMK 95-99 89-101 139 DMK+ 114-118 124-140 78 DMDK+ 14 -- -- BJP+ 04 00-03 00 Others 09 04-08 17 Total seats 234 234 234

The Left is set to return to power in Kerala, the exit polls predicted.

Kerala

Party-Alliance India Today-Axis Times Now-CVoter News Nation LDF 88-101 78 67-71 UDF 38-48 58 68-72 BJP+ 00-03 02 00-02 Others 01-04 02 00 Total seats 140 140 140

The DMK-led alliance is set to win 15-21 seats in the 30-member Puducherry assembly. The ruling All India NR Congress (AINRC) would get 8-12 seats, the AIADMK 1-4 seats and others two seats, India Today-Axis said.

Puducherry

Party/Alliance Times Now-CVoter India Today-Axis Congress+DMK 14 15-21 AINRC 09 08-12 AIADMK 05 01-04 BJP 00 00 Others 02 00-02 Total seats 30 30
In a relief to the more than 50,000 residents of Shivaji Nagar and Tulsi Nagar, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced on Monday that the smart city project would be moved to North TT Nagar.

The CMs announcement came after a meeting with authorities, including chief secretary Anthony deSa and Bhopal mayor Alok Sharma.

Honouring sentiments of the people, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has decided that the smart city project will now be developed in North TT Nagar, said an official release. Given the greenery in Shivaji Nagar... it didnt look wise to raise high-rise buildings in the area. Hence, the smart city will be developed on a 280 hectare vacant land in North TT Nagar.

Residents and environmentalists had protested against the selection of the two localities over the projects possible impact on the environment. There was also resentment among public representatives from the ruling party as well, because they were not taken into confidence prior to the selection.

Higher education minister Umashankar Gupta was among those whose political aspirations might have been affected by the proposed displacement of residents from the area. He met the chief minister on Monday morning along with city mayor Alok Sharma and expressed concern over the selection of the two localities.

Alok Sharmas image too took a beating as he was in the forefront of getting the city selected for the smart city project. I had already said that the selection of the two localities was not final, he said. I am thankful to the chief minister that he listened to us and took the decision.

Former chief secretary and convener of the National Centre for Human Settlement and Environment (NCHSE), Nirmala Buch, who spearheaded the campaign against the selection, said the project would do immense damage to the environment as the area was considered the lungs of the city and 27,000-30,000 trees would have to be felled to clear the 332 acre area required for the smart city project.

I am happy that chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has taken this pro-people and pro-environment step. Our delegation had met the CM and he assured that he would look into our demands, Buch told HT.

Another activist, Ajay Dubey, demanded that the bureaucrats who selected the two localities without consulting the people through fake voting should be held accountable. Its because of their action that the government had to face embarrassment and had to make a U-turn on the selection of the area, he said.

Senior journalist Dinesh Gupta, a resident of Tulsi Nagar, said some officers who lived in Chandigarh dreamed of creating another Chandigarh in Bhopal. They handed over prime land at the cost of the environment to builders who had their eyes of the land on Link Road No 1 and 2 for a long time, he added.

The localities already meet most of the norms of a smart city and it could be improved further with the investment of a few crores, he said.
Bollywood actor Kabir Khan has recently undergone a sudden operation and is stable now. According to a website, the Bajrangi Bhaijaan director was rushed to Kokilaben hospital in Mumbai after he complained of severe stomach pain on May 13.

The doctors detected stones and hence, he was immediately operated on. Reportedly, Kabir got discharged the very next day, but the doctors have strictly asked him to take rest for at least a week.

In the recent past, the director topped the headlines after he was heckled at the Karachi airport by few protesters, who accused him of making anti-Pakistani film, Phantom.

Read: Kabir Khan denies protest in Karachi, asks media to ignore

On the professional front, the director will very soon commence his next directorial venture with none other than Salman Khan, which is apparently titled Tube light. The film is a Sino-Indian venture and Kabir, along with casting director Mukesh Chabra, is looking for the Chinese actors for the film.
Actor Malaika Arora Khan, who was recently in the news for her split with actor-filmmaker Arbaaz Khan, has now asked the makers of her ongoing reality show, Indias Got Talent, to address her by her maiden name -- Maliaka Arora. According to entertainment website Spotboye.com, Malaika doesnt want Khan to be part of her surname.

Read: Malaika Arora Khan, Arbaaz Khan confirm split. Read their statement

Malaika has clearly told the production and on-air team that she has to be addressed only as Malaika Arora on the show. She is very strict about it, a source was quoted as saying.

Reports about problems in their relationship started in January this year, when it was reported that Malaika moved out of their Bandra home, and shifted to an apartment in Khar, Mumbai, along with her 14-year-old son Arhaan. This was followed by reports of Arbaazs brother actor Salman Khan trying to mend differences between the two. Arbaaz spoke about how he is afraid of losing Malaika.

When you achieve something or someone, you dont want to lose the person. I love Malaika but Im possessive about her. It wasnt like this when she was younger or when I was new to the relationship, but it has happened now. She is very precious and dear to me. I love her more than anything else in the world. Im afraid of losing her now, he had said on a television show.

However in March, the couple issued a joint statement confirming their divorce.
Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif are back together after their supposed break-up. No, the Bollywood stars havent started dating again; they are just shooting for the last schedule of their next cinematic biggie  Jagga Jasoos  in Morocco.

In a video shared online by a fan, Katrina can be seen practising a song sequence with a very bored-looking Ranbir. While both go about their moves with expressionless faces, it seems fairly obvious that Ranbir doesnt want to look at his rumoured ex-girlfriend.

Ranbir looks away as he practices for a song sequence on the sets of Jagga Jasoos. (Twitter)

Video- #ranbirkapoor and #katrinakaif shooting for a song in #Morocco. @jaggajasoos.fc #JaggaJasoos #video#bollywood#rk#kat#rankat A video posted by Tanya Ghosh (@rkholics.82) on May 14, 2016 at 12:20am PDT

Pictures from the sets, showing the actors together, are also going viral on social media platforms.

Jagga Jasoos is slated for release in the second half of 2016.

Ranbir and Katrina practice for a song sequence. (Twitter)

Katrina reportedly skipped an appearance at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival because she was scheduled to shoot for Jagga Jasoos. Cannes is a fabulous platform for any artist to attend, and I really enjoyed my experience last year. While the brand (LOreal Paris) invited me to attend Cannes again this year, I had to regretfully decline the opportunity due to prior commitments, Katrina said in a statement.

Katrina and Ranbir on the stage for a song sequence for Jagga Jasoos.

Jagga Jasoos  which tells the story of a teenage detective searching for his missing father  has Govinda, Ranbir, Katrina and Adah Sharma in lead roles.

Ranbir and director Anurag Basu visited Darjeeling last month to finish shooting another part of the movie. The two have teamed up for Jagga Jasoos four years after Barfi, their first successful outing together, co-starring Priyanka Chopra.

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Delhi boy Anmol Sood, popularly known as RJ Anmol, and his newlywed wife, Amrita Rao, sure managed to keep their relationship a secret for seven years. So naturally, their wedding announcement came as a surprise to many.

We have always been private about our personal life. This relationship was sacred to the both of us from the moment it began, says the couple, in a joint statement released to Hindustan Times. They add, Making your relationship public can help you be in constant news, but we wanted only our work to do the talking. Marriage is a very personal affair and we thought of keeping it like that. We wanted to announce it at the right time, and we did!

Delhi boy Anmol Sood, popularly known as RJ Anmol, and his newlywed wife, Amrita Rao, sure managed to keep their relationship a secret for seven years. (Facebook)

Originally from Delhi, RJ Anmol, who has done his MBA in marketing, has previously worked in Dubai, too, as an RJ, until he moved base to Mumbai. Popular for his retro night show, Anmol, were told, is a huge fan of Dev Anand. Currently, hes working with Radio Nasha and does the late night shows in both, Mumbai and Delhi. The couple met seven years ago during an interview, and have ever since, kept their relationship under wraps.
US newspaper giant Gannett on Monday raised its bid for rival Tribune Publishing to $864 million after its earlier offer was rejected as too low.

Gannett hiked its bid from last months $815 million in an effort to combine its USA Today and affiliated newspapers with the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other dailies owed by Tribune Publishing.

Our increased offer demonstrates our commitment to engaging in serious and meaningful negotiations with the Tribune Board to reach a mutually agreeable transaction where Gannett acquires all of Tribune, said a statement from Gannett chairperson John Jeffry Louis.

It is evident from our discussions with Tribune shareholders that there is overwhelming support for the companies to engage immediately regarding our proposed transaction. By increasing our offer at this time, we are reaffirming Gannetts belief that this transaction would deliver significant value to both companies stakeholders and that the time to act is now.

Tribune Publishing issued a statement acknowledging it received the offer amounting to $15 per share, adding that its board will thoroughly review the revised proposal.

The two newspaper groups have been in a war of words over the bid.

Tribune Publishing said on May 4 the Gannett offer understates the companys true value and is not in the best interests of our shareholders, and several days later adopted a shareholder rights plan or poison pill which makes a takeover more difficult.

Gannett president and chief executive Robert Dickey said Monday the revised offer provides Tribune shareholders with a significant premium of 99 percent and immediate, certain value.

He added that by not engaging constructively with Gannett and continuing to pursue an unproven strategy... we believe Tribune is jeopardizing its shareholders investment and disregarding their best interests.

Tribune Publishing group was spun off the larger Tribune Co. in 2014, and has been examining options such as the sale of the coveted Los Angeles daily.

But following the Gannett offer the group said it would seek to remain independent as it refines its digital strategy.

Gannett last year became the latest media conglomerate to break itself apart, splitting off its television operations into a new firm called Tegna.
In renewed efforts towards attaining full statehood for the Capital, a key poll promise of the Aam Aadmi Party, the Delhi government is likely to put a draft of the Statehood Bill in public domain later this week.

The move is aimed at cornering the ruling BJP at the Centre, which seems to be dragging its feet on the issue after demanding it for over two decades.

The move comes amid the ongoing turf war with the Centre over administrative jurisdiction of the Delhi government. The Delhi government has been demanding transfer of Delhi Police and the Delhi Development Authority  the land owning agency  to the state government.

Also read | Kejriwal to announce draft bill of statehood to Delhi

A government official said: The constitutional provision mandates the Centre to pass a bill for granting full statehood to the Capital. But the Delhi government has drafted a bill that will be sent after incorporating suitable ideas from the city residents and experts.

The draft bill will be put up for public opinion on the Delhi government website, he said.

Sources said the final draft of the bill will be sent to the Centre along with a resolution passed by Delhi assembly. It will be a statement of intent. The BJP government will then have to take a call on the issue they have been doing politics upon for over two decades, said an official.

Sources said the draft bill largely revolves around the one cleared by the Standing Committee and tabled in Parliament by the then Home Minister LK Advani.

A Delhi government official said: We have no problem with NDMC area as it is governed by a separate act. For non-NDMC areas, there should be a unified body and separate police, which should be under the state government.
The Haryana government has ordered the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the death of journalist Pooja Tiwari on May 1 night.

On the instructions of the state government, we have constituted SIT to investigate this sensitive case that will be headed by IPS officer Astha Modi, commissioner of police for Faridabad, Hanif Qureshi, said.

Though the IPS officer will be overall heading the SIT, deputy commissioner of police NIT zone, Puran Chand Panwar, will continue to supervise the investigation, the commissioner said. The inclusion of the woman IPS officer was necessitated keeping in view the sensitivity of the case, he said.

Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar had a few days ago hinted at the constitution of an SIT in the case. The chief minister had said that when the incident took place in Faridabad, he came to know about it from Madhya Pradesh as the victim belonged to Indore. Astha Modi is currently posted as ACP Faridabad.

There are reports that the family members of the deceased journalist wanted the case to be handed over to the CBI.

Read: Journalist Pooja Tiwari death: Arrested cop suspended

The police are likely to collect the voice samples of suspended police inspector Amit Vaishisht. This will be done to ascertain the authenticity of an audio clip that has surfaced in the case.

The police are investigating the authenticity of the audio that surfaced on the day of Tiwaris death. The purported conversation between the inspector and Pooja suggests some kind of tension between the duo.

Amit Vaishisht is in 14 days judicial custody.

Police claimed to have recovered four cell phones and laptop from the possession of Amit.

Amits handwriting samples are being taken to verify if the suicide note handed over to the police was written by him or Pooja, an official said.

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Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will announce the draft bill for granting statehood to New Delhi on Monday, and it will be made public for opinions and suggestions.

The final draft will be tabled in the coming session of the Delhi Assembly and will be then sent to the Centre, as statehood is subject to parliamentary approval.

The Parliament needs to amend the NCT Act for granting statehood to Delhi.

Earlier, the then Home Minister LK Advani had also tabled the Statehood Bill of Delhi in Parliament, as statehood was a poll promise by all parties contesting in Delhi.

The statehood bill will open another gateway of confrontation between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Government and the Centre. There are already many crucial bills that await clearance in the capital.
The killing of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan, who worked for the Hindi daily Hindustan, and Akhilesh Pratap Singh, who worked for a TV channel, underscores two things: First, India is becoming a dangerous place for journalists who wish to do their work diligently. This has become visible in a prominent way over the past six years, ever since the murder of Sushil Pathak of Dainik Bhaskar in Chhattisgarh in 2010. Since then every year journalists have been killed in one part of the country or the other. Second, Nitish Kumars return to power last November was predicated on good governance and economic growth, for which Mr Kumar could claim credit. But within a month of his return to power, two engineers were killed. This was followed by a succession of murders, including those of two leaders of opposition parties, in his state.

READ: Ready for CBI probe into journalists murder: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar

Mr Kumars claim that the crime rate in Bihar has come down with the introduction of prohibition may be true, but where he is wrong is in suggesting that crime has a relationship with the consumption of liquor. Though there is no doubt that drunken brawls often lead to violence and murder, there are other factors which drive this endemic violence. There are conflicts at every level in society, individual and social. And individual rivalry can be a representation of social conflicts. What is important is what Mr Kumar, who is ready for a CBI probe into Ranjans killing, can do as chief minister to improve the administration and send the message that the law is supreme and no one can get away with murder. This is also important because there is a political connection to each of the killings that has taken place since December. The upshot of this is that political cover gives a criminal the insulation he needs to carry on with business as usual. And if such insulation comes from Mr Kumars party or his allies, his government cannot absolve itself of responsibility. Already his deputy chief minister has shot himself in the foot by comparing criminal acts in the state with road rage incidents in Delhi.

READ: Journalist murder: Bihars Siwan slipping back into lawlessness of 90s

Another thing to note is that journalists are killed mostly in small towns, where miscreants find a conducive environment. This has been pointed out by the Committee to Protect Journalists, an international non-profit organisation. For example, Mohammed Shahabuddin, former MP from Siwan, who has been in jail long before his conviction, has been linked to many murders over the past 20 years. This means he can carry out his operations from jail. Monitoring the activities of such worthies more closely could be an effective way of finding out how effectively their networks run.
It is a novel way to improve educational standards by any yardstick. The Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education has decided to rejig the school curriculum to obscure certain historic facts, cleverly add a few new ones and put a twist on others. So, we find no reference to Jawaharlal Nehru being the first prime minister of India, no mention of Mahatma Gandhis assassination and the emperor Akbar being referred to without being called Great  an honour that will now go to Maharana Pratap. The new curriculum, on the state education website, introduces new elements like the prime ministers Maan ki Baat radio address, the Swachh Bharat scheme, the PMs fitness habits and tales of gods and religious figures. A letter to a cow by a student also features.

Read | Before world listened to Gandhi, today to Modi: Shivraj Singh Chouhan

It is no ones contention that textbooks not be rewritten from time to time to make them more contemporary. But in this case the efforts of the State Institute of Education, Research and Training in Udaipur seem to be driven by particular political considerations. The education ministers excuse that he has nothing to do with this autonomous bodys efforts seems a little incredulous considering how active the government has been in its re-education efforts. The aim of the state education sector should be to provide children the necessary knowledge that will help them compete with the best anywhere. It should focus on improving conditions in schools, especially for the girl child, the quality of teaching and teacher training.

Read | Aruna Roy takes on Rajasthan govt on removing RTI lesson from books

No doubt religious leaders and past tales of Indian culture and valour have their time and place in the childs understanding of society and history, but this cannot be done by masking immutable facts of our past. The fact that erstwhile rulers who resisted the Muslim kings are being highlighted reiterates that fact that this has more to do with ideology than improving educational standards. The tendency to politicise every aspect of life is something we have come to live with today. But the government has a duty to ensure that children are imparted the most accurate information in an interesting manner and not made to learn what can only be described as a distorted version of events and irrelevant or even doctored information.
The government on Monday advised students against taking admissions without doing a thorough check on the background of universities in northern Cyprus.

The advisory came after some Indian students complaining about malpractices by these universities. India mission officials in Nicosia (accredited to Cyprus) are not in a position to visit that area or have any contact with the local authorities due to political factors. Due to this, the external affairs ministry will not be able to help those students facing problems.

Complaints have been received against Cyprus International University (CIU) that reportedly asked for additional fee from Indian students after they took admission.

Some students also raised questions about the credibility and recognition of the courses offered by the university.

In general, students seeking admission in universities and institutes abroad are advised to check the reputation, ranking and background of the institution, and conduct thorough research as to whether the certificate/degree granted by them is internationally recognised, and in particular, in India, the MEA advisory said.
Nearly 53% of over 1.2 million students who gave the Class 10 state board examination have passed this year, an increase of 4% over last year.

The result of the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education for Class 10 was declared on Monday by school education minister Paras Jain and minister of state for education Deepak Joshi.

Around 35,000 students from Bhopal and 1,228,703 students from across the state appeared in the examination. The pass percentage was 53.87% this year, 4.08% higher than last year, and the first time in four years the figure was more than 50%.

As was the case in the Class 12 results, the highest pass percentage was recorded in Mandsaur district (71.78%) and the lowest in Bhind (15.15%). State capital Bhopal recorded a pass percentage of 56.46%.

Madhya Pradesh registered the decades best pass percentage of 54% in 2011.

Official sources say the reason for the low pass percentages was the strictness observed during invigilation of the board examinations, but experts feel this is due to the deteriorating academic standards in the states schools.

State toppers, however, scored exceptionally high. Shajapur districts Mukesh Chandel and Jabalpurs Divya Yadav, students of Sahara Public School and Tanya Convent School respectively, secured the top rank with 589 marks out of 600 (98%). As many as six students from Shajapur are in the merit list this year.

As in previous years, girls fared better than boys  the overall pass percentage among girls is 56.33% and 51.78% among boys.

PASS PERCENTAGE OVER THE YEARS

2010: 48.15%

2011: 54.76%

2012: 53.90%

2013: 51.19%

2014: 47.74%

2015: 49.79%

2016: 53.87%

STATE TOPPERS

Rank 1 Mukesh Chandel (Shajapur district) and Divya Yadav (Jabalpur): 589 marks

Rank 2 Ramprakash Gupta (Shahdol) and Jitendra Parmar (Shajapur): 588 marks

Rank 3 Anupam Mishra (Panna): 587

Rank 4 Dhirendra Kumar Soni (Panna), Pratyush Mishra (Umariya) and Swati Sharma (Khandwa): 586

Rank 5 Ajit Singh (Rewa), Ishwar (Shajapur), Aman Carpentar (Rajgarh), Vivek Kumar (Raisen), Seema (Narsinghpur): 585
A total of 205 prisoners, including 197 males and 8 females, were declared successful on Sunday in Class 10 and Class 12 examinations conducted by the Uttar Pradesh Board of High School and Intermediate Education.

A total of 269 prisoners, including 255 males and 14 females, from 40 prisons across the state registered for the examinations out of which 215 males and 9 females wrote the papers.

In the high school examination, 105 inmates appeared among which 100, including 98 males and two females, cleared it to register a pass percentage of 95.24.

A total of 119 inmates, including 112 males and 7 females, appeared for the intermediate examination, and 99 males and six females cleared it. The inmates secured 88.24% result.

Read more: UP board 2016 Class 10 and Class 12 results out, check list of toppers

Bareilly jail witnessed a maximum of 28 inmates appearing in the high school examination and 27 in intermediate examination. The second highest count of prisoners appearing in the examinations was from Ghaziabad jail with 12 appearing for high school and 13 for intermediate.

Lucknow jail had the third highest count of 11 inmates appearing in high school and 10 in intermediate examinations. All the inmates in Ghaziabad and Lucknow jails cleared the exams.
A school teacher in Uttar Pradeshs Allahabad is on a unique mission to help his students.

Ram Lakhan Yadav, the headmaster of Purv Madhyamik Vidyalaya in Bakrabad of Bahria development block in the district, cleared the UP board intermediate or Class 12 examination for the 18th time.

Yadav said he was heartbroken and afraid of taking the board exams after he failed to clear the intermediate examination in 1972 in his first attempt as he never used unfair means, unlike his colleagues.

After that, the 59-year-old made clearing the board exams his mission to set an example for his students. Yadav wanted to make them realise that nothing is impossible and hard work along with self-belief are key to success.

Read more: Prison inmates excel in 2016 UP board examinations

After becoming a teacher, I have appeared and passed intermediate examinations 18 times in 43 different subjects besides high school exam 10 times in 24 different subjects. I choose different subjects and study the entire year just to prove my point that determination and hard work bears positive result, Yadav, who started appearing in board exams from 1988, said.

This year, Yadav took the exam with his 17-year-old son and scored 45% in the commerce stream. Udit Narayan, a student of GP Memorial Inter College in Kamla Nagar, also cleared the exam.

Read more: UP board 2016 Class 10 and Class 12 results out, check list of toppers

Several of my students in the past refused to use unfair means and instead worked hard and cleared their examination in their first attempt, he said.

Yadav said he will keep helping his students by taking the board exams in the future.

After retirement, I plan to continue with my mission to inspire students for studying hard and believing in themselves instead of relying on the use of unfair means or suffer from exam phobia leading to dropouts, he added.

Read more: UP board exam: Farmers daughter is the second topper in Class 12

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A top executive of Encyclopedia Britannica allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the 19th floor of a building in DLF Phase-III Gurgaon, police said.

Vineet Whig, the chief operating officer of the South Asia division of Encylopedia Britannica, was found dead by cleaning staff on Sunday morning inside a shaft which opens close to his 19th floor apartment at the building.

A suicide note was found in Whigs pocket read: I am taking my own life, no one is responsible. I am unable to cope. I am sorry. I am depressed. I see no way out except for suicide. Yes, I am a coward. I should have faced life.

Whig lived in Block-D of DLF Belvedere Park with his wife, two sons, a daughter and his father who suffered a heart attack after receiving the news of Whigs death.

The body was found in the ventilation shaft of Block-C by sweepers when they went to clean it at 9 AM on Sunday. They informed the society security control room which told the family and thereafter the police was informed at 9.45 AM, Singh said.

According to the family, Whig went for his morning walk but did not return home on his usual time, Singh said, adding, they did not find anything suspicious as sometimes he would get late.

The top executive had also worked with IT giant Wipro before joining Britannica.

CCTV footage is being examined to verify the details and ascertain the sequence of events, Singh added.

With agency inputs
Encyclopaedia Britannica executive Vineet Whig jumped off the 19th floor of a multi-storey building in Gurgaon on Sunday because he could see no other way out. A day later, friends and well-wishers of the sprightly 47-year-old were still no closer to understanding why a man so full of life would ever give up on it.

Many took to the social media on Monday to pay tribute to Whig, whom they described as humorous, large-hearted and fun-loving. Blog posts followed by photographs described how they would miss a friend who was as sensitive as he was funny, and loved nature  especially mountains  like none other.

Rest in peace, my friend. I have known Vineet Whig for more than 30 years. He inspired me to take up photography. His humour and zest for life will be a joy forever. Vineets philosophy and understanding of human nature were enriching, and his love for mountains was infectious, wrote Nilabh Nagar, a friend on Facebook.

Thank you, Vineet, for everything. Thank you to his friends for capturing him at his best. You will be etched in our soul forever, he added, signing off the blog post with six photographs of Whig visiting various countries.

To Whig, life meant more than just being the chief operating officer of a company  even if it was the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He was an avid photographer with a passion for wildlife and music, and a compulsive blogger till 2014. Photos taken by him during visits to Japan, Netherland, Singapore and Switzerland were published in the National Geographic Traveler magazine.

Read: Britannica COO jumps to death from 19th floor in Gurgaon

I came, I saw, I wept a while, then I slept a while, read a post from his blog Vineet on Earth, as shared by another friend  Biswanath Bhattacharya  on the social media.

A note written by the top executive, who is survived by his wife and three children, explicitly stated that nobody else was to be blamed for his suicide. I am unable to cope. ... Yes, I am a coward. I should have faced life, NDTV quoted the suicide note as saying.

Pattabhi Raman, another friend, seemed to have a more philosophical take on the incident. Sad and tragic! Shows that material success doesnt lead to inner peace and happiness! RIP! Raman posted.

Whigs neighbours at his DLF Belvedere Park apartment complex in Gurgaons Cyber City area remembered him as a quiet person who usually kept to himself. He usually came down for morning and evening walks alone, and never talked to anyone in the condominium. We came to know about the incident that morning, said a resident on the condition of anonymity.

Sweepers found Whigs body in a ventilation shaft when they went to clean it around 9 am on Sunday.

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Aam Aadmi Party, which is eyeing to wrest power in Punjab, on Monday protested against the alleged multi-crore foodgrain scam in the state in Chandigarh near Mohali.

Amid heavy security at the entry points of Chandigarh and Mohali, large number of AAP workers participated in the protest against SAD-BJP led Punjab government.

AAP has also planned to protest outside Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badals residence in Chandigarh on the issue of foodgrain scam.

In another development, Punjab government on Monday inserted advertisement notices in newspapers claiming that they are maintaining accounts for every grain produced through Punjab procurement agencies and FCI.

It claimed that this was a conspiracy of anti-Punjab elements to defame Punjab and the issue was raised by opposition parties for their political gains.

Beware of those (who are) out to defame Punjab, said an advertisement.

Police have deployed riot control vehicles, fire fighting engines, ambulances to restrain the AAP activists from entering Chandigarh, officials said.

On Sunday, the Punjab chief minister cancelled his engagements in the wake of AAPs protest.

Badal said that he would instead remain available at his residence to receive any responsible political leader or representative for discussion on any issue concerning the people of the state.

Referring to AAPs protest, Badal had said, This party had already delivered the most treacherous betrayal to the farmers of the state by backing out on the SYL issue. They cannot now pretend to be the sympathisers and supporters of the same farmers.

However, AAP on their part had accused the SAD-BJP government of misusing the official machinery for suppressing its democratic right to protest in Chandigarh against the foodgrain scam.

AAP National Spokesman and in-charge party affairs in Punjab, Sanjay Singh has accused Badal of using coercive ways and means at his command to ensure AAP doesnt hold a massive protest demonstration and surround his official residence at Chandigarh to expose his misdeeds.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has unearthed the biggest food scam of the country accusing the Badal government of either siphoning off Rs 12,000 crore or the food grains worth the same amount from the Punjab godowns, he further added.
Police on Monday said they had registered a case of rioting against supporters of spiritual guru Asaram Bapu who attacked police personnel overnight in Delhi, injuring seven policemen.

According to police, the police personnel were injured when some 2,000 people demanding Asaram Bapus release stoned the Parliament Street police station in the heart of the city on Sunday night.

A few police vehicles were also damaged in the protest. No arrests have been made yet, a police officer told IANS.

Asaram Bapu, lodged in Jodhpur Jail in Rajasthan after his arrest in 2013, has been accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl. He has denied the charge.
A court in Gaya on Monday sent Teni Yadav, the friend of JD (U) MLC Manorama Devi's son Rocky Yadav, to judicial custody for 14 days.

Yadav, who was present during the murder of Aditya Sachdeva, surrendered before the court earlier on Monday. today.

The Bihar Police had arrested Rocky, the main accused in the murder case, last Tuesday.

The police later arrested Rocky's father Bindi Yadav and their bodyguard in connection with the case.

Manorama Devi was also detained for hours by the police last Monday for interrogation.

Rakesh Ranjan Yadav alias Rocky is accused of killing Class XII student Aditya Sachdeva after an argument with the youth for overtaking his vehicle on May 7.
Polling in the Thanjavur and Aravakurichi constituencies of Tamil Nadu was put on hold on Monday, following complaints of large amounts of money being distributed among voters.

Even as the electoral exercise was conducted in the states remaining 232 constituencies, opposition parties demanded strict action against those attempting to buy votes.

Terming it as a serious matter, DMK treasurer MK Stalin sought a CBI probe to identify the people behind the alleged scam. The central agency must investigate money transfer in all constituencies... he said.

M Kanimozhi, DMK Rajya Sabha member and party supremo M Karunanidhis daughter, also spoke in favour of a probe by the central agency. Much more should have been done by the Election Commission. It does not seem as if it is instituting a real probe... Kanimozhi said, emerging from a polling booth. Only a CBI inquiry can reveal the truth.

She said the DMK-Congress combine will win on account of the anti-incumbency factor as well as the hard work put in by Stalin and other party members over the last six months.

Vaiko, coordinator of the third front in the fray, said the elections should be held again as money was distributed in all the constituencies in the state. Accusing the Election Commission of favouring the ruling dispensation, he said there was no credible explanation for the Rs 570 crore recovered from Tirupur.

The third front in the Tamil Nadu elections comprises the Peoples Welfare Front, the Tamil Maanila Congress and the Vijayakanth-led Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam.

Anbumani Ramadoss, the Pattali Makkal Katchis chief ministerial candidate, accused both the AIADMK and the DMK of distributing cash among the public. This is why I have demanded that the two parties be disqualified for violation of the model code of conduct, he said.

Former union finance minister P Chidambaram said postponing polling in the two constituencies was not a good move. The EC should have countermanded the polls instead of postponing it, he said.

The AIADMK has been distributing money in all the constituencies, he alleged, adding that the election commission should have done its best to prevent it.

The ruling party, however, remained confident of victory. In another two days, the verdict will be out and we will emerge victorious, J Jayalalithaa, AIADMK supremo and state chief minister, told mediapersons.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will seek details from three Scandinavian countries on the bribe money trail in the Rs 3,737-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal.

The ED is in the process of sending its formal requests, also known as Letters Rogatories, seeking the case details from Finland, Norway and Denmark, according to an agency source. The choppers UK-based maker, AW Limited, allegedly routed Rs 360 crore to India for payment of bribes to influential Indians to clinch the contract.

The source said the requests are being sent on the basis of leads purportedly suggesting the use of shell firms and layered financial transactions in the three north European countries.

The financial transactions under the agencys scanner in the three countries are suspected to be linked to transfer of funds by firms named as accused in EDs First Information Report in the case, said the source.

The agency has sent reminders through diplomatic channels to expedite responses to its earlier requests to the UK, Italy, Switzerland and Tunisia. Funds worth Rs 360 crore were suspected to have been routed to India by the choppers maker, AW Limited, via modes, including payments made to two accused Indian firms for outsourced engineering contracts, said the source.

The deal was for 12 AW-101 choppers, which got cancelled in July 2014 by India when it was revealed that the AW Limited allegedly paid bribes and kept in violation of the contracts Integrity pact.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar recommended on Monday a CBI probe into a senior journalists murder that has mounted pressure on his coalition government amidst allegations of a jailed politicians involvement.

The governments announcement came two days after 42-year-old Rajdeo Ranjan, the head of Hindi daily Hindustan in Siwan, was shot dead by unidentified men in the heart of the town, 145 km north-west of Patna.

Police, who claim to be on the verge of cracking the case, said the instructions to kill Ranjan came from Siwan jail where former MP and RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin is serving a life sentence for murder.

Upendra Singh, a close associate of Shahabuddin, who was questioned by police is understood to have revealed that the kill order was issued a fortnight ago.

Police sources said a criminal released from the jail recently approached Singh to arrange arms for killing Ranjan, who had written extensively against the RJD leader, said to wield considerable clout despite being behind bars for six years.

Read: People know who killed my son: Father of slain Hindustan journo Ranjan

Singh is among four people arrested after the incident but only for drinking alcohol, a crime under the new prohibition law. Sources said the four were allegedly celebrating the murder of Ranjan, though police are yet to find any evidence to link him to the incident.

Nitish Kumar is facing flak from the opposition for engaging his entire administration in enforcing prohibition, his pet project, which allegedly left holes in policing.

If there is an attack on a journalist, its an attack on me and thats how I am looking

at the case, Kumar told reporters, as he sought to deflect opposition allegations of his losing control over the law and order scenario.

The incident came a few days after the son of a ruling JD-U legislator was arrested for killing a youth in a case of road rage in Gaya. The opposition BJP said the spate of killings confirmed the return of maha jungle raj in the state.

Read: Police claim breakthrough in Bihar journalists murder

The slain journalists wife Asha welcomed the announcement, saying she had full faith in a CBI inquiry but cant believe in Lalu Prasad, Nitish Kumar or Bihar police.

She was also very critical of the police. Whatever arrests they (the police) claim to have made are under excise act. Even after 72 hours, they have nothing to show.

Investigators said on Monday a sharp-shooter linked to Shahabuddin and released from Siwan jail a fortnight ago has emerged as the main suspect but he was yet to be arrested.

Altogether 15 people, including the four arrested, have been questioned over the murder till now.

The sharpshooter went underground with his entire family within two hours of the killing, police added.

They (the 15 people) are under suspicion since they had celebrated the killing. All of them have a criminal past and were associated with local politics, said Bihar director general of police PK Thakur.

Police said the killing was the result of a leaked photograph of Bihar minister Abdul Ghafoor feasting with Shahabuddin in jail. It is believed that the slain journalist passed on the pictures to media houses.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will soon visit tribal dominated states to kickoff the partys agitation against attempts by the BJP-led NDA government to dilute the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006.

Congress sources said Gandhis visits will largely depend on the monsoon conditions in these states.

At a meeting on Saturday, Congress leaders Ajit Jogi, Jairam Ramesh, Bhakta Charan Das and others briefed the partys tribal activists from 11 states on the alleged bid by the central government to weaken the FRA passed by the previous UPA government.

The NDA government has proposed certain amendments to the FRA. Congress leaders argued that the UPA government had empowered the tribals and made them true custodians of forest resources and its produce by eliminating the nexus between the forest department and private contractors.

They cited the move by the union tribal ministry in allowing the Maharashtra government to have complete control over forest management and sale of forest produce which resulted in the state hiring the services of a private firm for collection and sale of forest produce.

This could prompt the other state governments to follow the move which in turn will affect the tribals adversely.

Buoyed by the impact of its protests in blocking any changes in the Land Acquisition Bill and also forcing the Centre to accept its recommendations in the Real Estate Bill, the Congress is now set to take to corner the Narendra Modi government on the Forest Rights Act.

Jogi, who was issued a show cause notice by the party over the alleged fixing of an assembly by-poll in Chhattisgarh in 2014 that also led to the expulsion of his son Amit Jogi attended the meeting.

The former Chhattisgarh chief ministers presence indicated that he had secured a reprieve in the matter in which purported audio tapes suggested that financial inducements were offered to make Congress candidate Manturam Pawar withdraw from the Antagarh by-poll contest on September 13, 2014 to ensure a straight victory for the BJP nominee.
Last Friday when Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi chaired the customary post-parliament session press conference, sandwich, dhokla and vadas were served to all participants.

What went missing, on that hot summer day, were bottles of drinking water.

In a push to the Centres Swachh Bharat campaign, the drinking water ministry has asked all central ministries and departments to avoid use of bottled drinking water in official meetings, seminars, conferences, workshops etc. including those conducted by sub-ordinate and attached offices/PSUs.

The ministry has also asked for alternative arrangements for safe drinking water that does not result in generation of plastic waste.

The circular has evoked mixed response.

A senior official in the parliamentary affairs ministry termed it as a good move because it would also save water and send a message of solidarity when large parts of the country are reeling under severe water shortage.

According to our estimate, around 30% of bottled water is wasted or remains unused, said the official.

But other officials have dubbed the circular as a token measure to give the Swachh Bharat campaign a fillip.

How does stopping usage of bottles of water in 80-odd ministries of the government of India help the ambitious project of Swachh Bharat, which is failing on many grounds? said a joint secretary-level officer in a social sector ministry.

Ironically, in the past two months, many ministries have floated tenders for supply of bottled drinking water.

Eighteen months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat scheme, states have used barely a third of the central funds, suggesting the campaign was a non-starter.

The states were required to draw 40% of Rs 14,623 crore from the Centre by March 31. But so far, states have only sought Rs 2,109 crore  less than half the targeted amount of disbursal.
A Delhi Police head constable shot himself dead at the official residence of water resources minister Uma Bharati in New Delhi on Sunday night, police said.

Identified as Brij Pal, the head constable used his service gun to commit suicide around 10.30 pm at the 6, Akabar Road residence of the union minister.

He was immediately rushed to the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital where he was declared dead.

Police were trying to ascertain the reasons behind the head constables extreme step.
Over 20 people, including seven policemen were injured when supporters of self-styled godman Asaram Bapu attacked police personnel outside the Parliament Street police station in Delhi on early Monday.

Hundreds of supporters of Asaram gathered in front of the police station on Sunday night demanding his release. Asaram is presently lodged at a jail in Jodhpur. The protesters demanded that the police arrest them too, an official said.

The clash broke out when police officials tried to clear the area after warning the protesters. While one group allegedly vandalised the police vehicles parked outside the police station, another tried to break open a barricade.

Police had to resort to lathi-charge and when the situation could not be brought under control, teams from other police stations in close proximity were summoned as reinforcement, the official said.

Seven policemen, including the station house officer of Barakhamba Road police station, and at least 13 supporters of Asaram Bapu were injured in the clash. While the supporters dispersed and fled the area later, the injured officials were rushed to RML Hospital.

At least six police vehicles were damaged in the incident, the official said.

A case of rioting, vandalism, causing damage to public property, criminal assault on public servants and other charges have been registered in connection with the incident but no one has been arrested yet, he added.

A teenaged girl of Asarams Chindwara-based gurukul had accused him of sexual assault at his ashram near Jodhpur. Following the girls complaint, Asaram was arrested by Jodhpur police on August 31, 2013.
Last year, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), the industry-run self-regulator, asked Bharti Airtel Ltd, the countrys largest telecom company, to modify its ad that screamed: Airtel 4G is the fastest network ever.

The regulators notice said without appropriate disclaimers, the bragging punchline was misleading and violated chapter 1.4 of the advertising code. The telco refused comment on the notice.

In the pulsating world of Indian advertising, false ads are notoriously common and easy to get away with. Its not just the smaller firms who bluff their way, peddling everything from weight-loss drugs to libido-enhancing potions on late-night TV. Big brands are an equal culprit, data accessed by HT show.

More outlandish examples abound. The ASCI charged Patanjali Ayurved Limited, a blockbuster consumer-goods firm founded by yoga guru Baba Ramdev, with a similar violation.

Claims behind the firms Youvan Gold Plus, billed as a homegrown Viagra, that it restored marital bliss violated the Drugs & Magic Remedies Act.

To the best of my knowledge, we never advertised it. We havent received any notice from the ASCI either, said SK Tijarewala, a spokesperson of Patanjali.

In the 12 months to March 2016, 363 ads, including those by big firms, were shot down. In 2014-15, there were 203 such ads, compared to the previous years 187.

Authorities have now vowed stricter monitoring, after lawmakers raised a stink in Parliament. The government regulators have picked six sectors for a closer watch: food and agriculture, health, education, real estate, transport and financial services.

A big chunk of ads that get complained against are misleading and advertisers are asked to modify the ad within 10 days or withdraw, said Shweta Purandare, the ASCIs secretary-general.

In February, the ASCI picked holes in Hindustan Unilever Ltds Dove Hair Fall Rescue Shampoo with Nutrilock Actives. The regulator ruled that the claim  Yeh damaged balon ko jadon se upar poshan de aur unhe banaye siron se majboot (nourishes damaged hair from roots up)  used in the print advertisement was misleading. The company didnt respond to HTs attempts for a comment.

The ASCI is probing pan masala (mouth freshener) ads for using celebrities. The code bars companies from using celebrities to promote items requiring a health warning.

The ASCI code is recognised by the information and broadcasting ministry and by virtue of that, it is complied with by the ad industry.

The consumer affairs ministry recently appointed ASCI as its executive arm while the I&B ministry has set up an inter-ministerial panel.

Purandare said big brands, conscious of their image, comply fully. Overall, there is over 80% compliance. For those that dont, we refer their cases to various nodal ministries for action, she said.

Consumer rights campaigners argue for steeper fines and jail, saying the current approach is focused merely on rectifying a false ad. Violations are par for the course. Firms have to at best modify the ad, at worst withdraw it. Other than that, they go scot-free, said Ravikant Vyas, who runs the NGO Grahak Jagruti Abhiyaan.

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A trial court in Goa on Monday extended by two more days the police custody of Atanasio Monserrate, a sitting legislator and former cabinet minister accused of raping a minor.

The court also extended by two days the police custody of the minor victims mother, who allegedly sold her daughter to Goas former education minister in March.

Monserrate was arrested on May 5 for allegedly drugging, raping and purchasing a minor girl for Rs.50 lakh allegedly from a pimp, Rosy Ferros, who had in turn allegedly purchased the minor from her mother.

According to the complaint filed by the victim before the womens police station, the crime allegedly occurred in March this year.

The third accused in the case, Ferros, has also been arrested and is in police custody.

Monserrate is an unattached legislator, but was elected on a Congress ticket in the 2012 state assembly elections. He has served as a minister in cabinets of the Congress as well as BJP-led alliance governments over the last decade.
A draft bill by the Union health ministry on passive euthanasia, withholding medical treatment or life support system required to keep a patient alive, has once again stoked a debate over right to life and right to die with dignity.

The ministry uploaded the draft bill - Terminally Ill Patients (Protection of Patients and Medical Practitioners) Bill -on its website (www.mohfw.nic.in) on May 9 and invited public comments on the issue that can be emailed to passiveeuthanasia@gmail.com by June 19.

Government of India has decided to solicit public opinion/comments before formulation of Law on Passive Euthanasia the opinion/comments may be sought by June 19, 2016, the government circular said.

The call has evoked mixed reaction among doctors, who say the government needs to take a careful approach before legalising passive euthanasia when the measures to prolong the life of the patient are withdrawn.

According to doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) busy Trauma Centre, at any given time about six patients occupying beds are in a completely vegetative state, with no hope of recovery.

A 15-year-old boy from Jharkhand, who is paralysed neck down in an accident and is on a ventilator, has been in the hospital for close to three years. If the ventilator support is withdrawn, the boy may die gradually.

These people have nowhere to go. Their families have spent the last penny to keep them alive and are left with no money to move them anywhere else, a senior doctor at the Trauma Centre, where a shortage of beds is a common problem, said.

The patients are observed in the trauma centre for a maximum of one year before being declared vegetative.

I personally am for euthanasia. It is a huge drain on the countrys resources. We should gracefully let these patients go rather than torturing them and their families, said the doctor.

Dr Naresh Trehan, renowned cardiac surgeon and founder of MedantaThe Medicity, however, has been concerned about the morality of the action.

The biggest concern around the world about euthanasia is if we can play god, and also, if the law can be abused, he said when Aruna Shanbaugs mercy killing petition was rejected in 2011.

A nurse at KEM Hospital in Mumbai, Shanbaug was in a vegetative state since 1973 after a brutal sodomisation and strangling with a dog-chain during a sexual assault. She died in 2015 while on a ventilator for several days after suffering from pneumonia.

Ordinarily if a life is not functional, it is not worth continuing. How long you can actively keep intervening to prolong a life is the question. There should be a point where we should be able to stop intervening, he added.

Most doctors, however, agree that euthanasia should be made legal in cases where there is no scope of a patient recovering. But many feel that India is not yet ready for a decision like this which requires a mix of sensitivity and maturity.

We Indians are extremely emotional by nature and also know how to find loopholes in the law. There are chances of the law getting misused for financial or other gains. It needs a careful thought, Dr Bipin Walia, senior consultant neurosurgery and head of neuro-spine surgery at south Delhis Max Hospital, said.

Though there is no point in prolonging the physical agony of a terminally ill person, he added.

The issue of euthanasia was first examined by the health ministry in consultation with the experts in 2006, based on the 196th Law Commission of India report. After due deliberation, it was decided to not make any laws on euthanasia.

However, in 2011 the Supreme Court, while hearing the case of Shanbaug, had legalised passive euthanasia. In a landmark judgement, the SC had given thousands of patients living in a vegetative state all over the country the right to have artificial life-support systems withdrawn to enable them to end a life of misery.

It laid down comprehensive guidelines to process passive euthanasia in the case of incompetent patients, also saying the procedure should be followed all over India until the Parliament makes a legislation on the subject.

The guidelines include seeking a declaration from the high court, after getting clearance from a medical board and state government.

Active euthanasia, which involves killing a person by a positive act in order to end the suffering of a person, was not recommended and termed unconstitutional by the apex court.

Passive versus active euthanasia

Passive: When medical treatment is withdrawn with the intention of causing the patients death. For instance, if the patient is on life-support system, the deliberate removal of it will be termed passive euthanasia. In passive euthanasia, the measures to prolong the life of the patient are withdrawn.

Active: Active euthanasia entails deliberately causing the patients death by injecting with poison or giving an overdose of sleeping pills and other medicines.

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A youth allegedly attempted to rape a 12-year-old girl near Baganwala road in Haryana on Sunday following which he was arrested, police said.

The incident took place when the girl was grazing cattle near the road, police station DSP Mamta Sauda said, adding that Krishna attempted to rape the girl after luring her to a secluded spot but she raised an alarm.

When people reached the spot after hearing her shouts, the accused escaped from there, she said.

On the basis of a complaint by victims father, a case has been registered against the accused under relevant sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and SC and ST act, the DSP said.

The accused was later arrested and a probe is on, Sauda added.

In a separate incident, five members of a family have been booked for allegedly kidnapping a 19-year-old girl in Alewa police station area, police said.

The girls father has complained that Suresh has fled with his daughter after luring her on the pretext of marriage.

On his complaint, an FIR has been registered against Suresh, his brother Naresh, Kulwinder, sister Krishna and his mother.

An investigation is underway in the matter and efforts are being made to rescue the girl.
West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh on Saturday called a section of women students of Jadavpur University shameless and alleged they intentionally threw themselves on others after ABVP workers were booked for allegedly molesting students during a commotion over screening of a film.

Claiming the molestation allegations were false, Ghosh wondered why the female students were present when clashes broke out between Left-leaning students and activists of RSS student wing ABVP, after campus screening of Vivek Agnihotris film Buddha in A Traffic Jam on May 6

Those who fear so much for their modesty, why did they go there? This is shamelessness. Making such allegations (of molestation) is very cheap. These girls dont deserve to be supported. They intentionally threw themselves on others and are now blaming others, Ghosh told media persons in Kolkata.

ABVP is a students organisation and has all the right to reach out to the students. If they (left students) believe in freedom of speech, then others also have that right. Why would they question the entry of BJP or ABVP activists in the university.

I feel very bad that being students of a university, they are bringing such indecent allegations. This is very shameful, he said.

He justified his comments on Sunday by saying, The male students wear women undergarments while female students put up sanitary napkins to voice their protest, they publicly kiss each other in the name of protest. Is this decency? Is this what we want our next generation to learn.

After the clashes, the university had filed a police complaint against four outsiders - three of them ABVP activists - for allegedly molesting female students.

His remarks were slammed by Congress and CPI-M party members and activists.

If the BJP and the RSS have any kind of morality then they should seek apology from the women folk of our country, said state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

Foul-mouthed BJP state leaders habitual comment is nothing unusual! Its in complete consonance with the Taliban mindset of the RSS, tweeted CPI-M state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra.

This reflects his mindset. Crime against women has increased by 32% after the BJP came to power at the Centre. Shameful incidents are taking place. He should at least think before saying. The BJP top brass must ensure that such leaders tender an apology for such disgusting statements, National Commission for Women chief Mamata Sharma on Sunday.

Women rights activist Nisha Sidhu said such derogatory remark reveals cheap mentality.
Seventy-year-old Dharmu Munda* still recalls that fateful day in 2004, when an armed gang led by Maoist leaders Kundan and Shyam Pahan swooped down on Tilma village in Jharkhands Khunti district and laid claim to his land.

When he protested, the Maoists asked him to shell out Rs 3 lakh as ransom. Munda refused to give in to their demands.

His temerity was bound to have consequences. One day, Kundan and Shyam came back with more armed fighters and dragged Munda out of his house. They brutally assaulted the villager before leaving him for dead in the bushes nearby.

Destiny, however, had something else in mind for the hardy Munda. Hailing from a tribe of warriors, he not only survived the attempt on his life but also emerged stronger from the ordeal.

Today, Munda has recruited the support of thousands of tribals from over 100 villages in Khunti district for his anti-Maoist crusade. These people  who were once scared to voice a word of dissent against the extremists  have now launched a mass movement called Ulgulan (which stands for revolt in local parlance).

As part of the movement, villagers hold day-long meetings called shanti sabhas to mobilise support against extremists, convince the youth against joining them, and convince Maoists as well as their sympathisers to rejoin mainstream society.

Over the last two months, villagers held at least four mega meetings in as many Maoist-affected villages.

The sight of thousands converging has reportedly alarmed extremists in the area, forcing some to flee and spurring others to mend their ways. The meetings, however, have a rule: the accused are not punished, but left with a stern warning to refrain from indulging in unlawful acts in the future.

Impressed by the initiative, the Jharkhand government and security forces are reportedly lending their support to the leaders of the movement. The authorities are happy that the villagers have found a way to alleviate the Maoist situation without resorting to vigilantism.

Past initiatives by the police to raise armed groups for combating the Maoist movement met with little success. People are fed up with Maoists, and are coming out against them openly. The massive public outrage vindicates our claims that the rebels have lost their foothold in the state, director general of police DK Pandey said, hailing propagators of the Ulgulan movement for their courage and conviction. No police assistance was provided for holding the shanti sabhas, he added.

Munda gave credence to the DGPs observation at a gathering in Tilma village on April 10. Dressed in a lungi and vest, he told the villagers before him: For once, we have realised that united we stand and divided we fall. The Maoists made our lives hell, and we have finally run out of patience.

However, the shanti sabhas have evoked suspicion in certain human rights groups in the area. The Maoists, unlike militant organisations like the Peoples Liberation Front of India, are considered pro-people. One wonders what has given rise to campaigns like these, said Peoples Union for Civil Liberties general secretary Shashi Bhushan Pathak.

(*Name changed to protect identity)
Siwan is back in the spotlight after the murder of senior journalist Rajdeo Ranjan.

The Bihar district, once referred to with reverence for being the birthplace of Indias first president Rajendra Prasad, lost its halo because its gun culture and later for the terror tactics unleashed by Mohammad Shahabuddin, a former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP serving a life sentence for the murder of two brothers, and his image as a law unto himself.

Ranjan, 42, the head of Hindi daily Hindustan in Siwan, was shot dead by unidentified men on Friday.

Two suspects, Upendra Kumar Singh and Shahzad Alam, were arrested for their involvement in the murder and remanded to 14-day judicial custody under the excise act on Sunday. Both are known associates of Shahabuddin.

Since 1990, the district has seen blood on the streets as the war for supremacy between Shahabuddin and his foremost political rival, Communist Party of India (MarxistLeninist) Liberation, lead to many deaths, including that of former JNU students union leader Chandrashekar.

Shahabuddins rise to infamy by instilling fear among commoners and political adversaries alike has long been a point of discussion. Old-timers still recall how it was a strict no-no for any party opposed to the former MP to even put up posters in the town during elections till early 2000.

The political equations turned against Shahabuddin, called  Saheb by his supporters, only in the 2005 assembly polls when for the first time the Bharatiya Janata Party-Janata Dal(United) alliance managed to win a good number of seats, including Siwan assembly segment.

The district later saw many criminal gangs, including one of Ajay Singh in Raghunathpur, springing up. Singh got his wife elected from a Siwan constituency a couple of years back on a JD(U) ticket.

Like Ranjan, a few other journalists have also fallen victim for writing against such bahubalis or strongmen -including one Indramani Singh, who was killed in 1994, and Ravindra Prasad Verma shot at in the mid-90s. Shrikant Bharti, the press advisor of BJP MP Om Prakash Yadav, was shot dead last year.

For a decade, there was peace. But the district seems to be slowly slipping back to the old days of fear and intimidation when it was not safe even to speak anything against the ruling political establishment or bahubalis, a Siwan-based lawyer, who did not wish to be named, said.

The statement only reflects how Ranjans brutal death has sent shock waves in Siwan, one of the main commercial hubs of north Bihar catering to the demands of other districts like Gopalganj and East Champaran.

Locals say, gross unemployment and lack of land reforms in the area where a handful of landowners hold vast tracts of land are the reasons why a gun culture has evolved over the years with clashes common among haves and have-nots.

Criminal gangs often play arbiters in settling land disputes and even petty cases. This was one factor which gave birth to the likes of Shahabuddin with political patronage, a local journalist said.

He recalled how the then district magistrate CK Anil and superintendent of police Ratan Sanjay cracked down on the former RJD MP during the 2005 October polls, which was held under Presidents rule.

Shahabuddin, who was lodged in the jail at that time, was externed from the district for a brief period on apprehensions that he could influence the polls but has managed to stay on in Siwan jail and not a central prison.

Siwans don culture influenced public life too. In the mid-90s, Shahabuddin issued a diktat to doctors and lawyers to charge less from their clients, even fixing their rates. If that gave him a Robin Hood-like image, the district saw a huge migration of professionals who left out of fear.

With lawlessness rising again, locals in Siwan feel the state government must crack down on criminals again. While the BJP has demanded a CBI probe into Ranjans murder, CPI-ML leaders also feel the same.

The government must hand the probe to an independent agency as there is a suspicion that people associated with the government could be involved in the journalists murder, Santosh, a senior leader of CPI-ML(Liberation), said.

As things stand, fear has once again gripped the people who have long experienced the ordeal of living under the shadow of the gun for many years in the past.

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Mid-level bureaucrats wishing to be part of the Narendra Modi government need to be efficient and rated highly by their peers and seniors for integrity and objectivity.

The government has added these new criteria for the empanelment of secretaries, additional secretaries and joint secretaries  the top three rungs of the bureaucracy.

The bureaucracy is divided on the merits of this move, though. A section is apprehensive that subjective assessment of integrity could be used to keep politically neutral officers out of the Centre.

Others believe if it is implemented in a non-partisan way, it will help honest and meritorious officers to become part of the decision-making process at the Centre and lead to better governance.

As it was, the sole criterion to determine whether an officer was fit to be empanelled to serve at the Centre was how his seniors or reporting managers rated him in annual confidential reports (ACRs).

Its often difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff in the ACRs. Think of a situation in which a joint secretary has to be empanelled out of a batch of IAS officers whose grades in the ACRs might read 9.91, 9.919, 9.9856 and 9.92 out of 10.

These are not the exact official figures. But any retired secretary who has been part of the empanelment process might regale you with such bizarre ACR ratings.

Under the empanelment process, experts panels comprising retired secretary-level officers assess the ACR dossiers of officers and then all records are placed before the civil services board (CSB) or screening committee of secretaries (SCOS).

Subsequently, the CSB/SCOS makes recommendations to the appointments committee of the Cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister.

ACRs will continue to be very important even now. But from this year, we have introduced the elements of integrity and objectivity, apart from merit. The assessment of integrity might be subjective but even the ACRs dont always give an objective picture, a senior government functionary involved in bureaucratic appointments said.

The prime ministers office (PMO) was learnt to be the prime mover in this revision.

The Modi government is known to be run by bureaucrats. His interest in their appointment process is understandable.

Earlier, those involved in the process were expected to informally gather feedback about the character of the to-be-empanelled officers, sources said.

The difference now is that there are specific directions to provide feedback about their integrity. Some IAS officers posted in states said chief secretaries and seniors and juniors of the concerned officers are getting calls from Delhi. The Intelligence Bureau is also learnt to be involved.

It is good if implemented in a non-partisan way. My fear is that sometimes, it may be misused to deny posting to officials who are not perceived to be amenable politically or otherwise, said an IAS officer posted in Delhi.

Sources said there is a thrust on scouting for talent outside the IAS. In 2015, railway service officer Ashok Lohani was appointed chairman and managing director of Air India.

There was heartburn among IAS officers over his appointment but Lohani has proved us right. We are similarly looking at other Group A services to bring the best to the Centre, an official said.

Sacking of home secretary Anil Goswami for his alleged attempt to interfere in the Saradha deposit scam probe and shunting economic affairs secretary Arvind Mayaram to tourism and then to the minority affairs ministry within 24 hours might have caused unease in the bureaucracy.

But the steel frame of India seems to have kept pace with Prime Minister Modis ever-flowing ideas, a trait his ministers seem to be lacking.

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Key Islamic State (IS) recruiter Shafi Armar  who allegedly raised a group of over two dozen sympathisers of the terror group in India  is alive and looking for new recruits, sources in multiple counter-terror organisations have confirmed to HT.

Armar alias Yusuf al-Hindi, a native of Bhatkal in Karnataka, was reportedly killed in a US air strike this April.

Some social media platforms announced Armars death, but as per our information, he is still communicating with prospective recruits who are under the scanner of security agencies for showing jehadi tendencies, said a senior officer with a central counter-terror group on the condition of anonymity.

Sources in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Intelligence Bureau said Armar is currently operating in the IS-occupied regions of Syria. Many captured sympathisers of the terror group have told interrogators that the person who communicates with them identifies himself as Yusuf al-Hindi from Bhatkal.

Counter-terror officials say Armar started off as a member of the banned militant outfit Indian Mujahideen. In early 2009, he fled to Pakistan with a few of its top-ranking members  including Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal, Shahnawaz Alam, Mohammad Sajid and his brother Sultan Armar.

Read: IB kept track of Islamic States India recruits on Facebook

Later, annoyed with the control exerted by Pakistani spy agency ISI, Armar teamed up with Alam and Sajid to form the Ansar-ul-Tawhid  a splinter group that would fight alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. As the IS brand became bigger, Armar and his group moved to Syria in June 2014, said an NIA investigator who has been tracking the militants footprints in India.

While Armars brother Sultan was reportedly killed in Syria, he is now viewed by security agencies as one of the chief recruiters of the terror outfit.

The militant leader had earlier raised groups of IS sympathisers in Haridwar (Uttarakhand), Ratlam (Madhya Pradesh), Delhi and Malwani in Mumbai, all of which were busted by anti-terror agencies.

More than two dozen IS sympathisers arrested by the NIA in recent months have admitted to being mentored by Armar.

Even a recent three-member IS module busted by the Delhi police special cell was raised by Armar. The group first tried to form links with Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad, but later gravitated towards the IS, said an intelligence officer.

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After smooth going for 15 years in Indias sex products market, Durex condoms have run into regulatory friction over an additive that is said to facilitate more pleasurable intercourse.

Reckitt Benckiser and its Indian partner TTK Protective, manufacturer of Durex and Kohinoor condoms, have approached the Delhi high court after the countrys drug regulator asked the joint venture to seek a separate licence for its benzocaine-laced condoms  Durex Extended Pleasure and Kohinoor Xtra Time.

Benzocaine is a local anaesthetic and pain-reliever. It works by temporarily numbing the area to which it is applied. Benzocaine cream or solution inside the condom de-sensitises the male sexual organ to help delay ejaculation and prolong erection during intercourse. Though a condom is not a drug in law, the manufacturer requires a licence under it.

The makers have argued they disclosed the use of benzocaine while acquiring their manufacturing licence in 2001 and have already sold 300 million pieces in the Indian market. Senior advocate Nidhesh Gupta informed justice Manmohans bench that the regulator wrote to Tamil Nadus drugs controller in January, saying the state agency could not have granted the licence to the joint venture that has set up manufacturing units in Puducherry. A month later, the state regulator ordered the companies to surrender their licence.

Gupta said benzocaine is not a new drug. Its application has increased and it is used as a topical drug (applied on the surface of the skin or exposed area). It is also used as a local anaesthetic to reduce pain or discomfort caused by minor skin irritation, sore throat, sunburn and many other sources of minor pain, he argued.

Additionally, the chemical has wide and varied application in the medical field and there are a large number of products such as cough drops, after-shave lotions and baby teething products, he said. Gupta said benzocaine-dosed condoms were introduced decades ago and marketed in a large number of countries, including India. Therefore, a new licence was uncalled for, he said.

The lawyer said the government could not take away his clients right on a whimsical decision and the order issued should be set aside. Justice Manmohan has sought a government response to the petition and given it time till May 23 to respond.

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Pakistan has said it will definitely acquire advanced technology to boost its defence after Indias successful test of a supersonic interceptor missile.

Sartaj Aziz, adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs, told state-run Radio Pakistan that Islamabad is not oblivious to its defence and will continue to upgrade its defensive capabilities.

Expressing concern at India's missile test, Aziz said it will disturb the regions balance of power. He added Pakistan will acquire advanced technology to improve its defence

The test launch of the supersonic interceptor missile by India is not a surprising news for us, but definitely we are concerned over the disturbing of the balance of power in the region, he said.

He said India is enjoying cooperation with the US because Washington thinks a strong India is vital to contain China. But Pakistan will raise its voice at the international level against these developments, he said.

Aziz's remarks came a day after India successfully tested an indigenously developed supersonic interceptor missile, capable of destroying any incoming ballistic missile, from a test range off the Odisha coast.

The foreign policy chief said India and Pakistan are bound by an agreement to inform each other about missile tests.

Aziz recently accused India of lobbying to block the sale of eight F-16 combat jets to Pakistan by the US.

The Obama administration said Pakistan can acquire the jets if it is prepared to pay their full price of nearly $700 million since the Congress has blocked a subsidy for the deal.
After a long wait of 13 years, a Pakistani woman was granted Indian citizenship.

Deputy Commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal handed over the certificate of Indian citizenship to Tahira Hazoor on Saturday evening, officials said.

Tahira had got married to Maqbool Ahmad, a resident of Qadian, Gurdaspur, in 2003.

33-year-old Tahira, who hails from Faisalabad in Pakistan had applied for Indian citizenship in March 2011 after completing the mandatory 7 years of stay in India.

Even the Punjab government had recommended her case to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs but she was neither granted Indian citizenship nor a temporary visa for Pakistan.

In the absence of citizenship, for the last 13 years she was not allowed to move out of Qadian, she said.

She has two daughters and a son from her marriage, all of them have Indian citizenship and are free to move to any place, Tahira said.

Elated over getting an Indian citizenship, Tahira said she will first go to Pakistan to see her mother who has been unwell for last the five years. She said she will also apply for Indian passport soon.

Her husband Maqbool Ahmad and her daughter Sumayala are currently in the UK to attend the wedding of a relative.

She could not accompany them because she did not have Indian citizenship and passport.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has wished a speedy recovery to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who is down with high fever, health minister JP Nadda said on Monday.

Got to know that Rahul Gandhi is not well from the PM who was quite concerned about his health. In view of the concerns of the Prime Minister, I enquired about his health and wish a speedy recovery for him, Nadda tweeted.

In view of the concerns of Honble PM, I enquired about his health and wished a speedy recovery for him.  Jagat Prakash Nadda (@JPNadda) May 15, 2016

Rahul Gandhi had last week cancelled his two-day election visit to Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, saying he was down with high fever.

Congress sources said Gandhi is still suffering from high viral fever and doctors have advised him to take rest.
Amid reports of unease within the party over poll strategist Prashant Kishors brief, the Congress clarified on Monday that his role is limited only to suggesting relevant points for manifesto and election campaign in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

The statement comes at a time when the disquiet within the main opposition party is palpable over Kishors reported suggestion that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi should be declared as the partys chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh where assembly elections are due early next year.

Kishor, who is also looking after the Congress campaign in Punjab, had also rubbed state Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh the wrong way by meeting expelled leaders Jagmeet Singh Brar and Bir Devinder. The move had enraged Amarinder who asserted that no one had authorised Kishor to meet the expelled leaders and that he should not exceed his brief.

Prashant Kishor is a poll strategist and he will suggest which points are to be highlighted in our manifesto and in our campaign, said Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmad, who is in-charge of party affairs in Punjab. It was made clear to him before his appointment that he will have no role in organisational matters and in ticket distribution, he said.

The statement was widely seen as an attempt by the central leadership to address the concerns of party leaders and workers in the two poll-bound states. he has finally been shown his place, commented a leader from UP.

Last month, a section in the Uttar Pradesh Congress had complained to the central leadership about Kishors autocratic style of functioning and unsolicited interference in organisational affairs. Kishor had earlier worked with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 Lok Sabha elections and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar in last years state assembly polls.

Ahmad insisted that there was no turf war or communication gap between Amarinder and Kishor. Both of them are committed to deliver a crushing defeat to the Akali Dal in Punjab, he said.

However, Ahmad justified Kishors appointment. The mode of campaign has undergone a sea change in the internet age where social media has assumed much importance, he said.

ENDS
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday he was ready for a CBI probe into a senior journalists murder that has mounted pressure on the government amidst allegations of a jailed politicians involvement in the incident.

Kumars statement came three days after 42-year-old Rajdeo Ranjan, the head of Hindi daily Hindustan in Siwan, was shot dead by unidentified men in the heart of the town, 145 km north-west of Patna.

A formal decision (on a CBI probe) will be taken later in day and the Centre will be informed accordingly, Kumar told newsmen.

He, however, said that the police are working on each and every angle to unravel the case.

Read: Bihar: CCTV footage of Hindustan journo Rajdeo Ranjans murder missing

Police, who claim to be on the verge on cracking the case, said on Sunday that the order to kill Ranjan came from Siwan jail, where former MP and RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin is serving a life sentence for murder.

Upendra Singh, a close associate of Shahabuddin, who was questioned by police is understood to have revealed that the instructions to kill the Siwan journalist was issued a fortnight ago.

Police sources said one criminal released from the jail recently approached Upendra to arrange arms for killing Ranjan.

Read: Professional hit? 4 detained for Hindustan scribe Rajdeo Ranjans murder

The family of the slain journalist has also sought a probe by the central investigating agency.

The chief minister said he had been working in a transparent manner in the case. The opposition can blame me. The patrons of crime will have to pay for it, whoever it is and however mighty he is, they have to face to music.

Read: We will fight for Rajdeo Ranjan, because it is necessary

The incident, coming days after the son of a ruling JD-U legislator was arrested for killing a youth in a case of road rage in Gaya, has put pressure on Nitish Kumar to clean up the law and order scene that has showed signs of deterioration in recent days.

It has also led to increasing attack from the opposition BJP which said the spate of killings confirmed the return of maha jungle raj in the state.

Kumar is also facing for engaging his entire administration in implementing prohibition, his pet project, leaving gaping holes in policing.
The Shiv Sena on Monday welcomed the acquittal of Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and others in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, stating the ATS had falsely implicated the Hindu outfits and that believing in the formation of Hindu Rashtra does not amount to saffron terrorism.

The ATS carried out a bogus investigation and falsely implicated certain Hindu organisations for carrying out the Malegaon blasts, an editorial in the Sena mouthpiece, Saamana, said.

Sadhvi Pragya Singh, Lt Col Purohit and others who were implicated went through intense emotional and physical torture. These people can be believers of a Hindu Rashtra but that does not make them saffron terrorists, it said.

The ruling alliance partner further said certain people, instead of eliminating terrorism fanned by Muslim extremists, with the help of Pakistan chose to create an air of saffron terror in the country.

The previous Congress government at the Centre and the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra did not understand that by doing so we are only strengthening the hands of Pakistan.

Whenever we asked Pakistan to hand over the terrorists taking refuge there, they asked for Col Purohit, it said.

Posing the question Why would Hindus spread terror in their own country? it said, The UPA government for political gains had put pressure on the investigating agency and thereby indulged in deceit. This was a sin and the relevance of the people who committed that has ceased to exist.

In a U-turn, the NIA had on Friday dropped all charges against Sadhvi Thakur and five others in the Malegaon blast case while charges under the stringent MCOCA law were given up against all the other 10 accused including Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit.

Seven people were killed in the blast when they were coming out of prayers during Ramzan on September 29, 2008.

During investigation, sufficient evidences were not found against Pragya Singh Thakur and five others, the NIA had said, adding it has submitted in the charge sheet that the prosecution against them is not maintainable.

The case was investigated initially by Joint Commissioner of Mumbais ATS Hemant Karkare who was killed during the 26/11 Mumbai attack. Before the NIA took over the case in 2011, ATS had booked 16 people but filed charge sheets on January 20, 2009 and April 21, 2011 against 14 accused in a Mumbai court.
Thirty-four Indian fishermen arrested by the Sri Lankan navy last month for allegedly entering their countrys waters, were released on Monday by two separate Lankan courts.

Fisheries minister Mahinda Amaraweera made an announcement in this regard adding that India will also release Sri Lankan fishermen.

While 13 fishermen, arrested on April 15, were set free by the Oorkavalthurai court, the others, detained on April 21, were ordered to be released by a court in Mannar.

The court order came close on the heels of Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisenas visit to India on May 13 during which he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed among other issues the problems faced by Indian fishermen.

It was reported after the meeting that both sides sought a permanent solution to the issue of frequent arrests of Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy and India reiterated the need to build a dedicated mechanism for it.
He taught them to be patient and selfless; they responded by standing in a snaking line under the scorching summer sun to pay their last respects to the beloved guru  Baba Hardev Singh, leader of the Nirankari sect.

Thousands of devotees of the 62-year-old Baba, who died along with his son-in-law in a road accident in Canada, gathered at Samagam Ground No 8 near Sant Nirankari Colony in north Delhi on Monday, where the bodies were laid in state in two flower-decked glass caskets.

The followers thronged from across the country  Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Bihar. One final glimpse of their guru, who headed the religio-philanthropic Sant Nirankari Mission, was all they wished for.

The teachings of guruji made me realise the importance of being selfless. I and my friends will be here till the funeral on Wednesday, said Moharpal Singh from Shahjanpur in UP.

The mortal remains were brought to Delhi on Monday morning and placed inside a large hall on an open ground, where followers of the sect usually gather for sermons.

Devotees from India and abroad have come to for the antim darshan of Baba Hardev Singhji. It will continue round-the-clock till Wednesday morning, said Kirpa Singh, a member of the mission.

In pics: Patient tribute by thousands to Nirankari head Hardev Singh

The spiritual leader and son-in-law Avneet Setya died in a car crash near Montreal in Canada on May 13. The 29-year-old Setya from Panchkula was pulled out alive of the mangled Cadillac Escalade SUV but died later.

The Babas body will be taken to Nigam Bodh Ghat for the last rites at 8am on Wednesday. The successor is likely to be announced thereafter.

This is a very emotional moment for us. The successor will be announced soon after we get a signal from the Baba, he said.

The Baba became a member of the sect in 1971 and its spiritual head on April 24, 1980, succeeding his father and previous head, Baba Gurbachan Singh, who was shot dead.

The Babas life came to a sudden end when he had gone to North America to oversee logistics for an international congregation, slated for June 29 to July 6 in Toronto. The vent was part of the sects expansion policy that the Baba launched in 2015 through a function in Birmingham, UK. He had planned to make it an annual feature, like the ones the mission holds in Delhi, UP, and Maharashtra.

And from Maharashtras Nashik town, Baba loyalist Bhourao Dhavku came rushing to Delhi after hearing the saddest news of his life.

I have been a devotee of Sant Nirankari Mission for decades. I want to see Babaji one last time and take his blessings, he said, choking.

Read: Condolences pour in over Nirankari sect heads death
Mining in the Ganga and its tributaries will restart after the Centre cleared in April the Uttarakhand governments proposal, which has drawn criticism from environmentalists for exploiting ecologically-fragile riverbeds and banks.

The Uttarakhand government banned mining of riverbed materials in the Ganga in July 2015 after protests by environmentalists and a fast-unto-death by seer Swami Shivanand, who called the activity illegal. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) took up the case too and sent a notice to the state.

The BJP-led NDA government has promised to clean the river, one of the most polluted in the world, by 2019. More than 3,700 hectares of riverbeds of seven important rivers in the Kumaon and Garhwal region are quarried for stones and sand that feed the construction boom in the hill state.

Environmentalists warned of grave manmade disasters if the sand-and-stone mafia keeps exploiting the rivers  important water sources in the plains downstream and also considered the holiest in the country.

But the Union forest and environment ministry cleared the state forest departments proposal for resumption of mining activities in the Ganga a month ago when the state was under Presidents rule.

Central rule was lifted and deposed Congress chief minister Harish Rawat reinstated last week after he won a Supreme Court-monitored trust vote.

The State Forest Development Corporation (SFDC) will soon open bids for mining leases for more than 1,200 hectares along the Ganga catchment area, mainly in Haridwar district.

Formalities are to be completed at the government level, including those by the Haridwar district administration, SFDC regional manager BK Gangte said. Sources said the SFDC might start the bidding process. The corporation will have to respond to the green tribunals notice on mining in the Ganga by May 26.
Authorities at Indore central and district jails have gone environment-friendly with their twin measures of water conservation and use of solar energy to tackle water crisis and reduce electricity bills.

Under the drive, the jail administration has directed officials and inmates to avoid drawing groundwater for daily use and instead, re-use sewage water for irrigating lawns inside the jail premise. Sources say both the district and the central jails have saved 10% of power after lighting the barracks and prison campus via solar power.

Indore central and the district jail house of more than 2200 and 700 jail inmates respectively. Presently Central jail fulfils its requirements with the help of five tubewells, while district jail have four tubewells.

Indore central jail superintendent Dinesh Nargave said, The jail has enough water for over 2,200 inmates, but we want them to adopt water conservation. We have diverted water flow from each trench here towards two wells on the campus. This will help recharge groundwater. The jail has five tubewells.

Inmates at the district jail have already switched over from groundwater to sewage water to irrigate a farm and grow vegetables that gave a turnover of Rs 1.03 lakh this year. Before this, thousands of litres of used water were drained without further use. We aim to surpass the turnover target in the next year, said Indore district jail superintendent Ranjeet Singh Bhatti.

Deputy inspector general (jail), Bhopal, Sanjay Pandey said, We want to make our inmates aware of the two issues so that they can encourage others to conserve water and save power after they are freed.

At Central Jail, where total power consumption is around 100 kilowatt, we have installed a solar energy system of 10 kilowatt capacity. At the district jail, we have a system of three kilowatt capacity. At both jails, we have managed to cut power consumption by 10% using solar power. We would like to increase this upto 15% as installation of another five kilowatt solar energy system is going on at central jail Pandey said.
After meeting a parents delegation on Monday, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and request him to intervene in the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) issue to bring relief to students in Maharashtra.

At a meeting called by union health minister JP Nadda, the state government requested the Centre to admit students on the basis of the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MHT-CET), the states entrance examination for medical and dental courses, this year. State education minister Vinod Tawde also requested the Centre to promulgate an ordinance to halt the implementation of NEET from this year.

Last week the Supreme Court, while turning down appeals of several states, including Maharashtra, that were seeking permission to conduct their own medical admission examinations, had ruled that students would have to appear for NEET to seek admission to MBBS and BDS courses.

To request the government to come up with a solution, a delegation of parents met Fadnavis along with MNS chief Raj Thackeray, who said he had already had spoken with Modi over the phone and urged him to intervene.

Fadnavis termed the mandatory implementation of NEET from this year an injustice to students. He said, Parents have asked us to request the Centre to intervene in the matter and hence I have decided to meet Prime Minister Modi and request him to intervene.

He added that there is a big difference between the syllabuses of NEET and MH-CET (NEETs syllabus is based on the CBSE board while MH-CETs is based on the SSC and HSC boards). Thus, he said, it will be very difficult for students to prepare for NEET in just a month or so. He added that students preparing for NEET in Marathi would affected the most as the CBSE syllabus is not available in that language.

We believe that the decision on NEET will bring injustice to students, especially those from rural Maharashtra, who will lose the chance to become doctors this year, Fadnavis said.

Tawde, who was in New Delhi, also met human resource development minister Smriti Irani, union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu and finance minister Arun Jaitley, and asked that states be allowed to conduct CETs this year.

I have urged the central government to promulgate an ordinance to stop the compulsory implementation of NEET this year, which was positively heeded by the union health minister, Tawde tweeted.

Meanwhile, Raj Thackeray said he had spoken with Modi on Sunday over the phone and urged him to intervene by promulgating an ordinance. He said he also cautioned the PM about student suicides, saying that thousands of students seeking admission to medical colleges will be forced to kill themselves just like farmers in the state if Modi does not intervene. He also commented on the mess over NEET, asking, Who is running the country, courts or the government?
Damanveer Singh, son of Kartarpurs Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) legislator and former cabinet minister Sarwan Singh Phillaur, has asked Phillaur Akali MLA Avinash Chander to resign as chief parliamentary secretary (CPS) on moral grounds until the Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigation into the Jagdish Bhola drug racket is complete.

Damanveer, who is the SADs senior vice-president in Doaba region, has said that Chanders repeated summoning before the ED had earned the party a bad name. He should step down from his post until he emerges as clean. My father also did the same when fingers were pointed at us on the same issue, he suggested in a statement issued here on Sunday.

Damanveers name also had cropped up in Bhola drug racket in February 2014, during the latters interrogation by the ED. Drug lord Bhola had disclosed to the central agency that Damanveer was involved in drug trade and had introduced Delhi smuggler Varinder Raja to Goraya businessman Chunni Lal Gaba, who runs a pharmaceutical unit in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh. The ED has interrogation Damanveer twice since and he is yet to get any clean chit from the agency.

The statement from Phillaurs son indicates fissures in the ruling SAD, since it is first time that someone from the party has asked Chander to resign. Whenever the CPS has been called to the ED office, the opposition parties have protested against him. Damanveer claims that it has demoralised the Akali workers, adding: Chander is like my brother and Ill help him winning the election again.
Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday said the blacklist containing names of Sikhs who migrated to various countries during militancy must be revisited, arguing that all those who went abroad were not anti-national but most of them were actually job seekers.

Amarinder said he will take up the matter with Union home minister Rajnath Singh and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.

He was speaking to media persons two days after his return from the United States.

He said those who used political asylum to seek jobs should be allowed to visit India, though he advocated excluding anti-nationals.

The PCC chief said he had a very successful tour of the US and dismissed suggestions that there were protests or people opposed his visit.

Read: Video: Amarinder faces pro-Khalistan slogans by protesters in California

He said the self-styled rights group Sikhs for Justice never talked about justice to anyone.

There is a widespread perception among people there that the Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) kingpin Gurpatwant Pannu is doing all this at the behest of the ISI and is being funded and financed by anti-India forces, he said.

On cancelling his Canada visit, Amarinder said he had already hired services of a lawyer there and will go to that country soon after the matter has been sorted out.

Read: Visit stalled, Amarinder goes to Canada via Skype from US!

He dismissed allegations levelled by the SFJ that he prompted or patronised the police officers allegedly involved in torture of people during the days of militancy.

On the list of PCC vice-presidents, general secretaries, and district presidents, released on Saturday, Amarinder said he had tried to accommodate as many people as possible.

Read: Day after PPCC rejig, voice of dissent: Why 36 vice-presidents?

He also made it clear he had not removed any of the earlier office-bearers but had only made some additions.

He said some people left out in the original list and were also being accommodated.
A Saturday carjacking incident with no claimed terrorist link still led to an alert being sounded in Gurdaspur, Batala, Pathankot and Hoshiarpur police districts on Sunday.

Three men take off with taxi in Gurdaspur; alert sounded

Around 10.15pm on Saturday, three men took away this Swift DZire taxi at gunpoint close to Aujala village on the Babri bypass near Gurdaspur. On Sunday, Gurdaspur senior superintendent of police (SSP) Jagdeep Singh Hundal told the media here that the carjackers had intercepted victim driver Pardeep Saini on his way back to Pathankot from Amritsar. They came out of a white Tata Sumo vehicle carrying the On duty sticker and started slapping Saini, claiming he had hit their vehicle on the way. The drunken men pushed him out of the car and drove it away, the SSP added.

The Tata Sumo was abandoned near Mann Kaur Singh Chowk in Gurdaspur, just 1.5 km from the scene of carjacking.

The stolen car was traced to Dostpur village in Kalanaur police jurisdiction around 3.15am on Sunday. Police say the Tata Sumo belongs to Gurdev Singh of Tarn Taran and is on contract with Videocon company. A case has been registered at Tibber and all three carjackers identified, said the SSP.

Security concern: SP-rank officer posted in Pathankot

After twin terror attacks in Punjab in less than six months, an SP (superintendent of police) rank officer has been posted here to coordinate with the security agencies to prevent a repeat. SP (operations) Hem Pushp Sharma has been sent to Narot Jaimal Singh area to establish synergy with the Border Security Force (BSF), army, intelligence, and Jammu and Kashmir Police to prevent another terror attack, Pathankot SSP Rakesh Kaushal said on Sunday. Sharma will also lead anti-terror operations and carry out combing, search, and night-domination exercise in sensitive areas near the Pakistan border. Gurdaspur had witnessed a terror attack on July 27 last year and another on the Pathankot airbase had come this January.

(with agency inputs)
Tight security scuttled the Aam Aadmi Partys (AAP) plan to gherao Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badals official residence in Sector 2, Chandigarh, as nearly 15,000 party supporters were stopped at the Chandigarh-SAS Nagar border on Monday.

Later, a delegation of AAP leaders, including Sanjay Singh, in-charge of the partys affairs in Punjab, state convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur, Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann and actorcomedian Gurpreet Ghuggi, was allowed to enter Chandigarh in a police escorted vehicle and meet the chief minister. The AAP is seeking a high-level probe into the ` 12,000-crore missing foodgrain scam and protesting against farmer suicides and rampant drug addiction in the state. While the AAP termed its protest march as successful, the chief minister dismissed it as drama to grab headlines.

After a week-long preparation by the party for what was to be its biggest showdown against the state government, AAP activists gathered at the local Dussehra ground here. Party leaders alleged that their supporters had been restrained from reaching SAS Nagar by the Akali-BJP government.

Almost 15,000 cops had been moblised in and around Chandigarh for AAPs gathering which was estimated to cross one lakh.

The area around the official residences of the chief minister and his son deputy chief minister were barricaded by Chandigarh Police. Police was also deployed outside the Punjab and Haryana Raj Bhawan.

All entry points to Chandigarh were sealed leading to traffic chaos at many places through the day.

However, the police bandobast --being coordinated and monitored by the Union ministry of home affairs following intelligence inputs of a possible law and order situation --- in the end seemed to be overkill.

Badal had cancelled all his official engagements for Monday to receive AAP leaders.

Earlier, before meeting Badal, AAP leaders called on Punjab governor Kaptan Singh Solanki and handed him their charter of demands. Then they moved to the CM residence where they were immediately called in. However, they refused to enter the CM house till the media was also allowed inside during the meeting. While AAP leaders sat on a dharna outside his house demanding an open meeting with him, the CM came outside his house and met the leaders who then handed him their list of demands while highlighting various issues. They also pressed for resignation of agriculture minister Tota Singh and revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia.

The CM meeting us was only a political gimmick but we have put forward our demands, Sanjay Singh told reporters. In case our demands are not met in a weeks time, we would announce the further course of action, he added.

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The final call on the opening of two prime parking lots in Sector 17 is likely to be taken on Monday after municipal corporation officials make a presentation on the development plans they have for the sector, the citys heart.

The presentation, to be shared with traders after they decided not to boycott it, is part of the broader idea of developing Chandigarh as a smart city. HT has learnt that the Sahib Singh parking lot (opposite Sindhi Sweets) is likely to be opened after the presentation. A senior MC officer said, We will not open both the lots, but might open the Sahib Singh parking lot after the presentation. The Empire Store parking lot will remain closed as the new multi-level parking lot is nearby.

City mayor, Arun Sood told HT, We will take the final decision on re-opening of two lots after sharing the plans of development of Sector 17 with traders. He added that irrespective of any decision taken on Monday on the parking lots, it had been clarified to the traders that once work on the development of Sector 17 starts, both the lots would be closed. We want an undertaking, he added.

Neeraj Bajaj, president, Business Promotion Council, Sector 17, said, We have met the mayor and BJP city chief Sanjay Tandon. We have assured the MC that the lots can be closed till 11.30am. Traders will park their vehicles at the new lot. We are not against the smart city, but our business must not be hit.
As nearly 15,000 Aam Aadmi Party activists on Monday marched towards Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badals residence in Chandigarh to protest against the foodgrain scam, another war kept raging throughout the day under hashtag #PunjabKranti which began at around 8am while by 7.30pm, #AapFlopShow was the 5th top trend in India.

With twitteratis posting contradictory pictures of the crowd that gathered to hold the protest, and the regular bashing of both AAP and Badal led SAD-BJP government, twitter saw various reactions to the move of AAP to gherao the residence of Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Monday.

Here are a few tweets:

Badal's double talk exposed during #punjabkranti. Says will wait for aap delegation but deploys police all around to block them.  Kanwar Sandhu (@SandhuKanwar) May 16, 2016

Congrats to all AAP Volunteers for taking on the Badals - #PunjabKranti



MUST RT max.pic.twitter.com/qQW2cyvQcw  AAP Ka Mehta (@DaaruBaazMehta) May 16, 2016

Before you call #PunjabKranti an #AapFlopShow .. Ask yourself because it's gonna sting you back in a few months ..   Bilge Adam (@thebilgeadam) May 16, 2016

Give Me Some Chanda

Give Me Some Fame

Give Me Another Chance

I Want To Fool You Again......#AapFlopShow pic.twitter.com/kd961scCKM  Acerbic Toddler (@ReachTod) May 16, 2016

Meanwhile, Parkash Badal did meet the delegation outside his residence for a brief period.

Read: Rs 7 per tweet? AAP, Akalis, Cong trade charges of paid Twitter trends

Read: Badal meets AAP leaders outside house, Sanjay says CM evasive

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Keeping tabs on power politics in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

AAPs stamp on Manns jibes

Comedian-turned-politician Bhagwant Mann likes to throw punches at the ruling dispensation. But the jibes of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP from Sangrur on the Badals and other leaders of the SAD-BJP combine are not impromptu. Mann needs to first get them approved from the AAP leadership before going public. Everything he speaks from the party stage during public meetings is first discussed with leaders, including Punjab in-charge Sanjay Singh, said one of his close aides. The aim is to ensure that the party works in an organised hierarchical manner and everyone sticks to the brief.

Think tanks and big-money dreams

With poll strategist Prashant Kishor striking a multi-crore deal with the Congress to plan its strategy for the assembly polls in Punjab, a number of his former companions, who were part of the successful election campaign of Nitish Kumar in Bihar last year, are also chasing big-money dreams. They have approached the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) with their own victory formulae, claiming to be the main think tanks and working behind the scenes in Bihar, that can help change the electoral fortunes of the party. The Akalis are still to take a decision whether or not to avail their services.

If wishes were horses

Not a bad idea. Nothing better in case it happens is how SAD MP from Anandpur Sahib Prem Singh Chandumajra reacted when asked about his chances of getting inducted into the Narendra Modi cabinet, during an interaction with a group of journalists last week. Unlike most other politicians, who may have reacted differently underplaying their chances in an attempt to be politically correct, Chandumajra could not hide his wish. A post in the Union cabinet seems like a distant dream, it didnt stop him from expressing his wish.

Unpredictable govt

Governments can be very unpredictable sometimes. Punjab agriculture commissioner BS Sidhu retired on April 30 and had already withdrawn his post-retirement benefits to the tune of Rs 19 lakh when the government decided to grant him extension. And, he is back in the office. The one-year extension happened despite some resistance from agriculture minister Tota Singh. The official had to deposit the money back into the government treasury.

Probe report jitters

The Prakash Singh inquiry committee is giving babus and cops in Haryana a bout of the jitters. Their fear stems from the findings of the inquiry committee in which 90 officials have been indicted for the collapse of the civil and police administration during the Jat quota violence. A number of worried officials, who were directly or indirectly involved in handling the quota stir, spent the last two days trying to find out the contents of the inquiry report. The state government had asked me to study the working of the police force and suggest reforms and systemic changes to improve their image and working. Before I could start my work, this horrific violence took place. And, I was asked to do the inquiry, said the soft-spoken, no-nonsense retired IPS officer. While Singh has been unsparing, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar wanted to make the report public. But he was advised by one of his key aides not to release it.

Putting cat among the pigeons

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar put the cat among the pigeons last week when he demanded that Akbar Road in Delhi be renamed as Maharana Pratap Road. After Khattar urged minister of state for external affairs VK Singh to make efforts for renaming Akbar Road  the Congress head office is located on this road  several party leaders, including Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy, instantly latched on to the idea. The suggestion was seen by many as Khattars attempt to please the top brass of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). A few like Khattars former officer on special duty (OSD) Jawahar Yadav also took to micro-blogging sites such as Twitter to seek support. The response was fantastic, said Yadav. However, the Centre junked the suggestion.

Gurugram trouble for PR official

When the BJP government in Haryana last month decided to rename Gurgaon as Gurugram, it triggered a torrent of criticism. Jokes, memes and limericks went viral on social media. Gurugram bolne se aisa lagta hai ki shahr nahin Patanjali ka koi product bazaar mein naya aaya hai (Gurugram sounds as if it is not a city, but a new product of Patanjali in the market). Gurugram, a new product of Lala Ramdev, a new pure ayurvedic city, an official of the public relations department posted on Twitter. While several officials, including IAS officers, have been taking subtle and not-so-subtle digs at government and its decisions, there was a complaint against the PR officials tweet and he was placed under suspension. A few of his colleagues, though they do not justify his remarks, are alleging discrimination, citing adverse comments made by other officials, including some senior ones, from time to time on social media and messaging groups.

Caught on the wrong foot

BJPs Haryana affairs in-charge Anil Jain caught several mediapersons on the wrong foot during an interaction in Chandigarh last week when they asked him about the likely exit, inclusion or elevation of some ministers. Jain had a hearty laugh before asking them about the authenticity of such speculative information. It is neither my brief, nor prerogative. Still, you people have not only written about it, but are also asking me questions, he said. When he was asked for his reaction to reports that some MLAs had complained against the government to him, he took another dig at scribes. I fail to understand who tells you all this, said the BJP leader, leaving them confused whether their questions were off the mark or he was craftily dodging them.

Not afraid of disaster

Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh felt relieved after his Uttarakhand counterpart Harish Rawats government was reinstated following the Supreme Court order. I am not afraid of any disaster. Not just political, I can even face a natural disaster at this moment, Virbhadra commented on the recent political developments after the inauguration of Johnie Wax Museum in Shimla. The museum has 16 wax statutes of popular personalities that include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Barrack Obama, Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Jobs, Lionel Messi, Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michael Jackson, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan. The museum will also have a wax statue of Virbhadra soon.

Battle for dominance continues

The ongoing battle for dominance between transport minister GS Bali and his bete noire urban development minister Sudhir Sharma has intensified with the two sparing no opportunity to hit out at each other. When Bali recently organised a protest march at Dharamshala against the alleged victimisation of the party leadership by the Centre, Sudhir condemned the event. The Congress is not a private limited company, he said. Hitting back at Sudhir, Bali questioned the selection of Dharamshala by the urban development department for the Smart City Mission. Facts were overlooked while selecting Dharamshala and depriving Shimla of its right, he said.

BJP caught off guard

The opposition BJP, which lost its fortress of Dharamshala to the Congress in the previous assembly election, suffered another jolt recently when 50-odd workers shifted loyalties to the ruling party. The BJP leaders tried to downplay the development, claiming that they were not party workers. But, then, three more leaders, who were fielded by the BJP as its official candidates in the Dharmashala municipal corporation elections, joined the Congress with several others. And, the party leadership did not know how to react.

(Contributed by Gurpreet Singh Nibber, Navneet Sharma, Rajesh Moudgil, Gaurav Bisht and Naresh K Thakur)
Even as five hosiery units have been destroyed in fire incidents in the past one month owing to lack of safety equipment, the municipal corporation (MC) continues to remain in deep slumber over the violations of building bylaws and safety norms at such units.

Besides, these units function from narrow streets that fire brigade team also struggles to reach the spot to douse fire. But the MC has not taken any concrete measures to prevent these incidents.

In May, 2015, a fire broke out at three units, including SR Budhiraja Hosiery, Budhiraja Textile and spread to Happy Khuranas Hosiery at Dal Bazaar. Fire fighters took three days to douse the fire as the fire brigade could not enter the area.

On visiting the areas like Dal Bazaar, Gandhi Nagar, Chawal Bazaar, Hazoori, Pindi Bazaar, Madhopuri and Old City areas, many hosiery units were found running in area with narrow streets. These areas have buildings with more than five storeys and no emergency exits, which is a blatant violation of building bylaws.

Labourers lives at risk

Not only factories are being run from these high-rise buildings, labourers also reside in quarters in the same buildings. Sources said new buildings were also being constructed in violation of bylaws in these areas as officials concerned were hand in gloves with violators.

Badish Jindal, vice-chairman of the National Productivity Council, said, There is no support from government to develop commercial areas in city. Moreover, 70% hosiery units lack fire safety arrangements. There is a need to develop a commercial area at the nearest place to shift these units, otherwise state government should install water pipes in such areas as a safety measure, Jindal said.

Short-circuits in dangling wires lead to fire incidents as safety norms go for a toss

Increasing number of fire incidents occurring due to short-circuits in the city has brought to light the utter negligence of the authorities concerned as well as the owners of units in following fire safety norms. The sword of blame also hangs on the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) department, which has turned a blind eye towards dangling wires posing a risk of short-circuits.

A visit to Akalgarh market exposed such areas with loose wires hanging over the streets.

A shopkeeper, requesting anonymity, said, Since, it is a market of garment clothes. Fire in one shop takes no times to spread to others. We have requested the PSPCL to change the old wires several times, but all in vain.

PSPCL assistant executive engineer Gurmeet Singh Brar blamed the shopkeepers for not cooperating with the department and not following safety precautions. So as to replace the wires, we have to cut the electricity supply for several hours, which is not acceptable to the shopkeepers, he said.

He said, Work to change wires has already been started in several areas, including Mali Ganj, Maleri Gali, Pindi Gali, Bijli Market, Kashmir Nagar, Harbanspura and Chora Bazaar. Since, Akalgarh market remains closed on Monday, we will deploy our workers on such days to avoid inconvenience to people.Assistant fire officer Rajinder Sharma said, Every year fire incidents occur due to short-circuits during summer. People can take safety measures to prevent them.

(with inputs from Amarpal Singh)

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Colombian police have seized eight tons of cocaine from the countrys main organized crime ring, the largest ever haul in the nations history, the president said Sunday.

Congratulations @PoliciaColombia: operation in Turbo have seized the largest amount in our history. A crushing blow to the criminals, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Twitter.

Police said in a statement that they found the cache of approximately eight tons of cocaine belonging to the Usuga Clan hidden in a banana plantation in Turbo near the Panamanian border.

Handout picture released by the Colombian police showing a Colombian police officer standing guard over eight tons of seized cocaine in Turbo, Antioquia department, on May 15, 2016. (AFP)

Soon after sunrise Sunday, 50 police commandos supported by two Black Hawk helicopters burst into the plantation.

There they found 359 canvas sacks loaded with packs of cocaine hidden in a small cubicle under a cement cover 2.5 meters underground.

Police said that the drugs belonged to one Colombias most notorious criminals: Roberto Vargas Gutierrez, alias Gavilan (meaning hawk in English), the clans number two man.

A Colombian national policeman stands guard in front of packages of cocaine, which were confiscated in Turbo province near the border with Panama, May 15, 2016. (REUTERS)

Three suspects were arrested and another three escaped, the statement read.

Defense minister Luis Carlos Villegas said that nearly 1.5 tons of cocaine were wrapped and ready to go out to the export market.

He said the drugs had a New York street value of $250 million.

Villegas confirmed this was the largest seizure ever of cocaine on Colombian territory, though there may have been slightly larger seizures at sea.

Handout picture released by the Colombian police showing eight tons of seized cocaine in Turbo, Antioquia department, on May 15, 2016. (AFP)

Authorities say the Usuga Clan, which emerged after the mass demobilization of right-wing paramilitaries a decade ago, ships tons of cocaine from Colombia to Central America and on to the United States.

The Uraba border region where the latest haul was seized has a long history of smuggling and drug trafficking.

Santos, who has launched a crackdown on the countrys criminal gangs, announced in early May record seizures of 87.5 tons of cocaine in the first few months of 2016.

Santos has authorized all of the states forces to fight groups like the Usaga Clan, including through the use of aerial bombardments.

Colombia is the worlds leading producer of coca, the raw material from which cocaine is processed.

According to the UN, Colombia exported some 442 tons of cocaine in 2014.
Beijing said on Monday that India and China are capable of peacefully resolving their boundary dispute and any other country should respect the efforts they are making in that direction, remarks apparently aimed at the US.

Chinas reaction came after a new Pentagon report said Beijing was increasing troop presence along the border with India.



The Chinese side is committed to safeguarding peace and tranquility of the border areas between China and India and resolving the boundary question through negotiation with India, the ministry of foreign affairs said.

China and India are wise and capable enough to deal with this issue. It is hoped that other country would respect efforts made by China and India for the peaceful settlement of dispute, rather than the opposite, it said in a written statement to the Indian media.

Read: After Chinas red flag, US backs Indias entry into nuclear club

The foreign ministry did not respond to a query from HT about the government elevating the Tibet military command, apparently with an eye on a possible future conflict with India.



The US report had also said that China was increasing its defence capabilities and military presence across the world, including Pakistan, and becoming aggressive in territorial disputes, especially in the South China Sea.

Releasing the report, US deputy assistant secretary of defence for East Asia Abraham M Denmark had said that we have noticed an increase in capability and force posture by the Chinese military in areas close to the border with India.

On Sunday, Chinas defence ministry had also slammed the US report without directly referring to the India angle.

Defence ministry spokesperson Yang Yujun expressed strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the report, saying it misrepresented China's military development.

Yang, according to state media reports, said the report hyped China's military threat and the so-called lack of transparency, deliberately distorted China's defense policies, and unfairly depicted China's activities in the East China Sea and South China Sea.

Read: China deploys more troops near India border, eyes Pak naval hubs: US

On NSG

On the issue of China opposing Indias move to becoming a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), China said NSG members should discuss this based on rules and standards of the group and take a decision based on consensus.



China supports and plays a constructive role in discussion recently held in NSG. China also states that such position targets no particular country and this position applies to all non-NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) countries. China sticks to this position in order to maintain the international nuclear non-proliferation regime based on the NPT, foreign ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said on Monday.
The 50th anniversary of Chinas Cultural Revolution on Monday was quietly ignored by the government with little mention of the tumultuous decade in state media or no official commemoration of the day.

On May 16, 1966, when Chairman Mao Zedong was at height of his power, the Communist Party of China (CPC) released a document that started the Cultural Revolution  broadly defined as a mass movement of people against those perceived as class enemies.

The violent movement ended in 1976 with Maos death but not before, according to many experts, it had scarred China for decades to come.

Millions of educated youngsters were banished to the countryside - a young Xi Jinping was among them - and teachers and academics were hounded out while the CPC became rife with factional rivalries.

In following decades, debate about the Cultural Revolution has grown within China. Mao continues to be revered in the country but more and more experts have criticised the decade and its impact on China.

Probably, the silence on the 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution was in deference to Mao.

But a state media article published last week in the influential Global Times, closely linked to the CPCs mouthpiece Peoples Daily, clearly indicated the opinion on the chaotic decade.

Carried with the headline Cultural Revolution wont recur, the article said the topic remains a divisive one in China and has even become a proxy of the current debate, where leftists and rightists have long clashed over China's political route. It added that reflections on the tumultuous period have been gaining momentum while a minority of radical leftists is holding commemorative events to challenge the long-held official judgment defining the movement as 10 years of catastrophe, a decade experts believe will not be repeated in China.

It gave examples of those who mistreated others during the Cultural Revolution and have publicly apologised to victims since then.

After Chen Xiaolu, a former Red Guard and son of Chen Yi, a marshal who was among those who led the revolution, made a public apology to his high school teachers for attacking them during the Cultural Revolution in 2013, others who participated in the revolution have showed public remorse, the article said.

On Chinas Twitter-like Weibo, netizens discussed the event.

The (Cultural Revolution) is like the fascism campaign in China. The 10 years of revolution can lead to a century with no rebels, because a sense of fear and the spirit of the Cultural Revolution can pass down in every family. In fact, the remains of the (Cultural Revolution) still affects our society, this is why profound rethinking should be done, wrote user Chabao.

Another user posted: Face up the past and be introspective. Its the way a nation can go ahead.

--
Asking the US to respect the efforts by China and India to resolve their boundary dispute peacefully, a top Chinese official on Monday said the two nations are wise enough to deal with it. His comments came after the Pentagon accused Beijing of deploying more troops along the Sino-India borders.

The Chinese side is committed to safeguarding peace and tranquility of the border areas between China and India and resolving the boundary question through negotiation with India, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, in written response to PTI about a Pentagon report alleging that Beijing had increased defence capabilities and deployed more troops along the borders with India.

The US military report also warned of increasing Chinese military presence in different parts of the world, particularly Pakistan.

China and India are wise and capable enough to deal with this issue. It is hoped that other country would respect efforts made by China and India for the peaceful settlement of dispute, rather than the opposite, the Foreign Ministry said, apparently referring to the US.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia Abraham M Denmark had said that we have noticed an increase in capability and force posture by the Chinese military in areas close to the border with India.

It is difficult to conclude on the real intention behind this, Denmark said on Saturday after submitting Pentagons annual 2016 report to the US Congress on Military and Security Developments Involving the Peoples Republic of China.

It is difficult to say how much of this is driven by internal considerations to maintain internal stability, and how much of it is an external consideration, he said, in response to a question on China upgrading its military command in Tibet.

On Sunday, the Chinese Defence Ministry expressed strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the Pentagon report which also alleged that China was focusing on the militarisation of the artificial islands built by it in the disputed waters of the South China Sea in a bid to assert its control.

Skirting any references to allegations of increasing troops presence along the Sino-India border, the Defence Ministry accused the Pentagons annual report as misrepresentation of Chinas military development.
In the latest example of strange bedfellows in the EU referendum debate, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron presented his case for staying in the EU in a pro-Labour tabloid, urging its readers not to take a punt on the future of our country.

Cameron has shared the stage with Labour leader David Miliband and shared the byline in a recent piece for The Guardian with senior trade union leader Brendan Barber. On Monday, chancellor George Osborne joined Vince Cable (Lib Dem) and Ed Balls (Labour) to further burnish the pro-EU case.

Cameron wrote: Were fighting for lower prices. Its widely accepted  even by those who want to leave  that leaving would knock our currency. Hurt the pound and you hit people in the pocket because the price of the food we import goes up.

He added, The Bank of England has said it would be left choosing between causing job losses and pushing up prices in the wake of an exit...The Leave campaign are fixated on some sort of grand exit from the European Union. But there is the great irony - what might feel like an act of national defiance could actually lead to our national decline.

Britain will vote on June 23 in a referendum on the future of its membership of the European Union.

In what is being seen as one of the unlikeliest of alliances, Cable and Balls joined Osborne in a hangar at Stansted airport to argue that leaving the EU would be a one-way ticket to a poorer Britain.

Osborne said the fact that former political enemies had joined forces showed the overwhelming arguments were on the side of remaining in the EU. Its not a conspiracy, its a consensus, he said, joking that pro-Brexit campaigners would be next accusing us of faking the moon landings, kidnapping Shergar and covering up the existence of the Loch Ness monster.

Bur Boris Johnson, a star of the Brexit camp, said during a visit to a clothing factory: I think the EU is not fundamentally anti-democratic. We have no way of kicking these people out, we dont know who they are. They are taking far too much of our democracy away, and its time we took it back.

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Paving stones in central Hong Kong have been glued down to prevent protesters from using them as missiles, as authorities roll out elaborate security measures ahead of a high-level Chinese visit that could stoke resentment over mainland rule.

The measures, which include barricades in central Hong Kong, come as Beijing tightens its grip on the semi-autonomous city where a fledgling independence movement in recent months has angered China.

Running battles with police in February, which included localist protesters in favour of more autonomy for Hong Kong, saw demonstrators dig up bricks from the street and throw them at officers.

Glue has been poured into the cracks between paving stones around the harbour-front convention centre where Zhang Dejiang, who chairs Chinas communist-controlled legislature, will speak at an economic conference on Wednesday.

Explaining the decision to glue the pavement, Hong Kongs highways department said they might be subject to vandalism.

A Hong Kong man linked to the citys pro-democracy opposition was also arrested in China on Sunday over a suspected plot to use a drone to disrupt Zhangs visit, according to Chinese state media.

Zhang is the most senior official to visit Hong Kong in four years in a trip seen as an attempt to ease tensions and gauge the political temperature -- he will meet with a group of pro-democracy legislators during his visit.

But some activists have voiced fury over the ensuing security clampdown, with water-filled plastic barricades and metal fencing cordoning off central roads and flyovers.

Police officers (C) stand in front of large barricades erected along a road in Hong Kong as authorities prepare for possible protests. (AFP Photo)

Keeping protesters away is... ridiculous. It makes you feel like you are in North Korea, said Sham Tsz-kit of Civil Human Rights Front, which organises Hong Kongs major annual July 1 political rally where residents air their grievances against the government.

Zhang Dejiang is coming here to understand the situation in Hong Kong but now his eyesight will be completely blocked.

The group says activists will proactively get close to the convention centre despite a no-protest security zone set up by police.

Police have termed the security moves counter-terrorism measures.

The security threat is higher than the past, said a police source.

Activists have become more violent.

Frustrations have grown among young activists since largely peaceful mass pro-democracy rallies in 2014 failed to bring political reform.

Some now say they will not stop at violence to force change.

Zhangs visit is also expected to help Beijing assess whether unpopular city leader Leung Chun-ying is a viable candidate for a second term -- his current term ends in March.

Hong Kong is semi-autonomous after being handed back by Britain to China in 1997 and enjoys freedoms unseen on the mainland.

But there are growing fears that those freedoms are being eroded by Beijing.

The disappearance last year of five Hong Kong booksellers known for publishing salacious titles on Chinese political leaders tapped those deep-seated concerns.

All five men resurfaced on the mainland, where four are facing criminal investigation.
Tens of thousands of people turned out on Sunday in France to see off the worlds biggest-ever cruise ship, the 120,000-tonne Harmony of the Seas, as it set sail for the first time.

At 66 metres (217 feet), it is the widest cruise ship ever built, while its 362-metre length makes it 50 metres longer than the height of the Eiffel Tower.

As the massive boat pulled away from a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, where it was built on Frances Atlantic shore, some 70,000 people watched from along the coast, local authorities said.

Speedboats pass the Harmony of the Seas cruise ship as it sails from the STX Saint-Nazaire shipyard in western France. (AFP Photo)

The crowd waved, cheered and clapped as the boat -- built for the US-based Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCCL) -- eased away from France.

Its gone, said Christine, who did not give her full name. We watched it develop and grow over three years. Its like a child leaving home.

The world's biggest-ever cruise ship, the 120,000-tonne Harmony of the Seas, a luxury home on the waves for 8,500 passengers and crew, was handed over by a French shipyard after a 40-month engineering feat. (AFP Photo)

The floating town, which cost close to one billion euros (dollars), has 16 decks and will be able to carry 6,360 passengers and 2,100 crew members.

At 66 metres (217 feet), it is the widest cruise ship ever built, while its 362-metre length makes it 50 metres longer than the height of the Eiffel Tower. (AFP Photo)

The floating town, which cost close to one billion euros, has 16 decks. (AFP Photo)

The ship is headed for Southampton in southern England and is to embark on its official maiden voyage on May 22 to its new home port of Barcelona.

The Harmony of the Seas will be able to carry 6,360 passengers and 2,100 crew members. (AFP Photo)
Thousands of demonstrators from Afghanistans Hazara minority marched through Kabul on Monday to protest against the planned route of a multi-million dollar power transmission line, posing a major challenge to the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Some protesters threw stones and tried to climb over shipping containers stacked up to block the streets into Kabuls government and diplomatic areas but no significant violence was reported by mid-morning.

The demonstrators are demanding that the planned route for the 500 kV transmission line linking Turkmenistan with Kabul be changed to pass through two provinces with large Hazara populations, an option the government says would cost millions and delay the badly needed project by years.

As well as the potential for violence, the rally underscores the political tensions facing Ghanis government as it fights the Taliban-led insurgency and tries to get an economy shattered by decades of war back on its feet.

It follows one in November against the murder of a group of Hazara people that became the biggest anti-government demonstration in Kabul for years.

We want our rights, said Abdul Rauf Safari, 35, a protester from Ghazni, a city in central Afghanistan with a large Hazara population.

We will no longer accept discrimination and there is no way the government can ignore us this time, he said.

Organisers have urged protesters to shake the palace of despotism. Authorities have closed access to the presidential palace, fearing a repeat of last years violence, when demonstrators tried to scale the walls.

Afghan police block a road in Kabul for a massive protest march by members of an ethnic minority group over the proposed route of a power line on Monday, May 16, 2016. (AP)

Rocks thrown

As marchers reached the roadblocks, some threw stones or banged on the sides of the metal containers but there was no immediate reaction from police. The bulk of the crowd then gathered in a square some distance from the city centre.

The mainly Shiite Hazaras have long faced persecution but they are politically well organized.

Hazara leaders, who include senior government members, say the route chosen for the transmission line discriminates against their people, something President Ashraf Ghani and national power company DABS deny.

Only around 30 percent of Afghanistan is connected to electricity. Modernising the creaking power system, which is subject to frequent blackouts, has been a top priority.

The transmission line, intended to provide secure power to 10 provinces, is part of the wider TUTAP project backed by the Asian Development Bank to link the energy-rich Central Asia republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Under current plans, due to be implemented by 2018, the line would pass from a converter station in the northern town of Pul-e-Khumri through the mountainous Salang pass to Kabul.

Demonstrators want an earlier version of the plan that would see a longer route from Pul-e-Khumri through the provinces of Bamyan and Wardak to the west of Kabul.

DABS says the current plan ensures ample power to Bamyan and Wardak and that switching the route would add tens of millions of dollars to the cost and delay the project by as much as three years, leaving millions without secure electricity.
Mexican authorities struggled for 15 hours to rescue over two dozen short-finned pilot whales that had beached themselves on the weekend, but managed to save just three of the mammals, environmental protection officials said on Sunday.

The 27 protected whales had swum aground late Saturday in a beach near San Felipe, in Mexicos Baja California region.

Officials from the PROFEPA federal environmental protection agency, soldiers and fishermen tried to keep them hydrated and push them back to deep water. But low tide and the whales tendency to swim back towards the shore doomed most of the animals.

We only managed to rescue alive two adult pilot whales and a calf, PROFEPA said in a statement.

It said it thought the pod had become disoriented, as the whales showed no signs of damage or having been caught in fishing nets.

PROFEPA noted that pilot whales had strong social cohesion and do not abandon other whales in danger, even if that means death.
Libyas UN-backed unity government met Western and regional powers on Monday to seek their help as it tries to establish authority over a country divided by armed factions and threatened by Islamist insurgents.

Germanys foreign minister said it was still unclear if the Government of National Accord (GNA), which sailed into Tripoli on March 30, would be able to end the bloody chaos that Libyans have endured since Muammar Gaddafis fall five years ago.

The decisive question is whether Libya, directly on Europes southern border, remains a place where terrorism, the crime of human trafficking and instability keep spreading or whether we and the GNA will be able to restore stability and the rule of law, Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters as he arrived at the talks in Vienna.

This is an open question at the moment.

As the talks began, US secretary of state John Kerry met Fayez Seraj, prime minister of the GNA which is supposed to replace the two rival administrations - one based in Tripoli, the other in the eastern city of Tobruk - that have been battling each other for more than a year.

It has won the backing of factions in western Libya but the Tobruk parliament has yet to accept it. Both sides command the loyalty of armed brigades that have fought for power and oil wealth in the North African country, an OPEC member.

The West sees the GNA as the best hope to defeat Islamic State, which has seized pockets of territory, and to stop the smuggling of migrants across the Mediterranean to Europe.

I think theyre going to ask for military assistance, a senior US official told reporters ahead of the talks co-hosted by the United States and Italy.

We want to see a co-ordinated national effort against Daesh (Islamic State) and we want to see it secure its land and maritime borders.

The U.S. official said he hoped Mondays meeting would show the international community lining up unambiguously behind the GNA as the recipient of security assistance in Libya, adding that the GNA would be expected to do its part.

We expect the Libyans will make commitments about their next steps on security and that the countries participating will, in turn, commit to helping.

President Barack Obama has ruled out sending combat troops, but the Washington Post reported last week that special operations personnel have been stationed at two outposts in eastern and western Libya since late 2015 to line up local partners in advance of a possible offensive on Islamic State.

A spokesman for the GNA-backed military operations room, based in the western Libyan town of Misrata, when asked by Reuters to comment, denied the presence of any US forces.

The United States has already conducted air strikes against Islamic State militants in Libya.

French and British military advisers have also been operating on the ground, sources in Libya and from those two countries have said. Both Paris and London have ruled out direct military intervention.
The French foreign minister met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Sunday and said an upcoming Paris summit aimed at restarting peace talks will proceed, despite Israeli objections that direct negotiations are the only way forward.

Paris is to host an international meeting in May of 20 countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, to discuss the peace process. Israel and the Palestinians have not been invited.

French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his one-day visit on Sunday.

We must demonstrate that the path that we are proposing will be the one that will allow for an exit out of the extremely serious situation, the impasse which we find ourselves in. I explained to him (Netanyahu) what that means, Ayrault said. I will not ask him to come to the meeting on May 30, he wasnt invited, only at a second date. So I understand his disagreements but it only convinces me of the need to do something to move this impasse, he said, adding that he spoke frankly with the Israeli Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that direct negotiations, without preconditions, are the best way to reach a final agreement and that any other attempt only makes peace more remote and gives the Palestinians an escape hatch to avoid confronting the root of the conflict.

They simply avoid negotiating with us as part of their desire to avoid resolving the root of the conflict, which is recognising the national state of the Jewish People, i.e. the State of Israel, he said.

The Palestinians, who have welcomed the French proposal, also said it will be held as planned. Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an adviser to the Palestinian President said: The French and Arab efforts are ongoing and are quickly on the right track to hold the international peace conference.

The last round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, mediated by the US, collapsed in 2014.
First there was a call to ban US presidential candidate Donald Trump from entering Britain, then he was called stupid and given grudging respect by London, but riding on his new popularity, he has now cautioned British leaders he will remember their remarks.

Prime Minister David Cameron called Trump stupid after his remarks about banning the entry of Muslims to the US, and new London mayor Sadiq Khan last week called him ignorant. But now Cameron has moderated his views about Trump, saying he deserves respect for going through the rigorous US presidential nomination process.

Trump came out fighting in an ITV television interview with celebrity presenter Piers Morgan, insisting he is not stupid, and asking Khan to take an IQ test. He sternly told the two British leaders: I will remember those statements.

He said: When he (Khan) won I wished him well, and now I dont care about him. Lets see how he does, lets see if hes a good mayor. He doesnt know me, hasnt met me, doesnt know what Im all about. I think they were very rude statements and frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements.

Trump also attacked Camerons comments: Honestly, I dont care, it doesnt matter. It looks like were not going to have a very good relationship. I hope to have a good relationship with him (Cameron), but it sounds like hes not willing to address the problem either.

The real estate tycoon, who has several investments in Britain, added, Number one, Im not stupid, I can tell you that right now, just the opposite. I dont think Im a divisive person, Im a unifier, unlike our president now.

The pro-Brexit Trump used the interview to reject US President Barack Obamas view that if Britain were to leave the European Union in the June 23 referendum, it would be at the back of the queue.

Both Downing Street and the mayors office said they stood by their comments, but the former said Cameron will seek to maintain Britains special relationship with the US if Trump were elected.

Camerons spokesman said: The PM has made his views on Donald Trump very clear. He disagrees with them. He continues to believe that preventing Muslims from entering the US would be divisive, stupid and wrong.

He has also been clear that he will work with whoever is president of the United States.

Asked whether the special relationship would continue, the spokesman said: He (Cameron) is committed to continuing the special relationship.

Khans spokesman said: Donald Trumps views are ignorant, divisive and dangerous  its the politics of fear at its worst and will be rejected at the ballot box just as it was in London.

Sadiq has spent his whole life fighting extremism, but Trumps remarks make that fight much harder for us all  it plays straight into the extremists hands and makes both our countries less safe.

He said the mayor would not accept Trumps offer that the two should compare IQ scores. Ignorance is not the same thing as lack of intelligence. Khan told newspersons that he was not interested in picking a fight with Trump but he still believed the Republican was ignorant.

---

eom

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Priti Patel, minister of state for employment in the British government, has congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the second anniversary of his government.

Patel, one of six ministers in the camp backing Britains exit from the European Union, also has the role of Indian Diaspora Champion.

She said in a statement: I would like to congratulate Prime Minister Modi on the second anniversary of his election victory. He set out an ambitious vision for India  one of inclusive, sustainable development. We remain committed to supporting the Prime Ministers vision for Indias transformation and to taking the UK-India relationship to new heights.

She added: As the worlds oldest democracy and largest democracy, the UK and India share a long-standing friendship anchored in democratic values, shared history and common interests. Prime Minister Modi has set a new level of ambition for our growing partnership.

Patel is the only Indian-origin MP in the Brexit camp. Nearly 15 lawmakers of Indian origin recently launched the forum British Indians for In to campaign for Britain to remain in the EU during the June 23 referendum.

During Modis November visit, he said India would like Britain to remain in the EU since more than 800 Indian companies based in Britain use the country as a gateway to the European market.

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Billy the Kid was someone I had grown up with. The myth and reality didnt really come together until later on

For all the stories and legends about Billy the Kid, the event that really propelled the young outlaw into the national consciousness happened on April 28, 1881as bold a deed as those versed in the annals of crime can recall, the Santa Fe Daily New Mexican reported. Thats when the Kid escaped from the courthouse/jail in Lincoln, New Mexico Territory, after killing deputies James Bell and Bob Olinger. When he rode off, he went on a walk, an eyewitness wrote, and every act, from beginning to end, seemed to have been planned and executed with the coolest deliberation.

Utah artist Gary Ernest Smith captures that cool deliberation in Billy Leaves Town, a 36-by-48-inch oil painting high on historical accuracy, down to the lone staircase in front of the courthouse (a second set of stairs was added later). Billy the Kid was someone I had grown up with, Smith said during a recent break from plein air painting in southern Utah. The myth and reality didnt really come together until later on.

The painting, and others dealing with Billy the Kid and Lincoln County, came about in spring 2009 when Smith accompanied friends and fellow artists Ed Mell and Bob Boze Bell, the latter also a Western historian and executive editor of True West magazine, on a painting and research trip to well-preserved Lincoln.

It was a bit of a departure for Smith, who, despite having grown up on a cattle ranch in the heart of Oregon Trail country near Baker City, Ore., usually paints more contemporary scenes. It wasnt my focus at the time, but from time to time I experimented with paintings dealing with Old West subject matter, explains the artist, who was born in 1942. My dad was a real fan of the Western novels of Zane Grey and Louis LAmour. It was all in my background, my culture, growing up. That was a big focus. I rode horses, herded cattle, packed guns.

A passion for art pulled him in other directions.

I was interested in it from the very beginning, says Smith. My mother had drawings she saved when I was 3 years old, so it was a big part of my life. I wanted to be an artist. I didnt know to what degree or extent that meant exactly, but I had just always painted.

His passion took Smith to Eastern Oregon College and Brigham Young University, where he earned both a bachelors and a masters degree in fine arts. His art then took him on the 198688 Third Western States Traveling Exhibit, sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the 199092 traveling exhibit Journeys in Search of Lost Images. Finally his art drew him to Highland, Utah, in the mountains near Bull River, where he lives with wife Judy, a professional musician, and paints at his home studio.

Im a morning person, Smith says. I get up early, do a little exercise, then hit the studio. Ill spend sometimes eight to 12 hour a day in the studio.

Hes always looking for new subject matter, doing plein air painting, finding things that I find interesting and that Id like to paint or develop into paintings. Smiths style is hard to categorize, though he has been compared to Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood and Maynard Dixon.

I minimize detail and go for the form of things, let the form establish the design of the paintings, he says. I dont go into detail. I like the form and colors to be the vehicle that carries the messages. I guess its somewhere between traditional contemporary style, with a minimalist quality to it.

Would he render another historical Western subject? It depends on where my head is, he says. I love the West, I read a lot of history that gets into real life, real situations, things that go beyond what Hollywood has gone into on the West. I enjoy the truth of the American West.

He lets his art direct him.

I come from a generation of people who were not conquerors of the West but tamers, who cultivated the land, built America. My paintings, by and large, dont deal specifically with the West, though some of them do. A lot of them deal with my own time and culture of people I knew and remembered, so that I can make iconic images of those people, what it really took to pursue making a living off the land.

He describes the result as a travelogue of my life.

Its almost as if Ive kept a diary visually, and those paintings you see reflect where I was at the time.

To see more of Smiths work visit Overland Gallery online.
The National Woman Suffrage Procession of 1913 was the brainchild of New Jersey Quaker Alice Paul, fresh from years of study in England. Beyond schooling, Pauls time in England introduced her to the aggressive and militant tactics of the British suffrage movement. The escapades of women like Christabel Pankhurst were both infamous and rightly terrifyingone British suffragette threw herself in front of galloping horses and died in the name of votes for women. American women were so averse to parallels with their sisters across the sea that they called themselves suffragists, and emphatically rejected the term suffragette.

In turn, Alice Paul rejected the methods used by Carrie Chapman Catt and her National Woman Suffrage Association, which was engaged in a campaign to enfranchise women state by state. Paul made clear that women would never fully obtain the vote by meekly asking for it from state governments. Instead, she believed that women had to demand their God-given right in the form of an amendment to the Constitution. Paul led her crusade with military efficiency, taking nothing for granted and demanding nothing short of total enfranchisement for all women. The 1913 parade was just the beginning. Paul split from NAWSA and formed the National Womens Party, a group that staged the first-ever picketing of the White House in 1917. With the nation now at war, women carried banners that cried, Kaiser Wilsonhow long must women wait for liberty? Paul and many other demonstrators were arrested on bogus charges, imprisoned in the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia, straitjacketed and force-fed when Paul led an in-prison hunger strike.

Heralded by many as courageous, and by others as reckless, Pauls tactics garnered the national attention and backing necessary to finally ratify the 19th Amendment in 1920, nearly 150 years after Abigail Adams asked her husband, John, to Remember the Ladies when he and the other Founding Fathers laid out the government for the newly formed United States of America.
A crowd gathered around the steps of the Ozaukee County courthouse in Port Washington, Wisconsin, on November 10, 1862. For the first time ever, Wisconsin men were going to be drafted into the army, and not even the cold rain that was falling that day could keep people away from this historic and potentially life-changing event. But as county draft commissioner William A. Pors drew the first name, the thump of a cannon resounded through the streets. Pors turned. Marching toward him was a mob of angry citizens wielding clubs and bricks and carrying banners scrawled with the words No Draft! Thinking the demonstration was merely a protest, Pors went back to drawing names. He had made a grave miscalculation, and if he lived to tell what happened next, he would be fortunate indeed.

Only one year earlier, few in Wisconsin would have believed conscription would ever be necessary for the Union army. As in most Northern states, the men of Wisconsin, brimming with patriotism, had rushed to enlist in 1861. So many men volunteered nationwide in the wars first months that, in early 1862, Edwin Stanton, the new secretary of war, slowed the Federal drive for recruits, believing that the swelled army ranks would be sufficient to put down the Southern rebellion. But by summer, the war showed no signs of coming to a speedy conclusion, so, in July, President Abraham Lincoln called for 300,000 three-year volunteers. Again Wisconsin responded, supplying enough men to create 14 new regiments.

However, a few weeks later, on August 4, Lincoln and his administration tried to mine the Northern states for an additional 300,000 troops, this time to serve nine-month terms. If the number of volunteers any state raised fell short of the Federally assigned quota, that state would have to conduct its own draftand soon. The states had only until August 15 to recruit volunteers. For its part, Wisconsin faced a quota of 11,904 enlistees. Governor Edward Salomon was uneasy. His state was rapidly running short of willing men, and the quota seemed out of reach.

Salomon immediately petitioned the War Department for a postponement. Wisconsin was a state of farmers, he explained, and if the draft were delayed until after the autumn harvest, many of them would join the army willingly. The War Department responded by extending the deadlineto August 22, one week later. Only a handful of Wisconsin men volunteered for these nine-month stints, but several counties managed to meet their quotas and avoid the draft. The additional week, however, was not nearly enough time to fill this latest statewide quota.

A half-dozen counties lagged far behind the others in enlistments, and the farthest behind was Ozaukee County. These six counties were mostly rural, and their populations included a high proportion of Catholic immigrants. According to 1860 census figures, 15,000 people lived in Ozaukee County, just north of Milwaukee on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, and most of them were German. Like many other European immigrants, they were farmers who had come to the United States to find a better life in what they believed was the land of freedom; they had no intention of fighting someone elses war. They said the Lincoln administration was tainted by abolitionism, nativism, and the godlessness of German anti-church liberals. Lincolns Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 22, only further angered them. The Milwaukee See-Bote, the newspaper of Wisconsins German Catholics, expressed horror that immigrants would be used as fodder for cannons in an abolitionists war.

The Federal deadline had come and gone, and Wisconsin had still not met the War Departments quota. So, even though Salomon knew it would be extremely unpopular, he prepared to conduct a draft. The governor ordered each countys sheriff to compile a list of all able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 45 with no special restrictions. All of these men would be eligible for military service. Each sheriff was to post his completed roll publicly and send a copy to the state government in Madison.

Ozaukee Countys immigrant farmers were incensed by what they perceived as the unfairness of these enrollment lists. Many members of the Republican Partythe governors partywere conspicuously absent from the rolls, the farmers claimed. Several German farmers responded to Salomons draft plans by declaring themselves aliens and thus ineligible for armed service. As plans for conscription progressed, threats of mob action arose not just in Port Washington, but also in Milwaukee, Sheboygan, and West Bend. A letter from a Port Washington citizen that appeared in the Wisconsin Daily Patriot explained the growing tension: What has caused all this trouble is not a desire to shirk responsibilities, but it is the belief, which is common, that the government officials have exempted about one half the men of the county, who should be liable for military service, and the consequence is that nearly 4/5ths of those returned on the enrollment lists are to be drafted. This was peculiarly hard on the few, while the many escaped.

The threats of violence personally embarrassed Salomon. The governor was an immigrant himself; he had fled from his native Prussia in 1848, the same year Wisconsin entered the Union. Salomon refused to be intimidated by his former countrymen, and after tallying the eligibility rolls from across the state, he set quotas for the individual counties on October 21. If the number of new volunteers failed to meet these quotas, a draft lottery to fill the deficiency would begin on November 10. In it, a draft commissioner appointed for each county would draw names from a box and continue until his countys quota was filled.

Wisconsins Democrats immediately started to use Salomons unpopular decision against the Republicans in the upcoming elections. The Democrats had a grudge against Salomon, who had defected to the Republican Party after years as a Democrat. The snubbed Democrats accused the governor of postponing the draft so his party mates would have a better showing in the November elections. In many counties, Democrats were swept into office. Charles A. Eldredge was particularly successful. Once a dark-horse Democratic candidate for Congress, Eldredge ran on an anti-draft, anti-taxation platform. Playing on the fears of the electorate, he won his election by 200 votes.

By voting in favor of the Democrats, Ozaukee Countys farmers seemed to think they had avoided the draft. But their newly elected representatives could not prevent it, and finally, draft day arrived. Angered by what they felt was fraud at the states highest levels, the immigrants were determined to take matters into their own hands. At 9:00 a.m. on November 10, Pors, a local attorney appointed by Salomon to administer the draft in Ozaukee County, arrived at the courthouse in Port Washington with his assistants. A small group of citizens gradually gathered to witness the proceedings.

After setting up his equipment, Pors was beginning the draft when a cannon blast reverberated in the distance. Startled, the commissioner halted the lottery and looked through the sheets of rain. Voices in the distance grew louder as a group of angry farmers some 200 strong marched toward the courthouse. The banners reading No Draft! made the reasons for their demonstration clear, and the clubs and bricks they carried made it clear they meant it. But Pors continued; if these people wanted to protest, he thought, they had that right. Pors drew a few more names until rocks, bricks, and shouts of No more draft! fell on him along with the rain. The mob rushed the courthouse steps. Before Pors or any of his assistants could escape, the rioters overwhelmed them. Pors was beaten mercilessly, then thrown down the steps and into the street. The mobs ringleaders snatched the enrollment records and, despite the rain, set them ablaze. Other rioters, meanwhile, charged to the top of the courthouse and tore down the American flag.

Pors struggled to his feet and staggered to the post office, where he locked himself in the cellar and waited for a chance to escape. Meanwhile, the mob headed to his house, one newspaper later reported, and attacked and demolished the doors and windows, destroyed the fence, shrubbery, gates and everything in reach out of doors. They then entered the house and literally destroyed everything within it. According to another account, the furniture was smashed up and dumped into the street. Jellies, jams, and preserves were poured over the Brussels carpet, and ladies apparel [was] torn into shreds.

While the crowd was destroying his home, Pors boarded a carriage driven by a friend and fled south to Milwaukee, where he wired news of the riot to state authorities in Madison. The furious farmers barely noticed he was gone; targeting other prominent Republicans, they had moved on. The town physician, Dr. H. Stillman, who was also a draft clerk, had his fence broken down, shrubbery ripped from his property, and had every door and window demolished, one newspaper reported. The mob stole about $200 to $300 worth of medicine from his office while every looking glass, picture, bed, chair, sofa, clothing, indeed everything [was] just turned into rubbish. The doctor and his family, however, were not hurt; fearing the persistent threats of mob action, they had fled before the draft began.

With two houses destroyed, the mob fed on its own fury, and the violence spread. The rioters drifted to the warehouse of a Mr. B. Blake, who had earlier denounced opposition to the draft. The crowd, which had grown to more than 1,000 people, shattered every window in Blakes building, broke in, and dumped several thousand bushels of wheat that were stored inside into the streets. Next, the enraged farmers headed to Julius Tomlinsons stone mill, one of Port Washingtons main businesses. In addition to breaking all the windows, the mob gutted the office, destroyed books and papers, and stole $60 from the safe. Tomlinsons only apparent crime was his membership in the Republican Party and his employment of other Republicans. The rioters also damaged nearby Wolfs tannery, threatening to hang every Republican worker, and gutted the Freemasons hall because most of the countys Masons had managed to have their names removed from the draft rolls.

Heightened by the mobs frequent stops at saloons, the violence continued through the day. Law-abiding citizens tried to get out of the rioters path, but many of them failed. Even when nightfall quieted the riot, no one was completely safe from danger.

The next morning, Salomon learned the disturbing news and realized that an armed force was needed in Port Washington to quell the riot. He ordered Colonel James M. Lewis of the 28th Wisconsin Infantry, which had mustered in at Milwaukee only four weeks earlier, to send a detachment of troops to the besieged town. He also dispatched W.D. McIdoe, the provost marshal general of the state, to Milwaukee that evening to join the six detached companies of the 28th, which had a total of 600 men.

About 9:00 p.m. on November 11, the propeller ship Kenosha brought the soldiers word that the mob had effectively taken over the town. The enraged farmers had three pieces of artillery, and one was planted on the pier and two were on a hill with a commanding view of Lake Michigan. They posed a serious threat to any troops who tried to land at the port. Lewis devised a plan of attack. The soldiers would land five miles south of Port Washington and then march into town before daybreak. Two companies would march in from the rear while the other four charged in from the front. McIdoe and the men from the 28th left Milwaukee at 3:30 a.m. on November 12 on two state-chartered ships, the Comet and the Sunbeam.

The six companies landed south of town without incident and split up. The two marching in from the rear advanced and soon met part of the unruly crowd. Taken by surprise, 50 rioters surrendered immediately while others retreated wildly to the other side of town. There, they ran head-on into another advancing line of soldiers. The armed men gradually surrounded the rioters. They were found in cellars, bars, saloons, and in bed, and in every conceivable hiding place, one soldier said. One was even found four feet deep buried in hay, and he would not come out until he was persuaded by a bayonet.

The arrival of the troops left the farmers dumbstruck; they had not expected an armed response. A story in the Manitowoc Herald reported that the alleged ringleader, a Mr. Kemp, had had a change of heart as soon as the soldiers arrived. Kemp, the ringleader, made boasts before the troops arrived in Port Washington that there were not enough soldiers in the state to take him, the report stated. When Col. Lewis, Marshall McIdoe, and a few others repaired to his house, however, and took him into custody, he was as tame as a chicken, and wrang his hands in agony of cowardice. Soon, all the rioters were in custody, caught amid the ruin and destruction they had created.

According to one of the soldiers in the 28th Wisconsin, streets once trembling with angry words and threats soon began echoing with laughter and cheers. We were greeted with shouts of joy and exultation from ladies at almost every house, he recalled. The scene was truly affecting. We could frequently hear them say, Bless God! We can say our souls are our own. We can breathe free again. God bless you! You wont go and leave us today, will you? A general feeling of gratitude and thankfulness and of security seemed at once to take the place of great personal fear.

The soldiers celebrated their nearly bloodless victory by restoring the national flag to the top of the battered courthouse. They had captured more than 150 of the most conspicuous rioters. The next day, a provost court examined the cases of those arrested and declared 82 of the men guilty. They were taken to Camp Washburn in Milwaukee, but when subsequent arrests raised the number of those found guilty to 126, the prisoners were moved to Camp Randall, a larger facility in Madison.

A soldier stationed there described the conditions the prisoners faced. They were closely confined in a single room, or board shanty, about 30 feet wide and 50 feet in length, he wrote. There was one stove in the room, but no bedding, not even straw to lie upon. The prisoners were not permitted to leave the shed under any pretense whatever.

The Ozaukee rioters remained prisoners at Camp Randall for about a year before they were finally released. An event that started with the blast of a cannon was officially over, but it could not be forgotten. More than a half-dozen homes had been damaged, and Tomlinsons mill, which had sustained thousands of dollars in damage, was closed for months. Dozens of citizens had been injured, and many more had feared for their lives. But there had been no loss of life, no usurpation of power, and no change in the governments draft policy.

Shortly after the riot, Pors returned to Port Washington. This time, with armed troops by his side, he finished the draft. Twenty-five miles away, Milwaukee Countys draft commissioner wisely waited a week before conducting his lottery, long enough for Union soldiers to arrive. He had learned a lesson.

This article was written by Adam Kawa and originally published in the June 1998 issue of Civil War Times Magazine.

For more great articles, be sure to subscribe to Civil War Times magazine today!
SLAVE WAGES

Mark Dunkelmans account of Robert Smalls escape from slavery (A Bold Break for Freedom, December 1999) stirred my interest in just how slavery worked. The picture that we are given today is of slaves toiling endlessly in the farm fields and their being beaten and mistreated. Snippets of information, however, indicate that many slaves were hired out by their owners, sort of the way temporary workers are placed by agencies today. I presume that the slave worked wherever he was told to work, and the owner kept the wages, with the slave receiving only his keep. I have heard, though, of cases where a slave bought himself, and perhaps his family, too, so some slaves must have received money for their labor. Indeed, a slave who was hired out to work on the docks couldnt live in a slave cabin (as did plantation slaves), so what sort of arrangements were there? Was the slave paid wages so that he provided his own keep, with the owner taking a cut, or just how did all this work?

Vernon C. Hales

Merriam, Kansas

Mark Dunkelman replies: A proportionally small number of slaves were permitted by their masters to find their own work in cities and towns. Such slaves generally remitted two-thirds to three-quarters of their wages to their masters and paid their own living expenses. Many of the slaves who hired their own time saved what they could from their wages to purchase freedom for themselves or their loved ones. By the time he and his family sailed aboard the Planter, Robert Smalls had apparently saved $700 toward the $800 purchase price of his wife and daughter set by their owner, Samuel Kingman.

DUDE RANCHER

The photograph of Lyndon B. Johnson on horseback at his ranch, harassing a cow (American Album, October 1999) was presumably intended to foster an image of him as a gentleman rancher. Observe the way he is (mis)handling his reins. He was a gross amateur at riding and this photo proves it. Johnson was so awkward on a horse that he had to use a Tennessee Walker, a horse trained to such an easy gait that anyone could ride one.

Bruce Marshall

Austin, Texas

EDUCATING

SOLDIERS AFTER WWI

After reading the article, The Most Contented GIs in Europe (October 1999), I thought your readers would be interested in information about education for soldiers after World War I.

On March 1, 1919, Headquarters 33rd Division, American Expeditionary Force issued orders for officers and enlisted men to report to the commandant, American School Detachment, at various schools in England and France (the French universities included the Sorbonne, Bordeaux, and Lyon). Among the men assigned to British universities was my father, Sergeant Henry Porter. He was sent to the University of Birmingham, where U.S. students were apparently housed in private homes near the institution.

While attending the universities abroad, soldiers were issued passes that allowed them to travel in the host country (at their own expense).

William L. Porter

Perkasie, Pennsylvania

MONUMENT TO OSCEOLA

I would like to add a footnote to Floyd B. Largent, Jr.s article on the Second Seminole War (The Florida Quagmire, October 1999). In 1916 a four-foot masonry column was erected at the place where Osceola was captured in 1837. The site, in Moultrie, Florida, four miles south of St. Augustine, had been identified in 1896 by a 90-year-old army veteran who was present at the capture.

The sand road that once traversed the region was abandoned long ago and has been reclaimed by woodlands. When I photographed the monument in 1985, it stood beside a logging trail in a dense pine forest a mile west of U.S. Route 1. Weatherworn and neglected, the monument no longer bore the bronze plaque that told the story of this lamentable episode in American history.

One correction to Mr. Largents fine storythe Dade Massacre took place at present-day Bushnell, Florida, (not near present-day St. Petersburg). This site is now a state park with markers indicating where Major Dade and others of his command met their deaths.

Kenneth F. Tricebock

Venice, Florida

EDUCATION AND ROMANCE

How vividly you brought back memories of World War II in the article The Most Contented GIs in Europe (October 1999). My brother, Sherman B. Lans, now deceased, attended Shrivenham American University at the end of the war. He continued his education there until he returned home and was discharged in November 1945.

PFC Lans met his wife in Swindon while he was on a pass, and she was visiting her uncle, the towns mayor. They were married in November 1945. We never knew exactly what Shrivenham University was all about. Thank you for letting us know.

Betty Lans Kahn

Fairfax, Virginia
BERLIN CANDY BOMBER

I have received your June 1998 Special Collectors Issue. This is an exceptional compilation of events that had a major impact on post-war history.

Certainly the world would be much different today without the British, French, and American coalition for the Berlin Airlift and the Berliners determination to be free. These were major factors in the success of the airlift. It has continued to be a cornerstone of National Security Policy and provides the deterrence that saves lives and prevents conflict. General Tunner should have been given a bit more credit, as his policies saved many aircrew lives and maybe mine.

Each of the issues features were especially well presented by writers who did their homework. The issue will take its rightful place in my permanent collection for future reference. Well done!

Gail S. Halvorsen, Col. USAF Ret.

Provo, Utah

DONT FORGET THE NAVY

As a retired naval aviator who flew the Berlin Airlift, I was deeply interested in your fine article about that operation. I was disappointed, however, that no mention was made of the role played by U.S. naval aviation.

For your information, two navy transport squadrons of R5D (C-54) aircraft operated from Rhein-Main airfield at Frankfurt during the lift. These squadrons were designated VR-6 and VR-8.

I had the privilege of flying 125 round-trip missions to Berlin with VR-6 between March and August 1949. As I recall, these squadrons set some impressive records for tonnage hauled, missions flown, and their overall efficiency.

Robert E. Pine, Cdr. USN Ret.

Boulder, Colorado

A DIRTY JOB

How true that the combat pilots during World War II classed the transport pilots as less than true aviators. I was a transport pilot with the Air Transport Command (ATC) and we learned several other meanings of ATC: Allergic To Combat is one that I remember well. The mention of the bad weather during the winter of 1948/49 was entirely correct. The landing aids consisted only of Ground Approach Control (GCA) and a high intensity lighting system on the final approach. Near zero-zero landings became routine thanks to the efficient GCA operators. We often required a follow me Jeep with extra bright lights to guide us from the end of the runway to the loading ramp.

During 1997, I made a return trip to Fassberg, the Royal Air Force Station in Germany where some American pilots, including myself, were stationed. I was delighted to learn that there is an excellent Airlift museum there, complete with 100-pound gunny sacks that represent our cargocoal. Without a doubt, that was the dirtiest job I ever had.

Hugh McBride

Sun City, Arizona
Confederate General Charles Sidney Winder found himself smack in the middle of the Jackson-Garnett feud.

When Major General Thomas Stonewall Jackson abruptly removed Brigadier General Richard Garnett from command of the Stonewall Brigade on April Fools Day, 1862, he inadvertently made Brigadier General Charles Sidney Winder the most unpopular man in the Shenandoah Valley. The ill-fated Winders subsequent tenure as commanding officer of the famous brigade would prove to be as stormy as it was brief.

Winder was 32 and a brand-new brigadier general when Jackson chose him to command the Stonewall Brigade. In so doing, Jackson pointedly passed over the brigades five existing regimental colonels, all of whom had sided with Garnett in his controversial decision to retreat at the Battle of Kernstown one week earlier. The appointment of an outsider had a predictable effect on the brigade. Winder was openly hissed at as he rode into camp, and more than one soldier threatened to shoot the newly arrived general.

Winder, a native of Maryland, probably deserved better. Although comparatively young, he had a solid military background. His older brother had been killed in the Mexican War, and his uncle, John H. Winder, had taught at West Point before becoming a Confederate general. Other relatives included Confederate Admiral Franklin Buchanan, Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman and Francis Scott Key, author of The Star-Spangled Banner. Winder himself had graduated from West Point in 1850. Four years later, his courageous actions during a hurricane in Panama had led to his promotion as the youngest captain in the entire Army. He added to his reputation in campaigns against the Yakima Indians in Washington Territory before resigning his commission two weeks before the firing at Fort Sumter.

Tall and lean with a long, sharp nose and a bushy beard, Winder bore a passing resemblance to Stonewall Jackson. He also shared Jacksons inflexible approach to soldiering. Upon assuming his post as head of the Stonewall Brigade, Winder told his officers in no uncertain terms that he expected the discipline within the command to improve. To underscore his point, he had 30 straggling soldiers bucked and gagged, leading a number of men to desert and causing Jackson to personally prohibit such harsh punishment in the future.

It was the first of a series of clashes between Winder and his new commander. A member of Jacksons staff, Major Henry Kyd Douglas, attributed this to the fact that the generals were too much alike. Winder quickly requested a transfer to another command and then threatened to resign when Jackson curtly refused him a brief furlough. Cooler heads prevailed, and Winder remained with Jacksons army, although he never warmed to his brusque commander.

Personal differences aside, Winder impressed Jackson with his valorous behavior during combat. Unlike Garnett, he showed a taste for aggressive fighting. At Port Republic, he was at the forefront of the fightinghis horse was hit three times by enemy bulletsand Jackson made it a point to personally shake Winders hand before the Battle of Cedar Mountain, when the obviously ill Winder refused to stay in the rear, away from the fighting. A less impressed member of the brigade, Private John Casler of the 33rd Virginia, found Winder very tyrannical, so much so that he was spotted by some of the brigade; and we could hear it remarked by some nearly every day that the next fight we got into would be the last for Winder.

Caslers prediction came true at Cedar Mountain, although it was not friendly fire that killed Winder but a Union cannonball. While personally and needlessly directing the gunners in the Rockbridge Artillery, Winder was struck by a shell that tore through his side and nearly severed his left arm. Carried to the rear on a stretcher, he worried aloud about his family. My poor darling wife and little pets, he gasped. What will become of them? He died an hour later.

Informed of Winders death, Jackson raised his right hand and bowed his head in silent prayer. After the battle, Jackson delivered an uncharacteristically heartfelt bit of praise: Richly endowed with those qualities of mind and person which fit an officer for command and which attract the admiration and excite the enthusiasm of the troops, he was rapidly raising to the front rank of his profession.His loss has been sorely felt.

Jackson added a personal note to his wife a few days later. I can hardly think of the fall of Winder without tearful eyes, he wrote. It was not an emotion in which Jackson frequently indulged. Perhaps Kyd Douglas was right, and Jackson saw something of himself in his doomed young protege. As for the rest of the Stonewall Brigade, Winders death evoked little mourning. He may have succeeded Richard Garnett, but in the mens minds, at least, he had never replaced him.

Roy Morris, Jr., Editor, Americas Civil War
By May 11, 1865, nearly everyone in the United States and in the moribund Confederacy considered the Civil War over. Both of the Souths principal armies had capitulated. Lieutenant General Richard Taylor had surrendered most of the remaining Confederate forces east of the Mississippi. President Jefferson Davis had just been captured, and his cabinet had scattered to escape Yankee vengeance. Even the elusive Confederate guerrilla William Quantrill had been fatally wounded. The martyred president, Abraham Lincoln, had been buried a week before, and Federal troops had begun their long occupation of Dixie. Arrangements were underway for a grand review  a victory parade  in Washington, and the War Department was preparing to muster out most of the huge Union Army. Peace had come at last.

As usual, things were different in Texas. Hostile forces still faced each other at the southernmost tip of the state, where the Rio Grande spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. On Brazos Santiago Island lay nearly 2,000 Union troops, including the 62nd and 87th U.S. Colored Infantry, the 34th Indiana and a few dozen loyal Texans who had volunteered for cavalry service but remained dismounted. Across the bay and several miles inland, fragmented battalions of Confederate cavalry guarded the Mexican border, beyond which French imperial forces and native Juaristas vied for control of the northern province.

The Western Sub-District of Texas, commanded by Confederate Brig. Gen. James E. Slaughter, encompassed virtually all of Texas below San Antonio. Slaughter, a Virginia native who had served in the U.S. Army from the Mexican War until Texas seceded, had been assigned his post some eight months before by Maj. Gen. John G. Walker, whom Slaughter had previously served as chief of staff. As late as the end of 1864, Slaughter had been able to count more than 2,600 soldiers under his command, but with the new year that number began to dwindle rapidly. On the last day of January 1865, only 1,722 of those men remained, of whom fewer than 1,450 officers and men stood ready for duty. By March 31, Slaughters returns revealed only 1,200 men of all ranks present. With spring, desertions increased rapidly, and Slaughter began to suspect that he could not rely on those who remained.

Slaughters troops consisted almost entirely of cavalry, from a tiny detachment at Fort Clark 200 miles up the Rio Grande to his heaviest concentration of several companies and a light battery at Brownsville and Fort Brown, about 20 miles from the rivers mouth. By April 6, 1865, Slaughter had made his headquarters at Brownsville, which he styled the Southern Division of his subdistrict.

Colonel John Salmon Ford  a Mexican War veteran, former captain of Texas Rangers, onetime Austin mayor and an already legendary character  commanded Slaughters Southern Division. Ford, popularly known as Old Rip, had been appointed colonel of Texas troops early in 1861, when Slaughter was still a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Ford had accepted the surrender of Brazos Santiago in February of that year, and he had spent most of the war on duty in southern Texas. For about a year he served in the Conscription Bureau in Austin; the camp of instruction near Tyler was named in his honor, although he may have felt little honored after Camp Ford became notorious as a prison pen.

In the spring of 1865, Colonel Fords immediate force amounted to nine companies of cavalry in two battalions. In addition, three more unassigned companies and Captain O.G. Jones six-gun battery were stationed at Fort Brown. He also exercised control over half a regiment of cavalry that covered the river below Ringgold Barracks, too far away for assistance on short notice. Between the end of January and the end of March, his troop strength shrank almost 20 percent; as April opened, he had only 763 officers and men to guard about 100 miles of river, and only 625 of them were fit for duty. By May, desertion had diminished Fords command even further.

In that remote corner of the Confederacy, few military units adhered to numerical state designations, instead taking the names of their commanders. The largest organized force on which Ford could call was the six-company battalion temporarily commanded by Captain William N. Robinson, who could still muster about 250 troopers when every man answered the bugle. Ford posted Robinson about 15 miles from the Rio Grande at Palmetto (also spelled Palmito) Ranch. A smaller vanguard lay a little closer to the enemy, at Whites Ranch.

Despite the precaution of maintaining that outpost at Whites Ranch, Ford did not anticipate that there would be significant trouble with the Union troops at Brazos Santiago. In March he and a civilian emissary had corresponded with Federal Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace on the subject of peace, and although they came to no conclusions, it was evident even to the Confederate forces that the rebellion was about finished.

Many of the Texas cavalry companies had scattered in an effort to find grass for their horses; some of those mounts were so broken down that Slaughter hoped he might be able to replace them with a few hundred mustangs.

At Brazos Santiago, a change in command appears to have ended the unofficial truce. Colonel Robert B. Jones of the 34th Indiana left for home in April, turning the island over to Colonel Theodore H. Barrett of the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry. Unlike Jones, Barrett had never led his regiment in combat, and he seems to have thirsted for a little battlefield glory before the war ended altogether. In the wee hours of May 11, Barrett summoned his lieutenant colonel, David Branson, and gave him instructions that would lead to the last clash of arms between organized Union and Confederate forces.

At 4 a.m. Branson, who had been appointed lieutenant colonel directly from the noncommissioned ranks of the 28th Illinois less than a year and a half before, gathered 250 of his men and a full complement of officers on the waterfront, with a view to crossing over to Port Isabel. However, a storm kicked up, and the steamer he intended to use broke down, so Barrett ordered the expedition back to camp.

Later in the day, he found enough small boats to cross the troops over the shorter passage to Boca Chica, at the southern end of the island, and in the evening Branson moved his command down there. Along the way he picked up 50 recruits from the Union 2nd Texas Cavalry Battalion and two of their officers, all of whom still lacked horses. The two lieutenants had not even acquired rank insignia.

Branson procured 100 rounds of ammunition and five days rations for each man, and by 9:30 p.m. all of them had reached the mainland. Followed by two mule-drawn supply wagons, the procession started immediately for Whites Ranch, where Robinsons forward companies were reportedly still camped.

Branson reached Whites Ranch at 2 a.m. on May 12 and silently surrounded the main building. Upon springing the trap, however, he learned that his prey had withdrawn to Palmetto Ranch a couple of days earlier. His men had already been on their feet for more than 24 hours, so Branson gave up any hope of surprising the Palmetto Ranch detachment before daylight. He marched his command another 1 1/2 miles upriver, then scattered the men into the chaparral for a few hours sleep.

French forces patrolled the Rio Grande on the Mexican side, and by 8:30 that morning their videttes had spotted the Federal troops. The news quickly drifted over the river to the Confederates, and French troops appeared on the bank opposite Bransons camp. Branson nevertheless formed his 300 riflemen and marched them toward Palmetto Ranch.

Palmetto Ranch was 112 miles away, but Branson did not arrive there until noon. A flurry of musketry erupted between Bransons skirmishers and Robinsons pickets without drawing blood on either side. When the Federal infantrymen had driven the startled Confederates away from the hilltop hacienda, they settled down to count up their prizes: two or three sick Texans, a couple of horses and rations for 190 men, including four beef cattle. Captain Robinson, who could initially collect only about 60 of his retreating battalion, sent word of the attack back to Colonel Ford at Brownsville. Ford instructed Robinson to hold on while he rounded up other scattered companies and brought them to his assistance.

Robinson did more than hold on. With his little command he returned to the ranch on Palmetto Hill and launched a bold midafternoon assault on the Union troops, who were enjoying a siesta. Branson, who thought he faced a considerable force of the enemy, thought his position untenable and immediately began to retreat. He backpedaled to Whites Ranch, losing one Texan.

Once he had dug in for the night, Branson sent a courier back to Brazos Santiago with an appeal for help. Colonel Barrett ordered Lt. Col. Robert G. Morrison to take 200 of his 34th Indiana to Bransons aid. Morrison, an experienced officer who had led his regiment through the Vicksburg campaign, took his men to Boca Chica in skiffs. Barrett followed with some acting staff officers, and they all reached Whites Ranch at dawn on May 13.

At Barretts direction, Branson detailed a platoon from his regiment to guard the captured supplies, the few prisoners and the wounded Texan. Then, while the Hoosiers stopped to cook breakfast, the black regiment started back toward Palmetto Ranch, about three miles away, skirmishing briskly with Robinsons cavalrymen. Half an hour later, Morrison put his men back in line and trailed after Branson, lagging a mile or so behind.

At 11 a.m. Colonel Ford started to Robinsons aid with as much of the rest of the battalion as he could muster, adding to it the three independent companies and the battery from Fort Brown. After an urgent appeal from Captain Robinson, Ford sent one company galloping ahead while he remained behind to personally hurry the main body forward.

The advance of Barretts little brigade passed Palmetto Hill again, burning what remained of the supplies at the ranch before pressing on after Robinsons weary troopers. Two companies of the 34th Indiana preceded the 62nd as skirmishers. One company deployed on the right, while the other  27 men of Company K, under 2nd Lt. Charles A. Jones  fanned out on the left in the thick chaparral along the riverbank. Their sporadic fire escalated sharply as Fords reinforcements began to show up.

Ford threw most of his men into line at 3 p.m. He later calculated that his entire force, some of whom were volunteers, had amounted to 275 cavalry and 25 foot soldiers to work the six guns. Years afterward he explained that the volunteers were French soldiers who had crossed the river to see a little action. Riding around in civilian dress, Ford placed one section of the battery on either end of his line and kept two guns in reserve. He gave Robinson the rest of his original battalion, bracing his right with the three companies under Captain D.M. Wilson.

Later Colonel Barrett claimed that he had wanted to bivouac that night on Telegraph Road, a better-drained thoroughfare that led directly to Port Isabel, where a transport could carry his troops back to Brazos Santiago. The arrival of Ford, whose force Barrett overestimated by a factor of two, changed those plans. Though Barrett still commanded 500 officers and men, he started falling back before the 300 Texans.

Veteran officers in the 34th Indiana found Barrett unimpressive, charging that he asked the most junior officers their opinions and requested their cooperation rather than giving orders. At one point he acceded to Lieutenant Jones request for 100 men to perform a little maneuver on the Confederates, apparently directing Colonel Branson to follow the second lieutenants instructions. To even Jones surprise, Branson submitted, although Fords arrival canceled the experiment.

Ford took one company each from Robinson and Wilson to swing around his left and assail the Federal right. Two companies under Captains J.B. Cocke and John Gibbons strung out parallel to the Rio Grande, but wary Yankees saw the movement. Barrett directed Colonel Morrison to confront that threat with two more companies of the 34th, and Morrison sent Captain Abraham M. Templer out with Companies B and E.

The first rounds from Fords artillery struck the Federals at about 4 p.m., when Barretts line had fallen back to within a mile and a half of Palmetto Hill. Those first shells alarmed the Union soldiers, who had not suspected the presence of any guns and had none with which to reply. When Cocke and Gibbons opened fire on his right, Barrett started his main body to the rear at the double-quick. Lieutenant Jones reported that his men were too exhausted to serve as the rear guard, so Barrett ordered the 50 Texans to cover the retreat. First Lieutenant James Hancock, who commanded the Texans, complained that his men had already expended all but a couple of rounds of ammunition apiece, but Barrett ordered him out anyway with a promise to relieve him soon.

The two fleeing Union regiments left 100 of their comrades behind. Captain Templer, one lieutenant and 48 Indiana infantrymen were surrounded and compelled to throw down their arms. Company E was the color company of the 34th, and the prisoners included the men who carried the national and state flags. Sergeant John R. Smith, who bore the Stars and Stripes, took the state flag from Corporal George Burns and disappeared into the chaparral with both banners. He tried to swim the river with them, but when troops on the Mexican side fired on him he swam back, evidently losing the state flag near the far side. Troubled by an old foot wound, Smith could not outrun his pursuers, but he tucked the U.S. flag beneath some undergrowth along the riverbank just before Confederate cavalrymen caught up with him.

Lieutenant Hancock, his second lieutenant and 20 of their Union Texans also surrendered when they were cut off. In addition, nearly 30 stragglers from the 34th fell into enemy hands while their regiment raced toward Palmetto Ranch. The precipitous retreat quickly exhausted the Indiana troops. A few of the laggards did manage to swim the Rio Grande without interference.

Now Colonel Barrett ordered out several companies of skirmishers from the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry to cover his rear and flank. The white regiment and the black one crossed paths near Palmetto Ranch, each breaking the others ranks. The 34th, which had been behind, took the road nearest the river, while the 62nd bore to the left and slowed its step to quick time. Still trotting at the double-quick, the 34th overtook the 62nd despite having the longer road around a bend in the river, and when the white regiment reached the far side of Palmetto Hill, it had taken the lead in the retreat. One witness later testified that Colonel Barrett had promised the Indiana troops he would stop and fight at Palmetto Hill, but instead he barely slowed the retreat.

Barrett ordered Morrison to keep up with the wagons, which rolled ahead of the harried column. Canteens, haversacks and even rifles littered the road in its wake. Morrison stayed near the head of his regiment, trying to reassure the men and maintain a pace that would not wear them out before they reached the relative safety of Boca Chica. He threw a company ahead to hold back anyone with the inclination to bolt, but the column still moved steadily forward. Occasionally a shell or a solid shot whistled overhead, after which a volley or two would come echoing back from the rear guard.

When the fugitives reached Whites Ranch, they still had another 12 miles to Boca Chica. Fords Confederates pursued doggedly, but from there the narrow peninsula foiled any flanking maneuvers. All the Confederates could do was hasten the withdrawal with artillery fire. Three miles from Boca Chica, one of the Federal wagons became mired in a bog, but the Indiana regiment filed around it and made for the boats. The sun had just set when the first of Morrisons men reached the landing, rushing into the water to secure their places in the skiffs. A staff officer tried to hold them back so the wounded could cross first, but they ignored him.

The enemy was no longer in sight by now, so there was no need for such frenzy. With Union reinforcements just across the inlet, Colonel Ford preferred not to linger, but as he started back upriver he encountered Brig. Gen. Slaughter, who rode up at the head of 120 men of the other cavalry battalion. Slaughter told Ford to resume the pursuit. Ford argued against it, but Slaughter insisted and threw out such a heavy line of skirmishers that the Federals feared he meant to charge.

About 2l2 miles from the landing, Colonel Branson deployed his skirmishers one final time. Company K of the 62nd, under Captain Fred Coffin, spread out and leveled another volley at the Confederates, who returned it. The two lines fired ineffectually at each other for a few more minutes, and then Captain Coffin turned his line back to Boca Chica. The Texans eased their horses forward again, but the last shots of the Civil War had been fired. Slaughter thought better of his aggressiveness, and Barrett ferried the rest of his men across without further molestation.

When all the reports had come in, Colonel Barrett discovered that he had lost only one man killed, Private John Jefferson Williams, of Jay County, Ind. Nine men had been wounded and 103 officers and men captured, most of them from the 34th Indiana. Colonel Ford summarized his losses as five or six, wounded. The prisoners from the 34th Indiana carried their comrades body to the outskirts of Brownsville, where they buried him.

One black soldier, Sergeant David Clark, evidently fell out on the retreat and spent the night of May 13 huddled in the chaparral a mile below Palmetto Ranch. Fords men found him as they swept back through at noon the next day. He was the last prisoner ever taken by the Confederate Army, and as Texans prodded him back toward Brownsville that afternoon, other horsemen came galloping up to the column with the battered national colors of the 34th Indiana. Military authorities recovered the state flag on the Mexican shore a couple of days later. The commander of the post at Bagdad, Mexico, turned it over to an Indiana lieutenant.

Within a fortnight of the battle, an official armistice ended the fighting in Texas, and on May 30 the 34th Indiana marched into Brownsville to begin occupation duty. That did not end the matter, though, for Colonel Barretts poor showing in his only engagement led him to bring charges against Colonel Morrison, on whom he tried to blame the disaster.

A court-martial sat on the case through late July and most of August, listening to conflicting stories divided along partisan lines. Witnesses from Morrisons regiment gave testimony that supported him, while Barretts officers recounted versions that flattered their leader. Even Colonel Ford appeared on Morrisons behalf, offering the embarrassing information that Barrett had fled before a force barely half the size of his own. Despite lax discipline in the 34th and the relative disorder of its retreat, the court refused to convict Morrison on a single charge or specification.

Apparently by virtue of overweening ambition, Colonel Barrett had initiated a perfectly unnecessary battle. Through his incompetence, he had given the dying Confederacy the satisfaction of claiming victory in the last battle of the war.

This article was written by William Marvel and originally published in the February 2006 issue of Civil War Times Magazine.

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By Robert C. Cheeks

Mr. Millers humble cornfield near Antietam Creek became the unlikely setting for perhaps the worst fighting of the entire Civil War.

On Sunday night, September 14, 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee issued orders for his much scattered commands to rally at Sharpsburg, Maryland. His ambitious plans to cut the railroad bridge near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had been thwarted by Major General George McClellans unusually quick response to his raid into Maryland. Lees Army of Northern Virginia, thinly spread across south-central Maryland and northeastern Virginia, faced the very real threat of being beaten in detail.

All spring and summer the Confederate Army had stymied its blue-frocked adversaries, first in the Peninsula Campaign, where McClellans Army of the Potomac was repulsed before Richmond, and then during the summer at Cedar Mountain and Second Manassas, where Maj. Gen. John Popes ill-starred Army of Virginia was routed by the swift-marching Rebels.

Now it was Lee who was caught short. Major Generals James Longstreet and D.H. Hill had barely held the passes on South Mountain two days earlier; the heroism of their worn and hungry troops had given Lee time to reunite his army. It was an urgent matter that required Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson to march his command all night from Harpers Ferry. It was a hard march that left stragglers all the way from Harpers Ferry to Sharpsburgeven Stonewall referred to it as severe.

The divisions of Longstreet and Hill had arrived first and established their lines on what would be the Confederate right, due west of Antietam Creek and east of Sharpsburg. Major General Lafayette McLaws division from Longstreets command, assigned to Jackson for the Harpers Ferry siege, had been forced to turn and fight Maj. Gen. William B. Franklins VI Corps at Cramptons Gap; as a result his division would be late in arriving. Major General A.P. Hills famed Light Division had been assigned the responsibility of paroling Federal prisoners taken at Harpers Ferry and shipping captured war materiel south. It seemed doubtful the division would be able to make it up the following day.

On the morning of Tuesday, September 16, McClellan had nearly 60,000 soldiers facing Lees 15,000. His heavy 20-pound Parrott rifles were sending case shot across the creek, feeling out the enemy. As Longstreet ordered a vigorous response more for bluff than effectLee realized his one chance for salvation lay with McClellans reverting to his old, timid behavior. McClellan did not disappoint him. Across the creek, the commander of the Federal Army rode about on his horse, Dan Webster, taking the salutes of his admiring infantry and superbly equipped artillery. His boys would pay dearly for their generals indecisiveness.

By noon, Jackson and Brig. Gen. John Walker began to arrive, taking up the Confederate line on the left along the Hagerstown Pike near Dunker Church, north of town, then sweeping southeasterly to a worn farm lane on the Mumma property a mile away. The rest of the afternoon, well into the evening, Confederate stragglers came in. Neither slackers nor deserters, these were the sick and starving who had been unable to keep up with the swift-marching columns.

Lees ranks had been thinned by casualties, sickness and large-scale desertions, but he had the advantage of position. Hed selected an excellent defensive field in which to fight. The lay of the land permitted the Rebels the opportunity to transfer troops under cover and allowed them to select the most advantageous artillery positions.

On the left flank, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. (Jeb) Stuart placed Brig. Gen. Fitz Lees cavalry brigade with his three batteries of Captain John Pelhams Horse Artillery and three additional batteries on an unpretentious hillock known locally as Nicodemus Hill. East of the Hagerstown Pike, Brig. Gen. Evander M. Laws brigade had taken position in the East Woods. Law sent his videttes well to the north and east, keeping a close eye on the Upper Bridge.

By 10 p.m. the artillery fire had nearly ceased, and only intermittent musketry ravaged the night air. Just after midnight it began to rain, a drizzle at first, then a cloudburst that drenched both armies and made everyone miserable. However, the men of Brig. Gen. John Bell Hoods division were elated; they had been given permission to withdraw to the West Woods and cook rations. It would be the first time in nearly three days that the case-hardened soldiers would have the opportunity to eat a warm meal.

Throughout the night, the sudden flash of musketry or the roar of cannon deprived everyone of a decent nights rest. The opposing soldiers made peace with their God, wrote letters to loved ones, and waited. The battle would be joined in the morning.

Between the two armies lay a cornfield owned by David R. Miller. The cornstalks were turning from green to brown, ready to be harvested, 30 acres of corn fodder for Millers cattle, perhaps a cash crop that would provide a few of the essentials for his family. Whatever plans Miller had for his corn were destined to go awry; his cornfield would soon be transformed into an altar where men in blue and gray would sacrifice their all for honor, duty, and love of regiment.

Fog shrouded the field the next morning, and artillerists on both sides had to wait until the rising sun had burnt off enough fog to permit sighting. Just after dawn, the Confederate guns at Dunker Church, Nicodemus Hill and the North Woods, and the Federal reserve artillery across Antietam Creek, opened with a cacophonous roar, sounding the knell for Americas bloodiest day.

Brigadier General A.R. Lawtons division had replaced Hood during the night; to his left, Brig. Gen. John R. Jones soldiers took up the line sweeping across the cornfield and Hagerstown Pike into the northern tip of the West Woods. Jacksons nearly 8,000 troops were evenly matched with Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hookers 8,500 effectivesthe Confederate advantage lay with their artillery. Pelhams guns on Nicodemus Hill could take any massed infantry moving south out of the North Woods in a murderous flanking fire. Colonel S.D. Lees guns at Dunker Church would be able to strike them head-on, and both positions would easily be able to bracket any troops within the area of the cornfield. Jackson was quick to understand the importance of Nicodemus Hill and ordered Brig. Gen. Jubal Early to move his brigade in support of the artillery.

The rattle of skirmish fire and the thunderous roar of salvos fired by battalion filled the air as the Union I Corps entered the North Woods. Brigadier General Abner Doubledays 1st Division followed his 4th Brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. John Gibbon, moving parallel with the Hagerstown Pike. On his left, Brig. Gen. James B. Ricketts 2nd Division followed the 1st Brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Abram Duryea. Immediately in the rear, Brig. Gen. George Meades 3rd Division stood ready to support the advance.

Pelhams canoneers quickly got the range on Gibbons leading regiments. The 6th Wisconsin began taking heavy fire; a shell burst among the ranks, killing two men and knocking down 11 others. The regiment never faltered, however, closing ranks and continuing forward. Just south of their position, Hooker had detected the flash of sunlight reflecting off bayonets and ordered up two batteries of Federal artillery. Battery F, 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery, and the Independent Pennsylvania Battery each boasted four 3-inch rifled guns. Lawtons and Jones skirmish line opened on the cannoneers with galling and accurate musket fire that dropped horses and men with fearful rapidity.

Still, the two Federal batteries threw back the Rebel skirmish line, leaving mangled corpses and wounded scattered throughout the cornfield. The way had been cleared, or so the Federal infantry hoped, for an advance, and the order to go forward was sounded by buglers and drummers. Regimental color companies with their prized battle flags took the lead, while taut-faced infantrymen with their kepis and slouch hats pushed hard against their heads, marched deliberately across Mr. Millers clover field toward the cornfield and their destiny.

On the right, Gibbon had maneuvered the 4th Brigade, the famed Iron Brigade, into an assault formation, with the 6th and 2nd Wisconsin leading and the 7th and 19th Indiana in close support. On Gibbons left, Duryeas brigade debouched from the North Woods nearly at the same time, moving across the clover field purposefully, taking incoming shells and musketry, but still advancing.

Stonewall Jackson faced the foe with only Hoods division as reserve. In permitting Hoods withdrawal from the line during the night, Jackson had secured a promise from the brigadier that his command would come without delay when summoned. East of the Hagerstown Pike, Lawtons brigade of Georgians, commanded by Colonel Marcellus Douglas, followed by Brig. Gen. Harry Hays five Louisiana regiments, swept across the southern section of the cornfield toward the Smoketown Road, where Brig. Gen. Issac Trimbles brigade, commanded by Colonel James A. Walker, held the line all the way to the Mumma Farm Lane. West of the pike, Colonel A.J. Grigsbys brigade formed a line running west toward the Potomac River, with Colonel B.T. Johnsons brigade on their left.

The front ranks of Duryeas Federal brigade came on steadily through the cornfield, with their muskets leveled at the waist. The rear ranks carried their rifles over their shoulders to prevent injuring those in front. All plodded forward with a determination that impressed their Southern foes. Colonel Walter Phelps 1st Brigade was closing fast on Gibbons boys and the massed Federal formations were easy targets for the Confederate artillery that had long since bracketed the cornfield. The Union soldiers moved forward, heads bent against the torrent of shells and musketry being poured into them, their regimental flags being shot to pieces and friends and messmates knocked down with every step.

Duryeas three regiments made for the cornfields southern edge, wavering with each incoming volley fired into them by the Rebels. Suddenly, Lawtons troops rose up en masse and fired point-blank into their thinned ranks. The Federals staggered to the left and made for the fence along the Smoketown Road. But Duryeas brigade was already used up. In its 20-minute journey through the cornfield, the brigade had lost nearly 300 men.

Lieutenant Colonel Edward Braggs 6th Wisconsin straddled the pike, with five companies on the west side of the road and the remainder spread eastward. The two Rebel brigades on their right opened a deadly enfilade fire that swept the ranks of Braggs exposed troopers. The Southerners were fighting desperately for control of the cornfield. Confederates, individually and in groups, crept through the bloodstained stubble, fog and battlesmoke, laying ambushes, killing at point-blank range, and escaping into the gray-white mist to repeat their deadly game. The fighting became frenzied, neither side knowing when the enemy might suddenly appear out of the fog.

The heavy, close-in fighting completely halted Gibbons advance. Jones and Grigsbys brigades moved left and charged to the west side of the pike fence, firing volleys into the 6th Wisconsins exposed flank and the forward position of the 2nd Wisconsin. Across the road, in the northern portion of the West Woods, the 7th Wisconsin and 19th Indiana saw their comrades predicament and poured a devastating fire into the Confederates. The gray lines were swept with heavy musket and cannon fire. The two Rebel brigades quickly deteriorated, struck from three sides by musketry and artillery, and the order to withdraw was quickly given and carried out.

First Division commander Abner Doubleday ordered Brig. Gen. Marsena Patrick to move his brigade across the pike and drive into the West Woods. As the movement was being made, Patrick picked up the 7th Wisconsin and 19th Indiana, adding weight to the assault.

Jacksons left and center were in imminent danger of collapse. At great sacrifice, Doubledays 1st Division had punched a salient in Jacksons line, its epicenter in the southwest corner of the cornfield. While this looked propitious to McClellan and his staff as they watched through binoculars from the Pry House across the creek, the fact remained that the Federal position within the salient had not been solidified, and four Confederate brigades were still putting up a stiff resistance.

The fighting in the southwest corner of the cornfield became desperate. The pockets and cartridge pouches of the dead and wounded were ransacked, and soldiers handed muskets to those with better shots at the enemy. The smoke, heat and roar of battle deluged the senses, obliterating all rational thought. Men laughed and giggled, screamed and cried. All sense of time was lost, and even the desire for survival was set aside. All that mattered now was the regiment and its colors.

Lieutenant Colonel Bragg was hit by musketry and severely wounded. Command of the 6th Wisconsin devolved on Major Rufus Dawes, a native of Marietta, Ohio, and a fighting officer if ever there was one. On Dawes left, Duryeas brigade was pulling back from the fence along Smoketown Road through the cornfieldGibbons flank was in the air. Phelps 1st Brigade moved up in close support of Gibbon as the Iron Brigade wheeled through the bloodstained cornfield parallel with Hagerstown Pike and swept the brave remnant of Jones and Grigsbys Confederates with a deadly fire. The hard-hit Rebels broke and ran the Union gauntlet toward sanctuary in the West Woods.

Across Hagerstown Pike, Jackson sat on his horse in perfect Christian peace as bullets and shell fragments whizzed and whined about him. Couriers and staff officers ran to and from their commander as he sat immobile, seemingly immune to human frailties. Hood would have to go inhe was the only reserve available.

Lawton ordered Hays brigade into the gap left by Duryeas withdrawal. Hays men plowed through the cornfield and fired an enfilading volley into the thinning ranks of the 2nd and 6th Wisconsin. The combined efforts of Hays and Lawtons infantry halted the Federal advance and stabilized Jacksons front.

Hays Louisiana Brigade had done its usual ferocious fighting in support of Lawton, but their right-wheel maneuver had exposed their right flank and the fighting had depleted their ammunition pouches. The brigade was helpless when Colonel Richard Coulters 3rd Brigade came storming out of the corn stubble, too late to help Duryea, but determined to sweep the field of Rebels. The Federals opening volley hit Hays line, piling corpses one atop the other. One of the casualties was Colonel Henry Strong, commanding the 6th Louisiana, who was killed while mounted on his beautiful horse. An officer running to his assistance was hit twice, and the command was forced to withdraw, leaving the colonels body and possessions behind. A Union infantryman commandeered the colonels gloves, and following the battle Alexander Gardner, famed Civil War photographer, captured the colonels dead horse for posterity.

It was now just before 7 a.m. Doubledays 1st Division had been halted on the south end of the cornfield near Hagerstown Pike, while on his left Ricketts 2nd Division was being fed into the battle piecemeal and taking a terrible pounding from the Confederates whod been able to rush troops to trouble spots.

Smoke from the artillery and musketry inundated the field. Soldiers in the thick of the fight were covered with the black, greasy stain of burnt powder, which gave a deadly, ghostlike appearance to the participants. The pungent smell of trampled vegetation, sweat, powder and bodies imposed a surrealistic perception that survivors carried with them the rest of their lives.

Above Dunker Church all that was left of Jacksons line was a remnant of the old, trusted Stonewall Brigade, under the watchful eye of Old Jack himself. The division commander, General Jones, was with the brigade, trying desperately to hold when he was wounded by shrapnel, and command of the division devolved on Brig. Gen. William E. Starke. Starke was moving his brigade out of the West Woods in support of Jackson when he was mortally wounded, and command of the division devolved in turn on Colonel Grigsby. The assault of the two Confederate brigades petered out under a hail of shot and ball on the west side of the pike, where the infantrymen formed behind the fence bordering the road. They fell there by the score, and within a short time their position became untenable and they withdrew into the West Woods.

Gibbons and Phelps men had checked the Rebel thrust into their flank, but had taken severe losses in return. Now they too were low on ammunition and forced to scour the cartridge pouches of the dead and wounded. Doubledays entire division was nearly used up, and supports were not at hand.

Deep in the West Woods, Hoods little division was still busy preparing rations. Normally this wasnt an unusual act for Civil War soldiers, especially Rebels, but these men were literally starving. Pressed by forced marches and heavy fighting the past few days, the division had long since eaten up all their victuals and were now about as hungry as heavily armed men could get. But Hood had given his word to Jackson to bring up the command as soon as the request was made and now Jackson was calling. Hood gave the order and the two brigades began to re-form. Men threw down half-cooked pones and bacon or shoved the beginnings of greasy fatback biscuits into their mouths as they moved out.

Hoods 2,300 men swarmed into the field north of their position at Dunker Church. They halted momentarily and volleyed into Gibbons line, reloaded and fired again. Hoods appearance on the field broke the Federals back, and they began to withdraw. The bravest gathered up wounded messmates and fallen battle flags and returned fire as best they could. Evander Laws brigade swept northeastward with its right anchored on Smoketown Road by the 4th Alabama. On Laws left and rear, Colonel William T. Woffords renowned Texas Brigade came on with two regiments, picking off fleeing Yankees while the 18th Georgia, 1st Texas and Hamptons Legion charged due north, firing into the enemy as they came.

On the east side of the cornfield the two Union brigades were in full retreat. The 12th Massachusetts, which had fought bravely, took a staggering 67 percent casualties in less than 30 minutes. I Corps gains had been swiftly wiped out, and all that stood between it and annihilation was Meades 3rd Division.

Hurriedly, Meade got Robert Andersons 3rd Brigade formed along a fence north of the cornfield, with its muskets resting on the bottom rail, just as Hood was ordering Colonel P.A. Works 1st Texas over to the left to support Hamptons Legion. Works soon lost control of the 1st Texas as the men outraced the line and charged straight for Andersons position. As the Texans cleared the battle smoke, Anderson ordered, Fire! and the brigades musketry swept the Texans with deadly accuracy, while Union 12-pounders struck them on the flank, halting the charge and driving them to ground.

Meanwhile, north of the cornfield, Major Dawes was busy rallying the survivors of his beloved 6th Wisconsin. The regimental colors were brought up, the line eagerly formed, and the men sent forward on the double-quick. Dawes charge cleared the Texans, who had advanced to within 45 feet of the Union guns, and he ordered several to stay and help the artillerists while the 6th moved on toward the pike. Meade got his remaining two brigades, Colonel Thomas Gallaghers 3rd and Colonel Albert Magiltons 2nd, in line and pushed them straight for the 1st Texas. A few hundred yards southwest, someone retrieved the four Federal regiments that 30 minutes earlier had sallied into the West Woods, and directed them toward the left flank. The 7th Wisconsin and 19th Indiana led the assault, supported by the 35th and 21st New York. Their combined musketry soon swept the left flank of the 18th Georgia, Hamptons Legion and the 4th Texas.

On the northwest corner of the cornfield, the 1st Texas lay dying. The regiments casualties were fast approaching 50 percent as the Texans rose up and fired, point-blank, into the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves. The entire color guard was shot down, while all along their line Rebel artillery walked salvos of case shot. The Federal line buckled and swayed but somehow kept coming, closing over their dead and wounded, pressed by the screams of those closing up their files. Nearly out of ammunition, Work tried to get permission from Hood to withdraw, but couldnt reach him.

Work could see that his supports were under attack and withdrawing and that if he was going to get out at all it would have to be now. He gave the order just as the 9th, 11th and 12th Pennsylvania Reserves fired a volley into his decimated line. Of the 226 soldiers hed led in the assault, 186 had fallen dead or wounded within 45 minutes. South of his position, the 18th Georgia, Hamptons Legion and the 4th Texas were also quitting the field. The command had given all that they hadof the 858 effectives in the Texas Brigade, 472 would be listed as casualties in what may well have been the grandest charge of the entire war.

The fearless Butternuts of the 6th North Carolina, the famed Bloody Sixth, held the Confederate right, anchored in the northeastern portion of the East Woods. Hidden in the bushes and among the trees, the 6th awaited the fast approaching 8th Pennsylvania Reserves and at a range of 30 feet opened a fusillade that swept the Pennsylvanians ranks and knocked down half the regiment. The Federal assault was quickly renewed, and Laws left was uncovered, rendering his line untenable and forcing his withdrawal. With Laws retreat the cornfield was ceded to the I Corps.

Both Jackson and Hooker had one brigade left that hadnt been heavily usedbeyond that the flower of their commands lay strewn among the blood-splattered corn stubble, the fields north and south of the cornfield, the Hagerstown Pike and the East Woods. The field of honor had become a sacrificial slaughter pen, with the cornfield as its gory hub.

Major General Joseph K.F. Mansfield had officially taken over command of the Union XII Corps two days earlier. The corps, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks old command, had suffered mightily at the hands of Jackson a few months earlier in the Shenandoah Valley, and its losses had been made up with green regiments, some with only 30 days training, and most from Pennsylvania.

While Mansfield slowly maneuvered the corps toward the front, General D.H. Hill, commanding the Confederate center, led Brig. Gen. Roswell Ripleys brigade into the void created by the withdrawl of Hoods decimated division. In the East Woods, the Confederates had a hodgepodge collection of regiments waiting in ambush for any unsuspecting Federals who might wander into their field of fire. They didnt have to wait long.

Brigadier General Alpheus Williams 1st Division led the advance, followed by Brig. Gen. George S. Greenes 2nd Division. Mansfield had the corps marching in columns of division, which allowed for swift movement but left the command practically defenseless in the face of attack. Williams split his division, sending Brig. Gen. Samuel Crawfords 1st Brigade due south toward the East Woods and Brig. Gen. George Gordons 3rd Brigade toward the North Woods.

Crawfords six regiments pressed toward the East Woods. The 124th New York, one of the raw regiments, inadvertently moved westward and lost touch with the rest of the brigade. The 10th Maine, a veteran outfit, held the lead, and though still in column was returning fire on Rebel skirmishers busily harassing their every step. The ubiquitous Joe Hooker came riding up and shouted to Colonel George Beal, commanding the 10th, that they must hold the woods at all costs. Immediately, Beal disobeyed Mansfields order to stay in column and ordered the command to advance by regimental front.

The Rebels challenging Beals 10th Maine were from the 21st Georgia, commanded by Captain James Nisbet. Nisbets plan was to fire and fall back, drawing the 10th into an ambush. Accordingly, the 10th was drawn into a slight depression when all of the Georgians muskets cracked in the sultry morning air, driving the New Englanders into the ground and halting their advance. Meanwhile, the rest of Crawfords brigade pressed on.

The 46th Pennsylvania and 28th New York debouched from the East Woods just above the fighting and poured into Millers field, while the 128th Pennsylvania, yet another green regiment, came up on the right.

Just as the 128th broke through the tree line of the East Woods, the 4th Alabama poured a devastating fire into their ranks, killing their colonel and second-in-command. Leaderless and in combat for the first time, the Pennsylvanians milled aimlessly about the field, taking killing fire.

At the same time, Ripley got his entire brigade into line of battle after theyd moved north of Smoketown Road. They were moving at the double-quick, making for the southern end of the cornfield, when four Union regiments, the 27th Indiana, 2nd Massachusetts, Pennsylvania Zouaves dAfrique and 3rd Wisconsin, halted on the northern edge of the cornfield and waited for the 128th Pennsylvania to clear their field of fire. Ripleys left opened first, driving the remnant of the 19th Indiana northward along Hagerstown Pike and killing the regiments commander, Lt. Col. Alois Bachman.

Ripleys assault struck Meades Pennsylvanians and initially drove them back. But Ripleys right was exposed in the attack, and Crawfords 12th Corps brigade fired coordinated volleys into his exposed flank, splintering and fragmenting the attack. Williams and officers from other regiments finally got the 128th Pennsylvania into a good line, and when the 3rd North Carolina advanced on them the soldiers, just a few weeks from civilian life, opened fire, sweeping the Rebel line with accurate and murderous musketry.

On the 128ths left, among the trees and bushes of the East Woods, the 10th Maine was making headway. Fighting with an open front, advancing a few feet at a time, the New Englanders were having some success shoving the three Confederate regiments out of the woods. Captain Ike Turner, commanding the 5th Texas, tried unsuccessfully to get reinforcements or else obtain permission to withdraw from the woods, but could not reach Hood. Meanwhile, the 4th Alabama shot off its last rounds and made for the safety of the West Woods, while the 6th North Carolina moved into position to the left of the 21st Georgia, still contesting the Federal advance.

After leading Ripleys brigade into the cornfield, D.H. Hill returned to the Mumma Farm Lane and ordered Colonel Alfred Colquitts brigade into the battle. As Colquitts fine brigade, flushed with victory over Gibbons Iron Brigade two days earlier at Turners Gap, advanced through the cornfield in support of Ripley, Colonel D.K. McRaes brigade moved northward parallel to the East Woods, firing as it advanced. Just as McRaes men entered the cornfield, the 28th Pennsylvania emerged from the woods and swept McRaes line with a devastating enfilading fire. McRae reported that this produced great confusion. . . it [the brigade] commenced to break and a general panic ensued.

In the meantime, Colquitts infantry was fully engaged. Most of Ripleys brigade had been knocked down or forced from the field. Two regiments, the 1st and 3rd North Carolina, remained intact, supporting Colquitt and allowing him time to prepare the charge. The colonel got his lines dressed under a murderous crossfire and ordered the command forward. The charge swept northwesterly across the cornfield, picking up speed and ferocity as soldiers were cut down by ball and shell. The battle lines closed over the fallen as the colors moved across the bloodstained cornfield.

On Colquitts left, the 13th Alabama struck the 124th Pennsylvania, while on his right the 6th Georgia collided with the 5th Ohio. The Ohioans and Georgians piled into each other so swiftly and furiously that after firing off a round they grappled with muskets, knives and fists. The Ohioans prevailed, driving the Georgians out of the East Woods and into the eastern portion of the cornfield. The 7th and 66th Ohio advanced with the 5th as Colquitts line passed across their front.

The 2nd Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Zouaves dAfrique, posted at the Miller Farm, now formed a line just south of Millers backyard and went on the double-quick into the smoke-filled cornfield. On their left, the 3rd Wisconsin and 27th Indiana were hit with well-aimed musketry by the 27th Georgia, but held their line and advanced with the Zouaves.

Not only had Colquitts charge been broken, but now he was hard pressed on his front. Unsupported, its ranks being thinned every second, Collquitts brigade was deprived of choices. The matter became a question solely of survival, and the Southerners broke into small groups and ran the gauntlet in much the same manner as their fellow Confederates had done earlier. Tears of rage and frustration streamed down Colquitts cheeks, but to no avail. The rout could not be halted. They had given their all, just as their predecessors had, but the Army of the Potomac had finally seized Mr. Millers cornfield.

Lisbon, Ohio, native Robert Cheeks writes frequently on the war in the East. For further reading, see Stephen Sears Landscape Turned Red or John M. Priests Antietam: The Soldiers Battle.

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The men carrying their briefcases through Washington, D.C.s National Airport one day in 1965 appeared to be ordinary travelers. They werent. Unnoticed by the other people in the airport, these men were surreptitiously spraying bacteria into the air. On another occasion, in New York City, a group smashed lightbulbs filled with bacteria on subway tracks. Even the Pentagons air-conditioning system eventually became a target for similar acts.

The men carrying out these missions werent terrorists. They were government personnel conducting secret tests to determine the potential effectiveness of aerially dispersed pathogens by disseminating biological agents they presumed were harmless. Members of the Special Operations Division from the Fort Detrick, Md., biological weapons program conducted more than 200 such tests from 1943 until the mid-1960s. When those experiments became public knowledge in 1977, citizens were outraged that their government had exposed them to live organisms without their consent or knowledge.

One of the principals behind the tests was Dr. Ira L. Baldwin, the man who headed the scientific side of the countrys biological warfare program during World War II. Baldwin seemed like an unlikely germ czar. A plant bacteriologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he had written papers on such topics as The Root Nodule Bacteria of the Leguminosae, a pioneering work on how to use bacteria to increase agricultural productivity.

In 1942, Baldwin, then 47 and the chairman of the universitys bacteriology department, received a call from Colonel William Kabrich, chief of the technical division of the U.S. Armys Chemical Warfare Service, inviting him to a meeting at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. The colonel gave no specifics beforehand, but just said that it involved a matter of national importance.

Baldwin arrived at the meeting to find a group of bacteriologists, most of them experts in medical bacteriology, unlike himself. Kabrich asked the scientists a question: How could you produce tons of live pathogenic microorganisms and maintain their virulence, but not risk the safety of the producers or the surrounding community?

The discussion went around the room. The medical biologists were generally skeptical: Either you couldnt produce the microorganisms in large amounts, or you couldnt culture them safely. Baldwin, experienced at working with fermentation in breweries, disagreed. If you can do it in a test tube, you can do it with a 10,000-gallon tank, with equal safety and perhaps more, he later recalled saying. All you have to do is make the same conditions in a 10,000-gallon tank that you make in a test tube. Ten days later, Baldwin was back in Wisconsin when Kabrich called him again, this time with a request that he lead the countrys scientific effort to find ways to develop, and defend against, biological warfare agents.

Baldwin was the grandson of a Methodist minister, and as a youth he had filled in as preacher at small country churches. Now the colonel was asking him to produce microbes that could kill great numbers of human beings. He made his decision within a day. I think there is no question that the idea of using biological agents to kill people represented a complete shift of thinking, he later said in an interview. But it only took me about 24 hours to think my way through it. After all, the immorality of war is war itself. You start out with the idea in war of killing people, and that to me is the immoral part of it. It doesnt make much difference how you kill them.

Biological warfare is the use of living organisms such as bacteria, viruses or toxins to wage war. Sometimes called the poor mans nuclear weapon, biological agents are relatively easy and inexpensive to produce, yet have potentially devastating results. Among them are anthrax, typhus, cholera and dysentery. Another biological agent is botulinum toxin, described as the most lethal substance in the world. In theory, a single gram of botulinum could kill one million people. The Geneva Convention outlawed the use of biological warfare in 1925, but did not prohibit nations from continuing the production of biological agents. President Richard Nixon ordered the dismantling of the United States offensive biowarfare programs in 1969, but other nations continued theirs. Of greatest concern today are the threats posed by terrorists or by rogue countries such as Saddam Husseins Iraq. (Much of the raw material for Iraqs biological agents came from American companies  at that time the United States was backing Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war.) Iraq has been especially interested in botulinum toxin. After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, United Nations inspectors reported that they could not account for approximately 3 times the amount needed to kill the entire current human population by inhalation, according to a report by the Journal of the American Medical Association. Biological warfare has proved to be a genie that is very difficult to put back into the bottle.

The United States had contemplated the issue of biological warfare even before it entered World War II. In the fall of 1941, Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote, Because of the dangers that might confront this country from potential enemies employing what might be broadly described as biological warfare, it seems advisable that investigations be initiated to survey the present situation and the future possibilities. Britain was already at war, and authorities there feared that Nazi Germany would place deadly organisms in the V-1 buzz bombs that were raining down on that country. (The full extent of Japans biowarfare program, which involved widespread testing on human subjects, did not come to light until after the war.) Spurred on by their fears of Nazi biological attacks, the British launched their own biowarfare program. On the Scottish island of Gruinard, British scientists did such extensive testing of anthrax that the entire island was declared off-limits to the public for decades afterward. But despite its head start, Britain was unable to create the massive quantities of biological agents it wanted.

Once the United States entered the war, Stimson was ready to move forward. There is but one logical course to pursue, he wrote, namely, to study the possibilities of such warfare from every angle, make every preparation for reducing its effectiveness, and thereby reduce the likelihood of its use. With President Franklin Roosevelts authorization, Stimson established a highly secret civilian agency to coordinate government and private efforts for a biological warfare program. The new entity, called the War Research Service, operated under the Federal Security Agency, a New Deal agency within the Department of Agriculture. George W. Merck, the president of Merck Pharmaceutical Company, became its director. In that role, on December 10, 1942, he requested the Chemical Warfare Service to develop the program.

Things moved quickly. By December 21, Baldwin arrived at his new assignment at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, the focal point of the countrys chemical warfare research. He had much to do. First he had to select a suitable site for making deadly bio-organisms, a place that was close to Washington but not too close. Baldwin chose Detrick Field, an abandoned 92-acre airfield outside Frederick, Md., about 50 miles northwest of Washington, that had been used by the Maryland National Guard. The Chemical Warfare Service took possession of the airfield, and Detrick Field became Camp Detrick (and later Fort Detrick).

Baldwin also had to recruit staff, and he drafted some of his University of Wisconsin faculty colleagues and students. If I said, `I want that man, unless the Manhattan Project said they needed him, I got him, he declared.

Most of the individuals serving at Camp Detrick were military personnel, and many of the scientists became commissioned officers. Baldwin was a World War I veteran, but he opted to remain a civilian in WWII. He explained, I used to say that as long as I wore a red necktie I could say no to anybody, but as soon as I put on a uniform, whether it was as a colonel or general or something else, there was always somebody up above that you had to say, `Yes, sir, to. On the other hand, he added: While I could say no to anybody else, as a civilian I couldnt command people under me in the same way that the military could. Still, in a research assignment I never felt that you could accomplish very much by commanding people anyways. Unless you can convince them that what you want done is useful, and this is a suitable main procedure, research people dont accomplish very much.

The staff had an immediate order to fill: Britain had requested seven pounds of dried botulinum toxin. When testing anthrax, the British had used 13-gallon stainless steel milk cans to produce small quantities. The Camp Detrick personnel used a similar production method to fill the British order for botulinum, but on a larger scale. First they erected a temporary tar papercovered shack dubbed Black Maria. It was a first attempt at creating the kind of containment facility that would keep the deadly product from killing its makers or escaping into the environment. The Americans tried to incorporate some of the British techniques, using four 100-gallon reactor tanks connected by piping and valves. Hot steam disinfected the equipment to keep it free of unwanted organisms. The scientists grew the bacteria in a culture media of an extract of pressed corn kernels. It took only two days for bacteria in the tanks to multiply and produce the deadly toxin. Personnel worked around the clock to fill the order. When it was completed, the staff destroyed Black Maria so they could replace it with plants with a larger capacity.

The Detrick complex grew rapidly, eventually encompassing more than 245 structures, including a hospital, firehouse, theater and library. By August 1945, the base held nearly 250 Army officers and 1,457 enlisted Army personnel, 87 naval officers and 475 enlisted naval personnel, and nine civilians.

The facilitys heart was the 50,605-square-foot hangar housing the two plants that made anthrax and botulinum toxins. The larger plant had a 10,000-gallon fermenter and two 3,700-gallon fermenters. Baldwin had been as good as his word: He could indeed produce large quantities of biological agents. Camp personnel also tried to develop munitions that could spread biological agents but with limited success. They ended up using the bombs that the British had developed.

Another side of Camp Detricks work was the development of vaccines and toxoids (a weaker version of a toxin that stimulates defensive measures in the body) to protect against a biological attack. Scientists did find a means to mass-produce a toxoid to protect against botulinum, and by the summer of 1944, they had produced and stored more than 4,000 gallons, a sufficient amount to protect a large number troops. But the means of protecting against many other biological agents remained undiscovered by wars end.

Security and safety were major concerns at Camp Detrick. Fences, towers and floodlights ringed the site, while guards armed with machine guns patrolled the premises. Scientists working in the laboratories kept loaded .45-caliber pistols close by and lived in barracks within the restricted military environment of the camp.

Baldwin was especially proud of the operations safety arrangements. Detrick researchers, in fact, created innovations that became standards in later lab work. Buildings were divided into clean areas, for offices and changing rooms, and hot areas, with airlocks connecting the two sides. Blowers maintained negative air pressure that ensured toxins remained in the hot areas; contaminated air was sterilized with an air incinerator. Vaccines, toxoids, immune sera, penicillin and streptomycin along with leakproof masks helped protect those working with the microorganisms. The carcasses of animals killed during tests  a total of 658,039, including sheep, ferrets, cats, pigs, white mice and guinea pigs  were sterilized with steam in an autoclave, then burned in an incinerator.

One British scientist complained that the safety precautions were excessive. As Ed Regis reported in his book, The Biology of Doom, Baldwin responded: Im not really worried about whether you get killed or not. If you do, well feel sorry about it and well take a couple of hours off and well go to the funeral and well come home and go to work again. But if we get organisms out into the air and Farmer Jones cows over here get anthrax and they die, well have a Congressional investigation that will probably shut down the whole post. So I really am not as much interested in you as I am in protecting the community.

Despite the safety efforts, at least four men died during the years of the project. William Boyles, a 46-year-old microbiologist, died of anthrax on November 25, 1951, and Joel Willard, 53, an electrician, died of anthrax on July 5, 1958, after he entered an infected area to change a lightbulb. A primate infected with the Machupo virus killed animal caretaker Albert Nickel, 53. And a young Army lieutenant died in 1944 when a pump exploded. In 1946, the Army reported that 60 cases had required treatment as a result of accidental exposure to biological agents. But Baldwin pointed out that none of the incidents occurred at a pilot plant, which he said confirmed his statement that you could create the organisms at least as safely there as you could in a lab.

While Camp Detrick remained the center of the research project, Baldwin also needed a site to conduct outdoor tests. In January 1943, he selected Horn Island in the Gulf of Mexico as the testing site for bombs loaded with biological agents. An army of technicians descended on the island to turn it into a testing facility, building 144 structures and a narrow-gauge railroad to transport animals from corrals to the test area. But then the Detrick team learned that for most of the year prevailing winds blew toward the nearby shores of Alabama and Mississippi. As a result, they never tested bacteria on the island, though they did conduct open-air testing of toxins, including botulinum. They also conducted tests at Granite Peak, a 250-square-mile area near the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, activated in June 1944.

Baldwin also needed a full-production facility that could produce large quantities of weapons, including an order for 1 million bombs filled with anthrax, half for the British and half for the United States. The Chemical Warfare Service acquired a former Army ordnance site in Vigo, Ind., in May 1944 and spent about $10 million over the next 18 months to prepare it for manufacturing biological agents. The Vigo plant could have had a production capacity of 240,000 gallons, but the war ended before safety testing was completed at that facility.

By then Baldwin was experiencing friction with the Army brass. General Rollo Ditto had complained that work on the Vigo plant was moving too slowly, and he decided to replace Baldwins engineer with someone who had no biological engineering experience. In response, Baldwin asked to be relieved of technical responsibility for the work. The general backed down somewhat  he sent his personal representative but put him under the direction of Baldwins engineer.

In a history of anthrax research published in 2001, reporter H.P. Albarelli, Jr., wrote that Baldwin also faced increased pressure from the Armys eagerness to increase anthrax production. Baldwin was less than enthusiastic about anthrax as a weapon, as were many of his handpicked scientists, Albarelli wrote. One of the greatest dangers of using anthrax was the bacterias longevity  anthrax spores can remain dormant for decades, as the British learned through their experiences on Gruinard Island. Opposing Baldwin was British bacteriologist Lord Trevor Stamp. Former Camp Detrick researchers who knew Stamp said he was often at odds with Baldwin over anthrax research. Stamp generally won out on most clashes, Albarelli wrote, because he had friends in high places. Among them were members of the military who resented Baldwin because of his civilian status. Finally, in the spring of 1945, Baldwin resigned his position to return to Wisconsin and become dean of the universitys graduate school.

Baldwin stayed active in the biological weapons program. As chairman of the Committee on Biological Warfare, he continued to be concerned that saboteurs might use biological agents against the United States, perhaps by dispersing organisms in the atmosphere. In October 1948, Baldwin issued a report suggesting that ventilating, water supply and subway systems be tested with innocuous organisms to see how environmental conditions would affect them. One of those experiments took place in September 1950, when Army and Navy personnel on a ship about two miles off the coast near San Francisco Bay sprayed two species of bacteria into the air. They used Bacillus globigii because it formed spores similar to anthrax, and Serratia marcescens because its red pigment made it easy to track. After the experiments became public knowledge in 1977, family members of a 75-year-old man who had died of pneumonia at the time of the tests sued the government, arguing that the bacteria had been responsible for his death, but the courts decided in favor of the government. Nevertheless, several of the organisms used in the tests, including Serratia marcescens, then considered harmless, are now believed to occasionally cause infections, especially in people with compromised immune systems.

Although controversial and potentially dangerous, Baldwins work with biological weapons neither harmed his academic career nor affected his health. He died peacefully at his Tucson, Ariz., home in 1999 at the age of 103. His death notices gave little attention to his role in the creation of biological weapons. The University of Wisconsins obituary did not mention that phase of Baldwins career until the seventh paragraph, and then it was only a brief note: He was also among a national group of scientists that began to explore the frontiers of biological warfare.

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The debate remains eternal for devotees of the Civil Wars Eastern and Western theaters: Which event was more significant in the wars outcomethe fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, which gave the Union complete control of the Mississippi River, or General Robert E. Lees setback at Gettysburg one day earlier?

No matter what side of that debate youre on, a visit to Vicksburg National Military Park is a must for any buff. Besides the rich history associated with this charming corner of the country, Vicksburg has perhaps the finest collection of monuments and state memorials of any Civil War battlefield. Plus traveling the parks 16-mile tour route allows visitors to experience the battlefields distinctive topography firsthand.

This guide focuses on the National Military Park itself and sites in and close to the city. A guide to the entire Vicksburg Campaign, which ran from March 29 to July 4, 1863, will appear in a future issue.

The original oak tree at the GrantPemberton Surrender Interview Site somehow survived the 47-day Union siege, but soldiers quickly chopped it apart for souvenirs once an armistice was reached on July 4, 1863. A new oak and an upright 42-pounder siege cannon (left and right, above) mark the site today on what is now known as Pemberton Avenue.

The Shirley House (above, middle), the only extant wartime structure in the park, is being restored and is currently not open to the public. Referred to by troops from both sides as the White House, it served as headquarters for the 45th Illinois Infantry during the siege. Soldiers from the 45th built hundreds of bombproofs around the house to protect them from Confederate artillery fire.

Eminent local sculptor J. Kim Sessums created the new Mississippi African American Monument (above, left), which pays tribute to the contributions of the states black soldiers and citizens during the Civil War. Financed by the state and the city of Vicksburg, the monument was erected on the battlefield in 2004.

USS Cairo, one of the famed Pook Turtle ironclads that patrolled the regions waterways for the Union during the Civil War, was sunk by an electrically detonated mine on December 12, 1862. Pulled from the Yazoo River mud in the early 1960s, the partially restored vessel and thousands of intriguing, well-preserved artifacts are on display in the parks USS Cairo Museum.

The scenic yet solemn Vicksburg National Cemetery (above, right) next to the USS Cairo Museum was established in 1866 to honor Union soldiers who died during the campaign. The remains of only about 5,000 of the 17,000 soldiers buried here have been positively identified. Confederate soldiers who died at Vicksburg are buried in the Cedar Hill Cemetery.
The images of that sad night while I was a cadet at Pennsylvania Military College have never left me.

There is an especially poignant scene about halfway through the 1982 film The Lords of Discipline. Based on the novel of the same name by Pat Conroy, the story is set in a fictionalized southern military college similar to The Citadel in the early to mid-1960s. Intertwined among the plot lines about the cloistered culture of military college life and the desegregation of a venerable and storied institution of the Old South, the Corps of Cadets learns of the death of a recent graduate, an army lieutenant who died in a training accident. Spontaneously the cadets stage a nighttime candlelight vigil outside the home of the dead lieutenants father, who happens to be the schools superintendent. When I first saw this scene in the movie, it jerked me back to an almost parallel scene I was a part of in November 1965. Many similar scenes played out all too many times at the nations military colleges during the years of the Vietnam War.

In the fall of 1965, I had just entered Pennsylvania Military College (PMC), which, like The Citadel, was one of Americas leading state-sponsored or private military schools. Unlike the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, however, cadets at the military colleges pay tuition, room and board.

Like many others attending military colleges, I had tried to get into West Point, but had been unsuccessful. By early November, my classmates and I were struggling to keep our heads above water, trying to survive the combined challenges of the Fourth Class System and our first semester of college-level academics. Reminiscent of West Point, all military colleges have a rigorous initiation system for fourth class cadets, or first-year students, and Pennsylvania Military College was no exception. In fact, The Lords of Discipline fairly accurately portrays the strange and stress-filled lives of typical Rooks at PMC. We were all desperately counting down the days to the Thanksgiving break, when we would get at least a short respite from the pressures.

On one cold and gray afternoon in mid-November, whispered rumors started rippling through the campus. There had just been a huge and dreadful battle fought in Vietnam, one with many casualties. Since most of us aspired to become Army officers, the reality of Vietnam was always out there, but it seemed always to be just over the horizon, a distant and still somewhat vague menace.

It was soon confirmed that one of the casualties was a recent PMC graduate, and it was just not any graduateit was John Lance Jack Geoghegan, who graduated at the head of the Class of 1963. He had been the Cadet First Captain, the top cadet, the graduate with the greatest potential to go the farthest in the Armyall the way to the stars of the general officers ranks even. And now he was dead while still a lieutenant, killed in a far off and obscure sounding place called the Ia Drang Valley.

Though none of us fourth class cadets in the Class of 1969 had known Geoghegan, most of the seniors in the first class knew him well, and all the second class cadets had gone through their own Rook year while he had been the Cadet First Captain, a God-like figure in the self-contained universe of any military college. By that evening, the entire institution was in a collective state of shock. We each silently acknowledged the ultimate reality of the profession of arms. If someone like Jack Geoghegan could buy it, any of us could.

That evening at our usual end-of-the-day march to chow, we shuffled out to our brigade formation positions in the dark and cold. A deathly pall hung over us. The brig-ade was called to attention, and the usual formulaic reports rendered. Then the entire brigade did a left face in unison, but instead of the normal brisk march to the mess hall, we stepped off at the painfully slow mourning march pace of 60 steps per minute, as the cadet bands bass drum beat out the time. We ate in silence that night, staring straight ahead at nothing.

Jack Geoghegan was PMCs first Vietnam casualty. He had been commissioned a second lieutenant and was sent to Vietnam in August 1965. He was just three months into his deployment with the 1st Air Cavalry Divisions 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under Lt. Col. Harold G. Moore, when he was killed. He was an only son and left behind a wife and a 6-month-old daughter.

We pretended to study and sleep that night, but it seemed like the ghosts of the Ia Drang battle were everywhere within the walls of the school. Seventy-nine U.S. soldiers had been killed by the morning of November 16, and 121 wounded. Geoghegan apparently was killed as he tended to the wounds of a comrade, while trying to secure Landing Zone X-Ray, and all but three of his men died that day. The fighting continued, and over the course of the next few days, the PMC cadets closely followed the battles of the Ia Drang Valley. A total of 234 Americans lost their lives in this first large-scale clash between the U.S. forces and North Vietnamese regular units. Before the war ended, too many graduates of PMC and other military institutions such as Vermonts Norwich University, Virginia Military Institute (VMI), The Citadel and West Point would die on the battlefield, too.

Ironically, PMCs last casualty of the Vietnam War was the institution itself. As the war dragged on and became less and less popular, so did all things military in America. By the early 1970s, enrollments were down and all of the traditional military colleges were under severe pressure. Norwich, VMI and The Citadel survived in the long run; PMC did not. In 1972 Americas second- oldest military college disbanded its Corps of Cadets and transformed itself into what today is Widener University.

At Pennsylvania Military College, I didnt make it past that first year. I actually survived the initiation part of it, but the academic piece was a complete disaster by the time June 1966 rolled around. Three months later, I was in Basic Combat Training at Fort Dix, and six months to the day after I had enlisted I stepped off the plane at Bien Hoa. I soon headed down the road for Camp Bearcat to report in to the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry. Somehow I had known that day was coming sooner than later, ever since that cold November night 18 months earlier. I often wonder how my life might have played out if I had graduated with my PMC class and gone to Vietnam as a second lieutenant, much like Jack had, in the early 1970s, rather than as a private in 1967. I got my commission eventually, but it took a long time to get there.

The images of that sad night at PMC have never left me, but I am somewhat ashamed to admit that for an intervening period there I forgot Geoghegans name. Then in 1992, when I read Hal Moores and Joe Galloways great book We Were Soldiers Once.And Young, it all came rushing back to me. Years after that, when I was the editor of Vietnam magazine and when the movie We Were Soldiers came out, I had the privilege of corresponding with Barbara Johns, Jack Geoghegans widow.

I never knew Jack Geoghegan, but his was the first Vietnam War death that touched me personally. It wouldnt be the last.

Maj. Gen. AUS (Ret.) David T. Zabecki, Ph.D., served as a rifleman in Vietnam, has authored numerous books of military history, is editor emeritus of Vietnam magazine and is an honorary senior research fellow in war studies at the University of Birmingham in England.
Tall Tree Tale

When Harold Holzer made his first pilgrimage years ago to the cottage on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., that was President Abraham Lincolns favorite retreat, one living relic seemed to capture the sites original spirit: a gigantic copper beech tree. Standing under the tree was like being in a big hut, says Holzer, author of Where Lincoln Went to Cry. It was a big lush bower with long branches that extended to the ground and had grown their own roots. Eyewitness chronicles describe Lincoln leaning his chair against the trunk of a copper beech and enjoying the shade. When Holzer provided expert commentary for a TV segment Martha Stewart filmed in 2000 at the cottage, the highlight of the show was a maypole dance by schoolchildren around the tree. Stewart also cut sprigs from the branches and invited people to plant Lincoln trees all over the country. A couple years later the tree succumbed to heartrot from invading fungi and was declared unsalvageable. Everybody thought it was a great historical loss, says Holzer. But when experts did ring tests they discovered the beech was not old enough for it to have been the tree Lincoln used for shade. For Holzer, the moral of the story is twofold: What it shows is that historians should stick with what they know. It also suggests that even though we can feel Lincolns presence in the cottage, some mysteries about the details are never going to be solved.
In 1876 the American public was introduced to an astonishing and controversial figure by the name of Madame Loreta Janeta Velazquez. Like so many others, she wrote a Civil War memoir, The Woman in Battle: A Narrative of the Exploits, Adventures, and Travels of Madame Loreta Janeta Velazquez, Otherwise Known as Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, Confederate States Army. Needless to say this was no ordinary war story, for Madame Velazquez claimed to have so fervently supported the Southern cause that she donned the Confederate uniform as Lieutenant Harry Buford and fought at the battles of First Bull Run, Fort Donelson, and Shiloh.

When she wrote her book, Madame Velazquez realized that her disclosures would shock her contemporaries, so she made every attempt to legitimatize her behavior by establishing a notable past and a claim to respectability. She claimed to have descended from an ancient Castilian background and to have as her ancestors both Don Diego Velazquez, the governor of Cuba, and Don Diego Rodriguez Velazquez, the Spanish artist. At the same time, despite her unladylike behavior, she laid claim to genteel sensibilities by maintaining that she was thoroughly shocked by the behavior and language of the soldiers with whom she came in contact. She further protested that although she had posed as a man, she had carefully maintained her womanly reputation unblemished by even a suspicion of impropriety. Having thus refuted the possible charge of being a camp follower rather than a brave soldier, at least in her own mind, she proceeded with her tale.

Madame Velazquez maintained that she had always wished for the privileges and status granted to men and denied to women. Comparing herself to Deborah of the Hebrews and Joan of Arc, she explained her desire for martial adventures by asserting the her girlhood was spent haunted with the idea of being a man. She demonstrated unusual independence for an antebellum adolescent when, at the age of 14, she ran away from her school in New Orleans to marry an American soldier named William. Four years later in 1860 they were in St. Louis mourning the death of their three children. Madame Velazquez was only 18.

When Williams state seceded from the Union, he resigned his commission and joined the Confederate Army. At that point Madame Velazquez again fell victim to her old desire to be a man. Unable to persuade her husband to let her fight for the Confederacy, she simply waited for him to leave, adopted the name Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, was measured for two uniforms by a tailor in Memphis, and proceeded to Arkansas to raise a battalion for the Southern cause. She claimed that she enrolled 236 men in four days and shipped them to Pensacola, Florida, where she presented them to her astonished husband as his to command. Unfortunately he was killed a few days later demonstrating a weapon to his troops. The bereaved widow turned the men over to a friend and proceeded to search for military adventure at the front.

Claiming that she was serving the Confederate Army as an independent, she crossed the South from Virginia to Tennessee searching for a suitable opportunity to display her military talents. After the First Battle of Bull Run she grew weary of camp life and borrowed female attire from a farmers wife so that she could go to Washington, D.C., to gather intelligence for the Southern cause. While in the Capital the soldier-turned-spy claimed to have arranged meetings with Secretary of War Simon Cameron and President Abraham Lincoln.

She finally returned to the South, where she was rewarded for her services by being assigned to the detective corps. But again she grew weary of her assignment and left her duties to go fight in Tennessee. She arrived at Fort Donelson just in time to see it surrendered. After Fort Donelson she was forced to face the possibility that someone would discover her disguise when she was wounded in the foot and examined by an army doctor. Apparently she escaped detection but decided to flee to New Orleans, where ironically she was arrested on suspicion of being a woman in disguise. Once she was released, she said, she enlisted in order to escape from the city. However, Madame Velazquez had no love for the life of a common soldier, so after showing her commission to her commanding officer, she was granted a transfer to the army in east Tennessee.

Surprisingly enough her social life did not suffer from her dual identity. Proudly she said:

All these months that, in a guise of a man, I had been breaking young ladies hearts by my fascinating figure and manner, my own womans heart had an object upon which its affections were bestowed, and I was engaged to be married to a truly noble officer of the Confederate army, who knew me, both as a man and as a woman, but who little suspected that Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, and his intended wife, were one and the same person.

And so the charade continued until April 1862 and the Battle of Shiloh, the scene of her greatest military triumph. Here she found the battalion she had raised in Arkansas and joined them for the fight:

We had not been long engaged before the second lieutenant of the company fell. I immediately stepped into his place, and assumed the command of his men. This action was greeted by a hearty cheer from the entire company, all the veterans of which, knew me, and I took the greeting as an evidence that they were glad to see their original commander with them once more. This cheer from the men was an immense inspiration to me; and the knowledge that not my lover only, but the company which I had myself recruited and thousands of others of the brave boys of our Southern army were watching my actions approvingly, encouraged me to dare everything, and to shrink from nothing to render myself deserving of their praises.

Having fought gallantly the first day, she decided that night to again gather intelligence. Hidden away in the brush she claimed to have spotted General Ulysses S. Grant and to have been close enough to have shot him. But she decided against it. It was too much like murder, she said.

She was wounded by a shell while burying the dead after the battle, and an army doctor discovered her identity. She fled again to New Orleans and was there when Major General Benjamin F. Butler took command of the city in May 1862. Believing that her military career was at an end because too many people now knew her true identity, she gave up her uniform. She bought a British passport from an acquaintance and began her second war career as a drug smuggler, blockade runner, and double agent.

She claimed to have been hired by the authorities in Richmond to serve in the secret service corps and began to travel freely throughout the North as well as the war torn South, pausing only long enough to marry her beloved, Captain Thomas DeCaulp. Widowed shortly after the wedding when her new husband died in a Chattanooga hospital, she traveled north, gained the confidence of Northern officials and was hired by them to search for herself.

During her search she continued to serve the Southern cause by trying to organize a rebellion of Confederate prisoners held in Ohio and Indiana. She also claimed to have stolen electrotype impressions of Northern bond and note plates so that the Confederates could make forgeries. During the last months of the war she claimed to have traveled to Ohio, Canada, London, and Paris. She arrived back in New York City the day after Lees surrender.

She spent a number of months after the war traveling through Europe and the South. She also married for the third time. She and her new husband, a Major Wasson, left the United States as immigrants to Venezuela. But when her husband died in Caracas, she returned to America to convince her friends that immigration was a mistake.

Again she began to travel, this time through the West, stopping long enough in Salt Lake City to have a baby and meet Brigham Young. In Nevada she claimed to have married again for the fourth time to an unnamed gentleman. Then she was off again. With my little baby boy in my arms, I started on a long journey through Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, hoping, perhaps, but scarcely expecting, to find the opportunities which I had failed to find in Utah, Nevada and California.

Her story ends at this point. Her final plea was that the public would buy her book so that she could support her child. She was not ashamed of her behavior and hoped that her conduct would be judged with impartiality and candor and that credit would be given her for integrity of purpose. She offered no apologies for her conduct. I did what I thought to be right, she said, and, while anxious for the good opinion of all honorable and right thinking people, a consciousness of the purity of my motives will be an ample protection against the censure of those who may be disposed to be censorious.

The historical validity of the Velazquez claims remains to be determined. Historians themselves are divided on the issue. Mary Massey in the Bonnet Brigades takes note of the incredible Velazquez claims but maintains that while they are not provable, she could have done some of the things she claimed. Ella Lonn in her book on foreigners in the Confederacy describes Velazquez asstrange and romantic and appears to accept her story as true while at the same time admitting that the only evidence which exists in the matter is The Woman in Battle. Katherine Jones includes an except from the Velazquez book in her two-volume Heroines of Dixie along with unquestionably legitimate memoirs and in that sense leaves the impression that the Velazquez story is as much a historical record as that of Kate Cumming or Mary Boykin Chestnut.

At least one of Madame Velazquez contemporaries challenged her story. In the winter of 1877-78 Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, who was then in New Orleans happened upon The Woman in Battle. After a cursory examination he satisfied himself that the writer of that book, whether man or woman, had never had the adventures therein narrated. Some time later at his hotel he met a man from Richmond who told him that he had met Madame Velazquez on a train and was so intrigued by her story that he had bought her book. Recognizing the book that the man showed to him, Early protested thatshe could not be what she pretended to be. He then pointed outseveral inconsistencies, absurdities, and impossibilities in her narrative in order to prove his point. Subsequently Early had a brief interview with Velazquez after which he was even more convinced that her story was untrue.

In May of 1878 General Early received a letter signed by Madame Velazquez protesting his alleged attempt to injure her book by publicly questioning the truthfulness of her story. She maintained that her view of the war could never be the same as his because they were never in the same position to observe, nor did they ever have access to the same information. I do not pretend, she said in her letter, to know even one truth that transpired upon any one battlefield I served upon. I only endeaver [sic] to give the most important facts that came under my immediate observation.

One of Earlys objections to her story was that she had failed to identify many of the people she talked about, thus making it impossible to check her story. In her letter she explained that she had left out the names in order to condense her manuscript and also had wanted to protect the families of men she claimed were defrauding the government. She then gave as personal references the names of Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, ex-Governor John C. Brown of Tennessee, and Congressman John M. Glover of Missouri, and sent the letter through Congressman William H. Slemons of Tennessee.

Apparently Early did not quite know how to react to her letter. On one hand he was tempted to ignore her and the book as not worthy of comment. But on the other hand he felt that her book was so full of inaccuracies that he had a duty to expose it. So on May 22 he sat down to answer her letter. Directing his comments to Congressmen Slemons, he proceeded to point out inconsistencies in her story page by page. He was incredulous at her recruiting expedition. This battalion has been raised without the instrumentality of the Governor of Arkansas, or of the President of the Confederacy, or without her saying to either as much as, by your leave, and carried just where she thought proper, all the expenses being paid out of her own pocket; though where the money came from is an unsolved mystery. . . .

Later in the letter he says, Her statements about her flitting from one army in the Confederacy to anotherof her being employed as a secret agent, and going on missions for the government to Washington, New York, Havanna [sic], Canada, and always having abundant means provided for her, and of her being in the secret service of the United States at the same time she was in that of the Confederacy are simply incredible.

After exposing a number of other improbabilities, he concluded that the book was untrue and that it could not even be considered good fiction since it libeled Confederate officers as drunken, gasconading brutes and pictured the flower of Southern womanhood as ready to throw themselves into the arms of the dashing Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, and surrender without waiting to be asked, all that is dear to women of virtue.

He apologized for any injury his opinion of the book may have done to Madame Velazquez or her child but added, I cherish most devotedly the character and fame of the Confederate armies, and of the people of the South, especially of the women of the South, and when a book affecting all these is sought to be palmed on the public as true, and bears on its face the evidence of its want of authenticity, then I have the right to speak my opinion and will speak it, whether the author be a man or woman.

Early finished the letter but did not immediately send it to Slemons. He still had not convinced himself that he should answer Velazquez but feared that if he failed to respond, she could say that she had silenced his criticism. After considerable thought Early sought the advice of a friend and sent a copy of the Velazquez letter along with his answer to John R. Tucker, a congressman from Virginia. He asked Tucker to consider his problem and advise him whether or not he should mail his letter to Slemons. Earlys response to Madame Velazquez was never sent and all three letters reside in the Tucker family papers in the Southern Historical Collection at Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Two other of her contemporaries believed her story. Her editor, C. J. Worthington, understandably wrote that he had complete confidence in her veracity.

There are thousands of officers and soldiers who fought in the Confederate armies who can bear testimony, not only to the valor she displayed in battlebut to her integrity, her energy, her ability, and her unblemished reputation. . . that it is a true story in every particular, there are abundant witnesses whose testimony will not be disputed.

Unfortunately for the researcher trying to determine the truth, the value of his testimony as well as his judgment becomes questionable when a few sentences later he described Madame Velazquez as a typical Southern woman of the war period. Anyone who reads her book can clearly see that there was nothing typical about Loreta Velazquez.

A third contemporary source whose testimony is available was a reporter for the New Orleans daily Picayune. His story about her appeared in January of 1867. At that time she had just arrived in New Orleans to serve as an agent for the Venezuelan Emigration Company and was using the name Mary DeCaulp. The article described her adventurous life in some detail, must of it inaccurate if one accepts the story she published nine years later as true. For example, the article asserted that she was a first lieutenant in a Texas cavalry company and mentions nothing about her espionage activities. The reporter also mentioned that he remembered having seen her in New Orleans during the war dressed in a rough gray jacket and pants, the suit rather the worse for wear, with her hair cut short, and supporting a bandaged foot with a crutch of the most primitive pattern. A few sentences later, however, his identification of her became less conclusive when he admitted that Madame Velazquez looked considerably different from the soldier who came to New Orleans during the war.

Contemporaries as well as historians disagree about the truthfulness of the Velazquez story. If they are to base their judgment on the information that can be confirmed we still do not come up with an entirely verifiable story. First of all, her book contains very little factual information. True, she put the right generals at the right place in the right battles, but this kind of information was easily accessible. Even the charges that she made concerning corruption and profiteering are not specific. She included no complete names and spoke only in vague generalities. Most of the individuals in her book have only a first or a last name. Even though she married four times, she provided us with the full name of only one of her husbands!

One of the few times she gave enough information to allow the researcher to check her story is when she claimed to have enlisted in Captain B. Moses company of the 21st Louisiana Regiment in order to escape from New Orleans after her arrest. This is the only time in her military career that she mentioned serving as something other than an independent who served on her/his own authority and paid most of her own expenses. The National Archives shows no record of such an enlistment. And Dr. Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., of the Archives and Records Service in Baton Rouge has indicated that although Captain B. Moses did command the McClellan Guards of the 21st Louisiana units of the Civil War, Dr. Bergeron also analyzed various references which Madame Velazquez made concerning troops from that state. He found some of her information to be inaccurate. For example, she maintained that the 5th and 8th Louisiana regiments fought at Bull Run. Bergeron points out that the 6th and 8th fought together there. Her assertion about the 5th, which was at the time stationed near Yorktown and Williamsburg, is an obvious error, but the mistake could be attributed to bad memory since she claimed to have written the book without her papers, which had been lost.

Yet her book in some cases contains just enough information to justify Masseys contention that she could have done some of the things she claimed. Velazquez revealed, for example, that one of the names she used in her espionage activities was Mrs. Williams. Massey found evidence that a Mrs. Alice Williams was arrested in Richmond but released after her identity was established and that papers in Richmond lauded her work as a soldier and nurse. Massey also found evidence that a reporter from the New York Herald knew Mrs. Williams as a prisoner in Richmond and wrote about her in an article which appeared in October 1863. We may conclude from this evidence that someone who called herself Alice Williams existed. The War of the Rebellion contains another reference to a Miss Alice Williams who was commissioned in the rebel army as a lieutenant under the name of Buford. Such evidence appears to confirm this claim at least, even this documentation is suspect, however. The letter in The War of the Rebellion was written by Sanford Conover, later revealed as a perjurer and forger.

The war memoir written by Madame Velazquez was certainly more bizarre than most, and at times she tended to stretch her credibility by claiming too much. For example, although officials during the Civil War were far more accessible to the general public than is the case today, she maintained that within the span of four years and in the middle of a bloody war she had personal access to such Southern and Northern officials as Leroy P. Walker and Secretary of War Simon Cameron, Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln, a host of generals such as Stonewall Jackson, Leonidas Polk, William Hardee, Benjamin Butler, John Winder, James Longstreet, and William Rosecrans, as well as the governors of Ohio and Indiana and financier James Fisk. This, combined with her claimed astonishing ability to travel throughout the North as well as the South with little or no difficulty, using charm and guile as her most effective passport, is incredible.

One final factor that should be considered is her personal motivation for writing her book. One cannot read it without concluding that she was at the very least an opportunist. She admitted that her reasons for writing the book were pecuniary rather than patriotic, educational, or literary. Certainly the character she revealed in her book was capable of taking advantage of a reading public inclined to buy romantic literature. She made no attempt to hide her ability to tell a convincing lie and even defended it by saying that lying was as necessary as fighting in warfare. As a double agent her very life depended on her ability to tell a believable lie. Thus she was quite capable of using her wits and the gullibility of her readers in order to support herself and her child.

In the end we will probably never know conclusively if Madame Loreta Janeta Velazquez was a brave soldier and spy or merely a literary opportunistor both. If we assume that all of her claims must be confirmed by other evidence in order to be judged true, then we must conclude that much of her story is untrue simply because there is not enough evidence available to substantiate it. And since in every lie there is usually a seed of truth, we may definitely assume that Madame Velazquez has expanded on that seed.

This article was written by Sylvia D. Hoffert and originally appeared in the August 1999 issue of Civil War Times magazine.

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Wow! The reality of the war struck me like a brick up the side of my head. Another radio operator, like me, had just been killed; I was going to replace him.

Day One: Arrival in Nam and Hitching to 1/3 Field HeadquartersThis was nothing like I had expected



After a long flight from Okinawa, we landed in Da Nang on April 28, 1968. It was hot and dry, over 100 degrees. I picked up my seabag and was loaded onto a large, open truck for a short drive to the main processing center. Everyone I saw was wearing the standard jungle fatigues and jungle boots; their uniforms looked faded, old and dirty. Compared to them, I looked like a shiny new penny. Within a week, that would all change dramatically.

I was to report to 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division in Quang Tri, wherever that was. I later learned it was the area closest to North Vietnam, along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). I realized the significance of that soon enough. It hardly seemed like a war zone here. Yep, maybe my tour of duty in Vietnam wouldnt be so bad after all, except for the heat.

I was sent back to the airport to board a plane for Quang Tri. I hoped to get a window seat, but all I saw was a C-130 cargo plane. There were no seats and, about 100 of us simply sat in rows on the metal floor. The noise was almost deafening.

We landed in 30 minutes in Dong Ha and were herded to a plywood terminal surrounded by sandbag bunkers. I was told to go out to the road and hitchhike south to Quang Tri. This was nothing like I had expected. Looking east, I saw smoke and red dust rising above the trees. I had to ask someone what it was that I was seeing. It was artillery shells impacting several miles away. In training and drills, I had fired all kinds of weapons, been on all kinds of maneuvers and patrols; but no one had ever mentioned artillery, or any kind of large, crew-served enemy weapons such as rockets and mortars.

Geez, do the North Vietnamese have such weapons? I wondered.

I thought the veterans standing around looked old for young kidsdirty, tired and battle worn. Their uniforms were faded and grungy. Their boots looked like they had walked a thousand miles in them. Can you tell me how to get to 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment in Quang Tri? I asked one of them.

Yeah man, ya wait for a truck or something to come along and ya catch yourself a ride south. Tell the dude to let ya off at Quang Tri base. Thats where 1/3 is, man.

A convoy of big trucks and jeeps came by soon enough, and I stuck out my thumb. A truck stopped.

Where ya headed, man? the driver asked.

Quang Tri Base, I replied.

Hop on.

We passed civilians wearing the traditional black pajamas, sandals and those funny straw hats that looked like a large, wide cone. This was the attire of the peasants and farmers. It was also the common uniform of the Viet Cong. I wondered if some of these civilians were Viet Cong? I hoped notI hadnt even been issued a weapon yet.

The small villages were home to a simple society, and I had to wonder just why these people needed defending. Could communism possibly impact these people in any manner that would pose a threat to the United States? Already I was beginning to search for reasons to be here, justification for the war.

After about 30 minutes, the driver shouted, Quang Tri, man! I threw my bag over my shoulder and was directed to a tent with a sign that said, H & S Company, 1st Bn. 3rd Marines. I handed my personnel records and orders to a man sitting at a makeshift desk.

Lance Corporal Hunt, welcome to 1/3, man. Ill get ya checked in; then you need to go to supply and pick up your equipment. Youll leave your bag there. Itll get stored until your tour of duty is up. Youll be assigned to H & S Company for now. Any questions?

Yes sir, I said. Where is the supply tent?

Come on man, ya know the drill, I aint no officer, I work for a living. Go out the door, turn right, third tent on your right.

At the supply tent, another Marine looked at my orders. Lance Corporal Hunt, 2533 huh? Great, we just had a radio operator killed yesterday, theyll be glad to see you!

Wow! The reality of the war struck me like a brick up the side of my head. I was a 2533, radio and telegraph operator. Another radio operator, like me, had just been killed; I was going to replace him.

I was issued my combat gear: jungle fatigues, jungle boots, OD green T-shirt and skivvies, a jungle hat, helmet, four canteens, web belt, medical bandage, gas mask, an M-16 with two bandoliers of ammunition and three hand grenades. I headed outside to find my new sleeping quarters and get settled. I found a tent with about a dozen other Marines in it, relieved to see that I wasnt the only FNG (fucking new guy) here. I dropped my gear, introduced myself (as if somebody really cared) and tried to find out what was going on.

Our unit was in a firefight in the village of Dai Do along Song Bo Dieu, a branch of the Cua Viet River. One company had been overrun, and other units were involved in the fight. The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) wanted to control the river so it could then move in and take Dong Ha and eventually move on Quang Tri, the provincial capital.

This was a major battle, and we were outnumbered by the 320th NVA Division. I kept thinking about the dead radioman I was replacing. I recalled what they said in radio school: The life expectancy of a radio operator in a firefight is 15 seconds. That big antenna sticking high in the air was a dead giveaway, like a big arrow pointing downward saying, Here I am, shoot me!

The next day, April 29, three of us were told to go back to the road and hitchhike to the bridge over the Song Do Dieu, where Routes 9 and 1 intersect, and catch a Navy boat to 1/3 field headquarters at Thon Lap Thach village. We were told we wouldnt be coming back for a good while. I was surprised that no other experienced Marine would be with us to tell us what to do and when to do it. We were totally on our own.

At the dock, we waited and waited for the Navy boatand not without some excitement. In the early afternoon, small-arms fire from a tree line on the opposite side of the river broke out, and we scrambled to a nearby bunker. Some of the more seasoned guys at the dock laughed it off and made some comment about Charlie being a poor shot. Later a mortar slammed into a track vehicle about 50 meters away. I dove for the ground and covered my head with my hands, as if that would protect me.

I had survived my first encounter with real enemy fire. This was just my first couple of days in Vietnam. How was I ever going to survive 13 months of this?

As the day drew to an end, and no boat arrived, we decided to catch a ride back to battalion headquarters, where no one seemed surprised to see us.

Day Three: Getting the Hang of Being a One Four Man, Part of Tactical Air Control I Felt Proud

The next day, the gunnery sergeant ordered us back to the dock, where I was astonished to see a 10-foot john boat with a small gas motor, skippered by a long-haired Marine in a camouflage jungle hat, waiting for us.

Listen up! he shouted. Unstrap your helmets and lock and load your weapon. If the boat capsizes, get rid of your helmet immediately; the weight of the damn thing will drown you. But hang on to your weapon, you just might need it. Swim to the southern shore because Charlie is on the north shore. Any questions?

Yeah, which is the southern shore? I asked.

Its on your right as we head down river. Mount up!

The helmet will drown me, swim to the southern shore, Charlies on the north shore (and who is Charlie anyway?). This doesnt sound good.

I unstrapped my helmet and put a fully loaded magazine into my new M-16. It seemed strange to chamber a round and click the safety off. The only time I had ever done that before was on a supervised firing range.

We zigzagged down river for 15 minutes, the small motor racing at full speed. I crouched low in the boat, feeling like a mouse being sent into a cage full of lions.

As we slowed along the southern shore, I could see a village through the woods ahead, some bamboo hooches and a small stone pagoda. As several men ran out to help us off the boat, bullets began flying by my head, and I heard the distinct crack of AK-47s. A Marine motioned me to grab his hand so he could pull me out of the boat, but in an instant I saw him jerk backwards and realized he had been hit. I sprang from the boat and ran toward the village, bullets kicking up dirt all around me.

Corpsman up, corpsman up! a Marine shouted.

I reached the pagoda and dived behind it. The others followed, dragging the bleeding and unconscious Marine to safety. The corpsman ran to his side, and I sat frozen watching the doc do his job. He was no older than me, but he displayed the skills of an educated doctor. The bullet had only grazed the Marines helmet, not penetrated it. The steel pot had saved his life, and I was relieved to know that some of this heavy equipment really did work.

One four man up! the corpsman shouted.

Another Marine ran to the injured mans side, a radio operator.

I need a routine medevac, Ive gotta get this man to an aid station.

Candy Tuff one four, this is Bravo one four, over.

Bravo, Candy Tuff, over.

Roger, I need a routine medevac, over.

Roger, routine medevac, out.

Now that was more like the teamwork I had been taught back in infantry training. Both men clearly knew what they were doing, no officers or noncoms telling them what to do. I was impressed.

A few minutes later a mechanized vehicle with a 50-caliber machine gun rolled up to carry us to the battalion field headquarters. I reported for duty and was sent to the communications (commo) section, which consisted of several radio operators and a few officers. The air liaison officer told me that I would be a part of the tactical air control (TAC) party. A sergeant named Ralph Gordon would train me to be a one four man.

I had heard that term earlier. It was what the doc had called the radio operator. The one four man had radioed for a medevac chopper to get the injured Marine flown out to an aid station. So thats what I would be doing here.

Tactical air control was a vital support function in the Marine line company. It was the one four man who brought in the medevac and resupply choppers, and who controlled the airstrikes with the aid of an aerial observer (AO). The one four man was responsible for telling the AO where the lead friendly elements were and where the enemy was. This required him to be close to those elements and to have radio communications with them.

The one four man had to know the different types of ordnance used by the fixed-wing aircraft that flew support, as well as the ordnance carried by the UH-1 or Huey helicopters and gunships. He had to know the bursting radius of these ordnances and had to decide which was best suited for the particular combat situation. It had to be effective on the enemy without causing harm to friendlies. This was a lot of responsibility for a young Marine. I felt proud.

The one four man carried a sidearm, usually a .45 pistol, but his real weapon was his radio, the PRC-25. It could transmit and receive up to 21 miles, depending on which antenna was hooked up, either a 3-foot tape antenna or the whip antenna, which could unfold to a maximum length of 15 feet.

Gordon assured me that he would stay with me until he felt that I knew enough about the one four man job to take over on my own.

That night, I stood radio watch and was told to write down everything that came across several radios monitoring the company traffic from the 2/4 Marines. North of the river, 2/4 had been in heavy contact with a large NVA force at Dai Do. The enemy objective was Dong Ha. If they succeeded, the entire I Corps and Quang Tri would be in jeopardy.

Being new in-country, the transmissions about probing of the companys lines, listening posts seeing figures in the dark, and an ambush springing its trap on an unsuspecting enemy squad made little sense to me. I was glad it wasnt me at the other end of those radios. It seemed pretty serious to me, so when the new radio operator came to relieve me in the early morning I carefully briefed him. He shrugged and said, Yeah man, so what else is new?

Day Seven: Seeing Death, Phantoms and NapalmI was suddenly overcome with despair

On May 4, we moved out to Dai Do to relieve 2/4, which had been sent to investigate reports of enemy activity in and around the village. The NVA had built fortified bunkers and tunnels throughout Dai Do and along strategic hedgerows. When the Marines entered the village, the NVA sprang an ambush.

Amtraks ferried us across the Song Bo Dieu, and we formed a single file to move across a barren rice paddy, about 1,000 meters of open terrain before reaching the villages hedgerows and trees.

When I finally entered the village, death was everywheredead Marines, North Vietnamese, animals. I was suddenly overcome with despair, thinking I would never see my own home again. My feelings about the war and our involvement in this conflict became feelings of indifference; my conviction became simply one of survival. Nothing else mattered.

Moving deeper into the village, we came upon a ditch and found 28 dead Marines. Men were dragging them out, placing them in body bags to be evacuated and shipped back home.

Shortly, our column stopped and an aerial observer appeared overhead. Gordon explained it was a Cessna O-1, or Bird Dog, flying recon. The Bird Dog could fly slow enough so the pilot could spot enemy positions, and then he would radio the one four man and ask what type of ordnance might be allowable based on the location of friendly ground troops.

Soon, F-4 Phantoms were circling overhead. The AO fired a white phosphorous rocket (Willie Pete) into the village far ahead of us to mark a target. The first F-4 dropped a couple of large, silvery canisters of napalm that exploded in two huge balls of fire. A second jet swooped in, dropping six bombs, followed by six tremendous explosions. Gordon explained that the napalm caused the gooks to get up and run from the fireball, and then the second jet would drop the 250-pound bombs while the gooks were in the open, killing them all.

After the airstrike, we moved out again. We came across a captain and a gunnery sergeant, tied up in trees, shot in the back of their heads. Their company overrun, these men had been taken prisoner, probably tortured and then murdered.

We soon reached the cratered area where the napalm and bombs had been dropped. Large globs of the burnt napalm lay around the ground, stuck to shattered trees. Debris was everywhere. This would be our command post (CP) for the night. As everyone started digging foxholes, it dawned on me that I had never been trained in how to dig a proper one with an entrenching tool. Exhausted, hot and inexperienced, I dug a shallow hole and called it a day. I soon drifted off to sleep.

I dont know what time it was when the shelling started, but I scrambled to my foxhole and found that my body would not fit into it. I curled up into a fetal position trying to squeeze in. I saw a flash in the northern sky like lightning, and seconds later I heard a very distinctive pop. A 130-millimeter artillery piece was firing a round directly at us from the DMZ. About 15 seconds later, came the screaming freight train sound of the incoming and then the thundering explosion nearby.

Day Eight: Unexpected AdrenalineThis was it, real combat, nothing like the movies

The next morning, we continued our sweep through Dai Do. It appeared that the NVA had left, but I assumed they were probably still close by. A new perimeter was formed and we dug in for the night. I quickly began work digging a bigger foxhole.

Shortly after dark, the northern sky lit up for an instant, and I heard the gun pop. I grabbed my radio and jumped into my foxhole. Seconds later another Marine jumped into the hole with me. The freight train sound of an incoming round roared overhead.

Im not getting out of this hole, the Marine said.

Neither am I, I replied.

My radio suddenly came alive: Candy Tuff one four, this is Blue Devil one four. I have a weather report for you, over. I couldnt believe it. We were in the middle of an artillery attack, and the regimental one four man was trying to give me a weather report. Candy Tuff one four, this is Blue Devil one four. High temperature, 130, winds from the south, sunny with zero percent chance of rain.

Roger, out, I replied as another round exploded inside our lines.

Candy Tuff one four, do you copy, over?

I said roger, out. Radio procedure was one thing I did learn in radio/telegraph school. Gradually the incoming ceased, and I drifted off to sleep.

When day broke and the other Marine crawled stiffly out of the foxhole, I was surprised to see that it was the battalion XO, a major. He hurried off to talk to the battalion commander, Colonel Jarvas.

After a quick breakfast of C-rations, I was told that the line company, Bravo, would be moving out heading east to an adjacent village. Only the battalion CP was staying behind with the 81-mortar crew, officers and a few enlisted men. That meant that we had no one protecting us now.

Gordon took over radio watch and I just hung around. About midmorning an aerial observer came on station, and Gordon turned the radio over to me. Because the Bravo Company one four man was controlling the situation, I was just monitoring the traffic.

Bravo Company approached the village cautiously and was about 30 meters away when the NVA unleashed a ferocious ambush from behind a hedgerow. The Marines had only a few low paddy dykes as protection against the wall of bullets shredding their ranks. Mortar rounds were rapidly inflicting heavy casualties.

My radio crackled: Candy Tuff one four, this is Bulldozer X-ray, put your six on the line, over.Candy Tuff one four, do you copy, over.

The aerial observer was calling me. Why is he calling me? Wheres Gordon? What do I do?

He was shouting now, Candy Tuff one four, get your six now! I didnt understand what he meant by get your six, but the urgency in his voice was causing my adrenaline to rush. With explosions and small-arms fire, the situation was deteriorating rapidly. Sir, I dont understand, Im new in-country, over.

Put the colonel on the radio, son, now!

Roger, wait one. I replied.

I ran to the colonel and handed him the receiver. Sir, the AO wants to speak to you.

Six, this is Bulldozer X-ray, get your people back now. Youre in imminent danger of being overrun. Ive got waves of gooks coming from the back of the village charging forward toward your lines!

Colonel Jarvas turned and said: Marine, get on line now and shoot anything that moves. Pass the word to every available man to get on line and shoot anything that moves.

Suddenly we were in a desperate situation. Bravo Company was pinned down in the middle of the rice paddy and could be overrun by attacking NVA at any minute, leaving no one between the enemy and us. I moved to a bomb crater and took up my firing position, locking and loading a round into my M-16 and flipping the safety switch off. I took several grenades from my shoulder belt and placed them on the ground in front of me.

I had only been in-country a few days and had never even fired my weapon. Would it even work?

I was scared to death.

I had qualified in boot camp as a rifle sharpshooter, but I had never fired my weapon at another human being. I could see people moving far in the distance, but they were just specks, indiscernible as friend or enemy. My job was a radio operator, not a grunt. I was certain that this would be my last day on earth.

Choppers soon appeared overhead along with F-4s. The AO was working with the Bravo one four man to drop snake and nape on the village. Bulldozer X-ray, use a run in heading of zero five zero, over.

The Bravo one four man was telling the aerial observer to have the jets follow a heading of zero five zero when they dropped their bombs. You always wanted the fixed wing to approach the target parallel to your troops so that if the bombs overshot the target, they wouldnt be dropped on your own men.

Moments later the jets came screaming down at over 250 miles per hour and unleashed the napalm and bombs, giving the pinned-down Marines a chance to pull back as the North Vietnamese scrambled to shelter.

The Bravo one four man had executed a coordinated maneuver. Just after the napalm and bombs exploded, the choppers descended into the paddy to drop reinforcements and take out the dead and wounded.

Now a pair of Huey gunships appeared overhead.

Bulldozer X-ray, this is Whiskey Delta. What have you got for us, over?

Ah, roger, Whiskey Delta, weve got gooks in the open, marking the target now. Run in zero five zero. Use everything youve got.

The AO fired his Willy Pete, which exploded in a cloud of white inside the village. In an instant, the two Hueys approached. The first chopper unleashed a volley of 60mm rockets as all six of his M-60 machine guns fired continuously. I was witnessing a ferocious battle 1,000 meters in front of me, coordinated by the Bravo one four man just as a conductor would conduct an orchestra, in unison, with precision.

While the choppers were making their attacks, our mortar crew continued to fire mortars into the forward lines of the enemy. I was amazed at the amount of firepower we were putting into the village.

We were getting the upper hand as another company was dropped in to aid Bravo in the rice paddy and the gunships continued to circle the village and attack in a coordinated manner.

Then, without warning, the entrenched NVA moved from their positions and began a daring counterattack into the paddy, where the Marines had formed a firing line behind the dikes. As waves of NVA poured out of the village to overrun the Marines, I tightened my grip on my M-16 and took aim in the field in front of me. Adrenaline raced through my body as the fear of dying almost overwhelmed me. This was it, real combat, nothing like the movies.

It looked like mass confusion in front of me. Hueys strafing the NVA with machine gun fire and rockets; hand grenades exploding in the middle of the NVA attackers; Marines pouring fire into the onrushing enemy. The counterattack quickly faltered, and the enemy turned back into the cover of the village. Once again, death covered the ground.

One four man up! The 81-mortar crew had run out of ammunition, and I was being summoned to call in resupply choppers. We needed to get mortars, ammo, water and other supplies in, and get the dead and wounded Marines out.

Gordon told me what to do, and I radioed the regiment for the supplies and medevacs. Then Gordon took over radio watch, and I went back to my foxhole. I decided to dig it a little bit deeper, just to play it safe. Gordon brought in more resupply choppers to a landing zone (LZ) to the west, and the dead and the wounded were taken aboard.

The rest of the day, artillery and air power pummeled the village. The artillery FOs and Bravo Company one four man did their jobs. By dusk, the village lay in complete ruin.

The Marines in the rice paddy pulled back to Dai Do just before dark, forming a tight perimeter around the CP. I met the Bravo one four man, a lance corporal, who had done such a magnificent job that day coordinating the air attacks and airlift of reinforcements.

Weeks End: Reviewing the Battle It was the best job training I could get

As the day ended, we sat around cooking C rations and talked about the fight. I had only been an observer but I had witnessed the use of coordinated air and ground fire against a well-entrenched enemy. I had listened to the radio exchanges between the ground one four man and the supporting aircraft. It was the best job training I could get, sitting 1,000 meters away from all the action yet able to see and hear everything first hand.

All night long, Dai Do was bombarded with artillery fire of all sizes, making sleep nearly impossible. I also feared a counterattack, but none came.

The next day, we moved across the rice paddy to the village. The enemy had fled during the night, pulling back to the DMZ, about 12 miles away.

The scene in the abandoned village was now a familiar one to me, but thankfully this time there were no dead Marines.

For now at least, the worst was over, and so was my first week in Vietnam.

* Adapted from Robert E. Hunts book, One Four Man Up, Infinity Publishing, February 2009, available at www.HistoryNet Shop.com

Robert E. Hunt completed his tour as a radioman in Vietnam in May 1969.


Martha Derby Perry was stunned when she looked out her upper-floor window into the New York City street below. She was sitting at the bedside of her husband, assistant surgeon John Perry of the 20th Massachusetts Volunteers, as he recovered from a severely fractured leg. Below, shesaw rushing up Lexington Avenue, within a few paces of our house, a great mob of men, women, and children; the men, in red working shirts, looking fairly fiendish as they brandished clubs, threw stones, and fired pistols. Many of the women had babies in their arms, and all of them were completely lawless as they swept on.

For five days, from Monday, July 13, until Friday, July 17, 1863, terror reigned in the streets of New York. Armed mobs protesting the first Federal conscription threatened the nations manufacturing and commercial center. What began as a demonstration against the draft and Abraham Lincolns Republican administration rapidly degenerated into bloody race riots that left at least 105 people dead. The New York City Draft Riots were by far the most violent civil disorder in 19th-century America. The widespread destruction threatened the very foundations of the Union.

The New York City Draft Riots came at a critical point during Lincolns efforts to centralize the Federal governments power. The war was not going well for Lincoln in the spring of 1863. After two years of fighting, the Union Army had shown few signs that it could win the conflict and both sides had suffered enormous casualties. The Union ranks continued to thin due to death and desertion, and many three-year enlistments would soon be up. Volunteers could no longer be counted upon to replenish the ranks.

The War Department concluded that only a draft could supply the necessary manpower. A Federal provost marshal for each congressional district was appointed and empowered to conduct the draft and arrest those refusing to comply. The new law made all men between 20 and 35 and all unmarried men between 35 and 45 liable for military duty. Drafted men who presented an acceptable substitute or paid $300 were exempted. This placed the burden of service most heavily on poor whites, who resented the exemption.

For the first time in American history, the Federal government imposed itself directly into the affairs of the working class. The draft act juxtaposed three emotional issuesrich-poor relations, black-white relations and local-federal relationsinto one explosive issue. Poor white laborers, many of them recent immigrants to the United States, felt threatened by the possible influx of cheap black labor. Since blacks were not full citizens, they could not be drafted. The rich could afford exemption. Poor whites, with some justice, felt discriminated against, which created an atmosphere that was ripe for revolt.

The draft began as scheduled on Saturday, July 11, and New Yorkers quickly realized that the governor and the Democrats were not going to be able to prevent conscription. Over the weekend of July 11 and 12, working people gathered in saloons, streets and kitchens to discuss their response to the draft lottery, which was scheduled to resume on Monday, July 13. As New York Her-ald Editor James Gordon Bennett later wrote, Those who heard the scattered groups of laborers and mechanics who congregated in different quarters on Saturday eveningmight have reasonably argued that a tumult was at hand.

The Draft Riots began on July 13 between 6 and 7 a.m. Employees of the citys railroads, shipyards, machine shops and ironworks and hundreds of other laborers failed to show up for work. By 8 oclock, the workers were streaming up Eighth and Ninth avenues, closing shops, factories and construction sites and urging their workers to join them. The procession congregated in Central Park for a brief meeting, then formed into two columns that marched to the Ninth District provost marshals office. They carried NO DRAFT placards.

At 10:30, the draft lottery got underway with the large crowd of protestors assembled outside. No one seemed to know what to do next until a fire engine company, Engine Company Number 33, arrived. The firemen set the provost marshals office on fire, and the riot was ignited.

One way to understand the impact of the violence is to examine firsthand accounts of the events, like those of Martha Derby Perry. She left a detailed record of her experiences in letters to her family in Boston, which she later published in her husbands 1906 book, Letters From a Surgeon.

John Perry was a student at Harvard Medical School when the Civil War broke out. He joined the Union Army before completing his studies and was assigned as assistant surgeon with the 20th Massachusetts Volunteers. In the spring of 1863, Perry suffered a severe leg fracture in a horseback-riding accident and was transported to New York City, where he could recuperate with his wife and her family. Unfortunately, Perry could not locate a surgeon to set his broken leg. As he wrote, At last, in sheer desperation, I asked my wifes brother to find splints, plaster and bandages and we, together, set my leg with good and permanent results.

The chapter in Dr. Perrys book concerning the Draft Riots was written by Martha Perry while her husband was recovering, waiting with keen impatience for the time when he could return to his regiment. The noise below caught her attention that Mon-day: On the first day of the riot, in the early morning, I heard loud and continued cheers at the head of the street, and supposed it must be news of some great victory. In considerable excitement I hurried downstairs to hear particulars, but soon found that the shouts came from the rioters who were on their way to work. About noon that same day we became aware of a confused roar; as it increased, I flew to my window, and saw rushing up Lexington Avenue, within a few paces of our house, a great mob of men, women and children

Even though many of the men were armed and fairly fiendish, Martha drew the cot upon which John was lying, his injured leg in a plaster cast, up to the window, and threw his military coat over his shoulders, utterly unconscious of the fact that if the shoulder straps had been noticed by the rioters they would have shot him, so blind was their fury against the army. The mass of humanity soon passed, setting fire to several houses quite near us, for no other reason, we heard afterward, than that a policeman, whom they suddenly saw and chased, ran inside one of the gates, hoping to find refuge. The poor man was almost beaten to death, and the house, with those adjoining, burned.

At all points fires burst forth, and that night the city was illuminated by them. I counted from the roof of our house five fires just about us.

The next day, Mrs. Perry remembered, was a fearful one. Men, both colored and white, were murdered within two blocks of us, some being hung to the nearest lamppost, and others shot. An army officer was walking in the street near our house, when a rioter was seen to kneel on the sidewalk, take aim, fire and kill him, then coolly start on his way unmolested. I saw the Third Avenue street car rails torn up by the mob. Throughout the day there were frequent conflicts between the military and the rioters, in which the latter were often victorious, being partially organized, and well armed with various weapons taken from the stores they had plundered.

I passed the hours of that dreadful night listening to the bedlam about us; to the drunken yells and coarse laughter of the rioters wandering aimlessly through the streets, and to the shouts of a mob plundering houses a block away.

On the third day of the riots, Mrs. Perry heard that the rioters were murdering black citizens. Hurrying to the kitchen, she recalled, I found our colored servants ghastly with terror, and cautioned them to keep closely within doors. One of them told me that she had ventured out early that morning to clean the front door, and that the passing Irish, both men and women, had sworn at her so violently, saying that she and her like had caused all the trouble, that she finally rushed into the house for shelter.

Now that I began to realize our danger, I tried with all my power to keep John in ignorance of it, for in his absolutely disabled condition the situation was most distressing. The heat was intense: and during the morning I sat in his room behind closed window shutters, continually on the alert to catch every outside noise, while watching the hot street below in the glare of sunlight.

Men and women passed with all sorts of valuables taken from plundered houses. Later in the day a crowd of boys arrived with stout sticks, threw stones at our houseand then rushed on. This added to my alarm, I having heard that a rush of street arabs always preceded an attack by the mob. Parties of Irishmen passed and pointed to our house, and a boy ran by shouting, well have fun up here tonight.

My heart felt overloaded as I looked at John in his helpless condition. What were we to do? Even if he were able to be moved, there was no way of accomplishing it.

When one of my brothers returned to lunch and reported the increasing strength of the mob, I told him of all I had seen and heard during the morning, and we considered the question of barricading the street doors and windows, but soon decided that it was useless. He then went to the police station to ask for information and help, but before leaving placed a ladder against the back wall of our back yard, so that in case of attack the servants might, by this means, escape to the adjoining premises, and from there to the next street.

The police had been already plundered of most of their firearms, and needed all their force to defend themselves. They could do literally nothing for us, but recommended barricading the front entrances to the house as well as we could.

The city became frightfully still, and this silence was broken only by occasional screams and sharp reports of musketry.

My brothers were calling at every house in the ward to induce the occupants to meet at the police station, armed with whatever weapon each could find, in order to organize and patrol the streets through the night. Meantime our servants were instructed to remain downstairs, and not to run until the house was actually attacked, then to rush to the ladder in the back yard; and I was to cover their retreat by hiding the ladder.

At ten oclock that evening we were left alone in absolute darkness, as the police sent word that light would increase our danger. John lay quietly on his cot, while I again sat by the window to catch the slightest sound.

During the night my brothers returned, and told us that just as the officers at the police station had agreed to combine with the citizens and patrol that vicinity, a man rushed in crying that the mob was murdering someone in our street. The whole force formed and charged up the avenue, but met only scattered bands of rioters, and these slunk away as the files of organized men appeared, stretching in solid lines from sidewalk to sidewalk, as the rioters supposed, fully armed. We heard afterward that this steadfast army, looking so formidable, while so feeble in reality, was all that saved us; that our house and the one opposite, as well as the police station, were distinctly marked by the mob for that nights work.

The ensuing day was still an anxious one, but it passed safely, with nothing happening to the Perrys, and we began to feel at ease again. By this time the city was full of troops, and finally the riot was quelled by firing canister into the mob. As we heard the heavy reports and responding yells, it seemed to me that I knew something of the horrors of war.

This article was written by Stephen D. Lut and originally appeared in the May 2000 issue of Americas Civil War.

For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Americas Civil War magazine today!
War is the only hygiene of the world, F. T. Marinetti wrote in his 1909 Futurist Manifesto. The Italian Futurists gloried in war and couldnt wait for it to begin. In the years just prior to World War I they used avant-garde literature, art, photography, and performance theater to goad the public toward conflict and its disruptive creativity. Now the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan has brought together more than 300 of their works in Italian Futurism, 19011944: Reconstructing the Universe, the first major exhibit on the movement ever mounted in the United States. Futurism was a way of life for its adherents, and the exhibit reflects that, ranging from film to fashion, from ceramics to advertising, poetry, and musicall of it celebrating industry, speed, and the kind of vitalism that, in the early 20th-century mind, heralded the future.

On display through September 1, 2014. The lush exhibition catalog can be purchased via http://www.guggenheimstore.org/futurism.html.
The dark clouds of civil war gathered over the nation as two aggressive factionsthe Wide-Awakes and the Minutemenplotted to gain political control of Missouri and its most important city, St. Louis.As is often the case, political power began at the end of a gun.

On April 15, 1861, three days after the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 militiamen to serve for 90 days against combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings. In the border states of Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri, Lincolns proclamation met with a decidedly mixed reaction. Governor William Burton of Delaware reported that his state had no militia and therefore could not comply, while Governor Thomas Hicks of Maryland replied that his state would only furnish troops for the defense of Washington. Governor Beriah Magoffin of Kentucky issued the fiery statement, Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern states. The most incendiary reply of all was sent by Governor Claiborne F. Jackson of Missouri: Your requisition is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical, and cannot be complied with. Jacksons stance would be the backdrop against which the struggle for Missouri and her greatest asset to both sides, the city of St. Louis, would be played out.

In the early days of the war, Missouris strategic importance was well-realized by both governments. If the state remained in the Union, the Federal government would have a perfect staging area into the heart of the Mississippi Valley. The great river port of St. Louis would be a base of operations for a thrust down the river to Memphis and points farther south. It would also allow the vital town of Cairo, at the southern tip of Illinois, to be garrisoned and provisioned, opening the Ohio and Tennessee rivers to Federal incursions. Conversely, if Missouri seceded, the Confederate government would have a large salient into Northern territory, the state of Illinois would be threatened, the Mississippi Valley would be secure, and the Ohio and Tennessee rivers would be protected. In addition, both sides coveted Missouris rich farmland and her large population of military-age men.

Internally, Missouri was truly a state divided. The majority of the population held to the view of conditional unionism. According to this rather impractical concept, slavery should be left to popular sovereignty within a state, but, conversely, there should still be a strong Federal government. Many Missourians hoped to remain neutral in the conflict. However, two small minoritiesunconditional union men and pro-secessionistsexisted within the state, and it was around these two factions that the struggle for Missouri would increasingly revolve.

The two most prominent pro-secession leaders were the newly elected Governor Claiborne Jackson and former Governor Sterling Price. Jackson was a pro-Southern fire-eater who had been attempting to align Missouri with the Confederacy since the day of his election. Price, a well-respected Mexican War veteran, prosperous slave-owning tobacco planter and former congressman, had initially supported conditional unionism but had switched allegiance to the pro-secessionists when Jackson convened a state convention in February 1861 to address the question of secession. The pro-secessionists failed miserably in their attempts to take the state out of the Union, as the majority of delegates elected were conditional-union men. Price wrote in a letter to a friend after the conventions decision: It is now inevitable that the general government will attempt the coercion of our southern states. War will ensue. I am a military man, a southern man, and if we have to fight, will do so on the part of the South.

Francis P. Blair and Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon headed the unconditional-union faction. Blair, scion of the politically powerful Blair family (his brother Montgomery was Lincolns postmaster general), insisted on the full support of the Federal government and declared that any talk of secession was treason. Lyon, a pugnacious 43-year-old New Englander who had once declared, I was born among the rocks, commanded Jefferson Barracks, the Federal garrison at St. Louis, and was an ardent abolitionist. When word of Governor Jacksons reply to Lincolns call for militia reached their ears, both men regarded it as the strongest sort of treason. Blair immediately set about organizing the Home Guards from St. Louis strong German immigrant population, while calling for reinforcements from Illinois, Iowa and Kansas. Lyon assisted by arming the groups with weapons from the arsenal. Jackson and Price, in turn, formed the Missouri State Guard. The stage was set for a violent clash; its focus would be the city of St. Louis.

Missouri contained two Federal arsenals, one at St. Louis and the other at Liberty, in the western part of the state. The small arsenal at Liberty had been seized almost immediately by pro-secession elements. The contents1,000 muskets, four small brass cannons and a small amount of ammunitionwere nothing to compare with the prize of the arsenal in St. Louis, which was said to contain 60,000 stands of arms and 25 fieldpieces. Price and Jackson immediately began plotting to seize the arsenal, and at the same time, Blair and Lyon took steps to defend it.

The rank and file composing the companies of the pro-Union and pro-secession camps within the city were divided by nationality as much as by ideology. For the most part, the Unionists were German immigrants. They had seen Germany suffer lawlessness and depredations for centuries because of the lack of a strong centralized government, and had no wish to endure the same in their adopted country. In their view, the absence of a strong central government put one at the whim of whatever petty prince had control of the area, with no recourse available for the common man. Accordingly, they recognized the value of a strong government. The citys secessionists, for the most part, were composed of Irish immigrants. Long abused under English crown rule, they had an innate distrust and fear of strong central government; arbitrary use of political power had prompted their emigration.

Side by side with both militias, there existed shadowy political organizations. The pro-Union group was known as the Wide-Awakes, and the pro-secession men were known as the Minutemen. The secessionists believed they were fighting the second American Revolution against tyranny, and they took the name Minutemen from the Colonials at Lexington and Concord. The Unionists chose to be called Wide-Awakes to show that they were alert and ever vigilant in defense of the Federal government in Washington. The two groups spent most of their time attempting to win the hearts and minds of the local populace by organizing demonstrations, posting signs and publishing pamphlets extolling the virtues of their respective causes.

The first open clash between the two sides occurred on March 4, 1861, Lincolns inauguration day. Around midnight of the 3rd, the leaders of the MinutemenRock Champion, Basil W. Duke, Arthur McCoy, Colton Greene and James Quinlanclimbed the dome of the Federal courthouse on Market Street and removed the national flag, replacing it with the state flag. Above the Berthold mansion, headquarters of the Minutemen, a banner was raised that Greene described as a nondescript conceita red field, emblazoned with a white cross, star and crescentmade by Arthur McCoys wife.

Toward dawn on March 4, the official in charge of the courthouse lowered the state flag and replaced the national colors without incident. However, at the Berthold mansion the situation was quite different. At midmorning, a curious crowd began to gather around the mansion and the streets leading to it. Minutemen circulated among the crowd promoting their point of view. The Wide-Awakes lost no time in assessing the situation and determined not to allow this affront to the Federal government to go unchallenged. David Dickey, a native Pennsylvanian, led a band of militant Wide-Awakes toward the area. Minutemen guards spread the alarm, and soon 100 or more sympathizers assembled around the mansion. A small swivel gun was placed at the entrance, and men with muskets and fixed bayonets took up positions along the mansion wall fronting Fourth Street, with strict instructions to use their bayonets if violence should erupt.

While Dickey and his band of Wide-Awakes moved toward the area, another small group approached the mansion in an attempt to resolve the matter peacefully. Basil Duke received them cordially but firmly declared there would be no compromise involving the removal of the homespun standard. Dickey and his band arrived shortly afterward, and for several hours both sides engaged in name-calling, blustering and threats. The Minutemen who had been circulating among the crowd remained there with instructions to create diversions should the need arise. Finally, the Wide-Awakes could stand it no longer, and a small group attempted to force the Fourth Street wall. The Minutemen repulsed the foray with bayonets, and Greene gleefully recorded: The crowdpressing through the narrow alleywas assailed in the most ludicrous manner with the contents of an odorous vessel and other household missiles freely thrown down from the windows by the Irish servant girls (encouraged by the ladies within).

Dickey did not take kindly to the setback and led the remaining Wide-Awakes against the front entrance of the mansion. The Minutemen attempted unsuccessfully to fire the brass swivel gun placed at the doorway, and Duke grappled with Dickey on the front steps, the little match ending with Duke holding a knife to Dickeys throat. Muskets and revolvers were brandished on both sides. The Minutemen in the crowd began to brawl with anyone within reach, and the situation soon began to deteriorate, with men who had no strong political feelings trying to find shelter as quickly and as far away from the mob as possible. The affair ended when, as Greene wrote, Irish from the Biddell Market quarter joined with us in the melee and we were masters of the ground.

Following the events at the Berthold mansion, both sides regrouped, organized their forces and engaged in verbal recriminations. Most significant, the respective sides redoubled their efforts to bring outside aid into the state. Both the Federal and Confederate governments had been handling the situation in Missouri with kid gloves. Neither government seemed willing to commit to complete involvement, for fear that overt support would antagonize St. Louis citizens and drive the state into the opponents hands. James Buchanans lame-duck administration kept to the same waffling stance it had taken whenever the notion of secession came up. Meanwhile, the nascent Confederate administration in Montgomery, Ala., was too disorganized to move effectively even if it had so desired.

Blair, Lyon and other Wide-Awakes renewed their efforts in Washington to coax effective Federal help to the city. Again, the focus was the arsenal, commanded by Major William H. Bell, whom Blair strongly suspected of holding pro-Southern sympathies. He was correct.

In January, Jackson and Price had moved the small battalion of state militia, comprising roughly 500 men, from the southwest area of the state to St. Louis. Originally formed to combat Kansas Jayhawkers during the years of Bleeding Kansas, when internecine raiding and skirmishing had

occurred almost daily across the border between the two states, the militia had been languishing at Carthage for the past year. Brigadier General Daniel M. Frost, a Mexican War veteran and an 1844 West Point graduate, commanded the small force. Although born in New York, Frost was thoroughly Southern in both his sympathies and politics. Jackson had hoped the people of the state would vote for secession, allowing him to take the arsenal without the use of force, as other seceding states had done. When the state convention voted overwhelmingly to remain in the Union, Jackson charged Frost with taking the arsenal by force when he deemed it expedient to do so.

Accordingly, Frost had requested a conference with Major Bell, and wrote Jackson on January 24 of the result. I have just returned from the arsenal, he reported. I found the Major everything you or I could desire. He assured me he considered Missouri had, whenever the time came, a right to claim it as being on her soil. He asserted his determination to defend it against any and all irresponsible mobs, come from whence they might, but at the same time gave me to understand that he would not attempt any defense against proper State authorities. Blair became aware of Bells sympathies and the meeting with Frost through Isaac H. Sturgeon, assistant treasurer of St. Louis. Sturgeon had the confidence of the prosecessionists while secretly working for Blair and the Wide-Awakes.

Blair immediately began lobbying Washington for Bells removal, but the Buchanan administration would not comply. Finally, Blair was able to bypass the administration and persuade General-in-Chief Winfield Scott to replace Bell with Major Peter V. Hagner. Hagner was an old-line Regular Army officer and was not predisposed to surrender the arsenal to either side without proper military orders from Washington. While not exactly a victory for Blair, the appointment of Hagner at least prevented Bell from turning the arsenal over to the Minutemen.

Blair was not completely satisfied; he still coveted the arms in the arsenal for his Wide-Awakes, not all of whom were armed yet. He also wished to deny the arms to the Minutemen, and to both these ends he began lobbying both Buchanan and General William S. Harney, the military commander of the district, to assign Nathaniel Lyon as arsenal commander. What had prompted Blair and Lyon to take this course of action was the firm refusal of Hagner to release any arms to the Wide-Awakes without explicit orders from Washington.

Once again Blair and Lyon appealed to Scott, who responded by ordering 200 men from Jefferson Barracks to garrison the arsenal. The general showed further support by sending an additional 500 men to the arsenal garrison a few days later. Scott, however, did not give Hagner direct orders to release any of the arms, and the major remained steadfast. Lyon grew increasingly exasperated with Hagner and wrote Blair that Hagners stance was eitherimbecility or damned villainy. Lyon vowed, if necessary, to pitch him in the river. After Lincoln took office on March 4, Blair had his brother Montgomery, now postmaster general, use his powerful influence to persuade the president to appoint Lyon commander of the arsenal. Lincoln did so promptly, and Lyon set about fortifying the arsenal and the city by placing artillery on the surrounding heights and approaches to the area.

While Blair and Lyon went through their machinations, Frost, Jackson, Price and other Minutemen were not idle. Frost deemed it inexpedient to interfere forcibly during Bells and Hagners tenure, hoping the Unionists would fail in their attempts to place Lyon in command. After Lyon secured the arsenal and emplaced artillery, however, Frost wrote Jackson with a plan of action. He advocated dispatching emissaries to Alabama to lobby the Confederate government for mortars and siege guns. At the same time, he asked Jackson to order him to establish a militia camp at St. Louis, with full authority to begin military instruction and recruit more men into state service. Frost also wanted permission to begin placing artillery and building fortifications of his own, and he advised Jackson to convene an extra session of the legislature as soon as possible for the purpose of again addressing the question of secession.

Jackson moved with admirable swiftness. He sent Basil Duke and Colton Greene to Montgomery to ask the Confederate authorities for the mortars and siege guns necessary to reduce Lyons fortifications and immediately authorized Frost to form a camp at St. Louis and begin to recruit and train men for state service. Then Jackson called a special session of the General Assembly and ordered the state militia commanders of the various districts within the state to go into camp by May 3 and await further instructions.

Before Duke and Greene left for Montgomery, a meeting was held in St. Louis at the OFallon residence on Fifth Street. Attending were Frost, Duke, Greene and Lt. Col. John S. Bowen, a wealthy merchant and militiaman from the town of Carondelet, just south of the city. At the meeting, Frost gave Duke and Greene a list of the exact types of artillery and arms needed from Montgomery. Bowen proposed that the camp ordered by Jackson be positioned just south of the arsenal on the banks of the Mississippi River, where he suggested that Frost emplace his artillery while pretending to instruct the militia in the art of building field fortifications.

Duke and Greene found a warm reception in the Confederate capital, although the Southern cabinet was divided. Secretary of War Leroy Walker was the biggest opponent. President Jefferson Davis, Attorney General Judah Benjamin and Secretary of State Robert Toombs were the strongest supporters. Davis made vital suggestions as to the exact placement of the cannons; he was intimately acquainted with the area, having served at Jefferson Barracks while in the U.S. Army. Davis gave Duke and Greene a letter to present to the Confederate commander at Baton Rouge, La., where a Federal arsenal already had been seized. The letter authorized the release of six 24-pounder cannons, one 32-inch mortar, six Coehorn mortars, 800 muskets and the fixed ammunition to accompany them. At Baton Rouge, the arms were packed in boxes marked marble and addressed to leading Republican leaders in St. Louis to allay suspicion. The materiel made it safely to St. Louis on May 9, and Major James Riddle Shaler of the state militia moved it by wagon to Frosts camp.

For their part, Blair and Lyon had not been idle. They had known about the entire secessionist plan from the outset. Well-placed informers in the Minutemen ranks had kept them advised of all the activities of the group. Accordingly, the two Wide-Awake leaders began formulating a plan of their own to quash Frost and Bowen before the arms arrived from Baton Rouge. They had been unceasing in their efforts to have Harney removed from duty. Finally, Lyon was able to obtain direct authority from the War Department to release 7,000 stands of arms from the arsenal to the Unionist Home Guard and to begin active recruiting for the organization, bypassing Harney completely. In this way, Lyon was able to form five regiments to augment his small complement of Regular Army troops.

Frost and Bowen had not been shy about founding their military camp. They christened it Camp Jackson in honor of the governor, and the camp streets were named Beauregard and Jefferson Davis. The Confederate flag flew openly. Lyon and Blair immediately responded to the threat. Their first step, on May 8, was to remove all the arms from the arsenal, moving them under cover of darkness across the Mississippi to Alton, Ill., just north and east of St. Louis. The following day, when the weapons and cannons arrived from the Confederate government, Lyon undertook a reconnaissance of Camp Jackson. (Legend has it that he dressed as a woman selling pies to gain access to the camp, although how he disguised his flame-red beard has never been properly explained.)

Blair took Lyon before the Committee of Public Safety, the ruling body of the Wide-Awakes, to relate his findings. Lyon urged the capture of Camp Jackson forthwith, but the committee was hesitant to act, fearing open warfare in the streets. The committee also objected to such extreme measures as being in violation of state laws and insisted that any U.S. property held at the camp be recovered by due legal process. Blair and Lyon were equally insistent, and they managed finally to convince the committee to lend its support, with the understanding that a U.S. marshal would head a column of regular U.S. troops and Home Guards and demand the surrender of U.S. property. The combined troops, commanded by Lyon, would stand by to aid the marshal should Frost and his men resist. Plans were made to move against the camp the next day, May 10.

Frost was not without his own spies among the Wide-Awakes, and he had been kept fully abreast of developments. During the preceding two days, he had received numerous reports of a planned move against his men and received positive confirmation on the morning of the 10th. Frost took the initiative of dispatching Bowen to Lyon that morning with a letter stating that neither he nor any part of his command had any intention of overt hostility toward the United States, its property or any of its representatives. Lyon flatly refused to receive Bowen and never read the letter. Instead, he put his column into motion and arrived at the camp about midafternoon.

May 10, coincidentally, was the day the state militiamen were scheduled to go home, and they had passed the day bragging about what they would have done to the Dutch, given half a chance. When Lyon arrived with four regiments of Home Guards and a battalion of regulars, he surrounded the camp on all sides, placed artillery in position to rake the camp and demanded its immediate and unconditional surrender. Frost, seeing he was outnumbered 3-to-1, recognized the folly of resisting and promptly surrendered.

As the Home Guards and U.S. troops marched the prisoners through the city, a crowd began to line the route, and soon cries of Hurray for Jeff Davis! and Damn the Dutch! filled the air. Clods of dirt and stones accompanied the taunts. The catalyst for what happened next remains unclear. After the war, Southern historians claimed that the Home Guards fired into the crowd in response to the thrown missiles, while Northern historians claimed a member of the pro-Southern mob fired first and mortally wounded a German Home Guard officer.

There is no doubt about ensuing events. The Home Guards fired several volleys, and some members of the crowd drew their own weapons and returned the fire. Twenty-eight people were killed or wounded; among the dead were three of the prisoners, two women and a small child. Dubbed the Camp Jackson Massacre, the conflict raised tensions to a fever pitch throughout the city. On the evening of the 10th, a regiment of Home Guards, returning to its barracks from guard duty at the arsenal, halted momentarily on the corner of 6th and Walnut streets. Someone fired a pistol, and the Home Guards muskets blazed again, killing eight more civilians. The next day, another Home Guard regiment was accosted on 6th Street, between Pine and Olive streets, and fired into the crowd lining the sidewalks, killing or wounding several more.

Although Blair and Lyon had saved the arsenal for the Union, their tactics resulted in a strong backlash amongst the citizenry. Thousands of Missourians immediately declared for secession. Many felt their loyalty to the Federal government had been badly strained, and in outlying towns armed bands formed with the expressed intent of marching on St. Louis to rescue its inhabitants from the bloodthirsty Dutch, who, drunk with beer and reeking of sauerkraut, were alleged to be running rampant through the city. The Unionists had almost driven the Federal cause to the edge of catastrophe.

Sterling Price was a witness to the Camp Jackson events, and he denounced the affair as an outrage before a large crowd gathered in front of his St. Louis hotel on the evening of May 10. Saying that he regarded it as an affront to Missouris sovereign rights, Price departed the next morning for Jefferson City, the state capital, to confer privately with Jackson.

Blair and Lyon, for their part, wanted to march immediately on Jefferson City. Harney, as the highest ranking Federal military commander in the area, refused to grant permission for such a move and threatened to remove Lyon from command should he do so. Meanwhile, the city police and elected officials appealed to Harney for aid in quelling the unrest within St. Louis, and he swiftly replied, sending two companies of infantry and two artillery batteries from Jefferson Barracks to the city to protect the peace, property and lives of the citizens. The situation quieted, and the high tide of secessionist sympathy passed.

At Jefferson City, Jackson called for an immediate emergency session of the state Legislature, and on May 11 a bill was passed authorizing the recruitment of the Missouri State Guard, dividing the state into eight military districts and empowering Jackson to appoint eight brigadier generals and a major general of all state forces. The bill also appropriated all the money in the state treasury, some $82 million, for the purchase of war materiel, and gave Jackson almost dictatorial powers to repel invasions and crush rebellion. On May 12, Price was offered the major generalship of the state guard. He promptly accepted.

The Legislature adjourned on May 15 after putting the state on a warlike footing. Both sides attempted to play for time while organizing for war within the state. To avoid further bloodshed, Price and Harney agreed to meet in St. Louis on May 21. From that meeting arose the so-called Price-Harney Agreement. In it, Harney agreed to recognize Jacksons authority over the state, and Price agreed to use his state guard troops to maintain order within the states borders, thus giving Harney no reason to advance into the interior.

If the local papers of the day were indicative of general reaction to the Price-Harney Agreement, the majority of Missourians hailed the document as ensuring compromise. Many still held the belief that the state could remain neutral in the coming conflict. Extremists on both sides, however, looked askance at the agreement. Jackson already had dispatched Lt. Gov. Thomas Reynolds to the Confederate government in Montgomery to ask for more troops and materiel for the state, and after the agreement was released to the public, Reynolds renewed his negotiations with Davis and his cabinet. In turn, Blair and Lyon renewed their efforts to remove Harney from military command. Lincoln finally relented and removed Harney, replacing him with Lyon in early June. Instantly, Lyon made preparations to move into the interior of the state and confront Jacksons pro-Southern legislature at Jefferson City. Reynolds received permission to ask Confederate Brig. Gen. Ben McCulloch, who was assembling forces at Fort Smith, Ark., to enter Missouri with regular Confederate troops. But McCulloch wavered and only advanced as far as the Missouri border in northwest Arkansas.

As a final effort to avoid armed conflict, influential citizens in St. Louis persuaded Blair, Lyon, Price and Jackson to meet face to face and attempt to resolve their differences. Blair and Lyon agreed under the condition that the meeting be held in St. Louis; they promised Jackson and Price safe conduct. The conference was held on June 11 at the Planters House Hotel. Blair would speak for the Union side and Price for the Southern. The Union men asked that the state assist in suppressing rebellion, that it permit Federal military occupation of the state, and that it allow the further organization of Home Guards units. Price and Jackson insisted that the Federal government disband the Home Guards and not occupy any additional state territory. In return, they offered to maintain peace and order within the state and keep out Confederate troops.

The positions were mutually exclusive, and the meeting broke down after four hours. Finally, Lyon pushed Blair aside and thundered: Rather than concede to the State of Missouri the right to demand that my government shall not enlist troops within her limits, or bring troops into the State whenever it pleases, or move troops at its own will into, out of, or through the State; rather than concede to the State of Missouri for one single instant the right to dictate to my government in any matter, however unimportant, I would see you, and you, and you, and you, [pointing to each man in the room] and every man, woman, and child in the State dead and buried. This means war. In an hour one of my officers will call for you and conduct you out of my lines. After the fiery speech, Lyon turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

After the Planters House meeting, St. Louis, the key to the entire state, would never again be threatened by pro-Southern forces. Her loyalty to the Federal government, guaranteed by Blair, Lyon and their fellow Wide-Awakes, would keep the entire state in the Union. The bloody battles of Wilsons Creek and Pea Ridge would decide the issue militarily, but never again would Missouris loyalty be in doubt after the tumultuous spring of 1861.

St. Louis native Anthony Monachello is a first-time contributor to ACW. Further reading: Turbulent Partnership: Missouri and the Union, 18611865, by William E. Parrish; or Rebellion in Missouri, by H.C. Adamson.[ Top | Cover Page ]
Army at Home: Women and the Civil War on the Northern Home Front, by Judith Giesberg, University of North Carolina Press

The world of Civil War women has been enriched over the past decade by a bounty of significant new work. Judith Giesbergs latest contribution, Army at Home: Women and the Civil War on the Northern Home Front, expands our appreciation of women in the war by turning attention northward and forcing us to remember those who fell between the cracksduring their own lives and in the hands of historians. She does not ignore the Yankee middle class, but shows the way in which respectability was both a burden and wielded like a bludgeon during the chaos of wartime. Giesberg sketches out terms of engagement for women of color, for working class women, for poor womenthe women caught within the battle lines while the nations future was at stake.

She begins her study with the story of Lydia Bixby of Massachusetts, a widow who allegedly lost five sons who fought in the Union Army. Bixby received a condolence letter from Abraham Lincoln, which appeared in the Boston newspapers. Giesberg deftly sidesteps the controversy over whether Lincoln himself composed the letter, and teases out the fundamentals of Bixbys experience and its multiple meanings. The strength of this book is that it allows us to refocus our attention not on the mythic mother of Union dead, sacrificing sons to save the Republicwhich has been part of Civil War lore since long before Appomattoxbut on the flesh- and-blood woman (and women) lost in the historical shuffle.

Giesbergs talents are well suited to this project; her diligent research and emblematic analysis bring these women out of the shadows and into the limelight. Historiography is skillfully woven into her vibrant narrative, but it never overwhelms the womennot just fabled heroines but the anonymous masses. Her book is abrim with fresh perspectives: on women who died in arsenal explosions, on African Americans who were shoved off streetcars, and other casualties and survivors of wartime. She surveys the poor and displaced, examining the plight, for example, of a Pennsylvania wife who wrote her governor in April 1865 saying, I think it is very hard wen a sholder goes to fight for his family and they put his family out on the street. An Irish immigrant with four children was finally forced to seek refuge in the almshouse in Tewksbury, Mass., when her husbands Army wages did not cover food and shelter for herself and their four dependents.

Giesberg suggests that popular images sought to create a sense of distance between home and the war women exposed that separation as largely imaginary when they fought with state officials over resources, engaged in war-making activities at arsenals, and turned rural communities, and city streets into every day sites of politics.

Women were expected to embody Victorian idealsbut these ideals came to grief, literally, with death and mourning rituals, as thousands of loved ones were shipped home in coffins or never returned. Widows might be forced to travel great distances, in ships cabins which were nasty, filthy place[s] unfit for a human being to sleep in, only to find unrecognizable, decomposing bodies.

Army at Home suggests the creative and critical ways in which work on gender, race and Civil War studies will point us in new directions. Giesbergs thoughtful and engaging study lights the way for a new generation to followonward onto exciting terrain.
Our only ID was a bent penny given to us by the Metropolitan Police. With this penny, the police will know youre a drug enforcement agent, not a protestor.

Washingtons National Mall was crawling with Vietnam War protesters on the first weekend of May 1971. The assemblage of long hair beards and braids made it look like a convention of hippies. My orders were to fit in with the flower children, so I dressed in jeans and a bright yellow flowered shirt. But I couldnt do anything about my Beatles-style, collar-length hairlong by normal standards, but short in comparison to most of the demonstrators. And at 6-foot-2, and in pretty good shape, I had a nagging feeling I wasnt going to fool anybody. I rationalized that I was just experiencing the normal paranoia of working undercover. But to make matters worse, I had to go in unarmeda bent penny my only Federal identification.

In the spring of 1971, antiwar sentiment was running high in the nations capital, both in the halls of Congress and on the streets. On March 1, the increasingly militant Weather Underground had detonated a bomb in a Capitol Building restroom in retaliation for expanded military action into Laos. Meanwhile, at the end of March, a military tribunal found Army 2nd Lt. William Calley guilty of premeditated murder in the killing of innocent civilians in the village of My Lai.

During the third week in April, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee William Fulbright opened what was to become the last of his many hearings on the Vietnam War. On April 22, Vietnam veteran and future Massachusetts Senator John Kerry testified in the hearings. Claiming to represent hundreds of like-minded veterans, he accused the U.S. military of committing war atrocities. The next day Kerry and some 800 members of his organization, Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), dramatically threw down their Vietnam service medals and ribbons onto the Capitol steps.

Along with the VVAW, a number of disparate antiwar groups coordinated weeks of demonstrations to coincide with Fulbrights hearings, bringing hundreds of thousands of protestors to Washington. Mass arrests did not seem to discourage them, and their show of commitment to end the war was to culminate with May Day civil disobedience that organizers promised would shut down the government.

President Richard Nixon was determined to prevent that from happening, leading to a White House secret plan to undermine the demonstrations by proving, with the help of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), that the organizers were violating the terms of their special events permits, allowing for their revocationand thus the removal of protestors before their planned day of action on May 3.

I was a new BNDD Special Agent, barely out of basic training. I had joined the Bureau because it was the only law enforcement agency at the time with an operational program overseas. Having had a taste of the inscrutable Orient during my year as an adviser in Vietnam, I thought Id found my calling. Joining the BNDD was an opportunity to fulfill both of my career goals: to be a law enforcement criminal investigator, and to work overseas.

Three years earlier, in June 1968, I flew into Saigon as a newly minted Army second lieutenant, commissioned through ROTC six months earlier after graduating from the Pennsylvania State University. After Infantry Officer Basic Course at Ft. Benning and Intelligence Staff Officer training at Ft. Holabird, Md., I arrived in Vietnam on the heels of the Tet Offensive. After months of tedium as a staff officer for Operation Hurricane waiting for a second offensive against Saigon, and as property book officer and acting S-4 for the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion at Long Binh, I maneuvered a transfer to the field as an adviser to the G-2 of the 18th Army of the Republic of Vietnam Infantry Division at Xuan Loc. I had done my time as a Saigon Warrior and finally had the chance to do the work I was trained to doand to see what the other side of the war was all about.

My boss at BNDD, Group Supervisor Dick Johnson, had called an all hands meeting of special agents in the Philadelphia office on Friday, April 30. Those of us who could be rounded up on that sunny spring afternoon sat solemnly in a stuffy, smoke-filled conference room. No one wanted to be there, including Johnson.

Weve been ordered to confirm drug use during Vietnam War protests in Washington tomorrow, Johnson began. Our observations will be used as the basis for revoking their special event permits.

That didnt seem like a bad idea. I was one of a few Vietnam vets in the office, but the demonstrations were nothing personal with me. Id done my part in the war, was proud of it, and had moved on. But in general there was no love lost for antiwar activists among law enforcers, most of whom considered protestors engaging in acts of disobediencecivil or otherwiseto simply be law breakers.

Dress to fit in with the young, hippie crowd. Johnson added. And dont take your guns, badges and credentials with you. Anything that can identify you as a law enforcement officer, leave it behind. It was clear that they didnt want us making arrests at the demonstration, but traveling there unarmed and without identification was unprecedentedand troubling. Agent Joe Braddock, a former Philly cop and former Marine, almost started a rebellion by saying, If my badge and gun dont go, I dont go!

Johnson told us not to worry, that wed all receive special identification when we reported to the State Department the next day. And to get through security, tell the guards youre there for the Bishops Meeting. I perked up a bit at that cloak and dagger facet of the operation.

As some 200 BNDD agents from throughout the mid-Atlantic region trickled into the State Department auditorium Saturday afternoon, the furtive luster dimmed as a Mr. Bishop from the White House, dressed in a dark blue suit, white shirt and red tie, walked to the microphone and called for attention. We have an estimated 200,000 demonstrators on the Mall. We expect a lot of drug use tonight. So we brought in you drug experts to document it. No arrests. Just mingle with the crowd and observe.

As he paused, murmurs spread across the auditorium. Bishop raised a hand to quiet us down and continued. The Metropolitan Police are going to move in and disperse the demonstrators early Sunday morning. Encourage them to leave. Then go back to BNDD headquarters and document your observations.

At that, a tall, high-ranking Metropolitan Police officer in full-dress uniform stepped up to the microphone. When you see people selling or using drugs dont try to arrest them. Find a uniformed police officer and point them out. And show this, he said, holding up a penny. With this bent penny, the police will know youre an agent and not a protestor. I lined up to get my 1970 bent penny.

During the past week, the demonstrations had been centered at the Capitol and Supreme Court. The protest organizers were now gearing up for what would be the main event come Monday, May 3, when they would fan out across the Federal District to disrupt traffic, create chaos and, they hoped, shut down the government. Tens of thousands were camping out in West Potomac Park adjacent to the Mall, and on Saturday evening, concerts were slated at the open-air Sylvan Theater near the Washington Monument.

It didnt take more than a few minutes on the Mall to observe enough illegal drug use to fill a police blotter. Drugs were everywhere. The White House certainly didnt have to bring in hundreds of federal narcotics agents to determine that illegal drugs were being used, I thought. A couple of Justice Department clerks could have accomplished the same thing.

But if the White House wanted undercover agents with the expertise to infiltrate these demonstrators, they had picked the right organization. The BNDD wasnt made up of stereotypical Irish-looking cops. It was among the first federal law enforcement agencies to hire agents in all shapes, sizes and colors. No matter if a case involved Italian organized crime mobsters, black Harlem gangsters, Asian Triads or Miami cocaine cowboys, we had agents who could infiltrate them. Young, pot-smoking hippies were no exception.

As I crossed Constitution Avenue toward the Lincoln Memorial and stepped onto the Mall, I was enveloped by the massive crowd like a stone dropped in a lake. I meandered along the reflecting pool toward the Washington Monument, taking it all in. Trash was strewn everywhere and the odor of marijuana permeated the air. Just as I was thinking how disrespectful this all wason Americas front yard where some of our greatest war heroes are memorializedsomeone suddenly tapped me on the shoulder.

My reflexes took over. I ducked, turned and grabbed the offending hand. It belonged to a scraggily, wide-eyed teenager wearing a cardboard peace symbol tied by a string around his neck, and a silly grin on his face. Hey man, want a drag? he said nervously, gesturing with the joint of marijuana cupped in his free hand. No thanks, I said, and walked on. I couldnt believe anyone would be that blatant.

I had watched on TV the massive and angry demonstrations that had swept the nation after Cambodia and Kent State in 1970. I was expecting the same vitriol, vandalism and violence. But it didnt take me long to figure out what was going on. This is no angry mob, I thought. It isnt so much an antiwar demonstration as a party. Its a happening. Woodstock on the Mall.

All afternoon I navigated around bedrolls and pup tents cluttering the landscape. College-aged kids sat in small groups, their protest signs propped against trees. An occasional shout or chant could be heard, but they were mostly preoccupied with strumming guitars and singing folk music while jugs of wine and marijuana cigarettes circulated among them.

It wasnt just pot and wine. Organizers warned over the public address system that some bad LSD was being passed around and that first-aid stations were prepared to treat all types of drug overdoses. As the afternoon wore on, the announcements became more desperate. One said: A small boy has been found wandering alone. Would his parents please come to claim him? Another pleaded, Can someone please come to first-aid station three to identify a man who doesnt know who he is?

This was a milieu very unfamiliar to me. I was a federal drug agent trained to investigate interstate and international drug trafficking by hardened criminals. Many in the drug hierarchy dont even use drugs, and dont trust anyone who does. For them its a business. So I wasnt prepared for thisdrug use up close and personal. And it seemed the higher the crowd got, the more open the usage became.

I hooked up with other agents from the Philadelphia office from time to time, and with a few of those whom I had graduated with from basic agent training school. But I mostly worked alone, wandering around the Mall making my mental observations.

While it was mostly a laid-back affair, there were still some confrontations between protestors and police, and frequently between our agents and the police. Many quickly learned the bent pennies were practically useless. Philadelphia agent Mike Horn had been walking back to the Mall when two uniformed police officers sitting in a patrol car called him over. Mike pulled out his bent penny. The cops stared at him. What are you, a wise guy, defacing American currency? one of the cops smirked before letting Mike go.

Joe Braddock, who had complained about the order to not carry a badge, was at the wrong place at the wrong time and was rounded up by police on the Mall that night along with dozens of drunken and unruly protestors, and was about to be bused to RFK Stadium for processing. He showed the cops his bent penny. After receiving a puzzled reaction, Joe flashed the BNDD badge that he wasnt supposed to have with him and they let him go.

Tunes by Janis Joplin, Rod Stewart, Three Dog Night, and Peter, Paul and Mary created a cacophony of noise from hundreds of radios and tape players. At one point, a long conga line snaked through the crowd to the chant of One, two, three, four; we dont want your fucking war! As I took a closer look, I laughed for the first time that day. Two BNDD agents were leading the line!

As day slipped into night, bands took to the stage and blasted rock and folk music over huge speakers placed across the Mall. Most of the protestors sang along or danced. But many of the love children practiced what they preached. Some in pup tents, others under blankets or in sleeping bags under the stars gyrated in not-so-discreet fornication, much of it in sync with the music. The Washington Post reported the next day that the demonstration lacked the fervency of previous antiwar protests and, in the end, turned into a gigantic pajama party.

Once the bands packed up, quiet overtook the Mall and the bonfires fueled by trash to take the chill out of the cool night air were left to smolder. The repugnant smoke mixed with reeking fumes from overflowing port-a-potties, creating an almost unbearable stench. I dozed off for the night on an up wind park bench.

At first light on Sunday morning, I was startled awake by an eerie but familiar sound, and for an instant I thought I was back in Vietnam. The whooping rotor blades of Huey helicopters reverberated through the Federal District, and as I shook off sleep I watched as busloads of police in riot gear lined up behind the Sylvan Theater. A dozen mounted policemen with helmets and shields reined in prancing horses nearby like gladiators preparing for battle. I could see more cops assembling at other locations along the Mall. The White House plan to scuttle the protest was underway. Suddenly, announcements started blaring over a loudspeaker mounted on a roving police vehicle: Your permits have been canceled. You must vacate the Mall by noon.

In the shadow of the Washington Monument, protestors jumped from under blankets and ponchos. Men and women relieved themselves on the lawn, some completely naked, either too groggy or too scared to hunt down a portable john. They didnt seem to need much coaxing to disperse. They threw on clothes, stepped into sandals, packed meager belongings into knapsacks and were gone, leaving behind a thoroughly trashed National Mall.

It was too early to find a coffee shop open so I made my way to the BNDD gymnasium located across an alley from the headquarters building on I Street, NW. With other yawning, bleary-eyed narcotics agents, I sat on the wooden floor and scribbled my findings on official investigative report forms. Even though the special event permits had already been rescinded, the reports might prove useful and provide legal cover to the administration in the event of a court challenge to the police actions.

The crowds dispersed, seriously depleting the numbers organizers hoped to have to attempt to shut down the city the next day. Though there were minor disruptions and some more confrontations, the White House had succeeded in foiling the demonstrators plan. The next days action was largely considered a bust.

Arguably, Richard Nixon did more for drug law enforcement than any other president. He signed the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 that is still the law of the land, and he doubled the number of federal agents to enforce it. He created the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE) to combat the heroin epidemic in urban America, then folded ODALE and other agencies with overlapping drug jurisdiction into BNDD to create the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1973 that remains the premier single-mission drug investigative agency in the nation, and respected around the world.

But Nixon infuriated the hierarchy of DEAs predecessor agency on occasion. He once famously demanded a BNDD badge for presentation to a black-caped Elvis Presley in an Oval Office ceremony. Anti-drug crusader Presley became the only non-agent ever awarded oneat a time when he was rumored to be abusing prescription drugs.

While the Elvis incident became a well-known example of Nixons excesses, the more serious presidential order for a reluctant BNDD leadership to launch a secret undercover operation against Vietnam War protestors 40 years ago remains virtually unknown. It was not something BNDD headquarters had thought to do, recalled Bob Nickoloff, Philadelphias Deputy Regional Director at the time. It wasnt necessarily inappropriatecertainly within the law. And there was nothing to preclude us from doing it. But it was a waste of a weekend.

Among many agents, the operation was viewed as a waste of manpower and money as well. Philadelphia agent Pete Davis put it succinctly: We had more important things to do.

Many will no doubt see this as yet another one of Nixons abuses of power, or at least a precursor of things to come. Indeed, within three months Nixon created the covert White House Plumbers unit to burglarize Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsbergs psychiatrists office. Operation Bent Penny certainly is a footnote to the legacy of abuses of power for which Nixon would be forced to resign in 1974.

But for a young drug agent, that day in May was a rude awakeningan intimate glimpse into the prevalence of drug abuse by my generation. Drug abuse by some of our soldiers in Vietnam had been well publicized, and now I had seen blatant drug abuse among the Vietnam War protestors. Unfortunately, it may have been the one thing these two groups had in common.

After serving with the 525th Military Intelligence Group in Saigon, and Advisory Team 87 at Xuan Loc, Charles Lutz spent 32 years as a federal narcotics agent, eight of them in Southeast Asia. In the mid-1990s, Lutz made 11 trips to Vietnam to lay the groundwork for what is now a DEA office at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi.
Striking sanitation workers.American civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was in Memphis, Tennessee, supporting striking sanitation workers when he was fatally shot on April 4, 1968, as he stood outside the Lorraine Motel. The 39-year-old minister preached nonviolence in the crusade for civil rights. Escaped convict James Earl Ray was convicted of King?s murder but later recanted his confession. Ray died in prison in 1998 amid lingering controversy surrounding his guilt.
By Jon Guttman

While Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellans Army of the Potomac slowly advanced on Richmond in May 1862, the Union Navy made its own play to seize the Confederate capital.

In mid-May 1862little more than a year after South Carolina secessionists had fired the opening rounds of the Civil War at Fort Sumterthe end of the conflict seemed invitingly within the Unions reach. In spite of a spirited and resourceful defense by a hopelessly outnumbered Confederate Army, aided by a Union commander who constantly overestimated the Rebels numbers and consequently had been advancing up the Virginia Peninsula at a snails pace, a powerful Union force was now making its way up the James River toward the Confederate capital of Richmond.

In Richmond itself, panic reigned. Runaway soldiers and refugee families poured in from the peninsula, doubling the citys prewar population of 40,000. Some residents set aside small quantities of tobacco to be used as currency in their future dealings with Union occupation forces, while others fled. President Jefferson Davis wife, Varina, and their four children were sent to Raleigh, N.C. Preparations were made to ship the Confederate archives to South Carolina, while the treasurys gold was crated up, ready to be removed at a moments notice aboard a train kept under steam for just that purpose.

Given the lethargy with which Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan was executing his end run up the peninsula, it was fitting that the cause of Richmonds atmosphere of impending doom was not his Army of the Potomac but the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.

When McClellan commenced his Peninsula offensive in March 1862, he was supported by a sizable naval contingent that would accompany his army as it advanced up the James River. On March 8, however, a serious threat emerged in the form of the Confederate ship Virginia, an armored casemate ram converted from the salvaged burned-out hull of the Union steam sloop Merrimack. Accompanied by the wooden gunboats Patrick Henry, Jamestown and Teaser, Virginia attacked the Union blockading squadron in Hampton Roads, where she rammed and sank the wooden frigate Cumberland, set the frigate Congress ablaze and forced the steam frigates Minnesota, Roanoke and St. Lawrence to run aground. Those unfortunate Union vessels thus had the dubious distinction of being the first victims of an ironclad warship.

It was Virginias turn to be surprised, however, when she returned to Hampton Roads the next morning to finish off the still-grounded Minnesota. There to confront the Rebel ram was the new and even more innovative Union ironclad Monitor, which had a round, two-gun turret mounted on her low, flat hull. History was made for the second day in a row, as two ironclad vessels fought each other for the first time.

The two-hour duel ended in a standoff, with little damage inflicted on either side. Virginia was compelled to withdraw to Sewells Point, however, and she then retired up the Elizabeth River to Norfolk. Virginias captain, Franklin Buchanan, had been wounded in the fight, and Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall took command of the ironclad.

During the next two months, whenever Virginia ventured into Hampton Roads, the Union naval commander there, Commodore Louis M. Goldsborough, would prudently withdraw his fleet to within range of Fort Monroes guns. As for Monitor, President Abraham Lincoln had given specific orders not to risk her in another confrontation with Virginia until more ironclads could be built. Consequently, when the Confederate ram entered Hampton Roads on April 11 and captured three Union transports within sight of Monitor, the Union ironclad did not steam out to engage her. But when Monitor and five other Union vessels bombarded Sewells Point on May 8, Virginia did come out to confront them, only to see the Union vessels retire beyond cannon range. An uneasy standoff ensued.

While Virginias officers were planning a desperate, all-out strike against the Union fleet, Lincoln arrived at Fort Monroe and directed Maj. Gen. John Wool to land a force on the other side of Hampton Roads, at Willoughbys Point. Soon, Union troops were ashore and marching toward Norfolk, prompting the Confederate garrison commander, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Huger, to set fire to the Gosport Navy Yard and withdraw his forces. He did so without informing Tattnall, whose first indication of trouble came on May 9, when he noticed that there was no longer a Confederate flag flying over the battery at Sewells Point.

By the night of May 10, Virginia was a warship without a port, and Tattnall decided to try to escape up the James to Richmond. Blocking his way, however, was Harrisons Bar, a stretch of riverbottom where the water was only 18 feet deep. In order to clear that obstacle, Virginias 20-foot draft would have to be reduced. Her crew spent five desperate hours throwing coal and ballast overboard, exposing the ironclads thinly armored lower quarters but reducing her draft by 3 feet.

Even those measures did not seem to be enough, however, because the local river pilots informed Tattnall that heavy winds were sweeping so much water off the bar that the lightened Virginia would still not be able to clear it. Tattnall distrusted the pilots claims, but he was also unwilling to risk the lives of his crew in the event Virginia did run aground, leaving her immobilized and vulnerable to Union gunfire.

Late that night, Tattnall intentionally ran Virginia aground beside Craney Island, near the mouth of the Elizabeth River, then ordered her abandoned and set afire. At 4:58 a.m., the flames reached Virginias 16-ton powder magazine, and the pride of the Confederate Navy exploded into fragments in a bright flash that could be seen from as far away as Fort Monroe.

The situation now looked completely hopeless for the Confederate cause. Outnumbered by McClellans 118,000-man Army of the Potomac, General Joseph E. Johnstons 56,000 Confederate troops were already slowly retreating up the peninsula. With Virginia gone, nothing stood in the way of the Union Navy, either. On May 13, a pessimistic Jefferson Davis wrote to his wife: The hasty evacuation of the defenses below and the destruction of the Virginia hastens the coming of the enemys gun-boats. I do not know what to expect when so many failures are to be remembered, yet will try to make a successful resistance.

As Lincoln returned to Washington on May 11, word of Virginias demise reached McClellan at his camp near West Point at the head of the York River. Seeing an opportunity to intimidate Richmond into surrender without having to fight his way through the Confederate Army, McClellan urged Goldsborough to dispatch a flotilla of Federal warships, including Monitor, up the James toward the Rebel capital, some 70 miles away.

Unfortunately for Goldsborough, the manner in which his force would proceed was typically McClellanesque. The Rebels had evacuated the east bank of the James, but they still had several forts on the west bank. Although those positions were too weakly defended to stop the Federal ships, McClellans orders were for Goldsboroughs men to reduce all the works of the enemy as they go along, spike all their guns, blow up all their magazines, and only then move on Richmond and shell the city into surrender. Because Goldsborough dutifully adhered to those orders, minor strongpoints that might have been bypassed were dealt with in turn and generally given more attention than was really necessary. Each delay in the flotillas progress bought that much more time for Richmonds mixed bag of troops and tars to shore up her defenses.

On the morning of May 14, a Confederate soldier stationed at Battery Park, an outpost at the mouth of the Pagan River guarding Smithfield, spotted three Union vessels steaming up the James. In the van was Galena, one of three experimental armored vessels laid down for the U.S. Navy in 1861. Designed by Samuel H. Pook for C.H. Bushnell & Co. and commissioned on April 21, Galena was an ironclad corvette with unusual round sides and armor made of interlocking iron bars, 31Z4 inches thick at the sides, which made her look, one witness said, like a great fish with iron scales. Galena had a two-mast schooner rig, two Ericsson vibrating-lever steam engines and two boilers, generating 800 horsepower and driving a single screw to give her a maximum speed of 8 knots. Armament consisted of two 100-pounder rifles and four 9-inch Dahlgren rifles.

Although she was brand-new, Galena did not inspire much confidence in Goldsborough, who considered her to be a most miserable contrivance. He would not commit her to action until additional shields of boiler plate had been installed inside the bulwarks to prevent the armor-securing nuts from flying off at the first hit and wreaking havoc on the gun crews. Even after that modification, Goldsborough still judged Galena a sad affair.

Another unusual vessel in the flotilla was the little gunboat Naugatuck. Built by John Stevens in 1844 as a single-screw ship, the 192-ton, 110-foot-long Naugatuck was later given two screws, driven by two inclined engines with one boiler. Originally serving in the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service (the forerunner of the Coast Guard) under the name E.A. Stevens, Naugatuck subsequently was loaned to the Navy and armed with a single 100-pounder rifle, two 1-pounder rifles and a 12-pounder howitzer. Her main protection was her ability to partially submerge by flooding compartments to increase her draft from 7 feet, 8 inches to 9 feet, 10 inches.

Rounding out the force were Monitor and two wooden vessels, the screw gunboat Aroostook and the side-wheel gunboat Port Royal. Commander John Rodgers led the small but potent flotilla. Born in Maryland in 1812, Rodgers had entered the Navy as a midshipman in 1828 and subsequently saw service in the Seminole War and in the Pacific Ocean. Serving as skipper of the gunboat Flag when war broke out in April 1861, Rodgers became the first commander of naval forces on the western rivers on May 16, but left three months later after clashing with the commanding general of the Western Department, Maj. Gen. John C. Fremont. Rodgers returned east in time to participate in the attack on Port Royal, S.C., on November 7. He served as an aide to Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, before hoisting his pennant aboard Galena in early 1862.

Rodgers was anxious to duplicate what Flag Officer David G. Farragut had done in New Orleans in April 1862run straight upriver, brushing aside any enemy fort that stood in his waybut Goldsboroughs orders compelled him to pay more attention to the minor strongpoints he encountered. The first was Fort Boykin, whose position at the lower end of Burwells Bay had been selected by Colonel Andrew Talcott at the behest of President Davis military adviser, General Robert E. Lee. Armed with eight 3-pounders, three 42-pounders and two 8-inch guns, the fort was defended by a small garrison of Virginia militia, who rushed to their positions and started firing away when Galena came in sight. The two wooden gunboats dropped back and let Galena deal with the enemy batteries, which were quickly silenced. Fort Huger, located four miles farther up the river, received similar treatment.

The next Rebel strongpoint, Fort Powhatan, had been built before the War of 1812 and challenged the oncoming Union vessels with only puny fire. Contemptuously bypassing the fort after dropping a few shells into it, the Union gunboats steamed on past City Point and Appomattox Manor, similarly subjecting each to a brief shelling as they made their way toward their ultimate prizeRichmond.

On the same day, the Virginia General Assembly met and resolved to defend the Confederate capital to the last extremity, assuring Davis that any destruction or loss of property in the process would be cheerfully submitted to. Davis then called upon Lee to propose the best line of defense south of Richmond if the government should be forced to relinquish the capital. Lee suggested the Staunton River, about 100 miles to the southwest, but then suddenly cried, But Richmond must not be given up; it shall not be given up!

Lees emotional outburst came as a surprise to political and military officials alike. For one thing, he was well-known for his reserve and self-control. For another, Lee did not have the most fearsome of fighting reputations at that time. Although he had distinguished himself as a captain of engineers during the Mexican War in 1847, Lee had not been very successful in his first year as a Confederate general; his attempt to retake western Virginia from Union control in the fall of 1861 had ended in miserable failure. Now, however, that statement of heartfelt resolve from the hitherto unaggressive Granny Lee galvanized similar feelings among the capitals defenders. The Richmond Dispatch echoed the generals sentiments: To lose Richmond is to lose Virginia, and to lose Virginia is to lose the key to the Southern Confederacy.

Meanwhile, the most immediate threat, the five Federal gunboats, were less than a days journey from the capital, with only one serious obstacle lying in their path. Eight miles below the city the James River made a sharp bend, its south bank rising to a 90-foot bluff that was located on the property of Augustus H. Drewry. From the outset, Confederate leaders had recognized the value of Drewrys Bluff as a last line of defense, and in the winter of 1861 they had built a redoubt on it, mounting one 10-inch and two 8-inch Columbiads. Fort Darling, as the Union troops called the redoubt, commanded a mile-long stretch of the James.

With Rodgers flotilla now bearing down on Richmond, Lee reverted to his original specialty as an army engineer and set about bolstering the defenses around Drewrys Bluff. Rebel sailors hauled five more heavy cannons, taken from the James River gunboat squadron, up the bluff to augment the three original guns, giving the defenders a total of four smoothbore and four rifled weapons. Lees eldest son, Colonel George Washington Custis Lee, personally supervised crews of soldiers, sailors and laborers who were hastily pressed into service to expand the existing entrenchments along the south bank of the river. About 300 yards downstream from the foot of the bluff, the gunboat Jamestown was scuttled in the main channel, and huge crates of stones and scrap iron were sunk between rows of pilings driven into the riverbed, forming two lines of obstructions across the 120-yard-wide river.

Just upstream from the double line of obstacles, the gunboat Patrick Henry, armed with a single 8-inch smoothbore, took up station. At the foot of the bluff on the north side of the river, Confederate Marine sharpshooters who had recently evacuated Norfolk deployed in trenches, under the command of Virginias gunnery officer, Lieutenant John Taylor Wood. All through the night of May 14, with the Federal gunboats only a few miles away, Lees men worked feverishly, digging rifle pits and filling sandbags in a drenching rain.

By the morning of May 15, the Confederates were as ready as they could ever hope to be. Captain Augustus Drewry, who was defending not only the capital and the cause but also his own property, commanded the Rebel army gunners of the Southside Heavy Artillery. Since most of the defenders were navy men, however, overall command on Drewrys Bluff was held by Commander Ebenezer Ferrand. Also present in command of a battery was Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones, Tattnalls former executive officer aboard Virginia.

Rodgers had learned about the Confederate efforts to close the bend at Drewrys Bluff late on May 14 and had waited until the next morning to try to force the defenses. Now, out of the morning mist, Galena emerged to inspect the enemy obstructions. At 7:35 a.m., she had reached a point 400 yards from the barriers when Ferrand ordered his batteries on the bluff to open fire.

Galena immediately took two hits on the port bow, but Rodgers held his fire. He recognized that this would be the first real test for his thinly armored flagship, and as he later put it, I resolved to give the matter a fair trial. He calmly moved Galena forward and maneuvered her in the narrow channel so that she could bring a full broadside to bear upon the bluff. Then Galena and her consorts commenced firing. The roar of the gunsUnion and Confederateshook the windows in an apprehensive Richmond.

On the bluff, Confederate gunners were hard pressed as fragments from 100-pound shells lobbed by Galena showered down on their emplacements. Their 10-inch Columbiad, accidentally loaded with a double charge of powder, recoiled off its platform. Nearby, a rain-soaked log casemate collapsed on its gun. Other guns had to cease fire temporarily so their limited supplies of ammunition could be rationed.

For all their problems, the Confederate gunners held one distinct advantage. They were able to pour plunging fire down on Galena, repeatedly penetrating the ironclads thin deck armor, whereas the Yankee gunners found their shells, more often than not, crashing harmlessly into the sides of the bluff below the redoubt. Monitor, attempting to relieve Galena, moved forward at about 9 a.m., but at close range she could not elevate her guns sufficiently to reach the top of the bluff and soon had to retire downstream. The Confederates fired only three shots at the seemingly invulnerable Monitor before giving up and concentrating on Galena.

Naugatuck also attempted to move forward and relieve Galena, but fared no better than Monitor at reaching Fort Darling with her gunfire. Upon firing a 16th round, her single 100-pounder Parrott gun burst, hurling part of its breech into the river and effectively putting her out of the fight.

Meanwhile, the wooden gunboats Aroostook and Port Royal remained at anchor half a mile downstream. Their crews did not dare to venture closer, and in any case they were preoccupied with a lively crossfire from Confederate sharpshooters entrenched on both riverbanks, one of whose bullets wounded Port Royals captain. A few shells came their way, but most of the Confederate gunners wrath was still concentrated on Galena.

Galena was also under a steady hail of musket fire, mostly from Fort Darling. Unmindful of the shot and shell that pelted the embattled ironclad, one member of Galenas U.S. Marine contingent, Corporal John F. Mackie from New York City, could frequently be seen poking his head out of the gunports to return firehis intended targets included counterparts from the Confederate Marine Corps. His actions were later described in an official citation: As enemy shellfire raked the deck of his ship, Corporal Mackie fearlessly maintained his musket fire against the rifle pits along the shore and, when ordered to fill vacancies at guns caused by men wounded and killed in action, manned the weapon with skill and courage. With the reading of that citation, Mackie became the first member of the U.S. Marine Corps to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

By 11 a.m., Galena had taken 44 hits, 18 of which had penetrated her armor. Other plates were jarred loose; timbers and frames were splintered and broken. A solid shot had gone completely through one of her bulwarks and embedded itself in the other. Her railings were shot away, her smokestack was riddled and on her shattered decks 13 men lay dead. Another 11 were wounded or injured, one of whom later died.

Rodgers stubbornly stood fast until Confederate Captain J.R. Tucker in Patrick Henry, unobtrusively lying at anchor among the obstructions, loosed an 8-inch shot that tore through the bow gunport and set Galena on fire. At 11:05, Rodgers, noting that Galena was almost out of ammunition and starting to take on water, finally gave the order to withdraw.

As the Federal squadron limped back downriver, the Confederates gave three cheers and hurled their caps into the air. Monitors pilot heard a Rebel sharpshooter call out mockingly, Tell the captain that is not the way to Richmond!

Seven defenders of Drewrys Bluff had been killed and eight wounded, but their steadfast stand had staved off the waterborne threat to Richmond. Lee, witnessing the drama from the other side of the James at Chaffins Bluff, was relieved but chastened to see how close the enemy ships had come.

Southern sharpshooters continued to snipe at Rodgers retiring flotilla all the way down the James. The ships also came under fire from Fort Powhatan. Its guns were no more effective than they had been the first time, but they were annoying enough for the Union gunboat Sebago to come up later and raze the fortification.

Without a doubt, Galena had borne the brunt of the exchange, leading Rodgers to remark in a quiet understatement, We demonstrated that she was not shot proof. She would be repaired and fight in several more engagements in the Peninsula campaign, most notably off Malvern Hill on August 1. An examination in 1863, however, showed Galenas armor to be so badly cracked that it was removed, turning her back into an ordinary wooden screw sloop with a three-mast rig.

Monitor was hit three times during the advance on Richmond but escaped completely unharmed. Port Royal and Aroostook suffered only light damage. Naugatuck was judged to be so useless that she was returned to the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service.

Richmond celebrated, although everyone felt that her deliverance was temporary. McClellans Army of the Potomac still lay about 23 miles from the Confederate capital and was advancing against Johnston, who was rapidly running out of space in which to conduct his fighting retreat. On May 31, Johnston was wounded during the Battle of Seven Pines. Major General Gustavus W. Smith briefly took charge of the Confederate Army but proved to be unsuited to the task. Command was then reluctantly handed over to the most senior officer left in RichmondGeneral Robert E. Lee.

Nobody in the Confederate capital would have suspected it at the time, but their army, which Lee christened the Army of Northern Virginia, was about to undergo a profound changeand so was the conduct of the war. The days of retreating were over.

Jon Guttman is editor of Military History Magazine. Further reading: Ships versus Shore: Civil War Engagements Along Southern Shores and Rivers, by Dave Page; and To the Gates of Richmond, by Stephen W. Sears.

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In May 1863, Major General Nathaniel F. Banks turned his Union army away from its northwesterly advance on Shreveport, Louisiana, toward the Mississippi River. His new goal was the capture of Port Hudson. Banks felt confident that he would have an easy victory over Major General Franklin Gardners Confederate forces there. After bagging Gardners army, Banks believed, he could sweep north to the aid of Major General Ulysses S. Grant, and together they would capture Vicksburg.

As Banks moved his main field army eastward, he sent orders to Baton Rouge and New Orleans to prepare all available troops for the field. This order included all the 20-pounder and 30-pounder Parrott rifle batteries and the rifled 12-pounder battery of the 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery. On May 19, A, B, G, H and K companies broke camp at Brashear City, La. They loaded their eight 30-pounder Parrott rifles and two 4.62-inch rifled bronze 12-pounders aboard a waiting New Orleans Great Western Railroad train. Without delay, the artillerists got underway for Algiers, La., across the Mississippi River.

The gunners arrived at Algiers within a few hours and quickly unloaded their equipment. Company A found four 20-pounder Parrott rifles waiting for them in Algiers. The Hoosiers made a spirited game of moving their guns and siege equipment through the streets to the riverfront dock. River steamers were waiting to transport men, guns, equipment, 100 mules and 50 wagons to Baton Rouge. In a short time the steamers were loaded and underway. Arriving at Baton Rouge, the force disembarked, hitched their mules to their limbers, caissons and wagons, and set off. Their trip took them northward along the route traveled two days before by Maj. Gen. Christopher C. Augurs infantry division.

Augurs forces had met with stiff opposition at the village of Plains Store, a few miles away from Port Hudson. On May 21, a fierce engagement of several hours took place. As often happened throughout the war, the outnumbered and outgunned Confederates gave a splendid account of themselves. They fought Augurs army to a halt and held them off for more than six hours. Finally, in danger of having their flanks turned, and running low on ammunition, the Rebels withdrew to Port Hudson. They dragged off some of their cannons by hand rather than abandon them to the Yankees.

The heavy artillerists coming up the same road two days later noticed the number of dead artillery horses, the battle debris and the stench of death in the fields. They sensed that they soon would be in for a similarly hard fight. On May 23, Colonel John A. Keiths command of five companies of the 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery arrived at Port Hudson and reported to General Augur.

That night, in preparation for a general assault against Port Hudson the next morning, Keith positioned all but one of his heavy batteries on Augurs front. Keith detached Captain William Roys Battery A from his command, sending it farther left to support Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Shermans assaulting columns. Under cover of darkness, Keith had his heaviest guns rolled into position.

Shortly before dawn on May 27, one of Battery As 20-pounder Parrotts fired the signal round to begin the initial bombardment of Port Hudson. The two-gun section occupied a position on the south-central portion of the Union lines. Sherman, commanding that part of the lines, watched the effect of the shot; then, with his staff, he retired to the rear to wait.

At the signal, all the light batteries opened fire at Port Hudson. About half an hour later, as soon as the sun rose, the heavy guns opened on the fortifications. Thirty-eight guns on Augurs front belched forth their iron missiles. Twenty-four pieces of light artillery joined the fray from Brig. Gens. Cuvier Grovers and Godfrey Weitzels fronts on the Federal right. Twenty Federal cannons simultaneously spewed flames on Shermans front.

The Confederate gunners accepted the challenge, and the contest was on to see who could disable more guns. The Confederates had 16 guns on their left. These included two rifled 24-pounder siege guns, two 3.5-inch Blakely rifles and one 2-pounder breech-loading Hughes gun. The rest of the line mounted 6-pounder bronze guns and 12-pounder bronze howitzers. These pieces occupied nine battery emplacements. The Confederate center mounted 16 cannons, including two 24-pounder smoothbore siege guns, one 24-pounder rifled siege gun and a rifled 12-pounder bronze gun. Eight gun emplacements held the centers guns. Five emplacements on the right of the defenses held 11 light guns, including one Confederate 3.3-inch rifle, two Confederate 10-pounder Parrotts and one 20-pounder Parrott.

As the contest heated up, the Hoosier gunners sent spotters to climb the nearest tall trees and report the effects of their shots. The sun climbed higher, and tempers rose with the temperature. The infantry assault against the left of the Confederate lines had started, but the assault on the lines in front of Augur and the Hoosier gunners had not begun. Nor had the assault upon the Rebel right.

Blue-clad and gray-clad sharpshooters blazed away, and soldiers on both sides had to keep their heads down. On Augurs front, the Union light guns moved into exposed positions in an open field less than half a mile from the Confederate defenses. They had no shelter from the sharpshooters savage fire. The artillerists were constantly changing position to avoid enemy rifle and cannon fire. As if the enemy fire were not enough trouble, they also had to contend with whirring iron fragments from premature shellbursts and the concussion from a Federal 20-pounder Parrott battery.

The large siege guns could not be easily moved around, although they did have hastily built earthworks to shelter behind. With that limited protection, their crews prayed the earthworks would keep out most of the enemys iron. The more intense fire did not reach the rearmost line of guns, which were nearly out of range of the lighter Rebel guns. Captain Edward McLaflins Battery G was in a more exposed position. His tong-range rifled cannons were within a smoothbore guns shorter range, and they were also within range of sharpshooters. just after they started firing, Southern riflemen made it too hot for McLaflins men to work their guns.

A regular hail of bullets and cannon shot spattered the blue-jacketed Hoosiers works. Several shots hit the center 30-pounder Parrott, and balls from 24-pounder siege guns and 6-pounder tight guns plowed into the battery. Many of the damaging rounds came from a 6-pounder battery on the right. A hissing slier splintered the right wheel of the center gun. Working under heavy fire, the guns crew managed to get a wheel from the limber. They rolled the wheel into the emplacement, jacked UP the Parrott rifle and changed the wheel. Then they heaved the gun back into action.

Another shot blasted a sponge rod out of one crewmans hands as he swabbed out the gun. The sponge end remained in the muzzle. Sweating and swearing, the crew removed the sponge. Relief crewmen helped the injured man to the rear, and firing resumed. As the crews moved the heavy rifles into position, the maneuvering handspikes were shot from their bands; many in the battery received wounds from large splinters. The flying lead, iron and wood killed two men during the days fighting. In spite of this punishment, Battery G dismounted two heavy enemy guns.

While this was going on, Captain James Connellys Battery H, more than three-fourths of a mile to the rear of Battery 0, was maintaining a steady fire from its position behind an earthwork in the middle of a field. Due to the range, the Confederates light guns were not much of a threat to Connellys battery, but the heavier pieces were troublesome. The crews nevertheless succeeded in dodging the incoming rounds and served their 30-pounders well. As they labored they worked up a hearty thirst, which they slaked by consuming dippers of whiskey from buckets provided by the quartermaster. The relief details found time to read letters from home without being too bothered by the incoming rounds. In spite of the whiskey-or perhaps because of it-the batterys crews silenced two guns and dismounted a third.

Captain James Grimsleys Battery B also maintained a steady fire throughout the action. His three 30pounder Parrotts occupied a position well screened by trees, and the battery did not receive a heavy return fire. The trees, likewise, screened Grimsleys targets and protected them in turn. Captain Clayton Coxs Battery K was also in a wooded area, but his battery was three-fourths of a mile closer to the thundering Rebel guns. It came under a galling fire from its front and right flank, similar to the punishment being handed out to McLaflins battery.

By now it was early afternoon, and the assault on the northern lines had ended in disaster for the Federals. A tangle of cut trees and underbrush, as well as swamplands and deep ravines, stowed the assaulting troops advance. The natural barriers were quite formidable, especially since the Confederate rifle pits were atop bluffs overlooking the swamps and ravines. As the tired bluecoats piled up at the base of the bluffs, they were met with a withering blast of buck and ball from the shotguns of the 1st Alabama and the rifles of the 39th Mississippi and the 10th and 18th Arkansas. The Federal ranks broke and ran.

A fortified semidetached works at the northeast corner of the enemy lines earned the name Fort Desperate. The 15th Arkansas held this outpost against several attacks during the day. Two 12-pounder howitzers from Captain Andrew Herods 1st Mississippi Battery B, mounted in the salient points of the works and charged with canister, helped in its defense. The Union soldiers held onto the ground they had won only because they faced certain death if they tried to retreat. Others managed to crawl off under cover of logs and stumps. Some sought safety in the lee edges of die same bullet- spattered ravines that had tangled their advance.

More than six hours tardy, at 2 p.m. Sherman finally led his men forward, This happened only after Banks threatened his recalcitrant subordinate with a replacement. Sherman personally led his men across a long, wide field. Shermans men moved out in good order across the field, battle flags flying. They were supported by two light batteries in the center and Battery As 20-pounders, separated into two sections. Their exploding shells forced Captain George Abbay to pull his Mississippi Batterys guns from their embrasures to behind the thick dirt parapet for safety. There, Abbay doubled the canister in his guns and waited.

As the Union infantry neared the earthworks, a scythe of lead and iron mowed them down. Abbay ran his guns out of hiding and at point-blank range blasted gaping holes in the Yankee ranks. A ball dropped Shermans horse. Sherman recovered from the fall and rose, waving his sword to encourage his men. Another ball shattered one of Shermans legs, and he was carried from the field. As they advanced through the cannonade, the Federals also came under rifle and shotgun fire from the defenders. Shermans delayed attack had allowed the Confederates time to shift men from other parts of the defenses and concentrate a heavy fire upon the attackers. Southern cannons poured round after round of shell and canister into the advancing, and then faltering, blue ranks. The retreating troops ran off the field into gullies and ravines under cover of Battery As thundering Parrott rifles.

Augur, under orders to wait for Shermans attack before starting his own, sent his men into action shortly after 2 p.m. The heavy guns in the rear fell silent for fear of hitting their own attacking men. The closer light batteries were running low on ammunition, but they kept up a covering fire until they were passed by the advancing foot soldiers. Augurs infantry moved rapidly across the first few hundred yards of level ground, then slowed as it crossed furrowed fields and came upon enemy abatis. A little farther on, a heavy fusillade of lead from the Confederate guns brought the Union line to a complete stop. Augur withdrew his men and artillery, and the distant guns of Indiana batteries B, H and E provided covering fire.

During the day, Battery K had expended 300 rounds from its two guns in an eight-hour period. Battery G had fired 450 rounds from its three 30-pounders, and Battery H had fired more than 250 rounds from its two 30pounder rifles. Battery E joined Batteries G and K in moving to the rear for a few days of well-earned rest. The men in Batteries B and H maintained their positions and kept up a desultory fire for the next 10 days.

The heavy and light guns had done their cruel jobs well. Only one man out of the entire 1st Alabama crew manning the 12-pounder gun at the Jackson Road redan escaped death or injury. A 24-pounder smoothbore siege gun near the railroad line through the defenses had its muzzle shattered by iron bolts. Federal fire had dismounted two other 24-pounder siege guns and several light guns, too. Flying iron smashed a 12-pounder howitzer and killed its commander, Lieutenant Jesse Edrington, in Fort Desperate. Atop Commissary Hill to the rear of Fort Desperate, Captain James Sparkman received a mortal wound while directing the fire of his 3.5 -inch Blakely rifles. Also wounded was Captain J.L. Bradford of Battery F, 1st Mississippi. In most cases, the dismounted pieces had repairs made and were back in service in one or two days.

Confederate iron had taken its toll, too. First Indianas Battery G lost two men killed, and Battery B had one man blinded by an exploding shell. The 1st Maine Battery had one man killed and several men wounded, as did Battery A, 1st U.S. Artillery, and Battery G, 5th U.S. Artillery. The other Federal batteries reported a few men wounded but no deaths. Many of the Union infantry casualties were due to the sweeping fire of cannister from the Rebel guns.

After the failure of the May 27 assault on Port Hudson, what was to become the longest siege on U.S. soil commenced. The two opposing infantry forces settled into sharpshooting contests. Attacks were limited to probes by skirmishing parties along the line. A timed, heavy artillery fire began, its purpose to harass the enemy, destroy his facilities and prevent repair of damages.

General Banks sent to Baton Rouge and New Orleans for the rest of his siege guns. He ordered his pioneers (military engineers) to construct artillery emplacements encircling Port Hudson. Eight- and 10-inch mortars that had not been fully equipped for service in May were now supplied and sent from New Orleans. The 1st Indianas Batteries C and D arrived from Baton Rouge on June 1. Battery C brought four 8- inch siege howitzers, and Battery D brought five 24-pounder siege guns.

Battery B detached one gun under Lieutenant William Blankenship to serve with Captain McLaflins Battery G. McLaflin then moved Blankenships and his own 30-pounder Parrott rifles to the northern front. He detached one Parrott rifle Linder Lieutenant Benjamin Harrower to a position about 100 yards west of Taylors mortars. He placed two of his big rifles 400 yards north of Fort Desperate. Blankenships piece went into position about 100 yards west of his own two guns.

Facing this formidable amount of weaponry, the Confederates mounted, from their left, two 2-pounder breech-loading guns, then a four-gun 6-pounder battery. Next came a battery composed of one 6-pounder gun, one 12-pounder howitzer and one rifled 24-pounder siege gun. At its right was a battery of two 3.5-inch Blakely rifles and a 12-pounder howitzer. Still, the number Of guns was less than had been in action on May 27. Yankee shot and shell had damaged some Confederate guns beyond repair.

The Navy loaned four 9-inch Dahlgren guns, with full crews, Linder Lt. Cmdr. Edward Terry, to the siege effort. He placed them into position opposite the Priest Cap near the position held by the 1st Indianas Battery K on May 27. Terrys men hoped to breech the Confederate earthworks with their 9-inch shells so that the infantrymen in the next assault would have a ready entrance. Besides targeting the Priest Cap, the mammoth DahIgrens targeted the salient at the Port Hudson and Clinton railroad cut in the lines, 1,080 yards away. They also drew a bead on the Jackson Road sally port, 920 yards away.

Captain Albert Macks 18th New York Black Horse Battery moved into earthworks a few hundred yards forward of McLaflins old position of May 27. Macks six 20-pounder Parrotts bore on the sally ports at Plains Road, the railway and Jackson Road. Battery D moved three of its 24-pounder siege guns, commanded by Lieutenant Jesse Hadden, into an emplacement on the north side of the Plains Store-Port Hudson Road. Captain Pythagoras Holcomb moved his 2nd Vermonts six 6-pounder Sawyer rifles into position across the road and a little forward of the siege guns.

One section of Battery E, under Captain James Hamrick, took two of its 20-pounder Parrotts into an emplacement on the north side of a ravine by Slaughters house. Battery D moved its remaining two 24-pounder smoothbores into that same position. Those 24-pounders were under the command of Lieutenant William Harper. Lieutenant Harvey Hall moved Battery As four 20-pounder Parrott rifles into position on the far south of the besiegers lines. They were about 1,500 yards from the enemy parapet. Batteries B and H remained in their distant positions until June 9 Battery Es second section remained in the park to the rear of Batteries B and H. To protect the laborers on the new emplacements from enemy bullets, most of the backbreaking work went on at night. By the end of the week, most of the battery positions were complete and ready for their tenants.

Battery C moved its four huge 8-inch howitzers into position on the left center of the lines, where their fire commanded the entirely of Slaughters field. Not only did those 8-inch monsters cover the Rebel lines in front but they also poured an enfilading fire on the right flank of the Southern breastworks. Seven hundred yards south of the siege howitzers was a battery of four more mortars.

To counter the 56 pieces of Union artillery, the Confederates had only 23 pieces of light artillery and seven pieces of heavy artillery facing the Federal center and left. An assortment of 6-pounder smoothbores, 12-pounder howitzers, 12-pounder Napoleons, 2.9-inch Parrott rifles, and a 3.3-inch bronze rifle comprised the light batteries. Detachments from the 1st Alabama Infantry, the 1st Tennessee Artillery Battalion, the 12th Louisiana Artillery Battalion and Miles Legion manned the heavier caliber guns along the line. The heavy cannons included a rifled 12-pounder (4.62-inch bore) bronze gun, a 24-pounder smoothbore siege gun, a rifled 24-pounder (5.82-inch bore) siege gun, a 32-pounder smoothbore Navy gun, and a 20-pounder Parrott rifle.

By June 9, most of the heavy siege gun positions were complete. As soon as the Union guns were in place, they began firing one round every 15 minutes. The steadily pounding noise from the timed circle of fire was hard on the defenders nerves, and it was meant to be. Along the Northern lines, McLaflins, Blankenships and Harrowers 30-pounder Parrotts fired with good effect, their shots destroying the Confederate grain mills machinery. Exploding shells also set fire to storage buildings and dismounted several Rebel guns. At night, Confederate ordnance men worked feverishly under cover of darkness to repair the damaged gun carriages. The 1st Alabamas men, ducking the Parrotts fire in their rifle pits, named one of the 30-pounders Whistling Dick because of the swooshing noise its huge shells made in flight.

More than two miles south of Harrowers gun, one of Captain Roses 8-inch howitzers also earned a name for itself through its accurate enfilading fire. Its ricocheting shells would skip, bounce and roll through the Rebel rifle pits like bowling balls. The recipients of its 68-pound discharges called it Bounding Bet. The Confederates sawed open one of its unexploded shells; inside, they found 480 copper balls of half-inch diameter.

On June 10, another of Roses 8-inchers dismounted a gun near the center of the Confederate lines, the blast killing the guns commander. Shortly before this, artillery fire had killed Captain F.J. Weller near one of his 24-pounder smoothbores at the railroad. Also on June 10, one of the Hoosiers Parrott rifle rounds struck yet another Confederate artillery officer. Captain R.M. Boone, commander of Boones Battery, had a leg blown off while he was standing atop his parapet to get a better view of the Federal guns. A washerwoman next to Boone also had her leg blown off, and a sergeant lost his foot to the same round. As the mortally wounded captain lay dying, he asked his men to load his severed limb into one of his guns and fire it at the Yankees. It is not known whether his men obeyed that last order.

Confederate officers asked for the heavy riverfront guns to be remounted so they could return enemy fire at the land defenses. Accordingly, an 8-inch shell gun and a 10-inch Columbiad in the river batteries were remounted so they could turn to fire inland over their own men, Because of its range and size of shell (128 pounds), the 10-inch Columbiad became the bane of the Federal camps. The Union soldiers soon named it Old Demoralizer, while the Confederates lovingly called it Lady Davis. It became a prime target of all the heavy Northern guns. They were not sure of its location, however, and the Old Demoralizer remained in service without disability for the duration of the siege, hurling its shells with impunity into Yankee camps some two miles distant.

June 12 brought about some unusual activity for the Indiana heavy artillerists. General Banks asked Battery Hs commander, Captain James Connelly, if his guns could take out a 4.62-inch Brooke rifle in the citadel, the gun that had damaged the ironclad gunboat Essex. The Essexs captain respected the Brookes punch and would not come upriver to get the range of the Old Demoralizer.

Accepting Banks challenge, the boys of Battery H rolled their 30-pounder Parrott out of its emplacement. They moved some 250 yards across an open field and set up shop about 450 yards from the Rebel citadel. While they moved into the exposed position, a second gun crew grabbed their Merrill rifles and moved into rifle pits parallel to the guns path, taking up positions as sharpshooters. Their accurate fire kept the Rebel riflemen and gunners down. While the Brookes crewmen were busy dodging bullets, the 30-pounders crew started firing. After a few shots, they got the range and hit the Brookes muzzle. Then another round hit its axle, the next round smacked a wheel, and a final round broke the axle, Putting the gun on the ground. The 30-pounder crew then rolled their piece back into its emplacement without mishap.

The next day, at 11:15 a.m., a general bombardment of Port Hudson was begun. When only a few rounds had been fired, Battery Hs No. 2 gun blew out its vent. A few rounds later, a shell prematurely exploded and blew the muzzle off the No. 1 Parrott, putting the two-gun battery out of commission. The crews limbered their damaged pieces and went to the rear to get replacement guns.

The rest of the batteries fired so fast that one shell per second fell into the enemy works. After an hour, the bombardment ceased. It had not done much damage to the enemy or his works. Banks sent in a demand for the surrender of Port Hudson, but General Gardner calmly rejected it.

Early on the morning of the 14th, around 3 a.m., the light batteries opened up again. Within 15 minutes the heavy batteries joined in for another hour of screeching shot, shell and shrapnel. Blazing flashes from the guns and exploding shells brightened the dawn; the smell of brimstone filled the air. At first light, the infantry moved forward. As the troops advanced, Captain McLaflins two 30-pounder Parrotts enfiladed the Priest Cap with their fire. Bainbridges 10 guns joined in, forcing the Confederate troops to keep low. Large traverses across their rifle pits protected the Rebels from enfilading shot and shell fragments. As the Yankee infantry neared, the artillery ceased firing lest they hit their own men. When the Yanks neared the parapet, the riflemen in gray opened fire. The Rebel artillerists also ran out two light cannons and fired shrapnel and canister at the oncoming blue ranks.

Responding to the threat, Lieutenant Harrower took the enemy guns in the rear without endangering the attackers. Whistling Dicks shot and shell quickly dismounted both of the Rebel guns. The Federals gained the parapet; two companies from the 4th Wisconsin and a few men from the 8th New Hampshire regiments got inside the works. Their support units from the 4th, 31st, 38th and 53rd Massachusetts fell back from the works. The 4th Massachusetts broke and ran, trampling the 31st Massachusetts in its flight. The 4th Wisconsins men and the 8th New Hampshires men inside the enemy works now surrounded by hostile Alabamians, Arkansans and Mississippiansthrew up their arms in surrender.

The days fighting was not over. As had happened on May 27, the Federals could not get a simultaneous assault together. An hour after the assault had begun from the east, another charge rolled toward the Priest Cap from the north. The planning and execution of that charge was poor and it, too, failed.

After the failure of the June 14 assaults, the artillery again settled into the daily routine of slow-timed fire. The firing was slower than it had been during the previous days because ammunition was low. The main supply depot at Springfield Landing had not received any deliveries since June 10. What the crews had on hand was all that existed for another day. The men of Battery H, sent to the rear with their disabled guns, received assignments to travel to the Springfield Landing ammunition depot, about three miles down the river from Port Hudson. The supply boats arrived the next day, and the Indianians spent the next eight days filling shells with powder and installing fuze plugs.

Captain Connelly returned from New Orleans on the 23rd with two new 30-pounder Parrott rifles. The battery gathered their equipment and personal belongings and prepared to return to their old emplacement. But that was not to be. They had a new assignment to the left of their old position in a newly constructed battery. Named in honor of its designer and mastermind, Battery Bailey could hold 17 guns. Most of the troops called it the Great Cotton Bale Battery, since confiscated cotton made up most of its wall material. It was constructed only 250 yards across a deep ravine from the Rebel citadel. Two smaller emplacements flanked it on its right, and one emplacement flanked it on its left. The previous attacks against the ravine-guarded northern defenses and across the open fields of the center defenses had met with dismal results. Now the new Federal plan was to use massed artillery to pound the southernmost defensive position to rubble. Then the Union troops hoped to walk into Port Hudson over its smoking ruins.

Men, ammunition and artillery fitted the Cotton Bale Battery by June 26, and that afternoon the battery unleashed its iron fury on the Rebel citadel and the rifle pits near it. The firing was heavy and sustained for hours. Both sides blasted away with everything they could bring to bear on each other. Lt. Cot. Paul F. DeGourney, commander of the Confederate heavy artillery on the lower river batteries, could not return fire with his 24-pounder rifled siege gun because its position across from the Cotton Bate Battery was too exposed. He did get to put his rifled 24-pounder barbette gun, 8-inch shell gun, rifled 24-pounder barbette gun, 8-inch Columbiad and the Old Demoralizer into action. Still, the 8-inch shell gun and the rifled 32-pounder could only get off a total of 20 shells during the intense barrage from the Yankees.

The thunderous hurricane of Federal fire blasted down the Confederate flag at the citadel three times. Lieutenant L.A. Schirmer of DeGourneys 12th Louisiana Battalion of Artillery repeatedly risked his life, gallantly replacing the flag each time it fell. In Battery Bailey, Battery Bs flag received 19 holes, and a Rebel rifle ball hit Major Roys right arm. Roys injury was slight, since the force of the ball spent itself in passing through the body of a Marine before it hit Roy.

The Rebels advanced rifle pits, aptly named The Devils Elbow, bore the brunt of the Federal artillery fire. The most forward of the pits soon became untenable, and the battered Confederates withdrew to another previously prepared line of rifle pits to the rear. The citadel still stood. After the bombardment, the Southerners joked that their defensive walls were now impregnable, since they were mostly iron.

The siege wore on without significant accomplishment by either side. The big guns along the river still kept the Navy from passing, and the Army still blasted away at Port Hudson from the land side. Since the Army could not get the range of the river batteries, and the Navy could not get close enough to try for them, a battery of heavy guns had to be moved across the river. This was done in spite of Admiral David Farraguts statement that the river batteries did not harm the Army (the infantry on the receiving end of the 10-inch and 8-inch guns begged to differ with the admiral). Farragut more accurately stated that a battery on the riverbank might overshoot the Rebels and hit its own men in the rear.

Banks decided to take a chance that shot flying too high from his own guns was less a hazard to his men than the Columbiads shells. He picked his best heavy battery for the task. On June 30, the 1st Indianas Battery H moved out of Battery Bailey. They took their equipment and guns to Springfield Landing, where they boarded waiting transports. The steamers took them about two miles upstream and landed them on the west bank. They grabbed their spikes and proceeded on foot under cover of the levee to their new position.

About midmorning on July 1, Battery H opened fire from its new position, cut into the tear bank of the levee across from the citadel. Connellys gunners soon found the range of the guns across the river and went to work. One shell found its way into the rifle pits by the citadel . The explosion killed three and wounded five. The 10 guns in the river batteries returned Connellys fire with 10-inch, 8-inch, 7-inch, 6.4-inch and 5.82-inch bolts and balls. In spite of the abundance of iron thrown against it, the levee absorbed all fire. By noon the fire had decreased. Thereafter, the Hoosiers lobbed a shell every 15 minutes until nightfall.

The next day, the Federal guns across the river from Battery H kept banging away at the citadel. Battery H opened fire on the rifled 32-pounder gun. After 40 minutes of firing, one of their bolts smashed one of the 32-pounders carriage cheeks. When the gun crashed down, the Hoosiers climbed atop the levee and cheered their handiwork. Four 8-inch and 10-inch shots in quick succession plowed up the levee and covered the cheering boys with earth. Their celebration quickly ended; diving behind the levee, they took shelter and tried to begin a slow fire.

Their opponents built up a furious fire in response to the Hoosiers insolent cheer. A Confederate shot shattered the carriage of one of the 30-pounders, and the batterys firing slowed. Connellys remaining gun lobbed a few shells into the cooking fires on the riverbank across the way, causing sparks, pots, pans and curses to fly through the air. This was new fun for the Hoosiers. The bluff had hidden the flames from their view before, but from their new vantage point they were easy targets. The gunners soon tired of their sport, however, ceasing fire and withdrawing their damaged piece for repairs.

Battery H spent July 3 resting and finishing repairs to the carriage of the damaged gun. The crews had pulled the remaining functional gun out of service until they could have both guns working against the river batteries. By nightfall both pieces were back in position. The next morning they noticed that the rifled 32-pounder across the river was back in place, and it looked as saucy as ever. The Confederates had made some repairs, too.

The Fourth of July arrived, and the Federal batteries fired a national salute of 34 blanks in celebration. The Confederates waited for an attack that did not come. In the afternoon all Federal batteries resumed a slow-timed fire. Little enemy fire was returned. That evening, Battery H fired a few shells at the cooking fires and at the horses and mules that were brought down to the riverbank to drink. Then they retired for the night.

The siege would soon end. July 7 brought word of the surrender of Vicksburg, and two Union batteries fired another salute of 34 shots. Not to be outdone, Battery H fired a salute of shell at the river batteries.

Port Hudson surrendered on July 9, 1863. At 7 a.m., General Gardners ragged army formed in line along the river by his headquarters. As the Federals marched across the shell-blasted soil to the river, they could hear the booming of the guns in Battery Bailey firing a 100-shot salute. Arriving at the river, the Union troop wheeled right and lined up facing their former foes.

Gardner offered his sword in surrender to Brig. Gen. George Andrews. Andrews returned it to Gardner in honor of his brave defense of his post. The Confederate infantrymen then put down their arms. There were no cheers as it Stars and Bars were lowered, only proud, defiant silence on one side and respectful silence on the other. That changed when the Stars and Stripes fluttered from atop the flagpole. The ragged, gray-clad men were still quiet, but the huzzahs from the blue-clad ranks more than made up for their silence. Captain Jacob Rawles 5th U.S. Battery fired a salute of 34 shots as the American flag went up the pole. At noon, with flags waving, the eight companies of the Indiana Heavy Artillery paraded in Port Hudson, which their tireless shelling had done so much to reduce.

This article was written by Phillip Faller and originally appeared in the November 2002 issue of Americas Civil War magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Americas Civil War magazine today!
The 150th anniversary of our greatest conflict implores us to take another look

Back in February, the London-based Art Newspaper, the most important journal in the museum world, published a front-page article bemoaning the shocking absence of American art exhibitions commemorating the Civil War sesquicentennial. The authors even quoted me speculating that perhaps we remain inhibited about remembering the war because it continues to divide us.

The quotetaken out of context, of coursewas embarrassing enough. But more to the point, the entire article proved wildly inaccurate. Not only are museums, libraries and historical societies around the country planning major exhibitions of Civil War images, they seem to be ratcheting up for the wars 150th with unprecedented verve.

To name but a few examples: The Library of Congress has opened The Last Full Measure, a show of Civil War photographs from the Liljenquist Family Collection. In Hartford, the Connecticut Historical Society is showing Picturing the Civil War, an exhibition of lithographs by that citys Kellogg Brothers. The National Portrait Gallery plans a series of shows from its vast holdings, too. The National Archives has begun a rotation of exhibitions. The New York State Library in Albany is gearing up for a show. Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tenn., has plans for a display.

In 2013, my own Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will mount (following an initial run at the Smithsonian National Art Museum) the biggest exhibition, The Civil War and American Art. The Met will also hang a show of treasures from its vast collection of photographs, augmented in recent years by the acquisition of the fabled Gilman Collection.

In short, whatever the Art Newspaper and I may have believed just a few months ago, the shows must go onand will. Civil War art and photography will be on view as never before over the next four years, re-installed, re-interpreted and re-visited by thousands of Americans seeking new answers to unending questions: What divided us? Did any of it make sense? How best can we envision the battles and leaders? The best answer: not through words alone, but through pictures, too. In their day, Civil War images did not merely illustrate written accounts of the conflict. They vivified the experiences, exerting immense influence on the making and breaking of reputations, the durability of causes won and lost, and the cadence of national memory itself.

No wonder. The war lured the best young talent in the nation to the battlefield. Responding to the first call for troops, New York painter Sanford Gifford marched south with the 7th Regiment and produced pellucid canvases of its Virginia encampments. William D. Washington rode off to record the Confederate march to its own destiny. Conrad Wise Chapman, injured on land, was fortuitously sent to the waterfrontto Charleston Harbor, to be precisewhere he produced a magnificent portfolio of studies of the 1863 siege, under the patronage of P.G.T. Beauregard. And once a Boston lithographer dispatched Winslow Homer to the front to draft comic drawings of raw Union recruits, the artist was hookedhe began collecting material for future greatness, his mother said proudlyand for decades thereafter produced some of the most vivid and heartbreaking paintings of the wars impact on men and women, white and black.

The prevalence of so-called battlefield art is perhaps exaggerated. That is, most artists knew better than to bury their heads in their sketchbooks while shells and Minie balls whizzed around them. But they were sufficiently trained to record the scenes from memory promptly enough, and their interpretations equal anything produced in print to describe the majesty and the brutality of these engagements.

Photographers were the true artist-pioneers of this era. Never before was a conflict so well documented by this relatively new art form. Again, lensmen did not often take pictures of action as it perilously raged. But Alexander Gardners horrifying portraits of the dead littering the battlefield of Antietam were enough to galvanize distant and jaded New York by bringing home with painful acuity the horrors this modern conflict unleashed.

In the North, a romanticized painting of Sheridan astride Rienzi on his famous ride at Winchester, Va., created such a sensation it immortalized Little Phil forever. Another, showing a plantation mistress presiding over the burial of a Confederate officer, unleashed such a torrent of emotion that displays usually inspired visitors to fill buckets strategically placed nearby with money and jewelry earmarked for war widows and orphans. Images move ever so rapidly today across fickle little screens on our personal devices. Imagine a time in which images were riveting, precious, treasured, even reverencedpermanent enough to qualify as icons.

Perhaps nothing ever revealed the ravages of war more poignantly than the rapidly aging face of Abraham Lincoln, as captured by Gardner and Mathew Brady from 1861-65. In just four years Lincoln went from a young to a prematurely old man, looking ancient and haggard posing for his last studio images just days before his 56th and final birthday. Yet even as he aged before the nations eyes, a touchstone for national suffering, Lincoln never shunned the unforgiving camera. He made himself constantly available. He compelled his contemporaries to look, to see their own suffering in his fading countenance.

Over the next four years, look afreshat Lincolns tragic deterioration, Lees proud dignity, Davis imperious determination. Re-explore the hardships of camp life and the agonizing aftershocks of battle. View antiquated equestrian portraits and prescient celebrations of the machinery and technology of modern war. Discover tough modern views of hand-to-hand combat so ugly in their details that they become beautiful in the aggregate. And go as far as it takes to see the originalsnot merely the thumbnail reproductions in books and magazines, but the ornately framed canvases that once held pride of place in soldier hospitals, historical societies and state capitols. These action scenes and portraits held audiences spellbound for generations. At their best, they embody what George McClellan once called perfect representations of Army Life.

Even that reluctant generals eyes had seen the glorythrough the art of war. So must ours.

Harold Holzer is senior vice president for external affairs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. For more Civil War art, see The war on canvas, p. 44.
Whether skeptic or believer, few Americans have been able to ignore the phenomenon known as spiritualism  the belief that spirits can communicate with the living, usually with the help of certain sensitive individuals called mediums. During the last half of the 19th century, some Americans believed that the strange rappings heard in early seances were a spiritual telegraph, the otherworldly equivalent of Samuel F.B. Morses new invention. Others insisted that the noises were a sleight-of-hand trick used to prey upon vulnerable mourners. Even so, the religious and social movement inspired child mediums, outraged American clergymen, infuriated scientists and, at its peak, attracted more than 1 million American adherents.

The origins of Americas first spiritualist movement began humbly, in the hamlet of Hydesville, N.Y., just a few miles outside the Erie Canal town of Newark, about 20 miles west of Rochester. There, during the winter of 1847-48, 15-year-old Maggie Fox and her little sister, Katy, 11 1/2, schemed to frighten their mother, Margaret Fox, by creating sounds that echoed through their farmhouse at night.

At first, the girls tied strings to apples, then repeatedly and rhythmically dropped them on the stairs to mimic ghostly footsteps. According to an interview Maggie gave the New York World 40 years later, she and Katy soon learned to make popping, cracking and thumping sounds on their own. While the exact method they used has never been fully explained, Maggie claimed that they did so by popping or cracking the knuckles of their toes or by snapping their big and second toes much as one snaps ones fingers. Eventually the girls became so adept that they performed the trick in their stocking feet and even while standing in shoes. These rapidly repeated sounds were allegedly so loud that the elder Foxes had been awakened from their sleep.

The superstitious Mrs. Fox soon became convinced that their farmhouse was haunted. In contrast, her blacksmith husband, John, scoffed, insisting that the sounds came from a loose board or shutter that rattled in the night winds.

Maggie later claimed that she and Katy planned a final performance for their mother in which they would talk to the ghost. After the rapping sounds had begun in the evening of March 31, 1848, Mrs. Fox rose, lit a candle and began searching the house. When she reached her daughters bed, Katy peered into the darkness and boldly addressed the ghost. Mr. Split-foot, do as I do, she said, snapping her fingers in the cadence of the earlier noises. The appropriate raps followed. Maggie then clapped her hands four times and commanded the ghost to rap back. Four knocks followed. As if on cue, Katy responded by making soundless finger-snapping gestures that, in turn, were answered with raps.

Taking pity upon her terrified mother, Katy then offered a hint of explanation for the sounds. O, mother, I know what it is. Tomorrow is April-fool day and its somebody trying to fool us, she began.

But Mrs. Fox apparently refused to consider the suggestion of a prank. The ghost, she believed, was real and, terrified though she was, she decided to test it herself. Initially, she asked the ghost to count to 10. After it responded appropriately, she asked other questions, among them, the number of children she had borne. Seven raps came back. How many were still living? Six raps. Their ages? Each was rapped out correctly. As Mrs. Fox later related, she then demanded, If it was an injured spirit, make two raps. Promptly two knocks were returned. Mrs. Fox then wanted to know who the ghost was in life. Maggie and Katy quickly concocted an answer. The spirit, they claimed, was a 31-year-old married man, dead for two years, and the father of five. Will you continue to rap if I call in the neighbors, their mother asked, that they may hear it too?

This domestic drama might have ended there had Maggie and Katy failed to respond. But Mrs. Foxs reaction took them aback. To confess that what they had begun as a prank had evolved into a cruel joke was unthinkable. To do so would surely incite their parents wrath. After an awkward pause, the spirit rapped out its agreement to talk to the neighbors.

The first to arrive was Mary Redfield. Initially skeptical, the matron nevertheless asked the spirit questions about her own life and received such accurate answers that she scurried across the road to tell others.

Maggie and Katy were now in even more trouble. If they admitted their trickery, their mother, indeed the entire Fox family, would have been widely ridiculed. We could not confess the wrong without exciting very great anger on the part of those who we had deceived. So we went right on, Maggie explained in her 1888 memoir, The Death Blow to Spiritualism.

The next night, before a curious crowd of neighbors, a spirit began its rappings. Frustrated by the clumsiness of the communication, one of the visitors proposed a code. He assigned numbers to letters of the alphabet so that the ghost could not only spell out words but whole sentences. (The girls would use some version of this system, often adapted and simplified, from then on.) While frightened, the girls then knocked out messages that they claimed came from a murdered peddler who was buried in the farmhouse basement. In reaction, the neighbors decided to excavate the cellar to see if there was any truth to the tale. But fate intervened. Heavy spring rains and the farmhouses location near a creek filled the excavation pit with groundwater, making further investigation impossible for weeks.

Rumors about the alleged haunting at Hydesville nevertheless continued to spread throughout the countryside, and before long the Fox farmhouse was overrun with visitors who lingered until nightfall when Maggie and Katy again felt compelled to serve as mediums for the spirits. Inevitably, the tales of their seances elevated the girls to a new status. Some of their neighbors now regarded them with awe, as divinely inspired individuals chosen to interpret messages from the dead  an attitude that may have contributed to Maggie and Katys continued reluctance to confess to the prank.

In contrast, a restive group of locals treated the girls with contempt, convinced that they were either tricksters or witches. Emotions ran so high in their nearby Methodist Episcopal church that ultimately the minister asked the Fox family to leave the congregation. In his view the girls had engaged in unholy practices and their parents must be held accountable.

Rumors of the events in the Fox house continued to spread far and wide, inspiring attorney E.E. Lewis of nearby Canandaigua to visit Hydesville to investigate. Losing no time, he questioned the neighbors, interviewed former tenants of the farmhouse and asked the elder Foxes to describe the events in their own words. By late May 1848, Lewis published a pamphlet titled A Report of the Mysterious Noises Heard in the House of John D. Fox, in Hydesville, Arcadia, Wayne County.

Once again, the story might have ended there except that Maggie and Katys eldest sister, Leah Fox Fish, a divorced 33-year-old mother living in Rochester, happened to read the report. Stunned to learn that the hauntings involved her family, Leah promptly booked passage on an Erie Canal packet boat to Newark and continued on by carriage to Hydesville. Beyond Leahs immediate concern for her familys welfare was an even more provocative thought: Might these strange events be fulfillment of a prophecy about the imminent approach of the spirits that had appeared in a recent best-selling book?

That work, The Divine Principles of Nature, written by seer Andrew Jackson Davis, was based on the writings of the 18th-century European mystic, theologian and scientist Emanuel Swedenborg. All human experience, Swedenborg had written, was only a reflection of a larger spiritual universe. By 1847 Davis had popularized Swedenborgs theories by suggesting that the material world was only the shadow of a spiritual universe. The dead, Davis claimed, were in daily contact with the living, even if the latter did not realize it. This truth will ere long present itself in the form of a living demonstration, he predicted. And the world will hail with delightthat era when the interiors of men will be opened and the spiritual communion will be established.

Leah wondered, was it possible that Davis predictions were coming true in her parents home in Hydesville?

By the 1840s, American preoccupation with death was widespread. The nations new cities were expanding, its immigration was at an all-time high and its factories and ports booming, all of which contributed to urban overcrowding and poor sanitation, which spawned epidemics of cholera, whooping cough, influenza and diphtheria. The mortality rate was on the rise. Nearly one-third of all city-born infants died before reaching their first birthday, and young mothers  bearing an average of five children each  were often fatally struck with puerperal fever. Death thus touched all families, leaving behind millions of relatives with memories of those who had passed to the other side.

Simultaneously, prosperity born of Americas urbanization and expanding economy flooded the marketplace with factory-spun textiles, dishes and furniture, prompting a new hope and materialism. In such an atmosphere, traditional religions like Calvinism, with its punitive doctrine of original sin, no longer seemed relevant.

A more significant approach to true worship of the divine, according to some, was brotherly concern for others expressed through meaningful social action. By the 1830s and 40s, Americas new breed of humanitarians had founded dozens of charities and embraced social causes such as abolition, coeducation, temperance and prison reform. Still another symbol of that mood was the establishment of 40 utopian communities in America.

Contributing to that positive mood was Americas westward expansion. Frontier towns appeared seemingly overnight  so too did the nations expanding railroads, interlocking systems of canals and fleets of steam-powered boats. New inventions such as Morses telegraph suddenly linked once-remote cities and towns. By the late 1840s anticipation of a better life and the concept of progress had become a national expectation. It is an extraordinary era in which we live.The progress of the age has almost outstripped human belief, proclaimed orator-statesman Daniel Webster in 1847.

While perhaps neither young Maggie Fox nor her sister Katy grasped the implications of their eras zeitgeist, their eldest sister, Leah, had long hoped to embrace that promise. For years, the single mother had struggled to support herself and her daughter by giving music lessons to the offspring of Rochesters wealthiest citizens.

Rochester had been prosperous even before its connection to the Erie Canal. Opened in 1825, the waterway linked the city to Buffalo to the west and Syracuse, Albany, the Hudson River and New York City to the east, and turned Rochester into Americas first inland boom town, as one historian dubbed it. Its wealth inevitably attracted swindlers, wastrels and atheists who, according to the local population, brought godlessness, poverty and the abuse of alcohol.

During the period of religious revivalism known as Americas Second Great Awakening, scores of charismatic preachers consequently appeared in Rochester and other Erie Canal communities to offer salvation through a variety of evangelical and innovative sects. Among them were the Shakers, Mormons and the Millerites, whose followers abandoned their worldly goods in preparation for a Second Coming, predicted for 1843 and 44. In the wake of the failed coming of the Day of Judgment and other religious exuberances, a spiritual cynicism settled over the area. To Leah Fox Fish, who had personally witnessed that evolution, the community seemed ripe for a new religious expression. A practical woman with an opportunistic bent, she had hastened to investigate the rappings associated with Maggie and Katy.

Determined to plumb the mystery, Leah drew her sisters aside and, promising to keep their confidence, wrested the secret of the raps from them. Repeatedly, Leah tried to reproduce the noises under Maggie and Katys tutelage, but could make only the faintest of sounds. Later, after inviting Katy to Rochester, perhaps to practice the rapping skills herself, Leah shrewdly claimed in her memoir that the ghost had followed her to Rochester and so disturbed her household that she was forced to move. Yet, Leahs next residence, half of a two-family house, was adjacent to a cemetery  an odd choice for someone eager to escape hauntings.

Mrs. Fox soon joined Leah and Katy, with Maggie in tow. No sooner were the younger sisters united than they grew bolder, filling the house with even more raucous ghost disturbances. Leah eventually decided that it was time to share the spirits with others. Appointing herself as official interpreter of the raps, she demanded that Maggie and Katy conduct seances in Rochester under her tutelage. To bolt was impossible, Maggie later explained, for Leah threatened to accuse her and Katy of deceiving her with raps  just as they had their parents and the Hydesville community. Thus intimidated, an embittered Maggie later told the New York World, Katie and I were led around like lambs.

The very first to be invited were Leahs closest friends, Amy and Isaac Post, a Quaker couple who were abolitionists, members of Rochesters underground railroad and leading social reformers. Earlier, the middle-aged couple had rejected their Hicksite Quaker sect because of its intolerances and thus seemed well suited to receiving Leahs new idea of spirit communication as a faith. When Leah described the hauntings in June 1948, the Posts initially laughed and then asked if the family were suffering under some psychological delusion.

The couple, however, like others of that era, had lost several youngsters to illnesses, and ultimately they agreed to participate in a seance. To their surprise the messages Maggie and Katy rapped out and which Leah translated were so personal as to be convincing. The Posts immediately became believers and were soon enthusiastically promoting their belief in the Fox sisters spiritual manifestations to others.

Leahs timing had been ideal. The notion of a collective spirit  a benevolent force that endowed each human being with the capacity to right the worlds wrongs  was flowing through American thought. Spiritualism, as Leah would casually explain then and later in her memoir, The Missing Link in Modern Spiritualism, encompassed all souls regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or other religious affiliations. Intrigued with Leahs concept, the Posts and their circle soon accepted spiritualism as the first stirrings of a universalism or communalism  a brotherhood of the human spirit that mirrored their own resolve to find an alternative faith devoid of intolerance.

Before long the Fox sisters were besieged with requests for seances. Sometimes with only Maggie, sometimes with only Katy and sometimes with both, Leah presided over the meetings. Once guests arrived, they sat around a table, recited an opening prayer and sang. After joining hands and sitting in silence, Maggie or Katy fell into a trance. Then the audience heard the faint sound of ghostly raps.

Not everyone, of course, believed them. Members of Rochesters clergy railed against them as witches and heretics. Some citizens considered the seances evil and unnatural. Still others thought the sisterly trio was mad. Privately, Maggie continued to wrestle with her own concept of reality. Complicating that was Leahs sudden insistence that the spirits were real  a concept that her youngest sister, Katy, by then 12 years old, had readily accepted. Confused by her sisters reaction, Maggie became increasingly introverted and moody.

Only once did Maggie decide to revolt, and she did so by refusing to rap for 12 days. Abruptly the seances stopped, Leah grew tense and the household funds dwindled. The resultant upheaval was too much for Maggie to bear and finally she relented. Once heard again, the raps, Leah later recounted, [were] like the return of long absent friends.

In the fall of 1849, Leah announced that the spirits had demanded that she and Maggie publicize spiritualism to the larger Rochester community. Hire Corinthian Hall, Rochesters largest auditorium, they had proclaimed. The designated night was Wednesday, November 14, the time 7 p.m., the price of a ticket 25 cents. The audience, reported the Rochester Daily Democrat, was in the best possible humor, ready to be entertained by what they anticipated as an expose of the sisters who they thought were perpetrating a fraud.

That night Maggie sat timorously on a platform at Corinthian Hall next to Leah and Mr. and Mrs. Post as a jeering audience hissed. Grudgingly, the Rochester Daily Democrat later admitted that THE GHOST was there[but] the more the ghost rapped with that muffled tone, the higher rose the spirit of mirth.

Afterward, an outraged group of citizens demanded that a committee of Rochesters most prominent citizens examine Maggie and Leah to discover the source of the sounds. The following morning the sisters complied, but following the committees investigation, its members remained perplexed. That Thursday night a committee representative confessed to the restive audience their inability to explain the phenomenon. Desperately, still other committees attempted to test Maggie and Leah  placing them on glass, on pillows and even by appointing a subcommittee of ladies to discover if they had concealed any machinery in their underclothes.

With each unsuccessful committee report, the crowds at Corinthian Hall grew increasingly raucous. On the final night, Saturday, November 17, tensions in the auditorium were palpable: Already a barrel of warmed tar had been detected in a stairway and removed. Finally, as a committee representative began to admit that the sounds defied explanation, Stamping, shrieking and all kinds of hideous noisesobliged him to desist, Isaac Post later wrote. Blinding cascades of light from firecrackers lit by raucous nonbelievers exploded in the back of the auditorium. In the resultant smoke and din, men howled that the females must have concealed lead balls in their dresses to make sounds and attempted to storm the stage. Thanks to police intervention, Maggie, Leah, the Posts and other terrified spiritualists were whisked out of the building.

Implying that the committees studies had been at worst rigged, or at best incomplete, the Rochester Daily Advertiser complained that the wary and eagle-eyed are kept out and excluded from [an] opportunity of investigation. A reporter at Horace Greeleys New York Tribune observed, It is difficult to understand why spirits, who act with as little reason as children or idiots, would spend time thumping the wall. The attendant publicity nevertheless transformed Maggie and her sisters into celebrities, and they were now recognized, for good or ill, as leaders of a new social and religious movement. They began to carry their message further afield.

In early June 1850, after touring Albany and Troy, the Fox sisters sailed down the Hudson River and arrived in New York City, where they soon began receiving guests and giving seances. Within two days of their arrival, they were invited to appear before some of Manhattans most illustrious literati  among them, historian George Bancroft; William Cullen Bryant, poet and editor of the progressive Evening Post; poet and essayist Henry Tuckerman; Nathaniel Parker Willis, editor of the society-minded Home Journal; and author James Fenimore Cooper.

That evening Maggie and her sisters raised the spirit of Coopers sister and so precisely described her fatal horseback riding accident of 50 years earlier that the famous author instantly became a believer. The New York Tribunes George Ripley, who also had been present, wrote: We are in the dark as any of our readers. The manners and bearing of the ladies are such as to create a prepossession in their favor. They have no theories to offer in explanation of the actsand apparently have no control of their incomings and outgoings. Some newspapers that formerly had accused the Fox sisters of devil baiting and fraud now retracted their comments. Even the openly scornful New York Herald admitted that its reporter believed the ladies were in every sense incapable of any intentional deception.

Predictably, the Fox sisters  or Rochester Rappers as they were dubbed  were besieged with requests for seances. By summers end actress Mary Taylor crooned a new song on Broadway, The Rochester Rappers at Barnums Hotel. Inexpensive souvenirs were sold emblazoned with the Rochester Rappers. Ladies, you are the lions of New York! Tribune reporter Ripley finally told the sisters.

After that New York reception, spiritualism was hailed as one of the wonders of the age. Periodicals with titles such as Spirit World, Spiritual Philosopher, New Era and The Spiritualist Messenger appeared. To the nations new believers, mediumship, with its odd knocking sounds and eerie messages, was a spiritual telegraph  a name subsequently appearing on the masthead of the faiths leading periodical.

Mediums appeared from Vermont to California claiming that they, too, had spiritualist powers. Much like Maggie and Katy, many were pubescent girls and young women who were thought to have souls so pure that they were perfect intermediaries between the two worlds. In Boston, Mrs. Sisson, a so-called clairvoyant physician, and Lucinda Tuttle, among others, attracted large followings; so too in Buffalo, N.Y., did a pretty blonde teenager, Cora Scott. In Providence, R.I., Edgar Allen Poes former fiancee, Sarah Helen Whitman, wrote trance-inspired spiritualist poetry. In Hartford, Conn., crowds of ailing individuals waited to see Semantha Mettler, whose trances were said to effect miraculous cures.

Spiritualism, with its guiding principle of the equality of all souls regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or religious affiliation, was inspired by, and inspired the growth of, other reformist movements of the time. Like the women behind those causes, female mediums broke the rules of Victorian propriety and spoke out, albeit in a trance voice, and many became financially independent, encouraging others to follow suit. It is no wonder that there soon came to be a close link between spiritualism, temperance, abolition and womens rights.

But the spiritualist movement was not exclusively female. Among its most prominent spokespersons were former Universalist ministers Reverend Charles Hammond, author of the 1852 Light from the Spirit World, and Reverend Samuel Byron Brittan, co-publisher of The Spiritual Telegraph. In Athens, Ohio, musical spirits directed Jonathan Koons, an uneducated farmer, to build a spirit room. In nearby Columbus George Walcutt and George Rogers painted portraits of people they never knew  which, eerily, relatives later identified as deceased members of their families. In Connecticut a young Scottish orphan, Daniel Douglas Home, was already becoming famous for his levitations during seances.

Some of Americas most distinguished men also counted themselves as believers, and several, such as General Waddy Thompson, former U.S. representative from South Carolina, General Edward Bullard of New York and former Wisconsin Territory Governor Nathaniel Tallmadge, were the Fox sisters personal friends. To the astonishment of the scientific community, their renowned colleague, Professor Emeritus Robert Hare, the University of Pennsylvania chemist who invented the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, enthusiastically endorsed spiritualism.

By 1852 spirit circles had been formed in Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and even across the Atlantic in England and Europe. Paralleling spiritualisms spread was an array of new spiritual manifestations including table tipping, spirit music and dancing lights. There were, as well, growing demands for serious scientific investigations.

Between 1853 and 1855, spiritualisms popularity soared so dramatically that many of Americas most prominent writers, thinkers and scientists became alarmed. Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson was so disgusted with the movements rapid spread that he denounced it as a rat revelation, the gospel that comes by taps in the wall and humps in the table drawer. Poet James Russell ridiculed the idea that spirits had the ability to raise tables and move chairs. Respect should be paid to all spiritualists, he sardonically remarked, including a certain Judge Wells, a man who was such a powerful medium that he was forced to drive back the furniture from following him when he goes out, as one might a pack of too affectionate dogs.

By 1854, followers, according to the spiritualists own estimates, numbered from 1 to 2 million Americans. In the spring of that year, the prevalence of reports about uncanny spiritualist phenomena appearing in Americas cities attracted the attention of the U.S. Congress. On April 17, General James Shields, a senator from Illinois, and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts presented a petition signed by 15,000 Americans requesting the appointment of a scientific commission to study spiritualist phenomena. Ultimately, in an executive session, there was a pleasant debate during which senators suggested that the petition be referred to one of several possible groups  including the committees on foreign relations, on military affairs or on post offices and post roads  the last because of the possibility of establishing spiritual telegraph between the material and spiritual worlds. In the end the petition was tabled.

The debate continued. Spiritualism, founding editor of The New York Times Henry Raymond lamented in September 1855, had an appeal that is wider, stronger and deeper than that of any philosophical or socialistic theory, since it appeals to the marvelous in man. He continued: In five years it has spread like wildfire over this continent so that there is scarcely a village without its mediums and its miracles.If it be a delusion, it has misled very many of the intelligent as well as the ignorant.

A month later, an increasingly alarmed Raymond added: Clergymen, formerly preachers of evangelical denominations, are now lecturing on Spiritualism and its wildest heresies to large congregations. The whole West, and to a greater extent the whole country, has been deeply infiltrated. Yet, despite the ongoing protests, by 1856 several influential religious leaders embraced spiritualism  among them prominent Unitarian ministers Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Theodore Parker.Ironically, spiritualism, with its promise of a joyous afterlife, the comfort it gave mourners and the confidence it imparted to Americas early suffragists and social reformers would ultimately betray Maggie and Katy. As new mediums appeared and produced increasingly spectacular effects  table tippings and levitations, for example  and subsequent investigations exposed many as frauds, the Fox sisters were often pushed from center stage. At times believing the rappings were the manifestations of spirits and at times wracked by guilt induced by their deceptions, the two quarreled with each other and their supporters.

In the fall of 1888 when Maggie publicly admitted that spiritualism was a fraud, nonbelievers rejoiced. Advocates blamed it on the fact that for some time Maggie  as well as her sister Katy  had been slipping into severe alcoholism. A year later when Maggie recanted her confession, the credibility of the Fox sisters shriveled, and they slipped into obscurity. Katy died of end-stage alcoholism on July 1, 1892, and Maggie on March 8 the following year.

Yet the mysterious raps heard in Hydesville in 1848 sowed the seeds of spiritualism that have continued to sprout, evolve and flourish to the present day. Even today, spiritualism, represented by celebrity mediums, the practice of channeling, descriptions of near-death experiences, New Age philosophies, hundreds of books and a spate of new television shows and movies featuring conversations with the dead, continues to fascinate.

This article was written by Nancy Rubin Stuart and originally published in the August 2005 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!
Camarillo, Calif. (May 16, 2016) The Commemorative Air Force Southern California Wing is excited to announce that the North American PBJ Mitchell named Semper Fi, returned to flight on May 15, 2016 after a 23-year restoration. Semper Fi is the only original PBJ flying in the world.

During World War II the Marine Corps operated surplus B-25 Mitchells with the designation PB for patrol bomber. The Marines used the aircraft extensively in the South Pacific to routinely heckle and attack Japanese bases as well as intercept enemy shipping.

The last time the CAFs PBJ flew was on May 16, 1993. That year the CAF Southern California Wing engaged a team of volunteers to perform the extensive restoration on the PBJ, which became a near-rebuild, in order to return the warbird to its authentic WWII configuration and then get it back in flying condition. Battling corrosion problems, difficult to acquire parts and hefty expenses the restoration crew carried on, under the leadership of Crew Chief Marc Russell.

CAF President Stephan C. Brown said I am happy for the Southern California Wings members, this has been an ongoing project for more than two decades, and its great to see their hard work pay off. Brown attended the PBJs first flight and remarked, This is what the CAF mission is about, honoring military aviation and inspiring others to work hard and accomplish their goals.

Semper Fi is painted in the distinctive markings of Marine Bombing Squadron 611 (VMB 611), a unit that flew the PBJ extensively. The VMB 611 participated in raids on the Japanese fortifications at Rabaul and Kavieng, then moved to the Philippines to provide close air support missions for the U.S. 8th Army. On May 30, 1945, VMB 611 suffered a great loss when the commanding officer and three crewmembers were shot down. That afternoon PBJ MB-11 went searching for the downed aircraft only to suffer the same fate. The aircraft and crew were never seen again. As a tribute to these men who were lost in an effort to rescue their fellow Marines, the CAF Southern California Wing painted their aircraft in the same paint scheme as MB-11.

This aircrafts restoration is one of the largest restoration projects undertaken by the Commemorative Air Force. Its success is not only being celebrated by the organization, but by the entire warbird community. In addition to the amount of work completed, the rarity of this particular aircraft is especially exciting, as they have returned the last flyable U.S. Marine PBJ Bomber to the sky.

To read more about this one-of-a-kind PBJ-1J, see the Restored column from the May 2016 Aviation History here.
It looks like the European Union has Google in its crosshairs once again and is poised to slap the search giant with a record fine of around 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion U.S.) in the coming weeks, reports indicate.

The EU argues Google has promoted its shopping service in Internet searches at the expense of rival services - an accusation that has been present since late 2010 and Google was formally charged with in April 2015.

News of the fine was first reported by The Telegraph, though it notes that the figure hadn't been decided quite yet. It should be noted, however, that the decision by EU officials to fine Google goes far beyond a simple fine, which can amount to up to 10 of its annual sales.

"The starting point for the fine is the percentage of the company's annual sales of the product concerned in the infringement (up to 30 percent)," says the European Commission in an antitrust fact sheet. "This is then multiplied by the number of years and months the infringement lasted. The fine can be increased (e.g. repeat offender) or decreased (e.g. limited involvement). The maximum level of fine is capped at 10 percent of the overall annual turnover of the company."

Google will also be forced to change its business practices in Europe. Specifically, the search giant will be banned from continuing to manipulate search results to favour itself and harm rivals, meaning the firm's annual revenue will likely take a large hit, no matter what fine amount officials decide on.

Whatever that fine turns out to be, reports suggest that it officials plan to announced it as early as next month once the bill has been finalized.

This isn't the first time Google has been targeted by the EU officials. Last month, EC's competition chief, Margarethe Vestager, issued a second Statement of Objections against Google's alleged abuse of dominance with its Andorid OS. Officials argue that Google has taken advantage of its strong position in the market by imposing tough restrictions on Andorid device makers.

The commission can fine up to 10 percent of Google's annual sales, which means it can amount to an excess of more than 6 billion euros. If that comes to pass, it will easily surpass the once-record 1.1 billion antitrust fine that was imposed on chipmaker Intel in 2009.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
S tarter homes in Croydon are about 185,000 cheaper than the capital's average, so it's no wonder first-time buyers are flocking to this south London district.

Yet new figures from Rightmove show that this surge in demand has seen prices rocket by almost 20 per cent this year - the highest rise recorded in the UK - taking the average cost of buying a home with two bedrooms or less to 300,000.

Top 10 first-time buyer hotspots 1 /13 Top 10 first-time buyer hotspots Croydon Annual price growth: +18.6%



Av. asking price in May 2016: 297,770 Graham Hussey Dartford Annual price growth: +18.5%



Av. asking price in May 2016: 244,310 Greg Balfour Evans / Alamy Luton Annual price growth: +18.4%



Av. asking price in May 2016: 186,900 Alamy Stock Photo Ilford Annual price growth: +18.1%



Av. asking price in May 2016: 298,641 Uxbridge Annual price growth: +17.9%



Av. asking price in May 2016: 308,266 Watford Annual price growth: +17.1%



Av. asking price in May 2016: 342,259  Greg Balfour Evans / Alamy Stock Photo Enfield Annual price growth: +17%



Av. asking price in May 2016: 316,820 Romford Annual price growth: +16.6%



Av. asking price in May 2016: 253,964 Daniel Lynch Sutton Annual price growth: +15.7%



Av. asking price in May 2016: 311,094 Slough Annual price growth: +14.9%



Av. asking price in May 2016: 328,173 Copyright (c) 2011 Rex Features. No use without permission.

Over the past few years, Croydon has undergone huge regeneration. Just last year it was named as the area with the fastest-growing tech cluster in London, thanks to rents being about a third cheaper per square foot than in central London.

Thousands of new residential developments are also in the pipeline. Five thousand new homes are set to be built this year, 6,300 next year, and 8,200 in 2018. Some of these are part of the Help to Buy scheme, where Government loans of up to 40 per cent of the property value are available to first-time buyers, meaning only five-per cent deposits are needed to get onto the property ladder.

"There has been an influx of first-time buyers coming to the area, especially over the last six months," says Matthew Keddo, residental sales manager at Barnard Marcus. "The tramlink which goes directly into East Croydon station, where trains take you into London in 18 minutes, is a huge attraction and people are buying into the new Westfield shopping centre which is due to open in 2022."

New cafes and restaurants are opening up to cater for the City workers who are moving to the area from Tooting, Streatham and Brixton, but Keddo says there's still a fair way to go in terms of regeneration.

"Londoners priced out of most other parts of the capital have sensed a combination of convenience and value, aided by some serious regeneration," says Rightmove director and housing market analyst Miles Shipside.

Dartford in Kent, Ilford in north-east London and Luton in Bedfordshire have all seen similar price growth of more than 18 per cent for the first-time buyer market.

Shipside says: "With five per cent less property coming to market in Dartford in the last four weeks, compared to the same period in 2015, limited fresh supply is also a big factor."

"Luton has been a low-priced town for some time with easy London access, and has now come into play."
Every hotelier wants more direct bookings. And the smartest hoteliers I work with make sure they broaden their distribution so they can capture prospective guests on whichever channel those guests are investigating, whether that be an OTA, metasearch or wholesaler.

However, it seems many hoteliers overlook Google My Business  only one of the most powerful, and free, ways to gain guests who are looking at your hotel's brand name and location as they browse through the world's largest search engine.

As an example, I just performed a Google search for hotels in Krabi, a popular beach destination in Thailand, and to my amazement not a single hotel is listed under Google My Business. What an opportunity for any hotel in Krabi! And all they'd have to do is go to www.google.co.th/business and follow the easy setup process. (They would also need a high-converting booking engine integrated into their hotel's website but that is another discussion for another time.)

Common errors or oversights, such as not editing your hotel's photos or listing an incorrect address, can cost your hotel dearly. A team member of mine pointed this out with the example of a famous hotel in Sydney, which is located opposite one of the city's most beautiful beaches. Until recently, the picture for this hotel on Google My Business could not have done the property any less justice; it displayed an awkward shot of the hotel's roof with no beach in sight. These days, however, with the help of my team, the hotel's photo has become far more inviting and, in fact, traffic to the hotel's website has jumped significantly.

Does your hotel need a photo refresh in Google My Business ?

If you're like that hotel in Sydney, you may need a new photo to create a great first impression on guests who see your property on Google My Business. Here are the six steps you need to follow:

Sign in to your Google My Business account, or register for one, at google.com/business. Click 'Edit' in the 'Actions' column on your Google My Business Click 'Remove' beneath your picture to remove the picture as your profile image. Click 'Add Photo', find the image you want to replace your previous profile image with using the 'File Upload' box, and then click 'OK'. (Note: Try to find an image that is not only striking, but matches the look and feel of your hotel's website branding. By doing this, you create a more seamless booking journey for your) Click 'Add Photo' to upload the image as your profile picture. Click 'Submit' at the bottom of the 'Edit'.

How do you manage reviews on Google My Business ?

Many hotels today have great strategies on how to encourage positive reviews online and these strategies should extend to Google My Business, which recently introduced the ability for hotels to manage and respond to reviews of their hotel on Google.

This means responding to reviews on Google is now as simple as updating your photo:

Sign in to your Google My Business account, or register for one, at google.com/business. Your dashboard will display all of your Google My Business Select the property you would like to manage the reviews for. Click on 'Reviews'. This will open your reviews page. Click 'Respond Publicly as the Owner' and type in your response. Once you're done, click 'Publish' to submit your response and display it on your Google My Business page.

Of course, you can do much more to optimise your hotel's visibility on the world's largest search engine, but claiming your Business on Google is a terrific start.

About SiteMinder

SiteMinder Limited (ASX:SDR) is the world's leading open hotel commerce platform, ranked among technology pioneers for opening up every hotel's access to online commerce. It's this central role that has earned SiteMinder the trust of tens of thousands of hotels, across 150 countries, to sell, market, manage and grow their business. The global company, headquartered in Sydney with offices in Bangkok, Berlin, Dallas, Galway, London and Manila, generated more than 100 million reservations worth over US$35 billion in revenue for hotels in the last year prior to the start of the pandemic. For more information, visit siteminder.com.

Maria Cricchiola

Director of Brand Communications & PR

+61 2 8031 1287

SiteMinder
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The Hollywood actor and activist voiced her disproval at the Republican's stance on religious freedom

Angelina Jolie has spoken out against the republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

All throughout his campaign, the New York billionaire has casted aspursions on minorities, refugees and Muslims. Trump has on more than one occasion threatened to deport all Muslims and refuse them entry into the United States.

To me, America is built on people from around the world coming together for freedoms, especially freedom of religion, she said, speaking on BBCs World on the Move. So it's hard to hear this is coming from someone who is pressing to be an American president.

Fear of uncontrolled migration has eroded public confidence and the ability of governments and international institutions to control the situation, she stated in a keynote speech to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. It has given space to a false air of legitimacy to those who promote politics of fear and separation.
The position vacated by him has yet to be filled

Labour Senator Aodhan O Riordain has called on Enda Kenny to appoint a new Drugs Minister as a matter of urgency.

"I was proud as Drugs Minister in the last government to be able to pursue new policies and to see them get cabinet approval - most notably the adoption of the Medically Supervised Injecting Rooms as part of a harm reduction approach, he says. "We also need an adult conversation about pursuing the Portuguese model which invests heavily in treatment rather than wasting resources on a criminal justice approach.

"In 2013, 679 people died in Ireland as a result of drug and alcohol related causes. Only last month two men died from overdoses on the streets of our capital city with hardly any public comment. Only a dedicated minister with an open-minded approach can begin to tackle this menace. He or she will receive the Labour Party's full support if these progressive policies are followed."

Those sentiments are echoed by Ana Liffey Drug Project Director Tony Duffin who says: Every day there are media reports relating to Irelands drugs crisis - violence fueled related to the illicit drugs market; tragically premature drug related deaths; drugs seizures; and more besides. Some people have described to me how they have become desensitised to the situation. We can do more; but, it does require political leadership. Without that, it will be very difficult to make progress on progressive drug policies. Also, evidence based progressive drug policy must be above party politics. We need both these elements if we genuinely wish to improve our current drug related difficulties and improve the situation for us all.
Norman Cook played a two hour set for kids over the weekend.

DJ Fatboy Slim appeared at a rave for children and toddlers in his native Brighton on Sunday.

The 'Praise You' star performed at the event 'Baby Loves Disco' which was part of the Brighton Fringe Festival.

They seemed to enjoy it!
Yep, the chaps cooked Mexican for Hot Press back in the day!

The back in the saddle Grandaddy have confirmed an August 18 visit to Vicar St., Dublin with tickets priced 31.50 going on sale on May 20.

The band formed in Modesto, California in 1992 and conquered Planet Indie before disbanding in 2006 after releasing Just Like The Fambly Cat.

We remember enjoying a shandy or six with them and Snow Patrol who supported them on their 2003 run round Ireland.

The chaps also gave Stuart Clark a masterclass in making fajitas with the recipe to be found at [link]hotpress.com/archive/1467175.html[/link]
The League of Their Own regular will be bringing his new stand up show to Dublin next year.

British stand up comedian Jack Whitehall will return to Dublin with his first ever 3Arena date early next year. "At Large" is Whitehall's biggest tour to date and will see him play a number of stadium dates across the UK and Ireland.

Whitehall will bring the tour to Dublin's 3Arena on February 21 2017. Tickets go on sale on Friday May 20 at 9am from the usual outlets.

Speaking on the Graham Norton show over the weekend Whitehall spoke about the tour and his experience of starring opposite Julia Roberts in the up coming movie 'Mother's Day'. He said his role in the movie is "an English stand up comedian working in the States".

Whitehall recently made his US prime time television debut when he was given a five minute stand up slot on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Check out the footage of his performance below.
After more than two decades the original front man will return to play with the band.

One time frontman for Misfits, Glenn Danzig, is set to join his old band on stage again. Danzig has agreed to step back in to the group for two festival appearances in September.

The gigs will include slots at Riot Fest and Rodeo in Denver, Colorado over the weekend of September 2 to 4 and at Riot Fest and Carnival in Chicago, Illinois from September 16 to 18. The original Misfits line up consisted of Danzig, guitarist Jimmy Battle, bassist Diane DiPiazza, and drummer Manny Martinez. They first came together in Lodi, New Jersey in 1977.

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The group disbanded in October 1983 after a calamitous performance in Detroit. The then recently recruited drummer Brian Damage became intoxicated before a gig and was unable to complete the set. He was replaced and once the set had been completed Danzig told the crowd it would be Misfits' last performance.

In the 1990's bassist Jeremy Only won the legal battle over the use of the band's name and material and recorded and toured under it. Danzig went on to form another band, a heavy metal outfit called Samhain. In 1987 Samhain signed a major record deal and Danzig replaced most of the rhythm section. The new shows have been billed under the slogan, "they said it would never happen".
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NextSeed has spent the past year helping Texans use debt crowdfunding to invest more than $1 million in Texas businesses. On Monday, when new rules permit such transactions nationwide, it's launching a U.S. platform designed to provide businesses with capital and investors with new moneymaking opportunities.

"We are incredibly excited because this is what we've been working toward since we first started NextSeed," CEO Youngro Lee said. "We are able to take the lessons learned in Texas and now take it nationwide."

This nationwide milestone is more than four years in the making as the framework for equity and debt crowdfunding was created in 2012 with the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act. Experts say it's significant because this type of crowdfunding opens new investment opportunities for people who lack substantial assets and were previously unable to invest in private startups.

"The first crowdfunding portal could have the next Facebook on it," said Kendall Almerico, a crowdfunding attorney in Washington, D.C.

More Information Opening up investments New equity and debt crowdfunding rules allow investors without substantial assets to invest in private startups. Here are some of the basics: A Companies participating in the nationwide portal must file detailed reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These are available to the public to increase transparency. A Companies can raise up to $1 million in a year. A To protect investors from spending more than they can afford, complex formulas cap how much they can contribute. Crowdfunding websites should help users determine how much they are allowed to invest. A If an investor's annual income or net worth is less than $100,000, that person can invest the greater of these two options: 5 percent of the lesser of his or her income or net worth, or $2,000. A If an investor's annual income and net worth are more than $100,000, that person can invest 10 percent of the lesser of his or her income or net worth up to $100,000. Source: Kendall Almerico, crowdfunding attorney in Washington, D.C. See More Collapse

Crowdfunding allows businesses, nonprofits and individuals to raise money through the contributions of many people. Websites like Kickstarter.com and Indiegogo.com allow them to promise rewards, such as the company's finished product, in return for money. On sites like GoFundMe.com, they can request donations.

While some national crowdfunding platforms previously permitted equity crowdfunding, only accredited investors could participate. Accredited investors include banks, insurance companies, investment firms or individuals meeting specific wealth requirements, such as having more than $1 million net worth excluding their primary residence.

"Accredited investors basically had superior investment offers," said James Jones, 46, of Frisco.

Jones wasn't alone in wanting the same opportunities as wealthier investors. Some states, tired of waiting for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to adopt nationwide crowdfunding rules, passed intrastate rules for nonaccredited investors like Jones.

With intrastate crowdfunding rules, investors and businesses have to be within the state's boundaries. Texas passed such rules in 2014, and Jones has invested a couple of thousand dollars in six Texas companies through NextSeed.

"I've received payments regularly," he said.

NextSeed allows businesses to raise money through two types of loans: traditional term loans and revenue-sharing loans, in which businesses pay investors a percent of each month's revenues until the loan is paid off.

The Houston-based company, which Lee founded with Abe Chu and Robert Dunton, offered one of Texas' first intrastate crowdfunding platforms, and it's now among the first national platforms using the new rules.

The national and intrastate platforms have different rules and requirements in who can invest, how much they can invest and what businesses have to disclose. Lee said time will tell how the two portals play out.

Some say there's room for improvement, even though they see the national rules as a step in the right direction.

"Some companies are going to do very well, and I'm glad the law passed," said Almerico, the crowdfunding attorney. "However, it needs to be changed or tweaked in some ways to give it the popularity of a Kickstarter."

Under the rules, companies can raise up to $1 million in a year. Businesses will incur steep legal and compliance costs to participate, so Almerico said it would be helpful if they could raise more than $1 million to justify those costs.

His biggest complaint, however, is with limitations on marketing. Businesses looking to direct potential investors or media outlets to their crowdfunding page can provide only basic information, such as the business name, the nature of the securities it offers and a link to its crowdfunding page.

"That is just completely the opposite of what crowdfunding should be," Almerico said.

Businesses that use crowdfunding successfully on Kickstarter market their pages with videos, images and creative descriptions. This type of information can be used on the equity crowdfunding page itself, but it won't do much good if businesses can't entice people to visit that pages.

Not everyone supports equity crowdfunding. Michael Dorff, Southwestern Law School professor, called it the lottery disguised as a responsible investment. He said inexperienced investors can become victims of fraud and lousy investments.

He said high-quality startups will choose angel or venture capital financing over crowdfunding. They will be deterred by crowdfunding's expenses, such as those associated with disclosure requirements, and they won't want a bunch of inexperienced investors who can't provide guidance and who will make it difficult to renegotiate later rounds of funding.

"In an early round, having lots of investors is a disaster," he said.

Even angel investing is risky, he said, with most investments losing money and the bulk of returns coming from the top 10 percent of investments. Investors on the crowdfunding sites likely won't be able to use strategies angel investors use to boost returns - such as intensive research, diversification and focusing on companies in areas where investors have significant expertise - and they're going to have lower-quality companies to choose from.

"I think this is going to be terrible," he said.

Yet Houston-based Healing Waters Float Spa, slated to open in August, raised $110,000 in a revenue-sharing loan through NextSeed. The luxury flotation spa places people in a float pod with 10 inches of water and 1,000 pounds of dissolved Epsom salt. When the pod is closed, users float on the water in silence and darkness.

Juan Carlos Mazorra, who owns the company with Joseph Cyrus, said they chose crowdfunding because it connected them with investors who were interested in their business and would be cheerleaders for its success, sharing it among friends and family. NextSeed has also provided networking opportunities.

"I think it's great that they opened the platform up for everyone to get involved," Mazorra said.
Internships have become an integral part of the college experience, with some schools requiring students to complete at least one internship before they graduate into the working world, where employers increasingly are giving preference to candidates with experience.

Although students often appreciate the advantage that internships provide - and can reap the benefits later as they seek employment - some are pushing back against the long-standing college practice of charging tuition for the credits students earn through unpaid internships. Students at several schools are beginning to allege publicly that colleges are profiting from their free labor, collecting money from families already stretched by the high cost of higher education while being spared the expense of providing instruction.

The conflict is emerging from a fundamental debate about the future of higher education: Colleges increasingly are seeking to provide career-oriented opportunities for students, saying that internships are an invaluable part of their programs and require direct faculty supervision. Students say that paying to work is an outdated and unfair model, especially when they are poised to graduate with the heavy burden of student loan debt.

"This is a huge ethical issue for universities that they are sneaking under the rug," said David Yamada, director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. "In this era of skyrocketing student debt, the fact that students are probably having to borrow money to do an internship for free is appalling."

Colleges generally make no distinction between internship programs and any other courses that come with a tuition bill, saying that academic internships require costly faculty work.

"It would be great if we could provide academic supervision in a way that didn't cost the institution anything, but there isn't," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education. "If faculty are involved, somebody has to pay for the cost of having them there. It is a financial issue."

Joshua Siegel does not buy that argument. The Seton Hall University senior is among a group of students petitioning the school in South Orange, N.J., to stop charging for internship credits.

"It's unfortunate that the school, which is not providing the service, not facilitating the process, not suffering any strain on its resources, feels it is owed compensation for me performing a function on my own," Siegel said.

Despite having a summer internship at a charity, Siegel, 21, must complete others sanctioned by the university to get his bachelor's degree in diplomacy. Seton Hall officials say Siegel can opt out of the requirement by picking up another class, but he says that option does nothing to resolve the underlying problem: a lack of money.

To keep a handle on costs, Siegel has been taking 18 credits a semester since switching his major from history to diplomacy. He figured that a full load of classes would help him avoid spending an extra year in school. But Siegel still has a three-credit internship hanging over his head, at a tuition cost of about $3,000.

"It's an undue financial burden," Siegel said. "Even if I opt out, I'm still paying money either way. I've taken all the classes in my major, so I'd have to just take any class that fits in my schedule."

Seton Hall officials say they understand that students are concerned about costs but that the school must cover the expense of running internship courses.

"These courses are an extension of the classroom," said Joan Guetti, senior associate provost at Seton Hall. "Faculty have to set up the internships, the hours, the assignments - papers, journal entries or presentations. There's a lot more to this than students see."

Not a summer rate?

Four majors at Seton Hall have internship requirements, and the requirement is under consideration for several other majors, according to Reesa Greenwald, director of the school's career center. Seton Hall students can avoid additional charges by taking the internship courses during the school year, when flat-rate tuition is charged. But that rate does not apply in the summer, an optimal time for undertaking internships.

Seton Hall is proud of integrating work experience into the curriculum, which gives students an edge in the job market, Greenwald said. Eighty-eight percent of the students in the Class of 2015 were employed in fields related to their majors within six months of graduating, she said.

Anthony Carnevale, director and research professor at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, said colleges are responding to employers' demands that graduates have "real-world" experience.

Employers place a premium on graduates with internships on their resumes, according to the Georgetown center. Starting salaries for graduates with paid internships average about $52,000, compared with $37,000 for those without internship. Nearly two-thirds of college graduates who complete paid internships receive job offers on graduation, compared with just 35 percent of recent graduates who do not have internship experience.

"These things are like gold," Carnevale said, adding that about 10 percent of the nation's 20 million college students are able to secure internships during their college careers.

College internships vary widely. Positions that pay are difficult to find, and some of the most prestigious posts, at nonprofit organizations and in government agencies, offer no compensation, presenting an extreme challenge for those students who already have trouble paying for college.

Carnevale and other higher-education advocates say one economical way to help students who are in financial need to get work experience would be to turn federal work-study jobs into subsidized internships. The Obama administration considered the idea, but it failed to advance because colleges, which typically employ federal work-study students on campus, declined to give up the low-wage labor the federal program provides, Carnevale said.

Academic credit has become a stand-in for pay and is a popular way for colleges to regulate internships.

"Having academic credit increases the value of the internship," said Hartle, of the American Council on Education. "It means that somebody is trying to make sure the internship is a good, productive experience and that students are not just filing papers."

Offering credit for student work is mutually beneficial for companies and universities. Employers get free labor and can avoid liability insurance for students, and schools can promote their program's connections to the working world.

Practical training

"Touting internships for credit is one of the ways schools can at least claim to be providing practical training as part of degree programs," said Suffolk University's Yamada. "It's not quite free money for the university  but it's not credit hours that have to be covered by classroom teaching."

Cleveland State University graduate student Tim Russo said his school has provided no support for his internship, which he landed himself at a friend's law firm.

"I feel like I'm getting exploited by the system," said Russo, 48, who must complete a three-credit internship to get his master's degree in global interactions. "There's no guidance, no guidelines, nothing."

Russo questioned the internship requirement at a roundtable in December, and shortly afterward the school's president said students could have their internships appear on official transcripts without receiving or paying for credits.

The offer means little to Russo, who, like others with internship course requirements, must find a replacement class to graduate.

"I want to finish, but I'm not paying tuition for this," said Russo, who sat out the spring semester in protest. "We're not human beings, just cash for the university."

Cleveland State Provost Jianping Zhu said the school is reviewing its course offerings and examining whether there is adequate faculty involvement in internship courses.

More universities are similarly recognizing internships without offering, or charging for, credit. Other schools are raising money to fund unpaid internships for students in need, and some colleges are exploring programs that let students split their time between classes and short-term work.

At Seton Hall, Katherine Wolchko, a rising senior in the diplomacy program, has resolved to keep fighting the school's internship policy, even though she can opt out.

"The practice is financially exploitative, deeply biased against socioeconomically disadvantaged students," she said. "Students shouldn't pay for a service that the school doesn't provide, and we shouldn't have to pay for the privilege to work."
The Select Specialty Hospital long-term acute care facility in west Houston will close permanently in June, laying off all 175 full- and part-time employees, a spokesman for the parent company confirmed Friday.

"We hope to accomplish this closing with the least possible disruption to the lives of our employees and the community," John Saich, executive vice president and chief human resources officer for the company, said in an April 4 letter to the Texas Workforce Commission.

The hospital specialized in treatment of chronic lung disease and other respiratory ailments including pneumonia, as well as brain and spinal cord injuries and stroke.

It will be the second Select Specialty Hospital in Houston to shutter in the past year. Last May, the Mechanicsburg, Pa., parent company announced it was closing its hospital in the Heights, laying off 222 people. At the time it said the remaining two hospitals in the city, including the one in west Houston, would remain open.

A third local Select Specialty Hospital, in the Texas Medical Center, is unaffected by the closures, Edwin Bodensiek, a spokesman for Select Medical Company, said Friday.

More for you Select Specialty's Heights hospital is closing

However, the Medical Center facility is part of an unrelated swap arrangement with Kindred Healthcare.

Under that pending agreement between the two hospital chains, the ownership of the TMC location hospital along with Select Specialty hospitals in San Antonio, Indianapolis, Denver and Colorado Springs will shift to Kindred. In exchange, Select will acquire hospitals in Atlanta, Cleveland and Mishawaka, Ind.

Bodensiek said the swap arrangement, scheduled to be completed by the end of the year, is "totally separate" from the closures in Houston. It means his company will no longer have a hospital presence in the city.

He said the decisions were part of larger plans "to change our footprint" in Houston. The medical company will continue to operate physical therapy clinics in Houston, Bodensiek added.

While not unprecedented, a trade of facilities between hospital chains is rare, he said. The plan is scheduled to be made final by year's end.

Kindred Healthcare did not return calls seeking comment Friday.

Bodensiek said his company would work with laid-off employees to find them positions within the chain.
ATLANTA (AP)  Police say actor Wendell Pierce has been arrested at an Atlanta hotel where he was a guest.

Atlanta Police Department spokesman Donald Hannah says in a statement that Pierce was arrested early Saturday morning at the Loews Atlanta Hotel.

New Orleans native Pierce is known for his television roles as Detective William "Bunk" Moreland on "The Wire" and Antoine Batiste on "Treme."

The incident reportedly arose after an argument between Pierce, a major Hillary Clinton supporter, and a Bernie Sanders reporter, according to TMZ.

According to the website, Pierce "became enraged, pushed the boyfriend and then went after his girlfriend ... grabbing her hair and smacking her in the head."

Pierce is known for being politically active and was one of President Barack Obama's top fundraisers, according to a March 2, 2013 Associated Press report.

Hannah's statement says the incident was not significant and was treated as "any other arrest." He says Pierce never indicated he was well-known.

Online Fulton County Jail records show Pierce was arrested on a charge of simple battery Saturday and released the same day on $1,000 bond.

Hannah says the police will share the incident report once it has been completed. No other details were available.
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What, exactly, is "contemporary Chinese" art?

This is one of the big questions of an exhibition at Asia Society Texas Center featuring painting, photography, video, sculpture, multi-media installations and conceptual art by 10 "it" Chinese talents younger than 40.

Born after dictator Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, these artists were still children in 1989, when the Tiananmen Square massacre took place. They grew up without siblings under China's one-child policy but are far less repressed than their elders were. They are fluent in English, more liberal about work and relationships (uninhibited, even) - and way more connected to the rest of the world.

The show's title - "We Chat: A Dialogue in Contemporary Chinese Art" - is borrowed and tweaked from the name of a popular messaging app, WeChat, that has 600 million users.

Artists can't escape the influence of their surroundings, but a few in this fiercely independent group seem hell-bent on presenting themselves as global citizens first, Chinese second.

For instance, the fearless new media artist Lu Yang, who is from Shanghai, doesn't like being labeled Chinese.

More Information 'We Chat: A Dialogue in Contemporary Chinese Art' When: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays, through July 3 Where: Asia Society Texas Center, 1370 Southmore Tickets: $5; 713-496-9901, asiasociety.org/texas See More Collapse

"I say that I want to live on the Internet," she says in the show's catalog. "People online only care about your work and whether it's any good  you can abandon your identity, nationality, gender, even your existence as a human being. I rather like this feeling."

Informed by her explorations of neuroscience, mortality and religion, her animated videos may be the freakiest, most exhilarating things you'll see this summer. Her "Delusional Mandala" is like an evisceration, a wow-weird music video with genderless bodies that morph into, um, dancing intestines that careen around the screen to a techno beat. It's breathtaking.

Photographs by Pixy Yijun Liao (a Shanghai native who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.) and videos by Beijing's Ma Qiusha may look like "Chinese art" because the people in them are Chinese, but the situations they convey aren't specific to any country.

Liao's "Experimental Relationship" series consists of formal self-portraits with a male partner, in an intimate setting, in which she reverses stereotypical gender roles.

In Qiusha's "Rainbow" video, ice skaters slowly squish a field of tomatoes that splash onto their white tights. In the confessional video "From No. 4 Pingyuanli to No. 4 Tianqiaobeili," the artist recounts the misery of being forced to go to art classes as a youngster, then gingerly removes a razor blade from her mouth.

Guo Xi explores what it means to be an artist living in China with "There never should have been an artist named Jia Siwen," an amusing installation of small drawings, prints and paintings that imagine a fictitious collaborator whose work gets "lost" in transit to the U.S.

All this internally focused work gets millennial artists labeled the "Me Generation" by critics in China. But the current generation is not oblivious to the impacts of globalization and rapid urbanization on their country.

Paintings from Sun Xun's lush-lined "The Time Vivarium" series employ creatures metaphorically to comment on China's air pollution and government surveillance: An iconic tiger wears a gas mask; a camera appears as a monster.

Photographer and filmmaker Bo Wang's "Heteroscapes" series was inspired by something Western - Michel Foucault's writings on heterotopias - but it opens a window into the surreal transformations taking place in Wang's hometown of Chongqing, where massive new developments butt up against relics of the past.

Along with Lu Pan, Wang also provides a glimpse of the gargantuan Art Basel Hong Kong fair in the 36-minute video "The Exhibition." They could have done the same thing at Art Basel Miami or the original Art Basel in Switzerland, but it does convey the commercialization of Chinese art on a global scale.

The "We Chat" show also allows beauty and poetics into the conversation.

Liu Chuang's "Love Story" installation, an eight-year conceptual project, is appealing humanity. It involves a table full of romance novels the artist collected from a streetside library in Shenzhen. Many of the books had been read by migrant workers who scribbled personal notes in the margins. Chuang translated the notes into English, and he's filled three walls with them.

One could also get lost in Shi Zhiying's meditative canvases, which are often inspired by ancient artifacts in Chinese museums and rendered in a monochromatic style influenced by Buddhism, traditional ink painting and German contemporary master Anselm Kiefer. "Dong Ujimqin Qi Stone Iron Mesosiderite" depicts a 195-pound meteorite that landed in China in 1995.

And there's a lovely surprise in the back room of the Asia Society Texas Center: Jin Shan's "No Man City" installation features a large white sculpture where futuristic, utopian rooms grow out of a jagged landscape. The structure is an homage to Shan's father, who made backdrops for Chinese operas. An LED projector casts shadows around the room, so it seems as if a crane is flying by or the sun is rising.

Contemporary Chinese art can, obviously, be a lot of highly engaging things. The edgy stuff fascinates, reflecting the crazy complexities of our era. But to these Western eyes, work such as "No Man City" feels authentic and timeless. That's the piece I'd still want to be with 100 years from now.
A suspect has been accused in the fatal stabbing of a 22-year-old man Saturday at an apartment complex in southwest Houston.

Geno Salinas, 18, is charged with murder in the slaying of Noel Garcia.
Forty-one states have legislation that permits medical marijuana in some form. However, the law in Texas is not considered functional, because it requires a physician to prescribe marijuana. Since marijuana is illegal under federal law, doctors cant prescribe it. They can only recommend it to patients.

Louisianas law had the same flaw, but the states House of Representatives just voted on new legislation that should correct this problem.

On April 17, Pennsylvania became the latest state to pass medical marijuana legislation, which will take effect this month. And recently Ohios House of Representatives has passed a plan to permit medical marijuana in the state.

As the director of the Research Institute on Addictions at the University at Buffalo and a researcher who studies social factors in the development of addictions, I follow many of the emerging trends in substance use.

When New York state passed legislation allowing for medical marijuana late in 2015, I began to collect information on the ways that the states were approaching this controversial issue.

As medical marijuana laws become more common in the U.S., its good to understand what, exactly, these state laws allow  and what they dont. States are trying to strike a balance between access to medical marijuana for patients who might benefit, while also ensuring that these laws dont become a backdoor to full legalization. And, as I have found, there is a lot of variation in terms of what states mean by medical marijuana. This can affect whether and how patients can access it and what conditions it can be used to treat.

What's medicinal about marijuana?

Lets start by looking at what medicinal properties marijuana actually has.

Marijuana consists of several hundred chemical components, but the most well known is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which causes marijuanas high. It can also be used to treat nausea and vomiting. In fact, there are two FDA-approved synthetic versions of THC, Dronabinol (also called Marinol) and Cesemet, which are prescribed to treat nausea and vomiting for patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer or to stimulate appetite for patients with AIDS. A side effect of these drugs is euphoria, which means they can make you high.

At the federal level, only these two medications are legal. THC or other extracts, whether synthetic or derived from the marijuana plant, are not.

Barry Gutierrez/Barry Gutierrez Photography

The other marijuana compound with known medical applications at present is cannabidiol (CBD). Unlike THC, CBD does not produce a high. There are no FDA-approved medications based on CBD yet, although it is being studied as promising treatment for severe epilepsy and pain.

Proponents of medical marijuana argue that the combination of the chemical components present in the plant itself provides the most effective treatment for some medical symptoms. However, the amount of the medically important components differs from one plant to the next, and other potentially harmful components may also be present in the natural product. Research examining this issue is critically needed.

If you can smoke it, is it medical?

The phrase medical marijuana might give you the image of people buying plants or dried marijuana to smoke. Thats the case in some states with medical marijuana laws, but not all.

In 21 states and the District of Columbia as of this writing, people can possess marijuana in plant form for medical purposes. But, of course, there is plenty of variation between these 21 states.

For instance, in 15 of those states, laws permit people to cultivate marijuana plants for medicinal use. Limits on the number of plants vary from state to state, but most of the states allow for six to twelve plants. And some of those states limit the number of mature versus immature or seedling plants people are allowed to have.

Several of these 15 states allow home cultivation only under certain circumstances. For example, Massachusetts allows patients to cultivate plants if a state dispensary is not nearby or for financial reasons. Other states require the cultivation to be in a locked area or have other restrictions.

In six other states, medical marijuana laws allow people to possess usable marijuana, but prohibit them from cultivating the plant.

Still with me? Good. Those are just the states that permit people to possess marijuana or to cultivate plants to some degree or another.

In 15 states, medical marijuana laws allow people to possess only one specific marijuana extract, CBD, the component that does not produce a high. Possessing marijuana itself or cultivating plants isnt allowed.

If you live in Minnesota, New York or Pennsylvania, state laws prohibit smokeable marijuana but do allow marijuana extracts in nonsmokeable forms, such as oils that can be vaporized, oral solutions and capsules. These products are manufactured with specific amounts of THC and CBD.

Now that we have sorted out the different types of medical marijuana states permit, lets move on to the next major variation in medical marijuana legislation  what conditions medical marijuana can treat.

What do states say marijuana can help?

Most states that allow people to possess or cultivate marijuana for medical purposes allow its use to treat many medical conditions, including pain, nausea, HIV/AIDS, seizures and glaucoma. As of now, nine states also allow for the use of marijuana for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The most liberal of the states, California, goes a step further. Not only is medical marijuana permitted to treat all of these conditions, but also for any other major illness where marijuana has been deemed appropriate and has been recommended by a physician.

Remember, in some states the only medical marijuana permitted is an extract, CBD. One of these states, Kentucky, allows CBD only for people in a state-sponsored clinical trial.

The other 14 states that allow the use of CBD allow it only for debilitating, severe or intractable epilepsy. Most of these states do not have dispensaries where CBD can be purchased, or they have one single source, usually a a medical school. So if a physician in these states determines that a patient would benefit from CBD, a patient would have to travel to another state with a dispensary that sells CBD.

And, of course, it gets even more complicated. Many of the states with legal dispensaries of CBD are not permitted to provide it to nonresidents. That means that even CBD though is legal in some states, it is effectively unavailable for most who might benefit.

Why is there so much variation?

Marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 Drug, a category reserved for substances with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. This makes research on marijuana medical applications difficult.

As Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, pointed out,

AP

Medical research can and is being done with Schedule 1 substances; however, there are strict regulations and administrative hurdles associated with this status.

With research about medical marijuana moving so slowly, states, often based on citizen lobbying efforts, have acted, creating legislation that might be based more on opinion than on evidence.

Whatever your opinion is on the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes, the array of state and federal laws regarding the use of medical marijuana is confusing and problematic for those who might benefit from such a program. It is vitally important that we clear the hurdles to clinical research on marijuana, and that we accelerate research addressing the potential benefits and harms.

Kenneth E. Leonard is director of, and a senior research scientist at, the Research Institute on Addictions, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. A slightly different version of this article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Memorial Hermann is planning to build a convenient care center in League City next year as the hospital system continues to expand south of Houston.

The center is expected to open in 2017 and will be located in the Pinnacle Park development, according to a statement from the hospital system.
For the past 15 years, educators have debated, exhaustively, the perils of laptops in the lecture hall. Professors complain that laptops are distraction machines; defenders say that boring classes are to blame - students have always doodled or daydreamed, so what's the difference that they're browsing Facebook instead?

The remarkable thing about all the fuss is that, until now, there hasn't been really great data on how classroom computing affects learning. There have been some small-scale, short-term experiments. A 2003 study found that laptops make it harder for students to remember what they had just learned in lecture. A 2014 study showed that students are less likely to understand complex ideas when they are forced to take notes by computer instead of by hand. But these were all contrived situations involving immediate recall. It's less clear how laptop use affects students over the course of a semester.

Now there is an answer, thanks to a big, new experiment from economists at West Point, who randomly banned computers from some sections of a popular economics course this past year at the military academy. One-third of the sections could use laptops or tablets to take notes during lecture; one-third could use tablets, but only to look at class materials; and one-third were prohibited from using any technology.

Unsurprisingly, the students who were allowed to use laptops - and 80 percent of them did - scored worse on the final exam. What's interesting is that the smartest students seemed to be harmed the most.

Among students with high ACT scores, those in the laptop-friendly sections performed significantly worse than their counterparts in the no-technology sections. In contrast, there wasn't much of a difference between students with low ACT scores - those who were allowed to use laptops did just as well as those who couldn't. (The same pattern held true when researchers looked at students with high and low GPAs.)

These results are a bit strange. We might have expected the smartest students to have used their laptops prudently. Instead, they became technology's biggest victims. Perhaps hubris played a role. The smarter students may have overestimated their ability to multitask. Or the top students might have had the most to gain by paying attention in class.

The size of the laptop disadvantage was modest. The average score on the final was 72 out of 100, and students in sections with laptops scored about 1.7 points lower. But it's hard to understand what 1.7 points means without knowing how bunched up or far apart people's test scores were.

So here's another way to think about it. The average score on the math section of the SAT last year was 511 out of 800. The difference between exam grades in the laptop-friendly sections and exam grades in the no-laptop sections is equivalent to the difference between scoring a 511 and scoring a 491 on the SAT's math section. (That's roughly the same boost a high school student might expect from hiring an SAT tutor.)

The researchers - Susan Payne Carter, Kyle Greenberg and Michael Walker - were also surprised to find that the tablet-only sections did just as poorly as the laptop-friendly sections. Even though students were not allowed to check email or play games on the tablets, the technology still seemed to interfere with their learning.

Still, these results are probably on the optimistic side. At West Point, sections are capped at 18 students, so the instructors could easily call out people who were obviously goofing off on their laptops. The problem of computer distraction is probably much more severe at other colleges, where lectures might hold hundreds of students.

The West Point study has lessons even for those whose baccalaureate days are far behind them. This is yet more evidence that multitasking doesn't work . Beware of people who take laptops into meetings - even "just to take notes." They're probably not listening to you.
Mexico has reshuffled its diplomatic corps after incendiary rhetoric from presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who infamously referred to immigrants from that country as rapists and drug dealers and said he would force the nation to fund a border wall.

The real estate mogul said last month he would require Mexico to pay as much as $10 billion to construct a wall or divert that amount from the money immigrants here send home. About $25 billion in remittances flow from the United States to Mexico each year.

That same day, April 5, Mexico announced it had reshuffled its U.S. diplomatic staff, according to a paper published Monday by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. Mexico's former ambassador to the U.S., Miguel Basanez, a widely respected academic who specializes in Hispanic public opinion, was off the job after just seven months.

In his place is Carlos Sada, a career diplomat who has previously served as Mexico's consul general in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Antonio. Mexico also named its foreign press secretary, Paulo Carreno, as deputy secretary of foreign relations in charge of North American affairs.

Carreno is known for having overseen the public relations and imaging program of President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has recently come under assault for his government's handling of the mass killing of 43 college students in Iguala in southern Mexico and a government contractor's involvement in the construction of a luxury home for the president.

The diplomatic turnover is in response to an "exacerbated mood" against Mexicans in the U.S. and the fear that "this spirit can grow and overflow and may generate hostilities," the country's secretary of foreign affairs, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, told the El Universal newspaper.

In March, Pena Nieto told the Mexican daily newspaper Excelsior that Trump's rhetoric was "strident," adding, "that's how (Italian fascist leader) Mussolini got in, that's how Hitler got in."

His predecessors in office have been more vocal with former President Vicente Fox using an expletive on live television when he said Mexico would not pay for Trump's proposed wall. Former President Felipe Calderon, who governed between 2006 and 2012, said Mexico would not pay a "single cent for such a stupid wall."

This isn't the first time that the Mexican government has dealt with anti-Mexican sentiment in the U.S., the policy paper notes.

In 1986, for instance. Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina convened a series of special Senate hearings taking aim at the country's lack of democracy and political freedoms. In response, the Mexican government organized a large street demonstration and lodged a formal diplomatic protest with the U.S. State Department.

As the North American Free Trade Agreement was being debated in 1992, then-presidential contender Ross Perot of Dallas accused Mexico of trying to "suck in" American jobs.

But the widespread extent of the current anti-Mexican rhetoric is new, said Isidro Morales, a non-resident scholar at the Baker Institute who authored the report. Now Mexican immigrants in the United States are themselves being compared to criminals and the country's positive economic growth has been attributed to the "theft" of U.S. jobs.

"Trump is directly targeting Mexico," Morales said in a phone interview from Mexico City. "Of course, we know he is also targeting Muslims, the Chinese, but the fact that he is directly targeting Mexico is really worrisome."

The Mexican government for the first time has openly recognized the "hostile climate" in the U.S. and directed its diplomats to deal with the situation before it gets worse, Morales said. But he notes that this is a "tall order" because unlike in the past the hostility is coming not only from one individual but also a growing group of supporters.

"The Mexican government's ability to deal with this challenge would be easier if the 'hostility' came solely from Trump," Morales said. "The problem, however, goes beyond the candidate to those who may be influenced by his rhetoric."

Mexican diplomats' new mission is to try to soften the Republican Party's stance toward Mexican migrants and to exploit current divisions among Republicans, Morales said.

The Consulate General of Mexico in Houston did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump's comments have provoked not only Mexican immigrants but many Latinos of all backgrounds who are citizens or hold green cards. The prospect of his presidency has led to a surge in applications for citizenship and voter registrations among Hispanics who are angered by some of his remarks, according to advocacy groups and government statistics.

"When you take a whole group of people and you call them murderers and rapists, it's a personal affront," Lionel Sosa, a longtime Republican media consultant in San Antonio, told the Houston Chronicle last week. "Sure, they are going to register, and it's going to be an anti-Trump vote."

Nevertheless, many Republicans and white working-class voters find Trump, and in particular his tone on immigration, refreshing. They see him as a truth-teller who isn't afraid to say "politically incorrect" things about illegal immigration.
A Brenham couple and about three dozen other bikers arrested following the deadly melee at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco last May may avoid prosecution.

A Houston lawyer contends that all criminal charges were automatically dropped against them since they were not indicted by the midnight Thursday deadline for a McLennan County grand jury to have completed its work.

"It timed out," said Houston lawyer Paul Looney, who represents Morgan and William English. They originally were arrested for allegedly engaging in organized criminal activity and were held on $1 million bail each, as were all others in the case. "Pop the champagne."

He said that while the investigation remains open and a new grand jury could take the case, under the law, the charges that had been pending are now gone.

Looney met behind closed doors Friday morning with McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, first assistant prosecutor Michael Jarrett and State District Judge Matt Johnson.

The district attorney's office, however, cautioned nothing is over.

"We have not filed any dismissals in any of the remaining Twin Peaks cases," said Amy Kuzniarek, spokeswoman for the office.

"Furthermore, any McLennan County grand jury can hear evidence on this matter and decide to issue additional indictments," she said. "This is an ongoing, continuing investigation."

Exactly how many people have had their charges dismissed is unclear. At least 148 have been indicted over the incident. At least 177 were originally arrested following the clash that left nine dead and two dozen wounded. Others were arrested later.

The judge declined a request to clarify the situation.

Looney said they all agreed the judge would have had to sign an order to keep the cases active, but no such request was made.

William and Morgan English had faced the prospect of up to life in prison if convicted of engaging in organized criminal activity as part of a turf war between the Bandidos Motorcycle Club and the Cossacks Motorcycle Club.

Of those who are not facing charges so far, none was a member of the Bandidos or Cossacks. All were in the vicinity of Twin Peaks for a regional motorcycle club meeting that was supposed to be about safety and changes in the law.

The Englishes were part of a small group of bikers from the Brenham area who call themselves the Distorted Motorcycle Club. They arrived at Twin Peaks in a Nissan Sentra, not on motorcycles, and maintained they had no hand in the violence.

Morgan English, a bank teller, has no prior criminal record. William, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, had only a years-old prior brush with the law for driving under the influence.

Looney said the couple were relieved at not being indicted, but they still are dealing with having their lives suspended and their mug shots distributed around the Internet.

"I'm happy these people can try to regain their lives, regain the respect of their community and find a way to deal with the emotional trauma of having had this happen to them at all," Looney said.
Louis Tontodonato's hopes and dreams may well lie in a virtual coin flip, a digital roll of the dice.

Paralyzed from the neck down, the 20-year-old Naples, Fla., man has enrolled in the first clinical trial testing the ability of stem cells to repair spinal cord injuries and restore sensation and movement in quadriplegics. Early studies in animals and humans have had remarkable results, enabling patients to resume everyday tasks they thought had been lost forever. If those early effects are validated, the treatment has the potential to drastically improve the quality of life and independence of thousands of spinal cord injury patients.

"This would be a quantum leap in the field," said Dr. Dong Kim, chairman of the UT-Health Department of Neurosurgery and Director of the Mischer Neuroscience Institute at Memorial Hermann. "This would be the first trial to show regeneration."

He cautioned, however, it could years before doctors learn how to fully harness the promise of stem cell therapy.

"It's just such a new field," he said. "I don't expect anybody in the next year and a half to get up out of their wheelchair."

For Tontodonato, the immediate issue is whether he is randomly chosen for the treatment group. If this happens, doctors from Memorial Hermann and UT-Health in Houston will expose his spine and inject neural stem cells at the site of the injury. If not, he will receive the current standard of treatment and may lose his chance of regaining much movement in his arms or hands.

Last chance for cure

For many patients with conditions for which no adequate treatment is available, clinical trials often offer a last-ditch stab at a cure, tinged with optimism and maybe even denial, with no guarantee of a payoff. They may accept the risks of therapy that ultimately doesn't work and lose out on other potential cures, or they may sacrifice their limited window for treatment to serve as a non-treated comparison group. Doctors could never advance medicine or prove whether a treatment works without that mix of courage, stubbornness and altruism in patients like Tontodonato.

"I've got a chance to get better," he said. "Or I'll have a chance to help other people get better."

Two summers ago, shortly before he was due to start college classes, Tontodonato was riding in a Dodge Durango SUV when the driver ran a red light. Struck by a vehicle crossing the intersection, the car rolled and the roof supports crushed onto his head, breaking his neck. After 33 days in a Fort Myers, Fla., hospital, including 26 days in an induced coma, he was almost completely paralyzed from the neck down. He couldn't eat or talk. He couldn't breathe on his own.

The only movement he could manage was a shoulder shrug.

"We were told he would never walk again," his mother, Kelly Tontodonato, said. "They said he was pretty much going to be bedridden."

More Information Stem cells are characterized by two key features: they can self-replicate over long periods of time and they can transform into different types of cells. They function as a sort of internal repair system, replenishing other cells throughout one's life. Stem cells are classified into two main groups, embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Embryonic stems are derived from the initial stages of embryonic development and can become any type of cells found in the human body. These cells also carry the risk of replicating rapidly and forming tumors of mature cells. Adult stem cells are found among the different types of tissue in the body. They are not derived from embryos. They can become various types of cells within a specific category of cells. Blood stem cells can become various type of blood and immune system cells, while skeletal stem cells are able to form bone and cartilage. A clinical trial at UT-Health and Memorial Hermann and 11 other sites across the country is testing the use of neural stem cells to repair spinal cord injury. Neural stem cells are found in the brain and spinal cord and can become neurons, the primary functional cells in nervous system, or two types of supporting cells. The trial will test the ability of neural stems placed at the site of spinal cord injuries in the neck to repair the damage and restore sensation and function to arms and hands. While stem cells are found naturally in the body, a serious injury may overwhelm the limited supply. The trial will inject millions of neural stem cells grown in a laboratory. See More Collapse

Rehab leads to improvement

He was transferred to a rehabilitation facility in Atlanta, where within a week or two, he was breathing on his own. Over the next three months he recovered his voice. He regained some movement in his arms and hands by undergoing physical therapy three times a week. He estimates his left hand is at about 65 percent to 70 percent of normal, but he has almost no function in his right hand.

"When you lose function in a hand, it's terrible," he said. "You can't pick up your food, your drink, nothing. And you have to have someone do everything for you."

Patients typically recover some function in the first months after a spinal cord injury, but progress usually plateaus with little chance of any further, meaningful recovery.

"Right now we're really good at fixing the spine, getting the bones OK and letting you heal," Kim said. "But we're not good at letting you get advanced recovery."

Researchers have long thought that stem cells could bridge the gap, literally and figuratively. These early precursor cells have the ability to transform into different types of cells, providing the building blocks to repair damage. By placing them at the site of the injury to the spinal cord, researchers believe the cells will be able to transform into the nerve cells needed to restore function and movement.

Kim is the principal investigator for one of 12 sites in a study using a stem cell line derived by Newark, Calif.-based, StemCells Inc. These are not embryonic stems cells, which have generated much controversy and ethical debate. The study will use adult stem cells, grown in a lab from donated brain tissue. These neural stem cells can become any of three different types of cells found in the brain and the spine.

"The cell is both the architect and the contractor," said Dr. Stephen Huhn, StemCells' chief medical officer and vice president for clinical research. "It interprets the disease environment in which it's placed, and then it can differentiate into a cell that might be appropriate for that disease. That may be in part what stem cells were designed to do: to repair our brain and spinal cord."

Replicating stem cells

These neural stems cells are found in small quantities in the brain and spine, but serious injuries may overwhelm the limited supply, he says. StemCells developed a process for isolating the neural stem cells and then replicating them in the lab to create cell banks from which many human doses can be derived. The cells are frozen until a patient is ready for implantation.

While other spinal cord injury studies have measured healing by comparing MRI images, the StemCells study has a much higher burden of proof - improvement in motor function.

"Here they actually have to be able to wiggle a finger or move a toe or have abdominal contractions that they couldn't before," Kim said. It's a high hurdle, but study officials are confident it can be met based on animal research and preliminary studies in humans.

"We've had animal data going back over a decade. If you put stem cells into a spinal cord-injured rat, the movement is much, much improved," Kim said. "We've done this in so many animals and it just keeps working."

Those animal studies paved the way for StemCells to test different doses of its cells in humans. The company ran a phase I study with paraplegics, showing the treatment was safe and could restore sensory function. The company then followed up with six quadriplegics last year with encouraging results.

After six months of treatment, five patients showed improved muscle strength and four were able to improve performance in functional tasks and fine motor skills. Some of the patients were able to pick up a coin from a table or turn a key in a lock for the first time since their injury.

"For us, that's a very encouraging sign to see," Kuhn said. "You wouldn't expect patients to improve to that degree in that period of time."

Control group essential

Despite the impressive results, without a control group, the researchers can't know whether patients might have achieved the same gains without treatment. The second part of the study will be blinded and controlled. The volunteer test subjects will be randomly assigned to the treatment arm or a control group, and their progress will be evaluated by an assessor who won't know whether they've been treated.

"In science, we just can't answer the question, not in a believable way, if we don't do the two arms at the same time," Kim said.

To be included in the study, Tontodonato had to agree to accept the outcome of the randomization and not to reveal - including to the Chronicle - whether he had been accepted into the treatment group. If so, he will travel to Houston for the surgery. If not, he will undergo all the assessments, and must agree not to enroll in other clinical studies or undergo other treatments until the control group is assessed after six months.

Huhn says it's too early to know the long-term potential for stem cells. Researchers are still following patients who received stem cells in the earlier arm of the trial, and they suspect the stem cells will continue to replicate and repair the damaged spinal cords for months or years. The company will also face a considerable challenge in getting its stem cell line approved by the Food and Drug Administration and then getting insurers to pay for it. Company officials said it was too early to determine how much the treatment would cost.

Kim likens the trial to the first attempts at transplantation. It took years before doctors figured out the right drugs and the techniques. Now, organ transplants have become routine and doctors have expanded the field to body parts like hands, faces and scalps.

"Our goal is in 50 years to have significant regeneration, not only in injury, but for stroke, multiple sclerosis, maybe dementia," Kim said.

Back to college

Tontodonato is planning to return to college soon, with the ultimate goal of studying law. But gaining the use of his right hand would make that task much easier and provide great independence. He now spends most of his time between therapy visits at home, sometimes babysitting his 3-year-old niece.

At times, he admits, it like feels like she is babysitting him. If he drops something, he can asks her to pick it up.

"You look at somebody who's paralyzed and they look fine, but there's so much involved in it," his mother said.

Refusing to accept the status quo, she scours the Internet for potential cures. When she read about a study that showed the spice turmeric showed promise in rats, she added the compound to his daily regimen of 20 vitamins. She takes him to acupuncture treatments and is always on the lookout for clinical trials that could offer more than just marginal improvement.

Tontodonato had tried to enroll in the first phase of the StemCells trial, until an MRI revealed a cyst in his neck that made him ineligible. But the doctor later called to tell them of the next phase of the study. She went online to enroll but was unable to find a spot in Miami.

"They gave me Houston and all the cold states," she recalls. "So I said we'll go to Houston."

They sent study officials his last MRI just before Thanksgiving and heard back within 24 hours. She had stopped at a stop light on her way home and glancing at her emails, saw he had been accepted. She began to cry and called her son.

"We're going to Houston."

In December, Tontodonato and his mother came to Memorial Hermann for the testing and evaluation, and to hear the risks involved.

There are the standard risks of surgery, including infection or complications of anesthesia. For six months after treatment, he'll be on immunosuppressants to prevent rejection of the transplanted stem cells, which could hamper his ability to fight off diseases.

There's also a small risk the stems might continue to replicate and grow, much like a cancer. But Kim said that was more a risk with embyronic stem cells than an adult stem cell line.

If Tontodonato winds up in the control group, he could potentially participate in follow-up stem cells studies. But there's some evidence that stem cells might be most effective within a year or two of the initial injury.

"These treatments may not work after two or three years," Kim said.

Tontodonato insists he won't be devastated if he doesn't wind up in the treatment arm.

"The way I look at it is, of course, I want to get in. Who wouldn't?" he said. "But if I don't get in, just like Dr. Kim said, it still helps everyone."
WASHINGTON - With Congress unwilling to act, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett is marshaling Democrats to pressure the Obama administration to stem the soaring costs of prescription drugs.

Doggett, D-San Antonio, has stepped up efforts to persuade the National Institutes of Health to take the unprecedented step of breaking patents on high-priced pharmaceuticals developed with taxpayer assistance.

Doggett also is pressing a lavishly funded entity created by the Affordable Care Act to spend more of its money on studying which drugs work best and making those findings widely known.

In his expanding efforts, the veteran congressman is planning to hold hearings in San Antonio and elsewhere about what he considers the exorbitant price of many prescription drugs. He also said he intends to seek cooperation from local Veterans Administration offices and military installations related to the effectiveness of drugs they've prescribed.

Behind the scenes, Doggett has taken the lead in organizing Democratic senators as well as House members in the gridlocked Congress. His efforts stand out because they amount to Democrats challenging a Democratic administration rather than Washington's usual partisan warfare.

The sharp rise in prescription drug costs - driven in part by spending for specialty drugs like those for cancer and hepatitis C - catapulted the issue into prominence last year. Roughly one-fourth of Americans who take prescription drugs say they have difficulty paying for them, the Kaiser Foundation reported last month.

Betty Scholl, of New Braunfels, said that even with a coupon, her mother is paying $362 for the inhaler she needs to treat her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Because of that, her mother, Theresa Doege, 88, has difficulty making ends meet.

"It's impossible," Scholl said. "You have to jump through hoops to get prescriptions. Sometimes she says, 'I'll just do without.' "

'Smirking bad boy'

Doggett, 69, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, was elected to Congress in 1994. Amid complaints last year about ongoing hikes in prescription drugs, he set up a task force in the House to tackle the issue. He said last week that his initiative is aimed not just at the Obama administration in its waning months but also at preparing for what lies beyond.

In a speech April 26 in Washington in front of the liberal Center for American Progress, Doggett referred to "the blizzard of price gouging (that) has been accompanied by a blizzard of lobbying and campaign contributions" by the nation's largest pharmaceutical companies.

He recalled the much-publicized price increase last year of the anti-parasitic drug Daraprim by Turing Pharmaceuticals and its former CEO Martin Shkreli.

"This is not about just the smirking face of one smug bad boy who engineered a 5,000 percent overnight price hike.  It is a pervasive, industrywide problem," he said.

Doggett noted concerns in Texas about new drugs costing more than $300 a month for routine conditions such as diabetes.

"Major pharmaceutical companies have become giant marketing operations, expert at defending their monopoly pricing, expert at public relations, expert at avoiding taxes and wielding political influence," he said in the speech.

March-in rights

Doggett and allies are pressing the government to exercise so-called "march-in" rights, aptly named because it would amount to an aggressive action that hasn't been invoked since the law enabling it passed in 1980.

If determined that a pharmaceutical developed with federally funded research is not sufficiently available, the National Institutes of Health could essentially ignore a patent and grant additional licenses for that drug.

In letters this year, Doggett and allies urged the Health and Human Services Department to issue official guidance on the march-in authority, in effect warning manufacturers prone to exorbitant pricing.

On March 28, Doggett took the lead in pressing the government to hold march-in hearings on an expensive drug for prostate cancer.

The drug, Xtandi, was developed at the University of California-Los Angeles with research that the National Institutes of Health and the Army helped fund. It is jointly marketed by Medivation Inc. of San Francisco and the Japanese company Astellas Pharma Inc.

Doggett noted in a letter to government agencies that the drug, sold in Japan and Sweden for $39,000 for a year's treatment and in Canada for $30,000, is priced in the United States at $129,000.

Tepis response

The federal agencies have not been receptive. In a response addressed to Doggett, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell was non-committal, saying the march-in authority "is strictly limited" and that its use had been rejected three times since 2004.

Doggett also is seeking action from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, a little-known entity established in the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The nonprofit, funds research projects aimed at producing wise decisions about health care treatments. It receives $500 million yearly from a $2 tax on every health insurance policy on top of $150 million annually from the Treasury.

Doggett, after marshaling 39 other House members, told PCORI in a recent letter that it needs to invest more of that money in research about effectiveness of many pharmaceuticals - and then put out that information in consumer-friendly fashion.

Dr. Joe Selby, PCORI executive director, said the institute has been shifting money to drug research and how to better communicating those findings to people would be taken up soon at a board meeting.

Doggett, told of that reply, remarked: "Sounds to me like a typical bureaucratic response."
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They shuffled through the gloomy, curving entryway to the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, the space lit with eerie, knee-high lights.

A guide ushered them into the dark expanse, pincushioned by thin concrete columns reflected off the sheen of the 3 inches of water puddling the 87,500-square-foot structure's sunken floor.

Someone whistled, echoes rippling across the void, bouncing through the 221 columns supporting the former underground drinking water reservoir, the reverberations joined by the occasional muffled strains from a music festival above.

"This is totally where the basilisk would have lived," a tour guide joked, referring to the giant serpent from Harry Potter.

It was the ninth tour Saturday, the day after officials with the Buffalo Bayou Partnership opened the renovated structure to the public with tour guides leading about 30 people at a time on half-hour walks through the structure, spouting bits of Houston history and arcana.

As word of the cistern's opening spread, more than 3,000 people signed up for tours in the coming weeks. Staff parried away disappointed would-be visitors who had not signed up in advance for tours of the cavernous, subterranean space.

"We've been overwhelmed with calls," said Trudi Smith, a Buffalo Bayou Partnership spokeswoman, estimating that around 1,100 visitors were expected over the opening weekend at the cistern, which lies on the eastern edge of Buffalo Bayou Park just west of Sabine Street.

All day Saturday, they filtered through the sepulchral gloom, then back into the sticky, sweltering, Houston sun.

"I'm so happy they didn't make a big parking lot out of this large piece of history," said Jo Brunhamer, minutes after finishing one tour.

Lindsey George, also with their group, had another thought.

"When are we going to have a concert in there?"

City officials commissioned the construction of the underground drinking water reservoir in 1926. At the time, Houston was growing rapidly, driven by the "twin dynamos" of oil and cotton, according to Stephen Fox, a Houston architectural historian and lecturer at Rice University.

A short notice in the Chronicle at the time noted that city officials voted to pay $160,000 to fund the construction of the 15-million gallon cistern - a veritable thimble of the 500 million gallons of water Houstonians now consume daily.

City officials decommissioned the cistern in 2007, several years after it sprang a leak.

There was talk of demolishing the structure and turning it into a parking lot until the Buffalo Bayou Partnership learned of its existence.

The city transferred management of the cistern to BBP, which used grant money to bring the space up to code with the ultimate intent of using it to house temporary sound and light art installations.

"We think the space so incredible. National and international artists will be really drawn to it," said Anne Olson, president of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership. "Plus we have a really strong arts community here."

It has been a radical reinvention of a structure that Houstonians used for decades as a water storage tank.

An architect hired by BBP said descending into the space for the first time was like "discovering some ancient ruin," while others compared the space to the cisterns of Istanbul, the sewers of Paris or the stepwells of Gujarat in India.

The reuse marked a continued shift here to save old and iconic structures and spaces, which in times past have gone the way of the wrecking ball.

"It demonstrates the increased consciousness of the value of what exists in the city," Fox said. "Seeing the potential of this abandoned 'infrastructure dinosaur,' to realize it may not lend itself to anything practical, that in fact, where imagination is involved, its very idiosyncrasy makes it very valuable (to be) reused in ways extremely different from what it was designed for."
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The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston celebrated the completion of its new hospital Friday, a final step in an extraordinary recovery from the destruction wrought by Hurricane Ike some 7 1/2 years ago.

Officials dedicated the Jennie Sealy Hospital, a $438 million, 310-bed facility specially designed to withstand "anything the Gulf of Mexico can throw at it," said Dr. David Callender, UTMB's president. The new facility, four years in the making, connects with and will complement John Sealy Hospital, which opened in 1978 and will soon undergo a multimillion-dollar renovation.

"(Today) is a celebration of a resilient people, whose will, determination and just plain stubbornness lifted UTMB from the dark throes of devastation in 2008 into the bright light of this very day," Callender said at the dedication ceremonies at the new hospital.

Earlier in the week, he called the hospital "the capstone on our Ike recovery efforts."

More for you UTMB to work with Brazil on Zika vaccine

At the ceremonies, UT System Chancellor William McRaven added, "We all experience storms, literal and figurative, in our lives - and it is hope that enables us to get through them. Starting today, for generations to come, people will come here - to Jennie Sealy Hospital - to receive comfort, care - and hope."

The dedication of a new UTMB hospital would have seemed unlikely soon after Ike crashed into Galveston Island on Sept. 13, 2008. The storm knocked John Sealy Hospital out of service for the rest of the year, causing $1 billion in damage, plunging UTMB's finances into the red and prompting the layoffs of nearly 3,000 workers. A consultant recommended the hospital be moved off the island, an idea that initially found favor with UT regents and a few legislators.

More Information About the hospital 765,000 square-feet. 12 floors 25 feet above sea level 60 ICU rooms 20 operating suites Source: University of Texas Medical Branch See More Collapse

Better accommodating

Instead, UTMB dug back in. It spent more than $1 billion on improvements and repairs to John Sealy and other buildings and expanded clinical services north of the island. More than 2 million man-hours went into the construction of Jennie Sealy Hospital, which Callender said will better accommodate state-of-the-art equipment.

Jennie Sealy's first patients will be transferred from John Sealy beginning in April. Upon completion of its renovation, John Sealy will house the hospital's women's and pediatrics units.

Jennie Sealy was the daughter of John Sealy, whose 1884 bequest for charitable purposes in Galveston led to the creation of the first Sealy hospital in 1890. Jennie, her husband, Waverly Smith, and her brother John II in 1922 established the Sealy & Smith Foundation, which has since supported the hospital. The foundation funded construction of a 1954 replacement for the original building; the current John Sealy Hospital; and a first Jennie Sealy Hospital, built in the early 1970s and decommissioned in 2000, that housed psychiatry and other departments.

Since the storm

Together, the new Jennie Sealy and the renovated John Sealy are expected to include about 550 beds, up from the roughly 475 being operated before the storm.

The new hospital sits on property formerly occupied by the first Shriner's children's burn hospital and the first Jennie Sealy hospital. It connects to John Sealy Hospital by a walkway.

Funding for Jennie Sealy included $170 million from the Sealy & Smith Foundation, $270 million in other philanthropy, $150 million in tuition revenue bonds approved by the state Legislature and $18 million in UTMB funds.

Since the storm, UTMB also has acquired a hospital in Brazoria County and is building another hospital in League City. It has added clinics around north Galveston and south Harris counties.
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The owner of a small Texas trucking company, whose 18-wheeler was used without permission by federal agents in a botched Zetas Cartel sting that left the driver dead, wants the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case.

Craig Patty, the owner, filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. government seeking up to $6.4 million in damages over the November 2011 incident, which played out in broad daylight in northwest Houston.

An appeals court in New Orleans dismissed the suit in March and Patty has appealed that decision to the nation's highest court, asking that the suit be reinstated.

"The facts of this case are straight out of a Hollywood movie, and yet are completely true and undisputed," Houston lawyer Andy Vickery states in recent petition to the court.

Patty has said he wants to be compensated for the damage to his truck and his business, but also wants to shed light on the case by bringing the facts out publicly.

Many of the government's motions filed in the case were kept under seal in order to protect the secrecy of Drug Enforcement Administration operations. In its defense, however, the government has contended it needs discretion when it comes to fighting crime, and that Patty's truck was an important tool in the investigation.

The truck was carrying a load of marijuana from the Texas-Mexico border to Houston, and was being shadowed by numerous law-enforcement officers. During the trip, however, it was run off the road and attacked by gangsters in three sport-utility vehicles.

The truck's driver, Lawrence Chapa, who was secretly working for the DEA was shot and killed.

During the confusion, a plainclothes Houston police officer shot and wounded a plainclothes Harris County sheriff's deputy.

Four men were convicted in Chapa's death. The last was Eric DeLuna, who had been charged with capital murder, but leaded guilty to a lesser charge and got 30 years in state court.

Patty's lawyers contend the DEA has refused to pay for damages as well as protect him and his family from retaliation by the Zetas Cartel, one of the most violent of Mexico's underworld drug organizations.

"Patty sought compensation from the DEA for the damage to his truck and company and for police protection against cartel retaliation," notes court papers recently sent to the Supreme Court for consideration. "He feared that the cartel might come after him on learning that the truck belonged to his company.

Patty's insurance refused to pay for repairs, saying that the truck was used in the commission of a crime, even though Patty did not know that his driver was also secretly working for the DEA while on company time and using the company truck.

The DEA's plan involved having Chapa drive the load of Zetas marijuana from the border to the Houston area, and that when it was delivered, federal agents and police would sweep in and make arrests.

The truck was attacked before it could reach its destination.
Two years after wresting control of the Harris County Republican Party, Paul Simpson is facing an unexpected runoff challenge from political newcomer Rick Ramos in a race that again pits establishment fiscal conservatives against a group of socially minded GOP kingmakers.

Simpson finished second with 39 percent of the vote in March's three-way primary, as Ramos and political novice Tex Christopher - neither of whom reported raising a penny - earned the remainder.

Caught off guard, several party activists and deep-pocketed donors have mobilized behind Simpson, as Ramos has leaned on the support of a trio of local power players: Steve Hotze, Gary Polland and Terry Lowry.

Both candidates painted the outcome of the low-profile race as crucial for the party's future in Harris County, which recently swung majority-Democratic, according to Rice University's Kinder Institute.

"We are a battleground county," Simpson, a 61-year-old energy lawyer, said during a recent interview in his downtown office. "So, the only way we can keep Republican leadership in place is to be an effective party, and we weren't for a long time."

Ramos, a 45-year-old family lawyer, said the party needs to broaden its appeal among minority voters and get more involved in social policy fights.

"For the Republican Party to be able to go forward  we have to have more diversity. We have to be able to reach out to communities at large within our own county, and what worked 20 years ago, 30 years ago for the Republican Party is not going to work in the immediate future," Ramos said. "I think we have to be more proactive, more innovative, and really give the party somewhat of a face-lift."

Low-profile position

The down-ballot race drew scarcely any attention amid the Super Tuesday hubbub, when about two-thirds of the Republican voters cast ballots for party chair.

Little appears to have changed ahead of the May 24 runoff, for which Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart said he expects just 50,000 Republican voters to turn out.

Despite the office's low profile, county chairs can play a significant fundraising and organizational role in local contests by sending out mailers or marshaling volunteers to man phone banks or block walk on a candidate's behalf.

"If you're a Harris County Republican, you run the serious risk of seeing Harris County turn blue in November unless the local party effectively hits above its weight," Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said. "So, you need the best people possible, the most talented people possible, running the party. Otherwise, you're going to see two dozen county-level judges, along with the district attorney, the county sheriff, the tax assessor potentially all go Democratic."

With those stakes in mind, Simpson pointed to what he sees as party successes under his leadership, including knocking on doors and making calls to help defeat Houston's equal rights ordinance last year and coordinating efforts to back mayoral runner-up Bill King.

"We used all of those elections to be building for the future, knowing 2016 is going to be a big challenge," he said.

Money disparity

Simpson added that the party identified roughly 87,000 new Republican voters since the beginning of 2015, launched an unpaid student internship program for this summer, developed a more comprehensive voter file and opened additional party offices throughout the county.

Between July 2014, after Simpson took office, and mid- February 2016, the Harris County Republican Party raised more than $3 million, compared with $1.3 million over the prior 18 months, party treasurer Cindy Siegel said.

Records show Simpson raised $177,000 and spent $126,000 for his county chair bid in the first seven weeks of the year. He allocated $82,000 of that to advertising - including $70,000 for radio spots - and $31,000 to consulting services.

Ramos did not report raising any money and lent himself $25,000 to advertise on slates produced by Polland and Lowry, his only expenditures.

Ramos mounted an unsuccessful bid for family court district judge in 2010 but has not played an active role in the county party.

He called for the organization to engage in additional outreach to minority voters, be technologically innovative - by, say, creating an app for the Harris County GOP - and elevate social concerns.

"My leadership position essentially within the party is going to be one where, No. 1, you have to be a spokesperson, No. 2, we have to win elections, and No. 3, you have to be able to raise substantial money," he said.

Ramos said he previously raised money for several Republican judicial candidates and the Campaign for Houston, the committee formed to oppose the equal rights ordinance known as HERO. Records show he personally contributed $15,000 to the anti-HERO effort.

The family lawyer said he decided to run for county chair after HERO's defeat because of what he called the "inability of the party to stand behind a social issue."

Ramos' chief backers have trumpeted that concern, too.

"The Harris County Republican Party, under Simpson's direction, did not involve itself in circulating petitions to force a referendum on the bathroom ordinance," Hotze wrote in a mailer. "Conservatives must rise up and take back our culture from the secularists, socialists, communists and liberals who want to destroy the foundations of biblical morality."

Simpson and his supporters fired back, criticizing Ramos' lack of experience and ties to Hotze, Polland and Lowry.

Ramos "has no experience, hasn't been there, hasn't done anything, never been a precinct chair, never run anything. He's just the front man for this same, old gang," Memorial Park-area precinct chair Joe Pelati said.

Campaign strategies

Political consultants and party regulars often condemn the trio's widely distributed mailers as "pay-to-play" operations that require candidates to buy costly advertising to win an endorsement. Polland and Lowry have disputed that assertion. Hotze did not respond to a request for comment.

Ramos declined to comment on his strategy heading into early voting, but Simpson said he has been thinking about the race in three parts: mail balloting, early voting and election day.

Ramos won the mail ballot vote by nearly 25 percentage points on Super Tuesday, while Simpson narrowly edged him out during early voting and won election day balloting - which drew the most voters - by nearly three percentage points.

Early voting begins Monday and runs throughFriday
DALLAS - DeDe Fuller says she got involved in Texas Republican politics more than a decade ago because she was fed up with career politicians who were saying one thing and doing another.

"The political establishment was the problem, the elected officials and the special interests who get together to protect their interests first over what the people want," the North Dallas retiree remembers thinking.

In a year when political outsiders railing against entrenched politicos have a strong cachet with voters, especially Republican voters as was underscored by the surprise ascension of Donald Trump to be the likely GOP presidential nominee, the so-called establishment is again a favorite punching bag.

At the biennial Texas Republican Party convention that concluded here on Saturday, the theme was everywhere - from the "Overthrow The Establishment" and "Secede Now" bumper stickers available in trade show booths, to the fiery rhetoric as delegates debated the state party's platform on Friday, to the campaign buttons and comments from delegates and guests who crowded the convention floor.

It was more intense, perhaps, than at some recent Texas conventions, since the party faithful feels more pressure to win the presidency after two terms of what they believe is an utter disaster of Democrat rule.

'Not a Texan'

For all that railing and sniping, however, interview after interview on the convention floor during the three-day confab at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center produced a curious fact: The Red Staters cannot agree on exactly who is the Political Establishment that is such a big problem.

Is it just politicians in Washington, the political hub that Texans both elected and grass roots love to hate? Or does it include some in the pink-domed statehouse in Austin?

And what about Donald Trump? Even the billionaire non-politician gets hit with the label by some conventioneers because of the way they say he has played America's political system for years through contributions and perks to curry favor with both Republicans and Democrats in Washington.

"It basically comes down to this: Everyone will tell you they want to throw the bums out, just not their bums," said Kurt Condant of Houston. "To most Texas Republicans, it's the Washington political establishment, the political elite."

Does that include U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, Texas' senior lawmaker in Washington who addressed the convention on Friday to generous applause?

"No, not John. I like John. He's done a good job for us," said Condant, echoing other delegates at the convention. "I would say it's everyone in Washington who's not a Texan, or who agrees with what Texans think."

To Julie Iris Oldham, 81, a longtime GOP San Antonio activist, Washington is the problem, "has been forever."

'Quit listening'

And the politicians in Austin, starting with Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick?

"I like Abbott and Patrick. (Attorney General Ken) Paxton? He's got that criminal indictment. He's a problem," she said. "People who listen to the grass roots, the people, are what we need in politics. Establishment politicians quit listening to the grass roots."

State Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas, said when most people complain about the political establishment, they are venting a general frustration with the political process, not so much with individual office-holders.

"But there's tremendous frustration in the grass roots this year with politics, both Democrats and Republicans, and people are ready for change," he said. "People are tired of what they see as a broken system. And that's why bashing the political establishment has such appeal."

In Texas, that appeal, perhaps, has an ingrained focus on Washington among the state's Republican base - the voters who turn out to cast ballots in primary elections - because the state's top leaders, including Abbott and Patrick, have made a career of criticizing Washington politicians.

"People feel that not enough progress has been made on several important issues - repealing Obamacare, border security, plus a lot of others, and so they blame the political establishment," said Steve Munisteri, a retired Houston lawyer and longtime political activist who served as state GOP chairman from 2010 until last year. "It's actually more a disappointment in leadership. Even if they're losing on some issues, they'd rather have the people they elect to be trying rather than not doing anything. Texans like people who speak their mind on issues."

'Smoke and mirrors'

Once elected, the trick is not to become part of that establishment, in the eyes of voters.

"That's why a lot of politics is smoke and mirrors: They tell you one thing and do another in Washington or Austin," said Andee Mendez, a San Antonio Republican. "We expect the people we elect to get involved in the political establishment so they can get things done. We just don't want them to get too much a part of that establishment, and the longer they're in office the more they're part of it."

William Davis, a Houston tea party Republican, said that is why the term "political establishment" is a misnomer.

"The anger this election - and it's anger, for sure - is with the system of self-protection for politicians that's more than about just those politicians," he said. "It's why those of us who wanted Ted Cruz are willing to take a deep breath and vote for Trump, because, in the most basic sense, they're both outsiders.

"And we need to elect someone as president who is not part of the awful system."
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AUSTIN -- Texas Attorney General on Monday intervened on behalf of oil giant ExxonMobil seeking to end a climate-change investigation underway by his counterpart in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Environmental and government-watchdog groups immediately decried the move by Paxton as unusual and improper.

In a court filing in Fort Worth, Paxton asked a state district judge to end an investigation launched against the Irving-based company by the Virgin Islands attorney general into whether ExxonMobil misled investors and the public about climate change.

Alabama joined in the filing with Texas.

Virgin Island officials recently intervened in an ongoing investigation launched by the New York attorney general, and joined earlier by Massachusetts officials.

In court filings, Paxton called the investigation "a fishing expedition" and said it "appears to be driven by ideology, and not law."

He asserted that a law firm involved in the inquiry "could take home a percentage of penalties (if assessed)" and noted that ExxonMobil has no business operations or assets in the Virgin Islands.

The other attorneys general have said they are investigating whether statements by Exxon about the risks of climate change contradicted the company's own research findings.

In a suit filed in Fort Worth last month, the company said the investigation seeks to violate its First Amendment rights by silencing the company in the ongoing public debate over climate change.

In his court filings, Paxton seemed to agree, and in a news release about his intervention in the case, he noted that the company that employs thousands of people in Texas faces "high court costs" if the inquiry continues.

"This case is about abusing the power of the subpoena to force Exxon to turn over many decades' worth of records, so an attorney general with an agenda can pore over them in hopes of finding something incriminating," Paxton said.

"It's a fishing expedition of the worst kind, and represents an effort to punish Exxon for daring to hold an opinion on climate change that differs from that of radical environmentalists."

Tom Smith, director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, a government-watchdog that monitors environmental and ethics issues, called Paxton's intervention off base.

"It's clear who Ken Paxton supports -- large corporations as opposed to the people of Texas who will suffer from increased global warming, from torrential rains with flooding to spreading wildfires to dramatic agricultural losses," Smith said.

"He should be jumping into the case on behalf of the vast majority of the citizens of Texas," Smith said. "Ken Paxton is of and for the corporations."

Former Gov. Mark White, a Democrat who served as Texas' attorney general from 1979 to 1983, said Paxton's filing on behalf of ExxonMobil "seems a little out of the range.

"Usually the AGs are on the same team in these things," White said.

Ilan Levins, associate director of the Environmental Integrity Project's regional office in Austin, said he was not surprised by Paxton's move in a state "that has been one of the leading climate deniers.

"It looks like a political ploy, since I don't think ExxonMobil needs the legal help," he said.

Steve Gardner, a consumer-protection lawyer who worked as an assistant attorney general Democrats Jim Mattox and Dan Morales, said "for the Texas attorney general to turn his back on the people of Texas and his colleagues who are investigating a case in order to whore himself out for a big company is appalling.

"You don't interfere in what your fellow attorneys general are doing," he said. "I've never heard of this."

State ethics disclosure filings show that out of $8.8 million he raised, Paxton has received about $400,000 from oil and gas interests since July 2013, most of that from individuals who listed their profession as the oil and gas business.

Between December 2006 and October 2012, Paxton received $3,250 from the ExxonMobil political action committee, but none since.
Activists and leaders in the social conservative movement, after spending most of the past year opposing and condemning Donald Trump, are now moving to embrace his candidacy and are joining the growing number of mainstream Republicans who appear ready to coalesce around the party's presumptive nominee.

Though their support for Trump is often qualified, this change of heart is one of the more remarkable turns in an erratic and precedent-defying campaign. It reflects the sense among many Republicans that, flawed as they may see him, the thrice-married billionaire is preferable to the alternative.

"Oh, my, it's difficult," said Penny Nance, the president of Concerned Women for America, a group that has openly campaigned against Trump. "He's not my first choice. He's not my second choice," she added. "But any concerns I have about him pale in contrast to Hillary Clinton."

Mollifying efforts

And Trump - whose litany of offenses against cultural conservatives include supporting Planned Parenthood, past positions on abortion rights and his more accepting views on gays and lesbians - is winning over this once deeply skeptical constituency.

He has made overt moves, such as suggesting last week that he would name Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, and sent subtle signals, like employing people for his campaign who are well known inside the movement.

Trump has, to a large extent, placated a vocal and powerful element of the Republican Party's base, whose backing he will need if he wants to wage a general election campaign leading a united conservative movement.

In him, they see a convert to their cause, not a transgressor.

The support of social conservatives is not just symbolic. It means getting assistance from groups that plan to spend millions of dollars mobilizing voters, people who lead influential faith-based organizations and Republican activists who will help craft the party's platform at the national convention this summer.

And it has required a good deal of pride swallowing on their part.

Evangelicals forgiving

Many of them want to believe he is someone who has evolved to become more conservative and religious.

"They love a convert because it's what their faith is all about," said Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition and a longtime friend of Trump.

"Contrary to the stereotype that is often assigned to them by the larger culture," Reed added, "evangelicals are far more forgiving and extend far more mercy to political figures and others than is understood."

By mollifying many social conservatives, Trump could prevent some uncomfortable defections in July at the Republican National Convention, where anti-abortion activists and others from the religious right have significant sway.

"My counsel is let's not be premature in jumping to conclusions," said Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, a conservative policy group. "Rather," added Perkins, who is also a member of the committee that will write the party's platform at the convention, "let's give Donald Trump the opportunity to make the first move."
The following are excerpts of reports generated by the Texas County Sheriffs Department:

Kenneth D. Romine, 47, of 14342 Highway AA in Bucyrus, was issued a citation for peace disturbance after an incident at shortly before midnight on May 1.

A deputy responded to a report from two men who stated their neighbor was making excessive noise and yelling at them through a loudspeaker. The officer went to the scene and advised Romine to cease the noise.

But the deputy was dispatched back to the location two more times the same night, and finally wrote the ticket. The officer reported that upon arrival on one of the trips, several loudspeakers were visible at Romines residence and he could be seen playing drums with the sound coming from the speakers at a high volume.

The officer advised him that multiple complaints had been received, but Romine allegedly replied that he didnt care because they had shot his dog and was going to keep them awake.

Earlier the same day, a deputy responded to a report of a shot dog at Romines residence. Investigation of that case reportedly continues.

A deputy on May 14 investigated a 911 call regarding a man kicking in the door at a Cleveland Road residence at Houston.

The officer reported that the 31-year-old Washington (Mo.) man had been on a float trip on the Big Piney River with friends, when a man he was with fell in the water and lost consciousness. The suspect allegedly went to the home to call 911, but when nobody was found to be home, he kicked in the door to get to a phone.

The man who fell into the river reportedly suffered a seizure, but was examined by emergency medical personnel and released. The man who kicked in the door agreed to pay for the damage to the home, and no charges were filed.

A deputy on May 12 responded to a fax from the Cabool Police Department that indicated a 55-year-old woman had complained about representatives of Jehovahs Witness coming to her Berry Road residence.

The officer advised the woman that an attempt would be made to contact the representatives to advise them not to come back to her residence.

A deputy responded at about 10:50 p.m. May 12 to a report of an unknown animal in a house on Red Bud Road at Cabool.

A woman who lives there told the officer the animal had made entry through the doggie door. The officer was unable to locate it.

An officer was dispatched at about 3:45 p.m. May 13 regarding a report of trash dumped on Hillcrest Road at Licking.

The officer made contact with a man who lives there who said there were two piles of trash, and he had found papers with a womans name on them. The officer contacted the woman, 22, and advised her to clean up the trash or she would be cited for littering.

A deputy on April 19 responded to a report of a 30-year-old womans dog being shot at a Highway U residence at Cabool. Upon arrival, the officer observed two marijuana plants growing in plastic cups.

A probable cause statement was sent to the county prosecutor.



Texas County Jail admissions

May 10

Ivan A. Gale  drug charges

Nicole E. James  Crawford County hold

Nadatha S. Walker  24-hour commitment

Aaron J. Harmon  writ

Jeffery A. Brooks  drug charges, resisting arrest

Richard A. Schlesing  non-support

May 12

Angela P. London  house for Dent County

Courtney N. Thompson  house for Dent County

Sharla F. Smith-Ogle  house for Dent County

Priscilla R. Belling  drug paraphernalia

May 13

Brandi K. Masters  stealing

Joseph E. Ehlers  writ (to appear before judge)

Ted L. Glidewell III  48-hour commitment

May 15

Cassandra L. Miller  Butler County hold

Roger E. Burgess  driving while revoked

Patrick A. Dodson  48-hour commitment

William S. Dixson  receiving stolen property

Kelly D. Williams  possession of controlled substance
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fany & Co. has come under fire after a former employee alleged she was dismissed for her controversial religious beliefs which are actually shared by millions of Catholics the world over.Kristin Rightnour  who was once the director of marketing for the luxury retailer  says an innocent conversation with one Catholic colleague and one Jewish colleague about Easter plans had been taken out of context.Rightnour claims the Jewish co-worker asked about Easter mass and, at the Jewish colleagues request, explained the crucifixion story.The suit maintains that the Jewish colleague did not express discomfort and actually encouraged Rightnour  after hearing the story, Righnour claims the Jewish colleague laughed and said; They didn't teach us any of this in Hebrew school!However, a co-worker complained, alleging that Rightnour had stated the Jewish people killed Jesus.Eventually, the 35-year-old was reprimanded and put on one-year probation, based on Defendant's perception that as a practicing Catholic, Plaintiff held the belief that Jewish people killed Jesus, as well as Plaintiffs acknowledgment that many Catholics did indeed believe as much, the suit charges.The 35-year-old complained about the punishment and claims she was later the subject of retaliation by means of a negative performance review before she was eventually fired.What you have here is an employer engaging in a systematic, yet brutally transparent, scheme to punish an accomplished management-level employee for raising a good faith complaint  that she was treated disparately because of her religion," lawyer Alexander Coleman said in a statement.
ing learnt numerous lessons from being the lawyer who represented the NZ-based Pike River mine directors and chief executive following the 2010 tragedy, Stacey Shortall knows better than most the nuances and legislative minefields attached to health and safety issues.Shortall says the most pressing health and safety issue on the minds of business executives today is how to practically meet the requirements of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, which becomes law on April 4th."I do believe that many Kiwi businesses understand what's required of them under the new Act and they are taking the reform seriously," she says. "However, it's the progression to implementing practical solutions and actions that is weighing most heavily on the shoulders of the NZ business community."After recently working with Lion's board and senior leadership in Australia and New Zealand, John O'Rourke says for businesses large and small, what's important is that the right people are thinking hard about what might go wrong and what can be done to mitigate that risk, and to keep people safe."While most PCBUs (Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking) are very serious about the Act, there may be some who will have a shock coming," he says. "One of the biggest potential trip-ups is small companies (PCBUs) that don't take their health and safety responsibilities seriously, because other businesses simply won't contract them to do work."Small businesses that take the Act seriously and provide assurance will be the ones getting the work, as businesses won't want to take the risk of engaging people who are not demonstrating their commitment to health and safety."Small businesses can't present large businesses with a generic safety plan; rather, it needs to be well thought-out and specific to the particular tasks in that unique environment. Proving that any contractors have received the right training and are experienced and equipped to manage risks is a must-have for businesses."O'Rourke says a focus for businesses should be systems and processes that facilitate and promote sharing information relevant to health and safety issues."There are several practical steps businesses can take right now to ensure they are on top of the changes, including getting a health and safety check-up and audit, compliance health checks at board and senior leadership level, and strategy development. The goal should be for health and safety culture, leadership, training, recording, and reporting to be embedded deep within all levels of the business."We need to foster a just culture, where employees, officers and directors won't be criticised or intimidated for reporting and asking about health and safety problems or incidents at work. Not knowing, or not asking about these issues will no longer suffice as an excuse for inaction. In fact, it could lead to liability."Recognising the need for compliance and health and safety training for many smaller kiwi businesses, Safetrac have released an online compliance bundle, full details here.
An extremist group in the Philippines is threatening to execute another Canadian hostage if the federal government doesn't pay a multimillion-dollar ransom.

A new video reportedly shows Canadian Robert Hall saying he'll be killed at 3 p.m. on June 13 if the government doesn't pay $16.6 million to the extremist group that kidnapped him, Canada.com reported.

I appeal to my government and the Philippine government, as I have appealed before, for help, Hall says in the video.

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Hall and fellow Canadian John Ridsdel were among four people kidnapped by Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf last September. Ridsdel was beheaded last month after the group demanded a ransom that wasn't paid. Abu Sayyaf has been linked to al Qaeda, according to Global News.

This image, made from undated militant video, shows Canadians John Ridsdel, right, and Robert Hall. (Photo: AP Video/Canadian Press)

A government spokeswoman told Canada.com the government is aware of the new video, but wouldn't comment on the details of the situation.

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The Governments first priority is the safety and security of its citizens and therefore will not comment or release any information which may compromise ongoing efforts or endanger the safety of the remaining hostages, Rachna Mishra, a Global Affairs Canada spokeswoman, wrote in an email to Canada.com.

After Ridsdel was killed, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated that Canada would never pay ransoms to terrorist organizations.

"Paying ransom for Canadians would endanger the lives of every single one of the millions of Canadians who live work and travel around the world every single year,'' Trudeau said at the time.
Move over Aishwarya Rai and Blake Lively, because there's another style queen slaying the red carpet at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.

Meet Araya Alberta Hargate, a 34-year-old British-Thai actress who's known for her roles in "Saranae Siblor" and "Crazy Crying Lady." A fellow L'Oreal Paris ambassador to Lively and Rai, Araya herself is a regular at the annual French film fest, often donning exquisite pieces from designers such as Ashi Studio Couture, Zac Posen, Kaufmanfranco and Giambattista Valli.

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And this year is no different. Like her fellow L'Oreal Paris colleagues, she's hitting this year's festival in style, giving Blake and Aishwarya a run for their money.

Let's break down her 2016 Cannes Film Festival for proof, shall we?

For the "Cafe Society" premiere and opening ceremony of the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival, Araya was hands-down one of the best dressed of the evening. She wore a dramatic, pink ruffled gown by Ralph & Russo that was fit for (red carpet) royalty.

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Oh, and of course she had the perfect Instagram to showcase that stunning ensemble:

@ralphandrusso  A photo posted by Araya Alberta Hargate (@chomismaterialgirl) on May 11, 2016 at 11:54am PDT

We. Die.

Since we're so used to seeing Hargate in voluminous gowns, it was a nice surprise seeing her down something more form-fitting and sexy. This frayed violet Versace gown, while still very pretty and ethereal, is really quite edgy and daring, especially with that illusion panel on the side.

@chopard #atelierversace @lorealmakeup @lofficielthailand #chomincannes2016 A photo posted by Araya Alberta Hargate (@chomismaterialgirl) on May 12, 2016 at 10:59am PDT

Like we said, SLAY.

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Any event with "Chopard" in its name is bound to be ultra glam, so naturally, Araya dressed the part for the Chopard Trophy Ceremony Gala at Cannes. For this occasion, she went back to the princess vibes, donning a baby pink two-piece by Giambattista Valli. The floral brocade fabric was adorned with silver thread and embellished with jewels on the necklace and flowers at the waist.

For the premiere of "The BFG," Araya stayed true to her voluminous dressing, opting for a Zuhair Murad organza dress. The fashion house described the gown as having "delicately-flowing openwork of printed celadon flowers on the skin-tight sheath dress inside and spreading its tendrils on the overlaid voluminous skirt."

And check out the train:

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At the premiere of "From The Land Of The Moon (Mal De Pierres)," Hargate opted for a completely different colour palette: black and white. This Jean Paul Gaultier gown may just be our favourite of the bunch simply because it looks like a completely different dress depending on which angle you look at it:

And here's the picture-perfect 'Gram to go with it:

@mohiebdahabieh  A photo posted by Araya Alberta Hargate (@chomismaterialgirl) on May 15, 2016 at 11:18pm PDT

Sigh.

You can check out more photos from the 2016 Cannes Film Festival below. In the meantime, we'll be keeping up with Araya's Instagram obsessively.

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Cannes 2016 See Gallery
"Goodbye gender!"

During a Sunday show in Durham, N.C., Against Me! frontwoman and transgender advocate Laura Jane Grace set her birth certificate on fire to protest the state's anti-queer legislation.

The so-called "bathroom bill" prohibits trans people from using bathrooms that fit their gender identity, as they must use the one that matches their birth certificates.

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Grace, an openly transgender woman, smiled and waved the burning document, which has the gender she was assigned at birth.

I guess gender really is over since @LauraJaneGrace said goodbye to gender! #genderisoverpic.twitter.com/EHXZJbMnM2  Kathryn (@kwymer6) May 16, 2016

According to The Washington Post, Grace told the crowd change comes through "empowering the people" through grassroots movements.

Several bands and musicians have cancelled shows in North Carolina to protest them controversial bill, but Grace announced in April that Against Me! would do no such thing.

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Grace said visibility was crucial as an act of protest.

When you feel targeted as a trans person, the natural inclination is to go into hiding," she told BuzzFeed.

"But visibility is more important than ever; to go there and have the platform of a stage to stand on and speak your mind and represent yourself.

It was suggested to me in an interview that we might cancel our May 15th show in Durham, NC because of the states HB2 bill. Hell no! (1/2)  Laura Jane Grace (@LauraJaneGrace) March 30, 2016

I'm even more eager to play North Carolina 'cause of the bill! Let me know if there's any activist groups that can come table the show (2/2)  Laura Jane Grace (@LauraJaneGrace) March 30, 2016

Against Me! continues their tour until the end of June.

Watch AOL's 10-episode series, "True Trans," starring Laura Jane Grace here.

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Its not uncommon for parents to pull their kids out of school every now and then, but in the UK, parents can actually be fined for doing so. And one dad refused to pony up.

Paying the fine was an acceptance that I had committed a criminal offence. That's just not true, dad Jon Platt told Good Morning Britain.

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Platt had taken his six-year-old daughter on vacation to Florida last year and the school council fined him 120 (60 for the absence and 60 for refusing to pay).

According to BBC, nearly 64,000 parents have been fined for their kids being absent from school between September 2013 and August 2014. This is because in 2013, the Department for Education introduced new regulations stating that only the school can authorize absences in exceptional circumstances, such as if a death in the family occurred or if the student observed a religious holiday.

When Platt didn't pay up, his local school council "asked the High Court to clarify whether a seven-day absence amounted to a child failing to attend regularly," reports the BBC.

Paying the fine was an acceptance that I had committed a criminal offence. That's just not true.

On Friday, the UK High Court ruled in Platt's favour, stating that there was no proof that his daughter failed to attend class regularly.

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Government plans law change after dad fined for taking daughter on term-time holiday wins at High Court. #HeartNewspic.twitter.com/nNns2W4lSX  Heart London News (@HeartLondonNews) May 13, 2016

I am obviously hugely relieved. I know that there was an awful lot riding on this -- not just for me but for hundreds of other parents, Platt said following the ruling.

The father argued that taking his children out of a school once a year does not harm them at all. He also added that his kids are doing very well in school despite not having 100 per cent attendance.

As a result of the ruling, the Department for Education is now looking to change its laws. However, they are adamant that their stance on school absences is clear and correct.

The evidence is clear that every extra day of school missed can affect a pupils chance of gaining good GCSEs, which has a lasting effect on their life chances, a spokesperson for the department said.

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I am obviously hugely relieved. I know that there was an awful lot riding on this  not just for me but for hundreds of other parents.

In the UK, as well as Canada and the U.S., parents may opt to pull kids from class during the school year to go on vacation, since the cost during this time is vastly cheaper.

In the comments on Independent UK, one reader wrote: Probably learn more from spending a couple of weeks in a foreign country than you would learn in an entire year at school.

Another agreed, saying, I think the Establishment forget (sic) that most parents are responsible and are able to take factors into account when deciding to take their child out of school! Most parents would only take their child out of school if the child's attendance was good, their performance at school was good and it wasn't during an exam year.

"I do know what's best for my kids" - Jon Platt is going to court after taking his child out of school in term-time https://t.co/2alAa3eOXV  Victoria Derbyshire (@VictoriaLIVE) May 13, 2016

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In Canada, parents cannot be fined for children missing school. However, prolonged absences  meaning 15 consecutive, unexplained nonattendances  can result in kids repeating a grade. Fortunately, this is rare since school boards help provide parents and students with support and resources to improve a childs attendance.

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Liam Norris via Getty Images Mother and son hugging

Did you know that Canadian children are basically unhappy?

The latest report card on childrens well-being from UNICEF measured childrens perceived life satisfaction. They reported this shocking finding: almost one in 10 Canadian children ranked life a four out of 10 on a scale where zero means the worst possible life for me.

And 25 per cent of Canadian adolescence reported one or more health complaints every single day! These are usually the somatic expressions of psychological stressors: headaches, tummy aches, trouble sleeping and so on.

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This is a wake-up call. For all our crazed helicopter parenting, doting, attaching and enriching, we have failed to attain the very thing every parent ultimately wants: I just want my child to be happy!

"Almost one in 10 Canadian children ranked life a four out of 10 on a scale where zero means 'the worst possible life for me.'"

Why are we missing the boat? Because we dont raise kids through the lens of happiness.

Our measuring rod in Western culture is accomplishments. Just as government uses Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to measure how our country is performing, we parents look to report cards to see if the kids are measuring up. What level are they in at swimming or skating? How is their vocabulary developing? Can they read and write yet?

Well, one radical country, Bhutan, has decided to use happiness instead of GDP to measure and track how their country is doing. Are the people happy? If they are, then we are running the country well.

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Imagine if we did that for our families? In a recent book called All Joy, No Fun, the author explains that parents find raising children a fulfilling, altruistic task, but drop in on any household and chances are you will find people who are not really happy at all. We are yelling and fighting and at cross purposes with one another much of the day.

So what do we know about happiness and how we can improve our childrens happiness quotient? Lets take a look at the major components:

UNICEFs latest report was entitled Fairness for Children as it was looking at types of inequities in income, education, health and so on. The kids at the bottom are not getting the same access to services.

Lets face it: until our basic needs of safety and security are met, we have little resources left for personal growth. Even very poor countries can have happy citizens if all are living in relatively the same conditions.

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Its the gap between the haves and have nots that erodes happiness. The greater the gap, the more the misery, and that gap is growing in Canada.

Support any initiatives or policy changes to lessen the equity gap for children.

Because we are social mammals, we are wired to be relational. We need tight bonds and healthy connections to be happy. Its our prime directive. So, ask yourself: do you have good relationships in the family? Are you close knit? Accepting? Do you love unconditionally? Or are you drifting apart? Are you kids feeling isolated? Lonely?

If you think you could do better in this area, try building up the number of common experiences you share. In others words, spend more time together. Todays families are often so overscheduled they leave no time for actually being together as a family. Or, we are all home, but in different rooms on our various devices. Drop some of your outside commitments and dedicate the extra time to your family life.

Learn how to be an effective disciplinarian. If you use punishments or rewards, you are distancing yourself from your child. Children feel degraded by both. Instead, try positive discipline approaches, such as logical consequences or problem solving together, which research shows is more effective anyways.

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People need to feel empowered to make choices and to be in control of their environment. When we can decide for ourselves and control our world, we develop a sense of agency that improves our self-esteem. Without autonomy, we are powerless puppets who feel we are victims of life, rather than active change agents building the life we want.

Freedom is key to happiness. Do you allow your child to make their own age appropriate decisions? Have you loosened the leash to meet their growing age and development? Do you mind your own business when appropriate?

Children are born as dependant creatures, but they are wired for growth and development. They want to learn to walk, talk and complete themselves through the life cycle. With patience and guidance from elders, all children can develop themselves.

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Too often parents interfere with childrens skills development because they find it faster and easier to do everything for the child. But that is selfish. It serves our needs to get through the day easily, but stalls our childrens progression.

Not only do we need to slow down and allow our children to practice (and learn from their inevitable mistakes) as they become competent and masterful, but we also need to find places for them to share their talents in a way that helps others.

Even children need to feel a sense of purpose and value, in their families and classrooms. Let your children have a voice and a say through family meetings. Ask their input on deciding family rules together. Engage children in help around the house, or in assisting a neighbour. Remind them why the family wouldnt be the same without them!

What do the children say about all this? UNICEF has partnered with WorldVuze, an online site for K-12 students from around the world. They posed the question: My life would be most improved/made better if I

The answers show this:

 Lack of sleep

 Lack of time to themselves

 Low self-confidence

 And pressure to do well.

The Students Commission of Canada was also consulted and they reported similar issues. Youth today are feeling pressure, but also feel powerless to make a difference. Youth want to discuss the spiritual and mental part of health. They want to be made more aware of the programs that already exist to support them.

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Parents, our children are not happy and we are their first line responder. Listen to what they have to say and respond. Well all be happier!

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Colin Anderson via Getty Images Credit card folded into paper airplane in atmosphere

Growing up, my dad was a big points collector and as a result my family was able to book many flights and hotel stays free of charge. We used to always joke that a hotel was twice as nice if you didn't have to pay the bill. From a young age, I discovered that with the right credit card you could be rewarded for your spending.

Those lessons have remained with me to this day and have inspired my passion for credit card rewards and even drove me to build a business around them at RateHub.

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The best and simplest way to hack your travel points is to choose the credit card that will give you the most back in return.

In my 20s I've been able to take advantage of points I've earned on my credit card: I've taken at least five free flights and I was able to cover a week-long honeymoon with my husband staying at several great hotels in Hawaii using Aeroplan and Starwood preferred guest points.

More recently I've become interested in the extra perks offered by credit cards: insurance products. In the last three years I've made three insurance claims on my cards: I covered my hotel and dinner when the flight back from my honeymoon was cancelled, I covered a hotel in Philadelphia when my flight back from a conference was cancelled; and on a recent vacation to Miami, I declined collision and damage insurance on a rental car, saving me close to $15 per day.

Here are five tips you can use to transform yourself into a master travel point hacker:

1. Choose a high-earner

The best and simplest way to hack your travel points is to choose the credit card that will give you the most back in return. You should never change your spending habits to earn the most points, but rather make sure you're collecting the most valuable rewards where you're already spending money.

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The best credit cards on the market will earn you a two per cent return on your spending in travel points or cash back. It's important not to dismiss cash back cards as an option when looking for a solid travel credit card because you can you the cash on travel expenses. The card I use that hits this benchmark is the BMO World Elite Mastercard.

2. Always think in net return

Many people are deterred from applying for a credit card when they notice it has an annual fee. However, you might find given your personal spending habits that your annual net return (spending rewards minus the annual fee) is actually much higher than a no-annual fee card. In many cases, premium travel cards have much higher earning multipliers than no-fee cards, and that will more than make up for your annual fee.

In addition to not shying away from an annual fee, it's important to note that many premium travel credit cards can offer very enticing sign up bonuses. These promotions are a great way to let you hit the ground running and start collecting points right away.

3. Travel on your own terms

The best cards give you the most flexibility to travel on your own terms: with any airline or any hotel. The Capital One Aspire Travel World Elite Mastercard allows you to purchase travel on your credit card and simple erase the charges with your accumulated rewards. This is much more flexible than a points program that can only be used for specific flights or airlines.

4. Don't forget the perks

Remember to be aware of all the perks that come with your credit card and make use of them when you can. For instance, the BMO World Air Miles World Elite MasterCard comes with a free annual Priority Pass membership, which grants you exclusive access to VIP Airport Lounges around the world. Plenty of travel credit cards also get you discounts of up to 25 per cent when you rent a car from a particular agency.

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What I've learned from my life as a travel hacker is that the small things add up.

5. Stay covered

Many people get a travel credit card with the express aim of collecting and redeeming travel points. But there's a lot to be said about the travel and medical benefits that come with these cards. Like I mentioned, you could save up to $15 a day renting a car if your card covers collision and damage insurance on car rentals.

If you flight is delayed or cancelled past a certain length of time you may be able to claim hotel and meal expenses. If the airline loses your baggage, you'll be reimbursed for the cash value of your lost personal property. Make sure to take note of the extent of your coverage and what exclusions and limitations apply so that you aren't surprised while on your trip.

We often hear of people traveling the world for free on points. Those are amazing and inspiring stories, but are they accessible for everyone? What I've learned from my life as a travel hacker is that the small things add up. If you choose the right card for you, know your perks and benefits and maximize your point collection, you'll be able to amplify your travel plans in incredible ways. While you may not be able to travel the world on points tomorrow, start with the goal of a free flight in the next year.

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You're 14. You're alone in a refugee camp. And you wake up in pain, blood dripping down your thigh. Panicked, with no one to turn to as you get your period for the first time, you're a woman now -- but all you want to do is cry.

This milestone means you can now be married and have a baby, and your dreams of going to school and building a bright future begin to fade.

This is a terrifying yet all-too-common reality for adolescent girls in developing countries. They are among the world's most vulnerable people and their rights are often trampled on, particularly in times of emergency or humanitarian crisis, like the El Nino-induced drought that continues across parts of Africa and Asia, or earthquakes that have wreaked havoc in places like Ecuador or Nepal.

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Adolescent girls living in Zimbabwe impacted by the El Nino-induced drought. (Photo: Plan International Canada)

The world must stop looking away. We need to step up and create a more equitable world, where the rights of girls and women matter just as much as those of boys and men.

We're not there yet. I recall meeting a young girl in Cambodia who never shared her name but shared her story. Her family was in debt from renting land to help sustain their livelihood after a natural disaster. As debt mounted, her family decided to sell her into the sex trade industry so they could pay their bills. This girl's rights to her own body were taken away. She had no say, no control. Sadly, she is not the only girl to be robbed of her rights -- not by a long shot.

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The painful fact is the first thing to be compromised during a humanitarian emergency is the integrity of girls' rights. The everyday realities of many adolescent girls -- which often include early marriage, discrimination and lack of access to education -- are made far worse in the wake of a major disaster.

Worldwide, 15 million girls under 18 will be married each year; that's 41,000 each day, nearly one girl every two seconds. The second leading cause of death in 15-to-19 year old girls globally is complications from pregnancy and childbirth, which are often the result of child, early and forced marriage.

This reality needs to change and it requires the kind of critical attention and focus of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a new set of benchmarks endorsed by Canada in September 2015 to help frame global development work over the next 15 years. The SDGs aim to leave no one behind -- including adolescent girls.

The youth had an open dialogue about the challenges young women face in Canada and proposed solutions. (Photo: Plan International Canada)

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Crucial conversations on how best to move the needle have already started. At the recent UN Commission on the Status of Women summit, for instance, Plan International Canada collaborated with the Honourable Patty Hajdu, the Minister for the Status of Women, and the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, the Minister of International Development, on how to enhance and protect the rights of adolescent girls. I was proud to be part of those conversations and pleased to see some momentum.

Canadian girls get it, too. I was in awe of the 17 young women who sat down with us earlier this month at Plan International Canada's Girls Empowerment Forum with our Celebrated Ambassador Madame Sophie Gregoire Trudeau. They were honest and forthright and they had thoughtful ideas about how we can achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. I will be taking their insights with me to the Women Deliver conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on May 16 to19.

Caroline Riseboro (left) President and CEO of Plan International Canada, Rosey Edeh (centre) Global TV Toronto News personality, Madame Sophie Gregoire Trudeau (centre) Plan International Canada Celebrated Ambassador, and members of Plan International Canada's Because I am a Girl Speakers Bureau at Plan's Girl Empowerment Forum in Ottawa on May 2. (Photo: Plan International Canada)

I feel confident that we're on the right path, but we cannot slow down. We have an urgent imperative to work together to advance the rights and opportunities of women, starting with adolescent girls, if we can ever hope to achieve the dream of a stronger, more inclusive world for everyone.

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The young girl getting her period for the first time in a refugee camp, and millions of girls across the world, are counting on us.

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Ezra Bailey via Getty Images Business woman holding a digital tablet.

I read a blog post by a business friend recently around the concept of women who are too comfortable to succeed in business. It discussed how my peer attended a conference where women were asked to raise their hand if they felt too financially comfortable in their personal lives to really go for it in business and around 90 per cent of the room indicated yes.

My immediate assumption was these women were married to successful men and lived in real nice houses in the suburbs. I judged them because I would be in the 10 per cent who did not raise their hand. I am not, and have never been, a kept woman. At all. It also occurred to me that all of my current clients are single women. Independent, driven, highly motivated single women.

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My associate's blog post rattled me because it forced me to challenge my long-held assumptions of, "Jeez, it's so much easier for women in relationships to be in business. They don't have the pressure of being the breadwinner. Takes the pressure off."

And yes, as I write that, my inner feminist shudders. But that was a view I held for so many years, even before I started my business. I was absolutely convinced that it was easier for the women who had a spouse to split the rent with. Now I have an entirely different view, and it's this: Single women have an advantage in business. Yep, you read that right the first time. Here's why.

We make our own financial decisions

Nothing makes me lose respect for a prospective client faster than an, "I'll have to ask my husband." Really? Why? Who's running your business -- you or your hubs? Now. I would love to say I understand what it's like to have joint finances and share your expenses, but I don't. I really, truly don't. Even when I've been in a relationship, my money is my money, and his money is his. I don't ask anyone permission to spend my hard earned moo-la-la, especially when it pertains to a business decision. I call the shots, and so do my clients, which is one of the many reasons I have massive respect for them.

We earn big because we have to

"Oh, it doesn't matter if I don't hit my financial targets this month. My husband pays the mortgage. Anything I earn is a bonus." That mentality is the reason your business will fail. Sorry not sorry. And I hate the word hustle, but you know what, as single women we bust our lady balls to earn big because we have to. Nobody is coming to save us. If we want to cover the basics of rent and car payments in addition to the bonuses like taking that trip to Europe, guess who's funding it? We are. When success is the only option you have, success is the only outcome you expect.

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We don't answer to anyone

"Honey, what's for dinner?" is a phrase that has never been uttered in my house. Potentially because I can't cook, but that's another story for another time. In all seriousness though, I don't answer to anyone and I'm not responsible for another soul other than myself (and my cat. I know, a single 31-year-old woman with a cat, what a concept). This isn't a dig, either -- I genuinely feel for women who have the responsibilities of caring for their family and juggling the critically important role of being a full time mom, in addition to running their business. Those women are heroes. I tell you right now, I couldn't do it.

As I'm writing this, several of my entrepreneurial friends spring to mind. These women are kicking ass in business, making decisions based on what they want, and they also happen to be happily married. So yes, it is possible to have both. And yes, I have been in relationships while running my business. But I find it damn easier to build my empire when I don't have to think about anyone but myself.

Selfish? Maybe. Productive? You bet your last joint account dollar it is.
Birute Vijeikiene via Getty Images Hands closeup, working on pottery wheel with ceramics

Julie was a drug addict living on the streets of Toronto. Then a pottery wheel changed her life.

Seven years ago, Julie (her name has been changed) joined Inspirations Studio. The pottery social enterprise is run by the Toronto non-profit, Sistering, which helps low-income women who have experienced poverty, homelessness and mental health issues. Julie learned to make kitchen crockery items, which she then sold. The boost of confidence was essential in helping her kick her drug habit. And with a small income, she no longer lives on the street.

The melding of art and enterprise is an incredibly powerful tool in helping marginalized women rebuild their lives. Women gain purpose, independence, and the ability to manage challenges like mental illness.

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It's an approach we're intimately familiar with. For over a decade, we've used artistic enterprises, like making jewellery, in communities where we carry out our international development work to socially and economically empower vulnerable women. And we've heard so many stories of success, like that of Yolanda Chimbo, a struggling single mother in rural Ecuador.

After separating from her husband, who was the family breadwinner, Chimbo and her children had to live off the charity of her sister. Then she joined one of our income projects, learning to hand-weave jungle plant fibres into gorgeous items like bracelets, which are sold in local markets. With the income, Chimbo pays her kids' school and boarding fees in the nearby town of Tena, and contributes to her sister's household.

Solutions for women who live overseas are just as effective for Canadian individuals like Julie.

In addition to the pottery enterprise, Sistering also runs Spun Studio where women produce sewn and knitted goods like runners, rugs and children's sweaters that they sell at sidewalk display tables in Toronto and at farmers markets. Neighbourhood stores have also started to order the women's handmade items. The profits give women much-needed money, and help the organization purchase equipment for its programs so it can help more women.

Many of the women Sistering works with have mental illnesses, and being creative is a powerful tool in helping them cope.

Many of the women who have taken part in Sistering's programs become independent entrepreneurs. The organization supports them with training in skills like networking and making business plans. Julie now has her own home-based enterprise making one-of-a-kind mugs and teapots.

It may seem like gender stereotyping to teach women artistic trades. But the skills are easy and fast to learn, result in a sellable product, and also bring psychological benefits. Decades of studies on art therapy show that creative endeavours can boost mental health.

"For someone with a mental illness like depression, the fact that you can create something, and look at it, has a lot of power," says Merav Gilboa, an art therapist with Toronto's Baycrest Health Sciences Centre.

Many of the women Sistering works with have mental illnesses, and being creative is a powerful tool in helping them cope. "Our participants get into what they're doing. All the other problems in their lives disappear for those few minutes," says Patricia O'Connell, executive director at the organization.

There are programs like Sistering across Canada, including Vancouver's 3H Craftworks, an organization supporting individuals who are homebound by physical disabilities or mental illness. They learn to make items such as stuffed toys and Christmas ornaments, which 3H sells through its online store to generate a small income for participants.

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It's hard to imagine that a beaded bracelet or simple piece of pottery could make such a difference. But in both Canada and developing countries these trinkets allow women to create a better future for themselves.

Brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger founded a platform for social change that includes the international charity, Free The Children, the social enterprise, Me to We, and the youth empowerment movement, We Day. Visit we.org for more information.
By Celine Furi and Julie Lafreniere

This post is the third of a seven-part series on the themes of the High-Level Leaders' Roundtables at the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, to be held May 23-24 in Istanbul, Turkey.

There are 60 million displaced people in the world. Every day, 42,000 more are forcibly uprooted by armed conflicts, natural disasters, persecution and inequality. Most aren't trying to reach Europe or faraway Canada. Their destinations are often those nearest to the emergency -- inside or around Syria, Sudan, Colombia, the Central African Republic, Yemen or Burundi -- places nowhere near G8 members and whose resources are already strained.

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Media reports speak of waves and mass influxes, but the reality is a patchwork of deeply individual stories: women, men, children and elderly people leaving everything behind to rebuild elsewhere. After fleeing the horror and devastation that hit their homes, many face closed borders and discriminatory policies. The deal struck last March between Turkey and the EU reminds us that the universally recognized right to seek asylum can still be traded for political gain.

It is, of course, every country's prerogative to control its territory. But providing protection and dignity to those who have lost theirs is a shared responsibility of all. How can we accept, as a recent fair share analysis points out, that only three of the world's states are making an adequate commitment to resettle refugees?

Only one per cent of refugees worldwide have access to resettlement.

Wealthy countries -- including Canada -- should respond to global forced migration in three complementary ways:

1) Offer long-term, predictable financial assistance to countries on the first line of the crisis (those bordering Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria, etc.) so they can meet refugees' basic needs -- quite a challenge when they account for 25 per cent of the total population, like in Lebanon. Various NGOs from Canada and elsewhere are working alongside local partners to improve public services -- water, sanitation, health and education. Their programs also help refugees integrate in the labour market to prevent impoverishment and resentment of host societies. Over half of the funds currently needed for these efforts are missing.

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2) Increase the number of refugees resettled to decrease pressure on first-line countries. Only one per cent of refugees worldwide have access to resettlement. This is especially relevant for countries like Canada that are far from the crisis zones and receive relatively few asylum applications. The Canadian private sponsorship program, where individuals can get involved directly in welcoming refugees, is an excellent way to maximize resettlement spaces and to facilitate integration among the host population. This complement to government programs should be replicated in other countries.

3) Avoid contributing to forced displacement by selling arms to governments supporting conflicts. This self-imposed limit, adopted in the name of human rights, is contained in the UN Arms Trade Treaty, which Canada should accede to.

These commitments are all the more important as displacement can no longer be looked at as a temporary anomaly: the average stay in a refugee camp is 17 years. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of refugees who manage to return home is the lowest it's been in 30 years, due to longer-lasting armed conflicts, exacerbated by more frequent climate problems like droughts and floods.

Assistance to displaced persons should be a basic responsibility of states, not an act of discretionary charity. World leaders will have a chance to commit to a courageous and realistic response at the first World Humanitarian Summit on 23-24 May in Istanbul, and the Summit on Refugees and Migrants in September in New York. It is critical that everyone do their part. Oxfam and other civil society organisations will be present to demand concrete action from governments and to commit to stronger programs for displaced persons.

Summits are a time for great declarations. While they generate necessary momentum, the real work takes place afterwards, away from the spotlight. That's when we must translate promises into concrete and durable actions to save and change lives.

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Celine Furi is Humanitarian Programme Officer at Oxfam-Quebec. Julie Lafreniere is Women's Rights Policy & Advocacy Specialist at Oxfam Canada.

This blog series on the World Humanitarian Summit was convened by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. The views expressed in each blog are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of CCIC, its members, or other participating organizations.

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Dale Wilson via Getty Images Mary Ann Falls in autumn, Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia, Canada

Nova Scotia is a beautiful province to live in. With its pristine shorelines, undisturbed old-growth forest, and rolling hills, our province truly places natural splendour on display.

Many communities in this province are fortunate enough to live in an environment that is healthy -- the air is clean, they have ready access to clean water, and the land is free from harmful levels of contamination.

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But some communities are less fortunate.

For example, effluent from a pulp mill waste treatment plant in Boat Harbour has polluted the local environment. Members of the Pictou Landing First Nation have described feeling "powerless" and unable to change the situation, which impacts them daily.

And for more than a decade, residents of Harrietsfield have voiced concerns about the risks a local construction and demolition recycling facility poses to their groundwater. Many in the community have expressed frustration at being left in the dark when it comes to ongoing pollution and government's plans to address it.

These experiences demonstrate why legal recognition of environmental rights -- including the human right to a healthy environment -- is of paramount importance.

For instance, individuals should have rights to access information and to participate in environmental decisions that could impact their lives. They should have tools available to ask for government intervention to enforce or strengthen laws or permits when necessary to protect their health or environment. And when all else fails they should have access to the courts.

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This is why the introduction of Bill 178, Environmental Bill of Rights, in the Nova Scotia legislature last week is such a positive development. If made law, it would give communities stronger tools to protect their health and environment and fight for environmental justice.

In addition to providing legal recognition that all Nova Scotians have a right to live in a healthful environment, it would establish many important procedural protections such as a right to request that government review a law, regulation, or permit that fails to protect the environment or human health. It would also create a new independent oversight body in Nova Scotia in the form of an environmental commissioner.

Legal recognition of environmental rights can have many benefits. According to the Conference Board of Canada rankings, industrialized countries that recognize the right to a healthy environment have better environmental records than Canada and outperform us economically. Improved environmental performance can in turn help reduce preventable deaths and illnesses caused by exposure to harmful contaminants.

And in providing Nova Scotians strong, enforceable tools to hold government and polluters to account, Bill 178 could trigger improvements to other environmental laws, regulations, and policies.

This not to say that Bill 178 is perfect. It also has room for improvement.

At present it provides for too much Ministerial discretion and its access to justice objectives are hindered by Nova Scotia's lack of an independent environmental tribunal to hear appeals regarding environmental permitting decisions. Most importantly, it does not recognize or address issues of environmental justice or racism -- that is, the disproportionate burden of environmental hazards borne by racialized, Indigenous, and low-income communities in this province. That's a serious oversight.

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Nonetheless, Bill 178 presents an opportunity for all political parties to work together to make the province a leader when it comes to protecting every Nova Scotian's environmental rights.

Environmental rights are a fundamental component of environmental law in the 21 Century, and something we hope to see Nova Scotians and politicians of all stripes embrace.

Scores of Canadians have already mobilized in support of environmental rights. More than 130 municipalities across the country, representing more than a third of Canada's population, have adopted declarations supporting the human right to healthy environment. Halifax and four other communities in Nova Scotia are among them.

The recognition of our right to a healthy environment is not a partisan issue. Public opinion polling indicates that more than 85 per cent of Canadians surveyed agree people should have the right to a healthy environment.

It not hard to see why: Our very survival depends on clean air, water, and soil. As such, environmental rights are human rights -- necessary for life, liberty, and human dignity.

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Now it's up to Nova Scotia to make that the law.

Kaitlyn Mitchell is the national program director at Ecojustice, an environmental law charity that is building the case for a better earth. Aaron Ward is the executive director of East Coast Environmental Law, a non-profit dedicated to strengthening environmental law in Atlantic Canada.
Parents of children with autism hold a press conference at Queen's Park on April 12 to protest changes to the Ontario autism program that leave their kids without intensive therapy once they turn five. (Photo: Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

When the Progressive Conservatives and the NDP agree on something, the issue must transcend ideology. The Ontario government's recent cut of life-changing therapy for autistic kids has mobilized them both.

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On Tuesday the PCs, supported by their opposition colleagues, will move that the Ontario government restore funding for Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI) therapy for children five years of age and over.

For the third time in a month, parents from across the province whose children's futures are at stake will descend on Queen's Park to watch the debate unfold.

As one such parent, I've watched Question Period nearly every day for a month, witnessing members from both opposition parties passionately challenge the government to do the right thing. And repeatedly, the minister and premier continue to insist that their decision to cut kids off of IBI at age five is based on the advice of their expert scientists, who apparently told them that kids over age four are no longer in the "right developmental window" to benefit from the therapy.

On May 14, a social media and personal conversation between the chair of the government's expert committee, Dr. Ian Dawe, and a mother-turned-undercover-investigator/activist Josie Chaves, was displayed on CityNews. In the exchange, Dr. Dawe had affirmed to Chaves that IBI can work for kids over five and revealed that: "What government funded was not what we recommended."

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Some of the government's actions directly contradict the experts' recommendations.

After Chaves made this exchange public, the ministry's response was to malign the messenger, issuing a statement that said: "We find Dr. Dawe's actions to be regrettable and unfortunate."

What's unfortunate and regrettable is not that Dr. Dawe spoke the truth, but that the government is refusing to listen.

But we don't need Dr. Dawe to confirm that the government's actions aren't true to his committee's report. This will be clear to anyone who actually reads the document.

Some of the government's actions directly contradict the experts' recommendations. The report states, for example, that kids should receive a minimum of 12 months of IBI, when the government's new program is cutting many off after just six.

And while it's true that the government-appointed experts state that IBI is more effective before five, they do not indicate that children over four will not benefit from intensive therapy. In fact, plenty of evidence demonstrates the opposite, as do the thousands of children who have made significant gains in Ontario's pre-existing IBI program, in which (due largely to long waits for entry) 85 per cent of participants were over the age of five.

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It is precisely because the Liberal government failed to invest sufficiently in the IBI program earlier that impacted families have been on wait lists for two to four years while their children "aged out" of coverage.

They feel doubly betrayed. Desperate to obtain the treatment for their children that was promised to them, autism parents have added to their already busy lives by holding rallies across the province, signing petitions, writing letters, doing media interviews, tweeting thousands of messages under the hashtag #AutismDoesntEndAt5, and telling anyone who will listen that they have confidence in their children's potential to succeed, even if the government doesn't.

Many have taken notice. Dozens of groups, including school boards, autism support groups and behaviour analysts (whose job it is to administer IBI) have spoken up.

Two years of IBI at $50,000 a year is a drop in the bucket compared to 60 years in a group home.

Why should everyone care? Supporting the most vulnerable members of our society should be a good enough reason, but it also makes economic sense. Intensive therapy is costly, but if provided, autistic children are more likely to gain independence and less likely to require expensive supports throughout their lives.

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Two years of IBI at $50,000 a year is a drop in the bucket compared to 60 years in a group home. Some estimates place the cost of full-time care of a severely autistic adolescent or adult at $150,000 a year.

The government is standing in opposition to virtually everyone else. Many of their proposed changes to the new autism program are positive, but they got the age five cut-off wrong. The motion on Tuesday will force a vote, in which individual members may choose to stand against their party. I am hoping that many Liberal MPPs will vote with their conscience and put children's needs ahead of partisan loyalties. It's not their fault the minister and premier made a poor decision, but it will be their fault if they continue to support it.

The Liberal government needs to admit it made a mistake and put this issue to rest. Many parents are calling for immediate and sufficient direct funding for their kids' therapy programs, a move that will quickly address further wait lists.

It's an investment that's long overdue. Let parents of autistic children get back to spending time playing with their kids rather than having to fight on their behalf.

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Christian Vierig via Getty Images SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - MAY 16: A guest wearing a backless top and Levis jeans outside Yeojin Bae at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Resort 17 Collections at Carriageworks on May 16, 2016 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Christian Vierig/WireImage)

There nothing like a change of season to make you rethink your wardrobe. To find out what to wear this spring and summer 2016, I spoke to Molly Fitzpatrick, the Chair of Scrubs in the City, a Sick Kids Hospital Foundation, who also happens to be a respected trendsetter and avid fashion follower.

"I've loved fashion since I was a little girl," she told me. "I love all aspects of the fashion industry. The thrill of the hunt is really fun too!"

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On trend for this summer, Molly suggests that "white lace dresses, strappy sandals in all heel heights, and a great statement earring, particularly in turquoise" will take you anywhere.

All photos courtesy of Joan Kelley

Other must-haves include "anything off the shoulder...blouses or dresses," continues Molly. "(They are) very flattering for all shapes and sizes."

If you are looking for a great piece that can carry you through all seasons, one of Molly's favorites is a bit unexpected. "Black leather pants," she says. "I own several pair in different cuts. You can dress them up or down. A thousand miler!"

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Dressing for the big event

For some, deciding what to wear to a big event can be a challenge. Here is Molly's approach:

"When thinking about what to wear for a charity event, the first thing I consider is the theme. I try to come up with something that works with the theme but also works with my style. For example, this year the theme for Sick Kids Hospital's Scrubs in the City is 'London.' I haven't decided on the dress yet but I know I will be choosing a U.K. designer."

There are a lot of amazing international designers out there, but Canadian designers hold their own on an international stage. One that is really trending right now, according to Molly, is Greta Constantine. "I love Greta because their styles are beautifully cut and I love their fabrics."

Other Canadian designers to watch for this season include Aleks Susak and one of Molly's favorites: "Pink Tartan, because they are giving back. Teaming up with Burt's Bees to save the Bees!"

Conscious fashion choices
Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images OTTAWA, Nov. 4, 2015-- Newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, front, delivers a statement after his swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Canada, Nov. 4, 2015. Justin Trudeau was sworn in as Canada's 23rd prime minister and named a 31-member cabinet here Wednesday. (Xinhua/Chris Roussakis via Getty Images)

Last week was a rough one for gender equity in Canada and showed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau might not actually give a fuddle duddle when it comes to promoting a feminist agenda.

All feminists, including the prime minister apparently, know efforts to achieve equality for women only move backward when political leaders wrap themselves in the symbols of feminism, but then fail to use their power to make real change. This is what is happening in Canada right now and Trudeau's gender-balanced cabinet needs to push back before things get worse.

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Last Tuesday evening I had the first hour of debate on my private member's bill -- C-237, the Candidate Gender Equity Act. The bill is about as mild a proposal as you can get when it comes to increasing the percentage of women MPs in the House of Commons.

C-237 is necessary because Canada ranks 61st in the world when it comes to electing women to our national legislature.

Under the new law, the amount of public subsidy given to political parties for their election spending would be slightly reduced if a party fails to put forward a gender-balanced candidate list. Similar incentive-based laws have been used elsewhere to great effect, do not interfere with the internal workings of political parties and work with any type of electoral system. The House of Commons Law Clerk also says the bill is Charter compliant.

C-237 is necessary because Canada ranks 61st in the world when it comes to electing women to our national legislature. The 26 per cent of women MPs we have in the house now is our highest ever. Even Iraq and Afghanistan have more women MPs, for goodness sake.

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The reason why Canada has so few women MPs is because our political parties put forward so few women candidates. In 2015, women held only 19 per cent of Conservative Party candidacies, 31 per cent of Liberal Party candidacies and 43 per cent of NDP candidacies.

Throughout the lead up to Tuesday's debate I had hoped my bill might at least proceed to committee where I had made it clear to the Liberals I would be willing to adopt whatever changes were needed to make a new law work for all parties. My hopes were raised when in the Question Period prior to the debate on my bill Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef said she appreciated my effort and would "study it on its merits when it is debated in the House."

The conversation about the bill later that day was relatively calm, although Parliamentary Secretary Mark Holland brought up some strange concerns and was non-committal in his support. However, many other colleagues, including some Liberals, were very supportive.

The real intrigue started the following day when CTV reported receiving a leaked cabinet briefing memo from minister Monsef's office advising all Liberal MPs to oppose my bill. What is outrageous is that this memo was written a week prior to my bill being debated and prior to minister Monsef's question period comments. In chronological order then, the minister of democratic institutions tells cabinet to oppose my bill, then just days later tells the House of Commons she is still considering it. Duplicitous stuff indeed.

It gets worse.

The only way to move toward gender parity in parliament is to enact laws to prompt parties into action.

When I confronted the minister in the House of Commons about the leaked memo she then finally admitted cabinet feels my initiative is "not the best way forward." So while many Liberal backbenchers might break with cabinet and vote for my bill, it will probably fail due to Trudeau and his cabinet voting against gender equity -- although it took a leaked cabinet document to force the truth out of the Liberal back rooms.

I am going to continue fighting to get my bill passed because one-off symbolic gestures such as appointing gender-balanced cabinets are not enough. Like the dozens of other countries ahead of us on the international gender equality league tables have discovered, the only way to move toward gender parity in Parliament is to enact laws to prompt parties into action.

Lots of folks don't like to hear this, but it is the truth. If rhetoric and voluntary measures worked, then we wouldn't be having this debate. If political parties took gender equity seriously, then at least one major party would have managed to put forward a gender-balanced candidate list -- but this has never happened.

If the prime minister is serious about political gender equity he will tell his cabinet to support my bill when it comes up for a vote in the fall and show he has the guts to be a real feminist.

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THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Crisis situations are shaking two Canadian communities to their very core -- the terrifying wildfires that destroyed Fort McMurray and the epidemic of attempted youth suicides on the Attawapiskat First Nations reserve.

The question arises: Why are billions of dollars being pumped in to deal with one crisis while the other is all but being ignored?

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By the time Fort McMurray is rebuilt, it's likely that governments will have spent $2 billion or more. Donations from Canadians will reach into the millions. And a representative of one of the big insurance companies estimated they will be required to pay as much as $9 billion to restore homes and businesses.

In comparison, the federal and Ontario governments are spending a pittance to alleviate the suicide crisis in Attawapiskat.

I have no quarrel with anything that is being done to help the people and community of Fort McMurray. The destruction and emotional distress suffered by residents is taking a heavy toll. Like thousands of other folks, I have made a financial contribution.

What I do object to is that, in comparison, the federal and Ontario governments are doing practically nothing and spending a pittance to alleviate the suicide crisis in Attawapiskat, a poverty-stricken, isolated community of 2,000 located 720 kilometres north of Sudbury.

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The youth crisis reached epidemic proportions just days before the fire outbreak in Fort McMurray. Eleven Attawapiskat young people attempted suicide during the same night. Local hospital staff, unable to deal with the situation, became frantic.

Following an urgent appeal for help, the federal and Ontario government sent a handful of medical specialists to comfort the young people.

The support didn't help much.

Last week, on the second day of the fires in Fort McMurray, Attawapiskat experienced nine suicide and overdose attempts.

Chief Bruce Shisheesh of Attawapiskat urgently contacted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and asked for a second meeting. He told Trudeau it was now "a matter of life and death" in his community.

"While the efforts of your ministers is appreciated to date, it falls short [of] finding Attawapiskat has been under a state of emergency since early April, with chief and council saying it has been overwhelmed by ongoing suicide attempts," he said.

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The Prime Minister's Office replied that Prime Minister Trudeau could meet with native leaders in Ottawa when it was convenient to both parties.

Earlier, Trudeau charmed native leaders and reserve folks with vague promises and double-talk: "I don't want to pretend that any of us have the answers to the challenges facing Indigenous peoples in Canada, but what I will tell you that as a country, we can build those answers."

Clearly, compared to the human touch extended to the victims of Fort McMurray, governments are being callous in their responses to the Attawapiskat crisis.

In April, federal Minister of Indigenous Affairs Carolyn Bennett made a trip to Attawapiskat and promised funding for a new youth centre and some programming for young people. In addition, a youth delegation from the region will be invited to visit Ottawa.

The Ontario government has pledged $2 million over the next two years for health support and a youth centre for the community.

Where is the empathy in those kinds of promises?

A lack of money is not the problem. The federal government is sitting on about $4 billion to be used to improve lives, particularly education facilities, on reserves.

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What is hard to understand is why the federal government isn't dipping into its stashed-away billions to assist First Nations communities such as Attawapiskat.

If respect for human life is a factor, surely the greatest threat is at Attawapiskat. In Fort McMurray, luckily, only two people lost their lives, and that was due to a vehicle accident. In Attawapiskat a 13-year-old girl committed suicide last October. Since last fall, others have died and there have been more than 100 suicide attempts in the community.

Children -- kids who should be growing up bright and enthusiastic -- are trying to kill themselves.

Instead of loaning psychiatrists and medical support to the sad little hospital on the reserve, staff levels should be doubled or tripled until well after the suicide crisis is over.

Much of the housing on the reserve is uninhabitable and contributes to suicidal feelings and other problems. The same military planes that were used to help Fort McMurray should be deployed to air-lift new pre-fabricated houses and community buildings to Attawapiskat.

If a non-aboriginal community were threatened by dozens of children trying to commit suicide, government and public response would be overwhelming.

I contend that the decades of poverty, the murder of more than 1,000 women, the many youth suicides, and the general degradation of a race of people deserve equal attention to the aid and love being bestowed on Fort McMurray.

So, why is one crisis receiving massive support, while another, perhaps more serious in some ways, is getting little attention?

Governments and the public reacted so positively and so quickly to the Fort McMurray situation because the fire was so immediate and horrific. Now millions will be spent to allow the energy companies to get back to scraping up oil sands.

While I don't have a lot of faith in Liberal governments, I am surprised that, given the strong stand Trudeau has taken concerning aboriginal issues, he hasn't taken more action more quickly.

On the other hand, the problems on reserves such as Attawapiskat have been with us for generations. While there have been improvements in the attitudes of many Canadians toward indigenous people, many others still don't think they should be helped.

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If there were overwhelming pressure on the government to help Attawapiskat, it would be happening. Of course if a non-aboriginal community were threatened by dozens of children trying to commit suicide, government and public response would be overwhelming.

Read other blog posts by Nick: A Different Point of View

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CP

We recently learned that Toronto Mayor John Tory has written a letter to the head of Municipal Licensing and Standards to ask for a report and recommendations for dealing with what he called the "verging on out of control" growth of medical marijuana dispensaries. He also said that pot shops are showing up in "what I consider to be unacceptable numbers."

"Out of Control." "Unacceptable." Pretty strong language from the mayor.

He even goes on to say that Toronto Police should use "whatever enforcement mechanisms are currently available to you, to address the health and safety concerns of neighbours and businesses in the communities where these marijuana dispensaries are currently operating unlawfully."

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These "out of control," "unacceptable" businesses that are "operating unlawfully" should be immediately shut down, and any and all patrons and owners should be arrested and thrown in jail immediately, no? Why do we need a study and report? Perhaps even Mayor Tory himself would have to be arrested for setting foot in one of these establishments.

Let's look at the numbers more closely to see how Mayor John Tory defines "out of control," because of course his top priority is "the health and safety concerns of neighbours and businesses." According to the website TO Dispensaries, there are approximately 90 shops operating in the 416 currently. Let's compare their health and safety impacts to industries that already exist in Toronto.

Nail Salons

Most air quality research on cannabis smoke and vaporizers shows minimal health impacts, certainly far less than smoking tobacco. Mayor Tory could ask authorities to crack down on these establishments who pay minimum wage and expose staff to toxic chemicals, not to mention the public, but these businesses are operating "lawfully."

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Payday Loans

A quick Google search for "payday loans Toronto" reveals at least 250 payday loan, cheque cashing and other similar services operating in the 416. These lawful businesses prey on Toronto's struggling working poor and small business operators who struggle with cash flow daily, weekly. They charge outrageous rates in a time when cheque scanning technology allows financial institutions to process transactions in the blink of an eye.

Long gone are the days when cheques needed to be manually cleared, yet these businesses drain our economy and the pocket books of those who can least afford it. Single parents who desperately need child support continue to be denied because these cheque cashing services help deadbeat parents stay off the grid and avoid garnishments that would be applied at a bank or credit union. Mayor Tory could prioritize a crackdown on these businesses, but he won't because single moms and the working poor don't have enough money to pay for a top-notch lobbyist.

I am sure that the licensed marijuana producers are losing a lot of business as a result of dispensaries, and that their lobbyists are knocking on doors down at City Hall every day, begging the mayor to help them maintain their monopoly. It must be very frustrating for those businesses who follow the new rules to see court challenges uphold the rights of cannabis patients

I am not suggesting that dispensaries get a free pass -- they should be regulated and controlled as much as any other business, and many are likely operating without proper licensing and certification. What I will suggest is that perhaps Mayor John Tory and some members of council have their priorities all wrong when it comes to protecting the health and safety of Toronto residents.

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When we want to get into a summery frame of mind, nothing brings us there faster than a quick trawl through some of our favourite Instagram accounts.

While many people post envy-inducing holiday snaps - glorious waves, soft, sandy beaches, eye-catching swimwear and mouth-watering dishes - some Instagrammers do travel inspo better than others. In fact, some elevate their travel pics to works of art.

What we love best about travel inspo shots is that no two accounts are exactly alike: Murad Osmann showcases each destination in an unusual way - with his wife pulling him into the landscape - while photographer Johan Lolos (Le Backpacker) captures the adventurous side of travel with his shots of sledding in Finland and camping on Roys Peak in New Zealand.

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If you're wondering what inspires the travellers who inspire us, it's all about the places they visit - and how they change.

"Berlin inspired me a lot as a traveller. I went in the summer and locals do say it's just a different place at this time of year: everybody's out at the markets or sprawled along the river having drinks, the sun never seems to set, everyone's heading out to the lakes outside the city - they often bathe nude," says Katie McKnoulty, blogger and photographer at The Travelling Light.

"It was just such a free, alive place to be in summertime and I met so many interesting people there, too."

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Check out which travel inspo Instagrammers you need to be following now... and don't waste any time booking that jet-setting trip to paradise.

Chris Burkard

Scrolling through award-winning adventure, travel and life photographer Chris Burkard's Instagram feed, you can't help but appreciate nature at its most sublime, whether he's shooting rocks, mountains, sunsets or his favourite subject, the ocean.

His skilful use of natural light and knack for capturing interactions between individuals and their surroundings (whether it's someone mid-ski jump or a surfer waiting for the right moment to paddle out), make you want to ditch the office job and just go out and explore. Not possible? These pics will certainly give you plenty to dream about.

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Murad Osmann

The Moscow-dweller's #FollowMeTo project has amassed him 4m followers and showcased some of the most exciting locales on the planet - the Maldives, Morocco, Jaipur, the Philippines - with Osmann's wife Nataly, and the back view of her stylish ensembles, leading the way.

"We love Jordan, India, Brazil, New York and our hometown Moscow," Osmann tells Huffington Post UK. "Actually, the world is so huge and amazing, it's hard to choose only one favourite place on the Earth, we are inspired by each country."

Melissa Hie

For a travel blog that will make you smile, Melissa Hie's come up with the perfect recipe: take snaps of your fabulous and fun eats, wherever you are in the world. Hello Kitty donuts in Tokyo, a hog roast roll in Edinburgh, a macaron in Paris and so many more. Just don't scroll on an empty stomach.

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Kiersten Rich

California native Kiersten Rich is living the life the rest of us dream of: she quit a job in corporate finance to travel the world and has been to 50 countries and counting.

"One of my most inspirational, cultural experiences was in Cambodia," she tells Huffington Post UK.

"I got to stay out in a rural area, explore the countryside and really connect with the locals - and it was on my first long-term, solo trip. I also had the opportunity to volunteer at the Epic Arts Center in Kampot, which was developed for local disabled children as a haven to establish their own community and receive artistic education. It was an amazing experience all around.

"I would say some of my other memorable and inspirational trips would be Iceland for the friendly locals, awesome activities and the fact that it offers something completely different than any other destination, and Jordan for opening my eyes to the wonders of the Middle East."

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Dave Bouskill and Deb Corbeil

Insta: theplanetd

If those who play together, stay together, then the couple that travels together is doing everything right. Dave and Deb have explored more than 7 continents and 100 countries, getting colourful at the Holi festival in India, walking with polar bears in northern Canada and kayaking in Thailand. Cue major wanderlust.

Hildegunn Taipale

Nothing inspires romance quite like picturesque landscape shots of travel buffs in love. Hildegunn and hubby Samuel Taipale's (@eljackson) Instagram feeds will have you planning your honeymoon over and over.

Jay Alvarrez

If you're looking to add a bit of adventure - and eye candy - to an afternoon, a flick through photographer Jay Alvarrez's Insta will do the trick: expect sky diving, hot air balloons, waterfall sliding, surfing and more, in lots of exciting locations around the world. Plus, there is a lot of beach love with his model girlfriend and travel partner, Alexis Ren.

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Kirsten Alana

The wedding-turned-travel photographer is based in NYC and features an appealing mix of everyday snaps (snowy Central Park, a colourful painted truck in Manhattan) with more exotic landscape and lifestyle shots, like the colourful cars and people of Cuba, or the idyllic beaches of Hawaii.

Stephanie Steinman

Sunny skies, sandy beaches and pristine waters - take a glimpse at how globe-trotters island hop and skinny dip their way from one luxurious landscape to another. Count us in.

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Madeline Joy Relph

Oh, to be young, beautiful and a world traveller... Aussie Madeline Relph hangs with the cows on the beaches of Goa, rides camels in Morocco and plays with lemurs in Madagascar. #wewantherlife

Gabriela Mateus

When your motto is "too long in the same place gets boring," you know you're bound to visit some pretty incredible cities. Gabriela takes her followers along for the ride with a feed full of atmospheric shots from locales like Marrakech, Lisbon, Venice, Rio, Dresden, and many, many more destinations you'll want to tick off the bucket list.

Katie McKnoulty

Katie swapped her native Australia for London a few years ago, then left her marketing job and became a nomad. From Bali to Brisbane, Paris to Phnom Penh, Katie's pictures make even the remotest places feel accessible.

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For the last ten years my world has revolved around small businesses: running them, advising them, and lobbying for them - sometimes successfully - on both tax and regulatory issues (changes to National Insurance being something I am particularly pleased about.)

I think it's only when you actually roll up your sleeves and take the leap of faith in yourself and your idea that you learn just how hard it is to be a small business man or woman. It's tough, I've done it and I know!

Our business landscape is very different from that of continental Europe. In Germany it is the Mittelstand, small and medium sized businesses which create wealth. In Britain 99% of our businesses are small and micro businesses and the vast majority sole traders. In Britain the vast majority of our business is in services. In continental Europe taken together a large proportion is in manufacturing.

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There is still no significant single market in services. Yet the single market in manufacturing is almost complete. So it should come as no surprise when I say the bureaucracy of EU membership is crippling our businesses with little benefit, with 60% of our business regulations coming from Brussels.

And it gets worse. Only 5% of our businesses trade with the EU yet 100% of them have to comply with the regulations. Only Directives leave scope for national interpretation. Decisions and Regulations just become binding. With qualified majority voting we have no say, no opt outs, and no vetoes.

I used to think taxation was at least sovereign. But it's not. Our purchase tax became VAT when we joined. We can set the rate but have no say now on what can be zero or 5% rated. Our tourists have to pay the full 20% but in France the rate is only 5%. And if we remain, the EU Commission will harmonise European taxes - not just VAT and tax legislation but also Property Law and Company Law.

When our businesses get into trouble can we help them? No or we breach the State Aid Rules. Our Steel industry can only receive arm's length "help" on commercial terms from the government. Perhaps even more challenging we cannot prefer British businesses when procuring public goods or services whatever the value.

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When we signed up to the then EEC, the world order was different. We felt we needed to join with continental Europe to be a credible trading block with America. But 40 plus years later there is no TTIP! The power map has changed - the vast majority of world trade is going on outside Europe, and is growing twice as fast. The EU now only accounts for 16% and that's shrinking. Yet as a member of the EU we cannot enter into our own trade deals - all 28 member states have to agree and join with us.

We are the fifth largest economy in the world, have always punched above our weight and should be proud of it! With the shackles of EU membership removed the opportunity for growth and negotiating our own trade deals are huge - which means more jobs and better wages.

The WTO will no longer allow massive trade tariffs to be imposed, and nothing will change while a new deal is negotiated. Germany and other members export more to us than we do to them. So why would Europe not continue to trade with us - they would be shooting themselves in the foot!
Writing as a former barrister turned politician, the dictum, attributed to Keynes - "when my information changes, I change my conclusions" - is a mantra I stick by.

So too should the Government, and its respective agencies, in seeking to address the alarming picture painted by the most recent safety in custody statistics. In this case, the information can lead only to one conclusion: urgent, joined-up action is required to bring prisons back under firmer control.

This is precisely what the Justice Select Committee has recommended in its report published today on Prison Safety, calling on the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) to produce a joint action plan to tackle the factors underlying the rises in violence, self-harm and suicide in our prisons.

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To flesh out these statistics, assaults rose 20% in the six months to December 2015, including 2,690 assaults against staff; in the 12 months to March 2016 there were 100 self-inflicted deaths; in 2015 the number of fires in adult prisons and young offender establishments increased by 57%, to 1,935; and the National Tactical Response Group (NTRG), who deal with the most serious of situations, including hostage taking and incidents of concerted indiscipline, are being called upon an unprecedented 30 to 40 times a month - more than once a day.

Indeed, the tragic death of Lorraine Barwell, a Serco prison officer, after being attacked last summer while escorting a prisoner from court demonstrates the need for change more powerfully than any statistic, soundbite or speech could ever achieve.

New and growing challenges, such as the influx of psychoactive substances, is exacerbating this problem, and Ministers and officials at NOMS need to grapple with the serious and deep-rooted issue of staff retention. In my visits to prisons with the Justice Committee, I see for myself the fantastic, and often unnoticed, work our dedicated prison officers carry out, but given that there are 7,000 fewer of them than in 2010, and the prison population has risen by 2,500 since then, they are fighting a losing battle.

The MoJ and NOMS have sought to improve prison safety through a wide range of legislative, operational and staff recruitment measures, including the creation of new offences of possession of psychoactive substances and knife possession in prison, as well as action to address violence, through the use of body work cameras, and to improve safeguarding procedures.

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But that after a 'full throttle' recruitment programme in 2015, which saw 2,250 extra police officers recruited, net gain has only risen by 440, it is clear the intrinsic problems are still not being fully understood. That is why the Committee has recommended the creation of a joint action plan between the MoJ and NOMS, which should importantly also include plans to recruit and retain prison staff, as well as proposals on the implementation of the Corruption Prevention Strategy.

We have additionally called on the Government to publish more frequent, detailed data on a number of specific points, allowing our Committee, and the industry as a whole, to scrutinise progress and ascertain what more can be done to improve outcomes.

The Government has announced an ambitious penal reform agenda, the detail of which will become more apparent after the Queen's Speech this Wednesday. However, with all the best will in the world, the impact of these new reforms will be stunted if the fundamentals are not corrected first.
Solo travel is definitely not just for 20-somethings - but there's no doubt this is the decade when people often catch the solo travel bug. Whether it's a traditional gap year or simply making the most of having fewer responsibilities, it's a great time to pack up and go.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Now Thailand has been named the top destination for solo travellers aged 18-24 by TourBar.com, followed by Australia, the USA and Spain. All great places to visit, it's true, especially for those taking their first holiday alone - but when the world's your oyster, why stick to the same places as everyone else?

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Look a bit further afield and there's so much more to discover. Here are my top destinations for young solos.

Image courtesy of Explore

Cuba

Rum, revolution and music on every street corner: this is one country which screams fun and adventure rather than fortnight's break from the mortgage. From Havana's history to the beaches and colonial towns, there are also plenty of cycle Cuba trips such as group tours from Explore. And with more US tourists set to flock to the country when the trade embargo lifts, it's definitely not one to put off until you're older.

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Image courtesy of Insider Journeys

Burma (Myanmar)

Only opened up to tourism a few years ago, this is a chance to explore a country while it's still off the main tourist track. And as well as the big attractions of Bagan's thousands of temples and Inle Lake's traditional villages, there's hiking in the hills, unspoiled beaches and fascinating tribes to discover - all with a genuinely warm welcome.

Image courtesy of Journey Latin America

Nicaragua

Another one of the world's more undiscovered destinations, this is perfect if you're looking for adventure, the chance to head off the beaten track and some bragging rights. With Central America's oldest city, idyllic unspoiled islands, volcanoes and beaches, there's history and culture plus wildlife and the chance to kick back and relax too.

Image courtesy of Walks Worldwide

Up a mountain

You may never be this fit again in your life... or able to stay up late then still climb a mountain the next day, so make the most of it. Head up into Morocco's Atlas range to see Berber villages and camp under the stars, or hike up Kilimanjaro to discover the Roof of Africa - companies like Walks Worldwide can add on some time recovering on the beaches of Zanzibar afterwards too.

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Tonight, 64,000 children across the UK will go to sleep in the safety and security of the loving home of a family who have made the commitment to foster - and The Fostering Network's Foster Care Fortnight is a unique opportunity to celebrate those 55,000 foster families who make this possible.

Across the UK, local authorities, independent fostering agencies, and health trusts, will showcase the work of foster carers so that everyone can see the commitment, passion, and dedication of the foster carers who care for fostered children and young people in their own homes.

I know though, from my everyday experience of working with and meeting foster carers and fostered children that these stats are just the tip of an iceberg when it comes to truly knowing what an amazing role foster carers play for the children they care for and the societies in which they live.

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This Foster Care Fortnight, to dig a bit deeper into what foster care is, and what it means for children, we asked 261 care experienced children and young people their views on what they consider to be the key qualities and skills needed to foster.

The top three qualities that care experienced children and young people identified as key to making a good foster carer were:

 67% want a foster carer who makes them feel safe and secure

 61% want a foster carer who supports and helps them

 54% want a foster carer who loves them

Sara from Litchfield, who fosters children with severe disabilities exemplifies these qualities, and she told The Fostering Network: 'We became foster carers to offer love to children who needed it but also to help children reach their full potential. Nothing changes with children with disabilities. The targets may be different but the goal to live life to the maximum still stays the same.

'Helping a child find their way in this world is one the greatest gifts you can ever give to them.'

We call them fostering families for a reason, fostering is something that everyone in the household can be involved with.

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Brodie, Sara's daughter and a very proud foster sister, said: "Seven years ago, my sister Olivia passed away in her sleep. She had a condition called Rett Syndrome. She was unable to do the usual activities a nine-year-old would do. We were told that she was not going to be able to walk, talk or make a difference; she did all of those. She showed us how she could talk, walk and she definitely showed us that she would make a difference in this world. She was nine when she passed and, as I was seven, it made a large impact on my life.

"A few years after, we decided to foster a little boy. He had a hole in his heart and was tube fed - had never been shown the love a one-year-old should be shown. Sadly, ten months later his conditions took his life.

"After that, my parents insisted that we were no longer going to foster because the heartbreak of losing two people in our lives was too much to handle. As I was then nine, I felt as if my voice should be heard. I explained to my family that if we hadn't fostered that little boy for those ten months, he would have never have experienced the love of a family who cared. This then made my parents think; they thought about maybe fostering another child who has a disability, yet not one that was life threatening.

"So, a few months later, we had a call about this ten-year-old boy who has global learning difficulties, autism and much more. We agreed that he was to become part of our family and we were so excited for him to become part of our lives.

"Four years later... that 10-year-old who was shy and nervous is now my 14-year-old brother who enjoys being cheeky and mischievous. My experience of being able to watch him grow from a nervous child into a cheeky teen has been the best experience I could ever ask for. And yes, my family isn't the most 'normal' but it is the most loving, caring, cheeky and unique family there is, and we would never be who we are today without the foster children who have blessed our lives."

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Fostering is incredibly challenging, but hugely rewarding, and this year alone there is a need for over 9,000 new fostering families to come forward to foster this year alone like Sara and Brodie's family did.

The pressure to recruit new foster carers is ongoing: just as there is diversity in fostered children, foster carers need to come from a variety of backgrounds and have different life experiences, skills and qualities to help meet the needs of each individual child and young person in foster care. At present the greatest need is to recruit foster carers for teenagers, sibling groups, and disabled children.

Debbie Douglas, a star of The Only Way Is Essex, has been a foster carer for more than 20 years, and she said: "Becoming a foster carer is daunting but something many people would be capable of doing. You don't have to be a superhuman you just need to be loving, understanding and resilient.

"I urge anyone who thinks they have the skills and personality to make a positive impact on these children's lives to talk to their fostering service about becoming a foster carer.

"Stop thinking, just do it and pick up the phone. Being a foster carer is knowing that you've made a difference."

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Lydia Bright, star of The Only Way of Essex and daughter of foster carer Debbie Douglas, said: "I've never known a life without being part of a fostering family. My friends at school used to complain it was boring at home, but being a part of a fostering family meant I never felt alone as a child.

"No parents have a child and don't want to look after it, but some can't. That's why you should never stereotype, because every child has come into care for a reason that's nothing to do with them."

Debbie and Lydia took part in a 20 minute baking challenge to raise awareness of the fact that every 20 minutes a child comes into care and needs a foster family.

It is never the fault of a child that they come into the care system, and once they do it becomes the responsibility of local authorities and health trusts to ensure that they receive the care and support that they need. Foster carers are an integral part of this, advocating for children, loving the children, feeding, housing, and clothing the children and ensuring that they go to school. Ultimately, what foster carers do is to provide the safety, security and love that the children are asking for and to give them chance of having the childhood that they deserve.
If a single pill could instantly make you a genius would you take it? I know I would, I'd take two. Unfortunately, life isn't a movie and there is no such pill. However, there are a group of drugs and supplements that can apparently: help you focus, increase your ability to learn, boost your memory and even stimulate creativity. Before you open a new tab and head to Google in a desperate bid to order some of these magic pills read on...

'Smart Drugs' is the name given to a wide range of legal and illegal drugs and supplements that enhance cognitive function - they basically make your brain work better. The Internet is full of websites and forums all dedicated to 'Smart Drugs'; each one brimming with amazing claims for a plethora of different drugs. The one that stands out as the king of 'Smart Drugs' is Modafinil. Traditionally a prescription drug, Modafinil is used to treat Narcolepsy but now it's used by 1 in 4 students at Oxford University. If you do a quick Google search for Modafinil you will find an excess of articles, blogs and threads all raving about this 'magic drug'. Some claim that this drug has changed people's lives, helped them write full university dissertations in a matter of days and even made people more confident.

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Now, as wonderful as that sounds my mum always told me 'never believe everything you read online', she actually said 'don't believe everything you read in the newspaper', but who reads newspapers these days. So with that in mind I decided to find out for myself. I ordered some Modafinil online from an undisclosed location in India.

While I was waiting for the pills...I headed to Manchester University to speak to some students about their experiences with 'Smart Drugs'. Most of the students didn't want to speak to me, maybe it's because I wasn't giving out 'free shots' vouchers for the nearest bar or maybe it's because I was asking about their use of 'Smart Drugs'- who knows. From the students I spoke to, I heard conflicting arguments - some were totally against the use of smart drugs, whilst some raved about them. I was told by one person, it had resulted in A Grades whilst another explained it has caused Anxiety.

4 days later the Modafinil arrived. Not totally put of by the students stories I popped a pill and waited for it to kick in. 2 hours later I felt a lot more awake. I felt wired. I felt quicker. Everything was clearer. I headed to work and began editing a video...3 hours later I was still editing. I hadn't looked up once. I was totally focused on my job. Perfect, right? Not quite, although I was focused on my editing work I found myself focusing on the tiniest little details, like the size of the text, the font, the graphics - trying to make it all perfect. Now, that might be good if you're working for yourself and you have all the time in the world, but not if you have a deadline to meet. I'd looked up and I'd only done half the work I would have normally have done, albeit of a higher quality. I can see this causing an issue when studying because you have deadlines to meet, exams to take. As the day went I did get a bit of a headache but that didn't stop me from editing. I carried on into the night. Then I headed to bed for a well-earned rest. 4 hours later...I was still awake. I could not sleep for the life of me. In the end I got about 3 hours broken sleep and I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck.

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You can watch my experience on Modafinil in the video below:
Today's Justice Select Committee report into safety in Britain's prisons reveals a crisis in mental health, with rising levels of self-harm, drug abuse and suicide. A few weeks ago, prison officers at Wormwood Scrubs walked out because they could not guarantee safety for themselves or the prisoners. Yet Justice Secretary Michael Gove seems incapable of action.

Someone is taking their own life every four days in our prisons. The Select Committee report shows that in the 12 months to March 2016 there were 100 self-inflicted deaths in prisons - up from 79 in the previous year. This shocking rise in prisoners' suicide is at the sharp end of a much bigger mental health crisis.

In 2009 Lord Bradley's landmark report into people with mental health problems or learning disabilities in the criminal justice system found that too many offenders with poor mental health were ending up in prison without access to appropriate treatment. Prison was exacerbating their condition. Six years on and self-harm has increased by 21% in the past year alone.

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As the prison population has grown, so too has the pressure on the services that provide support to prisoners with mental health problems. New figures reveal that in just five months from April to September last year, almost 343 prisoners who had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, many of whom would have been at serious risk of self-harm, waited more than fourteen days to be transferred to hospital. Prisoners identified at heightened risk of suicide or self-harm are cared for under the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork process (ACCT), yet 60% of prisoners who took their own lives this year did not have an ACCT plan.

Even those identified at risk, do not always get the help they need. Davy Larcombe was being monitored by the ACCT when he took his own life at HMP Lincoln. A month earlier he had been transferred unexpectedly, and without explanation, to HMP Nottingham due to overcrowding on the vulnerable prisoners' wing. Due to the distance, Davy's parents were not able to visit and Davy could not afford to call them. In the run up to his death, Davy self-harmed by cutting twice and both times referred to the lack of contact he had with his family. The jury at the inquest into his death delivered a damning conclusion on the failures in Davy's care.

This case highlights the pressures across the prison system as a whole. Our prisons are in a dire state. The latest annual report from the Chief Inspector of Prisons found outcomes in prisons at their worst level in ten years. Violence is rife - in the 12 months to June 2015 there were 578 serious assaults on staff, a 42% increase on the previous year, and seven prison murders, the highest number recorded since 1978. More than a quarter of prisoners live in overcrowded conditions, with many doubled up in cells made for one person. Drug and alcohol consumption is widespread. Staff shortages are affecting rehabilitation, with reports of inmates not going to support programmes because there aren't enough prison officers to unlock their cells and escort them.

Michael Gove may talk of prisoners as potential assets, of the importance of education in rehabilitation and on placing mental health at the centre of his reforms, but his warm words are not translating into action.

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Recently the Youth Justice Board announced that, under pressure from the Government to find in-year savings, it was cutting 9million from the grant it gives to youth offending teams. More opportunities were missed when the Government published its response to Lord Harris' review into self-inflicted deaths in custody of 18-24 year olds. This was an opportunity for Ministers to make significant, lasting changes but the response was underwhelming. They rejected over thirty key recommendations including requiring prisons to record and publish details of the time spent out of the cells for every prisoner; having a specific strategy to cover bullying in prisons; requiring the Minister for Prisons to personally phone the family of the prisoner who has taken their own life to express their condolences on behalf of the State and to promise that a full and thorough investigation will take place, and the creation of a specialist role with responsibility for the wellbeing of young adults in custody.

Ultimately, too many people with a mental health condition become caught up in the criminal justice system. The Government has already announced that they would be extending liaison and diversion services more widely. These services place mental health nurses and other specialist professionals in police stations and courts so that people with mental health problems get the right treatment as quickly as possible. The coverage is far from universal and many services have focused solely on people diagnosed with a severe mental health illness. Her Majesty's Treasury is currently considering whether or not these vital services will be extended further across the country.

To do so would be a good start. But much more needs to be done, including to join up work across central government, local authorities and agencies and support and train staff working both across the prison estate and in the community. And of course urgent measures need to be taken to tackle the immediate issue of prison safety to stem the shocking rise in self-harm and suicides. Today the Justice Select committee recommends that the Ministry of Justice and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) together produce an action plan for improving prison safety, addressing the factors underlying the rises in violence, self-harm and suicide. Critical to this is addressing the understaffing of prisons which NOMS has manifestly failed to address. We support this, and urge ministers to do the same.

Luciana Berger is the shadow cabinet minister for mental health and Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree
Four years ago, after the last London Mayoral election, I was packing up the Camden Green Party pop-up shop when I received a phone call that changed my life - the position of Green Party Leader was open.

A month later, having been persuaded to stand by many party members, I was setting out my aims. Those included: becoming "a truly national party that leaves no region untouched", "getting in major national debates", "growing the party membership and supporting local parties" and building a "party fit for purpose".

Those aims, I'm proud to say, have been achieved over my two terms as leader.

Membership was about 13,000 when I stood to be leader; it's now more than quadrupled. With a vastly larger membership we have greatly expanded the staff team to provide more support to local parties, to members, for fundraising efforts, and to getting our message out.

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We have scores of new parties across England and Wales that ensure most voters now have an active local Green Party. Supporting those local parties has been one of my major priorities and it's why I've been on an almost non-stop tour of the country, helping us grow into new areas.

We won 1.1million votes in the General Election last year, more than all the votes we'd won in every previous General Election put together. As well as retaining Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion, we finished second in seats in Bristol, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool, something we'd never previously achieved. We saved our deposits in 123 seats compared to six seats in 2010.

In the first televised Leaders' Debate I looked David Cameron in the eye, challenging him directly about his policy on Syrian refugees - and then took on Ed Miliband and Nigel Farage when they tried to talk over me in the second debate. And yes, I did get to enjoy "that hug" with Nicola Sturgeon and Leanne Wood - providing a model of a different way of doing politics that I know has encouraged many around the country.

Standing up to the anti-immigration rhetoric is one of the areas the Green Party is now well-known for. More, there's increasing public understanding that when you want the honest, caring, committed view - one that isn't guided by the views of the latest focus group or fear of a tabloid backlash but by fundamental principles and values - you should come to the Green Party.

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I was proud of my party when it produced "refugees welcome" mugs as others were ramping up the anti-immigration rhetoric. I was proud of my party as I presented its view on successive governments' treatment of benefits recipients, calling for decent benefits to be given gladly to all who need them, saying that the Work Capability Assessment should be abolished.

Now the Green Party gets consulted on the full range of policy areas, from welfare (and our policy of universal basic income is winning increasing support) to the NHS, housing to banking (with our new South West MEP Molly Scott Cato winning plaudits for her contributions in this field).

There's been a great deal of progress in the past four years but I feel it's now time for the Green Party to have a fresh debate about the direction we want to take, what we can achieve in a turbulent political climate that's full of opportunities and also carries a heavy responsibility - the responsibility to deliver on what I believe is the only political philosophy that can tackle the multiple crises that Britain and the world face.

I know some will find my decision not to re-stand for the leadership hard to understand, and I've been moved by the generous words of support from many party members and supporters urging me to continue, but I hope that my decision will help make it clear that the Green Party doesn't operate like other political parties, with a steep hierarchy up which many are seeking to scramble, while those at the top defend their positions. We're a team, we work together and support each other.

Of course my four years as leader haven't been all plain sailing and as the party began to be taken more seriously than ever the level of media scrutiny and, at times hostility, has been gruelling. I've always taken my responsibility to the party seriously and have done my best to live up to rapidly escalating scrutiny. I've learned much from both the times I got it right and the things I got wrong.

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I'm not a smooth, spin-trained, lifetime politician. When I joined the Green Party on the first of January 2006, I wasn't lining myself up for a new career; I simply wanted to do something about the state of our world.

One phrase I've become known for is "politics should be something you do, not have done to you". For that to be widely implemented, we need to change our political culture and the media circus, away from the adversarial, aggressive point-scoring towards a more cooperative, honest, straightforward endeavour.

We also need to stop seeing politicians' families as fair game for media attacks - a particularly pernicious element in the British media that astonishes other parts of Europe.

Politics should not be a game for the privileged few where schoolyard bullying rules the day but must be a debate about our collective future that draws in voices from every area of society.

Changing our politics is going to need proportional representation, a fair electoral system that will force politicians to work together even in disagreement. And it's going to require media change - development of vibrant, effective alternatives that will leave the dinosaurs behind.

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Not re-standing for leader doesn't mean that I'm going away, or stopping my full-time engagement with politics. I'm planning to keep travelling the country supporting local Green Parties and campaigners who ask me to do that. I've got policy areas that I'd like to get more involved in: education (influenced by the many young people I've met who are passionate and angry about the damage the system has done to them), food, farming and broader land management issues and the overarching topic of the transformation of our economy to one in which everyone can live without fear of want without destroying the planet.

I'll be remaining leader until my term finishes at the end of August, so I'll be going all out in the coming weeks on our campaign to remain in the EU, and continuing to support local parties and campaigns.

I want to finish with a "thank you". I've operated as Green Party leader with a tiny fraction of the staff support and resources of other party leaders. That's only been possible because thousands of Green Party members, supporters and non-party campaigners have helped out: arranged visits and logistics, briefed me and sent information, alerted me to opportunities, put me up in their spare rooms, and on occasions acted like professional media managers without any background experience. You've been brilliant, thank you.
Donald Trump keeps saying we dont have any good trade deals, but tell that to the guy in Massachusetts who just got a penis transplant. Trump and David Cameron are in the midst of a trans-Atlantic feud, exhibiting the sort of intra floppy-haired-white-guy hostility usually only found during a prep school lacrosse match. And the House offered up a meager response to the Zika virus -- less than half what the administration asked for but definitely enough to lecture women in tropical climates to practice abstinence and tell their immune systems to buck up and get a job. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, May 16th, 2016:

HARRY REID FUNDRAISING OFF SPAT WITH ALAN GRAYSON - Amanda Terkel: "Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was unusually candid about his feelings toward Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) in a fundraising appeal for Graysons Senate opponent. 'I will be blunt. I want Alan Grayson to lose,' Reid wrote in an email sent out Monday. For anyone who wasnt clear about where Reid stands, the subject line of the email was: 'I want Grayson to lose.'" [HuffPost]

CONGRESS INTRODUCES SLIMMED DOWN ZIKA BILL - Mike McAuliff: "Congress is finally moving to supply the nations disease control experts with funding to prevent the spread of Zika in the United States, but the House of Representatives is offering only about a third of the money sought by the Obama administration. After the Senate put three competing bills on its calendar for this week  with minimum funding of $1.1 billion  the House Appropriations Committee announced plans for a $622 million measure. In February, President Barack Obama asked lawmakers for $1.9 billion to ramp up a host of efforts, from mosquito mitigation to education and vaccine research." [HuffPost]

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'SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP' DOWNGRADED. . . to something closer to 'neighbors who tolerate one another and maybe, just maybe, lend out their pruning shears.' Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton: "Donald Trump said he was unlikely to have a good relationship with David Cameron because the British prime minister cast the U.S. presidential candidate as 'divisive, stupid and wrong' for proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Cameron criticised Trump in the British parliament over his call for the ban on Muslims and suggested that the New York billionaire, who is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, would unite Britain against him if he visited. 'It looks like were not going to have a very good relationship, who knows?' Trump told Britains ITV television station in an interview aired on Monday when asked how ties would fare if he won the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8." [Reuters]



TRUMP BRUSHES OFF DATA - Good God, Donald Trump's TED talk would undoubtedly be a thing of beauty. Bill Barrow: "Donald Trump says he plans to win the White House largely on the strength of his personality, brushing off the need for a heavy investment in what he calls the 'overrated' use of data to shape campaign strategy and get out the vote. Should he hold to that approach, which he outlined last week in an interview with The Associated Press, Trump will flout all conventions of what it takes to win a modern presidential campaign...In his AP interview, Trump discounted the value of data: The 'candidate is by far the most important thing,' he said. He said he plans a 'limited' use of data in his general election campaign and suggested Obama's victories  universally viewed by political professionals as groundbreaking in the way data steered the campaign to voters  are misunderstood." [AP]

This week's Candidate Confidential features a veritable rainbow coalition with Jason Cherkis and Sam Stein sitting down with Jesse Jackson.

DELANEY DOWNER - A diverse coalition's taking issue with the Obama administration's efforts to improve nutrition among food stamp recipients. A letter signed by 161 lawmakers of all stripes casts side-eye at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's proposal to require small stores to stock healthier foods if they want to accept food stamps. "This proposal contains several provisions that restrict the ability of small format retailers to participate in SNAP and in turn jeopardize access to food for the more than 45 million low income SNAP beneficiaries, including more than 20 million children," the letter says. The USDA is trying to do what Congress told it to do with the 2014 farm bill. Womp womp.

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DOUBLE DOWNER - Mark Ruffalo and his nonprofit, Water Defense, have been warning Flint residents that their water might be unsafe for bathing. Virginia Tech civil engineering professor Marc Edwards says the data behind these warnings is bunk  and that the warnings themselves might be hurting public health. I have moms calling me saying that because of this group they are not letting their children take baths or wash their hands, Edwards told The Huffington Post on Monday. Edwards says hand-washing and bathing fears probably contributed to a recent spike in gastrointestinal illness in and around Flint. Womp womp womp. [HuffPost]

Does somebody keep forwarding you this newsletter? Get your own copy. It's free! Sign up here. Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to huffposthill@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill

SCOTUS HOT POTATOES CONTRACEPTIVE COVERAGE CASE - Cristian Farias: "The Supreme Court on Monday failed to reach a definitive ruling in one of its biggest cases of the year  a challenge to an accommodation under the Affordable Care Act that allowed certain religious nonprofits to opt out of contraceptive coverage for their employees. The courts decision in the case, Zubik v. Burwell, was unsigned, only three pages long, and issued in the name of the whole court, perhaps underscoring how divisive the issue was for the justices. The rift was evident during oral arguments in the case...Zubik reached the Supreme Court as a set of seven consolidated cases  all brought by Christian institutions, colleges and associated nonprofits. The groups challenged an opt-out mechanism the Obama administration devised for organizations that otherwise didnt quite qualify for automatic exemption from the Affordable Care Acts contraceptive coverage requirement, as churches and synagogues do." [HuffPost]

KOCHS RATCHETING DOWN POLITICAL SPENDING - Don't worry, ALEC paranoia is the exposed brick of liberal politics, it cycles in and out of vogue every few years. It'll be back. Tim Alberta and Eliana Johnson: "[T]here was an unwelcome surprise awaiting the Freedom Partners delegation inside a conference room at Koch Industries headquarters: A number of top executives and advisers from across the Koch enterprise had been invited to attend the meeting, too. They represented the so-called 'corporate side' of Koch World, which had long warred with the 'political side' of the empire, particularly over the consequences of the brothers campaign-related activitiesthe brothers political decision-making was increasingly being influenced by their business and public-relations interests, and that as a result, their investments in electoral politics at the federal level were diminishing...Concerned about the damage being done to their corporate brand, increasingly bothered by their public vilification, and convinced after Republicans 2014 Senate takeover that even significant victories were having a negligible impact on federal policymaking, the Kochs began signaling to their closest allies that they were reevaluating their approach to politics." [National Review]

CONSULTANT CLASS STILL TERRIBLE - Isaac Arnsdorf and Ken Vogel: "An increasing number of unauthorized groups are invoking [Donald Trump's] name to raise money, suggesting that theyll use the cash to support his campaign, even as some appear to be spending most of their money on contracts with favored consultants. Trumps campaign and its allies worry that the groups are doing little to help the campaign and may be doing more harm than good by siphoning off cash that would otherwise go to the campaigns fledgling fundraising effort. The campaign has disavowed several of the groups, demanding they stop using the candidates name in fundraising appeals and calling at least one super PAC founded by a Trump adviser a 'big-league scam.' But appeals keep coming from other groups, with more now joining the scrum, and rival groups accusing one another of being scams." [Politico]

LARGE NUMBER OF YOUTHS LET DOWN BY SANDERS' FAILURE - No, not him. The other one. Nick Anderson: "Burlington College, a small Vermont private school once led by the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, said Monday it will close later this month, citing 'the crushing weight' of debt incurred during her presidency. The college, which enrolled 224 students as of fall 2014, faced insurmountable financial troubles connected to its 2010 purchase of 32 acres of lakefront property from the Archdiocese of Burlington, according to the Burlington Free Press. Jane Sanders was president of the college from 2004 to 2011." [WaPo]

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Secretary of impassioned lower lip biting: "During a visit to Little Castle diner in Paducah, Kentucky, Hillary Clinton was asked twice to expand on what Bill Clinton's role in the White House would be. Clinton ignored it each time, but when asked if her husband would be in her cabinet, she shook her head and mouthed, 'No.'" [ABC News]

THE MOST TRUMPIAN SECOND-DAY STORY EVER - Now we're waiting for John Miller to call up a reporter and clarify all the stories about him. Reuters: "Rowanne Brewer Lane, a former model who dated Trump for several months starting in the late 1990, said her words were mischaracterized in the Times article, which used dozens of interviews to show a pattern of unsettling personal behavior by the presidential candidate with women. The Times story said Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 election, asked Lane to change into a bikini shortly after meeting her at a pool party at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. According to the article, he then introduced her to the crowd outside, saying, 'That is a stunning Trump girl, isnt it?' On Monday, Lane told the same story but said she had been flattered by his comment. 'They spun it to where it appeared negative,' Lane said on Fox News. 'I did not have a negative experience with Donald Trump.'" [Reuters]

Everytime we hear "renegade Jew," the guitar solo from the opening of "Purple Rain" plays in our head ("Join us at Temple Emanuel on Saturday, April 17th as we celebrate Jacob Rosenbaum's RENEGADE New York Knicks-themed entrance into manhood!"): "The term 'Renegade Jew' trended on Twitter on Sunday night after a Breitbart article used the phrase to describe conservative commentator William Kristol. 'Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew Prepares Third Party Effort to block Trumps Path to White House,' read the headline of the article by Jewish writer David Horowitz. The article was about efforts by Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, to back a third-party bid for the White House over presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump, and did not directly address Kristols faith. " [HuffPost's Ed Mazza]

BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here's a house-trained bison.

COMFORT FOOD

- Cellphone rings played on the piano.

- Poor, poor George Lucas.

- Most of your friends don't think you're a friend.

TWITTERAMA

@paigelav: I've said it before but I'll say it again: there is no need to say someone "needs no introduction" while you are introducing that person

@elisefoley: I always want to say needs no introduction and then just stop talking and stare blankly, never saying their name.

@pourmecoffee: I bet it's pretty insane on Dothraki talk radio today.

@SonnyBunch: Has anyone written the Why Danys awesome moment last night was actually totes racist piece yet?
On May 2, 2011, a US Special Forces operation, code named "Neptune Spear," ended the life of Osama bin Laden (OBL). In the ensuing 5 years there has been much debate on whether OBL's demise benefited the war on terror. After all, many terrorist groups are on the march from Nigeria to Libya, from the horn of Africa to the Middle East and other parts of Asia. The most dangerous among them, with a vast outreach, is the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS). Terrorism spreads fast like wild fire in politically unstable and failed states. Due to rapid proliferation stopping it is a hard proposition at best since eliminating the original source won't necessarily extinguish the fire completely. It takes time and coordinated effort to finally put the fire out. Despite OBL's end terrorism has proliferated as never before. But making OBL pay for the killing of 3000 people in the US was the right decision. This was also a message to other terrorists that their crimes will not be forgotten, and one day they will pay for them.

OBL was hiding in plain view of the Pakistani authorities near the Military Academy in the city of Abbottabad. Pakistan had consistently denied any knowledge of OBL's whereabouts, claiming that the founder of the terrorist group Al Qaeda and his close aides had taken refuge in the mountainous region on the Afghanistan Pakistan border. But his close proximity to Pakistan's Military Academy without the knowledge of the Pakistani authorities is farfetched. This shows the duplicitous nature of Pakistan's war on terror in the same way that Pakistan provides safe havens and support for the Taliban. Countries such as Pakistan provide a constant spark to the terrorism fires. This is one of the underlying factors complicating efforts to combat terrorism. It is appropriate to remember that we, the US, supported individuals like OBL and others in the waning years of the cold war. The US and a number of other countries were outraged when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on the eve of Christmas in 1979. One reason for the invasion was to prevent the collapse of the Afghan communist regime beholden to the USSR. This regime was installed with the support of the USSR in a bloody coup d'etat in 1978. The US and allies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others began arming Afghan groups through the Pakistanis to fight the invading Soviet Red Army. At the same time hundreds of individuals from some Gulf States, including wealthy people like OBL from Saudi Arabia, flocked into the Pakistani city of Peshawar. Scores of not so wealthy others from Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Algeria and so on, joined in to fight the "right" fight or jihad against the "Godless" USSR. The effectiveness of these groups and their efforts to help the Afghans fight the invaders are debatable. But there is no doubt about their radicalization and networking which would eventually lead to the creation of Al Qaeda in 1988 headed by OBL.

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Soviet Troops and Tanks in Afghanistan (Photo: blogs.It.vt.edu)

After the USSR withdrawal from Afghanistan, OBL went back to his native Saudi Arabia and became disgruntled, denouncing the kingdom when that country allowed its soil to be used by the American forces in the first Gulf war to evict Iraq from Kuwait. Saudi Arabia revoked his citizenship and OBL was exiled to Sudan where he continued to strengthen Al Qaeda and plot attacks against the US and its interests. In 1996 he was forced to leave Sudan. He and his entourage flew to Afghanistan at that time where the Taliban had established their reign. Afghanistan was a perfect environment (as a failed state) for OBL to hatch the plan of attacks of September 11, 2001. Although in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 OBL was the number one target, President Bush later declared that the war on terror was bigger than one person. The US forces went after OBL as he was fleeing Afghanistan in December 2001 at the onset of Operation Enduring Freedom. But the operation to kill or capture him in the mountainous region of Tora Bora was bungled. OBL and his cohorts were able to get themselves to the safety of Pakistan and their old friends, the Pakistani intelligence (the ISI).

What is OBL's legacy? OBL and the classic (original) Al Qaeda in south Asia have been marginalized as a result of the US's relentless pursuit which eventually led to OBL's demise. OBL's many other associates met similar fates. But they were also able to create copycat terror organizations in the Middle East and elsewhere. Some of these terrorist groups became even more violent, such as Al Qaeda in Iraq under the leadership of Abu Mosab Al Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The Al Zarqawi followers went on to create the self-declared Islamic State (ISIS) which proves to be even deadlier and more destructive than the others. As of late one of OBL's sons, Hamza Bin Laden, has surfaced through a video message. The young Bin Laden's message is for the Jihadi groups in the Middle East to unite. Will Hamza Bin Laden be able to revive his father's legacy? Not very likely in the short term, but it remains an open question.

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Osama's Son, Hamza Bin Laden (Photo: The Independent) Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is not very relevant now, although some Taliban have pledged allegiance to ISIS. As a result, ISIS has established a presence in eastern Afghanistan. ISIS refers to Afghanistan as the Khorasan Province. This is a name which Arabs used in the 7th century before invading the region and bringing Islam to what is now Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban admit that it was a mistake to harbor OBL and Al Qaeda in 1996. Had they (the Taliban) not done so, they would not have been subjected to the wrath and fury of the American forces. Consequently, they would still be in power in Afghanistan today.
Stethoscope and digital tablet

In a deep dark recess of the Federal Register, large corporations just quietly received permission to "play doctor" with their employees. They can now impose even more draconian and counterproductive wellness schemes on their workers than they already do. Their hope is to claw back a big chunk of the insurance premiums paid on behalf of employees who refuse to submit to these programs, or who can't lose weight.

A Bit of Background on Wellness

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed employers to force employees to submit to wellness under threat of fines. Specifically, the ACA's "Safeway Amendment" -- named after the supermarket chain whose wellness program was highlighted as a shining example of how corporations could help employees become healthier -- encouraged corporations to tie 30 percent to 50 percent of the total health insurance premium to employee health behaviors and outcomes. (As was revealed while ACA was being debated, Safeway didn't have a wellness program. The fictional Safeway success was a smokescreen for corporate lobbyists to shoehorn this withhold into the ACA.)

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Once this 30 percent to 50 percent windfall became apparent, many corporations figured out what this vendor (Bravo Wellness) advertised: there is much more money to be made in clawing back large sums of money from employees who refuse to submit to these programs than in improving the health of employees enough to allegedly reduce spending many years from now. "Allegedly" because -- unlike simply collecting fines or withholding incentive payments -- improving employee health turns out to be remarkably hard and ridiculously expensive to do, so hard and expensive that:

The entire wellness industry has not avoided even a single heart attack or case of diabetes, statistically speaking, according to data compiled by a wellness consulting firm for the federal government;

The only wellness company willing to release results of its own wellness program on its own employees, admits the program failed;

Even the employers whose wellness programs have won awards as the best in the field have made only trivial improvements in employee health.

Most importantly, the complete lack of regulation has allowed the wellness industry and health plans to expose employees to significant potential harms, in order to maximize revenues.

The Federal Government Green-Lights "Wellness-or-Else" Programs

There are no regulations, licensure requirements or oversight boards constraining the conduct of wellness vendors, and only one agency -- the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) -- providing any employee recourse. The Business Roundtable has taken on the latter at every opportunity. First they threatened President Obama that it would withdraw its support for ACA unless he declawed the EEOC. Then they held sham Senate hearings entitled: "Employer Wellness Programs: Better Health Outcomes and Lower Costs." Finally, they threatened to push the "Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act" to eviscerate the EEOC's protections legislatively.

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But it turns out the legislative end-around wasn't necessary. The EEOC has now caved in. These programs are defined as "voluntary," and yet as of now, employees can be forced to hand over genetic and family history information, or pay penalties. So, as in 1984, where "war" means "peace," employees can be required to voluntarily hand over this information.

Let's be clear. This isn't about employee wellness programs, which don't work. It's all about the penalties. Genetic information is worthless in the prevention of heart disease and diabetes, as Aetna just showed in a failed experiment on its own employees.

Knowing family history does have some predictive value, but it is unclear how employees are going to benefit from employers collecting it. Self-insured employers could either fire the employee or do nothing. Neither is useful for the employee. If the employer is fully insured, this information is akin to a "pre-existing condition" in the old days. The employer's premiums will increase as long as employees with bad family histories remain on their payroll.

The Good News, Part 1

The Business Roundtable, and their friends at the US Chamber of Commerce, might want to connect their computers to the internet. It turns out that many companies are finally realizing that compelling employees to submit to medical screens just to claw back some insurance money isn't worth the morale hit.

Increasingly, employers are learning that what the national data shows is also true for themselves: these programs simply do not work. For example:

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And the morale hit? A formerly obscure faculty member who led the successful employee revolt against the Penn State wellness program just got elected president of the Penn State Faculty Senate -- largely because employees

in that revolt.

The Good News, Part 2

As a result, many companies are deciding that clawing back some insurance money isn't worth the damage done to the their workforces. They are replacing "wellness done to employees" with "wellness done for employees." These companies are improving the built environment, upgrading their foodservice, encouraging fitness, or simply adding features to the health benefit like paternal leave or financial counseling. They might still hold a "health fair" every now and then, but their medical tests are conducted infrequently -- according to actual clinical guidelines -- instead of allowing vendors to screen the stuffing out of their employees to find diseases that don't exist.

Or they are actually focusing efforts where they can make a difference, like steering employees to safer hospitals or educating employees on how to purchase healthcare services wisely. (Disclosure: my own company, Quizzify, is in the business of teaching employees how to do the latter.)

Notwithstanding this disruption and regardless of the harms it has caused, the $7-billion wellness industry has excelled in perpetuating its own existence. Industry "thought leaders" recently proposed a scheme to encourage companies to disclose how fat their employees are -- and have even managed to get a few large employers to sign on to it.

The sheer audacity of that scheme and complete disregard for its consequences on overweight employees means the war on "voluntary" wellness-or-else programs is by no means over. Like every other industry threatened by reality but supported by deep-pocketed allies like the Business Roundtable, the wellness industry can rely on the government to delay the inevitable. Consequently, it might be quite some time before the inevitable course of reality overcomes this pox on the healthcare system.
Common Core opponents wave signs and cheer at a rally opposing Mississippi's continued use of the Common Core academic standards on the steps of the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015. Both Gov. Phil Bryant and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves have vowed that the state will quit using the standards. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Readers of my Huffington Post blog know I am very critical of the skills focus of the national Common Core standards for turning reading into a discombobulated and often meaningless chore for young people and a strong supporter of the high-stakes testing opt-out movement. But in this case, in this particular case, the Common Core reading standards provide a useful dissecting tool for understanding the motives behind charter school propaganda. And remember, I already know how to read pretty "good," and I learned to read without Common Core. So let's turn Common Core on its head.

According to the national Common Core reading standards, endorsed by the New York Times in a 2014 editorial, middle school students should be able to "[i]dentify aspects of a text that reveal an author's point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts)" (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.6) and "[d]istinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text" (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.8). Despite its support for Common Core, a recent New York Times editorial championing so-called educational reform shows that the paper and its staff definitely need remediation and probably should go back to middle school until they can master the new standards.

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On May 10, 2016 another New York Times editorial, "Guess Who's Taking Remedial Classes," mocked middle-class suburban parents who oppose the Common Core high-stakes testing regime and support the opt-out movement. They cited a "a striking new study showing that nearly half of the students who begin their college careers taking remedial courses come from middle- and upper-income families." Apparently, about one-fourth of the students who entered college in 2011 were required to take remedial courses in math, English or writing, and forty-five percent of the students in the remedial classes were from those "middle-, upper-middle- and high-income families." According to the Times, the study was conducted by "a nonprofit think tank" called Education Reform Now. The study did not "indicate the specific places where these higher-income students grew up," but the Times believes the "data suggest that many come from suburban communities whose schools did not prepare them for college-level work." And these "wealthier districts" with failing students are, lo and behold, the very "strongholds of the movement against standardized testing and the Common Core learning standards."

Maybe the New York Times should have checked the data itself before trusting the nonprofit Education Reform Now think tank. Education Reform Now (ERN) may technically be nonprofit, but it certainly is not anti-profit and its promoters and funders are neither educators nor education researchers. ERN has a five member Board of Directors. According to their website, "John Petry, Co-Chair, is the founder and managing principal at Sessa Capital. Previously he was a partner at Gotham Capital and Gotham Asset Management. John has been active in a variety of education reform causes. He was a co-founder of Democrats for Education Reform, served as a past Chairman of Education Reform Now, and currently serves as a co-chair at the Success Academies network of charter schools."

Too be clear, Petry is a hedge fund entrepreneur, also known as a vulture capitalist, not an educator. For an excellent discussion of how hedge funds operate see John Oliver's Last Week Tonight's show on the Puerto Rico debt crisis. Petry is a promoter of Eva Moskowitz's highly criticized charter school networks, not an advocate for public schools. Moskowitz schools have been accused of terrorizing young children to maintain total control over their behavior and of counseling hard to reach children out of their programs.

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The other Board members, Sidney Hawkins Gargiulo, Brian Zied, Michael Sabat, and John Sabat are also hedge fund vultures. In addition, John Sabat is a "founding board member of Harlem Success Academy 4," part of the Moskowitz network.

ERN's activities include lobbying state and federal public officials to support charter schools and tougher teacher evaluations and tenure requirements. In Washington State ERN supported a successful effort to lift the state ban on charter schools. In New Jersey it was allied with Governor Chris Christie in efforts to weaken the teachers union, increase the number of years before teachers are eligible for tenure, and to evaluate teacher based on student performance on high-stakes standardized assessments.

How is that for disinterested impartiality? Did the Times effectively "[i]dentify aspects of a text that reveal an author's point of view or purpose"? Let's take a look at the report.

The report, "Out of Pocket: The High Cost of Inadequate High Schools and High School Student Achievement on College Affordability," was written by Mary Nguyen Barry and Michael Dannenberg. Nguyen Barry is a senior policy analyst with Education Reform Now previously worked for the Education Trust, another anti-opt out group. In school Nguyen Barry studied "policy" and she never was a teacher. Michael Dannenberg is the Director of Strategic Initiatives for Policy. On his Linkedin page he claims to have "initiated, drafted, and shepherded toward enactment major elements of the [now replaced and discredited - added for emphasis] No Child Left Behind Act," which started the national march to high-stakes testing.

According to the report, "the promise of Common Core standards and aligned assessments is still not fulfilled thanks to a series of foreseeable as well as unexpected implementation and communication challenges, including "teacher and teacher union resistance, and the opt-out actions of frustrated, anti-testing parents."

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But at the same time, the report does acknowledge some holes in its overall analysis and conclusion that public high schools are failing students from middle-class and upper income families. For example, the authors write "It's true that of those half million students, low-income students are over-represented" and "Again, it's true that the vast majority of remedial students - 57 percent - are enrolled at community colleges."

I found some even bigger analytic holes in the report that the New York Times should have checked before printing the editorial. According to a Pew Research Center report, in 2012, only about fifty percent of low-income high school completers were enrolled in a 2- or 4-year college compared to 65 per cent of students from middle-income families and 80 per cent from high-income families. This means that there are a lot more students attending college from lower middle, middle, and higher income brackets. Even if the number of students from these income groups that need remediation is significant, the percentage of students is actually small.

The ERN report cited by the Times uses a national measure for classifying families as lower, middle and higher income and does not appear to take into account region income differences. For example, because of higher costs of living, a "low-income" family living in Northeast or on the West Coast would count as middle income in an unadjusted report making it look like a lot more "middle income" students need remediation.

In addition, I saw no evidence in the report that it accounts for students with learning disabilities. Students from low-income families with learning disabilities are much less likely to complete high school and attend college than students with disabilities from higher income families who receive greater support from schools in their more affluent communities.

I don't know if the New York Times considered any of these issues before it endorsed the propaganda report by charter school and testing advocates promoting their political agenda. Apparently the Times editorial team has difficulty when it has to "[d]istinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text, " another area where they failed middle school Common Core. Instead of praising colleges for raising standards and providing support so students can reach these standards, the Times and the testing and charter school people take pot shots at public schools.

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My grandmother had a stroke six years ago. Having such a close relationship with her, I took it very hard. Seeing her in pain and thinking she was going to die, I didn't understand how the stroke felt and how she was feeling, and I just wanted to understand more. I did not know what exactly to say besides that I was sorry and I didn't understand her discomfort. I could never have imagined that, just four years later, I would come to relate so strongly to her.

My name is Rachel Castro, and two years ago, I had a stroke at the age of 17.

The last week of my junior year in high school, I had everything to look forward to. I love to travel, and that following summer, I was excited about going to Spain with my school.

I had no stress in my life. I worked at the mall, and life was good.

One day, while I was at work, my life completely changed.

It started at around 5 p.m. I remember my hearing came and went, like when you go underwater. I got a headache.

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Two hours later, I fell out of my chair. My left side became paralyzed. My co-workers immediately recognized I was having a stroke.

I was taken to the hospital, but the paramedics thought I was on recreational drugs, so I was "treated" for that. I was vomiting as they tried to give me medication to counteract the drugs I wasn't taking. Eventually, I was taken to another hospital and given a CAT scan.

The arteriovenous malformation (AVM), a deformity in my blood vessels in my brain (which was there since birth), caused an aneurysm to pop. My brain was bleeding a lot in the right temporal and parietal lobes. The surgeons removed part of my skull for two months.

After some time, my left side was very weak, but I could move it. It took me a while to learn to walk again, and I was hospitalized for a month. I had to wear a helmet for two months, and a belt around my body for balance. I was in rehabilitation, occupational, speech, and physical therapy for three months, and my family had to fight our insurance company so I could get speech therapy for three more months to be able to work on memory.

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Today, I feel much stronger emotionally than I was right after my stroke. I know what I should fight for. I lost friends in school after that happened, and have a hard time recalling facts for a test. My short-term memory became impaired. Still, I'm so grateful to be here!

I am currently a neuroscience major at UIC, with a minor in disability studies. I really love the research part, and dream of going to medical school, perhaps becoming a neurologist.

According to the American Stroke Association and the American Heart Association, someone in the U.S. has a stroke every 40 seconds. Every four minutes, someone dies of a stroke, and it's the leading cause of long-term disability, as well as the leading cause of preventable disability.

May is National Stroke Awareness Month. I invite each and every one of you to become a Stroke Hero. Please join me along with other stroke survivors, volunteers, educators and public health advocates as we educate our families and communities about the signs and symptoms of stroke and promote stroke prevention for those who are lucky enough to have the chance.

I still dream of traveling to Spain, and most importantly, I want to continue telling my story and letting others know that stroke knows no age, but we can take steps to prevent it from happening.
Over the weekend, the New York Times came out with an astonishing piece on Trump's lifelong objectification of women. For decades, women who interacted with him either personally or professionally have endured varying levels of his chauvinism, be it in the form of comments on their bodies, unwelcome sexual advances or pet names like "Hon" or "Dear." Even the women in the piece who recounted that Mr. Trump mentored them or helped them along in their careers noted his casual sexism. Opportunities and assistance came with a constant reminder that they should be thankful he was giving them a chance professionally, even though the workplace, especially executive level positions, is not really a place for women.

The pattern becomes clearer with every new detail we learn about this man. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Trump has resorted to sexism every time his behavior or policies have been criticized by strong, successful women this election season. That's how he's made sure women have stayed in what he believes is their rightful place--beneath him--his entire life.

Recently, Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of playing the woman card and declared that if she wasn't a woman, she probably wouldn't even have five percent of the vote. He's blamed her for accusations of misbehavior against her husband and called her an "enabler." And just last week, he released a political ad that shows pictures of Benghazi and other tragedies accompanied by Sec. Clinton cackling like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz. The sexist undertones are hard to miss.

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The Republican party's presumptive nominee for the presidency also found time in his busy schedule to take to Twitter and respond to Sen. Elizabeth Warren's criticism of his policies and behavior by calling her "goofy." Yes, that's right. Elizabeth Warren, former Harvard professor and architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is "goofy" to Trump, a man who has argued about the relative size of his manhood during a nationally-televised presidential debate. He even didn't stop there! Over the weekend he referred to Sen. Warren as "Pocahontas" during an interview with the New York Times, which managed to be both sexist and racist in one fell swoop.

Unfortunately, Trump's tired misogynistic tactic isn't working for him this time. The women he's attacked lately don't fear him and won't retreat from his attempts to bully them. With each increasingly outrageous comment, Trump is revealing himself to be an insecure, desperate man, who has nothing to respond to challenges from successful women except flimsy criticisms of their intelligence, character or personal lives. It's evident that the only thing Trump has to offer when called out on his sexist comments is more sexism.

It's unfortunate the men leading the more traditional, conservative wing of the Republican party, including the Never Trump movement, have been unable to stop Trump's bigoted comments and continuous rise. However, I think many of us know why these men haven't been able to stop Donald Trump. This isn't a job for a man. It's a task better suited for a woman.

Hillary Clinton is our best hope for striking down Donald Trump and everything he stands for. The very nature of her historic candidacy, as the first woman likely to secure the presidential nomination from a major party, is a repudiation of Trump's sexism. Sec. Clinton's qualifications and background also represent a rejection of Trump's racism and bigotry. She's spent her entire career fighting for many of our most under-represented populations, including children, people of color and the economically disadvantaged. What's more, she's taken every awful personal assault lobbed at her by Trump and responded to it with strength and intelligence. Her refusal to lower herself to Trump's level represents exactly the type of mature leadership our country needs.

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The majority of us who know our country is better than Trump have the opportunity to send a strong message of "no" by supporting Hillary Clinton. We can stop those who think discrimination should be galvanized in our country's identity. We can send the hateful and discriminatory rhetoric that's being thrown around in the Republican Party right now back to where it belongs, in our country's past. And we can set America down an optimistic, inclusive path and build towards the future our children deserve. All we have to do is take a stand. That is why I am issuing a call to action: If you are as outraged as I am by Trump's behavior - start writing letters to the editor; start commenting on blogs; start encouraging the media to call Trump out on his behavior and challenge him with tough questions.

Since we're all going to have to accept this awful man is probably hanging around until November, let's send a strong statement every chance we get.

___________________________________

Andrea Dew Steele is President and Founder of Emerge America, the premier training program for Democratic women. Emerge America is changing the face of American politics by identifying, training and encouraging women to run for office, get elected and to seek higher office. Our intensive, cohort-based six-month training program is unique. As the number of elected Democratic women remains flat or even declines, the need for our work is growing across the country. We currently work in 16 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
A couple sits in front of graffiti depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on the walls of a bar in the old town in Vilnius, Lithuania, Saturday, May 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

The taxi driver taking me from Claremont an hour north of Los Angeles all the way down to Westwood near UCLA is ex-Navy. After 20 years of service and in addition to a good pension and healthcare plan, he tells me, he "proudly' also received a free education (which isn't exactly taken for granted here). He says he is an American who sometimes feels marginalized, being of Mexican and Native American descent. I had pegged him as a potential supporter of the Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders. However, as the highway expands dramatically and becomes jammed with a seemingly endless number of cars, he starts talking about business and the two houses he owns and rents out in Los Angeles.

When I ask him about Donald Trump, his enthusiasm for this political phenomenon and media juggler becomes evident. "A lot of his ideas are unrealistic" and anyways, "it is impossible to talk about a single American 'ethnicity.' "However," the taxi driver asserts, "he has the courage to talk about things that other people are afraid to say." He adds that since the US (evidently) still has not fully recovered from the economic crisis "perhaps the time has come for someone to run this country like a business, and Trump is a great businessman." When I tell him about another successful businessman, Silvio Berlusconi, he gives me a look that is both confused and skeptical.

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The former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has drawn parallels to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The New York billionaire is the incarnation of a recurring theme in both American and world history. Some of the Republicans themselves are watching his advance through the primaries nervously. "Welcome to Donald Trump's America" writes Peter Wehner in his March 20th piece for The New York Times. An old-time Republican and analyst at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Wehner recalls how the organizational principle behind the Republican Party's campaign became "an encouragement to political violence," referencing several episodes that have occurred over the past few months. In his view, Trump is exactly the kind of man the Founding Fathers hoped would never materialize in America. The popular conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg has just launched a blog for the Los Angeles Times where he asks his readers for advice on preventing the business magnate from becoming president and thus "destroying the Republican party."

Naturally, the concern over Trump extends into nearly every aspect of society. You can't talk about Europe and the rise of right-wing parties and nationalism without hearing a reference to Trump. "What is happening in America and what should we do about it?" one of my colleagues asked during lunch on the University of Southern California campus. Wehner notes that the presidential candidate is an effective communicator in the context of "a political culture that is now almost indistinguishable from the reality TV culture from which he emerged." This makes him comparable to the Berlusconi phenomenon, and we can only hope that in years to come the culture of our politics (and television) will be different than it is now.

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An April 6 article from the New York Times clumsily compares Trump and his "economic populism" to the "nationalistic behavior of those on the European right such as Silvio Berlusconi." The reality is however much more complex; this current social and political phase is the result of long-term, ongoing changes throughout western (and world) history. "But perhaps the most striking feature of the past 25 years" writes historian Peter Frankopan for the Financial Times, "is the retreat of liberal democracy."

We live in a time that is characterized chiefly by uncertainty, and in this growing uncertainty Trump is the perfect spokesperson for expressing the ideas of the "old Europe" right, much like Geert Wilder, Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini and Norbert Hofer.

Today, in the Western World there is also a marked distrust of the elite and traditional political parties. During the Republican primaries in Pennsylvania, one of the voters stated outright that she was "sick of the few telling the many of us what to do." This is quite different from the anti-elite sentiment characterized by another outside candidate, Bernie Sanders, who rails against Wall Street and the "1%" that controls all of the wealth. This varying sentiment is one of the driving forces behind votes for the French National Front and similar right-wing political parties throughout Europe. The uneducated white members of the working-class on both sides of the Atlantic are angry, tired and likely worried about globalization, delocalization, immigration, and unemployment, while the middle class is becoming poorer thanks to the weak economy and concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. The hard data reveals how Trump lost by a big margin in states where the working class had higher-than-average levels of education. To this disillusioned group, the demagogues of modern nationalism are offering redistribution, welfare, the expulsion of immigrants and easy solutions to thousands of other problems.

During times such as these it seems almost natural to withdraw into oneself. The base of voters that is helping to reinforce a return to nation-states (that are often based on ethnicity) and micro-communities is having a presumed golden age thanks to their unconditional adherence to the politics of a charismatic leader; something which never fails to recall the moral and national decline brought about by the golden age of fascism.

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In other words, although the familiarity of routine is always reassuring, it seems at times that there is a storm raging. It is worse when you try and find an enemy, home-grown or foreign, real or imagined, on whom you can blame for this tempest and its consequences, as well as the suffering of nations. Today Muslims, Syrian refugees, immigrants and Mexicans fill this role. We are all too aware what these fears brought about in Europe only too recently. Voters would do well to remember it in America too.
After spending my childhood travelling the world and living in almost 30 homes, you'd think I'd be sick of travelling. But, three months before getting married, I decided I wasn't ready to stop just yet. Two one-way tickets to Brisbane, two and a half years and 10,000 miles later, it's the biggest adventure of my life so far...

1.You'll Find Your Superpower

Honestly, I'm totally not kidding. When you step waaaaay outside your comfort zone and have only yourself (and your husband) to rely on, you work out what you're great at. I rediscovered my love of writing. Somewhere in the whole Uni/trying to act like an adult thing, I totally forgot that I was that kid who always had their head stuck in a book and loved writing short stories for her friends. Move 10,000 miles away from everything you know and everything becomes a whole lot clearer. Maybe it's the 30+ hours of travelling, who knows. But I swear, if you could bottle it, you'd make a fortune!

2.You'll Learn To Let Go

Not just of stuff. Though I did. I swear I must have emptied half of my wardrobe at least before I left. I landed in Brisbane with 2 suitcases and a holdall. That was it. All my worldly possessions. Plus a husband. Admittedly, 6 boxes of crap did show up nearly a year later. After I'd already bought boots and jumpers to replace the ones in the damn boxes. But still. For someone who has more than a little clothing/shoe/bag obsession, I figured that was impressive. What I really mean is you learn to let go of people. Not the ones you love. Obviously. That would be idiotic. The ones who you'd been friends with since high school/university, the ones who were "your girls," the ones who stood beside you at your wedding. But then you moved 10,000 miles away and they disappeared too. Those ones. Yeah, it'll hurt. Worse than a bikini wax. But you'll get over it. And you'll have made/got reacquainted with so many more awesome friends who get "it" that you won't care.

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3.You'll Realize Your Inner Strength

When calling for help isn't as simple as just picking up the phone, you'll quickly come to rely on yourself and find that inner strength that everyone keeps talking about but you thought was utter rubbish. Turns out, it actually is there. You'll learn to talk to random people when you get thrown together on a trip to Frazer Island, or suddenly be okay with sitting by yourself in a cafe, bar, or cinema. You'll realize that actually you can put nails in the wall without bringing the whole thing down and that ovens aren't just for storing your extra sweaters (that you'll never really need in Queensland) in.

4.Relationships Are Everything.

There's nothing quite like moving thousands of miles away to really turn the spotlight on yourself and your relationship. When all you have is each other, it's hard to take out all your frustration and homesickness on each other. That's totally normal and okay. In fact, it'd be weird if you didn't do that. But it will also make you realize how much you value each other. You'll learn things about each other you might otherwise have never known. Like how you're actually really good at finding your way around a totally foreign city that everyone forgot to mention is build on a huge amount of hills. Or how your husband actually does a really good Bryan Adams impersonation when you're driving along the highway with the windows down and no one can hear him but you. Just remember that what doesn't break you makes you stronger. I know, corny but it's true.

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5.You'll Learn What Matters Most.

Before we left the UK, I was working 60+ hours a week as a teacher and my husband even more running his own company. We spent weekends doing household chores and doing the same things. When you leave everything you know - job, friends, family, house - behind you and land in a country where you have nowhere to live, don't know a single soul and have no job, you'll quickly work out what matters most to you. For us, that's time spent together, usually outdoors doing something. Learn how to surf? Sure! Abseil down a cliff - are you f-ing kidding me? Alright then! Hike a mountain for fun, just to see the view? Why not?! You'll also find friends who get what it's like to have no family, no automatic support system, and they will become your family.
On Saturday, May 14th, 2016, Whyte's Irish Art and Collectibles of Dublin held a sale called "The Eclectic Collector." Among the lots was a sketch of a nude woman by Constance Markievicz. The drawing came onto the public market back in 2004, directly from Markievicz's family home, Lissadell House, and sold once again in 2007.



"Nude Study of a Young Woman," by Constance Markievicz, via Whyte's

Markievicz is much in the news this year, during the centenary of the Easter Rising. Born in London as Constance Gore-Booth, she lived for much of her girlhood and young womanhood at Lissadell, in County Sligo, Ireland. There she and her sister Eva spent time with Jack and W.B. Yeats when they all were young; Con and Eva are the subjects of one of W.B's best-known, if also barbed, elegies, "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz."



Constance (left) and Eva Gore-Booth in 1895.

Her life as an artist, before she became a notable political and revolutionary figure, is worth summarizing here. She wanted to study art, but, as a woman, was obliged to leave Ireland and return to London to do so. In 1892, she began studies at the Slade School, and also took classes in Paris at Academie Julian. While in Paris, she met Count Casimir Markievicz; they were married and moved to Ireland in 1901.

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A member of the Irish Citizen Army by the early nineteen-teens, Markievicz was a leader of the Easter Rising of April 24-29, 1916. A lieutenant, she was arrested after the Rising, tried for "causing disaffection among the civilian population of His Majesty" and sentenced to death -- but given life in prison instead, because she was a woman. After being moved to Royal Holloway Prison in London for a time, Markievicz was released, returned to Ireland, and was elected repeatedly to political office (including becoming the first woman elected to England's House of Commons -- a seat she would not, as a Sinn Fein member, take). She died in 1927 and was given a hero's -- or heroine's -- funeral. In this year, commemorations of the Rising have included a major conference centering on Markiewicz at Lissadell, and she and her husband are the subject of a new biography by Lauren Arrington, Revolutionary Lives.



As I look again at the sketch in the Whyte's catalogue, it seems to me that Markievicz -- or, as she likely was at the time of its execution, Con Gore-Booth -- has used herself as a model. After all, well-born young ladies in the 1890s, even those in art school, were not permitted to have access to nude models. This was true even in comparatively progressive Paris. Without nude models and the training in drawing and painting them, many women turned to landscape painting -- as, indeed, Markiewicz did upon her return to Dublin after 1901.
For Bon Appetit, by Christina Chaey.



Photo courtesy Trader Joe's

If there's one thing all smart shoppers know, it's this: One does not simply walk into Trader Joe's. To get out of this Mordor of treats alive, you need a strategy, intimate knowledge of your particular TJ's store layout, and perhaps a mouthguard. But on your next trip, let everyone else fight over the last jar of cookie butter and make a beeline for these lesser-loved-but-equally-amazing snacks, frozen goods, and even cat litter. Behold, a cartful of Bon Appetit staffers' favorite Trader Joe's sleeper hits:



Photo courtesy Trader Joe's copyright 2016

"The frozen Mini Beef (or Chicken) Tacos are terrible but also, like, delicious. Especially at 2 a.m. Especially if you happen to be a college student. Or even a nostalgic, drunk adult." -Kurt Soller, features editor



Photo courtesy Trader Joe's copyright 2016

"The frozen Spanakopita is my JAM. It's what I make every time I have nothing in the fridge. Twenty minutes in the oven and it's flaky puff pastry goodness, with a heavy dose of spinach. Bonus: They aren't thaaaaaaaat bad for you." -Carey Polis, web editor

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Photo courtesy Trader Joe's copyright 2016

"The Truly Handmade Flour Tortillas. These are the closest I can get to the lard-made ones my sister ships from the grocery store in Houston for my birthday. They make Mission tortillas look like flour-coated patties of sadness, which THEY ARE. The Trader Joe's versions--even in whole wheat if you're trying to fool yourself--are thin and buttery and great for breakfast tacos, drunk quesadillas, and eating plain, microwaved with cheese--a French technique I picked up from Jacques Pepin*." -Alex Beggs, senior web editor *Lies



Photo courtesy Trader Joe's copyright 2016

"There was a long period of time where I was weirdly into the Frozen Vanilla Greek Yogurt, which is the only flavor they have. And I don't even usually like vanilla! It's just the right ratio of tart-to-sweet." --Emma Wartzman, assistant to the editor in chief



Photo courtesy Trader Joe's copyright 2016

"I went through a HEAVY Mini Ice Cream Cone phase circa 2011. There's no such thing as having just one of them at a time, so I had to cut myself off when a four-cone-a-night problem was developing. But I revisited my love for them late last year, and they were (and still are) at least 100000x better than the TJ's frozen mochi that I chipped a tooth on once." -Elyssa Goldberg, associate web editor



Photo courtesy Trader Joe's copyright 2016

"I survived my senior year of college thanks to the Pork Shu Mai. They're $3 a pack! Hit 'em with scallions and some soy sauce and you're set. Also, it goes without saying that their Charles Shaw wines are a deal that probably shouldn't be allowed to exist. In college, we used to buy a case of Three Buck Chuck (12 bottles for $36) and bring them to parties. We'd then sell the bottles for $6 each and double our initial investment. More shumai for the whole team. The hustle was real." -Alex Delany, assistant production manager

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Photo courtesy Trader Joe's copyright 2016

"I buy the Dried Bing Cherries several bags at a time. A couple years ago, I developed what I'll describe as a dried cherry habit--I stir them into oatmeal or yogurt in the morning, add them to salads for lunch, or I'll mix some with toasted pecans to serve the purpose of a lazy woman's granola for all car trips or flights. The unsweetened, unsulfured Bings at TJ's are my dried cherry of choice--plump, with a great sweet-tart balance." -Meryl Rothstein, senior editor



Photo courtesy Trader Joe's copyright 2016

"The Cha Siu Bao Chinese Style Pork Buns. No, they're not as good as your favorite dim sum spot, but for an emergency freezer snack, they cannot be beat." -Lily Freedman, Test Kitchen contributor



Photo courtesy Trader Joe's copyright 2016

"The Chocolate Chip Cookie Dunkers offer a primer in metaphysics: There's chocolate in the cookie, but then that cookie is IN chocolate. How did the universe come about? What is matter? Why are we here?" -Alex Tatusian, designer

"The Chimichurri Rice. You can make chicken or shrimp on the side and mix it in (see: my lunch today). I actually passed it off as my own rice-and-shrimp once at a holiday party." -Brendan Bryant, product manager

"Premium Pine Cat Litter. It's basically Feline Pine, which is a highly absorbent natural pellet litter that smells great and breaks down into sawdust when it's wet, so it's safe and easy to flush. But Trader Joe's version costs a lot less than Pine." -Cristina Martinez, production manager



Related: The Most Popular Trader Joe's Products in 2015 (Yes, There's Cookie Butter)

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7. Democratic Socialism can be described as: "A vision which says that in this richest if all nations all of our people, and not just the wealthy, should enjoy the fruits of their labor with decent jobs and benefits that allow them to live in dignity. That we cannot continue to have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the world, while the number of millionaires and billionaires continues to increase. A vision which says that every man, woman, and child in this country is entitled to healthcare as a right of citizenship, and that the United States must join the rest of the industrialized world by enacting a national health care system, a single-payer health care system. A vision which says that lifelong quality education is the essence of what being alive is about, and that all of our citizens, no matter what their incomes, should be able to receive a higher education.

A vision which says that we respect the struggles that women have been waging for so many years, and that the very personal decision of abortion must be decided by the woman herself--and not Newt Gingrich or the United States government. A vision which says that we judge people not by their color, their gender, their sexual orientation, their nation of birth--but by the quality of their character, and that we will never accept sexism, racism, or homophobia.

A vision which says there is no conflict between respect for the environment and job growth, and that, in fact, our economy improves when we stop environmental degradation. A vision which says that a society is ultimately judged by how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable among us--the children, the elderly, the sick, the disabled. And that we do not cut back on programs which help the weak and powerless, in order to give tax breaks to the rich and the powerful."


Play it Again Spirio

Many experts say it could be as soon as 30 years when machines will be capable of doing almost any job that a human can.

Globally honored musician Leonard Cohen once wrote, "Music is the emotional life of most people." Music is a universal language; the poetry of the soul. We experience this when we listen to a live concert pianist's fingers glide over the 88 keys of a Steinway piano; when we see their body movements; their feet placing the perfect pressure on the peddles at a precise moment in time. Somehow, the feeling and sentiment of one rendition of Rhapsody in Blue is never quite the same as another. But what if it wasn't a live human producing the performance? What if the poetry of the soul was read back by something without a soul - the piano itself?

Enter Spirio, by Steinway and Sons. Making unparalleled advancements in the player-piano experience, Steinway & Sons Spirio may be proving that the future is closer than we ever expected. The possibility of a personal concert available now! From pianissimo to fortissimo, from the smallest brush of the foot pedals, no note or sound or nuance goes uncaptured by Spirio's technology. The Spirio is a player-piano that is already competing with the most accurate productions of your favorite live performances - with only the touch of your iPad. So - just imagine where this monumental leap in technology might take us next. One day will we be able to teach computers to play the piano on their own? Will the great interpretations of Beethoven, Liszt, Bach, Mozart, and Mahler be performed by machines? In my interview which follows, Michael Sweeney, CEO of Steinway & Sons, discusses the specific capabilities of the Steinway and Sons robot pianist, Spirio, and shares his perspective on what Spirio and future versions of Spirio might mean for professional piano players. Is the concert pianist another job that can be automated and substituted by artificial intelligence, or will it work with talented pianists and change the way they as creators, and we as listeners, interact with music? This is something I suspect we will learn more about as time goes by....

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"For the first time ever, pianists can hear their performance played back note-for-note on an acoustic instrument, with all of the color and nuance of the original performance." -- Michael Sweeney

Michael: What is the Spirio difference?

The Steinway Spirio is a new high-resolution player piano that provides an unrivaled musical experience, indistinguishable from a live performance. Utilizing proprietary software along with solenoids (a current-carrying coil of wire), Steinway Spirio brings the piano to life with the world's greatest music, independent of the listener's playing ability, with just the touch of an iPad.

How have you captured the real nuance of human performance?

While many earlier player piano systems rely on midi data files (compressed, low-resolution data files) and others rely on even lower resolution files for playback, Steinway & Sons is recording at the highest resolution possible, and has created a proprietary data file format that captures the nuances and full range of emotion from each artist's performance.



This superior level of playback is made possible through high-resolution recording technology that allows Steinway Spirio to capture smaller increments of velocity on both the hammers and proportional pedaling; to be precise, 1020 different note velocities and 256 pedal positions. The fact that the recordings are recorded and played on a Steinway & Sons piano exponentially increases the differences in performance quality when compared to existing products.

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"Imagine Lang Lang performing a duet with a great pianist from another era, such as Vladimir Horowitz." -- Michael Sweeney

What does Spirio mean for Lang Lang? Will Spirio be filling in for Lang Lang at the Royal Albert Hall anytime soon?



Steinway & Sons' commitment to artists is unshakable. We are toolmakers to passionate artists--professional as well as amateur--and we would never attempt to usurp the role of the artist.

The ever-expanding music catalogue that is being recorded for Spirio features Steinway Artists exclusively, so pianists such as Lang Lang are an integral part of this initiative. We've found that artists have really embraced the technology and are eager to record for Spirio. Besides having their music heard by a wider audience, for the first time ever, pianists can hear their performance played back note-for-note on an acoustic instrument, with all of the color and nuance of the original performance. Because of this ability, artists are using Spirio as a tool to refine their performances.

Additionally, Spirio presents a new world of possibilities for artists to explore. Imagine Lang Lang performing at Carnegie Hall, but you live in Dallas and can't make it to New York. With Spirio there is the potential for the concert to be live-streamed into your living room. Or we can also imagine Lang Lang performing a duet with a great pianist from another era, such as Vladimir Horowitz. Far from replacing artists, Spirio gives them opportunities to reach new audiences and express their artistry in exciting and creative ways.

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Where will players like Spirio go next? Tell us how you see this technology evolving and improving 5 years or even 10 years from now?

For over 160 years, Steinway has been a company that is constantly innovating, so we're already thinking of how Spirio might evolve over time. This could include live-streaming of performances into one's living room, or recording capabilities so that you can capture special musical moments at home. It's exciting to think of all the possibilities and where this technology can lead us.



"We're already thinking of how Spirio might evolve over time. This could include live-streaming of performances into one's living room, or recording capabilities so that you can capture special musical moments at home. It's exciting to think of all the possibilities and where this technology can lead us." -- Michael Sweeney

How did you prioritize the repertoire for Spirio? What are your personal favorites from Spirio's catalog?

Before Steinway launched Spirio, we wanted to make sure that the music catalog was diverse enough to appeal to a wide range of individual tastes and occasions. The Spirio catalog offers everything from jazz to classical, pop to the American songbook, so listeners can find just the right music for any moment, whether it's a cocktail party with friends or a quiet Sunday morning reading the newspaper.

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It's hard for me to select my favorite music from the Spirio catalog, but lately I've been listening to "Still Shining" by Robert Glasper. It's a dramatic score that was inspired by a piano that the visual artist Mark Bradford created as part of the Steinway Commission project. The physical treatment of the piano and Glasper's music come together to tell a story of personal challenge and outrage, that ultimately resolves with a sense of hopefulness. It's a moving piece and one that I keep exploring over and over.

I have also very much enjoyed our first performance by Lee Musiker, who spent 12 years as Music Director for Tony Bennett. Lee's rendition of "I Love a Piano" has all of the virtuosity and creativity for which Lee is known in the music community. I am looking forward to offering more of Lee's work to our customers very soon.

(All Photos are courtesy of Steinway & Sons and CMRubinWorld)



C. M. Rubin with Michael Sweeney
Layoffs and Recession - newspaper headlines documenting deep job cuts

Let's face it, we have an enormous economic problem on our hands: Globalization.

This problem is so big that it transcends our entire economic system. Our free-market economy has been outmatched. It is utterly unable to offer any solutions toward solving this predicament.

The problem is simple. Undeveloped nations around the world are increasingly becoming available as low-cost locations for manufacturing. As a result, global corporations in developed nations like America are relocating their manufacturing facilities to these low-cost locations overseas, and thus droves of middle and lower-class jobs in America are eliminated.

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This produces devastating effects in America. The middle and lower classes lose an enormous segment of their employment base, so their wages decline and they fall into economic hardship. The corporate executives and shareholders, on the other hand, reap the profits from the cost-savings of relocating overseas, so they become richer and richer. As a result, income inequality is dreadfully exacerbated and American society becomes a hollowed-out shell of its former self.

The reason our economic system fails to self-correct this problem is because our free-market system does not even perceive this as a problem at all. It thinks this is all terrific. The cost of production is lowered, goods become available at lower prices, and the investors in these enterprises earn greater profits. It's all wonderful.

Unfortunately, however, our free-market system cares only about profits and not about the lives of real working people.

Some contend that international trade agreements are to blame for all of this, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from 1994, and the current proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). And indeed, this contention is quite logical. After all, one primary purpose of these trade agreements is in fact to establish foreign jurisdictions as viable manufacturing locations for American corporations. So if we would simply not enter into these trade agreements at all, the reasoning goes, then American corporations would be unable to relocate overseas and all the good middle-class jobs would remain in America.

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One of the loudest voices against these trade agreements is that of Donald Trump. He is constantly railing against these trade agreements and attacking them as a major cause of our job woes. "Our leaders have negotiated terrible [trade] deals that are bleeding this country dry," Trump declared. "The TPP is another terrible one-sided deal that rewards off-shoring and enriches other countries at our expense," he blustered on, and "[w]e will move manufacturing jobs back to the United States and we will make America great again."

But the critical flaw in this reasoning is that it overlooks the reality of globalization. Regardless of whether America enters into any trade agreements, these foreign jurisdictions around the world are still opening-up for business as low-cost manufacturing locations, with or without America.

Due to globalization, American companies must increasingly compete against companies around the world. So if America declines to enter into any trade agreements, other competing nations will enter into trade agreements of their own with these low-cost jurisdictions. As a result, American companies will be saddled with the high costs of paying expensive American middle-class workers, while competing foreign companies will enjoy the devastating competitive advantage of a lower cost of production by manufacturing in these cheaper locations.

Not signing any trade agreements may save middle-class jobs in the short term, but in the longer term, even more jobs would be lost because American companies would not be able to compete in a global environment and would soon be out of business.

Therefore, not signing any trade agreements is simply not a viable option in today's globalizing world.

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Some contend that we could resort to the age-old maneuver of protecting American companies by imposing tariffs upon foreign imports into America. If an American-made product sells for $1 in America, and the same product imported into America by a foreign competitor from a low-cost jurisdiction could be sold for 75 cents, then America would impose a tariff on these imports equal to 25 cents, and thus both products would then be sold for $1 in America and they would compete against each other on a level playing field.

It all sounds good. The problem with tariffs, however, is that it is a messy game. If we impose tariffs on foreign countries seeking to sell goods in America, then these foreign countries will retaliate and impose tariffs against American companies seeking to sell American goods in their foreign countries. This leads to trade wars and all sorts of complications. And the notion that America could simply cut-off the rest of the world entirely and live as its own isolated island unto itself without importing or exporting internationally of course does not work. Thus, imposing tariffs upon foreign imports is not a viable solution.

So we're in a pickle.

Signing trade agreements leads to the loss of manufacturing jobs, drastic income inequality, and the devastation of the middle and lower classes. Yet not signing trade agreements is not a viable option because it would render American companies unable to compete globally. This is a lose-lose situation.

What we need is a solution.

One possibility that seems fair would be to go ahead and enter into trade agreements enabling American corporations to utilize low-cost locations around the world, but then require the corporations to share the profits with the American people.

Otherwise, as has been happening, all the profits would go to a very small number of privileged executives and shareholders to make them fabulously wealthy while everyone else would be left behind to suffer. That certainly does not seem fair, especially since these executives and shareholders are not inventing or creating anything of particular value, but instead they are simply relocating production to lower-cost locations.

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While achieving a lower cost of production is great, it seems that everyone in society should share in this benefit, especially the middle and lower classes who bore the greatest sacrifice of losing their jobs, which is what produced this wealth in the first place.

A practical way to share this newfound wealth with the people would be to "follow the money," as they say, and impose a huge tax on these profits. The executives and shareholders could receive some of the profits for doing the work, but most of the profits would go to the people, especially those who lost their jobs. This money could be used to subsidize the cost of living for the middle and lower classes by such measures as subsidizing health care, housing, food, daycare, and education.

Now, there is one tiny little loophole. Corporations, of course, will not wish to share any of this wealth and thus they will strive mightily to avoid paying this tax. They will no doubt play the relocation game of moving their corporate headquarters out of America and into foreign countries that do not impose this tax so they could keep the windfall profits all to themselves.

Solving this problem is tricky. What it really calls for is an overall framework agreement among all the nations that sign onto the applicable trade agreement. All the nations should agree to impose this tax equally, and for corporations relocating to a lower-cost nation, the receiving nation should collect the tax and remit it back to the nation that lost the corporation. This way, corporations could not evade the tax merely by relocating to a new country.

Of course, this is no easy task. Coordinating among nations is always a difficult endeavor. But globalization is presenting the world with the monumental change of developed nations transferring their production operations to undeveloped nations. Private corporations are able to globalize much more quickly than international regulatory regimes. Corporations can then exploit this under-regulated international business environment to mine enormous profits for themselves at the expense of ordinary citizens. A global regulatory system is needed in order to keep pace with the stampede of globalizing private corporations.

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The world's economies and the world's citizens are facing an enormous sea-change of a transformation.
According to NPR, "U.S. immigration officials are planning to detain and deport immigrants who were part of the surge of Central Americans who crossed into the U.S. illegally over the past two years . . . ." And, lest one believe, as the Office of Homeland Security is claiming, that this has anything to do with national security, "immigration agents are mainly targeting young mothers with small children, and unaccompanied youths who turned 18 after they entered the U.S." This deportation will be carried out through "'a months-long series of raids in May and June.'"

Sending mothers and young children back to countries from which they are fleeing violence is immoral and cruel as Pope Francis has recently emphasized. It is also illegal, as the U.S. is required under international law, for example under Article 14(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to accept such refugees who are fleeing from persecution in their home counties. And, when one considers the U.S.'s role in creating the conditions of persecution these refugees are fleeing, the immoral and criminal nature of Obama's planned course of action is crystal clear.

Put quite simply, the U.S. owes these refugees a home in light of the fact that the U.S. has mercilessly destroyed their home countries over the past century or so. Let's take the case of Guatemala for starters, where the U.S. supported a series of brutal military dictatorships after overthrowing its democratically-elected President back in 1954. As Irma Alicia Velasquez Nimatuj explained in the The New York Times:



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in 1954 . . . the United States, in the name of anticommunism and in the defense corporate interests of the United Fruit Company, helped depose the democratic government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. From that moment on, the United States assured that an ultraconservative line remained in power until 1985. The United States financed brutal counterinsurgency campaigns with forces it trained in the School of the Americas. By interfering in state policies it shared responsibility for the genocidal campaigns carried out by the military regimes in Guatemala, including the government of Rios Montt. Ronald Reagan, in particular, supported and exalted the regime of Rios Montt, reducing the massacres and dehumanization of indigenous communities to a "bum rap" for Rios Montt. The anticommunist sentiment shared by the two leaders provided an incentive for the armed forces to continue carrying out a genocide against the 22 Maya groups of the country.

As Ms. Velasquez noted, the massive violence that the U.S. unleashed on Guatemalan society has yet to abate: "The long-term effects of the massacres are not only visible in the loss of lives and brilliant minds but on the current fragmentations of Guatemalan society. U.S. foreign policy tore apart the social fabric of the country. These policies struck the indigenous population mercilessly, especially in rural areas."

The very same can be said of the U.S.-sponsored massacres in El Salvador. As explained by Robert Bonner, a journalist for The New York Times at the height of the U.S.-sponsored war in that country:

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In El Salvador, more than 75,000 lost their lives during the civil war, which lasted from 1980 until the 1992 peace agreement. The guerrillas committed atrocities, but the United Nations Truth Commission, established as part of the accord, found that more than 85 percent of the killings, kidnappings, and torture had been the work of government forces, which included paramilitaries, death squads, and army units trained by the United States. The United States went well beyond remaining largely silent in the face of human-rights abuses in El Salvador. The State Department and White House often sought to cover up the brutality, to protect the perpetrators of even the most heinous crimes.

And then there is Honduras where the democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a coup in 2009 led by two generals trained by the U.S. at its infamous School of the Americas (a/k/a WHINSEC) in Fort Benning, Georgia. The U.S. then recognized the fraudulent elections which followed and solidified this coup, and things have never been the same for that country.

As Dana Frank, writing in The New York Times, explained in 2012:

the coup was what threw open the doors to a huge increase in drug trafficking and violence, and it unleashed a continuing wave of state-sponsored repression. The . . . government of President Lobo won power in a November 2009 election managed by the same figures who had initiated the coup. Most opposition candidates withdrew in protest, and all major international observers boycotted the election, except for the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, which are financed by the United States. President Obama quickly recognized Mr. Lobo's victory, even when most of Latin America would not. Mr. Lobo's government is, in fact, a child of the coup. It retains most of the military figures who perpetrated the coup, and no one has gone to jail for starting it. This chain of events -- a coup that the United States didn't stop, a fraudulent election that it accepted -- has now allowed corruption to mushroom. The judicial system hardly functions. Impunity reigns. At least 34 members of the opposition have disappeared or been killed, and more than 300 people have been killed by state security forces since the coup, according to the leading human rights organization Cofadeh. At least 13 journalists have been killed since Mr. Lobo took office, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The violence in Honduras, much of it state-sponsored, continues to this day, and the death toll continues to mount. The most notable example of this violence was the recent assassination of human rights and environmental activist Beatrice Caceres earlier this year.

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Motherhood: All love begins and ends there -- Robert Browning





My wife Cheri at Montauk Point

My wife Cheri and I spent this past Mother's Day weekend in North Babylon, Long Island with our good friends Marco and Patty Furino. Though I am a lifelong resident of Upstate New York, I consider Long Island to be my home away from home. Long Island has special significance to me for another reason. During my first ever weekend visit to Long Island in 2010, Patty Furino helped me discover the bigger picture after the death of my 18-year-old daughter Jeannine. As a result of Patty's guidance, I began to view life and death differently. More importantly I began to see that my identity went beyond the role of bereaved father.

In addition to some rest and relaxation, I was in Long Island to speak at the Angela's House Walk to Remember. The audience was primarily mothers who had experienced the death of a child. The significance of being asked to speak at a Mothers Day event did not escape me. Men and women grieve very differently, yet just as intensely. Those differences may often lead to conflict. I decided that in order for my words to inspire those present that I would need to genuinely acknowledge and honor a mother's path after loss. The remainder of this piece will consist of some remarks from my speech intertwined with some additional observations.

My Female Influences

I have an abundance of female energy in my life and have learned over the years to negotiate it, survive it and celebrate it.

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My mother Sadie raised me as a single parent after my father left us; I was five years old. My mother was a warm, intelligent and passionate woman who had unconditional faith in God and the universe.

After my father left, she told me only about his positive qualities. She also told me that in his own way, he loved me with all of his heart. My mother had every right to be bitter and angry but chose to exhibit grace and humility in the most negative of circumstances.

She modeled resiliency for me; her influence helped me face the challenging circumstances we encountered after my father left. Her influence also helped me deal with the challenges that I encountered after Jeannine's death. Who she was became the foundation of who I became and will continue to become. My mother today, remains one of my greatest spiritual teachers.



My mother and me circa 1960s

My wife Cheri to whom I have been married to for almost 34 years, has supported me and loved me unconditionally through both the good and the bad times. She has been a terrific wife, companion and mother to our three children.

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I also have a preponderance of female spiritual teachers in addition to Patty who have helped me develop a greater awareness of myself and the world around me. They have taught me to embrace a peaceful perspective in the aftermath of Jeannine's death.

I have learned through my experiences that a woman's path, in the best of times has its own challenges. I have learned to honor that unconditionally.

Honoring Our Differences

Mothers Day weekend is also a time where we honor the paths of those mothers who have experienced the death of their children. Any holiday intensifies our grief, particularly in the early phase. Sometimes holidays draw attention to the differences in how we grieve. Using Cheri's and my relationship as an example, it was a challenge to understand how we grieved after Jeannine's death. I would distract myself from my emotions through work and other activities, she would freely express hers. I did not want to deal with her emotions because her sadness and tears constantly reminded me of a situation that I could not fix. I couldn't give her Jeannine back. Eventually we learned to respect and bear witness to our own unique expressions of grief and not judge it or bend it to our respective wills. Cheri also helped me understand that I did the best I could, given the circumstances of Jeannine's illness. As a result, I could freely honor not only her path, but also mine.

I encourage all fathers and mothers to witness and honor the unique ways that your grief is expressed. In the process, you may discover joy, meaning and a desire to honor your children through service to others .You may also find some moments of peace and a determination to get to the other side of grief together.

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I would also encourage both mothers and fathers to invite their children to provide inspiration and guidance while embracing a path of rediscovery. The relationships with our children can continue after their physical death. All that is required is a desire to maintain that bond and a belief that our children continue to live on in a different form.
Don't suggest to CCH Pounder that she's a "mother figure" on NCIS: New Orleans.

"I hate that term," says Pounder, who plays forensic pathologist/medical examiner Dr. Loretta Wade in the hit CBS drama. "Because it sounds like mother is always right, which she isn't."

Still, Wade is right more often than not, which is why her findings and analysis are so critical to the team that includes Dwayne Pride (Scott Bakula), Christopher LaSalle (Lucas Black), Meredith Brody (Zoe McLellan) and Sebastian Lund (Rob Kerkovich).

NCIS: New Orleans, the second spinoff from the mighty NCIS mothership, wraps up its second season Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET, firmly established as a hit on its own.

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Pounder's Dr. Wade has established herself as a voice of experience, a skilled "I've seen this before" veteran.

That gives her a certain authority, which she says she works hard not to overplay.

"They wanted her to be intellectual, no-nonsense," says Pounder. "I'm sure someone had that in mind when they cast me - 'Let's get CC, she gives you that look and man, it's over.' "

Pounder isn't a big fan of caricature casting, but she says she liked the part and the character, so once she got the role she went to work.

"I think they had a different idea of the character than I did," she says. "I wanted to soften her, be not so sure of herself every now and then.

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"For the longevity of the show, you need a person who has room to grow. It's essential that they change if they're going to remain a viable part of where the show is going. The things a character did seven or eight years earlier can't always still apply."

Tweaking a character in progress doesn't mean igniting an insurrection on the set, Pounder explains. It's a process in which everyone is involved.

"Working in a series is very different than doing guest roles," she says. "You always have to be aware what your character is becoming, so you're prepared for it.

"Otherwise you're Lucy with the conveyor belt, the same things just rolling along every time.

"It's in the writing, too. The writers start to find things they didn't realize they were looking for."

For Pounder personally, character progression can even leap from one show to another. She says she felt that when she was playing Claudette Wyms in The Shield.

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"I realized I was completing a character I had played in two previous shows," she says, "including Valerie in Full Moon. She hadn't quite gotten to where I felt she was going in those earlier shows, and in The Shield she did, which was really satisfying."

Loretta Wade has a more visceral job than many other characters Pounder has played, and before filming started, she visited the Los Angeles coroner's office.

"I didn't see anything that made me want to run out," she says. "I think I could handle Loretta's job, because I'm not particularly squeamish. Just as long as I didn't see a rat run across the floor."

In fact, she says, she's intrigued by the whole concept of forensic pathology.

"There's great mystery in death, but there's also great problem-solving," she says. "It's kind of fascinating that you can look at someone's arteries and organs and see how they lived."

The 52-year-old Guyana-born Pounder attended Ithaca College and started her professional acting career in New York theater. She moved to Los Angeles in 1982 and has built a long resume in movies and on television.

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Besides The Shield, that includes long runs on ER, Warehouse 13 and Sons of Anarchy.

She says actors still often get cast based on roles they played in the past, but that "I do see progress."

"Black female characters," she says, "can now be responsible, but not always brilliant. Not always beautiful, but gorgeous."

Gay characters can have shades and nuances, not just be "the gay character."

She attributes some of this to the proliferation of TV channels and new-media platforms.

"Creators now," she says, "can tell producers that if they can't get it done in a traditional way, they'll do it their own way."

Pounder says she takes that same non-traditional approach to the broader arena of art, which encompasses her acting and more.

"I've been dealing in contemporary African art for 22 years," she notes, an involvement that included a museum in her husband Boucabar Kone's native Senegal.

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She has also worked with popular art spaces in Los Angeles and New Orleans, and says that one way or another, she will continue to do so.

"It would be hard to retire," she says. "I'd always want to be an artist, an actor, an instructor. As long as you have eyes and hands, you can be an artist in some form.

"I feel like I'm in transition. This show could be my swan song - or I could do Avatar 2 when I'm 95."
If you need an antidote for Downton Abbey withdrawal, and who among us does not, try Amazon's new Julian Fellowes Presents Doctor Thorne.

This three-part British series, based on the Anthony Trollope novel, drops Friday on the streaming service, with a satisfying sweep of Victorian elegance and cliffhanger romance.

Yes, and series was indeed adapted by Julian Fellowes, who wrote Downton.

Set in the 1850s, Doctor Thorne largely revolves around Mary Thorne (Stefanie Martini) (photo above....all photos from Weinstein Company/Amazon Studios), a lovely young woman of about 20 who was raised by her uncle, Dr. Thorne (Tom Hollander).

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While she has no personal riches, she spent much of her formative years at the estate of the Gresham family, which did.

The Greshams are run by the domineering and rather unpleasant Lady Arabella (Rebecca Front), who somehow has raised a kind and considerate son, Frank (Harry Richardson) (also in photo above).

Doctor Thorne opens with a series of polite, rather formal social interactions much in the style of Jane Austen. From these it is clear that Mary and Frank are in love, though Mary fears his social rank would render her unworthy as a wife.

Frank's family feels the same way, it turns out, because they have a secret. They're broke. Years of gambling and reckless spending have forced them to mortgage 90% of their holdings to Sir Roger Scatcherd (Ian McShane) (above).

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The only way they can buy them back is for Frank or a daughter to marry money, big money.

Specifically, they'd like Frank to make a play for Miss Dunstable (Allison Brie), a rich American who playfully collects marriage proposals from Brits who want her cash.

Frank actually gets along quite well with Miss Dunstable, having told her up front that he's in love with Mary. This appeals to the side of Miss Dunstable that would like to believe in romantic love, not a fiduciary union.

Meanwhile, the course of events makes the Scatcherd debt increasingly urgent for the Greshams. It also finally makes Mary aware of a secret about her parentage that we viewers knew from the start.

All these secrets tumble together with some very bad behavior and some rather noble behavior to rearrange the social, financial and romantic playing fields.

In large measure because it's only three episodes long, Doctor Thorne has neither the sweep nor the soap of Downton Abbey. That's not a mark against it, just a gentle warning to fans who might be tempted to compare any British period drama to Downton.

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Doctor Thorne is striking on its own, with lovely visuals and beautiful costumes. Its cast is large enough that a few players inevitably feel two-dimensional, though Fellowes gives solid nuance to most of those about whom we care most -- including Miss Dunstable and Dr. Thorne, seen above.

From its early breezy and wry Austenesque air, Doctor Thorne turns somewhat darker through the middle passages. As in many stylized period dramas, we viewers know what we'd like to happen, and then must wait and see if there's any way it can.
Adapting Garth Ennis's Preacher for television has some of the same degree of difficulty as wrestling with God, so it's impressive that after the first few episodes, the adapter team is still standing.

After several failed earlier attempts, Preacher launches Sunday at 10 p.m. ET on AMC. The first season will run 10 episodes.

Ennis wrote Preacher back in the 1990s as a multi-volume graphic novel about Jesse Custer (above), a Texas preacher on a mission to find God and ask some of the hard questions, like, "Why?"

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He's joined for parts of the trip by his ex-girlfriend Tulip and an Irish vampire named Cassidy. Both are on his side most of the time, but not all the time, as he rolls through a series of wildly imaginative adventures that careen from slapstick humor and pop culture cynicism to supernatural brushes with bizarre other-worldly beings and challenges from hard-eyed old-time gunslingers.

There's also a lot of drinking.

The novel is compelling even to people who don't ordinarily care about comic books or graphic novels, so it's been enticing potential TV adapters for years.

Everyone who tried the project gave up on it, however, until Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen teamed up with director/writer Sam Catlin and they created a version AMC could buy.

Dominic Cooper plays Jesse, and he's got the scraggly-beard look as well as the world-weary, sometimes distracted manner. He doesn't have quite as sharp an edge as the comic book Jesse, but probably no one could.

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Ruth Negga (above) plays Tulip, and the writers have made her a more dangerous wild child than she was in the comic, where some of her behavior was implied.

Joe Gilgun's Cassidy (above) can't quite match the striking visual image from the printed page. But he does capture Cassidy's personality, a sometimes disorienting combination of bemused and menacing.

When he decides he doesn't like a whole planeful of rich jerks, he simply kills them all, then uses a broken bottle as a spigot to draw a refreshing glass of blood.

He is, after all, a vampire.

The core cast, and the early setup, are rounded out by an add-on character: Emily Woodrow (Lucy Griffiths) (above), a single mother who functions as an aide-de-camp for Jesse.

Emily is introduced as basically a good person, which would also describe Jesse and probably Tulip, but doesn't apply to many of the other folks Jesse is already beginning to meet.

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One of the townsfolk in the first episode, for instance, solves the problem of a miserably overbearing mother with a response that will likely make even violence-hardened viewers gasp.

At moments like that, it may help to remember that Catlin was deeply involved with Breaking Bad.

The first few episodes of Preacher involve a fair amount of setup, sorting the story out for newcomers and making it clear to fans of the comic that the TV series will be taking some of its own directions.

It's still not a show into which anyone can slip easily. While Jesse is wrestling with the question of how to become a better preacher for his tiny and underfunded rural church, we see quick flashes of ministers in Africa and Russia running into serious consequences when they talk about prophecies.

Thrilled as fans will be to finally have Preacher on television, it may be a little too dense, mystical and at times downright puzzling to lasso the wider audience for which AMC is no doubt hoping.

Skillfully as Goldberg, Rogen and Catlin have streamlined the comic for a TV narration, its larger quest feels somewhat abstract - unlike, say, saving the world from the zombie apocalypse.

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Cooper's Jesse also starts off slightly hesitant, and while that's true to the character, at some point he'll have to step up the charisma.
The market analysis division of Credit Suisse held a two-day conference in March addressing for-profit education, and many for-profit college industry executives and consultants attended the meeting, held in Boston. Credit Suisse analyst and long-time for-profit college booster Trace Urdan published a revealing write-up of the session on March 21. The press of other business, plus, of course, respect for Credit Suisse paid subscribers, has kept me from describing the report until now, but it's a fascinating document for those who want to know what for-profit college executives talk about when they talk about for-profit colleges, behind closed doors.

Some highlights:

-- DeVry University management, according to Urdan, "had little hope to offer in terms of better near-term enrollment trends." He reports that DeVry CEO Daniel Hamburger "went so far as to suggest that the core DeVry University tech student - young, high-school-educated males - felt disenfranchised and had lost faith with institutions like higher education." But "the really bad news" for the company, according to Urdan, was discussed during the conference's "Washington panel," which included for-profit college industry lawyer Dennis Cariello, industry consultants Diane Auer Jones and Ben Wallerstein, and Inside HigherEd reporter Ashley Smith -- it concerned the Department of Education's ongoing rulemaking regarding federal student loan relief for defrauded students. Urdan opines that if the rulemaking produces "a liberal refund policy in circumstances of broad misrepresentation," that could be trouble for DeVry, which is defending a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission for alleged deceptive practices. Urdan warns, "If any aspect of the FTC claim is upheld in court, if DeVry admits culpability, or if the Department [of Education] reaches its own conclusion regarding misrepresentation, generous loan forgiveness by the Department with recourse to DeVry could bankrupt the company."

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-- Other conference participants agreed that the "[r]egulatory climate" was likely to get "worse" -- meaning more favorable to student interests -- before it gets better. Diane Auer Jones, who cashed in on her role in the George W. Bush administration as assistant secretary for post-secondary education to become an in-house lobbyist for predatory for-profit college company Career Education Corporation before becoming an industry consultant, speculated, according to Urdan, that the new loan relief rule could be accelerated and put into operation before President Obama left office. Participants also speculated that the new enforcement unit created by the Education Department under the direction of an experienced FTC attorney "was keen to prove its mettle and its importance before the end of the administration as well, which could mean additional high profile investigations yet to be announced."

-- Conference participants, including the Washington panelists and former Obama Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller, who is poised to be the new chairman of a private equity-owned University of Phoenix, also speculated about the impact of the presidential election, and they "offered little hope," concluding that it is unlikely to be a "positive catalyst," meaning it is unlikely to shift momentum back to favoring predatory colleges over students. Conference participants indulged in their darkest fears: "There was some speculation that Mrs. Clinton could turn to both Robert Shireman (who has had some influence on the candidate's student loan policy) and James Kvall [actually, Kvaal]; each known for a high level of skepticism toward the proprietary sector." Urdan reports that the panelists knew "little" about who Donald Trump might hire for key education jobs; he does not mention Trump's own expertise in running the predatory Trump University.

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--Tony Miller, according to Urdan, "felt sure" that there was now "a consensus bipartisan position" on Capitol Hill in favor of amending the Higher Education Act to count Department of Defense and VA student aid as federal money in calculating compliance with the federal 90-10 rule, which requires for-profit colleges to obtain at least ten percent of their revenue from non-federal sources. The current bizarre treatment of Pentagon and VA money as non-federal gives poor-performing colleges that are desperate to comply with the rule an unseemly incentive to aggressively recruit vets and service members, so I sure hope Miller is right about this. I also hope he's right in his assessment of an overall shift in the political outlook on the issue: "He further suggested that the for-profit sector's support in Congress was tepid as progressive Democrats were firmly opposed to the sector, conservative Republicans were ambivalent about the student aid program in general, and moderate Republicans had been embarrassed by bad publicity and unwilling to risk political capital anymore to defend the sector."

--Miller also described the plan by his private equity firm, Vistria, and its partner, Apollo Global Management, to take over the University of Phoenix. Shareholders approved the deal earlier this month; the Department of Education still has to decide whether the new owners should get student aid. Miller, according to Urdan's report, believes the new owners "can revive the University of Phoenix by improving completion outcomes dramatically... Mr. Miller is not content to accept conventional wisdom regarding drop-outs among the higher risk students typically served by UOP. He believes the secret to this improvement lies with the university's scale and the ability to use data to tune program and services approaches to enhance efficacy." But Miller, according to Urdan, "was equally clear that UOP's outlook was likely to get worse before it gets better. In making that statement he seemed to offer a materially different view than the one articulated in APOL's recent proxy filing which suggests marked improvement in 2017 and 2018." (!) Labelling Miller's view "highly informed but nevertheless unconventional," Urdan opines that "an increase in private equity interest in other publicly-traded colleges is unlikely." (I'm no market expert, but I find myself agreeing with Trace Urdan here.)

-- Meanwhile, another Phoenix-based for-profit seems to be doing much better. Grand Canyon University CEO Brian Mueller told the conference that demand to enroll in his school was big enough that his company is considering expanding its Phoenix physical campus beyond its year 2020 goal of 25,000 to 40,000 or opening new campuses, perhaps in Tucson, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, and California.

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Urdan concludes, based on the conference discussions, that "the outlook for for-profit providers remains challenging. The regulatory climate for proprietary schools is likely to get worse before it gets better." However, he buys the argument of industry executives like DeVry's Hamburger that enrollment declines more reflect "broad ambivalence toward education among target audiences" instead of "animus toward for-profit providers per se."

Urdan adds that "there seems to still be opportunity for gains from more sophisticated marketing approaches.... The silver lining suggested by our Marketing Best Practices panel was that there is further room in the sector to become more effective through more sophisticated outreach." While Urdan explains that the panelists felt students had become more sophisticated, and says the marketing progress is aimed at more better matching student goals to school offerings, the analysis still gives one pause.

You see, I kinda hoped that, after all the revelations about deceptive advertising and recruiting, high prices, and low-quality programs in the for-profit college sector, the industry would focus, in hopes of reviving its fortunes, on actually improving value for students. But instead, according to industry cheerleader Urdan, the key to future success is "sophisticated marketing."
At the London anti-corruption summit last Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that corruption destroys nation states. He is right - look at Russia. Institutionalized corruption, the systemic merger of organized crime with law enforcement, and the practice of aggressive asset grabbing known as "reiderstvo"  hostile corporate takeovers - are the bane of Russian business. The recent exposure of the Panama Papers has revealed a murky world of offshore corporations from the Caribbean to the Jersey Islands to Lichtenstein, and their multi-billion dollar connections to the highest circles of power in Moscow.

For the last two decades, Russian-style corporate raiding has been on the rise, with the tactics used coming straight out of The Sopranos TV series. In a new report, "The Rise of Reiderstvo: Implications for Russia and the West," George Mason scholars Louise Shelley and Judy Deane document how corrupt judges, prosecutors, police and government officials collude to rob many Russian businesses from legitimate owners.

Reiderstvo has brought down the controlling shareholders of such prominent corporations as YUKOS, Russneft and Bashneft in oil and gas; Stolichnaya Vodka in beverages; Evroset in retail electronics; VKontakte in social media, and many others. These victims not only lose their wealth, they and their loved ones often experience physical harm and may be forced to flee their homeland.

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At first, the targets of reiderstvo were opponents of the ruling regime, such as YUKOS oil company founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and later Pavel Durov, founder of the popular VKontakte social network. Next, they came after juicy assets such as the Stoli international brand built by Yuri Shefler.

In 2014 Putin political loyalist Vladimir Yevtushenkov was arrested in an attempt to force him to give up control of the attractive oil company, Bashneft. These days, the notion of the rule of law and property is dead - even for regime supporters - any minority shareholder can illegally take over a company by applying the ubiquitous and underhanded tools and tactics.

The fact that doing business in Russia is tough is old news. What is new, according to Shelley and Deane, is that reiderstvo in Russia follows a clear and systematic pattern that can be identified early on. By understanding how raiders pull from a well-established toolkit , or "playbook", to efficiently target businesses, investors, lawyers and prosecutors can fight back.

Often, Russian politically powerful biznesmeni pay off tax authorities, police, attorneys, and corporate registrars and commit fraud in the process of criminal takeovers. Paid-for "dark PR" campaigns are carefully planned and executed, sometimes over the course of years.

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Violence and the threat of violence, as well as "lawfare" are additional tools in the kit. Khodorkovsky spent nine years in jail on trumped up charges of tax evasion and theft - of his own oil.

Criminal cases against Evroset founder Yevgeny Chichvarkin were launched, then dropped, but it is still dangerous for the flamboyant businessman to return to his homeland. His mother was mysteriously murdered, but no criminal case was launched to investigate her death.

Russneft founder Mikhail Gutzeriev was declared an international fugitive through Interpol, and his son died in a bizarre traffic accident. Later, Gutzeriev was allowed to return to Russia - and to rebuild his oil business.

In an ongoing case cited by Shelley and Deane, Russian ammonia producer, TogliattiAzot (ToAZ), provides a current example of a company in which criminal raiders followed the playbook to a tee. Since 2005, ToAZ has fallen victim to a series of attacks, which include violence, intimidation, "black PR", corporate fraud and forgery.

The latest raiding attempt, is led by a minority shareholder known internationally for bankrupting companies and stripping assets to fund future ventures. . Although a previous case was thrown out of a London court, a questionable set of international arrest warrants called Interpol Red Notices were taken out against the company's leadership, effectively hamstringing the company and playing into the raider's hands. The Shelley-Deane George Mason University report on reiderstvo exposes a system that is dark and destructive. International businesses and financial institutions; law enforcement; the legal profession; and the expert community should pay heed to the systemic and corrosive problems exposed in the report.

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Communism may be gone, but asset value destruction in Russia is thriving. By failing to stop or curb asset grabbing, by allowing senior state officials to become part and parcel of these predatory practices, the Russian regime - through reiderstvo and corruption  is destroying Russia's chances for economic development, global market integration, and a future as a rule-of-law country. By failing to counter the criminal patterns exercised in Russia's corporate raids today, the Western governments, banks, and international agencies are complicit in the largest robbery of the century.
A decade ago, Ethiopia's girls and women faced some of life's most pressing challenges. Cultural traditions resulted in marriage and childbirth among many who had yet to become adults. Access to safe and modern contraceptives was inadequate, preventing many from spacing their births and robbing them of the right to control their bodies. Our largely rural and pastoralist country lacked the necessary infrastructure and skilled health professionals to provide essential services to girls and women.

In 2005, our Ministry of Health made it our mission to address these challenges. After all, these were our daughters, our sisters and our mothers. They were the ones who quietly and tirelessly fought to provide for their families despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. They deserved much, much better. We set out to develop policies - like our Reproductive Health Strategy and Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty - that respected both girls and women in the present and in future generations. I had always believed that standing with Ethiopia's most vulnerable was simply the right thing to do. Working together with our exceptional leadership team, our Ministry of Health was empowered to make smart investments that could unlock our potential by producing long-lasting health and economic benefits for all.

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The Ministry of Health started by restructuring Ethiopia's previously male-dominated health system with women at the center. As part of our mission to increase access to health coverage, we recruited and trained 38,000 community health workers--many of whom were women--to provide comprehensive prevention and treatment services using a frontline, peer-to-peer model. Girls and women who distrusted the health system were now able to access high-quality services and information from other women to guide their decision-making. We also built capacity for emergency obstetric care. We strengthened our supply chain systems to ensure contraceptives were consistently available. And we created a surveillance network to monitor and mobilize resources to control infectious diseases, which were claiming the lives of too many women and children.

These interventions had a profound impact on the health of our girls and women. Following their widespread implementation, Ethiopia achieved a two-thirds reduction in child mortality, reduced maternal mortality by 69 percent by 2014, and increased contraceptive use from just 8 percent in 2000 to 42 percent in 2014. Our story became evidence that investments in girls and women could produce measurable change.

In part, these achievements are why I will have a seat at the table with fellow advocates in Copenhagen this week for the 4th Women Deliver global conference. It is exhilarating to join the chorus of Women Deliver attendees in highlighting the incredible returns society can realize when investments are made in girls and women. Thank you to Jill Sheffield, the founder of Women Deliver, for her vision and dedication. It is truly inspiring to see the vibrant global network that exists today. A network that includes representatives from governments, foundations, educational institutions, and civil society around the world. There's much to share about Ethiopia's success story and I am looking forward to listening to others about their lessons from their respective locations.

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In looking toward the future of health of societies around the globe, so much is needed if we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Securing the health and rights of girls and women is a necessary condition if we are to succeed. We need advocates from all branches of government and every corner of civil society to work collaboratively in leading the charge. We must acknowledge the inherent linkages between human rights, gender equity and health. And national governments and global donors must commit to providing equal access to education, health care, employment and representation in political and economic decision-making circles.
A leading New York activist praised the jailing of one of the state's most powerful Republicans and his son after their conviction on bribery and corruption charges as a victory for good government.

Judy Pepenella also told me that she expected more "cleaning house" to be done, including in Governor Andrew Cuomo's office.

"Not enough cleaning has been done in New York State," Pepenella -- who is a founding board member of Conservative Society for Action, Coordinator for the New York State Grassroots Coalition, and the state coordinator for Tea Party Patriots -- said. "[U.S. attorney] Preet Bharara has started opening doors, opening windows, letting in the sun. And the cockroaches are running, and the cockroaches are most of the elected officials."

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Bharara is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He has gained a reputation for targeting corrupt politicians in the state, including former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who on Thursday was sentenced to five years in prison. Skelos is one of the people Pepenella called "three men in a room."

"[Former Assembly Speaker] Sheldon Silver -- he's down for 12 years -- Dean Skelos is down for five years, his son for six-and-a-half, and then there's Andrew Cuomo," Pepenella explained. "Recently, three or four of [Cuomo's] top aides are under investigation."

In April, the FBI raided the homes of Joseph Percoco and Todd Howe in connection with Bharara's investigations. Percoco is a former Cuomo aide, and Howe is a lobbyist who worked under Cuomo's father during his time as governor and maintained, until recently, a close relationship with the sitting governor's office as a lobbyist and businessman.

According to The Associated Press, Skelos and Silver -- a Republican and a Democrat, respectively -- are the two highest-ranking officials to leave office under the cloud of investigation. Skelos was convicted last year of using his position to financially benefit his son to the tune of more than $300,000. The judge who sentenced Skelos "calculated the total dollar amount loss of his crime at $680,120, and she fined him $500,000," reported AP.

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Pepenella says Cuomo could be next. "The connection to Cuomo is interesting. He pushed for the Moreland investigation, which was going to break down all of the corruption, it was going to stop corruption. As soon as it got to his door, he shut down the entire investigation. So Cuomo's on fire, but he took care of his own fire."

Members of the Moreland Commission, which was created by Cuomo in 2013 and then shut down nine months later, questioned whether Cuomo's office had interfered with the independence of the investigative group. Earlier this year, according to The New York Times, Bharara's office declared that there was "insufficient evidence to prove a federal crime."

But in a statement issued after Skelos' sentencing, Bharara said he wasn't done attacking corruption, and seemed to take a shot across Cuomo's bow. "The nearly simultaneous convictions of Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos, whose corruption crimes were laid bare during fair and public trials, have no precedent," said Bharara.


Nobel Prize Winner and Former Obama Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu hears from Iceland Summit attendees about their energy saving prototypes

By Sofia Kruszka

On March 21, 2016, the lobby of the Hilton Nordica hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland was not your typical scene. Kids from all over the United States wandered around the lobby, snacking on coffee and fries. They were not gossiping, scheming, or doing anything you would expect a group of 700 jet-lagged high-school students to be doing. Rather, they were discussing the future of energy, contemplating environmental conservation efforts, and developing plans to improve energy consumption in their own American communities. They were all attending the EF Global Student Leaders Summit, a leadership conference created for high school students to brainstorm new and innovative ideas for the future of energy, and to hear from a roster of esteemed speakers, which included William Kamkwamba, Dr. Steven Chu, and Jessica O. Matthews.

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Why would young people want to travel to a distant, cold city on their spring break, when they could be somewhere warm and relaxing? Because every student at the Summit shared one thing in common: a personal mission and deep-seeded passion to change the future of our planet for the better.

Their motivations for wanting to do so varied, but each and every one of them ultimately had a unique and compelling story to tell. So, while there, I decided to listen. I wanted to discover why these student leaders came to the Summit, what they planned to fix in their communities when they returned home, and what they were hoping to learn from their experiences in one of the most energy-independent, cleanest, and energy progressive countries in the world.

Ashley Gifford pulled at her hair before finishing her bitter story. "So we don't know yet if they're planning to take the cars and fix the computer problem...but I can say for sure that my next car probably won't be a Volkswagen." Ashley's 2014 Jetta tdi was one of the cars included in Volkswagen's "Diesel Dupe" scandal and she is now stuck driving a car that is significantly more poisonous to the environment than suggested by the manufacturer at time-of-sale. To make matters worse, she lives in West Virginia, a place where people rely on their cars as their only form of transportation. "My mom has a car, my dad has a truck and a company truck, and I have a car. And then, when my sister turns sixteen, she'll get a car. That's the only way we can get around... it's not just that every family has a car, it's every family member has a car." Realizing this, and recognizing the necessity of car transportation on a day-to-day basis, Ashley wants to find a cleaner alternative to gasoline for the people in her small town.

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Other students at the Summit were motivated by issues similar to Ashley's. Sigurjon Agustsson for instance, an Icelandic student, realized that despite Iceland's clean heating and electricity output, and the country's carbon-conscious attitude, Reykjavik's public transportation system was not up to par. Because the city is so small, the buses in Reykjavik are essentially superfluous. Even if people need the bus, it's often not reliable and the wait time is too long to be convenient - something I can attest to, as someone who has experienced Reykjavik's bus system first-hand! To make matters worse, the buses run on diesel fuel. If Reykjavik is going to have any kind of meaningful public transportation, Sigurjon wants trains, like the subway in New York City, or the Metro in Washington D.C.

Megan Crouse, an energetic student from Columbus, Ohio, also recognized the issue of gas pollution in her town. "In the mornings before school, people wait in their cars, and they burn so much gas... there's four rows of streets that are completely packed with cars in the morning." She sighs emphatically: "It's such a problem."

During his talk, Nobel Laureate and former U.S. Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu had some advice for people like Ashley and Sigurjon. Some of it was comic - he proposed an electric car powered by a battery that "lasts as long as a human bladder: on road trips, when it's time for you to discharge, it can recharge." Some of it was practical. Dr. Chu challenged the audience to examine recently introduced alternatives to liquid transportation fuel. Most importantly, he instilled in the audience a sobering sense of urgency, emphasizing the fact that "the youngest people, the next generations, will have to make the most sacrifices."

The student attendees of the Summit were moved by Dr. Chu's words. We all know we have a responsibility to make the world cleaner. But with such a huge challenge, where should we begin? Megan hopes that her time in Iceland, experiencing clean air and clean land first-hand, will give her ideas for how her community could adopt better habits about the way it uses energy. She was inspired by Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, the President of Iceland (and surprise Summit guest), who reminded students of the power of inspiration, declaring, "Until you experience it up front, clean energy is a vague concept."

Ashley knows the issue she wants to tackle when she returns home to West Virginia. "Everyone [in my town] works in oil, gas, or coal. Both my parents are employed in the industry. I want to help people understand how cleaner energy sources can work for West Virginia too. My state is, for the most part, a poor state. [An alternative to fossil fuels] would have to be an energy source that was readily available, but also inexpensive enough for the people of West Virginia to be able to use and afford it." Ashley represents the people who will suffer if oil and gas are replaced by a more expensive - or less convenient - alternatives. She wants to use what she learned at the Summit to bring her important perspective to the energy debate while promoting alternatives to fossil fuels in communities throughout West Virginia.

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Meanwhile, Bouchra Benghomari and Zahyyeh Abu-Rubieh, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, have already taken the first steps towards making a change in their community by creating and distributing tool kits to residents of affordable housing developments as a way to minimize wasted energy and the costs associated with energy inefficient construction. Bouchra and Zahyyeh attended the Summit to gain a wider view on what other communities around the U.S. are struggling with, and how Iceland has already addressed many of the same challenges, so that they can apply those problems to new projects back in Cambridge.

After hearing from the speakers and attending workshops to learn about the various new methods of conserving energy, students felt like they had a better idea of what needed to change in their communities back home. When asked what she's going to take away from the Summit, Ashley told me that she was inspired by her workshop with Alex Loznak and Victoria Barrett (two plaintiffs in the climate change lawsuit against the Federal Government) on taking political or legal action to fix a community. She plans to write to her state's legislature, asking that they require car dealers to inform the buyer about how much damage the car does to the environment prior to purchase. Sigurjon also wants to write to the city government of Reykjavik about the implementation of a train system.



Alex Loznak of Our Children's Trust speaks with students attending the EF Global Student Leaders Summit in Reykjavik, Iceland

Regardless of what they decide to do, we all now know that the first step to making a difference can be a small one. I took William Kamkwamba's advice to heart: "Start small, and grow from there. Start locally, even personally. If you are the one facing the challenge, you will be better equipped to overcome that challenge."

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We may have arrived in Iceland unsure of what to expect or what to do; but we departed from the Summit having learned from leaders in energy innovation, and inspired by the land and people of Iceland. Armed with a purpose, each of us left with a taste of what the future could be like if our communities worked together to become cleaner about the way they use energy.

The next generation is quickly learning about and feeling the effects of pollution. And young people understand that the future is their own, and that they have the potential - and the greatest reason - to shape that future for the better.

Sofia Kruszka is a high school junior from Alexandria, Virginia.
My identical twin sons were born 8 minutes apart. They look alike, they've gone to the same schools all the way through college, they're both professional dancers, they're both gay. Personality-wise? They couldn't be more different. During the 2004 presidential race, some pundit referred to the vice-presidential candidates as "Mr. Sunshine and Mr. Twilight." That's the dynamic we've got with Darling Sons A and B, and the way they came out to us was completely consistent.

Mind you, we'd picked up clues for years that they might not be headed for a totally cis/hetero life. DS A's decided preference for the Snow White dress-up outfit springs to mind, as does the time his sister dressed him as a bride, with the announcement he was going to marry Frank. Or the fact that one of their favorite movies when they were in grade school was To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.

Neither of them ever said anything, though. DS A (aka Mr. Sunshine) even had a girlfriend for a while in 8th and 9th grade -- although I think the relationship was more her idea, and he, being a kind and cheerful sort, went along with it.

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But then, when they were sophomores, I witnessed a brief interaction between him and another boy at a dance convention -- as he passed by, DS A reached up and touched the other boy's cheek.

Hmmmm.

Still, he didn't mention anything to me, so when the two of us were driving home from a dance rehearsal one day, I brought it up myself.

Me: So. Are you dating Chase?

DS A: (brief pause) Yeah. Is that a problem?

Me: No.

End of conversation.

With DS B (aka Mr. Twilight), it was a whole other story. My daughter and DS A weren't even sure about DS B's sexuality, and he'd certainly never said anything to any of us. They speculated that he might be asexual.

Then, in the summer after the boys' first year at NYU, DS B was finishing up the musical theater program at Jacob's Pillow Dance in Massachusetts. The final performance was on his birthday, so Curmudgeonly Husband and I (who still live in Oregon) couldn't call and talk to him. The following day he was traveling back to New York, but on Monday, I texted him.

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Me: Can we Skype tonight?

DS B: No. I've got Jacob's Pillow people coming over for dinner.

Me: What about tomorrow? Dad and I would really like to talk to you.

DS B: Is this about my Facebook status? Because I'd have thought you think enough of me that it wouldn't matter -- (There was more. I don't entirely remember it, but it was quite the text rant.)

Me: What Facebook status? We just want to talk to you because we didn't have a chance on your birthday.

DS B: Oh.

The Facebook status in question? He'd changed it to being in a relationship with his first boyfriend.

I worried about that for quite a while, though. I mean, why wouldn't he have shared this with us earlier? Surely he couldn't imagine we would disapprove. His brother was out. We had friends who were out -- going all the way back to my best friend in high school. But I have a tendency to suffer from "experience blinders" -- simply because I didn't think coming out would be a big deal, didn't mean he didn't think so.

We talked about it recently. His first response when I asked whether he was afraid that we wouldn't have accepted him was, in the tone of deep disgust that DS B has raised to an art: "Mo-ther. Of course not."

But while DS B is genetically identical to his brother, he's spiritually identical to me, and we both loathe confrontation.

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He said, "I didn't want to deal with it. I wasn't interested in a relationship at the time, and then, when I was, I figured I'd just put it on Facebook and you'd see it."

That's how the Big Gay Reveal happened in our family: in one brief, matter-of-fact conversation, and one social media side-step.

So although I'm an author who writes primarily gay romance, where angst-filled coming-out stories are a stock-in-trade, I'll probably never write one myself. Not because those stories aren't important, or meaningful, or sometimes heartbreaking for the people involved, but because I don't want to write about a world where it's a big deal. I want it to be a given -- you are who you are, you don't have to hide, and although there might still be idiots in the world who are living in the Dark Ages, you don't have to let them into your story.
Now that Donald Trump is all but assured the Republican nomination, the recent exchanges between Putin and Trump deserve more attention. No other candidate has so directly discussed his/her views of Putin, and certainly Russian president has not shared his views on any other candidate but Mr. Trump.



In December of 2015, Putin held a press conference and in response to one of the questions he indicated, "He (Trump) is a bright and talented person without any doubt....adding "he is an outstanding personality ." CNN reported Trump returned the compliment, "It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond...I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect." During his recent MSNBC's Morning Joe interview, Trump further complimented Putin comparing him favorably to President Obama, "He's running his country, and at least he's a leader, you know, unlike what we have in this country."



Trump made his long awaited foreign policy speech in April, most critics in the United States attacked it, however it was well received by Russian officials. Alexy Pushkov, the head of the foreign relations committee of he Russian Parliament favored the speech, stating that Trump, "expresses readiness to come to terms with the Russian President instead of making conflicts with us, the way today's administration is doing." While it certainly would be better for both countries if the "cold war', that has developed as a result of the conflicts in Ukraine, Crimea, Syria and sanctions in general, was somehow resolved. It is far from clear, that this mutual complimenting will result in better relations between the West and Russia. At least it is possible that there can be dialogue where there hasn't been one. Both Trump and Putin share willingness to be frank and to step beyond political correctness.



But there is a difference. Trump was talking in December as a candidate for the Presidency with three opponents still in the race. In April he still had two other opponents in the race. Perhaps it was his view that to be in a dialogue with the President of Russia would elevate his status and differentiate him from his opponents?



Now that he is the presumptive nominee, his words about Russia are already sounding in a different tone. Recently, Russian aircraft have been, according to the Pentagon, buzzing US ships and warplanes. US insist tha Russian airplanes buzzed American ships and planes in two separate incidents in the Baltic Sea. In the light of these of events Trump is no longer sending his compliments to Russian leadership. On May 5th Trump said if he is elected President, he would "warn Putin not to continue, otherwise he would have to take military action'. Trump said, "If it were me, I would call him and say don't do it. Just stop it". Trump stated that if it was to become necessary he would not hesitate to shoot down Russian planes. While Trump may have scored in the public eye with his readiness to shoot down the planes, there are no military experts who feel that an open attack against Russian military would have been appropriate. In fact, it is verified that some of the Russian planes have been unarmed. Commanders of the ships buzzed have been complimented for showing restraint.



While all concerned, would like relations between Russia and America on better terms, it would be a mistake to think that the "romance" between Putin and Trump will continue, or that Trump is somehow better able to deal with Putin. However, look for Trump to articulate that he is tougher than Hillary Clinton and macho enough to deal with Putin. If there has been one repetitive theme of the Trump candidacy it is - how tough he is, and how he is going to change the current situation of "other countries have taken advantage of America".



Trump's speech, at the time when he was fighting other Republicans for the nomination, regarding Vladimir Putin and how he will be able communicate with Russia with mutual respect, is already different than what he is articulating now. In a short period of time he went from respect to threats. No a good sign. Diplomacy is not based on threats.
This past weekend The Period Shop popped up in New York City - part store, part girl cave, part happening, part marketing ploy. It's part of U by Kotex's "The Period Projects" - a new series designed to "make change happen." It certainly seemed an effective way to get people talking about menstruation. The pop up shop was all over social media and in news stories around the country. Yes, people were talking periods.

But, that isn't necessarily enough to change the conversation.

Kudos to Kotex for trying. The challenge though is daunting. How can you begin to rephrase dialog that's been going on for thousands of years? How do you change deeply ingrained mindsets based in negativity and fear? How do you overcome religion and governments and societies telling women they're unclean, incapable, not welcome because they bleed once a month?

Yes, that sounds like a gross exaggeration. Sadly, it's not. The Bible, the Koran, and Hindu texts deem menstruating women dirty. Today in some sects, men and women are still separated for fear of menstrual contamination. One hundred years ago the New York Times said women weren't capable of voting responsibly - menstruation rendered them too emotional. And hey, a certain presidential candidate recently questioned a moderator's efficacy during a national debate suggesting she might have her period. And all this has been reinforced by advertisers. For as long as femcare products have been hawked, fear, secrecy, and shame have been the main messages.

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Back to The Period Shop. According to the illustrated pink and black newsletter I picked up - featuring a cuterus (a cute uterus) and a superhero tampon - the woman who inspired the installation wanted pajamas and manicures and chocolate. Check, check, and check. The pop up had period-themed sleepwear, nail art available including a pink V, a tampon on glitter, and pizza, and artisanal bars for sale. Often when talking about periods the answer seems to be escapism and indulgence. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But what struck me was, "I want a place where I can feel comfortable and respected during an otherwise shitty part of the month." Boom.

Posted on the wall, just as you walk in, those derisive words smacked you in the face. Periods suck.

Walking deeper into the shop felt like exploring a femcare ad in 3D. White walls and harsh lighting created a sterile, antiseptic environment. Tampons hung from the ceiling. Neon installations shared space with spare shelves of neatly stacked merchandise. Throbbing music made it almost impossible to talk.

There was nothing that remotely promoted constructive conversation about menstruation.

Except for the wall where people could fill in MY PERIOD IS (blank):

a crime scene

ruining my weekend

a cry for help

like that scene from Carrie

a blood bath

OVER

the worst thing ever

so dumb

The comments weren't 100% negative. I did read non existent, it reminds me how female I am, nothing to be ashamed of. I watched a U by Kotex rep wipe away MAGIC so someone else could share her thoughts. But positivity certainly wasn't the overwhelming sentiment shared.

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I was recently interviewed about a new product - a blue tooth sensor that would let wearers know when their tampon needed to be changed. Before I could even wrap my head around the device (I still haven't) I was stopped cold by a headline on their website:



Working Hard to Provide a Solution to Menstruation Mortification

There it was again. Profound negativity when it comes to talking about periods.

This company, working on an innovative product that could help women feel more in control, perhaps manage their cycles a bit better instead chose to highlight the nightmares of leaking in white pants and the possibility of toxic shock leading to amputation and death.

We are so subconsciously tethered to the idea that menstruation is a curse, that language and messages put out into the world almost automatically and continually trap us into believing that's true.

What if, going forward, conversation could just be open. Honest. Straightforward. What if we could talk about menstruation without gimmicks or cuteness, without making it the punchline or punching bag. What if we could gently let of of the weight of centuries of blame and trash talking, paranoia and shame.

What if we could leave that all behind and talk about our periods for what they are. Not what we've been conditioned to accept and expect them to be.

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I have helped Sherry, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service, a bit behind the scenes because I identify with her. I will tell you the reason I am sympathetic to Sherry. I am calling her by her first name, because she chose it. As far as I'm concerned, it is her "real" name, though she -- like me -- has a "Chinese" name too. To say she is "Sherry" is to make her human, an individual, and an ordinary one at that.

She could be an older sister or cousin, maybe a young aunt. She resembles the people who visited our house when I was a kid growing up in the 1970s in Detroit, related to us yet a bit awkward in their Asian origins. Very rarely, another Asian immigrant family would show up to stay -- this was before mainland China opened up and the current Asian influx made Asian Americans the fastest-growing minority group -- and they would began a struggle to assimilate that I knew well from my parents' doing everything they could to realize the American Dream only to be regarded as strangers, made fun of for their accents, treated with disrespect for no reason other than race.

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I'm able to relate to her because her actions were normal to her -- and me -- but nefarious to others. She traveled to China. She visited elderly parents. She communicated with a college classmate.

Framed in that manner, neutrally, there is nothing sinister happening. Since she is of Chinese descent, she has family in China. As an immigrant, she left behind colleagues in another country.

It is only by adding the destination "China" or the adjective "Chinese," in an era of anxiety about both competition from overseas and demographic transformation here at home, that any of this becomes threatening, possibly villainous. That is what is so unsettling to anyone who remembers roots in China. It is dangerous even to those of us who have no real recollection of China.

The worst transgression on Sherry's part was sharing a password with a co-worker. That violated the rules, but was common practice as in many offices. She initially forgot but then admitted it. Even that breach should augur in her favor. The reason is that the other party, "guilty" in a mirror image, was not disciplined at all. An expert in dams, she logged into a database. Seeing it was restricted, she did not disseminate its secrets.

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For anyone who looks like Sherry, there is an important warning in her example. Your travel, your closeness to parents, your outreach to someone from school days, all of it can be misinterpreted. In the context of China-bashing, there is a risk in all these activities. Some are negligent in their unconscious bias; others are intentional in their open bigotry.

There is another aspect of all these investigations that should trouble us -- it certainly has been noticed by scientists. The proceedings reflect a closing of society, of the mind. They are counter to a spirit of open inquiry. Human progress has depended on the creation, then the dissemination, of ideas. The former is catalyzed by the latter.

Sherry's woes were brought upon her by a suspicious co-worker. She had enjoyed a distinguished career, even winning an award for saving Cairo, Illinois, from being flooded over a few years back. But someone else in the office reported her as a foreign national. Although Sherry cannot hide -- and ought not need to mask -- that she is of Chinese extraction, she naturalized as an American a generation ago. That should make all the difference, not only because of its literal, legal meaning but also since it indicates an intention to join our nation -- through deliberate action, more than those of us who are native-born can say of our own membership in the community.

As Sherry, Xi and others have advocated for themselves, they have become all the more American. (They have started an online petition for their cause.) They did not set out to be activists. They are scientists who previously shied away from publicity for anything other than technical achievements.

They have found themselves at the forefront of a protest. The framing of its argument is paramount. They are fighting injustice, not as Chinese but as Americans. They are not embarrassed to be of Chinese heritage. But their claim to equality is based on their American citizenship. That is why it is crucial that they -- and I -- be principled. We must care about instances of the problem when the subject could not be our kin.

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Many observers who learn about Sherry's case, with the Xi case and the others, come to the conclusion that it is at least plausible that there is racial profiling occurring. What is almost worse than the mistreatment of Sherry, however, is that there are those who deny even the possibility that the government made a mistake. They dismiss her outright without looking beyond her face.

I am proud of Sherry Chen.
The year Sam started kindergarten, he turned 6 in October. He was one of the oldest children in his class, and he didn't know how to read. When he started first grade he was almost 7, and he still didn't know how to read. Fortunately for Sam, he entered first grade in 1999. And his teachers, Mrs. Gantt and Mrs. Floyd, didn't panic if a child didn't learn to read in kindergarten. In fact, they expected that most children would learn to read in first grade. (They also supported and encouraged children who learned to read easily in kindergarten, like Sam's brother Ben.)

If Sam had started first grade this year, however, he probably would have been labelled as "slow" or "behind." Because the new standard is that children should learn to read in kindergarten. Even though most educators know that many children aren't ready to learn to read until first grade. Even though countries like Finland educate kindergarteners by allowing them to play, not teaching them to academic skills. And even though the new standard causes teachers, parents and even children themselves to worry that something is "wrong" if children aren't reading when they arrive in the first grade classroom.

But guess what? Sam wasn't "slow" or "behind," and neither are most of the other children who don't read in kindergarten. Sam became a fair reader by the end of first grade, and a good reader by third grade. By the time he reached high school he was an honors student. And last weekend, he graduated from college - with a 3.93 grade point average.

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So what happens when education standards require that children like Sam learn to read in kindergarten and that teachers like Mrs. Gantt and Mrs. Floyd had better make it happen? Many educators say the result is ineffective and counterproductive classroom practices. Which means that many children actually learn and retain less than they would in a developmentally-appropriate kindergarten classroom.

So here's my advice. (You can take it with a grain of salt if you like, because I'm not a teacher. But I am Sam's mom.) If your son or daughter doesn't learn to read in kindergarten, relax. Because many, many things are worse than not learning to read in kindergarten. Here are four of them:

Limited time for creative play. Young children learn by playing. They learn by digging and dancing and building and knocking things down, not by filling out piles of worksheets. And they learn by interacting with other children, solving problems, sharing and cooperating, not by drilling phonics. Mrs. Gantt and Mrs. Floyd created fabulous centers and units that allowed children to learn about everything from houses to trucks to pets to oceans. And they snuck in some reading and math skills that the children didn't even notice, because they were so busy playing and creating! Teachers today, however, often have to limit (or even eliminate) time for centers and units, because the academic requirements they are forced to meet don't allow time for creative learning.

Limited physical activity. Few things are more counterproductive than limiting recess and other types of physical play time for children. Children learn better when they move. Parents and teachers know this intuitively, but research also confirms it. Children who have more opportunities to run around and play have better thinking skills and increased brain activity. And don't assume that young children are naturally active and are getting all of the exercise they need; researchers have found that children as young as three and four are surprisingly inactive. Yet many schools are limiting or even eliminating recess, even for very young children.

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Teaching that focuses on standards and testing. Teachers are increasingly under pressure to prepare their students to perform on standardized tests. This means that their focus is shifting from teaching children in ways that match their development and learning styles to "teaching to the test." As one teacher reported, "I have watched as my job requirements swung away from a focus on children, their individual learning styles, emotional needs, and their individual families, interests and strengths to a focus on testing, assessing and scoring young children..." This shift in focus means that teachers have less time to nurture and develop children as lifelong learners, because they're required to focus their efforts on standards that are unrealistic for many children.

Frustration and a sense of failure. Children know when they aren't meeting the expectations of teachers and other adults. What they don't know, however, is that those expectations often make no sense. And because they don't know that, they experience frustration and a sense of failure when they don't measure up. So the boy who thrived in his experiential preschool, but struggles in his academic -focused kindergarten may become frustrated to the point that he "hates school." And the girl who can't sit still for 30 minutes and fill out worksheets knows that she's disappointing her teacher, but doesn't know that the task isn't appropriate for her. Which means that many normal children are becoming frustrated - and are being labelled - by an entirely unrealistic system. As one report has bluntly stated, "Most children are eager to meet high expectations, but their tools and skills as learners as well as their enthusiasm for learning suffer when the demands are inappropriate."

If your child is in kindergarten or first grade and hasn't yet learned to read, don't panic. Talk with his or her doctor about any concerns you have, but recognize that he or she is probably developing normally. If your child's school is pushing academics in kindergarten in place of play-based learning, talk with the teacher. Chances are, she's frustrated and under enormous pressure to get her students ready to "perform." If you're stuck with a kindergarten curriculum that seems unrealistic to you and doesn't fit your child (and assuming that changing schools is not an option), let your child know that you're not worried about reading in kindergarten (or even early in first grade). Talk about people who learned to read later (like Sam!) and are doing just fine. Then do things that promote real learning, like reading books he or she enjoys, playing games, teaching useful skills and getting outside as often as possible to have fun, be active and learn together.

Photo credit - Stock Unlimited

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As I stroll down another street with a Dutch name I don't even dare attempt to pronounce, my shoulder jolts forward as an unknown figure breezes by me. I scoff, taking my gaze off the glassy, modern architecture of The Palace District of Amsterdam, and scan ahead at the offender.

From head-to-toe, the man looks like he speed-walked out of a men's casualwear magazine and straight into a perfect Dutch world made for him. Even on this drizzly day he has the confidence to wear optic white Nike kicks and light wash jeans that hug his petite thighs. His cuffs are rolled one inch to reveal bare ankles despite the rest of his body being bundled in a Canada Goose bomber. His head is freshly shaved on the sides, a perfect tuft of hair on top from what I can see under his studio grade headphones that cover his ears. Before I can even think about it, I focus on his soft, leather backpack and pick up my pace to see where the cool kids hang out in Amsterdam.

I trail my mystery man, crisscrossing across bustling bike lanes (note: look left, right, then left again), and into a much quieter neighborhood with low buildings and designer baby strollers being pushed by people who look too trendy to be parents. Despite the late January chill, homeowners and shopkeepers adorn their windowsills and cobblestoned sidewalks with flowers and potted plants. For a moment, I pretend that I'm walking to my apartment in Boston, and smile to myself.

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The chic man pulls out his iPhone, presumably to pause his indie tune, and slips his headphones around his neck as he pushes the door of what I think is a furniture store. Now, I'm not exactly in the market for a side table, but he holds the door behind him and I enter with a quick "dank je."

I slide my feet against the welcome mat and my breath is stolen from my mouth. The tall, slim building has a classic 17th Century brick facade--tall and thin-- with a 21st-century spin. Despite the gray day, the shop is lit up with natural light via the roof, which is mainly all glass. Long communal tables are sprinkled around with hip young adults typing away on sleek MacBooks or chatting in European languages, sipping from glass espresso cups. I look ahead and see that the expansive shop extends further back and I catch my unknowing tour guide tying a black apron around his waist as he slips behind a counter. I quickly realize that I'm in a cafe-furniture-jewelry-leather-goods-store. The shop has everything, but also, nothing--it can't make up its mind of what it wants to be.

I shrug my raincoat off and drape it over my arm. I stop at a brick wall with four light boxes displaying delicate gold necklaces and geometric, rings. Next to it, I recognize Mystery Man's backpack in four different colors hanging from the walls on Phillips screws. The space is filled with hundreds of mini cacti plants in price-tagged glass, porcelain, and metal pots.

I approach the counter and look up at the menu, pretending to think of something else to get besides my regular cafe order of a small soymilk latte. Mystery Man has his back turned to me as he fiddles with the sound system, changing the song to FKA Twigs' "Kicks," recognizable in the first beat. He turns around and smiles through his scruffy beard (of course he has a beard, right?) and says in Dutch-accented English, "Hoi, what can I get you?"

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"Can I have a small soy latte for here, please?"

"Absolutely," he says, punching in the order on the computer screen,"Have a seat and I will bring it to you. Two-fifty euro, please."

I reach for my coin purse and dump the contents into my hand, trying to fish out the right amount of change.

"Is it obvious that I am American?" I laugh, trying to make the delayed transaction less awkward.



"No, no it's fine," he assures me. "I like when new people come here."

"Well, I like coming to new places," I respond, handing him two coins, clasping my purse.

"Welcome to Amsterdam," he says warmly, "Your coffee will be done shortly." He turns his back again and fills the coffee grinder with fresh beans.

I take a seat at a small table next to the counter and flip through the first magazine on the stack. I scan the first few pages, but a pang of self-loathing emerges in the back of my mind due to my pathetic knowledge of Dutch language. Luckily, I stumble upon a spread of artwork that I immediately recognize at FKA Twigs' cover art. Mystery Man gracefully places my latte down on the table and catches what I'm looking at.

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"You like?" he asks, referring to the artist.

"I love her music," I respond and add in a brief story of seeing her in Boston before I arrived in Amsterdam.

The mention of a familiar American city sparks interest in his eyes and he reveals how he's always wanted to go to "The States." Apparently, every good artist plays in America. I'm embarrassed to admit the small amount of concerts that I've been to, so I nod in agreement with him. He politely excuses himself, seeing a customer approach the counter. I sip on my coffee, admire the artwork in the Dutch magazine and smile to myself. Fuck it, I think, scribbling down "For when you want to see a show in Boston," with my name and number on the napkin Mystery Man left with my latte.
Three years ago, I preached a sermon that radically transformed my life -- ending my career as a theologian, professor and ordained minister. That sermon has been watched by people all over the world, many of whom have come out as trans or intersex nourished by these words of the gospel and Psalms-- only to find that the Church today leads the charge to destroy every aspect of their lives and deny their very existence. In light of ever-increasing high-profile political activism against trans people by "Christian" public leaders like the governors of TX and NC, what did Jesus REALLY say?

Come as you are! God's good news for ALL people

Many Christians say we believe that everyone, without exception, is created in the image of God (Genesis 1.27-28). Even infamous conservative evangelical Pat Robertson not all that long ago spoke out AGAINST transphobia on the Christian Broadcasting Network (July 2013): He rightly explained that although it happens only rarely, some of us identify with genders that seem counter to our own bodies AND argued that this is NOT a sin to be condemned. At the time, Robertson actually criticized Christians who judge others' experience of gender identity, pointing out that it is never our place to decide the validity of others' intentions or to know others' intimate medical history. He argued then that only God can know and judge such things about each of us.

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What does the Bible mean when it says each person is created in God's image? The prophet Jeremiah said God told him: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you" (Jeremiah 1.5 NIV).

So what IS this image of God that Christians believe each of us embodies? God tells Moses that God's name is "I AM" (Exodus 3.14). "I AM" is one of seven core names of God in Jewish (and Christian) biblical tradition. "I AM" is also the name of the trans diversity awareness campaign "Trans People Speak" sponsored by GLAAD, the leading US organization working for LGBT equality, especially in media. For a trans person - as for any person -- to be created in God's image means to share God's likeness, to say of oneself simply "I am!" -- just as God does when asked God's own name.

When God creates humankind, in Hebrew the "collective" word "adam," the human being is created both individual and plural in the first chapter of the Bible's first book (Genesis) "God created the human being in God's own image,... male and female God created them" (v. 27) - as scholars comment in the most recent Oxford English edition of the Bible, "not created to be alone." In the second chapter, the human (adham) simply means one handcrafted by God from the clay or dust of the ground (adhamah) and brought to life by the breath of God's own Spirit - and God recognizes that it isn't good for that human to be alone but rather to have partnership - the one flesh of the adam is then divided toward the very end of the chapter into two equal beings, gendered now as woman and man - a unity Paul later tells us is restored in and through Jesus Christ (Galatians 3.28).

In other words, we are FREE in Christ to live as free people, not bound by gender or any other human limitation. In our own Christian community, even in our own church, some of us can find a very significant freedom in Paul's letter to the earliest Christians in the church at Galatia, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.... It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 3:28 and 5:1 NIV).

Though some in the Christian community do not yet accept that a person who has always tried to conform to what appears to their birth gender can fail at that, we could instead find guidance in the Bible that God's boundless, loving grace and infinite creativity goes well beyond the human cultural constraints regarding gender that we tend to impose on each other. Living enslaved to others' cultural expectations is not required of us in Christ. We are free, even empowered, to be fully ourselves in Christ as God made us - fully human, more (not less) than the social roles of gender, race, class, and religion within which we sometimes confine each other.

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So what do people who are what is sometimes called "gender non-conforming" (including "genderqueer," "androgynous," and / or "transgender") need from God and from those of us who love and follow Jesus? We can start by simply recognizing (without judging) the reality that some of us were created by God differently gendered -- yet fully human and in God's image. Bearing one another's burdens with empathy, we might even be gentle, patient and forebearing with those forced to live in bondage to a human assignment of sex at birth that conflicts with the fullness of who God made them to be. Regardless of sex or gender, we all need the same things from God and from each other. We need solidarity with God and other people: To "walk together," simply and faithfully, with Jesus.

Living in freedom means living with and like Jesus in a way which liberates us all - not just individually but TOGETHER. As an educator-activist emancipated from slavery, Booker T. Washington proclaimed, "There is no defence or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all....'The laws of changeless justice bind oppressor with oppressed."
In the winter of 2008, a team from the World Wildlife Fund-Pakistan travelled south from Lahore to Sindh to verify a report. Someone had spotted an Indian gharial, also known as gavial, in the Naral canal - a small water body that sprouts from the Sukkur Barrage on the Indus. No scientist had seen an Indian gharial in the Indus for nearly 25 years.

The gavial is a species of crocodile unique to the Indus. It was sleek with a long snout and could grow upto 4.5 metres. Male gharials used to have a bulbous mass, locally called the ghara, on the tip of their snout. The WWF team drove up and down this 100-km stretch for days, but in vain. To corroborate the story, they also interviewed people from villages around the canal. One of them, an old man, said: "The last gharial died when Bhutto was hanged."

On the night of April 4, 1979, former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged in Rawalpindi. In the dead of the night, his body was flown down to his ancestral village of Garhi Khuda Baksh in Sindh, where he was buried in his family graveyard.

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Wary of the unrest that would follow the news of Bhutto's assassination, the military government hanged him without any prior notice, leaving the world shell-shocked. Overnight, a cult was created. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became a legend.

The events that followed Bhutto's assassination further helped his cult of personality. The years 1979-1988 were arguably the worst in the political history of Pakistan, with fanatic military dictator Zia-ul-Haq at the helm.

For almost a decade, he unleashed the Islamisation of government institutions, patronised the jihadis against the Soviet Union, and suppressed democratic forces in the country.

Many of the problems that Pakistan faces today, including an Islamic militancy, an inept civilian institution, and perpetual violence against religious minorities, are a direct product of the policies of Zia-ul-Haq.

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Throughout his reign, Zia banned the local media from mentioning Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir Bhutto. Pakistan Peoples Party, which was founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hounded and student politics was eliminated from the root. It was as if Zia wanted to erase the memory from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto from Pakistan.

Zia-ul-Haq died unexpectedly in 1988. He was buried in Islamabad in a modest structure in the lawn of Faisal Masjid in Islamabad. For a few years after his death, Zia's supporters would gather at his grave on his death anniversary and offer flowers.

Leading the procession would be Nawaz Sharif, a protege of the military dictator and the current prime minister of Pakistan. While Zia's death anniversaries were marked with much pomp every year, Bhutto's death anniversary used to be a quiet affair curbed by the military authorities.

Now, the tide has turned. Zia's death anniversary goes unnoticed. The media channels that choose to cover it show horrendous documentaries about the dictator's dark years.

On the other hand, Bhutto is almost universally celebrated in Pakistan. Even Nawaz Sharif now acknowledges the contribution of Bhutto, while he makes no comment about Zia-ul-Haq, a dirty word in contemporary Pakistan.

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At Garhi Khuda Baksh, there is a massive shrine built around the graves of Zulfikar and his daughter Benazir, the former prime minister who was assassinated in 2007. Every day, hundreds of devotees present chadars and flowers to their graves. Many even bow down in front of their graves - much to the chagrin of religious orthodoxy - raising them to the status of saints.

In Gujranwala, which lies in the heart of Punjab, lived one such Bhutto devotee. Abdul Bari Rajput, who passed away a few years ago, belonged to the historical city of Eimanabad near Gujranwala, where Guru Nanak was once incarcerated by the forces of Babur.

It is this initial interaction between Babur and Nanak that set the tone for future Sikh-Mughal relations, ultimately leading to the assassination of Guru Arjun and Guru Tegh Bahadur.

Similarly, for PPP devotees following Bhutto's assassination, the relationship between the political party and the military establishment remained fraught. When Benazir came to power twice in the 1990s, she blamed the military establishment for not allowing the civilian government to function smoothly. Many accuse the military establishment of being responsible for her death and that of her brothers Murtaza and Shahnawaz.

Likewise, Asif Ali Zardari, the current PPP president, hides behind this framework of the military establishment's interference when asked about the effectiveness of the party in the government. It was Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq's relationship that provided the framework through which history and contemporary political developments were understood.

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During the Bhutto era, Abdul Bari Rajput worked with Chaudary Ishaq, the PPP Health Minister from Gujranwala. Rajput was a diehard fan of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Like many, he was shocked at the sudden assassination of his idol.

Following Bhutto's assassination, Abdul Bari Rajput took a vow of silence. He started keeping a notepad and a pen with him at all times to communicate. In a country where a man like Bhutto can be assassinated, there is nothing left to say, he would write. Abdul Bari Rajput spent this life of silent protest for almost three decades, right to his last breath.

There is no dearth of Bhutto devotees all over Pakistan. Hearing about his assassination, many immolated themselves protesting against this political injustice. One of the first to die from burn injuries was Pervaiz Yaqoob from Gujranwala. Five others from different parts of the country followed him to the grave. Begum Naseem, a woman from Lahore, also tried to set fire to herself outside the Mochi Gate in Lahore, but was saved by onlookers.

Intent on meeting someone who still regards Bhutto as a saint, I traveled to Lilyani, a small city in the shadows of Kasur. Now in his seventies, Rana Jamil lives with his children and grandchildren. He travels twice a year to Garhi Khuda Baksh to attend the death anniversary ceremonies of Benazir and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Rana Jamil belongs to a family of diehard PPP loyalists. He lost his mental balance hearing about the news of Bhutto's assassination. Since then, he roams around the streets of Kasur draped in a PPP flag, raising slogans in favour of Bhutto and Benazir. On several occasions, he has disrupted gatherings of other political parties.

There are many such tales all across Pakistan of people who worship Bhutto. For these people, Bhutto is not a political leader but a saint. His legend has only increased over the years and his cult has only gotten stronger. Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq are no longer ordinary members of the political elite. They have now become caricatures, part of a mythology. Bhutto is the hero, a saint, the penultimate man, while Zia is the devil, a rakshasa, who fed on the blood of ordinary Pakistanis.
Earlier this month, the St. Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival took place as it does every spring, but this time around, there was a lot more to celebrate than just the music. This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the event, which has become known as one of the best festivals in the Caribbean.

While the festival actually runs for ten days, there are three that are the main focus, as they feature some of the biggest performers in the world coming through to put on a show for the thousands of music lovers that show up. Headliners this year included Marc Anthony, Air Supply, Shaggy, Omarion, OMI, Kool & The Gang, and plenty of acts that are heroes in the region and to those that love Caribbean music everywhere.



A look at the main stage at the St, Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival through an attendee's phone (photo: Hugh McIntyre)

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While festival organizers clearly went out of their way to book some headlining acts from around the world and those that had sent their hits to the top of the charts in the nearby United States, they didn't end up being the highlights that one might expect them to be, at least not for me. If you live in St. Lucia, I could understand the draw that these musicians would have, as many of them don't visit smaller island nations very often on their tours, but after all was said and done, it was those acts that I had never heard before I arrived that really blew me away.

Artists like OMI and Shaggy are both from the Caribbean, and the people of St. Lucia have clearly not forgotten that. Both of them delivered perfectly fine sets, though they probably could have given it minimal energy and still enjoyed a warm welcome and some serious applause. While they were both certainly enjoyable to watch, I wouldn't put either of them at the top of the list. OMI's summery playlist didn't seem to get the crowd moving as much as I had expected, while Shaggy's hit-laden performance featured a handful of surprising songs that weren't even his, such as DJ Snake's "Turn Down For What," which was obviously played to pump up the crowd...though Shaggy didn't seem to even sing along.

While there were perfectly acceptable performances and a handful that truly took my breath away (literally, after dancing so much), there was one that I must say goes down as a perfect example of how sometimes a famous person rests on their name, and not their performance. American R&B star Omarion took to the stage on the second day of the festival just before the sun set and the party really started. It was clear that there were plenty of younger people excited to see him, and things kicked off alright. He finished what appeared to be a shorter set, just to come back out for an extended encore. While the first half of things were fine, if not terribly exciting, his return was extremely disappointing.

Almost immediately he let his DJ take over, at one point sitting down and waiting while several hits played, none of them being his. For a period of time, he was actually standing and holding a child, but not much else was going on. At times he looked like he could have been dancing...or perhaps the breeze was just blowing him slightly. Before he left, a fan in the front shouted a song title, and it seemed to surprise the performer, who called it a throwback, and he agreed to do it before leaving. His DJ hit play on the song itself, while Omarion stood there, not even pretending to sing for a little over a minute. If I had been a real fan, I'd have been devastated, but as it stands I'm only slightly shocked and supremely disappointed.

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The festival showed its true, brilliant colors when performers like Kes and Kassav took the stage and faced a clearly-excited and amped up crowd. I don't know much about Caribbean music, so I had never heard of either of them, but I wanted to give them a try. From their style to their energy to their overall stage presence, everything was on point, and I can't imagine either of them doing any better...though several people told me this wasn't even them at their best.

I was so thrilled that the various forms of Caribbean music were the best of the festival, as that's really what you want when attending a concert in another country. The mixture of their music and the pure joy coming from the ever-growing crowd tricked me into having a good time without my even realizing it, and every time one of their sets ended, I was simultaneously exhausted and thrilled at the same time.

This festival was clearly not only a big deal for the people of St. Lucia, but a source of national pride. There are plenty of events like this in the U.S., and often times they come and go without being noticed outside the city lines, but that was not the case here. Everywhere I went on the island in the several days I was there, the words "jazz festival" were on people's lips. It seemed like everyone I met brought it up, and they were excited to do so. They seemed honestly happy that I had come to their country for this, as it was a moment when everything looked its best and the entire nation seemed to be putting its best foot forward.

The St. Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival is perhaps your best opportunity to visit the island, as it is when there is more going on than any other time of year. If you get tired of hearing the music and looking at the art, it's pretty difficult to forget that you are also on one of the most naturally stunning islands in the world. If even for a night, it's wonderful to see so many people from the area having what looks like the time of their lives, and to then experience all of the other activities this picturesque nation offers.

If you make it down to St. Lucia, try to hear some real, local music. Forget cover bands or names you're already familiar with. Try something new and you'll be dancing instantly, swaying in the tropical breezes for as long as your feet can hold you up.
U.S. President Barack Obama (R) delivers remarks to reporters after meeting with Vietnam's Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington July 7, 2015. Trong is Vietnam's first party general secretary to visit the U.S., as Hanoi has strengthened its military relationship with former foe Washington since a territorial dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea has heated up in the past couple of years. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

As President Obama visits still-communist Vietnam, a former American rival, in his "pivot to Asia" to recruit more countries to shelter against a rising China, the trip only serves to illustrate the global American Empire's overextension. At the same time, he is opening missile defenses in Europe, quadrupling U.S. military spending there, and deploying more military forces near Russia--all of which will have the effect of continuing to provoke that already insecure country. Also, Obama has failed to withdraw U.S. ground forces from Afghanistan, inserted them into Iraq and Syria to battle the terror group ISIS, and continued his accelerated air wars over Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Libya. Finally, the president sent the top general in the Army to Africa to showcase U.S. efforts to train 38 countries to battle terror groups that could attack Europe, including affiliates of ISIS and al Qaeda. These U.S. military forces may be valiantly battling threats to the Empire, but most of them pose very little threat to America.

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In fact, in many cases--especially vis-a-via terrorists--U.S. military action may be making the largely local problems worse. For example, in Yemen, journalists have documented that the number of fighters of the al Qaeda affiliate there actually increased after U.S. forces, seen as "foreign infidels," started bombing. Also, retaining non-Muslim U.S. and Western occupation forces on Muslim soil in Afghanistan and Iraq after initial invasions respectively led to a resurgent Islamist Taliban and the creation of al Qaeda in Iraq, which morphed into ISIS. Furthermore, U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan destabilized surrounding areas, such as Syria and the nuclear-armed state of Pakistan, respectively. Similarly, the U.S. and Western overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in Libya destabilized not only Libya (allowing chaos to reign and an ISIS affiliate to arise), but many of Libya's weapons and fighters migrated to Mali and other parts of Africa. Hence contributing to the alleged need to send the Army's top general to coordinate with 38 countries in battling Islamist terror groups in Africa.

All of these post-9/11 brushfire wars led that general--Gen. Mark A. Milley--to make an astounding statement: "Today, a major in the Army knows nothing but fighting terrorists and guerillas, because he came into the Army after 9/11. But as we get into the higher-end threats, our skills have atrophied over 15 years." MIlley continued that the U.S. Army has forgotten how to fight more sophisticated enemies, such as Russia or China. So instead of being capable of deterring potentially larger threats to the United States (even this requires some imagination), the U.S. military has become bogged down in never-ending, faraway brushfire wars, which make the usually low probability threat of anti-U.S. terrorism worse.

Even in the case of Russia and China, rich U.S. European and East Asian allies--with combined GDPs of at least five times and about the same size as the threat, respectively--should take over the first line of defense, as presidential candidate Donald Trump has implied. However, if these allies can't contain these regional threats, the U.S. military should be configured and prepared to be a backstop of last resort in case of any emergency--a defense posture that worked in World War II.

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Throughout my career, I've witnessed progress on many conservation issues, including endangered species protection, habitat management and the fight against climate change. But in recent years, the cornerstone environmental laws that safeguard our natural heritage have come under ever more aggressive attacks from Congress.

Legislative proposals that assault the integrity of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and undermine conservation crop up almost everywhere you look. H.R. 2406, the so-called "Sportsmen's Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act," passed the House of Representatives in February. Supposedly meant to improve sporting and recreational opportunities, it was riddled with anti-environmental provisions and was a disaster for our wildlife and public lands. Now, S. 659, the "Bipartisan Sportsmen's Act of 2016," has been approved by the Senate Environment Committee and is waiting for consideration by the full Senate. Some of the worst provisions in the House bill also appear in this Senate version.

Similar to its House counterpart, S. 659 has quickly become a vehicle for undermining America's bedrock conservation laws. If this legislation passes the Senate and makes it across the President's desk, it will have devastating consequences for some of our most iconic wildlife.

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Just like in H.R. 2406, the Senate sportsmen's bill continues the war on wolves by stripping away federal protections for gray wolves in Wyoming and the Great Lakes region. It overrides two federal court decisions that found that agency rules delisting wolves violated the ESA. The legislation also bars citizens from further challenging these wolf delistings in court. Congress should not be meddling with ESA listings for individual species. These decisions should be based on science, not politics.

The Senate bill also mirrors the harmful House sportsmen's bill by blocking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) from finalizing a rule to protect wolves, grizzly bears and other native carnivores on federal national wildlife refuges in Alaska. The state of Alaska has adopted an intensive "predator control" policy designed to dramatically reduce these species in order to artificially boost game populations. This scientifically indefensible program authorizes extreme non-subsistence hunting practices for these iconic carnivores, including trapping, baiting, aerial gunning, killing at den sites and killing mothers and young. The Service's new rule would prevent the application of these aggressive killing methods on America's wildlife refuges, ensuring these public lands are managed in accordance with fundamental federal laws to conserve species and habitats in their natural diversity. Yet the House and Senate sportsmen's bills bar these essential conservation measures.

Both the House and Senate bills are a nightmare for wildlife. They pander to special economic interests, block commonsense regulations, overturn Endangered Species Act protections and interfere with management of our national wildlife refuges. The House version even includes a provision that blocks efforts to crack down on the illegal ivory trade- despite the fact that an African elephant is poached every 15 minutes for its ivory tusks, pushing this treasured species closer and closer to the brink of extinction.

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41 years ago on the morning of May 15th, I watched a parade.

Hundreds of victorious North Vietnamese troops and tanks along with carefully choreographed young "National Liberation Front" supporters streamed down the street in front of Saigon's Presidential Palace. Russian and Chinese made vehicles carried the soldiers. A colleague joked: "Vietnamese soldiers fight awfully well but just can't march."

Over the previous sixteen days, I had witnessed -- the last Americans leave the U.S. Embassy, T-54 tanks sweep into the city, the first of millions of refugees flee toward the South China Sea, and a new Communist-led government consolidate power across all of Vietnam.

[Video: May 15 1975] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd7tDsn9cpw

On May 14th, the top North Vietnamese leaders arrived in Saigon for the first time. With them from Hanoi came a small diplomatic corps including the Ambassadors from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.

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There was this day a display of solidarity; solidarity between Hanoi leaders and those of the National Liberation Front or Provisional Revolutionary Government of the South -- the forces we used to call the "Viet Cong." A display of solidarity too among the Vietnamese and their Russian and Chinese allies.

Without their Chinese and Russian allies, Hanoi could not have won the war.

Reports from the C-I-A, declassified between 2001 and 2008, chronicle "endemic competition" between Moscow and Beijing in supplying weapons to North Vietnam between 1965 and 1973. The Russians provided the bulk of Hanoi's air defenses while the Chinese provided "a range of weapons and routine ground level assistance," sending in ground troops to assist in logistical and construction support.

All of this cooperation was soon to fall apart. The May 15th rally was an illusion in many ways.

Vietnam's relations with China grew steadily worse. Vietnam invaded Cambodia and grew closer to the Soviet Union. China seethed.

Four years after the American war, the Vietnamese were using Chinese weapons to defend themselves against the invading donor.

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In late March 1979, I stood amid rubble in Lang Son Vietnam only 12 miles south of China's Guangxi Province.

Chinese and Vietnamese forces had just ended a 29 day border war there. China's had launched an incursion to "teach Vietnam a lesson."

In its aftermath, northern Vietnam was again on a war footing. Ethnic Chinese residents joined the flood of refugees fleeing Vietnam. Anti-Chinese sentiment grew to alarming levels.

[Video: April 1, 1979] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziVaVBxTSoY Sixteen months ago, I was back in Vietnam once more, speeding along the spectacular central coastal region north of Da Nang. My companion -- a very talkative taxi driver.

Like China, Vietnam has changed beyond recognition in the nearly 40 years I have been visiting these communist neighbors. Nearly every year since 1979, I have returned to one or the other or both to witness astounded economic progress.

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But some things don't change.

My driver in Da Nang asked me where I was going after I worked my way up the Vietnamese coast. "From Hue to Hanoi and then on the Beijing," I replied.

"Oh, China," the driver declared in clear but halting English, "you know, we Vietnamese hate the Chinese. We've hated them for a thousand years."

It is actually more than two thousand. The Vietnamese speak of four periods of Chinese domination; the first from about the year 100 BC.

Monuments in various parts of the country celebrate the Trung Sisters -- Hai Ba Trung -- the two remarkable women warriors who fought the Chinese and died bravely in combat in the year 43AD. In most Vietnam towns and cities there is a "Le Loi Street;" in honor of the Vietnamese Emperor-hero who beat the Chinese, ending Ming Dynasty domination in 1427.

Professor Qiang Zhai, a Chinese historian who has charted the course of the two nations from Imperial times to when Mao Zedong met Ho Chi Minh in 1959 to forge an alliance, says the two are locked in a centuries old "love-hate relationship."

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This week, President Barack Obama enters the fray with a visit to Vietnam. He is the third U.S. President to travel there since the war. (I traveled with the first -- Bill Clinton -- in November 2000.)

Obama goes to Vietnam as Hanoi-Beijing tensions are again on the rise.

Last November, efforts by President Xi Jinping to ease those strains by addressing Vietnam's parliament appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

The two socialist neighbors and comrades in revolution and war should be able to survive "disruptions" and go on to be "win-win partners" said Xi. He received a cool reception and little applause. Xi's failure to mention the long simmering South China Sea territorial dispute except obliquely prompted MP Duong Trung Quoc to remark: "Mr. Xi can speak of China's interests, but Vietnam's interests cannot be pushed aside."

In January, Vietnam protested a Chinese move to place an oil rig in alleged Vietnamese waters. In 2014, a similar move by China sparked major riots in Vietnam.

Two months ago, Hanoi police did nothing to stop anti-Chinese demonstrations.

The territorial dispute centers around what Western nations in the 19th Century named the Spratly and Paracel chains -- islands stretching hundreds of miles south of the large Chinese island of Hainan.

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Vietnam says its active rule of these areas began in the 17th Century and that China did not lay claim to them until the 1940's. China disputes that. [The Philippines also lays claims to some of these islands]

At stake are an estimated 11 billion barrels of oil in the region, additional quantities of natural gas, and trillions of dollars in trade passing through the sea lanes.

In the past, the Hanoi leadership seemed split on how to handle Beijing. What Americans might call 'hawks' and 'doves" sit on Vietnam's ruling politiburo. Today Hanoi seeks counterweights to what they see as continuing Chinese provocations.

Hanoi's Ambassador to Washington, Pham Quang Vinh, has called for the complete lifting of America's embargo on weapons sales to Vietnam.

President Obama will likely not go that far. Half measures have already been implemented.In October 2014, Washington approved the sale of U.S. made patrol boats to bolster Vietnam's coast guard.

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The U.S. will likely move forward and OK military requests on a case-by-case basis.

The Vietnamese also have other options. The Russians have been open to arms sales to Hanoi at lower prices for years.

Much recent focus has been on Vietnam's key naval port of Cam Ranh Bay. The port on the central coast has been described as the finest deep water port in Southeast Asia.

A major U.S. base during the American War, Cam Ranh was leased to the Soviet Union in late 1979. Russia pulled out in 2002. Since then the port has been modernized and has received visits by warships from Singapore, Japan and France.

The U.S. Navy has enjoyed increasing cooperation with Vietnam's Navy since 2004. That year, the port of Da Nang (320 miles north of Cam Ranh) received the first U.S. warship since the war. Look for what the Pentagon calls "NEA:" Naval Engagement Activity to be expanded.
Most people in Miami might not realize the importance of Miami Dade College's Wolfson Campus. In addition to being a bustling urban campus with 40,000 students enrolled, it is of course the administrative hub of the whole college wide system overseeing eight other campuses and 136,000 students, making the school the largest college in the country. And this is only the tip of Wolfson's Iceberg.

Miami Dade College also owns the Freedom Tower and it is a part of the Wolfson campus. The Freedom Tower is Miami's greatest landmark and it does not sit empty.

The first floor is home to an open-air reception hall, free to the public when not in use. Marco Rubio launched his presidential campaign from that room. John Kerry spoke just last month. The King of Spain received an award recently also.

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The first and 2nd floor is also a museum, free to the public, housing permanent and rotating exhibits in photography and a variety of other mediums.

That is the MDC Museum of Art + Design (MOA+D).

The third through eighth floors of the Tower house administrative offices.

MOA+D is on the 3rd.

The fifth, seventh and eighth floors are home to The Center for Writing and Literature at Miami Dade College, producers of the Miami Book Fair, the Miami Writers Institute, countless literary events throughout the year and the Read to Learn book drive program giving tens of thousands of books away to kids each year.

Below them on the 4th floor is the Miami International Film Festival and the 6th floor is occupied by MDC Live Arts, whose programming is broad in range.

The Freedom Tower is still our Statue of Liberty, yet more so as it currently produces our finest and most reputable culture. Anything more liberating than culture?

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Miami Dade College also recently established the Miami Culinary Institute, Bldg. 9, basically a culinary school hosting an amazing food and wine theater, a fine dining restaurant on the top floor and a deliciously affordable cafe on the ground floor.

Then there is Building 8: home to MAGIC, the new state of the art animation and game design studio. Start climbing that building, pass two floors of modern classrooms, you'll find the Idea Center, a Knight Foundation project home to startup companies with an emphasis on tech and coding, climb higher you'll discover the Wolfson archives, Miami's largest home of visual footage documenting our history and climb to the top floor you'll find a gym to work out in.

Wolfson also has an Honor's College that is among the best in the nation.

Wolfson houses the Earth Ethics Institute, focusing on environmental issues.

They also have the School of Continuing Education, offering hundreds of non-accredited programs to those who want to learn but are not interested in a degree.

Don't forget the University of Florida has a campus at Wolfson called the New World School of the Arts, and there is a charter school for high school students with the same name in the same building.

As if this wasn't enough, Miami Dade College recently acquired another landmark property for Wolfson, the old Miami U.S. Courthouse that has been shuttered since 2008. This building is one of the most classical in the city and Miami Dade absorbed it for free. The college and the government's property-management arm, the General Services Administration, signed a 115-year, one-dollar-a-year lease agreement.

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According to the Miami Herald, MDC officials don't yet have a firm plan for the building's use, but they have contemplated housing in it the college's architecture school, a paralegal-training program and its fashion institute.

I live in this neighborhood. Walk its streets daily and find inspiration and heartbreak.

I teach at this school too, among others like Barry University, and I can testify under oath Wolfson's student body is among the most unique and diverse in the country.
Wild Lupin, Oil on Linen, 79 x 57 inches

Artist Pat Mahony enjoys taking long walks that give her time to reflect and take in her surroundings. Over the past two years, while taking these strolls, Mahony has become tuned in to what she calls the "perfect chaos" of closely observed nature. It is this wild and unpredictable energy--the randomness of light and color seen at a particular moment in time--that has inspired her recent oil paintings. Capturing just the right balance of chaos and structure has been a challenge. "My goal," Mahony explains, "has been to somehow define the chaos of nature without losing the necessity of creating a cohesive painting that hopefully elicits an emotional response from the viewer.

I recently interviewed Pat to ask her about her recent paintings, which will be on view at the John Natsoulas Center for the Arts in Davis, beginning on May 18th.

John Seed Interviews Pat Mahony

Pat Mahony

Pat, tell me about your education and early career

I attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, and graduated with a BA with honors in 1973. Because of my financial circumstances I was unable to attend graduate school despite the encouragement of my professors. I worked in the financial field as a stockbroker, first full time and then part time until I could devote myself full time to my art.

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At that point I took classes from several prominent artists here in Sacramento and finally with their help I was finally affiliated with the Artists' Contemporary Gallery. This was the premier gallery at the time in Sacramento and represented Wayne Thiebaud and Gregory Kondos among other luminaries. It was a huge break for me. This was in 1980. I had my first solo show at Sacramento City College in 1981.

Purple Iris, Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

What kind of work were you doing in the 80s?

Even though my background/degree in college was in printmaking and oil painting, I first started working in watercolors. I have always tended to paint what I know. I was living in an urban environment at the time so I painted architectural scenes. They were interpretations of building facades, focusing on shadows and windows in a grid-like fashion. I started getting national exposure in that medium and won awards in national watercolor competitions and appeared in many watercolor and artist magazines. I also caught the eye of Allan Stone, of the Allan Stone Gallery in New York, and he exhibited some of my work in group shows starting in 1987.

Red Sapling, Oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches

How did your work change over time?

It was after that time that my husband and I moved to a rural location on the Sacramento River. The move caused me to shift my focus to the landscape. It was at this time that I decided to switch back to oil painting. I wanted to work in larger formats and have greater color fastness with the paint. Almost all of the work I did from 1988 to 2002 were my impressions of the River and the surrounding farmland. The landscapes were well received and many are in the permanent collections of corporate and public institutions.

Spring Pear, Oil on linen, 48 x 36 inches

Tell me about how the imagery of your current show evolved.

In 2002 we moved to another part of town where my studio backs up to a nature preserve and the American River. The riparian habitat is very different here from the one along the Sacramento River. I have been greatly influenced again by my surroundings. The current show involves my observations over the last two years of walking in the forested area near my home.

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Japanese Maple, Oil on paper, 30 x 22 inches

Most of my previous landscapes were influenced by memories of nature and vistas were seen as a whole. In my walks over the past 2 years I began to notice the wild energy reflected in nature up close and began to observe what I would characterize as a perfect chaos. The harmony I always saw before was slowly being replaced by the sheer randomness of light and color given the particular day or time of year. My goal was to somehow define the chaos without losing the necessity of creating a cohesive painting that hopefully elicits an emotional response from the viewer.

Spring Countryside, Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

What kinds of materials, media, sizes and ideas are you currently working with?

All of the paintings in the show are oils on canvas, linen, or paper. Many of the paintings are quite large, up to 7' x 7'. The idea with some of the large pieces is to bring the viewer into the tree canopy. In others I attempted to magnify the wild flora. In all of these cases my intent is to push the representational aspects of what I see to the edge of abstraction. Especially on the large pieces, I have tried to match the wildness of nature with a wild and physical application of paint.

Yellow Leaves, Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

Where does your work seem to be going?

I find myself throwing paint at the canvas and/or using my hands to apply the medium in an effort to reflect what I am seeing and feeling in the subject matter. My work has always hovered between representation and abstraction but this is a new phase for me. I feel it is part of my evolution toward total abstraction. In this series I feel as if I were having a conversation with nature.
Globe and Dollar Sign, Economy and Climate Change Concept

We're on the eve of a new dawn in environmental reporting by companies and investors. Some may think that's a bold prediction. Just a few months ago, a report from Ernst & Young and the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute concluded that only slightly more than half of large, publicly-traded American companies even list climate change as a risk. And, for those that do, "disclosures often are generic and do not provide clear, concise and insightful information."

So why is it about to change? First, there now is data reported and analyzed. Second, mainstream investment houses like Goldman Sachs are building billions of dollars in investment products that rely on that data; they are not about to let disclosure backslide. Third, heavyweights of the financial establishment -- including Bloomberg LP founder Michael Bloomberg, former SEC Chair Mary Schapiro and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney -- are committed to making it happen.

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It's been a 500-year journey to get to this tipping point. To understand it, start with one of the most remarkable, if forgotten, figures in history: Brother Luca Pacioli, a 15th century Italian Friar.

Brother Luca taught perspective to Leonardo da Vinci. His book, "Everything About Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion", was printed on the Guttenberg press. And he basically invented accounting. His system allowed the merchants selling fish and fruit in Renaissance Florence to understand if they made or lost money. But while they may have been dependent on the sea and the fields of Tuscany, the health of the natural systems was taken as a given. As a result, Brother Luca taught people how to paint the environment, but not how to account for it.

Flash forward to the Great Depression, when the United States' corporate disclosure regimen was created. In the Depression, Washington started to regulate corporate disclosure based on the technicality that that shares are traded across state lines. Therefore, the legal underpinning in the US is trading in shares. So it is understandable, if regrettable, that our national disclosure regime was founded on short-term financial indicators.

As a result, only relatively recently have we built up environmental reporting. For instance, the Global Reporting Initiative, the first major international institution to provide a widely accepted environmental reporting framework, only will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year. CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project was founded in 2000. The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), which has just finished promulgating multi-stakeholder sourced sustainability performance indicators by industry sector, is not even five years old. .

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While the data is not comprehensive or comparable, and often is not validated, at least some data exists. That's allows analysis. Specialist advisory firms like Sustainalytics advise institutional investors on the environmental profiles and risks of the companies in which they invest. More recently, mainstream investment houses like Goldman Sachs and MSCI have used the data to create products like low-carbon index funds. There are already billions of dollars invested.

The next major step in that evolution is likely to take place at the end of this year. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney chairs the Financial Stability Board (FSB), which monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. Last December, at the Paris climate change meeting, COP-21, he announced the FSB-sponsored "Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures". And then he seeded it with global financial star power. The Chair is Bloomberg LP founder Michael Bloomberg. The Vice Chair is former SEC Chair Mary Schapiro.

Bloomberg and Schapiro have put their reputations on the line. They have been lobbying national stock exchanges. They have appeared before both the Investor Summit on Climate Risk and the 10th anniversary celebration of the Principles on Responsible Investment. Each time they have conveyed the same message: They expect to issue a report around the end of the year, and expect a number of national bodies to adopt those recommendations in 2017. Meanwhile, here in the United States, the SEC has a major corporate disclosure review project underway.
FILE -- In this May 18, 2010 file photo, Dominika Stanley and Charles Jones hold a photo of their 7-year-old daughter Aiyana Jones in an attorney's office in Southfield, Mich. Aiyana was killed while she slept on a couch by a Detroit police officer accused of handling his gun recklessly during a frantic search for a murder suspect in 2010. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)

May 16, 2016 marks the tragic death of a little black girl named Aiyana Stanley Jones. Six years ago Aiyana, 7, was killed while she slept at her grandmother's house. Joseph Weekley, the Detroit Police Officer who fatally shot her during a botched raid, is still on the force. Despite being charged with involuntary manslaughter and two lesser charges, juries failed to reach verdicts and the charges were eventually dropped in January 2015.

The loss of this innocent baby girl is heartbreaking and it is a stain on the soul of this nation. It's also a sickening comment on the state of black girlhood in America.

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Earlier this year, news accounts and press releases made it seem like the moment for the recognition of black girls' humanity had finally come. For example, after years of lobbying, the White House finally launched an initiative aimed at improving the lives of black and Latina girls -- something similar to the program My Brother's Keeper. Even more recently, The NoVo Foundation, created by Peter and Jennifer Buffett, launched a seven-year, $90 million commitment to "support and deepen the movement for girls and young women of color in the United States."

These developments follow the tireless work of organizations such as the African American Policy Forum and the Human Rights Project for Girls and reflect the impact of studies on the lives of black girls undertaken by researchers -- from historians like LaKisha Simmons to social justice scholars like Monique Morris. In April, the Black Girl Movement gathering in New York marked the nation's first conference on black girls.

This momentum is positive and necessary. Unfortunately, it does not overshadow the virulent hatred and misogynoir that jeopardizes African American girls' very existence.

From the racist vitriol spewed at the first-daughter, Malia Obama, a brilliant student who has been admitted to Harvard University to the white supremacist's bullets that whizzed past a five-year-old black girl hiding among the dead during last summer's shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina to the beating and subsequent criminalization of a 16-year-old Spring Valley High School student by a school resource officer -- black girls lives have yet to matter.

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Countless studies have now ticked off the ways that black girls are extremely vulnerable to sexual assault and criminalization because of it. Studies have shown how black girls are suspended more than white girls and even black boys, who are themselves disproportionately targeted by school disciplinary policies. Research indicates that black children are regarded as violent threats and black girls are viewed as loud, hostile, and aggressive -- stereotypes that eclipse their humanity and their youth.

The failure to obtain justice for Aiyana is rooted in all of these issues. Still, in order to upend these dynamics we have to get justice for this child and her grieving family because we will not achieve substantive change for black children, let alone all black people, until we do.

There is no moving forward until Joseph Weekley is brought to justice for taking Aiyana's life.

There is no reconciliation until the humanity of our children is sacrosanct.

There is no forgetting about Aiyana Stanley Jones. She was seven years old, asleep at her grandmother's house. An officer shot and killed her and walked away.

On May 21, 2016, a peaceful rally will be held in Detroit outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center to remember Aiyana and all victims of police brutality. If you cannot get to Detroit, contact the Department of Justice and demand that they investigate this case because black children must have the right to exist without deadly police violence. We should also continue to call on the government to demilitarize the police and to specifically curtail no-knock warrants and the use of SWAT units like the one Joseph Weekley led.

We need justice for Aiyana and we need to turn the tide in this country for the sake of all black girls.
In part one of this two-part article, I explained why successful leaders don't have an open door policy (i.e., the practice of leaving their office doors "open" so that employees feel welcome to stop by at any time to meet informally, ask questions, or share feedback).

While the goals are noble, the disadvantages inherent to an open door policy include:

It puts the onus on an employee to have the professional courage to approach senior executives with an idea or issue to discuss.

Employees who overuse the privilege may become overly dependent on management to make decisions and solve problems, severely limiting opportunities for these individuals to develop their own abilities to do so.

Unscheduled interruptions reduce the focus and productivity of senior leaders, leaving them unable to get solid chunks of productive time completed.

In organizations where the hierarchy is especially important (such as the military or government), it degrades the chain of command.

So, what methods can be used to promote transparency, collaboration, and trust without the negatives that come along with leaving the door open?

Scheduled Office Hours

As we've established, traditional open door policies can quickly lead to major productivity losses for managers and executives. But what if a simple tweak could maintain all of the benefits of the open door policy, without being a productivity killer?

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If your door is always open, even figuratively, you never know what your day is going to look like. In contrast, keeping the door open only during limited and pre-set times allows you to keep control, and prevents others from interrupting your flow. Additionally, by reducing the opportunities available, you force your people to trust their instincts on smaller matters and seek guidance or advice only if the issue is large enough.

Set The Ground Rules

Karen Baetzel, CEO of BattleAxe Consulting, spent 30 years in the US Navy as an aviator. She told me:

"I think the unqualified open door is an invitation to organizational turmoil. What I think is much better policy is a "half-open door", and when I was Commanding Officer, I would explain exactly what that meant. It meant you could come to me:

When the traditional chain of command is not working the way you know it is supposed to work, not when you didn't get the answer you wanted When you think something unsafe, illegal or un-American is going on You understand the consequences of misusing or trivializing the privilege."

After Nick in Australia discovered that his wide-open door policy was leading to dependency, he implemented the "two solution" rule. He said:

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"At the very least, all of our staff has now been made aware that they are never to come to management with a problem, unless they can propose two or three possible solutions. If they can't, I ask them to go away and come back to me when they can."

Hold Weekly One-on-Ones

When it comes to forging quality communication that benefits both you and your direct reports, there are few tools more powerful than the weekly, prescheduled one-on-one.

Scheduled one-on-ones take away the "unexpected" element of an open door policy, and provide a predictable cadence to your interactions. Amelia will be less likely to barge in unannounced on Thursday or Friday when she knows she has a standing check-in with you each Monday.

Just remember that the one-on-one is actually the employee's meeting. You're here for them. Routine topics may include any new developments since last week's check-in and their tasks for the upcoming week, and of course how you can help them.

Further, these weekly meetings enable you to build rapport and to stay in touch on big personal items on an ongoing basis. As a type-A introvert, none of my team members would ever consider me warm and fuzzy. But my first question every Monday is usually a simple, "How was your weekend?"

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Keep A Schedule Of Group Meetings

Although the one-on-one is of primary importance, it's just one piece of an effective communication cadence. Additional meetings should include:

Weekly team meetings

Monthly division meetings

Quarterly all company town halls

The goal is to build a scheduled rhythm of communication that encompasses all employees, no matter how "high" your position in the hierarchy is. These group meetings provide information or context to all team members. Individuals will be less likely to walk in unscheduled to ask you about how sales are going, or what's the status of the software rollout or other items.

The Takeaway

In case you still have reservations about shutting your open door, perhaps you should consider this feedback from Melinda, who sums it up best:
We all care about what others think of us and want to be liked (despite what rebellious 15-year-old you might have said).

The basics of getting people to like you are obvious -- be nice, be considerate, be a decent human being. Those things are all true. However, there are also many smaller, more discreet things you can do that can have a huge effect on how others perceive you.

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Most of these tips are little techniques you can implement every day. They may seem insignificant or even silly, but give them a try and you might find yourself becoming exponentially more popular.



1. Use a Person's Name

Let's face it -- we're all huge narcissists and we all love the sound of our own name. Learn names and make use of them. Always use an individual's name in a conversation. A classic from Dale Carnegie's famous book How to Win Friends and Influence People, this tried-and-true technique is sure to increase your fan base.



2. Smile -- With Feeling!

Although we live in a digital age that increasingly substitutes technology for human interaction, we are still, at our cores, very social creatures. We use social interaction as a tool for feedback, and we make a lot of conscious and subconscious choices based on how others engage with and respond to us.

When someone offers a huge grin brimming with authenticity, happiness rubs off on its receivers. There have been many studies showing how mood, whether positive or negative, spreads between individuals. If your positive attitude brightens someone else's day, that person will love you for it.

3. Listen (Not Just With Your Ears)

It's probably a no-brainer that people will like you more if you listen to them. This starts with ignoring your Twitter feed while out to dinner with friends, but goes a lot further than that. You can show you're listening to someone through body language (positioning your body to face someone and mirroring his or her stance), eye contact (giving plenty of it), and verbal confirmation (we'll talk more about this next).



4. Use Verbal Confirmation

Most psychology books refer to this technique as "active listening." Active listening revolves around demonstrating your listening skills by repeating segments of what an individual has said to you. For example:

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Mark: I went to this awesome beer tasting event over the weekend -- I got to try a ton of great local beers from all over the state.

You: You got to try a lot of different beer, huh?

Mark: Yes, it was really fun. My favorite was the Pretty Things Magnifico.

You: The Magnifico was your favorite?

Mark: Yeah, it tasted great.

While in text form this looks like a strange conversation, in speech this kind of dialogue can actually go a long way to make people like you more. It makes the other individual feel as though you really are paying attention. Plus, people love to hear their own words echoed back at them as it pats their egos a bit.



5. Conversation Recall: Prove You're Paying Attention.

We've already discussed how important it is to show people that you're listening to them. Snoring during a speech or getting a glazed look in your eyes doesn't result in fast friends.

To really show someone you've been paying attention, try bringing up a topic that the person mentioned earlier. Did your co-worker talk about working with his son on a science fair project last week? Follow up and ask how it went. Did your friend say she was going to paint her kitchen a new color over the weekend? Ask how she likes the new color on Monday. They don't have to be big, life-changing events. In fact, sometimes it says more that you can recall and show interest in even the small happenings in another person's life.



6. Sincere Compliments and Plentiful Praise

As noted again by the famous self-improvement expert Dale Carnegie, individuals crave authentic appreciation. This is very different from empty flattery, which most people are adept at detecting. No one likes a brown-nose, and most people don't particularly love being pandered to. What people really want is sincere appreciation -- to be recognized and appreciated for their efforts.

In addition to giving people sincere appreciation, it's also important to be generous with your praise. People love being praised, and is it any surprise? It feels great to be told you've performed a job well. When an individual does something right, say so. It won't be forgotten.

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7. Handle Criticism With Tact

In the same vein, while you want to be generous with your praise, be stingy with your criticism. People have delicate egos, and even a slight word of condemnation can wound someone's pride. Of course correction will be necessary at times, but it should always have a purpose and be handled with care. If someone makes an error, don't call that person out in front of a group. Be discreet, be delicate. Consider offering up a compliment sandwich -- a deliciously effective strategy that involves dishing out praise before and after a criticism. For example:

That newsletter template you sent over looks great, good work. So it looks like there were a few numerical errors in that recent report you sent over -- just be sure to double check those numbers. I also wanted to tell you to keep up the great stuff you've been posting in Facebook -- I've been seeing a big boost in engagement.

Your goal should really be to get the other person to recognize the mistakes without you pointing them out. Even in the example above, you could simply say, "I saw a few numerical errors in that recent report you sent over," and wait for a response. If the individual responds apologetically and promises to try harder, you don't need to drive home the subject. Tell them not to worry, that you're sure they'll get the hang of it, and move on. The less finger-pointing, the better.

Another strategy for diplomatically dispensing corrections is to begin by discussing your own mistakes before digging into someone else's errors. Ultimately, aim to be always gentle with criticism and only offer it when it's truly needed.



8. Avoid Issuing Orders -- Ask Questions Instead

No one enjoys being bossed around. So what do you do when you need something done? The truth is that you can get the same result from asking a question as you can by giving an order. The outcome may be the same, but the individual's feeling and attitude can vary greatly depending on your approach.

Going simply from, "Jim, I need those reports by tonight. Get them to me ASAP" to "Jim do you think you could send me those reports by this afternoon? It'd be a huge help," makes a world of difference.

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9. Be a Real Person, Not a Robot.

People like to see character and authenticity. While classic business doctrine pushes the importance of an alpha male stance (shoulder back, chin up, strong handshake), it's easy to go overboard and come off as fake.

Instead, try to be confident but respectful. Some cooperation experts suggest stepping toward a person and bending slightly forward when you're introduced, in a gesture of a bow. These kinds of gestures can go a long way toward making people think more highly of you.

10. Become an Expert in Storytelling

People love a good story, and great stories require sophisticated storytellers. Storytelling is an art form that requires understanding of language and pacing. Master the fine oral tradition of storytelling and people will flock to you like you're The Bard.

11. Physical touch.

This one's a bit tricky, and I hesitate to even mention it because obviously it needs to be done in a certain manner. This isn't an invite to give shoulder rubs to your coworkers. However, it has been shown that very subtle physical touch makes individuals feel more connected to you. A great example is gently touching someone's forearm (with your left hand) while shaking hands (with your right hand) -- it's a great way to finish up a conversation. Not everyone will feel comfortable with this strategy, and if it's not for you, that's fine.

12. Ask for advice.

Asking someone for advice is, somewhat surprisingly, a great strategy for getting people to like you. Asking for advice shows that you value the other individual's opinion and demonstrates respect. Everyone likes to feel needed and important. When you make someone feel better about himself or herself, that person will most certainly end up liking you for it.

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13. Avoid the cliches.

Let's face it -- most of us don't like boring people. They are snores and horrifically uninteresting. Instead, we like the unusual, the unique -- sometimes even the bizarre.

One great example of situations in which it's important to avoid cliches is in interviews. Rather than parroting the "nice to meet you"s at the conclusion of an interview, add some kind of variation to make you memorable, even in a tiny way. Try something like "I've really enjoyed talking with you today" or "It's been a real pleasure learning more about [insert company]." You don't have to reinvent the wheel -- just be yourself.



14. Ask questions.

Asking other people questions -- about their lives, their interests, their passions -- is a surefire way to get brownie points in their friendship books. People are egocentric -- they love to talk about themselves. If you're asking questions and getting people to talk about themselves, they'll leave the conversation thinking you're the coolest. Even if the conversation didn't really give the other person a reason to like you, he or she will think better of you subconsciously just for indulging this or her ego.

This new infographic by Visme shows how you can do exactly that:

Infographic by Visme

Originally published on Medium.


Paradigm Design Group

As the lead designer and founder of Paradigm Design Group, Lisa Haude is an expert in livable luxury. Lisa has built Paradigm Design Group into a hospitality design powerhouse. With projects ranging from The Roosevelt Waldorf Astoria in New Orleans, to the award winning the Portland Marriott Downtown, to boutique hotels and numerous Hilton Hotels across the United States, Lisa prides herself on her design versatility.

Lisa and her team are known for approaching every endeavor with focused attention to the distinguishing characteristics of the task. Each project highlights the unique attributes of its surroundings, giving Lisa's portfolio a breadth of range few can match.

Lisa's love and enthusiasm for her craft can be seen in every hotel, every detail and most recently in her fabric and other licensed collections.

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How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?

I grew up in a traditional, middle-class family where my dad worked and my mom stayed home with the five kids. My dad earned his college degree while attending night school during my early elementary years then worked his way up the corporate ladder through hard work and perseverance.

My parents were my very first mentors and the core values they instilled in me are very similar to those I use today. My dad was always working, attending school, or in the early days, working multiple jobs to make a better life for him and his family. Yet, when we needed him, he was there. He showed time and time again how important school was and that earning people's respect by being fair, honest and trustworthy was invaluable. He was well known for his strong but gentle approach. A lot of people looked up to him and still seek him out for advice or guidance.

My mom, on the other hand, taught me how to love unconditionally, to seek the higher ground at all times, to keep humor in my life and to remain organized. How else could someone survive a household with five kids and multiple pets (cat, dogs, birds, fish and oh, don't forget the turtle from the side of the road)!

Their combined mentorship created the fundamental basis of who I am today. Then, as I worked my way through my first design jobs, college and later other design firms before starting my own firm, I continued to learn from each and every situation. I reached out and found mentors along the way and always soaked up as much as I could possibly learn.

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Leadership is problem solving, keeping calm in the face of an insurmountable situation, and helping others learn their own valuable lessons. Though success is not necessarily a precursor for leadership, I feel equipped to lead my business based on all of the challenges I have faced and overcome.

How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at Paradigm Design Group?

My first real job started my Junior year in High School. I entered a work/study program at school and worked in a human resources department for a large corporation. I met an amazing woman who I still stay in touch with today and am proud to call her one of my mentors. I learned early on the importance of details, meticulous note-taking and the art of listening - truly listening to the person you are sitting with and understanding what they really want or need. While I really did not want a job in a HR department the rest of my life, I took away these very practical skills that are so very important in what I currently do today.

The following year I was determined to find an interior design firm that my school would accept for the required work/study program and I used the skills I had learned in the program to convince the owner of the firm that she NEEDED to hire me. I could become her personal assistant and I would help her with all of her clients. Luckily, she agreed and I stayed with her until my Junior year in college. Here again I soaked in everything and anything I could about the design industry during those years and was eager to move on to complete the final phases of my college degree.

When I relocated to Waco, TX to complete my design studies at Baylor University, I befriended a local designer and convinced her that she needed a personal assistant as well. I started working a few hours a week with her and continued to strengthen my core design skills (drawings, sketches, selections, working with clients) as I finished up my degree program.

During my Junior year at Baylor, I became exposed to hospitality design and it was love at first sight. I began studying all of the top firms in the industry and tried to learn what really made them tick. How did they start, where did they start, who were the key players? Then I had the idea that I had to meet them or at the very least interview them. An idea was hatched and I convinced our school that we needed to create a student design summit day where these talented owners could come and talk to us at our school. Luckily I was the president of the ASID student chapter that year and I was able to convince our faculty to agree. I was fortunate to meet Deborah Lloyd Forrest during that design summit and she and I quickly hit it off and stayed in touch the balance of my schooling. She offered me a design internship and later my first hospitality design job post graduation.

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As the years progressed, I continued to grow and learn in each new position that I held and was thrilled to be doing something that I loved. But, I wanted more. Finally, in August 2001, I had enough courage to start my own business. My husband, who is also my business partner, quit his very successful, high-profile job, so he could help me manage and build our company. We were very excited as I was given an opportunity to work on a large project in the West Coast under my own name and we felt like it would be a great way to launch Paradigm Design Group.

What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at Paradigm Design Group?

The biggest challenge we had occurred on 9/11 - a mere 10 days after my husband quit his job and we were slated to begin our first big project. As we watched the towers fall that day, we sat in shock like the rest of the nation and wondered what we should do. Here we were, both unemployed and any prospects that we had for work had just disappeared.

We didn't give up, but instead developed a plan of attack for marketing and I just kept going. I encountered people that only pretended to be interested, that ignored me, and others that were just flat out rude. Regardless, I continued to plug on and would not take no for an answer. I knew I only needed one big break and I finally found it.

It has not been an easy climb since 2001. With each new step you take, you discover new hurdles that need to be dealt with. Hiring employees, dealing with issues - client or employee related, finding additional workspace, then juggling family life and parenthood as that was suddenly part of the plan, and the list goes on and on.

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However, no matter how bad a day may have been, I am thankful for each and every challenge along the way. It has made me a stronger person, a better designer and owner and most of all it has given me the opportunity to meet amazing people.

I take each day as an opportunity to learn something new. I think with this type of role, you have to be able to adapt and be open to new things and ideas. But you also have to know that you have to trust your instincts too. On September 13, 2001, I knew in my gut that I could do this and would be successful at it. Today, I still know that I can, but I am not alone. Instead a team of very talented and passionate designers and architects as well as great clients surrounds me. It is a privilege to work with them each day.

What advice can you offer to women who want a career in your industry?

I recommend that you have perseverance, stamina and a "never give up" attitude. If you choose to start your own firm, there are so many hurdles and obstacles along the way that you must figure out how to overcome. However, by following this mantra, you will succeed. You also have to be willing to learn from your mistakes and reach out to others when you need advice.

Not everyone can fill this type of role - just like not everyone can be a manager. You have to learn how to work with various types of people and situations and adapt accordingly, mentor younger team members and provide open communication among all parties.

Finally, you should always be honest, fair, trustworthy and respectful to all parties. No matter how angry you may be at a person or a situation, always lead with grace and give others respect. The golden rule is really the best rule.



What is the most important lesson you've learned in your career to date?

I have learned to listen to my heart. No matter what challenge sits in front of me, I know that if I sit down, reflect and truly listen, I will figure out the best path to take and make the right decision.

This has been proven to me over and over again since the firm was founded in 2001.

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How do you maintain a work/life balance?

As the President of the company, this one is hard to maintain at times. However, I work at it each day. Often my day starts quite early as I try to fit it all in, but I work at adjusting my schedule so that I can attend the important events in my young daughter's life (this includes homework, classroom visits, sporting events, play dates, etc.), but also make time for family vacations, spending time reconnecting with my husband, hanging out with friends and most importantly attending church and ensuring that we work as a family giving back to our community. By keeping these elements centered in my life, I find myself able to better focus at being a good manager, leader and designer.

What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?

I think this varies for each person and what part of the journey they may be in. Women who have careers and families may struggle with constantly finding that balance between the two while others may be fighting the corporate ladder and the "old boys club" mentality.

For me, I find that my biggest issue is reminding myself that I cannot do it all alone, nor should I. I hope that if anything, I have learned that it takes a village to raise a family, to grow or sustain a successful business and that you have to learn from your mistakes- good and bad. Perhaps we women, since we are always trying to prove that we can do it all really need to stop trying to do just that. Just because we are a female does not mean that we need to be perfect at everything - nobody certainly expects that from our male counterpart. Instead, perhaps we need to learn that it's ok to not be perfect and to reach for that help when we need it - no matter what it might be.



How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?

I was fortunate that my husband started the firm with me and he brought his business brain to the mix while I brought the artistic side. So in many ways he was one of my first mentors early on. He really taught me how to become a better leader and a manager and was a big influence and help to me. Today he still acts as our CFO, but is not as involved in the day to day since he is now more focused on other business directions. However, he is always right there to bounce ideas and suggestions off of and is my biggest cheerleader, besides my daughter, providing encouragement, especially when I need it most.

I also became very involved within my industry and networked at industry events, reached out and asked advice of others who were wiser and certainly there longer than I had been. It was so great to be able to sit down with very successful men and women over the years and just pick their brains as I tried to fully understand the best way to hire your team, price your projects and be the most effective at it. I also read a lot of management and leadership books.

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My parents too have been excellent mentors to me over the years. They have taught me so many basic principals that are important in everyday life and how you carry yourself, with grace, with understanding and with compassion.

Which other female leaders do you admire and why?

Wow, that's a tricky question to answer. There are so many great female leaders that I admire its hard to pinpoint them all.

My grandmothers are probably at the top of the list. They were both widowed at a very young age and still had children to raise after their husbands died. My mom was only 10 years old and my maternal grandmother had to find a job and raise her young daughter plus three more and maintain a household by herself in an era when that was unheard of. She lived a very full and happy life well into her 90's and never complained about the fate that was handed to her.

My paternal grandmother was a bit older and her two children at home were closer to adulthood when my grandfather died, but she too had to show incredible strength to carry on, sell their family farm and basically start her life over.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for her style, elegance, poise and grace. Eleanor Roosevelt for her ability to be outspoken yet diplomatic. Diana, Princess of Wales for her endless energy and devotion towards charity and humanitarian work. Tory Burch for her ongoing foundation and support of women entrepreneurs.
PALM BEACH, FL - MARCH 11: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump walks with former presidential candidate Ben Carson before he receives his endorsement at the Mar-A-Lago Club on March 11, 2016 in Palm Beach, Florida. Presidential candidates continue to campaign before Florida's March 15th primary day. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald I am really, really rich Trump is, according to Forbes, the 121st richest person in America. So, yes, he is really, really rich.

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Born into wealth, Trump attended private schools and inherited $40 million when he was just 28 years old. He didnt spend summers volunteering for Habitat for Humanity in Appalachia. He didnt take a gap year to put that fancy private school education to use tutoring inner city kids. So, frankly, its easy to understand why he opposes raising the minimum wage. This guy who was born with a really, really silver spoon in his mouth doesnt have a clue what living on $7.25 an hour means.

Like all robber barons, Trump cant spare a dime. He made that clear in the November Fox News debate. Trump said $7.25 is too much, too high a wage for the guy working two minimum-wage jobs to keep a roof over his widowed mothers head or the single mother working 60 hours a week at two fast food joints to support her child.

Fox moderator Neil Cavuto asked Really Really Rich Trump if he was sympathetic to protesters demanding the minimum wage be raised.

Taxes too high, wages too high, Trump said later to explain his position that America couldnt compete against other nations if U.S. workers are paid a living wage.

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To put that in perspective, the annual income of a minimum-wage worker laboring full time for a year without a single sick day or vacation day is $15,080. That is $920 short of the $16,000 in annual fees required of members at Trumps Mar-A-Lago Club in Florida.

But Trump thinks wages are too high. He has no idea what a $7.25-an-hour life is.

After the debate, in an interview on MSNBCs Morning Joe, Trump went further, making it clear, that as a rich man, he didnt care, either, that all workers wages had stagnated for years even as their productivity steadily rose.

No worker should get a raise, he told Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski.

Our wages are too high. We have to compete with other countries, the really, really rich man told Brzezinski.

The guy born to wealth and privilege said that the skilled electrician who is still paying off his trade school loans and who goes out in ice storms to repair lines for $58,000 a year is paid too much. The rich guy whose father handed him a $1 million loan to start his business says that the woman who scrimped and strived to be the first in her family to graduate from college and now works as an emergency room nurse saving lives makes too much at $68,000 a year.

Their wages are too high, Trump said. Gotta cut em to compete with China. A race to the bottom is what Trump has in mind. For working people, that is. Not for really, really rich guys like him. Theyre exempted, of course. Like theyre exempted from those annoying airport security lines.

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Trumps reasoning is the same as Mitt Romneys. Remember Mitt Corporations are people, my friend Romney? The two rich guys have the same values. That is, they value corporations over people.

Trump explained shortly after the November debate that he intended to stiff the working poor because business was more important to him. He would stand strong against raising the minimum wage, he said, because our country is losing business.

Trump didnt say that CEO million-dollar paychecks should be cut. He didnt say the tens of billions handed out in Wall Street bonuses should be eliminated. No way. Those are the perks of his buddies, the rich guys he hangs out with at Mar-A-Lago. He specified only that the pay of poor people was too high.

All that big money at the top could actually be meaningful to minimum-wage workers. For example, in 2014, the $28.5 billion in bonuses handed out on Wall Street was twice the annual pay for the 1 million Americans who worked full-time at the $7.25 minimum wage.

The 167,800 Wall Streeters who grabbed those billions actually did pretty crappy work too. Wall Street profits declined 4.5 percent. Thats the kind of job that would get a minimum-wage worker fired, not rewarded.

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So when the rich like Trump do badly, they get more money. When low-wage workers faithfully perform their jobs, Trump says, Give them less money!

Now that the really, really rich guy is the presumptive nominee, however, hes double-talking. On NBCs Meet The Press, he told Chuck Todd that hes become sympathetic to minimum wage workers, but hes not going to do anything about their plight. Here is what he said:

I have seen what's going on. And I don't know how people make it on $7.25 an hour. Now, with that being said, I would like to see an increase of some magnitude. But I'd rather leave it to the states. Let the states decide.

So, ok, its hard. Some minimum wage workers are homeless. They work, but sleep on the street. Virtually all survive only with the help of taxpayer-funded public benefits like food stamps, Medicaid and public housing. So theyre the victims of scorn, despite laboring full-time.

Maybe its not right. But a President Donald Trump is not going to lift a finger to help minimum wage workers. If workers happen to live in a state that wants to let corporations exploit employees, a President Trump wouldnt intervene to save workers day.

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This is a really, really rich guy completely oblivious to the anxieties of American families  including the ultimate nightmare of a boss shouting, Youre fired! This is a guy who told a reporter that no one has done as much for equality as he has because he opened his Mar-A-Lago Club to everyone  a club requiring a $100,000 initiation fee  a fee nearly twice the average annual earnings of an American worker.
Ever since North Carolina's state government was taken over by tea party Republicans, people in the Tar Heel State have become used to seeing their state making national headlines for all the wrong reasons. And thanks to Gov. Pat McCrory's new anti-transgender law known as HB2 -- and the federal civil rights lawsuit it has provoked -- the negative coverage of North Carolina has grown at an exponential rate over the last few months.

It's certainly easy to look at the tidal wave of regressive policies coming out of the state legislature these days and assume there must be something fundamentally wrong with North Carolina -- that the people of a state which voted for Barack Obama in 2008 must have caught conservative fever and abandoned North Carolina's history of progress. But if you look a little deeper, the grassroots movement which has arisen to fight HB2 can provide an inspirational model for progressive change -- not just for other Republican-held states the South, but across the nation.

The biggest grassroots response against HB2 has been from the business community -- an outcry that was conspicuously absent during North Carolina's 2012 fight over Amendment One. In part because very few major employers spoke out against the ballot initiative banning marriage equality, it ended up succeeding by 22 points. In fact, the Amendment One fight may have actually led North Carolina Republicans to believe business leaders would be similarly hesitant to weigh in on HB2 -- an assumption that couldn't have been more wrong.

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Within days after Gov. McCrory signed HB2 into law, hundreds of businesses began speaking out against the latest right-wing attempt to discriminate against LGBT North Carolinians -- including four of the top six private-sector employers in the state. After Google Ventures announced that it would no longer invest in North Carolina companies because of HB2, Raleigh's growing startup community organized an effort dedicated to repealing the law. Nearly 200 startups representing over 5,000 jobs have signed the Startups Against HB2 petition, in addition to the hundreds of companies which have joined Equality NC in calling for HB2's repeal.

Meanwhile, a dedicated group of activists has been sounding the alarm on a weekly basis about Gov. McCrory's assault on civil rights and human decency -- and making sure the governor can hear them loud and clear. Every Wednesday evening, the "Raleigh Air Horn Orchestra" meets outside the Governor's Mansion to blast air horns and blow every kind of instrument from trumpets to vuvuzelas as a loud reminder of the grassroots opposition to HB2. You can see coverage of the Air Horn Orchestra's past "performances" here:

One part political protest, one part performance art, the Air Horn Orchestra is anything but traditional -- and that's by design. "Traditional protests don't always engage young people or change minds," said Tina Haver Currin, an organizer and "conductor" of the weekly event. "Instead, we have found the most success by invoking humor and changing the dialogue--or, in this case, having no dialogue at all. The Air Horn Orchestra is a fun, cathartic event AND a representation of what we currently hear coming out of the governor's mouth: a bunch of noise."

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Tina and her husband Grayson Haver Currin also launched an effort to keep big-name artists from boycotting North Carolina over HB2. When artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and Ringo Starr started canceling their North Carolina shows, the local power couple came to the conclusion that cultural and artistic boycotts -- especially in liberal cities such as Raleigh and Charlotte -- harm the wrong group of people. That's why they formed NC Needs You, a group dedicated to turning boycotts into benefits for progressive organizations who are fighting to repeal HB2. In just over a month, NC Needs You has channeled profits from a sold-out Mumford & Sons arena show and a Duran Duran amphitheater gig to local organizations supporting LGBT equality and other progressive causes. They helped convince Beyonce not to cancel her recent show in Raleigh (you're welcome, Beyhive), and even got Animal Collective to sell recordings of their live shows to benefit Progress North Carolina.

"There is an essential ground game to win in North Carolina come November, and there are vulnerable communities to protect until we can overthrow the current bigoted system," said Tina. "Though gerrymandering continues to make it difficult to enact positive change in North Carolina, people are still choosing to speak up and act out. Thanks especially to the Internet, people can now coordinate and connect like never before. If there's anything positive to come out of this, it's watching as people from all walks of life empower and amplify each other's voices in response to this hateful legislation."
Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff reacts during a news conference at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, April 18, 2016. REUTERS/Adriano Machado TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Brazil is on trial, and the world is watching. Marred by corruption scandals, political crises, and weak economics, Brazil, once dubbed the "awakening giant," is now, to some at least, the "laughing stock" of the world.

Last Friday President Dilma Rousseff left office descending a ramp she previously climbed encircled by political allies, including former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. That descent could potentially mark the end of the Workers Party's 13-year rule in Brazil. The Senate voted to strip the President's duties while she is tried for allegedly manipulating the government's books, a maneuver known locally as "pedaladas fiscais". Although the impeachment process is not over many analysts believe that her chances of being reinstated are slim.

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I could here offer an opinion on the merits of the impeachment process or pontificate on where President Rousseff went wrong. But I offer instead an alternative narrative, one based on hope and optimism that seeks to interpret the present crisis as a transformative development in Brazil's political evolution, one that seeks to find a glimmer of light amid "the ruins of government".

Evolving Into A Peaceful Democracy

A country can only aspire to democracy. Democratic government is something to be perfected. And the impeachment process, regardless of its merits, is a welcome opportunity to allow Brazilian institutions to investigate its head of state, and potentially remove her, in a peaceful fashion. This is significant because governmental change in Brazil has not always been peaceful. But long gone are the days of the 1964 military coup that threw Brazil into a 20-year military dictatorship.

Tellingly, this is not the first time a Brazilian president is subject to impeachment. In 1992, Fernando Collor, Brazil's first democratically elected head of state since military rule ended, was suspended from his duties due to allegations of corruption. But Collor's and Rousseff's impeachment experiences differ in many ways, and signal that the Brazilian democratic engine is maturing. Whereas Collor's impeachment proceedings commenced within 48 hours of the presentation of a half-page complaint, Rousseff's proceedings took 23 days and was grounded on 128 pages of detailed allegations. Importantly, in both cases, there was no violence.

Nor was there any marked violence in protests against and in support of President Rousseff. Millions of Brazilians flooded the streets earlier this year to voice their opinions peacefully. Though political violence is not unheard of in Brazil, the absence of violence in national protests related to the President and her government is to be welcome. These events could have sparked violent confrontations. After all, Brazil is ranked 103rd in the Global Peace Index, which measures, inter alia, the level of safety and security in society.

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Therein lies a powerful lesson: democratic governance is about using civilized tools and dialogue, not violence, to effect political change. Of course, the impeachment process should be invoked by elected officials on behalf of the people, and not as part of a game of thrones plot to usurp power for political purposes.

Bound By Laws, Not BribesDemocracy and the rule of law go hand in hand. The rule of law implies that no one is above the law and everyone is equal before the law regardless of status. Since 2013, Brazilian authorities have been investigating a massive corruption scheme involving Petrobras -- a state-owned oil company -- its contractors, and a number of prominent politicians. Dubbed the "Lava Jato", the investigation has resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of many senior company executives and politicians. Whereas in the old days corruption was quietly accepted as "custo Brasil" -- the cost of doing business in the country, the "Lava Jato" investigation is sending a message to public and private sectors that no one is above the law.

This is a remarkable feat. By the end of the investigation, it may be that corruption will no longer be a defining trait of doing business in Brazil. By tackling head-on the largest corruption scandal in its history, Brazil is setting an invaluable precedent for the rule of law for decades to come. It will also help Brazilians re-define how they see themselves in society: citizens bound by laws, not bribes.

REUTERS/Nacho Doce

If Brazil Is No Longer A "Poor" Country, What Is It?

In the process of fostering a peaceful democracy and strengthening the rule of law, Brazil also ceased to be the "poor" country it once was. Millions of people have been lifted out of poverty thanks to the Government's conditional cash transfer programs known as Bolsa Familia. Income inequality, once a defining feature of Brazilian society, has declined in the past decade. Lifting people out of poverty helps everyone in the long run because it allows those that were once destitute to regain control over their lives and empower local communities politically, economically and socially. This in turn shifts people's consciousness from a mentality focused on needs ("what can I eat"?) to one that cherishes rights and opportunities ("what can I do with my life?", "how can I help others?", "what can I invent?").

This is not to say that corruption, poverty, and political crises are a thing of the past. Political conflicts complicate the consensus needed to effect change in the economy, particularly in a multi-party system like Brazil. As the economy crunches, people lose their jobs. Corruption corrodes the social fabric by tipping the scales of opportunity in favor of those with deeper pockets. These issues will continue to challenge Brazilian society. But having confronted these issues head-on, Brazil has taken a first step to show the world that politics need not be violent and that corruption need not be accepted without protest. A Brazilian brand of the rule of law is brewing: play by the rules. Period.

While the corruption scandal and political crisis are destabilizing the economy in the short-run, Brazil's response marks a turning point for the country. Brazilian institutions, not corrupt powerbrokers, are shaping the distribution of power. The people, through their elected officials, now need to decide what government they want to rebuild. This will in part depend on what Brazil means to them. How they re-define their country in these times of crises will dictate the politics that will shape their future. A new philosophy, fueled by public ethics, political empowerment, and personal enterprise, must be mobilized. One that seeks to eradicate inequality and promote self-reliance, knowing that along the way, everyone needs a helping hand. That hand is not black or white, rich or poor, but the national green, yellow and blue that has united Brazilians throughout their history. As Fernando Collor put it when casting his impeachment vote at the Brazilian Senate on Friday:
Photo credit: AFP

Several days ago, I was listening to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arguing that his presidential ambitions were not his personal cause. "It is about the future of this country," Erdogan said before a cheering crowd. He might actually be right. This is not only his presidential craving, but a gambit for the survival of his entire political enterprise.

The president, a supposedly ceremonial figure, has shown little flexibility in demanding more executive powers. Erdogan's unceasing campaign for the presidential system offers a vivid preview of what's next to come in this summer.

His presidential gambit has seen its share of twists and turns in the past two years. Erdogan initially projected that Kurds could be the kingmaker if he clings a deal with them. He therefore launched peace talks to end the perennial conflict. But this much-vaunted process shortly after was thrown into disarray. That plan fell apart when Kurds surprisingly surged in last year's elections, even costing the ruling AKP its 13-year single-party rule. Erdogan refashioned his strategy. He then turned to exploit opposition parties' shared phobia: the Kurds.

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Erdogan resumed a relentless war on Kurdish rebels, pulverizing residential buildings and reducing entire towns to rubble in a conflict rampant with gross human rights abuses. Since AKP's poor showing at the polls last June, good news from Turkey has been in short supply. Nearly 500 members of Turkish security services were killed since last summer. Tens of thousands of civilians were forced to flee for their lives. This is a continuation of a war that has consumed Turkey for a generation and yielded nothing more than death, destruction and animosity.

But the war did its trick. The National Movement Party, the MHP, signaled that it is ready to continue cooperation with the government in "legal dimension." The statement was billed as an intention to support Erdogan's presidential ambitions in exchange for an intensified war against the Kurds. To sweeten the deal, the AKP is now drafting nearly a dozen constitutional amendments that will alter the president's position as a neutral national figure. The name of the new system is a "president with a party." With new amendments, if approved, critics underscore the risk of Turkey becoming a "party state."

According to the Turkish constitution, a president has to stay above the political fray, sever its ties with all political parties and remain neutral. Erdogan swore on his honor and dignity to do exactly that as he assumed the job two years ago. Erdogan himself admitted that he cannot remain oblivious to the party he built.

The proposed amendments will change this equation. Erdogan might be given a right to lead the ruling AKP. Scenarios in which an AKP leader challenges his authority, like the one with Ahmet Davutoglu, ousted prime minister, will hence disappear for good. AKP lawmaker Markar Esayan described this new plan as an "interim formula" until the political system switches entirely into the presidential system.

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Erdogan argues that he is facing a quandary. "I am the commander-in-chief, but the army is under the government. I am head of the state, but the MIT is answering to the government," Erdogan lamented recently. MIT is Turkey's spy agency. He claims that the presidential system will be a harbinger of a new era, catapulting Turkey forward in every single area. His skilled political maneuvers suggest that the presidency could be within his grasp.

Erdogan's dream to become an executive president is not new. Last week, he acknowledged that he has been promoting the presidential system since he was the mayor of Istanbul two decades ago. The political game he was playing stretches back to his early years as the country's prime minister.

A little history would be helpful. Throughout his rule in Turkey since 2002, Erdogan has gone through thick and thin to eliminate his adversaries, clear his bumpy road to become even a more powerful politician while designing a system that only favors him and his establishment.

Erdogan's transformation of Turkey first started with accession negotiations with the EU in the hope of reforming the hostile judiciary, securing a chance to appoint loyalist judges and prosecutors. He then partially amended the constitution to mitigate the role of military in politics. At the same time, he cowed the press into submission while fashioning his own mouthpiece media outlets. He later purged sympathizers of popular Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, largely a reformist group, from the bureaucracy. Shifting into a presidential system will be a season finale of Erdogan's power grab series.

Opposition to him is fledgling. Scarred by the devastating war in predominantly Kurdish populated areas, the pro-Kurdish HDP is in shambles. The government has already co-opted the MHP. Only the CHP, another party, has remained a sole political opposition, expressing alarm over the looming Erdogan victory. CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu's juggernaut has slowed down since the elections last year, and he pleaded for help. "Please, every one of you has to stand up to Erdogan and speak up," he told hundreds of businessmen at TOBB, Turkey's largest union of chambers and stock exchanges, on Tuesday. "Don't put the fight for democracy on my shoulders alone." His remarks drew appreciative applause from many of its members.

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This past Tuesday, an incident at San Francisco City Hall showcased both the worst - and the best - of the immigration debate.

That day, scores of undocumented community leaders were supporting "Due Process" legislation to keep law enforcement out of painful deportations. With the "Trump effect" on the rise, community groups are urging the city to stand strong against the scapegoating and demonizing of immigrants.

And, speaking of nativism, during the hearing, an agent of the far right-wing website Breitbart, Lee Stranaham, turned his camera away from the Board and started to aggressively film and intimidate immigrant community members who were present in the audience. Stranaham has a long history of provocation and intimidation under his belt.

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And Tuesday, he zeroed in on Chuy, a beloved local resident born with Down's Syndrome who is also a 3-time survivor of leukemia. Despite Stranahan's later denials, Chuy's grandmother, Gloria, made clear: "He was staring at my grandson with a hatred I had never seen before."



A community member sat next to Stranahan - in the camera's path - in an effort to prevent this harassment, but it continued.

Alarmed by the filming, with the camera pointed at his face, Chuy began to sob loudly.

The Sheriff's deputies present did not initially respond to the disturbance, and Chuy's aunt and mother came over to comfort him. Eventually, the public urged Stranaham's removal. But even as the deputies escorted him out, he continued to film, pointing the camera out towards the Chuy. (He's since been distorting the incident all over the internet.)

But after this hate, we saw an outpouring of love.

As Supervisor John Avalos, the ordinance's author, finished his remarks, he called out the hate: "We have to stand up and be courageous in this time when the fear of immigrants is so strong, and it's being trumped up in our presidential election."

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Supervisor David Campos, formerly undocumented himself, also spoke out:

I hope our Sheriff was watching what transpired in the chamber, because I think that it illustrates why this is so critical, ... This young man has survived leukemia twice. Three times. Three And the fact that he and Donaji, his mom, are here tells you how important this issue is, and that a sick man would come to this chamber to intimidate this young man illustrates why we as San Franciscans need to speak with one voice...

Supervisor Malia Cohen, whose impassioned words last year made headlines, also pledged her support for the legislation.
Legendary human rights lawyer Michael Ratner died on May 11. His pathbreaking legal and political work on behalf of the poor and oppressed around the world is unmatched. His death is an incalculable loss for the cause of freedom, peace and justice.

The last time I saw Michael was shortly before he was diagnosed with cancer. We were in New York for the annual dinner of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). Both of us had served as NLG presidents, he during the Reagan years, I during the George W. Bush administration. When we met in New York, Michael had just returned from Cuba, where he had a wonderful visit with Gerardo Hernandez, one of the Cuban Five. I was about to leave for Cuba, where I would meet with Rene Gonzalez and Antonio Guerrero, two other members of the Cuban Five.

The Five had traveled to Miami to gather intelligence about terrorist plots against Cuba. When they turned over their data to the FBI, they were rewarded with arrests, convictions and incarceration. In Cuba, the Five ("Los Cinco") are considered national heroes. One of the conditions for the historic detente between Barack Obama and Raul Castro in December 2014 was the United States' release of the members of the Cuban Five who still remained in custody.

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Michael raved about his Cuba trip. A longtime friend and ally of the Cuban Revolution, Michael had first traveled to Cuba in the 1970s. He later co-authored the book, Who Killed Che?, in which he and Michael Smith concluded, based on U.S. government documents, that the CIA was behind the assassination. When Cuba opened its embassy in Washington, D.C., last July, Michael was there. He told "Democracy Now!" host Amy Goodman that "other than the birth of my children, this is perhaps one of the most exciting days of my life. ... This is a major, major victory for the Cuban people, and that should be understood. We are standing at a moment that I never expected to see in our history."

Indeed, Michael will probably be best remembered for his victory in gaining the right to habeas corpus for U.S. detainees held in Cuba at Guantanamo. Michael was lead counsel in the 2004 case of Rasul v. Bush, in which the Supreme Court upheld the right of those detained as "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo to have their petitions for habeas corpus heard by U.S. courts. The Bush administration had argued that since the detainees were being held on Cuban soil, they had no right of access to U.S. federal courts to challenge their confinement. But the court held that the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control over the Guantanamo Bay base. As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority, "Aliens held at the base, no less than American citizens, are entitled to invoke the federal courts' authority" under the federal habeas corpus statute.

"We went into court with a very straightforward proposition -- that habeas corpus meant every single person detained has a right to go into court and say to the government: 'Tell me why you are detaining me and give me the legal justification,'" Michael wrote in his chapter published in my book, "The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse."

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Michael also wrote that "[p]reventive detention is a line that should never be crossed. A central aspect of human liberty that has taken centuries to win is that no person shall be imprisoned unless he or she is charged and tried." Michael added, "If you can take away those rights and simply grab someone by the scruff of the neck and throw them into some offshore penal colony because they are non-citizen Muslims, those deprivations of rights will be employed against all. ... This is the power of a police state and not a democracy."

In his chapter, Michael advocated "accountability by means of criminal prosecutions" of Bush, Dick Cheney, George Tenet and Donald Rumsfeld for their torture program. "Until this occurs," Michael wrote, "a future president can, with the stroke of a pen, put the United States back in the torture business."

Michael sued Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Rumsfeld, the FBI and the Pentagon for their violations of law. He challenged U.S. policy in Cuba, Iraq, Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Israel/Palestine. He was lead counsel for whistleblower Julian Assange. As David Cole wrote in The Nation, Michael "knew that when you sue the powerful, you will often lose. But he also understood that such suits could prompt political action, and that advocacy inspired by a lawsuit was often more important in achieving justice than the litigation itself."

Jules Lobel, who followed Michael as president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), said on "Democracy Now!" that Michael "never backed down from a fight against oppression, against injustice, no matter how difficult the odds, no matter how hopeless the case seemed to be." Lobel added, "Michael was brilliant in combining legal advocacy and political advocacy. ... He loved people all around the globe. He represented them, met with them, shared their misery, shared their suffering."

As NLG president in the early 1980s, Michael initiated the guild's challenges to Reaganism, including U.S. interventions in Central America and the Caribbean. When he was president of CCR, he choreographed litigation that essentially ended New York City's draconian stop-and-frisk policing policy.

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Fellow past NLG president Barbara Dudley noted, "Michael leavened his brilliant mind and his creative legal skills with love and humor and an abundant energy. His work, his laugh, his irony and his enduring belief in the revolutionary spirit will live on."

Vince Warren, CCR's executive director, called Michael "one of the great justice warriors of our time," noting that family members said Michael was born with the "empathy gene."

In 2002, Michael presciently told The New York Times, "A permanent war abroad means permanent anger against the United States by those countries and people that will be devastated by U.S. military actions. Hate will increase, not lessen; and the terrible consequences of that hate will be used, in turn, as justification for more restrictions on civil liberties in the United States."

We will not see the likes of him again.
Paul Kelley has been teaching mathematics at Anoka High School in Anoka, Minnesota. My wife Helen and I were lucky to meet Paul when we were all invited the recent White House celebration of our nation's teachers. We meandered through the security line and spent time together during the Teacher of the Year ceremony.

Paul is currently in his 29th year as a math teacher, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Three things struck me about Paul Kelley. First he cared deeply for his students and made clear that his relationship with this students was fundamental to their learning. Second he has a devoted family; his wife, also a teacher in the 2nd grade and two daughters came with him to savor the experience even though they were not able to attend the event.

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Finally, Paul, like everyone invited to a White House event, was in awe of being there. The pageantry, the history, the President - and the respect communicated for his profession were deeply moving to him. Helen and I felt the same way too.

Paul joined us and many others to hear the message of the National Teacher of the Year, Jahana Hayes. Given my own deep belief in the importance of the role of schools in our communities, I was particular struck by what Ms. Hayes said about that relationship:

"I will make this year about bringing classrooms into communities and communities into classrooms, creating a moment and starting a national conversation about how we can all be better for kids. This is not just about the students in my classroom or your classrooms, this is about every person who has a vested interest in our children, our future, and our world."

This is a powerful and unifying message from a woman who grew up in poverty and was a mother at 17, but still finished high school. Seven years later Ms. Hayes enrolled in a community college. She went on to earn a four-year degree, and Master's degree, and became a high school history teacher in her hometown of Waterbury, CT.

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Hayes commitment to community is further illustrated by these words about the relationship between community service and skill building for students drawn from her Teacher of the year application.

"I never expected community service to be such a pronounced part of my work but the satisfaction that comes from watching students take ownership of their community is unmatched... Oftentimes people in the community ask me how I get so many young people to volunteer ... and my answer is always the same, "I ask." Students want to do well, and they want to help others but need to see those behaviors modeled a few times...It starts with me but like a wildfire the desire to help others spreads...By serving their community students are able to demonstrate personal growth and model adult behaviors. This has become extremely personal to me because I feel that graduating students who demonstrate respect, responsibility, honesty and integrity is as critically important as mastering content and demonstrating proficiency."

At a time when there is a particular emphasis on the importance of engagement in the new Every Student Succeeds Act; engagement of students, educators, families and the entire community -- Paul Kelley's focus on relationships and Jahana Hayes emphasis on respect, responsibility, honesty and integrity remind us that our teachers do so much more than prepare students for academic success. These two teachers and the millions of others who pursue their craft all across the country are preparing young people to be engaged workers, family members, and perhaps most importantly to be engaged participants in our democracy.
A supporter (L) of US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, is taunted by US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders supporters as she leaves a rally at the East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park, California on May 5, 2016.6. / AFP / Mark Ralston (Photo credit should read MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

Hillary Clinton spoke to a crowd of supporters in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 5. By all accounts, the atmosphere inside was initially warm and celebratory among the supporters gathered in the gymnasium of East Los Angeles College. But during Clinton's speech, multiple anti-Clinton protesters were removed from the event after interrupting her, shouting and chanting while she was speaking. She ended her speech early due to these interruptions.

As they left the gymnasium, Clinton's supporters were forced to walk through a gauntlet of harassment. Anti-Clinton protesters lined the gym's exit on both sides, and as attendees left, they shouted obscenities at Clinton's supporters. "F--- you!" one man screamed into a woman's ear using a megaphone.

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Witnesses report that protesters called female Clinton Supporters gendered slurs and suggested the supporters commit suicide. According to Twitter reports, one protester snatched a sign reading "We love you Madam Prez!" out of a little girl's hands and tore it up in front of her -- Hillary had signed the poster herself. The protesters held signs reading "LIAR LIAR LIAR," "HILLARY FOR PRISON," and "BERNIE 2016." Chants of "Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!" echoed through the gauntlet.

I've never experienced anything close to the level of verbal assault endured by the Clinton supporters in East LA, but I learned quickly in this primary season that if I openly support Hillary Clinton, I will be confronted. When I speak positively about her online, I can expect to be swiftly reprimanded and even shamed by people who support other candidates. People I've always had friendly relationships with have called my integrity into question because I support the candidate who best represents my political priorities.



Believe it or not, she inspires me. ... I support her with joy and without apology.





I've been called a "$hill" more times than I can count. I've been accused of being paid by Super PACs to support her publicly when, in reality, I donate to Clinton's campaign every month. I've been accused of voting with my genitals.

These comments aren't coming from conservatives. Until this primary, I've never been at odds with other liberals. I never thought the words "Democratic Party" would carry a negative connotation to so many left-minded people. I'm not used to being labeled as one of the bad guys, and this primary has even made me empathize with Republicans who are villainized for their choices at the polls. During this primary, one constant remains: if I say something positive about Clinton, someone will show up to question my morality, my understanding of politics, or my competency as a voter.

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It's important to note that not all Bernie Sanders supporters feel inclined to attack Clinton supporters. Some of the people I'm closest to in this world support him, including my boyfriend and close friends. They have never attacked me for supporting Clinton, and we've had many thought-provoking discussions about the race. Unfortunately, the majority of my interactions with more radical Sanders supporters online have been the opposite of productive and respectful.

People absolutely have a right to disagree with me, and to ask me questions about why I support Clinton. I welcome political discussions, especially with people I disagree with. But the anti-Hillary vigilantes online aren't interested in nuanced, civil discussions -- they're interested in shaming Hillary supporters and making them answer for all of Clinton's perceived failings. It's never "tell me which parts of her platform appeal to you. I have some concerns about X." It's always "How can you vote for a liar who is bought by corporate interests? How?!"

Hillary is not a perfect candidate. There are many valid criticisms of her, and she has certainly made mistakes in her long political career. I don't regard her as a pinnacle of political purity. In fact, I disagree with her on several issues. I agree with many people that we need campaign finance reform, and I see the hypocrisy in her calling for campaign finance reform while simultaneously benefiting from the current law. But to me, the presidency encompasses so much more than the mechanics of a campaign.

I believe she is by far the most qualified candidate in either field to lead this country, and my support for her isn't all about pragmatism -- believe it or not, she inspires me. She has been attacked and knocked down and had her name dragged through the mud for decades, and she is still standing, still fighting. I admire her resilience, her capacity for compromise, and her toughness. I support her with joy and without apology.

I've heard people question how it's possible that Clinton is winning the election when you hear so little from her supporters online. One reason your Facebook feed isn't brimming with glowing pro-Clinton posts is because when you say nice things about Hillary Clinton online, you will face a barrage of ridicule from purer, more "progressive" liberals. If you know you're undoubtedly going to be taken to task over posting a video clip that inspired you, you may think twice about sharing it. Sometimes I don't feel like playing defense with multiple people in the comment section who are attacking my integrity. It's exhausting.

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There is nothing progressive about intolerance and hatred.



My goal is not to paint myself as a victim because people confront me over my support for Clinton. I'm not looking to be consoled because someone was mean to me on the internet. I don't expect people to validate or celebrate me for supporting her. But the onslaught of ideological purity tests projected by anti-Hillary revolutionaries isn't inspiring, and it's not a catalyst for change. There's nothing admirable about dismissing and villainizing people you disagree with, and I long for a primary race where we approach each other with our hearts and minds open to an array of perspectives and opinions.

We've all witnessed the gradual destruction of the Republican party as a result of the Tea Party's rise. Increasingly, factions of the left seem to be following their example of radicalism, intolerance, and rumbling hatred. We are better than this. We have an opportunity to create positive change in our country and in our world, but that won't happen if we divide ourselves into the worthy and the unworthy, the revolutionary and the dreaded establishment, the ideologically pure and the evil status quo. I implore every liberal voter to consider what's truly at stake in this election. We are going up against a bigoted demagogue who threatens the safety and the civil rights of millions of Americans. The idea of a Trump presidency is no longer a fantasy for misogynists and racists, it is a reality we must fight.

I don't expect Bernie Sanders supporters to become cheerleaders for Hillary. I don't expect them to make calls, donate, knock on doors, or sing her praises. We $hills can take care of that. But if you claim to value the rights of millions of your fellow Americans, if you believe in progressive goals, if you follow Bernie's philosophy of "Not me. Us," I do expect you to vote blue.

There is nothing progressive about intolerance and hatred. If we come to consider compromise a destructive force in democracy, we all lose. It is not revolutionary to berate people you disagree with until they give up and shut up. We will not achieve progress by tearing each other apart because of our differences -- change will only come when we learn to work together despite those differences. As Hillary says, there is much more that unites us than divides us. Let's come together to defeat the evil we face with all the determination and strength we can muster.

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For nearly a year, Democrats have accused Gov. Bruce Rauner of holding the state budget hostage and demanding his Turnaround Agenda as ransom.

As the Illinois budget standoff of FY 2016 threatens to become the Illinois budget standoff of FY 2017, it's been Rauner who is accusing Democrats of hostage-taking.

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The kidnap victim this time is K-12 education funding, and the big question at the moment is whether Senate Democrats will make school funding reform in FY '17 what the Turnaround Agenda was to Rauner in FY '16.

It all sounds confusing, but it's not that complicated.

State funding for K-12 education is distributed in July to school districts throughout the state. It's important to school districts that the money arrive on time because most can't open for the fall semester if they don't have it.

Last June, Rauner vetoed every budget bill sent to him by Democrats in the Legislature except one. He signed the bill authorizing elementary and secondary school funding. That meant that schools statewide could open on time.

Had Rauner vetoed that school budget, he and lawmakers of both parties would have faced severe backlash from angry parents when schools didn't open on time. As it was though, the school budget and a court decision that allowed state employees to be paid without a budget allowed state government to function fairly normally even as state spending went on out of control.

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Absent widespread public protest, Rauner and the Democrats could allow the budget standoff to continue indefinitely, with Rauner saying he wouldn't come to bargaining table until Democrats passed his reforms and Democrats insisting that negotiation on reforms was not part of the budget process. Large-scale protests over hardships to state universities and social service providers didn't come until early this year.

Here's the catch this year: The system by which state education funding is shared among local school districts is seen unanimously as unfair. It's a problem that has festered for years in Springfield.

School districts located in communities with high property values can devote generous resources to funding their school districts. What they don't get in state funding, they make up themselves in property taxes. These taxes often are very high, but residents get excellent schools in return.

School districts in low-income communities, however, rely far more heavily on state funding. They simply don't have the property tax resources to tap. The result is the state provides most of their operating budgets and per-student spending in these districts is a fraction of that of high-income school districts. That's why it's so often said that the quality of a child's education in Illinois depends more than anything on his or her zip code.

Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, for three years has been working on a formula that more fairly shares state dollars. The Senate this week passed a bill based on his formula. But some wealthier school districts eventually (following a four-year phase-in) will lose a portion of their state funding under Manar's plan, and Chicago Public Schools will see an initial increase of $175 million in state money.

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Some Republicans have called this a bailout of Chicago schools at the expense of suburban schools. Even some Democrats from suburban districts have complained that their constituents will have to shoulder even higher property taxes to make up for state funds they lose.

Rauner has said he wants a change in the funding formula that does not take money away from any school district. He want the General Assembly to do as it did last year: Send him a K-12 funding bill using the current formula. He's been barnstorming the state to visit schools and urge Democrats to not "hold students hostage" to force adoption of a reformed funding system.

Of course, it can be argued that Rauner himself took college students hostage for nearly all of the current fiscal year when he vetoed the entire higher education budget, including money for financial aid through the Monetary Award Program.

So as the May 31 budget deadline approaches, the big question is whether Democrats will send Rauner the "clean" bill he wants or use a school funding reform plan as leverage in budget talks.

That's what we're talking about on this week's "Only in Illinois."

You can also listen to the podcast here or through iTunes:


Image from the film The Man Who Fell To Earth

"News guy wept and told us

earth was really dying

Cried so much his face was wet

then I knew he was not lying" -David Bowie, "Five Years"

The media is full of the worst kind of news these days: fires burning in Canada, Malaysia and other places globally, mass extinctions happening in our lifetimes, glaciers melting, weird weather patterns, droughts and famine, massive fish die-offs, plastic debris on remote islands, the great garbage patch threatening to take over our oceans.

These are extremely harsh news. We are bombarded by it on a daily basis.

Yet some people are refusing to admit it. They are "not sold" that humans are fully responsible...

And it's not only the idiocracy that is plaguing the western world; the anti-intellectualism movement is also to blame.

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"Ordinary members of the public credit or dismiss scientific information on disputed issues based on whether the information strengthens or weakens their ties to others who share their values," says Dan Kahan, a member of a study team from Yale that conducted a research back in 2012, on cultural cognition in relation to climate change. The research found that people believe or disbelieve the science around climate change if others around them believe it.

George Marshall, in his book Don't Even Think About It, addressed how humans are poor at dealing with issues of the future. We are reluctant to deal with uncertainty.

Hitting people on the head with data doesn't seem to help (Check out "Using Memes to improve Climate Change communication" by Joe Brewer and Balazs Lazlo Karafiath)

He argues that is our culture and social structures that are preventing us from seeing what is in front of us. That we'd rather listen to our social groups versus seeing the reality as it is.

We need to find ways culturally to change the narrative around climate change.

I believe our issues lie even beyond just Cultural Cognition and cognitive dissonance.

Humanity has not yet moved away from its adolescent stage. Being a fully mature species comes with a lot of responsibility. We are like teenagers who don't want to admit that we wrecked our parents' car, and are trying to create stories for why that happened and why it's not our fault.

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The harsh and terrible truth is: we are responsible for climate change. We are responsible for this epoch of mass extinction and pollution. All of us.

Let's sit with this feeling for a moment.

Let's breathe into it for a moment.

Let's exhale.

This is really hard. This is really painful. It hurts too much.

We are responsible.

Taking responsibility doesn't mean we created it all. But it does mean we are stepping up to deal with what has occurred.

None of us individually set out to create the predicament we are in. But being in a state of apathy, we are not creating any solutions -- we are exacerbating the issues even further. How do we get rid of fear and start thinking logically? How can humans reverse this calamity we created?

My belief is that the chasm between this fear, to the action and solutionary mode we need, is based in our narratives and complex emotional selves.

We live in huge cities, yet are isolated from our communities and families.

We have so much abundance, yet have extreme poverty surrounding us.

We have so many pent up emotions -- but as a society are not allowed to share these fears with our community. Instead we tend to meet with our healers, one on one, away from the group.

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Grief is something all of us humans share.

Even more than love, it's the great connector, unifier, of our humanity.

And yet, in the First World we lack a grieving culture. We are not given time and space to grieve. We are supposed to jump back quickly, after a loved one dies. We are supposed to carry our grief by ourselves.

This is how we are stuck with these emotions of grief, fear, shame and anger. They keep growing within us, like a cancer, without a healthy, communal way to heal.

Our home planet is dying.

We need to go through a collective grief process; this really hurts.

We need to cry, to shout, to scream, to hold each other tight. To let the waves of grief wash over us. And we need to do this together.



Temple of Grace - Burning Man 2014 - By David Best

One of the most profound places I have visited on this earth is a temporary communal grief space called "the Temple". It is a structure built every year in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada as part of the counter culture experience of Burning Man.

A collective of artists erects a different temple every year. It is a place for the community to come and say their goodbyes to friends, loved ones. It's a place to share the collective grief together.

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The tragedy of the commons, beyond its economic theories, is also just this.

We're not allowed our togetherness -- whether it's in happy or sad times.

These co-creative spaces of festivities and grief is how we are moving to solutionary modes, by the emergence of these collective experiences. Of these collective journeys. [Check out my two articles about the Collective Journey: 1,2].

We need to grieve. We need to do this together. We need to process. And then -- we need to act. Find the others like us. There are millions of such like-minded individuals. They are called Cultural Creatives.

This subculture -- that is estimated includes over 250 million people in what is described as the Western world -- share love and respect for nature and deep caring about its preservation, and its natural balance. They have strong awareness of the planet-wide issues like climate change and poverty and a desire to see more action on them, amongst many more aspects. They are finding each other, going through their grief process and creating a world that works for all.

It's through processing this grief that we can empathize with all lifeforms on this earth and start moving into action.

And perhaps we can build a world that works for all beings-everywhere, as the great Buckminster Fuller said:
FILE - In this Jan. 31, 2010, file photo, an unmanned U.S. Predator drone flies over Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan on a moonlit night. The Obama administration is amending its regulations for weapons sales to allow the export of armed military drones to friendly nations and allies. The State Department said Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015, the new policy would allow foreign governments that meet certain requirements a and pledge not to use the unmanned aircraft illegally a to buy the vehicles that have played a critical but controversial role in combating terrorism and are increasingly used for other purposes. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

Barack Obama's ascent to the White House evoked expectations of drastic changes in his predecessor's approach toward the War On Terror. Civil liberties, in particular, was the area of anticipated reform. Candidate Obama had inveighed against abuses on matters of detention, rendition, and surveillance -- among others. Respect for the Constitution and legal process were to be restored. That radical reorientation has not occurred. Instead, we debate the significance of, and reasons for what has been a strategy of pragmatic modification of inherited practices. The debate concentrates mainly on the deliberations among the administration's lawyers and policy-makers as to the permissible and the acceptable.

A full narrative of that process now has been provided by Charlie Savage's book, Power Wars. A reflection on the issues raised in an earlier commentary has led to two strong impressions. One is that the higher one goes in the hierarchy the more disingenuous the legal debate becomes. At the White House and in the Attorney General's office, the paramount question is not one of legality per se; rather, it is: 'can we get away with skirting the law -- and, if so, how should we represent it. Should we strictly obey the law and observe the Constitution or can we maneuver around it?'

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The other outstanding feature is the extent to which "national security" has acquired a unique standing that transcends law and the Constitution. The participants, including the Constitutional law Professor who occupies the Oval Office, constantly are referring to national security considerations as having an independent existence detached from everything else. To put it differently, it is as if that assumed principle of security's transcendent importance were engraved in the Constitution itself. The federal courts, too, have bought into this idea of an extra-Constitutional status -- prodded by the Justice Department. In case after case, judges say something to the effect that: 'well it isn't exactly legal but I can't override the Executive's judgment about the needs for nation's security.'

This attitude implicitly creates a sphere of "extraordinary powers" or de facto martial law. That manner of thinking underlies the unjustifiably broad reading of the Authorization to Use Military Force to which the Obama lawyers, like their Bush predecessors, repeatedly revert in seeking legal foundation for actions that contravene the Bill of Rights and judicial precedent.

However, there is no provision in the American constitutional system for "Basic Law" or "Loi Cadre" as it is called in France which has a legal standby superior to that of other statutes. To treat the Authorization to Use Military Force act as such is to amend the Constitution by fiat. There are no exigent conditions that should even permit such a legal interpretation. Any reasonable concern about the inherent right of public authorities to act when a situation demands the resort to coercive action or some other exceptional behavior that "exigent circumstances" and "public safety exceptions" dictate have long been incorporated into 4th Amendment and other constitutional jurisprudence to accommodate the rare "ticking time bomb" situation. As Coleen Rowley has pointed out: "There's a big difference between allowing an individual officer to determine he/she can dispense with a warrant under exigent circumstances which will have to be defended later in a court of law, however, and creating a blanket, hierarchical "exigent circumstances" during wartime. It's essentially the difference between an individual's right to self-defense and a country making the determination to justify going to war.

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There are inalienable rights as ensconced in the Constitution. They are not eligible to be treated as commodities for haggling among the CIA Director, the Attorney General and the man in the Oval Office and his political operatives. We contravened that principle in 1942 to our everlasting shame -- or so we thought afterwards. Exactly sixty years later, we started down that same road of infamy.

We have seen the tangible consequences of playing fast and loose with legal principle. President Obama recently felt no qualms in absolving Hillary Clinton for her violating the law and federal regulation through her use of multiple email accounts and a home server. "There is classification and there is classification," he reassured us. That distinction, though, was not applicable in the relentless persecution of leakers like Thomas Drake whose sole, selfless motivation was to expose abuses by their government which Mr Obama had taken pains to conceal and to deny.

Nowhere in Savage's book is there a sign that Obama, the lawyer, appreciates the menace to the country's constitutional underpinnings from a systematic strategy of 'legalism' which deforms the law. Nowhere does Savage suggest that this is a serious deficiency and a lasting cost of the GWOT.

Did the Obama's lawyers restrict his behavior in any consequential way by their tortuous legal exegesis? The items mentioned by Charlie Savage, with exception of the Guantanamo closing, are of little moment. What is the importance of Mohanad Mahmoud al-Farekh, the American-born Pakistani living over there since infancy, who as a foot-soldier with the Taliban was a candidate to be added to Obama's "kill list?" Captured soon thereafter by the Pakistanis, his assassination by drone could never have had any measurable effect on the war. The Awlaki precedent stands - allowing the Chief Executive to assassinate any American abroad whom he deems a threat to the United States. Suspension of the order to immediately assassinate al-Farekh barely rises to the level of a brief footnote in the legal history of the GWOT.

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The, there is Ali Musa Daqduq? An Iraqi Shi'ite, he was captured and imprisoned for killing American soldiers in a fight outside of Baghdad. He was one of thousands in Iraq (Sunni and Shia) who fought the American occupiers. He had no exceptional value. Washington was interested in bringing him to the United States when the al-Maliki government forced our military withdrawal in December 2011. The Obama people, though, were hard pressed to devise legal grounds for doing so. Savage presents the Daqduq affair as a case wherein obedience to the letter of the law constrained presidential action. He was, in fact, a minor pawn in the Washington campaign to paint Iran in vivid colors as a major source of our troubles in Iraq. The notion that the failure to take him along with us when obliged to leave Iraq is of cardinal importance is far-fetched. Anyway, the decision Obama made was on diplomatic grounds (offending the Iraqi leadership by violating Iraqi law), not legal ones. This is one small example of Savage's inadequate attention to context.

Most prominent in Savage's defense of his thesis that judgments by Obama's lawyers were not politically colored, and that they set a firm legal framework for the actions he took, is his detailed account of a lawyerly hunt for a legal rationalization supportive of a conjectured plan to bomb of the Osama bin-Laden compound once we realized that he was resident in Abbottabad. The idea that Obama would incur the enormous costs of an air assault in a Pakistani city when there were far better options lacks even a shred of credibility. Again, it was politics and diplomacy that dictated restraint -- not legal advice.

Finally, there is Guantanamo issue, the general understanding is the legal debate on what the President could or could not do without Congressional approval is still open. Anyway, a timid President is unlikely to have been so bold as to act in the face of fierce public opposition -- whatever his reading of the law.

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The point about context is twofold. First, there is the issue of whether the lawyers who are at the center of Mr. Savage's account, were unaffected in their legal interpretations of the law and the Constitution by the wider political, emotional and diplomatic context. His book does not probe this matter in any depth. He takes what they say as given. Admittedly, this is an elusive issue. For it involves people's mental processes and emotions -- not their actions. Savage does a reliable job of confirming the facts in regard to actions. However, there also are subjective facts to consider that are far more difficult to confirm. On these issues, in this setting, they nonetheless should be addressed.

Second, the President, his advisers, and the Attorney General were not detached recipients of the legal briefs that they received from the corps of administration lawyers. They were living in a state of ferment -- political and intellectual. The signals that they emitted were picked up by all in the administration; whether there was instruction (as occurred under Bush/Cheney) or not. The ultimate outcome, moreover, in terms of policy was determined by the President and a few others at the top of the pyramid. At the end of the day, the record shows clearly that nuanced legal opinion was not decisive.

Mr. Savage's final judgment in the Conclusion, after indeed spending 769 pages making detailed comparisons, is that there were importance differences between the legal niceties observed by the Bush and Obama administrations. Mr. John Brennan, General Michael Hayden (whose new book Savage offers an excellent review of in this week's New York Review of Books) and General Clapper have said otherwise -- in public. Any fair reading of the situation supports their judgment that the differences are 'trivial."

Mr. Savage's very last pages where he puts it all in perspective, have at their core long extracts from an interview with Ben Rhodes.

So, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that, for all the prolix lawyerly discussion, the Obama people reached the same conclusions as did John Yoo and David Addington in the Bush administration: the President could do pretty much as he pleased. Obama legitimized and thereby institutionalized the excesses of the "war on terror."


RichardBH, Flickr

Canadian family dining restaurant Earls announced this week that they'll be sourcing all their beef from Certified Humane suppliers. To meet demand, that supplier is in the US. Canadians are not taking the news well.

Earls has 65 restaurants scattered across Canada, with a few venturing over the border into the US. The company serves more than two million pounds of beef each year, and has a whopping 25 locations in beef-happy Alberta.

The company has taken steps towards sustainability in recent years, partnering with the Vancouver Aquarium to offer less damaging seafood, but the new announcement has scored more publicity than Earls has ever experienced before.

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The company has declared that all its beef will now be certified humanely raised, with auditing from Humane Farm Animal Care. This sort of certification ensures that animals have clean water, outdoor access, more space per animal, reduced stress due to the elimination of cattle prods, and are not injected with non-medical antibiotics or hormones.

According to the Earls site, the company was not able to source enough beef with this certification in Canada, and so turned to Creekstone Farms, in Kansas. This has completely outraged some Canadians, especially those from Alberta, a province sometimes referred to as "the Texas of Canada" for its conservative politics and cattle and oil industries.

Albertans have taken to the internet to protest what they see as "a slap in the face" to Canadian beef suppliers. From Twitter:

Some of the outraged have gone even further, taking to the Wikipedia page for Earls Restaurant and editing it to throw stones at the company's decision. Here's a screenshot, taken at 2:00 pm EST (timestamp included because it's likely the page will be re-edited):

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Let's take a closer look:

Recently Earls announced they would be sourcing all their beef from a Kansas company that claims to be "Certified Humane". The CH moniker is a marketing tool that means absolutely nothing, but Earl's thinks their hipster customers will lap it up. Their action is a slap in the face to Canadian beef producers who have raised beef humanely for decades. The hashtag #BoycottEarls is trending Number 1 at this writing. Most Western Canadians will be dining somewhere else.

For what it's worth, "Certified Humane" is not a legal term, as "organic" is; no government agency inspects or requires that beef labeled "Certified Humane" adheres to any particular set of laws. That said, third-party organizations like the American Humane Society create their own rules to fill that gap and issue certification to suppliers that meet their standards. It's not meaningless, but it isn't law, either.


Wikimedia Commons

Major media outlets, including CNN, The Washington Post, and the Daily Mail, have had headlines proclaiming the impending demise of the Cavendish, the world's most popular banana, using words like "extinction," "doomed," and "death." But look a bit closer and you'll notice these same headlines also contain words like "possible," "could," and "may," which indicates something far less frightening.

In science-speak, Tropical Race 4 (TR4) is a strain of the fungal plant pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc) that causes Fusarium wilt, commonly referred to as Panama Disease. In plain-speak, this fungus can wipe out entire banana plantations since it's immune to chemical pesticides and can stay in the soil for years. The disease attacks the banana plant's root system, moves into the vascular tissue causing wilting, and eventually kills the plant. It's spread through infected planting material, dirt, and water. The Cavendish (which is what we find in grocery stores here, and includes the commercially important Grand Nain and Dwarf Cavendish cultivars, among others) is highly susceptible to Foc TR4, but the disease can also travel to other banana varieties, which is a huge issue, especially in poorer countries where bananas are a staple food.

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Foc TR4 has been negatively impacting Cavendish banana production in Taiwan, southeast Asia, China, and Australia's Northern Territory for more than 20 years. (In Taiwan's case, it's been more than 40 years.) In Indonesia, for example, where commercial Cavendish production started in the 1990s, more than 8 million plants were destroyed annually by the disease within two years of establishing the industry. Many plantations had to be abandoned, and annual losses totaled more than $75 million.

Beginning around 2013, there were reported outbreaks in Mozambique, Jordan, Lebanon, and Pakistan, according to Fazil Dusunceli, an agricultural officer with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Foc TR4 also made further inroads into Australia from the country's Northern Territory into Queensland, but according to a report from the FAO, it hasn't yet reached Latin America (South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico), which at 80 percent of the world's production, is by far the largest Cavendish banana-exporting region.

A November 2015 paper written by researchers from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and published in the journal PLOS Pathogens, confirmed that the outbreaks of Panama disease in Asia, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere were all caused by Foc TR4. Shortly after, the international press ran with the story, with many predicting the inevitable spread of the disease to Latin America and that the end of the Cavendish banana was nigh. "Cavendish is now collapsing and there is nothing to replace it," Dr. Gert Kema, from Wageningen University told the Daily Mail earlier this month.

A story in The Washington Post titled "Bye, bye, bananas" stated that researchers believed Foc TR4 would "eventually make its way to Latin America" and that "it's not a question of whether Tropical Race 4 will infiltrate the mothership of global banana production; it's a matter of when."

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But one banana researcher calls this media hype. "The western press is so enamored with the 'Bananageddon, Apocalypse' scenarios because it sells, both for the media as well as the researchers who are looking for money for their GMO research," Dr. Agustin B. Molina, Jr., tells Modern Farmer in an email. Molina, who lives in the Philippines, is a researcher for Bioversity International, a global research-for-development organization focused on sustainable food and nutrition security. He was in Miami this past week as part of the International Banana Congress where he read a paper on Foc TR4-resistant non-GMO Cavendish varieties. The paper isn't available online, but he makes similar points in this post.

According to Molina, the predictions of the invasion of Foc TR4 to South and Central America are so open-ended as to be meaningless, since they could refer to "next year, the next ten years, 20 years, 50 years, or even the next century," he says. Molina, whose credentials include a PhD in plant pathology from Pennsylvania State University, has more than 40 years experience in the banana industry, in both the academic and private sector, and focuses his research on integrated disease management including Fusarium wilt. He believes Latin America lies in a "strategic geographic location" due to its distance from the other affected areas of the world, which can help in preventing Foc TR4 from making inroads there. He points out it's been more than 40 years since Foc TR4 first appeared in Taiwan, and it still hasn't reached the Americas.

Dusunceli from the FAO says Foc TR4 could "in theory" continue to spread across the globe but only if producers aren't vigilant. They have to use disease-free certified planting materials, and not allow any materials or soil that could possibly be infested onto their farms, he says. "The FAO collaborates with many research institutions and scientists on many aspects to promote the best practices to prevent the spread of the disease," Dusunceli says. "The focus in these efforts include promotion of international collaboration, coordination among national institutions, awareness-raising among producers, capacity building, and implementation of phytosanitary measures."

We can look to the previous major outbreak of Panama Disease to see just how slowly the disease can spread. The earlier pandemic--which shook the banana industry to its core and led to the commercial demise of the Gros Michel banana, the primary variety grown for worldwide export that the Cavendish replaced--began in the late 1800s but didn't completely wipe out the Gros Michel's commercial viability until the early 1960s. In regard to the newest global threat, Molina believes that new technologies that weren't available back during the last pandemic, such as the use of tissue culture, could help the Cavendish banana industry survive.

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Dr. Agustin B. Molina, Jr. with GCTCV 218 bananas grown on a banana plantation on the Philippine island of Mindanao. Image courtesy of Agustin Molina

Regardless if Molina's optimism proves true, scientists at institutions and research organizations around the world are developing resistant Cavendish cultivars through various methods, including genetic modification. Kema, the researcher from Wageningen University, tells Modern Farmer in an email that resistant germplasm (the living tissue from which new plants can be grown) is urgently required, using any potential methods--including genetic modification. He and his team, he says, are hard at work finding a suitable replacement.

Foc TR4-resistant GMO Cavendish bananas are currently being field-tested in Australia, but Molina argues there's no need for them since there are already TR4-resistant Cavendish varieties created through tissue cultures. Foc TR4-resistant Giant Cavendish Tissue Culture Variants (GCTCVs) are becoming practical options in managing epidemics of the disease in commercial plantations, he says. Two of these, GCTCV 218 and GCTCV 219, were selected by the Taiwan Banana Research Institute from millions of tissue-culture-derived seedlings, and while not completely immune from the disease, these varieties have very low levels of infection. Molina believes these are the best options for growers.

Kema isn't sold, however. "I strongly disagree with Dr. Molina's so-called solutions. The message is very disturbing as the clones he mentions are not resistant; they're at most less susceptible and hence only postpone the problem, but don't tackle it fundamentally," he says. "Moreover, farmers will go back to business as usual, which will only increase the dissemination of TR4. I do not know of any other crops where current problems are approached in this way other than the banana industry. This requires science, not stories."

Molina notes that the commercial banana industry is being hit hardest by Foc TR4 because of the the industry's reliance on monoculture--commercial Cavendish bananas that make up 99 percent of the $13 billion worldwide export business are genetically identical. The fungus doesn't cause "severe and devastating epidemics" for small-scale farmers who are growing a variety of non-Cavendish bananas for their local markets. Molina says the use of genetic diversity in their bananas makes these farmers and their cropping system "resilient and sustainable."

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Kema, though, says because the Cavendish is so susceptible, it's a vehicle for spreading the disease to other banana varieties, and that unlike the commercial banana industry, small farmers can't just pull up stakes and leave if Foc TR4 strikes their crop. He says despite bioversity's presence in Asia, Foc TR4 has continued to spread all over Southeast Asia and to other continents.


Yaniv Rokah is an Israeli-born ex-barista, currently winning plaudits for filming, writing, directing and producing his first film, Queen Mimi, which just opened nationally. Queen Mimi is a heartwarming, quirky, truth-is-stranger-than fiction documentary about Marie "Mimi" Haist, a formerly homeless woman, now 90, who's become the self-coroneted Queen of Santa Monica's Montana Avenue.

Yaniv, the youngest of 10 children, arrived in New York in 1999, with theatrical ambitions, studied with Lee Strasberg for several years before concluding that stardom might be more accessible in Hollywood. He moved west, only to find his pickings there almost as lean. Why did he have such grief? He was certainly handsome enough to be a leading man but his astrological alignment may have been askew.

A Superbowl commercial for Verizon supplied him with sustenance for a year, and small speaking parts in film (World War Z) and on TV and Internet Series (Jon Avnet's Kendra, USA's Dig, The Beast, NCI: Los Angeles) supported him emotionally, but he needed a regular paycheck, and found it as the early-rising barista who opened Santa Monica's Cafe Luxxe every morning at 6 am. One morning he noticed an obviously homeless, older woman who also rose and shone at 6 am, climbing out of the bushes where she'd spent the night. He watched her walk to the Fox Coin Laundromat on Montana Avenue right after it opened at 6 am. She stayed there until it closed at 10 pm. Yaniv learned her name was Mimi and that she was not employed by the laundromat, but she worked there, helping customers with laundry, folding their clothes and accepting tips for her services, before going back out on the street. One rainy night, Mimi's life took a turn for the better. The manager didn't have the heart to send her out in the pouring rain, let her sleep inside on a plastic chair and asked her to open the store the following morning. Mimi never slept in the bushes after that night.

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The more Yaniv talked to Mimi, the more she intrigued him. He admired her optimism, her live-in-the-moment philosophy as frequently expressed in "Yesterday's gone - leave it there." Mimi always lifted Yaniv's spirits. She may have been down, but she certainly wasn't out. One day Yaniv asked Mimi if she'd mind him recording their conversations and she agreed. He taped the first hour on his iPhone, and soon realized that he was taping more than facts, he was filming a life force. "Mimi's such a inspiration. She's full of life. Sharp. Very funny. I was attracted to her magic personality."

Gradually Yaniv uncovered bits and pieces of Mimi's history despite her reluctance to discuss the past. Her life had been pretty normal for about 50 years. She'd worked, married a schoolteacher and at his insistence stayed home to raise their two daughters, until he found someone else and she divorced him. When she went back to work after the divorce, she found only low-paying jobs so she lost her house. Next she lived in her car for several years until it was towed. She was ashamed of living on the streets and lost track of her daughters.



Ten phones and one hundred taped hours later, Yaniv realized that his connection with Mimi could thrust him on a less traveled road to filmmaking entrepreneur. He raised $60,000 on Kickstarter which he used to hire a professional editor - Allie Garret - who turned the film he thought would be about homelessness into a personal, loving and moving portrait of Mimi's joy, to which viewers respond. And so do critics. Mimi won prizes for Best Documentary at several documentary film festivals including the Human Spirit Award at Chagrin, Hot Springs, Manhattan, Sarasota and was nominated for several others. It even got 83% approval from viewers at Rotten Tomatoes and is rated 9.3 out of 10 on IMDB when it opened nationally.

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Yaniv considers Mimi a contemporary Cinderella. And if there is a second Prince Charming besides Yaniv in this story, it's Zach Galifianakis who let Mimi housesit for him when he left town and took her to Red Carpet events as his date. As for the glass slipper, it's the apartment Zach supplied her with, furnished for Mimi by Renee Zellweger. And Mimi has lived happily there ever since and expects to live there happily ever after.

Yaniv's film, Queen Mimi, totally captured Mimi's magic and resilience, even though it took her a long time to trust him enough to let him make it. Yaniv's many friends helped him too. Oscar-nominated Peter Spirer became Executive Producer. Barry Bergman, known for launching the careers of AC/DC and Meatloaf, was his music supervisor. Grammy-nominated Deana Carter and Ralph Stevens wrote Celebrate Life, which Carter sings during the closing credits of the film.

Yaniv not only credits Mimi for making him into a filmmaker, but also for making him into an adult. He never gets tired of quoting the advice she once gave him. "When life deals you lemons, make lemon drop martinis."

And he certainly has...

Queen Mimi is playing in movie theaters all over the US.

See it. You'll love her.
The Friday nights and Saturday mornings of Bryce Moore's childhood are among his most cherished memories. They were special because he spent them at the home of his mother's dad, hanging on every word uttered by his Papa, David Moore.

With Bryce not having a father at home, Papa was the next-best thing. His stories about dropping out of school after fourth grade because he needed to get a job showed Bryce how much times have changed. It helped Bryce realize how much easier he has it and he began to appreciate his ongoing education.

Papa also led by example. His stories about hauling wood for lumber companies -- back-breaking work that had to be done to feed his family -- taught the youngster to value a strong work ethic.

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But Papa also had his flaws. Primarily, his pack-a-day smoking habit.

Once Bryce discovered that cigarettes were called "cancer sticks," he vowed to break Papa's habit. His go-to move was throwing away packs of Winstons and lighters.

Looking back, that's where the seeds were planted. From the simple act of a loving grandson looking after his Papa, up grew one of the nation's foremost teenage anti-tobacco activists.

On Tuesday night in Washington, D.C., Bryce will be honored as the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids' 2016 Youth Advocate of the Year. He's the 20th annual recipient from this wonderful group, one that I am proud to say that my organization, the American Heart Association, has supported since its inception.

Now 18 and a high school senior, Bryce is such an amazing young man that he was barely able to wedge this awards ceremony into his schedule. He attended another banquet at home in Gulfport, Mississippi, the night before he left, and the morning after he returns he's overseeing an anti-tobacco conference at his high school. He's hosting a talent show a few days later, then graduates from Gulfport High School the next day.

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All this from a guy who insists that he used to be shy.

The transformation began the summer before eighth grade when he joined the 4-H leadership group as an outlet for his boundless energy. He enjoyed it so much that when he heard about Generation FREE -- a youth-led tobacco prevention movement -- he considered applying for a board position. However, his reluctance to be anything more than a participant threatened to hold him back.

Then his mom spoke up. She said, "Remember all those times you told me you threw away Papa's cigarettes and lighters, and all the materials you'd show him from school? That shows you need to try out."

Bryce landed a spot on the 12-person board. One of his first big jobs was leading a session at a conference. He was so nervous that he tripped and nearly fell on his way to the stage. He stumbled over his words as he spoke and was oblivious to the stage direction coming from a coordinator.

"I was just trying to get through it," he said. "But I had so much fun. Interacting with high school and middle school students who also cared about this cause was such a blast. I knew that, definitely, that's what I wanted to do."

From brainstorming sessions to planning entire conferences, Bryce loved it all. He even learned to love being an emcee. The real prize, though, was knowing that he was educating teens about the ills of tobacco use.

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As part of being on Generation FREE's board, Bryce was required to be on the board of the Mississippi Tobacco-Free Coalition of Harrison County. He joined his sophomore year of high school.

"I had to go to a few meetings and one event, but as soon as I got involved, I loved it so much that I got involved in all the events the Coalition did," he said, noting that he took parts in protesting businesses that allowed smoking and rallied for other establishments to go smoke-free. "It felt so good to be able to stand up for something bigger than just me."

He became the secretary of the board as a junior and kept that role his senior year. He also has spent the last two years as president of his 4-H chapter.

Last summer, his Generation FREE coordinator invited Bryce to Orlando for a national summit on youth activism hosted by the Truth Initiative, America's largest non-profit public health organization dedicated to stamping out tobacco use. What he thought would be a fun few days in Florida proved to be the start of something bigger.

"Mississippi is such a hard state to change because people are so resistant to change," Bryce said. "Getting to meet 70 other anti-tobacco youths from all over the country, I heard that other teens were facing the same thing. Being able to connect with them was so inspiring."

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He applied for the Truth Initiative's fellowship and was accepted. Among his duties was designing a project in his community. Another project he's put together is the ALEC -- the Advocacy, Leadership, Education and Change -- conference being held at Gulfport High on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids was holding its annual competition for a top youth advocate. Leaders at the Truth Initiative recommended he apply. His Generation FREE coordinator required that all board members apply. Then came the news that he'd won.

"I was so shocked," he said. "Being in Mississippi, I don't feel like I'm doing much good, not affecting a lot of change. Through getting that award, it made me look around and realize that I am making a difference."

He even got Papa to quit.

The more Bryce became involved in the anti-tobacco movement, the harder David Moore worked to wean himself from cigarettes. He eventually extinguished his last Winston. Alas, it may have been too late.

About two years ago, the elder Moore was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Studies are mixed as far as connecting smoking and this form of cancer, but it surely didn't help.

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Yet there's no denying Papa's imprint on Bryce. Beyond unintentionally steering him to the anti-tobacco movement, the work ethic, emphasis on education and other lessons are all clearly evident in this amazing young man.

Later this year, Bryce will begin the next phase of his life at Belhaven University in the state capital, Jackson. He plans to double major in creative writing and theater, then to get a graduate degree in public policy.

"Hopefully, I can pursue activism and non-profit work," he said. "I want to make a change in the world."

Notice that he didn't say anything about one day taking a bigger role in the anti-tobacco movement. There's a good reason for that.

"Hopefully by the time I get done with school," he said, "that battle will have been won and we won't have to worry about that anymore."
Albert Einstein purportedly said, "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

Sometimes I wonder if the standardized testing we do in many of our schools today does just that: judges fish on their climbing ability. Many assessments evaluate unnecessary academic skills that have no basis in determining if a child is ready to move on to the next level of learning.

Teaching Fish to Climb Trees

A recent conversation with my friend Teresa*, a former teacher, drove home the frustrations many devoted educators feel towards testing regimes that lack nuance and context. Poignantly, she described how she worked day-in and day-out to teach her 3rd grade class of English Language Learners to read while she was simultaneously and consistently being compared to her counterpart who was leading a class of 3rd grade native English speakers.

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It didn't matter that Teresa had brought her students' reading ability up from a kindergarten level at the beginning of the school year to a 2nd grade level at the end of the school year -- she was still behind: both in absolute terms (based on state standards) and in relative terms (vs. her third grade teacher counterpart).

At the end of the year, Teresa became part of a RIF (Reduction in Force). This required her to move schools due to a lack of funding at her current school. After several years of such moves, she left the profession.

Teresa summed up her decision to leave the teaching profession this way, "It's one thing to be paid one of the lowest professional salaries in America; it's completely untenable to be paid at that level and also disrespected."



Mothers Against Drunk Testing

Teresa is clearly not alone in her feelings toward our standardized tests and their unintended consequences for both students and teachers. When it comes to end-of-year statewide tests, there is a growing opt-out movement forming, and "assessment" is quickly becoming a bad word in academic circles. There is even an advocacy group now called Mothers Against Drunk Testing.

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But in this opt-out movement, are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Does the concept of assessment have merit, but the implementation lack credibility?

For example, if assessments could be used less as a stick to punish the less "successful" and more as a guide to ensure that both students and teachers get the support and resources they need, would we look at tests differently?



Formative vs. Summative Assessments

Herein lies the difference between formative assessments and summative assessments. Formative assessments occur as a precursor to the personalization, instruction, and customization of a student's learning plan and teacher's lesson plan. Formative assessments guide. Summative assessments, such as the standardized testing we're more familiar with, merely summarize.

At Istation, the edtech company where I work, we provide digital and face-to-face personalized learning experiences for students in the subjects of reading, Spanish and math. We recognize the importance of standards in an educational setting and provide teachers with the kind of rigorous curriculum that the standards demand.

Istation's progress-monitoring tools are designed to save teachers time and to pinpoint the personal needs of each student. Those same progress monitors can of course also be used to measure growth over an academic cycle or a multi-year period. Importantly, the individual assessment technology embedded in Istation and similar programs is dynamic and part of the curriculum; this is fundamental as it ensures students' progress is measured while they are engaged in the actual learning process.

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Many parents are concerned about the frequency of testing and the time it takes away from classroom instruction. But modern formative testing does not require sacrificing a morning to scantrons and number 2 pencils. Adaptive technology allows measurement and instruction to occur simultaneously and reinforce each other as programs dynamically adjust to each student's strengths and areas for improvement.

One of the most important components of strong formative assessments is that they show growth (or lack thereof) over time for all students. Put differently, formative testing measures not only how a student performs compared to an average but also how that student performs compared to herself in prior periods. Istation's screeners are particularly telling, because they show the risk-level of failure associated with each child and recommend how intensive instruction should or should not be.

A Brighter Future

In listening to Teresa's heart-breaking stories, I was reminded that unfair evaluations (in any circumstance) can lead to toxic cultures and eventually exits from a profession or a career path.

Instead of simply measuring a student's performance at a single point in time, let's put greater emphasis on progress over time. End-of-grade assessments do have their place, but there is even greater value in incorporating progress-monitoring tools and formative assessments: they allow us to measure growth over time and give teachers necessary insight to intervene appropriately.

In short, if we want to keep talented professionals and students engaged in our educational system, we need to do a better job of assessing our own assessments. Gains in classroom technology mean that schools are no longer limited to tests designed to determine whether every student meets a minimum standard once a year. We can also measure the individual progress each student makes in a dynamic and non-obtrusive way throughout the year.

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KANSAS has spent more than four decades as a part of the soundtrack of the lives of multiple generations of music lovers. The bands first public statement appeared on their self-titled album in 1974. "From the beginning, we considered ourselves and our music different and we hope we will always remain so." Little did this legendary rock group realize that back in the early 70's, what seemed to be different," was actually ahead of its time.

This "garage band" from Topeka released its debut album in 1974. The band has produced eight gold albums, three six-times platinum albums (Leftoverture, Point of Know Return, Best of KANSAS), one platinum live album (Two for the Show), and a million-selling gold single, Dust in the Wind. KANSAS appeared on the Billboard charts for over 200 weeks throughout the 70's and 80's and played to sold-out arenas and stadiums throughout North America, Europe and Japan. Carry On Wayward Son was the No. 2 most played track on classic rock radio in 1995 and went to No. 1 in 1997.

In 1998, KANSAS released an orchestral album; "Always Never the Same," recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London. They followed with an orchestral tour accompanied by top-caliber symphony orchestras.

Sony Music released a boxed set in 2004 titled "Sail On" which featured unique KANSAS cuts as well as vintage video footage on the included DVD disc.

Inspired by their 35th Anniversary DVD There's Know Place Like Home KANSAS conducted their Collegiate Symphony Tour from 2010-2012 performing their hits accompanied by various college and university symphonies throughout the United States to help raise funds and awareness for collegiate music programs. In 2011, this tour lead to a special collaboration with the US Army Orchestra culminating in the Carry On Concert honoring Americas veterans on Veterans Day 11/11/11 at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, DC.

Coinciding with the celebration of their 40th anniversary, the band KANSAS, was inducted into both the Kansas Hall of Fame and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame as recognition for their achievements from both their native state and adopted home state.

The band, which is currently comprised of original drummer Phil Ehart, bassist/vocalist Billy Greer, keyboardist David Manion, vocalist/keyboardist Ronnie Platt, violinist/guitarist David Ragsdale, and original guitarist Richard Williams, continues to perform.

Along with touring, KANSAS remains a fixture of classic rock radio and has reached a whole new audience through their unmistakable presence on the popular video games Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and through their songs inclusion in various television shows such as Supernatural, and South Park, and with films Old School, and Anchorman.
It's a summer season in Gdansk! I hope you can visit. Nearly two million people have visited our city in 2015. Less than half of them came for recreation and leisure. Majority declare that they will come again and will recommend Gdansk to their family and friends.

Obviously, that makes the mayor happy! We are doing our best to make this summer even better and cooler for tourists in Gdansk! Efforts are not spared in city's agencies and institutions to conduct a smart pro-business, pro-residents, and pro-tourist policy that will result in our city to be even more attractive. That, coupled with excellent restaurants, nightlife, and most importantly, a rich cultural offer, places Gdansk among top European destinations.

Chcek out the new project: Granary Island redevelopment right in the heart of the Old Town, on Motlawa River.

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Motawa river banks and a medieval grain crane are at the forefront of most visited places.

Or, our white sand beaches

Fig. Jerzy Pinkas / www.gdansk.pl

Here is an infogram created by Gdansk Tourist Organization showing the results of a survey conducted among tourists visiting Gdansk. Data were collected based on more than 2.5 thousand surveys.

On this basis, we determine who our visitors are, where they come from, how they spend their time, what places they visit, and, most importantly, whether they like Gdansk . In 2015, Gdansk was visited by 1 988 396 visitors.1 281 877 are domestic tourists and 706 519 are foreign tourists: 22.31 percent from Germany 19.66 percent from Scandinavia 19.47 percent - UK residents

When asked what they liked the best, they frequently appreciated the ambience of the city, openness among residents, standards of accommodation and gastronomic offer.

Purpose of visit to Gdansk recreation 47.3 percent. 18.7 per cent of the business. visit relatives 10.5 percent.

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Most of the respondents at the time of questioning were 2nd or third time visitors to Gdansk. In most cases, the visitors declared they would return and will recommend a visit to our city to their families and friends.
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 10: U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) speaks during the 2015 Alfred K. Whitehead Legislative Conference and Presidential Forum March 10, 2015 in Washington, DC. Prospective 2016 presidential candidates from both political parties participated in the presidential forum during the conference which hosted by the International Association of Fire Fighters. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Last week, Congressman Peter King dropped a bomb when he referred to Japanese as "Japs" on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

"National defense and homeland security are issues that mean the most to me and there's real issues with him, real problems with his views," King said. "I don't know if he's thought them through, or it's just like the guy at the end of the bar that says, 'Oh screw them, bomb them, kill them, pull out, bring them home. You know, why pay for the Japs, why pay for the Koreans?"'

King brushed off the ensuing uproar over the use of the racial slur by stating that "we're getting too politically correct" and "oversensitive".

Irony of ironies, I was attending an All Camps Consortium Conference when I got word of King's statement. Participants represented organizations from all ten concentration camps where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. The work of the conference was to make sure that the injustices perpetrated primarily on the Japanese population -- 62 percent of whom were American citizens -- are not inflicted on another group of people.

On the very day we met, the headlines were again filled with the word "Jap." Hate speech from 75 years ago. King's demagoguery was not a simple matter of political incorrectness. He used the same dehumanizing term that turned an entire nation against loyal Americans. For those at the conference, the word drained the blood from our faces and brought back the nightmare of numbers instead of names, of horse stalls and desolate prisons, and of a destruction of property, assets, community, heritage, culture and language. Even if King had apologized, he could not erase the impact of his racism. But he did not apologize.

For decades, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) has worked to expunge the term "Jap" from American speech, signs, names, advertisements - you name it. Why? "Jap" is and has been a racial pejorative that has been long viewed by the community as a word associated with civil rights injustices, discrimination, hate crimes, and persecution that spanned over a century. It is a word that was flaunted in anti-Japanese persecution of World War II and in the yellow Jim Crow environment of the late 19th and the 20th century. It was a word hurled at Japanese Americans as they were forcibly removed from their homes by armed soldiers and sent to remote prisons in 1942 and by a white supremacist who bombed the Sacramento office of the JACL in 1993. It was the word used by politicians as they passed laws to deny citizenship, deny property ownership, deny the right to marry an American citizen, and create segregated schools.

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"Pretty little thing with your high heels on/you better soak up admiration till the pain is gone/your creamy plastic face and your robot soul/are going to beg for a savior when you've lost control..."



So sing Post Death Soundtrack of Lewis Carroll's Alice on their track of the same name from their forthcoming LP, The Unlearning Curve, out May 27th. Pulling inspiration from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, J. Krishnamurti, and dream language, Post Death Soundtrack aim to take horrorcore to new literary heights, weaving haunting verse with trip hop beats, creating something like a musical nightmare.

Like many dark iterations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (ex.: the video games American McGee's Alice and Alice: Madness Returns, or any bloodied version of an Alice Halloween costume) Post Death Soundtrack take young, innocent Alice and place her in a world of unsettling chaos where she's torn apart. It's unclear what the exact musical motive is for going after Alice, especially since it's a creative idea we've seen executed before--but the listener is successfully transported to a dark place, which may be all ost Death Soundtrack were hoping to do. The result is an emotionally disturbing LP that will likely appeal to Insane Clown Posse fans just as much as Massive Attack devotees.

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"Our Time is Now" would mashup well with Nine Inch Nails' "Closer," while "Beauty Eyes I Adore" stands apart as a track full of breathy harmonies highlighting the haunting side of infatuation. The album's strongest tune, though, is definitely "Alice," as it hits the album's theme harder than the rest.

Post Death Soundtrack is a Canadian inter-city music collective consisting of Kenneth Buck, Steve Moore, and Jon Ireson. Founded in Calgary in 2007 by Buck and Moore, the band now operates out of Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto using the magic of the Internet to collaborate across the country. The Unlearning Curve was recorded at a number of studios, primarily in Vancouver. It was mastered at Suite Sound Labs and the album cover is an original painting by Toronto artist Kayla Aileen Brown. The album is available for download pre-order and will have a limited edition vinyl run. For more information, visit the band's website.
A friend of mine, at the age of 55, was in a new relationship that was heading toward sexual intimacy. Concerned because she hadn't had sex in three years, and knowing from experience that it could be a painful encounter because of vaginal dryness, she asked me -- a sexually active woman in a 27-year marriage -- what I used to combat that discomfort.



I had a great recommendation, based upon my own experience. The first time I had painful intercourse with my husband, I was astonished. Vaginal dryness came on seemingly overnight, and our lovemaking had to be halted. The next morning, I called my gynecologist's office and asked to be worked in that day. You see, I love having regular sex with my husband, and I was certain there was a medical remedy to keep that viable, and there was.

My doctor prescribed Vagifem 10 mcg, and after using that small vaginal suppository only a few times, I was back to normal, and so was our sex life.

Vagifem is an estrogen replacement suppository consisting of estradiol. It treats the underlying cause of menopause-related vaginal changes by helping to replenish the vagina's lost estrogen. It's used primarily after menopause to treat changes in and around the vagina, including atrophic vaginitis (dryness and soreness in the vagina) and dyspareunia (pain during sexual intercourse.) It is also beneficial in preventing UTIs. The cells lining the vagina are basically the same cells that line the urethra and the bladder. When the vagina is dry, the bladder is dry, and UTIs occur with greater frequency.

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There are other such treatments for these afflictions, including patches, ointment, and vaginal rings; but the Vagifem suppository has been very effective for me personally, so I happily recommended this treatment to my friend. She saw her doctor, got a prescription, and began using it. When sexual intimacy occurred the following week, she experienced no discomfort with her new beau. Wonderful, right? I mean, here's a medical solution for a painful condition, a remedy that can be prescribed by your doctor, and it is covered by insurance.

Until it isn't.

That same friend called me a few days ago to tell me that her insurance company would no longer cover the cost of Vagifem. She said her out-of-pocket cost for a 90-day supply (24 tablets) would now be $425. My insurance company still covers it under my grandfathered plan, but I have a high deductible, so my out-of-pocket cost for a 90-day supply is $546. But because it is a covered medication, it at least goes toward my deductible. Not so for my friend. The total cost is now hers to bear. Thankfully, my friend and I can afford Vagifem, but many women cannot.

The Affordable Care Act did a great thing in mandating that plans in the Health Insurance Marketplace cover contraceptive methods and counseling for all women, as prescribed by a health care provider. Plans must cover these services without charging a co-payment or coinsurance when provided by an in-network provider, even if a woman has not met her deductible. If her employer is granted an exemption to pay for a plan that covers the cost of birth control based on religious reasons (Hobby Lobby) the insurer will provide birth control coverage to the company's female employees at no additional cost to the company. Birth control addresses both pregnancy prevention and women's health issues, such as regulating periods, stopping menstrual migraines, easing endometriosis, helping with polycystic ovarian syndrome, and reducing the risk of endometrial cancer. Vaginal estrogen replacement medication address multiple symptoms related to women's health, so why shouldn't it be covered as well?

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In doing some research, I ran across plenty of forums with discussions that date back years, with post-menopausal women complaining that their health insurance would not cover treatment for their symptoms, because they consider "hormone-level decline a normal part of aging."

Medicare Part D covers much of the cost for Vagifem, but atrophic vaginitis and dyspareunia occur in women much younger than 65. So why would some private insurance companies not cover a medication that is essential in alleviating a post-menopausal woman's painful dryness symptoms? Are vaginal dryness, UTIs, atrophy and the related pain not legitimate medical conditions?

Or is it just that the vaginas of women who can no longer reproduce are considered -- well, not worthy of consideration? Are we just supposed to dry up and blow away?

Aging takes enough of a toll on women mentally and physically, and our desire to stave off this particular painful biological effect of aging should not take a large financial toll as well. Aging gracefully simply cannot occur if a woman who wants to have sex cannot do so without pain. Which makes me wonder: How did insurance companies arrive at the conclusion that women should personally bear the cost of treating the medical conditions known as atrophic vaginitis and dyspareunia? Which executives decided that women not of child-bearing age should pay such a high price to maintain a healthy vagina, one that is still primed for pleasurable intercourse? This isn't plastic surgery, an optional choice for looking younger. This is a medical issue of alleviating pain and maintaining the health of the most vital area of our feminine realm. It should not be optional based upon affordability.

If we remain healthy, we can enjoy sex long into our "old age," given the availability of erectile-dysfunction pills and vaginal atrophy treatment. If women want to enjoy sex after menopause, but before age 65, they may have to pay dearly for it. Our sexuality is being devalued by tight-fisted insurance companies. The ACA gives us the right to appeal such insurance company decisions through an internal appeal or an external review. If every woman who is denied coverage for FDA-approved atrophic vaginitis remedies appealed, we might be able to reclaim our right to painless sex for decades before we are eligible for Medicare.

Speak with your doctor before considering Vagifem or any similar product.

Earlier on Huff/Post50:
Paradigm Shifters is a series of interviews with a select group of women and men from eclectic walks of life. It will highlight unspoken, real-life insights on how they have been able to turn weakness into strength. A naked soul point of view of how their breakdowns were really a preparation for breakthroughs. They are your quintessential paradigm shifters; internal shifts converted into genuine change.

Everything I have ever done has been focused on this underlying theme of shifting the paradigm because, "What we think determines what we feel and what we feel determines what we do." Hence, why Empowered by You takes lingerie, which has traditionally been seen merely as a tool of seduction and redirected that energy as a tool of empowerment.

I hope from these stories you will look at your own situations, struggles and accomplishments through a different lens. At the very least you will be more equipped with real life tools to change your own paradigm. At the end of the day, we are our own Alchemist turning the silver we were born with into the gold we are destined to become.

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Jane Shepherdson - Chief Executive Officer, Whistles

You've garnered this reputation of working your way up from the stockroom to Brand Director of Topshop. Tell me more about this journey.

I started at Topshop as a very enthusiastic twenty-something, excited to get into the fashion industry. I knew with the confidence of youth that if I could get in, I could work my way up.

I started on an extremely small salary and had to take a pub job in the evenings to pay my rent, but I absolutely loved it. I was in London in the 1980's and I felt like I had arrived. I ended up becoming a successful buyer and eventually kept moving up through the ranks.

Starting at the bottom and learning everything about the business was fundamental . The higher up I got the more I realized how useful it really was, as I was able to really understand how the business worked.

As a buyer, I was aware quite early on that if I gave my customers more than they anticipated that they would stay with me. I had a real pride in the clothes and realized that if I loved something, then the chances were that the customer would too. At Topshop, we focused on not only getting the clothes right but also trying to give the customers great experiences. For example we would give them access to great up and coming designers that they would have never been able to afford and VIP service they didn't expect from the High st in those days.



You then went to Whistles during the economic downturn in 2008, but despite the circumstances you were able to reinvent this brand. How did you go about doing this?

2008 was a terrifying time... 6 months after we took over, the two banks supporting us went under, and we had to refinance. We then lost most of our customers, as our vision for the brand was so different from what the brand was.

There didn't seem to be a way of re-invigorating the brand bit by bit, the change had to happen completely and in one season. We changed the clothes, the store design, and the branding and returned Whistles to the aspirational boutique brand it had been back in the 70's.

Fortunately the UK fashion press were phenomenally supportive of us. I think they liked the product but I think maybe they also liked the story, and kept backing us. We probably have them to thank for our survival today, because it was a really difficult time. But I think in a way, once we got through that it felt like, what's the worst that could happen? I think that freed us somehow.

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Now who would you say your consumer is today?

She's about 25-45. She wants solutions to clothing crisis, she typically works in the creative industries and is independent and confident. She knows what her innate style is but isn't afraid to experiment with new silhouettes.

She has a lot of work and social occasions and wants to dress for them but in a contemporary way. She wants to feel like herself and look cool. We sell a lot of contemporary occasion wear for weddings and events, but done in a cool and modern way so that there's no danger of looking like the mother of the bride!

You talk openly about the need for more women in the boardroom. Can you speak on the disparity between male and female executives, especially in a female dominated brand? How do you think it can be lessened?

It's interesting because it definitely isn't changing fast. The gap still exists.

In fashion there are an awful lot of women - something like 80% working in the fashion sector are women. But as soon as you get to the boardroom, it drops to less than 10%. I think the gap exists for multitude of reasons. But in part I still think that being in the minority is difficult and until it becomes the norm, where you've got 50% on the board, the gap will remain.

It's the same if you look at politics, too. Until it's seen as normal - that there are 50:50 women and men - it's going to be hard. I also think that retail, as with a lot of other industries, is seen as a tough, competitive industry that attracts perhaps tough competitive people who work in a certain way.

Perhaps women aren't particularly attracted to that kind of culture. I know that sounds like a huge generalization but I think very often that is the case and it's a shame. I think maybe you have to force it; in politics, until women represent closer to 50%, maybe having quotas would be a good start.

Our head office is predominantly women at Whistles and that's sort of how it should be. I mean we're selling mostly women's clothes!

You also did interesting work at Oxfam and People Tree after Topshop. Tell me a little bit more about this.

I started working with Oxfam when I left Topshop. They approached me and said, "I expect you've got some time on your hands." Although a little cheeky it was true at the time.

So I helped them with their stores--they had something like 800 stores in the UK. To me, it was a great opportunity to be able to use the skills I had learned at Topshop to raise money for the charity. We spent a lot of time just trying to make the stores more attractive. I became more and more involved and visited some of their girls education programs in Niger, Burkina Faso and Zambia . Every pound that you spend on educating girls has a bigger return than almost anything else that a charity can do. I continue to work with them, but just as an advisor.

I became a non exec director of People Tree after Topshop, too, mainly because I knew that there was a lot I needed to learn in terms of fair trade fashion and I thought, where better to learn that than from one of the pioneers. It was hugely valuable.

What was your breakdown to breakthrough moment?

I left Topshop because I realized that I was becoming defined by what I did and I had allowed work to take over my life. I needed to find another way of working.

Leaving made me appreciate freedom so much. The feeling that it is not about having a huge amount of money--obviously, it's having enough to get by--but after that it's about being able to make your own choices.

I think that is so important - I wouldn't like to think that I would ever be trapped into doing something that I didn't want to do.

What kind of legacy do you wish to leave behind?

I'd like to be remembered, I suppose, as someone with integrity, who treated people well, and who was good fun. That's all I can ask for..

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If your life were a book, what would be the title of 2015? What about for 2016?
Last month, undergraduates at Stanford University resoundingly beat back a proposal to return, after a near three decade absence, the study of Western civilization. The student run, "The Stanford Review," marketed the idea with the slogan, "Besides democracy, education, philosophy, logic, mathematics, engineering, literature, and theater, what has Western civilization ever done for us?" As the petition for signatures circulated, in predictable leftist fashion, any signers were labeled racists and bigots; the usual fare. If they say it, it must be so. After all, free speech to the left, translates to anything they agree with. The near 6 to 1 vote against drubbing is a frightening commentary on the state on higher education.

Three thousand miles due east, Columbia University, besides being an elite Ivy League institution, is one of the last to require a six class "core curriculum" which "focuses on the culture and history of Western and European civilization." The greatest of learning opportunities for one, can be oppressive, and denigrating to another. Ms. Nissa Aya, an undergrad, asserts this focus on the West has been highly mentally stressful for her.

"It's traumatizing to sit in Core classes," she said. "We are looking at history through the lens of these powerful, white men. I have no power or agency as a black woman, so where do I fit in?"

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That's right. In the greater scheme of things, the vast majority of college students haven't reached an evolution point where they are entitled to societal power.

Ms. Aya, your power and agency, whatever the heck agency implies, are not bestowed; they come when you graduate and get a job and learn a skill. You will develop your place by your hard work and performance and becoming a tax paying citizen. And believe it or not, that does not have a lot to do with being black or white. If your attitude displays an openness that says you understand the world doesn't owe you, then you become the color of water. Conversely, past bitterness of being force fed "powerful white men" reeking from your pores, is a demeanor less conducive to employment opportunities.

Predictably, Miss Aya "is urging the school to inject more diversity into its required courses, claiming she suffered severe emotional trauma from reading too many books by and about white people." Diversity is the boundless elixir to heal all.

Yet even more recent evidence of core curriculum "trauma" was "triggered" by classroom review of a love struck Pluto opening the earth to kidnap and have his way with the nature goddess Persephone. "While Persephone was playing in this glade and gathering violets........trying to outdo her companions in her picking, Pluto saw her, prized her, took her: so swift as this, is love." Ah, the lewdness of this passage. The undisclosed, heretofore hidden dangers, no evils, of Greek Myth and Ovid were quickly exposed by a one prickly young co-ed. This youth made claim to be a "survivor" of "sexual assault" of indeterminate time and locale. Apparently, "her professor focused on the beauty of the language and the splendor of the imagery when lecturing on the text". The "student completely disengaged from the class discussion as a means of self-preservation. She did not feel safe in the class."

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It was only months after the fact, "during a forum hosted by the Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board (MAAB) on Literature Humanities" that this fascism was unearthed and exposed. Mercifully, despite this surprise Mythology attack, the student has retained her health though it remains unclear whether her solipsism has abated. "When the student approached her professor after class, the student said she was essentially dismissed, and her concerns were ignored" .The professor rightly, has been incarcerated indefinitely. (See William Briggs wonderful article for a cautionary partial inventory of other emotionally debilitating mythology tales).

Using Ovid as a metaphor The Spectator rants that "many texts in the Western canon contain triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom. These texts, wrought with histories and narratives of exclusion and oppression, can be difficult to read and discuss as a survivor, a person of color, or a student from a low-income background." A survivor of what, is what I want to know? Greek Mythology as a narrative of exclusion and oppression implies the need for warning labels. My thinking is so distorted that I thought low income kids read Ovid to get smarter to try not be low income any more....Silly me.

One common thematic in the slapstick of these two tales is the ubiquitous redefined and downgraded use of the word "trauma". Dennis Prager rightly points out that academia has insidiously woven it into the jargon to portray victims of emotional disablement suffered reading Shakespeare Trauma, to get a foothold back in the real world, is a foot soldier slithering through freezing mud in the Ardennes Forest helpless as Nazi shrapnel is exploding all around. Trauma is 8 year old hungry African kids who witnessed their father hacked to death and mother gang raped as rebels burned their village.



For better or worse, Western civilization was built almost solely by white men in Europe; the greatest invention of mankind, condoning freedom of expression and creativity like no others. There I said it. Western civilization is superior. Though this truth can be inconvenient, it makes for no obstacle on any campus of higher learning. Xenophobic, despotic, fascist, and of course racist are the new monikers for Western civilization; Screams of white supremacy and colonialism round out the alchemy. Oxymoron and hypocrisy hide behind clouds as Stanford and Columbia, two of the grandest accoutrements spawned by Western Civilization, are the pulpits for this specious drivel.

For 90 years, somehow Columbia inculcated in students the privilege and benefits in drinking in the knowledge and wonders of the history of Western Civilization. For so many of those years, students of all colors, races, religions, eagerly or at least dutifully, fulfilled the "Core" requirement with no complaint of debilitating mental duress or charges of xenophobia or favoring white supremacy.

With an almost instantaneous pivot, a Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board (MAAB) is seated "to give students, professors, and faculty a space to hold a safe and open dialogue about experiences in the classroom that all too often traumatize and silence students". In my opinion, the MAAB is an inquisition of sorts. The only reason a student should be silent is if they haven't done the homework. Make the classrooms safe....from what....from Locke....or Augustine; absurdity ad infinitum. Strange that some student's claim offense at the violence, racism, and sexual content of some of the greatest works ever put on paper, but no sensitivities at all to the graphic nature of cable TV, movies, U-Tube, or sometimes hate mongering lyrics of rap music; Hints of non sequitur waft from the lecture hall rafters.

There is a streaming fountain of wisdom to be absorbed and enjoyed. From Homer, Socrates and Vergil, to Dante and Voltaire, then Hobbes, Tocqueville, and Nietzsche, I name but a few. Yet students carp of the crippling concussive ghosts of dead white men. You can only place the horses next to the stream.

That Western Civilization has not provided a perfect linear progression of human advancement offers critics an invalid excuse to execrate. There were the crusades, followed by some centuries of imperialistic colonial behaviors by the Europeans. In our own backyard Native Americans were unjustly treated and now ongoing discussions on past slavery. What about other cultures? Slavery continues to be openly practiced in Africa today. Arabs haven't been at peace with each other since the Sunni- Shiite schism. Women and chattel remain synonymous in many parts of the Middle East. Little time is left for invention and creating in an economy of dictatorial repressive regimes. Somehow, the American culture provides the highest living standard on the planet.

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So this now stale recording that Western Civilization catalyzes bigotry and subjugation hardly squares with the facts. From the automobile to relativity to penicillin to the IPhone, virtually every forward leap by mankind has been courtesy of freedoms of expression afforded by political systems evolved from early Greco-Roman cultures. So why such great significance attached to keep the "core" at Columbia and campaign for reinstating it other places? The thinkers of the Greco-Roman times are the bloodlines to our great, albeit imperfect, democracy today. To have awareness of history and the evolution of the philosophies that brought about America and Europe ties a person to their culture.

To my chagrin, these sniveling whiners on college campuses are rapidly metastasizing and spreading their dystopian poison. Shall we allow this historical revision to go unchallenged? While Plato toiled in 380 BC on The Republic and a generation later Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great, the African continent and Arabian deserts remained culturally dormant. Paleontologists are finding evidence this was the first racist conspiracy.

This wave of thought police infiltrating academia has begat new vocabulary. Neo-colonialist professor's incessant "micro aggressions" in conjunction with attempts at "cultural appropriations" compounded by insensitively glorifying great literature by dead white men is the etiology of "triggering" from which debilitating physiological and epistemic harm, possibly permanent can occur. A "micro aggression" is a belligerent act so small that detection occurs only through the highest powered electron microscopes. "Cultural appropriation"; this devolutionary neologism was not to be found in our lexicon a decade ago. Look it up, I certainly can't define it.
"I like pissing people off," Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told Fortune in a 2012 interview about his company's confrontational tactics.

Mission accomplished.

Residents of Austin, Texas, were positively livid after Uber and Lyft unleashed an $8.6 million political action committee and bombarded residents with TV ads, political campaign mail, emails and text messages urging them to vote for "Proposition 1," a referendum that would repeal the requirement that drivers for Uber, Lyft and other app-based ride-hailing companies pass fingerprint background checks, just as taxi drivers do.

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"# of Ads, email, people knocking on my door & texting me to tell me to vote for Prop 1 is ridiculous. Please stop," tweeted one annoyed Austinite. "Hey @Uber I am literally voting AGAINST prop 1 in Austin because you have people constantly texting me to do so. STOP texting me. Seriously," tweeted another.

One might think meeting this kind of requirement should be no sweat for a $50 billion corporation like Uber. If local taxi drivers can do it, Uber can do it, right? And complying with the rule, which was passed by council members by a 9-2 vote, is probably cheaper than, I don't know, creating an $8 million PAC, right?

Wrong, apparently.

Uber claimed its ability to keep doing business in Austin hinged on Proposition 1's passage - and launched a campaign equating the stricter background checks with an attempt by the city to "take Uber away."

Ultimately, the referendum effort failed lost 56 percent to 44 percent. Both Uber and Lyft withdrew from Austin after the vote - but with the prospect on the horizon of Uber-supported state legislation to preempt Austin's local authority, the conflict is far from over.

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Austinites were understandably dumbfounded by this attempt by a powerful corporation to overwhelm and undermine their city government.

They should know that they are not alone.

A new Public Citizen report, Disrupting Democracy: How Uber Deploys Corporate Power to Overwhelm and Undermine Local Government, presents detailed case studies of conflicts between the corporation and local lawmakers and regulators in Austin, Texas; Boston, Mass.; Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.; Philadelphia, Pa.; San Francisco, Calif.; Seattle, Wash. and Washington, D.C.

In each case examined in the report, Uber's expansion is facilitated through the conversion of money power into political power. When city officials try to enact laws or enforce regulations the company opposes, it fights back by using political-style campaign tactics and large-scale lobbying.

There is a pattern to Uber's conflicts with cities. The company often launches in cities in defiance of local officials' interpretations of local regulations, while at the same time insisting on the legality of its business. When local law enforcement and other officials respond, the company mobilizes a campaign to "save Uber." Likewise, the company resists local legislative efforts that attempt to require the company to follow standards similar to those required of taxicab and limousine companies, framing them as attempts to "shut down" Uber. Because customers are required to provide an email address to access the company's app, the company is uniquely poised to turn its customer base into grassroots lobbyists who will sign a "save Uber" petition when the company asks.

These petitions, which can generate tens of thousands of signatures, help legitimize the lobbying campaigns the company deploys. These campaigns often include high-powered lobbyists, including some who are former colleagues of the government officials they are lobbying. Uber usually wins these battles against rules and regulations the company opposes, but when it loses, it keeps fighting. When cities pass laws that Uber opposes, the company commonly seeks to have them preempted with Uber-approved state law or repealed through voter referenda.

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Living in a democracy means the people have the power to choose their destiny, and it means local governments should make decisions based on what's best for the public, not what's best for an invasive multibillion-dollar corporation.

When a single company or interest has the power to overwhelm democracy's deliberative and decision making processes because investors reward rapid corporate growth over respect for local democracy, something is broken.
We are starting to see the sorry spectacle of a Republican establishment that detests Donald Trump falling in line behind his candidacy. Before it's over, schisms will be papered over; the vast majority of Republican elected officials will endorse Trump; and he will pick up plenty of Republican donors as well.

You can see all this in the well-choreographed back-pedaling by House Speaker Paul Ryan and by RNC Chairman Reince Preibus, and in the increasing isolation of the few senior Republican elected officials such as Nebraska senator Ben Sasse who have pledged never to support Trump.

A week ago, I wrote in this space that "efforts by Republican leaders to block Trump's election to the presidency will only intensify." Well, that prediction sure has been overtaken by events.

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What about the plain contradictions between many of Trump's positions and those of most Republicans? Evidently, those will be papered over, too. The man is nothing if not opportunist. He has shown himself capable of reversing his positions on a dime. And he will.

The hiring of conventional (yet fringe) Republican economic policy advisers signals how this is likely to go. Trump has named Larry Kudlow of CNBC and Steve Moore of the Heritage Foundation to advise him on economics--far right economists with a record of getting things wrong, but familiar and comforting to leading Republicans.

As Trump repositions himself for the general election, we can anticipate more presidential-sounding and less lunatic pronouncements on foreign policy, and tax and budget proposals that merely fail to add up, in the great tradition of Paul Ryan and supply side economics, but not ones whose simple arithmetic is ludicrously off by $10 trillion.

One should be hesitant to predict anything when it comes to Trump, but I think I can predict this much with confidence:

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The parts of the Trump program that most gave establishment Republicans heartburn will end up on the cutting room floor. By the time of the convention and the GOP platform, forget anti-Wall Street rhetoric and calls to raise taxes on the rich. Forget defense of Medicare and Social Security.

The man, after all, is a billionaire businessman. We should not expect the second coming of William Jennings Bryan. If admiring working class voters are too gulled to notice the contradiction, too bad for them.

What will remain will be the parts of the Republican program where Trump and the business elite converge--tax cuts, pruning back government, deregulation.

The one economic issue where Trump may well hang tough is on trade, China, and export of jobs. But the two bipartisan trade deals supported by President Obama - TPP and TTIP - are pretty dead in the water anyway. And a tougher line against China's predatory state-led capitalism is actually smart policy and politics, even supported by some of the business community.

What, then, will be left of the raw Trump populism that has had such appeal to downtrodden white voters? Why, the truly ugly nativism, of course. He has backpedalled some from his pledge not to admit Muslims to the country, but what remains loud and clear is the dog-whistle.

Why are Republican leaders rallying behind a figure who they hate, a man who has been mocking and vilifying them all year? Because they, too, are utter opportunists.

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The stop-Trump movement failed. Trump has demonstrated appeal to constituencies who Republicans have long been trying to rally. He has been underrated ever since he declared for the presidency. And given the right set of accidents (like a major terrorist attack or a major Clinton stumble), he just might win.

As Andrew Sullivan observed in New York Magazine, "In terms of our liberal democracy and constitutional order, Trump is an extinction-level event. It's long past time we started treating him as such."

But for all of their blather about abuses of executive power and reverence for the Constitution, Republicans who put principle ahead of expediency are few and far between. And their view of what's expedient should tell us something.

If other Republicans were alarmed that a Trump candidacy would drag the entire ticket down to defeat, they would be working a lot harder to block Trump at all costs. We would be hearing more about a third-party challenge, and more GOP elected officials would be with Ben Sasse.

The fact that this stop-Trump movement is shrinking rather than growing tells us that many of Republican leaders have concluded that Trump could give Hillary Clinton a run for her money. And with a degree of party unity that seemed inconceivable even two weeks ago, Trump's hand is strengthened.

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The rise of Trump is an emblem of the failure of American democracy. The Republican effort to block Obama at every turn has been all too successful. Problems keep festering; government keeps not addressing them; government itself keeps getting discredited. Demagogue time.

Those Democrats who were so pleased that Trump defeated more conventional Republicans, who expect that his candidacy sets up a collapse of the Republican Party and a landslide for Hillary Clinton, might want to think twice.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and professor at Brandeis University's Heller School. His latest book is Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility.
MOSCOW, RUSSIA - MAY 16: (RUSSIA OUT) Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the meeting of the Presidential Commission for Monitoring Targeted Socioeconomic Development Achievement Indicators on May 16, 2016 in Moscow, Russia. (Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)

On April 1, 2016, hostilities erupted in the Armenian-majority, Azerbaijan-occupied autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Border tensions and occasional skirmishes have been regular occurrences in the disputed territory since the May 1994 ceasefire agreement, but the recent clashes were the worst outbreak of violence in two decades.

As Armenia and Azerbaijan clashed over responsibility for the flare-up and casualty statistics, Russia emerged as the conflict's principal mediator. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev urged Armenian and Azerbaijani diplomats to agree to a swift peace agreement that would enhance the economic development of both countries and re-establish stability in the South Caucasus.

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Russia's role as the lead peace negotiator in Nagorno-Karabakh is not new. Moscow coordinated the ceasefire that ended the early 1990s Armenia-Azerbaijan war, a conflict that resulted in at least 30,000 casualties.

Despite Medvdev's rhetoric, a closer examination of the dynamics of the conflict raises serious doubts about Russia's commitment to peace in the South Caucasus. To a large extent, I concur with the assessment of leading regional experts like Thomas De Waal that Russian belligerence is not the primary cause of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh. But three patterns of Russian conduct suggest that Putin is playing an important secondary role in destabilizing the autonomous region. This policy of systematic destabilization is aimed at enhancing Moscow's geopolitical leverage in the South Caucasus. These actions will be detailed below:

1)Russia is Arming Both Azerbaijan and Armenia Despite Escalating Regional Tensions

While Russia's alliance with Armenia is unsurprising, due to historical ties between the two countries and Armenia's membership in the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), the Kremlin's extensive military assistance to Turkey's principal ally in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan stands out strikingly. According to a 2015 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Report, Azerbaijan was the second largest arms importer in Europe from 2010-2014, with 85% of those imports coming from Russia.

Since the mid-2000s, Azerbaijan has embarked on a military spending spree, officially justified by the need to combat an "illegal Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh." According to Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, Baku's annual defense budget rose 20-fold in the decade between 2005-2015, with an increase from $3 billion to $4.8 billion occurring in the 2012-2015 period alone. By contrast, Armenia spent only $447 million on defense in 2013. Russia's arms deals with Azerbaijan have destabilized the South Caucasus, by skewing the balance of power towards Baku to such an extent, that Azerbaijan can violate the ceasefire with relative impunity.

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The likelihood of Azerbaijan converting its military capabilities into aggression in Nagorno-Karabakh has grown, as economic crisis fuels political instability in Baku. The collapse of the Azerbaijani manat in January 2016 fuelled mass protests against Aliyev's highly authoritarian regime. Anti-Armenian nationalism is a powerful cohesive force that Aliyev can use to rally people around his leadership during a period of economic turmoil. The president's heightened sense of vulnerability partially explains Azerbaijan's recent belligerence in Nagorno-Karabakh.

As arms shipments have enabled Azerbaijani aggression in Karabakh, top Armenian officials have scathingly criticized Russia's arms deals with Baku. Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian insinuated in March 2015, that Moscow's arms sales to Azerbaijan contravened Russia's OSCE Minsk co-chair responsibilities, as assisting one side of the conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh does not act in the interests of peace. Armenia's President Serzh Sargsyan has also made statements agreeing with Nalbandian's perspective.

Armenia's more limited military resources mean that its temporary focus is on maintaining the status quo and containing potential Azerbaijani aggression. But Russia's shipments of MiG-29 fighters to its base in Armenia and its $200 million military deal with Yerevan have resulted in a limited rebalance of capabilities in the conflict zone.

The Sargsyan regime continues to face pressure due to Armenia's poor economic outlook and public discontent over high corruption levels. The Panama Papers release accusing senior Armenian official Mihran Poghosian of money laundering has further eroded the Armenian public's trust in Sargsyan. In this climate of instability, a more vulnerable Sargsyan could escalate Armenia's military role in Karabakh, in order to pre-empt or retaliate against Azerbaijani aggression.

Despite numerous ceasefire violations, Russia has continued to arm both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has justified this destabilizing policy, on the grounds that both Armenia and Azerbaijan are strategic partners for Moscow; and that Russia needs to fulfill its contract obligations to both countries. Russia's continued shipments of helicopters, anti-aircraft weaponry and artillery to Azerbaijan; and armored vehicles and military hardware to Armenia, will give both sides ammunition to re-inflame the conflict when their respective regimes see fit.

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2)Russia Has Politicized the anti-ISIS Struggle to Strengthen its Military Position in the South Caucasus

On April 4, 2016, citing an anonymous military source, Russian state media outlet Life News reported that Azerbaijan had deployed between 50-70 Syrian ISIS troops to fight against the Armenian military in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijani government vehemently denied these accusations, and ultimately expelled the Life News reporters who released these claims from Azerbaijan, on the grounds that they were providing false information and provoking the conflict.

Azerbaijan's strong opposition to the Life News ISIS report, was due to the reporters' insinuation that Baku lacks control over its borders and that Azerbaijan willfully allowed ISIS fighters to pass through its territory via Turkey to intervene in the conflict. The Azerbaijan Defense Ministry openly stated that the allegations were a form of "sabotage by Kremlin media" intended to raise doubts about "sovereignty and territorial integrity" of Azerbaijan.

From an objective standpoint, the notion that Azerbaijan allowed ISIS fighters to enter its territory is based on questionable logic. Azerbaijan is a secular Shia majority state that has cooperated with the US in its anti-ISIS campaign, because radical Islamists pose a threat to Aliyev's regime security. Even if ISIS fighters were deployed to Karabakh, an analysis of Azerbaijan's strategic interests demonstrates that this incident was likely little more than a one-time security breach.

Much like Putin has used the anti-ISIS struggle as a pretext to strengthen Bashar Al-Assad's authority in Syria, invoking ISIS could be an effective way to justify an expanded military presence in the South Caucasus. By making both Armenia and Azerbaijan dependent on Russia for security, Moscow can play an indispensable role in regional security, weakening the influence of its archrivals, the United States and Turkey.

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3)Russian Leverage in the South Caucasus is Maximized in a Frozen Conflict Scenario

Nagorno-Karabakh, since the 1994 ceasefire has been described as a frozen conflict zone. Armenia and Azerbaijan clash extensively over territory, with occasional episodes of violence, but hostilities are always kept in checked to avoid a full-scale war. The most recent flare-up of the conflict threatened to precipitate a "hot war" in Karabakh. However, lack of will and the immediate intervention of regional powers like Iran and Russia in favor of a truce (or in Turkey's case, a cessation of hostility on Azerbaijan's terms) re-established the frozen conflict status quo within days.

One reason for the lack of progress towards tangible peace in the region is that the delicate frozen conflict equilibrium maximizes Russian geopolitical influence in the South Caucasus. Three reasons explain why a frozen conflict is so valuable for Putin. The first is that allows Russia to exert its hegemony over Armenia. The prospect of unexpected Azerbaijani ceasefire violations catching Armenia off-guard ensures that Yerevan needs a consistent flow of Russian arms. The Kremlin is happy to sell these arms to Armenia, often at discounted prices.

Russia's special treatment of Armenia has allowed it to penetrate the Armenian economy to a remarkable degree. Alexander Petersen noted in a 2013 policy analysis for the Tufts University Fletcher Security Review that Armenia relies extensively on Russian credit to purchase arms. The bilateral economic partnership accompanying the military alliance has made Yerevan highly dependent on Russian remittances. Paul Goble argues that Russia's close relationship with Armenia reciprocally expands its leverage over Azerbaijan, which is a valuable strategic partner for Moscow due to its strategic location and immense energy resources.

Second, a frozen conflict allows Russia to militarily encircle Turkey. Russia's military presence in Ukraine, Syria and Armenia means that it could, in theory swiftly strike Turkey, if Ankara threatens its security or repeats its November shoot-down of a Russian jet.

Third, resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict could be a gateway for Azerbaijani membership in NATO. A 2007 diplomatic cable declassified by WikiLeaks revealed that Azerbaijan's political elites favored NATO membership. But any movement in that direction required a resolution to the Karabakh conflict.

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While the ongoing arms embargo and Baku's deplorable human rights record ensure that medium-term Azerbaijani NATO accession is highly unlikely, the specter of NATO expansion inevitably provokes a strong retaliatory response from Moscow. As Aliyev has rejected membership in the EEU, Russia's next best option is to ensure that Azerbaijan remains non-aligned. Continued unrest in Karabakh makes this scenario much more likely.

In short, Putin's willingness to assert himself as an agent of peace in the South Caucasus has been vital to defusing the latest round of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh. But Russia's actions and grand strategy suggest that Putin's preferred strategy in Karabakh is destabilization rather than peace building. This preference, combined with the intransigence of Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders, ensures that peace in Nagorno-Karabakh, for the foreseeable future, will likely remain nothing more than a distant illusion.
We just held our seventh week of the Hacking for Defense class. Now with over 750 interviews of beneficiaries (users, program managers, stakeholders, etc.) almost all the teams are beginning to pivot from their original understanding of their sponsor's problem and their hypotheses about how to solve them. Minimal viable products are being demo'd to sponsors and sponsors are reacting to what the teams are learning. This week teams figured out how to measure mission achievement and success, and our advanced lectures were on activities, resources and partners.

(This post is a continuation of the series. See all the H4D posts here. Because of the embedded presentations this post is best viewed on the website.)

---

Why Innovation in Government Is Hard

As we spend more time with the military services, commands and agencies it's apparent that getting disruptive innovation implemented in the DOD/IC face the same barriers as large corporations (and a few more uniquely theirs.)

The first barrier to innovation is the Horizon 1 leadership conundrum. In corporations, the CEO and executives have risen through the ranks for their skill on executing existing programs/missions. The same is true in most DOD/IC organizations: leadership has been promoted through the ranks for their ability to execute existing programs/missions. By the time they reach the top, they are excellent managers of processes and procedures needed to deliver a consistent and repeatable execution of the current core mission (and typically excellent political players as well.)

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These horizon 1 leaders are exactly who you want in place when the status quo prevails - and when competitors / adversaries react as per our playbook.

To these Horizon 1 leader's, innovation is often considered an extension of what they already do today. In companies this would be product line extensions, more efficient supply chain, new distribution channels. In the DOD/IC innovation is often more technology, more planes, more aircraft carriers, more satellites, etc.

This "more and better" approach works until they meet adversaries - state and non-state - who don't follow our game plan - adversaries who use asymmetry to offset and degrade our technological or numerical advantages - roadside bombs, cyberattacks, hybrid warfare, anti-access/area denial (A2/AD), etc.



History tells us that what gets you promoted in peacetime causes you to lose in wartime.

When Horizon 1 leaders set up innovation groups the innovators at the bottom of the organization start cheering. Meanwhile the middle of the organization strangles every innovation initiative. Why? Most often four points of failure occur:

Horizon 1 leaders tend to appoint people who they feel comfortable with - Horizon 1 or perhaps Horizon 2 managers. This results not in innovation, but in Innovation Theater - lots of coffee cups, press releases, incubators and false hopes, but no real disruptive changes. Horizon 3 organizations require Horizon 3 leadership (with Horizon 1 second in command.) There needs to be effective communication about what being innovative means to different parts of their organizations as well as defining (and enforcing) their expectations for middle management. How do middle mangers know how to make trade-offs between the efficiency requirements of their Horizon 1 activities and the risks required of a Horizon 3 activity? They have to create incentives for middle management leaders to take on horizon three ideas They have to change the metrics across the entire organization. If not, then the effectiveness of the Horizon 3 effort will be graded using Horizon 1 metrics

Secretary of Defense Carter's recent pivot to place the DOD's innovation outpost - DIUx directly under his supervision after 8 months is a great example of a leader enforcing his expectations about innovation.

In peacetime Horizon 3/disruptive groups need to be led by Mavericks, sponsored and protected by Horizon 1 leadership. It is this group, challenging the dogma of the existing programs, who will come up with the disruptive/asymmetric offset technologies and strategies.

BTW, history tells us that in war time the winners filled this innovation role with people who make most Horizon 1 leaders very uncomfortable - Churchill in WWII, Billy Mitchell, Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project, Vannevar Bush at the OSRD, John Boyd, etc.

More next week on innovation and the intransigent middle. Now back to the class.

Team Presentations: Week 7

In a company you know you've been successful when you generate revenue and profit. But in the military success has different metrics. This week the teams' assignment was to understand what Mission Achievement and/or Mission Success looked like for each of their sponsor organizations and each of the beneficiaries inside that organization.

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Later in the class some of the team will realize they can build "dual-use" products (building their product primarily for civilian use but also sold to the military.) In those case revenue will become an additional metric.

Understanding how to measure mission achievement/success for each beneficiary is the difference between a demo and a deployed solution.

Sentinel initially started by trying to use low-cost sensors to monitor surface ships for their 7th fleet sponsor in a A2/AD environment. The team pivoted and has found that their mission value is really to enable rapid, well-informed decisions by establishing a common maritime picture from heterogeneous data.

On Slide 4-5 the team continues testing their hypotheses via customer discovery. Note that they plan a trip to San Diego to visit the customer. And they realized that an unclassified proxy for their data is the IUU fishing problem. (With a great assist from the State Department's innovation outpost in Silicon Valley.) Their Minimum Viable Product can be seen on slides 12-16 using this illegal fishing data.

Slide 10 summarized what mission achievement would look like for three beneficiaries in the 7th fleet.

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If you can't see the presentation click here

Capella Space started class believing that launching a constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites into space to provide real-time radar imaging was their business. Now they've realized that the SAR data and analytics is the business. Then the question was, "For whom?"

In slides 4- 11 they describe what they learned about illegal fishing in Indonesia (Thanks again to the State Department's innovation outpost.) But the big idea on slide 12 - 13 is that Capella has pivoted. The team realized that there are many countries that want to detect boats at night. And most of the countries of interest are located in the equatorial belt. Slide 14 is their rough outline of mission achievement for the key agencies/countries.

Interesting to note that Capella Space and Team Sentinel seem to be converging on the same problem space!

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If you can't see the presentation click here

NarrativeMind is developing tools that will optimize discovery and investigation of adversary communication trends on social media, allowing the U.S. Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) and others to efficiently respond and mitigate threats posed by enemy messaging.

In slide 4 the team provided a textbook definition of mission achievement. They specified what success looks like for each of the beneficiaries inside of their sponsor, ARCYBER. In slide 5 they broadly outlined mission achievement for three private sector markets.

In slides 6-9 they plotted all the potential adversary communication trends on social media problems, and in slide 7 overlaid that problem space with existing commercial solutions. Slides 8 and 9 show the problems not yet solved by anyone, and slide 9 further refines the specific problems this team will solve.

NarrativeMind further refined their Minimal Viable Product to product/market fit in Slides 11-16.

If you can't see the presentation click here

Aqualink started the class working to give Navy divers in the Naval Special Warfare Group a system of wearable devices that records data critical to diver health and safety and makes the data actionable through real-time alerts and post-dive analytics. A few weeks ago they pivoted, realizing that the high-value problem the divers want solved is underwater 3-D geolocation.

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Slide 2, John Boyd and the OODA Loop (finally!) makes an appearance in the class. (The OODA loops and the four steps of Customer Development and the Lean Methodology are rooted in the same "get of the building/get eyes out of your cockpit" and "speed and urgency" concepts.) In Slides 5-7 Aqualink's two versions of their Minimum Viable Product are beginning to be outlined and in Slide 8, the team passed around physical mockups of the buoy.

If you can't see the presentation click here

Guardian is trying to counter asymmetric threats from commercial drones for the Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group.

The team certainly got out of the building this week. In between their classes they flew to the east coast and attended the Army's Asymmetric Warfare Drone Demo-Day at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia. They spoke to lots of vendors and got a deep understanding of currently deployed tactical drones.

Slides 5-9 show their substantial progress in their Minimal Viable Product as they demo'd advanced detection and classification capabilities. They are beginning to consider whether they should pivot to become a drone software platform.

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If you can't see the presentation click here.

Right of Boom is trying to help foreign military explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams better accomplish their mission. Now they are developing systems, workflows, and incentives for allied foreign militaries with the goal of improved intelligence fidelity.

This week the team was actually able to talk to a key beneficiary on the front lines overseas. What they discovered is that the JIDA current technical solutions, if combined, will provide a solution of equal quality to standalone development in a shorter timeframe.

On slide 4 they outlined their Mission Achievement / Success criteria for the key JIDA beneficiaries. Slide 9 continued to refine their understanding of the tradespace.

If you can't see the presentation click here.

Skynet is using drones to provide ground troops with situational awareness - helping prevent battlefield fatalities by pinpointing friendly and enemy positions.

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Mission achievement on slide 2 needs a bit of explanation; the team has met and exceeded their basic goals to reach: 80% accuracy on target identification. From SOCOM's perspective the team has achieved their initial mission. Now Skynet has moved beyond their original scope into an interesting area. Slide 9 and 10 show their further refinement of buy in- for SOCOM and the Border Patrol.

If you can't see the presentation click here.

Advanced Lecture - Activities, Resources and Partners

Pete Newell presented the advanced lecture on Activities, Resources and Partners.

Activities are the expertise and resources that the company needs to deliver the value proposition. Resources are the internal company-owned activities. Examples are a company-owned manufacturing facility, big data or machine learning engineers, DOD proposal writers, venture capital, etc. Partners are the external resources necessary to execute the Activities. i.e. outsourced manufacturing, system integrators, etc.

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If you can't see the presentation click here

Lessons Learned

History tells us that what gets you promoted in peacetime causes you to lose in wartime

Teams are making substantive pivots on their understanding of the real sponsor problem and pivoting on their proposed solution

Understanding how to measure mission achievement/success for each beneficiary is the difference between a demo and a deployed solution
Bertie Lou Church was born on July 7, 1928, in a little town named Brown's Run, W. Va. When she was 20 years old she met the love of her life, a young minister by the name of Jack Church. They followed his ministry to Montana, and then on to Alaska. By the time they returned to Montana they had accumulated seven children. Bertie left this world peacefully to be with the lord on Friday evening, May 13, 2016.

Bertie was always laughing, smiling and quick with a joke. She was a very wise and caring mother and wife. With seven children to chase around, she still managed to find time to take all of us camping, fishing and clam-digging in the Alaskan wilderness. She was much loved by all and will be greatly missed.

Bertie leaves behind her loving husband Jack Church; her seven children, Nathan Church (Debbie) Of Hemmett, Calif., Cindy Guy of Roan Mountain, Tenn., Dan Church (Susan) of Anchorage, Alaska, Jackie Rollison (Robert) of Butte, David Church of Billings, Janet Church of Portland, Ore., and Steve Church of Billings. She had 14 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

She was proceeded in death by sisters Ella May, Marilee, Katherine Rose, and brothers Bob, David and Carrol. Also, proceeded in death by grandchildren, Crystal Church, Micah Church, Jesse Church.

God is holding the best spot in heaven for our Mom! "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see god.

Momma, please tell God that we said hello!

Cremation has taken place. Services will be at 3 p.m., May 17, at the Church of Christ in Billings 1220 10th St. W.

Reception to follow.
"Sha'Quille Kornegay, 2 years old, was buried in a pink coffin, her favorite doll by her side and a tiara strategically placed to hide the self-inflicted gunshot wound to her forehead."



Sha'Quille accidently shot herself with a 9mm pistol her father kept under his pillow. She was attracted to the red laser-sighting device, which was very much like the red lights in her cousins' sneakers that fired when they played hopscotch. The gun was, quite gruesomely apparently, unlocked and loaded. Sure, only good guys with guns can stop the bad guys.

This tragic paragraph opened a recent New York Times article about the deaths of four toddlers in one week in April. These small bodies are just particularly poignant evidence of the collateral damage of a country gone mad with guns.

Even this heart-wrenching image will not lead to any sober reflection about violence in our society. The deaths of these toddlers are only like tiny melting snowflakes compared to the iceberg of nuclear terror, about which no politician will speak.

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On May 27th, President Obama will be the first sitting president to visit Hiroshima since we obliterated 60% of the city with the first use of an atomic weapon. According to reports from the White House, he will not apologize. How could he? Unnoticed in the political fervor over Donald Trump's latest tweet, Obama has advanced a three-decade, trillion-dollar plan, to revitalize America's nuclear program. Only good guys with bombs can stop the bad guys, I suppose. While I admire Obama, it is difficult to accept his anti-nuclear rhetoric in light of this plan to continue, or arguably, raise the already high stakes.

I don't intend to re-litigate the 1945 decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- 200,000 died. Proponents argue that only this raw display of power could bring the Japanese to their knees. Apologists for that decision claim that any other military "solution" would have taken ten thousand or more American soldiers' lives and 100's of thousands of innocent Japanese citizens' lives. Critics claim, with some evidence, that Japanese surrender was imminent and the unleashing of atomic might was horrifyingly unnecessary.

The scale of risk is quite different from home to planet, but the frame of mind is identical. A safer home is an armed home. A safer world is an armed world. Neither assertion is true. In both cases, tragic collateral damage is inevitable - a question of when, not if.

On the domestic end of this continuum of fear, sales of guns rise with every heartbreak. The slaughter of children, at Sandy Hook or anywhere else, is greeted with a moment of anguish and then a trip to the gun store. When children die, the solution is to arm the teachers. Our unique American solution to any threat is to withdraw into a well-armed defensive posture. No sober reflection on community, no recognition that guns kill far more innocent people than they protect. Just a bunker mentality that leads to 9mm guns under pillows, in glove boxes, and in holsters as increasing numbers of Americans strut through life prepared to "take out" any of the threats that roam through their imaginations.

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And so it is with our national policy. We will spend another trillion dollars to produce nuclear weapons we say we will never use. As we are the "exceptional nation," we are morally justified. Russia, the UK, France, China, North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel also have nuclear weapons. They too feel quite "exceptional."

In 1945 we used the horrible power that only we possessed, to terrorize the Japanese and the rest of the world to their knees. They couldn't retaliate. As the saying goes, they only had a knife to bring a gunfight. Now the consequences of nuclear warfare, no matter which "exceptional" nation strikes the first blow, are beyond imagination.

Unilateral disarmament is the only answer. We cannot ever use our lethal power. A trillion dollar commitment to this insanity can only have the consequence of increasing the global threat of nuclear holocaust.

When folks like Sha'Quille Kornegay's father keep loaded weapons under pillows, tragedy is a matter of when, not if. When the world's nations, led by our own, have nuclear weapons at the ready, a tragedy, intentional or accidental, is inevitable.
"The press used to ask me for many years: 'Why is this going so slowly?'" said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), as she opened the latest round of climate-change negotiations - and the last before her term ends in the summer. "We're now going to have to get ready for a new question from the press: 'Why is it going so quickly?'"

The talks, which open today and run through May 26, are designed to begin the nitty-gritty task of designing a "Rule Book" for implementing the Paris Agreement, but many of those rules have already been laid out - especially those concerning land-use issues, which will be critical as industrial emissions decline.



Outgoing UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres

Segolene Royal and Salaheddine Mezouar, the co-presidents of the Conference to the Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC, both echoed Figueres's optimism - a noticeable change from years past, when leadership seemed more intent on managing expectations than in raising them.

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Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the next two years would be a marked contrast to the last five, and he promised that the 2018 COP (COP 24) would be "a key moment where countries need to come to the table prepared to indicate how they can do more to increase ambition at the national level than they committed to in Paris.

Why the Optimism?

Meyer laid out several reasons for optimism over the coming two years.

"With the continuing reductions in efficiency and renewable energy prices, the mounting impacts of climate change, and the shifts in economies, there reason why every country shouldn't be able to more two or three years from now than they thought they could do last year," he said.

Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs Salaheddine Mezouar will preside over the 2016 COP in Marrakesh



Figueres agreed, but added one more.

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"What has really changed the dynamic is the understanding of the many, many opportunities that come with addressing climate change," she said. "It is this promising landscape of everything that can be done by countries to address climate change, but also - and most importantly - to further their national priorities and their national sustainable development targets that has actually changed the dynamic in the climate discussion."

Developing Countries and Private Sector on the Agenda

The Paris Agreement aims to keep global average temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius this century and to aim for a limit of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and Figueres, Royal, and Mezouar all stressed the importance of having developing countries present their targets for the first time, while Figueres emphasized the role of the private sector.


(Film pioneers Mary Pickford and Frances Marion.

Image courtesy of Wichita Films and OCS)

The subject of women's role in the Hollywood machine is not only an age old tale, it's a constant one. Further, it still continues to be an uphill battle. In November, 2015, The New York Times published a feature by Maureen Dowd entitled "The Women of Hollywood Speak Out," with the opening line stating, "Female executives and filmmakers are ready to run studios and direct blockbuster pictures. What will it take to dismantle the pervasive sexism that keeps them from doing it?" But the truth is, women have been running the show since the advent of Hollywood - something that most people don't know. Debuting at Cannes on May 16th, a new documentary entitled The Women Who Run Hollywood, discusses that very subject - women like Mary Pickford and Mabel Normand were directing and producing as early as 1905. Directed and produced by French sisters Clara and Julia Kuperberg, the cinematic duo who run their own production company, Wichita Films - have a laundry list of Hollywoodian docs to their credits already and have worked with seminal filmic entities like Scorsese and Coppola - were even themselves shocked at how so many women were under the radar. Here they talk about the challenges and surprises of making their film.



(Julia and Clara Kuperberg. Image by Frederic Basset)

What was the impetus to create this documentary?

Clara Kuperberg: The initial idea came a while back when we were working on another documentary on the evolution of women's roles onscreen in Hollywood, from the weepies to the chick flicks of today. At the same time, we discovered this other part of Hollywood - the women behind the camera, and after two years of research, we discovered a sea of women - many unknown - who started out in Hollywood as early as 1905. Even after working on 30 films on the Golden Age of Hollywood, we discovered women we'd never heard about!

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(Dorothy Arzner. Image courtesy of Wichita Films and OCS.)

During this filmic journey, what did you learn?

Kuperberg: That Hollywood was run by women from 1905 to the late 20's - they were heads of studios, directors, screenwriters, producers - it's amazing these women are virtually unknown.



Were there any major revelations? As you said, you have done many films on Hollywood, but just curious if there was something new and different that really shocked you?

Kuperberg: Yes, the biggest revelation, is that this story about those women had been totally forgotten as something historical - in movie history, and in books. It really shocked us, because after having spent so many time in Hollywood, doing interviews of scholars, historians, nobody never talked about any of those women. It's as if they have never existed.



(Lois Weber. Image courtesy Wichita Films and OCS.)

There are many high profile women from today in your film. Do you feel - after making this film - that women are still undervalued within the Hollywood system? Why do you think that is so?



Kuperberg: As Robin Swicord says in the documentary, "A man after two video clips can be the director of the next Spiderman, never for a woman. A man can fail and still work, a woman; never." Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman director to win ever an Oscar (for The Hurt Locker)...and at that point, the Academy Awards had been around for 76 years!



(Mabel Normand Image courtesy of Wichita Films and OCS.)

What is the ONE thing you want people to take away from your documentary?

Kuperberg: To remember those women, and give them back their rightful place in the American film history. They invented the cinema as we know it; they were more powerful than any men at that time, higher paid, doing all the jobs, and creating the first studio! Names like Lois Weber, Frances Marion, Dorothy Arzner, Alice Guy, Mary Pickford, Cleo Madison and so many other women need to be recognized for their contributions to what has become Hollywood as we know it today.
Miami Beaches and the blue skies have bred a group of women you may want to watch out for. Built in a city where their sexuality is celebrated, their bodies are used to inspire and their minds are shamelessly changing the topography of what it means to be a woman. They deny nothing, speak the truth, and stand for being exactly what they are.. in their entirety. Made up of female entrepreneurs and actresses, they stop at nothing.

Introducing POWER BITCHES.

Barbie Lazaro, Susie K Taylor, Katherine C. McDonald, Monica Matteo-Salinas

photo credit Clare Coco

Lead by me, Susie K Taylor, and possessed by the fact that shit has got to change in my city and it starts and ends with the women. I am exhausted by pointing fingers, blaming, and asking men to help me be heard. Since the problem is ME, myself and I, I have to consider that I am the solution as well. As harsh as that was to accept it did make me begin to take full responsibility for my actions and my life in order to make real gutted change. And I have.

As the leader of the Power Bitches, my first plan of action is to bring awareness to Sandy Skelany's Ignition fund. You must know about her and what her pivotal place in the horrific truth of one of Miami's most disgusting truths, a sex trafficking hub.

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I love Miami and so I will broach the subject with kindness and love.

Sandy Skelaney photo credit Clare Coco

Skelaney's Ignition Fund has bravely joined the Passionately Ethical movement to tap into the feminine energy of sensuality and community to raise awareness about sex trafficking and the violence and exploitation that are all too common within the sex industry.

In fact, my favorite city and home town is best known for Sex Trafficking and it has been happening all around us. I drove 10 minutes last week and found myself right in the middle of a horrific scene dealing with this issue. Something no one should see but that is the problem. There are many women and even mothers in our city that are SLAVES.

What if we can accept that fact at times we can all be a BITCH, unite with that acceptance. Would that acceptance release us of being HURT by each other every time one of us looks the wrong way at us? Maybe we can laugh at that Bitchy quality in our sisters and in ourselves and unite in our Power Bitchiness to end the pains of this city.

Ignition Fund is a Miami-based organization that helps launch innovative and technology-based human rights startups through an accelerator program, technical assistance, seed funding and mentoring. Founder and Chief Mastermind, Sandy Skelaney, is an award-winning anti-trafficking advocate and consultant who is frequently requested to help launch initiatives throughout the United States.

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"Those of us who provide services and advocacy around sex trafficking often push aside opportunities to celebrate women's sensuality in order to avoid criticism about the sexual objectification of women or emotionally triggering survivors who have had their own sexuality violated in every way" said Skelany. So consider Power Bitches a blend of artistry and advocacy that brings women together to explore the power and vulnerability of their own sexuality in a women-only space.

I happen to also be working on a play about Bettie Page and her life had a ton of sexual assaults that went unhealed and may have led her to what was considered a mental break. What are the correlations of Bettie and the Power Bitches. I think the Power Bitches are Betties without fear of truth.

Sexual liberation was empowering for women while also being preceded by and exposing them to violence and abuse. The underbelly of the glamorous pinup world that we know in images and the lives of the models goes far deeper than we have ever imagined. Much how the sex industry today is teeming with young women whose complex lives are overshadowed by our sanitized projection of the empowered female.

Power Bitches promises to dig deep into these cultural narratives through laughter and a celebration of the gift of feminine sensuality and form. Power Bitches can't be fired for speaking the truth and someone has to if we are going to get anywhere together.
How did you learn about sex and relationships? At home? In school? The playground? From the internet?

For millions of young people across the world, sexuality education - if it happens at all - will be too little, too biological and too late.

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There's plenty of evidence in the education sector found that high quality, comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is a win-win intervention - it builds confidence, develops positive self-esteem, encourages healthy behavior and the type of critical thinking that can last a life-time.

So why is sexuality education for so many as case of too little, too late and too biological?

IPPF's new report 'Everyone's Right to Know - delivering comprehensive sexuality education' shows just how CSE is critical for young people. We already know it's cost effective (and cost-saving in health terms) for governments... but what has been overlooked is the importance of CSE in the lives of the young people themselves.

Everyone's Right to Know shows that CSE must be delivered both in and outside of school, and crucially, it must be broader in focus than just avoiding risk and unintended pregnancies - it should encompass consent, building healthy and respectful relationships, good sexual health and protecting potentially vulnerable people from harm.

Teaching young people to acknowledge and respect other people's personal boundaries can help create a society where no one feels ashamed to willingly engage in, or to reject, sexual activity. Good quality education on consent should strive to support young people to do all these.

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Timing is vital. Adolescence is a critical, transformative time in anyone's life, but all the evidence shows that CSE needs to start earlier than that. Many young people are already sexually active by then, and need information and services that meet their sexual and reproductive needs.

We know that there is a lost generation of young people who are deprived of the opportunity to go to school. 124 million aged 6-15 had either never started school or dropped out. In Zambia for example only 35% of young women attend secondary school, and only 38% of young men.

How do we reach the most vulnerable and marginalized young people?

The good news is that non-formal sexuality education, delivered through for example, peer educators and youth clubs, are delivering some of the most innovative and effective programmes.

Peer educators have greater freedom to design session tailored to the reality of young people's lives, developing critical thinking and questioning skills away from the traditional classroom culture. Non-formal settings can spark innovation from which formal educators can learn.

Grass roots organizations like IPPF's member associations know how to translate international guidelines to local settings and to the needs and wants of the young people we work with. To reach the most vulnerable groups, we trained almost half a million peer educators in CSE.

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One innovative example is our member in Pakistan which runs a training programme for out of school youth. They use street theatre to tackle specific issues such as early marriage and engaging men and boys as partners in addressing sexual violence. They are successful because the sessions are designed and owned by young people, for young people.

Young people with disabilities are another particularly vulnerable group. There's a common misconception that sexuality should not be an issue for people with learning disabilities. But it is, of course.

Denying CSE to young people with learning difficulties leaves them unnecessarily vulnerable to abuse.

Our member in Macedonia is showing how imaginative CSE - coupled with a parallel programme for parents - can equip people with learning difficulties with the tools they need to defend themselves against abuse, become more independent and distinguish between friendship and sexual relationships.

There has been more investment in school-based CSE globally in recent years, and now we need to reach the increasing numbers of marginalized young people who are not in formal education with the same level of commitment and investment.

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The key recommendation from our report is that governments, health providers, educators, civil society organizations and United Nations agencies should design and implement high quality sustainable CSE programmes that go beyond an exclusive focus on health outcomes and rather address the full spectrum of young people's sexual and reproductive lives. We won't meet the health, education and gender-related targets in the Sustainable Development Goals without this groundwork.
On May 5, a passenger on American Airlines flight 3950 from Philadelphia to Syracuse noticed something strange about the olive-skinned, dark-haired man sitting next to her. As the flight prepared to depart, he scribbled unintelligible symbols on a notepad.

Suspicious, the passenger signaled a flight attendant, passing a note to alert the crew of the potential terrorist threat sitting next to her. The plane, on the tarmac awaiting takeoff, reversed course and returned to the terminal. The mysterious man and his notepad of strange symbols were escorted off the plane. The man was questioned by the FBI.

The scribbling turned out to be mathematical symbols - a differential equation. The suspected terrorist was a decorated Ivy League economist named Guido Menzio, the winner of prestigious Carlo Alberto Medal.

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Dr. Menzio is Italian, not Middle Eastern. Though the passenger who alerted authorities to the presence of threatening glyphs couldn't get her ethnic profiling straight, you really can't blame her for confusing a math equation for an Arabic farewell. Fewer and fewer Americans have the first clue these days about x and y.

According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of 15 year-old student math, science and reading aptitude, U.S. students' ranking in math scores have dropped steadily over a 12-year period. In 2000, U.S. students ranked 18th in the world. In 2012, they ranked 36th. The news is not all bad: according to PISA, our students are still smarter than Croatia's.

Though foreign-born terrorists have killed 25 Americans since 9/11 (compared with over 153,000 gun-related homicides in the same period), the absence of math skills represents a far greater threat to the United States than ISIS in the long term. While terrorists brought down the World Trade Center, it was math that erected the twin towers in the first place.

Had the twin towers been engineered using the conventional 1960's skyscraper designs of the time, they would have come down long before 2001. In addition to the challenges posed by supporting the sheer weight of 1,360-foot-tall buildings, the towers also needed to withstand the load caused by stiff winds from New York Harbor.

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The solution posed by structural engineers John Skilling and Leslie Robertson was to fundamentally rethink the design of super-tall buildings, replacing the traditional infrastructure of internal columns with an exoskeleton lattice of exterior columns. The resulting skyscraper "tube" could bear the enormous weight of what were then the world's tallest buildings, while also resisting wind speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.

The twin towers were marvels in the 1960's, a time when America served up other engineering wonders like the first Internet data exchange and the first manned moon landing. The Saturn V moon rocket, the twin towers, and many other American tech advances were all propelled by math.

Today, the world's tallest buildings are no longer found in America. If you stacked both twin towers on top each other, they would roughly equal Dubai's Burj Khalifa at 2,722 feet - over half a mile high. The world's five tallest buildings are found in Asia and the Middle East. Coincidentally, the world's tallest math scores also belong to Asian students.

Tall buildings and moonshots aren't just about national bragging rights. They are biproducts of a country's intellectual capacity and its priorities. In 1944, one of America's top priorities was the GI Bill, which provided a range of benefits for veterans returning from World War II. Nearly eight million veterans took advantage of the GI Bill's education benefits, enabling veterans to get college or vocational education. Management guru Peter Drucker described the GI Bill as "the most important event of the 20th century" and credited it for the rise of America's modern knowledge economy.

Historian Ed Humes said that "the scientists and engineers and teachers and thinkers who brought in the information age, who took us to the moon, who waged the cold war, you name it - all those men and women were educated through the GI Bill." The bill provided education for 14 Nobel Prize winners, three Supreme Court justices, and three presidents.

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America's educated workforce was a key catalyst of its postwar economic boom and associated prosperity. America has largely coasted off FDR's depression-era investments in education and infrastructure ever since.

Since this time, the importance of education in Americans' minds has faded, along with an awareness of its connection to American prosperity.

In a recent Gallup poll, while 90% of democrats rated education as a national priority, only 68% of republicans shared this view. Nowhere is this schism in priorities more starkly contrasted than in each party's choice for president.

One of those presidential campaign's slogans is "Make America Great Again." The other's response is that "America never stopped being great." Though many of us don't buy in to one candidate's wall-building, Muslim-deporting recipe to return to American greatness, the claim that "America never stopped being great" doesn't feel quite right either. We know when we're off our game.

Maybe American greatness doesn't lie as much in its condition at a particular moment as it does in its enduring potential for greatness. Sometimes that potential is realized, both when America is smart, as well as when it does the right thing. America has the capacity for greatness, which is fulfilled when a truly great leader comes along once every few decades.

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Businessman in Yoga Position

Every class, Susan (not her real name) rushed into class just as we were starting. She put her coffee, huge purse, and phone that she'd been talking on until she walked through the door on the floor and then unrolled her mat with a "Thwack!" as it slapped the floor. She noisily sat down and fidgeted for a few moments as I guided the class into a centering, mindful space to start the class.

Throughout class, Susan pushed herself hard. Whatever instruction I gave, she took it beyond. It was as if no one was allowed to be better than her. But by the end of class, post meditation, she'd softened. She moved a little slower as she gathered her stuff. She often smiled and joked. She would thank me every class and say something to the effect of, "I feel so much better! I don't know what I'd do without yoga!"

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It that really working?

That's often how it works, from stressed out to blissed or back to stressed out. As a culture, we've become excellent at the asana practice. We've embraced detoxification, or at least to a degree, and yet even as yoga evolved to close to a billion dollar industry, we're more neurotic than ever!

We've learned to use yoga as a band-aid, a crutch. It makes us feel good, so we keep doing it. Any physical movement will make you feel better. Yoga adds breath work and meditation, so it adds an extra layer. But what happens as you start to turn on the parts of you that were turned down, when you start to feel again, when you start to realize that yoga is shifting you and the question of "who am I now and who am I becoming?" starts to collide with the very things that kept you going before? There comes a moment when you realize you're sick of the stress-bliss-stress cycle and you want t do something about it. Susan loved her yoga, but she knew there were bigger changes needed.

Beyond the asanas

The wisdom of yoga offers ways to strengthen, purify, calm, and stabilize the body and mind. The yamas offer a reflection of our true nature; precepts into aims for living. The niyamas offer was to evolve into harmony with our true nature. Pratyahara provides is a way to step away from the chaos to be present with that is being revealed and what is ready for harmony or healing. It offers ways to come into your own personal wholeness.

When we practice these things, it energizes us, makes us more powerful. The problem is if we're only practicing parts and not all, we get more energy and power to those very things we may not want! Look around the yoga community. How many enlightened yogis do you know?

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When you start to really practice yoga, you start to skillfully engage in the world around you. You surrender what isn't making you feel more alive and feed what does make you feel more alive. You recognize that you can't just do a little and expect big changes. That expectation leads to exhaustion, frustration, and even depression because though change is desired, the fear of change is greater.

Yoga and meditation give us space to open a little, let the light shine into the dark, shadowy parts with in us. Just like a sidewalk that has a crack where weeds grow, there is a greater intelligence within seeking life. From the depths of the shadows, a little light sparks life. With willingness, time, and space, that life can be explored and action or healing can take place.

Yoga is so much more than fancy mats, tight clothes, green juice, contortion, self-righteousness, and chanting. Yoga is about freedom to be whole, authentic, playful, peaceful, and most of all, engaged in living.

A simple mindfulness practice

Try this simple mindfulness practice to begin creating space within you.

Set a timer for five minutes. Sit comfortably, preferable with a straight back. Take a few breaths and just simply notice them moving in and out of the body. Remember something beautiful or joyful- it could be a scene from nature such as a sunset or scenic view, someone you love, a song or poem. Hold that memory and see if you can feel it as if you were there experiencing it in the present moment. Just breath and be with the beauty. As you mind wanders, simply observe. Do you need to take action or heal something or simply recognize the thought? Can you return to the beauty? If yes, do. If no, that's okay. Go take action on what you need to do. If you are able to return to beauty, hold it until another thought comes and again, explore if action, healing or recognition is needed. If possible return to beauty or go take action. Repeat. See if you can remain in this space for five minutes. At the end of the five minutes, how do you feel? Notice your states of restfulness and restlessness you experienced and offer gratitude for the opportunity to be aware. Take action on what needed action. Take steps on what needs healing.


Freedom is precious.

Some of the first years in my journalism career were in conflict zones--including covering the Pakistan/Indian Kashmir conflict for the National Geographic Channel and The New York Times Syndicate. War zones are terrifying. One always is worried about troublesome soldiers, speeding armed military vehicles, stray bullets, and whether there's a roadside bomb on your path. Anyone that approaches you is suspect, even kids carrying toys, which could be disguised explosives.

The one thing conflict zones teach you is that freedom is precious. The nearly 70-year Kashmir conflict has approximately a half million soldiers involved, so even if they're supposedly on your side (depending on what country you're in), you still feel under siege. My time in Israel, Palestine, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Eritrea, and Yemen left me with the same feeling.

We face an unusual presidential election process in 2016, with some people claiming Donald Trump could usher in fascist policy if he wins. I doubt that, since Congress wouldn't allow it, but I worry that Trump's bold behavior could prove dangerous with our foreign policy--such as if he had to interact with Russia's Vladimir Putin. In my opinion, nothing is more critical for a nation than to strive for peaceful times and get along with others. Of course, Hillary Clinton comes with her own history of being pro-military, and frankly, in any kind of conflict, we will lose our freedoms and sense of security.

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The implementation of the Patriot Act during George W. Bush's presidency was a good example of how we lost some freedoms. Notably, Libertarians hated it. In conflict times, we also take on serious existential risk; we must always remember there are 25,000 nuclear weapons in the world. War is emotional and can get out of hand way too quickly for our own good, no matter who is right or wrong.

It's always best to lessen conflict and try to work things out. It's always better to attempt peaceful negotiations and compromise, rather than accept military intervention. This doesn't mean as a US Presidential candidate I wouldn't advocate for military fighting under certain circumstances, but if America wants to continue down a path of prosperity, we must passionately avoid foreign conflicts.



Zoltan Istvan in Pakistan Kashmir talking to refugee children -- Video photo by Zoltan Istvan

My Libertarian novel The Transhumanist Wager fictionally recounts some of my experiences in a conflict zone:

War always touches the essence of a person no matter how many times it's witnessed. As a participant, it remains perpetually novel. The smoke, fires, and explosions never seem to stop or burn out. The sight of bodies torn to shreds, children orphaned, and buildings in ruins are penetrating and humbling--it's life, elevated and unmasked. The slumbering alligator in our brain awakes and tries to take over. Tragedy mixes with the summoning of a better life.

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Later, the description of war continues with an article by journalist Jethro Knights, the protagonist of the book:

Fourteen miles from Muzaffarabad, near the Line of Control in Pakistani Kashmir, a small bombed village is awash in activity--in tragedy. It's desperate and shocking. An old woman runs up to me, throwing her hands at my face. All ten of her fingers are pointing in unnatural directions--broken in different ways. She's another torture victim. To my right, a man wanders the dirt roads, calling out his child's name. In another part of the village, younger women grieve, complaining of multiple gang rapes by soldiers. I try to interview the husbands--those who are still alive refuse, turn away, and cry. War is a frothing beast.

People forget or don't realize it only takes a few hours for a political conflict between nations to escalate to a world war where millions may die. It's happened before. We must use caution and balance when we choose our leaders to take us forward. We are at a very special point in history, when science, technology, and the field of transhumanism will soon allow many amazing possibilities for America and the human race--including the elimination of aging, disease, and death.

But so far, technology and science have not given us the hope that they will stop war. We must therefore be on our guard not to incite war--and not to pick leaders that have a propensity to lead us into armed conflict.

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AVNphotolab via Getty Images Judges Gavel And Two Medical Injection Syringes With Red And Brown Liquid On The Black Wood Background, Close-up, Top View

After years of debate and legal battles, India will soon decide whether or not to pass a law to legalize passive euthanasia. The Union government has released a draft Bill on it and has invited public suggestions before the formation of the law.

According to the draft Bill, a terminally ill patient above the age of 16 years can decide on whether to continue further treatment or allow nature to take its own course.

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"Every competent patient, including minors aged above 16 years, has a right to take a decision and express the desire to the medical practitioner attending on her or him," says the draft Bill uploaded on the Union Health Ministry website.

Every competent patient, including minors aged above 16 years, has a right to take a decision and express the desire to the medical practitioner

The Bill provides protection to patients and doctors from any liability for withholding or withdrawing medical treatment and states that palliative care (pain management) can continue.

Here are some of the suggestions from the draft Bill:

1. "When a patient communicates her or his decision to the medical practitioner, such decision is binding on the medical practitioner," the draft Bill says. However, it also notes that the medical practitioner must be satisfied that the patient is competent and that the decision has been taken on free will.

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2. There will be a panel of medical experts to decide on case by case basis.

3. The medical practitioner has to maintain all details of the patient and ensure he/she takes an informed decision. He is also required to inform the patient whether it would be best to withdraw or continue treatment. If the patient is not in a conscious state, he/she needs to inform family members. In the absence of family members, the medical practitioner needs to inform a person who is a regular visitor.

4. The draft also lays down the process for seeking euthanasia, right from the composition of the medical team to moving the high court for permission.

The Bill only portends to legalise what is called passive euthanasia, as discussed in the judgement pertaining to nurse Aruna Shanbaug.

Shanbaug, a nurse at KEM Hospital in Mumbai, was raped and strangulated, leaving her in a vegetative state for decades till her next friend, author Pinki Virani (who wrote a book on her) filed a case to allow her to be euthanized.

Active euthanasia is not being considered "as it is likely to be used by unscrupulous individuals to attain their ulterior motives.

The Ministry said that active euthanasia (which involves taking specific steps such as injecting a terminally ill patient with a lethal substance to end suffering) is not being considered "as it is likely to be used by unscrupulous individuals to attain their ulterior motives.

Mixed reactions

Some said it's a good start, but others didn't quite agree.

The draft has disappointed experts who wanted complete clarity on the concept of a living will. A living will is defined as "a document in which a person states his/her desire to have or not to have extraordinary life-prolonging measures used when recovery is not possible from his/her terminal condition''.

Paragraph 11 of the draft Bill said that any "advance medical directive (living will) or medical power of attorney executed by the person shall be void and of no effect and shall not be binding on any medical practitioner''.

"It deals with legal details, but doesn't guide the doctor about how to handle a 90-year-plus patient with terminal complications from cancer or a patient suffering a third stroke. Should the doctor concerned take a chance by starting treatment or not offer any treatment at all?'' asked a doctor.

Child rights activists are also not too happy about it.

Enakshi Ganguly of the Haq Centre for Child Rights in Delhi called it ridiculous.

"We cannot sign a contract or marry before the age of 18, but you can decide to die? How can we allow a child to decide something as important as life and death? she was quoted in Scroll.in.

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Paediatrician Dr Vandana Prasad, a former member of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, feels that a young person is too impressionable.

"I am too scared for vulnerabilities of young children. The child may feel that he is too much of a burden and take a decision," she said.

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ARUN SANKAR via Getty Images An Indian electoral official marks the finger of a voter with ink at a polling station in Chennai on May 16, 2016, during voting in state assembly elections in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.Voting in the southern Indian states of Tamil, Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry for state assembly elections is taking place on May 16. / AFP / ARUN SANKAR (Photo credit should read ARUN SANKAR/AFP/Getty Images)

Exit polls are mostly unanimous about the outcome of polling to the four states and one union territory that just concluded. If pollsters are right--and this would be a good time to remember that all of them lost their shirt during the last assembly polls in Bihar--BJP will come to power in Assam, the CPIM-led Left Front in Kerala, incumbent Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, 91-year-old M. Karunanidhi-led DMK in Tamil Nadu and the DMK-Congress coalition in Puducherry.

The results will be known on Thursday.

Exit poll by Times Now C-Voter shows that out of the total 126 seats in Assam, the BJP is expected to win 57 seats followed by the Congress (41 seats), AIUDF (18 seats) and others (10 seats). In Bengal, the TMC is expected to return to power winning 167 seats followed by the Left (75 seats), Congress (45 seats) and others (7 seats), the poll showed.

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According to an exit poll conducted by India Today, the LDF is likely to win 94 seats and come to power in Kerala while the incumbent UDF is expected to win 43 seats. The BJP, according to the poll, may open its account in the state with one seat.

However, an India TV Poll predicted that the LDF will win 78 seats in Kerala while the UDF with 58 seats is likely to come second. The BJP, according to the poll is expected to win two seats.

The DMK is expected to emerge as the winner in Tamil Nadu with 132 seats with AIADMK coming second with 95 seats. Once again, the BJP may not succeed in making inroads into the southern state, the India Today poll predicted, adding that in Puducherry, the DMK is likely to lead with 18 seats followed by NRC (10 seats), AIADMK (1) and others (1).

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In honor of Glocks 30th anniversary in America, the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West has opened the exhibition "Glock Makes History: The Birth of the Polymer Handgun Market."

The display in Coors Theater includes a timeline of Glock firearms, embellished Glocks, and prop guns used for movie and television  including those from the television series "Longmire."

German manufacturer Heckler & Koch made the first polymer pistol called the Volkspistole (VP/70) in 1970.

Gaston Glock, an Austrian engineer, was not initially a firearms designer, but was an expert with polymers. In 1963 he formed GLOCK KG, a company that produced and sold parts  both plastic and steel, particularly curtain rods  as well as knives for the Austrian military. Glocks first pistol, the Glock 17, took a year to produce from design and concept to production.

In the early 1980s, Glock and a team of firearms researchers developed the first Glock handgun with a polymer frame and an internal safety system. By 1983, he supplied 30,000 Glock 17s to the Austrian military, and by 1986 the company received its first United States law enforcement contract. Glock now has more than 60 percent of U.S. law enforcement contracts.
Ahmad Masood / Reuters Veteran Indian social activist Anna Hazare adjusts his glasses as he attends a sit-in protest in New Delhi February 23, 2015. A bid by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make it easier for businesses to buy farm land for infrastructure and industry has sparked a backlash that could stymie his efforts to get reforms through a parliament session that began on Monday. While the change is aimed at unlocking hundreds of billions of dollars worth of projects, which have been stuck for want of land, opposition parties and rights activists say it discriminates against farmers. Hazare launched a two-day sit-in on Monday with his followers against the decree in New Delhi. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood (INDIA - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS CIVIL UNREST AGRICULTURE)

AHMEDABAD -- Social activist Anna Hazare's office yesterday received a letter threatening to kill him for stoking "unrest" in society, his aide said.

"The handwritten letter in Marathi was received at Hazare's office in Ralegan Siddhi village in the afternoon," said his spokesperson Shyam Asawa.

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When asked about the content of the letter, he said it reads: "Tumhi samajat asantosh pasravat ahat mhanun tumhala udvave lagel (You will be eliminated as you are spreading unrest in society)".

The name of the sender on the letter is 'Ambadas Lashkare' from Nevase, 65 km away from there.

When contacted, Parner police said they have received the information about the receipt of such letter, but refused to elaborate on investigation.

Hazare had previously received anonymous threat letters. Latest of them was in January that threatened to kill him on 26 January.

"Police have not traced the senders of these letters so far," Asawa told PTI.

Hazare's personal assistant Shyam Pathade had then said that the Gandhian does not fall prey to such threats.

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Hazare has been given 'Z' category security cover.

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PMO India/Twitter

Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Kanubhai Gandhi on Sunday said that he has been a 'bhakt' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a long time.

Kanubhai who recently moved to an old age home in Delhi spoke to PM Modi over the phone and said that he had a very pleasant discussion. Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma had personally gone to visit him there, and had connected him with the Prime Minister.

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'Bhakt', a Hindi word which literally means 'worshipper'  is a tongue-in-cheek term used in social media to describe the adoring and sometimes extreme followers of PM Modi.

Main bahut puraana PM ka bhakt hoon. Maine jo unko madat ki thi woh sab cheezein unko yaad thi: Kanubhai Gandhi pic.twitter.com/Wb3oaAz08F  ANI (@ANI_news) May 15, 2016

"I am a very old follower of the Prime Minister, and he still remembers the help I had extended to him. Those days Congress president Sonia Gandhi was against [both of] us," Kanubhai told ANI.

After the conversation, PM directed the authorities to ensure that he and his wife have a comfortable stay in their new home.

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PM @narendramodi has taken note of reports about Shri Kanubhai Gandhi. He asked Minister @dr_maheshsharma to meet Kanubhai.  PMO India (@PMOIndia) May 15, 2016

PM @narendramodi and Kanubhai had a long conversation. They spoke in Gujarati and had a very pleasant discussion. pic.twitter.com/m93Gc3DXwK  PMO India (@PMOIndia) May 15, 2016

Currently staying at the Guru Vishram Vridh Ashram at Gautampuri in South Delhi, Kanubhai expresses regret at not being able to help others, like his grandfather did. "I am sad that I have to rely on the government's help," he said in an interview.

Kanubhai is the eldest son of Mahatma Gandhi's third son Ramdas.

Kanubhai left India at the age of 17 and studied at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later worked at NASA's Langley Research Centre. His wife holds a doctorate in biochemistry.

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After over four decades of stay in the United States, Kanubhai (87) and his wife Dr Shiva Lakshmi Gandhi (85) returned to India in 2014 and spent about a year-and-a-half in various ashrams in Gujarat before checking into the one in Delhi on 8 May.

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A new rule which will require most insurance companies to provide coverage for gender reassignment has been finalized. It comes days after a case against a health insurer was dismissed.The US Department of Health and Human Services Sector 1557 means that individuals are protected from discrimination in health care on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability and sex, including discrimination based on pregnancy, gender identity and sex stereotyping.The Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities final rule implements Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which is the first federal civil rights law to broadly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded health programs.A central goal of the Affordable Care Act is to help all Americans access quality, affordable health care. Todays announcement is a key step toward realizing equity within our health care system and reaffirms this Administration's commitment to giving every American access to the health care they deserve," said HHS Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell.Further details of the provisions of the rule is available from the HHS French-based global insurer AXA says that its most precious resource is its employees. In its annual Social Data Report, it highlights its 166,000 employees across all continents and provides insight to their diversity.Fourteen per cent of AXAs workforce are in the Americas totaling 22,118 people including 17,132 salaried employees and 4,986 exclusive distributors. Their average age is 40.6 years and average length of service is 10.8 years.More than half of the global salaried workforce (52.7 per cent) is women although at executive level this drops to 27.7 per cent. Women make up 41.8 per cent of managers and 57.2 per cent of experts and staff. In the Americas, women make up 53.3 per cent of the salaried workforce but there is no breakdown provided by level of seniority.Speaking specifically about AXAs US business unit, human resources manager Rino Piazzolla said the firm is confident that we can attract, develop and retain the best talents in order to achieve its aim to recruit for future skills and ensure a culture of learning. Those are the insurers key targets for 2020.The decision to drop a sketch about free speech from a Canadian comedy gala has been blamed on an insurance company. Comedian Guy Nantel says that insurers insisted that his joke was rewritten in order to be included in Radio-Canadas broadcast of Quebecs Le Gala les Oliviers.Nantel is currently under investigation by Quebec Human Rights Commission over a previous matter and the Commission was one of the groups mentioned in the sketch. The comedian says that insurer, who has not been named, said they believed the broadcaster would be sued if the routine was used.Radio-Canada said that due to the legal process with the human rights commission the decision not to broadcast the sketch was taken. "As long as the content has not been insured, Radio-Canada cannot allow the sketch to be broadcast, its statement said.
HELENA  A federal judge says he will decide whether Montana's campaign contribution limits are unconstitutional without holding a trial.

U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell signed an order Monday canceling a bench trial that had been scheduled for next week. He will decide the case based on briefs and arguments by the state and attorneys for the plaintiffs.

Those plaintiffs are individuals, businesses and political parties seeking to strike Montana's contribution limits before the June 7 primary elections. They claim the limits restrict freedom of speech, association and candidates' ability to raise enough money to effectively campaign.

Attorneys for the state say Montana is justified in keeping the limits because they prevent corruption and its appearance.

Lovell struck down the limits once before in 2012, but they were reinstated by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Planning Board Chairwoman Amy Jeschawitz and board member Sarah Gardner review site plans for the Spruces property prior to Monday's discussion of an Open Meeting Law complaint.

Williamstown Planning Board Finds No Open Meeting Law Violation

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  The Planning Board on Monday morning unanimously voted that it found no violation of the Open Meeting Law by three of its members in regard to its May 4 meeting.

On May 8, two days before the recent town election, Luce Road resident David Leja filed the OML complaint alleging improper communication between three members of the five-person board.

On Monday morning, the board voted 5-0 to send Leja a response that read, in part, "the Board discussed this alleged violation, and we believe that based on factual evidence regarding the events that occurred between the meetings of April 28 and May 4 that no violation of the OML took place."

The board's letter goes on to cite the collaboration that took place between two board members, Sarah Gardner and Ann McCallum, on what came to be known as the "Gardner Amendment" on the Waubeeka Overlay District zoning by-law amendment.

The letter points out that a non-quorum of board members can discuss items before the board and consult with town staff, as Gardner and McCallum did in drafting the amendment, which ultimately passed the Planning Board on a 3-2 vote at the May 4 meeting.

Both Gardner and Planning Board Chairwoman Amy Jeschawitz presented their colleagues Monday with drafts of a letter that reached the same conclusion but differed slightly in how they laid out the evidence.

While Jeschawitz's draft noted that the by-law amendment was created "by town staff members," Gardner suggested - and her colleagues agreed - that the letter should note the original by-law amendment, which came to be known as the Gardner Amendment, was the work of Town Manager Jason Hoch and Town Planner Andrew Groff. The amendment and its several iterations were available for the Planning Board members and the public in Google Docs prior to discussion at the April 28 meeting.

According to the Open Meeting Law Guide on the Massachusetts Attorney General's website, a public body must respond to a complaint within 14 days. The complainant has up to 90 days to request the AG's office to review the complaint.

Leja did not attend Monday morning's special meeting of the board. A telephone message left at the number listed for him was not immediately returned.

In an emailed statement on Monday afternoon, Leja said, I wasnt made aware that my complaint was a topic at the Planning Board Meeting [sic], even though it was one of two items posted in an agenda on the towns website on May 12. Leja went on to say that he would pursue the complaint with the Attorney Generals Office. Groff told the board he would ask town counsel whether counsel must review the response before it is sent to Leja.

Although three members of the Planning Board were named in the complaint, it is relatively clear that Gardner, who was standing for election for a five-year seat on the Board on May 10, was the main target of the accusation.

After the meeting, Gardner characterized the board's response as a straightforward explanation of the board's procedures for sharing documents between meetings, but she expressed disappointment at the level of discourse the town experienced in the days  and hours  leading up to the vote.

"Mr. Leja had been online saying all sorts of inflammatory and, to be generous, impolite things," Gardner said, referring to comments Leja made on iBerkshires.com articles after the May 4 meeting. "I think we lost civil discourse in the comments section."

Both Gardner and McCallum said the first they heard of the OML complaint was when they were asked about it by a reporter.

"I think the newspaper knew about it before the town did," McCallum said.

Gardner also indicated that Leja was not alone in making the complaint.

"He stated that he was encouraged to file this, and I'd like to know who encouraged him because it was clearly timed to come out on election day," Gardner said.

An Open Meeeting Law complaint must be filed within 30 days of the alleged violation. Leja's complaint was filed four days after the alleged violation took place and in time to be publicized before the Town Election.

In other business Monday morning, the Planning Board approved a division of the former Spruces Mobile Home Park property that acknowledges that portion of the property that is in North Adams. The Planning Board in North Adams is set to review the same partition later Monday, Groff said.

Williamstown Planning Board OPM Complaint by iBerkshires.com
We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector
HELENA  The Democratic candidate for Montanas lone U.S. House seat wants six debates across the state with her opponent incumbent U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau, who announced her candidacy last fall, asked for the debates in a letter to Zinke that was sent Friday.

I recognize that none of us want to have a debate about debates, but its important to agree upon and quickly set a realistic number of debates between now and the general election, she wrote.

Zinke campaign spokeswoman Heather Swift said they'd received the letter.

"We ... look forward to working with Montana media organizations on several debates. The people of Montana deserve to hear their candidates' take on the most important issues like the fallout of the nuclear Iran Deal, Syrian refugees coming to Missoula and the future of coal jobs."

Juneau proposes a series of debates over the summer and fall in Billings, Bozeman, Great Falls, Butte, Pablo and Glendive. She wants each moderated by an independent news or community organization.

She wrote about Glendive being an important location, echoing the infrastructure needs brought on by a booming and now-declining oil play, something many candidates have referenced this election.

Juneau also wrote of the Pablo location: I cant recall there ever having been a congressional debate held on any of Montanas seven recognized Indian reservations. Thats unfortunate and something we can change this election cycle. I propose that we hold a debate halfway between Missoula and Kalispell in Pablo at the Salish Kootenai College.

In 2006, then U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R, and his challenger Monica Lindeen, D, scheduled a debate at Fort Peck Community College in Poplar, according to an Associated Press story previewing the event.

In 2014, Zinke said he would pull out of a debate against Democratic candidate John Lewis in Billings, but then changed his mind and agreed to participate in the debate.

Zinke said he had a scheduling conflict. The debates sponsors, The Billings Gazette and Yellowstone Public Radio, changed the format to a forum with Lewis, but then Zinke said he changed his plans to accommodate the event.

The two also debated in Kalispell and Bozeman.

Juneau is the fist American Indian woman elected to statewide office in Montana, and would be the first American Indian congresswoman if elected.
Press Release: The IMF Middle East Center for Economics and Finance, Jointly with the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, held a Symposium that Discussed the Path to Economic Diversification in Kuwait and Other GCC Countries

Press Release No. 16/223

May 16, 2016

The IMF Middle East Center for Economics and Finance (CEF), jointly with the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD), held a symposium on The Path to Economic Diversification in Kuwait and other GCC Countries on Monday May 16, 2016. The event was hosted at the Arab Funds Headquarters. The panel discussion was moderated by the CEFs Director Dr. Oussama Kanaan, and included Professor Ha-Joon Chang of Cambridge University, author of seminal work on the role of the state in economic development, and Dr. Reda Cherif and Dr. Fuad Hasanov, the leading IMF economists in the field of economic diversification.

CEF Director Oussama Kanaan indicated that the symposium is the fourth in the series of events organized by the CEF jointly with the AFESD aimed at stimulating discussion on economic policies for Kuwait and other GCC countries to ensure durable development on the basis of a long-term strategy to reduce the dependence on oil. He added that the adoption of a bold diversification strategy has become particularly important in the face of low oil prices, and a critical one to prevent a marked decline in GCC countries living standards. Drawing on international country experiences, the panel discussion brought to the fore the core ingredients of successful economic diversification strategies, including infrastructure and human capital investments conducive to private sector growth and the development of sophisticated non-oil export industries.

Dr. Cherif and Dr. Hasanov started by putting into perspective the implications of the decline in oil prices from above $100 to about $40 per barrel today, which has made diversification such a pressing policy issue. They noted that such a drastic and persistent decline is raising the specter of a return of the oil slump of the 1980s1990s. Citizens and policymakers from many oil-exporting nations still remember the ordeal their countries went through at that time. The promise of easy and swift development brought by large oil revenues failed to materialize, resulting in unemployment, falling living standards, and heavy indebtedness in the 1980s and 1990s. History does not repeat itself, but it should not be ignored. Dealing with low oil prices in the current context of high government spending and rising expectations about the provision of jobs and income transfers is even more challenging.

Cherif and Hasanov indicated that, to achieve diversification, oil exporters must change the prevailing economic model. Despite the complex choices involved, it is paramount for oil-dependent economies to become innovative economies. They will have to experiment and learn from the experiences of other countries on their path to diversification. In the past, countries such as Brazil, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore have made major strides in diversifying their economies, and their experiences carry important lessons for GCC countries today.

These countries experiences reveal that incentives for firms and workers need to be realigned to develop technologically sophisticated export-oriented industries. Standard growth policy prescriptions may not be sufficient to achieve true diversification. In addition to addressing government failures, policymakers must address market failures by changing incentives for firms and workers to move toward more dynamic sectors. Policymakers should focus on developing dynamic export markets. Diversification has to start somewhere and can begin by focusing on a more limited set of industries. Facilitating entrepreneurship is essential while education and social development are paramount. The choice to diversify via the service sector versus the manufacturing sector depends on the potential productivity gains. The frontier between services and manufacturing is fading, and there are more productivity gains to be had with service sectors that are more strongly linked to the manufacturing sector.

Professor Chang then discussed the key elements that characterized successful diversification strategies, and concluded with three main messages. First, diversification does not need to be related to economic activities that the country is already engaged inthe experience of several countries indicates that new activities are created that are often unrelated to a countrys traditional industries or its natural resource endowment. Second, even when diversification is related to a countrys traditional industries, the challenge is to ensure that the products of that industry become increasingly sophisticated, at more advanced stages of manufacturing. Third, diversification requires an industrial policy that is highly selective, taking into account the particular economic and social conditions of the country.

The floor was then open for discussion with the audience, whose interventions reflected a broad range of interests, including participants from the public sector, the banking and business community, academia and representatives from international and donor organizations.
Women's preference for smaller competition may account for inequality

Ann Arbor, Michigan - When applying for a job or to college, women seek positions with fewer applicants than men, according to a new University of Michigan study.

The researchers found that the size of a competitionsuch as the number of applicants to a particular job or the number of people vying for a monetary rewardshapes who enters the competition.

Women prefer smaller competitions, whereas men seek larger competitions, which are typically associated with higher monetary rewards.

"These patterns of findings can contribute to a better understanding of gender inequality in the workforce," said Kathrin Hanek, the study's lead author. "The gender difference in preferences may in part explain pay gaps and the underrepresentation of women in particular fields or at the helm of large organizations."

The difference between the genders can be partially attributed to women feeling more comfortable in smaller competitions. Hanek points out that some environments offer greater opportunities for women to behave communally rather than competitively.

"Smaller social groups, even when individuals are in competition, tend to allow people to form more intimate social bonds and be more attuned to others' needs," said Hanek, who recently received her doctorate from the U-M Department of Psychology. "And these communal behaviors, in turn, tend to be more normative for women."

Hanek and colleagues found consistent gender differences in the preference for smaller versus larger competitions across a variety of different competition contexts.

For instance, one study examined women's and men's real decisions to enter a small (10 competitors) or large (100 competitors) word-formation task competition. The results indicated that 53 percent of women but only 41 percent of men preferred the small competition.

"This research by no means blames women for gender inequality but rather uncovers a novel environmental factor that might contribute to inequality, beyond the well-documented effects of gender biases and discrimination," said Stephen Garcia, U-M associate professor of organizational studies and psychology.

Avishalom Tor, a researcher at the University of Notre Dame, also contributed to the study, which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology.
Researchers unleash graphene tiger for more efficient optoelectronics

Seattle, Washington - In the quest to harvest light for electronics, the focal point is the moment when photons - light particles - encounter electrons, those negatively-charged subatomic particles that form the basis of our modern electronic lives. If conditions are right when electrons and photons meet, an exchange of energy can occur. Maximizing that transfer of energy is the key to making efficient light-captured energetics possible.

This is the ideal, but finding high efficiency is very difficult, said University of Washington physics doctoral student Sanfeng Wu. Researchers have been looking for materials that will let them do this - one way is to make each absorbed photon transfer all of its energy to many electrons, instead of just one electron in traditional devices.

In traditional light-harvesting methods, energy from one photon only excites one electron or none depending on the absorbers energy gap, transferring just a small portion of light energy into electricity. The remaining energy is lost as heat. But in a paper released May 13 in Science Advances, Wu, UW associate professor Xiaodong Xu and colleagues at four other institutions describe one promising approach to coax photons into stimulating multiple electrons. Their method exploits some surprising quantum-level interactions to give one photon multiple potential electron partners. Wu and Xu, who has appointments in the UWs Department of Materials Science & Engineering and the Department of Physics, made this surprising discovery using graphene.

Graphene is a substance with many exciting properties, said Wu, the papers lead author. For our purposes, it shows a very efficient interaction with light.

Graphene is a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms bonded to one another, and electrons are able to move easily within graphene. The researchers took a single layer of graphene - just one sheet of carbon atoms thick - and sandwiched it between two thin layers of a material called boron-nitride.

Boron-nitride has a lattice structure that is very similar to graphene, but has very different chemical properties, said Wu. Electrons do not flow easily within boron-nitride; it essentially acts as an insulator.

Xu and Wu discovered that when the graphene layers lattice is aligned with the layers of boron-nitride, a type of superlattice is created with properties allowing efficient optoelectronics that researchers had sought. These properties rely on quantum mechanics, the occasionally baffling rules that govern interactions between all known particles of matter. Wu and Xu detected unique quantum regions within the superlattice known as Van Hove singularities.

These are regions of huge electron density of states, and they were not accessed in either the graphene or boron-nitride alone, said Wu. We only created these high electron density regions in an accessible way when both layers were aligned together.

When Xu and Wu directed energetic photons toward the superlattice, they discovered that those Van Hove singularities were sites where one energized photon could transfer its energy to multiple electrons that are subsequently collected by electrodes not just one electron or none with the remaining energy lost as heat. By a conservative estimate, Xu and Wu report that within this superlattice one photon could kick as many as five electrons to flow as current.

With the discovery of collecting multiple electrons upon the absorption of one photon, researchers may be able to create highly efficient devices that could harvest light with a large energy profit. Future work would need to uncover how to organize the excited electrons into electrical current for optimizing the energy-converting efficiency and remove some of the more cumbersome properties of their superlattice, such as the need for a magnetic field. But they believe this efficient process between photons and electrons represents major progress.

Graphene is a tiger with great potential for optoelectronics, but locked in a cage, said Wu. The singularities in this superlattice are a key to unlocking that cage and releasing graphenes potential for light harvesting application.

Co-authors were Lei Wang, Xian Zhang, Cory Dean and James Hone at Columbia University; You Lai and Zhiqiang Li at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Florida; Wen-Yu Shan and Di Xiao at Carnegie Mellon University; former UW graduate student Grant Aivazian; and Takashi Taniguchi and Kenji Watanabe at the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan. The work at the UW was funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Xu acknowledges the support from the Boeing Distinguished Professorship and Washingtons state-funded Clean Energy Institute.
Researchers find unexpected magnetic effect

Cambridge, Massachusetts - A new and unexpected magnetic effect has taken researchers by surprise, and could open up a new pathway to advanced electronic devices and even robust quantum computer architecture.

The finding is based on a family of materials called topological insulators (TIs) that has drawn much interest in recent years. The novel electronic properties of TIs might ultimately lead to new generations of electronic, spintronic, or quantum computing devices. The materials behave like ordinary insulators throughout their interiors, blocking electrons from flowing, but their outermost surfaces are nearly perfect conductors, allowing electrons to move freely. The confinement of electrons to this vanishingly thin surface makes then behave in unique ways.

But harnessing the materials promise still faces numerous obstacles, one of which is to find a way of combining a TI with a material that has controllable magnetic properties. Now, researchers at MIT and elsewhere say they have found a way to overcome that hurdle.

The team at MIT, led by Jagadeesh Moodera of the Department of Physics and postdoc Ferhat Katmis, was able to bond together several molecular layers of a topological insulator material called bismuth selenide (Bi2Se3) with an ultrathin layer of a magnetic material, europium sulfide (EuS). The resulting bilayer material retains all the exotic electronic properties of a TI and the full magnetization capabilities of the EuS.

But the big surprise was the stability of that effect. While EuS itself is known to retain its ability to hold a magnetic state only at extremely low temperatures, just 17 degrees above absolute zero (17 Kelvin), the combined material keeps those characteristics all the way up to ordinary room temperature. That could make all the difference for developing devices that are practical to operate, and could open up new avenues of device design as well as research into a new area of basic physical phenomena.

The findings are being reported in the journal Nature, in a paper by Katmis, Moodera, and 10 others at MIT, and a multinational, multidisciplinary team from Oak Ridge, Argonne National Laboratories, and institutions in Germany, France, and India.

The room-temperature magnetic effect seen in this work, Moodera says, was something that wasnt in anybodys wildest expectations. This is what astonished us. Research like this, he says, is still so near the frontiers of scientific knowledge that the phenomena are impossible to predict. You cant tell what youre going to see next week or whats going to happen in the next experiment, he says.

In particular, novel combinations of two materials with very different properties is an area with very little depth of research. And getting clear and repeatable results depends on a high degree of precision in the preparation of the surfaces and joining of the two materials; any contamination or imperfections at the interface between the two  even down to the level of individual atomic layer  can throw off the results, Moodera says. What happens, happens where they meet, he says, and the careful and persistent effort of Katmis in making these materials was key to the new discovery.

The finding could be a step toward new kinds of magnetic interactions at the interfaces between materials, with stability that could result in magnetic memory devices which could store information at the level of individual molecules, the team says.

The effect, which the researchers call proximity-induced magnetism, could also enable a new variety of spintronic devices based on a property of electrons called spin, rather than on their electrical charge. It might also provide the first practical way of producing a kind of particle called Majorana fermions, predicted by physicists but not yet observed convincingly. That in turn could help in the development of quantum computers, they say.

A nice thing about this is that it shows both very fundamental physics and also takes us forward to many possible applications, Katmis says. He says the effect is somewhat similar to unexpected findings a decade ago in the interfaces between some oxide materials, which has triggered a decade of intensive research.

This new finding, coupled with other recent quantum behavior observed in TIs, can lead to many possibilities for future electronics and spintronics, the team says.

This beautiful work from Mooderas group is a very exciting demonstration that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, says Philip Kim, a professor of physics at Harvard University, who was not involved in this work. Topological insulators and magnetic insulators are two completely dissimilar materials. Yet they produce very unusual emergent effects at their atomically clean interface, he adds. The enhanced interfacial magnetism shown in this work can be very relevant to building up novel spintronics devices that can process information with low energy consumption.

The team also included associate professor of physics Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and postdoc Peng Wei at MIT, and researchers at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Bochum and the Institute for Theoretical Solid State Physics in Dresden, both in Germany; the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris; and the Institute of Nuclear Physics, in Kolkata, India. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Ingestible origami robot

Cambridge, Massachusetts - In experiments involving a simulation of the human esophagus and stomach, researchers at MIT, the University of Sheffield, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have demonstrated a tiny origami robot that can unfold itself from a swallowed capsule and, steered by external magnetic fields, crawl across the stomach wall to remove a swallowed button battery or patch a wound.

The new work, which the researchers are presenting this week at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, builds on a long sequence of papers on origami robots from the research group of Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in MITs Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Its really exciting to see our small origami robots doing something with potential important applications to health care, says Rus, who also directs MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). For applications inside the body, we need a small, controllable, untethered robot system. Its really difficult to control and place a robot inside the body if the robot is attached to a tether.

Joining Rus on the paper are first author Shuhei Miyashita, who was a postdoc at CSAIL when the work was done and is now a lecturer in electronics at the University of York, in England; Steven Guitron, a graduate student in mechanical engineering; Shuguang Li, a CSAIL postdoc; Kazuhiro Yoshida of Tokyo Institute of Technology, who was visiting MIT on sabbatical when the work was done; and Dana Damian of the University of Sheffield, in England.

Although the new robot is a successor to one reported at the same conference last year, the design of its body is significantly different. Like its predecessor, it can propel itself using whats called a stick-slip motion, in which its appendages stick to a surface through friction when it executes a move, but slip free again when its body flexes to change its weight distribution.

Also like its predecessor  and like several other origami robots from the Rus group  the new robot consists of two layers of structural material sandwiching a material that shrinks when heated. A pattern of slits in the outer layers determines how the robot will fold when the middle layer contracts.

Material difference

The robots envisioned use also dictated a host of structural modifications. Stick-slip only works when, one, the robot is small enough and, two, the robot is stiff enough, says Guitron. With the original Mylar design, it was much stiffer than the new design, which is based on a biocompatible material.

To compensate for the biocompatible materials relative malleability, the researchers had to come up with a design that required fewer slits. At the same time, the robots folds increase its stiffness along certain axes.

But because the stomach is filled with fluids, the robot doesnt rely entirely on stick-slip motion. In our calculation, 20 percent of forward motion is by propelling water  thrust  and 80 percent is by stick-slip motion, says Miyashita. In this regard, we actively introduced and applied the concept and characteristics of the fin to the body design, which you can see in the relatively flat design.

It also had to be possible to compress the robot enough that it could fit inside a capsule for swallowing; similarly, when the capsule dissolved, the forces acting on the robot had to be strong enough to cause it to fully unfold. Through a design process that Guitron describes as mostly trial and error, the researchers arrived at a rectangular robot with accordion folds perpendicular to its long axis and pinched corners that act as points of traction.

In the center of one of the forward accordion folds is a permanent magnet that responds to changing magnetic fields outside the body, which control the robots motion. The forces applied to the robot are principally rotational. A quick rotation will make it spin in place, but a slower rotation will cause it to pivot around one of its fixed feet. In the researchers experiments, the robot uses the same magnet to pick up the button battery.

Porcine precedents

The researchers tested about a dozen different possibilities for the structural material before settling on the type of dried pig intestine used in sausage casings. We spent a lot of time at Asian markets and the Chinatown market looking for materials, Li says. The shrinking layer is a biodegradable shrink wrap called Biolefin.

To design their synthetic stomach, the researchers bought a pig stomach and tested its mechanical properties. Their model is an open cross-section of the stomach and esophagus, molded from a silicone rubber with the same mechanical profile. A mixture of water and lemon juice simulates the acidic fluids in the stomach.

Every year, 3,500 swallowed button batteries are reported in the U.S. alone. Frequently, the batteries are digested normally, but if they come into prolonged contact with the tissue of the esophagus or stomach, they can cause an electric current that produces hydroxide, which burns the tissue. Miyashita employed a clever strategy to convince Rus that the removal of swallowed button batteries and the treatment of consequent wounds was a compelling application of their origami robot.

Shuhei bought a piece of ham, and he put the battery on the ham, Rus says. Within half an hour, the battery was fully submerged in the ham. So that made me realize that, yes, this is important. If you have a battery in your body, you really want it out as soon as possible.

This concept is both highly creative and highly practical, and it addresses a clinical need in an elegant way, says Bradley Nelson, a professor of robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. It is one of the most convincing applications of origami robots that I have seen.
Feeling Stressed? Your Dogs Can Smell it in Your Body Odor
Montana increased its capacity to analyze suspected illegal drugs last week.

As a result, the wheels of justice should move faster throughout the state. The new satellite crime lab housed at Billings Clinic is staffed by two forensic chemists and one evidence technician. Those three workers have expanded the Montana State Crime Lab staff, so more work can be completed quicker statewide.

The location of the new lab in Billings means that evidence from drug cases in Yellowstone and 26 other eastern counties wont have to travel as far between local law enforcement agencies and the state lab. Police and deputies in Billings and surrounding communities will spend less time transporting drug case evidence.

The lab, which will cost about $1.5 million through July 2017 for set up, equipment and operation, represents a rare successful collaboration of Yellowstone County and Eastern Montana lawmakers. Republicans and Democrats united to pass legislation to establish the crime lab.

The new lab occupies about 1,500 square feet of space in the Billings Clinic Research Institute building. Because the space had previously been used for research, it was already equipped with lab tables, cabinets, plumbing and gas connections. Enhanced security measures were added for the crime lab.

The lab grew from a grass roots idea that sprouted in Yellowstone County. Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito proposed a local drug crime lab in the summer of 2014, several months before the 2015 Legislature convened. In the final voting, every Yellowstone County lawmaker supported the satellite lab. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Dale Mortensen, R-Billings, and had 32 cosponsors, including Speaker of the House Austin Knudsen, R-Culbertson.

It will help law enforcement respond to drug cases, Attorney General Tim Fox said at a grand opening tour attended by a dozen lawmakers and county commissioners. Democrats and Republicans saw the need here.

The Billings crime lab wasnt in Foxs biennial budget proposal. But once the legislation became law, Fox directed the Department of Justice to get the lab running as authorized by lawmakers  even though the money wasnt actually appropriated. In Billings for the grand opening last week, Fox said he will seek a supplemental appropriation in January to cover the costs. The Department of Justice also will need to request ongoing funding for the Billings lab in the next biennium.

The first cases processed last week at the new crime lab were samples the Billings Police Department previously sent to Missoula. The crime lab brought them back to Billings for analysis. Law enforcement agencies in eastern counties have been instructed to send their drug samples to the Billings lab starting today.

The Billings lab will test evidence for suspected illegal drugs. All other types of forensic lab work will continue to be done in Missoula.

The Billings lab could be expanded in the future, with legislative support. Adding capacity for toxicology (testing blood samples and other tissue samples) would allow the lab to work with the state medical examiner who performs autopsies at St. Vincent Healthcare.

Dr. Phil Kinsey, administrator of the Montana Crime Lab, estimated that the Billings satellite could process 700 drug cases per year. Most of its work will come from Yellowstone County, said Twito.

Drug testing turnaround had already improved over the past year. During the 2015 Legislature, proponents of the new lab noted that county attorneys reported waiting five to 11 months for drug test results. That delay has been reduced, Kinsey and Twito agreed. Now 95 percent of drug cases are analyzed within four months and half are completed in three months, Kinsey said.

We look for even faster turnaround this year.

Speedier testing reduces delays in court and shortens pretrial time in jail. Twito says that quicker disposition of drug cases allows the court to order addicted offenders into drug treatment sooner.

Congratulations to Twito, Fox and the entire Yellowstone County legislative delegation. The satellite crime lab is a win for everyone.
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It was one of Alan Parkers greatest movies  a gut-wrenching prison epic with an Oliver Stone script and pounding Giorgio Moroder music. Midnight Express (1978), produced by David Puttnam, won two Oscars and very quickly assumed cult status. What the filmmakers hadnt anticipated was just how deeply they had offended the Turkish people or the disastrous consequences their film had on the countrys tourism industry.

Now, Sally Sussmans new film Midnight Return, which premieres in Cannes today, explores the legacy of one of the most controversial movies of its era.

In Midnight Express, a young American, Billy Hayes (played by the late Brad Davis), is arrested at Istanbul airport with some hash taped to his chest. He is thrown in prison and endures a traumatic time at the hands of sadistic prison guards before managing to escape. The film features some brutal scenes, most notoriously the sequence in which Billy, in huge slow motion close-up, is shown biting out the tongue of the Turkish guard. Parker later acknowledged that he got a little bit carried away with this scene which required the unfortunate Davis to spit out a pigs tongue again and again.

Id never seen a movie, ever, that stuck with me the way that movie did, Californian-based Sussman recalls of when she first saw Parkers film as a student at the University of Southern California in the late 1970s. I just remember leaving that film shaking.

Sussman went to carve out a career as a writer and producer of soap operas such as The Young And The Restless. By coincidence, her husband Tony Morino, knew Hayes, who became a family friend. The character of Billy Hayes in the film was passive, much more of victim. The real Billy, in prison for the five years, was a very wily character, always plotting, always planning, always hoping he could escape, which he eventually did.

There was a reason for the casting of Davis. The studio had originally wanted Richard Gere for the role but the filmmakers realised Gere was too much the hero. For the movie really to work, audiences, had to believe that Billy wasnt going to make it. Thats why they went for a sensitive actor like Davis.

In the documentary, Parker, producer Puttnam and many others involved in the original production appear on screen as does the real Hayes and two fellow prisoners held with him during his nightmare time in a Turkish jail. Sussman explores the impact of Midnight Express on Turkey and on the life of Hayes. It [Midnight Express] became a huge part of pop culture and it also had political ramifications, the director says. It was probably the most hated film ever in Turkey.

The prison warders are portrayed as sadistic, lazy and corrupt. The Turkish legal system likewise comes out of the film very badly. Even the warder's children are shown as being overweight and grotesque.

After interviewing all the protagonists behind the film, Sussman has concluded that Midnight Express was made with no malice or no intention to offend the Turks. I cant believe for one moment that was Alans motive, she says of director Parker. I think that was what you call an unintended consequence. I think they were creating what they thought was a somewhat loosely based story on Hayess life.

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When Midnight Express was released, it was credited with destroying the Turkish tourism industry almost single-handed and of poisoning relations between Turkey and the West. In the documentary, Parker stands by his work, but Stone expresses his regret at the misunderstanding that arose from the film.

In the documentary, Sussman, her husband and Hayes visit Turkey. Hayes discovers that he is still persona non grata. He was very emotional being back in Turkey because he really loved Turkey and he always felt bad about its portrayal in the film, Sussman says. When he was back there, it was a chance for him to reassure Turkish people that no. I dont hate you even if they hated him.

When Hayes visited the places where he had been incarcerated, he had to be accompanied by plain clothes Turkish policemen for his own protection. He didnt publicise his visit.

Midnight Return is screening in Cannes, just as Midnight Express did all those years ago, when Hayes attended the premiere  and met his future wife Wendy.

Did Hayes hide any marijuana in his socks when he was leaving Istanbul this time round? He might have  but he didnt tell me! Sussman bursts into laughter at the question.

Midnight Return screens in Cannes this week
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One of the many issues blocking women from claiming their rightful place on screen is a constant, wavering shift in responsibility.

We know there's blame to be had, but no one's quite certain as to who to point the finger at. The studios? The directors? The audiences? Of course, in reality, we're dealing far more with a system entrenched through an entire multitude of factors; a battle to be fought on all fronts, with every facet of the industry put under questioning.

One area in need of examining is the cinematic canon, the films cinephilic culture has enshrined as pinnacles of the art; and a canon which, though unfortunate decades of reinforcement, has leaned heavily towards the traditional notions of masculinity.

In Saving Private Ryan, Jaws, Raging Bull, or Taxi Driver; Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg have certainly always leaned towards the masculine, and in turn incidentally helped to impose those traditions.

Recommended Read more 20 women in Hollywood making a difference from behind the camera

A matter which Juliette Binoche won't stand idly by and witness; with the French Oscar winner telling attendants of a Cannes Film Festival panel session that she'd confronted both Spielberg and Scorsese over their lack of female leads (via The Guardian).

She recalled a conversation with Spielberg, who she greatly admires, in which the director did defend himself with the reasoning that he had made The Color Purple in 1985; yet, since then, he's never featured a solo female lead. Binoche even turned down Laura Dern's role in Jurassic Park; a fantastic character in itself, but hardly the focus of the film.

A similar conversation with Scorsese ended with her conclusion, "Saying no to certain films is as important as saying yes, because it really defines you," Binoche said. "[Scorsese] has a very feminine side of himself. But for me, he doesnt explore it [in his work]."

Indeed, though the director is best known for his male leads in the likes of Mean Streets or The Wolf of Wall Street, one of his greatest, most consistently ignored works is The Age of Innocence; a masterful adaptation of Edith Wharton's tragic, romantic novel. It's a wonder whether Scorsese would have been moved to make more works in this vein of Age of Innocence had it received the same focus and attention as the likes of Casino.

Binoche did prove direct confrontation can move directors to embrace the feminine, with acclaimed French director Olivier Assayas moved enough by her argument for more female-focused films that he decided to make Clouds of Sils Maria. Binoche ending up starring alongside Kristen Stewart and Chloe Grace Moretz in the film, a beautifully poised meditation on the nature of acting, with Stewart going on to become the first American to win the Cesar.

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Binoche attended the talk on behalf of We Do It Together, a newly launched not-for-profit production company which aims to improve the opportunities for women in Hollywood; with Jessica Chastain, Queen Latifah, Freida Pinto, and Catherine Hardwicke also on board. The company took the opportunity to announce its first feature, Together Now: a collection of short films directed by international female directors.

"I felt the need to do something like this since very early on as an actress, Binoche said of the project. "When you read scripts, you ask how you serve the story. Very early on, you see how you can be used. What Ive been seeing is that Ive been refusing roles, instinctively, out of the need to talk about the feminine. The feminine has to have its place. It needs space, and we dont have the space, so we have to take it."
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A crew member working on sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle has been rushed to hospital following a dramatic 15ft fall.

The Birmingham Mail reports the individual was admitted with a fractured ankle and leg wounds, after an incident occurred during the filming of a car chase sequence in Birmingham city centre around 8pm on Sunday, 15 May.

Though exact circumstances are unclear, West Midlands Fire Service said the crew member fell 15ft onto an "outdoor lower basement level" of Council House, the home of the Birmingham City Council, in Victoria Square.

An ambulance service spokesman stated, "Crews arrived to find a man who fallen approximately 15ft through a building. He was treated for a fractured ankle and leg injuries before being rescued from the building and carefully moved to the awaiting ambulance. He was then transported to Queen Elizabeth Hospital for further treatment."

None of the stars are thought to have been present for the Birmingham scenes, which have been billed as a "second unit" shoot for actions shots, including gunfire.

 Kingsman: Colin Firth chat

The sequel is set to see Taron Egertons Eggsy head state-side with Mark Strongs Merlin to work for secret US spy society Statesmen; where the duo will be tasked with defeating the villainous Poppy, played by Julianne Moore. Halle Berry joins the cast as Statesmen leader Ginger and as for Colin Firth, it has finally been all-but-confirmed that he will return as suave agent Harry Hart.

Elton John is reportedly in talks to make an appearance, possibly playing himself, while Channing Tatum has confirmed himself for a mystery supporting role.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is set to reach UK cinemas on 16 June 2017.
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Yes, we were all entirely confused by Eurovision Song Contest's new scoring system.

Yet, surely it's a different case entirely when it comes to the actual jury members tasked with doling those points out? Surely, out of all the people on the planet, they'd be the ones in the know? Apparently not, as the set up also confused one jury member enough for them to allocate entirely the wrong scores for their country.

Danish jury member Hilda Heick managed to gravely misunderstand the ranking system, in which members are asked to order all 26 songs, with 1 being their favourite and 26 being their least favourite. Heick did the complete opposite.

Her top choice was, like many other jury members, Australia's Dami Im; however by giving the song only '1 point', Australia ended up receiving a mere 10 points as a whole from the Danish jury. On the show, Denmark were seen to award Ukraine with 12 points, due to Heick personally awarding them with '26 points'; in reality, they shouldn't have been awarded any at all.

Heick told Danish tabloid BT: "My heart stopped When you realise youve done something wrong, its really mortifying. When I saw the other [jury members votes], I could see that I had voted the opposite way to them."

The mistake wouldn't have altered the final results, with Ukraine's Jamala winning on a total of 524 points, though it certainly would have closed the gap with runners-up Australia; boosting their total to 513 points.



Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Show all 33 1 /33 Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures Eurovision 2016 - in pictures



The 69-year-old juror has admitted she's received abuse over the mistake, leading her to reconsider her involvement in Eurovision in the future. "Its my huge mistake and I completely admit it  but I am not senile, despite people saying on Facebook that I should retire and be kept away from everything," she stated. "It may well happen that I do not say yes to more with [Danish Eurovision selection] Melodi Grand Prix in the future  but I will not retire yet."
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Air pollution from fossil fuels and wildfires is dumping the same amount of the poisonous chemicals produced by the worst accidental oil spill in history into the sea every week, according to new research.

A separate study found that a different kind of air pollution can cause blooms of plankton thousands of miles away, leading to the creation of dead zones with such low levels of oxygen that they are lethal to fish and other marine life.

The studies reinforce how much of an effect industrial emissions and large wildfires  an increasing problem because of climate change  are capable of having on Earths oceans.

A team of scientists from Spain sailed around the world in the research ship Hesperides, from Spain to Brazil then South Africa, Australia and Honolulu before heading back to Spain through the Panama Canal.

On the way, they collected numerous samples of air, rain and sea water.

They found traces of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, some of which are highly toxic, in the samples and then used the figures to estimate the total amount going into Earths three main oceans  the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian.

Writing in a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers revealed: The global atmospheric input of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons to the global ocean is estimated at 90,000 tonnes per month, four times greater than the input from the Deepwater Horizon spill.

After an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, a massive slick developed as engineers struggled to cap the leaking well underwater. It is estimated that nearly five million barrels of oil went into the sea. The only bigger slick was caused deliberately by Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War.

Researcher Jordi Dachs, of the Institute of Environmental and Water Studies in Barcelona, wrote in an email: We have not yet evaluated the impact of these inputs of PAHs on the oceanic fauna, but this study shows that this chemicals are ubiquitous in the oceans, and the potential effects are real.

People may be worried to see that the composition of the atmosphere and seawater, even in the remotest regions, is a mirror of our activities on land (industry, cars, cities ).

Professor Tim Jickells, director of the Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at East Anglia University, who was not involved in the research, told The Independent that while many of the compounds in oil slicks degrade very quickly in the sea, PAHs remain for much longer.

They are the slowly degrading, persistent and potentially harmful compounds that lurk within oil, he said.

We dont really understand what this low level, insidious stuff does. We dont really know at what point these things will cross over into doing major damage.

We have found these things in polar bears and seals. Youll have some in your body, I will have some in mine.

He said while they could be seriously poisonous, animals bodies have natural defence mechanisms that usually can handle it at low concentrations.

However Professor Jickells added: They do accumulate in organisms that have a lot of fat and there are concerns around seals, whales, polar bears and these kinds of organisms.

If that animal starts to get hungry, what it does is metabolise its fat reserves. So in addition to being hungry, it will be exposed to this at the same time.

In the second paper, also published in Nature Geoscience, researchers in the US found that air pollution from Asia is affecting oxygen levels across much of the tropical Pacific Ocean.

As iron is deposited from air pollution off the coast of East Asia, ocean currents carry the nutrients far and wide (Georgia Institute of Technology)

High levels of iron and nitrogen can be carried by the wind and ocean currents for thousands of miles, where they provide food for phytoplankton. As the bloom of plankton grows, some of them start to sink down where they are consumed by bacteria.

Like us breathing in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, the bacteria consume oxygen in the subsurface ocean, and there is a tendency to deplete more oxygen, the researchers said.

These low-oxygen areas tend to be in the deep ocean, but they can swell into coastal waters, killing fish, crabs and other sea life there.

Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary

Researcher Taka Ito, an associate professor at Georgia Tech, warned that such hypoxic events could become more common as the low-oxygen areas increase.

Reacting to the research, Professor Daniela Schmidt, a palaeobiologist at Bristol University, said: This paper clearly highlights the complex interactions between the multiple stressors acting on marine ecosystems.

Warming, acidification and loss of oxygen have effects which are very difficult to predict as there are a very large number of possible combination of impacts.
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The international climate deal agreed in Paris has failed to include meaningful mechanisms to guarantee financial support for poorer countries adapting to global warming, according to a report by Oxfam.

In the study, Unfinished Business, the aid charity claims the high cost of climate adaptation measures, such as creating flood defenses and drought-resistant crops, means smaller-scale farmers across the world are being left on their own.

The 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21), held last December, was at the time heralded by some as an historic agreement. But Oxfam has criticised the West for failing to commit to any concrete investment targets.

The report, released as UN officials recommence climate negotiations in the German city of Bonn, states: If global cooperation on climate change is to be inclusive, durable and fair, it must leave no one behind  particularly not those who are most vulnerable to its impacts and least able to cope.

Oxfam estimates that just 16 per cent of the $100 billion a year pledged by rich nations in 2009 to help poorer countries adapt to climate change and cut carbon emissions has been paid. It has called on countries to target 35 per cent by 2020, and 50 per cent by 2025, via grants and other forms of financing in order to avoid the burden of heavy repayments.

The cost for developing countries to adapt to climate change could go as high as $500 billion a year by 2050  four to five times larger than previous estimates, according to a report released last week by the UN.

Tracy Carty, Oxfams policy adviser on climate change, blasted the lack of commitment to developing countries, warning the issue cannot be kicked down the road for any longer. She also emphasised the impact of El Nino, a climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean which can influence the weather.

Ms Carty said in a statement: We have known about the growing gap in adaptation funding for years now, and we were dismayed when the Paris deal failed to fix it.

We need to see specific commitments in Bonn to increase adaptation finance and for that money to be spent supporting small farmers who are on the front lines of the climate crisis.

We are already seeing the price of failure; tens of millions of people around the world face hunger and poverty from the droughts and crop failures caused by El Nino.

In an interview with The Independent, Lord Stern, the worlds most authoritative climate economist, called on rich countries to do everything they can to help poorer nations weather the storm of global warming  warning that a failure would escalate poverty, migration and conflict.

Lord Stern said: Equality is a big issue. The rich got rich on high-carbon growth and its the poor people of the world  whether they be poor people in rich countries or poor people in poor countries  who suffer earliest and most.

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

The defining challenges of this century are overcoming poverty and managing climate change: if we fail on one we fail on the other. Clearly if we fail to manage climate change we create an environment so hostile that development will be undermined  leading to hundreds of millions having to move because their environment has been devastated.

New data released by Nasa revealed that last month was the hottest April ever recorded. It is therefore the sixth month in a row to be more than one per cent above the 1951-1980 average  and 2016 is projected to be the hottest year ever,

The next climate summit, COP22, will be held in Morocco in November.
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Buying groceries only to toss them into the street on the way home sounds absurd  and yet 1.3 billion tonnes of food fit for human consumption is thrown away worldwide each year by both consumers and businesses.

Such eye-opening figures have ignited an anti-food waste movement in recent years, to raise awareness of how such behaviour not only harms the environment and exacerbates food poverty but also dents wallets.

In the UK alone, almost 50 per cent of the total food thrown away comes from the home even though half of it is safe to eat, according to the Love Food Hate Waste campaign run by anti-waste charity Wrap.

But attitudes are changing. Between 2007 and 2012, avoidable waste was cut by a fifth. And if all of the tonnes of produce in the UK currently sent to landfills was eaten, it would save as much energy as removing one in four cars off the road.

The latest battle in the war against waste sees online supermarket Ocado pledging produce to The Real Junk Food Project (TRJFP): a network of cafes which intercepts grub before it is trashed.

Members of The Real Junk Food Project collect food to use in their 'pay as you feel' cafes (The Real Junk Food Project)

Following a trial with TRJFP in November last year, Ocado will store food from orders cancelled by customers after it has been picked and packed, to be collected by the charity daily.

TRFJP turns donations into healthy meals served at its pay as you feel cafes across the UK, as well as locations in Europe and Australia. Since 2013, the organisation has reused about 324.8 tonnes of food to create almost 200,000 meals in the UK alone.

The supermarket claims to be the first UK retailer to send orders cancelled by customers directly to a charity. However, it is not alone in clamping down on waste.

In 2009, leading retailers including Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose, Asda, Marks & Spencer and bread manufacturer Warburtons signed up to an industry-wide objective to reduce food waste.

Earlier this year, Sainsburys became the first supermarket to replace multi-buy promotional offers, such as buy one get one free, with lower prices overall after a government-backed report found that over a quarter of consumers are enticed by deals to buy more than they need.

The move followed a 2013 decision by Tesco to drop food promotions after it discovered that 68 per cent of bagged salad, 40 per cent of apples, and under half of bakery items went uneaten.

Celebrity chefs including Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall have also rallied against waste with respective campaigns, while restaurants such as Japanese-inspired Itsu have cut the price of food in the evenings.

However, France has gone the furthest, and earlier this year became the first country to demand supermarkets donate food to charities or food banks rather than discarding or destroying it.

Snact, a firm which sources fruit destined for the bin from farmers and packing centres and turns it into jerky, is among smaller businesses trying to save food from landfills.

Co-founder Illan Taub believes that food waste is a society-wide problem, and that placing the blame solely on retailers is not the most useful approach.

We dont value food, she argues, adding: Weve become completely disconnected from our food system and weve come to see food as a commodity and just another thing we buy at the shop and discard. We dont think of how many resources have gone into growing, processing, transporting it.

Sure, big players like retailers and manufacturers have a responsibility to do something about it because they have the power to make massive changes, but they shouldnt be singled out.

Making surplus food palatable to consumers has been one of the main challenges faced by Snact since it was established in 2013, and Taub argues that the term food waste hinders the cause.

Snact is made using surplus fruit sourced from farmers and packing sites (Snact)

Its not food waste, its just food. If we stop thinking about it or seeing it as waste, perhaps well start treating it differently too.

Justin Horn, the founder of Londons zero-waste pop-up restaurant Tiny Leaf, said working in restaurants and seeing initiatives at work in Amsterdam and New York City inspired him to launch the venture.

The UKs supermarkets' stringent aesthetic requirements are causing huge amounts of waste, he argues, but adds that concerns about global warming have heightened awareness and partly helped Tiny Leaf to fill its tables night after night.

As they prepare to open their second site in coming weeks, the Tiny Leaf team hope to one day build the first circular economy restaurant, using produce grown in vertical walls.

Food trends in 2016 Show all 11 1 /11 Food trends in 2016 Food trends in 2016 Celeriac root We had a kale obsession in 2015, but 2016s vegetable sine qua non is predicted to be the knobbly celeriac root. Celeriac milk (Tom Hunt at Poco in Bristol serves it with winter mussels and wild water celery), celeriac cooked in Galician beef fat (from Adam Rawson of Pachamama, hot new chef in the capital) and salt-baked celeriac (to be found in Matthew and Iain Penningtons kitchens at The Ethicurean in the West Country) are just a few examples. Getty Images Food trends in 2016 Middle Eastern food The Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookbook (24.95, Phaidon) by grand-dame Salma Hage, author of the bestseller The Lebanese Kitchen (whose halva is pictured here), is out in April  Liz & Max Haarala Hamilton Food trends in 2016 Non-alcoholic cocktails Grain Store mixologist Tony Conigliaro has created Roman Redhead, a riot of red grape juice, beetroot, pale ale and verjus, and Rose Iced Tea (black tea, rose petals, anise essence, pictured here) Food trends in 2016 Gin The discerning will be slurping Hepple gin  from chef Valentine Warner and cocktail guru Nick Strangeway  which is punctuated with bog-myrtle nuances Food trends in 2016 Argyll and Bute Restaurant followers are getting in a froth about Pam Brunton in Scotland, who opened the Inver restaurant in Argyll and Bute to acclaim last year Food trends in 2016 Andy Olivers Som Saa One of the most eagerly awaited restaurants of 2016 will be the permanent incarnation of Andy Olivers remarkable pop-up Som Saa opening very soon in east London. Oliver, who worked at Thai god David Thompsons Nahm in Bangkok, raised a whopping 700,000 through crowdfunding, and is renowned for his piquant Thai flavours and obsessive attention to detail, including in his home ferments and DIY coconut cream  Adam Weatherley Food trends in 2016 Venison Another ruminant in vogue is venison, with Sainsburys doubling its line for 2016. It provides a protein-packed punch, with B vitamins and iron, and its low in fat. Its entry into the mainstream is in part thanks to the Scottish restaurant Mac and Wild, just opened in London, whose Celtic head chef Andy Waugh (who also runs the Wild Game Co) has been touting it as street food for years (his venison burger pictured here) Food trends in 2016 Goat From Brett Grahams The Ledbury to Angela Hartnetts kitchens at Lime Wood Hotel in the New Forest, Cabrito is the go-to goat supplier among the chef cognoscenti (roasted loin of kid pictured here)  but this year, domestic cooks can get in on the action, as Sushila Moles and James Whetlor of Cabrito offer their meat through Ocado Mike Lusmore / mikelusmore.com Food trends in 2016 Coffee Coffee sage George Crawford is launching the much-anticipated Cupsmith with his partner, Emma. Crawford believes that 2016 is the year purist coffee will finally meet the masses; Cupsmiths mission will be to make craft coffee as popular as craft beer on the high street. The company roasts Arabica beans in small batches, improving its quality  but sells it online, at cupsmith.com, in an approachable way: expect cheerful packaging and names such as Afternoon Reviver Coffee (designed for drinking with milk  no matter how uncouth, most of us want milk) and Glorious Espresso Julia Conway Food trends in 2016 120-day-old steak Hanging meat for extremely long lengths of time has become an art. In Cumbria, Lake Road Kitchens James Cross is plating up 120-day-old steak (pictured here). The beef is from influential ager Dan Austin of Lake District Farmers, who is currently investigating the individual bacterial cultures that go into this maturing process Food trends in 2016 Lotus root Diners can expect root-to-stem dining - cue the full lotus deployed by the Michelin-starred Indian Benares in its kamal kakdi aur paneer korma Getty Images

Mark Linehan, managing director of the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA), praises Tiny Leaf and other zero waste establsihments including TRJFP and Silo in Brighton.

[These restaurants] are making the most of food that would otherwise go in the bin and, rather than be seen as somewhere to avoid, have attracted rave reviews.

Meanwhile, the SRA itself has tackled the issue with its own campaigns, including a drive to boost the use of doggy bags, at restaurants  a popular practice in the US.

Since the SRA conducted its Too Good to Waste campaign in 2011 restaurant staff have become more proactive in offering their customers doggy bags, which has helped overcome Brits' natural reticence to ask.

As little as three years ago no one gave a second thought to used coffee grounds. Now this brown sludge is being put to serious use  as furniture, mushroom compost, with restaurants now serving the mushrooms grown with their own coffee grounds, and much more besides.

A box used as part of the SRA's Too Good to Waste campaign (Sustainable Restaurant Association)

And cutting food waste at home is simple. Love Food Hate Waste highlights how planning meals by checking what is in the cupboard before heading to the supermarket; storing food correctly; portioning carefully; and using leftovers can drastically cut waste.

Getting to grips with the difference between use by and best before dates is also important.

Adopting such behaviours could make a dent in the 4.2million tonnes of avoidable food waste thrown out by UK households each year  and save a palatable six meals a week or 700 a year.
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Almost half of all internet users are deliberately limiting their online activity due to concerns about cybersecurity, a US government survey has found.

41,000 households across America were involved in the wide-ranging survey, which was carried out in July 2015 by the US Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

45 per cent of those asked said their concerns about online privacy and security had made them refrain from certain online activities in the previous year, such as shopping, posting on social media or managing their finances.

The survey revealed that this lack of trust in cybersecurity measures may be taking its toll on the economy. 33 per cent of people worried about credit card fraud said they had avoided buying goods online in the previous year, while 35 per cent who cited identity theft as a concern had stopped using internet banking services, the survey revealed.

This mistrust has effects on the social side of the web, too. 19 per cent of respondents said they had avoided expressing controversial opinions on social media due to privacy concerns, a figure which rose to 26 per cent amongst people who had actually experienced a security breach.

Overall, identity theft was the biggest issue, with 63 per cent listing it as their greatest worry. 45 per cent were concered about banking fraud, while the next three biggest issues were online data collection, a loss of control over personal data, and surveillance by the government.

Female celebrities affected by 'The Fappening' hack Show all 5 1 /5 Female celebrities affected by 'The Fappening' hack Female celebrities affected by 'The Fappening' hack Jennifer Lawrence Female celebrities affected by 'The Fappening' hack Ariane Grande Female celebrities affected by 'The Fappening' hack Victoria Justice Female celebrities affected by 'The Fappening' hack Kirsten Dunst Female celebrities affected by 'The Fappening' hack Kate Upton

It's unsurprising that internet users appear to have lost so much faith in the ability of internet providers and cybersecurity companies to keep them safe. The survey found that 19 per cent of respondents (representing almost 19 million households across the US), had been affected by an online security breach in the previous year.

In a blog post, NTIA analyst Rafi Goldberg said lawmakers urgently need to understand the scale of the public's mistrust of internet security.

"In addition to being a problem of great concern to many Americans," he wrote, "privacy and security issues may reduce economic activity and hamper the free exchange of ideas online."

This isn't the first study to look at the chilling effect that privacy worries can have on internet activity. A paper from Michigan's Wayne State University revealed in March that knowledge of government surveillance causes people to self-censor and avoid voicing controversial opinions.
In Montana, women earn only 67 percent of what men earn. In response, Gov. Steve Bullock created the Equal Pay for Equal Work Task Force to identify the causes of the gender pay gap in Montana and mobilize solutions.

One cause of the gender pay gap, unconscious gender bias, is illuminated by a famous business school case study. The case has students review the career of Howard, a leading Silicon Valley venture capitalist, executive at Apple, and friend of Bill Gates. On average, students find Howard to be highly competent as well as someone they like and would want to work with. When students read an identical case with the protagonist named Heidi, they rate her as highly competent, but neither someone they like nor would want to work with.

It is not just men who exhibit unconscious bias. In a study by Katy Milkman, a behavioral scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, emails from phantom students were sent to professors asking for a 10-minute meeting to discuss a doctoral program. The only difference in the emails was the students name, which varied to sound white, African-American, Hispanic, Indian, or Chinese. This study found that professors  both male and female  were significantly more likely to respond to students with names that appeared to belong to white males.

How can we reduce the detrimental impact our mental biases have on women in Montana?

One insight comes from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A few years ago, to address the fact that women comprised only 5 percent of musicians in top American orchestras, the Boston Symphony began having musicians audition behind a curtain, instead of face-to-face. The impact: a 50 percent increase in female musicians advancing to the next round. This costless change is credited as a major reason behind women now comprising over 35 percent of the spots in leading American orchestras.

In her new book, What Works: Gender Equality By Design, Harvard behavioral economist Iris Bohnet provides many examples of costless techniques that de-bias organizational hiring procedures and reduce gender pay gaps.

Standardizing interviews is one example of a costless technique with a powerful de-biasing effect. Several years ago, a unusual legislative mandate led the University of Texas Medical School at Houston to admit and enroll two groups of students: 150 students ranked between 1-350, and 50 students ranked between 700-800. Remarkably, according to Professor Bohnet, there was no difference in performance in medical school or afterwards between the two groups. The reason? Student rankings were heavily influenced by the evaluations from unstructured interviews, a procedure research says yields poor success predictions. The solution, according to Professor Bohnet, is for interviewers to plan ahead, use a checklist to structure interviews and stick to it.

Increasing transparency about what is negotiable is another example of a costless de-biasing technique. A study of Carnegie Mellon masters degree students found that 93 percent of women accepted their employers initial salary offer, while more than half of men negotiated for better compensation. Among recent MBA graduates, Bohnet writes, in fields where applicants had good information about what to negotiate for, the gender [pay] gap almost vanished [while] in fields with high ambiguity, men made about $10,000 more than women on average.

In its efforts to reduce the gender pay gap, Montanas Equal Pay for Equal Work Task Force should advocate for standardizing interview and increasing transparency on what is negotiable. These techniques not only work, they are costless.
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None of Britains so called unicorns, the name for tech firms valued above $1 billion, is in favour of a vote to leave in next months European Union referendum, according to a new report.

The companies against the UKs exit from the EU include Zoopla, a British property website; Just Eat, an online food delivery service; Ve, an e-commerce technology company and financial technology start-ups TransferWise and Funding Circle.

The remaining nine unicorns in the UK told the Guardian that they were officially neutral or declined to comment.

We believe it would be crazy for the UK to leave the EU, both for businesses and consumers, Taavet Hinrikus, the co-founder of TransferWise, told the paper.

Funding Circle said a successful, well-functioning Europe is crucial to "a business like ours" and that this was best achieved by remaining in Europe.

Alex Chesterman, the co-founder of property website Zoopla, said leaving the EU would lead to both economic and political uncertainty which could have a negative impact on UKs currency, borrowing rates, house prices and wider consumer prices.

Using the prime ministers marriage analogy, perfect unions are hard to come by and we believe that we would be far better off working on ways to make it more effective from within than by throwing in the towel with no opportunity to impact it in the future, Chesterman said.

David Brown, the chief executive of Ve, said leaving the European block was not sensible.

From the perspective of a tech business in London I dont think Britain leaving Europe is sensible in the slightest. In fact, I believe we should further increase our ties with Europe on a trade and economic basis, Brown said.

Brown also added that Brexit would play into the hands of the American capital market and the tech industry.

Innovation is far more prevalent in Europe than the US, but the capital is in the US and it is time this balance was addressed. A single currency, a united marketplace and consolidated financial markets across Europe would allow the UK to stand shoulder to shoulder with the US and would drive a seismic shift in the tech industry, he said.

The online food and delivery service Just Eat said Brexit would not directly affect its own business but the company feels a close affinity with its European colleagues and thinks it would be favourable for Britain to remain in Europe.

Rightmove, the online portal for home sales and lettings and Asos, the fashion online retailer, were both among companies that declined to comment.

Skyscanner, the search engine for flights, hotels and car hires, said it is not taking an official stance on the debate.

The founders of many of Britains well knows start-ups such as Deliveroo but also tech successes such a BlaBlaCar and Blippar along with Martha Lane Fox, a Twitter board member and Arnaud Massenet, founder of Net-a-Porter previously said Brexit risks undermining their businesses.

Zoopla is one of 13 new European unicorns in the past year

Of course the EU isnt perfect; but rather than cutting ourselves off from the opportunities it offers, it is better to be on the inside helping shape the rules of this market instead of just being subject to them, the entrepreneurs and founders said in an open letter published in the Financial Times in April.

Boris Johnson, former Mayor of London and now leader of the Leave EU campaign paid a visit to Cornwall over the weekend, where he warned against migrants coming to Britain without jobs. Polls indicate that lowering net migration is the single most important issue for those intending to vote to leave the EU.

I think we've got a crazy situation now where we can't control immigration from the 28 countries in the EU, Johnson said.

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.

Top-ranking institutional economists, however, issued warnings about Brexit last week.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said the event could cause a sharp collapse in the value of the pound, while the IMFs managing director Christine Lagarde warned the effect of Brexit on the British economy ranged from pretty bad to very, very bad.

The public will vote on whether Britain should remain in the European Union on 23 June
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The UK has 3.9 million people in "persistent poverty" according to a report released from the Office for National Statistics today.

Recommended Read more Four charts that expose the truth about inequality in the UK

Persistent poverty is defined as people who are in relative low income (less than 60 per cent of the national median average) in the current year and at least two out of the three preceding years.

The overall poverty rate rose between 2013 and 2014 from 15.9 per cent of the population to 16.8 per cent.

But the persistent poverty rate fell from 7.8 per cent to 6.5 per cent:

POVERTY: UP AND DOWN

The UK overall poverty rate compared to the rest of the European Union is quite high:

OVERALL POVERTY RATES IN THE UK ARE RELATIVELY HIGH...

The rate is higher than in several other high income states such as Germany, Ireland, France, Finland and Sweden

Yet the rate of persistent poverty is low relative to our European peers:

...BUT PERSISTENT POVERTY RATES IN THE UK ARE RELATIVELY LOW

Only in Denmark and the Czech Republic is it lower.

So how should we interpret these figures?

Of course it's good news that persistent poverty seems to be relatively low and falling. But overall poverty also matters. And as we can see that's moving in the other direction.

And forecasts by the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggest that the Conservatives' tax credit cuts are going to push overall poverty rates much higher over the rest of the Parliament. The IFS sees the overall rate rising by around 2 percentage points by 2020-21. Moreover, the child poverty rate is set to explode from around 17.5 per cent to 25 per cent over that period:

THINGS ARE GOING TO GET WORSE ON POVERTY...

Institute for Fiscal Studies

This is largely due to the cuts in tax credits for women with more than two children. All the hard work in pushing down the child poverty rate under the Labour government after 1997 looks set to be reversed.

And bear in mind that the 2010 Child Poverty Act, passed with cross-party support, set a target of reducing relative poverty to less than 10 per cent of children by 2020.

Barring a miracle that will be missed by a country mile.

And let's think about child poverty in numbers of children living below the poverty line, rather than in rates.

The official target implied this falling from 2.3 million in 2012 to around 1.25 million by 2020. Instead, the number of children in relative looks set to jump to 3 million by the end of the decade:

...AND OFFICIAL TARGETS WILL BE MISSED

House of Commons 2015 briefing paper

UPDATE:

I asked the ONS if they had any data on persistent poverty rates in children.The Coalition Government consulted on a 7 per cent target for this metric. The ONS sent me data showing that between 2011 and 2014 (three year period) the rate of persistent child poverty rose to 11 per cent, up from 10.1 per cent in the previous period:

....PERSISTENT CHILD POVERTY RISING

Source: ONS

So while overall persistent poverty has fallen, the trend for persistent child poverty, like overall poverty, seems to be going the other way.
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Norways $850 billion wealth fund will seek to join a class action suit in Germany against Volkswagen following revelations the carmaker rigged the exhaust systems of 11 million diesel-powered cars worldwide to pass official emissions tests.

Norges Bank Investment Management intends to join a legal action against Volkswagen arising out of that the company provided incorrect emissions data, fund spokeswoman Marthe Skaar said in an e-mailed statement. The fund, which according to data compiled by Bloomberg owns 1.64 per cent in Volkswagen, said its acting to safeguard its holding in the carmaker.

Its the boards responsibility to ensure accurate and timely information is disclosed to the shareholders, she said. Volkswagen informed the public about the incorrect emissions data after US authorities released a notice of violation letter.

Volkswagen, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, admitted last year that it had manipulated diesel engines with a defeat device so emission controls switched on only during pollution tests. The scandal has led to the departure of top managers and the biggest loss in the companys history. It has set aside 16.2 billion ($18.3 billion) so far to help cover the costs of the deception, and cut its annual dividend 97 per cent.

Biggest business scandals in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Biggest business scandals in pictures Biggest business scandals in pictures Volkswagen emissions scandal VW admitted to rigging its US emission tests so that diesel-powered cars would looks like they were emitting less nitrous oxide, which can damage the ozone layer and contribute to respiratory diseases. Around 11 million cars worldwide were affected. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Martin Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals Martin Shkreli became known as the most hated man in the world after his drug company, Turing, increased the price of a 62-year-old drug that treated HIV patients by 5,000% to $750 a pill. He was charged with illegally taking stock from Retrophin, a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. Shkreli, who maintains he is innocent, and says there is little evidence of fraud because his investors didn't lose money. Biggest business scandals in pictures Panama Papers: Millions of leaked documents expose how worlds rich and powerful hid money - April 2016 Millions of confidential documents have been leaked from one of the worlds most secretive law firms, exposing how the rich and powerful have hidden their money. Dictators and other heads of state have been accused of laundering money, avoiding sanctions and evading tax, according to the unprecedented cache of papers that show the inner workings of the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which is based in Panama. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Google's tax avoidance Google reached a deal with the HM Revenue and Customs to pay back 130 million in so-called back-taxes that have been due since 2005. George Osborne championed the deal as a major success. But European MEPs have since called for the Chancellor to appear in front of the committee on tax rulings to explain the tax deal. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Rogue trader A French court cut the damages owed by rogue trader Jerome Kerviel from 4.9bn (4.2bn) to just 1m (860,000). The court ruled on that Kerviel was partly responsible for massive losses suffered in 2008 by his former employer Societe Generale through his reckless trades. Kerviel has consistently maintained that bosses at the French bank knew what he was doing all along. AP Biggest business scandals in pictures Barclays CEO under investigation for trying to identify whistleblower - Monday Paril 10 Authorities have launched an investigation into Barclays chief executive officer Jes Staley for trying to identify a whistleblower, the bank said on Monday. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) are both investigating Mr Staley after the bank notified them that Mr Staley had tried to identify the author of two anonymous letters, which were sent to the board and a senior executive in June 2016. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures UK to crack down on bank money laundering after reports of 65bn Russian scam, City minister says - March 2017 The Economic Secretary to the Treasury has vowed that the Government will crack down on money laundering practices, after several of the UK's biggest banks were accused of processing money from a Russian scam, believed to involve up to $80bn (65bn). Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Former HBOS bankers convicted of bribery and fraud over 245m loan scam - February 2017 Two former HBOS bankers were among six people found guilty of bribery and fraud that cost customers and shareholders hundreds of millions of pounds, the BBC reports. Lynden Scourfield, 54, a manager at HBOS, forced struggling clients to use the services of his friends David Mills, 60, and Michael Bancroft, 73. In return, the two businessmen arranged sex parties, cash and lavish gifts. On Monday, the three were convicted at Southwark Crown Court on accounts including bribery, fraud and money laundering. Mark Dobson, another manager at HBOS, Alison Mills, and John Cartwright were also convicted. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Lloyds chief apologises for damage caused by affair allegations - August 2016 Antonio Horta-Osorio, the chief executive of Lloyds Bank, has broken his silence over allegations about his private life admitting he regrets any "damage done to the group's reputation". In a message sent to the bank's 75,000 employees, the banker said that anyone can make mistakes while insisting that staff had to maintain the highest professional standards. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Christine Lagarde faces court over 340m Bernard Tapie payment - July 2016 The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, must stand trial in France over a payment of 403 million (now 340m, then 290m) to tycoon Bernard Tapie, a France's highest appeals court has ruled. The court rejected Ms Lagarde's appeal against a judge's order in December for her to stand trial over allegations of negligence in her handling of the affair. Ms Lagarde could risk a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros if convicted. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures HSBC senior manager arrested in FX rigging investigation at JFK airport in New York - July 2016 A senior executive at HSBC has been arrested at New York's JFK airport for his alleged involvement in a conspiracy to rig currency benchmarks, according to reports. Mark Johnson, global head of foreign exchange cash trading in London, was reportedly arrested on Tuesday. He will appear before a federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, Bloomberg said. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Former PwC employees found guilty in 'Luxleaks' tax scandal - June 2016 Two ex- PricewaterhouseCoopers staffers were found guilty in Luxembourg of stealing confidential tax files that helped unleash a global scandal over generous fiscal deals for hundreds of international companies. Antoine Deltour and Raphael Halet face suspended sentences of 12 months and 9 months and were ordered to pay fines of 1,500 (1,230) and 1,000 (822) for their role in the so-called LuxLeaks scandal. Despite the minimal sentences, the ruling was described by Deltours lawyer as shocking and a terrible anomaly. The ruling puts on guard future whistle-blowers, Deltour told reporters.The LuxLeaks revelations sped beyond Luxembourg, causing European Union regulators to expand a tax-subsidy probe and propose new laws to fight corporate tax dodging, while EU lawmakers created a special committee to probe fiscal deals across the 28-nation bloc. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Goldman Sachs dealmakers lavished Libyan officials with prostitutes to win contract - June 2016 A former Goldman Sachs dealmaker trying to persuade Gadaffi-era Libya to invest $1 billion with the investment bank procured prostitutes and invited Libyan officials to lavish parties in the hope of winning the business, the High Court heard on Monday June 13.The Libyan Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund is suing Goldman Sachs for inappropriately coercing its naive staff into giving its sovereign wealth fund cash to the bank to invest in products they did not understand. The products were designed to generate big profits for Goldman, the LIA claims.Goldman denies wrongdoing and says the LIA was treated as an arms-length customer Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Former boss of BHS said his life was threatened - June 2016 Darren Topp, the former boss of BHS, has said former owner Dominic Chappell threatened to kill him when he challenged him over a 1.5 million transfer out of the business. MPs on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee asked Mr Topp about a 1.5 million transfer Mr Chappell made from BHS to a company called BHS Sweden. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley admits paying workers below the minimum wage - June 2016 Mike Ashley admitted paying Sports Direct employees below the minimum wage at a hearing in front of MPs. The company founder said that workers were paid less than the statutory minimum because of bottlenecks at security in an admission that could result in sanctions from HMRC. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Mitsubishi admits improper fuel tests - April 2016 Mitsubishi has admitted to using false fuel methods dating back to 1991. The scale of the scandal is only just coming to light after it was revealed in April that data was falsified in the testing of four types of cars, including two Nissan cars. AP Biggest business scandals in pictures Quindell, the scandal-ridden insurance firm Quindell was once a darling of AIM but its share price fell in April 2014 when its accounting practices were attacked in a stinging research note by US short seller Gotham City. In August the group was forced to disclose that the 107 million pre-tax profit it had reported for 2013 was incorrect, and it had in fact suffered a 64million loss. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Toshiba Accounting Scandal The boss of Toshiba, the Japanese technology giant, resigned in disgrace in the wake of one of the countrys biggest ever accounting scandals. His exit came two months after the company revealed that it was investigating accounting irregularities. An independent investigatory panel said that Toshibas management had inflated its reported profits by up to 152 billion yen (780m) between 2008 and 2014. Biggest business scandals in pictures FIFA Corruption Scandal Fifa, football's world governing body, has been engulfed by claims of widespread corruption since the summer of 2015, when the US Department of Justice indicted several top executives. It has now claimed the careers of two of the most powerful men in football, Fifa President Sepp Blatter and Uefa President Michel Platini, after they were banned for eight years from all football-related activities by Fifa's ethics committee. A Swiss criminal investigation into the pair is ongoing. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Libor fraudster City trader Tom Hayes, 35, has become the first person to be convicted of rigging Libor rates following a trial at London's Southwark Crown Court. Hayes worked as a trader in yen derivatives at UBS before joining the American bank Citigroup in Tokyo. He was fired from Citigroup following an investigation into his trading methods. He returned to the UK in December 2012 and was arrested following a two-and-a-half year criminal investigation by the SFO. Getty

The Norwegian funds intentions were earlier reported by the Financial Times.
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As the Government publishes its White Paper on higher education (HE) reform, plans have emerged to make HE more open and competitive with new universities entering the market, transparency and support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and more of a focus on the quality of teaching, graduate outcomes, and employment.

However, despite Universities Minister Jo Johnson reinforcing how student choice, teaching quality, and social mobility lie at the heart of the document, reaction from those within the sector has emerged mixed:

Alex Neill, director of policy and campaigns at Which?:

Our research has shown students struggle to obtain the information they need to make informed decisions about university choices. We welcome measures to give students more insight into student experience, teaching standards and value for money.

These proposals could not only drive up standards, but could also empower students ahead of one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives.

Sorana Vieru, NUS vice president (HE):

Students will understandably be outraged at any suggestion universities could be allowed to put fees up even higher in order to improve teaching quality. It was only four years ago tuition fees were trebled and students now face debts up to 53,000 when they graduate.

Recommended Read more Sheffield students vote to sabotage national survey

Universities, students, and staff have all been very clear the proposed the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) should not be linked to any rise in fees and the influential BIS Select Committee urged the Government to do some serious rethinking before taking this forward. The Government should urgently reflect on this and drop this muddled proposal.

The Government has serious questions to answer before it can make it easier for new providers to enter the sector. We need to know what protections they will be required to give to students, to ensure they are not left in the lurch and ripped-off by institutions that may be focused on shareholders rather than students interests.

Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC):

Choice, access, and quality are the welcome watchwords of the Governments long-awaited plans to open up HE and to allow more colleges to award HE qualifications.

This step away from the countrys traditional university system will empower more people than ever before to access HE in their local area through a college. It will also provide a wider choice of courses that are linked to employment.

Students, colleges, and employers will welcome these plans, which mean more opportunities for people to access the most suitable and best value HE courses. This is a particular benefit for those who are employed and want to study part-time.

University and College Union general secretary, Sally Hunt:

Despite repeated warnings from UCU about the danger of opening up UK HE to private, for-profit providers, the Government is setting out on a clear course to privatise HE.

We have already seen too many scandals involving alternative providers in the UK and the US, so if we are to protect the global reputation enjoyed by our universities, lessons must be learnt and rigorous quality measures applied before any new provider is allowed to access either degree-awarding powers or state funding.

We remain deeply concerned by any proposed link between quality as defined in the TEF and additional income, and will oppose any move to further increase the lifetime cost of HE, which already sits at over 50,000 for the poorest undergraduates.

The Government must do more to address the persistent barriers to HE for those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. We need tougher action on universities who are missing access targets, better support for part-time and mature study, and a national inquiry on our broken admissions system to ensure fair access for all.

University Alliance chief executive, Maddalaine Ansell:

The right regime for HE and research is essential for building the knowledge economy of the future. These plans strike a healthy balance between protecting the quality and global reputation of our countrys universities, whilst also encouraging innovation.

Implementing the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) in a steady way over time is the best way to ensure it is flexible enough to recognise the strength and diversity of the HE sector.

The Government is right to emphasise supporting social mobility and progression, encouraging universities to focus on getting students into employment and increasing transparency for potential students.

The decision to protect the dual support funding system for research in legislation is very welcome as is the recognition of the importance of innovation in the new institutional architecture.

Douglas Blackstock, chief executive of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA):

The Government has struck a balance between encouraging competition and rigorous protection of UK HEs world-class reputation, including independent quality assurance and the requirement of new providers to meet the expectations of the UK Quality Code.

QAA supports measures to protect student interests and the new flexible routes to achieve degree awarding powers at Bachelors and subject level, which will allow new providers to develop their capacity over time.

Emran Mian, director of the Social Market Foundation:

HE is too much like a club where the rules are made for the benefit of universities. These reforms will begin to change that.

Students will have access to more information when theyre making application choices, and universities will be under more pressure to improve the quality of teaching.

The White Paper gives more detail on how new providers will be regulated. There have been problems with quality among new providers in the past and Government now recognises a tougher approach is needed. At the same time, though, the sector has risked seeming complacent about quality among incumbents. The measures to ensure student protection in the White Paper begin to show a new direction.

The right approach for the future is a level playing field for new and old. As participation in HE rises, students should have the opportunity to choose from the widest range of courses - and feel confident that complaints will be taken just as seriously by the regulator wherever they are studying.

Pam Tatlow, chief executive of MillionPlus, the Association of Modern Universities:

The Governments reforms will have UK-wide implications and we look forward to working constructively with ministers to ensure these plans maintain and enhance a high-quality university system which supports anyone who has the ambition, talent, and desire to succeed.

Aldwyn Cooper, vice-chancellor of Regents University London:

The focus on quality to be the key determinant for acquisition of university title, student experience, graduate employment, and innovation are of crucial importance to the UK's continuing gold standard position in world HE.

Sir Peter Lampl, Chairman of the Sutton Trust:

We welcome the White Papers focus on access, and its assertion of the independence of the Director of Fair Access within the new arrangements.

However, we are disappointed the Government has apparently dropped encouraging proposals to give the director more powers to set targets where universities are not making progress.

This softening of the original proposals is likely to make it much harder to increase the participation of disadvantaged students.

Dame Julia Goodfellow, president of Universities UK:

We are pleased Government has listened to the views of universities on their plans for a TEF. Universities will work with the Government to see how this can best add value to all students, whatever their choice of subject or university.

 Student protest turns violent

The focus on improving access to HE is to be welcomed. Universities have made considerable progress in recent years to increase the numbers of students from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university. This is ongoing work - and we recognise there is still more to do.

Mary Curnock Cook, Ucas chief executive:

Transparency about access should mean all applicants can be sure they will be treated fairly in the admissions process, regardless of their ethnic or social background. To help meet the new transparency duty, Ucas will be publishing the first transparency reports for universities on 9 June.

Tim Melville-Ross, chair of Higher Education Funding Council for England Chair (Hefce):

We welcome the Governments continuing commitment to dual support. UK HE research is internationally recognised and produces ground-breaking work for the benefit of the economy and society.

HE changes lives and makes a vital contribution to social mobility and economic growth. Hefce will collaborate with Government, students, the sector, and others to ensure a smooth transition as the reforms are implemented, subject to Parliamentary approval.

Gordon Marsden, shadow minister for HE:

It is of great concern the Tory government is putting [the UKs] hard-won reputation at risk by giving degree-awarding powers to new institutions from day one, including private providers with no previous track-record in education.

With over 60 per cent of students feeling their course is worse than expected, we welcome the focus on improving teaching standards. However, the timescales for introducing TEF look very tight, and concerns remain it will be used as a Trojan Horse to increase fees even further and unleash the full force of the market in HE.

We welcome the focus on improving participation of disadvantaged groups in HE but, if the Government were serious about this, they would never have replaced maintenance grants with loans which risks putting off students from poor backgrounds from achieving their potential.
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A series of new Government measures being introduced to improve teaching in UK universities could result in dramatic changes to higher education, including higher tuition fees for students, MPs have announced.

Plans to force universities to publish information about the amount of time students spend in classes and lectures, as well as the jobs they are offered and average graduate earnings are due to be revealed in the White Paper on Monday.

Institutions that score highly in terms of teaching quality will be able to raise their annual tuition fees above the maximum 9,000  a move that is expected to spark indignation among higher education groups, who say students are already saddled with enormous debts.

The White Paper, titled Success as a Knowledge Economy, follows a consultation launched in November amid concerns over a growing number of high-priced, low-value degree courses offering little to students by way of employability.

Government ministers say the new measures are designed to help tackle the skills shortfall in some employment sectors and encourage universities to provide a higher quality of teaching. But Sorana Vieru, National Unions of Students (NUS) vice president for higher education, said students will understandably be outraged at plans to increase fees.

Strategies are also being announced on Monday to open up the higher education sector to greater competition by allowing new private colleges, or challenger institutions, to award degrees if they meet national standards.

The 24 best universities in the world Show all 24 1 /24 The 24 best universities in the world The 24 best universities in the world 24. University of Edinburgh, UK  80.3 Teaching: 68.6 Research: 77.2 Overall: 80.3 Founded in 1583, Edinburgh is the sixth-oldest university in the English-speaking world. Extremely notable alumni include Charles Darwin, Alexander Graham Bell, and Arthur Conan-Doyle The 24 best universities in the world 23. London School of Economics, UK  81.3 Teaching: 69.8 Research: 80.6 Overall: 81.3 Leaping 11 places from last year, LSE is one of the foremost universities in Europe for studying business, finance, and economics. This shows in its graduates: According to a 2014 study, LSE produced the most billionaires of any European university The 24 best universities in the world 22. Carnegie Mellon University, US  82.3 Teaching: 67.4 Research: 88.8 Overall: 82.3 My heart is in the work is CMU's motto, and it's accordingly known for many inventions and innovations in the fields of driverless cars, brain science, data, and more. It was also, curiously, the first university to create a smile in an email, in 1982 The 24 best universities in the world 21. University of Michigan, US  82.4 Teaching: 76.8 Research: 85.2 Overall: 82.4 One of the biggest research centres in the US, Michigan was attended by President Ford and Google cofounder Larry Page. Mysteriously, a large cube-shaped object sits on campus, balanced on one corner so students can spin it around despite its weight Getty The 24 best universities in the world 20. Duke University, US  82.7 Teaching: 76.0 Research: 78.0 Overall: 82.7 One of the wealthiest universities in the country, Duke is known for its sporting prowess as much as its academics, and its basketball squad is one of the best college teams in the US. President Richard Nixon graduated from here, as did future heads of Apple, JPMorgan, and PepsiCo The 24 best universities in the world 19. University of Toronto, Canada  83.9 Teaching: 75.9 Research: 89.3 Overall: 83.9 A university known for its research and innovation, Toronto has academic papers that are among the most cited in the world. It also has a wide array of extracurricular activities, with more than 800 student clubs, which probably explains why such a high proportion of its alumni begin startup companies The 24 best universities in the world 18. Cornell University, US  84.0 Teaching: 77.9 Research: 86.1 Overall: 84.0 A private Ivy League university with a mission to discover, preserve, and disseminate knowledge, Cornell boasts a glorious campus in upstate New York that allows students to hike around the Finger Lakes. It also has daily bell performances, a tradition dating back to 1868 The 24 best universities in the world 17. University of Pennsylvania, US  85.2 Teaching: 82.0 Research: 86.9 Overall: 85.2 Established before the US even became a sovereign nation, UPenn claims to be the oldest multifaculty university in the country. It also has the nation's oldest student union and first double-decker football stand. Noted alumni include President William Henry Harrison as well as modernist writers Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams The 24 best universities in the world 16. University of California at Los Angeles, US  85.8 Teaching: 80.8 Research: 88.6 Overall: 85.8 UCLA is known for its encouragement of community  undergraduates usually begin with a year-long Cluster Course, a team-taught exploration of a demanding topic. It also has a great student-exchange program, with more than 2,400 students going abroad each year The 24 best universities in the world 15. Columbia University, US  86.1 Teaching: 85.9 Research: 82.2 Overall: 86.1 Notable alumni of Manhattan-based Columbia include Presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt as well as a founding father  Alexander Hamilton. It also enjoys a massive endowment value of $9.6 billion last year The 24 best universities in the world 14. University College London, UK  87.1 Teaching: 78.1 Research: 91.0 Overall: 87.1 Founded in 1826, UCL became the first English university to admit women on equal terms as men in 1878. UCL has one of the biggest postgraduate schemes in the country, at 52% of the entire student body The 24 best universities in the world 13. University of California at Berkeley, US  87.2 Teaching: 80.4 Research: 91.1 Overall: 87.2 Dropping five places from last year, Berkeley is still hugely prestigious, and its San Francisco setting makes it a real draw for students looking to study in a vibrant city. It also has a legacy for activism: Some of the best-known Vietnam War protests took place on its campus during the 1960s and 1970s The 24 best universities in the world 12. Yale University, US  87.4 Teaching: 86.5 Research: 87.8 Overall: 87.4 The third-oldest higher-education institution in the US, Yale takes its cue from Oxford and Cambridge by having residential colleges. Five American presidents have studied there: William Howard Taft, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Make that six if Hillary Clinton wins this year's election The 24 best universities in the world 11. Johns Hopkins University, US  87.6 Teaching: 77.6 Research: 90.4 Overall: 87.6 Johns Hopkins was an abolitionist, philanthropist, and entrepreneur, and he was also the first benefactor of the school, which was founded in 1876. Based in Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University's notable alumni include Woodrow Wilson, the 28th US president The 24 best universities in the world 10. University of Chicago, US  87.9 Teaching: 85.7 Research: 88.9 Overall: 87.9 A leading centre of science, the University of Chicago also has prestigious literary alumni, including Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag. It is also the university where film icon Indiana Jones studied The 24 best universities in the world Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich, Switzerland  88.3 Teaching: 77.0 Research: 95.0 Overall: 88.3 Jumping four places from 2015, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology is known for its groundbreaking research as well as teaching excellence in natural sciences and technology. Twenty-one Nobel laureates have studied or taught at the university, while about 80 patent applications a year come from there The 24 best universities in the world 8. Imperial College London, UK  89.1 Teaching: 83.3 Research: 88.5 Overall: 89.1 Up a place from last year, Imperial is known for its pursuit of science. Its Central London setting also makes it popular to foreign students  51% of its student body are from overseas. The university's motto is Scientia imperii decus et tutamen, which means Scientific knowledge, the crowning glory and the safeguard of the empire The 24 best universities in the world 7. Princeton University, US  90.1 Teaching: 85.1 Research: 91.9 Overall: 90.1 Princeton is devoted to teaching, offering residential accommodation to undergraduates across all four years of study, which means 98% of them live on campus. The beautiful surroundings are attractive to tourists too: 800,00 people visit the campus each year, bringing in a revenue of $2 billion The 24 best universities in the world 6. Harvard University, US  91.6 Teaching: 83.6 Research: 99.0 Overall: 91.6 Down four places from last year, Harvard is still one of the world's most prestigious institutions. It's the oldest university in the US, and it also has one of the largest endowments of any on this list, raising $1.5 billion in 2013 The 24 best universities in the world 5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US  92.0 Teaching: 89.4 Research: 88.6 Overall: 92.0 Eighty-five Nobel Laureates have studied at MIT, which was founded in 1861. The university likes to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship, and its living alumni have apparently started more than 30,000 active companies Getty The 24 best universities in the world 4. University of Cambridge, UK  92.8 Teaching: 88.2 Research: 96.7 Overall: 92.8 Up a place from last year, Cambridge isn't quite as old as Oxford University, but with an 800-year history it is still one of the longest-running universities in the world. It has more than 100 libraries, with over 15 million books among them The 24 best universities in the world 3. Stanford University, US  93.9 Teaching: 92.5 Research: 98.9 Overall: 93.9 One of the largest campuses in the US, Stanford benefits from being right next to San Francisco's Silicon Valley. President Herbert Hoover was part of Stanford's first class, in 1895, while the first American woman to enter space, Sally Ride, graduated from there in 1973 The 24 best universities in the world 2. University of Oxford, UK  94.2 Teaching: 86.5 Research: 98.9 Overall: 94.2 Oxford moves up one place from last year to become the best university outside the US. For an institution that was reportedly founded in 1096, that's a remarkable run. It also boasts 30 world leaders among its alumni, including 26 British prime ministers Getty The 24 best universities in the world 1. California Institute of Technology, US  95.2 Teaching: 95.6 Research: 97.6 Overall: 95.2 The best university in the world for the second year in a row according to the Times, Caltech is at the top in teaching, industry income, research, and citations in 2016. It is renowned for its science and engineering courses, but any degree here is sure to be a winner

The reforms could allow companies such as Facebook, Apple and Google to open their own universities and award degrees  a concept that has raised a great deal of concern from academics who say the new private colleges risk damaging the UKs reputation and leaving students at risk of buying worthless degrees.

As part of the White Paper reforms, a new Office for Students will be created, while universities will be forced to publish detailed information about the ethnic, gender and socio-economic background of their students, and how they progress.

Ms Vieru said the Government faces serious questions, however, about its policy of allowing new institutions to award degrees, warning that students risked being ripped off unless strict standards are maintained.

 Students protesting for free higher education

She told the Press Association: We have a lot of these new providers popping up  the sector is literally mushrooming right now.

But they are not established and might not have the proper support in place for students.

My concern is that these institutions could be short lived and that students who have been promised the opportunity of getting a degree could end up in institutions that end up folding because they are a business enterprise  an experiment.

In March, the educational publishing group Pearson confirmed it was expecting to become the first FTSE company to set up its own university and award its own degrees. Google is already in the process of running programmes and courses for students, and there remains speculation that tech giant Apple could run similar degree courses.

Part-time degrees taught at Pearson College London are competitively priced at around 6,000 a year, an increasingly popular option among students who can also spend time gaining workplace skills through internships as part of their studies.

Universities and science minister Jo Johnson said: Our universities are engines of economic growth and social mobility, but if we are to remain competitive and ensure that a high-quality education remains open to all, we cannot stand still.

Making it easier for high-quality challenger institutions to start offering their own degrees will help drive up teaching quality, boost the economy and extend aspiration and life chances for students from all backgrounds.

The Government said the reforms contained in the White Paper will ensure students get better value for money and put teaching "on a par" with England's world-leading research sector.

Universities gave a cautious welcome to the plans, although they stressed they are waiting to see the precise details, which will be published on Monday.

In pictures - Student protest in central London Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures - Student protest in central London In pictures - Student protest in central London Student protests Thousands of students march through central London calling for an end to tuition fees and student cuts during a national protest outside Parliament in London EPA/ANDY RAIN In pictures - Student protest in central London Student protests A protester holds a flare EPA/ANDY RAIN In pictures - Student protest in central London Student protests Students hold placards as part of an anti-austerityand tuition fee demonstration EPA/ANDY RAIN In pictures - Student protest in central London Student protests Police officers detain protesters on Victoria Street, central London Jonathan Brady/PA Wire In pictures - Student protest in central London Student protests A police officer clashes with protesters outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images In pictures - Student protest in central London Student protests Police officers clash with protesters near the Houses of Parliament Rob Stothard/Getty Images In pictures - Student protest in central London Student protests Police guard a Starbacks store in central London Carl Court/Getty Images In pictures - Student protest in central London Student protests Police officers shout at protesters during the demonstration Carl Court/Getty Images In pictures - Student protest in central London Student protests Students from across the country gather in Parliament Square Jonathan Brady/PA Wire In pictures - Student protest in central London Student protests Thousands of students storm Parliament Square in central London EPA/ANDY RAIN

Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), said the changes would open up higher education to a greater demographic as well as provide a better choice of courses linked to employment.

He said: Students, colleges and employers will welcome these plans, which mean more opportunities for people to access the most suitable and best value higher education courses. This is a particular benefit for those who are employed and want to study part-time.

Dame Julia Goodfellow, president of Universities UK, which speaks for universities across the country, said: We support the Government's aim to protect the interests of students, increase fairness and demonstrate the value of a university education.

The university sector is an international success story in terms of the quality of teaching and research. It is important that any reforms recognise this and build on that strength.

Established universities are not standing still and are always seeking to improve what they offer to students.

Under the plans, seven research councils will be brought together to form the single UK Research & Innovation body.

PA
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Thousands of children are hidden from authorities in unregistered schools across England, Ofsteds chief inspector has warned.

Sir Michael Wilshaw's warning comes after The Independent revealed thousands of children had disappeared from council records into illegal Jewish faith schools in north London.

Inspectors have identified 100 suspected unregistered schools since a team was set up in January to investigate the problem.

Last month, the education watchdog issued seven warning notices to suspected illegal schools in London, Birmingham, Luton, Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent, where they found about 350 children on the premises.

In a letter to the Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, Sir Michael said inspectors had been alarmed by some of the issues they found.

He told her: The evidence that they have gathered so far during this short period firmly reinforces my belief that there are many more children hidden away from the view of the authorities in unregistered schools across the country than previously thought.

Sir Michael added: What we have found so far is likely to represent only a small proportion of the illegal schools operating across the country. Inspectors are hearing about suspected new cases every week.

I therefore remain extremely concerned about the number of children and young people attending these schools who may be at significant risk of harm and indoctrination.

Ms Morgan had asked Sir Michael last year to set up an Ofsted taskforce to investigate suspected illegal schools, and pursue those responsible for running them.

Inspections uncovered serious fire hazards, including obstructed exits and inaccessible fire escapes, as well as schools with unsafe and unhygienic premises.

One case involved the discovery of chemicals and chemistry equipment in an unlocked food cupboard in a room where children ate their lunch.

Staff and volunteers were also found to have not been properly checked or cleared to work with children.
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Damian Lewis, who was educated at Eton, has said going to boarding school is an experience which defines you emotionally for the rest of your life.

The 45-year-old actor, who is best known for his roles in Homeland and Band of Brothers, said being sent away to school was a very violent experience.

Lewis was born in St Johns Wood in London and is the son of a city broker. The actor, who has two children with fellow actor Helen McCrory, has said he would not send his own children to boarding school at such a young age.

Not at eight, he told The Sunday Times. I went at eight and I think thats very hard. You go through something which, at that age, defines you and your ability to cope. Theres a sudden lack of intimacy with a parent, and your ability to get through that defines you emotionally for the rest of your life."

Its a very violent experience in those first few weeks, he continued. Its just, boom! And you deal with it. You snap into something else, you get on and then you go and run the empire. While its all very positive in terms of managing and negotiating life, it also does things that I dont like when I see them in me.

People news in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 People news in pictures People news in pictures 7 October 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an ice hockey match between former NHL stars and officials at the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Vladimir Putin spent his 63rd birthday on the ice, playing hockey with NHL stars against Russian officials and tycoons EPA People news in pictures 6 October 2015 German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and model Cara Delevingne (C) appear at the end of his Spring/Summer 2016 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais which is transformed into a Chanel airport during the Fashion Week in Paris, France Reuters People news in pictures 5 October 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne addresses the Conservative party conference in Manchester. The Chancellor argued that reducing the payments to people in low paid jobs would give them economic security by reducing the Governments spending deficit Getty Images People news in pictures 4 October 2015 Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston takes a moment in the centre of the field with his daughter Frankie Thurston, holding dark-skinned doll, after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The image quickly became the talking point of Australias National Rugby League Final and provoked a strong reaction on social media, with many praising Thurston for giving his child a toy that promotes inclusiveness and diversity Getty Images People news in pictures 3 October 2015 Pope Francis gives a thumbs-up as he greets people at the end of an audience to the participants of a meeting organized by the "Food Bank" at the Paul VI audience hall in Vatican Getty Images People news in pictures 2 October 2015 Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne (L) throws an American football as he meets with former American football players Dan Marino (2nd R) and Curtis Martin (not pictured) at 11 Downing Street in London, ahead of the New York Jets playing against the Miami Dolphins at London's Wembley Stadium on 4 October Getty Images People news in pictures 1 October 2015 An honor guard opens the door as Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia People news in pictures 30 September 2015 Former Mrs America Lisa Christie, who alleges misconduct by Bill Cosby, holds up photos of her younger self during a news conference at the law office of attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Matt Damon has defended himself against claims that he instructed gay actors to remain in the closet. He had said I think youre a better actor the less people know about you and sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether youre straight or gay, people shouldnt know anything about your sexuality but an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show said, I was just trying to say actors are more effective when theyre a mystery. Right? Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Marion Cotillard has said that there is no place for feminism in Hollywood. Speaking to Porter magazine, she saidFilm-making is not about gender/ You cannot ask a president in a festival like Cannes to have, like, five movies directed by women and five by men. For me it doesnt create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I dont qualify myself as a feminist." Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Paul Walkers daughter, Meadow, is suing Porsche over her fathers death in a lawsuit that claims he was trapped in the burning car because of design flaws and the seat belt. The Fast and Furious star was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in hit a pole in California in 2013. The driver, his friend Roger Rodas, also died when the vehicle burst into flames. AP People news in pictures 28 September 2015 Robert Mugabe waits to address the United Nations General Assembly. The leader of Zimbabwe reportedly exclaimed 'We are not gay!' as he criticised Western nation's "double standards and attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs. In 2013 he described homosexuals as worse than pigs, goats and birds. Reuters People news in pictures 28 September 2015 South African comedian Trevor Noah hosts the first 'Daily Show' since taking over from Jon Stewart as host. Stewart had presented the US satirical news show since 1999 and was described by Noah during the show as a 'Political father' 2015 Getty Images People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Sir Elton John may have received a phone call from the real Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin's spokesman announced he had made contact weeks after the singer was duped by pranksters pretending to be the Russian President. Getty People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was mistakenly declared as the artist who produced the Mona Lisa by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. It was in fact Leonardo da Vinci. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 A new biography claims Donald Trump expected to be dead by 40 and never marry. The Guardian says the a new book also claims that in 1980, Mr Trump manufactured a fake vice-president of his real estate conglomerate, whom he called John Baron. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 The Dalai Lama has said that Britain's policy towards China is just about 'Money, money, money.' And asked 'Where is morality?' People news in pictures 24 September 2015 Puff Daddy secured the number-one spot on the Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings list, with the publication calculating he made an estimated $60million (39m) between June 2014 and June 2015.

Lewis also touched upon Jon Ronsons bestselling book The Psychopath Test which explores the idea that many governmental and corporate leaders are psychopaths.

Jon Ronson deals with it very entertainingly in his book on psychopaths, Lewis explained. Are we governed and ruled by sociopaths who have been through that experience? By people who compartmentalise their emotional life so successfully that they can go straight to the top?

An online petition was launched in January in protest against the decision to invite Lewis to launch Acland Burghley's, a comprehensive school in North London, 50th anniversary celebrations.

The petition was started by a number of alumni of the school and they said the former Etonian did not represent the real Burghley values and should not be part of such an event.

Damian Lewis was educated at Eton, a school that, more than any other, represents the reproduction of privilege and inequality in the UK, wrote City University sociology lecturer Rachel Cohen, who was at the school in the 1980s.

But Lewis said the protest had missed the point of the occasion.

On the day, I was surrounded by friends who had been in my kitchen endlessly over the past 10 years, going on play dates with my kids, who were at the school. So it was a misjudgment.
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Angelina Jolie-Pitt spoke out against the incendiary rhetoric of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump about Muslims and refugees.

When asked about the New York real estate tycoon - who has called for the ban of migration of Muslim immigrants into the US - Jolie, 40, expressed her disapproval for the candidate.

To me, America is built on people from around the world coming together for freedoms, especially freedom of religion, she said, speaking as part of BBCs World on the Move.

So it's hard to hear this is coming from someone who is pressing to be an American president.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees special envoy delivered the keynote address Monday, and said she was disheartened by the overall US response to the global migration problem, and warned against a culture of fear.

Fear of uncontrolled migration has eroded public confidence and the ability of governments and international institutions to control the situation, the actress and humanitarian said. It has given space to a false air of legitimacy to those who promote politics of fear and separation.

Angelina Jolie at migrant camp

Jolie is the latest high profile figure to speak out against Mr Trump, whose proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country has sparked global outrage.

Londons first Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, lambasted Mr Trump for suggesting he would be exempt from the ban.

This isnt just about me - its about my friends, my family and everyone who comes from a background similar to mine, anywhere in the world, Mr Khan said.

Donald Trumps ignorant view of Islam could make both our countries less safe - it risks alienating mainstream Muslims around the world and plays into the hands of the extremists.

Donald Trump and those around him think that western liberal values are incompatible with mainstream Islam - London has proved him wrong.

Prime Minister David Cameron echoed criticisms.

The Prime Minister has made his views on Donald Trump's comments very clear. He disagrees with them, and I haven't got anything further to add, a Downing Street spokesperson said.

He continues to believe that preventing Muslims from entering the US is divisive, stupid and wrong.

Mr Trump responded on ITV, saying that it looks like were not going to have a very good relationship.

He added that he would remember remarks made by Mr Kahn.
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Ruby Rose has responded to claims she was was kicked out of a restaurant in New Orleans for throwing french fries at a waiter - explaining she was mocked for being sober.

Seung Hong, the owner of Rebellion Bar and Urban Kitchen said the Australian-born actress and model was having like a tantrum and cursed out at the bartender on Friday night and threw food at him.

Writing in a Facebook post, the Orange is the New Black actor confirmed that she did throw food at the bartender but claimed she was provoked by him ridiculing her for being sober.

We waited 60 minutes for fries and over 90 minutes for food that never actually arrived, Rose wrote. When I asked about it, the bartender offered us drinks. I explained I'm sober, but thank you.

He then made some really rude and vulgar comments to the table, she continued. When someone makes repeated derogatory jokes about the sobriety I worked so hard to achieve, it's hard not to react emotionally. So I threw a singular fry at him.

People news in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 People news in pictures People news in pictures 7 October 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an ice hockey match between former NHL stars and officials at the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Vladimir Putin spent his 63rd birthday on the ice, playing hockey with NHL stars against Russian officials and tycoons EPA People news in pictures 6 October 2015 German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and model Cara Delevingne (C) appear at the end of his Spring/Summer 2016 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais which is transformed into a Chanel airport during the Fashion Week in Paris, France Reuters People news in pictures 5 October 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne addresses the Conservative party conference in Manchester. The Chancellor argued that reducing the payments to people in low paid jobs would give them economic security by reducing the Governments spending deficit Getty Images People news in pictures 4 October 2015 Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston takes a moment in the centre of the field with his daughter Frankie Thurston, holding dark-skinned doll, after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The image quickly became the talking point of Australias National Rugby League Final and provoked a strong reaction on social media, with many praising Thurston for giving his child a toy that promotes inclusiveness and diversity Getty Images People news in pictures 3 October 2015 Pope Francis gives a thumbs-up as he greets people at the end of an audience to the participants of a meeting organized by the "Food Bank" at the Paul VI audience hall in Vatican Getty Images People news in pictures 2 October 2015 Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne (L) throws an American football as he meets with former American football players Dan Marino (2nd R) and Curtis Martin (not pictured) at 11 Downing Street in London, ahead of the New York Jets playing against the Miami Dolphins at London's Wembley Stadium on 4 October Getty Images People news in pictures 1 October 2015 An honor guard opens the door as Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia People news in pictures 30 September 2015 Former Mrs America Lisa Christie, who alleges misconduct by Bill Cosby, holds up photos of her younger self during a news conference at the law office of attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Matt Damon has defended himself against claims that he instructed gay actors to remain in the closet. He had said I think youre a better actor the less people know about you and sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether youre straight or gay, people shouldnt know anything about your sexuality but an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show said, I was just trying to say actors are more effective when theyre a mystery. Right? Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Marion Cotillard has said that there is no place for feminism in Hollywood. Speaking to Porter magazine, she saidFilm-making is not about gender/ You cannot ask a president in a festival like Cannes to have, like, five movies directed by women and five by men. For me it doesnt create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I dont qualify myself as a feminist." Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Paul Walkers daughter, Meadow, is suing Porsche over her fathers death in a lawsuit that claims he was trapped in the burning car because of design flaws and the seat belt. The Fast and Furious star was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in hit a pole in California in 2013. The driver, his friend Roger Rodas, also died when the vehicle burst into flames. AP People news in pictures 28 September 2015 Robert Mugabe waits to address the United Nations General Assembly. The leader of Zimbabwe reportedly exclaimed 'We are not gay!' as he criticised Western nation's "double standards and attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs. In 2013 he described homosexuals as worse than pigs, goats and birds. Reuters People news in pictures 28 September 2015 South African comedian Trevor Noah hosts the first 'Daily Show' since taking over from Jon Stewart as host. Stewart had presented the US satirical news show since 1999 and was described by Noah during the show as a 'Political father' 2015 Getty Images People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Sir Elton John may have received a phone call from the real Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin's spokesman announced he had made contact weeks after the singer was duped by pranksters pretending to be the Russian President. Getty People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was mistakenly declared as the artist who produced the Mona Lisa by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. It was in fact Leonardo da Vinci. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 A new biography claims Donald Trump expected to be dead by 40 and never marry. The Guardian says the a new book also claims that in 1980, Mr Trump manufactured a fake vice-president of his real estate conglomerate, whom he called John Baron. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 The Dalai Lama has said that Britain's policy towards China is just about 'Money, money, money.' And asked 'Where is morality?' People news in pictures 24 September 2015 Puff Daddy secured the number-one spot on the Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings list, with the publication calculating he made an estimated $60million (39m) between June 2014 and June 2015.

Then he came back as we were getting ready to leave and continued making awful comments, so I continued with the fries, Rose added.

Every day I learn new lessons about handling cultural and social ignorance. I am deeply regretful to the french fry and I am regretful that I reacted at all. Maybe next time I wont throw fries, then again, maybe next time that bartender wont tell someone who is sober to go call your f**king sponsor!

Recommended Read more Ruby Rose on being told she turns straight women gay

Prior to Rose's response, the owner, Hong, recounted the incident to Nola.com but did not explain why she became angered. I offered to comp the appetizers, but (Rose) was losing her cool, and then I offered to buy them a round of drinks, he recalled, explaining that Rose declined the drinks.

One of my bartenders was walking by and could tell they were upset, and (Rose) threw food at him. ... Ruby told my bartender that if she was a bigger man, she would kick my ass, meaning me.

Hong also said he asked her to leave the venue.
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The wife of the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has prompted an intense national debate for saying she needs additional staff to help her manage her public duties.

Sophie Gregoire Trudeau told a French-language newspaper based in Quebec that she was keen to do more but she was overwhelmed with work and struggled with just one aid.

Id love to be everywhere but I cant, she told Le Soleil. I have three children and a husband who is Prime Minister. I need help. I need a team to help me serve the people.

Ms Gregoire Trudeau, a 41-year-old former television presenter, said she had been inundated with requests from charities to promote their causes since becoming Canadas first lady but it was not possible for her to respond to everyone.

Its hard to choose, because its touching when people ask for your help, she explained. People really lay out their suffering in some of the letters that I receive. I tell myself: Ill try to send a message that will reach as many people as possible.

Her comments have prompted an onslaught of criticism from opposition politicians who argue she is detached from reality. Conservative Canadian MP Candice Bergen drew attention to the fact the former Prime Minister Stephen Harper's wife, Laureen, had managed with just a single aide. While new democrat MP, Niki Ashton, said she was disconnected from the wider Canadian public.

Justin Trudeau: Canada's next Prime Minister Show all 5 1 /5 Justin Trudeau: Canada's next Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: Canada's next Prime Minister Canadian Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie wave on stage in Montreal, after winning the general elections Getty Images Justin Trudeau: Canada's next Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: Canada's next Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: Canada's next Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: Canada's next Prime Minister

Hearing statements like that certainly does not speak to the reality that Canadian women face and the kind of struggles that, you know, that theyre undertaking day in, day out, Ms Ashton said. Certainly the kind of statements we heard from the prime ministers wife, you know, speak to that disconnect with the reality that Canadian women face.

The issue has been fiercely debated on social media, with the hashtag #jesuissophie and #prayforsophie trending and there has been an onslaught of column pieces exploring the divisive issue.

"If you think Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau shouldn't have help because she 'doesn't have a job', you might want to Google the word 'misogyny'," wrote one Twitter user.

Instead of sexist remarks #sophiegregoiretrudeau deserves acclaim + extra help for standing up for women! added another.

But the majority of Twitter users have been less sympathetic to her situation.

Dear Sophie when you seek recognition for doing charity, it is not charity at all, wrote one user.

While another said, I get she's the PM wife + has demands of her time, but think of any other Cdn woman you know, we all do. And we all deal with it.

The Prime Ministers Office have said they are exploring various options for Ms Gregoire Trudeau, including hiring a second staffer for her.
In a place where he used to harass tourists, their vehicles and even a park ranger with his antlers during the fall rut, bull elk No. 6s memory lives on in a new exhibit at the remodeled Albright Visitor Center at Mammoth Hot Springs inside Yellowstone National Park.

Its only No. 6s antlers, so were trying to have him represent the species rather than him as an individual, said Tami Blackford, deputy chief of interpretive planning and media development at Yellowstone National Park. We call it a safety exhibit so people can stand next to him and see how big he is.

Safety around Yellowstones wildlife is just one of the themes the remodeled center is emphasizing. Its a message visitors would be wise to heed, considering the number of tourists whove had run-ins with park wildlife in the past couple seasons.

Even cow elk, theyre fiercely protective of their calves at this time of year, said Jo Suderman, exhibit specialist for Yellowstone. Any time of year elk can be aggressive and dangerous and unpredictable. Thats one of the stories we struggle to get people to understand.

The Albright Visitor Center is housed in the old bachelor officers quarters built in 1909 for the Army when it was stationed in the park to halt poaching. The three-story stone structure, which also has a full basement, was completely gutted down to the stone walls by Swank Enterprises construction crews, Blackford said.

The $8.1 million project began in September 2013 and included reinforcing the stone walls with metal framing to mitigate possible earthquake damage while also strengthening the building. The building was last renovated in 1978.

One of the bigger changes is that now visitors have to come inside and go downstairs to get to the bathroom, Blackford said. And now the building is wheelchair-accessible from the front, you used to have to come in through the back.

The redesign preserved some of the historic fixtures like windows, doors and fireplaces, but now provides more natural light to the interior with new office space on the third floor. The renovations were designed by CTA Architects Engineers.

Once all of the construction work was done, Pacific Studio of Seattle began installing the new exhibits.

We did reuse most of the taxidermy, but now they are displayed in more of their natural habitat, said Suderman, who oversaw the exhibit contract. The themes are similar to what they were before: wildlife in the Northern Range as well as park history.

A Northern Range landscape diorama has been set up in what was the old theater to help visitors understand where they might be able to see certain wildlife. There are elk, bear and bison safety exhibits where visitors can get an idea of how large the animals are, while learning about where they can be viewed in the park, how fast they can run and advice on staying as far as possible away from them.

Part of the beauty of this is that people can get right up next to the animals to see how big they are, Suderman said.

The $2.35 million in exhibit work was funded by the Yellowstone Association, which now has a separate area for its bookstore within the visitor center.

The new facility seems a fitting place to house old No. 6s antlers. Every fall the bull would alternately delight and terrify camera-toting tourists in Mammoth with his bugling and macho displays meant to attract cow elk for breeding while scaring off competing bulls. His aggressive behavior twice got him in trouble with park officials, who in 2004 and 2005 had his antlers sawed off in attempts to lessen his belligerence.

The 725-pound bull lived to age 15. He died a humiliating death after catching his hoof while jumping over a fence. He fell onto his back and couldnt get up, suffocating to death on the outskirts of the nearby town of Gardiner. In the wake of his death, admirers created a Facebook page for the elk.

Hes an impressive bull, hes pretty cool, said Richard Bradberry, a taxidermist and owner of Wildlife Artistry in Livingston, who mounted No. 6s antlers onto a form and sewed up a donated hide to create the new bull elk exhibit. The bulls original hide was not usable.

Its cool that he will be seen by so many people, Bradberry said.
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Susan Sarandon has launched a blistering attack on director Woody Allen and made reference to the historic accusation of sexual abuse against him.

The outspoken actress was speaking at the Cannes film festival when she was asked her thoughts on Allens declaration he has never made a film about a romantic relationship between an older woman and younger man because he didnt have anything to really draw on.

Sarandon immediately replied, saying: I have nothing good to say about Woody Allen, so I dont think we should go there, reports the Guardian.

When pressed, she elaborated: I think he sexually assaulted a child and I dont think thats right Its got very quiet in here, but I think thats true.

The appearance of Allen at Cannes Film festival and the release of his new film Cafe Society has been largely overshadowed by the resurfacing of a historic allegation of sex abuse.

The films to know about at Cannes 2016 Show all 14 1 /14 The films to know about at Cannes 2016 The films to know about at Cannes 2016 Julieta Director: Pedro Almodovar

Starring: Adriana Ugarte, Emma Suarez

What's it about? The Spanish filmmaker's 20th film is based on three short stories from Alice Munro's 2004 book, Runaway which tracks a woman's search for her missing daughter. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 American Honey Director: Andrea Arnold

Starring: Sasha Lane, Kate Mara, Shia LaBeouf

What's it about? In British filmmaker Andrea Arnold's (Red Road) American road movie - her first film set and filmed outside the UK - a teenage girl who gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying as she crosses the Midwest with a band of misfits. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 Personal Shopper Director: Olivier Assayas

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Nora von Waldstatten

What's it about? Stewart reteams with French filmmaker Assayas following Clouds of Sils Maria for this ghost story set in the fashion underworld of Paris. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 It's Only the End of the World Director: Xavier Dolan

Starring: Lea Seydoux, Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel

What's it about? Xavier Dolan (Mommy) returns with this film based on the play Juste la fin du monde which tells the story of a terminally ill writer who returns home after 12 years to announce his impending death. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 Paterson Director: Jim Jarmusch,

Starring: Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani

What's it about? An original film from Amazon Studios that follows Paterson, a bus driver in the city of Paterson, New Jersey who lives an inhibited life compared to that of his wife, Laura. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 I, Daniel Blake Director: Ken Loach

Starring: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Micky McGregor

What's it about? Written by Paul Laverty (the man behind Loach's Palme d'Or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley, the film follows the titular protagonist, a joiner who seeks financial felp from the state following an illness. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 Loving Director: Jeff Nichols

Starring: Joel Edgerton, Michael Shannon, Marton Csokas

What's it about? Jeff Nichols' Midnight Special follow-up tracks an interracial couple based in Virginia sentenced to prison in 1958 for getting married. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 The Handmaid Director: Park Chan-wook

Starring: Kim Min-hee, Ha Jung-woo, Kim Tae-ri

What's it about? The Oldboy director's latest South Korean film follows an heiress who falls in love with a petty thief. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 The Neon Demon Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Starring: Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks

What's it about? Winding Refn's third consecutive film to compete for the Palme d'Or, this horror thriller follows an aspiring model who moves to Los Angeles where 'her vitality and youth are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means to get what she has.' The films to know about at Cannes 2016 Cafe Society Director: Woody Allen

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Blake Lively

What's it about? Woody Allen's latest will open the Festival. It is a New York romantic comedy set in the 1930s with a cast including Steve Carell, Parker Posey, Corey Stoll and Judy Davis. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 The BFG Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Mark Rylance, Rebecca Hall, Bill Hader

What's it about? Based on the Roald Dahl classic, the story follows a young girl named Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) who befriends a friendly giant. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 Money Monster Director: Jodie Foster

Starring: George Clooney, Jack O'Connell, Julia Roberts

What's it about? A money-oriented live TV show is interrupted when the presenter is taken hostage by a blue-collar worker compelled to turn to violence following his recent financial losses. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 The Nice Guys Director: Shane Black

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe

Reason to see: Shane Black (Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) and his razor sharp wit return in a comedy set in 70s LA. The films to know about at Cannes 2016 Captain Fantastic Director: Matt Ross

Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Frank Langella, Kathryn Hahn

What's it about? In the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father who devoted his life to raising his six kids with an irreverent education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the 'real' world.

In 1993 Allens former partner Mia Farrow accused Allen of sexually abusing their adopted daughter Dylan when she was seven years old. Dylan repeated the allegation in a 2014 blog post.

Allen has always vehemently denied the sex abuse allegation. An investigation in 1993 into the allegations was dropped with no charges of any kind being made against Allen. He responded to Dylans essay in an article for the New York Times in 2014.

As reviews and pictures from the Cafe Society photocall began to make the rounds, Allen and Farrows son Ronan - from whom Allen is estranged - wrote an article for the Hollywood Reporter supporting his sisters claims and criticising the media for allegedly failing to ask Allen more questions on the allegations.

When asked about the article by the Los Angeles Times, Allen said he had not read it. I never think about it. I made my statement to the New York Times a long time ago, they gave me a lot of space.

I think its all silly. The whole thing - it doesnt bother me. I dont think about it. I work, he said.

Two of the stars of Allens latest film Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively were also both recently asked about the allegations. Stewart said she thought twice about working with the acclaimed director due to the allegations but ultimately decide the experience of making the movie was so outside of that.

Lively sidestepped around the allegation and said she believed Allen to be empowering to women telling the LA Times: Its very dangerous to factor in things you dont know anything about. I could [only[ know my experience. And my experience with Woody is hes empowering to women.

A representative for Allen has been contacted by the Independent.
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The actor Wendell Pierce has been arrested following an alleged altercation with two Bernie Sanders supporters in a dispute over US Democrat politics.

The Wire star was arrested at a hotel he was staying at in Atlanta, Georgia in the early hours of Saturday morning.

He was arrested on a charge of battery and released that day on a $1,000 bond. A police spokesperson said the incident was not significant and was treated as any other arrest.

TMZ reports the 52-year-old became enraged after an apparent heated political debate with a man and woman who were Bernie Sanders supporters. Pierce is a supporter of Sanders rival and Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

People news in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 People news in pictures People news in pictures 7 October 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an ice hockey match between former NHL stars and officials at the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Vladimir Putin spent his 63rd birthday on the ice, playing hockey with NHL stars against Russian officials and tycoons EPA People news in pictures 6 October 2015 German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and model Cara Delevingne (C) appear at the end of his Spring/Summer 2016 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais which is transformed into a Chanel airport during the Fashion Week in Paris, France Reuters People news in pictures 5 October 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne addresses the Conservative party conference in Manchester. The Chancellor argued that reducing the payments to people in low paid jobs would give them economic security by reducing the Governments spending deficit Getty Images People news in pictures 4 October 2015 Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston takes a moment in the centre of the field with his daughter Frankie Thurston, holding dark-skinned doll, after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The image quickly became the talking point of Australias National Rugby League Final and provoked a strong reaction on social media, with many praising Thurston for giving his child a toy that promotes inclusiveness and diversity Getty Images People news in pictures 3 October 2015 Pope Francis gives a thumbs-up as he greets people at the end of an audience to the participants of a meeting organized by the "Food Bank" at the Paul VI audience hall in Vatican Getty Images People news in pictures 2 October 2015 Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne (L) throws an American football as he meets with former American football players Dan Marino (2nd R) and Curtis Martin (not pictured) at 11 Downing Street in London, ahead of the New York Jets playing against the Miami Dolphins at London's Wembley Stadium on 4 October Getty Images People news in pictures 1 October 2015 An honor guard opens the door as Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia People news in pictures 30 September 2015 Former Mrs America Lisa Christie, who alleges misconduct by Bill Cosby, holds up photos of her younger self during a news conference at the law office of attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Matt Damon has defended himself against claims that he instructed gay actors to remain in the closet. He had said I think youre a better actor the less people know about you and sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether youre straight or gay, people shouldnt know anything about your sexuality but an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show said, I was just trying to say actors are more effective when theyre a mystery. Right? Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Marion Cotillard has said that there is no place for feminism in Hollywood. Speaking to Porter magazine, she saidFilm-making is not about gender/ You cannot ask a president in a festival like Cannes to have, like, five movies directed by women and five by men. For me it doesnt create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I dont qualify myself as a feminist." Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Paul Walkers daughter, Meadow, is suing Porsche over her fathers death in a lawsuit that claims he was trapped in the burning car because of design flaws and the seat belt. The Fast and Furious star was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in hit a pole in California in 2013. The driver, his friend Roger Rodas, also died when the vehicle burst into flames. AP People news in pictures 28 September 2015 Robert Mugabe waits to address the United Nations General Assembly. The leader of Zimbabwe reportedly exclaimed 'We are not gay!' as he criticised Western nation's "double standards and attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs. In 2013 he described homosexuals as worse than pigs, goats and birds. Reuters People news in pictures 28 September 2015 South African comedian Trevor Noah hosts the first 'Daily Show' since taking over from Jon Stewart as host. Stewart had presented the US satirical news show since 1999 and was described by Noah during the show as a 'Political father' 2015 Getty Images People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Sir Elton John may have received a phone call from the real Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin's spokesman announced he had made contact weeks after the singer was duped by pranksters pretending to be the Russian President. Getty People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was mistakenly declared as the artist who produced the Mona Lisa by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. It was in fact Leonardo da Vinci. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 A new biography claims Donald Trump expected to be dead by 40 and never marry. The Guardian says the a new book also claims that in 1980, Mr Trump manufactured a fake vice-president of his real estate conglomerate, whom he called John Baron. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 The Dalai Lama has said that Britain's policy towards China is just about 'Money, money, money.' And asked 'Where is morality?' People news in pictures 24 September 2015 Puff Daddy secured the number-one spot on the Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings list, with the publication calculating he made an estimated $60million (39m) between June 2014 and June 2015.

The Daily Beast report the altercation was between Pierce and a man and the woman stepped in.

Pierce played Detective Bunk Moreland in the hit show The Wire. He has also had starring roles in Treme, Suits and The Odd Couple. His film credits include the Ava DuVernay 2014 film Selma as well as appearances in Twilight and Ray.

A representative for Pierce has been contacted for comment.
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Archaeologists investigating a Florida sinkhole have unearthed evidence suggesting humans lived in the Americas around 14,500 years ago.

On the Aucilla River, near Tallahassee, the 8m deep Page-Ladson sinkhole was found to contain a stone knife and animal bones which had apparently been marked by humans.

The finds add further weight to arguments against the theory that the Americas were first populated by the Clovis people 13,000 years ago, whic has been the mainstream archaeological consensus for many years.

The team, led by Dr Jessi Halligan, an anthropology professor of Florida State University, found a biface  a rudimentary knife-like object made from stone with a blade chipped into one side. There is absolutely no way it is not made by people," Dr Halligan told the Smithsonian Magazine. "There is no way that's a natural artefact in any shape or form."

Bones of a mastodon  a mammoth-like creature which became extinct more than 10,000 years ago  were also found at the site, which was believed to have been a watering hole in the period the artefacts date from. The bones were engraved with groove-like marks which the team said were made by people, perhaps while dismembering a carcass for meat.

Divers investigate the site, eight metres down (S. Joy/CSFA via AP)

The site would have been an ideal hunting ground, according to the researchers, and attracted other creatures too  canine bones were also discovered, though it is unknown if the animals were companions to the humans or just scavengers.

The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, present unequivocal evidence of a pre-Clovis population in the Americas, according to senior researcher, Dr Michael Waters of Texas A&M University. We have clear artefacts, they were excavated meticulously, and they were in place, Dr Waters told National Geographic.

He continued: They were in a solid geological context, covered by four meters of sediment, and covered by a shell layer that sealed the complete deposit, and itself dated to 14,400 years ago. We have 71 radiocarbon dates throughout the entire sequence. If people dont believe this site, theyre not going to believe anything.

Surface vessels at the excavation site (CSFA via AP)

Dr Michael Faught, an underwater archaeologist and reviewer of the teams report, said the findings are unassailable.

Until recently, it was considered extremely controversial to dispute the Clovis theory  that the Americas were first populated by Paleo-Indians around 13,000 years ago. Clovis is the name of a town in New Mexico where early stone tools were found in the early 20th century.

"Fifteen years ago, if you proposed a pre-Clovis site, you had to expect that everybody thought you were a quack," Dr Halligan said. Ten years ago, some people would have been supportive and most people would have thought you were a quack."

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She added that the findings are a big deal because it means we were wrong about Clovis being first and we need to start figuring out what the real story is".

The Clovis narrative held that the first people to populate the Americas entered the continent from Alaska.

However, this theory now seems less viable, as ice sheets which covered the north of the American continent are only believed to have melted into an ice-free corridor around 14,000 years ago, 500 years after the estimated date of the new discoveries.
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A man has received the first ever penis transplant in the US, after having his penis removed because of cancer.

Surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston seem to be on their way to restoring full functioning to the mans penis, which was transplanted in an operation as part of a programme intended eventually to make such treatment much easier and more common.

The organ was taken from a deceased donor. The operation took 15 hours and took place earlier this month.

Recommended Read more Doctor ready to perform first human head transplant

The patient, Thomas Manning, is a 64-year-old bank courier from Massachusetts. He is feeling well and has experienced little pain, he told the New York Times.

The treatment remains experimental, but doctors described themselves as cautiously optimistic. If everything goes well, Mr Manning is expected to be able to urinate as normal within a few weeks, and to function sexually with months.

If the surgery works, it could eventually be used to help combat veterans who sustain severe pelvic injuries and other accident victims, as well as cancer patients like Mr Manning.

The team hopes to perfect the techniques on civilian patients but is then looking to move to injured veterans, they told the New York Times. The Department of Defense tends not to like its soldiers to undergo unproven techniques, since they have already suffered so much, and so will look to make the treatment available after further work.

Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary

Veterans are also more likely to benefit from further work that will be done into eliminating the need for anti-rejection medicines, which help the body integrate with its new organ. Since wounded veterans tend to be younger than those who would get organs because of cancer, those treatments can cause severe damage if they are forced to take the strong medicines for the entirety of their lives.

The first successful penis transplant was done in December 2014, in South Africa, on a patient who lost his penis during a circumcision. The recipient recovered far more quickly than doctors had expected and announced last year that he had conceived a child.

That followed a failed operation in China in 2006. Surgeons attempted to attach a penis to a man who lost his in an accident  though it was initially hailed as a success, surgeons removed it two weeks later because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife.
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At least 17 people, including four children, have been injured after a double decker bus smashed into a shop front in a north-west London town centre.

The collision happened in Harlesden High Street at around 2pm on Sunday afternoon after the No 18 bus lost control and swerved into the shop.

Among the 16 people who were transported to hospital following the incident were three who were seriously injured, with one person treated at the scene.

One witness, who wished to only be known as Harry, told the London Evening Standard there were about a hundred emergency services crew at the scene and an air ambulance also attended.

He said: "A bus has gone into the shop front and it looks like it's come down the high street and turned right by the clock tower.

"It looks like it's just come off the road and gone into the shop.

"The air ambulance is there and there are so many cars I can't even count them".

The damage property is believed to be a jewellery shop named Waves and the four people inside had to be rescued by firefighters using ladders at the back of the building.

The bus smashed into a jewellry shop called Waves (@DJShortyBless/Twitter)

Kevin Brown, deputy director of operations at London Ambulance Service, said: We were called at 2:03pm to reports of a collision between a bus and a building on Harlesden High Street.

We sent multiple resources to the scene including a single responder in a car and a number of ambulance crews. We also sent our incident response and hazardous area response teams, alongside Londons Air Ambulance.

We treated 17 patients at the scene.

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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

We took three patients as a priority to hospital. A further nine adults and four children with minor injuries were also taken to hospital and one was treated and discharged at the scene."

A London Metropolitan police spokesman said road closures were in place but no arrests had been made.

Tony Akers, Transport for Londons head of bus operations, told the Standard a full investigation into the incident would be carried out.
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A high-ranking police officer has been suspended after reportedly having a dispute with a fellow female officer about who had the most attractive breasts.

Assistant Chief Constable Rebekah Sutcliffe got involved in a row with Superintendent Sarah Jackson at a hotel bar after the Senior Women in Policing Conference earlier this month, the Manchester Evening News reported.

Greater Manchester Police confirmed they suspended a senior officer on May 13 "following allegations of inappropriate behaviour".

The conference, held in the city between May 4 and 6, was an event intended to "focus on the profile and perception of the police service, and the women within it, and the challenges that lie ahead", according to the Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner website.

A tweet posted on Saturday read: "ACC Rebekah Sutcliffe suspended because of drunken bust up (or rather bust out!) with Supt Sarah Jackson at #SWIP16 social event."

In a statement Greater Manchester Police said: "A senior officer has been suspended following allegations of inappropriate behaviour. An investigation is under way and it would be inappropriate to make further comment."

The Manchester Evening News reported that Supt Jackson is not facing any sanctions.
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Construction on the worlds largest floating wind farm is set to begin this year off the coast of Scotland after developers were granted a lease on Monday.

Five turbines will operate in waters around 12 to 18 miles off the coast of Peterhead, Aberdeenshire as part of the Hywind project.

The project, which will have a total capacity of 30 megawatts, will begin later this year, with turbines erected in 2017 and the first power generated at the end of next year.

The Hywind Scotland Park was given consent from Marine Scotland in October, but before being given the go-ahead, the Crown Estate that manages leasing of the seabed and energy company Statoil had to meet planning, finance and legal requirements.

Rather than using fixed foundations on the seabed, the project will use a floating steel tube tethered to the seabed as a foundation for the turbines.

the project will use a floating steel tube tethered to the seabed as a foundation for the turbines (Statoil/YouTube)

Offshore wind is a key part of Europes target to source 20 per cent of final energy consumption from renewables.

More than 91 per cent of the worlds offshore wind power is currently installed off northern Europe, in the North, Baltic and Irish Seas, and the English Channel.

Presently, offshore wind makes up just three per cent of the global installed capacity, however governments outside of Europe have also set ambitious targets for offshore wind and development is set to get underway in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the US. Other markets such as India and Brazil have also expressed interest in offshore development.

"We are very pleased to develop this project in Scotland, in a region with a huge wind resource and an experienced supply chain from oil and gas, said Project Director Leif Delp. Through the hard work of industry and supportive government policies, the UK and Scotland is taking a position at the forefront of developing offshore wind as a competitive new energy source.

Energy saving options in pictures Show all 4 1 /4 Energy saving options in pictures Energy saving options in pictures Nest Thermostat merges cool tech with neat design Energy saving options in pictures Swan has launched a halogen oven which promises faster cooking as well as energy saving and health benefits Energy saving options in pictures Duette blinds have a climate control insulating action so rooms stay cool in the summer months and warm in the winter Energy saving options in pictures Rainshower has a button on the handle that can be pressed to reduce the water used by 40%

Ronnie Quinn, general manager of the Crown Estate in Scotland, said: "Hywind is the first of its kind in the world. Its successful operation will demonstrate the viability of floating wind in deep water locations and bring forward cost reduction techniques that will move the whole sector forward.

"By working to share best practice and deploying our expertise in seabed leasing, we've been able to support the development of emerging technologies, from floating wind to tidal current energy, placing Scotland in a very strong position to secure global investment in low carbon energy."

WWF Scotland director Lang Banks said: "With the right political support for offshore wind and other technologies, Scotland is well placed to become the EU's first renewable electricity nation.

"However, if this is to happen then the forthcoming review of Scotland's energy strategy must also include steps to improve energy efficiency, manage demand, and increase energy storage as well as interconnectors."

Additional reporting by Press Association
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A mentally ill man who caused horrific injuries to a fellow passenger after pushing him under the Tube has been detained indefinitely.

Devindra Ferguson, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and had stopped taking his medication, followed Kamlesh Ramji onto the platform and pushed him into the path of an oncoming train.

The 29-year-old, who handed himself into Lewisham police station later the same day, was sent to a mental health unit for an indefinite amount of time at Blackfriars Crown Court on Friday May 13.

When he handed himself in to officers he is understood to have said, "All you need to know is that it was my intention", but could not explain his motive.

The incident at Kentish Town tube station left Mr Ramji severely emotionally and physically damaged, with a fractured skill, brain injuries, a punctured lung, fractured ribs, a broken leg and a shattered pelvis.

Mr Ramji said he has been seriously physically and psychologically impacted by the attack (Google Street View)

The 40-year-old business development manager has also said he is too afraid to go outside since the attack in early December last year because he feels safer at home.

"It has had a severely devastating physical and emotional effect on me," he told the Evening Standard.

"I am finding it hard to come to terms with or understand why a complete stranger would push me onto the tracks."

Gary Richardson, detective superintendent at British Transport Police, said this kind of attack was "very rare".

This was a terrifying incident which left the victim with broken bones," he said in a statement.

Thankfully, however, incidents of this nature are very rare on the rail network, and todays sentence shows that we will not tolerate any type of violent crime on the rail network and we will always seek to prosecute people who do commit a crime.

It is understood that if Ferguson's mental health improves, he may be returned to the courts to face a lengthy prison term.
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Boris Johnson has been accused of burying an air quality report while he was Mayor of London that showed hundreds of school in the city were in areas which exceed EU pollution limits.

The leaked report, Analysing Air Pollution Exposure in London, said 433 of the capitals 1,777 primary schols are in areas where pollution breached the EUs limits for nitrogen dioxide (NO2).

Of those, 83 per cent were considered deprived schools - with more than 40 per cent of their pupils entitled to free school meals.

The report was completed in September 2013 but has never been published.

A spokeswoman for Sadiq Khan, who succeed Mr Johnson as mayor earlier this month, told the Guardian she could not understand why the report was not published at the time.

She said: This shocking report reveals a snapshot of the true impact that our polluted air has on some of Londons most vulnerable communities.

It is difficult to understand why the last mayoralty decided to cover it up and not fully release it in 2013  they clearly didnt want Londoners to know the dire state of pollution in the capital.

The mayor is fully committed to cleaning up our air and protecting Londoners health and is shocked to learn that important scientific evidence like this have been locked and ignored at City Hall.

Boris Johnson has come under fire after the report was commissioned but never published (Getty Images)

In his first official week as mayor, the Labour politician has accused his predecessor of making London a laughing stock on air pollution by being too slow to act of the issue.

He said the would be expanding the size of Mr Johnsons proposed planned clean air zone to include the north and south circular roads.

The report was commissioned by the Greater London Authority (GLA) in early 2013 from independent air quality and climate change emissions consultancy, Aether.

The authors of the report, Katie King and Sean Healy, wrote there was still a clear disparity between deprived and non-deprived schools - though the inequality was set to lessen by 2020.

Pictures that show we are killing our planet Show all 21 1 /21 Pictures that show we are killing our planet Pictures that show we are killing our planet Pollution Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Plastic pollution Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Melting icebergs Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Human overpopulation Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Sea level rise Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Severe drought Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Mudslides Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Lake shrinking Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Food and water crisis caused by drought Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Water crisis Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Rainforest logging Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Habitat destruction Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Fracking Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Wildfires Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Rubbish dump Pope Francis said a 'throwaway culture' was damaging the environment and the world's social fabric Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Hunger Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Illegal poaching Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Unsafe water Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Scrap and metal waste Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Smog Getty Pictures that show we are killing our planet Oil spill Getty

They said a reason for this may be that lower house prices, and therefore poorer neighbourhoods, tended to sit next to main roads such as the M4.

The report found that in half of the most deprived 10 per cent of London the air was in breach of EU limits - compared to one per cent of the richest areas.

Over 9,000 people a year are estimated to die early from the high levels of NO2 in the capital.

London has been in breach of EU limits since 2010 and is not expected to meet them until 2025.
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A crackdown by the Department for Work and Pensions against its own employees trade unions has been declared unlawful by the High Court.

The DWP had scrapped the check-off system for collecting union subscriptions  which previously allowed employees to pay their dues through their salaries without extra bureaucracy.

But the scrapping, described by PCS union general secretary Mark Serwotka as vindictive, was ruled unlawful at the High Court on Friday.

Judge Elisabeth Laing said DWP staff had a contractual right to have their subscriptions paid by check-off and it should not have been scrapped without agreement.

The department scrapped check-off a year ago along with HM Revenue and Customs, Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Defence.

In 2013 a similar ruling prevented the Department for Communities and Local Government from ending the system.

At the time of that judgement the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, said there was no fiscal case for scrapping the policy and that doing so would not save any money.

Ending check-off has however cost trade unions significant amounts of money in direct debit fees  opening up the possibility that the PCS could be awarded damages for loss of income.

Mr Serwotka said it was scandalous that the Department was spending money on legal fees to defend the scrapping.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka (AFP/Getty)

It has always been clear that the political decision to remove check-off was unnecessary and vindictive, and we have comprehensively been proved right, he said.

This is not just a defeat for DWP, it is a victory for all unions over a major injustice.

And it is scandalous that taxpayers again face huge legal bills because Tory ministers have an obsession with trying to undermine trade unions in the workplace.

The Governments Trade Union Act had originally included plans to scrap check-off across the civil service but in April the Government backed down on the policy at the laws Bill stage after opposition in the House of Lords.

What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? Show all 8 1 /8 What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? Welfare payments will be slashed One of the most controversial parts of the Conservative manifesto was to cut benefits for the working age poor by 12 bn over the next three years. But during the campaign they only said where 2 bn of these savings would come from. That leaves 10 bn still to find. Some experts think the only way they can close that gap is by means testing child benefit  with millions of families losing out Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? There will be tax cuts for those in work and those who die The Tories will increase the threshold at which the 40p rate of tax becomes payable to 50,000 by 2020. They havent said so but it is also likely that at some point in the next five years they will abolish that 45p rate of tax altogether for the highest earners. They also want to increase the effective inheritance tax threshold for married couples and civil partners to 1m Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? There will be an in/out EU referendum in 2017 The next two years are going to be dominated by the prospect of a referendum on Britains membership of the EU. First off David Cameron has the daunting task of negotiating a deal with other EU leaders an acceptable deal that he can sell to his party so he can go into the referendum campaigning for a yes vote. This may be unachievable and it is possible that the Tories may end up arguing to leave. Opinion polls show Britain is divided on EU membership, one poll this year showed 51% said they would opt to leave compared to 49% who would vote to stay in Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? There will be more privatisation of the NHS Having won the election the Tories now have a mandate to go further and faster reforming the NHS. In order to make cost savings there is likely to be greater private involvement in running services, while some smaller hospitals may lose services they currently provide like A&E and maternity units Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? There will be many more free schools  and traditional state schools will become a thing of the past The Tories plans to create 500 new free schools and make 3,000 state schools become academies. They will also carry on reforming the Department of Education and remove more powers from local authorities over how schools are run Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? On shore wind farms will be a thing of the past and fracking will be the future Government spending on renewable energy is under real threat now the Lib Dems are no longer in power with the Tories. Subsidies are likely to be slashed for off-shore wind farm and other green energy supplies. Meanwhile there will be generous tax break for fracking as ministers try and incentivise the industry to drill for onshore oil and gas Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? There maybe more free childcare  but not necessarily In the campaign the Tories pledged to double the amount of free early education for three- and four-year-olds from 15 hours a week to 30. The extra hours would only be offered to working families where parents are employed for at least eight hours a week. However they have not said where the money will come from to fund the pledge Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? Workers' rights could be reduced The Tories want to slash business regulation, merge regulator and cut costs. The Lib Dems stopped them from reducing the employment rights of workers in power  but these are now under threat Getty

The latest court judgment is the latest in a string of legal setbacks for the DWP.

The controversial bedroom tax was branded discriminatory and unlawful by a court in January of this year.

In March the DWP also lost a legal challenge to keep problems with universal credit under wraps after a freedom of information request from campaigners.

At the end of last month benefit sanctions handed out to thousands of people were also declared unlawful by the Court of Appeal.

The Independent understands that the Department is unlikely to appeal the latest judgment.

A DWP spokesperson said that it had consulted with trade unions on the proposal before going ahead with it.

We are considering the courts judgement and our position, she said.

The Trade Union Act includes a provision that the administrative burden and cost of staff paying subscriptions should be transferred to the unions.

The Department consulted with trade unions and gave notice of the intention to remove this facility.




First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain.





Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that.





And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details.





If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Boris Johnson has defended comments made over the weekend in which he likened the aims of the European Union to those of Adolf Hitler.

The former mayor of London had told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that the EU was an attempt to recreate the Roman Empires united Europe.

Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically, he told the paper.

The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.

Mr Johnsons comparison with Nazi Germany attracted criticism, coming just weeks after Ken Livingstone was suspended from the Labour party for bring Adolf Hitler into a discussion about Zionism and antisemitism.

But Mr Johnson on Monday morning robustly defended his comments, repeating his overall hypothesis.

Over the last few thousands years there have been all sorts of attempts in Europe to recreate the dream of the Roman Empire and very often thats been done by force. The EU is different  its tried to do it in a more bureaucratic way, he told BBC News.

The problem is there isnt a single charismatic authority that anyone feels any loyalty to and its completely antidemocratic, thats the problem.

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.

This discussion is bedeviled by all sorts of artificial media twit-storms or hysteria of one kind or another. Theres a very good argument against the lack of democracy in the EU.

Over the last 2000 years people have made repeated attempts to unify Europe by force. The EU is a very different project but it is profoundly antidemocratic.

In 2007 then European Commissioner Jose Manuel Barroso said the EU was the first non-imperial empire.

Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire. We have the dimension of empire, he argued.

Mr Johnson is a senior figure in the campaign to leave the European Union, putting him at odds with David Cameron, who is campaigning to Remain.

The public will vote in a referendum on Britains continued membership of the bloc on 23 June this year.
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The Nazis drew up the basic plan for the European Union decades before it was actually established, a Ukip MEP has claimed.

Gerard Batten on Monday stepped up to defend Boris Johnson, who on Sunday attracted criticism for likening the EUs aims to those of Adolf Hitler.

Mr Batten however suggested Mr Johnson had actually underplayed the connections between the EU and the Nazis, and that the bloc had closer links with the fascists than many realized.

Recommended Read more Boris Johnson defends Hitler comments

The eurosceptic MEP added that the first president of the European Commission had been a member of several nominally Nazi professional organizations and served in Adolf Hitlers army.

In 1942 when the Germans still thought they were going to win the war they produced a report entitled the Europaische Wirtschafts Gemeinschaft  which translates as the European Economic Community, he wrote in a post on his blog.

This report was written by various bankers and academics and laid out a plan for how Germany would manage the economies of the conquered countries of Europe after a German victory. The report was drawn up under the leadership of Professor Walter Funk the Reichs Economics Minister and President of the Reichsbank.

The report contained sections on Agriculture, Industry, Employment, Transport, Trade, Economic Agreements, and Currency. It proposed the harmonisation of European currencies and a harmonised currency system.

Gerard Batten in the European Parliament, where he represents London (FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP/Getty Images) (Getty)

If this all sounds all very familiar it is because the basic plan for the European Economic Community of 1942 was very similar to the actual European Economic Community that came into existence in 1957 under the Treaty of Rome.

Concluding, he said: What emerged as the European Economic Community in 1957 was planned created by the kind of people who would have run Europes economies if Germany had won the war, and their plans followed a very similar pattern.

Labour MP Chuka Umunna told the Independent the Leave camp was deploying crackpot conspiracy theories in lieu of explaining what Britains role in the world would be outside the EU.

The 10 happiest countries in Europe Show all 10 1 /10 The 10 happiest countries in Europe The 10 happiest countries in Europe Denmark Coulourful houses and boats seen in the Nyhavn district in Copenhagen The 10 happiest countries in Europe Switzerland The 10 happiest countries in Europe Iceland Iceland, Northern Lights The 10 happiest countries in Europe Norway Wheel deal: cycling in Norway Visit Norway The 10 happiest countries in Europe Finland Getty The 10 happiest countries in Europe The Netherlands The 10 happiest countries in Europe Sweden AFP The 10 happiest countries in Europe Austria Sean Gallup/Getty Images The 10 happiest countries in Europe Germany Getty Images The 10 happiest countries in Europe Belgium The city hall on Brussels' Grand Place is illuminated during a light show, December 30, 2015 Reuters

This is yet another crackpot conspiracy theory from the Brexiteer brigade who want to leave the EU at all costs, he said.

Instead of making outrageous claims about the past, its time they clarified exactly what our future outside the EU would look like.

The truth is that leaving would be a leap in the dark estimated to make our country permanently poorer to the tune of 4300 per household each year. Staying in Europe will mean more jobs, lower prices and more financial security.

Former mayor of London Mr Johnson had told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that the EU was an attempt to recreate the Roman Empires united Europe.

Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically, he told the paper.

The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.

Mr Johnsons comparison with Nazi Germany attracted criticism, coming just weeks after Ken Livingstone was suspended from the Labour party for bring Adolf Hitler into a discussion about Zionism and antisemitism.

The Chancellor George Osborne today also accused the Leave camp of indulging in conspiracy theories.

It's not a conspiracy, it's called a consensus, he said in a speech at Stansted Airport. Britain will be worse off if we leave the EU.
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Campaigners for Brexit have sunk to the level of conspiracy theorists, George Osborne has claimed, as he was joined by former political rivals Ed Balls and Sir Vince Cable to plead for voters to heed sober economic warnings about the consequences of a Leave vote.

Addressing suspicions among Leave campaigners that he personally masterminded recent interventions by the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Chancellor said that there was no conspiracy and that the economic arguments of Boris Johnson and other Brexit supporters had not been credible of serious.

Speaking at Stansted Airport alongside former Labour Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, with whom Mr Osborne had a tempestuous political rivalry, and former Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable, once dismissed by one of the Chancellors staff as a hairy-eared has-been, he said that the economic argument for Remain was beyond doubt.

Recommended Read more Boris Johnson defends Hitler comments

"It's not a conspiracy. It's called a consensus, he said.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney warned last week that Brext could lead to a recession, while IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said the effects on British incomes and productivity would likely be negative and substantial.

Mr Osborne said the Leave camp had treated such warnings as "a massive conspiracy".

"That's everyone from Mark Carney to Christine Lagarde to Barack Obama to the entire editorial team at ITV to the staff at the IMF and OECD, to hundreds of economists, to a majority of leaders of small, medium and large firms - they think they are all part of some global stitch-up to give misinformation to the British people, he said, referring to a recent row over the ITV EU referendum debate, and previous warnings from President Obama and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

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.

"The next thing we know, the Leave camp will be accusing us of faking the moon landings, kidnapping Shergar and covering up the existence of the Loch Ness monster.

Cabinet minister and Leave campaigner Chris Grayling said the Chancellor was not right at all in his assessment.

The reality is theres no conspiracy here at all, he told the BBC. The conspiracy theories around the European Union are there in black and white, you dont need any hidden elements to it  there is a clear plan to create a federation of the Eurozone.

Sir Vince Cable, Ed Balls and George Osborne in the Ryanair hangar at Stansted Airport today (PA)

The Chancellor repeated the findings of a Treasury analysis last month, which suggested that by 2030 the UK would be losing out on 200bn worth of trade a year, and would have lost around 200bn worth of overseas investment.

Mr Balls said he had been willing to put politics aside and campaign with the Chancellor because of his fears that Brexit would hit families really hard. Sir Vince said that the European single market, which senior Leave campaigners have said Britain would leave in the event of Brexit, had been a a British vision of an open Europe, spearheaded by Margaret Thatcher.

The latest warnings came as Boris Johnson, the Vote Leave figurehead, dismissed criticism of his comparison of the EU project to Hitlers expansionism as hysteria and an artificial media twit storm.

Former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Bramall, who took part in the D-Day landings, called the former mayor of Londons comments simply laughable.

Mr Johnson today reiterated his claim saying there was a very good argument against the lack of democracy in the EU.

Over the last 2,000 years people have made repeated attempts to unify Europe by force, the EU is a very different project but it is profoundly anti-democratic and that is why we should vote Leave on June 23, he said.

Mr Osborne, responding to the furore, said that Lord Bramall had said what needed to be said about Boris Johnson.

The Chancellor was speaking as more than 300 business leaders signed a letter urging Britain to vote to leave the EU in the June 23 referendum, arguing that the UK's competitiveness is being undermined by its membership.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, they argue that businesses will be "free to grow faster, expand into new markets and create more jobs" if they are unconstrained by EU rules.

But Mr Osborne said that new Treasury analysis showed that if the UK was forced to rely on World Trade Organisation rules following Brexit, it could expect to lose trade worth 200 billion a year and overseas investment worth 200 billion within 15 years.

Recent days had seen the emergence of a consensus shared by observers ranging from the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund to the OECD and US president Barack Obama that "Britain will be poorer and British people will be poorer" if the UK votes to leave the EU, said the Chancellor.
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Ken Livingstone has accused Boris Johnson of historical inaccuracy after his successor as London Mayor compared the aims of the European Union to Adolf Hitlers attempts to control the continent.

Intervening in the furore around Mr Johnsons likening of the goals of the EU to the Nazi dictator, Mr Livingstone  who is currently suspended from the Labour Party after becoming embroiled in his own Hitler controversy  questioned Mr Johnson's facts.

Mr Johnson had told the Sunday Telegraph that the EU was an attempt to recreate the Roman Empires united Europe. Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically, he told the paper.

The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods, he added.

Recommended Read more Boris Johnson defends Hitler comments

What I said was perfectly true, Mr Livingstone told the Evening Standard. But Boris is a lot better informed about Ancient Greece and Rome than about modern history.

There was never a plan for a United States of Europe under Hitler. What he wanted was actually a Greater Germany that absorbed neighbouring states, with Britain and France rendered subservient.

Speaking to the BBC on Monday Mr Johnson defended his comments, saying: Over the last few thousand years there have been all sorts of attempts in Europe to recreate the dream of the Roman Empire and very often thats been done by force. The EU is different  its tried to do it in a more bureaucratic way.

The problem is there isnt a single charismatic authority that anyone feels any loyalty to and its completely antidemocratic, thats the problem.

 Ken Livingstone calls creation of Israel a 'catastrophe'

This discussion is bedevilled by all sorts of artificial media twit-storms or hysteria of one kind or another. Theres a very good argument against the lack of democracy in the EU.

Over the last 2000 years people have made repeated attempts to unify Europe by force. The EU is a very different project but it is profoundly antidemocratic.

But Chancellor George Osborne endorsed the view of former military chief Field Marshal Lord Bramall, who described Mr Johnson's remarks as "simply laughable" and "absurd".
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David Cameron still believes Donald Trump's comments on immigration and Muslims are "divisive, stupid and wrong", following the US presidential hopeful's warning that he does not expect to have a good relationship with the British Prime Minister.,

In an interview with ITVs Good Morning Britain, Mr Trump, who is now almost certain to become the Republican candidate for the White House, dismissed the comments but said it looks like were not going to have a very good relationship.

I hope to have a good relationship with him but it sounds like hes not willing to address the problem either, he said.

Mr Cameron made the criticism in December, at a time when Mr Trump was the front-runner in the Republican presidential race, but not the presumptive candidate.

A Downing Street spokesman today said: "The Prime Minister has made his views on Donald Trump's comments very clear. He disagrees with them, and I haven't got anything further to add.

"He continues to believe that preventing Muslims from entering the US is divisive, stupid and wrong."

The Number 10 spokesman said that Mr Cameron was "committed to maintaining the special relationship" whoever wins the presidential election.

No proposal had been made for a phone call between the PM and Mr Trump, but Downing Street would be willing to consider it, the spokesman added.

Earlier this month a spokesman for Mr Trump reignited the row with a call for Mr Cameron to withdraw the comments. The Prime Minister refused, but did admit Mr Trump deserved respect for becoming his partys presumptive nominee.

Addressing the criticisms directly in the interview, Mr Trump said: Number one Im not stupid, I can tell you that right now. Just the opposite. I dont think Im a divisive person. Im a unifier.

Downing Street is not standing down, however. A spokesman reiterated Mr Cameron's position on Monday morning, saying: "The Prime Minister has made his views on Donald Trump's comments very clear. He disagrees with them, and I haven't got anything further to add.

"He continues to believe that preventing Muslims from entering the US is divisive, stupid and wrong."

Speaking to ITV, Mr Trump also warned Sadiq Khan that he would remember the London Mayors recent criticisms of him.

Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didnt know the air conditioner didnt work and sweated like dogs, and they didnt know the room was too big because they didnt have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall  and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me and Ill build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best. Theyre sending people that have lots of problems. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY

Mr Khan last week declined Mr Trumps offer of an exception from the proposed ban on Muslims entering America, calling the US property tycoons views on Islam ignorant.

Mr Trump said he had been offended by the remarks.

I dont care about him, it doesnt make any difference to me, lets see how he does, lets see if hes a good man, he said.

Tell him I will remember those statements, he added. Theyre very nasty statements.

Mr Khan, Londons first Muslim mayor, won praise last week by rejecting Mr Trumps offer. This isnt just about me, he said. Its about my friends, my family and everyone who comes from a background similar to mine, anywhere in the world.

In his interview with ITVs Piers Morgan, broadcast in full this morning, Mr Trump also reiterated his view that Britain would be better off outside the EU. He said that migration from Europe had been a disaster and called the EU very bureaucratic and very difficult.

While declining to go into details about how an US-UK trade deal would work, he dismissed President Barack Obamas warning that Britain would be at the back of the queue if it left the EU.

Britains been a great ally, he said. With me, theyll always be treated fantastically.

The statement, which was first reported yesterday, won the backing of UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who said that he would back Mr Trump over Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton in the US presidential race. While admitting reservations about Mr Trump, he called his comments on the EU measured and diplomatic and said he believed he would win the Presidency.

Donald Trump is expected to be confirmed as the Republican presidential nominee at the party's National Convention in Cleveland which begins on July 18th.

His likely contender in the Presidential race will be former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who has not yet reahed the 2,393 delegate threshold she requires to clinch the Democratic nomination.
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A cross-party group of MPs, including former SNP leader Alex Salmond, may renew their attempts to impeach Tony Blair following the publication of the Chilcot report later this year.

According to reports, Mr Salmond has begun rallying support for an attempted prosecution, pending the findings of the report, which will be released in July.

In the UK, impeachment is the procedure whereby MPs can vote to have someone put on trial before the House of Lords. It is a centuries-old procedure which has not actually been used since 1806.

The Iraq War: A timeline Show all 16 1 /16 The Iraq War: A timeline The Iraq War: A timeline 11 September 2001 Terrorists belonging to al-Qaeda use hijacked aeroplanes to kill 2,996 people in attacks on the east coast of the US. AP The Iraq War: A timeline 12 September 2001 Tony Blair promises George W Bush that the UK will support the US, whatever the President decides to do. AFP/Getty Images The Iraq War: A timeline 25 March 2002 Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary, warns Blair that invading Iraq would be legally dubious. Getty Images The Iraq War: A timeline June 2002 Tony Blair asks defence officials to outline options for UK participation in military action against Iraq. afp/getty images The Iraq War: A timeline 24 September 2002 The government publishes a dossier about the threat from Iraqs weapons of mass destruction. A foreword by Tony Blair states that Saddam Husseins military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them. It is subsequently alleged that this dossier was sexed up for political reasons. Getty The Iraq War: A timeline 2 October 2002 Congress authorises President Bush to use military force against Iraq. Getty The Iraq War: A timeline 8 November 2002 UN Security Council passes resolution 1441, insisting that weapons inspectors be allowed back into Iraq and calling on the regime to give up its WMD or face the consequences. Simon Walker/AP The Iraq War: A timeline 18 July 2003 David Kelly, an expert in biological warfare, is found dead after being named as the source of quotations used by the BBCs Andrew Gilligan to suggest that the dossier of September 2002 had been sexed up. Lord Hutton is appointed to chair a judicial inquiry into his death. GETTY IMAGES The Iraq War: A timeline 13 December 2003 Saddam Hussein is captured near Tikrit, after nine months in hiding. REUTERS The Iraq War: A timeline 2 March 2004 Bombings in Baghdad and Karbala kill nearly 200 people: the worst attacks since the fall of Saddam. Getty Images The Iraq War: A timeline 14 September 2005 Bombs in Baghdad kill 160 people and injure more than 500. EPA The Iraq War: A timeline 30 December 2005 Saddam Hussein is executed. Getty Images The Iraq War: A timeline 28 May 2009 The last British combat troops leave Iraq. Getty Images The Iraq War: A timeline 24 November 2009 The Chilcot inquiry holds its first public hearing. Getty The Iraq War: A timeline 2 February 2011 The Chilcot inquiry holds its final public hearing. AFP/Getty Images The Iraq War: A timeline 21 January 2015 Sir John Chilcot confirms that his report will not be published before the general election in May 2015. Getty Images

While some MPs still want to use the procedure to hold Mr Blair to account over his actions in the run-up to the Iraq War, Mr Salmond told The Times the best route to a prosecution could lie through the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"If, as I believe...Chilcot finds that there was a prior commitment from Blair to [George W.] Bush at Crawford ranch in 2002, that would provide the reason for pursuing the matter further," he said. "My own view is that the best route would be to use the ICC because the prosecutor is able to initiate action on his or her own behalf on presentation of a body of evidence, which Chilcot would provide, the former First Minister of Scotland, and current SNP foreign affairs spokesman said.

 Blair sorry over Iraq War

A campaign to impeach the former Prime Minister was first launched in 2004, backed by a cross-party group of MPs that included Boris Johnson  now the figurehead of the EU referendum Leave campaign and a favourite to become Prime Minister in the event of Brexit.

Conservative MP Sir David Amess told The Times he had been contacted by Mr Salmond seeking support for a new campaign, pending the findings of the Chilcot report.

If its proved that Tony Blair misled everyone, I personally am determined to see justice prevail and to see him impeached, Sir David said.
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The US and other world powers say they are ready to supply Libya's internationally recognised government with weapons to counter Isis and other militant groups gaining footholds in its lawless regions.

In a communique obtained by the Associated Press, the US, along with four other permanent UN Security Council members and more than 15 other nations say they are ready to respond to the Libyan government's "requests for training and equipping" government forces.

They are aiming to push for exemptions to a UN arms embargo imposed on Libya in a bid to keep lethal arms away from Islamic extremists and rival militias vying for power.

"The Government of National Accord has voiced its intention to submit appropriate arms embargo exemption requests to the UN Libya Sanctions Committee to procure necessary lethal arms and materiel to counter UN-designated terrorist groups and to combat Da'esh throughout the country," the communique said, using an alternate name for Isis.

"We will fully support these efforts while continuing to reinforce the UN arms embargo."

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond tweeted he was in Vienna to take part in Libya talks to help the country fight Isis.

A British Foreign Office source added: "The focus of the meeting today is about capacity-building in the government and setting up the new government of national accord."

The source said talks were likely to cover issues such as the running of government ministries.

Sectarian war has been ravaging Libya since the fall of the former dictator Colonel Gaddafi in October 2011.

In pictures: The rise of Isis Show all 74 1 /74 In pictures: The rise of Isis In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters of the Islamic State wave the group's flag from a damaged display of a government fighter jet following the battle for the Tabqa air base, in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters from Islamic State group sit on their tank during a parade in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters from the Islamic State group pray at the Tabqa air base after capturing it from the Syrian government in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters from extremist Islamic State group parade in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis kidnapping A video uploaded to social networks shows men in underwear being marched barefoot along a desert road before being allegedly executed by Isis Getty Images In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis kidnapping Haruna Yukawa after his capture by Isis In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis kidnapping Khalinda Sharaf Ajour, a Yazidi, says two of her daughters were captured by Isis militants Washington Post In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Spokesperson for Isis Vice News via Youtube In pictures: The rise of Isis A pro-Isis leaflet A pro-Isis leaflet handed out on Oxford Street In London Ghaffar Hussain In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Isis Jihadists burn their passports In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis controls Syrian Aid A man collecting aid administered by Isis in Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis controls Syrian Aid A woman collecting aid administered by Isis in Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis controls Syrian Aid Local civilians queue for aid administered by Isis. Since it declared a caliphate the group has increasingly been delivering services such as healthcare, and distributing aid and free fuel In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces detain men suspected of being militants of the Isis group in Diyala province In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Mourners carry the coffin of a Shi'ite volunteer from the brigades of peace, who joined the Iraqi army and was killed during clashes with militants of the Isis group in Samarra, during his funeral in Najaf In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi Shiite Turkmen family fleeing the violence in the Iraqi city of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, arrives at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Arbil, in Iraq's Kurdistan region In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi A photograph made from a video by the jihadist affiliated group Furqan Media via their twitter account allegedly showing Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivering a sermon during Friday prayers at a mosque in Mosul. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamist caliphate in the territory under the group's control in Iraq and Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Islamic extremists destroying mosques in Iraq Shiite's Al-Qubba Husseiniya mosque explodes in Mosul In pictures: The rise of Isis Islamic extremists destroying mosques in Iraq Smoke and debris go up in the air as Shiite's Al-Qubba Husseiniya mosque explodes in Mosul. Images posted online show that Islamic extremists have destroyed at least 10 ancient shrines and Shiite mosques in territory - the city of Mosul and the town of Tal Afar - they have seized in northern Iraq in recent weeks In pictures: The rise of Isis Islamic extremists destroying mosques in Iraq A bulldozer destroys Sunni's Ahmed al-Rifai shrine and tomb in Mahlabiya district outside of Tal Afar In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces celebrate after clashes with followers of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi, in front of his home in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces arrest a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces arrest a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi at his home after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces arrest a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis A vehicle burns in front of a home of a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi woman holds her exhausted son as over 1000 Iraqis who have fled fighting in and around the city of Mosul and Tal Afar wait at a Kurdish checkpoint in the hopes of entering a temporary displacement camp in Khazair In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees Displaced Iraqi women hold pots as they queue to receive food during the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, at an encampment for displaced Iraqis who fled from Mosul and other towns, in the Khazer area outside Irbil, north Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria A militant Islamist fighter waving a flag, cheers as he takes part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa. The fighters held the parade to celebrate their declaration of an Islamic "caliphate" after the group captured territory in neighbouring Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters wave flags as they take part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province Reuters In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters travel in a vehicle as they take part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Fighters from the Isis group during a parade with a missile in Raqqa, Syria. Militants from an al-Qaida splinter group held a military parade in their stronghold in northeastern Syria, displaying U.S.-made Humvees, heavy machine guns, and missiles captured from the Iraqi army for the first time since taking over large parts of the Iraq-Syria border In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters during a parade in Raqqa, Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Fighters from the Isis group during a parade in Raqqa, Syria. Militants from the splinter group held a military parade in their stronghold in northeastern Syria, displaying U.S.-made Humvees, heavy machine guns, and missiles captured from the Iraqi army for the first time since taking over large parts of the Iraq-Syria border In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters hold a military parade in their stronghold in northeastern Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters during a parade in Raqqa, Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria A member loyal to the Isis waves an Isis flag in Raqqa In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi anti-government gunmen from Sunni tribes in the western Anbar province march during a protest in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. The United Nations warned that Iraq is at a "crossroads" and appealed for restraint, as a bloody four-day wave of violence killed 195 people. The violence is the deadliest so far linked to demonstrations that broke out in Sunni areas of the Shiite-majority country more than four months ago, raising fears of a return to all-out sectarian conflict In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces hold up a flag of the Isis group they captured during an operation to regain control of Dallah Abbas north of Baqouba, the capital of Iraq's Diyala province, 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Iraq Isis fighters parade in the northern city of Mosul In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Volunteers, who have joined the Iraqi army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants from the radical Isis group, demonstrate their skills during a graduation ceremony after completing their field training in Najaf In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Kurdish Peshmerga troops fire a cannon during clashes with militants of the Isis group in Jalawla, Diyala province In pictures: The rise of Isis Lieutenant General Qassem Atta speaks during a press conference Iraqi Prime Minister's security spokesman, Lieutenant General Qassem Atta speaks during a press conference about the latest military development in Iraq, in the capital Baghdad. Iraqi forces pressed a campaign to retake militant-held Tikrit, clashing with jihadist-led Sunni militants nearby and pounding positions inside the city with air strikes in their biggest counter-offensive so far In pictures: The rise of Isis A police station building destroyed by Isis fighters An exterior view of a police station building destroyed by gunmen in Mosul city, northern Iraq. Iraq's new parliament is expected to convene to start the process of setting up a new government, despite deepening political rifts and an ongoing Islamist-led insurgency. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani issued a decree inviting the new House of Representatives to meet and form a new government In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Iraq Smoke billows from an area controlled by the Isis between the Iraqi towns of Naojul and Tuz Khurmatu, both located north of the capital Baghdad, as Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces take part in an operation to repel the Sunni militants In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An elderly Iraqi woman is helped into a temporary displacement camp for Iraqis caught-up in the fighting in and around the city of Mosul in Khazair In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi Christian woman fleeing the violence in the village of Qaraqush, about 30 kms east of the northern province of Nineveh, cries upon her arrival at a community center in the Kurdish city of Arbil in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi woman, who fled with her family from the northern city of Mosul, prays with a copy of the Quran AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Iraq The body of an Isis militant killed during clashes with Iraqi security forces on the outskirts of the city of Samarra Reuters In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi civilians inspect the damage at a market after an air strike by the Iraqi army in central Mosul EPA In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Members of the Al-Abbas brigades, who volunteered to protect the Shiite Muslim holy sites in Karbala against Sunni militants fighting the Baghdad government, parade in the streets of the city AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Shia tribesmen gather in Baghdad to take up arms against Sunni insurgents marching on the capital. Thousands have volunteered to bolster defences AFP/Getty In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis A van carrying volunteers joining Iraqi security forces against Jihadist militants. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced the Iraqi government would arm and equip civilians who volunteered to fight AFP/Getty In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters of the Isis group parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armored vehicle down a main road at the northern city of Mosul In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq An Islamist fighter, identified as Abu Muthanna al-Yemeni from Britain (R), speaks in this still image taken undated video shot at an unknown location and uploaded to a social media website. Five Islamist fighters identified as Australian and British nationals have called on Muslims to join the wars in Syria and Iraq, in the new video released by the Isis In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Al-Qaida inspired militants stand with captured Iraqi Army Humvee at a checkpoint belonging to Iraqi Army outside Beiji refinery some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad. The fighting at Beiji comes as Iraq has asked the U.S. for airstrikes targeting the militants from the Isis group. While U.S. President Barack Obama has not fully ruled out the possibility of launching airstrikes, such action is not imminent in part because intelligence agencies have been unable to identify clear targets on the ground, officials said In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants attacked Iraq's main oil refinein Baiji as they pressed an offensive that has seen them capture swathes of territory, a manager and a refinery employee said In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants from the Isis group parading with their weapons in the northern city of Baiji in the in Salaheddin province In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq A smoke rises after an attack by Isis militants on the country's largest oil refinery in Beiji, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad. Iraqi security forces battled insurgents targeting the country's main oil refinery and said they regained partial control of a city near the Syrian border, trying to blunt an offensive by Sunni militants who diplomats fear may have also seized some 100 foreign workers In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group stand next to captured vehicles left behind by Iraqi security forces at an unknown location in the Salaheddin province. For militant groups, the fight over public perception can be even more important than actual combat, turning military losses into propaganda victories and battlefield successes into powerful tools to build support for the cause In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq An injured fighter (C) from the Isis group after a battle with Iraqi soldiers at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters from the Isis aiming at advancing Iraqi troops at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters from the Isis group taking position at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters from the Isis group inspecting vehicles of the Iraqi army after they were seized at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq One Iraqi captive, a corporal, is reluctant to say the slogan, and has to be shouted at repeatedly before he obeys Sky News In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Iraqi captives held by the extremists Sky News In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Iraqi captives held by the extremists Sky News In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group force captured Iraqi security forces members to the transport In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group transporting dozens of captured Iraqi security forces members to an unknown location in the Salaheddin province ahead of executing them In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq A major offensive spearheaded by Isis but also involving supporters of executed dictator Saddam Hussein has overrun all of one province and chunks of three others In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group executing dozens of captured Iraqi security forces members at an unknown location in the Salaheddin province In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Isis militants taking position at a Iraqi border post on the Syrian-Iraqi border between the Iraqi Nineveh province and the Syrian town of Al-Hasakah In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Isis rebels show their flag after seizing an army post AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Isis militants waving an Islamist flag after the seizure of an Iraqi army checkpoint in Salahuddin Getty Images In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Demonstrators chant slogans as they carry al-Qaida flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad. In the week since it captured Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, a Muslim extremist group has tried to win over residents and has stopped short of widely enforcing its strict brand of Islamic law, residents say. Churches remain unharmed and street cleaners are back at work

Rival governments in the east and the west have battled each other for dominance and in the chaos smaller groups, such as armed groups belonging to the country's Tuareg forces, have been able to carve out their own territories.

A Libyan branch of Isis was formed in November 2014 and has carved out territory along the northern coastline.

Last month, US President Barack Obama called the failure to prepare for Libya's future after the fall of Gaddafi the "worst mistake of his presidency".

Additional reporting by agencies
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The tip-off by a CIA operative that led to the arrest of Nelson Mandela in 1962  long suspected and now apparently confirmed on his deathbed by the individual concerned  will go down as another chapter in the ever expanding volume recording the dark deeds perpetrated by the Agency. But however reprehensible, it was entirely consistent with official Americas world view at the time.

All that mattered was the Cold War and the global struggle against communism. This approach led the US, in the shape of the CIA, to support a host of unsalubrious right wing regimes across the globe and to do all in its power to undermine and topple governments supposedly sympathetic to Soviet aims.

Nationalism was conflated with communism. Nationalisations carried out by left-leaning governments to restore national ownership of national assets were seen as the thin end of the socialising wedge  and often directly contrary to the interests of American business, which Democratic and Republican adminstrations alike, and by extension the CIA, vigorously sought to protect.

Mandela and the African National Congress were perfect examples of this anti-Communist fixation. In the early 1960s, the full horrors of the apartheid regime were not yet grasped by the outside world. For the CIA, the ANC was a subversive organisation trying to topple a fiercely anti-communist government. If succeeded, it reasoned, the path would be clear for the Soviet Union to gain dominance in southern Africa. Mandela had to be stopped, and he was.

To be fair, the CIA had a point. As Mandela was taken into custody, the Agency was amassing evidence of the Soviet arms buildup in Cuba that would lead to the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis. But the Agency, formally created in 1947, had aleady been doing similar things for a decade or more.

A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed Show all 6 1 /6 A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553027.bin Reuters A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553026.bin Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553025.bin Reuters A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553024.bin Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553023.bin Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553022.bin Reuters

In 1953  in an operation that poisons US-Iranian relations to this day  the CIA, backed by Britain, organised the coup that toppled then Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, whose sin was to seek to nationalise the countrys oil industry. For the US this would not only be a major economic setback. It could also see Iran fall into the Soviet sphere of influence. Again, Mossadegh had to be stopped  and he was.

The pattern repeated itself around the world, not least in Vietnam, a classic instance of the US mistaking nationalism for communism. But nowhere was the Agencys meddling as common and as damaging to local populations as in the US backyard of Central South America.

A CIA-led coup in Guatemala in 1954 deposed that countrys democratically elected president and set off decades of civil strife. El Salvador and Nicaragua suffered similarly. Even before the missile crisis the CIA was plotting to get rid of Fidel Castro, first in the illfated 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, and then with countless  and sometimes laughable  plots to kill him, including one featuring poisoned cigars.

The same anti-communist and pro-US business mindset was reflected in the overthrow in 1973 of Chiles leftist government of Salvador Allende and its replacement by the Pinochet dictatorship. The US and the CIA did not organise the coup, but knew of it and condoned it, and afterwards strongly supported Pinochet.

The 1970s saw some of the CIA's most uncomfortable moments, as it emerged that President Nixon had used it for nefarious domestic purposes. The Church Committee, set up by Congress after Watergate and led by Idaho Senator Frank Church, exposed some of the CIAs most infamous covert operations.

But calls for the agencys wholesale reform or even abolition have gone unheeded. The war on terror has replaced the war on communism, but similar means have being used: rendition, torture and secret black site camps. The tip-off that set Nelson Mandela to prison for 27 years is likely to be seen as little more than a footnote in the volume of dark deeds.
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Colombian police have made one of the countrys biggest seizures of cocaine in recent history, hauling in eight tonnes of the illegal drug, worth an estimated $240m (167m), near the border with Panama.

The huge stash of drugs was found in an underground hideaway on a banana plantation in the municipality of Turbo in the Antioquia department, government officials said on Sunday. Three people were arrested in the police operation.

Colombian police released photos of the haul showing packages of cocaine laid out on the ground, with sacks filled with more packages lined up alongside them.

The countrys President, Juan Manuel Santos Calderon, said on Twitter that the cocaine haul marked the biggest seizure of drugs in history, calling it A hit against criminals.

The cocaine belonged to the crime gang known as Clan Usuga, Defence Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said. The US has offered a $5m (3.5m) reward for the capture of the gangs leader.

Authorities in Colombia seized around 252 tonnes of cocaine in 2015  more than half of the 442 tonnes believed to be produced in the country each year, according to United Nations figures.

A Colombian national policeman stands guard in front of packages of cocaine, which were confiscated (Reuters)

Colombian Minister of Defense Luis Carlos Villegas (C) looking at confiscated packages of cocaine (EPA)

A Colombian Police officer standing guard in front of a display of confiscated packages of cocaine (EPA)

Colombian police photo showing eight tons of seized cocaine in Turbo (AFP)

In February last year, Colombian officials confiscated 3.3 tonnes of cocaine with an estimated street value of around 58m, again belonging to Clan Usuga.

Just months later more than eight tonnes of the narcotic were seized by US authorities off the coast of El Salvador. The drug was being carried in a submarine-like vessel, a method of transportation that was identified by the Royal Navy several years ago as a way that crime cartels were avoiding naval patrols in the Caribbean to send cocaine from Central America to Europe and Britain.
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A Colorado school district adopted a policy that will let students receive doses of medicinal marijuana during on school grounds.

The District 49 Board of Education in Peyton, Colorado, unanimously voted on the policy, called Jaxs Policy, after 16-year-old, Jackson Jax Stormes. In May 2015, Stormes was suspended for carrying cannabis oil used to treat his Dravet Syndrome, a rare and catastrophic form of epilepsy, and Juvenile Parkinsons.

In 2012, we pretty much ran out of options, his mother, Jennie Stormes, said in a press release. We started cannabis, and almost immediately he did better. His seizures were in better control. He was just starting to thrive and do so much better.

District 49 said the administration of prescription medications on school grounds is permissible if it cannot be performed outside of the school day.

This process began firmly rooted in the cultural values of respect and care for one of our students, Marie LaVere-Wright, District 49 Board of Education president, said. [Jaxs] struggle to balance his medical need for cannabinoid oil with attending school represented a struggle faced by approximately 40 other students in our district.

Students are limited to using non-inhalable cannabinoid products, such as edibles or lotions, that can be ingested quickly.

The policy prohibits students from using cannabis recreationally - doing so would result in suspension or expulsion.

However, should the federal government object to this new policy, the district will comply with any cease and desist order to preserve the $7m (4.87m) the schools receive.
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A Peruvian judge has granted an order expelling Scottish drug mule Melissa Reid from the country following her 2013 conviction for attempting to smuggle 1.5m worth of cocaine.

The 22-year-old and Michaella McCollum from North Ireland were sentenced to six years and eight months after pleading guilty to drug smuggling.

They were caught with the 24lb (11kg) haul in food packets hidden in their luggage while trying to get on board a flight to Spain from Lima Airport in August 2013.

They initially claimed they had been forced to carry the drugs but pleaded guilty later that year.

The maximum prison term for drug smuggling in Peru is 15 years but they were given a shorter sentence as part of deal brokered behind closed doors.

The UK Foreign Office has confirmed her deportation but it is likely Reid will have to remain in Peru for another month to fulfil her parole conditions.

A spokeswoman told The Independent: "We can confirm that Melissa Reid has been granted expulsion from Peru.

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"We remain in contact with Melissa, her family and local authorities."

Reid, who was just 19 at the time of her arrest, has served around a third of her sentence and under Peruvian law this makes her eligible to be deported, the BBC reports.

She also paid a fine of 10,000 soles (2082).

McCollum was released last month and is believed to be living in Lima.

Michaella McCollum Connolly, second right, and Melissa Reid, far right, after their arrest for drugs smuggling in Peru

In her first interview following her release, she told Irish broadcaster RTE that she had been "very naive, so young and very insecure".

She said: "A lot of times I didn't know how to say no to somebody.

"I kind of just followed along with it and I guess a part of me kind of wanted to be something I'm not.

"But, simply, I made a decision in my moment of madness."

Reid's father Billy told the Scottish Daily Record that his daughter was sorry for her actions.

Speaking from the family's home in Lenzie, near Glasgow, he said: "Almost three years of our lives have now been spent with this significant burden on our shoulders. It has taken its toll on the whole family.

"While her friends have celebrated their 21st birthdays, graduated from university and had babies, she has been confined to her cell.

"She regrets the predicament she finds herself in, is apologetic for her actions and wants to show that she can be a credit to her family and to make things right".
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Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to introduce public executions by hanging and give police shoot to kill powers.

In his first comments to reporters since winning a landslide election victory on 9 May, Mr Duterte, 71 said: "What I will do is urge Congress to restore [the] death penalty by hanging."

He said he preferred to administer the death penalty by hanging rather than firing squads, because he does not want to waste bullets and considers snapping the spine with a noose more humane.

Executions would be introduced for a range of crimes, particularly those involving drugs, but also for murder, rape and robbery, he added.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The death penalty was abolished in the Philippines in 2006 by then-president Gloria Arroyo.

Mr Duterte, who earned the nickname "The Punisher" for his tough stance on crime while mayor of Davao, also vowed to give security forces shoot to kill powers.

"If you resist, show violent resistance, my order to police [will be] to shoot to kill," he was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

"Shoot to kill for organised crime. You heard that? Shoot to kill for every organised crime."

 Duterte out in front in Philippine election

Human rights groups allege more than a thousand people were killed by death squads linked to Mr Duterte during his time as mayor of Davao.

Human Rights Watch branded him the "Death Squad Mayor" in 2015 and said there was probable cause to indict him.

He previously vowed to kill "drug pushers, hold-up men and do-nothings" and dump the bodies into Manila Bay to "fatten all the fish there".

Mr Duterte has also been given the nickname of "Duterte Harry," a reference to the Clint Eastwood character with little regard for rules, while his inflammatory statements have caused others to call him the "Donald Trump of the East".

He will be sworn into office for a six year term on 30 June.
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A street performer is in a serious condition after her dress caught fire while attempting a candle trick.

The woman, believed to be in her 20s, suffered from burns to her back and leg while performing in Queensbridge Square in Melbourne, according to Ambulance Victoria.

People were alerted to the accident when the woman started screaming and rolling around on the ground.

Sky News reporter Ahron Young, who saw the incident from his office, said of the immediate aftermath: "I cant stress the amount of screaming she was doing, it was terrifying. Ive never heard screaming like that before."

Jack Jopling, 23, who was having lunch with friends in the square when the incident occurred.

"She was effectively balancing candles on her body and I think one fell over and caught on her clothing," Jopling told the Herald Sun.

"Most people thought it was just part of the trick, but then she started screaming."

People were alerted to the accident when the woman started screaming and rolling around on the ground.

More paramedics arriving. People are holding her up pic.twitter.com/enS4p4ky2L  Ahron Young (@AhronYoung) May 16, 2016

Firefighters were called to the scene but onlookers had put ot the flames before they arrived.

The woman was taken by ambulance to the Alfred hospital.
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Campaigners calling for Switzerland to introduce a basic income for its citizens have set a Guinness world record with their campaign just weeks before people go to the polls.

Basic Income Switzerland, which campaigns for all adults in the country to receive an income of at least 2,500 Swiss Francs (1,700) a month regardless of whether people are working or not, set the record by creating the biggest poster on record.

The group laid the 8,115.53 square metre poster out in the Plaine de Plainpalais, Geneva, on Sunday. It weighs a total of seven tonnes and asks the question: What would you do if your income were taken care of?

Recommended Read more Universal basic income goes to public vote in Switzerland

The vote on the basic income will take place on 5 June in a non-binding referendum, following campaigners having submitted a petition of more than 100,000 signatures, which is needed to call a referendum.

Experts have said a minimum income for all citizens would almost certainly require the government to raise taxes, the Local reports. A spokesperson for the group told the news site: What we are seeking in this referendum is that everyone in Switzerland has enough money to exist.

The poster created by the campaign group beat previous record holder Fareed Lafta, whose own effort measured 7,164.78 square meters. Mr Lafta laid the poster out in Karbala, Iraq, in February this year at the Karbala stadium.
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The Italian government is planning to double child benefit payments in an attempt to combat the country's falling birth rates.

In response, Italy's Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin has declared the monthly benefit for lower income families should be doubled from 80 (63) to 160 (126).

She described the steady decline in birth rates as an "apocalypse".

There were only 488,000 babies born in Italy in 2015, a fall of 5 per cent from 2014 when there were 509,000 new babies.

According to World Bank figures, Italy's 2014 birth rate was eight per 1,000 citizens compared to 12 in the UK and 13 in the US.

Ms Lorenzin told the La Repubblica newspaper:"If we carry on as we are and fail to reverse the trend, there will be fewer than 350,000 births a year in 10 years' time, 40% less than in 2010 - an apocalypse.

Surprised by five babies Show all 5 1 /5 Surprised by five babies Surprised by five babies Surprised by five babies Surprised by five babies Surprised by five babies Surprised by five babies

"In five years we have lost more than 66,000 births (per year)... If we link this to the increasing number of old and chronically ill people, we have a picture of a moribund country."

These payments were introduced last year and available for babies born between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2017. The benefit will be available to these families until the child reaches the age of three.

If Ms Lorenzin changes were approved, it would increase government spending by 2.2 billion (1.7 billion).
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lambasted Western countries, claiming they care more about gay and animal rights than the fate of Syrian refugees.

Speaking at a ceremony in north-west Turkey on Friday, Mr Erdogan accused the West of possessing a mindset remnant of slavery and colonialism.

Mr Erdogan said: Shame on those who in the West divert their sensitivity to the so-called freedoms, rights, and law shown in the debate over gay marriage away from Syrian women, children, and innocents in need of aid, Anadolu Agency reports.

Shame on those who divert their sensitivities to the living space of the whales in the seas, seals, [and] turtles away from the right to life of 23 million Syrians. Shame on those who put their security, welfare [and] comforts ahead of other people's struggle to survive.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes Show all 8 1 /8 Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Just a week before he was elected President, he called Erdogan Amberin Zaman, the Turkey correspondent for 'The Economist', a "shameless militant woman disguised under the name of a journalist" after she had asked an opposition leader whether "Muslim society is able to question" the authorities. "Know your place," Erdogan said. "They gave you a pen and you are writing a column in a newspaper. "And then they invite you to a TV channel owned by Dogan media group and you insult at a society of 99 per cent Muslims," he said he said according to Today's Zaman newspaper. Sascha Schuermann/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Turkish people are pictured chanting slogans during an anti-government protest on Taksim square in Istanbul, on 29 June, 2013. The protests were sparked by brutal police action against a local conservation battle to save Istanbul's Gezi Park, and soon turned into nationwide demonstrations against the government. Amid the protests - the worst in Turkey for years - Erdogan accused demonstrators of being "arm-in-arm with terrorism," according to Reuters. "This is a protest organized by extremist elements. We will not give away anything to those who live arm-in-arm with terrorism," he said. GURCAN OZTURK/AFP/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes During last years protests, activists used social media to organise and disseminate information. Several dozen tweeters were arrested following the protests, according to local media reports. Erdogan responded by calling the technology a "menace". "There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society," BBC New reported. Vladimir Astapkovich/RIA Novosti via Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Not helping to allay accusations of authoritarianism, after Turkish police detained 49 people, including well-known business people and those close to the ruling party, Erdeogan ominously told reporter that Turkey "is not a banana republic" that can be affected by unnamed "operations", according to Today's Zaman newspaper. People who are backed by the media and certain funders cannot change this country," he said. "People backed by certain dark gangs both inside and outside Turkey cannot mess with the country's path. They cannot change conditions in Turkey. Turkey is not a country that anyone can launch an operation into. The [Turkish] nation will not allow that. The AK Party, which is governing this nation, will not allow this." Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Friends and relatives of the miners who died in an explosion at the Soma mine are pictured praying following the burial in Soma cemetery of the last body to be recovered from the mine in May 2014. At the time, the then-Prime Minister badly misjudged the Soma mining disaster, in which 301 workers died. He told the relatives of dead and dying miners that "these types of incidents are ordinary things", following allegations that the government had ignored safety concerns about the privately owned mine, the Guardian reported. In his defence, Erdogan recounted in a separate speech a list of mining disasters which occurred abroad, including a British disaster in 1862, and one in America "which has every kind of technology". Oli Scarff/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Palestinians pictured attending Friday noon prayers in a destroyed mosque that was hit by Israeli strikes, in Gaza City. As Prime Minister, Erdogan has condemned Israel, accusing it of deliberately killing Palestinian mothers and warned that the it would "drown in the blood it sheds." Speaking to thousands of supporters during a rally in Istanbul ahead of the 10 August election, Reuters reported him as saying: "Just like Hitler, who sought to establish a race free of all faults, Israel is chasing after the same target." "They kill women so that they will not give birth to Palestinians; they kill babies so that they won't grow up; they kill men so they can't defend their country ... They will drown in the blood they shed," he said. AP Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Amid the worst protests in Turkey for years which had spread across dozens of cities last June, Erdogan accused demonstrators of being "arm-in-arm with terrorism," according to Reuters. A demonstration to halt construction in a park in an Istanbul square grew into mass protests against a heavy-handed police crackdown and what opponents called Erdogan's authoritarian policies. "This is a protest organized by extremist elements," Erdogan said before departing on a trip to North Africa. "We will not give away anything to those who live arm-in-arm with terrorism," he said. Sascha Schuermann/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes In March 2014, Erdogan accused a 15-year-old boy who died from injuries sustained in last year's anti-government protests of being linked to terrorism. Berkin Elvan, who became a symbol of anti-government protests, had gone to pick up bread when he was hit with a teargas canister - sending him into a nine-month coma before he passed away. In a speech broadcast on state TV, Erdogan said of Berkin: "This kid with steel marbles in his pockets, with a slingshot in his hand, his face covered with a scarf, who had been taken up into terror organisations, was unfortunately subjected to pepper gas. How could the police determine how old that person was who had a scarf on his face and was hurling steel marbles with a slingshot in his hand? ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images

Shame on the slavery-and-colonial-era mindsets that set their eyes firstly on incoming refugees' money in their wallets, and jewellery on their arms and necklaces, he added, seemingly referring to Denmarks plan earlier this year to confiscate valuables from incoming refugees to cover the costs of caring for them.

Around 2.7 million Syrians who have fled civil war are being housed in camps inside Turkey.

The Syrian conflict, which has raged since 2011, has driven more than four million people  a sixth of the countrys population  to seek safety in other countries, making it the largest refugee crisis in a quarter century, according to the UN.

The presidents latest anti-West remarks come amid a standoff with the European Union over its demand that Turkey amend its anti-terrorism laws to secure visa-free travel in Europe for Turks.

Additional reporting by Associated Press
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Insurgent Spanish left-wing party Podemos has formed an alliance with other smaller parties to consolidate its support ahead of next months general election.

Podemos will stand under the Unidos Podemos (United We Can) umbrella which also incorporates the smaller United Left, Equo, and other minor leftist parties.

The alliance is a bid to unite scattered left-wing support ahead of a close-fought election where every vote is likely to count in the battle for first place.

Spain faces another general election on 26 June after parties were unable to form a workable governing coalition on the back of results late last year.

At the last general election the smaller socialist United Left (IU) party won just under a million votes  around 4 per cent of those cast.

It however won only two seats out of 350 in the Spanish chamber of deputies because Spains electoral system tends to marginalise the votes of very small parties.

If Podemos had been able to harness IUs support at that election it would have come a strong second place and might have been able to form a coalition government.

The new alliance bodes well for the party, which has repeatedly won its best results in areas such as Barcelona where it has formed alliances with other parties.

In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid Show all 11 1 /11 In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid 'Change' sign at Spanish Podemos march Podemos (We Can) supporters gather at Puerta del Sol square on January 31, 2015 in Madrid, Spain. According to the last opinion polls Podemos (We Can), the anti-austerity left-wing party emerged out of popular movements and officially formed last year, has wider support than the traditional parties of Spain, the Spanish Prime Minister's right-wing party Partido Popular and the main opposition party, the Socialist (PSOE). Spain will hold General Elections this year by the end of November. David Ramos/Getty Images In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid Crowds in Madrid at Spanish Podemos march People hold banners during a march of Podemos (We can) political party on January 31, 2015 in Madrid, Spain. According to the last opinion polls Podemos (We Can), the anti-austerity left-wing party that emerged out of popular movements and officially formed last year, has wider support than the traditional parties of Spain, the Spanish Prime Minister's right-wing party Partido Popular and the main opposition party, the Socialist (PSOE). Spain will hold General Elections this year by the end of November. Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid Podemos (We Can) party member Juan Carlos Moneder Podemos (We Can) party member Juan Carlos Monedero speaks on stage at the end of a march on January 31, 2015 in Madrid, Spain. According to the last opinion polls Podemos (We Can), the anti-austerity left-wing party that emerged out of popular movements and officially formed last year, has wider support than the traditional parties of Spain, the Spanish Prime Minister's right-wing party Partido Popular and the main opposition party, the Socialist (PSOE). Spain will hold General Elections this year by the end of November. Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid Man shaking fist A man shouts slogans as he holds a banners reading "Madrid welcomes you, March for Change" during a Podemos (We Can) party march in Madrid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Tens of thousands of people are marching through Madrids streets in a powerful show of strength by Spains fledgling radical leftist party Podemos (We Can) which hopes to emulate the electoral success of Greeces Syriza party in elections later this year. AP Photo/Andres Kudacki In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid Spanish leftists gather People listens to the Podemos leader's speech as they gather in the main square of Madrid during a Podemos (We Can) party march in Madrid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Tens of thousands of people are marching through Madrids streets in a powerful show of strength by Spains fledgling radical leftist party Podemos (We Can) which hopes to emulate the electoral success of Greeces Syriza party in elections later this year. AP Photo/Andres Kudacki In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid Crowds from above fill Puerta del Sold square People gather in the main square of Madrid during a Podemos (We Can) party march in Madrid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Tens of thousands of people, possibly more, are marching through Madrids streets in a powerful show of strength by Spains fledgling radical leftist party Podemos (We Can) which hopes to emulate the electoral success of Greeces Syriza party in elections later this year. Supporters from across Spain converged onto Cibeles fountain before packing the avenue leading to Puerta del Sol square. Podemos aims to shatter the countrys predominantly two-party system and the March for Change gathered crowds in the same place where sit-in protests against political and financial corruption laid the partys foundations in 2011. AP Photo/Andres Kudacki In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid Republican flags in Madrid People wave Republican and Podemos party flags during a Podemos (We Can) party march in Madrid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Tens of thousands of people possibly more are marching through Madrids streets in a powerful show of strength by Spains fledgling radical leftist party Podemos (We Can) which hopes to emulate the electoral success of Greeces Syriza party in elections later this year. Supporters from across Spain converged onto Cibeles fountain before packing the avenue leading to Puerta del Sol square. Podemos aims to shatter the countrys predominantly two-party system and the March for Change gathered crowds in the same place where sit-in protests against political and financial corruption laid the partys foundations in 2011. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki) In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid Crowds from above fill Puerta del Sold square People gather in the main square of Madrid during a Podemos (We Can) party march in Madrid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Tens of thousands of people, possibly more, are marching through Madrids streets in a powerful show of strength by Spains fledgling radical leftist party Podemos (We Can) which hopes to emulate the electoral success of Greeces Syriza party in elections later this year. Supporters from across Spain converged onto Cibeles fountain before packing the avenue leading to Puerta del Sol square. Podemos aims to shatter the countrys predominantly two-party system and the March for Change gathered crowds in the same place where sit-in protests against political and financial corruption laid the partys foundations in 2011. AP Photo/Andres Kudacki In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid Woman shaking first A woman shouts slogans during a Podemos (We Can) party march in Madrid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Tens of thousands of people are marching through Madrids streets in a powerful show of strength by Spains fledgling radical leftist party Podemos (We Can) which hopes to emulate the electoral success of Greeces Syriza party in elections later this year. AP Photo/Andres Kudacki In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid Puerta del Sold square Podemos (We Can) supporters gather at Puerta del Sol square on January 31, 2015 in Madrid, Spain. According to the last opinion polls Podemos (We Can), the anti-austerity left-wing party emerged out of popular movements and officially formed last year, has wider support than the traditional parties of Spain, the Spanish Prime Minister's right-wing party Partido Popular and the main opposition party, the Socialist (PSOE). Spain will hold General Elections this year by the end of November. David Ramos/Getty Images In Pictures: Spanish leftists Podemos 'March for Change' in Madrid Puerta del Sold square Podemos (We Can) supporters gather at Puerta del Sol square on January 31, 2015 in Madrid, Spain. According to the last opinion polls Podemos (We Can), the anti-austerity left-wing party emerged out of popular movements and officially formed last year, has wider support than the traditional parties of Spain, the Spanish Prime Minister's right-wing party Partido Popular and the main opposition party, the Socialist (PSOE). Spain will hold General Elections this year by the end of November. David Ramos/Getty Images

All opinion polls conducted since the new electoral alliance was firmed have showed Unidos Podemos in a strong second place, significantly up from the general election after consolidating support from smaller parties.

A poll conducted by pollsters JM&A showed the new alliance on 25 per cent compared to 28 per cent for the centre-right PP and 20 per cent for the centre-left PSOE. Ciudadanos, a centre-right liberal party, trails on 17 per cent.

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the right-wing PP (AP)

A survey by Invymark had the party on 24 per cent compared to 30 per cent for the PP and 20 per cent for PSOE. A poll by Netquest also had similar results.

If repeated at an election the mathematics of these results would likely give PSOE and Podemos a parliamentary majority together  though cooperation between the parties has previously stalled because of their differing views on granting an independence referendum for the region of Catalonia.

Over the border in Portugal the centre-left Socialist Party is governing in a similar arrangement with ad hoc support from the Left Bloc, Portugese Communist Party, and Green Party.

At the last general election the Partido Popular came first with 28.7 per cent of the votes, wihle the PSOE came second with 22 per cent.

Podemos came third with 20.7 per cent of the vote, while Ciudadanos trailed with 13.7 per cent.

United Left won 3.7 per cent of the vote, while smaller regionalist parties in Catalonia and the Basque country took the remainder.

The election was the worst result for the two main parties since the restoration of democracy after the death of General Franco and came after years of EU-enforced austerity policies which saw youth unemployment breach 50 per cent.
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Turkish and US-led coalition forces have killed around 27 Isis fighters north of the Syrian city of Aleppo, Turkish media reports.

The Turkish military fired artillery and rocket launchers into Syria while warplanes from the US-led coalition carried out three separate air campaigns on Saturday, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported Monday, citing military sources.

Five fortified defence posts and two gun posts were destroyed, while 27 fighters were killed in areas less than 10km (6.2 miles) from Turkey's border with Syria.

The fighters are reported to have been killed on the verge of firing rockets into Turkey.

Timeline: The emergence of Isis Show all 40 1 /40 Timeline: The emergence of Isis Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2000 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (pictured here) forms an al-Qaeda splinter group in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq. Its brutality from the beginning alienates Iraqis and many al-Qaeda leaders. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2006 Al-Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. strike. Al-Zarqawis successor, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, announces the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2009 Still al-Qaeda-linked ISI claims responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 155 in Baghdad, as well as attacks in August and October killing 240, as President Obama announces troop withdrawal from Iraq in March. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2010 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes head of ISI, at lowest ebb of Islamist militancy in Iraq, which sees last U.S. combat brigade depart. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2012 In Syria, protests (pictured here starting in Daree) have morphed into what president Assad labelled a real war with emergence of a coalition of forces opposed to Assads regime. Syria group Jabhat al-Nusra are among rebel groups who refuse to join, denouncing it as a conspiracy. Bombings targeting Shia areas, killing more than 500 people, spark fears of new sectarian conflict. Sunni Muslims stage protests across country against what they see as increasingly marginalisation by Shia-led government. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2013 Al-Baghdadi renames ISI as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or Isis, as the group absorbs Syrian al-Nusra, gaining a foothold in Syria. In response, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri (Bin Ladens successor) concerned about Isis expansion orders that Isis be dissolved and ISI operations should be confined to Iraq. This order is rejected by al-Baghdadi. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - January Isis fighters capture the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, giving them base to launch slew of attacks further south. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis declares itself the Caliphate, calling itself Islamic State (IS). The group captures Mosul, Iraqs second largest city; Tal Afar, just 93 miles from Syrian border; and the central Iraqi city of Tikrit. These advances sent shockwaves around the world. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Around the same time Isis releases a video calling for western Muslims to join the Caliphate and fight, prompting new evaluations of extremists groups social media understanding. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis take Baiji oil fields in Iraq - giving them access to huge amounts of possible revenue. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August James Foley is executed by the group as concerns grow for second American prisoner, fellow reporter Steven Sotloff. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August Obama authorises U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, helping to stall Isis along with action by Kurdish forces following the deaths of hundreds of Yazidi people on Mount Sinjar. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release video showing Steven Sotloffs murder prompting Western speculation his executioner is same man who killed Mr Foley. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Obama tells us that America will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release a video appearing to show David Haines, who was captured by militants in Syria in 2013, wearing an orange jumpsuit and kneeling in the desert while he reads a pre-prepared script. It later shows what appears to be the aid worker's body. Rex Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Peshmerga fighters scrabble to hold positions in the Diyala province (a gateway to Baghdad) as Isis fighters continue to advance on Iraqi capital. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Aid worker Alan Henning is killed. Self-imposed media blackout refuses to show images of him in final moments, instead focuses upon humanitarian care. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Isis raise their flag in Kobani, which had been strongly defended by Kurdish troops. The victory goes against hopeful western analysis Isis had overextended itself, while alienating much of the Muslim population through the murder of Henning. Victory causes fresh waves of Kurdish refugees arriving in Turkey. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - November American hostage, who embarced values of Islam, Peter Kassig and 14 Syrian soldiers are shown meeting the same fate as other captives. But intelligence agencies will be poring over the apparently significant discrepancies between this and previous films. Seramedig.org.uk Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis has released a video revealing the murder by burning to death of a Jordanian pilot held by the group since the end of December 2014. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have released videos which appear to show the beheading of Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February American aid worker, Kayla Mueller was the last American hostage known to be held by Isis. She died, according to her captors, in an airstrike by the Jordanian air force on the city of Raqqa in Syria, though US authorities disputed this. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have posted a gruesome video online in which they force 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian hostages to kneel on a beach in Libya before beheading them. Egypt vowed to avenge the beheading and launched air strikes on Isis positions. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February The British Isis militant suspected of appearing in videos showing the beheading of Western hostages has been named in reports as Mohammed Emwazi from London. Rex Features Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - March Isis triple suicide attack has killed more than 100 worshippers and hundreds of others were injured after the group members targeted two mosques in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Iraqi forces have claimed victory over Isis in battle for Tikrit and raised the flag in the city. EPA/STR Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan that killed at least 35 people queuing to collect their wages and injured 100 more. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis media arm released a 29-minute video purporting to show militants executing Ethiopian Christians captives. The footage bore the extremist groups al-Furqan media logo and showed the destruction of churches and desecration of religious symbols. A masked fighter made a statement threatening Christians who did not convert to Islam or pay a special tax. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis has been "incapacitated" by a spinal injuries sustained in a US air strike in Iraq. He is being treated in a hideout by two doctors from Isis stronghold of Mosul who are said to be "strong ideological supporters of the group". Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis has also claimed responsibility for killing 300 of Yazidi captives, including women, children and elderly people in Iraq AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis attack on Prophet Mohamed cartoon contest in Texas was its first action on US soil. Two gunmen were shot and killed after launching the attack at the exhibition. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi have been named as the attackers at the Curtis Culwell Centre arena in Garland. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isiss deputy leader, Abu Alaa Afri, a former physics teacher who was thought to have taken charge of the deadly terrorist group, has been killed in a US-led coalition airstrike. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May US special forces have killed a senior Isis leader named as Abu Sayyaf in an operation aiming to capture him and his wife in Syria. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Iran-backed militias are sent to Ramadi by the Iraqi government to fight Isis militants who completed their capture of the city. Government soldiers and civilians were reportedly massacred by extremists as they took control and the army fled. Charred bodies were left littering the city streets as troops clung on to trucks speeding away from the city. Ramadi is the latest government stronghold to fall to the so-called Islamic State, despite air strikes by a US-led international coalition aiming to stop its advance in Iraq and Syria. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis rounded up civilians trapped in Palmyra and forced them to watch 20 people being executed in the historic citys ancient amphitheatre. The Unesco World Heritage site was overrun by militants, threatening the future of 2,000 year-old monuments and ruins. Thousands of Palmyras residents fled but many are still living within the city walls, while the UN human rights office in Geneva said it had received reports of Syrian government forces preventing people from leaving until they retreated from the city. Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May A group of Isis-affiliated fighters have captured a key airport in central Libya. The militants took control of the al-Qardabiya airbase in Sirte after a local militia tasked with defending the facility withdrew from their positions. Affiliates of Isis, already control large parts of Sirte, the birthplace of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and a former stronghold of his supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June The US Air Force has destroyed an Isis stronghold after an extremist let slip their location on social media. According the Air Force Times, General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, said that Airmen at Hulburt Field, Florida, used images shared by jihadists to track the location of their headquarters before destroying it in an airstrike. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Kurdish forces captured a key military base in a significant victory in Raqqa as well as town of Tell Abyad. YPG fighters, backed by US-led airstrikes and other rebels, consolidated their gains, when they seized the key town on the Syria-Turkey border. They are now just 30 miles to the north of Raqqa and have cut off a major supply route deep inside Isis-held territory. Ahmet Silk/Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has released gruesome footage claiming to show the murder of more than a dozen men by drowning, decapitation and using a rocket-propelled grenade as it seeks to boost morale among its fanatical supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has begun carrying out its threat to destroy structures in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, blowing up at least two monuments at the Unesco-protected site as Syrian government troops made advances on the Islamists positions. AFP

Coalition and Turkish forces have recently carried out a series of such strikes to prevent further attacks on the Turkish border town of Kilis, which sits near Isis-controlled territory in Syria and has regularly been hit by rocket attacks in recent weeks.

So far, around 20 people have been killed and almost 70 wounded in rocket fire on Kilis.

Isis has recently suffered a series of military setbacks, including one of its biggest military defeats in Palmyra, which was seized by regime forces backed by Russian air strikes.

"This perverse caliphate is shrinking," the US envoy to the 66-member anti-Isis coalition said on Sunday.

Brett McGurk said the group has been forced to go on the defensive after losing control of their territory.

 Palmyra before ISIS

However, as Isis militants have been pushed back, the group is increasingly turning to terror attacks to keep pressure on the Iraqi government.

The terror group unleashed a wave of suicide attacks and car bombings which left more than 100 people dead in just 24 hours in Baghdad.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Even if you are a regular visitor to the US, Senators Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal may not previously have been on your radar. But if the New England Democrats achieve their aim this summer, many travellers may thank them.

We write in the wake of reports of staggeringly-long lines expected this summer at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening checkpoints in airports across the country, the senators wrote in a letter to Americas domestic carriers.

We call on airlines to take a smart, common sense step to help thwart this growing problem: stop charging checked bag fees during the coming summer.

A simple solution, you might think. For the busiest travel season of the year, carriers can help reduce the number of bags that passengers carry through the security checkpoint. The result: fewer snarl-ups, shorter lines, happier travellers.

As evidence, the senators say: TSA has informed us that checkpoints serving carriers that charge baggage fees see 27 percent more roller bags than checkpoints serving carriers that do not charge such fees. They also note that checked bag fees on domestic flights rose by two-thirds in the five years to 2014.

The root of this problem - if thats what it is - is just a decade old. Checked bag fees were dreamed up not in Atlanta or Chicago or Dallas, but in Exeter. Until 2006 just about every carrier offered passengers the chance to check in a bag free of charge, the only variable being the weight limit. Then the regional airline Flybe, based at the Devon airport, decided to see what would happen when it turned checked baggage from a cost into a revenue opportunity.

Some passengers happily paid the checked bag fee (which began at a very modest 2.50 one-way) and therefore directly contributed to the ground handling, while others were incentivised to act as amateur baggage handlers and reduce the carriers costs.

So successful was the experiment that airlines across the world soon embraced the concept. British Airways held out until 2013, but now happily offers hand-baggage only fares - representing checked bags fee by any other name - on European flights. And the workload of the security staff at the checkpoint has increased commensurately.

In the US, slow lines have been exacerbated by cutbacks in TSA budgets. So you might imagine that the well-meaning senators have come up with a splendid way to reduce the tens of thousands of people in a typical week who miss their flights due to long waits at security at American airports.

But the airlines will do everything they can to fight such a move. Earnings from checked bags constitute ancillary revenue, and comprise an increasingly important part of any airlines profitability. Even Southwest, which allows two free bags, is against the idea - because it will lose a key point of difference.

A deeper reason for rejecting the idea is that it treats only the worst of the symptoms rather than the causes of the problem. Good aviation security requires investment in sophisticated equipment, and recruiting plenty of talented staff at better than minimum wage.

The long-term solution could be Smart Security, a joint project by the airlines global organisation, IATA, and Airports Council International. In a decade from now you and I could be strolling through a corridor barely aware that a wall of technology is assessing the threat we might offer.

Until that happy day, I shall carry on carrying on. The cash saving is welcome, but more importantly the chance that a bag will be mishandled is dramatically reduced when you are the baggage handler.
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Indian summer

A revived cut-price link from Heathrow to New York will be available from 15 August, when Air India resumes flights three times a week on the world's leading intercontinental air route. The service to Newark airport is a continuation of the flight from Ahmedabad to Heathrow, and uses a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. airindia.com

Take off for Berlin

This winter Cardiff gets its only direct link to Berlin, when Flybe launches its new route to the German capitals Tegel airport. The flights start on 2 November, with departures on Wednesday and Saturday. flybe.com

New rooms for New York

The William Vale opens in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on 11 July. Details of the luxury boutique hotels decor are under wraps, but it will have a roof terrace with New Yorks longest hotel pool, a restaurant with Manhattan views and balconies in every bedroom. thewilliamvale.com

Bosphorus to Bogota

Turkish Airlines is expanding the route network from its hub in Istanbul, with a triangular flight to Bogota and Panama City - out to the Colombian capital, a short hop north-west to the Panamanian capital, and then back to Turkey. Fares from UK provincial airports look very competitive, e.g. 586 return from Birmingham to Bogota for early December. turkishairlines.com

Luxury lodgings

CoolStays.com, which specialises in unusual holiday rentals, has created a new luxury collection, which features more than 60 new properties, as well as existing options from the site. CoolStays Deluxe includes a high-end Scottish croft, and an artist-owned villa on Mykonos. coolstays.com/deluxe

Be well

Kuoni is now offering wellness holidays centred around yoga, fitness, stress management and more, through a partnership with specialist company Wellbeing Escapes. Trips include a weight-loss and detox retreat in Thailand and wellbeing boosters in Cyprus. kuoni.co.uk

Epic tale

A new, large-scale open-air show opens in County Durham this summer. Set against the backdrop of Auckland Castle, Kynren  An Epic Tale of England will feature pyrotechnics, special effects and real animals to dramatise 2,000 years of history, from Roman times and Viking invasions to the Industrial Revolution and Second World War. It opens on 2 July, with 14 performances planned. elevenarches.org/kynren
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Q With Germany lifting the ban on flights to Sharm el Sheikh, will the UK do the same - and how long will it take for things to get back to normal?

Name withheld

A On 31 October, Russian aircraft flying from Egypts main resort to St Petersburg crashed in the Sinai Desert. It is believed that a bomb was placed aboard the plane while it was on the ground at Sharm el Sheikh airport. Shortly afterwards, a number of countries - including Britain - banned flights by UK airlines to and from the airport, until security measures improve.

The Egyptian government, faced with a the loss of one of the countrys main sources of earnings, has poured millions of pounds into enhanced security. Privately a number of aviation security figures have said that standards at Egypts airports are now much higher than at many locations in the developing world. The Egyptian authorities say that Germany has now lifted its ban on flights to Sharm el Sheikh, and that the UN World Tourism Organization is calling for the lifting of any unnecessary flight bans on travel for tourists.

British officials from the Foreign Office and the Department for Transport have been in Egypt to assess changes, but despite rumours of an imminent lifting of the ban, nothing has so far happened.

The Foreign Office says: We will continue working with the Egyptian authorities to enable regular flights between the UK and Sharm el Sheikh to resume. We are also liaising with travel companies so that they are able to resume flights and holidays in Sharm el Sheikh as soon as appropriate security arrangements are in place.

Even if the ban is lifted tomorrow, it is unlikely to have an immediate, dramatic effect. Airlines have redeployed their planes and crews ahead of the busy summer season. While some flights are likely to be scheduled, the numbers will be far lower than last summer.

Egypts main tourist season is winter. Holiday companies, airlines and the many Egyptians who depend on tourism for their livelihoods will be hoping for a reversal of the no-fly rule in time for plans to be made from October onwards.

Every day, our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a readers question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder
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When Jon and Nicole Grant returned from Canada, they set about creating the coolest cafe they could think of. And you certainly can't miss the bright facade of The Beached Lamb Cafe, which beckons you into what is a quirky and inviting little venue situated midway between Fistral and Towan beaches in the heart of Newquay. To the backdrop of funky soundtracks, some bizarre lamb-themed memorabilia and a showcase of local artwork, you can enjoy decent coffee (topped by Jon's excellent coffee art), hearty cuisine with a vegan and veggie slant and some of the best cocktails in town. Not only are there comfy sofas encouraging you to kick back, there's also an entire chill-out lounge with bean-bags and floor-level tables, so you can be almost horizontal for hangover breakfasts and lazy, early evening drinking sessions if you like. Food comes in man-sized portions packed with flavour, from delicious veggie burgers and falafels to Canadian-style chips with mozzarella and gravy. However, while the food is excellent, it's the drinks menu that steals the show, from peanut butter and banana milkshakes to the lip-puckering mojitos that this place is famous for. All in all its a perfect place for both veggies and carnivores to get together in celebration of National Vegetarian Week, which starts today.

Cool Places is a new website from the creators of Rough Guides and Cool Camping, suggesting the best places to stay, eat, drink and shop in Britain (coolplaces.co.uk)
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Assuming there will be no Bill to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 in the next session of parliament, there seems little prospect of the Queens Speech whetting the appetite of Tory MPs ravenous for the red meat of Thatcherite radicalism.

At this stage in the Parliament, early enough to build a political recovery in time for the 2020 election, more might have been expected. Yet, on the evidence of the leaks so far, David Cameron and his ministers will be offering few structural change to the economy, for example. Major measures on the NHS and privatisation are conspicuous by their absence, even compared with the record of the Coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. There will, it seems, be a Bill to promote academisation of schools, but this will be a much-watered down version of the previous plan to compulsorily change the governance of every local authority school in the land. This particular U-turn was, wisely, executed before the legislation was given its first reading. It will be a signal that the prime minister wishes to revert, post-EU referendum, to a more consensual and centrist brand of Conservatism: a quieter life, in a way.

He may have taken a glance at the highly unsuccessful dog whistle Conservative campaign for the London mayoralty, as well as his partys disappointing poll ratings to make a renewed bid to recover the centre ground. With the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party, and the relative weakness of his Liberal Democrat opponents, Mr Cameron knows he has an opportunity to consolidate the image of pragmatic, compassionate Conservatism.

Even the proposed new British Bill of Rights, potentially very controversial as it threatens to undermine the basic human rights, is reduced to the status of a consultation exercise  presumably because the Government realises that it is an unworkable proposal that needs someone very clever indeed outside the ranks of the civil service to try and make it into a feasible form. Having rights return to British courts whilst still allowing the European Court of Human Rights to remain the supreme arbiter is a tricky task. Good luck with that, the Queen may well think to herself as she reads that particular passage out. The Government also deserves a rough time in trying to limit the power of the Lords to revise bad laws, a spiteful act that spoils this Queens Speech.

Many of Mr Camerons other proposals will win very broad, if not universal support. Prime among these will be a radical overhaul of the care system to double the number of children placed in adoptive families. The idea of a covenant giving children in care new rights until they are 25 is also extremely welcome, giving specialist help to young people to locate a home and a job. There will also be a new social care watchdog created to monitor the performance of local authorities. With all that has happened in childrens care over the decades, it is shaming that it has taken this long to create such a body.

Prison reform is also well overdue, and we will see Michael Gove apply his reforming instincts to this area, as he has, with mixed results, to the education sector. The new reform prisons echo free schools in awarding prison governors greater autonomy over management and budgets. Prison may or may not work in reducing crime, but it has little chance if prisons themselves are insecure, unsafe and gripped by drug abuse.

There are plenty of other talking points, too  not least driverless vehicles, which could revolutionise personal transport and goods haulage in the way the internal combustion engine did decades ago. But this, and much else, is about government as management, not as an ideological crusade. The country should be grateful for that mercy; Mr Camerons opponents will be less pleased with his studied moderation.
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EU negotiators are determined to protect products like Feta cheese from the grip of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Currently there is a row between the USA and the EU over what you can and cant call Feta cheese under the controversial trade agreement TTIP. The USA refuses to appease European wishes to ban the sale of any American products labelled Feta, Gorgonzola or Champagne. Only products made in certain geographgical regions can be sold under these original names according to EU regulations.

In fact, so strong are views of the French when it comes to food, that French President Francois Hollande threatened to veto TTIP if this issue is not resolved stating: We will never accept questioning essential principles for our agriculture.

This national pride and protectionism doesnt seem to have spread to this side of the Channel however. Despite being one of the cornerstones of British identity, David Cameron has failed to take such defensive measures over the NHS.

Belgium: Anti-TTIP protesters rally in Brussels

TTIP threatens the NHS with irreversible privatisation. Once the deal is signed the UK government will be powerless to stop it. Cameron has attempted to quash the growing concerns over the trade deals impact on the NHS by describing the genuine threat TTIP poses to the NHS as the reddest of red Herrings.

He even went as far as making the unbelievable claim that the NHS was completely protected from TTIP. If this was the case why has the government consistently refused to make public the legal advice it has received on the NHS and TTIP?

The reality is that David Camerons assurances over the NHS have more holes in them than Swiss cheese. Unite has received two separate legal opinions which show the threat TTIP poses to the NHS and unlike the government we have made that advice public for all to see. One of Britains top lawyers in European law, Michael Bowsher QC, went as far to say that TTIP poses a real and serious threat to the NHS.

Recommended Read more It is time to blow the whistle on the faith schools that fail children

The people of this country do not believe that the NHS belongs in a US trade deal. Unite met the most senior European Commission lawyer responsible for TTIP  he too was unable to give us the guarantees that the British people want. How on earth can David Cameron claim the NHS is protected from TTIP when those responsible for drafting the TTIP texts cant or wont give the British people that categorical guarantee?

Protecting the NHS is straightforward. David Cameron can tell the Commission to protect the NHS just like Greece can call for Feta cheese to be protected. Other European countries have secured exemptions. If the French can protect their film industry from the trade deal, the UK can do the same with the NHS.

Its time for David Cameron to say hard cheese to US healthcare and refuse to hand over the keys to our hospitals and GP surgeries.

Gail Cartmail is Unite assistant general secretary
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In the UK, there are now more children being educated in faith schools than at any point in history. The stream of letters, emails, and phone calls we receive at the British Humanist Association about the problems people face in religious schools has never been greater.

One former pupil of a fundamentalist Christian school tells of how identifying as gay can typically result in (at best) punishment and (at worst) expulsion and/or public shaming, while another at a private Muslim school reveals that her school expelled students who were accused of being gay. An ex-Charedi Jew states that in the illegal, unregistered school he attended physical punishment was commonplace and the atmosphere was one of perpetual fear. And one former member of the Jehovahs Witness community says of his blinkered education: I was left totally unprepared for the real world... my choices were severely limited.

Recommended Read more The life of Mustafa Badreddine tells the history of the Middle East

The problems are not exclusive to children raised within religious communities. These practices can also harm children who exist outside of these groups. One student recognised that his Church of England primary was excellent in many ways, and that he broadly remembers being very happy there, however he recalled the treatment of one boy from a Muslim family in his year: Being a faith school, we had religious assemblies, and being from a Muslim family, Ali was not allowed to attend them. He sat in a room adjoining the hall during these gatherings. I have a very clear memory of seeing him peering through the glass into the hall, trying to see if assembly was over. Could there be any clearer image to reinforce the notion that Ali was not fully one of us?

These experiences are inevitable symptoms of an education system that is overly deferential to the influence of religion in our schools. When it is not granting religious organisations specific exemptions from equalities legislation and bestowing upon them broad legal freedoms to indoctrinate, misinform, and discriminate against children, it is a system which consistently turns a blind eye to the spectacular failure of many religious schools to provide a balanced education and imbue their pupils with curiosity and reason, and the values of tolerance, civic engagement, and respect.

It remains the case that far too many people are unaware of just how badly some of these schools fail their pupils. All over the country there are children whose education is being severely limited, whose understanding of the world is being fatally undermined, and whose individuality and identity are being constrained.

This is the issue that Faith Schoolers Anonymous, our new campaign for current and former faith school pupils, will help to address. It is vital that their experiences find their way to the publics attention.

Faith Schoolers Anonymous is for everyone who has experienced these problems, or is going through them now. If you have a story worth sharing, do send it to us, and if you have a problem that needs resolving, please get in touch. Were here to help, to provide support, and to give voice to the people whose stories must be told if change is ever going to come.

Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, on the launch of the new blogging site Faith Schoolers Anonymous
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I applaud Boris Johnson for his sincerity, straightforwardness, and at the same time laud those who accuse him of being a hysterical farce. This is what makes a healthy democracy. I personally found the debates to be concrete, emphatic, informative and inspiring. Both belligerent parties are evoking history, transcending beyond times, cultures and communities, using linguistics as a potent weapon to reach out to wide swathes of potential voters. This is a genuine democracy, when the country will have the opportunity to showcase its democratic credentials, and when people will exercise their democratic rights in free and fair elections away from tanks, military personnel and the barrels of guns; a far cry from the referendum on the Crimean annexation, and other elections elsewhere where there were marred with shootings, assassinations, detentions, vote rigging and electoral fraud.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London

What has Mr Cameron told us about the future of the U.K. economy? We will be better off in a reformed EU.

Perhaps so, but the big problem here is the word reformed. That will not happen in a way which will ensure that the UK will be better off. It will only happen in a manner already laid down in the treaties, to which we are signatory, of Rome, Lisbon and Maastricht.

We will have free trading access to the 500 million population of the E.U.  true but then what of the other six thousand million population of the rest of this planet? Whilst we are members of the EU we are allowed to trade with non-EU countries only with the permission of and regulated by the EU. Also for large trade deals we are required to offer the other 27 EU states a-part-in-the-deal.

Mr Abe of Japan, Mr Obama of the USA, Mrs Lagarde of the IMF and others have all said that Brexit will be bad for our economy. Read their words carefully and you will see that the same words, constructions and phrases used by Mr Cameron when he opened his side of the debate. Now Mark Carney of the Bank of England has offered a second talk using the same hymn sheet, but did slip in a quiet note to say that The Bank of England followed government policy. You must forgive me for thinking that these were invitations to read the same script.

Financial advisers offer this caveat If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Plagiarised this could read If a caution seems to bad to be true, it probably is.

This confidence trick is wearing very thin indeed.

D. M. Loxley

North Yorkshire

Birthday shenanigans

In a supposed age of austerity (which an increasing number of political commentators are calling a Tory myth to control us), am I the only one who finds the Queen's 90th birthday shenanigans quite offensive? These people live off us and do not pay their full share of taxes. I am not impressed and I have no respect for them.

R Kimble

Hawksworth

Pope Pius XII

Robert Fisk repeats the familiar line that Pope Pius XII failed in his duty to denounce the Nazis for the persecution of the Jews (Europe's Catholic leaders are undoing the Pope's good work on the migrant crisis, Friday 13 May). As an atheist I have no great interest in defending the Vatican (quite the reverse). However, I have just read Michael Winterbottom's short book Pius XII, A Saint in the Making which, although obviously written with the intention of clearing the Pope's name, does make a good case. For example, in 1937 as Cardinal he wrote an encyclical, With Burning Anxiety, based on discussions with German Bishops which condemned Nazi antisemitism and racism. In 1942 as Pope he broadcast a Christmas message that prompted the response from the Reich Main Security Office: God, [the Pope] says, regards all people and races as worthy of the same consideration. Here he is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews. Then, in 1943, as the Nazis began transporting Jews from Rome, the Pope instructed all convents, church buildings and monasteries to be opened to Jewish refugees. Apparently, some 1,500 Jews were hidden at Castel Gandalfo. My husband's great aunt was working at Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome at this time and helped to hide Jews there. Probably because she was English and not a nun herself, she was herself subsequently sought by the Germans and successfully hidden by nuns. As I say, I'm no great fan of the Vatican but I wonder whether this particular Pope has been unfairly criticised, and whether we now lazily and unfairly accept and repeat that criticism.

Beryl Wall

London

School holidays

Dr Draggett (Letters, 15th May) should recognise that parents do not, as taxpayers, pay for their own children's education. Instead, they pay into a common fund for the education of all children. Those of us who have no children also pay into this fund; not pure altruism, but our responsibility under an implicit social contract. The corollary is that parents have a responsibility to co-operate with the school authorities to ensure best value for our investment, and I do not see how this can be achieved if timetables need to be varied to accommodate every child whose parents take them on term-time holidays.

Paul Brett

Stafford
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Unlike my colleague Sean OGrady, I love Eurovision. When, on Saturday evening, my wife turned to me and said that she wished I was representing the UK in Stockholms fabulous music-fest, it was possibly the best thing she has ever said to me. Not that Id be any good. Then again, given the UKs perennial position towards the bottom of the points table, I presumably wouldnt do much worse than any other Joe, Jake or Harry.

However, while I was soaking up the annual squall of Euro-campery, a piece Sean had written on Friday about the contest appeared to have created its own storm in one corner of the continent. His article for The Independent website, headlined I hate Eurovision  its corrupt and borderline racist, was a personal appeal against the contests record of politically-motivated voting and the perceived stereotyping by some of its UK fans of the other participating nationalities. To illustrate his point, the piece ended with an ironic description of Albanians being laughed at by facile, xenophobic Eurovision viewers, who would merrily find that nation intrinsically funny  even the mafia, the people smugglers and the drug dealers.

In a humorous piece which castigated the casual racism of the Eurovision thing it ought to have been clear that this description of Albania was not intended to be serious. It certainly wasnt suggesting either that the country was a joke or, to the contrary, that all Albanians are criminals. But not everyone got the rhetoric.

 7 most bizarre moments in Eurovision history

This literalist approach on the part of readers cant be blamed entirely on the internet. There have been plenty of occasions when Ive received complaints about print articles which were taken completely, and unwisely, at face value. But the web has increased the potential for misunderstandings. For a start, readers will often dip and out of various publications, reading a piece here and an article there. They may, as a result, have less sense of a single publishers output as a curated whole. A single item can therefore be viewed without the wider context of the publishers general approach, or even the specific writers usual MO. Into this vacuum fall myriad assumptions about intention.

Pitfalls are deepened by the way material is shared online. If one reader mischaracterises an article on Twitter or Facebook, others pile in  sometimes without reading the piece for themselves. Misinterpretations become self-perpetuating: remember memes dont have to be true to be effective.

I wonder too whether the seemingly endless distrust and disparagement of the mainstream media plays into the desire to find offence where none has been offered. In the prevailing narrative, journalists are regarded as anything from duff mavericks to establishment whipping-boys  untrustworthy either way. And just as establishment politics has been shaken up by the populist appeal of seeming outsiders like Trump, Corbyn or even Johnson, so there is a feeling that people power can crush the hated MSM.

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That granular egalitarianism is all to the good in theory. Its problem in practice is that it pays no heed to nuance, or even to facts. So a journalist describes a nation in ironic terms to make a rhetorical point about the nastiness of casual racism, but is then accused of being a racist. Likewise, to take the Brexit debate as a political example, inners can warn of the complex financial hazards of a vote to leave, only to discover that all people are really interested in is whether the EU has developed an institutional goosestep and toothbrush moustache.

The internet is a wonderful thing  yet its paradox is that by offering endless information, it has levelled the playing field between truth, however nuanced, and falsity, however rank. It is as much a friend to the era of conspiracy it sometimes feels we are entering, as to the age of reason to which we must surely cling.

Irony and sarcasm, when used appropriately, are essential rhetorical devices; and we wont be dispensing with them in favour of a kind of base literalism simply for fear of causing the occasional misapprehension. Mind you, when it comes to Albanians, Ive never met one that wasnt charming.
Bob Geldof of The Boomtown Rats on stage during Self-Aid benefit concert in the RDS, 17/05/1986 (Part of the Independent Newspapers Ireland/NLI Collection).

Who would have thought it? It has been 30 years since Bob Geldof's Self Aid concert hit the stage at the RDS, Dublin.

The event, fronted by the Boomtown Rats, was described as the "greatest celebration of popular music the country had ever seen".

Organised by Tony Boland, the gig pledged to fight the staggering unemployment rates for young people in Ireland at the time by raising funds and creating jobs.

Statistics from the Irish Independent painted a pretty grim picture for Irish youth in 1986; 71, 260 of under 25s were unemployed, with 17.3 of the overall workforce in the same situation.

Expand Close Bob Geldof of The Boomtown Rats on stage during Self-Aid benefit concert in the RDS, 17/05/1986 (Part of the Independent Newspapers Ireland/NLI Collection). / Facebook

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Whatsapp Bob Geldof of The Boomtown Rats on stage during Self-Aid benefit concert in the RDS, 17/05/1986 (Part of the Independent Newspapers Ireland/NLI Collection).

With 30,000 people in attendance, 12 hours of continuous music and nearly 30 bands, the concert was a raging success but particularly poignant one for Geldof and The Rats for whom it was their final show until they reformed 27 years later.

The line up included U2, Van Morrison, Christy Moore, Chris de Burgh, Rory Gallagher, In Tua Nua, The Pogues and Thin Lizzy fronted by Bob Geldof, as well as the Boomtown Rats.

Expand Close Bob Geldof of The Boomtown Rats on stage during Self-Aid benefit concert in the RDS, 17/05/1986 (Part of the Independent Newspapers Ireland/NLI Collection). / Facebook

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As they played their final song, Geldof saluted the crowd and signed off saying Its been a very good 10 years. Thank you very much. Rest in peace.

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Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan has denied accusing a whistle-blower in her ranks of being malicious.

The police chief broke her silence amid deepening political pressure over allegations that her lawyers launched an attack on Sergeant Maurice McCabe during private hearings in the O'Higgins Commission.

"Like every member of An Garda Siochana, Sergeant Maurice McCabe's contribution is valued and the service has changed for the better in response to the issues about which he complained," she said.

"I want to make it clear that I do not - and have never, regarded Sergeant McCabe as malicious."

The Commissioner issued the statement after demands for her to respond the claims in a report on unpublished documents from the inquiry by The Irish Examiner.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin and other opposition TDs called for her to answer, as well as Labour leader and former tanaiste Joan Burton who said there was no law stopping her from explaining the allegations.

The Commissioner insisted she had been advised not to disclose what was said in the inquiry.

"I have consistently and without exception, within An Garda Siochana and in public, stated clearly that dissent is not disloyalty, that we must listen to our people at every level with respect and with trust, and that we stand to gain, rather than lose, when members bring to our attention practices they believe to be unacceptable," she said.

The Commissioner added: "Any member of An Garda Siochana who raises issues will be fully supported. Each and every one of them must know they have the right and responsibility to raise their concerns and be confident that they will be listened to and addressed.

"They won't always be right and we in management won't always be right either.

"But we are on a journey towards a markedly better policing service and we will learn from every mistake we make."

Sgt McCabe's reports on bad policing, negligence and wrongdoing among officers in Bailieboro and the Cavan-Monaghan district were examined by the O'Higgins Commission.

The vast majority of them were proven with the worst case involving the murder of Sylvia Roche Kelly. She was murdered by Jerry McGrath in late 2007 while he was out on bail for a savage assault on a taxi driver and after being caught attempting to abduct a five-year-old girl from a house.

Whole commission chair, retired judge Kevin O'Higgins, said while some of the information in some reports made by Sgt McCabe were exaggerated he also found him to be credible, truthful, a man of integrity and "understandably" living in fear that colleagues were attempting to blame him for the negligence of others.

The Commissioner said she accepts the report in full.

And she apologised to people who were faced with mistakes, wrongdoing and attempted cover-ups by gardai.

"Our immediate concern, arising out of the O'Higgins Commission, must be with victims who believe - with justification, they were not dealt with properly by An Garda Siochana. We are sorry the victims did not get the service they were entitled to, and we will seek to work with them," the Commissioner said.
Inspectors warned the biggest problems for travellers include poor or non-existent bin collection, a lack of clean water and drainage, flooding and sewage issues, damp, and water ingress

One of Europe's top rights watchdogs has warned Ireland over the lack of accommodation for travellers and poor living conditions at halting sites.

In the midst of one of the country's worst housing crises, inspectors upheld five complaints against the state and dismissed nine.

They warned the biggest problems for travellers include a lack of clean water and drainage, poor or non-existent bin collection, flooding and sewage issues, damp, and water ingress.

The European Committee of Social Rights, part of the 47-member Council of Europe, examined traveller accommodation after a complaint was lodged by European Roma Rights Centre in 2013.

It alleged insufficient housing, discrimination and breaches of education rights of children.

The watchdog said the Government was told in 1995 that 1,000 halting sites were needed but only 54 had been created in five council regions.

It said 361 families still lived on unauthorised sites in 2013.

The committee said the "not insignificant number" of halting sites were in poor condition, lacked maintenance and are badly located.

Some have no flush toilets, running water or postal and rubbish services and are far from shops and amenities, it said.

The committee also criticised Ireland's public order laws which it said do not adequately protect travellers threatened with eviction or notify them of a time to leave.

The legislation is designed to stop unlawfully occupied property being damaged but the committee said it does not justify a lack of safeguards for people who are in "genuine need of a home".

The committee said the requirement for less than 24 hours' notice for an eviction is unacceptable.

And while it accepted the Government's response that "in practice" evictees get more than a day, it said that was insufficient.

The committee dismissed nine other claims including that the lack of suitable accommodation was a direct discrimination of travellers and that the right to education was affected by the lack of adequate halting sites.

"Ireland has adopted a co-ordinated approach ... to remove obstacles to access for housing for Travellers," the report said.

"The measures taken are monitored and consultation is ongoing on improving outcomes for the Traveller community."

It also criticised the lack of legal aid for travellers to fight evictions and the limited access to judicial review.

The European Social Charter, monitored by the committee, is a legally binding counterpart to the European Convention on Human Rights.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a report published on Friday, said that Britain risks falling into a cycle of weaker economic growth and lower house and share prices if voters choose to leave the European Union on June 23rd.

The report also noted that a vote for exit would precipitate a protracted period of heightened uncertainty, leading to financial market volatility, and a hit to output. Such market reactions, they continued, could sharply contract economic activity, further depressing asset prices in a self-reinforcing cycle. The warnings were contained within an annual report by the Fund on Britains economy.

Seasonally adjusted gross domestic product for the 19-member eurozone grew by 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2016. This was a downward revision from the previous preliminary flash estimate of 0.6 percent announced in April. Compared with the first quarter of 2015, GDP growth of 1.5 percent was registered from January to March of this year. GDP expanded in all euro zone countries which provided data except Greece and Latvia. The lowering of the estimate comes despite a strong performance from Germany, the biggest economy in the EU, which had its strongest performance in two years. Germanys GDP grew by 0.7 percent for the first quarter of the year, which was ahead of most estimates.

Meanwhile, in the US, retail sales rose strongly, recording their biggest increase in a year. The surge in sales was led by automobiles, and nonstore retailers, which include shopping websites such as Amazon.com. The data suggests that the economy is regaining some momentum after weak growth in the first quarter. The US dollar hit a two-week high versus a basket of currencies, with the greenback having its best 2 week performance since February as the market speculated whether the Fed is still on track to raise rates before any other major central bank.

In other data released stateside, the University of Michigan Index of Consumer sentiment showed that consumers were feeling more optimistic this month as expectations for future growth hit highs for the year. The index of Consumer Sentiment showed a reading of 98.8 in May, its highest level since June 2015.

Overnight, Asian equities were modestly ahead led primarily by buoyant Japanese stocks which helped to alleviate some of the gloom from soft Chinese data - Chinese investment, factory output and retail sales all missed forecasts.

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The tie-up between Apple and Chinese car-hailing app Didi started off with a joke. Didi president Jean Liu said talks began less than a month ago when she stopped by to see Tim Cook at Apple headquarters in California.

Any company named after a fruit "could achieve something big", she jested during the April 20 meeting. Didi's legal name, Xiaoju Kuaizhi Inc., means 'little orange', she explained.

The $1bn (884m) deal was announced just 22 days later. Liu, a former Goldman Sachs Group banker, frequently meets with tech executives when she visits the US. She didn't go into the meeting to ask for capital, but rather to discuss the China market and opportunities for co-operation. "The whole deal closed in lightning speed," Liu said. "We were very impressed by Tim. He's an amazing, iconic leader."

There's much to gain on both sides. Didi, battling with Uber for supremacy in China, will get additional capital to expand into new cities, recruit drivers and market to potential customers. The Apple investment will bring the amount Didi is raising in its current round of funding to $3bn, sources said.

Apple gets a potentially lucrative investment and wins powerful allies in one of its most important markets. Didi is backed by China's two largest internet companies, Alibaba and Tencent Holdings. They could help Apple market Apple Pay and other services, as well as giving it experience in transportation as it weighs an entry into cars.

Signing Apple as a strategic investor is partly aimed at thwarting investors from putting money into Uber, a source said. Didi is targeting a valuation of $26bn, which would make Didi the forth-most valuable start-up in the world after Uber, Xiaomi and Airbnb, according to research firm CB Insights.

Didi has been waging battle with Uber ever since it was created early last year through the merger of start-ups backed by Tencent and Alibaba. The two sides were engaged in brutal competition with each other and rival apps before deciding to combine, in part to repel the US start-up. The combined company, then known as Didi Kuaidi, held a near monopoly on taxi-hailing and a majority of private-car bookings.

Last May, Didi announced it would give away 1 billion yuan (135m) in free rides, the first salvo in a price war with Uber that would cause both sides to burn through cash. Uber refused to back down. In June, chief executive Travis Kalanick wrote a letter to investors, explaining the strategic importance of the market and pledging to invest $1bn in the market that year alone.

Over the summer, both sides pushed to attract the cash necessary to finance their operations. Uber raised about $1.4bn for its China operations, including from search giant Baidu. Didi ended up raising about $3bn from Alibaba, Tencent, Japan's SoftBank and Ping An Insurance. The tricks haven't been limited to price competition. In August, Uber complained it had been blocked from using WeChat, China's top messaging service. WeChat is owned by Didi investor Tencent.

Didi, meanwhile, recruited allies. In December, it entered into a four-way alliance with ride-sharing services that compete with Uber, including Lyft in the US. Liu, daughter of the founder of the world's largest PC maker Lenovo, said the Chinese start-up is now in discussions on working with Apple in sectors including technology, marketing and products. "It feels very natural to work with Apple together because philosophically on a company level we share a lot in common," she said.

The iPhone maker will help Didi build up a ride-sharing platform that already handles more than 11 million rides a day and serves about 300 million users across China. Didi operates in 400 Chinese cities with 14 million registered drivers, offering services from taxis and private cars to social ride sharing and test driving.

"It's only natural that two fruit companies team up," Liu said.
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has this morning welcomed Ryanairs battle against Brexit.

Mr Osborne officially opened Ryanairs new training centre, in Stansted, where the airline has installed four flight simulators that will train its pilots. The airline intends to create about 1,000 more jobs this year, as it swells its ranks of pilots, cabin crew and engineers.

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Ryanair boss Michael OLeary called on UK voters to stay with the European Union in next months referendum. He said the type of investment the airline unveiled this morning would be lost to the UK if leaves the trading bloc.

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It is exactly this type of investment that will be lost to other competitor EU members if the UK votes to leave the European Union, he said. We are calling on everyone to turn out in large numbers and vote Remain on the 23rd June. I am absolutely certain that the UK economy is better off in Europe.

Mr Osborne said that British jobs and livelihoods benefit directly from being in the EU.

As Ryanair recognise, were stronger, safer and better off in the European Union, he said.
The rundown: On an anchored boat on the Thames one foggy night, Charles Marlow tells his fellow crewmen about his time captaining a riverboat up the Congo for a Belgian ivory company in search of the mysterious Mr Kurtz. Kurtz, Marlow learned, is an enigmatic polymath in charge of an ivory-trading post deep in the jungle who has established himself as a god-like figure among the native African inhabitants.

Through various setbacks and delays  including the sabotage of his boat  Marlows journey upriver to Kurtzs camp is delayed, leading him to ponder the much-mythologised man who has taken ill and must be retrieved from his jungle throne back to the Company. But the entire voyage on water and foot also show Marlow the true nature of European colonial greed as dying slaves lie under trees and the continents resources are ravaged.

NEED TO KNOW: Joseph Conrads obfuscating novella is more than just an excoriating look at European exploitation of and brutality towards African colonies. Much like the jungle that Marlow so vividly describes as opening itself to allow him in before closing in over the river behind him, Heart of Darkness is a journey into the self and an examination of the moral compass.

Famously adapted for celluloid by screenwriter John Milius and director Francis Ford Coppola in 1979s Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness has captivated readers for a century as its shape keeps changing with the turning world. Kurtz (played unforgettably by Marlon Brando in Coppolas film) is a voice to Marlow for much of the slim novel, a seductive monster who symbolises the dark, corrupt side of Europe and Marlow himself.

THE END: As repairs to the boat drag on, the cult of Kurtz builds in Marlows imagination. Eventually, Marlow and the pilgrims reach Kurtzs camp, dodging arrow fire and sweating to the sound of distant tribal drums. There, Marlow meets the prone and fevered Kurtz as well as a Russian wanderer who has given himself wholly to Kurtzs ideological kingdom. Marlow sees the open idolatry Kurtz is held in but also his fragility. He brings Kurtz on board the steam ship and brings him back downriver. Before he dies, Kurtz gasps one of literatures most infamous final lines: The horror! The horror!

THE VERDICT: Heart of Darkness marks an awakening of Europe to the barbarity that imperialism was inflicting on Africa. It has since been studied endlessly, both for Conrads transgressive themes of colonialism, man vs nature and corporate greed, while in terms of atmosphere, claustrophobia and mystique, it is hard to beat. Not everyone, however, is such a fan. Nigerian laureate Chinua Achebe accused the novella of being xenophobic and dehumanising while EM Forster was left cold by Conrads foggy narrative.

DID YOU KNOW? Conrad, a Russian-born Pole who wrote in English after mastering it in his 20s, captained a steamship for a Belgian trading company in the Congo in 1890. The atrocities he saw perpetrated there by King Leopolds regime fed into the tale.
Raif Badawi is a 32-year-old Saudi Arabian writer and activist who was arrested in 2012 on a charge of "insulting Islam through electronic channels".

He has been incarcerated in a Jeddah jail since 2013. Besides his liberty being taken from him, he was sentenced to 1,000 lashes to be carried out over 20 weeks. His crime was to create a website, 'Free Saudi Liberals'. The penalty for his 'apostasy' is immediate death.

The lashes have recently stalled due to his ill-health.

The book is a moving account by his wife, Ensaf Haidar, about their meeting as love-struck 18-year-olds, in violation of every moral precept in the strictly Islamic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Little did they know that, after marriage and three children, her love for Raif would attract the attention of global politicians as she mobilises international support to save her husband from murder at the hands of the Saudi judiciary.

In 2013, Ensaf and her children were granted asylum in Quebec, Canada. From there, her determination and desperation continues to bring pressure to bear on her native country and its regime.

Her story of passion and pain is a very current, global issue. Raif's young family are in danger of losing a husband and father, who only sought freedom of expression. We, as readers, writers, bloggers, tweeters, broadcasters have a bounteous freedom of expression. A compelling read.
Neo-Nordic crime sagas have captivated a global readership. The untimely death of Stieg Larsson suggested the end of the most intriguing duo, punk hacker Lisbeth Salander and crusading journalist, Mikael Blomkvist. But in this tightly written homage their fire is rekindled. For devotees of the Millennium series it would seem improbable, if not entirely impossible, to capture the style and pace of Larsson, but Swedish author, David Lagercrantz carries it off, without pastiche.

Salander and Blomkvist have not seen each other for some time. They are reunited when a Swedish scientist, Professor Frans Balder, contacts Blomkvist to see about publishing his story. Balder has been working with Salander on artificial intelligence and both have become the target of ruthless cyber gangsters; the threat of terror in the snowbound streets of Stockholm is not far away.

The scientist has been warned that his life is in danger. But he is more concerned about protecting his son's life. Only when he has custody of his son does it dawn on Balder that the boy is autistic and incredibly gifted. The exploration of his son's alternative engagement with reality is elegantly woven into the plot.

The hidden world of cyber assault, the exclusive fellowship of the Hacker Republic, the NSA and its dark materials and a host of sociopathic characters are vividly drawn in an absorbing narrative. Lagercrantz has exceeded the expectations of Larsson fans across the globe.
How life can change in the blink of an eye is poignantly narrated in this tragic memoir. As she did yoga stretches on her hotel terrace, Decca Aitkenhead watched her partner, Tony, playing with their four-year-old son on Treasure Beach, Jamaica. The next time she looked up, Jake's head was bobbing on a wave. A rip tide had pulled him out to sea. Decca ran down to the beach and found Tony had managed to swim out to the boy, Decca grabbed her son and swam back to shore. The tide was too powerful for Tony. He drowned before her eyes, leaving her alone with their two young sons.

The couple were a most unlikely match. She is an award-winning journalist for the Guardian newspaper, where she interviews leading public figures. Tony Wilkinson was a dreadlocked ex-con who had shot some pimps, dealt in drugs and had a crack cocaine habit when they met. Both were married when they met and lived on the same street in Hackney. Tony did not know his own parents, he had been fostered and adopted, dropped out of school and went to London.

Class features a lot in Aitkenhead's writing. While her milieu is media in middle class London, she is rooted in working class values. Tony's ability to exist in the liminal, appealed to her. He did not engage in class distinction. She explores the redemptive quality of their love, in a society where prejudice abounds. That fact is stranger than fiction is utterly confirmed in this compelling tale of love and loss.
Danny Boyle's Trainspotting sequel will be titled T2 and will be released on January 27 next year.

Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller and Robert Carlyle are all set to reprise the roles they first played two decades ago.

Boyle also directed the 1996 hit movie, a black comedy which follows a group of heroin addicts in a deprived area of Edinburgh in the late 1980s.

A 45-second clip using footage from the original film was shared by the Sony Pictures UK Twitter account to mark T2's first day of shooting on Monday.

However, photographs have already emerged of Bremner in character as Daniel "Spud" Murphy during pre-production in Edinburgh last week.

Trainspotting was based on author Irvine Welsh's novel by the same name.

The long-awaited film will likely be loosely based on Welsh's 2002 sequel to Trainspotting, titled Porno.

Carlyle, who will return to the part of "psycho" Begbie, has said that the script for the new film is "absolutely fantastic" and stronger than the first film.

The actor joined Welsh at The Usher Hall in Edinburgh in March to mark 20 years since the release of the original movie, where he said that filming will take place "pretty much 50-50" between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

He said: "I'm basing this on nothing other than the fact that the production office is on Bathgate. There's a clue there.

"What I will say is that all the characters are exactly where you would want them to be.

"The strength of this new script is the fact that the narrative is a bit stronger than it was in the original.

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"In the first one, when you think about it, it's hard to remember what they did other than get together, the drug deal at the end, and then it's over."

The actor said that fans will get a chance to find out how everyone's lives have gone since they were last on screen.

"This has maybe got a wee bit more to it in terms of what they've been up to through these years," he said.

"You learn a lot about Renton, Sick Boy and indeed Begbie and where their heads are.

"I think it's an absolutely fantastic script. John Hodge has done a wonderful job, as he did with the original.

"Fingers crossed people will take it on board and they will enjoy it."

McGregor said he does not have any nerves about returning to the part of Renton.

Speaking to the Press Association ahead of the release of his new movie Our Kind Of Traitor, he said: "It's such an amazing script, penned by John Hodge who wrote the original Trainspotting script, so there's a real excitement about it.

"Like every movie you do, you have things to think about leading up to them. There is a nervousness about it, but I'm not nervous because it's a sequel to Trainspotting."

McGregor and Boyle also worked together on 1994's Shallow Grave and 1997's A Life Less Ordinary, and the actor welcomed a chance to reunite with the director on a film project.

He said: "I'm very excited. I sort of regret we spent so long not working together. I think that's a shame."
The Bismarck Vision Fund Committee is mulling over revised fund guidelines to offer more options for community projects.

The $2.5 million Vision Fund, which began in the 80s, was founded to provide financial assistance to new or expanding businesses in an effort to create jobs, increase capital investment and expand the tax base.

Vision Fund Chairman Brian Eiseman said discussed changes could slightly open the door to more projects by removing the requirement of primary sector job creation that has exempted service businesses from eligibility.

The Vision Fund is really geared around primary sector jobs, Eisman said. It will still be about job creation, but it doesnt have to be primary sector jobs as defined by the state.

Bismarck-Mandan Development Association President Brian Ritter said this doesnt necessarily mean the fund will be opened up to incentivize retail, restaurants or housing.

Were looking at how the fund could best be utilized so the community can decide what kind of jobs it wants to retain, he said, explaining that it would give the committee the ability to consider a broader range of projects.

The committee is revisiting the guidelines after many years of no changes, Ritter said.

As the economy is changing, weve got to make sure the guidelines governing how we use the fund is reflective of the community we are now, Ritter said. Were not throwing the whole thing out and starting over.

The fund also does not get many applicants  five or less annually, Ritter said. Of that, only six or seven have been funded in the past five years. The BMDA also applies annually to help cover its operating costs.

Past projects of note include the attraction of Coventry Health Care and Sykes. Its also helped NISC in Mandan and Bobcat in Bismarck.

If the guidelines were expanded, Ritter said the fund could be used to help a service-oriented company such as a small start-up IT firm.

Thats the kind of company we may want to help out, but if we have such stringent guidelines, we cant, Ritter said.

The committee is working on second draft of proposed changes, and, over the next couple months, it will likely go through a third draft before being presented to the Bismarck City Commission for approval.
Rapper Azealia Banks has apologised for an astonishing racist and homophobic tirade last week against former One Direction star Zayn Malik.

The 24-year-old US musician targeted Malik with a series of insults in a lengthy rant on Twitter and attacked 14-year-old Disney actress Skai Jackson.

The inflammatory remarks prompted a backlash on social media and Banks was suspended from Twitter. The rapper was also dropped from a headline set at a music festival in East London.

After initially refusing to issue a proper apology, Banks has now posted a letter of apology to her Instagram account.

Expand Close LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 05: Azealia Banks performs on stage at Wireless Festival at Finsbury Park on July 5, 2014 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 05: Azealia Banks performs on stage at Wireless Festival at Finsbury Park on July 5, 2014 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images)

"Dear World," she writes. "Now that the immediacy of the infamous incident has worn off, I've had some time to decompress and take a more rational assessment of things.

"I want to extend my sincerest apologies to the world," she goes on to say. "Employing racial/sexual slurs/stereotypes in attempts to make fun of or degrade another person or group is absolutely unacceptable and is not fair or fun for anyone."

"Allowing my anger to get the best of me, I've managed to insult millions of people without reason. And for that I give my deepest apologies."

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Banks attacked Malik in a series of tweets, calling him a "curry scented b***h".

After being told to "simmer down" by Jackson, Banks started to target her too, calling her a "black little b***h" and prompting criticism for advising Skai to have plastic surgery and "grow some hips and start your menses".
'Of couuuurse", we thought, when we heard that Gwyneth Paltrow was moving into sex toys and whatnot. "Goop was obviously all along intended to be a brand name for lubricant." We could even have written the ad copy for her. "From someone who knows about friction in relationships." With ad music by Coldplay obvs. We were, it's safe to say, breathless with excitement imagining what manner of ancient foreplay rituals and feng shui-aligning dildos Gwyneth Paltrow had in store for us. After all, her lifestyle website has brought us beauty products blessed with healing and chocolate spirit truffles and basically, everything you could imagine Eddie from Ab Fab scoffing to get in the mood (before passing out on her Eskimo birthing rag).

And she didn't disappoint. You probably didn't know you wanted a solid gold dildo but now you do. It's 15,000 PS, for which money you could surely film your own porn movie and have sex with the entire cast after but let's not - in the words of Mr Burns from The Simpsons - sully this beautiful moment with price taggery. The New York Post's take on the whole thing was that it proved that sex with Gwyneth must be really terrible but we say that's jumping to conclusions. We say it's more likely that she doesn't put a price on a great orgasm. And dildos are more likely to suggest that Gwynnie, in her infinite wisdom, prefers to have sex with someone she really loves. And given what a role model she is, who could object to that?

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Super Minister!

Eilis O'Hanlon

All eyes were on the Dail last week as the Cabinet took shape, but one puzzle remains: What is a Super Junior Minister anyway? Is it some new type of superhero?

In another room, Joan Burton was stepping down as Labour leader. There's no word yet on who will succeed her, but sources suggest Alan Kelly wants it settled on a testosterone count, as he has more of it than any Irishman ever. Including Roy Keane.

Amid the fuss, the biggest story in Irish politics was missed, mainly because it happened up north, and the North and South are so bored with each other that they can't even be bothered Facebook-stalking anymore.

The news was that veteran journalist Eamonn McCann had been elected to the Stormont Assembly.

What an awful precedent. People will now expect those of us who make a living spouting off about issues to back this up by putting ourselves to the test and standing for election too. That's the last thing we need. Eamo should take one for the team and resign immediately.

There's something I like about Taylor

Christopher Jackson

Taylor Swift should be easy to dislike, when I think about it. First off, she's pretty much the opposite of the American Dream. She's not like music mogul Jay Z, who survived three shootings and sold his own CDs from his car boot. Nor is she like country music legend Dolly Parton, who grew up in a one-room shack with eleven siblings. Nope, Swift's very rich dad eased her way into the music industry. Hardly a rags-to-riches story.

Second, a lot of her biggest hits are about her exes. Now maybe guys like John Mayer, Jake Gyllenhaal and Harry Styles are douchebags, but then maybe they're not (maybe Swift is?). But either way, it doesn't really matter, in the minds of her millions of fans they're probably pretty bad.

Finally, Swift received an award this week for 'artistic talent and influence'. The name of it, The Taylor Swift Award. Call me old-fashioned but I think a sycophant's nose can only go so far up its ass, although Swift, who gladly accepted her own award, doesn't seem to think so. You know, I really should dislike Taylor Swift but I don't. There's just something about her, something that makes her such a star.

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Rainy Donegal, please God

Pat Fitzpatrick

Here is how the deal is supposed to work: The rest of the country gets what's going of the sunshine. Donegal gets the hills, the coast and an outside shot at the All-Ireland. As an extra sweetener, the locals get a super-sexy accent that should be regulated for reasons of public morality. (Why did you go off with this man? He sounded like Shay Given).

What Donegal is not supposed to get is a run of 22 degrees and sunshine in May. Not when the rest of us are Googling 'Move to Spain because we can't take it anymore.' But that's exactly what happened this week. The top-left corner of the weather map was yellow and bright. Everything below Mullingar was abandon-all-hope. This isn't how the deal is supposed to work.

There is only one solution. Danny Healy-Rae. He should have a quick word with his friend God and order up a month of rain for Donegal. Sorry, but that's the deal.

Hipsters are milking it

Will Hanafin

You've probably seen gangs of misunderstood hipsters roaming your neighbourhood looking for an acceptable flat latte. They look like contestants from the annual Charles Stewart Parnell lookalike competition with their bushy beards and top-to-toe tweed, and that's just the girls.

The latest hipster headline is that they're responsible for bringing back the milk round as they prefer craft milk in glass bottles.

The hipster epicentre is Shoreditch in London and salt of the earth dairies are reporting that they're run off their feet delivering milk in glass bottles to tech start ups, cereal cafes and trendy shoe shops.

Honestly, it's time to act your age not your beard size fogies!
Brendan O'Connor has apologised for using the word 'w***y' during an interview with Ryan Tubridy on Radio 1 in July last year.

On his last day filling in on John Murray's former slot on Radio 1, Brendan gave the slot's incoming presenter quite a grilling in what turned into quite an awkward interview.

Tubridy spoke about his feelings on returning to Radio 1 after five years in 2fm and he thanked John Murray for his support following the announcement that Tubs would replace him.

O'Connor then went on to suggest Tubridy was simply too old for 2fm and when Tubridy attempted to thank his team at 2fm, O'Connor joked, "I always think that sounds w***y to the people at home.

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However, this did not sit well with Tubridy, according to Brendan.

Speaking to the Irish Sun he said that he and Tubridy don't have a "huge relationship" but there is "no animosity" between them.

Indeed, O'Connor was interviewed by Tubridy on Friday night's Late Late Show in what was a very interesting and measured chat.

Of the Radio 1 interview, however, Brendan added, "What listeners heard was a misunerstanding. I was trying a bit of banter and it was unfortunate that I used the word 'w***y'.

"It's a word you would use among your friends but not a word to use on the radio. I think Ryan was offended and he was right to be offended.

"He was sitting opposite me in the studio at the time and the body language was not great.

"Unfortunately that did make the rest of the conversation a bit awkward. I take full responsibility for what happened."

Read More

The rest of the Radio 1 interview was increasingly awkward as O'Connor jokingly suggested Tubridy should give up Fridays - and The Late Late Show - to someone new.

Video of the Day

"On Fridays, youre up at 6 oclock, youre doing the Late Late till 12 or 1. I think its too much on a Friday," he said.

Tubridy replied, Id say if you were offered it youd do it."

Would you not ask to do Monday to Thursday and have someone else come in and do Friday for you?" continued O'Connor.

Read More

"No," replied Tubridy, before stating that Gay Byrne and Pat Kenny did it before him, "I'm only doing one hour [of radio]. Its not that tough. Its a long day but its a privilege. The Friday is a long day but sure people do long days."

O'Connor then asked Tubridy about how he felt about the upcoming new competition from Ray D'Arcy's Saturday night show.

Read More

In his defence, O'Connor told The Irish Sun that he's very inexperienced on radio and "wouldn't be as polished as Ryan and there are probably rough edges on me."

O'Connor is returning to TV with a new show, Cutting Edge, on Wednesdays on RTE One at 9.35
Irish Water Safety has urged people to take extreme care when swimming with children this summer.

The group has issued the warning following the tragic death of Dublin boy Frank Leonel Mekang (13) in a drowning accident in the River Liffey this weekend.

RogerSweeney, deputy CEO of Irish Water Safety (IWS), Frank's tragic death on Saturday marked the 32nd death of a child under the age of 14 in the past 10 years.

On average, 11 people drown every month in Ireland, with 62pc of drowning occurring in inland waterways and the rest at sea.

IWS has launched training for teachers to encourage primary schools to provide water safety information to pupils.

Very soon, well have half a million primary school children on holidays, but a lot of them wont have the knowledge and the behaviours that are necessary to stay safe.

Educating our children is key to preventing drownings in the future. We created a primary school syllabus on water safety, but unfortunately its not mandatory, so we rely on schoolteachers to take it up," he told independent.ie.

I know they are very busy, but even if they gave an hour between now and summer holidays, it would mean that the kids would at least have information that could keep them safe, he said.

Never take your eye off kids. Kids are naturally curious about water so constant, uninterrupted, responsible supervision is the safest way to avoid these tragedies,he added.

Read More

Mr Sweeney said entanglement, stranding, dangerous currents and hypothermia as other contributory factors, particularly when people are accustomed to swimming in pools and are unfamiliar with the hazards in open water.

People need to swim parallel and close to the shore, within their depth and be aware that the water is still cold," he said.

On either side of a full moon, youll have higher tides and equally lower tides than normal, so youll have areas that are more exposed at low tide around full moons.

Statistics from IWS show that men are particularly at risk of drowning, and accounted for 79pc of drownings in 2014.

The risk of drowning increases dramatically over bank holiday weekends and during periods of warm weather.

Its due to people enjoying the break and the holiday atmosphere, theyre lulled into a false sense of security in these very picturesque surroundings, he said.

A lot of people tend to shy away from getting training and then they rush to enjoy the warm weather, but getting trained is very important in advance of going to the water.

Mr Sweeney said alcohol consumption features in a third of all drownings.

The reason these things happen is usually because people overestimate their ability and underestimate the risks, and that seems to apply more so with boys than with girls, he added.

Irish Water Safety's tips on swimming in open water this summer

Do:

Maintain constant, uninterrupted, responsible supervision of children

Teach children water safety skills as early as possible

Swim parallel and close to the shore

Swim with others, never alone

Follow instructions from a Lifeguard

Pay attention to signs on the beach

Learn to use water sport equipment before trying it out

Always wear a life-jacket when fishing or on boats

Dont:
Ciara Sheehan (inset) was rushed to hospital after being shot

Gardai investigating the shooting of an innocent young woman in Cork have recovered a firearm.

The weapon was recovered as part of extensive searches by gardai in the Hollyhill and Knocknaheeny areas of Cork city in the wake of the terrifying shooting.

The weapon will now be sent for forensic and ballistic examinations.

Ciara Sheehan (21) was blasted in the throat after a chilling threat had been made on Facebook by a man later arrested in connection with the attack.

She was rushed to hospital after being shot early yesterday. The bullet went through the window of the house she was in at the time and hit her in the neck.

Gardai believe the attack is linked to an ongoing dispute between two members of different families - but has nothing to do with Ms Sheehan.

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A neighbour of the family said that she was worried about things escalating to this level.

"I heard the shot between midnight and 12.30am. I got up out of bed but only heard one gunshot at the front of the house," she said.

Expand Close A smashed porch door window at the front of the house in the Hollywood Estate in Knocknaheeney, Cork. Photo: Michael Mac Sweeney / Facebook

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Whatsapp A smashed porch door window at the front of the house in the Hollywood Estate in Knocknaheeney, Cork. Photo: Michael Mac Sweeney

"All the windows were smashed in in that house last year. The victims are a lovely family, so it is terrible to see this go on.

"We have been dealing with this for 15 or 16 years but it has been getting worse and worse for a long time.

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"It started off as something small but now it has escalated. It is very unpredictable and you don't know where you stand.

"Another family has been drawn into it now because she has been shot. It is terrible.

"Something will have to be done now because it is going on too long and it will go too far."

Local Sinn Fein councillor Thomas Gould said the community was in shock.

"This is a nice estate, with a lot of young families. People have seen what is happening in Dublin and are worried about a lack of garda resources.

"The gardai are overworked, under-resourced and underpaid."

Ms Sheehan underwent emergency surgery at Cork University Hospital yesterday and is said to be in a serious but stable condition.

A man (29) and a woman (22) were arrested shortly after the incident and were being questioned at Gurranabraher and Bridewell garda stations in Cork last night under section 30 of the Offences Against the State act.

Read More

It is understood that the man was previously known to gardai. Late on Saturday night, he posted on Facebook that he was looking for members of a family from the house that was shot at.

The details of the message cannot be publicised for legal reasons - but he said that it was time for a "war" with the other family and another individual.

The shooting took place less than two hours later.

At least one shot was fired at the front of a house in the Hollywood Estate in Knocknaheeney, on the northside of the city.

The bullet hole was visible in the sitting-room window yesterday as gardai preserved the scene.

Ms Sheehan, who is from Ardcullen in Cork, was in the house, which was first targeted with a rock through a sliding door in the front porch and later the gunshot through a front window.

Locals said they were concerned about the escalation of violence in the row.

One witness said they heard at least one gunshot before gardai arrived at the scene.

"I was listening to the radio with headphones on but my daughter came in and told me she had heard a gunshot.

"I thought it was a car backfiring but then I saw all the blue lights outside and knew something had happened."

Gardai spent yesterday examining the scene. They questioned neighbours in the estate and combed the area for clues as children played with parents on the street.

The same house has been the target of attacks in the past.
The bleak toll of suffering by elderly patients in overcrowded emergency departments is laid bare in new figures showing almost 10,000 frail people over 75 endured more than nine hours on a trolley.

The grim picture of patient distress in January and February shows how many of the nation's emergency departments are creaking at the seams.

It emerged last week that 2,669 of this vulnerable age group were languishing on trolleys for more than 24 hours - but the new figures from the HSE show the real extent of the risks faced by patients with multiple and complex illnesses cared for by over-stretched staff.

Most of the elderly were sick enough to need a hospital bed, while others were treated and sent home.

Hospitals with the worst record are Limerick and Connolly in Blanchardstown, Dublin, but the delays span emergency departments in counties across the country.

One in six patients who attend swamped emergency departments are now over 75 in some hospitals, with particularly high numbers of very elderly people in Mayo, Galway and Sligo.

Emergency consultants have warned that around 300-375 patients, particularly the elderly, are dying due to overcrowding annually because of risks such as greater infection and staff missing the signs of deterioration.

"In June 2012, the then Minister for Health, Dr James Reilly, launched the National Emergency Medicine Programme Report," a spokesperson for the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine said. "His government promised its implementation. That report set the standard that 95pc of patients would be seen and either discharged home or admitted to hospital within six hours of their registration in an emergency department and 100pc within nine hours."

Consultants have told Health Minister Simon Harris that if the Government sticks to its "anaemic" target of 2021 to have the majority of patients waiting on trolleys for no more than six hours, 1,750 people will needlessly die.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said there has been a disproportionate increase in emergency department attendances by patients aged 65 and over. "This segment of the population is projected to increase from 11 to 18pc of the population over the next 30 years. This age group have higher care needs," he said.

Overcrowding

An extra 117m was provided to the HSE to relieve overcrowding, particularly over the 2015/16 winter period.

He added: "This funding has supported ongoing initiatives to expand hospital capacity, reduce hospital attendances and support timely patient discharges."

Meanwhile, it was confirmed the Government's 15m promised funding for the National Treatment Purchase Fund to provide treatments for public waiting list patients in private hospitals will not come through until 2017. More than 500,000 patients are on a waiting list for either surgery or an outpatient appointment.

It means hospitals which are already severely in the red will have to find the funds to try to make some headway in the backlog.
The new Super Junior Health Minister Finian McGrath has refused to confirm he will give up smoking cigarettes.

Mr McGrath revealed that he smokes in the region of 15-20 cigarettes a day but would not give any commitment to give up smoking.

Speaking to Independent.ie today at Beaumont Hospital, Mr McGrath said: "Please do not close down people having personal and private views in a democratic and inclusive society.

"Of course Ill support the policy of the Government. Id like to be allowed to express my own personal opinion.

I put my hands up, Im human and Ive made mistakes. Im addicted to nicotine, every day I try to give up the cigarettes but the bottom line is we need a new approach and listen to people who have a problem with smoking.

McGrath said that 19 to 20pc of the public are smokers and are fed-up being pushed around.

We need to look at our health policies and our addiction policies and listen to the people themselves," he added.

The new junior health minister has asked for more sympathy for smokers - and argues that pubs and bars should have designated indoor sections for smokers.

Mr McGrath also said the there shouldn't be further increases in tobacco duty.

Mr McGrath is a member of the Independent Alliance and was last week given ministerial responsibility for the disability sector, and will attend Cabinet meetings as a so-called "super junior".

Mr McGrath attempted to downplay his comments in the story yesterday.

"A lot of the story came from statements I made in the past and I emphasised that they were my personal views. As a Cabinet Minister, I totally support the health strategy for 2025 but I also defend the right of any citizen to have their own private views," he said speaking to RTE Radio One's Sean O'Rourke.

Read More

When asked if he would lead by example and quit cigarettes, Mr McGrath said his responsibility was to do my job to the best of my ability. But, of course, on a private level, I make an effort and that it is my position.

He admitted smoking in the region of 15-20. On good days, I get them down to seven or eight. I try to get them down to five. The reality is that we are not all super humans we all have frailties and we have to accept it."

In a statement today, the Irish Cancer Society called Minister McGrath's remarks "unhelpful and irresponsible".

In a statement, the Irish Cancer Society officially recorded its "concern at Minister of State Finian McGraths comments first published in the Sunday Business Post on the smoking ban and excise duty levied on tobacco products".

The Irish Cancer Society also said that "any roll back of the smoking ban would be a retrograde step".
Ken Ryan couldnt believe the attention his wooden car attracted when he drove it from the Canadian border at Antler to the Gulf of Mexico and back to North Dakota.

The vehicle drew questions from young men, old women and everyone in between curious about its unorthodox appearance. Many whipped out their phones to snap a picture before he continued down the interstate.

Ryan told them the story of how, 20 years after he bought a 1985 Pontiac Fiero, he replaced all but the frame to make the wooden car thats street-legal today.

It follows the idea of a hot rod, he said. You start with an older car, and you rebuild to your taste.

Ryan lived for years in south central Virginia after spending several decades in Sweden, where his wife is from.

His start with wood began in his 20s as he crafted musical instruments, such as guitars and stringed dulcimers, in his spare time. During the day, he worked as an international press officer for Ericsson, a telecommunications infrastructure company based in Stockholm.

Eventually, he moved from instruments to wooden boats before trying his hand at a car.

Ive had desk jobs all my life, so its something that is fun to do, and creative and manual, he said.

While on the East Coast, Ryan purchased the Fiero and later put in a new V8 engine. He redid the brakes and suspension and acquired Atlantic white cedar, a lightweight wood used in boat building. The material is resilient, stands up to moisture and forms the bulk of the cars body.

The vehicles front end is Kevlar with a smooth curvature reminiscent of cars of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Ryan finished the bulk of the car in Virginia but ran into problems trying to get it registered. He said the state required it to be a replica of a previously made vehicle by an established car manufacturer.

I could build a copy of a Corvette, he said. Thats not something I wanted to do. I didnt want to paint somebody elses picture.

So he shipped the car to Bismarck, where his sister, Pat Conrad, lives. He had to add a wooden bumper to comply with North Dakotas regulations before he was able to register it here.

Ryan returned to Sweden a year ago, so he planned a cross-country road trip in the United States this spring .

He first took the car from Bismarck to the border crossing near Antler before returning to his sisters house to gear up for the rest of the journey.

Headed south, he had just crossed into Nebraska from South Dakota when a state trooper flashed his lights.

He stopped me, Ryan said. Really, I think he just wanted to see the car.

The officer checked Ryans license plates because he had one only on the rear of the car. South Dakota residents need plates on both sides, Ryan said.

Ryans car was not registered there, so he said the officer let him continue on his journey. But first, the man snapped a photo.

The picture went viral on the Nebraska State Patrol Facebook page, garnering several hundred comments and more than 3,000 shares.

Ryan continued south to Galveston, Texas, where the temperature hit 90 degrees and he learned the cars air conditioning did not work. He plans to fix that and make several other adjustments before taking the vehicle next on a trip around North America.

Still, hes pleased with its performance. The car averaged 26.4 mpg on the 4,000-mile journey.

Ryan returned last week to Sweden, where hes working on another wooden vehicle. He hopes to register it there.

Meanwhile, he intends to store his first wooden car in Bismarck until his next trip to the United States, when he can take it for another spin.

This is what I had intended to do with the car, he said, get out and drive it.
The Government are set to reveal their latest plan to reduce our average weight by 5pc as were heading to become one of the fattest countries in Europe.

The national obesity plan which will be rolled out over the next decade aims to reduce the gap in obesity levels between the richest and poorest sections of society by 10pc.

A Healthy Weight for Ireland report aims to reduce the level through five main strategies. Here are the five things you need to know about the strategy:

1. School sports

PE will be introduced as a Leaving Cert subject to increase the exercise of young people. The optional subject will allow young girls in particular to become more active and will be included as an exam subject.

2. Calorie information

Food establishments will have to post the calorie intake of their meals to allow people to examine what they are eating. Hospitals will also have to post calorie information on the foods they supply.

3. Ingredients insight

Food industries will be asked to reduce fat, sugar and salt in their products in order to make food healthier for consumers. The Government said they will work with the industry to make food healthier.

4. Advertising clampdown

A new code of practice for marketing food and drinks will be introduced. Products will not be allowed to mislead the consumer such as branding products as healthy when they have high levels of salt or sugar.

5. Sugar levy

A sugar levy will be introduced on products to discourage consumers from buying sugary products such as fizzy drinks and sweets. Ireland currently has the third highest rate of obesity with one in four children and six in 10 adults obese or overweight, according to a report by the Lancet medical journal.
Members of the Kinahan cartel have been dispatched to the North to carry out a revenge attack on a man suspected of involvement in the Regency Hotel murder.

The dissident republican - dubbed 'Flat cap' - was pictured leaving the Drumcondra hotel armed with a handgun.

It is understood that gardai are working closely with the PSNI, who have been monitoring the killer's movements.

Sources have told the Irish Independent that gardai are preparing a file for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) recommending that 'Flat Cap' be charged.

He will then be arrested by the PSNI and the State will seek his extradition to the Republic.

However, it has emerged that the Kinahan cartel is understood to have sent gang members to the North in a bid to carry out a hit on the individual before he is arrested.

Also pictured fleeing the Regency Hotel in the aftermath of the shooting was a gunman dressed in drag, also armed with a handgun.

Senior detectives were last night continuing to question a man aged in his 20s who they suspect is the cross-dressing gunman.

Read More

On Friday night, following a high-speed chase, members of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) stopped a black Nissan Almera on the Malahide Road in Dublin and arrested two men.

One is believed to be an associate of slain Gary Hutch (34).

The other, who is aged in his late 20s, was arrested for road traffic offences. However, he was released without charge yesterday morning.

Gardai investigating the Regency Hotel attack are also expected to charge two members of the gang with murder.

Sources have revealed that investigators used facial recognition software to formally identify the suspect, a close associate of Gary Hutch, whose murder by the Kinahan cartel in Spain sparked the current spiral of feud violence.

The same technology has also confirmed the identity of the veteran republican hitman wearing a flat cap.

Read More

Meanwhile, it has also emerged that a number of other individuals are also likely to be arrested with helping the killers make their getaways and hiding weapons after the attack.

Detectives have also discovered that a well-known veteran crime figure was centrally involved in the planning of the Regency attack and drove members of the gang away afterwards.

Gardai suspect over a dozen people were directly involved in the shooting and subsequent getaway effort.

Five gunmen stormed the hotel - three dressed as fake garda ERU members and carrying AK47s - during the February 5 attack. Another individual drove the Ford Transit van from the scene, while a number of cars, including taxis, were used to collect the hit team from the Charlemont housing estate, where the van was later found burnt out.

Gardai also believe a gang member acted as a spotter for the hit team.
The main banks' fight for mortgage business will heat up further in the coming weeks, with fresh announcements expected for customers of AIB subsidiaries EBS and Haven.

The country's second biggest bank last week cut its standard variable rate to 3.4pc, its fourth 0.25pc reduction in the past 18 months. However, AIB excluded 80,000 EBS and Haven customers from the reduction.

Now fresh announcements for these customers are expected, and will be closely watched for any reprieve on mortgage costs.

All banks are coming under increasing political and public pressure on the issue of mortgage costs. The average variable rate mortgage holder pays around 2,500 more a year than their counterparts elsewhere in the eurozone.

Chief executive Bernard Byrne has since said in a statement to staff that the exclusion of Haven and EBS from the cut was "deliberate" as part of efforts to create a "multi-brand strategy" in its mortgage business. "The key to this multi-brand strategy is to ensure that our propositions across our three brands meet the needs of different cohorts of customers," Byrne said. "We will be making announcements with regard to these brands in the coming weeks."

An AIB spokeswoman refused to say whether rates could be lowered for EBS and Haven customers. "We keep rates constantly under review," she said.

AIB's latest reduction has heaped more pressure on its biggest rival, Bank of Ireland, widening the gap in home-loan rates to 1pc between the two lenders.

With competition hotting up, Bank of Ireland has opted to extend its 2pc cashback offer - where it promises to give 2pc of the value of the customer's mortgage back in cash within 45 days of mortgage drawdown - until the end of September.

It has also introduced a new 'Premier Property Service' targeted at wealthy homebuyers, which offers advice to 'premier' customers.
These affordable log cabins could be the answer to Ireland's housing crisis, providing family homes from as low as 30,000.

An innovative businessman believes he can help minimise the housing issue - and maintains he can build the fully functioning homes in just ten weeks.

While a 30,000 log cabin (measuring 5x7 metres) could provide two bedrooms, a living room and a bathroom, a 70,000 abode (measuring 7x10 metres) could offer three bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, a dining room and a bathroom.

The cabins come in all sizes up to a maximum of 100,000 - substantially less than modular homes built in north Dublin for 243,000 each.

They are easy to maintain as they only need to be stained every five years, said owner of Coppola Cabins, Harry Laanisto.

The price includes the cabin and electrical wiring but water and furnishing is up to the owner, according to the Estonian entrepreneur.

Our smaller cabins are popular for offices, playrooms and home bars. Today I had five couples already looking at the cabins and on Saturdays we have queues, he said.

The company has seen some growth over the past year as people have more disposable income after the recession.

This year is slightly better than last year. Ive noticed cabins sales have picked up.

Although the cabins are entirely made of wood, Laanisto said that they arent a fire hazard. It would last longer if there was a fire than a normal house because of the thickness of the wood.

The cabins are made from Strauss wood which is imported from Estonia.

[The cabins] are quite popular in Estonia and all over the world including Japan. Our supplier sells to 40 countries. Theyre available in cities, the countryside, everywhere. So that was my idea, why not do it here?

Dublin County Council has yet to grant planning permission for the wood cabins in the city, but permission has been granted in the countryside.

I dont understand the planning permission because I think it could quite easily solve the problem of housing because cabins are affordable, said Laanisto.

People want to use these cabins for living but planning permission is the issue.

I had a customer who wanted to build one in a caravan park at a lake in Cavan and the county council said that log cabins are not suitable for lakesides. Its ideal beside lakes.

A spokesperson for Dublin City council said: The City Council is required to procure the construction of housing units by public open tender. Any such tender process sets out the standard and specification of the units required and other qualification criteria. It is open to companies who can meet the standard, specification and criteria to tender.
An Irish council has voted to lend 200,000 to secure the immediate future of the country's oldest film festival.

Cork City Council has agreed to lend 200,000 to Cork Film Festival after a warning last week that, without the funding, the event faced the possible threat of receivership and the cancellation of future festivals.

This year marks the 61st Cork Film Festival and it is estimated the event brings more than 2.5m to the local economy.

However, despite an ambitious restructuring of the entire festival in 2013, its debt have reached critical levels.

Many of the debts date from the costs involved in the restructuring which aimed to transform it into an event with more broadly based appeal.

Some councillors had argued against extending the loan, warning that the city faced other financial priorities in the housing, roads and infrastructure areas.

However, others warned that the failure to extend the loan could cost the city one of its oldest and most high-profile events.

Lord Mayor Councillor Chris O'Leary said the festival's financial position was exacerbated by the loss of its main sponsor and by under-funding from the Arts Council.

Cork Film Festival received 165,000 in Arts Council backing in 2015 - a level described by the Lord Mayor as far below what such a famous event should receive.

"Sadly, for us, the Arts Council has not supported a number of key organisations in Cork over the last while," he said.

A one hour city council meeting agreed to grant the 200,000 loan as requested to the film festival board.

Under the terms of the agreement, the festival will repay the full loan by 2024.

The vote to sanction the loan was passed by an 18 to eight vote.

The meeting was told the festival, which brings an average of 22,000 film fans to Cork each year, currently has debts of more than 260,000.

The bulk of this is owed to commercial creditors while around 60,000 is owed to banks.

Just 26,000 is owed to the Revenue Commissioners though this debt must be resolved before the next festival takes place.

Councillors are now demanding a strategic plan to ensure the future commercial viability of the event.

The city council will now also seek an overnight role with festival operations.
Malachi Mitchell-Thomas was killedin a crash during the supertwins race at the North West 200. He is pictured on the grid just before racing began.

The father of Malachi Mitchell-Thomas who died at the North West 200 said that his son "lived for racing".

The 20-year-old from Chorley in Lancashire was described as a "petrol head" by his father Kevin when he visited the scene where his son crashed during the third lap of the SuperTwins race on Saturday afternoon.

He now plans to spread his son's ashes at the Isle of Man TT races in June.

"This is what he wanted me to do - he lived for racing.

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"I have lost my best friend, I have lost my son but he died doing what he wanted to do," Mr Mitchell-Thomas told BBC Northern Ireland.

"He did not have a bad bone in his body and nobody had a bad word to say about him.

"He had been doing great things. We did not come here as a big business with a big bank account.

"We came here through hard grit, determination and mostly a desire to win races. I have never seen desire like he had."

His son came in fourth in what was his final race.
British actor/comedian Ricky Gervais has called on the State to ban the export of Irish greyhounds to China. (Photo by Rich Schultz /Getty Images)

Ricky Gervais has called for a ban on the sale of Irish greyhounds to China, saying "every dog sent to Macau will die there".

The comedian and animal welfare supporter issued a plea to the Irish Government on Saturday night to ban any further exports of the animal.

This comes after Irish greyhounds were stopped in Britain en route to China this week and returned to Ireland.

Speaking to the Irish Mail on Sunday, the actor urged the Government to act now and ban the trade.

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"The Irish Government should immediately ban the export of Irish dogs to China, which is internationally renowned for its barbaric treatment of animals," he said.

"The annual June meat festival, Yulin, near Macau, where dogs are skinned alive before being cooked, should tell the Irish Department of Agriculture everything they need to know about the horrific fate of dogs in China.

"If they are unconcerned about the agony that awaits these innocent animals then the Irish Government will pay the price in terms of damage to its international reputation."

The 54-year-old said that if the Government does not put an immediate ban in place, Ireland will be viewed worldwide as a "country which cares little about animal welfare or animal suffering".

Shipping crates containing 24 Irish greyhounds bound for China where turned away from London's Heathrow Airport on Thursday.

Staff at the airport claimed the crates were in bad condition and not fit for transport.

The dogs were destined for the notorious Canidrome stadium in Macau, one of the world's cruelest racing tracks where 30 dogs a month die.

Activists say nearly 400 young and healthy greyhounds are put down every year after running four times a week on Asias only racing track, which is considered dangerous and unsafe for animals.

Albano Martins, president of Anima  the Society for the Protection of Animals (Macau)  claims that dogs as young as two or three years old are killed if they not profitable.

He told the China Morning Post that dogs are killed if they are ill, injured or if they fail to place in the top three in five consecutive races

Animal charities in Ireland have already made their feelings known to the Irish government who fund the Greyhound Board.

They have highlighted that several countries refuse to sell greyhounds to China over fears that slow dogs will be put down and even eaten.

The Dog's Trust issued a statement on their website calling for a ban.

The statement reads: "Dogs Trust, The ISPCA and The Irish Blue Cross are totally opposed to the export of greyhounds to Chinas only legal Greyhound track the Yat Yuen Canidrome, which has a deplorable welfare record.

"We consider such exports to be ill-advised and a massive step backwards in achieving a well regulated and safe environment for greyhounds both in Ireland and elsewhere in the world.

"We once again strongly call on the IGB, The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and airline carriers to put and end to this deplorable trade in misery."

Activists from the US, Australia and Europe are expected to demonstrate outside the Department of Agriculture next month to highlight the cruel trade.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has revealed he plans to see out the full term of this Government as leader.

Mr Kenny was speaking in Castlebar where he insisted he would only step down as Taoiseach prior to the next election.

Ive always said that my intention would be to serve the full term but not to lead the party into the next general election.

"Ive made that perfectly clear and thats where I am but I have a lot of work to do in the meantime, he said.

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Mr Kenny acknowledged that the current Government make up was very different to what has gone before but said this may be the way of the future.

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Its very different and I think when you look back at the situation that applied from the 1930s onwards, in those periods youve had single party governments, youve had coalition governments, now you have minority government.

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"This may well be the way of the future who knows what the electorate will decide, he added.

Party colleagues Leo Varadkar, Simon Coveney, Frances Fitzgerald and Paschal Donohoe have been tipped as the favourites to take the leadership role.

Asked how confident he was that the Government would see out the full term, Mr Kenny said there had been a lot of media speculation that this couldnt last.

The same was said indeed of one of the Ahern Governments which was dependant on a number of Independents, he added.

While he acknowledged that this situation was vastly more complex he said he expected all sides to work together for Team Ireland.

He said he expected things to settle down once people realised there was an attitudinal change which he said was required from Government, the Opposition and the Public Service.

From now on its got to be an understanding that all of these matters have to be discussed and published and made available for the information of the public and I think in that sense theres a great freedom and a liberty here that has not been available or wasnt necessary before and caused quite a deal of difficulties in time past.

So its a brave new world in the sense of a very different kind of Dail and I hope working together in a new way for Team Ireland that the decisions being made by Government and being implemented will be for the interest of the people and for their benefit and thats what good politics should be about, he added.

The Taoiseach said he was recently stopped on the street by a man who thanked him for volunteering to run our country. Mr Kenny said the man had expressed his astonishment that so many people who put their names forward to be elected to Dail Eireann do not want to have anything to do with Government and do not want to have anything to do with making decisions.

So thats why the responsibility is on me as leader of the largest party to put together a Government that is now in situ with the assistance and agreement of other parties in Opposition and at Government level will try to implement in the very best way we can the Programme for Government that we have set out, he added.

Mr Kenny said he intended to announced his Junior Ministers and Seanad nominations this week. He refused to be drawn on speculation that Alan Shatter was among those he would chose for the Seanad.

There is always speculation, Ive got over 70 names on my desk and no matter what I do, you cant win in that sense, so obviously you try to pick the best team that you can to improve the work of the Seanad and reflect the different sectors that are necessary there. So I hope to do that this week as well, he added.
A prolonged case involving a California woman who drove a stolen rental car to Bismarck and sat in jail for nearly 180 days for the crime was resolved within a matter of minutes Monday.

Jessica Tsao, 30, signed a plea agreement last week in which her felony theft charge was dropped to a misdemeanor. She also agreed to a deferred imposition of sentence, which means after a period of time if she doesnt break any state, tribal or local laws then the charge will be dismissed and not go on her record.

Tsao was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia last year in California and drove to North Dakota around the time her father died.

Last summer, Tsao was arrested at the Ramada hotel in Bismarck after she failed to pay for her lunch. When police arrived, they ran her license plate and discovered she was driving a stolen rental car.

Tsao was taken to the Burleigh County Detention Center on Aug. 29, where she stayed until February awaiting a mental health evaluation, which her mother Snowy Zhou and her two lawyers, including Bismarck attorney Tom Dickson, said was imperative.

A psychiatric evaluation was necessary to get Tsao back on her medication, her lawyers said.

Kent Morrow, Tsao's public defender, did not get her medical and criminal records to the state hospital in Jamestown before her first scheduled mental health evaluation Dec. 8.

The evaluation was delayed, and, by January, one still hadn't been performed. Another date was set for March 23.

In January, South Central District Judge James Hill condemned both the prosecutor's and Morrow's handling of Tsao's case as "unacceptable" and ordered a bond hearing.

"The defendant cannot continue to languish in the Burleigh County Detention Center without some end date, Hill wrote in a court order.

Tsao was released on an unsecured bond in February after Hill ordered her to a "less confined setting" at West Central Human Service Center, where she currently resides.

Last month, Hill set a preliminary hearing date pending Tsao's accord to a lesser misdemeanor charge and alternative sentence.

On Monday, Morrow told Judge Hill that Tsao signed the plea agreement on Friday. All that was left to determine was how much restitution Tsao should pay for damage to the stolen rental car, according to Justin Schwarz, the prosecutor in the Tsao's case.

"That would, obviously, put the situation at rest and Ms. Tsao can go about whatever she wishes to do, remain in North Dakota or whatever she wants to do," Hill said in court Monday.
Government ministers have warned Fianna Fail it will ultimately be answerable to the people if it causes an election by blocking key Government priorities.

Communications Minister Denis Naughten gave the warning in Athlone, where he attended the Postmasters' Union Conference in the Sheraton Hotel.

However, he was quick to stress he wasn't rejoining his old party for their meeting.

Asked about media reports that Fianna Fail planned to block key Government policies, including USC cuts, Mr Naughten said a minority Government could work only if there was cooperation across the Dail. "Fianna Fail can take this approach if they so wish and we'll be back on the doorsteps within a couple of weeks' time," he said.

"But they're going to have to be the ones that will explain to the public why they're not prepared to give this Government an opportunity to work," he said.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny conceded "there will be rows" between the parties, "but we have an agreement and I will honour that agreement.

"I said to Micheal Martin and to others, good faith and no surprises, and we will supply the information and consult where that is appropriate and where that is necessary," he added.

Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar insisted the Government would press ahead with its proposals, while Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald described the Fianna Fail stance as unhelpful for stability.

"If Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein come together, as they would have to vote something down, it's up to them to explain to the public why they didn't support our proposals because the only proposals we're going to put forward are the ones we believe are in the interests of the people," said Mr Varadkar.

He said he didn't believe there would be the same level of legislation passed in this Dail as by previous governments.
A FORMER cellmate of jailed Dubliner Ibrahim Halawa says the Irish government needs to do more than just quiet diplomacy to secure his release.

The 20-year-old Tallaght man marked 1,000 days in prison in Egypt last Friday.

Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste  who previously shared a prison cell with Ibrahim  said that if it wasnt for the pressure on politicians and diplomats by his family in Australia, he would still be in prison.

While the Irish government insists that it is pursuing every constructive avenue to secure his release, lawyers for Mr Halawa say that the Government has the ability to deploy a special discretionary presidential decree which applies to foreign defendants to continue the judicial process or serve out their sentence in their home country.

This mechanism, called Rule 140 was successfully used by lawyers for Mr Greste last year.

He was returned to Australia upon the agreement that authorities there complete the judicial process instead of standing in a retrial in Egypt.

The Australian courts found that there was no evidence to charge Mr Greste with any crime and he was released.

It is believed that the Irish government is intending to seek the application of Rule 140, but after Halawa is sentenced.

Lawyers for Mr Greste have briefed members of the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs, as well others in the Department of Foreign Affairs, about the application of law.

My family made a conscious decision to harness a lot of international support and public support by putting pressure on politicians and diplomats, Mr Greste told the Herald. Id still be in prison if it wasnt for that campaign.

Mr Greste, who spent time in a prison cell with Halawa called on the Irish authorities to defend his rights.

He says Ibrahim was swept up when the authorities were looking for anyone who was suspected of being associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Irish government has chosen a path of quiet diplomacy, and sources say it is believed that too much megaphone diplomacy would actually hinder Mr Halawas case.

That approach doesnt seem to have done Ibrahim a great deal of good up until now, said Mr Greste.
The Force has awakened in south Kerry. On the first day that Skellig Michael reopened to visitors for the summer season, each of the 12 boats licensed to land passengers was full to capacity.

The seaside village of Portmagee was a hive of activity on Sunday morning, with 108 people gathered at the pier for 9.30am.

A total of 144 people got to visit the island - one of only two Unesco World Heritage sites in this country - which featured in the latest instalment in the 'Star Wars' saga.

It has been an anxious time for boatmen over the past week.

A rockfall on Monday on the larger Skellig island, that houses the sixth-century monastic settlement, forced the delay of the site reopening until the Office of Public Works was satisfied it was safe.

Annika Schuster and Dana Wengert from Kiel in Germany had planned their trip to Ireland around 'Star Wars Episode VII'. Both work at a cinema in Kiel and are avid fans.

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"When I saw the movie, I thought that looked like somewhere in northwestern Europe and then I Googled it and found out it was Skellig Michael," Annika told the Irish Independent.

"It's been the highlight of our trip so far," said Dana. "We tried to recreate the scene where Rey (Daisy Ridley) hands the lightsaber to Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and took pictures."

Terra Amelang and Dan Kroszner from Colorado, USA, felt lucky to have got onto the island as part of their 12-day trip to Ireland.

"We didn't realise you had to book but we got to go on standby," said Terra.

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"It was definitely a perk, but we also wanted to see the monastic settlement and it was amazing, stunning," added Dan.

Boatman Paul Devane of the Marber Therese, says bookings have doubled, which he puts down to a mix of the 'Star Wars' effect and Portmagee being on the Wild Atlantic Way route.
As Tolstoy said "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." In The Heart of Everything by Henrietta McKervey, we are presented with a very readable, humane portrait of a disjointed Irish family, thrust together in response to a crisis and we witness the fissures, tensions and grudges that can complicate relations within a family.

The novel opens with Mags Jensen, a cheerful 67-year-old mother of three grown-up children, a woman at the heart of everything, keeping the fractured lines of communication between her estranged children open. But it becomes increasingly obvious that Mags' recall is 'off'. She's been forgetting words, her age, whether she has just had a cup of tea or not.

Her life is made up of carefully drawn up lists and labels to help her remember but despite this, her memory seems to be slipping away. Each night she writes another list, a secret list, a 'roll of shame' of all the things she forgot during the day, 'but some days it's no good: she still can't reel the thoughts in.' She feels like she is falling into a black hole 'And what's worse is that she doesn't know if it's in the past or the future.' McKervey's portrayal of early on-set dementia is spot on, achingly rendered in simple, moving observations.

When Mags walks out the front-door of her Booterstown home and disappears, her children are forced to reunite and confront the prospect that she may be missing or worse still, dead. Over the next few days they frantically try to retrace her steps along the DART line southwards to their old family home in Shankill, checking with friends and neighbours, hospitals and garda stations. As each terrifying day passes and Mags remains at large, they each must face their own demons, as well as the demons of the past. Anita, the embittered older sister, consumed by grief over the death of her young son, assumes the leading role in the search for their mother.

The unexpected family reunion forces her to consider the issue of blame and find a way of letting go, something she is afraid to do, lest her memories of her dead son vanish too.

Raymond, an alcoholic librarian living in Cork, a disappointment to himself and his mother, bristles under Anita's bossiness, but during the long days and nights of Mags's absence he admits to himself that his lengthy sojourns in his favourite pub have hampered his relationships and hindered his unfulfilled dream of being a scriptwriter.

Elin, the youngest, who fled to Scotland after a family rupture, must also learn to forgive, herself in particular, if her own relationship with Marty is to survive. All these past events are skilfully woven into the present narrative, and the tension mounts as they try to find any trace of the missing Mags.

In this simple yet powerful novel we, along with the characters, are forced to consider the role of memory and the impact of memory loss. This story conjures up so vividly the blind panic and fear one experiences when faced with a parent's imminent illness or death.

Beautifully yet simply written, fuelled by perceptive observations and raw honesty, this novel will delight fans of Anne Tyler and our own Maggie O'Farrell.

The climax when it comes is a resolution of sorts, satisfyingly inconclusive. Unsentimental and credible, it leaves you thinking about the characters, long after the last page is turned.
Siobhan Klimmek first met her husband Knut aged 17 when he was dating her friend Susan. She had heard so much about this "gorgeous German guy" from their pals that she was expecting a vision, but when they met, she wasn't overly impressed.

"I thought, 'Meh,' and wondered what they were all going on about?" she laughs. "Then I got talking to Knut at a party when Susan was away in France, and I thought it was a pity he wasn't good-looking as he was a nice fella. The next time I saw him I decided he actually wasn't that bad-looking, and by two weeks later, I thought he was gorgeous."

A while later, Susan returned and broke up with Knut, leaving him "heartbroken and distraught." What he didn't realise was that Siobhan had her eye on him and had decided to pull out all the stops. "I did the hair, put on my red dress and heels and went to the rugby club disco," she says. "My plan that night was to get Knut Klimmek, but I didn't realise I'd keep him for so long!"

Knut, now 53, came to Ireland in 1973 from Germany, as his dad Werner was setting up a subsidiary of a German company, ABS Pumps, in Wexford. He was aged ten when he arrived and didn't speak English, and it came as a shock to all three Klimmek siblings that corporal punishment was practised at school here, as Knut puts it "with gusto."

He later went on to boarding school in Cashel, but socialised with a group of pals in Wexford. Although he was nursing a broken heart, he was quite happy when Siobhan started chatting to him at the rugby club. "I thought she was very nice," he says. "She was very forward, but I didn't mind as it was refreshing that I didn't have to make all the effort. We laughed a lot too."

Knut and Siobhan got on so well that they began dating, but were so young they were also embarking on college and career training. Knut studied art and environmental design in Dublin for a couple of years, and he and Siobhan secretly lived together as it wasn't the done thing at that time. She had moved to Dublin in 1980 to work with Bank of Ireland, where she remained for ten years.

Knut did an apprenticeship with furniture-maker Tom Roche in Tullamore, followed by two years at the renowned John Makepeace School for Craftsmen in Wood in Dorset. "It was an unparalleled opportunity to learn," he says. "We had all sorts of tutors who were among the great and good in design at the time."

Knut founded his own company, Klimmek & Henderson, with Nigel Henderson upon his return from Dorset in 1986. That was the year his parents returned to Germany, and while his mum Barbara passed away last year, his dad and brother are still living in Germany. Knut and his sister remained in Ireland.

Siobhan, now 54, grew up fifth of the late Patsy and Billy Keilthy's six children, and they lived on Main Street, Wexford. She got engaged to Knut at 21 and they were married in a civil ceremony at 24 in 1986, by which time Siobhan was expecting their first child. "My parents were grand about the pregnancy," says Siobhan. "My father was more worried about it being a mixed marriage because Knut was Lutheran."

Knut and Siobhan now live in Dublin and have four sons; Ben, 29, Fionn, 27, Max, 26 and Sam, 23. It was a whirlwind they say, but they've loved every minute of being parents. Their son Sam, his girlfriend Sarah and their daughter Freyja, 1, also live with them, and they're thrilled to spend so much time with their beloved granddaughter.

While Siobhan is far more effusive in her praise for Knut, he is, dare we say it, a touch Germanic in his restraint. Nonetheless he's clearly devoted to his partner of 37 years. "Siobhan is lovely and she's my sounding board," he says. "I couldn't ever see myself without her. In my mind, we're still 17 walking home that first night from the rugby club."

Siobhan worked with Knut full-time for 20 years, but when the recession bit, she cut it back to one day. Knut's business partner Nigel moved on and the company changed name to Klimmek Furniture. Siobhan now also works three days weekly in accounts and office management with FDT Consulting Engineers and one day in accounts with Paul Gill Opticians in Dalkey. "It was weird and hard at the beginning not working with Knut all day," says Siobhan, "but it has all worked out grand."

Knut makes gorgeous bespoke furniture to suit clients' requirements and tastes, and is renowned for finding solutions to people's design conundrums. It is contemporary furniture, often with art deco touches, and he is looking forward to exhibiting his bedroom furniture at house 2016 next weekend. "Knut is very kind-hearted and is so hard-working," says Siobhan. "He's passionate in every sense of the word. I fancy the pants off him and am absolutely mad about him."

www.klimmek-furniture.ie will be at house 2016

For more interior inspiration, check out the Interior Design Clinic at house 2016, where 40+ artists will display their work. May 20-22, at the RDS, Dublin, tickets at house-event.ie/tickets
Hundreds of surveys are released every week, but occasionally, one of them really hits home.

This week, my social-media timelines were flooded by different takes on the same study from the universities of Tel Aviv and Massachusetts  which claims only half of the people you consider to be your friends, actually are.

Like any normal person, the study left me wondering who, among my mates, might secretly hate me.

I scanned my phone looking for ignored messages or snarky comments, racking my mind for who didnt turn up to my birthday party.

But you know what I didnt do until much later? I didnt ask myself why Im holding on to people that I secretly hate. But Ive done it. And I bet you have too.

If my WhatsApp conversations with my best friends were published, theyd make the hacked Sony emails look like a little bit of a slip. Theyre laden with screenshots, comments and voice notes about our mutual acquaintances whove rubbed us up the wrong way. But when I see those same people at social events? Its all air-kisses and I love your new hair!

Im not a totally heinous person. But there are a handful of women who Ive continued to be friends with, despite the fact I dont really like them.

In a couple of cases, its been about the longevity of the friendship. Researchers have claimed that if a friendship lasts longer than seven years, its likely to continue throughout your life.

If thats true, I reckon its got less to do with Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants-style camaraderie, and more to with nostalgia, and guilt about ending something so long-standing.

Ive lost count of the number of times Ive complained about a particular pal, only to finish the conversation with but weve been friends for so long.

When someones seen you through side-fringes and virginity-loss, it can seem impossible or even cruel to get rid of them. Which is how I found myself having drinks and lunches with one particular friend who made me feel awful about myself  and made snarky comments about my boyfriend.

But how do you throw something that long-lasting away?

Maybe the biggest reason we get stuck spending time with people we cant stand is because theres no ritual in our culture to get rid of friends. Ive put up with behaviour from certain friends (or, thankfully, now ex-friends) that I would never have accepted from a boyfriend.

Break-up

But theres no such thing as a friendship break-up. You dont take your girlfriends to dinner to explain to them you like them but youve changed as a person and you need space. Maybe if such a tradition did exist, we wouldnt find ourselves lumbered with frenemies in the first place. And for those who have done it? They say it was harder and more painful than any relationship break-up.

On some level, Im making excuses for myself. Yes, Ive kept friends long past their sell-by dates for noble reasons, but sometimes its been a lot more selfish than that.

Because, whisper it, bonding over a shared hatred of someone is one of the strongest connections you can have with a friend.

Two women I know found themselves stuck in an awkward conversation at a drinks party until they realised neither of them could stand a mutual friend. Since then, theyve become besties, sharing yoga classes and secrets. Theyve moved way past a shared loathing  but that doesnt negate what they first bonded over, and Ive done the exact same thing in the past.

Im going to lay my cards on the table: I love a good bitch, and the advent of social media has made the remit of our gossip infinitely wider. Weve got viewfinders into other peoples lives. Whether its sharing Facebook screenshots from racist school friends, or spending a night out discussing someones obviously posed holiday snaps, its cathartic, its natural and I reckon its pretty normal.

One thing it isnt is purposeless. If youre doing it a lot  or its not about minor things  it usually means something, and acknowledging that can be a powerful watershed.

After my boyfriend pointed out that Id complained about the same friend over and over again, I was forced to ask myself why.

I realised every time Id seen that person in the last year, Id come away feeling bad about myself, and because of that, I really didnt like her anymore. Whether it was announcing that Id signed with a literary agent or got engaged, shed made snarky comments one too many times, and Id lost my ability to brush it off. So even though it caused drama and fall-out, the friendship had to end.

Doing nothing about a difficult friendship, aside from bitching, is pretty normal, even if its not A-grade behaviour.

But if you consistently leave social occasions with that friend feeling worse about yourself? Then its time to stop telling other people you dont like that person  and tell them to their face. Chances are, the feeling is entirely mutual.
From high-flying chefs to takeaway services at sea level, we've got five signs that in-flight food is starting to get serious...

Think of airplane food, and many of us shudder rather than salivate.

Getting the stuff to taste good  or even remotely palatable  is a challenge that hundreds of airlines have tried, and largely failed, to overcome.

Food always seems to taste worse at 35,000 feet.

Why is this the case? Well, leaving aside the problems of preparing, packaging and serving food in a cabin without proper cooking facilities, there's also the small issue of pressurized air having a numbing effect on our taste buds.

Flavoursome in-flight meals just aren't meant to be, it seems.

Or are they?

Not that were getting our hopes up, but there are several signs that airplane food is finally being seen as a point of distinction in crowded skies.

1) Lufthansas Home Delivery

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Air Food One, as it is snappily titled, is run together with LSG Sky Chefs, who cook up the business class food for Lufthansa. You may not be able to fly business, in other words, but for a maximum of 9.99 per dish, you can enjoy a taste of the high life in the skies (as long as you live in Germany, that is). Recent menus featured a Chinese chicken special and a fillet of kingfish with cabbage risotto. www.allyouneed.com

2) Clodagh's cooking for Aer Lingus

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Whatsapp Clodagh McKenna designed a range of in-flight meals for Aer Lingus.

Clodagh McKenna has been the face and talent behind Aer Linguss Bia menus for some time  with the airlines Irish breakfast among the handful of dishes that have won the stomachs, if not the hearts, of customers. The airline upped the ante recently, with the launch of a pre-order service for transatlantic flights. McKennas new menus are available to pre-book online up to 24 hours before travel and, priced at 18.50, will include choices of "succulent steak, melt-in-mouth salmon and roast chicken with a twist". www.aerlingus.com

3) Korean Air has a food truck

No , seriously. Korean Air is bringing a food truck to Huston, Texas this October 26th  complete with three of its signature in-flight dishes. The airline plans to serve about 250 meals a day Bulgogi (strips of sirloin steak marinated in a sweet sauce), bibimbap (a vegetable rice dish) and galbi (braised short ribs) will all be on the menu.

We will serve some of our traditionnal inflight meals in Houston. Taste our signature bibimbap or bulgogi today. /CB pic.twitter.com/Gd2ALCm6Ua  Korean Air (@KoreanAir_KE) September 30, 2014

4) Thai Airways is opening a restaurant

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Thai Airways has plans to open a restaurant in Bangkoks Soi Nana district next year. It's time to reach out and cash in on the burgeoning trend," Suraphon Israngura Na Ayuthya, managing director of Thai's catering department, told The Nation recently.

5) Etihad is training butlers

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An elite group of Etihad Airways cabin crew are set to become the aviation worlds first flying butlers, having completed a three-week training course at the Savoy Hotel in London. The role of the world's first flying butlers is to look after VIP guests in Etihad's 'Residence' cabin - a private suite that puts even First Class in the ha'penny place. Eventually, the hope is that we will see rising food and service standards trickling down to cattle class. Eventually, we say. www.etihad.com
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John Downing Opinion New British prime minister Rishi Sunaks succession proves an important milestone in British political inclusivity

There is an old saying in British politics that goes: The right looks for converts while the left seeks out traitors. It comes to mind when one reflects upon the election of Rishi Sunak as the UKs first non-white prime minister in a party traditionally seen as most opposed to mass immigration and the dilution of national identity via multiculturalism.
This is Up and Down, where we give a brief thumbs up and thumbs down on issues from the past week.

Up

Knowing our history can help us understand how society and our culture developed. So plans by the Fort Abraham Lincoln Foundation to build community heritage and event center at the former Captain Meriwethers restaurant location are intriguing. Folks waiting for or completing a cruise on the Lewis and Clark Riverboat will have a chance to learn about the area  the steamboats role in the fur trade, the coming of the railroad and the tough times homesteaders endured. The foundation needs $1 million to build the facility and has raised 58 percent of the money. When it gets $750,000 it can start construction. The center sounds like a fine addition to the Bismarck-Mandan area.

Down

It seems like every generation has a drug that threatens them. The latest in the deadly parade is furanyl fentanyl, a synthetic drug made in illegal labs and mixed with heroin and cocaine to increase its potency. Two students in West Fargo have overdosed on the drug. Fortunately, both survived. So far Bismarck and Mandan schools havent encountered the drug, but they are warning parents to be aware of the drug and urging students not to fall prey to it. Its good the schools are being proactive about fighting the drug, but its unfortunate the preventive steps are necessary.

Up

Spring brings change to schools. Students graduate and take the next step in their education and some educators decide its time to retire. After 50 years of teaching history at Bismarck State College, Mike McCormack will take the next step in his life. McCormack, 74, attended what was then Bismarck Junior College and studied under Army Col. Wesley Wilson. McCormack has been active in the community during his tenure and thats unlikely to change. As McCormack winds down, Sedalia Mahlum gears up. Mahlum, a Century High School senior, has been named a U.S. Presidential Scholar. Shell go to Washington, D.C., along with the 159 other Presidential Scholars to be honored by the president. She plans to attend Columbia University and study human rights. She wants to do advocacy work and help refugees.

Down

Oil production continues to decline in North Dakota, but it could be worst. Average daily production declined by about 10,000 barrels since February, but the drop was half of what was expected 10 days ago because of a last-minute production increase. With the number of incomplete and inactivate wells continuing to rise, production could drop by the end of the year, according to Department of Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms. He expects the production slowdown to last until the third quarter of 2016 or possibly into the second quarter of 2017. Theres not much North Dakota can do but wait.

Up

During the oil boom one of the problems in the oil patch has been litter. The crazy traffic resulted in all kinds of items being left along the roads, some blown off trucks and other items pitched by motorists. Fortunately, the areas residents, state agencies and oil-related companies dont tolerate the situation. There have been cleanup drives organized over the years. Volunteers gather and walk the roads, picking up what others should never have tossed. The cleanup of Highway 85 from Bowman to Williston was recently completed as hundreds of volunteers collected 1,800 bags of litter. It was a great job and they deserve our thanks.

Down

Its disappointing that Koehlers Point, a small camping area and boat ramp on the north side of Lake Tschida, will close. The Bureau of Reclamation, manager of the Heart Butte Dam reservoir, couldnt reach an agreement on a road easement. Walk-ins will be allowed in the area, but the boat ramp will be removed. Everyone seems to want to reach a deal, so hopefully a compromise can be reached.
The issue of charging for our water/sewage service continues to make headlines. The more remarkable recent headlines referred to politicians disowning water charges which they themselves initiated when they were members of a previous government.

They actually made the discontinuance of water charges a condition of forming the present Government.

The most recent headlines refer to a member of the present Cabinet who asked the Attorney General if he should pay.

Most of the rest of us paid because the water/sewage infrastructure has not been adequately maintained for decades.

We also paid because when the country was bankrupt by the decisions of its own most powerful citizens, they themselves proposed water charges as one of the means of raising money to plug the glaring gap in the Government coffers.

We also paid because water charges were included in budgets, national plans and agreements with the representatives of those foreign taxpayers who funded our multi-billion bailout in 2010.

We also paid because water charges were passed by the Dail which is the decision-making body we elect to pass laws for the citizens of this democratic republic.

We also paid because of the fact that most developed countries fund their water/sewage systems by direct charges.

In summary, we paid because we support the equity, efficiency and sustainability of a perfectly rational, economically and environmentally justified, lawful and necessary direct charge for a metered water supply that applies in most of the developed world.

A Leavy

Sutton, Dublin 13

All talk, no action from ministers

Ireland may not be used to the kind of minority government which is now in office, the fact is that the vibes we are all getting from both the old and new political representatives involved are those of instability and utter confusion, with plenty of rhetoric and very little action.

Bills for water charges are still being sent to people who do not know any more where they stand with regard to the mooted or promised abolition or regulation of same, thus being caught in the unfair, undemocratic inequality between those who are paying for the charges and those who are not.

The very grave Luas dispute is gaining momentum but the new Minister for Transport has declared that he is not willing to get involved, as it is a private dispute, forgetting the principle that, be it private or public, any dispute affecting the daily living of citizens should be any government's business.

Apart from empty promises, silence and inaction reign with regard to the other priority issues such as homelessness, housing and rent. Rent control or even a rent freeze are still being resisted, while unbridled rent levels are crippling an ever-increasing section of the population.

In this connection, the most absurd comment heard recently on TV was that freezing rents would be counterproductive as it would bring rents to far too low a level. It beggars belief! Imagine the joy of landlords if they introduced rent freeze at the level they are right now.

Concetto La Malfa

Dublin 4

Sabina is a real breath of fresh air

David Quinn (Irish Independent, May 13), berates Sabina Higgins for commenting on social issues, latterly abortion, because she is the President's wife. Allow me to dissuade you from the view that she is an appendage of an elected official.

Sabina has never been afraid to say what she believes; and why would she now?

Michael and Sabina are each a breath of fresh air blowing through the morass of Irish politics. A Leavey (May 13) is correct, except for one point, and that is, no matter who was in Government at the time, and like every other country, we would most likely have ended up with the same result, or worse. Why on earth would anyone try to silence them?

Sammy Harrington

Castletown, Berehaven, Cork

Brexit woes just a fantasy

The debate about Britain's membership in Europe is morphing into a scaremongering campaign. The American president, his former defence, state secretaries, and national security advisors, general secretaries of Nato, foreign dignitaries, the IMF have all joined the chorus warning about the potential dangers lurking in the horizon once Britain decides to leave the European Union.

All seem to be living in their ivory towers, away from the issues that affect the daily lives of the British people.

None of those preaching the virtues of immigration and remaining in the EU, needs to worry about a very real housing crisis, severe rent burdens, unemployment, waiting too long for an appointment with the GP, grieving for a relative or a friend dying while waiting for an organ on NHS lists, and the list goes on. They are financially secure for generations to come.

Why not come down from their ivory tower, interact with people and live their real lives far from their fantasies?

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London

Bono for Eurovision

Nicky Byrne's 'Sunlight' offering to the Eurovision was every bit as good if not better than many of the other songs staged during the semi-final heats.

Nicky gave a joyful and seasoned performance which I thoroughly enjoyed. Given that it still got the old heave-ho, the only option left to us is a final try, with Bono and Bob Geldof forming a boy (aul fella) band singing a posthumous song written by Percy French, a floor show by Flatley et al and a light show sponsored by the many Irish-based FDI tech giants.

It seems to tick all the boxes, including the PPP model.

If this fails our only option is 'Eurovisexit'. The funds that pay for the 10-or-so-second Bord Failte commercial that Eurovision offers could be put into a cross-border initiative - a 24-hour satellite channel showcasing all of the wonderful landscape, music, art, sport, food and adventure that our little island paradise has to offer.

Programming could include existing archives from RTE, TG4 and UTV and BBC's coast programme. Updated additions could be included to showcase new holiday opportunities.

Eileen O'Sullivan

Bray, Co Wicklow

History repeating itself

Clearly we have learned nothing from history regarding the Eurovision.

The lesson is if you can't beat them, join them, so I suggest that our next song be in Ukrainian.

Ed Toal

Galway City
Toby Jones is to star in Sherlock

Toby Jones is to play a villain in the fourth series of award-winning television show Sherlock.

The actor will appear alongside Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in the second episode of the brand new three-part series, which started filming on Monday.

He said: "I'm excited and intrigued by the character I shall be playing in Sherlock ..."

Sherlock is written and created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, and was inspired by the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Moffat said: "Delighted to have Toby Jones on board, bringing to life one of Doyle's finest villains."

Gatiss added: "We're thrilled to welcome one of our finest actors to the Sherlock family.

"I know Toby will embrace the part with true relish!"

It was announced last month that series four of the BBC One show will begin with the nation's favourite detective, the mercurial Sherlock Holmes (Cumberbatch), back once more on British soil, as Dr Watson (Freeman) and his wife Mary (Amanda Abbington) prepare for parenthood.

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride, which aired on New Year's Day, was the most watched programme over the festive season, with 11.6 million viewers and the highest-ever audience share for a Sherlock episode.

The Victorian special was also released in thousands of cinemas around the world to complement the TV broadcast.
Ruth Blayney, from Churchtown, and Peter Kenealy, from Glasnevin, met through work in 2013, and tied the knot in Dublin's Unitarian Church after a surprise New Year's Eve engagement last year.

A shocked Ruth burst into tears when Peter popped the question. In fact, she kept bursting into tears for the next three days but "it was all good tears".

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The pair tied the knot in Dublin's Unitarian Church and celebrated with a reception at Smock Alley Theatre.

The bride dazzled in her wedding gown, a long sleeved lace La Sposa mermaid gown with train, purchased from Bridal Dreams in Swords.

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Festive Rock was the hyrbid wedding theme. Ruth explains: "Were both fans of the band, Queens of the Stone Age, so our table names were all song names from the albums. Our entrance song was also a Queens of the Stone Age song, and our invitation had references to them too.

"We absolutely love the festive season, so we made the most of it. The bouquets contained tiny pine cones and berries, supplied by Vivian at Dublin House of Flowers, and our DIY centre pieces for the reception were little gold Christmas trees with tiny copper strung fairy lights. We also large jars filled with baubles, lights and pine cones."

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Ruth and Peter put a lot of effort into making sure their wedding was filled with plenty of personal touches.

The groom designed the wedding stationary. The wedding band, We Were Giants, were the same band the couple saw perform on their first date. The church musician, James Walmsley, had worked with Ruth on her first job out of college.

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Even the wedding cake (chocolate biscuit cake base, red velvet second tier and fruit cake top tier) was baked by someone close to the family, the bride's cousin, Shona. Ruth had been Shona's nanny so she said it was "incredible" to have the wedding cake prepared by her.

The couple did have to put up with an unexpected guest at their wedding... Storm Desmond.

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Video of the Day

But the rain didn't dampen the spirits of the wedding party on the big day. In fact, Ruth says it helped create one of her most memorable experiences of the day.

"If I absolutely had to narrow it down, walking through Dublin with a giant umbrella on our photo shoot was probably the most memorable experience. All around us the lovely people of Dublin wished us well and called out comments and encouragement to us.

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"As we walked along Clarendon Street Applebys Jewellers popped out to wish us well, presenting us with a bottle of champagne. We had thought all might be lost as wed planned all our photos outside but actually Storm Desmond made for beautiful photos, and well never forget it!"

Wedding photos were taken care of by Elaine Barker Photography and, much to the couple's delight, the photographer had some of the first shots ready within 48 hours of the wedding.

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"Her enthusiasm was infectious and her ideas showed that she absolutely understood what made us tick and what we wanted," Ruth said of the photographer.

"I just can't convey how delighted we are with the pictures - they really capture the elation of the day."

For their honeymoon, the loved-up couple stayed in the five-star resort of Secrets Capri Riviera hotel in Cancun, Mexico where the bride even managed to go swimming with dolphins - that's one to cross off the bucket list.

Images supplied by Elaine Barker Photography
US Secretary of State John Kerry attends the ministerial meeting on Libya in Vienna, Austria. Reuters/Leonhard Foeger/Pool

The United States and other world powers have said they are ready to supply Libya's internationally recognised government with weapons to counter Islamic State and other terrorists.

The decision is stated in a communique prepared for the end of top-level talks on Libya and obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its release.

Libyia is under a UN embargo imposed to keep lethal arms away from terrorists and rival militias vying for power.

But the communique signed by the US, the four other permanent UN Security Council members, and the more than 15 other nations participating at the talks are "ready to respond to the Libyan government's requests for training and equipping" government forces.
Donald Trump has insisted Brexit would not put Britain at the back of the queue to secure a US trade deal should he become president.

Donald Trump has insisted Brexit would not put Britain at the back of the queue to secure a US trade deal should he become president.

The presumptive Republican nominee said it would make no difference to him whether Britain decides to stay with the European Union or chooses to leave next month.

He also adopted a different tone to US President Barack Obama when assessing the time it would take for the UK to secure a new trade deal if it votes to leave.

Mr Obama prompted a furious backlash among Leave campaigners when he warned Britain would be "at the back of the queue".

Mr Trump, in an interview with Piers Morgan due to be aired in full on ITV today, said: "I think if I were from Britain I would probably want to go back to a different system."

Asked if the UK would be at the front of the queue for a trade deal under a Trump presidency, he replied: "I don't want to say front or anything else.

"I mean, I'm going to treat everybody fairly but it wouldn't make any difference to me whether they were in the EU or not."

He added: "You'd certainly not be back of the queue, that I can tell you."

Ukip leader Nigel Farage, responding to a preview aired on ITV, joked: "It just goes to show Donald Trump is measured, neutral, doesn't want to get stuck into the punch-up."

Mr Farage added: "He's given a very diplomatic answer."

The Euro MP said investors believed it made no difference whether Britain chooses to stay or leave the EU.

Asked if he would back Mr Trump for US president, Mr Farage said: "I have difficulty with that.

"Let's put it like this, I couldn't vote for (Hillary Clinton) even if you paid me. If you put me up against a wall it would be (Mr Trump), not Hillary, but I have reservations. Encouraging people to beat up protesters, one or two things like that bother me, but look, I tell you what, I think he's going to win."
It's 100,000 laps around Earth and counting for the International Space Station.

The space station reached the orbital milestone - 17-and-a-half years in the making - on Monday morning.

Nasa said these 100,000 orbits are akin to travelling more than 2.6 billion miles, which is the equivalent of 10 round trips to Mars, or almost one way to Neptune.

Each orbit takes about 90 minutes, and 16 orbits comprise a station day.

Astronauts have been living continuously aboard the complex 250 miles up since 2000. Construction began two years before that.

Since then, 222 people have lived or visited there, the vast majority of them - 189 - men, according to Nasa.

In total, there have been 47 permanent crews representing the US, Russian, Canadian, Japanese and European space agencies.

Two Americans, three Russians and Englishman Tim Peake currently call the space station home.

They recently achieved a photographic milestone, snapping the three millionth picture taken over the years from the scientific outpost.

"One hundred thousand orbits, the journey continues," Nasa astronaut Jeffrey Williams said in a celebratory video from space.
Boris Johnson used plenty of underwear-themed jokes on a visit to a knicker factory

Boris Johnson has dismissed the EU as a "badly designed undergarment", adding: "Knickers to all those who talk Britain down."

Mr Johnson criticised opponents of Britain leaving the EU for their pessimism and claimed their "pants are on fire", as he campaigned for Leave at a Derbyshire factory which makes womenswear, knitwear and lingerie.

The former London mayor returned to the campaign trail amid continuing questions over his comparison of the EU with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's plans for domination of the continent.

After arriving at the David Nieper factory in Alfreton, Mr Johnson was guided to a sewing machine where he attempted to make improvements to a Vote Leave flag.

The Tory MP then ironed the flag and joked "We're going to flatten our opponents", with factory worker Sheila Stout impressed by his "fabulous" ironing.

But he reserved his knicker blast at Brexit knockers for a speech to workers at the firm, whose managing director Christopher Nieper has expressed his support for Leave.

Mr Johnson said: "I think when you look at the EU now it makes me think of, as I look around this wonderful factory, some badly designed undergarment that has now become too tight in some places - far too tight, far too constrictive and dangerously loose in other places.

"Now, is that the kind of undergarment we make here at David Nieper? Absolutely not.

"That's why you're continuing to do so well and according to both David and Christopher Nieper continuing to export around the world. What a fantastic achievement by a British company."

He added: "I just say to all those who prophecy gloom and doom for British business, I say their pants are on fire folks.

"I think their pants are on fire and if they want a new pair this is the place to come.

"Knickers to the pessimists, how about that? Let's say knickers to the pessimists, knickers to all those who talk Britain down."

Mr Johnson was joined by Labour MP and fellow Vote Leave campaigner Gisela Stuart for the visit, which later included a tour of John A Stephens Ltd - a builders' merchant in Nottingham.

The duo spoke with Emma Lowe, 43, of Nottingham as she shopped for slabs.

Asked if she was voting Remain or Leave, she said: "I'm still on the fence."

Mr Johnson joked: "This is the place, they've got loads of fences."
The repairs to the Big Ben clock tower will be live streamed

Clockwatchers will be able to view every second of the renovations to the tower which houses Big Ben thanks to the installation of a live stream.

When urgent repair work begins on the London landmark next year, cameras will provide round-the-clock footage of the action - giving a close-up view of the tower like never before.

Westminster Live Studios, which is located on the opposite side of the River Thames, will live stream the restoration work and produce a time-lapse video.

A 29 million programme to repair the Elizabeth Tower will silence the famous Big Ben bell for several months.

The tower's masonry and roof, as well as the clock faces and mechanism, will be repaired during the work.

Neil Sean, managing director of the studios, said the live stream idea had been backed by the new London mayor, Sadiq Khan, as well as host of international television channels.

"We got calls from America, Spain, Germany and France," he said.

Mr Sean said the opportunity for audiences to get a close-up of the renovation work was "incredible".

"It will be interesting just to see somebody putting scaffolding up. It's amazing what you can see."

The live stream will offer viewers a chance to see a range of different angles of the tower during the restoration process as soon as the work begins.
For over 23 years as the secretary of state, I have worked with Wayne Stenehjem on many issues that apply to the duties of my office, both when he was a legislator and in his current position as the attorney general. He has served the state well in both positions.

As a legislator and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Stenehjem sponsored legislation that helped streamline the business registration process and provided prospective business owners with choices as to the type of business structure best fitting their business model.

Prior to 1997, when a voter could not make it to the polls on election day, they had to provide a reason as to why they were requesting an absentee ballot. Again, as a legislator, Stenehjem introduced legislation to remove that requirement. In over 19 years, it has resulted in thousands of voters having the ability to easily cast an absentee ballot without first having to give a reason (in some cases, a fictitious reason).

As the attorney general, he has advocated for transparency in government by enforcing the law on open records and meetings. Stenehjems office also investigated the fraudulent circulation and the forgery of thousands of signatures on initiated petitions.

In many elections throughout the years, the voters have confirmed his value as a public servant by electing him and I do not take the judgment of the voters lightly. I value and agree with their opinion.

Based on my personal experiences with him, he is well prepared and would continue the excellent leadership of the past three governors with whom I have served, Ed Schafer, John Hoeven and Jack Dalrymple. Therefore, I look forward to the opportunity of working with Wayne Stenehjem as the next governor. I am confident he will continue to serve well the citizens of North Dakota.
Two people have been injured in a shooting in southern Kansas

Two people have been injured in an accidental shooting at a high school graduation ceremony in southern Kansas, authorities said.

They were injured when a man with a concealed weapon permit adjusted a sock he had stuffed a pistol into, police said.

Augusta Police Chief Tyler Brewer said the shooting was accidental and described it as a "knucklehead situation".

The bullet went through the man's foot and travelled about another 50 feet before striking a woman in her calf.

The woman has been released from a Wichita hospital, while the man is receiving treatment.

The Augusta High School event continued after the shooting, with most people unaware of what happened.

Mr Brewer said he plans to present the case to prosecutors because it is illegal to carry a firearm on school grounds.
Rodrigo Duterte said he would seek to reimpose the death penalty (AP)

Philippines' President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has said he aims to bring back death by hanging.

Mr Duterte said he will ask his country's congress to reimpose the death penalty, which has been suspended since 2006 following opposition from the Roman Catholic church.

The controversial presumptive president, who was making his first policy pronouncements since winning last week's election based on an unofficial count, said that capital punishment by hanging should be imposed for crimes such as murder, robbery and rape.

Mr Duterte went on to say that those convicted of more than one crime would be hanged twice.

"After the first hanging, there will be another ceremony for the second time until the head is completely severed from the body," he said in the nationally televised news conference.

He said he will also offer cabinet posts to communist rebels and move to amend the constitution to give more power to the provinces.

In his first formal news conference since the vote on May 9, Mr Duterte added that he will launch a major military offensive to destroy the extremist group Abu Sayyaf on the southern Jolo Island.

The announcements are a sharp departure from current government policy and reflect his brash campaign pledge to end crime and corruption in the impoverished nation in three to six months.

Police officials have said the plan is unachievable and that crime remains prevalent in Davao City, where Mr Duterte has served as mayor for more than 22 years.

The military have been fighting a decades-long Marxist insurgency in the countryside.

Mr Duterte said he is likely to offer the cabinet posts of environment and natural resources, agrarian reform, social welfare, and labour to the communist rebels.

He said: "They are the most vigilant group in the Philippines about labour so they would get it."

The move is likely to be opposed by big business and industry.

Mr Duterte said he would also sell the presidential yacht and use the money to buy medical equipment for military and police personnel.

"When people are hungry and jobless ... it would be an obscene thing" to have the luxury vessel lying unused, he said.

Chairman of the country's Commission on Human Rights, Chito Gascon, said his agency opposes the death penalty and would block any attempt to reimpose it, adding that the constitution forbids cruel and degrading punishments like hanging.

Mr Gascon said: "In a country where the rule of law has so many loopholes and problems, what will happen is the possibility of a mistaken conviction."

Mr Duterte also plans to switch to a federal form of government, aiming to give more power and resources to regions, including the country's south, where Davao City is located. Such a change would require an amendment to the constitution.

He reiterated his vow to control illegal drugs and crime, even if it means losing the presidency or his life.

He told critics: "Stop messing with me, because I have a sacred promise to save the next generation from the evil of drugs."

He also promised to cut government red tape and remove corrupt officials. Mr Duterte said "contaminated" police generals facing corruption cases should "get out now" before he assumes office. If not, they should prepare to be sent to invade the Abu Sayyaf militants, who have been blamed for multiple kidnappings and beheadings.

"And if you are taken hostage there, say your 'Our Fathers' because I will never, never pay anything to retrieve you," he added.

Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Visaya, who is being considered by Mr Duterte to head the military, said he met over the weekend with the mayor, who told him he wanted troops to finish off the Abu Sayyaf within the president's six-year term and to back up the police in going after drug syndicates.

After the news conference, Mr Duterte met with the ambassadors of China, Japan and Israel. Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua gave him a book about Chinese President Xi Jinping.
A group of Czech personalities have urged Britain to stay a part of the EU

A group of Czech scientists, artists and other personalities have warned that a British exit from the European Union could be "catastrophic" for Europe and Britain.

Former Czech ambassador to London Michael Zantovsky penned an open letter, released on Monday, urging Britons to vote to remain in the EU. The letter is formally addressed to British playwright Tom Stoppard, who is of Czech origin.

It has been signed by dozens of Czechs, including Academy of Science head Jiri Drahos, conductors Jiri Belohlavek and Jiri Pesek, and Olympic champion Vera Caslavska.

They say they fully respect the right of British citizens to decide but wanted to share with them their worries and hopes.
Iraqi firefighters try to extinguish a fire at a natural gas plant in Taji, 20km north of Baghdad, after an attack claimed by Isil

ISIL militants are poised to use chemical weapons in a desperate defence of Mosul as Iraqi troops prepare to retake the country's second city, a senior coalition officer has warned.

The recapture of Mosul, which has been in the hands of Islamic State in Iraq and Levant for nearly two years, is "inevitable", but will be a "long, hard road", said Brig Roger Noble, the Australian deputy commander of international troops training and supporting the Iraqi army.

The city is believed to have been fortified with tunnel complexes and minefields made up of thousands of homemade bombs. Iraqi commanders backed by US-led airstrikes are also likely to face a familiar barrage of suicide bombers both on foot and in vehicles.

Brig Noble said generals were expecting a repeat of recent chemical weapons attacks seen on Kurdish troops.

He said: "Chemical weapons are part of the equation and the Iraqi army plans for and operates with that as part of the equation. They would expect the full raft of enemy capabilities to be employed."

Brig Noble, who keeps his own gas mask next to his desk, said both the Iraqis and the US-led coalition were "acutely on guard" for chemical attacks.

The northern city, which fell to the jihadists' lightning advance in June 2014 as some 30,000 Iraqi soldiers fled, is a "seminal terrain point" for the militants, ranking alongside their self-styled caliphate's capital of Raqqa in importance.

Brig Noble said: "For the enemy, it is an important location for their thinking. That means we assess they are likely to defend it. The closer you get to Mosul, it gets hard. It's a long hard road to clear Mosul."

Isil fighters have been accused of firing chlorine or mustard gas at Kurdish fighters several times as the Peshmerga fighters close in from the north and Iraqi soldiers approach from the south.

While chemical weapons have caused few casualties so far, the threat can terrify ground troops. The extremists have seized large quantities of industrial chlorine and are believed to have the expertise to make mustard gas.

They are also feared to have captured chemical weapon stocks from Bashar-al Assad's regime across the border in Syria.

"It's not the First World War, we are not looking at massive barrages of mustard gas, but the use of chemical weapons is a factor," said Brig Noble.

Advancing Iraqi forces are also preparing to have to fight through thick belts of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on the outskirts of the city and then along street after street of boobytrapped buildings.

When Iraqi troops liberated Ramadi in December, they found the city seeded with vast numbers of bombs. ( Daily Telegraph, London)

Extremists kill 29 in series of bomb attacks

ISIL launched a coordinated assault on a natural gas plant north of Baghdad which killed at least 14 people, while a string of other bomb attacks in and around the capital killed 15 others.

The attack on the gas plant started at dawn with a suicide car bomber hitting the facility's main gate in the town of Taji, about 20km north of Baghdad.

Several suicide bombers and militants then broke into the plant and clashed with the security forces, an official said, adding that 27 troops were wounded.

A car bomb targeting a shopping area in the town of Latifiyah, about 30km south of the capital, killed seven people, including two soldiers. Eighteen people were also wounded in the attack, including four soldiers.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, three separate bomb attacks targeted commercial areas, killing at least eight civilians and wounding 28 others.
A pioneering Italian fertility doctor accused of forcibly harvesting women's eggs has denounced the allegations against him as a witch hunt, amid a widening investigation into the industry.

Severino Antinori, known in Italy as the "grandmothers' obstetrician", has been put under house arrest and his medical licence suspended while he is investigated over the claims.

Dr Antinori is also accused of paying women up to 1,000, which is illegal under Italian fertility laws.

His arrest was triggered by a complaint by a 24-year-old Spanish woman who claimed her eggs were taken without her consent last month at the physician's clinic in Milan.

According to Italian investigators, the woman, who was working as a nurse at the clinic, claims she was forcibly immobilised and anaesthetised before her eggs were surgically harvested against her will.

Deprived of her phone, she called emergency services from a clinic telephone, leading to the investigation. She claims she believed she was being treated for an ovarian cyst.

However, one of Dr Antinori's lawyers, Tommaso Pietrocarlo, said that the woman signed a consent form for egg donation a month before the surgery after a "consultation with a psychologist" who said she was conscious of the choice and said that it "did not pose any problem".

"This is a persecution. I never forced anyone to do anything," Dr Antinori said. ( Daily Telegraph, London)
Pope Francis has voiced support for a French cardinal who has faced allegations of covering up cases of paedophile priests in his Lyon parish, saying he should not resign.

Francis said in an interview with French Catholic daily La Croix coming out on Tuesday that a resignation of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin "would be a mistake, an imprudence".

"Based on the information I have, I think in Lyon, Cardinal Barbarin has taken the necessary measures and has taken things well in hand," the pope said. "He is a brave and creative man, a missionary."

Francis said "we must now wait for the result of the proceedings before the civil courts", but resigning now "would amount to admitting guilt".

The cardinal, one of the most high-ranking officials in the French Catholic Church, has been targeted by two investigations for not reporting cases of child abuses by priests to judicial authorities. The cardinal has denied any cover-ups, but acknowledged "some mistakes in handling and appointing some priests" last month. Other church officials have been also investigated.

In the interview, Francis said that regarding cases of paedophile priests in general, for the church, "there can be no prescription" and that "tolerance must be zero".

"Through these abuses, a priest, who is designed to drive a child to God, is destroying him. He spreads evil, resentment, pain," the pope said.

Francis gave the one-hour interview to two La Croix journalists at his residence in the Vatican on May 9. The pope was speaking in Italian. The daily said the Vatican read the piece before it was published.
In a move fraught with risk, the United States and other world powers have said they will supply Libya's internationally recognised government with weapons to counter Islamic State and other militant groups gaining footholds in the country.

Aiming at once to shore up the fragile government, and prevent Islamic State fighters and rival militias from further gains, the US, the four other permanent UN Security Council members and more than 15 other nations said they would approve exemptions to a United Nations arms embargo to allow military sales and aid to Libya's so-called Government of National Accord.

In a joint communique, the nations said that while the broader embargo will remain in place, they are "ready to respond to the Libyan government's requests for training and equipping" government forces.

"We will fully support these efforts while continuing to reinforce the UN arms embargo," the communique said.

With support from all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the plan is unlikely to face significant opposition from any quarter.

The communique was issued at the end of the talks that gathered US Secretary of State John Kerry and top officials from more than 20 other nations to discuss ways to strengthen Libya's fledgling government. The aim is to give the internationally recognised administration more muscle in fighting Islamic State radicals and end its rivalry with a group to the east claiming legitimacy.

The step will boost the government's efforts to consolidate power and regain control over Libyan state institutions like the central bank and national oil company. However, it also comes with risks, not least of which is that the arms may be captured or otherwise taken by the Islamic State or other groups.

Mr Kerry called the plan "a delicate balance".

He added: "But we are, all of us here today, supportive of the fact that if you have a legitimate government and that legitimate government is fighting terrorism, that legitimate government should not be victimised by (the embargo)."

Libyan premier Fayez al-Sarraj said his government would soon submit a weapons wish-list to the Security Council for approval.

"We have a major challenge ahead of us," in fighting extremists, he said. "We urge the international community to assist us."

Before the meeting, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier outlined the high stakes at hand.

"The key question is whether Libya remains a place where terrorism, criminal human smuggling and instability continue to expand, or if we are able, together with the government of national unity to recover stability," he told reporters.

The challenges are daunting.

Libya descended into chaos after the toppling and death of Muammar Gaddafi five years ago and soon turned into a battleground of rival militias battling for powers.

More recently, the power vacuum has allowed Islamic State radicals to expand their presence, giving them a potential base in a country separated from Europe only by a relatively small stretch of the Mediterranean Sea.

Also worrying for Europe is the potential threat of a mass influx of refugees amassing in Libya, now that the earlier route from Turkey into Greece has been essentially shut down.

In Libya, the UN-established presidency council on Monday effectively gave the go-ahead for 18 government ministers to start work, even though they have not received backing from the parliament.

The council was created under a UN-brokered unity deal struck in December to reconcile Libya's many political divisions. It won the support of a former powerbase in the country's capital Tripoli, but failed to secure a vote of confidence by the country's internationally recognised parliament, based in Tobruk, a city in eastern Libya.

The UN deal also created the internationally recognised government, through a de facto cabinet to administer the country under Mr Serraj and the 18 ministers will answer to him.

Divisions in the Tobruk parliament between boycotters and supporters of the new government have prevented the house from reaching a quorum to endorse the council.
Hillary Clinton is making a big final push in Kentucky, where rival Bernie Sanders hopes to extend his winning streak and further delay her clinching the Democratic presidential nomination.

Mrs Clinton is touring the state ahead of Tuesday's voting, and on Sunday visited churches and held rallies in Louisville and Fort Mitchell.

Mr Sanders was also visiting Kentucky.

"We need a president who will work every single day to make life better for American families," Mrs Clinton said at a union training centre in Louisville.

"We want somebody who can protect us and work with the rest of the world. Not talk about building walls, but building bridges."

While Mrs Clinton leads Mr Sanders by nearly 300 pledged delegates going into Tuesday's primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, the Vermont senator continues to win contests and has pledged to stay in the race until the July convention.

With Donald Trump set as the presumptive Republican nominee, Mrs Clinton's team would like to turn their attention to the general election contest, but they still cannot fully make that shift.

A win in at least one of the two upcoming contests would give Mrs Clinton momentum heading into the primaries in California and New Jersey in early June.

Oregon is favourable terrain for Mr Sanders, but Mrs Clinton's campaign thinks the race is competitive in Kentucky, where she planned to spend Sunday and Monday courting voters.

"It will be close, but either way, as with all the contests this month, we will gain additional delegates and move that much closer to clinching the nomination," Mrs Clinton's spokesman Brian Fallon said in an email.

Mrs Clinton easily won the Kentucky primary over President Barack Obama in 2008.

But this time she has come under criticism in parts of the state after saying in March that "we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business".

Mrs Clinton later said she misspoke, but the comment has drawn fire in mining communities.

On Sunday in Louisville and Fort Mitchell, Mrs Clinton touted her plan for coal country.

Her proposals include protecting miners' healthcare coverage and retirement programmes, investing in infrastructure in mining communities and repurposing mines.

Before a cheering crowd in a Fort Mitchell backyard, Mrs Clinton pledged to put husband Bill - who won the state in 1992 and 1996 -"in charge of revitalising the economy".

She provided no further details, but during Mr Clinton's administration, economic growth averaged 4% per year, median family income rose and the budget deficit was turned into a surplus.

Mrs Clinton said that when people feel left behind, they "become very interested in easy answers and the kind of demagoguery we've seen in this election".

Mrs Clinton only briefly mentioned Mr Sanders at both events, repeating a critique that he did not vote to fund the car industry bailout. Mr Sanders has accused Mrs Clinton of mischaracterising his record on the issue.

Mrs Clinton focused most of her fire on Mr Trump, calling him a "loose cannon".

She said his record will "be a big part of the general election, because Americans, regardless of our political affiliation, have to really take this vote seriously".

Going into Tuesday, Mrs Clinton has 1,716 pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses, compared with 1,433 for Mr Sanders. Adding in superdelegates, or party officials who can back any candidate, Mrs Clinton holds a much wider lead.

She remains on track to reach the 2,383 needed to win the nomination by early next month.

Mrs Clinton and her supporters have avoided calling on Mr Sanders to drop out of the race. But they worry that Mr Sanders could damage her chances by staying put.

The Vermont senator's economic hits on Mrs Clinton could benefit Mr Trump, as he seeks to appeal to independent voters.

In addition, Mrs Clinton cannot start wooing Mr Sanders' supporters until he is out of the way and she must continue campaigning in primary states, rather than general election battlegrounds.

A Trump adviser told CNN's State Of The Union on Sunday that the campaign was hoping to appeal to Sanders supporters in the general election.

"You see Democrat support for Bernie Sanders that is potential Trump support, when it's indicated that they will never vote for Hillary Clinton, and when you analyse who those people are that are saying it, they're the very demographic that Trump is appealing to in independents and crossover Democrats," Paul Manafort said.
We know Wayne Stenehjem and we believe he is the best choice for governor. Here are four reasons why.

First of all, Stenehjem was part of the team that made North Dakota great. Our state has been ranked the best run in the country not just once, but four times. If we suffered from "run-away spending" and a huge "budget deficit" we would have certainly been dropped from this ranking.

Second, Stenehjem has experience getting things done. He served in the Legislature for 24 years and as attorney general for 16 years. This is not a liability but an asset. He has experience with the critical issues facing us. There's no doubt we have challenges ahead; our state is different now than it was just a couple of years ago. We need a governor that can hit the ground running on day one.

Third, we like Stenehjem's optimism. In mid-April, Job Service North Dakota issued a report saying job openings are increasing while unemployment claims are decreasing. This is an important signal about the strength and the recovery of North Dakota economy. We have a long way to go but we're headed in the right direction.

Our fourth and final point: Government shouldn't pick winners and losers. We like the free market and the ability it gives all businesses to either succeed or fail on their own. Stenehjem's record against federal government overreach is impressive and we want this to continue.

Stenehjem is a man of integrity. We like the positive campaign he is running. He is focused on what he stands for and what he'll do rather than just attacking the other guy. We like that.

Stenehjem is a proven, consistent bipartisan leader and we are Fargo businessmen who support him as the next governor of North Dakota.
Authorities in Alberta, Canada, have launched an app offering residents of wildfire-ravaged Fort McMurray a view of their damaged homes.

Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Danielle Larivee warned that viewing the satellite images may be traumatic and provided contact details for Alberta's Mental Health Help Line.

Ms Larivee said the maps are intended to provide satellite overviews of the city following a massive wildfire that ignited almost two weeks ago, forcing more than 80,000 residents to evacuate and destroying more than 2,400 structures in Fort McMurray.

Firefighters managed to save 85 to 90% of the oil sands capital.

Ms Larivee said that, having lived through a devastating fire and evacuation herself five years ago, she knows how stressful it can be to wait for updates on which homes have been lost.
The US wants to extradite Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman (AP)

A second Mexican judge has ruled that the extradition of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States can move forward.

The judge's decision was on an extradition request from a federal court in Texas. The process still awaits the approval of Mexico's foreign ministry.

Last week, another judge made the same determination on a separate extradition request from a federal court in California.

The second decision starts another 20-day period during which the foreign affairs ministry can decide to allow the extradition.

f it approves the extradition, Guzman's lawyers have the ability to appeal, making it possible that the extradition of the leader of the Sinaloa cartel could still be months away.

The courts said on Monday that the second case is related to charges of conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and marijuana, money laundering, arms possession and murder.

Guzman faces charges from seven federal prosecutors in the US, including Chicago, New York, Miami and San Diego.

He was arrested in January after almost six months on the run following his escape from a maximum security prison through a mile-long tunnel that opened to the floor of his shower.

He had already escaped once before in 2001 and spent more than a decade as one of the world's most wanted fugitives until he was recaptured in 2014.

After his latest capture, authorities returned him to the same Altiplano prison of the brazen tunnel escape. They said they had reinforced the prison's security.

But earlier this month, Guzman was suddenly transferred to a prison near the US border in what the government said had to do with new efforts to improve security at Altiplano.
West-Oak High School Symphonic Band earns superior rating in State Concert Assessment.

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The West-Oak High School Symphonic Band, along with 171 other high school bands throughout the state, recently participated in the State Concert Assessment hosted by the South Carolina Band Director's Association.

For the first time in school history, the band earned a superior rating at the event. More specifically, the ensemble earned a "superior with distinction," which denotes straight superior marks from all five judges. As a result, the band was invited to attend the first-ever State Concert Festival held at Irmo High School. This event featured 16 of the best bands in the state, regardless of school classifications.
PHOTOS BY CHARMAINE SMITH-MILES/INDEPENDENT MAIL Lucilla Cooper sits with her son, 3-year-old Kamani Willingham, and her fiance, Adarrious Willingham, at the Anderson University campus on Sunday, a day after Cooper graduated from the university with her nursing degree.

SHARE Lucilla Cooper holds her diploma that she received Saturday at Anderson University's spring graduation ceremony. Lucilla Cooper reached her goal of graduating with a degree in nursing on Saturday after several set backs. Cooper said the journey has taught her a lot about faith and determination. Lucilla Cooper and her 3-year-old son, Kamani Willingham, hold a lamp that Cooper received in her pinning ceremony upon completing Anderson University's four-year nursing program.

By Charmaine Smith-Miles of the Independent Mail

Lucilla Cooper thought she wanted to be a lawyer despite years of her mother pointing her toward nursing.

Cooper even had her eyes set on becoming a lawyer when she enrolled at Anderson University six years ago. But Cooper walked onto the stage set up on Anderson University's Alumni Lawn and received her bachelor's of science in nursing degree on Saturday.

"I think God has a sense of humor," she said, smiling. "All these years, mom has been telling me I would make a great nurse. But I wanted to rebel. I thought I would be a lawyer."

Cooper, 24, grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. When she graduated from high school, she was looking at Clemson University and Anderson University. Friends she had here in Anderson recommended Anderson University because of its foundation in helping people learn and grow in their faith.

So, Cooper said she took a chance.

And at first, she wanted to major in psychology with the intent of going on to study law.

Everything changed when she took her first biology class at Anderson University, Cooper said. She said that for the first time she realized that she loved anatomy and could combine that love with her love of people and her faith. That's when it became clear to her what her mother had been talking about all those years.

Nursing was part of her all along. It's why she helped care for her mother, who had diabetes and high blood pressure.

"God has been introducing me to nursing for a long time," Cooper said. "Here, I learned that I have the ability to combine my faith and my work. I really love everything about anatomy and the human body. And when I learned that you could combine the art of science with the art of caring, that was it for me."

But getting here, to Anderson University, and staying here wasn't easy.

First, Cooper went through a troublesome pregnancy and took a couple of months off because of those medical problems. Then, she had to overcome financial hurdles. And then she received tough news in her last month of studies that her brother, 34-year-old Corneilius Williams, was in a terrible car crash that now has him in a vegetative state at a hospital in Connecticut.

"My biggest hurdle is what happened to my brother," Cooper said. "I didn't think I was going to graduate. I would stay up with him all day and then I would stay up all night doing course work."

Talking about her brother still is difficult for her. Cooper had her financial burdens lifted when she met Chelsey Tench, nursing admission coordinator at Anderson University.

Tench helped Cooper figure out how she could afford to stay in school while raising her newborn son, Kamani Willingham. Cooper said her fiance, Adarrious Willingham, was working full-time to support their growing family, but making ends meet with one income was tough.

Tench recommended the Women and Children Succeeding Program (WACS) offered through AIM, formerly known as Anderson Interfaith Ministries.

The program helps support mothers in paying for their day care so that they can continue their education and help lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

Indeed, Cooper said the program helped ease the financial burden on Willingham. But it also gave her a much-needed support network of other moms. Now, she has her eyes set on becoming a nurse practitioner.

"The fellowship at WACS is amazing," Cooper said. "That support is crucial. The WACS program and Anderson University gave me that second chance. I was determined to finish  to not give up. I hope that my son sees me and follows that."

Follow Charmaine Smith-Miles on Twitter @Charmaine_AIM.
SHARE Branden Newton listens as his attorney Sarah Drawdy addresses the court during his plea hearing on Thursday. Judge Alex Macaulay sentenced Newton to house arrest after he pleaded guilty to unlawful conduct toward a child.

By Kirk Brown of the Independent Mail

An Anderson County sheriff's dispatcher pleaded guilty Thursday to unlawful conduct toward a child in a case involving a 5-month-old girl suffering two skull fractures.

Judge Alex Macaulay sentenced Branden Newton, 23, to six months house arrest and five years probation in a hearing at the Anderson County Courthouse. About 40 of Newton's relatives and friends attended the hearing.

Prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of up to five years for Newton stemming from the injuries that the infant received in a home at 119 Jacobs Road in Anderson on April 21, 2010. They maintained that he repeatedly lied about the circumstances surrounding the child being injured.

"The abuse Mr. Newton inflicted on this helpless infant, coupled with his repeated attempts to cover up the truth in order to avoid responsibility when confronted by law enforcement, are reprehensible," said 10th Judicial Circuit Solicitor Chrissy Adams. "We are very disappointed in today's sentence. The defendant's actions called for an active prison sentence, which the state requested."

Newton's attorney, Anderson lawyer Sarah Drawdy, disagreed with the solicitor's comments.

"The sentence was fair under the circumstances," she said. "It was tough for everybody involved."

Anderson County Sheriff John Skipper said Newton will be fired as a result of his guilty plea to the felony charge.

The chain of events that led to Thursday's plea began when Newton was caring for his then-girlfriend's daughter while she was in another room of the house that they shared, according to court records.

Newton called 911 to report an injury to the child. He originally told emergency responders and investigators that the girl had fallen off a couch onto a carpeted floor.

He later changed his story to the version that he told Macaulay on Thursday. Newton said the infant "rolled off" a kitchen counter while he was fetching a diaper.

Netwon also told the judge that he was "extremely sorry" for his actions that led to the child's injuries.

Addressing the differing stories that her client gave, Drawdy said, "He was young and scared, but he sought help for the child."

After being taken to the emergency room at AnMed Health Medical Center in Anderson, the girl was transferred to a hospital in Columbia.

Assistant solicitor Catherine Huey said that a doctor who cared for the child in Columbia said the skull fractures were not caused by a fall. Huey said the doctor believed a more likely explanation was that the fractures were caused blows to the head.

While being treated for the fractured skull, medical personnel discovered that the infant girl had previously suffered a broken arm, broken ribs and broken collarbone.

"We don't know who inflicted those injuries," Huey said.

Newton was charged in the case in June 2010 and placed on administrative leave from his job as a dispatcher. A short time later his position was shifted from the county's public safety division to the sheriff's office, Skipper said Thursday night. When that change occurred, Skipper asked the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to oversee the investigation into the child's injuries.

Newton remained on administrative leave for about a year, Skipper said.

He was allowed to return to duty after passing a lie-detector test and on the basis of a family court order that found the child's injuries were the result of an accident.

Skipper, who did not attend the sentencing hearing, said Thursday night that his friendship with Newton's parents did not play a role in how he handled the matter. Newton will serve his house arrest in his parents' home.

Newton's father spoke at the hearing, telling Macaulay that his son "made a terrible mistake, but his heart is good."

"I am asking you to have mercy on him today," said Mike Newton, urging the judge not to send his son to prison. "Allow him to be a productive member of society."
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By Charlie Bauder, WNEG 93.1 FM/630 AM

Danielle Rhodes of Hampton, Georgia, is the sole finalist for the position of Stephens County E-911 and Emergency Management Agency director, county officials said.

County Administrator Phyllis Ayers said there is going to be a 14-day public notice period before action is taken on whether Rhodes will be hired.

According to her resume, Rhodes was the communications training officer at Fayette County E-911 Communications from April 2014 to March 2016.

Rhodes said she has a Bachelor of Science degree in emergency and disaster management from Western Carolina University.

If hired by the county, Rhodes would replace Denny Folsom, who resigned last month.

Late last month, Stephens County commissioners appointed Stephens County Volunteer Fire Coordinator Jamey Gettys to serve as interim EMA director.
The popularity of Baahubali is unprecedented. Whoever has been associated with it has only benefited from it. They have become popular along with the film, though not as much as the film. 'Kalakeya' Prabhakar and Adivi Sesh are prime examples. They are now recognized by the Telugus and Tamils wherever they go, even in Western countries.

As for Prabhas, he has become a pan-Indian star. Many Bollywood actors recognize him by his name. The news is that the Governor of Kenya has written a letter to Prabhas when the actor, along with his friends, went to a reserve forest to spend some fun time.

When the Governor came to know the truth, he wrote a letter saying that that he would be happy if a Prabhas film is shot in Kenya in future. The Governor also made it a point to say that he too was waiting for the release of Baahubali.
Result Highlights: (Rs. in crore)

Reported Results Bloomberg Estimates % change Standalone Revenue 354.29 350 1.22 Standalone Net Profit 30.10 33 (8.78)

Gujarat Fluorochemicals, subsidiary of Inox Leasing and Finance Limited, reported consolidated net profit of Rs.232.63 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2016, registering decline of 34.73% yoy, but growth of 104.13% qoq. The companys revenue stood at Rs. 2,384.36 crore, up 53.51% yoy and 48.44% qoq.Its consolidated core operating profit of Rs. 408.57 crore for the quarter, clocked growth of 45.59% yoy and 40.93% qoq. Operating profit margin for the current quarter at 17.14% contracted by 93 bps yoy and 91 bps qoq.For the year ended March 31, 2016, the company reported consolidated net profit of Rs. 598.70 crore, declining by 10.25% yoy. Its consolidated revenue for the period stood at Rs. 7,198.67 crore, registering growth of 34.79% yoy.Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd's core operating profit stood at Rs. 1,302.58 crore, recording growth of 25.85% yoy. Operating margin for the current period at 17.86% contracted by 84 bps yoy.On standalone basis,Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd, reported standalone net profit of Rs.30.10 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2016, registering decline of 89.97% yoy, but growth of 42.12% qoq. The companys revenue stood at Rs. 354.29 crore, up 1.97% yoy and 16.39% qoq.Its standalone core operating profit of Rs. 76.55 crore for the quarter, clocked growth of 13.14% yoy and 20.25% qoq. Operating profit margin for the current quarter at 21.61% expanded by 214 bps yoy and 70 bps qoq.For the year ended March 31, 2016, the company reported standalone net profit of Rs. 104.15 crore, declining by 72.76% yoy. Its standalone revenue for the period stood at Rs. 1,338.31 crore, registering growth of 1.31% yoy.Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd's core operating profit stood at Rs. 295.33 crore, recording growth of 4.6% yoy. Operating margin for the current period at 21.97% expanded by 60 bps yoy.Standalone EPS for the quarter stood at Rs. 2.74.Bloomberg estimated the companys standalone net profit at Rs. 33 crore.Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd is currently trading at Rs. 532.8, up by 9.25 points or 1.77% from its previous closing of Rs. 523.55 on the BSE.The scrip opened at Rs. 530 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 539.95 and Rs. 509.45 respectively. So far 181537(NSE+BSE) shares were traded on the counter. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 5753.81 crore.The BSE group 'B' stock of face value Rs. 1 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 780.05 on 21-Aug-2015 and a 52 week low of Rs. 401.05 on 12-Feb-2016. Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 536.35 and Rs. 513.55 respectively.The promoters holding in the company stood at 68.33 % while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 7.89 % and 23.77 % respectively.The stock is currently trading below its 200 DMA.
Complying with Indias Labour Laws requires corporates to use 500 crore sheets of paper or 6 lakh trees every year. Adding to this is another 4 lac trees by the Labour Department causing serious damage to the eco-system that we live in. Besides the environmental destruction, the lackof online submissions creates a huge administrative load for employers (e.g. 25 and 45 physical registers for service enterprises and factories respectively) and it does not enable regulatory authorities to cross reference data or apply big data analytics to enforcement. Mandatory paper filing has neither improved the condition of our labour nor ensured better enforcement



More than 800 companies have submitted a petition to the Ministry of Labour, requesting to make all the labour Law compliances under the 44 central Labour Laws 100 percent paperless. The petition appeals to the government to move all employers and employees mandatory filing to online over the next 24 months.



Elaborating on the petition Sonal Arora, Convener of the petition & Assistant Vice President TeamLease Services, said, Paperless compliance would be an important step for the governments Digital India program but a massive step for Ease of doing business. India needs formal jobs on a massive scale and reducing the costs of formalization is an important step in making India a fertile habitat for job creation. We hope the government will respond by introducting this administrative change that does not require legislative approval. We also hope that this digitization (going paperless) will be accompanied by automation (presence less) of compliance.



Currently, the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change needs India to create an additional carbon sinks of 2.5 to 3 billion tones of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover. Moving paperwork online will help us arrest the depletion of our natural resources and contribute to that goal. The adoption will also give the necessary speed to the Prime Minister's Digital India programme.



Uma Devaguptapu, Director HR, Asia-Pac & MEA, Signode Industrial Group, (one of the petitioner) says, Ignorance of law is no excuse, but it is very difficult to know all the applicable laws and rules. Adding to this is the State to State variations in the compliance formats. Each state mandates a different format under different laws whereas the recipients are common (Factories and Labour department). A consolidated paperless compliance reduces the administrative burden, lowers cost resources and offers a reliable database for the organization itself. It is a low hanging fruit but the most effective step towards improving the enterprise eco-system and there by job creation.



Moving the compliance to will cut down the time spend on formalization of compliance like Storage of information, transportation of data and physical signatures. Tracking and monitoring will be also be very easy and hassle free. added another member of the petition, Roshan Zameer, Head HR Compliance, Tech Mahindra Ltd.



Biren Anshu, AVP, Corporate HR EIH Limited, The Oberoi Group added The immediate and recurrent challenge on labour law emerges from the fact the laws were enacted pre digital era, whilst compliances are to be done as per todays business needs and requirement of digital age.



Nearly 100% of the net job creation over the last two decades has taken place in the informal sector but changes have begun with the smart city, make-in-india and skill India programs. Moving workflows and permissions online will not only substantially improves the lives of job creators but employees, regulators and the environment will also greatly benefit.
MITCHELL, S.D. -- Mitchell Technical Institute students are getting a first-hand look at ranch life thanks to the school's animal lab.

According to MTI's Agriculture and Transportation Division Head Lori Repenning, who owns the ranch that doubles as the animal lab, students get first-hand experience of the challenges facing beef producers, including calving, castrating, tattooing, dehorning and taking care of sick animals.

"We try to expose them to a little bit of everything," Repenning said. "It's truly fun to teach them."

Repenning, a former veterinarian of 20 years, said she wanted to teach her students what issues require immediate veterinary attention and which ones do not, and according to a former student, animal lab participants learn some practices that are normally reserved for veterinary school.

"We learned things like (pregnancy) checking cattle, freeze branding, things like that, that usually your vet does, but now going through the program, now we can do that because we learned it at school," said Riley Zoss, an alumni of the agriculture technology program.

Zoss, 22, of Letcher, graduated from MTI in 2014. He lives on his family's farm, helping with a cow/calf and feedlot operation, but he spends his days as MTI's agriculture and engineering admissions representative.

Zoss said the animal lab is geared around animal reproduction, overall animal health and how to efficiently manage a cattle operation. Coming from an agricultural background, Zoss expected the animal lab to be mostly review, but he was surprised.

"I kind of went in thinking that I knew a lot about animal science, and I thought it would just kind of be a review, but once I got into the program, I learned a lot of things that I didn't know prior to going to Mitchell Tech and getting an ag technology degree," Zoss said.

Repenning said the program is split into fall and spring classes, and about 20 students at a time travel to her 250-cow ranch 6 miles southeast of campus for about three hours each week.

The agriculture technology program has been running for decades, Repenning said, and students were using the animal lab long before she started teaching at MTI four years ago, though the lab was hosted on another faculty member's farm before she arrived.

The lab is optional, but Repenning said all of the roughly 90 agriculture technology students choose to take part in either the animal lab or the school's land lab, which allows them to use county-owned land west of the fairgrounds and near the Poet ethanol plant for an agronomy emphasis.

MTI's animal lab is not the only hands-on animal science program in the state. Repenning said Lake Area Tech in Watertown and South Dakota State University in Brookings also have cattle.
The ghost of Non Performing Assets (NPAs) continued to torment Indian banking sector in the quarter ended March 31, 2016. 27 out of 40 banks have announced their Q4 FY16 financial results so far and their combined gross NPAs grew 54.64% from Rs. 1,61,297 crore reported to touch Rs. 2,49,439 crore in Q3 FY16.Among public sector banks, 11 banks combined gross NPAs were Rs. 2,01,318 crore for Q4 FY16, as against Rs. 1,21,720 crore in Q3 FY16, reflecting a sharp rise of 65.39% qoq. Till date, gross NPAs of 11 private sector banks surged 21.58% to Rs. 48,121 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2016 as against Rs. 39,577 crore reported in Sep-Dec 2015 period.The intensity of worsening bad loans among public sector banks is far scary than their private peers. Bank of Baroda, the second largest public sector bank, narrowed its qoq loss by 3% to Rs. 3,230 crore in Q4 FY16 as against Rs. 3,342 crore in Q3 FY16, but this didnt help its gross NPAs skyrocket by 10,316.70% to Rs. 40,521 crore. The lenders gross NPA stood at Rs. 389 crore as on December 31, 2015.Similar is the case of ICICI Bank. Owing to mounting bad loans, Q4 net profit of the largest private sector bank in India tumbled to Rs. 701.89 crore as against Q3 FY16 net profit of Rs. 3,018 crore, reflecting a steep fall of 76.74% qoq. For the Jan-Mar 2016 period, ICICI Banks gross NPAs expanded to Rs. 26,221 crore at 23.98% as compared to Rs. 21,149 reported in Q3 FY16.The aforementioned instances adequately explain how Indian banking sector is plagued by bad loans. A sector-wise analysis reveals a mixed bag of hits and flops:The three-month ended March 31 has been worse for the public sector banks (PSBs) compared to Q3 FY16. Led by Bank of Baroda, six PSBs have posted a combined net loss of Rs. 6,870.51 crore in Q4 while collective net profit of nine PSBs stands at Rs. 783.29 crore. The State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ) leads the chart with Q4 net profit of Rs. 193.22 crore among the PSBs. Ironically; SBBJs net profit declined 6.20% qoq.Of 16 PSBs, three public sector lenders widen their losses; while two banks narrowed their quarterly loss. Allahabad Banks Q4 net loss widened by 19.57% to Rs. 581.13 crore as against Rs. 486 crore loss reported in Q3 FY16. In sharp contrast, Dena Bank narrowed its loss by half to Rs. 326.38 crore compared to Rs. 663 crore in quarter ending December 31, 2015.There have been instances of a complete turnaround. Bank of Maharashtra reported a Q4 loss of Rs. 119.84 crore as against a Q3 net profit of Rs. 89 crore. On the other hand, Oriental Bank of Commerce bounced back impressively with a Q4 net profit of Rs. 21.62 crore as compared to a loss of Rs. 425 crore in Q3 FY16.Eight PSBs continued their upsurge in terms of clocking net profit. Despite narrowing losses or posting significant surge in net profit from Q3 to Q4, all PSB failed to avert the rising bad loans crisis in the quarter under review. Following is the snapshot of how PSBs fared in Q4 FY16:
Axis Bank, Indias third largest private bank, today announced the launch of Indias first multi-currency, cobranded forex prepaid card that facilitates both international and domestic usage while rewarding customers with unlimited miles on every spend. The bank has partnered with Miles & More, Europes leading frequent flyer and awards programme, to introduce the Miles & More Axis Bank World Traveller Card. The card is powered by MasterCards contactless chip security, offering customers easy and safe access to 30 million merchant outlets across the world.

Axis Bank and non  Axis Bank customers can avail the card and load up to 17 currencies to avoid the hassle and risk of carrying multiple currency note variants.

Speaking on the occasion, Sidharth Rath, Group Executive, Corporate & Transaction Banking, Axis Bank said, Axis Bank continues to be the market leader in the Prepaid Forex Card category. Our focus has always been on improving customer experience and enhancing value for our customers. This innovative forex card offering from Axis Bank is aimed at providing the Indian globetrotter a host of privileges with a truly rewarding experience.

Bernd Wendeln, Head of Global Cooperation Management Financial Services, Miles & More GmbH, added We as Miles & More, one of the largest frequent flyer and awards programs worldwide, have the expertise of creating customer retention through several successful co-branded card programs in 23 countries. We believe that India requires tailored card solutions that fit the needs of different traveller segments. Leveraging collective strengths of four strong brands  Lufthansa, Miles & More, Axis Bank and MasterCard  this new, innovative product will change the traveller card landscape of India.

Wolfgang Will, Director South Asia, Lufthansa German Airlines, said, "The new global Indian likes to travel extensively and appreciates good value for money. Lufthansa is delighted to introduce a card that is tailored to these needs in partnership with Axis Bank and MasterCard. The new multi-currency Miles & More Prepaid card offers an irresistible deal, in which the more miles you travel, the more miles you can earn."

Porush Singh, Country Corporate Officer, India and Division President, South Asia, MasterCard, said, The world of payment and technology is constantly evolving. Consumers expect innovative and secure ways to manage their money while travelling and our collaboration with Axis Bank and Miles & More will address this requirement with the first multi-currency travel prepaid card in India. The prepaid card with an INR wallet is enabled with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology and offers convenience and hassle-free transactions to cardholders. The innovative prepaid solutions of the card ensure that cardholders spend like a local while travelling abroad without compromising on safety & security and in-return enhance loyalty to the airline from the outbound travellers.
Mother Dairy is aiming to surpass INR 10,000 crore turnover milestone in the next three years on rising demand for dairy products, as well as fresh processed fruits & vegetables, reports a business daily. is aiming to surpass INR 10,000 crore turnover milestone in the next three years on rising demand for dairy products, as well as fresh processed fruits & vegetables, reports a business daily.

We are aiming for more than Rs 10,000 crore turnover by the end of FY19 with expected rise in sales across all the segments, Mother Dairy Managing Director S. Nagarajan told a local news agency.

Mother Dairy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).

Mother Dairy is in the process of establishing a 25,000 tonnes per year integrated food and vegetables processing plant in Ranchi at an estimated investment of INR 75 crore, according to the financial newspaper.

The freezing line will have the capacity to produce 5,000 tonnes per year of finished product, which will mainly include peas produced in Delhi.

The pulp and concentrate line will have a capacity of 20,000 tonnes per annum of finished products and this will largely include tomato processing, mango and other fruits, reports the daily.

The company is also exploring new markets for its dairy and other milk products, besides expanding its product portfolio with new launches.
Raymond Ltd is in talks with overseas private equity (PE) funds KKR and Blackstone to sell a 20% stake in its branded apparel business to fund its expansion, reports a business daily.

Raymond Ltd is currently trading at Rs. 475.3, up by Rs. 9.1 or 1.95% from its previous closing of Rs. 466.2 on the BSE.

The scrip opened at Rs. 475 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 484.25 and Rs. 473 respectively. So far 166153(NSE+BSE) shares were traded on the counter. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 2861.58 crore.

The BSE group 'A' stock of face value Rs. 10 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 518.9 on 08-Jul-2015 and a 52 week low of Rs. 351.5 on 12-Feb-2016. Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 481.6 and Rs. 459 respectively.

The promoters holding in the company stood at 41.69 % while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 20.14 % and 36.86 % respectively.

The stock is currently trading above its 200 DMA.

The company has appointed Citibank as investment banker for the deal, people close to the matter told the daily.Raymond CEO Sanjay Behl confirmed the company's plan to join hands with PE funds for growth capital but did not divulge any more details, says the financial newspaper.The company's branded apparel business clocked a revenue growth of 18% in FY16 but the operating profit margin was negative at -0.6%.Raymond has taken several steps in the past two years to reduce working capital, rationalise its product portfolio and revamp stores to improve the consumers' shopping experience, Behl told the paper.Until now, we have gone for renovation rather than expansion. It has been a cleaning and efficiency exercise. It is now a lot more nimble and future ready operation," Behl said.The company's apparel brands include: the flagship Raymond brand, Park Avenue, ColorPlus and Parx.Raymond has also sharpened its brand positioning in the apparel business and has done away with the overlaps in the positioning of its different brands, according to Behl.The flagship Raymond brand is now positioned as a classic premium brand, Park Avenue as contemporary premium, ColorPlus as smart casuals and Parx as economy casuals brand, he told the paper.
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A descendant of the Nagas, Mo Naga, chose to be a tattoo artist to bring the meaning of Naga tattoos to a larger forum.

"I used to see men wearing Naga tattoos of women," he laughs. But that wasn't the only reason. "In Naga culture, every tattoo is earned and you can identify the social standing of every person in the village by their tattoos," he shares.

Mo Naga

"When a child is born they get a tattoo denoting their sex. Then the child gets the next tattoo on attaining puberty, then marriage. Men get tattoos for every skill they master and the number of heads (men) they get. Women get tattoos according their skills and later for the number of children they bear," Mo explains.

The artist undertook a journey back into the deep hinterlands of Nagaland to trace his roots and understand the heritage of tattoos. "I had given myself two months to study the people and their craft. They are no longer headhunters and that must have caused a huge change in their lives. I wanted to see what how they lead their lives," he says.

Mo Naga

It turns out that he needed much more time. "It was practically inaccessible. Although I am of the same ancestry, I do not speak their dialect and took the help of a guide who not only knew the language but also the route to these remote villages through Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland."

He learnt much about the age-old traditions and even met the elders of several villagers who welcomed him with much enthusiasm and even dressed up in their traditional best for his pictures.

They are the last of the headhunters to have ever actually killed a man.

Mo Naga

"I learnt that while every tattoo has a significance for which is worn, these tattoos are done only by the Queen or a female member of the royal family of the village," he says. "Unlike today, when anyone can walk into a parlour and get a tattoo that they may or may not regret tomorrow, the Naga headhunting tattoos are earned and are worn with pride through life."

The last of the headhunters live in the villages across Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh and have discontinued the practice of headhunting.

India made headhunting illegal on August 31, 1972.

Mo Naga

Many of the former headhunter's children have since moved to larger towns and cities for better job opportunities. Unlike Mo Naga, very few actually stop to look back at their legacy which is soon to be a lost treasure trove.
Sonam Kapoors fashion sense is turning classier day by day. This is the sixth year of Sonam Kapoor walking the red carpet at Cannes as the LOreal Paris ambassador and we are pretty impressed with her fashion choices this time. Remember last time when her Cannes appearance was claimed as a big time fashion fail?

The real reason why they want to ban Maggi pic.twitter.com/crtWSdF5qW  Priyal (@priyal) May 19, 2015

This time, Aish's purple lips too weren't spared and Twitter found all its humor in her lips. We are not sure if Sonam was extra cautious this time or not but she totally slayed the red carpet with her first appearance.

Sporting a haute couture gown from the house of Ralph & Russo, she was spotted attending the screening of 'Mal De Pierres', at the film festival. Sonam has always attended the Cannes and enjoyed others films but this time, she feels proud that her own film Neerja would be screened in the Marche du Film.

Even when we dont think there is anything wrong with her gorgeous gown and makeup, Twitter again turned into a fashion police to mock her attire.

When you get school uniform stitched in Class 1 to last you all the way till class 10. #SonamAtCannes #Cannes2016 pic.twitter.com/DXEbsJXh8h  Devaiah Bopanna (@devaiahPB) May 16, 2016

Sonam Kapoor spotted wearing a Rumali Roti at Cannes pic.twitter.com/efXv7NaZSE  Avinash Iyer (@IyerAvin) May 15, 2016

Twitter loves trolling her for her fashion choices but we hope she continues to not give a damn to all the haters. You don't need this negativity, Sonam. YOU DON'T! Let them hate.
Remember social activist Anna Hazare?

The guy who gave "corruption crusaders" Arvind Kejriwal and Co. a platform (before it was pulled out under his feet). Somehow, Hazare, despite multiple hunger strikes is still alive, and still somehow raising protests. Despite not being anymore on the news circuit, Hazare is still so dangerous he's getting death threats.

huffingtonpost.ca

Anna Hazare's office yesterday received a letter threatening to kill him for stoking "unrest" in society, his aide said.

"The handwritten letter in Marathi was received at Hazare's office in Ralegan Siddhi village in the afternoon," said his spokesperson Shyam Asawa. When asked about the content of the letter, he said it reads: "Tumhi samajat asantosh pasravat ahat mhanun tumhala udvave lagel (You will be eliminated as you are spreading unrest in society)". The name of the sender on the letter is 'Ambadas Lashkare' from Nevase, 65 km away from there.

wikimedia

When contacted, Parner police said they have received the information about the receipt of such letter, but refused to elaborate on investigation. Hazare had previously received anonymous threat letters. Latest of them was in January that threatened to kill him on 26 January.

"Police have not traced the senders of these letters so far," Asawa said, Hazare's personal assistant Shyam Pathade had then said that the Gandhian does not fall prey to such threats. Hazare has been given 'Z' category security cover.
Indian politics has always been a theatre of individual popularity. Nitish Kumar belongs to the same extraordinary league. The engineer turned politicians was once projected against Modi as the next big thing. When he formed a coalition government with rival-turned-partner Lalu Prasad, they were hailed as the real seculars who stalled Modis juggernaut.

indiatoday

He surprised many, when Bihar became the only third state in India after Nagaland and Gujarat, where all forms of liquor was banned. The trajectory of Nitishs politics took a new turn, after all it was under his rule that the liquor sale reached its peak and a new department was established to cater to the program that generated lot of revenue for the financially poor state.

Why Nitish decided to go for complete ban?

Except Gujarat none of the states in India has successfully banned liquor, Haryana being a prime example. The rise of Nitish Kumar has one strong linkage with support from the women during elections.

They were his strongest base beyond caste, class and religion; after all women were the ones asking for a liquor ban. He has become a messiah overnight against the root of all social ills. Bihar is a state of outbound migrants both domestically and foreign especially in the gulf and that also helps Nitish's political calculation; women as a strong vote base. In the last assembly election, an overwhelming majority of women voted for Nitish-led Mahagathbandhan, according to Centre for the Study of Developing Societies data.

And the latest liquor ban in Bihar is perhaps an attempt by Nitish Kumar to consolidate that gain. Some of his other decisions, free cycle for school girls and reserving 50% seats in local bodies were steps in that direction. But overnight ban is also state policing in a sense, especially in a free liberal democratic society where each individual has a choice to consume things and are protected by law. But society at large adheres to such norms because liquor consumption is still considered as an immoral act if not illegal. But enforcing the ban and its acceptance in reality are different issues. The government has ensured that they will take all measures to make it successful. The government officials have been asked to spread awareness through agencies including representation from civil society and self help groups. But local bureaucracy hasnt had such experiences and therefore it is easier said than done. Grey market is expected to grow because people will still want to consume alcohol. In most parts of Bihar, apart from toddy, people make homemade liquor like Bhang (edible preparation of cannabis) especially in North Bihar bordering Nepal. Nepal border can be a source for illegal transportation which only helps in the rise of illegal market.

Politics over Economics

When liquor was banned, Nitish Kumar said It will be strongly implemented, but consumption pattern in Bihar is comparatively lower than the national average and even lower than Andhra and Kerala. The data from the National Sample Survey Organisation gives a different picture. According to it, people in Bihar spends very little on alcohol. The per capita expenditure on alcohol is around Rs 15.50 a month in the state, which is below undivided Andhra Pradesh (Rs 173 including Telangana), Kerala (Rs 80.85), and Punjab (around Rs 72). The all-India average is around Rs 35, more than double of Bihar's share.

Legal consumption of alcohol did rise in Bihar during Kumar's tenure. It is between 2005 and 2015, the number of alcohol shops doubled in Bihar. In 2006, Kumar established the Bihar State Beverages Corporation to cater supplier price mechanism price stabilisation. These steps gave the state's finances a leg-up. According to media reports before Nitish came to power the state's earnings from excise on liquor were less than Rs 300 crore which augmented to Rs 3,300 crore by 2014. How his government will maintain its revenue is still to be seen, but at the moment, politics has really scored over economics.

Alcohol and crime

straitstimes

Although alcohol consumption is widely believed to be a precipitator of violent behaviours, an individual's personality still plays an important role. Alcohol is a subject in the State List under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India. Therefore, the laws governing alcohol vary from state to state.

However the data suggests a pattern in case of India. According to a 2012 report published by experts in the IRACST (International Journal of Research in Management and Technology), India has the dubious distinction of having the most number of fatal road accidents in the world. India accounts for about 10 per cent of road accident fatalities worldwide, the report says. A major contributor to traffic deaths is drunk driving, responsible for 70 per cent of road fatalities.

Bihar is a classic example now to decode the link. The recent crime statistics in Bihar backs chief minister Nitish Kumar's claim that crime rate has come down by about 27 per cent since imposition of total prohibition in the state in early April. The state machinery acknowledges that Prohibition and pro-active policing have been major contributors for decline in the number of criminal cases. Even the state criminal investigating department (CID) records suggest, the number of both minor and major riot cases witnessed a drop in April this year.

The challenge ahead

The challenge for Nitish government would be to successfully implement the ban in the long run with participation from all the state holders. The challenge would be manifold especially illegal market which would be hard to contain considering Bihars border with Nepal and local supply from neighbouring states like Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. However Nitish has earned the laurels and since every family at large support his venture, it's interesting and equally significant how the programme really works. Nitish's call for ban has really changed the political equations not only in Bihar but it might help him in projecting himself on the larger scene of Indian politics.

This is political maneuvering which is going to reap a better political and social capital for him. Political pundits are projecting him as the new face of third front against Modi and surely such social issues will cement his pursuit in the long run.
Movies to Mahabharata, he's analysed them all

timesofindia

S Anand's passion for computing drove his Chemical Engineering professors to distraction at IIT Madras, and when he moved on to IIM Bangalore, after a brief stint at IBM India, he was nicknamed "Stud" and alternatively, "Prof"  which as any alumnus will tell you  is one of the highest forms of praise that can be given to a batchmate. After graduating from IIM B, Anand moved on to jobs at the Boston Consulting Group and Infosys Consulting. In 2012, he was infected by the startup virus, and became chief data scientist at Gramener, which specializes in data visualization. Anand lives in Bangalore, where he uses text analytics to uncover the fact that it is Yudhishthira who is at the centre of Mahabaratha's plot, and not Arjuna, as one would imagine. Oh, and he also uses data science to understand his mobile bill.

On becoming a data scientist ...

twimg

It was an accidental mix of three of my personal interests  programming, statistics and design. It wasn't until 2009 that the term "data science" was coined. Until then, I knew I wanted a career that combined all three of my passions. Once I knew it had a name, the decision was obvious.

What's the kind of work you do at Gramener?

dataflq

We're short circuiting the gap between gathering data and understanding data. We're work with all kinds of data. We work with aircraft flight paths, call data, court case results, fielding performances, poll forecasts, TV serial transcripts, even sex survey responses.

But across these domains and types of data, there are common patterns of problems. Which are the biggest problem areas? What factors drive performance? What is the expected outcome? Fortunately, we have also discovered common patterns of analysis and visuals that answer these. Our work involves applying these patterns to any and every dataset.

Best thing about your job ...

businessinsider

Stumbling on strange patterns that tell a story. For example, when we discovered that 88 people at Modakkuruchi, TN, stood for elections but didn't even vote for themselves, it was a shock. Or when we found that children born in August score much more than children born in July. Or that people taking meter readings don't always visit the premises and cook up numbers that are typically multiples of 10.

There are usually several insights hidden in data. For us, it's like exploring Alibaba's cave of treasures.

We use Python (a programming language) for most of our analysis. It's easy to learn, and easy to explore data with. R and Julia are quite popular as well. But Excel remains the primary method for data exploration in most organisations, and is quite effective.

However, the tool is often less important than the scientist. A good scientist with a paper and pen will beat a moderate scientist with the best tool available today.

How do you use data in daily life?

hbr.org

Several of my day-to-day decisions are data-driven.

What to eat? I scrape price and calorie information to pick cheap energy-rich foods.

What to watch? I visualise the top-rated popular movies by genre from IMDb.

When to book a flight? I review flight price trends, and typically book exactly 8 days before the flight.

In many ways, my becoming a data scientist was driven by these inclinations. It's not because I'm a data scientist that I do this. It's because I have always done this that I'm a data scientist today.

(As told to Narayanan Krishnaswami)

Numbers have a story to tell

timesofindia

Somewhat like endurance biking, data science is about staying power and enjoying the ride. Little wonder that Raam Nayakar, who is senior manager of marketing analytics and strategy at fashion e-retailer Myntra, follows one as a passion and the other as a profession. Sometimes the twain do meet when the 37-year-old uses his data orientation to find petrol stations and eating joints on remote biking routes.

Best thing about the job

It's a dynamic field. Finding new ways to analyse data keeps me on my toes. For instance, I recently learnt Python, an open-source analysis system in demand these days.

Data analysis sometimes results in counter-intuitive insights, which is very exciting for us. For example, we once told an American wholesale retailer's credit card program to invert their loyalty rewards system and reward low spenders instead of the higher ones. We had identified the highest spenders as mostly re-sellers who did not need to be incentivized. This saved the company millions of dollars.

What makes a good data scientist?

cmo

A data scientist has to have a business context. We should be able to look at numbers, understand what they are telling us, and how that message can be converted into an actionable form. A good data scientist needs to have an eye for detail as well as the big picture.

A typical day at work

One day I am trying to find which TV channels drive better traffic for Myntra; another day I am engaged in text mining to rank social media responses for a contest we ran. It's the diversity of business problems that keeps my work interesting.

Applying data science in daily life

When I came back to Bangalore after a few years of living abroad, I was overwhelmed by the traffic. It would take me an hour and fifteen minutes to reach the Hosur Road office from my residence in JP Nagar. In the first month, I tried multiple routes at different timings, assessed areas of traffic congestion, and road conditions. In other words, I analysed the traffic data to construct a route that now takes me less than 45 minutes.

Being a data oriented person, I don't miss out on details. My skills help me optimize time and effort even when I am not working. For example, if you want to get good properties to stay during your trips abroad  find out from which country do most of the tourists come from. Then make your booking from a local travel site in that country. I got two nights in a private villa in Bali when I booked from an Australian tour agent site. At the time, Australia contributed over 25% of tourists to Bali. Now, China has overtaken Australia.

Is it going to stay a hot job?

cio.com

Many startups are now offering data science incubators and boot camps to train an army of data miners. Business analytics training institutes are offering courses, as are some of the IIMs. Big data is going to get even bigger.

(As told to Shobita Dhar)
In a tragic incident, a search party of the Border Security Force (BSF) found the body of a Pakistani boy aged around 13 near border Pillar No. 1080.

bsfindia

When BSF officers tried to hand over the body to Pakistan officials, they refused to accept it. A BSF officer said the boy had probably died because of intense summer heat. "He was wearing kurta pyjama and blood was coming out of his mouth. The body was found on the Indian side of the international border but on the Pakistan side of the fencing," said the officer.

timesofindia

BSF sources said they held a flag meeting with Pakistan Rangers to hand over the body. But Pakistan Rangers declined, the sources said.
The Supreme Court has scrapped a petition filed, yet again by the Odisha Mining Corporation, challenging the resolutions of the Gram Sabhas of Niyamgiri Hills.

The state government run Corporation along with the London-based Vedanta Resources, has been attempting to occupy the adivasi's land, which is rich in bauxite to set up a mining enterprise. The enterprise will be greatly beneficial to both the companies but will destroy the land and leave a population of nearly 8,000 adivasis of the Kondh community homeless.

This battle began in 2003 when a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources signed a MoU with the state Government to set up alumina refinery at Lanjigarh, Kalahandi.

Reuters

For the past ten years, the Dongaria Kondhs have been looking beyond the education centres and health facilities being offered to them by Vedanta and continue their struggle to protect their land. In February 2013, the Supreme Court had directed the acquisition of the land for the bauxing mining site to the approval of the villagers.

The Odisha Government identified 12 out of 105 villages which would get directly impacted by the open-pit mining.

In the countrys first environmental referendum, all 12 villages unanimously disagreed to the project.

Reuters

The decision was challenged by the Odisha Mining Corporation yet again on February 25, 2016 asking all gram sabhas to reconvene to discuss the bauxite mining site which has been turned down by the Supreme Court on May 6.

While this is great reason to celebrate, there is always the fear of the decision being challenged yet again or worse, history to be repeated in the villages.

Reuters

The decade-long fight has taken a severe toll on the Dongaria Kondhs. On February 27, two days after filing the petition in the Supreme Court, a founder of Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti(NSS), is reported to have claimed that the police had killed a 20-year-old boy in a fake encounter. Vedanta officials try to lure youth of the community by offering them money.

This is not a new practice, they claim. Earlier some members of the community were arrested without proper charges and harrassed to such extent in custody that they committed suicide after being released.

Reuters

For the past 7 years, the region has been occupied by paramilitary forces which the government states are for maintaining the peace against Naxal forces. However, there is evidence to show that these forces have been used to curb the adivasis and torment them into agreeing to the plants.

The Dongaria Kondhs, on the other hand, live off the streams and plants of the Niyamgiri Hills and the bauxite plants will dry up the rivers and leave the land unusable for irrigation. They are fighting for their right to preserve their home and the Niyamgiri hills which they worship as their god.

The Supreme Court has maintained its stand on the issue by leaving the decision on the bauxite mine to the Gram Sabhas (Village Assemblies).

Reuters

The Niyamgiri movement is not the only one of its kind in Odisha. There are also the Kashipur movement against Birlas and the Kalinganagar movement against Tatas that have seen years of barbaric suppression in the name of development. Both the latter companies have managed to keep a low profile of their efforts and continue to harass the adivasis to forfeit their lands.
Vijay Mallya , under pressure from banks to repay loans, said he has every intention of honouring commitments, that he has made a new settlement offer to main lender State Bank of India and is hopeful of making quick progress on the matter, according to directors who attended a United Breweries Ltd (UBL) board meeting that he chaired by video-conference.

bccl

Even as the Enforcement Directorate is seeking to extradite him from the UK, where he's been for the past two months or so, the chairman of UBL has the support of the board and strategic partner Heineken, said directors.

The board meeting was held in Mumbai on Friday, with Mallya logging on remotely from London. "We expressed concerns over the various issues and Mallya has assured us that he is in serious negotiations with the banks to repay the loans as soon as possible.

He has said he is willing to return to India to answer all questions but he has to be assured of his safety and freedom," said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw , independent board member.

"Performance of the company has been extremely good and there is no corporate governance issue that has impacted it owing to Mallya." Mallya was unavailable for comment. Executives aware of the matter said Heineken has chosen to stand by Mallya and not go by unsubstantiated accusations.

Sunil Alagh, also an independent board member, said Mallya was seriously negotiating with banks. "Mallya told us he has been wrongly accused and has every intent to repay loans," he said. "For now, the board stands by him and sees no corporate governance issues and would monitor progress until the next (board) meeting in August."

bccl

There had been speculation that Heineken will take control of UBL and ask Mallya to step down as chairman. Heineken acquired a 37.5% stake in UBL in 2008 and has since increased this to 42.4%. The Dutch beer giant also appointed local investment bank JM Finance to buy shares from the open market, and has spent about Rs 179 crore on this so far. In March, Heineken acquired UBL shares from ECL Finance and private sector lender YES Bank.

Mallya told the board he had been wrongly accused of money laundering and there was no evidence to justify the allegations. He said he was willing to return immediately if he was assured of safe passage. "We all unanimously expressed our concerns to Mr Mallya and he told us that he is making serious efforts to repay the banks," said CY Pal, independent board member.

"He also told us he had tried to repay Kingfisher Airlines' employee dues through United Breweries Holdings but was delayed since the Karnataka High Court has frozen accounts and assets." He expressed his keenness to return to India if safe passage was assured, Pal said.

The next few months will throw light on the progress Mallya makes on his commitments until the next board meeting in August, he said.

The board also discussed the company's performance, which has been positive, posting net profit of Rs 295 crore in FY16 on net sales of Rs 5,100 crore. UBL, which owns the Kingfisher brand, has a 50% market leadership in the beer market in India. Mallya seemed confident and unruffled as he chaired the meeting, executives said. The signing of documents was done by Pal, since Mallya is overseas.
A new law approved by Indonesian President Joko Widodo has decreed that Indonesia will plant microchips on convicted child rapists, and impose chemical castration for convicted pedophiles and child rapists. Along with heavier jail terms for child rapists, these two radical measures aims to reduce incidence of sex crimes against children,

Nirbhaya Rapist Got Freedom, Rs 10,000 And A Sewing Machine From Govt

afp

Indonesia was pushed to pass this legislation after a brutal gang rape-murder of a 14-year-old girl in Sumatra in April. The case triggered off waves of protests across the country, with activists demanding harsher punishments for sex attackers.

andresrueda flickr

Asrorun Niam Sholeh, Head of National Commission for Child Protection, who was deeply involved in the law's drafting said: The microchip will be fitted before the criminals are released from prison, and is needed to monitor and locate them after they are freed.The decree could be signed in the coming days. Chemical castration and heavier jail terms for child rapists are also among new measures that could be introduced.

yournewswire
The attentive student from Andhra Pradesh, Naga Kataru went on to study at Indian Institute of Technology while most of his classmates from school stayed back. His father, the principal of the school Kataru studied at, ensured that he completed his studies.

In 2003, Google launched Google alerts which were the result of Kataru's efforts. His name is on the three patents for Google Alerts.

CNN Money

Looking for new avenues to grow, he quit his job at Google and delved into documentary films and theatre. While he improves his prowess on both, he has moved to yet another field of interest, farming.

Naga Kataru

Kataru had purchased a 320-acre farm in Modesto, California, as an investment a few years ago. In time, he realised that he missed his home, and the sights and smells of India could be kept alive on this farm.

Instead of selling it off, as he had earlier planned, he converted this farm into an almond orchard. He knew nothing about farming when he started out but decided to learn all he needed. Today, his farm also grows apricots and has a staff of eight to tend to it.

Naga Kataru

Not one to sit back and enjoy the fruit yet, Kataru is undergoing two rigorous programmes at Stanford, an MBA and one MS in Environment & Resources, to help come up with another interesting project related to farming. He wants to make farming more tech-savvy in the hope to help farmers around the world.

You can follow his work here.
The country with the largest population in the world seems to be having a significant amount of trouble in being sensitive to the environment they inhabit. Not very different what we see in India as well, like Shaktimaan. Still, we do not kill off our social media celebrities.

Weibo

The image of a whale shark swimming near an oil platform off the coast of China surfaced on a social media and soon went viral. The person who had posted the image indicated that the shark was a regular visitor around this time of the year. "Hey old friend, long time no see!" said the post. The beautiful image captured the majestic animal in its wild, free form.

grindtv.com

Two days later, possibly the same whale shark was seen hanging from a fisherman's crane in China. The bigger surprise is that whalesharks are an endangered species and it is forbidden to hunt them. Seems, Chinese fishermen did not just break the rules but also gloated about it on social media with images.

Weibo

The almost dead shark was then displayed along the streets of the port town, a repeat of an instance in 2014, with people gathering to get selfies clicked with the dying mammal.

Asian Town

If that was not enough, the fishermen then proceeded to the saw off the shark while it was still alive and struggling to get away. Within a few minutes, the majestic animal was reduced to prohibited food for the market.

scmp.com

The Chinese government says that the two fishermen who caught the whaleshark and brutally killed it have been arrested but there has been no statement on whether stricter methods will be enforced to prevent such incidents from taking place.

China currently has not been able to stop its fishermen from killing 600 whales and sharks each year despite both being listed in the UN endangered species.

Wildlife Risk

The meat of the whaleshark sells for quite a handsome price in the illegal market and so, despite the whalesharks being protected under Article 31 of the Law of the Peoples Republic of China on The Protection of Wildlife, fishermen continue to hunt them for meat for the Sri Lankan market as well as oils for the European market.
Were excited to announce that indmin.com is now part of fastmarkets.com.

A new look and an improved experience means you can still stay ahead of this fast-moving market with price data, news and market intelligence right here on Fastmarkets.

Discover more than 2000 prices, news and analysis in primary and secondary metals markets. We cover base metals, industrial minerals, ores and alloys, steel, scrap and steel raw materials.

If you already have a Fastmarkets account, youll still have uninterrupted access to your markets by logging in with your current details.
FARGO - Police were looking for a man in what they called the "suspicious" death of a woman found dead in a south Fargo townhome Sunday.

Police were called about 7:30 p.m. to 1518 34th St. S. after a woman said she found her friend dead there.

Officials say the 40-year-old victim has been identified as Cory Terlecky. Terleckys cause of death is still under investigation and her autopsy was to be conducted Monday.

Officials were looking for 22-year-old Landon Mitchell Lauwagie who has been identified as a person of interest in this case. Lauwagie is a white man about 6 feet tall and weighs 210 to 220 pounds. Officials said they dont know Lauwagies mental or emotional state, he should be considered a risk to public safety.

The witness said it appeared the woman died from violence, though police couldn't say right away if the death involved foul play.

Her death was "suspicious," Lt. Shannon Ruziska said, but could not elaborate on what raised those suspicions.

The row of townhomes was blocked of with police tape, with officers denying access to anyone there.

A steady stream of neighbors looked on Sunday night, searching for answers as to what happened.

At least eight squad cars were at the scene, including the police department command truck.

Charleen Swenningsen, 28, lives in an apartment building just across the street.

"It's terrifying that it's right across the street from our home," she said.

Swenningsen said the area is a quiet neighborhood, one she's lived in for more than two years.
Zionisms Roots Help Us Interpret Israel Today



By Jonathan Cook May 15, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " The National " - It was an assessment no one expected from the deputy head of the Israeli military. In his Holocaust Day speech last week, Yair Golan compared current trends in Israel with Germany in the early 1930s, as Nazism took hold. In todays Israel, he said, could be recognised the revolting processes that occurred in Europe  There is nothing easier than hating the stranger, nothing easier than to stir fears and intimidate. The furore over Golans remarks followed on the heels of a similar outcry in Britain at statements by former London mayor Ken Livingstone. He observed that Hitler had in practice been supporting Zionism in 1933 when the Nazis signed a transfer agreement, allowing some German Jews to emigrate to Palestine. In their different ways both comments refer back to a heated argument among Jews that began a century or more ago about whether Zionism was a blessing or blight. Although largely overlooked today, the dispute throws much light on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Those differences came to a head in 1917 when the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, a document promising for the first time to realise the Zionist goal of a national home for the Jews in Palestine. Only one minister, Edwin Montagu, dissented. Notably, he was the only Jew in the British cabinet. The two facts were not unconnected. In a memo, he warned that his governments policy would be a rallying ground for anti-Semites in every country. He was far from alone in that view. Of the 4 million Jews who left Europe between 1880 and 1920, only 100,000 went to Palestine in line with Zionist expectations. As the Israeli novelist A B Yehoshua once noted: If the Zionist party had run in an election in the early 20th century, it would have received only 6 or 7 per cent of the Jewish peoples vote. What Montagu and most other Jews feared was that the creation of a Jewish state in a far-flung territory dovetailed a little too neatly with the aspirations of Europes anti-Semites, then much in evidence, including in the British government. According to the dominant assumptions of Europes ethnic nationalisms of the time, the region should be divided into peoples or biological races, and each should control a territory in which it could flourish. The Jews were viewed as a problem because  in addition to lingering Christian anti-semitism  they were considered subversive of this national model. Jews were seen as a race apart, one that could not  or should not  be allowed to assimilate. Better, on this view, to encourage their emigration from Europe. For British elites, the Balfour Declaration was a means to achieve that end. Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, understood this trenchant anti-semitism very well. His idea for a Jewish state was inspired in part by the infamous Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish French army officer was framed by his commanders for treason. Herzl was convinced that anti-semitism would always prevent Jews from true acceptance in Europe. It is for this reason that Livingstones comments  however clumsily expressed  point to an important truth. Herzl and other early Zionists implicitly accepted the ugly framework of European bigotry. Jews, Herzl concluded, must embrace their otherness and regard themselves as a separate race. Once they found a benefactor to give them a territory  soon Britain would oblige with Palestine  they could emulate the other European peoples from afar. For a while, some Nazi leaders were sympathetic. Adolf Eichmann, one of the later engineers of the Holocaust, visited Palestine in 1937 to promote the Zionist emigration of Jews. Hannah Arendt, the German Jewish scholar of totalitarianism, argued even in 1944  long after the Nazis abandoned ideas of emigration and embraced genocide instead  that the ideology underpinning Zionism was nothing else than the uncritical acceptance of German-inspired nationalism. Israel and its supporters would prefer we forget that, before the rise of the Nazis, most Jews deeply opposed a future in which they were consigned to Palestine. Those who try to remind us of this forgotten history are likely to be denounced, like Livingstone, as anti-semites. They are accused of making a simplistic comparison between Zionism and Nazism. But there is good reason to examine this uncomfortable period. Modern Israeli politicians, including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, still regularly declare that Jews have only one home  in Israel. After every terror attack in Europe, they urge Jews to hurry to Israel, telling them they can never be safe where they are. It also alerts us to the fact that even today the Zionist movement cannot help but mirror many of the flaws of those now-discredited European ethnic nationalisms, as Golan appears to appreciate. Such characteristics  all too apparent in Israel  include: an exclusionary definition of peoplehood; a need to foment fear and hatred of the other as a way to keep the nation tightly bound; an obsession with and hunger for territory; and a highly militarised culture. Recognising Zionisms ideological roots, inspired by racial theories of peoplehood that in part fuelled the Second World War, might allow us to understand modern Israel a little better. And why it seems incapable of extending a hand of peace to the Palestinians. Jonathan Cook is a Nazareth- based journalist and winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism - See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-05-09/zionisms-roots-help-us-interpret-israel-today/#sthash.cPdq3qVw.dpuf Jonathan Cook is a Nazareth- based journalist and winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism
Escalations in a New Cold War





The Obama administration poked Russia in the eye again by activating a missile defense site in Romania while building up NATO forces on Russias borders, acts that could escalate toward nuclear war, notes Jonathan Marshall.



By Jonathan Marshall

May 15, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Consortium News " - If the United States ever ends up stumbling into a major conventional or nuclear war with Russia, the culprit will likely be two military boondoggles that refused to die when their primary mission ended with the demise of the Soviet Union: NATO and the U.S. anti-ballistic missile (ABM) program.

The military-industrial complex that reaps hundreds of billions of dollars annually from support of those programs got a major boost this week when NATO established its first major missile defense site at an air base in Romania, with plans to build a second installation in Poland by 2018.

Although NATO and Pentagon spokesmen claim the ABM network in Eastern Europe is aimed at Iran, Russia isnt persuaded for a minute. This is not a defense system, said Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday. This is part of U.S. nuclear strategic potential brought [to] . . . Eastern Europe. . . Now, as these elements of ballistic missile defense are deployed, we are forced to think how to neutralize emerging threats to the Russian Federation.

Iran doesnt yet have missiles capable of striking Europe, nor does it have any interest in targeting Europe. The missiles it does have are notoriously inaccurate . Their inability to hit a target reliably might not matter so much if tipped with nuclear warheads, but Iran is abiding by its stringently verified agreement to dismantle programs and capabilities that could allow it to develop nuclear weapons.

The ABM system currently deployed in Europe is admittedly far too small today to threaten Russias nuclear deterrent. In fact, ABM technology is still unreliable, despite Americas investment of more than $100 billion in R&D.

Nonetheless, its a threat Russia cannot ignore. No U.S. military strategist would sit still for long if Russia began ringing the United States with such systems. Thats why the United States and Russia limited them by treaty  until President George W. Bush terminated the pact in 2002.

President Reagans famous 1983 Star Wars ABM initiative was based on a theory developed by advisers Colin Gray and Keith Payne in a 1980 article titled Victory is Possible: that a combination of superior nuclear weapons, civil defense programs, and ballistic missile defenses could allow the United States to prevail in a prolonged nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

Such nuclear superiority, Gray argued, could back up very large American expeditionary forces fighting in a future conflict around the periphery of Asia. By limiting damage to the U.S. homeland, missile defenses would neutralize Russias nuclear deterrent and help the United States succeed in the prosecution of local conflict . . . and  if need be  to expand a war.

Gray published that latter observation in a 1984 volume edited by Ashton Carter, who as President Obamas Secretary of Defense now champions the new missile shield in Europe. So it should come as little wonder that Moscow is going all out these days in a sometimes ugly campaign to remind the world of its nuclear potency, lest NATO take advantage of Russias perceived weakness.

Russian Tough Talk

Moscow spokesmen have warned that Romania could become a smoking ruins if it continues to host the new anti-missile site; threatened Denmark, Norway and Poland that they too could become targets of attack; and announced development of a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to penetrate the U.S. missile shield.

Secretary Carter responded this month that Moscows nuclear saber-rattling raises troubling questions about . . . whether they respect the profound caution that nuclear-age leaders showed with regard to brandishing nuclear weapons  even as he announced new details of a $3.4 billion military buildup to support NATOs combat capabilities.

U.S. military leaders say they are drawing up even bigger funding requests to send more troops and military hardware to Eastern Europe, and to pay for new investments in space systems, cyber weapons, and ballistic missile defense designed to check a resurgent Russia.

Speaking in February at security conference in Munich, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called for an end to such confrontation, noting that almost every day [NATO leaders] call Russia the main threat for NATO, Europe, the U.S. and other countries. It makes me wonder if we are in 2016 or in 1962.

But stepped-up conflict comes as a godsend to the Pentagon and its contractors, which only a few years ago faced White House plans for major cutbacks in funding and troop strength in Europe. It allows them to maintain  and increase  military spending levels that today are greater than they were during the height of the Cold War.

U.S. and other NATO leaders justify their buildup by pointing to Russias allegedly aggressive behavior  annexing Crimea and sending volunteers to Eastern Ukraine. They conveniently neglect the blatant coup detat in Kiev that triggered the Ukraine crisis by driving an elected, Russian-friendly government from power in February 2014. They also neglect the long and provocative record of NATO expansion toward Russias borders after the fall of the Soviet Union, contrary to the pledges of Western leaders in 1990.

That expansion was championed by the aptly named Committee to Expand NATO, a hot-bed of neoconservatives and Hillary Clinton advisers led by Bruce Jackson , then vice president for planning and strategy at Lockheed Martin, the countrys largest military contractor. In 2008, NATO vowed to bring Ukraine  the largest country on Russias western border  into the Western military alliance.

Cold War Warnings

George Kennan, the dean of U.S. diplomats during the Cold War, predicted in 1997 that NATOs reckless expansion could only lead to a new Cold War, probably ending in a hot one, and the end of the effort to achieve a workable democracy in Russia.

Last year, former Secretary of Defense William Perry warned that we are on the brink of a new nuclear arms race, with all the vast expense  and dangers of a global holocaust  of its Cold War predecessor.

And just this month, President Obamas own former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned that NATOs plans to deploy four battalions to the Baltic States could result very quickly in another Cold War buildup here, that really makes no sense for either side.

If we continue to build up the eastern flank of NATO, with more battalions, more exercises, and more ships and more platforms, he told an audience at the Atlantic Council, the Russians will respond. Im not sure where that takes you.

Nobody knows where it takes us, and thats the problem. It could take us all too easily from small provocations to a series of escalations by each side to show they mean business. And given the trip-wire effect of nuclear weapons stored on NATOs soil, the danger of escalation to nuclear war is entirely real.

As foreign policy expert Jeffrey Taylor commented recently, The Obama administration is setting the stage for endless confrontation, and possibly even war, with Russia, and with no public debate.

Returning to the days of the Cold War will buy less security and more danger. As President Obama contemplates what he will say about the lessons of nuclear war in Hiroshima, he should fundamentally reconsider his own policies that threaten many more Hiroshimas.
Watch Ron Paul Destroy the Two-Party System

Video



Ive never bought into this idea that the lesser of two evils is a good idea.  Ron Paul

May 15, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Antimedia " - Longtime congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul made it clear in a recent interview on CNN that he will vote 3rd party if the presidential race comes down to Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton.

Though Paul didnt specify which candidate he would vote for, he did say Libertarian or Independent party candidates are a possibility. Paul also said he couldnt support Ted Cruz, who has since dropped out of the race, because hes a theocrat who wants to rule with religion. Paul didnt comment on his specific reasons for not supporting Clinton, but one can speculate the fiercely anti-war Paul opposes her militaristic tendencies.
America in the 21st Century



Reports document growing income inequality, declining manufacturing pay



By Kate Randall May 15, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " WSWS " - A new study from the Pew Research Center shows that more than four-fifths of US metropolitan areas have seen household incomes decline in the new century. The research is based on data from urban centers that are home to three-quarters of the US population. Pews Americas Shrinking Middle Class shows that middle-class household income has declined throughout the population, while at the same time the gap between low- and upper-income households has grown, demonstrating a significant increase in income inequality across the US. A major contributor to economic decline and inequality has been the plunge in manufacturing jobs and wages. The study analyzed data from 229 of the 381 metropolitan areas in the US, as defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). These areas accounted for 76 percent of the US population in 2014. They included all those that could be identified in US Census Bureau data with statistics available for both 2000 and 2014. Middle-income households are defined as those with incomes of about $42,000 to $125,000, adjusted for a household of three. Pew found that the share of middle-income households fell in 203 of 299 metropolitan areas from 2000 to 2014. With household income falling in the middle-income tier in these areas, the shares of upper- and lower-income tiers have correspondingly grown. Based on US Census figures, the share of middle-income adults also fell nationwide, while the shares in the lower- and upper-income tiers have increased. The national share of middle-income adults decreased from 55 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in 2014. At the other poles of society, the share of adults in the upper-income tier increased from 17 percent to 20 percent, and the share of adults in the lower-income tier increased from 28 percent to 29 percent. US metropolitan areas with the lowest household incomes are mainly located in the South. Areas with the highest household incomes are concentrated along the Northeast corridor and mid-Atlantic, from Boston to the District of Columbia, and in Northern California, representing the proliferation and profits of the tech, insurance and finance industries, as well as high-paid government employees and politicians. Midland, Texas, which benefited from the rise in oil prices from 2000 to 2014, saw both a shrinking middle class, which fell from 53 percent to 43 percent, and a decline in lower income households, falling from 28 percent to 21 percent. The recent drop in oil prices is not reflected in these figures. In nearly half of the metropolitan areas studied, the lower-income share of households increased. The 10 metropolitan areas with the greatest losses in overall economic statusthe change in the share of upper-income adults minus the change in the share who were lower-incomehave one thing in common: a greater than average reliance on manufacturing. These include the Rust Belt areas of Springfield, Ohio and Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Michigan, as well as two North Carolina areas: Rocky Mount and Hickory-Lenoir-Morgantown. In Springfield, which saw the biggest decline in economic status, a 16 percent drop, the truck assembly plant owned by Navistar employs thousands fewer workers than it did in its heyday. The Detroit metropolitan area has seen a dramatic decline in auto jobs, as well as a drastic drop in wages through two-tier systems introduced in large part as a result of the Obama administrations auto bailout, carried out with the collaboration of the United Autoworkers union. The Hickory-Lenoir-Morgantown area, once a thriving center of furniture manufacturing, has seen the demise of this industry, with an accompanying decline in household incomes and an increase in poverty. A brief from the UC Berkeley Labor Center documents the impact on incomes of declining manufacturing wages and the proliferation of temporary staffing agencies. Producing Poverty: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Production Jobs in Manufacturing charts the increasing numbers of manufacturing workers who are forced to rely on government programs, such as Medicaid and food stamps, to survive. The study shows that wages in manufacturing are falling to the levels of those in the fast-food industry and at big-box retailers. In 2013, the typical manufacturing production worker made 7.7 percent below the median wage for all occupations. The median wage of these production workers was $15.66, with a quarter making $11.91 or less. The National Employment Law Project (NELP) also found that since 1989 there has been a significant increase in the hiring of frontline production workers through temporary staffing agencies. Frontline workers are defined as non-supervisorial production workers who work at least 27 hours per week in the manufacturing industry or those closely associated with it. The Berkeley study found that high utilization of government programs by manufacturing workers was primarily due to low wages as opposed to inadequate work hours. Economic Policy Institute researchers found that as manufacturing wages have declined, manufacturing labor productivity has grown by an average of 3.3 percent a year from 1997 to 2012, nearly one-third greater than in the private, nonfarm economy as a whole. This means that the manufacturing industry is sucking more and more productivity out of workers while catapulting them out of the middle class and into poverty through low wages. There has been a dramatic growth in low-paying temporary positions, which now account for 9 percent of frontline manufacturing jobsa nine-fold increase from 25 years ago. Temporary workers earn a median wage of $10.88 an hour, compared to $15.03 for those hired directly by manufacturers. Nearly half of all manufacturing workers hired through staffing agencies are enrolled in at least one public assistance program, just below the 52 percent of fast-food workers who rely on these programs. Ken Jacobs, chair of the Labor Center and co-author of the report, told Berkeley News, Manufacturing has long been thought of as providing high-paying, middle-class work, but the reality is the production jobs are increasingly coming to resemble fast-food or Walmart jobs, especially for those workers employed through temporary staffing agencies. Copyright  1998-2016 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved
Chomsky: The Majority of Today's Elected Democrats Are Moderate Republicans



According to Chomsky, America is a two-party state, "but there's only one faction."



By Alexandra Rosenmann May 15, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Alternet " - The majority of Democrats have shifted to the right so far that the two-party system is almost unrecognizable, according to Noam Chomsky. "There used to be a quip that the United States was a one-party state with a business party that had two factions: the Democrats and Republicansand that used to be pretty accurate, but its not anymore. The U.S. is still a two-party state, but theres only one faction, and its not Democrats, its moderate Republicans. Todays Democrats have shifted to the right," Chomsky told RT America's Anissa Naouai. And apparently, so have the Republicans. According to Chomsky, "[Political scientist] Norman Ornstein simply describes the Republican Party today as a 'radical insurgency that doesnt care about fact, doesnt care about argument, doesnt want to participate in politics, and is simply off the spectrum.'" Is it any wonder, given Chomskys statements two years ago, that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee? But if there's any doubt in how much the Republican Party has changed, just listen to the 1996 Republican nominee Bob Dole advocate for the food stamp program. Can you imagine our current Republican nominee saying anything similar today today? What about when George W. Bush condemned the 9/11 attacks by announcing "Islam is peace"? Even Obama admitted he would be a moderate Republican if this were the 1980s. Alexandra Rosenmann is an AlterNet associate editor. Follow her @alexpreditor.
CIA Tip-Off Led to Nelson Mandelas Arrest, Former Agent Says

By Jack Moore

May 16, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Newsweek " - A CIA agent gave the tip-off to South African authorities that led to the arrest of Nelson Mandela during the apartheid era, according to a filmmaker's interview with the agent on his deathbed.

British film director John Irvins interview with former CIA agent Donald Rickard about Mandelas arrest in 1962 is to be used as part of Irvins new film, Mandelas Gun, which is set to be screened at Cannes Film Festival this week.

He could have incited a war in South Africa, the United States would have to get involved, grudgingly, and things could have gone to hell, Rickard said, accordingly to The Sunday Times.

We were teetering on the brink here and it had to be stopped, which meant Mandela had to be stopped. And I put a stop to it.

Mandelas arrest led to his infamous 27-year stint in incarceration on Robben Island before authorities released him in 1990. Police stopped Mandela at a roadblock while he posed as a chauffeur; Rickard said that he was the informer that gave authorities information of Mandelas plans on the day of the arrest.

I found out when he was coming down and how he was coming, Rickard said. Thats where I was involved and thats where Mandela was caught.

A friend and co-defendant of Mandelas, Denis Goldberg, told The Sunday Times that the former South African president, the countrys first-ever black leader, always knew about the CIAs role in his arrest but upon his release believed that it no longer mattered.

The South African government criticized the U.S. following the revelation and said that Washington is still working against the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party. We have recently observed that there are efforts to undermine the democratically elected ANC government, Zizi Kodwa told Fox News. They never stopped operating here."
The Creeping Militarization of American Culture By Ted Galen Carpenter May 16, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " National Interest " - In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the growing influence of the military-industrial complex on American politics and policy. Interestingly, Eisenhowers original formulation of the menace was the even more accurate military-industrial-congressional complex. (Emphasis added). Seeing how that network of special interests has worked its tentacles into so many aspects of American political and economic life in the intervening decades indicates just how prescient was Eisenhowers warning. But there has been an even more subtle and pervasive militarization of American culture. It has been evident since World War II, but it has been accelerating markedly in recent years. Perhaps the most corrosive domestic effect of the global interventionist foreign policy that Washington adopted after World War II has been on national attitudes. Americans have come to accept intrusions in the name of national security that they would have strongly resisted in previous decades. The various provisions of the Patriot Act and the surveillance regime and its abuses epitomized by the NSA are a case in point. The trend toward a more intrusive, militaristic state has become decidedly more pronounced since the September 11 attacks and the governments response, but there were unmistakable signs even before that terrible day. My colleagues at the Cato Institute have done an excellent job documenting the gradual militarization of Americas police forces, beginning in the 1980s, with the proliferation of SWAT teams and the equipping of police units with ever more lethal military hardware . The terrorism threat simply provides the latest, most convenient justification to intensify a trend that was already well underway. Most SWAT raids in fact have nothing to do with terrorism; they are used to serve search or arrest warrants in low-level drug cases. Politicians learned early that the fastest way to overcome opposition to a pet initiative was to portray it as essential to national security. Thus, the statute that first involved the federal government in elementary and secondary education in the 1950s was fashioned the National Defense Education Act. Similarly, the legislation establishing the interstate highway system was officially the National Defense Highway Act. In retrospect, President George W. Bush probably missed an opportunity when he did not label his legislation for a Medicare prescription drug benefit the National Defense Elderly Care Act. And then there is the overall militarization of language. The rise of Americas imperial era coincides with the popular use of the war metaphor. In recent decades, weve had wars on everything from cancer to poverty to illiteracy to obesity. And, of course, we still have the ever present war on illegal drugs that Richard Nixon declared more than four decades ago. Language matters, and the fondness for such rhetoric is a revealing and disturbing indicator of just how deeply the garrison state mentality has become embedded in American culture. Yet another sign is the growing tendency to misapply the term commander-in-chief. The Constitution makes it clear that the president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. There were two reasons for that provision. One was to assure undisputed civilian control of the military. The other was to prevent congressional interference with the chain of command. One thing, however, is abundantly clear. The Constitution did not make the president commander-in-chief of the country. Unfortunately, that is a distinction that is increasingly lost on politicians, pundits, and ordinary Americans The notion that the president is a national commander who can direct the country and it is our obligation as subordinates to salute and follow his lead is an alien and profoundly un-American concept. It also implicitly ratifies the perverse doctrine of the imperial presidencythat the president alone (our commander-in-chief) gets to decide when the nation goes to war. Both are thoroughly unconstitutional, ahistorical, and unhealthy attitudes. Yet they have become common, if not dominant, attitudes in late twentieth century and early twenty-first century America. And that is frightening. Viewing the president as the commander-in-chief of the nation is the epitome of a mentally militarized society.
Living By The Sword...

Defense Bill Coming This Week: A Boost for War and Tyranny By Ron Paul May 16, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - For many of us concerned with liberty, the letters NDAA have come to symbolize Washingtons ongoing effort to undermine the US Constitution in the pursuit of constant war overseas. It was the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2012 that introduced into law the idea that American citizens could be indefinitely detained without warrant or charge if a government bureaucrat decides they had assisted al-Qaeda or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States. No charges, no trial, just disappeared Americans. The National Defense Authorization bill should be a Congressional mechanism to bind the president to spend national defense money in the way Congress wishes. It is the nuts and bolts of the defense budget and as such is an important oversight tool preventing the imperial executive from treating the military as his own private army. Unfortunately that is no longer the case these days. Why am I revisiting the NDAA today? Unfortunately since 2012 these bills have passed the House with less and less scrutiny, and this week the House is going to vote on final passage of yet another Defense Authorization, this time for fiscal year 2017. Once again it is a terrible piece of legislation that does great harm to the United States under the guise of protecting the United States. Unless some last minute changes take place, this latest NDAA will force young women for the first time to register to be drafted into the US military. For the past 36 years, young men have been forced to register with Selective Service when they turn 18 or face felony charges and years in prison. Under a perverted notion of equality some people are cheering the idea that this represents an achievement for women. Why cheer when slavery is extended to all? We should be fighting for an end to forced servitude for young men and to prevent it being extended to women. The argument against a draft should appeal to all: you own your own body. No state has the right to force you to kill or be killed against your will. No state has a claim on your life. We are born with freedoms not granted by the state, but by our creator. Only authoritarians seek to take that away from us. Along with extending draft registration to women, the latest NDAA expands the neocons new Cold War with Russia, adding $3.4 billion to put US troops and heavy weapons on Russias border because as the bill claims, Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security. This NDAA also includes the military slush fund of nearly $60 billion for the president to spend on wars of his choosing without the need to get Congress involved. Despite all the cries that we need to rebuild the military," this years Defense Authorization bill has a higher base expenditure than last year. There have been no cuts in the military. On the contrary: the budget keeps growing. The Defense Authorization bill should remain notorious. It represents most of what is wrong with Washington. It is welfare for the well-connected defense contractors and warfare on our economy and on the rest of the world. This reckless spending does nothing to defend the United States. It is hastening our total economic collapse. Copyright - The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity http://ronpaulinstitute.org/
Home Sign up for our FREE Daily Email Newsletter Historical Speech of Brazilian President Dilma Roussef (with English Subtitles) Video and Transcript Posted May 16, 2016 - Via The Saker Transcript Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, journalists. Good morning, heres Congressmen, Ministers, Good morning everyone here. I will make a statement to the press, so its not an interview, it is a statement. I wanted first to tell you, and say also, to all Brazilians, that the impeachment process was opened by the Senate, and ordered the suspension of my term of office for a maximum period of 180 days. I was elected president by 54 million Brazilian citizens, and it is in this condition, the condition of a President elected by 54 million, that I address you at this decisive moment for Brazilian democracy and our future as a nation. What is at stake in the impeachment process is not only my mandate, what is at stake is the respect to the polls, the sovereign will of the Brazilian people and the Constitution. What is at stake are the achievements of the last thirteen years, the gains of the poorest people, as well as the gains of the middle class. The protection of children, young people access to Universities and to Technical Schools. The value of the minimum wage, doctors attending to the population. The realization of the dream of home ownership with Minha Casa, Minha Vida. What is at stake is also the great finding of Brazil, the pre-salt. What is at stake is the future of the country, the opportunity and hope to move forward forever more. Before the Senate decision, I want once again to clarify the facts and report the risks to the country of a fraudulent impeachment: a real coup. Since I was elected, the opposition, dissatisfied, called recount, tried to nullify the elections and then went on to openly conspiring for my impeachment. They plunged the country in a permanent state of political instability, preventing the recovery of the economy, with the sole purpose of taking by force what they did not win at the polls. My government has been the target of intense and incessant sabotage. The clear objective has been preventing me to rule and thus forge the environment conducive to the coup. When an elected president is revoked on charges of a crime he did not commit, the name given to it in the democratic world is not impeachment: it is a coup. I have not committed a crime of responsibility, there is no reason for impeachment proceedings, I do not have accounts abroad, I never received bribes, I never condoned corruption. This process is a fragile process, legally inconsistent, an unfair process, initiated against an honest and innocent person. It is the largest of the brutalities that can be committed to any human being: to punish him for a crime he did not commit. There is no more devastating injustice than to condemn the innocent. Injustice is irreparable evil. This legal farce, that I am facing, is due to the fact that, as president, I never accepted blackmail of any kind. I may have made mistakes but have not committed crimes. I am being judged unfairly by having done all that the law authorizes me to do. The acts I practiced were legal acts, correct, necessary acts, acts of government. Similar acts were performed by the previous Brazilian presidents, before me. It was not a crime in their time, and also is not a crime now. They accuse me of having published six supplementation Decrees, six additional credit Decrees and, in so doing, have committed crime against the Budget Law  LOA. It is false because the Decrees followed authorizations provided by law. They treat as a crime an everyday management act. They accuse me of delaying payments of Plano Safra, it is false. I have not determined anything about it. The law does not require my participation in the implementation of this Plan (Plano Safra). My accusers can not even say which unlawful act I have practiced. What act? Which act? Moreover, nothing was left to be paid, or any debt remained. Never in a democracy, the legitimate mandate of an elected president can be stopped because of legitimate acts of budget management. Brazil can not be the first to do this. I would also like to address the entire population of my country saying that the coup aims not only to revoke me, to remove a president elected by the vote of millions of Brazilians  direct vote in a fair election. To dismiss my government, they want actually prevent the execution of the program that was chosen by the majoritarian votes of the 54 million Brazilians. The coup detat threatens to ravage not only democracy, but also the achievements that the population reached in recent decades. All this time, I have been also a zealous guarantor of the democratic rule of law. My government has not committed any repressive act against social movements, against collective protests, against protesters of any political position. The risk, the greatest risk to the country at this time is to be directed by a government without any votes. A government that was not elected by direct vote of the population, a government that will have the legitimacy to propose and implement solutions to the challenges of Brazil. A government may be tempted to crack down on protesting against him. A government that is born of a coup. A fraudulent impeachment. Born of a kind of indirect election. A government that is, himself, a big reason for the continuing political crisis in our country. So, I tell you, all of you, Im proud to be the first woman elected president of Brazil. I am proud to be the first woman elected president of Brazil. In those years, I have exercised my mandate in a dignified and honest way, honoring the votes I received. On behalf of those votes, and on behalf of all the people of my country, I will fight with all legal instruments available to me to exercise my mandate until the end of my presidencial term, 31st December, 2018. Destiny always got me many challenges, many great challenges, some appeared to me insuperable, but I managed to overcome them. I have suffered the unspeakable pain of torture. The agonizing pain of the disease. And now I suffer again, the equally unspeakable pain of injustice. What hurts the most right now is injustice. What hurts most is to realize that I am the victim of a legal farce and politics. But I do not subside, I look back and see everything we did. I look forward and see everything we still need and can do. The most important is that I can look at myself and see the face of someone who, even marked by time, have the strength to defend ideas and rights. I fought my whole life for democracy. I learned to trust the capacity of struggle of our people. I have lived many defeats, and lived big wins. I confess that I never imagined it would be necessary to fight back against a coup in my country. Our young democracy, made of struggles, made of sacrifices, even deaths, does not deserve it. In recent months, our people took to the streets. It took to the streets in defense of more rights, more advances. Thats why Im sure that people will know to say no to the coup. Our people are wise, and has historical experience. Brazilians who are contrary to the coup, regardless of party positions, to all of them I make a call: remain mobilized, united and at peace. The struggle for democracy has no end date. It is permanent struggle, which requires us constant dedication. The fight for democracy, I repeat, has no end date. The fight against the coup is long, it is a fight that can be won, and we will win. This victory depends on us all. Lets show the world that there are millions of supporters of democracy in our country. I know, and many here know, especially our people know that history is made through fighting. And it is always worth fighting for democracy. Democracy is the right side of history. We will never give up, I will never give up fighting. Thank you all very much. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load. What's your response? - Scroll down to add / read comments Sign up for our FREE Daily Email Newsletter For Email Marketing you can trust Donate



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Refugees from Endless War



Policymakers in Official Washington talk piously about waging humanitarian wars, but the real-life consequences of these interventions play out in squalid refugee camps far from U.S. shores, as Ann Wright witnessed.



By Ann Wright May 16, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Consortium News " - If you dont like refugees coming to your country, stop voting for politicians who love to bomb the shit out of them. Our delegation from CODEPINK: Women for Peace saw this written on a tent at the Idomeni refugee camp in on the Greek-Macedonian border. As we well know, neither the Greek nor Macedonian governments have bombed people, but they are having to deal with the huge numbers of refugees caused by the decisions of government far away. However, in a U.S. presidential election year, it is a message that American voters should heed. The Obama administration, which inherited the chaos from the 2003 Iraq war from the Bush administration but which has been bombing ISIS in urban areas in Iraq and Syria, has resettled only 1,736 Syrian refugees over the last seven months  despite President Obamas pledge to resettle at least 10,000 Syrians by September 2016. In contrast, Canada has resettled more than 26,000 Syrian refugees since late 2015, while Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan have together taken in millions of Syrian refugees since the conflict began five years ago. In early May, we had flown from Athens to Thessaloniki, Greeces second largest city, and then had driven one hour north to the Greek border with Macedonia. The name of the tiny hamlet of Idomeni has become synonymous with the largest refugee camp in Greece. As we arrived, a tremendous thunder, lightning and hailstorm hit the area ripping down tents, making mud pools and deluging tents and the clothing and bedding inside. We saw the worst conditions (except cold and snow) that the 13,000 refugees must endure in five camps within four miles of the Macedonian border. All five are informal, unofficial camps and refugees can come and go at will. They have refused any attempt to put them into the formal detention camps that place them in isolated areas and restrict their movement within Greece. As a result, the services provided are not particularly well organized although all have limited porta-potties, showers and faucets for washing clothes. All have basic food provided primarily by volunteers, non-governmental organizations and the Greek military (in only one camp). The first camp one comes upon on Highway 75 heading north from Thessaloniki is at the gasoline station and rest stop called EKO. Over 2,000 persons are camping in the large parking lot, grocery store and car wash. Save the Children provides rice porridge and oranges daily for children under 11 years of age and estimates there are over 1,000 children. We helped hand out the porridge by going tent by tent and asking how many children of that age group were in the household (tenthold). Save the Children coordinators told us that they liked having the daily contact with people in their living space rather than having people stand in another long line. We were greeted with a warm smile and a thank-you by every mother to whom we delivered the porridge. International Efforts The Boat Refugee Foundation of the Netherlands has a number of volunteers that help with the porridge delivery, young women and men from the Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden and the UK. At EKO camp, we met a distinguished man who told us he was a mathematics teacher in a small village outside of Damascus, Syria. He and his 13-year-old daughter made the trip from Syria, through Turkey, by boat to Samos, ferry boat to Piraeus, train from Athens to Thessaloniki and taxi to EKO camp. He had been at the camp for one month and three weeks. He left his wife and 17-year-old daughter behind in Syria Leaving EKO camp, we stopped at the Park Hotel on the outskirts of the village of Polikastro where the volunteer headquarters is located. Each night at 8 p.m., experienced volunteers provide an orientation for new volunteers and update everyone with the days happenings. In the back of the Park Hotel is the kitchen of Hot Food Idomeni, a group of volunteers that cook basic meals of staples such as rice, beans and curry in large vats for 5,000 persons each day. Paul of the United Kingdom heads up the volunteer force of 45 persons. Two shifts of 15 people prepare the meals and two groups of another 15 load up the food, drive the food to the camps and distribute it. Paul said that they are spending about $2,000 per day for food and transporting the food for 5,000. The Greek military feeds one of the other camps and has called on Hot Food Idomeni to help them when their food ran out. Hot Food Idomeni is a remarkable place to work as a volunteer and its a great organization to send donations as their work is definitely keeping people alive. After the Park Hotel, we stopped at the 500 person camp called Lidl, named for a nearby merchandise store. Most persons live in white tents provided by the Greek military. The tents are in long military precision lines next to a small runway. The military does not let new volunteers into the camp, only those affiliated with organizations. Next we visited the Hara camp, named for a gasoline rest stop and nearby hotel. Five hundred persons are camped around the gasoline station area. Norways Northern Lights Aid group is nominally in charge of the camp and provided tents, coordinates clothes distribution and has a sundry item purchase for refugees. Charlie and Henry formed Northern Lights after they worked for months on Lesvos and when volunteers were displaced by the detention center staff, they came to the Macedonian border to help with refugees there. Hara, a much smaller camp, has a much different atmosphere because of the attention given by Northern Lights volunteers, including four from Poland and the Czech Republic when we were there. They had much to do with a more positive environment. A Sprawling Camp Idomeni is a sprawling camp within 500 meters of the Macedonian border and has around 10,000 persons. One Doctors without Borders (MSF) staff told us that no one knows the exact number as refugees are coming and leaving at will. The camp has been open as a stop for refugees who were able to cross into Macedonia prior to March 22 and go into Europe. Now those in the camp are stuck. They must remain in the camp until a decision is made on their individual cases. Some have been in the camp for nine weeks. Greek police have two large buses that block the railroad tracks between the camp and the border. Many of the refugees have placed their tents on the railway line. Others have their tents in the fields which became mud pits with the heavy rain that we witnessed on the day we arrived. Parents were cleaning out the tents of mud and rain that had poured in, hanging up clothes, blankets, and sleeping bags on the fences along the railroad track. Not everyone is sleeping in small tents. Two large UNHCR temporary tent buildings have approximately 100 bunks in them arranged much like the overcrowded prisons in the U.S. People make privacy areas from the blankets hanging down from the upper bunks. Four dinner lines began forming in the late afternoon. The four feeding locations had hundreds of people lined up for simple meals of beans and rice, and a couscous type meal. As with any refugee camp, industrious sellers have begun. Some had small amounts of coffee, powdered milk, crackers, eggs for sale. Those who had purchased food were cooking it over wood fires from trees they were chopping down, not an enduring move to local residents in the area. Millions of refugees await their fate and future in Greece, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan as the international community slowly decides how to handle the flood of people fleeing chaos in their countries caused by military operations. Millions of others hope that their arrival in Europe will provide them an opportunity for a life without conflict until they can return home. Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel. She served as a US diplomat for 16 years in US Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the US government in March 2003 in opposition to President Bushs war on Iraq. She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
Russia Saving World From Total War



By Finian Cunningham



May 16, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Sputnik " - The deployment this week of a US missile system in Eastern Europe is another step towards all-out global war. Despite Western propaganda demonizing Russia, the truth is that it is Russian military might that is actually holding the line to prevent such a cataclysm. The United States and its NATO allies are already at war with Russia. This is not hyperbole. It is fact. The US and its allies are amassing weapons and troops on Russias borders, and engaging in simulated attacks from various directions. Orwellian language of war games in Western media serves to diminish the disturbing fact that NATO forces are preparing offensive strikes on Russia. War machinery on both sides are locked on. The encounter last month of the US warship with Russian fighter jets in the Baltic Sea is but one of many such close encounters occurring almost every week. Granted, weapons have not actually been fired yet. Nevertheless, the weapon machinery is engaged. Again, Western media serve to normalize what is a balefully abnormal situation. At the behest of Washington, the Western countries are trying to blockade Russia with economic sanctions. This is just another provocative act of war. Moreover, diplomatic channels between Washington and Moscow seem attenuated to levels as low as at any time during the former Cold War. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has apparently maintained a cordial working relationship with his American counterpart John Kerry, but apart from that individual rapport the bilateral position between the two powers has sunken to an all-time low. Another manifestation of war is the US proxy conflict with Russia in Syria and Ukraine. On the surface there may be talk about ceasefires and political solutions, but make no mistake the jihadist mercenaries and the neo-Nazi Kiev regime are nonetheless American military assets ever-poised to attack Russias geo-strategic interests. The move this week by Washington to activate its long-anticipated missile system in Eastern Europe is another act of aggression in a whole panoply of offensive actions. US and NATO officials deny that the Aegis system is targeting Russia, and make the ludicrous claim that it is to defend Europe against Iranian ballistic rockets or some other rogue state. Such transparent, deceitful nonsense. Russia rightly dismisses Washington and NATOs cynical assurances. The Kremlin this week said that the installation of the US missile system is a direct threat to Russias security. Moscow said it would take counter-measures to restore the strategic balance of nuclear deterrence. It was no coincidence that official Russian reports disclosed details of a new hypersonic Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile that could penetrate any American missile shield to deliver a warhead capable of destroying an area the size of Texas or France. This is not irresponsible Russian bravado. It is vital that Russia lets aggressive Washington know that any future war moves will be met with equal or greater force. Of course, the outcome would be an all-out nuclear war which could destroy the planet as we know it. But the only way of saving the peace and the planet is for Russia to show that it has the military might to face down any American belligerence. The upgrade of Russian military power under President Vladimir Putin is perhaps the only thing that is holding back the push for all-out war by the US. And lets face it. It is the US that is the source of belligerence. As American political analyst Randy Martin points out, the so-called Wolfowitz Doctrine is the touchstone of Washingtons foreign policy. The neocon doctrine of former Department of Defense official Paul Wolfowitz, who served in the George W Bush administrations, is embedded in US military strategic thinking. Says Martin: Wolfowitzs worldview of seeing the US as the worlds only superpower and not tolerating any other rival to the point of going to war, is taught in all American military academies. It is mainstream US military thinking. This is what motivates Washingtons bellicose policies towards Russia and China, adds Martin. The US is programed to go to war with any perceived rival global power in order to maintain its unwarranted ambitions of hegemony. The analyst says that if it were not for Russian, and Chinese, military power the US state planners would have gone further by now in prosecuting their war actions, with catastrophic consequences for the world. It is a sobering thought that, despite all the Western media disparagement of Russia, it is actually Russia that is saving the world from such a catastrophic conflict  a conflict that the US alone is pushing. Indeed, it is averred that Russias intervention in Syria may have been partly based on this bigger, far more serious calculation. Not only was Russia salvaging the Middle East country from Western-backed war for regime change. Moscows deployment of latest weaponry, including its sea-launched cruise missiles and the S-400 anti-ballistic defense, could have been aimed at demonstrating to Washington that it better think twice about pursuing a wider war agenda. Little do we know it because of so much Western mind-numbing misinformation, but our world is facing the abyss of nuclear war. Russias military power is holding the line from this abyss. How can we transcend this abysmal situation before stumbling over the edge? Russia must remain vigilant and strong, with a determination to not capitulate. The anniversary last week of the defeat of Nazi Germany is a timely reminder of Russias epic importance in thwarting international aggression. The same fascist aggression is virulent again in the form of American hegemonic ambitions, and just as with the Third Reich it is Russian fortitude that is preserving the world from Total War. Political analyst Randy Martin does not see the American public has having a decisive role in practice. In theory, yes, US citizens need to call their warmongering leaders to account and to elect a democratic government  for a change. However, says Martin, the American public are so disenfranchised, brainwashed, beaten down, and oppressed with poverty and consumerist psychosis, he does not see how a mass movement in the US can be mobilized at this point in history in order to abolish the warmongering ruling elite in Washington. Perhaps, it is up to the people of Europe to take decisive action. Growing popular discontent with European leaders who toe the American line of aggression and sanctions on Russia may have the potential of decisively breaking the US-EU-NATO war front. What people need to urgently wake up to is that Washington and its European vassals in government are already at war on Russia. There is absolutely no objective justification for this destructive dynamic, other than the US trying to unilaterally assert its hegemony. That is not the policy of a law-abiding democracy; it is a fascist power in the same vein as Nazi Germany. The war on Russia is being waged on entirely spurious grounds of alleged Russian annexations, invasions and expansionism. This is utter propaganda  again a la Nazi Germany. The crucial question is this: can Russia hold the line long enough against US-led aggression until the people of the world mobilize the political action to overthrow the criminal regime that operates out of Washington and through European capitals?
Americas Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East A Book Talk at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - May 12, 2016 By Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.) May 16, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - Since the end of the Cold War, were had a lot of very instructive experience in the Middle East. Back in 2010, I compiled the real-time analyses I had made of our policies and their results in a book titled Americas Misadventures in the Middle East. The book holds up well as an explanation for the origins and evolution of most of our difficulties in the region. Unfortunately, both the situation in the Middle East and our position there have continued to deteriorate. This has led me to write to a new book, Americas Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East, which picks up where the first book left off. Id like to thank everyone who has said nice things about it. What were up to now in the region raises the question of how much, if anything, we have learned from all the things that have gone wrong. But it does seem to me that we can confidently draw at least five conclusions: (1) when people in high places twist intelligence to confirm their political convictions, unpleasant surprises and strategic setbacks are likely to follow; (2) threat assessments inflate to fill the policy criteria and agendas of those whose budgets depend on them; (3) if a nation (no matter how great and powerful) acts without first asking and then, what?, the chances are excellent that it will not like the results; (4) there are not many problems that can be solved by the use of force alone, but there are almost none that cant be made worse by it; and (5) a country with no credible enemies is yet vulnerable to ruin by allies and friends. In the Middle East, we have found out the hard way that not every cakewalk puts cake on your plate. And it has become apparent that, when they encounter reality, some of the most popular conceits of neo-conservatism and new-age national security policy shrivel up and die. At least the following six neoconservative axioms turn out to be false. (1) wars in the Middle East can easily be made to pay for themselves; (2) inside every Arab there lurks a liberal democrat yearning to get out; (3) if you kick the natives hard enough they will turn into the moral equivalent of Canadians  meek, unfailingly polite to everyone, and misty-eyed about Israel; (4) in addition to the gerbils who inhabit there, the deserts are full of Arab moderates eager to risk their lives by bravely making war on savage Islamist fanatics; (5) exiles say what they mean and mean what they say; and (6) if we sock it to terrorists over there, they wont dare follow us home. The cost of the experience that has refuted these delusions has been considerable. It starts with a lot of dead and maimed soldiers and mercenaries as well as $6 trillion in outlays and unfunded liabilities. The dead and wounded came home. The money will never return. It was poured into the sands of West Asia and North Africa or ripped off by contractors. The fact that it was not invested in the general welfare and domestic tranquility of the United States accounts for our broken roads and rickety bridges, the educational malnutrition of our youth, and our reduced international competitiveness. But our misadventures in the Middle East have had plenty of consequences abroad as well as here at home. These include the eruption of tribal and sectarian conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen; escalating proxy wars between Saudi Arabia and Iran; a putrefied peace process between Israel, the Palestinians, and other Arabs; the gradual self-transformation of Egypt into the political equivalent of an IED; continuing impasse with Iran; diminished respect for us by allies in Europe; and the ongoing metastasis of terrorism with global reach. Our homeland is shabbier and we are less, not more secure than we were. Terrorists explain that they are over here because we are over there. Our political leaders keep saying that they cant possibly have that right. Surely, they hate us because of who we are, not what weve done and where. Really? To assert this overlooks the magnitude of our accomplishments in the Middle East. Over the first sixteen years of this century alone, we have helped to engineer structural change that is unprecedented since Napoleon inaugurated the European drive to vivisect the Ottoman Empire and impose secular forms of governance in place of Islam. Our invasion of Iraq led to the reopening of the fissures Mr. Sykes and Monsieur Picot created when they sliced up Greater Syria in 1916. As a result, the states that British and French colonialism carved out of the dying Ottoman order  Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria  are all in various stages of actual or impending collapse. New states based on ethnic or religious identities seem to be coming into being  Kurdish, Alawite, Salafi, Shiite, Houthi, and so forth. Each of these broken bits of the last hundred years political geography has different external patrons. None is sure to survive. The kaleidoscope is still turning in the Middle East. In a region where faith defines identity, our interventions have catalyzed the transformation of the religious landscape. With backing from wealthy Americans, Jewish tribalism is erasing democracy and Western values ( including Diaspora Jewish values) in Israel. Political Islam  both Sunni and Shi`i  has emerged as a major threat to secularism and a source of terrorism not just in the Middle East but beyond it. Wars of religion comparable to the Thirty Year War between Catholics and Protestants have replaced peaceful coexistence between Sunni and Shi`i Arabs. Jewish colonialism and Muslim extremism have expelled or exterminated the ancient Christian communities of Palestine, Iraq, and Syria. Barring the second coming, the Middle East, where Christianity originated two millennia ago, seems likely now to remain a largely Christian-free zone. Meanwhile, as American bombs plunge down on them from aircraft and drones, Islamist terrorist movements  a localized problem as the century began  have dispersed. They now control large swaths of territory and significant populations in Afghanistan, the Levant, Libya, Pakistan, the Sahel, the Sinai, Somalia, and Yemen. They have also gained a significant presence among disaffected Muslims in Western Europe. Islamophobia plus blowback have begun to produce a similar presence here. Anti-Western terrorism with global reach, unheard of before 9/11, has become an obsession in both the United States and Europe. Finally, after several decades on the ropes, Russia is back in the ring in the Middle East. It is playing a skillful politico-military hand in Syria, Iraq, and Iran, if not with Turkey. And, whatever they think about Russia, every major security client of the United States in the region  including Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey  now openly derides and seeks to hedge against America as a security partner. Iran agrees with them in their distrust of us, if not about anything else. That is one reason that Tehran shows very little desire to pursue a partnership or even a dialogue with Washington. Many in the region find that last point reassuring. I dont. On the evidence so far, we cant hope to deal with violent politics in the Muslim world without Muslim political partners, Shi`ite as well as Sunni. Allowing Islamophobia and drone warfare to define our relationship with the Muslim fourth of humankind is a very large mistake. Donald Rumsfeld, the Yoda of the Pax Americana, once sagely proclaimed that the metric for success in the Global War on Terror was whether we were capturing, killing, deterring, or dissuading more terrorists than were being recruited, trained, and deployed against us. The answer is now in. Drone warfare and assassination dont do in terrorism; they ramp it up. Muslim rage, reprisal, and revanchism are political problems that are exacerbated rather than ameliorated by air strikes and collateral damage. This is because, even if you kill the leaders you are aiming at rather than just their followers and family members, you cant decapitate a state of mind or a network. Its because drone warfare is justified by body-count calculations that are even more misguided and counterproductive than they were in figuring out who was winning in Vietnam. Its because for every anti-American terrorist you kill, you get ten free. Its because the abandonment of due process in determining whose life to terminate costs you the moral high ground. Its because declaring that all Muslim males of military age are militants who deserve to die does not make that so. Nor does defining all those killed by drone strikes, regardless of age or gender, to have been terrorists make their deaths any less contemptible, odious, and worthy of revenge in the eyes of those who loved them. The fact is that we have a failing military and paramilitary campaign against Islamist terrorists, not a strategy  still less, a winning strategy  for defeating them. Those who argue for more of the same must explain why what we have been doing has not made things better and why they have instead become steadily worse. We need a better answer than the usual within-the-Beltway one of reinforcing failure with more money and redoubled effort. So far Ive talked about the sources of our problems. Let me turn to the methods for dealing with them. I need to do this to be able to collect the Nobel prize I promised my mother Id earn. But before I do  talk about different approaches that might actually work, that is  I should say a few words about whats at stake for America in the Middle East. In that region, the United States is now locked in death-filled dances with fanatic enemies, ungrateful client states, alienated allies, and resurgent adversaries. And no one can tell us how any of this will end. Its understandable that growing numbers of Americans want out. Some say that the United States no longer has any real interests in the Middle East so Americans should cut our losses, cease meddling, and let God straighten out the mess weve made. But, in foreign affairs, interests are the measure of all things. And the Middle East is still where Africa, Asia, and Europe meet. That makes it both the mother of all strategic chokepoints and the geographic axis of the worlds transportation routes, as the growing global dominance of Gulf Arab airlines is demonstrating. The ability to transit the Middle East is essential to U.S. global power projection. A decision to write off the region would be a decision to go out of business as a world power. That is something quite distinct from becoming more restrained in using our military power  which I and a growing number of Americans think would be a good idea. And the Middle East is still where two-thirds of the worlds oil is located. The exploitation of tight oil in shale has made the United States once again an oil exporter, but it hasnt altered the fact that energy prices are set on a global basis, not by the U.S. market. Middle Eastern oil remains the key determinant of long-term energy costs and energy costs are a crucial factor in the health of the global economy. The quality of life in America depends importantly on prosperity beyond our borders. We cannot ignore the impact of developments in the Middle East on our national well-being. And the Middle East is still the focus of the worlds most stridently self-righteous, schismatic, and pugnacious religions  Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What happens in and around their holy places affects the moral convictions, emotional balances, and political judgments of global communities consisting of billions of human beings. As we have seen, events in the region that involve religion can decide whether there is domestic tranquility or turbulence not just there but here. For all these reasons as well as others, the United States needs effective working relationships with the countries of the Middle East. The region is also full of unfinished American foreign policy projects, some of which are not unimportant. Our decades-long effort to achieve acceptance for a Jewish state there has faltered, if not yet definitively failed. Are we prepared to abandon that project? Our military interventions have produced anarchy in the region and an outflow of refugees from it that threatens to swamp Europe. This has made more enemies for our country than anything else in its 240-year history as an independent nation. Can we now just walk away from the mess we helped make and assume it wont follow us home? We have no choice but to remain engaged with the Middle East and with our partners there. I use the word, partners advisedly. The term ally does not fit our security relationships in the Middle East. Our relationships with countries there do not encompass mutual obligations. We have volunteered to protect them. They have made no such commitment to us. Their relations with us are transactional, no longer based on allegiance. So, in return for support from us for their interests, the Saudis allow us to overfly their territory. For the same reason, they cooperate with us against Islamist terrorists. But, as Israel has recently gone out of its way to demonstrate, none of our partners in the region feels that it is under any obligation either to support or to refrain from opposing us. And when our partners dont back us  or when they actively undercut us  we impose no consequences. That amounts to fostering moral hazard through enablement. It is not friendship, anymore than giving money to an alcoholic, knowing that he will use it to buy liquor, guzzle it, and then get behind the wheel of his car, is friendship. We have led our protegees in the Middle East to expect that the United States can always be counted upon to ensure that stupid or self-destructive behavior on their part will have no political or military consequences for them. We veto criticism of them by the international community. We resupply the ordnance they expend even when they use it in ways that violate our laws and contradict our stated policies. We lean on our allies elsewhere to support them. We tolerate their open intervention in our politics to extract financial and military aid. The unconditionality of American backing for our clients in the Middle East explains their lack of concern about the adverse consequences of their actions and their lack of interest in correcting policies that are not just failing but counterproductive. Their behavior is a major cause of the instability, anarchy, and warfare in the region. And these conditions are the source of the blowback that now disturbs our domestic tranquility. Its time to recalibrate our relationships in the Middle East to take realistic account of the circumstances that three decades of policy error and failure have wrought. We need to focus on the protection of American interests rather than on support for the policies of partners who believe and act as though they owe us nothing and who have an appalling record of misjudging their own interests and the likely consequences of their actions I have a few simple suggestions. First. Stop trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The states and borders that have been shattered cant now be restored. Attempts to reconstruct the arrangements imposed under Sykes-Picot dont just waste American money and prestige, they cost American and Arab lives and rationalize terrorist reprisal against the United States. The people of the region are demonstrating their determination to govern themselves within borders they establish for themselves. Instead of resisting such self-determination, the United States should focus on working with partners in the region to ensure that the restructuring of the regions borders does as little harm as possible to U.S. and allied interests. By any standard, Da`esh  the so-called caliphate  is too vile to be allowed to become one of the new states in the region. But no coalition formed to defeat it can succeed without accommodating self-determination by other religious and ethnic communities. Second. Work with partners in the region to push for a bargain like that which ended the Thirty Years War in Europe in 1648. The Treaty of Westphalia established an interfaith modus vivendi  cvivs regio eivs religio  a principle of live and let live for diverse beliefs and religious practices within Christendom. Islam stipulates that there can be no compulsion in religion. The violation of this principle through takfir []  the excommunication of others as non-believers deserving of death for apostasy  is at the heart of the warped version of Islam that Da`esh and other Islamist terrorists profess. It is takfir that provides the rationale for murder on behalf of political grievances and resentments. In the interest of its own security and well-being as well as that of the region, the West must help the conservative Muslims of the Middle East, none of whom approve of takfir, to ban it, criminalize it, and shut it down. Third. Work to restore Americas reputation for reliability as a partner and for good faith in the implementation of the agreements we make with others. Our most important collaborators in the Middle East saw our almost gleeful abandonment of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as proof that Washington is not just unreliable, but treacherous. (Putins Russia has stood by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in part to draw an invidious comparison with perceived American perfidy.) No one will do deals with us, as the late Colonel Qaddhafi did, if the reward we confer for that is death by sodomy with a butcher knife celebrated with the words: we came, we saw, he died. And what are other countries to make of our effective denial to Iran of the sanctions relief we and others promised it in return for rolling back its nuclear program and subjecting it to stringent international supervision? Belatedly tying our implementation of our part of the nuclear deal to post-deal developments on issues outside its purview is gaining us a reputation for moving the goal posts. If we agree to do something, others must be confident that well do it. If we give our word, we must keep it. Fourth. Wean Israel from its nearly seventy years of welfare dependency, relieve U.S. taxpayers of the burden of subsidizing it despite its wealth, and stop enabling its government to do stupid stuff that trades gratification today for reduced prospects of survival as a secure democracy tomorrow. Or if subsidies must for some reason continue, condition them on Israeli policies that gain the Jewish state long-term security through peaceful coexistence with its Arab neighbors. Demand Israels support for U.S. interests in the region rather than its current active opposition to U.S. policies directed at serving those interests (as well as  in many instances  its own). Apply the same approach to relations with other client states in the Middle East. No more something-for-nothing transactions. No more creation of moral hazard through the assumption of risks for client states that enables them to act against U.S. advice and undercut U.S. interests. No more Gazas, Lebanons, or Yemens. Fifth and finally. Define U.S. objectives in the Middle East and develop a strategy to achieve them that both relies on more than military power and that can enlist the active support of other global and regional powers as well as conservative Muslims. There are many instruments of statecraft other than the use of force  for example, propaganda, clandestine support for foreign causes, and diplomacy to build coalitions and alliances and bend others to support US-led policies. Unite the Security Council to define terrorism, criminalize it, and establish model national legislation for dealing with it. Work out a division of labor with Muslim allies against Daesh and takfir. Recognize that, despite differences on other matters, all great powers share interests in containing and defeating violent Islamism and in preserving access to the energy resources of the Middle East. Demand contributions from others to these causes rather than continuing to assume sole responsibility for them. Develop relations with Iran and with the regions non-state actors to the extent these serve U.S. interests. Allow no partner to veto U.S. relations with any other. And to understand how we came to the dilemmas we now face in the region, read Americas Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East! Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)

Senior Fellow, the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs Ambassador Freeman is a senior fellow at Brown Universitys Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. He was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1993-94, earning the highest public service awards of the Department of Defense for his roles in designing a NATO-centered post-Cold War European security system and in reestablishing defense and military relations with China. He served as U. S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm). He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the historic U.S. mediation of Namibian independence from South Africa and Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola.
Ghanaian actress and model, Yvonne Nelson is known for constantly heaping praise on her mum on social media.

She has now talked about her relationship with her father in a recent interview with Punch.

Read experts below:

On her relationship with her Dad, she says: My dad was not a part of my life because he wasnt there for me. So, I almost do not say anything about him because there is no relationship or love between us. My dad is like any other person out there because I didnt have a chance to develop a relationship with him. We have each others phone numbers and he calls me when he feels like talking to me. It always feels like talking to a random person because there are absolutely no feelings whatsoever.

On forgiveness, the actress says

Sometimes our society makes it hard for us talk about things like this. But, its my story and I dont have any other way to say it and I dont want to sugar-coat it. He was never a part of my life and it is quiet unfortunate. We actually have an okay relationship and its not like I wont talk to him if I see him today.But it ends there because we do not have a relationship. Talking to him is akin to talking to someone you dont know.
Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State has called on members of the Peoples Democratic Party to take advantage of what he described as the unimpressive performance of the governing All Progressives Congress to regain power at the centre in 2019.

Mimiko gave the charge at the weekend during the southwest zonal congress of the party which held at the International Conference Centre aka The Dome, in Akure, the state capital.

The governor stressed that the future of the PDP depended on the action and inaction of the southwest chapter of the party.

Mr. Mimiko noted that PDP in the zone occupied strategic position in Nigerian political realm.

Mimiko, who is Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum, maintained that the southwest remained the leading light of politics in Nigeria, calling on the leadership of the party to stand up for what is right and be consistent with the history of progressivism that the zone was known for.

He also appealed to the leadership of the party to stand firm because of the tedious task ahead of them, calling on other members of the party to be united and committed to its success in future elections.

In his remarks, Governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, said the party would do well if all members come together as one.

This is just as he cautioned the judiciary against allowing itself to be used by those he said want to cause disunity in the party.

There are people who cannot win elections, but would want to attain power through the use of the courts, he noted.

Fayose also accused the federal government of reversing all the achievements of the last administration, arguing that the countrys fortunes had dwindled after the APC took over almost a year ago.

Our correspondent reports that the congress elected Eddy Olafeso from Ondo State as the national Vice chairman, south west, of the party.
Former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission NHRC, Professor Chidi Odinkalu, says British Prime Minister, David Cameron, can go to hell over his recent comment describing Nigeria as fantastically corrupt. Odinkalu who was a guest on Channels TV last night, said the comments are indeed insulting but that it calls for the Nigerian government to get it acts right, focus on rebuilding the country.

I dont get overly bothered about colonial arrogance, its always existed, its going to exist. The important thing is we focus on rebuilding our country into something we all can be proud of and a country that works for its citizens and does not excuse the misbehaviour of people because we think those are big people. Once we do that, we will be fine. David Cameron can go to hell. The problem we have with corruption in Nigeria is actually impunity. Its about institutions and application of rules to people. Thats where we fail because Nigeria is a very stratified and very hierarchical society, he said,
A former Acting Governor of Kogi State, Chief Clarence Olafemi, has called on the Federal Government to liberalize crude oil refining license.

Mr. Olafemi, a member of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), said this will encourage more private participation in crude oil refining in Nigeria.

The ex-acting governor, who made this known in a position paper issued Monday in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, called on the government to hands off refineries, if it was intent on eliminating corruption in the sector.

Speaking further on the controversy arising from last Wednesdays announcement of the hike in pump price from N86.50 a litre to N145 per litre, Olafemi called on the authorities to find a balance between reining in the excesses of the private players in the industry and complete deregulation.

According to him: The best option is to create massive private participation in local refining of crude oil by liberalising licensing.

The government has no business running a refinery; otherwise we will only be transferring corruption from importation to maintenance/running cost. For example if the government is directly involved in cement manufacturing, we would not by now be where we are as a nation in being self-sufficient in the product and conserving the huge foreign currency for importation of finished cement products.

Nigeria should quickly and hurriedly remove all obstacles on guidelines for owing a private plant and guaranteeing regular sales of crude to them at international market rate, and you will have a stable and competitive situation in the selling price. Mr. President can safe Nigeria from this recurring perennial problem by focusing in this direction.

I want to believe some serious impediments still exist that is not attracting both local and international investors from jumping at the offer. Let us remove those impediments immediately and millions of jobs will be created in addition to disposing with this problem of product scarcity and noise about pricing.

The APC chieftain also called on the government not to abandon the sector to the dictates of market forces, asserting that doing so will be to the detriment of the common man.

He added, There are factors that represent deregulation, which the businessmen will still form a clique to exploit the ordinary people. This is the reason why the government still needs to intervene in establishing those input and telling the importers to find appropriate source to march the government established parameters. If you therefore want to use English to describe in absolute term what is happening then use regulated deregulation.
The lawmaker representing Boki II State Constituency in the Cross River State House of Assembly, Mr Hilary Bisong, on Monday called on the Organised Labour to shelve its proposed nationwide strike over the new pump price of petrol.

The organized labour is threatening to embark on indefinite strike from Wednesday to protest the removal of subsidy last Wednesday by the federal government.

The Secretary to Government of the Federation, SGF, Babachir David, is expected to hold a meeting with the leadership of the organized labour today (Monday) to explain governments decision to remove subsidy and why embarking on strike will not be in national interest.

Reacting to the looming strike in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmaker said rather than adopt a tough stance to the subsidy removal, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) should dialogue with the Federal Government on the N56,000 minimum wage they presented to the government on May 1.

Bisong, who said the increase from N86.50 to N145 per litre would cause immediate hardship to Nigerians, pointed out the benefits in future.

According to him, the organised labour should shelve the proposed strike and instead negotiate with government on how to increase the national minimum wage from 18,000 to N56,000.

As we speak, long queues have disappeared from the filling stations in Calabar.

The increase is painful, but it will benefit us in the nearest future because the government has begun the issuance of import permits to private marketers.

I urge NLC and TUC to shelve their proposed strike; they should insist on the negotiation and implementation of a new minimum wage to cushion the effect of the fuel price increase.

There is no way government would increase the pump price and allow the minimum wage to remain at N18, 000.

This N18,000 can no longer take some people home due to the rising cost of food stuff and other items in the market.

The government should consider an urgent negotiation with labour for a review of national minimum wage, he said. (NAN)
US Secretary of State John Kerry has met Saudi Arabias King Salman in Jeddah to discuss the fragile truce in Syria, before he took off for broader talks with Russia, Iran and other countries in Vienna. Kerry said after the talks on Sunday that he hoped to strengthen a cessation of hostilities agreement between Syrian government forces and rebels, which has been undermined by fighting in some areas.

On Tuesday, the US and Russia will co-chair a meeting of the International Syria Support Group, which includes Arab League and EU countries as well as Turkey, Iran and China. On Syria, the secretary provided an update of the situation on the ground following last weeks reaffirmation of the cessation of hostilities, a US spokesman said on the meeting, according to the AFP news agency.

The secretary also gave an update on Libya, he said. In talks with his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir, Kerry discussed regional issues mainly developments in Syria, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

The monarch discussed aspects of cooperation between the two countries and developments in the region and efforts in that regards, SPA reported. The US, Saudi Arabia and some other Western and Gulf Arab states plus Turkey back rebels fighting to remove President Bashar al-Assad, who has military support from Russia and Iran.
The immediate past Minister of Education, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, yesterday denied receiving N25 million of the N950m campaign fund shared at his residence before the 2015 general elections.

Mr. Shekarau had last week, while acknowledging receipt of an invitation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to appear at its Zonal office in Kano State in connection with the funds, said a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb. Aminu Wali, pleaded to allow use of his (Shekaraus) house for the sharing of the campaign fund.

Insisting that was all he knew about the money, the ex-minister, who spoke to newsmen at his Mundubawa residence in Kano shortly after he was released by the anti-graft agency following his questioning, said he was ready to defend himself of any accusation before any commission and or court of law.

Explaining that somebody mentioned his name among the top members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, that were given N25m each to campaign for the re-election of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Shekarau said, I and the person who indicted me went to the EFCC. I challenged him before the EFCC to prove the allegation but in his response, he said since it was directed that every top PDP member in the state should be given N25 million and that he had received his own share, he assumed that I was also given my own share. Then I told the EFCC that even if it is one naira that I was accused of collecting, I will not pay until it is proved.

Whoever gives me the money should come out and explain where, when and how he gave it to me and anything short of that, I am ready to stay with the EFCC for years until the allegation is proved.

He said the EFCC has searched his house and did not find anything incriminating against him.

Mr. Shekarau, a two-term Governor of Kano thanked his supporters, saying he was not suspecting anybody behind his ordeal.
The family of embattled Director of Law reporting, Ministry of Justice, Mrs Chinyere Christie Ekweonu, has asked for her immediate release from detention.https://www.informationng.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

The North-central Zone of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has pledged to stand by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, in his corruption trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) until he is proven guilty by the court.

Leadership

The Nigerian army has arrested several suspected members of a militant group called the Niger Delta Avengers, thought to be behind recent attacks on oil pipelines in the south.

New Telegraph

Former Minister of Education, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, yesterday stated that he was detained by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over N25 million he allegedly collected from the N950 million campaign funds. He, however, said his arrest had no political undertone.

Tribune

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Ekiti State chapter, has said its members will shut down all tertiary institutions in the state tomorrow (Tuesday), to protest the hike in the price of petrol by the Federal Government.

Peoples Daily

President Muhammad Buhari has expressed his administration commitment to openness and transparency to governance by pledging to abide by the principles of Open Contacting Data standard.
The Media Committee of Senator Magnus Abe Campaign Organisation on Monday raised the alarm over what it termed another plot of the Rivers State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to discredit Tai Local Government Area result by organizing a protest march.

Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Parry Saroh Benson, who raised the alarm in a statement issued in Port Harcourt, alleged that towards this end, the state governor, Chief Nyesom Wike had set aside millions of naira from the tax payers money to fund the protest.

According to Benson, Wikes decision to fund the protest using Rivers funds was borne out of his obsession to stop Abe at all cost, notwithstanding how much of development fund goes into the drain for it.

The statement said: Wike had before this time lavishly spent a lot of money to produce a documentary of falsehood and distortion, which he aired on Television stations to discredit the result but could not convince the right thinking citizens of Rivers State.

While that failed, the media committee of the Abe Campaign Organization claimed that Governor Wike and his cohorts resorted to using the social media to make unguarded utterances against the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in order to deter it from releasing the results of Tai LGA.

The statement condemned in strong terms the maligning of the INEC National Commissioner, Hajia Amina Zakari and others, with the intention to intimidate her to suspend the announcement of the result perpetually.

It said no amount of arm twisting and wrenching by the Wike and his cohorts would stop the will of the people of Rivers South East senatorial district from sending Abe to the National Assembly to continue his good works on the implementation of UNEP report and other sundry interest of the people.

The statement said Wike and the PDP were desperate and treacherous, pointing out that while they told the world and obstructed the elections in the state that the result sheets were fake, they gladly accepted the results from the so-called fake sheets, where the results was in their favour.

It further stated that in his desperate manner, the governor had spoken from both sides of the mouth such that at one time, he accused President Muhammadu Buhari of unleashing the federal might on the state to rig the federal and state legislative rerun elections, at another time, he exonerated the president.

The statement described the governor as deceptive, inconsistent and incoherent in his utterances.

Benson said in spite employing violence against supporters of Mr. Abe, who was the senator representing Rivers South East in the 7th National Assembly, PDP had come to terms that the All Progressives Congress stalwart was on ground and was using every trick in its bag to scuttle his (Abes) chances of winning the election.

The statement added that Tai LGA election was conducted, collated and the results returned but the announcement of the result was suspended, which made the lifting imperative.
A 42-year-old school principal, Michael Diekola, who allegedly defrauded his school of N1.2 million, was on Monday docked at an Ikeja Chief Magistrates Court.

The accused, who lives at 8, Alirat Badejo St., Oke Odo, Abule Egba, a suburb of Lagos, is being tried for fraud and stealing.

The prosecutor, Insp. Clifford Ogu told the court that the offences were committed sometime in July 2014 at a private school  Queen Diana College, Oke Odo, Abule Egba.

Ogu said the accused collected N1.2 million from students under the pretext of enrolling them for the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

The accused bolted with the money and all efforts to locate him were unsuccessful until he was sighted by one of the teachers and was immediately apprehended.

The offences violated Sections 285 (1) and 312 (1) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The accused denied the charge.

In her ruling, the Chief Magistrate, Mrs Taiwo Akanni, granted the school principal bail of N500, 000 with two sureties in like sum.

She ordered the accused to pay N250, 000 into the courts Chief Registrars account as part of the bail conditions.

The case was adjourned to June 6 for mention. (NAN)
The Concerned Ijaw Transformation Ambassadors (CITA) has demanded an unreserved apology from national leader of the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to former President Goodluck Jonathan for Tinubus strong opposition to the announcement of fuel subsidy removal by the immediate past administration on January 1, 2012.

Also to tender their apologies to the former president are Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka; Pastor Tunde Bakare, Hon. Patrick Obahiagbon, APC national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun and the leadership and members of the Save Nigeria Group, SNG, for their outbursts when Mr. Jonathan removed subsidy in 2012.

Recall that the aforementioned were among prominent Nigerians who took part in protests against the removal of subsidy by the Jonathan administration.

CITA, in a statement on Monday by its president, Amb. Arerebo Salaco Yerinmene Peters and Spokesman, Comrade Obiri Wenebokefe Jonathan, said that these professed patriots incited and led Nigerians to protest against the removal of subsidy over four years ago but today, are singing a different tune when a similar policy was announced by the APC-led federal government.

They blatantly criticised this policy of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as a sheer scam targeted at unleashing untold hardship to the average Nigerian and sponsored protests and demonstrations which even led to the death of some Nigerians.

We are berserkly puzzled that these same persons who feigned patriotism and advocacy for social justice turned a new leaf and now pioneer and celebrate the removal of fuel subsidy under President Muhammadu Buhari.

Have they become proponents of a new school of thought? Was their disenchantment with the removal of fuel subsidy under Dr. Goodluck Jonathan triggered by sentiments of ethnic and political differences? Was the Save Nigeria Group a sheep covering veiling a calculated synergy to make Nigeria ungovernable for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan?

It is crystal clear that the emotions of a great chunk of naive and gullible Nigerians were incited and their passions ignited to fight against the success of the Nigerian Federal Government under a peace loving and law abiding democratic President tagging it as being anti-people.

On behalf of the foregoing, we direct the Save Nigeria Group and its leaders and members to tender an unreserved apology to Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
A leader of a banned Islamic party in Tajikistan has voiced concern over the fate of sixteen opposition leaders, who are currently in government custody. Muhiddin Tilloevich Kabiri, head of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) who is in self-imposed exile, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that five of his colleagues face life imprisonment, while the rest could get 30 years in prison for an alleged conspiracy to bring down the countrys government.

The situation in Tajikistan is dire. We now know that the state prosecutors, who are subservient to the political establishment, have asked the court to condemn five of our top leaders to life imprisonment and the rest to 30 years, Kabiri said. The courts are not independent. We know that this unjust and politically motivated condemnation will pass through the court at ease, Kabiri added.

Among the opposition members in custody are the two deputies of the party, Sayed Omar Hosseini and Muhammad Ali Hayet. Kabiri, who has gone into exile since March when fellow party members were arrested, describes the situation in Tajikistan as being on the brink of violent revolt and accuses the Tajik president for closing the door to peace.

In a speech to parliament last January, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon accused the opposition of attempting to overthrow the government. The shameful events of early September which were designed to change the government by force, were planned and financed by the leadership of Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, Rahmon said.

Aljazeera.
Her life in Brandfort was lonely. However, her youngest daughter was sent away to study, whilst her oldest daughter had married a Swazi Prince and moved to America. Helen Suzman captured the isolation when she wrote that Winnie waited outside the local telephone booth between 10 am and 4 pm waiting for calls from friends and relations. But when friends, like Helen Joseph, Barbara Waite, Ilona Kleinschmidt, and others came to visit her in Brandfort, they were harassed and often taken to court and imprisoned, for not notifying the authorities about their visits.
Troops of 21 Brigade and rugged team of Armed Forces Special Forces (AFSF) on Operation CRACKDOWN inside Sambisa forest while on harbour for refitting, came under Boko Haram terrorists attack at about 1.45am today morning.



However, the gallant troops successfully repelled the attack. They further followed up with mopping up operations of the general area before advancing. They also recovered 2 corpses of the attackers and the following items; 2 AK-47 rifles, 2 Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) bombs, 5 rifle magazines, mortar bombs and a belts of Machine Gun rounds.

Unfortunately 5 soldiers were wounded in action (WIA), as a result of mortar fired into the harbour area by the Boko Haram terrorists. The wounded soldiers have been evacuated to the rear for treatment.

Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman

Acting Director Army Public Relations

Source: National Helm
A suspected burglar simply identified as Dasuki shocked the police in Ogun State over the weekend when he led detectives to recover two truckloads of assorted goods he allegedly stole from various shops and houses in Mowe area on the Lagos Ibadan Expressway.

The suspect, a native of Badagry in Lagos State, was initially apprehended by a vigilance group employed by a Community Development Association at Gbegira, in Mowe, in Ogun State when he dropped the second of his two Ghana -Must -Go bags full of handsets and bales of clothes at about 3:00am. He was temporarily detained by the vigilance men to enable them arrest other suspects, but he bolted away, and was given a hot chase until he got stuck in a swamp.

He was rearrested and handed over to the police at the Redeemed Camp Division. Explaining his method of operation, a source said when he touches every building with a charm, all occupants goes to slumber, and become insensitive to anything happening in the house. He bores a whole on the wall, steals every valu- able thing, defecates on the floor and leaves a knife on the spot before disappearing into thin air. According to an official of the Development Association, detectives moved to the suspects house where his wife and mother in-law were sighted. But police watched in utter amazement several stolen items which were on the verge of being sold off to receivers of stolen goods.

During the raid of his house, the police discovered over 56 assorted handsets, about 10 plasma television sets, desk and lap top computers, bales of clothing materials stolen from various shops and homes in the area, the CDA official who pleaded anonymity said. One of the victims, a mother was said to have been burgled a day after she took delivery in her shops of bales of lace and Ankara materials. She allegedly wept uncontrollably upon discovery of the theft the following morning.

The items were moved to the station in two patrol vehicles while the police continued their investigations into the matter. During interrogation, the suspect confessed to stealing the items, usually at night and on Sunday when homeowners must have gone to church. I normally bore holes on the wall to enable me enter into the houses and defecate there after each operation, he said in pidgin. I act alone, because I do not belong to a gang. When get the items, I keep them and sell them off, he said. The suspect was believed to have perfected his crime with the assistance of a charm said to have been given to him by herbalist who made him invincible.

New Telegraph.
You'll find no shortage of career motivational phrases surrounding failure: Fail fast, failure builds character, the key to success is failure, mistakes make you grow, never be afraid to fail. But the idea of mistaking your way to the top of the software industry is probably unsound. Every developer will have their share of missteps in a career but why not learn from others experience -- and avoid the costliest errors?

Thats what we did: We talked with a number of tech pros who helped us identify areas where mistakes are easily avoided. Not surprising, the key to a solid dev career involves symmetry: Not staying with one stack or job too long, for example, but then again not switching languages and employers so often that you raise red flags.

Here are some of the most notable career traps for engineers -- a minefield you can easily avoid while you navigate a tech market thats constantly changing.

Mistake No. 1: Staying too long

These days its rare to have a decades-long run as a developer at one firm. In many ways, its a badge of honor, showing your importance to the business or at least your ability to survive and thrive. But those who have built a career at only one company may suddenly find themselves on the wrong end of downsizing or rightsizing, depending on the buzzword favored at the time.

The longer you stay in one position, the more your skills and pay stagnate, and you will get bored and restless. -- Praveen Puri, management consultant

Opinions vary on how long you should stay in one place. Praveen Puri, a management consultant who spent 25 years as a developer and project manager before starting his own firm, isn't afraid to throw out some numbers.

The longer you stay in one position, the more your skills and pay stagnate, and you will get bored and restless, Puri says. On the other hand, if you switch multiple jobs after less than two years, it sends a red flag. In my own experience, I stayed too long on one job where I worked for 14 years -- I should have left after six. I left other positions after an average of four years, which is probably about right.

Michael Henderson, CTO of Talent Inc., sees two major drawbacks of staying in one place too long. First, you run the risk of limiting your exposure to new approaches and techniques, he says, and secondly, your professional network wont be as deep or as varied as someone who changes teams or companies.

Focusing too much on one stack used by your current employer obviously is great for the firm but maybe not for you.

Its a benefit to other employers looking for a very specialized skill set, and every business is different, says Mehul Amin, director of engineering at Advanced Systems Concepts. But this can limit your growth and knowledge in other areas. Obviously staying a few months at each job isnt a great look for your resume, but employee turnover is pretty high these days and employers expect younger workers like recent college graduates to move around a bit before staying long-term at a company.

Mistake No. 2: Job jumping

Lets look at the flip side: Are you moving around too much? If thats a concern, you might ask whether youre really getting what you need from your time at a firm.

Constant job hopping can be seen as a red flag. -- Hilary Craft, IT branch manager, Addison Group

Charles Edge, director of professional services at Apple device management company JAMF Software, says hiring managers may balk if theyre looking to place someone for a long time: Conversely, if an organization burns through developers annually, bringing on an employee who has been at one company for 10 years might represent a challenging cultural fit. I spend a lot of time developing my staff, so I want them with me for a long time. Switching jobs can provide exposure to a lot of different techniques and technologies, though.

Those who move on too quickly may not get to see the entire lifecycle of the project, warns Ben Donohue, VP of engineering at MediaMath.

The danger is becoming a mercenary, a hired gun, and you miss out on the opportunity to get a sense of ownership over a product and build lasting relationships with people, Donohue says. No matter how talented and knowledgeable you are as a technologist, you still need the ability to see things from the perspective of a user, and it takes time in a position to get to know user needs that your software addresses and how they are using your product.

Hilary Craft, IT branch manager at Addison Group, makes herself plain: Constant job hopping can be seen as a red flag. Employers hire based on technical skill, dependability, and more often than not, culture fit. Stability and project completion often complement these hiring needs. For contractors, its a good rule to complete each project before moving to the next role. Some professionals tend to rate shop to earn the highest hourly rate possible, but in turn burn bridges, which wont pay off in the long run.

Mistake No. 3: Passing on a promotion

Theres a point in every developers life where you wonder: Is this it? If you enjoy coding more than running the show, you might wonder if staying put could stall your career.

Moving into management should be a cautious, thoughtful decision, says Talent Inc.s Henderson. Management is a career change -- not the logical progression of the technical track -- and requires a different set of skills. Also, Ive seen many companies push good technical talent into management because the company thinks its a reward for the employee, but it turns out to be a mistake for both the manager and the company.

Everyone should be in management at least once in their career if for nothing else than to gain insight into why and how management and companies operate. -- Scott Willson, product marketing director, Automic

Get to know your own work environment, says management consultant Puri, adding that theres no one-size-fits-all answer to this one.

Ive worked at some places where unhappy managers had no real power, were overloaded with paperwork and meetings, and had to play politics, Puri says. In those environments, it would be better to stay in development. Long term, I would recommend that everyone gets into management, because development careers stall out after 20 years, and you will not receive much more compensation.

Another way of looking at this might be self-preservation. Scott Willson, product marketing director at Automic, asks the question: Who will they put in your place? If not you, they may promote the most incompetent or obnoxious employee simply because losing their productivity from the trenches will not be as consequential as losing more qualified employees. Sometimes accepting a promotion can put you -- and your colleagues/friends -- in control of your workday happiness. Everyone should be in management at least once in their career if for nothing else than to gain insight into why and how management and companies operate.

Mistake No. 4: Not paying it forward

A less obvious mistake might be staying too focused on your own career track without consideration of the junior developers in your office. Those who pair with young programmers are frequently tapped when a team needs leadership.

Ive found that mentoring junior developers has made me better at my job because you learn any subject deeper by teaching it than you do by any other method, says Automics Willson. Also, as developers often struggle with interpersonal skills, mentoring provides great opportunities to brush up on those people skills.

If experience is the best teacher, teaching others will only deepen your knowledge, says JAMF Softwares Edge. That said, he doesnt hold it against a busy developer if it hasnt yet happened.

When senior developers dont have the time to mentor younger developers, I fully understand. Just dont say its because Im not good with people. -- Charles Edge, director of professional services, JAMF Software

Lets face it -- no development team ever had enough resources to deliver what product management wants them to, Edge says. When senior developers dont have the time to mentor younger developers, I fully understand. Just dont say its because Im not good with people.

Mistake No. 5: Sticking to your stack

Your expertise in one stack may make you invaluable to your current workplace -- but is it helping your career? Can it hurt to be too focused on only one stack?

MediaMaths Donohue doesnt pull any punches on this one: Of course it is -- theres no modern software engineering role in which you will use only one technology for the length of your career. If you take a Java developer that has been working in Java for 10 years, and all of a sudden they start working on a JavaScript application, theyll write it differently than someone with similar years of experience as a Python developer. Each technology that you learn influences your decisions. Some would argue that isnt a good thing -- if you take a Java object-oriented approach to a loosely typed language like JavaScript, youll try to make it do things that it isnt supposed to do.

It can hurt your trajectory to be too focused on one stack, says Talent Inc.s Henderson, but maybe for different reasons than you think.

Every stack will have a different culture and perspective, which ultimately will broaden and expedite your career growth, Henderson says. For instance, I find that many C# developers are only aware of the Microsoft ecosystem, when there is a far larger world out there. Java has, arguably, the best ecosystem, and I often find that Java developers make the best C# developers because they have a wider perspective.

Automics Willson says proficiency -- but not mastery -- with one stack should be the benchmark before moving onto another.

Its time to move on when you are good at the skill, but not necessarily great, says Willson. Im not advocating mediocrity, just the opposite. I am saying that before you head off to learn a new skill make sure you are good, competent, or above average at that skill before you consider moving on.

Finally, Talent Inc.s Henderson offers this warning: Avoid the expectation trap that each new language is simply the old one with a different syntax. Developers of C# and Java who try to force JavaScript into a classical object-oriented approach have caused much pain.
Buy Signal on Wheat, buy wheat now! Banghart Properties - Mon Oct 24, 9:13PM CDT We have issued a buy signal in wheat.

Shootin' the Bull Swift Trading Company - Mon Oct 24, 5:24PM CDT With boxes and cattle higher, the consumer may be in for a shock when these higher prices are passed along. Live cattle futures set new contract highs in some months. Risk management to the fat cattle...

Limit Loss for Dec Cotton Barchart - Mon Oct 24, 4:52PM CDT Cotton continued to sell off into the new week, with December going home down a limit 3 cents. Dec did stay above the Friday low. The other front months closed 167 to 281 points weaker. USDAs weekly... CTZ22 : 76.49 (+0.47%) CTH23 : 76.25 (+0.67%) CTK23 : 75.76 (+0.28%)

Wheats Weaker Out of Weekend Barchart - Mon Oct 24, 4:52PM CDT The wheat market closed with Monday losses of +10 cents in the winter wheats. Front month MGE futures were down by 3 to 3 3/4 cents on the day. CBT prices dropped by 10 to 12 cents through the front months.... ZWZ22 : 838-6 (unch) ZWH23 : 858-0 (unch) ZWPAES.CM : 7.7336 (-1.52%) KEZ22 : 937-2 (unch) KEPAWS.CM : 8.9620 (-1.06%) MWZ22 : 957-2 (unch)

Hogs Close Steady on Monday Barchart - Mon Oct 24, 4:52PM CDT December lean hog futures dropped triple digits out of the weekend, but the other front months closed mixed and within a dime of UNCH. December hogs are now a $2.52 discount to the Feb contract. The USDA... HEZ22 : 87.925s (-1.35%) HEJ23 : 93.900s (+0.05%) KMZ22 : 97.750s (-0.26%)

Cattle Rally Continued Post CoF Barchart - Mon Oct 24, 4:52PM CDT The new week of cattle trading did little to stall the rally. December fats printed another new LoC high, now at $154.20, Feb also printed a new high, but the April and June contracts remained under their... LEV22 : 151.600s (+0.75%) LEZ22 : 154.125s (+1.12%) LEG23 : 156.975s (+0.93%) GFV22 : 175.675s (+0.23%) GFX22 : 179.150s (+0.45%)

Corn Futures Ended Red on Monday Barchart - Mon Oct 24, 4:52PM CDT Mondays corn trade pulled futures 1 1/2 to 2 3/4 cents lower. December had reached $6.77 1/4 on the low of the day, but went home 4 1/4 cents above it. NASS reported 97% of the corn crop was mature... ZCZ22 : 681-4 (unch) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.7135 (-0.30%) ZCH23 : 687-6 (unch) ZCK23 : 687-4 (unch)

Soybean Prices Close Double Digits Lower Barchart - Mon Oct 24, 4:52PM CDT The new week of soybean trading starts with double digit losses in the front month contracts. November was down by the most after the options expiration on Friday, having settled 1.68% in the red. Meal... ZSX22 : 1375-6 (+0.27%) ZSPAUS.CM : 13.2708 (-1.72%) ZSF23 : 1384-6 (+0.25%) ZSH23 : 1393-2 (+0.29%)
What just happened?

The Supreme Court avoided issuing a major ruling today in a combined religious liberty case, Zubik v. Burwell. In a unanimous decision, the justices wrote that the Court expresses no view on the merits of the cases but were instead sending the case back down to the lower courts for opposing parties to work out a compromise.

What is this case, and whats it about?

The case, Zubik v. Burwell, combines seven challenges to the Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive/abortifacient mandate.

To fulfill the requirements of the Affordable Healthcare Act (aka ObamaCare) the federal government passed a regulation (often called the HHS Mandate) that attempts to force groups into providing insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients. Some religious groups, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, objected on the ground that the requirement violates their religious liberty as protected by the First Amendment and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). HHS offered an accommodation that the Little Sisters found to be insufficient.

The Supreme Court was asked to decide, as SCOTUS Blog explains, whether the government has offered nonprofit religious employers a means to comply and whether the whether HHS satisfies RFRAs test for overriding sincerely held religious objections in circumstances where HHS itself insists that overriding the religious objection will not fulfill HHSs regulatory objectivenamely, the provision of no-cost contraceptives to the objectors employees.

Who are Zubik and Burwell?



The plaintiff in the case is the Most Rev. David A. Zubik, the twelfth Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. Rev. Zubik supervises a diocese that oversees the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group that is opposing the mandate. This is why the case is still often referred to as the Little Sisters case, since the original lawsuit was Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell.

The defendant in the case is Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

What was the accommodation, and why was it rejected?

The proposed accommodation would require the Little Sisters to find an insurer who will cover all of the things they oppose: sterilization, contraceptive, abortifacients, etc. They would also be required to sign a form that triggers the start of that coverage of those items and procedures that they find objectionable. They believe that the accommodation does not prevent them from violating their religious beliefs.

Who are the Little Sisters of the Poor?

The Little Sisters of the Poor is an international Roman Catholic Congregation of Religious Sisters that serves more than 13,000 elderly poor in 31 countries around the world. The first home opened in America in 1868, and now there are nearly 30 homes in the United States where the elderly and dying are cared for.

Isnt this merely a Catholic issue?

No. Many Protestant nonprofits have similar objections as the Little Sisters. The current case combines the cases that were brought by East Texas Baptist University, Southern Nazarene University, and Geneva College. Other groups who have brought similar lawsuits, such as Wheaton College, will also be affected by the outcome of this ruling.

Doesnt the religious employer exemption cover the Little Sisters and similar nonprofits?

No, the general exemption the HHS provides applies only to churches and certain types of church-like organizations. Most religious nonprofits do not qualify.

Doesnt the mandate apply to everyone equally?

No. In fact, 1 in 3 Americans do not have a plan that is subject to the mandate HHS is attempting to force on the Little Sisters. Many large corporationssuch as Exxon, Chevron, and Pepsiare already exempt from the mandate because they never changed their plans and are grandfathered. The government does not even require the nations largest employerthe U.S. militaryto provide these services through their family insurance.

What if the Little Sisters simply refuse to comply?

If the Little Sisters do not provide coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients, the government is threatening to fine them with $70 million in fines per year.

Didnt the Hobby Lobby case already resolve this issue?

Last year the Court agreed some owners of closely held for-profit corporations, like Hobby Lobby, have sincere Christian beliefs that life begins at conception and that it would violate their religion to facilitate access to contraceptive drugs or devices that operate after that point.

The Court found that the HHS mandate violated RFRA because it imposed a substantial burden (i.e., if the companies refused to violate their beliefs, they would face severe economic consequences: about $475 million per year for Hobby Lobby, $33 million per year for Conestoga, and $15 million per year for Mardel). The government also failed to satisfy RFRAs least-restrictive-means standard, since the government could assume the cost of providing the four contraceptives to women unable to obtain coverage due to their employers religious objections or extend the accommodation that HHS has already established for religious nonprofit organizations to nonprofit employers with religious objections to the contraceptive mandate.

In that case, the companies can qualify for an exemption by fill out a form and submitting it to the government. This type of accommodation was already available to religious nonprofits. But this is a procedure the Little Sisters and others find insufficient to resolve their religious objections.

Addendum: The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the nonprofit, public interest law firm that is defending the Little Sisters, created this comic to illustrate the Obama administrations peculiar reasoning on this case:
Competitions and prizes are everywhere in philanthropy these days, with the goal of finding breakthrough ideas, scaling ideas that work, and spreading best practices. We've written about the pros and cons of this approach to philanthropy, as not all competititions are well conceived. But overall, there's no question that many are stirring the pot in different fields in a good way.

Related: The Perils of All These Prizes

Among the latest entrants to the fray is the Aetna Foundation, with its new Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge.

The recently announced challenge is a partnership of the Aetna Foundation, the American Public Health Association and the National Association of Counties. It has a geographically-focused goal: to encourage small to mid-sized U.S. cities and counties to developand shareinterventions that improve community health and economic vibrancy.

Though it has run small-scale prizes before, the Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge is a new strategy for Aetna Foundation. "It's the first time we're doing a prize at this level of government, and investing this much," says Garth Graham, MD, president of Aetna Foundation. "A lot of health outcomes are predicated on geography, and a lot of that is based on city and county dynamics."

With $1.5 million in cash rewards as incentive, the contest seeks whole-community solutions that look beyond any single disease, in an effort to raise overall health and well-being. And Aetna wants to make headway against the all-too-common health disparities found in communities with lower average incomes.

Communities with larger populations could win a top prize of $500,000, while smaller communities could win $250,000. The remaining $750,000 would be awarded to runners-up. Aetna will accept program proposals from the thousands of towns and counties that qualify, and provide pilot funding to 50 competitors, starting in September 2016 and running for two years.

We have written before about funders taking the whole-community view of health and well-being, focusing on the idea that health is the result of complex relationships and factors within towns or immediate surroundings.

So what does this whole-community thinking mean in terms of participating programs? Aetna wants local county and city health organizations to use a "health in all policies approach to build scalable models and practices that promote inclusive and economically vibrant communities. Built into the challenge are mechanisms to share these best practices.

Categories include nutrition and exercise, the built environment, clean air and smoking, housing and public safety, and economic activities.

Aetna, like most foundations, typically follows the standard grantmaking process: assess a proposed or established program, and if it looks effective, write a check in support. Why the pivot to this challenge format?

Like a lot of competitions, team play is a big part of the story. According to Graham, Aetna hopes the prize will stimulate the formation of new partnerships between healthcare organizations and stakeholders throughout communities. Rather than funding a single organization's program or proposal, the challenge is designed to reward collaborative solutions that don't rely on any single organization or sector.

Aetna is looking beyond the current challenge, hoping that the strengthened relationships between community health stakeholders will persist long after the prizes are distributed.

"We took a long look at different funding strategies, and the prize concept allows multiple parties to be involved," says Graham. "It's not about any actual person who wins the prize, but the stimulation of bringing people together and getting excited about a concept."
The Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation makes no secret of its conservative principles, backing right-leaning policy research and implementation alongside funders like Olin, Scaife, and the Kochs. Over the years, the Bradley Foundation has supported a wide variety of conservative scholars and think tanks, building a case for limited government, capitalist enterprise, and American exceptionalism.

The foundations Bradley Prizes recognize prominent individuals involved in academia, public-policy research, journalism, civic affairs, and the arts, usually with extensive conservative bona fides. This years winners will include noted British historian Andrew Roberts, British rabbi and House of Lords member Jonathan Sacks, and political scientist Charles Murray, author of such controversial works asLosing Ground (1984) and The Bell Curve (1994). The Bradley Prize comes with a $250,000 stipend, and will be formally presented to each winner at a June 15 ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Inside Philanthropy has covered Bradleys ongoing efforts to bankroll a conservative intellectual movement. In that role, the foundations considerable resources have flowed to key right-wing players like the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute, the Federalist Society, Americans for Tax Reform, the Hoover Institution, and the American Enterprise Institute, to name a few.

In our mind, Bradley is among the most important funders on the rightif not the most importantof the past few decades. Its fingerprints can be found on nearly every big conservative idea since the 1980s, with its money backing a who's who of top thinkers on the right for decades.

Related: Forget About the Kochs. Meet the Real Masterminds of Conservative Philanthropy

Among other things, Bradleys values-driven grantmaking has financed education and academia at all levels. For children and youth, Bradley has been a leading critic of the Common Core standards and a booster for charter schools and vouchers, granting many millions to the Charter Schools Growth Fund over the past decade. Higher up the academic food chain, the foundation runs a fellowship program that has sponsored thousands of university students since 1986. But the Bradley Prizes are something special: the foundations top way of recognizing conservative thought leaders.

Related:

Along with funders like the Scaife and F.M. Kirby foundations, as well as the Searle Freedom Trust, Bradley has been engaged in a long campaign to weave conservative thought into the policy mainstream. Rather than backing specific programmatic goals, much of Bradleys grantmaking promotes ideological stances around concepts like personal responsibility and free enterprise. Its choice of Murray and Roberts underscores that trend.

Bradley's relationship with Murray goes back decades. Murray first became a national figure in the mid-1980s, after he became a Bradley Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where he published Losing Ground, his influential attack on U.S. social policy.

Bradley also supported Murray as he co-authored the controversial book The Bell Curve, which posits the existence of a cognitive elite, blessed with higher intelligence and destined for better outcomes than its peers. Murrays work has been criticized for considering genetics, race, and gender in light of that theory. Murray is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, which has a long history of financial backing from the Bradley Foundation.

Bradleys support for Andrew Roberts is also interesting. Roberts academic work has centered on European military history, and he has been a vocal supporter of the United Kingdoms interventionist role and of Americas war in Iraq, as well as its continuing struggle against radical elements in the Middle East. It should be noted that the Bradley Foundation has also been a longtime backer of such hardline ideas on national security.

The third winner, Lord Jonathan Sacks, is a leading philosopher of Judaism who served as chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years until 2013. He is also this year's recipient of the Templeton Prize, worth an impressive $1.5 million. A longtime advocate for the compatibility of religion and science, Sacks' latest book deals with the thorny topic of religious violence.
An industry veteran, who spent well over three decades in insurance, has died.Malcolm Freeman, who retired from IAG last September, died last Thursday evening following a short illness.Freemans time with IAG spanned over 35 years as he began his career in Tasmania with T&G Insurance in 1978, which was later bought by Commercial Union, where he worked in the National Underwriting Room.He went on to work in a number of senior roles with IAG including commercial insurances manager for Commercial Union QLD, personal insurances manager for Commercial Union Asia, NSW state manager in workers compensation, and general manager of business partners.Some of Freemans strongest achievements were in parts of the IAG business considered to be particularly challenging. He played a key role in establishing CGU Marine business and, in more recent times, led the integration of the Wesfarmers Insurance businesses.In a message to employees last Friday, Ben Bessell , chief executive of the Australian Business Division of IAG, said that Freeman was an exceptional insurance professional, as well as a passionate, smart and generous man. On a personal note, Bessell also described Freeman as a great friend, who had provided him with much guidance and advice over many years.Our deepest sympathies are with Malcolms family, particularly his wife Jane, and their children Simon and Amy, Bessell said.
"It's forced us to open up our digital kimono"
Brown & Brown Inc. announced Monday that it has agreed to acquire substantially all of the operating assets of Morstan General Agency Inc. and related companies based in Manhasset, New York.

The transaction is expected to close in June 2016, subject to customary closing conditions. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In operation since 1964, Morstan is a wholesale MGA/MGU offering a wide range of products in commercial lines, personal lines, employee benefits and life insurance products.

The wholesale agency operates from its Manhasset headquarters, with additional offices in New York City, New Jersey and Florida. Morstan had total approximate annual revenues in 2015 of $34 million.

Morstan will continue to operate under the current Morstan name from its headquarters in Manhasset, making it the 15th distinct brand in the Brown & Brown Wholesale Division. It will be guided by the sales and underwriting leadership of Morstan shareholders Jay Levy and Howie Levy and will report to Kathy Colangelo, senior vice president of the Brown & Brown Wholesale Division.

Headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida, Brown & Brown, through its subsidiaries, offers a broad range of insurance products and related services for business, public entity, individual, trade and professional association clients nationwide. Additionally, certain Brown & Brown subsidiaries offer a variety of risk management, third-party administration, and other services.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions New York
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York, has sued state insurance regulators over requirements that workplace health plans cover employee abortions.

The New York State Department of Financial Services lacks legislative authority to impose the requirements, and the mandate is unconstitutional, because it forces employers with religious and conscientious objections to abortion to help pay for them, according to the lawsuit filed in state court.

As a result of the clear and unequivocal religious moral teaching against abortion, the notion of a church institution providing its employees, regardless of their particular religious affiliation, with health insurance coverage for abortion, is morally unacceptable as a matter of religious and moral conviction, the lawsuit says.

The complaint specifically faults the departments model language to insurers in 2015 and 2016 requiring individual and small group health plans to include coverage of both therapeutic abortions and non-therapeutic abortions in cases of rape, incest or fetal malformation. The suit also says that abortion coverage is encrypted in health insurance contracts under the rubric of `medically necessary surgery.

Department spokesman Richard Loconte said on May 13 they are reviewing the complaint.

We simply cannot live with this policy, and unfortunately have been left with no choice but to bring this action, Albany Bishop Edward Scharfenberger said.

Also joining in the lawsuit were the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ogdensburg, trustees of the Albany Episcopal Diocese, Catholic Charities of the Brooklyn Diocese, the St. Gregory the Great Roman Catholic Church Society of Amherst, First Bible Baptist Church in Rochester, Our Saviors Lutheran Church in Albany, a Plattsburgh construction company and a Saratoga County woman who works for a religious organization.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Carriers New York
Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School in Homewood celebrated its annual Ultimate Author Day with internationally known news anchor and bestselling author, Raymond Arroyo on Wednesday, May 11.

The students welcomed Mr. Arroyo to participate in their fun-filled educational day about writing and various forms of language expression.

As Eternal World Television Network's lead news anchor, managing editor, and the host of The World Over Live, Arroyo is seen in nearly 300 million homes on six continents each week and is heard on Sirius Radio and 300 AM/FM affiliates. He has interviewed such celebrities and well-known figures as Mel Gibson (in the first exclusive interview about his film, "The Passion of the Christ"); Mother Teresa of Calcutta; President Bush, and many others. He has also appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, The O'Reilly Factor, CNN Headline News, Outfront Access Hollywood, Hannity and Colmes, Countdown, and is a contributor to the Laura Ingraham Show. His work has appeared in a variety of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Financial Times, Time Magazine, The New Yorker, and National Review.

In addition, Mr. Arroyo is a five-time New York Times Best Sellers author. One of his bestselling books includes the biography of Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, founder of EWTN - the world's largest religious media empire, and whose studios are located in Irondale, Alabama. Mr. Arroyo was a close friend and colleague of Mother Angelica and maintained a powerful relationship with her until her recent death on Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016. The release of his second book about this extraordinary nun is scheduled for May 17, 2016. It is entitled Mother Angelica: Her Grand Silence. The story lays bare the events of the last fifteen years of Mother Angelica's life following a stroke, which left her physically disabled and how she communicated to others through her silence. In March of this year, Mr. Arroyo also released his first children's book called Will Wilder: The Relic of Perilous Fall, and is currently working on his second book of this upcoming series.

THE BIG EVENT: "WRITING THE WORLD OVER" --

The children were excited to greet Mr. Arroyo at UAD this year. As is customary for Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School, before this special event each student in Wee-K3 through eighth grades wrote, illustrated, and published an original book or another form of written medium during the school year as a part of their Language Arts curriculum. The entire student body celebrated their extraordinary accomplishments, as well as the gift of writing and other forms of language expression with the UAD theme title "Writing the World Over."

On May 11, Mr. Arroyo was the keynote speaker for the UAD assembly. He enlightened the children about his work with EWTN, Mother Angelica, and his new children's book series. He also conveyed to the students about what is involved in being a good author and gave them some tips to help make their endeavors successful.

Following the school-wide gathering, the students attended the breakout sessions in the classrooms that included workshops, sharing sessions, special performances, and literature-based activities presented by volunteers and professionals from a variety of fields of expertise. The students' original books were on display in the school library throughout the day for everyone to enjoy.

The following presenters participated in this year's UAD event during breakout sessions:

PROFESSIONAL PRESENTERS

* Raymond Arroyo - EWTN news anchor, news director, managing editor; a New York Times Best Sellers author.

* Elise Mayfield - actress; chef; contestant on FOX Network's MasterChef.

* Greg Garrison - news and feature writer for AL.com/The Birmingham News.

* Dr. Fran Carter - founder of The American Rosie the Riveter Association.

* Nell Branum - children's author.

* Dori DeCamillis - local artist; owner of Red Dot Gallery in Homewood, AL.

* "V... The Statue" - Vulcan Park and Museum's mascot, and a

* Vulcan Park and Museum official - Birmingham, Alabama History expert.

* Father Frank - priest; a school principal in the Republic of Cameroon in Central Africa.

* Kari Kampakis - writer; author.

* Chuck Stokes- Samford University professor.

* Brother Leo Mary, Friar - Author; EWTN TV host of "Hey Brother Leo."

* Carolyn Romano - personal recipient of Pope Francis' zucchetto.

* Angelina Wagner - rehabilitative teacher (Birmingham, Alabama VA Medical Center).

* Ryan Penney - Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) Missionary.

* Tommy Thornton - attorney at law.

* Andi Arteaga - Birmingham, AL local artist.

* Father John Paul Mary - EWTN Friar Priest commissioned in Rome by Pope Francis as a Missionary of Mercy.

* Michele Alesce - calligrapher.

* Cindy Jones -case manager for the blind.

* Wendy Lozynsky - case manager for the deaf.

* Erin Vicinanzo - jewelry creator.

* Michelle DiPiazza - presenter of the Catholic story about Our Lady of Lourdes.

* The Rennas - a Catholic family musical group.

* Katherine Ingram - sign language interpreter.
Authorities say a New Jersey diner owner has been charged with burning down the restaurant to collect insurance money.

The New Jersey Herald reports that Tina Diakos was arrested and charged on May 13 with setting the March 8 fire at Jerzeez the Diner in Vernon, New Jersey.

Authorities say she told an acquaintance that she would burn the restaurant down because she wasnt going to lose all her money again.

Her attorney declined to comment before her next scheduled court appearance Monday. She is being held in the Sussex County jail on $75,000 bail.

Diakos was previously charged with witness tampering after authorities say she asked someone to search the Internet for combustibles and tell police they didnt know each other in exchange for money.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Fraud New Jersey
While Zurich Insurance Groups new chief executive officer believes the insurer is on the right track in terms of growth and profit, the organizational structure remains too complicated, he suggested during an investor conference yesterday.

Zurich is world famous for [a] complex organizationfor havingtriple, even four layers of matrix on its organizational map, Mario Greco said, during his first earnings conference as a Zurich executive with analysts.

I definitely have in mind that the organization has to be simple, and has to promote accountability and ownership of results, Greco said, responding to an analyst who suggested in posing the question that the present structure had some disjointed features.

Greco said he is discussing ways to simplify and streamline the organization with the board and with Zurich colleagues. When we will have a decision, we will communicate and you will know it.

The answer to the analysts question was one of the few hints Greco about changes that might be ahead. In remarks prior to the question-and-answer session, the new CEO discussed his priorities and activities to date since joining the company. He also promised to develop  and provide full details of  the go-forward strategic plan in November.

For now, he said that first-quarter results  an overall operating profit of $1.1 billion and net income of $875 million  were a clear step in the right direction for a group which had suffered a steep profit decline last year. The decline was mainly driven by operating losses in the General Insurance segment in the second half of 2015, and Greco said that building back confidence is a key goal.

He said his first priority has been to develop a deeper understanding of challenges and opportunities ahead for Zurich by meeting with key business leaders and employees internally, and with brokers and customers. His initial assessment in these early days, he said, is that the book of business is fundamentally sound. In addition, reserves are adequate, capital is strong and the brand is really strong, he said.

Confidence is vital to our success and can only be achieved through transparency, through clear communication, and by delivering on the groups strategic objectives, he continued, laying out his second order of business. Todays results provide early evidence that measures that we started last year are improving the performance of General Insurance. Also the continued progress in Global Life [insurance] and Farmers is visible and supporting the group results, he said.

With further improvements expected throughout the year, and most particularly in the second half, Greco said his third priority is positioning Zurich for the future. That begins with shaping a clear and simple group strategy for the next years, and a strategy that will differentiate us among our competitors in the eyes of the customers, he said, promising to provide full details on Zurichs Investor Day, scheduled for Nov. 17.

Greco provided few other hints of things to come, although when an analyst asked about whether he might consider changing the mix of business to be heavier on the personal lines, he did not discount the possibility.

Prefacing his answer by stressing that he was sharing very early thoughts, Greco said, I do think having a bigger share of retail business would be helpful. The question is more [about] how to do it 

I am keen to find ways to grow more on the SMEs and the retail components of our book But Im not yet there where I have planned programs and I can discuss them with any of you, he said.

Asked once again about organizational structure, this time by an analyst who noted a recent change in leadership at Zurichs operations in Germany, Greco said that while the change preceded his first day at Zurich, he fully supports it. (The change involved combining life and nonlife divisions under one CEO, who was formerly head of the German life business, according to an online translation of a German press release from late February.)

In Germany, Zurich used to have three different CEOs. This has been unified under one country CEO. This allowed [us] not just to simplifybut also to unify functions and priorities in the market, Greco said, noting that similar moves are underway in Italy and will likely continue in other countries.

It is a trend. It makes sense. It is how the market is organized itself and it fits well with the customer organization and mindset, he said.

Confidence Building Results

One of the highlights of the first-quarter 2016 earnings report was a General Insurance combined ratio of 97.7. Thats better than weve seen for almost 12 months now, said Chief Financial Officer George Quinn on a video posted on Zurichs website, highlighting an improved loss ratio as a key driver.

While the result was actually just about a point higher than the first-quarter combined ratio in 2015, it was a clear improvement over the full year 2015 result of 103.6. Executives pointed to a tiered approach to underwriting, with double-digit rate hikes applied to the worst performing tiers producing significantly reduced retentions for the least desirable business.

Favorable prior-year development of just under 1 point for Global Corporate and just over 1 point for North America Commercial also explained part of the improvement.

Still analysts questioned Quinn about the adequacy of reservesa nagging problem for Zurich in the past, particularly in last years third quarter. The analysts also raised questions about expense ratios that might not come downeven amid cost cutting actions announced last yearbecause premiums are declining at the same time. And they asked about the premium declines specifically.

Quinn noted that the 5 percent drop in premiums for the general insurance book was within expectations, referring to previous guidance a premium volume decline in the mid-single-digit range. There has been no change in cost savings targetsor a goal of $1 billion in savings annually by 2018, he added. Under Marios leadership, were looking again at efficiency and expenses. Its an increased focus for us, he said, noting that being more efficient means creating more room to invest for the future.

Greco reinforced the idea that top-line declines are not necessarily unwelcome. One of most important corrections taken at the end of last year, and Im fully supportive of that, was abandoning strategy called Amalfi [SIC], which was a growth strategy, and going back to the older principle of underwriting discipline and underwriting focus. So, you underwrite for profit. You dont underwrite for size, for premiums.

This is what were doing [and] we will keep doing that. And the growth [rate] will just be a consequence of it. And if it is negative, be it.

There is no way in which we can solve an expense ratio issue by growing the size. If expense ratio worsens, we will take more actions on costs but we will not derogate to underwriting discipline, he said.

As for loss reserves, Quinn said he is comfortable with reserve adequacy, focusing some of his comments on the previously troublesome U.S. book. Issues emerged last year emerged in the liability portion of the book, particularly the auto liability segment, he said, noting, however, that workers compensation represents 25 percent of the premium volume. For workers comp, doing peer comparisons of metrics like IBNR (incurred-but-not-reported reserves) to incurred losses or implied 10-year to ultimate loss ratios, demonstrates to him that Zurich is more conservative than peer group. If we moved to peer group or industry levels, that would imply a reasonably significant release, he said.

The executives also reported results for the Farmer Exchanges, noting that while premiums grew by 4 percent, the combined ratio deteriorateda combination of losses from hailstorms and unfavorable trends in auto insurance industrywide.

This article first appeared in Insurance Journals sister publication, Carrier Management.

Related:

Topics Profit Loss Underwriting Germany
Europes biggest software company, SAP, is the subject of a U.S. security alert over a vulnerability the firm disabled six years ago that can still give outside attackers remote control over older SAP systems if the software is not properly patched.

SAP fixed the issue, but left the decision over whether to switch off an easy access setting up to its customers, who may sometimes place a higher priority on keeping their business-critical SAP systems running than on applying security updates.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT) issued an alert to the security industry [on May 11], which advised SAP customers what they need to do to plug the holes. It is one of only three such security warnings the agency has issued so far this year.

Details are at https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA16-132A.

Dozens of companies have been exposed to these security gaps in recent years, and a far larger number of SAP customers remain vulnerable, said Onapsis, a firm that specializes in securing business applications from SAP and rival Oracle.

This is not a new vulnerability, Mariano Nunez, chief executive of Onapsis, which works with SAP to plug security holes, told Reuters in advance of the U.S. security alert. Still, most SAP customers are unaware that this is going on.

SAP, whose software acts as the corporate plumbing for many multinationals and which claims 87 percent of the top 2000 global companies as customers, disclosed the vulnerability in 2010 and has offered software patches to fix the flaw.

SAP issued a statement that the vulnerable feature was fixed when the company introduced the software update six years ago. All SAP applications released since then are free of this vulnerability, the company said in an emailed statement.

However, it acknowledged that these changes were known to break  or disable  customized software developments that many customers had implemented using older versions of SAPs programming language.

The problem continues because a sizeable number of big SAP customers are known to depend on these older versions of the software that in many cases date back years, or in extreme examples, even decades.

The alert underscores how SAP software often is managed inside companies as an internal system, without heightened awareness it is susceptible to the sort of attacks that public-facing websites, email systems and networks suffer daily.

The trouble is less of a software issue than one of accountability for how such bugs get fixed, security experts say. Customers rely on a chain of consultants, external audit firms and specialized internal SAP security teams to decide when to install patches without risking destabilizing their systems.

SAP produces dozens of software patches each month to fix bugs in its software.

It is by no means unique. Microsoft, for example, pushes out similar patches on the second Tuesday of each month to millions of office network administrators, who must decide when to apply these fixes, a process dubbed Patch Tuesday.

But in the case of SAP, an unknown number of customers have not applied the fix. Security experts say because SAP systems contain sensitive financial, human resources and business strategy information, that means SAP security typically is the responsibility of specialists familiar with the complexities of the underlying business applications, rather than company-wide security teams who focus on outside cyber security threats.

Segregation

Thirty-six enterprises have been found to have telltale signs of unauthorized access, according to a report to be published on Wednesday by Boston-based Onapsis and given to Reuters in advance.

Since 2013, the vulnerabilities of the 36 enterprises have been detailed on a Chinese-language online discussion forum, where methods for exploiting outdated or misconfigured SAP NetWeaver Java systems are openly described, Nunez said.

The targets were both prominent Chinese domestic companies and foreign joint ventures, Reuters confirmed.

Onapsis has subsequently found other susceptible SAP customers in the United States, Germany and Britain, Nunez said, but he declined to name them.

The targets range from telecommunications to utilities, retail, automotive and steel firms and include more than a dozen with annual turnover of at least $10 billion, Onapsis said.

We regard these (known victims) as just the tip of the iceberg, as well as an irrefutable answer to the question: Are SAP applications being attacked?' Onapsis said in its report. Onapsis also works on behalf of 200 SAP customers ranging from Daimler to Siemens to Westinghouse and the U.S. Army.

One major SAP customer who was subject to multiple attacks related to the flaw said that the software  originally created to help programmers rapidly test new features  had left open a backdoor to his organizations inner workings.

When challenged about the issue, SAPs initial response was to tell him, This isnt a vulnerability. Its a feature. If you dont like it you should turn it off, said the customer, who asked not to be named due to commercial sensitivities.

Google, the company behind Android software used to power three-quarters of the worlds smartphones, also issues regular security patches.

But just as is the case with SAP, phone makers and network operators must decide when to update their software, a gap that has left hundreds of millions of Android phone users vulnerable to widely known threats. U.S. regulators this week said they were investigating the roadblocks to more timely security updates for phone users.

(Reporting by Eric Auchard; editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Related:

Topics USA Cyber
Designed to withstand tornadoes, earthquakes and even bomb blasts, a castle-like southwest Missouri home that was meant to last forever must be torn down and erected again, its owner argues in an ongoing lawsuit.

Pensmore, a 72,000-square-foot home, might not be as invincible as expected because a key ingredient in the concrete was diluted, according to the lawsuit filed by owner Steven T. Huff last year in federal court in Springfield.

Huff said he learned of that in 2014, when a man who said he was an employee of the company that mixed the concrete stood outside the castles gates and doggedly asked to speak to a representative, the Springfield News-Leader reported.

He described how he tried to stop the scam, but defendants threatened his job, the lawsuit said. Concerned about how he would feed his family, he continued to participate in it, until, as he described it, his conscience would not allow it.

Construction was halted and tests confirmed the mans claims, said Gabriel Berg, an attorney representing Huff in the lawsuit.

Huff is seeking $63 million from two companies that helped build the residence near Highlandville, which the Christian County assessor says is worth just under $6 million.

Monarch Cement Co. of Humboldt, Kan., and its Springfield subsidiary, City Wide Construction Products, routinely cut the amount of Helix mixed into the castles concrete and likely sold the leftover material, the lawsuit claims. Helix, an alternative to rebar developed for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is the key to Pensmores exceptional structural integrity design, the lawsuit said.

Michael Callahan, the attorney for the two companies being sued, disputed the lawsuits claims.

(The companies) are known for their high-quality products and longtime commitment to customer service, Callahan wrote in a statement. They will defend their hard-earned reputations against the plaintiffs allegations all the way through trial, if necessary.

The physical structure has been finished, Berg said, but it has not been finally furnished. The home has two elevators, 13 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, a billiard room, a home theater, a music room and a 1,600-square-foot library. Blueprints submitted in 2007 show the main level and second story span 44,641 square feet.

Huff wanted it to serve as a sustainable model of disaster- and blast-resistant construction that could potentially last forever, he said.

He says Romans were pretty good at building structures that last a long time, Berg said. But instead, he added, Huff wants the companies to tear it down and build it back up right, Berg said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Missouri
State lawmakers hope to offer relief to thousands of Louisiana drivers who collectively owe millions of dollars to the Office of Motor Vehicles in unpaid fines from lapsed insurance coverage.

Its not clear yet what form that relief might take, but House and Senate members have filed bills in each chamber trying to address drivers concerns.

Louisiana drivers are required to have insurance on their vehicles. The OMV is currently owed more than $265 million in unpaid fines issued to drivers with lapsed coverage, leading the state Office of Debt Recovery to revoke drivers licenses and seize tax refunds and bank accounts. Some drivers claim theyre now insured, but cant pay the old fines to reinstate their licenses.

The Senate transportation committee, without objection, advanced three bills on May 12 attempting to ease drivers debts. They include amnesty guidelines, payment programs and an improved notification system, and now head to the full Senate for consideration.

More than 125,000 state drivers are listed as owing fines in an OMV database that dates back to 1986. Fines range from $125 to $525 for each violation.

Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, presented a bill to create a pilot amnesty program she hoped would relieve some of the stress. It would cap drivers debts at a fraction of their full amounts. The OMV would clear the records of drivers who pay and reinstate licenses after they show proof of insurance.

Ive received tons of phone calls (about the fines), Barrow said, adding she wants to grant drivers grace.

Sen. Dale Erdey, R-Livingston, wants to offer relief too, but he said lawmakers need to be realistic and take a hard look at what the OMV needs to operate in the real world. A recent fiscal note showed Barrows bill could cost the OMV more than $160 million in lost revenue.

OMV Commissioner Karen St. Germain said the cash-strapped offices on-going attempt to collect a total of $440 million owed in fines is not a money grab.

Sen. Page Cortez, R-Lafayette, was not so sure and echoed critics concerns about an unfair collection process. He suggested the OMV may improperly accuse drivers of having not paid fines when the drivers didnt receive collection letters, had already sold the vehicles listed with expired insurance or were registered in other states where theyve moved.

My contention is that I think were having a case of judge, jury (and) executioner with the constituents money without them even potentially knowing that they were even being brought to trial, the committee chair said.

Cortez pushed for an improved system as he presented a proposal to require that all notices of final debt include the total amount owed and all of a drivers payment options.

Rep. Denise Marcelle, R-Baton Rouge, said her House-backed bill would provide some of those payment options by creating installment plans for drivers to pay outstanding fines. The proposal would not negate debts, but allow drivers to become licensed while they work to repay their violations.

As of now, OMV personnel have some discretion when reviewing payments, but lack the authority to reissue licenses in exchange for partial payment made through a plan, St. Germain said.

Senators agreed each bill needed some work before reaching final legislative passage, but Sen. Gerald Long, R-Winnfield, echoed Barrows call for grace for those burdened by debts.

Theres a significant part of our lives that we believe in second chances and new opportunities, he said.

The measures are House Bill 245 and Senate Bills 387 and 400.

Related:

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Topics Legislation Louisiana Personal Auto
Federal authorities are investigating a charter bus crash in far South Texas that killed eight people and injured 44 more in a single-vehicle rollover, officials said.

Seven people died at the scene Saturday morning, May 14, on U.S. Highway 83, about 46 miles north of Laredo, and another died at a hospital, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Conrad Hein said.

The driver of the bus lost control and rolled over, he said. Everythings real preliminary right now.

Hein said the driver was among the survivors. Hein did not release the identity of the driver or any passengers.

The trooper said it was raining Saturday morning but it was uncertain if that was a factor in the crash that occurred just before 11:30 a.m. He said no other vehicles were in the area at the time.

Our troopers are going to look into what happened but its going to take us some time, he said of the investigation. We just know the driver lost control.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to investigate the wreck starting Sunday morning.

Webb County Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ricardo Rangel told the Laredo Morning Times that the OGA Charters bus was heading to a casino in Eagle Pass, about 125 miles northwest of Laredo. The bus company is based in San Juan, in Hidalgo County in Texas Rio Grande Valley. A message left at the bus company Saturday was not immediately returned.

Hein said 23 people were taken to Doctors Hospital in Laredo, where the eighth victim died. Fifteen were taken to Laredo Medical Center. Seven were taken to a Dimmit County hospital in Carrizo Springs.

Priscilla Salinas, a spokeswoman for Laredo Medical Center, said bus passengers being treated there were in stable condition. She said she could share no additional information.

Laredo is about 150 miles southwest of San Antonio.

The crash is one of the deadliest bus accidents in Texas in recent years.

In January 2015, two state corrections officers and eight inmates were killed near Odessa when a Texas Department of Criminal Justice bus tumbled 20 feet off a highway bridge and onto a Union Pacific freight train that happened to be passing beneath. The NTSB has concluded that the wreck was caused by the bus hitting the guardrail.

In 2008, 17 passengers traveling to a religious retreat in Missouri died when a bus plunged over a highway bridge near Sherman. The NTSB blamed that crash on a retreaded tire on the right front axle that was punctured by an unknown object.

Although the retread itself wasnt the cause, the panel noted that the tire was affixed to the front axle illegally, the bus company didnt have the authority to leave Texas after failing an inspection three months earlier, and the company that inspected the bus wasnt equipped to judge whether it was roadworthy.

The owner of the Houston bus company was charged with making false statements but avoided prison in 2014 after a federal judge sentenced him to three years of probation in a plea agreement.

Related:

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Topics Texas
The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the death of a worker at a Knoxville steel mill.

Knoxville police have said 55-year-old Anthony McDowell was working in a storage area of Gerdau Ameristeel when a pallet overturned on him that was holding about 4,000 pounds of a granular material contained in large bags. Police received a call at about 7:30 p.m. on May 10. McDowell was pronounced dead at the scene.

TOSHA spokesman Chris Cannon tells the Knoxville News Sentinel that the agencys investigation could take up to 12 weeks to complete.

Gerdau spokeswoman Kim Selph says the company also is conducting an internal investigation.

In 2014, Gerdau was fined $8,400 for an explosion that killed one worker and injured five others.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Tennessee
Floridas continued lucky streak when it comes to dodging hurricanes is helping a key state fund reach its best financial shape ever in the two decades it has been in place.

The state-created fund known as the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund should have $17.4 billion available for the Atlantic hurricane season that starts June 1. This marks the first time ever that the fund has more money than it would need to pay out if storms racked the state.

The financial health of the account nicknamed the Cat Fund is important to Floridians regardless of where they live. The state can impose a surcharge on most insurance policies including auto insurance policies  to replenish the fund if it runs out of money. Some critics have called the surcharge a hurricane tax.

Kapil Bhatia, a financial adviser for the fund who works for Raymond James and Associates, said the news about the fund was very positive for the states insurance market and for the states economy. Raymond James prepared a report on the funds financial strength for an advisory council that oversees the fund.

The fund was created after Hurricane Andrew ravaged a densely populated area of South Florida in 1992. It offers insurance companies backup coverage at prices usually lower than those in the private market. It was designed to help keep private insurers from leaving Florida. Every company selling homeowners insurance in the state is required to purchase coverage which it can tap into after insurers reach a certain level of damages.

Twice a year the state relies on Wall Street firms and financial advisers to calculate how much money the fund needs  and how much it could borrow in the event of a catastrophic storm. The latest estimates, which were approved by the funds advisory council on Thursday, show that it should have $400 million more than its obligations for this year. The fund could also borrow up to $7.5 billion after a hurricane hit.

Anne Bert, the acting chief operating officer, said this would give the fund flexibility in case it wanted to save some of its cash for the next hurricane season. Florida was hit by eight storms over a two-year period in 2004 and 2005.

The main reason the fund balance has grown is because Florida hasnt been directly hit by a hurricane since Wilma lumbered across the state 11 years ago.

The fund has also purchased $1 billion of backup insurance, or reinsurance as it is known, to help cover any losses. This has drawn scrutiny from some critics who say this could drive up prices for private insurers also seeking reinsurance. Those private insurers could then pass that cost on to homeowners, although state officials have downplayed the risk saying that reinsurance prices are at a historic low.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Florida Windstorm Hurricane
Homes located near a gas well blowout that spewed the nations largest-known release of methane had higher levels of toxic metals that could have caused symptoms Los Angeles residents have suffered from for months, public health officials said.

Tests found barium, manganese and vanadium more frequently and in higher concentrations in dust in homes located near the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said Friday.

The contaminants could be responsible for eye, nose, throat and skin irritation, but are not expected to cause long-term problems, the report said.

Some 8,000 families moved out of their San Fernando Valley homes after the gas well blowout in October, with many people complaining of persistent headaches, nausea and nosebleeds. Even after Southern California Gas Co. permanently sealed the well nearly four months later, a survey found a majority of homes continued to report health problems.

Health officials initially attributed symptoms to the stinky odorant added to make the gas detectable, but ailments such as rashes and bloody noses were not known to be caused by that chemical.

Its really interesting to see all these metals come out to confirm theres probably more than one reason people have become sick, said Alexandra Nagy, an environmental activist who wants the facility shut down.

The unusual patterns of metals found appear to have come from the well where gas is stored in a vacant oil field deep underground, said Michael Jerrett, chairman of the Environmental Health Sciences Department at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Some of the metals are trace elements of oil, and barium was an ingredient in the muddy brine used in unsuccessful attempts to plug the high-pressure leak, said Jerrett, who performed environmental testing in Porter Ranch homes.

During attempts to plug the well, an oily mist was sprayed into the air and residents received robocalls telling them to stay inside.

In a sense, we have a fingerprint that there was something that intruded into a large portion of houses related to hydrocarbons, Jerrett said, though he couldnt say for sure that the well was the source. Barium would be the most direct link to the well leak itself.

Health officials suggested residents take several measures to thoroughly clean and ventilate homes.

SoCalGas, which expects the leak to cost $665 million, mostly for relocation costs, said the report showed its safe to return home. Thousands of families remain uprooted.

It is time for the residents who chose to remain relocated to exit the relocation program, and for the community as a whole to return to normal, the company said in a statement.

Jerrett said hes going to recommend that several homes where elevated levels of cancer-causing benzene and hexane, a neurotoxin, be tested further.

The report said its possible other contaminants are present in homes and ambient air, noting that the facility is the single-largest emitter of formaldehyde in the region.

It also said methane levels continue to be higher than expected and could be coming from another source.

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Topics Pollution Homeowners
A Damascus, Ore. man has filed a lawsuit accusing Wells Fargo & Co. of firing him after he alerted them of issues in mortgage procedures.

According to a lawsuit unsealed last week, Duke Tran said he complained that the bank was collecting on mortgage loans for which it did not have the proper documentation and he was fired, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. In the lawsuit, Tran says Wells Fargo also defrauded the U.S. government by collected hundreds of millions of dollars in federal foreclosure-prevention funding for loans the bank knew lacked proper documentation.

Wells Fargo spokesman Tom Goyda said the bank did not violate any law. We believe that our claims submitted to the government under the Home Affordable Modification Program were proper and were subject to substantial oversight and review, and will be prepared to defend our record against the claims in the lawsuit, Goyda said.

Trans lawsuit says that after he alerted managers to the mortgage errors, he and the rest of his team received an email from a supervisor telling them that full disclosure was unnecessary and that customers do not need to know.

Please remember when you come across a situation where we have a lost contract, deed, any type of document, really, but especially when It relates to securing a property, we are not to share that with the customer, reads the email, which Tran submitted into the court file.

Tran said he continued to question the policy, and he was later fired as a result in November 2014.

The company told me to lie about that, he said in an interview. I dont think thats right, for the customers, for the company or the entire country.

Tran filed the whistleblower lawsuit last June, alleging bank managers retaliated against him. He also filed the lawsuit on behalf of the federal government, saying Wells Fargo violated the False Claims Act by collecting government foreclosure prevention funding.

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Topics Lawsuits Oregon
 On 'Nakba Day,' a Beersheva 'Refugee' & AFP Time Warp | Main | AFP's Lopsided Account of Slain Palestinian Teen 

May 16, 2016

Iranian Military Admits Anti-Israel Missile Test



A top member of Irans military has admitted that the Islamic Republic test fired a ballistic missile inscribed with a call to destroy Israel.

USA Today reported that Brig. Gen. Ali Abdolahi, the Iranian militarys deputy chief of staff, told Irans Tasnim news agency that Iran fired the test missile two weeks ago and that it was accurate to within 25 feet, which he described as zero error (Iran defense chief denies long-range missile test,? May 10, 2016).?

Abdolahis admission of the tests in mid-April follows another ballistic missile test which took place in March and involved two types of missiles, Qadr-H and Qadr-E, both of which were launched from the East Alborz Mountains in northern Iran. The tests violated a U.N. Security Council resolution, according to a confidential report made in March by the councils panel of experts on Iran (Exclusive: Iran missile tests were in defiance of U.N. resolutionU.S., allies,? Reuters, March 30, 2016).

USA Today reported that Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan denied that a missile test of that distance? (1,250 miles) took place in mid-April. Dehqan also claimed that the United States and Saudi Arabia are conducting a propaganda campaign to make the world believe Irans missiles are not for defensive purposes.?

Yet, evidence suggest that missiles being developed by Iran have an offensive purpose.

Reporting the tests in March, USA Today noted that, two months ago, Iran test-fired two ballistic missiles, one of them with the phrase Israel should be wiped off the Earth written on it in Hebrew. Iranian officials say the phrase was added by workers on the ground and was not a decision made by higher-level officials.?

CAMERA has noted (The Iranian Missile Photo That CNN Missed,? March 21, 2016) that images of the missiles emblazoned with the anti-Israel graffiti? were broadcasted on Iranian state-sponsored TV in March. Despite this, CNN erroneously reported at the time that Iranian media had not published photographs of the inscribed missiles and that CNN could not independently confirm? whether the missiles were launched with the genocidal language displayed.

Similarly, in its report on the March missile tests, The Washington Post claimed that Irans semiofficial Fars News Agency reported that the missiles tested Wednesday were stamped with a message in Hebrew: Israel must be wiped out. However, there was no confirmation of the report, and no such markings were seen in state-issued photos and video (Biden: Iran under close watch amid reports of missile tests,? March 9).?



Iranian officials claims, reported in USA Todays May 10 edition, that the Iranian-inscription threatening Israel was added by workers on the ground,?workers who live in a totalitarian dictatorship that harshly punishes unauthorized activitiesseems unlikely. Nor do they explain why the images were featured on state media and not removed by authorities. Servants of the Iranian regime, including those commonly referred to as moderate? by Western press and policymakers, have shown a willingness to deceive when confronted with evidence of their countrys actions. As CAMERA pointed out (Washington Post Editorial Notes Iranian Moderates Mendacity on Holocaust,? May 12, 2016), Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, for example, obfuscated when asked by The New Yorkers Robin Wright about his country sponsoring an international Holocaust denial cartoon contest. Yet, many news media persist in distinguishing between moderates? and hard-liners.? USA Todays report uncritically quoted an analyst for consulting firm IHS Country Risk, Firas Abi-Ali, who claimed Irans government must pursue its missile program to appease hard-liners after striking a deal on its nuclear program with the West.? The Observer, a New York-based publication, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Iran, in which sanctions relief to the latter was promised in exchange for concessions on its alleged illegal nuclear weapons program, recently editorialized: As soon as the deal was signed and previously frozen funds began to flow to the regime, the Iranians proceeded to behave as they have always behaved: they ramped up missile tests, denied inspectors access to sites supposedly covered by the agreement, seized American sailors on the high seas, and couldnt find a buyer for the heavy they were required to dispose of. So they asked the U.S. to pay for itrather than just destroy it (Deception onNot Just inIran,? Observer, March 10, 2016).? Mark Dubowitz, the Vice President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Observer that recent parliamentary elections in Iran were not a contest between moderates and hard-liners (see, for example The Media and the Myth of the Moderate Mullahs,? CAMERA, March 2, 2016), but rather between hardliner and hard-hardliners.? With Iran developing more accurate and longer range missiles, the news media could, at the least, use more accurate categorizations.





Posted by SD at May 16, 2016 01:15 PM

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 Michigan Public Radio Considers It Controversial to Acknowledge Israel's Birthday | Main | Iranian Military Admits Anti-Israel Missile Test 

May 16, 2016

On 'Nakba Day,' a Beersheva 'Refugee' & AFP Time Warp

May 16 Update, 8:52 a.m. EST: AFP Corrects Photo Caption on Palestinian Refugee

Much has been said about the United Nations' unique definition for Palestinian refugees, probably the only group of displaced people in the entire world whose descendants also receive refugee status.

Among this group of special refugees -- the descendants of those Palestinians who fled or were expelled in 1948 --is a smaller, more rare group of time-defying Palestinian refugees: though they were born after 1948, somehow, inexplicably, they were there in 1948.

Five years ago, for instance, on "Nakba Day," Haaretz interviewed 57-year-old Salman Fakherldeen, who miraculously remembered events from 1948, seven years before he was born.

This year, Agence France Presse photographer Said Khatib apparently located another example of this rare breed of a post-1948 refugee, "refugee Aisha, 53," formerly of Beersheva. The photo and caption follow:

The caption states:

Palestinian refugee Aisha, 53, who says is a former [sic] inhabitant of the town of Beersheva, waves a group of keys outside her home in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on May 15, 2016, on the 68th anniversary of the "Nakba". "Nakba" means in Arabic "catastrophe" in reference to the birth of the state of Israel 68-years-ago in British-mandate Palestine, which led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who either fled or were driven out of their homes during the 1948 war over Israel's creation. They key symbolises the homes left by Palestinians in 1948.

Aisha, who is reportedly 53 years old, could not have fled or been driven out of her Beersheva home 68 years ago, as the caption strongly suggests. She possibly could have lived in Beersheva and decided to move to Gaza for marriage, for example, but then she is not a "refugee" forced out of her home in the 1948 war, as the caption clearly implies.



Was Aisha an inhabitant of Beersheva? If she was, why did AFP conflate her decision to move with the fate of Palestinian Arabs who left in 1948 and became refugees? If she opted to leave Beersheva, how exactly, is she a "refugee," as the caption identifies her?

CAMERA has contacted AFP to request a clarification. Stay tuned for an update.

Posted by TS at May 16, 2016 05:29 AM

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Un ottobre da sogno per Antonio Conte: lex ct della Nazionale italiana, attualmente alla guida del Chelsea, nelle ultime quattro gare di Premier League ha collezionato solo successi, conditi da 11 reti segnate e addirittura nessuna incassata. Numeri da record che non sono certo passati inosservati alla Federazione inglese, la quale ha conferito al tecnico leccese lambito premio di Manager del mese.

Unavventura oltremanica iniziata in sordina, quella di Conte, pur a fronte di tre vittorie nelle prime tre gare di campionato. A far vacillare, anche se solo per un momento, le certezze del patron del club londinese, Roman Abramovich, i risultati conseguiti tra la 4a e la 6a giornata, coincisi con un pareggio sul campo dello Swansea City e, soprattutto, con le due pesanti sconfitte subite dal Liverpool, sul terreno casalingo di Stamford Bridge, e dallArsenal. In particolare, la debacle interna coi Reds, aveva irritato non poco il numero uno russo, poiche occorsa proprio nel giorno della sua 250esima partita da presidente della societa.

Come detto, solo un momento. Dopo lincontro dellEmirates, il tecnico salentino cambia modulo, adottando un piu equilibrato 3-4-3 e inserendo elementi di corsa come lo spagnolo Pedro. Una svolta totale perche, di li in poi, il Chelsea inanellera solo e soltanto vittorie: 2 gol allHull City e al Southampton in trasferta, 3 ai campioni dInghilterra del Leicester e 4 allo United in casa, con un meraviglioso numero zero nella casella delle reti subite. Un fantastico poker, ottenuto tra l1 e il 29 ottobre. Un cambio di marcia sbalorditivo, confermato dal 5 a 0 rifilato ai toffees dellEverton nel primo match di novembre, e una scalata che, man mano, ha portato i blues al secondo posto in classifica, a soli 2 punti dal Liverpool capolista.

E allora, non poteva mancare il riconoscimento di migliore allenatore del mese, ottenuto surclassando tecnici del calibro di Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool), Arsene Wenger (Arsenal) e Mark Hughes (Southampton). Tanta, ovviamente, la soddisfazione: E un grande onore e voglio condividerlo con i giocatori e con la societa  ha dichiarato Conte sul sito ufficiale della Premier League -. E la prima volta che lavoro in un altro Paese, con una cultura diversa, e portare la propria filosofia non e facile, ma ora sono contento di questa scelta.

A completare la festa, la premiazione del fantasista belga, Eden Hazard, come miglior giocatore di ottobre. Due risultati importanti per il club, ottimo incentivo per la rincorsa al trono dei campioni, occupato dal Leicester di Ranieri. Il prossimo appuntamento per l11 di Conte sara al Riverside Stadium, tana del Middlesborough neopromosso. Il tempo di festeggiare e gia finito.
Treasurers serve as financial risk managers that seek to protect a company's value from the financial risks it faces from its business activities. Because these risks can arise from many sources, the role requires an understanding of many areas of business and the ability to communicate with a variety of financial professionals. Once an offshoot of the accounting department, corporate treasury management has evolved into its own company department and professional body.

Managing Risk

Treasurers manage several key risks related to changes in interest rates, credit, currency, commodities, and operations. Companies face some or all of these risks to varying degrees. The most common include:

Liquidity Risk

Perhaps the most important risk a treasurer must manage is liquidity risk: the company running out of cash either from insufficient revenue, excessive expenditure, or the inability to access funds from banks and other external sources. The inability to meet payment obligations as they are due can mark the end of a company if its creditors sell off its assets to pay corporate debts.

Credit Risk

Surplus cash can be invested to earn interest, and the treasurer must be sure that those issuing or insuring securities are financially sound and credit-worthy. One way to do this is by checking an issuer's credit rating, which provides an independent assessment of the likelihood that a third -party will pay on time and in full as expected. The treasurer must also be confident that counterparties to financial instruments used to manage risks (such as interest rate swaps) will perform as expected.

Currency Risks

In addition to credit risk, exporting companies face currency transaction risk when they translate proceeds from foreign sales into their home currencies. Multinational companies also face translation risk in financial reporting when the values of their foreign subsidiaries' assets and liabilities fluctuate upon conversion to a single home currency. Investors and analysts may view currency moves that cause a drop in the value of consolidated foreign assets and in profits as a problem, potentially causing the company share price to fall.

Another type of currency risk, which treasurers may find more difficult to manage, occurs when a competing company from another country experiences a more favorable currency translation. For example, the sales of two exporters from different countries, both selling goods to a Japanese importer, will depend in part on how their respective currencies move against the Japanese yen. Tactical moves to remain competitive, such as relocation of manufacturing plants to match the competitor's currency cost base, can have major ramifications. Senior management, with input from the treasurer, would only implement such a move after extensive discussion.

Interest Rate Risk

Most companies need to borrow to finance operations, such as buying raw materials, machinery or premises. Borrowing at variable interest rates allows companies to pay less if market interest rates fall, but raises their costs if rates go up. If a company does not pay interest because of insufficient cash, it may run into a liquidity crisis that could undermine its ability to borrow in the future, or to raise it only at higher interest rates that reflect its heightened credit risk to lenders.

Operational Risk

The financial risks discussed above are external risks. Operational risk is an internal treasury risk that reflects inadequate operational controls that could lead to a loss of company value. An example of inadequate controls might be if a treasury dealer borrows money under a company loan agreement, apparently for a business purpose, but transfers the proceeds to their own bank account because the treasurer is able to undertake both dealing and funds transfer activities. In a well-controlled treasury, such functions would be segregated and attempt to undertake both by the same individual would be immediately detected.

Risk Policies

A treasurer will formulate a set of board-approved policies that define the methods allowed to manage the above risks and the discretionary powers of the treasurer and other authorized personnel. These policies will vary from company to company. Not all companies, for example, allow treasurers to use derivatives or to leave risks unprotected, or they may only allow such practices within defined limits and terms.

The treasury department's actions and its compliance with treasury policies must be assessed independently and regularly by the internal audit department and by a treasury committee comprised of senior management, including the treasurer. This committee, or an asset and liability committee (ALCO), will also regularly review and discuss financial risks across the company's assets and liabilities, and agree on appropriate actions to manage or transfer them. ALCOs will usually delegate the task of executing agreed-upon actions to the treasurer and their team.

When there is no single obvious solution to managing a financial risk, a treasurer must be able to weigh the pros and cons of a course of action. Decisions may involve consulting relevant internal and external specialists and undertaking data analysis and possibly scenario analysis in order to recommend a course of action.

Professional Development

Traditionally, many treasurers were trained as accountants and undertook treasury activities as an offshoot to their accounting roles. However, with the development and proliferation of financial instruments and the globalization of financial markets and companies, treasury management has become more specialized, complex and time-consuming. Large and multinational companies establish treasury departments as autonomous risk management units, and corporate treasury management is now recognized as a profession distinct from accountancy. Many countries have specialized professional bodies, such as the Association of Corporate Treasurers in the U.K., as well as specialized education programs.

Specialist and Generalist

Although a treasurer is essentially a risk management specialist, performance is enhanced by having a practical knowledge of various associated corporate support functions such as law, tax, insurance, accounting, economics, and banking. In these areas, the corporate treasurer is also a generalist.

Because financial risks come from various sources within a company (such as interest rate risk in loans, credit risk in investments, or currency risk in debtor invoices), a treasurer must understand the nature and financial dynamics of each of a company's assets and liabilities across many different departments, underscoring the benefit of a broad financial education.

Interpersonal Skills

In addition to consulting relevant internal colleagues, a treasurer will often execute the actions to manage financial risks only after also consulting with external specialists such as bankers, lawyers, credit rating agencies, tax and accounting consultants, and auditors. A glance at any tombstone will confirm the wide range of specialists involved in raising debt or equity, for example. Strong interpersonal and communication skills are therefore an important personal attribute for a treasurer.

Senior Manager

The impact of financial risks on company value and survival can be catastrophic and sudden. The treasurer, along with perhaps a small team consisting of a treasury accountant, cash manager, treasury analyst, and dealer, are entrusted with a great deal of responsibility. As such, a treasurer is often a member of a company's senior management team, usually reporting directly to the CFO or even commanding a seat on the board of directors.

The Bottom Line

Treasurers are increasingly assuming more strategic roles in companies. They have moved beyond managing working capital to becoming increasingly involved with working with a company's senior management to manage risk and boost the bottom line.
Oil and gas investors look for specific economic indicators to help them understand future movements in the petroleum industry. Like any commodity market, oil and gas companies and petroleum futures are sensitive to inventory levels, production, global demand, interest rate policies, and aggregate economic figures such as gross domestic product.

Key Takeaways As produced commodities, oil and gas markets are driven by supply and demand as well as the cost of extracting, producing, and refining these natural resources.

Investors should look to inventories and refining capacity to see if supply is increasing faster than demand, which could lead to downward price pressure (or vice versa).

In addition to supply-side metrics, demand for oil can be tracked by looking at economic growth, transportation, and gasoline consumption trends.

Government policies on taxes, tariffs, interest rates, and regulation can also factor into oil and gas prices.

Oil Inventories

Oil is an economically and strategically crucial resource for many nations. Countries like the United States maintain large reserves of crude oil for future use. The measure of these oil reserves acts as an indicator for investors; changes in the stock levels of oil are reflections of trends in production and consumption.

The Energy Information Administration provides a weekly supply estimate of petroleum and other liquids. When the trendline increases over time, suppliers are likely to lower prices to entice more purchases. The opposite is also true: Decreasing levels of production cause buyers to bid up the price of petroleum commodities.

Refinery Use and Production

Along with the release of crude inventories comes a long list of data focused on crude oil production, covering domestic production, refinery input, and utilization, and other inventory levels (motor gasoline) as well as import/export data. All of this data is taken into consideration when attempting to gain an idea of the fundamentals of the crude oil market. For example, traders will look at refinery use to determine how much more capacity is available to get additional supply to the market. If refinery use is high, putting additional oil through refineries would be difficultleading to lower supply and higher prices.

Investors should keep an eye on the ratio between refinery use and refinery capacity. Refineries are expensive, and it can take a long time to significantly increase production capacity beyond current levels. If demand grows to the point that the refinery is maximized, it may lead to higher prices until capacity can be increased.

Global Demand and Economic Performance

Economic development in highly populated nations, such as India and China, may lead to a large rise in global demand for oil and gas products. Alternatively, economic struggles tend to reduce the demand for petroleum as businesses scale back their operations and individual households cut back on gasoline use to save money. A clear example of this was the Great Recession in 2007-2009 when oil and gas prices dropped by over 70% in less than six months.

Aggregate indicators of general economic performance can inform investors about expected shifts in the demand for oil and gas. Gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure of the total levels of spending and production in a given economy, and it is assumed that increases in GDP lead to increases in demand for oil.

Government Policy: Interest Rates, Taxes, and Regulation

Interest rates are important economic indicators for sectors related to commodities or finance. Changes in interest rates affect the costs of inventory storage, affect the borrowing and spending habits of both producers and consumers, and change the capital costs and structure for petroleum producers with regards to land, buildings, machinery, and equipment.

Government tax policies impact business performance and profitability. Increased taxation on petroleum products or oil and gas companies restrict output and may lead to rising prices; the opposite is true for lower taxes.

Regulation is also an important aspect to take into consideration. Since the burning of fossil fuels leads to environmental concerns, governments may feel the need to increase their taxes or regulations on oil and gas companies to lower consumption levels intentionally; this affects supply and demand and consequently the price.
Spin-Off vs. Split-Off vs. Carve-Out: An Overview

A spin-off, split-off, and carve-out are different methods a company can use to divest certain assets, a division, or a subsidiary. While the choice of a specific method by the parent company depends on a number of factors as explained below, the ultimate objective is to increase shareholder value. Here are the main reasons why companies choose to divest their holdings.

Key Takeaways A spin-off, split-off, and carve-out are three different methods of divestment with the same objective: to increase shareholder value.

A spin-off distributes shares of the new subsidiary to existing shareholders.

A split-off offers shares in the new subsidiary to shareholders but they have to choose between the subsidiary and the parent company.

A carve-out is when a parent company sells shares in the new subsidiary through an initial public offering (IPO).

Most spin-offs tend to perform better than the overall market and, in some cases, better than their parent companies.

Spin-Off

In a spin-off, the parent company distributes shares of the subsidiary that is being spun-off to its existing shareholders on a pro rata basis, in the form of a special dividend. The parent company typically receives no cash consideration for the spin-off. Existing shareholders benefit by now holding shares of two separate companies after the spin-off instead of one. The spin-off is a distinct entity from the parent company and has its own management. The parent company may spin off 100% of the shares in its subsidiary, or it may spin off 80% to its shareholders and hold a minority interest of less than 20% in the subsidiary.

A spin-off in the U.S. is generally tax-free to the company and its shareholders if certain conditions defined in Internal Revenue Code 355 are met. One of the most important of these conditions is that the parent company must relinquish control of the subsidiary by distributing at least 80% of its voting and non-voting shares. Note that the term "spin-out" has the same connotation as a spin-off but is less frequently used.

In 2014, healthcare company Baxter International, Inc., spun-off its biopharmaceuticals business Baxalta Incorporated. The separation was announced in March and was completed on July 1. Baxter shareholders received one share of Baxalta for each share of Baxter common stock held. The spin-off was achieved through a special dividend of 80.5% of the outstanding shares of Baxalta, with Baxter retaining a 19.5% stake in Baxalta immediately after the distribution. Interestingly, Baxalta received a takeover offer from Shire Pharmaceuticals within weeks of its spin-off. Baxalta's management rebuffed the offer, saying it undervalued the company. The merger did eventually close in June 2016.

Split-Off

In a split-off, shareholders in the parent company are offered shares in a subsidiary, but the catch is that they have to choose between holding shares of the subsidiary or the parent company. A shareholder has two choices: (a) continue holding shares in the parent company or (b) exchange some or all of the shares held in the parent company for shares in the subsidiary. Because shareholders in the parent company can choose whether or not to participate in the split-off, distribution of the subsidiary shares is not pro rata as it is in the case of a spin-off.

A split-off is generally accomplished after shares of the subsidiary have earlier been sold in an initial public offering (IPO) through a carve-out. Since the subsidiary now has a certain market value, it can be used to determine the split-off's exchange ratio.

To induce parent company shareholders to exchange their shares, an investor will usually receive shares in the subsidiary that are worth a little more than the parent company shares being exchanged. For example, for $1.00 of a parent company share, the shareholder may receive $1.10 of a subsidiary share. The benefit of a split-off to the parent company is that it is akin to a stock buyback, except that stock in the subsidiary, rather than cash, is being used for the buyback. This offsets part of the share dilution that typically arises in a spin-off.

In November 2009, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced the split-off of its holdings in Mead Johnson in order to deliver additional value to its shareholders in a tax-advantaged manner. For each $1.00 of Bristol-Myers Squibb's common stock accepted in the exchange offer, the tendering shareholder would receive $1.11 of Mead Johnson stock, subject to an upper limit on the exchange ratio of 0.6027 Mead Johnson shares per share of Bristol-Myers Squibb. Bristol-Myers owned 170 million Mead Johnson shares and accepted just over 269 million of its shares in exchange, so the exchange ratio was 0.6313 (i.e., one share of Bristol-Myers Squibb was exchanged for 0.6313 shares of Mead Johnson).

Carve-Out

In a carve-out, the parent company sells some or all of the shares in its subsidiary to the public through an initial public offering (IPO).

Unlike a spin-off, the parent company generally receives a cash inflow through a carve-out.

Since shares are sold to the public, a carve-out also establishes a net set of shareholders in the subsidiary. A carve-out often precedes the full spin-off of the subsidiary to the parent company's shareholders. For such a future spin-off to be tax-free, it has to satisfy the 80% control requirement, which means that no more than 20% of the subsidiary's stock can be offered in an IPO.

Special Considerations

When two companies merge, or one is acquired by the other, the reasons cited for such mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity are often the same, such as a strategic fit, synergies, or economies of scale. Extending that logic, when a company willingly splits off part of its operations into a separate entity, it should follow that the reverse would be true, that synergies and economies of scale should diminish or disappear. But that's not necessarily the case since there are several compelling reasons for a company to consider slimming down as opposed to bulking up through a merger or acquisition.

Evolving into "pure play" businesses : Splitting up a company into two or more parts enables each to become a pure play (a publicly-traded company focused on only one industry or product) in a different sector. This will enable each distinct business to be valued more efficiently and typically at a premium valuation, compared with a hodgepodge of businesses that would generally be valued at a discount (known as the conglomerate discount), thereby unlocking shareholder value. The sum of the parts is usually greater than the whole in such cases.

: Splitting up a company into two or more parts enables each to become a pure play (a publicly-traded company focused on only one industry or product) in a different sector. This will enable each distinct business to be valued more efficiently and typically at a premium valuation, compared with a hodgepodge of businesses that would generally be valued at a discount (known as the conglomerate discount), thereby unlocking shareholder value. The sum of the parts is usually greater than the whole in such cases. Efficient allocation of capital : Splitting up enables a more efficient allocation of capital to the component businesses within a company. This is especially useful when different business units within a company have varying capital needs. One size does not fit all when it comes to capital requirements.

: Splitting up enables a more efficient allocation of capital to the component businesses within a company. This is especially useful when different business units within a company have varying capital needs. One size does not fit all when it comes to capital requirements. Greater focus : Separation of a company into two or more businesses will enable each one to focus on its own game plan, without the company's executives having to spread themselves thin in trying to grapple with the unique challenges posed by distinct business units. A greater focus may translate into better financial results and improved profitability.

: Separation of a company into two or more businesses will enable each one to focus on its own game plan, without the company's executives having to spread themselves thin in trying to grapple with the unique challenges posed by distinct business units. A greater focus may translate into better financial results and improved profitability. Strategic imperatives: A company may choose to divest its "crown jewels," a coveted division or asset base, in order to reduce its appeal to a buyer. This is likely to be the case if the company is not large enough to fend off motivated buyers on its own. Another reason for divestment may be to skirt potential antitrust issues, especially in the case of serial acquirers who have cobbled together a business unit with an unduly large share of the market for certain products or services.

Another drawback is that both the parent company and the spun-off subsidiary may be more vulnerable as takeover targets for friendly and hostile bidders because of their smaller size and pure-play status. But the generally positive reaction from Wall Street to announcements of spin-offs and carve-outs shows that the benefits typically outweigh the drawbacks.

How to Invest in Spin-Offs

Most spin-offs tend to perform better than the overall market and, in some cases, better than their parent companies.

So how does one invest in spin-offs? There are two choices: invest in a spin-off exchange traded fund (ETF) like the Invesco S&P Spin-Off ETF or invest in a stock once it announces a divestment through a spin-off or carve-out. In some cases, the stock may not react positively until after the spin-off is effective, which may be a buying opportunity for an investor.
Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB) has confirmed that its shares will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Oct. 23.

The Edmonton, Canada-based company, referred to in some circles as the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B) of cannabis because of its successful track record investing in other firms, said its shares will trade under the ticker ACB, the same symbol it uses in its separate Toronto Stock Exchange listing.

Aurora will become the third licensed Canadian cannabis company to list in the U.S. after Canopy Growth Corp. (CGC) and Tilray Inc. (TLRY). Aphria Inc. (APH) also recently filed a request to list its shares on the worlds largest stock exchange, joining the likes of Aleafia Health Inc. (ALEAF), Namaste Technologies Inc. (N) and Alkaline Water Company Inc. (WTER), according to SmallCap Power.

Our NYSE listing represents another important milestone that reflects our commitment to all stakeholders as we continue advancing domestic and international growth initiatives, which includes expanding our base of global institutional and retail investors, said Terry Booth, CEO of Aurora, in a press release.

Perfect Timing

Aurora, the third biggest cannabis stock behind Canopy and Tilray, is already well known to investors. Aside from being a major beneficiary of Canada s recent legalization of recreational cannabis, the company has also benefited from unconfirmed reports that beverage giant Coca-Cola Co. (KO) wants to develop weed-infused beverages with it.

This positive publicity has helped to shine a light on Auroras business ventures. Going by the nickname "the Berkshire Hathaway of pot" certainly wont do it any harm as it prepares to list on the worlds largest stock exchange.

Aurora tripled its revenues in the final quarter of its fiscal year and registered a sharp uptick in profits, thanks mainly to its various stakes in other marijuana producers. As of Sep. 21, the company invested more than $700 million Canadian dollars ($534 million) in public companies in the sector, reported MarketWatch, including the likes of The Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd (TGOD), Hempco Food and Fiber Inc. (HEMP), CTT Pharmaceuticals Holdings Inc. (CTTH) and Choom Holdings Inc. (CHOOF).

Benefits of Listing

These triumphs, coupled with speculation linking it with beverage giants, could see Aurora generate plenty of interest when its shares list on the NYSE. Until now, many U.S. investors have been put off buying the stock because the only way to do so is through over-the-counter-markets, which dont have to comply with Securities and Exchange Commission requirements.

Once that barrier is removed, inflows could surge both from regular U.S. stock pickers and the many mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that only hold positions in companies trading on U.S. exchanges.
The thought of being your own boss is sure exciting and if you plan to do it by setting up your business and are ready with a business plan, the next crucial step is deciding the right business structure. This decision has far-reaching repercussions for the business and thus requires careful selection. The factors like personal liability, regulations, tax treatment, etc are governed by the form of your business entity which could be a Sole Proprietorship, Corporation, Partnership, or a Limited Liability Company (LLC).

One of the easy, efficient, and fast ways to start a company is to set up a Limited Liability Company (LLC). Lets explore what exactly is an LLC, its suitability, advantages, and disadvantages, along with other fundamental factors that can help you decide if an LLC is right for you and your business.

What Is an LLC?

The LLC is a relatively newer form of business entity in the U.S. It was Wyoming that enacted the first formal LLC statute in 1977. The act amalgamated the beneficial features of a partnership and corporations and was based on the 1982 German Code and the Panamanian LLC. Over the years, all states have passed legislation and even modified the acts to afford LLC its present form.

An LLC is a hybrid form of business entity that has selected features of a corporation and a partnership. It has been structured in a way to benefit from the pass-through taxation feature of a partnership along with allowing flexibility in operation and management and yet have limited liability like in the case of a corporation.

In the U.S., the LLCs laws are governed by individual states but are recognized in all. The laws further vary across countries. The owners of the company, in the case of LLCs, are referred to as members. Usually, a single person can start an LLC and there is no upper ceiling on the number of members.

There are many established and well-known companies which are structured as LLCs. A few names are Chrysler Group LLC, Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, Dougherty & Company LLC, Blockbuster LLC. Some businesses like banks, insurance, medical services are ineligible to file as LLCs because of the liability protection given to LLCs.

Advantages

Registering your company as an LLC has many benefits. Let's take a look at some of the biggest advantages below.

Limited Liability

This is one of the features of an LLC in which it resembles a corporation. LLC provides its owners a protective shield against business debt and liability.

Lets take an example, there is a shoe store boot & boot owned by Jimmy that loses its customers to one of the more fancy store around the corner. The business is not doing well and the company hasnt paid rent for the last eight months and bills for three shipments of shoes. Thus, boot & boot owes approximately $75,000 to its creditors who have filled a lawsuit against the company.

In this case, the creditors have full right to claim the money owed from the company but have no right to Jimmys personal assets (bank deposits or gold or real estate). In an LLC, only the companys assets can be liquidated to repay the debt and not the owners. This is a big advantage that is not provided by a sole proprietorship or partnership where owners and the business are legally considered the same adding vulnerability of personal assets.

Taxation

The company is not taxed directly by IRS as an LLC is not considered a separate tax entity. Instead, the tax liability is on the members who pay through their personal income tax. Lets look at an example.

Say boot & boot has two members and has made net profits to the tune of $60,000 in a year. The net profits will be divided into two (number of members) and this amount will be taxed as their personal income depending upon their overall tax liability. Because of non recognition of LLC as a business entity for taxation purposes, the tax return has to be filed as a corporation, partnership or sole proprietorship.

Remember that certain LLCs are automatically classified by IRS as a corporation for tax purposes, so be sure to know if your business falls in this category. Those LLCs that not automatically classified as a corporation can pick the business entity of choice by filing the Form 8832. The same form is used in case the LLC wants to change the classification status.

Fewer Hassles

Among all forms of companies, starting an LLC is easier, with fewer complexities, paperwork, and costs. This form of company comes with a lot of operational ease with less record-keeping and compliance issues. LLCs also provide a lot of freedom in management as there is no requirement of having a board of directors, annual meetings, or maintaining strict record books. These features reduce unnecessary hassles and help save a lot of time and effort.

The formation of an LLC broadly requires filing the articles of organization which is a document including basic information like business name, address, members. The filing is done with the Secretary of State for most states and has an associated filing fee.

Next comes creating an Operating Agreement, which though is not mandatory in most states but is recommended especially for multi-member LLCs. On registration of the business, other licenses and permits have to be obtained.

Additionally, some states like Arizona and New York require publishing about the LLC formation in the local newspaper.

Flexibility in Allocation

LLC provides a lot of flexibility when it comes to investing as well as profit sharing.

In an LLC, members can opt to invest in a different proportion than their ownership percentage i.e. a person who owns 25% of the LLC, need not contribute money in the same proportion for initial investment. This can be done by creating an operating agreement, which states percentages of company profits (and losses) for each member regardless of the amounts of their initial investments. So its possible to have an outside investor put money in the business without ownership.

The same applies to the distribution of profits where LLC members have the flexibility to decide the allocation of profits. The distribution of profits can be in a different proportion than ownership. A certain member may take a bigger chunk of profits by consensus for the extra hours or effort they have put into carrying out the business.

Disadvantages

While a limited liability company (LLC) offers an edge over some of the other forms of business entity, there are also some drawbacks which need to be looked at before selecting an LLC as the business structure.

Limited Life

The life of an LLC is limited by the tenure of its members. While there can be variations across states, in most of them the business is dissolved or ceases to exist when a member departs an LLC further requiring the other members to complete the remaining business or legal obligations needed to close the business. The rest of the members can choose to set up a new LLC or part ways. This weakness of an LLC can be overcome by including appropriate provisions in the operating agreement.

Self-Employment Taxes

The members of an LLC have to pay the self-employed tax contributions towards Medicare and Social Security as they are considered as self-employed. Due to this, the net income of the business is subject to this tax. To avoid this, depending upon the business turnover and tax burden, the entity can choose to be taxed like a corporation if it works out more beneficial. Consult an accountant before making this choice.

Fees

The fee which is typically paid by an LLC as initial costs or ongoing charges is more than that for business entities like sole proprietorship or general partnership but less than what a C-corporation has to pay. The various types of fees include applicable state filing fees, ongoing fees, and annual report fees.

Precedent Is Less

LLCs are a relatively newer business structure and thus there have not been many law cases related to them. For this reason, there is not much legal precedent or case law for LLCs as there is for the older forms. Having a certain legal precedence helps to act accordingly in the same given case scenario. There is more vulnerability as there are few established laws.

Bottom Line

LLCs are a good combination of protection with flexibility and tax benefits. It provides an array of taxation alternatives while shielding individual members from personal liability. LLCs are seen as apt for small businesses as there is less hassle and complexity in their functioning. However, consulting an accountant or lawyer for expert opinion is advisable before taking the final call.
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BREA, Calif. - October 19, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN), an emerging electric vehicle ("EV") manufacturer, announces the US Bankruptcy Court approval on Oct. 13th, 2022 of its acquisition of electric vehicle company ELMS's (Electric Last Mile Solutions) assets in an all cash purchase.

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It was with the deepest regret and the greatest sadness that we learned of the passing on May 10, 2016 of Daniel P. Tully, former Chairman & CEO of Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America. He served as President of the Ireland-U.S. Council from 1990 to 1993. He was 84.

Merrill Lynch shares tripled during Tullys tenure as CEO, from May 1991 to December 1996. Assets under management topped $500 billion for the first time in 1993. He retired as chairman in 1997 after 42 years at the firm.

Daniel Patrick Tully was born January 2, 1932, and grew up in Jackson Heights, in the New York City borough of Queens. An early job was as copy boy for the New York Daily News.

When I was growing up, everyone in my family was a steam fitter, which was a blue-collar, union job, he wrote in a contribution for My One Big Break, a 2004 book. So my parents were shocked when I said I wanted to attend college instead of continuing that tradition.

He graduated from St. Johns University in Queens in 1953 with a bachelors degree in business administration. After serving in the U.S. Army, he landed a job in 1955 as a junior accountant at the partnership then called Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane.

I didnt know what the company did, and neither did anybody in my family, he said.

Bank of America in a statement said that Mr. Tully had built Merrill Lynch into a top competitor in mergers and acquisitions, and successfully carried forward our global expansion in investment banking.

His path up the corporate ladder included a seven-year stint in the firms Stamford, Connecticut, office. Tully was named a vice president in 1971, president of consumer marketing in 1984, president and chief operating officer in 1985. He was deputy to CEO William Schreyer and succeeded him in May 1992, adding the chairmans role the following year.

He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Grace; children Daniel, Timothy, Eileen and Elizabeth; 13 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

* David O'Sullivan is the Executive Director of The Ireland-U.S. Council.
One Irish mother got a huge surprise from her sons unexpected return from Australia.

Nicola Nolan took her mother to the beach at Rush in Co. Dublin to watch a video from her younger brother Stephen.

In the video clip he says he wouldnt be home for a family wedding but says if I start swimming now maybe Ill get there on time, and the video shows him running off into the Indian Ocean.

When the video ends, Nicola tells her mother to look up towards the beach for a huge surprise.

Watch the epic, heart-warming homecoming:

*Originally published in June 2014.
Luke Skywalker and "Star Wars Episode VIII" have just landed in Inishowen, County Donegal, Ireland's most northerly county, which means this remote but beautiful peninsula will soon become an iconic landscape in the "Star Wars" canon.

Here's a list of ten things Luke Skywalker and "Star Wars" need to know about Donegal and Inishowen.

1. You're not the first Empire to have invaded

Between the Vikings, the Normans, the Plantation and Cromwell (and some might add Rome) people in Donegal in the north have had their fill of invading hordes. Stormtroopers in search of a decent pint of Guinness won't raise an eyebrow, nor will the galactic empire.

2. Luke Skywalker is no match for Cu Chulainn

Cu Chulainn, the Hound of Ulster, was a badass long before George Lucas came up with his long-running space opera. He fought off enemies that were far more fearsome than Darth Vader and his myth has been passed down to us from pre-Christian times, which means he's unquestionably way cooler.

3. Forget Naboo

The most beautiful planet in the entire "Star Wars" canon is Naboo, but it will be eclipsed in 2017 when "Star Wars Episode VIII" is released and the worldwide audience gets its first look at Donegal. Let's face it, for most people (possibly including the Irish government) it will be their first look at the epic, unspoiled landscape of Malin Head and Inishowen.

4. You'll be back

Your first trip to Donegal will be one of many, Luke. The county is strong with The Force and so are the people. Once the air and the light and the romantic landscape work their magic you'll want to return time and again to a place that has remained remarkably unchanged for millennia.

5. It's the ultimate Netflix and chill

Luke, we know why you're here. After a lifelong battle with the evil galactic empire Donegal is the perfect place to build a Jedi hut and unplug. Just ask Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, who have vacationed here since the 1970s.

6. No Ewoks, no Hobbits, no nothing

Donegal is one of the least populated counties in Ireland. You can spend days here without seeing another soul if that is your wish. But it turns out it's remoteness (there isn't a direct motorway or train line to the place) has been a blessing in disguise. It's kept the beaches pristine, the landscape untrammeled, and the trinkets and tackiness circuit down to a minimum.

7. The local people are cure in themselves

The contrast between the understated, homespun character of Donegal people and the epic grandeur of the landscape in which they live is immensely comic. These are among the most unflappable people you will ever meet. They've lived through invasions, famine, civil war and county music career of Daniel O'Donnell, so they're not going to freak out at the sight of a Super Star Destroyer.

8. Jedi training

The nearby city of Derry was founded, in some tellings, by Saint Colmcille. He must have thought the northwest an ideal place for reflection and training, not unlike your own famed Jedi temples. But since struggles with far away empires have been playing out on the ground here since before you were in your Jedi diapers, both you and the Rebel Alliance are bound to find common ground with the friendly locals.

9. Not a princess, a general

You learned it with Princess Leia and you'll learn it again in Donegal, Donegal women will do their own rescuing. If you thought that General Organa was spirited, just wait till you meet the local women Luke. No one in this county is waiting on a hero on a white horse, they'll do their own saving.

10. We already have a Jedi master

Ireland already has a deeply learned spiritual advisor who can handle himself in a debate or a conflict. Our President Michael D. Higgins is to us as Yoda is to you, a learned counselor that we have long turned to for advice and guidance. In Ireland there's no need for little green men of any kind when there are brilliantly accomplished thinkers and speakers like our beloved president. Yoda can take a number, but welcome to Donegal Luke. Sure you'll be a local in no time.

Read more: "Star Wars Episode VIII" will be right at home in County Donegal
Ballintoy Harbour is a small fishing harbor found near the picturesque village of Ballintoy in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

The village, located just under a mile from the harbor, has an array of small shops, two churches, tourist accommodation, and restaurants. Situated between the Giants Causeway and the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, it is an ideal stopover for those touring the coastal route. Ballycastle, Bushmills, the Giants Causeway, and the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge are all nearby or a short drive away.

The distinctive Ballintoy Parish Church sits on the hill above the harbor. The white church was built in 1813 as a replacement for an older church. Its square tapering tower once supported a steeple which was removed by a hurricane in December 1894, giving the church a unique appearance.

The area around Ballintoy, with its stunning scenery, is a wonderful place for walking. As you travel down the narrow, winding road to the harbor, the last house on the right hand side is called Bendhu. The house was built by the artist and teacher Newton Penprase.

Read more about Ireland's Travel Secrets here

Causewaycoastalroute.com explains that the harbor was once a hub for north coast fishing, boat-building and local industries. The harbor was built from limestone blocks and is surrounded by limestone cliffs. By the late nineteenth century it was extensively used for the production of lime and shipping sett stones. Sheltered from the Atlantic by black basalt islands, the harbor looks out across Boheeshane Bay to Larry Bane Head, Sheep Island, Rathlin Island and Scotland.

Sheep Island, off the north coast, is known for its steep cliffs and rocky shores. The island's name comes from a time when sheep were taken out by boat to graze there in the summer months. It is now designated as a Special Protection Area and an Area of Special Scientific interest due to its cormorant (an aquatic bird) population. Access to the island is restricted during breeding season.

The walk between Ballintoy to Whitepark Bay, which follows an ancient pathway, is also worth taking. The bay is known as a 'raised beach. Rich in flora and fauna, the ancient sand dune system also contains several carbon-dated Neolithic sites, and arrowheads are occasionally found there.

Ballintoy has been used as a film location for the HBO series Game of Thrones. The village was used for the fictional town of Lordsport in the Isle of Pyke, while the harbor was used for exterior Pyke shots and as the Iron Islands. According to Discover Northern Ireland, the picturesque coastal nook is where where Theon Greyjoy arrives back in the Iron Islands and where he later admires his ship, the Sea Bitch. This is also where he first meets his sister Yara.

What do you think is Ireland's best kept travel secret? Send in your tips to submit@irishcentral.com and check out all of Ireland's Travel Secrets here.
A statue in Washington, D.C. of Irish patriot Robert Emmet, leader of an 1803 rebellion against the British and subsequently executed, was rededicated at a ceremony on April 27.

The site, as we see, has been renovated to mark the centenary anniversaries. The statue is now more visible, more open to the gaze of passers-by, with a new planting of Irish Yew trees and a new wayside marker, Irish Ambassador to the U.S. Anne Anderson said in her remarks at the event which took place not far from the Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue and S Street, in a park which is home to the refurbished statue, which was the first ever created in Emmets honor.

Among those who will pass by, I have no doubt that Irish Americans will pause here, and reflect, and acknowledge Robert Emmets place in the pantheon of Irish heroes.

According to the Irish Embassy, the Emmet statue was commissioned by the Smithsonian, funded by a group of Irish Americans, completed in 1916 by Irish sculptor Jerome Connor, and installed in the Smithsonians U.S. National Museum. President Woodrow Wilson spoke at the dedication ceremony, which was attended by many dignitaries.

On the 50th anniversary of these events, in April 1966, the Smithsonian lent the Emmet statue to a small National Park Service site near the Embassy of Ireland and it was rededicated. The then-Speaker of the House of Representatives, John McCormack, presided over the ceremony, and remarks were made by, among others, the Secretary of the Smithsonian and the ambassador of Ireland. President Lyndon Johnson conveyed his admiration for Emmet in a message that was read at the event.

To mark the concurrent 100 year anniversaries of the National Park Service, Irelands Easter Rising, and the Emmet statue, the National Park Service is currently undertaking a major refurbishment of the park site on which the statue stands. The project encompasses re-landscaping the entire site and installing a wayside information marker.

The National Park Service is working in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution, the Irish American Unity Conference and the Ancient Order of Hibernians, all of which have contributed resources to the project.

New York Congressman Joe Crowley, who has a picture of Emmet in his office, is leading a congressional effort to have the small park renamed in Emmets honor.
Former US Senator Edward Kennedys key part in the Northern Ireland peace process will be the subject of a discussion at the Library of Congress in Washington on Monday night (May 16).

The discussion is the first for the institute following last years release of the Edward M. Kennedy Oral History Project, which includes interviews with Kennedy and those who knew him.

Several of the participants in the oral history project discussed the senators key role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland and key figures they will be speaking about their experience with Kennedy tonight.

The event is scheduled for 6pm Monday at the Montpelier Room at the Library of Congress. Peace envoy Senator George Mitchell will deliver a keynote. The former Senate Majority Leader was a key figure in negotiating a peace agreement in Northern Ireland.

Nancy Soderberg, former White House National Security Advisor, IrishCentral Founder Niall ODowd and Congressmen Peter King and Ritchie Neal will also take part. Kerry ODonnell of NBC will moderate.

Mondays forum will focus on the oral history transcripts that discuss the peace process and the late senators involvement in it during his career.
In a head-scratching move Irelands Junior Minister for Health, Finian McGrath, who serves in the cabinet, has called for smoking to be allowed in designated areas in pubs and restaurants because smokers are hopelessly addicted.

We smokers have an addiction, he said in an interview in the Sunday Business Post. Every day, I try to give them up or reduce the number I smoke and, so far, I have not succeeded.

McGrath, a member of the Independent Alliance, also stated that non-smokers needed to be more understanding of smokers who, like him, had smoked heavily for years.

Personally I feel smokers can be soft targets, he added. I can understand peoples concerns about the health implications, but the reality is a significant number of us smoke.

McGrath said his opinion was a "private, personal view" and other countries allowed designated areas smoking. "I was in Portugal with the Justice Committee two years ago and I saw it first hand," he said.

"I was in Germany a couple of years ago and - I think it was Frankfurt - they had a similar position and I saw it working."

I think it would be no harm if we had a national debate on this, he said also referring to the need to warn young people about smoking. He added that cigarette smuggling gangs were the main beneficiaries when prices are raised on the products.

Ireland banned smoking in pubs and restaurants in 2004 and was the first country to do so.

McGrath, who represents a Dublin constituency, had begun as a controversial figure in the recently formed government. After assuming power he said he hadn't paid his water bill in protest against government price hikes. After he was informed he was breaking the law he relented and paid the bill.

Read more health stories on IrishCentral here
A ceremony remembering Irish famine victims who arrived in Baltimore on coffin ships was held at the Irish Railroad Workers Museum in Southwest Baltimore on Saturday.

The event recalls a chapter of the citys Irish history, when three ships carrying famine refugees arrived in the harbor. Ships such as these came to be known as coffin ships because the overcrowded conditions contributed to widespread illness and death among the passengers.

BaltimoreSun.com recalls that in 1847 three ships carrying 674 immigrants, mostly Irish, arrived in Baltimore Harbor. The three ships  the Hampden, the Richard Anderson, and the Rio Grande  had come from Liverpool. By the time the ships arrived the passengers, who were fleeing the great Irish famine, were sick, with some near death. The Port of Baltimores health officer quarantined the sickest passengers and would not allow them to come into the citys most populated areas. The quarantine area is today marked by the Lazaretto Point Light and a Lehigh Cement facility.

On May 11, 1857, The Baltimore Sun, which quoted the newspaper The Dublin Nation, reported: "Two millions of human beings... are destined to perish by this year's famine in Ireland."

"The truly distressing and pitiable situation of most of the Irish passengers who have lately arrived in our city appears to be little known," The Baltimore Sun reported.

The newspaper noted the efforts of the Hibernian Society of Baltimore to "ameliorate the immigrants' condition."

Many of the passengers ... have been in a wretched condition; feeble and weak from the want of food at home, their situation has been rendered worse by the confinement of their passage, and they have landed with frames emaciated by hunger and broken down by disease.

The Rio Grande carried the most wretched of the passengers. Of the 220 people on board, nearly half were "prostrated by disease and starvation, destitute in everything; in fact, in the most deplorable condition the mind can conceive of."

The majority of the adult passengers were in their 20s, with family names such as Barrett, Coyne, Flinn, Reddington, Loftus, Regan, McGrath, Gordon, Gallagher, Devine, Hughes, McCaffrey, Feeney, and Kenny. The occupations of those listed included stonecutter, farmer, servant, gentleman, laborer, weaver, cooper, dressmaker, and shopkeeper.

The Hibernian Society raised funds for a temporary hospital, and the Sisters of Charity from Emmitsburg served as nurses.

The refugees had what the health officer named as ship fever, or typhus and dysentery, and some of the people attending to the immigrants also succumbed to disease. That June the newspaper reported the death off Sister Clarina, a Sisters of Charity member born Mary Fledderman, and the illnesses of Sister Chrysostom and Sister Mary Ann. The Baltimore Sun said rumors were circulating about the health of the nuns who served "in the spirit of self-sacrifice."

Many of the children of the immigrants were left orphaned after their parents died. The Rev. James Dolan, pastor of St Patricks Churck on Broadway in Fells Point, worked with Hibernian Society president Hugh Jenkins to obtain a 71-acre suburban tract in Govan on Homeland Avenue to create a boys orphanage.

In the 1850s, the orphanage housed as many as 30 boys. It was later transferred to Fells Point. The property would become the basis of a Roman Catholic parish, St Mary of the Assumption, and a Homeland Avenue cemetery.

According to the museums Facebook page, the event on Saturday included a presentation, 'Irish Connections  Maryland and Ireland' by historian Denny Lynch, followed by a gathering at the Memorial Wall under the Famine Crossing mural and a Remembrance.
Moodys is the first authoritative international voice to play down the potential effects on the Irish economy were the UK to opt to leave the EU on June 23.

It is part of Moodys most upbeat assessment on the Irish economy since the devastating banking crash.
The Star Wars' crew and cast have landed at Cork Airport.

The Star Wars Boeing 767-300 aircraft, with some 260 people on board, landed at around 2.30pm.

Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, was spotted with his dog on arrival.

Production is set to take place in and around Brow Head in West Cork until May 18 and filming there is understood to include Rey undergoing Jedi training.

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) has enforced a no-fly zone, in a bid to block drones from operating.

Production is expected to move to the Ceann Sibeal headland in Kerry later in the week, where Jedi temple sets have been built.

The IAA is enforcing a 21-day no-fly zone in the Dingle peninsula, banning the operation of craft within an 8km radius of Sybil Head and Dunmore Head.

Mark Hamill who plays Luke Skywalker on arrival to Cork Airport today. Picture: Eddie O'Hare.

The cast look like they are having mighty craic in Ireland, you can read more about that HERE.

Scenes from the last movie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, were shot on Skellig Michael off the Kerry coast.
Colombian authorities say they have made the biggest cocaine seizure in the country's history.

Colombia's National Police said 50 commandos backed by helicopters seized about eight tonnes of cocaine on a banana plantation in the north-western region of Antioquia.
The United States and other world powers have said they are ready to supply Libya's internationally recognised government with weapons to counter the so-called 'Islamic State' group and other terrorists.

The decision is stated in a communique prepared for the end of top-level talks on Libya and obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its release.

Libya is under a UN embargo imposed to keep lethal arms away from terrorists and rival militias vying for power.

But the communique signed by the US, the four other permanent UN Security Council members, and the more than 15 other nations participating at the talks are "ready to respond to the Libyan government's requests for training and equipping" government forces.

The world powers aim to push for exemptions to the arms embargo.

"The Government of National Accord has voiced its intention to submit appropriate arms embargo exemption requests to the UN Libya Sanctions Committee to procure necessary lethal arms and materiel to counter UN-designated terrorist groups and to combat Daesh throughout the country," said the communique, using an alternate name for 'Islamic State'.

It continued: "We will fully support these efforts while continuing to reinforce the UN arms embargo."

US secretary of state John Kerry and top officials from more than 20 other nations have been conferring on ways to strengthen Libya's fledgling government.

The aim is to give the administration more muscle in fighting Islamic State radicals and end its rivalry with a group to the east claiming legitimacy.

Before the meeting, however, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned against undue optimism.

"The key question is whether Libya remains a place where terrorism, criminal human smuggling and instability continues to expand, or if we are able, together with the government of national unity to recover stability," he told reporters ahead of the meeting.

"That, at present, is an open question."

Libya descended into chaos after the toppling and death of Muammar Gaddafi five years ago and soon turned into a battleground of rival militias vying for powers.

More recently, the power vacuum has allowed Islamic State radicals to expand their presence, giving them a potential base in a country separated from Europe only by a relatively small stretch of the Mediterranean Sea.

Also worrying for Europe is the potential threat of a mass influx of refugees amassing in Libya, now that the earlier route from Turkey into Greece has essentially been shut down.
US-headquartered, Devenish provides tailored nutritional solutions and specialist advice to Irelands pig, poultry, ruminant and pet sectors. The company has an office in Belfast, with key personnel operating throughout the island.

Dr Woods is leaving her role as CEO of Agri Aware, which she has held for the past five years, being the longest serving and first female CEO. Agri Aware is an agri-food educational body, a charitable trust funded by the Irish farming and agri-food industry.

Dr Woods developed networks for Agri Aware with key officials in the European Commission, and hosted two European agriculture commissioners in the Agri Aware and Dublin Zoo Family Farm, which has been transformed under her leadership. She comes from a beef and tillage farm outside Athboy in Co Meath and has great passion for farming.

She said: I am hugely passionate about farming and our agri-food industry and I am really looking forward to joining the team at Devenish, a key patron of Agri Aware. The Devenish business spans right across the globe and they have bold ambitions for growth. I am excited to join this thriving and progressive company.

It has been my pleasure and privilege to work with Agri Awares chairman, Richard Moeran and former chairman, Bernard Donohue. I have truly enjoyed my time with Agri Aware. My successor and the board will have my full support and the support of Devenish, to ensure a smooth transition.

Dr Woods secured four consecutive bids for funding to the European Commission worth 1.7m. She also helped Agri Aware secure government approval to update the Agricultural Science syllabus for Leaving Certificate students after 40 years, having being appointed by the NCCA in a formal role for this purpose.

She was appointed as the first chair of examiners for the new GCSE in Agriculture and Land Use in Northern Ireland. She helped ensure the equine industry has also become an Agri Aware patron for the first time. Equine now forms a key part of the new draft Agricultural Science specification for Leaving Certificate students for the first time.

Agri Aware chair, Richard Moeran, said: Vanessas departure from Agri Aware will be a loss for the organisation, she has headed up the independent trust for the past five years, winning four consecutive funding bids from Brussels to communicate the importance of CAP to the Irish consumer.
It is daybreak on June 24. The supporters of a British exit from the EU are ecstatic.

They have pulled off a referendum win that is causing major ructions in the financial markets.

The victory has been made possible, in large part, by blue collar votes, and those of the elderly, in areas such as Yorkshire, the Midlands and the coastal towns. It is one in the eye to those cosmopolitan Londoners and Scots.

Such an outcome is still considered unlikely in the City and in the betting markets, but with the polls pointing to a tight result, it is one that certainly cannot be ruled out.

Belatedly, people in business are waking up to the possibility of a Brexit vote which could cause great legal uncertainty, adding to the general sense of heightened economic crisis that would come to the fore in the event of such a vote.

One leading Irish expert, John Cooke SC, a former High Court and European Court judge, and a leading expert on European law, this week cautioned that no one really knows what things will be like if the UK withdraws.

Speaking at an event in Dublin, organised by the Irish Council of European Lawyers, he added that there is a frightening lack of information about what possibly could happen. You almost get the impression in London that there is a delicate policy of not going into any detail, on the mechanism of a withdrawal.

There are signs of belated activity on the part of top UK law firms, many of which stand to suffer heavily in the longer term from a withdrawal. These firms have operations in Brussels. They have benefited from the boom in the City of London which has resulted  at least in part  from the completion, in large part, of the single European market.

Big business, too, is stirring from its state of slumber on this defining issue.

Some firms have appointed teams, reporting to senior management, to assess the impact of a vote to leave on their business. The impacts could be felt right across the board, but with some of the early impact occurring in the employment arena.

According to the leading UK firm, Allen & Overy, businesses, particularly those with operations in both the UK and the rest of the EU, should start auditing their workforce.

This, the firm insists, will be essential to help you plan for the labour mobility restrictions and shortages that could result from a Brexit.

In theory, UK and other EU nationals working in the EU (as currently constituted) outside their country of origin would, in theory, lose their automatic right to travel and work freely across the Union. In practice, transitional arrangements and concessions are likely to be negotiated. Indeed, failure to do so would be an act of great folly.

Speaking in Dublin, last week, Prof Derrick Wyatt QC said that withdrawal would be a process rather than an event. That process would take between two and five or more years.

Alongside a withdrawal agreement, there would have to be an agreement on future trading relations between the UK and the REU (rest of the EU). The withdrawal agreement would deal with issues such as the acquired rights of migrants in the UK and REU.

Transitional arrangements would have to be put in place for those migrants whose rights of residence might be phased out.

However, he added, such issues would be unlikely to affect directly Irish citizens resident in the UK, or UK citizens living in Ireland as their rights are not dependent on EU law.

In such negotiations in the lead up to a withdrawal, the UK would be keen to secure a deal on free trade in goods and in services, with the preservation of current passporting rights for banks and insurance companies, which allow them to set up branches in other member states without further authorisation by a national body, or additional capital requirements.

As a quid pro quo, the rest of the EU will seek concessions on free movement of people and a continuation of at least some financial contribution towards the running of the EU.

If the talks process were to extend beyond the two-years provided for in Article 50 of the EU Treaty, then all member states would have to agree unanimously to an extension of those talks. You could well imagine how certain States, driven by opportunism and their own voter base, might try to place this.

Professor Wyatt warns that a sense of ill will could complicate the process. He also warns that any free trade agreement is likely to be confined to goods originating in the UK or EU, with non-originating goods being subject to whatever external tariff applies.

This could present a real challenge to exporters, given that many goods are merely finished in the country of export and contain inputs which have been previously imported from elsewhere.

Prof Wyatt also warns that, for this reason, border checks between the Republic and Northern Ireland would appear to be inevitable as otherwise it would be used by those seeking to circumvent EU and UK import restrictions.

He suggests, however, that border checks could be fairly light touch, with the use of mobile check points and exemptions for private cars. The need to control the flow of illegal immigrants would also appear to mean that the reintroduction of passport checks is on the cards.

It is clear that the vote on June 23 will be remembered more as the trigger for a chain of events rather than the culmination of a long battle. In fact, the war will continue regardless of who triumphs in this battle. The Tory party is set to remain divided as it was over the repeal of the Corn laws in the mid-19th century.

Vincent Power a partner with solicitors A&L Goodbody, for one, does not see June 23 as the finishing line. He draws a parallel with the Irish votes on the Nice and Lisbon treaties suggesting that in the event of a vote to leave, a new package could be put on the table.

One has to wonder whether such a renegotiation could really be possible, given the entrenched position of the supporters of Brexit.

It is worth recalling an interesting observation this week by the Guardian political writer, Michael White: Those who live on an island, especially one with a nostalgic imperial culture and a centralised state, have a much less subtle sense of sovereignty.

Many of Britains top economists have signed a letter pleading with the voters to opt to remain. It would seem that the Remain group have won the economic debate, but there is another debate, one of the heart and the gut rather than the mind, that is going on.

If gut feeling were to win out then the dislocation, in terms of commercial relationships, would be considerable. European laws are deeply embedded in the British legal system after more than 40 years of membership.

Dismantling such a tapestry could prove difficult to the point of being destructive.
Since hackers stole and released the confidential details of sex cheats from the Ashley Madison website, business has been booming for Cork-based cyber security company Smarttech.

Ashley Madison was one of a number of high-profile breaches in recent years, which shows how naive people are with regard to their data security and how vulnerable companies are to cybercrime. said company founder and CEO Ronan Murphy, explaining that the increase in cybercrime in the past two years has led to very strong growth for his company.

Smarttech has been offering a cyber security consultancy service since 2012 and now has over 300 clients, among them a number of global companies in a range of industry sectors including healthcare, retail and education.

According to Mr Murphy, in the digital age companies need to understand there is very little they can do to prevent a determined hacker from getting access to their systems.

What companies need to do is adopt a different mindset in relation to security and employ a data monitoring service to ensure that cyber criminals are immediately detected and stopped from stealing critical data.

Ronan Murphy

In 2014 Smarttech invested over 1m in setting up a Security Operations Centre (SOC) where analysts monitor data for its customers 24 /7, 365 days a year. The use of network behavioural analysis software, which detects anomalous behaviour, allows the company to monitor vast quantities of data across global sites.

Mr Murphy claims there is now a global spread of cyber attacks using ransomware for extortion. We get multiple calls per week from large and small companies which have had their data encrypted by hackers who are demanding payment for its release. This malware epidemy is being driven by organised crime gangs in Eastern Europe, Japan and China, he said, adding that companies, which have not adequately backed up their data, have little option but to pay.

There are also more serious threats where hackers are looking to steal intellectual property, financial information and credit card details  called Advanced Persistent Threats, or APTs, and these are now happening every day of the week.

To help customers deal with cyber threats, Smarttech offers a range of products and services including next generation firewalls, anti-virus and breach detection systems .We also install monitoring technology and our monitoring service now accounts for 70% of our business said Mr Murphy.

Smarttech started as an IT consultancy firm and moved into the cyber security space in early 2012. We realised that traditional types of security, like anti-virus and basic firewalls were no longer effective. We spent time developing solutions that addressed the more complex nature of the cyber landscape, said Mr Murphy, explaining that the company partnered with the likes of IBM and Trend Micro, and has used their products to develop solutions for its customers.

The opening of the 24 /7 SOC in 2013 was a strategic investment for Smarttech. We were one of the first companies in Europe with this offering, said Mr Murphy, adding that it allowed him to target some of the largest companies in Ireland and the UK.

The first major monitoring contract was with the Royal College of Surgeons in 2013. Now our customers include some of the largest healthcare organisations and utility providers in Ireland and the UK as well as government agencies.

Mr Murphy said turnover has grown by 50% per year since 2012 and he is expecting growth of well over 100% this year. The company employed an additional 15 staff last year bringing the number up to 35 and expects to double it this year.

Over the last two years the company has opened offices in Belfast, Dublin and London. The UK accounts for 30% of sales but is expected to become the companys largest market within three years. Operating in a cyber security market now estimated to be worth $170bn (150bn) a year, Mr Murphy sees vast scope for growth and is targeting sales of 20m within three years.
Scotch whisky currently dominates sales across Europe, selling more than 1.3 billion each year, with the biggest volume going to France. In fact France is the first market for Scotch whisky in the world.

Although there are more than 20 whisky-producing countries in the world, five nations account for almost all sales on the French market: Scotland, the US, Canada, Ireland and Japan.

Scotland dominates by far the sales, leaving only 15% of the market to other production countries. It is easy to understand why the Scotch Whisky Association has become very vocal in stressing its support for the UK to remain within the EU.

The Association stated more than 1bn (1.27bn) worth of Scotch whisky exports could be at risk from an industry supporting 40,000 jobs if the UK leaves the EU. Diageo is one of the major brand holders and stands to face major loss of sales of its leading brands sold across Europe such as Johnnie Walker, Bells and J&B.

Diageo, the worlds largest maker of Scotch whisky expressed its strong support for staying within the EU. Chief executive Ivan Menezes, stated recently: Diageo - and specifically our Scotch whisky business - benefits greatly from the UKs membership of the EU and we strongly believe we should remain within that union.

The Single Market gives us a level playing field and open access across the EU, while the EUs clout in international trade helps to open up new markets with agreements favourable to the UK, reducing tariffs and resolving trade disputes.

The French have taken a particularly strong liking to the wee dram, which now exceeds consumption of the traditional cognac as the aperitif and digestif of choice. Exports of British whisky to France were worth almost 450 million last year with more Scotch sold in one month than cognac in a year.

The main concern for the Scottish whisky producers is outside the EU, top British producers could face bureaucratic barriers when trading with Europe.

The EU single market provides common standards on labelling, certification and licencing - creating a level playing field which makes overseas trade far easier for the highly regulated alcohol industry with its excise, duty and VAT at point-of-entry requirements.

Irish whiskey producers on the other hand, although minnows in the global industry producing approximately 4% of global volume, have been growing rapidly in recent years and could gain extensively in sales to France and across the EU in the event of a Brexit.

However, a Scotch whisky industry outside the EU would inevitably push hard to sell lost volume into the major US market, which is Irelands largest market and has been offering double digit growth to Irish whiskey brands over the past few years.

And there are, of course, the potential difficulties in maintaining Irish whiskey sales penetration in the UK after a Brexit , although it is only the sixth largest export market for Irish whiskey.

With or without a Brexit, Irish whiskey is facing major challenges due to rapid worldwide growth in demand for whiskey of all types and origins. Not least of which will be managing the rapid planned expansion to ensure that production from expanding from the established four distilleries to 17 new distilleries meets the required standards.

Although whiskey may be drunk at age three years in practice whiskey is usually only begun to be drunk at four years maturity at a minimum.

With the large capital investment made it will be tempting for distillers to release product as soon as possible to achieve some return.

The sector has recently come together and there is a need to ensure strong co-ordination to manage and market the overall brand.

Protecting the brand is a key issue. As its popularity grows, the opportunities for poorer lesser quality spirits to claim to be Irish whiskey or make references to Irish whiskey will increase.

There is no doubting that Europe has a taste for whiskey, whether it is Scotch or Irish. Of course, in a Brexit there will be winners and losers, but a Scotch industry working within the EU and helping to protect the unique provenance of both Irish whiskey and Scotch whisky is preferable to a potential unregulated situation arising from an exit.

Leaving the EU would be a leap in the dark for the British drinks industry and could lead to years of negotiations on new trade deals not least of which will be with Ireland, with no guarantees at the end.

* John Whelan is a leading consultant on Irish and international trade.
Now that a new Government is in place, we need immediate action to address unsustainably low incomes on Irish farms.

IFA made detailed proposals to the political parties in advance of the general election and during the government negotiations. A significant number of the measures contained in the Programme for Government reflect the issues raised by IFA and I look forward to working with Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed on the implementation of these measures.

The new Government must also progress further measures that will secure the profitable growth of farming and the future of the agri-sector in Ireland.

Farmers need tangible measures that address these threats.

We need the full restoration of national funding for farm schemes, stronger CAP supports, robust defence of Irelands interests in trade policy and climate change negotiations, action on input costs, including the cost of finance, and the opening of new markets for Irish farm produce.

Direct payments and supports

With farm incomes under pressure in every sector, the role of the CAP and direct payments in supporting farm families was never more important.

There can be no further cuts to payments. Delays in payments will not be tolerated this year. Timely payment is critically important for farm incomes and cashflow  this is a red line issue for IFA with the Minister for Agriculture.

The minister must make full use of RDP funding for farm schemes. We need increased supports for low-income sectors and vulnerable regions. In this regard, I welcome, as an initial step, new funding for sheep and Disadvantaged Areas (ANCs) in the Programme for Government.

Both measures must be included in this years budget and paid out to farmers in 2017.

Fairness in the food chain

It is totally unacceptable that farmers, who do most of the work in producing high-quality food, are receiving a price below the cost of production.

There is unrelenting downward pressure by powerful retailers and processors on farm prices. Based on what consumers are paying, farmers are entitled to more  a viable price above the cost of production and a fair return on work and investment.

Effective measures are needed to redress the balance of power in the food supply chain and ensure fair and viable commodity prices for farmers. The aggressive behaviour of dominant retailers towards smaller suppliers must be halted.

The new Grocery Regulations must be strongly enforced  contracts must be effective; complaints must be investigated and offenders prosecuted. IFA will continue to push for stronger legislation to include an independent ombudsman, and a ban on below-cost selling.

In Brussels, the Irish Government must support the Commission proposal that all large multinationals, including retailers and processors, will be obliged to publish their profits in each member state.

Farm finance and taxation

Farmers need taxation measures that improve farm profitability, promote on-farm investment and encourage young farmers. The tax credit for farmers and the self-employed implemented in the last budget must be quickly brought into line with the PAYE allowance.

Addressing volatility through the tax system is a new challenge to be addressed by the ministers for agriculture and finance.

Farmers need measures to provide them with flexibility and the agri-industry must also come forward with risk management measures, including contracts, to provide greater stability on supplies, prices and inputs.

The 15,000 State Aid concession which was introduced by the EU Agriculture Council to address serious cash flow issues on farms must be used without delay.

IFA has called on the Minister to make use of the allowance to provide short-term loans for farmers under serious pressure, including facilitating a suspension of superlevy repayments and converting merchant credit.

The cost of bank borrowing remains unacceptably high  Irish farmers are paying an average of 2% more that our European counterparts. The new Government must prioritise new sources of finance to increase competition and drive down borrowing costs.

All government ministers must work to deliver a more balanced economic recovery across the regions. IFA has identified a number of action points to kick start a re-energised rural economy, including the rollout of a high-quality broadband network, and increased funding for rural infrastructure.
So says Pat Dillon, head of the Teagasc Animal and Grassland, Research, and Innovation programme.

The strong reputation of Irish grass-based beef production can ensure greater penetration of high-value markets both in the EU and in third countries, he said.

Dr Dillon was speaking at the launch of Beef 2016, a major Teagasc Open Day that will take place on July 5, at Grange, Dunsany, Co Meath. Thousands of cattle farmers from all over the country are set to attend the FBD-sponsored event.

Teagasc said that at this time of uncertainty in the sector, BEEF 2016 will focus on the application of technologies which will help farmers to increase profitability in their business.

The main issues facing both suckler beef and dairy calf-to-beef producers will be addressed. The flagship Derrypatrick and Maternal Index herds will be on display.

Technical updates will be provided on how to exploit superior genetics, improve performance from pasture, and plan your herd health.

An exhibition on health and safety will cover the main risk areas on farms and will provide advice on how to manage the dangers effectively. Key industry experts will join with Teagasc at the various villages and on stands to discuss individual farmer queries.

In addition, meat industry representatives, the main beef breed societies and AI breeding companies will be represented.

A live exhibition will also take place on the ideal animal to meet the specifications for different market outlets.

A special forum will include a panel discussion with a number of young people on how they are planning to develop sustainable family beef farming into the future .
I reserve my protests for the ballot box.

But the messing and uncertainty over the future of the utility in the last several months has given me pause for thought. This time out my payment might not be quite as automatic as it usually is. I suspect Im not alone in that.

People respond in different ways to the bills and notifications from the Revenue or the local authority or whichever government authority is responsible for collecting a particular charge. It seems people are consistently more likely to pay accurately and on time when they feel they have been fairly treated.

A lot of the time, of course, we dont have a choice about paying taxes or levies  all employees for example have to pay their tax whether they like it or not through the PAYE system.

On the occasions when the general populace does get an opportunity to decide, more often than not people decide in a positive fashion. But when the taxpayer feels that he or she is being hard done by, that generates resistance of its own.

The Household Charge in 2012 was met with considerable resistance, as are water charges now.

The TV licence was to be replaced by some kind of public service broadcasting levy. This was dropped. There was to be an annual charge levied on householders with septic tanks. This was ultimately reduced to a token payment of 5 for registration, but what has become of that since?

Now the current Government is reneging on water charges and abandoning those law-abiding people who have already paid them. That is creating an atmosphere whereby Im not the only one who will think twice about paying an Irish Water charge.

Official indecision is corrosive to compliance. Published almost unnoticed in recent days was an update on Local Property Tax compliance, another unpopular charge on the list.

When it was introduced, the surprising thing about LPT was just how high the compliance rates were. Its predecessor, the Household Charge was only paid by about two thirds of households. LPT collection was devolved to Revenue in 2013, and very rapidly compliance levels hit the high 90%s  97% in 2015.

LPT compliance, however, for 2016 is running at only 87%. Thats a full 10 percentage point drop, and that is very significant.

Its not clear what the reasons might be for the extent of such a fall-off in compliance, but I would be quite sure that the lack of determination to enforce water charges is now beginning to spill over into other areas.

The current dithering around water charge  the notion that they could be pushed back to await a decision by a committee and remain in limbo until that decision is taken  has implications not just for water charges but other forms of taxes and government levies.

The academics have a term for this kind of public response  they call it tax morale. The idea behind tax morale is that taxpayers are indeed more willing to pay taxes and levies if they feel they are being fairly treated, if they feel the charge is fair and equitable, if they feel they are contributing in some way to public services and also, very importantly, if they feel that they are not isolated by complying with the requirement.

If compliance with a government charge is normal behaviour, people are much more likely to pay. One outcome of the 70 days of deliberation in forming a government is that payment of water charges is no longer normal behaviour and non-compliance has become mainstream.

This is fine as far as it goes, but the country still has to be run, and public services and utilities still have to be funded. I spoke to a senior engineer in one of the local authorities recently, who was dismayed at the prospect of Irish Water being suspended.

He felt that progress was really being made on improving the supply and quality of water, and that the current debacle would at best stall, or at worst undo a lot of the good work already carried out.

* Brian Keegan is director of taxation with Chartered Accountants Ireland.
Increasing by 55m the spend for rent supplement will deliver just one, single additional three-bed house and will simply line the pockets of landlords, according to internal government documents, seen by the Irish Examiner.

And the social-housing list is estimated to be overstated by 25%, because the names of dead people have not been removed.

This year, the Government will spend an additional 20m, and 55m in a full year, on rent supplement, because of an agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail to increase payments by 15%. The deal was done, during the talks to form the Government, a number of weeks back.

Calls to increase rent-supplement payments have escalated, as the housing crisis has bitten hard in the past 18 months. The previous, Fine Gael-Labour government had been reluctant to increase rent supplement to address the housing crisis, and new internal documents from the Department of Social Protection have raised alarm at the agreed increase.

According to the documents, the additional spend will, at best, deliver an additional 150 units, including just one three-bed family home in the Dublin area.

The department is extremely caustic about the additional spend, saying it represents a disporportionate cost to the exchequer and the taxpayer.

The increase has been severely criticised by the former junior minister at the Department of Social Protection. Senator Kevin Humphreys said the increase was a bad deal for the taxpayer and would not help those affected by the housing crisis. He said the only solution was to increase the supply of homes.

Senator Kevin Humphreys

Mr Humphreys said: Fine Gael have agreed with Fianna Fail to increase the rent supplement by 15%, but how many additional units will that deliver? Barely none.

To raise the rent supplement, and Fine Gael have accepted it will not create one extra single unit, it will cost 55.5m of taxpayers money. How does that make any sense?

Fine Gael TD for Kildare North, Benard Durkin, conceded that the additional spend would not improve the delivery of homes.

Not one is the answer. Increasing rent supplement is not going to deliver one additional unit, he said. Not one extra house will it deliver. It is merely bringing up the income of whoever is renting the house to an acceptable market level.

The impact of increasing limits, at a time of constrained supply in the private, rented market, will increase costs disproportionately for the exchequer, with little or no new housing available to recipients, i.e. increase the amounts given to landlords, Mr Humphreys said.

The Department of Social Protection says that increasing rent supplement when there is a supply crisis only benefits the landlords and does nothing to increase the supply of homes.

And it has emerged that the taxpayer will pay 46m this year to house homeless families in hotels, which the new housing minister, Simon Coveney, says is unacceptable.

Housing minister, Simon Coveney

Rent supplement is the States means of housing families and individuals who cannot afford to do so by themselves. The scheme is supporting 57,600 people, at a cost of 267m, this year.

There were 20,100 rent-supplement tenancies awarded during 2015, and 3,000 during the first three months of 2016.

In addition, the department, in conjunction with Threshold, operates a special protocol in the Dublin and Cork areas, where supply issues are particularly acute.

Nationwide, 7,570 rent supplement households have received help to retain or acquire rented accommodation through increased rental payments.
It is expected a decision will emerge early this week on whether there will in fact be a contest for someone to take over from Joan Burton or whether one figure will be backed.

Mr Howlin yesterday signalled that he wants the parliamentary party to decide, while Mr Kelly says that the thousands of members in the party should ultimately choose. If there is a contest and more than one person runs, a conference will be called and all members will have a vote. However, if just one person runs, no such vote takes place.

Ultimately, the decision on what happens will be made by Labour TDs this week, one of whom is needed to act as a seconder for anyone considering running.

There are mixed reports on whether Mr Kelly can secure a seconder and whether most TDs instead want Mr Howlin to have the leadership without a contest.

Mr Kelly though yesterday insisted he would be a candidate before the nominations close on Friday.

I dont perceive therell be any issues in relation to the process, he said at an event in Dublin. I look forward to meeting with everyone on Tuesday and talking it through. Im satisfied Ill be a candidate. I plan to put my name forward. I look forward to it. Theres a big challenge ahead for the party.

The former environment minister said he had received much support since his appearance on the Late Late Show on Friday, where he said he wanted to be leader.

Ive had hundreds of people onto me since Friday night, he said. This is a decision for the Labour Party members. Weve thousands of members. We need to the ensure that the decision we come to is driven by what the members want.

Mr Howlin said he wanted to play whatever part the parliamentary party gave him in rebuilding the party.

Im sure that we will have consensus within the party about how to bring things forward, he said, adding that he wanted to resurrect the party.

Meanwhile, SIiptu president Jack OConnor called on the party to form an alliance in opposition with the Social Democrats.
The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), which represents more than 1,000 priests across the country, and a four-man delegation of Irish bishops, are due to hold their first face-to-face talks in three years on Thursday.

Fr Tony Flannery, a founding member of the group, has admitted he fears the meeting is little more than a token gesture from Church leaders and will not pave the way for significant reform.

Speaking ahead of the talks, which take place at Columba Centre in Maynooth, Co Kildare, the veteran Redemptorist said: Experience leads me to have little hope or expectation from the meeting. I suspect the motivation of the Bishops Conference is to quieten us, and stop us from saying they wont meet us.

Fr Flannery, one of several clerics silenced by the Vaticans Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith for his liberal views, also called for ongoing dialogue between the clergy and church authorities to tackle to the vocations crisis.

Writing on his website, tonyflannery.com, he said: The ACP delegation is strong, and maybe they will be able to get something useful out of [the meeting]. I hope so. But in order to be anyway worthwhile, it would have to be the first of a series of meetings. And that is unlikely. I think that it is fair to say that the Irish clergy, and indeed the Irish Church, are tired and demoralised. There is a terrible dearth of leadership. Trying to bring about any meaningful change seems more and more to me like beating ones head against a stone wall.

Fr Flannery, 69, from Athenry, was suspended from public Ministry four years ago for his liberal views on women priests, homosexuality, and contraception.

Although he has conceded he is unlikely to be allowed to practise again, he has gained a high profile outside Ireland, particularly the US, where he is often invited as a speaker on church reform.
In a decision to be published today, the Council of Europes Committee of Social Rights says the Government has failed to provide sufficient accommodation, that conditions are poor in many sites and that Traveller evictions are not handled properly.

The 55-page decision says 21 years after a taskforce identified the need for 1,000 transient halting bays to provide for short duration stays, just 54 are in existence and not all function as proper transient sites.

Moreover, this estimate did not take into account the growth in the Traveller population. Only five local authorities provide transient sites, it says. It notes that the Government does not dispute the figures.

It also says that 361 families are living full-time on unauthorised sites and that the number of Traveller families sharing housing was increasing, with overcrowding a concern.

On living conditions at halts, the committee says: A not insignificant number of sites are in poor condition, lack maintenance and are badly located.

Three of the five violations relate to evictions with the committee stressing that illegal occupants must be given reasonable notice, consulted with a view to finding alternatives to eviction and provided with legal aid.

Where evictions are carried out, they must be done so with respect for the dignity of the occupants, avoided in winter and accompanied by proposals for alternative accommodation. The committee says that Irish law does not explicitly provide for any of these safeguards.

While the committee notes that the Government maintains that in practice local authorities do consult with Travellers threatened with eviction and do seek to provide alternative accommodation, it considers that in the absence of an obligation to do so, it cannot be stated that in all cases this practice is followed.

Moreover, there is no evidence that such practices are followed where Travellers are evicted from land not belonging to a local authority.

The violations breach Article 16 of the European Social Charter which affirms the right of the family to appropriate social, legal, and economic protection.

The case was brought to the committee three years ago by the Irish Traveller Movement and the European Roma Rights Centre who made 14 individual complaints, five of which have been upheld.

The committee noted that the Government had rejected the allegations in their entirety and asked the committee to declare the complaint unfounded in all respects.

Welcoming the ruling, Bernard Joyce, director of the Irish Traveller Movement, called for the law on evictions to be amended.

He also said an immediate review of Traveller accommodation was needed and said the The National Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee should be given powers to direct local authorities that dont live up to their responsibilities towards Travellers.

An independent National Traveller Accommodation Agency is vital to provide real results. In light of these findings, the time to that right is now, he said.

The Government has been under pressure to improve accommodation for Travellers since the Carrickmines fire last October, in which 10 people died.
The Star Wars Boeing 767-300 aircraft, with some 260 people on board, landed at around 2.30pm.

Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey, and Adam Driver, who plays Kylo Ren, will shoot key scenes, understood to include Rey undergoing Jedi training, in and around Brow Head in West Cork until Wednesday.

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) had enforced a no-fly zone in the area, in a bid to block drones from operating.

Video by Dan Linehan and report by Eoin English

The production is then expected to move to the Ceann Sibeal headland in Kerry, where Jedi temple sets have been built. The IAA is enforcing a 21-day no-fly zone in the Dingle peninsula, banning the operation of craft within an 8km radius of Sybil Head and Dunmore Head.

Scenes from the last movie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, were shot on Skellig Michael off the Kerry coast.

EARLIER: The makers of Star Wars had to draft in a convoy of water trucks today due to a lack of rain in sunny Malin Head earlier this week.

Up to 20 tankers filled with hundreds of gallons of water made their way to Irelands most northerly point to create rain for the blockbuster.

Its not often Ireland is accused of being too dry and sunny, but action on the multimillion-dollar production temporarily stalled over the weekend while the crew awaited the arrival of the water lorries to help create some atmospheric scenes.

The North-west has been basking in double-digit temperatures and cloudless, azure-blue skies.

But it seems the Star Wars film-makers were banking on the Emerald Isles reputation for being wet. The unexpected turn of events has caused giggles in the area.

Movie makers, take note. This is sunny Malin Head, Irelands premier film location  rain only if you can make it! local businessman Ali Farren joked on Facebook.

The Hollywood stars have since been settling into their new film location with Hamill even taking time out to interact with local people on Twitter.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his ministers yesterday held the first all-party conference since the formation of the government, as well as since the partys disappointing general election results.

Hundreds of councillors, senators, and TDs, as well as constituency representatives attended the special national conference at the Sheraton Hotel in Athlone, Co Westmeath.

The behind-closed doors national consultative conference was held to discuss the programme for government agreed between Fine Gael and Independents earlier this month, as well as the minority support deal with Fianna Fail and the general election outcome.

Party sources at the meeting said it was constructive and was also trying to bridge the gap with councillors. This was especially so after local representatives were very bitter after the 2014 local election when there was no arrangement made to take on board their complaints and no report done. Following the general election, a report is being compiled by Marion Coy, who heads a party think-tank and is former head of the Galway and Mayo Institute of Technology.

Mr Kenny, Housing Minister Simon Coveney and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald were among those to address yesterdays meeting. One source explained: The disconnect between headquarters and ground level was raised, especially the local decision levels and how they ultimately cant influence which candidates are chosen [for elections]. Some candidates were forced on areas.

Ministers also said that working with Fianna Fail and relying on its support to keep the minority government in place wont be easy, added sources.

Meanwhile, Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin is expected to announce his new front bench in the Dail this week. Several new female TDs are expected to be given prominent roles. Mr Martin though is not expected to announce a deputy party leader.
Prisoners are paid a daily cash allowance by the Irish Prison Service (IPS) while serving time behind bars, but may also receive bus money at the end of their custodial sentence.

A total of 1,040,431 was spent by the IPS on transport-related costs for prisoners upon their release between 2009 and 2015, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Last year alone, transport for ex-prisoners cost the IPS 180,849 across the States 14 places of detention.

The highest amount sanctioned by prison governors for this purpose since 2009 related to Limerick Prison, where 151,538 was paid out for taxis, trains and buses over the seven-year period.

Prisoners released from Cork Prison, which has an operational capacity of 210, were given a total of 140,913 in bus money during the same period, while 135,178 was provided to prisoners discharged from Midlands Prison in Portlaoise.

The next-highest bill for released prisoners transport was at Shelton Abbey, which is an open prison in Co Wicklow with an operational capacity of 115. A total of 123,302 was paid out for this purpose since 2009.

Another open, low-security facility at Loughan House in Co Cavan was responsible for a bill of 113,177 for post-release transport costs, according to the records released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Among the lowest costs incurred for this purpose was 891 at Arbour Hill, which is centrally located in Dublin; and 5,711 at Cloverhill Prison in Clondalkin, Dublin 22.

The next-lowest was 15,424 at Portlaoise Prison.

The IPS has previously stated that the provision of expenses for transport costs to prisoners upon their release was at the discretion of the governor at each institution and was administered on the basis of individual needs.

Money for subsistence and other costs is not dispensed by the IPS but a process is in place by which prisoners can liaise with a Community Welfare Officer regarding entitlements prior to their release, the IPS said.

Prisoners also collect a daily cash allowance while in custody, which can be used to purchase discretionary items from prison tuck shops or saved and made available to prisoners upon their release.

Almost 22m was provided to prisoners in this form between 2009 and 2015.
New documents reveal GSOC raised the independence of the inquiry with barrister Sean Guerin after he gave Enda Kennys officials a copy of a letter he sent to the ombudsmans offices.

There has been criticism in recent days about the initial probe by barrister Sean Guerin into claims of garda malpractice after the larger OHiggins inquiry last week contradicted several of his findings.

Former justice minister Alan Shatter, who resigned after critical findings by Mr Guerin, has accused the lawyer of rushing to judgement with his probe.

Questions have also been raised about why Mr Guerin copied Mr Kennys office when he told GSOC he would not read its files before finishing his report.

Freedom of Information documents obtained by the Irish Examiner reveal that lawyers for GSOC raised the independence of Mr Guerins inquiry with him.

GSOC lawyers also suggested he could extend the time period and asked him to refrain from completing the inquiry without meeting them or considering GSOCs own files.

In a letter from firm Arthur Cox to Mr Guerin on April 25  two weeks before the report was completed  the lawyers offered him a meeting with their client GSOC, adding: In these circumstances, you might please confirm that you will not conclude your inquiry without having met us and considered documentation from GSOC, which we hope, subject to finding out further details regarding the inquirys document management can be made available to you in early course. In this regard we refer to your terms of reference which allows for an extension of time.

GSOC lawyers also highlighted how Mr Guerin had copied the Department of the Taoiseach on a letter he sent to the garda ombudsman, where he declared that he would not have time to read its files before finishing his inquiry.

While the Department of the Taoiseach was the head department for the Guerin inquiry, its role was to provide administrative and financial support but not to have any insight into the workings of the probe.

Mr Shatter initially claimed the Guerin inquiry gave him no choice but to resign and that he also left so as not to create any difficulties for Fine Gael at the forthcoming local and European elections. Mr Shatter later claimed Mr Kenny encouraged him to resign.

GSOC lawyers raise the fact that Mr Guerin sent the same three-page letter to Mr Kennys officials as to them about not having time to read GSOCs voluminous documents.

This was two weeks before the report was handed over to the Taoiseachs office.

Finally, we note that you have copied the Department of An Taoiseach with your letter of 25 April 2014. We understand from your terms of reference that your inquiry is an independent inquiry.

For this reason, we have not copied the Department of An Taoiseach on our response as we are unclear as to their role in the inquiry, it says.

Mr Shatter last week said in a letter to Mr Kenny that he wants the Guerin report withdrawn from circulation and the Dail record also corrected.

He also reiterated his view that there was a lack of fair procedure in how that initial report was completed and that there were reservations about Mr Guerin prematurely concluding his work without considering GSOCs documentation.
Ms Burton described as tepid commitments made to a living wage in the programme for government and she warned that failure to strive for greater equality would diminish the gains from economic recovery.

Ms Burton was speaking at a commemoration ceremony at Arbour Hill Cemetery on the 100th anniversary of the execution of James Connolly, one of the 1916 Rising leaders and co-founder of the Labour Party.

Connollys core vision was one of equality and its a vision the Labour Party has sought to fulfil from its foundation, she said. Connollys vision lives and that is crucial precisely because of the many challenges we still must overcome as a country.

She said the challenges were not just national.

Globalised problems like inequality, tax avoidance and evasion, the hollowing out of workers rights, and the dismantling of individual freedoms need globalised solutions, she said.

Moreover, we must be alert to the siren messages now emerging here in Ireland to frustrate legal changes to strengthen workers rights in situations such as the clerys scandal last year, not to mention the tepid nature of any commitent to a living wage in the new programme for government.

From left: Siptu president Jack OConnor, outgoing Labour leader Joan Burton, and James Connollys eldest grandson, also James.

Ms Buron quoted Connolly as once saying: Our defeat... did not in the slightest degree affect the truth of the principles for which we contested.

I suspect he and the founders [of the Republic] would marvel at how far we have come in some respects and be immensley fustrated at how far we have to go in others, she said.

One hundred years on, there is still so much unfinished business for the party and followers of the inheritance of James Connolly to achieve.

Earlier, Ms Burton joined fellow Labour members, trade unionists, and representatives of the Connolly family at a service in the nearby Capuchin Friary beside the Capuchin Day Centre which provides hundreds of meals daily and up to 2,000 food parcels weekly to people in need.

During the service, special guest President Michael D Higgins said he believed James Connolly and the founders of the Irish Citizen Army would be saddened to find, 100 years after the rebellion, that there were still families short of the necessities of life.

He said the Capuchins had helped those in need in 1916 and he had seen for himself during private visits how they were still doing so.

We live a fragile existence on this planet and were at our best when we care for each other, he said.

Following the service, the attendance moved to Arbour Hill where a wreath-laying ceremony took place.

Siptu president Jack OConnor told the gathering it was unfortunate that the 1916 Proclamations pledge to cherish all the children of the nation equally had still to be realised.
Nancy Shanahan was still waiting for news on the whereabouts of her son, Aengus Gussie Shanahan, when she died. Ms Shanahan, 74, died peacefully at University Hospital Limerick on Friday.

The former school teacher is survived by her husband Bob, sons Roibeard and Gussie, and daughters Reiltin and Grainne.

In an interview in February, Ms Shanahan said that before she died, all she wanted was to know what happened to her son.

Bob and Nancy Shanahan said they believe their son was murdered after he left a pub on Josephs St, Limerick City, on the night of February 11, 2000.

Speaking in her home last February as she appealed for information, Ms Shanahan said: I miss him every day. His birthday was the 23rd of January, he would have been 36.

He was the baby of the family, she said. He was a lovely child, but he got in with the wrong people. He wasnt cute enough to pick the right people to go around with.

Pleading for information, she said: Id love to know what happened to him. I would love to know where is he is before I die.

Ms Shanahan was devastated following her sons disappearance and suffered a stroke in 2001. Her body yesterday lay in repose at Thompsons Funeral Home, Limerick. Her requiem Mass takes place today at 11am, with burial afterwards at Castlemungret Cemetery.

The Shanahan family has requested family flowers only and donations to Limerick Marine Search and Rescue Service, which conducted long-scale searches for Gussie Shanahan.

Bob Shanahan, 72, also made a direct appeal last February to a man who contacted him in 2007 about Gussies disappearance. Im appealing for them to come back to us to end our agony, he said.

Gussie finished work at Dell in Castletroy on the afternoon he disappeared, before meeting his father at Bank of Ireland on OConnell St, where Mr Shanahan was branch manager.

He said he was staying out that night with two friends in a flat across from St Josephs St.

Gardai have established that Gussie went to Coopers bar on St Josephs St but did not stay in his friends flat.

CCTV footage shows Gussies last recorded movements were exiting the bar alone at 10.30pm and walking onto Old School House lane.

Gardai have appealed for anyone with information to contact Roxboro Rd Garda Station on 061 214340, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666111, or any Garda station.

Speaking last February, Mr Shanahan said: We reckon that a few people know what happened, and we hope that somebody will at least have the courage to eventually to tell us where we could get [Gussies] body and give him a Christian burial.

Nancy and I are both now in our 70s and we just want his body so we can get closure on the whole thing before we die. Otherwise well come back and haunt those people.
The Irish Postmasters Union (IPU) says the policy will benefit only private banks, while being disastrous for post offices, which handle almost half the departments 87m individual payments annually.

Ned OHara, IPU general secretary, said: Once a social protection recipient moves from cash payment to electronic funds transfer [EFT], their custom is lost forever to the post office.

An Post is 100% State-owned so it makes no sense for the Department of Social Protection to hand its own business over to private banks. This Government needs to back its own post office network.

The new programme for government acknowledges the importance to the post office network of the contract for cash social welfare payments, which is valued at 54m annually.

In the document the parties state: We will actively encourage payments at post offices. They go on to say they will support the introduction and rollout by An Post of an e-payment account during 2016.

Meanwhile, however, the department is continuing to encourage welfare recipients to switch from cash to EFT which currently can only be handled by the banks.

The department has said that cash transactions via post offices cost six times more to process than EFTs.

It has stopped short of making payment conditional on agreeing to EFT  although this idea has been mooted  but new recipients are encouraged to opt for payment through a bank account, and switching from cash to EFT is promoted to existing recipients.

Mr OHara called for a freeze on any further switching until An Post is in a position to offer a proper alternative to the banks.

The new Government has committed to encouraging post office usage, he said.

Our message is clear  the single most important step Government can take is to halt migration of welfare payments business to the banks. He was speaking at the IPUs annual conference, which called for swift action on the recommendations of the Post Office Business Development Group, which reported in January on ways of keeping post offices financially viable.

Along with the e-payment accounts, the group called for the piloting of service hub post offices that would act as one-stop shops for a range of Government services and would also be allowed to process motor tax payments. The programme for government contains commitments to examine the feasibility of both initiatives but the IPU says it wants concrete action within 100 days.
Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald joined the chorus of demands yesterday, saying Commissioner Noirin OSullivan needed to make it clear that Sgt McCabe was acting in good faith when he made allegations of Garda malpractice.

The issue is expected to be raised this week in the Dail, when debate will take place on the OHiggins inquiry, which examined claims of malpractice against the force.

Speaking to RTE yesterday, Ms McDonald said the issue of claims that Sgt McCabe had at some stage acted with malice needed to be addressed.

Frances Fitzgerald as Minister [for Justice] and as Tanaiste needs to come forward and make statements.

I also think the Garda Commissioner needs to come out at this stage and make it absolutely plain that at no stage was the Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe acting in anything other than good faith.

A statement to the media by the Garda Commissioners representatives at the weekend said that under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, she could not by law comment on any evidence or submission given to the judicial inquiry.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has called on Ms OSullivan to address the claims and is expected to raise the issue in the Dail this week. Ms Fitzgerald will take questions in the Dail tomorrow, when the issue is expected to be raised by Opposition TDs.

Asked at the weekend whether Ms OSullivan enjoyed her full confidence, a statement issued on Ms Fitzgeralds behalf said: There is no question of issues of confidence in the Garda Commissioner arising.

Her spokesman did not add to that yesterday when questions were put to the ministers department.

The Irish Examiner last week revealed that documents from the OHiggins inquiry show Ms OSullivans legal team claimed Sgt McCabe was motivated by malice when he highlighted malpractice in the force.

Documents from the OHiggins Commission, which were not published, showed the inquiry was told by senior counsel for Ms OSullivan that evidence would be produced to show that Sgt McCabe had told two other officers that he was making his complaints because of malice he harboured towards a senior officer.

This was found not to be the case. Furthermore, in the final report for the inquiry, the retired judge stated that Sgt McCabe was an entirely truthful witness and his bona fides were fully accepted.

Sgt McCabes counsel, Michael McDowell SC, also, during hearings for the inquiry, objected to the accusation by Garda management that his client was motivated by malice, during the private sessions.
It is estimated that one in five GP visits by children and adolescents involve complaints with a psychological element, including stomach pain and headaches with no diagnosable medical cause, as well as more severe and debilitating chronic conditions.

Vincent McDarby of Crumlin Childrens Hospital is a member of the Psychological Society of Ireland and heads up an international conference on chronic pain and medically unexplained symptoms in children taking place in Dublin today.

The severity of unexplained chronic conditions in children should not be underestimated just because there is an underlying psychological cause, Mr McDarby said. In extreme cases, weve seen children go blind from pseudo-seizures, he said. .

Pseudo-seizures appear to be medical in origin but do not show up on an ECG test. They are fairly common among children who have epilepsy and may be anxious about having seizures.

European studies have found that children may be more likely than adults to show physical symptoms when suffering from emotional distress or anxiety because of their immature verbal skills and lack of vocabulary for expressing their emotions.

Another study found that one in 100 children and adolescents met the criteria for somatic disorder, where childrens health is put at risk by complaints of a psychosomatic origin.

They may be avoiding anxiety-provoking situations, for example trying to avoid school, or the child could be in a household where theres a lot going on and they are not getting the attention that they need; either way, they are expressing distress and need to be listened to, said Mr McDarby. Just saying theyre making it up is not the answer.

Affected children have often had an original medical issue, but the symptoms are prolonged beyond what could be expected after treatment.

Coping with medically unexplained symptoms can be stressful for children and their families and can affect a childs school attendance, dependence on their parents and ability to attend extra-curricular activities.

The conference, run by the psychological society of Ireland, includes speeches from experts in pain management and paediatric psychology. It hopes to build what Mr McDarby describes as a route-map for parents and children whose symptoms are not explained by regular medical diagnostics.

This could often include more holistic form of treatment including psychological therapies.

Mr McDarby said there is still a stigma attached to labelling an illness as psychological in origin, and that it is important to reassure parents that their childrens symptoms are being taken seriously.

However, parents need to understand that their childs treatment may require more than a simple medical approach.
Council officials said a warm welcome will be given to anybody with an interest in the redevelopment at the Have Your Say event which will take place at the Hibernian Hotel, Mallow from 6pm to 8pm on Monday, May 30.

Artists impressions of the proposed project will be available on the night and council officials will be on hand to answer questions and take on board the publics views. Kanturk/Mallow municipal area officer Liz Donovan described it as a very exciting project.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being negotiated between the European Commission and US government is aimed at boosting trade between the two economic powerhouses.

The Commission argues that the EU economy could benefit to the tune of 199bn a year and the Irish Government is firmly behind TTIP, despite staunch opposition across much of Europe.
PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Monday morning, the Jackson County Board of Supervisors came to a highly anticipated vote on whether the county would call for bids on ambulance service, long provided by Acadian Ambulance.

Louisiana-based Acadian has provided service in Jackson County since 2000, and the contract has not been subjected to bid in years. Some county officials have said they're satisfied with Acadian's work, while others have raised questions about the county's oversight and accountability.

Monday's discussion included remarks by Chris Cirillo, Regional Director of Operations for AMR Gulf Coast. AMR provides ambulance services across the country, including Mississippi and specifically, Harrison and recently awarded Hancock counties; Acadian is a regional operator that provides services across much of Texas and Louisiana.

Cirillo was present to discuss reasons why the board should consider proposals from other ambulance providers, by providing details of alleged failures on the part of Acadian. Bennie French, community and governmental relations representative for Acadian, was on hand to answer to allegations about Acadian by one of its competitors.

Cirillo began the public comment section of the meeting by presenting to the board about why he thought they would make a proper choice by gauging offers for another ambulance service.

"I want to thank this board first for keeping its promises to restore integrity and accountability with your ambulance service contract and all contracts by seeking proposals," he said. "At the urging of Bennie French of Acadian Ambulance services a few weeks ago over in Hancock County, that board put their medical service contract out to bid. It is evident that Mr. French and this board must agree that this ambulance service contract should go to bid. It is curious that Acadian is now asking this very board to rescind your previous vote to solicit for proposals for ambulance services."

"I ask you to consider the following," Cirillo said. "Since January of 2016, AMR has been asked by Acadian to respond to Jackson County 11 times for routine 911 calls, not mass casualties or disasters. In previous years, Acadian has asked AMR to respond to your county more than 80 times, not for mass casualties. A couple of months ago, AMR received a phone call from Ocean Springs dispatch asking our company to respond to a person who had fallen. Ocean Springs dispatch said the nearest Acadian Ambulance was responding from Louisiana."

French responded to these accusations saying, "in our 45 years of business, Acadian Ambulance services has always placed our patients care paramount to any competitive nature so the fact of the matter is that if AMR has a closer angle to take to get to the patient immediately that we could, we will give them a call."

Following the back and forth, the board decide to move ahead with a Request for Proposals, and hope to present their findings at the next meeting slated for June 6. Bidders will then have 30 days to respond and the board will potentially make a decision in July.
The move came ahead of todays US Department of Transportation (DoT) deadline for submissions on its tentative decision to grant a foreign-carrier permit to Dublin-based Norwegian Air International (NAI).

The technical certification is one of the final regulatory steps required by the airline, but it can not launch the services without the permit.

Aviation news outlets reported, over the weekend, that the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the national body for aviation regulation and safety oversight in the US, has now certified three Norwegian Boeing 737-800 aircraft as ETOPS 180-compliant.

The certification authorises the specified, twin-engine aircraft to fly routes within three hours of suitable airports. Until now, Norwegians fleet of 100 Boeing 737-800s have only been certified to ETOPS-120 standards.

The FAAs decision will allow the low-fares carrier to begin using the jets on its planned, Cork-Boston route, which was due to launch this month, but which was deferred because of delays in securing the foreign-carrier permit. The airline also plans to operate a Cork-to-New York route next year.

NAIs foreign-carrier permit application is facing stiff opposition from US and European labour unions. Unions for pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics staged a rally outside the White House last week, calling on congressmen to support a proposed bill that could block the permit.

They have accused NAI of locating its headquarters in Ireland, under a flag of convenience model, to dodge tough Norwegian labour laws, which prohibit them from hiring contract pilots who may work for lower wages, and have also claimed that NAIs parent company uses low-paid Asian crew.

The airline has rejected their claims, saying the service will create thousands of jobs on both sides of the Atlantic, and will boost trade and tourism.

In fact, NAI does not have a single Asian-based crewmember or pilot, and Norwegian has continuously publically stated  and committed in writing to the US DoT  that US- and EU-based crew will be used on NAI transatlantic services, an NAI spokesman said.

The spokesman said the airline follows the rules and regulations in all the markets in which it operates, and offers its employees competitive wages and conditions.

In a final burst of submissions in recent days, Irish business, tourism, and political interests have urged Irish-American congressmen to support the service. Shannon Airport also backed it, with a formal submission to the US DoT.

Mary Considine, acting CEO of the Shannon Group, the airports parent company, said Shannon Airport has been in discussions with the airline since 2014, and an agreement is in place for a transatlantic service, pending the success of the permit application.

As a longstanding, Irish transatlantic gateway airport, unique in Europe in offering the benefits of preclearance for passengers on both commercial and private aircraft, we have witnessed the economic benefits of direct transatlantic services, she said.
The handgun was found this morning in undergrowth close the house in Hollyhill where Ciara Sheehan was shot in the neck in the early hours yesterday.

Garda search teams had been scouring the area for evidence in the wake of the gun attack and Supt Con Cadogan described the recovery of the weapon as a significant development in the case.

The gun will now be subjected to detailed ballistics and forensic analysis to establish if it was the same weapon used in Sunday morning's gun attack.

Gardai are also examining threatening comments made on Facebook in the hours before the incident in which an individual threatened 'war' on named individuals.

Ms Sheehan, who was visiting her boyfriend, Dillon Cunningham at his house in Hollywood Estate, was shot through the window just after 1am when a firearm was discharged outside the home.

The house was one of several which had been attacked in the previous half an hour.

She suffered a bullet wound to her neck and was rushed by friends in a car to Cork University Hospital where she is now said to be in stable condition.

A bullet removed from her neck is also undergoing ballistic and forensic tests.

Two people, a man, 29 and a woman, 22, who were arrested nearby a short time later, are still being detained at separate Garda stations under the provisions of Section 30 of the

Offences Against the State Act, for questioning about the incident.

The gun attack has been linked to an ongoing feud between a violent and aggressive man, who is known to gardai, and members of the Cunningham family, described by neighbours as good, decent, honest people

PREVIOUSLY: Two people have been arrested after a woman was shot in the neck after a bullet was fired through the front window of her boyfriends family home.

The victim, named by neighbours as Ciara Sheehan, who is in her 20s, remained in a serious but stable condition in Cork University Hospital (CUH) last night after the shooting incident, linked to a feud on the northside of Cork City.

Ms Sheehan was visiting her boyfriend, Dillon Cunningham, at his family home at Hollywood Estate in Hollyhill when the gunman struck just after 1am yesterday.

She was injured after a firearm was discharged outside the terraced house. A bullet hole was visible in a panel in the front room window. The porch door was also smashed.

She was rushed by friends in a car to CUH, where she underwent emergency surgery. A bullet removed from her neck has been sent for forensic analysis.

Ciara Sheehan, who was shot in the neck after a gun attack on her boyfriends family home

Detectives were last night still questioning a man and a woman who were arrested in a car together soon afterwards, on nearby Harbour View Rd.

The man, in his late 20s, and the woman, in her mid-20s, were both detained under the provisions of Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. The man was taken to Gurranabraher Garda Station while the woman was taken to the Bridewell Garda Station for questioning.

The car has been seized for forensic analysis and the scene of the shooting was also sealed off for a full forensic and technical examination.

Woman, 23, is critical after being shot in the neck through the door of 37 Hollywood Est off Harbour View Rd #Cork pic.twitter.com/bMx8RUlPGR  Eoin English (@EoinBearla) May 15, 2016

Supt Con Cadogan, who is leading the investigation, described the injuries to the victim as non-life threatening but said she was extremely lucky not to have been more seriously injured.

He appealed for witnesses, or for anyone with information about the incident, to contact them.

We are particularly appealing for anyone who was in or around the Hollywood Estate area between 12.30am and 1.15am on Sunday morning, to contact us, he said.

Gardai at the scene of the shooting in Hollyhill, Cork City, yesterday morning

The gun attack was described by concerned neighbours as a major escalation of an ongoing feud between one local young man and members of the Cunningham family, who he described as good and decent neighbours.

Local TD and Sinn Fein justice spokesman Jonathan OBrien said his thoughts were with the victim of the shooting, who he said had become an innocent victim of the feud. He described the escalation of the feud as a worrying development and urged people to co-operate with gardai.
NO FAMILY has been left unscathed in Iraq, theyve been through the ringer.

A conversation with Maeve Higgins ends up in some unexpected places. The Cork comedian, who relocated to New York two years ago, was in Erbil in Iraq last month, doing a comedy workshop, and now shes trying to wrap her head around the whole experience in order to write about it for the New York Times.

I was asking my peers there if what we were doing was helpful and the answer was, Yes, the darker it gets the more we need the light. And they know. I remember Colin Murphy used to say that during the worst years of the Troubles, that was when the queues for the Empire, Belfasts comedy club, would be the longest.

The healing power of comedy in conflict zones is a far cry from putting cubes of cheese on cocktail sticks and decorating butterfly cakes with her sister Lilly for Fancy Vittles, her kitsch and kooky 2009 RTE comedy show, or taking to the stage for her distinctive blink-and-you-miss-it delivery in stand-up routines, but Higgins has been undergoing an evolution from comedian to writer, and her focus and trains of thought have matured as a result.

Basically, I used to express myself through stand-up. It was a compulsion to get out what I was thinking and feeling, but now its kind of drifted to writing instead, Higgins says. For the past four years, its been more about writing; I still love stand-up but I dont do as much.

BOOK DEAL

With two books under her belt  including last years Off You Go: Away From Home and Loving it. Sort of  Higgins has just signed a book deal with Penguin in the States. So now Ive got another book to somehow make, she says. Im doing loads of other bits and pieces, like every freelancer does.

The bits and pieces include guest appearances on Inside Amy Schumer, writing and co-hosting Startalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson for the National Geographic Channel, and her regular monthly show in Brooklyn with Jon Ronson, the UK author of Men who stare at Goats, who relocated to New York at the same time as Higgins did.

He was having a tough time settling in, but for me, as soon as I got off the plane I was like, Im hooome! So we made a show all about being new.

Despite New Yorks reputation as a tough town to get a break in, Higgins says audiences are very supportive. Its America, so people go like: Look at her, shes trying, and they basically applaud your effort, which doesnt happen at home. People are much more indulgent here in the US. Honestly, sometimes when I go to shows here it gets so supportive that Im going, Ah here, is anyone going to boo? Should I?

A trip home for the Cat Laughs Festival in Kilkenny at the start of June is on the cards, and shes looking forward to performing to her home audience too. When I perform at home, I dont have to put things in context, everyone just knows what Im talking about; its so bolstering, she says. Comedians love Cat Laughs because its a mixed bill and everybody does 20 minutes, with people who probably do very different comedy to you. Its brilliant to see how people work off each other.

One of five sisters, Higgins will take time to catch up with the women who share the same basic head when shes in Ireland. Theyre all in Cork and sometimes, in Cork, people think Im Lilly or when they see my other sisters they think theyre me. Its a mess, a real mess. Now, some of them have babies and when the babies are surrounded by aunts theyre just like, Mama? And looking at us blankly.

EVERTHING ELSE

Higgins sister, Lilly, has been a collaborator in the past, both on Fancy Vittles and on their Edinburgh show Ha Ha Yum, and has gone on to a career in food writing and broadcasting. Being from a big family can be overwhelming; does Higgins live abroad to assert her own identity, separate from all those sisters? She says thats not the case. Theyd actually be my reason to stay. Everything else is a reason to leave: work, money, opportunity. Everything else.

Theres an undercurrent to that everything else and it comes being a woman working in comedy. After years of being described as niche, and wondering where she was going wrong, part of Higgins maturing process has been to acknowledge the effect of gender politics on her work and life.

For a long time I thought this was just a feeling that I had; maybe I could be working harder, touring more, releasing DVDs like all the male Irish comics do and then suddenly I went, oh no, there are actually systems here that are bigger than you and that are effecting you.

I wish I lived in a world where it didnt make a difference being a woman in stand-up but unfortunately it does. Most male comedians can just do interviews and talk about their show or the book theyre selling, so it used to annoy me that I had to spend some time addressing the fact that Im a woman, but now Im happy to talk about it because theres so much sexism, both in comedy and in the world in general, and naming it is helpful, she says.

In Iraq, there were 40 comedians and four were women, so its a global thing that womens stories and womens voices are not as respected as mens are.

FEMALE EXPERIENCE

Higgins has always addressed female experiences: the ridiculous aspirations of the domestic goddess that are foisted upon women through the media, and darker undercurrents too, of low self-esteem and insecurity, and the kind of self-belittling Irish women are so adept at, have always been interwoven through her work.

She may be evolving, but so too does she stay the same: self-deprecating, grounded, and with a keen eye for the surreal and ludicrous moments that remind us who we really are.

I was walking my friends dog there; she lives in a really great apartment and has a cute dog so I basically borrowed her life while she was away. It was a real New York City moment: spring was coming and I was in the park with my dog and my coffee. Then the dog caught a rat and I dont know what happened, but the rat shouted. Like a man. Like, he roared, it wasnt like a squeak, he yelled. And the dog got such a fright that he barked, and I screamed and dropped my coffee. I went from a totally fake version of making it in the city to the real me, which is basically about dropping something hot on a shouting rat.

Maeve Higgins appears at the Cat Laughs Comedy Festival in Kilkenny over the bank holiday weekend, June 2-6. www.thecatlaughs.com
A WEST Cork family are extremely concerned about the safety of their relatives trapped in the Syrian civil war.

Clonakilty resident, Mohammad Alsaad, has been living in the town since 2002 and is married to local woman, Margaret McCarthy. They have two young children.

Born and raised in Syria, the ongoing killing of innocent people is heartbreaking for him. His parents and 24-year-old brother managed to escape in February last year. They now live in Clonakilty, but his sisters, brothers, and 14 nieces and nephews remain in Damascus.

Alsaad said: They are scared of the camps, they will stay in Syria rather than go through the camps. He funded his parents and brothers departure from war-torn Syria. Following three attempts to get a visa, they were finally successful, taking a 24-hour-flight from Syria via Lebanon, to Dublin.

His family had to flee their family home when it was shelled by tanks and guns. For several months, all of the family, including several adults and 14 children, lived in a small apartment. During this time, his brother Ahmad, who now lives in Clonakilty, left the apartment to meet friends and was imprisoned by the government for two weeks. He was beaten and not allowed to sit down for the time that he was imprisoned.

His parents moved to another house in a rural town for a year. There, they lived without running water and electricity and had to endure a very cold winter.

Alsaad said: I never thought my father would want to leave Syria, but he asked me to help him escape. Now, he looks at the news every day, upset and worrying about the people back home.

A few months after arriving in Clonakilty, Alsaads father became very ill with diabetes and had to receive emergency care. Alsaad is convinced his father would not have survived if he had remained in Syria.

He recalls how, up until 2011, Syria was a beautiful place to visit and how his wife Margaret loved to spend her holidays there. Alsaad, a Muslim, said it was a nation where every religion lived in harmony, but now the country is in turmoil.

Carmel Nic Airt, principal of Gaelscoil Mhichil Ui Choileain, Clonakilty

Meanwhile, Carmel Nic Airt, principal of Gaelscoil Mhichil Ui Choileain, Clonakilty, is in Greece in a bid to assist the refugees fleeing persecution. Nic Airt had spent weeks in Leros, where she worked in the kitchens and helped the refugees to learn English. Heartbroken by what she had seen, she was inspired to lead a fundraising campaign in West Cork raising in excess of 20,000. She also joined forces with people throughout Co Cork to collect clothes, medicine, and food for a lorry supplied by Caulfield Transport which travelled to Greece.

Speaking from a refugee camp in Piraeus, Ms Nic Airt described the changes she witnessed. Since March 20, refugees entering Greece will be deported to Turkey as part of a deal with the EU. The biggest change of all soon became apparent: The air of hopelessness and despondency among the refugees still there. Last time, even though conditions were terrible and there was huge overcrowding, they were still upbeat and had some hope.

Since March 20, refugees are being detained in hot spots, which essentially means they are locked into camps, until they receive travel documents. They could be in these camps without adequate food and water for an indefinite period.

Dr Maria Hurley, a GP at VHI Swiftcare, Cork city, hopes to return to Greece after volunteering there for over two weeks, last month. At a camp on the Macedonian border, she treated people for a range of medical issues.

Dr Maria Hurley on the Macedonian border, where she treated people with a range of issues

Sitting around campfires with nothing to burn but plastic is causing the refugees to get watery eyes and asthma, said Dr Hurley, who was impressed by the dignity of the beautiful Syrian people.

There are people with diabetes who dont have tablets. I came across a lot of people with diarrhoea, headlice, and scabies.

I met a pharmacist who had a normal job, now he is queuing for food. I met a poor woman with a lump in her breast. If she was here she could get a biopsy, I dont know what will happen her. I was speaking to one man whose wife was shot, he has five children in the camp with him. Everyone has someone killed in the war. It is a horrible situation.

According to a Department of Justice spokesperson, the Government has agreed to take in 4,000 people in need of international protection; 520 of these will be taken in as programme refugees, with 263 admitted so far. Arrangements for the admission of the remainder are ongoing.

The balance is expected to arrive on a phased basis this year. The spokesperson said 2,622 will be relocation asylum seekers, but, so far, only 10 have arrived, with 31 more expected in the coming weeks. Ireland has recently pledged to take another 40 asylum seekers from Greece.

The spokesperson said: The mechanism by which the balance of the 4,000 above are to be taken in has yet to be determined, as the migration crisis is still fluid and evolving, and final decisions in this regard will have to await further developments at EU level.
The panda population is believed to have declined by 50% in the past 18 years, she notes in the current edition of Zoo Matters. This endearing mammal, known as the fire-fox in China on account of its red fur, faces a myriad of threats.

The little panda, though not as famous as the giant one, is a favourite of zoo visitors everywhere. There is no evidence that the two species are related. The larger animal is fundamentally a bear. The great French zoologist Georges Cuvier, who first described the fire-fox, placed it among the racoons; its molars are similar to theirs. DNA analysis suggests relationships with racoons and with weasels but the species is now put in a family of its own. The red pandas ancient ancestors were found throughout the northern hemisphere but, ironically, they werent in China.

About the size of a fox, this chubby short-legged creature has a thick hairy coat, a long bushy tail and rounded white-tipped ears. The rich colour, surprisingly, provides excellent camouflage in the pandas forest home. This cuddly teddy, sleeping curled up in the fork of a tree, looks friendly but its not touchy-feely. Solitary and avoiding people, it may bite if molested. The retractable cat-like claws are long and sharp.

Native to China, Burma, and Nepal, the fire-fox renounced the omnivorous life-style of its ancestors for the gastronomic delights of the bamboo. Pandas have a sixth finger, really an elongated wrist bone, to help them grasp the stems of the giant grass. Apples, pears, bananas, and the occasional rodent are also eaten.

A panda consumes about 30% of its body-weight in bamboo daily. Only a quarter of the plants nutrients are absorbed and weight-loss in winter can reach 15%. Energy must be conserved, therefore, and this may be why red pandas appear slow-moving and lethargic. These tree-dwellers mate on the ground. One to four cubs will remain with their mother for at least a year. Like a domestic cat, she will carry them to a new nest if danger threatens.

Highly specialised creatures prosper if their environment remains stable. However, they find it difficult to cope when conditions change radically. Panda habitat was secure for countless millennia, but then the human population increased dramatically in Asia. People need space to grow crops and keep livestock. Bamboo forests are being cut down to provide agricultural land. Pandas are hunted illegally for their fur and flesh. Unable to cope with such threats, these specialists are in trouble.

According to Sandra, about 700 pandas live in zoos worldwide. If numbers in the wild continue to declines, zoo-bred animals may be released to supplement the population. Reintroducing captive-bred animals is difficult. Used to being pampered in zoos, and unable to avoid predators, they have difficulty adapting to wild conditions. Of 300 giant pandas raised in breeding centres, only three have been released successfully.

An incident in 2004, however, suggests that captive-bred fire-foxes might fare a little better. Panda brothers Babu and Tensing escaped from Cannon Hill Nature Park near Birmingham. Tensing missed home comforts so much he turned himself in. Babu, however, couldnt resist the attractions of suburbia. He was four days on the loose before a local girl tracked him down and alerted his keepers. Retrieved from a tree, he was reunited with his brother. Babus experience suggests that at least some pandas might survive if released into suitable bamboo habitat.

Seventeen red panda cubs have been born in Dublin Zoo since 1997. In 2010, a baby made headlines when her mother gave birth unexpectedly at Fota Wildlife Park. Both institutions participate in the panda global breeding programme.
It's a highly competitive space, with the likes of Amazon and Hulu also vying for a piece of the pie, and it seems the BBC thinks there might be a slice or two left.

The British government has just given the BBC the go ahead to develop a subscription streaming service, in this case in collaboration with ITV. It's thought it would be part of the existing BBC iPlayer framework, offering programmes after their initial free 30 day period for a monthly fee.
Its a hard one to explain, when undisputed facts are simply not accepted.

One of the benefits of the leaked documentation from Greenpeace on the TTIP talks is that it has helped to raise public awareness of the issue. The truth is that in the leak we didnt learn anything new from either the US or the EU side of the negotiations. But that hasnt stopped people deliberately misrepresenting whats going on. All trade negotiations take place in private. Thats why its a negotiation. But a negotiation is not the same thing as an agreement and unfortunately this point is lost in the debate.

In the minds of some people, TTIP represents a kind of new conspiracy where the corporate world, aided and abated by the European Commission, has hatched a masterplan to impoverish us all by  wait for it  more trade! I would have thought that more trade and investment is good for economic development and new jobs. Not so, according to the keyboard warriors. In their mind, TTIP is a sellout to capitalism and everything else for that matter.

Listening to some people you would think that a deal is already in place. In fact at this stage, given the opposition of Donald Trump, Marine Le Penn, Nigel Farage  not to mention our own brand of Irish populists  the prospects of a deal between the EU and US is increasingly looking unlikely. The truth is that Europe needs a deal more than the US.

Its time we had a more rounded debate on TTIP. Its time to dial down the exaggerated claims and the political posturing by the hard left and the hard right, by engendering a more rational discussion on TTIP. Something that Victoria White unfortunately was unable to do when she claimed recently in this paper that I was sent out to sell TTIP by some unidentified group or individual.

Are there challenges to Ireland if a TTIP deal comes off? Of course. But there are real benefits too, given the fact that 40% of all international trade is between the US and the EU. Why would any sane thinking person not want a trade deal between the EU and the US? We in Ireland have about 700 US businesses employing 130,000 people and, amazingly, Ireland is the fourth largest investor in the US. If there is one country within the EU that can benefit from a deal it must be Ireland given our existing links with the US.

Whether the naysayers like it or not, Ireland today is one of the most international economies in the world. We do exporting like no other small, open EU economy. The modern Irish economy depends on our ability to trade and win new markets for our goods and services. Nearly 40% of the net new jobs created in the years post-crash came from the exporting sector.

So where is this massive trade deal right now? The negotiation between the EU and US sides is ongoing. Ultimately if a deal ever comes out of this process, the European Parliament will vote on it and all member states would also have to endorse it.

I understand that people are suspicious of the new globalised world in which we live. People feel that their governments no longer control of events. But we are not going to improve standards or accountability by withdrawing into an EU state of protectionism. Globalisation is a reality. We either work with it and try to shape it or others will shape it for us. Would it not be better for the EU and the US to set the trade standards of today rather than let China and Russia do it instead?

The only independent study on the matter  produced by Copenhagen Economic Studies  has realistically set out the threats and opportunities for Ireland. It says the economy will grow and that jobs will be created if a deal is done. It also highlights the need for adjustments across some sectors that could be negatively affected by a trade deal. But the key issue here is that this independent report is measured and balanced.

TTIP is not about lowering our food or environmental standards.

It is not about opening the EU market to hormone fed beef from the US.

Its not about giving up on Europes precautionary principal when it comes to basic standards.

It is not about changing our laws in respect of GMOs.

It is not about having public policy within the EU written by large corporations.

It is not about the creation of a new super state built exclusively for corporate greed.

The only question that we have to ask about TTIP is whether it can help Irelands recovery. That should be the yardstick upon which any deal should be assessed from Irelands perspective.

If ever there was a need for a balanced, broadly based national debate on an issue of public policy it is this. Thanks to Greenpeace, we might now get that.

Brian Hayes is a Fine Gael MEP in Dublin
For a treaty that could have drastic and far-reaching consequences for this country, most Irish citizens have been kept entirely in the dark about what is at stake.

The Fine Gael-led Government is full square behind TTIP regardless of the consequences for the Ireland.

The Government and Fine Gael MEPs are failing to stand up for Irelands interests in the ongoing EU-US trade talks, simply proclaiming it is good for Ireland.

This is despite the fact that it hasnt even been fully negotiated and that most of its component parts have been kept secret by the European Commission.

Fine Gael MEP Brian Hayes has said that those of us who oppose TTIP are doing so because the EU is proposing it, but this argument is baseless.

Those who have expressed concern about the direction of TTIP include groups normally quick to support EU initiatives, such as farming organisations, SME representative bodies, almost all European trade unions, and hundreds of advocacy associations.

In Ireland, organisations such as the Irish Cancer Society, as well as several environmental and food- producing representatives, have carried out excellent research that shows we need to be vigilant.

Not so the Irish Government. They have placed themselves in the role of chief cheerleaders for the commission. Their position is wholehearted support for whatever is included regardless of the consequences to the Irish economy.

The truth is that TTIP could have major negative consequences for Irish agriculture, workers rights, food safety, and the environment in Ireland, but the Irish Government is not protecting the interests of Ireland or our citizens.

Under TTIP, Irish farmers will be severely disadvantaged through the expected vast increases to the quota for US meat imports into Europe. This will put Irish family farmers into direct competition with huge industrial farms in the United States.

These US competitors do not have to maintain the same high standards of regulation as Irish farmers. Neither will American meat producers have to meet the same animal health and environmental standards that apply in Ireland.

The lower production costs will be a severe disadvantage to Irish farmers. According to the Government-commissioned Copenhagen Economics Report Irelands beef sector could contract by up to 45 million as a result of TTIP. But it may indeed be much worse than that because TTIP aims to remove what its supporters claim are unnecessary barriers to trade.

To get an idea what this means, one only has to look at how a proposed EU regulation to ban 31 pesticides containing dangerous chemicals linked to testicular cancer and infertility, were scrapped because of pressure by the US during the TTIP negotiations.

EU regulations regarding GMOs and the use of chemicals in food production are vastly different between than those in the US, but under TTIP, practices regarded as a health risk by Irish food producers and consumers may come into use here.

The US and EU also have vastly divergent standards of rights for workers. For instance, EU workers are entitled to 25 days annual leave but in the US there are no statutory requirements. Any erosion of workers rights legislation will result in downward pressure on wages and conditions in Ireland.

Meanwhile, TTIP seeks to liberalise all sectors of the economy and multinational corporations make no secret of their desire to use it as a vehicle to get control of water, health, education, and postal services.

This will lead inevitably to the outsourcing and privatisation of vital public utilities in Ireland and, it is worth remembering, TTIP prevents any re-nationalisation of services, once privatised.

TTIP seeks to limit the power of governments to regulate for sustainable environmental practices. This would mean legislative efforts to ban fracking and other environmentally dangerous practises will be undermined. Fundamentally, TTIP weakens Irish democracy. For instance, the proposal for an Investor Court would allow wealthy multinational corporations to sue the Government for implementing measures that impact on potential profits. This would leave the Irish State open to previously unimagined liabilities.

Of course, this has enormous implications for the Irish Constitution and I have recently received legal opinion from an eminent senior counsel confirming that if the EU Commission proceeds with this proposal, it will require a referendum in Ireland.

The implications of the inclusion in TTIP of an Investor Court, can be seen in threats by French corporation Veolia to sue the Egyptian city of Alexandria because Egypt proposed to increase the minimum wage.

Veolia demanded compensation if costs increased and, as a result, the Government of Egypt abandoned its proposal.

The primary job of any Irish Government when dealing with the EU, must be to protect the interests of Ireland and its citizens. Instead, the Fine Gael-led government has seen its role as a mere PR agent for the European Commission.

The Government has selectively used reports such as that produced by Copenhagen Economics to set out a best-case scenario even though it clearly states that potential gains from TTIP will disproportionately benefit foreign multinationals often at the expense of Irish-owned firms.

The exports of six out of the eight sectors, where all exports are produced by Irish firms, are expected to fall as a result of TTIP. This is according to the Irish Governments own commissioned report.

Going by recent statements from Fine Gael MEP Brian Hayes, it is clear that his party wants the final TTIP agreement to include a financial services chapter.

The financial services industry is eager for this to happen because  and they are clearly on the record on this  they see TTIP as an opportunity to limit and reverse regulatory constraints on their activities. If that doesnt set alarm bells ringing in Ireland, then where could it?

Sinn Fein opposes TTIP under its current mandate and will challenge any efforts that attempt to reduce the standards we have come to expect on food, the environment, the rights of workers and of consumers. The incoming Irish Government should do the same.

Matt Carthy is Sinn Fein MEP for Midlands/North West.
A DRAFT EU-US trade deal that could affect every aspect of peoples lives  from the food they eat to the cosmetics they use to the cars they drive  has come under renewed fire.

The transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP), a massive free trade deal being negotiated by the worlds two largest economies, is seen by many as a ticket to jobs and growth.

But a public push by the US to sign a deal before the November presidential elections, and the leak by Greenpeace of a raft of negotiating texts, has stirred up latent resentment across Europe.

Talks have been going on for three years without notable progress, so a swift agreement was always a long shot, but popular unrest now has the potential to spike TTIP for good.

BENEFITS

A man in Hanover, Germany, holds a poster with the slogan Stop TTIP during a protest of thousands of demonstrators against the trade deal. A majority of people in Germany now view TTIP negatively.

This is the biggest free trade deal ever negotiated and a lot is at stake, not only for Europe, but for Ireland.

The US is Irelands largest individual export partner for goods, making up 25% of our total goods trade, the highest proportion in the EU. It is also a major importer of Irish services, mainly computers.

The Government sees TTIP as an opportunity for Irish exporters to win important access to US markets in medical devices, computers and dairy products, which would be a major boost for the economy at a time when export growth has tapered off. And the evidence for their optimism is there, at least on paper.

A new study for the European Commission published Friday (May 13) found that Ireland stands to gain the most in the EU from TTIP because of existing transatlantic ties.

The study, by consultants Ecorys, says the Irish economy could grow an extra 1.4% a year as a result of the deal, and see wage increases of over 1.6%, for both low and high-skilled workers.

We know that our already close economic ties with the US will stand to benefit even further with this deal, leading to more jobs in our exporting sectors, said Jobs Minister Jobs Mary Mitchell OConnor, who was in Brussels Friday to discuss TTIP with her EU counterparts.

These EU trade deals make it easier and cheaper for Irish firms to sell abroad.

Ibecs Pat Ivory says that Ireland is in prime position to gain from TTIP and shouldnt wait around for other countries to steal its thunder.

We cannot ignore globalisation, with agreements being made on trade and investment with Asia and the Pacific and elsewhere, he told the Irish Examiner.

Someone is going to dictate the rules of global trade, why should Irish and European businesses, consumers and workers not have a say and be left behind?

Irish people have traditionally been pro-TTIP, with a 2015 Eurobarometer survey showing 77% in favour and 12% against, but the tide in the rest of Europe is turning.

TRANSPARENCY

ICSA president Patrick Kent has claimed that the EU Commission has no democratic mandate to push for a trade deal at such a huge cost to the European beef farming sector

A majority of people in Germany now view the deal negatively, according to a survey by the Bertelsmann Stiftung think tank, while opposition to the deal has also been growing in the UK, France, Luxembourg, Austria, and the Netherlands.

The deal has already faltered once over transparency concerns.

In 2014, a public consultation on the investor protection clause was hijacked by anti-TTIP campaigners, who flooded the Commissions mailbox with a record 149,399 submissions to protest the deal in its entirety. The commission was forced to rewrite the section, proposing special investment tribunals to allow companies to take governments to task for expropriation or arbitrary regulations that unfairly harm profits. But the move was lambasted by Anti-Austerity alliance TD Paul Murphy, who said it would see the State dragged before a private court by big companies.

In Ireland, investor disputes  such as tobacco giant Philip Morriss suit against the Government after the introduction of plain cigarette packaging in 2013  are settled in regular courts.

The Government insists that the introduction of new private courts will not trump its democratic right to legislate, but opponents say it could have a chilling effect if the threat of a lawsuit is permanently hanging over legislators heads.

The US and the EU have fully functioning legal and judicial systems, everyone can avail of when they feel their rights have been affected, and we do not need an exclusive corporate court system, said MEP Nessa Childers.

We must be very careful with what we are bringing into the table here, and I think theres plenty of corporate influence over our legislation already, thank you very much.

The investor protection outcry is the latest in a long line of complaints over TTIPs transparency.

Childers was one of several MEPs who protested at the lack of access to documents after the start of TTIP negotiations in 2013.

EU Ombudsman Emily OReilly later took the commission to task and the EU executive began publishing its own negotiating positions online last year.

A reading room has also been set up in the Department of Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation for TDs to consult TTIP documents.

REGULATORY CO-OPERATION

The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association (ICSA) is protesting outside the EU Commission offices today due to the potential sell-out of the EU beef farming sector in Mercosur and TTIP talks.

But the problem, say transparency campaigners Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), is that the most sensitive texts  for instance, on pharmaceuticals, chemicals, pesticides and cars  have not been made public, and never will.

This is crucial because these parts of the deal are where the big money really lies, and where the Government wants to gain.

TTIP is not a traditional tariff-only trade deal, but a new kind of pact that also aims to align standards in nine sectors as diverse as cosmetics, food and cars.

This section of the deal is known as regulatory co-operation, and the commissions latest TTIP study reckons that the bulk of the economic impact from the deal (76%) will come under this heading.

But it is extremely controversial because EU and US regulations differ widely.

For instance, the EU has banned chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-treated beef, while the US is more lenient, certifying it as long as its labelled accordingly.

On the other side of the coin, the US has much more stringent nitrous oxide standards, as observers of the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal will know.

These standards are about fundamental political choices we must make openly in a democracy. They are not like some obscure tariff level to be traded away behind closed doors, says Nessa Childers.

Opponents fear TTIP trade-offs with the US will lead to a race to the bottom on standards, particularly on food safety, climate and workers rights.

European trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom insists that the EU operates according to the precautionary principle written into the EU treaty, which means the EU regulates to prevent potential risks to human, animal or plant health rather than removing products from the market after the fact.

But Childers says the US has been extremely aggressive and ambitious when it comes to doing away with standards.

Lore Verheecke, a campaign officer with CEO, points to the EUs 2013 ban on animal testing, which she says was delayed by 10 years due to US opposition and threats to take the EU to the World Trade Organization.

But Fine Gael MEP Mairead McGuinness has hit out at what she says is scaremongering.

The idea that trade and investment is a negative thing has to be taken off the agenda. What would be negative would be a bad trade deal, she said.

When the US orientation away from trade agreements comes to pass, thats when we should start to get really worried, she added, pointing to anti-free trade comments by US presidential hopefuls and the fact that the US is having a similar debate about EU standards.

OFF THE MENU

A man on stilts and dressed like the Statue of Liberty walks in front of balloons forming the slogan Stop TTIP during a protest of thousands of demonstrators against the planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP, and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, ahead of the visit of United States President Barack Obama in Hannover, Germany.

After 13 rounds of talks, TTIP negotiators have still not resolved the big ticket issues.

The holy grail for the EU is access to Americas lucrative 1.7tn public procurement market, and especially the 65% of all US government contracts that are conducted at state level, which are currently subject to Buy America clauses.

This is not a major area of interest for Ireland, but it could be if negotiators use beef quotas  traditionally kept in the back pocket until the end game  as a trade-off for public procurement.

The Irish Farmers Association says Irish agriculture should not be sacrificed by EU negotiators in pursuit of an overall deal, and says an increased supply of beef products on the market could significantly affect Irish farmers.

A 2015 US department of agriculture study estimates TTIP would boost American agricultural exports to the EU by 5.5bn, with EU exports increasing by only 800m.

Irish MEPs have called for the EU to do an impact study on the cumulative effects of TTIP and parallel trade deals with Canada and the South American Mercosur bloc.

EU agriculture chief Phil Hogan said last week that beef was off the menu in Mercosur talks, and the Irish government is satisfied with the quotas in the Canada deal, but Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed said there needs to be continued vigilance in relation to the conduct of these trade negotiations.

France is taking beef off the menu in TTIP, accusing the US of refusing to budge on public procurement and quotas for its protected products such as Champagne and Roquefort.

On this France is backed up by Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and other countries with protected products.

TIMING

John Murphy from Wexford during a protest outside the offices of the European Commission against the proposed Mercosur and TTIP trade deals on Lower Mount St, Dublin

But these types of national red lines could spell more trouble for TTIP.

What could potentially derail TTIP is if certain countries are going to lose more than they are going to win, says Lore Verheecke of Corporate Europe Observatory.

A lot of this is going to be played nationally.

And with upcoming elections in Germany and France, as well as the US, the danger of the deal becoming a political plaything is growing.

Even in the Netherlands, the land of traditional free traders, a petition to hold a referendum on TTIP is gathering speed following a popular vote on the EU-Ukraine agreement last month.

EU negotiators will meet for a 14th round of talks in July, but those close to the talks say it is extremely unlikely that a deal can be done by November.

The vastness and complexity of the deal  it could eventually span up to 30 chapters  will not help.

The EU-Canada deal, which was similar in scope but not in scale, took five years to conclude, and we are only three years down the line on TTIP. It will then need to be approved by the European Parliament, and EU governments before it can become law.

Nobodys dipping the pen in the ink to sign anything at the moment, said Mairead McGuinness.

Whats it all about and what does it mean for us?

 Sorcha Ni Coileain

Talks are hotting up on the EUs transatlantic trade and investment partnership with the US  better known by its acronym, TTIP  with both sides keen to sign a deal before US President Barack Obama leaves office in January.

A leak by climate campaigners Greenpeace of almost 250 pages of negotiating texts earlier this month has stirred up latent opposition, particularly in Germany and France, but an agreement was always going to be difficult given the tight timeline.

So what is it all about and what does it mean for Ireland?

Thousands of demonstrators protest against the planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP, and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, ahead of the visit of United States President Barack Obama in Hannover, Germany

What is TTIP?

The transatlantic trade and investment partnership is a vast trade deal between the EU and the US, covering up to 30 chapters, or areas of interest.

It is the most ambitious trade deal in modern history, given that the EU and US together account for half of the worlds GDP and a third of global trade.

It is being negotiated by the European Commission on behalf of the EUs 28 member countries.

Why does the EU want a trade deal with the US?

Brussels sees trade as a way to boost growth after the crisis, but fears EU producers and investors are being held back by US restrictions.

Although most customs duties have been eliminated on both sides, EU exporters still pay over 3.5bn a year in tariffs in the US, while differing safety standards mean products that are certified in the EU  for instance, Irish oysters  are banned across the Atlantic.

What is on the table in the talks?

The deal aims to lower the cost of imports and boost exports, in three ways: Removing goods tariffs and securing access to new markets, including lucrative government contracts; aligning regulations in nine sectors, including food, chemicals, cosmetics, and computers; and agreeing new rules to protect workers, the environment, investors, small companies and intellectual property rights.

Why is TTIP controversial?

Opponents say the deal falls down on health, environmental and democratic grounds, with opposition strongest in Germany, Austria and France.

A 500-strong coalition  including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Irish teachers unions ASTI and TUI  have united under the banner Stop-TTIP, saying the deal will lower EU food safety and environmental standards, flooding the bloc with genetically modified vegetables, hormone-treated beef and fracked shale gas.

They say it panders to big business, pointing to a clause on investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) they allege will allow foreign multinationals to sue EU governments for any losses in special investment tribunals, bypassing domestic courts.

The group has garnered 3.2m signatures against the deal and taken a case to the European Court of Justice.

Are there any benefits from TTIP?

Its difficult to quantify, as it is not a classic, tariff-only trade deal, but most studies say yes.

The European Commission cites a 2013 paper by the London-based Centre for Economy Policy Research (CEPR), which says the EU economy will grow by 119bn a year, which translates into 0.5% of GDP or an extra 545 for every household.

A 2015 study by the Swiss-based World Trade Institute says the deal will push consumer prices down by 0.9% in most EU countries and average wages up by 0.5% across the bloc  with Ireland one of the biggest winners.

Whats in it for Ireland?

Exploiting Irelands long-standing trade links with the US, particularly in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, technology and food.

The US is Irelands largest individual export partner for goods, worth over 2.2bn in January, or 25% of total goods exports.

Ireland also exports a significant share of services to the US. And 25% of all foreign investment into Ireland comes from the US. A 2015 study by Copenhagen Economics found that TTIP would boost Irish GDP by 1.1%, add up to 10,000 jobs and push wages up by 1.5%.

What does the US get out of it?

The US could add 95bn a year to its economy, the CEPR study estimates.

The US currently runs a trade deficit with the EU, importing almost 15bn more from the bloc than it exported in February, so a deal to further open EU markets  especially the protected beef and dairy sectors  could be very lucrative.

What happens next?

Negotiations started in 2013 and officials finished a 13th round of talks at the end of April.

While they made progress on tariffs, customs and competition rules and safeguards for small companies, there is stalemate over access to government procurement contracts, and controversial beef and dairy quotas have been left aside until later.

Another round of talks is planned for July, but a deal before President Obama leaves office looks unlikely.
When that concern is amplified by very significant Dutch, German, and French public opposition, it is time to properly engage with the issue at hand  only 17% of Germans now back this game-changing, all-embracing project.

This growing opposition is, according to one of Britains most conservative and pro-business commentators, based on the fear that the deal is a secretive stitch-up by corporate lawyers, yet another backroom deal that allows the owners of capital to game the international system at the expense of the common people. The alarm bells are indeed ringing loudly.

When that issue is a trade deal that may exacerbate the democratic deficit eating away the credibility,accountability moral authority and, most of all, the potential of the European Union, it is certainly time to engage, judge and maybe call for a pause.

That some of those opposed to the as-yet- unfinalised Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), warn that it may usurp our courts and have the capacity to set aside legislation enacted by already tottering parliaments it deepens those concerns.

When those negotiations are focused on further empowering the free market and globalisation  the Hydra destroying blue-collar and middle class incomes and security in Europe and America  it is time to consider TTIP through social, as well as economic, values.

The extremely complex and often secretive negotiations on the unfinalised trade deal suggest a wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee moment is long overdue.

It would be impossible, and probably foolish, to try to encapsulate the issues in a sentence, but the core of European opposition is that American tooth-and-claw capitalism may win legislative authority to safeguard profits, even if that means casting aside the consumer and worker protections fundamental in European societies. As issues go, that seems a deal-breaker any day of the week.

It may be a heresy in this Davos age of free markets to, despite Government and business support for TTIP, look at the bigger picture. The European Commissions Spring forecast records an incendiary rise in inequality.

Youth unemployment in Greece stands at 51.9%, 45.5% in Spain, 36.7% in Italy, and 24% in France. It hovers around 20% in Ireland.

Those with incomes below 40% of the eurozone median have suffered a 14% drop in net receipts since the Lehman crisis.

This is fertile ground for the horrors of the past to reinvent themselves. In America, this divide fuels the Trump ascendancy, in Europe it drives extreme politics and, partially, the Brexit campaign.

The migration crisis is a symptom too. TTIP may be framed as an economic deal, and it may even, its advocates would argue, help end inequality, but the credibility of the international capitalist system is so very tattered and threadbare every line of any deal, if there is one, must be treated with the greatest scepticism if not reticence.
We have been awarded the amber flag by the voluntary organisation Suicide Aware for our promotion of mental health in our school community and it has come to our attention that there is a disconnect between the political will and the will of the ordinary citizens of this country.

If the turnout of over 120,000 people nationwide on the morning of Saturday, May 7, for the Darkness into Light walk is anything to go by, we think it is safe to say that the people of Ireland care about this issue.

Recently, a very powerful image was circulating on social media. This image illustrated the crowds at the Darkness into Light walk and the debate on mental health in Dail Eireann, where only two TDs attended.

The 120,000 people who attended this walk voluntarily got up at 4am to walk 5km in what were cold, dark, and damp weather conditions.

Ordinary men, women, and children gave their hard-earned money to Pieta House and showed their support for this amazing charity.

Yet our high-flying Government members, who are well paid to represent us, for some unknown reason were unable to attend this debate, during daylight.

We believe that the Government is focused on the economic state of the country and not the mental health of the people who make the country work the way it does.

It took the country nearly two months to gain a working Government, and it seems to us that one of the many reasons that the parties took so long to come to an agreement was because they were debating water charges and the future of Irish Water.

They argued and debated about this topic because billions of euro may be wasted.

However, do we see this amount of focus and time being given to mental health?

In secondary schools in Ireland recently the guidance counsellors hours have been reallocated. We are grateful for this.

Now we may have access to the talking services which ensure well-being.

If the girls in our all-girls community school did not have counselling, we might not have our girls.

We urge that the voice of our young people be heard.

Aoife Kavanagh and Susan Bourke,

St Wolstans Community School

Celbridge
While the former London mayor acknowledged the EU was using different methods to the Nazis, Remain campaigners said his incendiary comparison to the Third Reich showed he was unfit for high office.

However pro-Brexit Tories said he was simply stating a historical fact of life about the failure of successive attempts over the centuries to establish a greater Europe.

The latest row erupted after David Cameron was attacked last week by Leave campaigners for suggesting British withdrawal from the EU could lead to the Third World War.

Mr Johnson  seen as the de facto leader of the Leave campaign  said the past 2,000 years had been dominated by doomed attempts to unify the continent under a single government to recreate the golden age of the Romans.

Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods, he said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph.

But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void.

His comments were immediately condemned by the Remain campaigners with shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn branding them offensive and desperate.

Leave campaigners have lost the economic argument and now they are losing their moral compass, Mr Benn said. After the horror of the Second World War, the EU helped to bring an end to centuries of conflict in Europe and for Boris Johnson to make this comparison is both offensive and desperate.

Field Marshal Lord Bramall, a former head of the Army who took part in the D-Day landings, said Mr Johnsons remarks were simply laughable.

I know only too well, this comparison of the EU and Nazi Germany is absurd. Hitlers main aim was to create an empire in the East and violently subjugate Europeans, he said.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown said: People are fed up with yet another tuppenny tin-pot imitation Churchill promising to fight them on the beaches while weakening our defences and wrecking our economy.

Mr Johnsons comments were, however, defended by the pro-Brexit former cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith who said he was simply stating a historical fact of life.

I think the whole process of trying to drive Europe together by force or by bureaucracy and democratic means ultimately makes problems, he told BBC Ones The Andrew Marr Show.
They said the 101 were convicted of breaking a disputed 2013 law that effectively bans street protests.

Of the 101, 79 were fined 100,000 pounds (about 9,960) each and 54 were convicted and sentenced in absentia.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media.

The sentences were passed late on Saturday, hours after another Cairo court sentenced another 51 protesters to two years in jail for their part in last months demonstrations, which were called to protest Egypts decision to hand over control of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia as part of a demarcation deal.

The deal, negotiated in near total secrecy, has earned mounting criticism of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by activists who claim the transfer was a sell-off to oil-rich Saudi Arabia, which last month announced a multibillion dollar aid package to Egypt.

El-Sissi maintains that the islands belong to the Saudis and has angrily demanded an end to public criticism of the deal.

A massive police deployment on April 25 stifled the planned demonstrations, prompting activists to stage small, flash protests in various parts of the capital.

More than 1,200 arrests were made in the run-up to April 25 and on the day.

Most of them have been released but nearly 300 faced formal charges and were referred to trial for breaking the protest law. The arrests and Saturdays sentences signalled the governments zero tolerance for dissent.

El-Sissi says he has to balance safeguarding rights with his governments fight against a resilient insurgency by Islamic militants in Sinai, and efforts to revive the economy.

He has repeatedly insisted that Egypts human rights record must not be judged by Western standards.

We are in a state of shock since yesterday, defence lawyer Mohamed Abdelaziz, director of Al-Haqanya foundation of rights and freedoms, said yesterday.

Their verdicts can be appealed. The whole case is built on random arrests, said rights lawyer Mokhtar Mounir from the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression.
Thousands of migrants were pouring into Germany every day, but the 36-year-old startup consultant from Berlin hadnt met any.

It was all over the media, every day on the talk shows you had people talking about the refugee crisis. I had never seen a refugee, said Landt. I just wanted to find out if it was real.

His experience is typical for most Germans, and many have volunteered with charitable groups in part to meet the migrants theyre hearing so much about. But Landt went further  and the result is a kind of dating website for Germans and migrants, albeit without the romantic aspect.

Together with Khaled Alaswad, a 25-year-old Syrian he met at a computer coding class for migrants in Berlin, Landt started a project to help refugees and locals meet up. Called Lets Integrate!, it allows users to pick a time and location and set up a date.

The idea is to set as low a hurdle as possible for the meeting. People just need to show up and hopefully have a good conversation. Or if the language barrier is too high, have a conversation with hand signals.

Alaswad said his friendship with Landt has helped him in Germany.

If the refugees never talk face to face with a local person, they will never know anything about the culture here, he said. There is just such a big difference between our culture and the German culture.

Germany registered around 1.1m irregular migrants in 2015, most of them refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But with the closure of the Balkans migration route from Greece to Germany, the number of migrants coming in has dropped dramatically this year. So attention has now shifted to integrating the refugees.

The authorities are focusing on having migrants learn the language and get jobs. The German government has promised to introduce subsidised workplaces earmarked for refugees.

In Germany, we have a very technocratic view of integration, said Landt. It is basically, you do a language class, you get a job and then you are integrated. But really, it is very much about social contact. Something you can achieve before you wait six months for your language class and another year before you are somewhat fluent.

Lets integrate! was launched on May 1 and so far at least a dozen meetings have taken place.
Shepard Fairey, who created the image for the 2008 presidential election campaign, said Obama had gone quiet on a lot of things during his two terms in the White House.

Fairey told the Press Association: I worked really hard for [Obama] so I had high hopes  pun intended.

I think he ended up probably being very frustrated with the things he encountered. I think history will be fairly kind of his presidency but I want things to move further in the direction that he promised as a campaigner.

Hes been more outspoken in the last 18 months. I think hes going out having done some good things and said some good things. But there were about six years there where I think he could have done more.

Fairey, who has voiced his support for Bernie Sanders in the race to become the next US president, said Obama was an amazing communicator but had not spoken out on some issues.

Speaking at the Museum of Contemporary Art gala in Los Angeles, he said: Even if [Obama] was a met with gridlock in government, in Congress, if he had been as outspoken as he was as a campaigner, I would give him a pass on not being able to push through some of the progressive things I hoped he would.

But he was quiet on a lot of things. That to me was unfortunate.

Faireys stencil portrait of Obama in red, beige and blue, featuring the word Hope, came to represent the Democrats 2008 presidential election campaign.

It has been widely copied including a version created for the Occupy movement and most recently for the political comedy television series Veep.
Iran has long backed armed groups committed to Israels destruction and its leaders have called for it to be wiped off the map.

Israel fears that Irans nuclear program is designed to threaten its very existence.

But Netanyahu said it was more than Irans belligerent policies that Israel opposed, but its values.

It denies the Holocaust, it mocks the Holocaust and it is also preparing another Holocaust, Netanyahu said at his weekly Cabinet meeting.

I think that every country in the world must stand up and fully condemn this.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner, travelling with Secretary of State John Kerry in Saudi Arabia, said the United States was concerned the contest could be used as a platform for Holocaust denial and revisionism and egregiously anti-Semitic speech, as it has in the past.

Such offensive speech should be condemned by the authorities and civil society leaders rather than encouraged.

We denounce any Holocaust denial and trivialization as inflammatory and abhorrent. It is insulting to the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust, Toner said.

The denial or questioning of the genocide is widespread in the Middle East, where many regard it as a pretext Israel used for its creation and to excuse its actions toward the Palestinians.

Holocaust means mass killing, said contest organizer Masuod Shojai Tabatabaei. We are witnessing the biggest killings by the Zionist regime in Gaza and Palestine.

He said the purpose of the Tehran event was not to deny the Holocaust but rather to criticise alleged Western double standards regarding free expression  and particularly as a response to depictions of the Prophet Muhammad by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and others.

The exhibit featured some 150 works from 50 countries, with many portraying Israel as using the Holocaust to distract from the suffering of the Palestinians, and others comparing Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

The contest was organized by non-governmental bodies with strong support from Irans hard-liners.

A previous contest in 2006 got a boost from then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hard-liner who referred to the Holocaust as a myth and repeatedly predicted Israels demise.
The traditional puppet show had been planned to feature as part of the Barry Island Beats, Eats and Treats festival in south Wales next month.

However, it faced opposition from a number of officials who said the performance would be at odds with the county councils standpoint on domestic violence  including objections from local councillors.

Some package

USA: An Arkansas man has been arrested after police say he had 60kg of marijuana shipped from Mexico to his home.

Jonesboro Police Department spokesman Paul Holmes said officers posed as delivery men and arrested 52-year-old Alberto Gomez-Reyes after he signed for the package containing the marijuana.

Police say he had the officers place it in the back of his truck.

Origami robot

USA: An origami robot that unfolds itself to perform remote-controlled surgery in the stomach has undergone laboratory tests.

The small rectangular device, swallowed in a dissolvable capsule, is steered by magnetic fields and can crawl across the stomach wall to patch a wound or capture foreign material.

One of its uses could be to remove potentially harmful swallowed button batteries, said the US researchers. Each year, 3,500 cases of batteries being swallowed are reported in the US alone.

Hair-raising

USA: A lock of hair from Thomas Jefferson has sold at auction in Texas for $6,875 (6,000), nearly 190 years after the former president died.

Heritage Auctions in Dallas said Saturdays sale involved 14 strands that were snipped by Jeffersons physician at the time of the statesmans death on July 4, 1826.

A Heritage Auctions statement says the pre-auction estimate for the hair was $3,000.

The buyer wished to remain anonymous. The seller was collector William F. Northrop, who purchased the lock in the early 1980s from an autograph scholar. The documentation includes a letter confirming the lock as part of a limited number of Jeffersons hair samples known to exist.

Crab spectacle

USA: Thousands of tiny red crabs are carpeting beaches in Orange County and creating an amazing spectacle for swimmers and surfers.

Lifeguards estimate that hundreds of thousands of the tiny crustaceans have washed up Friday on beaches in Newport Beach. Others were spotted in Laguna Beach.

The Orange County Register reports that pelagic red crabs are usually found off Baja California, but currents that are part of the El Nino weather pattern are sweeping them north.

The 2.5cm-7.5cm crabs have washed up for several years along the Orange County coastline.

Before that, they hadnt been seen in the area for decades.

Bad luck day

USA: Bad luck followed a group of teenagers heading to the prom on Friday the 13th as the limousine they were riding in caught fire.

WFXT-TV reports that the Natick High School students from Massachusetts smelled smoke in the white stretch limousine around 6pm on Friday.

Good luck returned when the 10 teens and the driver escaped the limo unharmed before it burst into flames.

Its unclear what caused the blaze. Natick police tweeted the limo might be evil because the fire later rekindled.

The teens did make it to the prom; they caught a ride on a passing trolley also headed there.

Tigers on the roam

Holland: Two tigers escaped from their enclosure at a Dutch big cat sanctuary on Saturday, prompting police to warn residents to stay indoors, but the animals were shot with tranquilisers and never got beyond the sanctuarys outer fence.

The tigers are back from their adventure and indoors sleeping it off, tweeted the local Dutch municipality of Ooststellingwerf in Friesland province.

Police spokeswoman Nathalie Schubart said the animals had been cornered by officers and tranquilized by a veterinarian as the sanctuarys outer fence was not considered tiger-proof.

Schubart said it was not immediately clear how the animals escaped, but a gate to their enclosure could have been left open.

The tigers did not hurt anyone during their brief foray into the wooded grounds of the sanctuary.

Dogged loyalty

USA: When a venomous Eastern diamondback rattlesnake appeared in the backyard of a 7-year-old girl, her German shepherd came to her rescue, refusing to back down even when the snake bit him three times.

In short, Haus is a hero.

It shows you that a rescue dog, for us, paid it forward by protecting my family, said Adam DeLuca of Tampa.

Now hundreds of donors are coming to the familys rescue to help pay for the antivenin needed to keep the dog alive.
We have lost a true lesbian pioneer in the passing of Leslie Cohen. Whether opening the first upscale lesbian club Sahara in NYC in 1976 ...
Burma Burmas Puppeteers Put On Cross-Asean Performance

After a weeklong workshop hosted by the Asean Puppet Exchange, Burmese puppet troupes are hopeful for more cultural integration among Asean members.

RANGOON  After a weeklong workshop hosted by the Asean Puppet Exchange (APEX), Burmese puppet troupes are hopeful for more cultural integration among Asean members.

From May 9 to 16, over 20 puppet artists and musicianshailing from Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore and Vietnammet with their Burmese counterparts in Rangoon to work on the first of three One Asean puppet and music performances this year. This first leg of the program is called APEX-Earth, focusing on heritage, cultural roots and the environment.

We learned about each others different puppetry styles, and we shared our experiences, said Khin Maung Htwe, head of the local Htwe Oo Myanmar puppet troupe.

Khin Maung Htwe hopes performances will become more common because of the workshop.

Burmese yoke thay [puppetry, which dates back some 500 years in Burma] has really only been used to develop tourism. However, by looking at the different styles of other countries, Ive learned that it can also function as contemporary art, he said.

Khin Maung Htwe said that more regional engagement would be mutually beneficial.

Vietnamese puppeteers told me that handicapped puppet shows had disappeared in Vietnam [water shows are more popular] but that puppeteers have decided to reintroduce them after seeing the Burmese style of performance. This is a good result from the show, he said.

Terence Tan, coordinator of APEX, echoed these sentiments, telling The Irrawaddy that he believes that the workshop succeeded in reaching many of its goals.

When groups share, even for three or four days, their different styles and experiences, they can learn different concepts of music and performance, all while performing for people, Terence Tan said. This exchange program focused mostly on Asean integration for puppetry and the industry, and now we can see how people are enjoying this kind of performance.

The APEX collective consists of over 160 Asean puppet artists and practitioners who have joined together to support the work of Asean artists. Since 2014 APEX has sought to use puppet performances and workshops to help Asean citizens understand and appreciate the rich and diverse cultures, stories and languages of its 10 member states.

I hope that I can change Burmese puppetry from having to perform with many words to performing with no words, so that everyone can understand, Khin Maung Htwe said.
Burma Deadly Fighting Erupts in Shan State: Sources

A clash between Burma Army soldiers and the Shan State Army-North northeast of Mandalay reportedly kills 28 government soldiers and displaces 500 civilians.

RANGOON  More than two dozen Burma Army soldiers were reportedly killed in northern Shan State last week in fighting with the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) in a village to the west of Shan States Kyaukme, a city 100 miles northeast of Mandalay. According to SSA-N sources, a total of 28 Burma Army soldiers were killed in Noung Kon village.

Fighting broke out in the area on Thursday, the same day a Burma Army delegation visited the border of United Wa State Army-controlled territory with SSA-N leaders.

There were about 60 troops divided into two columns, said a SSA-N sergeant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. We killed 28 of them in the battle, including one commander. And we seized 18 guns.

We had four to six troops wounded, but no one was killed.

Ethnic armed groups frequently claim to have inflicted high casualties on government troops while sustaining few themselves. The claims are difficult to independently verify, a fact compounded by the Burma Armys opaque and media-averse posture.

Pictures circulating on social purported to show the bodies of several soldiers killed in the clash, some wearing uniforms with visible Burma Army insignia.

Maj. Sai Phone Han from the SSA-N said the Burma Army used a helicopter to fire on SSA-N ground troops on Thursday and Friday, but he did not provide additional details about the fighting.

Many local people ran away, afraid of the fighting in the area, he said.

The Burma Army began attacking SSA-N troops on May 5, but the army had to use a helicopter last week to support ground troops as the military was taking high casualties, according to the SSA-N sources.

About 500 local people fled their homes and took shelter in Kyaukme to avoid the fighting.

The SSA-N sergeant said he believed that the Burma Army had tried to distract SSA-N leaders by joining with them on a trip to the Wa Special Region border area, before launching a surprise attack near Kyaukme.

We could have captured the brigadier general and his soldiers, but we didnt, said the SSA-N sergeant.

Fighting in Kyaukme Township has been recurrent for the Burma Army, the Taang National Liberation Army and the Restoration Council of Shan State, but it is rare for clashes to break out there between the Burma Army and the SSA-N.

The SSA-N was one of about a dozen ethnic armed groups that did not sign last years national ceasefire agreement. Its clashes with the Burma Army in recent months have centered around Wan Hai, the SSA-Ns headquarters, which is more than 100 miles southwest of where the fighting took place last week.
Burma Dog Lovers Fight Poisoning of Strays

Animal rights activists are gathering a petition to stop the Rangoon city governments practice of poisoning stray dogs.

RANGOON  A petition campaign organized by animal rights activists in Rangoon was launched over the weekend, urging the citys municipal body to stop the extermination of stray dogs and look for sustainable solutions to the citys animal overpopulation problem.

Rangoons animal rights advocates gathered in Mahabandoola Park downtown on Sunday and collected more than 100 signatures for their petition. Members of the group said that they will continue organizing more supporters and would demand the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) stop poisoning the stray dogs.

Kyaw Min Khaing, a member of the group, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that the purpose of the campaign is to urge the citys authorities to look for other sustainable ways to deal with the stray dog problem besides brutally killing them.

There are other alternative animal-friendly approaches, he said. It has been proven that mass killing is not a solution to the overpopulation of stray dogs.

We can capture, neuter, vaccinate and release [the stray dogs] back into their neighborhoods. Their inability to reproduce will control the population in the span of a few years.

According to the YCDCs Veterinary and Slaughterhouse Department, about 100,000 stray dogs are living in Rangoons streets, and poisoning is one of the YCDCs ordinary policies to control the stray dog population in accordance with 1922 City of Rangoon Municipal Act.

As part of the YCDCs policy that aims to protect the public from rabies and keep the citys environment clean, the municipal agency is providing free rabies inoculation and castration for both stray dogs and pet dogs, cooperating with shelters and raising public awareness for responsible pet ownership, an official who requested not to be named told The Irrawaddy on Monday.

We are just following the procedures. I dont want to comment on the campaign, the official said. We dont want to do the poisoning either, but we dont have enough vaccines for all the stray dogs in the city.

According to the official, an organization led by Min Lee, the wife of the former US Ambassador to Burma, Derek Mitchell, has signed an agreement with the municipal body for a three-year project to handle Rangoons stray dogs problem. The official said that the project would start in a month and YCDC also plans to open an animal shelter before the end of 2016.

Kyaw Min Khaing said that Rangoons animal lovers are eager to cooperate with the YCDC, but they are staunchly opposed to poisoning the dogs.

We dont want public to hate the YCDC for [poisoning dogs], he said. We want to work with the YCDC to solve the stray dog problem as long as the authorities stop poisoning them.
Burma Population Count Due for Muslims of Sittwes Aung Mingalar

Local authorities will assess the population of Sittwes Aung Mingalar quarter, following complaints by Arakanese Buddhists who contend that the Muslim neighborhoods population has swelled.

RANGOON  Local authorities in Sittwe plan to assess the population of the towns Aung Mingalar quarter, frequently described as a Muslim ghetto, following complaints by local Arakanese Buddhists who contend that the neighborhoods population has swelled in recent years as Muslims from camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) moved in.

Located downtown in the only remaining Muslim neighborhood of the Arakan State capital, which saw most Muslims driven out in 2012 violence between Muslims and Buddhists in the state, Aung Mingalar and its residents are subject to severe restrictions on movement. Local authorities intend to conduct the headcount next week.

Tha Pwint, a retired Arakanese lawyer who participated in a meeting on Thursday led by the Arakan State immigration department head, Win Lwin, confirmed that the population survey would be undertaken beginning on May 21.

Complainants contend that while the quarters official population stands at around 4,000, a government health care program being run inside Aung Mingalar had documented treatment of more than 10,000 people last year.

The district health department denied the Arakanese communitys assertions at the May 12 gathering, said Tha Pwint, who also claimed that many of those who had moved into Aung Mingalar had left for outlying IDP camps or the predominantly Muslim village of Bu May upon hearing about the meeting and impending headcount.

Shwe Hla, a Muslim resident of Aung Mingalar who was present at the May 12 meeting, denied that the neighborhoods population had grown significantly.

We dont invite strangers to live in our quarter, he told The Irrawaddy. They have suspicious minds toward us, I would like to say they [Arakanese] are trying to spread rumors.

He claimed Aung Mingalar had only 965 households and about 4,000 Muslims residents.

Zaw Zaw, a community leader in Aung Mingalar, agreed to cooperate with government officials on the population tally.

We warmly welcome a check on the population because we dont have extra people in the quarter.

Phone calls to both the Arakan State immigration department head Win Lwin and regional government spokesman Min Aung went unanswered on Monday.

Tha Pwint claimed that corrupt government officials had allowed Aung Mingalars population to grow. He referred to the quarters residents as Bengalis, the term used by the government to refer to the regions minority Rohingya Muslims to imply that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Many Rohingya trace their roots in Arakan State back generations, but they are not recognized as citizens and have been subject to restrictions on movement statewide since the 2012 violence. More than 100,000 remain in IDP camps.
Burma Rangoon Peace Walk Leaders Charged for Illegal Assembly

Student leaders from the Yangon School of Political Science face charges for staging a procession calling for interreligious tolerance, which deviated from the authorized route.

RANGOON  Student leaders who led an interfaith peace walk of almost 100 people in downtown of Rangoon on Saturday are to be charged under Article 19 of the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law.

Their infraction was to stick to their original proposed routefrom Tamwe Township to Mahabandoola Park in the city centerin defiance of an order from police in the city to confine their protest to Bo Sein Mann grounds in Tamwe.

On Tuesday, two male students and one female student from the Yangon School of Political Science, named Htet Aung Lin, Phone Htet and Jue Jue Than respectively, received a summons from the Kyauktada Township police station to present themselves at the station and sign a confession that they had proceeded on an unauthorized route.

Thet Aung Lin, one of the student leaders, explained that they had stuck with the original route because of the many mosques, churches, Hindu temples, and Buddhist pagodas and monasteries encountered along the way.

We had the right as citizens to do this [peace walk] Htet Aung Lin added.

The commanding officer of Kyauktada Township police station could not be reached via phone by The Irrawaddy.

The participants of the peace walk, many of whom were drawn from the Yangon School of Political Science, observed a minutes quiet contemplation in the buildings of four different religions, as a means of paying respect. They held placards reading: Accept Diversity, Promote Tolerance and We All are Human.

The peace walk, avowing interreligious tolerance, was held against an environment of increasing Buddhist ultra-nationalist mobilization in Burma. This has centered in recent weeks on condemning the use of the term Rohingya by members of the international community, to refer to the largely stateless Muslim minority in Arakan State, whom the government and much of the Burmese public refer to a Bengali, denying their claim to citizenship and to belonging within Burma.

On Friday, some 400 nationalists gathered in Mandalay, as reported by The Irrawaddy, to demand that the government officially denounce, within three days, the US Embassys use of the term Rohingya in a recent public statement. More than 50 monks from the ultra-hardline Buddhist nationalist association known as Ma Ba Tha took part.

Also being prosecuted under Article 19 of the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Lawon the same grounds of deviating from a route authorized by police and local authoritiesare members of the Myanmar Nationalist Network, who led a rally outside the US Embassy in Rangoon on April 28, also to denounce the use of the term Rohingya in the same Embassy statement.

The ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) has recently proposed amending the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Lawpassed in 2011 under the previous, Thein Sein governmentso that would-be demonstrators would only need to inform local authorities 48 hours in advance, rather than request permission five days in advance.

Proposed changes in the law would also introduce a statute of limitations of 15 days and restrict the number of different township authorities that could prosecute demonstrators for the same protest. Controversially, prison sentences for violating sections of the law would not be scrapped, although their length would be reduced.
Burma Trafficked Burmese Migrants Freed from Thai Fishing Boats

Thirteen Burmese migrant workers will soon reunite with their families, after being freed from slave-like conditions on Thai fishing boats.

Thirteen Burmese migrant workers who were sold to Thai fishing boats were rescued on Sunday from a dock more than 400 miles south of Bangkok and will soon be reunited with their families.

The fishery workers will return to Burma on Tuesday, after first traveling from Thailands Surat Thani province to Bangkok to set up the necessary travel arrangements.

Kyaw Thaung, a director with the Myanmar Association in Thailand (MAT), said that a total of 16 workers between the ages of 21 and 64 were rescued over the weekend.

Bangkok-based MAT has helped trafficking victims for over a decade and collaborated with Burmese Embassy officials to form the Myanmar Workers Protection Committee to provide assistance to migrants.

In the past five months, 167 migrants were rescued through the joint efforts of officials and rights advocates including MAT, Thailands Department of Special Investigation (DSI) and the Anti-Human Traffic Division under the police and marine forces. Their collaboration has resulted in the release of 900 victims between 2011-15, and the detention of 10 traffickers.

The fishery workers had not been paid their salaries despite having worked for more than a year, while facing torture on the boats, the victims said.

I and others were beaten with wooden sticks and stingray tails, said Ko Ye, a victim from Karen State. Four people beat me and hit me with a hammer because I talked back.

Prior to leaving for Thailand, he was told he would be taken to work at a soft-drink factory, but was instead sold to a fishing boat.

Before we were rescued, we were only given 100-200 baht (US$3-6) when our boats came inland, said Hla Myint, a 63-year-old deaf man from Dawei in Tenasserim Division who worked on a boat for almost three years.

Kyaw Thaung called this group lucky, as many previous workers remained in police detention, either because they were undocumented workers or needed to serve as witnesses in other cases. He said police were still holding 32 workers who were rescued in Phuket in late January.

Hla Myint said he was eager to go back home and was tired from the job.

He only just received his entire salary, at the rate of about US$200 per month for 32 months, following the rescue.

The victims contacted MAT through a hotline number they found on social media.

Kyaw Thaung said having a police attache, who was attached to the Burmese government and tasked to fight human trafficking, would help combat the large number of people trafficked into Thailand. In Thailand, there are two labor attaches focused on migrant workers issues, but it is not enough to meet the growing demands they are up against.

He added that rescue organizations were fighting an uphill battle, especially since Thailand has faced a shortage of migrant workers in the fishery sector.

Last Friday, Chinas official press agency reported that an estimated 50,000 Burmese workers quit working in Thailands fishing industry and that many more would soon follow suit, preferring to look for work inside Burma instead, according to the head of a fishery association in Samut Sakorn province, Thailand.

Kyaw Kha contributed to this report.
Burma With New Centers Launch, Suu Kyi Spurs Action on Peace

With the launch of the National Reconciliation and Peace Center, the new government hopes to host a peace conference with ethnic armed groups in July.

Aung San Suu Kyi wants to speed up efforts to convene a so-called 21st Century Panglong Conference, according to sources who attended a meeting establishing the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC) in Naypyidaw on Monday.

At the Panglong Conference, Gen. Aung San, Suu Kyis father, brought together a handful of major ethnic groups in 1947, the eve of independence from Britain, to forge an agreement granting the groups autonomy in Burmas frontier areas. With Aung Sans assassination later that same year, the promises of Panglong were never fulfilled.

This was the second meeting this month that the state counselor, Suu Kyi, held with representatives from the Burma Army and the former Myanmar Peace Center (MPC). The NRPC will be headquartered in Naypyidaw, and the Rangoon-based MPC buildings will be used as a branch office in the commercial capital, according to a statement posted by the State Counselors Office on its Facebook page.

Suu Kyi visited the MPC in Rangoon on Saturday.

The NRPC will be a governmental organization which will be run under the Ministry of the Office of the State Counselor, and the budget allocation will be allocated by the Union government, according to the statement by the ministry.

The previous MPC was government-affiliated but operated with some independence, and was funded primarily by foreign foundations. It was criticized for alleged misuse of its budget, the opacity of its balance sheet, and the high salaries its employees were rumored to pull in.

Kyaw Tint Swe, who is yet to be confirmed by Parliament as the minister heading Ministry of the State Counselors Office, will lead the NRPC formation committee.

In the meantime, they will form a committee to prepare for the convening of the 21st Century Panglong Conference and two other sub-committees, one for ethnic armed groups that signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement last October and another for those that did not.

Suu Kyi will meet representatives from other organizations involved in the previous administrations peace talks next week, some of which include representatives from various ethnic groups. Ethnic armed groups themselves and the Parliamentary Committee on Peace, however, have not yet been included in talks concerning the peace conference.

Hla Maung Shwe, a former MPC adviser who attended the meeting with Suu Kyi on Monday, said the state counselor was pushing for the 21st Century Panglong Conference to be held at the end of July. But he could not confirm whether the NRPC would be able to adhere to that timeframe.

There will be many more steps in the process, he said. We havent even begun to include the ethnic armed groups in the planning of the conference.
Business US to Renew Most Burma Sanctions with Changes to Aid Business

The United States plans to renew most Burma sanction when they expire next week but will make some changes aimed at boosting investment and trade.

WASHINGTON  The United States plans to renew the bulk of its sanctions against Burma when they expire next week, but will make some changes aimed at boosting investment and trade, according to several senior US officials and congressional aides.

An announcement on extending much of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, could come as soon as Tuesday ahead of a visit to the Southeast Asian nation by Secretary of State John Kerry on May 22, officials said.

The US Treasury Department has significantly eased sanctions against Burma by issuing general licenses that give companies and investors exemptions to sanctions targeting more than 100 individuals and businesses, including some of Burmas biggest business players.

US officials began lifting trade and financial sanctions against the country after military leaders launched reforms that led to a civilian government being formed in 2011, beginning its transformation from a half-century as an international pariah.

In December, Treasury temporarily relaxed trade restrictions on the country by allowing all shipments to go through its ports and airports for six months.

This time, Washington will likely offer more general licenses to specific companies, and take some people off Treasurys list of Specially Designated Nationals targeted for sanctions, congressional aides and US officials said.

Kerrys visit to Burma is his first since the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, the countrys Nobel laureate, swept to power following a landslide election win in November. A Constitution drafted by the countrys former military rulers bars her from becoming president.

President Barack Obamas opening to Burma followed by its peaceful transition to an elected government is seen as one of his foreign policy achievements. He has visited there twice. But the administration also wants to maintain leverage on the country to guard against backsliding on reforms and to press for improvement on human rights.

By renewing the legal framework for sanctions even as it eases some measures, Obama will offer the private sector more breathing room while maintaining pressure on its military, which still holds significant political power. The sanctions had been due to expire on May 20.

Washington has deep concerns about human rights conditions in predominantly Buddhist Burma, especially violence against ethnic and religious minorities including Rohingya Muslims.

Road to Democracy

Members of the US Congress, from both parties, are watching closely and could move to clamp down on Burma themselves if they think Obama is moving too quickly.

Last month, senators Cory Gardner and Ben Cardin, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Foreign Relations Asia subcommittee, wrote to Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew expressing concern about rights, and asking the administration to work with Congress to ensure those concerns were addressed.

Like you, we want to ensure that the US is [Burmas] strongest supporter on its road to democracy, the senators said in the letter, seen by Reuters.

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Suu Kyi supported the extension of US sanctions with some changes. Discussions with her have focused on how to properly target trade restrictions so they do not hurt Burmas overall economy, but keep pressure on military-owned institutions, they said.

We are looking to take steps to demonstrate our support for the new democratically elected government of [Burma] and that were taking the necessary steps to ensure that they succeed, that they can carry on economic developments and reforms, a senior administration official told Reuters.

At the same time we want to do that in a smart, measured way that gives us a range of options and flexibility to respond appropriately going forward, the official added.

The United States is eager to expand relations with Burma to help counteract Chinas rise in Asia and take advantage of the opening of one of the worlds last frontier markets, growing but less developed emerging economies.

Peter Kucik, a former senior sanctions adviser at the US Treasury, said despite an easing of some banking sanctions by the United States since 2012, transactions with Burma were still difficult.

I suspect the changes that get announced all drive at the same end goal: which is to promote and make easier the trade and business relationships between the two countries and encourage continued reform while minding concerns, said Kucik.

The details will really indicate where the principal areas of remaining concern are but broadly speaking they are going to be aligned with what weve seen so far, he said.

Reporting by Lesley Wroughton, Patricia Zengerle and Matt Spetalnick in Washington.
Commentary Army To Rebrand Itself As New Political Reality Sets In

Why is Min Aung Hlaing, the Burma Armys Commander-in-Chief, cozying up to Suu Kyis National League for Democracy? And will it work?

Burmas Commander-in-Chief, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, is turning 60, but he is showing no signs of slowing down, nor is he planning to retire, as some have speculated. Instead, at press conference on May 13 in Naypyidaw, he pledged to continue to lead the armed forces and work with Aung San Suu Kyi to achieve peace and reconciliation in the country.

This was the first news conference held by the military chief since the new administration took office in April. In fact, President Htin Kyaw and State Counselor Suu Kyi have not held such a press conference yet. To many, the new government remains inscrutable as it continues to formulate new policies without giving much public indication of an overriding road map for how it will govern. Aware of this, the militarys top commander decided to meet the press to clear up as many questions as he could.

At the news conference, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing left a positive impression on many reporters as he expressed a willingness to work with the new administration. Despite being a long-time military man, the senior-general tried to answer questions with more political sensibility than some might have anticipated. Yet an awareness of his position as the head of the army still heavily influenced his responses.

Min Aung Hlaing was also quick to clarify his place in the new political hierarchy. It is not as many speculate, he said. The commander-in-chief is below the president. Contrary to what many had assumed, we are working together [with the civilian government]. The comments were seen by some as a response to Western media reports last year that characterized the military leader as the most powerful man in Burma.

But despite the generals insistence that the military is working with the civilian government, it is not known whether Min Aung Hlaing had officially informed the president or Suu Kyi about the press conference.

The armys public relations machine worked well this time. One could even suspect that it was part of a new strategy to rebrand the military and shed its tarnished image.

To the surprise of many reporters, Min Aung Hlaing extended his press briefing for several hours with a promise to serve tea and snacks afterward; he genuinely appeared to enjoy engaging with the media. He was open and candid. More importantly, he did his homeworkunlike some politiciansand impressed many reporters. Later, at the tea session, he mingled and shared jokes with both journalists and the officers present.

The general countered rumors of tension between the army and the new National League for Democracy (NLD) administration, emphasizing his respect for the Constitution. But he also noted that he does not need to inform the president before making decisions about military affairs and combat offensives.

Under the previous administration, former President Thein Sein had cultivated a close relationship with Min Aung Hlaing in response to Suu Kyis courting of then-House Speaker Shwe Mann. But on this occasion, the army chief demonstrated he was ready to collaborate with the new government. This gesture will no doubt alleviate some of the concerns most Burmese have about the armys intentions and role in the nations politics, but doubt and suspicion will likely remain.

Starting last year, Min Aung Hlaing and other top commanders met with Suu Kyi several times.

The relationship has since appeared to be stable, despite some setbacks. In April, army members within Parliament opposed a bill to approve Suu Kyi as state counselor.

The military lawmakers, who, under the Constitution, make up a quarter of the legislature, stood up to register their protest that their proposed amendments were being ignored. Analysts were quick to say that it was a bad start for the relationship between the new government and the armed forces.

But while the general supported his military comrades move, he seemed to back away from the hard line taken earlier.

At the press briefing, Min Aung Hlaing mentioned that the creation of the state counselor position violated the law, but he was not specific about which lawperhaps he meant it violated the Constitution. He surprised reporters by saying the Constitution could be amended in the futurealthough he did not give specifics on when or how this process would take place.

Further fodder for surprise was the generals statement that the army would no longer claim 25 percent of Parliament seats after a permanent peace has been established. Admittedly, that process could take decades, but in previous interviews, Min Aung Hlaing has said that the army would remain in national politics for 10 years.

Meanwhile, the generals own role in Burmas politics remains the subject of considerable speculation. Speaking to Channel News Asia last year he said that any pursuit of the presidency would depend on the situation at that time. If I turn my attention to politics now, he explained, it is likely to affect or weaken my present job. Right now it is too early to make a decision or talk about it.

From Foes to Friends

Suu Kyi once famously told CNN that she has a soft spot for the generals, and she has often referred to the military as her fathers army, a reference to Gen Aung San, who founded Burmas military in the 1940s.

Suu Kyis loyalty to the army is now considered beyond question, and she appears to have no intention of inciting discord among the generals.

It is believed the military no longer see Suu Kyi, now in her 70s, as a formidable threat to their institution, and view her as containable.

Despite the fact that there were obvious difficulties between the military and Suu Kyi in the past, now the armed forces likely see her as a pragmatic leader who is very popular among the general public. Hitching their wagon to Suu Kyis star could enhance the armys overall image.

In fact, Suu Kyi can be helpful to the military for many reasons. She holds the key to US sanctions on over 100 individuals and several army-owned companies. These restrictions are likely to be extended with slight modifications by the end of the week.

Since the country began opening up, the US Treasury Department has eased sanctions against Burma. According to recent wire stories, Suu Kyi supported the extension of US sanctions with some changes, but she wanted to make sure the restrictions did not hurt the countrys overall economy and only kept pressure on military-owned institutions and companies.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to visit Burma on May 22, when he will meet with government leaders including Suu Kyi.

There have been some signs of rapprochement between the US and the Burma Army. Starting in 2012, the US has invited mid-level Burma Army officers to attend regional military exercises and conferences. There is even discussion on allowing the US military to provide non-lethal training to Burma Army officers.

In June 2014, Lt-Gen Anthony Crutchfield, deputy commander of the US Pacific Command, gave a speech to his Burmese counterparts at the Myanmar National Defense College in Naypyidaw. This was seen as part of Americas careful but deliberate and limited military re-engagement with the Burmese Army, which has been tainted by reports of serious human rights abuses and political repression.

In December 2015, after Suu Kyis landslide election victory, Gen Vincent Brooks, then-commander of the US Army Pacific, said he was eager to build closer ties to the military in Burma, but he said this would have to await a policy decision by the US government.

If Suu Kyi holds power and influence over the remaining US sanctions and the possibility of military-to-military engagement between the American and Burmese armed forces, Min Aung Hlaings motivations for closer cooperation with the new government become more understandable.

Peace Is Still The Key Issue

We still do not know the ups and downs that the military-government relationship will undergo in the coming years, but the army does seem willing to cooperate with Suu Kyi on her plan to host a 21st Century Panglong Conference, which would attempt to hash out a peace deal with several of Burmas ethnic armed groups.

On the eve of the countrys independence, Suu Kyis father, Aung San, held the Panglong Conference in Shan State with leaders from several of the countrys ethnic groups. The pact between the Burman majority and the ethnic minorities fostered a spirit of unity and guaranteed full autonomy. It also set the stage for the provision of the right to secedeif the ethnic states so choseoutlined in Burmas first Constitution.

Suu Kyi wants the new Panglong Conference to be an important part of her legacy; to achieve peace, she will need the cooperation of both the top generals and ethnic leaders. She has advocated a federal union that would devolve considerable powers to the ethnic areas, but if the military proposes a competing notion of federalism, this may result in a serious dispute.

On the issue of peace, Min Aung Hlaing even took some credit.

I told Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, in this five-year term, we really want to work to achieve peace, he said, adding that she had agreed.

A Panglong Conference is meant to foster national unity and reconciliation, the top commander said, while also criticizing some ethnic armed groups for having no political purpose.

Yet even as Min Aung Hlaing pledges to work with Suu Kyi, ethnic groups have grown disillusioned with what has been perceived as a lack of NLD support for their rights so far. And this apparently cozy relationship between Suu Kyi and the military could result in further difficulties. Some ethnic groups may grow more suspicious of both the NLD and the military, fearing that as the two Burman-majority entities become closer, the ethnic agenda will be put on the backburner.

How Suu Kyi balances the military relationship with the needs of the ethnic groups could be key to determining whether the high hopes for the 21st Century Panglong Conference are fulfilled.

Aung Zaw is the founding editor of The Irrawaddy.
My coworker, Emma, who came from Taiwan to work in our office for 2 months told me the other day that she went to the Amish Country in northern Indiana one weekend. I was like, oh my gosh I have been living in Indiana all these years and I never went there myself. So 3 weeks ago we went there to check it out.

1. Parade for the Maple Syrup Festival at Wakarusa, IN.



2. Parade for the Maple Syrup Festival at Wakarusa, IN.



3. Amish people selling their maple syrup at the festival.

4. Buggy and cars parked side by side at the parking lot.



When people think about Amish Country in Indiana, they think about Shipshewana, but we happened to go to Topeka before going to Shipshewana, and found they have even more Amish people living there.

5. A buggy parked outside a harness and tack shop in Topeka. In case you have no idea what that means like I did, it is an equestrian supply store :)



6. A parking lot packed with buggies in Topeka. There was no car.



7. Road sign in Amish Country.



8. Best pretzels I've ever had. Make sure you get the Amish peanut butter dip.



9. At Jojo's Pretzels at Shipshewana.



Dave said we visited University of Notre Dame many years ago, but I completely don't remember. Anyway I heard their Basilica is really pretty, I thought it is good to attend our Sunday Mass there, so the next day we went to Notre Dame. The campus parking lady was very nice. After we told her we came for the morning Mass, she let us in and told us where to park.

10. University of Notre Dame.



11. University of Notre Dame.



12. University of Notre Dame.



13. University of Notre Dame.



14. Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame.



15. Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame.



16. Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame.



17. University of Notre Dame.



18. University of Notre Dame.



19. University of Notre Dame.



20. University of Notre Dame.
Regardless of what others might say, it has been noted that the scientists from all walks of life are privately discussing the possibility of building a synthetic human genome. The questions that are presently rising are as follows: Does the world need the technology? Can the society benefit if the plan comes into fruition?

Over 130 scientists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and government officials from five continents gathered at Harvard this week for an "exploratory" meeting to discuss the topic of creating genomes from scratch including, but not limited to, those of humans, said George Church, Harvard geneticist and co-organizer of the meeting, according to a post from STAT.

Since it has been affirmed that the meeting was closed to the press, uncertainties and reservation are forecast to arise on the horizon. Also, the closed door meeting sparked ire from the prominent academics, particularly since it has been speculated that the synthesizing genomes involves building them from the ground up, chemically combining molecules to create DNA, reports the same post.

Additional report from The New York Times indicated of how the project is still in the idea phase and involves efforts to improve DNA synthesis in general, and organizers revealed that the project could have a big scientific payoff.

It stands to reason that the proposed technological milestone would not just be reading the DNA genome, but the plan is to create and write the human genome. On a different note, such an attempt would raise numerous ethical issues and notions of could scientists create humans with certain kinds of traits, perhaps people born and bred to be soldiers? Or might it be possible to make copies of specific people, notes the same post.

As the scientists discussed the building and writing of the synthetic human genome from scratch, some were thrilled but ethical issues have also risen and questions of world needing the technological advancement the synthetic human genome are escalating. Nevertheless, it remains uncertain on how the world would accept the advancement once all stakeholders are on the right track.
When talking about the "God of War" franchise as well as its future, it is impossible not to include Kratos. After all, he is the face of the series. However, it seems the fictional Spartan warrior will be taking the backseat, as many believe it is about time he puts his armor and weapons down. Does this mean that "God of War 4" will not include the highly favored hero?

Sure, Kratos is the icon of the franchise -- there is no doubt about it. However, when it comes to having new ideas (something that fans would really love to have), introducing a new face in the series is quite interesting. Surprisingly, rumor has it that "God of War 4" might involve a new protagonist.

In fact, early reports suggest that the new "God of War" installment will include the Norse gods Odin, Loki and Thor -- the latter being the new protagonist. And although this should be taken as such, there are those who believe that removing Kratos from the series is actually a great idea for Sony to consider.

According to Kotaku, the third installment was nothing but a mere ending to the mythos that revolve around Kratos. Also, gamers have sensed the said character reaching the tail end of his journey.

Although it is definitely hard to see "God of War 4" without the Spartan Warrior -- after all, the character has successfully established himself as the face of the franchise -- introducing new characters (or even perhaps a new protagonist) is still a feasible idea. After all, doing such is a perfect way to revive a series that has been in the industry for quite some time now.

International Business Times, on the other hand, reports that "God of War 4" might take the center stage in the upcoming Sony E3 2016. The only catch, however, is that Kratos is still part of it -- only, he will find himself in the middle of the Norse realm.

As long as Sony will not release any official announcement or whatsoever, expect fans to continue speculating. Whether or not Kratos will be part of the new installment, "God of War 4" is still a great game to have.
After a data set of almost 70,000 users from the online dating site OkCupid was released online by a group of researchers, experts are now questioning online privacy issues.

The online publication Wired reports that on May 8, a group of Danish researchers released publicly on a website a data set of around 70,000 users of OkCupid, an online dating site. The released data include usernames, gender, age, location, personality traits, what kind of relationship (or sex) they are interested in and answers to thousands of profiling questions used by the site.

Aarhus University graduate student Emil O. W. Kirkegaard, who was the lead on the work, was asked whether the researchers tried to anonymize the data set. He replied on Twitter that the data set was already public; therefore, they did not attempt to anonymize it.

The same mindset is also found in the study's accompanying draft paper posted to the online peer-review forums of an open-access online journal. There, Kirkegaard argued that all the data set was already publically available. Releasing it merely presents it in a more useful form even if "some may object to the ethics of gathering and releasing this data."

Despite Kirkegaard's position, there are many people concerned about research ethics, online privacy and the practice of releasing publicly large data sets. One of the most important concerns that is often the least understood, is the fact that even if a person knowingly shares a single piece of information, big data analysis can amplify and publicize it in a different way the person agreed or intended.

In order to collect the data in the study, the researchers affiliated with Aarhus University in Denmark, Emil Kirkegaard, Julius Daugbjerg Bjerrekr and Oliver Nordbjerg used a browser extension dubbed "scraper," designed to collect data from web pages. An OkCupid spokesman declared that the research team was breaking the OkCupid's terms of usage and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, since they collected the data without the dating website's permission. According to The Christian Science Monitor, the research team has also breached the ethics of Social Science Research.
Bacteria are omnipresent. Some are harmful, while others are beneficial for our health. Bacteria present in our gut helps to digest foods and even regulate our moods. There are others that help to guzzle oil spills and even turn weeds into fuel.

While the supposed probiotic products are already available on the market, researchers are yet to ascertain the precise digestive bacteria are vital for our health, and whether it will make any difference manipulating them. "We don't really have a definition of what is healthy and that's what we need," Jo Handelsman of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy said.

On the other hand, though farmers already utilizing microscopic helpers, for example, planting legumes to "fix" nitrogen in the soil, major gaps still exist in understanding how the crops can be made more productive by using nature's living fertilizers.

Now the Obama administration is commencing an important project with a view to comprehend these invisible microbes present in our ecosystem and even control them. On Friday, the National Microbiome Initiative announced at the White House that it wants to assemble scientists who are studying microbes living in the human gut as well as in the oceans, in soil and inside buildings, with a view to speed findings that may perhaps offer huge benefits, Philly Voice reported.

Several companies, foundations as well as universities have pledged to the National Microbiome Initiative, to donate millions of dollars with a view to prepare new scientists, fund new researches and even offer prizes for the best new ideas to understand the functioning of the microbes and utilize them for the benefit of humanity, NBC News reported.

In fact, the White House has assured to propose over $121 million in federal spending over the next 2 years at various institutions including the National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy, NASA, National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Agriculture. However, a decision on the plan would be left for the next President and Congress to make.
In his books, he wrote "publicity, good or bad, scandal or blame, all makes money!" - His money-making machine. He creates dramatic acts or stories, capturing the readers. He's good at manipulating the media, the public, the voters. He's a genius in a world he creates. He's another Obama's trick, keeping creating dramas - you just follow, to criticize, to react, to yell, to scream, to cry, to cheer, to dream - but, he laughs at a distance.

He plays people! Wake up! Super smart, elites, if no good heart, dangerous!

The devil is in the detail: If you can't dive/boogle down in depth, you'd never see the root, a guy insecure about his wealth, his sexuality, his name, his family, - he never stops bragging about - he wanna tell you how great, how big his manhood even with small hands - all rooted in love of his own life.

So absurd that some Hardcore fans rush in defending his behaviors - exactly what's he wants! He stirs up the water for his own gain. That's is his conspiracy - you fall right into his trap. Be aware of smart people!

~~~

Monday, May 16, 2016 08:38 AM PDT

Topics: Donald Trump , Elections 2016 , john barron , john miller , trump ego , trump narcissist , trump publicist , trump scandal , Elections News , Media News , News , Politics News

On Friday, the already off-the-charts bizarre Donald Trump campaign took a turn for the even weirder after two Washington Post journalists, Marc Fisher and Will Hobson, published a report about Trumps long history of posing as his own publicist, often for no other purpose but to brag about his sex life. Or, in many cases, his imaginary sex life, as Trump, posing as John Miller, would try to convince reporters that Madonna wanted to have sex with him.

The story immediately took off. Saturday Night Live referenced it in a skit. John Oliver, in response to Trumps denials that he did this, invited John Miller to be on Last Week Tonight , to prove that he is real.

Its an open invitation, Oliver said, so please come on by, John Miller, theres literally nothing stopping you other than the fact you obviously dont exist.

The story is confounding, but also silly, and unsurprisingly, there were objections to the fact that this is the thing that people are making a big deal about.

To be entirely fair, there has been extensive coverage of Trumps violent impulses, racism and misogyny. Over the weekend, The New York Times published a lengthy piece detailing the way that Trump is incapable of interacting with women without putting them down and obsessing over their bodies. His racism is so well-covered that there are reports that schoolchildren on playgrounds are conflicting over it. Its the main reason that most pundits are confident that Trump will lose in November.

But Millhiser is right that this entire episode reads more like a bona fide scandal than previous incidents where he called Mexican immigrants rapists or proposed banning Muslims from traveling to the U.S. or threw winking encouragement to his supporters to get violent with political opponents. Thats because political scandals, for better or worse, rarely take off because of substantive reasons, but for structural ones: They yank us out of the politics-as-usual frame and leave the candidates exposed in a way that is very difficult for even the most experienced public relations department to deal with.

So why is this revelation that Trump pretended to be his own publicist more of a scandal than his obnoxious views or his eagerness to provoke violence?

1) The best political scandals appear to confirm something people always suspected about a politician, but previously couldnt prove. The talking point about how 47% of Americans are supposedly mooches who live off the largess of the taxpaying 53% is a lie thats been kicked around in conservative circles for a long time now. So why did it turn into a major scandal when Mitt Romney was caught on camera spouting this nonsense for wealthy donors?

It wasnt because it was a lie. Romney mostly got a pass for parroting other conservative falsehoods about things like climate change and gun control , because everyone has gotten so used to conservatives lying that it hardly constitutes a scandal anymore.

No, the reason is that many Americans suspected that Romneys veneer of compassion was just an act, and that deep down inside, the man was a blue blood who has nothing but disdain for ordinary people who are struggling to get by. The 47% video took this belief out of the realm of speculation and turned it into fact, which is why it had so much emotional resonance.

Trumps fake publicist act has a similar vibe to it. Many of us have long assumed that Trumps belligerence isnt the sign of confidence, as he would have us believe, but instead a paper-thin cover for what is, in fact, his overwhelming insecurity. Pretending to be his own publicist in a pathetic bid to trick people into thinking hes more sexually desirable than he clearly is? Thats the wealthy mans version of a high school nerd telling everyone he has a Canadian girlfriend he met in summer camp. Theres no need to speculate anymore about Trump having severe emotional issues that lead him to act out the way he does. We now know it, beyond any shadow of a doubt.

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The sinkhole found in Florida could overturn the accepted theory that prehistoric humans arrived in the Americas around 13,000 years ago as stated in the Land Bridge Theory. Compelling evidence discovered in the sinkhole suggests that humans actually started living in the southern state more than 14,500 years ago; a full 1,500 earlier than previously thought.

Located south of Tallahassee in the Aucilla River, the sinkhole is 200ft wide and has a depth of 35ft. The site was already known to archeologists for years, but it wasn't until recently that divers went into the sinkhole and found traces of ancient humans.

For decades, the majority of scientists accepted that the first humans to explore the Americas were the Clovis people; named after Clovis, New Mexico where spearheads were found among fossilized mammoth bones. The discovery does not discredit the theory as a whole, but it does support the narrative of some groups that the arrival of humans on the continent is more complex than the majority of scientists supposed. Even with the compelling evidence found in the sinkhole, however, many in the scientific community are still resisting the idea that there were humans in the continent before the Clovis people came along.

Among the artifacts found on the site are a stone knife and a "biface," which Professor Jessi Halligan insisted could not have been natural and could only have been made by humans. Prof. Halligan is a scientist employed by Florida State University. She has dived into the sinkhole over 126 times.

Other items present in the sinkhole include mastodon bones as well as traces of fossilized dung. At this point, the conjecture is that the sinkhole was just a watering hole 14,500 years ago where local animals would go to drink. Hunting would have therefore only meant waiting for prey to come around for the early humans.

"They were very smart about local plants and local animals and migration patterns," Halligan said.
Xiaomi has unveiled the newest generation of its Yi Action Camera series -- the Yi 4K -- which many tech savvies suggest as the budget alternative for GoPro's most affordable edition.

Coined from the name itself, the latest device shoot 4K videos at 30fps as well as 2.5K at 30fps and 1440p at 60fps. Slowmo videos are possible at 1080p at 120fps, 960p at 120fps or 720p at 240fps. And opposite to that, time lapse shots are in 4K at 0.5/1/2/5/10/30/60 second intervals, according to GSM Arena.

Talking about specs, the Yi 4K is equipped with a 12MP Sony IMZ377 image sensor featuring a sensor size of 1/2.3-inch sensor size, 7P lens with f/2.8 aperture and 155 degree angle view, according to Tech.Firstpost. This is the same sensor used in Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, the Unbox revealed.

Display on the rear side is a 2.19-inch, 30 PPI touchscreen LCD with a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels and protected with Corning Gorilla Glass. It also has a dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz Wi-Fi support and Bluetooth 4.0 to pair with an Android device.

Xiaomi's Yi 4K action camera also uses Ambarella A9SE95 chipset, which is similar to that of Go Pro's Hero4. Meanwhile, in terms of battery life, the device is equipped with a 1400mAh battery, able to withstand a 2-hour 4K video recording.

Xiaomi's latest action camera has three different colors to choose from, including black, white and rose gold. Even though this is quite wider than its predecessor, the Yi 4K is still way smaller than GoPro Hero4 with dimensions at 2.36 x 0.83 x 1.65 inches.

Although the product is not immediately available for the U.S. consumers, the newest member of the Xiaomi family is available at Gearbest for $249.99, according to The Verge. Other online sites such as banggood.com and geekbuying.com are accepting orders.
New Orleans has taken on a decidedly IBM i tint thanks to the start of COMMONs Annual Meeting and Expo over the weekend. An estimated 1,100 attendees are in the Big Easy for the four-day show, which began Sunday morning with remarks by COMMON president Kevin Mort, and also featured a glimpse into the future of Power Systems, courtesy of IBM Power Systems executives Steve Sibley and Stephanie Chiras. The spring COMMON conference is still the biggest IBM i show on earth and provides attendees a chance to beef up their skills, socialize with other IBM i professionals, check out the latest vendor solutions, and hear the IBM i gospel from the likes of true-blue IBMers like Steve Will, Alison Butterill, and Scott Forstie. While neither COMMON nor IBM i are what they once were in terms of the number of followers they draw, there is considerable fruit still on the vine here, and both COMMON and the platform continue to evolve to meet ever-changing needs. Take, for example, the professional certifications that COMMON offers. First launched six years ago with a single certification, COMMON now offers three certifications, including the Certified Business Computing Professional (CBCP), the COMMON Business Computing Associate (CBCA), and another for ILE RPG. Mort announced that the user group will soon double the number of certifications by adding an Associate RPG certification, and administration certifications for IBM i and AIX. COMMON is going to be producing IBM i and AIX administrative certificates so you can demonstrate your skills to your employers and other future prospects, Mort told the audience gathered here at the Hilton Riverside hotel in downtown New Orleans. Opening Power While COMMON is primarily an IBM i conference, theres fair bit of AIX and Linux, too. The latter operating system perhaps plays a bigger role, thanks to the presence of IBMs OpenPower initiative. Stephanie Chiras, a PhD holder who carries the very IBM-like title of Vice President, Power Systems Offering Management, Systems of Engagement Infrastructures, told the IBM i crowd not to fret. Stefani Chiras from IBM giving the keynote at COMMON.

(Photo courtesy of Tony Rose of COMMON.)

The OpenPower ecosystem is absolutely synergistic with the IBM Power Systems strategy and that of IBM i and AIX, she said during her keynote address Sunday. OpenPower and Linux on Power is relevant to the Power platform, to the Power architecture. Its relevant for IBM i and AIX, its relevant for everything that Power Systems delivers today and the potential of what it can deliver tomorrow and the choice that it will bring tomorrow. Chiras noted that when OpenPower members like Google and Rackspace Hosting commit to working together to build a Power9-based server together, or when Nvidia and IBM plan to build fast new I/O connections between graphics processing units (GPUs) and Power8 chips, that it strengthens the entire ecosystem. It brings innovation that you can leverage and use to expand and grow on all the capabilities of IBM i, she said. OpenPower is all the more important now that IBM doesnt have an X86 server business to distract it. Its a good thing that IBMs focus is entirely on Power (and mainframe and storage too) says Bo Gebbie, whos official IBM title is Director of Sales and Product management, North America Power Systems & Server Linux Solutions. Good riddance, Gebbie said. Im happy because now finally within the company we can focus on whats important. We call it high-value systems. Stephanie talks about when we had the X86 business, it was her ugly step sister. But now we got rid of them. We divorced them. That divestiture is paying dividends, according to Steve Sibley, IBM Vice President, Power Systems Offering Management, Systems of Record Infrastructures, who says IBM followed through on a promise it made in 2013 to be the most open platform system in the industry. In 2014 we started bringing those products to market with IBM i 7.2, Sibley said. And we had a great year last year, in 2015. We had growth for the full year on the Power Systems. We saw huge growth in our Linux businessover 300 percent in that area. And tremendous growth in IBM i, a vibrant community we have here. Looking forward, the IBM Power Systems strategy pivots around a few major themes, including cognitive, cloud, virtualization, and openness. If the word cognitive sends you into uncontrollable shivers, then maybe you should just think of it as machine learning and big data, Gebbie said. But whatever you do, dont pass on it, because its closer to becoming part of your day-to-day reality than you might think. A lot of people when they think of cognitive or big data they think of it for large enterprise only, Gebbie said. But guess what: The guy down the street is doing it. So if youre not out there leveraging the system and the ecosystem, youre going to kind of be left behind. COMMON Awards The Opening Session featured a ton of awards. One of the biggest awards given out is the COMMON-IBM Power Systems Innovation Award winner. This years Innovation Award goes to Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation for breaking away from a fixed format, RPG III application development tradition by transitioning to free form RPG and RDi. The project got underway when the head of IT made it a priority and hired a young college graduate to help make it happen. Although the new guy had no background in RPG or IBM i, he demonstrated enthusiasm and understanding of the importance of building for the future. Going forward, the electric co-op has increased its application development skills, created apps that integrate with other platforms and are understood by non-RPG developers, and are less maintenance intensive. Read more about this in an article titled Free Form RPG Scores IBM i Innovation Award in this issue of The Four Hundred. The COMMON Education Foundation also presented seven scholarships. Topping the list was Liam Allan of Fareham College in Hampshire, England. Allan received the Student Innovation Award for developing a programming language and virtual machine on an IBM i system. He also presented a how I did it session at the conference. The Volunteer Memorial Scholarshipthis year awarded in memory of Bob Krzeczowski, a long-time volunteer for COMMON who passed away in 2015was awarded to Robert Nields of Cincinnati State Technical and Community College in Cincinnati, Ohio. IBM i instructor scholarships were awarded to Jim Buck and Christian Hur from Gateway Technical College in Kenosha, Wisconsin; Doris McCreary from Itawamba Community College in Fulton, Mississippi; and Sarah Robison from Arkansas Technical University in Russellville, Arkansas. Alan Seiden was chosen for the Al Barsa Memorial Scholarship. Aaron Bartell was selected for the John Earl Speaker Award, sponsored by PowerTech, a division of HelpSystems. Money for all scholarships except the John Earl Award is raised from the annual silent auction at the COMMON conference, direct donations, merchandise sales, and raffle tickets. Last but not least, check out this humorous video that Mort shared during the show (see below). If that doesnt fire up the IBM i geek in you, then what will? RELATED STORIES Cautious Optimism Pervades COMMON Can OpenPower Take A Bite Out Of The Datacenter? IBM Announcements Buzz At COMMON Annual Meeting COMMON Fights Off The Blues In Austin COMMON Prepares Business Computing Certification for Orlando Show
Enterprise switches are intelligent and can be just as prone to cyberattack as a server can. Why not protect them at the source?

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) have teamed with LGS Innovations to run its CodeGuardian switch protection software on the ALE Omni-switch portfolio.

CodeGuardian is believed to be the worlds first independently developed solution aimed at protecting the operating system of third-party network switches and routers from security threats and vulnerabilities. The addition of CodeGuardian to OmniSwitch products creates another layer of defence against security exploits.

CodeGuardian is designed to protect networks from intrinsic vulnerabilities, code exploits, embedded malware, and potential backdoors that could compromise mission-critical operations. The technology is designed to mitigate larger enterprise security risks at the source, enabling an enhanced security profile through:

Independent verification and validation of OmniSwitch source code;

Address space randomisation to protect the OmniSwitch operating system without changing any functionality;

Secure delivery of OmniSwitch software by ALE helps to prevent tampering.

Stephane Robineau, Executive Vice President, GM, Network business, ALE said Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise switches are continuing to evolve with superior, enhanced security to protect businesses from modern security threats and vulnerabilities. After all, preventing an attack is much less expensive than recovering from an attack. Our OmniSwitch products already satisfy a higher level of security required in particular in government agencies, military operations, academic institutions, and healthcare organisations. We take pride in the continued evolution of our portfolio to address our customers security concerns, and are excited to work with LGS Innovations to bring the added assurance of CodeGuardian to our offering.

Kevin Kelly, Chief Executive Officer, LGS Innovations said LGS Innovations is dedicated to supporting the evolution of enterprise security to address a defence-in-depth strategy for all layers of the network. With extensive experience deploying secure, mission-critical switching solutions, we recognize the importance of network-level software integrity as a critical component of the larger network security ecosystem. LGS is excited to partner with ALE to bring CodeGuardian to their OmniSwitch family of products.

This interesting for many reasons.

Until the term Internet of Things (IoT) became popular we did not consider routers, switches, access points and more to be IoT. These devices actually are all IoT with their own processors, memory, and operating systems. We perhaps forgot that these are just as vulnerable to attack as any other internet connected device. Omni-switches are intelligent managed products, so they have the ability to run apps and software.

By far the biggest user of these types of switches is the telecommunications industry. This vulnerable industry has long raised questions about the software chain of custody and potential vulnerabilities introduced along the chain. A switch just doesnt direct traffic  it can redirect it too.

Software and firmware that runs switches is not protected by traditional IT security mechanisms such as virus scanners. This leaves them susceptible to the introduction of malware and other attacks, potentially causing:

Compromise of network connectivity (including rejecting or redirecting traffic)

Opening of the network to further attacks by compromising security policy on the network

Exposure of the network to theft of sensitive data

Interruption or corruption of network traffic

Blocking of all traffic by rendering the network hardware inoperable

CodeGuardian looks to be able to protect IP voice and data networks from intrinsic vulnerabilities, code exploits, embedded malware, and potential backdoors that could compromise mission-critical operations.

Another point of interest is that as the tsunami of devices connects to the internet, we create even more traffic and even more vulnerabilities. A term I recently hear a lot of is to move intelligence to the edge. In essence, it means that connected devices are better to do a lot of the processing locally rather than rely on communication with the cloud for instructions. Running protection on switches using their resources make perfect sense.
The Bangladesh bank heist in February this year has become a legend in its own lunchtime  US$81 million dollars gone and assertions that it may be have been an inside job.

CyberArks Asaf Hecht and Lauren Horaist have given iTWire an exclusive inside look at the bank heist. The cause is puzzling and the investigation still drags on but one thing is for sure  it could have been prevented.

What happened? $81 million was withdrawn from the Bangladesh Banks account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It was then washed via the Philippines and the money trail ends there.

The money trail

On 15 May, 2015, bank accounts each containing one dollar were opened at the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC). They lay dormant until Feb 4, 2016.

On 4 February, 2016 hackers used the Bangladesh Bank's account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, ordering 35 transfers worth $951 million, the bulk of which to be transferred to RCBC Jupiter, Philippines branch.

The Federal Reserve Bank did not execute 30 of the 35 transfers due to lack of details. The remaining five transfers worth $101 million could not be blocked, but $20 million was later salvaged. This was after an instruction to a fake Sri Lankan foundation was put on hold because of a typographical mistake. But $81 million made it to the RCBC and disappeared.

From here on in it is a story of how the hackers got the money out of the bank and there is a very comprehensive article and timeline here.

A perfect crime - read on





CyberArk says this was almost the perfect crime. $81M dollars, placed into legitimate fake bank accounts, quickly withdrawn and washed via Philippine casinos, and added intrigue as a cyber researcher was abducted and a bank employee pleads the fifth  no self-incrimination.

To understand how the money was transferred banks use the SWIFT system  a private, member-owned financial services co-op that provides a secure network (SWIFTNet) through which 11,000 institutions in 200 countries can send and receive monetary transactions. Once a transaction is requested (access control), authenticated, and authorized it is done!

Hackers either got into the RCBC via spear phishing, a targeted drive by download attack, or as highly suspected access to an insiders security credentials.

Once inside they were able to the harvest credentials from infected systems and use those credentials to laterally move throughout the banks IT network. Reports indicate that 32 machines were accessed by the attackers before they were able to cross into the SWIFT-connected systems.

A SWIFT crime

The SWIFT-connected systems were owned and managed by Bangladesh Bank and were configured with SWIFTNet Link (SNL) software, which allowed these machines to securely connect to the SWIFT network. According to an assessment by the incident responders, once the attackers were inside the SWIFT-connect systems, they appeared to operate exclusively with local administrator accounts.

Banks typically separate their SWIFT-connected systems from the rest of their IT network. Until October 2015, Bangladesh Bank had done this too. However, it launched a new service called Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) that directly connected it to both the IT network and the SWIFT-connected systems. This meant no air gap and gave attackers an easy path from compromised IT systems to highly sensitive SWIFTNet Link systems.

The attackers installed SysMon in SWIFTLIVE to monitor all activity. This enabled them to learn how the systems functioned, how financial messages were sent and identify connected services. One service the attackers discovered was related to the printers. Every time an order was sent or received, it was automatically sent to a printer. To keep their actions under the radar, the attackers used their privileged access to disable the connected printer and cover their tracks. When bank employees noticed the printer was not working, they assumed it was a simple printer error  not an indication of an attack in progress.

Once inside the systems, the attackers were able to capture the digital certificates needed to send messages, as well as the static passwords that Bangladesh Bank used to protect access to the certificates. Unlike other banks, Bangladesh relied only on single factor authentication, which is far easier to crack. With the necessary credentials in hand and knowledge of the processes, the attackers were next able to start sending financial messages through the secure, access controlled SWIFTNet systems while masquerading as legitimate, authorized users.

The attackers ordered a total of 35 transfers worth $951 million. Because they were using stolen privileged credentials from Bangladesh Bank, SWIFTNet authenticated the transactions and sent them on their intended recipient  the US Federal Reserve.

Perfectly timed as well  the funds were to be transferred on 8 February  Chinese New Year holiday when no one was around to answer questions.

A privileged crime

First, after breaking through the perimeter, the attackers captured administrative credentials (privilege access) from infected machines.

Second, using the stolen privileged credentials, the attackers laterally moved throughout the environment until they ultimately reached the SWIFT-connected systems. The attackers used the local admin account on each of the systems to monitor activity and harvest SWIFT credentials. Because all the passwords were static and there was no second factor of authentication, the attackers were able to gain persistent, privileged access to both the SWIFT-connected systems and the SWIFT software platform itself.

Next, in preparation for the final step, the attackers used their admin privileges to remotely disable the printer to prevent employees from discovering the fraudulent transactions. Lastly, the attackers used the stolen SWIFT credentials to send financial messages, thus initiating the 35 transactions.

Why Bangladesh Bank was an accident looking to happen?

Basically it was due to legacy decisions and poor inherent security.

It had unnecessary privileged access. As a best practice, standard business users should never have full local admin rights. CyberArk could have enabled Bangladesh Bank to remove local admin rights while still enabling users to elevate privileges when needed for approved tasks. Without local admin rights, it would have been much more difficult for the attackers to break in, move throughout the network and install monitoring software.

CyberArk solutions could have helped Bangladesh Bank secure their privileged account credentials. This includes the credentials for the remaining local admin accounts on their endpoints, domain admin credentials, privileged SSH keys and any other credential that provides access to a sensitive account or system. This also could have included the SWIFT user credentials. By centrally securing privileged credentials, controlling access to these credentials based on role, and enforcing multi-factor authentication before granting access, the attackers would likely not have been able to get the credentials needed to laterally move through the environment, reach the SWIFT-connected systems or execute the fraudulent transactions. And, even if attackers were able to harvest the credentials using keylogging malware or by stealing the hash, proactive credential rotation would invalidate the compromised credentials, making them useless to the attacker.

Another standard best practice is to segment off highly sensitive systems from the rest of the IT network. This is often seen in retailers who have separate PCI environments, in utilities who separate and airgap their ICS systems, and it should be seen in central banks in their SWIFT-connected environments. CyberArk can help organizations separate these highly sensitive systems from the rest of the network by establishing a single, highly controlled point of access into sensitive systems. By forcing all users through this single access point and closing down all other routes into the systems, companies can dramatically reduce the attack surface, granularly control exactly who is able to access what systems, and protect these systems from potential risks on users endpoints. As an added benefit, once all traffic flows through one location, organizations can easily monitor and audit exactly who did what, strengthening security and increasing accountability.

In todays threat environment, in which attackers can easily masquerade as true users, its crucial that organizations also monitor and analyse all privilege account activity. These accounts protect the most sensitive data and assets, and as a last line of defence, security teams need to be able to quickly identity anomalous activity that could indicate an attack is in-process. In this case, had the Bangladesh Bank been monitoring SWIFT account activity, they could have been alerted to the abnormal login patterns, investigated what was going on, and stopped the attackers before they were able to execute 35 transactions.

Lastly, by controlling applications on endpoints and servers, organizations can apply application whitelisting policies that meet their risk tolerance. By doing this, organizations can proactively prevent unknown and malicious software from infiltrating the environment and detect when new applications enter and spread through the environment. In this case, Bangladesh Bank could have recognized the malware on the 32 infected systems during the early stages of the attack and blocked SysMon from running on the SWIFT-connected machines in the later phases.

While this attack required advanced planning, the attack methods used were not very sophisticated. With the proper tools and policies, this likely could have been prevented.
An inside whistle blower dobbed his Western Australian employer into the Business Software Alliance for using unlicensed software  piracy.

The result was a A$100,000 negotiated settlement  read fine  and the company purchasing legitimate software licenses of Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft programs to legalise its ongoing software deployments. It will undertake regular audits to ensure compliance.

The Business Software Alliance is obviously crowing about WAs big bust but it follows a record number of settlements for the state in 2015. iTWire article here.

The Whistle blower is also happy  they collected the maximum $20,000 reward launched in April. iTWire has details here.

For the record all settlements are confidential and companies are not named and shamed.

Roland Chan, Senior Director, Compliance Programs, Asia-Pacific, BSA, said, While some businesses think they can save money and fly under the radar by using unlicensed software, the reality is they fail to consider the larger financial and reputational risks. This case serves as a reminder to businesses everywhere of the importance of using properly licensed software.

We urge all businesses, whether large or small, to conduct regular audits of software licenses and deployments, and implement an effective Software Asset Management (SAM) practice. We urge those who are aware of businesses using unlicensed software to Report Piracy.

A sound Software Asset Management (SAM) program with regular IT audits will ensure that businesses can avoid the damaging consequences of using unlicensed software and get the best returns from their investments in IT, said Chan.

BSA offers up to $20,000 to eligible recipients who disclose accurate information regarding unlawful copying or use of BSA members software. Potential recipients must provide assistance and evidence to support the information, as may be required by BSAs legal advisers, in connection with any claim or legal proceedings initiated by the BSA members. For the full terms and conditions, please click here.
Check Point, a significant, global network cyber security vendor has adopted the government stance by offering a comprehensive free security check to ensure that all Australian and New Zealand business of any size does not miss out - but iTWire points out that in no way does the Federal Government endorse any companies doing the free security checkup.

iTWire saw a sample of the free Security Checkup report  names changed to protect the guilty - and it is extremely comprehensive. It covers malware infections, usage of high-risk web applications and websites, emails, intrusion attempts, loss of sensitive data, cloud storage, SCADA, all endpoints, and more. One sample table is below.

The Security Checkup Report also assesses an organisations current security status, reveals areas for improvement and provides a means to evaluate new information security technologies.

Figures from The Australian Crime Commission estimate that cyber-crime costs Australia $1 billion in direct costs. High profile intrusions since 2015 have included Kmart, David Jones, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, The Royal Melbourne Hospital and Australian Government Parliamentary Services.



However, many Australian businesses also fail to acknowledge publicly that they have been breached signifying that this figure may well be higher. Indeed, the Australian Signals Directorate was called in to review more than 1200 cyber-attacks last year, up from 940 in 2014, while at least 60 attacks plagued Australian energy networks in 2014-2015.



It only takes one vulnerable host to infect an entire network. According to Check Point research, 96 percent of the organisations we recently studied use at least one high-risk application, says David De Laine, Regional Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand, Check Point Software Technologies.



The Australian Information Security Association asserts that there are around 200,000 small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) in Australia in need of cyber security protection assistance and believes that the issue of cyber security needs to be a strategic business priority.



Cloud computing, mobility and the Internet of Things are megatrends which are reshaping the IT infrastructures used by many organisations. Finding ways to maintain proper security as the diversity of technologies continues to grow rapidly is becoming an increasing challenge. External data sources, cloud platforms and mobile devices all provide valuable services, but they also create new potential avenues for the intrusion. Each and every endpoint is a potential door into an organisation's IT systems and data, and hackers only need to open one to wreak havoc.



In a world with high-demanding IT infrastructures and networks, where perimeters are no longer well defined, and where threats grow more intelligent every day, we need to define the right way to protect enterprises in the ever-changing threat landscape.



The benefits of having a free security checkup provide organisations with the knowledge that core systems and data will remain secure at all times, says De Laine.



Please click here to register for a FREE Security Checkup.
Symantec has appointed Brian Fletcher as the Director of Government Affairs for the companys Australian, New Zealand, Japan and Korean operations. Based in Canberra, Fletcher will be leading Symantecs engagement with governments and stakeholders on public policy and providing expert advice on cybercrime issues across the region. He will also be working to expand Symantecs existing public-private partnerships.

An experienced cybersecurity executive, Fletcher joins Symantec after 21 years of Australian Government service. His most recent role was as the Director of Cyber Security Relationships for the Australian Signals Directorate at the Australian Cyber Security Centre, where he led the development of cybersecurity policy and partnerships with industry and federal, state and territory governments. Fletcher has also served in the Australian Embassy in Washington, DC where he provided advice to ambassadors and defence staff on strategic cybersecurity and intelligence issues.

On his appointment, Ian McAdam, Managing Director, Pacific region, Symantec, said, Brians extensive legislative and policy experience together with his management skills make him a perfect fit for this role.

2015 was a transformative year for Symantec as we evolved into the worlds leading cybersecurity company. Government Affairs is an important focus for our company, particularly as the Australian government continues to plan for the ever increasing number of cyber-attacks reaching its shores.

Fletchers role will focus on working hand-in-hand with key government agencies to develop innovative and practical ways to improve Australias cyber defence capabilities. He will also be charged with providing recommendations for the Governments Cyber Security Review and mandatory data breach notification laws, added McAdam.

As cyber-attacks increase in numbers and destructive capabilities, Symantecs work continues to expand in scope and impact. I am incredibly excited to be joining Symantec and I look forward to working with governments and their agencies to help protect consumers, businesses and governments from cyber-attacks, said Fletcher.

Fletcher holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Neuroscience and is currently studying for his MBA. He has also completed executive coursework at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Australian National University in policy and security.
Last month, the Linux Australia secretary, Sae Ra Germaine, posted to the publicly-available Linux-aus mailing list that the organisation's website had been disrupted due to hosting changes. Under its current mindset, this problem is only bound to re-occur.

Germaine's posting is available online. Yet, the underlying story presented by the secretary reveals a level of organisation perhaps rivalling the Keystone Cops.

Linux Australia is populated with a membership that may contain some hobbyists and beginners, but for the most part it would be reasonable to think has a sizeable proportion of smart, experienced technology professionals.

Yet, despite this, and contrary to the organisation's desire to be seen as the "peak body" for Linux and open source in Australia, the web hosting was not managed to any standard the members would apply to their daytime jobs.

Germaine explains Linux Australia had two servers hosted by the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing (VPAC). Now, VPAC itself existed on the basis of funding and is not a self-sustaining commercial entity.

In November 2015 Linux Australia learned  how is not specified  VPAC's parent body, V3 Alliance, a Victorian eResearch co-operative, was closing. Linux Australia contacted VPAC  you will note VPAC did not contact Linux Australia  and identified that VPAC's funding ran to the end of the current financial year, namely June 30, 2016.

Linux Australia's Council and Admin teams determined that new hosting was needed, and the Admin team commenced discussions with a Victorian university seeking hosting space.

In early December, VPAC reached out to Linux Australia, and advised that most staff had moved on and VPAC would be auspiced by the University which had hosted its offices and equipment from January 1, 2016.

The Admin team sought to have VPAC identify the servers used by Linux Australia in the hope these would not be prematurely turned off by the University.

The Admin team purchased new server hardware, yet discontinued its search for a new hosting donor until March 2016. Germaine does not state why this work paused for two months despite the organising committees knowing the urgency of the matter. It is also not stated why Linux Australia did not seek commercial hosting space, and why it purchased server hardware  with no home  when virtualised hosting options exist.

At 3pm on April 19, 2016 disaster hit and Linux Australia's Admin team received notifications that two servers at VPAC, and the virtual machines running on them, were no longer available. It was considered the servers had been powered off.

It seems to be evident that Linux Australia, despite knowing the situation at VPAC, did not actually engage with the University itself at any point.

A former VPAC employee was approached and he explained the site was in the process of being decommissioned. This former employee was able to provide contact details for the contractor; the contractor was reached, and this person agreed to make the server available for two hours.

Linux Australia used this window to commence transferring services from these servers to alternates. The detail is described in the mailing list posting. Yet, it is noted that at the time of posting some services were still not online, and some services were still dependent on the goodwill of others providing hosting.

Germaine states that this happened despite Linux Australia undertaking "all possible means" to ensure the equipment was identified as belonging to the organisation.

However, this does not stand to reason. Firstly, as Germaine notes, the ownership was mistakenly attributed to a Victorian Linux user group. Secondly, Linux Australia did not have any contacts at the University but only ex-staff at VPAC. It is as if Linux Australia, in a fit of digital autism, felt that putting a sticker on a server would save them having to actually speak to any human at the University or the V3 Alliance, choosing to solely work through staff whom they knew would soon be no longer in any position to assist. It is telling that neither the University nor the contractor reached out to Linux Australia, and is likely neither party were aware  at least by Linux Australia's hands  that they were hosting such equipment.

Germaine also does not explain why the search for a new host was abandoned for two months, despite knowing how perilous the situation was, with the Admin team consciously choosing to leave its valuable infrastructure in a rack in an organisation that was knowingly being dismantled, guarded solely by a sticker on the server.

At the time of writing Germaine was also unable to state if data has been lost, raising doubtsabout the integrity of back-ups.

Now, Germaine does rightly raise the question why this keeps happening to Linux Australia, with the explanation that the organisation relies on the goodwill of the community or commercial organisations to host server infrastructure, noting that these are not binding and may change as commercial drivers change for those businesses on which Linux Australia relies.

While one can appreciate Linux Australia is not at heart a commercial organisation, it seems an unacceptable risk and even very cavalier that such an attitude toward hosting vital services has developed at all.

Ultimately, despite the rhetoric of goodwill, of adopting a policy of owning hardware (but not paying for hosting?), and so forth, the picture that emerges smacks of a scenario where Linux Australia had its servers in unknown hands and only initially found out about it by accident. Once knowing for certain, no serious action was taken. Oh, yes, the Admin team determined to find new hosting. Then they didn't do so. The servers were left in an environment where it was predictable they would be powered off, but actions were not taken at that time, nor for two months, and ultimately services were lost.

The organisation has chosen, despite the skillbase of its members, to set something up with band-aid solutions in the name of keeping costs low, while at the same time making capital purchases of hardware. These solutions have depended on specific individuals being employed for the continuity of the hosting, and when those persons have moved on, there would appear to be little or no documentation. There appears to have been no communication with the parent organisations when key contacts were leaving. There even appears to be uncertainty over the reliability of back-ups.

Given Linux Australia largely exists for the sole purpose of running its annual Linux.Conf.Au conference (and giving some grants to various purposes through the year, but certainly not for anything like, say, seeking to influence business or Government), and given the organisation always make a profit from the conference, it seems unbelievable the concept of paying for a reliable virtual hosted server environment is totally dismissed by the organisation.

Financial statements for the 2015 financial year are also publicly available and reveal a profit of $143K over the last year. Interestingly, the organisation pays for "storage", but not the electronic storage of its own servers. Indeed, year after year, Linux Australia spends little  because let's face it, it sees its mission as fundamentally to run an annual conference  and raises more money from that same conference.

Why professional, paid hosting is ruled out  in favour of capital expenditure and communication-lacking documentationless favour-reliant hosting  seems a bizarre and risk-laden omission.

This is not the first occasion Linux Australia has experienced reliability issues, as indicated by Germaine's rhetorical question "Why does this keep happening to Linux Australia?" and as documented by iTWire colleague Sam Varghese.

Under the organisation's current thinking about server hosting it will not be the last, either.
The year 2016 has brutally claimed many scalps. It's also the year Telstra's credibility as a stable network provider powering the largest Australian network died.

Sadly, 2016 has brought with it the departure of Alan Rickman, David Bowie, Ronnie Corbett, Prince and more.

2016 is also the year where Telstra has suffered outage after outage. Actually, Telstra's customers are the ones suffering, and often without explanation.

On Tuesday 9th February Telstra's 2G, 3G, 4G voice and data networks experienced a major outage affecting millions of individuals.

Telstra apologised, explaining the problem was a human error, with services connected to a faulty node instead of migrated away from it.

A free "day of data" was then granted to Telstra mobile users, and to Telstra's credit, the day went without incident, even with some network users boasting about how many gigabytes of data they had downloaded without incurring a bill.

Yet, in March it happened again.

Telstra strenuously asserted the two incidents were unrelated and occurred for different causes. A second free day of data was bestowed.

In actuality, this was the fourth mobile network outage within two months, a scenario which rival carriers were keen to point out.

While these two specific incidents received notable publicity, they were not the end of it. Telstra has suffered a spate of outages affecting businesses and consumers alike.

Just last Thursday night Telstra's primary DNS servers failed rendering many businesses and consumers without connectivity. The cabling itself was fine, but the critical name resolution that mail and web servers depend on was out.

No sooner was this resolved than many east cost NBN services suffered an outage.

At this very time of writing Telstra's service status page reports all services are functioning normally, but yet the damage to confidence - particularly business confidence - has been done.

Enterprises are rightfully wary of Telstra's uptime capability right now, with goodwill and confidence eroded.

While Telstra was keen to publicly explain the human error in the February mobile outage, the telco has not been forthcoming with any explanation or root cause analysis for the numerous following incidents.

Indeed, while such incidents were occurring only scant information was provided on the service status page, and the Telstra Twitter and Facebook pages were conspicuously quiet on the matters.

By day, I am the Chief Information Officer for public companies, with branch networks spanning Australia and, in one role, internationally to New Zealand and The Philippines.

I have personally written and published RFPs for telcos to supply data, voice, mobile and hosting services worth multi-millions of dollars.

Telstra has invariably had an edge because of its broad national reach. I've argued with CFOs that just because they can get good Vodafone coverage on a cheap plan in Melbourne doesn't help our workers in Muswellbrook, NSW or Moranbah, Qld.

Another reason Telstra has had an edge is because it can deliver flexibility for organisations that are growing and, sometimes, contracting, allowing for sites to open, move or, if need be, close. This became a sticking point for me at times in negotiations with certain third-party resellers of Telstra (and other) telecommunications services because they maintain they are themselves contracted to Telstra and cannot cancel a service at a specific location, despite whether we are growing in other areas.

Ironically, when I suggested to that reseller I would get a quicker fault resolution by dealing with Telstra directly than by logging an issue with them, and they in turn logging it with Telstra, they replied as they are a much larger Telstra customer overall than my business they were confident of achieving a faster response. Yet, they are evidently not so great a customer that I cannot negotiate greater agility on site connectivity myself.

Nevertheless, the point is Telstra has certain strengths which other carriers do not have, even if they may be financially more competitive.

Yet, with continuing business downtime due to failing mobile networks and data networks Telstra is eroding the confidence that I and others can have in it.

I have personally asked Telstra executives if they are at breaking point and they assure me this is not the case. However, I will reserve my judgment and hope to see us make it to the end of the financial year, at least, without further disruption.
We have TFT, LCD, IPS, LPTS, LED, AMOLED and hundreds more display acronyms. GOA or gate-on-array is the latest technology that enables thinner bezels and is driving panel prices down  but is it all good?

A press release from research company Trendforce about GOA caught my eye  admittedly very soon after Samsung had filled my head full of Quantum Physics with its Quantum Dot range of TVs. So I decided to do a bit of digging to hopefully explain the various panel technologies and what that means. Understanding GOA is the focus because it has gone from a standing start about two years ago to probably being the technology behind 70% of the worlds lower cost, thin bezel, TVs.

Essentially there are two main panel technologies  LCD and AMOLED. I will leave the latter for another article.

LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display and its simplest terms it is the gate that switches on (lets light through) and off (shuts light out) to allow the backlight to shine through specific parts of a RGB (red, green, blue) colour filter that allows the RGB cones in our eyes that see colour.

RGB colour is an additive colour model in which red, green, and blue light are added together in various proportions to reproduce a broad array of colours. We dont actually see all 16.8 million colours as claimed  its somewhere up to 10 million shades and vastly less for many people.

I mentioned the backlight. Its the light source and the foundation of a screen.

On early LCD screens fluorescent tubes (cold cathode fluorescent lamp CCFL) and mirrors were used to create a constantly on, light-box effect. That is why older LCD TVs are so thick and the colours tend to be warmer  thankfully this backlight is not used anymore.

Next it moved to LED (light emitting diode) hence you will see the term LED/LCD. The typical backlight LED is simply blue (B). Unlike CCFL that floods light, LED can be controlled by TFT (Thin film transistor) and other methods like GOA  that vary the light output of every LED for more precise illumination. Samsungs Quantum Dot for example, simply means more, smaller, nanoscale, LEDs giving better diming and control that standard LEDs.

Next layer is the LCD and as mentioned its a gate. The faster it can switch the better the colour and motion.

Next layer is the colour filter  usually RG (red, green) as the B comes from the backlight.

Next layer is a polariser and the glass or plastic screen. And that very simplistically is the panel. There is an excellent seven-minute video on how its made here.

If you have a touch enabled panel it will use either a oTP (on-cell touch panel)  basically a clear touch overlay on top of a panel, or the more expensive iTP (in-cell Touch panel) where the touch sensors are part of the panel so it can be thinner and lighter.

TFT is the control mechanism  what electric pulses do what all over the screen. GOA replaces the LCD gate, TFT switching, and lots of integrated circuit (IC) controllers. It has two advantages  it eliminates the need for bulky connectors on at least two edges of a TV allowing for smaller size bezels, and because it significantly reduces the number of ICs (by about 75%) the panel cheaper to make.

With every new technology, especially ones that make things faster, cheaper, and better there is often a downside. As there is little on the web about GOA and its disadvantages (and its usually in Chinese) let me state that I am happy to be proven wrong.

By moving a lot of the electronic switching work into the panel in what amount to one-pixel width lines you increase the risk of light leakage (where the backlight affects neighbouring pixels) and GOA creates more heat in the panel  enough to reduce the practical life of the panel by perhaps 25%.

So there you have it  you can have a faster, cheaper, smaller bezel screen but it will not last as long. Hmm as a manufacturer that is good  as a consumer that is bad. And if you manufactured control ICs its time to repurpose your fabrication system to something else.
Filming has already commenced for "The Walking Dead" season 7 in Peachtree City, Georgia and the fans are out searching for clues as to what's happening next.

It could also be good news for actors who are into the series and are looking for jobs. There is a "The Walking Dead" Ezekiel casting being called out. Casting calls for Ezekiel, a major "The Walking Dead" comic book character is slated to become a new ally for Rick and Alexandria. In the comic books, Ezekiel is a leader of a survivor group known as "The Kingdom." His fate rests upon joining Rick and will fight against Negan. Plus, Ezekiel will have his own pet tiger named Shiva. He is a self-proclaimed king in "The Kingdom" and was a zoo-keeper, which makes sense as to why he would have a tiger for a pet in the first place.

However, io9 has noted there is a difference in the casting advertisement. Casting for Ezekiel calls for a "a recurring part, the 'flamboyant and wise, nice and weird' Augustus." If the question of its authenticity is on the line, the official Instagram account of "The Walking Dead" has even posted on the social media app an announcement that Ezekiel and Shiva will definitely show up in "The Walking Dead" season 7.

So, if you're an aspiring African-American actor that looks like he is in his 40s, then you may be able to get the part. All you need to do is read up on the series or comics for some background - unless a much more famous actor is already being lined up for the part. As a tidbit on a side, his majesty appears to have an affair with Michonne, as TV Line has it.

Who do you think should get the part?
The battle between the labor union versus Verizon still continues. The strike consisting of more than 40,000 Verizon employees is entering its second month and the dialogue has still not ended. The Verizon 2016 strike that started on Apr. 13, 2016 concerns not only the telecommunications industry but the labor market of United States as well because of the slowly increasing claims for unemployment, which JobsNHire recently reported.

Verizon has been accused of moving their business offshore and the New York Times has it that it's an epochal battle as to whether the company can tolerate good jobs that actually deliver economic security and decent benefits.

The Verizon workers purposely walked out on April 13 as a symbol of protest against the telecommunications company. The Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has been working on contract negotiations for several months with Verizon, to no positive results. The two labor unions are also fighting on the decision on cutting back health benefits of its employees, JacobinMag reports. It has been a long fight for the workers and its draining every bit of energy the union has. That's because the stakes are high. It's not only health benefits that's on the line, unemployment could be imminent for those who walked out.

If this lengthy Verizon 2016 strike continues, the workers will not only be tested for their patience and perseverance. It's also a major test of whether relatively well-positioned workers can withhold their labor and win.

The line chants "One day longer, one day stronger" as union representatives continue to table concerns and push Verizon for answers. While they're picketing, they're living off of a strike fund (or a solidarity fund).

It is unknown when the Verizon 2016 strike will end but it is clear that the company and union groups need to wrap it up quickly or face a financial burden by the end of the year.
Singing can probably take its toll but for Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, it prompted two shows in California to be cancelled. Anthony Kiedis was hospitalized after suffering from intestinal flu complications.

Red Hot Chili Peppers was scheduled to perform at the KROQ Weenie Roast in Irvine as the headlining act. But in a sudden twist of events, the band's bassist Flea took the center stage to announce that the band's show had been canceled because Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Kiedies has been rushed to the hospital. The Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre audience were saddened by the news, according to E Online.

"Anthony is on his way to the hospital right now and we're unable to play this evening," Flea said, as seen in a fan's Instagram video. "We are devastated about it. We're really sad."

Worried about his friend's state and to ensure the crowd that all is well, he added: "We love you so much. We live to rock, we live to f--king dig deep into the depths of our hearts and rock. But unfortunately there's a medical thing that happened and he needed to deal with it."

The band's drummer Chad Smith went on Twitter to express his concerns over his fellow Red Hot Chili Peppers band member. "NO one's more disappointed than us that we couldn't perform tonight." he tweeted.

Aside from the Irvine gig, the show in Burbank, California for iHeart Radio was also cancelled. The band themselves are grateful for the well-wishers and prayers being sent Kiedis' way. It is not known how extensive his illness is and no one wants the band to stop playing.

Flea reassures everyone that they're coming back and Kiedis will pull through: ""We will play for you very soon, we will play for you like the feral animals that we are, and we're so sorry."
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance to schools stating that they should allow transgender students to use the restrooms associated with their gender identity . Elected officials, advocates, and others in influential education positions quickly weighed in with their views.

The guidance was released at a time when transgender rights are making waves on the national stage. North Carolina and the U.S. Department of Justice are suing each other in the wake of the approval of House Bill 2 by the Tar Heel State earlier this year, and a total of four federal suits have been filed in the matter , including three just last week. However, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Friday that the Education Departments guidance to both K-12 and higher education was not an enforcement action, and was released after schools had asked the department for guidance .

Below is a roundup of some of the reactions to that guidance, including from members of the two congressional committees that handle K-12. While Democrats and some education advocates praised the guidance as providing important protection for transgender students, Republicans and others argued that it was an inappropriate intrusion of the federal government into education. Well try to keep this post updated as reactions roll in.

Statements in Favor

Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential frontrunner

Hillary Clinton applauds the Obama administration for taking actions this week to stand up for the rights of LGBT people -- and particularly for the rights of transgender people -- across the country, Clinton campaign spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa told the Washington Posts Greg Sargent. As president, she will fight to make sure all Americans can live their lives free from discrimination.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., Ranking Member of the House Education Committee

The Departments of Education and Justice should be commended for releasing this important guidance regarding the rights of transgender students in educational facilities. The timing of this guidance can help to quell the unfounded fears that have been spurred by damaging bills in some states. This guidance can also help schools to familiarize themselves with the expectations of the law, so that they may intelligently protect the rights and dignity of transgender students and, indeed, all students.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.

Todays guidance from @usedgov & @TheJusticeDept will help schools provide a supportive environment for students free of discrimination.  Sen. Tammy Baldwin (@SenatorBaldwin) May 13, 2016

Gov. Dannel Malloy, D-Conn.

Every child, no matter their gender identity, should be treated equally & fairly in a safe, supportive environment: https://t.co/H06vmapjdy  Governor Dan Malloy (@GovMalloyOffice) May 13, 2016

Los Angeles Superintendent Michelle King

Tom Torlakson, Superintendent, California Department of Education

All students deserve a safe and supportive school environment. I strongly support the action by President Obama to make sure all states follow the lead of California and protect the rights of each and every student.

Lily Eskelen-Garcia, President, National Education Association

Every child has the right to feel safe, welcomed & valued in our schools, including transgender students. pic.twitter.com/CA8Wr1J0rV  Lily Eskelsen Garcia (@Lily_NEA) May 13, 2016

Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers

This is fantastic news. The Dept of Ed is working to protect #trans students and create safe schools. https://t.co/DGig6lVjyi  Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) May 13, 2016

National Association of Secondary School Principals

We are proud that the guidance is already a reality in many schools and a sincere aspiration in others. The guidance from the Obama administration reaffirms that school leaders are on the right path and renews their charge to maintain the dignity of each student in the school. School leaders see the treatment of transgender students through the lens of equity.

Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Advocacy Group

Campus Pride, LGBTQ Awareness Group

We applaud President Obama for his leadership and these guidelines that make it clear that discrimination toward transgender students is against the law. There is now direction, without any doubt, for public and federally funded colleges and universities that trans students are entitled to using facilities consistent with their gender identity.

Statements in Opposition

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Chairman of the Senate Education Committee

This is the kind of issue that parents, schools boards, communities, students and teachers should be allowed to work out in a practical way with a maximum amount of respect for the individual rights of all students. Insofar as the federal government goes, its up to Congress to write the law, not the executive departments. And guidance issued by the departments does not amount to federal law and should not be treated as such.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.

Todays @usedgov guidance letter on public school bathrooms is yet another example of this Administrations overreach & bullying of schools.  Sen. James Lankford (@SenatorLankford) May 13, 2016

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb.

Is there any issue the Obama Administration believes can be left to state and local government?  Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) May 13, 2016

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., Member of the House Education Committee

Todays directive is yet another outrageous example of the Obama administration exceeding its constitutionally-granted authority and attempting to change law through executive fiat. This action ignores the views of millions of students, parents, teachers, and administrators across the country. It is unacceptable and unlawful.

Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., Member of the House Education Committee

He is ignoring the legitimate concerns of parents, students, teachers, and administrators. This isnt about equality; its about furthering his radical social agenda, and I wont stand for it. Americans deserve a president who is just as concerned about their safety and success as he is about being politically correct.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa

On C-SPAN and quoted in The Hill, King said on Friday: I oppose that piece of policy. I think ... it is an executive overreach. And its a topic were likely to bring up in a future hearing before the task force that I chair. King heads a task force examining presidential overreach in executive orders and regulations .

Rep. Ralph Abraham, R-La.

My statement on the Presidents transgender bathroom decree regarding public schools. pic.twitter.com/8uR8iQYRcp  Rep. Ralph Abraham (@RepAbraham) May 13, 2016

Gov. Pat McCrory, R-N.C.

This national bathroom, locker room and shower policy for almost every business, university and now K-12 school in our country changes generations of gender etiquette and privacy norms which parents, children and employees have expected in the most personal and private settings of their everyday lives. Most Americans, including this governor, believe that government is searching for a solution to a problem that has yet to be defined.

Joy Hofmeister, Superintendent, Oklahoma Department of Education

It nearly defies belief that the Obama Administration now wants to direct how Oklahoma schools and districts operate our bathrooms. Furthermore, I find it disturbing that this joint guidance carries an implicit threat of loss of federal funds. In the midst of a historic funding crisis for public education, schools should not be burdened with this sort of overreach yet again.

Heritage Action, Conservative Political Advocacy Organization

Sexual abuse survivors talk about devastating implications from transgender bathroom laws. https://t.co/hpquHGntXj  Heritage Action (@Heritage_Action) May 12, 2016

And Here Are Some Possibly Hard-to-Characterize Responses

National School Boards Association

On April 10, NSBA issued a comprehensive guide, Transgender Students in Schools, to help school districts navigate the unsettled law on gender identity and Title IX. Decisions impacting the day-to-day activities within our nations schools are inherently local and NSBAs guidance seeks to inform those local decisions by clarifying existing law. The guidance issued today by the Departments of Education and Justice adds another voice to an ongoing conversation about how gender identity is addressed, and expresses an interpretation of Title IX that is unsettled law. A dispute about the intent of the federal law must ultimately be resolved by the courts and the Congress.

Donald Trump, Presumptive GOP Presidential Nominee

Well, I believe it should be states rights. I think the state should make the decision, I think theyre more than capable of making the decision, I felt that from the beginning, Trump told George Stephanopoulos . I just think it should be states rights.

Then Theres Sen. Bernie Sanders

The Democratic presidential hopeful doesnt appear to have put out a statement about the guidance (weve asked his campaign for comment, and well update this post if we get a response or see his reaction elsewhere). But hes been clear in his support for transgender right, such as in this tweet from last March about North Carolinas House Bill 2:

Its time to end discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This law has no place in America. https://t.co/uINi5KpsZ6  Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 24, 2016

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
Summer is often synonymous with hunger for many North Carolina kids. One in four children in our state lacks consistent access to adequate food throughout the year, and this problem is magnified during the months when students arent able to receive lunch assistance at school. As the executive director of the North Carolina Association of Feeding America Food Banks, I see that despite great progress, North Carolina still has a lot of work to do when it comes to feeding hungry children.

North Carolina is ranked among the 10 worst states in the country for percentage of children under 18 who lack adequate food on a regular basis. Last year, more than 671,000 low-income children in our state received lunch assistance during the school year. Only about 100,000 of these children will be able to participate in feeding programs this summer. Research has found that children consume up to 50 percent of their total daily calories at school during the school year. What happens to children whose families dont have the resources to make up that daily 50 percent over the long summer vacation?

North Carolina nonprofits provide the private sectors safety net for those who fall through the limited safety net provided by government programs. The fabric of that safety net is woven from many threads. It often takes collaboration among several nonprofits to address such unmet needs.

In 2015, North Carolinas Feeding America food banks served more than 140 million meals to 1.6 million North Carolinians. Together with other charitable nonprofits, we do our part to try to close the summer hunger gap by operating summer feeding programs throughout our state.

Program partners range in size from Boys and Girls Clubs and the Salvation Army to small, often faith-based, community programs scattered throughout our communities. Many of these partners provide safe after-school programs and also serve nutritious food. These types of programs are essential for low-income children to also be able to participate in feeding programs over summer.

One example of the interconnectedness of these nonprofit programs is the collaboration between the Second Harvest Food Bank and the YMCA of Northwest North Carolina. When Second Harvest first began summer feeding in 2004, there were just four sites, all in Forsyth County, three of them partnering with the YMCA. This year, the Food Bank and the YMCA and will have eight feeding sites in four of their nine counties. These sites provide many services besides the obvious programs for children, including exercise, education and arts programs that greatly enrich students lives. Second Harvest also partners with Wake Forest Baptist Health to provide nutrition and cooking classes.

Congress is currently considering changes to the Child Nutrition Program. The U.S. Senate has passed a bill with many improvements, and the House is considering a similar bill now. This legislation would help nonprofits by cutting red tape and offering our organizations the flexibility to operate more efficiently and expand these programs to reach the many children needing nutritious meals over the summer.

Food banks recognize that the summer hunger gap is just one of many issues facing children and families in North Carolina. This is why we realize that it is so essential for North Carolinians to support our entire nonprofit sector by donating and volunteering. From health care to shelters to childcare and educational programs, their efforts dramatically improve the lives of millions of North Carolinians, including children, every day. Collectively, North Carolinas charitable nonprofits make significant, positive impacts on our communities.

Everyone has a shared interest in feeding hungry children, and at the North Carolina Association of Feeding America Food Banks, we look forward to working with our sister nonprofits to further reduce the summer hunger gap.
Land and Space Journal Sentinel business reporter Tom Daykin talks about commercial real estate and development. SHARE

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Several new retailers, including some from chains relatively new to the Milwaukee area, could be coming to Bayshore Town Center.

Those proposed stores, which could include a T.J. Maxx, HomeGoods, Total Wine & More and Nordstrom Rack, would replace the Glendale mall's former Sears store, which would be demolished, according to a source.

Also, Trader Joe's might move to that portion of Bayshore, at the property's northern end, from its current location, at the corner of N. Port Washington Road and W. Silver Spring Drive, in order to provide better parking, the source said.

Glendale City Administrator Richard Maslowski said New York-based Olshan Properties, which operates Bayshore, hasn't discussed redevelopment plans with city officials. But Maslowski said a meeting with Olshan representatives is scheduled for May 24.

Olshan, through a spokesman, declined to comment about its plans for the former Sears building.

Olshan Properties is committed to enhancing our customers experience by providing and maintaining the highest quality and variety of retail offerings within our centers," said Lynn Meredith, executive director of marketing and operations, in a statement.

Total Wine is developing its first area store in Brookfield, at the Calhoun Crossing retail center,17300 W. Blue Mound Road. The area's first Nordstrom Rack opened in 2014 at The Mayfair Collection, 11500 W. Burleigh St., Wauwatosa.

Olshan last year announced conceptual plans to raze the 117,000-square-foot, one-story former Sears store and develop several new buildings on that 2-acre site.

Those buildings could house stores and restaurants ranging from 13,000 square feet to 50,000 square feet and could include two levels. The new development would total 300,000 square feet, which could include residential space.

Sears closed in December 2014, but the retailer's lease at Bayshore doesn't expire until this December.

Speculation about the new retailers was first reported by BizTimes.com.
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Smart Choice MRI, known for its MRIs costing a flat fee of $600 or less, announced Monday that Edward-Elmhurst Health, a health system in the Chicago area, has invested $7 million in the company.

The investment brings the total that Smart Choice has raised since December to $14.5 million.

Edward-Elmhurst Health is the second health system to invest in Smart Choice.

Earlier this year, Smart Choice, based in Mequon, announced that ThedaCare, based in Appleton, had invested $3 million in the company as part of a $6.5 million investment led by F Street Capital LLC in Milwaukee.

ThedaCare has since invested an additional $1 million in Smart Choice, said Rick Anderson, the chief executive of Smart Choice.

Edward-Elmhurst Health includes Edward Hospital, Elmhurst Hospital and Linden Oaks Behavioral Health and has annual revenue of more than $1 billion.

Smart Choice, which has six imaging centers in Wisconsin, will use the money to fund its expansion.

The company has opened imaging centers in Schaumburg, Glenview and Skokie in the Chicago area this year. It plans to open an imaging center in Chicago in July and at least three more in the Chicago area this fall.

Smart Choice also plans to open four imaging centers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area this year.

An MRI at a Smart Choice imaging center can cost $1,000 less  and at times several thousand dollars less  than at a hospital. Its flat fee of $600 or less includes the cost of having the scan read by a radiologist at Cleveland Clinic.

Smart Choice hopes to be in four or five metropolitan areas by the end of next year, Anderson said.

The company plans to focus on the markets with the highest prices for a MRI scan.
As we get closer and closer to this, we like it more and more.Alex Molinaroli, Johnson Controls CEO Credit: Associated Press

By of the

The new Johnson Controls will be able to cut $1 billion in costs in the years ahead as it combines operations, saves on purchasing and finds other savings from combining Johnson and Tyco International, the company's next president said Monday.

In a joint investor presentation at an industry conference in Florida, the top executives of both Johnson and Tyco said they are on track to complete their merger in October.

The transaction will shift Johnson Controls' corporate headquarters to Cork, Ireland, resulting in savings of $150 million on taxes, thanks to Ireland's lower corporate tax rate. Tyco has been based in Ireland since 2014, after shifting its corporate headquarters from New Hampshire to Bermuda and then Switzerland over the years.

But the savings from combining the companies will be much greater. Including cost-cutting initiatives already underway at both companies and $500 million in savings announced in January, the total savings are expected to be at or above $1 billion, said Tyco CEO George Oliver.

"With the plans we have in place to deliver (savings of) over $1 billion in initiatives within our control, we're going to create $1 of earnings per share over the next three years," said Oliver.

Oliver will become Johnson Controls president this fall, once the deal is completed, and will succeed Alex Molinaroli as CEO in 2018.

Vote upcoming

Regulatory approvals are going well and meetings for shareholders to vote on the deal will likely take place in late July or August, said Molinaroli.

"As we get closer and closer to this, we like it more and more," said Molinaroli.

The transaction will combine Wisconsin's largest company  a maker of heating and cooling equipment and controls for buildings  with Tyco's building fire, safety and security systems business. The Johnson Controls automotive battery business will be part of the combined company.

In the more than three months since the merger was announced, the companies have identified a variety of areas where they can cut costs, said Oliver.

Over the long term, the companies see opportunities in selling a combined set of products and technologies for customers in a variety of fields  from health care institutions, colleges and schools, to retail store chains and local governments, Molinaroli said.

Confidence questioned

In recent months, investors have questioned Johnson Controls and Tyco about why they are confident that they will see sales growth opportunities from the deal.

Molinaroli cited the acquisition of York in 2005, and included a slide in the presentations showing that both the controls side and the heating and cooling equipment side gained market share in the three years and decade following that deal.

That deal doubled the size of the branch network for servicing both Johnson Controls and York branded products, he said.

Over the long term, the companies expect that technology trends, including the "internet of things"  as well as demographic trends resulting in more people moving to cities, particularly in Asia  will drive convergence in the buildings marketplace, Molinaroli said.

The end result will be more building systems that can be controlled  and can provide data to building managers  more seamlessly, they said.

The company sees a total global market for its products of about $450 million by 2020, including $250 million in the buildings space and $200 million in the energy storage space.

The energy storage market opportunity includes vehicle-focused batteries but also distributed energy storage systems for buildings  a market that Johnson Controls launched last year and one that is starting to gain traction.

On the cost-cutting side, the companies are forecasting they will see $400 million in savings from combining "general and administrative functions," from human resources, information technology, legal, finance and other functions.

Cuts still unknown

Where those cuts will come is unclear. The key locations for much of those functions today are the corporate offices of Johnson Controls in Glendale and Tyco's office in Princeton, N.J.

Oliver will be based in Wisconsin, and Milwaukee has been chosen for the combined company's North American operating headquarters.

As a combined company, the new Johnson Controls expects to have about $30 billion in annual sales, with three-fourths of it coming from the building business. The remainder is the power solutions business of Johnson Controls that sells lead-acid starter, start-stop and lithium-ion batteries for cars and trucks.

Savings will come both from public-company costs and eliminating "duplicative" spending. Other savings include $275 million from purchasing and $225 million from consolidating and improving efficiency at manufacturing plants and field offices, Oliver said.
Donna and Donald Baumgartner, longtime donors to the Milwaukee Art Museum, will make an $8 million gift to the museums endowment. Credit: Mark Hoffman

Mary Louise Schumacher Art City An online journal about visual art, the urban landscape and design. Mary Louise Schumacher, the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic, leads the discussion and a community of writers contribute to the dialogue. SHARE

Donna and Donald Baumgartner, longtime donors to the Milwaukee Art Museum, will make an $8 million gift to the museum's endowment. The gift is being made to support the position of a museum director.

Dan Keegan, the museum's director for the last seven years, is leaving the museum this week.

MAM is searching for his successor, who will now have the title of Donna and Donald Baumgartner Director in honor of the gift.

"We've been so inspired by Dan Keegan's leadership and vision for the future, in particular his passion for securing the viability of the museum for generations to come," Donna Baumgartner said in a statement. "We wanted to carry on his legacy and keep the momentum going."

The Baumgartners also recently announced the transfer of their family company founded by Donald Baumgartner in 1951, Paper Machinery Corp., to its employees.

The company, which employs more than 250 people, is described as the leading manufacturer of machines used to produce paperboard cups and containers for places such as McDonald's and Starbucks.

Donald Baumgartner is a former museum board president and is a current trustee. He was part of the selection committee that selected architect Santiago Calatrava to design the dramatic addition, which opened in 2001. The Baumgartners were also significant contributors to the capital campaign for the expansion project. One of the low-slung gallerias bears their name.

"We are very proud of the Milwaukee Art Museum as an institution and as a vital part of the city in which we've lived and worked," Donald Baumgartner said in a statement. "Our gift is a way to celebrate past accomplishments and support future directors as they lead Milwaukee's most acclaimed cultural institution."

Endowment gifts are invested permanently and remain intact. Only the earnings are used, typically for core operational expenses such as staff.

A healthy endowment is essential for a museum's long-term sustainability, but the funds are notoriously more difficult to raise than, say, funds for a new building.

The museum's endowment is currently $50 million.

In addition, the museum has received $23million in irrevocable promised gifts, including the $8 million from the Baumgartners, according to a staff person with Buzz Monkeys, which handles communication for the museum.
New Glarus announced they would start selling Moon Man pale ale in cans this summer. Credit: New Glarus Brewing

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Green Bay  Wisconsin's craft brewers are increasingly bucking the bottle and choosing cans.

Now, they just have to convince the public good beer comes in cans, too.

Consumers and craft beer aficionados have long considered cans fit only for the Miller Lites and Milwaukee's Bests of the world. But that's changing as can technology improves and the economics of distribution make cans more appealing to brewers.

"You had companies that first started canning not-so-great beer in cans that used to impart the aluminum flavor to the beer," Titletown Brewing Co. Brewmaster Dave Oldenburg said. "Now, cans are lined with plastic. But the stigma is still there."

There's an upside to cans. They don't let in light or oxygen, both of which reduce a beer's shelf life and change its taste and color. They weigh less, pack more tightly for shipping and display purposes, give brewers more space to tell their story and get recycled more often.

Bottles have the benefit of consumer preference and tradition. They offer more versatility for brewers, bottling equipment can be less expensive than canning equipment and bottles are more versatile when it comes to what goes in them.

Four Green Bay-area craft brewers that package their beer for retail sales have embraced the humble, aluminum can, albeit to different extents. Badger State Brewing Co. and Stillmank Brewing Co. can everything except specialty and barrel-aged brews. Hinterland Brewing Co. uses a mix of cans and bottles. Titletown uses bottles, except for limited canning runs of its Johnny Blood Red Irish Ale.

Badger State Brewing President Andrew Fabry said the decision was one Badger State did not take lightly when it decided to package its beer for distribution in 2014. He said Badger State's staff sided with cans' versatility.

"When we were getting ready to put a packaging plan together for our beers, it's something we evaluated in depth. We looked at both options and where the industry was headed," Fabry said. "We also looked at where we are. In Wisconsin, people like to get outside for a ton of activities like boating, hiking, sporting events and hitting the beach. Cans are just a better fit for those activities."

But bottles do have their benefits, chief among them is the preferences of the purchasing public. At Titletown, Oldenburg and Chief Operating Officer Jim Kratowicz said market research led them to go with bottles instead of cans in 2013.

"Before we swung a hammer on our expansion, we did market research and the big question was cans or bottles," Kratowicz said. "Almost two-thirds (64 percent) said they buy beer in bottles over beer in cans. They told us, 'I know it won't taste as good, but I still want it in a bottle.' We thought cans would cut out two-thirds of our market."

The biggest names in craft beer in the state and country have started to see the light on cans, ensuring their beers will not.

The granddaddy of craft brewers, Sam Adams, made the move to cans almost three years ago. And in April, New Glarus Brewing, arguably the king of craft beer in Wisconsin, announced they would can their Moon Man pale ale.

Yet, Brewers Association Craft Beer Program Director Julia Herz said cans still have a long way to go before they unseat the almighty bottle as craft brewers' preferred package. In 2014, she said, only 10 percent of craft brewers used cans, compared to 60 percent bottles and 30 percent draft. That gives the canning movement a long way to go to catch up with the overall beer market, in which 55 percent of beer is sold in cans.

Herz said craft brewers' recent embrace of cans has helped craft brewers continue to eat into global brewers' share of the beer market.

"The beer lover today is definitely supporting cans as the entire (craft beer) segment continues to grow," Herz said.

In an October analysis, Brewers Association Chief Economist Bart Watson said consumers' perceptions about cans are the most significant impediment to more widespread adoption. But he also hinted the craft beer industry is partly to blame for cans' bad name.

"The perception challenge is perhaps one of craft's own making. By being slow to enter the can format, craft brewers were signaling to craft consumers that fuller-flavored beer tended to come in bottles, vs. American lagers and light lagers, which were predominantly in cans," Watson wrote. "Echoes of this fact are certainly a major driver of current perceptions."

Still, as their local and larger competitors came around on cans, Fabry said it gave Badger State and Stillmank a bit of vindication.

"For guys like us, that's a huge deal. We were passionate about why we did it," he said. "New Glarus is a world-class beer and if they're comfortable doing it, it's a validation of what we've thought."

Of course, the most devoted craft beer fans will tell you the best way to truly enjoy a craft product is to pour it into a glass.

"The ultimate way I appreciate it is pouring it from either the bottle or can into a glass," Herz said. "It allows for the full display of aromas, dispenses the carbon dioxide and I visually get to see what I'm drinking, which is definitely a key part of the experience. (Not pouring it out of a can) would be like not looking at your food before you eat it."

jbollier@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter@GBstreetwise.
By of the

A Milwaukee man who was charged in the shootings of five people, two of whom died, is free after the prosecutor dropped charges Monday, saying there was too much doubt to go to trial.

Mario Granville was one of two men charged in the May 2015 shooting that grew out of a family dispute and boiled over into a chaotic street fight on Milwaukee's north side.

The other man charged, Devon Loggins, was convicted by a jury Friday. He is awaiting sentencing. Loggins and Granville are stepbrothers.

Shortly after Granville was charged, Assistant District Attorney Paul Tiffin began to have doubts about the strength of that part of the case, as he grappled with conflicting witness statements about Granville's role and DNA evidence that cast doubt on witness accounts.

Because of the inconsistencies, Tiffin moved for Granville to be released on a signature bond last summer, which a judge granted. News of Granville's release was raised on talk radio and at a news conference by then-mayoral candidate Ald. Bob Donovan, arguing the justice system was broken.

At the time, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm said his office was following its ethical and legal obligations by disclosing the inconsistent statements and moving for Granville's release on a signature bond.

Tiffin said he had further doubts about Granville's role after testimony in Loggins' trial last week.

On Monday, Tiffin moved to drop the charges against Granville, which was granted by Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Conen. If new evidence surfaces, prosecutors could file new charges, but for now the case is over.

Defense attorney Ann Bowe said the case against Granville was weak from the beginning.

"There is no way he had anything to do with this homicide. That was his position then and that is his position now," Bowe said.

In the trial, Loggins took the stand and admitted he fired a gun into a crowd because he feared for his safety. Fifteen of the 16 bullets fired that night came from one gun.

But a 16th bullet, which came from a different gun, ended up in the heart of one of the victims, Damario O. Jones.

Jones and his uncle, Montrell Burdine, were killed on May 1, 2015, in the 3600 block of N. 37th St., and three other men were wounded.

In the trial, Loggins' attorney said it was Granville who fired the killing shot into Jones. But Tiffin said there was no conclusive evidence of that. He said it was possible Loggins had a second gun. No guns were recovered.

"There may have been another person (shooting) and it may be him (Granville). I just can't say beyond a reasonable doubt this is the guy," Tiffin said. "There was just too much confusion that went on in the street. It was chaos."

Cassandra Burdine, whose brother and son were killed that night, was upset by the decision to drop charges against Granville.

She said it's not surprising that witness accounts varied because it was a chaotic scene. She said if all the witness stories were the same, prosecutors would say they were made up.

"Justice was not served here, so I'm going to have to do it myself," she said, explaining she is considering civil legal action.

Tiffin said he understands the family's disappointment but he could not proceed to trial on the evidence as it stands. He acknowledged, though, there is an unanswered question about that 16th bullet.

"There is still that bullet out there. I don't know. That's all I can say. I don't know who fired it."
Many suburban school districts are unequipped to handle recent influxes of English-language learners and student refugees, a new report argues.

The new student populations often tax districts funding sources, highlight the need for a more diverse teaching corps, and unmask divisive community sentiment about the education of English-learners, according to the report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research and policy analysis group at the University of Washington

The report, Suburban Schools: The Unrecognized Frontier in Public Education , notes the exponential growth in English-learner enrollment in the suburbs surrounding Boston, Seattle, and Minnesotas Twin Cities and the challenges faced in welcoming children of families fleeing war and famine and accommodating students who speak languages other than Spanish.

The challenges can persist for years. Education Week wrote about the struggles and success the St. Cloud, Minn., school district has faced in educating its burgeoning Somali student population.

Language barriers arent the only hurdle these districts face. The Center for Reinventing Public Education report points out that many of the ELL families are struggling economically. This is a problem in suburban districts because antipoverty support services and philanthropic aid are often concentrated in cities.

To address these concerns, the report authors recommend that suburban school leaders seek the aid of peers in cities that have found ways to boost achievement and graduation rates for migrant, English-learner, and low income students.

The report cites the works of school leaders in the Houston suburb of Spring Branch and the Seattle suburb of Kent as examples of how to develop new schooling options, including district-run and charter-operated schools, and attract diverse, talented educators.

The authors also recommend that civic, business, and philanthropic leaders encourage districts to:



Track student population trends in ethnicity, language, income, and location.

Assess their current workforce in light of changing student populations.

Identify schools that are having success with new populations and try to learn what has worked.

Support collaboration between urban and suburban districts to analyze needs and share strategies on how to adapt without greatly increasing the size and cost of central office bureaucracies.

Suburban education leaders face daunting challenges that have brought down many better-resourced, big-city systems, the report authors write. However, they also have opportunities: Suburbs are growing and not yet stymied by politics or labor issues.

Image Source: Center for Reinventing Public Education

Crpe.suburban Schools 5.2016 by corey_c_mitchell

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Roelof Bult of Trail, British Columbia, Canada, walks just north of Bradford Beach in Milwaukee where land has caved into the water recently. Credit: Mike De Sisti

By of the

Lake Michigan water levels have staged a big comeback, rising more than 4 feet since early in 2013 when they dropped to an all-time low.

The increase is due to a combination of factors  more rainfall and runoff, and weather conditions that have slowed evaporation from the surface of the lake.

Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are now 2 inches higher than a month ago; 9 inches higher than the same time a year ago, and 13 inches above the long-term average of May, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Michigan and Huron are considered a single lake, linked by the Straits of Mackinac.

With seasonal conditions filling rivers and streams, the Lake Michigan system is projected to rise another 2 inches in the next month and will likely add a few more inches this summer, according to the corps.

The situation this spring:

Beaches up and down the shoreline have shrunk. Scientists expect benefits for coastal wetlands. Still, if levels rise too high, newly created spawning grounds might be less hospitable for fish. The need to dredge ports and marinas has declined. And deeper water has allowed commercial shippers to carry more cargo.

For Milwaukee, one outcome could be less odor from the foul-smelling shoreline algae, Cladophora, which rots at the water's edge.

Fewer bird deaths from Avian botulism are also possible, said scientist Harvey Bootsma of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The botulism is produced when lake conditions are just so, with plenty of dead plant matter and reduced oxygen in the water.

"We have evidence that both of these problems tend to be worse in years when the lake levels are low, and not so bad when the lake levels are high," said Bootsma, who has looked for clues into the deaths of thousands of birds at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan and other locations.

"There seems to be a pattern there, but we are not sure why."

In hydrological terms, Lake Michigan has risen from 576.02 feet in January 2013 to 580.09 feet today. The lake is still more than 2 feet below its all-time high of 582.35 in October 1986.

As water levels inch up, so have concerns about the erosion of beaches and bluffs.

State Department of Administration spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said in a statement that "bluff erosion is certainly on (the) radar" of the agency's coastal management officials, adding that they are "closely monitoring Lake Michigan's lake levels."

In Milwaukee, property just north of Bradford Beach has caved into the water recently  a situation that a spokeswoman for County Executive Chris Abele says is also being monitored.

In northern Ozaukee County, residents are calling authorities about permit requirements to engineer the placement of rocks along the shoreline to protect disappearing beaches. The number of calls so far has been small, said Andy Holschbach, the county's director of land and water management.

"That could change after this season," Holschbach said. "I am sure the calls are going to increase."

Lakefront residents near Concordia University Wisconsin in Mequon have experienced erosion problems since water levels started rising in 2013.

Vance Strother lost his beach in 2014. By January 2015, wave action and high water had devoured large sections of the bluff.

Many property owners south of the college have blamed the school's massive bluff protection project  a charge the school has denied. Still, Strother said an engineer hired by property owners has estimated that lake erosion has migrated an additional 1,000 feet to the south.

"I think that more people are going to be upset when they see they are losing the toe of their beach," Strother said.

Weather conditions largely dictate the ebb and flow of Lake Michigan water levels.

The springs of 2013, 2014 and 2015 were all wetter than normal, as is this spring, according to Andrew D. Gronewold, a hydrologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Other factors: A complex relationship between the extent of ice cover, air temperature and evaporation  especially in the fall, when cold, dry air settles over the relatively warmer temperatures of the lake.

"When you stack all of those years together, you get this pretty interesting jump in water levels going back to January 2013," Gronewold said.

The situation today is a far cry from when the lake plunged to its lowest level since modern records started being kept in 1918.

"It's very scary," dock builder and dredger Mike Kahr of Death's Door Marine Inc., told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in December 2012.

"I'm working seven days a week trying to get caught up here, and I'll never get to everyone that needs to be taken care of. Winter's closing in, and it's not good."

When contacted last week, Kahr painted a different picture.

"We're doing less dredging, that's for sure," he said.

Now Kahr said he is getting calls asking to assess the impact of rising water levels. Some property owners are asking about having their docks raised.

When Lake Michigan and Lake Huron were at their historic low, some attributed part of the problem to 1960s-era dredging for navigation on Lake St. Clair, which acted to lower lake levels. The lake borders Michigan and Ontario and is the main outlet for the two lakes.

The corps in 2014 allocated $50,000 to study whether water levels could rise with the installation of structures on Lake St. Clair to slow water flows.

The International Joint Commission, which oversees U.S. and Canadian boundary water issues, said it supported an investigation of options that would restore water levels by 5 to 10 inches, according to documents. Knowing that lake levels have historically fluctuated, and could rise again, the commission encouraged the U.S. and Canadian governments to study options for structures that would not cause problems when water levels were higher.

But a potential project on Lake St. Clair is no longer being studied, a corps official said last week.

"There was a general lack of support from the (U.S.) State Department and other agencies," said John Allis, chairman of the Detroit district of the corps.
Water from the Flint River flows through the Hamilton Dam near downtown Flint, Mich, in January. State Rep. Josh Zepnick argues that the water crisis in Flint serves as a warning of the long-term and expensive water infrastructure needs throughout the Great Lakes region. Credit: Associated Press

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By

Providing clean safe drinking water is a critical function of local, state and federal government agencies. Here in Milwaukee, we have an excellent Water Works Department with major facilities in my own legislative district on Milwaukee's South Side.

But as Flint, Mich., shows, there are long-term and expensive needs throughout the Great Lakes region, including right here in Milwaukee, to keep our water systems up to current federal requirements and ensure that everyone has access to affordable and clean water.

Our water infrastructure, put simply, is very old and rundown, having been installed during a simpler and smaller America. Today's costs of upgrading our sewer and water systems is enormous. According to a 2013 Environmental Protection Agency report, an estimated $384 billion is needed through 2030 to update water infrastructure on a national level to ensure safe drinking water to roughly 300 million residents.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has estimated that lead pipe replacement to the homeowner's portion of a lead pipe service line would cost $3,000 per home  that's several hundred million dollars just in Milwaukee. When these systems were originally built, cities were just starting to grow and were nowhere near 2016 population levels.

I recently sent a letter to Gov. Scott Walker stressing the importance of replacing our current lead service lines and the urgency of bringing the state in line with federal lead level standards. Wisconsin currently categorizes lead poisoning at levels that are double the federal threshold. Our citizens shouldn't be subjected to the potentially deadly consequences of twice as much lead in our water.

Like many citizens, I do not support for-profit or commercial takeovers of our water system. Here in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District contracts with Veolia Corp., but it is tightly regulated and accountable to local citizens and elected officials. MMSD is running well and has yielded not only cost-savings to taxpayers and improved water quality, but positive economic impact to our local economy. One economic report shows output to the citizens and taxpayers of $218.3 million, with 1,368 jobs supported, generating $57.2 million in annual wages and salaries.

Delivery of our clean water must be regulated by local, state and federal officials. In Flint, a number of lousy planning decisions, incompetent government managers and inadequate communication between local, state and federal officials resulted in a major public health crisis.

The crisis has garnered the attention of policy-makers nationally, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who recently co-sponsored legislation to replace public water systems utilizing lead pipes with iron and steel made in America and creating American jobs. This legislation is a step in the right direction nationally and something we should be advocating for locally.

Earlier this month, I attended the Milwaukee Water Commons meeting where the group unveiled its "Water City Agenda"  a six-part strategy with roles for the public and private sector.

Milwaukee's South Side is fortunate to have a number of these goals already in progress, including the Kinnickinnic River cleanup, the revitalization of the Menomonee River and Valley renewal as well as major stormwater runoff reduction projects put in place by the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County government. Groups such as the Urban Ecology Center and 16th Street Community Health Center continue to play a critical role in working with the EPA, DNR, MMSD and City of Milwaukee to advance innovative solutions to keeping our water safe for the next generation.

In the last 10 years, the State of Wisconsin has invested over $25 million in Milwaukee's South Side, and it's likely that more state and federal funding will be a large part of the national debate in the next few years.

Rep. Josh Zepnick (D-Milwaukee) represents the 9th Assembly District.
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Walker's comparison irrelevant

In the May 11 Journal Sentinel article headlined "UWM faculty backs protest vote," Gov. Scott Walker was quoted as comparing the average salaries of full professors in the University of Wisconsin System ($101,700) with average pay for all workers in Milwaukee County ($49,359) ("UWM faculty backs protest vote").

What a joke. As the mother of an academic who teaches in the UW System, I can testify to the money my daughter expended and the sacrifices she made to equip herself for her profession. An undergraduate degree, a master's degree and a doctorate were all necessary for her to attain her present level of expertise in her field, not to mention research and publication. In what way exactly is a comparison with "all workers in Milwaukee County" appropriate or even relevant?

The current governor only shows his own blindness to the quality of our state university system when he makes such an ignorant comparison.

Sharon L. DePue

Milwaukee



Thanks for the warning

Hugh Murray sure knows how to scare a person. His May 13 letter warning law-abiding citizens of invaders caused me to experience anxiety and heart palpitations ("Trump's standard: America first," Letters).

My symptoms are probably the same ones described by earlier Americans who worried about invaders from the British Isles. The nerve of those refugees, bringing their man-skirts and haggis recipes to America. The Murray clan probably swiped jobs and schooling from my ancestors. No doubt, this is the reason my German grandfather got no farther than third grade. I'm sure that my Polish grandmother wanted to protect her family from anyone who didn't eat pierogies and wear a babushka.

Thank goodness we've been warned about the 21st century invaders. I must build a fence to protect my family. Murray, having sounded his dire warning, can go back to yelling at people to get off his lawn.

Karen J. Kaminsky

Bayside



Goldberg's glass house?

In his column, "The young embrace socialism," Jonah Goldberg decries the folly of youth in embracing socialism without first making a good faith effort to understand it (Opinions, May 16).

He states, "young people have a well-documented tendency of skipping facts and arguments and going straight to conclusion." Whether or not his assertion is true, the young are not the only subset of the population vulnerable to acting on unsubstantiated belief.

May I remind Goldberg that the United States went to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, according to the evidence-starved belief of former President George W. Bush? How about President Barack Obama being born in Kenya? And let's not forget the passing of onerous voter ID laws because fraudulent voting is such a big problem.

People living in glass houses ought not to throw rocks.

Mark Stauffer

Nashotah



Free market approach didn't work

In his commentary criticizing the Affordable Care Act, "The bitter fruits of Obamacare", Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner argues for repealing the ACA and replacing it with a "free market approach to health care" (Opinions, May 12).

To support his arguments, Sensenbrenner cites a study by the National Center for Policy Analysis. But what kind of organization is the NCPA? On its website, the center states its goal is to "develop and promote private, free market alternatives" in health care and other areas.

So we have a free-market think tank releasing a study supporting a free market approach. That hardly sounds like objective research.

The truth is, a free market approach to health care is what we used to have, and it wasn't working for a lot of people. More are covered now under Obamacare. Why go back?

Howard Hoffman

Milwaukee

Please email your letters to jsedit@jrn.com, or mail them to Letters to the editor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, P.O. Box 371, Milwaukee, Wis. 53201-0371. Letters are generally limited to 200 words and are subject to editing.
By of the

Madison  A trial over Wisconsin's voting laws kicked off Monday with a former aide to a Republican state senator testifying that GOP senators were "giddy" over the prospect the state's 2011 voter ID law could keep some people from voting.

Todd Allbaugh, who worked at the time for then-Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center), said some senators expressed a lack of enthusiasm to take up the voter ID legislation early that year during a private meeting of Republicans. Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) then made the case for the bill, he testified.

"She got up out of her chair and hit her fist or her finger on the table and said, 'Hey, we've got to think about what this would mean for the neighborhoods around Milwaukee and the college campuses,'" Allbaugh said.

Schultz said they ought to consider what they would be doing to people's ability to vote, according to Allbaugh. That elicited a response from Glenn Grothman, who at the time was a state senator and now is a member of Congress.

"Grothman said, 'What I'm concerned about here is winning, and that's what really matters here. ... We better get this done quickly while we have the opportunity,'" Allbaugh said.

"I've characterized it as giddy and that's part of what bothered me so much," Allbaugh testified.

Allbaugh named two other senators  Leah Vukmir and Randy Hopper  as being gleeful over passing the bill.

"They were politically frothing at the mouth," he said of Vukmir and Hopper, who lost a recall election a few months after the voter ID law passed.

Allbaugh said some Republican senators did not express a strong opinion on the bill and three  Rob Cowles, Neal Kedzie and Luther Olsen  were "ashen faced" over the prospect of taking up the voter ID bill. (Kedzie stepped down from the Senate in 2014.)

The excitement some had for passing the voter ID law prompted Allbaugh to decide to leave the Republican Party after being active in GOP politics his whole life, Allbaugh testified. Allbaugh did not mention that for years after that he continued to work for Schultz, who took increasing flak for opposing some Republican proposals and did not seek re-election in 2014.

Allbaugh first described the GOP meeting last month in a Facebook post and interviews with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other news outlets. But he went into more detail Monday by naming specific senators and their reactions.

After stories appeared about Allbaugh's comments last month, Grothman contacted him. Grothman said he did not recall making the statements but did not dispute Allbaugh's recollections, Allbaugh testified.

"He said, 'Well, here's the thing ... I fundamentally believe Democrats cheat, OK? I do. And I don't believe our side does,'" Allbaugh testified.

Allbaugh was the first witness to take the stand in what is expected to be a nine-day trial over the state's voting laws. The case is being heard by U.S. District Judge James Peterson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.

The lawsuit was brought by the liberal groups One Wisconsin Institute and Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund, which argue state officials intentionally meant to make it harder for minorities to cast ballots through a series of laws and rules adopted over the past five years.

"Restricting access to the ballot box was not a consequence, but rather the very purpose of these laws," lawyer Josh Kaul told the court.

Assistant Attorney General Clay Kawski disputed those claims and emphasized that Wisconsin had its highest turnout in more than 40 years in its presidential primary last month under those laws.

"Wisconsin elections are fair, easy to navigate and open to all," Kawski said.

The groups are challenging aspects of the state's voter ID law, limits on early voting and a host of other measures, such as the elimination of straight-ticket voting.

The voter ID law was blocked for years by court orders but was put back in place this year after the state Supreme Court and a federal appeals court found the law was constitutional.

Attorneys for the state argued Allbaugh's testimony was not relevant to whether the ID law is constitutional.

Grothman, Vukmir and Lazich made no immediate response to requests for comment made through their aides.

In an interview, Olsen said as he recalled the main concern of voter ID proponents was to pass a constitutional law. These supporters thought the measure would help Republicans by eliminating fraud, he said.

Olsen said he didn't think that voter ID would strike any major blow against hidden fraud or suppress the vote substantially. His hope was that the law would give the public more confidence in election results, he said.

"I felt it was more the perception (fraud) was happening than the reality," he said.

The state Division of Motor Vehicles provides free IDs for voting, but some people face difficulties in getting them because they don't have birth certificates or other documents proving their identity.

The lawsuit challenges the system such people have to use to get free IDs, saying it can send people into a bureaucratic black hole.

"You can pick your literary analogies here, whether it's Kafka or Dickens or something else," Kaul said of the process.

Nannette Mayze of Milwaukee testified about her repeated unsuccessful attempts to try to get an ID for voting for her father, who has had two strokes and has difficulty walking.

Her father goes by the name on his Social Security card, Johnny Randle, but his Mississippi birth certificate lists his name as Johnnie Randall, and Wisconsin officials declined to give him an ID card because of the discrepancy.

Mayze and her father frequently visited DMV centers and she had numerous phone conversations with DMV officials to provide information about her dad, such as the names of members of his extended family and schools he attended.

At times they asked her for information she had already provided, she testified. At one point, a DMV official told her Randle may have to legally change his name to get an ID.

"He started laughing," Mayze testified. "He said that was stupid, stupid."

Others with similar stories are expected to take the stand in the coming days. Kaul said one person had waited more than 600 days to find out whether she would get an ID.

Two women died while waiting to find out if they would get an ID. DMV Administrator Kristina Boardman sought to have one of those cases listed as a "customer initiated cancellation" of the request for an ID, Kaul said.

GOP Gov. Scott Walker, who signed the voter ID law in 2011, put in place new rules last week that will allow people who can't readily get IDs to receive temporary receipts that would allow them to vote while state officials track down their birth certificates or figure out discrepancies on documents.

The attorneys for those challenging the law called the changes inadequate and a last-minute effort to make sure the law survives the lawsuit.

Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
Priscilla Camilli and her son, Christopher, who was born with cerebral palsy, enjoy time together on weekends at the Camilli home in Milwaukee. Christopher Camilli is in the Family Care program, and Priscilla Camilli is among the people concerned by the states proposal to remake the program, contracting with private health insurers to manage medical and long-term care. Credit: Rick Wood

By of the

Madison A major proposed shift from nonprofit providers to for-profit insurers in a multibillion-dollar state health program wouldn't happen until January 2018 at the earliest, Gov. Scott Walker's administration now says.

The timeline represents the first clear target date released for the sweeping changes being proposed by the administration for a program that provides care outside nursing homes to more than 55,000 elderly and disabled people around Wisconsin.

Since April 1, the proposal for Family Care and the related IRIS program has been sitting in the Joint Finance Committee, where Democrats and Republican senators have been withholding their approval while they seek more information about it, including this new rollout date.

State Health Services spokeswoman Claire Yunker said that the year and a half is needed to ensure the transition to protect the health and safety of vulnerable patients. The Walker administration also doesn't fully control the pace of the proposed changes, which would still require approval by both the budget committee and the federal government as well as a complex bidding process to hire the new insurers.

"There are a number of factors  most of which are outside of the control of (the Wisconsin Department of Health Services) that contribute to the current Family Care/IRIS 2.0 timeline," Yunker said.

Family Care and IRIS provide long-term care to needy elderly and disabled people inside their home or in community-based settings rather than nursing homes. Family Care works through eight regional nonprofit managed care organizations similar to health maintenance organizations, while IRIS  which stands for Include, Respect, I Self-Direct  provides vulnerable residents with a taxpayer allotment they can use to set up and pay for their own care.

The benefits can include personal care services, helping people with getting dressed, bathing, making meals and shopping. Such care can be costly but is typically much less expensive than around-the-clock nursing homes.

Family Care and IRIS are offered in all but eight of Wisconsin's 72 counties.

The Walker administration wants to complete the statewide expansion of the programs and administer them through three regions with multiple integrated health agencies that would have contracts to manage the medical and long-term care of those in the program.

Administration officials contend the plan, affecting the Family Care and IRIS programs, would save money for taxpayers and improve the health of patients by combining care for their long-term needs with attention to their immediate medical issues.

But skeptics argue the state hasn't yet proved the cost savings, better health outcomes or other basic premises of the sweeping changes.

In a memo released Wednesday, a group critical of the changes argued that the savings from them would come from acute care, not from the long-term care provided under Family Care.

"We now finally have formal confirmation from DHS of what we always believed: Family Care/IRIS 2.0 will not be a more effective engine of (long-term care) savings than the system we already have," says the memo from Wisconsin Long-Term Care Coalition.

The memo also said that the for-profit insurers would be able to keep more of their revenues as profits than the equivalent surpluses that Family Care nonprofits now retain on average for reverses and long-term capital needs.

Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton), a member of the Joint Finance Committee and skeptic of the proposal, praised the decision not to do a rapid-fire implementation and said it should be used to flesh out the details of the plan.

"I'm happy they're delaying it...so we can get a better understanding of how things are going to look," he said.

Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette), co-chair of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee, has said he and other Assembly Republicans are satisfied with the administration's arguments for the proposal and are ready to approve it.

Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), co-chair of the committee, has said Senate Republicans need more information but could still vote by the end of the month.

Aides to both GOP lawmakers didn't have any immediate comment on whether the new date for implementing the proposal would change lawmakers' timetable for approving it.

The changes carry huge financial implications for state and federal taxpayers, who are projected to pay $3.4 billion this year for Family Care and separate long-term care plans that Family Care is scheduled to replace.

Having three large regions would be more favorable to large for-profit insurers such as UnitedHealthcare, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin and Molina Healthcare of Wisconsin, though it's possible that a few existing managed care organizations, such as iCare of Milwaukee and Care Wisconsin of Madison, would survive the transition.

Lawmakers wrote the state budget last year to require at least five regions as part of any Family Care overhaul, but Walker vetoed that provision so his administration could pursue having three regions.

A Tuesday memo to lawmakers from the Department of Health Services said that three regions are needed to ensure several competing insurers offer coverage and consumer choice in each new area.

The administration projects its plan could save state and federal taxpayers at least $300 million over the next six years. That would amount to 1 or 2 percentage points of the total Family Care spending over that period.
A: The compact is an agreement between the eight Great Lakes states to work cooperatively to manage water in the Great Lakes watershed. A parallel agreement includes the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

The compact became federal law in December 2008 when it was adopted by the U.S. Congress.
Uncharted Waters: Does Lake Michigan's record low mark the beginning of a new era for the Great Lakes?

This story was originally published July 27, 2013 ,as part of the series Uncharted Waters.

Patric Kuptz means it when he says he grew up on the Great Lakes.

"I've spent most of my life within 50 feet of here," the 37-year-old said on a sunny May morning, working on a boat near his third-generation family home  a brown brick duplex at the edge of Milwaukee's South Shore Yacht Club.

This is where, as a boy, he Huck-Finned away his summers  chasing perch from the docks, splashing in the frigid surf and making all manner of mischief around the yacht club, news of which often made it home before he did.

Today, Kuptz hardly recognizes the lakeshore as the one he grew up on, pointing to a beach that didn't exist when he was a kid in the mid-1980s, when the water was about five feet higher and yacht club members needed steps to ascend from the docks to their boats. When that record-high water dropped a couple of years later and those stairs were being thrown away, the young Kuptz couldn't believe it.

He knew even back then that lake levels were a fickle thing, so he hatched a plan to stash the stairs in his garage  and sell them back to their owners when the lake bounced back.

Kuptz is glad he never acted on it because the only record water level that has returned in the last quarter century is the record low set this winter. Today it is Kuptz who is convinced the lake isn't coming back, at least not in his lifetime, and now he is the one making plans accordingly.

He sold his sailboat.

"I actually bought a power boat because I'm worried about the draft," Kuptz said of the keel-grabbing water levels. "It's nuts. I'd never seen it this low."

Nobody has.

A great unknown

Lake Michigan is no longer just a Great Lake; it is a great unknown.

More ominous than the all-time low the lake touched this winter is the fact that it came after languishing for 14 years below its long-term average  another record. And when it did initially drop below that long-term average, it plunged three feet between 1998 and 1999  yet another record for water lost from one year to the next.

What is behind the low levels on the Great Lakes? Despite man-made tinkering, water levels in the Great Lakes have remained remarkably stable for generations. Now that exquisite balance may be headed out of whack. Bill Schulz, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The lake level, of course, has been in constant flux since record-keeping began a century and a half ago. Tracking it on a graph is like looking at an EKG monitor. Little blips and dips reflect seasonal oscillations that cause the lake, in a typical year, to vary about a foot between summertime high and wintertime low.

In addition to those annual ebbs and flows are larger swings that span decades tied to long-term weather patterns, with Lake Michigan's record high topping out more than 6 feet above the record low set this January.

Draw a red line through the middle of all those highs and lows and you get what was, up until 1999, Lake Michigan's long-term average surface level  579 feet above sea level.

That year the lake mysteriously took its 3-foot dive, and it has stayed down for nearly a decade and a half  and counting.

Previous drops into low water, in the 1920s, '30s, '50s and '60s, were always followed by a quick and sustained rebound beyond the long-term average. Usually it happened within three or four years, though the slow but steady climb during the Dust Bowl droughts took the better part of the '30s.

But with this ongoing low water, which has never shown an indication that it is on a sustained track back toward average, decades of rhythmic pulses hitched to the red line appear to have stopped, or at least stalled.

Frank Quinn, a retired hydrologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, has been tracking lake levels for more than a half century, and he's heard all manner of crazy theories for the previous lows. Atom bomb testing was a popular culprit in the 1960s, and rumors swirled for years of a secret canal under Niagara Falls channeling flows to thirstier regions.

The truth was always a little drier  the lakes were simply suffering from a lack of rain and snow.

What's going on today is different.

"Based on the precipitation we've had, we would not expect to have the record low lake levels that we have," Quinn said.

Last year was indeed extremely dry. But the past 14 years, on average, have been wetter than usual for Lakes Michigan and Huron, which are actually one body of water connected at the Straits of Mackinac.

Even so, the lakes remain about a foot and a half below their average for this time of year.

So where did all the water go?

This is not a story about climate change.

It is a story about climate changed.

Click to enlarge the image

Thin ice

After weeks of patiently waiting for ice to slowly build on Lake Superior this winter, Bob Krumenaker finally decided on a chilly Sunday in March to click into his cross country skis and venture out to one of the islands he oversees as superintendent of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in extreme northwest Wisconsin.

The ice on this St. Patrick's Day felt solid as concrete as Krumenaker and a colleague glided their way out to Basswood Island, 1 mile offshore. Farther out, the lake was dotted with ice fishing shanties and snowmobilers. It appeared one of the world's wildest lakes had again lapsed into a deep wintertime slumber under a blanket of ice.

It was a mirage.

The reality was hidden under Krumenaker's green pullover. He wore a red life preserver.

The frozen white coastline belied a dramatic warming of the lake in recent years. Away from the sheltered shore around the islands, ice gave way to the churning black waves of a body of water that never really went to sleep. It rarely does anymore, its annual hibernation having become more often than not just a catnap.

Even the predictably iced-over shoreline regions have become dicey places to roam. This was the first time Krumenaker wore a life jacket on a ski trip.

Several weeks earlier, a well-known fishing guide who was a former local police officer had plunged through the ice near Bayfield and died.

Less than a month later, two more area residents on a snowmobile crashed through the ice near Madeline Island and died.

"Three local people, who are familiar with conditions, dying...," said Krumenaker, "has definitely rattled this community."

Standing on the iced-over shoreline this winter, it was hard to see the changes. But assistant superintendent Neil Howk pulled up a satellite image showing that even in mid-March, typically the peak time for ice coverage, it was mostly Superior's calm harbors and bays in places like Duluth, Bayfield, Copper Harbor and Thunder Bay that were frozen over.

The rest of the lake was open water, black as the type on this screen.

"Maybe 10% of the lake is covered," said Howk. "Maybe."

Researchers who have been tracking ice for decades say that is now normal. Historically, on average, about a quarter to a third of Lake Superior, an area of lake roughly the size of Massachusetts, froze over each year.

Big ice years still happen  nearly the entire lake froze in 2009  but they have become increasingly rare, particularly since the late 1990s.

Average ice cover for Superior declined by 76% between 1973 and 2011, according to a 2012 study led by Jia Wang, an ice climatologist at NOAA's Great Lakes research laboratory. A similar phenomenon has occurred across the region, with Wang calculating a 63% drop in average ice cover for all the Great Lakes over the past four decades.

Across the same time period, scientists estimate a 1.6 degree Fahrenheit upturn in the over-lake air temperature for all the Great Lakes  with most of the change also occurring since the late 1990s.

Common sense says the stubbornly frigid inland seas would be immune to such a subtle bump in air temperature.

But it appears the opposite is true.

A thermal avalanche

When Jay Austin arrived at the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 2005, he was equipped with a doctorate in oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, but he had little experience studying fresh water.

Rising temperatures, falling water levels on the Great Lakes Jay Austin, University of Minnesota-Duluth, talks about how increasing temperatures have led to more evaporation and declining water levels on the Great Lakes. Mark Hoffman, Milwaukee

"I didn't know anything about lake temperatures, so I thought a good way to learn would be to grab the data, plot it up and play with it for a week and see what happens," he said.

What Austin found happening on Lake Superior was stunning  since 1980 the lake's average summer surface water temperature has been climbing at a rate of about 2 degrees per decade, roughly double the rate of the increase in air temperature over the Superior basin.

"The intuition is that a very large lake like this would be slow to respond somehow to climate change," he said. "But in fact we're finding that it's particularly sensitive."

Austin went looking for the scientific literature explaining what was going on. He found almost nothing.

He eventually determined it's not just warm summer weather driving the increase in water temperatures  it's also what's happening in winter. The air-temperature increase, however slight, has been enough to dramatically reduce Superior's average ice cover.

And without a bright white cap to bounce solar radiation back into the sky, the lake begins to soak up heat in early spring. That jump-start on the annual warming process has a profound effect on peak surface water temperatures during the summer.

The outsized role winter ice has on Superior's summertime water temperatures literally jumped out of Austin's data. The more ice coverage in winter, the cooler the lake is likely to be the following summer; the less ice, the warmer the summer water.

"It's not one of those things that you had to do a lot of statistical analysis to convince yourself of the significance," Austin said. "You made the plot, and there it was."

A similar phenomenon is under way on Lakes Michigan and Huron.

Paul Roebber, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee meteorologist and associate dean of its School of Freshwater Sciences, points to a weather buoy in the middle of southern Lake Michigan that shows a 3.4 degree increase in average summer surface water temperatures since 1997.

One day last summer, the thermometer at the mid-lake buoy 43 miles southeast of Milwaukee recorded a Caribbean-like 80 degrees.

It was only the beginning of July.

"There has been a change in air temperatures. It's not dramatic, but it's just enough to not produce the ice coverage we used to have," explained Roebber. "And that makes all the difference in a system like this."

Sucked into the sky

This temperature cascade has made it possible on summer nights for oceanographer Austin to take his young son swimming in Lake Superior, something most people would never do a generation ago.

But the warm water also has significant implications for lake levels because it is driving up evaporation rates  a key factor in the equation that kept water levels shackled to their red-line average during a record-keeping period that stretches back to the mid-1800s.

Federal data show that evaporation on Michigan and Huron has been above average every year since the low-water era started in 1999.

With little to no protective ice cap, chilled air whooshing over relatively warm water leads to more cold-weather evaporation.

The result of this thermal avalanche triggered by just a tiny bump in air temperatures: the surface of the lake is literally going poof into the sky.

"You can see that if it's a really cold day," said Roebber. "You'll see these plumes of steam coming off the lake. It's very graphic and that's an example of the lake just losing water."

The biggest change in evaporation happens when cool winds blow over the summer's ever-warming waters, and during the frigid gales of October, November and December, a time of year when evaporation can sap up to 2 inches of water per weekfrom the still relatively warm lakes.

"That evaporation really kicks in in the fall, when those cool air masses start coming in over the lakes, but the water is still warm, and over the past 10 years the water has been warmer and warmer and warmer," said Drew Gronewold, a hydrologist at NOAA's Great Lakes lab.

Roebber points to data showing how much water Michigan and Huron have lost to evaporation over the last 14 years compared to their historic average. Tally all those numbers together, and it shows evaporation has sucked more than four feet from the lakes. Evaporation is calculated by a model that relies on things such as water temperature, air temperature and wind speed.

Though some of that evaporation loss on Michigan and Huron has been offset by above-normal precipitation, people need to understand something has fundamentally changed in the lakes' historic low-water, high-water cycle, Roebber said.

Click to enlarge the image

Quinn, the dean of Great Lakes hydrology, said part of the drop on Michigan and Huron is tied to dry weather over the Lake Superior basin, which means lower flows coming into Lake Huron via the St. Marys River. But he agrees that the big story for Lakes Michigan and Huron is increased evaporation, only a fraction of which falls back into the lakes as precipitation.

A hydrologist looks at causes, effects of low Great Lakes water levels Frank Quinn, an emeritus hydrologist with the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, talks about the history and causes of low water levels on the Great Lakes. Mark Hoffman, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"What appears to have happened is the hydrologic regime  the climate  has changed," Quinn said.

"We're getting the precipitation, but we're losing a lot more water through evaporation...and that is what is causing the drop in Lake Michigan and Huron's water levels  the continuing low levels, the part we can't explain."

Quinn isn't saying a change like this hasn't happened before humans started taking meticulous notes of bouncing water levels in the 1800s, nor is he saying that at some point it won't be reversed.

But there is no question that since the late 1990s there has been a profound switch in the way the lakes work.

"The dynamics we have between precipitation and evaporation have changed," said Gronewold. "There are years now when we have a lot more water coming off the surface of the lake than dropping into the lake."

In those years, the sky takes more from the lakes than it gives.

Lakes need 'extraordinary' precipitation

Prehistoric water level records, detected by radiocarbon-dating the ridges of ancient beaches, reveal that about 4,500 years ago Lake Michigan was roughly 13 feet higher than it is today.

Then it underwent a steep decline over a 500-year period before settling near levels closer to what we've known. Climate variability  drought, specifically  is believed to be a factor in the big 500-year drop, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Reconstructed records going forward from there indicate that, beyond our relatively brief recorded history showing annual and multiyear fluctuations, over the past few thousand years there have been larger swings based on roughly 160-year cycles.

It might give some people comfort that the lakes have previously experienced changes even greater than what appears to be happening today.

But it's important to remember that all this is ancient history  before the existence of cities bursting with millions of people and trillions of dollars of subdivisions, skyscrapers, factories, rail yards, roadways, navigation channels and canals, sewage treatment plants, drinking water systems and nuclear reactors, all clinging to the modern shoreline, all needing the water level to stay basically where it has been for the last century and a half.

With a fresh record-low notched in the books and signs of a new era at hand in which increased evaporation will continue, the pressing questions are:

Will Michigan and Huron rebound back toward their historic average?

Have they reached a new normal, albeit one that is significantly lower than what we've become accustomed to?

Or will they continue to drop?

In April, a spokesman for the International Joint Commission stood in front of floor-to-ceiling windows in a Concordia University conference room on a bluff above Lake Michigan and assured a group of lakeshore property owners there was little to worry about.

The Joint Commission oversees boundary waters issues between the United States and Canada.

"That water that you see out there," said John Nevin, a public information officer for the Joint Commission, "is not the new normal."

Warmer temperatures might mean slightly lower-than-average water levels going forward, but "we're going to see levels generally in their historic range," he said.

Others who study Great Lakes water levels and precipitation cycles are less sanguine.

"I don't think you can say that with any certainty, and I think available evidence suggests that it's the opposite," said Roebber, the UWM meteorologist and mathematician.

"The last 15 years essentially really prove that point. You can see it: above-normal precipitation and lake levels dropping substantially  with a loss of ice."

Most scientists agree that warmer water and air temperatures will turbo-charge Lake Michigan and Huron's precipitation-evaporation cycle; more water will be going up into the sky, and more will be coming down.

The question is whether they will balance each other out, and so far they have not.

An alarming piece of research in 2002 predicted a drop of about 4.5 feet in Michigan and Huron's long-term average in the coming decades. It was tempered by a 2010 study based on hundreds of simulations using nearly two dozen computer models. Those computer simulations yielded widely varying results, but the study concluded Michigan and Huron's average level in the coming decades is most likely to remain somewhere around a foot below the historic average.

Another NOAA researcher said all these calculations underestimate how much rivers and streams will continue to feed the lakes under a warmer air temperature regime, and therefore have exaggerated the potential water loss.

"There is a fair amount of likelihood that (the lakes) are going to drop, but it's going to be a lot less than what had previously been thought, and there is the possibility that they will rise in the long-term," said Brent Lofgren, a scientist with the NOAA Great Lakes lab.

But these are all predictions based on ever-evolving computer models trying to gauge how a warmer globe will affect  in terms of feet, if not mere inches  the hydrologic cycle of our lakes.

It does not take a scientist or a supercomputer to simply look at the Lake Michigan shoreline today and realize that, despite a decade of wetter than normal weather and despite the severely cold and wet spring, our lake isn't as great as it used to be.

And even if we have more record-setting wet months coming, it still won't be.

"It's going to likely take several seasons of above-average rainfall and snowfall and above average runoff to get Lakes Michigan and Huron back to their long-term average," said Keith Kompoltowicz, chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' watershed hydrology branch for the Detroit district.

"What we've seen this spring is what you need to get the lakes headed back. You just need to see it consistently over a number of seasons."

In other words, we now need extraordinary levels of precipitation just to get back to ordinary.

This poses its own set of potential problems.

The torrential rains of April that pulled Michigan and Huron several inches up from their record low had a downside: They triggered massive sewage overflows and unleashed flooding in Chicago. Similar rains on Lake Erie in recent years have sent into the lake plumes of fertilizer-rich soils linked to poisonous algae blooms. A 2011 outbreak covered about 2,000 square miles  three times larger than anything recorded, even in the pre-Clean Water Act days of the 1960s and '70s.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to write off these deluges as a fluke.

Meteorologists refer to the most wicked rain events as "100 year storms"  tempests so severe the odds of one happening in any given year are 1%.

But since 1997, southeastern Wisconsin has experienced six such storms, including two in July 2010.

"We've either had really bad luck," said Roebber, "or something else is happening."

He thinks that something else is a new era in which big storms will become more the norm.

Roebber said that means the focus now should not be on the lakes' historic red-line average because that's not the line he is worried about. He believes that average will continue to decline, but he is more concerned about how increased evaporation and precipitation cycles may push the swings around the average higher and lower than we've ever seen.

Historically, Lakes Michigan and Huron have been tethered to a 3-foot flux above and below their long-term average.

Roebber said it is reasonable to expect that in coming decades the highs and lows will soar and plunge four feet or more from their average  meaning water levels could swing by 8 to even 10 feet over several years.

He worries the record low set in January is just the beginning.
By of the

In the year since he was indicted on more than 30 federal fraud-related counts, Todd Dyer, a Lake Geneva felon, has threatened to sue the victims of the fraud scheme he is charged with masterminding; sold a business for $2 million; and continues to be under investigation in a different scheme, federal prosecutors charge in newly filed documents.

"Dyer has shown contempt for this court's authority," assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Wall wrote in a memorandum filed in U.S. District Court Thursday. "His recent intimidating contact with several victims of his fraud scheme shows he is entitled to no extra consideration from this court."

Wall's filing even raises questions about why Dyer cannot afford an attorney or related legal expenses, yet he is asking the court for permission to travel to Palm Springs, Calif.

Dyer, who is free on personal recognizance bond, this month asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph to let him go to California to assist an associate in a business venture.

Wall noted that Dyer, last year, testified he sold the venture for $2 million.

"Dyer has appointed counsel at taxpayer expense and has retained the services of a forensic accountant at taxpayer expense," Wall wrote. "So it is a bit unclear how Dyer has funds to finance such a trip."

Besides, Wall argued, the company is up and running and does not need Dyer's in-person assistance.

Robert LeBell, Dyer's lawyer, and Wall both declined to comment.

Dyer, 52, has a long history of run-ins with law enforcement officials and regulators.

In 1999 he was convicted in federal court in Milwaukee of running a Ponzi scheme, and four years later he was convicted in Illinois state court of securities fraud in a related case.

He was sentenced to 70 months in the federal case and five years in the state case, with the sentences served concurrently.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2013 disclosed that Dyer was under investigation on allegations that he ran an investment scheme involving investments in farmland.

During a lengthy 2013 interview in his Lake Geneva home, Dyer denied any wrongdoing and virtually challenged prosecutors to indict him, saying they should "Bring it on. Bring. It. On."

Last year, they did just that. Dyer was indicted by a federal grand jury in Milwaukee in June 2015 on charges that he helped launch and run a $1.5 million investment scheme that prosecutors said conned investors into pouring money into firms created to buy farmland.

The following month he was indicted again  this time on charges that he defrauded an individual out of $250,000.

After the indictments, Dyer denied any wrongdoing and said Wall  who prosecuted him in the 1999 case  was "going to look like the biggest moron who ever walked on this Earth."

Dyer did not return calls for comment last week.

Wall's filing states that earlier this month Dyer sent an email to some of the investors in the farmland enterprises threatening to sue them.

"The email is clearly intended to intimidate these individuals," Wall wrote.

Wall also disclosed that Dyer is still being investigated on allegations that he bilked a northern Illinois family out of $937,000.

That sum includes $35,000 that an FBI agent last year testified was left by Cindy Bakley in her mailbox.

Special Agent Michael Johnson testified at a 2015 hearing in the Dyer case that the $35,000 was put in the mailbox on the instruction of somebody named "Robert." Wall's filing argues that Dyer was, in fact, Robert.

According to Wall's memorandum and Johnson's earlier testimony, the Bakley family began paying Dyer after an insurance policy taken out on their mother's life had lapsed.

The policy had been written by Dyer's father, and Todd Dyer "represented that he could obtain up to $10 million for the family through high-level contacts" he had with the insurance company, Wall wrote.

Dyer has denied any wrongdoing in the matter, saying the family hired him as a consultant.

Dyer, Wall wrote, told the family he needed cash to pay a man named "Robert" who was an insurance company executive and was helping him.

Robert contacted Cindy Bakley several times and "spoke in low tones and had an accent that appeared to be mid-Eastern," Wall wrote, noting that in December Robert called Bakley and urged her to call Dyer.

FBI technicians had determined that the call went through a cell tower near Dyer's Lake Geneva home.

Wall charged Dyer was, in fact, Robert, and was trying to trick Cindy Bakley into calling Dyer so "he could talk to her without violating his bond condition" which demanded that he not contact the Bakleys.
05/16/2016





While Miss JSU Madelynn Barker is busy getting ready for the Miss Alabama pageant next month, she is still taking time to actively serve her community by sharing lessons in self-worth with area girls.

Through her platform G.I.R.L.S.  which stands for Growing, Initiating and Realizing Lessons in Self-respect  Barker speaks to 5th-12th grade girls about respecting who they are and making wise decisions in their everyday lives.

By using a multi-media presentation and an object lesson, Barker is able to convey a positive message to her audience. She removes the petals from a flower throughout her presentation to signify the damage that is caused to a young lady when she conforms to unhealthy societal standards. Its a message she wishes she had received as a teen, when she struggled with insecurities and peer pressure.

My favorite part about pageants is the service aspect, said Barker. I love the fact that this allows me to give back to others. My platform is very special to me and allows me to pass on wisdom that I have learned over the years. I love these young ladies like family and enjoy spending time with them.

Barker has spoken across Calhoun County, including Alexandria Elementary School, Alexandria High School, Pleasant Valley Elementary School, Weaver Elementary School and Weaver High School. She is beginning to branch out to other counties, including Lineville Intermediate School in Clay County. She has also spoken to the Junior League of Anniston-Calhoun County and served as a guest speaker for a small group at the Church of the Highlands. She also shares her message on her blog on the G.I.R.L.S. website.

The 19-year-old psychology major was crowned Miss JSU on Jan. 15. She is a 2015 graduate of Weaver High School. She is a member of Freshman Forum and received the JSU Leadership Scholarship, the Nancy Julian Scholarship and the Cody Watson Scholarship. She hopes to become a school counselor after graduating.

In her spare time she enjoys baking and dancing. She has studied dance at Sheila Lindley's World of Performing Arts for 15 years and will be performing a contemporary ballet for the talent portion at Miss Alabama.
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By Marwan Muasher | (Project Syndicate) |  

WASHINGTON, DC  A recent survey of 100 Arab thought leaders conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace revealed a sweeping consensus about what underlies many of the regions problems: a lack of good governance. Indeed, those polled emphasized domestic problems resulting from that failure  authoritarianism, corruption, outdated education systems, and unemployment  over regional concerns, including the threat of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) or interference by regional heavyweights or outside powers.

This is not new information. The Arab Spring uprisings brought to the fore the inadequacy of the regions outdated social contracts in the face of current political and economic challenges. Yet Arab governments still seem not to have gotten the message.

Five years after the uprisings erupted, Arab citizens have little  in some cases, even less  voice in running their countries affairs. Moreover, they depend on rentier economies that are unable to create enough jobs for their young, educated populations. And they face an alarming absence of the rule of law, leaving them with no assurances that they will be treated equally, regardless of gender, ethnic origin, or religion.

But poor governance today does not mean the Arab world is doomed to failure. Tunisia serves as a beacon of hope. After the 2011 revolution, it pursued a consensual, inclusive process to develop a new social contract that upholds all of its peoples individual and collective rights.

While Tunisia still faces serious economic and security problems, the national dialogue that the country has undertaken is the crucial first step toward resolving them. Other Arab societies now must undertake similar dialogues, with the ultimate goal of creating economies and institutions that meet their peoples needs.

History has taught us that such transformational processes take time. The long-suppressed ideas and energies unleashed by events like the Arab Spring must mature before having their full effect on society.

Consider the uprisings in Europe in 1848, in which citizens protested against authoritarian, feudal systems and the lack of economic opportunity. By the end of that year, status quo forces managed to retake the reins of power, and the uprisings appeared to have been all but crushed.

But something had changed. Taboos had been broken, and during the subsequent decades, technological advances enabled the spread of new ideas. It was not long before feudalism began to dissolve; liberal and democratic values gained traction; women secured greater rights; and economic systems emerged that could boost productivity, achieve high growth rates, and improve living standards.

A similar process is unfolding gradually in the Arab world, with citizens (especially young people) who lack trust in their governments seeking alternative sources of information and new ways to survive economically. This shift has so far gone largely unnoticed by governments, a reflection of just how disconnected they are from their own people. But it will soon be impossible to ignore.

All of this comes at a time when another important development is underway: Oil-based rentier systems are rapidly diminishing, owing to the steep decline in energy prices over the last two years. In particular, Saudi Arabia has been forced to initiate a shift toward an economic model that emphasizes investment and productivity as the main drivers of economic growth. Other countries in the region will have to follow suit and reform their economic systems, or face the wrath of their increasingly disgruntled citizens.

One important element of economic-reform strategies will be technology. Already, 240 million Arabs  largely young people  have access to the Internet through mobile phones; by 2020, it is estimated that all Arab youth will be connected. Technology is facilitating the creation and sharing of knowledge, in a region that has historically lagged in this area, and technology start-ups are on the rise.

This is not to say that technology is a panacea for the region. After all, ISIS is also using technology, but in a sinister way: to spread gruesome propaganda and recruit new members. But technology can speed up the Arab worlds social and economic progress, even as countries build a modern institutional framework capable of supporting it.

Nowadays, no country can evolve without developing effective and credible institutions, establishing a meaningful system of political checks and balances, and diffusing control over decision-making. These elements are vital to enable countries to offer their citizens an adequate quality of life.

In time, the Arab world will have them. While the international community is focused on ISIS or Irans destructive role in the Middle East, most Arabs are focused on improving their lives. Their governments should encourage them.

Marwan Muasher, a former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan, is Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His latest book is The Second Arab Awakening and the Battle for Pluralism.

Licensed from Project Syndicate

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

Carnegie Live: Supporting Tunisias Imperiled Transition
The shelling incident occurred on May 11 between 9:30 pm and 9:45 pm, when six shells landed at a BGB camp in the Bulu Para sector of Alikadem Upazila, slightly damaging the BGB helipad, Rahaman, the commander said.

The shelling, we suspect, came from the other side of the border. We responded with spontaneous shelling and beefed up security and surveillance. None of our forces was injured and this type of high transitory weapons might be used by the Myanmar Army or the separatist group - Arakan Army (AA) from Arakan, Myanmar, Rahaman clarified.

The recovered shells were kept at the Bulu Para (village) BGB camp. An expert team from the Bangladesh Army team was expected to visit the camp to dispose of the weapons, Rahaman further said.

The situation on the border was under the control and have been investigating the matter seriously. The attackers could not be traced as the incident happened at night, but tension has been prevailing on the border since the incident. However, BGB members were deployed and they were ordered to patrol along the border. The situation on the border was intensified, Rahaman said.

We, through the foreign ministry, have lodged complaints with the Myanmar authorities about it. The border guards of the two countries will meet and discuss the issue, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told at press briefing on May 13.

Khan also said Bangladeshi authorities also were trying to determine whether the mortars were fired by the Arakan Liberation Army, a Myanmar rebel group that operates just across the border in Myanmars Arakhine state, or by Burma Border Guard Police (BGP).

Bangladesh shares a 271 kilometer (168.3 mile) border with Myanmar/Burma in its southeast. A stretch of at least 150 km (93.2 miles) is porous because of rugged, hilly and densely forested terrain.
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By Peter Van Buren | ( Tomdispatch.com ) |  

One of the most popular apps these days is Snapchat. It allows the sender to set a timer for any photo dispatched via the app, so that a few seconds after the recipient opens the message, the photo is automatically deleted. The evidence of what you did at that party last night is seen and then disappears. POOF!

I hope youll forgive me if I suggest that the Iraq-Syria War against the Islamic State (ISIS) is being conveyed to us via Snapchat. Important things happen, they appear in front of us, and then POOF! theyre gone. No one seems to remember them. Who cares that theyve happened at all, when theres a new snap already arriving for your attention? As with most of what flows through the real Snapchat, whats of some interest at first makes no difference in the long run.

Just because we now have terrifyingly short memories does not, however, mean that things did not happen. Despite the POOF! effect, events that genuinely mattered when it comes to the region in which Washington has, since the 1980s, been embroiled in four wars, actually did occur last week, last month, a war or two ago, or, in some cases, more than half a century in the past. What follows are just some of the things weve forgotten that couldnt matter more.

Its a Limited Mission  POOF!

Perhaps General David Petraeuss all-time sharpest comment came in the earliest days of Iraq War 2.0. Tell me how this ends, he said, referring to the Bush administrations invasion. At the time, he was already worried that there was no endgame.

That question should be asked daily in Washington. It and the underlying assumption that there must be a clear scope and duration to Americas wars are too easily forgotten. It took eight long years until the last American combat troops were withdrawn from Iraq. Though there were no ticker tape parades or iconic photos of sailors smooching their gals in Times Square in 2011, the war was indeed finally over and Barack Obamas campaign promise fulfilled

Until, of course, it wasnt, and in 2014 the same president restarted the war, claiming that a genocide against the Yazidis, a group hitherto unknown to most of us and since largely forgotten, was in process. Air strikes were authorized to support a limited rescue mission. Then, more  limited  American military power was needed to stop the Islamic State from conquering Iraq. Then more air strikes, along with limited numbers of military advisers and trainers, were sure to wrap things up, and somehow, by May 2016, the U.S. has 5,400 military personnel, including Special Operations forces, on the ground across Iraq and Syria, with expectations that more would soon be needed, even as a massive regional air campaign drags on. Thats how Washingtons wars seem to go these days, with no real debate, no Congressional declaration, just, if were lucky, a news item announcing whats happened.

Starting wars under murky circumstances and then watching limited commitments expand exponentially is by now so ingrained in Americas global strategy that its barely noticed. Recall, for instance, those weapons of mass destruction that justified George W. Bushs initial invasion of Iraq, the one that turned into eight years of occupation and nation-building? Or to step a couple of no-less-forgettable years further into the past, bring to mind the 2001 U.S. mission that was to quickly defeat the ragged Taliban and kill Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Thats now heading into its 16th year as the situation there only continues to disintegrate.

For those who prefer an even more forgotten view of history, Americas war in Vietnam kicked into high gear thanks to then-President Lyndon Johnsons false claim about an attack on American warships in the Gulf of Tonkin. The early stages of that war followed a path somewhat similar to the one on which we now seem to be staggering along in Iraq War 3.0  from a limited number of advisers to the full deployment of almost all the available tools of war.

Or for those who like to look ahead, the U.S. has just put troops back on the ground in Yemen, part of what the Pentagon is describing as limited support for the U.S.-backed war the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates launched in that country.

The new story is also the old story: just as you cant be a little pregnant, the mission never really turns out to be limited, and if Washington doesnt know where the exit is, its going to be trapped yet again inside its own war, spinning in unpredictable and disturbing directions.

No Boots on the Ground  POOF!

Having steadfastly maintained since the beginning of Iraq War 3.0 that it would never put American boots on the ground, the Obama administration has deepened its military campaign against the Islamic State by increasing the number of Special Operations forces in Syria from 50 to 300. The administration also recently authorized the use of Apache attack helicopters, long stationed in Iraq to protect U.S. troops, as offensive weapons.

American advisers are increasingly involved in actual fighting in Iraq, even as the U.S. deployed B-52 bombers to an air base in Qatar before promptly sending them into combat over Iraq and Syria. Another group of Marines was dispatched to help defend the American Embassy in Baghdad after the Green Zone, in the heart of that city, was recently breached by masses of protesters. Of all those moves, at least some have to qualify as boots on the ground.

The word play involved in maintaining the official no-boots fiction has been a high-wire act. Following the loss of an American in Iraqi Kurdistan recently, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter labeled it a combat death. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest then tried to explain how an American who was not on a combat mission could be killed in combat. He was killed, and he was killed in combat. But that was not part of his mission, Earnest told reporters.

Much more quietly, the U.S. surged  surge being the replacement word for the Vietnam-era escalate  the number of private contractors working in Iraq; their ranks have grown eight-fold over the past year, to the point where there are an estimated 2,000 of them working directly for the Department of Defense and 5,800 working for the Department of State inside Iraq. And dont be too sanguine about those State Department contractors. While some of them are undoubtedly cleaning diplomatic toilets and preparing elegant receptions, many are working as military trainers, paramilitary police advisers, and force protection personnel. Even some aircraft maintenance crews and CIA paramilitaries fall under the State Departments organizational chart.

The new story in Iraq and Syria when it comes to boots on the ground is the old story: air power alone has never won wars, advisers and trainers never turn out to be just that, and for every soldier in the fight you need five or more support people behind him.

Were Winning  POOF!

Weve been winning in Iraq for some time now  a quarter-century of successes, from 1991s triumphant Operation Desert Storm to 2003s soaring Mission Accomplished moment to just about right now in the upbeat third iteration of Americas Iraq wars. But in each case, in a Snapchat version of victory, success has never seemed to catch on.

At the end of April, for instance, Army Colonel Steve Warren, a U.S. military spokesperson, hailed the way American air power had set fire to $500 million of ISISs money, actual cash that its militants had apparently forgotten to disperse or hide in some reasonable place. He was similarly positive about other recent gains, including the taking of the Iraqi city of Hit, which, he swore, was a linchpin for ISIL. In this, he echoed the language used when ISIS-occupied Ramadi (and Baiji and Sinjar and) fell, language undoubtedly no less useful when the next town is liberated. In the same fashion, USA Today quoted an anonymous U.S. official as saying that American actions had cut ISISs oil revenues by an estimated 50%, forcing them to ration fuel in some areas, while cutting pay to its fighters and support staff.

Only a month ago, National Security Adviser Susan Rice let us know that, day by day, mile by mile, strike by strike, we are making substantial progress. Every few days, were taking out another key ISIL leader, hampering ISILs ability to plan attacks or launch new offensives. She even cited a poll indicating that nearly 80% of young Muslims across the Middle East are strongly opposed to that group and its caliphate.

In the early spring, Brett McGurk, U.S. special envoy to the global coalition to counter the Islamic State, took to Twitter to assure everyone that terrorists are now trapped and desperate on Mosul fronts. Speaking at a security forum I attended, retired general Chuck Jacoby, the last multinational force commander for Iraq 2.0, described another sign of progress, insisting that Iraq today is a maturing state. On the same panel, Douglas Ollivant, a member of former Iraq commander General David Petraeuss brain trust of warrior-intellectuals, talked about streams of hope in Iraq.

Above all, however, there is one sign of success often invoked in relation to the war in Iraq and Syria: the body count, an infamous supposed measure of success in the Vietnam War. Washington spokespeople regularly offer stunning figures on the deaths of ISIS members, claiming that 10,000 to 25,000 Islamic State fighters have been wiped out via air strikes. The CIA has estimated that, in 2014, the Islamic State had only perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 fighters under arms. If such victory statistics are accurate, somewhere between a third and all of them should now be gone.

Other U.S. intelligence reports, clearly working off a different set of data, suggest that there once were more than 30,000 foreign fighters in the Islamic States ranks. Now, the Pentagon tells us, the flow of new foreign fighters into Iraq and Syria has been staunched, dropping over the past year from roughly 2,000 to 200 a month, further incontrovertible proof of the Islamic States declining stature. One anonymous American official typically insisted: Were actually a little bit ahead of where we wanted to be.

Yet despite success after American success, ISIS evidently isnt broke, or running out of fighters, or too desperate to stay in the fray, and despite all the upbeat news there are few signs of hope in the Iraqi body politic or its military.

The new story is again a very old story: when you have to repeatedly explain how much youre winning, youre likely not winning much of anything at all.

Its Up to the Iraqis  POOF!

From the early days of Iraq War 2.0, one key to success for Washington has been assigning the Iraqis a to-do list based on Americas foreign policy goals. They were to hold decisive elections, write a unifying Constitution, take charge of their future, share their oil with each other, share their government with each other, and then defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq, and later, the Islamic State.

As each item failed to get done properly, it became the Iraqis fault that Washington hadnt achieved its goals. A classic example was the surge of 2007, when the Bush administration sent in a significant number of additional troops to whip the Iraqis into shape and just plain whip al-Qaeda, and so open up the space for Shiites and Sunnis to come together in an American-sponsored state of national unity. The Iraqis, of course, screwed up the works with their sectarian politics and so lost the stunning potential gains in freedom we had won them, leaving the Americans heading for the exit.

In Iraq War 3.0, the Obama administration again began shuffling leaders in Baghdad to suit its purposes, helping force aside once-golden boy Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and pushing forward new golden boy Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to  you guessed it  unify Iraq. Today, Iraqis took another major step forward in uniting their country, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said as Abadi took office.

Of course, unity did not transpire, thanks to Abadi, not us. It would be disastrous, editorialized the New York Times, if Americans, Iraqis, and their partners were to succeed in the military campaign against the Islamic State only to have the politicians in Baghdad squander another chance to build a better future. The Times added: More than 13 years since Saddam Husseins overthrow, theres less and less reason to be optimistic.

The latest Iraqi screw-up came on April 30th, when dissident Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadrs supporters broke into the previously sacrosanct Green Zone established by the Americans in Iraq War 2.0 and stormed Iraqs parliament. Sadr clearly remembers his history better than most Americans. In 2004, he emboldened his militias, then fighting the U.S. military, by reminding them of how irregular forces had defeated the Americans in Vietnam. This time, he was apparently diplomatic enough not to mention that Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese 41 years ago on the day of the Green Zone incursion.

Sadrs supporters crossed into the enclave to protest Prime Minister Abadis failure to reform a disastrous government, rein in corruption (you can buy command of an entire army division and plunder its budget indefinitely for about $2 million), and provide basic services like water and electricity to Baghdadis. The tens of billions of dollars that U.S. officials spent reconstructing Iraq during the American occupation of 2003 to 2011 were supposed to make such services effective, but did not.

And anything said about Iraqi governmental failures might be applied no less accurately to the Iraqi army.

Despite the estimated $26 billion the U.S. spent training and equipping that military between 2003 and 2011, whole units broke, shed their uniforms, ditched their American equipment, and fled when faced with relatively small numbers of ISIS militants in June 2014, abandoning four northern cities, including Mosul. This, of course, created the need for yet more training, the ostensible role of many of the U.S. troops now in Iraq. Since most of the new Iraqi units are still only almost ready to fight, however, those American ground troops and generals and Special Operations forces and forward air controllers and planners and logistics personnel and close air support pilots are still needed for the fight to come.

The inability of the U.S. to midwife a popularly supported government or a confident citizens army, Washingtons twin critical failures of Iraq War 2.0, may once again ensure that its latest efforts implode. Few Iraqis are left who imagine that the U.S. can be an honest broker in their country. A recent State Department report found that one-third of Iraqis believe the United States is actually supporting ISIS, while 40% are convinced that the United States is trying to destabilize Iraq for its own purposes.

The new story is again the old story: corrupt governments imposed by an outside power fail. And in the Iraq case, every problem that cant be remedied by aerial bombardment and Special Forces must be the Iraqis fault.

Same Leadership, Same Results  POOF!

With the last four presidents all having made war in Iraq, and little doubt that the next president will dive in, keep another forgotten aspect of Washingtons Iraq in mind: some of the same American leadership figures have been in place under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and they will initially still be in place when Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump enters the Oval Office.

Start with Brett McGurk, the current special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter ISIS. His resume is practically a Wikipedia page for Americas Iraq, 2003-2016: Deputy Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran from August 2013 until his current appointment. Before that, Senior Advisor in the State Department for Iraq, a special advisor to the National Security Staff, Senior Advisor to Ambassadors to Iraq Ryan Crocker, Christopher Hill, and James Jeffrey. McGurk participated in President Obamas 2009 review of Iraq policy and the transition following the U.S. military departure from Iraq. During the Bush administration, McGurk served as Director for Iraq, then as Special Assistant to the President, and also Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008 McGurk was the lead negotiator with the Iraqi Government on both a long-term Strategic Framework Agreement and a Security Agreement to govern the presence of U.S. forces. He was also one of the chief Washington-based architects of The Surge, having earlier served as a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority from nearly the first shots of 2003.

A little lower down the chain of command is Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland. He is now leading Sunni tribal coordination to help defeat ISIS, as well as serving as commanding general of the Combined Joint Task Force. As a colonel back in 2006, MacFarland similarly helped organize the surges Anbar Sunni Awakening movement against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

And on the ground level, you can be sure that some of the current colonels were majors in Iraq War 2.0, and some of their subordinates put their boots on the same ground theyre on now.

In other words, the new story is the old story: some of the same people have been losing this war for Washington since 2003, with neither accountability nor culpability in play.

What If They Gave a War and No One Remembered?

All those American memories lost to oblivion. Such forgetfulness only allows our war makers to do yet more of the same things in Iraq and Syria, acts that someone on the ground will be forced to remember forever, perhaps under the shadow of a drone overhead.

Placing our service people in harms way, spending our money in prodigious amounts, and laying the countrys credibility on the line once required at least the pretext that some national interest was at stake. Not any more. Anytime some group we dont like threatens a group we care not so much about, the United States must act to save a proud people, stop a humanitarian crisis, take down a brutal leader, put an end to genocide, whatever will briefly engage the public and spin up some vague facsimile of war fever.

But back to Snapchat. It turns out that while the app was carefully designed to make whatever is transmitted quickly disappear, some clever folks have since found ways to preserve the information. If only the same could be said of our Snapchat wars. How soon we forget. Until the next time

Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during the reconstruction of Iraq in his book We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. A TomDispatch regular, he writes about current events at We Meant Well. His latest book is Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent. His next work will be a novel, Hoopers War.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turses Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardts latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Copyright 2016 Peter Van Buren

Via Tomdispatch.com

-

Related video added by Juan Cole:

ABC News from last week: American Soldier Killed by ISIS in Iraq
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

The revelation that the Central Intelligence Agency provided the tip to the Apartheid South African government that led to Nelson Mandelas arrest should come as no great shock, though the public confirmation is perhaps surprising.

Nor is it unconnected to the popularity of Donald Trump, who is proposing a new Apartheid regime with regard to American Muslims.

Mandela went on to lead South Africa in the 1990s toward a racially inclusive new model of democracy.

Although the allegation is that the CIA was worried Mandela was a Communist controlled by the Soviet Union, the actual subtext was that white, racially-segregated South Africa was seen by many in Washington as a good thing. The US firmly supported the Apartheid regime despite its massive human rights abuses, right into the 1980s under Reagan. That it was an ally against Communism was all to the good. But part of what defeating Communism entailed was repressing economically exploited, working class groups like Black South Africans.

Until 1964, much of the US (and not just the Deep South) was itself governed by Apartheid laws that demeaned African-Americans and often denied them the vote, so there was fellow-feeling between elements in Washington and those in Pretoria.

Americans have a fairy tale that they tell themselves, that they have been a force for democracy and human rights. But in fact, sometimes they havent. A lot of the time they havent. The US has made coups against elected governments (1953 in Iran) and supported dictators instead, when it suited Washington elites. The US has supported the repression and statelessness of the Palestinians. And often fears about uppity working classes are racialized in American discourse.

Donald Trumps politics are to a degree about racial hierarchies and the restoration of the pecking order that obtained before the Civil Rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In other words, they hearken back to the days of American Apartheid.

He has questioned the US citizenship of our first African-American president, attempting to paint his eight years in office as illegitimate. Birtherism is a little bit like those Rambo movies of Sylvester Stallone, which relitigated the Vietnam War. If white America was in fact defeated by Asian Vietnam, at least the former could have its victory in the fantasyland of Hollywood. Likewise, Birtherism was a way of imagining that McCain and Romney were the rightful presidents, because the Black guy was actually from Africa and not American at all.

Likewise, Trumps intimation that Latino Americans are for the most part criminals (this is not true), his allegation that China is walking all over the US with regard to trade, and his proposal to exclude Muslims from coming to the US, are all reasertions of the primacy of white America. They are ways of denying that the US is on the way to becoming a majority non-white country (Asians, Latinos, African-Americans are already the majority in California, the most populous state). They are ways of denying that China is a rising world power or that the Muslims world is flexing its muscles in the aftermath of decolonization.

Political Scientist Robert Vitalis has argued that racial hierarchy was at the core of International Relations theory in the US academy in the first half of the 20th century:

 Racism and imperialism are the twin forces that propelled the course of the United States in the world in the early twentieth century and in turn affected the way that diplomatic history and international relations were taught and understood in the American academy. Evolutionary theory, social Darwinism, and racial anthropology had been dominant doctrines in international relations from its beginnings; racist attitudes informed research priorities and were embedded in newly formed professional organizations . . . Within the rigidly segregated profession, the Howard School of International Relations represented the most important center of opposition to racism and the focal point for theorizing feasible alternatives to dependency and domination for Africans and African Americans through the early 1960s.

The jailing of Mandela for much of his adult life came about because he took direct action against a regime that deprived him and his people of their right to vote, of their right to be equal to other citizens, and even in the case of the Bantustans, of their citizenship rights. These actions were taken by people who thought of themselves as white against people they categorized as Black. They were taken on the grounds of racial prejudice and discrimination. The United States of America sided with the operators of the Apartheid state. There isnt any doubt where Trump would have stood in those days, either.

But those days are over, and Trumpism is not the wave of the future; it is a pitiful nostalgia for a shameful imagined past.



Related video:

Nelson Mandela on Oprah Winfreys show from 2000
VANCOUVER, May 16, 2016 /CNW/ - Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise" or the "Company") (TSXV: NEV) announced today that Albemarle Corporation of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA ("Albemarle") (NYSE: ALB) has filed an official protest with the Nevada Division of Water Resources ("NDWR") against the Company's application to transfer the Place of Use and Point of Diversion of its recently acquired water right in the Clayton Valley of Nevada. Albemarle is one of the world's largest producers of lithium chemical products and currently operates the only producing lithium mine in North America in the Clayton Valley at Silver Peak, Nevada.

Nevada Sunrise exercised its option to purchase water rights to complement its Clayton Valley lithium brine projects by executing a definitive purchase agreement with an arms-length vendor (see Nevada Sunrise news release dated March 20, 2016). The pre-existing certificated water right allows for 1,770 acre/feet of water use for mining and milling per year (the "Permit"). On April 22, 2016, Nevada Sunrise, through its Nevada subsidiary Intor Resources Corporation, filed an application to transfer the Permit from its current location in the adjacent mountain range to a location due east on the desert floor within the boundaries of the Company's Aquarius Project. The proposed Place of Use and Point of Diversion lies directly between a road and a powerline, located approximately 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the town of Silver Peak, Nevada and Albemarle's Silver Peak lithium mine and 8 kilometers (5 miles) from its nearest lithium brine production well.

"It would appear that Albemarle Corp. does not wish to allow future competition for lithium brine production in the Clayton Valley basin," said Warren Stanyer, President and CEO of Nevada Sunrise. "Albemarle is the largest consumer of groundwater in the Clayton Valley, and our existing Permit, senior to many of Albemarle's own permits, is the only remaining appropriation of groundwater in the Clayton Valley that is potentially available for a lithium brine extraction operation. Nevada Sunrise will respond to Albemarle's protest in due course and outline the reasons why our application to transfer a certificated water right should not be unfairly prejudiced by Albemarle's action."

Nevada Sunrise acquired the water right prior to commencing exploration for lithium brines in the Clayton Valley. The Company believes that the acquisition of water rights is a prerequisite for future lithium brines development in the area. In December 2015, Nevada Sunrise received a written appraisal from an independent appraiser certified in the State of Nevada, which valued the Permit at US$1.42 million. According to the appraisal report, the Clayton Valley basin is currently "over-appropriated", and stated that any new application for water use in an over-appropriated basin would be carefully reviewed by the NDWR, and that it is uncertain if any new applications for water rights would be granted.

Nevada Sunrise currently has three lithium exploration projects in the Clayton Valley: Neptune, Aquarius and Clayton NE. Exploration by Nevada Sunrise for lithium brines is ongoing - a drilling permit for the Neptune Project was obtained in December 2015 from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and the Company began drilling in March 2016 (see Nevada Sunrise news release dated April 19, 2016).

Nevada Sunrise has paid to the vendor US$125,000 in cash as the first installment of an agreed purchase price of US$1.3 million, and has issued 200,000 common shares (of an agreed 2.0 million shares to be issued over a 5-year period) and 2,250,000 common share purchase warrants exercisable at $0.50, $0.75, and $1.00 over a 5-year period, in connection with the purchase the Permit.

For further information on the Company's lithium properties, see the Nevada Sunrise website under "Projects-Nevada Lithium" at: http://www.nevadasunrise.ca/projects/nevadalithium/

About Nevada Sunrise

Nevada Sunrise is a junior mineral exploration company with a strong technical team based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, that holds interests in nine exploration projects in the State of Nevada, USA. Nevada Sunrise began acquisitions of Nevada lithium properties in September 2015, which include options to earn 100% interests in the Neptune and Clayton Northeast projects, and a 100% interest in the Aquarius Project, all located in the Clayton Valley. The Company also holds options to earn 100% interests in the Jackson Wash and Atlantis projects, and has a 50% participating interest in the Gemini Project, each located in playas proximal to the Clayton Valley.

Our three key gold assets include a 21% interest in a joint venture with Pilot Gold Inc. (TSX: PLG) at Kinsley Mountain near Wendover, a 100% interest in the Golden Arrow project near Tonopah, and a 100% interest in the Roulette gold property in the southeastern Carlin trend near Ely, with each of the properties subject to certain production royalties.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

All statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements that address the potential acquisition of water rights, the potential results of the relocation of water rights, the potential value or importance of the Company's water rights for mining in the Clayton Valley, future mineral production, reserve potential, potential results of exploration drilling, the future price of lithium, potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, potential size of a mineralized zone, potential expansion of mineralization, the timing and results of future resource estimates, or other study, proposed exploration and development of our exploration properties and the estimation of mineral resources. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "project", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "intends", "believe", "potential", and similar expressions, or describes a "goal", or variation of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "should", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievement of Nevada Sunrise to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information.

Such factors include, among others, risks related to the potential acquisition and/or transfer of water rights including challenges from third parties; the interpretation and actual results of historical exploration at Nevada Sunrise's exploration properties; the results of exploration activities, including drilling, may be unsuccessful, reliance on technical information provided by third parties on any of our exploration properties, including access to historical information on exploration properties, current exploration and development activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; current economic conditions; future prices of commodities; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the failure of contracted parties to perform; labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals, financing or in the completion of exploration, as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for the Three Months Ended December 31, 2015, which is available under Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com

Although Nevada Sunrise has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Nevada Sunrise disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and accordingly are subject to change after such date. Except as otherwise indicated by Nevada Sunrise, these statements do not reflect the potential impact of any non-recurring or other special items or of any dispositions, monetizations, mergers, acquisitions, other business combinations or other transactions that may be announced or that may occur after the date hereof. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans and allowing investors and others to get a better understanding of our operating environment. Nevada Sunrise does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that are included in this document, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this release. The Securities of Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to the account or benefit of any U.S. person.

SOURCE Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation
Callinex Mines Inc. (the "Company" or "Callinex") (TSX VENTURE:CNX)(OTCQX:CLLXF) is pleased to announce that a binding Purchase Agreement (the "Agreement") has been signed to acquire 100% ownership of the Point Leamington Zn-Au-Ag-Cu Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) deposit (the "Project") located in north-central Newfoundland, Canada (see Figure 1) from Newmarket Gold Inc. ("Newmarket"). On July 4, 2013, a Technical Report titled "Technical Report and Resource Estimate on the Point Leamington Property, Newfoundland, Canada" was prepared by Tetra Tech Inc. ("Tetra Tech") for Raystar Capital Inc. / Newmarket and estimated an Inferred mineral resource of 14.1 Mt grading 6.2% Zinc Eq. including 1.86% zinc, 1.07 g/t gold, 17.12 g/t silver and 0.42% copper (See Table 1). The existing mineral resource estimate contains 577 million pounds of zinc, 484,000 ounces of gold, 7,755,000 ounces of silver and 130 million pounds of copper. The project is at an advanced permitting stage and 100% of the mineral resource is contained within a mining license.

Max Porterfield, President & CEO of Callinex, stated, "We are pleased to acquire the advanced-stage Point Leamington deposit, which contains a sizeable, near-surface zinc and gold rich mineral resource located within a leading Canadian mining jurisdiction." Mr. Porterfield continued, "We believe this transaction will increase Callinex's exposure to rising metal prices and compliments our exploration activities near Flin Flon, Manitoba. Our technical team will continue to evaluate acquisition opportunities within established Canadian mining jurisdictions."

A high-grade portion of the deposit is estimated to contain 2.0 million tonnes grading 9.6% Zn Eq. (3.02% Zn, 1.95 g/t Au, 23.09 g/t Ag, and 0.51% Cu) and is open at a vertical depth of 350m, with several high-grade intercepts down-plunge from the mineral resource (See Table 1 and Figure 2). Drill hole PL04-077, the most recent hole drilled, expanded the high-grade zone and intersected 4.67m grading 15.05% Zn, 4.37 g/t Au, 57.88 g/t Ag and 0.36% Cu. Additionally, hole PL-051 intersected 5.65m grading 9.81% Zn, 1.92 g/t Au, 65.58 g/t Ag and 0.55% Cu and hole PL-056 intersected 4.51m 8.84% Zn, 2.27 g/t Au, 81.66 g/t Ag and 0.61% Cu. The mineralization intersected in these holes is down-plunge from the 2013 resource estimate and open for expansion.

The Project also has potential to host additional deposits along strike from the Point Leamington Deposit. Drill hole PL04-073, drilled approximately 275m along strike from the deposit during the most recent exploration campaign, intersected 3.9m grading 5.18% Zn, 1.65 g/t Au, 33.1 g/t Ag and 0.27% Cu (See Figure 2). This area is largely untested at depth and additional drilling may be completed in the future.

Transaction Terms

Callinex has agreed to acquire 100% ownership of the Project and will pay $115,000 to Newmarket on closing of the transaction and an additional $400,000 payable in either cash or shares within two years at the election of Callinex. Any shares issued are based on a fixed price per share of $0.462. In addition, Newmarket will retain a 1.0% Net Smelter Return (NSR) royalty on production from the Project, which can be purchased by Callinex at any time for $1,000,000.

Point Leamington Project

The Point Leamington Project, consisting of Mining Lease 136(2655), is located approximately 37km by road and trails from the city of Grand-Falls Windsor and approximately 20km from the provincial power grid. The deposit is a large, felsic-hosted VMS deposit that dips 70 degrees to the west, has a strike length of 500m and a maximum thickness of 85m. Massive sulphides have been intercepted to a depth of 360m below surface from a total of approximately 21,714m of drilling in 72 drill holes. Regional government mapping and lithogeochemical sampling has indicated that Point Leamington's host volcanic stratigraphy extends well beyond the vicinity of the deposit. The Project is subject to a 3.5% NSR of which 1.5% may be collectively purchased for $2 million.

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by James Pickell, P.Geo, a Consultant to the Callinex, and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Pickell has also reviewed the Technical Report and Resource Estimate prepared by Tetra Tech.

Table 1: 2013 Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate and Sensitivity

Cutoff

(Zn Eq%) Tonnes Zn Eq

(%) Zn

(%) Au

(g/t) Ag

(g/t) Cu

(%) Pb

(%) 3.00 19,367,000 5.42 1.63 0.95 15.42 0.37 0.02 4.00 14,093,000 6.15 1.86 1.07 17.12 0.42 0.02 5.00 9,669,000 6.91 2.11 1.22 18.55 0.46 0.02 6.00 6,184,000 7.72 2.36 1.41 19.76 0.50 0.02 7.00 3,460,000 8.70 2.69 1.68 21.32 0.52 0.02 8.00 2,038,000 9.58 3.02 1.95 23.09 0.51 0.02

Notes:

CIM definition standards were followed for the resource estimate. The 2013 resource models used Inverse Distance grade estimation within a three-dimensional block model with mineralized zones defined by wireframed solids. A base cutoff grade of 4.0 % ZnEq was used for reporting resources. Densities varied by rock type and ranged from 2.6 for the volcanics to 3.7 for the massive sulphides. Numbers may not add exactly due to rounding. Zinc Equivalent (ZnEq) calculated using $0.94/lb for Zinc, $1.00/lb for Lead, $3.69/lb for Copper, $1380 /oz Au for gold and $22.73/oz Ag for silver and metallurgical recoveries and net smelter returns are assumed to be 100%. Mineral Resources that are not mineral reserves do not have economic viability. The quantity and grade of reported inferred resources in this estimation are uncertain in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define these inferred resources as an indicated or measured mineral resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in upgrading them to an indicated or measured mineral resource category.

Tetra Tech Inc. ("Tetra Tech") of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada has completed the Point Leamington Inferred Resource Estimate at a cut-off grade of 4.0% ZnEq in 2013, The Resource Estimate was prepared by independent qualified person Todd McCracken, P. Geo. of Tetra Tech. The mineral resource estimate is based on the combination of geological modeling, geostatistics and conventional block modeling using the Ordinary Krig methodology of grade interpolation. The mineral resources were estimated using a block model with parent blocks of 10m X 10m X 10m. The geological model including mineralized intercepts was generated by Tetra Tech.

To the best of Callinex's knowledge, information and belief, there is no new scientific or technical information that would make the disclosure of the mineral resources inaccurate or misleading. Pursuant to section 4.2(7)(c) of National Instrument 43-101, Callinex will file a technical report supporting its disclosure of mineral resources on the Point Leamington Property within 180 days after the date of this news release.

Figure 1: Point Leamington Zinc-Gold VMS Project Area Map



Figure 2: Point Leamington VMS Deposit



About Callinex Mines Inc.

Callinex Mines Inc., a Canadian mineral exploration company, is focused on discovering the next copper-zinc rich VMS mine within Manitoba's prolific Flin Flon mining district. The Company's flagship project is the Pine Bay Project which hosts significant historic VMS deposits that are within close proximity to a processing facility. The Flin Flon district has yielded more than 145 million tonnes of production from 32 mines.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to future expenditures. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. Such factors include, among others, the ability to complete contemplated work programs and the timing and amount of expenditures. Callinex does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement.
Toronto, Ontario (FSCwire) - PJX Resources Inc. (PJX) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an option agreement (the Agreement) with Teck Resources Limited (Teck) whereby Teck has been granted an option to acquire up to a 75% interest in the DD zinc-lead-silver Property which is located in the Cranbrook area of British Columbia.

The Agreement provides for Teck to earn an interest in the property as follows:

Stage 1: Teck has an initial option to earn a 51% interest in the DD Property by incurring $4 million of expenditures by January 31, 2021 (the First Option).

Stage 2: Teck may elect to earn an additional 24% interest in the Property, thereby increasing its interest to 75%, by incurring an additional $4 million of expenditures by January 31, 2024 (the Second Option).

Provided that Teck has exercised the First Option, a joint venture shall be deemed to be formed on the date upon which the earlier of the following occurs: (i) Teck declines or advises that it is no longer pursuing the Second Option; (ii) Teck delivers a notice to PJX notifying PJX of the exercise of the Second Option; or (iii) January 31, 2024. If either party's interest in the joint venture is diluted to less than 10%, their interest shall be converted to a 5% Net Profits Royalty.

The DD Property is comprised of the DD claims, 440 hectares (ha) of land that PJX optioned from Doug Anderson (50%) and David Pighin (50%) (see PJX press release on July 26, 2015), and the DD Extension Claims (1900 ha) owned by PJX.

PJX management believes the DD Property has similar potential to the Companys Vine and West Basin Properties for hosting a Sedex deposit. Historical drilling by other companies proximal to the DD Property intersected zinc-lead mineralization at the same time horizon that the Sullivan Sedex deposit was formed, which is located approximately 45 km north of the DD Property. In managements opinion, the historical mineralization, combined with PJXs new insight on geological controls for mineralization on the Vine Property, supports the potential for a Sedex type deposit on the DD Property as well.

We look forward to having Teck as a partner on the DD Property, states the President and CEO of PJX, John Keating. PJX has 3 of the best properties with mineral potential for a Sullivan type of deposit along the Moyie fault structure. We believe that the Moyie fault is similar to the Kimberley fault that was important in controlling zinc-lead-silver mineralization at the Sullivan Mine. Tecks Trail Metallurgical Complex, located 120 km west of the DD Property, produced some 8 million tonnes of zinc, 9 million tonnes of lead, and over 285 million ounces of silver from processing Sullivan Mine concentrate. The Sullivan Mine produced concentrate for over 90 years before being closed in 2001.

The foregoing geological disclosure has been reviewed by John Keating P.Geo. (a qualified person for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects). Mr. Keating is the President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of PJX.

About PJX Resources Inc.

PJX is a mineral exploration company focused on building shareholder value and community opportunity through the exploration and development of mineral resources with a focus on gold and base metals. PJXs properties are located in the historical mining area of Cranbrook and Kimberley, British Columbia. Please refer to our web site http://www.pjxresources.com for additional information.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Linda Brennan, Chief Financial Officer

(416) 799-9205

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Information

This News Release contains forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements are statements which relate to future events. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to exploration results, the success of exploration activities, mine development prospects, completion of economic assessments, and future gold production. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may", appears to, "should", "expects", "plans", "anticipates", believes", "estimates", "predicts", "potential", or "continue" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking-statements.

Although PJX has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA / TheNewswire / May 16, 2016 / MGX Minerals Inc. ("MGX" or the "Company") (CSE: XMG / FKT: 1MG) reports the Company has received notice from mining contractor Dominion Excavating Ltd. that mine haul road construction has been completed for the Driftwood Creek magnesium project ("Driftwood") (see press release dated February 25, 2016).

Commencement of mining operations to support the previously announced 100-tonne bulk sample program is scheduled to begin this week. The bulk sample program represents the first bulk tonnage material removed from Driftwood Creek since Kaiser Resources mined 8,000 metric tonnes as part of a test quarry in 1978 (Morris, 1978).

The purpose of the bulk sample program is to complete a maiden National Instrument (N.I.) 43-101 mineral resource estimate for Driftwood, conduct metallurgy testing for finalization of the upgrade circuit by Kemetco Labs, and provide Industrial Furnace Company with a 10-tonne sample for kiln testing and sample preparation of magnesium oxide (MgO).

Driftwood Creek Magnesium

MGX Minerals has the right to acquire a 100% interest in the Driftwood Creek magnesium project. The Company has completed a Phase I and Phase II drill program at Driftwood Creek and is now conducting a 100-tonne bulk sample program. MGX received a 20-year Mining Lease for Driftwood Creek in January (see press release dated January 11, 2016).

Qualified Person

This press release was prepared under the supervision and review of Andris Kikauka, P. Geo. and Vice President of Exploration for MGX Minerals. Mr. Kikauka is a non-independent Qualified Person within the meaning of National Instrument (N.I.) 43-101 Standards.

About Dominion Excavating

Dominion Excavating is a quarry mining and construction company located in Invermere, British Columbia. MGX has entered into a comprehensive development agreement with Dominion for the road and mine construction at the Driftwood Creek magnesium project. Dominion is an MGX Minerals equity partner and a First Nations owned company.

About MGX Minerals

MGX Minerals (CSE: XMG) is a diversified Canadian mining company engaged in the acquisition and development of industrial mineral deposits in western Canada that offer near-term production potential, minimal barriers to entry and low initial capital expenditures. The Company operates lithium, magnesium and silicon projects throughout British Columbia and Alberta, including the Driftwood magnesium project. MGX has recently received approval of a 20 year mining lease for Driftwood and bulk sampling is currently underway. For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.mgxminerals.com.

Contact Information

Jared Lazerson

Chief Executive Officer

Telephone: 604.681.7735

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

The Company is actively working on bringing its Driftwood Creek magnesium project into production. However, readers are cautioned that the Company has not completed a pre-feasibility or feasibility study which establishes mineral reserves with demonstrated economic and technical viability. Further, the Company cautions readers that any potential production may not be economically feasible and historically projects taken to production without establishing reserves through a feasibility study have a much higher risk of economic or technical failure.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", "potentially" and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking information provided by the Company is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking information as a result of various factors. The reader is referred to the Company's public filings for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects which may be accessed through the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Copyright (c) 2016 TheNewswire - All rights reserved.
Egyptian officials announced on Sunday the conviction and prison sentences of over one hundred demonstrators who were peacefully assembling without a permit. Fifty one individuals were sentenced [Ahram report] to two years in prison while another hundred and one individuals were sentenced to five years in prison. The sentences were handed down on Saturday in connection with the April demonstrations [Daily News Egypt report] to protest the Red Sea islands being turned over to Saudia Arabia. Many believed the islands were apart of an economic deal [Aljazeera report], and protested against the government decision, leading to the charges of joining terrorist groups and disturbing the peace. The demonstrations were interrupted by police officers who prevented a large scale protest by using tear gas and other security measures. The courts are permitting the convicted to appeal [Ruters report], as their is a dispute about the evidence and a claim that innocent bystanders were arrested in the disturbance.

Egypt [BBC profile] has been internationally scrutinized in recent months over allegations of human rights infringements and free speech violations. Three UN rights experts on Monday urged [JURIST report] the Egyptian government to end its oppressive response towards human rights advocates in the country. In early May an Egyptian court sentenced [JURIST report] six people, including three journalists, to death for allegedly leaking state secrets to Qatar. Last month Egypts Court of Cassation overturned the five-year prison sentences of 35 Al-Azhar students, ordering a retrial [JURIST report]. Earlier in April three UN human rights experts urged Egypt to cease its cease [JURIST report] its ongoing crackdown on humans rights defenders and organizations.
[JURIST] Former Argentinian president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner [BBC profile] was charged in federal court last Friday for manipulating the economy in order to resolve the countrys low foreign reserves. The ruling judge found [CNN report] that Kirchner, along with the former finance minister, former central bank chief and 15 other charged officials, conspired to sell $17 billion in futures contracts using an inflated dollar value for the countrys own currency. The judge further stated that the illegal action has cost the country $5.2 billion, money which could have been used instead to directly boost the countrys own troubled economy. Kirchners crimes may be punishable [Metro report] by 5 to 20 years in prison. She has denied all claims against her and stated that such accusations are politically motivated.

Kirchner has recently been the subject of various corruption investigations. Earlier this month, an Argentinian federal prosecutor made a formal request [JURIST report] to a judge to conduct an investigation of Kirchner and her son for illegal enrichment in an ongoing money laundering investigation. Last year a judge in Argentina dismissed criminal allegations against Kirchner that accused her of conspiring to shield Iranian officials from responsibility for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires. Kirchner was accused [JURIST report] of the cover up in January 2015. An appeals court in Argentina ruled in May 2014 that a controversial agreement between Argentina and Iran to investigate the 1994 bombing was unconstitutional [JURIST report]. The two nations signed [JURIST report] the agreement in January 2013, which permitted Argentine authorities to question the Iranian suspects under Interpol arrest warrants, but only in Tehran. In 2005 Argentina accepted [JURIST report] formal responsibility for its failure to discover who was behind the 1994 bombing.
[JURIST] During an annual session last Friday, Missouri legislators [official website] passed a bill which will allow all state citizens to carry concealed guns without permits or completed gun training. Republicans supporting the bill argued [AP report] that the law allows the people to stand their ground in moments of danger rather than retreat from a place they are legally entitled to be. Democrats have counter-argued, however, that the new bill will promote shootouts and cause future bloodshed. The states House and Senate have already approved the bill, however it must still be signed by Democratic Governor Jay Nixon [official profile]. Though Nixon commented [official statement] on the legislative session, he has yet to express his opinion regarding the gun law. Should the bill pass, Missouri will be among ten other states that have passed similar gun laws not requiring gun permits.

Gun control [JURIST backgrounder] and the Second Amendment continue to be controversial national topics, and gun awareness has risen in the wake of recent shootings across the nation. Earlier this month, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal vetoed [JURIST report] a bill that would have allowed the concealed carrying of handguns on college campuses. Last month Idaho Governor CL Butch Otter signed [JURIST report] a bill that made it legal throughout the state for Idaho residents over 21 years of age to carry a concealed firearm without a permit. Earlier that week Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed [JURIST report] two proposed bills that would eliminate restrictions on the possession of firearms in or around state office buildings. Also that month the West Virginia Senate voted [JURIST report] to override Governor Earl Ry Tomblins veto of a bill allowing civilians 21 and over to carry concealed weapons without a permit. In December the US Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia Circuit vacated [JURIST report] a lower court ruling that found that a DC gun law requiring a concealed carry permit outside of the home may violate the Constitution. In October Maines revised concealed carry law went into effect [JURIST report], allowing legal gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit. Earlier that month a federal appeals court upheld [JURIST report] Connecticut and New York gun control legislation that ban semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.
In the attacked, an Ansar and VDP commander has been shot dead and several others injured and looted eleven firearms -- two SMGs, 5 Chinese rifles, 4 shotguns and 670 rounds of bullets, the camp police officer said.

The deceased was identified as Ali Hossain, 55, son of Shukkur Ali, a resident of Tangail district, according to the police officer.

A group of robbers attacked the camp around 3 a.m. Hossain was injured when they opened fire. He was rushed to the camp hospital, where the doctor declared him dead, the officer said.

A group of 30-35 armed attackers raided the barracks in the early hours of May 13, covered their faces with helmets and masks, most wore shots, said Ajit Barua, the eye witness and posted as the night guard at the barracks.

District Superintendent of Police Shyamal Kumar Nath said locals informed them about a robbers' hideout in the hills west of the refugee camp.

Weve started a raid there to arrest the perpetrators and recover the looted firearms, he added.



Alamgir Hossain, an Ansar member of the barrack inside the Rohingya camp, filed a case against 35 unidentified people with Teknaf police station on May 13 night, said SM Azimuddin, deputy director of Chittagong zone of Bangladesh Ansar.

However, no one was arrested as yet in connection with the incident.
Turkish state police on Sunday prevented members from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) [party website, in Turkish] from holding a party congress in direct opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan [official profile], by sealing off a hosting hotel. Police put up barricades and sealed the hotel to prevent party members from gaining access to the hotel where they had planned to hold a congress to challenge the allegedly growing power [Reuters report] of Erdogan. Some dissident party members previously undertook judicial measures attempting to force a session, but the courts have failed to decide [AA report] if the dissidents have a legitimate and legal right to hold an extraordinary congress. The MHP dissidents were attempting [Hurriyet report] to gain enough signatures to force an extraordinary congress which would allow them to regain some power they lost in the 2015 election.

Erdogan has received significant criticism of late, often for his domestic security policy. EU leaders agreed to a deal [JURIST report] with Turkey to stem migrant flows, particularly of Syrian refugees, to Europe in return for financial and political incentive to Ankara which has lead to more international attention to the country. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced [JURIST report] in May that he does not plan to change the countrys anti-terrorism law, a requirement of a deal struck between Turkey and EU in March. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muiznieks in April called on Turkey to focus on human rights in the wake of their anti-terrorism security measures. Also in April, Human Rights Watch reported [JURIST report] that the first round of EU sanctioned deportations from Greece to Turkey on April 4 was rushed, chaotic, and violated the rights of those deported.
The Kwid will be assembled in Brazil by Renaults Ayrton Senna industrial complex in Sao Jose dos Pinhais (state of Parana), the automaker announced.

The Brazilian version has been specially adapted by Renault Technology Americas, which is one of the seven Renault strategic engineering centres across the world, established at the Brazilian plant.

The Kwid also benefited from the expertise of Renault Design Latin America (RDLA), one of the five Renault strategic design centres, established in Sao Paulo. Both Brazilian centres worked on interior and exterior design.

The Ayrton Senna Complex opened in 1998, one year after the founding of Renault do Brasil, the Groups Brazilian subsidiary. The Curitiba site includes:

CVP: a passenger car plant (bodywork and assembly) ;

CMO: an engine plant, Mecanica Mercosul, opened in 1999 ;

CVU: an LCV plant, opened in 2000 and run with Nissan as part of the Alliance.

The plant manages the pressing, body assembly, paint work and final assembly of vehicles prior to their distribution through the Renault network.

The main vehicles built on the two production lines are Logan, Sandero, Duster, Duster Oroch and Master.

According to just-autos PLDB, Brazilian Kwid assembly is from CKD kits. Speaking at February 2016s New Delhi auto expo, Renaults Africa-Middle East-India region chairman, Bernard Cambier, said the company would begin exporting Kwid kits to Brazil by the end of that month.

The low-cost model was revealed to the media in May 2015 and went on sale in India from the second half of last year, the first production vehicle on the Renault-Nissan Alliances CMF-A platform. In India the model has a standard 800cc, three-cylinder BR8 petrol engine. While no diesel is expected, a BR10 one-litre petrol was expected in 2016 after being shown at the February 2016 New Delhi auto expo, along with a five-speed automated manual transmission.

As well as India and, now, Brazil, Renault is believed to be looking at building the Kwid in Iran. And while the company has denied that such plans exist, it is believed that a restyled Kwid for Dacias European markets might appear later in 2016.

Renault also plans to export the Kwid from India to SAARC countries such as Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The car might also be exported to some African markets should there be potential demand there.
Track product launches by FMCG companies to get an understanding of the product-level strategies including geographic concentrations, innovation types, product claim, category focus and more

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Unilever product advertising is mainly through mainstream TV channels. Out of the products advertised so far at least 50% (over 850) of ads have been run on TV, while print media comes second with 496 ads. Unilever also utilizes social media platforms for advertisement. Unilever products are categorized by innovation ratings and tags in our product launch database. The North American region consists of almost 74 products with innovations related to the formulation of the product. Europe and other regions also have more products categorized under formulation-related innovation, followed by the packaging and positioning of the products. Most Unilever products are tagged with High Vitamins, Recyclable, and Natural tags to understand what the product differentiator is from other products available in the market. The majority of products belong to the personal care industry with a total of 5,788 products to date. This report, through the Unilever Example, illustrates how GlobalData Explorer enables you to:Dont miss out on key market insights that can help optimize your next investment  read the report now.
Kendal Nutricare is a UK manufacturer of infant formula that has just celebrated its first birthday. Formed last year after the acquisition of a Heinz plant in north-west England, Kendal Nutricare still packs for the now Kraft Heinz but is set to launch its first branded products. Dean Best spoke to Kendal Nutricare managing director Ross McMahon to find out more.

A year after buying a former Heinz infant formula plant in the UK, the executive behind the acquisition and the subsequent formation of Kendal Nutricare is to try and take on the established brands in the category.

Ross McMahon set up Kendal Nutricare early last year, buying a factory in Kendal in north-west England from the then HJ Heinz. The plant had had its challenges in recent years. In 2013, Heinz cut 45 jobs at the site, blaming the cost of shipping infant milks to China.

McMahon, a former executive at companies including Kerry Group and contract caterer Aramark, had been running his own consultantcy business since 2008, helping manufacturers source ingredients including whey proteins, organic dairy commodities and infant formula.

The deal to acquire the Heinz plant included a two-year contract for the new owner to manufacture for the US giant infant cereals for the UK market and infant formula for China. McMahon and Kendal Nutricare also took on the remaining months of a contract Heinz had already signed to co-pack for the Switzerland-based Hero Group.

McMahon says the relationship with Heinz has gone from strength to strength pointing to a new range of weaning foods set to be launched next month, but, broadly, Kendal Nutricare wanted to work with fewer co-packers and develop its own brands.

We found that to pack for other well-known brands, they were expecting us to do it for little or nothing. I think thats been to the detriment of this company over the years. They have packed for big brands at very uneconomic rates. We decided that even though it will take us longer, its better to put out premium quality with natural ingredients and go for it with a new brand into the market, even though everyone will say to you the cost of doing so is prohibitive, McMahon tells just-food.

The Kendal Nutricare business now comprises the contract with Heinz but is set to include a move into branded formula and baby food under the Kendamil label this summer. Asked for Kendal Nutricares current annual sales, McMahon says: If you were to say to me from here 12 months forward, it could be anywhere from GBP12m to GBP20m the way things are going. Things are moving fairly rapidly. He does have a forecast for Kendal Nutricares sales to hit GBP31.6m by 2019/2020 and has set a target for revenue from branded products accounting for 60% of sales.

The first Kendamil product to be launched will be a range of whole-milk infant formula and then a line of infant cereals for children aged over four months and over seven months. McMahon says Kendal Nutricare is looking to launch the products probably in parallel in China and the UK.

The Kendamil brand will be formally launched in China in July at the Children Baby Maternity Expo in Shanghai. He describes the Kendamil lines set for launch in China as up there as a premium product. It may not be a super-premium price. Infant formula manufacturers established in China are vying to build a presence in the countrys e-commerce channel and in specialist mother-and-baby-stores, which are growing more rapidly than the category within mainstream physical stores. McMahon envisages the mother-and-baby outlets accounting for the majority of Kendamils sales, with e-commerce taking up about 10%.

Supermarkets will be the last outlets, McMahon says. Our distributors will probably not approach physical supermarkets on day one. I think its a combination of the costs of having personnel, merchandisers in each store, having to supply product on long credit terms, and tier-one cities are certainly a crowded market space.

It will be a challenge for Kendal Nutricare to carve out a foothold in Chinas ultra-competitive infant formula sector, a market hit by a wave of deep discounts amid the slowdown in the countrys economy. However, Danone CEO Emmanuel Faber recently suggested the most intense battles had been among Chinese brands, insisting international brands are there to stay in China  for a long time. Nevertheless, the likes of Nestle and Danone are investing heavily in China and it will be tough for the smaller Kendal Nutricare.

McMahon insists the way Kendal Nutricare is to enter China sets the company in good stead. We went in, we believe, with a very strong connection to the government. We went in with a company called Orient International Shanghai Foreign Trade Company Ltd. They are a 100% state-owned trading company. We believe that this is the best route into the market is to work directly with the Chinese government or some of their subsidiaries.

He also argued Kendal Nutricare will be able to capitalise on Beijings push to consolidate Chinas infant formula market. We are probably going to be one of the few beneficiaries of that. A lot of the industry is in turmoil because the established players have been packing tens, you know, 20 up to 50 brands. Those guys, its going to be a big change to their business model. I think were one of the few that will benefit from this change.

In the UK, meanwhile, Kendal Nutricare has conducted some trials in the north-west of England, while it will launch a kosher product in London by the end of next month. Were looking for listings nationally in the UK, McMahon concedes. Kendal Nutricare would probably look to list its Kendamil formula below [Danone-owned] Aptamils price.

McMahon believes Kendal Nutricare and the Kendamil brand has attributes that can help the business break into its domestic market. Just as in China, he says Kendal Nutricare plans to emphasise in its domestic market the fact its products are made in the UK.

He also asserts the use of whole milk in Kendamil formula has nutritional benefits for babies and will be a point of difference to rival brands in its home market. Our whole USP is the fact that were moving the market back towards the goodness of whole milk, as opposed to all the competitors in the market who are using skim milk and vegetable oils. Were going back to a more traditional recipe. Were saying to consumers were putting the goodness back into baby formula. Research has proven the beneficial effects of whole milk for infants, both providing the energy necessary and essential nutrients. It means that we have to use less vegetable oil in our product.

He acknowledges the company will have to work to convince consumers of the benefits of whole milk in formula but is insistent of the assistance it can give to infants. The whole milk story requires a bit of explanation to consumers that its still an infant formula thats been formulated with all the essential vitamins and minerals. Consumers are probably still a bit confused. It will take time to get that message across, he says. I attended a conference in Vienna a couple of weeks ago and they have proven the beneficial effects of the fats in whole milk. All our competitors talk about getting closer to breast milk. This is the real step.

What causes most indigestion for children and can lead to constipation is the use of these vegetable oils. The less of those the better. There are essential nutrients in whole milk. Okay, we have a difference between whole milk and breast milk, between human and animal milk, in terms of the whey casein ratio but  a mothers milk has natural fat in it, which is healthy for the child. Children who are breast fed have no problem with their stool or bowel movements. We have proven here through the trials we have done in the north-west of England that the whole milk recipe relieves all that indigestion and constipation or any of those ill-effects you get from the use of vegetable oils.

just-food contacted a number of nutritionists to check McMahons claim about the link between vegetable oils and indigestion. The sole response came from Dr Helen Crawley, of the UK charity First Steps Nutrition Trust, who seemed to question Kendal Nutricares claims. There is no recognised scientific evidence linking vegetable fats to digestive disturbance in infants but of course everyone loves the idea of being able to say their product is more natural and closer to nature. Any infant formula has to be highly modified regardless of whether the base is cows, goats or soy based protein.

McMahon underlines the Kendamil formula will contain some vegetable oil but says the product will use less than rival lines, while the formula to be sold in China will not use palm oil, a point of difference to competitors. Asked if vegetable oils had been used by the industry to keep costs down, he says: Absolutely. The only reason I can think of is that, about ten or 15 years ago, the industry decided the cream in the milk was better selling for butter and cheese and was more profitable to be used in that way. And then as they went into the vegetable oils they kept substituting in and then to such an extent that palm oil has become one of the top ingredients but with consumers nowadays palm oil is not a positive. Palm oil is used in all the majors. Our first recipe now into China will have no palm oil in it. It will have other [oils] coconut, rape seed and sunflower.

just-food contacted Nestle and Danone for comment on their use of vegetable oils in their formula lines. Nestle declined to comment, while Danone not responded at the time of writing.

Beyond China and the UK, Kendal Nutricare has its eye on taking its branded lines into other markets, with the Middle East and parts of Africa potential avenues for the business. We did the Gulfood show in Dubai in February and were following up with various chain operators in the United Arab Emirates, he says. Were very close to signing contracts on different markets in north and west Africa. Youre looking for growing markets where there is strong population growth, for markets that are either promoting through the pharmacy chains or through traditional means of supermarkets or through mother-and-baby stores.

McMahon does acknowledge the competition Kendal Nutricare is set to face as it embarks on its branded push but believes the company can compete. The reality is the multinationals are in every part of the globe. Theres not a market theyre not already in, he says. We actually have a lot of packaging solutions in house here. We can do metal cans, composite cans, sachets of all sizes in boxes. We have quite a bit of flexibility on the production lines here.

Just 12 months after formally buying the Heinz plant, the ambitions of Kendal Nutricare and McMahon are admirable. The question is whether those ambitions can be fulfilled.
The Intercept has begun publishing a large tranche of NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden. All 166 articles from SID Today, an NSA internal newsletter, are coming in the first portion of Snowden docs that The Intercept will release, with more to come.

The investigative news outlet says it is releasing the documents so that interested parties can scour them for stories they may have overlooked. As anyone who's followed the Snowden story knows, the docs that accompany them are impenetrably dense, written in a combination of government and IT jargon that has often been deliberately obfuscated by referring to companies, agencies and people by pseudonyms. This presents serious difficulty for responsible journalists, who want to minimize the possibility that they'll release documents that have no public interest but may undermine legitimate security undertakings  when you can't figure out what a document is about, how do you know if releasing it will cause harm?

The limited release approach is reminiscent of the searchable database of names from the Panama Papers  a way for the wider world to try to untangle the deliberately knotty affairs of those who work in secret.

From the start of our reporting on the archive, a major component of our approach has been to partner with foreign (and other American) media outlets rather than try to keep all the material for ourselves. We have collectively shared documents with more than two dozen media outlets, and teams of journalists in numerous countries have thus worked with and reported on Snowden documents (that's independent of the other media outlets which have long possessed large portions of the Snowden archive  the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Guardian, ProPublica). This partnership approach has greatly expedited the reporting, and also ensured that stories that most affect specific countries are reported by the journalists who best understand those countries. But allowing other journalists full access to the archive presented security and legal challenges that took time and resources to resolve. We now feel comfortable that we can do so consistent with the responsibility demanded by these materials and our agreement with our source. We have begun to provide archive access to journalists from Le Monde and other media outlets in collaboration with The Intercept's editorial, research, legal, and technology teams. We are excited by the reporting this new arrangement will generate. There are still many documents of legitimate interest to the public that can and should be disclosed. There are also documents in the archive that we do not believe should be published because of the severe harm they would cause innocent people (e.g., private communications intercepted by NSA, the disclosure of which would destroy privacy rights; and documents containing government speculation about bad acts committed by private individuals (typically from marginalized communities), the disclosure of which would permanently destroy reputations).

SNOWDEN ARCHIVE

THE SIDTODAY

FILES [The Intercept]

(via Ars Technica)
Dallas, 05/10/2016 /SubmitPressRelease123/

The Texas open carry gun law continues to spark widespread debate even months after a measure allowing the open carry of handguns went into effect January 1. The latest discussions are centered around the legality of signage posted on government properties that prohibit weapons of any type. Reports say several complaints have been filed by Texans who feel they were wrongly prevented from carrying their guns, sparking an investigation by the state Attorney Generals office.

Source: McClatchy D.C. Report Gun crackdown continues in Texas

A long-promised gun law crackdown is underway in Texas. But gun owners arent the target. Government entities that wrongly prevent handguns from coming onto their property  in Tarrant County and beyond  are.

Local governments have been prohibiting for years where they are not supposed to, said Terry Holcomb, executive director of Texas Carry, who has been working with the attorney generals office on the issue. These [complaints] arent going to be forgotten about.

To read more visit http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article71141182.html.

When Texas State or Federal Laws Seem Ambiguous

Not having a clear understanding of how to interpret the recent law that increases gun rights for Texans may prove problematic for the more than 966,000 active handgun license holders Texas Department of Public Safety records show exist across the state. Many are stressing the importance of knowing whether signs banning handguns are wrongly posted because of the potential criminal consequences of failing to obey them if they are legal. Holcomb has said of the dilemma Nobody wants to get arrested. We believe we can carry in certain places lawfully, but charges could be filed against those who are wrong.

Texas criminal defense attorney Mick Mickelsen says of the issue even licensed Texans could be faced with a third-degree felony if they carry their handguns in restricted areas.

The Dallas criminal lawyer further suggests that when laws seem ambiguous to the public, it makes it difficult for even the most dutiful citizens to follow them. Mickelsen says Ive seen a number of cases in my career involving defendants who genuinely didnt understand the scope of their crimes because of how they interpreted the law. Higher instances of this are seen in white-collar crime cases, particularly those involving public figures accused of ethics violations.

With regard to the gun law issue, Mickelsen states, unless one is a legal expert, it can be difficult to understand the boundaries when the state law contradicts restrictions outlined on signs posted by government agencies.

The Attorney Generals office is reportedly investigating more than 60 complaints filed over signs preventing open or concealed carry on a number of government properties to determine whether they are in violation of state law.

Individuals who need help with a criminal case involving a gun charge or other federal or Texas state criminal legal matter can contact the criminal law firm of Broden & Mickelsen Dallas directly for an assessment of their legal options.

Social Media Tags: #Dallas #TexasGunLawLawyer #TexasCriminalDefenseAttorney

Connect with the Texas criminal defense attorneys of Broden & Mickelsen on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn.

Follow Broden, Mickelsen on social media #dallascriminaldefenselawyer

source: http://www.brodenmickelsen.com/blog/carry-gun-law-a-point-of-contention-confusion-for-many/

Social Media Tags:Dallas criminal lawyer, Texas criminal defense attorney, Texas law, gun law, Texas state criminal, violation of state law, gun rights for Texans, third-degree felony, signs banning handguns

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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.
KEARNEY - A longtime Kearney drug dealer is facing up to 25 years in prison after being convicted of selling marijuana at her Odessa home and possessing methamphetamine.

Mary Gifford, 43, pleaded guilty to felony possession of marijuana with the intent to deliver and felony possession of meth Monday in Buffalo County District Court. In exchange for her plea, charges of felony possession of meth with the intent to deliver and felony possession of Xanax were dismissed.

Kearney Police Investigator Doug McCarty said Gifford has been instrumental in dealing both marijuana and meth in the Kearney area for years, and her conviction takes a lot of drugs off the street. She was arrested in July by members of the Tri-City Drug Task Force.

Gifford is free on bond with strict conditions including that she be subject to random searches of her home, person and vehicle and random urine analysis testing. She is scheduled to be sentenced in February.

The Tri-City Drug Task Force includes officers from the Kearney, Grand Island and Hastings police departments and the Buffalo, Hall and Adams county sheriff's offices.

e-mail to:
'Coping with Low Milk Prices in 2016' is the theme for an open day on the Greenfield dairy farm just outside Kilkenny. Gates open for all farmers to visit the demonstration farm on Wednesday, 18 May. 2016 is a difficult year for dairy farmers as the global market for dairy products has dipped over the last 18 months and prices paid to farmers for milk has dropped accordingly.

So what can individual farmers do to offset this price volatility? The Greenfield dairy farm is all about efficient low cost milk production, so first up, there will be an update for dairy farmers on the key outcomes in terms of both physical and financial performance of the farm over the last seven years. This will demonstrate how the farm has coped with the peaks and troughs in milk price over the last seven years, since it was set up on a converted tillage farm.

Secondly the open day will look at the steps that individual farmers might take to cope with the low milk price in 2016. What actions have the managers of the Greenfield taken? On the day you will see how the farm is being managed given this years lower milk price. The management of a large dairy farm through the most stressful period of calving and breeding, in terms of labour input, will be a special focus. Strategies to cope with the low milk price will be discussed which will include cash flow budgeting, cost reduction options as well as an increase in efficiency and productivity. You will be able to return home with clear and confident messages on how to reduce the stress of your farm business.

About the Farm

The Greenfield dairy farm is in the 7th year of a 15 year lease. In 2009 Teagasc, in conjunction with the stakeholders Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Glanbia Ingredients Ireland Limited (GIIL), Irish Farmers Journal, FBD trust and AIB set up the Greenfield Dairy Farm Programme. The Phelan family, who are the land owners, GIIL and the Irish Farmers Journal are stakeholders in the leased Kilkenny farm, which is looking in detail at the conversion of a 120 hectare tillage farm to a low capital cost 350 cow dairy unit.

The Greenfield farm has served as a demonstration model, run on a fully commercial basis, for all farmers considering a complete conversion to dairying from other enterprises, or for farmers considering expanding their existing dairy business. Valuable lessons have been learned on this farm, which are being shared with all interested in the development of the dairy industry.

Come and participate in the Greenfield Dairy Farm Open Day in Kilkenny on the 18 May.

Weekly notes, updating farmers on what is happening on the farm in terms of breeding, grassland management and other management practices are available at www.greenfielddairy.ie/node/136

Directions

Four miles from Kilkenny city on the R712, just before the Gowran exit
Ask any political junkie, and they'll tell you that the 2016 presidential campaign has been one of the strangest they've ever experienced. The rise of billionaire/reality TV star Donald Trump and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the wild and woolly TV debates, and how wrong the pundits have been at predicting anything has been unprecedented.

But if we set aside the drama, we may discover that the most important thing we can learn from this election has nothing to do with the candidates. Instead, the most important takeaways are how the two mega-forces of globalization and demographics have changed our country and the influence they will have for years to come. Investors would be wise to pay attention.

We're Living In A Global Village

First let's look at globalization. We've heard a lot of talk about trade, trade agreements and jobs from the candidates, but unless you've been personally affected, much of it seems more abstract than real. So let's make it real.

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There's no question that we have reaped the economic benefits of globalization. Trade liberalization alone increases our annual output by $300 billion to $500 billion, according to the Peterson Institute. Trade creates new jobs as well as destroying old ones. In 1992, 14.5 million or 10.4% of all jobs were tied to trade. By 2014, that number had grown to 41 million or 21.7% of all jobs, according to Business Roundtable.

But many of us missed the fact that globalization also gave us the benefit of lower prices on personal goods. The following chart gives you an idea of what happened to the prices of some commonly purchased goods between 2002 and 2012.

(Image credit: Thinkstock)

Yes, there have been downsides to these consumer benefits. The first trade-off of globalization has been domestic jobs. You can't miss that on the campaign trail. But it's important to understand that while not all of the job losses are a result of globalization, many are. The chart below shows manufacturing job losses by sector between 2000 and 2015. As you can see, while a number of sectors have been hit, a few have been decimated.

(Image credit: Thinkstock)

When you see that 31% of all automobile workers have lost their jobs since 2000, it's easy to understand why voters in Michigan and Ohio are frustrated and angry. And when you see that 71% of all textile and apparel jobs have been lost, it's easy to relate to concerns expressed by voters in the Carolinas.

The second trade-off has been lower wages. The next chart shows the change in real wages by sector between January 2009 and December 2015. While wages haven't grown dramatically for any sector (except financial services), it's clear that individuals in the services sectors (financial services, information, education/health and leisure/hospitality) have fared much better than individuals in the construction, manufacturing and auto sectors.

(Image credit: Thinkstock)

So we've learned that globalization is a double-edged sword. Many individual companies and investors have benefitted from rising stock prices tied to increased corporate sales and profits. But it has been devastating for a number of U.S. cities, workers and their families. During this election cycle, we've heard the voices of many of those affected individuals.

Changing Demographics

For the first time, the Millennial generation (individuals between 18 and 43) will match up with the Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) in population size. And as the Baby Boomer population decreases, the Millennials will take their place in history as the largest generation of Americans. What many don't understand is that we're just beginning to see what happens when the Millennials flex their cultural and political muscles.

Looking back, it's easy to see how the Baby Boomer generation dramatically affected our country and the economy. According to a 2008 McKinsey and Company study, Baby Boomers broke all of the previous generations' records for attaining the highest levels of education. During their working years, they have seen their incomes rise to the highest level of all generations.

As consumers, Baby Boomers have been the dominant spenders for two decades, and they have spent more at every age than prior generations. They have driven the growth of industries such as personal electronics, recreation and health care.

As investors, Baby Boomers have prospered from unprecedented increases in the stock and real estate markets. As the value of their assets rose, their spending increased, and the generation's saving rate fell to all-time lows. Now, as they look ahead to the end of their careers and retirement, they will change the face of retirement in America.

Like Baby Boomers, the Millennial generation will make its mark on the country by influencing our culture and the economy. Millennials have been particularly visible in their support for Democrat Sanders and his message. In the Michigan primary in early March, exit polling found that 81% of Democratic voters age 18 to 29 cast their ballots for Senator Sanders. In New Hampshire, 83% of Democratic voters chose Senator Sanders.

According to a 2014 Pew Research Center study, they also look different than the generations that preceded them. For example, Millennials are:

more ethnically diverse with 43% them being nonwhite compared with 28% of Baby Boomers;

less religious with 35% having no religious affiliation compared with 17% of Baby Boomers;

and they marry later with just 26% of the Millennials between 18 and 33 years old being married versus 48% of individuals the same age in 1980.

These results shouldn't be surprising. This generation was shaped by the shock of 9/11. Yet, they are more supportive on issues such as gay marriage and are more open to different ways of life than previous generations.

This election, the Millennial generation is making itself heard, and this is just the beginning. While we don't know where they will take us, we do know that they will be a social and economic force for many years to come.

Globalization and demographics, two mega-forces and hot topics this election, will continue to influence the markets in the future. The best advice to investors: Keep your eyes and ears open to sectors and companies that develop the best ways to capitalize upon these forces, and invest accordingly.

Jan Blakeley Holman, CFP, CIMA, ChFC, CDFA, CFS, GFS, is Director of Advisor Education at Thornburg Investment Management, a global investment management firm.
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http://palisaderadio.com/matt-zabloski-fund-manager-on-asset-based-investing-in-the-mining-sector/

Palisade Radio is brought to you by First Majestic Silver Corp., one of the worlds purest and fastest growing silver mining companies.

Palisade Radio Host, Collin Kettell: Welcome back to another episode of Palisade Radio. This is your host, Collin Kettell. On the line with us today is a new guest to the program. His name is Matt Zabloski. He is the portfolio manager of Delbrook Capital which is a Vancouver-based mining-focus group with about $100M under management. Matt, welcome to the program.

President and Chief Investment Officer, Delbrook Capital Investors, Inc., Matthew Zabloski: Thanks very much for having me.

CK: Yeah, every group at this point in the market it is all contrarian money that is really deploying and has been deploying the last year. But each and every group has a different way of deploying their capital and different things that they are looking for. Before we got on the call today we were going over what Delbrooks mandate is and you had a strong focus towards looking at asset level transactions and what the asset is that a company is holding, the discrepancy between what your analyst believe that it's worth and what the market is valuing it at. Can you talk a little bit about what you are looking for as a portfolio manager of Delbrook?

MZ: Sure, absolutely! I will start by saying that our fundamental approach is bottoms up asset based investing. We have a strong technical team in-house that has a great level of experience in project evaluation, asset evaluation. For us the key is very much to understand the asset, to understand and identify assets where we can identify a gap between market value and intrinsic value. The larger the gap the more excited we get. But more than that once we identify the gap it is sitting down with the team, engaging management, and creating or identifying the catalyst in our mind that will drive that gap to narrow between the purchase price that we evolved ourselves in on the security, and the intrinsic value.

CK: Great! Matt, are there any commodities that you have particular focus on right now and are there any that you would exclude from potential interest for Delbrook?

MZ: Yes, we are right now like a lot of people are curious to explore more within the precious metals complex. Just going through the market right now is approximately $8 trillion of sovereign debt that has a negative yield associated with it. We see a good push in the precious metals space. But within that space I think you will need to focus on quality over quantity and that is our mantra internally here is the quality transaction first over the quantity of transactions. Where we tend to shy away from are overly promotional stories. We are not right now completely committed to the base metals space. So, we have very limited involvement in the base metals space. Some of the energy metals, the lithiums, the uraniums in the world we just don't think there is a lot of substance there to drive the equities up any further. In some cases we are positioning ourselves to take advantage of the reality of when the market realizes that a lot of these investments have overshot what they truly are worth.

CK: I am sure for somebody close to the market like yourself you have noticed a pickup. The share prices of a lot of the gold-related equities have moved up, and even financing is going into these equities are closing quite a bit more quickly. We just put an interview out with John Hathaway from Tocqueville Funds. He had mentioned that while it might seem to somebody like us that interest has come back into the space, a lot of barometers are showing that, really, no interest has come back into the space and the general public are not taking notice of this yet and they will not for quite some time. Would you agree with that and could you expand on it?

MZ: Sure, I would 100% agree with that. I mean Tocqueville, ourselves, other resource-focused investment funds are obviously very knowledgeable and touched base with the market for mills and mining on a daily basis. I would say at this moment if I had to guess we are probably maybe midway through the first inning in terms of the potential interest. The barometers we look at are sector exposure for some of the large asset management firms, East Coast mutual funds, West Coast mutual funds in the US. We would hazard a guess and estimate that the sector for metals and mining in general is not represented at all in these larger portfolios.

The interesting scenario that you can look at now is because this bear market has gone on for so long the market cap can crash in on the space in general has been so severe. Just a small amount of capital coming in on the institutional side from the generalist mutual funds level on the pension fund, a small amount of capital would drive significant returns to the market caps in a lot of these companies. I would completely agree with that. Like I said internally here we sort of say that we are just midway through the first and there is a long way to go still.

CK: Many people believe that gold prices are just starting to move up and will probably go to $2000 an ounce or maybe far exceed that, which brings up the question of optionality in your investing. Some assets are economical at prices of $1200 or $1300 gold. Others take $1500 or $1800 gold and the leverage that is afforded by investing in those out of the money assets, of course, can be huge if you time it right. Is Delbrook Capital interested in optionality plays or are you more focused on the type of quality assets that can produce in this environment?

MZ: Yeah, I would say it is a bit of both. For us, it is understanding some of those marginal assets as you defined them. Actually if we run them internally here through our technical team some of them are not as marginal as the market believes. Assets that previously years ago had economic problems with them at a certain commodity price, share price at the current foreign exchange level. Understanding how to rejig those projects which should be economics, being able to identify projects that the market thinks are marginal or even uneconomic at this point. I think our real strength is to find those projects, run them through the internal review process that we have here with our engineering and geological teams and uncover some gems that in fact if we apply the current world economics these are very robust projects especially one to get me excited.

We do look at some of these other projects that are well out of the money as all options. I suppose that we do not typically park our capital there simply because our belief is that gold prices will probably move higher, but the pace under which they do move higher is unknown to the entire market, so it very much threatens an opportunity cost of capital. I would much rather understand the fundamentals, rework the fundamentals and find these hidden gems, then park my money in a truly marginal asset and just hope that factors beyond my control take effect and arise, and push the value of that asset up.

CK: The mining industry is  and always has been  fraught with shady characters. The cycles allow for huge amounts of money to be made very quickly, and that seems to invite a lot of people rushing into the space, a lot of excitement where people throw money into hands that maybe it should not go into. Before the call you were talking about the idea of shareholder activism  the idea of shareholders taking a little bit more control or say in what is being done with their money and the guidance of a particular company, something that does not seem to happen very much in mining. What can you tell us about Delbrook and your interest in getting involved in a more active role?

MZ: Yeah, I would say our policy internally here is very much focused on the value of the proxy that we have, it's our belief that activism or engagement for shareholders is something that has not occurred to the degree necessary within the mining space, especially in the intermediate to junior mining space. It is typically a situation where it is very retail focused. That is not us. We are in to most of our investments we probably have at least a dozen, if not eighteen where we are reporting shareholders. But as internal policy we engage management very actively, engage the board of directors very actively.

It is not outside the realm of possibility for us to be involved in something where we look at making changes if after the discussion with the board and management things are not going in the direction that we believe that they should. As in my previous comment we have said that the sector in general on a recovery is in its first inning. The activism side has not even really popped up yet and for us it is something that we are very cognizant of and we are not at all in the least bit afraid of engaging management or board of directors.

We are looking at a couple right now. I think there are few opportunities out there that are primed for exactly that. Quite frankly, if we deem that to be the best way to create value then I will be happy to make the investment and to make the move to surface that much value.

CK: We put out a piece earlier this week on Palisade Research called Why 11 of the largest gold funds and majors are all invested in this junior gold company? We are, of course, talking about Rob McLeod and IDM Mining. The stock today is up almost 20% with major inflows of capital coming in and one of those funds that were referring to, of course, is Delbrook. Delbrook has been a supporter of the story for quite some time. It is a company that we are invested in as well. I thought I would bring it up so that you could maybe walk our listeners through, why this is an ideal candidate for Delbrook to get involved and why you see upside in the story from here?

MZ: Sure. I mean we typically hold our cards pretty close to our chest in terms of discussing investment pieces, but this is one that is near and dear to our heart I suppose. IDM is a story that we have been involved in for a couple of years now. It is potentially in our view- the next producing gold mine in British Columbia, it has significant exploration upside to it, but also that the bigger catalyst is that within literally 12 months this site should receive a permit for development.

So we sit back and we always view our portfolio investments in the context of the broad market. This one checks a lot of the boxes in a politically safe jurisdiction; not an unimaginable amount of cutbacks to get off the ground; a very good management team both on the development side, but also on the exploration side. We are currently shareholders of approximately I believe, 14 or 15% of the outstanding equity and we will continue to support this. We truly see this stock as it stands now as undervalued even the recent move in the shares. Our target price on this is materially higher than where the stock is right now.

CK: One thing that could be of concern to some investors, some companies are going out and doing major dilution events right now. IDM of course, just undertook a pretty substantial dilution. But also if people have been paying attention to these things they have noticed that as soon as that money comes in the door a lot of these stocks are really moving up. I can think of Pilot Gold, Sandspring Resources, Midas Gold, all companies that nearly doubled and we can add IDM to that as soon as they took in the dilution. What is your view on diluting existing shareholders? You were, of course, a large shareholder of IDM before this most recent transaction.

MZ: Yeah, we are approximately 19%. We maintain our 15% ownership so for us, the company required capital to get it to a production decision. Unfortunately, you are doing so now the share prices are much lower than where they should be, that is the deal, of course, is these things double or triple. In our mind I am not looking at the ups in share price; I am looking at our percentage to the equity value. Our internal amounts obviously came down with such a diluted financing, but in our mind it was a necessary evil on the stock. Like I said if youthe economics are starting to hit the target, even prior to the company receiving its permitting- its permits for construction, or making an investment decision. The targets are multiples of where the stock is now.

What I would say it is unfortunately the nature of the beast with the market where it was is a lot of the companies overshot where in reality they should have been given a price of gold in the foreign exchange situation, but that is the nature of the beast. Luckily enough for us we simply maintain our pro rata ownership for this and that is the way that we are playing this. Some of the other stocks we are just maintaining the equity ownership percentage and we are happy to support the projects that we see as moving forward and we can see as undervalued regardless of the recent performance.

CK: Fantastic! Well, Matt, thank you so much for coming on the program with us today and sharing your thoughts and ideas on the market as it develops into a nice, strong bull market, something we have been waiting for for quite some time. If you have anything else to add for audience members or ways to find out more information or get involved with yourself or Delbrook, please go ahead and let us know.

MZ: Perfect! I very much appreciate the time. The contact information for us is on our website at www.delbrookcapital.com. Thank you.

Delbrook was founded in November 2009 by Matthew Zabloski who acts as Director and President of the Firm. In this role, he has overall responsibility for the investment and trading decisions of the Fund and managed account portfolios. His experience includes various roles within the investment banking department of a major Canadian financial institution where he covered multiple industry sectors and worked on transactions of all sizes. After completing an MBA, he joined Boston based Fidelity Management and Research Company as a sector analyst and co-portfolio manager for a growth oriented investment fund. In early 2008, Mr. Zabloski leftFidelity and joined CI Investments to launch a new series of investment funds. While at CI, he managed a value focused/catalyst driven investment fund and led the overall research effort for the fund series. Mr. Zabloski has B.A. (Honors) and an MBA, both from theRichard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. He is a Certified Investment Manager and is also registered as an Advising Representative, Dealing Representative, Ultimate Designated Person and Chief Compliance Officer with the Securities Commissions in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario.
(Kitco News) - Not only is China trying to establish its dominance in gold by building up its own marketplace, but it is also looking to expand its influence in Londons long-established market.

Monday, the ICBC Standard Bank said it has agreed to buy Barclays London precious metals vaulting business. According to a press release, the China-based bank is expected to complete its purchase in July; it will be the only Chinese bank to have a vault in the United Kingdom.

Not only will ICBC be the only Chinese bank in the London market, but it will have a pretty big footprint as the vault can store 1,800 tonnes of precious metals. According to reports, it is one of the largest vaults in Europe.

[T]his enables us to better execute on our strategy to become one of the largest Chinese banks in the precious metals market, said Mark Buncombe, head of commodities at ICBC, in a press release. Weve continued to grow our capabilities over the past year with a number of strategic hires and developments, and the acquisition of a precious metals vault allows us to expand our services in clearing and processing, to serve the growing needs of our clients.

The banks purchase of Barclays vault is only the latest move in the firms strategy to become a major factor in the gold market. Last month ICBC became a market maker for the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA).

Barclays has been anxious to exit the gold market, which it deemed back in January as a non-core asset. The banks exit also came as the market faced higher scrutiny amid growing allegations of market manipulation.

Last month Deutsch Bank AG settled its precious metals manipulation lawsuit and said that it was willing to work with the plaintiffs in their other lawsuits against the other defendant banks.

ICBCs expansion into the London market comes after China expanded its own market, launching its own yuan-based gold fix.

Although China has made significant progress growing its marketplace, analysts have noted that it could take years before it surpasses the long-established markets in London and New York.

LBMA clearing statistics for 2015 showed that on average more than $18 billion worth of gold is traded on a monthly basis.

By Neils Christensen of Kitco News; nchristensen@kitco.com

Follow @Neils_C
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By Kitsap Sun Staff

SUQUAMISH  Washingtons first tribally owned marijuana store could open in North Kitsap after the state Liquor and Cannabis Board approved a compact Monday with the Suquamish Tribe.

According to the agreement, the tribe would open its first marijuana retail outlet at 15915 Highway 305, west of Clearwater Casino Resort. The business would be operated by Suquamish Evergreen Corp., a subsidiary of Port Madison Enterprises, the business arm of the Suquamish Tribe.

The tribe expects to have its store open by November. There are no plans yet for growing or processing marijuana at the site, according to tribal representatives.

The 10-year compact allows state-licensed marijuana businesses to sell to the tribe. The tribe will charge a tax on marijuana products equal to the states 37 percent retail tax on marijuana. But the tribe wont have to impose that tax on sales made to tribal members and businesses, or on sales of marijuana grown or processed in Indian Country.

The Suquamish Tribe has decriminalized the sale and possession of marijuana under certain circumstances, according to the compact. The U.S. Department of Justice issued a memo last year opening the door for tribes to legalize marijuana, provided they regulate the drug in concert with federal law enforcement priorities.

The agreement between the tribe and state is the first of its kind in the nation, according to a joint news release. A bill signed into law in May allows the Liquor and Cannabis Board to negotiate marijuana compacts with tribes. The pact with the Suquamish Tribe still requires approval from Gov. Jay Inslee, according to the news release.

We believe that working closely with the Suquamish Tribe we can ensure a well-regulated marijuana market that protects the health and safety of Washington State citizens, Liquor and cannabis Board Chair Jane Rushford said in the release. This agreement is an excellent model for future compacts.

The Suquamish Tribe was a key backer of the legislation allowing the compacts.

Our tribe always favors a collaborative and cooperative approach, Tribal Chairman Leonard Forsman said in the release. We believe that our relationship with the state, including this compact, will best serve and protect our tribal community, surrounding neighbors, and residents of the state.

The Squaxin Island Tribe in Shelton has been negotiating a similar marijuana compact, according to the Tacoma News Tribune.

The Suquamish Evergreen Corp. store will have relatively little competition from legal marijuana retailers in North Kitsap. The state has licensed seven marijuana retailers in Kitsap County, with six of the seven licensees in Bremerton and Port Orchard. A store called Paper & Leaf opened in June near Highway 305 and Day Road on Bainbridge Island.
The Boat Shed Restaurant, long a popular summer scene in Manette with its outdoor seating, is seeing a growth of business around it in the Bremerton neighborhood.

SHARE Though new businesses are popping up around the neighborhood, the building with the iconic Manette TV sign remains empty. Saboteur Bakery is moving into this blue building in Manette. Ken Barley is the owner of Budeez, one of the new businesses in Manette.

By Josh Farley of the Kitsap Sun

MANETTE  Jim Higgins was looking for a "perfect world"  a warehouse for his boutique business, plus an intimate retail space from which to show it off.

He got it in Manette.

In late June, Elixir Fixer, local makers of popular artisan syrups used to make refined cocktails, will open a space at East 11th Street and Scott Avenue.

"Manette just fits," Higgins said. "Elixir Fixer is so excited to be a part of this great slice of Bremerton."

Higgins' boutique is going in at a time of intense transition for the commercial portion of the Bremerton hamlet, just over the bridge of its namesake. A few businesses  a photography studio, bike shop, flower and gift store  have closed largely due to personal, not financial, reasons. In their wake, however, a surge of entrepreneurs has followed.

"It's just really cute over there," said Kate Giuggio, co-owner of new Bremerton bakery Saboteur. "Everybody knows each other, waves to one another. It's just a good vibe."

Saboteur, which already has a downtown location, looked to Manette for its commercial kitchen and, like Elixir Fixer, a retail space to go with it. It makes Giuggio smile when, upon hauling in hefty baking equipment, she and baker Matt Tinder needed only to ask passers-by if they'd be willing to help them move in.

There's a new salon, boutique for baby clothes, financial adviser, marijuana shop and more. Manette might get a new restaurant soon. The owners of the Port Gamble General Store & Cafe hope to open an eatery this summer in the area, according to owner Kim Campbell. She sees it as an up-and-coming area that has the energy to support another place to eat.

"I've always loved Manette," she said. "I think it could be super quirky and artisan. And I feel there's a lot of excitement in Bremerton right now."

"Right now, it's like a renaissance," said Robin Henderson, president of the Manette Business Association. "We've worked hard to build a family-friendly, fun image."

The neighborhood nearby is changing, too. When Henderson moved to Manette 24 years ago, he recalls many "octogenarian widows." Today, most houses are filled with families.

Nightlife in Manette has not been the issue, Henderson said. It's bringing people around during the daytime that the hamlet has struggled.

The business association is working to purchase paddles that will help pedestrians find their way around not just East 11th, but the shops around the corner on Scott Avenue and elsewhere.

That would be a boost for Dawn Bolton, owner of All About U Salon and Boutique on Scott. She's long looked for ways to elevate her business's presence and is hoping the new businesses will get people to take note of those around the corner.

"It's not just about the main drag," she said.

Manette hasn't completely filled out. A few buildings, including the one holding the iconic Manette TV sign, remain closed for business. Henderson hopes it's only a matter of time those locations will fill up, too.

Manette faces a challenge in getting people a bit off the most worn paths in the city, he said. The more businesses that come, Henderson said, the more likely they are to do that.

"Tens of thousands of cars come through Bremerton every day," he said. "How can we get them to pull over and check it out?"
Stuff reports:

A billion people are projected to die this century from smoking and there could be a solution but its not a perfect one. While a new documentary looks into the life-saving potential of e-cigarettes, the New Zealand Government has announced its plans to fund further research on vaping technology and its role in helping Kiwis quit smoking. E-cigarettes or vaporisers are electrical devices that mimic real cigarettes by producing vapour by heating an e-liquid solution, which the user inhales, or vapes. E-liquid is available with or without nicotine and usually contains propylene glycol and flavouring agents. A Billion Lives  a film about the potential e-cigarettes have to save lives and reduce harm by switching smokers to vaping nicotine had its world premiere in Wellington on Wednesday While the doco doesnt tout e-cigarettes as a magic wand or a perfect solution, director Aaron Biebert says its a step in the right direction.

Both Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians have said that they could play a major part in reducing smoking rates.

The same day the documentary premiered the Governments Health Research Council (HRC) announced its plan to spend almost $150,000 on funding research on e-cigarettes. At the moment e-cigarettes containing nicotine cannot legally be sold in New Zealand, but you can import up to three months supply for personal use.

And this is crazy. e-cigarettes are more restricted than actual cigarettes!

There are basically three policy settings you can have:

E-cigarettes are more restricted than cigarettes E-cigarettes have the same restrictions cigarettes E-cigarettes have less restrictions than cigarettes

Now one can have a debate about whether it should be (2) or (3). But were got (1). Its madness. It is the equivalent of the Government banning low alcohol beer yet allowing any dairy to sell bottles of vodka.

The Ministry of Health says there is not enough evidence for it to recommend e-cigarettes as an aid to quit smoking. It currently encourages people to stick to patches, lozenges and gum.

They dont need to recommend anything. They just need to allow their sale, so people can choose what method of quitting works best for them. And I know lots and lots of people who have quit smoking through e-cigarettes and vaping.

So will this new publicly funded trial, led by University of Otago marketing professor Janet Hoek, provide the evidence needed for the ministry to make up its mind on vaping? Hoek says while there is general agreement that e-cigarettes are safer than combustible tobacco, smokers will only achieve substantial risk reductions if they switch completely from smoking to using e-cigarettes. Hoek says the current understanding of the transition between smoking and e-cigarette use is poor due to a lack of data. The 12-month trial will use a novel smart e-cigarette to collect information including puff duration, nicotine intake, and the frequency and intensity of use. HRC Chief Executive Professor Kath McPherson says e-cigarettes are a topic of hot debate both in New Zealand and around the world. Research such as this will help us build up the evidence that we need to determine if e-cigarettes actually do help people quit smoking.

It is good to see funding for a trial. There has been lots of overseas studies, and the Royal College of Physicians has said they have no doubt they help people quit smoking, are far less harmful, and not a gateway to smoking  in fact the opposite a gateway from smoking. But I agree NZ specific research is good.

Marewa Glover, an Associate Professor at Massey Universitys School of Public Health, has just completed an on-line survey of e-cigarette users, or vapers. While data was still being analysed, she said it was clear from responses that most vapers were using e-cigarettes as a way of reducing how much they smoke, or to quit altogether.

This is no surprise. Basically smokers get addicted to the nicotine, yet it is the tar that kills them. So a product that gives then the nicotine, without the combustion of the tar is going to work for people who are addicted to nicotine. Some people can quit nicotine alltogether, but many cant. So a far far less harmful nicotine product is a sensible thing to have available.

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Imperator Fish blogs:

October 2008 When the voters learn what we know about John Key  or what we will soon know once Mike Williams returns from Melbourne  they will be appalled. We now know what the H in H-Fee stands for. Its Hasta la vista, baby! July 2009 The honeymoon is finally over. John Key is an empty vessel, a man without any convictions, a rich prick who will say anything to be elected. We are in the midst of a global financial crisis, but lets focus on issues of character and integrity, and not allow ourselves to be distracted by all that other stuff. August 2011 The honeymoon is finally over. There is a mood of change in the air. The public are falling out of love with John Key. Everywhere I go people tell me they think John Key is an untrustworthy unprincipled swine. His lies are finally coming back to haunt him. This could be the turning point! January 2013 The honeymoon is finally, finally over. People are finally seeing John Key for what he is  an entitled member of the 1%. We need to double down on our strategy of relentlessly attacking the Prime Minister at every opportunity. If we absolutely must mention jobs, the economy or housing, lets do so in a way that frames John Key as being uncaring and in the pay of big business. We cant afford for our ideas to stand on their own merits.

A pretty good summary of Labour for the first few years.

May 2016 This Panama Papers business is alarming, but its also the opportunity weve all been waiting for. John Key is super wealthy, and we dont like him, so it stands to reason that he must be up to his neck in all of this. Quick, type his name into the database! Nothing? No, there must be some mistake. Try again. Again, damn you! Well, not to worry. He must use a different Panamanian law firm. Hes still a smug rich prick, and thats what counts. Thats the message we need to ensure the voters take out of this.

And a summary of their current strategy.

Imperator Fish looks forward:

September 2021 The economy is in a downwards spiral, the world dairy market has collapsed, and global warming and a series of natural disasters have devastated the country. But politically I feel as if we have turned a corner. People are finally focusing on how out of touch John Key is. We just need to drive the message home. Dig up everything you can on the guy. Do we know anyone who knew him at school? Did he steal anyones lunch money? Did he ever get a detention? Could there be some connection between John Key and Bernie Madoff that we havent yet uncovered? Lets leave no stone unturned this time, guys. Lets give our leader some powerful ammunition. She needs something to throw at Key during Question Time today. April 2027 Our new leader really got some blows in during Question Time today. Ive not seen any of our 23 leaders since Helen Clark land so many punches. He had Key floundering when he asked about Keys association with the guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who got done for tax evasion back in the 1980s. I reckon we might just have picked up a few votes today from all the people who follow Parliamentary proceedings, or at least the three of them who arent fiercely partisan in their party loyalties.

Heh. May this prediction come true.

February 2044 If Prime Minister Key has a weak spot, its his lack of integrity and his fundamental dishonesty. Thats where we need to focus our attentions. His father John was just the same.

Double heh.

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A man who filed suit against Whole Foods after he said his cake he bought had a homophobic slur on it dropped his lawsuit Monday.

Jordan Brown, who is a pastor, now says the company "did nothing wrong."

, Whole Foods said it has also dropped its counter suit and that it was "very pleased that the truth has come to light."

In a statement, Brown said:

"Today, I am dismissing my lawsuit against Whole Foods Market. The company did nothing wrong. I was wrong to purse this matter and use the media to perpetuate this story. I want to apologize to Whole Foods and its team members for questioning the company's commitment to its values, and especially the bakery associated who I understand was put in a terrible position because of my actions. I apologize to the LGBT community for diverting attention from real issues. I also want to apologize to my partner, my family, my church family, and my attorney."

The cake had the word "Love Wins" printed on it. Brown had claimed a gay slur was written underneath.

Whole Foods previously released surveillance video of Brown buying the cake and was quick to come out in defense of its employees in the original accusations.
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By News Sentinel Staff

A former Sevier County man has been arrested in Ohio in connection with a nearly 2-year-old homicide.

Nicholas D. Taylor, 68, was arrested in Hamilton, Ohio, by U.S. marshals in connection with the death of Susan K. Kokenge, who was found dead in her Seymour home June 24, 2014, authorities said.

A Sevier County grand jury issued a sealed presentment last week for first-degree murder, first-degree felony murder, fabricating evidence, theft over $250,000 and vandalism over $500.

Taylor is in custody in Butler County, Ohio, awaiting extradition back to Sevier County, where he will be arraigned in Circuit Court, according to a news release from the Sevier County Sheriff's Office.

At the time, authorities said Taylor had called E-911 dispatchers from his home at 318 Bream Court and said he came home and found his 72-year-old live-in fiancee dead inside the residence.

The Sheriff's Office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation investigated and presented a case for homicide last week.

More details as they develop online and in Tuesday's News Sentinel.
Gary Simpson arrives in Hawkins County General Sessions Court on Monday, May 16, 2016, for an arraignment on charges of abducting Carlie Trent, his 9-year-old niece. He was appointed a public defender and is due back in court on May 23. (NICK SHEPHERD/KINGSPORT TIMES-NEWS)

By News Sentinel Staff

The uncle accused of abducting 9-year-old Carlie Trent told a Hawkins County judge Monday that he didn't understand why he was charged with kidnapping his niece.

When General Sessions Judge Lane Wolfenbarger asked Gary Simpson if he understood the two charges against him, especially aggravated kidnapping and custodial interference, the handcuffed Simpson responded during an arraignment in Rogersville:

"I don't understand the kidnapping," Simpson said, adding that he was being charged with something Carlie's dad's girlfriend did on occasion.

The judge asked if Simpson, 58, wanted him to read the charges against him, and Simpson, clad in an orange jumpsuit with Hawkins County Jail across the back, said yes.

Wolfenbarger then read the warrants charging Simpson with taking Carlie from her school on May 4 by saying her father had been in an accident.

The judge asked Simpson if he had an attorney, and he replied, "No, I don't."

The judge then asked Simpson a series of questions to determine if he could afford one. Simpson said that he was unemployed, that he and his wife spent full time taking care of a handicapped son and that their only income was his son's SSI.

Wolfenbarger then appointed the Hawkins County Public Defender's Office to represent Simpson at a preliminary hearing set for 1 p.m. May 23.

Simpson is facing 15 to 25 years in prison if he is convicted of the kidnapping charge. Additional charges may be placed, authorities said.

He is being held in the Hawkins County Jail on a $1 million bond, where he has been placed on a suicide watch.

After he was captured last week, Simpson made no statements to Hawkins County officers, according to Sheriff Ronnie Lawson, referring questions to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. TBI spokesman Josh Devine said no additional details of the incident are expected to be released in the near future.

Searchers found the pair Thursday near Clinch Mountain, concluding an eight-day, intensive manhunt that resulted in an Amber Alert that extended to Missouri and more than 1,500 leads in 19 states.

Hawkins Count residents Stewart Franklin and Donnie Lawson located the two while checking property in a remote area off Gravely Valley Road near the Hawkins and Hancock county line. Franklin reportedly held Simpson at gunpoint while Lawson called 911 and rescued Carlie, who was playing with a teddy bear.

Besides Lawson, Franklin gave credit to additional men they were working with them in their Thursday search: Roger Carpenter and Larry Hamblen. Franklin says that duo had been looking for Carlie for several days, so he expects the $40,000 reward money for her recovery to be split four ways.

More details as they develop online and in Tuesday's News Sentinel.

The Kingsport Times-News contributed to this story.
Superintendent Jim McIntyre, left, chats with Tennessee education commissioner Candice McQueen, right, at Green Magnet Math & Science Academy on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015. (ADAM LAU/NEWS SENTINEL)

SHARE Candice McQueen

By Jason Gonzales, USA TODAY NETWORK The Tennessean

Pearson Education will score TNReady assessments this year, but the state is still working on who will administer the state's standardized tests next year after the Tennessee Department of Education fired its last vendor.

Pearson landed the $18.5 million job with the state after the education department took advantage of a law that says the state can enter into non-competitive bidding in cases of emergencies arising from any unforeseen cause.

"After we terminated the contract with Measurement Inc. on April 27, we began quickly collaborating with state central procurement in securing an emergency vendor," said Education Commissioner Candice McQueen. "It is usually done with someone that has prior experience in the state."

Pearson previously administered the state's standardized tests from 2003-14 and is used in Tennessee for an optional test in kindergarten through second grade.

Continue reading at The Tennessean, a News Sentinel partner.

Related documents: Candice McQueen's letter sent to school districts | Overview of Pearson's scoring process | FAQ on procurement process to select a vendor
Knoxville Police Department firearms instructor Shane Watson, left, monitors officer Mike Price as Price qualifies with a .40-caliber Glock handgun on Oct. 10, 2012, at the Phil E. Keith Training Center. (J. Miles Cary/News Sentinel)

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Pistol maker Glock surprised by complaints

By Don Jacobs of the Knoxville News Sentinel

When Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch announced in late January that the department would no longer use the .40-caliber Glock pistol that officers have carried since 2002, he didn't mention any problems with the gun.

Rausch said the replacement gun, a .45-caliber Sig Sauer, had more stopping power than the .40-calibers. Testing among officers also revealed they were more accurate using the Sig Sauer, he said.

The chief said the switch was a sound financial decision because the life of a Glock was four years, while the Sig Sauer was good for 10 years. Although the Sig Sauer gun cost nearly twice as much as the Glock version, Rausch said the transition was a wise move.

City documents, however, indicate other factors were at work ? reasons Rausch did not address at that news conference.

A letter from the city to Glock states that triggers were freezing on the guns after they were given to officers and lock pins that hold the 34 parts of the gun together were failing.

KPD today won't discuss the gun switch.

The city's claims of faulty weapons surprised Glock, which supplies more than 72 percent of all law enforcement agencies in the nation with guns. A representative said no other department has reported problems with the weapon.

A poll of other departments using the .40-caliber Glock revealed no other agency has encountered problems with the gun as alleged by KPD.

KPD spokesman Darrell DeBusk refused to say why the alleged performance problems were withheld from the public.

"We're not going to discuss the issues with the Glocks," he said. "I'll have to refer you to (Deputy Law Department Director) Ron Mills with any questions about the Glocks."

The Police Department is obtaining 225 of Sig Sauer's .45-caliber P220R pistols, a dozen 1911 Sig Sauer handguns and training for 10 officers as armorers. In exchange, the Police Department is giving $13,500 cash, 630 .40-caliber Glocks, 53 12-gauge shotguns, four .22-caliber rifles, 14 submachine guns, six 37mm launchers, various gun parts and 300,000 rounds of new ammunition.

Faulty firepower?

Rausch did note performance concerns about the Glocks in an email Jan. 18 to individual members of Knoxville City Council.

Because Rausch sent the email to individual members of council and not to the council as a whole, the email was not included in the meeting packet disseminated to members of council and the media. The email was not made part of the official record of the council meeting.

The News Sentinel obtained the email Feb. 20 from the Police Department. In the email, Rausch told council members the Glock handgun "is replaced about every three years."

Rausch explained in his email the benefits of a more powerful weapon and the differences in how a Glock and a Sig Sauer operate. And he explained why his department began seeking another weapon.

"In a shipment of what is now called the Next gen Glock, we received 10 weapons that would not fire properly new out of the box," Rausch wrote.

"This started our process of looking at alternatives as we cannot have our officers with weapons that may or may not function when they need them."

A News Sentinel article from January about KPD's transition from the Glock caught the attention of law enforcement administrators across the nation. Administrators were concerned about Rausch's statement that the Glock's service life is four years.

That statement prompted a wave of phone calls to Glock headquarters in Smyrna, Ga., from police agencies wondering about the life of their weapons, according to Carlos Guevara, vice president and general counsel for Glock USA.

"When a large metropolitan police department makes that kind of statement, it carried some weight," Guevara said.

Guevara said Glock officials assured law enforcement agencies that "the gun will continue to work after five years."

Maker seeks answers

Guevara on Jan. 28 sent a letter to Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero complaining about Rausch's "false and misleading information" disseminated to the public.

"The primary issue for us was the service life of the weapon," Guevara said last week in an interview. "That was something we wanted to clarify. We warrant the piece for much longer."

Guevara's letter prompted a response Feb. 4 from Mills, the deputy law director, who stated the four-year service life figure came from Glock's local representative. The local Glock representative is Craig's Firearm Supply Police Distributors, 8761 Chapman Highway.

"If the information is incorrect, your problem lies somewhere other than with the Knoxville Police Department," Mills wrote.

Mills also outlined in the letter performance issues with the .40-caliber Glock.

"Over the past two years, KPD has experienced repeated problems with locking pins breaking or falling out of these weapons, and four brand new handguns were found to have extremely stiff triggers," Mills wrote.

"After firing, these weapons froze up completely and could not be fired. All told, at least thirteen new GLOCK weapons out of approximately forty issued to KPD officers over the past two years failed shortly after issuance."

Mills wrote that a Police Department trainer saw a locking pin break on a Glock used by an officer from another agency at KPD's firing range.

"This is information that was not provided to the media, but could have been," Mills wrote.

?No further statements'

DeBusk said there is no documentation of the alleged Glock performance issues raised by Rausch and Mills.

"All the conversations were over the phone or in person to make them aware of the issues, so there's no written correspondence," he said.

Asked if the locking pin and trigger freeze issues were discussed with other officers in the department to alert them of potential problems, DeBusk refused to respond.

Mills responded last week to a list of questions submitted regarding the Glocks and why the performance issues were kept from the public.

"We have had a full and fair opportunity to share our concerns and issues related to our experience with representatives from Glock," Mills wrote in an email.

"We have agreed that the best course of action for both parties is to discontinue any further airing of concerns or grievances. Consequently, the City will be making no further statements or comments on this matter."

Mills said he has spoken to a Glock representative by telephone since his Feb. 4 letter, but he declined to divulge details of the discussion.

Glock's Guevara said his company was never informed of problems noted by the Police Department.

"This was news to us," Guevara said.

Guevara said that if a department has a problem, a law enforcement risk manager is dispatched to correct any issues.

"We send a company representative to the agency to find out about the problem. But we didn't get that opportunity," he said.

In addition, Guevara said people at Craig's Firearm Supply Police Distributor denied making any statements about the three- or four-year service life of the .40-caliber Glock. A representative of Craig's Firearm Supply Police Distributor referred questions to the Glock national office.

The Gen4 Glock, Guevara said, has been on the market since late 2009.

"We don't have any other agencies reporting this problem," Guevara said. "Unless it's reported, there's no way to go looking for what happened."

Departments: no objections

Public information officers for the Blount County Sheriff's Office and the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, both of which use the .40-caliber Glock, reported no performance issues with the weapons.

Bob Bossey, executive director of the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors, based in New Hampshire, said his organization represents 13,000 instructors in law enforcement, the military and corrections.

"We haven't had anybody bring that to our attention." Bossey said of performance issues alleged by the Police Department.

"There's a lot of Glocks out there. They're a good, quality weapon."

The executive director of the Tennessee Sheriffs' Association, Terry Ashe, said he's "not heard any complaint about the Glocks."

Ashe said he would be alarmed if he experienced the failure rate noted by the Police Department.

"We'd be flagging it and sending out emails if that was the case," he said.

The Knox County Sheriff's Office has been using the .40-caliber Glock since 2008 and has had no problems, according to Chief Robert Spangler, who oversees the agency's training division. Spangler said he's never been told of a service life for the firearms.

The Police Department's decision to switch to another gun manufacturer, Spangler said, is no different from one agency using the Chevrolet Caprice while another organization opts for the Dodge Charger.

"It's a personal choice and as long as the public is served, what does it matter?" he said.

"I've been partial to the Glock because it's always done what we wanted it to do," Spangler said.

"The thought of any officer pulling out a weapon and it malfunctions, that's my worst nightmare. You want to give the officers tools they need to get home safely."
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By News Sentinel Staff

Anonymous donors endow UT business competition

A pair of anonymous donors gave $1 million to the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee to endow the Undergraduate Business Plan Competition.

The competition will be renamed for Tom Graves, who the donation honors. Graves is a senior lecturer in business management and operations director of the Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

The competition allows student to pitch their ideas to business professionals.

Sororities raise funds to build school in Haiti

The 13 Panhellenic sororities at UT raised more than $40,000 in two years to fully fund building a school in Haiti. The school will be built this summer.

Sorority members will also help build a school in Malawi, Africa during a trip this week.

The UT sororities worked with Circle of Sisterhood, an organization that focuses on helping sororities raise money to help remove educational barriers for girls and women around the world.

Facilities Services start move to Sutherland

UT Facilities Services starts its move to 2000 Sutherland Avenue today.

The renovated industrial complex will house more than 200 UT employees and no service will be disrupted during the move which is expected to finish in June.

The new building includes offices, warehouse space and workshops. It was formerly Southeast Precast Corporation, and before that the Gray Knox Marble Company.

An open house will be in the fall.
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By Bob Fowler of the Knoxville News Sentinel

OAK RIDGE  An Oak Ridge-based nonprofit that seeks to help veterans and their families has switched its fundraising focus this year from supporting the national Wounded Warrior Project to helping two area organizations.

The move by Pull For Our Veterans comes after a scandal rocked the Wounded Warrior Project over allegations of lavish spending and high overhead.

Two top administrators with the Wounded Warrior Project were fired in March amid reports that just 60 percent of the organization's budget was being spent on veterans.

Since Pull For Our Veterans was started in 2012, "it's donated close to $100,000 to support the Wounded Warrior Project and had its best year yet in 2015 when it brought in over $55,000," according to a news release from the local organization.

Richard Stouder, president of Pull for Our Veterans, said the local nonprofit "re-evaluated our support for the Wounded Warrior Project based on news reports over the past year."

The decision also was based on the responses Wounded Warrior Project has given to the news reports, "both in the media and to the questions we asked them," Stouder said a statement released Sunday.

"We then decided, for at least 2016, to support organizations that supported veterans and their families in an around Knoxville."

Pull For Our Veterans, which holds fundraisers at shooting events, will this year donate its proceeds to the Fisher House Foundation and Honor Air Knoxville. Those groups are "two great organizations that do a lot, but they need help and we're proud to support them," Stouder said in a news release.

Fisher House Foundation provides lodging for members of the armed services and their families receiving care in military and veterans' hospitals. It also funds a scholarship program and provides military personnel and their families with free air travel and hotel rooms, according to the news release.

Honor Air Knoxville is dedicated to honoring East Tennessee veterans of the wars in Vietnam and Korea and in World War II by flying them free of charge on a brief trip to Washington, D.C. Each Honor Air trip costs about $500 per veteran.

Pull For Our Veterans is hosting two fundraising events this year; the Memorial Day Weekend Sporting Clays Shoot in Sweetwater, Tenn., on May 27-28, sponsored by the Luck 7 Ranch; and the fifth annual Skeet and Trap Fun Shoot at the Oak Ridge Sportsmen's Association facilities on Sept. 16-18.
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The use of medical oxygen is one of Tennessee's leading contributing factors in fire fatalities, according to the State Fire Marshal's Office.

The office encourages Tennesseans to take extra precautions when using medical oxygen in their homes.

Medical oxygen creates fire hazards by increasing the percentage of oxygen in the air. The oxygen can saturate fabric-covered furniture, clothing, hair and bedding.

"When more oxygen is present, any fire that starts will burn hotter and faster than usual," said Julie Mix McPeak, state fire marshal and Commerce and Insurance commissioner. "It is crucial to follow safety precautions when medical oxygen is in use in a home."

From 2010-15, there were 34 fire fatalities in which medical oxygen was a factor, according to the Tennessee Fire Incident Reporting System.

The State Fire Marshal's Office has released a list of tips to follow to ensure safe medical oxygen use in the home:

Smoking is not safe in the home when medical oxygen is in use. A patient on oxygen should not smoke.

Candles, matches, wood stoves and sparking toys can be ignition sources and should not be used in the home.

Oxygen cylinders should be kept at least five feet from heat sources.

Items containing oil and grease can easily ignite, so keep them away from oxygen.

Never use aerosol sprays near the oxygen.

Post "No Smoking" and "No Open Flames" signs in and outside the home.

Ensure smoke alarms are working by testing them monthly.

Plan and practice a home fire escape plan with two ways out of every room.
A floating LNG (FLNG) built by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) leaves the company's Okpo Shipyard in Geoje, Souty Gyeongsang Province, Saturday. DSME completed building the ship which was ordered by Malaysian petroleum company Petronas. / Courtesy of DSME



By Lee Hyo-sik

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) has won the right to manage Iran's state-run shipbuilder, paving its way into the Middle Eastern nation with huge growth potential.

DSME said Monday that it recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Iranian government to run Iran Shipbuilding & Offshore Industries Complex. Under the agreement, DSME will also transfer manufacturing technology to the Iranian shipbuilder.

The deal is widely expected to help DSME and other domestic shipbuilders win orders from refiners and other companies in Iran.

Iran has been seeking to cooperate with Korean shipbuilders to modernize its aging dockyards.

It has been an important task for the country, which holds the world's fourth-largest crude oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves, to foster its shipbuilding industry to build oil tankers and offshore plants.

According to DSME officials, the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO), the state-run organization in charge of the nation's strategic industries such as automobiles and shipbuilding, is seeking to form a partnership with the Korean shipbuilder.

Among others, IDRO wants to acquire advanced technology and dockyard management knowhow from DSME in order to transform Iran into a shipbuilding industry hub in the Middle East. The organization also requested DSME to invest in Iran to manufacture equipment and intermediary materials.

Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries, and other local firms are also expected to make inroads into the Middle Eastern nation, which has quickly emerged as a promising market for struggling shipbuilders here.
By Nam Hyun-woo



Controversy is growing over the envisioned introduction of Internet-only banks, as regulations on separating banking from commerce will hinder companies from expanding their own stakes in the service, experts said Monday.



"Due to regulations separating banking from commerce and restricting large companies from tapping into the banking sector, it is uncertain whether Internet-only banking will be instituted as planned," said Korea Economic Research Institute (KERI) President Kwon Tae-shin during the institute's seminar at the Federation of Korean Industries building on Yeouido, Seoul.



"Thus, there is an urgent need for the passage of revisions to the Banking Act which is currently pending in the National Assembly."



Experts and industry insiders agree that without the revision, the motivation for offering Internet banks run by IT companies is compromised.



Last November, the government gave preliminary approval to two separate consortiums respectively led by Kakao, a leading mobile messenger operator, and KT, Korea's second-largest telecommunications company, to establish Internet-only banks -- Kakao Bank and K Bank.



Since then, both Kakao and K banks are gearing up to go into operation within the first half of this year, setting up offices in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, and downtown Seoul, respectively, as well as hiring relevant employees.



However, their biggest setback is the Banking Act. The act restricts Kakao and KT from having stakes in their banks worth more than 10 percent and 8 percent, respectively.



The act was made out of concern that financial companies could be exploited as conglomerates' "private vaults," if non-financial companies were allowed to own a financial company.



When the Financial Services Commission approved the Internet-only banks, the top regulator assumed that the act would be revised during the 19th Assembly, whose term will end on May 29.



"With only two weeks left before the 19th Assembly ends, it seems virtually impossible that the act will be revised," said Professor Moon Jong-jin of Myongji University. "As the opposition party continues to oppose easing regulations on separating banking from commerce, the launch of Internet-only banks in Korea will be delayed, raising concerns that the country's financial market could be encroached on by other players from the U.S., Japan and China."



The opposition is refusing to move on the revision because of concerns that it will allow conglomerates to control Korea's banking sector.



There are two revisions of Banking Act under discussion. One that was tabled last July would have allowed non-financial capital to own up to a 50 percent stake in an Internet-only bank, while restricting conglomerates from doing so.



Under such a revision, Kakao could smoothly lead the consortium as an IT enterprise as well as being the major shareholder. However, KT is designated as a conglomerate by the government, and Kakao was also designated as a conglomerate in April, rendering the revision useless.



The FSC is now pinning its hopes on another revision tabled in October, allowing all non-financial capital to own stakes up to 50 percent in Internet-only banks.



"As Kakao was designated a conglomerate, it is banned from possessing a larger stake," said Moon. "This forced Kakao Bank to become a subsidiary of Korea Investment Holdings, which owns 50 percent of Kakao Bank shares, and the bank will be mostly led by a non-banking financial group."



Despite woes and concerns over the Internet-only banks, officials at Kakao Bank and K Bank say "opening (the banks) itself is not a matter of concern."



"The launch of Kakao Bank will go as planned, despite the talks about separating banking and commerce," an official at Kakao said. "A co-representative from Korea Investment Holdings said that Kakao will become the largest shareholder if the regulations are eased, and there is an internal consensus that Kakao's small share will not affect the initial cause of Kakao Bank."



A KT official also said: "We are preparing relevant matters following our initial goal of opening the bank within this year."



"The agenda of Internet banking is how to come up with an innovative bank run by an IT company, not about giving a chance for existing financial companies to have a banking unit that involves the Internet," said an industry insider. "What matters the most is who owns the major shares and that will define the characteristics of an Internet-only bank."




Bernard Werber/Yonhap



By Lee Jin-a

French writer Bernard Werber talks with TV anchorman Sohn Suk-hee on his JTBC news show "Newsroom" on Monday.

JTBC has not yet confirmed a date to air the interview, according to media reports.

The French science fiction writer is best known in Korea for his books, "The Empire of Ants" (1991),"The Tree of Possibilities" (2002) and "The Mystery of Gods" (2007).

He arrived in Korea on Thursday to promote his new book, "Third Humanity," and to meet his fans.

Newsroom is JTBC's main news program on which Sohn has interviewed many national and foreign celebrities including K-pop stars G-dragon, Psy and Australian actor Hugh Jackman.
By Lee Han-soo

A college student has been found guilty of throwing firecrackers into a military compound and triggering a rapid response team there.

The student, surnamed Kwon, 27, was found guilty in Daegu District Court and was fined 3 million won ($2,500) for obstruction of justice.

But in the appellate court in January 2015, he was found innocent. The court said a firework exploding inside a compound was a legitimate situation for a rapid response team.

But the Supreme Court found him guilty again and returned the case to the appellate court on Monday.

"The defendant threw a live firework above the guardhouse at night and triggered soldiers to act as if there was a real threat," said the court.

"The military would not have deployed a rapid response if they knew the threat was just fireworks. Therefore, this interrupted military security."

In October 2013, Kwon threw a live firework into a military base in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province.

He had said he was curious about how the military would respond, according to reports.
By Kang Seung-woo



The main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) blasted Cheong Wa Dae, Monday, for giving the People's Party prior notice about the government's decision on the performance of a controversial protest song at a memorial service scheduled for this week.



The MPK claimed it was a tactic by the presidential office to create a rift between the two opposition parties.



People's Party floor leader Park Jie-won stated on his Twitter account that Hyun Ki-hwan, the senior presidential secretary for political affairs, informed him earlier in the day that the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs will continue the practice of having a choir sing  "Nimeul Wihan Haengjingok (March for My Love)"  during Wednesday's memorial service, marking the 1980 democratic movement in Gwangju. About an hour later, the ministry formally announced the decision.



"Does the advance notification mean that Cheong Wa Dae will only create a partnership with the People's Party? It does not make sense why the presidential office only gave the notice to the minor party," said Rep. Woo Sang-ho, the floor leader of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK).



During a meeting between President Park Geun-hye and the floor leaders of the three major parties, which also included the ruling Saenuri Party, the two opposition parties asked the government to designate the song as the official tune of the pro-democracy movement. In response, President Park said she would instruct the ministry to come up with a solution.



Since 2009 under the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration, the song has been performed by a choir, leaving participants to choose whether to sing along or not.



MPK floor leader Woo sarcastically commented, "President Park wants to fare well with only the People's Party."



Political analysts said that the presidential office appears to be courting the conservative-centrist People's Party to advance President Park's legislative agenda.



"Cheong Wa Dae appears to be seeking cooperation with the People's Party in order to lead the country steadily in the President's remaining term," said Yoon Hee-woong, a senior researcher at Opinion Live.



In the April 13 general election, the People's Party claimed 38 parliamentary seats following the MPK's 123 and the Saenuri Party's 122 to establish itself as a powerful third party. Either the MPK or the Saenuri Party needs the cooperation of the People's Party to secure a majority.



Bae Jong-chan, the chief director of political pollster Research and Research, also said that the case illustrates President Park's expectations of the People's Party floor leader in cooperating on state affairs.



"With the opposition bloc outnumbering the governing party, Cheong Wa Dae is seeking to strengthen cooperation with the opposition and the People's Party is the target," Bae said.



Cho Jin-man, a professor of political science at Duksung Women's University, said Park's office seems to believe that the People's Party now represents the Honam region, given that the party won 23 out of 28 Assembly seats up for grabs there in last month's election.




By Lee Kyung-min



The government has requested Procter & Gamble (P&G) Korea to disclose the ingredients of its odor eliminator spray, Febreze, following suspicions that it contains harmful substances that damage lung cells when inhaled.



The Ministry of Environment said Monday that it recently submitted a letter of request to the Korean unit of the multinational company, the seller of Febreze, demanding a list of chemicals in the product.



The ministry's move comes amid heightened public fear and distrust against biocide products following more than 100 deaths and numerous health problems allegedly caused by humidifier disinfectants.



"We requested the information following public concerns that no information was available on the label of the product, nor does the company offer them online," a ministry official said.



Some experts have pointed out that quaternary ammonium chloride, a sterilizing substance used in Febreze, can cause fatal damage to lung tissue if the user sprays Febreze and inhales it.



Regarding the row, P&G Korea said it submitted the related documents to the ministry, Monday. It said it is also considering making public all substances used in Febreze, adding that quaternary ammonium chloride is a safe chemical allowed in Korea and other advanced countries.



In the meantime, a report by the Korea Institute of Toxicology (KIT) showed 329 biocide products on the Korean market, including wet tissues, laundry detergents, soaps, fabric softener and odor eliminators, contain harmful chemicals.



The KIT study of 1,432 products between 2012 and 2015 showed that 329 products, or 23 percent of the total, contained substances including PHMG, CMIT and MIT, which were used in the toxic humidifier disinfectants, or other chemicals such as BIT and IPBC. BIT is known to cause lung damage when inhaled and IPBC, respiratory problems, skin rashes, and other allergic reactions.



As more and more findings are coming about the possible harm of biocide products, public concern and fear about the products are growing as well. While many consumers avoid buying chemical-containing products, some opt for homemade sterilizers using baking soda, citric acid or vinegar, to avoid exposure to detrimental artificial substances.



"The current humidifier disinfectant scandal makes me inclined to choose safer, homemade products," a mother with a one-year-old child said.



"I have to use a humidifier because my baby has bronchitis. I never use sterilizing products from the market, and always use baking soda to clean it," she added.



Another mother with two children echoed her view.



"I am worried that bathroom floor detergent would have the same deadly impact on my family's health. I think I might consider using baking soda," she said.




President Park Geun-hye shakes hands with her Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo during a summit at Cheong Wa Dae, Monday. / Korea Times photo by Hong In-kee



By Kang Seung-woo

President Park Geun-hye and Indonesian President Joko Widodo agreed to boost their 10-year strategic partnership, Monday, as Seoul seeks to participate in Jakarta's infrastructure projects valued at $6.7 billion.

The two heads of state also pledged to intensify efforts to increase bilateral trade, pushed down by the drop in oil and gas prices.

Park and Widodo held a summit at Cheong Wa Dae after the latter arrived in Seoul, Sunday, for a three-day state visit.

President Widodo's trip is reciprocating President Park's state visit to Indonesia in October 2013, and is the first visit by the Indonesian president for a bilateral summit since his inauguration in October 2014.

According to Cheong Wa Dae, Indonesia is pushing ahead with gas pipeline projects in Palembang and Bali, worth $600 million, and the Korea Gas Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with its Indonesian counterpart to participate.

Park asked Widodo to help Korean firms win projects for the construction of power stations in three regions, which may lead to a combined $4 billion deal.

As the Southeast Asian nation will host the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, it has plans to revamp transportation and launch several infrastructure projects.

During the summit, the Korea Rail Network Authority inked a MOU to participate in a $2.1 billion light-rail transit project.

Along with these two, Park and Widodo observed the signing of nine others, including one to bolster cooperation on various maritime affairs.

"Beyond the fields of infrastructure and energy, we shared the view to strengthen bilateral cooperation in fresh sectors like the environment, creative industry and maritime industry to find a new growth engine," Park said during a joint press conference after the summit.

She also said they agreed to increase exchanges of human resources, culture and defense to turn their ties into a "comprehensive partnership."

Indonesia is Korea's second-largest investment destination and third-largest trade partner among the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

However, amid the sluggish global economy and the declining price of raw materials, the bilateral trade volume decreased from $30.8 billion in 2011 to $16.7 billion in 2015.

During the summit, the two leaders found room to expand bilateral trade.

Korea has asked Indonesia to faithfully follow the Korea-ASEAN free trade agreement (FTA) because the nation's 65 items exported to Jakarta still face high tariffs. She also asked Widodo to reconsider its anti-dumping regulations on Korean steel products.

In addition, the two sides agreed to discuss how to ease tariffs on additional items.

According to Park's office, an additional lowering of 2 percent in tariffs will increase the nation's exports to Indonesia by $35 million.

During the summit, the two leaders also discussed the North Korean nuclear issue and global terrorism.

Widodo told the press conference that he expressed his support for the U.N. sanctions imposed on the North for its fourth nuclear test.

The Indonesian president also said he proposed to Park exchanging intelligence between the two nations to tackle terrorism.
Civic group members call for a boycott against Oxy Reckitt Benckiser Korea products during a rally in front of the company's building on Yeouido, Seoul, Monday. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



By Kim Bo-eun

Over 400 victims of toxic humidifier disinfectants have filed a suit against the government and the manufacturers and retailers behind the deadly products, demanding some 10 billion won in compensation.

Lawyers for a Democratic Society, a liberal legal group, said Monday that it submitted a complaint to the Seoul Central District Court on behalf of 436 victims and their relatives.

The plaintiffs consist of victims recognized by the government, others who have applied to the Korea Environmental Industry and Technology Institute for recognition as victims and family members.

Among them are 235 victims who have suffered damage to their lungs and other organs, and family members of 51 deceased victims. Not all of the victims and their families are taking part in the suit, as more than 140 people died from the toxic products.

They have filed the suit against the government and 22 companies including Oxy Reckitt Benckiser Korea and Butterfly Effect, as well as retailers including Lotte Shopping and Home plus.

The plaintiffs are demanding 50 million won each for the deceased and 30 million won for those who continue to suffer health problems such as lung damage. These damages will cover medical expenses as well as the emotional distress the victims and their families have endured. The victims' family members are seeking 10 million won in compensation for emotional distress.

"Without any grounds, the manufacturers and sellers of the humidifier disinfectants indicated on the labels of their products that the ingredients were safe," a member of the lawyers' group said.

"The government, which failed to properly conduct safety tests and approve the products through tightly enforced safety regulations, must also take responsibility."

The humidifier disinfectants were sold from the late 1990s until 2011, when the scandal broke out, with people claiming the products caused lung damage and death.

The prosecution is currently investigating former and sitting executives of Oxy Reckitt Benckiser, which allegedly caused the majority of deaths.

Meanwhile, civic groups held a rally in front of the U.K.-based company's office on Yeouido, Seoul, calling for an extension of the boycott against its products.

Those groups started the boycott last month, which was joined by major retailers such as discount chains, convenience stores, online malls and department stores, hurting its sales.

Civic groups and victims have also been calling for the government to take responsibility for the scandal, criticizing it for failing to set up proper rules about safety tests and take adequate action for the victims when the scandal first broke out.

The prosecution also summoned the head of Yongma Industry, the manufacturer of disinfectant products for Lotte Mart and Home plus which contained the toxic component polyhexamethylene (PHMG). The company head, surnamed Kim, is the first to be questioned over the toxic products.
Edeltraut Brahmstaedt, the widow of German journalist Jurgen Hinzpeter who filmed and reported the May 18 Democratic Uprising in 1980, mourns before a memorial stone set up to commemorate her late husband at the May 18th National Cemetery in Gwangju, Monday. Hinzpeter was buried in Gwangju upon his wishes after he died in his hometown of Ratzeburg, Germany, Jan. 25 at the age of 79. / Yonhap



By Yi Whan-woo

The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs rejected a call, Monday, to designate a protest song subject to political debate as the official song for the May 18 Democratic Uprising in 1980.

It also said it will stick to a program inviting a choir to sing the song, "Nimeul Wihan Haengjingok" (March for My Love), in a government-led memorial service.

It refused to accept the opposition parties' demand that the participants of the annual ceremony be allowed to sing the controversial song as they did before the choir program was introduced in 2009.

The ministry's decision immediately drew a backlash not only from the opposition parties, but also from the ruling Saenuri Party.

During a meeting with the floor leaders of the three major political parties, Friday, President Park Geun-hye said she would order the ministry to find a solution when the floor leaders asked her to recognize "March for My Love" as the official commemorative song for the pro-democracy movement in Gwangju.

Her answer triggered speculation that the conservative administration may revive the program to encourage all participants to sing the song at the ceremony, Wednesday, the 36th anniversary of the movement.

"We concluded that in order to not disrupt national unity we will invite a choir to sing the song while allowing attendees to sing along if they want to," the ministry said in a statement. "The government has not designated an official song for major national holidays and other memorial days either and going against such a policy could cause another controversy," it said.

Cheong Wa Dae refused to make further comment on the issue.

May 18 was designated as an official memorial day in 1997. All participants of the ceremony had been invited to sing the song together until the Lee Myung-bak administration in 2009 invited a choir to sing it, citing ideological disputes over the song.

The participants could sing if they wanted, but liberals still criticized the administrations of Lee and Park for "downsizing the memorial service."

Park has not attended the annual memorial service since taking office in February 2013.












By Kim Hyo-jin



Rampant speculation is circulating that President Park Geun-hye appointed of Lee Won-jong as the new presidential chief of staff Sunday, to court United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a future presidential candidate for the Saenuri Party.



Lee was born in Jecheon, North Chungcheong Province, and Ban, a preferred presidential candidate, was born in Eumseong, North Chungcheong Province. Such connections remain significant and important in Korean society.



Lee is a career bureaucrat who served as governor of North Chungcheong Province three times. Lee and Ban are both members of a hometown alumni group called Cheongmyeonghoe.



The appointment is being viewed by some analysts as representing Park's intention to court Ban as well as voters within the Chungcheong region.



Other figures born in the region have dominated key posts in the ruling party.

Chung Jin-suk, floor leader of the Saenuri Party, was born in South Chungcheong Province and entered into politics with help of Kim Jong-phil, a veteran politician who led the Chungcheong-based Liberal Democrat Party. Kim Yong-tae, head of the party's reform committee, was born in Daejeon.



But Lee dismissed the speculation, saying his personal relationship with Ban is not significant.



"It's been a long time since I last saw him," he said, Sunday, when asked by reporters, without commenting further.



But attention is inevitably focused on the role that Lee could play to recruit Ban as the ruling party's presidential candidate.



Ban has long been talked about as a viable potential presidential candidate by the ruling camp. Following its humiliating defeat in the April general election, the drive to recruit Ban gained fresh momentum. The party was demoted to the second-largest party with 122 seats after the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) clinched 123 seats.



Along with the party's setback, other potential candidates in the party lost momentum in their presidential bids. Choi Kyung-hwan, former finance minister and a Park loyalist, had to step back from the party's frontline because his faction was accused of mismanaging the candidate nomination; Kim Moon-soo, former Gyeonggi governor, even failed to win a seat; and Kim Moo-sung stepped down from the chairmanship post, to take responsibility for the defeat.



Meanwhile, anticipation is growing that a cabinet reshuffle may follow the presidential staff reshuffle in an effort revive the prospects of Park's remaining time in office.



If this is true, her longest-serving aides _ Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, Agriculture Minister Lee Dong-phil and Environment Minister Yoon Seong-kyu _ may become targets.




South Korea, the United States and Japan will carry out their first joint anti-missile exercise in Hawaii in June to deal more effectively with North Korea's ever-growing nuclear and missile threats, the defense ministry here said Monday.

The trilateral missile defense exercise will take place on the sidelines of the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, or RIMPAC, the world's largest U.S.-led international maritime warfare exercise, to be held from June to August around the U.S. island.

"South Korea, the U.S. and Japan are working out the details of the exercise after agreeing to jointly conduct the missile alert exercise designed to better defend South Korea from North Korea's advancing nuclear and missile intimidations," an official at the Ministry of National Defense told reporters.

The scope of the exercise will be limited to the framework of the three countries' intelligence-sharing pact on North Korea's nuclear and missile capabilities reached in December 2014, the official said.

The forthcoming exercise will focus on the intelligence dealings required to detect and track North Korea's potential missile launches, and will not involve the interception phase, he said. (Yonhap)
A demand to renegotiate the terms of a free trade agreement (FTA) between South Korea and the United States may very well mean the end of the bilateral trade pact, if not the countries' alliance, Seoul officials said Monday.



The remarks came one day after a senior adviser to U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump said the real estate tycoon, if elected, may wish to "go back to ground zero" on all FTAs the U.S. has signed so far, including the Korea-U.S. FTA.



In an interview with Yonhap News Agency, Walid Phares, an international relations scholar who serves as Trump's foreign policy brain, said renegotiation doesn't "mean cancel everything."



"It means to sit down and see, this is what has happened in America since the time we have negotiated and had the agreement (signed), and you tell us what are your cards, and we come closer," he said.



Technically, renegotiations of the Korea-U.S. FTA are possible, though they must be preceded by a declaration of termination.



Under the so-called KORUS FTA, either side may demand termination of the bilateral agreement, at least 180 days prior to their desired date of termination, according to government officials here.



Over the 180-day period, the other side may request holding discussions on ways to keep the agreement, resulting in a de facto renegotiation of existing terms.



Realistically, renegotiations are impossible unless the U.S. wishes to throw out the Korea-U.S. alliance as well, the officials noted.



"An FTA is not just a trade pact, but an agreement that closely intertwines member countries in about every aspect, including political and diplomatic aspects," a ranking government official said, while speaking on the condition of anonymity.



"An attempt to nullify such an agreement simply because one does not like it anymore is quite literally the same as telling the other party that they will not see each other anymore forever," the official added.



Others claimed Trump, even if elected, may not have the authority to nullify or even renegotiate the Korea-U.S. FTA as such power lies with the legislature and not with the executive branch.



The KORUS FTA was negotiated and signed by the countries' governments but only on behalf of their respective legislative bodies.



The bilateral free trade pact was initially signed in April 2007. It went into effect nearly five years later in March 2012, after it was ratified by U.S. Congress in October 2011 and by the South Korean parliament the following month. (Yonhap)




South Korea and Japan will hold director-general-level talks this week to discuss a broad range of issues, including follow-up measures related to Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday.

It said the meeting set for Tuesday in Tokyo will be attended by Chung Byung-won, director-general at the ministry's Northeast Asian Affairs Bureau, and Kimihiro Ishikane, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau.

"Both will exchange views on follow-up measures on the Dec. 28 agreement on (the Korean victims of) the wartime sexual enslavement and other broader issues of mutual concern," the ministry said in a press release posted on its website.

South Korea and Japan reached a historic deal late last year under which Tokyo expressed its apology for its colonial-era atrocities and agreed to provide 1 billion yen (US$9.2 million) for a foundation aimed at supporting the surviving victims, euphemistically called "comfort women."

Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, were forced to work in front-line brothels for Japanese troops during World War II. Only 44 South Korean victims, mostly in their late 80s, are currently known to be alive.

In April, the two sides held a meeting of vice foreign ministers in Seoul, promising to accelerate their efforts to carry out what was agreed upon. Both also held director-general-level talks in Seoul in the same month to discuss details linked to the establishment of the fund. (Yonhap)
Polish Ambassador to Korea Krzysztof Majaka, left, reads out a Polish version of "The Little Prince" to parents and their chilren during a program "Book Reading for Children by Ambassadors in Korea," a part of the Korea Foundation' exhibition "Encounter the World

through Children's Books" at the KF Gallery in Seoul on May 5. / Courtesy of the Korea Foundation



By Rachel Lee

When parents walk into a bookstore, they are surrounded by thousands of books from all directions, making it difficult to choose high-quality material for their children.

For those parents and their children, 44 embassies and cultural centers in Seoul have compiled a collection of bestsellers for an exhibition dedicated to children's literature this month.

At the event, titled "Encounter the World through Children's Books," at the Korea Foundation (KF) Gallery in Seoul, about 400 books recommended or donated by foreign envoys are on display until June 8.

The KF, headed by President Lee Si-hyung, is an institution founded in 1992 for international exchange and public diplomacy initiatives. It has organized the event as part of its efforts to cultivate a global outlook among children here.

KF Vice President Yoon Keum-jin said the exhibition aimed to help children learn about the diverse cultures of 45 countries and 28 languages.

"Foreign ambassadors gave us recommendations that also were part of their childhood," Yoon said. "They grew up reading the books or some of them have been listed as bestsellers in their country. Visitors will find the original copies of those works."

The exhibition is divided into six sections  Europe, Africa, South America, North America, Asia and Australia  and each section gives basic information such as language, climate and religion of nations in that region.

"To give a better idea about each country, we have drawn a world map that presents symbolic features," said KF Global Center senior program officer Yoon Hyo-jin.

"For instance, we show truck art to represent Pakistan, and we have the Rose of Sharon for our country. Pakistani truck art is a unique form of art that best represents the culture and heritage of the country."





About 400 books from 45 countries are on display at the exhibition "Encounter the World through Children's

Books" at the KF Gallery in Seoul until June 8. / Courtesy of the Korea Foundation



World-famous productions on display include "The Little Prince" from France, "I Want My Hat Back" from Canada, "When Findus Was Little and Disappeared" from Sweden and "Aesop's Fables" from Greece. Some publications have been translated into Korean, which are also on show. Korean books feature in the Asian section.

There are also 14 translations of "The Little Prince" in a separate section.

Out of hundreds of publications, Yoon introduced "Trouble" by Polish writer Iwona Chmielewska, about a little girl who falls into deep thought when she leaves an iron scorch mark on an embroidered tablecloth, an heirloom from her grandmother.

The girl thinks about various ways of making excuses for her mistake to her mother, but ends up telling the truth, and her mother reacts with wisdom.

"I was amazed by how much we could make out of one single object in storytelling," the vice president said. "It's without doubt a masterpiece that I strongly recommend to children."

She believes that good children's stories should bring three elements together  story, design and imagination.

"I don't think that being economically viable means a book is necessarily of high quality. It really depends on the sensibilities of the individual writer," she added.

The exhibition has more than the array of books on shelves  it offers a special zone called "Explore Planet" filled with stars twinkling at night with the storyline for "The Little Prince."

A highlight of the exhibition is "Book Reading for Children by Ambassadors in Korea" on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Ambassadors or their spouses from 28 countries have each read a book from their country to Korean children for about 30 minutes at the gallery's seminar room.

"Ambassadors or their spouses read out a book in their language so children learn about the language of each country," Yoonsaid. "An interpreter also translates and reads aloud in Korean."

The Azerbaijan Embassy is one of the 44 countries that have provided stories for the event. For the readings, Azerbaijan Ambassador Ramzi Teymurov picked "Shengulum, Shungulum, Mengulum," about how baby goats escape a wolf.

"It was quite interesting for me to get together with Korean children," said Teymurov. "Initially I thought there might be difficulty for Korean children to understand the Azerbaijani tale due to the difference of culture. But apparently they listened very carefully and at the end they asked many questions regarding the tale and my country."

The ambassador added: "Azerbaijan is in the middle of Eurasia and we share some cultural similarities with Asian people, but Azerbaijan has its own cultural heritage."

During the exhibition, visitors can also get free Polaroid pictures, face painting and gifts.

Last month, the KF organized "Korea through eyes of foreigners" to find out what people from overseas think about Korean society, and how perceived problems can be improved.

Lecturers included medical interpreter Ilya Belyakov, John Riley, deputy head of mission at the New Zealand Embassy, and Korean zither player Jocelyn Clark. They shared their experiences of Korean food, traditional culture and prejudice.

The organization also launched the "KF Together Program" to help foreign residents understand Korea better through field trips to the Demilitarized Zone and other historical locations, discussions about Korean culture and issues, and networking opportunities to interact with Koreans.

For more information, visit www.kf.or.kr.
South Korea's unification ministry said Monday that it is not proper for a local lawyers association to request a meeting with the 13 North Koreans who defected en masse last month.

A group of North Koreans -- one male manager and 12 female employees -- who worked at a restaurant in the Chinese eastern port city of Ningbo defected to South Korea in early April amid toughened international sanctions.

Earlier in the day, the Lawyers for a Democratic Society, or Minbyun, called on the National Intelligence Service (NIS) to arrange a meeting with the defectors in a bid to clarify the North's claim that they were kidnapped by Seoul.

South Korea's unification ministry said that it viewed such a request as improper, saying that the defectors made the decision to come to Seoul.

"The defectors came to South Korea completely on their own free will," Jeong Joon-hee, the ministry's spokesman, told a regular press briefing. "As they are in the early stage of resettlement here, it is not proper to allow them to meet with outsiders."

North Korea has claimed that South Korea kidnapped the 13 North Koreans, notifying Seoul in late April that it will send their family members to Seoul for a face-to-face meeting.

Pyongyang has threatened to take strong action against South Korea if Seoul does not accept its demand for a meeting with the family members and their immediate repatriation.

Jeong also dismissed a report by a North Korean propaganda website that one of the 13 defectors died in Seoul while fasting.

"The report is groundless," he said. "They are all healthy." (Yonhap)
North Korea is calling on its people to carry out timely rice planting in an effort to boost the country's grain production.

The move comes as the country gears up for the spring planting season in the wake of the rare congress of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) that ended last Monday. In the key gathering, the first of its kind in 36 years, the North announced various economic projects aimed at improving the economic conditions of the impoverished country.

In an editorial on Monday, the North's main newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, called for the people to concentrate all their effort on a rice-transplanting campaign to gain a breakthrough in grain production. The paper likened rice farming to a "battle" to increase the country's grain production.

The Northeast country of more than 20 million has suffered from frequent food shortages as the output of rice, its main staple, has not met demand. A lack of fertilizer, power shortages and poor infrastructure have been cited as causes of the country's troubles.

The newspaper said a great victory in the agricultural frontline is a political struggle for the WPK.

Despite the severe drought last year, the daily claimed, the country successfully achieved rice planting success and urged all sectors of North Korean society to help out with farming.

Then it proposed a term, "the Speed of Mallima," to prompt North Koreans to work harder to attain the country's economic goals as well as rice planting.

The term Mallima, which was coined by the North, means a horse that runs 10 times as fast as Chollima, an imaginary horse with wings that can travel at least 400 kilometers a day.

North Korea first launched the Chollima Movement in the late 1950s as an economic campaign to rebuild its economy after the 1950-53 Korean War. (Yonhap)






Park Sang-yung, a lawyer at the Seoul-based law firm Hankyul and the former chief of three police stations in Gyeonggi Province / Korea Times

By Kang Hyun-kyung

The Daebu Island murder has been a tough case for investigators. The body of the 40-year-old victim, identified only by his last name Choi, was cut in two, each found in different locations on the West Sea island, more than two weeks after he was murdered. Furthermore, the murder suspect Jo Sung-ho, who was Choi's roommate and coworker, lived some distance from the island where Choi's severely damaged body parts were dumped.

The tricky nature initially made it difficult for the police to identify the victim, not to mention the murderer. But the 30-year-old murder suspect was eventually arrested on May 4, only four days after the victim's lower body was first discovered near the seawall of the island, an unexpected but welcome development.

Park Sang-yung, a lawyer at the Seoul-based law firm Hankyul and the former chief of three police stations in Gyeonggi Province, said forensic scientists are the key players behind the arrest of the murder suspect. He said two people inside the police department played a critical role in helping their fellow police officers identify the suspect.





"One is the crime scene investigator who successfully collected fingerprints from the victim's body, and the other is the police officer who identified the victim as Choi after matching the fingerprints with others in the database, called the automated fingerprint identification system," he said. "The two officials did a fantastic job."

The Danwon Police Station in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, was contacted for information about the two forensic experts, including their names and years of service, and for comments on the case. However, the police haven't yet responded to the request.





Police stations have a scientific investigation division consisting of five to 10 forensic experts, depending on the size of the station. These experts went through training as forensic scientists after joining the police through the state exam for the selection of public security officials. Their duties include collecting fingerprints from crime scenes and accessing the nationwide fingerprint database. The database contains the fingerprints of all citizens aged 17 and older. Forensic experts are also responsible for preserving crime scenes and finding other traces left by criminals there.

Park, the former senior superintendent at Pyeongtaek Police Station, said many forensic experts work under demanding conditions. They work day and night because they are supposed to be the first persons to appear on the crime scene. Because of the nature of their work, forensic experts are also exposed to a variety of infectious diseases. Unfortunately, however, there are no sanitation facilities in place for them.





Park said in addition to their challenging working conditions, forensic experts are underappreciated inside the police department.

"These committed people are outshone by the detectives who catch the criminals. The detectives are described as the heroes and are promoted once tough cases are successfully closed. However, few people pay attention to the forensic scientists who identified the criminals," Park said. "Most of them stay in the same rank for many years without promotion. This is unfair."

For these reasons, Park called the two unnamed forensic experts unsung heroes, noting that without them the investigators would have had a much more difficult time finding the murder suspect.

In the past, Park said investigators mostly relied on their insights and experience to find clues. "But today, once crimes are reported, the first thing police officers do is search for smartphones and check if there are surveillance cameras set up near the crime scene," he said. "Collecting video and audio recordings, text messages and smartphone messages are critical to finding criminals."

According to him, identifying the victim is critical to finding the murderer in a case like the Daebu Island murder. "This is because in criminal cases where the murderer's fingerprints are removed, the murderer is highly likely to be someone close to the victim," he said. "As forensic scientist Edmond Locard put it, every criminal leaves a trace. Thus, finding and collecting the traces the criminal left and preserving the crime scene as it is are critical to finding the criminal."

After passing the state bar exam in 1987, Park worked for a few years as a lawyer before serving in the police force for 10 years from 1993. As a senior superintendent, he spearheaded numerous criminal investigations in the Pyongtaek, Dongducheon and Gimpo police stations, before leaving the police force in 2002.

According to the police, Choi died from a severe brain injury. During the investigation, the murder suspect Jo testified that he premeditated the killing of his roommate and coworker. He met Choi while he was working at the reception desk at an inn in Ansan near the island. The two agreed to share housing in the southern part of the port city of Incheon to save on living expenses. Jo said that the three months of living together with Choi, who was 10 years his senior, was a nightmare. Choi commanded Jo to do all of the household chores and nagged him when things didn't turn out the way he wanted. Choi also accused Jo of being the product of bad parenting.

Jo testified that his patience reached its limit when his roommate made insulting remarks about his parents. On April 12, he purchased a hammer on his way back home and hit Choi with it several times while the victim was asleep. Jo took the victim's body to the bathroom and cut it into two parts because it was too heavy to carry. He removed his fingerprints from the body parts before transporting them to Daebu Island in a rented car, abandoning the lower part in the waters near the seawall and the upper part on the opposite side of the island.

Park said the murder suspect made a critical mistake. The victim's mobile phone remained on and fully charged even after he was killed, which helped police officers trace him without major difficulty.

While tracing the location of the victim's smartphone, investigators found Jo at his home in Incheon. Jo admitted to killing his roommate.

Park said in the course of their work forensic scientists repair, recover and analyze audio and video recordings, smartphones and CCTV footage for clues.

He said while advances in scientific tools and techniques have made it easier for investigators to find criminals, they have also prompted criminals to upgrade their skills.

"Criminals wear gloves when they commit crimes so as not to leave their fingerprints. They wear a cap and mask because of CCTV," he said.

Park said the role of forensic experts has become increasingly important in criminal cases because criminals' techniques have also developed in response to technical advances in crime solving.
By Michael Breen

A video which catches Queen Elizabeth in an unguarded moment telling a senior policewoman that Chinese officials with President Xi Jinping on his visit to Britain last October had been "rude" has prompted a slew of commentary.

None of it, however, gets to the heart of the matter.

The blog posts and columns I've seen all try to link it to a broader context: rising China, Britain's status as an ex-superpower now interested in good business relations, spitting and other problems.

But this incident is not about those things. It's about diplomacy.

The conversation with the Queen and Police Commander Lucy D'Orsi, who had been responsible for security during President Xi's visit, revealed that the Chinese delegation had among other things threatened the British ambassador to China, Barbara Woodward, with abandoning the state visit. "They were very rude to the ambassador," the Queen said. "Extraordinary."

The Chinese themselves have been rather quiet because news stories about the Queen's comment have been blocked. The exception is The Global Times, a newspaper that is linked to the Chinese Communist Party, which reacted with Trump-like vigor:

"The West in modern times has risen to the top and created a brilliant civilization, but their media is full of reckless gossip fiends' who bare their fangs and brandish their claws and are very narcissistic, retaining the bad manners of 'barbarians.'"

The article then added this put-down, worthy of a British aristocrat: "As they experience constant exposure to the 5,000 years of continuous Eastern civilization, we believe they will make progress (in their manners)."

This weak attempt to deflect criticism conceals the fact that foreign ministry officials in China, and in every other country, know what this issue is really all about.

It is not about the Chinese. Nobody is saying that they are a rude people. The problem is with its diplomats.

Consider this story that I heard from the former head of the China desk in one country's foreign ministry. The first task my friend had was to handle a high-level visit to his country. He soon learned that the Chinese approach to planning such visits was to issue instructions to the country being visited and reject any issues as "excuses" for the host nation to take care of.

For example, the Chinese intended to fly their 250-strong delegation directly to a town where they had investments, spend a night there, and fly to the capital the next day for official meetings. When our man suggested a different itinerary involving local planes, because the runway at the town's airport was not long enough to handle a jumbo jet, he was rebuffed.

"We've got three months before the visit so you have time to extend the runway," was the reply.

"Even if we could do that, we still have a problem in that the only hotel in the town has just 40 rooms," he said.

"Well, you will have to take care of that as well," the Chinese said.

And so it went for a few days until my friend stood up and declared, "The trip is off."

"You can't do that," his counterpart complained. "You don't have the authority."

"I can and I do," he said and walked out.

A week or two later, he was summoned to the office of his deputy minister.

"G-day, mate," the deputy minister said (oops, what a giveaway).

"G-day, mate."

"Mate, I've got a letter here," the boss said, waving a piece of paper. "It's from my opposite number in Beijing. He mentions you by name. He says you are, quote, uncooperative, inflexible, and arrogant.'"

"Oh crap, I'm being fired," my friend thought.

"Congratulations," the deputy minister said. "It normally takes at least six months before a new desk head gets a letter like this. But you've managed it in six weeks. Well done."

The problem for the Chinese, my friend said, is not that they are inherently rude, but that they are given orders which they are expected to execute. It is a career-risking move to come back to their bosses to fine-tune things after talking with their foreign counterparts. Instead, they put pressure on them and then make formal complaints against those who resist.

So, what was the Queen's message? There are two interpretations.

If the "gaffe" was deliberate, then it represents unprecedented royal advice to China to get its diplomacy in line with global standards of courtesy and tradition so that it may engage in civil exchanges with allies and foes alike in capital cities around the world.

If the comment was intended to be private, I am sure it was the royal equivalent of "Congratulations, mate" and that the police commander will be high on the Queen's next honor's list.

Michael Breen is the CEO of Insight Communications Consultants, a public relations company, and author of The Koreans and Kim Jong-il: North Korea's Dear Leader.
Oftentimes, Britain is disregarded as a shadow of its former self  relics of the empire where the sun once never set or a poodle of its American cousins across the Atlantic. Not so.



Belated as it may be, the hat is tipped in a show of respect for the subjects of Queen Elizabeth II in general and, particularly, to Londoners for choosing Sadiq Khan as the next mayor of London. Khan took office on May 9 after being elected to the job four days earlier.



His sensible platform was above all the reason for the citizens of the British capital to vote overwhelmingly for him in the runoff against conservative Zach Goldsmith.



But equally noteworthy is the courage of the people of London who dared to see past Khan's racial background as the son of a Muslim Pakistani family  his father a bus driver and mother a seamstress  and voted for the man.



To say the least, it is laudable as Khan's election follows attacks by Islamic jihadists that wreaked havoc in Paris and triggered mayhem in Brussels, spreading Islamophobia across the world. Adding to it is an influx of immigrants from Syria and North Africa as well as Asian Islamic states that only is exacerbating residents' anxiety.



Khan's election is no less an important feat than the 2008 U.S. election of President Barack Obama, the first African-American president, an event that came 146 years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and 45 years after the U.S. Civil Rights Act. Sixteen years after the 9/11 attack by Osama bin Laden that killed thousands of Americans, the U.S. is still suffering trauma through the emergence of Donald Trump as the Republican candidate thanks to his fear-mongering against Muslims, among others. Trump pledged to keep Muslims from entering the U.S., were he to become president.



More important is the future that Khan's election can indicate  an inter-religious reconciliation that it holds promise for  where children of Muslim immigrants can feel they also can overcome marginalization and live up to their potential.



We are not naive enough to look at Khan as a panacea to Islamic extremism but it should be seen as one more step in the right direction to combat the rising Islamic battle cry that is consuming Europe and the United States and is threatening Asia.



To those who incite hate on the basis of religious and racial differences, Khan is an example that proves they may not be right, persuading those disenchanted Muslims living in ghettos in European cities to try to be another Khan.



Once again, we are happily surprised to see Brits rise to the occasion and set an important precedent for the rest of the world. Thanks.




Could Park head off post-election challenges?



There is one thing that clearly sets the incumbent Park Geun-hye administration apart from previous governments. In former times, it was customary for the President to conduct a big reshuffle of the cabinet or the presidential office when the ruling camp is hit by a crucial political event such as an election defeat.



One month after the stunning defeat of her Saenuri Party in the general election, however, President Park stopped at conducting a minor shakeup of Cheong Wa Dae Sunday, leaving her cabinet intact. Although the nation's first female head of state might reshuffle her cabinet  possibly in June  after returning from her Africa visit, it's doubtful if she could head off post-election challenges with such half-baked changes.



Under the reshuffle, President Park named Lee Won-jong, 74, a career bureaucrat, as her chief of staff, replacing Lee Byung-kee who had offered to quit holding himself responsible for the election defeat. She also appointed her senior presidential secretary for economic affairs An Chong-bum as her new chief secretary for policy coordination. Rep. Kang Seok-hoon of the governing Saenuri Party was named her chief economic aide to succeed An.



It's not difficult to reason what is meant by the latest Cheong Wa Dae shakeup. By tapping the new chief of staff who has abundant experience and knowledge in administrative affairs, President Park wants to keep her state affairs stable.



She also expressed her strong will to push for her national agendas, including structural reforms in labor and three other sectors, until the end of her tenure. The fact that President Park tapped An and Kang, economic experts, is a clear message that the presidential office will continue to take the initiative in carrying out economic policies.



But Sunday's change of the presidential secretariat falls far short of the will of the people, expressed in the April 13 parliamentary polls, that called for a broad-based renovation of state affairs and President Park's governing style.



First and foremost, Lee, who served as Seoul mayor once and North Chungcheong Province governor three times during his 50 years of public service, could be suitable if his role is confined to assisting the President. However, he may be tapped wrongly if he has to play the role of injecting fresh vigor into drifting state affairs following the general election that deprived the Saenuri Party of its majority status. This skepticism is all the more so, considering that the presidential chief of staff should deal with a myriad of current affairs politically.



The two newly appointed senior aides, An and Kang, are those who drew a rough sketch of the incumbent administration's economic policies, raising concerns that it would be all but impossible to expect big changes in the faltering government administration. They also face accusations of having benefitted from President Park's revolving-door appointments.



No doubt, there would be no changes in the current vertical relationship between Cheong Wa Dae and the governing party as long as President Park remains tepid on renovation. She has to conduct bolder reforms, including a reshuffle of her cabinet.




By Lee Min-hyung



The government said Monday it has no plans to get tough with the local subsidiary of Google, denying the possibility of fining the U.S.-based search engine giant for its recent antitrust controversy.



This came as foreign media reported Sunday that the U.S.-based search giant faces a record fine of some $3.4 billion (4.69 trillion won) by the European Commission (EC).



"We do not have any plans to take the EC's decision into account and apply the same regulatory measures on Google Korea," said a Korea Communications Commission (KCC) official.



The European regulator's decision has had huge influence on the Korean government, as local watchdogs, including the KCC and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP), recently decided to revise the law amid growing attention over Google's antitrust controversy concerning its "non-removable" apps.



The controversy erupted last month when the EC issued a statement of objection that says Google has imposed restrictions on Android device manufacturers about installing pre-installed apps, which the regulator said is a clear breach of the EU's antitrust rules.



This caused a strong backlash from local users as well. Amid the rising debate over the same issue, the KCC said earlier this month that it is under discussion to finalize the revision no later than July in collaboration with the MSIP. This is in contrast to their previous stand where they only issued guidelines with no legal validity.



Critics said the move came as the Korean government was under pressure about the European regulator's decision and the ensuing controversy both at home and abroad.



The local watchdogs previously said the legal revision came as some business operators  including Google, handset manufacturers and mobile carriers, did not follow the guidelines, so they concluded that legal measures were necessary to prevent antitrust practices.



"At the moment, we are focusing on revising the law in a way to benefit customers. Other regulatory measures  including imposing fines  will not be taken against Google Korea," the official said.



He said the regulator will not ban the pre-installed apps, but enable users to delete the unnecessary apps. But the standard to decide which apps are unnecessary will take time, as each user has different needs from their smartphones and apps, according to the official.




LG claims it didn't steal Samsung commercial patent



By Kim Yoo-chul



Samsung Electronics asked its chief rival LG Electronics to drop its "deceptive marketing" by putting SUHD labels on some of the LG Electronics TV sets available in some overseas markets.



"Samsung Electronics Spain officially sent a protest letter to LG Electronics Spain to stop using the SUHD' logo on some of the LG TVs in some stores in that country," Samsung said in a statement, Monday.



Samsung, the world's top TV producer over the last decade, said LG Electronics stores in Spain used the Samsung-filed trademark logo  SUHD  on its Super Ultra HDTV, which is against fair competition.



Since 2014, Samsung Electronics has been using the SUHD logo on its premium TV lineup.



Samsung's SUHD-branded TVs are a variant of liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs but with improved viewing quality by using quantum dots  made of a non-cadmium selenide core surrounded by a zinc sulfide shell  which then transfer the absorbed energy to layers of nearby tin disulfide



"It's unique and the right of the trademark is owned by Samsung," said a company official.



Some LG Electronics stores in Canada and Singapore are said to promote their TVs calling them "SUHD" TVs, according to officials who are involved with the controversy.



LG Electronics claimed that there was no intention to usurp the trademark.



"LG Electronics has no reason to use the Samsung SUHD TV on LG products," LG said.



Samsung said LG made apologies for the mistake. But the world's TV leader said its "next plan" will be decided according to the development of each situation.



The "tit-for-tat" came after LG Electronics is moving full stride to promote its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV by urging Samsung to increase the OLED TV market.



But Samsung has been refusing to accept the LG plea as the company believes production yields of OLED TVs are still low given the continued lukewarm response from customers and the technological barriers that should be addressed.



OLEDs are much brighter and thinner as the technology doesn't require bulky backlighting; however, costs still matter.



The Samsung-initiated quantum dot tech is considered as the "competitive alternative" in offering more vivid images to customers without additional costs as the material is the right fit with the existing LCD technology.



Samsung Electronics TV chief Kim Hyun-seok recently told reporters that the company won't advance into the OLED TV market as OLED TVs are less attractive to consumers compared to the improved LCD TVs with the quantum dot technology.



"It seems unlikely that Samsung will take LG to court as LG notified Samsung that it is correcting the misunderstanding. But it's noteworthy to see which company's TV business strategy will work with consumers holding the key," he said.




Doctors managed to deliver a baby whose mother was killed in a crash on her way to a hospital to give birth.

Sarah Iler, 26, and the baby's father were driving from Cape Girardeau to Poplar Bluff on Wednesday when a tanker truck collided with their SUV. Cape Girardeau police Sgt. Adam Glueck says officers administered CPR in the hopes of saving Iler and the baby.

Iler died by the time she arrived at a hospital, but doctors performed an emergency cesarean section and delivered her daughter, Maddyson. The newborn was on a ventilator until Friday. Doctors don't know if she suffered brain damage due to a lack of oxygen.

The father, Matt Rider, suffered extensive injuries but is recovering.

___
A former St. Clair County sheriffs deputy pleaded guilty on Monday for his role in a wire fraud scheme. He joined a former county jail inmate who pleaded guilty three months ago.

Michael E. Mullaney, 54, of Lowry City, pleaded guilty on Monday for stealing public money. Co-defendant William Parker, 54, of Fort Ritchie, Fla., formerly of Urich, Mo., pleaded guilty on Feb. 5, 2016, to wire fraud.

Mullaney was a St. Clair County sheriffs deputy who arrested Parker for first-degree burglary on Feb. 20, 2010. While Parker was in jail, he and Mullaney devised a scheme to defraud Work Force West Virginia to claim unemployment benefits for Parker to which he was not entitled.

Mullaney admitted he obtained personal information from Parker in order to make Parkers claim for unemployment benefits through Work Force West Virginia. Mullaney completed an Internet form with Parkers personal information to fraudulently certify Parkers eligibility for unemployment benefits. Parker was not eligible for unemployment benefits because he was not available and willing to accept full-time suitable work while he was in jail.

As a result of the fraud scheme, Parker received $5,388 on a bank debit card between Feb. 25 and May 10, 2010.

Under federal statutes, Mullaney faces a sentence of up to one year in federal prison without parole. Parker faces a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencings will be determined by a judge based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.

Sentencing hearings will be scheduled after the completion of presentence investigations by the United States Probation Office.

This case was investigated by the FBI, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the St. Clair County Sheriffs Department and the Work Force West Virginia Unemployment Compensation Division.
The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary

Read more
File photo of LA Times building.



Newspaper company Gannett is raising the pressure on Tribune Publishing management to agree to a sale by upping its offer to $15 a share. The previous offer was $12.25 a share. The offer includes taking over the debt of the foundering TPub, which owns the Los Angeles Times and other papers, making the offer worth about $864 million. Tribune's boss Michael Ferro has said the company he recently joined is not for sale, and the board adopted a poison pill strategy that would destroy itself from within should a hostile takeover occur.

From this morning's Chicago Tribune:

"Gannett, with the assistance of its outside advisors, is ready to immediately engage with Tribune on an expedited basis," Robert Dickey, president and chief executive officer of Gannett, said in a news release.

"Our increased, all-cash offer provides Tribune shareholders with a significant premium of 99% and immediate, certain value. By not engaging constructively with Gannett," Dickey said, "we believe Tribune is jeopardizing its shareholders' investment and disregarding their best interests." [skip] The increased offer reflects additional analysis of Tribune financial statements filed earlier this month, and Gannett's "greater confidence in its ability to yield addition operating improvements" in the transaction, the company said. Gannett previously said it would save $50 million annually through the Tribune Publishing acquisition.



Tribune's second-largest shareholder, the LA investment firm Oaktree Capital Management, had said even before the revised offer that it wants Ferro and his board to consider the bid. If nothing else, Tribune publishing's stock is up now that there is someone interested in paying a lot for it. Today's price was $14.10 in pre-trading.

* Added: Ken Doctor weighs in and says he has been told that Gannett is willing to go to an even higher third offer. Also this: "The end of one newspaper era is clearly ending. With print ad revenue in a death spiral, consolidation  deeper and wider cost-cutting is happening, usually quietly, across the country. Consolidation  rounding fewer wagons around smaller cash flows  is the name of the game."
Liberte Chan was doing the weather on KTLA's Saturday morning show in a sparkly black sleeveless dress when a person from off-camera handed her a sweater and told her to put it on. Were getting emails," the male voice said. Chan donned the gray cardigan and seemed bewildered, saying "I look like a librarian." OK, so it got played around the web and social media as KTLA slut-shaming Chan for looking on the early show a little like she just came in from a night out. But a few things immediately came to mind about that if you actually live in LA and know KTLA.

First, if anything KTLA and the other stations in town seem to want their female weather reporters to push the edge in how they dress, not tone anything down. Second, there was nothing revealing or provocative about the dress. It may have been jarring to viewers used to seeing Chan dress differently, but then again, maybe it actually wasn't. Third, KTLA doesn't exactly play its morning shows straight. There's a lot of joking and unplanned commentary that goes on, and sure enough Chan says in her "personal thoughts" posted Sunday night that she just went along with the anchorman's joke.

For those who missed what happened Saturday, March [sic] 14th, I was wearing a black, beaded sparkly dress and apparently, the station received a slew of negative emails from viewers saying the dress was inappropriate for air.

Ive worked on-air for 10 years and by now, Ive learned that everyone has an opinion and you have to have a thick skin to work in this business. Its a visual medium and sometimes your outfit works and sometimes it doesnt. During the 8 am hour, my co-anchor came over and handed me a sweater and said, were getting a lot of emails. I was surprised since I hadnt seen any of the emails and didnt think there was anything that inappropriate (the beads/sequins were probably a little much for the morning, but what girl doesnt like something that sparkles?!), so I played along and put on the sweater... To be perfectly honest, the black beaded dress was a backup. The pattern on my original black and white dress didnt work on the weather wall (for some reason, it turned semi-transparent), so after my first weather hit at 6am, I changed. For the record, I was not ordered by KTLA to put on the sweater. I was simply playing along with my co-anchors joke, and if youve ever watched the morning show, you know we poke fun at each other all the time.



Chan writes that she has been asked for many interviews about the dress. There has been coverage so far in Variety, Boing Boing, the Daily Mail, Mashable and the usual places that run with whatever clickbait meme is available to meet the quota on a given day  and this was Saturday gold for the pageview slaves.

By the way, Chan posts a pic of the original dress she changed out of on her blog. And on Sunday morning's show, she wears an equally sleeveless dress: no sweater joke, no controversy.

Also by the way, "weather babe" in my headline is not a pejorative about Chan or the other weather reporters and anchors on LA stations. It's an apt descriptive and commentary on how the stations decide, in this era, to package the weather report and market their female weather reporters. It's a shorthand name for the part in the play she and the others are cast in. Chan is on her second stint at KTLA, having returned in 2010. From her page at the station's website:

Liberte earned her certificate in meteorology from Mississippi State University in August, 2015. She also has a masters degree in Public Health from USCs Keck School of Medicine, plus a certification in broadcast journalism from UCLA and a bachelors degree in Journalism from University of Massachusetts Amherst. She graduated early from college, spending her last semester studying abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Liberte was born and raised in Los Angeles and grew up as a competitive figure skater and was nationally ranked in both singles and pairs....







Added Monday from an LAT film writer:
PRESS RELEASE

Putin and Abe To Follow Up Their Highly Successful Meeting

May 15, 2016 (EIRNS)More details of the meeting of President Vladimir Putin in Sochi earlier this month with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reveal an eight-point bilateral economic cooperation roadmap, that the Japanese premier has put on the table. Abes eight-point proposal includes building liquefied natural gas plants, as well as ports, airports, hospitals and other infrastructure, mainly in the Russian Far East, Sergei Guneyev wrote in Sputnik today. An observer close to the Abe administration also confirmed to the EIR that the meeting between the two leaders was "highly successful" and portends a period of strongly improving ties, despite Obamas efforts to undermine the relationship.

In an interview with Radio Sputnik, Prof. Toshihiko Ueno of Japans Sophia University said the economic cooperation plan proposed by Japan was bound to have a strong impact on the EU.

"Aside from the economic effect it might have, the [eight-point cooperation roadmap] would definitely have a symbolic meaning and eventually lead to a lifting of the anti-Russian economic sanctions by many European countries which are willing to resume mutually-beneficial economic cooperation with Russia,"

Professor Ueno said.

During the Sochi meeting, Prime Minister Abe invited President Putin to discuss the matter in greater detail in a visit to his native Yamaguchi Prefecture. Putin readily agreed to come, Professor Ueno reported, a visit which is expected to take place this year.

An Interfax report on May 7, citing Japanese Foreign Ministry Press Secretary Yasuhisa Kawamura, said President Putin has invited Prime Minister Abe to attend the second Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Sept. 2-3, and Abe is expected to attend. The Forum will bring together business and government representatives to discuss the economic potential of Russias Far East and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as investment opportunities.
Donald Trumps supposed commitment to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is one of the positions said to set him apart from Republican orthodoxy, which has the knives out for all such programs.

During his campaign launch last June, Trump pledged to save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security without cuts. During a Republican debate in March, he said, Its my absolute intention to leave Social Security the way it is. Not increase the age and to leave it as is.

But as Zaid Jilani of the Intercept points out, the staff appointments of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee point in exactly the opposite direction. Among Trumps top advisors are two men who have campaigned for years in favor of privatizing or otherwise cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and disability benefits. Theyve often done so while showing a lack of understanding about these programs or the consequences of their proposals.

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53% of the children on the program are not real physically disabled... basically what it is, is becoming a substitute welfare program.  Trump advisor John Mashburn on child disability, in 2012

Jilani shines the spotlight on two particular advisors: Sam Clovis, a former Rick Perry campaign aide who joined the Trump campaign in August as national co-chair and senior policy advisor, and John Mashburn, an anti-abortion campaigner and longtime right-wing culture warrior whom Trump named policy director earlier this month.

Lets look at their records.

At last weeks 2016 Fiscal Summit of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Clovis walked back Trumps pledge to leave Social Security and Medicare untouched. After the administration has been in place, then we will start to take a look at all of the programs, including entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, Clovis said, according to the Wall Street Journal. Well start taking a hard look at those to start seeing what we can do in a bipartisan way.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks disputed that Clovis words even remotely hinted at cuts. But he has argued strongly in the past for privatizing Social Security and Medicare as a way to cut their costs. In 2014, while running in Iowa for the U.S. Senate, Clovis told the Des Moines Register that he was a strong believer in bringing private models to both Medicare and Social Security. For those below the age of 45 .... we need new systems for both.

He also favored block-granting Medicaid -- an easy step, he said, that would allow states to administer the program based on state needs. Medicaid experts have observed, however, that some states have taken advantage of flexibility in Medicaid eligibility to cut off all but the most destitute families. Alabama and Texas, for example, limit Medicaid to families earning less than 18% of the federal poverty level, or $3,629 a year for a family of three.

Mashburn long has been an advocate of cutting social programs. In a 2012 interview with Ben Domenech of the right-wing Heartland Institute that Jilani unearthed, he also plumped for block-granting Medicaid. Notably, he also took a swipe at disability recipients, particularly children on the Supplemental Security Income disability program. (The exchange begins at the 20:39 mark of the recording, which can be found here.)

There are 650,000 children on that program that... 53% of the children on the program are not real physically disabled, he stated. They are learning-disabled in schools and stuff. Basically what it is, is becoming a substitute welfare program.

Mashburn went on to assert that parents were gaming the system by putting their children on drugs. Basically, to qualify for that program, kids have got to be on psychotropic drugs, he said. In order to get a check, people are putting their kids on these drugs...for $1,000 a month benefits.

This is a remarkable agglomeration of fantasy, urban legend and sheer misrepresentation, coming from someone the Heartland Institute identified as an authority on social programs, and who now occupies the highest echelon of a leading GOP presidential campaign.

The notion that disability is a substitute welfare program is a cherished shibboleth of the right. Among its core documents is a discreditable 2010 article in the Boston Globe cited by Mashburn. Heres the truth, as we reported in 2013.

Contrary to the Globes assertion that parents were placing their kids on hyperactivity drugs so theyd qualify for disability, government investigators found the opposite  kids on those medications were more likely to be denied benefits. Of kids reported to be taking psychotropic drugs, more than two-thirds (68%) were rejected for SSI disability. As Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities observed, the qualification standards for children were, and are, stringent. Only about 40% are accepted.

Its true that many of the 1.3 million children on SSI disability arent physically disabled. That doesnt mean they dont need help. About 11% are autistic, 21.4% have developmental disorders, and 8.9% have an intellectual disability. To qualify, these disorders have to be severe and, yes, disabling. Just because Mashburn cant identify them by eyeballing children for physical disabilities doesnt mean theyre nonexistent.

As for those checks, theyre not $1,000 a month and never have been. Currently, the maximum monthly SSI benefit is $733, much of which will go to treating and caring for a disabled child. At the time Mashburn was displaying his expertise to the Heartland folks, the maximum was $698 and the average benefit for a disabled child was $615.

Will a Trump administration do all its policy-making this way? The prospect is unnerving. Its one thing for Trump to proclaim that he sees no need to cut social programs, but none of his promises will hold water as long as he surrounds himself with experts who dont know what theyre talking about.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.
Like so many entrepreneurs these days, Adam Glickman believes his company is making the world a better place. In his case, it's doing so one funny condom at a time.

His Los Angeles company, Graphic Armor, sells condoms with custom and stock graphics printed right on the latex. Tie-dyed? He's got 'em. Leopard skin and camouflage ones, too. Even "Star Wars" condoms with an image of Darth Vader and the message "I will not be your father."

"Graphic Armor built a platform that lets anyone customize their own condom like they would a coffee mug or a T-shirt," Glickman said. "It's a powerful tool to break down stigmas that have surrounded condom use for decades."

At least that's part of the pitch that he'll use to convince investors to give him the cash Graphic Armor needs to pay for advertising, buy equipment and get its printing process approved for overseas sales by foreign regulators.

But the pitch isn't aimed at private equity firms, venture capitalists or money managers. It's aimed at, well, everyone.

Graphic Armor will be among the first companies to attempt to raise money by selling stock through a Kickstarter-esque crowdfunding campaign open to anyone who has just a few hundred bucks to invest.

New rules that allow for those campaigns take effect Monday, a development that could give small companies access to billions of dollars in capital  and expose small-time investors to serious losses.

Over the next few weeks, dozens, perhaps even hundreds of start-ups like Glickman's are expected to begin pitching investors. Most will have little, if any revenue, few will be profitable and none will be required to provide a prospectus with audited financial results.

Instead, many of these small firms hope to copy what filmmakers, artists and product designers have been doing for years through Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other crowdfunding sites: connecting with fans willing to back their enthusiasm with cash.

The difference is that instead of soliciting a donation or selling a product, as companies do through those sites, Graphic Armor and other firms are selling stock.

The promise of equity crowdfunding is your fans become owners.  Adam Glickman

"The promise of equity crowdfunding is your fans become owners," said Glickman, who's hoping to raise $1 million, the maximum allowed under the new rules. "There's the potential to deepen the relationship between the brand and its fans."

Other companies that plan to start raising money include a social networking site to help musicians find bandmates and paying gigs, an on-demand services company that serves only the southwestern corner of New Hampshire and a tech start-up focused on the medical marijuana business.

The new equity crowdfunding rules, approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission last year, are the final piece of the Jobs Act, a 2012 law aimed at making it easier for small companies to raise capital.

Other new investment rules that stem from the Jobs Act already have loosened restrictions to allow larger companies to publicly seek investments from wealthy or so-called accredited investors  ones who make at least $200,000 a year or have assets, other than their home, worth at least $1 million.

Another Jobs Act provision has allowed mid-sized firms to stage small initial public offerings without all of the reporting requirements of big companies.

But the new rules represent the centerpiece and most anticipated part of the act, which President Obama said would help businesses take off and ramp up both hiring and innovation.

"Start-ups and small business will now have access to a big, new pool of potential investors  namely, the American people," Obama said at the Jobs Act signing ceremony. "For the first time, ordinary Americans will be able to go online and invest in entrepreneurs that they believe in."

And they'll have plenty to choose from.

The companies will have to work with firms called funding portals  the equity crowdfunding equivalents of Kickstarter. Ron Miller, chief executive of Santa Monica portal StartEngine Crowdfunding, said at least four and as many as seven companies will start pitching investors through his portal beginning Monday.

Within the next few weeks, he expects to have as many as 15 start-ups raising money. And StartEngine is just one of a handful of portals already approved by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or Finra. Dozens more have applied to do the same.

"We could see somewhere between 100 and 200 offerings made available to everyone" over the next month, Miller said.

Though the firms are all tiny, that's a large number of offerings. Last year, 170 companies went public through a traditional initial public offering. So far this year, just 22 companies have similarly gone public, according to investment firm Renaissance Capital, which tracks IPOs.

The cost of preparing for a traditional initial public offering can easily run into the millions, typically more than what these start-ups are seeking to raise. Selling shares in an equity crowdfunding offering is much cheaper and comes with fewer requirements.

Crowdfunded firms have to provide financial statements that are reviewed, but not audited, by an accountant. Several of the firms estimate their legal and accounting costs have run from about $10,000 to $20,000. The firms also have to report to investors annually rather than quarterly.

However, the equity crowdfunding platforms come with significant limitations.

Firms can raise no more than $1 million a year, and individual investors are supposed to invest no more than a small percentage of their annual income in these new offerings.

For those making less than $100,000 a year, the cap is 5% of income. For those making between $100,000 and $200,000, the cap is 10%, though experts say those caps are based on self-reported information and it won't be hard for individuals to invest more than they should.

Any cash investors do park in these firms will be tied up for a while. Unlike traditional shares of stock, which can be bought and sold at any time, crowdfunding shares can't be sold for at least a year.

Even if investors could sell, it's not clear how that would work. Though Miller's StartEngine is working on building a secondary market  essentially a stock exchange  no such exchange exists yet.

Mark Hiraide, an attorney who has written a book on the new crowdfunding rules, said crowdfunding investors can expect to be able to cash out only if the company is acquired by a larger firm or goes public in a traditional IPO.

Beyond those two options, "Investors need to understand there is not a viable exit," he said.

I don't see why anyone would do this unless they had a lot of money, which is why investing in start-ups has been limited to accredited investors.  Ross Gerber

Ross Gerber, chief executive of Santa Monica's Gerber Kawasaki Investment Management, said that's just one of the reasons investors should proceed with caution or avoid these kinds of investments altogether.

"You're making high-risk investments with no liquidity," he said. "I don't see why anyone would do this unless they had a lot of money, which is why investing in start-ups has been limited to accredited investors."

He points out that most small businesses fail within a few years, and it's likely that many of the companies that raise money through crowdfunding won't make it.

Of course, that's why the rules aim to limit investors' exposure  you can't lose your whole nest egg, the thinking goes, if you invest at most a few thousand dollars. And it's possible that some of these companies could turn into big hits.

One example proponents of equity crowdfunding like to bring up is Oculus, the Irvine virtual-reality start-up that raised $2.4 million in a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in 2012. Instead of stock, some backers got nothing more than a T-shirt. Not quite two years later, Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion.

Still, with that upside, there are red flags. Among the potential reasons these companies are looking at crowdfunding is that they've been rejected by traditional investors.

Take Santa Monica's Gigmor, the creator of a social network where musicians can meet bandmates and find gigs. Founder David Baird said he first reached out to a few venture capital firms but found little interest.

"Like any Santa Monica start-up, we talked to a few VCs," he said. "But not many VCs saw the opportunity we saw in music. A lot of them were afraid of music."

TurtleWise, a social networking company that wants to match people looking for advice ("seekers") with qualified mentors ("gurus"), tried still other ways to raise capital.

Chief Executive Kevin Walker said he met with about a dozen angel investors  wealthy individuals who back early-stage companies  and even went to the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, to drum up interest in his company.

He also pitched investors through sites such as Crowdfunder and Gust, which present investment opportunities to accredited investors. But there were no takers.

All of the investors he met with wanted to see the company attract more users and bring in revenue before investing. TurtleWise, which launched in March, has attracted only 700 users and hasn't brought in a cent.

"There was a lot of skepticism," Walker said. "They said, 'We're not sure how you're going to get people to pay for this.' Hopefully, we'll find some regular people who believe in what we're doing."

Then there's Graphic Armor. Unlike TurtleWise and Gigmor, the company hasn't sought outside investment  despite selling about $50,000 worth of condoms over the past 18 months, enough to break even, Glickman said.

He sees crowdfunding not as a last resort, but as a way to raise capital without involving professional investors, including angels and venture capital firms.

"There can be great benefits of having smart money, but it comes with costs," he said. "You often have to give up preferential rights. You might have to give up a board seat. All those things can be quite daunting for founders."

The new crowdfunding rules allow the companies to offer two varieties of common stock: "voting," which gives investors a say in how a company is run, and "non-voting," which doesn't and is the choice of Graphic Armor's campaign and many others that are set to debut.

Of course, having hundreds or thousands of small investors also means an equal number of fans spreading the word about, in this case, condoms with custom graphics.

"You get to build a small army of brand evangelists," Glickman said. "You have a community of people who believe in your product, believe in your brand and will hopefully speak well of you and your products. I see that as a huge asset."

Here is a sampling of companies that plan to raise money through new equity crowdfunding platforms:

NextRX

Headquarters: Las Vegas

Business: Developing electronic patient record system, payment platform and loyalty program for medical marijuana dispensaries

Equity stake for sale: 2%

Funding goal: $100,000

Use of proceeds: Build out system, register more dispensaries and patients

Why crowdfunding?: Raising money in this industry is bloody difficult, said founder Ralf-Rainer von Albedyhll.

TurtleWise

Headquarters: Still looking; founders live in different states

Business: Creating a social network where people looking for advice can meet mentors

Equity stake for sale: 10%

Funding goal: $1 million

Use of proceeds: Start marketing campaign, add mobile to TurtleWise platform

Why crowdfunding?: CEO Kevin Walker said angel investors and venture capitalists expressed a lot of skepticism.

Graphic Armor

Headquarters: Los Angeles

Business: Sells condoms with custom graphics printed on the latex

Equity stake for sale: up to 25%

Funding goal: $100,000 to $1 million

Use of proceeds: Buy equipment, start marketing campaign, get sales approval from overseas regulators

Why crowdfunding?: Your fans become owners, founder Adam Glickman said.

Gigmor

Headquarters: Santa Monica

Business: Developing social network where musicians connect with bandmates and gigs

Equity stake for sale: Would not disclose

Funding goal: Would not disclose

Use of proceeds: Develop network, build mobile app, hire marketing and customer support

Why crowdfunding?: Not many [venture capitalists] saw the opportunity we saw, founder David Baird said.

Webusal

Headquarters: Santa Monica

Business: Developing app that maps users web browsing and recommends additional sites

Equity stake for sale: 20%

Funding goal: $550,000

Use of proceeds: Application development to show more polished product to professional investors

Why crowdfunding?: Its not to the point of refinement we want yet, founder Elizabeth Nielsen said.

james.koren@latimes.com

Twitter: @jrkoren
Pfizer Inc. is acquiring Anacor Pharmaceuticals Inc., a California company with a potentially lucrative eczema treatment, in a deal valued at about $5.2 billion.

Anacors topical treatment for eczema, called crisaborole, is under review by the Food and Drug Administration. If approved, Pfizer said it believes peak year sales could reach or exceed $2 billion. Anacor, based in Palo Alto, also holds the rights to a topical treatment for toenail fungus called Kerydin.

See more of our top stories on Facebook >>

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Albert Bourla, group president of Pfizers global innovative pharma and vaccines, oncology and consumer healthcare businesses, said in a statement that the buyout is attractive because it provides an opportunity to address a significant unmet medical need for a large patient population with eczema. Bourla said that there are few safe topical treatments available for the condition.

Pfizer Inc. is to pay $99.25 per Anacor share. Thats a 55% premium over Anacors Friday closing price of $64.03.

Anacors stock was up more than 55% on Monday morning, trading as high as $99.86.

Pfizer expects the transaction to add to its adjusted earnings per share starting in 2018 and increasing after that. The New York company does not expect the acquisition to affect its 2016 financial outlook.

SIGN UP for the free California Inc. business newsletter >>

The boards of both companies have approved the deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter.

MORE FROM BUSINESS

Warren Buffetts company buys 9.8 million Apple shares

Gannetts bid for Tribune Publishing jumps to $15 a share

Want to invest in a social network? How about a condom company? Nows your chance
Wendell Pierce, who plays Teddy in the CBS reboot of The Odd Couple and is known for his work on The Wire, was arrested early Saturday morning in an Atlanta hotel.

Mr. Pierce made no indication he was famous, Officer Kim Jones, an Atlanta Police Department spokeswoman, said Monday. The arrest at the Loews Hotel, where he was a guest, was treated like any other, she said, and did not rise to anything significant.

The actor, who played Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in Confirmation and has been seen on Ray Donovan and in Selma, was booked on suspicion of simple battery, according to the Fulton County inmate records website. He was released the same day after posting $1,000 bail, the website said. Pierce has been on location in Atlanta filming the movie One Last Thing with Jurnee Smollet-Bell.

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Pierce, a Hillary Clinton supporter, has been speaking out strongly on his Twitter account against Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president. The arrest may have been connected to a discussion of politics in the hotel bar that got heated, according to TMZ, which said police were called around 3:30 a.m. after Pierce and a woman supporting Bernie Sanders squabbled.

No incident report was immediately available Monday, Jones said. Pierces publicist did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

MORE:

Beyonce leads fans into Formation at the Rose Bowl

Emma Watson makes surprise appearance in Panama Papers

Sinead OConnor responds to Arsenio Halls $5-million libel lawsuit
8:37 A.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE

Cannes: The happy marriages of Jeff Nichols Loving and Jim Jarmuschs Paterson

Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton in Loving. (Focus Features)

Though he could scarcely be accused of making the same movie twice, Jeff Nichols has established a set of cinematic themes and preoccupations as consistent as those of any American writer-director working today. Stories of the rural South, rich in mythic undertones and the odd apocalyptic portent. Families that come under threat. Brooding, laconic men of action, usually played by Michael Shannon. Fiercely resilient women. Immaculate visual and rhythmic control. And, as seen in the recent Midnight Special, many, many shots of people behind the wheel, often at night.

There are a few of those signature nocturnal driving scenes in Loving, Nichols second film of 2016, his second film to premiere in competition at Cannes (after Mud in 2012), and in some ways both his least typical and his most emblematic work to date. It tells the fact-based story of Richard and Mildred Loving (played by Joel Edgerton), a Virginia couple whose mixed-race marriage  he was white, she was black  challenged the social expectations of the era and ultimately led to the Supreme Courts 1967 civil rights decision against the prohibition of interracial marriage.

It sounds like prime Oscar-bait on paper. And sure enough, the films well-received press screening had barely ended before the first wave of awards handicapping erupted on Twitter  much of it focused on how the radiant Negga will singlehandedly dispel the curse of #OscarSoWhite. Maybe she will. But Id like to think at least some of the films applause was in appreciation of how largely un-baity it plays on screen, some overly insistent musical cues aside. Its the sort of movie whose flaws and familiarities wind up revealing its makers strengths: Nichols direction is clear-eyed and restrained, almost to a fault, and he refuses every opportunity to grandstand.

In this he is operating very much in line with his characters, whom we never once hear extolling the importance of what theyre doing, or raising their voices or fists to those trying to tear their family apart. Nichols keeps the Lovings front and center, cutting away only when he must. When Richard refuses to attend the Supreme Court hearings and listen to the states noxious arguments on the dangers of miscegenation, the film honors his decision and keeps its distance as well. Nichols seems almost relieved at being able to skip the usual courtroom histrionics.

The Lovings struggle is one of quiet, incremental persistence, their bond a force as permanent and elemental as the sun-kissed Virginia fields where they strive to make their home. The applicability of their story to Americas ongoing marriage-equality debate is implicit but goes entirely unmentioned. Specificity, self-control and humility are the hallmarks of Nichols approach.

Negga and Edgerton are both outstanding, and at times their characters mutual devotion acquires an almost comic tinge. Mildred gently takes the lead in most of their decisions, smiling agreeably as a lawyer (a slightly jarring Nick Kroll) steers them this way and that, while Richard frowns in silence, his spirit willing but his mouth frozen in a pucker of revolt. Edgerton is playing one of Nichols quintessentially decent, inarticulate men, the kind of guy usually played by his Midnight Special co-star Michael Shannon, who turns up here as a friendly Life magazine photographer assigned to show the world who the Lovings really are.

Which is, in the end, the goal of Nichols film as well. Richard and Mildred are not the most vigorous or demonstrative of protagonists, which makes Loving feel at once scrupulously honest and dramatically under-powered. That seems to suit Nichols just fine. The unalloyed perfection of his characters relationship may not make for the most urgent drama, but it makes their moral high ground that much more unassailable. The final shot underscores perhaps the overriding theme of Nichols work: an urgent yearning to return home, even if it means building one anew.

*****

Adam Driver and Golshifteh Farahani in Paterson. (Amazon Studios)

The Cannes programmers must have seen fit to schedule Loving as the second half of a double bill with Jim Jarmuschs wonderful Paterson, another portrait of a happy marriage between a white man and a woman of color. The similarities end there: The characters ethnicities go unmentioned in Paterson, and the film itself is unlikely to be confused for Oscar-bait anytime soon.

Working in a mode that feels both completely accessible and richly personal, Jarmusch spends two hours observing a week in the humdrum life of a bus driver in Paterson, N.J. Every morning he rises at 6 a.m., eats breakfast, smiles at his wifes plans for the day (usually involving curtain or cupcake decoration), drives his bus, goes home for dinner, walks their ill-tempered English bulldog (an impudent scene-stealer), and ends the night at a local bar.

The driver is played by Adam Driver, and whether that casting was a happy coincidence or the joke from which the movies central conceit arose, we have every reason to be grateful. For the bus driver is not just a bus driver but a poet, scribbling warm, intuitive free-verse observations in a notebook he keeps with him at all times. And Paterson itself is a sort of poem  one with its own delicately calibrated internal structure, predicated on a cleverly sustained scheme of rhyme and repetition.

Jarmuschs screenplay is a marvel of intricate visual and verbal gamesmanship. Mysterious doublings recur throughout: Drivers driver not only lives in Paterson but also is named Paterson. William Carlos Williams becomes a significant plot device. Lines of dialogue in one scene are replicated, with uncanny accuracy, a few scenes later. Characters from a movie by another American indie darling make a delightful surprise appearance. One of Patersons poems invites us to consider the beauty of a book of Ohio Blue Tip matches, and if your brain works the way mine does, youll immediately think of matches in the other sense, perhaps in stealth reference to the identical twins who keep popping up in the background.

A work of becalmed eccentricity and unforced charm, Paterson is a portrait of an artists world, and how that world  presented here as recognizably mundane, and yet touched by a sort of cats-cradle enchantment  can provide him or her with inspiration, nourishment and an inevitable dose of failure. Driver, whose career from Girls to Kylo Ren has been a succession of off-the-wall surprises, gives a performance of great, taciturn melancholy. Sacrificing the boisterous comic personality he brought to movies like While Were Young and What If has taken him to soulful new depths as an actor. (Also, if that is indeed his scrawl we see on the screen, he has lovely penmanship.) As his wife, the superb Golshifteh Farahani is a perpetually upbeat figure, comically idealized in ways that somehow only deepen the movies wellspring of melancholy.

When it was announced that Paterson was Cannes-bound, a colleague warned me that hed heard it was extremely minor Jarmusch. That didnt bother me in the slightest: His previous work, Only Lovers Left Alive, slipped into Cannes 2013 with little early fanfare and emerged one of the festivals unexpected highlights. And since the directors brand of low-wattage indie minimalism has always insisted that we learn to see the beauty in the small and everyday, as well as in the neglected and rarefied, it stands to reason that his minor effort might in fact turn out to be the deepest, truest expression of his ethos as an artist.

The tedious common line on Jarmusch is that his filmmaking, like so much poetry, is too idiosyncratic to be savored by more than an appreciative few. The unfashionable wit, delicacy and modesty of Paterson would seem to confirm that truism, even as the emotional effect of the film utterly rebukes it. Jarmusch has made a movie for anyone whos ever felt out of step with the world  which is to say, a movie for everyone.
Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) has many distinguished titles, including Queen of Meereen, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons. Now its time to add yet another moniker.

Call her Queen of the Dothraki, for Dany has broken into -- actually burned down -- the ultimate old boys club.

In Book of the Stranger, Episode 54 of HBOs Game of Thrones, Dany torches all the Dothraki warlords who meant her unspeakable harm.

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Then she emerges like a goddess, untouched by the flames of a fully engulfed temple. Her newly converted subjects bow in awe.

According to tradition, Dany should have joined the widows of Dothraki leaders after her husband, Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), died. Instead, Dany chose a forbidden path by going out into the world, freeing slaves, raising dragons, etc.

When Dany is captured by Dothraki horsemen and taken to the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen, the clan leaders sit in judgment. Best case scenario, shell cohabitate with the widows. Worst case? Dont ask.

Boyfriend Daario Naharis (Michiel Huisman) attempts to rescue Dany with assistance from Ser Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen). But escaping from 100,000 Dothrakis is impossible, so all Daario and Jorah can do is bar the temple door once Dany is inside with the khals.

You are small men, Dany defiantly tells her captors. None of you are fit to lead the Dothraki. But I am. So I will.

Did you really think we would serve you? Khal Moro (Joe Naufahu) asks as the other men howl with laughter.

Youre not going to serve, Dany calmly replies. Youre going to die.

With that, Dany pushes over flaming cauldrons that incinerate the screaming khals. And because fire cant harm a dragon -- or the Mother of Dragons -- Dany strides out of the temple unharmed.

Its reminiscent of that famous scene in Season 1 when Dany emerged unscathed and unclothed from her husbands funeral pyre with three just-hatched dragons on her shoulders.

Back in Meereen, meanwhile, Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) practices diplomacy in Danys absence in order to quell an uprising by the Sons of the Harpy. These insurgents -- who nearly assassinated Dany -- are funded by wealthy families determined to restore slavery in Slavers Bay.

Dany recognizes that she erred by abolishing slavery without providing a system to replace it, Tyrion admits to representatives of the former ruling elite. So she offers a tempting proposal.

Slavery will never return to Meereen, Tyrion explains, but she will give the other cities of Slavers Bay time to adjust to the new order. Seven years of adjustment, to be precise, then all slaves will be liberated per Danys orders.

But former slave Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson), leader of Danys Unsullied warrior-eunuchs, warns that the masters cant be trusted or manipulated.

You will not use them, Grey Worm cautions Tyrion. They will use you. That is what they do!

Here are some other key developments in Episode 54:

 Cersei (Lena Headey) and Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) seek to overthrow the High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce) by enlisting the aid of Lady Olenna Tyrell (Diana Rigg) and her army. This will likely spark a civil war in Kings Landing. However, it should free Olennas grandchildren Queen Margaery (Natalie Dormer) and Ser Loras (Finn Jones) from the dungeon.

 After Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) reunites with her reanimated half-brother Jon Snow (Kit Harington) at Castle Black, they receive horrible news. Unless Sansa returns to her ruthless husband, Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon), hell murder the youngest Stark brother, Rickon (Art Parkinson), and slaughter all the Wildlings. A monster has taken our home and our brother, Sansa exclaims. We have to go back to Winterfell and save them both!

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Poke is having a moment in Los Angeles. And from the creative takes to the simple classics, the umami-rich medley of raw fish, rice and various toppings provides a great way to explore how craft beer can complement your meal.

Beer is a common accompaniment to scoops of poke on the islands, but picking the right brew to pair with your poke can be challenging. There are so many variations on the theme that specific pairing recommendations can be tricky. Its better to approach your beer selections with a few simple guidelines in mind.

The starting point for any successful food-and-beer match is to balance the strength of the flavors in the dish (spice, richness, sweetness and complexity) with the brews overall impact (bitterness, acidity and alcohol). The basic ahi poke is pretty mild, and the subtle sweetness of the yellowtail and nuttiness of the sesame oil can be easily overpowered by a pungent double IPA. A brew thats light and crisp is a better choice.

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The light lager is the typical go-to brew for islanders grabbing a poke bowl, but there are many options that offer more flavor and complexity, and pair even better with poke. Craft pilsners such as Pick Six Pils from Pizza Port Brewing or Firestone Walkers Pivo Pils balance hop character with a subtle malt sweetness. A more malt-accentuated helles-style lager works even better by tying in the rice and balancing the saltiness of the shoyu dressing.

Maui Brewing Co. founder Garrett Marrero calls Mauis Bikini Blonde lager a natural fit for ahi poke, saying: The bubbles lift the fish oils and clean the palate, and the tad bit of hop spice complements the ahi.

If youre getting into a more spicy bowl, Marrero recommends a hoppy IPA. The hoppy bitterness that defines the IPA style will actually intensify the heat.The citrus and tropical fruit flavors of many IPAs also find harmonies with any poke preparations that include fruit  such as the pineapple-and-chile tuna poke from Ohana Poke Co.

A dark and roasty beer can also be a great match for a poke with soy sauce, seaweed and tofu. The roasted malts help to soften the impact of these umami-rich ingredients on the palate and round out the flavors. Try an Irish dry stout (a traditional match for seafood and shellfish) or German schwarzbier. Jesse Houck, former brewmaster at Golden Road Brewing, and now director of brewing operations at Maui Brewing, said that a black lager is his go-to brew for a bowl of poke (especially Mauis pipikaula  a dried and cubed beef brisket often mixed with ahi).

One flavor combination you need to beware of is hoppy beers and salmon. In Beer Pairing: The Essential Guide from the Pairing Pros, authors Julia Herz and Gwen Conley say that salmons omega-3 oil molecules quickly become unstable when they come in contact with hops. The result is a metallic-tasting salmon, so avoid hoppy IPAs with salmon-based poke.

With so many options, it can seem overwhelming to find the perfect match, but experimentation is the best way to discover your favorite pairing. Any excuse to go back for more poke is welcome in our book. And remember, when in doubt, its hard to go wrong with craft pilsners or other golden lagers and a big bowl of ahi poke.

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Antonio Salieri, relegated by posterity to the shadows as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts journeyman contemporary, will always have Peter Shaffers Amadeus to augment his notoriety, if not his fame.

Shaffers 1979 drama, which gave rise to Milos Formans 1984 Oscar-winning film, is a drama about the relationship of these two composers, one a blazing genius underappreciated in his lifetime, the other a workaday talent far more adept at negotiating royal patronage.

In this ironic tale, suggested by a play by Alexander Pushkin, its the careerist Salieri, court composer and Viennese music scene eminence, who is the sun around which even Mozart must orbit. Although theres never any doubt about the identity of the real maestro. When Mozart tests out Salieris composition written in his honor, he cant help but make some on-the-spot improvements that instantly transform the work into something sublimely Mozartian.

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Amadeus is back at South Coast Repertory, where it was produced in 1983, riding a wave of excitement after its triumphs in London and New York. This revival, directed by Kent Nicholson and starring Marco Barricelli as Salieri, doesnt have the same excitement  an aroma of 80s nostalgia is in the Costa Mesa air  but its a handsome production and Barricellis performance sheds fresh light on the Catholic roots of Salieris madness.

Shaffers play, which begins with Salieri as an old, half-demented man confessing to the murder of Mozart (Asher Grodman), is built around a single idea  the capricious way artistic gifts are doled out in a world in which envy and mediocrity are never in short supply.

As the drama flashes back to Mozarts entry into the court of Joseph II (Peter Frechette), the emperor of Austria, we witness firsthand the outraged bewilderment of Salieri. Religiously devoted to music, he is stunned to discover that the young man touched by God with an inordinate capacity for composing is in fact an obscene child.

A crisis of faith ensues for Salieri, who doesnt understand how the mind responsible for such sublime music could be so grossly scatological. What does it say about the Almighty that an artist as low as Mozart could attain such lofty heights in his art? Salieri finds it especially galling that not only have his own prayers for greatness gone unanswered but that hes the only one equipped to truly appreciate Mozarts specialness.

Grodman doesnt mimic the impish cackle that Tom Hulce adopted in his screen portrayal of Mozart. A more subdued characterization, Grodmans Mozart may seem a touch more realistic to todays audience, but the performance lacks the eccentric color thats needed to animate the role.

Barricelli brings an overbearing hamminess to his portrayal of Salieri that can be fatiguing as the characters garrulous monologues stretch on. But this outsize approach suits the character and the occasion. The play belongs to Salieri  theres not a chance of Mozart upstaging him in the historical fiction Shaffer has constructed  and Barricelli never lets go of the reins.

Although Amadeus was an unqualified hit, Shaffer has recalibrated the drama over the years. The scene near the end in which Mozart, in failing health, struggles to write the Requiem, has been revised in a way that focuses attention on Salieris agonizing spiritual dilemma. Barricelli infuses Salieris last encounter with Mozart with a scalding guilt that is both illuminating and moving.

The supporting cast of Nicholsons production is solid all around. Two performances stand out: Frechette captures with comic affection the emperors doltishness, and Liesel Allen Yeager manages to convey both the ditzy ebullience and sorrowful loyalty of Mozarts wife, Constanze.

The scenic design by John Iacovelli establishes the background of late 18th century Vienna with attractive simplicity. Alex Jaegers costumes add to the festive rococo mood.

The production is an attractive eyeful, but it didnt convince me that the play is a modern classic. A rambling work that tries to stretch an anecdote into an epic, Amadeus too often opts to interpret itself through the gaseous musings of Salieri. This is a sign of the plays fragile (meager, really) dramatic foundation, which Forman covered up in his film with sumptuous visuals and even more sumptuous excerpts from Mozarts operas.

Salieris existential emergency  his renunciation of a God who could bestow greatness on a goofball  is interesting only because of the historical Mozart. Salieris last words to the audience  Mediocrities everywhere  now and to come  I absolve you all. Amen!  could be read as the playwright engaging in a form of dramatic criticism.

charles.mcnulty@latimes.com

------------

Amadeus. South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends June 5. $30- $82. (714) 708-5555 or www.scr.org. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
The other day, in a seaside cafe here, veteran cannabis journalist David Bienenstock gamely fielded my attempts to catch up on a subject I have failed to appreciate for far too long: the coming end of marijuana prohibition.

Earlier this month, the backers of a California initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana (including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and tech kabillionaire Sean Parker) said they had gathered enough signatures to make the November ballot. In the same week, the federal government dropped its long-standing case against Oaklands Harborside Health Center, the largest medical pot dispensary in the country.

California, with a thriving medical marijuana industry, already produces and sells more pot than any other state, including Colorado, Washington and Oregon, which have all legalized adult recreational use of marijuana. In California, we could see a tenfold increase in what is already a billion-dollar-plus industry, and this despite the continuing federal classification of marijuana as a dangerous substance with no medical value.

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Right now, a majority of Californians favor legalization. Latino voters, who strongly opposed a failed legalization measure in 2010, are increasingly leaning toward it as well.

The stars, finally, seem aligned.

This is Californias time to reemerge as the center of the cannabis economy and the center of cannabis culture, and thats whats so exciting, said Bienenstock, 40, who has just written a modest but charming weed primer, How to Smoke Pot (Properly): A Highbrow Guide to Getting High. A former High Times editor, Bienenstock, who lives near Santa Cruz, writes Vices Weed Eater column and produces Vices very funny cooking show, Bong Appetit.

Personally, I am not a weedinista. I hate feeling stoned. I dont think pot will save the world, and dependence, especially with younger users, can be a problem. But I do think, in some settings, it can work miracles.

A year ago, probably after hearing me knock pot smokers one too many times, David Downs, a San Francisco cannabis journalist, who is married to my niece, sat me down and explained something I hadnt known. There are two important components in marijuana. The primary psychoactive ingredient in pot is THC, which also has medicinal properties such as pain relief and nausea reduction. And theres CBD, a non-psychoactive ingredient that has been shown to be helpful for many ailments, including epilepsy, cancer pain and anxiety.

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Increasingly, researchers are investigating the health benefits of CBD. Growers, in turn, are meeting consumer demand for pot strains that are high in CBD and low in THC.

You can achieve a tremendous benefit from high-CBD marijuana and never feel stoned.

This was a revelation.

::

I recommend Bienenstocks book for people who want to know more about pot because its far more than a how-to guide.

It covers the history of cannabis, the biology of the plant, the many ways it is processed for human consumption, and some of the medical applications of its various compounds, which are only now starting to be accepted by the American medical establishment.

(Dr. Sanjay Guptas groundbreaking 2014 CNN special about a young girl whose uncontrollable epileptic seizures were radically diminished by CBD is often cited as a watershed moment. The girls family only became aware of CBD, Bienenstock said, after watching the reality show Weed Wars, featuring Oaklands Harborside dispensary. No medical professional had ever suggested they look into CBD.

How to Smoke Pot offers tips about pot etiquette (yes, do pass the dutchie on the left hand side; no, dont ever joke about being a cop) and how to handle being too high (lie down, stay hydrated, and remember that no one has ever died from a marijuana overdose).

Bienenstock is versatile; he also has advice on how to get a job in the incredibly diversified cannabis industry, how to make marijuana-infused butter, how to roll a joint in a windstorm. I saw him light one in a windstorm, a slightly less impressive feat.

He takes pains to explain why its so important to be vigilant and patient when ingesting edible forms of cannabis, which take effect much more slowly and make you much higher for far longer than smoked cannabis. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowds infamous 2014 misadventure with a cannabis-infused candy bar in Colorado is Exhibit A in how not to do it.

But above all, the book is a heartfelt plea to keep pot weird, a call for those who have worked so hard to bring an underground economy into the light to struggle against the forces of capitalism that would reduce an inherently spiritual substance into just another marketable commodity, like Twinkies.

Marijuana should transform capitalism, Bienenstock said, not the other way around.

I doubt that will be possible. Every month, it seems, the private equity groups, the technologists with their delivery apps, the PR firms hold yet another conference extolling the investment opportunities for the pot industry. I am on the mailing list of at least two fat glossy magazines dedicated to cannabis entrepreneurship.

For members of a long besieged group, who for years have risked their livelihoods and freedom to provide a drug that is far safer and far more beneficial than alcohol, this is a moment that is fraught with worry for the future.

Prohibition, for all its evils, Bienenstock said, acted in a way to protect this underground economy from capitalism.

If Californians vote to legalize marijuana six months from now, they will be validating what many already know to be true: Pot is no longer the counterculture.

It is, quite simply, the culture.

robin.abcarian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AbcarianLAT

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UC San Diego is expressing confidence that it can raise a record $2 billion in private donations over a decade, even though its struggling with internal problems and little support from alumni.

Questions about the health of its current capital campaign have sharpened since last month, when fundraising director Steve Gamer stepped down in a move that has yet to be fully explained. His hiring was touted as a central step in the universitys efforts to greatly expand giving from philanthropists and other contributors, but he left after just two years.

In recent weeks, campus officials have issued conflicting or incomplete statements about when the campaign started, when it will end and how the money will be spent.

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Chancellor Pradeep Khosla tried to bring clarity during an interview Thursday, saying the school is nearing the midpoint of a campaign to help underwrite the addition of 6,000 students and two or three new colleges on the La Jolla campus.

The goals include securing $250 million for scholarships, $250 million for endowed chairs, at least $400 million for the endowment and millions more for buildings, possibly including on-campus condos for faculty.

Khosla expressed optimism in part because the campus is about to surpass its annual fundraising record of $177.5 million, set last year. The mark could reach $190 million by the time the fiscal year ends June 30.

A one-year sum of $190 million is a lot for UC San Diego but not for other well-known institutions of higher learning in California. Last year, for example, Stanford raised about $1.6 billion  the highest amount in the country  while UC San Francisco generated nearly $609 million.

Khosla, who was hired as chancellor in 2012 partly based on his fundraising skills, indicated that UC San Diego might be able to climb into the $300-million-to-$400-million annual range.

Major capital campaigns are conducted in two phases. Schools start by quietly ramping up their fundraising and refining their goals. Then they announce the campaign publicly and try to increasingly build momentum. Such campaigns typically last five to seven years.

UC San Diegos first capital campaign raised $1 billion during a seven-year period that ended in 2007.

The university intended to go public with its second campaign in November, but Gamers departure is expected to delay that milestone until early or mid-2017.

Khosla said the setback wont undermine the campaigns primary objectives, particularly its efforts to better connect with its 168,000 alumni.

Less than 5% of the private donations UC San Diego secured last year came from alumni. The average for colleges nationwide was 28.3%.

The disparity reflects a fact that Khosla and other campus leaders acknowledge: UC San Diego has largely overlooked alumni during the bulk of its 55-year history, believing the state would provide most of the money it needs.

That attitude began changing in recent years as state support for the University of California system plummeted. In 2001, the state provided 23% of the systems revenue. By 2013, the figure had plunged to 10%.

Though the funding situation has improved since then, the toll on students has been deep: In the last decade, tuition and fees at UC San Diego have more than doubled, surpassing $13,000 per year.

During the same period, enrollment has soared by almost 8,000  to nearly 34,000.

All the while, UC San Diego has developed into one of the nations 10 largest research universities, raising about $1 billion a year for research. Thats a source of pride, but theres also growing concern that the school has emphasized research at the expense of student life.

We built our [research] reputation really fast, Khosla said. Its like an aggressive, career-oriented person who in the process of achieving something forgot that he had a family. So when he has wealth and fame, the kids are not connected back to him or her.

Now we are focusing on education, scholarship and access for the underprivileged, on [getting] more student advisors.

Theres also a bid to cultivate emotional attachment to the campus by making the university and its surrounding community livelier places to live and study.

The university is drafting plans for Gateway, a building complex that would provide it with a clearly defined front entrance. The complex is meant to be a widely recognized feature, much like Harvard Yard or Sather Gate at UC Berkeley. The San Diego trolley system is scheduled to stop at Gateway, another element meant to turn the site into the universitys social hub.

Such improvements would be welcomed by Slade Fischer of San Diego, who graduated from UC San Diego in 2006.

A degree from UCSD carries a lot of weight, said Fischer, who majored in urban studies and planning. Its a difficult and challenging school, but it doesnt foster the college experience. Nobody wants to stay on campus. Its like an island up there.

Some change is bound to occur: The university plans to add housing space for 10,000 students, much of it within the next five years.

But Khosla faces many challenges as he tries to implement these changes. The chancellor said the current capital campaign is understaffed.

In addition, the university has suffered from a weak alumni outreach program. In a recent report commissioned by UC San Diego, the consulting firm Bentz Whaley Flessner said more than 550,000 potential donors  everyone from alumni to corporations to foundations  have little or no connection to UC San Diego.

Thats worrisome, because historically nearly 80% of the universitys private gifts have come from donors with significant ties to the university.

The university also needs more big fish donors  people who can make transformative gifts. This might be achieved by selling naming rights to its schools, buildings and departments.

For instance, naming rights for the medical school can be bought for about $250 million.

Everything that we have is capable of being named, Khosla said.

gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @grobbins

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A majority bloc of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has split over how best to fund a wide-ranging plan to reduce homelessness.

Mark Ridley-Thomas and Hilda Solis  both labor-backed Democrats who are typically political allies  got into a heated exchange during two hearings last week over a proposal that would enable the county to pursue a new income tax on millionaires to address what many see as the regions growing crisis.

The county does not have the authority to raise income taxes and would need a change in state law to do it.

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In a vote last week, Solis temporarily blocked the proposal seeking state approval that would pave the way for a ballot initiative and later introduced one of her own asking for the county to look into how to use existing money more effectively.

City and county officials released plans earlier this year to get people off the streets and have been mulling the idea of asking voters for a tax increase to pay for new housing and services.

The most recent count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority found nearly 47,000 people on the streets and in shelters, a 5.7% increase from the year before, when the count showed a 12% increase from 2013.

County officials voted earlier this year to allocate $150 million for housing programs and other initiatives to reduce homelessness, but say nearly $500 million a year would be needed for such programs to make a significant dent in the problem. A state proposal that would raise $2 billion to build new housing for mentally ill homeless people statewide could defray much of the cost of construction, but would not pay for services.

Officials estimate that a millionaires tax similar to the existing statewide income tax on high earners that raises money for mental health services could raise $243 million a year for housing and services for the countys homeless.

A recent poll commissioned by the county found that 76% of the likely voters polled were supportive of a millionaires tax  enough to meet the two-thirds majority required to impose a new tax.

The respondents were more receptive to the high-income tax than to other options presented, including increasing sales or property taxes or taxing marijuana sales to pay for homeless programs. The sales tax proposal, which had the next highest approval ratings, would require a four-fifths vote of the board to put it on the ballot, which means it could be blocked by the panels two Republicans.

Supervisors Ridley-Thomas and Sheila Kuehl want the county to start pushing for a budget trailer bill that would grant the county the authority to place a measure on the ballot in November. If the state granted the authority, supervisors would need to take a separate vote to place the measure before voters.

The two Republicans on the board, Michael D. Antonovich and Don Knabe, expressed skepticism about pursuing a tax increase.

Solis, in a surprise move, joined them. At Tuesdays board meeting, in which the supervisors were slated to vote to begin lobbying the state, Solis said she had not been provided with a detailed breakdown of demographics of the people polled and had not received a breakdown of the results for each supervisorial district until Monday night.

She also contested the findings of the homeless count, saying she thought it had underestimated the problem in her east-county district and was concerned that the area would get less funding from a potential tax measure as a result.

Solis said afterward that she wanted the county to do its due diligence, including potentially commissioning another poll.

If L.A. County moves forward, she said, it needs to be in an informed and concerted way.

After a lengthy debate, the proposal was initially voted down and then rescheduled for this week. The supervisors will also discuss a separate proposal by Solis and Knabe to look at the nearly $1 billion a year the county spends on nonhousing-related programs for homeless adults  including emergency medical care, mental health services, welfare payments and incarceration  to see how money could be spent more effectively on the small population of chronically homeless people who account for the majority of the costs.

The budget bill will be adopted by June 15 and signed by June 31, giving county officials time to decide whether to place a measure on the ballot by the deadline of Aug. 9.

A number of other tax initiatives are likely to appear on the ballot in November, including tax measures for county parks and transportation projects and an extension of a statewide income tax increase passed in 2012.

Solis and Ridley-Thomas had another heated exchange at a budget hearing Wednesday, after Ridley-Thomas unsuccessfully proposed that the homeless tax item be scheduled for a set time at the next meeting, to prevent public speakers from having to wait around through the boards other business. After the proposal was first denied by Solis, who is the board chair, and then voted down, Ridley-Thomas got up and walked over to Solis chair. The two had an inaudible exchange that ended with Solis asking, Are you threatening me?

A transcript of the meeting only recorded Ridley-Thomas saying, All right, Hilda, before Solis exclamation. Solis declined to comment on the exchange. Ridley-Thomas maintained he had not made any threat and said, I dont quite know what she was responding to.

This is a significant issue and it is an urgent issue, he said. I find the entire set of circumstances to be quite surprising  but I think its time for us to demonstrate to the public that we are very, very serious about it, because they are.

Solis said Friday that she was still considering how she would vote on the proposal to seek state support for a millionaires tax. She said her separate proposal to look into existing funding was not intended to compete with it.

Im trying to be fiscally conservative here, with dollars we can control, she said.

abby.sewell@latimes.com

Twitter: @sewella

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About 20 environmental activists staged a sit-in Sunday afternoon at the entrance to the troubled Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility in the San Fernando Valley, calling on Gov. Jerry Brown to keep it closed permanently.

The Southern California Gas Co. facility has drawn national attention since Oct. 23 when one of its 115 wells began to spew massive amounts of gas into the atmosphere, forcing the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents from their homes. The well has since been capped.

The protesters began marching about 1 p.m. from a staging area up to the entrance of the gas facility in the hills above Porter Ranch. Many carried large photos of Jerry Brown, Eric Garcetti and other officials they blamed for not taking more aggressive action to address their environmental and health concerns.

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Some of the demonstrators sat down on the driveway to block vehicle traffic. For about three hours they recited several chants, including I dont know but Ive been told, SoCalGas has got to go! and Jerry Brown, shut it all down!

Los Angeles police officers stood nearby, but no arrests were made. A handful of security people from the gas company also kept watch on the protest, which appeared to have little effect on the facilities operations.

I think people are going to listen, said Mark Morris, a Granada Hills resident and a member of SoCal 350, one of the advocacy groups behind the protest. Weve got to bring attention to this, and historically this is the way to do it  people doing whatever it takes, even if it means risking arrest. It is a beautiful American tradition.

This facility has proven to be extremely dangerous, said Alexandra Nagy of Food and Water Watch, another advocacy group. The smells are still coming from this facility Thousands of people are still displaced.

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The natural gas leak prompted 8,000 families into temporary housing because of complaints of illness, including headaches, nosebleeds and vomiting. Many have filed lawsuits against the utility.

The leak was capped in February and the gas field has remained shut down. The odorous discharge prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to issue a moratorium on injecting gas into the storage operation until extensive testing ensures that the wells are safe.

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Energy agencies and the utilities that draw from the facility have defended its continued operation, casting it as a necessary supply source to ensure reliability of electric and gas service in Southern California.

A judge has ordered the company to continue paying housing and hotel for those who remain displaced, at least through this month, pending a hearing to review results of indoor air tests conducted by the L.A. County Department of Public Health

The leak and related expenses have cost Southern California Gas $665 million, almost all of it covered by the utilitys $1 billion insurance.

kim.christensen@latimes.com

Twitter: @kchristensenlat

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Despite struggles, UC San Diego confident it can raise $2 billion in private donations over a decade
Unions representing Los Angeles County sheriffs deputies and firefighters have pumped at least $800,000 into an independent expenditure committee supporting Kathryn Barger, chief of staff to county Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, in her bid to replace him.

Campaign finance statements posted Monday show that the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and Los Angeles County Firefighter Local 1014 have each contributed $400,000 to the outside committee set up to support Barger.

The committee, First Responders Supporting Barger for Supervisor 2016, reported spending about $328,000 as of last week on consultants, mailers and radio and television ads.

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The outside money could give Barger a boost into the runoff in the hotly contested race. Eight candidates are running to succeed Antonovich, who will be forced out by term limits at the end of the year.

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Barger is facing off against L.A. City Councilman Mitch Englander, who has maintained a narrow lead in fundraising; prosecutor Elan Carr; state Sen. Bob Huff; Palmdale businessman Raj Pal Kahlon; Altadena Councilman Billy Malone; Glendale Mayor Ara Najarian; and entrepreneur Darrell Park.

The majority of the candidates are Republicans, including Barger. Park, Malone and Kahlon are Democrats.

Englanders campaign fundraising committee reported raising $1.2 million as of last month, and Barger had raised a little more than $1 million.

Building trade unions, developers and other groups have contributed to an independent committee supporting Englanders bid. That independent expenditure committee has so far reported raising $273,500.

Barger has consolidated support among public sector unions, including Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents the largest share of county employees, and she is backed by the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

The federation issued a statement on behalf of the heads of the deputy and firefighter unions about their spending on Bargers behalf. In the statement, George Hofstetter, president of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, praised her for seeking out options and resources to reduce chronic line-level staffing shortages for sworn personnel in the L.A. County Sheriffs Department to protect our community from violence.

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Firefighters union President Dave Gillotte said Barger has fought to ensure our first responders have the tools to act quickly to protect our community from harm.

We trust Kathryn, shes earned it, he said.

Independent expenditure committees are legally barred from coordinating with the candidates they support and are not subject to the same fundraising limits as candidate-controlled committees, which are generally limited to about $1.5 million per election in county supervisor races.

Bargers campaign consultant, Bill Carrick, said those limits pose a challenge in the far-flung district with more than 1 million registered voters, and the infusion of outside money could provide a boost.

The county supervisorial financing system is really pretty restrictive for the candidates, he said.

As to the unions support for Barger, he said, They know her really well. Theyve worked with her.

NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>

Raphael Sonenshein, director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles, said its not surprising that outside groups are spending significant resources on the county race, given that competitive races are rare for seats on the powerful county board.

When you have such rare open seats, the stakes get high very quickly, he said.

Although labor support could be a political liability for a Republican candidate under some circumstances, Sonenshein said the fact that the money is coming from public safety unions would probably play better with conservative voters.

abby.sewell@latimes.com

Twitter: @sewella

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A hip-hop musical festival at Discovery Park in Sacramento took a turbulent turn Sunday after a fire led to several injuries and a man was killed during a fight.

The sold-out, KSFM-FM radio event that featured popular rap and hip-hop artists, including E-40, Fat Joe and Remy Ma, Tyga and Ty Dolla Sign was going smoothly until about 2:30 p.m. when a deep-fryer ignited a propane tank and caused a fire in one of the food tents.

The blaze triggered a stampede among the crowd of people, according to the Sacramento Fire Department.

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As the concertgoers ran away from the fire, several people were trampled and injured in the 302-acre park. Firefighters doused the flames, but had to quickly switch gears and treat the injured.

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The music played on at the 102.5 Live event with Los Angeles native Ty Dolla Sign taking a stage dive into an sea of screaming fans.

Sacramento and surrounding you never disappoint you made this an insane show!! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!!! the radio station wrote on Facebook.

But about three hours later and as the event was coming to an end, a fight broke out.

About three hours later, firefighters were flagged down after a 31-year-old man was severely injured during a fight, according to the Sacramento Police Department. The alleged attacker fled before police arrived on the scene.

Witnesses told KCRA-TV that several people were fighting nonstop.

The man was taken to an area hospital, where he later died.

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Homicide detectives are now investigating the death. The attacker remains at large.

Anyone with details about the fatal assault is urged to call the police departments dispatch center at (916) 264-5471 or Crime Alert at (916) 443-4357.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

For breaking news in California, follow VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter.

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In a major reversal, Gov. Jerry Brown is seeking state funds for a fledgling earthquake early warning system for California, which would allow for a limited rollout of alerts by 2018.

The governor has supported creation of the system, which can give as much as a minute of warning before shaking from a big earthquake hits urban areas. But until now, Brown and the state Legislature opposed providing funds from the states budget, arguing instead the money should come from only private and federal sources.

Brown changed his public stance in his revised state budget, asking the Legislature to allocate $10 million toward the system, which is being developed by the U.S. Geological Survey and university researchers.

Even though California is in earthquake country, it has fallen far behind other areas including Japan, Mexico and Taiwan in developing an earthquake warning system. The network for California and the rest of the West Coast has been repeatedly delayed because of a lack of funding.

This is going to be a huge boost to the build-out of the system. The infusion of state funding will allow us to surge forward, said Doug Given, the U.S. Geological Surveys earthquake early warning coordinator. We have the intent of doing limited public rollout by 2018.

Interested in the stories shaping California? Sign up for the free Essential California newsletter >>

(Los Angeles Times)

A limited rollout of the system in two years would mean that places such as classrooms, offices, shopping malls, amusement parks and police and fire stations could have ready access to alerts that would give seconds, and perhaps more than a minute, of warning before strong shaking comes in a big earthquake.

Even seconds of warning to drop, cover and hold on would save many lives in an earthquake. Beyond that, alerts would give doctors time to halt surgery and would instruct trains to slow down, preventing deadly derailments. Eventually, bigger benefits are expected: technology to open elevators at the next floor, sparing occupants from being trapped, and warnings that could halt the flow of natural gas through major pipelines, preventing catastrophic fires.

Ultimately, scientists plan to develop apps for mobile phones and computers that would give the public the early alerts.

See the most-read stories this hour >>

The early warning system works on a simple principle: The shaking from an earthquake travels at about the speed of sound through rock  slower than the speed of today's communications systems. That means it would take more than a minute for, say, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that starts at the Salton Sea to shake up Los Angeles, 150 miles away, traveling on the states longest fault, the San Andreas.

I think we're now on track to get this system up and running.  Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank)

The prototype system has had some early successes. When a magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit Napa in 2014, the system gave researchers in San Francisco about eight seconds of warning before shaking began. Earlier this year, 30 seconds of warning reached downtown L.A. before the ground shook from a magnitude 4.4 quake centered near Banning.

Browns decision marks a dramatic turnaround in fortunes for the warning system. Though the U.S. Congress and President Obama have kicked in millions for a West Coast system  most recently, $8 million for the current budget year, with another $8 million requested for next fiscal year that begins in October  officials in California, Oregon and Washington state had refused to make contributions from their own operating budgets.

Until now, California was particularly conspicuous in failing to contribute money to the system, since the state represents such a large share of the nations earthquake risk. Brown signed a law in 2013 calling for the creation of an earthquake early warning system, but the bill also explicitly prohibited the use of state general fund money to pay for it.

That prohibition expires on June 30. H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for Browns Department of Finance, said the time had come to give a jump-start to the system.

First public test of earthquake alert system rolls out at L.A. school >>

The benefits of having even a minimal amount of warning time can provide a significant amount of ability to respond quickly, Palmer said.

Mark Ghilarducci, director of the governor's Office of Emergency Services, said Brown has been tracking development of the network and believed now was a good time to get some catalyst funding from the state to get this kicked off.

The system can reduce the impact of a major earthquake and allow more rapid recovery, Ghilarducci said. We're very excited about it. We think this is one of our legacy programs. For a state like California, this will really bring a great benefit in the long run.

Already, Universal Studios has been studying how it would use earthquake early warnings at its campus. A fire station has tested how garage doors could open up automatically before the shaking begins, preventing the doors from being jammed by the earthquake. Warnings have been piped into science classrooms at Eagle Rock High School in Los Angeles, and trains on the BART commuter rail system in the San Francisco Bay Area are already programmed to slow down before shaking arrives.

This is going to be a huge boost to the buildout of the system. The infusion of state funding will allow us to surge forward.  Doug Given, U.S. Geological Survey earthquake early warning coordinator

Technological limitations with mobile phone service, however, mean that reliable warnings over the cellphone system could take a few more years to be a reality. The U.S. cellphone network isn't built for mass alerts where seconds matter, and a bottleneck makes it difficult to send a message to millions of people at the same time, Given said. It could be three to seven years before a solution is reached here.

A solution, however, is possible; early warnings are available by cellphone in Japan.

Though the governors proposed funding is a big step for the system, it does not come with ongoing funds to operate it. An earthquake early warning system for California alone will cost about $23 million to build and $12 million annually to operate; if Oregon and Washington are added in, the initial construction cost rises to $38 million, and the yearly cost to maintain it would be $16 million.

The proposed California funding, if approved, is important and very welcome because it will allow a rapid build-out of the ShakeAlert system in the state. But it wont allow us to set an open-for-business date if its one-time funding, William Leith, the USGS senior science advisor for earthquakes, said in a statement.

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Of the governors proposed $10 million, $6.875 million has been set aside for capital costs, such as seismic stations, GPS equipment, telemetry and microwave nodes, while $2.241 million is proposed to help educate people on how to properly react to alerts. The remainder of the money is to be used to figure out future financing and to pay for staffing.

Officials will also need to find more money to build out the entire network. The proposed money won't be enough to complete a build-out of the 1,115 stations needed across California; the state currently has about 470, mostly in highly populated areas around Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Too few sensors means that San Francisco could see slower warnings from a large San Andreas fault earthquake that starts in Humboldt and moves toward the Bay Area.

Los Angeles could also see delays in an earthquake that starts in Monterey County and barrels south along the San Andreas fault. At least four seismic stations need to detect an earthquake before an alert is triggered.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), who has championed federal funding of the warning system, praised Browns decision. He and others hoped it would encourage Oregon and Washington state to follow suit, and private industry to also contribute.

We now have full buy-in from California and the federal government, Schiff said in an interview. I think we're now on track to get this system up and running.... With this increment of funding, and the additional federal funding we hope to get this year, it should be a matter of a couple of years before we can build this system out.

NEWSLETTER: Get the day's top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>

The Legislature is required to pass a budget by June 15.

Other countries have already developed earthquake early warning systems after devastating quakes killed thousands of people. Mexico City has had a system since 1991, built after a 1985 temblor killed at least 9,500 people.

Japan built a nationwide early warning system after the 1995 Kobe earthquake killed more than 5,000 people. When the magnitude 9 quake hit east of Japan in 2011, many people in Tokyo, 200 miles from the epicenter, had 30 seconds of warning that the shaking was coming.

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ron.lin@latimes.com

Twitter: @ronlin
A federal appeals court decided Monday that a zoning requirement restricting the location of gun stores may violate a constitutional right to bear arms.

A panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit against Alameda County, ruling 2-1 that the county must justify a ban that prevents new gun stores from locating within 500 feet of a residential neighborhood.

If the zoning law amounts to total ban on new gun stores, it is likely to be unconstitutional, the majority suggested.

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The right to purchase and to sell firearms is part and parcel of the historically recognized right to keep and to bear arms, wrote Judge Diarmuid F. OScannlain, a Reagan appointee.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by businessmen who wanted to open a gun store in San Leandro, which borders the city of Oakland. The county initially approved a permit for the store, but a group of residents challenged it and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors revoked the permit.

According to the countys way of measuring, the store would have been less than 500 feet from a residential neighborhood, though across a freeway.

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Judge Barry G. Silverman dissented, arguing that a lower court properly dismissed the lawsuit. Silverman said there were already at least 10 gun stores in Alameda County.

When you clear away all the smoke, what were dealing with here is a mundane zoning dispute dressed up as a 2nd Amendment challenge, the Clinton appointee wrote.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

Twitter: @mauradolan

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A group of 24 pilot whales died after becoming beached in the Gulf of California south of the fishing port of San Felipe, Mexico, despite overnight efforts to move them to deeper waters, Mexican authorities said on Sunday. Three survived  two adults and a calf, according to Mexicos environmental protection agency, PROFEPA.

The whales showed no visible injuries, nor signs that they had been entangled in fishing nets. The supposition is that they became disoriented, according to the agencys statement.

The 15-hour rescue operation took place from 3 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Sunday next to the Punta Bufeo hotel and sport fishing camp about 80 miles from San Felipe.

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Rosario Carrillo, whose husband operates the camp, said she was notified by local fishermen of the whales. I have seen two or three beached, but never this many, Carrillo said.

The rescue operation involved fishermen, residents, as well as personnel from PROFEPA, and members of the Mexican army and navy. Despite efforts to move the whales to deeper waters, they would once again return to shallow areas toward the beach, which caused them to once again become stuck, according to PROFEPA.

NEWSLETTER: Get essential California headlines delivered daily >>

The PROFEPA statement said that pilot whales have strong social cohesion, and that they dont abandon other whales that are in danger, even if it means death.

Dibble writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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Recovery of pilots body is hampered by fog after plane crashes near Mt. Wilson
Heavy fog on Monday continued to prevent searchers from recovering the body of a pilot whose plane crashed near Mt. Wilson a day earlier, according to officials.

Despite low visibility early in the day, authorities said they hoped to return to the foothills near Angeles National Forest on Monday to retrieve the pilots remains, said Sgt. Bob Boese, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. Meanwhile, the sheriffs department, the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are continuing their investigation into the circumstances of the crash.

The pilots identity has not been released pending notification of his family. The plane was registered to a San Diego-based company, San Diego Skylane LLC, according to FAA registration records.

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The pilot was the only person on board, said Deputy Juanita Navarro-Suarez of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.

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The Cessna 182 departed Montgomery Field in San Diego about 7:30 a.m. and was en route to Santa Monica when it disappeared from radar, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.

During the flight over Los Angeles County, the fixed-wing single-engine plane encountered foggy conditions and veered northeast from its intended path.

The radar lost contact with the plane about 8:30 a.m., when it was about 17 miles east of Van Nuys, said Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Inclement weather and limited information hampered much of the search-and-rescue effort Sunday.

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About 50 sheriffs reserve deputies and volunteers and six teams searched for the plane wreckage near Mt. Wilson.

Volunteers hiking in the steep terrain contended with thick brush that limited visibility. Aerial search efforts were delayed by thick fog.

But the aerial team eventually spotted the plane along the south side of Brown Mountain, named for the abolitionist John Brown. The mountain is about four miles north of Altadena.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: @VeronicaRochaLA

paloma.esquivel@latimes.com

Twitter: @palomaesquivel

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

Twitter: @MattHjourno

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For breaking news in California, follow VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter.
Four men were killed in a series of shootings in Compton during the weekend, authorities said.

The first two shootings were reported Saturday about 1.5 miles apart. It was not immediately clear if they were connected.

A man riding his bicycle at 5:18 p.m. in the 400 block of Caldwell Street was struck by gunfire several times in the upper torso, according Deputy Lisa Jansen, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.

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Deputies arrived to find the man lying in the middle of the street. He was taken to a hospital, where he later died.

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A second man was fatally shot at 7:38 p.m. in the 1000 block of South Nestor Avenue. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

KABC-TV identified the victim as Andre McMihelk Jr.

On Sunday, the shootings continued.

Two men were fatally shot in the 1200 block of South Wilmington Avenue near West Caldwell Street.

The victims and a third man had just driven into a gas station parking lot at 8:57 p.m. when a gunman, who had been waiting on the sidewalk, started shooting into their car, Deputy Kelvin Moody said.

The shooter then quickly got into a white pickup truck and drove away.

The driver of the car was pronounced dead at the scene. A second victim was found lying in the street next to the car. The 23-year-old man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The third person in the car, a 26-year-old man, was not injured.

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Homicide detectives were still investigating the shootings to determine whether they were connected.

The latest victims add to the accumulating death toll in Compton in the last year.

There have been at least 21 homicide victims, including these latest deaths, in Compton in the last 12 months, according to the Times Homicide Report.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

For breaking news in California, follow VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter.

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A single word  intentionally  could transform a court case against Phoenix-area Sheriff Joe Arpaio from civil charges to a criminal prosecution.

In finding Arpaio and three of his top commanders in contempt of court on Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow said no fewer than 19 times that the sheriff or his aides had repeatedly and intentionally violated judicial orders to stop profiling Latinos. On May 31, Snow will determine the civil penalties and examine whether Arpaio, the sheriff of Arizonas Maricopa County, will be referred to Arizonas U.S. attorney for potential criminal charges.

Arpaio has acknowledged violating Snows order, but said it was a mistake. In weighing criminal charges, Snow must decide whether Arpaios violations of his orders were intentional.

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In the meantime, the judge had unusually harsh words for Arpaio.

The Defendants unfair, partial, and inequitable application of discipline disproportionally [sic] damaged members of the Plaintiff class, Snow wrote.

In a 2011 civil case brought by Latino drivers against Arpaio and his aides, Snow determined that Arpaio had encouraged his deputies to subject Latino drivers to greater scrutiny during traffic stops than white drivers typically received. He ordered the sheriff to put an end to the practice.

Two years later, Snow found that Arpaio had continued the practice in violation of the order. At a Houston rally the next year, Arpaio told supporters that he had violated the order out of spite and had arrested 500 people.

He later said in court filings that he had violated the order unknowingly.

In Fridays ruling, Arpaio was held in contempt on three counts. Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan was found in contempt on two counts, and retired Chief Brian Sands and Lt. Joe Sousa each were found in contempt on one count.

The Court finds that the Defendants have engaged in multiple acts of misconduct, dishonesty, and bad faith, Snow wrote. In their testimony during the evidentiary hearing, Sheriff Arpaio and Chief Deputy Sheridan made multiple intentional misstatements of fact while under oath.

In hearings last year, Arpaio, the octogenarian who calls himself Americas toughest sheriff, seemed to wither under questioning, particularly when asked about an effort he had made to investigate the judge.

A lawyer for Arpaio had hired a private investigator to look into comments Snows wife purportedly made in a restaurant, where an informant claimed she had said the judge didnt want to see Arpaio reelected.

Arpaio apologized to Snow for the investigation, but the sheriffs attorneys also used the incident to argue that Snow was no longer impartial and should recuse himself from the case. Snow declined.

In his contempt ruling, Snow said Arpaio and his aides failed to turn over video evidence to plaintiffs in the civil case, disobeyed orders to gather evidence and continued to profile Latinos.

Snow found that Arpaio hid thousands of pieces of evidence from the plaintiffs and deleted relevant digital evidence kept on hard drives.

Longtime opponents immediately called for the sheriff to resign.

Any public official who has been found guilty of racial profiling and ignores the orders of the court cannot be entrusted with the safety and well-being of the community and should step down in shame, the immigrant rights group Puente Arizona said in a statement Friday.

The ACLU, which brought the original case against Arpaio, demanded stricter oversight and transparency from the sheriffs office.

Strong remedies are needed to protect the communitys rights, starting with internal investigations that root out and punish misconduct, said Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project. Willing or not, the sheriff will be made to comply with the law.

The ruling Friday was one of Arpaios most serious defeats, but it doesnt bar him from holding office, and he had already announced his intention to run for a seventh term as sheriff in November.

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nigel.duara@latimes.com

Twitter:@nigelduara
President Obama called on the nation Monday to support and listen to its law enforcement officers as he bestowed the Medal of Valor on 13 who risked their lives to save others.

In a ceremony in the East Room, Obama draped the purple-and-yellow ribbons around the necks of officers who intervened in shooting rampages, hostage situations and an armed robbery. He pledged to keep working toward a bipartisan overhaul to make the criminal justice system fairer, smarter and more effective so that officers are well-equipped to enforce the countrys laws.

We can show our respect by listening to you, learning from you, giving you the resources that you need to do your jobs, Obama said. Our country needs that right now.

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Three Santa Monica officers  Jason Salas, Robert Sparks and Capt. Raymond Bottenfield  were honored for their response to a 2013 rampage on a community college campus that left five people dead. Confronting 23-year-old gunman John Zawahri in the campus library, the officers shot and killed him when he pointed his assault weapon at them.

Obama also honored Gregory Stevens of suburban Dallas, who exchanged gunfire with two men outside an exhibit hall holding a provocative contest for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Both gunmen were killed, heading off what investigators suspected was a planned mass shooting.

The Medal of Valor ceremony comes amid a simmering public debate about police tactics and racial disparities in the justice system. Obama has walked a careful line on the issue  expressing support for most law enforcement officials, while also endorsing protesters complaints about racial profiling and mistreatment by police.

In his remarks on Monday, Obama steered that conversation toward his push for a sentencing overhaul and other changes to the justice system, an effort that has found backing in both camps.

Obama said he holds out hope that legislation can be passed this year despite the heavily politicized climate ahead of the November election. The need for change has been a rare point of common ground between Democrats and Republicans, and though momentum appeared to have sputtered earlier this year, a new Senate proposal has raised hopes that the issue could be successfully revived.

Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch, the nations top law enforcement official, said there were no words or medals that could begin to pay the debt the country owes the officers.

It has often been said that the price of freedom is constant vigilance. Know this: they pay that price on our behalf.  Attorney General Loretta Lynch

It has often been said that the price of freedom is constant vigilance, Lynch said. Know this: They pay that price on our behalf.

Police Maj. David Huff of Midwest City, Okla., saved a 2-year-old girl being held at knifepoint after negotiations with her captor deteriorated. Speaking to reporters after the ceremony, he described the thoughts running through his head in the moment he was called to action.

Obviously, the last few moments were tense. There was a countdown going on, Huff said. There was just no way I was going to let that little child get hurt.

The president said all of the officers acted without regard for their own safety. Because of their courage and instincts, he said, the rest of society can go about their lives each day like its any other day.

If they could go back in time, I suspect theyd prefer none of this had happened, Obama said.

One Philadelphia officer died from a gunshot wound and was honored posthumously. Sgt. Robert Wilson III drew fire from assailants during a robbery while saving store employees and customers.

Wilsons family accepted the award on his behalf.

We honor those who didnt come home, the president said.

The other officers honored with the medal Monday are:

Miami-Dade police Officer Mario Gutierrez, who was stabbed multiple times while subduing a knife-wielding man who tried to set off a gas explosion that could have caused massive casualties.

Johnson City, N.Y., Patrolman Louis Cioci, who chased and captured at a crowded hospital a gunman who had just killed a fellow officer. Investigators believe Cioci saved the lives of hospital staff, patients and visitors.

Los Angeles police Officer Donald Thompson for, while off duty, crossing two freeway dividers and braving first- and second-degree burns while pulling an unconscious man from a burning car to safety.

Omaha police Officer Coral Walker, who shot and killed a man who had killed and injured multiple people during a shooting rampage.

North Miami, Fla., police Officer Niel Johnson, who endured gunfire from an assault weapon in pursuing and capturing a man who had shot a Miami police officer and two bystanders.

FBI Special Agent Tyler Call, who while off duty with his family helped rescue a woman whose ex-husband was holding her at gunpoint.

Niagara County, N.Y., sheriffs Deputy Joey Tortorella, who confronted and subdued a gunman who had shot and wounded his parents inside their home, preventing the gunman from threatening the safety of students at a nearby elementary school.

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Hello, Columbus! Kasich plans to stick around, rules out third-party run

John Kasich is done running against Donald Trump, for this year anyway.

Im not going to do that, Ohios governor said in a CNN interview. I gave it my best where I am. I just think running third party doesnt feel right.

Kasich, who won his home state but nowhere else in his unsuccessful try for the GOP nomination, acknowledged getting feelers about waging an independent bid as a means of keeping Trump from the White House.

I dont think its appropriate, Kasich said. I just dont think it would be the right thing to do.

Kasich, who has run twice for president, has good reason to take a pass  from a political standpoint, if nothing else.

His disavowal keeps alive the prospect of becoming Trumps vice presidential running mate  though, to be clear, Kasich has repeatedly said he has no interest in the No. 2 slot.

Looking beyond 2016, Kasich preserves his political viability by refusing to take on the Manhattan businessman in November. A third-party candidate would almost assuredly put Democrat Hillary Clinton in the White House  and turn that spoiler into a Republican pariah.

If Trump loses, Kasich, who is 64, can run again in 2020 as part of the told-you-so wing of the GOP.
No one wants a nuisance for a neighbor. No one wants to live next door to people who are noisy, combative or involved in a criminal enterprise, such as peddling drugs or stolen goods. No landlord wants to rent to such folks, either. Cities big and small struggle to find a balance between preventing crime and alienating the residents being policed  between enforcing laws to ensure crime-free housing while also following the laws governing fair housing.

The city of Hesperia in San Bernardino County wrestled with that issue in 2015, but got the balance disturbingly wrong. The citys Crime Free Rental Housing ordinance, which went into effect at the beginning of this year, seeks to address an increase in illegal activity and public nuisances in rental properties there. San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department officials told City Council members that 90% of the citys homicides in 2014 were committed in rental units and that 22,000 of 66,000 calls for service that year originated at rental properties.

Its reasonable that this high desert city  an enclave of affordable housing with a population of about 90,000  would look for ways to reduce crime. But what officials have concocted is a mandate that steps on the rights of tenants and landlords alike. Expanding on a voluntary program for multi-unit buildings, the ordinance compels participation by all rental property owners and their tenants. Landlords are required to run local and national criminal background checks on prospective tenants, evidently in the hope that they will shun applicants with records. And new tenants must sign a Crime Free Lease Addendum agreeing that they will not violate any federal, state, or local law on the premises of their rental unit. If tenants do violate any of the above, the lease requires that they face eviction within days.

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If sheriffs deputies make an arrest at a unit covered by such a lease, the ordinance requires the Sheriffs Department to send a notice of criminal activity to the landlord, who must start eviction proceedings against the tenant. The degree of criminal activity doesnt seem to matter  a raucous party appears to be just as damning as an assault with a deadly weapon. And San Bernardino Sheriffs Department officials say they consider having to arrest someone on the premises evidence of his or her criminal activity  even if the arrest leads to no formal charges or conviction.

That alone is an appalling overreach by city officials and law enforcement. An arrest is not a finding of guilt. Thats up to a judge. But the problems with the measure do not end there. As the California Apartment Assn., which represents property owners, argued in a letter to the Hesperia city manager, [K]ey provisions of the ordinance are unconstitutional, inconsistent with state law and subject owners to the risk of significant liability for fair housing violations and wrongful eviction.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit against the city, contending that the rental housing ordinance as well as the citys group home ordinance  which forbids two or more probationers from living in the same house  are discriminatory and unconstitutional. The ACLUs clients include the non-profit Victor Valley Family Resource Center, which rents three properties in Hesperia, and several probationers who live in them. The center offers housing and services to people on probation who were at risk of becoming homeless after their release from incarceration. The ACLU lawyers contend that the city has used both ordinances to pressure landlords to push out probationers simply because the city doesnt want people with criminal records in the community. Ironically, the nonprofit was hired to house adult probationers in Hesperia by a county government agency  the San Bernardino Probation Department.

Both city ordinances appear headed for court battles, and rightly so. It is unacceptable for a municipality to cope with crime by adopting overly broad rules that invade tenants privacy and force landlords to evict tenants for minor infractions or allegations that prove unfounded. Nor should any city adopt what amounts to a blanket discriminatory rule against people who have served jail or prison time for a conviction and now seek to reenter society.

Its fine for Hesperia to be vigilant about crime in rental properties. But not at the expense of renters constitutional rights.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
In six months, California will join Maine, Nevada and probably a few other states in deciding whether or not to legalize the large-scale commercial production of marijuana. Residents will be inundated with wild claims about the promises and pitfalls of these initiatives.

You will hear debates about government revenue, criminal justice benefits, the environment, and the effect of legalization on Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. Public health conversations may prove especially contentious. Some will claim that legalization will constitute a net gain for health. Others will say the exact opposite.

Although you shouldnt believe either extreme, one fairly safe bet is that if we legalize and allow profit-maximizing firms to produce, sell, and advertise recreational marijuana, use will increase.

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The data from Colorado and Washington, where voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, are still preliminary. We do know, however, that the number of Coloradans who reported using marijuana in the past month increased from about 10.5% in 2011-12 to nearly 15% in 2013-14. In Washington, reported use increased from just above 10% to almost 13%.

Given that both states preexisting medical systems already provided quasi-legal availability, it is hard to imagine that commercial legalization did not account for at least some of these increases. (That said, other factors could influence marijuana use and it will be some time before researchers have enough data to conduct rigorous analyses. Some of the increase could also come from respondents being more honest now that marijuana is legal in their states).

But is an increase in marijuana consumption a bad thing from a public health standpoint? Not necessarily.

Much will depend on the types of users who account for the increase  adults or children? Heavy users or light users? No one wants kids to get stoned at school or to become regular users while their brains are still developing. And no one wants adults to be impaired at work or behind the wheel. Some heavy marijuana users, moreover, struggle to control their consumption and this can create challenges for them and their families. But there are real benefits associated with marijuana use, such as medical relief or simply pleasure.

Perhaps the most important consideration is how increased marijuana consumption may influence the use of other substances.

Exactly how people consume marijuana will also help determine public health consequences. In addition to vaporizing marijuana plant material (which reduces inhalation of carcinogens and other substances), people can and do eat, drink, vape hash-oil, and dab waxes that are high in the intoxicating chemical THC. The negative effects of overconsuming edibles are well-documented, but much less is known about the pros and cons of these other forms.

Perhaps the most important consideration is how increased marijuana consumption may influence the use of other substances.

Although the social costs of heavy alcohol use are much larger than the social costs attributable to heavy marijuana use, we do not know if legalization will lead to more or less drinking. The research on the relationship between alcohol and marijuana use is split down the middle.

This connection is especially important in terms of traffic safety. The bulk of the research suggests that driving drunk is more dangerous than driving stoned, and driving stoned is worse than driving sober. Research also suggests that driving under the influence of both alcohol and marijuana is worse than either by itself.

It would be a real blow to public health if an increase in marijuana use led to increased tobacco use. Even though the bulk of the research suggests this is a possibility, one cannot assume that the relationship would remain the same under a different legal regime. Besides, most of the relevant studies were conducted before e-cigarettes and marijuana vape pens became popular, so researchers and voters alike have to be careful about making projections.

There is also a new and much smaller body of research suggesting that increasing the availability of marijuana reduces problems with opioid painkillers. Some of these studies, however, are working papers that have not yet been subject to rigorous peer review.

When you vote on whether to legalize marijuana, public health consequences may not be at the top of your list. If they are, Im here to tell you the experts have more questions than answers. That wont change before November.

Beau Kilmer is codirector the Rand Drug Policy Research Center and coauthor of the recently revised book Marijuana Legalization.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
When I go to the airport, I drive and pay to park my car for a few days, or I ride public transit if I have the time, or I call a taxi. So far, I have never used Uber or Lyft in order to save a few bucks. It would make me feel morally compromised.

Sure, Ive had the same complaints that many others have about the traditional cab companies  scarce or tardy taxis, shabby cars, high fares  but, at least for me, the bad experience is a rare exception. I know I could save money riding with Uber, but I dislike the business model: a model that exemplifies an emerging new economy in which a few people get very rich and everyone else is a freelancer struggling to patch together a living wage.

Ubers owners were smart enough to create an app that would link people seeking rides with Uber drivers. For their cleverness, they are now billionaires with a business that has spread across the world amid protests and controversy. The drivers on whom this entire commercial empire is built generally make less than traditional cabbies and receive zero benefits from the company. That is because Uber classifies them as independent contractors.

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In an opinion article in Sundays Los Angeles Times, freelance writer Sandra Vahtel detailed her experience working as an Uber driver. She quickly learned that boasts about drivers earning as much as $6,000 a month either were overblown or were not indicative of the norm. On my third day behind the wheel, I sat in the car for 11 hours, drove for seven of them, and grossed $118 before deducting the cost of gas, wear and tear, rideshare insurance and income tax, Vahtel said.

Backing away from early claims that drivers in some cities were making up to $90,000 a year, Uber and Lyft now emphasize that driving for them was never meant to be a career. Indeed, most drive now for supplemental income, Vahtel said. So Uber and Lyft decimated the market share of traditional taxis on the backs of part-time contractors  and spend millions on lawyers and political lobbyists to keep operating that way.

The Uber and Lyft model grows out of the prevalent practice in high-tech startups. A small group of founding entrepreneurs come up with a novel way to get rich, then build their companies on the backs of under-compensated, overworked employees who are easily replaceable. They give their workers ping-pong tables and free snacks, but take away their rights to organize for better pay, benefits or job security.

The use of so-called independent contractors (or associates or other euphemistic terms for freelancers) has spread across all sectors of the economy. I should note that I am, myself, a contractor. Luckily, I have a fairly rare skill that is valued by my employer. (If all the political cartoonists in America were brought together, they wouldnt even fill the L.A. Times lunchroom.) But millions of people know how to drive. They have their own cars and their own bills to pay. So, out of that huge pool, Uber and Lyft have little problem finding plenty of people willing to work for them for a few months before moving on to the next poorly paying gig.

Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley and Seattle and Austin and other centers of the tech world, there is a steady influx of college-educated millennials looking for a slot in a rising enterprise  young people who quickly learn it is unwise to make waves or to expect loyalty from their employer. And in many older companies, long-time employees suddenly find their status changed from permanent to provisional and their hours and income reduced  that is, if they are not replaced altogether by lower-paid temps.

Back in the day, employers would have had a tougher time getting away with this stuff. Labor unions leveled the playing field, protected workers rights and won good wages and benefits in many industries. Still, Im not an uncritical fan of the old system. The great flaw in the adversarial model of employees versus management was that it relied on intimidation, brinksmanship and actions that could be destructive to everyones interests.

In the best of worlds, we would all be in this together  owners and workers with a common stake in success and a shared voice in how the work and rewards would be divided. Unions used to wrest a fair share of benefits from the bosses through struggle. Now, with unions severely diminished and pretty much absent in new industries, the only struggle left is the struggle of millions of people trying to hang on to a middle-class life while a few wise guys at the top amass extreme wealth from their workers labor.

Is it any wonder the presidential campaign of 2016 has been dominated by alienated, angry Americans feeling the Bern or rolling the dice with Trump?
Its a paradox thats even more divisive in politics than in sports: the notion of losing now to win later.

But to some conservative reformers, Donald Trumps emergence as the partys standard-bearer is an opportunity to do just that: remake a Republican Party that has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections.

Its important that he lose badly, said Peter Wehner, who served in three Republican presidential administrations, including a senior policy position in the George W. Bush White House. This has to be a repudiation of Trump and Trumpism.

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The deep schism in the Republican Party over Trumps likely nomination has split conservatives over what could or should come next. Some hope that Trump will prove to be a populist aberration and that the party will rebound to a more traditional brand of conservatism. Others expect him to win in November and fundamentally change the GOP.

Still others expect Trump to lose badly this fall, but say his success in the primaries means the GOP cannot go back to the previous status quo. Trumps victories point to the need for a thorough updating of the partys ideology to appeal more directly to its increasingly blue-collar base, they say.

Not all of Trumps conservative critics are as blunt as Wehner. But many of the partys deepest policy thinkers agree with him that a big Trump loss would prompt the thorough-going debate, and possibly fundamental changes, they believe the party needs.

The questions are unsettling to many conservatives. Some argue that the partys fixation on a gauzy vision of Ronald Reagan has stunted its ability to forge a 21st century agenda.

There was a perception that any deviation from what was the perceived Reagan orthodoxy would result in the ceiling falling down, Wehner said, noting that even Reagan raised some taxes.

The party itself became more Reagan than Reagan.

Those urging a Republican reboot point to a similar moment Democrats faced at the end of Reagans presidency, in 1988, when Michael Dukakis was thumped by George H.W. Bush. That loss helped fuel the rise of Bill Clinton, who tried to shed the Democratic Partys liberal anti-business image.

Now, victory by another Clinton, if it happens, could spark a similar reckoning for Republicans.

It took three electoral losses before they were willing to make serious changes, Ramesh Ponnuru said referring to the Democrats. Ponnuru is a senior editor at National Review, the influential conservative magazine, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

In this case, it has been made clear beyond doubt, really, that the old Republican agenda not only has lost touch with the electorate at large, but no longer even moves Republican voters, he said.

Ponnuru and other so-called Reformacon intellectuals began pushing the party to change before Trumps takeover of the party.

They have yet to win the argument. Voters rejected candidates who embraced elements of their agenda, such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Trumps dominance in the primaries has frustrated conservative intellectuals of all stripes. Once a dominant force in the Republican Party, which saw a blessing from William F. Buckley or similar thinkers as essential, the conservative movements think tank wonks and policy journal writers were shunted aside by Trump and his voters.

Indeed, many conservatives worry that a Trump victory, or a close loss to Hillary Clinton, would cement his hold on the party, even as they criticize him for inflammatory rhetoric, lack of substance or lack of a conservative core.

Although Clinton begins the race with advantages, she is far from a shoo-in.

Ponnuru said one of his major beefs with the GOP became obvious during a radio interview he heard Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake give on election night in 2014, when Republicans regained control of the Senate.

Asked to name the Senates first steps, Flake cited repeal of a tax on medical device manufacturers and the passage of a Pacific trade deal, Ponnuru recalled.

It was a business wish list that grass-roots conservatives and swing voters alike would not have cared about, Ponnuru said. And thats been the partys mindset.

(Congress succeeded in delaying the medical device tax. They have yet to vote on the trade deal.)

Reformers have called on the party to broaden its agenda, even as it keeps its positions on trade, taxes and smaller government. The party has not worked hard enough to push serious conservative solutions to problems that concern middle class and suburban voters, such as college affordability, middle-class wage stagnation and healthcare costs, they say.

Michael Strain, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, said the GOP needs to accept victory in the debate over tax rates for the highest earners and move on, rather than continue to make that the basis of its clashes with Democrats. The income tax rate for the highest earners is now below 40%, rather than the 70% paid until the early 1980s.

You cant just decide the policy platform youre for and keep that in your breast pocket for 20 years, Strain said.

But any attempt to move the party will spark fierce resistance.

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Lanhee Chen, policy director for Mitt Romneys 2012 campaign and an advisor to Rubio, said he is sympathetic to the reformers, but insists that Republicans must make sure to keep their core principles amid Trumps assault on bedrock beliefs such as free trade.

Chen argues that the key lesson in Trumps rise is that conservatives need to communicate better.

Sometimes, I think we get stuck discussing the intellectual merits of free trade, he said. If youre going to win an election at the end of the day, youve got to be able to talk about how this public policy will improve peoples lives.

Republicans have tried to alter their message before. After Romneys 2012 loss, party leaders drafted a detailed postmortem that called on Republicans to reengage younger and minority voters, pass an immigration overhaul and tamp down rhetoric about immigrants.

But the party failed to do any of those things. The effort to pass immigration reform collapsed, and Trump has capitalized on GOP voters anger at party leaders over their attempts to do it. His incendiary rhetoric has been key to his popularity.

Immigration remains the most vexing issue for the party. Primary voters have shown they will penalize politicians who support an overhaul that grants legal status to the 11 million immigrants here illegally. Yet the party is likely to face even more difficulty in general elections if it fails to address the issue.

Tevi Troy, a domestic policy advisor to President George W. Bush, said the questions have grown only deeper since the partys autopsy report.

The question is more intense and more existential, he said. Do we still have something to offer to base voters that we can sell in a general election?

This article published on A6 of the May 16, 2016, Los Angeles Times under the headline GOP reformers hope for defeat.

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noah.bierman@latimes.com

Twitter: @noahbierman
Privacy advocates and a U.S. senator are seeking to block a judicial rule change they worry will vastly expand the governments surveillance and hacking powers.

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, plans to introduce legislation this week to halt implementation of a rule easing the governments ability to remotely access and search far-flung computers. He said the change is too broad and was approved without public debate.

This is a major policy change, said Wyden, one of Congress most outspoken privacy hawks. This has been buried from the public and from their elected officials. And they should know about it. This is not just a modest administrative change.

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The rule change was adopted last month by the Supreme Court after a lengthy judicial process that began at the request of the Justice Department. Congress has until Dec. 1 to halt its implementation.

Wydens legislation will be cosponsored by Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who has been a longtime skeptic of government surveillance powers. The bill is likely to again focus discussion on the scope of the governments spying powers.

Last year, after months of intense debate sparked by the 2013 disclosures of government spying by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Congress passed legislation rolling back the governments ability to collect, store and search vast troves of Americans telephone data.

The pending amendment to the judicial rules of criminal procedure will allow federal judges to issue warrants for law enforcement agents to remotely access to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information on computers not located in their own judicial districts. Such searches have generally been limited to the district in which a judge serves. It would also permit a single judge to issue warrants to federal authorities to remotely access scores of computers that have been hijacked and turned into a collective hacking tool known as a botnet.

Wyden and privacy advocates say the measure raises questions about whether the Justice Department may now engage more freely in seeking friendly judges to obtain warrants, more easily use malware as an investigative tool and potentially gather data from innocent peoples computers.

They said they were also leery about trusting the Justice Departments assertions that the law is merely a procedural fix to address problems raised by combating crime in the Internet age.

The department has been less than forthcoming about the extent of its hacking, which raises concerns about the proposal , said Neema Guliani, a lawyer for the ACLU. They are saying they have a problem in cases where they dont know where the computer is, or think someone is trying to hide it. But the rule change is a lot broader than that. If they wanted to just address that issue, they could have narrowed the rule by saying they could conduct the search only to locate the computer.

In a recent blog post, Rainey Reitman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said federal agents might do more harm than good when injecting malware into botnets, which are used by hackers to commit crimes ranging from identity theft to denial of service attacks.

Even with the best of intentions, a government agent could well cause as much or even more harm to a computer through remote access than the malware that originally infected the computer, wrote Reitman, a director of the nonprofit advocacy group.

Justice Department officials deny that the rule change will result in any expansion of their cyber sleuthing and hacking capabilities. They say they sought the change as merely a technical solution to better battle cyber-related crime, particularly in instances where criminals are using software that masks their location.

Criminals now have ready access to sophisticated anonymizing technologies to conceal their identity while they engage in crime over the Internet, said Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman. This amendment ensures the courts can be asked to review warrant applications in situations where it is currently unclear what judge has that authority.

Carr and other federal law enforcement officials noted the rule was amended with little dissent from judicial committees that weighed the proposal and sent it to the Supreme Court for final approval. They said the change does not affect legal standards governing the proof needed to remotely access computers.

We still need to get a search warrant, make a showing of probable cause and explain to the court what we are doing and how, FBI Director James B. Comey said last week, adding that the rule change would ease logistical headaches involved in taking down botnets.

It is not clear how much support Wyden will have in seeking to block the rule from being implemented.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that his committee will examine the work that went into crafting the rule.

The House Judiciary Committee also expects to examine the rule, said Jessica Collins, a spokesman for the panels chairman, Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.).

@delwilber
Rep. Duncan Hunter didn't want to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention for Donald Trump. And he doesn't plan to go to Cleveland.

Im not into politics, said Hunter, who lives in Alpine. If he calls and says I really want you to go there and make a speech or something, then sure, Ill fly in for that day and then leave immediately back to San Diego.

Hunter said his staff thought that given he was one of the first members of Congress to back Trump, being a delegate would be a good idea. His aides recommended him to the Trump campaign without asking, but Hunter said he planned to ask an alternate delegate to go in his place.

"I was kind of taken aback when I saw I was on the list," he said. "My guys put me on and they shouldn't have."

With three young children, four days at a convention hall has little appeal. "I have other stuff to do," Hunter said.

Hunter's not alone in skipping the convention. Five of the 14 Republicans in California's delegation say they won't attend the convention to officially pick the party's nominee and vice presidential pick.

About half of the Republicans in the California delegation don't say directly they will back Trump.

Rep. Steve Knight (R-Palmdale) says his time is better spent defending his seat in a tough reelection fight. He has never gone to a national convention.

I have a choice of being in Ohio in July or Southern California. Ill be in Southern California, Knight said. Ill have six straight weeks in the district, at home, campaigning to make sure I get reelected.

Democrats Bryan Caforio and Lou Vince are challenging Knight in the 25th Congressional District, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted the seat as a potential pickup.

"Members who are in very tight districts like me should be defending their district and making sure voters know what that person is doing in Congress," Knight said. If youre in a safe district, go to the convention. If youre not, go campaign.

Bryan Caforio, left, Rep. Steve Knight and LAPD Lt. Lou Vince debate in Newhall on May 5. The three running in the 25th Congressional District. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) (Javier Panzar)

If youre in a safe district, go to the convention. If youre not, go campaign.  Rep. Steve Knight

Rep. Doug LaMalfa hasnt gone to the convention in the past and said this year won't be any different. The Richvale Republican has drawn six opponents in his Northern California district, though none have come close to his fundraising.

Its July in Cleveland, or I could be at home, LaMalfa said. I dont think Im needed there. Theres a lot of people anxious and hot to go and be delegates, so have at it.

Rep. Paul Cook said that at 73, he'd rather spend the time with his grandchildren.

Im not a big convention person, the Yucca Valley Republican said. Its a long way across country and everything. Normally when we have any types of breaks, Ive got to tell you, the first priority is the grandkids. At my age, thats No. 1.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) (Chris Usher / Associated Press) (Chris Usher / Associated Press)

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) (Pete Marovich / Bloomberg) (Pete Marovich / Bloomberg)

Pledged delegates

Some members will be on the convention floor in Cleveland to help officially designate the nominee.

Along with Hunter, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) were on the Trump campaign's list of California delegates submitted to Secretary of State Alex Padilla.

Campaigns must submit a list of pledged delegates before the election; three from each of California's 53 congressional districts plus 10 statewide representatives.

The state's 172 delegates are allocated based on which candidate wins in each district. An additional 13 go to the statewide winner.

Though he has suspended his campaign, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also submitted a slate of pledged delegates, which includes Costa Mesa GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher's wife, Rhonda Rohrabacher, and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove), who said after Cruz dropped out that he would support Trump.

Though not a delegate, Rep. Mimi Walters (R-Irvine) said she would be in Cleveland, partly because her daughter is hoping to intern at the convention.

I happen to be curious to see how it all plays out because Ive never been to one before, she said.

Senators in trouble

With control of the U.S. Senate in play this year, several vulnerable Republican senators have said they won't attend.

"I'm more valuable outside of Cleveland than inside of Cleveland," Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said on CNN.

Who's going to Cleveland and Philadelphia? See the list>>

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), left, and Richard Burr (R-N.C.). (Mark Wilson / Getty Images) (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)

I'm more valuable outside of Cleveland than inside of Cleveland.  Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.)

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman told the Cleveland Plain Dealer he'll spend "very little" time at the convention despite it being held in his home state. He is facing former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.

Incumbents in two California seats that have been targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are split on what to do.

Staff for Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) said the second-term congressman is still weighing whether to attend or stay in the 21st Congressional District.

Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Turlock) is defending his 10th Congressional District seat, but is planning to go. I think its important to take part in the democratic process, he said.

Other prominent Republicans across the country have said they planned to skip the convention. That includes Former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and the party's two most recent nominees, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain, who is seeking reelection in Arizona.

Former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole is the only former Republican presidential nominee who plans to be in Cleveland.

Senate hopefuls

The leading Republican candidates running to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer were split on the convention. And they are not embracing Trump as they face the top-two June 7 primary.

George Duf Sundheim has no plans to attend the convention and hasn't endorsed Trump.

Ron Unz said he wasn't thrilled by his choices for president, but would consider attending the convention if he advances to the November ballot.

Based on everything I've read in the newspapers, Trump seems like an ignorant buffoon, but I'll probably be voting for him over the other Republicans, who seem like total establishment donor-puppets, he said. "There's a very good chance I might just write in Ron Paul's name like I've done the last couple of times.

Tom Del Beccaro said he's waiting for a Republican candidate who can inspire the public through policy.

"I'm waiting both for Trump and for Cruz to empower the American people through their policies, instead of arguing the way that they are. That's why I've held off," he said.

For the 41 Democrats in the California delegation, 31 said they plan to attend the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, nine aren't sure yet and one, retiring Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel), is skipping it outright. All but four Democrats in the California delegation back Clinton.

Times staff writer Phil Willon contributed to this report.

sarah.wire@latimes.com

Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter

Read more about the 55 members of California's delegation at latimes.com/politics

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Updates on California politics
Political tension ramps up at legislative hearing on Newsoms gun control initiative

Backers of a gun control initiative proposed for the November ballot argued during a legislative forum Tuesday that it is needed to make California safer, while opponents said it will unfairly harm law-abiding gun owners and is primarily aimed at getting Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom elected governor.

Newsom turned in 600,000 signatures last week for an initiative that would require background checks for ammunition purchasers, ban large-capacity magazines, make gun thefts a felony and require those convicted of serious crimes to give up their firearms within 14 days.

The Assembly and Senate Public Safety committees held a joint hearing on the proposal Tuesday in anticipation of the measure qualifying.

Craig DeLuz, head of the Firearms Policy Coalition, told lawmakers that most of the provisions in the initiative have been rejected by the Legislature or the governor as too extreme or unworkable.

He said the real purpose of the initiative is to get Newsom elected as governor in 2018.

Its for one individual to get his name in the paper so he can run for higher office, DeLuz told the lawmakers.

That drew a rubuke from state Sen. Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), chair of the Senate panel.

I do take offense at the personal attacks on the proponents of the intiative, Hancock said during the hearing.

Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) responded, saying the initiative is unnecessary.

I am equally offended that the person who came up with this initiative isnt here today to address this body, she said. Thats incredibly disrespectful.

Newsom, who has fueded with legislative leaders who are pursuing their own gun control bills, did not attend the hearing, instead participating in a memorial service held for California Highway Patrol officers, a representative said.

Attorneys for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which co-wrote the initiative, told lawmakers it will plug serious loopholes in Californias tough gun laws.

We believe reasonably that more can and should be done to protect California families and keep lethal weapons out of dangerous hands, added Ari Freilich, a staff attorney at the center.

The initiative was criticized by Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michele Hanisee, president of the Assn. of Deputy District Attorneys of Los Angeles, who predicted many people will not obey the new laws requiring them to get rid of high-capacity magazines.

The initiative places additional burdens on an already overburdened court system, she added.

None of the lawmakers at the hearing commited to endorsing the initiative.

Lawmakers raised questions about the cost of enforcing the initiative, but the Legislative Analysts Office said the bulk of costs may be recovered by fees authorized by the measure.

Hancock said she is interested in alternative approaches to addressing gun violence, including a look at improving mental health services.
Plans to build a six-story boutique hotel on a stretch of Brand Boulevard that immediately abuts a residential neighborhood received unanimous approval from the Design Review Board on Thursday.

Construction of the 82-foot-tall, 85-room Aloft hotel will require demolition of the Recess Eatery at 1102 N. Brand Blvd. and several other nearby one-story structures.

NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with whats going on in your community>>

Last year, the property owner tried to get approval for an 18-unit, 62-foot-tall condominium project, an effort that required multiple variances. It raised the alarm of nearby residents and was rejected by a planning hearing officer.

A much larger hotel project doesnt require any variances because it is allowed by city code on the site.

There will also be a subterranean parking garage with 85 parking spaces and a restaurant that will be operated by Aloft, according to a city staff report.

While some residents living near the project site have expressed concerns about traffic and the buildings size being out of scale with the neighborhood, some board members felt differently.

Board member Alen Malekian said he expects the boutique hotel to be frequented by people on business trips wholl often use taxis or Uber instead of the developments parking lot or nearby residential streets.

This is designed for business travelers. Its not a destination hotel, he said.

In my opinion, I think this hotel use has the best chance of reducing the amount of traffic and parking of any allowable uses that we have available to approve, he added.

The project will also have a driveway and entrance via Dryden Street, which raised concerns for some residents and parents of children who attend the preschool at St. Marks Episcopal Church right across the street.

Resident Linda Fullerton, who has children attending the school, said traffic is already an issue when trying to exit the campus schools lot, and throwing in another heavily used driveway will make the situation much more difficult.

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Weve had many close calls. I cant imagine what it would be like having a hotel across the street, she told board members.

One board member said he felt the hotels design could have been drawn up so it would be a better fit with the neighborhood.

Board member Arthur Charchian referred to the 1920s-era Stanford Arms apartments across the street and St. Marks Episcopal Church.

This building lacks a little bit of homage, he said. I dont see the link of homage to that period of time.

But after those remarks, Charchian said the Aloft hotel would serve as an asset.

Despite the close proximity to a residential neighborhood, the proposed hotel project sits in a commercial zone with a 90-foot cap on allowed height.

Buildings close to the hotel site range between two and nine stories.

Planning staff indicated in their report that no aspect of the plans on the table  other than noise during construction  are out of line with thresholds established by the California Environmental Quality Act.

The construction noise will be mitigated, according to staff.

--

Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com

Twitter: @ArinMikailian

--

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Question: My wife and I are retired and have done a lot of traveling in the U.S. and throughout the world in the last 10 years, meaning a lot of rental cars. In the last three to four years, half a dozen cars weve rented in the U.S. have come with two keyless entry remotes attached to a braided cable thats nearly impossible to break. At each rental counter, I have asked why we are given two keyless remotes that are impossible to separate. No good explanation so far, except that they dont want us to lose them. Huh? If I lose one, Ill actually lose two and wont be able to use the car. If they are separated, I might lose one, which will be expensive, but I wont have lost two (even more expensive) and Ill still be able to use the car. Hope you can find a rental car person who can explain this irritating mystery.

Charles Perkins

La Mesa

Answer: To understand the answer, you must understand that its not about you. Yes, we know youre the customer and this is a service industry. Its your pocket thats being stretched out of shape.

Good points. But those points dont trump an underlying business reason for the Case of the Connected Keys.

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Aaron Medina, Western-Pacific regional vice president at Hertz, explained it this way: Hertz has about 460,000 cars in its fleet, which changes as the fleet is refreshed  that is, cars are sold or retired. If you have the option of picking up your car in one place and dropping it in another (as Hertz and most companies permit), the company usually wants a car that comes with all its pieces and parts, including two fobs.

So, yes, if you lose one key, you lose both keys, and those remotes will have to be replaced (at your cost) if your trip is to continue.

It will cost you a pretty penny, as anyone who has replaced a remote knows. How pretty? I just checked on a replacement for mine and it would cost about $200. But wait, theres more  and when it comes to mistakes, isnt there always?

Yes, said Brian Haggerty of Cross Island Collision on the border of Nassau County and Queens in New York.

The fob and the car are programmed together, he said in an email. It  has an electronic chip in it which is programmed to the car.

If you get a new fob for a car it needs to be programmed to match the car. This is why theyre expensive  because they are a wireless remote that needs to be programmed.

For my car, I was quoted $120 for reprogramming. If the two are added together, the mistake would cost $320.

Oh, and your rental car contract probably says youre responsible. Losing rental car keys can cost $500 or more, and most mass-market insurance companies wont cover lost rental car keys, said Ray Crisci, a senior vice president with Chubb Personal Risk Services.

Chubb does cover for lost rental car keys through the liability section of its auto contract, he said. If our customer loses the keys to a rental car, well pay the cost of the replacement keys, towing the car back to a rental car facility, and any loss of use while the car cant be rented due to the lost keys, he said.

If youre inclined to lose stuff, check your auto insurance to see whether you have dunderhead coverage.

Not all rental companies give you two keys, said Avis-Budget spokeswoman Alice Pereira.

The majority of our vehicles are now rented with only one key, she said in an email. Its interesting that something you dont get may be a competitive advantage.

The rental car landscape comes with its own set of surprises. It seems simple enough  you give the car rental agency money, it gives you a car, you give it back  but it is far more complex than the consumer knows.

Next week, just in time for Memorial Day getaways, well talk more about the pitfalls, perils and, yes, even pleasures of renting a vehicle.

Have a travel dilemma? Write to travel@latimes.com. We regret we cannot answer every inquiry.
Kenyas vow that it will shut down its refugee camps, home to as many as 600,000 people, has triggered global concern that another mass exodus of people is about to take shape, similar to the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe.

The plan to empty out the camps, which include the worlds largest refugee complex, is prompting unease that the East African nation might be taking its lead from Europe, where there has been widespread rejection of those seeking safety.

It also raises the question of whether Kenya might be justified in demanding that the international community provide more assistance for the migrants.

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The camps, which have existed for a quarter of a century, were never meant to be more than temporary way stations for those fleeing their homeland, and Kenya now is citing security concerns, financial challenges and environmental burdens for closing the Dadaab and Kakuma camps. Dadaab is the largest refugee facility in the world, with at least 330,000 residents.

It is not the first time that authorities have threatened to shutter the camps, but this time the government seems to be resolute, disbanding its Department of Refugee Affairs, according to a statement issued by the countrys principal secretary of the interior.

Can Kenya actually close the camps? Do refugees have rights?

Generally, refugees are displaced people who have been admitted to a country because they are unable or unwilling to return to their homeland for reasons such as war, natural disaster or fear of persecution.

Hannah Garry, a law professor and director of the International Human Rights Clinic at USC, said that by closing the camps, Kenya would be violating treaties it has signed, including the 1951 Refugee Convention, a United Nations multilateral treaty that defines who is a refugee, refugee rights and the responsibilities of nations that grant asylum.

In 2009, newly arriving refugees, mostly Somalis, crowd into a line to be admitted into Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

People have fled over the last several decades and have sought asylum, Garry said. Once they have been given the status of refugees in a host country, they have the right to stay until the situation back at home has changed.

That is certainly not the case for many of the regions conflict-ridden nations. Last month, for example, the Office of U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported that Kakuma had recorded a steady increase in new arrivals from South Sudan, up from an average of 100 people a month at the start of this year to 350 a week the last two months.

About 2.3 million people have had to flee their homes since violence broke out in South Sudan in December 2013, according to the U.N., with 678,000 of them crossing into other countries as refugees.

So why would Kenyan authorities take such extreme action?

Kenyas authorities have argued that refugee camps are a breeding ground for the Shabab, a Somali terrorist group with links to Al Qaeda. Last year, Shabab militants stormed a university in the countrys northeast, killing at least 147 people. Two years before that, the extremists slaughtered at least 67 people in an attack on an upscale shopping center in Nairobi, the capital.

They are casting blame particularly on the Somali refugee community as the cause of Kenyan insecurity, said Leslie Lefkow, deputy director for the African division of Human Rights Watch. But there is no evidence the Somalis refugees are responsible for the attacks in Kenya. There have been no prosecutions. This is scapegoating, that the Kenyan government has been using repeatedly.

Garry said Kenyan authorities should do more to properly screen people to determine who might be a terrorist and then take the necessary action.

They cant just send hundreds of thousands of people back for fear that maybe one of them might have a link to terrorism, Garry said.

Advocates for refugee rights also believe that Kenya might be playing off the dynamic of the negative reaction Europe has had toward the mass migration of predominantly Syrian refugees to its shores. Several European nations have refused to resettle refugees or shown scant enthusiasm to accept them.

Migrants and refugees stay on train tracks as Greek police try to persuade them to leave the railroad in the makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni on April 18, 2016. (Daniel Mihailescu / AFP/Getty Images)

The failure of European countries to live up to their obligations has provided Kenya with ballast to negotiate, said Lefkow, who spoke via Skype from Amsterdam. Kenya could be making this gesture in an effort to drum up more funds, she said.

Who lives at the camps and what is life like there?

About two-thirds of the refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya have fled conflict elsewhere, and theyve been arriving since the 1990s, according to the U.N. The vast majority are from Somalia, followed by South Sudan and Ethiopia. Smaller numbers have come from Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda, Eritrea, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dadaab is in eastern Kenya, about 50 miles from the border with Somalia, and Kakuma about 80 miles from the Sudanese border. Both camps are sprawling, dusty, fly-infested settlements of tents, mud huts and makeshift homes offering few basic comforts, such as indoor plumbing.

Its a miserable existence, and no one would seek to extend peoples lives there indefinitely unless the alternative is worse, Lefkow said.

Refugees gather at one of Dadaabs water points to collect water for cooking and drinking, but there is an insufficient supply to properly accommodate every person living there. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

What would be the consequences if the camps closed?

It could create an unprecedented asylum crisis for the refugees, many of whom cannot return to their homelands, said Heather Amstutz, the Nairobi-based regional director for the Horn of Africa for the Danish Refugee Council.

Specific groups such as child-headed families would be particularly vulnerable, she said in an email.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of refugees have been born in the Kenyan camps and lack any experience of their familys homeland.

Refugees await entrance into Dadaab in 2009. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

The effect on regional nations would also be disastrous, Amstutz said, because countries neighboring Kenya are already shouldering a huge influx of refugees. For example, Ethiopia hosts more than 730,000 refugees, Uganda about 477,000 and Tanzania more than 300,000, according to data from the Danish aid group.

We must not forget that situation in Somalia remains highly volatile and fragile as a result of continuing insecurity and the impact of recent severe drought, while South Sudan is in the midst of a civil war, Amstutz said.

If banished from the camps, some refugees might try to relocate to urban areas, but with few resources and little support such an option would probably be devastating, Amstutz said.

Its a horrific scenario, Lefkow said.

For more news on global sustainability, go to our Global Development Watch page.

And follow me on Twitter: @AMSimmons1
The U.S. government and other world powers are prepared to help train and arm forces from the new unity government in Libya to help it fight Islamic State, which has spread rapidly in the turbulent North African nation.

Speaking in Vienna, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States and other major nations would back the Libyan governments attempt to win an exemption from a United Nations arms embargo.

Kerry said it was imperative for the international community to support the 6-week-old government in Tripoli, which he called the only legitimate one in Libya and which must now start to work.

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The fledgling government, which arrived by boat from neighboring Tunisia on March 31, is the only entity that can unify the country, Kerry said. It is the only way to generate the cohesion necessary to defeat Islamic State.

Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Serraj, who appeared with Kerry, said he welcomed the support.

Were not talking about international intervention, he said. Were talking about international assistance and training, equipping our troops and training our youth.

The oil-rich country has faced political chaos and violence since the NATO bombing campaign helped rebels oust and kill longtime ruler Moammar Kadafi in 2011. It remains beset by armed militias, as well as Islamic State, and until recently had two rival governments.

Kerry announced the joint decision after diplomats from more than 20 countries, including the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, met to discuss the growing extremist threat in Libya.

The U.N. sanctions committee must approve an exemption to the arms embargo, but that is now all but assured.

Kerry said the international community must find a delicate balance to prevent arms from falling into enemy hands.

Kerry said support for training and equipping the presidential guard and vetted forces from throughout Libya are part of an aid package that also is intended to help stop the flow of migrants trying to reach Europe.

Islamic State militants have seized a strip of Libyas central coastline near Sirte, its stronghold. They have opened training bases for foreign fighters and have launched suicide bombings and attacks on oil infrastructure.

U.S. officials recently estimated that the Sunni extremist group has up to 6,000 fighters in Libya, twice as many as a year ago. It is considered Islamic States largest and most powerful affiliate outside Syria and Iraq.

Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said the decision to arm the new government marked the beginning of a process, not the end of it.

He said the Obama administration hopes Libyan government forces can begin fighting Islamic State and securing their own country themselves.

That ultimately is the goal, so that the United States and the rest of the international community doesnt have to come in and fight this fight for them, he said.

Some national security experts fear that Islamic State is taking root in Libya much as it did in Syria prior to the militants blitz across Iraq in early 2014, seizing cities, oilfields, military bases and banks. Sanctuary in Libya could provide another launching pad for terrorist attacks in Europe and North Africa.

The U.S. military, along with British, French and Italian special forces, have monitored the groups rise in Libya. The Pentagon has launched two airstrikes against them.

See the most-read stories this hour >>

In November, F-15 fighter jets killed a militant commander known as Abu Nabil near the eastern city of Derna. Three months later, U.S. jets killed several dozen foreign fighters at a training camp in Sabratha, officials said.

The Pentagon recently sent special operations teams to Libya to gather intelligence and find potential partners to fight the militants, Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, said Monday.

This small presence of U.S. forces has been trying to identify players on the ground and trying to find out exactly what their motives are, Cook said. And thats to give us a better picture of whats happening there, because we dont have a great picture.

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william.hennigan@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @wjhenn
During Chinas decade-long Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, an estimated 1.7 million people died amid a frenzy of ideologically driven violence, more than three times the death toll of the Syrian civil war. And thats just the official estimate  independent historians say the real number may be millions more.

Yet on Monday, China marked the 50th anniversary of the movements beginning not with solemn reflection, but with silence. The Communist Party, which oversaw the movement, is still in power today, and officials believe that a truth and reconciliation effort could damage its historical claim to legitimacy.

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On Monday, Chinese newspapers barely mentioned the anniversary. Instead, the China Daily ran stories on fast food, organ transplants and panda bears. The Peoples Daily, a party mouthpiece which effectively launched the movement in 1966 with a front-page call to seize the power of the capitalist roaders, reported on President Xi Jinpings use of the term political ecology.

Experts say that although the party has consigned the Cultural Revolution to history  top authorities condemned the movement in 1981  its legacy of cruelty still pervades Chinese society.

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In the late 1960s, bands of Maoist Red Guards beat intellectuals to death; armed factions clashed in major cities; and countless cultural relics were destroyed.

Todays China is almost unrecognizable from even a few decades ago -- its much wealthier, and generally stable; violent crime is rare. Yet experts say that many of the eras tensions -- the extreme volatility, the breakdown of public trust -- still simmer beneath the surface, and occasionally boil over into violence.

If you compare Stalins era at its worst, the brutality and the inhumanity that was inflicted on Soviet citizens were generally inflicted by the party-state, said Steve Tsang, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of Nottingham. The cruelty that was imposed in the Cultural Revolution did not come from Mao [Tse-tung]. He never said, Be cruel to the people you struggle against.  Mao never said, Beat the hell out of them until they die. Mao didnt ask for these things. He created the environment, an atmosphere that encouraged and sustained excessive behavior.

The way the Cultural Revolution changed peoples mindsets has never really been faced, he said. And so you continue to see this kind of cruelty.

Online forums and social media sites carried slightly more information on the movement, but also showed signs of heavy censorship.

Searches for Cultural Revolution on Baidu, Chinas leading search engine, brought up several results, including a slideshow of propaganda posters during the movement and a forum exploring why some people recall the era with nostalgia. None examined the eras violence or reflected critically on its historical legacy.

Yet Sina Weibo, the countrys most popular microblog, was peppered with recollections of the movements horrors.

NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>

During the Cultural Revolution, my parents and grandma had been in Beijing for years but their house was raided, as they were classified as landlords, wrote Hu Xijin, editor in chief of the state-run Global Times tabloid, which issued no stories about the anniversary.

My most terrifying memory is from when I was 6, he continued. Red Guards pushed my grandma to the ground and called her landlord, and slapped her. She cried. And then grandma left Beijing and was sent back to her hometown. My father is her only son, so my mother had to take care of her. After that I had to write landlord every time I filled out forms for myself, and I felt humiliated  Its so painful to look back at the Cultural Revolution.

The broadcaster Phoenix Television  which is controlled by the party but broadcasts from Hong Kong  published a long online story declaring that young Chinese citizens have largely forgotten the movement. The report did not mention the anniversary; two Chinese journalists, both from other outlets, said in interviews that propaganda officials forbade it. Both requested anonymity due to the subjects sensitivity.

Do you talk about the Cultural Revolution with your friends? a Phoenix reporter asked young passerby.

Im not interested in it, said one.

I majored in science. I dont know much about it, said another. Its not that Im not interested in it  its that people are not allowed to talk about it, said a third.

The article has since been deleted.

ALSO

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What it was like to be a foreign exchange student in Beijing at the end of the Cultural Revolution

Former top Chinese official indicted on corruption charges

Yingzhi Yang and Nicole Liu of the Times Beijing bureau contributed to this report
Residents of the Afghan capital awoke Monday to stacks of multi-colored shipping containers meant to protect the presidential palace from the latest anti-government demonstration  this time over an electricity line from Turkmenistan.

The demonstrators  mainly members of the Hazara ethnic minority  were demanding that a 500-kilovolt power transmission line from Turkmenistan be routed through the central province of Bamiyan, home to a large Hazara population.

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Bamiyan suffers from chronic electricity shortages, and when it was revealed recently that the power line would instead be routed through the rugged Salang Pass  the highway connecting northern and southern Afghanistan  before reaching Kabul, many Hazaras criticized what they saw as a racially and politically motivated decision.

Bamiyan had been part of the original route for the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan power project, known as TUTAP, which officials say will unite Afghanistans 10 separate power grids and bring electricity to millions of homes that lack it.

Bamiyan is a poor province, whatever people have there they have built themselves, said demonstrator Joma Khan, 28. Imagine if there was power there how many people could be put to work in one of Afghanistans poorest provinces.

President Ashraf Ghanis government says the decision to change the route of the project  which is being funded by the Asian Development Bank  happened under the previous administration of former President Hamid Karzai. But Ghanis second vice president, Sarwar Danish, said the change was decided at a recent cabinet meeting.

The government says the Salang Pass route is shorter and more cost-effective.

The goal is to provide electricity to the people, not to distribute projects based on the lobbying and pressure of small interest groups. Its about practicality, said Daoud Noorzai, deputy chief of staff at the presidential office. The presidential palace invited the initiators of the TUTAP Bamiyan movement to an open discussion, but they didnt show up.

Routing the line through Bamiyan would cost $35 million extra and delay the project by at least two years, German consulting firm Fichtner found when it assessed the project in February 2016.

Though experts say the location of the power line will not directly impact Bamiyans electricity needs, the dispute has taken on an ethnic tone and served as a vehicle for Ghanis opponents to voice frustration at his governments inability to revitalize the economy. Some current and former members of Ghanis government have signaled solidarity with the protesters.

In both instances, the transmission line will end in the power-hungry capital, Kabul, and go south from there, Thomas Ruttig of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network wrote in an online commentary published Monday. Many of the protesters and politicians involved have possibly not read or understood the  indeed complicated  project documents.

NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>

In response to the protests, Ghani said he would suspend the project for six months and appoint a commission to study the project documents, the Tolo news network reported Monday.

Though Ghani promised that Bamiyan would receive 300 megawatts of electricity when the project was completed, protesters said they had lost faith in the government.

We have heard their words, but now its time for them to take action, said demonstrator Nazim, 25.

We dont want a line, we want the key to the electricity.

In November, thousands of Hazara protesters gathered outside the presidential palace  and briefly breached the compound  to demand justice for seven civilians killed in the southern province of Zabul. That demonstration marked the largest anti-government gathering in several years.

On Monday, the barriers to the citys main commercial, diplomatic and administrative areas succeeded in diffusing what protest leaders had hoped would be a gathering of thousands into several smaller protests. While the demonstrations were largely peaceful, there were some reports of scuffles, and eight journalists from both local and foreign outlets were injured, according to the Afghan Journalist Safety Commission.

Mohammad Amin, 22, said protesters would continue to try to reach the presidential palace despite the roadblocks.

We can wait. If we dont reach the palace today, we will make it tomorrow, Amin said from the sunroof of a Toyota van. If not tomorrow, the next day. However long it takes, we will stay until justice prevails.

For more news on global sustainability, go to our Global Development Watch page: latimes.com/global-development

ALSO

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Latifi is a special correspondent.

UPDATES:

10:20 a.m.: This story was updated with quotes from the government, more information about the cost of the project and about journalists injured in the protests.

This story was originally published at 9:08 a.m.
On 14 May Chiles economy minister, Luis Felipe Cespedes, announced a deal with seven of the ten communes in the Chiloe archipelago, Los Lagos Region, affected by the red tide algal bloom event which has afflicted the local fishing industry.

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The states of North Carolina and Texas are already aligning to defy President Obama's anticipated directive requiring educators to allow students to use bathrooms according to their gender identity as opposed to their gender specified on their birth certificates.

During a recent Republican state convention of GOP leaders in the country's most conservative state, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick warned Obama's decree will mark "the beginning of the end of the public school system as we know it."

Republicans United in Criticisms

During the forum, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pledged to formally unite with North Carolina leaders in waging a legal battle with the federal government over the issue.

Just days before, Patrick called for the resignation of a Fort Worth school superintendent who endorsed policies supportive of transgender students.

As for the president's views, Patrick added, "President Obama, in the dark of the night - without consulting Congress, without consulting educators, without consulting parents - decides to issue an executive order, like this superintendent, forcing transgender policies on schools and on parents who clearly don't want it."

Port Neches-Groves (Texas) Superintendent Rodney Cavness was even more blunt in his critical assessment of the president.

"He ain't my President and he can't tell me what to do," he said. "That letter is going straight to the paper shredder. I have five daughters myself and I have 2,500 girls in my protection. Their moms and dads expect me to protect them. And that is what I am going to do. Now I don't want them bullied... but there are accommodations that can be made short of this. He is destroying the very fiber of this country. He is not a leader. He is a failure."

Immigration Among President's Biggest Social Reforms

With the president's time in office quickly ticking away, the administration seems more intent than ever to carve out a legacy of social reform on such issues as immigration, same-sex marriage and healthcare.

Currently, the Supreme Court is weighing the legal merits of the President's executive actions on immigration, which stand to shield millions of immigrants from the risk of mass deportation.
A stolen gun was found just outside the driver's door of a rented 2015 Chrysler that crashed early in the morning of May 6, killing three people and seriously injuring a fourth on Willow Park Road in Bethlehem Township, police report.

The .40-caliber Taurus handgun was stolen April 20 from the 6200 block of Sullivan Trail in Plainfield Township and a 25-year-old township man told Slate Belt Regional police that he later sold it for $100 and heroin in a transaction at a Lehigh County inn, police said in court papers.

Jacob Csilinko, of the 6200 block of Sullivan Trail, was charged April 25 with theft and receiving stolen property and was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $5,000 bail, court papers said. Csilinko, who allegedly said he sold the gun to feed his heroin addiction, remained jailed as of Monday afternoon, according to online records.

Slate Belt Regional police Chief David Mettin said investigators are not certain to whom Csilinko sold the weapon, which police said belonged to the father of Csilinko's girlfriend.

Bethlehem Township police continue to investigate the triple-fatal which took the lives of Amanda Martin, 26, of New Ringgold, Schuylkill County; Ashlee Mosher, 29, of Easton; and Joshua Edwards, 28, of Easton, at 1:22 a.m. They all died inside the car, police said.

Township police Chief Dan Pancoast said the fourth victim of the crash, who friends and family identified as Terrell Barclay Jackson, has been put into a medically induced coma "due to the extent of his injuries." Jackson was seen on fire outside the car, a neighbor said.

Township police are awaiting toxicology results and hoping to learn a long-term prognosis for Jackson before it's determined if charges would be filed, Pancoast said. Jackson's condition is "day by day," Pancoast said.

Police haven't said Jackson was the driver or how fast the car was going at impact in the 35-mph zone.

Township police are also waiting for the results of a Pennsylvania State Police reconstruction of the accident, Pancoast said.

Police as well will weigh the statement of a Freemansburg police officer who reported seeing the Chrysler eastbound on Pembroke Road going 90 to 100 miles per hour minutes before the crash. The officer followed the car but had yet to reach Willow Park Road when he saw the flash as the Chrysler struck three parked vehicles and burst into flames on the right shoulder of the curvy road, township police said earlier.

The Chrysler was rented by someone who wasn't in the car when it crashed, Pancoast said.

The investigation will likely take some time to complete, Pancoast said. Once it is done, police will confer with the Northampton County District Attorney's Office to determine if charges would be filed, Pancoast said.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
ecopax fire

Forks Township firefighters responded in the early morning of May 15, 2016, for a Styrofoam fire at Ecopax, 3600 Glover Road. (Dan Clerico | For lehighvalleylive.com)

( )

A Sunday morning fire at a Forks Township manufacturer could have been much worse if not for the building's sprinkler system, a township fire official said.

Crews were called for the fire at about 12:15 a.m. at the Ecopax building, 3600 Glover Road, said Matt Mowrey, deputy chief for the Forks Township Fire Department.

Ecopax manufactures foam and plastic food containers.

A commercial roll of polystyrene caught fire, leading to a working blaze, but the flames were kept from spreading by the building's sprinklers, Mowrey said.

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, and the blaze is under investigation, Mowrey said.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A week after the killing of a 35-year-old New York man in the 600 block of Church Street in Easton, police are still seeking the public's help in solving the crime.

Anyone with information on the shooting death of Michael Bond, 35, of the Bronx, New York, is asked to call the police department's anonymous tip line at 610-250-6635.

The investigation is "ongoing with limited public" input, Lt. Matthew Gerould said.

Concerned with the integrity of the investigation, Gerould wouldn't say if gangs or drugs were tied to the killing, wouldn't discuss why Bond was on the street outside a public housing development and wouldn't comment on what, if anything, was found in the alleged getaway car that was found on the city's South Side.

There were dozens of people outside at 8:10 p.m. May 7 near where Bond was found, but "we've gotten very minimal assistance from the public and witnesses," Gerould said.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
-- Striking workers could be eligible to collect unemployment benefits in New Jersey under a bill approved by the Senate Labor Committee on Monday.

The bill is aimed at assisting Verizon workers who've been on strike for a month, but would change the rules for receiving unemployment insurance for all during labor disputes.

Verizon employees from the Communications Workers of America and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers filled the Senate hearing room beyond capacity Monday as the panel heard this bill and another to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The committee approved the bill (S2160) 3-1.

"This legislation we obviously think is important for the thousands of workers who have really almost (been) forced to be off the job, walked off their job, because of the contract dispute and the way in which Verizon has negotiated this contract and what Verizon has asked their employees to do in order to maintain their employment," Sen. Joe Vitale (D-Middlesex), who sponsored the bill along with Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester).

Nearly 40,000 East Coast wireline employees walked off the job in protest of Verizon's contract demands, which they say will ship call center jobs overseas and weaken benefits and layoff protections.

The strike includes about 4,600 New Jersey workers from Verizon's wireline division, which services its traditional landline phone service and fiber optic cable network for phone, video and Internet.

Nicholas Sheola, a chief steward for CWA Local 1000, said that while CWA has a strike relief fund that pays out about $300 a week, IBEW members don't have the same benefit. To get by, he said, they're borrowing money from family and friends or "they're robbing Peter to pay Paul."

"We don't know when we're going back to work. It's a big hit," he said. "A lot of us have families. We don't have medical anymore, so we may have to pay for Cobra or something like that. So another source of income would be good to have."

Under the bill, workers can access unemployment insurance in labor disputes when an employer violates the terms of an employment contract or collective bargaining agreement. And striking workers are eligible after a 30-day waiting period if the dispute isn't prompted by an employer's failure to comply with contract terms.

Seth Hahn, legislative and political director for the state CWA, noted that the unemployment insurance fund is so secure that Gov. Chris Christie announced in recent weeks that the state is returning $380 million through tax cuts to businesses.

Vitale also chastised Verizon for cutting worker's medical insurance about two weeks into the strike, saying that was "an awful thing, I think, for Verizon to do. Is it within their rights in the contract to do that? It is. Is it the right thing to do as an employer who is probably the most or second-most profitable corporation on the globe? It is not."

Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
County Hall is hiring consultants to come up with a plan for a large part of the town centre that has largely been left out in the development of Portlaoise in recent years.

The Leinster Express understands that tenders have been opened from firms to win the contract.

Laois County Council invited tenders earlier this year. The plan targets includes Main Street west to the the train station and north east to SS Peter & Paul's Church. Lyster Square is excluded from the area.

Church land and buildings that are on the market are included, as is the area south of Market Square to the railway bridge.

Tenders are invited from suitably qualified and experienced companies to prepare a Public Realm Strategy for Portlaoise Town that will develop and deliver the most effective presentation, management and development of the towns public realm, with particular reference to its historic town core and how it relates to new areas developed outside of it and to provide recommendations in relation to its future public realm, said the council when inviting tenders.

The five year strategy will include a set of detailed public realm plans for each component street or public realm element (square/market place) for the enhanced presentation and development of Portlaoises public realm including and action plan setting out phasing and costings of specific projects, lead partners, sources of funding, maintenance etc.

The council said the strategy will define in broad terms, the role of the public realm including:

1. A Shared Vision for Portlaoises public realm consisting of public spaces, public buildings, parks, walkways, etc.

2. Key urban spaces designated for enhancement,

3. Pedestrian priority linkages between the old and new areas and

4. The nature of restraint in remaining trafficked areas (speed reduction, space sharing, calming, lane restrictions, vehicle restrictions).

The council says it is also ' keen' to develop an annual programme of projects and events to enhance the town.

The council said that the James Fintan Lalor Avenue changed the face of Portlaoise. While this facilitated new commercial and industrial development in its vicinity, as well as the building of the new County Hall, the council accepts that the retail core has now shifted to the edge of the old town core.

The council said the 21st century has brought a refocus on traffic management throughout the town with the primary objective to shift the N80 from JFL Avenue to the network of relief routes that have been partly built, and going through planning and construction currently. It said an opportunity arises too with the relocation of the schools from the town centre to larger sites on the edge of centre locations.

An opportunity now arises to address the town core, approach roads and new quarters and how they are connected and made more accessible and attractive to the towns citizens and visitors alike.

It is envisaged that the Portlaoise Public Realm Plan will inform future Local Area Plans for the town, said the tender document.

Portlaoise Municipal District Council, Laois County Council Planning and Economic Development Department and the council's road Design Department will be the main beneficiaries.

However this strategy should inform an overall shared vision for Portlaoise which should give benefit to property owners, guiding public and private investment. It should stimulate interest and provide guidance for residents, developers, Portlaoise Tidy Towns, tourism bodies and transport providers. It should greatly enhance public understanding and appreciation of Portlaoise to both the county citizens and the tourist, says the document.

The key stakeholdersl include: Portlaoise Municpal District/Laois County Council, property owners,

Downtown Portlaoise, transport companies, Laois Chamber, Laois Heritage Society, Portlaoise Tidy Towns, National Monuments Service, Failte Ireland, Heritage Council. The public is not isted but must be consulted.

A strong element of public consultation will be expected throughout the plan  the process may be as important as the end result.
A spokesperson for Bus Eireann has told representatives of Leitrim County Council that the company's hands are tied by criteria set down by the Department of Transport in relation to the School Transport Schemes.

Children availing of the schemes at primary or post primary level have to attend their closest school and councillors say that, in some instances, children are being forced to attend schools with no connection to their community or parish.

Changes were introduced to the scheme in 2011/2012 as a result of cutbacks but councillors said that these had left the system totally unworkable in rural areas.

If there are any alleged cost savings what are they and how are they weighted against the annoyance and upset that the current system is causing, asked Cllr Paddy O'Rourke.

We're trying to keep rural communities together, this is just another nail in the coffin of rural communities.

Cllr Justin Warnock agreed noting the very structures rural parishes depended on were being eroded as a result of ongoing school transport difficulties.

Councillors said major problems included the fact that some families have to send children to schools outside their local area, in some instances this included schools in other counties.

They said some families had older children attending one school, but when younger siblings sought transport to the same school, they were being refused on the grounds that another school was closer.

Independent councillor, Enda Stenson, told the chamber that the problem was incredibly serious and said people assumed that they would be able to send their children to their local parish school.

This is no longer the case because of this new criteria (for the School Transport Schemes). Are we going to have to change the whole face of rural Ireland and have parishes decimated because of the distance between points one and two? he asked.

Cllr Bohan agreed that all the flexibility has gone out of (the schemes).

I understand that you can't have a free for all with the schemes but in the current form they are very unfair, she said.

She cited a case in Dromahair last year where one sibling was attending a school in Manorhamilton but when a younger sibling came through the education system he was not allowed to go to the same school as the older child and was instead ruled as only eligible for the Primary Transport Scheme if he attended a school in neighbouring county.

Why is there no flexibility, no discretion in a case like that? she asked.

She proposed that Leitrim County Council call on the Department of Transport and the relevant Minister to put in place changes which would allow for a degree of discretion adding the situation on the ground is far from black and white. This proposal was seconded by Cllr Enda Stenson.

Her colleague, Cllr Sean McGowan, agreed that some discretion would make the service more workable adding that he had instances in his local area where children were being told they would only be eligible for school transport if they attended a school in Co Roscommon.

The current rules are so rigid that now it's impossible and this is causing a lot of distress and upset for families, he acknowledged.

Cllr Padraig Fallon also pointed out that there were issues with concessionary tickets under the system.

He told the chamber that he knew of a family where a student was 0.2km closer to a certain school but, this school had no school transport system in operation.

This family have a concessionary ticket, where they have to pay towards transport to a school which is further away, he said. They are being penalised because their nearest school doesn't have a transport scheme. This service needs to be reviewed.

His Sinn Fein colleague, Cllr Brendan Barry agreed noting this was as problem in his locality as well and other councillors noted they had similar examples in their areas.

Cllr Sinead Guckian said she was in full support of her colleagues and added that while ethos was highlighted as something taken into consideration when selecting eligibility for a school, this clearly didn't incorporate consideration for the 'ethos' of rural communities. She and colleague Cllr Caillian Ellis, also highlighted issues with the payment system currently in place.

Bus Eireann Regional Manager, Rory Leahy, acknowledged that the scope for flexibility with the system was very limited. He accepted there were instances where older siblings attended one school, while younger students were not allowed due to changes in distance eligibility, but stressed such instances were not common.

He noted that there were also examples where students were having to attend schools outside the county, adding these things happen.

We're operating a scheme the way it is put to us. We are not taking pupils from just anywhere, there is criteria we have to follow. If someone is not happy with a decision there is an appeal mechanism, he pointed out.
A survey of second level students has shown that nearly three quarters of Leitrim respondents believe they won't be able to buy a home in this county after they begin working and a large proportion believe there is a possibility they will have to emigrate at some point.

The 2016 Student Attitudes Index, completed by users of Studyclix.ie, Ireland's largest study website, focused on finances, job prospects, emigration, housing, social media and phones and also asked about bullying as well as attitudes towards politics and role models.

The study of 2,000 students nationwide has shown that 73 percent of Leitrim respondents say it is unlikely or highly unlikely that they will be able to purchase a house in their home county when they start working, with a significant number expecting to have to travel outside of Co Leitrim to find a job.

An even more worrying point is that, despite evidence that the economy is starting to recover in recent years, nearly 9 out of 10 respondents nationally felt they would still have to emigrate at some point in their lives.

The high cost of living was also highlighted as a major concern for students from Co Leitrim with 67 percent of respondents admitting that the cost of rent will have a direct impact on what university or college they will apply for, compared to just 47 percent of respondents nationally.

One of the most startling results was the fact that nearly 67 percent of respondents from Co Leitrim felt that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LBTG) pupils needed to be better protected in schools , nearly double the national average.

Speaking about the results in Co Leitrim, Studyclix Co-Founder Luke Saunders said: I was certainly surprised to see that such a strong cohort of Leitrim students felt that the LGBT students needed better protection. It's obvious that students feel schools are not yet doing enough.

He said that it was also clear from the responses that one of the lasting impacts of the recession and the current property crisis was the fact that students are much more aware of the housing and financial difficulties facing them when they go on to third level education.

Social media also continues to play an important role in the lives of our young people with 76 percent stating they have used a smart phone to study. 56 percent of students admit their school work has been affected by social media use.

As a teacher myself I would regularly advise my students to try and confine their social media use to study breaks only, said Mr Saunders.
After 20,000 people joined us in the wake of the horrific election result last year, a few of them had the idea of trying to get a few of them together in London for a drink. A few hundred turned up, Nick Clegg came to speak and the #libdempint phenomenon was born. Theyve spread across the country and are characterised by a few speeches from ordinary members as well as the occasional appearance from the great and the good.

#libdempint celebrates its first birthday today. It was obvious that the guest of honour had to be Nick Clegg. For the next 22 hours or so, you can watch his speech, thanks to Jon Ball putting it up on Periscope. Enjoy.

Here are some of the highlights.

He started by remembering that mixture of desire for revenge and regret which led people to join the Lib Dems after the Election last year.

The recent Election results are an extraordinarily encouraging step. I think the recovery will happen quickly, but it needs your blood, sweat and shoe leather.

Then he moved on to his specialist subject, Europe.
Divided parties dont win elections. Those were the words of newly-elected London mayor Sadiq Khan, recorded in Saturdays Guardian (14.05), asking his Labour Party for unity. Of course, if true the saying should equally apply to todays Conservative Party, with its bitter infighting even at Cabinet level. Liberal Democrats can offer a saying arguably more telling  A small party can help a divided major party form a governing coalition. A year after the Coalition Government ended, the road to 2020 may lie wide open.

We are a small party now, but we are not a minor party. Unlike other small parties we have many hundreds of councillors in England, with 45 more elected this month as our Fightback kicks in, and we have a voice and an impact beyond our eight MPs and our cohorts in the House of Lords. Liberalism has a proud history of almost 170 years of progressive service to the British people, reaching its latest peak with five years of shared power within the Coalition.

According to David Laws fascinating account from within, our Liberal Democrat ministers held considerable power despite some significant defeats. Unlike David Cameron today, Nick Clegg held his ministers together, without losing Business Secretary Vince Cable, whose dissenting voice evidently exasperated Chancellor Osborne though making for refreshing reading now. The Liberal Democrat ministers achieved much that we know about, such as the big tax cut for working people and the school grants to help poorer children. True to their Liberal Democrat values and principles, they also prevented harms of which we didnt always hear. For instance, the book tells how Nick Clegg in autumn 2012 threatened to veto the autumn economic statement if Osborne insisted on 10 billion of welfare cuts: he got it reduced to around 3.5 billion.

But now, a year after the Coalition ended, even while we quietly rebuild our strength in the country as our Leader demands, we are not waiting to see which of the two ravaged major parties will need us most in 2020. For we are, as Tim has affirmed, a progressive party dedicated to co-operation and constructive engagement in Europe, where we should be in the driving seat rather than hiding in the car boot.

To me, my party is a radical party that also cares about the rise of authoritarianism and racism on the Continent, the denial of rights to refugees, and all ugly nationalism and mistreatment of minorities. Following the lead of Tim and the dynamic backing of Paddy Ashdown, let us show passionate commitment to staying in the EU and helping to reform it from within. This struggle is our immediate task, even though it means working with some less progressive forces, and gaining no acclaim for a successful result. But after June, we still must show our passionate commitment to our values, our care for human rights, liberty, equality and community. Our country and the rest of Europe need that from us, as we seek to regain a share of power to act.

* Katharine Pindar is a long-standing member of the Lib Dems and an activist in the West Cumbrian constituency of Copeland and Workington.
Tim Farron has strongly condemned Boris Johnsons extraordinary comparison of the EU with Hitler.

Tim said:

Under Hitler, Europeans were killing each other, now they are arguing over Eurovision. The European Union is what happens when countries seek to learn from the past and work together. Boris Johnsons latest intervention is what happens when people refuse to learn the lessons of the past and seek to spread discord by inventing conspiracies. The EU has helped secure peace; Hitler destroyed peace and killed millions of innocent people. It is extraordinary that anyone even needs to point this out to him.

Paddy Ashdown also backed Tim:

People are fed up with yet another tuppeny tin-pot imitation Churchill promising to fight them on the beaches while weakening our defences and wrecking our economy.

Johnson has been standing by his remarks, in the face of anger and ridicule, claiming it was all a tweetstorm.

* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
THE MOTHER of Gussie Shanahan who disappeared in Limerick 16 years ago has passed away without ever learning what happened to her beloved son.

Dozens of people have been paying tribute online to Nancy Shanahan, of Ashbrook, Ennis Road, Limerick, and formerly of Cahir, Kenmare, county Kerry.

The retired national school teacher passed away peacefully at the Limerick University Hospital on Friday last.

Councillor Daniel Butler was among those who paid tribute, saying it was so sad she never found the peace and closure a mother deserves after the years of turmoil of not knowing what happened to Gussie.

Only this February gardai in Limerick again renewed their appeal for information on the whereabouts of Aengus Gussie Shanahan, who worked in Dell.

The youngest of four children of Bob and Nancy, Aengus was last seen leaving the former Coopers bar on Joseph Street, formerly Erics bar, at around 10.30pm on February 11, 2000. CCTV footage shows him leaving the premises and a woman, who was parking her car in the area at around the same time, later told gardai she saw him walking in the direction of Barrington Street. He was never seen alive since.

Gussie was 20 years old when he disappeared and despite numerous searches and a nationwide appeal his whereabouts have never been identified.

His disappearance also resulted in the countrys first online missing person appeal. Since he went missing, Nancy suffered a stroke and Bob took early retirement to care for his wife.

Bob, who is in his 70s, said if their son is dead all they want to know is where his remains lie so that they can give him a Christian burial.

In the years since, Gussies family and gardai appealed for anyone who may have useful information and who have not been in contact previously, to do so now.

Nancy is a sister of the late Eamon, Denis and Noel; deeply regretted by her devoted husband Bob, sons Roibeard and her missing son Aengus, daughters Reiltin and Grainne, sons-in-law Gordon and David, daughter-in-law Edwina, grandchildren Conor, Jack, Emily and Dylan, sisters Margaret, Maura, Frances and Joan, nephews, nieces, extended family and friends.

Her funeral Mass will be held this Monday at the Our Lady of the Rosary Church, Ennis Road, at 11am with burial afterwards to Castlemungret Cemetery. Donations, if desired, to Limerick Search and Rescue.
WARNING letters from Limerick City and County Council are to be sent to business owners with no permission for their roadside advertising signs.

But councillors in the Newcastle West area want the council to negotiate with the business owners.

A lot of these businesses are relying on these signs, Cllr Liam Galvin said. And at the end of the day, they are our customers. They pay rates. They pay water charges. And he argued that the council should come up with a simple method of putting up and taking down a sign advertising an event or promoting something.

You could be quicker getting planning permission for a two-storey house. The system is wrong, he said.

We dont want notices going out to businesses that are in danger of closing down.

Cllr Francis Foley was equally adamant, arguing business people trying to survive shouldnt be criminalised for advertising their business.

If we have a problem, go and talk to them, he said. Forget about bully boy tactics.

Cllr Seamus Browne also advocated a cautionary approach to functioning businesses while Cllr John Sheahan proposed the councillors write to the enforcement section outlining concerns.

I think if we engaged with businesses they would be willing to co-operate, Cllr Michael Collins said.

The signs were always an emotive issue, director of services Gordon Daly acknowledged. However, he clarified that the Tidy Towns judges, in their report, were referring to identification signs on the approaches to Newcastle West, not business signs. We dont need them all, he said. And there had been consultation with groups on which were needed.

However, he went on, there is a process in place for other signs. There could be 30 or 40 businesses looking for a sign. If each were to have a sign, what would the town look like?  he asked. There is nobody saying people cant have signs but there has to be a process. We have to be fair to all parties. There has to be some mechanism of control. If there is something there that hasnt planning permission, it is reasonable for the local authority to move it.

We should be sending out the message that people should apply for these signs, he added.

Meanwhile, senior executive engineer, Roger Noonan told the councillors that revised signs for Desmond Castle had been agreed with the manager of the heritage site and would soon be replacing the older ones.
LOCAL Fine Gael TD Tom Neville has called for the liberalisation of planning laws to allow farmers sell sites to prospective buyers in rural areas.

This was one of the measures proposed by Mr Neville to ease to financial pressure on farmers due to the current low price of milk.

Speaking in the Dail, he pointed out that many farmers in Co Limerick were hurting due to low milk prices. However the same product continues to maintain its pricing to the consumer, he added.

Meanwhile materials involved in production such as feed products, fertilizer and silage sheeting have all maintained their pricing if not increased.

He called for a number of measures to help farmers get through these financial difficulties, including relaxing planning rules to make it easier for farmers to sell sites.

The current planning guidelines were born and are in situ since the time of the building boom over 10 years ago. They do not mirror the current happenings on the ground in the likes of Co Limerick.

The liberalisation of these planning laws would make it easier for more people to access a place in rural Ireland, thus enhancing the communities. It will also offer the landholder an option selling sites to offset against current financial stress, he said.

Mr Neville also called for improved broadband in rural areas, noting that: farmers are being encouraged to make their submissions online to speed up their payments but the access to rural broadband is not adequate in allowing them do so. And he stressed the need for a positive inspection environment for the agricultural sector. Inspection bureaucracy must be examined in a lean approach with a view to removing any surplus criteria.
Children's art activities, drumming workshops, a fashion show and a film screening are among the FREE events featured as part of the programme to celebrate Africa Day in Limerick as part of the Africa Week celebrations which run from from May 23 to May 29.

Africa Day is an initiative of the African Union, which celebrates African diversity and success and the cultural and economic potential of the continent.

In Ireland, events to celebrate Africa Day are supported by Irish Aid and Limerick City and County Council. The whole week is geared towards celebrating the past and present while looking into the future.

The launch of this year's programme takes place with a Reflection seminar on Monday, May 23 in the Strand Hotel.

The seminar will focus on the experiences of millions of Africans as well as commemorating the founding of the African Union and independence of most African countries.

The guest speaker, Dr Ebun Joseph, will speak on Migration Issues and Health Care and there will be music by David Idioh, a contestant on The Voice 2016.

Other events include an African movie night in Mary Immaculate College to feature a screening of the award winning movie Invasion 1897.

The feature event for the Africa Day celebrations is a family Fun day with live music, fashion, dance, food and children's activities between 2 and 6pm on Sunday, May 29 in Limericks Milk Market.

A Programme for Schools and Youth will also be hosted on Tuesday May 24 with drumming and art workshops in the City Library (10am-midday) and a youth programme in Limerick Youth Service (4.30pm-6.30pm) also on the day.

"The events and activities taking place this year seek to promote a positive image of Africa, highlight the Irish Aid programme in Africa, and will also have an education component, said Pat Dowling, Director of Services, Limerick City and County Council.

We look forward to people from all different communities joining us during the events to mark Africa Day which Im sure will be entertaining and extremely well supported, he added.

For more on Africa Day/Week Limerick visit africaday.ie or limerick.ie/africaday
May 16, 2016, 5 AM

Three postmarks honoring 100 years of the National Park Service are offered by the Ropex stamp show and exhibition in Canandaigua, N.Y.

By Michael Baadke

The 2016 Ropex stamp show, sponsored by the Rochester Philatelic Association in New York, is scheduled for May 20-22 at the Greater Canandaigua Civic Center, 250 N. Bloomfield Road in Canandaigua, N.Y., southeast of Rochester.

The show is offering a different pictorial postmark with the same National Parks theme for all three days.

The National Park Service is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2016, and the show will celebrate with postmarks that recall the designs of the popular National Parks commemorative stamps issued in 1934.

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The postmark on Friday, May 20, shows the vignette of the 1 stamp from the 1934 series, picturing the El Capitan rock formation in Californias Yosemite National Park.

The Saturday postmark (May 21) depicts the 5 stamp design of the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park, which extends over Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

On Sunday, the design captures the image of the 10 stamp and its view of the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina.

Requests for these postmarks all go to the same address, so its important to specify which postmark you want to receive when making your request.

Also keep in mind that your envelope must be franked with enough postage to fulfill the current first-class letter rate of 47.

To obtain any or all of these Ropex National Parks postmarks, send your request to:

ROPEX Station, Postmaster, 405 Eastern Blvd., Canandaigua, NY 14424-9998, May 20 (Yosemite), May 21 (Yellowstone), May 22 (Great Smoky Mountains).

The following cancels are also available:

NATIONAL ROAD FESTIVAL Station, Postmaster, Box 9998, Addison, PA 15411-9998, May 19-21. (Old school building, 43rd anniversary, Addison School.)

HAM EVENT Station, Postmaster, Box 9998, Dayton, OH 45401-9998.

 May 20 (Circular postmark, city skyline, Hamvention, The Radio Frontier 2016.)

 May 21 (Smiling pig wearing headset, Dayton Hamvention, Radio Frontier 2016.)

CHESTER Station, Postmaster, 309 Route 20, Chester, MA 01011-9998, May 21. (Railroad station, 25 years Chester on the track, 175 years of the Western Railroad, 1991-2016, 1841-2016.)

WALLINGFORD JUBILEE Station, Postmaster, 4 S. Main St., Wallingford, CT 06492-9998, May 21. (Triangular symbol, Connecticut outline map, large 350, 1670-2020.)

8TH ANNUAL FISHING HERITAGE DAY Station, Postmaster, 1605 State Route 26, South Otselic, NY 13155-9998, May 21. (Large outline letter G, two fish, Line up with Gladding, Gladding bicentennial 1816-2016.)

GRADUATION DAY Station, Postmaster, 634 Swift Road, West Point, NY 10996-9998, May 21. (Military hat, crossed swords, With Honor We Lead.)

MILITARY HERITAGE MUSEUM Station, Postmaster, 130 E. Marion Ave., Punta Gorda, FL 33950-9998, May 21. (Large star, five smaller stars, shield with stripes and eagle head, Freedom is not free, Armed Forces Day, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard.)

Share information by writing to Postmark Pursuit, Box 4129, Sidney, OH 45365.

Instructions for requesting postmarks

Linns subscribers can see complete instructions for requesting postmarks by registering here.

Related Articles:

Postal Service reveals first of 16 National Parks stamps

More National Parks centenary stamps revealed

After all designs revealed, National Parks set on sale June 2
May 15, 2016, 11 PM

By Michael Baadke

William Henry Seward, secretary of state under presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, was born in Florida, N.Y., on May 16, 1801. As a youngster he enjoyed learning, and he entered Union College in Schenectady at age 15, graduating in 1820.

Seward studied law in New York City and was admitted to the bar in 1822, practicing in Auburn, N.Y. He married Frances Miller in 1824, and began his involvement in politics, supporting the election of John Quincy Adams for president. He became state senator in 1830, and was elected governor of New York in 1838.

Supporting antislavery efforts, Seward was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1849, and was considered as the Republican Party candidate for president in 1860. Abraham Lincoln was nominated instead, and upon his election he named Seward as his secretary of state.

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On the night of April 14, 1865, when John Wilkes Booth shot and killed Lincoln, 20-year-old Lewis Powell sought to assassinate Seward, who was recovering at home from a recent accident. Powell entered the home and stabbed Seward, but Seward survived and recovered, though he bore a knife scar on his face from the attack. Powell was tracked down, arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

In 1867, Seward successfully negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia. The $7.2 million price tag caused the agreement to be dubbed Sewards Folly by Congressional opponents, but the treaty proved to be a shrewd deal for the United States.

Seward died Oct. 10, 1872. He was commemorated on a 2 stamp issued June 1, 1909 (Scott 370), in celebration of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. An imperforate variety (371) was also issued.
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A curious prehistoric site on a hilltop in northern Ohio may reflect the spiritual cosmology of the ancient hunter-gatherer people who built the site around 2,300 years ago, according to a new study.

The so-called Heckelman site, located near the town of Milan, in Ohio's Erie County, is on a flat-topped bluff above the Huron River. There, people of the "Early Woodland" period of North American prehistory erected tall, freestanding wooden poles as part of the group's social or religious ceremonies.

Archaeologist Brian Redmond, a curator at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, said the location of the site appeared to echo a conception of the cosmos common to many Native American peoples. [See photos of the prehistoric Heckelman site]

"We know that Native American and many different tribal groups had a very specific vision about the world as a three-layered cosmos: the upper world, the middle world that we live on and an underworld," Redmond, author of a new research paper on the earliest occupants of the Heckelman site, told Live Science.

Three layers

The site is bordered by water, which ancient people could have seen as symbolic of the underworld, Redmond said. The wooden poles on the bluff may have been constructed to reach up to the sky, in the direction of the upper world, he added.

"So this could have been seen as a spiritually powerful landscape where you connected the three worlds together, with the poles as an 'axis mundi' (axis of the world) or 'tree of life' type of thing, which is global in the way that [ancient] cultures looked at these things," Redmond said.

The Heckelman site is unique among Early Woodland sites in the region because there are no signs of human burials or preparations for burials, Redmond said. Instead, the site seems to have been used for rituals or festivals associated with the living, rather than the dead, he said.

"From everything we're seeing, we're very certain it was some sort of ceremonial location. The fact we found no human burials, we found no evidence of mortuary treatment or mortuary ceremonialism  this site really stands out because we really didn't find any direct evidence of that," Redmond said. "So it's a different kind of ceremonialism, a ritualism related to the living  it represents that these people had a rich ceremonial life, a religious life, that wasn't just involved in burying people." [Top 10 Weird Ways We Deal With the Dead]

What remains

The unusual site features two parallel ditches that enclose the top of the bluff, and an oval ditch that encloses a flat area measuring about 87,000 square feet (8,080 square meters), where the wooden poles were erected.

A field image of one of the largest and deepest "post molds" recorded during excavations at the Heckelman archaeological site in northern Ohio. (Image credit: Brian Redmond, Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

None of the poles remain, but their locations can be determined by what's left of the "post molds," or pits, that were dug to hold the poles upright, researchers said. Judging by the size of the holes, the poles would have stood about 10 to 12 feet (3 to 3.7 m) tall, the researchers said.

"Unlike other sites where we have post molds, these don't represent the walls of a structure or a specific building. They seem to be freestanding, upright poles, which would indicate they had some different kind of function," Redmond said. "When I was looking at all the data and maps of the distribution of these poles, it's kind of a habit to try to make them into a structure, to look for rectangles or circles or something like a building, and I was really frustrated by the fact that I couldn't do that in the end. And then I realized, these are something else."

About six clusters of poles have been identified at the site so far. Each cluster may have been part of ceremonies held at the site at different times or by different groups of people, Redmond said.

"It really is very different than we've seen before," he added. "You do see poles in some Adena [culture] sites in southern Ohio, such as the circular arrangements of posts called a 'woodhenge'  sometimes these are found beneath Adena burial mounds. But that sort of regular pattern is something we're not seeing up here."

Rich history

The Heckelman site, named after its private landowners, has been known since the 1950s, thanks to a large number of prehistoric artifacts found there by the landowners and amateur archaeologists. Those objects included pottery, spear points and knife blades. [In Photos: Human Skeleton Sheds Light on First Americans]

This pottery fragment was likely used to prepare and serve ceremonial meals at the Heckelman site. (Image credit: Brian Redmond, Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

Excavations in the 1960s and 1970s found one of the parallel ditches on one side of the bluff top, and a geomagnetic survey in 2008 revealed the second ditch and oval enclosure.

Archeologists from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Firelands Archaeological Research Center, in Amherst, Ohio, excavated parts of the site each summer from 2009 to 2014.

In addition to evidence of the freestanding poles, researchers found pits filled with pottery shards and burned rocks, which were likely the remnants of food that had been prepared as part of the ceremonies at the site, Redmond said.

"With analogy to historic Native American groups and others, it seems like these ceremonies would have also involved preparing food and communal meals, or feasting," he said.

Ancient community

The Early Woodland people were hunter-gatherers who lived in communities of a few families, and many of these groups likely used the Heckelman site, Redmond said.

"Their habitations were based on small groups of related families, but they did congregate in much larger groups for rituals or seasonal festivals," Redmond said. "It was probably a very social thing. They would come together to exchange information, to talk about where to get the best flint, or where did you see geese or ducks last season?

And there may have been other social benefits, too, he said.

"They needed to interact, to get together and develop their social organizations and relationships, and these places were probably used for that," Redmond said. "So it is probably social [interactions], not just religion, going on at these places."

Redmond said the discoveries at the Heckelman site underline the importance of preserving archaeological resources in the United States. In many cases, doing so depends on the help of private landowners, he said.

"The father and son who maintain this property are very supportive of what we do. They have even gone so far in some years [as] to not even plant parts of the field that we wanted to excavate in," he said. "So we really just want to spread the word that there is really good evidence of the past all over North America, and that it is really important to preserve these sites."

The study was published earlier this year in the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology.

Follow Tom Metcalfe @globalbabel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
Once glitter is out of the bottle, it's tricky to get the shiny stuff back in.

If you've ever worked with glitter for an art project, you know that the sparkly stuff sticks to just about everything  and removing it from your skin, or really any surface, can be a real chore.

So why is something so whimsical also so tenacious? Turns out, there is no simple answer to the question  the physicists we contacted provided a variety of explanations, ranging from static electricity to a physics principle called van der Waals forces.

Glitter is made up of tiny bits of a polymer called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, (trade name: Mylar). The pieces can be very small, at just a millimeter or so across, though glitter comes in several sizes. The shine comes from an ultrathin coating of metal. Both its composition and its small size make glitter ideal for sticking to all things oily and moist, and even to dry surfaces.

Read on to find out the funky physics of how all of this works.

The physics of glitter's stickiness

An informal survey of experts reveals that several different forces make glitter such a sticky problem (no pun intended). Among them are static, the viscosity of air and a phenomenon called van der Waals forces.

Static electricity occurs when two objects come into contact and one shuttles its negatively charged electrons to the other, making one object positively charged and the other negatively charged. Similar charges repel each other, and opposite charges attract. You can watch this happen by rubbing a balloon on your head and making it stick. [The Mysterious Physics of 7 Everyday Things]

Paul McCord, a senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin, said that most of the time, when glitter sticks to dry surfaces, static is probably the culprit. "Plastic picks up electrons like crazy," he said. (You can observe this phenomenon when you buy a brand-new plastic vial of glitter: Even though the inside of the vial is dry, it is covered with a thin layer of glitter.)

It's in the air

Another phenomenon might also be at work: the viscosity of air. At very small scales, air is actually rather viscous, behaving more like a fluid than a gas.

Glitter particles are very flat, McCord said. If you put a flat, thin object on a very smooth table  a piece of paper, for example  you find it stays relatively stationary and is hard to pick up unless you can lift an edge slightly. That's because the paper pushes out all of the air underneath it. The weight of the air on top of the paper pushes it down, and you need to let some air under it to allow the paper to rise  the air underneath counteracts the pressure from above. Glitter particles could behave in a similar fashion, especially because they are usually so tiny and flat, McCord said. [Fun Science Experiments for Kids]

Van der Waals forces

But that doesn't explain the entire phenomenon. And that's where van der Waals forces come in  though they are a bit more mysterious, at least with respect to glitter, experts told Live Science. Van der Waals forces describe many different phenomena that involve certain attractive or repulsive forces between molecules. For example, van der Waals forces explain how geckos can walk up walls, as well as why water sticks to some substances and not others.

Glitter gets its stickiness from different kinds of van der Waals forces depending on whether it is adhering to water, oil or a dry surface:

Surface tension:

With water, some of the effect is from surface tension, involving intermolecular attraction between water molecules  one set of van der Waals forces. Water is a polar molecule, meaning it has a positive end and a negative end. As such, water molecules attract each other at their positive and negative ends, like little magnets. This is why on some surfaces, water "beads up" and tries to make a droplet  the molecules are all butting up against one another's opposite ends. If you wet your hand and put sand on it, the sand sticks because as those water molecules attract each other, they trap the sand. The same phenomenon would make glitter  or any other small particle  stick to your fingers when moist. [The Surprisingly Strange Physics of Water]

Capillary action:

This van der Waals force describes the phenomenon in which liquid sticks more strongly to the walls of a tube, for example, than it does to its neighboring liquid molecules. Capillary action explains why water gets soaked up by a paper towel: It is being pulled more strongly by the pores in the surface of the towel than it is to itself. Like paper towels, the little imperfections in the glitter's surface can allow for molecules with exposed positive and negative charges that attract the water.

Adhesion: This type of van der Waals force arises from the amount of surface area contacted between two surfaces, said Kellar Autumn,a professor of biology at Lewis & Clark College in Oregon who did groundbreaking experimental work on adhesion when he studied how geckos stick to surfaces. Glitter particles are flat, so they will tend to have a lot of surface touching whatever they are on, even on a dry surface.

Other forces involved

Electrostatic interaction:

Yet another factor could be the metal that coats glitter. "If the glitter is coated with metal, then I suppose there is the capacity for a more formal electrostatic interaction," Dave Farina, a former teacher of chemistry at the Southern California University of Health Sciences and star of the "Professor Dave Explains" YouTube series on chemistry, told Live Science in an email.

The metal, which has free electrons in it, will be slightly charged; any positively charged molecule nearby will attract it, Farina said. "The metals make things funkier, as they don't fall into the category of generating van der Waals forces," he added. "[It] depends quite a bit on the metal, really, and how the electrons are distributed."

Friction:

Glitter particles are so light and small that friction becomes significant relative to gravity, so if the glitter is on a smooth surface and you tilt it, it won't be heavy enough to slide off, Farina said.

Solving the mystery of which forces are the main culprits of glitter's stickiness will probably require some investigation by materials scientists. "If you want to really know how glitter adheres to skin, experiments are required!" Autumn said. "There are no easy answers when it comes to adhesion."

Cleaning up glitter

Perhaps the more important question is, how do you get glitter unstuck?

Picking glitter up from a dry surface is probably best done with a vacuum or a moist cloth or sponge (although you probably have to throw them out afterward). Removing the stuff off your skin is a bit different because skin almost always has at least a little moisture on it.

The best way to pick it up from a wet surface may involve using powder like talc or compressed air, said Joe Colleran, sales manager at Meadowbrook Inventions, the company that invented glitter as we know it today.

Follow Live Science on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
Music, Movies & Entertainment, Local News, Business & Finance, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 16 2016

Gold Coast Studios to Serve as Home to LIs First-Ever Live Studio Audience Sitcom

Long Island will have it's first-ever live studio audience sitcom. "Kevin Can't Wait" stars Kevin James. Gold Coast Studios in Bethpage to serve as its home.

Bethpage, NY - May 13, 2016 - Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano today announced that CBS has picked up Kevin Can Wait starring Kevin James  a multi-camera live studio audience sitcom. The pilot was filmed at Gold Coast Studio in Bethpage and the sitcom will continue to film in Bethpage. While Bethpages Gold Coast Studios and Grumman Studios have served as home to a number of motion picture and television productions, this was Long Islands first-ever live audience sitcom.

Look for the sitcom to air on CBS in September. The industry is adding hundreds of millions of dollars annually to our local economy.

Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano stated, This is exciting news as Bethpage's Gold Coast Studios first ever live studio audience sitcom starring Kevin James has been picked up by CBS. Nassau County is quickly becoming the Hollywood East of the motion picture and television industry - employing residents and generating more $250 million in economic benefit for our local economy annually.

Kevin Can Wait stars James as a newly retired police officer looking forward to spending carefree, quality time with his wife and three kids, only to discover he faces tougher challenges at home than he ever did on the streets. Co-starring alongside James are Erinn Hayes, Taylor Spreitler, Mary-Charles Jones, James Digiacomo, Ryan Cartwright, Leonard Earl Howze, Lenny Venito and Gary Valentine.

Also working on the new episodic are Long Islands home grown comics Joey Kola and Chris Roach. Kevin James has recently moved back to his hometown on Long Island.

An independent economic analysis performed by Camoin Associates in 2015 indicates the motion picture and television industry generated $533.6 million in economic benefit for Nassau County and more than $1.64 million in sales and hotel taxes between 2013 and 2014. The industry employed 1,773 annual jobs through the production of more than 535 films, which accounted for over 2,109 days between 2013 and 2014.

Nassau County is now the home of two successful production studios that encompass three buildings and nine sound stages that compete internationally for film and television production.

The economic study, commissioned by the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency (IDA), focused its review on three filmmaking facilities: Gold Coast Studios in Bethpage, Grumman Studios in Bethpage and the Sands Point Preserve in Port Washington, and on-location filming throughout the County.

These studios are qualified New York State production facilities and therefore film producers are entitled to a 30% tax credit through the Empire State Film Production Tax Credit program. In addition, the studios are located within the Film Zone  a boundary set by several New York City film industry unions to define the area in which their members will work locally without incurring travel and overtime costs. The boundary is a 25-mile radius of Columbus Circle.

Prior to serving as County Executive, Ed Mangano worked tirelessly to redevelop the former U.S. Navy-Northrop Grumman Corporation property in Bethpage. Today, the property serves as home to nine sound stages and two studios: Gold Coast Studios and Grumman Studios.

As a Legislator, Ed Mangano formed Nassau Countys first Film Commission in 1997. As County Executive, Mr. Mangano has hosted annual industry tours to attract producers, directors, film writers and others in the industry to Nassau.

Over the past few years, Nassau County has served as home to NBCs live performances of The Sound of Music, Peter Pan, and The Wiz. Motion picture and television shows filmed in Nassau County also include The Good Wife, The Amazing Spiderman 2, Royal Pains, The Americans, Person of Interest, The Blacklist, Boardwalk Empire, This Is Where I Leave You, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Wolf of Wall Street, Annie, The Affair, Still Alice, Sisters, TrainWreck, and many, many more.
Local News, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 16 2016

On Wednesday, May 11th, Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano officially installed nine new Fire Commissioners as well as Incoming Fire Commission Chairman Denis Collins.

From Left to Right: Anthony DEsposito, Hempstead Town Councilman; County Exec. Edward P. Mangano; James N. Mezey, Jr., Outgoing Chair of Fire Commission; Denis Collins, Incoming Chair of Fire Commission; and County Leg. Denise Ford.

Nassau County, NY - May 13, 2016 - On Wednesday, May 11th, Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano officially installed nine new Fire Commissioners as well as Incoming Fire Commission Chairman Denis Collins.

County Executive Mangano was joined by County Legislator Denise Ford and Town of Hempstead Councilman Anthony DEsposito in recognizing Outgoing Fire Commission Chair James N. Mezey, Jr. for his years of service and dedication.

Im honored to swear in members of the Nassau County Fire Commission, said County Executive Mangano. Congratulations to all of the incoming officers. You have truly distinguished yourselves and I look forward to working with each of you.

Incoming Chairman Denis Collins has been a Nassau County Fire Commissioner since May, 2012. He is also a U.S. Navy Veteran who served two tours of duty in Vietnam; an Ex-Chief of the Point Lookout-Lido Fire Department, where he has served as a member for 54 years; and is retired from the New York City Fire Department. This is Denis fourth time serving on the Fire Commission, having previously served as a Commissioner in 1981, 1996, and 2005.

Outgoing Chairman James N. Mezey, Jr. is credited with keeping the Firefighters Endowment Committee active to ensure that the Fallen Firefighters Monument in Eisenhower Park was kept up to date. He is an Ex-Chief, and 50-year member, of the Carle Place Fire Department and a sworn member of the Nassau County Police Department, where he retired from the K-9 Unit in 1996.
Nature & Weather, Local News, Business & Finance, Health & Wellness, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 16 2016

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and Congressman Peter King today announced that the $23.7 million Southside Hospital mitigation project in Bayshore has received approval.

Bay Shore, NY - May 13, 2016 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and Congressman Peter King today announced that the $23.7 million Southside Hospital mitigation project in Bayshore has received approval from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.

The Southside Hospital is a critical Suffolk County health care facility and its close proximity to the Great South Bay puts it at risk for damage during extreme weather. The project will receive $17.78 million in federal reimbursements to complete the mitigation efforts, with the hospital to commit the remainder of the funding.



"Hospitals need to be able to operate and serve their communities no matter the circumstances," Governor Cuomo said. "These projects will allow for uninterrupted critical healthcare to be provided during severe weather and give patients and their families peace of mind in their time of greatest need."



This $23 million hazard mitigation project will help provide much-needed upgrades at Bay Shores Southside Hospital to ensure the facility is better protected in the event of a future storm. These federal funds will help make sure Southside Hospital can continue to operate uninterrupted and provide critical medical care to those in-need during extreme weather events, said Senator Charles E. Schumer. Supporting mitigation efforts, like this one, will be vital when the next disaster comes our way.



"Superstorm Sandy devastated our communities, and this critical FEMA funding would help provide much needed resources to make structural repairs and renovations to Southside Hospital here on Long Island," said Senator Gillibrand.

"Southside Hospital is an invaluable lifeline for patients and families, and this $23.7 million will enable the hospital to continue to provide first-rate care and remain open to the public. I will continue to fight for funding so we can rebuild our infrastructure even stronger and be prepared for when the next storm hits."



"Southside Hospital is an invaluable facility for the residents of Suffolk County," said Congressman Peter King. "This critical funding will go a long way to not only ensure the resiliency of the Hospital itself but the safety of the patients in any future disaster."



Work includes the installation of back-check valves and measures to improve drainage on site to better evacuate storm water from the Emergency Department entrance to the ER and other critical access points. The work also includes the hardening of the existing building envelope through the removal of roofing ballast and the replacement of windows. Also, six main pad-mounted outdoor electrical transformers will be elevated and a new electrical/IT room will be constructed.



"Northwell Health greatly appreciates the support of Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, and Governor Cuomo in securing $23.7 million to safeguard Southside Hospital in Bay Shore against future flooding," said Michael J. Dowling, President and CEO of Northwell Health (formerly North Shore-LIJ Health System). "While Southside remained operational during Superstorm Sandy, it sustained major damage because of its location on the Great South Bay. The infrastructure improvements and upgrades that will be made possible by this funding will ensure that during future storms, the hospital will continue to meet the health care needs of the diverse racial, ethnic and socio-economic communities that Southside is privileged to serve."



Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner John Melville said, "It is vital to our communities that healthcare services will not be interrupted when emergencies strike. I am glad that once again, the Division, FEMA and our local partners can work together to ensure that our critical healthcare facilities are ready and able to operate during severe storms."



FEMA has approved these projects under its Hazard Mitigation Grant Program which allows the state to establish priorities aimed at increasing the State's resiliency, mitigating the risks of loss and damage associated with future disasters, and reducing hardship. After Superstorm Sandy devastated parts of New York, Governor Cuomo called for government and non-profit organizations across the state to submit applications for projects to help communities become more resilient, rebuild smarter, stronger and more sustainable communities in the wake of recent natural disasters.



About Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services

The Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services (DHSES) and its four offices -- Counter Terrorism, Emergency Management, Fire Prevention and Control, and Interoperable and Emergency Communications -- provide leadership, coordination and support for efforts to prevent, protect against, prepare for, respond to, and recover from terrorism and other man-made and natural disasters, threats, fires and other emergencies. For more information, visit the DHSES Facebook page, follow on Twitter, or visit the website.
Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 16 2016

Suffolk County Police First Squad detectives are investigating a two-car crash that killed a woman this afternoon.

Marie Novak, 85, of Lindenhurst, was transported to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip where she was pronounced dead.

Lindenhurst, NY - May 14, 2016 - Suffolk County Police First Squad detectives are investigating a two-car crash that killed a woman this afternoon.

Ronald Scagnelli, 20, of Lindenhurst, was driving his 1988 Pontiac Firebird northbound on Straight Path when his vehicle collided with a 2004 Hyundai Elantra that was traveling westbound on 47th Street in Lindenhurst at approximately 1 p.m.

The driver of the Elantra, Mary Mazur, 86, of Lindenhurst was transported to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip where she was treated for minor, non-life-threatening injuries. Her passenger, Marie Novak, 85, of Lindenhurst, was transported to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip where she was pronounced dead.

Scagnelli was transported to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip where he was treated for minor non-life-threatening injuries.

North Lindenhurst Fire Department and Copiague Fire Department transported the victims.

Both vehicles were impounded for safety checks and the investigation is continuing.
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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Theres a new keyboard option for iOS: Gboard from Google. Remarkably, Google released it on iOS before Android, possibly because Google exercises much more control over the keyboard thats part of Android. (For the record, and have at me with virtual sticks, I prefer the default Android 6 keyboard on my Moto G to the default iOS one.)

You can read elsewhere about the keyboards features. I tested it out and adopted it almost immediately to replace Swype, which Id found increasingly driving me to distraction. (It doesnt seem to know a lot of words I use commonly, and it wasnt improving over time after a few initial gains.)

But a strong public reaction didnt arise about the keyboards predictive word suggestions, emoji matching, and swipe tracking. In order to handle your keystrokes, any alternate input app has to be able to process them to send to iOS. The keyboards Ive tried that have a networked component for improving or enhancing results also work if you disable it.

Apples severe warning seems to imply data will leak.

When you enable Allow Full Access for a keyboard (Settings > General > Keyboards, select a keyboard), Apple offers a frank description of the risk, although its rather alarming, as you can see above. Apple could have somewhat more granular restrictions, but for the last two iOS releases, its all or nothing.

With Google involved, many people expressed joking or serious concern that Gboard might give the search company even more information about their personal behavior.

Is it risky to give Googleor any companyaccess to all your keystrokes? Sure. But you can dig into two related aspects: what a company says it will do with your keystrokes, and which keystrokes you choose to tap into that keyboard.

Reading the fine print

Google has a short and crisp privacy statement about Gboardyou can find it under the Search History and Privacy section, tap Privacy. Google says it only sends the searches you perform by tapping the G icon, which makes sense: Obviously it needs the text of the search to perform it. You can also wipe the search history from Gboard at will. These searches dont sync with other Google products you use, so you wont see them appear elsewhere.

GBoard offers search suggestions based on what youve typed, but only when you tap the G icon.

Google says that besides search, it doesnt send anything you type back to Google. The privacy policy notes, Gboard will remember words you type to help you with spelling or to predict searches you might be interested in. It also seems to have a mighty dictionary, far better than other keyboards Ive tried.

The leaky-soup test

That policy is fine, but I put it to the test by intercepting data sent from my iPhone to the Internet. I set up Internet Sharing to share my Macs Wi-Fi connection, then I connected my iPhone to that software base station. I then ran a network packet sniffer in OS X that let me capture all the Internet connections originating from the iPhone.

Because Google encrypts almost everything by defaultmore on that almost in a momentI couldnt see what iOS was sending to Google nor the responses. Id need to insert a packet sniffer in iOS to see data before it was packaged in an encrypted https session, and thats not possible without a jailbreak, if even then.

However, I could test typing in Gboard, and see that no data was being sent at all between iOS and the Internet while I typed. I could then tap the G icon and perform searches, and watch data get sent back and forth.

An unexpected leak of noodles and chicken.

That almost I mentioned above? All the traffic was encrypted with one odd exception. Gboard can provide suggestions for GIFs to insert, too, including animated ones. When I tapped the restaurants near me suggestion in Gboards search area, Gboard requested one image in the clear: I believe its an American-style Chinese dish of fried glazed chicken and crispy noodles on top of vegetables.

A reverse image search on Tineye confirmed that its a photo from Panda Express used on a site promoting downtown Chicago. Since I live in Seattle and the nearest Panda Express is several miles away, Im completely confused.

Thats a leak of information outside of encryption that someone on an open network, such as Wi-Fi at a coffeeshop, could intercept, and discern some information about your habits. The search query itself wasnt revealed; just this image request to show a preview.

After this article was published, Googles project manager looked into the issue, agreed it needed to be changed, and GBoard was updated to retrieve these near you image previews via https. I tested and confirmed the change was implemented.

Be selective in what you type

The second part of my formulation is that you can choose what you type on a keyboard. For certain kinds of data entry in iOS, notably passwords, Apple automatically switches away from any third-party keyboard, and only lets you use a built-in one. (It has a few that have minor variants that depend on the kind of entry.)

I use sometimes use iCloud Keychain to drop in credit-card numbers and passwords in Safari, although I turn to 1Password more often for the same via a Sharing sheet in Safari, integration in other apps, and copy-and-paste from the 1Password app. Since I never tap in that information on a keyboard, its never sent to a third-party alternative input app.

You could make a similar choice without using iCloud Keychain or 1Password by switching to Apples built-in keyboard whenever you need to enter private or sensitive data. For most of us, its much more rare that were tapping in something secret, especially in iOS, than performing general searches, writing email, or sending texts and tweets.

I dont get too worked up about third-party keyboards from major firms like Google and Microsoft, or well-known, long-established companies like Smile, which has a TextExpander app with a keyboard option. And if you have any concerns about sending your data, Apple doesnt opt you in: the Allow Full Access switch is always off by default when you add a keyboard.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Debates on the Direction of Democracy in Bangladesh

by Anindita Ghoshal

Bangladesh was the third country in a row to come out of a nation-making process from a colonial state to an independent one (1947-71). Nationalism played a major role in the fight against colonialism and in shaping up the political boundaries of these states, India- Pakistan-Bangladesh. Yet, the nature of conflicts as well as issues of negotiations and necessities behind the creation of separate states in this geographical area of unified India had changed time and again. In the journey from a colonial structure to several independent states, commu-nity-identity and religion had initially played crucial roles. These were also taken as essential factors in defining the aspirations for the other by demarcation of lands for two major religious communities, Hindus and Muslims (1947).1 Pakistan had born out of a single trajectory towards Islam, based on Muslim identity as the only positive bond.2 But, after a brief period of romance and reconciliation, its eastern wing started experiencing a kind of second colonia-lism.3 Differences were seen in many layers between both the wings of Pakistan. But, problems related to language issues and ethnic identities of communities had created hindrances in the provincial, regional and local levels.4 Amidst such complexities and confusions, the masses were at the receiving end. Their idea of freedom, alternative voices in defining the spirit of nationalism, and the notion about an ideal state often failed to attract the attention of the policy-makers, who were largely based at the Centre (in West Pakistan).5 Thus, apart from geographical absurdity, factors like differences in the value-system, morals, practice of culture, food habits, problems of various identities and questions of mother tongue led to another split.6

Since the War of Liberation (1971), the concept of Bengali nationalism became the strength of the newborn nation named Bangladesh. It indeed emerged as the weapon to fight against the economic exploitation and other policies practised by the Centre and the bureaucrats of semi-feudal-military structure of Pakistan.7 The then National Avami Party and Awami League, under the able leaderships of Maulana Bhasani and Mujibur Rahman respectively, could successfully float their idea of freedom with the right of expression in their mother tongue.8 This was gradually successful in earning recognition from many countries across the globe, including India, and respect from a few international organisations. Bangladesh established as an independent state in the map of South Asia, based on the idea of Bengali identity over and above the Muslim identity.9 Yet, the state could never separate its existence from the crisis related to its Islamic identity or smoothen its relationship with the extremist forces of the mother country, Pakistan.10 Hence, the idea of state, role of bureaucracy and the nature of democracy were nurtured differently in Bangladesh during the reign of the two leading political parties, Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and in between the phases of military rule or under the caretaker government. The treatment of citizens, minority communities and ethnic tribals had altered as per their ideology and rule of law over the decades.

Still, the year 2015 was remarkable in the history of Bangladesh in respect to the overall happenings, experiences of the mass of Bangladeshis and foreign visitors who came to that declared independent democratic country for diverse reasons. The year saw the brutal killing of five atheist bloggers, writers and publishers by the Islamic extremists, deadly attacks on foreign volunteers, Shia Muslims, religious minorities, including barbaric child killings.11 The world first came know about the attack on mukto-mon (idea of freedom of expression and liberal thinking) in the beginning of 2015. It was alarming that the blow was first felt during the Ekushe February-Bhasha Shahid Dibas celebration. This occasion has always been considered as the most auspicious and momen-tous occasion for the Bangladeshis in each and every corner of the country irrespective of the other numerous issues of conflict or confusion. It became a continuous topic of debates and discussions.

Since February 2015, the religious extremists and Islamic fundamentalists have tightened their network around the atheists and supporters of secular thoughts in Bangladesh. Thus, a strange but strong sense of sectarian terror has inflicted an added fear among the progressive people and minorities. The tradition of the co-existence of four major religious communities (Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians) was declining, especially when the ruling government officially failed to identify the agents behind the violence.12 The Intelligence Bureau reports and international media high-lighted on the responsibility of the international terrorist groups, especially the ISIS, in this regard; yet the government neither accepted/admitted it, nor did they categorically deny the claim. They rather opted to blame the Opposition parties, though they failed to prove their claim in this regard as well. There were active local militant groups working for the ISIS and other such groups to accomplish their agenda in Bangladesh. The government could not actually resist any of these attacks. They were also not in a position to negotiate with the different layers of political and societal agents to come out with a viable solution. They were rather seen determined to place some alternative explanations every time, and these were frustrating and even more frightening.13

On the contrary, the government banned a few popular social networking sites like Facebook and other services like Viber and Whatsapp for a limited period in the last half of 2015, as a measure to control such atrocities. They claimed that these service-providers became popular communication mediums for anti-government protests.14 Interestingly, though a shift from the composite culture of staying together of communities had started long back in Bangladesh, the introduction of the modern push-and-pull techniques between the secular and Islamist camps began to build up only in recent years, in which the idea of free thinking was often targeted in the officially secular Bangladesh.15 Violence spiked drama-tically with some brand new ideas like making hit lists, giving threat calls to the elite and educated progressive people.16 So, discussions on the reasons behind the attacks on the atheists and the future direction of democracy in Bangladesh naturally became the topic of debates among the social and political scientists, even in the media.

But, if we look at the history of the major political parties in this particular country, it is fascinating to notice the changing nature of the political processes, strategies and their practices of corroboration or collaboration at many levels in different decades. The Awami League officially declared its support for secularism and freedom of religion in 1955, when it preferred to omit Muslim in between Awami and Party.17 The issue of Bengali identity was deeply embedded in their idea of nationalism and amidst the cultural ethos of the Awami League. They also tried hard to establish their exclusive and own regional identity.18 Yet, after Bangladesh emerged as a separate nation based on the ideology of secular nationalism in 1971, some Islam-pasand parties, backed by Pakistan, continued to threaten the countrys ideological moorings. Bangladeshs tryst with democracy introduced a new chapter when this independent country finally adopted a Constitution in 1972 with the tenets of nationalism, democracy, socialism and secularism.19 But, the political environment of the then Bangladesh probably was not conducive to these principles of democracy.

From 1973, the Marxist-Leninist Communist movements started posing threats to the Awami League Government. Yet, after Sheikh Mujibur Rahmans assassination in 1975, the country started experiencing military dictatorship and fell into a severe political turmoil. Parliamentary democracy was replaced by a presidential one and an extended period of junta rule lasted for the next two decades. In effect, the middle class and urban elite, who formed a kind of civil society in Dhaka and other culturally rich muffosil towns, stood completely alienated.20 Army General Ziaur Rahman consolidated his power after wiping out the radical Left elements, with whose support he could ascend to the topmost position. He indeed formed his own political party, named the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and fundamental changes were incorporated immediately in the Constitution. He introduced a policy of complete Islamisation and the Islamic preamble, which acknowledges the primacy of Islam, was essentially added and naturally the imposition of the Muslim identity over and above the cultural identity became prominent. This was just the beginning of a phase of constant discrimination of the minorities and ethnic tribals, as well as imposition of the undemocratic policies on them. The Jamaat-e-Islami and other Islamist parties gained a significant role during Zias reign, and they were allowed to function officially in Bangladesh. The BNP has traditionally been closer to religious conservatives and it was more concerned to establish a religious identity.21

Ershad and his Jatiyo Party (1983), however, had initially included many Leftist and Rightist political parties in order to extend the support-base of his regime. But, after the Martial Law had ensured the single largest majority for his party, Ershad permitted the rise of other splinter Islamic parties, chiefly to counter the growth of the Jamaat. He indeed declared Islam as the state religion of Bangladesh.22 The process of unequal distribution of power, centralised administration and marginalisation of minority communities became more prominent in the reign of General Ershad. From that time onwards, Bangladesh, as an independent nation-state, could never cut off its lineage from the West Pakistani hierarchical roots and extremist Islamic groups. Both the Army Generals, Ziaur Rahman and Ershad, were firmly against the ideology of secular nationalism of 1971. Ershad was forced to resign in 1990, but by then the BNP had become the Centre-Right party, whereas the Awami League occupied the Centre-Left position. Bangladesh again aspired to reinstate parliamentary democracy in 1991. But, a continuous and consistent enmity developed between the two leading parties, the Awami League and BNP, from this time onwards. It primarily revolved around the ideological fault-lines, question of secularisation and the role of Islam. But, they had major disagreements regarding the role of the party leaders during the Liberation War (1971). Bangladesh thereafter witnessed a culture of political violence in the form of hartals, boycotts and politics of intransigence.23 Bangladesh has a long history of pre-election violence too. However, there was hardly any firm stand on punishments.24 The minorities were generally the worst sufferers.25 In most cases, conflicting issues were taken straight to the streets, instead of the parliament. Vengeance and violence have, since then, remained very much the core characteristics of Bangladeshi politics.26

When the tensions between the two leading political parties were already there, the Awami Leagues initiative to constitute the War Crimes Tribunal in 2009 became another major factor in accelerating conflicts and complicated the existing undercurrents. The guilty verdict was declared in 2013, and thus began tussles between several groups, political parties, and within human right activists and their organisations. The initial announcement of death sentences and the later version of life imprisonment to death was met with severe protests from the pre-liberation forces, which culminated in the rise of the Shahbag Movement in 2013.27 It had taken the character of a social-reformist kind of movement with vital issues. The bloggers, young technology-savvy students, political activists, intellectuals and educated girls came out as the face of the movement and a cultural front was created to identify the major political issues of conflicts, which they again portrayed and termed as the agents of social evil.28 Despite serious legal flaws, 74 per cent of the Bangladeshis continued to support the War Crimes Trial. The Shahbag activists demanded that the Jamaat should be completely outlawed for its affiliation with the non-democratic and non-secular stand. In effect as a consequence of these vibrant protest movements, which could grab the international media attention overnight, the Election Commission officially cancelled the registration of the Jamaat. But still the party exists with huge followers in Bangladesh and is quite actively involved in politics. The BNPs firm belief in the role of Islam in unifying the country helped both the parties to fight against those pledged to the evolution of a liberal, secular and democratic Bangladesh, especially those who were avowedly against the establishment of political Islam within the political structure of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is suffering from a dysfunctional two-party system, in which the two chief party leaders, the battling Begums, are fighting hard at the countrys expense. It has turned in recent years into a fragile democracy with an expanding economy.29 Amidst huge political turmoil from 2013, the BNPs chief decided to boycott the general elections of January 2014 as an essential strategy, for not meeting their demand to form a caretaker government for conducting the elections, even when they had a strong base of supporters. Their design went in vain and the Awami League came to power for the second time with a landslide victory. The government led by the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, decided to take an even stronger stand on the ongoing War Crimes Trial, punishment and conviction of war criminals of 1971. The BNP-Jamaat (the BNPs coalition partner) nexus realised that they had lost their constitutional power and position even as the Opposition. They started protesting and creating problems, from the first anniversary of the disputed election on January 5, 2014, against the new agendas adopted by the ruling government.30 An overall situation of political unrest was created in Bangladesh, as they (the BNP-Jamaat) mounted mass protests demanding fresh parliamentary elections. The BNP along with 19 other allied parties called for general strikes while officially staging a nationwide blockade of roads, waterways and railways. Selima Rahman, the Vice-Chairperson of the BNP, declared that the blockade was organised as the government was responsible to put them on the edge by opting for this method, as they did not allow any democratic space for the Opposition.31

After many such violent and fatal attacks on the public by the alleged BNP protesters and supporters in January 2015, the Awami League branded the BNP as terrorist and Khaleda Zia was forcefully confined to her office. Internet connection, along with other connectivity with the outside world, was also banned for some days. Then the BNP asked for the support of the international community; yet their reputation had already been damaged and distorted by resorting to regular violence. Other nations, including the UN, were reluctant to intervene; rather they suggested handling the internal matters peacefully. There were signs of compromise at different levels too. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina tried to open dialogue several times with the BNP. But, in most cases the latter decided to decline the proposal. The country started experiencing and witnessing a new type of motivated politico-religious violence from the last quarter of 2015. Following the method of the radical Islamists, some political groups or parties had started bomb blasts and street violence on random targets to create terror in the country. Against this institutiona-lisation of political violence, the ruling party had allegedly taken some repressive measures to counter it by police or legal repression.32 But finally, the negotiations or bargaining led to further violence or rifts between the leading political parties. Moreover, as the Hasina Government failed to take a firm stand against the violence that occurred in Bangladesh, the Leftists opined that her government too had an understanding with the so-called Opposition.

Democracy in Bangladesh is once again at the crossroads. Despite the governments tough position and hanging of their leaders, the Jamaat, the countrys largest Islamist party, is still organisationally very strong and has vowed to take revenge by establishing an Islamic dispensation in Bangladesh.33 And, it is not a coincidence that attacks on the secular writers and their publishers have been on the rise soon after the execution of the war criminals began. The position of the government has sharpened a bit through these incidents and contradictions on policies have somewhat reduced. Some communal disturbances occurred in places like Ramu in Coxs Bazar or Santhia in Pabna and could not be prevented by the government.34 The Leftists were stating continually that the minorities had no other option but to leave Bangladesh.35 Some Leftist organisations like the Sampradayik Sohinsotabirodhi Nagorik Samaj have pointed out that the chief problem lay within the Constitution, as from the beginning it treated the communities differently.36 Although Bangladeshs legal code is secular, it has played out against the backdrop of rising religious tensions.37 When most people reject violence, there has been a surge of high-profile attacks by extremists, some linked to the Jamaat, an Islamist party associated with the political Opposition.

Actually, the political situation is such in Bangladesh that it can neither be a secular state nor a fundamentalist Islamic state. The law and order situation is further deteriorating and people are suffering under a huge, if vague and indistinct, pressure. Most of them dont know how to explain what is going on; they wonder what has happened to their folks as the kind of violence they are facing these days is really new. There was lack of trust within the urban educated middle class towards the political parties as well as democratic institutions. The liberal classes and intellectuals were getting threat calls. Some of them informed the police or involved the press to make these threats public and for some sort of societal sympathy, while others preferred to keep mum about it, largely to avoid social scanning of their personal life through the media or they just intended to avoid any kind of political watch. The state did not try to identify the folks who were involved in creating violence or take any action to punish them. Local disenfranchised organisations like the Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen and Ansar-al-Islam are taking advantage of the benefits of allying with the ISIS, including the potential expansion of their foreign funding. In reality, Bangladesh is on the way to achieve rapid growth. Yet, the future of this state and its citizens is uncertain.

The opponents of the official establishment and the supporters of the BNP-Jamaat coalition are of the opinion that the Hasina Government actually runs a totalitarian regine, in which no other politician has any say. According to them, this massive consolidation of power is bad for democracy and the democratic system. The Leftists are of the opinion that the bureaucracy gets transformed into a class of touts and looters, who do not attract the attention of the present government. After the brutal killings of the atheists, intellectuals and foreigners throughout 2015, a section of the masses and international media started voicing another theory of negotiations of the present Awami League government with the BNP-Jamaat coalition on some issues. They directly termed these incidents of atrocities as state terrorism when others categorised these as a blow to secular thinking and sovereignty. The nation, thus, needs a change in the thought process of governance and the active involvement of the urban educated minds in bringing about systematic changes. Offering common ground to all political parties and opting for secular ideas might lead to the opening of a legal space towards the making of transparent and democratic governance in Bangladesh.

[Acknowledgements:I am grateful to Badruddin Umor, Elisa T. Bertuzzo, Tanvir Mokammel and Arup Rahee for helping me in shaping up the ideas that helped me to write this article by discussing with me the issues of crises and giving their opinions on the current socio-politico-religious situation of Bangladesh.A.G.]

Footnotes

1. Sonia Upreti, Nationalism in Bangladesh: Genesis and Evolution, Kalinga Publication, Delhi, 2004, p. 34.

2. M. R. Akhtar Mukul, Ami Bijay Dekhechhi (in Bengali), Ananya, Dhaka, 2010, Introduction, p. 9.

3. Rounaq Jahan, Political Development in A. M. Chowdhury and Fakrul Alam (ed.), Bangladesh on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Dhaka, 2002, p. 43.

4. Niaz Zaman, A Divided Legacy: The Partition in Selected Novels of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, The University Press Ltd., Dhaka, 1999, pp. 12-13.

5. Purbadesh, February 12, 1952.

6. Jatin Sarkar, Pakistaner Jonmomrityu Dorshon (in Bengali), Sahityika, Dhaka, 2005, pp. 50-52.

7. G.W. Choudhury, Bangladesh: Why It Happened, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs), Vol. 48, No. 2, (April 1972), p. 244.

8. M.R. Akhtar Mukul, Bhasani-Mujiber Rajniti (in Bengali), Sagar Publishers, Dhaka, 2001, pp. 20-26.

9. Humayun Ahmed, Maatal Haowa, Anyaprakash, Dhaka, 2013, pp. 30-31.

10. Philip Oldenburg, A Place Insufficiently Imagined: Language, Belief, and the Pakistan Crisis of 1971, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 44, No. 4 (August, 1985), p. 716.

11. Kathakata, November 5, 2013.

12. Noya Digonta, October 3, 2015.

13. Jugantar, January 12, 2014.

14. The Daily Star, November 20, 2015.

15. Dhiraj Kumar Nath, Vested Property Act and the Minorities Tale of Woes, The Opinion Page, August 23, 2013.

16. A personal discussion with Arup Rahee, November 14, 2016, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

17. Bodruddin Umor, Rachana Sangraha (in Bengali), Vol. 1, Shrabon Prakashani, Dhaka, 2012, p. 349.

18. Ilhan Niaz, The Culture of Power and Governance of Pakistan, 1947-2008, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2010, p. 5.

19. Lawrence Ziring, Bangladesh From Mujib to Ershad: An Interpretative Study, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 1992, pp. 6-7.

20. John W Hood, The Bleeding Lotus: Notions of Nation in Bangladeshi Cinema, Palimpsest, New Delhi, 2015, pp. 36-38.

21. Masooda Bano, Welfare Work and Politics of Jama at-i-Islami in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLVII, No. 1, January 7, 2012, p. 91.

22. Badruddin Umor, Sonbidhaner Ponchadosh Sonsodhoni Prasange (in Bengali), Jatiya Mukti Council.

23. The estimated annual average cost of the general strikes or hartals was three per cent to four per cent (approx.) of the countrys gross domestic products (GDP), as reported by the Daily Star.

24. Sorbojon, January 11, 2015.

25. Akbar Hossain, Hinduder Opor Hamlar Bichar Hoyna Keno? (in Bengali), BBC Bangla, January 9, 2014.

26. Mina Farah, July 12, 2014.

27. Pratham Alo, February 8, 2013.

28. Dr Madhumita Srivastava Balaji, BangladeshPolitics of Confrontation: Political Deadlock, VIF-e-journal

29. Fear and Faith in Dhaka: A Nation on the Verge of a Nervous breakdown, Open, February 22, 2016.

30. Ibid.

31. The Guardian, January 23, 2015.

32. Badruddin Umor, Jamayete Islam o Awami League: Uvoyei Beraderane Islam (in Bengali), Jatiya Mukti Council.

33. The Hindu, November 25, 2015.

34. New Age, August 30, 2015.

35. Dhaka Times, August 18, 2015.

36. Prothom Alo, November 29, 2013.

37. Naeem Mahalemen, Our Politics of Dispossession, ForumA Monthly Publication of Daily Star, Vol. 4, Issue. 2, February 2009.

Anindita Ghoshal is an Assistant Professor of History, Rishi Bankim Chandra College, Naihati (West Bengal). She can be contacted at ghoshal.anindita@yahoo.com
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Bangladesh: The Radical Religious Rationale

by Ziauddin Chowdhury

The dastardly killing of secular elements of different occupations (but mainly bloggers) by extremist fanatics in Bangladesh has roused public opinion in that country. We are reproducing, with due acknowledgement, the following article from Dhaka Tribume by a noted analyst for the benefit of our readers.

In 2007, Maulana Fazlullah, leader of a Frontier-based militant Islamic organisation known as Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (who later became the leader of Talibaan-e-Pakistan), established a parallel government in about 59 villages of the Swat Valley in Pakistan and introduced the Sharia Law.

This came not in one fell swoop, but after a long run in with the Pakistan Government and its feckless law enforcement agencies in that part of the country that began with the US operations in Afghanistan in 2002.

Maulana Fazlullah, also known as Radio Mullahbecause of his broadcast over cland-estine radio in the Malakand Agency (where the Swat Valley is)began propagating Islamic jihad against the Pakistan Government and its allies for the establishment of the Sharia Law in Pakistan.

His ultimate success in driving out the Pakistan Government forces from the Swat Valley came after years of threats, both verbal and real, to the people in the area who dared to oppose him and his armed militants who continued to swell in number.

He would be the supreme leader of the region for close to two years until the Pakistan Army, mainly under pressure from the US, which was worried that the rise of another militant group and its sway over the area close to Afghanistan would stymie its efforts to eradicate the Taliban from Afghanistan.

During Fazlullahs reign in the Swat Valley, he not only drove out the Pakistan law enforcement but also civilian agencies, and established his own laws that he termed as Sharia inspired laws. Some of the draconian measures he took in the name of Sharia were closing cinema halls, DVD shops, banning music, and, incredibly enough, his supporters attacked barber shops for their un-Islamic practices (because barbers shaved beards).

Sufi mystics and dancing girls were killed and dumped in the city square, and girls were not allowed to go to school. Fazlullah later issued a fatwa against Malala Yousafzai, the girl who bravely stood up for girls education, and had her shot by his supporters even after he had been ejected from the Swat Valley.

Fazlullahs rise was enabled by a government that ignored the early signs of his groups growth, in part but largely because of indulgence

of radicalism by succeeding Pakistan Govern-ments by way of coddling religious leaders and religious institutions in preference to progressive and liberal institutions, purely for short-term political goals.

The Government of Ziaul Haq sowed the early seeds of radicalism through thousands of madrassas that he helped grow ostensibly to feed the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan.

He and his successors used the products of these madrasas later to form the Taliban group which would, in future years, topple the Afghanistan Government and rule there.

The break-up of the Taliban in 2002 by US inter-vention drove their leaders to the mountains, including in the North West of Pakistan, and lead to the formation of a diverse group of religious militants in Pakistan, including that of Maulana Fazlullah.

While the US was busy eradicating Afghanistan of the Taliban, they and their ilk would find shelter in Pakistan, more precisely in the Pakistan Army, which had helped the original Taliban grow in the first place.

Maulana Fazlullah and his armed militants thrived because the Pakistan Government, at that time, was headed by a President (Asif Zardari of the Pakistan Peoples Party) who was busier defending his presidency against political foes than defending his country from religious militants.

His government was one of compromise, in particular with the powerful Pakistan Army, and he dared not take the Army to task for their apparent unwillingness to tackle the rising religious menace in the Swat Valley.

What this All Means for Bangladesh

The discussion on Fazlullah and his group is relevant for Bangladesh, not because there is such a figure on the horizon of Bangladesh, although there was such a threat some years ago posed by a militant in northern Bangladesh.

It is relevant because the leadership for religious militancy and terrorism does not have to originate locally. The attraction that the IS or its affiliates have on the youth inclined to similar views can come from anywhere.

Their proliferation can also happen in many countries where the youth are easily brainwashed or misled from parochial and illiberal education, biased interpretation of religion and its message, and paranoid ideas about the world where one is led to believe that their co-religionists are subject to a worldwide persecution.

These ideas are further cemented in a country that has weak law enforcement, lack of personal security, and absence of good governance. In such societies, a section of the youth can be easily deluded to believe that a strong government can only be enforced through religion and a religion-based system. Anybody who opposes this is an enemy of religion and has to be eliminated.

There has been a string of murders in Dhaka and other places of Bangladesh in the last two years. The victims were people from a cross-sectionsome were writers, some publishers, some foreign nationals.

Quite a few were from the minority section. There has been no arrest, let alone any conviction in these murders.

What we have instead is speculation about the reasons for these murders from our political leaders and persons in authority. But more importantly, we have assertions of responsibility for these murders (at least the majority of them) from affiliates of radical Islamic groups that are rooted thousands of miles away from Bangla-desh.

But strangely, these claims are refuted by our government leaders because admitting these assertions would be acknowledging the presence of militant groups with foreign loyalty in our midst.

The rise of Fazlullah and his group in Pakistan and the menace they caused and continue to cause was possible because of political exigencies. Bangladesh now does not have any known exigency of the kind Pakistan went through in the eighties and nineties that contributed to the rise of religious radicalism in that country.

What we have here are instances of some horrific murders that, till now, have remained unsolved but clandestine groups claiming loyalty to foreign-inspired militant organisations have reportedly claimed responsibility for these crimes.

There is no proof of these claims, but the apparent similarity of the victims (they were either bloggers of liberal thought, writers with

secular reputation, or minority community members), should give hints to our law enforcment agencies that these murders are not random acts. These acts may be pre-planned and the perpetrators could be organised militants.

I do not know when or if at all the perpetrators of these murders will be arraigned. But I do know that a first step to close the gap could be the acknowledgment by our government that these murders are not necessarily the shenanigans of their political opposition to embarrass the government.

To embarrass the government, a political opposition has many other weapons in their arsenal other than killing bloggers, writers, and foreign nationals without any rhyme or reason.

Let us start from the assumption that the murders could be the handiwork of a group of fanatics who want to establish their laws in the country by terrorising the people and anyone who opposes their belief.

(Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune)
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Modi Government is acting like a Bull in China Shop

The following piece was written sometime ago but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons. So some points made here are dated. Yet given the importance of the issues raised in the overall context we are publishing it for the benefit of our readers.

Ten years back, the in-house journal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had carried an article penned by none other than the incumbent Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar who was heading the America Division at that timepassionately arguing that India and America should jointly work to promote democracy in China.

Id read it with amusement as the maverick view of an immature mind and thought the author was probably only imitating the neocons in America during the George W. Bush presi-dency whose dogmas were fashionable among the Indian foreign-policy elites at that time.

But, apparently, S. Jaishankar was merely ahead of his time by a decade. He was spelling out an agenda whose time has come 10 years later under Prime Minister Narendra Modis stewardship of Indias defining partnership with the United States.

The Deccan Herald newspaper reported today (April 21) that the Modi Government proposes to promote democracy in China. The government is pioneering a Track II event that espouses the liberation of Xinjiang from the Chinese yoke.

The venue of the Track II is the abode of the Dalai Lama up in the Himalayas in the vicinity of XinjiangDharamsala. The World Uyghur Congress leader Dolkun Isa, whom Beijing has listed as a terrorist, will be the star performer at the four-day conference that begins on April 28.

Indeed, Chinese dissidents of all hues are flying in, including, curiously, a US-based Chinese activist who was behind the Tiananmen Square incidents of 1989. (Deccan Herald)

From all appearance, India is dusting up an old CIA file that had worked on the democracy project to stifle the communist system in China in its cradle. This is a plausible meaning of what is unfolding. From a mile, the participants at the Track II in Dharamsala resemble CIA assets.

Now, we have just about three years in hand before China celebrates the 70th anniversary of the communist revolution of 1949. Its a tough call for the Modi Government to spoil the party even with the CIAs backing.

So, India now becomes an exponent of the liberation movement in China. However, with the solitary exception of Bangladesh, India had traditionally steered clear of democracy projects in neighbouring countries. But then, the Modi Government is also selective. It steers clear of promoting democracy in Saudi Arabia and the UAE or the Central Asian statesalthough Modi knows these authoritarian regimes first-hand.

Herein lies the paradox, which only throws into relief the failure of diplomacy towards China. Indeed, Indias China policies have become curiouser and curiouser. A period of drift is giving way to a phase of chill and hostility.

When Prime Minister Modi took office in May 2014, expectations were sky-high not only in India but also abroad that he would be the creator of a new policy of constructive coope-ration in Indias relations with China. Beijing too probably got carried away when it took the extraordinary measure of deputing its Foreign Minister as special envoy to New Delhi as a goodwill gesture in the beginning of June within a week of the Modi Governments tenure.

But as Modi completes two years in power, he is beginning to look like the proverbial bull in the China shopa wanton destroyer. If the legacy of the UPA rule was that when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left office in 2014, India had come breathtakingly closer than ever to settling its disputes with China, thanks to his sustained efforts to build trust and mutual confidence, that wonderful legacy has been squandered away by Modi.

What the Modi Government is doing, by the yardstick of inter-state relationships, will only amount to a blatant interference in the internal affairs of China. The world community at large is devoted to the Westphalian principle of national sovereignty. The Modi Government is crossing the red line. The sum total of Indias differences and disputes with China simply does not add up as justification to identify openly with a longstanding CIA project to foment unrest in Chinas Xinjiang region and to destabilise that country.

Which makes the forthcoming Track II event in Dharamsala a blatant act of provocation by India. And there will be consequences to follow.

Modi cannot be unfamiliar with Chanakyas advice for such uncertain times:

Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions  Why am I doing it? What might be the results? Will I be successful? Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.

Apart from the CIA, only Jaishankar and Modi would know the answer to the first two questions. But, even if the CIA were to back South Block to the hilt in this misadventure, the answer to the third question will still remain an obvious No.

Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including Indias ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
Marie Claire newsletter Celebrity news, beauty, fashion advice, and fascinating features, delivered straight to your inbox! Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Thank you for signing up to . You will receive a verification email shortly. There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions (opens in new tab) and Privacy Policy (opens in new tab) and are aged 16 or over.

Former Bond girl Caterina Murino explained why she thinks the star has left the franchise...

Its been official that Daniel Craig has quit James Bond for a while now.

Rumours have long been circulating that the actor was ready to hang up his tux and quit the franchise, and it is now officially confirmed that he will not be part of the next film  despite being offered a hefty pay rise, apparently.

Playing the iconic role is any actor's dream, making the world question why the English actor would choose to leave.

Former Bond girl Caterina Murino worked with Craig in Casino Royale and has her own theories behind his decision. 'It's hugely stressful being Bond,' she explained to the Sunday People, 'there's a lot of money involved, so that also brought more tension - and a lot of that tension was on Daniel.'

'It's not easy to go back time and time again. It can be tiring to keep trying to find new things in the same role'.

Daniel Craig responds brilliantly to ageist Monica Bellucci comments (opens in new tab)

Since his departure was officially confirmed, the speculation has now moved on to who might take over the reigns, and Game of Thrones' star Emilia Clarke has officially thrown her hat into the ring.

Speaking to The Daily Star, Emilia revealed that playing the iconic British character is an 'unrealised dream', though admits her character would be 'Jane Bond', instead of James. She also put forward another name for her 'ultimate leading man' - the Bond boy to her female 007, if you will - suggesting everyone's favourite Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio.

If Emilia nabbed the role, she would be the first female version of the 007 agent, but not the first to suggest it. Gillian Anderson previously expressed her desire to also take on the role. (opens in new tab)

Still, there's been no confirmation yet who will replace Daniel Craig in the iconic tux, with fans previously wondering if The Night Manager star (and keeper of our hearts) Tom Hiddleston would be the one to fill Craig's shoes.

Seriously. Be still our beating hearts.

Tom Hiddleston holding a baby leopard. Wow.

The odds for the 35-year-old actor have steadily been climbing, and reached 2-1 following claims that hed been spotted meeting with Bond director Sam Mendes and producer Barbara Broccoli, however, after one significantly large bet was placed on the actor, bookies slashed the odds to 1-2, leaving Coral no choice but to pull the plug.

There is no smoke without fire, and following the big gamble on Tom Hiddleston in the last 24 hours, we've had no choice but to pull the plug on the market, said Coral spokesperson Nicola McGeady.

Earlier in the year there was a gamble on Idris Elba and Damian Lewis, but nothing has come close to the recent gamble on Hiddleston.

Before betting was suspended, Idris Elba was priced at 9-1, and Damien Lewis 14-1. Poldark Lothario Aiden Turner had odds at 3-1, and South London bad boy Tom Hardy was 4-1.

12 reasons why we're hopelessly in love with Tom Hiddleston

When the rumours first emerged, Tom took an innocent approach, insisting The position isn't vacant as far as I'm aware. No one has talked to me about it, going on to explain I think the rumours have come about because in The Night Manager I play a spy and people have made the link.

However, as the weeks have passed and the rumours have spread, Tom has got quieter and quieter on the subject - adding serious fuel to the fire.

Just this week when asked about filling Bond's iconic (and ever so sexy) shoes, Tom refused to comment but reportedly broke into a huge grin - making us more suspicious and hopeful than ever.

Only time will tell who our next leading man will be, but in the meantime, lets all engage in some form of prayer for Tom to recreate this scene.

http://giphy.com/gifs/ELh8NPtLpKjMk

via GIPHY

Thanks.
The fourth Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) built by Austal for the U.S. Navy, the future USS Montgomery (LCS 8), has completed its acceptance trials May 6, 2016, in the Gulf of Mexico, marking the final significant milestone before the ships delivery, which is expected soon.

According to the shipbuilder, this achievement involved the execution of intense comprehensive tests by the Austal-led industry team while underway, which demonstrated to the Navy the successful operation of the ships major systems and equipment. While underway, the ship performed launch and recovery operations of the 11-meter rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB), a four-hour full power run, surface and air self-defense detect-to-engage exercises and demonstrated the ship's maneuverability performing tight turns and accomplishing speeds in excess of 40 knots.

Craig Perciavalle, President of Austal USA, said, With seven LCS under construction, our focus on leveraging lessons learned from ship to ship is sharp. The momentum gained on this program is great to see and will position us well in the future.

Austal USA is currently building seven ships for the LCS program. Gabrielle Giffords (LCS 10) and Omaha (LCS 12) are preparing for trials. Manchester (LCS 14) was recently christened and launched. Final assembly is well underway on Tulsa (LCS 16) and modules for Charleston (LCS 18) and Cincinnati (LCS 20) are under construction in Austals module manufacturing facility.
Hy-Dynamix has launched a new mobile container weighing solution called Hy-Weigh, which gives digital read outs within 10 minutes at point of packing.

The system can weigh containers up to 35 metric tons and uses four corner hydraulic elevation jacks, raising the container in situ and displaying the weight in increments of 50 kilograms via a digital readout.

Designed by engineers at Hy-Dynamix parent company Dyer Engineering, which has a 40-year pedigree in the sector, Hy-Weigh is self-contained on its own specially designed pallet, and its control panel allows for individual corner raising and lowering.

We have designed a product which is simple, easy to use, and reliable, with no complex software or electronics, said Graeme Parkins, Managing Director, Hy-Dynamix. Hy-Weigh removes the need for dedicated container craneage weighing systems or weighbridges, it is easily deployed and moved around a facility, and we are very proud to say it is manufactured in the U.K.

Hy-Dynamix is a new company launched this year by Parkins, who is also Managing Director of parent company Dyer Engineering, which was established in 1977 in County Durham in the North-East of the U.K.

In 2013, three years after joining Dyer Engineering as General Manager, Graeme completed a management buyout of the company along with his business partner Richard Bradley.

The Hy-Weigh System was developed in house as part of a range of products to facilitate and handle the moving of containers.

Its sister product Hy-Lifter elevates the container and allows skating systems to be attached to the underside to allow easy movement of a container around a facility.
BIMCO expects the container shipping fleet to break through the 20 million TEU barrier shortly. 2016 will see the lowest fleet growth rate on record (3.4% expected), but with an estimated net addition of 0.68 million TEU of capacity for the full year, the milestone could be reached in June.

Over the last decade, the fleet size in TEU increased by 240% and reached 19.7 million TEU at the end of 2015.

However, the fleet grew unevenly, displaying a shift to larger ship sizes and giving a one-sided focus on cutting unit costs per transported TEU by having larger ships; continuing the theme of bigger is better.

The ultra large containership segment (ULCS) especially contributed to the growth; starting at 0.5% in 2007 and currently accounts for 18% of the total fleet - as measured by TEU capacities.

Chief Shipping Analyst Peter Sand says: The total containership fleet in TEU increased annually from 2006 onwards by 9%, in contrast to the number of ships which actually increased by only 3.7% on an annual basis. Despite the enormous growth of ULCS market share, the post-panamax fleet of 8,000 TEUs  12,000 TEUs in relation to the total share and TEU capacity, is still the preferred shipping class, accounting for around  of the container ship fleet.

Striking differences are revealed when comparing the annual growth rate for the time frames 2006 - 2016 and 2011  2016. While the feeder class with less than 500 TEUs per ship, decreased by an average 4% per annum in relation to the time frame 2006 - 2016, the decline accelerated even further by an additional 1% in the last five years.

On the other hand, ship segments from feedermax (500 TEUs  999 TEUs) to panamax (3,000+ TEUs), maintained a marginal positive annual growth between 2006  2016. However, only taking into account the time-frame from 2011 onwards, annual cutbacks of 1% - 2% occurred.

The same analogy can be applied for the time-frame from 2006 - 2016 for the post-panamax segment of 3,000 TEUs  7,999 TEUs and 8,000 TEUs  12,000 TEUs, which have grown by 8% and 23% on average, per annum respectively.

The figure which stands out the most is the tremendous annual growth of 45% between 2011 and 2016 of the ULCS (12,000 TEUs). Thus backing up the trend towards larger capacity container ships.

Peter Sand adds, The trend towards higher capacity container ships stands out during the 2006  2016 period and even accelerated in the last five years. Therefore, the driver towards the 20 million TEU margin was ultra large containerships and post-panamax between 8,000 TEUs  12,000 TEUs."
The emergence of US liquefied natural gas as a competitive alternative for European and Asian customers, combined with an oversupplied market, should drive more convergence between natural gas prices at major hubs and weaken the link between gas and oil prices, Fitch Ratings says.

The first shipment of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass facility to Europe arrived in Portugal at the end of April.

It is unclear how many more shipments will arrive in Europe in the near term, but US LNG contracts are usually free from destination clauses and they will therefore increase liquidity in global LNG. This should decrease the potential for big and long-lasting differences between natural gas hub prices in the future, especially where LNG represents the marginal delivery source.

Hub price convergence would reduce the pricing power of regional suppliers, making it harder for them to tie natural gas prices to oil prices.

This is already happening in Europe, where pressure from customers has caused Statoil and Gazprom to increase the share of gas sold under spot-based or hybrid-based contracts, compared to oil-linked contracts. But the process is unlikely to result in one global market due to infrastructure limitations and high transportation costs for LNG compared with oil.

Low gas prices in Europe will pressure profitability, but compared to other options Europe may still be the least bad destination for suppliers with contracted volumes. Offtakers from Cheniere pay 115% of the Henry Hub price plus a liquefaction fee of up to USD3.5 per million British thermal units (mmbtu).

However this fee is effectively a sunk cost and offtakers may therefore consider shipping LNG to Europe as long as the cost of the gas, transportation and regasification are below European spot prices. We estimate these marginal cash costs to be around USD4/mmbtu at the moment, compared to National Balancing Point spot prices of USD4.3/mmbtu in the UK.

Europe is a more attractive market for US LNG than Asia at current spot prices because transportation costs to Asia are significantly higher. We expect an LNG supply glut to keep prices under pressure globally in the medium term.

But the long-term prospects are better as demand will eventually increase and capacity additions will slow, particularly in the US because of its distance from the main demand centres. We do not expect significant new LNG gasification plant construction in the current environment, other than those already sanctioned.

The impact of these trends on producers will vary. For Qatari producers, RasGas and Qatargas, the new US supplies are unlikely to pose a significant threat due to their highly competitive position and because the majority of their output is under long-term contracts.

Low gas prices in Europe will continue to pressure Gazprom's earnings, especially if it decides to defend its market share, but this will be mitigated by low production costs and high unutilised capacity. Statoil's natural gas business is highly exposed to spot prices in Europe, but as a company it is more reliant on oil.

We believe the US natural gas market is too big and too well supplied for LNG exports to significantly increase US natural gas prices.

Deals to swap contracted LNG volumes in different regions to save on transportation costs are also likely to become more common and could contribute to price convergence. India's GAIL is reportedly considering swapping some of the LNG it has agreed to buy from Cheniere for gas from another source.
The U.S. Navy has accepted delivery of the future John P. Murtha (LPD 26) during a ceremony at the Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) shipyard, May 13.

Built at HIIs Ingalls Shipbuilding division, LPD 26 is the 10th San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock built by HII for the U.S. Navy.

This is the 10th San Antonio-class ship we've delivered, and our Sailors and Marine Corps will be receiving another highly capable platform in John P. Murtha, said Capt. Darren Plath, LPD 17 class program manager. This ship has performed exceedingly well to date, which is a testament to our Navy and industry team and the production efficiencies realized on this class.

The principal mission of LPD 17 class amphibious transport dock ships is to transport and deploy the necessary combat and support elements of Marine Expeditionary Units and Brigades. The ship will carry 699 troops  with a surge capacity to 800  and have the capability to transport and debark air cushion or conventional landing craft and amphibious vehicles, augmented by helicopters or vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (MV-22). These ships will support amphibious assault, special operations and expeditionary warfare missions through the first half of the 21st century.

The ship is named in honor of the late John P. Murtha, who represented Pennsylvanias 12th Congressional District from 1974 to 2010. In addition to his tenured history in the House of Representatives, Murtha was also a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. He served for 37 years and received the Bronze Star with Combat V, two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry for his service in the Vietnam War. He retired as a colonel in 1990.

Today we delivered our 10th LPD, and we have at least two more ships to complete in this class, said Richard Schenk, Ingalls vice president, program management, who signed the official DD 250 document. John P. Murtha is the culmination of four years of tireless efforts on the part of thousands of our shipyard employees and our Navy partner. I couldnt be more proud of all of those involved, and they are showing that serial production pays dividends when it comes to providing affordable ships to our nation.

To the incredibly talented, dedicated and resourceful shipbuilders who built this ship from raw steel and cable into this awe-inspiring warship, please accept my personal thanks on behalf of the crew, U.S. Navy and the American people, said Capt. Kevin Parker, the ships commanding officer. You have fully reinforced the sincere belief that I have held for many years that the best shipbuilders in the world are found right here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. As we take this ship to sea, we will do our very best to make you proud and put this ship to good use in defense of our nation.

The signing of the DD 250 document officially transfers custody of the ship from HII to the U.S. Navy. Following crew move aboard and certification, the ship will transit to Philadelphia for commissioning, planned for fall 2016. Upon commissioning the ship will transit to her homeport of San Diego.

In addition to John P. Murtha, Ingalls has the 11th LPD, Portland (LPD 27), under construction. Portland launched on February 13 and will be christened on May 21. In December 2015 Ingalls received more than $300 million in advance procurement funding for the 12th ship in the class, Fort Lauderdale (LPD 28).

The San Antonio class is the latest addition to the Navys 21st century amphibious assault force. The 684-foot-long, 105-foot-wide ships are used to embark and land Marines, their equipment and supplies ashore via air cushion or conventional landing craft and amphibious assault vehicles, augmented by helicopters or vertical takeoff and landing aircraft such as the MV-22 Osprey. The ships support a Marine Air Ground Task Force across the spectrum of operations, conducting amphibious and expeditionary missions of sea control and power projection to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions throughout the first half of the 21st century.
Ferry operators now eligible for New Building Canada funding

Ferry operators across Canada applaud new changes made by the federal government that will allow infrastructure projects related to ferries to be eligible for funding under the New Building Canada Fund, according to the Canadian Ferry Operators Association (CFOA).

The original eligibility criteria for the fund, established in 2014, excluded most projects related to ferries, meaning very few operators have been able to apply for infrastructure projects.

The CFOA and provincial governments have worked together urging Transport Minister Marc Garneau and Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi to revise the criteria to include ferries and ferry operators. Following discussions at a meeting of federal and provincial ministers of transport in January 2016, Minister Sohi recently advised, in a letter (sent late April), his provincial counterparts that ferries would indeed be eligible to apply for and access the New Building Canada Fund.

In a note to Canadian ferry operators announcing the changes, Minister Sohi provided further detail and confirmed that the New Building Canada Fund will now cover projects such as wharves and associated infrastructure, passenger terminals, access road infrastructures that provides the main vehicular access to the passenger ferry terminal, vessel purchase and/or conversion, and intelligent transportation systems in support of ferry services.

Minister Sohi and the new government understand the importance of ferries for Canadians, said Serge Buy, CFOAs Chief Executive Officer. Access to the New Building Canada Fund will enable operators to make crucial investments that will benefit passengers and the communities served by ferries. Furthermore, the investments will help operators ensure safety on their vessels while also making sustainable improvements to their environmental efficiency.

The criteria changes are effective immediately, and CFOA said it expects that a number of modernization projects will now be able to move forward. With operators located from coast to coast to coast, this will help to create employment throughout the country, benefit businesses that supply goods and services to ferry operators and boost the communities served by ferries, CFOA said.
Exxon Mobil terminates earlier the West Capella working in Nigeria in the Usan Field. John Fredriksen-backed drilling firm Seadrill Partners LLC has received a notice of termination from Exxon Mobil.

In accordance with the cancellation for convenience provisions in the West Capella contract, Seadrill Partners will receive a payment of approximately $125 million in two equal installments, the first in the second quarter of 2016 and the second in the first quarter of 2017, plus other direct costs incurred as a result of the early termination.

The contract was a contract extension for 3 years signed by Total SA that was supposed to end in April 2017.

The West Capella is currently being marketed for new work and is expected to be in Tenerife during its idle period.
Starting in June 2016, shipping company Hapag-Lloyd will add a new call in Port Everglades to its Mediterranean Gulf Express (MGX) service.

Florida International Terminal (FIT), operated by SAAM since 2005 in Port Everglades  Fort Lauderdale, Fla., will add a new service. Starting next month, shipping company Hapag-Lloyd will include Port Everglades in the rotation of its Mediterranean Gulf Express (MGX) service, increasing its coverage between Europe and Southeast Florida.

The first MGX call at FIT will take place in June, with a rotation that includes the ports of Cagliari, Livorno, Genoa, Barcelona, Valencia, Port Everglades, Kingston, Veracruz, Altamira, Houston and New Orleans.

Klaus Stadthagen, FITs General Manager, said, This new service will have a positive impact for our clients, who will now have more alternatives to ship their cargo from and to Europe. The arrival of the MGX service to our terminal is an acknowledgement to the quality and efficiency of our operation, and supports the undergoing development plans that our terminal and Port Everglades have for the coming years.

At present, the terminal provides services to shipping companies such as Hamburg Sud, Hapag-Lloyd, Yang Ming and more recently, Sealand and APL. Since it started operations, cargo movement through FIT has grown, reaching more than 170,000 TEU in 2015.

FIT announced in April the renewal of its concession for a period of 10 years. Within addition to the extension until 2025, Florida International Terminal has the option of adding another two renewals for five years each.
1811 - The frigate President, commanded by John Rodgers, exchanges several shots with HMS Little Belt during the night. Each captain claims the other fired first, increasing tensions between the two countries prior to the War of 1812.



1820 - The frigate Congress becomes the first U.S. warship to visit China when she visits Guanhzhou (now Canton).



1919 - Three Curtiss NC seaplanes leave from Trepassey Bay, Newfoundland, Canada for the first trans-atlantic flight. Only NC 4 makes the flight successfully reaching the Azores on May 17.



1943 - USS MacKenzie (DD 614) sinks the German submarine (U 182) west of Madeira. Before being sunk, (U 182) sinks five Allied merchant vessels, including the American steam merchant Richard D. Spaight on March 10, 1943.



1944 - USS Franks (DD 554), USS Haggard (DD 555) and USS Johnston (DD 557) sink the Japanese submarine (I 176), 150 miles north of Cape Alexander, Solomon Islands, forcing Japanese to shift the position of their subs in the New-Guinea-Carolines area.



1965 - The first US naval gunfire support in Vietnam is performed by USS Henry W. Tucker (DD-875) as she fires upon the Viet Cong coastal concentrations southeast of Saigon.



1981 - USS Jacksonville (SSN 699), is commissioned at Naval Submarine Base, New London, Groton, Conn. Her first homeport is Norfolk, Va.



1992 - Military Sealift Commands USNS Tippecanoe (T-AO 199) is christened and launched at New Orleans, La.



2015 - Armed Forces Day is celebrated the third Saturday of May. Authorized by President Harry S. Truman in 1950, the single-day event replaces three separate Army, Navy and Air Force Days.





(Source: Naval History and Heritage Command, Communication and Outreach Division)
The Middle-East-focused marine logistics services provider Atlantic Navigation Holdings (Singapore) Limited has won long term charters for 10 OSVs with a combined value of around $236m from a Middle Eastern national oil company.

The 10 vessels will go on a firm five-year charter with a two-year extension option to support a Middle Eastern national oil company's operations in the Arabian Gulf. The charters are for five maintenance/work/utility vessels and five anchor-handling tug, supply and safety standby vessels. Seven of these vessels will be newbuilds.

The vessels, on a firm five-year charter with a two-year extension option, will support the NOCs operations in the Arabian Gulf.

The charters will commence progressively, with three vessels to be handed over to the NOC starting from May 2016 and the remaining seven new builds, to be deployed in 2017 following delivery.

Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Atlantic Navigation, Bill Wong, said, We are pleased to have been awarded these ten vessel contracts. Despite the challenging industry conditions, we continue to pursue our growth strategy together with our regional partners, particularly in our core market in the Middle East.

"Atlantic Navigation will continue to strive to maintain and provide innovative and competitive marine logistic services to meet and surpass our clients expectations. We are grateful that our client continues to place their trust in us, Bill added.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, these contracts secured are expected to contribute positively to the net tangible assets and earnings per share of the Group for the financial year ending 31 December 2016.

The Group was established in the UAE in 1997, and completed a reverse takeover of Fastube Limited on 30 July 2012. The entity was renamed as Atlantic Navigation Holdings (Singapore) Limited and has been trading under this name on SGX Catalist since 1 October 2012.
The crew from the Coast Guard Cutter Morro Bay welcomed Navy Reserve medical units from Akron, Ohio, and Youngstown, Ohio, in Cleveland Sunday.



The visit was designed to familiarize the Navy Reservists with shipboard operations.



The cutter crew gave the members of the medical units a tour of the cutter and explained the missions and capabilities of the Morro Bay. During the tour, the Navy Reservists visited the engine room, mess deck, bridge and berthing areas.
U.S. Coast Guard investigators on Monday resumed a probe of last year's deadly sinking of the El Faro off the Bahamas, beginning two weeks of hearings to examine the cargo ship's operations, weather forecasts and regulatory oversight.



Captain Eric Bryson, who helped launch the El Faro on its final voyage, told the Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigation panel that the ship's captain had said he planned to "go out and shoot under" a storm brewing in the Caribbean.



Bryson is among some two dozen experts set to testify during a second round of hearings on the worst cargo shipping disaster involving a U.S.-flagged vessel in more than three decades.



All 33 crew members on board the El Faro died when the 790-foot (241-meter) ship sank during a hurricane on Oct. 1, two days after leaving Jacksonville on a cargo run to Puerto Rico.



Captain James Fudaker, a docking pilot at the Jacksonville port who also interacted with the ship before it departed, testified the voyage began normally.



"There was nothing out of the ordinary," he said at the hearing. Fudaker told investigators he was not aware of deficiencies on an equipment list that he checked before the ship's departure.



During its first meeting in February, the Coast Guard panel heard the final phone call of the ship's doomed captain, Michael Davidson, a veteran mariner from Maine, who warned that the "clock was ticking" as his vessel took on water.



Executives with the ship's operator, Tote Services, testified the captain was responsible for decisions leading to the disaster.



The Coast Guard panel is looking for evidence of negligence or misconduct, as well as the cause of the sinking. Convened only for the most serious disasters, the panel plans a third set of hearings at a yet unscheduled date.



By then, it hopes to have evidence from the ship's voyage data recorder, which may contain information from the vessel's final hours and communications from its bridge before the sinking. The recorder has been located in 15,000 feet (4,600 meters) of water off the Bahamas, but authorities have not been able to retrieve it.



Ultimately, the Coast Guard panel expects to issue a report and could make recommendations on safety standards to prevent a similar disaster in the future.



(Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Leslie Adler and Paul Simao)
Beleaguered South Korean shipbuilders's total liabilities as of the end of last year for their 34 overseas affiliated companies have reached 5.3584 trillion won (US$4.65 billion), up 28.7% compared to five years ago, reports BusinessKorea.

The debts of those of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering increased by 43.2% to 2.1842 trillion won (US$1.89 billion) during the period while the amount of those of Samsung Heavy Industries soared from 431.2 billion won (US$374.9 million) to 1.2633 trillion won (US$1.09 billion).

The amount was 1.9109 trillion won (US$1.66 billion) for Hyundai Heavy Industries although they reduced theirs by 13.4% over the five years.

The overseas affiliated companies recorded an average debt ratio of 548.9% at the end of 2015 whereas it had been 266.1% at the end of 2010 and 200% is generally regarded as an appropriate level in the industry.

Besides, 16 out of the 34 companies posted a debt ratio of more than 200% or were those with impaired capital.

Meanwhile, worst-ever slump may stretch into next year, as demand for new ships is expected to remain low amid still slackened oil prices and slumping global trade, prodding local shipyards to cut their output capacity, industry sources said.

According to a report compiled by the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Korea Eximbank), a total of 2.32 million compensated gross tons worth of new shipbuilding orders were placed around the globe during the first quarter of the year, down 71 percent from a year earlier. By value, new ship orders also fell 63 percent on-year to reach $6.51 billion.
Libya will resume oil shipments from the port of Marsa El Hariga after an agreement was reached at talks in Vienna between rival oil officials representing the east and west of the country, Libyan oil sources told Reuters.



Exports from the port have been blocked since early this month due to a standoff between the rival eastern and western National Oil Corporations (NOC).



Early signs of rapprochement between the two could help Libya quickly increase its oil production back towards the more than 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) it was before the blockade more than halved output from two major eastern oil fields.



The NOC in Benghazi, which is loyal to Libya's eastern government, has prevented the loading of a tanker sent by the NOC in Tripoli, since the former tried unsuccessfully last month to export a cargo of crude for the first time.



The NOC in Tripoli, which is keen to work with a new U.N.-backed unity government to revive Libya's oil production, said the standoff was costing Libya $10 million a day, and warned that storage tanks at the port would be full within weeks if no deal was reached.



Sources close to the negotiations said the two sides agreed to resume crude oil shipments from Hariga to "avoid damage to pipelines, avert a financial crisis, and ensure power supplies are not interrupted further."



The memorandum also asked the Libyan House of Representatives and the Presidency Council to unify the oil sector.



NOC Tripoli plans to charter a tanker later this week to load 400,000 barrels of Messla and Sarir crude at Hariga to take to the 120,000 barrel-per-day Zawia refinery in western Libya, an official from Tripoli who did not wish to be identified told Reuters.



Oil trader Glencore, which had been exporting crude oil from the port under a deal reached late last year, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



(Reporting by Libby George and Ahmad Ghaddar; Editing by Alexander Smith and David Evans)
The 10 STS Cranes will be the tallest in service at any American port; new LED lighting on the crane booms will increase visibility while significantly reducing energy consumption, as capabilities expand to meet the needs of larger vessels entering into th global fleet.



Los Angeles, California- APM Terminals has signed a contract for the enlargement of 10 STS cranes, including the raising of the overall height, and extension of the crane boom,to accommodate Ultra-Large Container Ships (ULCS) of up to 20,000 TEU capacity. The contract was signed at a ceremony held at the APM Terminals Pier 400 Los Angeles facility,the worlds largest proprietary container terminal, by representatives of APM Terminals and Shanghai-based ZPMC, which has been selected to perform the crane modifications on the terminals existing Noell STS cranes. After the modifications designed by the original crane manufacturer, Terex-Noell, the 10 STS cranes will become the tallest in the USA.



Following the very successful handling of the 18,000 TEU CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin at Pier 400 last December, the first call of a vessel of that size to any North American port, APM Terminals is continuing to lead the way with the infrastructure investment necessary to meet the needs of our customers, and the evolving requirements of American seaborne trade said APM Terminals Los Angeles Managing Director Steve Trombley, who signed the contract on behalf of APM Terminals.



Another feature of the upgraded cranes will be the installation of Light Emitting Diode (LED) illumination, which will improve visibility,and accuracy of the cranes associated Optical Character Recognition (OCR) programs, as well as reducing energy use by 60% compared with the previous conventional lighting system.



When the Benjamin Franklin arrived at Los Angeles in the last week of December 2015,containers were stacked seven levels-high on-deck, reducing the effective vessel capacity to 15,000 TEUs during that call. While docked at APM Terminals Pier 400 between the morning of Saturday, December 26th and the evening of Tuesday, December 29th approximately 1,500 longshoremen worked 56 hours to load and unload 11,229 containers (both 20 and 40), while employing a record nine STS cranes on the vessel at the same time. The previous record for the largest vessel to call the terminal prior to the Benjamin Franklin was the 15,000 TEU Maersk Edmondo, arriving only four days prior. More recently,Maersk Edmondo called Pier 400 again in April, with 10,893 moves performed in six shifts,with a crane productivity of 30.3 Gross Moves Per Hour (GMPH).



The largest vessels calling US West Coast ports at present are of the 12,000 to 13,000 TEU range, on the Far East/US West Coast services. No vessels of that size call the US East or Gulf Coasts, though the widening of the Panama Canal locks, officially opening this June, will permit vessels of this size to transit the canal for the first time. In 2013 the 12,500 TEU capacity MSC Fabiola was the first of the ULCS to call the US West Coast. While no ULCS of 18,000 TEU capacity and above are in regular service to US West Coast, some carriers have expressed an interest in deploying these vessels as space demand improves.There are currently 37 ULCS of 18,000 TEU or more capacity in service in the global fleet,with another 72 vessels of between 18,000 and 21,000 TEU capacity on order.



At 484 acres, APM Terminals Pier 400, which opened in 2002, is the largest single proprietary terminal in the world. The 65-acre on-dock rail facility, including intermodal yard and storage tracks, and five miles of working track can accommodate four doublestack trains simultaneously. Throughput was 2.48 million TEUs in 2015, with the facility ranking 1st in the JOC productivity study among North American terminals at 92 MPH with a vessel alongside in 2014.


Overhead crane and hoist manufacturer Ace World Companies has made its first appearance at the Inland Marine Expo, which took place for the third time this May at Americas Center Convention Complex in St. Louis, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River.

The expo is the annual trade show for the inland and intracoastal marine transportation industry, which is a target market for the manufacturer and its recently acquired business, Pullift Corporation, a provider of standard and custom material handling equipment, including winches.

Camron Ghanemi, vice president at Ace, said, I was encouraged by recent comments from Michael Toohey, the president of the Waterways Council, who referenced record funding to modernize the nations inland waterways transportation system. He also spoke of the importance of recapitalizing this critical link in the transportation supply chain to prepare for export growth. These are positive noises as the sector looks to equip itself for such investment and growth.

Inland Marine Expo attendees included engineers and purchasing decision makers from ports and terminals, barge and towing companies, fleeting and harbor services firms, dredging companies and marine contractors, inland shipyards and repair facilities, and government agencies.

As we look to make further inroads into the inland waterways market, it was opportune to attend a trade exhibition that we had heard attracted a serious audience of decision makers from the sectorand it lived up to the billing, Ghanemi said. Charging attendees certainly eliminated tire-kickers.

Ace said it has steadily grown its presence in the marine market following the supply of a 30t gantry crane with a 10t auxiliary hoist to the Port of Chicago around five years ago. The sector took further note when in 2014 the crane manufacturer purchased Pullift, which makes winches, a key product to material handling operations at ports.

Ghanemi said, We had a multifaceted approach to a show that we knew represented a great opportunity for us to cultivate contacts and take a snapshot of the market as we look to execute a H2 2016 plan to increase our supply of lifting equipment and winches into the sector.

He explained, In addition to market research and networking, we wanted to promote our gearbox manufacturing capability to prospective customers and discuss possible distribution opportunities of specialist products that we dont provide, such as the capstan winches, which are very popular in port material handling.
Marine Corps Intelligence Schools has been honored with the Department of Defense Intelligence and Security Learning Enterprise Gold Level of Achievement award for 2015.

This is the first year the award was presented by the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence through the Department of Defense Intelligence Training and Education Board. MCIS received the Gold Level award for being the top school, chosen from a field of 52 formal learning centers encompassing $2 billion in resources and assets across the Department of Defense.

In 2015, MCIS provided more than 200,000 hours of instruction to approximately 2,500 Marines. The instructor staff is comprised of 165 active-duty Marines and three contractors.

We have some very capable, extremely bright and talented, creative instructors on staff, said Col. John E. Walker Jr., commanding officer, MCIS.



The major focus for MCIS during 2015 was a consolidation of the schools to provide a better training environment, training efficiency, and cost savings. One of the things the award takes into account is how innovative a school has been with its training, developing new curriculum, and gaining efficiency.



The consolidation showed how well MCIS worked with other services, specifically the Air Force, said Fred Wilson, future operations officer, MCIS.



One of the primary reasons MCIS earned the DITEB Gold Award was the very efficient Marine Air-Ground Task Force Counterintelligence/Human Intelligence Course in Virginia Beach, which conducts five classes annually. The course produces the most well-rounded intelligence collectors in the U.S. government. This is only accomplished by MCISs push to obtain the highest-quality intelligence Marines and sailors to serve as instructors, and those instructors tremendous work ethic.



Col. Walker assumed command of the school house August 2015. He said he didnt make any major changes when he took over because he already knew what a great group of instructors he had.

This is just a reflection of the hard work that has gone in over time and Im extremely proud of the instructors we have here, said Walker. Theyre top notch; they are the gold standard across the Department of Defense.

According to Fred Wilson, to the staff and instructors, this award is more than just a pat on the back.





It means that were putting out qualified Marines, said Wilson. Were doing a good job and making sure the Marine Corps is manned with the best possible intelligence personnel we can give them.
Defense Bill Coming This Week: A Boost for War and Tyranny

For many of us concerned with liberty, the letters "NDAA" have come to symbolize Washington's ongoing effort to undermine the US Constitution in the pursuit of constant war overseas. It was the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2012 that introduced into law the idea that American citizens could be indefinitely detained without warrant or charge if a government bureaucrat decides they had assisted al-Qaeda or "associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States." No charges, no trial, just disappeared Americans.

The National Defense Authorization bill should be a Congressional mechanism to bind the president to spend national defense money in the way Congress wishes. It is the nuts and bolts of the defense budget and as such is an important oversight tool preventing the imperial executive from treating the military as his own private army. Unfortunately that is no longer the case these days.

Why am I revisiting the NDAA today? Unfortunately since 2012 these bills have passed the House with less and less scrutiny, and this week the House is going to vote on final passage of yet another Defense Authorization, this time for fiscal year 2017. Once again it is a terrible piece of legislation that does great harm to the United States under the guise of protecting the United States.

Unless some last minute changes take place, this latest NDAA will force young women for the first time to register to be drafted into the US military. For the past 36 years, young men have been forced to register with Selective Service when they turn 18 or face felony charges and years in prison. Under a perverted notion of "equality" some people are cheering the idea that this represents an achievement for women. Why cheer when slavery is extended to all? We should be fighting for an end to forced servitude for young men and to prevent it being extended to women.

The argument against a draft should appeal to all: you own your own body. No state has the right to force you to kill or be killed against your will. No state has a claim on your life. We are born with freedoms not granted by the state, but by our creator. Only authoritarians seek to take that away from us.

Along with extending draft registration to women, the latest NDAA expands the neocons' new "Cold War" with Russia, adding $3.4 billion to put US troops and heavy weapons on Russia's border because as the bill claims, "Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security." This NDAA also includes the military slush fund of nearly $60 billion for the president to spend on wars of his choosing without the need to get Congress involved. Despite all the cries that we need to "rebuild the military," this year's Defense Authorization bill has a higher base expenditure than last year. There have been no cuts in the military. On the contrary: the budget keeps growing.

The Defense Authorization bill should remain notorious. It represents most of what is wrong with Washington. It is welfare for the well-connected defense contractors and warfare on our economy and on the rest of the world. This reckless spending does nothing to defend the United States. It is hastening our total economic collapse.



Dr. Ron Paul

Project Freedom

Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill.

Dr. Ron Paul Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Watch Out For Fees When Using Your Credit Card Abroad

Holidaymakers who are preparing to take a trip abroad may be busily sorting out their travel money and packing their last-minute essential items, which probably includes their debit or credit card.

Despite being a convenient payment method when at home, the latest research by Moneyfacts.co.uk reveals that debit cards and most credit cards charge for use abroad, which is why holiday-goers should consider taking out a more cost-effective card if they expect to use their plastic during a trip.

Our research shows that some debit cards can charge 9.50 for a 200 cash withdrawal, while credit cards can charge 11.96 for the same transaction - an unnecessary expense when there are fee-free cards specifically designed for use abroad.

Rachel Springall, Finance Expert at Moneyfacts.co.uk, said:

Planning what to take on holiday can be tricky, but in case of emergency, it may be a good idea to take some form of card with you as well as money. Cash isnt always king because there is a danger of not taking enough to cover expenses, or even worse, losing it.

Using a debit or credit card when abroad means you can benefit from extra protection from theft, but the sometimes excessive charges incurred when using these payment methods abroad can lead to a costly headache. A typical debit card charges 9.50* when consumers withdraw 200 in cash abroad and charges apply every time the debit card is used. There is typically a 2.75% to 2.99% conversion fee on the amount you spend on top of a set charge for ATM withdrawals, which can be between 1 and 5 for each transaction.

Credit cards are a little different but some can charge 11.96** when withdrawing 200 in cash, before interest applies. However, if holidaymakers plan ahead, they could get a more cost-effective card to cover additional expenses. For instance, MBNA, Creation Financial Services and Halifax all offer credit cards that charge absolutely no fees when used overseas.

Those who would prefer to use a debit card can still dodge fees by taking out, or switching to, a new current account that offers fee-free debit cards for foreign use. For example, Norwich & Peterborough Building Societys Gold Account offers a debit card with no fees for use overseas, which is perfect for those who regularly travel.

Pre-paid cards are another viable option for people who want to budget their spending on holiday or avoid taking cash. Consumers can load their spending allowance onto the card and feel safe in the knowledge that if they lose their card, it can be replaced without any loss of money. There are even pre-paid cards that do not charge for ATM cash withdrawals, which is perfect for paying for goods in stores that do not accept card payments. Bearing this all in mind, it may be useful to add a pre-paid card to the packing list.

*Typical debit card example is the NatWest Select Account, which charges a transaction fee of 2.00% and a conversion fee of 2.75% on cash withdrawals. **Typical credit card is the HSBC Credit Card Visa, which charges a 2.99% usage fee and a 2.99% cash withdrawal fee.

www.moneyfacts.co.uk - The Money Search Engine

Moneyfacts.co.uk is the UK's leading independent provider of personal finance information. For the last 20 years, Moneyfacts' information has been the key driver behind many personal finance decisions, from the Treasury to the high street.

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Stock Market One Big Inflection Point We Will Look Back On

This week will very likely be one we look back on as a big inflection point. We will see that the bears are coming back.

It appears the market is forming a head and shoulders topping pattern. Thre are a couple different ways to trade this pattern depending on the level of skill and aggressiveness.

One can wait for a closing bar below the neckline on the time-frame in which you have identified the pattern. By operating on a closing bar basis you significantly reduce the risk of entering on a false breakout. Entering prior to the close of the bar increases the risk of becoming part of the wick of a reversal candlestick should it close back above neckline support.

Another way is to try and time the right shoulder and short into the bounce or pause just before you think a neckline break is about to occur.

Both, have then pros and cons, which is better, that all depends on the overall market conditions and that of the trader making the trade.

Take a look a couple charts below so you can see where I feel the stock market is within this pattern.

iViewMarkts.com Bullish Sentiment Indicator: This shows active traders have been very bullish and are just now starting to become bearish. As more short term traders start to sell their long positions and build up short positions this will put downward pressure on stocks and likely start the new trend down.

SP500 Bullish Percent Index: This chart is telling us more stocks are starting to form bearish price patterns after being overbought the last couple months.

Head & Shoulders Pattern: This is the pattern I speak of showing where most traders enter positions for this price pattern. There is always a possibility that the market does not do a Kiss goodbye (retest of breakdown). The strongest moves to the downside will not retest the breakdown in most cases so playing the breakdown I think is vital.

SP500 Head & Shoulders Pattern:

That is a quick snapshot of the market and where it stands

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Chris Vermeulen

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Chris Vermeulen is Founder of the popular trading site TheGoldAndOilGuy.com. There he shares his highly successful, low-risk trading method. For 7 years Chris has been a leader in teaching others to skillfully trade in gold, oil, and silver in both bull and bear markets. Subscribers to his service depend on Chris' uniquely consistent investment opportunities that carry exceptionally low risk and high return.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect.

Chris Vermeulen Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




sela hack.jpg

KIDZ BOP singer Sela Hack

(selahack.com photo)

KIDZ BOP FACTS

In 2015, KIDZ BOP outsold some of today's biggest artists, including Meghan Trainor, Sam Smith and Maroon 5

Last year, KIDZ BOP sold more albums than Nick Jonas, Katy Perry, Demi Lovato, Ellie Goulding, Wiz Khalifa, Jason Derulo, and Rihanna combined

KIDZ BOP has had 23 Top 10 Albums on the Billboard 200 Chart. Only 3 artists in history -The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Barbra Streisand - have had more

*They have their own dedicated channel - KIDZ BOP Radio on SiriusXM

Fifteen-year-old Sela Hack of San Antonio said she started listening to KIDZ BOP when she was "younger."

Now she's an official KIDZ BOP kid.



"I was an alternate on the last tour," said Hack, who will be returning to Northampton on as an official KIDZ BOP kid when the all-new 2016 "Life of the Party" tour stops at the Calvin Theatre on Sunday at 3 p.m..



"Someone left, I auditioned and got the role. It's been so much fun and a great experience," she added.



For millions of kids each year, KIDZ BOP is their first introduction to pop music, and for tens of thousands of kids, the KIDZ BOP Kids Live Tour is their first concert experience. KIDZ BOP records kid-friendly versions of today's biggest pop music hits sung by kids, for kids



The KIDZ BOP Kids are the face and voice of KIDZ BOP, the number one music brand for kids in the U.S. Hack, along with Ashlynn Chong, 14, from Los Angeles; Matt Martinez, 12, from North Bergen, NJ; and Grant Knoche, 13 from Dallas, sings on the best-selling KIDZ BOP albums, appears in national KIDZ BOP TV commercials and music videos, and hosts KIDZ BOP Radio on SiriusXM Channel 77.

For six consecutive years, the KIDZ BOP Kids have been named Billboard Magazine's "No. 1 Kids' Artist."



The Kidz will be singing a lot of popular songs like "No" by Meghan Trainor, "Confident" by Demi Lovato, "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift and "Uptown Funk" by Mick Ronson featuring Bruno Mars.



"There will be a lot of dancing and we have come cool props that we use for certain songs. Our mike stands light and we have an LED screen behind us with cool backgrounds. It's all just so much fun and there's a lot of energy," said Hack.



"There is a lot of audience interaction and at times we bring parents and kids onstage. We even have a daddy dance-off," she added.



"It's KIDZ BOP's 15th birthday, so we thought, let's throw a party for ourselves and everyone else celebrating their birthday. And that's how the idea of our "Life of the Party" Tour was born," said Amanda Andrews, vice president of touring for KIDZ BOP, who was raised in Boylston.



"Ice cream is the life of the party and Friendly's Ice Cream has teamed up with us to sponsor our tour this year. It's great to be appearing so close to the corporate home of Friendly's and we're looking forward to touring where the ice cream is made," she added.



As an additional treat, Andrews said there will be ice cream for everyone after the show.


20160210_212947_9443_809436.jpeg

Styx

(File Photo)

Styx and Loverboy have teamed up for a 2016 tour and the rock groups will join forces for a show at the Toyota Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford, CT.

The show comes to the venue on Sept. 25 at 7:30 pm.

Tickets for the show are on sale beginning Friday, May 20 at 10 a.m. through oakdale.com or through all Ticketmaster outlets and locations including ticketmaster.com and by phone at (800) 745-3000.

Tickets are priced at $95, $55, $45, and $35.

Both Styx and Loverboy owned the top of the rock and pop charts in the late 70s and early 80s with hits like "Come Sail Away" (Styx) and "Turn Me Loose" (Loverboy).
Rose_Wine.jpg

French Rose wines reviewed in this column.

(Photo by Ken Ross)

Nothing says summer like Rose wine.

Light, refreshing, with hints of flowers and a pleasing pink color - they're the perfect wines for picnics, parties and anything that makes people linger longer outside.

And when it comes to dry Roses, no one knows how to make them better than the French. At least, that's the popular perception. Next week we'll put that theory to the test with a tasting featuring Rose wines from everywhere but France. But this week, I decided to stick to five, French Roses for under $17 a bottle, including one of my all-time favorites that only costs $6 a bottle.

I have written about some of these wines in years past. Other wines are new to this column. It was interesting tasting them side by side and see which ones I liked the best. And with the exception of one wine, I would strongly recommend four of the French Roses reviewed in this week's column. And even in the case of the one wine I don't highly recommend, it's still a good wine that I wouldn't turn down if someone offered me a glass.

So here they are - the five, dry French Roses reviewed this week:

2015 Cotes de Provence Corail, Chateau de Roquefort ($16.99 at Provisions in Northampton)

2015 Bieler Pier & Fils , Coteaux D' Aix En Provence ($9.99 at Table & Vine in West Springfield)

2015 Le Poussin Rose ($9.99 at Provisions)

2015 90 + Rose ($7.99 at Table & Vine)

2015 VRAC Rose Vin De Pays de Mediterranee ($24.98 for 3 Liters (4 bottles) at Table & Vine)

2015 Cotes de Provence Corail, Chateau de Roquefort

In the last few years, I have become a huge fan of this winery in the South of France. I've written here before about two of Chateau de Roquefort's red wines: Grele, which has a great back story, and the 2013 Gueule de Loup, a beautiful, well-balanced wine ready to drink now. That's why I was not too surprised by how much I enjoyed their Rose wine from Provence, the world-famous wine region in Southern France known for making remarkable Roses.

Like many of the wines they make, Chateau de Roquefort blends several grapes together to make their Rose. Specifically, the winery's Rose includes 35% Grenache, 25% Syrah, 25% Cinsault, 5% Carignan, 5% Vermentino, 5% Clairette. Such a complex blend probably explains why this wine has such complex flavors.

This wine changed the most compared to the other Roses in this tasting. At first, this wine had a slightly sharp taste. But within a few minutes, the wine tasted slightly tart and gradually smoothed out and changed subtlety from one sip to the next. And like many great red wines, this wine got much smoother a few hours after we first opened the bottle. A really fun, complex Rose. Highly recommend!

2015 Bieler Pere et Fils Rose, Coteaux D' Aix En Provence

I have written before about about this Rose wine. Three years ago, I highly recommended the winery's 2012 Rose, writing, "This wine goes down easy and has a dry, crisp clean taste." Three years later, I'm happy to report the same applies to the winery's delightful, 2015 vintage.

This smooth, floral wine was one of the easiest drinking ones of the Roses I tasted for this week's column. I didn't have to wait a few hours for the wine to smooth out. It tasted ripe and delicious right from the very first sip.

One of winemaker's discussed the Rose in a video on their website. Like the Chateau de Roquefort, the Bieler Rose is blend of several grapes: 40% Grenache, 25% Syrah, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cinsault and 3% Rolle. Easy drinking, refreshing, smooth. Highly recommend!

2015 Le Poussin Rose

Another Rose wine I raved about in the past, the Poussin Rose has a "simple elegance." I added in my review two years ago that, "I liked this wine from the very first sip. It had a very smooth, refreshing taste right from the start."

This breezy, light wine is a blend of predominantly Grenache grapes blended with Syrah. The wine is also made by the makers of one of my other favorite French Rose wines, Whispering Angel.

This wine has everything I love about Roses from France - approachable, refreshing and subtle, fruit flavors. French for "young chicken," Poussin is a youthful wine ready to enjoy now. Recommend.

2015 90 + Rose

I realize many of the 90 + wines are very popular. And there's nothing particularly wrong with this wine. I just find that this French Rose doesn't have a lot of flavor. I wrote the same thing when I reviewed this wine and several other Roses last summer. Specifically, this is what I wrote about the 90 + Rose last summer:

As for the 90 + Rose, I simply put a question mark in my notes the first time I tasted the wine. I simply couldn't make up my mind about what I thought of it. The second time I tasted the wine, it had a "sharp" taste but was gradually "getting smoother." The next day, the wine had "less flavor" but was still "light" and "refreshing" and has the potential to be a "good sipping wine" you can spend a warm summer afternoon with. However, by the final taste, the wine did taste "flatter."

So what else can I say about this wine this year? Eventually, after the wine was open for a few hours, it began to taste "very pleasant," I wrote in my notes. But the wine still was not as complex as some of the other wines reviewed this week. That's why I have a hard time strongly recommending it.

2015 VRAC Rose Vin De Pays de Mediterranee

I loved this wine the first time I tasted it at a friend's house a few years ago. That's why I was so frustrated last summer when I could not find this anywhere. I raved about this wine when I wrote about it two years ago. That's why I was thrilled when I heard from Table & Vine a few weeks ago that they had this wine in stock again this summer.

This wine is not as complex as the Chateau de Roquefort or the Bieler. It's simpler and more straightforward. And since the wine's in a vacuum-sealed box, there was no difference from one glass to another. Then again, since no oxygen can get into the box, the wine continued to taste great more than a week after I opened it.

And while price should not be an issue, there's no getting around the fact that this wine costs less than $6 a bottle since there are 4 bottles inside the box. You can't beat that price, especially given the quality of this reliable Rose. Highly recommend!

But don't just take my word for it. Taste some for yourself.

Cheers!

UPCOMING EVENTS: World-renowned winemaker and owner Olivier Humbrecht will personally guide his audience through three flights (nine wines) from his family's award-winning Domaine Zind-Humbrecht of Alsace, France. The Nejaime's Wine Cellars Seminar will take place at Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum on Wednesday, May 18 at 6:30 p.m.

The Nejaime Wine Cellars Historic Wine Seminar series combines the tasting of top-level wines with the aura of historic Berkshire estates and museums. A portion of the ticket price is donated to the participating sites in recognition of their cultural importance.

Tickets are $40 per person and include the wines served with cheese and charcuterie. $15 tickets for optional guided tours of the mansion offered at 4:30 p.m. For reservations, call Nejaime's at (413) 637-2221. The historic mansion is located at 104 Walker Street in Lenox.

Wine Press by Ken Ross appears on Masslive.com every Monday and in The Republican's weekend section every Thursday.


DEERFIELD In 1835 laborer Dexter Marsh was building a sidewalk on Clay Hill - now Bank Row - in Greenfield with stone he had quarried across the Connecticut River in Montague. Not knowing what the tracks found in some of the stones were, people called them "turkey tracks," because that is what they resembled.

They are now identified as dinosaur tracks; the term "dinosaur" was not coined until the early 1840s by English biologist and paleontologist Sir Richard Owen.

Some of these dinosaur tracks are now part of Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association's Jurassic Roadshows, hands-on mobile exhibits that since 2010 have been bringing the science, history and art of the Connecticut River Valley's dinosaur footprints and trace impressions to diverse audiences and venues such as libraries, festivals, fairs, the Great Falls Discovery Center in Turners Falls and the Springfield Museums.

Exhibits and talks are presented by professional paleontologists and knowledgeable amateurs who tailor their comments to their listeners' knowledge and interest. Some volunteers, known as the "Track Pack," bring dinosaur tracks from their personal collections.

These fossils show a dinosaur footprint (left) and the reverse image formed when the imprint was filled in with mud millions of years ago.

"We tell kids, 'You're touching where a dinosaur stepped,'" said Sarah Doyle, Jurassic Roadshow manager. "It brings a certain immediacy. This is a record of a behavior."

The dinosaur tracks are some 200 million years old. "There are probably billions of these on the planet, we just don't know about it," Doyle said.

Some of the roadshows include fossils showing where raindrops fell or reveal plant life.

People can learn about dinosaurs from books or online, but the Jurassic Roadshow "engages people," Doyle said.

Sometimes people bring fossils to the roadshow to learn more about them, "a la Antiques Roadshow," said Timothy Neumann, executive director of Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association.

No monetary values are offered.

The roadshow combines science and history. When the "turkey tracks" were first identified, Amherst College professor Edward Hitchcock became interested in them and obtained many for the college. Marsh, the laborer, collected many of them and even opened a small museum in his home on Bank Row; visitors included Austin Dickinson (brother of poet Emily Dickinson) and author Oliver Wendell Holmes.

"Our society is so fragmented," Neumann lamented. "We've lost that liberal arts approach to education."

He hopes Jurassic Roadshows will help people broaden their interpretation of the past.

Sarah Doyle, Jurassic Roadshow manager, wears a clay necklace made to resemble a dinosaur footprint.



The shows are also part of an effort to promote "dino-tourism" in the Connecticut River Valley. One brochure outlines "easy day trips for spectacular outings" related to dinosaurs in Massachusetts. Noted are Barton Cove in Gill, Great Falls Discovery Center in Turners Falls, Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association and Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, the Rock Fossil and Dinosaur Shop in South Deerfield, Beneski Museum of Natural History in Amherst, Nash Dinosaur Track Site and Rock Shop in South Hadley, Dinosaur Footprints: A Property of The Trustees of Reservations in Holyoke, Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke and Springfield Science Museum.

The area, Doyle said, is a "world-class paleontological site."

Jurassic Roadshow is a project of Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association funded in part by a John and Abigail Adams Grant from the state Cultural Council and with the support of the Pioneer Valley Institute.

For more information on the Jurassic Roadshows, visit their website, jurassicroadshow.com.
suffolk superior.JPG

Suffolk County Superior Court

(SHIRA SCHOENBERG / THE REPUBLICAN)

BOSTON - Two brothers, Scott and Steve Leader, pleaded guilty on Monday to charges that they assaulted a 58-year-old homeless man with a pole because they believed he was an illegal immigrant, calling him a "wetback" and mentioning Donald Trump.



At their change-of-plea hearing, Superior Court Judge Peter Krupp called their actions "cowardly and despicable." The brothers both have criminal records.



He sentenced Scott Leader, 38, to three years in state prison. Steve Leader, 30, was sentenced to two and a half years in state prison.



The attack occurred in the early morning hours of Aug. 19, 2015, close to JFK/UMass MBTA station in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood.



Approaching a sleeping Guillermo Rodriguez, the two brothers "punched him, kicked him and hit him numerous times with a pole," according to Nicole Rimar, an assistant district attorney with Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley's office.



"This was an unprovoked, brutal attack on a sleeping man, motivated entirely by racial hostility," Rimar said in court.



Scott Leader has two prior convictions for hate crimes, Rimar added: One was an assault just after Sept. 11, 2001, on a Middle Eastern store employee. The other was in 2005, on Carson Beach in South Boston, directed at an Asian American.



Rimar said Scott Leader's "history of animosity towards others is troubling."



In the August 2015 incident, they also called the immigrant a "wetback" and high-fived each other after beating him, Rimar said. Parts of the attack were witnessed by passersby and construction workers who were paving a road.



Steve Leader called one of the witnesses who went to police a "rat," and when the two brothers were charged he claimed police were only arresting them "because we are white," Rimar said.



Scott Leader told police, "Donald Trump is right, all these illegals need to be deported," according to Rimar.

Donald Trump, who has made disparaging remarks about Latinos and speaks on the campaign trail of building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, is the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

Neither Scott nor Steve Leader is a registered voter in Massachusetts, according to election officials.

In court, Rimar, the prosecutor, stated that Scott Leader also said they "tuned" the immigrant and he then made punching gestures.



Victoria Kelleher, the attorney for Scott Leader, told the judge, "He regrets what happened."



She added that alcohol played a "significant" role in this incident.



Krupp said while alcohol may certainly have been a factor, "I'm not sure it fully explains the behavior."



Both were sentenced to three years of probation after serving their sentences. The first year of probation will have to be in a sober house environment, and both defendants are required to remain drug and alcohol free.



They should also participate in cultural sensitivity training, the judge said.
A class of drug that blocks estrogen production can quickly suppresses dangerous seizures, according to a new study.

"The effect was profound and very clear," says senior author Catherine S. Woolley, professor of neurobiology at Northwestern University. "This shows that clinically available drugs could be effective therapies for suppressing seizures in humans."

Full Story: http://www.futurity.org/estrogen-seizures-1162252/?utm_source=Futurity+Today&utm_campaign=9b20994c4a-May_16_20165_16_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e34e8ee443-9b20994c4a-203916893
Merck Foundation Health Media Training will be chaired by Senator, Dr. Rasha Kelej, CEO of Merck Foundation (Merck-Foundation.com); Merck Foundation, to announce a call for applications for 6 different awards for Media, Film, Fashion and Music fraternity in Mauritius, Mauritius, Madagascar, and Seychelles to break Infertility stigma and raise awareness about coronavirus.

Merck Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Merck KGaA Germany, in partnership with Media Trust Board, Mauritius to conduct Merck Foundation Health Media Training, particularly for Mauritius, Madagascar, and Seychelles media fraternities. The objective of the training is to emphasize the significant role that media plays to break the stigma around infertility, in addressing sensitive social and health issues such as breaking Infertility stigma, empowering girls and women through education. Moreover, in the given unprecedented times, raising awareness about coronavirus and the best health prevention practices during this global pandemic.

Inviting media to participate for the training, Senator, Dr. Rasha Kelej, CEO of Merck Foundation and President of Merck Foundation More Than a Mother said I am happy to initiate this important training session as I strongly believe that media plays a significant role in influencing our society to create a cultural shift. Media has the capacity and ability to break the stigma around infertility in the community and has played a critical role during the global pandemic. Merck Foundation, in partnership with Media Trust Board, Mauritius would like to invite media representatives from Mauritius, Madagascar, and Seychelles to this important online training that focuses on the international standards and media ethics for reporting sensitive social and health issues and aims to be the voice of the voiceless in their communities.

We are also providing scholarships of one year diploma and two year master degree for doctors in respiratory medicines, intensive care, and other specialities to improve healthcare for coronavirus patients and risk groups. I look forward to meeting the enthusiastic journalists from these 3 countries and partner with them as Merck Foundation advocates to empower infertile women and couples and support girl education in their communities, added Senator, Dr. Rasha Kelej.

Mr. Chayman Surajbali, Chairperson of the Media Trust Board, Mauritius emphasized,

We are proud of our partnership with Merck Foundation and happy to launch Merck Foundation Health Media Training where the training will equip our media with sharp and specific media skills so as to write and deliver impacting stories about health and social issues. This initiative will help media representatives of our country to report on sensitive and social issues with a greater knowledge and encourage them to be the voice of the voiceless in raising awareness about infertility and breaking the stigma around it. We look forward to making it a great success with Merck Foundation.

The Merck Foundation Health Media Training is a part of Merck Foundation More than a Mother Community Awareness Program and will be addressed by top fertility experts and media stalwarts from Africa and Mauritius. The Health Media training invites journalists from Print, TV, Radio, and Online media. So far, Merck Foundation has trained 1700 media representatives from more than 30 countries across Africa and Latin America.

The training will also mark the announcement of two media recognition awards for the media fraternity from Mauritius, Madagascar, and Seychelles, Merck Foundation Media Recognition Awards More Than a Mother 2021 and Merck Foundation Mask Up With Care Media Recognition Awards 2021; two awards for fashion fraternity of these countries, Merck Foundation Fashion Awards More Than a Mother 2021 and Merck Foundation Make Your Own Mask Fashion Awards 2021; in addition to Merck Foundation Film Awards More Than a Mother 2021 and Merck Foundation Song Awards More Than a Mother 2021.

Moreover, Merck Foundation in collaboration with The Ministry of Health and Wellness, Mauritius, has underscored their commitment to build healthcare capacity in Mauritius. Till today, 71 healthcare providers have been provided or will be provided with scholarships of one-year diploma and two-years master degree in many critical and underserved specialties. Out of which, 32 Medical graduates have been enrolled in the fields of Oncology, Diabetes, Endocrinology, Acute Medicine, Respiratory Medicine, Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, and Sexual & Reproductive Medicine. Another 39 medical graduates have been already selected to be enrolled in PG Diploma courses in many new underserved specialties including Emergency and Resuscitation Medicine, Gastroenterology, Laparoscopic Surgical Skills, Mental Health: Psychological Therapies, Orthopedic Trauma Science, Paediatric, Emergency Medicine, Advanced Surgical Practice, Dermatology, Neonatal Medicine, Pain Management, Psychiatry, Clinical Microbiology & infectious diseases, Ophthalmology, Internal Medicine, Neuroimaging for research, Urology, Orthopedics, Rheumatology, Cancer and Clinical Oncology, Critical Care, General Surgery, and Orthopedic & Trauma.

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Le Speaker de lAssemblee Nationale a fait une declaration a la Chambre lors de la seance parlementaire du 26 octobre 2021 sur des articles de presse concernant le ministre Hurreeram qui avait utilise des mots unparliamentary a lencontre de Shakeel Mohamed.

Honourable Members My attention has been drawn to several media articles which have repeatedly reported that as Speaker I did not call the Hon. Minister Hurreeram to order when he uttered unparliamentary words at the sitting of Tuesday 23 June 2020 to the address of Hon. Shakeel Mohamed. I wish to draw the attention of the House that I called both the Hon. Minister and Hon. Shakeel Mohamed in my office on the same day regarding the said matter. I have deemed it fit to inform the House and the population at large that upon the Assembly resuming on that day, the Hon. Minister Hurreeram tendered his apologies and withdrew the objectionable words twice in the Assembly. Honourable Members Your kind attention is drawn to pages 89 and 90 of the Hansard dated 23 June 2020, which is posted on the website of the National Assembly. I thank you.

Extrait du Hansard du 23 juin 2020, page 89 et 90

Mr Speaker: I will suspend the sitting for 30 minutes.

At 5.13 p.m., the sitting was suspended.

On resuming at 6.01 p.m. with Mr Speaker in the Chair.

Mr Speaker: Please, be seated! Order, please! What is happening?

Hon. Hurreeram!

Mr Hurreeram: Mr Speaker, Sir, I apologise and withdraw what I said. Dr. Boolell: On a point of order. Mr Speaker, Sir, I am referring to Standing Order 48, Disorderly Conduct. I am sure the whole House has heard what hon. Hurreeram has

stated. The conduct is not only disorderly, but what he has uttered is unacceptable. I grant you that hon. Hurreeram has withdrawn. He has apologised, but under the circumstances, in

view of the gravity of what he has said and if I refer to Standing Order 48, in fact, he should withdraw from the House. (Interruptions) For less than that, people have withdrawn from the House. Mr Speaker: Hon. Leader of the Opposition, we should not create a precedent out of that. Listen to my ruling. We should not create a precedent out of that. If not, then the ball

could be in the camp of the Opposition.

Dr. Boolell: Can I have it from the hon. Minister that this will not be repeated again?

Mr Speaker: He has already apologised. Okay!

Hon. Xavier-Luc Duval! (Interruptions) Mr Mohamed: Mr Speaker,

Mr Speaker: I have already given my ruling!

Mr Mohamed: This concerns

Mr Speaker: I have already given my ruling; my ruling is final.

Mr Mohamed: This concerns you.

Mr Speaker: I have already given my ruling; my ruling is final!

Mr Mohamed: This is a new point of order!

90

Mr Speaker: Hon. Xavier-Luc Duval, take the floor!

Mr Mohamed: This is a new point of order!

Mr Speaker: You dont shout! You dont shout! You dont shout! You dont shout at the Speaker!

(Interruptions)

First of all, apologise for shouting to the Speaker!

Mr Mohamed: I apologise for shouting to the Speaker. Very happy? Now, I have got a point of order to raise. He has only apologised, but he has not been specific about what he is

apologising. (Interruptions) Mr Speaker: He said he withdraws whatever he said. Can you repeat it? (Interruptions) Wait! Please! (Interruptions)

Please, allow the hon. Minister to withdraw!

Mr Mohamed: About the thing he said about my father  (Interruptions) Mr Hurreeram: I withdraw, Mr Speaker, Sir, and I apologise again

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The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has launched a consultation into whether changes should be introduced to the chilling requirements of Qurbani meat and offal supplied from slaughterhouses in England and Wales during the period of Eid al-Adha.
by Bob Garfield , Featured Columnist, May 16, 2016

"Budweiser has always strived to embody America in a bottle, and we're honored to salute this great nation where our beer has been passionately brewed for the past 140 years."

-Anheuser-Busch Vice President Ricardo Marques explains renaming of Budweiser beer America



Sometime this summer, when a drunk in an F-150 kills pedestrians after swilling down a 12-pack of America, cynics will question the wisdom of naming a beer after our country. Even the saloon bathroom will be a bit, shall we say, awkward -- as all that America hits the porcelain with a vengeance. But come on -- thats just thinking small.

Branding-wise, this is just the beginning. Inevitably, the bold rechristening of the quintessential American beer will persuade other familiar brands to adopt new identities as they too strive both to remain culturally relevant and leech off the goodwill of popular institutions, personalities and even states of being. Here are tomorrow's news capsules today:

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Miller Light is now The Western Hemisphere! Any brand can claim synonymousness with a single nation, said Leroy M. Cunningham, vice president of engagement, Miller Brewing Co. We stand for an entire half of the globe, not counting Cuba, although that could change, too, barring a cruise ship Trojan Horse or something too Bay of Pigs-ish. New slogan: Tastes Great! Monroe Doctrine!

Ultra Downy April Fresh is now Freedom! What is worse than authoritarianism, tyranny and slavery? Static cling is worse, because neither Putin nor Ayatollah Khomeini nor Kim Jong-un cause your skirt to be drawn annoyingly to your hosiery. Freedom frees you from the static gulag, and April fresh, too!

Certs is now Yemen! Its impoverished. Its violent. Its impoverished. Its violent. Its impoverished and violent!

Google is now God! At long last, a name to match the vastness of its influence. The search engine formerly known as Google is all knowing, all powerful and everywhere around us. We call on it for life-and-death matters and also the most trivial. Thousands die in a typhoon? Children conscripted as militant warriors? This is Googles will.

Lindor Milk Chocolate Truffles are now Orgasms! While millions around the world have enjoyed sublime sweet and creamy goodness of Lindor, said spokesperson Karyn DuPlasse-Murphy of Lindt USA, we believe we have undersold the bliss of the experience. Never tried Lindor? Come come.

Molson Beer and Dos Equis are merging. Now they are NAFTA! America? Big deal. We are two beers of North America, now joined as one. Give us your money and the jobs; well supply the cerveza, eh?

World Wrestling Enterprises is now Stupidity. WWE has always strived to embody America in a ring, and we're honored to salute all that is simple-minded, adolescent and credulous with moronic spectacle that has transfixed single-celled organisms for decades. This is more than just low-brow. It is the apotheosis of stupid.

Sam Adams is now the Milky Way Galaxy!

Orgasm is now Lindor Milk Chocolate Truffles! It was just time to recognize what we aspire to, said L. Jennings Davenport, senior vice president for brand initiatives at The Orgasm Institute. How to improve on four seconds of ecstasy? Heres how: no messy cleanup or tedious hugging afterwards.

BlackBerry is now Trump! Yes, were are objectively crap, said Chief Relevance Officer Emanuela MacDougal. but we think weve found a way for that not to matter.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, May 16, 2016

WPP digital agency Essence has appointed Anant Mathur to serve as its new Global Head of Analytics, effectively immediately. Based at the agencys San Francisco office, hell oversee all aspects of analytics and research across Essences entire client roster.

The position was previously held by Michael Thomas, who has shifted to the account side of the agency.

Mathur joins Essence from Walmart.com, where he served as Head of Business Intelligence and Analytics, overseeing a team that spanned disciplines including marketing and site optimization, customer experience management, predictive analytics, and advanced analytics for merchandising, operations and customer service.

Mathur also has agency, publisher and strategy experience. Prior to Walmart.com, he held leadership roles in analytics and product management at Publicis Groupes Starcom Mediavest Group, Interpublics McCann, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Unilever.

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Robust Analytics form the foundation of our entire business approach said Andrew Shebbeare, co-founder and chief product officer of Essence, and to whom Mathur reports. Weve worked hard to build a practice capable of proving the business impact of our clients campaigns in any medium and market. Im delighted to have found such a kindred spirit in Anant. Hes equally obsessed with finding real value and just as suspicious of convenient correlations.

Mathurs appointment comes a little more than two months after Essence opened three new offices in Chicago, Shanghai and Sydney. They were the first locations to be added to the agencys footprint since it was acquired by WPP last November.
by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, May 16, 2016

The media loves to pin the blame for the ascendancy of Donald Trump on issues related to the government, but the media ought to point the finger at itself too.

For many in the portion of the electorate that has lined up behind Trump, the media and government are now one and the same -- two big institutions whose members are full of themselves, and to some degree, also in cahoots.

Just think back for a moment to that unseemly White House Correspondents Dinner a few weeks ago. This event, which has apparently been around since 1914, was once a relatively private affair in which members of the press corps got to rub elbows with the government officials they covered in an off-the-record kind of atmosphere.

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Today, its an occasion for public preening as journalists, celebrities and government types exchange air kisses around banquet tables arranged cheek by jowl in a hotel ballroom. It all gets aired on TV too. I saw coverage of this years dinner April 30 on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN and probably others -- complete with commentary about who was seen and even what some of them were wearing.

Most of it was like watching E! on Oscar night -- which is not meant as a compliment. Only on C-Span did I detect an appropriate hint of skepticism when its lone anchor and commentator at one point described the attendees disapprovingly as looking as if they were all feeding from the same trough. If he was trying to say they looked like pigs, then his point was made.

Such a public display of self-satisfied smuggery (a word I just made up) serves only to feed the impression formed by many that politicians and the journalists who cover them are cut from the same cloth. An ordinary person with perhaps a passing awareness of how journalism is supposed to work might watch the Correspondents Dinner on TV and then wonder whatever happened to the adversarial -- or at least arms-length -- relationship that is supposed is exist between journalists and their subjects.

Instead, the politicians and the Washington press corps -- along with the producers and editors who support them in the control rooms and newsrooms in New York and elsewhere -- were all on TV glad-handing and playing kissy-face.

They have come to seem like theyre members of the same exclusive club where they conspire to use one another each for their own advancement. Its a club to which ordinary people have no access. Thus, when a candidate comes along who positions himself as an outsider who promises to throw out the old playbook and write a new one, people are only too happy to replace the insiders with the outsider because they feel the current powers-that-be are a bunch of do-nothings enabled by a compliant news media.

In this context, there is an irony that the peoples choice is one Donald J. Trump, a member of the 1 percent of the 1 percent whose residences are clad in onyx and marble and whose businesses include constructing luxury high rises and managing country clubs. In many ways, hes been an insider for decades -- the self-proclaimed friend of scores of celebrities, politicians, fellow tycoons, athletes and New York mayors.

Despite his extreme wealth and country club lifestyle, he has somehow convinced his rank-and-file supporters that hes an outsider who understands them and who they can rely upon to work hard for their benefit. Trump should be applauded for running a marketing and advertising campaign like no other.

Meanwhile, the punditry will continue to put across their theory that the support for Trump is a symbol of widespread dissatisfaction with an entrenched government establishment. But the news media has its own entrenched establishment, and theyre too busy bellying up to the banquet table with the people theyre covering to see that many in the electorate are sick of them too.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, May 16, 2016

Google made a move into quick, yet relevant, search in text messages, emails and a variety of other mobile apps, but the initial foray that provides a limited number of results will require marketers to pay more attention to optimizing for extremely relevant query results.

Doug Platts, VP at iCrossing, who oversees organic growth such as search engine optimization, content, and social, said the one-query first-page result will begin to affect sites like Open Table and Yelp, eroding traffic to aggregators that pull in a variety of sites.

Gboard makes hyperlocal search results increasingly important, but it also opens the door to cross-device targeting and serving content on wearable devices such as the Apple Watch, Platts said. "Gboard and Emoji search will become very efficient on your Apple Watch," he said. "It caters to the small screen."

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Platts predicts Adopt more across devices and move to accessible on the smartwatch and paid advertising to monetize the system.

Scott Shamberg, U.S. president at Performics, sees Gboard becoming another entry point into mobile search queries, which long term could increase Google's market share on devices running iOS into Google search.

"Over time, though, I could see geo-fencing becoming a heavier point of emphasis and product listing ads trying to push closer to the actual keyboard," Shamberg said. "I could see sponsored placement within Gboard, which would shorten the customer journey."

Misspellings, ambiguities and abbreviations could become another benefit for Google, said Brian Valentini, VP and group director at Digitas LBi. He believes those idiosyncrasies will help Google improve semantic search. Until now, Google only uses data someone types into a search query to feed its algorithm, but by capturing everything users type on their phone Google could potentially use this to enhance their organic and paid search relevancy and help give them a deeper level of understanding on how to map results based on what people type.

Gboard gives Google the ability to identify everything users type on their phone, providing another source of data to enhance retargeting and increase the relevancy of ads across it properties. While they have yet to monetize it through paid-search advertising, as consumers send and respond to personal messages, this gives Google a direct line of site to what products consumers could want, before they even begin searching for them. "They could feed this behavior into any of their remarketing products and help advertisers reach a more precise audience," Valentini said.

Webmasters need to focus on assuring sites are optimized across devices, Valentini said, but also that local content remains clean and crawlable by Google's bots. Gboard, by default, steers users toward "near me" results that give any site with a local presence opportunities to connect with consumers through relevant keywords.

The layout on phones, however, truncates many titles and descriptions in Gboard results, which could impact click-through rates, Valentini said. "I would not recommend webmasters change their site optimization for Gboard now, but they may want to optimize exclusively for it in the future," he said.
Revised after Gannett met with Tribune shareholders last week, the new offer represents a premium of 99% to Tribunes closing price of $7.52 per share on April 22, the last trading day before Gannett publicly announced its initial offer for Tribune.

The total value of the revised offer is about $864 million, including the assumption of Tribunes $385 million of debt, according to Gannett.

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Gannetts new offer is a result of additional review of Tribune's most recent 10-Q filing on May 5, including debt, cash balance and pension liabilities, the company said Monday.

John Jeffry Louis, chairman of the Gannett Board of Directors, stated that the revised offer demonstrates our commitment to engaging in serious and meaningful negotiations with the Tribune Board to reach a mutually agreeable transaction where Gannett acquires all of Tribune.

The Gannett Board and management team are committed to completing a transaction as soon as possible, according to the statement.

Robert J. Dickey, president and CEO of Gannett, said in the statement that by not engaging constructively with Gannett, Tribune is jeopardizing its shareholders investment and disregarding their best interests.

Tribune Publishing, which publishes newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, today confirmed that it received the proposal from Gannett, which also publishes USA Today.

Tribune said it will thoroughly review Gannetts offer.

As Publishers Daily reported last week,Tribune adopted a poison pill to fend off a hostile takeover by Gannett after the company urged Tribune shareholders to withhold their votes for board member nominees in an election held June 2. That is in order to pressure management to engage immediately with Gannett regarding their bid.

The poison pill is a limited-duration shareholder rights plan, which will trigger when a person or group acquires 20% or more of Tribunes common stock. Each shareholder will then receive a market value of two times the exercise price. The plan will expire in one year.

This rights plan would make it even more expensive for an investor to acquire a controlling stake.

The new CEO of Tribune, Justin Dearborn, believes his plans to transform Tribune Publishing can be done without Gannetts help. He plans to drive revenue from content brands, grow the Los Angeles Times globally and create digital subscription services.
by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, May 16, 2016

The only real question is why it took them so long. Last week the federal government revealed it will begin regularly screening social media profiles as part of its process for issuing security clearances to individuals.

The new rules governing social media screening were issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which has broad oversight over security clearances across the federal government, following a directive from congress issued as part of a broader spending bill last year. Altogether there are 22 different federal agencies which issue security clearances and checks, including some which handle clearances for other agencies.

Like other forms of security review, social media screening will seek to uncover any evidence that an applicant could represent a security risk, including finances, educational background, foreign travel and acquaintances, health information and ideological leanings. In the case of social media that could extend to online friends and interest groups, statements made on social media profiles and past employment information.

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Typically, screening not only looks for signs of existing criminal involvement, but anything that could leave the subject open to blackmail as well.

ODNA will not ask screening subjects to provide their password or pseudonyms used on social media, meaning the screening will be limited to their publicly accessible social media presence. However, that also means that investigators will probably scrutinize subjects friends, family members and other social media acquaintances from their publicly accessible profiles.

Security clearances are just one area where the federal government is under pressure to bolster security through social media screening. Over the winter Congress passed a law ordering the executive branch to present a counter-terror strategy coordinating the efforts of the Department of Homeland Security, State Department, and FBI, among other agencies, including combating radicalization and recruitment of terrorists via social media. Lawmakers also urged the White House to implement screening of social media profiles as a regular part of vetting visa applicants.
by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, May 16, 2016

In the bruising, mean-spirited patch were in right now, perhaps it was inevitable that a counter-reaction. But for whatever the reason, it seems apparent that the movement on the build right now is . . . empathy.

But youll have to understand where Im coming from.

Which, specifically, is the NAB show in Las Vegas and the NewFronts in New York. Those events arent hotbeds of discussions of emotional response, but surprisingly/significantly, the idea of empathy seemed to be--what?--trending both at the technology convention and at the digital programming/sales event. Its hard not to connect the dots.

By one succinct definition, Empathy is what we experience when we feel other peoples pain or joyit is our ability to put ourselves in someone elses shoes, and understand and share what they are feeling."

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Not a lot of that is going around, Id say. In the last year a bunch of shouters and politicians have attacked women, religions, immigrants, refugees and somehow, Black Lives Matter has come to mean that other lives dont. The reaction to all of that--our empathy--has probably been plentiful, but not so evident. So it just might be theres a surplus of empathy that could be ready to spill out..

At the NAB Show, I couldnt have imagined a more unlikely venue to be discussing such a touchy-feely subject, and least of all in two sessions centered around the uses and growth of virtual reality. The VR experience puts you, the viewer, in the middle of the environment. That phrase, in someone elses shoes is perfect.

Activist VR filmmakers at NAB exclaimed that the very intimacy of that experience can create a huge wave of empathy for victims of floods and famine, political persecution, or even the plight of a pig at a slaughterhouse, caught in the recent iAnimal, a seven-minute VR film shot by the animal welfare group Animal Equality.

From our perspective, using VR is the best way to convey to someone what its like to be an animal inside a factory farm or a slaughterhouse, Toni Shephard, the executive director of Animal Equality, told the Website Motherboard. When were filming inside the metal cages where pigs give birth, as its at the pigs eye-level, viewers see the bars next to them. It feels confining and you get a sense of what its like to be locked inside one of these crates.

At NAB, Jason Farkas, executive producer at CNN, said in the business, VR cameras are now dubbed the empathy machine. At another session, Philip Lelyfeld, a virtual and augmented reality expert from the University of Southern California, said VR opens up a new sense of empathy [with characters], because theres nothing separating you and the characters. Its very powerful.

In New Zealand, UNICEF showed a VR of Syrian refugees to passersby and greatly upped contributions. Building empathy, one person at a time, its post-VR video used as a tagline.

Wrote Louise Jacques on an Australian Website, VR transmutes the concept of empathy from internal to external. By placing a new set of eyes over your own, physically, and stepping into the world of another, you are kickstarting an emotional transformation. , , You can move your head and eyes along with the image; its three-dimensional, totally immersive, and impossible to ignore.

Of course, a ton of content, fictional and news-based, has strong empathetic roots. But it never seemed to be destined to be part of a content creator's checklist, or possibly, even an advertising tool.

Though almost all the NewFronts presenters announced VR projects, not many of them seemed intended to be more than video eye candy, which might be missing a real, better use.

Frank Cooper, BuzzFeeds chief content officer did promise to produce content with empathy and connection after a NewFronts session in which it claimed to be a place for outsiders to feel welcomed.

The idea of empathy itself, however, was most emphatically taken up by Refinery 29. Amy Emmerich, the chief content officer, declare the tent poles of the women-centered site are now, officially, passion, strength and empathy. One filmmaker, it was promised, "fills the empathy bucket." On the new Refinery 29 comedy channel, Riot, we were told, "empathy is a key ingredient."

Though most of Refinery 29s empathy references dealt straight on with content, Emmerich noted that its research shows 90% of purchase decisions are made due to an emotional reaction and, it would seem, empathetic branded content, could be a good sales tool. To that end, perhaps, Refinery 29 announce, a new initiative it started with the Columbia Digital Storytelling Lab.

Its called The Empathy Lab.

pj@mediapost.com
by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, May 16, 2016

Online data aggregator Spokeo may have to face a privacy lawsuit for allegedly displaying incorrect information about consumers, but only if they can first prove the errors caused a "concrete" injury.



That's the upshot of a Supreme Court ruling issued today in a closely watched battle between Spokeo and Virginia resident Thomas Robins.

The dispute dates to 2010, when Robins alleged that Spokeo posted inaccurate biographical information about him -- including that he was in his 50s, married with children, and employed in a professional or technical field. Robins, who was seeking a job when he brought the case, said he worried that the errors in the report would affect his job search.

He alleged in a potential class-action that Spokeo's report amounts to a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which requires credit reporting agencies to take steps to ensure the information they provide to potential employers is accurate.

Spokeo countered that Robins shouldn't be able to bring a lawsuit unless he can first show that he was injured by any errors.

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A trial judge dismissed Robins' lawsuit, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived the case.

Spokeo then appealed to the Supreme Court, where the company argued that Robins couldn't sue in federal court without showing that he suffered a "concrete" harm.

The Supreme Court today ruled that Robins can only proceed if he shows that the wrong information led to a concrete injury, but added that Robins could do so by showing that the data placed him at "risk" of future harm.

Here's how the court put it:

"A 'concrete' injury must be 'de facto'; that is, it must actually exist ... 'Concrete' is not, however, necessarily synonymous with 'tangible.' Although tangible injuries are perhaps easier to recognize, we have confirmed in many of our previous cases that intangible injuries can nevertheless be concrete... This does not mean, however, that the risk of real harm cannot satisfy the requirement of concreteness."

The Supreme Court sent the matter back to the 9th Circuit, so that court could consider whether Robins can move forward with the case.

Several news outlets reported today that the Supreme Court sided with Spokeo in the case -- which is true to the extent that the court reversed an appellate decision in favor of Robins.

But today's ruling doesn't necessarily mean that Spokeo will prevail, because Robins may still be able to convince judges that Spokeo's inaccurate data placed him at risk of future harm.

For his part, Robins' lawyer, Jay Edelson, says he views the Supreme Court's decision as a victory because the court said that even intangible harm could warrant a lawsuit.

"We view it as we got a knockout punch," Edelson tells MediaPost.

He adds that it's often difficult to show "tangible" harm in privacy cases.

But other observers are puzzled by the court's attempt to distinguish the concepts of "tangible" and "concrete."

"SCOTUS decides Spokeo case - most questions begged, and I can't figure out what exactly was decided," George Washington University law professor Dan Solove tweeted today.

"SCOTUS Spokeo privacy case says 'concrete' not 'tangible.' Um, ok. But the whole question was: what's an intangible concrete harm?" tweeted University of Minnesota law professor Bill McGeveran.

Tech companies, media organizations, business associations, digital privacy advocates and the Obama administration weighed in on the dispute while it was pending before the Supreme Court. The White House and consumer watchdogs backed Robins, while Google, Facebook and other companies sided with Spokeo.

One reason the case drew so much interest is that many tech companies are facing lawsuits for allegedly violating a federal statute -- like the video privacy law, or anti-robotexting law -- but may not have placed any consumers at risk of harm.

Today's decision obviously gives those companies more ammunition to defeat the lawsuits. Whether they will be able to do so remains to be seen.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, May 16, 2016

Gannett is asking a federal appellate court to reconsider its recent decision to revive a privacy lawsuit against the company.

The ruling could "derail the rapidly evolving Internet video economy," Gannett says in papers filed Friday with the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

"The Panels decision puts at risk every free Internet-based website, App and service offering videos that shares any information regarding unregistered, unknown visitors," the company adds.

The decision, issued late last month, reinstated a potential class-action lawsuit filed by Massachusetts resident Alexander Yershov. He alleged in a 2014 complaint that the USA Today app for Android violates the Video Privacy Protection Act by transmitting device identifiers, geolocation data and video viewing history to Adobe. That law prohibits video companies from sharing personally identifiable information about "subscribers" with third parties.

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Gannett argued that the case should be dismissed at an early stage for two reasons. The company contended that Android device identifiers -- a string of numbers unique to each device -- are not personally identifiable information. The company also says people who download a free app aren't "subscribers."

A trial judge dismissed the case, but a three-judge panel of the 1st Circuit unanimously revived the potential class-action lawsuit.

Gannett now is asking the 1st Circuit to reconsider, arguing that the judges used a "novel standard" for defining personally identifiable information.

The appellate judges said in the ruling that device identifiers combined with geo-location data could be personally identifiable, even though that data doesn't include users' names.

The opinion pointed to allegations that Adobe has additional information enabling it to link data like GPS addresses and device identifiers to particular names, addresses and phone numbers. But the judges also noted that additional development of the case -- including whether Adobe "foreseeably can identify" users -- might result in dismissal at a later date.

But Gannett says its potential liability shouldn't depend on whether other parties, like Adobe, may be able to identify users. "This new standard lacks any limiting principle," Gannett argues. "Thus, even if a website or App has no information about who its visitors are, any piece of information it discloses about them could result in a statutory violation."
In their study, he and his colleagues used a different approach to the ones attempted by hundreds of previous studies that have tried to isolate brain activity during REM sleep.

We were able to prove for the first time that REM sleep is indeed critical for normal spatial memory formation in mice.

Sylvain Williams, a professor of psychiatry at McGill and joint senior author of the study, explains that while they already knew the brain stores new information in different types of memory  spatial or emotional  before consolidating it, it was not clear, until this study, how it went about it. He adds:

Now, a mouse study from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and the University of Bern in Switzerland  published in the journal Science  provides evidence that REM sleep does play this role.

For decades, scientists have known rapid eye movement ( REM ) sleep  the phase of the sleep cycle when dreams occur  is linked to spatial and emotional memory consolidation but have run into problems trying to prove it.

A team of scientists may at last have settled a long-standing debate about the role of rapid eye movement sleep in memory formation. Using mice, they reveal the activity of certain brain cells during this dreaming phase of sleep  but not at other times  is essential for normal memory consolidation.

Prof. Williams says they decided to target the brain cells that control the activity of the hippocampus  a part of the brain that is important for forming memories while we are awake. It is also known as the brains inner GPS because it helps us map and navigate our environment.

Fast facts about REM sleep REM is one of five stages the brain cycles through during sleep

It makes up about 25 percent of a sleep cycle

Because the cycle repeats, REM can occur several times during a nights sleep. Learn more about REM sleep

For their study, the team ran experiments where mice completed spatial memory tasks that trained them to recognize new objects placed in a controlled environment already containing other objects of similar shape and size.

However, when they used light pulses to switch off a certain group of memory-associated brain cells while the mice were in REM sleep, the researchers found the mice could not successfully complete the memory tasks they had learned the previous day.

The brain cells the researchers targeted are called medial septum -aminobutyric acid-releasing neurons. They used an approach called optogenetics to switch them off. This method uses mice that have been genetically engineered to have brain cells that can be switched off using light pulses.

Compared with a control group of mice that did not have the light-pulse treatment, the memories of the treated mice appeared to have been erased, or at least disrupted.

The researchers ran the tests several times, experimenting with switching off other groups of brain cells, or the same group of brain cells during other, non-REM phases of sleep, or while the mice were awake. However, none of them had the same effect.

Silencing the same neurons for similar durations outside REM episodes had no effect on memory. This indicates that neuronal activity specifically during REM sleep is required for normal memory consolidation. Lead author Richard Boyce

REM is known to be an important component of sleep for humans as well as mice and other mammals, and poor quality of sleep is linked to several brain disorders, including Alzheimers disease and Parkinsons disease.

Researchers have found that REM sleep in particular is disrupted in Alzheimers disease. The team in this study say its findings suggest disruption of REM sleep could be factor in causing the memory problems seen in Alzheimers disease.

Learn how scientists discovered a way to trigger and prevent REM sleep in mice.
A new report assesses how the nation fared against the ambitious challenge goal set by the American Cancer Society to reduce the cancer death rates by 50% over 25 years ending in 2015. The report finds areas where progress was substantial, and others where it was not.

The report, appearing in the American Cancer Society journal, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, says the best improvements were seen in cancers for which prevention, early detection, and treatment tools are available, including cancers of the lung, colon, breast, and prostate. How much more progress will be made going forward will depend on how well policy makers and the American public work together to continue progress in those areas, and in making the best available care accessible to all.

In 1996, the Board of Directors of the American Cancer Society challenged the United States to reduce what looked to be peak cancer mortality in 1990 by 50% by the year 2015. The goals made clear that achieving that challenge goal would require a broad, multi-sectoral effort, not the effort of any single organization.

The current analysis, led by Tim Byers, MD, of the University of Colorado, examined trends in cancer mortality across the 25-year challenge period from 1990 to 2015*. The report found:

In 2015, the overall cancer death rate was 26% lower than in 1990 (32% lower among men and 22% lower among women).

Among men, mortality rates dropped for lung cancer by 45%, for colorectal cancer by 47%, and for prostate cancer by 53%.

Among women, mortality rates dropped for lung cancer by 8%, for colorectal cancer by 44%, and for breast cancer by 39%.

Declines in the death rates of all other cancer sites were substantially smaller (13% among men and 17% among women).

The major factors that accounted for the drops were progress in tobacco control and improvements in early detection and treatment.

"As we embark on new national cancer goals, this recent past experience should teach us that curing the cancer problem will require 2 sets of actions: making new discoveries in cancer therapeutics and more completely applying those discoveries in cancer prevention we have already made," write the authors.

The report says not fully reaching the goal should be seen as an opportunity. "That the ACS challenge goal to reduce US cancer mortality by 50% over the 25-year period from 1990 to 2015 was only one-half achieved should be seen as a glass half full. This progress should eliminate any historical remnants of cancer fatalism, and it should now stimulate our national imagination about what might be possible to achieve into the future."

The report says the effort also has a valuable lesson in goal-setting: "The best goals are those that stretch the limits of what might actually be achieved by renewed efforts. There is a sweet spot in goal setting between projecting what will likely happen regardless of renewed efforts (setting the bar too low) and creating unrealistic challenges that tend to paralyze us (setting the bar too high)."

The report concludes: "All sectors of civil society will need to join in efforts to further reduce cancer mortality in the United States, including those focused on the many social determinants of cancer, including income, availability of care, and many other social and environmental factors impacting cancer-reducing policies and programs. How much more progress we will make will depend on the extent to which policy makers and the American public can join together to create systems and incentives to understand cancer better, to reduce several of the known risk factors for cancer, to better diagnose cancer earlier, and to assure that state-of-the-art treatment is available for all."

* 2015 rates were estimated as a linear extrapolation of the trends from 2010 to 2014
Assessing whether a fluffy bunny or a giant spider poses a threat to our safety happens automatically. New research suggests the same brain areas may be involved in both detecting threats posed by animals and evaluating other humans' intentions. The study, published in the May 11 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, offers insight into a basic feature of human cognition: how we understand and evaluate other creatures.

"The idea that animals may be processed in a similar way [to humans] and may piggyback on regions of the brain that have been implicated in social cognition suggests that those regions ... are multipurpose," said study author Andrew Connolly of Dartmouth College.

Previously Connolly's research group found that hierarchical classes of animals (say, bugs vs. mammals) are represented in an area of the brain called the lateral occipital complex, a region involved in object perception and recognition. What was not known, however, was which brain regions process information about an animal's "dangerousness."

To investigate this, the researchers scanned volunteers' brains while they viewed pictures of bugs, reptiles, and mammals. Half of the animals depicted were classified as "low threat," such as butterflies and rabbits, and half were "high threat," such as snakes and cougars. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers determined which areas of the brain were active when participants viewed bugs, reptiles, and mammals, and when they viewed low- and high-threat animals. Researchers used these activity patterns to map how two kinds of information - taxonomic class and threat - are encoded in the brain.

As before, they found taxonomic class was represented in the lateral occipital complex. Surprisingly, a different area of the brain represented threat. This area, called the superior temporal sulcus, is a fold in brain tissue running just above the ear, and previous research has implicated the region in understanding facial expressions and deciphering others' intentions. The researchers speculate that evaluating other humans and evaluating threats posed by animals may be related functions.

Nikolaus Kriegeskorte, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge who studies visual object recognition and was not involved in the study, said this is interesting basic science. "Knowing what parts of the brain are involved in social cognition and how information processing works is relevant to our understanding of human brains, minds, and cultures."

The researchers are planning future studies to examine how activity in these brain networks changes over time. The present study used fMRI, which measures changes in blood flow as a proxy of neural activity, a measure that is slow and inadequate for understanding temporal relationships. To address this, the researchers plan to incorporate electrical recordings of brain activity in their studies.

"How the Human Brain Represents Perceived Dangerousness or "Predacity" of Animals" Andrew C. Connolly, Long Sha, J. Swaroop Guntupalli, Nikolaas Oosterhof, Yaroslav O. Halchenko, Samuel A. Nastase, Matteo Visconti di Oleggio Castello, Herve Abdi, Barbara C. Jobst, M. Ida Gobbini, and James V. Haxby. Journal of Neuroscience. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3395-15.2016. Published online 11 May 2016.
Researchers from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have found that losing even a modest amount of weight can reap significant rewards, including lower blood pressure, lower blood sugar, improved sleep, and fewer aches and pains.

But losing weight is difficult and maintaining that loss over years is even harder. The vast majority of those who lose weight gain it back. Yet research has found one group that has defied that trend.

A new study from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, presented May 14, 2016 at the 2016 Society of General Internal Medicine Annual Meeting, demonstrates the effectiveness of long-term participation in a national weight-loss program.

The investigators followed over 65,000 overweight or obese people who joined Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS) between 2005 to 2010. In the first year, half of participants in the nonprofit weight-loss support group had significant weight loss. Of the patients with significant weight loss in the first year who participated in a second year, 80% kept off the weight. Each year, during years three to seven, roughly 90% of patients who continued participation in the program maintained their weight loss.

The researchers concluded that after one year of significant weight loss, consistent participation in the program helped participants sustain their new healthy weight.

"Maintaining long-term weight loss is a critical challenge in treating obesity and related health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease," said the study's lead author Nia S. Mitchell, MD, MPH at CU Anschutz. "Just losing the weight isn't enough. Since the health benefits of weight loss disappear when weight creeps back on, we need more research into effective strategies for maintaining a healthier weight once it is reached."

Mitchell concluded that further studies of the TOPS program should examine which populations will succeed at weight loss and weight-loss maintenance and determine factors that can improve sustainable weight loss and maintenance.

Founded in 1948, TOPS is a nonprofit, noncommercial weight-loss support group with thousands of chapters across the United States and Canada. TOPS chapters provide support from others at weekly chapter meetings, healthy eating, regular exercise and wellness information at a fraction of the cost of commercial programs.

The Society of General Internal Medicine held its 2016 Annual Meeting, "Generalists Engaged in Population Health: Improving Outcomes and Equity through Research, Education and Patient Care", May 11-14, 2016 in Hollywood, Florida at the Diplomat Hotel & Spa (3555 South Ocean Drive, Hollywood, Florida 33019) http://connect.sgim.org/sgim16/home.
Researchers in Oxford who analyzed recent trends related to urinary tract stones in the UK found a sustained and high prevalence of the condition, with an increased trend to treat patients with surgery.

The number of upper urinary tract stone episodes in hospitals increased from 83,050 in 2009-2010 to 86,742 in 2014-2015. The use of non-invasive shock wave lithotripsy remained stable over this time; however, surgical intervention for stones in the ureter or kidney rose nearly 50% from 12,062 to 18,055 cases in the 5-year study period. The procedure (ureteroscopy) involves inserting a small scope into the bladder and up the ureter (and sometimes further up into the kidney) to laser fragment stones.

"Around 10% of the adult population will attend hospital with a kidney stone in their lifetime. In the UK, there is a trend towards surgical intervention for kidney stones which mirrors other countries around the world," said Dr. Hendrik Heers, co-author of the BJU International study. "If the current trends continue, surgical intervention will overtake non-invasive shock wave treatment within the next 3 years."
Mental illness is the largest and fastest growing source of disability in Australia and more needs to be done to improve mental health reform, according to the authors of a "For debate" published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

"In contrast to cancer and cardiovascular disease, there have been no improvements in rates of death or disability from mental illness in recent decades," wrote Professor Patrick McGorry and Mr Matthew Hamilton from Orygen, the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health.

McGorry and Hamilton wrote that mental health reforms announced by the federal government last year will never achieve their goals unless adequately financed. Although welcoming the government's aim to shift the focus of mental health care towards earlier intervention and stepped care, the authors warn that "this crucial plank of reform may remain more rhetoric than reality" as the government plans to finance new early intervention services for young people with cuts to existing cost-effective and evidence-based early psychosis services.

While supporting the regionalisation of health care, the authors highlight international evidence suggesting that the reform program's emphasis on devolving commissioning to primary health networks "is not a magic bullet to improve health outcomes" and stress that "the virtue of regional planning flexibility cannot overshadow the need to invest in programs that work".

The authors note that funding constraints mean that expert, specialised treatment is currently heavily rationed and mainly restricted to late presentations. "Of Australian adults with depression and anxiety, 16% receive only 'minimally adequate treatment', and the situation for those with psychotic illnesses reflects similar poor access to and variable quality of care," the authors wrote.

Another area of concern was the "missing middle" group of patients, those with complex disorders who were unlikely to receive the expert care they needed from state-funded public health services.

The authors said a new model of care for this group needed to be designed, which should be a federal responsibility.

"Care for this group should involve a step up in expertise from the initial GP and allied health professional, and ideally should involve a team approach, with input from a psychiatrist," McGorry and Hamilton wrote. The authors believe Australians now have a greater understanding of the impact that mental illness can have on their lives and society.

"The challenge is to transform this into targeted investment so that access, quality and outcomes in mental health care match those seen in physical health care," they concluded.

Article: Stepwise expansion of evidence-based care is needed for mental health reform, Patrick D McGorry and Matthew P Hamilton, Medical Journal of Australia, doi: 10.5694/mja16.00120, published 16 May 2016.
The Canadian government's plan to legalize marijuana contravenes its current legal obligations to the United Nation's international drug-control conventions, states a commentary in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"The federal government should immediately take proactive steps to seek a reservation to the marijuana provisions of these treaties and/or to initiate their renegotiation in light of its legalization plans," write Dr. Steven Hoffman and Ms. Roojin Habibi, both with the Global Strategy Lab at the University of Ottawa's Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics. "If these diplomatic efforts fail, Canada must formally withdraw from these treaties to avoid undermining international law and compromising its global position."

Three legally binding international treaties control or prohibit access to various drugs around the world, including marijuana.

Other jurisdictions, such as Colorado and Washington in the United States and Uruguay, have legalized marijuana and violate current UN conventions.

The authors suggest that the most feasible option for Canada is to withdraw from these treaties. The federal government could then fulfill its campaign promise to legalize marijuana without violating international law.

"Formally withdrawing from outdated treaties like these is a country's sovereign right. It may also be a moral duty if the government believes the conventions' required policies are harmful," state the authors.

Article: International legal barriers to Canada's marijuana plans, Steven J. Hoffman JD PhD, Roojin Habibi MSc, CMAJ, doi: :10.1503/cmaj.160369, published 16 May 2016.
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As part of the study, participants receive a comprehensive home assessment that looks at environmental factors likely to trigger asthma attacks, a customized exposure reduction and asthma self-management program and on-going support from the research team. "We find time and again that patients who have had asthma for more than 20 years didn't realize certain types of exposures, such as fragrances, affect their condition," Hamilton says. "Sometimes, for example, a study participant will tell us that perfume is a major trigger for them, and then we visit their home and find that every room in the house has a plug-in deodorizer in an outlet spewing chemicals and fragrance into the home. We can help them make the connection and work together to find safer alternatives."Spears now knows most of her asthma triggers and how to prevent attacks. She uses treatments quickly to lessen attacks and avoid trips to the emergency room. As a result, she rarely goes to hospitals anymore. She knows how Houston's heat, humidity and air quality affect her, and how changing bed linens twice weekly and reducing dust in her home can keep her breathing well. "Most people spend roughly 90 percent of their lives indoors, so reducing indoor pollution is a critical component for good health," Hamilton says. "Among older asthmatics who are retired, no longer working or have mobility and other issues, even more time is spent indoors and in their home. So it's especially important that homes are safe areas that don't affect their asthma."Other research has shown that reducing exposure to environmental factors like mold, chemical fumes, car exhaust, dust mites and cigarette smoke can significantly reduce asthma symptoms. "I know if I go outdoors, I need to change clothes when I go back inside the house to keep pollen and other pollution out," Spears says. "I even have to ask smokers who visit me to have a change of clothes or make sure they don't smoke before they visit. It's for my health, but I leave it up to them if they want to see me."While results from the study are not yet known, several participants like Spears report success at controlling and managing their condition. Many are able to resume active lives. The study is beginning its third year and still enrolling participants. To qualify, individuals must be 18 years or older, African American, have poorly controlled asthma, live in Harris County and not plan to move within a year. Studies similar to this have shown that for every $1 spent on a home-based intervention to reduce asthma triggers and improve asthma care, there's a savings of $5-$14 in avoided healthcare costs or productivity losses.Source: Newswise
Writing on the liberal Arab website Elaph, Palestinian writer Majdi 'Abd Al-Wahhab discussed rumors regarding the possible release of Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prison. He argued that chances for this were nonexistent, first of all due to the current makeup of the Israeli government, but also due to Barghouti's own hard-line position, which advocates liberation through armed resistance. He added that, given these circumstances, Barghouti will only be released if Israel decides to expel all the Palestinians from the country, a catastrophe that has not yet occurred. In the meantime, he said, it is better if Barghouti and others like him remain behind bars rather than lead all the Palestinians to perdition.



Marwan Barghouti (Photo: Al-Quds Al-Arabi, London)

Following are excerpts from the article:[1]

"A few days ago I was arguing with a friend about politics and about our situation today. After a heated argument about the dead end that the Palestinian issue has encountered and the dejection we are [all] feeling, my friend tried to reassure me that salvation was near. When I prompted him to explain his optimism, he told me that a friend of his whose son is in an Israeli prison met Marwan Barghouti, who told him of talks between himself and the Israeli authorities regarding certain solutions, and said that he would soon be released from prison and that the Palestinian issue would be settled.

"From that moment on, I could not stop thinking about what I had heard: Will Marwan [Barghouti] really be released, and is a solution truly at hand? To the best of my knowledge, Marwan Barghouti's release from the Israeli prison is no trivial matter, considering the current political [situation] in Israel. And if it does happen, it can only be as part of a political agreement that would constitute a substantial breakthrough in resolving the Palestinian issue. This is because neither Marwan nor the Palestinians will settle for less...

"After examining this issue from every side and analyzing it thoroughly... I concluded that there are only two options: either the friend who had told me this story was or is dreaming, or Marwan himself was or is dreaming. If it is former who was dreaming - that isn't so bad. But if it was Marwan who was dreaming - that is a serious disaster. Because what solution does Marwan think he can realize? What is he betting on? What will he negotiate for? How can he convince the Israelis to release the prisoners, starting with himself?

"These are just musings, because I know for sure that Marwan will not be released... He was placed in an Israeli prison because he champions the idea of liberation by means of [armed] resistance, and what has changed on this front? In effect, nothing! Has prison changed him? If he has changed and his ideology has changed - then [I say to him] welcome to our camp! But if he has not, then why would he be released? [And] how would his release affect us [Palestinians] and how would it help us?

"I have nothing left to say except this: if [Barghouti] is released, then this is a bad omen that means we are all on our way out - out of the country, never to return! Only [in such a situation] will I be convinced that Marwan is on his way out [of jail]! This, because his release without the necessary change will spell nothing but [the imminence of the Palestinians'] destruction, and I do not think that Israel believes we have arrived at the stage of destruction. This may yet happen, but only after several steps take place along the way. Therefore, I say to Marwan and to all his supporters and champions: Your time has not yet come to get out, by which I mean out of the country [to exile], not to out of prison. Stay where you are [i.e. in prison] and do not take us with you."

Endnote:
On May 12, 2016, the NATO's "Aegis Ashore" ballistic missile defense system became operational at a U.S. naval support facility in Deveselu, Romania. The day after, on May 13, the construction of another ballistic-missile defense site officially started in Redzikowo, Poland. Aegis Ashore was first announced by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009, as part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) aimed at defending Europe against ballistic missile threats originating from outside the "Euro-Atlantic Area."[1] Obama's EPAA canceled a Bush administration plan to deploy Ground-Based Midcourse (GMD) missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. An article published by the Romanian National Institute for Aerospace Research explained that "unlike the Bush administration, which focused on ICBMs which Iran did not possess, Obama's plan is more oriented towards the actual offensive capabilities of Iran and North Korea: short and medium-range missiles that can reach southern Europe; in addition, the Obama plan would distribute defenses under NATO, in step-by-step phases covering all of Europe."[2] The U.S. Missile Defense Agency reports that Aegis Ashore is a land-based capability of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System. Its deckhouse and launchers are equipped with the Aegis BMD Weapon System and Standard Missile-3 (SM-3). Each Aegis BMD upgrade provides increased capability for countering ballistic missile threats.[3]



Aegis Ashore site in Romania. (Source: US. Missile Defense Agency)

In a meeting in Bucharest with Romanian officials, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Defense Policy and Verification Operations Frank A.Rose said that "combined with the missile-defense-capable ships in the Mediterranean, the site provides a significant enhancement to the coverage of NATO from short- and medium-range ballistic missile threats originating from outside the Euro-Atlantic area." Rose added that "NATO and the United States have explained this to Russia many times over the years."[4] At the inauguration of the Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense site in Romania, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work cited threats from Iran as a reason why NATO needs the protection. "As long as Iran continues to develop and deploy ballistic missiles, the United States will work with our allies and partners to defend NATO and its allies against this threat," Work said.[5] Although U.S. officials stressed that the Aegis Ashore system is defensive and aimed at protecting mainly against threats from Iran, its deployment in Europe prompted strong criticism from Russia.

Putin: The Missile Defense Systems Are Built [In Europe], We Will Be Forced To Consider Ways To Prevent Any Threat To Russia

On May 13, 2016, in a meeting on defense industry development, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that there is no nuclear threat coming from Iran, since the U.S. initiated an agreement with Iran. with Tehran. According to Putin, the U.S. is trying to deceive the media, arguing that the Aegis Ashore site is to defend NATO members from Iran and stressing that it is no threat to Russia. However, Putin assessed that "the launchers, to be deployed after the radar stations in Romania and Poland go on stream, can easily be used for the deployment of intermediate and short range missiles. The conversion can actually happen in a very short time, and we will not even know what is happening there. We will not be able to control it. This is an additional threat to us." He then added that the missile defense systems in Europe will force Russia to consider ways to prevent any threat. Putin stressed that the Aegis Ashore site in Romania and the planned site in Poland are steps towards unleashing a new arms race. However, Putin said that Russia will not be dragged into this race. "We will go our own way. We will work very carefully, without exceeding the planned spending on the rearmament of the army and navy, plans we have had for years, but we will adjust them in order to curb the threat to Russia's security," Putin said.[6]



A Polish soldier stands on crates of explosives next tothe ballistic missile defense system. Banner on crates: "Let's save Poland from Russian aggression!" Russian bear: "Hey, panowie [gentlemen in Polish], I knew that Russophobia reduces the level of intelligence, but did not expect to such an extent!"Source:Vk.com/13studiya, May 15.

Zakharova: [Russia Is] Reaching The Appropriate Conclusions... Including In Terms Of A Military-Technical Response

On May 12, 2016, in her weekly Russian foreign policy briefing, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated that the "U.S. Aegis Ashore missile defense system... has been placed on combat duty." Zakharova added that it was Russia that had suggested the establishment of "a sector-based missile defense system in Europe together with NATO that would be able to effectively shield the region from hypothetical missile threats from outside the Euro-Atlantic zone and that would not undermine strategic parity." However, Zakharova stressed that the U.S. and "its allies" had refused to move in this direction and did not agree to sign a "legally binding document stating that the new missile defense system is not directed against Russia."

She then moved on, stressing that the U.S. had violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. "Aegis Ashore systems being deployed in Romania and Poland feature launching devices [that are] virtually identical to those being used aboard U.S. Navy warships for launching missile interceptors and Tomahawk medium-range cruise missiles," Zakharova said. Hence, Russia sees the deployment of ground-based launchers as running counter to a key provision of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Since Russia's concerns continue to be "ignored," Zakharova added, Moscow is reaching its appropriate conclusions, "including in terms of a military-technical response."[7]



US' eagle pointing at NATO bases in Europe: "My bases!" Russian bear next to Iskander missile system: "My targets." (Source: Vk.com/13studiya, VitalyPodvitsky. May 13)

Appendix I: Putin's Speech At Meeting On Defense Industry Development

The following are excerpts of Putin's speech at the May 13, 2016 meeting with Defense Ministry leadership and defense industry representatives.[8]



Meeting on defense industry development (Source: Kremlin.ru, May 13, 2016)

"...We are making timely adjustments in our plans to rebuild the Armed Forces. I think you will agree with me that the latest events show that the situation is not improving. Unfortunately, it is even deteriorating - I am referring to the deployment in Romania of a radar station as an element of the future U.S. missile defense system.

"We have repeatedly expressed our concerns, offered cooperation, proposed working with our American partners - but everything has, in fact, been rejected. What they are suggesting is not joint work, but talks on a given topic. No specific proposals; everything is done unilaterally, without taking into account our concerns. This is unfortunate, as well as the pretext under which it has been done.

"Just a few years ago, our opponents unanimously said that the missile defense system was necessary for our Western partners - both in Europe and the United States - to prevent nuclear and other missile threats posed by Iran. However, where are these nuclear threats now? There aren't any. The United States initiated the signing of an agreement with Iran. They did the right thing in fact, and we supported the US Administration in this regard. However, there is no longer any threat, while the creation of the missile defense system is still underway.

"Using their capabilities in the world media, they can disorient some by arguing that there is no threat to Russia that this is only a defense system, but they cannot confuse anyone present here today. It is not possible. These are not defense systems. This is part of the US nuclear strategic potential built in distant locations.

In this case, the distant location is Eastern Europe. And the people taking such decisions should know that they used to live in peace, comfort and safety.

"Now, after the missile defense systems are built there, we will be forced to consider ways to prevent any threat to the Russian Federation. This is my first point. Second, this is a flagrant violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty because the launchers, to be deployed after the radar stations in Romania and Poland go on stream, can easily be used for the deployment of intermediate and short range missiles. The conversion can actually happen in a very short time, and we will not even know what is happening there. We will not be able to control it. This is an additional threat to us."

Putin: The Radar Stations In Romania And The Planned Site In Poland Are Steps Towards Unleashing A New Arms Race

"After the United States unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty, which was clearly the first step in the series of attempts to break the global strategic balance of forces, this is going to be the second blow to the international security system, creating conditions for the violation of the INF Treaty next. This causes additional concern, and not only on our part. I do not think any sane person or objective observer can fail to see this and draw the appropriate conclusions. Along with the offshore deployment - in the Mediterranean in this case - the Aegis system, the radar stations in Romania, and then the planned site in Poland - all these are additional steps towards throwing the international security system off balance and unleashing a new arms race.

"As we have discussed already, we are not going to be drawn into this race. We will go our own way. We will work very carefully, without exceeding the planned spending on the rearmament of the army and navy, plans we have had for years, but we will adjust them in order to curb the threat to Russia's security. We have repeatedly spoken and warned about this, but nobody wants to listen to us, nobody properly and professionally responds to our requests for cooperation in this area. So, let us proceed from the realities taking shape in terms of global security. Of course, we will do our best to ensure and maintain this strategic balance of forces, which is the most reliable guarantee against large-scale military conflicts, which cannot be compared to well-known conflicts in hot spots in terms of their consequences. We cannot and will not tolerate this.

"Let us now consider the main topic on the agenda - increasing mobilization readiness. We will also work according to plan in this area. As you know, we have carried out a comprehensive assessment of the general readiness of defense plants and the economic sector to fulfill state defense orders. We have calculated how quickly plants would be able to increase military production, if necessary, and so on. Based on this data, we should understand how to improve the defense industry. What points would I like to draw attention to? First, our urgent task is improving the regulatory, legal and methodological support of the readiness of the defense industry to increase the range and volume of production. Second, all approaches to improving the mobilization readiness of Russian defense industry companies and the economy as a whole must meet modern requirements and be comprehensive. And finally, all mobilization issues must be resolved through establishing a system of cooperation and coordination under the leadership of the Military-Industrial Commission Board..."

Endnotes:
On Monday, 16 May 2016, at the Foreign Ministry, Deputy Foreign Minister Dimitris Mardas presented the planned economic diplomacy actions for the current year to members of the Union of Commercial & Economic Attaches of Embassies in Greece.



More specifically, the meeting, which was very successful, was attended by Commercial and Economic Diplomats from 31 Embassies (Italy, France, Holland, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Portugal, the U.S.A., Canada, Switzerland, Israel, Jordan, South Africa, Australia, and others). Mr. Mardas presented to those in attendance the economic diplomacy actions for 2016, providing a concise and targeted briefing on the Foreign Ministrys policy for promoting exports and attracting investments.



Data was presented on: the structure of Greek exports, the planned business missions to and Joint Interministerial Committee meetings with foreign countries, the three planned Conferences aimed at the countries of the Balkans, the Black Sea region and the Southeastern Mediterranean, promotional actions through the Window to Greece programme, presentations on foreign markets to representatives of Greek enterprises, through their sectoral agencies/organizations, by personnel from the Economic & Commercial Affairs branch, as well as Mr. Mardas meetings with numerous foreign investors, who to date number over 100, in the U.S., Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.



It is underscored that a meeting of this kind was last held four years ago, while it was the first such meeting at which the competent Deputy Minister for International Economic Relations made the presentation.
BAD AXE  A well known member of the Port Austin community, or as he referenced himself the farmers market guy, was honored this week for the differences hes made in not just the Thumb, but Northern Michigan too.

This years Liberty Bell Award was given to John P. Pridnia, who happily accepted the award at a luncheon Thursday at the Gathering Place.

It was a surprise and a very pleasant surprise, he said about receiving the award.

In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower established Law Day to strengthen our heritage of liberty, justice and equality under the law. Congress designated May 1 as the official day.

The Liberty Bell Award was established to acknowledge outstanding community service. The Huron County Bar Association adopted the award in 1986 by its president, James N. Woodworth.

The award is presented to a non-attorney who promotes a better understanding of the rule of law, encourages greater respect for the law and courts, stimulates a sense of civic responsibility and contributes to good government.

Dallas Rooney, president of the bar association, opened the luncheon by welcoming and thanking all in attendance. He then introduced Huron County Circuit Judge Gerald M. Prill who offered a few remarks about this years recipient.

When it comes to these virtues, Prill said. Mr. Pridnia fits the bill to a tee.

It is a complete honor and a complete privilege to be a part of this process, Prill added, highlighting a few of Pridnias accomplishments throughout his life.

Pridnia, a former state representative and senator from Northern Michigan, was born and raised in Detroit before he and his wife, Lisa, moved to Harrisville. For the last 20 years, the couple has been residing in Port Austin.

The growth that (Port Austin) is enjoying now is so pleasing and exciting that its keeping its charm flow for so many years, Pridnia said of Port Austin. Its developing into a major draw of tourism.

Surrounded by area attorneys, current and former judges and his wife, Lisa, Pridnia highlighted some of his accomplishments throughout his life before accepting the award.

During his time living in Harrisville, Pridnia acquired a movie theater, a hotel, a Dairy Queen and a small park created for just seniors  it was the start of a redevelopment in the area.

All of that came within a 10-year period, he said.

Also during his stay in Harrisville, Pridnia and three others started an art fair, which has grown immensely over the years that the fair now limits entries to 500 exhibitors.

Pridnia then made the move to the Port Austin area, where he would continue to make an impact in the community. In Port Austin, he became known as the farmers market guy through his founding of the Farmers Market in Port Austin each summer. He was also behind the renovations of the villages marina and park as well as the building of the Welcome Center.

Nearing the end of his speech, Pridnia challenged everyone in the room to draft a bucket list for things they would like to accomplish in their lives and urged them to not wait to tackle their challenges.

You never know what tomorrow is going to bring, he said in regards to his 16-month battle against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Following the final words, Rooney presented Pridnia with the coveted Liberty Bell Award as congratulations began to pour in to wrap up the afternoon.
PIGEON  If things go right for Kris Leipprandt, she will soon be swimming with the sharks.

Typically that would be a bad thing, but when the sharks are top business moguls looking to invest in a piece of your enterprise, its good.

Maybe even as good as the products Leipprandt will be pitching, should she be chosen for ABCs hit show Shark Tank, which follows self-made, multi-millionaire and billionaire tycoons as they invest in Americas best businesses and products.

Leipprandt is the co-owner of a frozen dog treat company called Nuggets Healthy Eats. If you think the business idea sounds a little unique, youre right.

Leipprandt said while there are some companies that are selling frozen treats for dogs, the majority of them are just sugary snacks. Recognizing that, she saw an opportunity.

We wanted to bring something healthier to the dog snack arena, Leipprandt said. From feeding our own dogs, we discovered that yogurt and broth are really good for a dogs digestive system and theyre health.

After seeing the positive effect it had on her dogs, Leipprandt took her home recipes and turned them into two product lines: frozen yogurt and frozen bone broth that come in 4-ounce paper cups that dogs can simply lick clean for a healthy treat.

What were selling are frozen snacks that the dog can have daily  its not just a once in a while treat, Leipprandt said. It actually provides really good probiotics and nutrients for them. Its a healthier snack  that makes it unique.

That uniqueness and the increasing success of the company is what caught the eye of Shark Tank producers, who contacted Leipprandt and her business partner, Dayna Guzik, about interviewing for the show. They accepted, interviewed with a casting agent, interviewed again, then were asked if they wanted to apply to be casted. They submitted a video for the process and are waiting on a call back to find out if they made the cut for one of the fall episodes.

Some people get on to just promote their business and to get some national exposure, but were actually needing startup capital, Leipprandt said. It takes a lot of money to get a startup off the ground.

Leipprandt said Nuggets Healthy Eats will be asking for $125,000 from the sharks in order to expand its facilities to be able to scale up production. The companys products started out in 2014 with a few stores in Upstate New York, but has since been picked up by a national distributor and will soon be in many regions across the country.

Leipprandt, who grew up in Pigeon, recently moved back to the area after 30 years. She plans on doing a trial run of broth production at the Huron Area Technical Centers incubator kitchen. If things go well, it could potentially mean a great opportunity for the county.

Im going to start production over there next month and just kind of see how it goes here in Michigan, she said. If everything comes together here in the Thumb, Ill be growing production facilities here.

But before that, the company will have its sights set on the sharks, who are renown for their intense questioning of show participants who are asking for their hard-earned money.

If we get on, were definitely going to be doing our homework, Leipprandt said.

Ive watched it a handful of times and its fun to watch. For this purpose, Ill definitely be watching it a lot more.
Its a good time to be optimistic about the local economy.

Recent news includes the development of a possible Meijer store in Bad Axe (http://bit.ly/1OwjIj9), the expansion of the Gemini Group in Ubly (http://bit.ly/23UZNMB), improvements to a marina in Caseville (http://bit.ly/1TjGvh4), and plans to build a new Dollar General in Harbor Beach (http://bit.ly/1R4bDwA).

That goes with Saturday's news about a local business owner who could bring a new frozen dog food business to the Thumb: http://bit.ly/1srNzzR.

Meanwhile, several major wind turbine projects  whether you like them or not  are scheduled to come to Huron County this summer. That helps local businesses, landowners and tax collectors.

It seems like it has been a long time since this corner of the Mitten has had so many stories of economic development in such a short time span.

While new construction and new job creation is always welcome, we realize that some businesses, such as Meijer, are likely to take away business and jobs from other local competitors.

And this is unfortunate.

But another huge store located in the center of the county helps give the Bad Axe economy a much needed boost.

And, at least some of the job creation will be a net gain bringing new residents to the community, which trickles down to all aspects of our lives from children attending school to the need for more housing.

We wish the wages these jobs produced would be higher. But the rules of economics teach us that the more competition there is for workers, the more likely employers are going to have to raise their wages to attract and keep their laborers.

For years we have watched the population of Huron County slowly shrink. It is good to see that people who have money to invest see the potential that remains in our community.
After a year's hiatus, a roundtable event with the senior enlisted leaders from the sea services is returning to this year's Sea-Air-Space expo.

Planners of the Navy League event dropped an annual panel featuring the master chief petty officers of the Navy and Coast Guard and the sergeant major of the Marine Corps from its lineup last year, citing scheduling conflicts and difficulty in getting enlisted troops to attend the event.

The panel is set to return this year in keeping with Navy League tradition, said Kevin Traver, staff vice president of corporate affairs with the organization.

"The five years before [last year], there had been an enlisted panel at Sea-Air-Space," he said.

Traver, a former Marine staff sergeant, also noted that competing schedule demands and limited time can result in events getting dropped from the schedule from year-to-year. "The commandant of the Coast Guard is not a keynote this year; he was last year," he said. "There's three services we have to deal with, and a lot of diverse subjects."

The enlisted roundtable will discuss the topic, "Recruit, Train, Retain: Manpower in the 21st Century."

Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Steven Cantrell will moderate the discussion with Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Ronald Green and Fleet Master Chief April Beldo, in lieu of Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Mike Stevens. The officers in charge of the Navy and Marine Corps' recruiting commands will also have a seat at the table.

Traver said the topic was suggested by the services' enlisted leaders during a series of meetings over the past year.

"There was a lot of discussion with [Stevens] and [Green]; I personally went and saw them," he said. "They came up with recruiting and training: How are we keeping and recruiting and training in an era where folks are leaving pretty quickly? How can industry help you down the road? It was kind of a groupthink discussion."

Those themes have been points of emphasis for all three sea services over the past year.

In a fragmentary order released in January, Marine Corps commandant Gen. Robert Neller called recruiting and retention "our friendly center of gravity and our highest priority" and ordered a plan to grow high-demand fields, including cyber and information warfare.

The chief of naval personnel, Vice Adm. Bill Moran, warned in December that the Navy could be staring at a cliff in recruiting and retention after enjoying strong numbers during the wartime era.

Adm. Paul Zukunft, commandant of the Coast Guard, this year called recruiting and retention of premiere talent "one of the foremost challenges" for the service."

The service enlisted leaders may enjoy a larger audience than in previous years when they tackle the topic at Sea-Air-Space. Traver said the conference is set to have the largest turnout in recent history, with about 15,000 attendees and a waitlist to register. Organizers are also expecting 23 international delegations to attend, up from 11 last year.

The conference will be held Monday through Wednesday near Washington, D.C.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
GALVESTON, Texas  The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search for a Texas woman who fell off a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico early Friday. A Coast Guard statement released early Monday says search and rescue coordinators ended the search for 33-year-old Samantha Broberg, of Arlington, Texas, around 8:15 p.m. Sunday. The statement says crews searched for 20 hours and covered more than 4,300 square miles. The Coast Guard said earlier that its district command center in New Orleans was contacted by the master of the cruise ship Carnival Liberty. The ship, about 200 miles southeast of Galveston, reported that a surveillance video showed a woman falling overboard from its 10th deck at about 2 a.m. Friday. All passengers were checked and Broberg was unaccounted for. The Dallas Morning News reported that the vessel had departed on a four-day cruise to Cozumel, Mexico about 10 hours earlier. --The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Despite Flipping in Surf 4 Times in a Year, Marines Say New ACV Is the Future of Amphibious Warfare

Some Marine veterans familiar with the vehicle and its operations have worried about the reliability of the ACV.
U.S. and Iraqi security forces were focused on Mosul in Iraq's northwest, leaving the starving residents of ISIS-held Fallujah a half-hour's drive from Baghdad to wait indefinitely for liberation, according to Obama administration and U.S. military officials.

In a recent briefing to the Pentagon from Baghdad, Army Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky said the 217 additional U.S. advisers and eight AH-64 Apache attack helicopters recently authorized by President Barack Obama for the ISIS campaign would be "tied to the fight for Mosul," although there was no timetable for the offensive.

Volesky, commander of the U.S. Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command in Iraq, made no mention of Fallujah but said that the Iraqis backed by U.S. airstrikes and artillery had advanced to the town of Qayyarah about 20 miles southeast of Mosul. He said that was "the farthest north that Iraqi security forces have been since the fall of Mosul" in June 2014.

Volesky made no mention of Fallujah, which was the scene of fierce street fighting by U.S. Marines in 2004 in which an estimated 95 U.S. troops were killed and another 560 were wounded. The mainly Sunni city, where snipers affiliated with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, now prevent residents from fleeing, has been under the control of the extremist group since May 2014.

"We know that the Iraqis have attempted on several occasions to open up humanitarian corridors to allow some of those civilians to come out" of Fallujah, Army Col. Steve Warren said last Friday in a video briefing from Baghdad to the Pentagon.

"Those have met with generally not much success," he said. "ISIL has done things like set up snipers to cover down on those corridors, to kill people as they're trying to get out. So that has really discouraged their use," he said, using another acronym for ISIS.

United Nations officials in Iraq have reported on a growing humanitarian crisis in Fallujah, with residents cut off from access to food and medicine.

"The UN reporting that I've seen certainly indicates that there are growing problems, that food is becoming scarce and that, you know, people who want to leave can't," said Warren, the spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve. "It's a legitimate humanitarian crisis."

Warren said Iraqi forces have been working to seal off the city but has run up against ISIS resistance. He said an effort last week by the Iraqis to move closer to the city gained only 340 meters.

"This is a tough city," he said. This is a tough nut to crack."

Under questioning from the Daily Beast's Nancy Youseff on why Mosul had preference over Fallujah in the strategy, Warren said, "I am confident that the Iraqis are aware that they need to liberate Fallujah. Where it falls into the sequence -- Fallujah before Mosul, Fallujah after Mosul -- is unclear.

"From a military perspective, Fallujah doesn't have much impact on Mosul. So, you know, you don't need to liberate Fallujah in order to get to Mosul," he said. "Fallujah doesn't really have any tactical influence on Mosul. So then it becomes a political decision, right? This becomes a decision that, you know, is made at the political level. There is no military reason to liberate Fallujah now, to answer your question."

The politics of the Shia-dominated Baghdad government also appeared to work against focusing on Sunni Fallujah, despite concerns in the capital that the recent spate of suicide bombings in Baghdad was coming from Fallujah.

In a national address Saturday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said that a "climate of dispute" in his government had given ISIS the space to operate and send truck bombs into Baghdad. "The political conflict among politicians and their impact on the brave security forces permits acts of terrorism to occur," he said.

Despite the political turmoil in Baghdad, Brett McGurk, the Obama administration's special envoy to the coalition against ISIS, told a news conference in Jordan on Sunday that the push on Mosul was progressing as an increasingly hard-pressed ISIS lacked the funding to attract more foreign fighters.

"We are doing precision strikes in Mosul almost every day," McGurk said, noting that the U.S. was also countering ISIS on social media. "For every pro-Daesh Twitter handle, there are now six calling out its lies and countering its message," he said.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has also left Fallujah out of the overall strategy against ISIS that he has said repeatedly now has two main goals -- retaking Mosul and Raqqa, the self-proclaimed ISIS capital in northeastern Syria.

After meetings with Abadi in Baghdad last month, Carter said the additional 217 U.S. troops and the Apaches would "enable the Iraqi security forces, and not try to substitute for them" in the Mosul offensive.

Apaches have been in Iraq since ISIS invaded in 2014, but Abadi denied permission for the U.S. to use them in assisting Iraqi forces in retaking Ramadi earlier this year.

Carter said that Abadi had now agreed to having the Apaches support a drive on Mosul, since the attack helicopters "can respond so quickly and so dynamically to an evolving tactical situation."

In his briefing last Wednesday, Maj. Gen. Volesky, who also commands the 101st Airborne Division, was reluctant to respond to questions on whether the Apaches had already been used in combat. He couched his response in double negatives: "I didn't say we hadn't used Apaches, and I won't say when or if we have."

Warren said later that the Apaches had yet to be used in an offensive operation and had been limited to flying security for VIP visits.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
This Account has been suspended.
Ministers in parliament have defended a government request to take a US$200 million interest-free loan from the World Bank for disaster relief, despite concerns over Myanmars growing external debt.





Minister for Construction U Win Khaing told parliament on May 13 that his ministry would use $105 million for building roads and bridges in areas of Rakhine and Chin states and Sagaing Region that were badly hit by last years Cyclone Komen. The main projects, costing $67 million, are roads linking Kalay in Sagaing to Chin States Falam and Hakha, and a route from Gangaw to Hakha.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation says it proposes to spend $70 million on supporting village resettlements and jobs as a result of natural disasters. A further $15 million will be used by the Ministry of Planning and Finance for a natural disaster contingency fund, Minister U Kyaw Win said. The remaining $10 million is to be divided between the three ministries for project management.

U Kyaw Win said natural disasters had cost Myanmar $1.94 billion last year. He assured parliament that Myanmars debt to GDP ratio was a sustainable 16.1 percent. He said external public debt totalled $11.11 billion at the end of 2015, but that $1.95 billion had been repaid since then. The World Bank loan has a 38-year term with payments deferred for six years.

The International Monetary Fund said in a report last August that Myanmar was at low risk of debt distress. It said the country had started receiving concessional financing from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank following debt rescheduling agreements in 2013 that resolved arrears with creditors and the two financial institutions.

Translation by San Lay
U Kyaw Myo, a retired director from Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), was appointed as deputy minister for the Ministry of Transportation and Communication on May 12. His father was U Myo Min, once a famous English professor at Yangon University, according to a DCA official.





There are now a total of 22 ministries in the cabinet of the NLD-led government, with 21 Union ministers and 6 deputy ministers appointed so far. A deputy minister for foreign affairs for the ministry headed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was the first to be appointed in the early days of the new government.

A deputy minister for agriculture, irrigation and livestock was appointed in early May and more deputy ministers were appointed in previous weeks for the ministries of home affairs, defence and border affairs, where the military is taking positions.

U Kyaw Myo graduated from Yangon Technology University.
New York City is a long way from Yangon  8404 miles (13,556 kilometres), to be exact.





But the distance wont stop Myanmar artist Aung Kyaw Htet from showing his work at the upcoming A Moment in Time exhibit, held in The Big Apples Agora Gallery from May 20 to June 9.

Born in a small village in Ayeyarwady Region, the artist was raised with strong Buddhist influences. He spent much of his childhood living in a monastery, and Buddhist traditions and principles come through in his paintings.

Now those paintings will make the long trip to the Manhattan Island.

I learned that Buddhism gives you peace of mind and reinvigorates the body, he said in a statement on Agora Gallerys website. I want to educate other people about the teachings of Lord Buddha.

His style implements the form of expressionist figures, normally monks and nuns against ethereal backgrounds. These figures often have detailed facial expressions, an effort to depict their humanity rather than relegate them to mere symbols.

Aung Kyaw Htet is just one of 13 artists from around the world that will feature in the exhibit. Agora Gallery assistant Olga Ku said in a press release that unexpected beauty and surprising complexity will be a common theme in the showing, which aims to highlight arts role in reflecting reality.





Reality is ever-changing in Myanmar, where government restrictions kept Myanmar artists from showing work internationally for five decades. Aung Kyaw Htet said the transition to democracy has made exposure easier to come by.

It was very difficult for an artist to show their work to the rest of the world, he said. Now that sanctions have been lifted, art lovers will finally get to see more Myanmar art.

Aung Kyaw Htet currently lives and paints from Yangon, and his paintings are be seen in the collections of the National Museum of Myanmar as well as the National Gallery of Malaysia. His work is also featured in the book Aung Kyaw Htet: Myanmar Inspirations by Shireen Naiziree.

Though the exhibition begins May 20, an open reception will be held halfway through the showing on May 26 from 6 to 8pm. Entrance is free, but the oil on canvas paintings are available from US$6500 to $16,500 each, depending on size.
With dizzying spins, breathless acrobatics and enthralling stagecraft, Sans Queue Ni Tete hypnotised a sold-out National Theatre, baffling and amazing in equal measure.





The Open Ticket Circus Company combined elements of circus, dance and theatre in such a natural way that one easily forgot that the act had no common theme, save art.

Opening the show on April 12 in Yangon, Institut Francais deputy director Sebastien Bris told the estimated 1100-strong crowd, You will laugh, dream and feel stress.

He was right.

The main parallel to traditional circuses, with their striped tents and mustached ringleaders, was the sheer variety of acts on show. Moreover, a typical contemporary circus is built upon a solid narrative and character development; Sans Queue Ni Tete eschewed that structure, opting to be wacky and diverse.

We have a lot of ideas but not a story, Pedro Consciencia, one of the performers, told The Myanmar Times afterwards. One time we just said, Why do you need a story? Lets just do nonsense.

We have the winter jackets. Here? Nonsense! he grinned. We have the lights, the jackets go up on them; they have no heads. It just doesnt make any sense!





So confident were the septet that they admirably had no fear leaving the audience waiting as they chalked up their hands and feet on stage.

So unique was their act that some were left questioning the very medium.

What exactly constitutes a circus? asked Cormac OToole, a pedantic Irish audience member who was unsure of what he had just seen.

Well, at least there were midgets, he added in jest, referring to the shorter performers.

But what about the clowns? Where was the juggling? And no lions - whats with that?

Instead the ludicrously well-drilled company treated onlookers to the bare essence of the circus: feats of the human body capable only by those totally dedicated to their craft.

The acrobatics were suitably stunning. Macho in parts, the muscular chaps launched the somersaulting ladies into the air to a chorus of Ooos. It also had moments of grace, especially Dimitrie Rizzello's strap segment. He pranced around suspended from the ceiling, flirting with the ground, his gliding mesmeric like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.

When artist Voleak Ung knotted her dark hair with Dane Cathrine Nielsens blond locks, the audience let out a collective squeal. Though fascinating to watch, it was with gritted teeth.

Another scene drew cries of hes drunk from one child and it was hard not to agree. The dancer in question had an unnatural and wobbly fixation to the lights that hung from the ceiling. For reference, think Brick Tamlands I love lamp from Anchorman.

These moments and many more were accompanied by a perfectly selected soundtrack whose urgency grew and fell in tandem with the motions of the seven artists on stage. Some parts were left silent to really emphasise the meaty thump of flesh on flesh.

A special mention does need to go to the impressive Jimmy Ko Ko-led Myanmar Street Dance troupe who began proceedings. Their rhythmic ensemble set a high standard. The routine had a real Asian influence, both in its choreography and backing music. It culminated in a samurai-style execution  tastefully behind a sheet.

The reception was good, not the same [as Cambodia or France] but good, Pedro Consciencia told The Myanmar Times.

While the packed theatre was testament to the potential for contemporary arts in Myanmar, the half-hearted standing ovation highlighted how incongruous it really is. This is still a traditional place, and some did not quite know how to react.

In France all the people know the circus, and when you do one trick you know that all the people will clap, Pedro said. However he still took encouragement from Thursdays crowd, saying, When they did clap, they were clapping for real.

Anais Robert, cultural program officer at the Institut Francais, was more upbeat, saying, We realised even more yesterday that the audience here is ready and is waiting for cultural and artistic innovation.

Pedro started juggling when he was 14. His talent brought him to a small circus school in his native Portugal, before being told to go to France because, as he says, Its the best country in the world to do circus.

He packed up and moved, eventually making it to the prestigious Centre National des Arts de Cirque (CNAC). There he met his family: the four French people, the Cambodian, and the Dane that make up the rest of the Open Ticket Circus Company.

The director, Voleak Ung, began contortionist training at the age of 13 in Cambodia. Her abilities were evident even then and, like Pedro, she eventually ended up at CNAC. They are united by their love of performing.

Its the passion, the passion for the circus that drives me. I fall in love watching shows. More shows make me excited to do circus, to do new tricks. Pedro said.

Touring is a way to open the eyes of the people to the circus, he said, that it can be a job, not a joke.
Rumours that a member of a nationwide ceasefire signatory group has been arrested by the Tatmadaw have proved false, yet relations between the two sides are increasingly strained.





The Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) last month bolstered allegations that the Tatmadaw was forcing Rakhine State civilians to act as porters and human shields. The partys April 27 statement accused the Tatmadaw of violating the Geneva Convention in skirmishes with the Arakan Army.

The partys armed wing, the Arakan Liberation Army, signed a ceasefire with the government in 2012 and was party to last Octobers nationwide ceasefire.

But the ALPs April statement came out strong against the Tatmadaw, and according to the party, included video and photographic evidence of forced porters. The Tatmadaw has strongly denied such accusations.

The ALPs communications officer, U Khine Myo Htun, has since been in hot water, after an anonymous phone caller warned him of an imminent plan to charge him with sedition.

The military denied the evidence we presented against them and then someone told me the military was going to arrest me and warned me I should go into hiding, said U Khine Myo Htun. Of course, that night [May 5] I hid at my friends home but nothing happened.

The ALP said it has not received any official statement from a court about charges against U Khine Myo Tun. On May 9, ALP representatives met with Rakhine State Security and Border Affairs Minister Colonel Htein Lin to discuss the dispute.

The ALP representatives involved in the meeting declined to discuss the outcome however.





I dont want to give any comment about him [U Khine Myo Tun] right now, said Saw Mra Raza Linn, deputy team leader of the partys Peace Dialogue Team. There has already been a lot of incorrect news on social media.

According to a source at the security and border affairs ministry who spoke on condition of anonymity, the minister demanded the ALP withdrew its allegations.

The official added that there was no plan to press charges against any ALP member.

As far as I know they already dealt with them at the meeting, the source said.

U Khine Myo Tun confirmed that the minister had demanded a new statement.

From my view, we issued a true statement based on strong evidence of many cases. Therefore, I do not intend to issue a new statement, he said.

As far as the charges go, U Khine Myo Tun added that he thinks they were a baseless scare tactic.

I think they threatened me because the Tatmadaw doesnt want to recognise the evidence we made public about the porters, he said. But when they threatened me, they also threatened the ALP as a whole.
Following Kachin political parties major 2015 election loss to the National League for Democracy, which swept most of the state, three parties are planning to present a united front for the next ballot.





The parties that are considering a merger next year are the Kachin State Democracy Party (KSDP), the Kachin Democratic Party (KDP) and the Kachin National Democracy Congress (KNDC). The Kachin parties formed a joint committee with five members from each party last month to implement the unification.

The three groups had considered merging before the 2015 election, but at the time only the Kachin Democratic Party was in favour of the proposal, Kachin News Group reported.

In the 2015 elections, six seats in the Kachin Region Hluttaw went to ethnic minority parties and only three of those were won by a Kachin party  the Kachin State Democracy Party. The NLD holds a majority with 26 seats in the state hluttaw, while the military forms the second-largest block, with their 25 percent of unelected seats. Political analysts suggested the plethora of ethnic minority parties fractured the vote and contributed to the limited number of seats won by a single opposition party besides the NLD.

Leaders of the Kachin parties say they have learned not only from the last poll but also from the troubles currently plaguing the Arakan National Party, a merger of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) and the Arakan League for Democracy (ALD).

The ANP was the most successful ethnic minority coalition to emerge from Myanmars elections last November, but is now facing an internal struggle about its cooperation with the NLD. The rift is threatening the alliance.

One party takes many positions within the ANP. Therefore, the party has a lot of problems in their leadership. We need to prepare to avoid a situation like that. We plan to appoint experts in the partys central executive committee, Manam Tu Jar, chair of the KSDP, told The Myanmar Times.





U Awng Hkam, chair of the KDP, said he believes that the Kachin people will vote for the unified party in the 2020 election.

We can say the unification is the first step in preparing for the next election. If we cannot form one party, we cant win in future elections. Also, the unification is for the Kachin people and the state. It will benefit them, he said.

After the unification the party will decide whether to invite other ethnic parties. Currently, the KNDC is allied with the United Nationalities Alliance (UNA) and the KDP is included in the Nationalities Brotherhood Federation (NBF). Both the UNA and the NBF are alliances of ethnic political parties.

It is possible that more Kachin parties will also be invited to join the unification, as the Lisu National Development Party and the Lhaovo National Unity and Development Party are debating whether to join the Kachin alliance.
Parliament has agreed to enhance regional collaboration for combating terrorism, organised crime and drug trafficking.





On May 13, without any objections, parliament gave its approval to signing the Bay of Bengal Initiative on Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Convention.

In a debate over the convention in parliament, Loikaw township representative U Khin Si Thu said that terrorism is not any one countrys issue but must be addressed in coordination with neighbouring countries and the international community.

The ratification of the convention will not only bring national benefits, but also contribute to stability between different countries, the MP said.

According to the UN, increased regional integration under the ASEAN will mean more sophisticated, region-wide approaches to crime are needed.

The other member states of BIMSTEC are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Translation by Emoon
The new information minister is battling a tide of unpopular sentiment, with a public that would like to banish the legacy of censorship and the government arm that imposed it.





After a four-hour dialogue in Yangon yesterday, Minister U Pe Myint said the meeting was more akin to a bashing party than a discussion conducive to developing the media.

During the meeting, some suggested the ministry should not exist, and the government should forego state media in order to help boost the private sector. U Pe Myint took the stand to defend the government institution.

Whatever the name will be, I think there is still need for an organisation that is disseminating official information about what the government is doing and also to give voice to the people who are voiceless, U Pe Myint said.

Some had speculated that when the National League for Democracy-backed government took over, the Ministry of Information, a key tool of the military junta, would be dropped.

As the government has been elected by the people, it needs to be in communication with the people. Thats why we call on government media to be people-focused. In the past, the ministry was accused of being a propaganda distribution mechanism, he added during the event, which was attended by more than 100 guests including some diplomats.

We are considering the costs and damages to the private sector caused by our state newspapers. But we are not trying to compete with the private sector. We have thought about reducing our advertisement to reduce their losses, U Pe Myint said.

In his opening address, the minister noted the development of the media and the country are inter-related goals.





We are trying to become a democratic state. As long as we are making the transition to democratisation, the fourth estate [media] must become stronger, he said.

In his last weeks in office, former information minister U Ye Htut had reflected that a weak point of former president U Thein Seins government had been failing to complete changes from state-run broadcasters to public service media because of what he called technical problems in drawing up the law. The NLD information committee has said it will reform the law and by-laws in favour of public service media.
Authorities in Sittwe are to carry out a headcount in the citys Muslim quarter of Aung Mingalar following pressure from residents of the Rakhine State capital, according to officials and locals.





A government official in Sittwe reached by telephone confirmed to The Myanmar Times that the immigration department would check the identities of residents in Aung Mingalar on May 21.

The residents of Aung Mingalar, said to number 4530 according to a 2012 count, have lived in what amounts to a ghetto, guarded by police and severely limited in their movements, since 2012 when violence erupted between the Buddhist and Muslim communities across the state.

Most Muslim residents of Sittwe were forced into rural camps in 2012 but a number were allowed to remain in their homes in Aung Mingalar, which is now the only predominantly Muslim area of the city. Many identify themselves as Rohingya, although locals and the military refer to them as Bengalis, implying they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Residents reached in Aung Mingalar by telephone said the enclave had been under total lockdown since May 14 when a small group of protesters gathered in front of police barricades. The residents said medical transfers and deliveries of medical supplies had stopped. A twice-weekly run to a market in an IDP camp outside Sittwe had also been halted, they said.

Communal stockpiles of rice were sufficient for just two weeks and were being distributed, the residents said.

One man, who asked not to be named, said those requiring medication were considering a move to the camps dotted around the citys outskirts. If the food blockade continued then more would be forced to consider leaving, he said.





International aid workers in the city said they were closely monitoring the situation. One worker, who asked not to be named, dismissed rumours that the population of Aung Mingalar would be moved to IDP camps.

A letter of complaint lodged with state authorities reportedly alleged that the population of the ghetto had ballooned since the previous count.

Radio Free Asia yesterday quoted U Than Tun, a Sittwe resident, as saying that about 700 residents had sent a signed letter to state Chief Minister U Nyi Pu on May 13, demanding that he expel all Muslims from Aung Mingalar.

U Than Tun was quoted as saying that government officials, representatives from the Muslim community and youth groups would conduct checks in Aung Mingalar on May 21. Residents said they expected the results to be released the next day.

The United Nations has repeatedly called on Myanmar to lift the restrictions imposed on hundreds of thousands of Muslims living in Rakhine State. The new government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is yet to disclose its policies for the state.

Additional reporting by Nyan Lynn Aung
Students who defied police orders and held an interfaith peace walk in downtown Yangon on May 14 will be charged under the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law, according to police.





The group of students from the Yangon School of Political Science had applied for permission for a march from Yangons Tarmwe township to Mahabandoola Park in the citys downtown area. The authorities only granted permission for a gathering in the Bo Sein Mann grounds in Tarmwe, however.

We will bring legal action against them because they refused to hold the walk where we told them to. They chose their own way even though they were aware it wasnt authorised. Each township [they passed through] will pursue legal actions, Mingalar Taung Nyunt officer Police Lieutenant Major Than Oo said.

Sticking to their initial plan, about 70 people walked through Yangon from about 3pm carrying placards saying Accept Diversity, Promote Tolerance and We All are Human. Upon passing various religious buildings in the city, the marchers stopped and prayed in silence.

Kyauktada township officer Police Lieutenant Major Win Tin said police are working on the case. We are investigating and checking who the leaders are and some activists involved in the march. They will be charged, he said.

The organisers of a rally held by nationalists on April 28 in Yangon are also being prosecuted under section 19 of the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law. The Myanmar Nationalist Network had received permission for a demonstration at the Bo Sein Mann Ground in Tarmwe township but, instead, marched from Yangon University up to the US embassy gates.

The NLD has proposed amending the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law by adding a statute of limitations of 15 days and restricting the number of townships that can file a suit for the same protest. The new version also strikes the requirement of obtaining a permit. Instead, would-be protesters must inform the relevant township authorities 48 hours in advance. While the proposed bill would reduce prison sentences, violators of the law could still face up to one year in prison.
Nationalists protesting the US embassys use of the term Rohingya spilled over into Mandalay this weekend, following similar demonstrations in Yangon last month.





Protests condemning the term started after the US embassy released a statement using Rohingya to express condolences about a recent boat accident in Rakhine State that killed over 20 people. Monks and nationalists staged an unauthorised protest outside the embassy gates on April 28 and said that anyone using the word Rohingya is an enemy of the state.

Nationalists brought the issue to the streets in Myanmars second-largest city on May 13 as they continue to apply pressure on the government to define the official terminology. The contentiousness rests rests on how to describe a group of Muslims mainly living in Rakhine State who self-identify as Rohingya but were called Bengalis by the previous government. They are not included in the governments list of 135 officially recognised ethnic groups.

The recent demonstration included the reading out of letters from monks belonging to Ma Ba Tha  the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion  including a letter from firebrand monk U Wirathu.

The US government seems to want democracy, yet it disturbs Myanmars democracy. It seems to want development, yet it makes Myanmar poor. It seems to want peace, yet it incites the country to violence, read a letter sent U Wirathu. Ignoring the wish of all Myanmar nationals and prioritising the wishes of illegal immigrants is the biggest provocation, the letter continued.

Monks who participated in the rally said they would continue protesting until the US embassy gives in to their demands and refrains from using the contested term. US ambassador to Myanmar Scot Marciel has said the US respects the international convention of allowing people to self-identify, yet he has avoided using either the terms Rohingya or Bengali.

We will continue to urge the embassy to refrain from using Rohingya and to issue an official statement for that. We will protest until they stop using it, said sayadaw U Eadrawbathaka, deputy chair of the Myo Chit Myanmar Monks Association in Mandalay.





Myanmar is a sovereign nation. So, the US embassy has no authority to use the term Rohingya, he said.

The protest in Mandalay was organised by the Myo Chit Myanmar Monks Association Mandalay and the Wuntharnu Rekhita Youth Association. The Myanmar Nationalists Network from Yangon also participated in the protest. Hundreds of people reportedly participated in the rally, which obtained a permit.

Translation by Khine Thazin Han
Rural households across Myanmar are drowning in debt and locked in a cycle of loans, but a way out may be easier than expected, according to civil society groups.





Sharon Mosin, a financial adviser with Save the Children, told The Myanmar Times that many villagers around the country simply do not have the skills or the tools to manage their money properly.

As a result, borrowing and defaulting from local lenders was said to be common, with families regularly selling assets such as livestock to pay off their debts.

Following a May 13 discussion in Yangon on the causes and effects of over-indebtedness, Ms Mosin said one common consequence is children being withheld from school.

Families may stop sending their children to school at some point and not progress further because there is no money for fees or transport, she said.

A recent study undertaken by Save the Children and the LIFT-funded Tat Lan program in Rakhine State found that over half of the respondents indicated their income was not enough to meet expenses, with 72 percent of these borrowing to cover the shortfall.

Most lack sufficient knowledge on the cost of loans and responsibilities associated with borrowing, the study said.

As a result, many households are tied to moneylenders for extended periods if not for the rest of their lives.





And only 11pc of respondents said they kept a budget.

The May 13 event centred around a film produced by Save the Children, LIFT and BRIDGE called Fathers Watch, which depicts a family falling into serious debt. It will now be projected in villages throughout Myanmar with supplementary financial education materials disseminated.

Ms Mosin said sharing information about the importance of saving would go a long way to address over-indebtedness.

She said that rural households need to be educated about the importance of tracking their income and expenditure so they can plan ahead.

Families should have a goal such as school fees  or an investment  or saving for an emergency to avoid hazardous levels of borrowing.

Such measures could prevent financial calamity.

People need to know about the dangers of over-indebtedness, Ms Mosin said.
Yangon residents are producing more rubbish and there are fewer places to put it, officials warn. According to a two-year survey carried out by the municipality, lifestyle changes are responsible for some of the increase, which has been exacerbated by a rise in population.





Using data collected between November 2015 and February covering 4,666,721 people living in Yangon Regions 33 townships, it says the citys 5.21 million people produce 1981 tonnes of garbage a day. Each person disposes of about 0.41 kilograms (0.9 pounds) daily, ranging from 0.43kg in western Yangon to 0.38kg in the northern part of the city.

In 2012, the average weight of rubbish per person was 0.34kg, rising to 0.39 in 2014, said U Aung Myint Maw, assistant chief engineer in Yangon City Development Committees Pollution Control and Cleansing Department. He said more than 70 percent of that rubbish was kitchen waste, the rest being plastic, glass, tins and other materials.

The main problem is the lack of space to dispose of the rising mound of garbage.

U Aung Myint Maw, a 15-year veteran of the department, said the five tips the city used were getting full. YCDC is trying to recycle the waste as an energy source, but we lack the funding, the equipment and the staff, he said.

Environmental specialist U Win Myo Thu, director of EcoDev Myanmar, said the YCDC survey was an underestimate, adding that in most developed countries the average production of garbage per person was more than 0.5kg. Waste disposal is Yangons biggest problem, he said.

Under the former government, YCDC did not have a very good reputation, which makes it harder for them to educate the public, he said.





People are eating more ready-made food and using more plastic. Not much attention is being paid to reducing the volume of garbage. The most important thing for the government is to improve the waste management system, he said.

Voxpop: What do you think should be done to clean up?

Last year, Yangon residents rejected a plan to outsource garbage collection after two private companies had won an initial tender to take out the citys trash for the next 10 years. The privatisation plan would have entailed higher costs with trash collection charges rising from K20 to K53 a day for downtown residents, and K15 to K45 for those in Yangons suburbs.
Once again the use of the self-designation Rohingya is getting hot-headed attention. In one camp are those who want to eliminate any reference to this ethnic claim. For them, the Rohingya are simply Bengali.





On the other side are those who embrace a peoples right to give themselves a name, even if it proves to be a new name, without substantial historical grounding.

New names  for peoples, for places, for countries  emerge all the time. My own multicultural society, Australia, and its people, the Australians, are both, by any standard, astonishingly recent creations. And yet we do not face sustained criticism for calling ourselves Australian.

The difference is fundamentally in how we think about the great movements of people that shape and then re-shape our lands. Migration is the oldest human story and one that we all share.

Myanmar has benefited from countless waves of migrants, from the north, south, east and, yes, also from the west. In almost any town in the country, you can see the evidence of these varied influences.

The official story still emphasises over 100 discrete ethnic categories. Some of these categories are well-understood, with a meaningful repertoire of culture, language and tradition. Others appear to be ethnographic artifacts, the legacies of colonial and post-colonial anthropologies that may never have accurately reflected local reality.

With temperamental and often traumatic politics, it has proved impossible to fix this system.





In response, it has made good sense, as a political tactic, for the Rohingya to claim the same status as other people who live in Myanmar. Their leaders appreciate that indigenous classification offers the rights and responsibilities reserved for the national races. This is the only available path toward citizenship and belonging.

This system  a muddle of contradictory and confusing ideas about unity and exclusion  must not be taken for granted. Under democratic conditions, it is unclear whether it should survive.

It helps that last year the National League for Democracy polled so very well in all parts of the country, including areas where ethnic issues are at the top of the agenda. The NLD even won 21 of the 29 posts reserved for Ethnic Affairs Ministers in State and Region governments.

For the first time, the country has elected leaders with popular mandates who can help to shape a new discussion about the role of ethnicity in Myanmar life.

Under the former military government, any effort to de-emphasise ethnic categories was, quite rightly, judged illegitimate. There was simply no mandate.

In 1993, the Yangon Region military commander, Lieutenant General Myo Nyunt, in his capacity as chair of the National Convention Convening Commission, proposed renaming the ethnic states with neutral geographical and historical designations. The National Convention adamantly rejected this proposal, and it has faded from memory.

Of course it did not help that the military dictatorship conducted brutal counter-insurgency campaigns. Under those conditions, it was inconceivable that minorities would ever surrender their ethnic banners.

But I wonder whether, in the years ahead, that could change. For now, the Myanmar people deal, on a daily basis, with the politicisation of their multitudinous ethnic categories. If you glance at an ID card, you can check the officially recorded ethnic background and religious affiliation of the bearer.

The problem is those records are rarely the full story. In fact, I cannot think of a close Myanmar acquaintance who does not have at least some level of multi-ethnic plurality in their family network.

This plurality is a hallmark of local society and could provide a chance for the NLD to shift the discussion about national belonging.

A potentially audacious move, in the years ahead, would be to remove ethnic and religious classification from government documents completely.

There would be howls of outrage  in fact, I think I can hear some already  but other valuable reforms might accompany such a significant shift. The groups most likely to feel disenfranchised by this possible change are those for whom ethnicity and religion are the centrepieces of identity.

Some Bamar Buddhists are clearly enamoured of their stronghold classification. In a similar way, there would be enormous reluctance among other groups, such as Kachin or Kayin Christians, if they felt they were losing official standing. Perhaps, for a time, people could opt in or opt out of the new culture of ID.

What would make such a system more attractive for all ethnic and religious groups would be commitments, on the part of the government, to support the things that matter.

At the end of the day, what is the point of ethnicity if your children cannot learn your language at school? And what if the government came to arrangements to better support all of Myanmars faith communities?

Properly funded changes to these and other cultural policies could prove hugely attractive. With a different mindset, there might even be a chance that such a reformed system has adequate space for the people once known as the persecuted Rohingya.

 New Mandala

Nicholas Farrelly is a fellow of the Australian National University and co-founder of New Mandala. His column appears each Monday.
Close

An update about the Verizon strike revealed that employees and company execution will finally have a negotiation on Tuesday.

The decision was revealed by Labor Secretary Tom Perez, according to USA Today. After talking with Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, CWA president Chris Shelton and IBEW president Lonnie Stephenson in Washington on Sunday, Perez stated that both parties agreed to be back on the "bargaining table."

"The best way to resolve this labor dispute is at the bargaining table, and I am heartened by the parties' mutual commitment to getting back to immediate discussions and work toward a new contract," Perez said in a statement. The Labor secretary also commended both of the parties in their commitment for the betterment of the majority by undergoing into a mutual talk.

Communications Workers of America and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers- consist of more or less that 40,000 employees- have been on strike for a month or so. They are against the enormous outsourcing and reportedly demanding for more benefits.

More than 3 days ago, CWA allegedly revealed that Verizon has a "massive Verizon offshoring operation in the Philippines." According to Cwa-union.org report dated May 13, Verizon has been taking advantage of the Filipino workers by giving them a salary of only $1.78/hour and no overtime pay.

Being threatened by the discovery, Verizon execs reportedly sent a SWAT team to held a surveillance against the CWA representatives who went to the Philippines for a thorough investigation. Verizon officials allegedly refused to talk to the representatives

Story developing.

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Veteran Movie Producer and Actor cum TV Personality,Bob Smith Jnr widely known as Diabolo man who shot in the got his start in Ghanaian cinema as an actor and has become a Renaissance man: producing, directing, writing and acting in his own films. His first claim to fame was as the character Diabolo, who famously turned into a snake.

The host of Fakye Me, hinted that,the movie industry is progressing as compared to their days in terms of productions due to technological advancements, but he believes there's still more to do when it comes to acting.

Bob Smith Jnr, in an interview with Kofi Asante on A1 Radio,opined that the influx of telenovelas on our screens is killing the growth of our industry and suggested if authorities will place some restrictions to the airing of these foreign movies on our television stations, the industry will have a brighter future...
As difficult as it is in penetrating into the blogging scene in Ghana and the world in general, Seancitygh as a credible and reliable site of news has through all hindrances and difficulties chalked a successful one year in blogging.

According to the brain behind the site, Seancitygh, Yeboah Gilbert known in the showbiz industry as Busumuru Sean Kingston, the site on the 16th of May, 2015 and has passed through pains and difficulties amidst insults but has been able to push the site through and now one of the most credible and reliable sites of news most especially, news about celebrities.

"It hasn't been easy; we have a lot of testimonies to say but thanks to the Most High. We have seen many, haters, ups and downs, insults from all angles and corners, celebrities, presenters, fellow bloggers, musicians, etc, which naturally, it hurts but we saw it as an advice and a lesson.

Blogging in Ghana is actually not easy since there are many blogging societies, but as our policy goes, 'we are in no competition with anyone', we have finally made a mile stone."

He however expressed his appreciation to some individuals and personalities including his serious working team, who through their efforts and advice have kept the site moving.

"Thanks to all film directors, producers, presenters, fellow bloggers, actresses, actors, all and sundry in all diverse ways working with Seancitygh. Not forgetting the serious working team, Anning Ogee Oscar of Dess FM, Kamil Umar of Ash FM, the CEO of Deeghana Groups of Companies, Deeghana under which SeanCitygh is, I thank you all. Regan Mends, you have been a back bone. Also, to all other sites that pick our stories, May the Good Lord shower his blessings on you all. Again, to the general public, I thank you for your support. Keep on supporting seancitygh.com."

Busumuru Sean Kingston, the brain behind SeanCitygh was recently crowned as the Best Online Promoter in the 2016 Foklex Media Awards, all through the working of the site, seancitygh.com...
16.05.2016 LISTEN

Ghana's finest and baddest (very good at what she does) female turntable technician DJ Kess who also doubles up as one of Ghanas only female producer was famously spotted at the red carpet at the just ended Vodafone Ghana Music Award in a Givenchy official Rottweiler T-shirt series with a matching Zara pants, with the newly released Puma Fenty (Sneaker), a flat top Fedora hat with a matching Zara jacket.

Now the question is, is DJ Kess a style icon for her new look? Yes she's. The reasons are outlined below:

One of the most popular pieces from Riccardo Tisci 's last collection with Givenchy is undeniably the Rottweiler series. Kanye West was the first star icon to rock it, leaving us wanting one for ourselves as soon as possible. Other star icons like Rihanna and the likes have also been spotted in the same T-shirt, which makes the shirt a world, accepted detergent (product).

Zara has become everyone's favorite fast fashion hit, and the water cooler fashion name to drop. These days, it provides a rich seam of instant small talk between women / men who like clothes, crossing boundaries of age, class and style. Most fashion insiders top up their wardrobe with something from Zara.

Puma Fenty is a style-conscious silhouette, complete with a high-rise tongue and neoprene finish, will soon be seen more often on the streets, worn by the world's biggest style stars due to the fact that, Rihanna crafted it.

To drop the curtains, DJ Kess has a strong sense of fashion, thanks to most creative celebrity fashion stylist Kulaperry for masterminding her entire look, it wouldn't have been a done deal with him. Kulaperry has proved beyond every doubts he stands tall when fashion and styling becomes an issue of discussion.
Cannes (France) (AFP) - There is a heart-stopping moment in a new documentary about the survivors of Chadian dictator Hissene Habre's torture chambers, when one of the torturers kneels down in front of his victim and begs for forgiveness.

"I had to follow orders," mumbles "Mahamat the Cameroonian" -- now a broken man himself living on the streets as an outcast.

"Then why did you have to beat me so badly?" his victim asks, handing the former gendarme the rubber pipe he used to flail his prisoner's leg to a pulp.

"Your superiors told you to stop, but you went on and on," adds the man, who lost the leg.

The scene is typical of the muted but unflinching encounters that fill "Hissein Habre, A Chadian Tragedy", Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's quietly dignified film about one of Africa's least known mass killings, which premieres at the Cannes film festival Monday.

Some 40,000 people were murdered during Habre's eight-year reign of terror, a Chadian commission concluded, while the West looked the other way, more worried about the Cold War and Moamer Kadhafi in neighbouring Libya.

Habre was their ally and American and French money even paid for the country's political police, the feared DDS, to torture on an industrial scale, said Clement Abaifouta, who leads a survivors' group in the capital N'Djamena.

- Habre verdict -

The group has spent 15 years trying to bring the former rebel leader -- who was deposed in 1990 -- to trial. Habre will finally be judged later this month at a special tribunal in neighbouring Senegal, where he had fled into exile.

One of the victims featured in the film, Adimatcho Djamai, who was tortured so badly he spent more than two decades on the flat of his back in a corrugated iron shack, died the day he was due to testify at Habre's trial.

Haroun told AFP he wanted to cast a light on what he calls "this genocide" largely ignored by the outside world "because it was some business of the blacks" carried out behind closed doors.

The director uses Abaifouta as his narrator, visiting his fellow survivors and gently coaxing the horrific stories of their torture from them.

A hugely cultured man, he was chosen by the guards to bury those who died around him in the packed cells from hunger, thirst and torture.

- Forgiveness -

Sometimes he would wake to find another inmate dead beside him and "be glad that it meant a little more space. That is what we were reduced to" he said. "We were beasts."

"I had to pull my life together with a rake" afterwards, he said.

Haroun said most of the people who were rounded up by Habre's DDS henchmen "were innocent. They were arrested for no reason, the random victims of a bloodthirsty regime."

One, Robert Gambier, trying to explain the terrible things done to them, thought Habre might have wanted to appease the spirits with human "sacrifice so he could hold onto power".

Haroun -- Chad's foremost filmmaker whose film "Grigris" competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2013 -- told AFP he wanted to see "if was it possible to still live together after such monstrosities. Can survivors still find a place for forgiveness in their hearts?"

While "Mahamat the Cameroonian" is forgiven by his victim, another survivor Haroun filmed was convinced his former torturer would one day try to murder him so he wouldn't have to see pass him in the street again.

Asked by Abaifouta if he would kill the man if he had the chance, he said he would.

While the victims pray that Habre will be punished by the judges in Dakar, they are under no illusions that it will make their pain any more bearable.

One man who was once rich enough to have five wives said he was now a "vegetable", his brain shrunk by the lack of vitamins while in jail. "Only one of the wives has stayed."

For those who still have their minds, the torture continues in the memories they carry. "I carry the dead around my head like a turban," one said.
The Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, will restate the UK's continued support to Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram.

On Saturday 14 May the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, will attend the second Regional Security Summit in Abuja, Nigeria. The Summit will bring together leaders from across the world to address the international community's intent to support Nigeria in its fight against Boko Haram.

The UK's continuing support to Nigeria in tackling Boko Haram with nearly 40m of counter-terrorist and counter-extremism support over the next four years, includes the training of almost 1,000 Nigerian military personnel for deployment to the North East of Nigeria on counter-insurgency operations.

The Foreign Secretary will be meeting with key regional leaders to discuss what more the international community can do in supporting Nigeria with the security challenges it faces.

Arriving at the Summit, the Foreign Secretary said:

President Buhari has shown strong leadership in the fight against Boko Haram, a brutal organisation that has raped, murdered and kidnapped innocent civilians and forced over two million people to flee their homes. Their allegiance to, and potential coordination with Daesh is a reminder of the threat they present to the region and to British interests.

Britain and Nigeria, with support from the US, France, and its neighbours, are making progress in degrading Boko Haram, but we must maintain the momentum to win the war, and build the right conditions for post-conflict stability in the region.
I am very pleased to be back in Kinshasa, and have had some very constructive and useful discussions over the last two days. As I said during my visit to the DRC in November last year, the relationship between the UK and the Democratic Republic of Congo matters greatly to us. I reiterate that now. The DRC has come a long way in recent years. Through its annual half-a-billion dollar spending in this country, the UK has been there throughout that journey and is proud to have played a significant role in supporting that progress. The UK is, and always will be, a committed friend of the DRC.

But between friends sometimes hard truths have to be spoken, and no true friend of the DRC that would say all is well in Congo today. In particular, there is a risk that the social and economic gains made over the last ten years could be undermined, if the Constitution which has been the background for making those gains is not respected. Moreover, there is increasing insecurity in the east of the country with terrible impacts as evidenced by the recent appalling massacres perpetrated over the past days. This causes us great concern.

The UK believes that DRC remains a country of enormous opportunity and potential. Its future is in the hands of the Congolese people and their political representatives, not anyone else. During my visit it has been increasingly clear to me that the faith in democracy in DRC is strong. I believe this should be a cause for celebration, because greater accountability means better government, which means a stronger economy, better public services and a brighter future for everyone. Whilst all elections are important, it is the unanimous opinion of the UN Security Council and many people I met here that the priority should be the Presidential and Legislative elections.

But many of those I have met in the last two days are pessimistic about the future. They fear above all that the government, who is ultimately responsible, has no intention to organise elections in a near future. Perhaps this is not the case, but such damaging speculation is inevitable where there is no clarity. In any event, the Dialogue formally convened six months ago has not yet begun, and there is clearly much mistrust on all sides. Meanwhile political space continues to close, and I have heard particular concern about recent political repression in the former Katanga. I sincerely hope that the recent charges against Moise Katumbi, an opposition candidate, are not an extension of this narrowing political space. In Burundi we saw that the actions of the government led to sanctions against a number of senior figures in government and the security services. The UK's stand is that those liable for acts of repression or violence will be responsible for their actions and decisions.

It is clear that the Congolese political classes must come together in some form to decide on a date for the Presidential elections. But for a dialogue to produce a lasting solution to the current impasse it must be inclusive. A dialogue that does not reflect the views of the large majority of the Congolese people would waste valuable time and risk being a backward step. Therefore, in the spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 2277, I urge both the Presidential Majority and the Opposition to show flexibility. As part of this, the government should release all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience as soon as possible.

During my last visit I made clear that the UK would be able to disburse our financial contribution to the elections when the political commitment to holding them was clear. That contribution has been set at $17m. Since that time, it has been encouraging to see that the government continues to disburse money to the CENI, and that relevant draft electoral laws have been sent to Parliament for consideration. As soon as there are clear signs of progress towards elections as referred to in Resolution 2277, we will be delighted to make a contribution. President Kabila has been very clear that it is ultimately the responsibility of the government to ensure that elections happen in DRC.

For many years the DRC's macroeconomic stability and growth has been the envy of the region. Concrete steps towards these elections will not only calm the political situation but boost domestic and international confidence in the Congolese economy, which has been weakened in recent months. In the interests of all, a way out of this political stalemate must be found soon. If it does not, as Burundi continues to show, the risks of departing from the constitutional order are real for everyone.
Galaxy International School, last Saturday held its 12th science fair at the premises of their new ultra modern secondary building located at Adjiringanor, East Legon, Accra.

The fair was aimed at reminding each and every one of us about the role science plays in our day to day life, especially about how science has made life more comfortable for us.

Pupils of the school between the ages of three and sixteen showcased various science experiments in physics, chemistry, biology, social sciences and the arts at the fair.

The one -day fair attracted students from many different schools and parents as well who had come to share in the joy of science.

Opening the fair, the Managing Director of the school in his address stated that Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing pre-packaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives, they must make what they learn part of themselves.

The aims of organizing this event among many others is to teach students to practice what they learn in theory in the classrooms so that they are able to use the knowledge gained to understand new concepts, make well decisions and pursue interests.

In conclusion he thanked the Government of Ghana for their backing, parents for permitting them to educate their children and teachers and students for their hard work in striving towards excellence.

He assured the gathering that the fair will be organized every year so as to instil a sense of intrigue and enable students develop understanding from questions based both on the knowledge they already have and the insight they wish to gain in future.

The Director General for Education of the Ghana Education Service Mr. Jacob Kor graced the occasion with his presence and stated in his speech that students must always be given the opportunity to increase knowledge and that we must all learn not to be consumers of science product only but producers as well.

He went on to say that knowledge does not end anywhere not even in death and so we must take the development of science and learning seriously. He concluded by congratulating the school for their gallant feat and wished everyone a happy learning period.

Mr. Kor was taken to the various stands to witness what the young scientists had been working on in the course of the academic year. In all there were about 70 stands displaying not only scientific projects but covered other areas such as Maths, Arts, French, Turkish, ICT etc.
Lieutenant-General Tom Beckett, Defence Senior Advisor Middle East at the UK Ministry of Defence, last week made a one-day visit to Egypt to reaffirm the UK's commitment to Egypt as an important military partner in the region.

Lieutenant-General Beckett met a number of senior military officials at the Egyptian Ministry of Defence, including Assistant Minister of Defence General Mohamed el-Keshky. He was accompanied on the visit by retired Air Vice Marshal Nigel Maddox, currently Senior Military Advisor at UK Trade and Investment.

During the meetings, Lieutenant-General Beckett emphasised that the UK considers Egypt an important military partner in the region and in the fight against Daesh. He said that the UK remained firmly committed to strengthening the UK-Egyptian military partnership. He discussed with his Egyptian counterparts ways to increase UK-Egyptian military cooperation, including through further joint work to counter the threat of IEDs and through exploring further UK defence exports that will assist in the fight against Daesh.
The Chairperson of the African UnionCommission, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and the Secretary-General of the UnitedNations, Ban Ki-moon, welcome the peaceful conduct of the partial re-run for theelections of President of Comoros and Governor of the Autonomous Island ofAnjouan. They congratulate the people of Comoros for participating peacefully inthe election and in the subsequent partial re-run, which was observed by anAfrican Union Election Observer Mission.

The Chairperson and the Secretary-General commend the relevant nationalinstitutions for the orderly organization of the partial re-run. The same nationalinstitutions now have a vital role to ensure that the final results are a true reflectionof the will of the people of Comoros.

The Chairperson and the Secretary-General encourage the Constitutional Court torelease the final results in a transparent and timely manner. In the meantime, theycall on all candidates to exercise restraint and show a sense of responsibility, aswell as to work towards the interest of the people of Comoros and to maintainstability. The Chairperson and the Secretary-General underline the responsibility ofthe government to ensure a peaceful conclusion of the electoral process.
Donald Trump

16.05.2016 LISTEN

It is so outrageous for anyone to project the sins of philanderers on their reputable wives. While Nollywood and Hollywood actors or actresses may share sexual indiscretions, scandals and jumbo salaries with politicians, we expect leaders to be thoroughly vetted before they are voted in. Actors and actresses depend on how well they fit into their roles or look seductively. So reality gossips and sexual indiscretions from estranged husbands and wives are not unusual.

Politicians on the other hand must be held to the highest standard because of their leadership roles and the enormous responsibilities that fall on their shoulders. African women shy away from politics to avoid catcalls but we have witnessed Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf that has been in the political arena for a long time. The wife of Rawlings in Ghana and that of Mugabe in Zimbabwe have been held as candidates for President in their respective countries.

However, United States, for the first time may have the 1st lady President. Hilary Clinton missed it eight years ago, after losing in the Democrat Primary to the first African American President of United States. She has a formidable opponent, Donald Trump if she wins her Party Primary against another vibrant candidate, Bernie Sanders. Sanders and Trump have drawn unusual crowds that are fed up with the status quo politics rigged for insiders by the insiders.

However, Hilary Clinton negatives have been driven up so high among Americans, one would think she had committed some infamy. No other candidates, man or woman, in the American politics has had so many investigations against her during her private and professional life. It is so unfortunate that her prospect for the Presidency may dim based on the characterization of her husbands past indiscretion while in office as President.

What has changed in modern times is the way Presidents are covered. Other Presidents before Clinton have done worse than having scandalous affair with an intern voluntarily. While many women may understand Hilarys helplessness in their inability to control the sexual urges of their husbands, any man should be the last person to condemn a woman in such situation.

Donald Trump had indicated all along that he was going to bring Monica Lewinsky affair with Bill Clinton up if Hilary Clinton becomes the Democrats Presidential Candidate. He has been doing exactly that anticipating that Hilary Clinton will defeat Bernie Sanders in the Primary. All of a sudden, as soon as Trump brought up the Clinton Affair, the polls changed against Hilary Clinton. Blaming the sins of Bill Clinton on Hilary Clinton is despicable.

Trump claimed Hilary Clinton was an enabler of her Husband philandering because Hilary threatened each of the women Bill Clinton had an affair with. Chei, wow, chai, chai, chai! Most women are never the best friends of the strange women their husbands have affairs with. We actually know some women that are ready to go to war with such women in order to keep their men and homes. Most are respectable and discrete women protecting their interest.

While it is true that some of the wives go crazy or too far, Hilary has not gone as far as slashing car tires, breaking car windshield, going to the womens houses to create a scene or stripping off their wrappers at parties and in public. African women hardly use guns to fight but some women do. Two women fighting over a man can be fun. But not when some women throw acid on one another and calling their husbands girl-friends prostitutes, hoes, harlot and much worse!

There is also the law of marital alienation or disaffection that has been used in courts to claim damages. We need not talk about the worse behavior of men fighting other men over their mere girl friends not to mention their wives. Boy, some men are so ignorant, they are ready to tear-cloth anywhere. Women used to laugh at a friend that fought whenever he saw his wifes customers at parties. He was advised to let her go, that was not a wife. We call them jaskili.

Poor Hilary Clinton, she has not done any of these. Yet voters are not mad at Donald for using her husbands indiscretion against her. Donald Trump has gotten away with labeling opponents anyway he wants. There is a level some people are not willing to stoop to, even as a politician. Mr. Trump has crossed all lines of decency and it is working in his favor. We thought the worst in modern day politics was when Papa Bush used Willie Hutton, a prisoner, against Dukakis.

Actually, when it comes to sexual indiscretion, Mr. Trump, a serial monogamist and a noted philanderer himself, should be the last person to insult an innocent woman that had to endure the full glaze of the public as her husband was humiliated with salacious details evoked from Monica Lewinsky by Prosecutor Ken Starr. Are the American public waiting for an encore just because Mrs. Clinton and not Mr. Clinton is running for office?

While Mr. Trump has been throwing all the jabs at her, Hilary has ignored him dealing with issues that Americans should be concerned about. She must be getting all kinds of advice but not one of those would tell her to reply Mr. Trump personally.

However, Hilary Clinton surrogates or Bill Clinton must stand up to that bully because his past treatment of women he hated and those he wanted have not been commendable. If the facts checkers really want to dig, they will find enough materials to damage his choice of women to pick on, for pleasure or hatred. After all, people living in the glass houses should be the last to throw stones. But Mr. Trump thinks he can shoot anyone in Manhattan without consequences.

He has been a spoilt brat all his life and can never be tamed, not even the Presidency can. More folks voted for Mr. Trump than admitted it in public. He has outdone the Republicans at their own game and may become the next President of U.S.A!
Charlotte Osei, Chairperson for the Electoral Commission

16.05.2016 LISTEN

Maybe somebody ought to inform Mrs. Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei that every ruling handed down by the Supreme Court is final and cannot be appealed. Thus it comes as nothing short of the downright heretical to learn that rather than promptly implement the Apex Courts order for the Electoral Commission to immediately expunge the names of all voters who illegally registered to vote via the use of the National Health Insurance Schemes ID Cards from our National Voters Register (NVR), the EC Chair and her associates have chosen to play a game of dalliance or passive resistance with the ruling (See EC Not Decided Yet On Removal of NHIS-Registrants from the Voters Register Modernghana.com 5/13/16).

It may be recalled that prior to its latest ruling on the National Voters Register, the Supreme Court had already ruled that the usage of the NHIS Cards by registrants was invalid, because there existed incontrovertible evidence pointing to the fact that there was quite a significant number of non-Ghanaian nationals in possession of these cards who may well have illegally used them to register to vote in the 2012 general election.

Now, what needs to be done, and promptly so, down the road will be for the Ministry of Health (MoH) to launch an investigative exercise into the entire process of the acquisition of the NHIS Cards by foreign nationals, mostly citizens from neighboring countries like Togo, Cote dIvoire and Burkina Faso, if our nations healthcare system is not to be unduly burdened by people who have absolutely no legal right to accessing the same.

Indeed, it constitutes an act of double criminality for illegal users of our NHIS Cards to be also permitted to vote to decide whom Ghanaian leaders ought to be. We also know that some local and national key operatives of some political parties, particularly our two major political parties, namely, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), had caused to be illegally registered some foreign nationals by the use of our NHIS Cards as a prime inducement.

We know this largely through extensive investigative research conducted by a New Patriotic Party-sponsored team of technical experts led by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the former Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Ghana and three-time Vice-Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party.

At any rate, the decision by the Mahama-appointed Electoral Commission Chair to play fast-and-loose with the latest Supreme Court ruling on the NHIS Cards, ought to give any well-meaning Ghanaian citizen great cause for concern. Needless to say, how and when to implement the latest Supreme Court ruling is non-negotiable; and, to be certain, it is not the peremptory judgment call of either Mrs. Osei or any of her associate commissioners at the headquarters of the Independent Electoral Commission.

Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyans successor has also publicly informed the nation that she intends to turn over a new leave, by becoming the most evenhanded Electoral Commission Chair in Ghanas postcolonial history. So far, however, Commissioner Osei has not demonstrated any remarkably that hers is a morally refreshing improvement on the patently mediocre performance of her predecessor. And the problem here, of course, is the fact that time is fast running out for Mrs. Osei to prove herself to be otherwise.

So far, what we have learned from the Electoral Commissions Chair, via Mr. Owusu Parry, the Acting Public Affairs Director of the EC, is that the EC is studying the Supreme Court judgment, and that once the Commission has finished studying the same, it intends to officially come out with its [own] decision on what it is going to do with NHIS registrants on the national voters roll. The EC operatives may be asking for serious trouble, to cavalierly suppose that they can act apart from the strictest interpretation of the Supreme Courts ruling.

Needless to say, as a professionally trained lawyer, Mrs. Osei ought to fully appreciate the fact that a Supreme Court ruling is not the same as the judgment of an inferior court. Simply put, a Supreme Court ruling can only be implemented. It is final. There are no buts and ifs here. The Supreme Court is the court of last resort; and any mischievous attempt to defy the Apex Courts ruling will be inescapably tantamount to a declaration of war on Ghanaian democracy. Is this really what Mrs. Osei is asking for?

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
Buhari

16.05.2016 LISTEN

The recent arrest of six young men in Nigeria for the supposed crime of homosexuality has once again demonstrated the misplaced priorities of the Buhari-led government. The arrest casts serious doubt on its supposed commitment to transforming Nigeria.

Going by recent developments, hope is fading very fast and disillusionment is setting in as many people are beginning to realize that the change mantra may end up being a ruse, a strategy that was used to win an election. The proposed change is a farce, at least when it comes to the dignified treatment of gay persons otherwise, how does one explain the current detention of some young men by police in Benin for engaging in homosexuality?

As if the arrest of these adults was not disturbing enough, the police further paraded them before the public and humiliated them.

The clearly laid back Assistant Inspector General of the Police, Musa Daura, issued a statement that would make an external observer cringe. Daura made it seem as if the arrest had more to do with breaking religious and traditional taboos, not state laws. His statement has literally foreclosed any chances for just and fair hearing for these young men. Is that what change is all about? The suspects have been declared guilty even when the investigation has not been concluded and the trial has not commenced. What kind of policing is this?

The government of Buhari, which came into power on the platform of change, must realize that Nigerians are yearning for a forward, not a backward looking change when it comes to the treatment of homosexuals. The Buhari change project must be in tandem, not at odds with the wind of progress that is sweeping across the world. In executing the change project, the Buhari government must think globally while acting locally. It must think love not hate.

This global wave of change does not sanction the arrest and prosecution of young adults for same sexual relationships. No, not at all. It does not condone or endorse homosexuality as a crime. Instead it is demanding a change of attitude towards homosexuals and homosexuality. Yes, the current wave of change urges the decriminalization of homosexuality and the recognition of the rights of homosexuals as human rights.

The process of change in the world demands that people be sanctioned for engaging in homophobic acts not homosexual practice. It calls for an end to homophobic policing as is the case in Benin and in other parts of Nigeria.

Thus if one considers the enormous security challenges that Nigeria faces at the moment including the pervasive cases of violent crime and conflict across the country, it is evident that devoting the limited police force to investigating and prosecuting consensual sexual relationships and to monitoring what adults do in their bed rooms is obviously misguided. It is fiddling while the country burns.
16.05.2016 LISTEN

"....The theses...circulating in magazines, books, online publications, and presses over the last 30 years that... Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana failed to develop at the same rate as Singapore, that... Kwame Nkrumah is responsible for Ghana's development quagmire, are bunkum theses. They are theses without facts and data... They are the concoctions of mad 60-year old men with little data, but crazy old men nonetheless...", (Prof Lungu, 10 May 16).

Published on Ghanaweb 8 May 16 as, "RE Ghana: lessons from Nkrumahs fallout with his economic adviser", our critique of Professor Robert Tignor's "foundation essay" that appeared in "The Conversation" in March of this year made the point that Professor Tignor's essay did not quite do justice to the lofty goal of providing a relevant "wider look at a key issue affecting society". As we discussed, this is because Professor Tignor did not provide any data to backup his points. Also, Prof. Tignor's conception of Arthur Lewis as a rationalist technocrat (while Kwame Nkrumah was none other than a mere politician) was as well, not supported by data, the record of history, or the artifacts of philosophy.

Our Ghanaweb paper garnered several comments, including multiple discursive points from Kwabena Yeboah.

According to Kwabena Yeboah:

(1) Kwame Nkrumah is partly responsible for Ghana's development quagmire

(2) Kwame Nkrumah's style of governance (versus that of Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore) guaranteed political and economic failure for Ghana all the way into 2016

(3) Singapore's Yew never had any use for regional associations.

The problem is, Kwabena Yeboah did not offer data to prove any of his points.

Here is our response for the record.

The theses that have been circulating in magazines, books, online publications, and presses over the last 30 years such as those being sold by Kwabena Yeaboah, that during 1957-1966 Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana failed to develop at the same rate as Singapore, that even today, Kwame Nkrumah is responsible for Ghana's development quagmire are bunkum theses.

They are theses without facts and data at bottom, same as those carried by the matemeho confederates who fortunately, failed in their resistance to a Unitary Ghana that Kwame Nkrumah championed to success, and under whose benefits they can now claim their "property-owning" placards, much of which is pilfered state resources.

They are the concoctions of lazy minds whose only beneficial attribute, if we can find one, is their love affair with Cold War-era newspaper headlines.

They are the concoctions of mad 60-year old men with little data, but crazy old men nonetheless, old men full of venom and mischief against Kwame Nkrumah, the singularly most successful African leader who ever lived.

It is all propaganda.

So, tell us, crazy old people and "lost- adolescents"!

What are the responsibilities of those from your/our "native-country" who took up the banners of foreign governments engaged in a "Cold War" by proxy on your own Father's Land. What are the responsibilities of those from your/our "native-country" who collected and concealed fat bank checks from the embassies of those same foreign governments.

What are the responsibilities of the NLC (Nonentities, Liars, and Crooks), among them rascal civilians like Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, who took up arms and overthrew a democratically elected government, who lied to your/our "native-country" and mis-represented the true powers behind the coup d'etat that overthrew your father's house, his authority, and his government?

Constitutions and laws, even those adjudicated in the highest courts, including common laws and those employed as precedents, are nothing but rules and sanctions that give people reason to pursue GOV (Objectives, Goals, and Visions), and to hope for their achievement, whatever they are, whether through the courts, politics, business, social living, etc.

This is applied rationalism.

If you are purposely critical, you cannot forget your data and descend into the gutter to blame Nkrumah for your problems now, the 60-year old man you are today.

To blame Kwame Nkrumah for Ghana's problems today is to cruelly abuse your father.

You are abusing your father who sent you to the schools and colleges he caused to the funded, the father who enrolled you to go further in education, even to other civilizations, as you face problems he knows not about because your father, the same man who was chased from office by foreign governments and adolescent country-native-traitors, that same father has been dead going on 2 generations, and you an old man.

Now, as a sad 60-year old man, with children and grand-children, your still have at least nominal control over the many assets your father left you that you have not cheaply auctioned off, and other assets you have discovered on this earth that Providence has allowed your beloved country to discover, to claim, and to sell however you and your contemporaries want.

You fail to properly apply a critical perspective on critical-rationalism and its implication for policy analysis, governance, and the multi-disciplinary foray of planning (economic, physical, political, economic, etc.).

Today's professional Geographers, Architects, Urban and City Planners, and Economic Development gurus. etc., worth their salt understand it perfectly well, exactly 100 years after the birth of Jane Jacobs, and 55 years after publication of her seminal book, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities".



So, you pen abusive commentaries about your father, commentaries sold willy-nilly by politicians with mighty axes to grind.

Today, you tell us you are proud of the "African personality achievements" of Kwame Nkrumah, saying, "...no African, present or past, has been able to match this attribute, not even Mandela....".

Yet, from the other side of your mouth you want us to know about "Nkrumah's propensity to share Ghana's wealth with other ungrateful Africans", forgetting that rationally, you cannot have your egg and eat it, too.

You tell us Singapore's Lee Kwan Yew was a "rationalist" and Nkrumah wasn't, because Mr. Yew:

"...did exactly opposite of Nkrumah...Think of how Lee Kwan Yew treated his political enemies vis-a-vis Nkrumah during the cold war era, and only one conclusion looms out that our own Nkrumah was not astute as compared with his compatriot in Singapore...Lee Kwan Yew was not interested in regional associations, confabulations and continental ambition..."

What a gross mis-representation of the history, and of the economic and political records.

Here are some data and records for you.

To be continued.....

SOURCES:

1. The Conversation. Ghana: lessons from Nkrumahs fallout with his economic adviser, 1 Mar 16, ( https://theconversation.com/ghana-lessons-from-nkrumahs-fallout-with-his-economic-adviser-53233/ ).

2. Prof Lungu. RE: Lessons from Nkrumahs fallout with his economic adviser, Ghanaweb, 8 May 16, (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/RE-Lessons-from-Nkrumah-s-fallout-with-his-economic-adviser-436894/).

3. Jane Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. 1961. New York: Random House.

Visit for more information:

www.GhanaHero.com .

Read Mo'! Listen Mo'! See Mo'! Reflect Mo'!

Prof Lungu is Ghana-Centered/Ghana-Proud!

Subj: Only mad 60-year olds fault Kwame Nkrumah for Ghana's development quagmire.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/professorlungu

Support Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana Campaign/Petition

https://www.change.org/p/ghana-fair-trade-oil-share-psa-campaign-ftos-gh-psa/

Brought to you courtesy www.GhanaHero.com14 May 16.
16.05.2016 LISTEN

Blaming one another for a particular problem or crime committed has been very rampant and prevalent in Ghanaian politics. Those in authority, most of the time, shirk their responsibilities while blaming others for not taking full responsibility in certain situations until things begin to go wrong. Since 2010 this blame game has been unprecedented in Ghanaian political history. This attitude, which is very recent, impedes trust, creates inter-party suspicion and dampens the spirit of democracy and fair play. This article will discuss the blame game not only among the two major parties, but also among certain individuals and personalities within these parties.

Bernard Allotey Jacobs, the Central Region Communications Director of the NDC already began to blame the opposition NPP for the worsening Ga chieftaincy crisis and all the disputes bedevilling the Ga state in 2012. According to Allotey Jacobs, the former president, John Kufuor and his NPP, broke the peace and tranquillity of the Ga state by poking their noses in the Ga state chieftaincy affairs. As if to strengthen or confirm Alloteys suspicion and mistrust of Kufuor and his NPP, a palace coup which culminated in a raid of the stool house of the Ga traditional council and a subsequent installation of a rival Ga Mantse, tilts suspicion of active involvement towards NPP. The NPP vehemently denies this claim and refuses to accept the blame by Allotey Jacobs.

A recent blame game occurred when the Ashanti Regional chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Antwi Boasiako aka Chairman Wontumi, was arrested and detained for allegedly assaulting the MP for Manhyia North, Collins Owusu Amankwah, and the constituency secretary, Felix Ibrahim. The police station was besieged by hundreds of NPP supporters and admirers of Chairman Wontumi who had been refused bail and was remanded in police custody. The blame game suddenly resurrected. The fourth deputy speaker of ECOWAS parliament, Simon Osei Mensah, accused the state of being behind Chairman Wontumi's detention.

It was also on everybody's lips that the Ashanti Region Police Command acted on the instructions of Flagstaff House to detain Chairman Wontumi. The underlying aim of President Mahama and the NDC, according to Simon Osei Mensah, was to brand NPP as a violent party. Was it right to blame the government in this assault case? People argued that if the government did not have a hand in this, why would it bring in the military to guard the premises of the Regional Police station in a mere assault case.

The intermittent power outages that engulfed Ghana under NDC rule was the worst that ever happened to Ghana. The President, John Mahama, refused to accept responsibility for what became known as dumsor, but blamed the NPP for the current deficit in the nations energy supply. The NDC alleged that the NPP did not take the issue of power supply seriously throughout their eight year rule from 2001 to 2008, because they failed to give the needed attention to the energy sector.

President John Mahama has embarked on regional tours to give account of his stewardship during the past seven years. In between the tours he held a press conference where he made excuses and blamed all others except himself for the current charges his government is facing with regards to excessive corruption, utility price hikes, micro-finance fraud, power crisis, falling educational standards and poor national security. Concerned groups including Progressive People's party (PPP) were greatly disappointed with President Mahama for shifting blame of his incompetence to others and also for his unimpressive account at the press conference of his stewardship.

Governments are elected to power primarily to solve the challenges and the developmental problems of the country irrespective of which political party caused the problem. However, in this country of ours, the two major political parties have continued to blame each other for one fault or the other. Due to this unfortunate blame game, successive governments have abandoned projects began by rival parties during their terms of office. Instead of continuing the uncompleted projects of the previous government, the ruling government shirked its responsibility. President Mahama and his NDC cannot continue to blame their predecessors after seven years in power.

President Mahama must accept the full responsibility of hardship and misrule during the past seven years of NDC rule. He dares not shift the blame to anyone else. He has been in power for the past seven years but he creates the impression that he has been at the helm of affairs for only three years. The reason why many hold on to this assertion is that he was a Vice President under a weak and sick president so he was virtually in control. He boasts openly as the architect behind every good thing that was done during the past seven years while frowning upon anything bad that is attributed to him and the NDC. Who then is President Mahama blaming for all the hardships and the bad things that have gone on and continue to go on?

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Abuakwa North in the Eastern Region, J. B. Danquah Adu, was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant. Bernard Antwi Boasiako (Chairman Wontumi) came out to blame President Mahama for the death of Joseph Boakye Danquah Adu. His reason for blaming him stemmed from the fact that instead of President Mahama coming on air to express his shock and condolence at the sudden departure of the Abuakwa North MP, he happily and remorselessly went to the social media, Twitter, to scribble haphazard message of condolence to the bereaved family.

The obvious question raised by concerned citizens of Ghana was the reason behind the President's use of Twitter to express his shock and condolence. The question is: how many Ghanaians use Twitter? Chairman Wontumi argued that President Mahama did not announce Prof. Mills death on Twitter and therefore in much the same way he should have issued a statement for this tragic death. Undoubtedly Twitter is faster but he could at the same time have issued a prompt statement on air.

Stan Dogbe, a professional journalist and presidential staffer, was also blamed for master-minding the premature death of JB Danquah Adu. Asiedu, the young man who was arrested by the police, was alleged to have mentioned Stan Dogbe's name. A journalist at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Mr Yahaya Kwamoah, recorded a conversation between Stan Dogbe and a colleague. Stan Dogbe pursued Yahaya and wrenched the digital recorder from him and destroyed it. If what the journalist recorded did not implicate him, why then did he destroy the evidence? According to Stan Dogbe, what he was discussing with his colleague was a strategy on how to break the news to the family of the death of Samuel Nuamah, the Ghanaian Times correspondent at the Flagstaff House. His explanation can be likened to what Macbeth described as a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing. Ghanaians would have believed him more if he had allowed the recording to be played on air rather than destroying it.

The Vice President, Amissah-Arthur, has constantly been blamed for refusing the people of Central Region to visit him in his office. He denies this as a concoction coming from the imagination of hungry and desperate people who want power by all means. There was deep mistrust between two groups in the NDC, the Young Cadres Association and the Fante Students Association. The former blames the latter for leaking vital information of the party. They are branded as very mischievous and deceptive.

It is important for both parties, the NDC and NPP, to realize and accept that no government will ever be able to complete all the development projects they begin and therefore it is important and imperative for parties who take over from the incumbent to avoid blaming their predecessors for incompetence but continue and finish the uncompleted project, in the interest of Ghanas development.

Former President Rawlings embarked upon the construction of the Keta Sea Defence Wall. However, according to Malik Kwaku Baako Jnr., the Editor in Chief of the New Crusading Guide, Rawlings deceived Ghanaians into thinking that his government was going to construct the wall but rather supervised over an era of embezzlement of the monies allotted to the construction of the wall. Kufuor in his eight year in office continued and completed the Keta Sea Defence Wall without any blame to ex-President Jerry Rawlings.

President Mahama on the other hand triggered a political controversy of achievement in the Volta Region when he said the NPP did nothing for the Volta region during. This claim was too hard for ex-President Kufuor to swallow so he hit back in and accused President Mahama of dishonesty. Apart from taking upon itself to complete the Keta Sea Defence Wall, the NPP government says it undertook several developmental projects of all kinds including repairing all dilapidated buildings along the beaches and strengthening the ground there to prevent erosion.

Indeed Ghanaians are not in any good mood to accept this blame game between these two major political parties. What Ghanaians need from these political parties are concrete steps that can be adopted to alleviate our hardships and propel us towards conscious development of our beloved country, Ghana.

Stephen Atta Owusu

Author: Dark Faces at Crossroads

Email: [email protected] com
16.05.2016 LISTEN

In this week's edition of the Mirror in the "Faith Corner" column, I read an article "How Do We Measure Success of Church Ministry?" The columnist, however, insinuated that preaching the prosperity gospel is equivalent to materialism. I was therefore compelled to critique this contentious and delicate belief in a Bible-based, logical and objective manner. As Christians, we strongly believe that we have been blessed with a life of divine prosperity, peace and joy.

Yet there are several tribulations we are bound to encounter for Christ's sake. But apostles of the prosperity gospel place a premium on the pursuit of prosperity with little regard for the inevitable trials. So other people have opined that there are endless lies with the prosperity gospel, and it results in misplaced hope, skewed reality and wishful thinking.

Yes, the prosperity gospel has been embedded in contemporary church ministry. Some notable proponents of the prosperity gospel include Joel Osteen, David Oyedepo, T. D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, Chris Oyakhilome, Mensa Otabil, and the like. These televangelists declare that Christendom must reflect God-inspired prosperity to the full. Stated differently, Christians ought to claim and pursue wealth in their everyday lives. Adding that, it is the bona fide right of Christians through the Abrahamic blessing in Christ, Jesus bore our poverty so that we might become rich, and other scriptural reasons. In fact, believers are entitled to follow the path to financial success, but not with sheer avarice. That's all!

However, I have a few concerns which can prove that the prosperity gospel has evasions, half-truths and inconsistencies. Colossians 3:2 admonishes Christians, saying, "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." And Jesus reminded his followers that they are in the world but not from the world. Also, the love of money, when taken to extremes, will corrupt the minds and ways of Christians to unjustly acquire wealth. This is the fundamentally accurate interpretation of 1 Timothy 6:10! Surprisingly, most preachers of the prosperity gospel flamboyantly demonstrate cupidity at the expense of their poor congregation. No wonder Ghanaian gospel artist, Koda, satirically sang that, "...the sheep is being slain for the shepherd..."

Moreover, "Accepting Christ is not a ticket to a pain-free life. And a type of theology that doesn't embrace the reality of pain and suffering is downright egregious," Eric Demeter wrote. Well, to be highly realistic, "There is no virtue in poverty. It is a mental disease that should be abolished from the face of the earth," according to Wallace D. Wattles, emphasising that, "No one is destined to be poor. Wealth is all around us, and all we need do to achieve it is to seek and follow the road that will lead us there." After all, "If you acquire wealth unjustly from others, then you are misusing your forces; but if your wealth comes through the right sources, you will be blessed," Theron Q. Dumont advised. Therefore, deduce from the above arguments to check if the prosperity gospel is tantamount to materialism or not.

Source: sirarticle.blogspot.com
16.05.2016 LISTEN

Presidential politics, big picture, is mainly about two things: prosperity and peace, a/k/a national security.

On the prosperity side Donald Trump is beginning to attract unexpected mainstream praise for the economic, specifically monetary, policy element of his prosperity agenda. Matt OBrien, at the Washington Post, writes On this [Federal Reserve Policy] issue, Donald Trump knows a lot more than other Republicans. Sad! At The Week Jeff Spross writes Donald Trump is shockingly sane on the Federal Reserve . Now Politico reports Trumps economic policies start to make sense, former Fed board member says . The Washington Post's Jim Tankersley already scooped that One part of the Republican Establishment actually loves Donald Trump and Ted Cruz , referencing supply-side thought leaders Steve Forbes, Arthur Laffer, Larry Kudlow and Steve Moore, founders of the officially neutral Committee To Unleash Prosperity (of whose Supply Side Blog I serve as editor in chief).

Moving on to peace, and national security, Donald Trump has unsettled American policy elites, Republican eminences, and world leaders. He has done so by publicly toying with some borderline heretical (or as the New York Times more elegantly puts it , orthodoxy defying) proposals like the possibility of renegotiating our commitment to NATO and of withdrawing our nuclear defense commitment to Japan and Korea ( suggesting they develop their own nuclear deterrent a la Frances force de frappe ).

Recently Trump gave his first major foreign policy address . The status quo elites missed the punchline.

The last time a candidate created such consternation was when Ronald Reagan proposed shifting from the doctrine of containment of the Soviets to We win, they lose, proposing a judicious, not bellicose, confrontation. Is Trump off the rails? Or on to something?

I already, here and here, have noted how the GOP primary voters flocked, in super-majorities, to its three Tough Dove peace through strength candidates  including Trump  and shied from its militant (Christie, Fiorina, Kasich) and even moderate (Bush, Rubio) hawks.

The electorate, very much including the GOP base, wants peace. Trump outlined how he would offer himself up as a Reaganesque peace through strength president. The speech attracted some criticisms, some even merited , for inconsistencies and lacunae.

Those criticisms, however, overlook the politically most significant thing about that speech. The most interesting thing was how consistent this speech was with Trumps already established Tough Dove Doctrine. The startling essence may be found here:

We desire to live peacefully and in friendship with Russia and China. We have serious differences with these two nations, and must regard them with open eyes, but we are not bound to be adversaries. We should seek common ground based on shared interests.

Russia, for instance, has also seen the horror of Islamic terrorism. I believe an easing of tensions, and improved relations with Russia from a position of strength only is possible, absolutely possible. Common sense says this cycle, this horrible cycle of hostility must end and ideally will end soon. Good for both countries.

Some say the Russians wont be reasonable. I intend to find out. If we cant make a deal under my administration, a deal thats great  not good, great  for America, but also good for Russia, then we will quickly walk from the table. Its as simple as that. Were going to find out.

Fixing our relations with China is another important step  and really toward creating an even more prosperous period of time.



Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war and destruction.

I am not qualified to render judgment on the geopolitics of Trumps propositions. That said, the politics of these olive branches are brilliant.

Trump has a preternatural ability to read the public mood. Previously he raised totems before fetishized objects of popular discontent. Trump repeatedly presented himself to the popular imagination as a Professor Abraham Van Helsing brandishing a crucifix and garland of garlic cloves against perceived, or imagined, blood-sucking vampires. Now: olive branches.

The hobgoblins of foolish (or, for that matter, prudent) consistency never have haunted the mind of Donald Trump. In the same speech Trump also stated:

Our nuclear weapons arsenal, our ultimate deterrent, has been allowed to atrophy and is desperately in need of modernization and renewal. And it has to happen immediately. Our active duty armed forces have shrunk from 2 million in 1991 to about 1.3 million today. The Navy has shrunk from over 500 ships to 272 ships during this same period of time. The Air Force is about one-third smaller than 1991. 

And what are we doing about this? President Obama has proposed a 2017 defense budget that in real dollars, cuts nearly 25 percent from what we were spending in 2011. Our military is depleted and were asking our generals and military leaders to worry about global warming.

We will spend what we need to rebuild our military.

Well. As James Madison wrote in 1795, Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes  known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

True then.

True now.

America already spends, by credible estimates , more on its military  well over half a trillion dollars a year  than the next half dozen or so countries combined. Most of these nations are our allies.

And China spends around a quarter to a third of what we do and far less per capita. Russia, spends perhaps a tenth (comparable with Britain, France, and India). Both have continental territories to defend. Let it emphatically be noted: not defend from the prospect of American invasion.

Trump lucidly makes the compelling point that Islamic fanatics  not Russia or China  represent the current life-or-death threat. He offers an opportunity to take a good look at putting some of our gun money into butter money: tax rate cuts and rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges.

Trump blusters now about rebuilding the military. Yet his history reveals him to be more a lover than a fighter.

The voters sense, and crave, peace. As I have written here the single most overlooked shift in the tectonic plates underlying our politics may be the under-reported dawning of world peace.

As this columnist elsewhere has noted Steven Pinkers The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined , Joshua Goldsteins Winning the War on War , and the Hum an Security Report Project  previously summarized by this columnist in Forbes.com  light the way:

the number of war battlefield deaths has dropped by a factor of 1,000, falling from 500 per 100,000 in prehistoric times, to 60-70 in the 19th and 20th century (notwithstanding epic wars) to less than one such death per 300,000 now in the 21st. Genocide deaths have dropped by well over a factor of 1000 from 1942 to 2008.

War is fast atrophying. America is not by nature imperialistic, militaristic, or even bellicose. We got dragged into a century long war a noble one, against reprehensible dictatorships. We, and liberty, won.

The first leg of the Hundred Year War, World War I, coincided with the collapse of the Imperial world order. The overthrow of the Ottoman empire in 1923 completed the ending of four of the five reigning empires  Austro-Hungarian, Russian, Chinese, and Ottoman. The one remaining, least autocratic, empire, the British, went into terminal decline to end but a brief generation later.

After millennia of imperial rule the world was rid of emperors. This is a Very Big Deal.

So big that its not so easy to see.

The fall of Empire did not, in the event, make the world safe for democracy. Instead, dictators, tyrants, and warlords arose amid the ruins. That impelled America back into the second leg of the Hundred Year war, World War II, to defeat the Axis powers of Nazis, Fascists, and Japanese militarists.

We won. Liberal republican governance principles became firmly adopted in Western Europe and Japan. Historic.

Totalitarian figures continued to dominate the communist East. We then entered the third leg of the Hundred Year War, the Cold War. America prevailed.

The Soviet satellites spun out of allegiance. The Berlin Wall fell. Germany reunited. The Soviet Union peacefully dissolved itself into its constituent republics.

China, in process of democratizing beginning at the prefecture level, unnerved by the dissolution of the USSR and cognizant of the historical fragility of its own sovereignty , put its political liberalization on pause. China pivoted, instead, to supply-side prosperity policies. And prospered.

At no time did America wish, or attempt, to rule the world. We accidentally inherited temporary world dominance and proved, by and large, a very fine steward. The world electorate appears to wish to move, now, to regional power centers rather than America's benevolent hegemony.

That should be perfectly fine with us. Americas expensive burden of maintaining world peace will be distributed to other shoulders while we cut our tax rates and rebuild our bridges. America then can go back to living by our favorite, hippie-like, slogan: Make money, not war. All good.

America yearns for peace, prosperity, and the opportunity to transmit around the world, by soft power, liberal republican governance principles to enhance human dignity. Trump, politically, seems to sense this. He is aligned with this electoral impulse. Thus Trump would make, as I elsewhere have written , a formidable challenger to the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton, as U.S. Senator, voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq. She, as secretary of state, was the prime architect of Obamas destruction of Libya. Hillary Clinton displays considerably more hawkish feathers than does Tough Dove Donald Trump.

To put in a kind word for Mrs. Clinton her advocacy to destroy the Libyan dictatorship surely came from haunting memories of the Rwanda genocide not from bellicosity. Still, Iraq and Libya were mistakes of epic proportions. The electorate may well hold her accountable.

There are ample reasons to question Donald Trumps suitability for the presidency, many persuasive. That said, Trumps clearly authentic declaration that Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war and destruction is consistent both with paleoconservative and progressive principles. Take note.

A presidential election is about two big picture things: prosperity and peace.

Advantage, Trump.
Vienna (AFP) - Major powers including the United States met in the Austrian capital on Monday to discuss the expanding presence of the Islamic State jihadist group in conflict-ridden Libya, just across the Mediterranean from Europe.

IS has taken advantage of the chaos left by the toppling and death of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, which led to rival militias vying for control of the oil-rich country.

A recently formed unity government backed by the international community has been slowly asserting its authority in Tripoli but it still faces a rival administration in the east.

In a bid to stabilise the country, the fledgling regime has drawn up a list of requests for Western partners to assist its forces with arms, training and intelligence.

The Vienna conference is being co-chaired by the United States and Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler which has faced a major influx of migrants from the North African nation braving the perilous sea voyage.

More than 20 top diplomats are set to attend the meeting, due to start at 1200 GMT.

"We have a lot of work to do," said US Secretary of State John Kerry during a brief press appearance with his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh at Vienna's plush Bristol Hotel, as the pair held talks ahead of the official gathering.

The conference is also expected to focus on the flow of illegal immigrants from Libya to Europe, after a damning report from the British parliament suggested last week that an EU naval mission to combat people trafficking was "failing".

- 'Coherent list' needed -

The Government of National Accord headed by businessman Fayez al-Sarraj has won international support as well as backing from key institutions like the central bank and the National Oil Corporation.

But it has failed to get the endorsement of the elected parliament and its ally Khalifa Haftar, a self-declared army chief who has launched a crusade against Islamist fighters across the country.

A rival Tripoli-based government has also refused to recognise the GNA.

Amid the chaos, the Islamic State group has carved itself a bastion in Libya where it overran last year the Mediterranean coastal city of Sirte, Kadhafi's hometown, transforming it into a training camp for militants.

Europe fears the jihadists, who have in recent weeks made new advances, will use Sirte's port and airport as a springboard to launch attacks on the continent.

The concerns have struck a chord with Washington, where officials and diplomats say plans are being drawn up to loosen a ban on arms exports to Libya imposed five years ago by the United Nations.

A senior US administration official told AFP that Libya's international partners were willing to help, if the GNA presented a "detailed and coherent list" of what it needs to fight IS.

"There is a very healthy desire inside of Libya to rid themselves of (IS), and I think that is something we should be supporting and responding to," the official said.

But diplomats have warned that the GNA may struggle to come with a concrete request for help.

- Call for militants -

Libya's divisions have once again deepened in recent days, with the GNA and Haftar forces each announcing plans to fight IS and "liberate" Sirte.

"This is a mistake. It must be prevented... we can no longer accept this division," said Nicola Latorre, chairman of the defence committee of the Italian Senate and an IS expert.

Claudia Gazzini, senior analyst on Libya for the International Crisis Group, has also warned that the race for Sirte is pushing any hope of a political solution in Libya further away.

IS is estimated to have around 5,000 fighters in Libya, and it is trying to enlist hundreds more.

This month the jihadists launched suicide attacks on key checkpoints in government-held territory along the Mediterranean coast.

The move allowed them to build a defensive line along part of the coastal highway that links the east of Libya where Haftar is based with Tripoli in the west.
A water research scientist Dr. Gloria Addico has mounted a robust defence of her research findings that there are toxins in water produced for consumption by the Ghana Water Company.

Dr. Addico, who is with the Water Research Institute of the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) says Ghana Water Company has no capacity to determine the presence of the toxins and can therefore not dismiss her work.

A Water Research Institute report on water treatment plants from Weija and other plants has found in the water, toxins from algae that can cause kidney, liver, nervous system and heart problems.

According to the report, the Ghana Water Company Limited only does conventional treatment which only removes bacteria. The use of chlorine and alum to remove bacteria is incomplete treatment.

Ghana Water has 88 treatment systems but it does not have the technology to determine the presence of algae toxins, the report claims.

In a response, the Public Relations Officer at the GWCL Stanley Martey on Joy FMs Super Morning Show Monday, accused Dr. Gloria Addico of causing fear and panic among the consuming public.

Water treated by GWCL is okayed by the Ghana Standard Authority as meeting the best standards, he said. At least 90% of water treated by the company is used by other water bottling companies for re-sale, the PRO asserted.

Stanley Martey says all the staff of Ghana Water Company including technicians who treat the water consume it, attesting to its safety.

Even my managing director drinks the water. Everybody drinks it, he said.

At the heart of the challenges facing the treatment of water is pollution. The Densu river suffers pollution. The river supplies water to treatment plants in Weija, Koforidua and Nsawam.

The GWCL does daily analysis of the water sources to determine the presence of the latest pollutants. If a new pollutant is detected, the company finds an antidote before it continues with the treatment.

In the case of algae toxins, the company uses activated carbons to treat it. While treating the water, the GWCL has over the years supported campaigns to reduce pollution of river bodies, he said. The campaign has been yielding results, the PRO said.

Stanley Martey said the research was done in 2009. Seven years later, the problems identified have been dealt with, he insisted.

But Dr. Gloria Addico, perceiving her work is under attack, rejected Stanley Marteys explanations.

He is a PRO, I am a scientist of high reputationhe is just making noise, she shot back.

According to her, the use of activated carbons to treat algae may only be removing scent and odour and not the toxins. In other words, activated carbons may be an insufficient method to remove toxins.

Nobody minded me. Should I leave my lab and go around shouting? she said.

The work is also not limited to the Weija treatment plants, she continued. Other plants such as Kpong treatment were all included in the research.

The reason why the Ghana Standards Authority and the GWCL cannot detect algae toxins is because the two bodies do not have the technology capable of doing so.

Not even the CSIR can detect it, she said. Samples are sent outside the country for the quality of water to be determined, she said.

Proposing a solution, Dr. Gloria Addico said the entire water treatment systems in Ghana needs to be re-audited.

Stanley Martey complained that the Water Research Institute has not been cooperative with the GWCL.

Why dont you come close to usWhy is she keeping it to herself? he said.

The PR Director and CSIR scientist later offered to move the discussion away from the media and work behind the scenes on her research findings.
The Archbishop of Onitsha Ecclesiastical Province, His Grace Most Rev. Dr. Valerian Maduka Okekehas commended the Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano for his doggedness, abilities and the clear vision with which he is piloting the affairs of the state that is yielding positive results.

Archbishop Okeke made the commendation at St Pius X Seminary Feast Day/ Investiture of Seminarians at St Pius x Spiritual Year Seminary, Akwu-Ukwu, Idemili South Local Government Area, Anambra State.

The Archbishop noted that Governor Obiano has distinguished Anambra in the area of security as one of the safest states in Nigeria; being amongst the three states that continue to pay salaries as at and when due, as well as maintaining the best network of roads. Said the Archbishop, "We pray for you to continue to Excel, you have spent two years, but the next three years of your administration will see the sustenance of your good work and more success."

Also in his Penticost Homily, the Archbishop stated that, the Holy Spirit is the Chief protector, the chief builder; we pray that the Holy Spirit will renew the face of the earth even now including our dear state, that it continues to be a model for other states always."

Speaking to the congregation after the Mass, Governor Obiano thanked the Archbishop for his prayers for him and the state. He urged the new senior Seminarians to stand fast in the commitment to the journey to Priesthood so that ultimately many of them would become Priests.

The Governor also commended the Rector of the Seminary, Rev. Fr Cornelius Okoye for the programme of the institution in the area of agriculture and vocational training. Obiano assured the Rector that he deliberately came along with his aides and experts who will take a look at what they are doing to explore areas of collaboration and assistance.

The highpoint of the Investiture programme was the Vesting of thirty-two Seminarians including Damian Omenugha, son of Hon Commissioner for Education, Prof. Kate Omenugha. The Seminarians spend one-year term at the Seminary in preparation for Priesthood before embarking on another phase for philosophy studies at Senior Seminary.

The governor and his team were later conducted round the agricultural ventures of the Seminary including Fish farm with a capacity for twenty one thousand fingerlings in seven fish ponds as well as Piggery with over five hundred pigs.
The Christian Council has condemned the pockets of violence that erupted during the recent Limited Voters' Registration exercise by the Electoral Commission (EC).

The General Secretary of the Council, Rev. Opuni Frimpong said on Multi TV magazine program, AM Show that the accusations and counter accusations by the two major political parties were uncalled for.

The 11-day Limited Biometric Voter Registration exercise which began on April 28, 2016, ended on Sunday, May 8.

Calls for the extension of the date were ignored by the Commission even after hundreds of eligible voters said they were denied the chance to register.

The exercise was stained by some pockets of violence at some centres over the registration of ineligible voters.

The two main political rivals traded accusations of engaging in electoral irregularities.

The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia said all political parties, including his party registered minors during the exercise.

Although other political parties vehemently denied the claim, the Christian Council says the public admission of the registration of minors and the physical assaults do not show political discipline.

Rev. Opuni Frimpong said the unfortunate incidents rather instill bad principles in young people.

"We expect the excellencies and the honourable to show the way because we are dealing with young people who have just hit 18 years...now this is the time we must nurture national values, national spirit in this young people....I think we are teaching Ghanaian young people bad stories, giving them bad principles, " he indicated.

Rev. Opuni Frimpong urged the parties to show political discipline in their activities ahead of the November polls.
The Hague (AFP) - Defence lawyers Monday sought to mitigate the sentence being weighed against former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba, convicted in March of a slew of war crimes in the Central African Republic.

Bemba's case is the first before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to focus on sexual violence as a weapon of war, and the first to find a military commander to blame for the atrocities perpetrated by forces even though he did not order them.

Both defence and prosecution teams were to argue their case in three days of sentencing hearings before judges at the court in The Hague.

The three judges convicted the former feared rebel leader in March on five charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A chilling series of rapes, murders and atrocities were committed in the Central African Republic (CAR) between October 2002 to March 2003 by troops from Bemba's Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC).

After a lengthy trial which opened in November 2010, the judges found Bemba had retained "effective command and control" over the 1,500 MLC troops he sent to CAR to quell an attempted coup against then president Ange-Felix Patasse.

They agreed with the prosecution that MLC troops had carried out a rampage in CAR which deliberately targeted civilians.

But Catholic Bishop Fridolin Ambongo appeared as a character witness Monday seeking to show that Bemba and the MLC had played a role in bringing "peace and stability" to the northwestern Equateur province of Democratic Republic of Congo.

While he said he had no knowledge of what had transpired in neighbouring CAR, in his DR Congo province the MLC forces had "made it possible for the population to feel peace finally, because the MLC came to re-establish everything that had been destroyed."

It was hard to see how Bemba who had helped his region "in very troubled times" could have "transformed himself into a monster" on the other side of the border.

Bemba will learn his sentence at a later date.

But he could face up to 30 years in jail -- or even a life sentence, if the court set up in 2002 to try the world's worst crimes, considers such a term is "justified by the extreme gravity of the crime".

Two victims will also testify this week, while the prosecution will present an expert to discuss the "intergenerational impact" of mass rapes and sexual violence.

A wealthy businessman-turned-warlord, Bemba became one of four vice presidents in the transitional government of DR Congo President Joseph Kabila.

In 2006, he lost to Kabila in a presidential election run-off and fled to Europe. He was arrested in 2008 in Brussels and handed over to the ICC.

His MLC militia has since morphed into a political party and is currently the second-largest opposition group in the National Assembly.
Members of the New Patriotic Party have been found to have used the most abusive language on radio in the first campaign language report compiled by the Media Foundation for West Africa.

The NPP which recorded 27 incidents out of the 87 cases monitored were followed by the NDC which had 16 cases.

On the media front, Accra-based Montie FM led the pack of the platforms where the most abusive languages were used with 22 incidents followed by Oman FM with 15 cases, and Adom FM and Diamond FM with seven (7) each.

A total of 87 incidents of indecent expressions were recorded on 18 out of the 40 radio stations monitored. Officials, affiliates and supporters of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) topped the list of culprits with a total of 27 incidents. The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) followed with a total of 16 incidents. The others were: Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) and the New Labour Party (NLP)  four (4) each; National Democratic Party (NDP)  two (2); and the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) and Peoples National Convention (PNC)  one (1) each.

For the radio stations, 18 out of the 40 monitored, recorded incidents of indecent expressions. Accra-based Montie FM topped the list with 22 incidents followed by Oman FM with 15 incidents, and Adom FM and Diamond FM with seven (7) each. All the incidents of indecent expressions recorded on Adom FM were also recorded on Nsawkaw-based Tain FM, portions of the report stated.

MFWA has commissioned the campaign language monitoring project to check intemperate language and conduct of politicians ahead of the 2016 elections.
Kigali (AFP) - Rwanda has expelled over 1,500 Burundians in recent days, government officials said Monday, amid worsening relations between the neighbours.

However, Seraphine Mukantabana, Minister of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs, said the expulsions were part of a regular crackdowns on those living illegally in the country and were not targeting Burundians specifically.

"We had a number of Burundians scattered across the country who had no documents," she said.

The crackdown follows the expulsion by Burundi of thousands of Rwandans since April 2015.

Burundi has been in political crisis since then, when President Pierre Nkurunziza controversially decided to run for a third term which he went on to win in a July election.

At least 500 people have been killed and over 250,000 have fled Burundi, raising fears of a return to the civil war fought between 1993-2006.

Philippe Ngabonziza, mayor of the Burundian town of Ntega, close to the border with Rwanda, said 1,320 expelled Burundians had arrived since Friday.

The governor of the neighbouring Ngozi district, Albert Nduwimana, said they had received 218 people over the weekend.

Burundi has repeatedly accused Rwanda of training Burundian refugees with the goal of overthrowing Nkurunziza. Kigali has fiercely denied the accusations.

In February, Rwanda said it would relocate refugees from Burundi to other countries.

However, many of those expelled over the weekend were understood to have lived in Rwanda for years. "Some lived in Rwanda for 10 years of odd jobs. They had to leave everything behind," Nduwimana said.
Vienna (AFP) - Major powers including the US discussed in Vienna on Monday the growing threat posed by the Islamic State group in conflict-wracked Libya, just across the Mediterranean from Europe.

IS has taken advantage of the chaos left by the toppling and death of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, which left rival militias vying for control of the oil-rich country.

A recently formed unity government backed by the international community has been slowly asserting its authority in Tripoli, but it still faces a rival administration in the east.

In a bid to stabilise the country, the fledgling regime of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj has drawn up a list of requests for Western partners to assist its forces with arms, training and intelligence.

The Vienna conference, under way since 1215 GMT, is being co-chaired by the United States and Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler which has faced a major influx of migrants from the North African nation braving the perilous sea voyage.

A total of 25 top diplomats were in attendance, including the UN's special envoy to Libya Martin Kobler and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

"The key question is whether Libya remains a place where terrorism, people-smuggling and instability continue to flourish or whether we can regain statehood with the new unity government," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.

"We have a lot to do," US State Secretary John Kerry told reporters before he held brief talks with Sarraj at Vienna's plush Bristol Hotel.

- 'No boots on the ground' -

The Libyan leader has insisted his country needed assistance, not intervention.

"We are not asking for foreign boots on the ground, but we are requesting assistance with training, and lifting the arms embargo on Libya," Sarraj wrote in a column published in the British newspaper The Telegraph on Monday.

Formed in late March, his Government of National Accord (GNA) has won international support as well as backing from key institutions like the central bank and the National Oil Corporation.

But it has failed to get the endorsement of the elected parliament and its ally Khalifa Haftar, a self-declared army chief who has launched a crusade against Islamist fighters across the country.

A rival government in the eastern city of Tobruk has also refused to recognise the GNA.

Amid the chaos, IS has carved itself a bastion in Libya where it overran last year the Mediterranean coastal city of Sirte, Kadhafi's hometown, transforming it into a training camp for militants.

Europe fears the jihadists, who have in recent weeks made new advances, will use Sirte's port and airport as a springboard to launch attacks on the continent.

IS "is a threat not only to Libyans and the wider region, but also to Europe," warned French Foreign Minister Harlem Desir at the start of Monday's conference.

"We are calling on Libyan political powers to form an alliance with Sarraj and create the necessary institutions to combat (IS)."

The warnings have also struck a chord with Washington, where officials say plans are being drawn up to loosen an arms exports ban imposed five years ago by the UN.

A senior US administration official told AFP that Libya's international partners were willing to help if the GNA presented a "detailed and coherent list" of what it needs to fight IS.

- Race for Sirte -

"There is a very healthy desire inside of Libya to rid themselves of (IS), and I think that is something we should be supporting and responding to," the official said.

But diplomats have warned that the GNA may struggle to come with a concrete request for help.

Libya's divisions have once again deepened in recent days, with the GNA and Haftar's forces each announcing their own plans to fight IS and "liberate" Sirte.

"This is a mistake. It must be prevented... we can no longer accept this division," said Nicola Latorre, chairman of the defence committee of the Italian senate and an IS expert.

Claudia Gazzini, a Libya analyst at the International Crisis Group, has also warned that the race for Sirte is pushing any hope of a political solution further away.

IS is estimated to have around 5,000 fighters in Libya, and it is trying to enlist hundreds more.

This month the jihadists launched suicide attacks on key checkpoints in government-held territory along the Mediterranean coast.

The move allowed them to build a defensive line along part of the coastal highway that links the east of Libya where Haftar is based with Tripoli in the west.
16.05.2016 LISTEN

Quality Leadership in my view is rare and the most difficult responsibility attached to every position one can go for. It involves sacrifices and solving problems with empathy on the back of a vision that enriches and creates the wellbeing of all.

It is about listening to followers view and opting for the best out of the many suggestions which may come to you for the good of all. It is about having a clearly defined vision and mission and strategies to achieve them.

It's about solving problems by first looking within for solution as jurisprudent minds will tell you. This is all inclusiveness.

This is what people look out for when they vote one of their own into positions of power and more so when it has to do with the position of the number one gentleman of the nation.

Unfortunately, most leaders in our part of the world (Africa) tend to worsen the plight of their people with their approach to solving problems. It is either they look to the white mans approach or come up with one that worsens the existing problem in the end. In my estimation, problems present leaders opportunity to make the lives of their followers better. Without problems, jobs cannot be created, without problems, most of the inventions we see today would never have been and above all, without problems, a nation does not need a leader. When a leader leads the chorus of complains, the question I always ask is: why are you there?

Unfortunately, we have overtime ended up with leaders who dont only compound existing problems but end up creating unique ones of their own. In view of this, many leaders are best remembered for the problems they created and not the problems they solved.

It is this understanding of leadership that has left me disappointed in the current leadership of our nation and particularly President John Dramani Mahama

Since President Mahama took over as a president, two of the key problems that have in my view confronted him are the depreciation of the Cedi and the power crises.

Even though there are others, I think these two have harmed us as a nation than all the other challenges put together.

Below are my reasons

THE FALL OF THE CEDI AND HOW MAHAMA TRIED TO REVERSE THE TREND

1. When President Mahama took office on 7th January 2013, the Cedi suffered a continual devaluation against all major currencies by 100% within the first two years. This was a problem that required critical thinking and presented an opportunity for the government of the day to prove it worth and win the confidence of the people. Unfortunately, President Mahama, aided by Vice Amissah Arthur, Seth Tekper and Dr Wampah decided to make the Ghana Cedi the only legal tender in the country.

The Bank of Ghana directed that all monetary transactions in the country should be conducted in the Ghana cedi, the sole legal tender.

It also directed all banks not to grant a foreign currency-denomination loan or foreign currency-linked facility to a customer who was not a foreign exchange earner.

Only persons traveling outside the country were permitted to withdraw in the a foreign currency that didnt have to exceed Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00)

This directive caused massive panic in the system and most dollar account holders trooped to their banks in large numbers to empty their dollar accounts. It was a massive empowerment of the black market and scared investors from looking at Ghana.

Some banks complained that the Bank of Ghana directives on foreign exchange had slowed deposits into foreign currency accounts, while inflows from foreign exchange earnings abroad into foreign exchange accounts had also dwindled due to the unwillingness of exporters to transfer their proceeds.

Such a decision should never have been taken without proper consultation to stakeholders. But as always, government turned death ears to the warnings from FINANCIAL experts.

In the end, potential investors were forced to look elsewhere with their monies because Ghana was not ready to accept them. Ghana which used to be the most attractive destination for investment lost that appeal to other African countries with our neighbours in Cote Divoire the biggest beneficiary.

The five months period when it became illegal to do business with any other currency apart from the Cedi has contributed in the massive reduction in the influx of foreign investment into the country. The result is the ever soaring numbers of unemployment confronting the nation.

Having lost our appeal and credibility as a safe haven for doing business in the sub-region, we went knocking on the doors of IMF for not only to be bailed out of our economic mess but help us regain our lost investor-confidence.

In my candid opinion, the supposed solution adopted to stabilize the cedi has caused more economic woes than the fall of the cedi could have. You cannot solve currency depreciation in a panicky fashion.

Today, our economy is being run by the IMF and all our president and his team do is to implement their directives. IMF tells government how many people to employ, how many to layoff and when to employ. What is the essence of being independent if we cannot manage our own affairs?

More problems

THE PROBLEMS CREATED BY THE SUPPOSED SOLUTION TO DUMSOR

Today, government prides itself for improving the power crises. What is overlooked is the problem the so called solution to the crises has left for every single Ghanaian to bear now and in the future.

I said on several platforms and in a number of my articles that the power barges were in no way the solution to the power crises and that the only way out was, is and will for a long time be the reliance on hydro. In other words, we cant overlook the Akosombo Dam entirely for any alternative. I offered to help my nation out of this mess without any financial interest but Im a Ghanaian so I dont qualify

Today, the effects of the huge tariffs from the government cannot be over emphasised not to mention the high prices of goods and services as a result of high operational cost. It's now true that the cost of electricity bill in some areas in Ghana is higher than rent cost. This is unprecedented.

I can also confirm from my personal experience and complain from other friends in business that the cost of using your own plant is cheaper than using power from ECG. The only reason why people are still dependent on the national grid is the fact that the initial cost of acquiring the plant is very expensive.

Should attempt to solve every single problem always degenerate into multiple problems? Can't leadership of Africa sit down and analysis the problem that confront them and solve it the African way? Is it that people benefit from creating more problems out of existing problems?

The way forward.

A basic study of JURISPRUDENCE will teach you that the solution to most problems confronting a particular group of people does not lie outside the group but within and around the group.

I see this statement to be factual in all circumstances, be it in the field of engineering, business or even in the scientific world. My personal experience in these various fields makes me believe in that.

Unfortunately, African leaders are always looking above the sky, stretching their necks like ostriches to the external world for solution to every problem that confronts them.

We forget about the schools we have attended, the experts at the beacon call of our leaders and the many good things God has blessed this nation with. Governance is about bringing all on board to pursue a common agenda for the good of all. You cant lead me if you dont believe in me.

In our parts of the world, governments adopt fire fighting approach to solving problems and this ends up worsening the existing problems and creating new ones. We are a country always walking into ever growing stacks of problems

African leaders must know there will be no short cut to a successful and lasting solution to any problem confronting us except that solution emanate from within and has its roots deeply rooted within the soils of Africa.

Relating this concept to the two main issues identified in this article, I want to suggest that the solution to our developmental needs as a nation does not always lie on the excessive borrowings all in the name of non-existing infrastructure as most African leaders claim. The results are what we see today. There is huge pressure on the local currency that results in the unprecedented devaluation. As a nation, we need to know that hard work will always keep us going as a nation. Borrowing for every single project will forever destabilize our macroeconomic environment.

Going forward, we must plan according to our cash flow and develop alongside it. Loans can only be taken purely under project financing where the loan is expected to service the repayment and nothing else.

Secondly appointment of people into leadership positions should be solely by merit and nothing else. I see the fiscal policies by the Economic and Finance Minister; Mr Set Tekpeh clearly shows that he is a man not up to the task. Compare Seth Tekper to Osafo Marfo and Kwabena Duffour and you will come to terms with why our economy is getting worse.

For the issue of Dumsor the least said about it the better. A concrete, cost effective and long-term solution has been proposed by my good self but all has fallen on death years. In case I have to remind my readers, the solution is to get the water back behind the dam to power the turbines. Build more smaller hydroelectric dams across the country and fix in these features to recycle the water during the dry seasons and it will be all. This is not a speculative suggestion, I have presented details on how to do it in the past and I still stand by it.

In conclusion, I love to say that that nature was complete in its creation, hence leadership should first look within and around us for solutions to problems that confront us rather than importing wholesale solutions from outside which are mostly pregnant with problems bigger than the very one they were supposed to resolve.

This is what we get when the mind-set of government is always to score political points and win the next election. This nation will never record meaningful development so long us elections means more than anything to those at the helm of affairs. Problems require critical thinking to be able to settle for the best solution out of the lot that comes up. An elections minded leader always lacks the patience to choose the best out of the good because they always appear to be running out of time.

Today, the Cedi is stable and the power flow has improved but the cost of this is beyond the initial problem.

We deserve better because we can do better

www.kofianokye.com
16.05.2016 LISTEN

From Richard Owusu-Akyaw, Mamponteng

The President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference, Most Rev Joseph Osei- Bonsu has bemoaned the high rate of bribery and corruption in Ghana.

He has, therefore, urged the Ghanaian youth to shy away from the endemic canker which has hit the rooftop in the country. According to the Catholic Bishop, people are stealing monies and paying bribes to have their way. The latest Afro Barometer Report has revealed that 82 percent of Ghanaians believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, whereas 58 percent think the country is already in a very bad state.

In a valedictory speech at the maiden graduation of Our Lady of Grace (OLAG) at Mamponteng in the Kwabre West district of the Ashanti Region under the theme: Celebrating the goodness of the Lord', the outspoken Catholic Bishop admonished the 129 graduands to desist from the canker of bribery and corruption, stressing that it can mar their future and land them in trouble.

Most Rev Osei-Bonsu, who is the Bishop of Konongo-Mampong Catholic Diocese urged the outgoing and continuing students to lead exemplary life, devoid of bribery and corruption. Your service must be paramount, the Bishop advised.

While congratulating the students, the Bishop charged the graduands to upgrade themselves by climbing high the academic ladder and achieving their academic goals. He urged parents and guardians not to toy with the education of their wards, but give it the needed attention.

He was grateful to Mrs Mary Lynn Staley, an American philanthropist who has been funding the building of the school. The Guest Speaker, Mrs. Comfort Amponsah, the Headmistress of Konongo Odumase Senior High School, advised the outgoing students not to allow their peers to influence their lives negatively, citing the biblical Sampson as a prime example of students being careful about friends.

She said: Be very careful with friends; they can mar your life. Mrs Mary Lynn Staley, the benefactor of OLAG, congratulated the students and reminded them to encourage people to dream big.

She explained that their mission to come and establish the school was guided by God. Learn in your Church, school and workplace, she urged. The Minnesota-based American charged students to shine wherever they go.

The Headmaster of the school, Mr. Stephen Anokye reminded the students who have completed the senior high school of the competition out there and, therefore, advised them to work hard, as they begin another academic journey and further advised them not to forget the experience they have learnt from OLAG.

In his submission, he indicated that out of the 129 students, 61 are males and 68 are females. Iddesah Adams, the District Chief Executive of the area told the students that education is the best legacy their parents can offer them, hence the need to achieve excellence. Mr. Adams, who lauded the Catholics for high discipline in their schools, warned the Ghanaian youth not to allow politicians to use them for their selfish gains.
By Afedzi Abdullah, GNA

Cape Coast, May 15, GNA - An 18- year- old student who attempted to smuggle Indian hemp popularly known as "wee" to his uncle serving a 20-year jail term at the Ankaful Maximum prisons, has been jailed.

The Cape Coast Circuit Court has sentence him to one year imprisonment.

The convict, James Ndego was also fined GH1,200 or in default serve a prison term to be decided by the court on Thursday May 26.

He pleaded not guilty to the charge of attempting to supply narcotic drug but the court presided over by Ms Audrey Kocuvie-Tay found him guilty of the offence after full trial.

Ndego prior to the sentence, pleaded with the court for leniency, saying he was a student who had to go back to continue his education.

Passing sentence, the judge, Ms Kocuvie-Tay said she took into consideration the fact that Ndego had spent close to two and half years on remand and needed to continue his schooling.

Presenting the facts of the case, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Sylvanus Dalmeida said the complainants were officers at the Ankaful Maximum prisons in Cape Coast while the convict was a resident at Adankwame, a suburb of Kumasi.

He said on Thursday December 19, 2013 at about 15:30 hours, complainants were on their routine duty checks when Ndego arrived with some food items requesting to visit his uncle.

Ndego who was a regular visitor to the prison was thoroughly searched and he was found to have concealed the substance suspected to be Indian hemp in locally made slippers meant for his uncle.

ASP Dalmeida said he was arrested and on interrogation, admitted ownership of the slippers but denied knowledge of the substance embedded in them and was handed over to the Police.

According to ASP Dalmeida, the substance was sent to the police forensic laboratory where it proved positive after examination.

GNA
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Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured members and sympathisers of the New Patriotic Party, as well as the Ghanaian electorate, that the NPP is in good shape and ready for this years general elections.

Outlining a number of measures put in place to ensure that the party is ready to wrestle power from the Mahama government, the 2016 presidential candidate of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition indicated that the party currently has in place elected polling station, constituency and regional officers, working to ensure that we win the elections. The morale of these grassroots activists and volunteers is extremely high and spirited.

With the Manhyia North and Kwesimintsim, the only two constituencies yet to have their parliamentary primaries, Nana Akufo-Addo indicated that in the coming weeks, the process will be completed.

Sector committees have been formed to help in the formulation and dissemination of policies and programmes in their respective areas, as well as contributing to putting together of the partys Manifesto. We will present it in due course to the Ghanaian people, who are yearning for a change in their circumstances, he added.

Nana Akufo-Addo made this known when he delivered an address at the E-lection Bridge Africa Conference, on Monday, an event organised by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, in Accra. The event brought together experts from sub-Saharan Africa and Germany to build a bridge between players in modern political communication, and provide a forum to share ideas, practices and successes.

Addressing participants at the conference, the NPP flagbearer stated that the party, as an opposition party, has been focusing on four main issues in the run-up to the elections. These issues are advocating for electoral reforms to improve the chances of credible polls; putting the government on its toes in the interest of accountability within the parameters of a constructive opposition; and organising the party at the constituency level for an effective campaign and monitoring of the electoral process from registration, voting, to the declaration of results.

Additionally, he indicated that preaching our message of hope, and making an increasingly convincing case that, in us, there is a better alternative, is still very much ongoing.

This message of hope, he noted, is hinged on the fact that we have done it before, we have the leadership and a team of competent, committed and patriotic men and women; and we have a formidable programme to move our country forward to where it must be and can be and will be if the demand for change succeeds as it must.

That process has to go hand-in-hand with improving the productivity of our agriculture so that we can feed ourselves and diversify the cash crops we can export. The unfolding Ivorian example, of a neighbouring country with many of the same characteristics as our own, is a compelling one for us in Ghana. The current annual export value of Ivorian agriculture is US$12 billion; that of Ghanas is US$2 billion, he said.

Our new status as a producer and exporter of petroleum offers us the perfect opportunity to create here in Ghana a petrochemical industry, including monetising our gas to create a multibillion dollar gas feedstock industry. We have the opportunity to make Ghana a regional production and manufacturing centre, by weaving together our numerous natural resources, like food produce, extensive cash crops, gold, bauxite, iron ore, oil and gas, with our talents and energy to turn our nation into an economic powerhouse in West Africa and beyond.
16.05.2016 LISTEN

His mood changed. Sadness and confusion became the masters of his life. Where was he standing, which way to move forward at the crossroad he was standing on? It was entirely up to him what to do next. Nobody was there to force him for anything. At any moment his bike was there to take him to any place in this world, further on his search for freedom. Somewhere absolute freedom must be possible to be found, was he more and more convinced.

A human cannot be left alone and apart from knowing about it and experiencing at least part of it. That would not be fair from any creator given unto somebody with intelligence like a human being. No, he stood firm on both feet; no, there must be a solution to it, freedom cannot be just a word. As he knew from Propaedeutic, that a thing, physically or spiritually, is given a word from its own language and by doing so gets a certain destined meaning not comparable to any other.

Jan slowly went to his small Apartment, turned on the lights, killed a few mosquitos leaving small blood stains at the four walls as manifestation of his power over useless lives behind, maneuvered the blue treated mosquito net over his bed, crawled under it and fell asleep.

In the middle of the night he woke up again; his heart was running away, beating loud in his chest, and forcing him to pack his belonging, He got his bike, pushed it down the hill to the open gate at which the Watchman was sleeping. He turned back thinking, the most useless expenditure in life is to pay for a Watchman that is sleeping at nights. A smile brightened up his face, while he rode down the empty street, with no street lights showing him the way, towards Afula knowing Haifa with Mount Camel would be sleeping that night in his back some forty kilometers away towards the Mediterranean Sea.

While crossing Turkey into Greece heading for his hometown Hamburg in the North of Germany, the most beautiful city in Germany as he always said, and one of the most beautiful cities in this world. He knew that human actions and thinking are the products of the extreme. Only because we know what is wrong, we know what is right. Something that is sweet makes us understand what is sour or salty. We need the extremes in our life as a guiding line and light to find our way in the darkness and daylight of life, to our left and right, like streetlights along highways, otherwise we would run around like mad people with nothing to hold on to. Between the extremes we find many colours and ways to move our own little life forward towards the final end and attempt to fulfill our assignment given to us before we were born.

Through Austria he crossed over into Germany. Bavaria was never a state of Germany for him to enjoy for which reason he was relieved when seeing Frankfurt am Main in the far distance. From there Hamburg was only five hundred Kilometers away always heading straight North.

He left Hanover and Lueneburg to his left following the route of the Autobahn leading him to Hamburg. More and more cars with HH on their number plates, short for Hansestadt Hamburg, were passing him giving him the warm feeling of home. Leaving the Elbbruecken in Hamburg-Harburg behind him the vast Hamburg Port, the second largest in Europe in which all Cocoa Beans from West Africa are unloaded, opened up laying in the river Elbe just before him. This was truly the city not only of his birth and childhood, but the center of his heart, the place he belonged to and no matter where life will let him be, Hamburg will always be called home.

Blind folded he found his way down to a landing pier from which in the far distance Dock 8 from Blohm & Voss was visible; this night with a vast white Cruise Liner from Cunard Lines in dock for repair. The lights coming from the passenger cabins reminded him of the night in Israel looking unto the cotton fields with their bright shining cotton giving light into the darkness around.

Three hundred meters in front of him at a concrete wall of a warehouse with its giant brownish gates, was an over dimensional poster glued to the grey wall. It was a pleasant, heartwarming scenery. A beautiful young lady topless was standing on a white sandy beach, in the back blue sky like endless water, coconut palms as far as the eye could see. She was leaning at a brown, square small table. A slim glass filled with red wine, a carafe with red wine, a silver plate with raw, red meat were the decorations on the table. Jan was thinking by himself, what else someone could wish for in this dark night while the lights at the landing pier were focusing their shimmering light unto the picture taken from Paradise Island.

An old couple restless, walking their dog and saw the young man standing and starring in front of the poster his bike carelessly dropped to the ground. They looked at each other asking themselves quietly what this scene would mean. They turned their heads again to Jan seeing him gaining momentum to run towards the Poster. Ever faster and faster was he running with a clear goal to reach the poster with the young beautiful girl standing at the table. They did not hear the bang as Jan crashed against the wall, falling dead to the ground. The poster was damaged. A blood spot the size of the head of a new born baby, was visible on the Bikini Slip of the young woman, which was all.

As human thinking and actions are the product of the extremes, absolute freedom can only be found in our extreme moment of absolute freedom and relative or no freedom. While being in our mothers womb, we are absolutely dependent physically, emotionally and spiritually on and in our mother feeling the tightness of her body all around us not have any chance to escape on our own will or by our own initiative. When the moment of delivery comes, we see the open space of this world, we are absolute free, not depending on anybody, can feel and see freedom in its purest possible form while seconds later we are touched again and limited in our movement freedom, are educated into a family and society not of our own choice, but of GOD and our destiny to be covered into our assignment given in life. In the moment of our birth, we are as close as possible to our absolute freedom as never ever again in life. Because we lack knowledge and clear consciousness, we cannot make full benefit out of this situation and for that never really reach it. Jan was not able to accept this life conditions, wanted with the body of a man and the mind of an adult go back into the mother he once came from refusing to acknowledge that this is physically and spiritually no longer possible, had to die because of his inability not to agree with a human life in which we are destined to head down to the bottom of our true existence and find ourselves in its purest form. Life is there to live it and find peace with the fact we will never ever be able to find absolute freedom, peace, happiness, our soul, but have to run and run each day to come ever more closer to ourselves; this is the driving force behind us staying alive until it is no more in our own hands to be on earth but to descend into heaven.

Author: Dipl.-Pol. Karl-Heinz Heerde, Sakumono Estate, Block D10, Aprt. 9, Tema West, Ghana, phone +233(0)265078287, [email protected] , 13.05.2016
The Hague (AFP) - The effects of a deliberate campaign of mass rapes in the Central African Republic by the forces of former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba a decade ago will be felt for generations, war crimes judges heard Monday.

Research among scores of victims from the 2002-2003 violence showed "alarmingly high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder," US expert Daryn Reicherter told the International Criminal Court (ICC).

War crimes judges in The Hague are holding three days of hearings to determine their sentence on Bemba after he was convicted of five charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The five months of brutality unleashed by Bemba's Liberation Movement (MLC) in a bid to put down an attempted coup in CAR had caused "appalling" and "almost certainly long-lasting damage" to the population, Reicherter said.

"A single individual rape can be felt across multiple generations," he insisted, appearing for the prosecution.

The stress of such an ordeal can cause actual biological changes in a victim's brain, leaving them more vulnerable to PTSD and serious psychological problems.

There were also often several tragic outcomes including the breakdown of marriages, potentially leaving victims struggling on their own to care for their families.

Child rape victims suffered even greater damage, he warned.

Bemba's case is the first before the ICC to focus on sexual violence as a weapon of war, as well as to stress a military commander's responsibility for the action of his troops.

In their March verdict, the judges listed a chilling litany of rapes, murders and atrocities committed in CAR by MLC troops.

- 'Terror and torture' -

Men, women and children were all raped -- in one case three generations of the same family were gang-raped by MLC soldiers who held them at gun point and forced relatives to watch.

"This was not about sexual gratification, this was about terror and torture," the expert from Stanford University, California, said.

It was "more about humilation and control of a population," he added.

After a lengthy trial which opened in November 2010, the judges found Bemba guilty on all charges in March.

The three judges found the notorious rebel leader had retained "effective command and control" over the 1,500 MLC troops he sent to CAR to quell an attempted coup against then president Ange-Felix Patasse.

Catholic Bishop Fridolin Ambongo, appearing earlier for the defence as a character witness, sought to show that Bemba and the MLC had played a role in bringing "peace and stability" to the northwestern Equateur province of Democratic Republic of Congo.

While he said he had no knowledge of what had happened in neighbouring CAR, in his DR Congo province the MLC forces had "made it possible for the population to feel peace finally, because the MLC came to re-establish everything that had been destroyed."

The judges will pass sentence at an as yet unscheduled date, after also hearing this week from two victims.

But Bemba could face up to 30 years in jail -- or even a life sentence, if the court considers such a term is "justified by the extreme gravity of the crime".

A wealthy businessman-turned-warlord, Bemba became one of four vice presidents in the transitional government of DR Congo President Joseph Kabila.

In 2006, he lost to Kabila in a presidential election run-off and fled to Europe. He was arrested in 2008 in Brussels and handed over to the ICC.

His MLC militia has since morphed into a political party and is currently the second-largest opposition group in the National Assembly.
An Opinion piece by Tshekedi S. Khama, Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism of Botswana

IT is impossible to look out over the winding waterways and lush green wetlands of the magnificent Okavango Delta and fail to understand the importance of conserving the natural world.

A World Heritage Site teeming with plants, fish, birds and home to some of the planets most endangered animals, the delta is one of Botswanas  and Africas  most impressive natural jewels.

It is clear that the world has a moral obligation to save areas of wild beauty like these: the planet would be poorer without them.

But its not only about saving nature for natures sake. It is also about recognising that the natural world, when looked after correctly, can contribute immensely in tackling some of the most critical problems facing humanity, from hunger to poverty, disease to climate change.

Here, in Sub Saharan Africa, more than 70 per cent of people depend on forests and woodlands for a living. Ecosystems like the Okavango Delta play a key role in Botswanas economy, providing livelihoods for herders, farmers and fishermen alike in addition to the revenue accrued from tourism.

If we are to advance some of humanitys highest ideals, then we need to improve the way we manage these vital ecosystems and sustainably harness the essential resources they provide us with.

Nowhere is the need for this greater than here in Africa. Reducing poverty, creating jobs, combatting climate change, ending hunger and driving sustainable economic growth on the continent  goals set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development  will require trillions of dollars at a time when international financial assistance to Africa is on the decline.

But, despite the daunting costs involved, the potential for real transformation is there. Africa holds 30 per cent of the worlds mineral reserves, roughly 65 per cent of its arable land and 10 per cent of its internal renewable fresh water sources. Its fisheries are estimated to be worth $24 billion and the continent boasts the second largest tropical forest in the world.

These are just some of the resources that make up Africas vast reserves of natural capital  the environmental assets that, if managed properly, could drive the continents transformation.

But simply extracting these resources will not be enough to bring long-lasting change. If current population and consumption trends continue, humanity will need the equivalent of two Earths to support itself by 2030. This is clearly not viable in a world where climate change will make it even harder for the natural world to provide for our basic needs.

So, instead of simply extracting natural resources and exploiting natural capital we need to start managing them sustainably. The economic incentives for this are compelling. Africa alone could save as much as $103 billion every year by harnessing its natural capital in a sustainable way  money that could then be pumped back into alleviating poverty, providing access to clean energy and improving education and health.

There are even more savings to be made by stemming the illicit flow of money from illegal logging, the illegal trade in wildlife, illegal fishing, illegal mining practices and degraded ecosystems.

In addition, sub-Saharan Africa currently spends $35 billion every year on food imports, a vast amount when you consider that only 3.5 million hectares out of a possible 240 million hectares of land suitable for wetland rice cultivation have been exploited.

By one of the most conservative estimates, the illegal plunder of the continents natural resources, its food imports and the damage done to its ecosystems loses Africa $195 billion every year.

This astonishing figure exceeds the total amount of money that Africa requires every year to invest in improving infrastructure, healthcare and education, and combating climate change  all key goals of the 2030 Agenda.

If Africa is to achieve the sustainable development goals, then it is vital that we reverse these losses. This will require governments to roll back the damage done to ecosystems and tackle illicit financial flows. We can then redirect the recovered funds back into African economies and ensure that these funds are used to boost natural capital-based sectors like clean energy and agriculture.

The benefits of doing this are clear. In Africa, simply increasing crop yields by 10 per cent equates to a seven per cent reduction in poverty. Providing access to clean energy will reduce the indoor pollution that kills 600,000 people every year on the continent. And reversing environmental degradation and prioritising healthy ecosystems not only combats climate change but also helps to tackle desertification and reduce biodiversity loss.

Strong work has already gone into laying the foundation for a future that recognises the importance of natural capital. In 2012, in Botswana, a meeting between African heads of state and public and private sector partners adopted the Gaborone Declaration for Sustainability in Africa.

The aim of the declaration is to ensure that the contributions of natural capital to sustainable economic growth, maintenance and improvement of social capital and human well-being are quantified and integrated into development and business practice.

This month, at the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment in Cairo, Egypt, Africa will seek to build on the momentum generated in Gaborone by focusing on how natural capital can contribute to implementing the 2030 Agenda and the African Unions Agenda 2063 and its first ten-year plan, which aims to achieve a prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development.

These are major steps forward but they are only the beginning of the fight for a brighter, more prosperous future.To rally the world to greater action, countries like Botswana are pushing for the international community to come up with a clear plan on how best to manage natural capital in a way that fosters sustainable development and eradicates poverty.

In May 2016, countries will meet in Nairobi for the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA)  the worlds most powerful decision-making body on the environment. At UNEA, Botswana, the DRC, Kenya and Zimbabwe will table a resolution that seeks to develop policies and programmes that will enable countries to sustainably harness natural capital, crack down on illicit financial flows, reverse the degradation of environmental assets and foster international cooperation.

It is crucial that the world comes together to pass this resolution so that we can expand and diversify our economies, create jobs, achieve food security, enhance the productivity of our ecosystems and achieve a more inclusive society.

These are noble ideals that we urgently need to make a reality. This is the Africa that we want and it is the future that people all over the world deserve.
An Opinion piece by Amina Mohammed, Minister of Environment for Nigeria

Africas transformation lies in the continents rich soil. If we protect the ecosystems that sustain us we can lift Africans out of poverty, achieve food security, build climate resilience, create wealth and end hunger.

THERE is an old Nigerian proverb that says fine words do not produce food. So I will keep my words as simple and clear as possible.

Africa is facing a harsh reality. One in every two people on the continent lives in extreme poverty. In 15 years, most of the worlds poor will reside here in Africa. Sadly, as I write, about 240 million people go to bed hungry every night while malnutrition kills more than 50% of the African children who die before they reach the age of five.

These stark statistics are hard to grapple with. But imagine for a moment the pain of a mother who cannot feed her new-born daughter with the proper food she needs to live beyond the age of five. Imagine the mother who toils all day in the field but still goes to bed with a stomach aching from hunger because she cannot afford enough food to feed her family.

And now picture this: millions of perfectly good, nutritious tomatoes rotting in the hot Nigerian sun. For this is the reality: that, while 13 million Nigerians suffer from hunger and more than one million children suffer from malnutrition, the country wastes 75% of the 1.5 million tonnes of tomatoes it grows every year.

And yet, despite the waste of this nutritious fruit, Nigeria spends $1 billion every year on importing tomato paste.

There is another West African proverb: it is a fool whose tomatoes are sold to him. But I believe I can improve upon this proverb: for the true fool is the man who grows enough tomatoes to feed himself only to throw them away and buy someone elses tomatoes. Yet this is exactly what happens here in Nigeria.

This is not just a Nigerian problem. It is an African problem. Sub-Saharan Africa spends $35 billion on importing food every year and the region loses a further $48 billion from food that is wasted post-harvest because of poor roads, inadequate storage and poor access to markets.

These are enormous sums of money that, when added to the $68 billion the continent loses every year because of depleted soils and degraded land, could be ploughed back into African economies to drive the transformation that the continent so badly needs.

The money saved could be used to empower more women, end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, combat climate change, create jobs and promote sustainable agriculture -all of which are key goals set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

What makes the situation even more frustrating is that 65 per cent of the worlds arable land and 10 per cent of its inland water resources are found right here in Africa.

But if these numbers are alarming then they should also give us cause for hope for they tell us that the roots of Africas transformation lie in the continents rich soil. These are not just fine words: simply raising crop yields by 10 per cent reduces poverty by about seven per cent. Neither the manufacturing nor service sectors can boast to have such a profound impact on poverty.

The challenge will be in harnessing the fertile soil of Africa at a time when climate change will make it increasingly difficult to grow enough food to feed the continents booming population, which is expected to double in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2050.

Today, , we already have the knowledge to do this. Simply raising agricultural productivity is not enough. If we want to achieve food security we must ensure that we look after the vital ecosystems that allow us to produce our food.

This means looking after the bees and insect pollinators that are necessary for the growth of 75 per cent of all our crops. It means looking after our soils and our water sources. It means protecting the rich biodiversity in our forests. It means building climate resilience. And it means sharing the knowledge and the technology that allows us to do all of these things.

If we can do this  if we can optimise food production by embracing an ecosystem-based adaptation approach to agriculture  we can boost yields by up to 128 per cent.

What is even better about this approach is that it does not have to require enormous resources. There is an ancient farming technique in West Africa called zai. This simple technology  a demi-circle dug into dry soil and used to grow seedlings  can turn crusted land into nurseries by improving water retention, protecting seeds from being washed away, concentrating nutrients and improving soil structure.

If properly executed, zai can increase yields by up to 500 per cent in some of the trickiest terrains on earth. It is already having a major impact on the dry Sahel region where it has reclaimed severely degraded farmlands and raised farm yields from virtually nothing to 300 to 400kg of crops per hectare in a year of low rainfall. Simple technology like must be shared across the continent.

We must also focus our efforts on improving every part of the food chain. We will have to improve our transport links and storage facilities so that we dont waste so much food after it is harvested. We need to link farmers to markets and we need to build local, regional and national partnerships to deliver these improvements.

The benefits of an ecosystem-based adaptation approach to agriculture are clear. Not only will this approach help the continent achieve food security  one of the key sustainable development goals  but, in doing so, the continent can begin to hit a series of other targets set by the 2030 Agenda.

Investing in ecosystem-based adaptation-driven-agriculture and its linkages to sustainable commercial value chains could boost farmers incomes and create up to 17 million jobs while catalysing an agricultural sector that is expected to be worth $1 trillion by 2030.

By prioritizing healthy ecosystems with this type of agriculture, we can also help to combat climate change, reverse environmental degradation, which is costing the continent up to $68 billion annually, fight desertification and stop biodiversity loss.

And, on top of all this, we can also produce more nutritious food that has greater immune boosting compounds than conventionally produced food, boosting human health and well-being.

This is why the creation of the Africa Ecosystems Based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly (EBAFOSA), which serves as the continental policy platform to foster and nurture partnerships through branch formation in each African country, is necessary.

The forum targets policy, demonstrates how EBA-driven agriculture works, enhances access to renewable energy that can power agro-processing and boosts access to markets. The launch of EBOFOSA branches across the continent, including one in Nigeria last month, is a step in the right direction.

Next month, 193 countries will meet at the UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi for the United Nations Environment Assembly  the worlds Parliament on the Environment. It is vital that the international community uses this opportunity to recognise that healthy ecosystems underpin human health, wellbeing, livelihoods, jobs and sustainable growth.

Ultimately, an ecosystems-based adaptation approach to agriculture means working with nature so that we can grow the food we need without damaging the vital ecosystems that sustain all of us.

As the continent continues to battle with climate change, we can no longer afford to play the proverbial fool for we already know that the continents transformation lies in the richness of the African soil. And we already know how to harness this vast potential. So the time has come for us to put aside our fine words, pick up our tools and start to sow the seeds of the future we so desperately want.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond statement on the international meeting in Vienna with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al Serraj and members of the Libyan Presidency Council.

Following the meeting Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said:

"There is strong support from the international community for the Libyan Political Agreement and the new Libyan Government of National Accord to succeed. This meeting has helped to maintain momentum to demonstrate the unity of that support.

I welcome Prime Minister Serraj and the Presidency Council's commitment to tackle the important issues for the people of Libya and deliver the peace and stability they deserve. I encouraged Prime Minister Serraj to continue to establish a unified security command structure and national counter Daesh strategy and resolve the leadership and unity of the Libyan financial institutions, including the Central Bank, the National Oil Corporation, and the Libyan Investment Authority.
16.05.2016 LISTEN

By Emmuanuel Akli

Despite the slump in cocoa production from the record one million metric tonnes recorded in 2008 to the low of 696,000 metric tonnes recorded in the 2014/2015 crop season, management and workers of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) are fighting over perks, instead of concentrating their attention on how to increase production. For the past two weeks, the two combatants have been engaged in accusations and counter accusations without providing any shred of evidence to back their claims, as this year's long drought is threatening the growth of the cash crop.

Attempts by the Minister of Employment, Haruna Iddrisu to broker peace have yielded no positive result, as Dr. Stephen Opuni, who heads the COCOBOD, has reportedly snubbed the invitation. The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) and General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) who first fired the salvo, accused the Chief Executive Officer of the COCOBOD, Dr. Opuni of splurging $24,000 on one foreign trip.

The CEO was further accused of using thousands of dollars to renovate his official residence at the expense of the Board. No single evidence has so far been put out in the public domain to support the claims being made against Dr. Opuni by the ICU, except a terse statement that his conduct has been reported to the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice.

The ICU has gone public with the 'exposure' because Dr. Stephen Opuni has refused to negotiate the conditions of service of the COCOBOD workers, who are also members of the Union. According to the ICU, they wrote a letter to the COCOBOD CEO which he did not respond. They later got to know that he had dealt with a retired worker, who has been given a contract to negotiate the conditions of service, on behalf of the workers, which to them was illegal.

According to the workers union, when the Minister of Employment on three occasions wrote to Dr. Stephen Opuni, inviting him to a meeting to resolve the impasse, the COCOBOD CEO on all occasions turned down the request. It was as a result of this situation that they decided to blow the cover on the alleged dealings going on at the COCOBOD. The ICU further alleged that some management staff had colluded to secretly sell cocoa, amounting to $10 million.

The destination and buyers of the said cocoa was not mentioned. The ICU and GAWU, however, regretted that workers who expressed concern over the conduct of COCOBOD management are arbitrarily transferred. Neither Dr. Samuel Opuni nor his management team has officially reacted to these accusations.

The Chairman of the disputed Supreme Consultative Council of Cocoa Industry Workers Union, Alhaji Iddris Hassan, who attempted to offer some kind of explanation, also went overboard by leveling accusations against ICU, GAWU and even the Minister of Employment, Haruna Iddrisu.

According to Hassan, when Dr. Stephen Opuni was first appointed by President Mahama, a group of people behind the current agitations by the ICU attempted to scupper the decision of the president. To him, Dr. Opuni reports to the Finance Minister, Mr. Seth Terkper and not Haruna Iddrisu.

To Alhaji Iddris Hassan, Dr. Opuni cannot be forced to attend a meeting called at the instance of Haruna Iddrisu, and also at a time when the COCOBOD CEO was not even in Accra. Efforts made by The Chronicle to speak to Mr. Haruna Iddrisu yesterday proved unsuccessful. The Chronicle roaming reporter, Bernice Bessey is, however, quoting Alhaji Iddris Hassan as saying that the workers who demonstrated against Dr. Opuni were not COCOBOD workers and that the genuine workers love their CEO and would want him to stay in office.

Addressing a news conference in Accra over the weekend, Alhaji Idris Hassan said Dr. Opuni could not have responded to Haruna Iddrisu's summons, because the issues he had wanted to settle was not between workers and management, but between Cocoa Industry Workers Union, Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) and General Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU).

Certainly, management wouldn't have allowed Dr. Opuni to attend such a meeting because the issue was not about Dr. Stephen Opuni, he said. Additionally, he noted that COCOBOD CEO answers to the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning. He emphatically said the board was not in crisis, as cited by the demonstrators who were alleged to be workers of West Africa Mills Company (WAMCO).

Industry players who spoke to The Chronicle expressed concern over the turmoil and called for appropriate intervention to salvage the cocoa sector of the economy. COCOBOD came under public scrutiny after failing to sustain and even go beyond the one million metric tonnes of production. The development is being attributed partially to the politicization of the mass cocoa spraying exercise, which reportedly favours farmers who have strong affinity for the government.

Other inputs such as fertilizers, meant to enrich the nutrients in the soil, are also diverted by top officials for sale outside the cocoa regions and even sometimes outside the country. Farmers do not also get the right seedlings for planting.

All these, coupled with lack of motivation, have contributed to the reduction in production of the cash crop, which remains the number one exchange earner for the country. Last fiscal year, the central government had to rely on the $1.8 billion borrowed from syndicated banks in Europe to shore up the value of the then fast depreciating local currency, the cedi.
16.05.2016 LISTEN

Ghana's economy has recorded steady positive growth and substantial transformation for the past 30 years, economists have said in a report. However, they have raised worry over the widening inequality gap disfavouring the poor.

According to the Ghana Poverty and Inequality Report, released in 2016, while around a third of all national consumption is attributed to the wealthiest 10 per cent, the poorest 10 per cent citizens consume just 1.72 per cent.

The widened disparity in income, they say, now sees the richest people consuming 6.8 times more food than the poorest, increasing up by 0.4 in the last 10 years. Professor Andy Mckay of the Economics Department of University of Sussex, England, who presented the report in Accra, said: The growth rate among the two groups has witnessed positive trends since the 1990s, but the poor's growth rate has been lower than the wealthiest groups.

McKay said: A policy is needed to address this phenomenon and ensure that the poorest benefit more equitably. The report, commissioned by the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF), covered a period of 20 years. Policymakers, economists, representatives of civil society groups and a host of development partners attended the launch of the report.

Looking at consumption levels, we see that the gap between the poorest 10 per cent and the richest 10 per cent of the population has been on the rise, and has also increased since 2006, Mr. Mackay said. We also found that the average consumption of this wealthiest group increased by 27 per cent between 2006 and 2013, whereas for the poorest, it only increased by 19 per cent, meaning growth for the richest group was over 1.4 times greater than for the poorest in this period.

However, he observed that within the same period, the poorest started catching up  albeit very slowly  with better off groups, in terms of consumption levels. The slowdown in disparity has been ascribed to targeted programmes such as the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty cash transfer for the extreme poor.

While this might have contributed to the effect, the researchers noted multiple factors related to the economy's transformation and urbanisation could have been responsible. The report says while growth has driven poverty reduction, the increase in inequality has dampened poverty reduction efforts and limited poverty reduction.

The report says, since 2006, the rise in inequality cut down poverty reduction by 1.1 percentage points, equivalent to maintaining around 289,822 people in poverty since that period, who could have otherwise exited it.

Between 1992 and 2006, the effect also shrank poverty reduction by 2.5 percentage points, translating into 555,422 people. The Upper West has the highest level of inequality, and largest increase in inequality since the 1990s, while the lowest level of inequality is found in the Greater Accra Region.

Source: GNA
The chairman of the Church of Pentecost Apostle Dr. Opoku Onyinah has described President John Mahama as a tolerant and democratic leader.

According to him, he is confident the President and his government will ensure a free and fair elections come November 7.

In a state-of-the-church address posted on the churchs website, the Pentecost leader commended former presidents of the country for their role in deepening democracy in the Ghana.

We are all witnesses of how God has dealt well with Ghana as a nation. This years elections will mark the sixth Ghana has conducted in the Fourth Republic. So far, each one of them has been marked with peace.

We are grateful to previous governments who ensured that the Constitution of Ghana was upheld. Observing that the incumbent President of Ghana is very democratic and tolerant, we trust that he and his government will continue to ensure that free and fair elections are conducted, Dr. Onyinah stated.

He continued: We also commend the role that the leaders of the opposition parties over the years have played, especially the presidential candidates who graciously accepted the results. We trust that the opposition parties, especially the main opposition party, will cooperate with the government and the Electoral Commission, for Ghana to once again lift high the banner of Africa. Furthermore, we believe that the success story of the elections have been partly due to the confidence Ghanaians have had in the electoral processes and the work of the Electoral Commission. We commend their good work".
By Samuel Akapule, GNA

Bolgatanga, May 16, GNA - One person was shot dead, while another sustained serious gunshot wounds in a robbery attack on the Bolgatanga-Navrongo Highway.

The incident occurred at about 0200 hours at the junction of the Bolgatanga High Court. The victims were among three occupants of a DAF articulated truck en route from Kumasi to neighbouring Burkina Faso.

Narrating the incident to the GNA, Mr Francis Osei, one of the driver's mates, who survived the robbery, said after driving for long hours, they decided to park for a while to rest and continue the journey the next day.

He said the truck, with registration number 11 HL 4886, was parked along the road when two unidentified men wielding short guns approached them and requested them to produce their belongings or risk losing their lives.

He said they were, subsequently, asked to lie on the floor but the deceased, whose name was given as Baba Taller, declined.

He said after refusing to heed to their request, Taller engaged the robbers in a hot verbal exchange, demanding an explanation as to why they should produce their belongings.

One of the robbers, he said, then pulled the trigger and killed Taller on the spot.

The driver, sensing danger, decided to retaliate but he was overpowered by the robbers who shot him.

The robbers then sped off on a motorbike after robbing them of their monies and mobile phones.

The lifeless body of Taller had been covered with a cloth at the time the GNA got to the scene.

The driver, who is said to be in a critical condition, is currently on admission at the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital.

Meanwhile, the Regional Police Command, is carrying out thorough investigations to enable them to arrest the robbers.

Some residents who spoke to the GNA on condition of anonymity, expressed dismay about the robbery and called on the Police to intensify their highway patrol to save road users from such attacks.

GNA
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business Snapdeal-Housing.com deal goes for a toss: Sources Analysts have pegged Housing.com's valuations at around USD 300 million but CNBC-TV18 learns that that Snapdeal is keen on picking up the online real-estate firm at a 20-30 percent discount to this number.
you are here:
business Discounts not needed to lure FIIs: Economic Secy Regarding the Know Your Customer norms that investors will have to meet when instruments exchange hands under this tweaked Mauritius treaty, Shaktikanta Das said the guidelines already exist. Sebi has fine-tuned them and made them more robust.
business Oil PSUs to invest Rs 80,000 crore in capex in FY16: Pradhan The government plans to invest in improving infrastructure in oil and gas sector, says Oil & Gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
business Don't think a 15-16% growth in earnings is a given: Udayan Although there were pullbacks in the market, there was a lot of resistance around the 7800 levels, says Udayan Mukherjee in a freewheeling chat with CNBC-TV18.
business India a sector & stock-specific story;Nifty seen beyond 8k: Rare With Nifty rising 17 percent and Bank Nifty falling 30 percent, banking has become one of the best opportunities to play from a long-term perspective in Indian market, says Atul Suri, Trader, Rare Enterprises.
Stock Market Live: JSW Steel may be down but is it out? | Markets with Santo & CJ
The chronicle of a life split between urban Manhattan and rural Montana.
Emma Wall: Hello and welcome to Morningstar Series Ask the Expert. Im Emma Wall and Im joined today by Morningstar Investment Managements Simon Molica.

Hi, Simon.

Simon Molica: Hi, Emma.

Wall: So were here today to talk about U.K. commercial property, an incredibly popular asset class with our readers because of course it has being kicking off as very attractive yield in a very low yielding environment. It has done very well, what performance are we looking at?

Molica: Well, I think its important for us to remind ourselves whats actually happened. So, if we think of the period of June 2007 to 2009, we saw quite a dramatic crash really, peak to trough 40% off, so thats a lot in property. Generally, what we like from property is for it to be a yielding asset class and inflation protected. But given that supply and demand characteristics, can actually make it quite cyclical in nature. So we had a big crash, which actually meant after that period it was quite attractive.

So a very high yield, prices have fallen a lot. But actually what weve seen since then is a strong recovery, we really have. I mean, total return perspective very strong indeed and as you highlight a good yield as well now. And a lot of people have really gone into the sector, its being very popular and weve seen flows quite dramatically really rise in that area too.

Wall: 2014, 2015, we saw double-digit returns in the index and if you think about what the FTSE for example in over those two years, you can understand why flows have chased that performance. Were at a position now though where weve thinking actually is that sustainable and youve taken the decision in one of your managed portfolios actually no longer to be exposed because you dont think that kind of growth is sustainable to you.

Molica: Yeah, I mean, its a really interesting time for property. Its being extremely strong as you say and I think there are some great risks out there with property and liquidity is one of the real risk that people need to be aware of. There has been a strong recovery, but you've got to question what the risks will be and we think of liquidity as being very important. So actually in this asset class we like to be quite cautious and we like to really exit quite early - as early as possible. The returns have been strong and the yield is still good. So actually in some investors, its still appropriate to maintain that asset class.

Wall: For those ones that have solely focused on income there youre thinking.

Molica: Yeah, its a very good point. So at Morningstar we have a range, the income range, focused on sustainability of income. Now property deliveries you that, so actually being able to invest throughout the cycle makes sense for product. But in the active range, one of the co-managers of that range, we decided to exit and what weve really done over the last 12 months is being reducing our property exposure gradually. We don't think theres going to be as much of a continued recovery in the capital valuation side of property and its now mostly the majority of that total return will come from income.

Now saying that we think the income will still be okay, yields are obviously less than what they were as yields have compressed when weve see the recovery. But you know, tenant demand and the occupation side, theyre still strong. Companies are willing to spend money, theyre willing to pay CapEx, theyre willing to pay up for rents. And that could drive a good income return, but as a kind of total return, then we just think actually we cant what weve experienced over the last two years, it's unlikely to be that strong, which then leads us to think about what are the asset classes we can invest in over property.

Our property exposure has been incredibly high over the last two years. Its been very overweighed and weve just taken the advantage to bring that down to neutral and actually more recently exited completely in the active range.

Wall: And thats just saying because you cant get better growth opportunities elsewhere.

Molica: Yeah, there is more attractive options elsewhere, equities probably look a little bit more attractive than they were, but were thinking about at six, nine months ago. But to be honest, absolute return is somewhere were actually putting a bit of capital as well. Because to be fair fixed income is quite expensive, equities are broadly around fair value.

Wall: And theres a lot of uncertainty in the market.

Molica: There is, yeah. There is a lot of uncertainty, but actually someone has spoken about a lot at the moment and you know the uncertainty does cause issues and actually cashes somewhere we think is protect investors for the moment certainly, while with these issues get ironed out.

Wall: Simon, thank you very much.

Molica: Thank you, Emma.

Wall: This is Emma Wall for Morningstar. Thank you for watching.
Investors will finally receive their $8.5 billion settlement from Bank of America for mortgages originated by its Countrywide unit.



Last week, a New York judge finally approved the settlement order, according to a HousingWire report. The case has dragged on since 2011, when the parties originally agreed to the $8.5 billion settlement. But after the settlement, some investors questioned whether Bank of New York Mellon, which acted as a trustee in the case, had the authority to settle the suit.



Last year, the New York Supreme Court ruled that BNY Mellon had properly executed its legal duties, HousingWire reported. But finalization of the settlement had to wait for the approval of a Severance Order and Partial Final Judgment. That approval finally came through last week.



Bank of America's January 2008 acquisition of the then-biggest residential mortgage lender in the nation, Countrywide Home Loans, for $4.1 billion has since cost the megabank tens of billions in settlements and legal expenses, including a record $16.65 billion settlement with the Department of Justice in August 2014 over the sales of faulty securities leading up to the financial crisis.
HOUSTON  EOG Resources says it can get triple-digit returns at $60 a barrel oil, a sign the company has whittled down drilling costs as it moves rigs to its most profitable spots.

Outlining a new strategy, the Houston oil company said Friday it has pointed its drill bits at its top-shelf locations in South Texas Eagle Ford Shale and elsewhere that get a minimum 30 percent return at $40 oil.

Our shift to premium is permanent and not simply a temporary high-grading process in a low-commodity price environment, EOG Resources Chief Executive Bill Thomas told investors. If history is any indication, we will continue to push the oil price needed for triple-digit returns even lower.

Its a sharp departure from the wild and woolly wildcatter business model that was once common among U.S. shale drillers in the days of $100 a barrel oil.

The companys plan is among the industrys biggest moves to address the widespread problem of low oil-production rates in the once-booming shale plays at the center of the nations energy renaissance. Thomas said its an effort that extends our lead as the low-cost horizontal oil producer.

One of the reasons the downturn has been so painful for U.S. oil companies is that squeezing oil out of shale rock is expensive, and though wells across Texas and North Dakota were gushing before the downturn, the shale business has never proven itself to be profitable.

Oil companies took out hundreds of billions in debt to drill thousands of expensive wells that gave up only 4 percent to 8 percent of the buried crude and that lost 70 percent of their production in the first year. Scores of U.S. oil companies have gone bankrupt.

EOG Resources has 220 drilled wells that it hasnt brought into production but could activate once management believes the oil bust is turning into a recovery. But Thomas said the U.S. oil industry will take at least a year and $60 to $65 a barrel oil prices to restart its growth cycle after the punishing downturn.

Still, he said, his company can start pumping money back into its premium assets with oil at $15 to $20 a barrel lower than the average driller. EOG Resources could boost production by completing 40 percent of its backlog of drilled-but-uncompleted wells without renting any more oil field equipment.

Our shift to premium drilling this year is a game changer, he said. We expect well productivity to improve more than 50 percent in 2016.
Oil prices may be headed higher, but a bust like this one isnt over until bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions clean up the detritus left behind.

Almost two years after oil prices hit their most recent peak at $107 a barrel, most analysts believe the worst is over. Prices for West Texas Intermediate bottomed at $26 in February, and lately theyve been hovering around $45. We could see $60 oil by years end.

The price collapse has devastated the global industry, with 350,000 people laid off, $1 trillion in capital spending cut, and trillions more lost to bankruptcies and collapsing stock, bond and real estate prices. Those losses have hobbled the oil and gas sector, turning it into a zombie with just enough revenue to stay afloat but too much debt to recover.

Luckily, a reckoning is beginning.

Big banks have cut $6.3 billion from oil company credit lines, shrinking them an average of 18 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. With bond payments coming, 72 oil and gas companies have filed for bankruptcy since 2014, with 20 filing for Chapter 11 protection in March and April alone.

Mergers and acquisitions, though, have been the missing piece, and Im not talking about the monopolistic Halliburton and Baker Hughes kind of deal. Healthy companies buying distressed companies to develop the best fields is how the industry normally culls the herd, and that hasnt happened as expected.

M&A activity is down 40 percent from 2014, when deal activity and oil prices peaked, according to our colleagues at The Texas Lawbook. Deal-making was down 8 percent in the first quarter of 2016 compared with the same period last year, the group reported, citing data provided by research firm Mergermarket.

The problem has been the huge distance between what sellers want and how much buyers were willing to pay with prices swinging wildly. An independent exploration and production companys main asset is the value of its proven reserves, which is subject to the spot price of oil and gas, except for the barrels already sold using valuable futures contracts.

I think its hard for sellers to overcome the psychology of selling at a price that is below their expectation for the future, said Brent Ross, a principal in the energy practice at A.T. Kearney, a management consulting firm.

Buyers during a bust want low prices so they can profit when prices rise, while sellers want something closer to the most recent peak. Oil executives have held out by living off futures contracts, cutting expenses and delaying debt payments.

After two years, almost all of the futures contracts have rolled off. Thats why many are excited that prices are up 70 percent since February.

If we see a continued run-up, or strength around the current price level in the mid- to high $40s, youll see people trying to put deals together again, Ross told me. We have a lot of distressed companies in the marketplace , and once they feel they are not going to sell at a loss, they are going to rush to get deals done to avoid bankruptcy.

The problem is finding enough buyers. International oil companies are selling off assets, and national oil companies are under pressure to save. That leaves only strong independents and private equity.

M&A attorney Jim Rice, co-managing partner of Sidley Austins Houston office, said his clients believe 2016 looks like it is going to be the acquisition opportunity of a lifetime.

There is a belief that the second half will see the pace of deal closings ramp up significantly, he said. In the vast majority of cases, the buyers are private equity, hedge funds and the like. This could mean that the seeds are being sown for some potentially exciting times over the next few years as the new owners exit or monetize these investments.

These buyers will be the zombie killers, or the predators that eat the old and feeble, or pick your own metaphor.

Investors who bought when the market peaked in 2014 will suffer major losses. Employees at the worst-run companies will lose their jobs. Thats what happens during mergers and acquisitions, but its the best way to clean up the bad debt and establish realistic valuations to move forward.

Most importantly, though, the pain caused by the bust presents a teachable moment for the industry and its investors as they rebuild. They can no longer rely on OPEC to prop up prices. Instead, the worlds largest producers have become competitors trying to supply the cheapest barrel possible and fundamentally changing the oil markets.

Surviving companies will have to focus on pumping the cheapest possible barrel, using the lowest-cost technology and tapping only the best reservoirs. The days of indiscriminate borrowing and drilling are over.

Just as it took six months for oil companies to feel the price collapse, it will take at least as long for them to benefit from the recovery.

The market may have bottomed, but the healing is just beginning.
TOP STORIES

Gator Crafts Masks For

COVID-19 Effort



Manufacturer brings filtration features and musical designs to much-needed PPE.



GATOR CO. IS LEVERAGING its sewn goods design and manufacturing abilities to produce a line of protective fabric masks, designed with a pocket to hold a replaceable filter. Offered in a range of styles including music-themed designs, Gator masks will be available for retail and online sales with sales, with proceeds going toward the donation of masks and filters to those in need. All masks and filters will be made in and distributed from the U.S.

The demand for masks is very serious, said Gator CEO Crystal Morris. I read the media reports and researched ways we can help with the mask shortage. We needed to respond, and we have the capabilities to make a positive impact. And we wanted to stick to our music roots with a few fun music patterns. Were excited to be able to help in any way as we all rally to get through this.

Gator's mask designs include two musical styles.





Gators masks are made from cotton fabric for comfort, with adjustable straps for a secure fit. Each mask will be sold with a felt replacement filter cut to fit inside the mask. Five patterns are available now, including two music-themed patterns. Package also includes die-cut instructions to make your own replaceable filters. Felt replacement filters are also for sale in three-packs.

Available online: https://shop.gatorco.com/masks/
Someone should sue the President for ...
Political Signs - Sanguinetti Loop In Sonora View Photos

Sonora, CA  As there are several high profile local races, the last day to register to vote before the June Primary is one week away.

Those who vote by mail were sent a ballot last week, according to Tuolumne County Clerk and Auditor Controller Debi Bautista. She notes that the deadline to register before the June 7 election is Monday, May 23. The last day to request a vote by mail ballot is Tuesday, May 31.

Also of note, California has a growing number of No Party Preference voters. If you decline to state a political party, you are allowed to vote in either the Democratic, Libertarian or American Independent parties presidential races. To do so, you will need to tell the poll worker at the polling place that you would like a cross-over ballot. If you receive your ballot by mail, however, you need to request a cross-over ballot by filling out a form from the local elections office. Click here for Tuolumne Countys application.

The Republican Party does not allow cross-over voting so to vote in the GOP primary you would need to register as a member of the party before May 23.

Also of note, you can vote early by simply stopping by the Tuolumne County Elections Office. Early voting is currently available during the work week (8am-5pm) or you can stop by the Saturday before Election Day (9am-1pm). Bautista notes that around 50 have stopped by to vote early thus far.

To find where the local candidates stand on the various issues you can find the full audio from the recent Tuolumne County Chamber of Commerces Candidates Night, by clicking here. To find out what they said at a recent forum hosted by the Tuolumne County Farm Bureau, click here.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents are investigating the circumstances surrounding a deputy-involved shooting in Volusia County Saturday night.

Incident occurred near State Road 415 in Osteen

Deputy involved said the man he shot was armed

Investigators say the incident occurred in the area of State Road 415 in Osteen.

"[Deputies] were just out on routine patrol and spotted a vehicle and did what they're supposed to do: stopped to check it out," said Volusia County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Gary Davidson. Davidson went on to say deputies initially thought the vehicle was abandoned on the side of the road

"When they approached the vehicle, they realized that it was actually occupied, there was someone in the front seat, in the driver seat," said Davidson.



That's when, according to Davidson, deputies saw a handgun in the back seat.

"At that time, they ordered the suspect to remain still and not reach for the gun," explained Davidson. "Instead of doing what he was told, suspect took off his shirt and he draped it over the inside of the driver side window, evidently to try to obscure the view of the deputies. Moments later, the shirt started falling down, and at that point the suspect was now in the back seat holding the gun."

Investigators say deputies on scene ordered the suspect to put down the weapon. When the suspect refused, Deputy Miguel Kent fired his weapon at the suspect.

"Based on what we know right now, our deputy had the reasonable belief that suspect was about to fire his gun, and at that point it was either him or us," said Davidson. "The deputy did exactly what he was trained to do."

Sheriff's Office officials directed inquiries regarding whether a handgun was recovered from the scene to the FDLE. Officials did reiterate that any law enforcement officer involved in a shooting may face charges depending on the results of the investigation.

Deputy Kent, a 13-year veteran deputy, is on administrative leave with pay while the investigation is ongoing.


Kentucky voters pick their favored candidate for president on Tuesday, and Hillary Clinton is making a big, final push for their support. But rival Bernie Sanders hopes to add Kentucky to his string of wins and further delay Clinton's clinching the Democratic presidential nomination.

Kentucky primary Tuesday

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both spent the weekend campaigning in Kentucky

A win would give Clinton more momentum heading into the primaries in California and New Jersey

Big-name surrogates have been sent, television ads are playing and Clinton is touring the state in advance of Tuesday's voting. On Sunday, the former secretary of state dropped in at Louisville churches and held rallies in Louisville and Fort Mitchell. Sanders on Sunday made a swing through Kentucky as well.



"We need a president who will work every single day to make life better for American families," Clinton said at a union training center in Louisville. "We want somebody who can protect us and work with the rest of the world. Not talk about building walls, but building bridges."



While Clinton leads Sanders by nearly 300 pledged delegates going into Tuesday's primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, the Vermont senator continues to win contests and has pledged to stay in the race until the July convention. With Donald Trump set as the presumptive Republican nominee, those on Clinton's team would like to turn their attention to the general election contest, but they still can't fully make that shift.



A win in at least one of the two upcoming contests would give Clinton momentum heading into the primaries in California and New Jersey in early June. Oregon is favorable terrain for Sanders, but Clinton's campaign thinks the race is competitive in Kentucky, where she planned to spend Monday courting voters.



"It will be close, but either way, as with all the contests this month, we will gain additional delegates and move that much closer to clinching the nomination," Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said in an email.



Clinton easily won the Kentucky primary over Barack Obama in 2008. But this time she has come under criticism in parts of the state after saying in March that "we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." Clinton later said she misspoke, but the comment has drawn fire in mining communities.



On Sunday in Louisville and in Fort Mitchell, Clinton touted her plan for coal country. Her proposals include protecting miners' health care coverage and retirement programs, investing in infrastructure in mining communities and repurposing mines.



Before a cheering crowd in a Fort Mitchell backyard, Clinton pledged to put husband Bill Clinton - who won the state in 1992 and 1996 -"in charge of revitalizing the economy." She provided no further details, but during Bill Clinton's administration, economic growth averaged 4 percent per year, median family income rose and the budget deficit was turned into a surplus.



Clinton said that when people feel left behind, they "become very interested in easy answers and the kind of demagoguery we've seen in this election."



Clinton only briefly mentioned Sanders at both events, repeating a critique that he did not vote to fund the auto industry bailout. Sanders has accused Clinton of mischaracterizing his record on the issue.



Clinton focused most of her fire on Trump, calling him a "loose cannon." She said his record will "be a big part of the general election, because Americans, regardless of our political affiliation have to really take this vote seriously."



High-profile advocates campaigning for Clinton in Kentucky include Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Reps. James Clyburn of South Carolina, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Hakeem Jeffries and Joe Crowley of New York.



Clinton is spending about $325,000 on Kentucky ads. Sanders, after seeing her reserve airtime, followed with $126,000 in ads, according to advertising tracker Kantar Media's CMAG.



Going into Tuesday, Clinton has 1,716 pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses, compared with 1,433 for Sanders. Adding superdelegates, or party officials who can back any candidate, Clinton holds a much wider lead. She remains on track to reach the 2,383 needed to win the nomination by early next month.



Clinton and her supporters have avoided calling on Sanders to drop out of the race. But they worry that Sanders could damage her chances by staying put. The Vermont senator's economic hits on Clinton could benefit Trump, as he seeks to appeal to independent voters. In addition, Clinton cannot start wooing Sanders supporters until he is out of the way and she must continue campaigning in primary states, rather than general-election battlegrounds.



A Trump adviser told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that the campaign was hoping to appeal to Sanders supporters in the general election.



"You see Democrat support for Bernie Sanders that is potential Trump support, when it's indicated that they will never vote for Hillary Clinton, and when you analyze who those people are that are saying it, they're the very demographic that Trump is appealing to in independents and crossover Democrats," Paul Manafort said.



In the audience for Clinton at the Louisville rally Sunday was local resident Nancy Hatcher, 69, who said she liked Clinton's experience, though said she wasn't sure if she could win in Kentucky.



"I don't know," she said. "There's a lot of people that are in love with Bernie Sanders, but I don't think he is electable and she is."
For thousands of boat racing fans in Cocoa Beach this weekend, the wait ended early Sunday with the kickoff of the 7th Annual Thunder on Cocoa Beach boat races.

City estimated 100,000 on the beach for the races, up 20,000 from last year

Final races wrapped up at 2 p.m., with parties continuing into the evening

Fans piled onto the beach early in the morning, all waiting for a chance to hear the roar of the race boats.



Well Ive seen it on TV, but to see it in person, Im looking forward to it, said first timer David Fussell.



While some fans like Fussell are new to the event, others like Karen Middendorp live for it. In fact, her son-in-law is even on one of the racing teams.



Its up to him to make them go fast," said Middendorp. "Thats his job -- he builds the drives, front to back.



The Middendorps werent always fans of the sport, though. When their daughter first met their son-in-law 3 years ago, they began traveling from Michigan to racing locations all over the county.

Now she says they cant imagine their life without the sport.



It gets under your skin and into your blood, said Middendorp. There is just something about being around those motors and the thunder and the sound.



The City of Cocoa Beach estimated theyd see around 100,000 people on their beach for the races this year. Thats a spike of more than 20,000 from last year.



I think this sport was really big years ago and now its finally coming back and its getting bigger again," said Middendorp. "As the economy comes back, I think well see more and more of it.



The final race wrapped up at 2:00 with the party continuing into the evening.



If youd like to know more about the annual event and where you can catch races all across Florida, just visit the Thunder on Cocoa Beach home page.


A man was shot in his backyard Sunday night in Apopka after he was confronted by two men armed with a handgun and a shotgun, deputies said.

Man said 2 armed men demanded his wallet

Victim refused and was shot while he tried to go back inside

Call Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS (8477)

The incident happened at about 10:43 p.m. on Lisa Lane. According to the Orange County Sheriff's Office, a 49-year-old man said he was in his backyard when he was approached by two masked men likely between the ages of 18 and 20. The victim said one man was armed with a handgun and the other had a shotgun.

The victim stated he ran back inside his home when the two suspects told him to give them his wallet. The man suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, deputies said.

He never surrendered his wallet, deputies said. He was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS (8477).
Grief counselors were on hand at a Volusia County high school Monday after an 18-year-old student on a train trestle was struck and killed by a train in Ormond Beach over the weekend.

Robert M. Harris worked at River Grille restaurant near Tomoka River

Harris sat on train trestle behind restaurant

He tried to run from oncoming train but fell

Robert M. Harris, 18, was on the train trestle, or bridge, over the Tomoka River, behind the River Grille restaurant Sunday evening when a train approached. He tried to run after hearing the horn, but fell twice and was struck and killed.

Family friend Albert Teebagy joined others at the Ormond Beach home of Harris' parents.

Were all grief-stricken. Im very saddened for them, because its something theyll never get over, Albert Teebagy said.

Teebagy said Harris had just left work at the River Grille restaurant and had sat on the railroad bridge overlooking the river before heading home. Thats when police say a CSX train started coming down the tracks.

Once he heard the whistle, he got up and started running away from the train," Ormond Beach Police Sgt. Keith Walker said. "He fell down, got back up and continued running and fell again. At that point, he was struck by the train and killed.

A spokesperson for Volusia Schools said the district sent a crisis team to Seabreeze High School, where Harris was in 11th grade.

Harris was popular and well liked, according to fellow students.

He was a very nice person. Everybody loved him. You dont have one person who hates him, Seabreeze student Justin Mobley said.

Students said kids use the bridge as a shortcut to get from one neighborhood to another, rather than crossing U.S. 1.

Police and Teebagy say something needs to be done to keep kids off the bridge.

I would like to see that, because they shouldn't be hanging out up there, Teebagy said. He added that a person on the bridge either has to try to outrun an oncoming train or jump into the river, which is filled with alligators.

The incident is under investigation, police said.



Ormond Beach Police say a man who was fishing from a train trestle was struck and killed by a train Sunday night. (Photo courtesy of Cody Sheldon)
CHILLICOTHE - Texas A&M AgriLife Research is conducting several studies on canola in both the Rolling Plains and High Plains regions as interest in the crop continues to grow.

The canola plots were showcased recently at field days at both the AgriLife Research Chillicothe Station, south of Chillicothe in the Rolling Plains, and at the AgriLife Research Bush Farm, 600 FM Road 2381 north of Bushland.

Dr. Clark Neely, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service small grains and oilseed specialist in College Station, said interest in canola is growing as wheat producers look for a rotational crop that allows the use of herbicides to clean up grassy weeds in their fields.

There are not many options to control grassy weeds in wheat, Neely said. But we have Roundup-ready canola, as well as Clearfield, which offer producers the option to use Roundup and Beyond in their fields when they plant canola in the rotation. In addition, there are sulfonylurea and imidazolinon carryover tolerant varieties that can easily follow wheat.

Dr. Paul DeLaune, AgriLife Research environmental soil scientist in Vernon, said he is working on several canola studies demonstrating the benefits of canola in a rotation. Crop rotations evaluated canola/wheat and sorghum/canola rotations.

We know crop rotation is far superior to a monoculture system, DeLaune said. We see a nice benefit for wheat following canola. Weve seen as much as a 10 to 15 percent increase in wheat production.

In addition to variety plots, his studies are investigating planting dates, seeding rates, row spacing, tillage and also use of plant growth regulators, DeLaune said.

Ideally, you want to get canola into the ground six weeks before the first freeze; in this area thats around Sept. 20, he said. But some no-till producers have had problems with winter kill.

DeLaune said they have experimented with plant growth regulators to suppress fall growth. The objective is to keep it from getting too big and further elevating the growth point above the ground, which makes it more prone to winter kill.

Weve done two years of studies looking at early planting dates - Sept. 8, Sept. 15 and Sept. 23 - applying growth regulators at the six-leaf stage, he said. What weve seen is no real effect of applying those chemicals on canola and winter kill.

What weve found is planting date is more important. Planting at the optimal time is still providing the best yields.

DeLaune said they planted some canola as late as Oct. 31, although the insurance cutoff is Oct. 10.

For the last two years, weve been able to get away with that, he said. But the later you plant into October, the higher risk you have for winter kill. Ideally, you need to have it in the four- to six-leaf stage going into the first freeze.

Dr. Jourdan Bell, the AgriLife Extension agronomist in Amarillo who is evaluating the winter canola production near Bushland, agreed the planting date will be key to successful production in the Panhandle region.

Bells plots include 12 different varieties at two different planting dates - Sept. 17 and Oct. 2 - on 30-inch rows at a seeding rate of 4 pounds per acre and a depth of three-quarters of an inch.

Planting date is very critical for optimal crop establishment in the High Plains due to the potential for losing the crop to winter freeze, she said.

Bell said at this time both planting dates look good at the Bushland site. The plots were not irrigated, but received about 9 inches of precipitation. Currently, plots are in pod fill and will be harvested mid-June.

Dr. Emi Kimura, AgriLife Extension agronomist in Vernon, said soil fertility plays a role in stand establishment. The pH level is important, because an acidic soil can cause a very scattered stand and inhibit root growth. Producers should also monitor sulfur and nitrate levels.

At planting time, you need to make sure you do not apply too much nitrogen in the seed furrow, because the acidic condition will reduce your stand, Kimura said.

DeLaune said in the row spacing seeding rate study near Chillicothe, they planted 10-inch and 20-inch spaced rows with a drill at 3 pounds and 5 pounds per acre, with the standard recommendation being 5 pounds per acre. The 30-inch spaced rows were seeded at 1.5 pounds and 2 pounds per acre, which included strip-tilling to manage residue in the seed row.

When you think about seed cost, its about $6 per pound, so that can add up when you start ranging the seeding rates, he said.

Two popular methods of harvesting canola are swathing when 60 percent of the seed has gone through a color change or direct harvesting, which can have a larger risk due to leaving seed in the field for a longer period, DeLaune said. However, area producers use both approaches and there is not a consensus on the best harvest method from year to year.

He said according to the guidebooks, determining when to harvest is best done by looking at the pods on the main stem of a plant.

Look at the pods beginning at the bottom of the main stem and ideally when you see a 50 to 60 percent seed color change in the pods on that main stem, then it is time to swath or desiccate it for harvest, DeLaune said.

Another consideration is choosing open pollinated or hybrid varieties, Neely said.

There is a large difference in seed size, he said. The hybrid seed is half again as big as open pollinated seed, but can be more expensive, so you have to weigh your options on seed price. The hybrids are nice because the bigger seed might offer more risk management, providing more energy and hybrid vigor when planting into less-than-ideal conditions.

Neely said winter hardiness is another trait of concern as wild temperature swings in the fall make that an important characteristic.

Planting date drastically affects that, but variety selection also plays a role, he said.

For a complete look at Texas canola variety trials and information, go to http://varietytesting.tamu.edu/oilseed/.
Some budget cuts are understandable, while some can be a little too deep.

This is the case for a local nonprofit whose early childhood therapy services will soon see a severe strain after Texas legislators decided to cut funding to the services the group is mandated by state and federal law to provide.

"I don't know what we'll do. It looks to me that we'll have to be creative in finding other funding sources," said Brenda Jones, director of Early Child Intervention at Plainview's Central Plains Center.

In brief, last year lawmakers included in their two-year budget a 25 percent reduction in Medicaid payments to pediatric therapists. Medicaid is the federal and state insurance provider for low-income or disabled individuals.

Whatever their intentions were for the reduction, the new budget also lumped in payment cuts to Early Childhood Intervention programs like those provided by the Central Plains Center. This is going to be difficult across the state for programs like Jones' ECI.

In this area alone, Jones' staff provides physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and other services for children under 3 years old in nine different counties.

Federal and state law requires that programs like Jones' ECI travel to the homes of these children to provide custom and tailored in-home therapy.

"Early Childhood Intervention is one of the state's main programs for influencing children's trajectory during the developmentally critical years of early childhood and ensuring that more students start kindergarten ready to succeed," said Stephanie Rubin, CEO of Texans Care for Children.

In other words, ECI helps to catch children up who have not quite reached significant developmental milestones in areas such as gross-motor skills, fine-motor skills and speech.

Central Plains' program works with children from birth to 3 years old to catch them up in these areas. That brief period is the perfect time window to add support as children learn the most in their first three years of life.

"Reports have shown that the first three years of a child's life are the most crucial because neurons and pathways in the brain are still being molded, and we can affect the biggest change in that child's life," Jones said.

With therapy, Jones' staff can ready a child prior to entering school.

"We don't want any student to start school already behind," Jones said.

Data shows that nearly half of children in the program or in similar programs in other states who were at risk of needing costly special education services did not need those services when they arrived at kindergarten. More than 75 percent of participating Texas children have shown gains in social-emotional skills and use of age-appropriate skills.

But the ECI must be performed in the home, as Jones' staff must teach parents techniques that can be performed in the child's natural environment.

With Central Plains covering Hale, Floyd, Motley, Briscoe, Swisher, Castro, Bailey, Palmer and Lamb counties, the expense of providing these services can get pricey.

"It's not unusual for one of our people to put 3,000 miles on their vehicle in one month," Jones said.

Currently, there are 150 children enrolled in the program, 75 percent of which use Medicare to cover the bill.

With the budget cuts, Jones expects to lose $50,000 in just the first eight months. "That's somebody's position," Jones said.

The Central Plains Center currently has 15 professionals working in ECI, all carrying specialized degrees for specific needs.

"We have a very specialized staff, and they're not cheap positions," Jones said.

Obviously, Jones' wish is that legislators exempted ECI out of the pediatric cuts. The worst case scenario for Jones is the cuts go into effect and she will be forced to cut a key position or service.

Currently, ECI leaders are fighting for the cause in Austin as they look to convince legislators to exempt the program from the cuts.

In Plainview alone, 130 chiildren use the Central Plains ECI program.

Jones asked that West Texans contact their government representatives to share the importance of ECI programs.

The 2017 legislative session offers early childhood advocates a key opportunity to bolster ECI and ensure every eligible family can access services, according to Texans Care for Children.

In the meantime, Jones said she will be looking for alternative funding to keep the boat fully staffed until lawmakers meet.
How often do Connecticut residents get any good news? Taxes keep going up, the cost of living keeps going up, the state population keeps going down (weve lost a net total of about 27,000 residents each of the past two years) and the budget deficit looks like a bottomless pit.



But theres also this: Under new rates approved on May 4 by the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, Eversource Energys average residential customer will pay $21 a month less for electricity, effective July 1 and for the rest of the year. Two-thirds of the companys residential and business customers will be affected.



Thats about 20 percent lower than rates in 2015. Customers of United Illuminating will enjoy about a 12 percent reduction. Eversource spokesman Mitch Gross told the Journal Inquirer of Manchester that the utility is paying less for electricity, in part because of a decline in the cost of natural gas, which powers many generation plants. The new generation rates are the lowest since 2004.



The region, however, does face what the company calls significant energy challenges. Eversource wants to bring in more natural gas, using existing pipeline routes, and to build a new conduit, called Northern Pass, from Hydro-Quebecs hydroelectric plants. But Northern Pass has met resistance from residents in northern New Hampshire.



While it is understandable that people would object to high-energy power lines marching through their communities, we hope that the objections can be overcome, because bringing in renewable hydroelectric power from Canada has much to recommend it, instead of burning fossil fuels to generate energy here.



Connecticuts moribund economy may take some of the urgency out of this situation, but we have no reason not to expect that energy costs will always go up in the long run. So we plan to enjoy the reduced electric bills while we can.










CANNES, France (AP)  Steven Spielberg, a giant in the world of cinema, landed at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday with his gentle Roald Dahl adaptation "The BFG."

The film, about a young orphan (Ruby Barnhill) taken away by a friendly, big-eared giant (recent Oscar winner Mark Rylance), marks a return for Spielberg to the magical kind of fable he has largely moved away from in recent years. It's also his second film with "E.T." writer Melissa Mathison, who died last November. Spielberg has dedicated "The BFG" (Big Friendly Giant) to her.

"It's a love story that children have for their grandparents. It's a love story that grandparents have for their children," Spielberg told reporters Saturday. "I think this probably the closest I've ever come to telling a love story."

Sitting between his young star and his new favorite actor (Rylance is starring in the director's next two films as well), Spielberg said enchanting fantasies like "The BFG" are just as vital as more realistic tales.

"The worse the world gets, the more magic we have to believe in," said Spielberg. "Hope comes from magic and I think that's what movies can give people. They can give people hope that there will be a reason to fight on to the next day. Hope is everything to me."

Spielberg acknowledged his interest has recently drifted to historical dramas like "Lincoln" and last year's "Bridge of Spies," but he said making "The BFG" was liberating.

"It was revisiting something that I've always loved to do, which is just to tell stories that are from the imagination," he said. "It brought back feelings I had as a younger filmmaker."

"The BFG," which drew warmly respectful reviews in its Cannes premiere, is largely faithful to Dahl's 1982 classic and was made in concert with the Dahl estate. (The author died in 1990.) Producer Kathleen Kennedy first obtained the rights in 1993 and later turned to Mathison for the script.

Spielberg called collaborating with Mathison again "a wonderful reunion and a very bittersweet time, as it turned out, for us."

Dahl was famously anti-Israel and some considered him anti-Semitic. Asked about whether that was an issue for him, Spielberg said he wasn't aware of that, and was only concerned with adapting a book he frequently read to his seven children.

"The BFG," which Disney will release in July, played out of competition in Cannes. Spielberg was last at the French Riviera festival in 2014 as president of the jury.

Rylance, who won a best supporting Oscar for his Soviet spy Rudolph Abel in "Bridge of Spies," performed the Big Friendly Giant through motion capture. The actor is also to co-star in Spielberg's upcoming sci-fi thriller "Ready Player One" and will play Pope Pius IX in the director's "The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara."

Spielberg described Rylance as not only a new collaborator but a close friend. He called Rylance's transformation from the quiet Abel of "Bridge of Spies" to the whimsical colossus of "The BFG" as "one of the most astonishing experiences I've ever had in my entire career working with anybody."

Above all, the director sounded no less enthralled by moviemaking at age 69.

"This is something I'll be doing for the rest of my life," said Spielberg.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
Road trip season is upon us, and Texas has a wide range of places to visit, from the West Texas canyons to Port Aransas beaches and the Austin nightlife scene.

Texas-based vacation rental network HomeAway has lodging options in all of those destinations.

Take a look at some of the personal homes that are available for rent this summer:

Canyon, Texas, cabin; average price per night: $221

Dubbed "Doves Rest Fortress Cabin," this 1,400-square-foot house sits on the edge of the Palo Duro Canyon State Park. The modern but countrified cabin has canyon views from most rooms and overlooks the Grand Canyon of Texas. The two-bedroom, two-bath structure sleeps five guests and has a two- to four-night minimum stay.

RELATED: Marfa, in West Texas desert, welcomes high-end Hotel Saint George

Austin, Texas, bungalow; average price per night: $321

This charming, 950-square-foot bungalow is in the Clarksville neighborhood of Austin, a walk away from the Austin City Limits fest. The home comes equipped with high-definition TVs, indoor/outdoor speakers, small office space and updated kitchen. It has a covered back porch with seating. The one-bedroom, one-bath building sleeps four guests and has a two- to three-night minimum stay.

Port Aransas, Texas, beach house; average price per night: $483

The "Aquarius" luxury house has been professionally designed to entertain guests with bright, beachy style. The contemporary space is light and airy, with several windows that let in natural light and peaceful vistas. The 1,891-square-foot house has a large master suite and is equipped with a flat-screen TV, Xbox and a Wii. The three-bedroom, three-bath house sleeps seven guests and has a two- to three-night minimum stay.

RELATED: Unique places to vacation in Texas

Fredericksburg, Texas, modern house; average price per night: $634

Featured in "Dwell Magazine," this minimalist house is a unique find in the Texas Hill Country. The 1,850-square-foot structure  dubbed "The ART House"  recently won the "Best in America Living" living award, a recognition that honors home design and architecture. Owner Cavan McMahon takes pride in maintaining the house, with its vibrant interior and indoor-outdoor living. The three-bedroom, two-bedroom house sleeps six guests and has a two-night minimum stay.

Note: The average prices listed can vary based on number of guests and dates, among other factors. Some of these properties also require minimum stays of two or more nights. The estimated number of guests each place can accommodate is indicated by HomeAway listings.
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A woman who in 2013 sued the Church of Scientology, private detectives and others, claiming she was relentlessly stalked, harassed and subjected to dirty tricks, has asked that the suit be dropped.

Monique Rathbun, who in 2006 married Marty Rathbun, a former high church official, but was never a Scientologist herself, filed the motion for dismissal last week in Comal County district court.

It awaits a signed order by Judge Dib Waldrip to become final.

The suit claimed that the hostile campaign against the Rathbuns began in Ingleside on the Bay in 2011, when a confrontational church group called the Squirrel Busters began following them around and surveilling them.

It continued after the couple moved to Bulverde in 2012 when a surveillance camera was found near their home, the suit claimed.

They are really trying to psy-op Monique, to cause her grief and hardship, said Marty Rathbun, who is seen by the church as a heretic, after the suit was filed in 2013.

And while court testimony in the suit was damaging to the church, the litigation failed thus far to achieve one of its critical objectives: Force church leader David Miscavige, the alleged mastermind of the harassment campaign, to come to Texas and give sworn testimony.

It also showed no sign of being resolved anytime soon. Church lawyers in February filed a 92-page motion with the Supreme Court of Texas, appealing a critical lower court ruling that the actions taken against the Rathbuns by the church did not qualify as free speech.

Earlier this year, Monique Rathbun dismissed her attorneys.

Contacted Monday, Marty Rathbun said that neither he nor his wife would have any comment beyond the statements made in the latest court pleadings.

In her motion to dismiss the suit, Monique Rathbun stated without elaboration that her former lawyers said that the purposes for which the suit was filed had been achieved.

But Ray Jeffrey, who led the legal team representing her, said he was mystified by the end of the litigation.

The entire legal team is extremely disappointed by this turn of events. We felt we were at the point of real success, he said Monday.

We had won at the court of appeals, and believe it was unlikely the Supreme Court would overrule, so we were looking forward to a jury trial in New Braunfels, he said.

Jeffrey said the lawyers always had a wonderful professional relationship with Monique Rathbun, adding, We never had any disagreements or problems with her.

Officials at the media relations office of the Church of Scientology did not respond early Monday to a request for comment on the latest developments.
SAN ANTONIO  Investigators with the San Antonio Police Department have not ruled out foul play in the disappearance of a 29-year-old woman who has not been seen in more than two weeks.

Bianca Carrasco was last seen in the 1600 block of Walnut Creek on May 1, according to SAPD.
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SAN ANTONIO  A young man was critically injured Monday morning after being hit by a car while riding a skateboard on the Northwest Side.

San Antonio Police Department spokesman Officer Douglas Greene said police were called to the scene of the accident at Callaghan and Fredericksburg roads just after 10:30 a.m.

RELATED: High-speed chase involving stolen U-Haul truck ends in rollover crash, 2 arrests on South Side

Greene said the young skateboarder had been riding on Callaghan when he slammed into a passing car in the intersection.

Dan Villarreal was in the area when the crash happened. He said the skateboarder was in the right lane of traffic and forcing cars in the area into the left lanes ahead of the intersection.

"Everyone was honking at him," he said.

MORE: Video: Houston road rage incident leads to street brawl

Villarreal said the young man rolled into the intersection against a red light and slammed into the side of the car.

"He didn't move for about four or five minutes," he said. "I thought he was dead."

Emergency medical responders arrived shortly after the crash and transported the victim to University Hospital.

Greene said he was taken as a priority one victim with life threatening injuries.

mdwilson@express-news.net

Twitter: @MDWilsonSA
An argument between patrons at a popular nightclub on the West Side ended in a shooting and two men being rushed to the hospital Sunday morning.

San Antonio police say an altercation inside Joe's Volcano, 6844 Ingram Road, at about 2:40 a.m., Sunday, escalated in the parking lot once those involved were ejected from the club.
A Webb County official retracted his statement Sunday that a ninth person had died from injuries sustained in this weekend's bus crash.

Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina said at a mid-afternoon news conference that a ninth person had died at Laredo Medical Center. However, that statement was later retracted.

"At this time, there have been only eight confirmed deaths in Webb County due this incident," a statement from Tijerina's office reads.

The deceased were identified as Altagracia Torres, 61, Maria de Jesus Musquiz, 52, Dora Nelly Gonzalez, 68, Frances Guerrero, 52, Marisela Lopez, 60, Adelfa Garza, 63, Jaime Navarro, 60, and Emma Rodriguez Zamudio, 81.

Also Sunday, officials said the majority of the 44 people who were injured in the bus crash have been released from local hospitals.

Seven victims remained at Doctors Hospital and two at Laredo Medical Center. A hospital in Dimmit County, which received seven victims, could not be reached for comment.

Today, the National Transportation Safety Board will begin investigating the single-vehicle rollover that left nine people dead. Pete Kotowski will serve as the investigator-in-charge.

The charter bus was carrying 51 passengers who boarded the vehicle in either Hidalgo City or Brownsville. It rolled over at about 11:30 a.m. on North U.S. 83, about 8 miles north of the Border Patrol checkpoint. Seven passengers were pronounced dead at the scene. Another died Saturday after being taken to a hospital.

The bus was heading to the Kickapoo Lucky Casino Hotel in Eagle Pass.

"The driver of the bus lost control and rolled over," said DPS Trooper Conrad Hein. "Everything's real preliminary right now."

Hein said the driver was among the survivors. Hein did not release the identity of the driver.

The trooper said it was raining Saturday morning but it was uncertain if that was a factor in the crash. He said no other vehicles were in the area at the time.

"Our troopers are going to look into what happened but it's going to take us some time," he said of the investigation. "We just know the driver lost control."

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to investigate the wreck starting Sunday morning.

The crash is one of the deadliest bus accidents in Texas in recent years.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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The 27-year-old beauty queen wife of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman visited the cartel leader in prison near the Texas border where he is awaiting possible extradition over the weekend, Univision reported.

RELATED: Report: Drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman had almost 600 planes  more than Mexico's airlines

Guzman was transferred earlier this month from the maximum-security Antiplano prison from which he escaped in July 2015 to the Cefereso No. 9 prison just outside of Ciudad Juarez, across the U.S.-Mexico border from El Paso.

Emma Coronel Aispuro Guzman was allowed to visit her husband for about 45 minutes at the prison this weekend, according to Univision.

The California-born pageant queen traveled to the Mexican state of Chihuahua in secrecy out of concern for conflicts between the Sinaloa cartel and other drug cartels and factions warring in the area, according to Univision.

RELATED: Wife of Mexican drug cartel lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman speaks: 'I am afraid for his life'

Joaquin Guzman was quiet during the meeting with his wife, she told Univision. The couple met in what she described as a board room.

According to Univison, the Sinaloa cartel leader, who has twice escaped from Mexican prison, is being kept in a maximum security portion of the Cefereso No. 9 prison.

RELATED: The rising Mexican drug cartel figures that could replace Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman

It's unclear how long Guzman will be in the prison: a federal judge in Mexico ruled last week that Guzman could be extradited to the United States, The Associated Press reported.

jfechter@mySA.com

Twitter: @JFreports
SAN ANTONIO -- San Antonio Water System crews were called to investigate a sanitary sewer overflow in the 700 to 900 block of Holbrook Road on the Northeast Side on Sunday afternoon, according to a press release issued late Sunday.

The sewage spill occurred around 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon. Officials said in the release that the overflow reached an estimated 50,000 gallons. Salado Creek is not expected to be affected because the spill was diluted by storm water, the release stated.
Texas should focus on problems that exist, not on those that dont and are never likely to.

Welcome to the latest permutation in our ongoing culture wars  the transgender community and which bathrooms it uses.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick recently said he supports keeping people who are listed as males on their birth certificates out of womens bathrooms, even if it takes legislation to accomplish this. Patrick is the Senate president and its likely that someone will submit yet another potty bill to please him.

He doubled down afterward, trying to impose his will on a local school district whose superintendent is allowing transgender students to use the restrooms that fit their gender identity. He demanded the resignation of superintendent Kent Paredes Scriber and staged a press conference before a school board meeting of the Fort Worth Independent School District on Tuesday. And what did he urge of the board? Discrimination against an already besieged group among other things.

Thats how the federal government views it. The administration is reportedly preparing a directive instructing school districts to allow students to use restrooms according to their gender identity. While this would not have the force of law, it is a signal that the federal government could sue districts who veer from this policy.

Patrick was among the first to condemn the directive, declaring that this means the end of public education as we know it. He is wrong on a couple of levels. First, for scaremongering on a non-issue  transgenders now use public restrooms of their choice unnoticed and without incident  and second for intruding on local affairs. He argues that the federal directive is a better example of such intrusion. But the sad fact is that the federal government is often the protector of last resort in matters of discrimination when states fail to act or when the states are, in fact, what citizens need to be protected from.

Last year, Houston voters approved an ordinance that repealed HERO, the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, which banned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. To help win the day, repeal supporters raised the specter of cross-dressing sexual predators assaulting wives and daughters in public restrooms.

If Texas approves legislation that mandates that people use only the restroom that corresponds to the gender on their birth certificate, it will be following North Carolina. That states actions drew drew national protest and business backlash.

Patrick says no such backlash occurred in Houston. But were certain it will occur if Texas acts. North Carolina has suffered economic harm and has been sued by the federal government, which says it can withhold federal funds for violating civil rights. Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott, who is backing North Carolinas move, invite the same sort of risk for Texas if they block transgender rights.

But the arguments do not center solely on the pocketbook. It is about singling out an already misunderstood and demonized community for more scaremongering and stigmatization.

This is real. It is not a a lifestyle choice, the fashionable description used at one time for gays and lesbians. And, just as gay men were often falsely depicted as predators, so, too, are transgender people in this case.

Who, by the way, is going to be monitoring genitalia at the bathroom door? If this were a real threat, youd think real predators would long ago have started donning dresses. And arent women who are listed as males on their birth certificates exposing themselves to the risk of sexual assault if they use the mens restroom?

In important respects, transgender people genuinely dont feel they are the gender their birth certificates say they are. But theyre there solely to use the restroom in any case.

Eighty-two percent of sexual assault victims know their attackers. Stranger rape is at 18 percent. But supporters of such bills have trouble coming up with instances in which transgender predators have fulfilled that stranger-rape scenario in restrooms.

The Texas Legislature should defy Patrick and move on to real problems.
It is tempting at this point to begin delineating and critiquing the various atonement theories that have arisen over the course of church history. The problem is that when you look at the biblical text through the grid of an established theory, for example, the popular penal substitutionary theory, it is relatively easy to find what you are looking for to support your bias.

So before we get to atonement theories as such, we will attempt to allow the biblical text to speak for itself, an exercise that can prove to be very enlightening. We will first look at what the writers of the Synoptic Gospels  Matthew, Mark and Luke  had to say.

First we take note that when Jesus began his ministry he did not give an explanation about how he would be accomplishing atonement. He simply states, Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is near (Matthew 4:17) and then he went about preaching the good news of the kingdom (Matthew 4:23). Everywhere he went he challenged people to join him in the kingdom way that offered hope and healing to all in need.

Early on in his ministry it became clear that Jesus message was threatening to the religious authorities who quickly began plotting to kill him. Jesus could read their intentions and on various occasions spoke openly about the fact that The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise (Mark 9:31). However he does not use these occasions to explain how such a death would accomplish atonement for believers. And we notice that his disciples were not impressed with the thought of their leader being killed by his opponents.

On two separate occasions Jesus did expand somewhat on his impending death. In Mark 10:45 and its parallel text in Matthew 20:28, Jesus says, For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. The term ransom in these texts is often pounced upon to support a ransom theory. But there is nothing in this text to lead us to believe that anything was paid to anyone, which ransom atonement theories include. It is interesting to note that the word ransom appears twice in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament; in Deuteronomy 6:6 and 15:13 where the Hebrew text and later translations usually use the word redeem as it applies to the redemption of Israel from slavery. It appears likely that Matthew and Mark were influenced by the Septuagint in recording this statement made by Jesus.

Furthermore, far from developing a theory of atonement in these texts, we take note that Jesus uses them to counter the request for James and John to be granted superior rank in the coming kingdom. (In Mark, James and John request it for themselves and in Matthew their mother asks on their behalf.) The point Jesus does make with this statement is that service in his kingdom is all about giving and not about getting. Look at me, he is saying. I am going about redeeming people from all kinds of bondage, not trying to secure a position of authority. You should be following my example.

There is a second instance in which Jesus speaks of the significance of his own death in the Synoptic Gospels. In Mark 14:24, and in parallel texts in Matthew and Luke, Jesus says in the context of the Last Supper, This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Again, this verse has often been lifted out of its context to prove that the only way God could forgive sins was to shed the blood of an innocent man and so appease his wrath. But such an assertion simply does not appear in these texts.

As in the ransom saying, discussed above, so here, the account in Luke makes it clear that this blood of the covenant saying is pronounced in a context in which his disciples are again trying to stratify their small community from greatest importance to least significant (Luke 22:24). So Jesus again reminds them that by his life and now impending death he has always been among them as one who serves (v. 27).

It also appears obvious that Jesus is borrowing this covenant language from the Old Testament story in order to help his disciples make sense of his imminent death. At the time when the Israelites affirmed the initial covenant God had made with them, Moses said, This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words (Exodus 24:8). Furthermore, the prophet Zechariah had sparked hope of a renewal of the covenant at the end of the Babylonian exile (9:9-11). And Jeremiah had declared the Lord as saying, The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah (31:31-34).

In their book, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross, Joel Green and Mark Baker state that Jesus was able to gather together Israels history and hopes and from them forge a view of himself as the one through whose suffering Israel, and through Israel the nations, would experience divine redemptionJesus did not aim to be repudiated and killed; he aimed to charge with meaning his being repudiated and killed (45). Further they insist that this covenant language focuses on the salvation of the people of God, not simply on individual salvation (46).

They also conclude that the line from the scant evidence for an atonement message in Jesus own words to the later atonement theories of Anselm or Luther is neither straight nor easily drawn (45). In other words, the Synoptic Gospels do not in any substantive way support any of the atonement theories developed throughout the centuries of Christian history.
Posted on 05/16/2016, 9:00 am, by mySteinbach

The Western Canadian Swine Health Alliance is voicing its concern to the Canadas Agriculture Minister over the suspension of an emergency protocol designed to keep PED out of Canada.

Effective May 2 the Canadian Food Inspection Agency ended a protocol which had allowed swine transports returning from U.S. farms to be washed and disinfect in Canada and is now requiring disinfection and cleaning in the U.S.

The Western Canadian Swine health Alliance has sent a letter to Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay expressing concern over the change and calling for a solution that will address producer concerns.

Alliance Chair Dickson Gould says these trailers face a far greater risk of contamination from PED or other diseases at U.S. truck wash facilities than they would delivering pigs to a U.S. farm.

When our pigs go down to the U.S. its usually single sources of pigs or pigs of the same health status going into that farm and the only touch point between the inside of those trailers and the farm is the loading dock and the back of the trailer. If we have to go in and get the trucks washed and disinfected in a wash facility that is using recycled water and if there happens to be PED virus at that site, then basically all of the crevices within the inside of that trailer get contaminated. Inside that trailer its Canadian weaned pigs, Canadian manure, Canadian straw or Canadian shavings, which ever would be used and so inside that its all Canadian content. Were just very very concerned to get into recycled water or going into truck washes that are not monitoring the PED, Deltacoronavirus or the Seneca Virus and bringing that back into Canadian farms. ~ Dickson Gould  Western Canadian Swine Health Alliance

Gould says timing is very important. He says every day that passes further raises the risk and he would like to see this resolved as soon as possible.
NACS Convenience Matters podcast examines the threat that skimming poses to consumers and retailers and whats being done to mitigate risks.

ALEXANDRIA, Va.  Fuel dispensers have become one of many targets for thieves looking to steal credit and debit card information by skimming, an aggressive tactic used to illegally obtain consumer card data for fraudulent purposes. How real is the threat, and what can convenience stores do to minimize it?

Gray Taylor, ?executive director at Conexxus, is the featured guest on the latest NACS Convenience Matters podcast, which discusses what is being done to protect both retailers and consumers from skimming. The podcast can be downloaded on iTunes by searching for Convenience Matters. It also is available at www.nacsonline.com/podcasts.

Taylor shared some of the basics that retailers need to know about skimming, a topic featured in the current issue of NACS Magazine, Secure Your Pump.

Since 2008, NACS and Conexxus have offered convenience and fuel retailers the resources and tools they need to proactively initiate and maintain effective payment security procedures that help reduce the occurrence of skimming. This podcast is one more resource for retailers, said podcast host Jeff Lenard, NACS vice president of strategic industry initiatives.

NACS has an online resource on Skimming and Payments Security. Lenard also wrote about skimming in the February 2016 NACS Magazine column, From the Top.
Yves here. Lest you mistakenly think that Black is caviling about some minor issues in this post, hes actually focusing on the core of what is wrong with economics. Greg Mankiw effectively admits that economics is really about learning how to think like an economist and that that process is so removed from notions of rigor, verification, and completeness (as in explanatory power) as to amount t indoctrination. Steve Keen makes the same point, longer-form, in his book Debunking Economics. He explains that undergraduate economics students are taught to accept both overly reductive models and a circumscribed set of mathematical techniques, and are told that if these simplifications will be explained and legitimated in graduate school. But Keen points out that economics as a discipline rejects the more demanding mathematical techniques that would better characterize economic phenomena, in part because more accurate modeling would not be tractable, as in would not produce tidy (and only randomly correct when you get out past six months) predictions and policy recommendations that give economists a seat at the policy table. And when graduate students are finally told of the qualifications and exceptions to what theyve been taught for years, most are too deeply inculcated to embrace the implications, which would be to reject a lot of their prior instruction.

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives

In this first installment I discuss the unacknowledged contradiction that lies at the core of the two meta-myths in the preface to N. Gregory Mankiws textbooks. Mankiw is among the leading providers of introductory economics textbooks. In his preface to these volumes he preaches his first meta-myth in his first substantive sentence about economics.

Economics combines the virtues of politics and science. It is, truly, a social science. Its subject matter is societyhow people choose to lead their lives and how they interact with one another. But it approaches its subject with the dispassion of a science.

As it is preached by Mankiw, theoclassical economics is a dogma that repeatedly violates the most basic tenets of science. It is unlikely that many scientists approach their work with dispassion  passion is one of the keys to success in many humans  but theoclassical economists routinely fail to bring dispassion to their dogmas. Indeed, the first step in their adoption of the scientific method would be to renounce Mankiws first meta-myth.

Mankiws preaches his second meta-myth in the next paragraph of his preface.

Economics is a subject in which a little knowledge goes a long way. (The same cannot be said, for instance, of the study of physics or the Japanese language.) Economists have a unique way of viewing the world, much of which can be taught in one or two semesters. My goal in this book is to transmit this way of thinking to the widest possible audience and to convince readers that it illuminates much about the world around them.

Mankiw does not see the fundamental contradiction between his two meta-myths. It turns out in his second meta-myth that learning economics is not really like learning a real science or even a language. A little knowledge supposedly goes a long way in economics, unlike physics or learning Japanese. What explains this paradox? How is it possible for a subject as massively complicated as economic life, much less all the fields such as the family that theoclassical economists now purport to study and devise proper public policies, that a brief introduction in a freshman course goes a long way to actually understanding proper policy choices in such enormous spheres of life?

Mankiws does not understand how revealing his answer is to this paradox. He actually preaches that economists are unique. The sheer arrogance of the claim  offered with no proof or analysis  is staggering. But the claim is also hilarious in context, for Mankiw purports to be explaining why economics exemplifies the scientific method. Mankiw has just got done assuring the reader that science was analytic, systematic, and objective. How is it, then, that economists are unique among scientists? I can assure readers that economists are not taught some secret hand shake or statistical technique and are not secretly selected based on unique genomes. Mankiw is making the opposite point  claiming that in two semesters of studying his Ten Principles of Economics he can turn your 18-year old freshman son or daughter into someone who will think like an economist. Mankiw fails to understand that this means that economists cannot be unique. Mankiw teaches his ten commandments to anybodys son or daughter regardless of whether they will become an economist, political scientist, physicist, or student of Japanese language and literature. Even if economics had some unique secret sauce they would have given away the recipe many decades ago.

But consider the bizarreness of Mankiw believing that economists all think the same way. Recall that the way he claims we think is not a result of our studying and believing in the scientific method  for then we would not be unique  we would simply be like all good scientists. Mankiw is asserting that all economists share the same belief systems (creed). Indeed, if you do not share his dogmas  his interpretation of his ten commandments  you cannot be a real economist. Lots of professors believe they are demi-gods, but few go so far as Mankiw in drawing up his own ten commandments and then claiming that economists are unique because they all worship Mankiws commandments. Recall that this is in the context of Mankiw preaching his first meta-myth that economists approach their field with pure dispassion as a science.

Economists are unique among scientists in the frequency, severity, and persistence of their errors. No other field has such a disastrous series of predictive failures in modern times. No other field gives Nobel awards to economists for preaching critical policy issues and predictions that have proved dead wrong. Conventional economists claim that they should be judged on the basis of their predictive success.

Economists are unusual, but not unique, in their frequency of scoring low in altruism. Part of this is self-selection. Students who choose to study economics score lower in altruism. There also appear to be learning effects. After they major in economics students score even lower in altruism. The ways that economists are unique, or at least statistically unusual, reflect badly on economists and economics. Mankiw is a leading contributor to what makes theoclassical economics so dogmatic, false, and immoral.
Apparently annoyed at Sanders supporters having managed to take advantage of Clinton delegate candidate no-shows to obtain more spots, the Nevada state party put through rule changes weeks before the state convention that gave the meeting chair complete and arbitrary control of the final step in the delegate certification process. That in turn produced a convention that was entirely undemocratic in the small d sense, with some Sanders delegates who had won their positions via the then-existing rules being stripped of their standing. In addition, the meeting was run on authoritarian lines, with party members offering pro-Sanders motions having the microphones cut off and the meeting being terminated with motions still on the floor. Dont buy Twitterverse claims that the meeting was run in accordance with Roberts Rules of Order; accepting a motion to adjourn without a second was one of many dubious procedures.

As Lambert remarked, This is Clintons idea of a party unity strategy.

I suggest you read this post by John Laurits in full (hat tip martha r), but the opening section makes clear what was at stake (emphasis original):

Greetings, my friends! As many of you have probably heard, tensions were high at the state convention in Nevada yesterday. Now, because CNN, MSNBC, and the rest of the usual news outlets seem to have forgotten to mention it, Ive decided (as usual) to step in to inform you all and clean up the mess of misinformation. You see, all of this happened because there has been a bit of a misunderstanding between the Democratic Party and ourselves  theyve been laboring under the impression that we  you know, the people  are supposed to subserviently accept what the democratic party officials have decreed but  meanwhile  we (having been misled by the word democratic being in their name) thought that we would get to have a say in choosing our nominee for president. As you can guess, this embarrassing miscommunication has led to a lot of confusion  but worry not! I believe that we can clear all of that up in this article by taking a look at a few numbers. First up, lets talk about 1,693 and 1,662 Those were the numbers of both Clinton and Sanders delegates that were at the state democratic convention in Nevada on Saturday  well, actually, those are the numbers of delegates that were allowed to participate in the convention on Saturday  and, as you can see: 1,693  1,662 = 31 Clinton had 31 more delegates inside of the convention  which wasnt very good news for the Sanders supporters yesterday. But wait! Theres another number that you should probably know about and that is 64 64 is the number of Bernie Sanders delegates that were not allowed to participate  this is because they were de-certified and denied entry into the convention. Ill only point out the obvious  that 64 delegates would have been immensely useful for the Sanders-supporters, who were 31 short of Clintons suddenly higher delegate count. Now, at this point, many of you may find yourselves wondering, what do you mean de-certified? How does that work? Well, its really quite fascinating  let me tell you! First, Ill need to quickly explain that the Nevada caucuses are a three-tiered process  the first tier was made up of the caucuses that were held on Feb. 20th, which Clinton narrowly won with 52.6% to Sanders 47.3%. The second tier was made up of county conventions, which Bernie Sanders delegates ended up winning because a large portion of Clinton delegates simply couldnt be bothered to show up and, therefore, didnt vote. The third, and final, tier was the state convention, where the delegate counts in Nevada were to be finalized  which is what happened yesterday. Now, what happened at the convention!? Yesterday morning, around 9:30AM (while many delegates were still in line to get in ), the leadership at the convention, led by Roberta Lange, decided to hold a quick voice vote (essentially, a shouting match between the two sides) about whether to change the rules of the convention. Now, I must warn you  prepare to get angry. The rule change that they voted about was, in a nutshell, to disregard the results of the second-tier county conventions  where Sanders had won  and only to count the results of the first-tier caucus that Clinton had won. Id like to remind you that this voice vote was held before all of the delegates were present and  as is fairly clear in this video  was, at the very least, inconclusive.

This report by Nevada Congressional candidate Dan Rolle (hat tip martha r) gives a good account of what transpired at the convention:

This is the short version, again from the YouTube page:

I made a quick video explaining the backstory behind the convention. Its too important to simply watch the videos and look away. You need to understand why it happened: Basically, NDems enacted some rules that were designed to give convention authority to the state chair. You can read about that here: https://www.change.org/p/nevada-state-democratic-party-tell-nvdems-to-not-steal-our-democracy-at-the-state-convention That group challenged these rules in court. That challenge was denied, essentially because the court didnt feel it should intervene in party politics. Fast forward  The same group gets the requisite number of signatures to change these rules. Robert[a] ignores this, and enacts her rules: You can see where she does this here: https://youtu.be/Ka6SnkbuUPI?t=74 Fast forward. Clinton wins by a few delegates, but over 64 delegates were rejected. By the board she chose. The argument is that with these votes, Sanders wins. Also worth noting, many were turned away because they simply could not find parking. At the end of the convention, we motioned the party platform. I called for Robertas removal here. My mic was cut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGdcfeiwZw4 Fast forward: The delegates are counted. Roberta denies a recount, closes the convention at her discretion. She then bolts off stage. This, while being flanked by police. Most of the videos are here: Chaos At Nevada Democratic Convention; State Party Chair Flees Building As Sanders Supporters Demand Recount

Rolle concludes (9:13):

It didnt have to happen. Theres no reason for that. All that board had to do was take a minute and listen, and bring those people into the discusssion. But I think were not talking about Hillary versus Bernie anymore. Were way beyond that. Because the fact of the matter is that if Hillary legitimately had more people there, Hillary legitimately wins. OK. I get that, I think most most people understand that. That is not what were talking about. We are talking about a state party, and a national party, that are willing to usurp fairness in order to have their way. And thats too bad.

Lambert, who followed events on Twitter last night, says the Washington Post and CNN reports were at best incomplete. He also pointed out that the Sanders supporters did an impressive job of organizing; seemingly taking lessons from both Occupy and Black Lives Matter, they streamed everything live. As a result, they were able to put events on the public record and get their story out.

After credible allegations of election tampering and vote suppression, this all-too-heavy-handed move to block Sanders voters is guaranteed to alienate Sanders voters. Dont expect to find much brotherly love in Philadelphia.
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We must frankly face the fact that the front-runners in both political parties represent a new low, at a time of domestic polarization and unprecedented nuclear dangers internationally. This year's general election will offer a choice between a thoroughly corrupt liar and an utterly irresponsible egomaniac.

Members of the Republican establishment, whose serial betrayals of their supporters created the setting for a Donald Trump to arise, must now decide how best to deal with the apparent inevitability of his candidacy.

Choosing among various unpalatable options may require some tricky maneuvering on their part, but they have been used to tricky maneuvering before, which is how they find themselves in this predicament in the first place.

Apparently some Republican leaders have opted to try to make the best of a bad situation by creating at least the illusion of party "unity" going into this year's elections. But the toxic image of Trump can follow the Republicans repeatedly in future elections.

The careers of young Republicans are especially at risk of acquiring an indelible stain by being associated with Trump, much as Sen. Marco Rubio may never live down his association with Sen. Chuck Schumer's attempt to create bipartisan amnesty.

The smart money says that, when all is said and done, Republican voters are going to have to vote for Trump. If they stay home, that is the same as voting for Hillary Clinton.

As former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich put it, Clinton in the White House means a Supreme Court packed with justices who will undermine the Constitution for decades to come. He has a point  but not necessarily a decisive point.

Seeing the freedom for which generations of Americans have fought and died eroded away by judicial sophistry in the coming years is certainly a grim prospect.

But nuclear annihilation is one of the few prospects that are even worse  and a man with a runaway egomania may not have the finesse or the depth to steer through troubled international waters that include a nuclear Iran and a nuclear North Korea.

If a man in his 60s has not yet matured, he is unlikely to grow up in his 70s. This is not a question about whether Trump is as evil as Clinton. He may well be the proverbial "lesser of the two evils" in that sense, and yet be the more dangerous president to have in the White House.

Some have argued that a President Trump could surround himself with experienced and savvy advisers to cover for his own shallow understanding of many national and international issues. But Barack Obama has already shown us that a headstrong egomaniac can ignore even unanimous advice from military advisers. That is how he pulled troops out of Iraq and set the stage for the Islamic State group.

Those of us who are far more concerned about the fate of this country than about the fate of the Republican Party face far tougher questions than how to get through this year's election.

Some people are said to be thinking about a third-party candidate. Desperate times may call for desperate measures. But if such a desperate choice is made, a third party has virtually no chance of electing its candidate.

The most a third party could hope for would be to take enough votes from both Democrats and Republicans to deny either party's candidate a victory in the Electoral College. That would throw the election of the president of the United States into the House of Representatives.

No one knows who would then become president. But it would be hard to find someone worse than either Clinton or Trump.

The very fact that we are left with such desperate options is not only a rebuke to the professional politicians, but also a painful revelation about the voting public.

Immediately after electing a president with virtually no track record, on the basis of rhetoric and symbolism, and seeing disaster after disaster during his administration, many are now prepared to do the same thing all over again.

More than two centuries ago, Thomas Jefferson said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." If so, can people who cannot be bothered to look up from their electronic devices expect to remain a free people?
whale in half air

SHARE Cutlery set with Fork, Knife and Spoon isolated on white background

1. Conservancy celebrates endangered species

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida is celebrating Endangered Species Day May 20-21 by offering a variety of engaging activities that raise awareness about Southwest Florida's most vulnerable species.

In addition to providing a day of activities, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and the Naples Zoo have partnered to offer their members special admission deals throughout the two-day celebration. Members of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and the Naples Zoo will receive free admission to the partnering organization's facilities May 20-21.

Admission to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida is $12.95 for adults, $8.95 for children 3-11 and free for children 2 years old and under. Admission is free for members of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, and free of charge during Endangered Species Day festivities for members of the Naples Zoo.

2. Saturday: Marco Island Community Sailing Center Open House

The City of Marco Island Parks and Recreation Department would like to invite the public to the Sailing Center Open House, 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., Saturday, May 21. The club is located at the Jolley Bridge Beach on 1400 N. Collier Blvd. (at Yacht Club Entrance). Free food and drinks will be served. Register your child early for summer sailing programs and also tour the new Sailing Center facility. Meet the MICSC board members and summer sailing Instructors. Free rides will be available on the Opti Pram boats.

Information: 239-642-0575.

3. Friday: Lunch with the Chief

The next Lunch with the Chief will be 11:30 a.m., Friday, May 20 at Hideaway Beach Club, 250 South Beach Drive. The event is $25 per person, tax and tip included.

Call Joe Granda, 389-2823, or Curt Koon, 3894511, for reservations. Mail checks to: Marco Police Foundation, 1083 North Collier Blvd., #123, Marco Island, FL 34145.

The speaker will be Step Smart Collier's Mark Tesoro, M.A.
The Lee County Sheriff's Office has started a death investigation after finding the body of Eddie Powell Jr., 22, at a South Tamiami Trail shopping center on Sunday morning.

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By Michael Braun, The News-Press

The Lee County Sheriff's Office has started a death investigation after finding the body of Eddie Powell Jr., 22, at a South Tamiami Trail shopping center on Sunday morning.

The sheriff's office responded to an incident at 16520 South Tamiami Trail, Fort Myers, at 3:14 a.m., and found Powell at the location.

The site is the Island Park Shopping Center at the corner of Island Park Road and Tamiami Trail and contains several restaurants, bars, a hookah lounge and other businesses.

Construction at the center has closed a large section of the parking lot.

Detectives with the Major Crimes Unit have assumed the investigation.

A 2015 entry in the Lee County jail website for Powell said he had lived with his mother in Fort Myers but had moved to Cape Coral.

Anyone with information should call the Lee County Sheriff's Office at (239) 477-1000. Or, to remain anonymous and be eligible for a cash reward of up to $1000, call Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780-TIPS. Tips may also be made online at www.swflcrimestoppers.org or by texting a tip to CRIMES(274637) keyword: REWARD
SHARE Collier Clerk of Courts Dwight Brock Submitted

By Greg Stanley of the Naples Daily News

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the amount of money donors have given to Clerk Dwight Brocks reelection campaign. Brock has raised more than $15,000 in contributions, while chipping in $10,000 of his own.



Whether she's running for Collier County commissioner or county clerk, Georgia Hiller is a prolific money raiser. The two-term commissioner has quickly amassed more than $55,000 in contributions for her bid to take on 23-year incumbent Dwight Brock for the position of clerk, campaign finance reports show.

Brock has raised less than half of that amount, just more than $15,000, in the two months since filing to run for a seventh term.

Both of the candidates also personally have chipped in more than $10,000 to their campaigns. Little of the money has been spent.

Much of Hiller's support is coming from self-identified developers and real estate companies, which have pumped a total of $26,000 into Hiller's coffers. Hiller's largest donor is Stock Development, which gave the candidate $8,000 through various companies it operates on March 18, about a month before Hiller and the rest of the commission voted down a proposal to try to bring the spring training site of the Atlanta Braves to land owned by Stock. Hiller received another $1,000 that day from attorney Rich Yovanavich, who frequently represents Stock and a handful of other developers before commissioners.

Hiller has also tapped into at least one longtime antagonist of both herself and the clerk, former Commissioner Fred Coyle. Coyle has given $1,000 to Hiller's campaign even though there was little love between the two in the four years they spent together on the commission, disagreeing over many of the key issues that came before the board.

Coyle also fought bitterly against Brock for more than a decade over audits, campaign issues, and the power and reach of the clerk's office.

"I understand them both very well," Coyle said. "Brock, I think, does a great disservice to his office. He is so power hungry that his joy of serving in that position is derived from how much power he can establish over local government. Georgia Hiller is more levelheaded and knowledgeable of the laws that govern the clerk's station. We certainly got off on the wrong foot, but I think she will do a significantly better job than the clerk."

Much of Brock's financial backing is coming from within his own office, records show.

Several members of the clerk's staff, including his finance director, senior assistant, internal auditor and a handful of others have pitched in for his cause. Those employees, as well as several attorneys Brock has hired as clerk and his office's Pennsylvania-based collection agency, have given a total of about $10,000 to his campaign.

Meanwhile, one candidate in each of the two contested county commission races has started to separate from the pack.

Burt Saunders, an attorney, lobbyist and former state representative, state senator and county commissioner, has raised nearly $40,000, more than the other four candidates for the District 3 seat combined.

Saunders has pulled in $25,000 from his network of mostly attorneys and developers, while also putting up $15,000 of his own money. After spending on event supplies, mailers and a campaign administrator, Saunders still had about $26,000 on hand at the end of April, compared to $10,000 and $4,000 on hand for his two Republican challengers, Russell Tuff and Ron Kezeske, respectively.

The Republican candidate will be decided in the August 30 primary. Democratic Annisa Karim has raised nearly $7,000 while Independent Atom McCree has raised less than $1,000 for the general election in November.

In the District 5 race, Bill McDaniel, who owns a mining and excavation company in Golden Gate Estates, has raised just over $22,000, matching the total raised by the other four District 5 candidates.

McDaniel, however, has already spent $13,000 on political consultants and campaign supplies, leaving his war chest about equal with Republican rivals Randy Cash and Doug Rankin, who have $9,000 and $8,000 ready to spend. Democrat Tamara Paquette has $1,600 on hand, while Independent Marvin Courtright is sitting with $1,000 for November.
Irina Cruz, of Florida Clown, right, shows Joey Mosca, 4, of Naples, his Spider-Man face paint design Sunday, May 15, 2016 at Artis "Naples in Naples, Fla. Community Day drew hundreds from noon to 5 p.m. with free activities like shaving cream art, wire sculpture, food, music performances, face painting, gallery perusing and more. (Corey Perrine/Staff)

SHARE The Community Day Youth Chorus performs "Dide ta Deo" Sunday, May 15, 2016 at Artis "Naples in Naples, Fla. Community Day drew hundreds from noon to 5 p.m. with free activities like shaving cream art, wire sculpture, food, music performances, face painting, gallery perusing and more. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Fay Ghorayeb, center, and friend Lane Calking, right, both 11 of Naples, play water-filled xylophone Sunday, May 15, 2016 at Artis "Naples in Naples, Fla. Community Day drew hundreds from noon to 5 p.m. with free activities like shaving cream art, wire sculpture, food, music performances, face painting, gallery perusing and more. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Jose Chang, 15, reacts to applying a temporary tattoo on James Wass, 11, both of Naples, Sunday, May 15, 2016 at Artis "Naples in Naples, Fla. Community Day drew hundreds from noon to 5 p.m. with free activities like shaving cream art, wire sculpture, food, music performances, face painting, gallery perusing and more. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Even Brewer, from left, JoAnne Brewer, both of Port Charlotte, and Beth Yates, of Tampa, peruse art Sunday, May 15, 2016 at Artis "Naples in Naples, Fla. Community Day drew hundreds from noon to 5 p.m. with free activities like shaving cream art, wire sculpture, food, music performances, face painting, gallery perusing and more. (Corey Perrine/Staff)

By Ashley Collins, ashley.collins@naplesnews.com

It was a family occasion for Carla Vanderheyden.

The Naples resident spent quality time with her twin infant daughters and three-year-old daughter, Ana, while waiting in line for face painting at the Artis  Naples campus on Sunday.

"We've been coming to the community event for a couple of years now. It's nice to have a family-oriented event in our community," Vanderheyden said.

The Vanderheyden's were one of many families that enjoyed the center's annual Community Day, which provides free access to museum exhibitions and galleries.

Families were also able to create art of their own.

Over at the Baker Museum's glass dome conservatory, Lily Sennie, 10, of Marco Island, designed colorful buttons with her grandmother.

"I really love the arts and I really love to let my mind go out of the box, and just create weird stuff I never saw before," Lily said.

The annual event aims to expose families, especially children, to the arts, said Bonnie Thayer, director of education and community partnerships.

"This event meets our mission very well. Our mission is to offer access to the arts, both visual and performing arts, to the community for all ages," Thayer said. "Research shows kids that are involved in the arts, both performers and being creative, increases their cognitive development and it also shows that kids do better in school, so it's a wonderful time for us to offer access to the arts."

During the event, families were able to see works of art done by professionals and students.

Four of the center's art galleries included hundreds of art pieces created by students in the community. Apart from Community Day, the Artis  Naples hosts an annual student exhibition, which displays more than 500 works of arts, ranging from acrylic painting to 3-D ceramics.

Every year, three participating high school seniors have the chance to each earn a $1,000 college scholarship.

Families not only created or viewed art, they also listened to it.

Inside Hayes Hall, music was all around, captivating people both young and old, with performances by the Naples Philharmonic Youth Symphonia and youth chorus.

Gregg Anderson conducted the performances.

Artis  Naples is a center for performing and visual arts in Southwest Florida. The center hosts more than 300 concerts, performances, exhibitions and events annually, according to the center's website.

For more information about Artis  Naples, visit http://artisnaples.org/
Mark Sievers wipes away tears as he listens to his recorded conversations with his two girls during a temporary custody hearing on Monday, May 16, 2016. (Andrew West/The News-Press)

By Jacob Carpenter of the Naples Daily News

The daughters of Lee County murder defendant Mark Sievers will remain in the temporary custody of their maternal grandmother as the case moves toward trial, a Lee County judge ruled Monday.

Circuit Judge Robert Branning denied the request of Mark Sievers mother, Bonnie, to have temporary custody of the two daughters transferred to her, determining its in the girls best interest to remain with their maternal grandmother, Mary Ann Groves. The custody fight stems from the unavailability of both of the girls parents  Mark Sievers has been in jail since February, accused of orchestrating the June 2015 killing of his 46-year-old wife and the childrens mother, Teresa Sievers.

Brannings ruling is a victory for Groves and the Florida Department of Children and Families, which advocated for keeping the children with Groves.

But for Mark Sievers, the hearing could have been worse. A guardian ad litem sought to appoint a third-party organization to monitor all phone calls between Mark Sievers and his daughters, arguing he had been improperly influencing his kids. Branning issued a stern warning to Mark Sievers, but stopped short of mandating the monitoring, which would have reduced the number of jailhouse calls.

Discussions about this case, discussions about persons involved in this case, are going to stop, Branning said. The evidence I heard here today and in earlier motions is unacceptable.

The ruling ended two days of testimony and argument, which at times revealed some of the animosity between the families of Mark and Teresa Sievers amid the high-profile murder case.

Mark Sievers has pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge. Lee County sheriffs detectives have said he coordinated with his lifelong friend, Curtis Wayne Wright Jr., to have his wife killed.

At a hearing last week, Mark and Bonnie Sievers argued that she should take temporary custody of the child, largely because Mark Sievers wanted her appointed as guardian. Bonnie Sievers testified at the time that she was ready to take over primary responsibility for the children.

But on Monday, lawyers for Groves and DCF argued that Sievers has been coaching his daughters in phone calls, turning them against the family of Teresa Sievers. They also argued that Bonnie Sievers recently said she wasnt physically, emotionally or financially capable of taking temporary custody  directly contradicting her testimony from last week.

A DCF lawyer made the case through about two hours of recorded jail calls between Mark Sievers, his mother and his daughters.

On the calls, Mark Sievers is effusive with praise and affection for his daughters, but cautious about how much he discusses the legal and custody proceedings. In early April, Mark Sievers told the girls that other people are petitioning to get custody, but wouldnt tell them who.

I cant go into that detail right now, but theyre people who you know and love, Mark Sievers said.

At other points, Mark Sievers makes unflattering statements to his daughters about Groves failing to facilitate some phone calls, calling it baloney and Mickey Mouse crap. During one call, Mark Sievers, mistakenly believing hes not on speakerphone with the girls, suggests Groves is behind his bond revocation.

In another call, Bonnie Sievers told her son that she worried it will be years of caring for the children, striking a different tone from her testimony last week. Mark Sievers, who often grew frustrated and animated with his mother in the calls, encouraged her to put aside her reservations and seek custody.

Im getting out of here as soon as I can, Mark Sievers told his mother.

Throughout the playing of the phone calls Monday, Mark Sievers became demonstrative, alternatively crying, smiling and laughing upon hearing the old conversations. He didnt speak at length Monday.

Kristin Allain, a lawyer for DCF, argued that Mark Sievers continues, despite his conditions, to exert complete control over the girls, and that the children are best served in the temporary custody of Groves. Mark Sievers lawyer made the case that his client has a constitutional right to determine custody because his parental rights remain intact.

Branning ultimately decided a best interest of the children standard applied, and that meant keeping the children in the temporary custody of Groves. The girls have had weekly visits with Bonnie Sievers and are expected to maintain that contact in the coming months.

Investigators believe Wright and another man, Jimmy Rodgers, traveled from their home state of Missouri to the Sieverses Bonita Springs home, where they bludgeoned Teresa Sievers to death. Mark Sievers was in Connecticut at the time of the homicide. Wright has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, while Rodgers has pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge.
Berne Melmed dances with a woman during the local event celebrating Israel's 68th Anniversary. Ashley Collins/Staff.

SHARE Many people wear and wave the Israel flag proudly during the local event celebrating Israel's 68th anniversary. Ashley Collins/Staff. Rabbi Adam Miller of Temple Shalom of Naples, pictured at center, stands onstage, along with other rabbis, to say kind words about Israel. Ashley Collins/Staff. People stand together for the U.S. national anthem. The local event also honored Israel's national anthem. Ashley Collins/Staff.

By Ashley Collins, ashley.collins@naplesnews.com

Berne Melmed danced and encouraged others to join him as a live band played Israeli music in celebration of the country's 68th anniversary as a state.

Melmed, along with his wife, Beverly, live in Estero, but have close ties to Israel.

"Israel means everything to us. We have a daughter that lives there, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren," Beverly Melmed said.

The couple has visited Israel 18 times.

"It's a wonderful place for everybody to go at least once," he said.

The Melmeds are members of the Jewish Federation of Collier County, which hosted its inaugural multicultural event on Sunday at the lawn in Mercato. The event celebrated Israel's independence as well as the country's achievements since 1948.

Jeffrey Randall organized the free event, which was a year in the making.

"It's recognizing Israel in what they do, not only for themselves or for the people of the United States, but for the world with their communications, technology and their medicines," Randall said. "We're excited about everything they've done and are going to do."

The Jewish Federation of North America, founded in 1999, represents 151 Jewish federations, including Collier County's, and more than 300 Jewish communities. The federations raise and distribute more than $3 billion on a yearly basis to improve education and social welfare and services in Israel and other countries, according to the national federation's website.

Sunday, many people joined in the celebration, waiving Israel flags proudly as they walked around the lawn, visiting nearly 20 Israel-themed booths and enjoying live music, arts and crafts, a rock climbing wall and a display of an Israel ambulance, also known as an intensive mobile care unit.

Approximately 6,000 Jewish people live in Collier County, Randall said.

"With Israel being the homeland of all the major faiths, this is a celebration for Israel and all the peoples and that's why it's open to the entire community," said Jeffrey D. Feld, the local federation's president/CEO. "It's important that the entire community recognize that Israel is a sovereign state and a wonderful place that is helping the rest of the world in so many ways."

The event's guest speakers included three rabbis and Congressmen Mario Diaz-Balart, representing Florida's 25th congressional district and Curt Clawson, who serves the 19th district.

Clawson emphasized the importance of supporting Israel.

"This last December, I took a trip by myself, not with any congressional group, and went to Jerusalem. I walked around the old city by myself ... I went to the western wall, and I sat there ... While I'm not Jewish, I felt centered, I felt closer to my God, and most of all, I felt closer to those that went before me," Clawson said. "I remember today with great appreciation to those who founded the great state of Israel and paved the way through their blood and their sacrifices for this beacon of light in the Middle East."

For more information about The Jewish Federation of Collier County, visit http://jewishnaples.org/.
The national law firm of Quarles & Brady LLP today announced that David N. Morrison, a partner in the firms Naples office, has been appointed to the Legal Aid Service of Collier County Advisory Board. In this role, he will assist the private, nonprofit organization in its mission of providing free civil legal services to local residents who face matters of life-changing significance.



Morrison has more than 30 years of experience representing financial institutions, developers, investors, and individuals in real estate development, transactions, and mortgage lending.



His practice is focused on representation of national, regional, and community lenders in the acquisition, financing, and development of real property; commercial leasing, including build-to-suit ground leases, office buildings, and big-box leases; creation of land condominiums for development of mixed use projects; state and local counsel for national and regional lenders, including lender's and borrower's opinions of counsel; and issuance of title insurance in commercial and large residential transactions.



Morrison also is the founder of Triumph Development Corporation, a Naples luxury homebuilder, as well as two former Naples law firms.


Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt, P.A., is pleased to announce that Erin Houck-Toll, a stockholder in the Business & Tax Division, has been appointed by the Florida Bar to serve a three-year term on its Tax Certification Committee beginning on July 1. This Committee oversees the process for approving applications of Florida lawyers seeking to become board certified experts in tax law. The lawyers experience and competency are rigorously evaluated to determine if they meet the highest standards of special knowledge, skills, proficiency, professionalism and ethics in the practice of tax law.



Houck-Toll is a dual board certified expert in Tax Law (since 2010) and Health Law (since 2015). She is one of only three dual board health and tax law attorneys in the entire state of Florida. Houck-Toll assists clients in business planning, health care law, mergers and acquisitions, and intellectual property issues. She also has an active federal and state taxation practice, representing individuals, businesses, non-profits and tax exempt organizations before the IRS, Florida Department of Revenue, and United States Tax Court. Houck-Toll also serves as Vice President on the Board of Directors of Special Equestrians, Inc.



Houck-Toll has been honored throughout her legal career. She was named one of Gulfshore Business Magazines Top 40 Under 40 (2012) and has been recognized by Florida Super Lawyers magazine (2009-2011, 2013-2014) for her work in business and corporate law. Houck-Toll has also achieved the highest AV rating by Martindale Hubbell. Houck-Toll received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University (B.A., 1999); her law degree from Tulane University (J.D., cum laude, 2004); and, her L.L.M. (Taxation) from the University of Florida (2005). She can be reached at erin.houck-toll@henlaw.com or by phone at 239-344-1296.


The community of Grange gathered together with Fr. Bobby Power to celebrate Mass in honour of Tomas OSlatara on the occasion of his retirement as principal of Grange National School after 32 years.

The community of Grange gathered together with Fr. Bobby Power to celebrate Mass in honour of Tomas OSlatara on the occasion of his retirement as principal of Grange National School after 32 years.

Mass was followed by refreshments in the school with a video and photographic display for past pupils to take a trip down memory lane.

Tomas, who originally hails from Cashel, qualified in 1977. He taught in Cabinteely, Co. Dublin from 1977-1982 before his appointment as principal in Grange.

In 1982 Grange was a school with three teaching staff, with one staff member teaching in the village hall. In 1987, 2006 and 2013 further classrooms were built to accommodate growing numbers and today it is a thriving establishment with ten teaching staff, an administrative principal, two Specials Needs Assistants (SNAs), a secretary and two caretakers.

Liam Ahearn, who has been chairperson of the board of management for 16 years paid tribute to Tomass influence not only in the school but in the wider community of Grange also.

Current principal Marie Keating, who worked with Tomas since 1997, lauded his leadership skills and the example he set to all staff through his enthusiasm, positivity and commitment to the childrens interests.

Chairperson of Grange Community Council Anne Casey praised Tomass commitment to the community over the years and she hoped he would continue his involvement in the community.

Tomas thanked Grange community for the wonderful tributes, as he recalled many experiences and events over the 32 years. Tribute was paid to the staff and boards of management with whom he had worked and he mentioned those who were no longer with us including Theresa Ahearn TD, who he said was a staunch supporter of Grange community and school.

The board of management and parents association, Grange Community Council and Grange Development Association presented Tomas with a painting by local artist Marie Claire Keague of local landmark Ballindoney Castle.

Presentations were also made by Ardfinnan and Ballybacon Grange GAA clubs to acknowledge Tomass commitment to the GAA in school over the years.

Comhghairdeachas a Thomais, go maire tu cead sa saol nua speisiul ata romhat amach.
New York's financial regulator has issued subpoenas to two companies with ties to Apollo Global Management as part of an inquiry into housing transactions for low-income buyers.

The New York State Department of Financial Services subpoenaed ARM Manager LLC, an indirect Apollo subsidiary, and the real estate investment trust it manages, Apollo Residential Mortgage Inc., on Friday, asking for information on deals made through a seller-financing program, according to a person familiar with the matter. The regulator also sent subpoenas to Battery Point Financial and New York Mortgage Trust Inc., said the person, who asked not to be identified because the requests for information aren't public.

Apollo's housing investment that involves offering buyers with bad credit contracts called bond-for-title agreements was the subject of a Bloomberg investigative story last month. The deals give buyers most of the responsibilities associated with homeownership with few of the privileges they'd have in either a mortgage or a rental contract. Housing advocates and investors have called these types of agreements predatory, with few protections for consumers.

Charles Zehren, a spokesman for Apollo, didn't respond to requests for comment.

Apollo, headed by billionaire Leon Black, became involved in the program in 2014 through Apollo Residential Mortgage. The REIT has invested more than $40 million to buy and renovate single-family homes.

The firm partnered with a Baton Rouge, La.-based company called Home Servicing. While their housing contracts vary by state, dozens reviewed by Bloomberg showed the buyer doesn't own the home or claim to the deed until the full purchase price is paid off, as many as 30 years later. In many cases, if the buyer fails to keep up to date on insurance or is more than 30 days late with a payment, the buyer forfeits all money and interest in the property.

In February, a REIT focused on commercial real estate thats also managed by an indirect subsidiary of Apollo agreed to buy the residential REIT backing the seller financing program. The commercial REIT said it intended to liquidate the assets of the residential firm to invest in more commercial real estate debt opportunities.

Battery Point Financial, another company investing in the business, with as much as $40 million from private-equity firm KKR & Co., confirmed it received an inquiry from the regulator. Battery Point intends to "fully support the agency's review of the use of contracts for deed," Doug Donsky, a spokesman for the company, said in an emailed statement.

Battery Point has been trying to differentiate itself by taking steps to help homebuyers improve their financial profiles.

"We support improving awareness of how non-mortgage financing products can create opportunities for consumers who are shut out of the mortgage market," Donsky said in the email.

Kristine Nario, chief financial officer at New York Mortgage Trust, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Staff from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's research, markets and regulations division have had discussions about housing contracts with members of the watchdog's consumer-advisory board, according to Sam Gilford, a bureau spokesman.

"We want all consumers to be treated fairly, and we monitor the marketplace to stay apprised of emerging developments in consumer finance," he said.
Yoga and asthma

The other health benefits of yoga

(NaturalNews) The overwhelming number of health benefits associated with the practice of yoga is widely documented and has been proven by a great many studies. Not only is yoga one of the most popular forms of exercise today, but it is also recommended by doctors and scientists across the world for its range of health benefits.According to a study published in the journal Psycho-Oncology, yoga benefits woman suffering with breast cancer resulting in a 50% reduction in depression and 12% increase in feelings of peace. Specifically, yoga was found to improve areas of mental health involving depression, positive emotions and spirituality  making it perfect for use alongside other treatments for conditions that cause low mood and a feeling of being spiritually lost.Yoga originated in India more than 5,000 years ago and has become a popular mindbody therapy in the West, with the breathing control and body postures believed to help nourish self-awareness, control stress and develop physical strength and balance, according toAnd now it seems that yoga can also help those suffering with asthma to get their breath back, according to a recent report by theScientists believe that the way that yoga teaches people to breathe and the stretching exercises involved actually decrease the chances of having an asthma attack, by relaxing muscles in the airways and relieving the anxiety that can sometimes be the root cause, according to theAsthma affects around 17.7 million adults in the US  which is approximately 7.4% of the population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But a recent study from the Chinese University of Hong Kong now suggests that this art could help alleviate asthma symptoms. The team looked at 15 different trials using yoga to treat men and women with mild and moderate asthma from around the world.The research suggests that, not only does yoga ease symptoms, but it also improves quality of life for asthma-sufferers because of the way that the breathing exercises and postures relax the muscles in the airways and cause the chest to expand. This research is particularly important given that some of the existing treatments for asthma do not actually work.Asthma sufferers are reported to also experience high levels of anxiety and depression associated with limited social activities and ongoing concerns about their condition, according to the. Scientists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong have stated that "yoga could represent an additional option for people with asthma to relieve both physical and psychological [symptoms]."And these amazing benefits have been proven when sufferers participate in yoga just twice a week.As reported by yoga benefits the heart in the same way that aerobic exercises do  making it as good for your health as a brisk walk or a bicycle ride. 37 different clinical trials have found that yoga lowers blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rate and other cardiovascular risk factors in the same way that aerobic exercise does.According to Dr. Larry Phillips, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Medical Center, "what we've seen is with yoga and the relaxation and behavior modification that goes along with it, there is a benefit to all patients, but especially those with heart disease. Here we are able to see there are more measurable benefits than we've seen before."For more ways to improve your health without the toxic effects of pharmaceuticals, check out the Natural Medicine, Healing & Wellness Summit
How about some personal responsibility?

Back to the 'simple' solution

(NaturalNews) There is no question that hundreds of millions of people the world over are becoming more and more addicted to their portable electronic devices, be they pads, tablets, smart phones or other devices. Now, officials in two German cities have come to the conclusion that residents areaddicted to their devices that they are putting themselves at risk when interacting with traffic. Rather than requiring these citizens to take some responsibility for their own personal safety while crossing streets, city officials decided to placate them instead.As reported by CNN, the cities were so concerned about people walking down the street glued to their smart phones, that they decided to install traffic lights that face up at pedestrians  on sidewalks.As reported by CNN, the southern city of Augsburg recently installed the ground lighting system at a pair of crowded train stations, after a manager saw similar technology in Cologne. The latter city was truly pioneering, having installed the lights back in 2011, according to the German transportation research institute, Stuva.The lights cost about 10,000 euros, or about $11,313 each, and some Germans have complained about the high price tag, according to Jurgen Fergg, an Augsburg municipal service spokesman. However, he argued, the cost is "justified compared to the damage that can be prevented .""We will keep an eye on the results and see if less people will walk over the red light," Fergg added.A 19-year-old was severely injured in early March in Augsburg, after failing to look up before crossing, and not noticing the train that was approaching. The man was wearing headphones, police said.In other cities, there have actually been fatalities involving people who, for some reason, failed to look both ways before crossing streets and train tracks, because, according to Fergg, they were too distracted.CNN noted that the problem is simple to solve  or seems that way: people ! But distracted walking apparently is a "thing" that cities must now deal with, because we're becoming a species of cattle too timid and distracted to keep ourselves safe  even when it is easy to do. study by The Ohio State University in 2013, found that the number of people who became injured while walking and using their phones rose by more than double from 2005 to 2010; more than 1,500 people had to be taken to emergency rooms."If current trends continue, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of injuries to pedestrians caused by cell phones doubles again between 2010 and 2015," said Jack Nasar, co-author of the study, and professor of city and regional planning at The Ohio State University, according to a press release from the institution."The role of cell phones in distracted driving injuries and deaths gets a lot of attention and rightly so, but we need to also consider the danger cell phone use poses to pedestrians," he added.Nasar, who conducted the study with former Ohio State University graduate student Derek Troyer, said that the research indicated that young people aged 16 to 25 were most at risk for becoming injured as distracted pedestrians. Also, they found, most were hurt while talking rather than texting. The study appeared in the August 2013 issue of the journalThe Ohio State University release stated further:Nasar said he believes the actual 'distracted while walking due to electronic device' injury figures are much higher.His solution wasn't to install ground traffic signals however, but for parents to teach their kids how to be safe  like, look both ways before crossing a street or subway tracks
Unregulated organic labeling of marijuana leading to consumer confusion

Organic demand growing across the board

(NaturalNews) As people everywhere become more concerned about what they are putting into their bodies, the demand for organic products is rising dramatically. Just as people are increasingly opting for organic food, those who purchase marijuana want it to meet the same criteria.However, labeling marijuana to indicate whether it is truly organic can be a bit complicated, and there is no regulation in place to ensure that growers are truthful. In fact, Colorado lawmakers have just failed to pass a measure to institute standard organic labeling for marijuana because of concerns about public perception.The labeling proposal, which failed by 4-3 in a Senate committee, would have applied to marijuana that was produced without pesticides. Those opposed to the measure felt it could lead people to believe that marijuana is harmless.Sen. Rollie Health, D-Boulder, said, "It will mislead people to thinking marijuana doesn't have any health effects, that it's OK. It kind of puts a stamp of approval on it."The measure's sponsor, Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, rejected this notion, saying, "Does that label mean there are no health effects? That's it's healthy, it's wholesome? I don't think anyone is going to be under any false illusions."Ben Gelt of the Organic Cannabis Association points out that foods that are not entirely healthy, such as wine and chocolate, are eligible for organic certification.Some of the lawmakers even expressed concern that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) would end up penalizing state agriculture regulators for labeling the marijuana as organic. Organic standards for food fall under federal regulation, and marijuana is still illegal on the federal level. This means that there is currently no way to prevent commercial growers from labeling their pot as organic when it is not.Had it passed, it would have made Colorado the first state in which organic labels on pot are regulated. Last year, concerns about off-limits chemicals being used by growers led to the seizure of thousands of marijuana plants by health authorities in Denver. After releasing most of them, some were actually sold with names suggesting that they were organic or natural.Last year, Dr. Andy LaFrate of Colorado marijuana research facility Charas Scientific warned that cannabis consumers should exercise caution, after discovering that a surprising amount of the legal cannabis being sold in the state was contaminated with toxins such as pesticides, heavy metals and even mold.He reached his conclusions after testing 600 samples from various dispensaries situated throughout the state. In addition, he discovered that many of the more popular strains available were high in THC and low in the beneficial CBD that can help patients who suffer from neurological disorders, seizures and epilepsy.This is also a problem with the food supply, as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, uncovers in his book, Food Forensics . Analytical testing of hundreds of foods and supplements in his lab found the presence of a number of concerning toxic ingredients in everyday products.Farmers and food retailers alike can barely keep up with the demand for organic food, with Costco CEO Craig Jelinek recently telling investors that his store "cannot get enough organics to stay in business day in and day out."The Organic Trade Association reports that organic food sales jumped to $35.95 billion in 2014, from just $11.13 billion a decade earlier. This sentiment is carrying over to beauty products, and marijuana users are also expressing concern, as many of them turn to the plant in the first place to avoid the chemicals found in prescription medications.Despite the measure failing to get off the ground, the topic is likely to be revisited, as people continue to raise concerns about what is really in the substances they consume.
Once in the environment, PCBs have staying power

Banned, yes, but they are still being produced

Getting around the few regulations that exist

PCB-11 turning up in more and more places

(NaturalNews) They're called polychlorinated biphenyls, and the Environmental Protection Agency banned them about 35 years ago.PCBs, as they are more commonly referred to, "belong to a broad family of man-made organic chemicals known as chlorinated hydrocarbons," the EPA says on its website. They were domestically produced from about 1929 until they were eventually banned in 1979.Over the years, scientists found that PCBs exhibited a range of properties; they varied in consistency from thin, light-colored liquids to yellow or black waxy solids.Because they weren't flammable, were chemically stable, had a high boiling point and displayed electrical insulation properties, PCBs were used commercially in hundreds of ways: electrical and heat transfer, in hydraulic equipment, in paints as plasticizers, in plastics and rubber products, in carbonless copy paper and, as the title of this investigation suggests, as pigmentation in dyes.In short, PCBs were everywhere. In fact, they still are.One of the problems with PCBs is their longevity. They are capable of remaining in the environment and in ecosystems for decades. That's because they do not break down readily. So they cycle between the water, air and soil.They can also travel long distances. They have been found, for instance, in snow and seawater far away from where they were initially released into the environment."PCBs can accumulate in the leaves and above-ground parts of plants and food crops. They are also taken up into the bodies of small organisms and fish. As a result, people who ingest fish may be exposed to PCBs that have bioaccumulated in the fish they are ingesting," the EPA says.What makes them hazardous -- and why they were eventually banned -- is their link to health problems: cancer, as well as ill effects on the immune, reproductive, endocrine and nervous systems.Fast-forward three-and-a-half decades. Today, though PCBs were officially banned in the U.S., they are still showing up in manufactured products: paper products, paint and even kids' clothing.In fact, PCB-11 -- found largely in yellow dye from products manufactured mostly in Asia -- has been detected in just about every sample of paper products sold in 26 countries, as well as clothing in the U.S.This finding led scientists to understand how, after all these years, the chemical was being discovered in people's blood, in the air and in waterways.What's more, because it is anbyproduct of pigment manufacture, PCB-11 found in consumer products isfrom U.S. laws that regulate such compounds."It's out there in levels that are worrisome," Lisa Rodenburg, an associate professor of environmental chemistry at Rutgers University and senior author of a recent study identifying PCB-11 in consumer products, told"Even at the parts per billion levels, if you find it in almost everything you test, that means people are in almost constant contact," she said.While the health effects of PCB-11 have not yet been studied, it is unlike the older, banned PCBs, because it does not appear to accumulate in people or animals. Still, it is a PCB , which leaves experts concerned."Chemical regulations barely exist," Barry A. Cik, a noted environmental engineer and expert who has advised Congress and the White House, told. "There are 250 pounds of chemicals produced every year for every man, woman, and child in this country. Virtually all of it is pretty much unregulated."And companies use this dearth of regulation to their advantage, as Cik notes:"Let's say that you're manufacturing vinyl and you use arsenic in the process. You begin the run with a hundred pounds of arsenic. At the end of the run, you're left with five pounds of mucky yucky arsenic, which can no longer be used. That five pounds has to go, by law, to a hazardous waste landfill. But the other 95 pounds that went into the vinyl can go on a baby mattress. Totally legal."In Rodenburg's testing, PCB-11 was found in all 28 tested samples of non-U.S. paper products treated with ink. They included maps, napkins, brochures, postcards and advertisements. The compound was concentrated in the parts-per-billion range.In the U.S., 15 of 18 paper products had PCB-11.Also, all 16 samples of U.S. clothing contained PCB-11, and most of those were children's wear which were purchased at Wal-Mart stores but made overseas. In one child's pajama top, on the front (which had yellow printing), there was 20 times more PCB-11 than on the back, which was red."PCB 11 is ubiquitously present as a by-product in commercial pigment applications, particularly in printed materials," said the authors from Rutgers University and Boston College, in a draft of the study. It is expected to be published later this year after already having been peer-reviewed."Everyone has ignored the lower chlorinated congeners, primarily because they are not persistent and are relatively easily metabolized in the human body," Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany-SUNY, told. Nevertheless, it's a "very real and important issue."In 2013, University of Iowa researchers said that PCB-11 had been found to disrupt cell signaling after having been discovered in blood samples. Also, Carpenter and a team of researchers found that PCB-9, which is similar to PCB-11, was more toxic than other PCB compounds."If they are in the air and one breathes them in every day, there will be continuous exposure to what I suspect are very toxic substances," said Carpenter.Some other recent disturbing findings:-- The compound was present in nearly every air sample near 40 Chicago-area elementary schools in 2007.-- Paints may be a significant source of air emissions. Researchers have found more than 50 PCB compounds in 33 paint samples that were purchased at U.S. stores.-- PCB-11 is mostly found in yellow pigments , called diarylides, and much of this manufacturing occurs in Asia -- The compound is now regularly found in U.S. waterways. It has been discovered in the San Francisco Bay, the Great Lakes region (several locations), the Rio Grande and the Houston Ship Channel. Some of these findings led researchers to speculate that washing clothes which contain the yellow pigment enables the compound to slip into bodies of water.Cik, the environmental engineer, says we are fooling ourselves if we think that all of this exposure won't ultimately be harmful."There are about 80,000 chemicals in the marketplace. Not even 1 percent of them have really been tested for toxicity," he told. "The chemical industry says that it's not a problem because 'the dose makes the poison.' Technically correct, but the problem is that no one knows what doses of what chemicals do what kind of harm to who. And there is no way to assess cumulative and synergistic effects."
Can you endure the pain of surgery just to achieve the height that you've been dreaming of?

In India, young people are ready to face the pain of dangerous procedures in order to lengthen their limbs. One of the young people who underwent leg-lengthening surgery was Komal, the 24-year-old woman from Kota, Western India. She visited the clinic of the surgeon in Delhi Dr. Amar Sarin to find out about the risk of the surgery, which said to be helpful to make her taller.

When the 24-year-old woman underwent the unregulated procedure, her legs were broken, thus required her to wear a brace until she could walk again. According to The Sun UK, Komal's parents sold the family's ancestral lands in order to pay the medical procedure. The 24-year-old woman said it was worth it because she was able to boost her confidence.

"I have so much confidence now," she said. "I was just 4' 6" [137cm]. People used to make fun of me and I couldn't get a job. Now my younger sister is doing it, too," she added.

Having a taller height matters among people in India. It is considered as one of the aesthetics to improve marriage and job prospects, and stand out among the crowd.

The surgeon in Delhi, Dr. Sarin admitted leg lengthening is the most difficult surgeries to perform.

"This is one of the most difficult cosmetic surgeries to perform, and people are doing it after just one or two months' fellowship, following a doctor who is probably experimenting himself, he said.

"There are no colleges, no proper training, nothing," he explained.

The president of the Indian Orthopaedic Association, Dr. Sudhir Kapoor, does not recommend this medical procedure to the people except for some rare cases, The Guardian reports.

Leg-lengthening was developed in 1950s in a small Soviet town called Kurgan in Siberia. According to the source, Gavriil Ilizarov, a Polish man who invented this surgery, and also known as "magician from Kurgan."
We all have that certain memory we'd want to forget like a first date gone wrong or an embarrassing experience at work. Just like in the movie, 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,' researchers have found a way to do it.

Researchers from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire published a report in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review suggesting that they have figured out a way to help people forget certain unwanted memories through "contextually mediated intentional forgetting." In simplest terms, this can be done by clearing the mind of the context or any background aspects related to these memories.

For instance, if you want to forget a painful conversation you've had in the past, you could push away from your mind the song that was playing in the background or any thoughts related to that scene, said Jeremy Manning, lead author of the study.

"It's like intentionally pushing thoughts of your grandmother's cooking out of your mind if you don't want to think of your grandmother at that moment," he said.

Researchers have suggested two main strategies that could help in the process. One is to deliberately empty the mind from any thoughts. The other one is to fill the mind with thoughts about things that are totally not related to the memory you want to forget. "If you don't want to think about the color blue, you think of the green things instead, or red," Manning said.

The study was conducted among 25 participants aged 19 to 34. Researchers handed the participants a list of words to study while showing images of outdoor locations like forests, beaches and mountains.

Results showed that when participants were asked to forget the words, they tried to push away from their minds thoughts related to the image they had been shown earlier. Participants who were successful in pushing away images recalled the fewest words. But when asked to remember the words, participants retained the related images in their minds.

According to Manning, forgetting can be as important as remembering. This is particularly beneficial to people with post-traumatic stress disorder who want to forget certain traumatic memories.
For decades, scientists believe that eukaryotes can't survive without mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. A team of researchers led by evolutionary biologist Anna Karnkowska, a postdoc, and her adviser, Vladimir Hampl, of Charles University in Prague discovered a microbe that can survive without mitochondria.

"They're part of the definition of eukaryotic cell," Karnkowska told the Washington Post. "If you open a biology textbook to a picture of a eukaryotic cell, that's what you'll see."

For the study, researchers used the 454 whole-genome shotgun sequencing methodology to generate a draft genome sequence of the oxymonad Monocercomonoides, which belongs to a group of microbes that scientists believe had lost their mitochondria.

Their genome sequence revealed no signs of mitochondrial genes in the microbe. Further examination also showed that Monocercomonoides are lacking all the key proteins that enable mitochondria to function.

Monocercomonoides is a single-celled organism that lives in the intestines of chinchilla hosts. Researchers suggest that this kind of microbes don't due to the abundance of nutrients and scarcity of oxygen in their environment. Oxygen is required for the energy production in the mitochondria. Due to the near absence of oxygen in their environment, Monocercomonoides is more likely to enzymes in its cytoplasm to break down food and produce energy.

Other important function of mitochondria is the synthesis clusters of iron and sulfur that are essential helpers for a variety of proteins, but these organisms, cope up with the absence of mitochondria by borrowing some bacterial genes that perform the same function.

"It's a very solid paper experimentally," said evolutionary genomicist B. Franz Lang of the University of Montreal in Canada, in a statement. "If you'd like me to bet, I'd give them 90% probability that they are correct."

According to the researchers, their findings provide better understanding in the evolution of single-celled organism. It also suggests that there might be other eukaryotes that are still striving even with the absence of their powerhouse.


For the first time, a fossil of a giant sperm whale has been found outside America, and it is considerd as Melbourne's first-ever megawhale.

A 30-centimeter-tooth, almost twice the size of the tooth of today's sperm whale, was discovered by Murray Orr last February at the Beaumaris Bay, a site popular for housing ancient remains.

The teeth belonging to the bay sea monster found in Beaumaris! @7NewsMelbourne 4pm pic.twitter.com/rIISvQMwAU  Jacqueline Felgate (@Jacquifelgate) April 21, 2016

"For a moment it looked like an artillery shell, and I thought I might blow my arm off. But then I saw the curving pointed end and knew it was a sperm whale tooth." the fossil enthusiast told NY times.

Dr. Erich Fitzgerald, a paleontologist at Museum Victoria, after examining the tooth concluded that it was from an extinct group of marine behemoths called Livyatan melvillei.

Named after the biblical sea monster, Livyatan melvillei lived approximately 12 to 13 million years ago. Melvillei was chosen to give credit to Herman Melville, author of '"Moby Dick."

"With teeth that were thirty-six centimetres long, Livyatan had the dentition to take down large prey items. In fact not only were the teeth of Livyatan considerably larger than the largest shark's teeth, they are considered to be the largest known teeth for the purpose of eating," Prehistoric Wildlife notes.

Unlike the living sperm whale, which has no functional teeth and feeds by suction of squid and fish, the Livyatan melvillei, with its strong jaws are said to have hunted other whales and bigger predators.

In addition, Fitzgerald also found out that the tooth is missing the tip of the crown and some of the base root which means the tooth is from a whale which has not lived long.

Fitzgerald is looking forward to discovering more about the species like how it co-existed with other marine animals, how it survived in the ancient times and how it became extinct.

Orr donated the tooth to the museum last month for the purpose of research and scientific studies.
The world's oldest person, Susannah Mushatt Jones, passed away last week in New York at 116 years old.

Affectionately called "Miss Susie" by her family and neighbors, Jones died on Thursday night at a Brooklyn public housing facility for seniors, where she had lived for more than 30 years, as per The Associated Press.

The Gerontology Research Group said she had been sick for the past 10 days.

Jones was born in 1899 in Alabama to sharecropper parents, as one of their 11 children. Her grandparents were slaves. She attended a special school for young African-American girls and graduated from high school in 1922. Before leaving for New Jersey and New York to work as a nanny, Jones also worked full time in crop picking with her family.

Jones also set up a scholarship fund for African-American women to attend college. She retired in 1965 but was still active in the house building's tenant patrol until she was 106/

Her family said the secret to her long life was her love of family and generosity to others. For Jones, she had said her secret to longevity was lots of sleep and never smoking and drinking alcohol, as per Reuters.

Jones did not have any children and was only married for a few years.

Her title is now passed on to an Italian woman, Emma Morano-Martinuzzi, who is also 116 years old. Just a few months younger than Jones, Morano-Martinuzzi is now the only living person born in the 19th century.

The Guardian reported that the Italian supercentenarian (110 years old and older) associates her long life to eating three raw eggs a day -- a habit she has been doing since she was a teen -- and being single.

However, experts also said being single does not necessarily translate to longevity, as research also showed that married people live longer than those who do not tie the knot.
An oil spill from the Royal Dutch Shell company has released 2,100 barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, forcing the company to shut down all its wells that flow to its Brutus platform.

The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said the leak involved about 88,200 gallons of crude, creating a 2 mile by 13 mile (about 3 kilometers by 21 kilometers) oil slick, about 97 miles south of Lousiana, as per Reuters.

The sheen was observed near Shell's Glider Field, which is comprised of four subsea wells. Its production flows to the Brutus platform, which is started its operations in 2001 and is underwater at a depth of 2,900 feet.

In a statement, Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith said the wells are already under control after production was halted.

The company said the slick most probably came from an oil release from the subsea infrastructure, though the exact cause of the incident is still being determined. No injuries have been reported and a cleanup crew has been dispatched by the U.S. Coast Guard.

EcoWatch reported that the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has tightened regulations for offshore operations since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in 2010, which created the largest man-made oil spill in history. Six years after the accident, the impact of the BP oil spill is worse than scientists initially thought.

Environmental advocates have persistently campaigned to stop offshore drilling as it continues to pose risks to the environment.

"The last thing the Gulf of Mexico needs is another oil spill," Greenpeace campaigner Vicky Wyatt told EcoWatch, adding that President Barack Obama can put an end to these climate disasters by stopping new leases in the Gulf and the Arctic.

The Louisiana Bucket Brigade, which aims to end petrochemical pollution in Louisiana, said in a press release that this spill is only one of the "thousands" of oil-related accidents happening in the Gulf of Mexico every year.

As of Sunday, the Coast Guard reported that more than 51,000 gallons of oily water have been recovered, as per The Associated Press. The slick is not expected to reach the shoreline and has not injured wildlife.
NASA is making sure that the astronauts are well protected in their future space exploration, that's why they are granting funds to projects which aim to improve lives of men in outer space through NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program.

"The NIAC program is one of the ways NASA engages the U.S. scientific and engineering communities, including agency civil servants, by challenging them to come up with some of the most visionary aerospace concepts," said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate.

Our torpor concept for deep space human stasis has been selected for a @NASA #NIAC Phase 2 study! https://t.co/TcSkv7TWW8  SpaceWorks (@SpaceWorksSEI) May 13, 2016

The deep sleep inducing habitat spacecraft may sound like a line from a fiction movie, but we are about to witness the technology happen in real life as NASA just granted funding to the project.

In the final report by SpaceWorks, they presented the concept of designing a spacecraft which can transport space crew from Earth to Mars and vice versa. The spacecraft will be designed to put crew in deep sleep to hasten the transpost process. In the process, the astronauts will be induced to a state of unconsciousness.

"This new and innovative habitat design is capable of placing the crew in an inactive, torpor state for the duration of the in-space mission segments. This substantially reduces the mass and size of the habitat, which ultimately leads to significant reductions in the overall architecture size" SpaceWorks said.

SpaceWorks is developing the Therapeutic Hypothermia (TH) process to induce deep sleep. TH is "a proven and effective treatment for various traumatic injuries. TH is a medical treatment that lowers a patient's body temperature by just 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit causing their metabolism to reduce significantly and the body to enter an unconscious state" said SpaceWorks.

But TH hasn't been used in a non-medical treatment way that's why further studies had to be conducted. Former studies were able to put patients in a state of TH for up to 14 days.

The advantages of using therapeutic hypothermia in the Mars mission includes reduction in habitat mass and volume, reduction in crew consumables, increased mission margin, simplified anti-gravity systems and more.

According to a news report, NASA will award $500,000 to the eight chosen projects through their NIAC program.
The Solar Impulse 2 embarked on its round the globe mission with zero fuel, using only solar energy earlier this year. Last month it successfully flew across the Pacific and the eco-plane just landed in Oklahoma.

The round-the-world journey of the fuel-free Solar Impulse 2 is expected to be completed this July.

"Solar Impulse has no fuel. It flies only with the sun, but it's the beginning of something, you know. It's really experimental. It's a door slightly open to the future, pushing the technologies to the extreme ultimate applications," said Bertrand Piccard, Solar Impulse 2 Founder and Pilot in an interview with CCTV.

The Solar Impulse 2 made it to the headline because it is the first fuel-free plane powered by solar energy to embark on this daunting mission to travel the globe with zero carbon footprints.

It took the plane 18 hours to reach its destination on its latest flight, according to BBC. The plane is now halfway through America and the next goal is to reach New York City.

Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard worked on Solar Impulse 2 for 14 years before its flight. Together with the co-pilots, the plane has been to the Arabian Peninsula, Myanmar and China.

"The Chinese are very interested by clean technologies. They know it's the future, and China is moving very fast in the direction of clean technologies in order to have cleaner air. And they have a really smart way to move ahead, investing a lot in solar and wind," Bertrand Piccard added.

In late April, they managed to cross the Pacific from Hawaii to California. According to the pilots, it'll take another year before Solar Impulse 2 completes its mission to travel the globe using solar energy alone. They said it is not the speed that is important, but to prove that the green aviation technology works. "It's not about speed. It's really about slow and steady. It will arrive when it arrives," said Elke Neumann, Solar Impulse 2 spokesperson.

This just shows that green fuel can really do what the usual fuel does. It'll need some tweaking and more study but the Solar Impulse 2 proves that it can work.

To complete its mission, the Solar Impulse 2 will have to reach Abu Dhabi in UAE where the journey round-the-globe begun last year.
NASA, ESA, China and Russia are all working towards the same goal, to reach the red planet and extend the human presence in our Solar System. Because of its potential to cater to life, many scientists and space agencies are keen on studying and conquering the surface of Mars. With imminent missions on the horizons, NASA released their roadmap to Mars and how will they complete this daunting and literally out-of-this-world task.

"NASA's strategy connects near-term activities and capability development to the journey to Mars and a future with a sustainable human presence in deep space" said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations.

NASA released a paper detailing the roadmap to Mars, called "NASA's Journey to Mars; Pioneering Next Steps in Space Exploration." Mars holds the best option for 'expanding human presence,' that's why NASA has set their eyes on being the first to set foot on the red planet.

"These scouts have shown that Mars' geological evolution and climate cycles were comparable to Earth's, and that at one time, Mars had conditions suitable for life. What we learn about the Red Planet will tell us more about our Earth's past and future, and may help answer whether life exists beyond our home planet" NASA added.

NASA released their paper entitled 'Three Phases on our Journey to Mars' which includes the following phases:

1. Earth Reliant - this part is focused on study and research aboard the ISS and is mainly focused on human health and the effects of long haul space missions to astronauts.

2. Proving Ground - in this part, NASA will start to test technologies that will allow transport and habitation of its crew members. This includes the test of the SLS and Orion which is the most powerful rocket ever built. Other technologies are also being developed to enable the Earth Independent phase.

3. Earth Independent - during this phase, NASA is expected to harness the knowledge gathered by studies. They will start to build and enable human missions on Mars' vicinity, its moons and on the surface of the red planet as well.

The three phases looked simple in writing. In truth, it'll take billions of dollars and an amazing quantity of scientists to study the most advanced array of equipments in order to prepare and observe before finally building the technologies needed to be able to reach and survive on Mars.

Exploring the unknown means taking risks. A new form of efficient transportation needs to be developed for this mission to succeed. Also, a half-way house or habitation modules would have to put in place in order for the crew to survive.

NASA also said that their technologies are all interconnected.

"Pioneering space requires a sustained set of mutually reinforcing activities-science missions, technology development, capability demonstrations, and human spaceflight-to expand human presence into deep space and extend our robotic agents farther into the solar system, with the horizon goal of humans travelling to Mars and remaining on the surface" said NASA in their Journey To Mars report.

NASA is confident that the two decades spent on preparing for this mission, and the remaining years before the mission is launched, will be enough for the journey to succeed and for man to finally conquer the red planet.
A rescued dog who was trying to save a seven-year-old girl was bitten three times by a venomous rattle snake, damaging his kidneys.

According to reports, Molly DeLuca and the German shepherd, Haus, were playing when the eastern diamondback rattlesnake tried to attack them both.

"She saw him jump back, and go forward, and jump back and go forward," Molly's mother Donya DeLuca told Fox 13.

"He was just, kind of, holding his ground. Next thing we know is there's blood and he was limping and crying," added DeLuca.

The deadly and aggressive eastern diamondback rattlesnake is the largest venomous snake in North America, usually spotted in Southern North Carolina to Florida where the DeLucas live.

National Geographic noted that diamondback venom is "a potent hemotoxin that kills red blood cells and causes tissue damage." Bites are extremely painful and can be fatal if not given medical attention immediately.

Haus, who was adopted by the family two months ago, is currently being treated monitored by Veterinarians at Tampa's Blue Pearl Emergency Veterinary and Specialty Hospital.

"Without the pain medication, he's in pain. He's responsive, he's alert, and his leg is swollen and uncomfortable," Dr. John Gicking who is taking care of the dog told Associated Press.

A day in the ICU costs between $1000 to $1500, and each vial of anti-venom costs $618. Haus is averaging 4 or 5 vials per day as the poison leaves his system, AP noted.

Meet Haus, a German shepherd who took a snake bite protecting a 7 yr old girl https://t.co/TqxUTTZqS3 @Cameron_Gray pic.twitter.com/i6hvC1r9ON  Jenn Jacques (@JennJacques) May 13, 2016

To return the favor, Haus's owners created a crowd sourcing fund to help the family pay for the medications that Haus needs to survive. SaveHaus, has already accumulated $52,549 donations within four days.

Poor Haus! The German shepherd jumped between this 7-year-old girl and a rattlesnake https://t.co/6iCud1eXQQhttps://t.co/ko5CfmJEJR  USA TODAY (@USATODAY) May 14, 2016
A year-long investigation by NBC Bay Areas Investigative Unit and The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) raises questions about a well-known visa program setup to recruit foreign workers to the US: Is it indentured servitude in the high tech age? Or is it a necessary business model to compete in a quickly changing high tech economy?

NBC Bay Area and CIRs team discovered an organized system that supplies cheap labor made up of highly-educated and highly-skilled foreign workers who come to the US via H-1B visas.

Consulting firms recruit and then subcontract out skilled foreigners to major tech firms throughout the country and many in Silicon Valley.

Those who work for these third party firms that skirt the law often call them body shops and sometimes they get caught.

For example in August, 2014, a Cupertino man involved with one body shop pleaded guilty and was sentenced in US District Court to 19 felony counts of visa fraud where he admitted he knowingly applied for work visas for foreigners who had no job offers, filling out applications for fake jobs for a Silicon Valley tech firm.

However, some local workers say many dont get caught. And the workers are the ones who suffer.

It virtually makes these employees a slave, said one worker who came from India more than a decade ago.

The body shops have a specific business model, the worker said. They make business and profit by having cheap labor.

Because the man fears for his safety and his future, he asked that he remain anonymous. He had worked for 7 to 8 different body shops before he spoke to us.

There are times when I am trapped there are times when I am, yes, I feel I am trapped, he said.

H-1B Visas

The US government reserves H-1B visas for well educated, highly skilled and specialized foreign workers; one of the requirements is that the companies recruiting the workers have a job lined up for them upon arrival.

Congress has capped H-1B visas to 65,000 each year. According to federal statistics, more than 1.3 million H-1B visas have been given out since 2008. In the 2012 fiscal year, according to a report to Congress from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services 59 percent of H-1B visas went to computer-related occupations.

According to that same report 64 percent of the H-1B visa petitions granted in 2012 were given to workers originating from India.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services FY 2012

According to the federal data, high tech companies in Silicon Valley use tens of thousands of H-1B workers every year.

<a href="http://data.nbcstations.com/national/KNTV/scottpham/h1b/index.html">View an interactive on a separate page.</a>

While many of the consulting companies that use H-1B visas appear to play by the rules, NBC Bay Area and CIR found numerous examples of other companies taking advantage of foreign workers and breaking federal law in the process.

Broken Promises

Indentured servants is a pretty accurate term because in many cases thats exactly whats going on, said Phillip Griego of San Joses Phillip J. Griego and Associates. Over the years, Griego and his law partner, Robert Nuddleman have represented several H-1B workers in lawsuits against body shops.

Griego says the body shops will promise to pay all of their expenses to get over here, said Griego.

But Griego says workers tell a very different story.

They may not even have a job when the workers arrive in the United States, said Griego. Which is a misrepresentation of the H-1B visa.

H-1B visa rules prohibit companies from charging workers the cost of a visa and also require that there be a job when the foreign worker arrives.

Rules Ignored or Broken

The joint CIR/NBC Bay Area investigation found dozens of instances where companies ignored and broke those rules.

We tracked court cases involving consultancy companies or their executives, including a half-dozen civil cases filed in state and federal courts, around the country. In total, these court filings involved more than 600 fraudulent H-1B visas and petitions.

One case became a class action lawsuit based on the conditions that attorney Michael Ng found for many of the workers at Silicon Valley Systech or SVS.

Most of these people had also paid substantial fees, illegally, to cover the cost of the H-1B visa application to the United States, said Ng, a labor attorney in San Francisco. He considers Santa Clara-based Silicon Valley Systech to be a body shop.

Ng said many of the SVS workers were benched once they arrived in the US, meaning there was no job and were forced to wait for work on the bench. Under H-1B rules, thats illegal.

They didnt have jobs lined up for any of their employees, certainly nothing at the levels that they had promised them, said Ng.

In court filings in response to the lawsuits complaint, a lawyer for the SVS denied the allegations and maintained that any problems with pay, work or benching were a result of the workers actions.

Midway through the lawsuits process in 2009, Silicon Valley Systech went out of business, leaving workers with nothing.

Essentially they dumped them [the workers] into the guesthouse, said Ng.

Confined to a Guesthouse

A guesthouse is a small apartment or home where as many as eight to ten workers stay at once. A dozen different interviews confirmed that the guesthouses are commonly used by body shops.

One worker from India described how the body shops explained the guesthouse when he arrived: We are placing you in the guesthouse. Until you get the job you have to stay in the guesthouse, you should not go out, even for a walk, the worker said.

This worker, too, asked to remain anonymous because of fears he will jeopardize his future job prospects.

He stayed in guesthouses for several months and was told not to leave.

My familys in India, he said. I have a 6 month old baby and I want to see my son, and they [my family] want to come to the US and] stay with me, the worker said. Yet because of the living conditions at the guesthouse, the worker said there was no way his family could join him in the United States.

The worker said the body shop made him pay $2,300 to get an H1-B visa, which is illegal under federal law. He said the body shop kept up to 30 percent of his $60 an hour contract salary for expenses and taxes. This was in addition to the actual federal and state taxes withheld from his paycheck. He estimated that the body shop kept about $35,000 of his salary a year.

Companies Under the Microscope

According to federal records, two of the largest consulting and outsourcing companies have been accused in federal court of breaking US laws around H-1B visas.

A civil case in Texas brought by the federal government alleged that Infosys committed visa fraud in a similar program. According to USCIS statistics, Infosys applied to sponsor 11,652 H-1B workers in fiscal year 2013.

Infosys reached a settlement with the US in its visa fraud case in October 2013. They agreed to pay the US government a record $34 million, including $24 million to the US Attorney's office for the Eastern District of Texas.

USCIS statistics also show Tata Consultancy Services, applied for 7,279 H-1B work visas in fiscal year 2013. Tata Consultancy was also sued in 2006 in San Francisco for alleged breach of contract when the company, according to the lawsuit, allegedly failed to pay temporary visa holders gross wages promised. The case affected some workers on H1-B visas.

San Francisco class action attorney Daniel Hutchinson represented H-1B workers in the class action lawsuit against Tata Consultancy.

It comes down to people not getting paid what theyre promised to get paid or what they should be getting paid, Hutchinson said. And thats actually the experience that weve seen for a lot of people where people have come forward and company officials have told them, if you complain about this, if you dont sign over this amount, if you dont agree to this deduction, then we can just send you back to India.

In court papers, Tatas attorney denied all the allegations.

However, after seven years in court, Tata Consultancy agreed to a settlement of $29.75 million dollars to all the workers in a class action case, or an average of $1,600 per person after attorneys fees and costs. Steve Tindall, the co-lead counsel on the case said that each class member received different amounts in the settlement.

I dont think the general public knows much at all about who is being employed within the tech sector, said Hutchinson.

It seems to be something thats affecting hundreds of people who Ive talked to and then through our investigations, thousands of people outside of that as well too, he continued.

Neither Tata nor Infosys returned multiple requests from NBC Bay Areas investigative team for comment.

Continuing to Pursue the American Dream

One of the workers NBC Bay Area spoke to says that the problem is not confined to the Bay Area, but body shops all over the country take advantage of vulnerable foreign workers.

Its all over the country. I cant list a specific state where its not happening.

Experts say current federal law allows for this abuse by some companies.

Those calling for change want Congress to tweak the rules governing the use of H1-B visas and want the U-S Labor Department to be more aggressive in enforcing those rules to prevent more people from getting trapped in a body shop.

Beth Vallango

For more on the research and further explanation of the issues at hand read CIRs story.
A man was shot along Highway 4 in Antioch on Sunday evening - the latest victim in at least 20 shootings along East Bay highways since November.



In this case, Antioch police Sgt. Rick Martin said the 22-year-old man was taken to the hospital about 7:30 ap.m. after being shot at along Highway 4 and L Street.



Video showed the victim's car riddled with bullets. The young man's shoulder was covered in blood, but he was alert and speaking with paramedics following the highway violence.



Martin did not have more details on this shooting, and it's unclear if this one is connected to the slew of others peppering highways in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. The California Highway Patrol said there have been "at least 20" shootings on the freeways in the last eight months. Investigators have said that most of the shootings appear to be gang related.



The issue has become so bad that the Pittsburg City Council on Monday was poised to vote on buying security cameras for $100,000 to install along a stretch of Highway 4. On May 11, 25-year-old Shanique Marie, a mother of four, was shot and killed on Highway 4 in Pittsburg. Police said that shooting also appeared to be targeted.



One Antioch woman said the highway shootings are very unnerving.



"It's very scary," Glenda Smethers said. "It's getting closer and closer and it's happening more often."
A PetSmart groomer has been arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty after a dog died in his care at a store in San Mateo, California, authorities said.

The dog, a 1-year-old male dachshund named Henry, died Sunday at the PetSmart in the 3500 block of South El Camino Real. Officers responded and spoke with the dog's owner, a 47-year old San Mateo resident who said he brought Henry to the store to be groomed, according to police.

About three minutes later, the groomer, identified as 38-year old Juan Zarate of San Francisco, exited the grooming office holding Henry and told officers the dog was suffering a medical emergency, police said. Henry was bleeding from the mouth and having trouble breathing.

Zarate took Henry to the on-site veterinarian, who took emergency measures to try to save him. The dog died a few minutes later, police said.

A postmortem X-ray determined Henry had suffered two broken ribs and a punctured lung, authorities said.

San Mateo police determined Zarate's deliberate actions contributed to the dog's death. Zarate was arrested at the scene and booked on suspicion of felony animal cruelty. He posted bail Monday and is no longer in custody. It's not clear if he has hired an attorney.

The Humane Society will conduct a necropsy on Henry to determine his cause of death.

PetSmart said in a statement Monday it is "heartbroken over the loss of Henry."

"Nothing is more important than the health and safety of pets, and we take full responsibility for the pets in our care," PetSmart said.

The company said it is conducting an internal investigation, and Zarate is suspended pending the outcome.

"Any incident of animal cruelty goes against everything we believe as a company and as individual pet parents," PetSmart said in the statement. "No words can express our deep sorrow for the family, and we will continue to work with the pet parent during this difficult time."

Hannah Hartman, who said her dog was maimed a couple years ago at another pet store, was devastated to learn of Henry's death but said she wasn't entirely surprised.

"My dog was almost killed and had to have a major hip surgery," she said.

Hartman, who has taken up the cause, said there is no law in California regulating pet groomers. While some are licensed, Hartman said, it's not mandated by the state.

A bill dubbed "Lucy's Law" was proposed in 2012 after a dog was severely injured by a groomer. Lawmakers rejected the measure, and Hartman has been fighting to revive it ever since.

"If the groomer is no longer working in that salon, he could be grooming a mile down the street," she said.

Teri DiMarino, president and founder of the California Professional Pet Groomers Association, said "Lucy's Law" is not the answer.

"Legislation and licensing is not going to do a whole lot of good because as with any licensed industry, there is no standard and no test for carelessness and stupidity, DiMarino said.
Google on Monday jumped feet first into carpooling with the launch of Waze Rider.

The free app, available to 25,000 employees at certain Bay Area companies to start, matches riders with drivers who are using nearly identical routes. Drivers are able to accept or deny the requests to carpool via the Waze app.

Riders are only permitted to seek carpools during rush hour twice a day  once to work and the other back home, according to the Waze website.

Passengers are asked to pay the Internal Revenue Service's recommended 54 cents per mile, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. In its test phase, Google won't retain any percentage of Waze Rider's transactions, but that could change.

The Waze website also says riders and drivers will split the cost of gas for the trip. Payments are decided in advance and the money is transferred between the two automatically.

Companies located near Google's offices, including, UCSF, Adobe and Walmart Global eCommerce, will test Waze Rider in its pilot phase. If successful, the app will be expanded to other cities, the Chronicle reported.

Google announced its plans via an animated promotional video Monday, which indicates that Waze Rider will help reduce Bay Area traffic congestion while helping riders conserve gas and money.

This is kind of an extension of what we do at Waze, to build this trusted community, Josh Fried, head of partner development for Wazes carpooling efforts, told the newspaper.

An estimated 700,000 Bay Area residents currently use Waze for directions, and police and traffic alerts. So, according to the Chronicle, Waze Rider is poised to render a blow to Lyft  which charges $1.16 per mile in San Francisco as well as other fees  and Uber  which charges $1.15 per mile and additional fees.

Critical mass is a big reason carpooling hasnt been able to be as successful as it could be, Susan Shaheen, co-director of the UC Berkeley Transportation Sustainability Research Center, told the Chronicle. Its exciting to see how we can use technology in a socially and environmentally beneficial way.
Authorities say the "force" was not with a 34-year-old Mexican national recently captured in Contra Costa County and turned over Tuesday to Mexican law enforcement.

Pablo Christian Larumbe Rojas was wanted in connection to the kidnapping and murder of a man who attempted to use his Star Wars action figures to pay off a debt to the suspect, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

The so-called force was definitely not with Mr. Larumbe during his capture and subsequent removal to Mexico, said Timothy Aitken, ICE field office director in San Francisco. This fugitives arrest and repatriation are the direct result of the ongoing cooperation between U.S. law enforcement and our Mexican counterparts. Violent criminals who believe they can evade justice by fleeing to the U.S. should be on notice they will find no refuge here.

Larumbe was arrested earlier this year in Antioch in connection with the disappearance of Carlos Palomares Maldonado in the Mexico City area in 2010.

ICE officials said the victim apparently owed Larumbe and his associates about $3,000 and offered to settle the debt by handing over his extensive collection of Star Wars memorabilia.

However, after Palomares went to Larumbe's home on Sept. 22, 2010, he was never seen or heard from again, according to ICE.

Larumbe came to the U.S. in 2011 on a visitor visa allowing him to remain in the country for six months.

Following his February arrest in Antioch, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations placed Larumbe in removal proceedings.

On June 4, an immigration judge ordered Larumbe to be deported, ICE officials said.

Bay City News Service contributed to this report.
It's rare for school district big-wigs to spend time in a classroom. But Oakland is one of a growing number of districts trying to get superintendents out of their offices and reconnected to the kids they serve to help improve student performance and close achievement gaps.

By observing lessons and spending more time with students, superintendents may be better informed about challenges in schools, and better equipped to support a key figure in education: school principals.

Aubrey Lane, a middle school principal in east Oakland, said having opportunities to brainstorm with Ron Smith  the superintendent with whom he works  has made a huge difference. Lane's schedule is jam-packed: He can list more than 30 things he's responsible for on any given day, from finding healthy snacks for hungry students to dealing with attendance issues and reviewing academic data.

So he was especially grateful for Smith's help walking through the complexities of the district's new teacher evaluation system. That process was really beneficial, Lane said. I can lean on him in terms of getting advice.

A strong principal is one of the most influential factors in increasing student achievement, research shows, especially in low-achieving or high-poverty schools. But half of all principals quit during their third year, and districts nationwide are trying to figure out how to better support them and improve effectiveness.

In Oakland, the district is focusing on training those who directly supervise principals with the help of New Leaders. District officials say training and development for those in high-level roles have traditionally been neglected

There has to be a focus on helping these folks get better, said Allen Smith, chief of schools for the Oakland Unified School District, referring to his district's superintendents, many of whom are former principals. Not just saying, Because they were really good principals, they should be able to lead. That doesn't equate to results.

A recent visit to Bret Harte Middle School, known as a learning walk, is a main feature of the training Oakland's superintendents receive, and represents a level of guidance and support that has never before been offered to high-level administrators in this Northern California district.

Dressed in suits and armed with pens, notebooks, and laptops, the superintendents had one goal as they fanned out across the classroom to talk to students: to look for evidence a geometry lesson was aligned to the new state math standards.

They examined work and eavesdropped on kids, then filed out to huddle in an empty hallway, where it was their turn to answer questions.

All right. What were kids learning? asked Jaime Aquino, chief program officer for the nonprofit New Leaders, who directed the conversation, as the administrators began poring through their notes.

After the school visits, Aquino shepherded the superintendents through a series of exercises.

First, they did pair shares, teaming up with a partner to talk about the biggest problems they'd seen. Then, with the larger group, they discussed problems they identified from their classroom visit. Kids weren't sure what they were supposed to be doing during an activity, There was little discussion among students. And the lessons were too general or didn't reflect the academic standards.

Finally, they went back to their partners to make a critical decision: How would they guide the principal to help fix the problems they'd witnessed?

A federal survey of principals during the 2007-08 school year found they are frequently left to lead and learn in isolation as early as their second or third year on the job. But providing support for principals can be essential to improving schools, experts say. A 2013 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics found that principals who receive professional development are more likely to remain at their school and continue working as principals than those who don't.

That's what first led Oakland Unified to look at the role of principal supervisors and to partner with New Leaders, which has worked with 10 districts to develop principal supervisors, including Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Chief of Schools Smith says the district's superintendents didn't initially welcome the training.

There was a little pushback, Smith said. Why do we have to do this? This is going to take a large chunk of our time. We could be in a school. And now, they look forward to it.
The Vallejo police officer who headed the kidnap investigation that officers first described as a hoax and then led to the FBI arrest of the alleged kidnapper has been named "Officer of the Year" for 2015.

Detective Matthew Mustard earned that city commendation in April, even though one of the most high-profile cases he investigated - that of the kidnap of Denise Huskins and boyfriend Aaron Quinn - turned out to be a national black eye for the department.

In an email Monday to NBC Bay Area, Vallejo police spokesman Jeff Bassett said Mustard was won the award through a "vote by his peers" and he beat out two other candidates. "His award was largely based on all the work he did related to the Ofc [Jim] Capoot murder investigation and prosecution. We will be no comments regarding the Huskins case."

Neither Huskins nor her attorney responded Monday for comment.

But she and her boyfreind sued Vallejo in March, saying the city damaged her and her boyfriend's reputations and forced them to move.

According to a statement by the couples attorney Kevin Clune, a partner with Kerr & Wagstaffe LLP, Huskins and Quinn were "bound, drugged and terrorized" by Matthew Muller, who broke into their home last March as they slept. He then kidnapped Huskins and raped her, Clune alleged.

During the ordeal, the "terrified couple" sought help from Vallejo police, who discredited and publicly shamed them, Clune continued. After Huskins reappeared in Southern California a few days later, Vallejo police said at a news conference the kidnapping was a hoax.

Police waged a "campaign of disparagement'' against Huskins and Quinn following Huskins' abduction last March and created a media frenzy with their "Gone Girl'' theory, according to the lawsuit.

Police held and interrogated Quinn as if he had "already been convicted of murdering Huskins'' after he reported the abduction instead of pursuing Huskins' kidnapper, according to the lawsuit.

Federal prosecutors subsequently charged Muller  a disbarred Harvard University-trained attorney  with kidnapping Huskins from her Vallejo home. Muller has pleaded not guilty.




Massachusetts General Hospital said Monday it has performed the nation's first penis transplant.

Last week, during the 15-hour procedure, surgeons connected the intricate vascular nerve structures of a donor penis with those of the transplant recipient.

Cancer patient Thomas Manning, 64, of Halifax, Massachusetts, received the transplant.

"Today, I began a new chapter filled with hope," Manning said in a statement read by his long-time physician, Adam Feldman, MD, at a press conference Monday at Mass General. He thanked his doctors, and the donor, saying the procedure "quite literally saved my life."

The donor's family said in a statement that it feels "blessed" that Manning's recovery is going well and is praying for his recovery to continue.

"The donation has been uplifting to their family as it is helping them get through this difficult time," said Alexandra Glazier, president and CEO of the New England Organ Bank.

The surgical team was led by Curtis Cetrulo, MD, and Dicken Ko, MD.

"We're all extremely proud of this accomplishment, 3-1/2 years in the making," said Jay Austin, the hospital's chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery. "Our courageous patient, Thomas Manning, continues to do well and we are optimistic about his future."

Cetrulo told The New York Times that normal urination should be possible for Manning in a few weeks, with sexual function possible in weeks to months.

"He's doing well so far. He's up and about, out of bed," Cetrulo said at Monday's press conference. "So far, we're doing OK."

As for the possibility of rejection, he said, "It's uncharted waters. He has not had rejection episodes. We'll just have to take it day by day and see how it goes."

Cetrulo said the hope is that long term, this type of procedure can become as common as a hand or face transplant.

"We're hopeful that with these successes going forward, we can open it to expanded patient populations like wounded warriors," he said.

Cetrulo and Ko said it is also possible down the line that this type of procedure could be made available to transgendered individuals seeking to transition.

"We have a lot to learn about this procedure and we have a lot to gain from further experiences over time before we can make that type of leap forward," Ko said.

Manning is expected to be released from Mass General in the next three to four days to continue his recovery at a step-down facility.

The world's first successful penis transplant was performed in South Africa in December 2014. That patient had his penis amputated three years earlier after complications from a circumcision performed in his late teens.

The university near Cape Town said in announcing the transplant in March 2015 that the 21-year-old patient, whose name was not released, made a full recovering following the nine-hour surgery and regained all function in the transplanted organ.

A man in China received a penis transplant in 2005. That operation also appeared to be successful, but doctors said the man asked them to remove his new penis two weeks later because of psychological problems experienced by him and his wife.
Eight people were killed and at least 12 others were wounded in shootings across the city since Friday evening, according to police.

The latest shooting left a man dead Sunday afternoon in the West Side Austin neighborhood.

Officers responding to a call of shots fired in the 0-100 block of North Lorel at 2:33 p.m. found a 35-year-old man unresponsive in an alley, according to Chicago Police.

He suffered gunshot wounds to the head and back and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. The Cook County medical examiners office could not immediately confirm the death.

Earlier Sunday, another 35-year-old man was shot to death in Austin.

He was found inside a car in the 5000 block of West Washington Boulevard at 7:12 a.m. with a gunshot wound to the head, police. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Cook County medical examiners office confirmed the death but withheld his identity Sunday morning pending notification of his family.

A man was shot to death about two hours earlier in the Little Village neighborhood on the Southwest Side.

Just before 5 a.m., 23-year-old Marco Mendez was riding in a vehicle in the 2500 block of South Whipple when someone in a black SUV shot him in the face, authorities said.

The driver took him to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:35 a.m., authorities said. Mendez lived in the same block where the shooting happened.

Investigators think the shooting was gang-related, police said.

Less than an hour earlier, two people were found shot to death on the Kennedy Expressway on the Northwest Side, according to Illinois State Police.

Crews responded about to the shooting about 4 a.m. in the northbound lanes of the expressway north of Armitage Avenue, where they found a silver Chevrolet Tahoe that had stopped on the expressway, state police said.

The 43-year-old driver, Eric L. Taylor, and 36-year-old passenger Camille C. Cooley were each found dead with a gunshot wound to the head, police said. They both lived in Waukegan.

The Cook County medical examiners office did not immediately confirm the deaths.

A handgun was found inside the vehicle on the floor near the driver, police said, but they did not know who did the shooting or provide additional details.

Saturday afternoon, two men were fatally shot in separate attacks that occurred within minutes of each other in the West Side Austin neighborhood.

Kevin Milton, 32, was in the driver seat of a car about 3:45 p.m. in the 800 block of North Waller when someone walked up and shot him in the chest, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiners office.

He showed up at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, where he was pronounced dead at 4:14 p.m., authorities said. He lived less than a block away from the shooting in the 800 block of North Parkside.

About the same time, 20-year-old Albert Hurd was outside in the 5300 block of West Harrison when a dark-colored vehicle drove up and someone inside shot him in the chest, arm and abdomen, authorities said.

He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:25 p.m., authorities said. Hurd lived in the 5200 block of West Congress.

The weekends first homicide happened late Friday in the University Village neighborhood on the Near West Side.

Two 21-year-old men were standing on a sidewalk in the 1200 block of West Grenshaw about 11:45 p.m. when someone in a dark-colored van fired shots, police said. One man was shot in the chest and abdomen, and the other in the arm.

Friends drove them to Stroger Hospital, where the man with the chest wound was pronounced dead, police said. Authorities have not released his name. The other mans condition was stabilized.

The most recent nonfatal shooting happened early Sunday in the West Town neighborhood. A 33-year-old man was shot in the left side of the face at 12:53 a.m. in the 2000 block of West North Avenue, police said. He walked into Stroger Hospital, where his condition was stabilized. Police said he was not cooperating with investigators.

At least 10 more people have been wounded in shootings across the city since Friday evening.
One person was confirmed to be dead after a plane went down near Mount Wilson in the Angeles National Forest on Sunday, officials said.

A Cessna 182 single-engine light plane with white and blue stripes was spotted near Angeles Crest Highway and Mt. Wilson Red Box Road about 9:10 a.m., according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

The wreckage was near Mount Wilson Road at the Angeles Crest Highway, state Route 2, in steep mountain wilderness.

The plane was traveling from Montgomery Field Airport in San Diego to Santa Monica Municipal Airport when it lost contact 17 miles east of Van Nuys, according to a Federal Aviation Authority spokesman.

Search and rescue teams were searching for the aircraft but had low visibility due to fog, fire officials said.

Hours later at 4:30 p.m., the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said preliminary information indicated that they found the aircraft in the Brown Mountain area above Altadena.

Deputies confirmed that one person was dead in the crash.

The San Diego-based plane is owned by Tom Reid, who leases it to experienced pilots.

LA County Coroner identified the pilot on Tuesday morning as 57-year-old Thomas Christopher Bruff, a San Diego resident.

The FAA reported that the pilot had indicated a flight from San Diego to Santa Monica, west of Los Angeles.

The crash site was not on a direct route, as Mount Wilson is about 90 miles northwest of San Diego and 35 miles northeast of Santa Monica.

City News Service contributed to this report.
Connecticut Speaker of the House Brendan Sharkey will not seek reelection in November. Sharkey represents Hamden.

Multiple sources confirmed the development to NBC Connecticut Sunday night. A spokesman wouldn't confirm nor deny that he wouldn't run for a ninth term in the General Assembly. He had served since 2013 as Speaker, one of the most powerful positions in the General Assembly.

Multiple sources say a formal announcement could come as soon as tomorrow. It is likely that Majority Leader Joe Aresimowicz from Berlin is expected to run for the open leadership position. Other names that have been mentioned as possible successors include Rep. Toni Walker from New Haven and Rep. Matt Ritter from Hartford.

Sharkey had difficulty in the last year mustering votes to pass largely unpopular budgets within his 87 member caucus. The House has been under Democrat control since 1986. Democrats hold an 87-64 majority in the House, though Republicans have been very vocal this year with their optimism that they could either close the gap with Democrats, and possibly even take back the chamber in November.

His cornerstone legislative accomplishment in recent years was passing car and property tax reform last year. That measure capped car taxes at 29 mills for every city and town in the state starting in 2017, reducing high payments for drivers in some of Connecticut's largest cities.

This story is still developing, and we will update it as more information is available.
A Beacon Falls man is facing multiple charges after a domestic incident early Sunday morning.

Connecticut State Police say at approximately 12:19 a.m. Sunday they responded to a home n Marilyn Avenue in Beacon Falls to investigate a reported altercation. Police say the suspect, Christopher Williams, 23, got into a physical fight with his 20-year-old girlfriend, then fled the scene in a grey 2007 Nissan Maxima. A warrant was issued for his arrest.

Police were unable to locate Williams until Sunday at 10:00 a.m., when troopers following up on the incident located his vehicle parked at Noe Place. His girlfriend was also in the vehicle. She told police she was unharmed and did not require medical attention.

Williams was arrested and charged with second-degree kidnapping, third-degree assault, unlawful restraint and disorderly conduct. He was released on a $150,000 surety bond and is expected in Derby Superior Court Monday.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating a hydrogen gas leak that has shut down the Millstone Unit 3 nuclear reactor.

The NRC says the leak occurred on Sunday morning in a turbine building at the Connecticut plant, and workers responded by manually shutting down the reactor.

Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told The Day of New London that the leak occurred after a sealant plug for hydrogen in the main generator came lose and workers successfully vented out the hydrogen.

The reactor recently returned to operation after a scheduled outage for refueling.

The NRC said it is trying to determine whether the leak may have been related to work done during that refueling.
A scarf-wearing, green bag-carrying female bank robber had a busy Friday and Saturday, hitting three banks in New Jersey in less than 24 hours.

Her crime spree began shortly before noon Friday at the Wells Fargo Bank, 4306 Route 130 North in Willingboro. The woman, described as possibly 40 to 50 years old and dressed in all black, including a scar on her head, gave a note demanding money to a bank teller at the Burlington County location.

The robber "received a quantity of money," police said.

Seven hours later, the robber struck several towns north at the TD Bank in Hamilton Township, Mercer County. At 6:30 p.m., the robber entered the bank at 1130 Whitehouse-Hamilton Square Road, again wearing all black and a scarf on her head, again passed a note to a teller. She made off "with an unknown amount of money," police said.

Following those two successful heists, the robber struck a third time about 9 a.m. Saturday morning. She stayed in Hamilton Township, robbing the TD Bank at 3470 Quakerbridge Road by using the same note-passing tactic.

Hamilton police described the suspect as a white female, 50 to 60 years old, with dark sunglasses and a bright green handbag. She may have fled in an older model, black Honda sedan.

"We are aware of the Hamilton bank robberies and the similarities of the suspect in the different series of photos," Willingboro police Lt. Chris Vetter said Saturday. "Our detectives continue to investigate our robbery and are looking into the possibility of the same suspect being linked to the other robberies."

Anyone with any information about the Hamilton robberies is asked to contact Detective Matthew Donovan or Detective Frank Burger at (609) 581-4030 or (609) 581-4010. Information may also be reported to the Hamilton Police Crime Tip Hotline at 609-581-4008.

If anyone with information about the Willingboro robbery is asked to contact Willingboro police at (609) 877-3001 or the Citizen Tip Hotline at (609) 877-6958.
The community of Celina is about to experience a population boom similar to the one that made nearby Frisco the fastest-growing city in America for nearly a decade.

Celina, a city of nearly 11,000 people just north of where the Dallas North Tollway ends at the intersection with U.S. 380 in Prosper, could grow to nearly 100,000 people by 2024, based on a conservative population projection.

The next decade, I believe, is the Decade of Celina, Celina Economic Development Corporation executive director Corbett Howard said.

Howard, a former three-term Mayor of Celina, is a whirlwind of activity in his office, which is filled with multicolored maps of the area that denote several massive housing developments in the works.

The most recent project to get the go ahead from financiers is Green Meadows, a 4,500-home community one mile west of the planned extension of the Dallas North Tollway, according to The Dallas Morning News.

The construction boom in Celina will see the number of homes here multiply seven times over just the next 18 months, according to figures provided by Howard.

There are currently 3,316 active residential water meters in Celina, according to Howard, which is a close approximation of how many homes currently stand in the city.

This year, 10,166 homes are being built across seven total housing developments in Celina, and in 2017, an additional 11,462 lots are projected to be developed.

That would bring the total number of homes in the city to nearly 25,000.

In turn, the estimated population for Celina would grow from 10,760 in 2016 to 34,392 in 2020, and then explode to 99,716, according to Howard, who told NBC DFW those figures come from a consulting firm estimating the average household size in Celina at 3.26 people per home.
In a life-threatening situation, you'll do anything to keep your family safe, but a North Texas couple said they're still dealing with bills for three ambulance trips after such an incident last year.

Doctors can be in network or out of network and you pay more when they're out of network. This also applies to ambulance companies and, depending on your insurance, your local private or city ambulance may not be fully covered.

Debi Waldrop is fighting to recover from a heart blockage and then bleeding in her brain last fall.

"When I found her, she was just laying on her side and she had completely lost the use of anything on the left side of her body," Debi's husband Jeff Waldrop said.

An ambulance ride from the City of McKinney saved her life. It cost $975, but Jeff said he wasn't thinking about that.

"I didn't pay any attention to it until I started getting bills from ambulance company and I went, 'What's this? Why wasn't that covered?'" he said.

The Waldrops' insurance paid their in-network price, even though the City of McKinney was out of network. Even so, there was a balance of $461, which the Waldrops were billed.

In recovery, Debi Waldrop needed two non-emergency transports from Careflite. Each cost about $1,600, which was more than the emergency trips. Blue Cross Blue Shield covered about $446 and the Waldrops were billed the balance of $1,135 dollars for each.

Jeff said he was told there was no in-network ambulance at the time of care. The Texas Department of Insurance told us BCBS does not have ambulance providers in their provider lists for 2015.

But Blue Cross Blue Shield said its network did include one ambulance service. The insurer told us:

"At Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, we work hard to expand our number of in-network providers... We share the concern over some health care providers, like private ambulance services, billing people excessively. Regrettably, some of these companies have little or no economic incentive to negotiate lower, contracted rates."

But one of the ambulance providers told us his company is in a tough spot.

"CareFlite doesn't make the choice of what insurance the patient has," Jim Swartz said. "Blue Cross has all kinds of different rates. We could do the same trip and get paid 100 percent on other Blue Cross plans."

As for charging more than McKinney, Swartz said a private non-profit company like his must charge more, in part, because there is no taxpayer to help foot the bill.

"We have the system where Medicaid pays this. And Medicare pays this. And the VA pays this. And the commercial insurance something like this. And the people over here pay nothing," he said. "We have to collect every dollar we can."

Still, that's cold comfort for the Waldrops who are on the hook for a total of about $2,700.

"Ultimately, I think that what ought to happen again is that the insurance company ought to get with the ambulance provider and they work out something exclusive of me," Jeff said.

CareFlite is currently appealing the case to the Texas Department of Insurance.

"CareFlite is confident that Blue Cross will, as a result of this appeal, pay this claim properly," the company's CEO said.

Your best protection is checking your policy right now to see if you have ambulance coverage and who your in-network provider is, if you have one.

Some private ambulance companies, like CareFlite, sell memberships that cover its services. You can also try to negotiate your bill with the providers, and your insurance company.

The Texas Department of Insurance does mediate balance billing issues with doctors, but not ambulance bills. Still, you can file a complaint.
Neighbors of the recently dissolved tent city in Dallas have proposed an alternative to Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings.

The homeless encampment, grew to more than 200 people setting up makeshift shelter under Interstate 45. At its peak, residents in the newly formed Cedars neighborhood  east of Austin Street, north of Corinth Street and west of Harwood Street  noticed an increased amount of traffic, loitering and crime.

"The Cedars neighborhood itself is a transitional neighborhood and we deal with a lot of different types of people," Cedars Neighborhood Association President Michael Sitarzewski said. "We have super low income families and we also have people paying 600,000 for a condo,' he said.

Tent City was dissolved in early May, and now city officials are discussing more permanent solutions regarding shelter for the homeless. Sitarzewski has proposed "Dignity Field," which is a homeless encampment that would be built on Hensley Field in Grand Prairie.

"The proposal that I have is more built around community. People can not only sleep and camp there, but there would also be a medical facility, a clinic and behavioral rehab facility," he said. "No one would be forced to move there. It's not a concentration camp. I would hope that they would move there and the camp will be built around community. The homeless can set up their tents, and there will be other 'tiny houses' on site."

The neighborhood is also surrounded by several shelters, recovery centers and food banks.

"Residents here should feel safe," Sitarzewski said. "They shouldn't be harassed while walking down the street or waiting for the bus."

Sitarzewski has been just one of the many concerned residents meeting with Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings about issues surrounding the growing homeless population.

"We had about six or seven tent city conversations at city hall," he said.

Sitarzewski has also written in 24-hour security and a shuttle that would transport people to and from the camp.

Other ideas that the mayor's homeless commission will discuss are the old downtown jail and the old Dallas Independent School District buildings.
Dallas police say a woman previously reported missing Sunday night has been found safe and in good health. [[379616791,C]]

Police said Christine Alaicia Smith had last been seen walking in the 4800 block of Wimbelton Way at about 11:10 p.m.

No other details were provided on her safe return Monday evening.
The family of a prominent Dallas attorney who was found dead in his burning garage last week is hoping for answers.

Firefighters discovered Ira Tobolowsky's body Friday morning after they put out a suspicious fire. Detectives are investigating Tobolowsky's death as a homicide.

"You would expect at this point to [feel] a mixture of anger and sadness," said Tobolowsky's brother-in-law, Stuart Prescott. "I would say anger is prominent among the emotions at this point in time."

Investigators went door-to-door seeking surveillance video that would provide critical clues in the investigation, but said Monday evening no such video exists.

Tobolowsky had worked as an attorney in Dallas for 45 years and was highly regarded within the community.

"He was the guy that everyone turned to for advice, for guidance, for help," Prescott said. "He was a lawyer's lawyer, and he was the guy you called for legal questions about anything. He had a tremendous practice."

He was involved in a high-profile, emotionally charged civil case. While it's unclear if the case is related to Tobolowsky's death, the presiding judge told the Dallas County Sheriff's Department he's now afraid for his personal safety.

Deputies patrolled the judge's neighborhood Sunday night, but a sheriff's department spokeswoman said extra patrols would not continue Monday. His courtroom staff and bailiffs remain on high alert.

"In general, we might have known there was a big case going on, but I didn't know much of the details," Prescott said. "He was brave, and he would not be the guy to be afraid of anything. And I certainly can't imagine that he imagined that this was possible."

Tobolowsky was also a father to three adult sons, one of whom is getting married in two weeks.

"He was the most committed dad to his three sons," Prescott said. "He was the guy with the camera in front of every game, every event."

The wedding will go on.

"In Judaism, you don't cancel an event like that. You might change it, but you don't cancel a wedding," Prescott said. "We may look at changes to the reception. Maybe there is no reception at all, maybe there is no dancing."

"But I don't think there's any thought whatsoever about not going forward with a beautiful event like a wedding," he continued, noting that it's "what Ira would have wanted, too."

Family members said they are trying to stay strong as arson investigators work to close the case.

Dallas police referred all inquiries about the case to Dallas Fire-Rescue, calling it the "lead agency." The fire department did not reveal new details Monday.

Investigators are asking the public for information about the circumstances leading up to the fire.
President Barack Obama called on the nation Monday to support and listen to its law enforcement officers as he bestowed the Medal of Valor on 13 officers who risked their lives to save others.

In a ceremony in the East Room, Obama draped the purple-and-yellow ribbons around the necks of officers who intervened in shooting rampages, hostage situations and an armed robbery. He pledged to keep working toward a bipartisan overhaul to make the criminal justice system fairer, smarter and more effective so that officers are well-equipped to enforce the country's laws.

"We can show our respect by listening to you, learning from you, giving you the resources that you need to do your jobs," Obama said. "Our country needs that right now."

Three Santa Monica, California, officers -- Jason Salas, Robert Sparks and Capt. Raymond Bottenfield -- were honored for their response to a 2013 rampage on a community college campus that left five people dead. Confronting 23-year-old gunman John Zawahri in the campus library, the officers shot and killed him when he pointed his assault weapon at them.

Officer Gregory Stevens, of Garland, who killed two armed men in a gunfight outside a provocative contest for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, was awarded the Medal of Valor Monday. Both gunmen were killed, heading off what investigators suspected was a planned terrorist attack.

Obama also honored Gregory Stevens of Garland, Texas, who exchanged gunfire with two armed men outside an exhibit hall holding a provocative contest for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Both gunmen were killed, heading off what investigators suspected was a planned mass shooting.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also congratulatest Stevens Monday. "On behalf of the State of Texas, I would like to congratulate Officer Stevens on receiving the Medal of Valor and for displaying extraordinary courage in the line of duty," said Abbott. "Officer Stevens' decisive action prevented two terrorists from carrying out horrific attacks on Texas soil, and our state and nation will forever be indebted to him for his service and bravery."

The Medal of Valor ceremony comes amid a simmering public debate about police tactics and racial disparities in the justice system. Obama has walked a careful line on the issue -- expressing support for most law enforcement officials, while also endorsing protesters' complaints about racial profiling and mistreatment by police.

[NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More

In his remarks on Monday, Obama steered that conversation toward his push for a sentencing overhaul and other changes to the justice system, an effort that has found backing in both camps.

Obama said he holds out hope that legislation can be passed this year despite the heavily politicized climate ahead of the November election. The need for change has been a rare point of common ground between Democrats and Republicans, and though momentum appeared to have sputtered earlier this year, a new Senate proposal has raised hopes that the issue could be successfully revived.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the nation's top law enforcement official, said there were no words or medals that could begin to pay the debt the country owes the officers.

"It has often been said that the price of freedom is constant vigilance," Lynch said. "Know this: they pay that price on our behalf."

Police Maj. David Huff of Midwest City, Oklahoma, saved a 2-year-old girl being held at knifepoint after negotiations with her captor deteriorated. Speaking to reporters after the ceremony, he described the thoughts running through his head in the moment he was called to action.

"Obviously, the last few moments were tense. There was a countdown going on," Huff said. "There was just no way I was going to let that little child get hurt."

The president said all of the officers acted "without regard for their own safety." Because of their courage and instincts, he said, the rest of society can go about their lives each day "like it's any other day."

"If they could go back in time, I suspect they'd prefer none of this had happened," Obama said.

One Philadelphia officer died from a gunshot wound and was honored posthumously. Sgt. Robert Wilson III drew fire from assailants during a robbery while saving store employees and customers.

Wilson's family accepted the award on his behalf.

"We honor those who didn't come home," the president said.

The other officers honored with the medal Monday are:
There is concern for the safety of a Dallas judge following the death of a prominent Dallas attorney who once argued before the United States Supreme Court.

Ira Tobolowsky, 68, died in a house fire Friday morning. Dallas arson investigators called it a suspicious fire.

Sheriff's deputies began monitoring an increased threat level Sunday night for Dallas District Judge Eric Moye, who was friends with Tobolowsky.

Moye is a district judge at the George Allen Civil Courts building in downtown Dallas. In August 2015, NBC 5 reported that former President George W. Bush was called for Jury Duty in Moye's courtroom.

Moye has been a Dallas judge for eight years. Before that, he was a civil litigator for more than 25 years.

Moye knew Tobolowsky well. Tobolowsky had tried several cases in Moye's courtroom over the years, records show.

Tobolowsky is listed as one of the lead attorneys in an open civil litigation case in Moye's court, and is slated for a trial at the end of this year.

According to Facebook posts, Moye went to Tobolowsky's funeral this morning at a Dallas synagogue. In a post Moye wrote that Tobolowsky was a "great member of the Bar" and that he is "gone too soon."

Now the Judge is afraid for his own safety.

In a statement, a sheriff's department spokeswoman said:

"I can confirm that we are monitoring an increased threat level for Judge Eric Moye. After the suspicious death of attorney Ira Tobolowsky, Judge Moye was concerned for his safety. DSO felt this was a legitimate concern and have assigned deputies to patrol his residence until it isn't necessaryour bailiffs in his courtroom are also on alert."

Melinda Urbina, the Department spokeswoman, also noted Moye is presiding over a "high-profile" trial that has prompted safety concerns; but she did not elaborate about which case, and why.

Ira Tobolowsky was laid to rest Sunday afternoon, after a suspicious fire in his garage Friday morning. The flames then spread through the walls and into the attic.

Arson investigators are working on the case. No suspect has been identified.

Tobolowsky has several adult children. the family, grieving tonight, could not be reached for comment.

NBC 5 also tried reaching out to Tobolowsky's long-time law partner, Faith Burk. Her family did not want to comment at their Dallas home Sunday evening.
A school bus was involved in a minor crash in Dallas Monday morning, Dallas Fire-Rescue says. [[379625471,C]]

The Pace & Ross Learning Center bus and a Volvo station wagon collided near the intersection of Marsalis Avenue and East Overton Road just after 6:30 a.m., according to authorities.

No one was injured in the crash, according to DFR officials.

No further details have been released.
Two college students from North Texas left the United States to fight for ISIS, according to personnel records from the terrorist group obtained by NBC News.

Omar Kattan, a former biology student at the University of North Texas in Denton, entered Syria in September 2013 when he was 23 and described himself as a "suicide fighter," according to the records. He is believed to have been killed.

Talmeezur Rahman, a computer major at Collin College in McKinney, disappeared from the U.S. in 2014, and his "fighting name" was listed on ISIS documents, NBC News reported.

The two names were on a thumb drive that an apparent ISIS defector gave to NBC News correspondent Richard Engel in Turkey.

The files were verified by counter-terrorism specialists, NBC News said.

The network reported the names on Sunday.

Omar Kattan

Kattan, whose family apparently still lives in Denton, attended UNT from 2007 to 2011 and graduated with a degree in biology, said UNT spokeswoman Margarita Venegas.

She declined further comment.

He also worked briefly at Texas Woman's University in Denton as a lifeguard and a group exercise instructor from May 17 to Aug. 31, 2012, the university said.

In an online post, he wrote, "I'm a biology major at the University of North Texas. I'm a senior with a minor in physics, chemistry and Arabic, currently I'm a teacher's assistant in the Arabic Department and I like my job a lot."

He said he planned to go to dentistry school.

"I hope my country Syria will be free," he added.

Kattan is believed to have been killed, NBC News reported, citing a former law enforcement official.

Talmeezur Rahman

Rahman, 22, was born in India and grew up in Kuwait, before coming to live with distant cousins in Frisco. His relatives in North Texas said they are "extremely shocked" to learn Rahman joined ISIS.

He studied computers at Collin College from January 2012 to May 2014 and made the President's List for good grades his first year, but never completed the Associate of Science degree he pursued before joining ISIS.

Rahman first attended classes at the Preston Ridge campus in Frisco, then left his relatives' home for the Spring Creek campus in Plano, where he lived in student housing.

"Very scary to think that. It's pretty safe here, so to know that someone joined ISIS from here is pretty intimidating," said Collin College student Taryn Swanepoel.

His relatives in Frisco say Rahman grew distant after moving to Plano, and then he left the country abruptly two years ago.

NBC News quoted his father as saying he reported his son missing in 2015.

"I am searching for him for almost two years," his father said. "I am really frustrated."

The Islamic State's files listed Rahman's "fighting name" as Abu Salman al-Hindi and said that although he was highly educated in computers, he didn't work because he "has a beard in America," NBC News reported.

His father said he was surprised to learn his son may have joined ISIS because he was very serious about his school work.

"I dont believe he can have a mind to do anything else," he said.

Rahman's current whereabouts are unclear.

NBC 5's Kevin Cokely contributed to this report.
Want to stay in a bed and breakfast where you can play with horses, goats, pigs and chickens?

John Fiske, who founded the San Diego Farm Animal Rescue, also happens to be an Airbnb host. He is now offering his cozy studio in the Elfin Forest to weary travelers and animal lovers.

Fiske held an official grand opening party at his 2.5 acre animal rescue Sunday afternoon.

"I think people are here today because they want to connect. They want to connect to animals or to other people," Fiske told NBC 7. "The idea is that there is a lot of animals in need."

NBC 7

Fiske started the rescue in 2015 to provide a safe haven for farm animals, but eventually listed the studio on Airbnb to sustain the organization.

"When I first knew him he lived in a condo in Del Mar so this has been new for him," friend and coworker Debra Walters said. "His whole purpose is to rescue animals."

The non-profit has become a full-time job for the environmental lawyer who already works a full-time job.

"It's a big job for him, but he's in it 100%. He's on it because he believes in it," Walters said.

Just to feed one horse for one week costs about $100, so Fiske had to think of another way to fund the rescue.

"The Airbnb basically funds the whole thing right now...They can stay here, wake up and feed a horse a carrot," he explained.

"It's a great facility, it's beautiful. The animals seem really happy here...and the people are having a good time," visitor Ronnie Steinau said.

Fiske has been able to take in more animals and do needed improvements to the property, including clearing the land to make space for more animals, securing a new horse bench and installing pig fencing.

"When he heard this woman was looking for a home for her horse that she couldn't take care of anymore, he was absolutely not ready and yet he went and picked up the horse that weekend," Walters said.

Currently Fiske has four horses, two chickens and one pig and he will soon start taking in goats.

"I probably don't have the space for cows," he said.

Most of the animals are also available for adoption. Information can be found on the website. People can also volunteer or be pet foster parents.

"The funny thing about volunteers is, one of the things we need the most is scooping poop," Fiske laughed. "They can get their hands dirty literally."

[[379595771,C]]

Creating compassion through empathetic experiences raises awareness for the ethical treatment of animals who feel and think, Fiske said. "The goal is just awareness."
George Lucas is once again considering San Francisco as a possible home for a museum featuring his collection of illustrative art and movie memorabilia.



A site on Treasure Island already has been approved for development, and Mayor Ed Lee has been lobbying the "Star Wars" creator after it was learned plans for a museum in Chicago may be fizzling out.

The mayor has always believed San Francisco would be the ideal location for the museum, said Christine Falvey, a spokeswoman for Lee.

Lee has discussed the move with Lucas and plans to send a formal letter to the filmmaker this week inviting him to consider a site on the west side of Treasure Island facing downtown.

Lucas previously offered to put up about $700 million for the project. The museum deal would need to be approved by the Board of Supervisors and the Treasure Island Development Authority.

San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin says the museum could bolster the island's ferry service.

"Right now, that island is only connected to the East Bay and San Francisco by a highly congested bridge," Peskin said. "But if we could have enough draw, we could actually get a robust ferry service that would be a boon to all the residents of the island as well as to visitors."

The island is in Supervisor Jane Kim's district. She is running for a state Senate seat and hesitated when asked if she would pitch the project to Lucas.

"I still have not heard about the location, the cost," she said. "These are the details we want to hear, and we certainly want to hear from our stakeholders and residents."

Lucas, 72, had previously targeted a site near Crissy Field for his museum, but that plan was squashed by the Presidio Trust.



At the Treasure Island site, an environmental review process has been completed and entitlements have been secured for a mixed-use project featuring 8,000 homes, 400,000 square feet of commercial space and two hotels. The city approvals also allow for construction of either a museum or community facilities on the island.

As for Chicago, city officials there formally asked for a 30-day reprieve from an ongoing lawsuit brought by nonprofit Friends of the Parks, noting they are actively seeking a new site for the museum.

In a subsequent news release, the nonprofit said the decision to suspend the suit would give the opportunity to have a more direct and productive dialogue to reach a potential solution about a museum site.

The group's lawsuit targeted the museums original site, located between Soldier Field and McCormick Place. But, Friends of the Parks made it clear that it opposes any site on Chicagos lakefront. The group said it will either amend the existing lawsuit to encompass the new McCormick Place Lakeside Center site or file a new suit, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Four police officers from the Los Angeles area were presented with the Medal of Valor by President Barack Obama at a White House ceremony on Monday.

Santa Monica Police Department officers Jason Salas and Robert Sparks, along with Santa Monica College Police Department Capt. Raymond Bottenfield received the awards for placing themselves in mortal danger during a 2013 shooting rampage that left six people dead at and around SMC.

Los Angeles Police Department Officer Donald Thompson was honored for pulling an unconscious man from a burning vehicle on a freeway, suffering first-and second-degree burns.

At the ceremony, President Obama thanked the recipients and their families for their service and sacrifice.

"The public safety officers we recognize today found courage not in search of recognition but they did it instinctively," Obama said. "Your courage and quick-thinking gave us our safety."

Salas, Sparks and Bottenfield were recognized for their actions during the June 7, 2013, shooting spree that began just northeast of the college and ended with a rolling gun battle on the campus.

The three officers responded to the campus and confronted the gunman in the campus library, ordered him to drop his weapon, then opened fire when the gunman pointed his assault weapon at them. The gunman, John Zawahri, 23, was killed.

Police said Bottenfield was in plain clothes and was not wearing any body armor when he helped confront the suspect. Zawahri had killed his father and brother at their home near the college, then set the house on fire before making his way to the campus, where he fatally shot three more people.

"Officer Salas, Officer Sparks and Captain Bottenfield placed themselves in mortal danger to save the lives of students and staff during a school shooting on the busy campus of Santa Monica College,'' according to the White House.

Thompson was honored for "courageous action to save an accident victim.''

At about 2 p.m. on Dec. 25, 2013, Thompson was on his way to work when he saw a vehicle crash into a center divider on the 405 Freeway and begin to catch fire, according to police.

Thompson stopped his truck and ran to the vehicle, forced the door open and crawled through growing flames and smoke to disengage the unconscious driver's seat belt. He then pulled the man from the vehicle and carried him to safety.

"It doesn't feel real when you're doing something like that. You know what you have to do or watch someone burn to death," Thompson said.

The White House detailed his bravery in a statement.

"Officer Thompson traversed two freeway dividers and endured first- and second-degree burns while pulling an unconscious man to safety from a car moments before it became engulfed in flames,'' according to the White House.

The medal is the highest national award for valor presented to a public safety officer. It honors officers "who have exhibited exceptional courage, regardless of personal safety, in the attempt to save or protect human life,'' the White House said.

The officers were among 13 public safety officers from across the nation who were honored at the ceremony.

City News Service contributed to this report.
After surveillance showing a duo taking mail from a Sherman Oaks condominium aired on TV, a viewer believes the woman in a video taking mail from his apartment complex a month earlier looks eerily similar, the Studio City resident said Sunday.

On Saturday, residents of the Sherman Oaks condos were concerned when surveillance video showed a blonde woman and a dark-haired man access the lobby of a complex using a confidential code. The duo cleaned out the mailboxes and made off with the contents, as seen in the video.

Nader Kazemi, who lives a mile and a half away in Studio City, couldn't help notice the similarities between the video and surveillance recorded at his apartment.

"It's the same exact thing where they came in, they opened the door, and stole the mail in the middle of the night," Kazemi said. "It's just crazy. The girl certainly looks very similar to the one that happened in our building."

Kazemi shared video that shows a man and woman coming in and out of their secure building on Moorpark Street around 3:45 a.m. on April 1.

"It seems like it's a pattern now. They're going building by building now and doing this. It's absolutely ridiculous," Kazemi said. "This happened right around when people are expecting their tax returns, so some people expect they're going after tax return checks."

The two take stairs and an elevator up and down to the mailroom, where they use keys  possibly post-office keys  to open the mailboxes and take handfuls of letters and packages, as seen on the footage.

"I hope they catch her. Mail theft, if I'm not mistaken, is a federal crime, so they should be going after her pretty hard," Kazemi said.

U.S. Postal Inspection Service Spokeswoman Stacia Crane confirmed the postal service is investigating both incidents.
Firefighters pulled off a "purrfect" rescue in Temple City after a curious kitty became trapped between two walls.

Los Angeles County firefighters responded to a cat rescue in the 6220 block of Loma Avenue at 5 p.m.

They discovered a cat trapped between two large cinder block walls in the back of the home.

A special urban search and rescue team out of Pico Rivera came out to help, and with the right tools, they were able to rescue the kitty from the walls.

The cat was just fine, if not a bit dusty.
Authorities are investigating a series of shootings in Compton that left four people dead over the weekend in separate incidents  two within hours of each other.

The carnage raised the city's homicide toll to 11 so far this year  nine of them tied to gang violence  compared to four as of mid-May last year, according to the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

At this point, there is no apparent connection between the three shooting attacks, said Sheriff's Homicide Lt. John Corina.

Compton Mayor Aja Brown issued a statement encouraging community members with information to contact homicide investigators.

The violence began at 5:20 p.m. Saturday when a man riding a bicycle in the 400 block of West Caldwell Street was shot multiple times in the torso, according to the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

Deputies responding to reports of an assault with a deadly weapon arrived at the scene outside Robert F. Kennedy School and found a man in his 20s lying in the middle of the street.

The victim was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

About two hours later, a man was walking in the 1000 block of South Nestor Avenue when a dark four-door sedan passed him, then stopped, LASD said.

One passenger got out of the vehicle and fired several rounds at the man, striking him multiple times. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. He was identified as Andre "Dre" McMihelk, Jr., 32. Neighbors said he had driven from Long Beach to visit with relatives.

The violence spilled over into Sunday, when two men were killed after a gunman opened fire into a car that was pulling out of a Compton gas station, authorities said.

The shooting happened just before 9 p.m. Sunday at South Wilmington Avenue and West Caldwell Street, sheriff's officials said.

The driver was pronounced dead at the scene and a 23-year-old man found lying in the street next to the car was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

A third man in the car, a 26-year-old, told deputies he and the other victims were pulling out of the gas station parking lot when an unknown man, waiting on the sidewalk, started shooting into the car.

The gunman then got into a white pickup truck and drove off in an unknown direction.

No suspect information was made available in the shootings.

Statement issued by Compton Mayor Aja Brown:

"Public safety has been and will continue to be one of the top priorities of my Administration, the Compton City Council and Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. We continually need the support of the entire community to help apprehend those responsible and hold them accountable for their actions.

The City of Compton continues to seek funding opportunities and partnerships to enhance public safety in our community. As a result, we are now a member of the Department of Justices Violence Reduction Network (VRN) which provides additional resources to address crime.

Compton has dedicated maximum resources to addressing these serious violent crimes, including proactive prevention and intervention methods. I am currently supporting Measure P, a ballot initiative on the upcoming June 7th election that will provide additional revenue to address our streets, lighting, public safety and gang prevention programs in Compton.

The only way to keep crime down in the community is for everyone to work together. If you know something about the shootings this past weekend or any shooting in Compton, please contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500. Anonymous callers can contact Crime Stoppers at 800- 222-8477."
A South Florida man accused of murdering his newlywed wife to collect a $1 million insurance policy was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Wednesday.



Michel Escoto, 42, was found guilty last month of first-degree murder in the killing of wife Wendy Trapaga in October 2002 to collect the policy.

Wednesday's sentencing hearing featured emotional testimony from Trapaga's family, who didn't hold back their disdain for Escoto.

"You are as insignificant as roadkill," Trapaga's sister said.

"You have left a big hole in my heart," Trapaga's mother said.



The body of Trapaga, 21, was found next to a trash bin at a warehouse parking lot between the Palmetto Expressway and Miami Springs just days after the couple returned from their honeymoon.



Escoto initially tried to drug her during their Key West honeymoon and make her death look like an accidental drowning, but Trapaga complained her drink was too chalky, prosecutors said.

He tried to drown her again several days later in a Jacuzzi at Miami's Executive Airport Motel, but he couldn't get her to stay under water, prosecutors said. He finally beat her to death with a tire iron outside a warehouse later that night, prosecutors said.



Escoto initially told detectives that he and Trapaga got into an argument the night she was killed. He said they left the motel and she dropped him off at their South Beach apartment before driving off. But homicide detectives were immediately suspicious of his forced grief and the large insurance policy.



Escoto eventually filed a lawsuit to collect the money but gave conflicting versions of what happened during a 2005 trial. The conflicting details led to his arrest, and he has remained in jail since then.

Escoto, who is not an attorney, represented himself during the trial, leading to awkward moments as prosecutors repeatedly raised objections. Escoto, who pleaded not guilty, was also held in contempt at one point for allegedly threatening a witness on the stand.

During Wednesday's hearing, Escoto called the pain of the victim's family "horrific" but he also accused witnesses of lying during the trial.

Dateline NBC will air their report "Mystery in South Beach" on Sunday at 7 p.m. ET.
Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen along with her family, is lending her support to the transgender community in a very personal PSA.



Ros-Lehtinen will take the stage at Miami-Dade College Monday along with her son Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, a transgender man, in support of the "Family is Everything" initiative.



The campaign is sponsored by longtime South Florida LGBT rights group SAVE.



Mother and son appeared alongside Ros-Lehtinen's husband, Miami Republican Dexter Lehtinen, in a very personal Spanish-language PSA for the initiative.



"Our son is transgender," Ros-Lehtinen says in the PSA. "We loved him as Amanda and now as Rodrigo."



In the PSA, Ros-Lehtinen says that while she may disagree with President Barack Obama on a number of topics, she stands with his directive to allow transgender students to use whatever restroom they feel most comfortable using.



The congresswoman says her experience as a mother to a transgender child is a motivator behind her advocacy.



SAVE will launch the "Family is Everything" initiative on Monday from Miami-Dade College's Wolfson Campus.



For more information, visit SAVE on the web.
A South Florida man has pleaded not guilty to a charge that he tried to detonate a bomb at an Aventura synagogue and Jewish school during Passover observances.



A lawyer for 40-year-old James Medina entered the plea Monday at a brief federal court hearing in Miami. Medina faces life in prison if convicted of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.



The FBI says Medina plotted with an undercover informant to acquire a bomb to attack the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center last month. Medina was arrested after the informant provided him with a real-looking dummy bomb that could not explode.



FBI recordings show Medina allegedly supported the Islamic State terrorist group and claimed an obligation to attack Jews in the U.S.



Medina's lawyer says he suffers from long-term mental illness.
Apartment living may not seem ideal for pet owners, but don't be deterred  there are ways to make it work. Some cats, dogs and reptiles do well in smaller spaces.

Cats

About 85 million people in the U.S. own cats, according to PetMD. Cats groom themselves, don't need to be walked and make use of vertical space. This means they find creative ways to entertain themselves indoors, like climbing on windowsills or shelves  but don't forget, claws can damage furniture.

Because cats are solitary creatures, "generally speaking, they do better being alone" than other animals, said Michael Rueb, associate director of adoptions and resident care at Bideawee, a pet welfare organization and adoption center with locations in Manhattan, Westhampton and Long Island, New York. Cats also sleep a lot.

Trainers like Rueb serve as matchmakers for soon-to-be pet parents looking to adopt cats and dogs. Websites like OptimumPet.com and Purina.com offer surveys to help potential cat owners to find out which breed may be best for them.

Dogs

When it comes to indoor dogs, size isn't the only thing that matters.

"I think sociability and the energy characteristics of the dog are more important than the size," Rueb said.

Rueb gathers a wealth of information when meeting prospective dog owners at Bideawee, such as how often the owners are home during the day, the length of their work hours, if they want a high-energy or low-energy dog and if their new pup will be sharing the home with other pets.

"It's a pretty comprehensive process," Rueb said.

Before bringing a dog into your apartment, it's important to consider how much attention your furry friend will need. Puppies demand more time than older dogs. Also, "small dogs may take up less space, but some can be quite noisy," according to PetMD.

Other important factors include dogs' needs for mental and physical exercise and their interest in socializing. Some pet owners who work long hours may consider hiring dog-walkers to ensure their pups get a healthy amount of exercise.

Owners should also take into account in the environment in which the dog will live.

"Noise sensitivity isnt often mentioned as a factor in choosing an apartment dog. But how a dog reacts to noises from the buildings hallway or the sidewalk out front hugely affects his quality of life and yours," dog trainer Jolanta Benal explains on Quick and Dirty Tips.

Rueb recommends cleaning the apartment before introducing a new pup into your home and making sure valuables are tucked out of reach.

"The shelter environment, for the most part, is a very sterile environment. We don't have couches and slippers and eyeglasses laying around," said Rueb. "I always recommend that people go under the assumption that your dog is going to chew something up."

Fish and Reptiles

Fish occupy minimal space and are a low-maintenance choice for apartment dwellers. According to PetMD, there are also health benefits to owning a fish.

"For adults, just watching fish swim around in an aquarium has been shown to lower blood pressure and stress," PetMD says on its website. "For the kids, doing the same has been shown to improve hyperactivity disorders."

Other tank pets, like snakes and geckos, "are excellent pets for kids and apartment dwellers alike," according to ForRent.com. But think twice before choosing a turtle, which can carry salmonella and generally requires a larger tank, the site warns.

Pet-Friendly Apartments

Before city dwellers bring home their furry friends, Rueb checks with landlords to ensure residents are permitted to have pets. Many buildings either prohibit animals or impose restrictions on the breeds and sizes of pets allowed to live there.

For those seeking pet-friendly apartments, PetFinder.com suggests preparing documents to show you're a serious pet owner.

"Gather proof that youre responsible," the site recommends. "The more documentation you can provide attesting to your conscientiousness as a pet owner, the more convincing your appeal will be to your future landlord."

Helpful documents include a letter of reference from a current landlord, proof that your dog has attended training classes and veterinary papers showing that your pet has been vaccinated, spayed or neutered.

Other available resources include companies such as Pet Friendly Realty NYC, which connects clients with mental health clinicians to determine if they are candidates for emotional support animals.

Those who qualify receive help from real estate agents in finding suitable homes  not only in pet-friendly buildings, but also those that don't traditionally accept animals.

The service allows people to have an "advocate" throughout the process, said Matt Sutton, a spokesperson for Pet Friendly Realty.

For those seeking a home through more traditional means, rental sites such as rent.com and streeteasy.com allow users to search specifically for pet-friendly apartments.
A 3-year-old girl was fatally struck by a car while walking to school near Yankee Stadium, police said.

The child, Mariam Dansoko, was walking to school with her mother, Rougui Kebe, near on Gerard Avenue near East 164th Street in the Bronx when she was hit by a Nissan.

"She said, 'Mommy the car is coming' before the car came," Kebe said. "Before I go back, the car hit her."

The driver of the Nissan was traveling north on Gerard Avenue and made a left turn onto 164th Street just before it struck Dansoko, police said.

She was taken to Lincoln Hospital where she was pronounced dead, authorities said.

Nafi Dia, a family friend, said that Dansoko's father "couldn't handle himself" after the girl was hit.

"It's horrible," Dia said.

Kebe said that Mariam loved school and that she was devastated by the girl's death.

"I'm just going to miss her," Kebe said. "I can't do anything, I can't bring her back. I'm just going to be strong."

The driver remained on scene and criminality was not suspected.
A New York City cab driver helped police arrest a hit-and-run driver after he saw the motorist allegedly slam into a pedestrian and drive away, police said.

The cab driver was riding in the Bronx early Sunday morning when he saw a Honda minivan hit a 22-year-old pedestrian near Southern Boulevard and East 181 Street, authorities said.

The minivan driver then allegedly took off, but was followed by the cab driver who called 911, police said.

Police stopped the minivan and arrested driver, who was allegedly intoxicated, near Boston Road and Pellham Parkway North, authorities said.

The driver was arrested on charges including vehicular assault, unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and driving while intoxicated.

The pedestrian was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital in critical condition, authorities said.
Two men, armed with a gun and knife, forced their way into a Bronx apartment and stole an ottoman and other valuables from a couple as their young child watched, police say.

The suspects followed a 43-year-old man to his Mt. Eden apartment last Sunday night and pushed their way inside when he unlocked the door.

One of the men pulled out a firearm and the other man pulled out a knife during the robbery, police say.

The robbers got physical with the man and his 28-year-old wife as they demanded money and jewelry.

The couples 4-year-old son watched the home invasion unfold.

The robbers were able to get away with cell phones, jewelry, cash and an ottoman furniture piece, according to police.

Surveillance video shows one suspect awkwardly carrying the ottoman as they escape. At one point he drops the piece of furniture before picking it back up and taking off.

Law enforcement sources tell NBC 4 New York it's unclear why thieves stole the ottoman, or if something was hidden inside.

The suspects fled down Morris Avenue in a black Acura TL with a New York license plate.

The victims were not seriously injured in the robbery.

Neighbors say the unusual robbery has them uneasy.

I'm panicked," said one neighbor. "I don't open the door for anybody. When I take the elevator I'm nervous. I want to move."

Police ask anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS.
Police are searching for an older man who snuck into a Washington Heights church and stealthily made off with a painting.

Surveillance video shows the man slowly making his way into Saint Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church with a cane last Sunday afternoon.

Moments later, the man walks over to a wooden chest and grabs the painting of a religious icon. The video shows him removing his jacket and wrapping it around the painting.

He then picks up his cane, which he had dropped, and makes his way out of the church.

Police say the suspect is around 65-years-old. He appears to have long darkish gray hair and a white beard.
Firefighters battled a blaze Monday at a Queens residence, the FDNY said.

A two-story home on Liberty Avenue in Jamaica caught fire, the fire department said. About 130 firefighters and EMTs were at the scene.

Video from the scene showed flames shooting from the roof and smoke billowing out windows.

No injuries were reported.
Verizon and union officials representing about 39,000 striking landline and cable workers in nine eastern states and Washington, D.C., agreed to restart negotiations, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said he met with both sides on Sunday in Washington, D.C.

"The parties had an open, frank and constructive dialogue about finding a comprehensive way forward to resolve disputed issues and get people back to work," Perez said.

The two striking unions, the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, represent installers, customer service employees, repairmen and other service workers in Connecticut, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., for Verizon's wireline business, which provides fixed-line phone services and FiOS Internet service.

Workers walked off the job on April 13. They had been working without a contract since August.

The unions have said they're striking because Verizon wants to freeze pensions, make layoffs easier and rely more on contract workers.

The telecom giant has said there are health care issues that need to be addressed for both retirees and workers as medical costs have grown.

Both sides agreed to return to the bargaining table on Tuesday to continue their discussions.

Perez said he's "heartened" by the parties' commitment to getting back to work on a new contract.

"I was singularly impressed by the parties' appreciation that time is of the essence, and their strong commitment to use the collective bargaining process to reach a mutually beneficial resolution," Perez said.

Some 45,000 Verizon workers went on strike for about two weeks in August 2011.

Verizon Communications Inc. has a total workforce of more than 177,000 employees.
Tourists were ticketed and forced to release a baby bison from the back of their SUV at Yellowstone National Park, NBC News reported.

Two foreign tourists, a father and son duo, were worried that the calf was too cold, according to a witness who snapped a photo of the bison in their vehicle.

Rob Heusevelet, the father of a student on a field trip, told the East Idaho News of nearby Idaho Falls that rangers ordered the men to remove the bison and warned them that they could be in trouble for having the animal. The National Park Service forbids visitors from approaching within 25 feet from large animals.

"They didn't care," Heusevelet told the news site. "They sincerely thought they were doing a service and helping that calf by trying to save it from the cold."
The engineer driving the Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia last year, killing eight people, may have been distracted by radio traffic, sources close to the investigation told NBC News.

The engineer in last years deadly Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia may have been distracted by radio calls, according to sources with NBC News. NBC10s Brandon Hudson has the details.

Sources told NBC News that NTSB investigators believe Amtrak 188 engineer Brandon Bostian was likely distracted by radio dispatchers prior to the May 12, 2015, crash in Philadelphia.

As @NBCNews reported last year, prevailing theory in crash of #amtrak188 was that engineer was distracted by radio traffic. @ntsb hrg tmrw.  Tom Costello (@tomcostellonbc) May 16, 2016

The train, headed from Washington, D.C. to New York, entered a sharp curve at 106 mph  more than twice the posted speed limit  when it crashed. Eight people died and more than 200 were injured.

The NTSB will hold a hearing in Washington, D.C., Tuesday where board members will vote on the final report in the investigation of the deadly derailment.

NBC News reports the probable cause for the crash may change during the meeting.

The NTSB released 160 documents earlier this year detailing the crash, including two interviews with Bostian in which he described the events leading up to it. In one interview, Bostian told investigators he had a "dream-like" memory of the train going too fast around the curve and hitting the brakes once he realized it was going to tip over.

On the one-year anniversary of the deadly Amtrak 188 derailment in Philadelphia, doctors who treated dozens of patients recount how they handled the disaster. NBC10s Matt DeLucia has the story.

"I remember holding onto the controls tightly and feeling like, okay well this is it, I'm going over," Bostian said.

Bostian made no mention in either interview however about being distracted by radio dispatch moments before the crash.
Philadelphia Police Officer Damien Stevenson, the partner of Sgt. Robert Wilson III, who was shot to death in the line of duty when he walked in on a robbery last March, received the honor of "top cop" at a national ceremony this weekend.

Stevenson's honor came just before Wilson was to be presented posthumously with the Medal of Valor by President Obama on Monday.

There is no other car like 22  22, said Philadelphia Police Officer Damien Stevenson during a eulogy for his slain partner, Officer Robert Wilson III. Stevenson, who said he did not prepare his speech, brought laughter and tears to the hundreds gathered at the Palestra.

The National Association of Police Organizations selected Stevenson as one of the top 10 law-enforcement officers in the nation, and Stevenson received the "Top Cops" Award during NAPO's annual awards banquet on Saturday in Washington, D.C.

"The purpose of the Top Cops Awards is to educate the American public about our nation's heroes and pay tribute to law enforcement officers in federal, state, county, and local agencies from across the country for actions above and beyond the call of duty during the preceding year," NAPO wrote in a statement about the awards.

Officers who win the awards are nominated by their colleagues.

Stevenson and Wilson were partners in North Philadelphia's rough-and-tumble 22nd District in March 2015 when they stopped at a GameStop store on Lehigh Avenue near 22nd Street in a snowstorm so that Wilson could buy his son a birthday gift.

Wilson was in the store when two armed robbers walked in, announced a stickup, and opened fire when they saw Wilson in uniform.

Wilson returned fire at both gunmen, managing to keep their gunfire away from store customers and employees.

Stevenson was outside the store when the gun battle erupted and chased down one of the suspects, later identified as Carlton Hipps, outside. Police have said that Hipps fired a shot at Stevenson, and Stevenson returned fire, wounding Hipps, and held him until backup arrived.

Both Hipps and Ramone Williams have been charged in Wilson's murder. Both are scheduled to appear in court for a pre-trial conference July 21.
Firefighters battled a fire at a chicken coop in Gloucester County, New Jersey.

The fire started Monday shortly after 3 p.m. at a coop along the 400 block of Harding Highway in Franklin Township. SkyForce10 was overhead as firefighters worked to put out hot spots. They were able to bring the fire under control around 3:35 p.m.

Officials have not yet revealed whether any chickens were killed in the blaze.
A man who's been fighting for parole after being convicted of beating his wife to death using a chin-up bar in their Montgomery County home in 2006 will serve his full sentence, prosecutors said on Monday.



Rafael Robb has been fighting to be released since his parole came up in February. Robb was sentenced to 10 years in prison with the possibility of parole as part of a negotiated plea deal after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter in 2007.

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said at a news conference on Monday that Robb will serve his full sentence.

Steele said at the news conference that justice was served in the decision to keep Robb behind bars.



Robb, a former University of Pennsylvania professor, admitted to beating his wife, Ellen Gregory Robb, to death using a chin-up bar in the couple's King of Prussia home.



Ellen Gregory Robb's family, local lawmakers and prosecutors have been fighting to keep Rafael Robb behind bars to finish his full sentence.

Ellen Gregory Robb's brother, Gary Gregory, and domestic-violence advocates praised the decision to keep her husband in prison. Gregory said his sister had been planning to leave Robb when he killed her. Since her death, he has done advocacy work to aid survivors of domestic violence.

"It's an epidemic that my sister suffered from in silence," Gregory said, breaking down, during Monday's news conference. "I'm most pleased and proud to be surrounded by people who have made a difference in our lives, but most importantly in Ellen's legacy so that it carries forward for years to come."

Robert Mongeluzzi, who won a historic $124 million civil settlement for Ellen Gregory Robb's daughter in civil court, which Robb is fighting, vowed to continue to fight that case.

"We proved in a that courtroom that he intentionally slaughtered her ... [he] waited for her as she was wrapping Christmas presents and brutally beat her to death ... in a scene he described himself as out of a horror movie and out of a slaughterhouse," Mongeluzzi said at Monday's news conference. "In a horror movie, there is always a monster, and the monster in this case is Rafael Robb."
A judge has refused to dismiss murder charges filed against a New Jersey father accused of killing his 3-year-old son.

State Superior Court Judge John Kelley on Monday rejected a motion filed by Richard Fuschino Jr, the attorney for David Creato Jr.

Fuschino claimed that a medical examiner acted improperly while determining the cause of death for Brendan Creato and later misled a grand jury. But Camden County prosecutors have called those arguments "absurd.''

Prosecutors have said the boy suffered "homicidal violence.'' They say the 22-year-old Haddon Township man killed his son because the boy was impeding his relationship with a teenage girlfriend who allegedly resented Creato's dealings with the child's mother.

Creato remains jailed on $750,000 bail. He has pleaded not guilty to murder and child endangerment.
Philadelphia Police Sgt. Robert Wilson III, the officer killed in the line of duty last year during a botched robbery at a North Philadelphia store, received the Medal of Valor posthumously on Monday.

Wilson's family accepted the medal for him from President Obama during a ceremony at the White House.

Wilson is one of 13 officers to receive the medal this year, but the lone fallen officer honored. His partner, Officer Damien Stevenson, was honored with a "Top Cop" award presented by the National Association of Police Organizations over the weekend.

The medal was commissioned by Congress in 2001 to honor first responders who showed exceptional courage while working to preserve human life.

Wilson, a 30-year-old father, was killed on March 5, 2015 when two men attempted to rob a North Philadelphia GameStop store. Wilson was inside the store in full uniform buying his son a birthday gift when the two armed robbers entered and announced a holdup.

The officer got into a shoot out with the two gunmen, diverting gunfire away from store staff and customers. Wilson was struck six times by gunfire and later died.

The officer's alleged killers, 29-year-old Carlton Hipps and 25-year-old Ramone Williams, have been charged with murder and a slew of related offenses in his death. Both are scheduled to appear in court again in July.
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A suspected white supremacist is under arrest after an investigation led police to find he was armed with an AK-47, a handgun and a stockpile of ammo and magazines in the woods in South Jersey over the weekend.



Lacey Township police said the man was found as a task force of officers from several agencies sought to detect criminal activity in a 60-square-mile wooded area in Lacey Township, Ocean County on Sunday.



During the investigation, task force officers spotted a suspicious vehicle just after 1 p.m. parked in the woods off a path. They checked out vehicle and found two men, one of whom was wearing combat gear, in the woods nearby, police said.

The man wearing the combat gear, identified by police as 42-year-old Bruce Post III, gave officers indications that he may have white supremacist ties, according to the Lacey Township Police Department. Police did not specify exactly what Post did or said that made them suspect that.

Investigating Post further, task force officers found that he had an AK-47, a Walther P38 9mm handgun, eight 30-round magazines and a 100-round drum magazine and "various forms of ammunition" hidden in the woods in the area, police said. Post was arrested.

The Hamilton resident is charged with illegally possessing a weapon as a felon, unlawful gun possession and prohibited weapons possession for allegedly having high-capacity magazines. His bail was set at $400,000 full cash, and is being held in the Ocean County Correctional Facility, police said.

It not immediately clear if Post had retained an attorney.

The man who was with Post at the time, identified only as a 38-year-old from Hamilton, was detained but not arrested, police said. An ongoing investigation could potentially lead to charges for him as well, according to investigators.

Lacey Township police said they established the task force three weeks ago to combat trespassing in the woods by people on off-road vehicles, fire hazards and other criminal activity in the wooded areas of Lacey Township.
Students returned to Del Mar Heights Elementary School Monday following a parking lot crash that injured nine children during afternoon pickup on Friday.

A 70-year-old woman was behind the wheel of a Honda Civic in the school parking lot when she reversed and struck a parked car. She reacted by driving forward, up onto a sidewalk and into a group of children.

Among the nine children injured, police say an 11-month-old child in a stroller was pinned beneath the car, San Diego Police Department (SDPD) confirmed.

Del Mar Union School District Superintendent Holly McClurg told NBC 7 that all students who were injured have been released from the hospital.

Declan Danahy saw the car back into a parked car and then change directions to go forward.

Instead of moving forward a little bit she just went all the way, Danahy said.

He said he managed to move out of the way and avoid injury.

It was really scary, he said.

McClurg met with parents Monday morning to address any concerns. Some parents said they felt the crash was an accident and not caused by a safety issue at school.

For children like Danahy , there will be counselors available on campus.

"They met early today to prepare for any students who might need to talk about the accident." McClurg said.

One parent told NBC 7 that she was impressed the fence was fixed over the weekend.

When the kids come back everything will be back to normal as much as it could be, said Lorie Van Tilburg.

The incident is under investigation. No decision has been made on whether to charge the driver.

It was a rear bumper to rear bumper accident. She hit one vehicle and it appears she panicked and moved forward at a high rate of speed, Lt. Scott Bender said.

Police say nine children, ages 11 months to nine years old, were hurt in the crash. Six of them taken to area hospitals, some with injuries initially described by authorities as "traumatic."

A five-year-old with a broken femur suffered the worst injury, police said.

The K-6 elementary school is part of the Del Mar Union School District.
A man accused of running over a City Heights woman and leaving her to die faced a San Diego judge for the first time Monday.

Marco Antonio Gutierrez pleaded not guilty to hit-and-run with injury and assault with a deadly weapon in the death of 29-year-old Jazmine Leigh Ruiz.

Ruiz died April 20 after she was stabbed in the neck and run over by a car, San Diego Police said.

Her body was found in the west alley near Wilson Avenue. Homicide detectives believe the car was used as a weapon to kill the victim after a physical assault.

Ruiz' body was dragged 15 to 20 feet underneath the car, Deputy District Attorney David Bost said in court Monday when asking that bail be increased to $250,000.

Judge David Szumowski agreed to increase the bail and held co-defendant Christina Daniel without bail.

Daniel is accused of stabbing Ruiz in the neck and jugular, probably inside the same car used to run her over by a second suspect, prosecutors said.

Daniel has a long criminal history including allegations of attempted murder as well as convictions in auto theft and carjacking. She has pleaded not guilty to murder in this case.

Szumowski ordered the news media not to show either defendant's face.

If convicted, Gutierrez faces approximately eight years.

A third suspect is still sought in Ruiz' death. No motive was discussed in court Monday.
Caps will be flying for several weeks in San Diego as undergraduates wrap up their college careers.

While Point Loma Nazarene University students graduated on May 7, there are still several graduations to come.

San Diego State Universitys (SDSU) commencement weekend began Thursday with the Imperial Valley Campus graduation. The university will host seven more ceremonies this weekend as over 9,900 students graduate.

The remaining commencement ceremonies will take place in the Viejas Arena:

Friday, May 13 at 11 a.m. - College of Arts and Letters

Friday, May 13 at 3 p.m. - College of Health and Human Services

Saturday, May 14 at 8 a.m. - College of Business Administration

Saturday, May 14 at 1 p.m. - College of Sciences

Saturday, May 14 at 5:30 p.m. - College of Engineering

Sunday, May 15 at 9 a.m.  College Professional Studies and Fine Arts

Sunday, May 15 at 2 p.m.  College of Education and the Division of Undergraduate Studies

For more SDSU graduation information, click here.

California State University San Marcous (CSUSM) is the next local graduation where nearly 2,680 students will be claiming their bachelor's degree.

The CSUSM Mangrum Track & Field expects crowds of families and friends during the five ceremonies split between May 20 and May 21.

The college commencements are scheduled as such:

Friday, May 20 at 9 a.m. - College of Business Administration

Friday, May 20 at 1 p.m. - College of Science and Mathematics

Friday, May 20 at 4:30 p.m. - College of Education, Health and Human Services

Saturday, May 21 at 9 a.m. - College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences (Section 1)

Saturday, May 21 at 1 p.m. - College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences (Section 2)

For information about the weekend, visit here.

Just a day after CSUSM students celebrate their education, the University of San Diego Class of 2016 will move their tassels too.

USDs undergraduate commencement is slightly smaller with exactly 1,300 graduating students, according to USD communication representative, Elizabeth Harmon.

Two graduation ceremonies in the university's Jenny Craig Pavilion will split the class on Sunday, May 22.

Sunday, May 22 at 9 a.m. - College of Arts and Sciences

Sunday, May 22 at 1 p.m. - School of Business and Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering

Learn more about USDs commencement events here.

Several weeks down the road, about 6,000 University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) students will also end their college education on RIMAC Field, according to UC San Diego's student affairs office.

UC San Diego will hold an all undergraduate commencement on June 11 at 10 a.m. then each college within UC San Diego will host their own ceremony.

The schedule is as follows:

Saturday, June 11 at 2 p.m.  Warren College

Saturday, June 11 @ 5:30 p.m.  Sixth College

Sunday, June 12 @ 8 a.m.  Marshal College

Sunday, June 12 @ 11:30 a.m.  Revelle College

Sunday, June 12 @ 2:30 p.m.  Roosevelt College

Sunday, June 12 @ 5:30 p.m.  Muir College

To learn more about UC San Diegos graduation weekend, click here.

For those who cannot attend the ceremonies, SDSU, USD and UC San Diego offer online live streaming options.
Barbra Streisand will perform at the Verizon Center in downtown D.C. on Aug. 18 during a nine-stop tour.

Tickets will go on sale May 25 through the Verizon Center website (although if you have an American Express card, you'll get a first shot at tickets this Wednesday). Everyone who buys a ticket online will get a copy of her new album, "ENCORE: Movie Partners Sing Broadway."

Streisand will release her new album after the tour ends in late August, her manager, Marty Erlichman, said Monday.

Streisand has not played a D.C. show since 2006, when she sang at the Verizon Center as part of her Streisand Tour. She did visit D.C. in November, when President Obama honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
What to Know A memorial service will be held for Gladys Tordil at Parkdale High School Monday evening.

The funeral for 65-year-old Claudina Molina of Silver Spring will be held at St. Jude Catholic Church in Rockville.

Police say both women were fatally shot by Eulalio Tordil, 62, on May 5 and May 6.

Family and friends will gather Monday to remember two women police say were murdered by a federal security officer during a two-day shooting spree.

Gladys Tordil, 44, was fatally shot by her estranged husband, Eulalio Tordil, 62, May 5 as she waited for her children in the parking lot of High Point High School, police say.

Gladys Tordil taught chemistry at Parkdale High School in Prince George's County. On Monday, a memorial service will be held for her at the school. But it could be weeks before the beloved chemistry teacher is laid to rest.

Gladys Tordil's body remains at a Maryland morgue because there is no one in the country to claim her body, according to attorney Arnedo Valera.

"She had the heart and courage of a panther," school officials said in a statement after her death. "While she may no longer be with us, her dedication to her students and 2 loving daughters will never be forgotten."

The woman police say was Eulalio Tordil's last victim will also be remembered Monday.

The funeral for 65-year-old Claudina Molina of Silver Spring will be held at St. Jude Catholic Church in Rockville, a spokeswoman for the Catholic Church said.

Police say Eulalio Tordil shot Molina May 6 during an attempted carjacking in a parking lot outside a supermarket in Aspen Hill.

Prior to shooting Molina, police say Eulalio Tordil shot three people in the parking lot of a Bethesda mall. One of the victims in that shooting later died.

Eulalio Tordil lost his eyeglasses while struggling with Molina and may not have been able to see well enough to drive away from the scene, authorities said during his first court appearance. He was arrested a short time later.

Molina's family says she was originally from Bolivia and accomplished the American dream, working 16 hours a day for the past 25 years, only to be killed while resisting what police believe was a second carjacking attempt by Tordil. Molina was a nursing assistant who planned to retire within a year.
The husband of a fired Virginia lawyer is going on trial in a brutal attack on another lawyer and his wife in their McLean home.

Andrew Schmuhl is accused of torturing and nearly killing the couple in 2014 before one of the victims was able to activate a panic alarm. Schmuhl's wife, Alecia, had recently been fired from the male victim's Arlington law firm.

Prosecutors believe Alecia Schmuhl was just outside the home during the attack, communicating by phone with her husband.

In court Monday, Andrew Schmuhl, who is also a lawyer, pleaded not guilty to all seven charges against him in the Nov. 9, 2014 attack.

The Schmuhls will be tried separately, a judge ruled last month. Andrew Schmuhl's lawyers asked for separate trials when they learned his wife might use the defense that she's been a victim of years of spousal abuse and was programmed to do whatever her husband asked.

In January, lawyers for Andrew Schmuhl put a court on notice they may employ a very unusual defense: involuntary intoxication, arguing that his mental state at the time of the offense resulted from the use of medication.

Victim Leo Fisher testified about the attack during a preliminary hearing, saying that a man knocked on the door and claimed to be a law enforcement officer, but then burst into the home and stunned him with a Taser.

"I saw him point something at me and Taser me," Fisher said last year. "I fell to the floor and I was just seizing for some period of time."

The attacker bound Fisher and slit his throat.

Fisher's wife, Susan Duncan, was stabbed and shot. The bullet grazed her head.

"He raised a gun and he shot her ... and I thought he killed her," Fisher previously said.

Fisher said he recognized the attacker as Alecia Schmuhl's husband.

Police arrested the Schmuhls after a brief chase. Andrew Schmuhl was arrested while clad only in a diaper.

The Schmuhls are charged with abduction and malicious wounding for the attack.

Alecia Schmuhl will go on trial this summer.
The political season is hitting the streets in a very literal way in Washington, D.C. and other cities around the country.

News4 reporter Tom Sherwood spotted an unusual traffic sign outside the Howard Theater on Monday. In addition to the usual "No Parking" and "Tow Away" signs, there was another at the bottom of the stack: "No Trump Anytime."

Lots of street signs in DC. Look closely at these outside Howard Theater. pic.twitter.com/MUHpERgMft  Tom Sherwood (@tomsherwood) May 16, 2016

The sign prohibiting presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump from parking in the area is not an official D.C. Department of Transportation or Metropolitan Police Department sign, Sherwood said.

He said a sticker on the back bears the name of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

"No Trump Anytime" signs have been spotted in other cities, including Los Angeles, London, Miami, New York and Chicago. They are the work of Plastic Jesus, a self-proclaimed urban creative strategist based in LA.

https://twitter.com/__jacquelyn_/status/726118090778509317

The artist, whose first name is Nick, told NBC Washington he made and personally installed the signs in Los Angeles and London. He said "collaborators" posted signs in other cities that he sent for prominent locations, "preferably in front of Trump buildings."

The former photojournalist, who is known for his guerrilla-style street art, did not give a reason for the sign but said he did the same for the Kardashians.

In April 2015, the artist installed "No Kardashian Parking" signs around Hollywood.
Police in Brunswick, Maine, are searching for two suspects who stabbed a 39-year-old Ohio man over the weekend near the Maine town's downtown business district.

Commander Marc Hagan says the initial call reporting the stabbing on Market Lane was received around 2:17 p.m. Sunday. Officers were headed to the scene when police received a second call stating that a wounded man was in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven convenience store on Pleasant and Maine streets.

The victim, an unidentified man from Cleveland, told police he was attacked by two men around Market Lane. Police say witnesses reported seeing two people running away from the area around when the first call for assistance was placed.

Maine State Police's canine unit responded, but law enforcement was unable to locate the suspects.
A timeline of the series of events that led to the shootings of two police officers in Manchester, New Hampshire, last week is beginning to take shape.

Court documents released Monday detail the events that ultimately led to the arrest of Ian MacPherson. He was arraigned Monday morning and ordered held without bail on two counts of attempted capital murder.

It all began with the report of a robbery at the Shell Gas Sation at 245 Eddy Road around 1:30 a.m. Thursday. The clerk told police that the gas station was robbed at gunpoint by a man in a dark trench coat and a black ski mask.

The man allegedly told the clerk "not going to hurt you, just put all the bills in this bag this is no joke." The suspect left with money from the register, and said he'd be back the following day.

Police were able to obtain surveillance footage from the gas station, and disseminated a description throughout the Manchester Police Department.

The next day - Friday - Manchester Police Officer Ryan Hardy was on patrol, working the midnight shift from 11 p.m. Thursday until 7:30 a.m. Friday. Around 2:03 a.m., he was in traveling in the area of Second and Ferry streets when he called off on the radio that he would be checking on a male subject who matched the description of the bank robbery suspect from the night before. About 30 seconds later, he broadcasted, "Shots fired, shots fired. I've been shot," followed by a description of the male subject and the direction he was last seen heading.

Hardy was shot twice, in the face and torso.

After the shots were fired, a number of area residents callled police to say they had heard the shots and saw a man running from the scene. Manchester and New Hampshire State Police then began searching the area. A K9 track was also started, leading officers to the area of Putnam and Rimmon streets.

At 2:33 a.m., Manchester Police Officer Matthew O'Connor - who was also working the midnight shift - reported that he and members of the state police had located a male who fit the suspect's description on Rimmon Street by Putnam Street. He asked the man to put his hands up, and said the man told him, "I am the guy you are looking for."

The suspect then turned and pointed a gun at O'Connor and began firing. O'Connor was shot once in the lower right leg. Members of the Manchester Police and state police returned fire, but the suspect fled into the woods.

As officers continued to search the densely wooded area, they saw a man who fit the suspect's description emerge from the area of 468 Bartlett St. at 5 a.m. The man, later identified as MacPherson, was taken into custody without further incident.

A continued search of the area yielded the discovery of a semi-automatic, .40-caliber Smith and Wesson firearm, a dark-colored coat, a black ski mask and a wallet.

The coat was found underneath a porch, and a handgun magazine was found in a nearby storm drain. The mask and wallet were found in the street.

Further police investigation revealed that MacPherson purchased the firearm at Chester Arms on Bypass 28 in Derry, New Hampshire, on April 1 for $349. He also purchased a box of Magtech .40-caliber ammunition containing 50 rounds of ammunition for $18.

Investigators at the scene of the shooting of Officer Hardy recovered 15 shell casings matching the gun purchased by MacPherson. The court affidavit does not include information the number of shells recovered from the second shooting scene.

Both of the injured officers were treated and have since been released fro the hospital.

MacPherson is scheduled to return to court for a dangerousness hearing on May 27.
A Massachusetts firefighter was reportedly injured in a fire late Monday morning in Springfield.

Authorities tell affiliate WWLP that a firefighter was taken to a local hospital after a minor ankle injury that happened while working the blaze at 358 Wilbraham Road, a multi-family home.

Five adults and a child were also reportedly forced from the first floor apartment by the fire. WWLP added that second and third floor residents weren't home at the time.

Video showed flames coming from a third floor window and roof.
Massachusetts State Police arrested a man for allegedly trafficking cocaine in Longmeadow.

On Saturday, Lieutenant Brendhan Shugrue pulled over a gray BMW station wagon, after the driver allegedly passed traffic and sped 20 mph over the limit on Route 91 northbound. According to police, Shugrue found the driver in possession of 32 grams of cocaine and $1000 in cash.

The driver, from Keene, N.H., was arrested and booked at the State Police Barracks in Springfield, with a $1000 bail.
It's been six months since Christopher Nickerson walked into a hospital with his intestine hanging out of his stomach.

Nickerson, who then lived in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, was walking in the Hyannis section of Barnstable on Oct. 24, 2015, when he says he happened upon a domestic incident and intervened.

"I came across a couple arguing in the road," Nickerson, now 41, recalled Saturday in a phone interview with necn. "I got involved to try to help her, and he ended up stabbing me."

Nickerson, who acknowledges that he had been under the influence of drugs and alcohol, walked to Cape Cod Hospital - his intestine unruptured, but hanging from his body.

While the injury may have been traumatic, Nickerson is adamant that it saved him.

"It was a wakeup call from God," Nickerson said. "It steered me in the right direction."

Nickerson was on a different road before the stabbing - following some personal losses, he had spent the prior 11 years as a drug addict and an alcoholic. And things didn't get easier quickly.

He spent four weeks in the hospital, then more time at the Cape Heritage Nursing Home in Sandwich.

"I ended up losing everything - I had no place to go," he said. "I became homeless."

He was working toward recovery from the stabbing when he reconnected with his mother - he hadn't seen her in 10 years. He bumped into his brother at the hospital and got her number from him.

Within a few days, Nickerson's mother, who had also been homeless, got him into the Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center in Bridgewater. From there, he went to Thayer TSS in Worcester.

That was where a counselor asked him an important question - "How do you feel about living on a farm?"

"I've got a construction background," he replied. "I guess I could live on a farm. That sounds like a great idea."

And so he landed in Oakham, a rural town west of Worcester, at Dismas Family Farm - described on its website as "a holistic, rehabilitative and vocational reentry model."

"It's a fully functional, working farm," Nickerson explained.

The farm has animals. Residents grow vegetables to sell at farmers markets.

Nickerson is excited for the future - his time at Dismas, away from the temptations and the constant reminders that come with city life, has helped him move forward.

"You don't hear sirens going by every night. You don't hear gunshots. You don't hear helicopters flying overhead," Nickerson said. "This is God's country. Why would you not want to enjoy it? How could you not get overjoyed and have a feeling of wonder?"

Despite the gruesome nature of the injury, Nickerson's physical health has improved dramatically.

"Other than having the scars, there isn't really any lingering effect," he said. "I don't have any nightmares from it. It was a traumatic experienced, but I was in a blackout - I think my mind kind of erased it."

Understandably, he still thinks back to that night. He's disappointed Barnstable Police never caught the suspect. And he hopes that the man is captured so that he doesn't hurt anyone else.

But he considers his survival nothing short of a miracle - he walked to the hospital without dying, and he managed to tell police of his medical allergies before he passed out. Were he given anesthesia, the results could have been tragic. And he calls the attack a blessing in disguise - a much-needed catalyst for change.

"Had I not been under the influence, I would never have ended up in that part of town in that part of night," Nickerson said. "It's my fault that I was there - but the fact that I didn't die - that was God."

Nickerson's faith is not a traditional one, but it has carried him.

"I'm not a religious person," he said. "But I've also come to realize that there's a big difference between religion and faith. And for me, faith is having an understanding with a higher power that I understand for myself. It doesn't matter what other people think about that, I understand it."

And even with all the pain he's suffered, the future excites Nickerson.

"I've got a long road ahead of me," he said. "I think I've actually got it."
Police in Wayland, Massachusetts, say a motorcycle driver is dead after crashing into a pole over the weekend.

The crash happened Sunday at 2:30 a.m. on West Plain Street, according to Wayland Police.

Police believe the driver, Edward Mcisaac, 29, of Framingham, lost control of his motorcycle.

He was transported to a hospital where he later died from his injuries.

The crash remains under investigation.
Marijuana, brass knuckles, a controlled drug and alcohol were seized by authorities who broke up a teen party at a New Hampshire park.

Merrimack Police had received a call about a group of individuals being loud at Wasserman Park over the weekend. When officers arrived, they located a group having a barbeque.

During their conversation, police observed several beer cans on a picnic table. Everyone in the group denied knowledge of the alcoholic beverages.

Five people who are under the age of 21 were told they would be placed into protective custody and transported to the Merrimack Police Department. During this time, one of the subjects, Rohaiz Dar, 19, of Nashua, walked away.

Dar was later located, taken into custody and charged with resisting detention. He was released on $1,500 personal recognizance bail.

A 16-year-old was found to be in possession of a controlled drug, marijuana and brass knuckles. He will be petitioned to juvenile court in the near future.

The other subjects were released to their parents.
Police in Concord, New Hampshire, are asking the public to help them identify an armed robbery suspect who robbed a Walgreens on Sunday night.

According to the police department, officers responded to the Walgreens at 142 Loudon Road for a report of an armed robbery.

The suspect was described as a skinny white man, about six feet tall, who was wearing a black and white bandana, possibly with some type of skull and crossbones pattern, over his face.

A Walgreens employee also told officers he was wearing a black jacket, dark colored pants, and a dark colored hat.

He showed the employee a gun and said "give me the money."

The suspect reached into the cash drawer and removed bills and also asked for a pack of cigarettes- Marlboro Black 100s specifically.

The employee gave him the cigarettes and the suspect left.

He was last seen by a witness running across Loudon Road towards Burger King.

New Hampshire State Police attempted to track the suspect with a K-9 but were unable to locate him.

Officers believe he may have fled in a car.

Anyone who has information about the suspect is asked to contact the Concord Police Department.
A New Hampshire prep school graduate, convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old freshman as part of a game of sexual conquest called "Senior Salute," will again be free pending appeal.

Owen Labrie had been free while he appealed his conviction, but a judge revoked his bail in March after he admitted violating his curfew. He appealed that decision to the state Supreme Court, which on Thursday sent the matter back to the trial court.

At a bail hearing Monday in Merrimack County Superior Court, Judge Larry Smukler reinstated Labrie's bail. He will be required to wear an electronic monitoring device.

Labrie will be released as soon as electronic monitoring can be set up. He will have to pay for the monitoring device. Any violation means he will return to jail, the judge said.

At Monday's hearing, Labrie's attorney said he has "gone through life changing experiences" and has learned to appreciate his freedom and not take it for granted.

Prosecutors, however, argued that the only thing that has changed "is that the defendant doesn't like it in jail," and he shouldn't qualify for bail based on his previous bail violations.

Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, was arrested in 2014 - days after graduating from St. Paul's School in Concord.

During his trial, Labrie testified that he and the girl had consensual sexual contact, but he denied having intercourse with her.
Police in North Providence, Rhode Island, confirm a murder investigation is underway after a shooting Sunday night.

According to necn affiliate WJAR, crews were in front of Sam's Food store on Humbert Street around 11 p.m. Crews were still on scene Monday morning.

Witnesses reported hearing six gun shots and some screaming.

Police did not give additional details, but an ambulance was spotted leaving the scene.
Vermont State Police are searching for a 62-year-old man from Derby, Vermont. Peter Gaudreau was last seen at his home on May 13, 2016.

Gaudreau does not have his phone or access to a vehicle, and his family says he has health concerns.

Anyone with more information on his possible whereabouts is requested to contact Vermont State Police at 802-334-8881.


Norwich Christians join Global Day of Prayer Norwich Christians join Global Day of Prayer

Around 500 Christians joined millions around the world in a Global Day of Prayer service at Norwich Anglican Cathedral last night (May 16). Keith Morris reports.

Churches from across Norwich and beyond were represented in the annual prayer event which was organised by Transforming Norwich.



Revd Canon Jane Hedges, Dean of the Cathedral, welcomed the congregation, and said: It is wonderful to see the gathering of churches from across the city to thank God for the outpouring of His Holy Spirit and the many gifts he showers upon us. We pray that God will fill us with His Spirit so that we can go out into the world today to proclaim Christs resurrection and to share his love with everyone.



Danny Doran Smith, chair of Transforming Norwich, said: I invite you to join together tonight as one church, as one city, as one county, as one nation as we join together with those around the globe on this Global Day of Prayer.



After a time of worship led by a band from St Thomas Norwich, Jill Gower from Call to Prayer, opened the rest of the evening to prayer for Norwich and Norfolk, for the nations and for all the nations.



We believe we are prophetically the eastern gate to our nation  responsible for welcoming the King of Glory to come into our nation, said Jill.



Phil Thorne, of Alive Church Norwich said: We can bring about change through our prayers and God can shift things in the heavenlies. We mean business in prayer tonight.



Other ministers who led prayer included Rev Sally Gaze, Rev Nigel Fox, Rev Dominic De Souza, Julian Bryant, Rev Ian Dyble and Rev Lebert Shakes.



The evening ended with the lighting of candles across the congregation.



Pictured above is the Global Day of Prayer service in Norwich Anglican Cathedral.


For a conference that has been used to advance Android and Chrome, and introduce Google Glass with users parachuting from a plane, people are expecting to hear about virtual reality and artificial intelligence at this week's Google I/O conference.

"This year's focus will be virtual reality, no doubt," said Jeff Kagan, an independent industry analyst. "I believe Google wants to be a leader in virtual reality and, in this marketplace where there are no leaders yet, I think they will try and secure their place in the front of the line."

Kagan said Google may even roll out its own early- generation virtual reality device at I/O, the company's annual developer conference, which generally draws more than 6,000 attendees.

The conference is being held from Wednesday through Friday in Mountain View, Calif., the same city where Google is headquartered.

One of the big differences for this year's conference is that it's not at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Shoreline Amphitheater The Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Calif., where this year's Google I/O conference will be held.

Google has not given a reason for the change of venue, to the Shoreline Amphitheatre, though many anticipate that the company is looking to use the outdoor fairplex to display advances in its work on autonomous cars, robotics or drones.

"I expect it means Google will be showing off its skills at defining and powering autonomous vehicles -- not just cars but drones and devices of all sorts," said Jack Gold, an analyst with J.Gold Associates. "Cars seem to be getting the headlines but there are a number of autonomous things that Google wants to power."

Gold added that those smart devices could range from autonomous garbage trucks to systems that find an open parking space for your car and autonomous wheelchairs for people with disabilities.

+ MORE ABOUT THE SHOW How to watch Google I/O 2016 +

"Think of this as the same kind of race we went through in trying to power smartphones," he said. "Google won big there against the competition, and it is trying to position itself as the power inside the next wave of autonomous vehicles and robotic gadgets, as well."

Scott Strawn, an analyst with IDC, said he thinks Google is likely to show off driverless cars.

Google had pushed hard into robotics back in 2013, scooping up Boston Dynamics, the maker of the Atlas humanoid robot and the Big Dog, along with a string of other robotics companies. When reports hit that Google is trying to unload Boston Dynamics, it left many observers wondering how committed the company still is to developing its own robotics technology.

"After Andy Rubin [former head of Google's robotics division] left, it isn't clear how much progress they've made with their robotics program," Strawn said. "But their cars have been in the media quite a bit, which might suggest some kind of unveiling this week."

And with Google's increasing interest in autonomous vehicles and virtual reality, there's a natural push for the company to invest heavily in artificial intelligence and machine learning to support those efforts.

Many industry analysts are expecting to hear more about that this week.

"What's most important to me are the efforts Google has around cognitive computing and artificial intelligence," said Gold. "We are seeing major pushes by IBM, with Watson, and Microsoft and others. I'd really like to see how Google plans to counter these efforts."

He added that he's interested to see if Google will talk about or show off an advance to Apple's Siri, or Amazon's Echo.

Strawn, too, thinks Google might focus on a smart personal assistant.

"Google is working hard to create an interactive digital assistant," said Strawn. "If you've ever seen the movie Her, that would give you a good idea of the type of interaction they are trying to create. Mostly it would be to help organize people's lives, kind of like an ever-present assistant that you can have a conversation with."

Of course, it wouldn't be Google I/O without talk of Android and Chrome but most aren't expecting huge news out of those areas this week.

"Google always has some type of updates that will be revealed about the next version of Android, even though this year some Android N features have been announced already," said Brian Blau, an analyst with Gartner. "There have been rumors for many years that Android and Chrome OS will be merged or will interoperate to some degree. And while some developers want this merging to happen sooner than later, Google may only look at some interoperability versus a more substantial merging."

Google's cloud efforts also are likely to get some attention. And Project Tango, a technology that enables mobile devices to be aware of their position in the world, is expected to be updated during the conference.

"I believe [Project Tango] was demonstrated at last year's conference, so I expect to see some refinements and further packaging of this intriguing idea," said Brad Shimmin, an analyst with Current Analysis. "Clearly, mobile devices are not just ubiquitous but also heterogeneous in shape, size and purpose. If Google can deliver a set of APIs that engage those devices directly with the physical world around them and with their users, we could be in for something much more momentous than even virtual reality."

This story, "Google I/O: Expect A.I., virtual reality" was originally published by Computerworld .
Cyber insurance doesnt come cheap, and it doesnt always pay out after a company is hacked. But today Scottsdale, Arizona-based Trusona announced it has become the worlds first insured authentication platform. Trusona, using its own cyber insurance, will insure the identity and thereby the transactions of Trutoken users up to $1 million.

Tim Greene previously wrote about Trusonas 100% accurate authentication scheme, which uses the companys Trutoken dongle. The product is aimed primarily at users such as bank customers moving thousands of dollars or corporate executives with access to critical data.

Trutoken plugs into a smartphone and can tell if a credit card, drivers license or any other type of identification card is legit and is being swiped by the right person. It does this by identifying unique aspects of magnetic strips on cards as well, as how the card is swiped. Card numbers stolen via a skimmer and copied onto another card, for example, wont be a perfect match via the magnetic strip. Also, no two swipes will be exactly the same, and Trusona uses those differences to guarantee safety from session replay attacks.

It took 18 months of testing to become the worlds first insured authentication platform. After the technology was vetted by an A+ rated insurance carrier, Trusona can now provide up to $1 million coverage per financial transaction carried out on its platform. Trusona founder and CEO Ori Eisen, who is also an investor in Yubico, told AZ Big Media, People want their vendor to put their money where their mouth is, and were doing just that.

Tested by independent security experts

The Trusona service has been subject to independent security testing as part of the process for them to offer an insured solution, said James Aquilina, executive managing director at the cybersecurity consulting firm Stroz Friedberg. We were pleased to note from our review that Trusona appears committed to understanding and managing the security risks of its service in order to offer an insured solution to its customers.

For too long, the Internet has been an open playground for fraudsters and hackers. But now Trusona has flipped the security game on its head, making it impossible for malicious actors to victimize companies and individuals through bypassed authentication measures, said Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) general partner Ted Schlein. (KPCB previously invested $8 million in Trusona, and Schlein is a Trusona board member.) Cybersecurity is often considered a cat-and-mouse game, but Trusona has made it possible to take a stand and stop threat actors in their tracks with 100 percent assurance. Being insured is just further proof of Trusonas capabilities.

When Eisen, who used to run fraud detection for American Express, was coming up with ideas for Trusona, hed take them to a notorious former fraudster who would go about trying to defeat them until Eisen had a system that couldnt be beaten. You may recall that fraudsterFrank Abagnaleperhaps not by his name but from Leonardo DiCaprios depiction of Abagnales fraud tricks in the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can. The movie was based on Abagnales life as a fraudster; he later gave lectures about fraud to FBI agents. Now he serves as advisor to Trusona.

Other than some sort of sketchy security snake oil, there are generally no guarantees in the cyber world, so the fact that Trusona is backing its solution with its own cyber insurance is seriously interesting. Customers wouldnt be in the unpleasant position of paying a fortune for cybersecurity liability insurance only to have their claim later fall through a loophole.

For those interested, below is Trusonas pricing for each tier of insurance coverage:

$1,000 coverage per transaction on unlimited transactions is $8 per month.

$2,500 coverage per transaction on unlimited transactions is $40 per month.

$1 million coverage per transaction on unlimited transactions is $100 per month.

If you are unfamiliar with Trusona, you might be inclined to watch a couple videos or read Trusonas whitepaper on calculating risk to insure online authentication and in-person identity-proofing (pdf).

The first video shows the platform has sort of a paranoid slant, starting with the assumption that malware is listening to everything.

Trusona posted another video showing its solution vs. an ATM.
You'll find no shortage of career motivational phrases surrounding failure: Fail fast, failure builds character, the key to success is failure, mistakes make you grow, never be afraid to fail. But the idea of mistaking your way to the top of the software industry is probably unsound. Every developer will have their share of missteps in a career but why not learn from others experience -- and avoid the costliest errors?

Thats what we did: We talked with a number of tech pros who helped us identify areas where mistakes are easily avoided. Not surprising, the key to a solid dev career involves symmetry: Not staying with one stack or job too long, for example, but then again not switching languages and employers so often that you raise red flags.

[ Find out how to handle the real-world problems faced by developers, with InfoWorld's professional programmer's business survival guide. | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld's Application Development newsletter. ]

Here are some of the most notable career traps for engineers -- a minefield you can easily avoid while you navigate a tech market thats constantly changing.

Mistake No. 1: Staying too long

These days its rare to have a decades-long run as a developer at one firm. In many ways, its a badge of honor, showing your importance to the business or at least your ability to survive and thrive. But those who have built a career at only one company may suddenly find themselves on the wrong end of downsizing or rightsizing, depending on the buzzword favored at the time.

The longer you stay in one position, the more your skills and pay stagnate, and you will get bored and restless. -- Praveen Puri, management consultant

Opinions vary on how long you should stay in one place. Praveen Puri, a management consultant who spent 25 years as a developer and project manager before starting his own firm, isn't afraid to throw out some numbers.

The longer you stay in one position, the more your skills and pay stagnate, and you will get bored and restless, Puri says. On the other hand, if you switch multiple jobs after less than two years, it sends a red flag. In my own experience, I stayed too long on one job where I worked for 14 years -- I should have left after six. I left other positions after an average of four years, which is probably about right.

Michael Henderson, CTO of Talent Inc., sees two major drawbacks of staying in one place too long. First, you run the risk of limiting your exposure to new approaches and techniques, he says, and secondly, your professional network wont be as deep or as varied as someone who changes teams or companies.

Focusing too much on one stack used by your current employer obviously is great for the firm but maybe not for you.

Its a benefit to other employers looking for a very specialized skill set, and every business is different, says Mehul Amin, senior software engineer at Advanced Systems Concepts. But this can limit your growth and knowledge in other areas. Obviously staying a few months at each job isnt a great look for your resume, but employee turnover is pretty high these days and employers expect younger workers like recent college graduates to move around a bit before staying long-term at a company.

Mistake No. 2: Job jumping

Lets look at the flip side: Are you moving around too much? If thats a concern, you might ask whether youre really getting what you need from your time at a firm.

Constant job hopping can be seen as a red flag. -- Hilary Craft, IT branch manager, Addison Group

Charles Edge, director of professional services at Apple device management company JAMF Software, says hiring managers may balk if theyre looking to place someone for a long time: Conversely, if an organization burns through developers annually, bringing on an employee who has been at one company for 10 years might represent a challenging cultural fit. I spend a lot of time developing my staff, so I want them with me for a long time. Switching jobs can provide exposure to a lot of different techniques and technologies, though.

Those who move on too quickly may not get to see the entire lifecycle of the project, warns Ben Donohue, VP of engineering at MediaMath.

The danger is becoming a mercenary, a hired gun, and you miss out on the opportunity to get a sense of ownership over a product and build lasting relationships with people, Donohue says. No matter how talented and knowledgeable you are as a technologist, you still need the ability to see things from the perspective of a user, and it takes time in a position to get to know user needs that your software addresses and how they are using your product.

Hilary Craft, IT branch manager at Addison Group, makes herself plain: Constant job hopping can be seen as a red flag. Employers hire based on technical skill, dependability, and more often than not, culture fit. Stability and project completion often complement these hiring needs. For contractors, its a good rule to complete each project before moving to the next role. Some professionals tend to rate shop to earn the highest hourly rate possible, but in turn burn bridges, which wont pay off in the long run.

Mistake No. 3: Passing on a promotion

Theres a point in every developers life where you wonder: Is this it? If you enjoy coding more than running the show, you might wonder if staying put could stall your career.

Moving into management should be a cautious, thoughtful decision, says Talent Inc.s Henderson. Management is a career change -- not the logical progression of the technical track -- and requires a different set of skills. Also, Ive seen many companies push good technical talent into management because the company thinks its a reward for the employee, but it turns out to be a mistake for both the manager and the company.

Everyone should be in management at least once in their career if for nothing else than to gain insight into why and how management and companies operate. -- Scott Wilson, product marketing director, Automic

Get to know your own work environment, says management consultant Puri, adding that theres no one-size-fits-all answer to this one.

Ive worked at some places where unhappy managers had no real power, were overloaded with paperwork and meetings, and had to play politics, Puri says. In those environments, it would be better to stay in development. Long term, I would recommend that everyone gets into management, because development careers stall out after 20 years, and you will not receive much more compensation.

Another way of looking at this might be self-preservation. Scott Wilson, product marketing director at Automic, asks the question: Who will they put in your place? If not you, they may promote the most incompetent or obnoxious employee simply because losing their productivity from the trenches will not be as consequential as losing more qualified employees. Sometimes accepting a promotion can put you -- and your colleagues/friends -- in control of your workday happiness. Everyone should be in management at least once in their career if for nothing else than to gain insight into why and how management and companies operate.

Mistake No. 4: Not paying it forward

A less obvious mistake might be staying too focused on your own career track without consideration of the junior developers in your office. Those who pair with young programmers are frequently tapped when a team needs leadership.

Ive found that mentoring junior developers has made me better at my job because you learn any subject deeper by teaching it than you do by any other method, says Automics Wilson. Also, as developers often struggle with interpersonal skills, mentoring provides great opportunities to brush up on those people skills.

If experience is the best teacher, teaching others will only deepen your knowledge, says JAMF Softwares Edge. That said, he doesnt hold it against a busy developer if it hasnt yet happened.

When senior developers dont have the time to mentor younger developers, I fully understand. Just dont say its because Im not good with people. -- Charles Edge, director of professional services, JAMF Software

Lets face it -- no development team ever had enough resources to deliver what product management wants them to, Edge says. When senior developers dont have the time to mentor younger developers, I fully understand. Just dont say its because Im not good with people.

Mistake No. 5: Sticking to your stack

Your expertise in one stack may make you invaluable to your current workplace -- but is it helping your career? Can it hurt to be too focused on only one stack?

MediaMaths Donohue doesnt pull any punches on this one: Of course it is -- theres no modern software engineering role in which you will use only one technology for the length of your career. If you take a Java developer that has been working in Java for 10 years, and all of a sudden they start working on a JavaScript application, theyll write it differently than someone with similar years of experience as a Python developer. Each technology that you learn influences your decisions. Some would argue that isnt a good thing -- if you take a Java object-oriented approach to a loosely typed language like JavaScript, youll try to make it do things that it isnt supposed to do.

It can hurt your trajectory to be too focused on one stack, says Talent Inc.s Henderson, but maybe for different reasons than you think.

Every stack will have a different culture and perspective, which ultimately will broaden and expedite your career growth, Henderson says. For instance, I find that many C# developers are only aware of the Microsoft ecosystem, when there is a far larger world out there. Java has, arguably, the best ecosystem, and I often find that Java developers make the best C# developers because they have a wider perspective.

Automics Wilson says proficiency -- but not mastery -- with one stack should be the benchmark before moving onto another.

Its time to move on when you are good at the skill, but not necessarily great, says Wilson. Im not advocating mediocrity, just the opposite. I am saying that before you head off to learn a new skill make sure you are good, competent, or above average at that skill before you consider moving on.

Finally, Talent Inc.s Henderson offers this warning: Avoid the expectation trap that each new language is simply the old one with a different syntax. Developers of C# and Java who try to force JavaScript into a classical object-oriented approach have caused much pain.
Representing a rare hopeful sign in what is now an acrimonious month-long work stoppage, Verizon management and some 40,000 striking employees have agreed to return to the bargaining table tomorrow after the weekend intervention of U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez.

From a Department of Labor press release:

Today, Secretary Perez met at the U.S. Labor Department with Lowell McAdam, chairman and CEO of Verizon; Chris Shelton, president of the Communications Workers of America; and Lonnie Stephenson, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The parties had an open, frank and constructive dialogue about finding a comprehensive way forward to resolve disputed issues and get people back to work. The parties agreed to return to the bargaining table on Tuesday to continue their discussion. The best way to resolve this labor dispute is at the bargaining table, and I am heartened by the parties mutual commitment to get back to immediate discussions and work toward a new contract, said Secretary Perez. I was singularly impressed by the parties appreciation that time is of the essence, and their strong commitment to use the collective bargaining process to reach a mutually beneficial resolution.

The two sides had not been negotiating recently, at least not for public consumption.

The Communications Workers of America, one of the unions representing the striking workers, posted the Department of Labor press release to its Facebook page without comment. Rank and file members leaving comments on that post did not express much optimism regarding resumption of talks. A request for comment from the union has been made,

Strife between striking workers and their replacements has been commonplace. Reports of alleged vandalism to Verizon equipment continue to mount. Also, police say a Verizon worker picketing in Westborough, Mass., was struck by a pickup truck operated by a replacement worker from Florida who was driving on a suspended license, allegedly while intoxicated, at shortly past 8 a.m.

Industry experts are warning Verizons business customers that they should be on the alert for negative impacts on their accounts and services, as Verizon employees normally attendant to those accounts and services are now busy replacing the strikers.

Welcome regulars and passersby. Here are a few more recent buzzblog items. And, if youd like to receive Buzzblog via e-mail newsletter, heres where to sign up. You can follow me on Twitter here and on Google+ here.
Recently released reports from two investment research firms call into question just exactly where IBM fits in the cloud computing market.

Deutsche Banks Markets Research team issued a note titled Why IBM Wont Catch AWS, which argues that IBMs focus on hybrid cloud computing puts the company in a different, and smaller, market than Amazon Web Services.

Another report from UBS Global Research focused more broadly on the cloud computing market and said IBM should be considered among the Big 4 providers in cloud: AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

The conflicting reports show IBM is sitting on the fringe of the cloud market.

+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: First financial institutions, now health care organizations are warming up to the cloud +

While other infrastructure peers have thrown in the towel, Deutsche Bank gives IBM credit for spending $2 billion to acquire SoftLayer in 2013 and since then invest more than $1 billion to expand its cloud footprint. Despite those investments, Deutsche Bank says IBM hasnt seen the same market demand for its services as competitors. AWS had 64% revenue growth and Azure had 120% in the first quarter this year; IBMs were in the lower double-digits. Deutsche Bank notes that IBM earns more than $5 billion in as a service revenue annually, but only $700 million is from SoftLayer, making IBMs public cloud larger than Googles cloud revenues, but half the size of Azure.

UBS, on the other hand says IBMs positioning makes it among the crop of leaders in the cloud market: UBS Evidence Lab data suggests that cloud is not a winner-take-all market, with many customers looking to add rather than consolidate vendors. AWS, Azure, GCP and IBM all have opportunity to compete in what could be a $100 billion market by 2020; the Big 4 vendors could command 92% of this market, the report notes.

UBS says AWS and GCP have the most to gain from a shift toward the public cloud; vendors most negatively exposed from the rise of cloud include Hewlett Packard Enterprise, EMC, Cisco, NetApp, Rackspace and Brocade. Its more mixed for Oracle, IBM and Arista Networks, UBS says.

Deutsche Bank seems to be more critical with IBMs focus on bare metal clouds, which are non-virtualized infrastructure offerings. Deutsche Bank says this is a much smaller total addressable market compared to the public IaaS cloud offerings from the other three providers. We conclude that IBM SoftLayer is losing ground to AWS and Microsoft Azure in the public cloud market and is increasingly being left out of the conversation, the report notes. Relative to these peers, IBM SoftLayer also has server capacity, technical as well as premium service gaps and is generally priced above its peers for shared virtualized servers. By focusing on hybrid and bare metal use cases and the IBM customer base, IBM is going after a different audience with a different feature set. In the public cloud, its now just a three-horse race: Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

UBS, meanwhile notes that AWS leads in IaaS and PaaS market share with 32%, followed by Azure at 13%, but IBM comes in with 7% and Google at 6%.

The different perspectives of the reports emphasize how the cloud computing market is still evolving. Last year in Gartners Magic Quadrant for IaaS, IBM received high marks, but the only two companies in the leaders category were AWS, which was by far the leader in the market, and Azure.

IBM focuses not only on hybrid cloud computing, but also using open source components in its offerings. The company also has a wide variety of services across the IaaS, PaaS (BlueMix) and SaaS markets. IBM declined to comment on this story.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening then becoming cloudy with periods of light rain after midnight. Low 61F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening then becoming cloudy with periods of light rain after midnight. Low 61F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Peeved over the cancellation of a teacher's recruitment examination organised by National Bureau of Professional Testing (NBPT), angry job aspirants protested on Sunday at Noida Public School in Sector 23.Hundreds of candidates from different states like Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh had come for the written test but were left disappointed when the exam was not conducted due to lack of arrangements.NBPT, which claims to be a Human Resource Assessment, Teaching, Training and Education Development Organization, had on Sunday organised a Phase 2 recruitment exam under Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Education Program for junior, associate and senior level posts in Noida.Alleging a fraud by NBPT, the protesters said the invigilators who had come for conducting the test had no question papers with them."I reached around 9:15 am for the exam and saw a lot of people waiting outside the school. When we finally entered the school, there were no list of roll numbers, no question papers and no officials to guide us. Two officials came around 10:30 with the answer sheets. We could easily make out that the answer sheets were also not authentic. They could be purchased from any stationery shop. I had applied for the senior post and paid Rs 450 for the form. We tried questioning the school authorities but they couldn't give any clarification," said Prerna, a candidate from Delhi.She was supported by another candidate Devki Devi. "There were no roll numbers given on the admit cards. When we reached the venue there were no sitting arrangements. The school authorities and invigilators were clueless," Devi added.The agitated students protested against the officials and called Noida Police for registering a complaint against them.
Ahmedabad: Delicacies conceived by celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor may soon be on the platter of students studying in Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas.



Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani on Monday said her ministry has decided to rope in Kapoor to prepare menu of food to be served at all Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas and to train the cooks of these residential schools.



According to Irani, the decision has been taken with an aim to provide best facilities to the students of Navodaya schools, which are run by the Ministry of Human Resource Development.



"Bright students from humble family background take admission in these boarding schools. To provide facilities parallel to private boarding schools, we have decided to rope in celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor to prepare the menu of the food served in these schools," she said at the foundation stone laying ceremony of a JNV at Hathijan village near here.



"Apart from preparing the menu of these schools, Kapoor will also provide training to all the cooks of these boarding schools. Our aim is to make students feel that they are studying in a school which is no less than a private boarding school," the Minister said.



Navodaya Vidyalayas, affiliated to the CBSE, offer free education to meritorious students, mainly from rural areas, from Class-VI to XII.



"This school here will also have smart classrooms, which will reflect Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Digital India' vision. It is my promise that this school will be made operational by 2019. Two such schools will also come up in Valsad and Dahod districts in near future," she added.






Los Angeles Madeleine LeBeau, who played Humphrey Bogart's jilted mistress Yvonne in 'Casablanca' died on May 1 in Spain after breaking her thigh bone. She was 92. LeBeau was the last surviving credited cast member of the classic film. Her stepson Carlo Alberto Pinelli confirmed her death to Variety.



In 'Casablanca', LeBeau gets teary-eyed when 'La Marseillaise' is played and shouts 'Viva la France!'. She was among several cast members who were actually refugees from the German occupation.



Her life echoed the film. After she made her screen debut in French film 'Girls in Distress' in 1939, LeBeau and her husband, actor Marcel Dalio, fled Paris for Portugal. They were said to have received transit visas that

allowed them to enter Spain and then Portugal before continuing on towards Chile. They were stranded in Mexico when their visas turned out to be forgeries and were able to enter the United States with temporary Canadian passports.



She soon found work in Hollywood and appeared in Olivia de Havilland starrer 'Hold Back the Dawn' and 'Gentleman Jim,' starring Errol Flynn, before being cast in 'Casablanca.' Her husband, who played Emil the croupier in

'Casablanca,' filed for divorce during the production.



She starred in 'Paris After Dark' and 'Music for Millions' in Hollywood before returning to France after WWII. Among her European films were 'The Royalists,' 'Cage of Gold,' 'Une Parisienne' and Federico Fellinis '8 1/2,' as Madeleine, the French actress.



She appeared in the French TV series 'Allo Police' before retiring from the screen in 1970. She later married Italian screenwriter Tullio Pinelli, co-writer of '8 1/2' and 'La Dolce Vita,' who died in 2009.


Sonamarg: Bollywood actor Gulshan Grover says he feels proud for creating a "mud-path" between Indian cinema and Hollywood.



"You all know I am the first commercial cinema actor who went and worked in Hollywood and international cinema and I am still continuing doing that. I am extremely proud of the fact that I created a mud-path between Bollywood and Hollywood," Grover told reporters here.



The 60-year-old actor, said he feels happy that the mud-path he created is being cemented by wonderful actors like Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor and Irrfan Khan.



"I am very happy that the mud-path is being followed and cemented by such wonderful actors like Priyanka Chopra, Irrfan Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, Anupam Kher, everybody. Today, the Indian cinema is spread to various corners of the world," he said.



Grover is currently shooting for a Malaysian film 'I am not a terrorist' the first movie from the country to be shot in India at the picturesque resort in central Kashmir's Ganderbal district.



He recalled starting his film career from the Valley in Sunil Dutt directed 'Rocky' and credits the beauty of the state for his success.



"I started my film career in Kashmir. My first film 'Rocky' was shot in Kashmir.I do not know what was in the beauty and the atmosphere here that I achieved success after success and not just in Bollywood but in international cinema as well.



"It all started for me here in Kashmir. And today, after a gap of many years, to be in Kashmir and shooting for a film which is significant in many ways. A Malaysian film is being shot in India for the first time," he said.



The actor feels the affection that film personalities get from the people in Kashmir can't be matched.



"It is so wonderful to be in Kashmir. The affection that I got from Kashmiri people here is unparallelled. There is simple love and affectio whether it is outside the hotel or where we are shooting, or while interacting (with people). It is something that makes me feel truly emotional, he said.



Grover praised the state for it's hospitality.



"The hospitality of the Kashmir administration whether it is Tourism Department or JK Police or the army here and even the locals has been something that we will not forget so easily.



"I am truly happy that I am here in Kashmir and interacting with my Kashmiri fans. I am thankful to all," he said.
New Delhi: Delhi's AAP government spent nearly Rs 15 crore on advertisements in print media during the 91-day period till May 11, according to an RTI reply.



The list of publications which had received money from the Arvind Kejriwal government for carrying the advertisements interestingly included dailes from Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha and Tamil Nadu among other states.



The Delhi government disbursed a total amount of Rs 14.56 crore for advertising excluding broadcast from February 10 to May 11, according to a reply provided to a RTI query by advocate Aman Panwar.



The AAP government came under attack from the opposition Congress on Sunday for its advertising campaigns.



"On one hand we don't have money to pay to safai karamcharis for salary, on one hand we don't have money even to pay for pension but on the other they are spending huge amounts (for advertisements) for self publicity," Congress Leader Ajay Maken said.



The Delhi government spent around Rs 5 crore in publicising the two rounds of the odd-even scheme, implemented for 15 days each in January and April respectively, the Lok Sabha was told recently.



Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary said that expenditure of print media stood at Rs 1.67 crore while an amount of Rs 3.72 crore was spent to advertise the road-rationing policy on electronic media.



"As informed by the government of NCT of Delhi, the total expenditure on odd and even campaign so far is Rs 539.41 lakh (Rs 5.39 crore)," the Minister said in reply to a question.



The Opposition has targeted Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over the the odd-even measure, enforced as an anti-pollution initiative by the AAP government, terming it as a "publicity stunt".
Tamil Nadu and Kerala go to polls on Monday that will decide the fate of Chief Ministers Jayalalithaa and Oommen Chandy and their arch rivals and nonagenarians M Karunanidhi and VS Achutanandan in their respective states which will witness multi-cornered contests.

Puducherry will also vote on Monday. The Puducherry Assembly has 30 constituencies, spread across Puducherry (23), and its enclaves of Karaikal in Tamil Nadu (5), Mahe in Kerala (1) and Yanam in Andhra Pradesh (1). These are small seats, with voter strength ranging from 15,000 to 30,000 voters.

Counting of votes in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, West Bengal and Assam will be taken up on May 19 to decide the outcome of what is being described as mini general elections.

The BJP is seeking to make inroads in Tamil Nadu and Kerala where the power has oscillated between the AIADMK and the DMK and the Congress-led United Democratic Front(UDF) and the CPM led Left Democratic Front(LDF) respectively for decades.

A total of 3,740 aspirants are in the fray for the 233 assembly seats.

Election authorities have seized more than Rs 100 crore unaccounted cash in the state, the largest among the five states involved in the Assembly polls.

More than a lakh police and paramilitary personnel would man over 65,000 polling booths across the state, which is witnessing a multi-cornered contest also featuring BJP, seeking to make a mark along with a few minor allies.

In Kerala, the ruling UDF and LDF, which had gone hammer and tongs at each other during the electioneering, are keeping their fingers crossed even as BJP is hoping to get a toe-hold.

A total of 1,203 candidates, including 109 women, are contesting for the 140 assembly seats.

Read all the Latest News , Breaking News , watch Top Videos and Live TV here.
New Delhi: The turn out of voters in assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry today is less than the 2011 polls, the Election Commission said.



However, the percentage is likely to go up as the figures were not final.



In Tamil Nadu, where the elections went off peacefully, 69.19% of the 5.82 crore voters turned out to cast vote. The final percentage is yet to come up as the figures were received by the poll panel here at 5 pm, Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha told reporters here.



He said that in 2011 assembly polls, the figures were 78.12% and 73.85% in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.



He said that despite rains lashing 8 districts of the state, voters turned out in large numbers. The rain situation had later in the day improved, he said.



In Kerala, the figures available till 6 pm said that 71 per cent of the total electors had cast votes. The figure was 75.12% in 2011 and 74.02% in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.



EC Director General Sudeep Jain said that ahead of polling, Rs 24 crore in cash was seized by authorities, which is a record in the state.



In Puducherry, the voter turnout recorded at 6 pm was 71%, which was 75.12% in the 2011 assembly polls. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the turnout was recorded at 74.02%
Patna: Defending his government over the killing of a journalist in Siwan, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said that a decision on requesting a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the case would be taken by Monday evening.



Targeting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for alleging that there was "Maha Jungle Raj" in Bihar after the murder of Siwan journalist Rajdeo Ranjan, Kumar claimed that there was no breakdown of law and order in the state.



"There is more problem of law and order in BJP ruled states. We don't need a certificate from the BJP on Bihar," he said while adding that police were already investigating the case.



Ranjan, Siwan district bureau chief of Hindi daily 'Hindustan', was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Siwan on May 13. The 42-year-old was fired at when he was travelling on his motorcycle near the fruit market on Station Road at around 7:45 pm, Superintendent of Police Saurabh Kumar said.



The bullets hit Ranjan on the head and neck, and he died on the way to hospital.

Police said the motive behind the murder was yet to be ascertained. Ranjan had persistently written against law-breakers of the area.



Reports said the assailants were on two motorcycles and were waiting for Ranjan while he was on his way back home.
Chennai: Several nonagenarians, differently-abled, transgenders and gypsies besides a number of first-time voters on Monday turned up at poll booths to exercise their franchise and elect members to the Tami Nadu Assembly.



99-year-old Rukmani Ammal, a resident of Triplicane voted at Hindu Senior Secondary School in Chennai. Her son, Alagiri Rao thanked election authorities for the "good arrangements" for the elderly people to vote quickly.



"My mother has voted in general elections since 1952 and is happy to vote this time too," he said.



Similarly, 98-year-old Seethalakshmi was wheeled into the polling station by her family members as she cast her ballot at a school.



Serpentine queues of first time voters -- young men and women -- marked several polling stations across Tamil Nadu.



Similarly, women waited in good numbers in both urban and rural constituencies with patience.



Gypsy community "Narikorava" men and women and transgenders voted in good numbers in areas including Pallavaram Cantonment.



Election authorities had made elaborate arrangements including ramps, wheel-chairs for the differently-abled, drinking water, shades (pandals), and chairs. Model polling stations had decorative arches besides other amenities like play equipment for children.
Hollins University expects to enroll its largest entering class in 22 years next fall.

You might call it the Sweet Briar bump.

The failed attempt to shut down Sweet Briar College last spring initially called into question the future of single-sex education.

But its rescue by devoted alumnae put a different kind of spotlight on women's colleges and showed the power of a student who has learned "to be sure of her voice and how to use it."

"I think you saw smart women in action," said Hollins President Nancy Oliver Gray. "It was a lesson in the relevance of women's college education in the 21st century."

While Hollins saw its enrollment rise, the numbers played out differently for Virginia's other women's college. Mary Baldwin College's enrollment dipped this academic year, although its numbers for next year are rebounding, with deposits up 12 percent over the previous year.

And Sweet Briar, which graduated 82 students at Saturday's commencement, hasn't yet reached the enrollment target set for next year. As of May 1, 125 freshmen or new transfer students had paid deposits for next year.

Spokeswoman Jennifer McMana may said Sweet Briar still is working toward a goal of 200 new students.

"If we don't get there, we'll still have a strong freshman class and will continue building from there," she said in an email.

"To put it in perspective, it's about half the current student body and five times the number of first years that we enrolled in fall 2015."

Hollins threw a lifeline to Sweet Briar students after the abrupt announcement last spring that the college was to close permanently. More than 200 applied to transfer, and 70 had paid deposits before a state mediated agreement won a reprieve for the private college in Amherst County.

While 50 students chose to return to Sweet Briar, 20 remained at Hollins and helped to boost undergraduate enrollment at the university in Roanoke County to about 640 for this academic year.

For the next academic year, Hollins anticipates undergraduate enrollment of 685, with total enrollment of more than 800 including coed graduate programs.

The projection is based on 239 deposits received so far from new first-year traditional undergraduate students for fall, up from 196 deposits last year. It will be the largest entering class since 1994, when 270 students enrolled.

Gray, who was in Richmond last week for a meeting with about 100 alumnae at the Reynolds Gallery, said what happened at Sweet Briar was a testament to the importance of a women's-only environment.

"I actually think it strengthened our case," she said. "I think you have to have great respect for the Sweet Briar alumnae and how they came together to save their school."

They wouldn't have done that if they didn't have "deep passion and gratitude for their women's college education," Gray said.

"I can guarantee if we ran into something tough at Hollins, our alumnae would rally together with equal if not greater strength."

Hollins is leveraging its alumnae base, she said, to provide one-on-one career preparation for students. Undergraduate alums total 692 in the Richmond area, and they have set up students with internships at places including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the House of Delegates.

"We can give our students not the old-boy network but the new-girl connections," Gray said.

At Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, administrators also saw a link between enrollment and the Sweet Briar controversy.

Lois Williams, vice president for enrollment management, said multiple reasons likely were in play for the dip in numbers this academic year.

"I do think there was some connection with what happened at Sweet Briar calling into question women's colleges and their place," she said.

Enrollment in Mary Baldwin's Residential College for Women this year was 667, including four former Sweet Briar students.

The number was down from 761 the previous year, but total enrollment  including Mary Baldwin's coed programs  was 1,664 this year. Those programs include graduate degrees and a non-residential undergraduate adult degree program, which offers online and on-site courses at regional centers.

In those ways Mary Baldwin  which will become a university Aug. 31 as it marks its 175th anniversary  is not solely a traditional women's college.

In fact, during the Sweet Briar controversy, highered publications pointed to Mary Baldwin "as an example of how a women's college can develop a business model with diversified revenue streams that are a smart direction forward," said Crista Cabe, vice president for communication, marketing and public affairs.

That message apparently didn't reach prospective students who were hearing the news about the problems at Sweet Briar "and deciding to look elsewhere," she said.

"We don't have data on people who never contacted us in the first place," Cab e said, but she thinks that was "at least a part of what was going on."

Now, visits to the campus have increased, as have applications to the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership, a public private program that is the nation's only all-female cadet corps. Applications for that program jumped from 200 last spring to nearly 900 this year, Williams said.

Mary Baldwin has more students in its coeducation programs than in the residential college, Cabe said, but the school has no plans to give up its women-only identity.

"Our brand, our identity is really wrapped up in our heritage as a women's college," she said. "We think that if we gave that up entirely, we would do ourselves a disservice. We don't think that we'd be as strong without that identity at the undergraduate level."
Kang the Conqueror - the powers and origin of the next big MCU villain

Here's everything you need to know about Kang the Conqueror, the next big MCU villain
DROWNING IN BLOOD

Within a three-day period from Friday last to yesterday, 12 persons including a woman, were murdered in various incidents in Trinidad, sending the murder rate to 179. For the same period last year, 140 murders had been committed.

The latest murder victim has been identified as Chaguanas mother Patrice Thomas-Fletcher who shortly after attending a party to celebrate her birthday, was found dead on the floor in her Enterprise apartment home. Her killer, a man whom she knew, is now in police custody. Police said Fletchers throat was slit and she bled out.

As the nation reels from the weight of all these murders, even Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley admitted - moments after he returned home from a 12-day overseas trip on Saturday evening - that this country is a violent one and there is no switch to turn off murders and crimes. (See Page 5A)

DEATH AFTER PARTY

Birthday celebrations ended in death yesterday for Patrice Thomas- Fletcher, shortly after she returned home from a lime with friends in Port-of-Spain. The man who police said slit her throat, was also the main suspect in the death of her two-year-old daughter Kimora Roopnarine back on September 16, 2013. But he was never arrested and charged for Kimoras death caused by blunt force trauma.

On Saturday, Fletcher who was a customer sales representative at Francis Fashions Shoe Locker Limited, celebrated her 26th birthday.

Police said she and friends went to celebrate her birthday on the Avenue in Port-of-Spain. At about 5 am yesterday, a male taxi driver dropped her off in front of her apartment home at Phyllis Lane, Enterprise in Chaguanas.

At about 11 am, a 24 year-old man telephoned Central Division Police, telling officers he found Thomas-Fletchers body with the throat slit. The building housed several tenants but yesterday many opted not to speak about the incident.

A neighbour claimed they heard no screaming from the upstairs apartment where Thomas- Fletcher and the suspect lived in. Up to yesterday he remained in police custody assisting with the investigation into Thomas-Fletchers death.

Many residents were initially unaware that the mother was killed until a party of police visited the scene. Scores of curious onlookers gathered in front the apartment building and expressed shock.

Though they claimed not to have any information about the latest killing, they added Thomas-Fletcher was a dancer and performed at many Best Village competitions.

3 MEN KILLED IN CENTRAL

Three men of Central Trinidad were killed in two separate incidents on Saturday afternoon and early yesterday. At about 4.30 pm on Saturday, Dhanraj Rajpaul, 41, Enterprise Street, Longdenville was found slumped over the steering wheel of his Mitsubishi Lancer car. He had been shot repeatedly.

Residents of the area alerted police and the District Medical Officer Dr Ravi Kawal later visited the scene and ordered the removal of the body to the Forensic Science Centre in St James.

Then, at about 8.30 pm also on Saturday, Central Division police were called to another murder scene at Chin Chin Road Cunupia.

According to reports, Dirk Ramkissoon, 32, of the same address was standing in the front of a friends home when a man approached and fired several shots. Ramkissoon was struck by a bullet to the back of the head. He ran a short distance away and collapsed. He died at the scene. DMO Dr Kawal visited the scene and ordered the body removed.

Then at 6 am yesterday, Juri Chanka Choon of Mt Plasir Road in Cunupia was at his home when he was attacked by a man. Choon police source said, was beaten to death by the suspect who was later arrested by Cunupia police.

MURDER WITNESS SILENCED

In Valencia, a 41-year-old man who police said witnessed a murder in 2014, was gunned down while purchasing items at a shop on Saturday night. According to reports, Clint Phillip of New City, Alexander Trace in Valencia was in company with Ronaldo Campo at the latters fathers shop located at Pineapple Drive, when a gunman walked up to the two and fired several shots.

Phillip was killed on the spot while Renaldo suffered gunshot injuries and was later rushed to hospital.

Investigators said yesterday that Phillip had complained about threats to his life after turning State witness in two murder cases. Police sources said it is believed that the hit was ordered by someone behind prison walls. A party of officers led by Snr Supt Trim and including Supt Phillip, ASP Robain, Sgt Lopez and others visited the scene and investigations are continuing.

Seven other murders were committed within the three day period as reported in Newsdays Saturday and Sunday editions. These victims have been identified as father and son Lloyd and Ryan Ramkissoon; a Marabella man known only as Joel; Ryan Daewoo Hercules; Abdel John; Jakan Lezama and Marvin Manners Bascombe. A bandit named Simon Cummings was shot dead by an off-duty policeman during a failed robbery attempt at Zhong Hua Chinese Restaurant in Bamboo Settlement #2 on Friday night. Another bandit, seeing his friend head on the floor, dropped his gun and surrendered. He remains in police custody. With so many murders taking place, autopsies are to be done in batches of three or four per day over the course of this entire week at the Forensic Science Centre, police sources told Newsday.

3 DAYS, 12 MURDERS

* Lloyd Ramkissoon, 47, shot dead during argument with neighbour on Friday * Ryan Ramkissoon, 19, (Lloyds son) shot dead in the same incident * Ryan Daewoo Hercules, 39, shot dead at Crown Trace in Enterprise on Friday * Abdel John, 31, shot dead in Couva on Friday * Jakan Lezama, 21, shot dead in the same incident with Abdel John * Marvin Manners Bascombe, 29, shot dead in Diego Martin on Friday * Joel aka Bighead found shot to death near sea in Marabella on Friday * Clint Phillip, 41, shot dead in Valencia on Saturday * Dhanraj Rajpaul, 41, shot dead in his car in Longdenville on Saturday * Dirk Ramkissoon, 32, shot dead in Cunupia on Saturday * Juri Chanka Choon shot dead near his Cunupia home on Sunday * Patrice Thomas-Fletcher, 26, dies after throat is slit in her apartment home on Sunday.
Business / Economy

by Staff reporter

The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) says the country's mining tax regime must be reviewed, in the wake of shrinking royalties over the past year from the sector.Zimra chairperson Willia Bonyongwe last week said the authority continued to hold discussions with government over the issue with the view that the current regime is unfair on miners."Zimra holds the view that the tax regime for miners must be reviewed."It continues to call on government to find a fairer way of taxing the mining sector so that the country, communities and mining companies can all benefit equitably from the finite mineral resources," Bonyongwe said.In the first quarter, mining royalties recorded a 45,3 percent negative variance with the $24,5 million target after $9 million was collected by the revenue authority from local miners.This was a 31,8 percent slump on prior comparable period collections of $19,6 million."The performance of mining royalties was negatively affected by the slump in commodity prices due to the slowdown in global economies outside the United States of America," Bonyongwe said.She added that in future, the revenue head's performance was going to be subject to mineral prices and local production levels, adding that mining royalties were also going to be subject to the mining fiscal regime.Presently, mining royalties are charged in terms of the Mines and Minerals Act (Chapter 21:05).According to the Zimra website, royalties are collectable from all the minerals or mineral-bearing products obtained from any mining location and disposed by a miner or on his behalf.They are chargeable whether the disposal is made within or outside Zimbabwe.Mining royalties are charged based on the face value of the invoice with diamond miners expected to cede 15 percent of their profit to the taxman.Other precious stones surrender 10 percent; gold has a seven percent royalties charge as platinum miners deliver 10 percent to Zimra.Other precious minerals owe the taxman four percent when they are done with their business as base metals give to Ceasar two percent, same as coal bed methane and industrial metals while coal attracts a one percent royalty fee.Royalties deducted should be remitted to Zimra on or before the 10th day of the following month in which such deductions are made.However, the tax head has been recording steady declines in the past year.In the first half of 2015, Zimbabwe's mining royalties missed the half year target by 39 percent on the back of depressed international mineral prices.During the half year, mining royalties contributed $39,8 million against a target of $64,9 million, which translates to a negative variance of 39 percent.This was a 65 percent decline in revenue collections compared to the same period last year were $112,6 million was collected.Meanwhile, the country's mineral earnings in the first quarter were down seven percent to $416 million from $452 million prior comparable period.Despite having had a tough year in 2015, commodity prices for everything, from crude oil to industrial metals such as iron ore and copper have been plummeting.
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In a closed-door meeting at Harvard University Medical School Tuesday, almost 150 scientists split hairs on the potential creation of a synthetic human genome. It would use chemicals to create the DNA in human chromosomes, a process that is promising and also raises worry as the genome can be harnessed to clone humans, but with no biological parents.

The team is hoping that the idea can enhance scientific advancements as a follow-up to the original Human Genome Project, which targeted reading the sequence of 3 billion letters in the DNA blueprint.

Synthetic genomics does not harness naturally occurring genes but relies on custom-designed base pair series. Hence, geneticists would not limit themselves only to two base pairs in nature but exploit many more possibilities.

The ethics and benefits of its possibility, of course, is a subject of debate.

"Would it be O.K., for example, to sequence and then synthesize Einstein's genome?" Drew Endy, a bioengineer at Stanford, and Laurie Zoloth, a bioethicist at Northwestern University, asked in a critical essay . "If so how many Einstein genomes should be made and installed in cells, and who would get to make them?"

Though he had been invited, Endy declined to attend the meeting.

"Given that human genome synthesis is a technology that can completely redefine the core of what now joins all of the humanity together as a species, we argue that discussions of making such capacities real, like today's Harvard conference, should not take place without open and advance consideration of whether it is morally right to proceed," he wrote.

Even other scientists such as Jeremy Misnhull, chief executive of DNA2.0, a DNA synthesis company, did not attend, as he had doubts over whether the creation would be worth it.

"Our ability to understand what to build is so far behind what we can build," he said. "I just don't think that being able to make more and more and more and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper is going to get us the understanding we need."
A drug bill is being questioned by mental health advocates due to its possible negative effects on mental health patients. It was passed by Kansas lawmakers and calls on doctors to try cheaper drugs before expensive ones for Medicaid recipients.

The bill advocates a step therapy method, but it does not show anything new happening within private and public health insurance plans. The method can help to offer health care for poor residents.

However, Rick Cagan, executive director of the Kansas affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, explains that each patient has a different reaction in terms of tolerance and response while reacting to psychiatric drugs.

"Individuals and their prescribers need to have the greatest degree of flexibility to ensure a good match for patients," he said. "We don't know as much about how the brain responds to this whole kind of cadre of medications ... as we do with cardiac and other kinds of medications."

Still, supporters of the bill, which is expected to be signed on Monday, believe that safeguards are in place in order to protect patients with mental health problems, while advocates are just seeking unfair exemption from a practice that insured patients need to be faced with.

"They just want to be left totally outside so that they don't have to do anything like the rest of the world has to do," said Republican Sen. Jim Denning, of Overland Park. "If a new patient comes into the system, they will be given the right drug or combination of drugs to keep them as healthy and as well as we can."

Still, many think that the bill will lead to limitations mainly due to the costs. Moreover, there are some concerns over the ability of mental health patients to become aware of the administrative hurdles that are needed to be overcome if they are turned away from their doctors because of the prices of drugs.

"For someone who doesn't own their own transportation, who may or may not have strong cognitive abilities ... our biggest fear is that they will walk out of the pharmacy and they don't come back for the adjustments to be made," said Amy Campbell, a lobbyist for the Kansas Mental Health Coalition.

While currently, Medicaid costs Kansas $3 billion per year, step therapy could save the state up to $11 million per year. Those who support the Bill believe that the process is used nationwide and issues of mental health will be considered.
Rapper Tyga was photographed outside Beyonce's concert in Los Angeles with "Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta" star Karlie Redd. But the artist was quick to turn down whispers that he had been involved romantically with the reality star, after a tweet announcing that he had "caught" with Redd.

"Stop. Not w her," the rapper lashed back.

Still, the snapshots of Tyga and Redd broke out after the "Faded" artist told TMZ that he would "for sure" always love Jenner. He may have broken up with her, but he still loves her, he said.

"We're both just focused on our lives, our individual lives right now," Tyga said on Friday. He was cautious about his words.

Yet Tyga was spotted with star Karlie Redd in Pasadena, California. The couple was seen getting very close even as they left a Beyonce concert on May 14, 2016.

"Sometimes things don't work out," he continued. "But, you know, I love her."

The 26-year-old rapper had broken up with the 18-year-old Jenner after two years together just a few days before the Met Gala, TMZ reported on Thursday. They turned up solo at the show.

It was in 2014 that they had started dating, however, the secret was out in public only last August, when Jenner became 18.

There were rumours that they had broken up earlier too. However, they reunited, and sources say that their relationship is definitely over now.

Tyga is linked with the famed Kardashian-Jenner clan in spite of his split. Even before he teamed up with Kylie, he was in a relationship with Blac Chyna, and fathered a son, King Cairo, who is now three years old.

And now that she is expecting a child with Rob Kardashian, he continues to keep a touch with her as well as with the family. He said he wished Kardashian and Chyna well.

"People grow and it's time to evolve," he said. "Everybody should have the opportunity to have love and to live their life."
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Snow showers this evening. Breaks in the overcast later. Low 17F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 40%..

Tonight

Snow showers this evening. Breaks in the overcast later. Low 17F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 40%.
News / Local

by Stephen Jakes

Eleven Victoria High School non-academic staff whose contracts were unlawfully terminated by the school development association (SDA) and them reinstated by the courts are demanding $95 000 in benefits.They have also written a letter to the Public Service Commission complaining against the school head, John Muzamani who they accuse of ignoring a court order to reinstate them within 30 days of the court ruling.Masvingo Mirror reported that the ruling was passed by Labour Officer Faith Mupangani on March 31, 2016 at Gutu.The 11 employees are Tsungai Maphosa (36), Jane Mabudu (38), Tauya Muvamba (53), Loveness Tivenge (36), Sicilia Makumire (45), Forbes Nota (29), Monalisa Matipa (30), Judith Matinhidze (41), Sanniel Chipangura (34), Musindo Munhande (42) and Christopher Manamike (61).The employees were in different departments, including catering, accounts, hostel aid and security.The Labour Officer declared that the termination of the 11's contracts was unfair hence the reinstatement."The order should be implemented within 30days. However, if reinstatement is untenable, parties should agree on damages failure of which either party could approach the labour for quantification of the damages" read part of the ruling.The employees have been visiting the school everyday in accordance with the court ruling.When contacted for comment, Muzamani said the legal issues had some implications on them."There are certain legal implications in the ruling which I cannot divulge. You can write what the former employees told you if you want," said Muzamani."We write to your good office to officially register a complaint against Vic High School head Muzamani for his insensitivity to the suffering of employees he dismissed unlawfully," read part of the letter to Public Service.The former employees are being represented by Charles Sithole of Zimbabwe Educational Scientific, Social and Cultural Workers Union (ZESSCWU).
Burdwan/Shantipur (WB):

Bodies of 12 persons, including a child, have so far been fished out from river Bhagirathi where an overcrowded boat sank on Saturday night. Burdwan district magistrate Saumitra Mohan told PTI that the bodies of seven men, four women and a girl child were recovered during search operations since last night.

The bodies were found within 1-1.5 km radius of the spot where the overcrowded boat had capsized, he said.

Photographs of the bodies have been sent to Kalna and Shantipur police stations to enable their relatives to identify them.

The accident had sparked violent protest in Nadia district yesterday during which several boats were torched and police fired tear gas and lobbed rubber bullets to quell the mob.

The boat ferrying at least 55 people, much above its capacity, overturned in the river on Saturday night as the people were pn their way back to Shantipur in Nadia district on the opposite bank from a fair at Kalna in Burdwan district.

Nadia District Magistrate Vijay Bharti had said last night that the body of a 35-year-old woman was recovered from the river bed near Shantipur.

The Burdwan District Magistrate said search operation was still on to find out if ther are any more victims.

On the alleged delay in rescue operations, Mohan had said the river current, depth of the river and the muddy water had made the job of the divers very difficult.

The Burdwan DM had said overloading was one of the suspected causes which led to the incident.

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Washington:

President Barack Obama has taken a swipe at presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trumps plans to ban Muslims from entering America and build walls between the US and other nations, saying the biggest challenges cannot be solved in isolation.

Though he did not name Trump, Obama made it clear what he thinks about the 69-year-old real estate tycoons campaign and policy proposals in a highly political commencement speech at Rutgers University yesterday.

The world is more interconnected than ever before, and its becoming more connected every day. Building walls wont change that, Obama said apparently referring to Trumps proposals to build a wall at the US-Mexico border.

The President also told the graduates to stand up to those who say that America was better in the past. He also asked graduates to tout their knowledge and not brag about their ignorance.

Just as America is better, the world is better than when I graduated. Since I graduated, an Iron Curtain fell, apartheid ended. Theres more democracy. We virtually eliminated certain diseases like polio. Weve cut extreme poverty drastically. Weve cut infant mortality by an enormous amount, he said.

Now, I say all these things not to make you complacent.i Weve got a bunch of big problems to solve.

Look, as President, my first responsibility is always the security and prosperity of the United States. And as citizens, we all rightly put our country first.iBut if the past two decades have taught us anything, its that the biggest challenges we face cannot be solved in isolation, he said amidst applause.

When overseas states start falling apart, they become breeding grounds for terrorists and ideologies of nihilism and despair that ultimately can reach our shores. When developing countries dont have functioning health systems, epidemics like Zika or Ebola can spread and threaten Americans, too. And a wall wont stop that, Obama said.

If we want to close loopholes that allow large corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, we've got to have the cooperation of other countries in a global financial system to help enforce financial laws, he said.

Obama said building a wall is neither going to create jobs nor accelerate economy.

He also challenged the notion that Muslims should be banned from the United States, something Trump proposed in December.

Isolating or disparaging Muslims, suggesting that they should be treated differently when it comes to entering this country, that is not just a betrayal of our values. Thats not just a betrayal of who we areit would alienate the very communities at home and abroad who are our most important partners in the fight against extremism, said the outgoing American president.

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Patna:

The Bihar road rage case has taken a new turn when, Teni Yadav, the cousin of accused Rocky Yadav who allegedly shot and killed a teenager in Bihar, surrendered on Monday morning in a court in Gaya.

Teni was purportedly present when Aditya Sachdeva was shot dead for allegedly overtaking the car belonging to Rocky. Teni was sent to 14 days judicial custody by a Gaya court. Police were looking for Teni Yadav for a week since Rocky was arrested in Gaya.

Aditya Sachdeva, 19, was driving home with friends in his Maruti Swift when he overtook Rocky Yadav's Range Rover.

His friends claim that Rocky then fired a warning shot from the SUV, forcing Mr Sachdeva to stop, after which he was beaten up and then shot at. He died on the spot.

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Mumbai:

The lingering uncertainty on sale of high-end diesel vehicles in the national capital region has come as a big blow to Japanese auto major Toyotas confidence in India, forcing its domestic unit to rework its plans.

Toyota Motors confidence in India has taken a big knock after the Supreme Court ban since mid-December last on sale of high-end diesel cars and SUVs, and the continuing uncertainty... is only adding to it. But it is our job at Toyota Kirloskar Motor to reinstate that confidence, TKM Vice-Chairman Shekhar Vishwanathan said here over the weekend.

Stating that the element of trust has been broken between Toyota and the country as a whole, he said it has become very difficult to launch new products or commit fresh investments. This is in spite of the fact that we have been producing vehicles complying with all the norms laid out in the country from day one.

If we were to go and ask the headquarters for new products, they would ask how do you know it will not get banned? And I have no answer. So, my first step is to make sure the ban gets lifted. If that means paying a nominal cess, so be it even though we dont believe the cess is a fair idea, he asserted.

On December 16 last year, the apex court banned sale of all diesel cars/SUVs with an engine capacity of 2,000 cc or more till March 31. It then extended the ban till April 30. As of now, there is no final word on when the SC will conclude the hearing and issue a final order.

Toyota models the Innova, Fortuner, Land Cruiser and Prado - except the Corolla and lower-end models have taken a hit. The ban has also upset all calculations for Mahindra, Tata Motors, Toyota and Mercedes.

M&M tried to work around the ban as it launched existing vehicles with down-sized engines within a month of the SC order.

For now, Toyota is playing along. The Innova Crysta is the first launch following the Supreme Court restriction.

The Innova Crysta is built on a new platform and comes with two engine options -- 2.4 L and 2.8 Lapart from offering an 8-seater option as well.

The ban has also forced the company to look at launching a petrol variant of all its high-end vehicles, including Innova Crysta, even though its past attempts have not been successful.

It is not so much about the ban per se. Okay, we will lose some money, thats fine. But the more moot question is why such an unfair ban is in the first place when we have complied with every law? That is what is hurting. This is not an arithmetic loss, Vishwanathan said.

Maintaining that there has to be legal certainty for businesses to establish and grow, he said unless this is established, everyones perception will change about the country. They will keep asking can the law be reinterpreted again even when you are compliant and you can be banned, suddenly bringing my business to a standstill.
News / National

by Lloyd Gumbo

The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development will soon embark on awareness campaigns to educate motorists on the new road signs, common to all SADC states, that are being erected on all roads.The new changes are in line with the Sadc Protocol of Transport, Communication and Meteorology of 1999.Transport and Infrastructural Development Dr Joram Gumbo revealed this in the National Assembly last week while responding to questions from MDC-T MP for Harare West Ms Jessie Majome.She sought to know what statutory instrument was used for "the strange new traffic signs such as white triangles with black borders, hexagonal, red stop signs and road markings such as continuous yellow lines at the shoulders of roads that are being marked mainly at toll gates and to state when it was promulgated into law"He also wanted Dr Gumbo to confirm whether this is promulgated in terms of Section 39 (2) of the Roads Traffic Act.Ms Majome further asked Minister Gumbo to explain what the ministry was doing to avert the confusion arising from such signs."Zimbabwe is a signatory to the SADC Protocol of Transport, Communication and Meteorology of 1999. Article 6 (11) of the Protocol states that: Member states shall co-operate in harmonising traffic operations management and for this purpose, member states shall take steps to adopt and implement harmonised and minimum standards in respect of:-"Traffic signs including traffic signals, road signs and markings; rules of the road; speed limits appropriate to road design; driving signals; and driving hours."Member states shall develop, adopt and implement a harmonised system of road traffic signs; and for the purposes of developing harmonised rules of the road, member states shall consider accession to the UN Conventions on Road Traffic of 1949 and 1968," said Dr Gumbo.He said his ministry started implementing the provisions since 2001 with the new signs gazetted under Statutory Instrument 41 of 2016, Road Traffic Signs and Signal Regulations.Dr Gumbo said the ministry decided to put new signs on roads that were being constructed, rehabilitated or refurbished in line with the Sadc approved signs such as the Plumtree-Harare-Mutare Highway though the regulations had not yet been gazetted."However, now that gazetting has been done, the ministry will embark on an awareness campaigns to educate the public on the new signs and their country-wide installation."This, in our view, will avert any confusion arising from the new signs, particularly on the part of learner and old drivers. The issue of enforcement has therefore fallen away because of the existence of this legislation."In addition, we have already started the campaign to educate members and even now to start teaching our new drivers using the new signs," said Minister Gumbo.But Ms Majome said police were already lying in ambush on roads where there were new signs in order to fine motorists who were ignorant of the new road signs.Responded Minister Gumbo: "We have heard reports of such incidences. It is even the same with the use of different tyres on a vehicles but it only shows that at times, dissemination of information to those who are supposed to be enforcing, is not well coordinated."That could be a problem that we have to address in Government but I cannot deny the fact that this is what has been happening. Like I have already said, we are now on a drive to educate the public. The public will also include ZRP so that they can understand the new signs and how to deal with situations when they arise."
Mumbai:

The benchmark BSE Sensex reversed early gains and was quoted lower by 131 points to 25,358.71 in the late morning session on selling in banking, auto, telecom and financial stocks on forecast of a delay in monsoon.

The Sensex resumed up at 25,528.80 and moved up further to a high of 25,606.92 on initial heavy buying on the back of good foreign capital inflows.

However, it dropped immediately to 25,358.71 at 1100 hrs, showing a loss of 130.86 points or 0.51 per cent.

The NSE 50-share Nifty also dropped 37.15 points or 0.48 per cent to 7,777.75 at 1100 hrs.

Major losers were SBI (5.08 pc), ICICI Bank (3.31 pc), Bharti Airtel (2.56 pc), Bajaj Auto (2.10 pc) and ONGC (1.89 pc).

However, Dr Reddys rose 3.33 per cent followed by Asian Paints 1.11 per cent, Lupin 0.67 per cent and Infosys 0.65 per cent.

Overseas, Asian stocks logged gains, shrugging off soft Chinese data released over the weekend. Chinas investment, factory output and retail sales all grew more slowly than expected in April, adding to doubts about whether the worlds second-largest economy is stabilizing.

Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) yesterday said the monsoon onset over Kerala this year is likely to be slightly delayed.

Foreign investors sold shares worth Rs 1,493.88 crore on Friday as per the provisional data.
New Delhi :

The mortal remains of spiritual leader and Sant Nirankari Mission head Baba Hardev Singh, arrived today in Delhi who died in a road accident in Canada on Friday.

The mortal remains was flown to Delhi from Canada and his body will be kept in west Delhi`s Burari Road for the devotees to pay their final respects. Last rites will be performed on Wednesday.

Baba Hardev Singh was travelling from New York to Montreal in a car along with his two sons-in-law Avneet and Sunny when the car crash happened. Canadian Police have started an investigation into the accident to determine what exactly led to the car crash.

However, the Sant Nirankari Mission had already urged the followers across the world not to gather in national capital to avoid inconvenience.

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Melbourne:

The World-first scanning helium microcope has been built by Australian researchers who feel it could "open doors" for many new discoveries by allowing scientists to scrutinise materials without disturbing them. Paul Dastoor of University of Newcastle who has been working on the scanning helium microscope (SHeM) for two decades said the new microscope will enable scientists to study human, animal and plant samples, as well as computerchips and pharmaceutical drugs, without damaging or changing them.

He said the scanning helium microscope means the samples will be analysed in their true state for the first time ever and every time a new microscope was developed there had been enormous scientific advances.

"We wouldn't know anything about bacteria without the development of the optical microscope, we wouldn't know anything about nanotechnology, without the development of the electron microscope. What exactly will the new helium microscope tell us? We don't know yet. What will it open the doors to? We don't know yet, but it will open doors" Dastoor added.

The scientist said SHeM could be useful in major industries such as solar energy, defence, explosives and information technology.

"The new device is expected to pave the way for many new discoveries, because it gives new insight on structures at a microscopic level," he said. He led the team of researchers from the University of Newcastle, and collaborated with scientists from England's University of Cambridge.

"We're opening a window onto a new scientific world," Dastoor said adding scientists would be able to see much smaller objects with a much higher resolution. Dastoor further said that' the ground-breaking technology may help find ways of removing carbon monoxide from exhaust gases.

He also said SHeM could help with the clean-up of toxic or even radioactive spills, without harming the surrounding flora or fauna. "Defence experts will be interested because it could lead to the development of stealth technology and new explosives," Dastoor said.

He said the possibilities were endless in the areas of biological sciences, pharmaceuticals, and delicate materials. "We work a lot with explosives you don't want to put an explosive in an energetic microscope. We really think we're opening a window onto a new scientific world," he said.

"When you see the first image coming out on an instrument that you've only designed on paper, it's certainly time for the happy dance. We are genuinely amazed at what this microscope can do," he added.

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New Delhi :

Security officials were thrown into a tizzy when a man called up the police control room this evening threatening to blow up the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The call was received around 6.30 PM, following which several teams, along with bomb disposal squads, were rushed to the premises of the Presidents Estate.

We are conducting a thorough check and efforts are on to track down the caller who threatened to blow up the Rashtrapati Bhavan, DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said.

It was a specific call claiming presence of explosives at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The caller has been traced in Delhi and a team has been sent to track him down.
Patna:

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said he will ask for a CBI probe into the journalist murder case in Siwan and rejected as baseless the criticism on law and order situation in the state. I am saddened and worried.... If there is an attack on a journalist, its an attack on me and thats how I am looking at the case, Kumar told reporters here.



Rajdeo Ranjan, Siwan bureau chief of a Hindi daily, was shot dead in a market place in Siwan. The journalists family and opposition BJP have demanded a CBI inquiry into it.



We have learnt that the victims family wants a CBI inquiry. We are taking a decision to hand over the investigation to the CBI and it will be conveyed to the Centre, Kumar said. Condemning the incident, he said, We will request a speedy trial. No one will be spared.



Kumar said he had full faith in the state police which was conducting its probe in a free and fair manner but circumstances have been created where the family was in favour of a CBI inquiry. Asked about Opposition BJPs allegation that jungle raj had returned in Bihar, the Chief Minister said it was a baseless claim.



There is no reason for it. People who campaigned using jungle raj term were defeated and cannot reconcile themselves now. They see everything from that prism. Bihar has been ruled as per law and it will be ruled by law. No one should have any doubt, he said.



He also spoke of the powerful liquor lobby, which was unhappy with imposition of prohibition in Bihar by him, and said they would like to rake up such issues.



Taking on the BJP, he said, You look at it on case-to-case basis. Look at the Bihar governments response. You please compare our response to the response of BJP ruled states. But if you have already decided on a slant, I cant do anything. I can only work without bias. You look at the kind of atmosphere we have created in Bihar. But people will say what they have to say, Kumar said.

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News / National

by George Maponga

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe on Friday revealed that he was now a grandfather after his first born daughter, Bona Chikore, gave birth to a baby boy outside the country last month.Addressing members of the Gutu clan and other senior government and Zanu-PF officials at the homestead of his late uncle Chief Gutu, Anos Kasirai Masanganise, outside Mpandawana Growth Point, President Mugabe said his grandson was expected in the country mid month.The President had visited Chief Gutu's homestead to lay wreaths and commiserate with the family following the death of his uncle in 2013. He also laid wreaths on the late Chief Gutu's wife Ambuya Pamhidzai Masanganise who passed on in 2011.Mugabe said the First Lady Grace Mugabe could not accompany him to the Gutu clan as she was out of the country with their daughter Bona.'"The First Lady would have accompanied me to pay my last respects to my uncle, but she couldn't make it as she's outside the country with our daughter (Bona Mugabe-Chikore) who gave birth to a son whom I said is going to look after my cattle,'' he said, roaring into laughter."The doctors said he can't board a plane until after one month, so we're expecting them sometime this month (May) around the 16th or 17th." Bona and her husband, Simba Chikore, wedded on March 1, 2014, at a colourful ceremony that was attended by several Heads of State from the region.President Mugabe told members of the Gutu clan that he would never forget his roots and chronicled how he was raised by his uncle Shonhiwa of the Gumbo totem.He chronicled his history from his early childhood days when he used to herd cattle with the other boys of his age and expressed gratitude to his uncle for fending for him and sending him to school until he became a teacher.The upbringing at the hands of his uncles, President Mugabe said, helped to shape him into an individual who firmly believed in the importance of family unit."I won't forget that I grew up under your guidance, Madyirapanze (uncles' totem). We moved to Zvimba because my father wanted us to go to school at Kutama Mission which was closer. Karigamombe was far, about 7 miles. So we grew up herding cattle, there's no African tradition that I don't know. I'm not uncultured,'' he said. "I won't forget Madyirapanze, he's the one who molded our characters. I won't forget. If our mother, (Ambuya Bona Mugabe) was alive, he would have accompanied me but then she is late".President Mugabe said a person should have high regard for his or her relatives because others like political friends were not permanent. He thanked members of the Gutu clan for affording his uncle a decent burial, saying he felt honoured to unveil the tombstone at the late Chief Gutu's grave and that of his wife.Acting Chief Gutu, Edmund Masanganise thanked President Mugabe for his humility, adding that the Gutu clan was honoured to have sired an offspring who grew to become an iconic leader not only for Zimbabwe but for the whole of Africa.Chief Gutu assured President Mugabe that the entire Gutu clan, whose area of jurisdiction straddles most parts of Gutu district, would continue to support him and the ruling Zanu-PF party to continue winning elections.He also thanked him for upgrading several headmen of the Gutu clan into chiefs while new headmen that were banned by the colonial regime were also restored. The Acting Chief also appealed to President Mugabe to ensure that the rural electrification programme was expanded in his area.
News / National

by Staff Reporter

Members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care who were on a tour of the province last week stopped at Ngudu and held a meeting with commercial sex workers at the thriving business centre.According to Masvingo Mirror the sex workers pleaded with the Parliamentarians to enact laws that protect them and also protect their rights.The meeting was held through an organisation set up by the sex workers to represent their interests called Sex Workers Advocacy Group (SWAG).The meeting was also attended by National Aids Council Provincial Coordinator, Evos Makoni.Makoni told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee that Ngundu was an epicentre of STIs as it is along the Highway (Masvingo to Beitbridge) and that it recorded 163 STI cases during the first quarter of 2016 alone."Ngundu has become the epicentre of STIs, since it is the spot from which all the routes to major cities such as Bulawayo Harare, Chipinge and Mutare meet.Several truck drivers from neighbouring countries such as Zambia, Botswana and South Africa put up at the spot."These truck drivers inevitably constitute the majority of the clientele for commercial sex workers at the business centre."We therefore appeal to the Ministry of Health and Child Care to establish an overnight clinic here so that the truck drivers in transit get tested and treated even during the night to avert the increase in new HIV/Aids infections," Makoni said.The sex workers said that they wanted laws that protect them from clients who abuse them. They said that there were clients who ran away without paying leaving them with just "soiled pants"."But we are not into this because of our on making. The economy is in the doldrums and this is the reason many of us are here. We are doing this to fend for our parents and children," said the sex workers.The establishment of SWAG was initiated by Batanai HIV/Aids Support Organisation (BHASO).Makoni told the meeting that targeting commercial sex workers could be the robust action in the fight against the HIV/Aids scourge.Elizabeth Yeukai Chitsurwi and Erina Chingwa, who are members of SWAG complained to the Parliamentarians that because sex work is shunned, the women were at times refused treatment at clinics.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Minister of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services Supa Mandiwanzira has said the government is working on themodalities to have all hospitals linked to each other through ICT.Speaking in parliament Mandiwanzira said in terms of the provision of technology to allow for tele-medicine, Zimbabwe is working on variousinitiatives through the Ministry of ICT with the support of the International Telecommunication Union which has provided a grant to linkvarious provincial hospitals to each other."There is also a private initiative that was started by a doctor in Nyanga, who is the District Medial Officer for Nyanga, Doctor Jokwiro, who hasconnected various clinics to the district hospital in order to do consultations with people from the various clinics in the various wards," he said. "From a technological point of view, there are various technologies that are being looked at by the Ministry and of course, the Ministry of Health and Child Care is equally very keen to ensure that the technology is available in order for it to deploy health services."The minister said the policy is that they must promote it and they are looking at various technologies to promote it.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa has denied that food is being distributed on partisan lines saying no one will starve as the government continue to source food for the citizens.Mnangagwa's remarks came after an MP Spiwe Muchenje asked him in parliament over the sourcing of the food and its distribution." My question is directed to the Leader of the House who is also the Vice President. What is Government policy regarding what was said by theSecretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, that Zimbabwe is sourcing for food to feed the hungry people in the country? Thedistribution is done on partisan lines favouring Zanu PF cadres," she asked.Mnangagwa said he heard the question which was asked by the MP and said she was talking about rumours which emanated from a member who is based in the United Nations."When Zimbabwe has been given enough food, nobody should die of hunger in Zimbabwe. The Government works hard so that nobody in Zimbabwe dies of hunger. The Hon. Member has the audacity to say, when feeding these people, the food is distributed on partisan basis and those who belong to the ruling party are favoured," said Mnangagwa."My response is that this is false. When we distribute food to Zimbabweans, they are given on their rights and on merit. Food is givenaccording to the wards and villages."The Vice President said the residents of those wards are the people who select the vulnerable groups and the list which is compiled determines whoreceives food assistance without partisan alienation."We know that as Zimbabweans, we had the negative weather of El Nino and there is hunger. I chair the Cabinet Committee on Food Sustenance and we are sourcing for food, enough to feed all the hungry people in Zimbabwe. We have lots of sheep which are dogged in Mozambique in the ports of Maputo and Beira. The food is targeted at the people of Zimbabwe," Mnangagwa said."I will repeat, nobody in Zimbabwe will die of hunger because of the El-Nino induced drought. We have a quick reaction system which will fasttrack the food to areas of need. Our Government is a responsible Government; it does not work on rumours."
Oh heel no.

A 27-year-old receptionist working a temp job in London claims she was sent home without pay on her first day for refusing to wear high heels, according to published reports.

Nicola Thorp, who is also an actress, was picking up some work via temp agency Portico at PricewaterhouseCoopers when she claims a supervisor informed her that she had to wear heels that were 2 inches to 4 inches high.

PwC reportedly claimed the dress code was not their policy, and that it was a supervisor who worked for Portico.

Not one to take that kind of thing sitting down (or, in this case, standing up, in heels), Thorp reportedly called the employer out for discrimination, saying that men were allowed to wear flats. She says she was "laughed at."

"When I pointed out that my male colleague was allowed to work in flat shoes, and that I felt that I was being discriminated against, I was laughed at," Thorp told The Evening Standard. "I left feeling upset and confused."

Thorp reportedly called the employment-rights helpline and was told that employers have the right to impose a formal dress code in the workplace.

Now Thorpe has started a petition to make it illegal for a company to require women to wear heels to work. It's also sparked the hashtag #myheelsmychoice.

"A woman deserves the choice to wear smart heels or smart flats, whichever is more comfortable or practical for work," Thorp told the Evening Standard.

Who's laughing now?

Check out the slideshow above for workplace fashion do's and don'ts (for both women and men).
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To feel the Bern is more of a chafing sensation for Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

Malloys role as platform committee co-chairman for the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and his allegiance to Hillary Clinton is being protested by Bernie Sanders.

In a recent letter to Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Sanders complained that the convention brass is stacked with Clintons supporters such as Malloy.

If we are to have a unified party in the fall, no matter who wins the nomination, we cannot have a Democratic National Convention in which the views of millions of people who participated in the Democratic nominating process are unrepresented in the committee membership appointed by you, the chair, Sanders wrote May 6.

An aide to Malloy, who campaigned for Clinton in New Hampshire and Iowa, referred questions to the state Democratic Party.

Gov. Malloy has been a bold champion for progressive values throughout his career, and while there might be some differences, there are many issues on which the governor and Sen. Sanders agree, said Leigh Appleby, a spokesman for the Connecticut Democrats.

Sanders organizers such as Audrey Blondin, a Democratic State Central Committee member from Litchfield, say their wing of the party deserves to be heard.

Certainly, Sen. Sanders should be given the respect that hes due and that hes earned, Blondin said. I think he has brought forth a focus on issues that are important to Democrats, important to progressives that otherwise would not have been on the page here.

Visconti puts the V in vendetta

The heart of rock and roll is in Cleveland, but one of Donald Trumps most rabid and visible Connecticut organizers wont be there when the deal-maker accepts the Republican presidential nomination this summer.

Joe Visconti, a 2014 gubernatorial candidate and early Trump supporter in the state, was snubbed in the choice for delegates to the GOPs upcoming national convention in Ohio.

In total, 25 delegate slots were filled by the Republican State Central Committee last week with input from Trumps campaign.

When CNN needs a surrogate for Trump in Connecticut, it calls on Visconti to appear. But as far as delegates go, Visconti didnt even make it as an alternate.

Theyre complete insiders, Visconti said. I will do more than everyone combined on that list between now and November.

He suspects that his decision to run as a petition candidate for governor two years ago, which confounded some Republicans, factored into the snub.

State GOP Chairman J.R. Romano declined to elaborate on the process.

Flawed business model?

When Connecticuts largest business group put its stamp of approval on a $19.7 billion state budget crafted by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and fellow Democrats in the Legislature, it amounted to blasphemy for GOP leaders.

House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, publicly admonished the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, which has 10,000 members.

The one group in Connecticut who is supposed to support business and industry in Connecticut, CBIA, has rolled over and waved the white flag because they are not capable of doing their job and fighting for the businesses of Connecticut, Klarides said.

Joe Brennan, CBIA president and CEO, begged to differ.

Weve been talking all year about closing budget gaps through spending cuts and not tax increases, Brennan said. We think its imperative that Connecticut begin the long, arduous process of getting its fiscal house in order, and, although this budget is far from perfect, we believe it is a necessary first step in that process.

Later, gator

Connecticut is losing former Gov. M. Jodi Rell as a resident to Florida.

The Republican governor of the Sunshine State, Rick Scott, was all too eager to highlight the southbound migration of Rell, who told Hearst Connecticut Media last week that she was disillusioned with the direction of the state that she led from 2004 to 2011. Rell is still keeping her Brookfield condominium as a summertime home.

Scott, too, used to call Connecticut home. The former Greenwich resident visited Connecticut last year to try to convince businesses to relocate.

Excited to welcome former CT Gov. Jodi Rell to FL, Scott tweeted Thursday.

neil.vigdor@scni.com; 203-625-4436; http://twitter.com/gettinviggy
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DANBURY - The domestic violence charge against former mayor and city Democratic Party leader Gene Eriquez came moments after his wife accused him of punching her in the face, kicking her in the back and slapping the side of her head, police said.

Eriquez was also accused of hitting his wife in the back with a kitchen bowl, pushing her down the hallway and tripping her on the stairs as she was running away, according to a police report.

The 63-year-old Eriquez was arraigned Monday on a misdemeanor charge of third-degree assault and was ordered to stay away from his home and his wife until his next court date in late June.

His attorney told Judge Dan Shaban that Eriquez could not be more sorry about the incident early Sunday morning.

More News Former Danbury Mayor Eriquez arrested in domestic-violence...

My client is extremely embarrassed, attorney Michael McGetrick said in court. Hes extremely remorseful.

The lawyer also told the judge that the former six-term mayor has a clean record and has every intention of holding onto his 38-year marriage.

Hes never been arrested before, McGetrick said. He wants to work on his marriage. He wants to stay in his marriage.

Eriquez refused to speak with a reporter outside court Monday and did not return repeated messages requesting comment.

According to an incident report, police were called to the Eriquez home shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday. Eriquez had come home drunk, the report said, and he and his wife began arguing over money.

When his wife tried to call police, Eriquez chased her down, grabbed her cell phone and threw it down the hallway, the report said. She was eventually able to retrieve the phone, lock herself in a bedroom and call 911, police said.

The victim told police her face felt sore where she had been punched and both her arms felt bruised. The arresting officer noted that she had a red mark and swelling on her nose and forehead, but she told police she did not want medical attention and declined to speak with a domestic violence advocate.

Eriquez was too drunk to give a statement, according to the police report. He was escorted by police to a relatives home in the city and told not to return to his home or have contact with his wife.

On Monday, news of Eriquezs arrest was greeted by city Democratic leaders with a mix of caution and alarm.

City Councilman Tom Saadi, the minority leader, said the allegation was troubling.

I want to be very clear that domestic violence is simply unacceptable, no matter who is involved, Saadi said. If the allegations are true, then Mr. Enriquez should tender his resignation as chairman of the Danbury Democratic Town Committee.

Fellow Democratic City Councilman Benjamin Chianese agreed.

Domestic violence is terrible and we are all against any domestic violence, he said. If the allegations are true, we are going to recommend that the chairman does resign.

Eriquez was Danbury's mayor from 1989 until 2001, when he decided not to run for a seventh term. Recently, after Democrats failed to challenge GOP mayor Mark Boughton for a record eighth term in 2015, Eriquez replaced Joseph Walkovich as the Democratic Town Committee chairman.

The Democratic Party vice-chairman on Monday said the committee has endorsement meetings Tuesday and Wednesday, but that he didnt know whether Eriquez would preside over them.

On behalf of myself and others on the town committee, we are supportive of Gene and our hearts and prayers go out to him and his family, said Gary Goncalves. We dont know anything more than what we have read, there is nothing to be done until we know more.

Chianese agreed that Democrats knew little so far of the facts of the domestic violence allegation, but he went further than Goncalves.

I would think someone in that (chairman) position or even my (elected) position charged with something that drastic would step aside, Chianese said. If it happened to me, I would step down.

Twice in the past Eriquez has crashed his car with the odor of alcohol on his breath and has not been given field sobriety tests, according to police reports.

In 2003, he crashed his jeep into the Western Connecticut State University parking garage on White Street. Police investigating the crash found him bleeding heavily, slurring his words and smelling like alcohol, but made no arrest.

In 2008 Eriquez crashed into a telephone pole on East Pembroke Road, knocking out power to 500 people. Police smelled alcohol on the former mayors breath. He was given a verbal warning.

rryser@newstimes.com; 203-731-3342
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DANBURY  Officials of the five towns and cities bordering Candlewood Lake decided Monday to work together to protect its fragile ecology  and especially to avoid a recurrence of the algae blooms that forced closure of several town beaches last summer and fall.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton called a meeting at City Hall to enlist his colleagues help in finding ways to remedy the algae problem, which he warned could have severe consequences if not quickly addressed.

If the lake closes for a significant period of time, its catastrophic for everyone," Boughton said.

The blooms are made of blue-green algae, which produce toxins that can irritate the skin, eyes, nose and respiratory tract and, if swallowed, can cause diarrhea and vomiting. In large amounts, the toxins can affect the liver or nervous system.

Boughton floated several ideas to prevent growth of the algae, such as seeding the lake floor with aluminum compounds to trap nutrients that feed them. But such remedies are costly, the mayor said, adding that money to pay for them should come not from the towns but from the lakes owner, FirstLight Power Resources.

He and other elected officials at Mondays meeting said they worry that the lakes health is low on FirstLights priority list.

Len Greene, FirstLights spokesman, said the company has much to protect the lake at its own initiative and expense, including accelerating the vegetative buffer program, drawing down the water level in winter to retard growth of invasive plants and giving $500,000 to the Candlewood Lake Authority over the years.

The health of the lake is very high as a priority, he said. We are doing everything we can to improve the health of the lake.

Boughton proposed creating a new board including the mayors and first selectmen of the five towns, along with state legislators from the area and a representative from the Candlewood Lake Authority.

The proposal drew immediate support from those attending, including First Selectmen Susan Chapman of New Fairfield, Steve Dunn of Brookfield and Clay Cope of Sherman; State Sen. Michael McLachlan; and State Reps. Janice Giegler and Richard Smith.

I think it's a great idea, Cope said.

Such a group would not supplant the lake authority, a quasi-governmental body that runs the marine patrol and monitors the lakes water quality, among other programs.

Im not suggesting we get rid of the Candlewood Lake Authority at all, Boughton said. The plan is to work with them.

The new boards larger purpose would be to bring in the big horses when major issues are involved, especially in pressing for necessary state legislation.

The town and city leaders discussed other ways of protecting the lakes water quality by creating buffer zones along the shoreline, requiring septic tank improvements and coordinating zoning rules to control development. Chapman suggested the towns pitch in to cover the $10,000 cost of a proposed blue-green algae testing partnership between the authority and Western Connecticut State University.

The group agreed to meet again next month for a presentation from Mark June-Wells, of Aquatic Ecosystem Research, on data concerning rising water temperature and the frequency of algae blooms.

Although some of those present said they had expected to discuss the authoritys ongoing budget difficulties, the issue was put off until later this week, when most of them are attending a meeting of the Western Connecticut Council of Governments.

Authority Chairwoman Phyllis Schaer said she was disappointed that no one from the authority was invited to Mondays meeting. The authority has been trying to develop a dialogue with the towns leaders since she became chairwoman three years ago, she said, but most of the towns had been unresponsive.

Its a good idea for the authority and elected officials to work together, Schaer said, but she questioned whether creating a new board is the best way to make it happen.

That only puts another layer of distance," she said.

But CLA Executive Director Larry Marsicano said he hopes the board can help the authority in some areas, particularly in the legislative arena.

It sounds like it has some interesting potential, he said. Hopefully this will be beneficial to the lake.

kkoerting@newstimes.com; 203-731-3345; @kkoerting
Its the kind of headline that should be comforting: Number of homeless declines in state.

Were cautiously encouraged by the news, but assumed progress should not be misread as a lock on a permanent solution.

The good news is that an annual winter count identified fewer homeless people than a year earlier. The bad news is that the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness still counted 3,902 people.

Try to imagine that many people at one time at a concert or a sporting event. Yes, it dropped from the previous low of 4,038 in 2015, but its still far too many human beings.

While we hold the volunteers who coordinate the count in high regard, it remains an imperfect system. This was a milder winter than some previous ones, which could result in fewer beds being used in shelters.

We dont want to be too cynical. It is certainly worth celebrating a recorded 20 percent decrease across the state in the number of chronically homeless. The category is defined as people who are in a state of long-term homelessness and live with severe disabilities. Connecticut is participating in the national Zero: 2016 goal to end chronic homelessness as well as veterans homelessness by years end.

The true number may never become zero, but zero must always remain the goal. Michele Concertino, regional director of the Catholic Charities of Fairfield County, attributed considerable decreases in Danburys count (chronically homeless dropped from 35 to 21) to an infusion of state and federal funding for support services.

The news is not good everywhere. The total number of sheltered people in the Stamford-Greenwich area rose from 261 to 287. Jason Shaplen, chief executive officer of Stamford-based Inspirica, expressed skepticism about the state numbers. For him, the math doesnt hold up against the reality of stagnant and declining wages and a soaring cost of living.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has celebrated Connecticut becoming the second state in the country to functionally end veteran homelessness. The problem was identified and so was the obvious solution: Housing.

The state must work equally hard to find shelter for the children on our streets. The Jan. 26 Point-in-Time count in Bridgeport identified 60 homeless families. The 823 children collected throughout the state is similar to figures from recent years. The state needs to maintain a sense of urgency to get those families into housing, at a time when millions of dollars for homeless services were slashed in the latest budget.

The successes were accomplished because of a mission shared by nonprofits and state and federal leaders. Partnerships with municipalities to identify housing must be a common vision throughout the state and draw help from every available resource.

The potential benefits are many, not just for the homeless, but for public safety officials, for hospitals, and for peers and teachers of homeless children in schools. It wont be easy to keep driving that number down, but our state leaders must resist becoming complacent as they pursue creative housing solutions.
News / National

by Staff Reporter

Media stakeholders who met in Harare three weeks ago have demanded a clear criteria and transparency when Government issues private players with television licences in a process expected to take place before the end of this year.Masvingo Mirror reported that this demand was made by delegates who met at an All Stakeholders Indaba hosted by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) at a Harare hotel.The indaba was organised in order for stakeholders to come up with a position paper to be presented at another stakeholders meeting that is expected to be called by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services to discuss media policy soon.One of the most contentious issues that came up at the meeting was the lack of transparency and clear criteria that Government is using in issuing both radio and television licences.The delegates complained that all radio licences issued a few years ago either went to individuals who are connected to the ruling party Zanu PF or to media organisations that are controlled by the State.They said history was bound to repeat itself with the television licences which Government plans to issue after completing the digitalisation process.They wondered how Government arrived at the 12 television licences it is planning to issue out and why six of them were being reserved for ZBC. They also questioned how the Government arrived on the six for the private players."The crisis we have, and history is going to judge us harshly is that we are just being told things by Government and there is no opportunity for us to give our input. This is neither good for the development of this country nor for the strengthening of democracy. It is not necessarily the best players who are getting these licences," said one delegate.A thematic committee chaired by Rashwit Mkundu, a reknowned media consultant, noted that the State-run Zimbabawe Newspapers 1980 Ltd (Zimpapers) has already hired staff for its proposed television station long before the call for licence applications has been made. Delegates said this showed that the company has inside information and its management is aware that it will get one of the licences.Zimpapers which runs a number of publications including The Herald also got a radio licence a few years ago and is now running Star FM radio."It does not help Press Freedom, Freedom of Speech or Democracy to reserve licences for just those connected to the ruling party," said another delegate.Zimpapers chief executive officer Pikirai Deketeke confirmed the allegations that his company has hired staff for a new TV station and said the company was treating the project like any other. He said the company wanted to hit the ground running if it gets a licence."This is a project and we are putting in place systems in readiness for the launch of the television station. We are hopeful that we will get a licence and hence the initiative," said Deketeke.He said Nomsa Nkala, a former deputy editor with The Sunday Mail has been appointed the head of the station. Nkala said she was already working on content and doing auditions so that the station hits the ground running.However, participants at the workshop insisted there is no company that can sign employment contracts for a project that is not there."What will Zimpapers do with all these workers if their bid for a licence flops? Who is going to continue paying for the salaries?" queried a delegate.The delegates also expressed concern at the cross ownership of the media in Zimbabwe where moguls are being allowed to own newspapers, radio and television stations."There is immense concentration of media power in a few individuals and this stiffles freedom of expression," noted one speaker.The workshop was opened by Misa chairman Kumbirai Mafunda
Contributed / New York State Police

A grocery store employee in South Salem, N.Y., faces burglary charges after police said she came into the building at night and stole cash from the registers.

Baria Kendezi, 22, of South Salem, is accused of stealing from Greenwich Produce Market on Oakridge Drive on six different nights this month.
- Revenue decrease result of strategic decision to slow pace of growth and focus on working capital management -

TORONTO, May 16, 2016 /CNW/ - Boyuan Construction Group, Inc. (TSX: BOY, BOY.DB.A) ("Boyuan" or the "Company"), a growing construction company in China of commercial, residential and municipal infrastructure projects, today reported its financial results for the three-month and nine-month periods ended March 31, 2016. All figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated.

Selected Quarterly Financial Highlights

In thousands except share and % data Q3'16 Q3'15 Change Revenue $44,714 $90,014 (50.3%) Gross profit $3,900 $11,729 (66.7%) Gross profit margin 8.7% 13.0%

EBITDA1 $5,795 $11,993 (51.7%) Net income $2,332 $7,525 (69%) Earnings per share - diluted $0.09 $0.25 (64.0%)

March 31, 2016 June 30, 2015

Total Assets $245,976 $257,469 (4.5%) Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash $16,448 $20,170 (18.5%)

"This quarter's financial results reflect our strategic decision to focus on strengthening our working capital position and liquidity through managing our accounts receivable and unbilled revenue, rather than initiating capital intensive new projects over the past year," said Mr. Cai Liang Shou, Chairman of Boyuan Construction Group. "Management and the Board feel that this prudent approach best positions the Company for success in weathering the current uncertainty in the real estate market in China."

Q3'16 Financial Highlights

Revenue of $44.7 million , down 50.3% from $90.0 million for Q3'15

, down 50.3% from for Q3'15 EBITDA of $5.8 million , down 51.7% from $12.0 million in Q3'15

, down 51.7% from in Q3'15 Net income of $2.3 million , or $0.09 per diluted share, down from $7.5 million , or $0.25 per diluted share, for Q3'15

Review of Financial Results

Revenue for the third quarter ended March 31, 2016 was $44.7 million, a decrease of $45.3 million or 50.3% from the corresponding period last year. Revenue is recognized on the percentage-of-completion method. This decrease in revenue is primarily attributable to the completion of construction on two residential projects in Sanya Hainan, which recorded combined revenues of $25.2 million in Q3'15. A third residential project in Sanya Hainan recorded $6.4 million less revenue in Q3'16 than in Q3'15, as the project was near completion in this period.

Cost of construction for Q3'16 was $40.8 million, down 47.9% from $78.3 million for Q3'15. Cost of construction includes all direct material, labor, subcontract and other related costs, such as equipment repairs. The two major components of the cost of construction are direct material and labour costs. Direct material costs were $27.1 million and labor costs were $10.4 million in this quarter. In comparison, direct material costs and labor costs were $52.6 million and $23.1 million respectively in the same quarter last year.

Gross profit for Q3'16 was $3.9 million, representing a margin of 8.7% on revenue. Gross profit for Q3'15 was $11.7 million, representing a margin of 13.0% on revenue. Gross profit margins remained under pressure due to the current real estate market environment in China. The lower gross margin for this period was due to the larger discount amount applied to the non-current unbilled revenue and accounts receivable compared to the same period last year as well as tighter margins for construction companies in China in recent years.

G&A expenses were $1.64 million in Q3'16 compared to $1.54 million in Q3'15. The small increase in this quarter is due to normal fluctuations in expenditures.

Other income was $1.23 million in Q3'16, compared to $0.92 million in Q3'15. The major component of other income is the accretion income from the discount on non-current accounts receivable and unbilled revenue.

Interest expense was $1.33 million in Q3'16, compared to $1.46 million in the same period last year. The interest saved from the redemption of the convertible debentures in October 2015 was the main cause of the decrease in interest expense.

After-tax net income for Q3'16 was $2.33 million, or $0.09 per fully diluted share, compared to $7.52 million, or $0.25 per fully diluted share for Q3'15. The lower net income for this period was mainly a result of lower revenue and lower gross profit, for the reasons stated above.

The Company had working capital of $51.8 million, including cash and cash equivalents of $1.8 million for the period ended March 31, 2016. This compares to $42.2 million and $9.8 million, respectively, at June 30, 2015.

Outlook

"As China transitions to a more sustainable growth path, we are positioning the Company to successfully navigate the near-term challenges through expense control and working capital management. Boyuan's reputation for excellence in our core markets has won us a robust backlog of projects from which we will carefully select amongst the highest-quality to grow the Company moving forward," added Mr. Shou.

Boyuan's consolidated statements for the three-month and nine-month periods ended March 31, 2016 and related management's discussion and analysis (MD&A) will be filed with securities regulatory authorities within applicable timelines and will be available via SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Conference Call Notice

The Company will hold a conference call to discuss its third quarter 2016 financial results on Monday, May 16, 2016 at 9:30 A.M. (ET). Mr. Paul Law, Boyuan's Chief Financial Officer, will host the call.

All interested parties can join the call by dialing 647-427-7450 or 1-888-231-8191. Please dial in 15 minutes prior to the call to secure a line.

The conference call will be archived for replay until Monday, May 23, 2016 at midnight. To access the archived conference call, please dial 1-855-859-2056 or 416-849-0833 and enter the reservation number 6466408#.

About Boyuan Construction Group, Inc.

Based in Jiaxing City, China, Boyuan Construction Group, Inc. is in the business of commercial building and residential construction, municipal infrastructure and engineering projects. In its last three fiscal years ending June 30, 2015, Boyuan completed 45 projects for a number of private and public sector clients. Boyuan's current project backlog includes residential, commercial, industrial and mixed-use developments. From its operating bases in Zhejiang Province and in Hainan Province, Boyuan focuses on construction projects in China's fast-growing regions of the Yangtze River Delta and Hainan Province. For more information visit www.boyuangroup.com.

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Information:

Certain information contained in this press release constitutes forward-looking information, which is information relating to future events or the Company's future performance and which is inherently uncertain. All information other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "budget", "plan", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "forecast", "may", "will", "project", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "intend", "could", "might", "should", "believe" and similar words or phrases (including negative variations) suggesting future outcomes or statements regarding an outlook. Forward-looking information contained in this press release includes, but is not limited to, management's expectation to comply with the Alternative Information Guidelines. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. The Company believes the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information contained in this press release. Some of the risks and other factors which could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information contained in this press release include, but are not limited to: risk of a general cease trade order bing issued, risk of risk of macro-economy cycle, risk from competition, risk from insufficient marketing to secure new projects, risk in obtaining additional financing, risk involving permits and licences, reliance on key management member, risk from supply of raw materials, risk of financial leverage, risk of bad debts in accounts receivables, risk involved in real estate development, foreign exchange fluctuations, political and economic conditions in China and other risks included in the Company's AIF for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2015 and in the Company's public disclosure documents filed with certain Canadian securities regulatory authorities and available at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking information contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and the Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as otherwise required by law.

______________________________________

1 EBITDA is defined as earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization. EBITDA is not a defined performance measure under IFRS.

SOURCE Boyuan Construction Group, Inc.

For further information: Boyuan Construction Group, Inc., Mr. Paul Law, CFO, +(852) 9329 5088, [email protected]; NATIONAL Equicom, Mr. Keith Richards, (416) 848-1599, [email protected]
Over $750,000 has been donated to help make a positive impact on people and the planet

BURLINGTON, ON, May 16, 2016 /CNW/ - In celebration of its 20 year partnership with Tree Canada, IKEA co-workers are rolling up their sleeves today across Canada to plant trees and shrubs that will help restore green areas in communities around each of its stores.

"At IKEA we want to have a positive impact on the communities where we do business," said Stefan Sjostrand, IKEA Canada President. "We are delighted to celebrate this milestone with our co-workers, customers and Tree Canada, and we are committed to continuing to create a better everyday life for the many people and our communities."

Since the partnership began in 1996, IKEA Canada has donated over $750,000. To date, co-workers have planted 27,679 trees and shrubs, which is enough to provide one year's worth of oxygen for nearly 14,000 people.

To celebrate this milestone with our customers, IKEA is offering 25% off all plant pots purchased between Thursday, May 19th and Sunday, May 22nd. Additionally, 20% of all plant and plant pot sales during the same period will be donated to Tree Canada. These funds will enable IKEA and Tree Canada to plant 20,000 trees across Canada this year, and will also support the development of environmental education for children.

"The trees we have planted with IKEA are vital for the tree canopy in urban centres and the health of Canadian communities and all the people who live in them," said Michael Rosen, President of Tree Canada. "I would like to thank IKEA for their tremendous support and generosity over the years and look forward to another 20 years of partnership."

IKEA is also proud to announce the IKEA Outdoor Classroom contest. IKEA Canada will provide up to $15,000 in funding for the development of two outdoor classrooms on school grounds. One grand prize winning school will receive a $10,000 grant, and one runner-up will receive $4,000 towards greening their school grounds. Outdoor classrooms are learning spaces that connect students, teachers, and communities to the natural world. They can incorporate outdoor seating areas, outdoor blackboards, ground cover, greenhouses, trees and shrubs. Outdoor classrooms have a significant and positive impact upon students, teachers, and the community. The IKEA Outdoor Classroom grant will be available to Canadian schools within 100km of an IKEA store location. To learn more about the program or apply, visit www.treecanada.ca .

Sustainability is part of everything we do at IKEA and it is our co-workers' commitment to the People and Planet Positive Strategy that has enabled us to be recognized by Mediacorp as one of Canada's Greenest Employers for the eighth year in a row.

About IKEA Canada

IKEA is a leading home furnishing retailer with 375 stores in more than 50 countries worldwide, which are visited by 884 million people every year. IKEA Canada has 12 stores, an eCommerce virtual store, Pick-Up and Order Points in Quebec City, Quebec and London, Whitby, St. Catharines and Windsor, Ontario with one additional Pick-Up and Order Point opening in Kitchener in spring 2016. The company also recently announced plans to open a 13th store in Halifax, Nova Scotia in late 2017. Last year, IKEA Canada welcomed 25 million visitors to its stores and 75 million visitors to the IKEA.ca website. Founded in 1943, the IKEA business philosophy is to offer a wide range of products of good design and function at prices so low, the majority of people can afford them. For more information on IKEA, please visit: www.IKEA.ca .

SOURCE IKEA Canada

For further information: Stephanie Kerr, Corporate Press Officer, IKEA Canada, 905-637-9440 ext. 6378, [email protected]
VANCOUVER, May 16, 2016 /CNW/ - NovaCopper Inc. (TSX, NYSE-MKT: NCQ) ("NovaCopper" or "the Company") is pleased to announce that it has filed a National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") compliant technical report (the "Report") titled "NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Bornite Project, Northwest Alaska, USA." The effective date of this report is May 16, 2016. The report was compiled by Mr. Bruce Davis, FAusIMM, the president of BD Resource Consulting Inc., Mr. Robert Sim P.Geo., of Sim Geological Inc., and Mr. Jeff Austin, P.Eng., of International Metallurgical and Environmental Inc. and describes the potential in-pit and below-pit resources previously announced by the Company on April 19, 2016. The Report has been filed on SEDAR and EDGAR and is also available on the Company's website at www.novacopper.com.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160515/367710)

The Bornite Project is located in the highly prospective Ambler mining district of northwestern Alaska. Highlights of the technical report are as follows:

Highlights:

At a base case 0.50% copper cutoff grade, the Bornite Project is estimated to contain in-pit Indicated Resources of 40.5 million tonnes at 1.02% copper for 913 million pounds of contained copper (see Table 1 for details).

copper for (see for details). At a base case 0.50% copper cutoff grade, the Bornite Project is estimated to contain in-pit Inferred Resources of 84.1 million tonnes at 0.95% copper for 1.8 billion pounds of contained copper (see Table 1 for details).

copper for (see for details). At a base case 1.50% copper cutoff grade, the Bornite Project is estimated to contain below-pit Inferred Resources of 57.8 million tonnes at 2.89% copper for 3.7 billion pounds of contained copper (see Table 2 for details).

copper for (see for details). Contained copper in Indicated Resources has increased from 334 to 913 million pounds which constitutes a 173% increase in contained copper metal (see Figure 1 for details).

(see for details). Total contained copper in Inferred Resources has decreased from 5,696 to 5,450 million pounds (1,768Mlbs in-pit and 3,683Mlbs below-pit) which constitutes a 4% decrease in contained metal (see Figure 1 for details). The reduction in contained copper is due principally to moving in-pit Inferred resources to the Indicated category.

Table 1: Bornite Deposit  In-Pit Mineral Resource Estimate

Indicated Inferred

Cutoff

% Cu Tonnes

(millions) Grade %

Cu Contained Cu

(lbs, millions) Tonnes

(millions) Grade %

Cu Contained Cu

(lbs, millions) 0.35 48.2 0.93 987 100.4 0.87 1,918 0.40 46.4 0.95 972 95.6 0.89 1,880 0.45 43.8 0.98 947 89.9 0.92 1,828 0.50 40.5 1.02 913 84.1 0.95 1,768 0.55 37.3 1.07 877 77.9 0.99 1,696 0.60 34.1 1.11 837 71.8 1.02 1,618

Base Case cutoff grade of 0.50% Cu is highlighted in table.

Resources stated as contained within a pit shell developed using a metal price of US$3.00/lb Cu, mining costs of US$2.00/tonne, milling costs of US$11/tonne, G&A cost of US$5.00/tonne, 87% metallurgical recoveries and an average pit slope of 43 degrees.

Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the Mineral Resources will be converted into Mineral Reserves. See "Cautionary Note to United States Investors."

Inferred resources have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and whether they can be mined legally or economically. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the Inferred resources will ever be upgraded to a higher category.

Table 2: Bornite Deposit  Below-Pit Mineral Resource Estimate

Inferred Cutoff % Cu Tonnes (millions) Grade % Cu Contained Cu (lbs, millions) 0.5 238.1 1.35 7,081 1.0 107.0 2.11 4,990 1.5 57.8 2.89 3,683 2.0 39.4 3.45 2,993 2.5 29.1 3.88 2,448 3.0 22.6 4.21 2,094

Base Case cutoff grade of 1.5% Cu is highlighted in table.

Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the Mineral Resources will be converted into Mineral Reserves. See "Cautionary Note to United States Investors."

Inferred resources have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and whether they can be mined legally or economically. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the Inferred resources will ever be upgraded to a higher category.

The Company is not aware of any environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, social-political, marketing or other issue which may materially affect this estimate of mineral resources. The estimates presented in the Report constitute forward-looking statements and readers are urged not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statement. Additional cautionary and forward-looking statement information is detailed at the end of this press release.

Qualified Persons

Erin Workman, P.Geo., Director of Technical Services for NovaCopper Inc., is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. Ms. Workman has reviewed the technical information in this news release and approves the disclosure contained herein. Bruce Davis, FAusIMM, of BD Resource Consulting Inc., Robert Sim, P.Geo., of Sim Geological Inc., and Jeff Austin, P.Eng., of International Metallurgical and Environmental Inc., and each a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 have also reviewed the technical information in this news release and approve the disclosure contained herein.

Neither Bruce Davis of BD Resource Consulting Inc., Robert Sim of Sim Geological Inc., nor Jeff Austin of International Metallurgical & Environmental Inc., nor any associates employed in the preparation of the Bornite Project resource estimation have any beneficial interest in NovaCopper. These Consultants are not insiders, associates, or affiliates of NovaCopper. The information in this press release is not dependent upon any prior agreements concerning the conclusions to be reached, nor are there any undisclosed understandings concerning any future business dealings between NovaCopper and the Consultants. The Consultants were retained by NovaCopper to prepare the Bornite Project resource estimate and are to be paid a fee for their work in accordance with normal professional consulting practices.

About NovaCopper

NovaCopper Inc. is a metals exploration company focused on exploring and developing the Ambler mining district located in northwestern Alaska. It is one of the richest and most-prospective known copper-dominant districts located in one of the safest geopolitical jurisdictions in the world. It hosts world-class polymetallic VMS deposits that contain copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver, and carbonate replacement deposits which have been found to host high-grade copper mineralization. Exploration efforts have been focused on two deposits in the Ambler district  the Arctic VMS deposit and the Bornite carbonate replacement deposit. Both deposits are located within NovaCopper's land package that spans approximately 143,000 hectares. NovaCopper has an agreement with NANA Regional Corporation, Inc., a Regional Alaska Native Corporation that provides a framework for the exploration and potential development of the Ambler mining district in cooperation with local communities. Our vision is to develop the Ambler mining district into a premier North American copper producer. The Company also owns 100% of the Titiribi Project located approximately 70 kilometers southwest of the city of Medellin, Colombia, in Antioquia department, within historical Titiribi mining district.

More information on the Company, its properties and its management team is available on the Company's website at www.novacopper.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, without limitation, statements relating to the future operating or financial performance of NovaCopper, planned expenditures and the anticipated activity at the UKMP Projects, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding perceived merit of properties; exploration plans and budgets; mineral reserves and resource estimates; work programs; capital expenditures; timelines; strategic plans; market prices for precious and base metals; or other statements that are not statements of fact. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from NovaCopper's expectations include the uncertainties involving the need for additional financing to explore and develop properties and availability of financing in the debt and capital markets; uncertainties involved in the interpretation of drilling results and geological tests and the estimation of reserves and resources; the need for cooperation of government agencies and native groups in the development and operation of properties; the need to obtain permits and governmental approvals; risks of construction and mining projects such as accidents, equipment breakdowns, bad weather, non-compliance with environmental and permit requirements, unanticipated variation in geological structures, metal grades or recovery rates; unexpected cost increases, which could include significant increases in estimated capital and operating costs; fluctuations in metal prices and currency exchange rates; and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in NovaCopper's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended November 30, 2015 filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and in other NovaCopper reports and documents filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time. NovaCopper's forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made. NovaCopper assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements or beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law.

Cautionary Note to United States Investors

This press release has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the securities laws in effect in Canada, which differ from the requirements of U.S. securities laws. Unless otherwise indicated, all resource and reserve estimates included in this press release have been prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. NI 43-101 is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators which establishes standards for all public disclosure an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. Canadian standards, including NI 43-101, differ significantly from the requirements of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), and resource and reserve information contained herein may not be comparable to similar information disclosed by U.S. companies. In particular, and without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the term "resource" does not equate to the term "reserves". Under U.S. standards, mineralization may not be classified as a "reserve" unless the determination has been made that the mineralization could be economically and legally produced or extracted at the time the reserve determination is made. The SEC's disclosure standards normally do not permit the inclusion of information concerning "measured mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" or "inferred mineral resources" or other descriptions of the amount of mineralization in mineral deposits that do not constitute "reserves" by U.S. standards in documents filed with the SEC. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of mineral deposits in these categories will ever be converted into reserves. U.S. investors should also understand that "inferred mineral resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an "inferred mineral resource" will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian rules, estimated "inferred mineral resources" may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies except in rare cases. Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an "inferred mineral resource" exists or is economically or legally mineable. Disclosure of "contained ounces" in a resource is permitted disclosure under Canadian regulations; however, the SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute "reserves" by SEC standards as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit measures. The requirements of NI 43-101 for identification of "reserves" are also not the same as those of the SEC, and reserves reported by the Company in compliance with NI 43-101 may not qualify as "reserves" under SEC standards. Accordingly, information concerning mineral deposits set forth herein may not be comparable with information made public by companies that report in accordance with U.S. standards.

SOURCE NovaCopper Inc.

Image with caption: "Figure 1: Growth in Contained Copper at the Bornite Project (CNW Group/NovaCopper Inc.)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20160516_C7618_PHOTO_EN_690364.jpg

For further information: Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, President & Chief Executive Officer, [email protected]; Elaine Sanders, Chief Financial Officer, [email protected]; 604-638-8088 or 1-855-638-8088
WINNIPEG, May 16, 2016 /CNW/ - Qualico has committed $100,000 towards the Red Cross for relief efforts to assist Fort McMurray and extended community. In addition, due to an overwhelming response from their employee group of over 1,700 people who want to help the affected families in Fort McMurray, Qualico has established a matching gift program for their employees. For every dollar raised through employee fundraising activities and personal donations Qualico will match it  dollar for dollar  up to $50,000.

"We have a responsibility to take action to assist those in need," said Kevin Van, Vice President of Qualico. "Fort McMurray is a community we have helped build over the past 17 years and we understand and empathize with the devastation families are experiencing. We have heard firsthand from our evacuated employees and are inspired by the resilience and fortitude of the people from Fort McMurray; this has furthered our resolve to help rebuild this great Canadian community."

Qualico understands the large obstacles to overcome, and the timeline to rebuild after a disaster of this magnitude. They are confident that the donation of up to $200,000 towards the Red Cross, which will in turn be matched by the Federal Government, will support the largest cross-section of people and their variety of needs.

About Qualico's History in Fort McMurray

Since 1999, Qualico has built over 1,100 homes in the Fort McMurray community. Prior to the fire, Qualico was actively building in the Fort McMurray subdivisions of Timberlea, Parsons Creek North and Saline Creek. Qualico's staff are based out of our office located on Wildrose Street.

Over the 17 years that Qualico has been in Fort McMurray, we have been instrumental in community land development and the construction of apartments, single-family homes and multi-family homes. With our involvement with Habitat for Humanity in Fort McMurray, our role in helping to build the community has been complemented by our giving back to the community as well.

About Qualico

Qualico is a fully integrated, real estate company with its Head Office in Winnipeg. The company's activities span the entire real estate spectrum and include residential land acquisition and development, single and multi-family home divisions, commercial and industrial development, property management and building supply and manufacturing divisions.

Qualico and its employees believe and act on their commitment to community by giving back both financially and with hands-on efforts as witnessed through their ongoing philanthropic activities as well as in times of crisis such as of the 2013 floods that affected the City of Calgary and surrounding areas.

Visit www.qualico.com for more information.

SOURCE Qualico Developments Canada Ltd.

Image with caption: "Qualico Developments Canada Ltd. (CNW Group/Qualico Developments Canada Ltd.)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20160516_C4825_PHOTO_EN_690571.jpg

For further information: Robert Bulman, Director, Corporate Communications and Brand Management, [email protected], 204-254-9208
SMITHS FALLS, ON, May 16, 2016 /CNW/ - Canada's largest medical cannabis producer today announced plans to fund a national campaign to raise awareness of impairment in relation to operating a motor vehicle under the influence of cannabis. The campaign will be developed and administered by two of the country's leading organizations in promoting evidence based drug policy and safe driving, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC) and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD Canada).



Funding will be provided to MADD Canada over three years by Canopy Growth Corporation (Canopy Growth) (TSX.V: CGC), whose wholly owned subsidiaries Tweed Inc. (Tweed) and Bedrocan Canada Inc. (Bedrocan Canada) will fund the campaign using proceeds from a previously announced education fund dedicated towards responsible use of cannabis.



"We're proud to be bringing together the Canadian leaders in sober driving campaigns with leaders in the development of responsible drug policy for this important initiative. Now that we're on the verge of a legal access to cannabis for personal use, it's time to step up and do our part as responsible corporate citizens," said Bruce Linton, Chairman & CEO, Canopy Growth.

As Canada prepares to be the first industrialized country to implement cannabis legalization for personal use, MADD Canada is partnering with Canopy Growth to help prevent an increase in the incidence of impaired driving. MADD Canada's efforts to raise awareness and reduce impaired driving in Canada have saved an estimated thirty-five thousand lives through impactful and memorable public campaigns.

"MADD Canada has had a great deal of success in reducing the number of impaired drivers on Canadian roads," said MADD Canada Chief Executive Officer Andrew Murie. "As laws change in Canada we think it's important to take the same approach to cannabis as we have with alcohol, particularly given an increasing presence of cannabis in driving incidents already. MADD Canada continues to raise awareness on the risks of drug-impaired driving, and we are pleased to be part of this new national campaign to educate the public and reduce the number of people who drive while impaired by cannabis."

The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition will contribute the research basis and third party expertise to ensure that the campaign is designed using international best practices.



"Ensuring that Canadians understand responsible cannabis use and its impact on impairment when operating a motor vehicle is an important part of moving to a regulated market for cannabis in Canada," said Donald MacPherson, Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. There is an emerging body of research that we can lean on to help Canadians understand impaired driving, understand when they are impaired and make responsible choices."

Consuming cannabis responsibly applies equally to medical and non-medical cannabis use. Canada's medical cannabis user base grows every month and non-medical use under a regulatory framework will also increase the number of Canadians consuming cannabis. Tweed and Bedrocan are proud to play a leadership role collaborating with world-class partners like MADD Canada and the CDPC to ensure that as Canada moves forward with cannabis policy reform, we collectively create the needed tools to ensure that education and public safety remain at the forefront of the conversation.

About MADD Canada

MADD Canada (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) is a national, charitable organization that is committed to stopping impaired driving and supporting the victims of this violent crime. With volunteer-driven groups in more than 100 communities across Canada, MADD Canada aims to offer support services to victims, heighten awareness of the dangers of impaired driving and save lives and prevent injuries on our roads. To learn more, visit www.madd.ca.

About Canopy Growth Corporation

Canopy Growth is Canada's first publicly traded medical cannabis company and the first geographically diversified producer with multiple licenses under the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations. Through its wholly owned subsidiaries, Tweed, Tweed Farms, and Bedrocan Canada, the Company operates three state-of-the-art production facilities in Ontario and distributes cannabis across the country to Canadian patients managing a host of medical conditions. The Company is dedicated to educating healthcare practitioners, providing consistent access to high quality medication, conducting robust clinical research, and furthering the public's understanding of how cannabis is used for medical purposes. www.canopygrowth.com

About Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition is comprised of over 70 organizations and 3000 individuals working to support the development of a drug policy for Canada that is based in science and the principles of public health, is respectful of the human rights of all, and seeks to include people who use drugs and those harmed by the criminalization of drugs in moving towards a healthier Canadian society. CDPC is a project of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.



SOURCE Canopy Growth Corporation

For further information: Jordan Sinclair, Communications Manager, Tweed, [email protected], 613-706-2185 ex 309; Deb Kelly, Communication Manager, MADD Canada, [email protected]; Shea Dewar, Communications Coordinator for CDPC, 778-837-6502, [email protected]
News / National

by Staff reporter

Zanu-PF's factional fights neared boiling point at the weekend when war veterans sympathetic to Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa threw down the gauntlet and declared that there was nothing wrong in the Midlands godfather succeeding President Robert Mugabe.The war veterans also challenged the G40, whom they described as "traitors and treasure-hunters", to provide police with irrefutable evidence that Mnangagwa's political ambitions were a threat to Mugabe's security, or risk being arrested for causing alarm and despondency.They accused Zanu-PF commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere, Makonde MP Kindness Paradza, Public Service minister Prisca Mupfumira and women's league finance secretary, Sarah Mahoka of raising false alarm over Mugabe's security, as part of a wider plot to dethrone and replace him with "their G40 stooge without liberation war credentials".
By Daramola Babalola On the 12th of May, 2016 Nigerians woke up to the detestable reality that they will now have to pay 145 per litr...





At 145/Litre, is fuel too expensive in Nigeria?

Is Nigeria the only country increasing pump price?

But why did the fuel price have to increase?

The difference between Jonathan's attempt to increase fuel price in 2012 and this? - And why the anti-145/L protests will fail

By Daramola BabalolaWhile some are mobilizing for '#occupyNigeria season 2', labour unions in the country are currently planning to commence an indefinite nationwide strike action that will 'shutdown the economy' on Wednesday in a bid to protest the increase in fuel price.Following the harsh economic realities Nigeria is currently facing, many Nigerians have labelled the Federal Government as being insensitive to the plight of its citizen by making fuel too expensive for consumption.But really, how expensive is fuel in Nigeria, compared to other countries? and is the Nigerian government really insensitive? We are about to find out.As surprising as it may seem, Nigeria is ranked 12th as per cheapest price of petrol in 173 countries even with the newprice according to Globalpetrolprices.com In, fuel now costsand with the current exchange rate that is fluctuating between 320-360 to a dollar, it means we are paying aboutIt may however interest you to know that in, fuel is sold at the pump price of $0.65/L, In$0.84/L, In$0.55/L, $0.91/Lin, $0.92in, and it costs $0.93inSome will argue that the countries above are not petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) like, but what about OPEC member countries like, where PMS is sold at $1/L (about, Inat $0.64/L, Inpump price is $0.60/LwithPresident Nicolas Maduro calling the approximatelypump priceone of the cheapest in the world'.Even in the oil rich,PMS is sold at/L which is aboutwhich is more expensive than the price in Nigeria.According to Globalpetrolprices.com In, the pump price is set at $1.85/L (about) making the country the most expensive seller of gasoline in the world.With the facts and figures above, at 145/L fuel is not expensive, it's actually one of the cheapest in the world, but because of the poor living conditions of millions of Nigerians, it appears expensive and thus, many Nigerians struggle to afford it.That is why the government needs to provide welfare programs, kill that disease called corruption, invest in electricity, education, fix refineries, provide jobs and increase minimum wage to reduce poverty in the country, because the current 18,000 minimum wage is too small compared to how much we buy petrol.Again, the answer is a 'BIG NO'.The excruciating increase in pump price is not even limited to Nigeria alone, major oil rich countries of the world have increased their fuel price this year, some even by over 50%.See examples belowIn December 2015, Saudi Arabia increased fuel price in the country by 40%Oil rich Saudi Arabia, last year announced a record $98bn budget deficit due to 'rock-bottom global petroleum prices'Like Nigeria, Saudi Arabia suffered a sharp drop in revenues as oil prices have fallen more than 60 percent since mid-2014 to below $40 a barrel.To address the situation, the Gulf kingdom increased fuel price by 40%President Nicolas Maduro in February increased fuel price to $0.60 () as Venezuela's economy was pushed to the brink by the collapse in the oil price, which accounts for about 95% of the country's export revenues.He said the price over 50% rise was "a necessary measure, a necessary action to balance things, I take responsibility for it."The oil rich, United Arab Emirates also increased pump price about 2 weeks ago.Fuel is now sold at $0.45/L in UAE, which is about 148/L in Nigerian Naira, 3 more than the pump price in Nigeria today.The oil rich country that last increased petrol prices in 2011, also increased pump price in January, 2016 to $0.36 () which is the 5th cheapest pump price in the world.As a result of the unprecedented drop in global oil prices, which has seen the price of oil per barrel decline by over 60%.The government in Bahrain followed the steps of fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries the country increased fuel price by 50% in January.I could go on and on, to give more examples of oil rich countries like Nigeria that have increased pump price in 2016, Nigerians need to understand that this is not a Nigerian, Kachikwu, APC or PDP problem, this is a global problem we are dealing with affecting even the oil rich countries of the world.We need to stop seeing the Federal government as insensitive, wicked, heartless, unfeeling, inconsiderate, thoughtless and hard-hearted for increasing the pump price to 145/L. We need to temporary sacrifice for the greater good, with the hope that as promised we will be better off in the long term.To cushion the current challenges, the Federal Government must also sincerely provide social provisions for millions of poor Nigerians who will suffer from the fuel hike. Some of the oil rich countries listed above have increased fuel price this year, but due to the several welfare packages provided, the citizens can ease through this rough patch.I am glad about the N500 billion social intervention programmes provided in the 2016 budget, which includes jobs, social safety allowance for the most vulnerable people, free schooling for students, soft loan to traders, investment in infrastructure etc. Hopefully Buhari's 'anti-corruption' centered government can channel the funds with 100% sincerity and accountability.For that barber down the street who relies on petrol most times to power his small generator to keep his business running, it will be difficult for him to understand how the fuel price increase will benefit him in the long run. Infact, he will most likely rant everyday about the hardship the government is causing him.I'm sure many have wondered why a country like Nigeria, blessed with oil suffer for it? But unfortunately, Crude oil price is an internationally traded commodity , the prices are not set by the countries that produce it. Neither do oil producing countries get a discount in the international market for producing this product.While many think the current increase in fuel price is about removal of fuel subsidy, this notion is totally wrong because it was brought about by the non-availability of foreign exchange to import petroleum products. infact, there is no provision for subsidy in the 2016 budget according to the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo.Oil is selling at below 40 dollars and the currency (dollar) needed to purchase the refined petrol is no longer available, that is just simply the problem here.Oil and gas make up more than 90 percent of exports in Nigeria, providing the critical source of Nigerias foreign exchange.Its that simple; a collapse in oil prices could lead to the same in Nigerias foreign exchange which is crucial to support consumption of imports. Foreign exchange rates also influence capital flows- investment funds that move into and out of a country. If oil prices continue to drop it would have an adverse effect on the countrys currency value, making it less attractive to foreign investors.Since our local consumption of fuel is almost entirely imported. The NNPC exchanges crude from its joint venture share to provide about 50% of local fuel consumption. The remaining 50% is imported by major and independent marketers.However marketers have drastically reduced their importation for several months due to a scarcity of FOREX, thus the need for them to source independent of CBN to be able to meet the nations demand arose.Now any Nigerian entity is free to import the product, subject to existing quality specifications and other guidelines issued by Regulatory Agencies.All oil marketers will be allowed to import PMS on the basis of FOREX procured from secondary sources.It is expected that this new policy will lead to improved supply and competition and eventually drive down pump prices.In addition, this will also lead to increased product availability and encourage investments in refineries and other parts of the downstream sector.Former President Goodluck Jonathan ran into trouble after he removed fuel subsidy on New Years Day in 2012.This took fuel price from 65 to 141 at filling stations. This led to massive protests by civil-rights groups, labour unions, and Nigerians generally. APC, the opposition party at that time, took political advantage of the situation by identifying with the suffering and criticizing the Jonathan administration for removing subsidy.Four years later President Buhari officially removes fuel subsidy. Millions of Nigerians are angry. Nigerians are understandably accusing the present administration of cowardice, deception, and hypocrisy, but how true is this?How much was oil price in 2011? Oil price was $113 per barrel. Today, oil price is just about $40 per barrel after going below $30 early this year.And the exchange rate? Under Goodluck Jonathans leadership, the exchange rate was $1 to N162. Today, exchange rate is officially N199 to a dollar; N320-N360 in the parallel market.And foreign reserves? Nigerias foreign reserves stood at $35billion in January 2012 and $29.61billion as at 28 May 2015, the eve of hand over to President Buhari. Today, foreign reserve is $27.1 billion, amid myriad of restrictive measures to stem the steady slide in the economys external sector.Under the previous administration, Nigeria was enjoying an economic-growth rate of 6% averagely. Thanks to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) riding on the back of a devalued Naira. President Jonathan also, largely, had the right economic mix. But corruption and terrorism were two of its greatest challenges. There were allegations of massive corruption, particularly what was reported to be a fuel-subsidy scam right under Goodluck Jonathans nose.Rather than tackle these allegations by investigating and prosecuting those involved in the scam, President Jonathan decided to remove subsidy as the solution to the problem. The administration claimed removing fuel subsidy would free up funds for capital projects. But Nigerians had little or no trust in the administration. The administration was incompetent and corrupt. How can it be trusted to save for the future? This was a fundamental issue. So #OccupyNigeria shot down Nigerias economy in January 2012, not simply because Goodluck Jonathan increased fuel price but mainly because millions of Nigerians did not trust the administration with the money it claimed it would save for the future.Today there are strong reasons to believe that if fuel-subsidy removal had been allowed in 2012, most of it would have ended up in private bank accounts.Under Buhari administration, though partly due to some of its own reactive and over-restrictive economic policies, the Nigerian economy is sick. There is scarcity of foreign exchange. Oil marketers are finding it extremely difficult to import petroleum products into the country. FDI has nose-dived. The low international-oil price meant there was no need for it.Now that fuel price has increased internationally, we expected the government to subsidize to alleviate peoples suffering. The Buhari administration says No. We dont have enough foreign exchange to do so. Oil marketers are having difficulties opening letters of credit to import petroleum products. The result is that NNPC alone has had to supply over 90% of petroleum products since October 2015. This has not always been so.NNPC used to supply 48% of petroleum products. Since NNPC does not have what it takes to supply so much, there will continue to be fuel scarcity. To tackle the scarcity problem, the government painfully decides to free up the oil-supply system by allowing the international-oil price determine fuel price locally without any fiscal intervention. Oil marketers are now accessing foreign exchange (through secondary sources) to import petroleum products into the country since 145 naira per litre provides some reasonable profit margin after supply costs.Meanwhile, the government is taking measures to block leakages through zero budgeting, Single Treasury Account (TSA), and its Anti-Corruption Agenda. We are now talking about refineries, public and private-owned refineries that will eventually make fuel scarcity a thing of the past.Nigerians asked Jonathan to work on old refineries and build new ones, given the resources available at the time, and first kill the regime of fuel importation. Subsidy would have died a natural death and the process of privatization would have been smoother. Today, some of the refineries are functional again, which were not in Jonathans days. Government-owned outlets sell refined fuel today, at a far cheaper rate. Not the private ones.As labour go all out on Wednesday to attempt to shutdown Nigeria, my prediction is that they will not even achieve up to 5% of what the 2012 #OccupyNigeria protests achieved, the protest is bound to be a massive failure, because more Nigerians trust the sincerity of Buhari's government unlike his predecessor. And while the 145/L price remains a hard pill to swallow, it's still the 12th cheapest price in the world, facts only.
Benue State Governor, Dr. Samuel Ortom has offered to pay N5 million for information on the whereabouts of Reverend Father John Adeyi, ...

Benue State Governor, Dr. Samuel Ortom has offered to pay N5 million for information on the whereabouts of Reverend Father John Adeyi, the kidnapped Vicar General of Otukpo Diocese.The Governor who regretted that one month after the unfortunate incidence security agents were yet to apprehend the culprits and rescue the priest appealed to members of the public to assist with information about the whereabouts of the priest adding that any person or group who offers such information would be paid the amount.He disclosed that security agents have acted on previous information and combed several places within and outside the state without positive results hence the imperative to make the offer.Governor Ortom also solicited sustained prayers for the release of the priest adding that with God nothing was impossible while assuring the Christian community that the government and entire people of the state were in solidarity with them for the rescue of the priest.
Covenant Bassey, the nanny, who abducted one-year-old David Robinson in Calabar, has been arrested by the police after a manhunt.

Covenant Bassey, the nanny, who abducted one-year-old David Robinson in Calabar, has been arrested by the police after a manhunt.Bassey had fled her employers home in the Satellite Town area of Calabar on Friday, taking David along and carting away other valuables.Davids mum, Mrs. Uche Robinson, confirmed the arrest of Bassey and rescue of her son in a Facebook post.The post read, David has been found Hallelujah I want to say a very big thank you to all who showed concern with their prayers,test messages,media post/shares and tags during this hard time of looking for my son.David and the nanny were found today at Trailer Park, Onne, where she was trying to sell the baby
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Mthwakazi Liberation Front have hailed Ntabazinduna Chief Nhlanhla Ndiweni for his move to order the closure Grain Marketing Board as it currently employs people from outside his jurisdiction while his people wee suffering without jobs.He said the GMB does not benefit his people any how hence it must just be closed.In a statement MLF information and Publicity secretary Ndabezinhle Fuyane said the acts by Chief Ndiweni at Ntabazinduna's Grain Marketing Board (GMB) is 100% correct and it follows the devolution of powers in the Zimbabwean constitution."If then the GMB cannot accommodate a certain percentage of the local people how does the implementation of devolution of powers exercised. MLF is 100% in full support of the chief," Fuyane said. "Mind you the institute falls under his area of jurisdiction and that institution fails to accommodate the local population,then who is supposed to benefit and in whose expense is person benefiting?"He said MLF with its ideologies, objectives and values stand in full support of the chief and will stand."Mthwakazians have always been on the loosing hand and regarded as underdogs,I think things are starting working for better now and not for the betrayal of people but for their recognition and betterment," he said. "We are tired of this looting and on the other hand be addressed as uneducated. How do we explore our experiences in such an oppressive environment like this, never."He said the region is falling short of such leadership who stand their grounds and stop this nuisance."In fact thus the rightful decision he has made,its time that some of the clauses in the constitution be implemented, it was just but overdue. Mthwakazians, you need not be fold blinded by these greedy and ignorant ministers who have failed to support even their families for the good of foreigners,people who can not stand their stance in support of their region but instead spread gospel of lies as if they are the gods of this earth, to hell," Fuyane said."As Mthwakazi let's rally behind the chief and attain our rightful honour we deserve as people. Izikhothamathe have been silenced and put blinkers in thinking that the local people will starve as is they care,they have failed, let those who can stand for people stand,let the local populace benefit, its their right."
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released a draft of guidelines for regulation and supervision of Non-Interest (Islamic) Microfinance...

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released a draft of guidelines for regulation and supervision of Non-Interest (Islamic) Microfinance Banks (NIMFBs) in Nigeria for inputs/comments.In the document, CBN placed the NIMFBs into three categories- unit, state and national.The apex bank postulated that the national NIMFB shall have a minimum paid-up capital of N2 billion, and be allowed to open branches and operate in all states of the federation, FCT included. This is subject to the availability of free funds and the prior approval of the CBN for each new branch or cash centre.A unit NIMFB is however authorised to operate in one location and shall have a minimum paid-up capital of N20 million. It will be allowed to have only one branch outside the head office within the same local government area, subject to availability of free funds of at least N20 million and compliance with the prescribed minimum prudential requirements.
Director-General and Chief Executive Officer, National Mathematical Centre, Abuja, Professor Adewale Solarin, weekend, decried shortage of...





Director-General and Chief Executive Officer, National Mathematical Centre, Abuja, Professor Adewale Solarin, weekend, decried shortage of mathematical science teachers at various levels of education in Nigeria.He stated this at a press briefing in Abuja to announce the international symposium on Current trends in mathematical science and applications organised by African Academy of Sciences, AAS, and African Mathematical Union, AMU, holding May 17, 2016 in Abuja.Solarin said dearth of teachers for mathematics-related subjects was partly responsible for the phobia and poor performance of students in mathematics in public examinations.He urged the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on mathematics.NMC Director General, who is also President, African Academy of Sciences, noted that African mathematical scientists resident in Africa were gradually becoming endangered species because the number of such scientists had been dwindling in quality over the years.Solarin said: To compound matters, many African countries, including Nigeria, have witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of universities and other tertiary institutions all over the continent with inadequate matching funds.He, however, noted that Africans, including Nigerians, have made tremendous contributions to progress in mathematics.He said: We have had Nigerians that are publishing their contributions in the best journals in the world. If their contributions were not up to international standard, they wont have been accepted for publications in such journals.The director general said the symposium would provide cost-effective way of training mathematics teachers in various institutions across the country.He disclosed that over 100 Nigerians had participated in the pre-symposium school or workshop, where they were trained extensively for two weeks from May 3 to May 16, 2016.Solarin also revealed that the symposium would have about 20 non-Nigerian experts to share knowledge and experience through interaction with the young mathematical scientists in the country, saying this would further increase interest of many Nigerians in the study of mathematical science.President of African Mathematical Union, Professor Aderemi Kuku, in his remark, said Africans had made great impact in the field of mathematical science in the world, adding that the symposium would provide opportunity for African mathematicians and scientists to say what they are doing in their countries.He noted that even though African could boast of well-trained mathematical scientists and about the best education the world could offer in famous universities and institutions abroad, said what was lacking is the critical mass needed to teach in the younger generation in the continent. Kuku said:By critical mass, for instance, in New York alone, you can count over 1,000 mathematicians with Ph.Ds who are doing excellent work.
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the race for the White House, fought Sunday to stem several controversies including h...

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the race for the White House, fought Sunday to stem several controversies including his relationship with women and his refusal to release his tax returns. The billionaire real estate mogul and his backers hit back at a New York Times article that detailed Trumps complex and contradictory history with women.The paper conducted more than 50 interviews with women associated with Trump and was told of unwelcome advances and plenty of crude commentary on female bodies. One contestant in the Miss USA pageant, which Trump owned from 1997 to 2015, said that in 1997, the New York tycoon introduced himself and kissed her and other contestants on the lips.He was married to actress Marla Maples at the time. But Trump also nurtured the careers of several women within his business organization.One former female Trump executive, Louise Sunshine, had glowing words for her ex-boss. He was never a boss.He was a leader, Sunshine, who worked for Trump for a decade, told CNN. He taught me. He mentored me. Trump also hired Barbara Res as his head of construction in the 1980s, at a time when there were few women in such positions at major construction firms.She said her boss wanted her to be a Donna Trump. Trump took to Twitter to blast the article. The failing @nytimes wrote yet another hit piece on me. All are impressed with how nicely I have treated women, they found nothing. A joke! read one tweet.Speaking on Sunday morning talk shows, Republican Party chief Reince Priebus defended his partys presumptive presidential nominee.I dont think Donald Trump in his personal life is something that people are looking at and saying, Well, Im surprised that he has had girlfriends in the past. Thats not what people look at Donald Trump for. So I think the traditional playbook and analysis really dont apply, he told Fox News Sunday. Trumps team faced questioning over why he was continuing to refuse to release his tax returns, which is normally expected of presidential candidates.Trump has said his returns are being audited and he was unable to release the documents until they are finalized. The audits cover eight years of returns, Trump convention manager Paul Manafort said. This is an issue that the media is interested in, not an interest for middle America, Manafort told CNNs State of the Union. Donald Trump will comply when the audit is done.He also defended his boss after the Washington Post published last week a 1991 recording of an interview between a People magazine reporter and a supposed spokesman for Trump named John Miller, whose voice closely resembles that of the New York developer. Donald Trump says its not him, I believe its not him, Manafort said.However, in 1990, Trump himself acknowledged that he had sometimes posed as his own spokesman.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have started investigation into the allegation of diversion of local government funds level...

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have started investigation into the allegation of diversion of local government funds levelled against the administration of Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State.The EFCCs Zonal Head, Ibadan, Akaninyene Ezima, said this in a letter of invitation sent to the Civil Societies Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State.According to the EFCCs letter of invitation made available to newsmen in Osogbo on Sunday by the Chairman of CSCEOS, Mr. Sulaiman Adeniyi, the anti-corruption agency invited the group to come and clarify some areas in the petition against the governor.The EFCCs letter, dated May 13, 2016, with reference No: CR: 3000/EFCC/IB/T.B/VOL.1/79 was titled, Investigation Activities: Acknowledgement/Invitation letter.The invitation letter read, This is to acknowledge the receipt of your petition dated April 4, 2016, captioned Report of Illegal Diversion of 30 Local Governments monthly allocations by the Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola.Why Civil Societies Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State is calling for investigation and stoppage of Releasing of Local Government monthly allocations to Osun State through Mr. Rauf Aregbesola and to inform you that investigation has commenced.In view of the above, you are hereby requested to report to the EFCC Zonal Office at No.16 Revd. Oyebode Crescent, Iyaganku, G.R.A., Ibadan, for an interview with the undersigned through the Head, Team B, on May 17, 2016, at 10am prompt.The governor and some of his aides were accused of diverting LG allocations by the human rights group in a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari.The group had claimed that the governor suspended democratic structure in the councils and had mismanaged funds allocated to them.The CSCEOSs petition read in part, To affirm this illegality and unconstitutionality, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola suspended the democratic system in the constitutionally recognised 30 Local Government Areas of Osun State by appointing the grade level 14 local government staff as council managers to man the council areas of the state instead of democratically-elected chairmen and councilors as stipulated in Section 7(1) of the amended 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in order to give Aregbesola a leeway in the criminal diversion of local government funds.That the Federal Government, the National Assembly and its anti-graft agencies should investigate the acclaimed road projects embarked upon by Mr. Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola on behalf of the local government areas of the state without following the due process of the Public Procurement Act.The violation of all due process in managing the public finances of Osun State by Mr. Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola has been seriously impacting negatively on the lives of the state masses including the state and local government local workers with their retirees alike.
Petrol stations in the country seem not to be satisfied with the recent hike in the price of petrol to between N135 and N145 per litre, as...

Petrol stations in the country seem not to be satisfied with the recent hike in the price of petrol to between N135 and N145 per litre, as majority of them now resort to under-dispensing of the product.Reporters observed in Abuja and environs that a number of the petrol stations, though selling at N145 per litre, had manipulated their pumps, and were now defrauding motorists with incorrect measurements.Petrotec filling station in Suleja, Niger State, along the Abuja-Kaduna Expresway, was selling at N135 per litre, but a motorist complained that he bought 20 litres of petrol but was served about 15 litres.At the NNPC Mega Station at Kado in Abuja, one motorist complained that before the hike, it took N2,500 to fill his tank when it was half tank but was shocked to spend N5,000 to fill his tank in the same position at the NNPC petrol station.He wondered why it would take double the initial amount, when the price was not doubled.Motorists called on the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, and other regulatory agencies to come to the aid of motorists and sanction defaulting petrol stations.Meanwhile, the Nigerian Association for Energy Economics, NAEE, weekend, emphasized the need for the Federal Government to fix the countrys refineries, stating that if all the refineries were working at about 80 to 90 per cent capacity, the price of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, would drop to between N115 and N125 per litre.Addressing newsmen in Abuja, Professor Wumi Iledare, President, NAEE, also called for the proper calibration and adjustment of the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agencys, PPPRA, pricing template for a market dictated margin.
To cushion the harsh effect of the new pump price of Premium Motor Spirt, PMS also called petrol on the people, the presidency is set to...

To cushion the harsh effect of the new pump price of Premium Motor Spirt, PMS also called petrol on the people, the presidency is set to implement the N500 billion earmarked in the 2016 budget for social welfare. A statement by the media spokesperson for Vice President Yemi Osinabjo, Mr. Laolu Akande in Abuja on Sunday stated All together the federal government would be directly impacting the lives of more than 8 million Nigerians in different social investment 2016 budget spending that would provide succor and be a ready-made palliative to ordinary Nigerians.Giving a breakdown of the interventions and palliatives, Akande said that said that there would the direct payment of N5000 monthly to one million extremely poor Nigerians for 12 months as provided for in the 2016 budget for which N$68.7B has been appropriated.Similarly, the government has also made available a direct provision of very soft loan -cash for market women, men and traders, including artisans and Agric workers.This would be for a total of 1.76m Nigerians, without the requirement for conventional collateral. Some of the traders will likely get about N60,000.A total sum of N140.3B has already been appropriated for this in the budget. The details also showed their there would be payment of between N23,000 to N30,000 per month to 500,000 unemployed graduates who would be trained, paid and deployed to work as volunteer teachers, public health officers and extension service workers among other responsibilities.They would also be given electronic devices to empower them technologically both for their assignments and beyond.According to the media aide, 100,000 artisans would also be trained and paid N191.5B has been set aside for this in the passed budget. He also said that At least 5.5 million Nigerian primary school children -ie starting first in 18 states-three per geopolitical zones-would be fed for 200 school days under the free Homegrown School Feeding Programme, as N93.1B has been appropriated for this in the 2016 budget.In this same vein 100,000 tertiary students in Science Technology Engineering & Maths-STEM, plus Education will partake in the N5.8B already provided for this education grant in the budget. Akande stated that This payment would also be paid directly to the students.He stated that these measures that would start in a matter of weeks would certainly lift the ordinary man from the pangs of economic hardship and poverty. Long before now, the Presidency has made adequate arrangements in the 2016 budget to ensure that Nigerians are lifted from poverty and hardship, Akande said, adding that the Buhari presidency is keen to ensure that Nigerians are lifted and that if necessary on an ongoing basis palliatives measures would always been considered to address the conditions of the people.
The traditional ruler of Nawfia in Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State, Igwe Chijioke Nwankwo, has described the petrol price...

The traditional ruler of Nawfia in Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State, Igwe Chijioke Nwankwo, has described the petrol price hike by the Federal Government as painful but needful.He said if the new price was allowed, there would be long term effect that would be of benefit to the people.He advocated a change of lifestyle by the people so as to adapt to the new pump price regime of N145 per litre of fuel.The monarch said Nigerians should be encouraged to embrace bicycle as part of a new lifestyle to adjust to the new order.He added, I dont know what the cost of petrol pump price is in all the countries of the world, but in some areas, I have visited, especially in Europe and America, Nigeria enjoys the cheapest petrol pump price regime.In such areas, you would see people ride bicycles to go to work because the cost of transportation is high because of high cost of petrol.Nigerians should be encouraged to start riding bicycles and bicycle allowances should be reintroduced, particularly for civil servants.Nwankwo blamed the Federal Government on the way the fuel hike was announced without adequate consultation with the stakeholders.The traditional ruler added, That might be why organised labour and civil rights groups are planning a protest on this matter.On sensitive issues as this, there should be adequate sensitisation of the people before reaching a decision on the matter.Nobody is happy. Life is extremely difficult. The economy is generally bad. The whole thing is having a devastating impact on the people.Most filling stations are now selling petrol between N150 and N155 per litre and it will continue to climb from there. And things will get harder.The government ought to have educated the people; tell them the long term effects or justification for the increase.The trouble with our society is that our government will always distance itself from the people when taking decisions that will eventually affect the lives of the people.
A federal lawmaker has identified policy paths that can be taken by the government to cushion the effects of the new petrol price of N14...

A federal lawmaker has identified policy paths that can be taken by the government to cushion the effects of the new petrol price of N145.Ahmed Kaita, an All Progressives Congress member of the House of Representatives, said on Sunday that he supported the new price regime as compelled by the prevailing realities; but Government should intervene to reduce the effects on the masses.In an interview with newsmen, he identified the three paths of intervention as spending on infrastructure, food pricing, and direct social interventions.But there are no quick fixes, said the lawmaker who represents Kankia/Ingawa/Kusada constituency of Katsina State.100 percent I support the new price regime.If we really want a sustainable economy in line with the change agenda of ending corruption, enriching few and waste to give more money to human and capital development, we must brace up and do what is right.As it is compelled by our current realities resulting from forex shortage due to oil market crisis, what is right is allowing some degree market freedom, removing subsidy and capping the price to allow investors make gains without exploiting the people, Mr. Kaita said.He continued, It will hurt and we must live under no illusion that there will be quick fixes.CUSHIONING EFFECTSThe money freed up from subsidy removal should be invested massively in infrastructure, Mr. Kaita said.Thats already in the budget signed by the President. Release funds with focus on infrastructures like road, rail system and power should be immediate so as to relief citizens and ameliorate conditions of the poor.Second, the lawmaker said, is food pricing. Prices of food items are going up and some items like tomato are scarce, making things hard. Government has reserves from which we must release to the market. This was done on tomato there weeks ago. Federal Government should collaborate with states so that taxes on food and agricultural products can be reviewed to bring prices down. Thats directly helping people avoid difficulty.He added that Federal Government should also immediatelyexecute N500 billion social intervention programmes approved in the 2016 budget.This contains jobs, social safety allowance for the most vulnerable people, free schooling for science students, soft loan to traders. Like the Budget and Planning Minister, Udo Udoma said spending on infrastructure would begin immediately.We must also release funds for execution of this first social intervention immediately to support the citizens and cushion effects of the price regime of petrol, he said.Mr. Kaita expressed opposition to the planned strike by Nigerian Labour Congress set to commence on Wednesday.Where were they when the economy was being messed up for sixteen years?He disclosed that about 68 APC lawmakers had been meeting since Saturday to ensure National Assembly support the new price regime despite suspicion of opposition by the speaker (Yakubu Dogara) who may want to toe the PDP line which is his main support base in terms of his position.While addressing the National Council of Ulamas of the Jamatu Izalatil Bidah Wa Iqamatis Sunnah last week, Mr. Dogara had said he would not give opinion on the new petrol price until the matter was brought to House. He, however, assured the government would not deliberately inflict hardship on people.But Mr. Kaita said the Speaker should have defended the policy since he is a leader of the ruling party in the House to show his loyalty to the party and Government.
Seyi Shay is the cover star of the latest issue of Guardian Life magazine and in this issue the music star talks about how this is the best time to be a Nigerian making music, the fact that she doesnt regret her move back to Nigeria and more.She also talks about her recent viral blunders and how shes just doing it for the laughs.See excerpts belowYou know, Ive never really taken myself too seriously because I believe life is too short. Also, I generally feel like theres a lot more going on in my life than just the business of music. Ive done music for fifteen years in different parts of the world and what Ive learned is to not take it too seriously. Sometimes, let people make fun of you  love hard, laugh harder. I made a particular mistake in December with the T-W-O thing, and its still funny. I figured, why not keep doing it, just for the LOLs, you know?Yes, absolutely. Im not going to stop now though, because I still have so much to achieve and do. For instance, I have my CSR and I have so much to do for the growing children looking up to me. I need to make enough money to be able to support that. I also need to make a statement and be planted firmly enough for people to take me seriously when I tell them to support me for one cause or the other. This is one of the major reasons why I do what I do; I dont do it for self-gain or vanity.Olamide actually wrote the song Pack and Go, but the funny thing is I didnt record that song with any campaign against domestic violence in mind. My CSR has more to do with less privileged children. When the song came out, people became even more alert to how rife domestic violence against women is in Nigeria. Even worse, nobody is doing anything about it because Nigeria is still largely a patriarchal society. That was when I dedicated this song to the cause. Thankfully, Pack and Go speaks to abused women and Im really proud and happy Olamide wrote that song and made me come to the studio to record it.: I still feel like its the best decision I ever made in my life. Africa right now is the focal point of music, believe it or not. We have a lot of people looking to Nigerians, South Africans, West Africans and East Africans to bring something to the world, musically. I mean, look at Wizkid; hes presently one of the biggest artistes in the world and hes Nigerian. Theres no prouder time to be a Nigerian making music than now. When I was working with Matthew Knowles and the girls, it was really just a development and training ground for me. If I had stayed in the UK, the opportunities I have now probably would have never happened because there are 10,000 artistes just like me.
Operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of the Lagos State Police Command over the weekend arrested two suspected pickpockets opera...

Operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of the Lagos State Police Command over the weekend arrested two suspected pickpockets operating in Maryland and Mile 12 areas of the metropolis.The suspects, Taoreed Ashimiyu, 24, and Kayode Jolaade, 34, were allegedly caught in the act by policemen after they had successfully removed three phones from commuters in different BRT buses.Upon their arrival at the RRS headquarters, the duo reportedly confessed to the crime, saying that they were experts in robbing commuters in Mile 12 and Maryland.One of the suspects, Taoreed, who hails from Yemetu, Alawada in Oyo state, said that he spent the proceeds from stealing on prostitutes.I have not spent a dime from my proceeds in stealing on anything tangible. I womanise a lot and I spent my monies on both young and old ladies. I smoked indian-hemp and drink all sort of hard drinks, he said.Taoreed revealed that before his arrest, he had removed two mobile phones from commuters during a rush at the Maryland bus-stop, adding that his third attempt led to his arrest.My accomplice caused my arrest today. Before he joined me at Maryland, I had stolen two phones successfully. But when he came around, we had to be moving in pair. People who had known him in the area were monitoring us ,unknown to us, Taoreed stated in his confessional statement.
Opinion / Columnist

'The Government must ensure that, through legislative and other means, that the Zimbabwe Anti-corruption Commission has power to recommend the arrest and secure the prosecution of persons reasonably suspected of corruption, abuse of power and other improper conduct which falls within the Commission's jurisdiction'

The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZAC) needs the legislative blessing of the Law, and the universal participation of all stakeholders in our community. This is the only sure way of stamping out the gnawing nuisance of corruption which is threatening to tear apart our society. The worst current vice in this country is corruption which is characterising almost every public entity and the entirety of the corporate world.The most effective way for anti-corruption commission to prevent the evil is to identify corruption areas and then promulgate policies, procedures and regulations that can seal loop-holes. In this regard, it is important to highlight some areas that are especially vulnerable to corruption, such as, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZMRA), Vehicle Inspection Department (VID), Zimbabwe Republic Police Traffic Section and the Registrar General's department among others. These certainly should attract the maximum attention of ZAC. In addition ZAC should also cast its eyes on public procurement unit, hiring, retention and promotion of public officials, management of public finances, and the construction of projects.In the meantime, the ZAC hands seem to be tied as there is an outstanding legal hurdle, which however has been thumbed up by the new constitution Section 255 subsection 3 which states that,It is anticipated that with the wide and special powers which can be provided for under the prospective re-alignment of the law in line with the constitutional provision, ZAC can be more formidable and powerful enough to curb corruption. The investigative measures to be adopted by ZAC can be more apparent and transparent for the good of the society as offenders can be arrested, tried and sentenced accordingly in the courts of justice.The expected law can also empower the ordinary citizens by creating a platform upon which they can also furnish the ZAC with relevant information or tips which can enhance them to execute their responsibilities.
Few days after Doyin Okupe, a PDP stalwart prostrated before him and begged for forgiveness, the incumbent Governor of Kaduna State was sp...

Few days after Doyin Okupe, a PDP stalwart prostrated before him and begged for forgiveness, the incumbent Governor of Kaduna State was spotted kneeling before Obasanjo in a public gathering.Also, last week, Adeyeye Ogunwunsi, the Ooni of Ife, described Obasanjo as one of the most prominent black men on earth, disclosing that he knelt before the elder statesman for prayers during his journey to the palace.However, a picture where Nasir el-Rufai, Kaduna state governor, knelt beside the indisputable kingmaker has gone viral on social media.Obasanjo was in between el-Rufai and Akinwunmi Adesina, president of African Development Bank (AFDB) and Nigerias immediate past minister of agriculture, at the second regional security summit in Abuja.While Adesina sat comfortably placing his right hand on the Nigerian leaders leg, el-Rufai, who served under Obasanjo as a minister, remained in that position, apparently paying keen attention to a conversation.
A 42-year-old school principal, Michael Diekola, who allegedly defrauded his school of N1.2 million, was on Monday docked at an Ikeja Chie...





A 42-year-old school principal, Michael Diekola, who allegedly defrauded his school of N1.2 million, was on Monday docked at an Ikeja Chief Magistrates Court.The accused, who lives at 8, Alirat Badejo St., Oke Odo, Abule Egba, a suburb of Lagos, is being tried for fraud and stealing.The prosecutor, Insp. Clifford Ogu told the court that the offences were committed sometime in July 2014 at a private school  Queen Diana College, Oke Odo, Abule Egba. Ogu said the accused collected N1.2 million from students under the pretext of enrolling them for the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE).The accused bolted with the money and all efforts to locate him were unsuccessful until he was sighted by one of the teachers and was immediately apprehended. The offences violated Sections 285 (1) and 312 (1) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011. The accused denied the charge.In her ruling, the Chief Magistrate, Mrs Taiwo Akanni, granted the school principal bail of N500, 000 with two sureties in like sum. She ordered the accused to pay N250, 000 into the courts Chief Registrars account as part of the bail conditions. The case was adjourned to June 6 for mention.
Several members of a militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers, have been arrested by the Nigerian army.

Several members of a militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers, have been arrested by the Nigerian army.This is to confirm the arrest of some suspected members of Niger Delta Avengers. Investigation is currently on going, Director of Defence Information, Brig-Gen. Rabe Abubakar said in a statement.The arrested militants are said to have carried out recent attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta area of the country.The military will continue to do its best to guard strategic facilities and provide security to lives and property Abubakar added.The militant group have claimed responsibility for several bombings of oil facilities in the country. Chevron recently evacuated some of its workers due to the bombings. Exxon mobil also declared force-majeure on the Excavos pipeline as a result of the attacks.The attacks have caused Nigeria's oil production output to hit a 22-year low of 1.6 million barrels per day.
The Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, has said that the anti-graft agency is undergoin...

The Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, has said that the anti-graft agency is undergoing investigation before inviting the former president, Goodluck Jonathan and other accomplices in the arms purchase scandal.He said this when he visited the office of the BBC Hausa service in London at the weekend. According to him, the EFCC would not skip anybody found culpable in the ongoing probe of arms purchase scandal or other misappropriation of public funds."Anybody that is involved in this scandal, we will invite him. It is only that we have to first establish our evidence. Anybody who is guilty, I swear, we will summon him wherever he is. And we have never invited anybody who is guilty. Anybody that we invited, we must have finished with our background study on him", Magu said."We spend not just days for the background work but months until we establish the case before we issue invitation. That is why none of the people we invited has come out clean. Whoever stole public funds and we establish our evidence, I'm telling you we will invite him, without cover. That is how the work is. We compile dossiers of proofs and facts before we invite," he said.
The joint task force (JTF) in the Niger Delta has arrested five staff of Chevron Nigeria Limited in connection with the recent pipeline bo...

The joint task force (JTF) in the Niger Delta has arrested five staff of Chevron Nigeria Limited in connection with the recent pipeline bombings in the region.The staff identified as Kelvin Mordi, Samuel Emiko, Henry Arogboritse, Isaac Edemde, and Alfred Timede were reportedly picked up in Warri South West local government area of Delta state while on patrol of oil facilities along the Utunana flow station.A source told newsmen that they are currently being detained at a military base in Warri north local government area.The oil firm, which has suffered different attacks in recent times, reportedly employed the detainees as surveillance guards for its installations in the creek.Godspower Gbenekama, spokesman of Gbaramatu kingdom in Warri south west, condemned the arrest, demanding the immediate release of the suspects.He said the military had been intimidating youths of the community.The soldiers arrested them in a speed boat, which had the inscription of Chevron. They had their identity cards on. So, there is no case of mistaken identity. Far from it, he told reporters.After their arrest, the soldiers moved to different communities and started harassing our people. They invaded buildings and tortured youths just to coerce them to accept membership of militant groups.Their tactics will not work. We demand the immediate release of our innocent boys, and ask the military to stop this intimidation.However, efforts made to reach Victor Anyaegbudike, an official of Chevron, were not successful, as his mobile telephone was out of reach.Also, Isa Ado, spokesman of JTF, did not respond to calls, and the SMS sent to his telephone is still awaiting response.The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), a new militant group, has claimed responsibility for recent attacks, threatening to hit Chevron Nigeria headquarters in Lekki, Lagos, if the organisation repairs pipelines that had been destroyed.From our investigation, Chevron Plc is about to carry out repair works at the valve platform that was blown up by us (Niger Delta Avengers). We made it clear that no repair works should be done until our demands are fully met, the group said in a statement.When we blew up the Chevron Valve Platform it resulted in total blackout in the Escravos Tank farm for more than three hours. If we can do it just know that we are capable of bringing down your tank farms if you continue with repair works on the blown valve platform.Be informed that if we decided to strike, it is going to be bloody. And to the contracting firm going to do the repair works, we want you to know that your facilities and staff will be our first casualties. We will not only destroy pipeline, but will bring the fight to your tank farm and your headquarters in Lekki, Lagos.The federal government has expressed concerns over the upsurge of militancy, saying it is exploring possible avenues of bringing the situation under control.President Muhammadu Buhari told newsmen in an interview that his administration would revisit the agreement which government had with the violent group.The militants are saying the agreement entered for the amnesty, including payments and training and employment were not being met, he said.To the best of my knowledge, these are their grievances. So, we put this officer (Paul Boroh, coordinator of the presidential amnesty programme) who is from there to revisit the agreement, and see which part the federal government needs to fulfill.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, said on Sunday that the government of the United King...

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, said on Sunday that the government of the United Kingdom had shown its commitment towards repatriating funds stolen from Nigeria.Malami returned from the United Kingdom on Saturday after a two-day International Anti-Corruption Summit also attended in London last week by many world leaders including President Muhammadu Buhari.The minister told our correspondent on the telephone on Sunday that the UK expressed commitment towards repatriating Nigerias looted funds during a bilateral meeting between the two nations.He said though there was no estimate of how much of the Nigerias funds stashed in the UK, but it has been compiled for certainty.Malami said apart from the meetings which Nigeria had with the UK, there were no bilateral talks between Nigeria and other nations.He said, There was no sideline talks as such, but then there has been a bilateral meeting, other than the conference, in which express commitment has been shown by the leadership of the UK towards the idea of loot recovery.The UK has shown extra commitment apart from the resolution that was unanimously passed at the conference. Nigeria was treated as a priority in terms of execution of such commitment.While giving the assurance that Nigeria would soon start reaping the benefits of the international conference, the minister admitted that the resolution reached with other nations in London was not within the nations exclusive control.This is not something that we are exclusively in control of, but honestly there is a great goodwill and great commitment working mutually. So, very soon, Nigeria will start reaping the benefit, he said.A 34-paragraph communique issued at the end of the London conference was captured under three sub-themes  Exposing corruption; punishing the corrupt; and supporting those who have suffered from corruption and driving out corruption.Repatriation of proceeds of corruption to the victim nation is part of the resolution reached at the conference.The communique read in part, The proceeds of corruption should be identified, seized, confiscated and returned, consistent with the provisions of UNCAC. We will continue to strengthen our legal frameworks for asset recovery. We will work together to enforce confiscation orders across borders including, where legal systems allow, administrative freezes, non-conviction-based confiscation orders or unexplained wealth orders. We will ensure that we have the authority to take prompt action, where possible, in response to requests by foreign countries to identify, freeze, seize and confiscate the proceeds of corruption.We will afford one another the widest measure of cooperation and support, applying the provisions of UNCAC and other relevant international instruments or mechanisms to which our countries may be a party to.We recognise that resolving complex asset recovery cases is assisted by partnership and cooperation between requesting and requested states.Recognising the importance of strong political commitment and interaction, and building on the experience of existing regional fora, we welcome proposals for a Global Asset Recovery Forum to be held in 2017, co-hosted by the United States and United Kingdom, with support from the joint World Bank and UNODC Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR), which will focus on assistance to Nigeria, Ukraine, Tunisia and Sri Lanka. We will also support a broader use of the global and regional asset recovery inter-agency networks to obtain investigative and legal assistance in tracing and freezing the proceeds of corruption.
The House of Representatives in Nigeria on Monday began a special session to deliberate on the Federal Governments announcement of an inc...

The House of Representatives in Nigeria on Monday began a special session to deliberate on the Federal Governments announcement of an increase in the price of Premium Motor Spirit known as Petrol.However, plenary degenerated into a rowdy session, as lawmakers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) refused to allow the Minister of State For Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, to be admitted into the chamber.The Minister was invited to brief lawmakers on the situation in the petroleum sector.But the PDP lawmakers waved the National flag, singing protest songs and were hell bent on not allowing the Minister entry into the Representatives chamber.The lawmakers, who were on recess had convened a special session to question the Minister on the decision of the government to hike price at a period the nation was facing its worse petrol scarcity crisis.Dr. Kachikwu on May 11 announced a new price band of 145 Naira per litre of petrol, linking the hike to the difficulty in getting foreign exchange and the inability of the nations refineries to produce at optimum capacity to cushion scarcity that has lasted for over five months.
Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari needs to address grievances in the Delta region where militants have been blowing up oil pipelines ...

Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari needs to address grievances in the Delta region where militants have been blowing up oil pipelines in a conflict that has become a major concern, a senior British official said yesterday.The swamps of the southern Delta have been hit by a series of attacks on pipelines and other oil and gas facilities that have reduced Nigerias output by 300,000 barrels a day, closed a major export port and two refineries.Nigeria has moved in army reinforcements to hunt the militants but British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond said Buhari needed to the deal with the root causes because a military confrontation could end in disaster. Crude sales from the Delta account for 70 percent of national income in Africas biggest economy but residents, some of whom sympathise with the militants, have long complained of poverty.Its obviously a major concern, Hammond told reporters on the sidelines of a regional security conference in Abuja when asked about the Delta situation. The idea that your answer is by moving big chunks of the Nigerian army to the Delta simply doesnt work, he said, adding that the army did not have the capacity while fighting Boko Haram jihadists in the north. It wont deal with the underlying issues.Buhari has got to show as a president from the north that he is not ignoring the Delta, that he is engaging with the challenges in the Delta, Hammond said. Buhari is a Muslim from the north who has not visited the Christian Delta since taking office a year ago, something highlighted by a militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers, which has claimed a string of attacks on pipelines. The group has warned oil firms to leave the region within two weeks and says it is fighting for independence for the Delta. It has said it wanted a greater share of oil revenues and an end to oil pollution.The attacks have driven Nigerian oil output to near a 22-year low and, if the violence escalates into another insurgency, it could cripple output in a country facing a growing economic crisis. Buhari, who has not commented about not visiting the Delta, has extended a multi-million dollar amnesty signed with militants in 2009 but upset them by ending generous pipeline protection contracts. He also cut the amnesty budget by around 70 percent, which partly funds training for unemployed.
Opinion / Columnist

Zimbabwe's economic decline is there for all the world to see; 90% unemployment rate, millions now living in abject poverty, education and health services that have all but collapsed, etc. The root causes of the economic mess are not hard to discern; the decades of mismanagement, corruption and lawlessness. What is near impossible to understand, especially to outsiders, is why Mugabe, the man at the heart of the misrule, has managed to stay in power for the last 36 years and is the favourite to win in the next elections set for 2018 given the country holds regular elections!What the outsiders have to understand is that Zimbabwe is a multi-party democracy on paper but a de facto one party dictatorship in practice. Mugabe has become the grandmaster at holding undemocratic elections, claim they were free, fair and credible and get away with it. Having corrupt and incompetent political opponents has worked in the tyrant's favour, the ease with which he has again and again set them off on a wild goose chase is uncanny!"The likes of (ZimPF leader Joice) Mujuru are boasting saying we have many supporters, and we said its okay, we will see come 2018. Let the likes of (Dzikamai) Mavhaire and (Kudakwashe) Bhasikiti boast, while at their People First party with Mai Mujuru there," Mugabe boasted in turn."Those who cross the floor, we say go. You were bringing disharmony, leave us in peace in Zanu PF."The likes of (MDC-T leader Morgan) Tsvangirai are having pot bellies and are relaxed because of Zanu PF and you are now hoarding women and we leave you with your traits. We only ask; How has Zanu PF erred? Show us then how you want to run the country'? They want to return the farms to the whites," Mugabe charged.If Zimbabwean elections were won or lost on the basis of one's ability or otherwise to run the country then Mugabe would certainly have been kicked out of office a long time ago. Zanu PF made a big song and dance about the party's 2013 economic recovery plan, the $27 billion ZimAsset, and promised it would deliver 2.2 million new jobs. The people of Zimbabwe were not easily fooled; they have heard Mugabe promise economic prosperity a thousand times but never delivered. Mugabe himself knew the people would not be fooled and hence the reason he spent his time, energy and billions of dollars in treasure in the elaborate and very expensive vote rigging scheme. He threw ZimAsset as a decoy to draw the attention of his political opponents away from the democratic reforms and it worked.Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were supposed to implement the democratic reforms necessary to ensure the elections in 2013 were free and fair; they wasted the golden opportunity formulating their own economic blueprint Jobs, Upliftment, Investment, Capital and the Environment or JUICE to match Zanu PF's ZimAsset decoy.Without even one reform in place, Mugabe went on to blatantly rig the 2013 elections and retain his iron grip on political power. MDC-T's JUICE plan never saw the light of day but so did ZimAsset because the party failed to get anyone to bankroll it but Mugabe knew that would happen, it was a decoy.Since the rigged 2013 elections the MDC opposition parties vowed to implement the democratic reforms necessary to stop Mugabe rigging the next elections and yet three years down the line still not even one reform has been implemented. Tendai Biti's PDP has since produced its own economic blueprint HOPE and so has Joice Mujuru's ZimPF with its BUILD in response to Mugabe's challenge of how "to run the country".If no reforms are implemented before the 2018 elections then Mugabe will once again blatantly rig the elections, claim they were free and fair and, once again, get away with it!The greatest challenge for this nation since we attained our independence in 1980 has been to make the independence work for all our people and not just the select few in power as has happened. 36 years after independence and we still have not figured out how to create a free, fair, just and prosperous Zimbabwe! Until we figure out how, this country will never ever get out of the economic and political hell-hole Mugabe has landed us in. Never!Zimbabwe is not the first nation to find itself in the misfortune of being ruled by a corrupt and murderous tyrant, many other nations have suffered a similar fate. They suffered for a long time until they devised meaningful political change to deliver good governance. Whilst we do not need to devise what constitute meaningful political change, reinventing the wheel; there is a body of historic evidence to show that what we need are meaningful political changes, democratic reforms, to guarantee the individual freedoms and human rights including the right to free and fair elections and the right to life itself.Our political challenge is to demand the implementation of the democratic reforms to ensure Zimbabwe is a healthy and functional multi-party democracy on paper and in practice!
The Rivers State Chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, has described the recent boast by the governor of Rivers State, Chief Nyesom W...

The Rivers State Chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, has described the recent boast by the governor of Rivers State, Chief Nyesom Wike that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would win the entire South-South States in 2019 as dim-witted wishful thinking.The party in a statement signed by its spokesman, Senibo Chris Finebone said the APC is not surprised at such conceited and arrogant boast which confirms that the PDP as a party is populated by individuals who have no place for God in the affairs of men. Indeed, it is only God who can pronounce with finality what will happen in the future, no man can do that with any level of certainty.The statement reads: For the PDP and its accidental leaders like Gov. Nyesom Wike, they have not learnt anything from their calamitous past and recent woeful defeat at the polls despite their earlier boasts that they would rule Nigeria for 60 years. It is possible that this kind of boasts by the present court-jesters of the PDP such as Nyesom Wike and Ayo Fayose are meant to hide their real intention which is to finally sing the Nunc Dimitis for the party on 21st of May in Port Harcourt.Today, the PDP has many factions each equally battle ready going into its national convention. These factions assume two alignments namely, the PDP indigenes and PDP settlers. While the PDP indigenes are made up of the original founders and early joiners of the party, the PDP settlers are the likes of Governors Nyesom Wike and his bosom friend Ayo Fayose who accidentally find themselves in position of authority in the party and are making real dubious and mischievous use of their new-found positions.Rather than continue on the part of finally burying the PDP on May 21 in Port Harcourt, which the PDP Settlers (Governors Wike, Fayose and others) have embarked upon, the Rivers State governor prefers to provide their followers with morose comic relief that the PDP will dominate the South-South in 2019. It is important to remind Gov. Wike that only the living praises Jehovah. Of concern to him should be how to help the PDP wriggle out of the present stifling stranglehold of indigene/settler conflict within the party before casting its sight on future Nigerian political turf.In any case, it is the highest display of dimwittedness for Gov Nyesom Wike to boast about a party that controlled the Federal Government of Nigeria and majority of states for 16 years to so soon becoming a local geopolitical zone player. What a governor, what wisdom!It needs to be mentioned that it is of no interest to Rivers people that a onetime behemoth (PDP) that strutted the Nigerian political landscape like a colossus for 16 years is to be finally buried in Port Harcourt in less than a week from now with our governor as the presiding clergyman except for the huge cost burden this expensive funeral has imposed on the Rivers taxpayer.
RIDGEWOOD - A Cliffside Park woman was arrested last week and accused of stealing money and valuables worth more than $50,000, authorities said.

Sussan Lopez, 29, was arrested Thursday, several weeks after a Ridgewood doctor complained to police that one of his employees had been stealing from him and his business, Acting Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal said in a statement.

Lopez, an administrative assistant, is accused of forging checks and using the doctor's business-office account to make online payments. Lopez "fraudulently created and utilized an American Express corporate account using the doctor's office corporate identity," the prosecutor said.

The value of the monies stolen and goods purchased was in excess of $50,000, according to Grewal.

Lopez was arrested at her home in Cliffside Park. She faces theft and forgery charges, Grewal said.

Bail was set at $35,000.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
CAMDEN -- After plans to lay off or reassign more than 150 Camden City School District teachers and support staff were announced last week, a rally to oppose the move is scheduled for Monday afternoon.

Members of CWA Local 1079, which represents city school district employees, plan to rally ahead of the state-run school district's advisory board meeting. However, school district officials say they've been "very generous" with union members in the past.

"By trying to unfairly fire all these workers, the superintendent is showing he doesn't care if the schools are clean or maintained nor does he care about throwing more Camden families into unemployment and poverty," Jim McAsey, a CWA national staff representative, said in an email. "It's shameful and we are going to fight back with everything we've got."

In all, 22 teachers, 27 staff members -- ranging from clerks to security guards and custodians -- along with 29 central office staffers could lose their jobs.

"These workers, constituting 20 percent of the membership of CWA Local 1079, are Camden residents and most are alumni of the schools. Many of them have kids, some of whom are students of the district," the union argues.

The decision announced last Thursday stems from a $39 million budget gap in the $372 million budget for the 2016-2017 school year, although some are being cut due to performance issues while others will be able to re-apply for newly-created positions.

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, school district spokesman Brendan Lowe said the cutbacks were made to appropriately align staffing levels with distinct needs and that schools will continue to be "well supported."

"We are continuously assessing the needs of our students and the needs of our schools," Camden schools Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard said when asked about the new positions being created.

In 2014, plans to lay off more than 200 district teachers were announced although the Inquirer notes about half were recalled.

In an email, CWA members say the move is being carried out "carelessly and callously." Further, they claim it "unjustly" targets Black and Latino custodians and maintenance workers who earn about $35,000 annually compared to the salary of Rouhanifard which they peg as just over $200,000.

Rouhanifard said Monday that while its true the union represents Black and Latino workers, it's "untrue" to allege the school district is "targeting" the minority employees.

"We've been very clear with out staff about how important they are," Rouhanifard said, adding that the then contract-less union members received a "very generous" retroactive pay agreement when Rouhanifard came into the district.

Further, the district has worked with CWA members to negotiate a shared services agreement with the city's "Renaissance" schools that saved custodial positions.

While he doesn't except the proposed plan to "chance significantly," Rouhanifard said it could be re-visited on a "case-by-case basis."

Monday's 5 p.m. rally will be held at the Davis Family School, located at 3425 Cramer St., in Camden.

Greg Adomaitis may be reached at gadomaitis@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregAdomaitis. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Wendell Pierce

Wendell Pierce, a star of HBO's "The Wire," will be this year's commencement speaker at Rutgers-Newark. (Richard Shotwell | Invision/AP)

(Richard Shotwell)

NEWARK -- Rutgers-Newark is switching commencement speakers after its original honoree was arrested over the weekend, campus officials said Monday.

Wendell Pierce, star of HBO's "The Wire," was arrested Saturday and charged with battery after a fight at an Atlanta hotel just days before he was scheduled to pick up an honorary degree and serve as Rutgers-Newark's commencement speaker.

"This morning Rutgers University- Newark was informed by actor and humanitarian Wendell Pierce that in order to assure that commencement 2016 will be a celebration of the accomplishments of our students free of distractions, he is declining to join us and consequently must decline the conferral of an honorary degree," Rutgers officials said in a statement.

Pierce will be replaced by journalist Soledad O'Brien, Rutgers officials said. O'Brien will deliver the commencement address to Rutgers-Newark students at Wednesday's ceremony at the Prudential Center in Newark.

"I'm excited and looking forward to it!!" O'Brien said on her Twitter account shortly after the announcement.

Pierce has not commented publicly about his arrest Saturday. An Atlanta police spokesman said the actor was arrested at the Loews Atlanta Hotel early Saturday morning after a fight. No details of the alleged altercation were released.

Pierce was arrested on a charge of simple battery and released on $1,000 bond, according to the jail website.

The New Orleans native, best know for "The Wire" and "Treme," was slated to receive an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Rutgers before his commencement address.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
PHILADELPHIA -- The award-winning composer and star of "Hamilton" told graduates at the University of Pennsylvania on Monday that their "stories are essential" and "immigrants get the job done" in a speech that dropped references to "The Office," Wawa hoagies, Rocky Balboa, soft pretzels and scrapple.

The speech came just one day after President Obama delivered a historic commencement speech at Rutgers, making it an especially fertile commencement season for the region.

Lin-Manuel Miranda launched his speech by offering an apology for the absence of any mention of Philadelphia or Pennsylvania, with the exception of one reference to the Liberty Bell, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning show "Hamilton: An American Musical." Miranda also made amends on behalf of Alexander Hamilton for his part in moving the U.S. Capital from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.

"But take the long view, Motown Philly," Miranda said, "who really won that deal in the end? Look at D.C. It's synonymous with institutional dysfunction, partisan infighting and political gridlock. You are known as the birthplace of Louisa May Alcott, Rocky Balboa, Boyz II Men, Betsy Ross, Will Smith, Isaac Asimov, Tina Fey, cheesesteaks and you can have scrapple, soft pretzels and Wawa hoagies whenever you want. You win, Philly. You win every time."

Miranda then added, "water ice."

The Wesleyan University graduate, who was awarded a honorary doctor of arts degree at the ceremony, told the graduating class that for every detail he chose to dramatize in "Hamilton," there were 10 he left out.

"This act of choosing, the stories we tell versus the stories we leave out, will reverberate across the rest of your life," he said.

Miranda then recounted two stories, one from when he was a sophomore in college and began experiencing shoulder pain as his girlfriend, who Miranda no longer wanted to be with, was returning home from a semester abroad.

A doctor, Miranda said, told him there was nothing physically wrong with him and that he was trying to avoid going through pain or causing pain, which he would have to endure to become an artist. Miranda said he broke up with his girlfriend and she is now happily married and has two children with a man she started dating soon after they split.

Miranda said in his ex-girlfriend's story he is the "obstacle in the way of the real love story. For you 'Office' fans, they're Jim and Pam and I'm Roy."

Miranda also told a story about meeting with a veteran theater producer about his show, "In The Heights," while he was still working as a substitute teacher to pay the bills. The producer suggested changing the storyline of the character Nina Rosario, the first in her family to go to college, to make her pregnant, in an abusive relationship or on drugs to "ramp up the stakes of their story."

Miranda said his director talked him out of going down that path and ultimately they got the show to Broadway telling Nina's story the way they wanted to, a story that Miranda said still "keeps coming back around in his life" in letter and conversations with people who connected with the character and what she was going through.

"And I think to myself as these strangers tell me their Nina stories, I do understand and that sounds pretty high stakes to me," Miranda said.

Miranda told the students that their "stories are essential."

"Don't believe me?" Miranda said. "In a year when politicians traffic in anti-immigrant rhetoric, there is also a Broadway musical reminding us that a broke, orphan immigrant from the West Indies built our financial system, a story that reminds us that since the beginning of the great unfinished symphony that is our American experiment time and time again immigrants get the job done."

The speech was widely hailed on social media, with people saying it brought them to tears and calling it the "best commencement speech" they've ever heard.

Erin O'Neill may be reached at eoneill@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @LedgerErin. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
PHILADELPHIA -- Leo Sheng caught the attention of two police officers on bicycle patrol in Philadelphia earlier this year.

The 27-year-old city resident wasn't involved in any nefarious activity. He was watching over three fishing rods he had set up on the banks of the Schuylkill River with the goal of reeling in a few channel catfish.

"You ever catch them before here?" one of the officers asked Sheng in an encounter caught on video.

"Yes, absolutely," Sheng said. "There's a lot of fish in this river."

The skepticism is not new for anglers like Sheng who regularly cast out into the Schuylkill River. The river, part of which was described as an "immense septic tank" in the late 1920s, long-suffered from pollution. But efforts over the last 50 years to revitalize the river that cuts through the heart of Philadelphia have helped the urban waterway rebound.

While the river still faces challenges, officials point to the variety of fish that have been found there as a testament to its rebirth. More than 50 different species of fish, including shad, striped bass and herring, have been documented in the river since 2002, according to Joe Perillo, an aquatic biologist with the Philadelphia Water Department. The increased diversity, Perillo said, indicates an increase in water quality.

But officials and fishing enthusiasts say many still assume the river is not capable of sustaining any form of life.

"People are constantly surprised that there are even fish in the river," said Danielle Gray, the director of marketing and development for the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, a group working to revitalize the river from from the Fairmount Dam to the Delaware River.

Gray described anglers, like Sheng, as "our best advocates because they are out there everyday" and informing people about the many species of fish that can be found in the Schuylkill River.

Sheng, who describes himself as a multi-species angler, started fishing on the Schuylkill River a few years after moving to the city from Brazil, where he was born and raised, picking up a sport he knew from his childhood as he continued to adapt to a foreign culture. He said he was often asked, as he still is today, whether he really caught fish in the river.

Many people, he said, "had no idea that the Schuylkill River was such a good place to fish at." In a 2014 blog post on the Schuylkill River Development Corporation's website, Sheng wrote that "the Schuylkill River is the best fishing location in the heart of the City of Brotherly Love."

Leo Sheng, who runs the Extreme Philly Fishing blog and YouTube channel, fishes for flathead catfish north of the Girard Avenue bridge along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. (Erin O'Neill | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Sheng said he started his blog, Extreme Philly Fishing, in 2011 as a way to share information to the public and convey his love and passion for the sport. More than 11,000 people now subscribe to his YouTube channel and he also keeps his followers updated through Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

As he was fishing for flathead catfish -- an invasive species that was first spotted in the Schuylkill watershed in the late 1990s -- north of the Girard Avenue bridge on a windy May morning, Sheng said he's always looking to catch new types of fish.

"Sometimes I catch a fish that is three, four inches, like half the size of my hand, but if it is a new species for me, if it is a type of fish that I have never seen before, if it is a discovery in terms of exploration ... it astonishes me," he said. "I'm actually happy about it."

Sheng said he throws back nearly everything he catches in the city, unless he's using it for bait. But state guidelines do allow for limited consumption of certain fish caught in the Schuylkill River and other urban waterways and people do eat fish caught in those rivers.

Perillo, however, said he has noticed a recent shift in the type of fishermen being drawn to the bank of the Schuylkill River. More people are catching and releasing fish, rather than taking than home, and traveling further distances to fish the Schuylkill River, he said.

"We are seeing more people, not a lot more, but it's not just the guy who's walking out of the Fairmount neighborhood to go fish for catfish," he said.

Chris McIntee also releases whatever he catches on the Schuylkill River. The 27-year-old, who runs a YouTube channel, Sea-Money Fishing, which has more than 25,000 subscribers, said he's generally looking for the biggest catfish he can find when he's fishing on the river.

McIntee said he first started fishing on the river about 15 years ago and has seen an uptick in the number of people fishing there, particular in the last five years.

While McIntee said some still wrongly consider the river "a polluted cesspool," he also said that more people are coming to understand "what is in the Schuylkill and that people can actually catch pretty cool fish out there."

Two years ago a fisherman near the Fairmount Dam caught and released a shortnose sturgeon, which is listed as an endangered species and had never before been recorded to be in the Schuylkill River.

Perillo described the photo that fisherman snapped with the fish, which is sensitive to low levels of oxygen, as "worth a thousand words."

"Seeing these kind of symbols of the river and river health and river quality starting to come back, it's very special," he said.

Erin O'Neill may be reached at eoneill@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @LedgerErin. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
WOODBURY -- A Williamstown woman has been indicted on charges including attempted murder after allegedly shooting her husband during an argument in 2015, according to the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office.

Pamela G. Maddox, 53, of Monroe Township, is charged with attempted murder in the shooting of her husband. (Salem County Correctional Facility)

Pamela G. Maddox, 54, is accused of shooting her husband, Teddy, twice in the shoulder during a dispute at the couple's Ironwood Drive home on Sept. 8.

The argument stemmed from a workplace dispute, police said at the time of the incident. Both worked at a laboratory in Pennsylvania.

After the shooting, Teddy Maddox took the weapon, a .38 caliber handgun, and fled to a neighbor's home to seek help, authorities said.

Pamela Maddox was arrested at her home without incident and the gun was recovered from the bushes outside of the couple's home.

Maddox was indicted on charges of first-degree attempted murder, second-degree aggravated assault/causing serious bodily injury, third-degree terroristic threats and second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.

Following her arrest, Maddox was jailed on $150,000 bail.

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.
Top 10 Hudson County political stories of 2013

Ex-Jersey City Assemblyman Charles Mainor is toying with running for mayor in 2017. See the full story here.

(Jersey Journal file photo)

JERSEY CITY -- Mainor for mayor?

Charles Mainor, the now-retired police detective who spent six years in the Assembly, is adding his name to the ever-growing list of folks toying with running for mayor of Jersey City next year.

A polling firm has been calling residents citywide in recent days asking about voters' top issues, seeking opinions about various Jersey City pols and, according to several people who were polled, asking multiple questions about Mainor.

Mainor, 49, said he is not behind the poll, but a group he said would like him to become the next mayor is. He declined to identify them.

"They told me they truly believe I can win this," he said.

Mainor was once the driver for the late Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham. He ran unsuccessfully for the Assembly in 2006 without official Democratic Party backing but ran with it in 2009 and won handily.

He spent six years in the Assembly without any notable scandals. In 2009, one of his Jersey City properties was foreclosed, which he characterized as a man-of-the-people moment. In 2012, he called the Philadelphia Eagles "gaybirds" on Facebook, which led to an apology. The following year, Facebook landed him in hot water again when he clicked "like" on the page "Big Bootie Freaks," a story that gave him his first and likely only mention on "The Daily Show."

As a lawmaker, Mainor earned the ire of gun rights advocates for his push to toughen New Jersey's gun laws. He also emphasized the importance of father-son relationships via his annual "Ties That Bond" dinners. Last year, he launched a nonprofit intended to partner boys ages 10 to 17 with adult mentors.

He intended to run for reelection last year but was dropped from the party line and replaced, eventually, with now-Assemblywoman Angela McKnight.

Voters next year will go to the polls in either May or November to cast ballots for mayor and all nine seats on the City Council.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
HOBOKEN -- Bernie Sanders may not have been in Hudson County today, but it was hard to tell from the dedicated number of supporters of the candidate who cheered and chanted up Washington Street.

More than 100 people gathered in Hoboken this afternoon for a march and rally in support of the Vermont senator's presidential campaign. Organized by a grassroots Facebook group, most marchers said they support Sanders for his progressive views and believe he is a candidate who can unify the nation.

"We're here to raise awareness of him, and his issues," said Marc Adamo, one of the event's organizers. "Another goal is to help the community register voters and remind people that primary day is coming. This is a very important election."

Sanders trails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. His supporters, however, believe Sanders can still beat Clinton if he wins the remaining primaries. New Jersey is set to hit the polls on June 7.

For Cintrella Daniels and her boyfriend Webster Phillips -- both 22 of Bergen County -- Sanders appeals to them because they said he has consistently supported equality in his political tenure.

"We feel like he's the only candidate that can relate to our African American struggles," Daniels said.

While attending the University of Chicago, Sanders participated in a movement against the school's segregated housing policy, Business Insider reported.

As supporters made their way up Washington Street, they were greeted with cheers by many driving or walking in the city.

Halfway through the walk, one resident yelled out his window that he was voting for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. The walkers, however, just continued to chant "New Jersey wants Bernie."

The group ended their march with a rally outside Maxwell's Tavern, chanting "Who beats Trump in all the polls? Bernie Sanders trumps that troll."

Inside the business, 25-year-old Kyle Moore -- wearing a black and white striped prisoner suit -- said he's behind Sanders because he is open to states legalizing marijuana and is against mass incarceration.

The Burlington County resident said he participated in the "Democracy Spring" march in Washington D.C. last month, aimed at getting "big money out of politics." Moore said he was one of more than 1,000 people arrested.

Moore is a member of the East Coast Cannabis Coalition and has been organizing "smoke outs" with the NJ Weedman.

According to CNN, Sanders trails Clinton by 778 delegates, with Clinton less than 150 delegates away from the nomination.
The federal government plans to pour $125 million into the fight against a mysterious disease that has ravaged corals in Florida and much of the Caribbean, and now poses a dire threat to the treasured reefs off the Louisiana and Texas coasts.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump. The nine-member panel sent a letter to the former president's lawyers on Friday, demanding his testimony under oath by mid-November and outlining a series of corresponding documents. The decision by lawmakers to exercise their subpoena power comes a week after the committee made its final case against the former president, who they say is the "central cause" of the multi-part effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It remains unclear how Trump and his legal team will respond to the subpoena, if at all.
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Average retail gasoline prices in Chattanooga have fallen 2.3 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $2.01 per gallon on Sunday, according to GasBuddy's daily survey of 170 gas outlets in Chattanooga. This compares with the national average that has increased 1.7 cents per gallon in the last week to $2.22 per gallon, according to gasoline price website GasBuddy.com.

Including the change in gas prices in Chattanooga during the past week, prices Sunday were 47.8 cents per gallon lower than the same day one year ago and are 10.1 cents per gallon higher than a month ago. The national average has increased 10.9 cents per gallon during the last month and stands 48.2 cents per gallon lower than this day one year ago. The national average has increased 10.9 cents per gallon during the last month and stands 48.2 cents per gallon lower than this day one year ago.

According to GasBuddy historical data, gasoline prices on May 16 in Chattanooga have ranged widely over the last five years:

$2.49 in 2015, $3.47 in 2014, $3.20 in 2013, $3.41 in 2012 and $3.73 in 2011.

Areas nearby Chattanooga and their current gas price climate:

Knoxville- $2.04, down 1.3 cents per gallon from last week's $2.06.

State of Tennessee- $2.04, down 0.9 cents per gallon from last week's $2.05.

Huntsville- $2.04, flat from last week's $2.04.

As the national average for retail gas prices appeared to be headed for a week over week decrease, prices popped back up thanks to a late-week surge by Great Lake states," said Will Speer, senior petroleum analyst with GasBuddy.com. "While pockets of significant gas price hikes were prevalent, especially in regions such as the Pacific Northwest and Rockies, 22 states actually had prices decrease. So, as states struggled to agree on the movement of gas prices, the national average barely moved as a result, only increasing a penny per gallon in one weeks time. With the Memorial Day holiday two weeks away, it marks the kickoff to the summer driving season. Gasoline demand that has already been strong this year will undoubtedly see a huge seasonal increase in demand. This paired with crude prices that continue to show signs of strength are going to keep further pressure on gas prices this summer.
Purdue University Calumet

(Now Purdue University Northwest, Hammond Campus)

Location: 2200 169th St., Hammond, Ind.

Phone: (219) 989-2400

Purdue University Calumet did not start out as an adult education institution.

We do not advertise the university as an adult education university, says Wes Lukoshus, assistant vice chancellor for advancement. Our roots are a traditional university offering associate, bachelors, and masters degrees.

But to address their popularity with adult students, I really believe the answer lies in the quality of our faculty and staff, Lukoshus explains. We are a service oriented group with a keen focus on offering our students exactly what they need, when they need it.

While all students need a quality education for their dollar, not all of them need a standard 15-credit-hour, full-time semester. A significant number of our students work, whether its full-time or part-time, he adds. That means they need the ability to have a flexible schedule that allows them time to work, study, attend class, and have time for family life.

The faculty members at Purdue University Calumet make it a priority to be very understanding and flexible, and to work with their students to assist them with time management. How well they accomplish that goal is reflected in the exit surveys. When graduates are asked what made the difference for them here at Purdue, the number one answer is the faculty and staff, Lukoshus explains. Its our people and their skill sets that make our graduates prepared for the world around them.

SECOND PLACE: Valparaiso University

1700 Chapel Drive

Valparaiso, Ind.

(219) 464-5000

THIRD PLACE: Indiana University Northwest

3400 Broadway Ave.

Gary, Ind.

(888) 968-7486
U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Merrillville, hopes to talk with President Barack Obama about the surge of steel imports flooding the United States, grabbing a higher market share than in the early 2000s, when more than 30 American steelmakers went out of business.

Visclosky and Congressional Steel Caucus Chairman Tim Murphy wrote a letter to Obama requesting a meeting to discuss the cheap imports that have been blamed for more than 13,500 steelworkers layoffs nationwide.

The Congressional Steel Caucus wrote in the letter foreign countries have evaded U.S. trade laws and manipulated currencies to keep their exports artificially cheap. They warned of economic catastrophe if China were granted market status by the World Trade Organization, giving it a green light to send more steel to U.S. ports.

Chinas government-owned and government-supported steel companies subsidize their low-quality steel products to the threshold where American producers can no longer compete on a fair playing field, Visclosky and Murphy wrote in the letter. Recognition of China as a market economy by the WTO would be devastating to the American steel market and its supply chain costing upwards of 600,000 additional job losses and sending catastrophic shock waves across the entire United States economy.

Theyve been calling upon the administration to enforce laws Congress passed to restrict imports, such as by allowing U.S. Customs to initiate investigations into companies trying to duck tariffs by misrepresenting what country the steel actually came from.

Congress has acted to support the American steel industry, said Visclosky, who is vice chairman of the Congressional Steel Caucus. It is now time for the administration to take the next step. I look forward to meeting with President Obama to discuss how we can work together to address the surge of illegal steel imports and defend the American steelworkers and steel producers who provide an invaluable foundation to our communities and national security.

Visclosky and Murphy said the situation is dire after steel dumping caused many steel mills around the country to close their doors. Steel dumping is when foreign steelmakers sell steel here at a loss or for less than they could in their home country.

The congressional representatives are asking Obama to ensure that China still has non-market economy status in the World Trade Organization so the United States can continue to impose the same tariffs and aggressively enforce trade laws, including a new one that lets the International Trade Commission use real-time economic data when considering duties.

Our efforts mark the first time in over 20 years Congress has made such an impact to our nations trade remedy laws to protect American steelworkers and industry from the onslaught of foreign illegal trade, Murphy said. The legislation is in place, the administration has the tools but now they must take action. I look forward to meeting with President Obama to work together to ensure strong enforcement standards remain at the forefront of this administrations agenda.
Becky Jascoviak, producer of Valparaisos Memorial Opera Houses staging of This Is My Brave, expects nearly all attendees to be touched by the true tales told in her production, which puts the spotlight on mental health.

Whether they themselves deal with mental illness or whether they love someone in their family or friends with mental illness, so many people have the same issues, she said. I want people to feel that theyre not alone.

Running for one night only on May 19, Brave finds 14 people, either afflicted with or a family and friend of a person diagnosed with mental illness, recalling their experiences, struggles, philosophies and triumphs through music, poetry and essays.

Brave is a collaboration between Memorial Opera House and a non-profit of the same name as the production. Headquartered in Virginia, This is My Brave, Inc. promotes mental health issues and awareness on its website and stages productions similar to the May 19 show throughout the country.

Past East Coast and West Coast productions were performed to capacity crowds, and Memorial Opera Houses Brave event is the lone Chicagoland show on the current roster.

Jascoviak was introduced to the organization through its website and via social network sites last year around this time, as several organizations deem May as Mental Health Awareness Month.

I did a little bit of research into ('Brave') and saw that they do these shows and thought gosh, were a theater organization and weve got to do these shows, she said. As a theater person, I recognize the absolute value of story, and this is an advocacy group that depends on story rather than classes or workshops.

Jascoviak also thinks the theater setting is a proper environment to bring these real-life tales and lessons to the masses.

Its a program, an event, she said. We all know that we are going to be talking about (mental illness) so lets open the door to talk about it, as opposed to saying lets have a support group and talk about anything. People are more likely to go to something like (Brave).

For more information on This is My Brave, Inc., go to THISISMYBRAVE.ORG

FYI: This is My Brave runs at 7 p.m. May 19 at Memorial Opera House, 104 Indiana Ave., Valparaiso. Cost is $20 in advance, $25 at the door. Call (219) 548-9137 or visit MEMORIALOPERAHOUSE.COM
VALPARAISO  The Cinemark theater on the city's east side was evacuated during a busy period Saturday night after police received a call that a bomb had been placed in the building.

The call, which is believed to have been placed by a male, was made shortly before 9:30 p.m. to the city police department and transferred to county dispatch, which left no caller ID to pursue, according to Valparaiso police.

The busy theater was evacuated without incident and no bomb was found, police said.

The theater was not reopened Saturday night and customers evacuated will be provided with passes to return later, according to police.
GRIFFITH  Police are investigating an armed robbery that reportedly occurred Friday night at the Luke Oil car wash at 1224 E. Ridge Road.

An employee said a man pointed a gun at him through a sweatshirt and demanded money, said Keith Martin, commander of investigations and executive officer at the Griffith Police Department.

The man was given an undetermined amount of money and fled west, Martin said. A police K-9 unit tracked the trail to The Mansards apartment complex nearby, but no one was found.

The man robbing the business was described as black, 6 feet tall and wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, black jeans and white shoes, Martin said.
After a Friday night out on the town, Lionel and our brothers, Michael and Jason, all woke up late Saturday morning and decided to head out for breakfast. We knew exactly where to go, since friends had been recommending the same place since wed first moved to Chattanooga, so to Aretha Frankensteins we headed.

We arrived about noon and drove up and down the tiny, residential streets for some time, looking for a spot to park. Finally, we were out of the car and up the quaint stone stairs to the front porch.

At first, we mistook the customers sitting outside as people who had already been seated and were waiting for food. However, when we went up to the door and gave the host our name, we realized our mistake. The people scattered about the front porch were the line to get in.

Wed expected to wait. Wed been told by all our friends we would have to wait. But we really didnt think it would take the whole hour the host estimated for us to get in.

We were wrong.

I guess when you come here, you better not come already hungry, Lionel bemoaned as we watched other patrons go inside on their turn. You might starve while waiting.

Finally, the name the host called was ours, and the four of us eagerly hurried inside. Once we were seated, I understood the reason for the wait time. There were only 5 tables and a bar.

When I spoke to the server, he told me the restaurant was at capacity at 29, including the staff. They typically wont seat tables with more than six people. On Saturdays and Sundays, from 7 a.m. - 2 p.m. the wait is typically one to two hours long. During the week, it lessens up a bit earlier--around noon.

Since wed had so much time outside the restaurant, we all had pulled the menu up on our phones and decided what wed be ordering. Even so, it still took quite a while for the food to be made.

While we were waiting, again, we took in the atmosphere. Board games, posters, and the fronts of cereal boxes had been framed and hung up all over the walls. Classic metal played overhead, bands like Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Iron Maiden, and Megadeath. Every item in the place was tailored specifically to the eclectic aesthetic. Ive never been in a restaurant quite like it.

When our food finally arrived we were famished, which turned out to be a good thing since the portions were surprisingly large for the prices.

Lionel ordered a breakfast burrito with onions, cheese, red pepper, and sausage ($6.95). It came with fried potatoes, made with jalapenos and onions, and a biscuit. Jason, his brother, also went for the breakfast burrito, his with onions, spinach, cheese, and refried beans ($6.95). He chose cheese grits and a biscuit for his side.

My brother, Michael, got a plate of french toast ($5.95). It didnt come with anything else, so he ordered a side of biscuits and gravy ($2.50). I wanted a classic breakfast feast, so I got 3 eggs, with applewood bacon ($6.95). My plate also came with a choice of toast or a biscuit, fried potatoes or grits, so I got a biscuit and grits. Just to make sure wed covered the basics, I also ordered a single pancake ($2.75).

The food was fantasticall of it. Everyone absolutely loved what theyd gotten. The flavors were unique all around. None of us had ever had potatoes, grits, or sausage gravy quite like we had that morning. The pancake was thicklike an actual cakeand looked like it had been fried in a cast iron skillet. It was buttery, with a consistency rather different than I was used it.

Lionel loved his potatoes. He kept raving about them. Michael couldnt get over his french toast. Jason and I were huge fans of the grits. We were warned they had a spicy kick, and they did, but they turned out to be my favorite part of the meal.

Without a doubt, the wait was worth every minute.

Though he was busy, our server took the time to keep our coffee mugs filled and chatted with us a bit about the restaurant itself. He said even though the place is so popular, theres no plan to ever expand or move. The spirit of Aretha Frankensteins is what it is and intends very much to stay that way.

He also told us that the restaurant was owned by the same partners as the ones who owned Crust Pizza and Sofa King Juicy Burger, which did not come as a surprise, since I have tried and enjoyed the latter.

In the evenings, we were told the atmosphere of Aretha Frankensteins changes a bit. He said it becomes less of a family environment and turns into more of a typical bar.

When we exited the restaurant, stuffed and happy, Lionel changed his mind about just what advice hed tell others.

You should come here hungry, even with the wait, he said.

He was right. Even with four starving adults, wed had to box up our leftovers to-go.

As we walked down the front porch steps, we noticed a screen and projector outside. I asked a server about it, curious.

And right there, Lionel and I fell in love with the place all over again.

Apparently, Aretha Frankensteins often runs old, black-and-white B-horror movies on the porch when the weather is nice.

We would definitely be coming back for that.

Hours: Every Day 7 a.m. - midnight

Location: 518 Tremont Street, Chattanooga, Tn 37405
PORTAGE TOWNSHIP  Police say jealousy stemming from a divorce led a 40-year-old South Haven man to shoot up another mans vehicle Friday night in the 700 block of Baltimore Road and strike a neighboring home in the process.

Donald Furcsik, of the 300 block of Greendale Drive, was arrested Saturday and faces a felony count of criminal recklessness and a misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief, according to Porter County police.

Furcsik reportedly told police he drove by the residence and shot at the Jeep because he was frustrated that the resident was having a relationship with his soon-to-be former wife. The shooting was caught by a security camera.

Furcsik said he used an air gun and pellets to shoot at the vehicle. Police said Furcsik showed them the air gun he used, but police recovered a .22-caliber shell casing from inside Furcsiks vehicle.

The Jeep had several windows damaged or destroyed, and the hard cap on the rear of the vehicle was damaged, police said. It also appears one of the shots passed through the vehicle and into the wall of a neighboring home where the resident was sleeping, police said.

The owner of the vehicle said someone also had slashed all four tires on a van he owns sometime Friday night outside a Portage bar.
VALPARAISO  When police officers are asked to name their top three sources of stress, topping the list is the fear of killing someone in the line of duty, according to Indiana Supreme Court Justice Steven David.

This is followed by a fear of committing an error that results in the injury or death of a fellow first responder and the impact of working irregular hours, he said.

"No where near the top is the fear for themselves," David told county police officers and guests attending the department's annual police memorial event at the local Ivy Tech college.

The event is held to remember officers who have died, especially those who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

Porter County Sheriff Dave Reynolds pushed back against those arguing for police to demilitarize.

"We know crime may be going down, but it's becoming more violent," he said.

One of the four county officers remembered Monday was Edward Blakely, who was ambushed and killed at the age of 47 on Nov. 28, 1961, while investigating a suspicious vehicle on Sedley Road.

Porter County Council President Dan Whitten, D-at-large, had served as a police officer before going on to law school and becoming an attorney.

"My years as a police officer, those are my proudest years," he said.
Under an archway of purple and white balloons, about 1,000 people marched from Highland High School along the bike path from 41st Street to Erie Street on a sunny, yet crisp Sunday morning to end the No. 1 killer of babies in the U.S.: premature birth.

In the sea of marchers, strollers were in high numbers and Lisa Carpenter, division director of March of Dimes Northwest Indiana chapter, commented that this year there were significantly more family teams participating than before.

Beth Wests reason for her first time participating in the march Sunday was cozily bundled up in her arms, 6-month-old Blayze. West, of Portage, said he was born 3 months early and had to be in the hospital neonatal intensive-care unit for 72 days.

It was hard, emotionally, having four kids at home. It was constantly, OK, where do I need to be? At home or in the hospital? West said. The NICU nurses helped a lot, I cant praise them enough, I dont know how I couldve gotten through it without them.

West said while Blayze is now a healthy baby boy, she still panics sometimes when she thinks she doesnt see his chest moving up and down.

As hard as the experience was, I dont think I would change it because it opened my eyes to all that is out there, she said. Be aware, you think its not a big issue but it is. If you see those donation jars, throw some change in if you can spare it. I was fortunate that my son survived, but there are so many that dont.

Her story is not isolated from the rest of Lake and Porter counties, which rank as having the third-highest infant mortality rate of the states 11 hospital regions with a rate of 8 percent, according to the Indiana State Department of Health. And in Indiana, 1 in 7 babies is born preterm.

Michelle Cherry, a board member of March of Dimes Northwest Indiana, said smoking and obesity play huge roles in Lake Countys high amount of infant deaths.

In this area, theres also a high disparity of access to prenatal care, Cherry said, who is also the NICU pediatric manager of Community Hospital in Munster.

And with Americas health care concern in the public eye, the issue of prenatal and infant care doesnt get brought up enough according to two women, whose mission is to bring that care to everyone.

Millie Guevara and Nichelle Corley, outreach enrollment specialists for HealthLinc Community Health Center, see this issue firsthand as they help young mothers find help with prenatal and postnatal care for themselves and their babies. HealthLinc helps both the insured and uninsured, so that no one is turned away.

They said they have seen a rise in increasingly younger and younger girls, some even as young as 14 and 15, needing help and also many single mothers. Corley said they have been visiting high schools and speaking with school nurses to try and reach these women who are in desperate need of information and resources to ensure their baby can live a healthy life.

They just need that head start, Corley said. We didnt have that before. Before, you had a lot of midwives delivering children at home because the family didnt have insurance.

March of Dimes ambassador families Amelia Kowalisyn and Angelica Guzman addressed the crowd before the march began. They shared their experiences of being mothers to prematurely born babies, and the long days and nights spent in the NICU.

A mother of two, Guzman is looking forward to finally knowing what its like to be 9 months pregnant. Her two young sons were both born more than 20 weeks premature, and she had also lost her second born.

I prayed and prayed for God to give me my little boy back. And here he is, I got my Eli, Guzman said, smiling at her youngest son.

As she addressed the crowd, she was 17 weeks pregnant and ready to do her best walking the 5K, confident in her new babys future.

Its important to note that all of the funds raised in Lake County stay right here, Doreen Norris-Stojak said, March of Dimes Northwest Indiana board member said, To help the babies born here.

All who wish to volunteer with March of Dimes can contact Carpenter at lcarpenter@marchofdimes.org.
EAST CHICAGO  The City Council on Monday voted to remove 3rd District Councilman Robert Battle from office.

The 8-0 vote followed a hearing that began at 9 a.m. Monday. At least six council members had to vote in favor of the motion for his removal in order for it to be approved.

Battle was represented at the hearing by his sister, Kim Maxey, who indicated he would appeal the decision.

Battle faces federal drug charges and is accused of fatally shooting Reimundo Camarillo Jr. on Oct. 12 in East Chicago. Battle has claimed self-defense in the shooting.

Battle, who was running unopposed, was re-elected in November while in Porter County Jail. He continues to be held there without bond while awaiting trial.

The council took the vote without discussion following the hearing in which attorney Joe Curosh made the case against Battle. Part of the evidence he presented included documents related to Battles arrest by state and federal officials.

Maxey spoke in support of her brother and said at one point a council decision to remove him would be appealed. Battle has 30 days to file an appeal.

He has not been convicted of anything, she told the council in regard to the criminal charges.

Curosh noted that Battles trial date is set for August and could be delayed again. He also said the odds are he is going to be convicted.

His only witness was former 3rd District Councilman James Ventura, who he questioned about the duties of a council member. Ventura talked about responding to residents in person as well as via other means, the importance of observing firsthand what was going on in the district and the duties of voting on ordinances, including the citys budget.

Curosh said meeting minutes show that Battle has not been present since Oct. 12 and there is no end in sight in terms of when he may return.

Maxey said Battle is well aware of what is going on in the district and has been in contact with constituents, including by email. She also questioned whether proper procedures were being followed regarding holding the hearing and why council attorney Stephen Bower has not provided Battle with assistance.

A caucus of Democratic precinct committee members within the 3rd District will take place to select Battles replacement.
LaPorte County Sheriff's deputies are credited with saving the life of an unresponsive man on Saturday by using Naxolone and CPR to administer aid as he lay next to a vehicle at a gas station at Ind. 39 and U.S. 20, police said.

It is the first use of Naxolone by a LaPorte County sheriff's deputy since it was issued in April 2015, according to a news release from the sheriff's office.

"We hoped that the Narcan that was issued to our deputies would never need to be used, however, we realize that with the epidemic use of heroin, we can be thankful that we have it available and that today, it may very well have saved a life," Sheriff John Boyd said in the release.

Boyd commended Sheriff's Deputies Jeff Wright, Jon Burger, Aaron Stobaugh and Scott Lanoue for their efforts. Burger, Stobaugh and Lanoue were working off-duty detail nearby when the call came in regarding a person not breathing.

Burger started CPR while Stobaugh prepared the Naxolone. Wright, who was the patrol unit dispatched to the call, administered the dose of Naxolone.

The man's heart began beating and shallow breathing returned, the release said.

The Springfield Township Fire Department and LaPorte County Emergency Medical Service arrived, took over medical treatment and transported the victim to LaPorte Hospital.

Evidence of narcotics use was recovered at the scene and a criminal investigation is ongoing. A condition report on the victim is not available and his identity is not being released at this time.
HIGHLAND  Parking on the streets near the Hampton in Highland apartments will now require a residential sticker, the Town Council has decided.

The council's unanimous vote came from a Traffic Safety Committee recommendation after receiving complaints from residents in the adjacent Meadows subdivision.

About a dozen Meadows residents attended a recent safety board meeting, board attorney Rhett Tauber said.

"The Hampton in Highland owners are starting to be very strict at who can park in their parking lot," he said.

Only residents named on the leases are supposed to use the lot, he said.

Guests and people living with the tenants have started parking on nearby residential streets in the Meadows, board members said.

People who are visiting a Hampton tenant can obtain temporary stickers to park on the streets and Meadows residents will need to obtain permanent stickers.

Under the new law, parking is completely prohibited on Prairie Avenue from Azalea to Industrial Drive on the east side.

Parking is also not allowed from the entrance of Prairie Square to Industrial Drive on the west side.

Other non-parking areas are: Azalea from Prairie to Southmoor on the south side; Southmoor from Hart to Azalea on the east side; on the south side of Hart from 9347 Waymond east to Indianapolis Boulevard; and on the south side of Hart from Southmoor to the boulevard.

Parking, with the special permits, is allowed on Prairie from Azalea to the entrance of Prairie Square on the west side of the road.

Parking with a permit is also allowed from 2116 Azalea to Prairie on the south side, and to Southmoor on the north side.

On 44th Street, parking is allowed from 2116 to Prairie on both sides of the road; and on the west side of Southmoor from 9320 to Azalea.

Parking is also allowed on the east side of Southmoor from 9321 to Hart Road; and both sides of Waymond from 9320 to Hart.

"There's a lot of overflow parking from girls softball on Azalea" in May and June every night, Park Superintendent Alex Brown said.

Council President Bernie Zemen, D-1st, said common sense can be used in the enforcement of the new law during the softball season.

Adjustments can also be made to the new law as needed, he said.
UNION TOWNSHIP  Union Center Elementary School was visited by some very famous folks Wednesday afternoon.

Walt Disney showed up as did Michael Jordan, Sally Ride, Orville Redenbacher, Tony Romo, Nikola Tessla and Robert E. Lee to name a few.

Each told their story, via a fourth-grader at the school, during the annual living history museum.

Megan Vincent portrayed the first female astronaut Sally Ride.

"I wanted to be a woman who did something so amazing the world would remember," said Vincent, dressed in a NASA jumpsuit. "She did a lot of stuff people wouldn't know about."

Sam Ampeliotis dressed as Civil War Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan, probably best known for leading the Morgan Raiders.

"He was someone in the Civil War I liked and wanted to research," Ampeliotis said.

Both youngsters said they liked the assignment, especially getting dressed up and presenting their person's life story to family and friends who stopped by as well as other students.

Indiana history teacher Marty Hill said the school has been holding the living history museum for several years. Each fourth-grade class has their own afternoon to present.

The students must choose a character from history, research that person, make a poster board exhibit to highlight his or her life and then be able to memorize and present the person's life story while remaining in character, said Hill.

The project leads up to the students' trip on Friday to Connor Prairie, a living history museum near Indianapolis.

"It ties in to what we have been studying in Indiana history. It hits many of the standards, but is a different way to approach the standards. Not everyone learns best with paper and pencil," Hill said.
LAREDO, Texas  Federal authorities will on Sunday begin to investigate a charter bus crash in far South Texas that killed eight people and injured 44 more in a single-vehicle rollover, officials said.

Seven people died at the scene Saturday morning on U.S. 83, about 46 miles north of Laredo, and another died at a hospital, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Conrad Hein said.

The driver of the bus lost control and rolled over, he said. Everythings real preliminary right now.

Hein said the driver was among the survivors. Hein did not release the identity of the driver or any passengers.

The trooper said it was raining Saturday morning but it was uncertain if that was a factor in the crash that occurred just before 11:30 a.m. He said no other vehicles were in the area at the time.

Our troopers are going to look into what happened but its going to take us some time, he said of the investigation. We just know the driver lost control.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to investigate the wreck starting Sunday morning.

Webb County Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ricardo Rangel told the Laredo Morning Times that the OGA Charters bus was heading to a casino in Eagle Pass, about 125 miles northwest of Laredo. The bus company is based in San Juan, in Hidalgo County in Texas Rio Grande Valley. A message left at the bus company Saturday was not immediately returned.

Hein said 23 people were taken to Doctors Hospital in Laredo, where the eighth victim died. Fifteen were taken to Laredo Medical Center. Seven were taken to a Dimmit County hospital in Carrizo Springs.

Priscilla Salinas, a spokeswoman for Laredo Medical Center, said bus passengers being treated there were in stable condition. She said she could share no additional information.

Laredo is about 150 miles southwest of San Antonio.
If you're a Hoosier Republican like Gov. Mike Pence, mental dexterity drills or a brain-fitness test would be a good idea.

Keeping up on the issues with presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump will require deep thought, cunning scope and adroit maneuvering.

Take Trumps call for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States. He made it last December after jihadist terror attacks in Paris and California, calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our countrys representatives can figure out what is going on. It was something he reiterated in March with NBCs Lester Holt, saying, Theyre destroying Europe. Im not going to let that happen to the United States.

This later morphed into Trump saying it might be OK for rich Muslims to come to America.

In the wake of winning the Indiana primary and the rest of the field fading away, Hoosier Republicans began lining up behind the Trump standard. Pence said in Terre Haute on Thursday, Im going to campaign hard for the Republican nominee because Indiana needs a partner in the White House."

U.S. Rep. Todd Rokita, speaking to Rossville High School students on the same day, responded to a question, I do support Donald Trump for president, and thats because for no other reason than its all relative to other choices in the race.

I posed a question to Pence and Rokita: Do you support Trumps proposed ban of all Muslims entering the United States? And if so, could they cite a law, statute or U.S. Supreme Court decision that would allow a president to ban entry of someone based on their religious preference?

Pences gubernatorial office referred back to a statement he made Dec. 8 when he told the The Times of Northwest Indiana, The United States cannot and should not discriminate on the basis of religion.

Pence referred to Trump's stance as "offensive" and "unconstitutional."

At his campaign kick-off Wednesday, I asked Pence specifically about Trumps proposed Muslim ban. He responded, As you remember in my career, I have disagreed with Republican leaders many times. Ive had more than a few battles with a Republican president over things like spending and big government policies ... I am supporting the presumptive nominee because I need a partner in the White House."

Its one thing to break with a president on spending or entitlement expansion. Its quite another to do so over something offensive and unconstitutional.

But is it unconstitutional? University of Chicago Law School Professor Eric Posner, who is an expert on executive power, calls it a terrible idea and an affront to American values that would not enhance security. But he said there is a 50/50 chance the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold such a ban.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt rounded up Americans of Japanese heritage on the West Coast during World War II and put them into concentration camps. It is one of the nations darkest chapters.

Rokita, whose district is home to the Islamic Society of North America, is an attorney but did not respond to specifics on the Muslim ban, saying he supports Trump because he believes Hillary Clinton is a likely, if not potential, criminal.

Then on Wednesday, Trump demoted his proposed Muslim immigration stance, saying it was a suggestion.

Republicans, particularly those who endorse Trump and offer to campaign for him, will need to get used to this. Trump has made an array of controversial and outrageous statements, including the proposed deportation of 11 million illegal immigrants, defaulting on the national debt and flip-flops on abortion rights and tax cuts for the wealthy.

While some of these ideas poll well, he offers a policy kaleidoscope of moving goalposts where positions shift and morph, perhaps into an alternative universe. No other politician can get away with this. Its important to remember that as an entertainer, Trump can reinvent himself and flip on a whim.

Down-ballot Republicans will likely find themselves hyper-extended as the press and constituents seek to know whether they stand with their nominee  and not knowing whether Trump will shift his position down the road.
WHITING  Police in riot gear arrested about 40 people Sunday afternoon after hundreds marched more than a mile to BP Whiting Refinerys Gate 15 to call for action on climate change.

The group of those arrested sat in a circle in front of the gate, holding hands while chanting and singing. A crowd of onlookers cheered for each person as police got the protesters up one by one and led them to prisoner transport vans.

Those arrested were taken to the East Chicago Public Safety Facility to be booked on a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespass and were expected to be released Sunday on their own recognizance, attorney Roy Dominguez said.

The protest, part of a global campaign over the past 12 days calling for a just transition to renewable energy, went well, said Kevin Whelan, executive director of MN350 and one of those involved in negotiations with local police.

The protesters got what they wanted: a successful nonviolent civil action, he said.

The protest began in the chilly air Sunday afternoon at Whiting Lakefront Park, where people gathered to listen to speakers from national, regional and local organizations.

The Whiting Refinery has been a target for critics, in part, because of a recent $3.8 billion expansion project that enabled the facility to process heavier crude oil, including oil from the Canadian tar sands. Activists also took aim at Enbrige pipelines, some of which run through the Region.

Bill McKibben, a nationally known environmentalist and founder and senior adviser to 350.org, said recently released data showed last month crushed the record for the hottest April on record globally. New data from the Arctic show sea ice has been reduced to the absolute minimum.

McKibben said he has visited with people on islands that will be lost to rising oceans and in Vietnam and Thailand, which are experiencing a record heat wave.

Its very, very real now, McKibben said of climate change.

Our biggest job on this Earth  if you care about justice, if you care about the future, if you care about almost anything  our biggest job is to try and keep it from getting anymore out of control, he said.

McKibben, whose 350.org led the resistance to the Keystone XL Pipeline, said it wasnt initially clear to him that activists would be able to stand up to the power and the money of the fossil fuel industry.

President Barack Obama in November 2015 said he was rejecting the Keystone pipeline proposal, which would have carried Canadian crude oil through the U.S. to ports in the Gulf of Mexico.

I didnt think there was any way that wed actually win, McKibben said. But you know it turns out that when we fight, we pretty often do win.

McKibben pointed to other victories environmenatlists have won in Canada and the United States.

When we fight, we win. So we should probably fight more often, he said.

Still, he cautioned the future remained uncertain.

I wish that I could guarantee that were all going to win in the end, but I cant. We dont know. The physics of climate change is pretty daunting. The momentum of it is pretty big. Were not going to win everything. Were not going to stop global warming. Its too late for that, but the work that youre doing is important," he told the protesters.

Tara Houska, Native American adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and director of Honor the Earth, and others led a large group of protesters from the park to the refinerys Gate 15. One of the many chants they led was This is what democracy looks like.

Sylvia Corpus Stewart stood on her porch on Front Street with her daughters, holding signs supporting BP.

Corpus Stewart said many of her family members work for the Refinery, and she faulted the protesters because many came from outside Northwest Indiana.

One of the protesters attempted to engage Corpus Stewart in a conversation about her support for the company. After a brief exchange, Corpus Stewart told the woman to get off her property.
The Jericho Brass, directed by Frank Hale, will be performing on the May 29, 6 p.m. at the Wildwood United Methodist Church, 436 Birmingham Hwy. in Wildwood, Ga.



The band will be featuring two soloist from within the band. Curt Elverd, local middle school band director, will perform the cornet solo, Napoli; Alex Pittman will perform Fluffy Ruffles on the xylophone.



The band will perform marches, sacred and a novelty piece, Fire In The Church, composed by the band's president, Dan Hanson, with narration written by Skip Houck.



The family friendly concert is free and open to the public.

"Brass bands are making a comeback here in the America, and Chattanooga has had The Jericho Brass since 1998. Our founders are Bill Kinnaman, a local engineer, and Major Otis Street from the Salvation Army. The band has grown in number and talent over the years. Membership in the band is voluntary and our musicians come from all walks of life," official said.To find out more about upcoming concerts, visit www.jerichobrassband.org
CHICAGO  A San Francisco Board of Supervisors member says the city has had preliminary discussions with George Lucas' representatives about building his museum on an island in San Francisco Bay, instead of in Chicago.

A plan to build the Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts along Chicago's Lake Michigan waterfront is on hold due to a parks group's lawsuit. Lucas' wife, Mellody Hobson, recently said that the lawsuit has prompted a search outside the city for a place to build the museum.

San Francisco supervisor Aaron Peskin says the city has spoken with Lucas representatives about Treasure Island, which is a landfill turned into a now-decommissioned naval base that's under redevelopment.

Lucas chose Chicago in 2014 over sites in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
A man convicted of shooting two southern Indiana judges during a fight outside an Indianapolis fast food restaurant in 2019 has been sentenced to eight years in prison. The Marion County Prosecutors Office says a judge sentenced Brandon Kaiser on Friday to 16 years, with eight years to be served in prison followed by six years of probation. A jury convicted Kaiser last month of aggravated battery, multiple battery-related charges and carrying a handgun without a license. He was acquitted on one count of battery resulting in moderate bodily injury in the May 2019 shooting that wounded the two judges outside a downtown Indianapolis White Castle restaurant.
Crossing the line separating Indiana and Illinois sometimes means dealing with different laws and customs. Readers are asked to share ideas for this weekly feature. This week: Judicial selection.

When Gov. Mike Pence appointed Crown Point native Geoffrey Slaughter to the Indiana Supreme Court last week he did not have free reign to choose any Hoosier for the state's highest court.

Pence was required by the Indiana Constitution to select one of three candidates recommended by the state's Judicial Nominating Commission.

That seven-member panel, led by Chief Justice Loretta Rush, evaluated the 30 individuals who applied for the judicial vacancy before nominating three to the governor for his appointment.

The process, known as "merit selection," is intended to identify the best person for the court, regardless of political affiliation, financial resources or personal connections.

In Indiana, it's used for all appellate court appointments and some county courts, including Lake Superior judges.

Illinois Supreme Court justices are elected by voters on a partisan basis.

In 2004, spending by both candidates in an Illinois high court race totaled $9.4 million.
VALPARAISO  Porter County Museum visitors were transported back in time nine decades as they walked around the courthouse square Saturday afternoon.

Accompanied by a brisk breeze and 40-degree temperatures, museum Director Kevin Pazour led about 30 people on a Downtown Walking Tour of the buildings around the square bordered by Indiana Avenue, Washington Street, Lincolnway and Franklin Street.

Welcome to our November tour, Pazour joked.

Having done only one previous walking tour last year, Pazour spoke from just a few notes and said the event is a work in progress.

You are my guinea pigs, said Pazour, who was recently appointed Porter County Historian by the Indiana Historical Society. Most of the stories are in my head.

Pazour asked the group to imagine the townspeople and their businesses in 1926, many of which were destroyed by fire over the years, only to be rebuilt again.

It was a tumultuous time, Pazour said.

At the time, the Memorial Opera House next to the museum bought its first moving picture projector and gasoline service stations were popping up on every street corner thanks to the traffic from the Lincoln Highway running through town.

Pazour highlighted the museums addition, under renovation at 16 Indiana St., and said the building will soon look the way it did a century ago.

The southeast corner of Indiana and Washington was once home to the Merchants Hotel, the first hotel to house businesses  including Boris Kozlenkos clothing store, Louis Leetzs grocery and meats, and Wayne T. Fidler Piano House -- on its main floor.

The Merchants Hotel block was destroyed by fire in 1927 and several years later, Fidler, who never recovered from the loss, committed suicide.

Loss of life and hardship seemed to accompany other downtown tragedies, as when two buildings in the Academy of Music Block between Lincolnway and Indiana Avenue on Washington Street burned in February 1926. Two firemen lost their lives and Ambrose Faulkner, an attorney who lost his second floor office, took to drinking according to Pazour.

Turning his attention to Lincolnway, Pazour said the current Temptations store was an alley, and Abraham Kleins clothing store occupied the building housing the current Old Style Inn. On the northwest corner of Lincolnway and Franklin Street, at the former Martin Binder jewelry store, stood the Palace Confectionery.

Inside the building, now being renovated by owner Charles Welter, a mosaic tile floor was recently uncovered that bears an ancient Sanskrit symbol.

Looking east onto Franklin St., Pazour reminded those on the tour that nearly the entire block was taken up by a Valparaiso icon, the J. Lowenstine & Sons Department Store, which transformed the block. On the northeast corner of Franklin and Indiana streets stood the New York Pool Hall and Lincoln Theatre, which currently houses Parea restaurant.

Jeanne Bugyis, who was on the tour, said the museum is an asset to Valparaiso.

After being gone 40 years, Bugyis moved back to Valparaiso from Parkersburg, West Virginia in December.

Im trying to do things to get back into everything, Bugyis said. Im enjoying seeing the transition of Valpo.

Bugyis said the city is a lot different than it was in 1970, when she graduated from Valparaiso High School.

There have been a lot of changes for the better, Bugyis said.

A second Downtown Walking Tour is scheduled for Saturday starting at the Porter County Museum at 2 p.m.
Its easy to blame Facebooks business model (e.g., the loss of online anonymity allows it to make more money from advertising), but the problem resides much deeper. Facebook seems to believe that the quirky ingredients that make flanerie possible need to go. We want everything to be social, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebooks chief operating officer, said on Charlie Rose a few months ago.

What this means in practice was explained by her boss, Mark Zuckerberg, on that same show. Do you want to go to the movies by yourself or do you want to go to the movies with your friends? he asked, immediately answering his own question: You want to go with your friends.

The implications are clear: Facebook wants to build an Internet where watching films, listening to music, reading books and even browsing is done not just openly but socially and collaboratively. Through clever partnerships with companies like Spotify and Netflix, Facebook will create powerful (but latent) incentives that would make users eagerly embrace the tyranny of the social, to the point where pursuing any of those activities on their own would become impossible.

Now, if Mr. Zuckerberg really believes what he said about cinema, there is a long list of films Id like to run by his friends. Why not take them to see Satantango, a seven-hour, black-and-white art-house flick by the Hungarian auteur Bela Tarr? Well, because if you took an open poll of his friends, or any large enough group of people, Satantango would almost always lose out to something more mainstream, like War Horse. It might not be everyones top choice, but it wont offend, either  thats the tyranny of the social for you.

Besides, isnt it obvious that consuming great art alone is qualitatively different from consuming it socially? And why this fear of solitude in the first place? Its hard to imagine packs of flaneurs roaming the streets of Paris as if auditioning for another sequel to The Hangover. But for Mr. Zuckerberg, as he acknowledged on Charlie Rose, it feels better to be more connected to all these people. You have a richer life.

ITS this idea that the individual experience is somehow inferior to the collective that underpins Facebooks recent embrace of frictionless sharing, the idea that, from now on, we have to worry only about things we dont want to share; everything else will be shared automatically. To that end, Facebook is encouraging its partners to build applications that automatically share everything we do: articles we read, music we listen to, videos we watch. It goes without saying that frictionless sharing also makes it easier for Facebook to sell us to advertisers, and for advertisers to sell their wares back to us.

That might even be worth it if frictionless sharing enhanced our online experience; after all, even the 19th-century flaneur eventually confronted advertising posters and murals on his walks around town. Sadly, frictionless sharing has the same drawback as effortless poetry: its final products are often intolerable. Its one thing to find an interesting article and choose to share it with friends. Its quite another to inundate your friends with everything that passes through your browser or your app, hoping that they will pick something interesting along the way.
Instagram, along with similar apps like Hipstamatic, not only allows you to share the photographs you take with your smartphone (through the apps themselves or on networks like Facebook and Twitter). It also allows you to manipulate them with various filters.

Why do we want to tweak our photos so conspicuously? Why do we suddenly want them to look as if they came from old analog cameras? And how do these trends relate to the spread of the smartphone shutterbug, the species capable of fomenting revolution but more often found irritating museumgoers?

Many of those filters are designed to make digital photographs look like snapshots taken with the toy cameras of yesteryear: the Kodak Brownie, the Instamatic, the Polaroid. Nostalgia is certainly a factor; parents, for instance, may want their childrens photographs to look like the ones in old family albums.

The vignettes, retro color saturations and other effects also help to distinguish amateur photography from amateur photojournalism. If you are uploading pictures from the midst of the Syrian uprising, for instance, you probably have little use for filters with names likes Lo-Fi and Toaster.
Season 2, Episode 6: Sicut Cervus

O God my Rock, I cry, why have you forsaken me? Why must I suffer these attacks from my enemies? Their taunts pierce me like a fatal wound; again and again they scoff, Where is that God of yours? But O my soul, dont be discouraged. Dont be upset. Expect God to act! For I know that I shall have plenty of reason to praise him for all that he will do. He is my help! He is my God!

So ends the 42nd Psalm, known as Sicut Cervus (As a deer), which is also the title of this weeks episode. Turns out things are not much better in Mexico. The dead walk there, too, and everyones faith is tested.

Getting into Baja ends up being not much of a challenge for our group aboard the Abigail  only one measly boat guard greets them, rather than a government flotilla, and it is easily dispatched, though Luis is fatally shot.

While the compound is as lovely and well protected as Strand said it would be, its occupants are as at risk as the rest of the world. A group of angry Catholic parishioners are preparing to storm their walls when members of the congregation begin bleeding from their eyes and then dying.
Veep wouldnt be Veep if Selina responded to her mothers imminent demise without a.) being flippant and b.) doing a bit of political calculus. When Kent informs her that if her mother passes, she may benefit from a death bump in her approval ratings, its hard to tell whether Selina decides to remove her mothers intubation tube for the sake of the bump or her mothers benefit. Yet, the writers Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck, as well as this episodes director, Dale Stern, take care to avoid making Selina seem like a complete monster. Theres a moment, when she tucks her mothers hand (nails freshly polished) underneath the bedsheet, thats one of the more tender things thats ever happened on this show. I may even have teared up a little.

Of course, tender doesnt stick around for long on Veep, which brings us to the second key sequence that calls back to Crate: the eulogy Selina delivers at her mothers funeral. This time, bad professional news  Selinas not only lost Nevada but, thanks to the newly counted ballots, also the popular vote  causes her to behave in a manner that actually suits the occasion. She gets up to the dais, prepared to read a speech that slams her mother for not allowing a young Selina to practice at the better of the familys two pianos. But instead, she breaks down. I have lost so much, she blurts out through her tears. Even though she mostly means the votes, shes still managed to save herself from sounding like the biggest ingrate in the history of speakers at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

The shots of Ben and Gary in the front pews, openly bawling, are a nice touch. They clearly feel for their boss  or, probably, are already mourning the potential loss of their jobs.

One could argue that this episode is a little too predictable. When Ben gets that cellphone call right before Selina stands up to deliver the eulogy, for example, its pretty obvious its going to be bad news and that its going to make Selina cry, the same way she cried in front of that Syrian couple two seasons ago. But even when this show recycles certain elements, it does so in such a different context and with such hilarious detail that it doesnt feel problematic. What might feel repetitive on another show just feels like Veep playing to its strengths.

There are a lot of strengths here, too. Theres the moment when Selinas ex-husband, Andrew, introduces his significant other and Gary  so accustomed to whispering intel into the presidents ear  leans forward to unhelpfully say, I dont know her. Theres Selinas attempt to pray in the hospital by saying lift me up, not to God but to Gary, so hell help her off the floor. Theres the attempt by Mike and his wife, Wendy, to endear themselves to the ideal surrogate mother by claiming theyre Christian and members at Our Lady of the Holy Womb of Jesus. (This episode is filled with religious references that highlight that nothing is sacred on Veep. ) Theres also the great, emotionally fragile performance that Sarah Sutherland delivers as Catherine, the one person in her family who is heartbroken for the right reasons.
For decades the annual television industry ritual known as the upfronts has gone the same way.

Thousands of advertising and television executives trudge between New Yorks great cultural centers  Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Lincoln Center  where network executives screen premieres of their hottest new shows (24: Legacy on Fox! Designated Survivor on ABC!); trot out their biggest stars (Jennifer Lopez! Kerry Washington!), and disclose which programs will go where on the prime-time schedules being set for the fall.

After successive nights of upscale hedonism  steaks at Peter Luger, mango chili martinis at Tao and Nicki Minaj at Terminal 5  the ad people and the TV people get down to the real business of cutting deals for the 30-second spots that run during prime times commercial breaks.

But when the whole shebang kicks off in earnest on Monday morning, there will be an underlying sense of seasickness because of the inexorable, existential question that now faces television this time of year: How long can it go on like this?

This queasiness was your doing.

Maybe it was when you flipped your television input over to your Apple TV last night to watch the commercial-free House of Cards on Netflix, or when you perused the recorded version of Saturday Night Live after work on Monday and fast-forwarded through every real ad. Maybe you forgot TV altogether and watched YouTube instead.
Firefall will bring country rock to Riverbend on Sunday, June 12, at 4:30 p.m.

Review for Firefall:

For founder Jock Bartley, Firefall is a 30 year labor of love. Their layered harmonies backed by driving rhythms transcends many genres from rock to country to AC and brought the band platinum and gold success with such hits as You Are The Woman, Strange Way and Just Remember I Love You. Other major Firefall radio hits include Cinderella, Goodbye I Love You, Livin Aint Livin and Mexico. They have done extensive touring with Fleetwood Mac, The Doobie Brothers, Chicago, America and many others.

Firefall's connection to the pioneering country rock bands is at once direct, convoluted, and fascinating. The group's roots can be directly traced back to middle '60s to The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, who were themselves influenced by folk luminaries like Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. In late 1967, country rock godfather Gram Parsons bailed out of his International Submarine Band and took off with Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, Michael Clarke and The Byrds. At around the same time Richie Furay broke away from Stephen Stills, Neil Young and The Buffalo Springfield to form Poco with Jim Mesina, Rusty Young, Randy Meisner and George Grantham. These two groups gave birth to the musical genre that would soon be called 'country rock.'
The shift in American fashion continues. Diane von Furstenberg, creator of the wrap dress, empowerer of women and founder of the company that bears her name, has named a presumptive heir  and he is a man.

On Monday, Ms. von Furstenberg announced that she had appointed the Scottish designer Jonathan Saunders as chief creative officer. As such, he will be in charge of all aspects of design for the company  including fashion, art direction and advertising  and work with the chief executive, Paolo Riva, who joined DVF a year ago.

It is time to reboot, and in a fresh way, Ms. von Furstenberg said. I have been looking for someone to be my heir for years, and now I have found him.

Though Ms. von Furstenberg, 69, will continue as chairwoman, the appointment will free her to use my voice more, she said. I want to focus on my work with women, public speaking and philanthropy.
The opioid epidemic is now a leading cause of death in the United States, ravaging communities across the country. At last, Congress has snapped to attention. But its recent flurry of legislation will be of little help unless lawmakers are willing to fund treatment and prevention programs.

The House last week passed 18 bills related to opioids, and the Senate approved a comprehensive bill in March. The bills, which will be reconciled in a conference committee, are overdue. Opioids, a category of drugs that includes heroin and prescription painkillers like oxycodone, killed more than 28,000 people in 2014, and the rate of overdoses has tripled since 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost two million Americans abused or were dependent on these drugs in 2014.

The question now is whether Congress will appropriate enough money to address the scale of the problem. Democrats are seeking $600 million, and President Obama has asked for $1.1 billion. Republican leaders have not said how much they would be willing to spend, but insist that the total be offset by reductions in other programs or increases in revenue. The country is facing a health emergency, and it would be tragic if a self-imposed budget rule got in the way of a robust federal response.

The federal government can make the biggest difference by expanding high-quality treatment programs. States, which have more sway over doctors and hospitals, need to do more on the prevention side by placing limits on opioid prescriptions. States can encourage doctors to order alternative pain treatments, like physical therapy, and require insurers to cover those services.
To the Editor:

Re Is the Era of Great Famines Over? (Opinion Pages, May 8):

While Alex de Waal correctly notes that Ethiopia has made incredible progress since the famine of 1984-85, we cant dismiss the severity of the drought right now. According to the U.N. World Food Programme, roughly 75 percent of affected households are skipping meals and almost one quarter have sold productive assets like livestock to make ends meet. Meanwhile, Ethiopia continues to host more refugees than any other nation in Africa.

The government of Ethiopia should be lauded for its efforts to address this historic drought  de Waal rightly mentions the resources it has committed to the relief effort, including the productive safety net system, which has kept 8 million people from falling into hunger. Yet major shortfalls remain that threaten the availability of essential assistance in the months ahead. The international community must demonstrate without delay  the political will necessary to make adequate resources available to address the needs of at-risk populations. If global leaders do not step up, the world could witness the erosion of hard-won development gains in the country.

RICK LEACH

Washington

The writer is president and C.E.O. of World Food Program USA.

To the Editor:

With all due respect, Mr. de Waal is not asking the right question, and he is doing the people of Ethiopia a great disservice.

I have just returned from Denan, Ethiopia, home to a camp for internally displaced persons. In the Denan camp, despite promises by international aid organizations, food relief had not been delivered in nearly seven months. Many people are lucky to be able to give one meager meal per day to their children. Some get less than that. Perhaps the images are not as shocking as those from the 1980s, but seeing a woman hold a malnourished child who is too weak to walk is an image that will stay with me for a long time.
Boston  MY first exposure to biotechnology was from my father. He grew up with juvenile diabetes, and for most of his life had taken daily injections of insulin from pigs, even though it came with a risk of side effects. That changed in 1982 when Eli Lilly introduced Humulin. I remember the Humulin box with human insulin (recombinant DNA origin) proudly displayed on the label: Biological engineers had transferred human DNA-encoding insulin into bacteria, and that meant my dad could get the real thing and no longer had to make do with insulin from animals.

Twenty-six years later, I became a founder of a biotechnology company that makes products with genetically modified organisms for the food industry. Like 88 percent of my fellow scientists, I believe that genetically engineered foods are safe. But unlike many of my colleagues, Im among the 89 percent of Americans who believe that bioengineered ingredients should be identified on food packaging.

To me, theres no contradiction in these two beliefs. For years, scientists have celebrated the many benefits of genetic engineering, from increased crop yields to improved nutritional content. They have also been embracing transparency, in the form of open access to research findings and calls for increased public engagement. It doesnt make sense to advocate a better understanding of biotechnology in one breath and, in the other, tell consumers they dont need to know when that technology is used to make their food.

Foods with bioengineered ingredients are safe, but shrouding them in secrecy breeds doubt and fear. Clear, informative labeling is a first step toward transparency that can build trust and educate consumers. But trust has to go both ways: Biotechnology companies and food producers must trust consumers to educate themselves and make informed decisions.
To the Editor:

Re U.S. Ponders: Who Imprisons ISIS Fighters? (front page, May 12):

Two months ago, Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged that the Islamic State is perpetrating genocide. American policy with regard to any captured ISIS fighters in Iraq must comply with the absolute obligations of the United States to take all steps possible to ensure that perpetrators of genocide crimes are punished.

Genocide prosecutions are important to deter and delegitimize ISIS atrocities. Genocide crimes include conspiracy to commit and direct public incitement, trying to commit genocide, and complicity.

All captured ISIS fighters should be investigated for genocide crimes, including crimes of rape, abduction and sexual slavery against Yazidi women and girls.

The United States has taken global leadership in ending impunity for genocide in the past. The United States brought the Darfur genocide to the Security Council, resulting in a referral to the International Criminal Court.
In other words, if you judge us by what we do, not what we say, we place very little value on the lives of our children, unless they happen to come from affluent families. Did I mention that parents in the top fifth of U.S. households spend seven times as much on their children as parents in the bottom fifth?

But can our neglect of children be ended?

In January, both Democratic candidates declared their support for a program that would provide 12 weeks of paid leave to care for newborns and other family members. And last week, while the news media was focused on Donald Trumps imaginary friend, I mean imaginary spokesman, Hillary Clinton announced an ambitious plan to improve both the affordability and quality of U.S. child care.

This was an important announcement, even if it was drowned out by the ugliness and nonsense of a campaign that is even uglier and more nonsensical than usual. For child-care reform is the kind of medium-size, incremental, potentially politically doable  but nonetheless extremely important  initiative that could well be the centerpiece of a Clinton administration. So whats the plan?

O.K., we dont have all the details yet, but the outline seems pretty clear. On the affordability front, Mrs. Clinton would use subsidies and tax credits to limit family spending on child care  which can be more than a third of income  to a maximum of 10 percent. Meanwhile, there would be aid to states and communities that raise child-care workers pay, and a variety of other measures to help young children and their parents. All of this would still leave America less generous than many other countries, but it would be a big step toward international norms.

Is this doable? Yes. Is it desirable? Very much so.

When we talk about doing more for children, its important to realize that it costs money, but not all that much money. Why? Because there arent that many young children at any given time, and it doesnt take a lot of spending to make a huge difference to their lives. Our threadbare system of public support for child care and early education costs 0.4 percent of the G.D.P.; Frances famously generous system costs 1.2 percent of the G.D.P. So we could move a long way up the scale with a fairly modest investment.
To the Editor:

Re Labels Like Felon Are an Unfair Life Sentence (editorial, May 8):

Far too many people struggle to overcome the nearly insurmountable obstacle that a criminal record represents in the job market. But Ive spoken to several business owners who have decided to look beyond job applicants past mistakes.

Those employers have told me, repeatedly, that second chance employees are often their most dedicated workers, because those employees know how hard it was to get that chance.

The language we use to talk about those who have been incarcerated is important, and I commend the Obama administration for its efforts. Its also important that states and cities set an example by adopting ban the box policies, as Connecticut has done by enacting the Fair Chance Employment Act.

The most important change will come, though, when employers nationwide join the ranks of businesses already helping to build stronger, safer communities by offering second-chance employment opportunities. They may find that doing the right thing is also good for business.
GARY MENDELL

Easton, Conn.

The writer is the founder and chief executive of Shatterproof, a national nonprofit focused on ending addiction.

To the Editor:

Dr. David A. Kesslers way of thinking reminds me of my grade-school teachers who wouldnt permit excuses from the classroom to use the toilet. That left many of us in embarrassing and tearful situations.

Now, because of the medical communitys terror alert regarding opioids, I find myself having to endure severe pain due to interstitial cystitis. Under hospital palliative care, after more than a dozen trial medications and methods of pain control, methadone worked. It is no longer available to me. Physicians Ive consulted for nearly 40 years refuse to prescribe even a minimal dose.

I never became addicted to opioids, unless Dr. Kessler considers the awful pain I experience from this truly disabling condition a symptom of withdrawal. Attention must be paid.

JUDY GRAUBART

New York

To the Editor:

Re The Epidemic We Failed to Foresee: Who is we?

Those of us on the front lines of medicine have known for two decades that opiates were a problem and addictive, and that we were giving out way too many narcotic prescriptions. And we werent being told that it was O.K. to prescribe them by drug companies but by our teachers and mentors.

With the expectation that patients be made completely pain-free, and with the decreasing amount of time to spend with our patients and the increasing emphasis on patient satisfaction, though, it was (and is) very difficult not to prescribe narcotics. I hope that things will change.

MIMI BLAUROCK

Los Altos, Calif.

The writer is an internist.

To the Editor:

As a clinical addiction therapist whose clients have struggled with opioid dependence, I see one important factor omitted from the discussion: the effect of opioids upon a persons cognition, mood and awareness.
To the Editor:

Your editorial, (What Obama Can Say at Hiroshima, May 12) is a bit of a teaser in that you dont make any specific suggestions as to what President Obama can (or should) say at the Hiroshima Monument Hiroshima Peace Memorial. How about:

My fellow human beingsWe are gathered here today at one of the thousands of peace monuments abundantly scattered around the world raised to commemorate those soldiers and civilians who died in war. These monuments were all built as reminders of human folly, greed, and cruelty rather unlike all those war monuments in glorification of victory or the victors.

Apparently we need something more than monumental reminders of our past stupidity to keep us from allowing our leaders to take us to war like sheep to the slaughter. Beware your shepherds. They keep you alive and fed for their own purposes, not yours.

What we need instead of glorious monuments in stone is a global movement in empathetic solidarity against violent aggression in all its forms. Only then will the phrase Never Again! be anything but a pious and useless incantation that will neither raise the dead nor save the living.

JAMES LUCE

Peralada, Spain
To the Editor:

As an Egyptian-American, I applaud the beautifully audacious article by Mona Eltahawy, Sex Talk for Muslim Women (Sunday Review, May 8). By the end of this year, I will have lived in the United States more years than I lived in my home country, which I left at 21.

In coming of age in America as a young adult, I unlearned and learned a great deal about men, appropriate and inappropriate conduct, and how to honor and cherish my own sexuality. I learned that there is no shame in our human instincts of desire or sexual orientation. I continue to learn that the honor and moral character of men and women lie elsewhere.

Ms. Eltahawys article is a reminder of the people and societies that have made healthy sexuality hostage to financial means to marry, the dogma of religion, and the power of archaic social mores. Her courage to speak up about it and for women like me is a breath of fresh air.

RANIA SANFORD

San Jose, Calif.
As part of the Mozilla Community Gigabit Fund, Mozilla is supporting local Chattanooga organizations that are leveraging the citys gigabit Internet to create amazing things.

Six organizations will be receiving $75,000 in grant funds this year. They have plans like building gigabit-powered microscopes, a virtual reality link between local schools, ultra-HD streaming and more.

The Chattanooga grant recipients are The Enterprise Center, Art 120, and Red Bank High School. More details are in this blog post.

In past years, Gigabit Fund grant recipients in Chattanooga have built real-time water quality monitoring systems, a mobile coding app for elementary school students and more.

Katie Hendrix, who leads Mozillas gigabit work in Chattanooga, said, Grantees will leverage the awarded funds to build, pilot, and scale gigabit-enabled applications and curricula that have immediate impact on classrooms and informal learning organizations. Through these projects, Chattanooga will act as a living laboratory that studies how next-generation networks can impact education and workforce development.

The Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund is a joint initiative between Mozilla, the National Science Foundation and US Ignite. Its goal is to leverage next-generation Internet technology to create a more connected, open, and innovative Chattanooga.
But none of these comparisons are likely to shift public opinion. Some people will continue to see him, rightly, as an imminent danger to this nation and the world, and others will continue to see him as a salvation from it.

You see, part of the problem here is that some people believe, improbably, that virtue can be cloaked in vice, that what he says and what he means are fundamentally different, that the former is acting as a Trojan horse for the latter. One of Trumps greatest pros is that he has convinced his supporters, all evidence to the contrary, that they are not being conned.

We are a society in search of an instant fix to some of Americas most intractable problems. Politicians of all stripes keep lying to us and saying things are going to be O.K.; that broad prosperity is just around the corner, only requiring minor tweaks; that for some of our issues there are clear good and bad options, rather than a choice between bad and worse options.

Into this mess of stubborn realities steps a simpleton with a simple message: Make America great again. Well win so much that you will get tired of winning.

Some folks want to be told that we could feasibly and logistically deport millions of people and ban more than a billion, build more walls and drop more bombs, have ever-falling tax rates and ever-surging prosperity. They want to be told that the only thing standing between where we are and where we are told we could be is a facility at crafting deals and a penchant for cracking down.

This streamlined message appeals to that bit of the population that is frustrated by the problems we face and quickly tires of higher-level cerebral function. For this group of folks, Trump neednt be detailed, just different. He doesnt need established principles, as long as he attacks the establishment.
ATLANTIC CITY  As a cocktail waitress for 27 years in this citys Xanadu of a casino industry, Valerie McMorris learned the hard way that Donald Trumps art of the deal too often proved to be the art of bankruptcy. Ive been through three bankruptcies with Mr. Trump, she said, recalling how the fast years of gambling growth here degenerated into a crushing excess of casinos. She watched as Mr. Trump hurried to remove TRUMP from the facades of suddenly failing casinos, lest they undermine his claims to financial invincibility.

The self-branding mania that has helped Mr. Trump earn his victory as the presumed Republican candidate for president has not worked here. Ms. McMorris, a union representative for Unite Here Local 54 of the citys casino workers, is fascinated by how his political winning streak plays out just beyond a battered Atlantic City, a destination once identified with Mr. Trump that serves now as a reality check. His name has disappeared from three casinos, one of which has closed. Across the city, casino workers have lost pensions and health care in bankruptcy proceedings, and four of 12 casinos closed in recent years, with thousands of jobs lost. Home foreclosures are multiplying and the city has suffered such a precipitous loss in revenue that the state is threatening a takeover.

Carl Icahn as Trumps secretary of the Treasury? Ms. McMorris asks with alarm of Mr. Trumps billionaire ally, who has been mentioned as a possible cabinet choice in a Trump administration. Mr. Icahn owns the Trump Taj Mahal, the one place where Mr. Trumps name remains prominent, and has been keeping the casino afloat since it filed for bankruptcy in 2014, in part by eliminating union benefits.

There is a memorable line in the movie Atlantic City when Lou Pascal, the aging hoodlum go-fer played by Burt Lancaster, celebrates the beachfront citys simpler past of tourists and gangsters: You should have seen the Atlantic Ocean in those days. But there seemed a glimmer of Lous wistfulness on Monday when Senator Bernie Sanders came to town to campaign before New Jerseys June 7 primary. With Local 54s endorsement in his pocket, Mr. Sanders delighted a crowd with a thumping attack on Mr. Trump and Mr. Icahn as enablers of the ugliness and the greed that were seeing all over this country.
INTERNATIONAL

Because of an editing error, an article on Feb. 22 about suicide attacks by the Islamic State that killed more than 100 people in Homs, Syria, and a suburb of the Syrian capital, Damascus, misidentified the site of two car bombings in Homs. They struck a major thoroughfare in the city, not a neighborhood home. The error was corrected online shortly after the article was published, but editors failed to follow through with this print correction.



The United Nations Memo article on April 19, about a debate in the General Assembly over the wisdom of punitive international drug laws, referred incorrectly to the health minister of Canada, which is considering legalizing marijuana. The minister, Jane Philpott, is a woman.



An article in some editions on April 15 about what the Pentagon called the failed launch of a ballistic missile by North Korea misstated the name of a South Korean news agency that reported the launch. It is Yonhap, not Yonghap.

BUSINESS DAY

An article on Thursday about the widening of a fuel-economy cheating scandal involving Mitsubishi vehicles misstated the surname of the companys chairman in some editions. He is Osamu Masuko, not Mashiko. The error was repeated in some editions in an article on Friday about Nissan Motors decision to buy a substantial stake in Mitsubishi.
The Philadelphia bar that gives its name to Daphnes Dive, the warm-spirited if loose-jointed new play by Quiara Alegria Hudes, is the kind of place where everybody knows your name, to borrow a snatch of sitcom song. The folks who gather at Daphnes, however, are markedly different from the Bostonians who cracked wise during a certain long-running show set in a neighborhood pub.

The only white regular is Rey (Gordon Joseph Weiss), a glass worker who doesnt much like working and cares for cash only because it gives him the freedom to roam the world on his beloved motorcycle. The rest of the bars denizens are a multicultural bunch, although the majority are Latino, like the bars owner, played by Vanessa Aspillaga, who is of Puerto Rican descent.

While Daphne has earned enough to own both the bar and the small apartment building that houses it, her sister, Inez (Daphne Rubin-Vega), has married an ambitious entrepreneur, Acosta (Carlos Gomez), and moved out of the inner city to the white-bread Main Line suburbs. As the play opens, just about everyone is waiting for a favor from Acosta.

Pablo (Matt Saldivar), an artist whose particular passion is painting inspired by the trash he gathers from various places around the city, is short on cash and hopes to get a break on his rent from Acosta. Jenn (K K Moggie), an Asian-American political activist whos also a performance artist, is expecting a gift of a box of bandannas to use in her performances. Inez herself is short on cash, too, having shopped away the $300 her husband gave her in the morning.
DALLAS  Now that it is clear that Texas complicated school finance system is here to stay, districts around the state must find a way to move forward  whether that is by pressuring lawmakers for more money or by raising property taxes.

The Texas Supreme Court rejected arguments on Friday by a coalition of 600-plus districts that the Robin Hood school funding system, in which wealthy districts share local property tax revenue with those in poorer areas, was unconstitutional.

The unanimous decision, which stemmed from a lawsuit over the Republican-led Legislatures 2011 move to cut $5.4 billion in education funding, does not require the Legislature to do anything, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Republicans at the state party convention that the issue for now, has been resolved.

That did not keep the justices from urging that lawmakers should do something. As Justice Don R. Willett wrote, they have vast discretion in fulfilling their constitutional duty to fashion a school system fit for our dynamic and fast-growing states unique characteristics. We hope lawmakers will seize this urgent challenge and upend an ossified regime ill-suited for 21st-century Texas.
Activists and leaders in the social conservative movement, after spending most of the past year opposing and condemning Donald J. Trump, are now moving to embrace his candidacy and are joining the growing number of mainstream Republicans who appear ready to coalesce around the partys presumptive nominee.

Though their support for Mr. Trump is often qualified, this change of heart is one of the more remarkable turns in an erratic and precedent-defying Republican campaign. It reflects the sense among many Republicans that, flawed as they may see him, the thrice-married billionaire is preferable to the alternative.

Oh, my, its difficult, said Penny Nance, the president of Concerned Women for America, a group that has openly campaigned against Mr. Trump. Hes not my first choice. Hes not my second choice, she added. But any concerns I have about him pale in contrast to Hillary Clinton.

And Mr. Trump  whose litany of offenses against cultural conservatives include support of Planned Parenthood, past positions on abortion rights and his more accepting views on gays and lesbians  is winning over this once deeply skeptical constituency.
FORT MITCHELL, Ky.  Hillary Clinton already has an assignment for her husband, Bill Clinton, if they return to the White House next year. The former president, Mrs. Clinton told voters on Sunday, will be in charge of revitalizing the economy.

Because, you know, he knows how to do it, she said. Especially in places like coal country and inner-cities and other parts of our country that have really been left out.

Mrs. Clinton mentioned her idea for her husband while speaking at a rally outside a home in northern Kentucky. Earlier this month, she said she had told Mr. Clinton that he would need to come out of retirement to help put people back to work.

Mrs. Clinton spent Sunday campaigning in Kentucky ahead of its Democratic primary on Tuesday. At the rally here, she cited the economic success of her husbands presidency while outlining her own plans. She also emphasized her commitment to supporting workers in the coal industry, which has a major presence in Kentucky, just as it does in West Virginia, where Mrs. Clinton lost the primary last week to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
ARUSHA, Tanzania  When Gen. Mark A. Milley, the Army chief of staff, stepped off his jet into the sunshine here on Sunday, it was the first time the Obama administration had sent its top Army officer to Africa for a high-level meeting to get the continents fledgling militaries in shape to deal with growing terrorist threats.

As General Milley plunged into three days of talks with senior military officials from 38 African countries, the biggest question facing him was not how the United States would work with those militaries to contain the threats. Among them are four militant groups that American officials say are capable of carrying out attacks in Europe as well as across Africa: the Islamic State affiliate in Libya, Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Qaeda in northwestern Africa and the Shabab in Somalia.

Instead, the question was whether the new focus on the ever-widening terrorist threat in Africa  not to mention the focus on the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and the continuing war in Afghanistan  is taking away from the Armys ability to fight a land war against a more traditional military adversary.

After 15 years of conflict, the Army knows how to fight terrorist groups and how to train its partners to do so, as well. But that is both a blessing and a curse.
ARUSHA, Tanzania  Less than two years after it blocked a sale of American-made attack helicopters to Nigeria from Israel because of human rights concerns, the Obama administration says it is poised to sell up to 12 light attack aircraft to Nigeria as part of an effort to support the countrys fight against the Boko Haram militant group.

But the pending sale of the Super Tucano attack warplanes  which would require congressional approval  is already coming under criticism from human rights organizations that say President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria has not yet done enough to stop the abuses and corruption that flourished in the military under his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan.

Officials at the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon have been bracing for a fight with congressional Democrats, in particular Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, over the sale of the planes.

The proposed sale reflects the warming of the relationship between the Nigerian and American militaries, which had frayed under Mr. Jonathan. The Pentagon often bypassed Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram, choosing to work directly with neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
CARACAS, Venezuela  The Colombian government and the countrys largest rebel group announced on Sunday that they had reached an agreement to release child soldiers from rebel custody, an important step in peace negotiations, which are in their final stages.

The deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, could involve hundreds of children who were recruited to fight in Colombias long civil war, though no census of child soldiers has ever been taken.

One of the biggest horrors of a conflict is when we drag our children and young people into combat, said Humberto de la Calle, a chief government negotiator. Its for this reason that this agreement is a crucial advance in the process of bringing this war to a close.

According to the terms of the agreement, FARC and the government would soon determine an immediate exit for those under 15 and develop a road map for an exit for the remaining minors, those between 15 and 18.
Remodeling your home is a big decision that requires planning and resources, but doing so can enhance the comfort and look of your home, increase its value, and improve efficiency. Many remodeling projects are more complicated than the average DIY-er is able to handle, so consider these steps when searching for a professional remodeler:





Collect names of remodeling companies.

Start by searching the National Association of Home Builders Directory of Professional Remodelers at www.nahb.org/remodel or contact the Home Builders Association of Greater Chattanooga. Also, ask friends and neighbors for recommendations.



Also, ask friends and neighbors for recommendations.

Narrow your list.

Call a few remodelers from your list to discuss your project. Describe what you envision for the home remodel, styles you like, your estimated budget, and other ideas for the remodeling work. Ask the remodelers to provide background information, brochures, or a website address that covers their expertise, experience and accomplishments.





Ask the critical questions.

Verifying a few important facts will help identify the best professional remodeler for the job. Does the remodeler have a license? What about general liability insurance in case of an accident on the job? Is the work guaranteed? What is the payment schedule?





Check the references and background.

Once you find one or two remodelers who match your projects needs, be sure to conduct some research by checking with the Better Business Bureau, talking to their references, and asking if they are a trade association member (such as HBAGC or NAHB Remodelers). Remodelers with affiliations tend to be more reliable, better trained, and more likely to stay on top of construction and design trends.





Dont fall for the lowest bidder.

You may be tempted by a lowball bid, thinking youve found a great deal. But these quotes may actually be costlier in the end if the contractor is cutting corners, not taking into account certain costs, or is inexperienced.

For more tips on planning a home remodel or hiring a professional remodeler, visit nahb.org/remodel or contact the Home Builders Association of Greater Chattanooga at 423-624-9992 or info@HBAGC.net.
LONDON  Silvia Luis, from Portugal, is thinking of attending university in Scotland. Sandra Martinsone, a Latvian, said she might apply for citizenship or buy property. Julie Miquerol, from France, has sped up her plans to open a start-up company in Spain.

They, like some 1.3 million citizens from other European Union countries between the ages of 18 and 35 who live in Britain, are hedging their bets and pondering strategies just in case Britain votes to leave the European Union on June 23.

For years, Britains relatively vibrant economy has attracted a steady flow of young people fleeing a lack of opportunity in their home countries on the Continent. London in particular is full of young Europeans, who have helped give the city its dynamic, global feel. From entrepreneurs, bankers and fashion designers to artists, waiters and students, all are free to resettle in Britain and make their futures here without so much as a visa.

No one knows for sure what would happen to them if Britain voted to leave the European Union  their immigration status would have to be worked out in the negotiations that would follow  but the debate itself has left some of the young people feeling fearful, frustrated and even angry.
WASHINGTON  Al Qaedas top leadership in Pakistan, badly weakened after a decade of C.I.A. drone strikes, has decided that the terror groups future lies in Syria and has secretly dispatched more than a dozen of its most seasoned veterans there, according to senior American and European intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

The movement of the senior Qaeda jihadists reflects Syrias growing importance to the terrorist organization and most likely foreshadows an escalation of the groups bloody rivalry with the Islamic State, Western officials say.

The operatives have been told to start the process of creating an alternate headquarters in Syria and lay the groundwork for possibly establishing an emirate through Al Qaedas Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, to compete with the Islamic State, from which Nusra broke in 2013. This would be a significant shift for Al Qaeda and its affiliate, which have resisted creating an emirate, or formal sovereign state, until they deem conditions on the ground are ready. Such an entity could also pose a heightened terrorist threat to the United States and Europe.

Qaeda operatives have moved in and out of Syria for years. Ayman al-Zawahri, the groups supreme leader in Pakistan, dispatched senior jihadists to bolster the Nusra Front in 2013. A year later, Mr. Zawahri sent to Syria a shadowy Qaeda cell called Khorasan that American officials say has been plotting attacks against the West.
KABUL, Afghanistan  Since he first picked up a gun as a 15-year-old, Abdul Basir has killed a lot of people. Yet the operation on Friday night was different: He was out to kill his son.

Around midnight on Friday, Mr. Basir, now in his 40s and the commander of a government militia in the northern Afghan province of Faryab, arrived at a compound in an area called Zyaratgah, part of the restive Qaisar District. He had intelligence that his 22-year-old son, Said Muhammad, a hardened member of the Taliban, was there with several of his fighters.

In Afghanistans long war, Mr. Basirs determination to kill one of his children was not unique, but rather just another sign of how long the violence has dragged on, and of how it has permeated the deepest levels of society and poisoned the closest of relationships.

Framed by grand ideologies and elaborate strategies at the top, the perpetual conflict has divided families for a generation. Guerrillas who took up arms against the Soviet occupation became sworn enemies of their Communist relatives. Now, a government commander was hunting down a son who had denounced him as an infidel and forced him from their familys ancestral village.
And lo, it came to pass that the one they called Barbra would go on a summer tour and then release a new album. And the tour would include two nights in Brooklyn. And her many fans rejoiced.

Of course they will, right?

On Monday, Barbra Streisands longtime manager, Marty Erlichman, announced that Ms. Streisands latest North American tour would begin on Aug. 2, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and continue through Aug. 23, at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto.

The tour will also go to Las Vegas, Chicago, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia and San Jose, Calif., and on Aug. 11 and 13 it will come to Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where Ms. Streisand, 74, was one of the arenas opening attractions in October 2012.

Tickets will go on sale on May 25, although tickets will be available to American Express customers early, starting Wednesday.
LONDON  Barclays said on Monday that it had agreed to sell its precious metals storage business in Britain to ICBC Standard Bank for an undisclosed amount.

The British bank, which is in the midst of a reshaping under its new chief executive, James E. Staley, is seeking to improve its prospects by accelerating the sale of businesses it does not consider core operations. The bank has focused its strategy around two divisions: the British consumer bank, and the corporate and investment bank.

Barclays announced its intention to exit from precious metals in January and moved the business into its noncore operations.

This sale represents further progress with our noncore rundown as we work to simplify Barclays operations and achieve our cost and capital reduction commitments, John Mahon, a co-leader of the division of the bank known as Barclays Non-Core, said in a news release.
Pfizer has signed its first acquisition since terminating its $152 billion merger with Allergan about a month ago.

Pfizer will acquire Anacor Pharmaceuticals for $5.2 billion, the companies announced Monday. Anacor has developed a product, currently under review by the Food and Drug Administration, known as crisaborole, to treat eczema. The company, based in Palo Alto, Calif., also makes a topical treatment called Kerydin for a form of toenail fungus.

Over the last few years, Pfizer had been trying to make big bets overseas in an effort to become more competitive and lower its tax bill. After terminating deals with AstraZeneca and most recently, Allergan, Pfizer has turned to relatively smaller, American biotechnology companies for acquisitions. Pfizer may decide to split its company in two, with brand-name products on one side and older, generic products on the other.



Anacors drugs would fit with the innovative business, said Albert Bourla, group president of Pfizers global innovative pharma and global vaccines, oncology and consumer health care businesses.
LONDON  Philips, the Dutch electronics giant, said on Monday that the initial public offering of its lighting business this month could value the business at up to 4.92 billion euros, or about $5.6 billion, including debt.

Philips said this month that it planned to list the lighting business in an offering on the Euronext stock exchange in Amsterdam. The company first announced plans in 2014 to spin off the lighting business as part of a reshaping of the company to focus on health care and technology.

Todays announcement is an important next step in the planned initial public offering of Philips Lighting, Frans van Houten, the Philips chief executive, said in a news release.

The Dutch company said that it expected to price the offering of its lighting business in a range of 18.50 to 22.50 a share.
The technology will allow the advisers to spend more time talking to clients and less time constructing investment portfolios and other activities that lend themselves to automation, said Tom Naratil, the president of UBS Americas.

Itll make them more effective in helping clients to make better choices, he said.

But unlike some other brokerage firms, which are developing products for retail customers, UBS will not take a robo-adviser service directly to its wealthy customers, Mr. Naratil said in an interview.

Well give them some tools, but were not going down the self-serve route, he said.

The mainstream wealth management industry has been scrambling to respond to the popularity of robo-investing, in which digital services sort people into portfolios of exchange-traded funds based on their answers to online questionnaires, and then automatically maintain those portfolios.

Such products have put pressure on traditional companies to cut fees and offer more automated services. Bank of Americas Merrill Lynch is expected to introduce such a service, and executives from Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo have talked about developing or acquiring the capability. Charles Schwab rolled out its robo-service last year, and even the fund giant Vanguard developed a sort of robo-hybrid advisory business.

SigFig, led by Mike Sha, was one of the earlier firms in the field but has not gained the sort of household attention that companies like Wealthfront and Betterment have achieved by focusing on younger, tech-aware retail customers.
The S.E.C.s willingness to follow a procedure similar to obtaining a warrant as a prerequisite to obtaining emails would make it more difficult to obtain evidence because issuing an administrative subpoena involves no judicial review. Given the prevailing tide in favor of enhancing the privacy of electronic communications, this concession is the best way for the agency to maintain access to emails.

If the legislation is not changed, then other agencies, such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, would similarly be unable to obtain emails as part of their investigations. This type of evidence is standard fare because the communications can provide crucial insight into the knowledge and intent of participants  the key to establishing most regulatory violations.

Whether Congress wants to hamstring civil enforcement actions, which occur much more frequently than criminal prosecutions, is something that should be addressed explicitly in deciding how to enhance the privacy afforded electronic communications.

The flip side of privacy is secrecy  how much authority should the government have to keep its investigations from becoming known when it seeks personal information. That is an issue that has come to the forefront as technology companies object to demands that they not notify customers when their information is sought.

Under another provision of the Stored Communications Act, the government can seek an order prohibiting the service provider from notifying customers for 90 days if it can show a good reason for maintaining secrecy, such as a potential threat to personal safety or destruction of evidence. The order can be renewed if the government shows a continuing need for confidentiality.

Microsoft filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department in April, claiming that these secrecy orders violate its First Amendment right to communicate with customers along with the Fourth Amendment, and asking the court to declare this part of the law unconstitutional. It pointed out that in the last 18 months, it had received 2,600 orders to refrain from notifying customers about warrants or subpoenas seeking their information.

Corporations have constitutional rights, but it may be difficult for Microsoft to show that it has an unfettered right to inform customers about a government inquiry that involves their information when that could present a danger to public safety or jeopardize an investigation. The lawsuit appears to be intended more to highlight how the growth of secrecy orders presents a threat to customer privacy, especially if they become almost a matter of routine.
LONDON  The American crane and heavy equipment maker Terex Corporation said on Monday that it had agreed to terminate its merger with Konecranes, a Finnish rival, and would instead sell its material handling and port solutions business to the company for about $1.3 billion.

Terex and Konecranes announced in August that they would merge in an all-share deal, but Zoomlion of China made a competing bid in January to acquire Terex for $30 a share in cash, or about $3.3 billion. Zoomlion later raised its bid to $31 a share in March.

The latest deal with Konecranes would allow Terex to continue its discussions with Zoomlion on a sale of Terex in whole or in part. The sale to Konecranes could be terminated for a fee of $37 million if Terex and Zoomlion reach an agreement before the end of May.

The sale to Konecranes is good for our customers, team members and shareholders, John L. Garrison, the Terex president and chief executive, said in a news release. In addition, it will significantly reduce Terexs debt levels, improves our balance sheet and gives us longer term financial flexibility to invest in our business and buy back shares.
Tennessee State Parks has completed renovations to the Village Green pool area at Fall Creek Falls State Park. There was a ribbon cutting ceremony at the park on Monday at 4 p.m.

New features include ADA accessible ramps to the pool from an elevated boardwalk. The pool will officially open for the summer season on May 28.

Other renovations within the park include upgrades to the amphitheater, snack bar, bathhouse and restrooms. These renovations are the first phase of a plan to upgrade other areas of the park. Phase two will include the creation of a new Visitors Center, including park offices, a gift shop, restrooms and interpretive displays. The tentative opening date is 2018.

Those attending the ceremony were TDEC Deputy Commissioner for Parks and Conservation Brock Hill, Rep. Cameron Sexton, Senator Janice Bowling, Van Buren County Mayor Greg Wilson, Van Buren-Spencer Chamber of Commerce, ArborTrek/ZIPStream, and Tennessee State Park mascot Ramble the Raccoon.

Fall Creek Falls State Park is at 2009 Village Camp Road, Spencer, Tn. 38585.
LOS ANGELES  Television executives always say the same thing about remakes: We recycle shows only when we have strong, fresh ideas for them.

Its almost never true, of course. Remakes like the recently canceled Muppets and the much-maligned Fuller House usually materialize because dusting off old hits carries less risk than trying to introduce new ones.

But a few rare reboots, to use the Hollywood term, do put storytelling concerns ahead of business needs, or at least beside them, and the reimagined 24, which Fox is to unveil to advertisers on Monday, appears to be one of them. Built by the same team of producers who turned the original series into a cultural touchstone  in many ways, 24 ushered in the era of binge viewing  24: Legacy will arrive in early 2017, with a debut after the Super Bowl.

We understand the skepticism, but there was no corporate mandate here, said Howard Gordon, a returning executive producer. If anything, it was the opposite. When we started discussing ideas a year and a half ago, the message was to be slow and careful, to only proceed if the creative team felt it had something that fans would love.
After Volkswagens deception emerged, South Korean officials started investigating the emissions systems of 20 diesel models in the country. As part of that effort, the Environment Ministry of South Korea said on Monday that it had discovered that Nissan had manipulated the emissions of its Qashqai diesel-power sport utility vehicle. The authorities said it had found problems with emissions levels in some other cars, but no cheating mechanisms like the one the Environment Ministry said it found in the Nissan model.

Nissan disputed the accusations, adding that the model in question had passed European pollution tests. The cars are made in Britain. Nissan has not and does not employ illegal defeat or cheat devices in any of the cars that we make, the automaker said in an email statement.

The potential hit to Nissan is more reputational than financial.

Officials ordered Nissan to recall 814 cars, the total sold in South Korea. The company was also ordered to pay a fine of 330 million won, or about $280,000, and to suspend sales of the Qashqai. The Environment Ministry also said it would ask prosecutors to indict the head of Nissans South Korean operations, Takehiko Kikuchi, on criminal charges of violating the countrys emissions law.

Carmakers have been under increasing scrutiny since Volkswagens deception emerged.

The United States Justice Department is investigating Daimler, the maker of Mercedes vehicles, over emissions testing. As part of an inquiry into potential emission anomalies, French authorities collected documents from the PSA Group, the parent of Peugeot and Citroen.

German regulators last month recalled 630,000 cars over emissions issues, a group that includes vehicles by General Motors Opel unit, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen. The countrys officials are also looking into whether Opel and Fiat used manipulated software similar to the device found in Volkswagen vehicles. Opel officials are set to testify before an investigatory committee in Germany this week.
WASHINGTON  A case about false information on the Internet ended with a fizzle at the Supreme Court on Monday when the justices returned it to an appeals court for further consideration.

The case arose from an Internet profile of a California man, Thomas Robins, that was distributed by Spokeo, a company that sells personal data online to, among others, potential employers and people looking for information about prospective romantic partners.

Mr. Robins said the profile was riddled with errors. It said he had a graduate degree, though he did not; that he was employed and in good shape financially, though he was out of work; and that he was married and had children, though neither was true. The profile also included a photograph of a different man.

Mr. Robins sued under a part of the Fair Credit Reporting Act that provides damages of up to $1,000 without proof of quantifiable harm, and he sought to represent a class of people with similar claims. Spokeo responded that Congress did not have the power to create a legal right to sue for plaintiffs who have suffered no concrete harm.
After a battery of medical tests, interviews and psychological grilling  typical for transplant candidates, to make sure they understand the risks and will take anti-rejection medicine  Mr. Manning was on the waiting list. Two weeks later, a donor with the right blood type and skin tone became available.

Mr. Manning was stunned that it had happened so fast. Dr. Cetrulo credits the New England Organ Bank, which asks families of some dying patients to consider organ donation. The organ bank said the donors family wished to remain anonymous but had extended a message to Mr. Manning saying they felt blessed and were delighted his recovery was going well.

Organ banks do not assume that families who donate internal organs like kidneys and livers will also be willing to give visible or intimate parts like a face, hands or a penis. Those requests are made separately. Several families have agreed to allow the penis to be removed, and none have declined, said Jill Stinebring, the organ banks regional director of organ donation services.

So far, Mr. Manning has had one serious complication. The day after his surgery, he began to hemorrhage and was rushed back to the operating room.

Since then, his recovery has been smoother, he said. He has no regrets. He looks forward to going back to work and hopes to eventually have a love life again.

If Im lucky, I get 75 percent of what I used to be, he said. Before the surgery I was 10 percent. But they made no promises. That was part of the deal.
CANNES, France  In Loving, which was unveiled here on Monday to raves, the director Jeff Nichols tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the interracial couple whose 1958 marriage broke Virginias anti-miscegenation law and eventually led to the landmark Supreme Court ruling that deemed marriage a human right.

I truly believe this is one of the most pure love stories in American history, Mr. Nichols said at a news conference here on Monday about the white Southern construction worker, played by the Australian actor Joel Edgerton, and his African-American wife, played by the Ethiopian-Irish actress Ruth Negga.

The Lovings wed in Washington, and returned to their native Virginia, only to be arrested. Their prison sentences were suspended on the condition that they leave the state for 25 years, a ruling they eventually defied. As the civil rights movement gained momentum, the A.C.L.U. took on their case, and in 1967 the Supreme Court ruled in their favor in Loving v. Virginia.
Theres an overwhelming disenchantment with him in this community, said Keegan Stephan, a veteran activist who has taken part in the protests against Mr. Thompson. It would be wrong to suggest he hasnt done good things, but many people who supported him at first are criticizing him now.

At the heart of this community is a small and diverse array of grass-roots groups whose members have staged protests across the city and have undertaken a scathing social-media campaign against Mr. Thompson, a Democrat, and his office. That campaign, laced with caustic Twitter posts and videos on Facebook, has been inspired in part by Mr. Gurleys family, which has bitterly attacked the district attorney, and has found support among several officials, like State Assemblyman Charles Barron, a firebrand Democrat from Brooklyn.

In recent weeks, the demonstrators have started to compare Mr. Thompson to Anita Alvarez, the states attorney in Cook County, Ill., who lost her job over the case of Laquan MacDonald in Chicago, and Tim McGinty, the Cleveland prosecutor who was voted out of office for his handling of the death of Tamir Rice. Branding Mr. Thompson a sellout and a traitor, they have begun to issue demands that he resign.

There would seem to be an irony in liberal protesters openly condemning a liberal district attorney. But those who have found fault with Mr. Thompson  including public defenders who have joined the activists in the substance, if not style, of their complaints  have claimed that he applied standards of justice for the former officer, Peter Liang, in Mr. Gurleys death that were different from those used in the cases of ordinary people, many of whom were black or Hispanic and charged with minor crimes.

Thompson sought to afford access to meaningful justice for Mr. Liang, two officials of the Legal Aid Society wrote in an opinion article shortly after the district attorney recommended probation for Mr. Liang. Sadly, our clients are not given the same consideration.
TRENTON  The race to replace Gov. Chris Christie got its first official candidate on Monday.

New Jerseys challenges cant wait, Philip D. Murphy, a former United States ambassador to Germany, said as he announced in an email and a video to supporters that he will run in next years Democratic primary for the governors office.

Mr. Murphy previously worked on Wall Street with Goldman Sachs and as a finance chairman for the Democratic National Committee.

Mr. Christie, a Republican whose second and final term runs through the end of 2017, has been appointed by Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, to lead his transition team if Mr. Trump is elected.

Last year, Mr. Murphy started New Way for New Jersey, an advocacy organization focused on the states middle class. It was seen as a forerunner to a campaign.
On the evidence, ethnocentrism is a pretty basic human instinct. Band together with your own. Keep the outsider down or out. In the 1850s, at another moment of American unease, the Know-Nothings swept Massachusetts and won mayoral elections in Philadelphia and Washington on a nativist platform to purify national politics by stopping the influx of Irish and German Catholics.

Papist influence was then the perceived scourge through which the Know-Nothing movement, as the Native American Party (later the American Party) was commonly known, built its following. Today the supposed threat is Muslim and Mexican infiltration. Or so Donald Trump, the de facto Republican presidential candidate, would have us believe in his America First program.

A know-nothing tide is upon us. Tribal politics, anchored in tribal media, has made knowing nothing a badge of honor. Ignorance, loudly declaimed, is an attribute, especially if allied to celebrity. Facts are dispensable baggage. To display knowledge, the acquisition of which takes time, is tantamount to showing too much respect for the opposition tribe, who know nothing anyway.

Any slogan can be reworked, I guess. America First has a long, unhappy history, the America First Committee having pressed the view that the United States should stay out of the war to defeat Fascism in World War II. Its most famous advocate was Charles Lindbergh, the aviator, who undermined the movement when he revealed that he blamed Jews for prodding America toward war. That was in 1941, not a good year for Jews anywhere, particularly in Europe, where, while Lindbergh opined, the annihilation of Jewry had begun.
But Dr. Mahli decided to join the team when Dr. Willerslev began meeting with local tribes. My mind changed when I realized Eske was engaging with these communities, he said.

He has been great through all of this, Jackie M. Cook, the repatriation specialist for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, said of Dr. Willerslev.

The Kennewick Man genome, like the Anzick childs, revealed an ancient continuity between living Native Americans and the earliest people in the New World. After Dr. Willerslev and his colleagues published their results last year, John Novembre of the University of Chicago confirmed them at the request of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Dr. Willerslev has mixed feelings about the consequences of his research on Kennewick Man.

Im a scientist, and it means I regret that important material is getting reburied, he said. But when you find that these remains are genetically Native Americans, its not our call anymore.

Since the Kennewick Man project, Dr. Willerslev has hosted visits from a number of Native American tribes to his laboratory in Copenhagen. His guests have helped him see how differently he, as a European, treats history than they do.

Dr. Willerslev once proudly showed off a collection of ancient Danish skulls to Native American visitors, only to find them upset by the sight.

How can you treat your ancestors like that, so disrespectfully? he recalls them asking.

In December, Dr. Willerslev hosted Dr. Doyle along with Ben Cloud and Frank Caplett, also members of the Crow Nation. Dr. Willerslev took them around the lab and proposed research he hoped the tribe would consider.
That is enough to offset nearly two decades of emissions from fossil-fuel burning in the region. Abandoning additional pastures and allowing them to revert to tropical forest could soak up another seven billion tons of the gas, the scientists found.

Their paper, published in Science Advances, offers the most detailed estimates to date for a promising approach to combating climate change. Many Latin American governments have promised to encourage forest regrowth, as well as to combat the destruction of existing forests, in their long-term climate plans. But how hard they will push on either issue is unclear.
Chuys, the Austin-based Tex-Mex restaurant, is hiring approximately 175 employees for its first Chattanooga location beginning Monday.

Chuys Chattanooga, scheduled to open June 28, will be at 2271 Gunbarrel Road.

We are thrilled to bring authentic Tex-Mex to the Chattanooga area, said Christine Bailey, local owner/operator of Chuys Chattanooga. We are looking for excited and motivated staff that are as passionate as we are about making and serving quality, fresh food.

Chuys will be hiring a variety of full and part-time positions, including hosts, servers, bussers and bartenders, as well as kitchen staff.

Interested applicants can apply Monday-Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Chuys hiring trailer at the future site of Chuys Chattanooga.

The opening of Chuy's Chattanooga this June will be the first Chattanooga location. For more information visit https://www.facebook.com/chuyschattanooga.






At the Science of Consciousness conference last month in Tucson, I was faced with a quandary: Which of eight simultaneous sessions should I attend?

In one room, scientists and philosophers were discussing the physiology of brain cells and how they might generate the thinking mind. In another, the subject was free will  real or an illusion?

Next door was a session on panpsychism, the controversial (to say the least) idea that everything  animal, vegetable and mineral  is imbued at its subatomic roots with mindlike qualities. Running on parallel tracks were sessions titled Phenomenal Consciousness, the Neural Correlates of Consciousness and the Extended Mind.

For much of the 20th century, the science of consciousness was widely dismissed as an impenetrable mystery, a morass of a problem that could be safely pursued only by older professors as they thought deep thoughts in their endowed chairs. Beginning in the 1990s, the field slowly became more respectable.
A meteorologist who was asked by a co-worker to cover up her sleeveless dress during a live broadcast wants enraged observers to know that she wasnt a victim of workplace sexism.

The meteorologist, Liberte Chan, said in a blog post that she had been playing along with a joke during the broadcast on KTLA in Los Angeles on Saturday. Ms. Chan said she changed into a sparkly tank dress after her first choice, a patterned, black-and-white sheath, turned parts of her body transparent against a green screen.

Ms. Chan was in the middle of her report when a male co-worker reached into the live shot, holding a gray cardigan sweater.

Whats going on? Ms. Chan asked. You want me to put this on? Why? Because its cold?

Were getting a lot of emails, the co-worker said.
HONG KONG  Chinese authorities are quietly scrutinizing technology products sold in China by Apple and other big foreign companies, focusing on whether they pose potential security threats to the country and its consumers and opening up a new front in an already tense relationship with Washington over digital security.

Apple and other companies in recent months have been subjected to reviews that target encryption and the data storage of tech products, said people briefed on the reviews who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In the reviews, Chinese officials require executives or employees of the foreign tech companies to answer questions about the products in person, according to these people.

The reviews are run by a committee associated with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the countrys Internet control bureau, they said. The bureau includes experts and engineers with ties to the countrys military and security agencies.

While other countries, including the United States and Britain, conduct reviews of some tech products, they usually focus on products that will be used by the military or other parts of the government that are concerned with security, and not on products sold to the general public.
SAN FRANCISCO  Xfund, a beleaguered venture capital firm that has put money into start-ups like the genetics company 23andMe and the real estate outfit Zumper, is breaking new and belligerent ground in the normally discreet world of technology investors.

A complaint filed on Friday in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California by Hugo Van Vuuren, one Xfund founder, against Patrick S. Chung, the other founder, and the fund itself, includes accusations of secret contract amendments, bullying and schoolyard name-calling.

Mr. Chung called Mr. Van Vuuren a spiteful moron and a trivial person pursuing trivial things in emails, according to court documents. Mr. Chung also wrote that working with Mr. Van Vuuren was like working with a retarded person and that Mr. Van Vuuren would be worth more dead than alive once we have key-man insurance.

The dispute between the two founders of the $100 million fund is a rare moment of public bickering among venture capitalists.
Telemedicine holds the promise of giving some of our time back. And it may have other advantages. Care delivered in this way requires no travel, and if one waits at all its at home or work, not at a doctors office. In an era of FaceTime and Skype, patients are starting to expect more convenient access to doctors. The vast majority of patients report that they want to be able to communicate with their doctors by email. Perhaps for this reason, the market for telemedicine is growing rapidly.

Some insurers are embracing it. For example, Kaiser Permanente of Northern California offers its patients 10-to-15-minute telephone visits as well as a secure website where patients can message back and forth with their doctors.

Half its visits are virtual, and its executive director and C.E.O. reported that 80 percent of its dermatology cases involving rashes are resolved by digital communication. The Veterans Health Administrations growing telemedicine program is credited with reducing time patients spend in the hospital. The average number of days to schedule an appointment fell 31 percent in a rural Alaskan community when ear, nose and throat care services were provided by telemedicine.

Telemedicine may be more convenient, but is it worse care? The research indicates that on the whole it isnt. A systematic review published in 2015 found that heart failure patients receiving telemedicine died at no higher rates than those not receiving it. Outcomes of care were the same for mental health, substance abuse and dermatology patients who used telemedicine relative to those who did not.

The review also found that telemedicine helped diabetics maintain better control of their blood sugar, and that it led to lower cholesterol and blood pressure. Other reviews came to similar conclusions.
SEATTLE  Ever since last summer, when Lynn Gemmells dog, Bela, was inducted into the trial of a drug that has been shown to significantly lengthen the lives of laboratory mice, she has been the object of intense scrutiny among dog park regulars.

To those who insist that Bela, 8, has turned back into a puppy  Look how fast shes getting that ball!  Ms. Gemmell has tried to turn a deaf ear. Bela, a Border collie-Australian shepherd mix, may have been given a placebo, for one thing.

The drug, rapamycin, which improved heart health and appeared to delay the onset of some diseases in older mice, may not work the same magic in dogs, for another. There is also a chance it could do more harm than good. This is just to look for side effects, in dogs, Ms. Gemmell told Belas many well-wishers.

Technically that is true. But the trial also represents a new frontier in testing a proposition for improving human health: Rather than only seeking treatments for the individual maladies that come with age, we might do better to target the biology that underlies aging itself.
Denouncing corruption, crime and cronyism at the highest levels of state government, Mr. Hubbard created a sophisticated  some have said legally questionable  fund-raising machine to win control of the State House in 2010. Chairman of both the State Republican Party and the House caucus, he conscripted candidates  bank employees, foresters, waste haulers  and determined where campaign money should be spent.

In November 2010, the Republicans not only took over the State House for the first time in 136 years, they won a supermajority, winning every court race on the ballot and every statewide office. Mr. Bentley, a dermatologist and low-profile legislator, was elected governor. Mr. Hubbard was unanimously elected speaker of the House, where his first priority was to pass an ethics law described as among the strongest in the country.

Four years later, Mr. Hubbard was indicted on a charge of violating that ethics law, accused of using his positions as speaker and party chairman to solicit work and investments for his own financial interest by steering campaign work to his business interests and pushing bills that helped his consulting clients.

That his moneymaking plans were running into the ethics law he helped pass is something he is shown lamenting in private emails released by prosecutors. Who proposed those things?! he wrote, apparently jokingly, to Mr. Riley, the former governor. What were we thinking? He would eventually argue in court that the ethics law was unconstitutional.

Still, Mr. Hubbard remains the speaker and enjoys steadfast support in the House. This is in part because Democrats and their backers have been almost completely frozen out of state politics.

But Mr. Flynt and others say there is more to it than the lack of competition. The speed and scale of the Republican takeover brought into power a class of politicians inexperienced with total control, some with no political experience at all. There was little candidate-grooming infrastructure in the party beyond what Mr. Hubbard and his allies put together; at one point, he suggested the creation of a shadow party, something that would be effectively achieved by way of political action committees.
Thrown chairs. Leaked cellphone numbers. Death threats spewed across the Internet.

No, this is not the work of Donald J. Trump supporters, some of whom have harassed critics of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. It was angry supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders who were directing their ire at the Nevada Democratic Party  and its chairwoman, Roberta Lange  over a state convention on Saturday that they think was emblematic of a rigged political system.

Its been vile, said Ms. Lange, who riled Sanders supporters by refusing their requests for rule changes at the event in Las Vegas. Its been threatening messages, threatening my family, threatening my life, threatening my grandchild.

The vicious response has come as millions of new voters, many of whom felt excluded by establishment politicians, have flocked to the insurgent campaigns of Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump has all but locked up the nomination, but many backers of Mr. Sanders remain enraged as his hopes of being the Democratic candidate dwindle.
WASHINGTON  Two of the Democratic Partys most loyal constituencies, labor and environmentalists, are clashing over an effort to raise tens of millions of dollars for an ambitious voter turnout operation aimed at defeating Donald J. Trump in the November election.

The rift developed after some in the labor movement, whose cash flow has dwindled and whose political clout has been increasingly imperiled, announced a partnership last week with a wealthy environmentalist, Tom Steyer, to help bankroll a new fund dedicated to electing Democrats.

That joint initiative enraged members of the nations biggest construction unions, already on edge about the rising influence of climate-change activists. The building-trades unions view Mr. Steyers environmental agenda as a threat to the jobs that can be created through infrastructure projects like new gas pipelines.

The dispute, laid bare in a pair of blistering letters sent on Monday to Richard L. Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., underscored the tensions between the two pillars of the Democratic coalition.
If anybody in this room or in this state wants to know what kind of president I will be, take a look at Governor Bevin and what he is doing, Mr. Sanders said. And then think about the exact opposite, and thats Bernie Sanders.

Mrs. Clinton, too, criticized Mr. Bevin, while showcasing the backing of his Democratic predecessor, Steve Beshear. At a rally here in Hopkinsville on Monday, she said Mr. Bevin was just bent on destroying so much of what Kentucky has achieved.

Not long after, when a woman in the crowd objected to her criticism, Mrs. Clinton held her ground. You are entitled to your opinion, but youre not entitled to your own facts, Mrs. Clinton fired back, adding: Its time people stop listening to Republican propaganda about the economy, education and health care.

Kentuckys primary is one of two Democratic contests on Tuesday. Oregon, which votes by mail, requires ballots to be received by Tuesday night, and the states demographics favor Mr. Sanders. Kentucky is more competitive, and it poses another test of how much Mrs. Clinton can attract white working-class voters, who have been receptive to Mr. Sanderss populist message.

On Monday, Mrs. Clinton appealed to voters who have fond memories of her husbands administration. I want to help bring back the kind of economy that worked for everybody in the 1990s, she said at the diner.

Losses in Kentucky and Oregon would not imperil her grip on the Democratic nomination, but Mrs. Clinton is in the awkward position of running two campaigns at once: urging voters to turn out in the primary while also laying out arguments geared toward a face-off with Mr. Trump in November.

Campaigning in Kentucky, Mrs. Clinton attacked Mr. Sanders by saying he voted against the auto industry bailout, though Mr. Sanderss record is not as clear-cut as Mrs. Clinton suggested.
Georgia Northwestern Technical College (GNTC) Lead Instructor/Site Manager Lindsey Baker has received Ringgolds Hometown Hero Award for 2016. The Modern Woodmen of America awarded Ms. Baker with a certificate and a $100 donation to a charity of her choice.

Ms. Baker decided to give the money to the Catoosa Citizens for Literacy organization; a group which helps pay for GED testing for individuals with financial need in Catoosa County.

The Ringgold branch of the Modern Woodmen of America made the presentation to Ms. Baker at the Shirley Smith Learning Center in Catoosa County on May 10. The 27-year-old Chattanooga, Tennessee resident is in her first year with GNTC. She instructs students, as well as manages the facilities, at the Adult Education sites in Catoosa and Walker County.

I really enjoy working in Adult Education, said Ms. Baker. Weve had a successful year at the Learning Center. During her first year, the facility has seen their completion numbers almost double. So far in 2016, the Smith Center has helped 24 students earn their GED, General Education Development, diplomas. In all of 2015, the center assisted 17 students in earning the same diplomas.

We hope to double the number of graduates from last year, said Ms. Baker. Before joining GNTC, Baker taught English on the college level at Chattanooga State Technical Community College in Chattanooga, as well as instructed elementary school for three years at Hamilton County, Tennessees Falling Water Elementary School.

GNTCs Adult Education program offers GED classes free of charge for students who wish to study in preparing to take GED testing. GED examinations are available through GNTCs Adult Education program. The college offers 14 different Adult Education centers in nine different Northwest Georgia counties for student to choose from.

For more information on Georgia Northwestern Technical College Adult Education program, call 866-983-4682.
WASHINGTON  Victory for House Republicans in federal court last week could mean significantly higher health insurance premiums for millions of people if the decision is upheld on appeal, the Obama administration said Monday.

And much of the cost for those higher premiums could be passed on to the federal government and taxpayers, administration officials and health policy experts said.

The ruling by Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia would block the administration from reimbursing insurers for discounts provided to millions of low-income people under the Affordable Care Act. Without that money, insurers would have to increase premiums for many people purchasing insurance through the health laws online marketplaces, the administration said.

Judge Collyer said that the administration had paid billions of dollars to insurers since January 2014 even though Congress had not appropriated money for those subsidies, a violation of Article I of the Constitution, which states, No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.
It is a situation that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, but some House and Senate Republicans are basing part of their re-election strategies on sponsoring and passing bills to help drug addicts. This week, the House and Senate are expected to begin work on a conference committee to reconcile a batch of bills passed in the two chambers aimed at helping people addicted to heroin and opioids.

Last week, the House passed 18 opioid bills, giving an array of vulnerable House Republicans measures to attach their names to. That comes on the heels of a single bill that passed overwhelmingly in the Senate in March, authorizing money for various treatment and prevention programs for a broad spectrum of addicts, including those in prison.

The pure scope of the epidemic motivates lawmakers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose was the leading cause of injury death in 2013, the most recent data available, among Americans ages 25 to 64, surpassing deaths by motor vehicle crashes; 71 percent of the overdoses involved opioid painkillers.

The congressional measures include provisions for prescription drug monitoring programs and assistance to states that want to expand the availability of the drug naloxone, which helps reverse overdoses.
But that afternoon, Mr. Cruz came upon Mr. Clinton at the airport, where both men happened to have landed for events for the respective campaigns.

Angel Urena, a spokesman for Mr. Clinton, and Catherine Frazier, a spokesman for Mr. Cruz, both confirmed the encounter, but declined to discuss any details of what happened or what they discussed.

But according to three people briefed on the interaction, who were granted anonymity to describe the meeting, Mr. Cruz had landed at the airport before Mr. Clinton did, for an event tucked into his schedule just a day earlier. The Secret Service traveling with Mr. Clinton established that Mr. Cruz was on the other plane with a small coterie of aides; when Mr. Cruz learned that the former president was there, he expressed interest in saying hello, according to the people briefed on the encounter.

The visit, in many ways, was a vintage performance for Mr. Clinton, who as president made a point of attempting to charm political rivals. That is not an approach that Mr. Cruz has taken since becoming a senator, although his rise in politics was fueled in part by personal relationships with members of a Washington establishment that he publicly disparages.

Still, Mr. Clinton, without staffers by his side, joined Mr. Cruz and three aides, according to the people briefed on the encounter.
WASHINGTON  A couple of times each term, the Supreme Court appoints a lawyer to argue a case before it as a friend of the court. Such appointments are a high honor, and they can turbocharge an already promising career.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.s first Supreme Court argument, when he was 33, was as an appointed lawyer. That was a big break, and it was the result of a sort of patronage system, dominated by white male lawyers, that has received surprisingly little scrutiny.

The court has this chit to give out, Katherine Shaw, who teaches at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, said in an interview. It has a lot of prestige. It can obviously be lucrative down the road. It can have significant impact on a lawyers future career advancement. The court is sort of anointing chosen individuals.

Professor Shaw explored the courts appointment practices in a study to be published in The Cornell Law Review. The current approach, she wrote, permits the justices to dole out the valuable asset of a Supreme Court argument to friends and former employees, in a way that is reminiscent of the cronyism and patronage that characterized government employment before the Civil Service reforms of the 19th century.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court, in an unsigned unanimous opinion, announced on Monday that it would not rule in a major case on access to contraception, and instructed lower courts to consider whether a compromise was possible.

The opinion is the latest indication that the Supreme Court, which currently has eight members, is exploring every avenue to avoid 4-to-4 deadlocks, even if it does not decide the question the justices have agreed to address.

The case concerned an accommodation offered to religious groups that did not want to offer insurance coverage for contraception to their female employees as ordinarily required by regulations under the Affordable Care Act. The accommodation allowed the groups not to pay for coverage and to avoid fines if they informed their insurers, plan administrators or the government that they wanted an exemption. Insurance companies or the government would then pay for the coverage.

Some religious groups objected, saying that providing the required notice still made them complicit in what they considered to be sinful conduct.
Monique Tillman was 15 years old when, she says, a police officer pulled her off her bicycle, slammed her to the ground and tased her after she rode through a mall parking lot in Tacoma, Wash. The arrest, in which she was accused of causing a disturbance, was caught on surveillance video. Now, the 17-year-old is suing the officer, the mall and some of its security guards.

The footage of Ms. Tillmans arrest in 2014 by the officer, Jared Williams, is the latest video to garner national attention and spur debate over what activists have denounced as the unduly harsh treatment of youths, mostly black or Hispanic, by police officers, including recent cases in South Carolina and Texas.

The complaint accuses Officer Williams of negligence in his treatment of a minor while working off duty as a security guard at the mall, and it seeks unspecified damages for physical and mental harm.

A child riding a bike should not have to worry that a police officer will stop her without legal cause and brutalize her, Ms. Tillmans lawyer, Vito de la Cruz, said in a statement. Our communities are weary of another African-American child being hurt by unwarranted and excessive police force.
At Yellowstone National Park, officials are used to issuing warnings to the public each time a visitor is injured by a bison. The animals hurt more tourists than any other animal at the park.

But this time, it was a newborn bison calf that suffered.

On Monday, officials said that the calf had been euthanized a week after visitors picked the animal up and put it in the back of an S.U.V. The calf was killed because it was later rejected by its herd and appeared to have been habituated to humans, Morgan Warthin of the National Park Service wrote in a statement.

The bison calf was later euthanized because it was abandoned and causing a dangerous situation by continually approaching people and cars along the roadway, Ms. Warthin wrote.
KABUL, Afghanistan  A large demonstration against the fragile Afghan government brought Kabul to a standstill on Monday and put security forces on alert, with the authorities stacking shipping containers to block all routes to the city center and the presidential palace.

The demonstration, which was driven by ethnic Hazaras outrage over the proposed route for a new electricity transmission line, tapped a deep well of factional tensions and frustration over the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Though most of the protest remained peaceful, some demonstrators pelted the container blockades with rocks and acted violently toward at least five reporters. The security forces resorted to sporadic use of water cannons to disperse people.

Thousands of demonstrators marched from the west of Kabul to demand that the government abandon its decision to reroute the line, which would transmit electricity from Turkmenistan. The line was initially supposed to go through Bamian, a Hazara-dominated central province that is one of the most deprived in the country. But the current proposed route avoids the province, instead going through the Salang Pass in Parwan Province, which protesters say is vulnerable to avalanches.
SEOUL, South Korea  The United States, South Korea and Japan will, for the first time, jointly test their ability to detect and track North Korean missiles, a South Korean Defense Ministry official said on Monday.

The drill will be conducted on June 28  shortly before Japan and South Korea are scheduled to join the American-led Rim of the Pacific Exercise in waters off Hawaii  and will involve destroyers equipped with the Aegis radar system, said the official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.

During the drill, the ships will test their ability to collect signs of North Korean missile launches, as well as data on missile trajectories, and they will share the information through a common channel operated by the United States, the official said.

The nations agreed to conduct the drill after North Koreas growing missile threat was emphasized by its launching of a long-range rocket on Feb. 7, the official said. North Korea said it had used the rocket to place a satellite in orbit, but the United Nations has banned it from launching such rockets, calling them a cover for developing an intercontinental ballistic missile.
STOCKHOLM  A Swedish court convicted a 61-year-old man on Monday of taking part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and sentenced him to life in prison. The case was noteworthy for being part of a transnational effort to hold people accountable for crimes against humanity, no matter where those crimes occurred.

The Stockholm District Court found that the man, Claver Berinkindi, a Rwandan who obtained Swedish citizenship in 2012, had participated in five massacres between April 18 and May 31, 1994. In the hills of Nyamure, in Rwandas Southern Province, he rallied people to participate in the killing of thousands of civilians, the court found. He was also involved in the deaths of hundreds of people who had sought refuge in a municipal building in the central Rwandan town of Muyira and in an adjacent adult education center. Trapped in the compound, hundreds of people were massacred.

There were thousands of victims on the mountain, and hundreds of victims in the communal building, Tora Holst, the chief prosecutor who leads a unit at the International Public Prosecution Office created in 2008 to focus on war crimes, said in a phone interview. In the mountain, he collected and assembled people to go there, and he participated in the attack.

The court found that Mr. Berinkindi had directly taken part in killings, using machetes, spears and clubs, Ms. Holst said. Its about the most serious crime known to mankind, she said.
An issue currently facing those of us who live in Tennessee is the opportunity to vote on Constitutional Amendment 1 to preserve Tennessees 1947 Right to Work law, which ensures that people cannot be forced to join a union and pay dues against their will. Please Vote Yes on Amendment 1 to add the law to the state constitution. I work for a manufacturing company where the team ... (click for more)
PARIS  Opposition to a sweeping trade deal between the United States and the European Union has gathered strength in Europe in recent weeks, but with a twist: The latest objections have less to do with what is known to be at stake, and more about what is unknown.

A leak of documents by Greenpeace, the environmental organization, in early May added to suspicions about the deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, as opponents turned the three-year debate away from trade issues to a broader denunciation of the secrecy surrounding the talks.

While Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany defended the treaty during a visit to her country by President Obama in late April, Sigmar Gabriel, the economy minister in her coalition government, led the charge for greater transparency.

Secrecy, Mr. Gabriel said, only creates a lot of conspiracy; this creates mistrust.

Both American and European negotiators dismissed the Greenpeace leaks as misleading at best and flatly wrong, contending that they reflected a work in progress, not final documents.
TEHRAN  Irans judiciary unleashed one of its periodic crackdowns on social media permissiveness on Sunday, announcing the arrest of eight people involved in online modeling without a mandatory head scarf and questioning another woman, a former model, live on state television on Sunday.

A blogger, Mehdi Abutorabi, 53, who managed a publishing tool called Persian Blog, was also detained, the semiofficial student news agency ISNA reported Monday.

The former model, Elham Arab, 26, had been something of an Instagram star, posting pictures of herself in bridal gowns with eye-catching, dyed-blond hair. But on Sunday, months after her Instagram account had been shut down, she wore a pious black scarf and matching gloves as she was questioned by two prosecutors during a live television program.

In sharp contrast to the happy and glamorous images of herself posted online, Ms. Arab spoke of her bitter experiences in Irans technically illegal modeling industry and warned young women to think twice before posting pictures of themselves online. You can be certain that no man would want to marry a model whose fame has come by losing her honor, she said.
Security and his medical treatment are other factors in Mr. Mubaraks hospital stay, friends say. A military spokesman declined to comment on the possibility of an arrangement with Mr. Mubarak.

Mr. Mubaraks legal limbo is a reflection of the curious place he occupies in Egyptian public life, five years after the heady protests that ended his long rule. Many Egyptians still despise him as the totemic symbol of the rampant cronyism and repression that plagued Egypt for decades. His incarceration is one of the last remaining victories for the leaders of the 2011 protests, many of whom are now languishing in Mr. Sisis jails.

But others have started to look back on Mr. Mubaraks rule with a twinge of bitter nostalgia, as a time of relative freedom compared with the harsh authoritarianism of Mr. Sisis rule.

Of course Mubarak was corrupt, but he knew how to take good advice, said Osama Diab, an anticorruption researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a prominent rights group in Cairo. Now its a disaster. Mubarak was a competent dictator; Sisi is not.

As hard feelings toward Mr. Mubarak seem to be receding, so do his legal woes.

The humiliations of 2012 and 2013, when he was forced to sit in a courtroom cage, are largely over. He avoided prosecution on the most serious charges, like the deaths of protesters in 2011, and he now faces a retrial in one final case. There is little prospect of it coming to court anytime soon, lawyers say.

Instead, Mr. Mubarak is whiling away his days at the Maadi Military Hospital, a towering complex overlooking the Nile. Staff members there say he lives under a permissive yet firm regimen. Security is tight, and all visitors are vetted by the Ministry of Defense, a security official said. He chats on his cellphone (he has an old Nokia model without Internet access) and occasionally receives a barber who dyes his hair. Nurses sometimes see him shuffling the halls as part of therapy for a fractured pelvis he suffered in a fall in the bathroom in 2013.

Mr. Mubarak frequently receives flowers from admirers, and visits from his wife, Suzanne, his sons and his grandchildren, and a tight circle of ardent admirers. They say his mood veers from high spirits to embittered grumbling, describing a man who is scornful of the allies who abandoned him, dismissive of the young protesters who pushed him out, and largely unrepentant for his 29 years in power.
The dish is called Hands Only, and the folks behind the Cecil, the restaurant in Harlem where it is served, are not kidding about that. To give you an extra nudge of encouragement, they usher it to your table with a hot aromatic towel that has been steamed with lemon thyme, kaffir lime and lemon peel.

Not that youre apt to resist digging in. Hands Only begs to be ripped apart with messy, hungry abandon.

For wrap-making and plate-swabbing, you have a soft, chewy, grilled roti from Hot Bread Kitchen. To squeeze between those swatches of flatbread, you have nubs of rabbit sausage from DArtagnan, a scoop of coconut sticky rice thats made fragrant with Thai basil, tender florets of cauliflower that have been stewed with cinnamon, and a ladles worth of black-eyed peas simmered with chiles.
Since his death on April 21, Prince has drawn tributes from around the globe, with the most fervent making the trip to his hometown, Minneapolis, where petitions are circulating to make the stars June 7 birthday a holiday and to rename a terminal after him at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Now, new tours make it easy to follow the Prince trail around town.

Waconiaville Tours, which specializes in winery visits, has added a Prince Tour that stops at Paisley Park, the home and studio of the star in suburban Chanhassen, which is not open to the public; his former school; the first theater where he performed; and the Electric Fetus, said to be his favorite record store in the Twin Cities. The tours, which will run four to five hours, are to begin May 28 ($58).

We thought we would let the dust settle a bit, but a lot of people were asking for tours and theres a story to be told, said Randy Luedtke, the owner of Waconiaville Tours.

To encourage Prince-inspired visitors, the tourism association Meet Minneapolis has published an online guide to the former homes, schools and clubs where Prince lived, studied and played. The list also features sites including the esteemed music club First Avenue, Cedar Lake and the Orpheum Theater where scenes from the 1984 Prince film Purple Rain were shot.
Berke, Berke & Berke Attorneys announced that the firm will be joined by Chattanooga area attorney, A. Emma Flynn. A. Emma Flynn graduated from the University of Miami and received her law degree from Notre Dame Law School. Before joining Berke, Berke, & Berke, Ms. Flynn managed her own law firm: The Law Office of A. Emma Flynn. There she practiced in business, labor, and real estate. She also provided services in dispute resolution and practiced conservatorships. Ms. Flynn has represented startups and has been involved in complex multi-million dollar cases involving contract violations, misrepresentations, fraud, RICO claims, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act among other federal financial statuses.





A. Emma Flynn is a member of and sits on the boards of the Chattanooga Bar Associations Young Attorney Division. She is also a member and former ambassador of Thousand Network, an international network of innovators. She joins Marvin Berke, senior member, Ronald Berke, and Charles Flynn at the firm. A.Emma Flynn is a member of and sits on the boards of the Chattanooga Bar Associations Young Attorney Division. She is also a member and former ambassador of Thousand Network, an international network of innovators. She joins Marvin Berke, senior member, Ronald Berke, and Charles Flynn at the firm.




Jury selection for the felony ethics trial of indicted Alabama Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard is slated to begin bright and early Monday morning.

Selection is expected to begin at 8:30 a.m. Monday in Courtroom 3 of the T.K. Davis Justice Center in Opelika.

Lee County Circuit Court Judge Jacob A. Walker III previously stated that opening arguments likely will begin the following week, on May 24 or 25.

A May 24 hearing is set for Alabama Media Groups non-party motion to quash a subpoena filed by Hubbard defense attorneys. The subpoena, which has not been discussed at length in open court, seeks to obtain the identities of two anonymous commentators to news stories published on AL.com, according to an article published by AL.com last Thursday. The hearing currently is set for 9 a.m.

Hubbards lead defense attorney Bill Baxley earlier this month dismissed rumors that Hubbard would take a plea deal on or before jury selection starts Monday.

Contrary to reports published by state political bloggers and social media writers claiming that Hubbard would resign from public office, plead guilty to public corruption charges and agree to an 18-month sentence, 12 months of which would be served in the Lee County Jail and six months would be suspended, and be allowed to register as a lobbyist after serving his sentence in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors investigating allegations of public corruption by Gov. Robert Bentley, former Gov. Bob Riley and Senate President Del Marsh, Baxley said all reports were false.

They are 100 percent incorrect; theyre untrue, said Baxley in a May 4 interview with the Opelika-Auburn News. There has never, ever, ever been any talk or thought of entering a plea. It is not going to happen.

Walker, at an April 29 hearing, denied the defenses latest motion to continue the case until August. Defense attorneys Baxley and Lance Bell signed affidavits last month claiming that, without a continuance in the case, the counselors would not be able to provide an adequate defense for the Auburn Republican.

Defense attorneys have also informed Walker of their intentions to file a writ of mandamus  basically seeking a review of a ruling or rulings Walker has already made in the case  with the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, which Walker said could potentially lead to a delay in the trial.

If the mandamus is filed and still pending and not ruled on, Im not going to try a case where a ruling is pending, Walker said last month. Im just not.

Hubbard was indicted on 23 felony ethics charges of using his political position for personal gain in October 2014. Hubbard has maintained his innocence, and has continued to serve as Speaker of the House during the 2016 Alabama legislative session.
WASHINGTON  Half of the pregnancy-associated hemorrhage deaths in Michigan were deemed preventable, and most of those occurred in women who received no fresh frozen plasma during their transfusion.

Only 3 women in the 46-case series received the generally accepted one-to-one ratio of fresh frozen plasma to packed red cells, Kathryn De La Rosa said at the annual meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Kathryn De La Rosa

The data, gleaned from state records, were not detailed enough to show with absolute certainty that the failure to follow transfusion protocol was lethal, said Ms. De La Rosa, a medical student at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

I cant say in good faith that this is why they died, she said. I dont think we have the ability to say, if these women had gotten fresh frozen plasma, they would be here today. What this does show is that this is an area that needs improvement. Its something we should be recognizing and dealing with.

The study plumbed records of all pregnancy-associated deaths examined by the State of Michigan Maternal Mortality review committee from 1998 to 2011. Of these, 46 were due to hemorrhage. As part of the adjudication process, the board reviews each case and determines whether or not it was a preventable death; 23 were deemed preventable.

The most common cause of preventable hemorrhage death was postpartum hemorrhage, occurring in seven cases. Other causes included placental abruption, abortion-related, amniotic fluid embolism, antepartum hemorrhage, uterine rupture, ectopic rupture, preeclampsia, and sepsis.

Most of the women who succumbed to a preventable death were younger than 30 years (13); 7 were aged 30-34 years and the remainder were 35 years or older. There was no relationship between preventable death and race or mode of delivery, Ms. De La Rosa noted.

When she examined details of each patients transfusion protocol, it was immediately apparent that the protocol of a one-to-one or higher ratio of fresh frozen plasma to packed red cells was not being applied.

These women got an average of 10 units of cells but not the proper ratio of fresh frozen plasma. In fact, 17 of our 23 preventable deaths didnt get any fresh frozen plasma at all, she said. Only 3 of the 46 cases conformed to that protocol; of these, one death was considered preventable.

She conducted a more in-depth analysis of the five postpartum hemorrhage cases that occurred in a hospital (two occurred outside a hospital). These women underwent a large variety of interventions, including uterotonics, oxytocin, bedside interventions like laceration repair, fundal massage and manual extraction of uterine contents, and surgery.

But there were concerns about the adequate application of best transfusion practices, Ms. De La Rosa said. None of the women were at a facility that used a massive transfusion protocol, and none were transfused aggressively with the proper plasma/red cell ratio.

Michigan has recently joined a national project to improve maternal health outcomes, including those related to hemorrhage, she said. The Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) is a partnership of organizations dedicated to reducing severe maternal morbidity by 100,000 events and maternal mortality by 1,000 deaths by 2018. Michigans goal is to cut maternal mortality in half by 2017.

In addition to obstetric hemorrhage, the group is developing other bundles on hypertension/preeclampsia, venous thromboembolism, and reduction of primary cesarean section.

Ms. De La Rosa reported having no financial disclosures.

msullivan@frontlinemedcom.com

On Twitter @Alz_Gal
Early in the morning, a flotilla of boats containing TVA engineers fan out across Wheeler Lake in northern Alabama. Their mission is not to respond to a problem, but to deploy sensors at various points in the water column. These devices will gather data so TVA can make better decisions in order to protect the ecosystem and save ratepayers money.

Daniel Saint, TVA civil engineer for the companys River Forecast Center is on one of those boats. Saint and his fellow engineers are executing a complex plan. They are making a 3D water-temperature model of the lakean integral part of the Tennessee River watershedso TVA can better forecast water temperatures throughout the year.

People understand that water temperature affects wildlife, said Mr. Saint. What folks may not realize is that water temperature can also have a positive or negative affect on their power bill.

The Tennessee Valley Authority is the largest public utility in the United States. As a public utility, the companys ratepayers fund the organization, which is responsible for holding rates as low as is feasible.

Since there are no shareholders, TVA passes costs and savings directly back to the Valleys local power companies, and ultimately to the person paying their power bill, Mr. Saint said. Getting data to be more efficient will allow [TVA] to reduce costs.

How so? TVAs Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant draws cooling water from the lake. TVA hopes improved temperature data will enable the company to whenand when notto make use of expensive cooling systems, ultimately cutting the cost of producing electricity.

It costs a lot of money to operate our cooling towers at Browns Ferry, said Mr. Saint. With seven cooling towers at the plant, we can avoid a lot of costs to the rate payers if we can safely avoid running them.

Data-Driven Cost Cutting

While TVA continually collects data and updates its river temperature database, technological advancements including 3D data collection and modeling technology can produce improved forecasting models that were unavailable just a few years ago, Mr. Saint noted.

3D technology makes this study different than any other data weve gathered so far, he said. The models we are creating are more precise, and we can duplicate the study in order to reduce costs at all of our TVA facilities along the river.

Mr. Saint explains that with the 3D temperature model the company will more precisely know when to turn on the cooling towers to improve both plant and environmental safety, and when to turn them off to avoid unnecessary costs to the ratepayers.

TVA also wants to collect temperature data to ensure that heated water discharged by Browns Ferry does not impact the river's ecosystem.

According to TVA and the United States Geological Survey, 96 percent of the water pulled from the Tennessee River goes back into the river. Mr. Saint hopes the data will help TVA understand how the temperature of returned water affects the river, and how the company can adjust its operations.

At the end of the day, its all about making better decisions for our ratepayers and being better stewards of the river and its ecosystem, he said.
We can all be thankful that Wango Tango  sorry, 102.7 KIIS FMs Wango Tango, as they insist it be called  was fun, but unfortunately for the audience, the fun of the live performances Saturday was undermined by production problems and incessant advertising.

This was especially upsetting because the artists themselves were so entertaining. Ariana Grande stole the night, wowing the audience with striking poise, confidence and strength. Her flawless vocal performance over that broad, crushing live bass added new life to songs that might have fallen flat in the studio, while her star power alone was enough to wake the lethargic crowd.

She, along with the more experienced Gwen Stefani, were the highlights of the night. Gwens performance consisted of new material interspersed among old favorites. Hollaback Girl was obviously the biggest song of the night, with hardly a single person not shouting along.

Wango Tango lasts all day, which means that unless the night gets more energetic, the crowds fall asleep. Spirited acts like Meghan Trainor were able to get huge reactions from fans, while more relaxed performers like Fifth Harmony had a hard time holding audiences for a full set.

The crowd would always get excited for a new act, but by the second song, most people were again in their seats. This was a big problem for some of the earlier performers during the day who couldnt capitalize on a light show. Early mixing problems also made it hard to hear certain artists. Demi Lovatos big voice was often drowned out by an even bigger bass. Alessia Caras set sounded muddy in the stadiums bowl. Equally frustrating was the pronounced echo off the back of the stadium.

DNCE injected the first real jolt of verve into the show. The band was electric, bringing the audience to its feet and even providing the first true screams of the evening when members, minus the poor, restricted drummer, ran a lap through the audience, ending up in the crowd.

Iggy Azaleas set was overlong and fraught with technical issues  issues that a better artist might have been able to shrug off. Right off the bat, through no fault of her own, her beats werent playing over the speakers, and when she started rapping, the audience realized her mic was off. She blurted out, Sorry! in her native Australian accent, then astonishingly spoke with a phony Southern accent every other time she addressed the crowd. Whats worse, her beats were flat and boring, her songs were too long, and the initial excitement she had generated was gone by the time she left the stage.

The most offensive part of the show, however, was the incessant advertising. Product commercials were played between acts, huge City National banners covered seats and Chevys were on display, showroom style, all over the field. They even snuck in these little ads for the music industry in the artist bios of the program booklets. The event even felt like a radio show. The artists came on for a few songs, then some ads were played, then Ryan Seacrest introduced the next segment, and so on.

Regardless, however, most of the artists were everything fans had hoped they would be.
BEIJING  Fifty years after his father was killed, Chen Shuxiang still wonders what happened to his bloodied corpse. He keeps a frayed note from back then that let him make his way through the mayhem of the Cultural Revolution and pay the student zealots who beat his father to death to have him cremated.

He never found his fathers body. Ever since, he has hoped for answers, and waited for the students who killed his father to turn up, older and contrite, and say they were sorry. No one has.

Chen is still waiting for a frank reckoning with the legacy of Maos Cultural Revolution, and so is China.

Just before he died, my father wasnt even allowed a mouthful of water, said Chen, 72, a retired teacher who lives in northwest Beijing, a few minutes walk from where his father lived. Its something I dont like to think about even now, but also I want to hear from those who did this.

Why did they pick him out? Where did his ashes end up?

Half a century after Mao Zedong started the Cultural Revolution, his tumultuous drive to enlist ordinary Chinese to purge the country of ideological foes, many who lived through that time believe its legacy still haunts their country.

From its official beginning on May 16, 1966, until it fizzled out with Maos death in 1976, perhaps a million or more people were killed, tens of millions were persecuted, the economy stagnated, and thousands of historical and cultural monuments were destroyed.

The Communist Party officially condemned the movement in 1981, declaring it responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Peoples Republic since its founding in 1949.

But China has yet to squarely face up to the era. The party has lately become even more hostile to scrutiny of Mao, unwilling to confront touchy questions about his and the partys unbridled power, or to dredge up contested memories of a time when perpetrators often became victims themselves.

The suppression of memory has blocked the kind of airing out of the episode  much less the assigning of legal culpability  that many who endured it believe could help the country move forward.

Historians in China often cannot publish research about the Cultural Revolution. Textbooks scurry past that time. Many young people have no idea that their schools were once battlegrounds for the student militants, known as Red Guards. This year, the government has not held any memorials for the anniversary and has discouraged public mourning.

The Communist Party holds power, and this is a dark mark against it, said Chen Bing, a student at the time at the school where Chens father was killed. If it publicizes this too much, thats like staining its own reputation.

Many survivors, former Red Guards and historians said the official reticence had permitted a dangerous nostalgia for Maos time.

They see no risk of a full-scale repeat of the Cultural Revolution. President Xi Jinping has none of Maos appetite for upheaval, and Chinese society is far less rigid and isolated now. But many said they worried about a return of the harsh political tactics, ideological zealotry and absolutist pronouncements that fed the fury of the Red Guards, Maos teenage political shock troops.

Their fears have grown under Xi. The presidents family suffered grievously during the Cultural Revolution. His father was purged by Mao and persecuted by Red Guards, his sister is believed to have been driven to suicide by Red Guards, and Xi himself drifted around Beijing as strife consumed the city.

But in a turn that historians still puzzle over, as an adult politician Xi has publicly revered Mao. And since he took power in 2012, critics have detected traces of Mao as he has clamped down on dissent and amassed formidable power.

If the ghosts of the Cultural Revolution are not dispersed and are allowed to grow, well slide in the direction of another Cultural Revolution, said Bu Weihua, a former Red Guard who attended the high school where Chen was a student and then teacher. Bu became one of Chinas most respected historians of the era. More dregs of Cultural Revolution rhetoric, methods and doctrines will float up.

To many, the recent Communist Party-backed denunciations of a retired real estate developer who chided Xi were reminiscent of Cultural Revolution-style purges. Others have criticized a recent performance eulogizing Mao in the Great Hall of the People as a disturbing sign.

People who didnt experience the Cultural Revolution know only that many officials were persecuted, but they dont know that the numbers of ordinary people who suffered were 10 times, a hundred times, more, Yang Jisheng, a Chinese historian who has come under official pressure over his critical studies of the Maoist era, said in a recent speech in Beijing. Unfortunately, nowadays there are some people doing everything in their power to cover up the mistakes of history.

The Cultural Revolution was Maos campaign to root out internal enemies who, he said, had been seduced by capitalism and the revisionist compromises of the Soviet Union. Students formed Red Guard groups to enforce Maos will, he gave them his blessing, and the tumult escalated, especially in schools, where students condemned teachers and officials.

Before retiring, Chen was an instructor at the prestigious Tsinghua University High School, the birthplace of the first Red Guard group. But even as students there moved from tirades against teachers to physical humiliation, with witch hats and parades, to beatings, Chen thought his family was safe.

His father was solidly working class, a barely educated boiler operator whose own father had done the same humble job. His mother washed clothes for extra cash. Chen, the eldest of seven children, had given up hopes of entering a university so that he could help support his siblings. He found a job as an instructor at the same high school where he had studied.

But on the evening of Aug. 27, 1966, as he turned the corner to his familys home, he saw more than a dozen youths in green uniforms with red armbands, the favored uniform of Red Guards, Chen said. A neighbor spotted Chen and waved him away.

When he crept back that night, the home was in shambles. His brothers and sisters were bawling; the dumplings his mother had been preparing for dinner were squashed on the walls and floor; his parents were missing.

The next morning, his mother, Liu Wancai, stumbled home, barely able to talk, her clothes torn, her face covered in blood.

What about Dad? Chen asked, according to his privately published memoir.

He was killed, his mother said. Its true. He died beside me.

Liu and her husband had been taken by Red Guards, and he was accused of being a class enemy, she told Chen. The family of Chens father had once owned about 3 acres of land, enough to label the father a landlord, anathema to the revolution.

The teenage mob threw the couple into the back of a truck and took them to a school where they were beaten with military-style leather belts, the favorite punishment tool of Red Guards; a jump-rope twisted into a whip; and shoes with nails jutting out, Liu later said. The mob then drove the couple to another school where the beating continued, including with iron rods.

The father, Chen Yanrong, 37, insisted that the landlord label was wrong; his family had long given up the property. But back then, the younger Chen said, the more you denied something, the more you were beaten.

As he lay in his own blood, Chen Yanrong begged for water. The students said no, and he stopped breathing soon after.

There was some randomness to who was seized upon, said Guobin Yang, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of a new study, The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China. The most important thing was really to show that we  the organization  were the real revolutionaries.

By later official accounts, 1,772 people were killed in the tumult across Beijing in August and September 1966. There were probably more, including suicides and people killed after being expelled from the city.

The Red Guards who took Chens parents came from one of the citys top schools, Peking University High School, according to his mother as well as later official documents.

The day after his father was seized, Chen asked Red Guards from his school to write a note allowing him to go to Peking University High School to pay the Red Guards there for the cremation. But at the school gate, he heard people say that there had been ruthless beatings there overnight and that two corpses had been taken away.

Afraid, Chen left without entering or seeing his fathers body. He still has the note, tucked away in the back of a picture frame.

His mother died in 2011 and was never able to identify her attackers. The family left space at her grave for her husbands remains, should they ever be found.

After Mao died in 1976, the family received 2,500 renminbi, equal to about $380 at current exchange rates but a more generous sum back then, in compensation for the fathers death. Peking University High School also gave the family a statement acknowledging that the schools Red Guards, who called themselves the Red Flag Struggle Group, had killed him.

But no one has ever come forward to take responsibility for the death, Chen said.

Peng Xiaomeng, a former leader of the Red Flag group who is now in her late 60s, has worked under a different name as an editor for an economic policy journal in Beijing. Reached by telephone, she seemed startled to be asked about events 50 years ago but said she did not recall the episode.

I really dont know whether it was the Red Flag group, she said. I have nothing else to say.

Chen stood by his mothers recollections, which were corroborated by official documents.

Even now, these people are all like this, all evading responsibility, he said, his voice choking. They say: I wasnt at the school. I wasnt at the meeting. I didnt know.

After 50 years, he said, they still havent gained any understanding.
Marvin L. Dawkins was a 53-year-old AT&T manager when a blocked blood vessel left him paralyzed. It took 11 years, one lawsuit, repeated tangles over Medicaid rules  and a chance meeting on a church van  before he could extract himself from a nursing home outside Baltimore.

Now he lives in an apartment with the assistance of an aide, gets out for a job that he says gives him purpose, socializes with new friends and old ones, and revels in his freedom. I determine what happens to me, he said. I was there at the nursing home basically just laying in bed and watching TV. I didnt think it was much of an existence.

Across the nation, many other Americans who could live elsewhere with help are unwillingly confined to nursing homes or long-term care facilities. Nearly 20 years after the Supreme Court ruled that people with disabilities who require public support were entitled to live in their community, rather than in institutions unless medically necessary, the federal government and states are still far from achieving that goal. Because of budget cuts, inflexible rules, a patchwork of programs and a widespread failure to bolster alternative care, others like Dawkins describe feeling stuck in deeply unsatisfying, sometimes miserable, settings.

Those people are not in view, said Eve Hill, the deputy assistant attorney general in the civil rights division at the Justice Department. We forget about them because they are not in our everyday lives. And that just cant be the answer. We cant ignore this.

Since 2009, the department has conducted investigations, brought lawsuits and settled with eight states over compliance with the court decision, which Hill said changed the assumptions of what people can do. That requires us to unbuild something, she added, and to build it differently.

Some states, including Minnesota, Oregon and Washington, have made real progress, taking steps like shifting more Medicaid dollars to home support, training caregivers to administer medications and paying family members who provide assistance. But in many others, government inaction and structural obstacles like a shortage of home health care aides has often made nursing homes the only option. South Dakota was singled out last week by federal officials who threatened to sue if the state did not fix its problems.

More than 1.4 million Americans live in nursing homes, but it is hard to know how many of them could move back home. Federal data suggests that about 155,000 nursing home residents have a low need for round-the-clock assistance. And about 217,000 people are of working age, another group that experts say could function well at home. But long-term care experts said that some residents who are sicker might also be good candidates to leave.

Mariussi Ogando-Rodriguez, 29, said she feels lonely among the hundreds of mostly older residents at the Manhattan nursing center where she has lived for three years. A former accounting student and cashier at Chipotle, she needs dialysis three times a week, but could care for herself. Gesturing toward a group of people watching television last week in a recreation room that smelled like urine, she said, Sometimes I feel desperate.

A range of factors conspire to prevent residents from leaving. In many states, Medicaid programs restrict home health services, limiting the hours of care, for example. Waiting lists are common. Mentally ill people, for whom nursing homes are shelters of last resort, are particularly difficult to place. And everywhere, it seems, affordable, accessible housing for people with disabilities is in short supply.

Living at home is not the right choice for everyone, of course, even with assistance. Some people are too ill. Managing aides can be daunting, and family members might not be able  or willing  to care for relatives or share their homes, particularly when cognitive skills are impaired. For those without family, living alone can be isolating.

Still, about half of Medicaid spending on long-term care now goes toward services in the home or community, compared with less than 20 percent two decades ago, though that varies widely by state. Health care officials predict demand for in-home services will only grow as the population ages. Emily Johnson Piper, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, said, The baby boomers in Minnesota and across the country have the expectation that they will be offered and afforded availability of services for them to live out their retirement years in their communities.

Many states have concluded that caring for people at home is more cost-effective. Washington state, for example, has found that its costs for one nursing home resident would pay for home care for seven people. Alabama calculated that it cost the state about $25,000 a year less, per person, to offer care at home.

The few studies that have compared the outcomes of people in nursing homes with those cared for at home have reached mixed conclusions. In one recent study, researchers surveyed thousands of former nursing home residents. They reported significant improvements in satisfaction and fewer unmet needs for help with personal care. However, more than three-quarters of them said they had visited an emergency room or been admitted to a hospital or nursing home during the first year of living in the community. Some advocates have also raised concerns about abuse in unregulated home care.

Representatives of the nursing home industry acknowledged that many residents do not need to remain in their facilities. But they said better alternatives were required. If there is no one with the state to help coordinate that transition process, then there is nowhere for that person to go, said Mike Cheek, a senior vice president at the American Health Care Association, which represents for-profit nursing homes.

South Dakota has one of the worst records in the country. Nearly 17 percent of its nursing home population is classified as having a low need for the services provided in an institution, among the highest percentages of any state, according to an AARP report.

In its report, the Justice Department acknowledged that South Dakotas geography and limited workforce posed challenges, but it also said that the state had not made better use of existing programs, including one that places disabled people in small, family-style group homes. The state has moved only 10 people home from nursing facilities since 2013 as part of a federal grant to do so, according to the federal report. Kim Malsam-Rysdon, South Dakotas secretary of health, said state officials agreed that community-based care was preferable in many cases, but that its just a balancing act of the ideal and reality.

Minnesota faces some of the same challenges, but it has managed to move more than 3,000 people from nursing homes to the community since 2010 through one program. Others provide alternatives so people do not have to enter nursing homes.

Dawkins, the former nursing home resident from Baltimore County who was paralyzed, said the vulnerability he sometimes feels at night when he has no aides to help him is outweighed by the control he has over his daily activities. At the nursing home, he often had to wait up to an hour for a response after pushing his call button, he recalled in an interview, and aides would wake him at 3 a.m., when it suited their schedule, to dress him for church services hours later.

It was on a ride to church that he met an advocate who helps nursing home patients apply for support services to live independently. He sued the state of Maryland, which had denied him Medicaid funding for at-home care, but he won the assistance two years ago. Now he has a job going door to door at nursing homes, including the one he left, identifying residents interested in following the same path.

Ive had people when I told them about the program cry, break down and cry, he said.
Although marijuana legalization remains a contentious issue, some consensus has emerged across the country to allow medical marijuana regulation among the 50 states. Yet the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals soon will decide three cases in which the U.S. Justice Department continues to prosecute people for violating federal laws against medical pot.

At issue is Congress reauthorization last year of the Rohrabacher-Farr Medical Cannabis Amendment, which bans using federal funds to prosecute medical marijuana cases in states where its legal. It was co-authored by two California representatives, Republican Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach and Democrat Sam Farr of Carmel.

One case is United States v. Steve McIntosh, a dispensary owner in Los Angeles. The DOJ charges he had ties to local gangs. But the Associated Press reported he had permits from local officials that show him in compliance with state law, according to his attorney, Marc Zilversmit. Under the congressional amendment, the most the federal government can do is refer him to state authorities for prosecution, Zilversmit said.

The court is expected to clarify the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, which the congressional authors thought had barred the federal government from prosecuting activities that were compliant with state medical marijuana laws, R. Keith Stroup told us; hes an attorney and a co-founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. The DOJ is taking a needlessly restrictive interpretation of the budget amendment, claiming it only bars them from interfering with the state medical-use laws, and from prosecuting state employees.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, Reps. Rohrabacher and Farr noted that their amendments fundamental purpose is to prevent the DOJ from (i) wasting any more of its limited resources prosecuting medical marijuana cases where a states law permits its use and (ii) impeding the ability of those states to carry out their medical marijuana laws.

We urge the 9th Circuit to rule against the DOJ, which itself should start following the law and end prosecutions.
Police in Manchester, England, and a military bomb disposal unit destroyed with a controlled explosion a suspicious package found Sunday just before kickoff of Manchester Uniteds Premier League game at Old Trafford, later determining it wasnt viable because it was a device left from a training exercise.

The discovery of the device came as fans were filing in and Bournemouth players had begun their warmups for the 3 p.m. match in the storied stadium, which holds 75,653 fans. Players immediately left the field, and an evacuation began.

Less than two hours later, Manchester police said that detonation of the package, which multiple reports indicated contained a cellphone strapped to a gas pipe, had taken place. The package was found in a bathroom in the northwest quadrant of the stadium, between the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand and the Stretford End, by stadium personnel.

The device inside the package, Manchester police later tweeted, wasnt viable, but they described it as being incredibly lifelike. A full search of the stadium was done, police added.

Following todays controlled explosion, we have since found out that the item was a training device which had accidentally been left by a private company following a training exercise involving explosive search dogs, John OHare, Manchester assistant chief constable, said in a statement.

Authorities were edgy after Britain raised the terrorist threat level last week from moderate to substantial, linking it to Northern Ireland and what Home Secretary Theresa May said was the continuing threat from dissident republican activity.
SANTA ANA  An adult man was shot in the north end of Civic Center on Sunday night and transported to a local hospital, Santa Ana police said.

The Santa Ana Police Department received a call at 9:34 p.m. reporting shots fired in the area around 800 N. Parton St., Cmdr. Matt Sorenson said.

Responding officers found a victim who sustained a gunshot wound in his lower body. His injuries were non-life threatening, Sorenson said.

So far weve received conflicting statements with regards to suspect descriptions, he said.

It remained unknown on Sunday night whether the shooting was gang-related, Sorenson said.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7762, jkwong@ocregister.com or on Twitter: @JessicaGKwong
WESTMINSTER  His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama will visit Orange County for the second year in a row, it was confirmed Monday.

Next month, the man who is often called the worlds most famous refugee will visit Orange Countys Little Saigon, home to refugees who fled the communist regime after the fall of Saigon in April 1975.

The Dalai Lama will participate in the grand-opening ceremony of the Dieu Ngu temple at the invitation of the temples abbot, Thich Vien Ly, who confirmed the visit. The trip also was announced on the Dalai Lamas website, dalailama.com.

At 9 a.m. June 18, the Dalai Lama will give a public talk on The Power of Compassion as Key to Accomplishing Greater Values to Self and Others. On the morning of June 19, he will deliver the keynote address and participate in a ribbon-cutting for the newly constructed Buddhist temple.

The Dieu Ngu temple opened on Chestnut Street in 2008. The 20,000-square-foot, $6 million traditional temple building features pagodas, a red brick tile roof, a giant statue of Buddha gracing the temple front and living quarters for the monks.

In July, the exiled Tibetan leader celebrated his 80th birthday at the Honda Center and led the Global Compassion Summit at UC Irvine, with sessions on topics such as compassion, education and climate change.

For more information, call 714-890-9513 or email chuadieungu@gmail.com.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7909 or dbharath@ocregister.com
After terminating the contract with Measurement Inc. for scoring TNReady, on April 27, the Tennessee Department of Education, in collaboration with the states Central Procurement Office, immediately began the process of securing an emergency contract with a vendor with which the department already has an existing relationship.

Pursuant to T.C.A.  12-3-505 state agencies can purchase, in the open market, services for immediate delivery to meet emergencies arising from any unforeseen cause. In collaboration with CPO, the department has selected Pearson to score assessments from the 2015-16 school year.

Pearson is the Tennessees current vendor for the SAT-10 test, an optional test districts can administer in kindergarten through second grade. Also, Pearson, known for scoring NAEP for three decades (better known as the Nations Report Card), is currently partnering with 25 states across the country, including Kentucky, Virginia and Indiana. Pearson developed, administered, and scored grades 38 tests and/or high school End of Course exams in Tennessee from 2003 through 2014.

The emergency contract with Pearson is only for scoring and reporting of 2015-16 assessments. This will include scoring high school End of Course exams, Part I grade 38 tests, and any completed Part II grade 38 exams. High school score reports, as well as grade 38 raw data, will be shared in fall 2016.

The Tennessee Department of Education is currently working on a separate procurement process in collaboration with CPO to select a vendor to develop and administer next years assessment.




Stonewalling in Westhampton Beach has caused open revolt among residents. Similar behavior at PR Society of America has stunted its growth: 2015 revenues are what they were in 2006.





Erin McKinley

Two library board meetings at which the two sides traded insults and recesses had to be calledhave failed to budge the board on switching to elected status. Oddly, the Southampton Press covered the first meeting but not the second, although reporter Erin McKinley was present at both.

Joseph Louchheim, publisher and owner, SH Press



The McKinley story attracted 19 emails from readers, 17 of them in support of rejecting the library budget May 17. SH Press has not mentioned in any story the quest of citizens to reject the library budget.

At PRSA, publication of the 2015 audit shows revenues of $11,600,526 which is 0.l5% more than revenues of $11,426,867 in 2006.

Revenues have gone up less than one percent in nine years despite a $30 boost in dues five years ago.

There are more than 250,000 people in PR jobs according to the Dept. of Labor. Jobs have been increasing, particularly on the counselor side, as measured by the ODwyer rankings of PR firms. PRSA membership has been stable at 22,000 for several years.

Fifteen of the 25 largest PR firms in the rankings had double-digit gains in 2015.

The PR industry is passing by the PR Society. Top executives are in the Arthur W. Page Society and (PR) Seminar and not the Society. Financial PR executives are in the National Investor Relations Institute. Instead of a major corporate or agency executive, the chair of the Society in 2017 will be Jane Dvorak, a solo practitioner in Colorado.

CEO of the Society is Joseph Truncale, a veteran of the printing/mailing industries who joined in early 2015 and has yet to make a public appearance. The inference is that no top PR executive could be found to fill that post. Making the non-PR paid staffer CEO two years ago was a bizarre move.

Record Low Spending on Ethics

What also caught our eye in the audit was the record low spend of $945 on ethics although the Society Code says ethical behavior is the prime duty of members.

This item has been in the low thousands but never below $1,000. The Societys spending for ethics includes $704 for telephone, $233 for printing, and $8 for postage/shipping, No staff time at all was spent on ethics.

There was a period in the 1980s and early 1990s when $20,000 and more was spent annually on ethics as investigations were made of member complaints. When the Society decided to end ethical enforcement in 1999 (after a member charged the board with five ethical violations when it declared a press boycott), approximately $200,000 was spent to create a new, toothless code.

Removal of enforcement of the Code went against the wishes of the members, Prof. Kathy Fitzpatrick then at Quinnipiac University wrote in 2002.

We consider the Societys policy of blocking reporters as members and blocking them from seeing its financial reports to be unethical behavior. However, theres no ethics committee to handle such complaints. Thankfully, not all members believe that the annual audit should not be accessed by reporters.

Staff Pay, Pensions: $6.2 Million

Another item that caught our eye was the record payroll of $5,766,542, up 8.3% from $5,321,535 in 2014. It is 49.7% of revenues when 2003 payroll of $3,905,950 was 43% of revenues of $9,065,643. To the 2015 figure must be added $417,398 in pension expenses for a total of $6,283,940. Since there are about 55 staffers, that works out to an average of $114,940 per staffer. They also get medical insurance and other benefits.

Such pay levels are far above what most Society members earn especially now since many are in junior and mid-level posts.

The audit misleads as to the net worth of the Society since dues are booked as cash when almost no other trade association does that. Income is supposed to be booked as earned throughout the year according to generally accepted accounting principles.

Therefore, the $5,686,361 in net assets should be cut by $2.6 million which is half of the dues income of $5,221,843. Real net assets are about $3M.

The above are not our biggest beefs about the Society. The big one is the negligent treatment of New York and New York members. There has only been one national conference in New York since 1992 and none are planned in the future. It should be in the city every year because the 2004 conference in New York was the best attended and most profitable ever. New York has about 20 times the PR, advertising, media and PR supplier businesses as any other town.

Also, its the No. 1 tourist attraction in the U.S., more than 50 million tourists visiting each year

The Society has been captured by arch-conservative believers in accreditation from the South and West who show no signs of relaxing their grip despite evidence membership is stagnant.

Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis, whose employee Mark McClennan is chair but not CEO of the Society, should step into this mess. It is a blot on Publicis which is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year.

Also complicit is the New York chapter leadership which accepts neglectful treatment by national year after year. Chapter membership of about 700 is what it was 15 years ago while New York Women in Communications is 2,000+. Are chapter leaders getting some kind of rake-off that we dont know about? Counselor Academy leaders have said that new biz leads flood into national h.q. each month but we never see any advertised on the Society website. Who gets them?!

Governance Gamesmanship by PRSA, WHB

Both the PR Society and WHB officials practice governance gamesmanship in dealing with their constituentslimiting access to themselves, limiting information, and using dominance tactics at meetings.

Society leaders and staff position themselves on a stage at the annual Assembly while delegates are below them in the audience.

When allowed to speak, which is usually after nearly a dozen speeches by officials and staff, delegates do so from mikes on the floor of the Assembly and are ordered to Address the board if they start speaking to fellow delegates. Lawyers on stage are ready to snap at any delegate who does so. Lawyers also warn delegates never, ever to tell the board what to do.

The list of Assembly delegates, which once was published, went private many years ago, accessible now only to delegates themselves.

Key information is withheld. The 2006 move by the Central Michigan chapter to have the Society adopt governance practices of the American Medical Assn. and American Bar Assn., shifting power from the board to the Assembly, never made any Society publications or the Society website.

Members who organized the Committee for a Democratic PRSA in 2010 were denied use of the membership email list and their group was never mentioned in any Society publication or on the Society website. The attempt at reform failed miserably.

WHB Trustees Give Selves Edge

WHB trustees are only available to the public at monthly meetings in the trustee room in WHB headquarters. Residents can only speak after sometimes dozens of procedural items are taken care of such as renewal of licenses.

Trustee rules are that residents can speak for only five minutes and must address the board which is seated on a platform that is higher than the rest of the room. Should the resident look at the people in the room or the video camera that is recording the meeting, the lawyer for the trustees will order the resident to address the board.

New York States Open Meetings law only requires board members to listen to citizens at a meeting. They are not required to respond. Library board meetings are neither audiotaped or videotaped.

A town hall meeting would put the citizens in the drivers seat. WHB trustees have never called such a meeting.

After about a year and a half of trying, we were finally able to have a phone conversation with Mayor Moore on May 13. She reiterated the boards position that the monthly meeting is for conduct of the boards business and cannot be used by a citizen to state his or her views unless such views are relevant to the board.

We spoke for ten minutes at two of the meeting last year and were cut off after five minutes at the next three. The board does not want to hear what we have to say about the proposed eruv for WHB and other subjects.

NYT Reporter Writing about Eruv

A New York Times reporter has been assigned to write about the eruv proposed for WHB and has been calling on interested parties including those at Jewish People for the Betterment of WHB. This would be the first NYT coverage of the topic since religion reporter Sharon Otterman of NYT wrote about it on Feb. 4, 2013.

The eruv, as described by Otterman, would consist of about 60 ten to 15-foot long, five-eighths-of-an-inch wide PVC strips attached to utility poles and painted to blend in with them. They would be difficult to see and would be shorter than the poles themselves, Robert Sugarman, lawyer for the East End Eruv Assn., told Otterman. The markers would go on 48 poles. There are no such markers on any WHB poles according to a survey by SH Press published March 20, 2015.

She quoted Conrad Teller, mayor in 2013, as saying that 90-95% of residents dont want an eruv.

We have asked Mayor Moore to call some town halls where the public would be in the drivers seat and not the board. Residents would be able to address each other without being told, Address the board. Dominance tactics of trustees would not be allowed.

Trustees would sit at the same level as the residents and not look down upon them. A moderator would be picked by the residents who would also have their own lawyer on hand.

That would be democracy in action. Officials would finally be answerable to the citizens. The meetings would be in the high school or one of the large rooms at the library and not in the small room where trustees hold their sessions.
Ronn Torossian

While half of the country is busy arguing about who should be able to use the restroom, certain Tyson chicken employees are now claiming they cant go to the bathroom at all. According to a report from poverty activist group Oxfam America, poultry workers are routinely denied basic needs including bathroom breaks. Some have gone to the extreme of wearing diapers in order to work the line without a break.

Other charges include employees who are refusing liquids or restrict intake  to a dangerous degree in order to avoid the embarrassment of wetting themselves. The report paints an even more dire scenario for women who are pregnant or menstruating. The report blames the conditions on harsh work consequences if employees dont meet their quotas in a specific timeframe. This lead to long waits at the bathroom, where employees risk losing their jobs if they dont get back on the line and get their work done.

According to NBC News coverage of the report, what would be shocking in most workplaces happens far too often in poultry plants  Workers relieving themselves while standing at their workstations  many workers tell stories about urinating on themselves or witnessing coworkers urinating on themselves. The report got very specific in pointing fingers at accused chicken companies including Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms, Pilgrims Pride and Sanderson Farms. In the NBC report, the company said all but Sanderson Farms responded by denying allegations. Sanderson CFO Mike Cockrell said the company had no comment.

Tyson came out swinging, flatly denying the allegations: Were concerned about these anonymous claims, and while we currently have no evidence they're true, are checking to make sure our position on restroom breaks is being followed, and our Team Members needs are being met Perdue Farms said employees are allowed two 30-minute breaks during each eight-hour shift. If an associate has a health or other reason why they need more frequent restroom breaks, they can visit the onsite Wellness Center for support services or talk with Human Resources to request an accommodation for their condition

From a PR perspective, these flat denials create a he said, she said scenario where viewers of the news program or online readers are expected to make a split second decision regarding who to trust based on little to no evidence. Depending on how the media is presented, users are likely to choose one or the other. Based on typical approaches, its likely most viewers would side with the beleaguered employees no matter what the actual facts may be.

In any scenario such as this one, the brand being castigated must make a cost-benefit analysis before responding. If they ignore the charges, as Sanderson did, how quick will they disappear from consumers minds? And, if they respond with a flat denial, as Tyson did, what will consumers believe?

Perdue had perhaps the best response. While the company didnt specifically deny that some employees may choose to wait to use the restroom, they specifically said employees get designated breaks each shift. These specifics give consumers quick and easy data points to grab onto when trying to remember the story later. The emotional energy is more positive here too. The takeaway from these responses is likely to be: Tyson is guilty, Perdue is giving at least minimal care, and Sanderson is hiding something or just doesnt care.

Now, none of these allegations may be remotely true, but that will be the tendency of responses based on these replies being shoehorned into a quick two-minute TV segment.



* * *

Ronn Torossian is CEO of 5WPR, a leading NY PR firm. Follow 5WPR on Instagram.
THE county Offaly Commemoration of Irish Famine Victims held a Memorial Day for the victims of the Great Famine on Sunday, May 20.

THE county Offaly Commemoration of Irish Famine Victims held a Memorial Day for the victims of the Great Famine on Sunday, May 20.

During the Famine period 1845-1851 the population of Ireland dropped by over 2 million people due to deaths from starvation and disease and emigration.

The Memorial Day started with mass in the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Kilcormac for all those who died as a result of the Famine.

At the Green in Cadamstown, local historian Paddy Heaney outlined the devastating effects the famine had in the area which it never recovered from.

He stated he was delighted by the attendance of many young people who he said would continue to remember all the famine victims in future years.

He then laid a wreath with the youngest person present Pearce Nolan on the Famine plot.

At the famine Burial Ground in Ballyboy the national flag was raised to half-mast by Joe Lynch in memory of the famine victims buried here.

A large crowd turned up at Ralehin Graveyard Mount bolus and Michael Blanch, Chairman of National Commemoration of Irish Famine Victims praised the Daly family for restoring and keeping the graveyard in such great condition.

Both he and Ann Daly then laid a wreath and Tess Murray offered prayers for all buried there.

The 4km Famine walk began from the graveyard in Ballyboy. At Ballyboy Bridge more people joined the walkers.

County Offaly Civil Defence Colour Party then led the walkers, followed by piper John Leamy, the school children and the rest of the attendees to the Ballyboy Burial Ground. Some of these were dressed as people would have dressed during the famine times.

At the burial ground PRO for the Offaly Commemoration Group, Denis ODriscoll welcomed the attendees. He stated that it was very heartening to see so many people turn up to remember all those who perished during that sad period in Irish history.

He also stated that the Irish were very grateful for the help given to the people during the famine and today we are not forgetting todays famine victims and invited people to contribute to a collection which will go the famine victims in Niger. A light of hope was presented by Elaine Lynch, the hope being that Ireland would never suffer from a famine again.

Fr Joe Gallagher then offered prayers for all buried in the Famine Burial Ground and for all our dead. Caroline Bracken sang the Isle of Hope song which captured all the emigrants who left Ireland during the Famine and even in the present day.

A bunch of wild flowers was laid by Vera Hayden at the Commemoration Stone and a minutes silence was observed in memory of all who died during the famine.

Margaret Lynch thanked all who had made the day possible through their help and their attendance.

The National flag was then raised to full mast and the pupils of Scoil Naomh Bride were joined by all in singing the National Anthem.
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Friction Farm will play at Charles and Myrtle's Coffeehouse on Saturday at 8 p.m. The coffeehouse is inside Christ Unity Church at 105 McBrien Road. There is a $10 suggested donation at the door.

Review for Friction Farm:



Friction Farm is guitarist/vocalist Aidan Quinn and bassist/vocalist Christine Stay. They are avid readers who decided to turn that into a project, discussing a book, seeing where the story would take them, and writing a song. It was fun and frustrating, invigorating and exhausting, but always interesting.

They were inspired by true tales The Voyage of the Beagle and fictional works The Cellist of Sarajevo, a gift from a friend Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and a recommendation from a stranger The Glass Castle. Occasionally real life filtered in and begged them to re-read books Reading Lolita in Tehran and A Walk in the Woods.

Mark Dann, Neale Eckstein and Tom Prasada-Rao produced, recorded and played. There are some fantastic guest musicians on the CD; Pat Wictor, Deni Bonet, Tim Burlingame and Marshal Rosenberg.

Friction Farms previous album, Every Mile Is A Memory, earned the duo a spot as Kerrville New Folk Finalists and Falcon Ridge Emerging Artists in 2011. They continue to combine storytelling, social commentary and humor to create songs of everyday life, local heroes and quirky observations. From ballads to anthems each song is filled with harmony and hope.
It took Jennifer Smith quite a while to find the right career path. Originally a math major, she chose engineering at UTC because she was unaware of other options available. Following graduation, she worked as an engineer for a brief period and then switched to operations at Sequoyah Nuclear Plant. It was then that she discovered the exciting world of the nuclear power industry and came to Chattanooga State to pursue a degree in radiation protection to further her career.

Jennifer and her fellow students were encouraged to apply for a scholarship opportunity through the Department of Energy. In addition to providing the usual information, students were asked to write an essay describing long-term career goals and how their program of study aligned with the DOE mission  to ensure Americas security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. Jennifer was thrilled to receive a scholarship that paid for tuition, books, and room and board for up to $3,500 per semester or $7,500 for the scholastic year.

At Chattanooga State, Jennifer embraced student life activities and served as secretary of the Chattanooga State American Nuclear Society, wrote for the college student newspaper, and became a student member of the Society of Women Engineers.

She credits Chattanooga State Engineering Technology nuclear power and radiation protection professors Lisa Miller, Mark Palmer, Terry Newman and Joe Bynum for her success. They are all experienced nuclear power professionals that provide the most relevant information in an accessible and understandable way. They are very supportive of students educational and professional goals, shares Smith.

Jennifer graduated summa cum laude on May 8 with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Engineering Technology: Radiation Protection. In April, Jennifer was hired by Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Plant in Maryland as an Equipment Operator Initial Trainee, making it necessary for her to complete her coursework online prior to graduation.

Following her six-month training period at Calvert Cliffs, Jennifer will adjust and maintain plant equipment, implement procedures that start-up or shutdown the facility, respond to abnormalities and/or take appropriate actions as directed. My goal is to gain a permanent plant position, earn my senior reactors license and become a manager, states Jennifer.

For more information on the Engineering Technology Radiation Protection program, visit https://www.chattanoogastate.edu/radiation-protection or call Lisa Miller at 697-3279.






Solar eclipse to be sighted in Bengaluru for 45 minutes: Report

Good News: Now Bengaluru police on WhatsApp!

Bengaluru

oi-Preeti

Bengaluru, May 16: Citizens generally find it a cumbersome task to approach police, when they need to report any complaint. In a citizen-friendly move, Bengaluru police has launched a novel initiative of launching WhatsApp numbers so that people do not hesitate in reporting their grievances.

So, now onwards if you want to report any law and order situation in Bengaluru, then utilise the facility to avert any crime and for the welfare of the IT city.

Ten WhatsApp numbers have been launched and they will be accessed by ten Deputy Commissioners of the city.

The DCPs will check the WhatsApp messages and send police personnel to the spot to attend the complaints, a report said.

Here are the newly launched WhatsApp numbers:

Central Division- 9480801100

North Division- 9480801300

East Division- 9480801200

West Division- 9480801700

South Division- 9480801500

North East Division-9480801400

South East Division- 9480801600

Traffic East Division- 9480801800

Traffic West Division- 9480801900

CAR Division- 9480801111

In an attempt to monitor crime-related incidents and to provide information to zitizens, Bengaluru police has been active on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

OneIndia News
It's also 2 years since Congress's worst-ever show in a national election

Feature

oi-Shubham

By Shubham

Even as the BJP and its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and its supporters are celebrating the historic victory in the Lok Sabha election of 2014 on May 16, it is also important to remember that it was on the same day that the Congress, the oldest political party in India, faced its biggest-ever electoral humilation.

The Lok Sabha tally of the party, led by the Gandhis, was reduced to just 44---the lowest-ever since the Independence of the country. Its previous worst was 114, registered in the 1998 election.

Party fared worst under future leader

It is a worry that the Congress was reduced to a shadow in the 2014 election, which it contested under the indirect leadership of its future leader, Rahul Gandhi. It meant that all that the party was looking forward to for its revival didn't materialise. The new Gandhi had no answer for Modi's Blitzkrieg that won him that election. [Achhe Din to Zara Muskura Do: Has Modi's 2nd anniversary seen a step back?]

A look at Congress's seats in all Lok Sabha election till date:

1952: Won 364 of 489 seats

Won 364 of 489 seats 1957: Won 371 of 494 seats

Won 371 of 494 seats 1962: Won 361 of 494 seats

Won 361 of 494 seats 1967: Won 283 of 520 seats

Won 283 of 520 seats 1971: Won 352 of 518 seats

Won 352 of 518 seats 1977: Won 153 of 542 seats

Won 153 of 542 seats 1980: Won 353 of 542 seats

Won 353 of 542 seats 1984: Won 404 of 533 seats

Won 404 of 533 seats 1989: Won 197 of 545 seats

Won 197 of 545 seats 1991: Won 244 of 545 seats

Won 244 of 545 seats 1996: Won 140 of 545 seats

Won 140 of 545 seats 1998: Won 141 of 545 seats

Won 141 of 545 seats 1999: Won 114 of 545 seats

Won 114 of 545 seats 2004: Won 145 of 543 seats

Won 145 of 543 seats 2009: Won 206 of 543 seats

Won 206 of 543 seats 2014: Won 44 of 543 seats

Congress continued to lose more states after LS poll

Even after the general election, the Congress has done itself little service. It lost power in Maharashtra and Haryana and could not capture the throne in Jammu and Kashmir or Jharkhand, where also the BJP came to power---in alliance or alone.

In Delhi, it was wiped out; in Bihar it was happy since Modi's BJP lost

In Delhi, the state which the Congress ruled for 15 consecutive years between 1998-2013, it was wiped out in the election of 2015. In Bihar, the Congress smiled because Modi's BJP lost but if it looks at itself, its own performance was a good one in a comparative analysis. In terms of stature, it remained the third best in the winning alliance-after Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar.

There is also very little reason for the Congress to feel optimistic in the 2016 elections. Pre-poll surveys have predicted the grand-old party losing Assam, on of its strong forts, to the BJP and Kerala, to the Left. In Tamil Nadu, its chances rest with the DMK and in West Bengal, with the Left. On his own, the party is next to nothing in the two important states as they send 81 MPs to the Lower House.

The Congress's best news in 2016 came from Uttrakhand, thanks to the BJP and the court

The only welcome news that went the Congress's way in this year was from Uttarakhand, where the BJP's blunder gave the former a new lease of life and Chief Minister Harish Rawat returned to the throne and headlines from the brink of an abyss. The Congress is likely to reap the benefits of the pre-election win again next year, when the state will go to polls.

But that apart, the Congress will remain in just five states: Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur, if they lose Assam and Kerala this year.

Anti-incumbency high in Karnataka and Himachal

The party's top brass will know how sisnister the message is. Karnataka is the only big state remaining with the Congress now and as the mood is shaping up, the Siddaramaiah government there would face a tough anti-incumbency challenge in 2018.

If BS Yedyyurappa's return proves to be a boon for the BJP which lost the plot due to internal fight in 2013, then the Congress has every chance to be apprehensive about. Himachal Pradesh is another state which is known for choosing rivals for the throne every five years. Having won it in 2012, the Congress would have the same anti-incumbency to counter in 2017.

Otherwise, Congress has manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya left

That leaves the Congress in the three states of Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya---something which amounts almost to its disappearance from the federal structure. The party recently lost Arunachal Pradesh and was also on a shaky ground in Manipur, which is going to polls next year.

This is, in one word, an unprecedented situation for the Congress. Even after it had lost in the general elections in 1977, 1989, 1996, 1998 and 1999 (it failed to cross 200 seats in all of them), the Congress was still in power in a number of big and medium-sized states.

In 2014, when Modi came to power, the Congress was in power in 11 states. But things have gone worse from there.

Will Congress have even one state till 2019 LS polls?

With regional parties in no mood to give up their space and the aam Aadmi Party expressing a serious intention to give the national parties a run for their money, the Congress will only face bigger difficulties in days to come.

A number of states will go to polls between 2017 and 2019 when the next general election will be held. The Congress will desperately need to snatch back some of its lost territories or else it could be relegated to the dusty racks of the musuem. Will the party survive in even one state before the next Lok Sabha election is here?
Achhe Din to Zara Muskura Do: Has Modi's 2nd anniversary seen a step back?

Feature

oi-Shubham

By Shubham

It's two years since Narendra Modi won the historic Lok Sabha election on May 16, 2014. The government of Modi took oath on May 26 and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting will launch an eight-hour talk show titled 'Zara Muskura Do' (Give a smile please) on that day to highlight the government's success stories.

Is the latest slogan a step back for the Modi government, who had promised Achhe Din (good days are here) during the days of the leader's ascent?

The government is likely to rope in big stars of Bollywood at event which will see the main panel discussion at India Gate and live telecast across the country. It will also feature videos showing the common man's understanding and what he has gained from the Modi government's flagship programmes like Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG, One Rank One Pension and Jan Dhan, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and others. The success stories will also be promoted on the social media with #TransformingIndia.

The journey to Achhe Din too long?

But is the ground reality in sync with the promises that Modi made before winning the election? Some in Varanasi, one of the two constituencies that Modi won in the general election (he gave up the other in his home state Gujarat --- Vadodara later) feel that though Modi's words have been realistic, his achievement so far has been limited.

They feel Modi's vision is "perfectly okay" but its implementation hasn't been fast.

The religious side

Besides the governance side, many had also been apprehensive that the Modi era would see imposition of religious majaoritarianism and issues like the killing of Mohammad Ikhlaq in Dadri in UP over alleged consumption of beef have also been a concern after two years. The intrusion in JNU University and the making a hero out of Kanhaiya Kumar and stoking the nationalistic sentiments has also been seen to be a step which the Modi government could have avoided.

Besides the routine criticism from the Opposition Congress, even former BJP Union minister Arun Shourie has expressed displeasure with the Modi government's functioning so far.

More than religion or foreign policy---Modi govt's economic reforms have been targeted the most

But more than reasons related to religion or foreign policy, it is Modi government's inability to push through economic reforms which has caught the maximum criticism.

While Sourie said Modi's idea of development is "a few large, shining and conspicuous projects", former Union finance minister P Chidambaram asked where the jobs are. Minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha, son of former Union finance minister Yaswant Sinha---one of the old-school members of the party who also spoke his mind against the Modi government on various issues---said the Indian authorities are "fundamentally changing the nature of Indian capitalism" to help entrepreuners. But that remark is unlikely to get much backing.

But the work towards building of roads, improving the functioning of the railways, opening accounts for more than 200 million Indians who had no accounts previously---are certainly some positive steps that the Modi regime has taken. But the Goods and Services Tax initiative has continued to hit the wall and Modi's failure in building a political consensus for an important economic purpose has been glaring.

Foreign policy has been PM Modi's high point

One if Modi's high points is of course his foreign policy initiatives so far. His government has made efforts to reach out to corners of the planet that not many had thought of in the last few decades, only to win more friends on the diplomatic front.

However, the media of the country, which is more obsessed with Pakistan and China---has targeted the Modi government for "failing" to pursue a consistent policy vis-a-vis Pakistan and take a strong stand on China (cancellation of visa issued to Chinese dissident Uyghur leader Dolkun Isa to avert face-off with Beijing). But there is no denying the fact that under Modi, India's foreign policy orientation has witnessed a shift towards pragmatism.
Gold in the rectum- Smugglers get innovative

Feature

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

In a span of four days three cases of gold smuggling have been reported at the Bengaluru International Airport. Interestingly in all these cases, the custom officials had found that the gold had been concealed in the rectum of the smuggler. The custom officials say that it is clear that none of these persons were first timers and they had managed to conceal the gold in their rectum like professionals.

The number of cases of gold smuggling is on the rise and in these cases it has been found that the origin of the gold was from Dubai and Sri Lanka. A businessman from Thane, Maharashtra was apprehended by the customs officials while he was returning from Sri Lanka. In the other two cases the persons were smuggling the gold from Dubai, investigations also found.

Avoiding the scanner:

Investigations found that the man from Thane was bringing the gold for his personal use. However in the other two cases the accused persons said that they were told to hand over the gold to a person who would be waiting for them at the airport. In all these cases, it was found that these persons had concealed the gold in their rectum.

The custom official explains that the amount of gold that people conceal in their rectum goes up to 2 kilograms. They first wrap the gold in a carbon paper. The carbon paper is used to avoid detection while they pass through the scanner. The gold is then once again wrapped in a plastic sheet following which they hide it in their rectum.

There are many cases in which such persons tend to get away. However in these three cases, the smugglers were caught due to their suspicious behaviour. After passing through the scanner when the officials wanted to frisk them they behaved very suspicious and this led to them getting caught, the officials also add.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Monday, May 16, 2016, 14:38 [IST]
India and Mauritius sign the Protocol for Avoidance of Double Taxation

Feature

oi-Lisa

By Lisa

India has been trying hard to get the black money from foreign lands which are tax havens back. Tax haven is a state or country or territory that does not not levy any tax on inherited property or income tax. At times the tax is levied but at a very low rate.

Also such states, countries or territories maintain a system where financial secrecy is maintained and this allows nationals from other countries to hide their assets and income and there by avoid or reduce tax that they may have to pay in their home countries.

Best way to avoid such a situation in future is to sign convention with different countries and there by avoid double taxation and also prevent fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on both the income and capital gains. India and Mauritius recently signed the Protocol for amendment of the Convention for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income and capital gains, at Port Louis. The key features of the Protocol are as under:

Source-based taxation of capital gains on shares:

With this Protocol, India gets taxation rights on capital gains arising from alienation of shares acquired on or after 1st April, 2017 in a company resident in India with effect from financial year 2017-18, while simultaneously protection to investments in shares acquired before 1st April, 2017 has also been provided.

Further, in respect of such capital gains arising during the transition period from 1st April, 2017 to 31st March, 2019, the tax rate will be limited to 50% of the domestic tax rate of India, subject to the fulfillment of the conditions in the Limitation of Benefits Article. Taxation in India at full domestic tax rate will take place from financial year 2019-20 onwards.

Limitation of Benefits (LOB):

The benefit of 50% reduction in tax rate during the transition period from 1st April, 2017 to 31st March, 2019 shall be subject to LOB Article, whereby a resident of Mauritius (including a shell or conduit company) will not be entitled to benefits of 50% reduction in tax rate, if it fails the main purpose test and bonafide business test.

A resident is deemed to be a shell or conduit company, if its total expenditure on operations in Mauritius is less than Rs. 2,700,000 (Mauritian Rupees 1,500,000) in the immediately preceding 12 months.

Source-based taxation of interest income of banks:

Interest arising in India to Mauritian resident banks will be subject to withholding tax in India at the rate of 7.5% in respect of debt claims or loans made after 31st March, 2017. However, interest income of Mauritian resident banks in respect of debt-claims existing on or before 31st March, 2017 shall be exempt from tax in India.

The Protocol also provides for updation of Exchange of Information Article as per international standard, provision for assistance in collection of taxes, source-based taxation of other income, amongst other changes.

How will this Protocol help?:

The Protocol will tackle the long pending issues of treaty abuse and round tripping of funds attributed to the India-Mauritius treaty, curb revenue loss, prevent double non-taxation, streamline the flow of investment and stimulate the flow of exchange of information between India and Mauritius. It will improve transparency in tax matters and will help curb tax evasion and tax avoidance. At the same time, existing investments, and investments made before 1st of April 2017 have been grand-fathered and will not be subject to capital gains taxation in India.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Monday, May 16, 2016, 10:52 [IST]
Tickets are now on sale for The Ringgold Playhouses upcoming summer production of the classic Michael Frayn comedy, Noises Off, which is slated to run for seven performances beginning June 16.

Review for "Noises Off":

Fresh off the heels of the companys first original work, TRP is prepping for is big summer show, which has been a big hit with audiences for years.

Its a hilarious show, and were really excited about bringing a show of this magnitude to the Depot stage, said TRP executive director Adam Cook. Weve done a lot of comedy in the past, but this one is a different type of animal. Its definitely the most complicated production weve produced to date, and were expecting the payoff to be incredible because this play is so unbelievably funny.

The story follows the hilarious struggles of a theatre company trying to open and perform the fictional farce Nothing On, and gives the audience a look at the companys mishaps as the cast and crew continuously fight with each other both onstage and off. The play-within-a-play structure offers non-stop laughter that has delighted audiences since the early 1980's.

Its just a brilliant piece of comedic theatre, said Mr. Cook. Weve done hit comedies like Arsenic and Old Lace, The Foreigner, and The Nerd, but this one may be the funniest play any of us have ever read or seen.

The nine-person cast includes TRP veterans Daniel Pound and Dan Lyons, and also features seven local actors making their TRP debuts. Kimberly Tyner Jones, Jeff Buchwald, Monica Woodlief, Zachary Green, Tosha Kranz, Jennifer Bryant, and Ed Huckabee round out the cast.

Tickets are available in person at Ringgold City Hall, over the phone at 706.935-3061, or online at cityofringgold.com. Tickets are $10 general admission and $8 for seniors and students.

Production dates are June 16-18 and 23-25 at 7:30 p.m., with a special matinee Saturday, June 25 at 2 p.m.

"We always have a great time with all our shows, but if youve never spent an evening with us, or even if youre not that big of a theatergoer, this is definitely the show to get you acquainted with all the wonderful artists sharing their talents in Ringgold, Mr. Cook said. Its going to be a ton of fun this summer, and we hope youll join us.




Worry in Kashmir: 75 per cent of militants today are locals

Feature

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

In Kashmir today, at least 75 per cent of the militants are locals and the Hizbul Mujahideen appears to be getting stronger. The fact that locals have outnumbered the militants from Pakistan is a cause of concern says the Intelligence Bureau.

There has been a dip in the number of militants from Pakistan over the past year, but the number of locals joining the Hizbul Mujahideen in particular has caused a great deal of concern for the security forces.

The IB has warned that the issue may get a bit competitive and stake holders such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad may try and push more of their militants in the days to come.

An alert has been sounded against the increase in the number of infiltrations from across the border. Over the past couple of months one has witnessed aggression by the Hizbul Mujahideen and the security forces are having a nightmare in dealing with this situation.

Locals militants on the rise

The Hizbul Mujahideen has become extremely aggressive over the past year. They have been roping in young cadres who are also social media savvy. This has in fact helped their campaign to a great extent says the IB.

Moreover they have also been taking a very strong stance against the Indian army which has to face bullets from the militants and also stones from the locals.

There have been several instances in the recent past where the army has had a torrid time while in the midst of an encounter. The locals have landed up at the encounter site and pelted stones apart from chanting anti army slogans.

In addition to this the militants have been branded as martyrs. In recent encounters one has also witnessed some youth giving the militants a gun salute. They are changing the perception against the army the IB says.

The IB has warned the groups from Pakistan may try and infiltrate their militants into Kashmir in the days to come. They have been finding it difficult to infiltrate owing to very tight security along the border.

However these militants are known to have an extreme amount of patience and they would wait for a lapse so that an infiltration can take place the IB has also warned.
CBI registers three FIRs against imposters claiming to be from PMO

7th Pay Commission: PMO orders early implementation of 'increment', wants 'maximum payout' for staff

India

oi-Mukul

New Delhi, May 16: There is good news in the store for the Central Government employees who are waiting for the implementation of Seventh pay Commission.

Reportedly, Prime Minister office (PMO) is unhappy with the pace of development and has asked officials to speed up the whole process. Sources say PMO has ordered Finance Ministry to resolve all issues regarding the same and hand over 'increment' to Government staff by July.

7th Pay Comm: Employees say no to unilateral decision; Govt may consider minimum pay at Rs 24,000

Finance Ministry sources was quoted by a media report as saying, "We have seen the recommendations of the PMO. Accordingly the Secretaries group works hard for the the execution of new pay package, which would be handed over likely by July".

Seventh Pay Commission: Modi Govt may give 30 % hike; Cabinet nod likely by June-end

Reportedly, after facing flak from different quarters for its political misadventure in Uttarakhand, Government is deep concerned about protecting its image. Not only that, Centre's flip-flop on EPF things has also unleashed enough harm upon the government.

Sources say, Government is also cautious about Assembly election results. If mandate goes against it, in that case there will be huge pressure upon Government to win lost confidence back by giving huge payout to employees.

7th Pay Commission: All you need to know about recent updates of 'salary increment'

Reports say, PMO has asked for 30 per cent hike in the basic salary of Government employees.

A website writes, "PMO, narrating the "importance" of the implementation of 7th Pay Commission recommendations, said it was necessary to provide different incentives, including a higher pay package, to the central government employees to build a "pro-people" administration".

OneIndia News
Bihar: Girls protest after being asked to remove Hijab during exam

Bihar: When asked to take off hijab to check for bluetooth device, Muslim student leaves exam centre

Central team roped in as dengue cases in Bihar rise to over 5000

Bihar's Gopalganj by-poll to see a tough fight between BJP and RJD

Aditya Sachdeva murder: Bihar MLC's bail plea hearing deferred

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Patna, May 16: A Bihar court on Monday (May 16) deferred the hearing of anticipatory bail plea of Manorama Devi, a Janata Dal-United (JD-U) legislator and mother of Rocky Yadav, who is accused of murdering a businessman's teenaged son, police said.

The Gaya civil court also asked for case diary and record of the lower court in this regard but did not give any date for next hearing, a district police official said.

Manorama Devi has been evading arrest since last Wednesday (May 11) when a warrant was issued against her for harbouring her fugitive son who has since been arrested.

She has also been accused of keeping liquor in her home in Gaya town in violation of the state's prohibition law.

Manorama Devi filed an anticipatory bail plea on Friday as the Gaya district administration said her house would be seized.

Authorities in Gaya last week cancelled the arms licences of Manorama Devi, who is a JD-U member of legislative council (MLC), and her husband Bindi Yadav, a criminal-turned-politician.

Her son Rocky Yadav was arrested last Tuesday from a house in Bodh Gaya for allegedly killing on May 7 Aditya Sachdeva, the teenaged son of a Gaya-based businessman, and was remanded in police custody.

Bindi Yadav is also in custody for allegedly helping Rocky escape after the murder.

Following the widespread outrage over the murder, the JD-U suspended Manorama Devi from its membership.

Aditya's family has demanded a CBI investigation into the case and a speedy trial of the accused.

With Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar asserting that no guilty will be spared, police promised to file a charge sheet within a month.

Additional Director General of Police (Headquarters) Sunil Kumar said: "Police have been working to complete investigations in the case within three weeks. The charge sheet will be filed within a month to ensure speedy trial."

IANS
With AQI of 259, Delhi's air on day before Diwali least polluted in 7 years

IRCTC update: 190 trains cancelled on October 24; here is the complete list

Delhi LG and CM greet people on Diwali, ask people to be mindful of pollution

Partial Solar Eclipse 2022: Dos and Don'ts for pregnant women during Surya Grahan

Partial Solar Eclipse: Why eating food during a solar eclipse is harmful

Asaram Bapu's supporters attack police, 7 injured

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, May 16: Police on Monday said they had registered a case of rioting against supporters of spiritual guru Asaram Bapu who attacked police personnel overnight here, injuring seven policemen.

According to police, the police personnel were injured when some 2,000 people demanding Asaram Bapu's release stoned the Parliament Street police station in the heart of the city on Sunday night.

Supporters of Asaram Bapu protest in Delhi, vandalise police vehicle.More than five policemen injured pic.twitter.com/qUwC54A8tC  ANI (@ANI_news) May 15, 2016

A few police vehicles were also damaged in the protest. No arrests have been made yet, a police officer told IANS.

Asaram Bapu, lodged in Jodhpur Jail in Rajasthan after his arrest in 2013, has been accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl. He has denied the charge.

IANS
Tamil Nadu: Check the list of special trains operating from Chennai this Diwali

Tamil Nadu assembly elections 2016: Chennai logs lowest voting

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Chennai, May 16: Chennai, despite a pleasant climate and a government holiday, will perhaps rank lowest in voter turnout in the 2016 Tamil Nadu assembly elections on Monday, said polls officials.

The city that was battered by floods last December was expected to come out and vote in large numbers, but at 5 p.m. - an hour before close of polls, the polling percentage in the state capital was just 57 percent.

Though the polling booths in the city witnessed brisk voting in the morning, the tempo slackened after that.

"It seems Chennai will be the lowest in terms of polling percentage," chief electoral officier Rajesh Lakhoni told reporters.

Read More: Jayalalithaa to lose, DMK to win in Tamil Nadu: Newsnation TV exit poll survey

Incidentally, the state's other flood-hit districts like Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur and Cuddalore recorded much higher percentage of polling at 72, 68 and 74 percent at 5 p.m.

Lakhoni said voting was high in the rural areas whereas in cities, the polling percentage was relatively low.

IANS
'Kantara' box office collection: Rishab's flick to join $1-million club in US; check day-wise collection

Solar eclipse to be sighted in Bengaluru for 45 minutes: Report

News Flash:polling percentage of 71% recorded in Kerala

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Bengaluru, May 16: Single-phase assembly polls are being held in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala today. Voting began at 7 am.

Get all the latest national and international news updates of Monday, May 16:

1.20 pm: Hizbul mujahideen militant Bilal gunned down, 2 others held in a joint operation by Police & Army in Poonch (J&K).

11.12 pm: Lawyer shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Delhi's Jamia Nagar area, was NDMC's assistant legal advisor.

11.11 pm: Petrol and diesel price increased by Rs. 0.83/litre & Rs. 1.26/litre respectively with effect from midnight tonight.

9.57 pm: Class 10th student attempts suicide by jumping off a bridge in Mandsaur (MP), allegedly over failure in MP board examination.

8.56 pm: Hyderabad: Hyderabad Police nabbed 10 members gang, seized banned Turkish Lira currency.

8.31 pm: After the consultations, we will reach a decision: JP Nadda on NEET.

8.19 pm: We are all in favor of NEET but regional language issue, syllabus issue and ongoing State exams are 3 things to be taken care of, says JP Nadda.

7.59 pm: All party meet called by Finance Min to discuss issues related to NEET ends.

7.46 pm: Overall polling percentage of 81.94% recorded in Puducherry Assembly election till 5pm, says Election Commission.

7.45 pm: The way BJP saffronizes education as well, it is dangerous for the country, says Tarun Gogoi on Assam exit polls.

7.42 pm: Overall polling percentage of 71% recorded in Kerala Assembly election till 6pm, likely to go up, informs EC.

7.23 pm: India and USA researchers to conduct trials to revive brain dead patients in a hospital in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand

7.00 pm: Earthquake of magnitude 5.4 hits eastern Honshu (Japan).

6.45 pm: Summer vacations announced from 18th May in all Dehradun schools in view of intense heat wave across the state in Uttarakhand.

6.30 pm: Research going on in many prts of World to revive braindead patients,subjects showed early signs of consciousness in some cases, says Dr Himanshu.

6.25 pm: 69.19% voters turnout recorded till 5 PM in in Tamil Nadu Election.

5.45 pm: CBI likely to question Anand Joshi's wife Minakshi soon regarding the ongoing corruption case, says Sources.

5.32 pm: Goa Court extends police custody of St Cruz MLA Atanasio Monserrate (Babush) till May 18th in Minor rape case.

5.25 pm: Have complete faith in country's justice delivery system.I have done no wrong and this fact shall be proved in Court of law,says Pachauri statement.

5.00 pm: CBI recovers secret documents from MHA Under Secy Anand Joshi which are not related to his official work,docs being examined by CBI, says Sources.

4.57 pm: 53.87 percent students passed in 10th class in Madhya Pradesh board results.

4.31 pm: Union Minister Jitendra Singh inaugurates 'Purbashree stall' at Dilli Haat, INA in Delhi.

4.25 pm: Around 40-50 are registered every month for being HIV+, says Dr. Chaman Kumar, GSM Med College in Kanpur (UP).

4.15 pm: CBI seeks 5 days custody of MHA Under Secretary Anand Joshi booked on corruption charges.

4.00 pm: 63.7% voters turnout recorded till 3 PM in Tamil Nadu Election.

3.45 pm: Mortal remains of chief priest of Nirankari sect, Baba Hardev Singh brought to Nirankari Bhavan in Burari (Delhi).

3.36 pm: Wrestler Sushil Kumar moves Delhi High Court seeking trial with Narsingh Yadav for RioOlympics2016.

3.33 pm: To save their armymen, my image was kept at stake, why?, says Victim, Handwara alleged molestation case.

3.31 pm: MHA under secretary Anand Joshi, who was booked on corruption charges, produced at Patiala House Court.

3.30 pm: Police told me not give my original statement, they said that will be safe for my family, says Victim, Handwara alleged molestation case

3.25 pm: This is decided by Wrestling Federation of India.It's they,who've to take call, says Sports Minister on Sushil Kumar on Rio2016

3.20 pm: 50.2 % voters turnout recorded till 3 PM in Kerala Polls 2016.

3.15 pm: When we catch the shooters, we will find out the motive, says PK Thakur, DGP on Bihar Road Rage.

3.07 pm: Bihar CM has announced that case (Journalist Rajdeo Ranjan murder) be handed over to CBI, we are sending proposal to CBI for the same, says DGP.

3.03 pm: A AirIndia official later helped bt till then the situation had got worst, says Daughter of woman who was denied boarding flight.

2.45 pm: SC says once CBI starts action, State Govt cant dissent it, says JD Jain on U'khand Cabinet decision on CBI probe in Harish Rawat alleged sting.

2.30 pm: No Cabinet can decide on an allegation against a CM, only the Governor can, says JD Jain (Ex-AAG, Uttarakhand).

2.25 pm: Maharajganj JD(U) MLA Hem Narayan Sah's son Sumit critically injured in a car accident, admitted to a nearby hospital in Bihar.

2.15 pm: We already requested, told them that NIA team is interested to visit Pak. Want to know what Pak has done in Pathankot Probe, says NIA Sources

2.00 pm: "8 districts in Tamil Nadu witnessing heavy rains. Have recommended to extend poll time, expecting ECI nod by 3 pm", says Rajesh Lahoni, Chief Electoral Officer TN.

1.45 pm: Delhi Govt admits that pollution levels remained high in second week of implementation of Odd-even second phase, in its report before NGT.

1.30 pm: AAP protests against Punjab government over foodgrain scam.

Mohali: AAP protest against Punjab government over foodgrain scam. pic.twitter.com/GmMMc2S7VD  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

1.25 pm: A 70-year-old specially abled woman was allegedly denied boarding Air India flight to New York from Mumbai, due to "over booking."

1.20 pm: "Have assured parents that I will meet PM Modi on NEET issue. We are trying our best to solve the issue", says Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis.

1.15 pm: "We have decided to hand over the case to CBI after request by the family (Siwan Journalist Rajdeo Ranjan)", says Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.

1.10 pm: Hearing in Uttarakhand HC over a petition seeking disqualification of BJP rebel MLA Bhim Lal Arya adjourned for 10 days.

1.06 pm: Unfortunate. Opportunity for independent probe. Hope Nitish realises nature of probe will add to his credibility, says Jaitley on journalist murder in Bihar.

1.05 pm: Members of Chennai's transgender community cast their vote, polling underway.

1.00 pm: These are legal matter which are based on quality of evidence, says Arun Jaitley on Malegaon blasts order.

12.45 pm: A newly married bride casts her vote in Pallapalayam, Samalapuram.Voting in Tamil Nadu assembly polls underway.

12.38 pm: UK does not deport a person who has valid documents. Government looking into all options, says Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Vijay Mallya.

12.37 pm: Vineet Whig,COO of South Asia division of Encylopedia Britannica commits suicide by jumping frm ventilator shaft. Suicide note found in Gurugram.

12:36 pm: Fire breaks out at Surat's Kakrapar Thermal Power Station, more than 10 fire tenders at the spot.

12:31 pm: Wholesale inflation turns positive; at 0.34 per cent in April versus (-)0.85 per cent in March.

12:10 pm: Section 144 imposed in Chandigarh in view of AAP protest.

11:58 am: PM Narendra Modi chairs a high level meeting on drought and water scarcity with Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel.

11:33 am: Jamnagar: BJP MP Poonamben Madam falls into a 10 feet deep drain. She has been taken to local hospital.

11:32 am: Jharkhand's Chatra police arrests two persons in connection with the murder case of journalist Indradeo Yadav.

11:21 am: Prakash Javdekar orders Animal Welfare Board to check & report how the cruelty against cows can be stopped during transportation.

11:10 am: Uttarakhand cabinet asks CBI to drop Harish Rawat sting probe.

10:56 am: It will be nice if Priyanka Gandhi is Congress' face for campaign in UP, combination of Nitish Kumar & Priyanka will click: KC Tyagi, JD(U).

10:40 am: We have done our duty, hope the others have also done: Kamal Hasan after casting his vote in Chennai.

10:20 am: S Sreesanth, the BJP candidate in Thiruvananthapuram, casts his vote at a polling booth in Kochi, Kerala.

10.07 am: Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa casts her vote at Chennai's Stella Maris College.

9.57 am: Tamil Nadu assembly polls: Jayalalitha arrives at Chennai's Stella Maris College to cast her vote

Tamil Nadu assembly polls: Jayalalitha arrives at Chennai's Stella Maris College to cast her vote. pic.twitter.com/UeVnunUVes  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

9.50 am: Kirit Somaiya to send legal notice to Saamana newspaper and a social activist for allegedly levelling baseless charges against him & his wife.

9.30 am: Telangana: People cast their vote in Paleru by-election, necessitated due to the demise of Cong MLA R Venkat Reddy

Telangana: People cast their vote in Paleru by-election, necessitated due to the demise of Cong MLA R Venkat Reddy pic.twitter.com/OB03x8dc7a  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

9.22 am: Tamil Nadu assembly polls: Polling percentage of 18.3% recorded till 9 am.

9.14 am: Centre to hold consultations with state Health ministers today to formulate a strategy regarding the common medical entrance test.

9.02 am: By-elections to Jangipur and Bilari assembly seats of Uttar Pradesh underway, security in place.

8.32 am: Commander in Chief of Karbi People's Liberation Tiger apprehended in an operation by CRPF & Bokajan Police in Assam.

8.28 am: Arvind Kejriwal to announce draft bill for Statehood of Delhi.

8.15 am: Supporters of Asaram Bapu protest in Delhi, vandalise police vehicle. More than five policemen injured in the incident

Supporters of Asaram Bapu protest in Delhi, vandalise police vehicle.More than five policemen injured pic.twitter.com/qUwC54A8tC  ANI (@ANI_news) May 15, 2016

8.00 am: Assembly polls were held in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala today.

OneIndia News
Prosecutions story may be attractive but should be backed by evidence

India's ISIS recruiter Shafi Armar faked his death

India

oi-Vicky

New Delhi, May 16: The Intelligence Bureau picked up an intercept which suggests that Shafi Armar, alleged to be the head of the Indian unit of the ISIS is still alive. A month back, it was stated that he may have been killed in an air strike at Syria by the US.

However now intelligence bureau officials confirm that the man who had died may not have been Armar.The IB says that this appeared to be a ploy to lower the heat.

With the NIA arresting nearly 20 persons across the country who were allegedly linked to the ISIS, the name of Armar had cropped up as the main recruiter.

The news could have been floated by their social media team to take the scanner of Armar for sometime, the IB suggests.

Armar in Syria:

Shafi is the brother of Sultan Armar who had floated the Ansar-ut-Tawhid a front to recruit Indians into the ISIS. However Sultan is said to have died last year in Syria following which Shafi took over.

The 26 year old Shafi is a native of Bhatkal

Both Sultan and Shafi were initially part of the Indian Mujahideen, but broke away as they did not want to work under the control of the ISI.

They felt that the ISIS provided a better agenda and hence joined the outfit. While the outfit that Shafi ran was called as the AuT, for the Indian operations he operated under the banner of Janood al Khalifa Hind.

OneIndia News
Amitabh Bachchan reveals he had to get stitches after he cut a vein on his leg

Fire breaks out at industrial estate in Mumbai, no one hurt

Malegaon blasts 2008: The mystery behind the military grade RDX

India

oi-Vicky

New Delhi, May 16: The National Investigation Agency in its chargesheet says after a painstaking and professional investigation it has recommended 10 names for prosecution in connection with the Malegaon 2008 blasts case.

Malegaon blasts: Charges against Sadhvi Pragya dropped

The NIA had also recommended dropping of charges against 6 persons including Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur.

Going through the chargesheet filed by the NIA, it becomes clear that the Maharashtra ATS which initially probed the case had not done a proper job.

However for the NIA, there is still probing that would be required as there are a couple of unanswered questions.

The main point to be noted in the NIA chargesheet is regarding the RDX that was used in the blast.

While it confirms that military grade RDX had been used, there are no answers on how the RDX had been procured. The NIA states that such RDX can be procured only by an army personnel or a terror group, but there are no answers beyond that.

How was the RDX sourced?

According to the first probe conducted by the ATS, it is stated that the RDX was procured by Lt. Colonel Purohit. The ATS also says that Purohit had procured the RDX when he had gone on an assignment to Jammu and Kashmir.

However the NIA has found no trail of the same and while examining the army personnel it was found that there was no pilferage of the RDX and everything had been accounted for.

Purohit is accused number six in the case. The NIA has slapped charges against him under the Indian Penal Code, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Arms act and the Explosives Substances Act.

The NIA has told the court before which the chargesheet was filed that it requires permission to continue the investigation.

It further states that during the course of investigation, it has been established that no offence under MCOC Act is attracted in the instant case.

In furtherance of same, the confessional statements recorded under provisions of MCOC Act by ATS Mumbai have not been relied up on by the NIA in submitting the present Final report.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Monday, May 16, 2016, 10:37 [IST]
NGT calls meeting of stakeholders on Ganga

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Nov 24: The National Green Tribunal has convened a meeting of all stakeholders involved in cleaning of River Ganga from Haridwar to Kanpur to deliberate on the mechanism to make the river pollution-free.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said the meeting would take place on May 20 at 1:00 PM in the conference hall of NGT.

"We are of the considered opinion that before the arguments are heard, it will be necessary for the Tribunal to have a final meeting with all the stakeholders who are involved in SegmentII of Phase-I (Haridwar to Kanpur) of the Ganga Cleaning Project in terms of the judgement of the Tribunal," the bench said.

It directed UP Chief Secretary, other secretaries concerned of UP, Managing Director of UP Jal Nigam, CEO of UP Jal Sansthan and other senior most officers of public authorities directly or indirectly concerned with the Ganga cleaning to be present in the meeting.

"Chairman and Member Secretary, of UP Pollution Control Board, Member Secretary of Central Pollution Control Board, Joint Secretary concerned of MoEF, Joint Secretaries concerned of the Ministry of Water Resources, Chairman & Expert Members of the Principal Committee constituted under orders of NGT and representative of tanneries, sugar, paper, distillery and textile association would also be present," the bench added.

The green panel has divided the work of cleaning the river into different segments -- Gomukh to Haridwar, Haridwar to Kanpur, Kanpur to border of Uttar Pradesh, border of Uttar Pradesh to border of Jharkhand and border of Jharkhand to Bay of Bengal.

On December 11, last year, the tribunal had imposed a complete ban on use of plastic of any kind from Gomukh to Haridwar along the river from February 1 and decided to slap a penalty of Rs 5,000 per day on erring hotels, dharamsalas and ashrams spewing waste into the river.

PTI
Explained: Why has a public health emergency been declared in Puducherry's Karaikal

Rahul Gandhi down with fever, PM Modi wishes speedy recovery

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, May 16: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has wished a speedy recovery to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who is down with high fever, Health Minister J P Nadda said on Monday, (May 16).

"Got to know that Sh Rahul Gandhi is not well from Honble PM who was quite concerned about his health. In view of the concerns of Honble PM, I enquired about his health and wished a speedy recovery for him," Nadda tweeted.

Rahul Gandhi had last week cancelled his two-day election visit to Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, saying he was down with high fever.

Congress sources said Gandhi is still suffering from high viral fever and the doctors have advised him to take rest.

PTI
Tamil Nadu: Voters applaud paper audit trail system

India

oi-Pallavi

Kancheepuram, May 16: The voters of Kancheepuram constituency in Tamil Nadu are happy with the voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) system, which has been introduced by the Election Commission.

After casting their votes, many voters have shown confidence that their votes have gone to the candidates of their choice. "We used to leave the booth distrustfully during the previous elections as we are not sure about whether the vote cast by us went to the same candidate. This time, we were able to see the election symbol of the candidate to whom we have cast the vote. Hence, we are doubly sure that we have cast the vote to the person to whom we wanted to", said one.

After its successful implementation in last year's Bihar Assembly Polls, the VVPAT was instructed to be implemented in the TN elections also by the Supreme Court.

Following the SC's demand, the EC had introduced this facility in 17 different assembly segments-Kancheepuram, Anna Nagar (in Chennai), Vellore, Krishnagiri, Salem (North), Erode (West), Tiruppur (North), Coimbatore (North), Dindigul, Tiruchirapalli (West), Cuddalore, Thanjavur, Villupuram, Madurai (East), Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari.

[Read: Tamil Nadu, Puducherry Assembly elections (Live)]

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Monday, May 16, 2016, 15:44 [IST]
(Video) Jayalalithaa's last five oaths reveal the trials she faced

Stalin elected as DMK's leader in assembly

Jaya, Stalin, Karuna sworn in as MLAs

PM Modi to address rallies in Tamil Nadu, Kerala today

Tamil Nadu, Puducherry Assembly election Updates: 81.94% polling in P'cherry, TN 73.76%

India

oi-Pallavi

By Pallavi

Chennai, May 16: The intense assembly polls of 232 constituencies of Tamil Nadu began at 7 am on Monday, May 16.

5.79 crore voters casted their votes in 65,616 polling stations to select representatives from 234 constituencies of the state legislative assembly. A total of 3,800 candidates are in the fray.

Here are the Live Updates:

Puducherry records 81.94 per cent polling. 73.76% votes polled in TN

6.00 pm: EC officials start distributing tokens to voters arriving at the polling booth.

5.40 pm: 69.19 % polling recorded till 5 pm in Tamil Nadu.

5:26 pm: Ground reports show that BJP has done well,If BJP performs better the victim will be AIADMK'.

5:23 pm: 80.17 per cent polling recorded in Puducherry as of 5 pm.

5:21 pm: 2 voters die of heart attack.

5:08 pm: Exit polls may start at 6:30 pm.

4:55 pm: Voters turn out till 4 p.m. in Ariyalur district is 78 per cent, where as in Jayamkondan is 75 per cent.

4.50 pm: 65% polling held in Tamil Nadu till 4 pm.

4:37 pm: 71.08 per cent polling recorded till 4 p.m. in Puducherry

4:30 pm: Election Commission yet to decide to extending polling time in Tamil Nadu

4:02 pm: Till 3 pm, TN projects 63.7%, Puducherry 67% voting

3:51 pm: Polling official at a booth near Kangayam died of cardiac arrest

Follow Live updates: #Puducherry CM N. Rangasamy leaves in his motorcycle after casting vote https://t.co/0FI03oBTFT pic.twitter.com/ny7h5rFneV  Pondy Connect (@PondyConnect) May 16, 2016

3:23 pm: Puducherry CM N. Rangasamy leaves in his motorcycle after casting vote

3:13 pm: 66.29 per cent voters turn out till 3 p.m in Puducherry

3:12 pm: 42.12% voter turnout in Tamil Nadu till 1 pm. 47.19% voter turnout in Puducherry till 1 pm.

#AIRStatesPolls :A couple who got just married in Pathirakottai near Neyveli in Cuddalore cast their votes#TNVotes pic.twitter.com/vUKP5lrPMR  All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) May 16, 2016

2:39 pm: A couple who got just married in Pathirakottai near Neyveli in Cuddalore cast their votes

2:27 pm: T.Nagar booth gets Braille EVM, polling list, visually impaired voter gets inked

2:09 pm: 8 districts witnessing heavy rain. Have recommended to extend poll time, expecting ECI nod by 3pm: Rajesh Lahoni, Chief Electoral Officer TN

2:04 pm: Puducherry reports 54.19% voting till 1 PM

[Read: Tamil Nadu: Voters applaud paper audit trail system ]

Poll percent in Chennai is 38%

1:58 pm: AIADMK workers and BJP cadres clash on Nelson Manickam road: Thanti TV

1:43 pm: Peaceful polling at Uthapuram in Madurai. Village is infamous for a caste wall that divided habitations of Caste Hindus and Dalits.

[Read: TN poll percentage over 25 per cent, rains hamper voting ]

1:39 pm: 42.1% voters turnout recorded till 1 PM in Tamil Nadu Election

1:15 pm: Puducherry records 34% voting till 12.30 pm

1.10 pm: Protest near Vaidyanathan Bridge area of Chennai over the quality of the indelible ink used at booth No. 32.

Chennai: Members of Chennai's transgender community cast their vote, polling underway. pic.twitter.com/W3IXvKVCrQ  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

12:58 pm: Chennai: Members of Chennai's transgender community cast their vote, polling underway

Voting in Tamil Nadu assembly polls underway: A newly married bride casts her vote in Pallapalayam, Samalapuram. pic.twitter.com/yZ91NH7l1j  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

12:55 pm:

12:52 pm: AIADMK and DMK workers clash in Hosur, one person reportedly injured

Have asked distt collectors over extending poll time in rain affected distts & then we'll inform ECI, decision to be taken after 3: R Lahoni

12:43 pm: Heavy rains reported at in few parts including coastal regions of Nagapattinam & Cuddalore distt: Rajesh Lahoni, Chief Electoral Officer TN

12:36 pm: 32.41 per cent polling in Puducherry at 12 noon

12:30 pm: 28.05% as of 11 am in Madurai district

Light moments during polls

12:05: Over 30% voting in Puducherry

11:43 am: Rs 570 crore were seized from containers by election commission during raids in Tamil Nadu.

11:40 am: SC refuses to entertain a plea seeking SIT probe in the money seizure matter during Tamil Nadu Election, asks petitioner to approach HC.

[See Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections 2016 photos]

11:38 am: 25.2% voters turnout recorded till 11 AM in Tamil Nadu

[Read: Stalin demands CBI inquiry into distribution of money]

11:22 am: Puducherry reports voting percentage of 27.51% till 11 am.

We are concerned about large scale use of money,particularly in Kerala and Puducherry. EC assured us that action will be taken: RP Rudy,BJP  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

Our delegation met EC today, gave facts about misuse of money power in Kerala,Tamil Nadu and Puducherry: RP Rudy,BJP pic.twitter.com/f7HT7PTpaN  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

10:45 am: Our delegation met EC today, gave facts about misuse of money power in Kerala,Tamil Nadu and Puducherry: RP Rudy, BJP

LIVE: Power cut at a booth at lawspet in Puducherry https://t.co/0FI03oBTFT pic.twitter.com/m2GG5NAKHn  Pondy Connect (@PondyConnect) May 16, 2016

10:30 am:

10:26 am: PMK's CM candidate Anbumani Ramadoss shares a selfie after voting

[Read: DMK chief pulled-up by EC to explain advertisement on Internet ]

10:24 am: Former TN Speaker Sedapatti R. Muthiah casts his vote at Avaniapuram in Madurai.

#TamilNaduElection: Volunteers assist senior citizens who arrive at a polling booth in Chennai to cast their vote. pic.twitter.com/9EXuQmtzPm  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

10:15 am: Volunteers assist senior citizens who arrive at a polling booth in Chennai to cast their vote.

Tamil Nadu assembly polls: CM Jayalalitha casts her vote at Chennai's Stella Maris College pic.twitter.com/sYdEx69IzO  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

Tamil Nadu assembly polls: CM Jayalalitha arrives at Chennai's Stella Maris College to cast her vote. pic.twitter.com/hlcbXgbya8  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa arrives at Chennai's Stella Maris College to cast her vote #TamilNaduElection pic.twitter.com/dwPq3RY4BD  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

10:07 am: Wait for two more days to know people's verdict,' says Jayalalithaa

10:06 am: Power failure in parts of Puducherry which may delay voting.

9:58 am: Stalin demands CBI inquiry into distribution of money

9:54 am: Kanimozhi, Jayalalithaa cast vote. Jaya casts vote in Stella Maris College.

Pondicherry: Polling is disturbed at some places in Karaikal region due to heavy rains and power cuts

9:50 am: Pondicherry: Union Minister V. Narayanasamy cast his vote at a booth in the Raj Bhavan constituency

14.4 percent polling till 9 am in Tiruchi district

LIVE: P Chidambaram casts his vote at his native village in Kandanur in Karaikudi constituency. #TNVotes pic.twitter.com/cUSRTVlUyM  The Hindu (@the_hindu) May 16, 2016

9:49 am: P Chidambaram casts his vote at his native village in Kandanur in Karaikudi constituency

9:41 am: DMDK chief Vijayakant arrives with wife to cast his vote

13 percent polling till 9 am in Puducherry

9:22 am: Tamil Nadu assembly polls: Polling percentage of 18.3% recorded till 9 am.

9:20 am: Initially 11 EVMs were not working; now they have been set right

9:13 am: Aged nuns cast their votes, braving heavy rains in Ernakulam

LIVE: TN Congress chief E.V.K.S. Elangovan casts his vote in Erode. Photo: M. Govarthan #TNVotes pic.twitter.com/TRkfDDwv3c  The Hindu (@the_hindu) May 16, 2016

9:00 am: TN Congress chief E.V.K.S. Elangovan casts his vote in Erode. Photo: M. Govarthan

8:50 am: Everyone should vote. That is a duty.

Voting for Tamil Nadu assembly elections underway: DMK Treasurer M K Stalin casts his vote in SIET College,Chennai. pic.twitter.com/QmtzITjO6V  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

8:37 am: Stalin casts his vote

[Read: Now, BJP launches a Punjab native in Tamil Nadu elections ]

8:27 am: Jayalalithaa to vote around 10 am

LIVE: Voters waiting to cast their votes in Palavakkam, Chennai. - https://t.co/yEBeqBSVXh pic.twitter.com/udUE5ctCX3  The Hindu (@the_hindu) May 16, 2016

8:20 am:

8:06 am: Kamal Hassan casts vote

Money distribution is curbed to a level, but there are incidents of cash transfer through trucks. We will win enough number of seats, our winning prospects are bright.

7:51 am: People have question in their mind if Election Commission will initiate action against them:Karunanidhi, DMK Chief

Voting in Tamil Nadu for 233 assembly constituencies underway, visuals from Madurai. pic.twitter.com/qbzLH8Du4v  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

Visuals of drizzling in parts of Madurai: Voting for 233 Assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu underway. pic.twitter.com/ggLHuJzVK3  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

7:45 am: Drizzling in parts of Madurai: Voting for 233 Assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu underway.

[Read: Why Karunanidhi's campaign is the last straw of survival for DMK ]

7:21 am:

Tamil Nadu: DMK president M. Karunanidhi arrives at a polling booth in Gopalapuram in Chennai to cast his vote. pic.twitter.com/SJCxxMdPGc  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

[Read: Alagiri stays out of election, alleges DMK doesn't know how to use him ]

7:14 am: M Karunanidhi casts his vote

Voting begins in Tamil Nadu, Rajinikanth casts his vote in Chennai's Stella Maris College pic.twitter.com/WNGGG14xoH  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

Tamil Nadu: Voting begins in Tamil Nadu, visuals from a polling booth in Coimbatore's Ukkadam. pic.twitter.com/UpZhuvdJyX  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

7:11 am: Superstar Rajinikanth casts his ballot

Voting begins in Tamil Nadu for 233 Assembly constituencies, visuals from Chennai's Stella Maris College pic.twitter.com/M3jDU4pODZ  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

7:08 am: Voting begins in Tamil Nadu for 233 Assembly constituencies, visuals from Chennai's Stella Maris College

[Read: Tamil Nadu election 2016: A look at all pre-poll surveys]

7:00 am: Voting begins

233 Assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu all set to go to polls today,voting to begin at 7am. Visuals from Mylapore pic.twitter.com/0Jkiwmhug3  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

6:50 am: 233 Assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu all set to go to polls today,voting to begin at 7am. Visuals from Mylapore

Chennai:Preparations ahead of assembly polls in Tamil Nadu,visuals from Stella Maris College. Voting to begin at 7am pic.twitter.com/56NRG79F67  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

6:45 am: Chennai:Preparations ahead of assembly polls in Tamil Nadu,visuals from Stella Maris College. Voting to begin at 7am

[For more updates, visit Election Page]

[Read: Ahead of Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, alcohol prohibition may decide the state's fate ]

OneIndia News
Vote counting in West Bengal in 90 venues

India

oi-PTI

Kolkata, May 16: Counting of votes for 294 seats in the West Bengal Assembly elections would be taken up at 8 AM on Thursday in 90 venues, Election Commission said today.

Officials said engineers from the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) would be present in the counting centres to immediately provide technical assistance in the event of malfunctioning of EVMs.

One counting observer has also been appointed for each Assembly constituency. Altogether 78 companies of central armed forces are guarding the strong rooms where the EVMs are kept after the end of polling, officials said.

The day after counting ends, all central security forces will leave the state. Top officials of the Election Commission in Delhi will hold a review meeting tomorrow with the returning officers through video conferencing.

PTI
Kerala CM accuses Gov of 'acting as RSS tool' on his order to VCs to resign

Voting underway in Kerala, leaders express confidence

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Thiruvananthapuram, May 16: Leaders expressed confidence after casting their ballots on Monday to elect 140 new legislators to the 14th Kerala Legislative Assembly.

Polling began at 7.00 a.m. across the state and will end at 6.00 p.m.

Live updates Kerala Assembly elections 2016

The electoral battle is principally between the traditional rival fronts -- the Congress-led UDF and the CPI-M-led LDF, while the BJP led NDA alliance is hoping a major victory.

A total of 1,203 contestants, including 109 women, are in the fray for the 140 assembly seats.

Minister of State for Excise K.Babu, who came under flak for his alleged role in the bar scam that rocked Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's government, told reporters at Ernakulam soon after casting his vote that there is no doubt the Congress-led UDF was going to win.

CPI-M politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, expressed absolute confidence that they were on course to form the next government.

"People will vote out the most corrupt government and there will be no space in Kerala for those who practice communal politics," said Vijayan after casting his vote in Kannur district.

Superstar Suresh Gopi, who recently was nominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Rajya Sabha, after casting his vote in the capital city said the hopes of the NDA alliance is sky high.

"Elections, today is similar to a circus ring, where strategies of various kinds are adopted. We have done our duty and placed our things before the people and now let the people decide," said Gopi, who actively campaigned for the NDA candidates across the state.

Former state minister of finance K.M.Mani who had to resign following an adverse court remark for his role in the bar scam, cast his vote along with his wife at his home town in Pala near Kottayam.

The actor son of superstar Mammootty, Dulqar Salman while waiting for his turn to vote at Ernakulam said that this is the first time that he is casting his vote in Kerala.

"In the previous elections, I used to vote in Chennai. I am happy, that this time I am voting here and the youth should come out in large numbers to vote as it's their responsibility and the right to do so," said Salman.

Meanwhile, 70-year-old Kunju Abdullah Haji who came to cast his vote at the CKG College at Perambara near Kozhikode collapsed while standing in the queue to vote and was declared dead when he was taken to a nearby hospital.

As per election officials, the state has 2,60,19,284 voters comprising 1,25,10,589 male, 1,35,08,693 female and two voters belonging to the third gender.

Overall, there are 21,498 regular polling booths and 148 auxiliary polling booths, of which there are 1,233 categorised as critical and including 119 booths that are in Maoist-influenced areas.

IANS
Are you awake?: EAM Jaishankar recalls when he got a call from PM Modi at midnight

Several Afghans on Germany's evacuation list have died

13th batch of medical assistance to Afghanistan delivered by India

29 militants killed in Afghan airstrikes

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Kabul, May 16: At least 29 militants were killed in two airstrikes in Afghanistan on Monday, authorities said.

An unmanned plane of the coalition forces struck a Taliban hideout in Mullah Quli locality of Dasht-i-Archi district in Kunduz province and killed 16 militants on Monday, district governor Nasruddin Nazari told Xinhua.

In neighbouring Baghlan province, 13 militants were killed following an airstrike in Surkhkotal area, the Afghan army said.

A heavy machine gun was also destroyed in the attack which occurred on Monday afternoon.

IANS
Obama takes a jibe at Trump, tells graduates walls won't solve ills

International

oi-PTI

Piscataway, May 16: President Barack Obama on Saunday urged college graduates to shun those who want to confront a rapidly linked world by building walls around the United States or by embracing ignorance, as he delivered a sharp and barely concealed critique of Donald Trump.

Obama used his commencement speech at Rutgers University to illustrate a world view antithetical to the ideas espoused by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Donald Trump distances himself from ex-butler's comments on Obama

Looking out at a sea of red and black gowns, Obama told the roughly 12,000 graduating students that the pace of change on the planet is accelerating, not subsiding, and that recent history had proved that the toughest challenges cannot be solved in isolation.

"A wall won't stop that," Obama said, bringing to mind Trump's call for building a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. "The point is, to help ourselves, we've got to help others not pull up the drawbridge and try to keep the world out."

The president never mentioned Trump by name, but his intended target seemed clear. Repeatedly, Obama referred to disparaging comments about Muslims and immigrants, and opposition to free trade deals. But he appeared most incensed by what he described as a rejection of facts, science and intellectualism that he said was pervading politics.

"In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue," Obama said. "It's not cool to not know what you're talking about. That's not keeping it real or telling it like it is. That's not challenging political correctness. That's just not knowing what you're talking about," the president said.

Fearing Donald Trump, some Democrats up pressure on Sanders to exit

"And yet, we've become confused about this," he continued, warning that the rejection of facts and science would lead the US on a path of decline. Some 50,000 students and their families packed High Point Solution Stadium for the ceremony, the first at Rutgers to involve a sitting president.

The public university's leaders lobbied the president for years to come to campus for the school's 250th anniversary, and Obama praised the school for its diverse student body and research programs. Sunday's address was the second of three commencement speeches that Obama will deliver during his final graduation season as president.

Earlier in May, Obama told graduates at historically black Howard University that the country is "a better place today" than when he graduated from Columbia University more than 30 years ago. The president will also speak on June 2 at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The university also bestowed an honorary law degree on the president, add to the half-dozen or so other honorary degrees that the Columbia and Harvard Law School Obama has received.

PTI
Fact Check: Did Trump thank Musk for welcoming him back to Twitter

Donald Trump warns Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim mayor of London: Here is what he said

International

oi-Jagriti

Washington, May 16: Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate has warned that he may not share a good relationship with UK if he becomes the president.

His reaction has come after Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim mayor of London, called him "ignorant".

Reacting on Donald Trump's idea of putting a temporary ban Muslim's entry to US, Sadiq Khan said that Trump's views on religion will make the world less safe if he becomes President.

"I was offended by Mr Khan's ignorant remark", said Donald Trump in an interview.

He even challenged Sadiq Khan to an IQ test.

"He doesn't know me, hasn't met me, doesn't know what I'm on about," said Trump.

"I think they're very rude statements and frankly tell him I will remember those statements. They're very nasty statements," added Trump.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan rejects Donald Trump's Muslim exception offer

Sadiq Khan on Tuesday (May 10) hit out at Donald Trump for signalling that he would exempt him from his proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the US, saying his "ignorant" comments play "into the hands of extremists".

Trump's ignorant view of Islam could make both our countries less safe - it risks alienating mainstream Muslims around the world and plays into the hands of the extremists," added Khan.

Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown" of the country's borders to Muslims in the wake of the San Bernardino terrorist attack in December 2015.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Monday, May 16, 2016, 15:03 [IST]
At least 125 dead after violence at football match in Indonesia

Flash floods kill seven students in Indonesia

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Jakarta, May 16: At least seven students were killed and 14 others injured as flash floods struck a tourist resort in Indonesia's North Sumatra province, an official said on Monday.

The disaster occurred on Sunday afternoon when 21 students were visiting a waterfall in Durin Sirugun village, the official told Xinhua news agency.

"Suddenly flash floods hit the location and swept away all of them," the official said. "Seven bodies have been recovered and the search is on for rest of the bodies."

IANS
'I'm not stupid,' Trump tells Cameron

International

oi-PTI

London, May 16: Donald Trump indicated that he may end up having a bad relationship with David Cameron after the British Prime Minister criticised his controversial proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US as "divisive, stupid and wrong".

"It looks like we are not going to have a very good relationship," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said.

"Who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him [Cameron] but he's not willing to address the problem either." Cameron, 49, has refused to retract comments he made about the American billionaire tycoon's temporary ban proposal, which he had branded as "divisive, stupid and wrong".

In an interview with Britain's ITV television, Trump responded to his criticism: "Number one, I'm not stupid, I can tell you that right now, just the opposite. I don't think I'm a divisive person, I'm a unifier, unlike our president now."

Trump's comments are likley to cause unease among Britons about their ties with their closest ally, the US. Trump, 69, also went on to take a dig at the newly-elected Muslim mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who had snubbed Trump's offer of making him an exception to his Muslim ban plan. "When he [Khan] won I wished him well.

Now, I don't care about him, I mean it doesn't make any difference to me, let's see how he does, let's see if he's a good mayor," he said. In reference to a question about Khan's comments branding Trump as having an "ignorant view of Islam could make both of our countries less safe  it risks alienating mainstream Muslims around the world and plays into the hands of extremists, he added: "He doesn't know me, hasn't met me, doesn't know what I'm all about.

I think they were very rude statements and frankly tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements I think it's ignorant for him to say that." Asked if he was offended by Khan's public denouncement he replied: "Yeah, I am." However, soon after the telecast a spokesperson for Khan reiterated the London mayor's stand against Trump.

"Donald Trump's views are ignorant, divisive and dangerous  it's the politics of fear at its worst and will be rejected at the ballot box just as it was in London."

"Sadiq has spent his whole life fighting extremism, but Trump's remarks make that fight much harder for us all  it plays straight into the extremists' hands and makes both our countries less safe," his spokesperson said.

PTI
Telangana: Gay couple enter into wedlock, say it has sent out a message

LGBT activists stage rare Lebanon sit-in

International

oi-PTI

Beirut, May 15: Some 50 activists backing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community staged a rare sit-in Sunday in Lebanon to demand the abolition of a law criminalising relations "against nature".

In the first such protest in four years, they also demanded the release of four transsexual women as they gathered outside the Hbeish gendarmerie in Beirut, where activists say morality police often hold such suspects.

"Homosexuality is not a disease," and "Sex is not illegal -- your law is archaic," read a placard at the event organised by the Lebanon-based Helem association, considered to be the most important Arab group defending LGBT rights.

"Repeal 534" could also be read, a reference to the article in the Lebanese penal code under which sexual relations "against nature" are outlawed and punishable by up to one year in prison. Helem chief Genwa Samhat told AFP the sit-in, two days before the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, "calls for the abolition of this section of law dating from the (1920-1943) French mandate in Lebanon".

"Most people arrested under this law aren't detained in the act but in the street because of their appearance," she said.

AFP
UK minister congratulates Modi on poll win anniversary

International

oi-PTI

London, May 16: Britain's senior-most Indian-origin minister Priti Patel on Monday,(May 16) congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the second anniversary of his election victory and praised him for setting a "new level of ambition" for India-UK ties.

Patel, who sits on the UK Cabinet as Employment Minister and is also British Prime Minister David Cameron's Indian Diaspora Champion, in a statement said, "I would like to congratulate Prime Minister Modi on the second anniversary of his election victory.

He set out an ambitious vision for India - one of inclusive, sustainable development." She said, "We remain committed to supporting the Prime Minister's vision for India's transformation and to taking the UK-India relationship to new heights."

The 44-year-old senior Conservative party MP said as the world's oldest democracy and largest democracy, the UK and India share a long-standing friendship anchored in democratic values, shared history and common interests.

"Prime Minister Modi has set a new level of ambition for our growing partnership," she said. Patel, herself of Gujarati-origin, has been a vocal supporter of Modi in the UK since he was the chief minister of Gujarat.

PTI
Kerala man arrested for beating wife and filming the incident

Kerala replacing Punjab as capital of drugs' says Governor Arif Mohammed Khan

Kerala CM accuses Gov of 'acting as RSS tool' on his order to VCs to resign

Kerala Governor starts procedure to sack nine VCs, sends show cause notices

Kerala Assembly Election Updates: 71% voting recorded

Thiruvananthapuram

oi-Sandra

Thiruvananthapuram, May 16: Assembly polls began in Kerala began at 7 am on Monday, May, 16. At least 52,000 police personnel were deployed across Kerala for smooth conduct of today's assembly polls.

Total number of polling booths in the state is 21,498. Get all the live updates from Kerala:

See images from election in Kerala, Special coverage: Assembly elections 2016

6.30 pm: Kerala registers 71 percentage voting.

6.00 pm: Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and CPI-M veteran VS Achuthanandan asserted that their coalitions were set to win the electoral battle.

5.30 pm: 70.35% voting recorded till 5 pm in Kerala.

4.30 pm: VS Achuthananthan casts his vote at 63 number booth in Ambalapuzha, Alapuzha.

4.02 pm: 61.2% voting recorded till 4 pm in Kerala.

3.15 pm: 50.2 % voters turnout recorded till 3pm in Kerala.



2.40 pm: 46.4 percentage voting recorded in Kerala till 2 pm.

2.35 pm: Former FM Thomas Issac cast his vote at Alappuzha Kidangamparambu school.

2.25 pm: Female voters turn up in large numbers in Ernakulam.

2.20 pm: Booths in Ponnani constituency in Kerala witnessed arguments over issue of accepting Adhaar card as identification.

2.10 pm: Kerala has voted out a party every five years because there was not enough development: Congress' Shashi Tharoor.

1.28 pm: BJP files complaint against Pattambi UDF candidate C P Muhammad to Election Commission for bribing voters.

1.25 pm: 45% voting recorded till 1:00 pm in Kerala.



1:10 pm: Kerala registers 40.5% polling by 1 pm (TV Reports)

12.50 pm: 36.4 percenteage polling recorded in Kerala till 12 pm.

12.34 pm: Vellapally Natesan casts his vote at a booth in Kanichukulangara in Alappuzha district.

12.20 pm: PWD Minister VK Ebrahim Kunju waits in queue at Alangad Govt Higher Secondary School to cast his vote.

12.02 pm: Kerala Polling % at 11am. District wise break up:

Kasargod 28.63%,

Kannur 30.04%,

Wayanad 31.03%,

Kozhikode 28.78%,

Malappuram 28.16%

Palakkad 27.94%,

Thrissur 29.27%,

Ernakulam 27.74%,

Idukki 25.03%,

Kottayam 28.81%,

Alappuzha 30.19%,

Pathanamthitta 26.25%,

Kollam 28.68

11.45 am: 30% voter turnout recorded till 11 am in Kerala.

11.27 am: "This time there will be a change," BJP state chief Kummanam Rajasekharan.

11.17 am: People will treat this as an insult to the state and the people: CM Chandy on comparison of Kerala with Somalia by PM Modi.

10.42 am: Actor Mamooty casts his vote.

10.37 am: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor casts his vote at a polling booth in Thiruvananthapuram

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor casts his vote at a polling booth in Thiruvananthapuram pic.twitter.com/n2afOcOJ6R  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

10.36 am: CM Oommen Chandy casts his vote in Kottayam, says in Kerala, ground situation is "no to BJP side".

10.34 am: S Sreesanth, the BJP candidate in Thiruvananthapuram, casts his vote at a polling booth in Kochi, Kerala

S Sreesanth, the BJP candidate in Thiruvananthapuram, casts his vote at a polling booth in Kochi,Kerala pic.twitter.com/VjJaRACTMp  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

10.30 am: Chief minister Oommen Chandy cast his vote in Puthupalli constituency.

#KeralaPolls2016 CM Oommen Chandy casts his vote at a polling booth in Kottayam pic.twitter.com/im1YBW5ov7  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

10.28 am: We are quiet confident about our winning chances, says Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy.

10.23 am: 15% voter turnout recorded in Kerala as of 10 am.

10.05 am: 13.5% voter turnout recorded till 9:30 am in Kerala.

9.53 am: Tribals of Pooppara settlement inside Parambikulam Tiger Reserve in Kerala trek for 18 km to cast their votes.

9.47 am: KM Mani casts his vote in Pala; confident about UDF win.

9.18 am: Visuals of BJP's O.Rajagopal after he casts his vote at polling booth in Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala), voting underway

Visuals of BJP's O.Rajagopal after he casts his vote at polling booth in Thiruvananthapuram(Kerala), voting underway pic.twitter.com/SaQNCU70TV  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

9.15 am: Coastal areas in Alapuzha register almost 11.16% voting in first two hours.

8.52 am: "As the fist citizen, I ask everyone to cast their votes. Today, I have cast mine," Gov P Sathasivam after casting his vote.



8.47 am: Kerala governor P Sathasivam casts his vote at a polling booth in Jawahar Nagar, Thiruvananthapuram.

Assembly polls: Kerala governor P Sathasivam casts his vote at a polling booth in Jawahar Nagar, Thiruvananthapuram. pic.twitter.com/G8EFTbtCYU  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

8.42 am: Kerala Governor P. Sathasivam waits in line to cast his vote.

8.36 am: Despite the hectic campaign of the Prime Minister, BJP will not be able to open account in Kerala assembly: AK Antony.

8.35 am: Actor Dulquer Salmaan arrives to cast his vote.

8.33 am: Former Meghalaya Governor MM Jacob flies in from Bengaluru to cast his vote.

8.20 am: PM Modi's comparison of Kerala with Somalia has hurt the pride of Malayalis, says Congress leader AK Antony.

8.18 am: No doubt that the UDF will win: Congress leader AK Antony says after casting his vote.

No doubt that the UDF will win: Congress leader AK Antony after casting his vote #KeralaPolls2016 pic.twitter.com/1tZbLtPGrT  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

8.15 am: Former Defence Minister and Congress leader AK Antony casts his vote at Jagathy Govt High School in Trivandrum

Kerala: Former Defence Minister & Congress leader AK Antony casts his vote at Jagathy Govt High School in Trivandrum pic.twitter.com/IMdJFF3sDq  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

8.13 am: North Kerala sees heavy polling, at almost 7 per cent till 8 a.m.

8.10 am: Kerala records 4.5 per cent voting till 8 am.

8.00 am: Rajya Sabha MP Suresh Gopi casts his vote at a polling booth in Thiruvananthapuram.

Kerala: Rajya Sabha MP Suresh Gopi casts his vote at a polling booth in Thiruvananthapuram. pic.twitter.com/cOBmzS1iYJ  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

7.52 am: BJP candidate Sreesanth seen waiting at a booth in Edapally.

7.47 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi urges people to come out and cast their votes.

Urging all voters in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry to vote in record numbers today & be a part of this festival of democracy.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 16, 2016

7.44 am: Congress leader Muraleedharan casts his vote in Kerala.

7.42 am: Congress Aruvikkara candidate Sabarinath casts his vote.

7.40 am: People queue up to cast their vote in Kochi.

People queue up to cast their vote in #Kerala assembly elections,visuals from Kochi. pic.twitter.com/SyGicK3lcS  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

7.34 am: Rain reported in many parts of Kerala, may slow down polling process.

7.10 am: Voting begins in Kerala, people queue up to cast their vote at a polling booth in Chathamangalam.

Voting begins in Kerala, visuals from a polling booth in Chathamangalam: People queue up to cast their vote pic.twitter.com/lZqYWZJFrZ  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

7.00 am: Voting begins for assembly electionin Kerala.



6.57 am: Preparations in Thiruvananthapuram's Thampanoor ahead of the assembly polls, voting to begin at 7am.

Kerala: Preparations in Thiruvananthapuram's Thampanoor ahead of the assembly polls, voting to begin at 7am pic.twitter.com/8rOLY1sU75  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2016

6.55 am: Total number of polling booths in the state is 21,498.

6.45 am: At least 52,000 police personnel deployed across Kerala for smooth conduct of today's assembly polls.

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Meet The Chicago Comedy Duo Making A Webseries With Fred Armisen

By Mae Rice in Arts & Entertainment on May 16, 2016 4:20PM



Wendy Mateo (left) and Lorena Diaz of Dominizuelan

Chicago-based comedians Lorena Diaz and Wendy Mateo have made a webseries, The Dominizuelan Consulate, that premieres in a few weeks. Warning to the suggestible among us, though: Dominizuela is not a real place. The series title is a play on the name Mateo and Diaz have been performing under for eight years: Dominizuelan, a mashup of their ethnicities (Diaz is Venezuelan; Mateo Dominican).

The conceit of the show, thoughtwo lifelong friends, bored of their law office jobs, open a consulate for a fictional country in a Chicago screw factoryis newer than their stage moniker, and was born out of a collaboration with none other than comedian Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live, Portlandia).

The collaboration began when the duo met Armisen in person in Chicago, in the second half of 2015. They had had some less-than-stellar experiences with production companies in the past, and Armisen was meeting with them on behalf of a production company: Mas Mejor, the arm of SNL creator Lorne Michaels production company, Broadway Video, that focuses on working with Latino talent.

When youre offered a meeting with Armisen, though, you dont say no. As Diaz told Chicagoist, Mama didnt raise no fool.

They met him at Chicagos Soho House, a setting that made the meetingalready so nerve-wracking that we were starstruck just hearing about iteven more intense, Mateo told Chicagoist. Theyre not members at the social club (which requires a creative soul and at least $1,000 for a yearlong of membership), and as Mateo put it, I dont see the people at the Soho House on the El train, ever.

"We felt like lucky jerks," Diaz said.

They connected with Armisen immediately. He was incredibly polite and giving and open, Diaz said. He just really listened to us and was able to really understand us right away. And we had just been so used to having to over-explain who we were to people.

He offered them a production deal with Mas Mejor that didn't require them to pay anything out of pocket. He even pitched them the series' consulate premise, inspired by their name. When we spoke with the two on Friday, they had just wrapped up shooting the series in a real Chicago screw factory on the Northwest side.

Anything that Lori and I write we like to keep it in Chicago, Mateo said.



Diaz stars in a short titled "Ms. Latina Stereotype explains Hollywood."

The two have lived in Chicago for ten years now, after moving here together from Miami. They initially met at an acting school in Hollywood, Florida, and clicked immediately. "We became roommates and then creative partners soon after that," Diaz said. "We sound like were married I dont know how to make this sound less like lovers.

They were both passionate about comedy, and decided to move to Chicago together to grow our comedy chops, Diaz said. Mateo started training at Second City, Diaz at iO, hoping that studying at different places would invigorate their creative partnership. At that point, we basically knew like, the color of each others panties, Diaz said. Like any marriage, it can get stale.

After some training and performing at Second City, iO and The Playground (where the duo have put on some of their more experimental shows), they decided that trying to assimilate into the comedy scene wouldnt produce their best work.

We felt like we were trying to play to a very white male perspective, Diaz said. Not to throw shade on white males, I love em.

Luckily, Chicagos comedy leaders went out of their way to support Dominizuelans work, especially Charna Halpern (head of iO) and Beth Kligerman (director of talent at Second City. Halpern chose to direct their two-woman show, People In The City, in 2008 (and they didnt even ask her to!). Around the same time, Kligerman helped them pick out their first press photos they felt great about. The photos showed Diaz and Mateo getting beat up by pinatas, Diaz said. I think that was just a really great way to capture us not shying away from our Latino background and culture, but also poking fun at it.

Since those days, the duo have streamlined their work a bit. Wendy and I create these giant shows, and we play 20 different characters, and we just overdo it, Diaz said. (According to the Readers review of People in the City, they played pugnacious adolescent brothers, politically incorrect old ladies, [and] catcalling old men in the show, among others.) When we met Fred [and Armisen's frequent collaborator Alice Mathias], they were like, You girls are funny. We want to just do a show about you girls and your life. Were like, We worked in a law office together. Theyre like, Great, well start there.

They worked directly with Armisen and Mathias, who directed the webseries, to put together the final product. It will be seven or eight episodes, each a minute to two minutes of these girls dealing with the various issues that come up when you run a fake consulate, as Mateo put it.

The consulate is only open on "weekends and government holidays," as Diaz explained, but it's still no walk in the park.

"Theres flags to design! Mateo said.

If Diaz and Mateo get their way, the whole webseries will only be the very beginning of a longer-form show. The hope is that well be able to pitch it for a bigger project that showcases the life of these girls both in and out of the consulate, Diaz said. (Diaz knows long-form TV, too; she has a recurring role as a nurse on Chicago Med.) We would see it living on like a Netflix space.

For now, you can find Dominizuelan on their website and on Twitter.
Petition To Save Double Door Nears 15K Signatures As Trial Looms

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on May 16, 2016 2:04PM



Photo via Double Door's Instagram page

It's coming down to the wire for Double Door.

The Wicker Park club's landlord, Brain Strauss, is still trying to evict the music venue, claiming they didn't give him the proper notice they wanted to renew their lease. The club owners maintain they did, but have admitted that they did not send the request via certified mail, which has complicated matters when it comes to proving the timing of the renewal request. There's already a real estate listing out on the club's Wicker Park space. the Tribune reported that representatives from both sides met with a judge behind closed doors Thursday, and are continuing talks in hopes of keeping the case from going on trail on May 18.

While the primary players are duking it out in this legal battle, the community of musicians, fans and past and present employees from all over have been circulating a petition to show their support for the music venue.

The petition states:

Double Door has become a fixture in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood and an integral part of the cultural and music scene in Chicago since it's opening in 1994. The club has played host to some of the biggest bands in the world including The Rolling Stones, Kid Rock, WILCO, The Killers, Cheap Trick, Kings of Leon, Kanye West, Sonic Youth, Of Monsters and Men, John Legend, Andrew Bird, Macy Gray, The Strokes and many others, bringing national and international exposure to Chicago. The club has nurtured the careers of many of Chicago's most successful local artists including Smashing Pumpkins, Chevelle, Local H, Lovehammers, Liz Phair, and Rise Against.

The petition was started by

Dino Kourelis, who is probably best known as the bassist for long-running Chicago rockers the Lovehammers. We tried to reach Kourelis to find out why he started the petition, but haven't heard back. Still, it's not surprising that he's behind it, given that a similar petition helped the Double Door out a decade ago.

10 years ago, the Strauss family tried to evict Double Door, and our petition of over 5,000 signatures made a significant impression on the judge during the hearings. Please take a second, sign the petition, and share with your friends to help save the institution that is Double Door preserve the cultural integrity of the neighborhood.

And do you know who started that petition and hand-delivered it to the hearing that eventually saved the Double Door from eviction the last time around? Dino Kourelis! In 2006 Kourelis' petition got over 5,000 signatures, and this time around he decided to increase ambitions and shoot for an even greater show of support. Andas of this writingwith 12,389 out of a goal of 15,000 signatures collected, we think the point has been made that Double Door has a lot of community support.

Of course it's just a petition, and it doesn't have any sort of legal sway, but the recipient of this collection of signatures will be Ald. Joe Moreno. Perhaps he will step in at the last minute and try and convince the building's owner that it might be in everyone's best interests to save a cultural institution like Double Door.

We'll find out soon.
by  Graham Pierrepoint



Ukraine's victory in Saturday's Eurovision Song Contest has caused wails of complaint from the Kremlin.

The Eurovision Song Contest  for all that it is a celebration of European culture, music and simply a fun evening for people all around the continent (and now the world, with broadcasts in the US and China as well as participation from Australia), it is a competition that has been dogged with allegations of political voting, bias and other related controversies  and while this year saw in a new judging system to help split points to countries in what many hoped to be a more democratic method, the winning song, 1944 by Ukraines Jamala, has caused something of a stir in Russia.

The song is politically-charged and is stated to discuss the events of Josef Stalins Crimean oppression during the second World War  and with recent history between Ukraine and Russia having been particularly tense, fuel was added to the fire as Jamala seized victory at the last minute from contest favorite Sergei Lazarev  whose song had been widely downloaded and streamed throughout the continent ahead of the contest, and who had won the viewers vote  and who happened to be representing Russia. In the middle of the voting mayhem was Australia, who managed to sweep jury votes up more than any other  leaving Ukraine the victor despite not having won either of the two voting polls.

Russia politicians have responded angrily to Ukraines victory, according to The Guardian, as a result of the songs political nature and demonizing of the country. Some suggested that it had been unjust for a song of such a nature be allowed to participate, while others, such as Franz Klintsevich  who serves as Deputy Chairman of the countrys Defence and Security Committee  stating that if nothing changes in Ukraine by next year, then I dont think we need to take part  according to The Telegraph.

Certainly, it was not to be Russias evening after weeks of build-up to Sergei Lazarevs performance  one which was just as impressive in its unique staging as it was in its song and in Lazarevs delivery  only for the new voting system to ensure that both Australia and Ukraine received more representation via jury voting. The Eurovision Song Contest is taken seriously by millions of people throughout the continent and it continues to be an annual event that thousands will flock from country to country to see  however, will Russia participate in proceedings in 2017? This we shall have to wait and see.
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The trio worked 'closely together' and their 'peddling' of heroin and crack cocaine was discovered after a car was stopped
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ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti is all smiles after arriving in Cologne, Germany, less than a day after..
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Swiss Government to Experiment with Bitcoin

Published May 16, 2016 by Lee R

The trial basis for accepting a limited number of government payments marks the first time a government will use Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin experiment is on in Switzerland.

Zug Leads

Ensconced in an enclave that already has acquired the nickname crypto-valley for housing over a dozen companies specializing in Bitcoin-related activities, the Swiss town of Zug will begin processing Bitcoin payments on July 1st and continue through the end of the year, at which time the city council will decide on whether to expand Bitcoin payments to more government services.

How It Will Work

The agreement to process payments of up to 200 Swiss francs ($200; 140) using the cryptocurrency is reportedly the first time a government will use the currency.

The experiment is a product of what Zug Mayor Dolfi Mueller says the city council's desire to show its "openness to new technologies" and cater to local financial technology companies.

Opposition

Some officials are opposed to the implications, as far as relying on virtual currency in any way or considering expanding its use. Zug council member Gregor Bruhn warned Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung. "The town of Zug could undermine the status of cash with its actions."

Perceptions

Some liken cryptocurrency to the credit cards, where money is being exchanged in an alternate pre-agreed upon form. Others remain unclear as to what secures a cryptocurrency, or if merely a cyber account is sufficient species of value.

Benefits?

The benefits are also unclear, but experiments such as Zug's can shed more light on the benefits and appeal of cryptocurrencies, which are barely five years old (the first Bitcoin transaction took place in 2011).

Concerns aside, if enough people voluntarily buy in, there is no doubt that governments would be willing, as well, as long as this and other crypto-experiments can show reduced processing times, lower transaction costs, and other efficiency benefits from using the virtual currency.

Mueller Far Ahead

Unconcerned, Mayor Mueller is ready to find out. He responded to Bruhn's comment thusly: "I can imagine that in the near future it will be possible to pay your tax bill with Bitcoin."
Acclaimed artist Zhang Huoding will bring the curtains down on this year's Meet in Beijing arts festival with a Peking Opera classic.

Zhang Huoding is known for her performances in The Legend of the White Snake and The Jewelry Pouch.[Photo provided to China Daily]

As Zhang Huoding walks to the stage, cameras follow her and the crowds get excited. The 45-year-old is one of a few Peking Opera performers who can get the attention usually reserved for a pop star.

Her shows are sold out and fans, especially young people, love her performances of the traditional art form, which is facing a decline today.

On May 24, Zhang will present a Peking Opera classic, The Legend of the White Snake, at Chang'an Grand Theater in Beijing, to mark the end of the monthlong Meet in Beijing arts festival for the year, one of the capital's biggest cultural events.

The Legend of the White Snake is about a love affair between a female snake named Bai Suzhen, who turns into a beautiful woman, and a man called Xu Xian. They meet, fall in love and get married. But a monk, who considers Bai evil and jails her in a tower, gets in the way of the couple's happy life.

"I like the role of Bai Suzhen very much. The woman is strong, crazy for love and brave," says Zhang, who was born in Baicheng city in Northeast China's Jilin province.

She began her studies in Peking Opera in Tianjin in 1986. Upon graduation three years later, she focused on the Cheng schoolone of the four major Peking Opera styles that emerged in the early 20th centuryunder accomplished performer Zhao Rongchen (1916-96).

The Cheng school, founded by famed Peking Opera master Cheng Yanqiu (1904-58), is known for its sorrowful and graceful singing, especially when portraying vulnerable and constrained female roles.

In 2000, Zhang performed the role of Bai for the first time when she was working with the China National Peking Opera Company.

To play the role, she adapted the classic piece to the Cheng style. This performance brought her great acclaim and made her a representative figure of the school.

Then, in 2007, she was the first Peking Opera performer to hold a solo concert at the Great Hall of the People.

A highlight of her upcoming show is that Zhang will perform with four actors from different generations of Peking Opera performers, who play the role of Xu Xian. The actors include Ye Shaolan, Song Xiaochuan, Zhao Rao and Zhang Bing.

Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation.
The Chinese-Hungarian Cultural Bazar was opened in Beijing at the former residence of Madame Soong Ching Ling late on Friday with an aim to encourage innovation and bring the two countries closer together.

Chinese students and their teacher play folk Chinese music with string instruments at the opening ceremony of the Chinese-Hungarian Cultural Bazar held at the former residence of Soong Ching Ling (wife of Dr. Sun Yat-sen) in Beijing on Friday. The cultural bazar is part of the 2016 China-Central and Eastern European Countries Year of Cultural Exchange. [Photo by Chen Boyuan / China.org.cn]

The three-day cultural event featured folk performances and exhibitions that featured the cultures of both countries. It is part of a series of activities for the 2016 China-Central and Eastern European Countries Year of Cultural Exchange.

With the theme of "inheritance, innovation and aesthetics," the bazar seeks to encourage innovation on old traditions, as China and Hungary both have a rich cultural heritage. Hungary is famous for its folk crafts tradition, such as embroidery, decorated pottery and carvings, and Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt ranks among the world's best.

At the bazar's opening ceremony, the visiting Hungary's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Istvan Ijgyarto, acknowledged that Hungary has an Orient heritage, reflected in its art forms similarities to those of Eastern countries.

"I noticed the similarities in handicraft products of both countries, even though we are geographically far apart," said Ijgyarto, also noting such similarities as the two nations' eagerness to innovate.

He said that the two countries are both proud of their traditions and of their ability to look to the future while never forgetting the past.

"A tradition that doesn't evolve can't last long. The new generation, if they don't make innovations on their traditions, won't have a bright future. Luckily, however, we are glad to see a passion for innovation in both countries," he said.

Ijgyarto reiterated the importance of cultural cooperation between countries, since no political or economic cooperation is possible without cultural cooperation. In other words, what is important besides political and economic relationships is people-to-people contact.

"You can't really attract other people's attention if they don't have some knowledge about you. You should first have a perception about a culture and a nation before establishing other relations," he said.

Qi Mingqiu, deputy chairman of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (CSCLF), echoed positively on bringing two countries closer through cultural exchanges. He noted the foundation has good relations with Hungarian non-governmental societies for more than two decades, and the joint efforts from two sides have contributed to the booming ties of the two countries.

Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu,

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, plan to speak very soon on the server controversy trailing the conduct and outcome of the 2019 general elections.

Yakubu said since the server matter was an issue before the Presidential Elections Tribunal, he will speak after the final judgment on all petitions.

He, however, asked interested Nigerians to go and read the statements on oath by the petitioners and the defendants to have a full grasp of the issues surrounding the controversial server.

But INEC plans to create more Polling Units (PUs) for accessibility to make voting faster and easier for the electorate.

Yakubu said the swing in the nations demography has led to a population surge in some cities.

He said while the Federal Capital Territory has had 562 Polling Units since its creation, the population of FCT has doubled over the years.

The nation presently boasts of 119, 973 PUs in 8,809 wards in a country with 84,004, 084 registered voters.

Apart from Polling Units, the INEC chairman said delimitation of constituencies has become imperative.

Yakubu spoke at the conclusion of a session on the review of the 2019 General Elections with the media in Abuja.

Responding to a question, he said: In our jurisprudence, you cannot comment on a live matter in court. The matter is subjudice but after the judgment, I will speak on the server issue.

There are a lot of documents you have not got. There are statements on oath by the petitioners and the defendants. Go and read these statements on oath. It is actually prudent to go back and read the statements.

In Yakubus view, trust in the electoral process is more important than technology.

He added: In some countries, they will be campaigning till the election day because there is trust. But in Nigeria, we print ballot papers, entrust these ballot papers with the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) and distribution is always done with heavy security. So, here, it is a question of trust.

Remember, some people attacked INEC offices in some states during the last elections because of ballot papers and other sensitive materials. Trust is key in any electoral process. The major difference between us and other countries is trust.

I cannot remember any country in Europe that does electronic voting; they still engage in manual process. Holland tried electronic voting but after 20 years, they reverted to ballot papers.

Yakubu admitted that going by the nations fluid demography, the creation of more PUs is necessary.

He said: Each time the commission makes attempt to create more Polling Units for accessibility to make voting faster and easier, it becomes a burning issue. We have to come up with the idea of Voting Points in some places to cater for increased number of voters.

Definitely, creation of more Polling Units has to be done but we need the support of all stakeholders, including the media. We will continue to see what we can do to create more PUs. Having more Polling Units does not confer advantage on any state, group or political party.

The idea of more Polling Units is about how Nigerians can be served. Satellite imagery has shown that there are under-served and un-served settlements.

Before the last Area Council elections in the FCT, we saw the need to create more Voting Points because the number of Nigerians who have trooped into the territory has become higher and the Polling Units have not changed.

The FCT used to be the smallest in population but its figure is now higher.

The voting statistics as follows: Registered voters (84, 004, 084);

Polling Units (119, 973); and Number of Wards (8, 809).

Yakubu said the anxiety over Polling Units was affecting the delimitation of constituencies in the country.

He said: The issues over the creation of more PUs are the same with delimitation of constituencies. We will continue to dialogue with all the stakeholders. Whatever requires legal framework amendment, we will approach the National Assembly.

There have been challenges on delimitation of constituencies in the last 36 years.

The nation had gone through delimitation in 1922 during the colonial period; 1954; 1964; 1979 and 1983.

INEC had on June 30, 2008 launched a nationwide consultation for another delimitation of constituencies but it was greeted with protests of likely manipulation of the process to gerrymander state boundaries whose social and economic impact the complainants were not sure of.

The provisions for delimitation are contained in sections 112 -115 of the 1999 Constitution.

Section 112 says: Subject to the provisions of sections 91 and 113 of this constitution, INEC shall divide every state in the Federation into such number of state constituencies as is equal to three or four times the number of Federal Constituencies within that state.

Section 113 reads: The boundaries of each state constituency shall be such that the number of inhabitants thereof is as nearly equal to the population quota as is reasonably practicable.

According to Section 114, INEC shall review the division of every state into constituencies at intervals of 10 years and may alter such constituencies in accordance with the provisions of this section to such extent as it may consider desirable in the light of the review.

INEC may at any time carry out such a review and alter the constituencies in accordance with the provisions of this section to such extent as it considers necessary in consequence of any alteration of the boundaries of the state or by reason of the holding of a census of the population of Nigeria in pursuance of an Act of the National Assembly.

Section 115 says: Where the boundaries of any State Constituency established under -112 of this constitution are altered in accordance with the provisions of Section 114 of this constitution, that alteration shall come into effect after it has been approved by the National Assembly and after the current life of the House of Assembly.
A lady has inflicted serious injury on a little girl because the girl cried out when the ladys brother tried to rape her.

According to reports, the incident happened in Lagos Island. The girl reportedly attends Lafiaji High school.

Facebook user, Agatha Ayerite, who shared the story online, wrote:
Chen Bing, director of business innovation at Daimler Great China, speaks about the development of Car2Share in China at a briefing session for UrbanTec Asia of the CIFTIS on Thursday. [Photo by Chen Boyuan / China.org.cn]

German automobile-maker Daimler, which owns Mercedes-Benz and Smart, plans to promote its Car2Share car-sharing service at the upcoming China Beijing International Fair for Trade in Service (CIFTIS) to be held between May 28 and June 1.

Car2Share, as its name suggests, provides cars to share for office workers in centralized rental office buildings in major cities. It exclusively offers Smart Fortwo vehicles and features return-trip point-to-point rentals.

Car2Share charges its user by both minute and mile. For the Beijing market, the rent is 12 yuan (US$1.84) for each half an hour plus 0.8 yuan (US$0.12) for each kilometer. The price includes the fuel expense and insurance.

To raise its market recognition in Beijing, the company is offering a special flat rate for night time (6pm-9am) and weekends (6pm Friday-9am Monday), 98 yuan (US$15) and 388 yuan (US$59.4) respectively.

Available cars are accessible via a smartphone app or through the company's official account on messaging platform WeChat.

Daimler unveiled the service in China in 2014 with the aim of maximizing the utilization of vehicles so that the number of cars could be brought down. It started its China service in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen in part because these cities suffer from most severe traffic congestion and air pollution due to the large number of cars.

Also, cities like Beijing and Shanghai both limit monthly auto sales and Beijing even bans around one-fifth of all cars from the streets on workdays. The introduction of Car2Share has met the demand of those who either are waiting to buy a car or whose cars are under the ban.

"Meeting the demand of as many as possible users with the smallest possible number of cars has been our pursuit," said MS. Chen Bing, director of business innovation at Daimler Great China, on Thursday at the briefing session for UrbanTec Asia of the CIFTIS.

She said that Daimler hopes to catch the attention of more industrial park managers so that Car2Share will take root in more places, allowing its fleet to expand beyond the current 100 Smart cars.

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The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Sunday described President Muhammadu Buharis policy on education as wicked and criminal against the needs of Nigerian youth.

The union accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) government of a deliberate plan to starve public education with funds in order to deny Nigerian youths the right to know and challenge misrule.

Chairman, University of Ibadan chapter of ASUU, Professor Deji Omole, in a statement made available lamented that the sacrifices of understaffed and underpaid Nigerian academic will be futile if President Buhari does not increase education funding.

Omole insisted that the University of Ibadan is presently groaning due to paucity of funds, insufficient staff, decayed infrastructure and bad laboratories.

According to the ASUU chief, education is not the priority of the Buhari government.

He lamented that over 500,000 Nigerian children who desire public university education are rejected annually due to poor funding, decayed infrastructure and reduced manpower.

Professor Omole said unless urgent steps are taken to cater for the needs of the Nigerian children, many of them will fight back with crime. He said:
Issa Rae is clearly the gift that keeps on giving. While were not really over the fact that we wont be getting a new season of Insecure this year, shes making up for it by executive producing a new comedy sketch show, A Black Lady Sketch Show.

With a star-studded cast that includes Issa herself, Yvonne Orji, Angela Basset, Tia Mowry, Lena Waithe, Maisai Martin and many more of our black television faves, it looks like were certainly in for a treat.

Earlier this year, HBO ordered the already existing sketch show, which was created by comedian, Robin Thede. From the first trailer, its clear that A Black Lady Sketch Show will be breaking new ground in sketch comedy TV, and were understandably hyped.

The show is described as a narrative series set in a limitless magical reality full of dynamic, hilarious characters, and it will be made up of sketches performed by a core cast of black women (Robin Thede, Ashley Nicole Black, Gabrielle Dennis and Quinta Brunson), as well as a number of celebrity guests.

In the trailer, Nigerian-American star, Yvonne Orji (Insecure) shines, as she plays an air hostess, who is trying to attend to a troublesome couple on the plane, while Angela Basset (Black Panther) and Laverne Cox (Orange Is The New Black) attend a Bad Bitch Support Group.

The show is set to premiere on August 2, and we cant wait.

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The route of K1084 passes through 40 stations across 8 provinces and the city of Tianjin before arriving in Urumqi. [Photo: urumqi.gov.cn]

The launch of the first Urumqi-Qiqihar railway, K1084, on Sunday marks a new era for China.

The line stretches for 4,818 kilometers, the longest one in China until now. It passes through 40 stations across 8 provinces and the city of Tianjin before arriving in Urumqi.

The ticket prices vary from 439 yuan to 1,244 yuan.

Also on Sunday, China put an additional 3,400 new passenger trains into service. This is the largest increase in passenger rail services in a decade. More than half of them will be on high-speed rail lines.

Most of the newly added high-speed services will be added to routes which service small-and-medium-sized cities and in the country's western regions.

Around 100 new inter-city trains are also going to be added to the lines to help people commute between big cities and their neighboring small towns.
File Photo

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has put everything in place, to ensure that Video Assistant Referees (VAR), is used from the quarter-finals of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.

The technology was not used in the group stages and Round of 16 fixtures.

However, it will make its debut on Wednesday, July 10.

First for the last-8 clash between Senegal and Benin, then the subsequent game between Nigeria and South Africa.

Souleyman Waberi, the CAF exco member from Djibouti and chairman of CAFs referees commission, told Osasu Obayiuwana of the BBC: We are very ready. We have used VAR offline (in test mode) for five games in this tournament, starting with the Egypt vs Uganda match.

Everything has worked well. Refereeing experts from FIFA have checked things and are satisfied.

Waberi also revealed that CAF expects to use VAR for the 2020 CHAN from the start of that tournament.

The tournament will be hosted by Cameroon, who will also host the 2021 AFCON a year later.

Our plan is to use VAR from the first match of that tournament, he added.
One of the most repected Nigerian actors, Richard Mofe-Damijo is a happy man at the moment as one of his sons, Oghenetega, turns 18 today July 8th.

The excited dad took to his IG page to share a beautiful open letter he wrote to his son. In the letter, RMD showered him with prayers and also gave him some nuggets to live by as he transits into adulthood.

Read the letter below:

Dear Son,

Turning 18 is a big deal as it offers you the freedom and liberty to be your own man but you know youre never really going to be ever free from me right? Oh, just ask your Uncles, big brothers and sister -lol.

I know how confusing the next few years will be for you as you straddle boyhood and manhood at the same time but I hope I have been a good enough father and steered you in the right direction.

I pray for you to be a good man, even when people are not watching, that is INTEGRITY.

I pray that you do deeds that will help others, even if no one knows you did them, that is KINDNESS.

I pray you are quick to share not only what you have, but what you know, that is GENEROSITY.

I pray that you treat everyone as equal, irrespective of their social status, that is RESPECT.

I pray that you remember that every woman is to be treated like they are precious, because they all are, that is BEING A MAN.

I pray that you never use your voice or physical strength to intimidate anyone (male/female), that is REAL STRENGTH.

I pray that youre not afraid to speak the truth, even as a lone voice, that is CONFIDENCE.

I pray you spend only what you can afford, and not be pressured to live for the gram, that is WISDOM.

I pray that you do not glorify crime, drugs, alcohol abuse and other forms of debauchery just to appear cool and lit, that is UPRIGHTNESS.

More importantly, I pray you remember that youre Gods son and live in ways to make Him proud.

Son, being 18 gives you the right to make choices but it does not absolve you of consequences so be careful the choices you make.

Heres to an amazing life ahead of you #RMDSaysSo #LetterToMySon #DearTeenageSon #TegaMofeDamijo
The suspect

A Biological Science student of the Federal Univeristy of Technology, Owerri, ( FUTO) has been arrested after an alleged failed attempt to use one of his colleagues for money ritual (Yahoo plus).

The incident happened overnight at a hostel, Bliss Mansion, in Umuchima, Imo State. During interrogation, the suspect revealed that he decided to take the action so that his Yahoo involvement can start going smoothly.

Recounting how he managed to survive, the victim, identified as Daniel, said: He called me, at night, appealing to me to allow him sleep over at my place and I sent him my address.

When he arrived, he told me how he was arrested by the police. He said he doesnt want more troubles, so he decided to lie low at my place.

Some minutes past 12:00am, he came to the bed telling me that the music I was playing was disturbing him because he hasnt slept for about two days.

Suddenly he started chanting incarnations. I initially thought it was funny, until he started asking me why I havent slept off yet. I told him I would sleep when the time comes, although secretly, I was praying.

At 2:00am he started beating me up and when I was shouting, he told me that no one can hear my voice. I struggled with him for so long, destroying the properties in my room.

At 2:30am, my lodge mates started coming to my rescue and by Gods grace, I could open the door for them. He also told me that his plan was that in the morning, he would collect money.

Watch video below:
President Muhammadu Buhari has returned to Abuja after attending the 12th Extraordinary Summit of the African Union in Niamey, Niger Republic.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the presidential aircraft, conveying the president and some members of his entourage landed at the Presidential Wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja at about 1:25 p.m.

While in Niamey, Buhari signed the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, making Nigeria the 53rd state in the continent to append its signature to the document.

The signing of the agreement was the first event at the opening of the summit on the launching of the operational phase of the AfCFTA.

The president had delayed signing the agreement, which entered into force on May 30, 2019.

The delay was to give room for extensive consultations with stakeholders, culminating in the submission of the report by the presidential committee, to assess the impact and readiness of Nigeria to join the free trade area.



The AfCFTA is expected to be the worlds largest free trade area since the formation of the World Trade Organisation, with a potential market of 1.2 billion people.

Buhari at the summit met with Dr Mansur Muhtar, Vice- President of the Islamic Development Bank and solicited the support of the bank to address Nigerias infrastructure deficit.

According to the president, with the growing population and infrastructure deficit, no amount of money is too much to commit to the revamping of Nigerias development challenges.

We need all the support we can get on infrastructure because the oil will not last forever, said Buhari.

The Nigerian leader also met with the Head of Libyas Government of National Accord, Fayez Al-Sarraj, and pledged Nigerias continued support for Libyas quest to regain political and security stability.
Nura Dahiru

Nura Dahiru, an assistant superintendent of Nigeria Customs Service, on Monday promoted himself to the rank of deputy comptroller-general of Customs (DCG), claiming he was directed by President Muhammadu Buhari to assume the office of comptroller-general (CG).

Sources at the Customs headquarters in Abuja told TheCable that Dahiru walked in Monday morning wearing the new rank, and went into the office of Hameed Ali, the comptroller general.

As he came in, officers were saluting him because he was wearing that rank, one of the sources said.

Sometime in May, he had posted on Facebook that he had been directed by the president to take over from Hameed Ali, and today when we saw him in the new rank, we thought, indeed, he has been promoted and so directed by the president. He went inside the CGs office, sat in the waiting room, expecting the CG to handover to him.
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Chinese police have arrested more than 10 people for slaughtering and selling a whale shark in Beihai, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

An undated photo shows a 47-year-old woman, who is suspected of catching and slaughtering a whale shark in Beihai, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. [Photo: Chinanews.com]

Pictures of the dead shark being pulled up from water went viral online recently, triggering netizens' outcry for justice.

Local police on Wednesday arrested two men, who bought and sold the whale. The two's confessions then led police to other suspects.

A 47-year-old woman, identified as the owner of the boat in the picture, was arrested for catching and slaughtering the creature. More than 10 sailors working for her were also seized.

These people will be charged with hunting endangered wild animal.

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However, speaking to Big Brother during his diary session on Sunday afternoon hours before the eviction, Omashola apologised to Biggie.

One of the Big Brother Naija 2019 housemates, Omashola has apologized to Big Brother for his action on Saturday night.

Omashola had on Saturday night threatened housemates after his 100 coins were no longer in the bible where he kept them.

Ike also noticed that his coins were missing, and threaten fire and brimstone.

In respect to this, Big Brother on Sunday morning asked Omashola and Ike to pack their bags ahead of Sunday live eviction tonight for breaking the rules of the house.

However, speaking to Big Brother during his diary session on Sunday afternoon hours before the eviction, Omashola apologised to Biggie.

According to him:-

I feel sad, disappointed and embarrassed at myself for my behavior last night. I got out of my head last night was shouting anyone. I was scared that was why I threatened the housemates after my coins got missing. No vex for me biggie I take God beg you. My reaction last night was out of panic, Im really sorry. Big Brother, I F**cked up.

He further stated that he would be very depressed if he is evicted.

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 Flash

Leaders of three major cities on the Pacific rim, from China, New Zealand and the United States, gathered in Auckland on Monday for the second Tripartite Economic Summit to build a new form of international cooperation.

After a traditional Maori welcome, Auckland Mayor Len Brown spoke to more than 700 delegates from the three countries, saying the three cities, Auckland, Guangzhou and Los Angeles, all had strong growth in populations and economies.

Brown said in his speech that delegates were particularly looking to drive the high-tech sector "and wanting to make sure there's a strong connection between the cities of Los Angeles and Guanzhou and the city of Auckland."

"We are seeing a very high growth in visitors into Auckland and New Zealand from America and China, and we see a role in this tripartite for supporting our nation's focus in building strong economic relationships between China and America," said Brown.

The two-day event would involve business-matching, learning, sharing and really understanding the sense of what tripartite is, said the Auckland major.

"It is the triangle of the Pacific. We are the sons and daughters of the Pacific, proudly in the heart of global economic social cultural and environmental growth and wellbeing."

Li Xiaolin, president of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, said the three cities would benefit from "resource-sharing, mutual complementarity and win-win cooperation."

"The three cities learn from each while negotiating strategies for future development expansively promoting practical sub-national cooperation between China the United States and New Zealand," Li told the delegates.

"The Chinese government attaches great importance to regional cooperation both between Chinese cities and between Chinese cities and international counterparts," she said.

"The successful cooperation between Guangzhou, of China, Los Angeles, of the United States, and Auckland, of New Zealand, sets a shining example of cooperation between sister cities."

Wang Dong, Vice Mayor of Guangzhou, said the tripartite agreement signed two years ago had created a new chapter in cooperation among the three cities.

The agreement had great potential for developing industrial ties in fields such as port logistics, films and animation and biopharmaceuticals, said Wang.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the three cities shared common problems, "traffic, infrastructure, air quality, housing."

"But these are the problems of cities that people want to be in, they're good problems to have and good problems to solve," said Garcetti.
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The Japanese government will further ease visa requirements for Chinese citizens as part of its plan to attract 40 million foreign tourists every year by 2020.

The plan was adopted at a meeting of the Ministerial Council on the Promotion of Japan as a Tourism-Oriented Country on Friday, Japan Times reported.

The newspaper also reported that the new visa rules are expected to be carried out before this summer.

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on its website late last month that 5-year, multi-entry visas will be extended to 10 years, particularly for Chinese businessmen, academics and artists. Visa requirements for certain applicants will also be lowered. Previously, multiple-entry individual visas were issued to high-income Chinese tourists with a 5-year validity.

Meanwhile, single-entry visa application procedures will also be simplified for students from 75 universities under the direct supervision of the Chinese Ministry of Education. These include registered undergraduates and post-graduates, as well as alumni who graduated from the 75 schools within 3 years.

The announcement came after Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida's meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, last month in Beijing, the first since one held in Seoul in November 2015.

Liu Junhong, a researcher at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the easing of Japan's visa policies is aimed at boosting the country's sluggish economy, which is reeling from deflation and weak demand.

Japan remains one of the favorite overseas destinations for Chinese holidaymakers. Data from the Japan National Tourism Organization showed that the number of Chinese tourists to Japan more than doubled last year to reach 5 million.

More noticeable for local retailers is the spending power of Chinese tourists, who accounted for more than 40 percent of the total spending of foreign visitors to Japan in 2015.

Russians and Indians are also on the list of beneficiaries in this visa easing policy.

Prior to Japan, many other countries have issued 10-year visas for Chinese citizens. Back in November 2014, the US government started issuing multi-entry business and tourist visas valid for up to 10 years in China.

The United Kingdom and Australia are also considering the extension of their visa validity to 10 years.
Lesley Nneka Arimah

A Nigerian writer, Lesley Nneka Arimah has won the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing.

Arimah defeated authors from Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Kenya to clinch the prize with her short story titled Skinned. The short story was published in McSweeneys Quarterly Concern (Issue 53) 2018.

Skinned envisions a society in which young girls are ceremonially uncovered and must marry in order to regain the right to be clothed. It tells the story of Ejem, a young woman uncovered at the age of fifteen yet unclaimed in adulthood, and her attempts to negotiate a rigidly stratified society following the breakdown of a protective friendship with the married Chidinma. With a wit, prescience, and wicked imagination, Skinned is a bold and unsettling tale of bodily autonomy and womanhood, and the fault lines along which solidarities are formed and broken.

The category of Caine Prize won by Arimah is often described as Africas leading literary award.

According to caineprize.com, Dr Peter Kimani, Chair of Judges announced Lesley as the winner of the 10,000 prize at an award dinner on Monday 8 July.

Announcing the award, Kimani said: The winner of this years Caine Prize for African Writing is a unique retake of womens struggle for inclusion in a society regulated by rituals. Lesley Nneka Arimahs Skinned defamiliarizes the familiar to topple social hierarchies, challenge traditions and envision new possibilities for women of the world. Using a sprightly diction, she invents a dystopian universe inhabited by unforgettable characters where friendship is tested, innocence is lost, and readers gain a new understanding of life.

Arimah is a 2019 United States Artists Fellow in Writing and she lives in Las Vegas, United States of America.

Those shortlisted writers for the 2019 Caine Prize alongside Arimah includes: The Wall by Ethiopian author, Meron Hadero; Sew My Mouth by Kenyan Author, Cherrie Kandie; It Takes A Village Some Say by Cameroonian author, Ngwah-Mbo Nana Nkweti; All Our Lives by Nigerian author, Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor.
According to a report by Punch Metro, there was a mild drama on Sunday at the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company in Ekpan, in the Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State, where support staff members of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had been protesting the non-regularisation of their engagement since last week Wednesday.

As they await the intervention of the management of the NNPC, the protesters took their case to God by holding a church service on the protest ground.

The service, which held amidst downpour, saw the workers singing worship songs and engaging in prayers to seek divine intervention.

The service was held in front of the entrance and exit gates, as the workers appealed to the management of the NNPC to meet their demands.

Sunday made it the fifth day of the protest, which has continued to be peaceful, though the entrance and exit gates to the refinery were still under lock and key, with tents mounted at the entrance to prevent vehicular movement into the complex.

However, there were alleged plots by the management of the WRPC to use military force to break up the protest and dislodge the protesters from the facility.

According to one of the protesters, who identified himself simply as Uche, some military personnel led by a captain had visited the premises.

Uche stated, What we are doing here today (Sunday) is to hold our interdenominational church service here not minding the heavy rainfall. What we are demanding is that the NNPC and the management of the WRPC should regularise our engagement and pay us our outstanding salaries.

We just got some information that the management of the WRPC had concluded plans with the military to force us out of here, but it wont work. We have been peaceful with this protest. Any use of force may cause problems.

Meanwhile, the Managing Director of the WRPC, Mohammadu Abali, said the continuous protest and shutting down of commercial activities could make the NNPC to reconsider selling the refinery to prospective buyers.

Abali, who spoke while addressing the protesters during a meeting on Friday, said with the protest, top officials of the corporation might have doubts about their conversion into full staff members.

He stated, What is happening now is that the people in Abuja are looking at it that; are these the people you want us to bring in? The solution for us is to work together. If we are fighting each other, then we are going to allow those that want to buy this place to win.

I have very few years left; so, it is up to us. It is either we work together and do it or we allow them to come, because they are ready; they have their money and are the ones who are even in charge. I beg you, lets apply wisdom; let us not allow people who dont have what we have to take it away.

The Executive Director, Services, WRPC, Dr Ololo Sokare, on his part, appealed to the protesters to exercise more patience, adding that the management was expecting certain funds that would take care of the issue they were protesting about.

He said, We are waiting for the funding. When we have the funds, the community project will be taken care of. We are pleading with you to just give us a little time.

Our top management, once they do the handing over, the chief operating officer is going to come here and be able to tell you what the management has in mind. Let us sheathe our swords and wait and see in the shortest possible time what we will be able to do for you.
Judges of the Federal High Court in the country will from today commence their annual vacation.

The vacation, which is usually two months period, enables judges take a break from their heavy workload, attend to their health, embark on travels and prepare adequately for the challenges of the new legal year.

Though during this period, the courts are not completely shut down as there are vacation judges to attend to the needs of litigants, just as judges who are hearing election and other time bound issues continue to sit.

However, when the judges of the Federal High Court resume from recess in September this year, one of the judges who would not be resuming with them is the Chief Judge, Justice Adamu Abdul kafarati, who is due for retirement by ending of this month.

Justice kafarati, who bows out of office in July 25, 2019, was in June last year sworn in as substantive Chief Judge of the Federal High Court by then Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Justice Walter Onnoghen.

Following the retirement of the former Chief Judge, Ibrahim Auta in September 16, 2017 and the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari to nominate a successor, Onnoghen had taken a proactive step to prevent judicial disorder by swearing in Kafarati as Acting Chief Judge of the Federal High Court.

Justice Kafarati was then the most senior judge of the court when Justice Ibrahim Auta retired on September 16, 2017, after attaining mandatory retirement age.

However, following the recommendation of the Federal Judicial Service Commission in 2018, President Buhari then forwarded kafaratis name to the senate for confirmation.

The Senate had also on March 8, 2018, urged President Buhari to forward nomination of Justice Kafarati to the upper legislative chamber for approval as substantive Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to avoid constitutional crisis.

The outgoing CJ, who was born in 1954 became a judge of the Federal High Court in 1991.

Abdu-Kafarati was one time Bauchi State Principal State Counsel and Asstant Administrator General till 1988 when he joined Federal High Court in 1991.

It is expected that this time around the President would not delay in nominating a successor to kafarati to avoid any constitutional crisis.

Those could be nominated for the office of the CJ in order of seniority are: Justice John Terhemba Tsoho from Benue State. He was born on June 24, 1959 and appointed a judge of the Federal High Court in November 12, 1998.

Next is Justice Cecilia M. Olatoregun from Oyo State, born on November 9, 1954 and appointed July 28, 2000, followed by Justice Binta Nyako from Katsina State. She was born on May 14, 1959 and appointed judge of the Federal High Court in July 28, 2000.
This is a reprint from NewsBred.





To this very day, May 11, 1857, Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar received a few hundreds of East Indian Company cavalrymen in Red Fort, Delhi who sought his blessing to throw out the yoke of British rule in India.

As a letter from one of the rebels' leaders put it: "The English are people who overthrow all religions"As the English are the common enemy of both (Hindus and Muslims), we should unite in their slaughter"By this alone, will the lives and faiths of both be saved."

This heralded the start of the greatest revolt against colonial powers, English or otherwise, of the 19th century. Practically everyone in the Bengal army turned against their British officers. Civilian unrest soon kicked in in support of the rebelling sepoys across the country.

The discontent had been building to a climax. The British, who arrived as traders in the 17th century, showed their true colours by the 18th. Britain wanted to dominate the world and be the sole global power in a new British century. Lord Wellesley, governor general of India from 1798-1805, vowed to remove any European or Muslim regime which became an obstacle to this dream.

So fervent was this ambition, the so-called Forward Policy, that Britain pulled out all stops to bring the "jewel" India under complete subjugation. Local laws were abolished. A massive drive began to turn the "godless natives" into Christians.

The building discontent had more than one dimension to it. Along with interference in local customs and evangelical drives, Indians resented the use of English in schools as well as the coercive powers of judicial- social interventionist methods.

Indian industries lay in ruins. Handicrafts and agriculture only caused indebtedness. The "gang" of money lenders, such as landlords and zamindars, had joined hands with the Britishers.

So insistent were British in bringing "sovereign" Muslim native rulers under its yoke that they manipulated and spread all kind of lies. In order to annex the flourishing Avadh region, they produced a "fake dossier" before parliament. It was so full of distortions and lies that one British officer, involved in the operation, termed it as "a fiction of official penmanship." The locals though preferred the "slandered regime" of the Nawab"to rose-coloured government of the company," as the official put it.

This combustible situation needed a spark and it was provided by the greased cartridge affair. The revolt spread quickly, a tribute to the secrecy with which the uprising had been planned. British asserted its force by September, British forces attacked Delhi, already under the siege. The massacre included those of ordinary citizens. In one neighbourhood, Kucha Chelan, 1400 unarmed locals were hacked to death. Delhi was pillaged torched, completely ruined by the vengeful foreigners.

Emperor Zafar was trialed and hanged. He was slapped with an absurd charge: A Muslim conspiracy to subvert the entire British Empire, stretching from Mecca and Iran to Delhi. The fact that it was an uprising largely planned by Hindu sepoys was conveniently ignored.

The outcome is well-documented: The 1858 Government of India Act ensured that the control was passed on from East India Company into the hands of the British Empire. The make-up of military forces was dramatically altered. The rule was so heavy-handed that between 1858-1947, there were only 20 minor mutinies mounted by Indian regiments. But coercive methods also sparked an awakening of Indian nationalism and the signs of an emerging modern India was everywhere--in schools, colleges, universities.

Britain couldn't have afforded to let India go. It was a major destination of investment for traders and bankers. The high-growth sectors were rail, tea and cloth. The British was unwilling to allow India, the "great barracks whose taxpayers supported up to half of the British regular army" to slip out of its grasp.

As in now, there is striking similarity in West's methods. Like today, the rulers blamed it on "Muslim fanaticism." They termed their opponents as "incarnate fiends," Their heavy-handedness bears a striking resemblance to the present tale in Middle East and elsewhere. The intrusion has radicalized the people against them, like it was in 1857.
"I, Donald J. Trump, am calling for a complete and total ban on Muslims entering this country until we can figure out what is going on" (cheers and applause). And this statement came after calling Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers and promising to build a wall between the U.S. and America which, of course, Mexico would pay for (more cheers and applause).



The most disturbing aspects of the rallies in which these statements have been made are the eerie similarities to the rallies that we have on film which Hitler held in Germany during the late 1920's. The racist and xenophobic rhetoric and the amazingly excited response of a large group of Americans, coupled with a crudeness never before seen in a Presidential candidate (Megan Kelly bleeding; Carly Fiorina's face, and more), should be a fair warning to us all. There is a segment of our population that is utterly fascist, and it is more than just fringe groups like the KKK.

What makes it even worse, is that Trump supporters are low-information voters for whom the facts do not matter -- they will vote on their emotions and the few hot-button issues -- issues that relate to their irrational fears and the need to scapegoat. And Trump's argument plays right into this demographic. As Robert Paxton, a leading historian and expert on fascism, said during a recent interview with Slate Magazine:

'The argument is very clear. Like the argument of Hitler and Mussolini that the existing government is weak, and therefore, we must have a government that is appropriate to the grandeur of America. The portrayal of Obama as weak, which is astonishing considering the degree to which Obama has used military power".

Nevertheless, a lot of people are left behind in the recovery. Poorly educated white males are left behind, and the country is not better for them, and there are enough of those people to make a huge difference. I don't think there are enough of those people to elect a president, but they can make a powerful movement.'

A Question of Leadership

Above all, we look to a President to be a leader of all Americans, and that effective leadership has traditionally involved a decorum, a rational intelligence, and a set of behaviors that are above the common "fray." When a candidate sends out angry tweets at 2:00 a.m., with distasteful and disgusting comments about those who oppose him, that is not leadership -- it is sandbox fighting. And as a recent Washington Post editorial pointed out:

'Anyone -- we're tempted to say any moron -- can grab a torch and run in front of the mob. What takes talent is what you might call political anger management: to identify legitimate complaints and turn them in a constructive direction, on behalf of a governing prescription. Mr. Trump, with his simplistic demands for a massive tariff on Chinese imports, or his insistence that the Mexican government is deliberately sending criminals to the United States, shows no sign of possessing such a capability. He shows no sign of acknowledging the need for it.'

Hitler and Mussolini "grabbed torches" and ran in front of mobs too.

The Republican Establishment Falls In Line

This week, Trump had a much touted meeting with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. According to some, Ryan's purpose was to explain the basic tenets of conservatism and to provide a civics lesson on the Constitution, so that Trump understood what he really could and could not do were he to become President. The fact that this meeting should even have to take place is frightening. And, while Ryan has still not publicly endorsed Trump, many other party leaders have.

McCain Endorsement -- Frightening Indeed

Perhaps the saddest, and most frightening, endorsement came from John McCain -- a respected war hero, a respected maverick senator, who has broken with his party on many issues in the past. This is a man whom Trump insists was not a war hero, but only a captured soldier, and said so publicly. This is a man who has fought against torture all of his political life, now endorsing a candidate who publicly relishes it and would re-institute it in even stronger ways than during the Bush-Cheney years. What must it take for a man to swallow his most valued principles and endorse this hateful creature?

Moderate political leaders in Germany did the same thing, once they realized that Hitler was going to win an election.

Yes, Trump's Fascism is Real

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Trumpster

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Hearing her reminded me of what would have happened to us if (then) 71-year old John McCain had won in 2008 and then died or became incapacitated in office: a dangerously unfit person would have become President. In 2016, however, the party's base chugged the kool-aid by putting a Palinesque nominee at the top of its ticket.

The GOP establishment now seem to be swallowing their dismay and sidling up to Trump. To understand this change, we need to distinguish two different strands in their opposition to him.

The first strand is that he's not a "true conservative." He seems (so far) to be unsympathetic with conservative memes such as maintaining a global military force, imposing "Christian" social conservatism, and so-called free trade . He has said he won't mess with Social Security and Medicare. However, Trump's record of flip-flopping gives GOP regulars hope that he will "moderate" his positions come November.

The second strand is that Trump's ignorance and character defects make him unfit to be President. His lies are so frequent and reckless that FactCheck.org admits "we've never seen his match." He is also matchless "for his brazen refusals to admit error when proven wrong." The ease with which he behaves this way shows a disturbing combination of dishonesty and ignorance.

For instance, he still refuses to retract his birther claims about Barack Obama. And, on the Nov. 22 broadcast of ABC's This Week , he claimed that "There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down." In response to a barrage of objections that this never happened, he tweeted the next day: "I want an apology! Many people have tweeted that I am right!" There is no written or televised record of what Trump claimed to see, and no evidence from any source.

His policy pronouncements often show not only ignorance but also a failure to think and reflect before he opens his mouth. For example, in a March 30 interview with Chris Matthews, he not only supported an abortion ban, but also said that "there has to be some form of punishment" for the woman having the abortion.

Last Dec. 3 Trump said on Fox News that when battling terrorists, "you have to take out their families." He has repeatedly promised to use torture, and would bring back "a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding." These boasts prompted Michael Hayden, the former head of the NSA and CIA, to say that "If he were to order that once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act."

The list of his absurd and harmful proposals also includes a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," building a wall along the 2000-mile border with Mexico to keep out the "rapists" and other criminals streaming in, deporting 11million illegal immigrants and letting Japan and South Korea acquire nuclear weapons to defend against North Korea.

Trump is a misogynist--someone who looks down on women as inferior even though he constantly boasts of his success in pursuing them as sex objects and trophies. He even sexualizes his own daughter, saying to Howard Stern that "I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She's six feet tall, she's got the best body." He admits to Rolling Stone that "If I weren't happily married, and ya know, her father""

If women incur his displeasure, he will viciously attack their appearance. As Megyn Kelly of Fox News reminded him during the first GOP debate: "You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals." When he was later asked about Kelly's remark, he suggested it was due to her period: "You can see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever."

The message that Paul Ryan and other Republican 'serious people' are putting out to the media is that if Trump can take back a few of his deviant positions, the party will unite in support of him. And Trump seems willing to do this, as in this May 13 statement : "Look, anything I say right now -- I'm not the president. Everything is a suggestion."

In other words, the GOP is willing to have a dangerously ignorant and incompetent person as President, just like their roll of the dice with Palin in 2008. Only this time, if they win, a fool will be at the top of the ticket with his hand instantly on the nuclear trigger.

Republicans must ask themselves what it is about their "true conservatism" that leads them to clothe it with the loud-mouthed vulgarity and misogyny of a Donald Trump in order to please their base.


Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump - Caricatures

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There's probably never been a US presidential election where both likely nominees are more despised by more people. Millions on both sides plan to vote for the least despicable candidate. Do you need more proof our political system is corrupt to the core? If you're a Hillary Clinton supporter and plan to vote for her, that's fine. But Bernie Sanders supporters are being pressured and shamed into voting for Clinton. This "pragmatic" lesser of two evils tactic may work for the short term, but it will just embolden establishment politics and undermine future chances for real progressive change.

Even if your vote helps defeat Trump you're clearly telling Democratic party elites they can confidently betray your concerns as long as they offer you someone marginally better than the Republican alternative. Where will it end? The Democratic Party will just continue to betray progressive causes with impunity. Progressives should say enough is enough and put moral principles above short-term political expediency.

The Democratic Party elites are going out of their way with all manner of dirty tricks to stack the deck for Clinton. They're counting on Sanders supporters to "feel the guilt" if they dare to not vote for their chosen one. But if Trump wins, it won't be the fault of Sanders supporters voting their conscience. It will be the fault of party elites trying to force an establishment faux progressive down the throats of true progressives knowing full well their choice will alienate millions of progressive Democrats and independents while bringing Trump supporters out in droves.

Like Clinton supporters, Sanders supporters have every right to vote for someone based on their moral principles. Sanders supporters shouldn't be coerced to compromise their moral principles and merely vote against someone. Democratic Party elites are blackmailing them by claiming, "if you don't vote for our chosen one, it's your fault if Trump wins." No, it's the fault of the Democratic Party for ignoring and marginalizing progressives. If it were really about beating Trump, party elites would change their allegiance to Sanders who would beat Trump more handily than Clinton according to multiple polls.

The onus is on the Democratic Party to promote someone who is worthy of your vote. The party elites shouldn't expect to be exonerated for second-rate judgment by getting Sanders supporters to violate their moral principles and vote for the lesser of two evils.

Voting for the lesser of two evils is a logical fallacy called false dilemma

Voting for the lesser of two evils is not like choosing to switch a runaway train to another track so it kills one person instead of five if you do nothing. In this hypothetical case, there are only two choices. But when faced with two repulsive candidates for office, there are other choices - abstain from voting, vote for a third party candidate, or write someone in. If you aren't fooled by the Democratic Party's propaganda, you'll see the real lesser of two evils choice here is voting for the lesser of two evils versus refusing to vote for the lesser of two evils. Which choice is really the lesser evil?

A Trump win may actually stimulate progressive change

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This is a reprint from NewsBred.





Devadatta Ramakrishna Bhandarkar died on this day--May 13--in 1950. One of India's greatest archaeologist, Bhandarkar unearthed the entire city of Nagari in Chittorgarh district in 1915-1916. But we remember him as a man who told us that Ramayana and Mahabharata are not all fiction. Myths abound but to term the epics as make-believe would be an utter folly, according to Bhandarkar.

Three lectures of Bhandarkar In Calcutta University in 1918 were later published as a book "Lectures on the Ancient History of India." Much is known about the Mauryan and Gupta empires but anything further back is wrapped up in a mystery. Bhandarkar's lectures focussed on the history of India from 650 BC to 325 BC and is a seminal book on India's past. It provides fascinating details about the life, culture and society of that forgotten era.

Bhandarkar was able to shed light on the mystery of ancient India. His lectures were path-breaking in that he showed that Ancient India was far more advanced in relation to the rest of the world. The great educationalist, Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee termed him as the "pathfinder in trackless regions of the boundless field of Indian antiquarian research."

Bhandarkar, during his illustrious career, pinned down an important fact--that Lord Rama was not fictional. In Ramayana, Lord Rama is said to belong to Ikshvaku clan and Bhandarkar was able to quote three sources on its authenticity. Inscriptions from the third century told him about the reign of King Madhariputra Sri Virapurushadatta of the Ikshvaku family. The Buddhist texts tell us that Buddha too had belonged to Ikshvaku clan. And then there is Ramayana of course.

Bhandarkar was also able to establish the veracity of Brahim sage, Agstya. The sage has been mentioned in the Ramayana as among the first to have crossed the Vindhya mountains. It was this sage who is admitted by all Tamil grammarians as the founder of the Tamil Language. Bhandarkar also points that in Robert Caldwell's "Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian family of languages", there is a mention of a hill where Agastya retired after setting up the Tamil language. The hill called Gastier (Agastya's Hill) can still be found in the Tinnevelly district of Tamil Nadu.

In Mahabharata, and its important appendix, Hamivamsa, there is mention of a Kshatriya clan Bhoja. This clan, Bhandarkar proved, was also mentioned in Kautilya's Arthashastra, a great work on statecraft, which preceded Niccolo Machiavelli's, The Prince, by a good 1600 years.

The City of Ayodhya as mentioned in the epic, including Ashok Vatika in Sri Lanka and Lepakshi in Andhra Pradesh (where Jatayu was greatly injured by Ravana while trying to save Sita) have all been authenticated.

The NASA Shuttle released images of a mysterious ancient bridge between India and Sri Lanka as mentioned in the Ramayana. It has confirmed half submerged path of rocks between Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu, through the Mannar islands and up to Northwestern coast of Sri Lanka. The evidence suggests that the bridge was manmade and the timeline of Ramayana matches the one of the bridge. Medicinal herbs in Sri Lanka, the finding of footsteps of Hanuman, have surfaced.

Bhandarkar had little doubt that Ramayana and Mahabharata acquired a mythical proportion over centuries. "However it would be a mistake to suppose that legends teach us nothing historical," stated Bhandarkar who lived all of 74 years.
I admit: It's all speculation.

On April 4th, I wrote on Facebook: "My prediction: the next President of the United States will be someone who is not yet in the race. (e.g., Possible alternative Dem ticket: Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.) How crazy am I?"

This wasn't just a wild guess. It was based on a few considered convictions.

The first major conviction is that Bernie Sanders was not going to be Democratic nominee.

To begin with, the Democratic Party, an institution dedicated to plutocratic class rule and imperialism, would not allow Bernie Sanders to be their nominee. The plutocracy will not permit Bernie Sanders to be the CEO of American and world capitalism, let alone the Commander-in-Chief of the American empire.

Furthermore, Bernie Sanders does not want to play either of those roles. He entered the race, as his advisors acknowledged to the New York Times, "to spread his political message about a rigged America rather than do whatever it took to win the nomination," and he has repeatedly pledged to support whomever the Democrats nominate.

Whatever unexpected and undeniable success his campaign has had, it's a "political revolution" that will be limited to exerting pressure on the Democratic Party and its eventual nominee. One can complain that it's been blocked by electoral hijinks or by the anti-democratic superdelegates, but those sores have been festering for a long time in the party Bernie chose to run in. At this point, if Hillary comes to the convention with one more pledged delegate and more popular votes than Bernie--which she will--she will win fair and democratically square--and any attempt by him to use superdelegates against her would contradict his own erstwhile complaints about them. At any rate, those supredelegates were put in place expressly to prevent anyone like him from becoming the nominee, and are not going to be persuaded, even by wonderful arguments based electoral logic, to forsake their duty. Which of these folks is going to switch to Bernie because polls show he'd do better against Trump in the general?

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Bernie's not going to turn the superdelegates, and he knows it. He has never been, and is still not, a threat to win the nomination, and the Democratic Party knows it. Stlll, Bernie has run harder, and been undeniably more successful than anyone expected. He's been a stubborn obstacle to Hillary's expected coronation, and this has had some real effects. It has even forced Hillary to making positive noises about "Medicare-for-some." More importantly, it has exposed her deep political weaknesses, stemming from her commitment to establishment politics as well as her unlikeability. Bernie has won a string of impressive victories, and is showing persistent strength among key demographics. He may prevent Hillary from going to the convention with enough pledged delegates to win without superdelegate votes, and that would be a significant political insult to Hillary. But she'll get those votes and get over it.

The Sanders campaign will not stop Hillary, and knows it. It is now focused on getting some progressive platform concessions. Because we can all remember the many times a President has said: "OMG, I can't do that. It contradicts what's in the platform."

With Hillary as the nominee, supported by Bernie, the Democratic Party will once again have the heavily favored candidate of Wall Street, the neocons, and the media, and all will be right with the world. Of course, this will do some damage to the Democratic Party. It will alienate Bernie's supporters, some fraction of whom will refuse to vote for Hillary. But not enough to deprive her of a November victory, or to prise a single cold finger of the ruling class's hand from its grip on the Party and the country. It's become clear that there's a crisis of legitimacy for Hillary, and for the electoral duopoly as a whole, but the plutocracy will be content with having eight more years to prolong the problem.

But what if, for some other reason, Hillary can't win? What's the Democratic Party plan B?

Hint: It's not Bernie.

There are a couple of wild cards in play that could knock Hillary out. One is her health. I've thought for a few years that she was showing some weakness. This has certainly not been visible during the campaign, so it remains a purely speculative concern.

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Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Rob explores the difference between a natural, organic, bottom-up connection consciousness and our corporately imposed top-down hierarchical collective consciousness. What Rob is speaking about is the difference between an artificial and ultimately stagnate way of organizing the world and a natural, organic growth, which starts with a seed, sends downs roots and sends up shoots which blossom. By returning to a Nature-based theory of connection, the Bottom-Up revolution brings us back into alignment with Earths laws, returning humanity to its place in creation. Like a good gardener, Rob works into the soil of his thesis different voices that exemplify how this Bottom-Up revolution is expanding in politics, business, religion, personal self-awareness and story. And he places technology where it belongsas a tool to further our connection consciousness, not an end in itself. The bottom-up revolution is about democracy finally living up to its original ideals, where we the people decide what we need from our society."



Cathy Pagano, author of Wisdoms Daughters: How Women Can Change the World
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

On February 15, 2003, an almost unimaginable 13-plus years ago, I took part in a court-banned antiwar march in New York City. The police, it turned out, couldn't stop us (though they could, in various ways, pen us in). Depending on whether you believed the police or the demonstration's organizers, I was one of either 100,000 or 400,000 people who clogged the streets of the Big Apple that day, one of literally millions of protesters (no one knows just how many) who turned out across the planet in an unprecedented effort to stop George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of that crew from launching their deeply desired invasion of Iraq.

I wrote about the experience the next day and, looking back, it's clear that I was, in a sense, quite realistic about what the largest prewar demonstrations in history could (or couldn't) do to stop that invasion from happening. I was a good deal less realistic about what the future might hold (though I was in good company on that). Here's a little of what I wrote the next day:

"Excuse my enthusiasm -- but it must have felt similarly in Rome, London, Sydney, Berlin, Madrid, and on and on. As with our crowd, the largest I've ever experienced and I was at two marches on the Pentagon in the 1960s, every reporter or commentator I've read has noted the unexpected range of people by age, race, occupation, and political conviction who turned out globally. "I'm not a total fool. I know -- as I've long been writing in these dispatches -- that this administration is hell-bent for a war. The build-up in the Gulf during these days of demonstrations has been unceasing. I still expect that war to come, and soon. Nonetheless, I find myself amazed by the variegated mass of humanity that turned out yesterday. It felt wonderful. A mass truly, but each part of it, each individually made sign and human gesture of it, spoke to its deeply spontaneous nature. That is the statement of the moment. The world has actually spoken and largely in words of its own. It has issued a warning to our leaders, which, given the history of 'the people' and the countless demonstrations of the people's many (sometimes frightening) powers from 1776 on, is to be ignored at the administration's peril."

Imagine, now, that you could transport yourself back 13-plus years and tell that Tom Engelhardt and the rest of the protesters in those vast global crowds not just that Iraq would be invaded, not just that it would be disastrously garrisoned and occupied for eight years by the U.S. military and the civilian authorities of the Bush administration, not just that out of the invasion and occupation would come the most brutal (and successful) jihadist group imaginable to date, and not just that the U.S. was, unbelievably enough, again in Iraq, fighting yet another war there, but that, all this time later, "the people" were nowhere to be found. They had, with rare exceptions, been MIA since not so long after that invasion in the spring of 2003.

"The world," it seems, instead of speaking truth to power again and again, packed up its signs and went home, while fruitless, destructive American wars rolled on and on. Peter Van Buren, who that long ago February was a diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo, generally cleaving to the State Department mantra of being policy neutral and opinion-free, would some six years later be sent to two forward operating bases in Iraq, and would prove one of those exceptions to the rule. He returned from his Iraqi experience and wrote a book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, exposing the fraudulence of the State Department's war effort, and he's never stopped speaking up since. Today, he looks back on the strange repetitiveness of our never-ending Iraq wars in which the same "lessons" are always there to be absorbed, but no one in Washington ever seems to learn, while the people, who might have given their government a lesson its officials couldn't ignore, slumber on. Tom

Poof! It's Forgotten

Five Ways the Newest Story in Iraq and Syria is... That There Is No New Story

By Peter Van Buren One of the most popular apps these days is Snapchat. It allows the sender to set a timer for any photo dispatched via the app, so that a few seconds after the recipient opens the message, the photo is automatically deleted. The evidence of what you did at that party last night is seen and then disappears. POOF! I hope you'll forgive me if I suggest that the Iraq-Syria War against the Islamic State (ISIS) is being conveyed to us via Snapchat. Important things happen, they appear in front of us, and then... POOF!... they're gone. No one seems to remember them. Who cares that they've happened at all, when there's a new snap already arriving for your attention? As with most of what flows through the real Snapchat, what's of some interest at first makes no difference in the long run. Just because we now have terrifyingly short memories does not, however, mean that things did not happen. Despite the POOF! effect, events that genuinely mattered when it comes to the region in which Washington has, since the 1980s, been embroiled in four wars, actually did occur last week, last month, a war or two ago, or, in some cases, more than half a century in the past. What follows are just some of the things we've forgotten that couldn't matter more. It's a Limited Mission -- POOF! Perhaps General David Petraeus's all-time sharpest comment came in the earliest days of Iraq War 2.0. "Tell me how this ends," he said, referring to the Bush administration's invasion. At the time, he was already worried that there was no endgame. That question should be asked daily in Washington. It and the underlying assumption that there must be a clear scope and duration to America's wars are too easily forgotten. It took eight long years until the last American combat troops were withdrawn from Iraq. Though there were no ticker tape parades or iconic photos of sailors smooching their gals in Times Square in 2011, the war was indeed finally over and Barack Obama's campaign promise fulfilled... Until, of course, it wasn't, and in 2014 the same president restarted the war, claiming that a genocide against the Yazidis, a group hitherto unknown to most of us and since largely forgotten, was in process. Air strikes were authorized to support a "limited" rescue mission. Then, more -- limited -- American military power was needed to stop the Islamic State from conquering Iraq. Then more air strikes, along with limited numbers of military advisers and trainers, were sure to wrap things up, and somehow, by May 2016, the U.S. has 5,400 military personnel, including Special Operations forces, on the ground across Iraq and Syria, with expectations that more would soon be needed, even as a massive regional air campaign drags on. That's how Washington's wars seem to go these days, with no real debate, no Congressional declaration, just, if we're lucky, a news item announcing what's happened. Starting wars under murky circumstances and then watching limited commitments expand exponentially is by now so ingrained in America's global strategy that it's barely noticed. Recall, for instance, those weapons of mass destruction that justified George W. Bush's initial invasion of Iraq, the one that turned into eight years of occupation and "nation-building"? Or to step a couple of no-less-forgettable years further into the past, bring to mind the 2001 U.S. mission that was to quickly defeat the ragged Taliban and kill Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. That's now heading into its 16th year as the situation there only continues to disintegrate.

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I want to offer an alternative view to those who envision a more gradual uphill climb to real democracy than I believe we - or the world at large - can afford. At this moment in history, I think a not only viable but winning third party is no longer inconceivable. And beyond simply conceivable, it is urgently needed.



chris Hedges

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In October 2013 Chris Hedges published a Truthdig article entitled, "Our Invisible Revolution." He wrote, "As long as most citizens believe in the ideas that justify global capitalism, the private and state institutions that serve our corporate masters are unassailable. When these ideas are shattered, the institutions that buttress the ruling class deflate and collapse. The battle of ideas is percolating below the surface. It is a battle the corporate state is steadily losing. An increasing number of Americans are realizing that we have been stripped of political power. They recognize that we have been shorn of our most basic and cherished civil liberties, and live under the gaze of the most intrusive security and surveillance apparatus in human history. Half the country lives in poverty. Many of the rest of us, if the corporate state is not overthrown, will join them."

"Popular revulsion for the ruling elite is nearly universal," he continued, "it is a question of which ideas will capture the public's imagination." Borrowing Andrew Berkman's metaphor that "revolution is evolution at its boiling point" like a tea kettle heating invisibly until it suddenly boils over, Hedges warned that we must be ready since "social upheaval without clear definition and direction" can descend into chaos enabling the elite to re-establish themselves in the name of order. This has happened repeatedly in Latin America.

But irrespective of the risks, Hedges believes, "It is certain now that a popular revolt is coming. The refusal by the corporate state to address even the minimal grievances of the citizenry, along with the abject failure to remedy the mounting state repression...means that blowback is inevitable."

Envisioning the political spectrum as a yardstick, our current binary system spans about two inches toward the far right end - what political theorist Sheldon Wolin calls "inverted totalitarianism" where industrial capitalism controls rather than serves the state. In a 2014 paper entitled "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens," political science professors Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern universities analyzed data on 1,779 national policy issues over a 20-year period spanning the Reagan, Bush I and Clinton administrations. Comparing the correlation of policy outcomes with the viewpoints of average citizens in public opinion surveys, organized political interest groups, the economic elite, and groups representing business interests, they found that the first two groups - representing The People - exercised a "non-significant, near-zero level" of influence.

This truth is felt widely across American society, with reactions ranging from the Occupy movement on the urban left to Oregon's Malheur County wildlife refuge occupation on the rural right. Over 120 million eligible voters failed to vote in the 2010 mid-term election and over 90 million ignored the 2012 presidential election. This included some 80% of 43 million millennials who apparently saw nothing of promise. Less than a quarter of eligible voters are registered as Republicans and less than 30% as Democrats. This leaves about half the electorate up for grabs.



Visibly sincere, Bernie Sanders speaks plainly and without equivocation to his audiences

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This may explain the current rebellion: Republican primaries dominated by a demagogic figure who has never held public office, and enthusiastic outpouring among Democrats for someone who has never identified with either binary political node.

The teakettle is boiling over, as Hedges predicted. Trump represents the incoherent nihilism about which Hedges warned. Clinton represents everything against which the revolution must be directed. In addition to her deplorable record described in my March 2016 OpEdNews story, Naomi Klein has pronounced Hillary with her cozy corporate ties "uniquely unsuited" to confront climate change with the necessary urgency.

Sanders brings a populist vision of society much like the tested models of Western Europe, as well as the secular socialist Arab states of Iraq, Libya and Syria that we have wholly or partially destroyed, and what many Latin American countries have long been struggling to achieve with some notable successes.

No radical revolutionary, Sanders has always identified simply as an Independent, never a Democrat, aligning him with about half the electorate. Should Clinton avoid indictment and Sanders fail to dislodge the Clinton political machine for the Democratic nomination, he should run as an Independent, taking his Democratic and millions of independent voters excluded from closed primaries with him - especially more suddenly hopeful millennials.

Sanders adamantly opposes a Trump presidency, which could well result from Republican deconstruction of Hillary's deeply vulnerable track record. Clinton polls much more weakly than Sanders against Trump. Bernie's best chance to close the Oval Office door to Trump is to run himself. To succeed, his supporters must remain loyal and uniformly refuse to support Clinton. In states that exclude a primary campaign loser from the ballot under another political banner, write-in campaigns will be needed. Sanders should be pushed from below to run and provided with a house-cleaned Congress.

This can and must be done. As violence-imposed neoliberal capitalism and resistance to it rages and climate change threatens human extinction, revolutionary dynamics are alive worldwide with even complacent America finally awakening. Holding the world's most destructive force in our hands as voters, we cannot wait another four years.
The term "security" is a very multifaceted one. But today's geopolitical situation forces us to think about its military aspect above all.

Our attention is completely absorbed by news about wars, conflicts, military exercises and increasing defence capabilities. An average European reader has no chances to skip this kind of news while looking through news feeds of popular media.

Even planned further militarization of the European region and Russia pose the real threat today. A whole generation of European children is growing in the firm belief that the war is approaching. We destroy ourselves by our fears. We notice everything concerning military issues and neglect economic and social sides of our life. We live in a changed world and we are to blame for it.

Let's take Lithuania as an example. This small country with reach history and with immensely kind and open people last few weeks falls into the center of world attention mainly in connection with military affairs: rotational U.S. Army troops arrival, participating in NATO drills, United States F-22 Raptor stealth aircraft's landing in Lithuania at iauliai Airbase and so on and so forth.

One can conclude that the only serious problem of Lithuania' s security is its weak national defence capabilities. This opinion is purposely formed by national media and by international journalists. The more so, the government actively supports shaping such public views by giving interview and showing off near military vehicles, aircraft and equipment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayHW-Q8dcNw).

Few people think about the purposes of such PR campaign. This one-sided approach to the security of the state raises questions. Attracting attention to the military aspect of security will not help the authorities to secure the country. Hungry and angry people may become a force that can turn everything upside down. There are a lot of problems concerning Lithuania's security in energy, economic and demographic spheres today that are not the priorities for the government. Unfortunately, during the pre-election period the authorities do their best to divert the attention of people from social problems to more "global" ones. They successfully exploit the Motherland's defenders image instead of reporting on the domestic policy where they did not succeed.

The failures in domestic policy are more than obvious. According to the statistics, Lithuania today is one of the poorest nations in the EU. Catastrophic situation is in the field of education. Low Lithuanian teachers' salaries even make them to strike. The situation in Lithuanian retail centers where a liter of milk costs less than a liter of water is absolutely absurd! The minimum wage in Lithuania is only 350 per month. That is the lowest level among the Baltic States. Lithuanian trade unions stage protest actions to demand better working conditions.

The more so, according to statistics, youth unemployment rate in Lithuania in March was 14.10 percent. Young people continue to leave Lithuania in search of a better life.

At the same time the government is ready to welcome about 1000 NATO troops. On one hand there is nothing bad in additional military aid. On the other - the country doesn't have spare money for accommodating foreign soldiers. Such steps pose a serious financial burden on a host nation. Do citizens really can afford maintaining the foreign army under shortfalls of means to cover their own living expenses?

Deterioration of living conditions particularly evident among ordinary citizens. Public revolt against food price increase in Lithuania of the last few days is an indicator of growing dissatisfaction with the domestic policy of the Lithuanian authorities who as if nothing has happened try not to notice social "thunderstorm" approaching. It may happen so that "social explosion" will occur earlier than expecting Russia's attack. Lithuanians need not only a feeling of military security, but confidence in the future, food and demographic security. They should trust government and be sure that the authorities think about them. Only in this case Lithuanians will be active during election campaigns, respect their parliament and leaders. Unclear, who will secure Lithuania, but obviously not those people who are obliged to do it.


Bernie Sanders supporter

(Image by Gage Skidmore) Details DMCA





Make no mistake: Settling for Hillary Clinton means abandoning the political revolution that Bernie Sanders has inspired. It means unconditional surrender after overcoming many obstacles in a rigged primary. That's why the revolution must continue through November and beyond, and the Vermont senator's supporters must urge him to keep fighting.

The West Virginia primary on Tuesday illustrates why. After his victory there, Sanders wrote: "There is nothing I would like more than to take on and defeat Donald Trump, someone who must never become president of this country."

Unfortunately, he is unlikely to get that opportunity from the Democratic Party. If Sanders does not remain in the race until the end, he will very likely be helping the Republican candidate. Why? Because nearly half of his voters in West Virginia said they would switch their vote to Trump in November. In fact, we will explain why the best way to prevent Trump from taking the Oval Office would be for Sanders to run on a ticket with Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate.

Sanders' current plan is to get some of his policies into the unenforceable Democratic Party platform and then simply endorse Clinton for president. But because that platform is unenforceable, it will have little value and is belied by the reality that the Democrats serve big business.

Clinton has a long history of representing Wall Street, Wal-Mart, weapons makers and insurance companies. She is in many ways the opposite of Bernie Sanders. The CEOs on Wall Street--and even the Koch oil barons--want her as the nation's chief executive because her vision and political views align so perfectly with their own. The global 1 percent will be relieved if, when the revolution ends, they are still in charge and the oligarchy lives on. We can't let it end that way.

The Corrupt and Unfair Democratic Primaries

Sanders was an independent for more than three decades until joining the Democratic Party last year, and he knew going into the primaries that he would be fighting establishment Democrats who are closely tied to everything he opposes. No insurgent has won a Democratic primary since the current system of superdelegates was put in place in 1982 to stop them.

This year, that anti-insurgent system also included a plan to have a limited number of debates (and independent and third-party candidates are blocked from participating in them). The number of debates dropped from 25 in 2008 to less than half that number this election season--and many were scheduled at times when few voters would be able to watch them. Clinton gave in to pressure for more debates when she thought it was in her interest. Ironically, in each of those face-offs, Sanders at least argued Clinton to a draw, and many saw him as the victor. Thus, the debates did not stop his revolution; in many ways, they grew it.

Another part of the establishment's anti-insurgent plan is to front-load the primaries and caucuses by having 39 states and territories vote all in the month of March. This strategy usually destroys insurgents because they do not have the money to compete with well-funded, big-business establishment candidates. The Sanders revolt overcame that obstacle by raising millions in small donations.

Closed primaries are also a feature of that anti-insurgent plan, disenfranchising millions of voters who don't want to join the Democratic or Republican parties. More than 6 million people were deprived of such a vote in New York and Florida alone.

In addition to these anti-democratic tactics, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman, was the national co-chair of Clinton's 2008 campaign. Such an in-the-face conflict of interest shows audacious hubris, and the Democrats clearly thought that they could get away with anything to nominate Clinton. Wasserman Schultz has been consistently biased in Clinton's favor, as indicated by her action to deny Sanders' campaign access to the voter database just before the Iowa primary.

In August 2015, Clinton set up an agreement with 33 state Democratic parties for a joint fundraising agreement with the Hillary Victory Fund. This was before the first primary in a contested nomination. Not only was the DNC headed by a Clinton operative, but state parties were tied to Clinton's fundraising, creating an unbreakable bond between her and the party. This allowed Clinton's wealthy donors to multiply their donations astronomically. "A single donor, as Margot Kidder wrote at Counterpunch, "by giving $10,000 a year to each signatory state could legally give an extra $330,000 a year for two years to the Hillary Victory Fund.

"For each donor, this raised their individual legal cap on the Presidential campaign to $660,000 if given in both 2015 and 2016," Kidder said. "And to one million, three hundred and 20 thousand dollars if an equal amount were also donated in their spouse's name."

Clinton's superdelegates are chairs of key standing committees as well.

Sanders has complained to the DNC that the way these funds have been used violates federal election laws. He also wrote a letter to Wasserman Schultz, saying that she is tipping the scales for Clinton's benefit.
See original here

Rousseff called the move a coup. Temer is a member of the opposition PMDB party and has been implicated in Brazil's massive corruption scandal involving state-owned oil company Petrobras. He was sworn in Thursday along with a new Cabinet that is all white and all men, making this the first time since 1979 that no women have been in the Cabinet.

We are joined from Rio de Janeiro by Andrew Fishman, researcher and reporter for The Intercept, who discusses the role of the United States in protests against Rousseff, and the background of Temer's new Cabinet members.



This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today's show with the political turmoil engulfing Brazil. On Thursday, the country's former vice president, Michel Temer, assumed power as interim president after the Senate voted to suspend President Dilma Rousseff and begin impeachment proceedings. She is accused of tampering with accounts in order to hide a budget shortfall. The 55-to-22 vote followed more than 20 hours of debate. One politician described it as, quote, "the saddest day for Brazil's young democracy." Rousseff called it a coup. She gave a defiant speech before leaving the presidential palace, where she was greeted and hugged by former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. She vowed to fight the impeachment.

PRESIDENT DILMA ROUSSEFF: [translated] It isn't an impeachment; it's a coup. I did not commit high crimes and misdemeanors. There is no justification for an impeachment charge. I don't have bank accounts abroad. I never received bribes. I never condoned corruption. The trial against me is fragile, legally inconsistent, unjust, unleashed against an honest and innocent person. The greatest brutality that can be committed against any person is to punish them for a crime they did not commit. No injustice is more devastating than condemning an innocent. What is at stake is respect for the ballot box, the sovereign desires of the Brazilian people and the Constitution. What is at stake are the achievements of the last 13 years.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: President Dilma Rousseff has been suspended for up to 180 days or until her Senate trial is concluded. Attorney General Jose Eduardo Cardozo called the Senate vote a, quote, "historic injustice."

JOSE EDUARDO CARDOZO: [translated] An honest and innocent woman is, right at this moment, being condemned. A judicial pretense is being used to oust a legitimately elected president over acts which have been practiced by all previous governments. A historic injustice is being committed; an innocent person is being condemned.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The new interim president is not part of Rousseff's Workers' Party, but a member of the opposition PMDB party. Temer has been implicated in Brazil's massive corruption scandal involving state-owned oil company Petrobras. Several of his top advisers are also under investigation, and just last week he was ordered to pay a fine for violating campaign finance limits. After Thursday's vote, he vowed to, quote, "restore respect" to Brazil's government.

INTERIM PRESIDENT MICHEL TEMER: [translated] My first word to the Brazilian people is the word "trust" -- trust in the values that form the character of our people, the vitality of our democracy; trust in the recuperation of our country's economy, our country's potential and its social and political institutions.

AMY GOODMAN: Michel Temer was sworn in Thursday along with a new Cabinet that is all white and all male, making this the first time since 1979 no women have been in the Cabinet. The New York Times reports Temer attempted to appoint a woman to oversee human rights policies, but faced blowback after it became clear she had voted in favor of legislation to make it difficult for women who are raped to get abortions. Temer also offered the Science Ministry to an evangelical pastor who does not believe in evolution, and, when he faced opposition, made him trade minister instead. On Thursday, dozens of women chained themselves to the gates of Braslia's Planalto presidential palace to support suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

FATIMA: [translated] The coup leaders in Brazil are trying to get President Dilma out and are usurping our democracy. They will only get us out of here by force, because we are defending democracy and the elected mandate for more than half of Brazilians.

AMY GOODMAN: All of this comes as Brazil is set to host the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in early August, and parts of the country are facing a Zika outbreak.
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OSU campus norovirus

Oregon State's campus in Corvallis.

(Andrew Theen/The Oregonian)

There's a new button showing up on shirts and backpacks at Oregon State University with a hashtag and a simple phrase: "I'll Go With You."

The button serves as a badge of support for transgender students and a call to make gender-specific bathrooms a more comfortable place for transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

P.J. Harris, student success peer facilitator at OSU's Pride Center, estimated that about 100 students have received buttons so far. Harris added there've been more buttons on campus lately. Harris said the button works as a buddy system and a tangible sign of support for students who may feel vulnerable in gender-specific places on campus.

"They see that [button] and know that someone out there is visibly saying, 'I stand with you, I support you,'" Harris said.

The national I'll Go With You movement started more than a year ago and has distributed over 100,000 buttons so far.

Here's how it works: Transgender or gender-nonconforming students approach the button-wearing ally and ask them to go with them -- either to a gender-specific bathroom, classroom where the student feels uncomfortable or other "highly gendered place" on campus.

Oregon State University is participating in the national I'll Go With You campaign, which creates campus allies for transgender students.

OSU started circulating buttons before North Carolina's controversial bill to ban transgender people from using their desired bathrooms. The campaign has grown in visibility since then, Harris said.

Harris said all-gender bathrooms and other open places are often difficult to find in Corvallis. "I also wouldn't say it embraces the transgender community as well as it could," Harris said, although they said it's getting better.

Last month, the national rating service Collegechoice.net named the University of Oregon one of the top 50 campuses in the country for lesbian, gay, transgender and queer students.

When asked how many students identify as transgender or gender non-conforming at OSU, Harris said that's not clear.

Harris is not aware of any other Oregon colleges participating in the "I'll Go With You" campaign.



-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen
The Portland Chair, designed by Ben Klebba, rose to the top in the architecture Architizer A+ Awards, winning both the Jury and Popular Choice Awards in the residential products categories for seating.

Klebba's chair, which was inspired by Shaker simplicity and Danish modernism, competed in the competition that received entries from more than 100 countries. Winners were selected by architects, designers and product developers as well as Kickstarter and Pinterest co-founders, Knoll's CEO and Guy Raz of NPR's TED Radio Hour.



The Popular Choice winners were chosen by contributors and fans of Achitizer, an online architecture database of more than 120,000 projects, and the public.

The Portland Chair was named after two cities with the same name: The original location of Klebba's Phloem Studio, which recently relocated from Portland, Oregon, to Stevenson, Washington, and the metropolitan center of Maine, where the chair will be sold by the Thos. Moser Handmade American Furniture company.

Like all Thos. Moser pieces, the chair will bear the signature of its maker.

The contemporary chair is available in cherry ($1,250) and walnut ($1,440) at the Thos. Moser website and showrooms in Freeport, Maine, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC and San Francisco.

Klebba is in NYC to accept his awards at the the Architizer gala, which took place May 12, and to exhibit Phloem Studio's work for the fourth year at the prestigious International Contemporary Furniture Fair, May 14-17.



"We'll be launching four new pieces," Klebba says.

His contemporary furniture uses natural materials and traditional joinery, and has been featured in the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Northwest Portland, the Bellevue Arts Museum in Washington state and the Messler Gallery: Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine.

Orders for Phloem Studio's beds, desks, end tables, lounge chairs, captain's chairs and other pieces can take three to four months to fulfill.

What's the process? Klebba explains:

Thos. Moser was started in 1972 by Tom Moser, a former Bates College professor who left the academic world to pursue woodworking, making furniture pieces out of an old Grange Hall in New Gloucester, Maine. His wife, Mary, managed finances while their four sons trained as apprentices. The company was successful and grew, now operating showrooms throughout the United States.

Adam Rogers, the company's director of design, asked me if I'd be interested in designing a piece of furniture for them. The Portland Chair is the result of that

collaboration.

I met Adam at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. We talked about Michigan, where we both grew up, and Thos. Moser, which has been an inspiration to many craftspeople throughout its 40-plus year history.

Tom Moser's spindle-back chairs have always been an inspiration to me. Some of his designs are inescapable touchstones on the American handmade furniture landscape.

About two years ago, Adam asked me if I'd be interested in designing a piece of

furniture specifically for Thos. Moser to produce. I was honored. He invited me to their shop in in Auburn, Maine, and to see what the Moser team was capable of in a facility that is 100,000 square feet.

To say that they have everything a woodworker has ever dreamt of would be an understatement. It's not just about the size of their space or their impressive machinery. They employ over 70 craftspeople. About a third of them have been there for over 20 years.

To a small business owner like myself, that retention rate speaks volumes. I was also very impressed that Adam's office was on the ground floor within that workshop, that he was also a skilled woodworker and his team communicated so effectively working through design challenges.

During that initial visit, we talked a lot about design, craft, where craft is today, how the conversation is being shaped and how it's changed over time. Adam and

his team were completely open to me about how they designed, prototyped, developed processes, handled orders, and the day to day.

Adam and I both prefer to draw by hand.

Upon returning to Portland, Oregon, I decided to design them a chair. In my mind, it was always a chair. Moser has such classic chairs. I'm a huge fan of Tom's

Newport Chair. Adam's latest (at the time) Cumberland Chair is also a great design. (Rogers' Hartford Collection, which includes a sofa, lounge chair, media case, coffee table and side table, won an Architizer A+ Award too).

I settled on a simple side or cafe chair.

First thing, my dad (Ron Klebba, who taught construction at an industrial arts center in Michigan) and I made a prototype. It involved just as much blood, sweat and sawdust as anything I've ever designed for Phloem.

It was important to me that the chair had exposed joinery, a hallmark of Thos.

Moser designs. We sent the back legs straight through the backrest and wedged them.

When I was happy with our prototype, I sent pictures to Adam and shipped a chair with patterns to Maine.

I then flew to Maine for a second time to meet with the Moser team. We

looked over our prototype and talked through the fabrication of the chair. No detail was left untouched and very little was changed from the original prototype.

The Portland Chair, which is 30 inches high, 19 inches wide and 21 inches in diameter, gets quite a bit of its structural integrity from an X brace under the seat that connects the front and back legs. It is taller to house larger tenons to add strength and visual weight proportionally.

Years back, Dad had a happy little accident on the lathe here at Phloem. We were

working on a completely different piece and he was turning a limb into a tube. He

tapered a leg in such a way that he created an elongated subtle ellipse shape into one side of the tube, while leaving the outside radius straight, creating a beautifully odd taper.

I knew I wanted to use it as a detail again, but it was really hard to do consistently. I remembered that little accident when I was designing this chair. That strange taper would be no problem for Moser's tool chest. All the legs on the

Portland Chair have that same detail.

The X brace tenons go all the way through the legs and are wedged on the outside. Wedged tenons are common in traditional Shaker chairs and quite a few of Tom's early designs. They're a functional, structural detail.

Consistently and accurately steam bending wood is very challenging, but it is something Moser has quite a bit of experience in. Working with the team at Thos. Moser was a pleasure. They are committed to craft, the celebration of solid wood furniture and the simplicity of form.

I named our side chair Portland, after the town I call home and the other, older Portland I visited on my trips to Maine. I love where I live. It's a great, growing city so close to nature.

Portland, Maine is a beautiful town as well, with its waterfront, brick streets and

history. The name speaks to both.

-- Ben Klebba



Stay in the loop. Sign up to receive a free weekly Homes & Gardens of the Northwest newsletter and join the conversation at the Homes & Gardens of the Northwest on Facebook






The popular image of Robert F. Kennedy is perfectly captured by the Roy Lichtenstein portrait that graced Time magazine's cover in May 1968. Kennedy is a candy-colored comic-book superhero in the pop-artist's conception, a liberal demigod proclaiming that anything is possible for those who dare to dream.

But during Kennedy's run for the Democratic presidential nomination that year, he was not the insurgent in the race. That was Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy, whose shaggy-dog antiwar campaign drove President Lyndon Johnson from the field.

In fact, it was Johnson's unexpected exit after the New Hampshire primary that made Kennedy realize his time really had come. Kennedy saw an opening for an establishment candidate with a rebellious streak. He announced his candidacy just days after the Granite State vote.

Many old-school Oregon Democrats in 1968 remembered this pragmatic Bobby Kennedy from his late brother John's administration and wanted to vote for him. When RFK spoke at Portland State College in the run-up to the Oregon primary, two would-be supporters in the crowd held up signs that read "Cut your hair, then we'll vote!" (Long-time Oregonians, do you see yourself in one of the images in the photo gallery above? Let us know.)

Younger voters liked Robert Kennedy's new, long(ish) hair, of course. The 42-year-old junior senator from New York attracted a lot of college-age supporters, who mobbed him at rallies as if he were a rock star. But McCarthy, while lacking Kennedy's next-generation charisma, also appealed to young voters. He was among the first leaders in the Democratic Party to publicly break with Johnson over the Vietnam War, with Kennedy trailing after him.

The Oregon Democratic primary was a key battle between Kennedy and McCarthy, and both men campaigned aggressively in the state. Kennedy knew that a win in Oregon not only would build on his recent victories in Indiana and Nebraska. It would show party bigwigs that he had significantly cut into McCarthy's core support. A victory for McCarthy, meanwhile, would provide the Minnesota senator a much-needed boost that the candidate hoped would remake the party's image and platform.

A week before the Oregon primary, nearly 500 supporters met Kennedy at Portland International Airport, where he bounded off the plane with his dog Freckles. The Oregonian called the hound "a sometimes reluctant but generally successful campaigner."

Kennedy spoke to the Portland City Club at the Benson Hotel, insisting: "We have a tough fight here." He appeared at a mock convention at Sunset High School and made an impromptu stop at a child care center, where he talked about his commitment to improving life for the urban poor. Kennedy traveled through the Willamette Valley on a campaign train dubbed the Beaver State Special. He caused a near-riot at Hayward Field in Eugene.

McCarthy focused his efforts more on Portland. He told a crowd at Lloyd Center that Johnson's withdrawal from the race had made the campaign "a more complicated one" for him, but he believed a victory in Oregon would prove he was far more than a protest candidate. (Oregon Gov. Tom McCall, a Republican, was appalled that McCarthy was having such success with his antiwar message. "It is a sad commentary on our times when the commander-in-chief is forced to lay down his sword in the middle of a war," he said. "It is tragic the president had to make this decision." He warned of a stampede "toward appeasement.")

While campaigning in the Rose City, McCarthy poked at Kennedy for his Johnny-come-lately presidential run, saying that he didn't think a candidate "who refuses to run in the cold primaries should be allowed to run where the roses are blooming." He said the gulf between he and Kennedy on the issues "has not widened" since Kennedy joined the race. "It's just deeper." He drew large crowds everywhere he went in Oregon. One national reporter said of McCarthy's rally at Lloyd Center, "This is as good a reception as I've seen him get anywhere."

That reception soon was reflected in the vote. On May 28, Oregon Democrats turned out in record numbers, with 44 percent of the vote going to McCarthy and 38 percent to Kennedy. The next morning's front-page headline in The Oregonian stated: "McCarthy Cuts Kennedy Win String." Offered the news report:

"Sen. Eugene McCarthy won a dramatic victory Tuesday night -- becoming the first candidate to defeat a Kennedy." (John Kennedy never lost an election, and Robert and younger brother Ted had also seen nothing but electoral success.)

"We proved here today we had the best horses and the best wagons," McCarthy said in his Portland victory speech, referring to the Oregon Trail.

For his part, Kennedy tried to put a positive spin on the Oregon results, congratulating McCarthy by saying: "We can both take some satisfaction in the overwhelming expression of the Oregon voters for a change." This was a swipe at Johnson, who, though he had removed himself from the race, was still on the ballot and took 12 percent of the vote.

Kennedy jokingly blamed Freckles for the loss, saying he would "take a new look at my organization and may send my dog Freckles home."

On the Republican side, former Vice President Richard Nixon ended any hope California Gov. Ronald Reagan had of dazzling delegates before reaching the Golden State's primary. Nixon nabbed 65 percent of the Oregon vote to the former actor's 20 percent.

The following month in Los Angeles, Robert Kennedy was assassinated by Palestinian activist Sirhan Sirhan after winning the California Democratic primary. Though he didn't run in the primaries, Vice President Hubert Humphrey was awarded the presidential nomination at a contentious Democratic National Convention in Chicago and went on to lose a close general election to Nixon.

-- Douglas Perry
Kyle Lowry, Kyrie Irving

Cleveland Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving (2) drives past Toronto Raptors' Kyle Lowry (7) in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Jan. 4, 2016, in Cleveland.

(Tony Dejak/AP)

The Toronto Raptors beat the Miami Heat Sunday to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in franchise history, where they will meet the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James, making his sixth consecutive conference finals trip.

The Raptors took the regular-season series with the Cavaliers, 2-1.

Here's the complete schedule for the Eastern Conference Finals:

Game 1: Tuesday, May 17 - Toronto at Cleveland, 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN/ESPN Radio

Game 2: Thursday, May 19 - Toronto at Cleveland, 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN/ESPN Radio

Game 3: Saturday, May 21 - Cleveland at Toronto, 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN/ESPN Radio

Game 4: Monday, May 23 - Cleveland at Toronto, 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN/ESPN Radio

Game 5*: Wednesday, May 25 - Toronto at Cleveland, 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN/ESPN Radio

Game 6*: Friday, May 27 - Cleveland at Toronto , 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN/ESPN Radio

Game 7*: Sunday, May 29 - Toronto at Cleveland, 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN/ESPN Radio
lightbar

A 36-year-old man pistol whipped his ex-girlfriend then shot at deputies early Monday morning in Longview, Washington, a Cowlitz County chief deputy said May 16, 2016

(The Oregonian/OregonLive/file)

Correction appended

A 36-year-old man pistol whipped his ex-girlfriend then shot at deputies early Monday morning in Longview, Washington, a Cowlitz County chief deputy said.

Deputies responded to a 911 call about 3 a.m. to the 100 block of Solo View Drive after Erin Cochran, 32, of Vancouver, reported the attack, police said. Cochran reported she was bleeding from the head and did not know where she was, said Charlie Rosenzweig, sheriff's office chief criminal deputy, in a news release.

Using GPS, dispatchers located Cochran at the home of Brent Luyster, 36, her ex-boyfriend, Rosenzweig said. The former couple share a child and do not live together, he said.

When deputies arrived, they heard gunfire from the woods near the home. Deputies believe they were the targets, but no one was injured, police said. Deputies found a semiautomatic rifle, a shotgun and a pistol with Luyster in the woods and placed him into custody.

Cochran told police she woke up to Luyster hitting her in the head and face with the pistol, then grabbed her by the hair before dragging her down a hallway, Rosenzweig said. She did not know why the attack occurred, he added. She was taken to the hospital for her injuries, he said..

Deputies arrested Luyster on allegations of felony second-degree assault, unlawful possession of firearms and reckless endangerment. He was booked into the Cowlitz County Jail.

-- Tony Hernandez

thernandez@oregonian.com

503-294-5928

@tonyhreports

Deputies arrested Brent Luyster. An earlier version of this story identified the wrong person arrested after the incident.
Monday 16 May 2016 12:42pm



Professor Mike Eccles

South Islanders melanomas are significantly more likely than those of North Islanders to carry a gene mutation that has implications for mutation-targeted drug therapies and for patient outcomes, new University of Otago-led research suggests.

The study, which is the first comprehensive genetic analysis of melanoma in New Zealand, sought to analyse mutation frequencies of 20 recurrently mutated genes in samples from 529 patients with metastatic melanoma.

Five years ago, Angela Jones and Dr Peter Ferguson at the University of Otago, Wellington started the study. Since then melanoma researchers from all around New Zealand have joined the study adding patients.

The findings, which emerge from one of the largest groups of melanoma patients to have the genetics of their cancer studied, appear in the international journal Oncotarget.

Study co-leader Professor Mike Eccles of the Department of Pathology, Dunedin School of Medicine, says that in line with overseas findings, the most common mutation was to an oncogene called BRAF, with one-third of the melanomas in the study showing changes to this gene, which may be targeted by the drug Zelboraf.

We found similar BRAF mutation rates in both the North and South Island, but when it came to another particular gene, some stark differences emerged, Professor Eccles says.

Mutations to a gene known as NRAS were found in 38 per cent of South Island melanomas, but only in 21 per cent of North Island ones, he says.

The North Island rate is about the same as that found in other countries, so the South Island rate really sticks out like a sore thumb, he says.

As there were similarly low numbers of Maori or Asian patients in both the North and South Island groups studied, ethnic differences in population make-up could not explain the higher rate of NRAS mutations in the South, he says.

In their paper the authors raise the possibility that sunburn or strong exposure to UV-radiation  especially during the spring months in the South Island when vitamin D levels are lowest  could be a factor leading to high rates of NRAS mutations versus other mutation types.

The researchers also found that NRAS mutations were linked to a higher likelihood that the melanoma would be nodular and thus more deadly. However, while new treatments targeting NRAS mutations are under intense investigation, so far none have yet been developed.

A preliminary 2015 US study has found that in a small number of patients, melanomas with NRAS mutations had higher response rates to immunotherapy treatments such as the drugs Keytruda and Opdivo, Professor Eccles says.

Our findings suggest that South Island melanoma patients could potentially benefit more often from the use of such therapies, should the US findings be confirmed by further research, he says.

The research was funded by the Wellington Medical Research Foundation, Capital and Coast DHB, Lottery Health, Cancer Society, and the Maurice Wilkins Centre.

For more information, contact:

Professor Michael Eccles

New Zealand Institute for Cancer Research Trust Chair in Cancer Pathology

Department of Pathology

University of Otago

Tel 03 479 7878

Email michael.eccles@otago.ac.nz
Tuesday 17 May 2016 4:14pm



Professor David Murdoch

Professor David Murdoch has been selected as the next Dean of the University of Otagos Christchurch campus. He will replace incumbent Dean, Professor Peter Joyce, who retires in September.

The infectious diseases expert is currently head of one the campus' largest departments  Pathology. This department is home to many world-renowned research groups and involved in the teaching of fourth to sixth year medical students.

Professor Murdoch has been involved in some of the most significant infectious disease research projects here and overseas. Projects include a global childhood pneumonia study funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a New Zealand-wide Legionnaire's disease surveillance programme.

He also works for the Canterbury District Health Board as a microbiologist. Professor Murdoch has been a Canterbury DHB staff member for more than two decades and will continue his part-time role as a microbiologist after becoming Dean.

Professor Murdoch earned his medical degree from the University of Otago, then specialised in infectious diseases and microbiology. These specialities, and later research projects, were in part influenced by time spent in Nepal as a young doctor, where he saw people dying or hospitalized from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Professor Murdoch is a strong advocate of researchers and organisations working together to achieve greater and mutually-beneficial outcomes. He is one of the leaders of One Health Aotearoa, which is an alliance between researchers working at the interface between human, animal and environmental health. It includes the University of Otagos medical schools and Massey Universitys veterinary school.

Professor Murdoch says he is honoured to be selected as Dean of the Christchurch campus.

I have been very proud to work at the University of Otagos Christchurch health campus for the past 16 years, and excited to become its Dean. We have a real strength in producing health research at the Christchurch campus. A large part of this success is due to collaborations with the Canterbury District Health Board, with its doctors and nurses working closely with scientists on clinical studies. We are also now part of a wider Canterbury health community with the establishment and evolution of the Health Precinct. University of Otago, Christchurch, researchers and teachers collaborate on a global scale. I am keen to grow this global perspective in my time as Dean.

Current Dean Professor Joyce says Professor Murdoch will make an excellent Dean.

David will further enhance the campus international reputation as a centre for health research and education. As he has held key leadership positions within the Canterbury District Health Board, and as Head of the University Department of Pathology, David will be ideally placed to further enhance our partnership agreement and working relationships with the CDHB.

University of Otago Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne says she is delighted with the appointment.

Professor Murdoch has been in a leadership role as the Head of the Universitys Department of Pathology in Christchurch for many years. He is a highly-regarded researcher, clinician and leader. The Department is home to many internationally-recognised research groups, and is involved in the teaching of medical students. I am sure that under Professor Murdochs leadership the University of Otago, Christchurch, will grow in strength as a place of world-class health research and education.
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Dow Corning Corp. Chairman, President and CEO Bob Hansen will be retiring from the company following its acquisition by the Dow Chemical Co. and a top official with Dow will become chairman, according to a Dow press release.

The announcement comes four days after Dow Chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris told shareholders at the annual meeting last week that the acquisition would be complete by June 1.

"Now, after 73 years of collaboration, we are about to become part of the same family," Liveris said of Dow and Dow Corning.

The Auburn-based Dow Corning is a joint venture between Dow and Corning, Inc. It was December 2015 when Liveris first said the companies would be restructuring and Dow Corning would join the Dow company.

He elaborated at the meeting last week that the restructure would result in an estimated $300 million in cost synergies and over $100 million in growth synergies, with more than $1 billion in earnings before certain factors.

The press release states that Hansen will stay with the company for several months, helping to ensure a smooth ownership transition for the Dow Corning Silicones business.

He has been an employee of Dow Corning for 34 years, and has held a variety of roles including president of Dow Cornings Europe operations. Hansen was named president of Dow Corning in 2010, and chief executive officer in 2011. He was elected chairman of the board in 2013.

In an emailed statement to the Daily News, Hansen said he is thankful for the opportunity to spend his career "working with great colleagues at Dow Corning."

Im committed to ensuring the ownership restructuring happens as seamlessly as possible and will work closely with Howard, Mauro and their team through the integration. I look forward to the chance to visit a number of sites around the world during that time, Hansen said. This transition, despite the challenges associated with significant change, offers a host of opportunities for our employees, customers, and ultimately our communities.

In the press release, Liveris said that Hansen worked tirelessly to advance the future of Dow Corning, and his leadership and strategic direction positioned the company well for its next phase of growth and success.

Howard Ungerleider, vice chairman and chief financial officer of Dow, will transition into a new role as chairman of Dow Corning.

Mauro Gregorio, currently vice president leading the Dow Corning integration, will transition into the chief executive officer role at Dow Corning. He brings more than 30 years of market and international experience to Dow Corning and has worked on three continents for the company. Gregorio also led Dows Elastomers and Electrical and Telecommunications portfolio along with the Energy and Feedstocks business before being named to lead the Dow Corning transaction at the end of 2015.

The press release states that Hansen, Ungerleider and Gregorio will maintain their current roles and responsibilities until the close of the Dow Corning transaction.

Howard and Mauro have been leading our integration efforts from the beginning, and throughout this time, they have developed an intimate understanding of Dow Cornings silicones business, as well as the many talented people of Dow Cornings team, Liveris said. I am confident we have the right leadership in place to unlock the tremendous growth potential of this transaction.
ROHNERT PARK, Calif. (AP)  Authorities say a man tried to rob a car wash in Northern California with an empty potato chip bag and an alleged handgun.

Rohnert Park's Department of Public Safety says in a statement that the man entered KaCees World of Water car wash Friday night and dropped an empty potato chip bag on the counter.
ST. LOUIS (AP)  A man suspected in the shooting of a police officer during a traffic stop has been shot and killed in southern Illinois in an incident that also left an FBI agent wounded, Illinois State Police said.

Dracy "Clint" Pendleton, of Bellflower, Illinois, was killed in a shootout early Sunday at an abandoned house near the Shawnee National Forest, police said in an emailed statement.

"Pendleton is no longer a threat to the communities of southern Illinois," the statement said.

The name and condition of the wounded federal agent was not immediately disclosed. The News-Gazette cited FBI special agent Sean Cox saying the injured agent "is going to be OK."

Pendleton was charged with attempted murder in the May 7 shooting of a police officer in Mahomet, Illinois. The incident also sparked a fatal collision when a trooper pursuing Pendleton struck and killed a 26-year-old woman in Decatur, some 45 miles to the southwest.

The manhunt lasted for more than a week. Authorities had closed off a portion of the national forest since May 9 when authorities in the area found a stolen pickup truck they believed Pendleton was using.

State police said Pendleton was seen just after midnight running into woods near a church cemetery, carrying a rifle and wearing a bandolier shoulder belt that holds bullet cartridges. He was found inside the home about a half-mile away around 5 a.m., when a firefight with state police and FBI officers ensued.

A relative has said Pendleton, the father of two sons, both under 2, had recently separated from his wife and moved out of their home.

Authorities say Pendleton shot a police officer in the arm during a traffic stop initiated by a different police officer. He was treated and released from a hospital the following morning.
MINNETONKA, Minn. (AP)  Security was tight as mourners packed a Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall on Sunday evening for a memorial for megastar Prince, who worshipped there before he died last month.

Traffic cones lined the streets in front of the church in the Minneapolis suburb of Minnetonka, and media and fans were kept well back from the invitation-only event. City spokeswoman Kari Spreeman said last week that police were preparing for up to 500 people, including up to 50 high-profile guests.

Some people who weren't able to get inside before the church filled up were able to obtain programs, which they shared with reporters outside.

The program said the service was to begin with the song "He Will Call," followed by an opening prayer. It also included an "interview" with Larry Graham, the former Sly and the Family Stone bassist who was Prince's spiritual mentor and introduced him to the Jehovah's Witnesses faith. The program was to conclude with the song "See Yourself When All Is New" and a closing prayer.

On the back was a quote from the Prince song, "Beautiful, Loved and Blessed," from his 2006 album "3121." It read, "If I were to ever write down my life story, I could truly say with all the fame and glory, I was just a piece of clay in need of the potter's hand."

In an interview with The Associated Press two weeks ago, Graham said it was important to Prince to give his fans joy with his music. But the most important thing to Prince was being able to share scripture, he said.

"His joy  his biggest joy  was sharing the hope of everlasting life," Graham said.

Prince was known at the Kingdom Hall as "Brother Nelson." He was found dead at age 57 in his Paisley Park recording complex in Chanhassen on April 21. Authorities are still investigating.

The artist's two ex-wives held a star-studded memorial in Los Angeles on Wednesday night.
No one was hurt when a Midland apartment caught fire early Monday, the Midland Fire Department reports.

A 4:16 a.m. call from a neighbor brought firefighters to the Artcrest Apartments, 4920 Artcrest Drive. They found apartment 3 was fully engulfed by flames, and were able to extinguish the blaze.

Most of the damage was contained to apartment 3, a one-room efficiency near the south end of the building. The apartments on both sides sustained some damage to the soffit.

The American Red Cross was at the scene to assist the resident of the burned apartment, who lost all her possessions. Other residents were offered assistance due to the electricity and gas to the nine apartment building being turned off during the response to the fire.

The fire began in the area of a couch. The cause remains under investigation.
Instituting a government program can be a long process. And Midland County is in the middle of this process as it seeks to implement PACE (Property-Assessed Clean Energy).

Tuesday marks the next step as Midland County commissioners have scheduled a required public hearing for 9:15 a.m. in commissions chambers at the Midland County Services Building.

Anyone interested in reading the PACE report may do so on the county website at http://bit.ly/1s0IjlZ

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy describes PACE as an innovative mechanism for financing energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements on private property. PACE programs allow local governments, state governments or other inter-jurisdictional authorities, when authorized by state law, to fund the up-front cost of energy improvements on commercial and residential properties, which are paid back over time by the property owners.

By statute, Michigan only allows the PACE model to be applied to fund energy improvements on commercial and qualifying nonprofit organizations.

The county board has passed a resolution of intent to allow the process to proceed to the public hearing stage. Following the public hearing, the board would vote to approve the program, or not, at its next meeting on June 21.

Even though Midland County commissioners have approved proceeding to this point, there has been some reluctance.

Commissioners Jim Leigeb, R-3rd District, and Rich Keenan, R-4th District, voted against proceeding while Scott Noesen, R-7th District, voted for it, but stated, Im looking forward to understanding it better, but also I wont be that far from the trigger.

The countys involvement with the process concerns both Keenan and Leigeb.

I am very concerned about inserting government into the private business plan. I am very uncomfortable putting the citizens of Midland County into the lending and borrowing process of business, Keenan said at a board meeting May 3.
Chris Pizzello | Invision/AP, File

ATLANTA (AP)  Police say actor Wendell Pierce has been arrested at an Atlanta hotel where he was a guest.

Atlanta Police Department spokesman Donald Hannah says in a statement that Pierce was arrested early Saturday morning at the Loews Atlanta Hotel.
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Just over 25 years ago, 169 members of the National Guard 460th Supply and Company were serving their country during the Persian Gulf War.

The bonds formed during that seven-month stint are still as strong today as they were in 1990-1991.

Saturday night, approximately 70 members gathered to celebrate that camaraderie for a 25th reunion at the VFW Chemical City Post 3651.

It is great to see everybody, all the familiar faces, Specialist Walt Fischer said. We were a real close group. I look at a lot of the people and everybody worked really close. We had such a great commander, great first sergeant.

That first sergeant was Chuck Kaminski, who served as master of ceremonies for Saturdays reunion, which included a 21-gun salute for the 10 members who have passed away since the Gulf War.

The Gulf War began on Aug. 2, 1990 when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein decided to invade oil-rich Kuwait.

You never thought that being in the Guard we would go overseas, you figured that was more in the United States. But, you signed your name. Just being with everybody was important. You are like a brotherhood. Everybody has changed, said Specialist Mike Orvis, as he laughed.

Shortly thereafter, the 460th prepared for deployment through September 1990 when the company was deployed to Fort Knox, Ky.

I was working in supply, said Specialist Walt Fischer. I was one of the first to go down to Fort Knox to get things started. I helped get the unit off the ground back here in Midland, then went down to Fort Knox to get the supply end started.

Just over a month later, the 460th was sent overseas in November 1990 to join with coalition forces from 38 other countries to support the 24th Infantry Division.

This was such a great group of guys, said Kaminski. I had people from the 24th come and ask how we got things done and then so quickly? They were amazed.

Desert Storm wasnt Fischers only deployment as he also deployed to Iraq in 2005-2006.

Midland was the first unit from Michigan deployed to Desert Storm. This is an unique group. Of all the units Ive been with this is the top-notch unit, he said.

Early on the morning of Jan. 17, 1991, Operation Desert Storm began with a massive U.S.-led air offensive that hit Iraqs air defenses, communications networks, weapons plants and oil refineries.

Desert Storm was so different because we had such a long lag where we sat around waiting for the air war to conclude, Fischer said.

Just over one month later, on Feb. 24, 1991, the allied ground assault began. Three days later Kuwait was liberated and Baghdad radio announced that Iraq would comply with U.N. resolutions. The next day, Feb. 28, 1991, coalition attacks against Iraq ended. Finally, on April 6, 1991, Iraq accepted the terms of a cease-fire agreement.

Those people didnt want to fight. When they came out of the fox holes they threw their weapons down, Kaminski said. The first thing they did was to mimic that they wanted food and drinking water.

A crowd estimated between 5,000 to 7,000 people lined the streets of Midland welcoming the 460th home on April 30, 1991. The troops received a warm welcome as they marched over the M-20 bridge, turned right on Main Street and up Rodd Street as people cheered, waved flags and shed tears.

I cant even describe how it felt, Kaminski said. The support we received was tremendous. Not only the people, but The Dow Chemical Co. was very supportive.

The reception was much different than when Kaminski returned from serving in Vietnam.

Then we snuck off the plane and went through the back room, he said.

Saturday night was a time to gather with other members of the 460th to enjoy and reminisce about a time when 169 Guard members carried each other through a conflict over 8,000 miles away from their homes.
Boy Scout Troop 798 of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church has three scouts who have achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.

Trevor M. Harkness, a senior at H.H. Dow High School, is the son of Brian and Bernadette Harkness. His Eagle Scout project consisted of pouring a concrete slab for an outdoor kennel area for the Humane Society of Midland County.
Joan Coffman was in the thick of it as generators flooded, and nurses manually pumped air into the lungs of patients who needed it.

Eleven years ago, the current president and CEO of HSHS St. Josephs Hospital was assistant administrator at Lindy Boggs Medical Center in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina unleashed rage on The Big Easy.

As the historic city was being evacuated, Coffman stayed behind with 140 colleagues and seven physicians to help care for 120 patients  many who were elderly.

They hunkered down, saved lives, and, for Coffman, it endeared her to the city even more.

Thats where she grew up. It was her hometown.

When Charity Ball leader Jackie Rasmussen decided on a New Orleans theme for the 45th annual Partners of HSHS St. Josephs Hospital fundraiser and friendraiser as a nod to the hospitals leader, Coffman was appreciative. She was also excited about the opportunity to share her culture, food and traditions.

I was honored that (Rasmussen) even considered New Orleans as a theme for the Charity Ball, Coffman said. She didnt want to focus on Mardi Gras. She really wanted to focus more on New Orleans from the perspective of the people and the hospitality.

The Charity Ball began in 1971 as a fundraiser for the nonprofit hospital and a thank you to donors. Today it has flourished. Service programs at the hospital that enhance the well-being of the patients and community have been made possible with the support of people who have attended the Charity Ball.

This year the ball is on Saturday, May 21, at Avalon Hotel and Conference Center.

Coffman has been at every Charity Ball since 2008, but this year may be a bit more emotional.

Rasmussen said the Charity Ball committee has worked hard to create an event that stays true to NOLA with a replica of Bourbon Street, Pat OBriens pub in the courtyard, authentic southern food, dueling pianos and hurricane drinks.

We really want this to be a fun event, but we also want to pay homage to the city and to Joan (Coffman), Rasmussen said. Joan is the epitome of compassion. With what she did for the patients during Katrina and what she has done for our own hospital in Chippewa Falls, shes very deserving of our appreciation.

Rasmussen said she traveled to New Orleans a few years after Katrina devastated the area.

Time has passed but you could still see the effects of it, she said. It was humbling to be there and think about the experience and the devastation that the community went through. They persevered and rebuilt.

Rasmussen, vice president of BMO Private Bank in Eau Claire, said she appreciates St. Josephs Hospital, and thats why she volunteers her time  this year as Charity Ball chairperson.

All of my family members were brought into the world at St. Josephs Hospital, she said. My grandson was just born in the new birth center in 2015. We received a personal visit from Joan (Coffman). It meant a lot to me that she takes time to visit patients.

Rasmussens reign will culminate with the ball this month, but shes quick to remind people that its the committee doing the real work.

Its the fact that we have an amazing committee that puts this together, she said. Im wowed and humbled by the team we have.
The decision by Midland City Council to restore Sunday Dial-A-Ride for an 18-month trial period was good news for local residents who depend on the service on the other six days of the week.

It also was consistent with the will of the people in a Daily News poll at ourMidland.com that saw more than 70 percent saying the city should give the Sunday service another try.

The service was cut in 2008 due to budget concerns. Now city council will use the 18-month trial period to determine how much the service is needed by local residents.

Karen Murphy, director of public services, said July 1 will be the start of the 18-month trial period, and in 12 months city council will have an entire year to review and see how the service is being received by the community. The service will run from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and require riders to call into dispatch on Saturdays to arrange pickups and drop-offs.

What is important going forward is making sure residents are aware the new Sunday service is available and used to its fullest potential.

One local resident was happy about the return of Sunday service. Kathy Stark told the Daily News, Its my main source of transportation  Im really thrilled.

And Stark is a perfect example of why the service is needed: She has multiple sclerosis and been in a wheelchair since 2000. She has relied on DART to go to doctor appointments, events and church services and typically uses the service at least three times a week. With the restoration of Sunday service, she will once again be able to go to Sunday services at St. Brigid Catholic Church.

We suspect there are others in the community just like Stark, who have been forgoing travel on Sundays since Dial-A-Ride was cut in 2008. We hope they take advantage of the restored service and help city council see the value of offering Dial-A-Ride seven days a week.
Many Americans might be comforted by the recent revelation that the Washington Post has assigned 20 news reporters to dig up any and all information on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Everything in Trumps colorful past, and present, will be explored, according to Post associate editor, Bob Woodward.

Theres a lot we dont know, Woodward said, according to a report in The Washington Examiner. We have 20 people working on Trump, were going to do a book, were doing articles about every phase of his life.

The vetting process for Trump, it appears, will be extremely thorough. In most eras, this would be called journalism, a term thats been missing in Washington D.C. for roughly the past eight or nine years.

It also appears that this type of aggressive, dig-for-the-truth reporting is not intended for the current administration in the White House.

Once again, the American public (and the American press) has been duped, misled and lied to by an arrogant Obama administration, which has made a practice of deception since it took control of the reigns in D.C. back in January 2009.

The most recent example: the Iranian nuclear deal. Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, who crafted the administrations nuclear deal narrative to the public, told The New York Times magazine that officials capitalized on the ignorance and gullibility of young reporters, who know little about foreign issues and typically report only what they are told by the administration, without scrutinizing the information.

Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. Thats a sea change. They literally know nothing, Rhodes told the Times.

During a briefing with the press, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked, Can you state categorically that no senior official in this administration has ever lied publicly about any aspect of the Iran Nuclear Deal?

Earnest responded, No. Then, he paused, and started to backtrack. A left-leaning news-site has run to give cover to Earnest, saying that the spokesman misheard the question and accidently replied that the administration lied.

In turn, columnist Charles Krauthammer commented that during the Obama administrations pitch to the public of the Iran nuclear deal, There was lying point by point, all the way through.

Does any of this folly surprise you? It shouldnt. Weve been misled repeatedly over the past eight years, and the truly scary part is that few seem to care.

Wheres the media outrage? They should be all over this administrations deceit, but that would take guts, something thats missing these days from the mainstream press.

Republican anger? Quiet as a mouse.

Responses from embarrassed Democrats? Silence.

Lies and deception. Business as usual in Washington, D.C. Could you run a business that way? A family? A marriage? Live your life that way?

Hardly.

Think about what weve experienced during this administration. These are just a few examples:

1. Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist, was caught repeatedly on video calling the American public stupid and claiming deception was essential in selling ObamaCare to the public;

2. Just a few days ago, three of Obamas former speech-writers were on the Charlie Rose show, joking about lines that they wrote which deceived the public, including if you like your insurance, you can keep it. By the way, that infamous line was named 2013s Lie of the Year by PolitiFact.

3. Obama and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claiming a Youtube video was to blame for the attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans. Right from the start, both knew it was a terrorist attack, and that the video had nothing to do with it.

One website, called freedomoutpost.com, keeps track of Obamas lies through the years, and the number now totals 1,063 documented examples.

Weve sunk to an unthinkable low in our nations history  lying is the new normal.

The president is caught in a lie, and no one blinks an eye.

His advisors admit to deceiving the public, and the media ignores it.

Lie after lie after lie.

And a Trump presidency is our nations biggest concern right now? Yeah, right.

Chris Stevens writes columns for the Editorial page. Email him at stevens@mdn.net.
MADISON  A federal judge is set to weigh whether a host of changes that Republican legislators have made to Wisconsins voting laws illegally burden minority and Democratic-leaning voters.

Liberal group One Wisconsin Institute, Inc., social justice group Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund and 10 voters filed the lawsuit last June. U.S. District Judge James Peterson has scheduled a bench trial to begin Monday in Madison. There will be no jury, just the judges final decision that hell likely issue weeks down the line. Heres some key information ahead of the proceedings:

What parts of the election law does the suit challenge?

In the crosshairs are multiple changes that Republicans have made since 2011, including parts of Wisconsins voter photo identification mandate; shrinking the states early voting window from 30 days before an election to 12; eliminating weekend early voting; prohibiting someone from vouching for a persons residence if he or she lacks proof of residency during registration; limiting early voting to one location per municipality and eliminating election registration deputies at high schools.

Wait a minute ... isnt voter ID the law?

Yes. The plaintiffs original filing argued the requirement violates federal law prohibiting voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race, but Peterson dismissed that portion of the action in December, noting that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the mandate in 2014. He has allowed the plaintiffs to challenge smaller pieces of the law, such as prohibitions on technical college IDs, out-of-state IDs and certain expired identification cards.

Since December, the plaintiffs have added new allegations that the process for obtaining free state IDs from the state Department of Transportation is too onerous and time-consuming.

Has the judge tossed out any other parts of the lawsuit?

Yes. He also dismissed allegations that Republicans changes improperly favor voters who move to Wisconsin from other states.

The plaintiffs argued that people who move into the state can vote for national offices immediately even though people who move within the state in the 28 days before an election must vote in their old wards. Peterson said that under federal law the state cant prohibit someone who moves before an election from voting from president and vice president.

What are the details of plaintiffs arguments?

They allege the changes are meant to disenfranchise minorities, elderly and young voters and others who tend to vote for Democrats. They argue that early voting restrictions create long lines on Election Day, unfairly burdening blacks and Hispanics because they tend to live in larger cities and will face longer waits to vote. Prohibiting others from vouching for would-be voters residency during registration burdens young, poor and minority voters because they probably lack documents proving residency.

Plaintiffs also maintain the process for obtaining a free state ID is so difficult that people often give up in anger and disgust, again creating a disproportionate burden for blacks and Hispanics since many of them were born in places known for problems with birth records, particularly in the South prior to the 1960s and Puerto Rico.

Where does the governor stand?

Gov. Scott Walker, who signed all the voting law changes, approved an emergency rule last week that allows people waiting for IDs to vote with receipts showing theyre trying to obtain the cards. The rule also created formal steps for issuing IDs to applicants who lack the proper underlying documents confirming identity and citizenship. Walker said the rule is designed to help the challenged portions of the voter ID law stand up in court.
BLOOMINGTON  Congressman Adam Kinzinger isn't about to endorse Donald Trump despite his near-certain path to the Republican presidential nomination.

"(Kinzinger) puts his country above his party any day of the week. Hes concerned by Donald Trumps negative, violent rhetoric and his outlandish comments on foreign policy proposals," said Maura Gillespie, communications manager for the Channahon representative.

"If Trump can change his tone, surround himself with a team of advisors who know the policy issues we face and address the American people with real solutions, then hopefully (Kinzinger) can look at him as a viable candidate. Until then, hell remain undecided.

Kinzinger, who represents the 16th Congressional District, appears to be the lone holdout against Trump among Central Illinois' highest-ranking Republicans.

Many officials filed as candidates in the primary election to attend the Republican National Convention and vote for a specific presidential candidate. None chose Trump; Kinzinger supported former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis "will support whomever the Republican nominee is," said a spokesperson for the 13th District representative, of Taylorville. "He has not endorsed Trump at this point."

Congressman Darin LaHood, who represents the 18th District from Dunlap, did not respond to a request for comment.

He previously told the Jacksonville Journal-Courier "while he is not happy with some of the things Trump has said during the campaign, the people have spoken and voted to put Trump on the ballot."

LaHood was a delegate candidate for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

"I intend to support the Republican nominee for president," said State Sen. Jason Barickman of Bloomington, also a delegate candidate for Rubio.

State Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, who was a delegate candidate for Bush, said he will keep his pledge to "back our partys nominee, because any one of our candidates would be better than the Democrat alternative"  referring to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is considered a virtual lock to win the Democratic nomination.

"I will support the Republican nominee for president, and that certainly appears to be Donald Trump, Brady said.

State Rep. Dan Brady of Bloomington  no relation to Bill Brady  said he is "supporting the Republican nominee, which is Mr. Trump.

Im hopeful Mr. Trump will surround himself with good folks and great minds who will help him," he said. "(There is an) opportunity for the Republican party and the general public to have input in giving the nominee ideas and suggestions on ways to maybe change some of his thoughts.

Dan Brady said that process is "going to make him that much more of a better candidate than his Democratic opponent.

"(I) have always supported Republican nominee and will do so this year," said another area lawmaker, State Rep. Bill Mitchell of Forsyth.

On the state level, U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk has announced he'll support the Republican nominee, while Gov. Bruce Rauner has announced he won't endorse Trump.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, has endorsed Clinton.

All of Trump's announced opponents for the Republican presidential nomination have conceded, but the nominee won't be finalized until the Republican National Convention July 18-21 in Cleveland.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who posed the most serious challenge to Trump in the primary, has encouraged delegates he won in the race not to jump ship.

When asked if he would support Cruz at the convention  as he indicated when he filed for the ballot  18th District delegate Mike Flynn of Bloomington said that he plans to "attend and weigh in on any proposed changes to the nomination rules or Republican party platform."
HEYWORTH  Determining the right time to plant crops has always been a challenge for farmers. If the soil is too wet, the plants may rot. If the crops go in early, they risk late spring cold snaps.

Erin Brown, a Heyworth High School freshman, decided to help local farmers solve this problem.

Erin created a farming weather station from scratch as a project for Future Farmers of America through her high school.

The station gathers weather data from a field with temperature, moisture and wind sensors. Farmers can examine the data to determine when to plant and harvest, said Erin.

The metal tower is stationed in a field off Randolph Road north of Heyworth. Prongs in varying levels of soil detect moisture and temperature and sensors on top of the tall metal structure pick up air temperature, humidity and wind speed and direction. A solar panel powers the small computer on board.

A satellite sends data to a grain elevator five miles away and then to my computer at home, said Erin of Heyworth.

She wrote code to retrieve the data and use on her website which is still under maintenance. Erin said most of the items she used to construct the tower, with help from her dad, Michael, were found around the house or purchased on eBay.

There are other similar weather stations farmers can purchase, but Erin said they can cost thousands of dollars.

The materials are pretty cheap. Having someone who can create the computer programming for the station is what gets expensive, she said.

Erin's mom Regina Brown said farmers are benefiting from new and better technology with each generation. Drones are used to survey crops from above and combines can drive themselves across fields.

My grandpa would just go out in the field and rub the dirt between his fingers to determine the moisture level. With this system, they can get exact facts. This is a step toward the next generation of farming, said Regina.

Heyworth agriculture teacher Jestun Nutter said local farmers are chomping at the bit to have access to Erins weather data.

Its like a one-stop-shop for farmers, he said. "With very little investment, I could see Erin starting her own company."

Shaun Tyson, seed advisor at Becks Hybrids in Mount Pulaski, met with Erin to answer questions while she was designing the device. Becks also decided to fund part of the project.

Tyson said what makes this device unique is the fact that it was created by a 14-year-old.

Shes sharp and its an amazing project. She had a plan and it was amazing to see it come together, said Tyson.

He said if Erin were to start a business and produce more stations, she may impact the market.

It doesnt matter that there are other similar systems out there, said Tyson. She wanted to do it herself. Her spirit of independence hearkens to the spirit of agriculture and the people in this community.

Erin hopes to study agriculture and technology in college. Regina said though Erin was never a farm kid she is making the most of her abilities.

Agriculture is at the basis of society and it can relate to any career, said Regina. Its connected to everything we eat, drink and wear.
MITCHELLSVILLE  Despite police pleas last week for a peaceful resolution to the manhunt for Dracy Clint Pendleton, the search for the suspect in connection to an earlier police shooting ended Sunday morning with Pendletons death.

An FBI agent also was shot in a gunfight with Pendleton, 35, at an abandoned house in the Lusk Creek Wilderness area. Authorities said the agent was treated and is expected to recover.

Pendleton is no longer a threat to the communities of Southern Illinois, said Illinois State Police Col. Tad Williams at a Sunday afternoon briefing in Mitchellsville.

Pendleton, of Bellflower, was wanted for aggravated battery with a firearm for a May 7 incident in which he allegedly shot a Mahomet police officer in the arm. The officer has survived. The officer had attempted to use a Taser on Pendleton during a traffic stop in front of Pendletons home before the shooting.

The immediate pursuit of Pendleton led to the death of a 26-year-old Decatur woman whose van was struck by an ISP trooper.

The initial warrant for Pendletons arrest from the Champaign County states attorneys office listed a charge of attempted murder but it was later amended. The amended charge is a Class X felony.

Pendleton was considered armed and dangerous during the search. Last week, the FBI issued its own warrant for Pendletons arrest and is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

He was seen leaving his house after last weeks shooting with what police said was an assault rifle. He had eluded police since allegedly stealing a work truck from a rock quarry operation just outside Mahomet.

Law enforcement, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Office, located the stolen vehicle in the Lusk Creek Wilderness area, a roughly 5,000-acre span of the Shawnee National Forest that authorities closed during the search. Police also had at least one tip that he had been sighted by a resident living within the search area, Williams said.

Williams said police spotted Pendleton just after midnight Sunday running from the Sulphur Springs Cemetery into a wooded area with what appeared to be a rifle and a bandolier.

He was later tracked about a half-mile away at an abandoned house. About five hours later, police cleared the area and began approaching the house, Williams said.

Upon approach, Pendleton opened fire, he said. During the subsequent exchange of gunfire, one FBI SWAT operator was shot and injured.

Later, a remote-controlled robot was sent into the house, which found Pendletons body on the second floor of the house, where he was pronounced dead.

Authorities on Sunday did not take questions. It is unclear whether Pendleton was killed by police gunfire or whether the death was self-inflicted.

Williams said several crime scenes are being investigated and restrictions within the search area are expected to remain in effect until at least Monday evening.

ISP Director Leo Schmitz made brief remarks at the opening of the briefing, commending law enforcement agencies for their coordinated efforts.

Our guys did a fantastic job. Im glad more people did not get hurt, Schmitz said.

Sean Cox, FBI Special Agent in Charge of Springfield, said the injured agent and the Mahomet police officer are expected to make full recoveries.

I am incredibly grateful that the Mahomet police officer and of course our agent is going to be OK, as well, Cox said.
Editor's note: Following is the text of Gov. Bruce Rauner's letter to state employees related to his veto of House Bill 580 that would force the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees union and the state into arbitration.

Open letter to state employees:

For too many years, Illinoisans have been misled. Each of you in state government has been misled. Taxpayers who fund government have been misled. Recipients of public services, including our most vulnerable residents, have also been misled. The consequences are before us, and they are dire.

I ran for office to right these wrongs. I believe that solving our states crisis requires a simple first step  for someone to tell the truth. So here it is.

The truth is that Illinois is broke. Our taxpayers, who pay the highest property taxes in the nation, are maxed out and local governments continue to raise property taxes.

Expanding the size of government faster than middle-class paychecks are growing is a failing strategy. That is why I have no choice but to veto AFSCMEs arbitration bill, HB580.

Its not because I dont want to see you earn a better living today. I do. I veto HB580 because I want to protect the pension system that you are counting on for your retirement.

If I signed this bill, I would be subjecting all taxpayers to another $3 billion in higher taxes. That makes no sense when too many jobs have been leaving Illinois, and those hardworking Illinoisans that remain see their incomes falling.

We can make Illinois a state where our employees receive the pension benefits they were promised, where our budget is truly balanced through strong economic growth rather than destructive tax hikes, and where our state workers are not forced to work in decaying buildings with technology that is older than my children and furniture that is older than me.

I pledged on my first day in office to build a partnership with state employees, and that is exactly what we have done. Our 1970s computers are being replaced with next generation technology. With the General Assemblys help, I pledged to put the Thompson Center up for sale and move employees to more modern space. We pushed for more flexible scheduling and ended Rod Blagojevichs corrupt hiring system.

When Attorney General Madigan sought to shut off pay, Comptroller Munger and I defeated that misguided attack on state employees. And I have called on the General Assembly to honor Gov. Quinns failed promise of wage increases from 2011. We must respect our commitments and not make new commitments that we cannot afford.

We also sought employees ideas for improvements and savings, prompting us to send out the first-ever state employee survey. The results were eye-opening.

You told me that promotions and compensation are not based on merit. You told me that agencies dont reward creativity and innovation. I want to reward hard work and ingenuity. Unfortunately, union leadership is blocking many of these common sense ideas  ideas that you want. Rest assured, I heard your desire for these reforms loud and clear.

So my administration took action. We launched a truly meaningful merit pay program. We started a gain sharing program that will reward state employees for helping save taxpayers money. We implemented a rapid results system that removes obstacles to employee innovation and allows employees to personally change processes that impede good customer service.

But as I have noted, with a truly historic budget deficit and skyrocketing debt, our taxpayers cannot afford the added spending pressure of huge wage and health insurance increases. That is why I must veto HB580, ensuring that the legal process agreed to with AFSCME leaders and currently underway before the Labor Board, is allowed to proceed and fairly resolve any outstanding issues.

But I make this pledge: The State will honor its promises to you. We will continue to listen and build a workplace that values and rewards hard work, innovation, and creativity, all in a welcoming work environment. We will keep fighting to get you paid in full and on time. And we will continue to stand for fiscal discipline so that you and your families can again know you are, finally, being told the truth.
Every Tuesday night during the academic year, young musicians from the Chippewa Valley gather to practice and prepare.

On Sunday, the time and effort put in will come to fruition at the Chippewa Valley Youth Symphony Concert Finale at Chippewa Falls High School at 3 p.m.

Participating in the Youth Symphony requires more than just practicing once a week. Members must dedicate time at home to practicing, and must practice on their own during the winter and summer breaks.

The concert will feature Chippewa Fallss Hayden Guckenberg, the Concerto Competition Winner, performing Mozarts Horn Concerto No. 1 on French horn, accompanied by the youth symphony.

Hayden, a junior in high school, says that this concert provides the community with the rare opportunity to see a symphony  one composed solely of talented youth from the area.

Jody Guckenberg, Haydens mother, said that Hayden has auditioned for this competition before.

His goal was to win it as a senior, she said. Winning it as a junior is a huge accomplishment.

In December of each year, applicants must submit an audio recording of the piece they wish to perform. The competition begins in January.

Last year I got fourth place, and then this year I won it, Hayden said.

He began with the Youth Symphony in eighth grade after his music teacher suggested that all the students try out.

He loves his French horn and playing music, Jody Guckenberg said. For a young person like that, it is a big pat on the back that all the time and private lessons are paying off.

Haydens parents have been in the audience at all of his concerts  most of which take place at UW-Eau Claire.

The concert on Sunday will wrap up the 35th season of the Chippewa Valley Youth Symphony.

The symphony will be teaming up with the Chippewa Falls Music Association for the concert event titled, Hooray for Hollywood! Students from the Chi-Hi Wire Choir will open the concert.

The concert will begin with Apollo 13 composed by James Horner. The youth symphony will also perform How to Train Your Dragon composed by John Powell; The Muppet Medley arranged by Bruce Chase; and House of Cards composed by Jeff Beal.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens composed by John Williams will also be played, and it will conclude with Themes from 007 arranged by Calvin Custer.

Following the concert, Hayden will have only one year left with the symphony that has been a major part of his life since middle school.

It will be kind of interesting because its most of what I have known for music, Hayden said. I will miss it.

After high school, he is currently interested in going to school for music education, and his time with the youth symphony has taught him many valuable lessons he can utilize in the future.

More than anything it takes dedication, he said. With dedication comes skill and talent for playing your instrument.
EUREKA - Dr. Junius Rodriguez has decided to seek the Illinois Congressional seat for the 18th District. He will be running as a Democrat and launched his campaign Monday with stops in the Woodford County seat as well as Macomb and Lincoln.

He is a career educator who has taught at various levels for the past 37 years, including the last 24 as a history professor at Eureka College.

Throughout my career I have tried to encourage and inspire my students to lives of civic engagement in which they give freely of their time and service to make our communities better, Rodriguez said. It is in this same spirit that I offer myself as a candidate in this congressional race because the stakes are too high to remain silent along the sidelines. I still believe that politics is the art of attaining the possible and believe that people of goodwillregardless of their political affiliationcan find common ground on matters of public concern.

He added he considers himself a centrist who has an ability to work with individuals of good faith who may have alternative perspectives on key issues of the day.

Rodriguez has served as a board member of the Eureka Area United Fund (EAUF), Heartline and Heart House of Woodford County, a social services referral agency and a homeless shelter that serves the needs of the rural homeless and victims of domestic violence. He also currently serves as the president of both of those boards.
The 9-year-old girl whose uncle took her forcibly from school earlier this month is now home with her father. She was rescued Thursday inside a Tennessee barn where suspect Gary Simpson holed her up.

New York Daily News said Carlie Trent seemed OK and not hurt during the entire abduction drama but was immediately taken to a nearby hospital after she was found. It took eight days before the authorities were led to a barn in the rural part of Tennessee.

'Huge Relief'

"It's really really scary when you don't know what's going on," Simpson's wife, Linda, said. "I'm just thankful to have her back. It's a huge relief."

The aunt added that the family and the entire town will celebrate her coming back. "I'm going to try and just love her and have her dad take care of her," she added, noting that her husband deserves where he is right now.

The same report highlighted that Trent's uncle fetched her from school on May 4, telling her that her father figured in a car accident. Authorities looked for them everywhere, but failed to locate them for more than a week.

Rescued By Residents

Thanks to Hawkins County residents Donnie Lawson, Stuart Franklin, Larry Hamblen, and Baptist minister Roger Carpenter who found Simpson and Carlie inside one of the barns in the community. One of them pointed a gun at the uncle while the other helped secure the kid.

According to NBC News, the 57-year-old suspect is now held on a hefty $1 million bond. He is facing charges of custodial interference and aggravated kidnapping after taking away her niece for eight days.

Independent mentioned that Simpson was the previous guardian of Carlie and her younger sister before their father, James Trent, took custody of them. However, the father said that Simpson seemed obsessed with his daughter.

"He wanted her, and he wanted her all to himself," James added. "That's a scary thing to think about."
The incurable homo immunodeficiency virus has been a long subject for researches and experiments in the past many decades. Finally, a large breakthrough has been made by some scientists recently that can potentially end the HIV nightmare. HIV is described as a virus that's packed with a tin can making it invulnerable from whatever type of treatment applied but the latest advancements revealed that they can un-can the virus to kill it.

Breakthrough

As reported by MedicalXpress, researchers from CHUM research Centre which is affiliated with the University of Montreal found a way to expose the vulnerable parts of the virus for the immune system to infiltrate the affected cells and kill it. This study posted in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America can finally provide a clear path in making a possible vaccine that will end the spread of this deadly virus.

Andres Finzi, one of the lead authors of the study and a professor at the University of Montreal explained that humans have naturally occurring antibodies that can kill the cells that are infected with HIV but the problem is, the virus has the ability to shield itself from the antibodies. The research suggested that an intervention should be done to successfully allow the antibody to kill the HIV-infected cells by adding a molecule that can un-can it making them vulnerable.

How It Specifically Works

In reality, the HIV kills the CD4 protein (type of white blood cells that fights infection). HIV produces some specific kind of proteins called Nef and Vpu that shields itself from the host's immune system. The key to its destruction is a tiny molecule called JP-III-48, which imitates the CD4. The small molecule called JP-III-48 was developed by some researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.

"The virus has to get rid of the CD4 proteins to protect itself. Adding the small molecule forces the viral envelope to open, like a flower. The antibodies that are naturally present after the infection can then target the infected cells so they are killed by the immune system," said Jonathan Richard, postdoctoral researcher at the CRCHUM and lead author of the study.

In the past few years, treatment of HIV that causes AIDS is only to slow down its development which means it's not killing it totally. The goal of the researchers is to develop a treatment that can successfully put the HIV to an end. The next step of this study is to try the newly developed molecules on monkeys infected with HIV.


The rumors about Tom Hiddleston becoming the next "James Bond" were getting strong. In fact, a British bookmaker stopped betting on the "Thor" star as he was most likely to replace Daniel Craig as "007."

Coral, a British betting shop for all major events in 2016, stopped laying a bet for Tom Hiddleston. In fact, the company revealed that a "flurry of bets" made the actor best known as Loki at 2-1 favorite to take the role of James Bond, according to Sunday Morning Herald.

The stake for Tom Hiddleston started to swirl when he was seen meeting the "James Bond" movie director, Sam Mendes. They, too, were with the "007" producer, Barbara Broccoli, at London's Soho House members' club over the past week.

The engagement was made after Tom Hiddleston claimed that no one from the "James Bond" film was talking to him to take the role. Coral spokesperson Nicola McGeady, on the other hand, disclosed that there will be no smoke if there was no fire.

Jonathan Pine is on a mission. Tune in Tuesday at 10|9c to find out why. #TheNightManager #AMC A photo posted by @amc_tv on Apr 14, 2016 at 11:04am PDT



She said that they were left with no choice but to stop the bet for Tom Hiddleston. "Earlier in the year there was a gamble on Idris Elba and Damian Lewis, but nothing has come close to the recent gamble on Hiddleston," Nicola McGeady added.

Other stars on the bet were Idris Elba at 9-1, Damian Lewis at 14-1, Aidan Turner at 3-1 and Tom Hardy at 4-1, as per the Guardian. However, "James Bond" producers and filmmakers were not yet confirming if Daniel Craig will reprise his role as James Bond as he denied the claims that he quit being "007."

Meanwhile, in an interview with Esquire, Tom Hiddleston commended the "James Bond" author, Ian Fleming. Tom Hiddleston described the journalist as a representation of an epitome.

He also added that Ian Fleming added a touch of a British strength on "James Bond" by not taking the full credit but, getting his work completed. Tom Hiddleston boasted that's how British were known for, Daily Mail noted.

Do you think Tom Hiddleston will replace Daniel Craig and will play as the next "James Bond?" Share us your thoughts. Write your comments below.
Jennifer Lawrence presented an award to the reverend actor Robert De Niro at the 27th annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York City on Saturday. In her introduction, she told the audience that she feels like a daughter to him but later called him gay.

Jennifer Lawrence Presented GLAAD Awards

"Bob had asked me to present him with this 'GLAAD Excellence in Media Award,'" she said by way of introduction to Robert De Niro. De Niro was honored for producing "Remembering the Artist, Robert De Niro Senior," a documentary about his father Robert De Niro, Sr., who was gay, PEOPLE reported.

The "Hunger Games" star continued on to share that she and De Niro spend a once a week get-together at the Greenwich Hotel, where she gets pinched by the "The Godfather" actor while saying, "You remind me of my little Helen." Helen happens to be just a 4-year-old girl, by the way. These encounters make Lawrence feel like a daughter to De Niro.

VIDEO: Robert De Niro accepts the Excellence In Media Award at the #glaadawards https://t.co/FMBl01Q1VY  GLAAD (@glaad) May 15, 2016

Robert De Niro Was Called Gay

Jennifer Lawrence being her usual charming and awkward self, called Robert De Niro gay when she presented the "Excellence in Media Award," Refinery 29 reported. In her speech, she told everyone how kind-hearted the "Taxi Driver" actor is.

"Bob is the kindest person I've ever met," she continued on. His heart is so giving. And with his own quiet strength, it is no wonder that this man and the incredible organization that is GLAAD would come together tonight."

However, she playfully added that Robert De Niro is gay, US Weekly reported. "GLAAD and Bob have a lot in common. They're both gay," she said to everyone's laughter. She then admitted that she was just kidding and was advised by five different people to omit that part of her speech but she was like, "Hell, no." To everyone's amusement, De Niro accepted the award by quipping back he'd be all over Lawrence if he was a lesbian. Clearly, they have nothing but love for one another.

Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro appeared in several films including "Joy," "American Hustle" and "Silver Linings Playbook." GLAAD Media Awards honors LGBT advocacy in Hollywood, sponsored by Ketel One.

Check out the adorable tribute of Jennifer Lawrence to Robert De Niro in the video below. Let us know if it this isn't cute or not in the comments below.
Milwaukee police are currently investigating high school students for livestreaming their sexual acts on a Facebook social media account to their classmates at Barack Obama School of Career and Technical Education in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The livestream sex on Facebook featured three underage teens: a 14-year-old girl, a 15-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy.

School students 'livestream having sex on Facebook' to their classmates https://t.co/DmR3Q9Vhtw pic.twitter.com/mwBwDIY08E  British News Stand (@BritishNewsStan) May 13, 2016

The three teens live streamed their sexual acts on Facebook -- filmed off campus -- to their classmates during their January 14 afternoon health class. During the health class, four students of the Barack Obama School were able to watch their classmates' livestream sex on Facebook.

"The school immediately notified proper authorities and cooperated with the investigation," Milwaukee Public Schools stated via Independent. "We took appropriate disciplinary action against those involved, which would be in addition to any outside consequences they may face."

.@CedarParkTX police talk about high school coach arrested on 3 child sex charges Watch #LIVESTREAM @ 11 a.m. --> http://t.co/KMBWTu0zTV  Jackie Vega (@TheJackieVega) October 30, 2014

The Milwaukee investigators have already issued a search warrant that will allow them to get all of the necessary info, pictures and videos of the 14-year-old girl who owns the Facebook account. The two girls involved in the livestream sex on Facebook were both listed as suspects in the warrant, CBS Chicago reports. However, the 15-year-old male is not.

Nicole McDowell, Barack Obama School principal, told CBS 58 that the two teen girls involved in the livestream sex on Facebook are students of the school. But on Jan. 14, the two girls skipped school after attending the first period. It appears that they skipped school in order to film their sex video and livestream it on Facebook during their health class.
The United States Department of Defense and the Pentagon are still at odds when it comes to allowing openly transgender service members in the military. Officials in the Defense Department said the Pentagon is far from finalizing changes that will benefit transgender service members.

Process Expected To Last For Months

Four months have already passed after the deadline of Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter's proposal allowing openly transgender service members in the military. Pentagon's Acting Personnel Chief Peter Levine said the change will likely take months before it gets finalized, the Washington Post reported.

Levine said officials in the services have different viewpoints about the matter. However, they are committed to doing the transition for transgender service members right, the news outlet noted.

Transgender rights have recently gained attention in the U.S., specifically when North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory passed a law called House Bill 2 that bans transgender people from using bathrooms that do not correspond with their biological sex. The U.S. Justice Department has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the state and threatened to slash their federal funding. McCrory retaliated by also filing a lawsuit that accuses the U.S. Justice Department of "a baseless and blatant overreach."

US Defense Department's Historic Transitions

The military's move to allow openly transgender service members comes in the midst of another historic transition that permits women to serve in all combat roles. This month, Gen. Lori Robinson became the first woman leader of a U.S. military combatant command.

Robinson will be the head of the U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, ABC News reported. Robinson's historic appointment was lauded by Time magazine by including her on its 100 Most Influential People of 2016 list.

The Pentagon used to consider transgender individuals as sexual deviants, which makes it easier for them to be discharged from the military. In 2015, the Department of Defense put the discharge authority in the hands of high-ranking officers. This makes discharging transgender people a more complex process.

Independent think tank Palm Center found that there around 12,800 transgender members serving in the military, the Washington Post wrote. Many have come out to their own units, but the Pentagon still lacks policies for gender-specific matters like uniforms, grooming and bathroom use.

In a recent speech at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Carter said being transgender shouldn't prevent a service member's success in the military. Accomplishing the mission is always the top priority, as well as the excellence and readiness of the force, Military.com reported.
Kids based in Baltimore without dental insurance received free dental care at the Kool Smiles clinic in Southwest Baltimore on Sunday. Kids with cavities, gum damage and other mouth problems were treated and sent home with advice regarding brushing and flushing.

Dentists and hygienists from five local offices of Kool Smiles spent the day cleaning teeth, pulling teeth and filling cavities for free. The dental event, known as "Sharing Smiles Day," was held at the Westside Shopping Center location.

Dental care is extremely important since it is an indication of the body's health, according to Dr. Jane Whang, the area dental director for Kool Smiles. The company then wanted to provide dental care for children to meet their needs, according to Baltimore Sun.

Although the company does not charge indigent families during emergencies, the event focused on dental education and preventative care for both parents and their children. Some of the children have never even been to the dentist before. Whang explains that in many cases, it's not that they do not care, but because they do not know.

Tooth decay is one of the most common chronic diseases in children based in the U.S. More than 40 percent of children suffer from dental decay by the time they reach kindergarten, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The sooner children begin getting regular checkups, the healthier mouths will stay throughout their lives, according to The Center for Pediatric Dentistry. Checkups can help prevent tooth decay and cavities, which may lead to pain, difficulty in concentrating and other medical issues.

Every child should visit a dentist as early as one year old, or as soon as the first tooth appears, according to the American Dental Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dentists can also teach parents the causes of decay, how to brush young teeth and the importance of encouraging kids to drink water, milk or juice from a cup.

In the past two years, Kool Smiles has held two of these events as the management plans to make it an annual event. Aside from prioritizing volunteer work, Whang explains that the company plans to sponsor mission trips to Ecuador and other countries that lack the same level of dental that is available in the U.S.
A protein that is part of the development of the placenta that may help improve treatments for repeated miscarriages and preeclampsia. The protein, called Syncytin-1, helps embryos implant themselves in the mother's womb.

Syncytin-1 was the product of a viral infection of primates 25 million years ago, Science Daily reported. The protein is produced on the surface of a developing embryo before it implants itself in the mother's womb.

Embryo protein may warn before miscarriage and pre-eclampsia https://t.co/EtYDZaDVLX pic.twitter.com/N8hcGHL5HN  New Scientist (@newscientist) May 12, 2016

Protein Seen To Help Promote Healthier Pregnancy

The development of the embryo in its early stages is necessary to improve the treatments for pregnancy complications, said The Hindu. Based on the study's results, scientists are hoping to develop blood tests to determine which pregnancies are at risk for complications and to create proper therapies.

"It will be necessary to see if embryos from women who suffer from conditions such as recurrent miscarriage have unusual syncytin production," biologist Harry Moore said, as per The Hindu. Moore is from the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.

According to New Scientist, the researchers analyzed 20 human embryos that were donated by women who were undertaking in vitro fertilization. The embryos were grown for up to five days until they became blastocysts or parcels of about 100 cells.

Protein Produced Within Five Days Of Fertilization

According to New Scientist, the researchers analyzed 20 human embryos that were donated by women who were undertaking in vitro fertilization. The embryos were grown for up to five days until they became blastocysts or parcels of about 100 cells.

They then coated the blastocysts with antibodies that create Syncytin-1 fluoresce. The cells around the outside of the embryo reportedly began producing Syncytin-1 between four to five days after they were fertilized.

Syncytin-1 triggers enzymes that break down the lining of the uterus. This permits the blastocyst to be implanted. It is then when the placenta develops.

What do you think about a viral infection turning out to be helpful in pregnancies? Write your comments below.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) of Virginia is making it easier for young high school graduates to enter the workforce. The legislation aims to transform how high schools prepare students for the future.

McAuliffe signed legislation on Thursday to change high school graduation requirements so graduates who decide not to head to college could be more prepared for employment. The legislation will also create a "Profile of a Virginia Graduate," which will identify the skills a student needs in high school and change statewide graduation requirements to meet expectations listed in the profile.

The move comes as an effort to modernize Virginia's approach to education and employment, according to Huffington Post. The changes will start by the fall of 2018.

The late state Sen. John C. Miller envisioned that high school students would have a choice with regard to which track they would want to pursue during their junior and senior years. Tracks could lead to post-secondary education, or work towards earning credit for industry certification, internships or apprenticeships.

In both cases, students will be exposed to training, guidance, courses and community colleges that are designed to ensure they are prepared to tackle whatever follows after high school. "Our students deserve much better and I know that our high schools can do so much more than they've done," according to McAuliffe.

Miller, who sponsored the legislation said that instead of sitting in an algebra 3 class where most students cannot see its relevance to what they want to do in the future, courses that could best prepare them for their career choice would be offered. The new proposal shed light to the fact that not all students want, need, or should go to college, according to the Richmond Times.

McAuliffe explains that high schools do not work the way they should anymore. Currently, high schools were built for the Industrial Revolution and has not changed much since the 19th century although graduates are competing for jobs in the 21st, McAuliffe said on Thursday.

The Democratic governor's plans to redesign Virginia's education system will not be limited to the state's high schools. He also announced on Thursday his intention to add an overall state budget of $1 billion for K-12 education and high education.
In the next 50 years, a magnitude-9 earthquake might hit the Aleutian Islands, says scientists from the University of Hawaii at Manoa(UHM).The probability of such a strong earthquake is low at nine percent but the cost of the effects are gargantuan, amounting to an estimate of $40 billion dollars and the gruesome possibility of leading to a mega-tsunami in Hawaii.

A new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research last April 20 revealed the 9 percent probability of an earthquake that will lead to a mega-tsunami in Hawaii, even if it hasn't experienced any mega-tsunami in recorded human history. The scientists disclosed a three percent margin of error.

The team of scientists headed by geophysicist Rhett Butler used a numerical model based on fault length and plate convergence rate.They used records of strong earthquakes that led to tsunamis since 1900. These are earthquakes that rattled Tohoku, Sumatra-Andaman, Chile and Kamchatka.

The process of studying these records of earthquakes was necessary to validate the study team's findings through the Bayesian technique. Bayesian.org says that the technique is useful for making consistent and sound decisions when faced with uncertainty.

"These five events represent half of the seismic energy that has been released globally since 1900. The events differed in details, but all of them generated great tsunamis that caused enormous destruction," Rhett Butler said, as reported by Headlines and Global News.

The study's numerical model was also compared to pre-recorded history of earthquake-driven, tsunami accounts. Without the records, the team had to look for evidence in coastal sediments, volcanic tephras and archaeological sites. Butler then reported that the study's model fit the paleotsunami data.

According to National Geographic, the Aleutian Islands run parallel to the Aleutian Trench. The Aleutian Islands have 27 of the total 65 historically active volcanoes in the United States. In 2012, Discovery already reported the possibility of a tsunami in the Aleutian Islands preceded by an earthquake, naming it a "tsunami-maker candidate."

According to the Discovery report, the Alaskan-Aleutian subduction zone is located at the edge of the tectonic plate carrying the Pacific Ocean that is beneath another plate to the north. The 9.2 magnitude Great Alaska Earthquake that happened on March 27,1964 is the strongest recorded earthquake in the U.S. and amounted to 145 deaths.

Alaska is 4,942 kilometers away from Hawaii. However, according to the study, a probable magnitude 9.0 earthquake is powerful enough to lead to a mega-tsunami that will damage the islands.

Do you think that with a 9% probability of a strong earthquake that will lead to a mega-tsunami, people should start preparing by now? Share us your thoughts in the comments section below.
Two-year colleges in California are lining up with President Barack Obama's plan to make community colleges free for all students. The state is doing this by offering free tuition, scholarships and other measures to help students study even without money.

Inspired by America's College Promise spearheaded by Obama, colleges in California have promoted free tuition, additional advising and mentoring and expanding summer orientation programs for the upcoming academic year. These colleges are seeking the support of local foundations, businesses and agencies that support Obama's movement, the East Bay Times reported.

California Cities Doing More Efforts

In Oakland, California, a $39 million initiative called Oakland Promise is offering a free semester of community college to new graduates. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said the state wants all students to finish their studies and earn degrees.

In Santa Clara, Mission College is providing $1,000 scholarships to local students via a program named Mission First, while West Valley College in Saratoga is giving a tuition-free first semester to 600 local high school graduates. San Bruno's Skyline College, meanwhile, is also offering a scholarship for newly graduated high school students.

The College of San Mateo is slightly different. It doesn't offer free classes for all students; instead, it is sending counselors to local high schools to help students with course scheduling. The college invites students to campus during the summer and establishes peer support groups for them in the pilot program.

California Community Colleges Have The Lowest Tuition Fee Cost

The California College Promise offers financial aid to community college students as well. Assemblymember Miguel Santiago said the scholarship program will shoulder students' books, transportation and housing costs, among others. According to Santiago, California's community colleges are the lowest in the country, with almost 70 percent of full-time community college students not paying tuition, ASMDC.org reported.

Experts said California's two-year schools charge $138 for a common course or $1,100 to $1,380 annually, the East Bay Times wrote. Two-year college students don't pay tuition because of a fee waiver set in 1984 for financially impaired individuals.

In January of this year, a legislative package called AB 1721 was announced to expand the Cal Grant program to cover non-tuition costs for community college students, ASMDC.org added. Funds for the Cal Grant will be increased thanks to AB 1721. More students will have access to the California Community College Transfer Entitlement Award by lifting the age limit from 28 to 31, as well as extending the deadline of the application.
When new education rules were introduced recently in New York schools, the goal was to help students learn English better. Unfortunately, New York schools are having a difficult time implementing these rules.

One of the new rules that many New York schools are struggling with is the bilingual education program -- which requires schools to create programs that use two languages in teaching classes. What makes this rule difficult for schools to implement is the shortage of bilingual teachers who have licenses in different subject areas.

"I have been talking to anybody who knows of a teacher who speaks the language so we can recruit," Education Department deputy chancellor Milady Baez told the New York Times. "It is very, very difficult."

New York Schools Struggle With New Rules to Help Students Learning English https://t.co/0OwmRUWws5 #education  Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) May 13, 2016

Another significant change that was recently introduced is that schools are now required to have an English language teacher to teach in the classroom every week if there is even one student that needs to learn the language. So why is this rule causing problems for both the schools and students?

"In the past, students could receive English language instruction outside of the classroom, while spending the rest of their time in a regular class trying to puzzle out the words on their own," the New York Times explains. Schools are also struggling with the financial resources given to them in order to implement the new rules -- with only a $1 million budget allocated for the entire state.

United Federation of Teachers vice president Evelyn DeJesus told the New York Times that the whole city of New York is not complying with the new set of rules due to the problems it creates. Along with the students' difficulty in graduating high school due to five New York high school exit exams, many educators feel that the education system in New York is currently in disarray.
It looks like there is a disturbing rise in the number of toddlers accidentally shooting themselves in 2016. While most of the parents of these children have been criminally charged for negligence, these parents are usually African-American. Now some are questioning why it's easier for white parents to avoid criminal charges for the death of their toddler.

The Case Of Holston Cole

On April 26, 3-year-old Holston Cole died of a self-inflicted wound after finding a gun in his father's bag in their home in Georgia. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (via Atlanta Black Star), Holton's parents David and Haley Cole were informed by the Paulding County Sheriff's Office last week that they will not be charged for the toddler's death.

The Case Of Kiyan Shelton Enoch

Just a few days before Holston Cole's fatal accident, 2-year-old Kiyan Shelton Enoch shot himself on April 20 after he found a gun in his mother's purse. In dire contrast to the Georgia case, Kiyan's mother Kanisha Shelton was charged with a felony count of a negligence of a dependent resulting in death. According to The Indianapolis Star (via Atlanta Black Star), Kanisha Shelton was immediately arrested but released on bond.

The Only Difference In Both Toddlers' Cases

The cases of Holston Cole and Kiyan Shelton Enoch seem much similar, except for one thing: The Coles are white while Kanisha Shelton is African-American. Shelton is only one of several black parents who are being criminally charged for the accidental shooting of their toddlers.

The Atlanta Cases

Some are quick to argue that the gun laws are different in Indiana and Georgia (via Atlanta Black Star), resulting in different charges for the parents. However, color appears to be a major factor in being criminally charged for accidental toddler shootings in Atlanta. Raw Story reported on Christopher Ashkins' arrest after his girlfriend's 2-year-old son accidentally shot himself while Grant Dennington was not charged when his own 2-year-old toddler killed himself while playing with his father's gun.
Are scientists playing to be God? This is perhaps one of the questions that pop up in a scientist's mind when they heard about Harvard University's secret meeting on human genome synthesis. The said hidden proposed project was under fire as it aims to create human life from scratch with the use of chemicals.

The Human Genome Project

At a closed-door meeting on May 10 at Harvard Medical School in Boston, it was revealed that scientists were reportedly planning to recreate a human genome. However, they would be using chemicals to fabricate all the DNA contained in human chromosomes.

The new project, initially called "HGP2: The Human Genome Synthesis Project" but was changed to "HGP-Write: Testing Large Synthetic Genomes in Cells," would be a follow-up to the original Human Genome Project that aimed to read DNA's three billion chemical letters sequence of human life. But according to New York Times, the latest human genome project would not be about reading instead, it would write the human genome by chemical synthesis.

What Is Synthetic Genomics?

Unlike genetic modification, the concept of synthetic genomics is qualitatively different compared to gene editing. Scientists would use chemicals to produce all the DNA contained in human chromosomes instead of patching a gene, Gizmodo reveals.

In addition, synthetic genomics relies on using the custom-designed base pair series of genes rather than the naturally occurring ones. Thus, geneticists wouldn't be constrained by the two naturally produced base pairs, opening more possibilities.

Human Genome Synthesis Project Sparks Controversy

The proposed human genome synthesis project, however, became controversial as it sparked both intrigue and concern in the life sciences community. In fact, some experts believed the prospect of creating human beings without biological parents but with the use of a synthetic human genome might be possible, just like in cloning.

Unfortunately, notable Stanford University scientist Drew Endy and Northwestern University bioethicist Laurie Zoloth slammed the secret human genome synthesis meeting at Harvard. According to Endy and Zoloth, the said project raised several ethical issues and moral implications, hence, such discussions should not happen in private gatherings, Fox News reports.

In an essay published in Cosmos Magazine, Endy and Zoloth wrote the possibility of human genome synthesis would trigger broader considerations. They also urged scientists to pursue the synthesis of less controversial and more useful genomes such as the real-time printing of plasmids, instead of synthesizing a human genome.

"For example, would it be OK to sequence and then synthesize Einstein's genome?" Endy and Zoloth wrote. "If so how many Einstein genomes would it be OK to make and install in cells, and who could get to make and control these cells?"

Organizers Defend Secret Harvard Meeting

Despite the criticisms, Harvard genetics professor George Church, who was one of the organizers of the meeting, defended the proposed human genome synthesis project. Church stressed the project is not focused on making a synthetic human but on creating cells and would not be limited to human genomes.

"They're painting a picture which I don't think represents the project," Church said.

Meanwhile, the delegates who attended the invitation-only meeting at Harvard included 130 scientists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and government officials from five continents. The primary goal of the meeting was to "synthesize a complete human genome in a cell line within a period of 10 years," The San Jose Mercury News notes.

What do you think about the latest human genome synthesis project? Share your thoughts below and follow Parent Herald for more news and updates.
Although it had been known for months that Apple was on the cusp of signing deals with Samsung and LG for next generation Apple device displays, it was still a shock when news leaked last month that Samsung had scored the first multiyear deal with Apple for OLED displays. A new report published today in Korea notes a forecast from UBI Research that Apple will use more OLED panels than Samsung by 2021.

On Friday, UBI Research hosted an OLED Investment Analysis Seminar, as noted in our cover graphic, titled "The Effects that Apple will have on Display Industry in Seoul, Korea." At this event, UBI Research's Choong Hoon Yi estimated future flexible OLED smartphone market share.

According to Yi, Apple is to begin releasing a flexible OLED based iPhone starting in 2017, and occupy 8% of the global flexible OLED smartphone market in that year. Following this, Yi analyzed that Apple will continue to increase market share each year to record 32% by 2020 and surpass Samsung by 2021 with 37% market share versus Samsung at 27%. At present Samsung holds 70% global market share for OLED displays.

At the seminar, Yi told the attendees that Apple is selling approximately 220 million units of iPhone per year, but the number is expected to increase to 300-million-unit mark and of that 30% of that is estimated to be OLED equipped products. He added that Apple's volume will increase to 400-million units by 2020 and 80% will be OLED.

With Apple's section of OLED, the competition for the product supply between global display companies is expected to be fierce. Yi forecast that Samsung Display will supply 60% of the demand, the second supplier 30%, and the rest 10%.

LG Display and Japan Display are likely to be the second and third suppliers. However, Apple's steadfast partner, Foxconn took over Sharp and became a strong candidate for this position. Hence, 4 companies could end up supplying to Apple.

The report also noted that "JDI also announced smartphone AMOLED panel mass production in January 2016 aiming for mass production in 2018. There is a possibility of investment for AMOLED supply for iPhone. Yi also estimated that Apple will conclude OLED emitting materials company selection by this August or September.

One of the tech sites covering the UBI Research event on Friday was the Korean Herald which added additional information. They noted that UBI Research President Lee Choong-hoon supported the rumor of a curved glass iPhone with OLED for 2018 (with some analysts still think 2017).

Interestingly, the Korean Herald noted that industry sources close to the matter confirmed that "Foxconn had recently purchased an OLED production system of Canon Tokki, one of the key equipment for OLED production whose supply is extremely limited.' At the moment the thinking has been that Foxconn-Sharp would enter Apple's OLED supply chain by 2020, but the news of the Canon Tokki advantage could expedite that time table.

Lee Woon-keun, senior analyst at LG Economic Research Institute, also cautioned about underrating the potential of Chinese display makers that have grown based on the Chinese government's strong support. He further noted that 'They have achieved goals set by the government. They are fast growing not just on quantity but also on quality.'

Under strict government guidance over the past three years, China has become the No. 2 market in terms of display panel shipments, holding 20 percent of global market share. In a recent road map set for 2025, the government plans to pour considerable resources into nurturing value-added, high-end display panels, including OLED, in the coming years.'"

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At the top of the month we reported that Apple's CEO Tim Cook viewed China in a positive light during Apple's Q2 2016 financial conference call which contradicted the gloomy view cast by investor Carl Icahn. It was then reported by Reuters that Cook was going to China to meet with China's government and officials in charge of propaganda to further discuss the reopening iTunes after a government crackdown on Apple's service. This weekend Apple's CEO was in China and spent time with the President of the hail-riding service Didi Chuxing, Liu Qing noted in our cover graphic. It was made public on Friday that Apple had invested $1 billion in the service that is likely to promote Apple Pay in over 400 Chinese cities. Didi Chuxing rings up 11 million rides a day which would be a great vehicle for Apple Pay.

China Daily reported today that "When asked about why Apple invested in Didi, Cook said on Monday 'because Didi has a very great management team and its objective is also environmental, hoping to help reduce pollution by making more efficient use of cars.'

Cook's carefully crafted statement further fuels speculation of the direction that Project Titan is likely taking with an electric vehicle.





Cook was in Beijing for an app store developer activity where Didi Chuxing's president Liu helped moderate the panel discussion.

"The thing I like to do most in China is to spend time with entrepreneurs. There are so many entrepreneurs that are driving the next wave of innovations," he added.

To help local developers go global, Cook said they are already technically strong and Apple will make more efforts to help them on the marketing side." Apple's CEO made no comment on whether he was in China to also meet with Chinese officials.

CNBC reported on Cook's visit as well this morning by noting that "After the seminar, Cook posted two photos of himself and Liu on his official Weibo account and said, 'Enjoyed sharing a taxi ride this morning to the Apple Store Wangfujing. Thanks, Jean Liu and Didi Chuxing!'

And in a formal statement, Liu recalled Didi Chuxing's development - the service was created from the merger of two ride-hailing apps, Didi and Kuaidi, before rebranding itself in April as Didi Chuxing, which means 'honk, honk, commute' in Chinese - since first appearing in Apple's App Store in 2012.

'Now we are serving over 300 million users with eight product lines. Every day over 11 million rides are completed on our platform' Liu said.

'Meanwhile, our collaboration with Apple enters into a new stage. There are many similar stories like ours. Apple and the App Store are not only the role model of the entire tech world, they are also the grass root platform for aspiring innovators. This is where dreams take off.'"

According to a new Reuters report, Tim Cook will be visiting India on Tuesday to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.



About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments.
This is a great story from Frank Morris at KCUR  Kansas City Public Radio  involving a Redemption Church member named White Hawk. I hope youll take time to read it, or listen to it. The story is about the effort to try and help get more of KCs homeless off the streets by building tiny houses.

The past few years have seen a lot of help come the way of folks who make their homes off the grid. Im grateful that more help is on the way. Tiny homes are an interesting way to try and attack the problem. They give more freedom and autonomy, which will be appealing.

What I like most about this report is that it acknowledges some of the complexities involved for homeless people. I know it can be difficult to understand, but I have many friends who really need to live off the grid. Often people living this way are suffering from severe addictions and/or some form of mental illness. When that is the case, the life they live off the grid is sometimes the best option. They dont want to get off the streets and back into society. They need to exist on the fringes of society.

Im thinking of my friend Roger, who used to pitch a tent in different spots all over the neighborhood near our church. The police comb the woods a couple of times a week, so Roger had to make camp at night and be gone by early morning.

Roger had paranoid Schizophrenia. The disorder was severe enough that he rarely went a week without some form of hallucination.

Early one Sunday morning I had a lot of work to do on my sermon. I got to the church office long before the sun came up. It was chilly outside, so I was bundled up. I had my bag slung over my back, a coffee in one hand, and my cellphone in the other. I was listening to the Morning Office with my noise blocking headphones, so I didnt hear Roger approach me from behind.

Holy Schneikes! I yelled when he tapped me on the shoulder. I nearly dropped my coffee. You scared the ___ out of me, Roger! He laughed so hard (Mostly that he had made me cuss). He hadnt seen the headphones until then, and genuinely felt bad for startling me. Then he got down to business.

Roger had spent the night on the church steps, but didnt sleep much because he was convinced that someone was watching him from inside the elementary school across the street. He had crouched behind a brick ledge and kept vigil against his imaginary pursuers all night long. He was pretty sure that I had called the police on him and was there to confront me. I talked him down and he finally let it go, but I got the feeling he was still suspicious of me.

Later on that week he had moved on to another conspiracy theory and came by the church looking for a ride to the bus station. He had gotten a ticket for vagrancy and didnt want to go back to court (I think he had an outstanding warrant). This time he was convinced I called the cops on him. We talked for quite awhile that day about his options.

Roger had been in the state mental hospital before, and never wanted to go back to that. He had done time in jail and certainly didnt want to go back to that, either. His life off the grid was about as good as it was going to get for Roger. He had some food stamp money each month. He had a dog to keep him company. He was able bodied, but not really of sound mind. If he was to survive outside the state hospital or prison system, it would need to be in the woods on the edge of the culture. Roger could have a decent life that way.

Im not trying to make excuses. Im just saying that I understand where these guys are coming from, and I cant say Id feel any different if I were in their shoes. I wonder what kind of society we would need to be in order to simply make space for folks like this to get some distance from the social norms of society, and try to find some kind of normalcy and community with each other. I wonder what kind of society we would have to be to just be content being in friendship with homeless folks, doing what we can to help, but not treating them like a problem to be solved.

Roger may never live inside again, and that is okay. White Hawk may choose to stay in the woods instead of moving into the tiny house, and thats fine with me. Im just glad he keeps coming back to Redemption Church.
New Delhi: The talks of 'Janata Parivar' merger suffered yet another setback on Friday when the scheduled meeting of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) President Lalu Prasad Yadav and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav in Delhi apparently to sort out difficulties in the unification process turned out to be a dud with Kumar being a no show on account of some medical issue.

The Chief Minister, who left for Delhi on Thursday to hold talk on the merger process with the two Yadavs at the SP leader's residence, however failed to attend the meeting on medical ground and instead sent the Janata Dal  U President Sharad Yadav to substitute for him.

"The Chief Minister had to undergo cataract operation in one of his eyes and that is why he was unable to attend the meeting," said senior party leader K. C. Tyagi.

However, Nitish detractors are not buying Tyagi's explanation.

"One does not suddenly decide to undergo an eye operation. These things are planned days in advance. Nitish Kumar went to Delhi to attend the meeting with the other Janata Parivar constituents and it is highly unlikely that he decided to get medical treatment in the last minute while choosing to skip the already scheduled meeting," said a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in Patna.

Sources said the merger talks have all but ended with both Yadavs having second thoughts about the political mileage they would derive if the merger did in fact take place.

The final nail on the collapse of merger talks came on Thursday when the RJD chief favored inviting former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi into the Janata Parivar fold  a suggestion immediately rejected by the Nitish camp.

"We have no intention of joining any coalition that has Nitish Kumar in it," said a Manjhi surrogate.

JD-U leader, however, deny the alleged collapse of the merger talks.

"The talk is still on but these things do take time. We are confident that we will contest Bihar Assembly elections together to ensure the defeat of the BJP in the state," said JD-U state President Vashisht Narayan Singh.
Siwan/Patna: Family members of slain journalist Rajdev Ranjan on Sunday demanded a CBI probe into his murder saying they had no trust in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar because of his administration's close proximity with former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammed Shahabuddin who, many are saying, ordered the killing of the Hindustan bureau chief of Siwan.

{gallery}newsimages2016/may/051516{/gallery}Ranjan's widow Asha Devi, on Sunday, said that she had no faith in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar because he was an ally of the RJD to which Shahabuddin, the incarcerated criminal-turned-politician, belonged.

"We cannot expect justice from this administration and therefore, demand a full CBI probe in the killing of my husband," Asha Devi said.

As reported, Ranjan was gunned down near Siwan railway station on Friday evening. Four persons have been detained in the case. One of the four men, Upendra Singh, is an experienced sharpshooter working for Shahabuddin who continues to run his criminal empire from his prison cell with frequent visits by both RJD and Janata Dal  U leaders.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Patna, supporting the demand of the victim's family members, demanded a thorough and complete investigation by the CBI and tough punishment for the journalist's killers.

Meanwhile, it was yet another day of protest in Patna where journalists representing both print and digital media blocked roads, took out rallies, staged dharnas, and burnt effigies of the Chief Minister demanding justice in the case.

Reporters from various newspapers and news portals also observed a two-minute silence in honor of the slain journalist at the Janshakti Press office in Patna.
News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
Cleric, daughter slammed for her meeting with Baha'i leader

05/16/16 Source: Radio Zamaneh

Faezah Hashemi and her father, the moderate cleric Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, have become the target of serious criticism by conservative factions of the establishment after the daughter met with a Baha'i community leader.



Faezeh Hashemi with Fariba Kamalabadi's family



Hashem Bothayi, a Tehran member-elect of the Assembly of Experts, described "friendly relations with members of the misguided Baha'i cult" as "treason against Islam and the Revolution" and he urged Ayatollah Rafsanjani to reprimand his daughter.

Faezeh Hashemi recently met with Fariba Kamalabadi, a Baha'i community leader who has been given a furlough after eight years in prison.

A photo of the meeting with Hashemi sitting among the Kamalabadi family in their home has raised some eyebrows, as the women other than Hashemi have no headscarves.

Bothayi has told Tasnim that the actions of Faezeh Hashemi have damaged her father's reputation, adding that religious concerns should take priority over familial bonds.

Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani has also been attacked for the actions of his daughter by an organization identified by Tasnim as the Independent Association of Islamic Students, which questions Faezeh Hashemi's support for Baha'i rights and describes it as an attack on Islam.

Faezeh Hashemi has defended her actions, saying Baha'is have "every right to all citizen rights in the country but are unfortunately denied even the most basic rights."

Iran's Supreme Leader has decreed that relations with Baha'is should be avoided.

The Islamic Republic does not recognize the Baha'i faith as a legitimate religion and Baha'is in Iran face severe persecution and discrimination.
Historic Iranian village of Abyaneh strained by influx of tourists

05/16/16

Source: Radio Zamaneh

Officials of the historic village of Abyaneh say they are faced with a tsunami of tourists. Mohammad Adeli told ISNA that the village faces a tsunami of tourists especially on weekends and holidays.



Abyaneh village



"Last Thursday and Friday, 40,000 tourists arrived at this historic village", Adeli said. He maintained that the high number of tourists has put serious pressure on the village's infrastructure.

He added that they have been forced to close some of the historic sites when tourists arrive in large numbers to prevent damage to the sites.

Abyaneh is located in central Isfahan on the slopes of Mount Caracas.
Drop in Iran's fertility rate frustrates official policy goal

05/16/16

Source: Radio Zamaneh

The head of Iran's census department has announced that despite the overhaul of population-control policies, the fertility rate in the country is on the decline.



Iran's Birth Rate

(cartoon by Firoozeh Mozaffari, Arman daily)





The report adds that gains of 4.25 percent in earlier years have suddenly declined to only 2.3 percent in the past year.

He added that Qom, Yazd Hormozgan and Hamedan have the highest fertility rates, ranging from 4.8 to 5.6, and Gilan, Lorestan, Kermanshah and Eastern Azeybaijan have the lowest, reaching as low as negative .2 to negative 3.4.

In recent years, Iran's Supreme Leader has withdrawn his earlier recommendation to control the population and called for policies to encourage childbearing.
IMF deputy director to meet high ranking Iranian officials

05/16/16

Source: Press TV

The International Monetary Fund's second in command is to meet with the Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Valiollah Seif, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh, and other senior officials. The IMF's First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton, who arrived in Tehran on Sunday, is also set to meet private sector representatives, bankers, academics and students during his two-day visit.

Lipton is also scheduled to give a speech for a gathering of economists at the Central Bank of Iran on Tuesday.

"His discussions will focus on the IMF's continuing dialogue with Iran, and Iran's economic developments and policy initiatives, following the recent lifting of sanctions," said a statement released by the US-based fund.

(L-R) China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, German Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and US

In accordance to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the Security Council and the US would be lifted. Iran has, in return, put some limitations on its nuclear activities.

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia - plus Germany signed the JCPOA on July 14, 2015 following two and a half years of intensive talks.

In relation to Lipton's trip, an IMF spokesman noted that the organization is currently not engaged in any economic program in Iran apart from statistical and technical assistance.
The best 2-in-1 laptop 2022: our picks of the best convertible laptops

These are the best 2-in-1 laptops you can buy right now
Google could face a record fine of up to 3 billion (US $3.4 billion) as soon as early next month as part of a six-year European Commission antitrust investigation into the companys search engine dominance, according to a news report.

A fine in the European Commissions long-running investigation, launched in November 2010, is expected by summer, according to a report in The Telegraph, which cited anonymous sources.

The $3.4 billion fine cited in the report would be less than the maximum allowed, which is 10 percent of Googles worldwide revenue, or about $7.5 billion.

A report from Politico questioned the timing of the potential fine laid out The Telegraph article, suggesting the commission wasnt close wrapping up its investigation.

The search engine investigation is one of two antitrust queries targeting Google at the European Commission. The commission is also investigating whether Google uses its Android operating system to hinder alternatives to its own smartphone mapping, search, and app store services.

A Google spokesman declined to comment on The Telegraph story.

A representative of competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the Google search investigation continues. We have no comment on the press speculations, the representative said by email.

The commission, in April 2015, charged Google with abusing its dominant position in Internet search services in Europe by systematically favoring its own comparison shopping product, Google Shopping.
Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted on Monday from Beijing a photograph of himself and Didi Chuxings President Jean Lui catching a cab, showing off the companys spanking new relationship with Chinas largest ride-hailing firm.

A $1 billion investment in Didi, announced last week, could be the harbinger of a long-term relationship that some analysts speculate could lead to the U.S. company partnering with the ride-hailing company not only in providing software and services, but also down the line in jointly developing self-driving cars.

Apple, however, faces a number of challenges in China. It has seen its revenue from the country, its second largest market, dip by 11 percent in the last quarter as smartphone uptake slowed down in China.

The company faces regulatory challenges as well. The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television is said to have ordered the company to shut down its iBooks Store and iTunes Movies only six months after the services were launched in the country, amid growing concern about increased regulation and censorship of online services.

The investment in Didi is likely to have gone down well with the Chinese government, which has attempted with considerable success to attract U.S. technology companies to invest in local companies. Some tech companies like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, AMD, and Intel have partnered with local companies as a way to get easier access to the local market. In February, Apple launched its Apple Pay service in tandem with bank card network China UnionPay, in a market where there are powerful players like Alipay.

Its unclear if Cook has any meetings planned with regulators, said Bryan Ma, vice president for devices research at IDC. I suspect that there are many reasons for his visit, particularly to build up his local relationships in China, including consumers and developers (not just regulators), Ma added in an email.

Apple An Apple Store in Beijing.

At an Apple store in Beijing, Cook attended a seminar Monday, hosted by Lui, with some of Chinas top app developers, according to CNBC.

Cooks mission

Apple did not immediately comment on the purpose of Cooks China visit or whether he would be trying to sort out the iBooks Store and iTunes Movies issue during his visit.

Cook is also probably sending a message to shareholders about the potential that he sees in China, show his commitment and confidence, despite all the questions that have been raised about a slowdown in the country, Ma said. Indeed, one could argue that the investment in Didi Chuxing is also a statement to that end, and of course him being there this week lets him spend time with that team too, he added.

Cook has said that he sees great potential for Apple in the Chinese market. In a recent interview with Jim Cramer of CNBCs Mad Money program, Cook said that the middle class in China is expected to soar from 50 million people five years ago to almost 500 million in the next five years. This is an unprecedented growth of the middle class, said Cook, adding that he could not be more optimistic about China.

Local vendors, such as Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo, are cutting into the premium segment that once Samsung and Apple considered their own, reported Canalys in April. Smartphone shipments in China grew by only 2 percent year-on-year to over 105 million units in the first quarter with Huawei, Vivo, Xiaomi, Oppo and Apple making up the top five. Apples iPhone shipments fell a whopping 15 percent year-on-year, while market leader Huawei had a 48 percent year-on-year increase in smartphones shipped in the country.

During his visit to China, besides building bridges to companies like Didi and mending fences with the government, Cook is likely to explore new opportunities for the company as well as size up the growing competition from local players like Huawei. Signing up developers may help him build the app and services ecosystem that could help Apple compete better in the market.
Solar Impulse 2 is one step closer to reaching its goal of becoming the first airplane to circumnavigate the world without using a single drop of fuel.

On Thursday, it completed the 11th leg of its journey by landing at Tulsa International Airport around 11:15pm local time. Bertrand Piccard piloted the plane during the 18-hour trip and was greeted with a lot of excitement from Tulsas mayor and city residents.

It was a stop that came as a surprise to many. The team initially planned on flying from Phoenix, Arizona to Kansas City, Missouri, but were forced to change their route due to high winds in the area. They were faced with three options:
BAGHDAD  The Islamic State group launched a coordinated assault Sunday on a natural gas plant north of Baghdad that killed at least 14 people, while a string of other bomb attacks in or close to the capital killed 15 others, Iraqi officials said.

The dawn attack on the gas plant began with a suicide car bombing at the facilitys main gate in the town of Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. Several suicide bombers and militants then broke into the plant and clashed with security forces. The dead included six civilians and eight security forces; 27 troops were wounded.

The IS-affiliated Aamaq news agency credited a group of caliphate soldiers for the attack.

Closed-circuit television images showed as an explosion hit inside the facility. As flames engulfed the facility and nearby palm trees, pedestrians were seen running for cover. A crowd gathered to watch as thick black smoke rose above the plant, sections of which were left in ruins. The top of one of the gas-processing units was blown off.

In a statement, Deputy Oil Minister Hamid Younis said firefighters managed to control and extinguish the fire. He said technicians were examining the damage. Hours after the attack, passers-by inspecting the damage posed for cell phone photos in front of the ruined complex.

Elsewhere, four separate bomb attacks left another 15 people dead and 46 wounded in the fifth-straight day of IS-claimed attacks in and around the Iraqi capital. Since Wednesday, more than 140 people have been killed in a spate of bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere.

The wave of attacks comes as Iraqi ground forces have achieved a number of key territorial victories against the extremist group.

Brett McGurk, the Obama administrations diplomatic point man in the international fight against the Islamic State group, told journalists in Jordan that the tide was turning against extremists.

This perverse caliphate is shrinking, said McGurk, a presidential envoy to the 66-member anti-IS coalition.

In the past month, IS has lost a swath of key territory along a supply route in Iraqs vast western Anbar province that the extremists had used to ferry fighters and supplies between Iraq and Syria. But after losing territory along the Euphrates River valley, that line has been cut, according to Iraqi and coalition officials.

As the Islamic State militants are pushed back along front lines, the group is increasingly turning to insurgency-style terrorist attacks to detract from their losses, the officials said.

However, despite battlefield successes against IS, Iraqs political leadership is in disarray as a deepening political crisis has gridlocked government. Parliament has not met for more than two weeks after supporters of influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stormed Baghdads highly fortified Green Zone. The breach followed repeated delays to government reform legislation that lawmakers claimed would fight Iraqs entrenched corruption.

Its possible that some of the political unrest in Baghdad has led (the Islamic State group) to think that they can somehow stir up more chaos than usual, said Nathaniel Rabkin, managing editor of Inside Iraqi Politics, a political risk assessment newsletter.

ISIS hopes that somehow if they just keep up the pressure, the Iraqi government will at best collapse or at least become incapable of pursuing a cohesive approach to fighting the extremists , Rabkin said, using an alternative acronym for IS.

While the U.S.-led coalition acknowledges the planning phase of Iraqi military operations against the Islamic State group has been slowed by political unrest, Rabkin says there is no evidence the IS terrorist attacks have had a direct impact on the military campaign against the extremists.

Besides the assault on the gas plant, Sundays attacks included a car bomb at a shopping area in the town of Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of the capital, that killed seven people, including two soldier, officials said. Eighteen people were wounded in the attack, four of whom were soldiers.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, three separate bomb attacks targeted commercial areas, killing at least eight civilians and wounding 28 others, police said. At total of 29 people were killed in the days violence.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.

IS extremists still control significant areas in northern and western Iraq, including the countrys second-largest city of Mosul. The group declared an Islamic caliphate on the territory it holds in Iraq and Syria and at the height of its power was estimated to hold nearly a third of Iraqi territory. Iraqs Prime Minister says the groups hold has since shrunk to 14 percent.
A small airplane crashed in the Angeles National Forest north of Altadena Sunday morning, killing a man.

One man was pronounced dead at the crash scene, Deputy Kimberly Alexander of the Los Angeles County sheriffs Information Bureau said. It was not clear if any others were on board the airplane, or whether there were additional injuries.

Rescuers searched the Angeles National Forest near Mt. Wilson for more than seven hours before finding the crash site after the small airplane vanished from radar amid inclement weather Sunday morning, officials said.

The missing aircraft was first reported shortly after 9:10 a.m., Los Angeles County sheriffs officials said.

Apparently, it went off radar, sheriffs Lt. Randy Tuinstra said.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer confirmed officials lost communications with the single-engine airplane.

We have a reported missing aircraft, a Cessna 182.  Traveling from Montgomery Field in San Diego to Santa Monica Municipal Airport, he said. Contact was lost 17 miles east of Van Nuys.

No witnesses reported seeing the aircraft in trouble, Tuinstra said.

According to FlightRadar24.com, the aircrafts last reported altitude was about 4,000 feet, below the elevation of nearby mountain tops.

Bad weather prevented sheriffs department helicopters from joining the search.

Visibility is very, very low right now, Tuinstra said. Were hoping that will burn off soon and we can get a better look.

Members of the Montrose, Altadena, San Dimas, Sierra Madre and Canta Clarita search and rescue teams continued scouring the area on the ground until the weather improved in the afternoon, allowing search helicopters to join in the operation, officials said.

The aircraft crash site was found near the 4,466-foot-tall Brown Mountain, in the forest north of Altadena, according to Deputy Juanita Navarro-Suarez of the sheriffs Information Bureau.

The airplane is registered to San Diego Skylane LLC, according to FAA records. It has a valid, standard-classification flight certification.
Its been two years since criminal accusations against three lawmakers rocked the California Capitol.

Charged with corruption and perjury in separate cases, three Democratic state senators were suspended from the Legislature in 2014 but kept earning their $95,000 annual salary for many months.

Now, California voters will get their say on a question prompted by that spate of scandal. Proposition 50 on the June 7 ballot asks whether legislators who are suspended from duty should also have their paychecks taken away.

In a year of weird ballot measures  should porn actors be required to wear condoms?  Prop. 50 may be the most unusual one California voters face.

Here are three reasons why:

1. It stems from a bizarre year in the Legislature  not a widespread problem in the state.

Most measures that make the ballot ask voters to weigh in on a question that impacts the masses: raising taxes, for example, or making marijuana legal. Prop. 50, if approved, would apply to very few people. Only 120 people serve in the Legislature in any given year, and the rules for yanking pay are unlikely to be applied very often. When the Senate suspended then-Sens. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello; Leland Yee, D-San Francisco; and Rod Wright, D-Baldwin Hills, with pay in 2014, it was the first time in state history that legislators were suspended.

Prop. 50 is a technical but important fix to the fact that the Legislature cannot suspend its members without pay under the constitution, said Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, the former state Senate leader who carried the bill that put the measure on the ballot. Its nothing more, nothing less than that.

The state constitution already allows legislators to be expelled. But Steinberg in 2014 said such a permanent action was inappropriate because the senators cases were still making their way through the justice system. Since then, Wright was sent to jail for perjury; Yee pleaded guilty to taking bribes; and Calderon pleaded not guilty in a corruption case that has yet to go to trial.

2. No one is spending any money for or against it.

By the time California voters weigh in on a ballot measure, theyve typically been bombarded by millions of dollars of advertising for and against it. Supporters and opponents of Prop. 50, by contrast, have spent so little money that they have not filed a single campaign finance report with the secretary of state. That means theyve spent less than $2,000 on a bare-bones publicity effort that consists of arguments in the voter guide and two simple websites.

The lack of spending reflects a lack of big-money interests involved in this issue. There is no industry battle at play; no unions or corporations stand to win or lose. The scarcity of publicity also indicates that supporters expect the idea will be politically popular.

The voters will look at this and say, It makes sense  you act badly you shouldnt get paid. But people have to look a little deeper, said Jessica Levinson, a professor of political law at Loyola Law School.

The measure sets a high bar for suspending a legislator  approval by two-thirds of the lawmakers house. But it doesnt lay out specific reasons a legislator could be suspended, prompting critics to say it could be wrongly used for retribution if a lawmaker takes a political stand leaders dont like.

This is going to be a great tool for them to use against people like me who stand up against the majority, said Sen. Joel Anderson, R-Alpine.

Anderson was the only senator who voted against suspending Wright, Yee and Calderon, arguing that it amounted to a paid vacation and the Senate should expel them instead. That would have stopped their paychecks and allowed voters to choose a replacement.

3. Prop. 50 is the only change of law on the statewide June ballot.

Californias system of direct democracy has spawned a slew of complicated policy questions voters will likely consider this year. Among them are proposals to limit the price of prescription drugs, put new controls on gun ownership and permit recreational use of marijuana.

But because of a change lawmakers put in place four years ago, citizen-driven initiatives must land on the November ballot. Legislature-driven measures  such as the constitutional amendment in Prop. 50  can still make the ballot in June.

That means that Novembers ballot will be one of the most crowded in years, with voters likely to confront about 20 initiatives. The June ballot, by contrast, asks only one policy question.

CALmatters is a nonprofit journalism venture dedicated to explaining state policies and politics. For more news analysis by Laurel Rosenhall, go to calmatters.org/newsanalysis.
Two weeks ago, the Riverside County grand jury issued a report recommending Banning start collecting money owed to it by the citys Chamber of Commerce, as well as calling for the resignation of the chambers executive director unless lingering issues are resolved.

The report detailed a probe undertaken by the grand jury at the recommendation of Banning Councilman Don Peterson and addressed years of questions about the relationship between the city and the chamber. In 2006, the chamber was given a 50-year lease in a city-owned building under terms that have yet to be fulfilled, including a requirement that the chamber create a $10,000 maintenance fund.

Additionally, from 2006-13, the chamber didnt pay its utility bills. In August 2014, Mr. Peterson requested that the city manager prepare a report on $30,000 in delinquent utility fees owed by the chamber.

As the chamber told the city at the time, and as determined by the grand jury, it appears the city and the chamber had entered into a handshake agreement under which the utility bills were waived by the city. In June 2014, the chamber did offer to pay three years worth of utility bills, totaling $15,800, in $32.10 monthly payments for 41 years. The city rejected the offer.

In 2011, following a failed lawsuit by chamber Executive Director Jim Smith against former councilwoman Barbara Hanna, Mr. Smith was ordered to pay the city $75,000. This amount has yet to be received.

The grand jury concluded that the chamber needs to fulfill its lease obligations and reach agreements on payments owed to the city. It also suggested the Banning Chamber of Commerce request the resignation of Mr. Smith unless he pays the amount owed the city, arguing the current situation conflicts with the chambers mission of fostering cooperative interaction among business, government and community.

The grand jury also instructed the council to take steps that might have been useful in preventing many of these problems in the first place, including publicly discussing any leasing proposals, avoiding handshake agreements and developing written policies to ensure compliance with agreements.

At its May 10 meeting, the council called on the chamber to follow the grand jurys recommendations or face eviction from the city-owned property from which the chamber operates.

While it is unfortunate such an obvious set of problems has been allowed to fester without being addressed for so long, were glad the time has finally come for action to be taken.
In an era when preserving vistas is increasingly cherished, Southern California Edison is planning to erect a 27-mile-long power line through the picturesque valleys linking northern Menifee, Lake Elsinore and Temescal Canyon.

Visions of 100- to 180-foot steel towers and overhead electrical lines slicing through southwest Riverside Countys landscape are provoking the consternation of residents and community leaders.

Edisons proposal calls for the line to run between northern Menifee and Glen Ivy north of Lake Elsinore. Edison wants to build the Alberhill substation just north of the city along I-15 in Temescal Canyon, along with connecting transmission lines. Both projects aim to meet growing demand for electricity and increase the systems reliability.

There isnt any single reason for these projects, Edison spokesman David Song said. Frequently, what comes up is we need to make sure we meet the projected needs of our service territory and make sure we provide interconnections for generators. For the most part, its really driven by (the need for) reliability.

Residents, however, are alarmed over the visual effect of the power lines as well as the substation, which would be visible from the freeway.

You might as well put up a fence and barbed wire on top because its going to look like a prison yard, said Temescal Valley resident Barbara Paul.

Construction of the facilities is at least several years off as the commissions environmental analysis is now in the public comment stage. That is scheduled to conclude May 31, after which a final report will be created, leading to the commissions consideration.

Among the concerns voiced by city officials are potential harm to aesthetics, biological resources, land use and economics. City Manager Grant Yates said Lake Elsinore will closely monitor the project and voice its views, including the potential for placing lines underground.

Undergrounding in some cases makes sense and in other cases it doesnt, Yates said.

We think there are opportunities to add to theoverall aesthetics of the community by putting (lines) underground as opposed to blighting an area. There are opportunities to do things right and were going to push people to do it right the first time.

If the city and community are bent on putting up a fight, it would not be unprecedented in the Inland Empire.

Temecula and Wine Country residents recall their struggle in the 1990s and early 2000s to keep high-voltage wires from being built through their communities to connect with San Diego Gas & Electrics system across the Riverside County line.

In 2013, Jurupa Valley sued the Riverside Public Utilities Department and Edison to challenge the validity of the environmental support for their joint Riverside Transmission Reliability Project.

It would have resulted in the construction of a 10-mile double-circuit 220,000 kilovolt transmission line running from northern Riverside to western Jurupa Valley.

The lines in Jurupa Valley would have went up by housing tracts, City Attorney Peter Thorsen said.

Subsequently, Thorsen said, the state commission ordered Edison to do a new environmental study because conditions had changed over the years since the original analysis.

Thats good, because all of the issues we complained about in the (original) EIR the PUC agreed with, he said.

Meanwhile, Edison is nearing completion of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project featuring 250 miles of transmission lines delivering electricity from wind farms in Kern County to Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

Chino Hills city officials opposed the project starting in 2007 while it was in its infancy. In 2011, when 200-foot towers propping up a 500-kilovolt line began popping up behind neighborhood backyards, the city and residents, led by the grassroots group Hope for the Hills, revolted. In July 2013, the state commissioners ruled in their favor.

In a historic decision, the Public Utilities Commission voted to order Edison to take down what they had built and underground the project, said Chino Hills Public Information Officer Denise Cattern. The underground project is of a nature and size that has never been done in the United States before.

Edison is wrapping up work on that 3.5-mile segment at a cost estimated at $225 million, including the $2 million cost of removing the towers. Given that undergrounding multiplies the costs of installing power lines, Edison seeks to avoid that strategy when possible.

In Lake Elsinore, for instance, work now underway placing lines underground along a one-block section of Lakeshore Drive is expected to cost $1 million.

Ed Fitzpatrick, a developer in the region, said undergrounding of a 115-kilovolt line costs about $1,000 per foot.

Its a necessary evil, he said. Youve got to have electricity and a way to distribute it.  It just cant be delivered without some kind of impact visually.

About six miles of the 27-mile 115-kilovolt transmission line proposed in Edisons project would run through Lake Elsinore, including its highly dense commercial and industrial district along the 74. Other sections outside the city largely would be located in remote areas or along existing Edison towers.

Lake Elsinore will bear the brunt of these impacts with these poles being put up all over the city, Community Development Director Grant Taylor said.

Song said his company would work with Lake Elsinore and other jurisdictions to alleviate concerns as much as possible.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9690 or michaelwilliams@pressenterprise.com
MILWAUKEE  Chris Carter hit a towering solo homer and a tiebreaking RBI double, breaking out of a long slump and leading the Milwaukee Brewers to a 3-2 victory over the San Diego Padres on Sunday.

Carter was mired in an 0-for-23 slide before he belted a 443-foot homer off the scoreboard in center field in the third. Carter, who finished with three hits, doubled home the winning run against Kevin Quackenbush (1-2) in the seventh.

Jonathan Lucroy also homered for Milwaukee, which salvaged a split of the four-game series. Blaine Boyer (1-0) got two outs for the win and Jeremy Jeffress worked the ninth for his 10th save in 10 opportunities.

Brett Wallace homered for the Padres.

While Carter had the big blow in the seventh, Zach Davies put Milwaukee in position to win with a solid effort. The right-hander allowed two runs and three hits in 6 1/3 innings.

Davies emergence in the rotation would be a welcome development for Milwaukee with Taylor Jungmann sent back to Triple-A Colorado Springs, Matt Garza still on the injured list and Wily Peralta struggling badly.

Lucroys fourth homer in nine games made it 2-1 in the fifth. But Wallace chased Davies with a drive to center in the seventh.

Padres starter Cesar Vargas bounced back from a tough start in a loss against the Cubs on Tuesday. He allowed two runs over five innings, striking out a career-high seven.

San Diego had the tying run on third in the eighth, but Michael Blazek got Matt Kemp to fly out to center to end the threat. Jeffress allowed a two-out double when right fielder Domingo Santana misplayed a fly ball before Jose Pirela grounded out to end it.

The Padres went 4-3 on their seven-game trip after winning two of three against the major league-leading Cubs last week.

FRESH ARM

The Padres called up reliever Tayron Guerrero from Triple-A El Paso, sending fellow right-hander Leonel Campos back down.

TRAINERS ROOM

Padres: Derek Norris (left hand) returned to the starting lineup, playing first base, and drove in a run with a sacrifice fly.  Regular first baseman Wil Myers was a late scratch with left forearm tightness.

Brewers: LF Ryan Braun had a precautionary X-ray on his irritated right wrist and was out of the starting lineup for the second straight day. Braun said the wrist began bothering him a couple of days ago, but he played through it. He is hitting .367 with seven homers and 27 RBIs and considered day to day.

UP NEXT

Padres: Following an off day, San Diego begins a six-game homestand when it plays host to San Francisco on Tuesday. The Padres will face Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija in that series.

Brewers: Milwaukee also is off on Monday before welcoming the Cubs for a three-game series. RHP Chase Anderson (1-5, 6.11 ERA) will face Cubs RHP Kyle Hendricks (2-2, 3.03 ERA) in the opener.
Eight people, most from other states, were arrested last week after investigators found 3,505 pot plants during a raid in Anza, the Riverside County Sheriffs Department said in a news release.

The sheriffs marijuana enforcement team served a search warrant about 7 a.m. Thursday, May 12, at a property off Tripp Flats Road, according to the Sheriffs Department news release. The rural Anza area is about 15 miles southeast of Hemet.

The team found a large-scale marijuana grow operation that included indoor greenhouses, the release said. The 3,505 pot plants were eradicated.

Arrested were Wisconsin residents Saobory Yin, 35, Avelino Partida, 28, May Yang, 49, Thoa Lee, 39, and Youa Kue, 51; Alabama residents Amme Lee, 32, and Thieng Sopha, 38; and Bountong Vatsna, 46, of Northern California.
UPDATE: It turns out there is a grassroots office for the Sanders campaign in Riverside.

ORIGINAL POST: She wont be there. But Hillary Clintons supporters will be holding a fundraiser in Riverside on Saturday, May 21 featuring California Secretary of State Alex Padilla.

Assembly members Cheryl Brown, D-San Bernardino and Jose Medina, D-Riverside, also will be at the event, which will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. at a private residence. Contribution levels range from $100 to $1,000.

Californias June 7 primary is somewhat anticlimactic given Clintons sizeable delegate lead over Bernie Sanders and Donald Trumps status as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Still, Clinton and Sanders are active in the Golden State, with Clinton opening field offices statewide and her husband, Bill Clinton, appearing at events throughout California.

Sanders, who has vowed to remain the race until the end, held rallies in Sacramento and Stockton last week. Hell be in Carson for a rally Tuesday, May 17.

So far, neither Clinton nor Sanders has opened an office in the Inland Empire. While the region is more Republican than the rest of California, Democrats have scored a series of victories for contested Inland seats and the region is home to more than 4 million people.

Also, no presidential candidate to date has visited the Inland area. Trump supporters have held rallies at Temeculas Duck Pond.
Former US trade representative to Africa and wife of Duncan Williams, Rosa Whitaker, has said that her husbands prayer is responsible for the appreciation the cedi is currently witnessing.

She was speaking in an interview with TV from her base in Washington.



It would be recalled that the archbishop of the Action Faith Chapel International commanded the cedi to rise during a prayer with his congregation after a consistent decline in the value of the local currency.



Many including the now ambassador to the Netherlands, Dr Tony Aidoo criticized the Archbishop and described his prayer as a comic relief.



But Rosa Whitaker who is also President and Founder of the Whitaker Group said she believes her husbands prayer saved the cedi.



I dont know why people thought it was funny, if you believe in the unlimited power of God and you have a currency crisis, why would you not apply prayer to that, its just that they just caught him publicly praying for that. He always prays for the Ghanaian economy, she said.



She agreed that prayer alone will not resolve the crisis but said that she and her husband believe in the power of prayer.

Source: tv3network.com









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Government made a profit of $23 million when it transferred some money from the 2014 Eurobond proceeds, Minister of Finance has disclosed.



Seth Terkper said moving out $150 million to a commercial bank was the best decision government took considering the money was lying in the Central Bank account without any interest.



Vice-Presidential candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia alleged that government has caused financial loss to the state by transferring some $250 million being part of the 2014 Eurobond proceeds to a commercial bank.



Dr. Bawumia, who is also a former deputy Governor of the Central Bank said it would have been economically prudent to leave the money in governments account than being transferred.



Reacting to the issue on the Joy FMs Super Morning Show, Mr. Terkper denied claim government had caused financial loss to the state by the transferring the money.



Terkper said the money has been in the account for two years without interest but within the space of four months after it was transferred to a commercial bank it made some profit.



He explained this decision marks a major policy shift for the government.



This is a paradigm shift we want Ghana to benefit, he Terkper said.



Answering a question about the delay in setting up the Ghana Infrastructure and Investment Fund (GIIF), Mr. Terkper said government wants to make sure it appoints the Chief Executive Officer as well as his deputy before the institution starts operation.



He however did not disclose when the GIIF will start operation.

Source: Myjoyonline.com









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The Standard Chartered Bank-Ghana has been caught in litigation with some employees after the latter launched a legal battle with management of the bank over Redundancy payments.



The situation is thus placing the bank in an uneasy situation, as its CEO Kweku Bedu-Addo is trying so hard to exonerate the Bank from what has been described as a mess, and to bring back the lost confidence into the Bank.



The situation was based on the premise that management of the Bank in a letter dated February 29, 2016 made staff of the bank aware of the termination of their appointments, but were eligible for consideration for a discretionary variable compensation for the year 2015.



The said letter which was signed by the Head of PR, Rosie Ebe-Arthur indicated that the staff will receive redundancy payment of GHS177, 413.40 after all deductions were made from their salaries.



Uncomfortable with the position as expressed by the Bank, some employees of the Bank have filed a writ at the High Court contesting the decision of the Bank and the Union of Industry Commerce and Finance Workers.



In their Statement of Claim, the Plaintiffs averred that, in view of the change in management of the Standard Chartered Bank worldwide, the newly appointed group CEOtook a decision to manage and control a lean and profitable bank, and the decision to restructure the bank was made known to them.



However, staff who were affected by the redundancy exercise were invited at various points and notified that their jobs were at risk.



They indicated that they were further informed that the 2nd Defendant (Union of Industry Commerce and Finance Workers) would launch negotiation into the terms of the redundancy package with the Bank (1st Defendant.)



Negotiations however begun in October 2015 without any efforts to include the Plaintiffs who were directly affected by the exercise to also make their inputs.



However, the Plaintiffs mentioned that, after sometime, they got wind of the redundancy package and became agitated hence made several frantic efforts to contact their executives from the Union but to no avail.



They pointed out that, the members of the Union of Industry Commerce and Finance Workers who were negotiating on their behalf did not know the length of service of each affected member although they negotiated for 27 people.



The Plaintiffs also stated that the MOU which was purported to have been signed between the Bank and the Union executives was executed in such haste that the 1st and 2nd defendants forgot to include the month by the side of the (35) that means 17.5 year is what has been offered despite the length of service of the Plaintiff which ranges from 26 to 35 years in the 1st Defendants bank.



Their Statement of Claim also has it that, the Plaintiffs were part of a special category of staff who by virtue of the number of years of service in the employment of the Bank, are recognized as such and offered a package that takes into account the number of years of dedicated and loyal service to the employer.



They noted that, the MOU dated 22nd January 2016 is unfair, discriminatory and not commensurate with the length of service of the Plaintiffs.



The Plaintiffs also said, the MOU is not in consonance with the agreement they signed with the Bank on 12th September 2014 which was capped for respective categories of staff of the Bank who have worked between 22.5 year to 47 and 49 months salary respectively.



In essence, the Plaintiffs said, the 2nd Defendant, Union of Industry Commerce and Finance Workers, did not seek their mandate in agreeing a package that is worse, particularly for the category of staff in which the Plaintiffs fall.



According to them they stand to lose if the Bank is allowed to carry out the redundancy exercise based on the package contained in the MoU signed between the Bank and Union of Industry Commerce and Finance Workers on their behalf.



Stay tuned

Source: New Crusading Guide









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Reach Beyond Names New President

Rev. Steve Harling to Head Global Outreach Ministry

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., May 16, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Reach Beyond, an evangelical media and medical ministry with operations on five continents, announced the appointment of Rev. Steve Harling of Foothills Community Church in Arvada, CO, as its new president effective Sept. 1, 2016.

Current president Wayne Pederson will continue in his role until September after which he will move to president emeritus during a planned six-month transition. Wayne's desire is to continue to serve the mission as an ambassador at the request of the board and the new president.

"Because of Wayne's leadership, Reach Beyond is poised for exceptional expansion of its ministry impact," said board chair Jim Gordon. "Wayne has led us through a period of dramatic change [in the last eight years], and we believe Steve Harling has the necessary skills and dynamic drive to build on that foundation to propel us into the future."

Rev. Harling said he is looking forward to leading Reach Beyond in the effort to fulfill its enormous potential. "Reach Beyond's unique approach of combining medical care with media ministries has touched the hearts of thousands who had never before heard the Word of the Lord, and I am excited to build upon that tradition."

Rev. Harling has spent 36 years as a pastor in churches of up to 4,500 members and has served for the last eight years as lead pastor at Foothills Community Church. He has led staff teams of 90 or more employees and thousands of volunteers. The son and grandson of missionaries, early in his career Rev. Harling served internationally as a missionary with SIM and as pastor of the Khartoum International Church in Sudan. He has more than 25 years of mission board experience with SIM, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Global Refuge and Bethany Home.

In addition, Rev. Harling and his wife, Becky, have been instrumental in mentoring and training many missionaries who are now serving around the world. "Perhaps one of Steve's greatest qualities is his ability to motivate and mentor people to maximize their God-given potential in ministry and missions," said Jack Harrison, a member of the Reach Beyond board and chair of the presidential selection and transition team. "We're thrilled that God has raised up Steve to lead us into the next era of ministry to those who have never heard the name of Jesus."
More wealthy Ghanaians are investing in Dubai property, encouraging a growing number of property companies from Dubai who are using Ghana as their destination to target buyers across West Africa, especially Nigeria.



Glamorous and sales girls are always seen in airport terminals and hotel lobbies in Accra, Tema, Kumasi and Takoradi trying to sign up rich Ghanaians to exclusive viewing at the emirates latest property developments.



Over $6 billion has been invested in Dubais property market by Ghanaians and Nigeria over the past three years, document by First Group, a property company based in Dubai has stated, noting that, Nigeria account for 60 per cent of all sales by the company.



Asked why he was considering investing in Dubai rather than his homeland (Ghana), Kwasi Damfi, an oil mogul told Business Day that: Dubai looks safer.



Mr. Damfi, whose only glimpse of the emirate came when he transited through Dubai on the way for medical treatment in India, added: Dubai looks like the world centre now if you look at the people coming in from all over the world. It seems to be a guarantee of a return for an investment.



Dubai has long been the regional hub for the oil-rich Gulf States, but the ambitious city state is never one to rest on its laurels. The emirate has for years been touting itself as the central node for 2 billion people, spanning the Middle East, the subcontinent, central Asia and eastern Africa. Now, even West Africa, an eight-hour flight away, is on its radar.



Paris and London have long been the hub for western African states, but Dubai is now giving these established centers a run for their money. Emirates airlines Dubai-Lagos flight is renowned for constantly being packed.



Some banks, such as standard Chartered, have chosen to cover some business lines in sub-Saharan Africa form its regional headquarters at Dubais financial centre.



Luring talents to the comfortable Dubai lifestyle is easier than some African postings, while reaching various outposts of the continent can be easier from the citys thronging airport than other hubs, such as Johannesburg and Nairobi.



As Chinese and Asian firms chose Dubai for their regional headquarters, often these businesses are not only targeting the Gulf, but looking to use the city as a launch chap into sub-Saharan Africa as well.



The Ghana-Dubai property love-in is still goings trough as the property market in general improves. Jones Lang LaSalle in a recent second quarter report noted that villa prices in Dubai had risen by around 20 percent over last year, while apartments in popular buildings are flat on the year.







Source: Business Day









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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President of Groupe Nduom, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom has reiterated his commitment to develop the Upper West Region of Ghana.



According to Dr. Nduom, Groupe Nduom has strategically positioned some of its key businesses in the region in order for development to take place.



He was speaking at the launch of Groupe Nduom Regional Office in WA, the capital town of the Upper West Region.



People say the Upper West is the poorest region in Ghana. Then it means it needs development. We have come here to help remove that tag from it, Dr. Nduom disclosed.



Some of Groupe Nduoms businesses that have been taken to the Upper West include the following: financial sector - GN Bank and GN Life Assurance; Media - First Digital Television (which includes over 30 channels); Manufacturing - FreshPak and GN Electronics; Technology - Qualtek; Real Estate, Yorke Properties.



Explaining Groupe Nduoms massive investments in the Upper West further, Dr. Nduom said no one can develop this country better than Ghanaians themselves and urged every citizen to work hard and contribute their quota for national development.



Touching on GN Bank, Dr. Nduom revealed that the bank will be listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange next year to float shares for the general public to be part of its ownership.



He said Groupe Nduom will grow and expand the bank to the extent that it even lends money to the government so it does not go to the World Bank or International Monetary Fund (IMF) for support.



Dr, Nduom also used the opportunity to thank all the competent and hardworking staff of their contribution so far to the company.



I want people to understand that it is not my family who manage everything but we have competent managers and staff who do it. This demonstrates that we as Ghanaians can do anything.



It's because of this that the Liberian bank came to us to help them. That is why we are in the UK, Cote d'Ivoire and now the US. It demonstrates again that the Ghanaian can do anything



That is why we say Groupe Nduom beyond excellence, he concluded.



For his part the Regional Minister for the Upper West, Alhaji Amin Amidu Sulemani, praised Groupe Nduom for its massive investments in the region and pledged government support for the private sector.



He charged the people to save with GN Bank so the bank grows and also urged the staff to work diligently and professionally.

Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/ email: [email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Rising cost of office space rental in major business districts in the capital, has significantly increased the cost of doing business for medium to large scale businesses, while small businesses are pushed to the brink.



A decent office space in the Kotoka International Airport area is offered for rent at an average of US$40 per square meter (m2 ), Spintex Road for an average of US$24/m2, Osu-US$20/m2 , and US$20/m2 for office space in Tema area.



This means that, for minimum of 100 square meter (m2 ), businesses in the Airport area will have to pay US$ 4,000 as rent, US$ 2,400 in Spintex, and US$2,000 in Osu and Tema area. The situation is compounded by the number of years rent advance businesses are required to pay.



Most landlords quote their prices in dollars, though payable in cedis at the prevailing rate, due largely to the instability in the local currencies to ensure they dont suffer any foreign exchange losses.



Though the high rental charged by owners of commercial properties is not captured by the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) Business Barometerwhich expresses the state of business confidence--cost of doing business has increased for large small and medium scale enterprises with the steep increases in the cost of commercial space rental.



The worst affected are SMEs and start-ups who are struggling to stay in business amidst the high rent payment, high cost of utility, inadequate supply of electricity, and the increasing tax burden.



Registrar Generals Department data shows that 92 percent of companies registered in Ghana are micro, small and medium enterprises (SMEs). SMEs also provide about 85 percent of manufacturing employment and contribute about 70 percent to Ghanas GDP.



Indeed, a key indicator of a growing economy is a vibrant Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector that contributes significantly to a countrys GDP.



A PwC survey found that the bulk of SMEs in the country are within the services sector, particularly hotels, restaurants, transport and storage, business and real estate.



This sector was the hardest hit in the two-year load-shedding regime the country was plunged into as a result of power generation challenges. Though the situation has improved significantly, the cost of power is so huge that small businesses who need constant electricity are folding up.



The AGIs updated Business Barometer cites exchange rate volatility, poor access to credit and cost of credit, and the plethora of taxes heaped on businesses by government in its frantic effort to increase revenue.



High rental charges in the capital and other major commercial centres in other parts of the country, is inimical to the growth of businesses and the creation of jobs on the back of the economic challenges they have had to grapple with for the last three years.



The Rent Control Department, which is under the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing, is not well-resourced to investigate and address this challenge facing businesses.



Indeed, to encourage graduates to venture into business, a conscious effort must be made to offer decent affordable business operating spaces to budding entrepreneurs, similar to the one created by some East African governments for start-ups and small businesses.

Source: BFT









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The National Communications Authority (NCA) says it will soon decide on whether subscribers should still be allowed to make calls over the internet with applications like WhatsApp, Skype and Viber or not.



The response follows calls by Telecoms operators like MTN, that is leading the campaign for a possible ban placed on this service.



This is essentially due to the fact that the trend is leading to huge losses in revenues accrued from international calls to the Telcos.



But in a statement, NCA says "the NCA is reviewing the situation and will in due course take decisions for an enabling regulatory environment that will benefit all stakeholders including both the operator and consumer."



The NCA adds that continued discussions are encouraged to serve as a feedback for the Authority. It noted that it was clear in the future the provision of the service by players will impact on revenues of network operators in so far as their current business models are concerned.



Below is the statement by NCA







PRESS RELEASE ON THE REGULATION OF OVER-THE-TOP (OTT) SERVICES



Accra, 5th May, 2016  The National Communications Authority (NCA) has been made aware of the current public discussions on Over- the-Top (OTT) services and its impact on the revenue of the Telecoms industry. We fully appreciate of the interest by the stakeholders.



OTT Services



OTT Services include applications and services which are accessible over the internet and in some cases ride on operators networks numbering resources and internet access services. Examples of these are Skype, Viber, WhatsApp, Twitter, Chat On, Snapchat, Instagram, Google Talk, Hike, Line, WeChat and Tango.



Impact of OTT Services on Telecom Industry



OTT providers make use of the Service Providers or Operators infrastructure to reach their customers and offer products/services that not only make money for them but also compete with the traditional services(voice, text and data) offered by the Service Providers or Operators. It is also generally accepted that the use of OTT services have contributed significantly to the growth of data service usage on networks.



Consumer Benefits



On the other hand consumers/ subscribers benefit directly by accessing these applications online from any place, at any time, using a variety of internet connections. OTT players offering communication services argue that such services (voice call, chat, messaging) are offered to users through the internet services provided by Licensed Telecom Operators and the Service Providers who levy applicable data usage charges to consumers.



Regulatory Implications



The Authority is concerned with the fact that most of these OTT players are generally not bound by regulations in many countries which orients market dynamics in their favour. OTT is among alternative calling procedure for which Ghana has not adopted as part of its licensed services.



OTT players are currently not under the purview of the telecom regulations in the country as they are not registered or recognized operating agencies under International Telecommunications Regulations. The lack of national regulations also poses a threat to security and safety because of the very nature of the communications sector. The challenges posed by OTT services from a national perspective warrants the need for the Authority to ensure proper regulatory balance and a level playing field in terms of regulatory compliance as well as the need to address the issues pertaining to security.



Way Forward



It is thus becoming clear that, in future, the provision of services by OTT players will impact revenues of network operators in so far as their current business models are concerned.



The NCA acknowledges that each of our stakeholders have specific concerns on this issue and as such is benchmarking with other countries. Whiles some have in a way regulated OTT services in extreme cases, other regulators have allowed its use and the Authority is keen to find out the benefits and disadvantages of this situation.



To conclude, the NCA is reviewing the situation and will in due course take decisions for an enabling regulatory environment that will benefit all stakeholders including both the operator and consumer. We urge the continued discussions and encourage feedback and comments on this issue to the NCA.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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The National Insurance Commission (NIC) has recently descended heavily on three Ghana Insurance Brokers Association (GIBA) member companies.



The companies are Insurance Consortium Brokers Limited, Risk Solution and Legacy Protect Limited, all in Accra.



The regulator has stopped these Brokers from doing business in the Ghanaian insurance market and adequately informed the Ghana Insurers Association and GIBA of the issue.



Although no reason was adduced for their stoppage by the regulator, it may not be unrelated to turning deaf ears to guidelines such as capital inadequacy.



As NIC makes frantic efforts to ensure that the insurance industry grows, it is also expected that all players abide by corporate governance structures since this is high on the regulators agenda.



Currently, the number of Insurance Broking Companies is now 61.

Source: B&FT









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Presidential Candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has charged Ghanaians to be mindful of their decision at the November 2016 polls.



According to the NPP leader, there is no need for Ghanaians to vote out President Mahama if they are convinced their lives have been transformed by his government.



Mr. Akufo-Addo disclosed this to some spare parts dealers in the Abossey Okai spare parts enclave on May 14 when he toured the area.



Look into your life today and that of your family, if you think things are going well for you then retain the one on the seat, he said in Twi.



However, he added, If you think like you are telling me that your living conditions have deteriorated then vote the NPP because we have a track record of fixing the currency.



The NPP also has a track record of providing a stable economic environment for you to do well in your business, he said in Twi.



Chairman of the spare dealers association, Ampadu Siaw used the opportunity to register the difficulties his members are facing so far as the worsening economic conditions in the country are concerned.



He told the NPP leader that there is a looming danger hanging about the neck of the association because many of the workers will be rendered jobless due to the imminent closure of shops by some of the dealers.



He called on Mr. Akufo-Addo to remember their plight when given the mandate at the end of the November election.

Source: JFM Ghana









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President of policy think IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe, has observed that the nation loses over $3 billion of taxpayers money in corrupt activities every year.



Mr. Cudjoe who based his comment on analysis of the Auditor Generals report said, corruption in state institutions is taking a toll on the economy and must be checked.



My estimation about grand corruption in this country looking at the numbers from the Auditor Generals report on an annual basis and doing an extrapolation looks to me about $3 billion a year. I think it may be conservative but I think it is significant.



The President of IMANI Ghana made the assertion on Citi FMs News analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday.



Debate about corruption in the nation has been ignited following President John Dramani Mahamas recent interview on the BBC where he said he has never taken a bribe before.



President Mahama also noted that his government has fought corruption more than previous governments.



But Franklin Cudjoe argued that if government is serious about fighting graft in the country, he should also direct his attention to the state institutions.



By the way the cost of corruption is not just grand corruption and not the ones that politicians engage in but the ones that you get from other public institutions, he added.



Prosecute indicted MMDA officials in 2014 report The Auditor-General, Richard Quartei Quartey, in his 2014 report recommended the prosecution of various officials of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) indicted in the report for various financial and legal infractions.



Whereas just 195 out of the 216 assemblies submitted their books for auditing, 21 assemblies failed to comply with the legal requirement.



Several public institutions were also cited in the report for various financial malfeasance.



The report also cited the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) for blowing GHc99, 663 on the distribution of Christmas hampers.



The report also stated that the Ghana Railway Company Limited, is said to be struggling to trace an amount of GHc25, 404 belonging to the company.



According to the report, the company received a total cash amount of GHc3, 422,574.76 at the end of 2009, out of which GHC3, 397,170.47 was sent to the bank leaving a balance of GHC25,404.29 which could not be traced.

Source: citifmonline









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As thought-provoking as African proverbs are, one cannot deny the fact that sometimes they can break your ribs. These carefully selected African proverbs below best suit such a fact.



Go on, read each one of these proverbs and please make sure you laugh in the privacy of your room before you get wrongfully admitted to the psychiatric hospital!



1. He who has diarrhea knows the direction of the door without being told  Uganda



2. Anger, no matter how hot it is, can never cook a yam  Nigeria



3. It is okay for a child to play with the mothers breasts, but not the fathers testicles  Guinea



4. Men would not tell lies if women asked less questions  Unknown Africa Origin



5. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers  Uganda



6. Its the fear of what tomorrow may bring that makes the tortoise carry its house along wherever it goes  Nigeria



7. Human excreta will always smell, no matter how small  Gambia



8. However much the buttocks are in a hurry, they will always remain at the back  Unknown Africa Origin



9. You have to be careful to kill a fly that has perched on your scrotum  Ghana



10. Theres no virgin in a maternity ward  Cameroon



11. The little opportunity given to a monkey to wear cloths, does not guarantee it to join the dinning table  Unknown Africa Origin



12. A man who counts his money after withdrawing from the ATM has trust issues  Unknown Africa Origin



13. Drinking gari doesnt mean youre poor but allowing it to swell before drinking is poverty!  Ghana



14. When a girl has beauty without Brains, the Private parts suffer the most  Unknown Africa Origin



15. The buttocks are like a married couple; though there is constant friction between them, they will still love and live together  Unknown Africa Origin



16. The man who marries a beautiful woman, and the farmer who grows corn by the roadside have the same problem  Ethiopia



17. A short man is not a boy  Nigeria



18. The frown on the face of the goat will not stop it from being taken to the market  Nigeria



19. An old lady feels uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb  Ghana



20. A person who sells eggs should not start a fight in the market  Unknown Africa Origin



21. Without fools there would be no wisdom  Unknown Africa Origin



22. No matter how far you urinate, the last drop always falls at your feet  Unknown Africa Origin



23. Because the sun is too hot does no mean the fowl will lay boiled eggs  Nigeria



24. The okro plant never grows taller than the owner  Unknown Africa Origin



25. Whoever tells the truth is chased out of nine villages Kenya

Source: yen.com.gh









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Three Law students of the Central University at Miotso, near Dawhenya, died on the spot when their saloon car collided with a tipper truck.



The accident occurred on the Dawhenya-Aflao highway about 8 p.m. last Tuesday.



Two others, the driver and the mate of the tipper truck, who were rushed to a clinic at Prampram and the Tema General Hospital, respectively, are said to be responding to treatment. The identities of the deceased, who were believed to be students of the Law Faculty of the university, have been given as Sedem Hodo, Nana Kofi Asare and Boison Kobby Junior. They were said to be between the ages of 21 and 24.



The saloon car, a VW Passat, with registration number ER 228-14 and carrying four male passengers, was heading towards the Central University, while the Benz tipper truck, with registration number GR 9697 X and loaded with sand, was heading towards Dawhenya from the Aflao direction.



The impact of the crash damaged the saloon car beyond repairs. The roof of the vehicle was ripped off, while the belongings of the students were scattered at the scene of the accident.



Speeding



Speaking to the Daily Graphic, the Tema Regional Police Public Relations Officer, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Ms Juliana Obeng, who confirmed the accident, said preliminary investigations indicated that the saloon car was trying to overtake another vehicle when it ran into the tipper truck.



She said the tipper truck driver was admitted at a clinic at Prampram, while his mate was rushed to the Tema General Hospital.



The PRO said the bodies of the deceased had been deposited at the Police Hospital in Accra, adding that the police had started investigations into the accident.



State of mourning



Meanwhile, the Miotso campus of the Central University was thrown into a state of shock after news of the death of the students reached their colleagues.



A number of the students were clad in black and red outfits when the Daily Graphic visited the campus on Wednesday. A cross-section of the students who spoke to the Daily Graphic expressed shock at the death of their mates.



We are very sad. This is not the first time such a tragedy has hit us. We are, indeed, pained by their demise. As you can see, the entire campus has been thrown into a state of mourning, one of the students said.



The student leaders were unavailable for comment at the time of filing this report, as they were said to be in a meeting.



Recall



This is the second time such a tragedy has occurred at the university in recent times. In March 2014, one student died in a similar road crash involving the universitys bus and a BMW vehicle near the Kpone Police Barrier.



The bus was conveying members of the universitys SRC to the campus when the crash occurred.





Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Bernard Antwi Boasiako (a.k.a Chairman Wontumi) is in hot waters after he displayed thuggery by slapping the Member of Parliament for the area, Collins Owusu Amankwa.



The incident which happened on Sunday evening at a registration centre named Nana Fodjour House in Krofrom in Kumasi shocked prospective voters in Manhyia North who had queued to register their names in the ongoing voters registration exercise.



Justice Isaac Bediako who works for Kasapa FMs sister radio station in Kumasi, Ultimate FM explained that Chairman Wontumi had earlier asked the MP to form a team to observe the exercise since the constituency executives are not recognized as such due to the dispute over their legitimacy to stay in office.



Hon. Collins Owusu Amankwa in acting on the directive to put the team together among other persons selected his special aide known as Aggudey, who is said not to be in the good books of the Regional Chairman.



Chairman Wontumi on his rounds in the Manhyia North constituency later upon reaching the registration centre saw Aggudey and confronting him and asked the latter to leave the centre, a heated argument ensued and the process, Chairman Wontumi in a fit of anger tried slapping Aggudey but as Hon. Collins Owusu Amankwa who was at the venue tried to intervene, a hefty slap meant for Aggudey landed like a thunderbolt on his face dazing the MP momentarily.



Hon. Collins Owusu Amankwa has since lodged a formal complaint against Chairman Wontumi at the Manhyia police for assault. The police has since commenced investigation into the matter.



Following the unfortunate incident, party members in the constituency have registered their displeasure over the disgraceful act by their regional chairman and have condemned him for stooping so low to fight another party member who was doing legitimate work for the NPPs good.

Source: kasapafmonline.com









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home World More than half a million refugees at risk as Kenya looks to shut down refugee camps

More than half a million refugees are at risk as Kenya has announced its plans of closing down its refugee camps in Dadaab and Kakuma. A Christian humanitarian agency warns this could be a deadly move leading to thousands of deaths among the refugees.

The Kenyan government plans to repatriate the refugees to their original countries or resettle them to third-party countries sometime in November until May next year.

"People who already live on the edge of death will most certainly die if the world doesn't respond immediately to this pending crisis," warned Vernon Brewer, founding president of the U.S.-based World Help group. He recounted witnessing the sufferings the Somali refugees had to go through every day, but also acknowledged that the world's largest refugee camp must have borne considerable weight on the Kenyan government.

"We commend Kenya for all it has done till now with what has a at times a been dismal support from the international community. Perhaps Kenyan officials would not feel compelled to take such drastic action if the international community were to provide more support to humanitarian and security services?" Brewer suggested.

The government has already used the issue of closing down the refugee camps before in order to gain political advantage during elections. However, this time the Department of Refugee Affairs has already been dissolved and replaced by a task force assigned for the closure of Dadaab, which holds 350,000 refugees, making it the world's largest refugee camp.

Eleven non-governmental organizations working in Kenya have come together in a joint statement released Tuesday, May 10, urging the Kenyan government to reconsider its decision. The eleven signatories include the International Rescue Committee, World Vision, the Danish Refugee Council, Jesuit Refugee Service, Action Africa, Help International, the Lutheran World Federation, OXFAM, the Refugee Consortium of Kenya, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and Heshima Kenya.

Mwenda Njoka from Ministry of the Interior told the Voice of America that the main reason behind the forthcoming closure is concerns over security. He recalled the terrorist attack made on Westgate Mall in September 2013 and shared that some of those responsible had links to Dadaab refugees. However, a senior refugee researcher for Human Rights Watch, Gerry Simpson, refutes the allegation saying there's "not a single shred of evidence" to support it.
Embattled Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Bernard Antwi Boasiako a.k.a Chairman Wontumi, has accused the Ashanti Regional Police Commander DCOP Kofi Boakye of being heavily compromised in the discharge of his duties and only doing the bidding of President John Mahama.



According to him, the commander who is widely seen as one of Ghanas finest police officers has purposed in his heart and mind to only do things that will serve President Mahamas interest in the upcoming general elections.



He however said the NPP will not sit aloof to allow that to happen in its stronghold.



Chairman wontumi has been trending in the media in the past week after he showed his thuggery best on May 1, when he slapped his fellow party member, Collins Owusu Amankwaa whos the Member of Parliament for Manhyia North at a registration centre as he monitored the ongoing Limited Voters Registration exercise.



Following the disgraceful act, the police declared Chairman Wontumi wanted after which he turned himself in on Tuesday but was detained.



He was later arraigned before court on Wednesday May 4 on charges of an assault of a public officer. The Magistrate Court at Asokwa later granted him bail to the sum of GHC 20,000 and is scheduled to re-appear in court on June 1.



But speaking on Kasapa FM, Chairman Wontumi who described DCOP Kofi Boakye as an agent for President Mahama said the former acted and got him arrested on the orders of President Mahama.



Kofi Boakye is an agent for Mahama, he has said he got me arrested based on orders from above. He himself is aware. He is being paid by the President and his brother to do such things. I dont fear his causing my arrest; I maintain that hes an agent for Mahama.



Meanwhile, Kasapafmonline.com tried unsuccessfully to reach DCOP Kofi Boakye for his reaction.

Source: kasapafmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Apinto Divisional Council of the Wassa-Fiase Traditional Area in the Western Region of Ghana has been highly tipped for paramountcy for their active role in development and chieftaincy affairs.



The Apinto Stool, which has Awodua as its Traditional seat, was the first place gold was discovered in Ghana and has since been the major destination for many mining companies including Tarkwa Goldfields Company, Liberty Gold Mining Company, Anglogold Ashanti (Iduaprime Mines) among others.



The Apinto stool shares boundaries with the Esuoso Stool on the South, Bosomtwi stool on the east, Tarkwa Breman Stool on the North and the Ankobra River on the West. It is also the biggest divisional council with largest landscape within the WassaFiase Traditional Area



Despite its rich culture coupled with the abundance of natural resources, Apinto, (which has a crocodile with gold in its mouth as its emblem) is yet to attain the status of paramouncy even though it has demonstrated and indeed, met all the requirements for that status.



The Apinto Divisional Council has about 60 big communities, notably among them are Tarkwa, Huni-Ano, Bonsra, Gordon, Asama Kakraba, Bokrekrom, BeinaAkyem and Yareyeya New Atuabo . The Great River Ankobra is also found within the jurisdiction of this Divisional Stool.



Our investigation reveals that, there are ten Black Stools under the Apinto Traditional Council, making it the biggest in the Wassa-Fiase Traditional Council.



We further discovered that, the office of the Traditional Council is situated in Tarkwa; one of the most popular towns under the Apinto Divisional Council .Another unique defining feature of the Apinto Council is its ability to bring development to the doorsteps of the people with little government intervention.



The only source of funding for their development projects is the royalties they get from some of the big mining companies operating in the area as well other business concerns operating in the area especially those in areas of construction, rubber plantation and cocoa farming.



It is important to mention that, for a Divisional Stool to be elevated to a Paramouncy, it must meet some criteria including; the size of the land, the number of stools it controls , a top-notch or befitting palace , the number of communities, the rate of development among others.



The Apinto Divisional Council is on the verge of satisfying all these requirements. And it is information that, processes to confer this status on Apinto are far advanced.







Social Interventions by Apinto Stool



The Divisional Council has embarked on a number of social intervention programs for the past thirty years with Stool revenue. The Council singlehandedly, extended electricity to many homes by providing electricity poles.



It also has in place a scholarship scheme, which has supported school children from poor homes right from the basic to tertiary level. The scheme, which mainly gets its funding from royalties collected from the mining companies, has supported thousands of people over the years.



It has put up Teachers Quarters for several schools and also rehabilitated several school buildings. Currently, plans are far advanced to construct a first class road from Awodua to HuniNso on the old railway line.



The instrumentality of the Council is also yielding Nurses' Quarters for some hospitals. The initiative is being sponsored by the Nkosuohene (Development Chief), Nana Kweku Gyedu known in private life as Mr Samuel Amoh Tobin; the Group Chairman of Tobinco Group of companies. Nana Gyedu is also supporting the construction of Community center and ICT Centers.



Further revelations indicate that, there are other developmental projects being carried out under the auspices of the newly installed Gyaasehene of the Apinto Divisional Council; Nana Kwao Bediako III known in private life as Dr Peter EboTobin, who also doubles as the Administrative Secretary.









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A 24-year-old man met his untimely death Friday afternoon in Sunyani after he got trapped between a tipper truck loaded with chippings and a concrete entrance.



Joy News correspondent Precious Semevor said the deceased, Abdul Salifu visited Sunyani from Kremo-krom a suburb of Atronie in the Sunyani East district. He was in town to start the process of enlistment into the Ghana Police Service.



Salifu was reported to be walking by the side of the road with his documents when he got trapped between the entrance of Silver House, a popular drinking spot and the side of an 18 cubic metres tipper truck.



The truck loaded with chippings according to sources was parking on the concrete slabs covering the gutter in front of the spot when the slabs caved in trapping Salifu in the process.



He died before he could be removed. The body has been deposited at the Sunyani mortuary.

Source: myjoyonline









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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President John Dramani Mahama has stated that the fight against corruption is an uphill task which needs a partnership of the willing to be able to tackle.



Admitting that the nation had more work to do in battling the canker, he said all must come together in the fight.



Speaking to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on the sidelines of the UK Prime Ministers Anti-corruption Summit in London yesterday, the President said corruption had become a major national issue because people were able to discuss it more freely.



But he was quick to add that his approach to the fight had been phenomenal, compared to the past.



He said in the past people were asked to bring evidence before allegations of corruption were investigated but he had ensured that allegations of corruption were quickly investigated to bring the perpetrators to book.



I have not taken bribe



Asked whether he had ever taken bribe, the President answered in the negative.



I have not taken a bribe. Any human being would have encountered corruption in one way or another, he said, adding that what was important was to be in a position to resist it.



Contracts



On contracts awarded by officials, the President said the circumstances under which sole sourcing was applied were being reviewed.



Now I have given a directive that every contract that is sole-sourced must be subjected to value for money, so that the people of Ghana do not lose out, he said.



Commitment



Meanwhile, Ghana has expressed its commitment to prevent the misuse of companies and legal arrangements to hide the proceeds of corruption.



Presenting Ghanas position on corruption at the summit, the President said the government would further strengthen the Companies Bill and the Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Bill currently before Parliament to ensure that beneficial ownership information for all sectors, including the oil and gas sector, was made public.



That would be done in line with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations, as well as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) standards that Ghana was implementing.



Preventing facilitation of corruption



Explaining how Ghana was preventing the facilitation of corruption, the President said, Ghana is strengthening measures to combat money laundering and countering financing of terrorism, corruption and other predicate offences.



He added that the country was committed to implementing the recommendations contained in the National Risk Assessment Report of Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) launched in Accra on April 28, 2016 as soon as the implementation plan was validated.



He said openness was the watchword in public procument, adding: We will continue to blacklist and debar service providers and contractors who engage in corrupt and other related misconduct in public procurement.



On improving transparency in commodity markets, he said, As an oil producing country, we welcome the invitation to partner major trading hubs to explore the scope for a common global reporting framework for oil sales transparency and working in partnership with key producer countries which have suffered from theft of oil revenue through grand corruption.



Reporting corruption



President Mahama also said legislation was being strengthened and through that, together with other measures, the country hoped to enhance the capacity of the public and encourage them to report corruption without fear of victimisation.



On asset recovery, he said Ghana was committed to strengthening further its asset recovery capability, including amending relevant legislation and introducing unexplained wealth orders legislation; and exploring the possibility of expanding the scope of its non-conviction based forfeiture legislation and also adopting measures to manage and regulate the administration of frozen, seized or confiscated property.



Tax transparency



Ghana has signed onto the Addis Tax Initiative, as well as the Common Reporting Standard Initiative, and commits to strengthen partnerships with other countries to lift bank secrecy and curb tax avoidance by companies registered in offshore tax havens, President Mahama said.



While stressing integrity as one of the fundamental principles of Ghanaian society and cornerstone of the democratic dispensation,he said, As part of efforts to promote integrity in our institutions, Ghana welcomes partnerships that will enable anti-corruption agencies and other institutions in its public sector to learn and exchange information.



He stated that Ghana would, therefore, play an active role in the Anti-corruption Innovation Hub with a view to improving information management to combat corruption and consider taking part in the people-powered anti-corruption programme.



The fight against corruption can succeed if countries cooperate effectively to tackle it, but it is important to bear in mind that no one-size-fits-all solution is possible. We reiterate Ghanas commitment to the fight against corruption. Ghana, therefore, endorses the high level goals of the summit as they generally align to the countrys own strategy to combat corruption, the President concluded.

Source: Graphic.com.gh









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide Newspaper, Kweku Baako Jnr has challenged the Ministry of Finance and the Board of the Ghana Infrastructure and Investment Fund (GIIF) to show proof by documentation that a decision was taken to invest a whopping $250m of the 2014 Eurobond proceeds to a private bank.



According to him, there must be a convincing proof that serious thinking went into that exercise which has become a subject of controversy.



Vice-Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia while addressing students of the Accra Polytechnic on May 5, asserted governments transfer of some $250 million of the 2014 Eurobond proceeds to a private bank is an example of the reckless management of Ghanas debts.



He claimed the funds ostensibly transferred to UBA on behalf of the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) amounts to a breach of the Bank of Ghana Act 2002 (Act 612).



However, Finance Minister, Seth Terkper denied government has breached the law by transferring the money to a commercial bank.



He said the decision has rather earned the country a profit of $23 million. This would not have been possible had the money been left in governments account, he added.



He also said the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) is a statutory fund as the GETfund, NHIA and the DACF in the country.



But Dr. Bawumia said the ministers comparison of the GIIF to the GETfund and NHIA is basically comparing apples with oranges.



He said the minister should rather compare the GIIF to the Petroleum Fund which is also kept at the Bank of Ghana under the Petroleum revenue Management Act.



He expressed worry about governments claim that the money was lying idle in the account.



The government is claiming that the funds were idle Really? he asked.



What does that mean? Why do you borrow funds and pay interest on it if you do not have use for them at the moment? It is clear that the GIIF does not have a portfolio of projects ready to invest in and it is weird to allocate a whopping sum of $250 million to them at this time. Is the Minister aware that the country owes N-Gas some $100 million?



But speaking on Joy FMs News Analysis show News File Saturday, Kweku Baako Jnr wondered what policy decision that drove the choice to remove the money from Bank of Ghana.



Is Bank of Ghana incapable or disabled by law from using the money that was within its domain to do something that would have accrued interest?does the Bank of Ghana Act disable the Central Bank from applying that amount of money while we were waiting for the Investment Fund to take off properly. A decision taken that this huge amount of money goes to one particular bank for the bank and the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Bank to do some transaction with itwhere is the record. I want to see the documentation; I want to be convinced that serious thinking went into this exercise.



And while this thinking was proceeding it was decided that Bank of Ghana was not the best platform to use to make interest. Because weve been told now that weve gain GHC 23m so the money would have been lying idle is it true that the money, if the policy and decision makers did not want the money to lie idle, could bank of Ghana not be triggered to ensure that, that money lying idle there would not lie idle but would also gain interest? Is there a law that stopping the Bank of Ghana from doing anything that would have helped to ensure that that $ 250m could have been applied in the interest of the public and the GIIF?



There must be a certain reason that would be compelling, persuasive and convincing that if it was Bank of Ghana that ought to do it because the law does not disable it, we may not be gaining, but as a country well gain by using a singular bank called UBA.









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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New Patriotic Party (NPP) Communicator Nana Boakye has lambasted some functionaries within the ruling NDC for branding the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) as pro-NPP.



According to Nana Boakye, some NDC government functionaries have argued that the IEA is doing the bidding of the NPP to oust the incumbent government from office.



Following the IEA announcement of their 2016 Pre-Election Debate Series, the Deputy General Secretary and National Youth Organizer, George Lawson and Kofi Adams have thrown tantrums at the IEA.



George Lawson described as ridiculous the proposal by the IEA to engage President John Dramani Mahama and opposition NPP Presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo while the latter labeled the Institute as behaving like a "headmaster".



Koku Anyidoho, a Deputy General Secretary of the ruling party, also accused the Institute of showing their "true NPP colours" in their recent actions.



Speaking on Okay FM's "Ade Akye Abia" Morning Show, Koku Anyidoho alleged that the IEA Boss Jean Mensah is in cahoots with the Danquah Institute to disrupt Ghana's democracy.



Jean Mensa is trying desperately to make herself more relevant than Charlotte Osei but IEA is a private institution belonging to Jean Mensa and her husband and yet she thinks that Charlotte Osei should be taking instructions from her; so to the extent that Charlotte Osei will not heed to her views, she will go into an alliance with Danquah Institute, the NPP people and be creating all these issues, he alleged.



Responding to the issues on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', Nana Boakye wondered why the ruling NDC members are on the neck of the Institute.



To him, the NPP Presidential candidate is the "most ridiculed" personality on the IEA Debate platform.



He alluded to the 2012 Pre-Election debate series which saw in attendance President John Dramani Mahama, Nana Addo, Dr. Abu Sakara then candidate for the Convention People's Party (CPP) and PNC former flagbearer Hassan Ayariga.



He recounted that during the debate series, Hassan Ayariga intermittently and consistently "coughed" to interrupt the submissions of Nana Addo and yet he was not sanctioned.



He continued that Hassan Ayariga further referred to Nana Addo as his "grandfather" on the platform and again he went scot free.



Nana Boakye stressed that there is no way the IEA can be said to be in bed with the New Patriotic Party due to the behaviour of the PNC former Presidential candidate which was shown on the IEA platform.

Source: Adu Gyamfi Ameyaw/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana/email address: [email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Deputy General Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) Koku Anyidoho says he disagrees with Pastor Mensa Otabil that Ghana is hard under the Mahama-led administration.



According to him, Pastor Otabils assertion was unfortunate and of a political reason  even though Koku admits that Ghana has faced some challenges over the years.



Challenges we know there are challenges, serious ones that we are trying to overcome and we (NDC) are not running away from that, he said.



The founder and leader of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) who was recently adjudged the Most Influential Ghanaian was quoted to have said  There are moments in our lives when we need a word of encouragement from the word of God and as a pastor, I sense those moments because I believe that we are living in tough times in Ghana.



Sometimes, when you look at life in this country, you feel as if not only is life hard, but we want to make it impossible for us to live our life. I was telling my wife yesterday, I said: We are not nice to ourselves. Ghana is not nice to itself, lets treat ourselves well; just make life better for ourselves, but it looks like there is a deliberate effort to keep you down and subservient and to make you never lift up your head Dr Otabil lamented.



But speaking on NEAT FMs morning show dubbed 'Ghana Montie', Koku Anyidoho questioned if Ghana has not experienced hardship before during the NPP era.



Sometimes you cant understand Otabil. Is this the first time Ghana is facing hardship? he quizzed.



So between 2001 and 2008, Ghana wasnt hard? We thank Otabil but the NDC will continue to transform lives and majority of Ghanaians will appreciate the work President Mahama is doing he added

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Washman007









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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On Saturday, May 14, 2016 the Convention Peoples Partys Presidential Campaign took a new twist when on leaving Wa to Nandom the team visited the prison grounds at Lawra where Kwame Nkrumah was detained upon the arrest of the Big Six following the 1948 disturbances.



The actual structure that Nkrumah was kept in was believed to have been pulled down by some aggressive civil servant who only regretted the action after he was told what the building represented. At the Prison grounds, the emotionally charged Kobina Greenstreet decried the poor state of our prisons as well as the demotivating conditions of service under which personnel of the Prisons Service operated.



Recounting the occurrences which led to the arrest and detention of Osagyefo, Prof Edmund Delle said political struggles and the success that follow never come about without sacrifice. Osagyefo and his compatriots suffered and paid the price of imprisonment because of the path they had chosen to liberate their people from the shackles of colonialism and imperial dictatorship of dehumanization.



Prof Delle further said Greenstreet like Nkrumah had overcome many obstacles such as being in a wheel chair as a result of a near fatal car accident to become the Presidential Candidate of the CPP. I have survived eleven (11) crashes including one plane crash myself but I am still alive.



He added that it was Gods own plan and purpose that they could go through all that and be alive today. It is God who ordains leaders. The courage, bravery, wisdom and sincerity of Greenstreet only reminds me of our great leader Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.



Lawyer Greenstreet additionally in his speech said; there is too much injustice in our society. There is too much unfairness and inconsistencies. We owe it a duty to ourselves to change the status quo.



The tendency where we allow culprits to get away with their crimes while the innocent suffer with some languishing in jail would be tackled head on under the Apam Fofor leadership of the CPP. The Lawyer who wants justice for all added.



At Lawra, there was a mini rally with mainly the persons with disabilities where Mwini Sumbo as Apam Fofor translates in Walla and Dagaare was explained to represent the new dawn of Ghanaian politics.



The CPP Presidential hopeful cried; do not be afraid of the wheel chair. In this world no one knows the circumstances of tomorrow. What is important is the purity of your heart and desires. What is necessary is your positive, forward looking thoughts. What is noble is your courage, sincerity, truthfulness, love for others and the willingness to serve your nation as well as the readiness to sacrifice.



We are not going to relent in our effort to engage the whole of Ghana. But our success would depend on your acceptance of the challenge to become an organizer and a mobilizer of people for the cause which has brought us here today.



Incidentally, at a separate function which was held closer by for the association of hairdressers and had as the guest of honour DCE Derry who was in crutches as a result some recent health challenges, Mr Greenstreet was given an opportunity to speak.



Mr. Greenstreet, the first man in a wheel chair to dare an attempt at becoming a Presidential Candidate thus the Office to the President of the Republic lamented over the disrespect that is often shown persons with disabilities in Ghana. From our homes and families, to our schools and hospitals or within governmental structures we are disrespected because they dont care about us. This is our chance to prove to all and sundry that we are able despite the challenges we live with.



He charged the group to be hopeful and press on the best way they could. Additionally he said no one would seek their interest if they failed to fight for themselves.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has released the first report of its campaign language monitoring project. The report, which is based on monitoring of 516 programmes on 40 radio stations for the period April 18-30, 2016, names political parties whose officials, affiliates and supporters used abusive language; individuals and radio presenters who used abusive language; and radio stations on which the indecent expressions were used.



A total of 87 incidents of indecent expressions were recorded on 18 out of the 40 radio stations monitored. Officials, affiliates and supporters of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) topped the list of culprits with a total of 27 incidents. The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) followed with a total of 16 incidents.



The others were: Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) and the New Labour Party (NLP)  four (4) each; National Democratic Party (NDP)  two (2); and the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) and Peoples National Convention (PNC)  one (1) each.



For the radio stations, 18 out of the 40 monitored, recorded incidents of indecent expressions. Accra-based Montie FM topped the list with 22 incidents followed by Oman FM with 15 incidents, and Adom FM and Diamond FM with seven (7) each. All the incidents of indecent expressions recorded on Adom FM were also recorded on Nsawkaw-based Tain FM.



It is regrettable to have programme presenters not only allowing their platforms to be abused by politicians but also being the abusers themselves, said Abigail Larbi-Odei, MFWAs Programme Manager for Media and Democracy.



The monitoring report is the first of several to be issued by the MFWA before, during and after the 2016 elections (April  December).



Under its Issues Not Insults campaign, the MFWA and its team of monitors are on a daily basis, monitoring and tracking indecent expressions used by politicians and activists on selected radio programmes. The campaign also involves monitoring and reporting how presenters/moderators on the selected stations handle their programmes and whether or not they allow their platforms to be used to abuse others.



The project which will be expanded to cover 70 radio stations across the country by July 2016 is being implemented with funding support from OSIWA, STAR-Ghana and the EU (through Socioserve Ghana).



The full report which includes the names of individuals who used the 87 indecent expressions and the other radio stations on which indecent expressions were recorded is available here and at the publications section on our website, www.mfwa.org.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Its no surprise that the leaders of Australias theatre industry can craft something equally poignant and devastating. It is surprising that latest offering is a Facebook post.

Well, it would be, if it werent for the Australia Councils wide-reaching overhaul of funding to small and medium-sized arts groups across the country. On Friday, it was announced 62 organisations that currently use Federal funds would be cut off.

In response, Sydneys Belvoir St Theatre posted an open letter over the weekend, bearing the co-signs of prominent artistic directors nation-wide, calling for an urgent review for the funding shake-up.

If you can find a more compelling and well-supported cluster of arguments against the changes, wed like to see it:

These are dark days for the cultural life of the country. Todays losses will have a destructive impact on a generational scale. The variety of our cultural life has been severely restricted.

Great artists and great works will fail to materialise as a result. The viability of all of our surviving arts organisations, big and small, will be dangerously tested in the months and years to come.

The letter opines the apparent needlessness of the cuts; after claiming there was no pressing cost-saving motive at play, the piece slams the bureaucratic fuckery that birthed the cuts:

It is the equivalent of taking parts from one car in order to build a second car: neither car will be going anywhere. In short, this absurd situation is the result of nothing but poor policy.

While the signatories expressed their concern over the future of the arts sector, they framed it in their own past: the cuts, they say, will ravage the stomping grounds where they learned their craft.

We did our apprenticeships in a manner which is now radically restricted and reduced. And each of us represents dozens and dozens of other artists who live and work by the vibrancy of the small to medium sector. We know in our bones the vital importance of the companies lost today. Not just for the artists they produce, but for the work they create and the communities they represent.

Its also worth noting the post-script from self-confessed newbie in the Australian scene Jonathan Church, Artistic Director at Sydney Theatre Company. While he didnt feel qualified to sign the letter asking for a review, he made his opinion clear: this isnt the way things ought to be done.

He said his experience in the UK  which had public funding for the arts sector gutted over the course of decades  was enough to convince him our vibrant, collaborative and successful sector shouldnt be subject to such harsh conditions.

The entire piece can be accessed right here.

Source: Belvoir St Theatre / Facebook.

Photo: Bell Shakespeare / Instagram.
Yeah, wow, so this is disgusting.

The Butterfly Foundation  Australias only dedicated support service for people with eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia  is getting the chop next year as part of a restructure of online mental health services.

The ABC got hold of a letter from the Federal Department of Health that confirms a plan to develop one centralised online gateway for treatment of mental illness in general.

It will bring together and streamline access to existing evidence-based information, advice and digital mental health treatment and connect people to services through a centralised telephone and web portal, it reads.

Theres some merit in the streamlining of services but  as anyone whos ever suffered a mental illness knows  theres no such thing as a one-size-fits-all treatment method; anorexia has the highest death rate of any mental illness, and the lack of a specialised support service like the Butterfly Foundation would be a huge blow.

In a statement given to PEDESTRIAN.TV, the Butterfly Foundation called on the government to guarantee the more than 1,000 people who receive up to an hour of phone and web counselling via its service every month will still receive the support they desperately need.

Butterfly calls on the Federal Health Minister and the Shadow Minister for Health to accept their responsibility to people across the country suffering from debilitating mental illness that also seriously impairs physical health  and commit to the necessary funding, services, information and support.

The Government needs to guarantee ongoing survival of the national ED HOPE supportline within the new digital gateway environment, and provide a funding boost of $1.5m per annum, to increase capacity to 24/7 and improve its ability to provide online counselling services.

P.TV has reached out to the Federal Health Minister for comment.

Photo: Getty / Sean Gallup.

Anyone needing support with eating disorders or body image issues is encouraged to

contact the Butterfly National Eating Disorders Supportline on 1800 33 4673 (1800 ED

HOPE). For now.
Holy mother of this is some legitimate Final Destination shit right here.

Last night at around 11:30pm, a car lost control and smashed into a tram near High Street & Childers Street in Kew, VIC. Consequently, the tram derailed and SMASHED INTO SOMEONES HOUSE.

The tram apparently narrowly avoided the homeowner, coming to a stop just before hitting him while he was asleep in his bedroom. Which has confirmed the irrational fears of many of us, if were honest.

There were three people on the tram as well as the driver, and they all escaped without injury too. The 58-year-old woman driving the BMW was taken to hospital with minor injuries.

Emergency services were apparently at the site for hours last night, and are concerned that once the tram is removed, the front of the house could collapse.

The front of the house has suffered quite a bit of damage, the male occupant of the house was in bed at the time and was rudely awoken. The MFB will be shoring up the front of the house to make sure it doesnt collapse when the tram is removed,

Melbourne Fire Brigades Bob Lanigan told 9 News.

Watch below:

Chaotic scenes at Kew where a tram came off the tracks and ploughed into the front of a house. #9News https://t.co/Btm019AyI5  Nine News Melbourne (@9NewsMelb) May 16, 2016

Source/Photo: 9 News.
If you were in Sydney earlier this month, you might have witnessed the Keep Newtown Weird & Safe protest rally that happened.

It was a beautiful celebration of the wonderful strangeness and heartwarming diversity that exists there, which has recently suffered due to increasing douchebag foot traffic from Mike Bairds dickheaded lockout laws.

One of the victims of this heightened amount of area douchebags was 25-year-old Isaac Keatinge, who was violently assaulted as he walked towards King St one night in early April. His injuries were frightening, and showed the level of hatred that these newcomers to Newtown held for the queer community.

His assault prompted the fantastic Keep Newtown Weird & Safe rally. Now, he has collaborated with LGBTQIA party legends Heaps Gay and photographer Bradley Tennant to give one last fuck you.

Author and editor of Heaps Gay, Samuel Leighton-Dore (who P.TV have previously interviewed about his book I Think Im A Poof), said this about the incredible photoshoot:

I think everyone was pretty shocked not only by the brutality of the assault against Isaac, but by its complete randomness and locality. It felt like an attack on our community. Reclaim the Streets Keep Newtown Weird rally was fantastic, but we really wanted to reiterate the message that the gender binaries of clothing are pretty outdated and fucked and theres a lot of strength in flipping the bird to social norms when it comes to fashion and self-expression.

The photoset shows Isaac hanging out with his friends. Enjoy; these photos are fkn gorgeous:

Isaac.

Jason & Isaac.

Clockwise: Olly, Jason, Isaac, & Adelash.

Isaac said this about the message that the photos wanted to convey:

The rules of gender are so heavily enforced, and I think certain groups of people have an institutionalised idea of reinforcing those norms. Its almost like theres a vested interest in the pecking order. But the future is so bright!

The portraits present the reasoning that gender roles and binaries arent essential or even relevant anymore  a world without the assigned male/female dichotomy is beautiful utopia of acceptance. Without pressures, without labels, without prejudice. Just acceptance.

Source: Heaps Gay.

Photos: Bradley Tennant / Heaps Gay.
Hot enough for ya?

But seriously. The unusual heat of April this year wasnt just unusual  it was record-breaking. As was the past six months before that, actually. NASA figures suggest that the land and sea temperatures in April were 1.11C warmer than the average temperature between 1951  1980. Thats in the ballpark of what scientists might call a climate emergency.

This means that 2016 is almost certainly going to be the hottest year on record, probably by quite a wide margin too. Skeptics might say that this is caused by a massive El Nino  a warm blast of air across the Pacific. While theyre right that there is a big El Nino, its not even close to the biggest weve seen.

The April figures look even scarier when taken in conjunction with both the mass coral bleaching up on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as the revelation that weve passed a carbon dioxide concentration of 400 parts per million. The latter is symbolic, but worth reflecting on. Especially because we might not see it go below again in our lifetimes.

So there have it. A hot month, a hot year, a hot lifetime. Maybe we should do something about it. Just a thought.

Source: The Guardian.

Photo: Getty Images / Zak Kaczmarek
Fashion, aye  its a fahbulously weird thing.

If Katy Perrys cupcake tits or Kim Kardashians human adaptation of ya Nans couch wasnt justification enough, then surely runway theatrics at major fashion weeks across the globe should do the trick. Catwalks have quickly become that extension-of-your-personality stuff on crack, essentially.

Australian Fashion Week gets its charade on every time, as youll see below with a lil roundup of MBFWAs redic runway revelries over the years.

Plus, this week marks Australian Fashion Weeks 21st bday, so its only natural to look back at the good, the bad and the downright embarrassing, no?

ELLERYS GATECRASHER



Photo: Channel 9.

Mate. Maaaaaaaaaattttteeeee. Everyone knows youve gotta be invited to the prestige that is Fashion Week, ya cant just rock up to a show, let alone CRASH the bloody production altogether. Ol mate  classified by the media as an unnamed angry neighbour  clearly didnt give a flying fuck about the rules (or was paid by publicists to create some hype) cause he barged in on Ellerys 2015 finale to make an actual noise complaint.

Surely he shouldve realised it was a legit event and not a fucking rager over at Sals in number 23, but apparently he was quite riled up, overheard saying to a security guard, You have no respect for the local community, the noise is way too loud, this is a disgrace.

This was at 7.45 pm on a Sunday night.

KSUBIS RATWALK



Photo: Six Photography.

Back when Ksubi was spelt with a T, founders Dan Single, George Gorrow, Paul Wilson, Oscar Wright and Gareth Moody decided 169 rodents would be a good addition to their runway show in 2001.This was the time we were all about shock. So when I was asked about the show late one night and what model wed like to come out first, I replied Id rather a swarm of rats came out, Gorrow explained.

JFC. Some people left before the show ended, and unfortunately one rat was killed when a curtain rod fell on it. The RSPCA was called.

TEN PIECES REPURPOSING AN ICONIC LANDMARK





A photo posted by PEDESTRIAN.TV (@pedestriantv) on Apr 15, 2015 at 9:40pm PDT

Offsite locations are a drag for attendees frantically trying to make back-to-back shows throughout the week, which is more reason for brands to up the ante should they make that choice. Ten Pieces SS15/16 collection  a utilitarian wardrobe under the creative direction of Lucy Hinckfuss and prolific restauranteur Maurice Terzini  made the trek worth everyones while by using an emptied out Bondi Icerbergs pool  aka Sydneysiders fave Insta shot  as a runway.

TIGERLILYS SNAKE SAGA



Photo: The Morning Show / YouTube.

Kristy Hinze  what a trooper. Not only did she feel the Victorias Secret Angel pressure with a $5 million Tigerlily bikini on her lady parts, but the Aussie model also had to bear the pain of a python tightening round her neck on the runway back in 2001. Yknow, just the usual sanity-threatening shit. That didnt stop Guanabana & We Are Handsome from pulling the same stunt at their show 10 and 13 years later, tho, respectively.

OLLIE HENDERSONS POLITICALLY CHARGED STUNT



A photo posted by Matthew J Woodward (@mwdwrd) on Apr 7, 2014 at 12:56am PDT

With models off-duty a highly frothed-over/imperative part of every post-fashion week street style gallery, model/activist Ollie Henderson nailed the publicity thang when it came to launching her politically charged clothing line, House Of Riot, at MBFWA in 2014.

Knowing full well that the trends off the runway are just as important as those on it, Ollie handed out over 100 hand-painted tees to fellow models to wear in between shows, with messages that raised awareness on issues such as climate change, refugees, social welfare, gender equality and animal rights.

Slogans included things like Sexism Sucks, Abort Abbott and Suck My Cervix, which was so cuntfrunting/amazing that she followed up the stunt the following year with another statement collection on MBFWAs street style circuit.

ROMANCE WAS BORN BRINGIN THE CROWD TO TEARS



Photo: Lisa Maree Williams / Getty.

Every year Romance Was Born gives the fash crowd more than they bargained for experientially, but it was in 2009 that they really set the bar with a seafood platter of models. Bubbles were blowing in the background, there was a knitted squid headpiece, Tanja Gacic channelled a crab  being fishy was well and truly glorified. In fact, several FROW members were so moved they actually cried a little  how I love les poissons.

DITA VON TEESE RIDIN A LIPPY

Photo: Kristian Dowling / Getty.

Oh, Dita, your IDGAF attitude is too good. To introduce her MAC Cosmetics line Down Under back in 2007, the burlesque bootay straddled a giant lipstick like a cowgirl, using sequins to cover her, ah, pink bits. Yee-hah?





TIGHT KNICKERS BANK ROBBERY



Several men dressed in balaclavas staged a bank robbery of sorts for Tight Knickers show in 2006. They threw a whopping $15,000 cold-hard cash, all of which was in $5 bills for dem effects (jump to after 1:05 in the vid above for the good stuff). This was the one time where being in front row meant more than an A+ gift bag and some kind of industry validation  props to co-creators Jonathan Pease and Jesse Margolis for what theyve dubbed a social experiment.



MIRANDA KERR IN HER PRIME



Photo: Lucas Dawson / Getty.

Fashion Week Australia has seen many internationally-acclaimed stars on its runways, from Alessandra Ambrosio to Paris Hilton, Lupe Fiasco and Georgia May Jagger, however, Miranda Kerrs opening and finale walk for Alex Perry in 2007 was EXTRA spesh cause it was in the supermodels prime. In case ya forgot, MK was announced as the first-ever Aussie to walk the Victorias Secret runway the year prior, and, give or take an Orlando Bloom relationship, she was a very fucking big deal.

Fashion Week Australia is officially celebrating its milestone bday this week, so be sure to follow all the chic madness on our Snapchat (PEDESTRIAN.TV or scan the piccy below) and Insta (@pedestriantv)  were sure theres even more holy shit moments for yall in the pipeline.

Happy 21st MBFWA  its been real.

Photo: Six Photography.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama called on the nation Monday to support and listen to its law enforcement officers as he bestowed the Medal of Valor on 13 officers who risked their lives to save others.

In a ceremony in the East Room, Obama draped the purple-and-yellow ribbons around the necks of officers who intervened in shooting rampages, hostage situations and an armed robbery. He pledged to keep working toward a bipartisan overhaul to make the criminal justice system fairer, smarter and more effective so that officers are well-equipped to enforce the country's laws.

"We can show our respect by listening to you, learning from you, giving you the resources that you need to do your jobs," Obama said. "Our country needs that right now."

Three Santa Monica, California, officers -- Jason Salas, Robert Sparks and Capt. Raymond Bottenfield -- were honored for their response to a 2013 rampage on a community college campus that left five people dead. Confronting 23-year-old gunman John Zawahri in the campus library, the officers shot and killed him when he pointed his assault weapon at them.

The Medal of Valor ceremony came as Obama holds out hope that legislation reforming the justice system can be passed this year despite the heavily politicized climate ahead of the November election. The need for change has been a rare point of common ground between Democrats and Republicans, and though momentum appeared to have sputtered earlier this year, a new Senate proposal has raised hopes that the issue could be successfully revived.

Police Maj. David Huff of Midwest City, Okla., saved a 2-year-old girl being held at knifepoint after negotiations with her captor deteriorated. Speaking to reporters after the ceremony, he described the thoughts running through his head in the moment he was called to action.

"Obviously, the last few moments were tense. There was a countdown going on," Huff said. "There was just no way I was going to let that little child get hurt."

The president said all of the officers acted "without regard for their own safety." Because of their courage and instincts, he said, the rest of society can go about their lives each day "like it's any other day."

One Philadelphia officer died from a gunshot wound and was honored posthumously. Sgt. Robert Wilson III drew fire from assailants during a robbery while saving store employees and customers. Wilson's family accepted the award on his behalf.

"We honor those who didn't come home," the president said.

The other officers honored with the medal Monday are:
Body-found-in-PA-could-be-missing-teen-girl-leanna-walker.PNG

A body was found yesterday in Pike County in the same area where a search has been ongoing for missing 17-year-old Leanna Walker.

(screen shot/WNEP)

A body was found yesterday in Pike County in the same area where a search has been ongoing for missing 17-year-old Leanna Walker.

READ MORE: Body discovery prompts homicide probe: Is it missing Pa. teen?

WNEP reports that the grim discovery was made on a llama farm near Milford, Pa. This is the same area crews were looking for Walker, who has been missing since Wednesday April 18.

However, WNEP notes that the forensic investigation that could lead to a positive ID of the remains could take weeks.

UPDATE: Our sister website, LehighValleyLive.com, reports that the remains were found about 12:20 p.m. Sunday by the Northeast Search and Rescue team.

"During a subsequent search ... human remains were discovered on the property known as the llama farm in Milford Township," state police at Blooming Grove said in a news release.

The missing person's case centering around Leanna Walker's April 18th disappearance has brought the anonymous offering of a $10,000 reward and a previous search involving volunteer first responders organized by the group Missing in America, which says it is no longer affiliated with the case.

Leanna Walker's family originally reported her as a runaway. However, developments regarding Walker's boyfriend have been troubling, as the Pocono Record reports:

Walker's boyfriend, Sky Michael McDonough, 24, also from Milford, was arrested late last month on unrelated charges, including active arrest warrants from Sussex, New Jersey for burglary and fleeing apprehension.

McDonough was then identified as a person of interest in Walker's missing person case, and agreed to take police to the location where he said he and Walker were staying in the woods, a criminal complaint said.

However, during this search, McDonough was able to escape from the officer escorting him.

A makeshift campsite was later discovered inside a barn on a llama farm, and McDonough was taken back into custody after being found in that area.

Anyone with information or leads is encouraged to contact Blooming Grove State Police at 570-226-5718.
Adam Jones before after.jpg

Adam Jones visited Harrisburg March 27 for a Bernie Sanders rally and later was attacked in an alley. The photo at left was taken at the rally. The photo at right was taken after surgery to remove part of his skull to relieve brain swelling.

HARRISBURG- Adam Jones desperately wants to remember what happened to him March 27 when he was attacked in a Harrisburg alley.

But he can't.

"I don't remember anything," he said. "I really want to so I can help police put this person away. Doctors told me that your brain doesn't lay down memory in a trauma situation. But I'm hoping my memory comes back eventually."

Jones, of Hanover, spent nearly a month in the hospital after someone cracked him over the skull in an apparent robbery after he left a Bernie Sanders voter registration rally in the middle of the night in search of an after-party.

Jones then spent a week and a half at an inpatient rehabilitation center before being released to a relative's home. Now, Jones is working through outpatient speech therapy and occupational therapy to help regain his balance. His left ear also was damaged in the attack, diminishing his hearing, and he suffered a hairline fracture in his jaw, making it painful to eat.

Although the attack blanked out Jones' memory of the crime, he remembers most everything else in his life, he said, barring the occasional word that escapes him. He was incredibly lucid in two conversations with PennLive, as he shared his thoughts on why he was attacked, recited details of his medical condition and cracked jokes about his appearance.

Jones' friends told him that he was robbed the night of the attack. But the level of force used against him was overkill, Jones said. Someone apparently swung a hard object against the back of his head that police have yet to publicly identify.

"They hit me from behind," he said of the ambush. "I don't have any defensive marks on me. I took a little bit of karate but apparently didn't get a chance to use it."

The person who robbed him with such violence must have been "very desperate," Jones said.

"I'm a very nice person," Jones said. "They could have just asked me for my money meanly and I probably would have given it to them."

The assailant could attack someone else with equal unnecessary violence, which is why Jones hopes police can make a criminal case through other witnesses and forensic evidence.

A chunk of Jones' skull--a large piece about as big as his hand--is still missing from his head. Doctors removed it after he arrived in the emergency room to give his rapidly swelling brain room to expand without causing additional damage.

"I look like a dead body in the back of a Law and Order van," he said Sunday night. "I don't look like I should be alive."

The left half of his head with the missing skull appears sunken in. He wears a helmet to protect the vulnerable half of his head, even in the shower because he can't risk a fall.

"It's not the GQ look I'm used to," he said of the helmet.

An actor by trade, Jones joked that he could send out his "half of a headshot," to try to get bit parts in crime dramas, saving television production crews on makeup and special effects.

At a doctor's appointment later this month, Jones expects to find out when they will replace his skull piece. His hair started growing back where it had been shaved off for surgery, but not along the scar lines, he said.

The missing skull was the second-most annoying after-effect of the crime, Jones said. Ranking first was the foot-long percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube, or PEG tube, that's been protruding from his abdomen for the last seven weeks.

Doctors had to use it at first because Jones kept yanking out the oral feeding tube, even while nearly comatose, during his early hospital stay. Jones has been eating solid food by mouth for four weeks, but doctors were reluctant to remove the tube.

Jones tucked the tube in his pants, but it would still get snagged, causing pain, and stomach acid leaked out, burning his skin. He went to the emergency room Sunday and convinced doctors to remove it.

"It was the bane of my existence," he said.

Most of Jones' medical care is being covered by Medicaid insurance, but he has to pay some out-of-pocket expenses, including some prescriptions. A friend set up an online fundraiser to help him with his prolonged medical battle to get back to where he was prior to March 27.

Jones isn't bitter about what happened to him. Instead, he's surprisingly upbeat and thankful for each medical step he takes in the right direction.

"I'm very lucky," he said.
Harrisburg police van night.jpg

Harrisburg police arrested three teens after a midtown armed robbery.

HARRISBURG- Harrisburg police arrested three teenagers Saturday night in connection with the armed robbery of a 54-year-old man.

The man had been walking near Boas and Penn streets about 10:40 p.m. when he heard people behind him. He turned around and saw three male teenagers, police said. One of them reportedly pointed a gun at his face and said, "Give me everything!"

The victim handed over his cell phone and a small amount of cash. The robbers then ran away.

Police officers happened to be nearby and swarmed the neighborhood, police said. They spotted a 15-year-old right away, found a second teen hiding and chased a 17-year-old, arresting all three. Officers used a police dog to retrace the steps of the older teen and found a pellet gun abandoned along his path.

Even though the gun was a pellet gun, the victim believed it was a handgun, so police charged the older teen as an adult after consulting with the district attorney, said police Capt. Gabriel Olivera.

Police charged Isaac Wynne Jr. with two felonies and two misdemeanors, including conspiracy to commit robbery and flight to avoid prosecution. He remained in jail Monday in lieu of a $100,000 bond.

The two 15-year-olds were detained by juvenile probation officers.
Range_logo.svg.png

Range Resources on Monday announced a merger with Louisiana-based Memorial Resource Development Corp.

Earlier this year, numerous analysts said mergers would be inevitable during a pricing crash in the oil and gas industry. They also said Range Resources, the first and largest Marcellus Shale driller in Pennsylvania, was positioned to make it through the difficult down cycle.

Range Resources did not cite market volatility as a reason for the merger with Memorial Resource Development, an oil and gas company with operations along the Gulf Coast.

Before markets opened Monday, Range's stock price was $42.01 per share and Memorial's was $13.45 per share.

In the merger agreement, Range will acquire all of Memorial's outstanding shares of common stock valued at $4.4 billion.

The transaction includes the assumption of Memorial's debt, which was $1.1 billion as of March 31, according to a press release.

"This acquisition will give Range strategic positioning in both the Appalachian and Gulf Coast regions, providing greater marketing capabilities and opportunities, with added beneficial exposure to growing natural gas demand," Range CEO Jeff Ventura said in a press release.

"The transaction is also accretive to our cash flow, bolsters our credit profile and enhances the overall portfolio," he said.

Memorial CEO Jay Graham said the merger brings together two complementary companies with stacked assets.

"I am confident the combined team, strong balance sheet and premier assets are well-positioned for further success and shareholder value creation," he said in the news release.

According to the agreement, Memorial shareholders will receive 0.375 shares of Range common stock for each share of Memorial common stock held.

Based on the Range closing price Friday of $42.01 per share, the transaction has an implied value to Memorial shareholders of $15.75 per share, representing a 17 percent premium to the $13.45 closing price of Memorial stock.

Following the transaction, Memorial shareholders are expected to own approximately 31 percent of the outstanding shares of Range. Memorial will also nominate an independent director from its company to a seat on Range's board.

The boards of directors of both companies have unanimously approved the terms of the agreement, and have recommended that both shareholder groups approve the transaction, according to a news release.

The merger is expected to close during the second half of this year.

Range will host a conference call on the merger at 9 a.m. Monday. To participate in the call, dial 877-407-0778 and ask for the Range Resources announcement conference call.

A simultaneous webcast of the call and slides summarizing the terms of the merger can be found at www.rangeresources.com.
Donald Trump has some words for David Cameron.

After the British prime minister said his suggestion to ban Muslims from the United States was "divisive, stupid and wrong," Trump responded during an interview on Good Morning Britain.

"It looks like we're not going to have a very good relationship," Trump said about the leader of Britain's Conservative Party.

"Number one, I'm not stupid, OK? I can tell you that right now -- just the opposite," he told interviewer Piers Morgan, according to NBC News, the media partner of Good Morning Britain. "Number two, in terms of divisive, I don't think I'm a divisive person. I'm a unifier, unlike our president now I'm a unifier."

Trump also said "millions of people" agree he's right about a position he announced in December.

A week after 14 people were killed in the San Bernardino shootings, Trump said there should be a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."

If Trump is elected and tries to enact such a proposal, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he would not be welcome to the U.S.

Khan, a Muslim member of the U.K.'s Labour Party, said Trump's position is ignorant and he hopes the Republican loses the election, according to NBC News.

Trump also had a response for Khan, who he described as "very rude."

"Tell him I will remember those statements. They're very nasty statements," Trump said. "When he won I wished him well. Now, I don't care about him."
teacher desk shutterstock art

By Jerry Oleksiak

Pennsylvania's 500 school districts faced a substantial funding cut under former Gov. Tom Corbett, resulting in the loss of thousands of education jobs. And the General Assembly's response is ... to make things worse?

Jerry Oleksiak (PennLive file)

Sometimes it's just hard to make sense of what some lawmakers call "education policy."

The last few days have been one of those times.

Last week, the state Senate sent a bill to the governor's desk to make it easier to get rid of teachers who have a lot of classroom experience.

Think about that.

This bill would make it easier to fire experienced teachers - after legislators have neglected to provide adequate or equitable funding to school districts, creating a situation where many are struggling just to keep the doors open for students.

Pennsylvanians are still reeling from the chaos caused by nearly $1 billion in school funding cuts five years ago - cuts that increased classroom sizes, slashed student programs, and eliminated 27,000 education jobs.

The public outcry from this disaster propelled public education to the number one issue in Pennsylvania. Quite simply, parents want the best public schools for their kids and get angry when the state doesn't make investment in education a priority.

This bill would make the problem even worse. Instead of reversing school funding cuts and putting teachers back in the classroom, it would let school districts fire more of them.

What kind of a solution is that?

Not only does it make it easier to fire experienced teachers, but it also uses a new, untested evaluation system to do it - a system heavily reliant upon standardized test scores, tests that were never designed as an evaluation tool.

Worse, the bill incentivizes school administrators in cash-strapped districts to target experienced educators for removal - sending a message that if you stick around too long, you'll be in danger of losing your job.

The Bottom line is that this whole idea cuts against a fundamental fact about teaching. Experience in the classroom is an asset, not a liability. Dozens of research studies have borne out this simple truth.

I was a classroom teacher for more than 30 years.

In my first year, I was still learning how to manage a classroom full of kids, develop lesson plans, and respond to parents.

As I gained experience, I became a better teacher. And my students benefitted from my experience. I was a much better professional after 30 years than I was after one or two.

So, for all of these reasons, this bill is just a bad idea that will end up hurting kids.

So, why do it?

Gov. Tom Wolf sees the real priority in public education. He knows that Pennsylvania is 46th of 50 states in state support for public schools and dead last in school funding equity.

And he knows that we need to crawl out of the hole that the school funding crisis has dug for our kids -before we do anything else. The governor was right when he announced his intention to veto the bill.

After he does, maybe we can get back what Pennsylvanians really want lawmakers to do; fund our schools, and support what really helps kids learn.

That's the kind of education policy that makes sense to me, to 180,000 educators I represent, and to the Pennsylvanians who still put education at the very top of their priority lists.

Jerry Oleksiak, a special education teacher in the Upper Merion Area School District, is president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
I am proud to be a graduate from Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

It's part of who I am and where I've come from.

Some of my greatest friendships and fondest memories were forged in the halls of Bishop McDevitt High School. I'm so thankful that I can look back on my high school years and smile. My fond memories of Bishop McDevitt feel endless.

But recent news coverage about a female student who was asked to leave the McDevitt prom because she wore a tuxedo has painted the school with a negative brush.

Society is labeling those associated with the Catholic institution as homophobic or other negative terms.

But my high school is far from those negative accusations and has welcomed students of every sexual orientation, race, socioeconomic status, and religion for nearly 100 years.

Attending Bishop McDevitt was the most socially diverse experience of my life so far.

A wonderful school that impacted not only my life, but also thousands of lives in Central Pennsylvania, is being recognized across the nation as bad because of one instance.

That is unfair. Should I throw away my McDevitt experience because one girl was not permitted to enter the prom in a tuxedo?

To be labeled as "a bigot" or "lacking love and acceptance" because I still love my Alma Mater is incredibly painful.

Before you throw these words around I ask that you would approach this conflict with compassion and respect towards both sides and all people.

JANINE HAIR, Harrisburg
As former school board directors (including five past presidents) of the Montoursville Area School District, we have traditionally offered little criticism of a sitting board. Therefore, it is with great shock that we feel compelled to ask five directors to resign.

Having invested a combined 77 years developing a well-respected district, we are dismayed at how much hard work has been undone in just five months.

By not doing anything they promised, the board has lost the community's faith, and in fact has failed to do a single thing to improve education. If their fiscal irresponsibility continues, the district will suffer significant financial distress.

Rather than appoint a well-qualified applicant with a strong education background, they chose one with a verifiable history of bigoted comments which received national attention from media and civil rights organizations.

Of the fine administrators we so proudly hired, few remain, with many departing since this board took office. Micromanagement has decimated morale and will make it difficult to replace so much lost talent.

Several directors don't understand their responsibilities, have lost sight of transparency, and exhibit a divisive, abusive attitude toward constituents. They have proven incapable of following the law, the Pennsylvania School Board Association code of conduct, and their own policies.

For the good of our entire community, we ask Ronald Snell, William McCleary, Denise Johns, George Hagemeyer and Karen Wright to resign.

TOM MCNAMARA, Upper Fairfield Twp., Lycoming County

The writer is the former president of the Montoursville School Board.

In addition to Mr. McNamara, the letter was signed by eight other former members of the Montoursville School Board.

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/04/lgbt_montoursville_area_school.html#incart_article_small

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/04/woman_should_not_be_on_school.html
State prosecutors reeled from a judge's decision Monday to dismiss a majority of criminal charges against former Harrisburg Mayor Stephen R. Reed.

"We certainly believe that we were on strong legal ground in filing the charges and we're disappointed that the court disagreed," said Chuck Ardo, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office.

Ardo said the office had not yet made a decision about whether it would appeal Judge Kevin A. Hess' decision 305 of the office's charges were too old to prosecute. Another 144 charges, many involving accusations that Reed stole historic artifacts purchased by the city, are still pending.

Kathleen Kane, in announcing the charges last July, called the case one of the " most disturbing cases of public corruption this office has investigated."

Reed, a Democrat who led the city for nearly three decades beginning in 1982, has proven to be a controversial figure. He oversaw significant changes to Harrisburg's downtown and also the city's descent into bankruptcy.

Allegations of impropriety , which resulted in a grand jury investigation, followed him for years prior to the announcement of charges.

"We're disappointed and reviewing the decision," Ardo said, of the judge's ruling. "We'll decide how to proceed once we've had an opportunity to conduct a review."

Reed, 66, has maintained his innocence on all of the charges. His attorney called the prosecution "ill-conceived" on Monday.

Wallace McKelvey may be reached at wmckelvey@pennlive.com. Follow him on Twitter @wjmckelvey. Find PennLive on Facebook.
FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 23, 2015, file photo, a man enters Pfizer's world headquarters, in New York. Pfizer will not split into two publicly traded companies, a decision that, at least for now, ends Wall Street speculation over the drugmaker's future. The company believes it is best positioned to maximize shareholder value in its current form, but said Monday, Sept. 26, 2016, that it's reserving the right to split in the future if the situation changes. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
Statewide high school football playoff matchups announced

EAST LANSING  On Sunday, the pairings for the 2022 MHSAA Football Playoffs were announced, which begin Oct. 28-29 with District Semifinals in the 11-Player Playoffs and Regional Semifinals in the 8-
Pfizer is spending around $4.2 billion on the purchase of Anacor Pharmaceuticals, thus securing access to the firm's flagship non-steroidal topical PDE4 inhibitor crisaborole.

Crisaborole is currently being reviewed by US regulators as a potential treatment for mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis (eczema), with a decision expected in by January 7 next year 2017.

According to Pfizer, the drug could achieve or exceed peak sales of more than $2 billion a year if it makes it to market, given its performance in Phase III trials and sizeable target market; up to 25 million people in the US are thought to suffer from the condition.

"We believe the acquisition of Anacor represents an attractive opportunity to address a significant unmet medical need for a large patient population with mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis, which currently has few safe topical treatments available," noted Albert Bourla, Group President of Pfizer's Global Innovative Pharma and Global Vaccines, Oncology and Consumer Healthcare Businesses.

"We believe we are well positioned to maximize crisaborole's commercial potential through our strong relationships with paediatricians and primary care physicians," he said, further explaining Pfizer's strategy behind the move.

Anacor also holds the rights to Kerydin, a topical treatment for onychomycosis (toenail fungus) that is distributed and commercialised by Sandoz in the US.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, which has been agreed by both sets of directors a subsidiary of Pfizer will start a cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of Anacor common stock for $99.25 per share.

Pfizer said it expects to complete the acquisition in the third-quarter 2016.

The move comes just days after drug giant signed a $900 million metabolic diseases pact with Wave Life Sciences, and reports that it is one of a few pharmas currently circling US biotech Medivation, in the aftermath of its failed $160-billion deal with Allergan.
NEWS FLASH: Bernie Sanders is likely to lose the Democratic nomination for president. As disappointing as that outcome would be for his ardent supporters, the Vermont senator already can claim a win.

His challenge to front-runner Hillary Clinton has defined the issue agenda for the party, forcing her to move left. His success shows the pendulum is swinging away from the pro-corporate centrism that has been national Democrats' dominant ideology for nearly 30 years.

Sanders has won 19 states and more than 9 million votes by railing against global free-trade pacts, calling for the breakup of big banks, and advocating for free public college tuition and single-payer health care.

"Bernie has shown that there is a big audience for non-incremental change," said Dan Cantor, national director of the Working Families Party, a liberal group active in 10 states that backs Sanders. "It's the end of the view that the right place for Democrats to be is one millimeter to the left of Republicans."

Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, was a proponent of the latter approach, arguing that the party was losing presidential races because it was viewed as soft on crime and national defense and captive to unions and liberal interest groups. He was elected in 1992 as a self-styled "new" Democrat.

By all accounts, Sanders can't overtake Hillary Clinton's lead in delegates to the national convention in Philadelphia. She has 94 percent of the delegates required for nomination, meaning that she could lose all the remaining primary and caucus states by wide margins and still emerge victorious - so long as she keeps the allegiance of her supporters among the superdelegates, who are party insiders unbound by popular votes.

Sanders vows to continue fighting at least through the final primary June 14 in the District of Columbia. He has said he can still win the nomination by persuading superdelegates to switch to his side based on the enthusiasm he has generated, particularly among young voters. In addition, Sanders wants to exert influence over the party platform to be enacted at the convention.

"Right now, we are focused on the next five weeks of winning the Democratic nomination," Sanders told CNN last week. "If that does not happen, we are going to fight as hard as we can on the floor of the Democratic convention to make sure that we have a progressive platform that the American people will support."

Now, some Democratic leaders are raising concerns that Sanders' quest might hurt efforts to defeat presumed GOP nominee Donald Trump in the fall, by forcing Clinton to continue battling on two fronts at once while the real-estate tycoon consolidates support.

Clinton has shown deference to Sanders. After all, she continued campaigning in 2008 even when it was clear then-Sen. Barack Obama would win the nomination.

"People on the left want him to keep going, though a lot of us think he should be as positive as possible," said Rebecca Katz, a Democratic strategist with Hilltop Public Solutions in New York. "It's important to not have him bashing the likely nominee."

In recent weeks, the Sanders campaign has accused the Clinton team of improper fund-raising, and he has continued to hammer her for refusing to disclose the contents of her highly paid speeches to Wall Street banks after she left her job as secretary of state in the Obama administration.

If Sanders goes too far in prosecuting his case, he could take some of the shine off what Katz sees as his big accomplishment. "It's about pushing the values forward," she said. "Democrats haven't really looked at where we are, what it means to be a Democrat, since Bill Clinton and the era of triangulation. Sen. Sanders has made it OK to be progressive again."

In recent polls, vast majorities of Democrats say the competition of the primaries has made the party stronger, while a slice of Sanders supporters says it will not vote for Clinton.

Tom Eiseman of Medford Lakes, Burlington County, said Sanders should cede nothing.

"He has a lot more support than she has, despite what the media keep reporting about the superdelegates she's supposed to have locked up," Eiseman said at a recent Sanders rally in Piscataway.

"They're not locked up," he said. "Bernie has a much better chance to beat Trump. The media keep asking, 'When's he going to drop out?' Why? He's got a chance all the way to the convention. We fight to the end."

Sanders' continuing slog has cut into one of a nominee's most precious commodities: time. While Clinton has shifted her rhetoric toward Trump, she has had to campaign in upcoming primary states like Kentucky, for instance, instead of general-election battleground states.

"It's enabled Donald Trump to pivot, because he's not worried about the next primary and can put together the infrastructure you need to have," said T.J. Rooney, a strategist and former chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party who backs Clinton. Her campaign has not had the "luxury" to focus as much as they'd like on the fall.

But Rooney believes Sanders has earned the right to carry on and does not think the harm is great. For one thing, he noted, the Republican-Trump merger has been rocky in its first weeks. "I would take our distractions over theirs anytime," Rooney said.

Sanders often says he's part of a revolution in politics. If he goes on to lose the nomination, that notion will be put to the test.

"How deep are the shoots that have been planted here?" asked Cantor, of the Working Families Party. "He opened the doors, but it's on us to walk through them, to continue fighting for the issues he brought forward."

tfitzgerald@phillynews.com

215-854-2718 @tomfitzgerald

Staff writer Dan Geringer

contributed to this article.
Lewis took out 4th at this year's Jam & best style a couple of years back - can you see why?

Rotoz Dirt Jump Park is shadowed by Mt Taranaki, which is almost as impressive as the work of art Scott Bedford and the locals boys have created. Stay tuned for an edit we're dropping soon on this place soon!

Lewis Jones is one of the most down to earth people you will meet - relaxed, approachable and humble. He is from Raglan, New Zealand - famous for its waves, but Lewis has never been surfing - he found his passion in the two-wheeled variety.With a bit of space at his dad's property, he set to building some jumps, which over years of hard work progressed his tricks and style he's locally so well known for. He is now based in Hamilton (about an hours drive from Rotorua) and spends his days working as a plastic welder, but seizes any opportunity to go riding, including most lunch breaks!Over summer, we caught up with Lewis at his local turf, followed up with Gorge Road - Queenstown, Rotoz - New Plymouth, Farm Jam and Crankworx Rotorua.Crankworx Rotorua saw Lewis take part in the Dual Speed & Style, Whip Off and Deep Summer Photo Challenge - The first two didn't go as planned, but the latter saw Lewis & photographer Simeon Patience take out best photo with this banger shot high above Rotorua - Simeon also took out the judges Best in Show Lewis is supported by Behind The Bars // NS Bikes // Go Fast NZ // Backflips Clothing
GPL Results, Standings, and Schedule After Week 6: Big Showings from London and Moscow

May 16, 2016 Donnie Peters

Welcome to the weekly rundown of the Global Poker League here on PokerNews. In this space, all of the past week's results from the GPL will be listed, followed by league standings and a look at the following week's schedule.

The sixth week of play in the GPL saw some shifting in the two conference standings, but not much. In the Americas Conference, the New York Rounders maintained the top spot, but saw the Montreal Nationals move up to second place and just one point shy. The Sao Paulo Metropolitans dropped from second to fourth, and all others in the conference stayed in the same spots.

In the Eurasia Conference, the Moscow Wolverines had a huge week to take a big lead over the pack, and the London Royals moved into a tie for second place despite coming into Week 6 in fourth place.

The Rounders picked up 14 points in Week 6, thanks to a sweep in the heads-up portion by franchise manager Bryn Kenney over Jonathan Jaffe of the San Francisco Rush. The sweep earned the Rounders nine points to help the squad maintain its No. 1 position in the conference, but with only third- and fourth-place results from the six-max portion last Tuesday, the Nationals were able to get within one point.

Speaking of the Nationals, the team went from fourth place to second following a big 21-point week. Martin Jacobson, winner of the 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event, took second place in the first six-max match for five points, then won the second for seven points. Jason Lavallee then took the reins in the heads-up portion on Thursday to battle with Darren Elias of the Metropolitans, and he won all three matches for another nine points.

At the bottom of the Americas Conference, the Las Vegas Moneymakers, currently fifth, and the Rush, currently sixth, only earned two points each and remain much off the pace.

In the Eurasia Conference, it was the Wolverines exploding with a big 18-point week to take a commanding lead over the pack. Heading into Week 6, the Wolverines were one point off the Aviators, but their French counterpart only mustered three and are now 14 points behind Moscow.

The best week in the Eurasia Conference went to the Royals. The team put up 19 points to move into a tie for second with the Aviators thanks to a win and a third place in the six-max portion by Sam Trickett, followed by Justin Bonomo sweeping Randy Lew in the heads-up duel.

Week 6 Results

Place Player Team Points Match 1 6-Max 1 Sam Trickett London Royals 7 2 Anatoly Filatov Moscow Wolverines 5 3 Max Pescatori Rome Emperors 3 4 Celina Lin Hong Kong Stars 2 5 Brian Rast Berlin Bears 1 6 Fabrice Soulier Paris Aviators 0 Match 2 6-Max Place Player Team Points 1 Anatoly Filatov Moscow Wolverines 7 2 Celina Lin Hong Kong Stars 5 3 Sam Trickett London Royals 3 4 Brian Rast Berlin Bears 2 5 Mustapha Kanit Rome Emperors 1 6 Fabrice Soulier Paris Aviators 0 Match 3 6-Max Place Player Team Points 1 Joao Bauer Sao Paulo Mets 7 2 Martin Jacobson Montreal Nationals 5 3 Fedor Holz L.A. Sunset 3 4 Jason Mercier New York Rounders 2 5 Tony Gregg San Francisco Rush 1 6 Jonathan Duhamel Las Vegas Moneymakers 0 Match 4 6-Max Place Player Team Points 1 Martin Jacobson Montreal Nationals 7 2 Fedor Holz L.A. Sunset 5 3 Jason Mercier New York Rounders 3 4 Scott Ball Las Vegas Moneymakers 2 5 Tony Gregg San Francisco Rush 1 6 Joao Bauer Sao Paulo Mets 0 Match 5 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Justin Bonomo London Royals 3 9 Randy Lew Hong Kong Stars 0 0 Match 6 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Sergey Lebedev Moscow Wolverines 2 6 Brian Rast Berlin Bears 1 3 Match 7 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Mustapha Kanit Rome Emperors 2 6 George Danzer Paris Aviators 1 3 Match 8 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Bryn Kenney New York Rounders 3 9 Jonathan Jaffe San Francisco Rush 0 0 Match 9 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Jason Lavallee Montreal Nationals 3 9 Darren Elias Sao Paulo Mets 0 0 Match 10 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Fedor Holz L.A. Sunset 3 9 Jonathan Duhamel Las Vegas Moneymakers 0 0

Standings

Place Team Points Wins Americas Conference 1 New York Rounders 73 6 2 Montreal Nationals 72 7 3 L.A. Sunset 68 6 4 Sao Paulo Metropolitans 62 4 5 Las Vegas Moneymakers 52 2 6 San Francisco Rush 51 5 Eurasia Conference Place Team Points Wins 1 Moscow Wolverines 82 8 T-2 Paris Aviators 68 7 T-2 London Royals 68 7 4 Hong Kong Stars 58 4 T-5 Berlin Bears 51 2 T-5 Rome Emperors 51 2

Next Week's Schedule

Date Time (ET) Match May 17 12 p.m. Eurasia 6-Max 1:40 p.m. Eurasia 6-Max 3:30 p.m. Americas 6-Max 5:10 p.m. Americas 6-Max May 18 12 p.m. Moscow Wolverines vs. Hong Kong Stars 2:30 p.m. London Royals vs. Rome Emperors 5 p.m. Paris Aviators vs. Berlin Bears May 19 1 p.m. Las Vegas Moneymakers vs. New York Rounders 3:30 p.m. Sao Paulo Mets vs. L.A. Sunset 6 p.m. San Francisco Rush vs. Montreal Nationals

For full match replays or highlight videos, check out the official GPL website.

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How to Take Your Poker Math Beyond Counting Outs, Part 2

May 16, 2016 Robert Woolley

This is the second of a two-part article on using a combinations calculator to answer questions about poker probabilities  questions that go beyond just counting outs.

By the way, a commenter on last week's article pointed out something that I had not known  you actually don't need either a spreadsheet or to find a combination-calculator website, because Google understands combinatorial commands. In the Google search box, just type in "47 choose 2," and the result is 1,081  the number of different ways you can pick 2 cards from a group of 47.

In Part One, I laid out the three basic steps to tackling all problems of this general variety:

Step 1. Count the total number of possible outcomes.

Count the total number of possible outcomes. Step 2. Count the number of outcomes of the kind we're interested in.

Count the number of outcomes of the kind we're interested in. Step 3. Divide the latter by the former to arrive at a probability.

Let's continue with some harder questions.

Example 3: The prop bet

You've been playing a quiet, sleepy cash game for a few hours. People are bored. To liven things up, one of the players proposes a prop bet: "I'll bet anybody here even money that the next flop will have at least one 5, 6, or 7 in it."

Should you take this bet?

The answer, of course, depends on whether it's better or worse than a 50-50 proposition that a randomly selected flop will have at least one of those cards in it. Let's run the numbers.

Step 1: For one of the examples in Part One of this article, we determined that there are 22,100 possible flops.

Step 2: Next we need to figure out how many flops contain a 5, a 6, or a 7. Based on Example 2 ("Suited flops") in Part One, you might well imagine that it will take some gnarly math to separately calculate how many flops have one, then two, and then three cards of these ranks, in order to get at the total.

Fortunately, we don't have to do that  we can use a shortcut. We just have to figure out how many flops have none of those three ranks. It follows logically that all other flops must have at least one of them. In this problem, the wording makes it such that we need not differentiate between flops containing one, two, and three of the specified set.

So how many flops have no fives, sixes, or sevens? Imagine a deck with the 12 cards of those ranks removed, leaving 40 cards. We are to pick three cards at random. Returning to our old friend the spreadsheet (or online combinations calculator), we find that COMBIN(40,3) is 9,880.

Step 3: We divide 9,880 by the total number of possible flops  22,100. The answer is 0.447, or 44.7% for the probability of a flop with no fives, sixes, or sevens. By simple subtraction, the probability of seeing a flop with at least one card of the three designated ranks must be 100% minus 44.7% = 55.3%.

Conclusion: It's a bad bet to take (as are nearly all prop bets a poker opponent will offer you), because you're wagering 50-50 for a bet that is stacked 55-45 against you. Instead, you should be the one offering this bet to everybody else!

Example 4: The poker room promotion

This is actually the example that prompted me to think about writing this whole article. A friend of mine recently visited a riverboat casino in Shreveport, Louisiana. He told me that the poker room was offering a promotion for their low-stakes, no-limit hold'em games such as he had never seen before.

Anytime the first four board cards contained four to a flush, four to a straight (consecutive, not gutshots), or three of a kind, the house would "splash" the next pot at that table with $300 before the cards were dealt. This naturally raises the question of how often such a qualifying board will occur.

Google won't help you here, because the answer isn't online anywhere.* So let's figure it out for ourselves.

For Step 1, we need to know how many different four-card boards are possible. By now, computing the number of combinations of four cards that can be drawn from a deck of 52 should be child's play for you, using whichever tool is most convenient. The answer is 270,725.

How many of these partial boards will contain three of a kind? This takes some thought. Let's consider aces as an example. We have four different ways of putting together three of the aces from the deck, because COMBIN(4,3) yields 4  or you can just realize that you can omit each of the four aces to give four different combinations of the other three.

For each of those four combinations of three aces, there can be any one of the 48 remaining cards other than aces filling the last spot in our four-card board. That means that we could see 4 x 48 = 192 different combinations of three aces plus one non-ace. The set of all four aces would presumably also qualify as "trips" for purposes of this promotion, so we'll bump that number up to 193 different qualifying combinations.

The same reasoning applies to each of the 13 ranks, giving us a total of 193 x 13 = 2,509 different four-card boards that contain three (or, rarely, four) of a kind. Remember, for this calculation we don't care what order they come in; if we did, we would have to use a mathematical tool that calculates permutations, a related but distinct concept.

Now consider the four-to-a-flush criterion. For any given suit of 13 cards, we need to know how many combinations of four could be dealt. You know how to figure that out: COMBIN(13,4) = 715. Any of the four suits will do, and 4 x 715 = 2,860.

How about four to a straight? Consider the lowest, A-2-3-4 (again, the order doesn't matter). Each of those cards might be of any of the four suits, so that's 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 different combinations of four cards that would look like that  i.e., any of four aces with any of four deuces, any of four treys, and any of four fours. That's a total of 256. However, to avoid duplication with the four-to-a-flush combinations, we need to subtract out the four that are all one suit (i.e., four to a straight flush), leaving us with 252.

There are 11 different groups of four consecutive ranks possible, ranging from A-2-3-4 through J-Q-K-A. That means we have a grand total of 252 x 11 = 2,772 different combinations of four cards that would meet the four-to-a-straight stipulation, without duplicating the sets that we accounted for as four-to-a-flush.

Hang in there  we're almost done!

Adding up the trips/quads, almost-flushes, and almost-straights, we find 2,509 + 2,860 + 2,772 = 8,141 different four-card boards that will qualify our table for the promotional bonus.

Finally, for Step 3 we divide that 8,141 by the 270,725 from Step 1, for a final answer of 0.030, or almost exactly 3%. Our conclusion, then, is that about 3% of hands that get to fourth street will qualify for the $300 splash-pot on the next deal.

From there, you can make various appropriate assumptions about how much value this promotion adds, on average, to your expected profit per hand or per hour, and decide whether it's worth seeking out.

Just as an aside, were you aware that getting trips, four to a straight, and four to a flush with the first four board cards were all just about equally probable? It was news to me, too. Each of those conditions will be found in roughly 1% of fourth-street boards.

Conclusion

Once you understand how to use a combinations calculator, the number of probability-related poker questions you can answer increases exponentially from what you can do if you are limited to counting single cards (i.e., outs). The limitation is that you'll never be able to do them on the fly while trying to make a tough decision at the table. But later, when you have time, you can explore all sorts of interesting poker math questions that might have stymied you previously.

I'll leave you with three more problems to work out at your leisure, in increasing order of difficulty. Sorry, but unlike your grade-school math textbook, there are no answers to turn to in the back!

Problem #1: What percentage of full, five-card boards will contain a set of quads?

Problem #2: If two players get all their chips in with versus , how often will one of them catch at least four more cards of one of his suits to win with a flush?

Problem #3: If you start with , what is the probability that you will have either aces full of kings or kings full of aces after all five board cards have been dealt?

*After I had written this and sent it to some friends to double-check my math, one of them pointed out to me that while the full calculation for this particular promotion won't be found online, somebody actually has worked out the math on "four-card poker"  i.e., the number of different ways you can make four-card straights, four-card flushes, and so on. See here.

Robert Woolley lives in Asheville, NC. He spent several years in Las Vegas and chronicled his life in poker on the Poker Grump blog.

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Dracy "Clint" Pendleton (Photo: Illinois State Police)

An Illinois man suspected of shooting a police officer after a traffic stop was shot and killed in an incident that also left an FBI agent wounded, Illinois State Police said Sunday.

Authorities said at a news conference that Dracy "Clint" Pendleton of Bellflower, IL, was killed in an early-morning shootout inside an abandoned house in southern Illinois near the Shawnee National Forest. The name and condition of the wounded federal agent, who is expected to survive, was not immediately disclosed, reports the Chicago Tribune.

Pendleton was charged with attempted murder in the May 7 shooting of a Mahomet, IL, police officer, who was shot in the arm and released from the hospital. The incident also sparked a fatal collision when a trooper pursuing Pendleton struck and killed a 26-year-old who was driving her van in Decatur.

The manhunt continued for more than one week.
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*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*

In America it is good to be a corporation for various reasons; whether it is enjoying advantageous tax breaks for killing Americans jobs, hiding outrageous profits offshore, discriminating against women in the workplace, or dumping toxic waste into the air and water supply with veritable impunity. In fact, over the course of the past decades there have been several instances of corporate polluters poisoning water and watching as taxpayers are tasked with paying for the cleanup as well as suffering the effects of contamination.

After an eight-year court battle, earlier this month the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to enact and enforce long-established laws to break this cycle of industrial contamination. The new rules will not stop corporate pollution by any means, but they will help ensure that the worst industrial polluters are on the hook for cleaning up their own contamination.

The idea behind the courts ruling is that if corporate polluters know they can no longer force taxpayers to pay to clean up their contamination, they will have a financial incentive to either set aside the funds to clean up their own messes and more importantly, follow safety standards to ensure they never poison the environment in the first place.

The courts ruling has nothing to do with Congress making new environmental laws or regulations. It simply forces the EPA to enforce rules under authority given to them 36 years ago by legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. The so-called Superfund Law sought to pre-allocate funding to clean up horribly contaminated sites in existence, but also to incentivize the dirtiest industries to reduce risks of future contamination by requiring financial assurances that they will clean up their own contamination.

Because the Republicans in Congress have been on a tear to dismantle, under-fund, and abolish the EPA, it has been woefully inadequate in applying the Superfund law. So, the new rules will likely require financial assurances such as bonds, insurance policies, or some other kind of financial mechanisms that ensure taxpayers that dirty industries will have the funds on hand to clean up their contamination. Besides an incentive to not poison the environment, the cost of cleanup, typically in the hundreds-of-millions of dollars, will not be borne by taxpayers who were likely poisoned by the contamination.

It is worth briefly looking at why the Superfund law, and the EPAs apparent unwillingness to act, required an 8-year long federal lawsuit ordering the EPA to do its job according to the law. According to the 1983 law, the EPA was tasked to implement rules guaranteeing polluters pay for their contamination.

The Superfund law depended on dedicated tax on oil and chemical companies to fund cleanup of toxic spills and emissions. But due to industry opposition Republicans aided with perpetual defunding mechanisms, the Superfund fund went bankrupt according to Republican machinations. Congress did allot a pittance to cleanup Superfund sites very early on, but Republicans continued systematically and drastically cutting the level of funding to relieve all responsibility off the polluters and place it squarely on taxpayers shoulders. That ends with the D.C. Circuit Court ruling and it would have been beneficial to American taxpayers two years ago; the Obama Administration had to task the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to handle the Elk River chemical spill and cleanup.

What the EPA found had been happening in no small number of cases was that corporations prone to polluting the environment would intentionally set up parent and subsidiary corporations. The idea was that profits from subsidiary industrial facilities likely to pollute would be funneled to the parent company. That way when they contaminated, say a drinking water source, instead of cleaning up the mess, the subsidiary declared bankruptcy, the parent company kept the profits, and taxpayers were left poisoned and footing the bill.

That is precisely what happened two years ago when a Koch-related chemical company allowed toxic chemicals (MCMH) used to wash coal to leak into the Elk River on or around January 9, 2014 in West Virginia. The chemical company, Freedom Industries failed to report the chemical spill and once it was discovered by sickened West Virginians, the company acted quickly to file bankruptcy and change its name to Lexycon LLC.

Lexycon LLC is almost certainly the same company, albeit with a new name. Lexycon registered with the state of West Virginia as a business with the same exact addresses and phone numbers as Freedom Industries; the company responsible for the pollution. And, its founder is listed as a former Freedom Industries high-ranking executive. However, because Freedom Industries is bankrupt, there is no possible way it could be forced to pay for anything; not for the Elk River cleanup, not to compensate sickened West Virginians, or the significant fines levied by a County Circuit Court judge just a couple of months ago.

This court ruling did not make the evening news, and likely will never be covered or acknowledged by the corporate mainstream media, but it is a fairly big deal in holding corporate polluters accountable for their carelessness that poisons the environment and American people. The environmental organization that brought the lawsuit, EarthJustice, was thrilled that the EPA is being forced to do its job according to the law, but for all their well-meaning environmental advocacy and principled actions, they are seemingly missing a very important point; the EPA is and has been under constant attack by the corporate polluters legislative arm, Republicans in Congress and state legislatures, for decades.

Republicans and their billionaire funders the Koch brothers have done everything in their substantial power to break the EPA; either by defunding it or dragging it into decades-long litigation. This has been witnessed over the course of President Obamas tenure when congressional Republicans have filed suit, slashed EPA funding, and attempted to sabotage his agreements with world leaders to combat climate change. There is little doubt they will continue unabated by a Circuit Court ruling and with unlimited funds at the ready, they will drag it through the appeals process all the way to the Supreme Court.

The ruling and order is not a perfect, or final, solution to rein in corporate polluters, but it is a good start. The atrocity is that there even has to be a start to holding corporate polluters accountable for their contamination; especially when Congress passed laws back in the 80s forcing industrial contaminators to pay for cleaning up their own pollution, and incentivized them to use care when playing with poison. American citizens are already paying inordinately for corporate profits according to lax tax laws, and now maybe they wont have to pay to clean up toxic contamination from industrial polluters as they cart their profits offshore to avoid taxes.

h/t EarthJustice
A key piece of evidence has surfaced that has dealt a crippling blow to the Republican Benghazi conspiracy.

A letter from Benghazi Democrats to Benghazi Select Committee Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) made public some vital facts:

Unfortunately, your letter failed to include any statements from your own former Republican Chief Counsela retired three-star general with more than 33 years of service in the United States Army who repeatedly commended the militarys actions on the night of the attacks during closed interviews with Defense Department officials.

For example, on January 8, 2016, the Select Committee conducted a transcribed interview with former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. During that interview, your former Chief Counsel stated:

I think you ordered exactly the right forces to move out and to head toward a position where they could reinforce what was occurring in Benghazi or in Tripoli or elsewhere in the region. And, sir, I dont disagree with the actions you took, the recommendations you made, and the decisions you directed.

Your former Chief Counsel acknowledged that it is clear from the time and distances involved that none of the military forces could have gotten to Benghazi in time to save lives.

He stated:

And, again, sir, I dont mean to suggest that anything could have been done differently to affect the outcome in Benghazi, and I think you would agree with that.

In addition, on January 13, 2016, the Select Committee conducted a transcribed interview with the Defense Departments former Chief of Staff, Jeremy Bash. During that interview, your former Republican Chief Counsel stated:

I would posit that from my perspective, having looked at all the materials over the last 18 months, we could not have affected the response to what occurred by 5: 15 in the morning on the 12th of September if Benghazi, Libya. So let me start with that positing or that stipulation.

Your former Chief Counsel also stated:

I dont see any way to influence what occurred there. But what I am worried about is were caught by surprise On 9/11, weve got nothing postured to respond in a timely mannerand you can debate whats timely, whats untimely, but nothing could have affected what occurred in Benghazi.

The conclusions of your former Republican Chief Counsel match almost exactly the findingsfrom more than two years agoof the House Committee on Armed Services, which conducted its own investigation into the attacks in Benghazi. Rep. Buck McKeon, the Republican Chairman of the Committee who led that investigation, concluded at the time, I think Ive pretty well been satisfied that given where the troops were, how quickly the thing all happened and how quickly it dissipated, we probably couldnt have done more than we did.
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During his interview with Buzzfeed, President Obama used one word to make it clear how sick he was of Republican obstruction.

Video:

President Obama said:

The issue here is that nobody is suggesting that the nominee that Im putting forward is unqualified. They are on record saying that this is a very well qualified candidate, and in that circumstance it is up to them in terms of their constitutional obligation, to have a hearing and have a vote. Now, heres the good news. Originally, they said that they wouldnt even meet with the guy, and they heard from a lot of their constituents who said well, you know, this isnt kindergarten. You dont, just because youre not happy with whats happened you dont do your job, and so now youve seen already 15 Republican Senators meet with Judge Garland. Those who have met with him, I think, have been favorably impressed. My hope is is that the closer we get to the summer and the more pressure that viewers are putting on Senators just to do their job, and get the guy hearing, give him a vote, then more and more Republicans Senators will recognize that the position theyre taking is not tenable.

President Obama let Senate Republicans know exactly what he thought of their behavior by comparing them to kindergarteners. Mitch McConnell has led his Senate majority to such a low point that they arent even children on the cusp of a maturity breakthrough.

Obama accurately described the Senate GOP as a group of small children who when confronted with the reality of the situation decided to take their ball and go home. Republicans are treating the Constitution like a promise to clean their rooms.

Voters are sending the message to Senate Republicans that their constitutional duties are not optional. It is unprecedented to hear a sitting President Of The United States compare Senators to children, but in this case, the comparison was completely accurate.

If Senate Republicans wont do their jobs, Obama is going punish them by doing everything he can to end their Senate majority. Its time for Senate Republicans to either grow up or get out.
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It is significant that as President Barack Obama is telling Rutgers graduates Sunday that ignorance is not a virtue, Donald Trump is considering Sarah Palin as vice president.

Obama condemns ignorance while Trump seems to say, au contraire, it up a yuge virtue. And Trump is living proof of that; he doesnt need Palin.

Trump has already said he wants Bill Gates to close the Internet and that he will use his power as president to destroy Amazons Jeff Bezos (Trump promises such trouble) because his Washington Post doesnt say what Trump would like it to say.

Perhaps not coincidentally, according to The Washington Post, asking who was on a new poll, Ben Carson was told John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin and Chris Christie, to which he answered,

Those are all people on our list.

Did your blood just run cold? It should have. Trump said once he wanted a political insider as VP because as he admitted at the time, hes a business man, not a politician.

And he gives us the shortlist from hell instead. SNL wasnt far off the mark when it included George Zimmerman on the shortlist.

Never mind that Carson has since said he never said what he said. Youd be hard-pressed to find a Republican today who admitted he actually said anything. The greatest sin is the great gotcha of quoting Republicans back to themselves.

Which brings us back to President Obama.

Obama said at Rutgers,

Its not cool to not know what youre talking about. Thats not keeping it real or telling it like it is. Thats not challenging political correctness. Thats just not knowing what youre talking about. And yet weve become confused about this.

But thats precisely what Trump has done and continues to do. He says he is going to make America great again, but what, precisely, he intends to make great, or how he intends to do it, are as much a mystery today as when he opened his campaign.

It is difficult to categorize Trump, because he has been all over the place and frequently contradicted himself. Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton, says Trump is not a conservative, that he is a heretic instead, since his stated positions are at odds with many Republican positions, but given the fact 9 out of every 10 things Trump says is a lie, and the many contradictory positions he has held, what quotes you use and what day it happens to be, he is a conservative or he is not a conservative.

Definitions have always been problematic and will always be. The fact remains, Trump is running as a Republican, not a Democrat, and the people who are voting for him  and not against those other Republicans  are conservatives. Maybe Trump is right. He won the Republican Party and it is what he says it is.

Zelizer is right about one thing. A Trump victory could change the GOP for years to come. A loss and a shrug and were back to the deplorable, appallingly bad status quo. The thing is, what Trump wants to replace the status quo with is no better, and in many ways, worse.

Whatever he is, he is also ignorant. And so are his friends and supporters. No Democratic candidate has had support of white supremacists of all stripes, or would lift Vladimir Putin to BBF status, as Trump has. Nobody else has an Ann Coulter in their corner, or Sarah Palin on their VP short list, or a butler who wants to kill Obama (or maybe even has a butler period?), and a friend, Roger Stone, who now says Hillary is going to kill me. Other of Trumps pals have Hillary marked down as a lesbian murderer. But of course, no other candidate has a friend who owns the National Enquirer.

We realize that going into the 2016 contest the GOP, led by Fox News, had set the bar low. Friday Fox Follies tells the tale there, if youve been keeping track. But look at it this way: Trump says he wants to make America great again, but in any pre-Fox era he might use as a benchmark, hed have been laughed off the podium so many times by now hed never dare show his face again. Its only since Fox News took to the airwaves, that nonsense like that which Trump spews gets gobbled up instead of flushed.

And he surely cant mean that the next decade is his benchmark. The years 2001 to 2008 were horrible years for America, marked by war and a collapsing economy. We have to assume he doesnt mean the economically prosperous years of the Clinton administration, because his friends say Hillary is a lesbian murderer and Bill is a coke fiend.

If this is somehow supposed to soften the blow of Sarah Palin as VP, Trump has another thing coming. Palin is actually as bad as she seems. Inventing a bunch of stuff about other people isnt somehow going to make Palin more intelligent or knowledgeable or suddenly cause her to actually read and remember the names of newspapers and magazines. People, some of them, tout Ben Carson as VP. Seriously? Youre going to tell us Carson is a better choice than Palin?

The New York Post is already ripping headlines out of the National Enquirer and presenting them as fact and Fox News is quick to hold up the New York Post using fake news from the National Enquirer because nobody loves fake news like Fox News. Especially when those headlines indict the Clintons.

Donald Trump verified the story for Steve Doocy. President Trump would go one better and give us a press secretary straight from the pages of, and as trustworthy as, the National Enquirer, which is only fair, as his entire administration would be at home in its pages.
SAUK CITY, Wis.  Vintage Brewing Co. is finalizing plans to begin construction this summer on a massive brewpub and banquet facility along the the Wisconsin River in Sauk City.

No sale has been finalized, but village officials have tentatively agreed to sell the Madison company a vacant piece of land at the corner of Water and Polk streets, where plans call for a combined 27,000 square feet of brewing, restaurant and rooftop space across three levels.

Trent Kraemer, who owns Vintage along with his wife, Brittany, cousins Scott and Bryan Manning, uncle Mark Kraemer, and family friend Mike Bridges, said the expansive facility will dramatically increase the company's brewing capacity and will allow it to host weddings and other banquet-type events.

"It's a pretty large undertaking for us," Kraemer said. "We're really going to try to make it into a regional destination with the architecture and the scope of what we can do. It's got beautiful views."

The land that will be used for the project was purchased by the village years ago to hold for future development.

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In the interim, village officials had moved a pair of historic buildings onto the property, but village president James Anderson said those buildings were recently moved to make way for Vintage Brewing.

"We have not only been excited, we've been very supportive because in town here, we've not had a space for weddings or reunions. So, this will bring some of that business back into the village," Anderson said.

Vintage, which operates a Downtown Madison bar and a West Side brewpub, opened a "satellite pub" called the Woodshed Ale House in Sauk City in 2013.

Kraemer said village officials approached the company about expanding in Sauk City, but family ties to the area solidified the decision.

Plans for the new location will include about 10,000 square feet of restaurant, bar and banquet space and 7,000 square feet for rooftop and outdoor mezzanine space overlooking the Wisconsin River.

The 10,000-square-foot brewery in the facility's lower level will produce between 8,000 and 9,000 barrels of beer per year  about five times the capacity of the company's current flagship brewpub at 674 S. Whitney Way.

Vintage routinely keeps a dozen of its beers on tap at its Downtown Madison location at 529 University Ave., more than 20 on tap at its Whitney Way brewpub, and 15 on tap at Woodshed Ale House, 101 Jackson St., Sauk City.

Kraemer said he's most interested in using the new facility to produce new beers.

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"Our philosophy has always been variety. We're not planning on buying two giant tanks and just filling them with our two best selling beers," he said.

Anderson expects a land sale development agreement to be in place within the next six to eight weeks and construction to begin later this summer.

Vintage's goal is to open the new Sauk City location by next summer. No decision has been made about Woodshed Ale House's future after Vintage opens, Kraemer said.
A 46-year-old Rochester man is behind bars today after authorities say he stole a vehicle Saturday afternoon  the second time in less than a month.

Officers were called about 6:30 p.m. Sunday to a parking lot in the 200 block of 13th Street Northwest for an initial report of a vehicle leaking gas. When they ran the license plate number to determine the owner, it came back as reported stolen, said Capt. John Sherwin.

A witness Sunday pointed out the suspect to police, he said, who arrested the man.

The vehicle was reportedly taken about 4 p.m. Saturday from the 500 block of Third Avenue Northwest.

The man was charged May 2 with felony theft of a motor vehicle for an incident April 29.

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The Post-Bulletin typically doesn't identify suspects until they've been charged.
Rochester police used a stun gun to subdue a man accused of first throwing rocks at an officer, then charging at him "wildly," authorities said today.

The incident began about 4:45 a.m. today, when dispatchers received a call from Mayo Security. The security employees said they'd asked the 31-year-old suspect to leave a Mayo parking area; he became angry and threw rocks at their vehicle, the report says.

When members of law enforcement arrived, they found the suspect in the area of First Avenue and Third Street Southwest. As officers approached him, the man threw a large rock at one of them, said Capt. John Sherwin, then charged at the officer, swinging his arms wildly.

The man was subdued with a stun gun and taken into custody; he faces assault and disorderly conduct charges.

The Post-Bulletin typically doesn't identify suspects until they've been charged.
Prosecutor in police shooting to enter alcohol program

MINNEAPOLIS  The prosecutor whose office won a recent conviction in the high-profile case of a Minneapolis police officer who killed an unarmed woman says he will be entering a treatment program for alcohol issues.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman issued a statement Friday saying he was evaluated for alcohol issues and agrees he needs treatment. Hell be entering a program Monday.

Freeman announced last week that he was taking a medical leave, but didnt say why.

His Friday statement says he has also worked to stabilize his "unacceptably high blood pressure." He says hes determined to reclaim his health and hopes to be back to work in mid-June.

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Last month, a jury convicted Mohamed Noor of murder in the 2017 fatal shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia who called 911 to report a possible crime.

Minnesota seeks to add Purdue Pharma owners to opioid suit

ST. PAUL  Minnesotas attorney general is asking a state court for permission to add the owners of drugmaker Purdue Pharma to a lawsuit that seeks to hold the company responsible for the opioid addiction crisis.

Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma makes OxyContin and has been the subject of legal action in nearly every state.

Attorney General Keith Ellison wants to add eight members of the Sackler family to Minnesotas lawsuit. He says the Sacklers, who own and operate Purdue, were involved in deceptive marketing tactics and strategies to sell more opioids, despite knowing the risks.

If a judge approves, Minnesota would become at least the 11th state to take legal action against one or more members of the Sackler family.

A family spokeswoman issued a statement denying the allegations, calling the lawsuit a misguided attempt to place blame where it doesnt belong.

Man holed up in hotel surrenders to police

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BROOKLYN PARK  Authorities say a standoff at a Brooklyn Park hotel ended after more than six hours when a man suspected of assaulting his girlfriend surrendered to police.

SWAT officers and crisis negotiators were called to the La Quinta Inn early Friday after a woman reported she was being assaulted by her boyfriend and threatened with a gun. Police say the standoff began at 3:30 a.m. and ended when the man was arrested at about 9:50 a.m.

Authorities say the woman was taken to a hospital with minor injuries. Police say the 31-year-old suspect was not carry9ing a gun but it was unclear if there were any weapons in the room.

The suspect, who has not been formally charged, has previous convictions for drug possession, motor vehicle theft, aggravated robbery, making terroristic threats, drunken driving and burglary.

Jail inmate accused of running prostitution ring

MORA  An inmate at the Kanabec County Jail is charged with running a prostitution ring from his cell.

Thirty-eight-year-old Daniel Ellington is charged in Washington County District Court with two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of promotion of prostitution.

Prosecutors say Ellington communicated with a prostitute by text and "promoted and profited" from her activities in Woodbury last month.

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East Metro Sex Trafficking Task Force director Imran Ali says Ellington was 100 miles away and incarcerated, yet was promoting prostitution and profiting from it. The task force began investigating after a Woodbury detective found an online ad entitled "Blonde Bombshell."

The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports Kanabec County Sheriff Brian Smith says Ellington used a jail-issued iPod to text and paid a certain price for each message.

 Associated Press
Dear All Knowing and Extremely Wise Answer Man, I have it on very good authority that the greeters at both Wal-Mart stores in Rochester are being told that they're being replaced by security officers. Their last day of work should be July 8 or thereabouts.

Many of them are disabled and/or elderly and certainly need these jobs. Please check into this for me. Thank you.  Sharon Schultz

I consider myself the Post-Bulletin greeter  may I help you find something?  so it's painful for me to report that yes, it appears changes are ahead for greeters at the local Wal-Marts. A reliable source tells me that employees have been informed that greeters will be replaced by security personnel to control "shrinkage," also known as shoplifting. According to some reports, Wal-Mart loses about 1 percent of U.S. revenue, or about $3 billion a year, to employee and customer theft.

This source also tells me that greeters may be offered jobs elsewhere in the stores, but as Sharon notes, many greeters are elderly or have disabilities that may limit their ability to take other jobs.

I talked to a co-manager at the north Wal-Mart this morning and he said it's not true that greeters are being replaced but said the "job has changed." He referred me to corporate communications in Bentonville, Ark., and they replied with a blog post that tells of changes upcoming, without specifics about Rochester. This month, the company announced it will return greeters to many stores, with personnel called "customer hosts" at the doors in some stores, checking receipts.

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Presumably the Rochester stores will have customer hosts instead of greeters. We'll find out.

What does a greeter do? Here's the job description online: "Wal-Mart greeters meet customers at store entrances. Greeters at Wal-Mart may assist customers with cart selection, offer coupons, or simply welcome people to the store. Wal-Mart greeters may direct customers to specific areas of the store or note a return a customer brings back. Greeters with Wal-Mart may need to perform other assigned duties, according to shift and location. Wal-Mart greeters may clean store entryways, departments, or even restrooms if assigned such a task from a managing supervisor. Greeters at Wal-Mart may also need to identify customers for security purposes."

Distasteful-looking water

One morning last week, I was making my first 64-ounce pot of coffee for the day and the water came out of the tap a rusty brown. It was about 5 a.m., I was barely awake and for a second I thought I'd already made my coffee and it was coming out of the tap. I let it run for quite a while before it finally cleared up, and yes, when the coffee was done it was delicious and had the desired effects on my productivity for a few hours.

I checked with Tony Benson, my best source at Rochester Public Utilities, and asked if the city water towers were being flushed or something, and he responded, "What is your address? I would need that to check our hydrant flushing routes yesterday."

Ho, ho! What a bald-faced attempt to figure out my identity. Nice try, Tony, I can't tell you my address, and I won't give you my Social Security number, either. I told him I live west of U.S. 52 and north of Nebraska.

In the end, he said, "We are flushing hydrants in the northwest part of town. Sometimes your water may be brown or orange briefly due to the flushing."

Sometimes it'll be both brown and orange. If it is, just let it run.
WALTHAM  Sometimes, Mother Nature has a different plan.

A pair of adult bald eagles and at least one eaglet have been discovered in a tree in a windbreak among three wind turbines near Minnesota Highway 56 and Mower County Road 1 in Sargeant Township, said Pat Flowers, manger of water and remediation for Xcel Energy.

"In short, Mom and Dad are raising their little one," Flowers chuckled.

The nest was built after the wind turbine construction and discovered in March, said Randy Fordice, spokesman for Xcel Energy, and was reported to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service authorities.

Flowers noted the eagles appear to be fairly comfortable flying around the turbines. What was considered unusual was that the eagles chose to nest in an area where there was no significant body of water.

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"It's quite distant to find something suitable for the young ones," he said. "This really isn't prime eagle habitat, so I'm not sure why they chose to nest there."

The eagle population in the region has "blossomed" during the past decade. When the Pleasant Valley Wind Farm was built, surveys were done to ensure no eagles would be in close proximity to the turbines.

One survey conducted in 2014 showed that before the facility was built, there were three eagles' nests in the area, two of which were active at the time. The closest nest was about 3.8 miles away from the turbines.

The most recent survey, conducted in March 2016, discovered nine active bald eagle nests, two of which were within 1.5 miles of active turbines. The closest nest was only 150 yards away from a turbine.

"We have to take every step we can to protect the eagles and not cause them any harm," Flowers added.

Although bald eagles are no longer listed as an endangered species, killing one is still a felony punishable by a $250,000 fine and prison time.

Xcel can apply for a permit to help offer some protection if an eagle is accidentally injured or killed from a turbine, Flower said. Otherwise, they are still subjected to the law.

"There's no 'get out of jail free card.' We worked with Fish and Wildlife, DNR and Commerce to make sure all the proper steps were taken," Flowers said. "They said, 'You're doing exactly what you're supposed to do.'"

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So for now, Xcel has instituted buffers for contractors to make sure any individual on the ground is at least 660 feet away from a nest and set aerial buffer zones of 800-meter radius to make sure the eagles would have a somewhat safe air space.

"When we discovered the nest, we immediately curtailed and shut off the turbines," Flowers said. "We're not taking any chances. Unfortunately, the eagles moved closer to us instead of farther away."

Flowers noted the turbines will remain inactive throughout the summer while the flight pattern of the eagles continues to be monitored by the state. However, it's possible to curtail more turbines if necessary.

Xcel won't know for sure until the fledglings leave the nest, possibly around late October, and if the eagles choose to continue returning to the nest. Around that time, the company may apply for a permit to remove or relocate the nest  known as an Eagle Take Permit  but as of now, it's a waiting game.

"We've always been really careful in impacting natural resources and the critters around us," Flowers said. "Wind energy is no different. It's important to our customers,and the different First Nations living around this area."
Rochester Community and Technical College's nursing program is celebrating high performance on the National Council Licensure Examination, or the NCLEX Test.

Students in the first quarter of 2016 scored with a 94 percent pass rate for students taking the test for the first time  the national average for similar programs in 81 percent, according to the college.

The test is administered by the National Council of State Board of Nursing and tests student aptitude on management of care; safety and infection control; health promotion and maintenance; psycho-social integrity; basic care and comfort; pharmacological and parental therapies; reduction of risk potential; and physiological adaption, according to a press release from the college.

The test is given to RN and LPN students. Scores from the college's spring semester will be release this summer.
The governor and legislative leaders had no trouble catching fish this weekend, but it remains to be seen whether they'll be able to reel in an end-of-session deal.

DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, GOP House Speaker Kurt Daudt and Senate DFL Assistant Majority Leader Katie Sieben shared a boat on Sandy Lake near McGregor during the Governor's Fishing Opener. The three of them hauled in a total of 10 fish, but it's not known at this point whether the time on the lake helped break the impasse on negotiations.

Time is quickly running out for lawmakers to reach agreement on the major topics of the session  tax cuts, transportation funding and construction spending. There is one week left until the Legislature's constitutionally mandated deadline of May 23.

One of the biggest roadblocks to a deal has been the dispute over transportation funding. The DFL-led Senate and Dayton support raising the gas tax to help pay for improvements. House Republicans are strongly opposed to that, instead favoring a plan that would redirect existing auto-related taxes from the general fund to transportation. Dayton is slated to unveil what he's calling a compromise transportation plan today in hopes of bringing Democrats and Republicans together.

Once the transportation dispute is resolved, legislative leaders have said they can turn their attention to tax cuts, spending increases and a statewide construction borrowing bill.

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A veteran of end-of-session deals

Sen. Dave Senjem knows a thing or two about these high-level negotiations. The Rochester Republican previously served as Senate majority leader and minority leader. He's sat in on five end-of-session negotiations  some with former Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty and with Dayton. He said the key to getting a deal is to force legislative leaders and the governor to sit around a table in a room.

"Once you get the five in the room, you know you have to come out with something, and you know if you don't come up with something that day, you'd better be back in that room tomorrow," Senjem said.

He recalled one year during the Pawlenty administration where he and legislative leaders sat in the ornate Governor's Reception Room for 16 days straight, meeting for upwards of 14 hours at a time. It was grueling, but Senjem said it worked.

"It's the most beautiful, most grand room in Minnesota. At the end of 16 days, it looked pretty dark and drabby," he said.

At this point, Senjem said those meetings had better start happening now or he's worried a deal can't be put together in time.

He added, "201 people are not going to get this done. I can absolutely assure you of that."
If your purpose is winning a debate, there is no better strategy than to convince your opponent your premise is also your conclusion. When "climate change" was called "global winter" from the 1960s to circa1983, morphing to "global warming" in the late 1980s, it was clearly labelled an hypothesis.

Since then, apparently in order to remove the stigma of a scientific blunder, the generic label of "climate change" was created. Gradually the qualifier "hypothesis" was dropped.

Looking at climate purely objectively, we know for certain there are cold and warm cycles, which are caused by variations in the sun's energy output. If I had $1 million, I would gladly offer it to anyone who could prove there was permanent and man-made warming without fear of valid claim.

Admittedly, warming is plausible as is the possibility greenhouse gasses accentuate our current warm cycle; yet all proof is a subset of cyclic theory. If cyclic theory, which is supported by the majority of  not political activists  scientists, is true, we have 12 years until the next major cold cycle begins.

If you accept Al Gore's assertion that we can't afford to be wrong about this, then my list of more crucial problems would easily supersede this absurd appropriation of wealth from those who work by those who do not.

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Jim Freeman

Kasson
The professional journalists covering the trial of the Minnesota men before Judge Michael Davis include the Star Tribunes Stephen Montemayor. I rely on his work, as well as that of MPRs Mukhtar Ibrahim and Laura Yuen, even when I am sitting next to him in court. Montemayor is a good and indefatigable reporter. If you want to know whats going on during the day at trial, follow him on Twitter. He tweets everything of interest. He misses almost nothing.

Today, however, Montemayor presents as a case study in overlooking the obvious. He is unduly concerned by the racial composition of the jury. He thinks its a big deal that, while the three defendants are all black, the jury is all white. He has thus produced todays Star Tribune story on the trial with Randy Furst: Black defendants, white jurors: Does race make a difference in the courtroom?

The story is laughably misplaced. Lets take a time out for a reality check. Judge Davis is black. He interrogated prospective jurors about their attitudes toward minorities including blacks (and Somalis). He excused several for opinions they expressed in the process.

The case has been brought by Andrew Luger, the paragon of political correctness who is the United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota. He reports to Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General of the United States. She is black.

Race has nothing to do with the case. Minnesotans are not stupid. As a lifelong Minnesotan, I guarantee race is the last thing on the minds of the jurors in this case if it is on their minds at all.

Islam, however, permeates the case. The defendants are all Muslim. They are (or were) observant and ardent. They met and plotted inside local mosques. They wanted to join the Islamic State in Syria. They sought to wage jihad. They are charged with providing material support to ISIS and conspiring to commit murder with the group overseas.

Islam permeates the courtroom. The courtroom is packed with family and friends of the defendants. The Somali women in attendance all wear Somali garb and hijab. Theyre Muslim.

When a prospective juror said she was uncomfortable even being in the room with the defendants  a moment mentioned by Montemayor  she wasnt referring to their race. She was referring to their alleged support for ISIS. The substance of the case has made the news several times as six of defendants colleagues pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiring to provide material support for ISIS.

The court itself is awash in security concerns. One might infer that the prospective juror was neither alone nor unreasonable in her concerns. Entering the court through the first floor atrium, as we all do, one cant miss the visibly armed DHS officers in police uniform and their bomb sniffing dogs. They spend all day standing around in the atrium. Its not par for the course and its not because the defendants are black. It does, however, have something to do with Islam, as the defendants understand Islam.

There are, by the way, no Muslims on the jury. Its amazing how the article fails to zero in on the one demographic factor of relevance to the case. George Orwells observation is not misplaced in this context: To see what is in front of ones nose is a constant struggle. Especially when seeing (or saying you see) what is in front of ones nose can get you called a bigot.
Well now isnt this interesting? From Reuters:

Donald Trumps support has surged and he is now running nearly even with Democrat Hillary Clinton among likely U.S. voters, a dramatic turnaround since he became the Republican partys presumptive presidential nominee, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday. The results could signal a close fight between the two likely White House rivals as Americans make up their minds ahead of the Nov. 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama. As recently as last week, Clinton led Trump by around 13 points in the poll.

Meanwhile, this from the Los Angeles Times today:

Ray Fair of Yale University says that if his election forecasting model is correct, the Republican nominee is likely to win the presidency by a convincing margin. John Sides of George Washington University agrees; the fundamentals, he says, give the Republican about a 60% chance of winning. Alan Abramowitz of Emory University gives Republicans a solid shot at the White House too; his model gives the GOP the edge  but in a very close election.

These guys generally have the best track record of model-based election predictions, although Im a skeptic of many of these models. (Among other things, the sample size, especially for presidential elections, is still rather small.)

My model says theres still a 5 percent chance Trump is not the GOP nominee, and a 30 percent chance that the Democratic nominee is going to be Joe Biden. How does my model work? Sorryits a secret proprietary multivariate digression analysis.
PR-Inside.com: 2016-05-16 15:21:01

CORRECTING and REPLACING A.M. Best Upgrades Ratings of N.V. Unive Her

A.M. Best

Pablo Vasquez, +44 20 7397 0311

Financial Analyst

pablo.vasquez@ambest.com

or

Timothy Prince, +44 20 7397 0320

Associate Director, Analytics

timothy.prince@ambest.com

or

Christopher Sharkey, +1-908-439-2200, ext. 5159

Manager, Public Relations

christopher.sharkey@ambest.com

or

Jim Peavy, +1-908-439-2200, ext. 5644

Assistant Vice President, Public Relations

james.peavy@ambest.com

Please replace the release issued May 13, 2016 with the following corrected version due to multiple revisions.

The corrected release reads:

A.M. BEST UPGRADES RATINGS OF N.V. UNIVE HER

A.M. Best has upgraded the financial strength rating to A (Excellent) from A- (Excellent) and the issuer credit rating to a from a- of N.V. Unive Her (Unive Her), a wholly owned subsidiary of Cooperatie Unive U.A. (Unive Group), a mutual insurance group domiciled in the Netherlands. The outlook for each rating is stable.

The ratings upgrade considers Unive Hers integral role within the Unive Group and factors in the improvements that have been achieved in the groups risk management and corporate governance framework during recent years.

Unive Hers risk-adjusted capitalisation improved in 2014 due to earnings retention and remained at an excellent level in 2015. Although the companys exposure to catastrophe losses subjects its balance sheet strength to substantial potential volatility; over the longer term, it is expected to remain at an excellent level due to Unive Hers ability to retain profits in more benign years. Furthermore, the company benefits from extensive capital buffers at the holding company level. A.M. Best considers that a well-defined capital allocation policy at Unive Group, established in 2015 as part of the implementation of Solvency II, strengthens capital governance throughout the group.

Unive Her has demonstrated improved risk management practices following the underwriting losses reported in 2013. In A.M. Bests view, the companys operating performance will continue to be volatile due to the nature of the business underwritten. However, to offset this inherent volatility, Unive Her benefits from a well-established footprint in the Netherlands, given its unique relationship with the Unive mutuals, and carefully monitors its peak risk exposures and retrocession coverage.

The 12 Unive mutual entities are members of Cooperatie Unive U.A., the ultimate holding company of the Unive Group. These entities are regional mutual property insurers, which together, have a good market position in the Netherlands. Unive Her, N.V. Unive Schade and Unive Services B.V. are the three operating subsidiaries of Cooperatie Unive U.A. N.V. Unive Schade provides commercial and personal insurance products, and Unive Services B.V. provides services to each of the other two subsidiaries. Unive Her is the groups reinsurer of property risks. All underwriting income is originated by the mutual companies, which individually retain a portion of property risk and transfer the rest to Unive Her.

This press release relates to rating(s) that have been published on A.M. Bests website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see A.M. Bests Recent Rating Activity web page.

A.M. Best is the worlds oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

Copyright  2016 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201605130056
The African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) has announced its nomination for the 12th edition of the annual movie awards.

This is contained in a statement issued by the Chairman of the 2016 AMAA Jury, Shaibu Husseini, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.

We are excited to share the African Movie Academy Awards 2016 nomination list with you first, bearing in mind your strategic position in the African media space.

I am very happy about the quality of works that came into the competition this year because we had a very thorough screening process.

It gladdens our heart that every year the objectives of the awards are being achieved with film makers in Africa and beyond upping their game, the statement said.

It said the 2016 edition of the annual awards had 26 different categories of nominations.

The categories include: awards for Best Animation; Best Documentary; and Best Film in an African Language and Best Film by an African Living Abroad.

Others include: AMAA award for Best Young/ promising Actor; Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Best Actress in a Supporting Role and the Best Actor and Actress in a Leading role, respectively.

NAN reports that AMAA, popularly known as AMA Awards, is presented annually to recognise excellence of professionals in the film industry.

The awards are aimed at honouring and promoting excellence in the African movie industry as well as uniting the African continent through arts and culture.

The award presentation is attended by numerous media representatives, celebrities, politicians, journalists, actresses and actors from all over the world.

The AMA awards are widely acclaimed as the most prestigious film awards in Africa.

The 2016 ceremony is scheduled to hold on June 11 in Port Harcourt.

(NAN)
The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) said it supported the petrol price increase because of President Muhammadu Buharis sincerity towards infrastructure development and oil and gas policies.

The Chairman of the union in South-West, Tokunbo Korodo, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Monday that his union and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) endorsed the price hike.

He said that although the Federal Government consulted the unions on its contemplation on the price increase, they had not taken the message to their members before the announcement was made.

Mr. Korodo, however, said, it was a big shock but as shocking as it was, we cannot throw away the baby with the bath water.

He said the country was at the verge of economic stagnation, and that the only way to move the economy forward was to support the governments move.

We met and x-rayed the problem confronting the oil industry at large.

We considered the sincerity of the government as it relates to infrastructure and some policies in oil and gas industry.

We also put into consideration the plight of Nigerians. After putting all these forward, the two unions, after a strong deliberation, arrived at a conclusion.

We came to support the government and the policy of price modulation.

We believe that if the market is opened a little, it will create more room for investment, he said.

Mr. Korodo added that foreign investors with genuine gesture will come in with their products and this will create more jobs for the jobless.

The foreign investors will not rely on foreign exchange from government.

So it is a bold step in the right direction.

He urged Nigerians to support the price increase, adding that it was a bitter pill the country had to take.

The chairman said that the two unions would not be part of the proposed strike by Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC).

We have informed our members to work and ensure that nobody intimidates them while doing their work, he said.

(NAN)
Researched by Vinayak Bhardwaj

After a controversial delay, Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari signed the countrys 2016 budget into law last week. In the run up to the budget finalisation, remarks attributed to Nigerias health minister, Professor Isaac Adewole, stirred a different sort of controversy.

After Minister Adewole toured the health facilities at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos-based nespaper, The Punch, reported on his visit with the headline: Nigeria has lowest health budget in Africa  Adewole.

Yet the first sentence of the article stated that the minister said Nigeria has one of the lowest health budgets in Africa.

According to the Punch, Mr. Adewole further said Nigerias health sector has suffered from chronic underfunding for many years now. We are even behind South Sudan, Angola and Ethiopia.

Does Africas most populous country, with its largest economy really have its lowest health budget?

How to measure a countrys spending on health

We contacted the journalist and the ministry of health to verify if the minister was quoted correctly but have not heard back from either.

Chair of the department of global health at Boston University, Professor Frank Feeley, told us there are different ways in which one can compare how much governments spend on health. This includes health spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) and spending per person adjusted for the purchasing power of different currencies (called purchasing power parity, or PPP).

Mr. Feeley added: For countries at relatively similar levels of development, I prefer to use total health expenditure as [a share] of GDP.

This data is available from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Bank. As the WHOs dataset does not include information for South Sudan we opted for the World Banks. (Note: The database didnt include information for two of Africas 55 recognised states, Somalia and Western Sahara.)

The World Banks data is based on a combination of WHO data, officially reported government health statistics and data from organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Three-quarters of Nigerias health spending private

The data for health spending as a share of GDP showed that in 2014, Nigeria (at 3.7%) outperformed Angola (3.3%) and South Sudan (2.7%), but lagged behind Ethiopia (4.9%).

Country Total health spending (% of GDP) Ranking (53/55 African states) Angola 3.3% 51st Ethiopia 4.9% 36th Nigeria 3.7% 45th South Sudan 2.7% 53rd

However, Mr. Feeley cautioned against looking at total health spending alone as the bulk of Nigerias health spending was in the private sector.

Nigeria, of course, is far from the poorest country in Africa, so its total health expenditure is higher than many, he said. But it is about 75% private, and most of that is out of pocket.

Of the 3.7% of GDP that Nigeria spent on health in 2014, only 0.9% was publicly funded.

On this measure, Nigeria dropped even below South Sudan.

Country Government health spending (% of GDP) Ranking Angola 2.1% 36th Ethiopia 2.9% 23rd Nigeria 0.9% 52nd South Sudan 1.1% 50th

To get a better sense of the emphasis a specific government places on health, it is necessary to look at the share of a countrys budget spent on health, Mr. Feely added.

The 2001 Abuja Declaration committed African Union countries to allocating at least 15% of their budget to improve the health sector.

In 2012, only Tanzania had reached this target, according to the WHO. In 2014, four countries had met this target: The Gambia, Malawi, Swaziland and Ethiopia (at 15.7%).

Despite the Abuja declaration, Nigeria is at the low end of this range in Africa, Mr. Feely said.

However, at 8.2% of its total budget dedicated to health, Nigeria still outperformed Angola (5%) and South Sudan (4%).

Country Government health spending (% of total budget) Ranking Angola 5.0% 48th Ethiopia 15.7% 3rd Nigeria 8.2% 35th South Sudan 4.0% 51st

(Note: In Nigerias newly-signed budget the allocation for health as a share of the total budget is 4.64% according to Nigeria Health Watch.)

If we compare government spending per person, where the amount has been adjusted to put all countries on an equal footing based on the cost of living, Nigeria (at $217 per person) is second to Angola (at $239), with Ethiopia and South Sudan (both at $73) falling far behind.

Country Health spend per person ($ in PPP/capita) Ranking Angola $239 20th Ethiopia $73 45th Nigeria $217 22nd South Sudan $73 46th

Why does Nigeria spend comparatively little?

The Nigerian government spends comparatively less on health than other African countries because of low government spending in general, Dr John Ataguba, a health economics researcher at the University of Cape Town, explained to Africa Check.

The tax base in Nigeria is very small, he said. Government revenues, which are mainly derived from individual taxes and through oil revenues, are very low.

However, spending more on healthcare doesnt necessarily lead to better health outcomes, Mr. Ataguba added. You may also want to look at the role of the state. Reducing inefficiencies and improving accountability are also important.

Conclusion: Nigeria doesnt score the lowest in Africa on health spending

The Nigerian governments spending on health is not the lowest in Africa on four measures of health spending used by health economists.

However, if the minister of health was talking about government spending on health as a share of GDP, he would be right that Nigeria spends less than Angola, Ethiopia and South Sudan. At 0.9% of GDP, Nigeria is ranked nearly the lowest of the 53 African states included in the World Banks database, with only the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) coming in lower.

Nigeria also falls short of the declaration by the African Union that member countries spend 15% of their budgets on health, with 8.2% of its budget dedicated to health in 2014. However, governments health care spending per capita in Nigeria is higher than many other countries on the continent.



Edited by Anim van Wyk

This report was first published by our partner, Africa Check www.africacheck.org , a non-partisan fact-checking organisation. We have their permission to republish. You can follow then on their Twitter account: @AfricaCheck.
At a time Nigeria is facing severe economic crunch, a comprehensive oil report presented to the National Economic Council (NEC) has been found to be silent on a whopping N323.58 billion earned as crude oil revenue under the President Goodluck Jonathan government.

The report, submitted to NEC by Mohammed Dikwa, the then Director of Funds, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), revealed a startling discrepancy of about 323.58 billion, which his analysis failed to explain.

President Muhamadu Buhari later appointed Mr. Dikwa Acting Accountant-General of the Federation before Ahmed Idris emerged as the Accountant General.

The oil report, exclusively obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, dated June 29, 2015 was presented at the 58th Meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC).

The NEC comprises of the 36 state governors, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and other co-opted members. The NEC is chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

The report detailed NNPCs crude oil revenue, remittances to the Federation Account and amount withheld by the NNPC.

Mr Dikwa presented crude oil revenue streams of 1,844,764,591,969 for 2012; 2,727,834,769,083 for 2013; 2,541,454,301,641 for 2014 and 1,031,691,963,044 for the first two quarters of 2015. The total oil revenue for the period stood at 8,145,745,652,737.

For the amount paid into the Federation account, the report showed the sum of 927,312,350,868 for 2012; 1,466,951,625,000 for 2013; 1,341,545,651,272 for 2014 and 591,681,318,358 for the first two quarters of 2015.

The total remittance for the period of 2011 to June 2015 was 4,327,490,945,499.

This is shown below:

Even though there were ongoing arguments about the legality of NNPC withholding certain amounts of crude oil revenue, the report showed that NNPC withheld 774,382,841,100 in 2012; 1,179,883,171,083 in 2013; 1,114,306,750,369 in 2014 and 426,102,269,704 in the first two quarters of 2015.

The total remittance for the period of 2011 to June 2015 was 3,494,675,032,256.

But PREMIUM TIMES analyses of the figures revealed that for 2012 and 2013, the sums of 143,069,400,000 and 80,999,973,000 were not captured in the report either as amounts paid into FAAC or withheld by NNPC.

This mystery continued in 2014 and 2015 as 85,601,900,000 and 13,908,374,982 were also unreported either as amount paid into FAAC or withheld by NNPC.

Naturally, the amount paid into Federation account and that withheld by NNPC should equal the crude oil revenue for each year. But that was not the case with the OAGF report.

Year Crude cost (Revenue) (a) Amount Paid into FAAC (b) Withheld by NNPC (c) Unreported Amount in FAAC d=a-b-c 2012 1,844,764,591,969 927,312,350,869 774,382,841,100 143,069,400,000 2013 2,727,834,769,083 1,466,951,625,000 1,179,883,171,083 80,999,973,000 2014 2,541,454,301,641 1,341,545,651,272 1,114,306,750,369 85,601,900,000 2015 1,031,691,963,044 591,681,318,358 426,102,269,704 13,908,374,982 Total 8,145,745,625,737 4,327,490,945,499 3,494,675,032,256 323,579,647,982

Cumulatively, the report by the OAGF failed to explain what NNPC did with 323,579,647,982.

However, three critical federal institutions  the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF)  all saddled with the responsibility of managing the nations oil revenue, failed woefully in spotting the unaccounted billions.

NEC too failed to spot the discrepancy.

It remains unclear why the Office of the Accountant General would present a comprehensive report to NEC on the amount withheld by the NNPC from crude oil sales, yet offering no explanation whatsoever for the about 323.58 billion not captured.

Efforts by PREMIUM TIMES to get the NNPC, the OAGF, the CBN and the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation to explain the discrepancies in oil revenue accounting have been repeatedly rebuffed by the agencies.

This newspaper is presently in court with some of the agencies regarding Freedom of Information requests on the matter unanswered or declined by the organisations.

The scale of discrepancies characterizing oil revenue accounting in Nigeria has always been staggering, costing the nation billions and even trillions of naira as revealed in a past report by PREMIUM TIMES.

The huge and systemic losses over the years have had their toll on social services and infrastructure development funding.

Although the unaccounted 323.58 billion was only four percent (4%) of the oil revenue for three and half years (8,145,745,625,737), the amount is enough to cater for a huge chunk of Nigerias 2016 capital budget allocation.

In the last three years of the Jonathan regime, the NNPC was frequently accused of of corruption and non-remittances of accurate oil revenues.

Under President Jonathan, Nigerians were treated with monumental discrepancies in figures of oil revenue earnings released by the NNPC on one hand and the CBN on the other.

The opaqueness that characterized that era created a financial Augean stables that the oil report presented to the NEC was supposed to clean up.

Curiously the CBN, the Ministry of Finance as well as the Accountant Generals office all chose to demonstrate poor arithmetic, all at the same time.

Whilst the NNPC, OAGF and the Ministry of Finance would always defend their figures saying the funds in questions were covered under cost of production, it is widely believed that the unaccounted oil revenues end up in private pockets.

Ms. Alex Gillies, an oil and gas research expert, commenting on reasons for discrepancies and loss of funds, said some of these funds werent lost per se, but rather they were spent by NNPC in a secretive and inefficient manner.

Calling for a revamp or reforms in the sector, Ms. Gilles holds that funds discrepancies and secretive dealings aside, theres no question that Nigeria cant afford the current system especially not now that oil prices are so low. If the previous government had blocked some of these leakages, Nigeria would have had the savings it needs to weather the current economic hardship.
The Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, on Monday declared that Lagos has officially joined the League of Oil Producing States in Nigeria following the discovery of crude oil by Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum Company Limited in Badagry, Lagos.

Governor Ambode, who made the declaration when the management of the company led by the Group Managing Director, Tunde Folawiyo, paid him a courtesy visit at the Lagos House, Ikeja, commended the firm for their doggedness to achieve the feat after 25 years of hard work, saying by the provision of Section 162 Sub-Section 2 of the Nigeria Constitution, Lagos has become an oil producing State.

I want to thank you very much for this and I say it with all conviction, Mr. Ambode said.

Because I know that based on section 162 Sub-Section 2 of the Nigeria Constitution, Lagos becomes an oil producing state and by virtue of this, the 13 percent derivation that is due to oil producing states, Lagos will start to partake from it by your very good gesture.

So we officially declare Lagos State an oil producing state, we also notify the Federal Government by this action that we would be sharing out of the 13 percent derivation. So all we need do is to apply and then we join.

Mr. Ambode also said the feat has not only placed Lagos in the history books as the first state outside the Niger Delta to become an oil producing State, but has also opened up a new page for revenue generation in the State.

It also means that by the additional revenue that is coming from this action, we would have more resources to provide infrastructure for Lagosians, he said.

And this is what we want other investors and businessmen to emulate, so that beyond the issue of profit, you are actually creating impact on people without them necessarily knowing that it is actually coming from a venture like this that you have embarked on.

He said the resilience of Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum Company, an indigenous firm, has shown the possibilities and opportunities for investors and businessmen willing to commit their resources to boost local production.

The Federal Government has always said that we all need to look back inwards and start to do things for ourselves, said the govenor.

Spending 25 years to be able to get to this stage and get something productive shows a lot about your belief, tenacity and doggedness and I want to recommend you to every other Nigerian investor that there is still greater hope for Nigeria and with the likes of you.

I dont see any reason why any Nigerian needs to be afraid because you have just shown by this indigenous discovery that anything is possible in Nigeria.

Governor Ambode said the historic discovery means that the three senatorial districts, Lagos West, Lagos East and Lagos Central have all combined to open up the economic and investment potentials of the state.

From the Lagos West axis, we have crude oil coming out of it, from the Lagos East axis, we have the petrochemical refinery factory coming from the Lagos Free Trade Zone by the Dangote Group which will come on board by 2018 and from the Lagos Central axis, its the financial district of Nigeria, he said.

We are likely to have three Sea Ports in Lagos in another two years; we have the Badagry Deep Sea Port and the Lekki Port and also the Apapa port.

So, somehow, in some manner, some things are being put up that seems like a puzzle, but the future prosperity of Lagos is more than well assured and we are happy that we are part of that and this government is heavily committed to complement the efforts of business men like you.

Earlier, Mr. Folawiyo said the discovery of crude oil in Lagos, which had taken over 25 years to achieve, has gone a long way to show the possibilities achievable if government continues to lend support to indigenous investors and companies.

At so many points along the way, we could have given up because it was a very rough road, but the point is that only a Nigerian company would have continued to do what we did, Mr. Folawiyo said.

The main crux is that we need government and government needs us and where government supports assiduously, it can only be success.

Mr. Folawiyo said the company spent about $400million dollars to achieve the feat.

He said the current status of the oil well has the capacity to produce at least 12,000 barrels per day, with a possibility to increase to 25,000 to 50,000 barrels per day in the nearest future.

Mr. Folawiyo also presented Governor Ambode with a sample of the crude oil discovered by his company in the state, a confirmation of Lagos becoming the first basin out of the Niger Delta to become an oil producing state.
The House of Representatives has urged the Nigerian Labour Congress to suspend its planned strike over the hike in the price of petrol.

The lawmakers, after their meeting with the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, during a special session on Monday, set up an ad hoc committee, comprising heads of relevant committees, including those of downstream, upstream and Navy, to meet with Labour and government.

The ad hoc committee is headed by the House Whip, Alhassan Doguwa (APC, Kano).

The motion urging workers to suspend the planned strike was moved by Nicholas Ossai (APC).

The committee has five days to conclude its assignment.

Although PDP members, who earlier opposed Mr. Kachikwus admittance to the green chamber, loudly opposed the motion by voicing nay, Speaker Yakubu Dogara ruled that the ayes have it.

Thereafter, PDP lawmakers from the House and the Senate went into a closed-door meeting, presided over by Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio.

The reason for the meeting remained unclear but some members said the lawmakers were discussing a robust opposition response to the fuel price hike.

In their dramatic opposition to Mr. Kachikwus admittance, several PDP lawmakers had waved Nigerian flag, singing all we are sayingsave Nigeria, plunging the House into a rowdy session before order was restored.

The House then dissolved into a closed-door session and later resolved to interact with Mr. Kachikwu.

Briefing the lawmakers in plenary, Mr. Kachikwu said if fuel price was not increased, long queues would return fully, and that the Federation Account Allocations Committee would have no money to distribute to the federation units.
AN APPEAL FOR OUR COMMISSIONS TO BE PAID FOR FACILITATING THE SALE OF 80 TRILLION METRIC TONNES OF LPFO

ATTENTION:

The GMD (NNPC)/ Minister of State (Petroleum)

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

The Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China

The Central Bank of Nigeria

The Department of State Security Services

The Nigeria Police

Mr. President, we refer to the subject matter.

Mr. President, we refer to the subject matter.

We had in an earlier letter, written to your office pleading for your assistance in prevailing on Mr. Ibrahim Bature (CEO of Alkhairi Oil Plus Limited whose address is Plot 14, Trans Amadi Layout, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria, whom we can authoritatively say has blatantly refused to pay us our due following a completed transaction involving the sale and purchase of 80 trillion metric comes of LPFO (Low Pour Fuel Oil) between the Nigeria National Petroleum corporation (The seller) and Huang BO Hai Petro-chemical Industries of China (The Buyer).

The world over, just like in any business transaction, the sale and purchase of Petro-chemical and other oil products, is done through a network of facilitators who ensure a smooth transaction.

In our case, we received information through verifiable means of the interest of one Huang Bo Hai Petrochemical Industries Limited of China, to purchase as much quantities of LPFO as available in Nigeria. We thereafter proceeded to network amongst registered facilitators of oil business in Abuja and other parts of Nigeria, and were able to put together a total of 80 trillion metric tonnes which the NNPC was willing to sell off through their agent Alkhairi Oil Plus Limited.

A series of negotiations followed thereafter and when we were satisfied, especially after getting confirmation from various documents emanating from Huang Bo Hai Industries of China, the NNPC, Alkhairi Oil Plus, and other related corporate organizations, we surrendered all allocations of LPFO as we had sourced and the documents for same to Alkhairi Oil Plus Limited. We like to point to you at this point that negotiations for this transaction began in March of 2014 and came to a close in June of 2015.

Mr. President, for the avoidance of doubt, you can request the documents relating to this transaction from Mr. Melee Kyari, the Group General Manager (Crude Oil Marketing Department) of the NNPC, or, we are very ready to avail you, same at your request. Mr. Melee Kyari is very conversant with this transaction.

Mr. President, the crux of this petition is that, though we are very aware of the consummation of this transaction, we became very shocked when Mr. Ibrahim Bature, the CEO of Alkhairi Oil Plus Limited came out to inform us that the said transaction did not take place.

Mr. president, following Mr. Ibrahim Batures claim, we as facilitators to this transaction launched our investigation which not only revealed that the transaction took place, but Huang Bo Hai had already began lifting of the products, and we dare say that, we know of one of such times which was logged in to have been on the 27th of January 2016.

When we confronted Mr. Ibrahim Bature with this claim, Mr. Bature only resorted to threats of various kinds. Mr. Ibrahim Bature told us to go to hell, and asked us to report the matter to whatever constituted authorities or otherwise. Mr. Ibrahim Bature kept dropping your name, and saying there was nothing any Nigerian alive can do to him.

Following such a bold bluff, we enlisted the services of one Miss. Adanne Ajaelu, a senior official of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Abuja, to help not only verify Mr. Ibrahim Bature claim, but also appeal to him for understanding. Miss. Ajaelus investigation led her to Mr. Melee. Kyari, the Group General Manager, Crude Oil Marketing Department (The GGM COMD) office.

During the very first interface with the GGMCOMD, Mr. Kyari personally expressed shock that facilitators to this transaction had not been paid.

Mr. Kyari said he was very aware of this transaction and thought by now, all parties had parted ways satisfied. Upon clarification by Miss. Ajaelu that parties to this transaction had not been paid, the GGMCOMD who said he personally knew the CEO of Alkhari oil plus, put a call through to Mr. Bature. He demanded from Mr. Bature, the status of the transaction, for which Mr. Bature asked that he needed to physically come and offer explanations to the GGMCOMD.

Mr. Kyari asked Miss Ajaelu to wait for Mr. Bature who apparently was coming over to the GGMCOMD office. Hours after, and failing to arrive, Mr. Kyari proposed a second meeting. At a second meeting however with Mr. Ibrahim Bature in attendance, the story had changed.

Mr. Bature in the presence of Mr. Kyari, rather denied that the transaction took place. He demanded of Miss Ajaelu, any and all related documents to the said transaction. We had provided all related documents to Miss Ajaelu, who showed same to Mr. Bature. Mr. Bature, according to the journalist, subsequently acknowledged all the documents as authentic but turned around to demand a document titled, The certificate of unblock funds.

This document however, is the principal which shows that monies have been released and received concerning the transaction and which naturally should only be in the possession of the seller (NNPC) and or their agent, as well as the buyer (Huang Bo Hai) and or their agent as well as receiving organizations like the banks of both seller and buyer.

Mr. President, we have even gone to the extent of approaching the Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China in Abuja, and even though our communication with them began on the 4th of April 2016, authorities of the Chinese Embassy have deliberately become elusive in answering our queries.

Mr. President, one great worry that we have about this whole transaction is that, it is possible that what was due to the coffers of the Federal Government of Nigeria through this transaction may have gone to private pockets. In the light of this dangerous possibility we appeal to you on the following.

That you demand a proper explanation from the authorities of the NNPC, the status of this transaction. If the transaction did occur, were the proceeds meant for the FGN paid to the appropriate authorities? If the transaction did occur, ALL facilitators as captured in the build up to this transaction he paid their due. That appropriate sanctions be placed on whoever attempted to subvert the course of such a formal and international business. That Mr. Ibrahim Bature, the CEO of Alkhairi Oil Plus Limited, who also claims to be a retired General in the Nigerian Army, be made to sign an undertaking as to the safety of all of our members whom he has threatened with even death. That the Commission of inquiry which we believe you will set up, invite all the parties involved to make bold their claims as well as present to you, their facts on the matter.

We are constrained to resort to you as a last option because we believe in your stance for fairness and justice.

We appeal that you commission a committee of people with integrity as strict as yours to look into this matter.

Thank you Mr. President.

We believe that in you, a new Nigeria is possible.

For and on behalf of all facilitators

Barr. Udeze Kenneth

Anukwuem Solicitors and Advocates,

Suite C15 PEB 04 Plaza Wuse Zone 5,

Abuja Nigeria.

Tel: +234 706 727 7005

***SPONSORED***
A suspected pickpocket has told the police how he picked the pocket of someone who saved him from falling off a public bus.

Taoreed Ashimiyu, 24, said a mob was on his heels after he stole two mobile phones from unsuspecting commuters at Maryland, Lagos, the police said in a statement Sunday.

My accomplice caused my arrest today, said Mr. Ashimiyu, who hails from Yemetu, Alawada in Oyo State.

Before he joined me at Maryland, I had stolen two phones successfully. But when he came around, we had to be moving in pair. People who had known him in the area were monitoring us, unknown to us.

I went for another victim from whom I removed money from his pocket. But I never knew the pupils who saw us together have started monitoring me too.

Mr. Ashimiyu said the pupils who saw him rushed towards him after monitoring our operations.

On sighting them, I took to my heels, he said.

They were many, they caught up with me and started beating me. I managed to escape from them and ran to join moving Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) 

As I was attempting to board, I saw a guy at the entrance who was trying to assist me in getting into the bus. But unknown to him, I was being chased by some people.

In the process of helping me, I dipped my hand in his pocket and removed his phone, and jumped down but he didnt know I had equally removed his phone.

As I jumped down, the pupils continued chasing me. When I had no option left, I tried to cross the expressway but unfortunately for me I was knocked down by a truck.

There I was, writhing in pain on the highway. People thought I was dead, my unconsciousness on the highway has caused traffic, I opened my eyes to see RRS men, who arrested me.

Mr. Ashimiyu added that he spends the proceeds of his theft on prostitutes.

I have not spent a dime from my proceeds in stealing on anything tangible. I womanized a lot and I spent my monies on both young and old ladies. I smoked indian-hemp and drink all sort of hard drinks, he said.

Mr. Ashimiyus victim, Omotoye Ayodeji, said he had no knowledge that his phone had been removed until he got to his bus-stop in Ketu when he was about to alight from the bus.

The thief must be very smart, Mr. Ayodeji said.

I saw him dangling at the entrance of the bus, and I assisted him to get into the bus for him not to fall off from the moving vehicle.

Surprisingly, I only noticed that he jumped down again. But while alighting at Ketu, I couldnt find my phone anymore. Then, I now remembered the guy who jumped down from the bus. Possibly, he might have removed my phone.

I took another bus back to Maryland, and luckily for me, I found him in the middle of the road writhing in pain. I asked him whereabouts of my phone, he told me he had passed it to his accomplice, whom we later arrested from where he was hiding.

The police said it also arrested Kayode Jolaade, Mr. Ashimiyus accomplice who worked in a private security firm.

Mr. Jolaade said he was lured into crimes after losing his job.

I was once a security guard working for one of the new generation corporate security companies in the state (name withheld), and our appointment was terminated about a year ago, said Mr. Jolaade, 34.

I tried all means to get new job but to no avail. Then, I chose to be following pickpockets to hide their stolen phones and other items.

Occasionally, I did steal when the opportunity comes. In fact, I seriously regretted (sic) my action and for taking into crime.

The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Dolapo Badmus, a Superintendent of Police, who confirmed the arrest of the suspects, said the duo had been charged to court.
President starts three-day visit to Italy (fot. Andrzej Hrechorowicz / KPRP) President starts three-day visit to Italy (fot. Andrzej Hrechorowicz / KPRP) President starts three-day visit to Italy (fot. Andrzej Hrechorowicz / KPRP) President starts three-day visit to Italy (fot. Andrzej Hrechorowicz / KPRP) President starts three-day visit to Italy (fot. Andrzej Hrechorowicz / KPRP)

President Andrzej Duda will start a three-day visit to Italy on Monday to meet Italian president and PM, and to attend observances marking the 72nd anniversary of the Battle of Monte Cassino. The president will be accompanied by his wife Agata.

On Monday morning the Polish president will meet with Italian PM Matteo Renzi. On Tuesday President Duda and his wife Agata will meet with President Sergio Mattarella.

Earlier on Tuesday the Polish presidential couple will lay flowers at the tomb of Saint John Paul II.

On Tuesday afternoon President Duda will deliver a lecture at the NATO Defence College and will meet with its authorities.

On Wednesday the Polish presidential couple will take part in the observances marking the 72nd anniversary of the Battle of Monte Cassino, and will meet with war veterans.

The Battle of Monte Cassino was a series of four assaults by the Allies against the Axis forces' Winter Line in Italy during the Italian Campaign of World War II. The intention was a breakthrough to Rome. The fighting continued for 123 days, from January 17 to May 19, 1944. Polish units on the Allied force played a major role in the battle, seizing Monte Cassino under heavy German shellfire on May 18. In all 923 Polish soldiers were killed in the fighting with 2,931 wounded and 345 reported missing. (PAP)
R Sridharan, president of AIPIMA and Vimal Mehra, past-president of AIPIMA, in this interaction, say, the association is doing all it can to...
By PrintWeek Team

All eyes are on the Awards Night of the 12th edition of the PrintWeek Awards to be held at the Grand Hyatt (Santacruz East, Mumbai) on 2 Nov...
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.




SAN FRANCISCO, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The global aerosol market is expected to reach USD 84.04 billion by 2024, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Growing consumption of personal care and household products in various countries including China, India, the U.S., Germany, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Brazil is expected to augment demand for aerosols. Increasing consumption of spray paints in construction and automobile industry will drive demand over the forecast period.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150105/723757 )

Rising demand for mouthwash, breath freshener, and teeth whitening treatments is expected to stimulate aerosol requirement over the next eight years. New product launches including Unilever's deodorant aerosols made using less amount of raw material, and energy will boost market growth.

Food is anticipated to witness tremendous gains at 4.5% CAGR from 2016 to 2024, in terms of revenue, on account of the development of the food & beverage sector in China, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. In addition, innovation in aerosol food packaging on account of convenience and waste reduction will increase product demand over the forecast period.

Browse full research report with TOC on "Aerosol Market Analysis By Application (Personal Care, Household, Automotive & Industrial, Food, Paints, Medical) And Segment Forecasts To 2024" at: http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/aerosol-market

Further key findings from the study suggest:

Global aerosol market demand was 15.48billion units in 2015 and is expected to reach 21.66 billion units by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 3.8% from 2016 to 2024

Household was one of the larger application segments accounting for over 30.0% of the global volume and will witness substantial growth on account of increasing consumption for air fresheners and insect repellents

North America was the second largest market and accounted for 30.2% of the global revenue in 2014 and is expected to witness profitable growth over the forecast period on account of growing the automotive industry in the U.S. and Mexico . Increasing automotive production mainly in Mexico along with leading automobile companies including Honda Motors, Nissan, and Mazda is expected to propel paints and coatings demand, which will augment industry growth in the near future.

was the second largest market and accounted for 30.2% of the global revenue in 2014 and is expected to witness profitable growth over the forecast period on account of growing the automotive industry in the U.S. and . Increasing automotive production mainly in along with leading automobile companies including Honda Motors, Nissan, and Mazda is expected to propel paints and coatings demand, which will augment industry growth in the near future. Increasing focus towards new product developments in shaving creams and deodorants will create new opportunities for the industry expansion. Growing demand for sprat paints to enhance the aesthetic value and reduce wastage is expected to be another key factor driving aerosol growth.

Latin America is projected to witness significant volume gains at a CAGR of 4.0% from 2016 to 2024 owing to growing demand for hair care products, perfumes, and deodorants in Brazil and Argentina . Policies intended for infrastructure development coupled with increased automobile production in Argentina and Brazil is expected to have a positive impact on aerosol market growth.

is projected to witness significant volume gains at a CAGR of 4.0% from 2016 to 2024 owing to growing demand for hair care products, perfumes, and deodorants in and . Policies intended for infrastructure development coupled with increased automobile production in and is expected to have a positive impact on aerosol market growth. Major market participants include P&G, S C Johnson, Henkel, Lindal Group, Unilever, and Reckitt Benckiser. In April 2015 , Lindal Group launched a new ball valve with actuation of 360. The product is approved by the FDA and finds use in automotive, toiletries, cosmetics, household, and pharmaceutical applications. In July 2013 , Lindal Group announced the launch of a new product Twist-Lock Actuator for the packaging of deodorants and antiperspirants and sun care products. The product innovation will play a crucial role in increasing its penetration in personal care industry.

Grand View Research has segmented the global aerosol market on the basis of application and region:

Application Outlook (Volume, Million Units; Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Personal care Household Automotive & Industrial Food Paints Medical Others

Regional Outlook (Volume, Million Units; Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) North America U.S. Europe UK Germany Asia Pacific China Latin America Brazil MEA



Browse related reports by Grand View Research:

Cement Additive Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/cement-additive-market

Silica Gel Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/silica-gel-market

Noble Gases Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/noble-gases-market

Indium Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/indium-market

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare.

Read Our Blogs - legalworkshop.org, grandviewresearch.com/blogs/advanced-materials

Contact:

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Corporate Sales Specialist, USA

Grand View Research, Inc

Phone: 1-415-349-0058

Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519

Email: sales@grandviewresearch.com



Web: http://www.grandviewresearch.com

SOURCE Grand View Research, Inc.
LONDON and LUSAKA, Zambia, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Ilobezi Limited aims to provide a reliable market for smallholder cattle and sunflower seed in Zambia's Southern Province.

AgDevCo, a social impact agribusiness investor, announced a $1.1m debt investment into a Zambian feedlot.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151215/295904LOGO )

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160511/366296 )



The company, Ilobezi Limited, is a growing feedlot purchasing cattle from indigenous farmers. At steady state, estimates are that Ilobezi will purchase 8,200 animals per year. Ilobezi offers a better price to smallholders for higher quality cattle, thereby rewarding the uptake of best practices.

Zambia's Southern Province accounts for 40% of cattle kept under traditional management systems. Cattle have a high cultural value and form a significant source of income for smallholders.

Additionally, Ilobezi will purchase sunflower seed from smallholders, while providing support in the form of improved seed and extension services. Ilobezi processes sunflower seed creating additional jobs, in particular for women.

Maize production dominates Zambian agriculture. Offering farmers an alternative crop such as sunflower, which is less prone to drought, will allow farmers to diversify, making them more resilient to climate change while improving incomes.

Ilobezi provides formal employment in a rural area and offers a much-needed reliable market.

AgDevCo funding will be used to purchase sunflower seed and cattle as well as expansion of oil processing, storage and farming and irrigation equipment to grow maize silage.

Peter MacSporran, AgDevCo Zambia's country director said: "We believe that by helping organisations such as Ilobezi that are dependent on and interact intensively with smallholder farmers, AgDevCo can contribute to agriculture and processing in Zambia's Southern Province and help increase incomes for thousands of smallholder farmers".

Nicola Coeli, Ilobezi's director said: "We look forward to increasing our interaction with smallholders and believe that we are able to promote and diversify sources of income for thousands of these farmers".



ABOUT AGDEVCO

AgDevCo is a social impact investor and agribusiness project developer, incorporated as a not-for-profit distribution company in the United Kingdom. With support from UKAid, AgDevCo invests patient capital in the form of debt and equity into early-stage agribusinesses. AgDevCo's mission is to reduce poverty and improve food security, and it has invested over USD 76 million in 51 agribusinesses in sub-Saharan Africa to date, connecting tens of thousands of farmers to markets and generating over 2,800 jobs. For more information, visit http://www.agdevco.com .

For more information:

Sytske Muijs

Associate and Project Lead

AgDevCo Zambia

smuijs@agdevco.com

+260-211-255-963

SOURCE AgDevCo
As part of the visit, the group were shown the state-of-the-art testing facilities and introduced to team members who are integral to the development of the Communications Hub and smart meters.

Energy Secretary Amber Rudd said "Technology companies like EDMI are crucial to the success of the smart meter rollout in Great Britain. I was particularly impressed with the level of investment that EDMI has committed so far towards the research and development of smart meters for the rollout, which will put consumers in control of their energy use, helping them to save energy and money."

EDMI has expanded rapidly over the past few years to support market requirements and will be investing further in the UK and Europe over the coming months.

Alan Masterman, General Manager, EDMI Europe, added; "EDMI has invested heavily in the UK and it was a pleasure to showcase the excellent work being carried out by our team in Reading."

About EDMI: http://www.edmi-meters.co.uk

EDMI Limited is one of the leading smart metering solutions providers in the world. EDMI is focused on designing, developing and manufacturing innovative and technologically advanced energy meters and metering systems for the global utility industry. EDMI's metering portfolio includes a comprehensive range of premium quality metering products, advanced infrastructure and energy management systems.

With over 25 years' experience of manufacturing smart meters and over one million EDMI smart meters installed in the UK alone, EDMI's products are tried and tested, giving customers the confidence of working hand in hand with a company with a proven track record.

EDMI is owned by Osaki Electric Co. Ltd, a Japanese metering solutions provider listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Media Contact:

Sally Cowling

Marketing Manager

EDMI Europe Limited

Email: sally.cowling@edmi-meters.com

Phone: 44 (0)191 233 6322

SOURCE EDMI Limited
SHENZHEN, China, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- BGI, the world's largest omics organization, has signed a partnership agreement with Singapore-based oncology research and diagnostics company Clearbridge BioMedics (CBB). This aims to develop the CTC (circulating tumor cell) liquid biopsy market in China, including Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao. BGI will work together with CBB to solely distribute and market the ClearCell FX1 solution and related products in China, extend this technology into clinical and cutting-edge research applications, and develop clinical products. The ClearCell technology is a label-free, automated system that is able to isolate and enrich intact, viable rare cells from a patient's blood sample.

This joint collaboration aims to develop an integrated CTC liquid biopsy solution by leveraging BGI's strengths from genomics to trans-omics and CBB's expertise in rare cell separation, in order to provide more actionable clinical insights through a simple blood draw. BGI is establishing a dedicated team to ensure this trans-omics science and technology is successfully translated into precision medicine. This team will provide an innovative end-to-end solution for omics analysis or genetic profiling at the single cell level from extremely rare cells in clinical samples.

The collaborative research agreement focuses on major types of cancer in China, such as lung, breast, and liver. BGI and CBB will collaborate to drive clinical adoption by working with key opinion leaders in leading hospitals in order to expand the CTC technology and genomic applications. Possible applications include cancer-related targeted gene analysis, drug-related gene analysis, single cell analysis and cancer immunotherapy.

"We believe that liquid biopsy plays a key role in clinical diagnostics and personalized medicine and can potentially even aid in immunotherapy PD-L1 treatment management. BGI is a global leader in the genomics and precision medicine space, and this collaboration supports our efforts to bring our ClearCell FX1 System into the China research and clinical markets. We are convinced their strong network, track record and excellent capabilities complement our execution and align with our strategic vision for China," said Mr Johnson Chen, Chairman and Founder of Clearbridge BioMedics.

"BGI's goal is to make state-of-the-art genomics highly accessible to the global research community and clinical markets by integrating an array of leading technologies. This includes BGISEQ series sequencers for genomics, economies of scale for sample storage and bioinformatics for IT and computing resources. Liquid biopsy, a critical cancer sample format which enables access to extremely rare cells such as CTC, will enable us to study cancer genome and diseases at the single cell level. Having worked closely with Clearbridge BioMedics for the last few years, we are very confident that the combination of their rare cell enrichment technology with BGI's genomic and trans-omics technology, and our strong collaboration networks including joint labs in top hospitals and global alliances based on BGISEQ sequencers, will result in better cancer management. We hope to accelerate the adoption of precision medicine in China, to better serve the needs of patients," said Dr. Xun Xu, Executive Vice President of BGI and Director of BGI Research.

About Clearbridge BioMedics

Clearbridge BioMedics is a clinical stage oncology research and diagnostics company that enables real-time liquid biopsy using a label-free rare-cell CTC enrichment platform. It is a National University of Singapore (NUS) spin-off company that is committed to revolutionizing cancer diagnostics and patient care. The ClearCell FX1 System, using the CTChip, is based on novel microfluidics technology that effectively isolates intact and viable CTCs from patients' blood. The system uses Dean flow fractionation for label-free CTC enrichment, capturing heterogeneous and dynamic cancer cells that could be used for cancer screening, diagnosis, staging, personalized medicine and treatment monitoring. Utilizing the next generation non-invasive liquid biopsy to analyze blood samples for CTCs, the device allows for real time analysis of disease before, during, and after treatment, which has become increasingly critical in the new era of precision medicine.

Headquartered in Singapore, Clearbridge BioMedics currently has customers spanning Asia, Europe and North America. The company has won numerous awards and garnered global recognition for the ClearCell FX System. Clearbridge BioMedics attained ISO 13485 certification in 2011.

Company website: www.clearbridgebiomedics.com. Introductory video: http://youtu.be/aRBuOxLfX3g

About BGI

BGI was founded in 1999 with the vision of using genomics to benefit mankind and has since become the largest genomic organization in the world. With a focus on research and applications in the healthcare, agriculture, conservation, and environmental fields, BGI has a proven track record of innovative, high profile research, which has generated over 1,500 publications, many in top-tier journals such as Nature and Science.

BGI's distinguished achievements have made a significant contribution to the development of genomics throughout the world. BGI's goal is to make state-of-the-art genomics highly accessible to the global research community and clinical markets by integrating the industry's broadest array of leading technologies, including BGI's own BGISEQ sequencing platform, economies of scale, and expert bioinformatics resources.

BGI also offers a wide portfolio of transformative genetic testing products across major diseases, enabling medical providers and patients worldwide to realize the promise of genomics-based diagnostics and personalized healthcare. BGI's services and solutions are available in more than 50 countries around the world.

Company website: www.genomics.cn.

Contacts:

CBB:

Chan Yiu Lin (Ms)

Greener Grass Communications

Mobile: (+65) 9765 5897

Email: media@clearbridgeaccelerator.com

Gwendolene Yeo (Ms)

Business Development Director

Mobile: (+65) 8699 9291

Email: gwendolene@clearbridgebiomedics.com

BGI:

Luting Song (Mr)

Mobile: (+86) 183 2074 7285

Email: songluting@genomics.cn

Bicheng Yang, Ph.D.

Public Communication Officer

Mobile: (+86) 755 8263 9701

Email: yangbicheng@genomics.cn

Related Links

http://www.genomics.cn/



SOURCE Clearbridge BioMedics
PUNE, India, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The report "Chlorinated Polyethylene Market by Application (Impact Modifier, Wire and Cable Jacketing, Hose & Tubing, IR ABS, Adhesives, Magnetics, Others), Grade (CPE 135A, CPE 135B, Others), and Region - Global Forecasts to 2021", published by MarketsandMarkets, The market is projected to reach USD 620.2 Million by 2021, at a CAGR of 8.0% between 2016 and 2021.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )



Browse 78 market data Tables and 42 Figures spread through 138 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Chlorinated Polyethylene Market"

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/chlorinated-polyethylene-market-97187944.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.

The market growth is mainly attributed to the rising awareness regarding the superior properties of chlorinated polyethylene and emerging economies that offer several untapped and unexplored growth opportunities.

CPE 135A: Most widely consumed grade of chlorinated polyethylene

CPE 135A is primarily used for impact modification processes to improve impact strength and weather ability of finished products. Various end-use industries that require impact modification processes for their finished products have been driving the demand for CPE 135A over the past few years. The CPE 135A segment is expected to continue its dominance in the global chlorinated polyethylene market during the forecast period.

The impact modifier application accounted for the maximum share

The impact modifier application segment accounted for the maximum market share, owing to the increasing demand of impact modifiers in PVC (polyvinyl chloride), window profiles, doors, fences, and sidings, among others. Due to excellent physical and mechanical properties of chlorinated polyethylene, such as resistance to oils, temperature, chemicals, and weathering, the chlorinated polyethylene elastomers can exhibit superior compression set resistance, flame retardancy, tensile strength, and abrasion resistance.

Make an Inquiry @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=97187944

The Asia-Pacific region led the global chlorinated polyethylene market

The Asia-Pacific region led the global Chlorinated Polyethylene Market due to the increasing demand for chlorinated polyethylene from various end-use industries, such as building & construction, wires & cables, and automobiles, among others. Growth in the Asia-Pacific chlorinated polyethylene market can also be attributed to the fact that China is the world leader in the production as well consumption of chlorinated polyethylene, followed by India.

This research report categorizes the chlorinated polyethylene market on the basis of grade, application, and region, and forecast revenues as well as analyzes trends in each of these submarkets. An in-depth market share analysis of top companies is also included in the report. These numbers were arrived at based on key facts, annual financial information from SEC filings, annual reports, and interviews with industry experts, key opinion leaders, such as CEOs, directors, and marketing executives. Major players operating in the global chlorinated polyethylene market include The Dow Chemical Company (Michigan, U.S.), Weifang Yaxing Chemical Co., Ltd. (Weifang, China), Novista Group Co., Ltd. (Weifang, China), Showa Denko K.K. (Tokyo, Japan), S&E Specialty Polymers (Lunenburg, U.S.), Shandong Xuye New Materials Co., Ltd. (Dongying City, China), and Shandong Xiansheng Plastic Industry Co., Ltd. (Qingdao, China), among others.

Browse Related Reports:

Metallocene Polyethylene Market By Type (mHDPE, mLDPE, mLLDPE, Others), By Application (Film, Sheet Injection Molding, Extrusion Coating, Others), By Region - Global Forecast to 2020

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/metallocene-polyethylene-market-248864715.html

Crystalline Polyethylene Terephthalate Market By Application (Food Packaging, Beverage Packaging), By Region (Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America, and Rest of the World) - Global Forecast to 2020

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/crystalline-polyethylene-terepthalate-market-170022064.html

About MarketsandMarkets

MarketsandMarkets is the world's No. 2 firm in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors.

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SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
ALBANY, New York, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Transparency Market Research has published a new report titled "Copper Oxychloride Market for Fungicide, Colorants & Pigments, Commercial Feed Supplement, and Other Applications - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2016-2024." According to the report, the global copper oxychloride market was valued at US$231.8 mn in 2015 and is anticipated to reach US$333.5 mn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 4.2% between 2016 and 2024.

Copper oxychloride is found in natural minerals such as atacamite, paratacamite, botallackite, and clinoatacamite. Atacamite is the most common form of copper oxychloride with orthorhombic structure. Copper oxychloride is also known as tribasic copper chloride (TBCC). The fungicide segment held the largest share of more than 90% of the global copper oxychloride market volume in 2015. Demand for copper oxychloride in fungicides is estimated to rise at a fast pace during the forecast period. High demand for fruits and vegetables is also projected to fuel the copper oxychloride market during the forecast period. Copper oxychloride is used as fungicide for numerous crops such as tomatoes, potatoes, stone fruit, celery, grapes, avocados, citrus, carnations, and coffee. Copper oxychloride is sprayed on crops to prevent infection or disease and promote their healthy growth. It is employed as green or blue coloring agent in the manufacture of pyrotechnics. Copper oxychloride is also employed as a catalyst for various organic synthesis reactions.

Research Report with ToC & Free Analysis: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/copper-oxychloride-market.html

In terms of region, Asia Pacific led the global copper oxychloride market in 2015. Demand for copper oxychloride is estimated to be high in Asia Pacific owing to the rising usage of fungicide in the region over the last few years. Furthermore, the agriculture industry has been expanding in the region since the last few years. Growth in the agriculture industry is projected to boost the demand for copper oxychloride during the forecast period. Asia Pacific was closely followed by Europe in 2015. Currently, the U.S. dominates the copper oxychloride market in North America. High demand for copper oxychloride in the U.S. is ascribed to its increase application in fungicides. Fungicide is likely to be the fastest growing application segment in North America during the forecast period. The copper oxychloride market in Europe is anticipated to experience sluggish growth during the forecast period owing to the slow economic growth in the region since the last few years. This, in turn, is estimated to hamper demand for copper oxychloride. Demand for copper oxychloride in Latin America is projected to rise at a fastest pace during the forecast period.

Get free research PDF for more Professional and Technical insights: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=4032

Key companies operating in the copper oxychloride market include Albaugh, LLC, Biota Agro Solutions Private Limited, IQV, Isagro S.p.A., Killicks Pharma, Manica S.p.A., SPIESS-URANIA, Syngenta, and Vimal Crop Care Pvt. Ltd.

The report segments the global copper oxychloride market as follows:

Copper Oxychloride Market - Application Analysis

Fungicide

Colorants & Pigments

Commercial Feed Supplement

Others (Including pyrotechnics and catalyst)

Copper Oxychloride Market - Regional Analysis

North America

U.S.

Rest of North America

Europe

Germany

Italy

France

U.K.

Russia

Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

China

Japan

ASEAN

Rest of Asia Pacific

Latin America

Brazil

Rest of Latin America

Middle East & Africa

GCC

South Africa

Rest of MEA

Browse Regional Market Analysis: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/copper-oxychloride-market.htm

Browse Other Research Reports:

Global Copper Market: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/copper-market.html

Stainless Steel Round Bar Market: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/stainless-steel-round-bar-market.html

About TMR

Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The company's exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.

TMR's data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.

Contact



Transparency Market Research



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Tel: +1-518-618-1030

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SOURCE Transparency Market Research
TEL AVIV, Israel, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Affiliated Monitoring Supports Essence PERS Tech Across U.S. Distribution Market

Essence, a leading provider of IoT, cloud-based connected living solutions, announces that it has again won the ESX Innovation award for excellence in the PERS field of personal emergency technologies with the breakthrough Voice Panic Detector. The VPD is the first product in the industry to employ voice recognition technology to give seniors access to emergency response by using the most seamless interface of all - their voice.

This product, aside from garnering industry attention even prior to its commercial release, has created great expectation among customers. Essence's complete line of PERS offerings is now supported by Affiliated Monitoring, one of the largest monitoring centers in the U.S., and is now available to Affiliated's dealer network.

"Essence technology has been field proven to save lives," said Michael Zydor, Managing Director at Affiliated Monitoring. "We're excited to support Essence's PERS offerings to our dealers with its innovative technology that helps dealers appeal to a wider base of customers in the marketplace.."

With a meaningful percentage of cases where people are unable to access panic buttons at the time they are most needed, the VPD with Intelligent Voice Activation responds to vocal distress calls and immediately conveys the information to a monitoring center. With the ability to be activated using only recognized signals, the VPD will not return false alarms while its recognition algorithms ensure help will be on the way when needed.

This latest innovation is an extension of Essence's field-proven Care@Home PERS+ offerings that goes beyond traditional PERS by providing extra levels of safety that includes smoke and water leak detectors as well as the upcoming EP Active panic pendant with fall detection.

"Our customers continually expect - and receive - cutting-edge technologies from Essence that strengthen their emergency response offerings," said Yaniv Amir, President, Essence USA. "With the VPD, we are raising the bar and giving them even more tools to drastically increase the well-being of their end-users."

With PERS+, seniors get a voice-activated option that responds to a help word if there's a medical emergency and they can't physically access their units. It's a two-way system, so the monitoring company can communicate with the client directly to determine the level of assistance required.

Essence will be a Platinum sponsor of Affiliated Monitoring's upcoming Catalyst PERS Conference on May 17-19 in Naples, Florida where Essence's full Care@Home platform will be showcased to the largest PERS conference ever held.

About Essence

Essence is a global IoT provider of scalable, cloud-based connected-living solutions for security, communication, and healthcare service providers. Over the past 20 years, Essence has built an impressive installed base, with more than 15 million products deployed and used by Tier-1 service providers worldwide. Essence is committed to developing and supporting solutions that both enhance partners' businesses and enable people to live fuller and better lives. Essence has won several distinguished industry awards over the past year, garnering recognition by both the consumer and business markets, including the ESX Innovation Award for Care@Home and Care@Home VPD, European Consumers Choice Award, Telecom Broadband Infovision Award, IoT Business Impact Award, and others.

Media Contact

Amy Kenigsberg

K2 Global Communications

amy@k2-gc.com

www.k2-gc.com

Tel: +972-9-794-1681 (+2 GMT)

Mobile: +972-524-761-341

U.S.: +1-913-440-4072 (+7 ET)



SOURCE Essence
PUNE, India, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

ReportsnReports.com adds "Lewy Body Dementia - Pipeline Review, H1 2016" market research report covering comprehensive information on the therapeutic development for Lewy body Dementia, complete with comparative analysis at various stages, therapeutics assessment by drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type, along with latest updates, and featured news and press releases. It also reviews key players involved in the therapeutic development for Lewy body Dementia and special features on late-stage and discontinued projects.

Complete report on H1 2016 pipeline review of Lewy body Dementia with 17 market data tables and 11 figures, spread across 40 pages is available at http://www.reportsnreports.com/reports/541479-lewy-body-dementia-pipeline-review-h1-2016.html .

The report also reviews key players involved in the therapeutic development for Lewy body Dementia and special features on late-stage and discontinued projects. The report enhances decision making capabilities and help to create effective counter strategies to gain competitive advantage. It strengthens R&D pipelines by identifying new targets and MOAs to produce first-in-class and best-in-class products.

Companies discussed in this Lewy body Dementia Pipeline Review, H1 2016 report include Axovant Sciences Ltd., BioArctic Neuroscience AB, Immungenetics AG and Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd. Drug profiles discussed in this research report includes BAN-0805, nelotanserin, RVT-101, Small Molecule to Activate ABC Transporter for Neurodegeneration Disorders, Small Molecules to Agonize M1 Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptor for Lewy Body Dementia and Parkinson''s Disease Dementia and zonisamide.

Scope of this report: The report provides a snapshot of the global therapeutic landscape of Lewy body Dementia and reviews pipeline therapeutics for Lewy body Dementia by companies and universities/research institutes based on information derived from company and industry-specific sources and key players involved Lewy body Dementia therapeutics and enlists all their major and minor projects. The research covers pipeline products based on various stages of development ranging from pre-registration till discovery and undisclosed stages. The report features descriptive drug profiles for the pipeline products which includes, product description, descriptive MoA, R&D brief, licensing and collaboration details & other developmental activities and assesses Lewy body Dementia therapeutics based on drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type. The report summarizes all the dormant and discontinued pipeline projects with latest news related to pipeline therapeutics for Lewy body Dementia.

Order a copy of Lewy body Dementia - Pipeline Review, H1 2016 market research report @ http://www.reportsnreports.com/Purchase.aspx?name=541479 .

List of Tables

Number of Products under Development for Lewy body Dementia, H1 2016

Number of Products under Development by Companies, H1 2016

Comparative Analysis by Late Stage Development, H1 2016

Comparative Analysis by Clinical Stage Development, H1 2016

Comparative Analysis by Early Stage Development, H1 2016

Products under Development by Companies, H1 2016

Lewy body Dementia - Pipeline by Axovant Sciences Ltd., H1 2016

Lewy body Dementia - Pipeline by BioArctic Neuroscience AB, H1 2016

Lewy body Dementia - Pipeline by Immungenetics AG, H1 2016

Lewy body Dementia - Pipeline by Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd., H1 2016

Assessment by Monotherapy Products, H1 2016

Number of Products by Stage and Target, H1 2016

Number of Products by Stage and Mechanism of Action, H1 2016

Number of Products by Stage and Route of Administration, H1 2016

Number of Products by Stage and Molecule Type, H1 2016

Lewy body Dementia Therapeutics - Recent Pipeline Updates, H1 2016

Lewy body Dementia - Dormant Projects, H1 2016

Another newly published market research report titled on Alzheimer's Disease - Pipeline Review, H1 2016 provides comprehensive information on the therapeutic development for Alzheimer's Disease, complete with comparative analysis at various stages, therapeutics assessment by drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type, along with latest updates, and featured news and press releases. It also reviews key players involved in the therapeutic development for Alzheimer's Disease and special features on late-stage and discontinued projects. The report enhances decision making capabilities and help to create effective counter strategies to gain competitive advantage. It strengthens R&D pipelines by identifying new targets and MOAs to produce first-in-class and best-in-class products. Alzheimer's Disease Pipeline market research report of 1249 pages is available at http://www.reportsnreports.com/reports/525203-alzheimers-disease-pipeline-review-h1-2016.html .

Explore more reports on Pharmaceuticals.

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SOURCE ReportsnReports
HONG KONG, May 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: BR) today announced that China Post & Capital Global Asset Management Limited ("China Post Global"), the international asset management arm of China Post & Capital Fund Management Co., Ltd.  jointly owned by China Post Group, Capital Securities and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation -- went live on Broadridge's integrated trading and portfolio management platform.

China Post Global has deployed the solution for its Market Access ETFs. Broadridge will also manage its ETF products globally as well as the firm's China fund distribution network. Broadridge's integrated trading, compliance, portfolio management and reporting solution supports the set-up, tracking, mark-to-market and management of the assets making up the synthetic ETFs. China Post Global also utilizes Broadridge's SWIFT service bureau.

"After acquiring the Market Access ETF range from Royal Bank of Scotland, a rapid and smooth transition was a key focus for us," said Chris Satterfield, CEO, China Post Global. "Broadridge was able to natively and seamlessly support our synthetic ETF workflows, while on-boarding us in less than one month. We see Broadridge as a reliable long-term partner that can scale with us as we grow."

Bennett Egeth, president of Broadridge Investment Management Solutions, said: "ETF markets in Hong Kong and China are outperforming peers in the broader Asian ETF market, which is still at a relatively early stage of development with less than 10 percent of global market share. Broadridge is very proud to be working with an innovative Asian provider like China Post Global to address this tremendous opportunity by providing efficient, scalable and future-proof portfolio management solutions."

"Broadridge's success in serving asset managers in Asia comes from more than just a strong technology offering  it is also due to our mature local hosting and support model, in combination with global reach and scalability, which is a strong differentiator," Egeth continued.

Broadridge has been offering leading solutions across the Asia-Pacific region for more than two decades and currently has nearly 2,500 associates throughout Asia-Pacific. It provides technology-driven solutions for financial services firms across the buy-side and sell-side, including asset managers, hedge funds, broker-dealers, banks and mutual funds.

About Broadridge

Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: BR) is the leading provider of investor communications and technology-driven solutions for broker-dealers, banks, mutual funds and corporate issuers globally. Broadridge's investor communications, securities processing and managed services solutions help clients reduce their capital investments in operations infrastructure, allowing them to increase their focus on core business activities. With over 50 years of experience, Broadridge's infrastructure underpins proxy voting services for over 90% of public companies and mutual funds in North America, and processes on average $5 trillion in equity and fixed income trades per day. Broadridge employs approximately 7,400 full-time associates in 14 countries. For more information about Broadridge, please visit www.broadridge.com.

Media Contacts

Peggy Wu Kate McGann Ryan Communication Broadridge Financial Solutions Peggy@ryancommunication.com Katherine.mcgann@broadridge.com +65 6876 5785 +1 212 981 1395

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110920/MM71626LOGO

Related Links

http://www.broadridge.com



SOURCE Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc.
HELSINKI, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Remember the app called JoikuSpot, turning a good old Nokia Symbian phone into a hand warming WiFi hotspot?

Joiku is happy to announce that as of today JoikuSpot is back, available as a free download for Android phones and tablets via Google Play store. JoikuSpot enriches the WiFi options available on your Android and takes the concept of sharing WiFi networks into a new era.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160512/366859 )



The new JoikuSpot Android edition makes WiFi sharing smarter:

Smart WiFi Sharing. Users can share their WiFi networks safely without revealing or storing WiFi passwords in other devices. It is easy to create Smart QR codes and Access links that hide and encrypt users' WiFi passwords. Users can share a phone hotspot, as well as home and office WiFi networks privately with friends and visitors, or as a guest WiFi network in public.

WiFi Spotting. This feature enables users to find places with good WiFi signal on a WiFi Map, to navigate to the spot, and to connect automatically without the need for passwords. WiFi networks can also be shared publicly for other JoikuSpot users to discover, auto-connect and enjoy.

WiFi Globe. Users can download and sync to the country WiFi networks of their choice on a phone or tablet for offline use during travel. Users can delete country WiFi networks that are no longer needed, freeing up space in their device.

Mobile HotSpot. It is now possible to turn an Android device into a secure WiFi HotSpot the classic JoikuSpot way. Simply add the JoikuSpot hotspot icon to any Android screen for instant WiFi hotspot creation and use the Smart Sharing functionality to share the device's WiFi hotspot safely with friends.

JoikuSpot is free to download on Android at Google Play, or visit joikuspot.com to learn more.

About Joiku

Joiku is a mobile software innovation house from Finland, mostly known for its pioneering innovation in the area of mobile WiFi sharing and its mobile hotspot app JoikuSpot.

Press Contact: Tom Ojala, tom.ojala(at)joiku.com

SOURCE Joiku
LONDON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Entrepreneurship training specialists LEO are delighted to announce Winnie Leung as the new General Manager of the Asia Pacific business. The Asia Pacific market is the largest LEO market.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160513/367515LOGO )



(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160513/367518 )



Ms Leung comes from a varied background, having worked in a number of different fields; from a career in the top management of global companies, to working as a professional violinist. For over twenty years, she has served in a management role with numerous top tier direct selling companies. She has travelled the world, living in Hong Kong, Canada and Taiwan and is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.

Ms Leung is passionate about helping people. She has a wealth of experience in training people in business acumen, communication skills, negotiation and learning skills. She strongly believes that learning is one of the most important things in life for personal growth and that through learning everyone has the potential to lead a more fulfilling life.

Speaking about her new role, Ms Leung said, "I am thrilled to be joining LEO and taking on the helm of their Asia Pacific business. With the company's overarching mission to unleash human potential and my own desire to make a difference in people's lives, this role presents a fantastic opportunity to help LEO expand their footprint across the entire region."

Commenting on her appointment, LEO President Dan Andersson said, "Winnie brings a wealth of experience to LEO. She has been very active in the Direct Selling Industry for a number of years and her expertise and knowledge will help take LEO's Asia Pacific business to the next level."

LEO is active in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Middle East and across South East Asia, and operates in over 120 different marketplaces. Asia Pacific is one of LEO's core marketplaces and has been rapidly growing since the company was originally founded; it is now the company's largest market.

Founded in 2012 by Dan Andersson and Atif Kamran, LEO is focused on education and entrepreneurship technology. In addition to its educational products, it is also active in digital currency and recently launched a new crowdfunding website.

For press enquiries and to arrange interviews please contact:

Roz Platt, JBP on +44(0)203-267-0074, +44(0)7999-676-456 or James Hargrave, JBP on +44(0)203-267-0074, +44(0)7900-907-707 Roz.platt@jbp.co.uk; james.hargrave@jbp.co.uk

SOURCE LEO
LONDON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

MMC Norilsk Nickel (hereinafter, Norilsk Nickel or the Company), the world's largest refined nickel and palladium producer, hosts today its annual strategy day. The management reports the main results of the completed strategic cycle of 2013-2015 and sets key goals and priorities for the next strategic cycle of 2016-2018.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150518/744647 )



In 2013-2015, a significant progress was achieved in transforming Norilsk Nickel into a world-class run organization, having built an efficient business platform enabling full development of the Company's best-in-class mining assets. The Company has successfully rolled out stringent investment governance discipline, refocused its asset portfolio on Tier-1 assets and executed on a large portion of non-core and non-Tier 1 asset disposals.

Over the past 3 years Norilsk Nickel delivered:

39% reduction of cash nickel-equivalent unit costs in USD terms;

USD 3 billion release of unproductive capital;

release of unproductive capital; Optimization of mandatory capex to industry benchmark levels.

Over the same period, despite extremely challenging commodity markets Norilsk Nickel demonstrated a superior financial performance relative to its global peers, reporting one of the industry's lowest leverage levels and highest profitability, while also being the only global mining major generating positive total shareholder return.

Having realized what the management considers as the 'quick wins', the Company sets its priorities for the next three years with a focus on further downstream modernization, identification of growth opportunities in upstream and a major effort to advance with an improvement of its environmental footprint.

HSE - On Top of Strategic Priorities

Norilsk Nickel continues to strive for making its production assets clean and safe operations. An HSE strategy approved by the Board in 2014 has already resulted in a major progress in Health and Safety as independently verified by an international audit. Full elimination of workforce fatalities remains the key priority for the management.

In 2016, the Company is planning to complete the first phase of its environmental programme. The phased out shutdown of Nickel Plant is on track and scheduled for the full completion in October, that should result in a significant reduction of overall SO 2 emissions (by 15%) and emissions within the Norilsk city boundaries by 35%.

The Company has also engaged into the second phase of the environmental program, having launched active preparations for the construction of the 'Sulfur project' with an ultimate goal to decrease the overall SO 2 emissions by 75% at the Polar Division. The Sulphur project design for Nadezhda plant has been complete and approved by the Russia's regulatory body (Rostechnadzor). Construction site preparations have started and one of the leading engineering and industrial construction firms, SNC Lavalin, has been commissioned to prepare a detailed engineering project.

New Configuration for Copper Stream

A new reconfiguration concept for copper stream at Polar Division is presented, that entails the transfer of converting and anode smelting operations from Copper Plant to Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant. The modernization of Copper stream in such a way enables the transfer of the most polluting facilities of Copper plant from the city of Norilsk and full utilization of the prospective Sulphur dioxide capturing facilities at Nadezhda plant.

Upstream Strategic Optionality and Investment Governance Update

According to the current base case mine plan, mining volumes at Talnakh deposit developed by Polar Division to grow from 14.8 mtpa to 18 mtpa over the next decade. This mine output growth will secure stable and highly profitable metal production of Norilsk Nickel for the next several decades.

In addition, the Company has identified a growth option for Norilsk-1 deposit (South Cluster) that could potentially grow mine output to 6 mtpa by 2024. The Company will consider the potential development of the project also in a form of potential partnership. The feasibility study for the prject has been commissioned and due for completion in 2H 2017.

All-in CAPEX target for 2016-2018 is forecasted at USD 2 billion per annum, with the base investment program necessary to maintain stable production is cumulatively set at USD 4.4 billion over the period, with the remainder allocated for the completion of Bystrinsky project, the Phase-1 of Sulphur project and, potentially, growth options.

Progress on Bystrinsky Project

The construction of Bystrinsky copper-gold project in Chita region is on time and on budget with 45% completion rate as of May 2016 and the scheduled launch in 4Q 2017. De-risking of the project has progressed well with Norilsk Nickel having brought a minority equity investor from China and signed a project financing facility for up to USD 800 million with Sberbank.

Balanced Model and Superior Shareholder Returns

The Company remains committed to maintaining industry-leading dividend yield while protecting its balance sheet during the downturn in commodity markets. The new dividend targets, with a variable payout EBITDA ratio (ranging from 60% to 30%) depending on the Company's leverage, will be applied to dividend distributions for 2016 onwards. The management is confident that dividend flexibility is sufficient to sustain a balanced financial model of the Company, while maintaining its capital investment program and social obligations.

Commenting on the strategic update the Company's President Vladimir Potanin said, "Since the adoption of a new corporate strategy in 2013 we have not only delivered on the industry leading shareholder return, but also on our commitments to stakeholders, including our employees, communities and the Russian government.

Over the last three years, we feel that operational and financial results achieved have been quite remarkable as Norilsk Nickel streamlined its asset portfolio, went through a major capex and opex optimization, release of excessive capital and rolled out a stringent investment governance discipline.

We are consistently delivering on all promises regarding the downstream reconfiguration with upgraded Talnakh concentrator launched, Nickel Plant being decommissioned and Kola Division becoming a primary refinery hub.

Our management team achievements rely heavily on its constant development and continuity. The Company runs a pool of talent, where we bring up young managers, provide them with an opportunity to excel in high priority areas and entrust them with new responsibilities. In this regard, I would like to introduce the promotions of Sergey Dubovitsky to Vice President, Strategy, and Vladimir Zhukov to Vice President, Investor Relations, both of which were leading the efforts in their respective areas of responsibility in the Company since 2013.

Norilsk Nickel has built an efficient operating platform over the last three years. Leveraging on this platform we are now to deliver on our modernization agenda with a major focus on improvement of Norilsk environmental footprint. Our current upstream portfolio, which has been recently successfully stress-tested at spot commodity prices, provides a solid operation base for the next several decades, additionally we going to study new options for growth at our core operations of Polar division.

We believe that our financial model is well balanced and we aim to continue delivering industry leading returns to our shareholders."

Please find the Annual Strategy presentation here:

http://www.nornik.ru/investoram/vyistupleniya-i-presentaczii

ABOUT NORILSK NICKEL

http://www.nornik.ru/en/about-norilsk-nickel/about-norilsk-nickel1

SOURCE Norilsk Nickel
LONDON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

- RIFD, Taggants, Barcodes, Holograms/OVD and Others

- Our new Study Reveals Trends, R&D Progress, and Predicted Revenues



Our new report discusses issues and events affecting the pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting technologies market. You will find discussions, including qualitative analyses:

 Increasing demand for pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting technologies due to increasing cases of counterfeit drugs

 Government requirements on serialisation in key national markets

 Protection of brand name and revenues

 Cost of implementing anti-counterfeiting technologies

 Dilution impact on supply chains

 Online market for pharmaceutical drugs

You will see discussions of technological, commercial, political and economic matters, with emphasis on the competitive landscape and business outlooks.

Besides revenue forecasting to 2026, our new study provides you with recent results, growth rates, and market shares. There you find original analyses, with business outlooks and developments. Discover qualitative analyses (including SWOT and STEP Analysis), company profiles and commercial developments.

Read the full transcripts of two exclusive expert opinion interviews from industry specialists informing your understanding and allowing you to assess prospects for investments and sales, including:

 Dr Fred Jordan, CEO of AlpVision, a world's leader in digital invisible technologies for product authentication and counterfeit protection.

 Dr Jamie Barras, technical manager of CONPHIRMER, a collaborative EU project aimed at developing a radiofrequency-spectroscopic sensor for identifying counterfeit medicines within packaging.

Discover How to Stay Ahead

Forecasts from 2016-2026 and other analyses reveal the commercial prospects

This study investigates commercial trends and revenues of the pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting market from 2016 to 2026, as well as historical data. In particular it discusses sales potentials of the main submarkets of pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting technology: barcodes, RFID, holograms/OVD and taggants. In addition, it includes qualitative analysis of anti-counterfeiting technology in the pipeline.

To see a report overview please email Sara Peerun on sara.peerun@visiongainglobal.com

This analysis also examines strengths and weaknesses of the pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting market as well as the opportunities and threats it will face. It provides a discussion of the prominent companies with products already available or in the pipeline, who are vying for position in that industry. Furthermore, the study examines 8 leading national markets for pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting, with analyses and revenue forecasts presented.

Discover sales predictions for the world market and submarkets

Predictions of leading products' sales - what's possible for those pharma anti-counterfeiting market

Along with revenue prediction for the overall world market, you see forecasts to 2026 for these five submarkets:

 Barcodes

 RFID

 Holograms/OVD

 Taggants

 Other anti-counterfeiting technologies

Over the course of the forecast period, traditional barcode technology and new radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology will compete for market share.

With our investigation you gain business research and analysis with submarkets sales predictions and discussions. You find analysis of competition, as well as commercial drivers and restraints affecting each submarket. See what's likely to achieve the most success.

You gain competitive advantages by understanding the dynamics, opportunities and challenges facing the pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting technologies market. As well as finding technologies that will likely to achieve the most success.

What are the prospects in the leading regions and countries?

In our study you will find individual revenue forecasts to 2026 for the leading regional and national markets:

 US

 Japan

 EU5

 China

 India

 Brazil

 Russia

 Mexico

 Rest of the World

The US and the EU dominated shares of the market in 2015. However, the emerging markets will increase their market shares throughout the forecast period as the demand for such technologies will be greatest in areas where illegal counterfeiting is greatest.

Leading companies and the potential for market growth

Research and development - assess innovation, trends and possibilities

Overall world revenue for pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting technologies will reach $3.4bn in 2015, our work forecasts. We predict strong revenue growth from 2016 to 2026. Rising consumption of counterfeit drugs, government regulatory mandates and FDA initiatives, technological advancements and the rapid growth of the RFID submarket will drive sales to 2026.



Our work shows you which companies hold the greatest potential. See profiles of 15 leading companies, including these:

 3M

 Alien Technology

 AlpVision

 Angstrom Technologies

 Authentix

 Avery Dennison

 Colorcon

 Covectra

 Everest Holovisions

 InkSure Technologies

 Intermec

 Multi Packaging Solutions

 ThermoFisher Scientific

 TruTag Technologies

 UPM Raflatac

 Zebra Technologies

A company profile gives you the following information:

 Discussion of a company's activities and outlook

 Recent financial results

 Profiles of key anti-counterfeiting technologies

 Assessment of recent developments - mergers and acquisitions (M&A), new products, and collaborations, including alliances, partnerships and joint ventures

Discover capabilities, progress, and commercial prospects, helping you stay ahead.

How the pharma anti-counterfeiting market report helps you

This report features news, insights, the latest developments and an in depth survey of the pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting technology market with up-to-date analysis as well as tables, graphs and charts. This report is a vital addition to gaining an understanding of this market sector and will give your company 'the edge' on your competitors. You cannot afford to be without this latest report from visiongain.

You will find quantitative and qualitative analyses with independent predictions. You will receive information that only our report contains, staying informed with this invaluable business intelligence.

Our 226 page report provides 50 tables and 66 figures covering 4 different submarkets. 8 national markets are covered in addition to 15 leading companies. Discover the most lucrative areas in the industry and the future market prospects. You will see financial results, interviews, trends, opportunities, and revenue predictions. Development of new and existing technologies in unison with an increasing occurrence of illegal counterfeit activity will increase worldwide sales of such products from 2016 to 2026, our study shows.

Benefit your work now through our updated study, gaining original industry and market analysis:

 Revenue to 2026 for the global pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting technology market - discover the sales potential of that industry

 Revenues to 2026 for the leading submarkets of anti-counterfeiting technology - find sales predictions, seeing how they can compete and succeed

 Forecasts to 2026 for 8 national markets in the Americas, Europe and Asia - discover the best countries and regions for commercial expansion

 Activities of established, rising and emerging companies - hear about firms' products, capabilities, advances and outlooks, also with industry opinions

 Discussions of R&D - investigate progress in that industry, finding technological and commercial outlooks and opportunities

 Analysis of what stimulates and restrains the pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting technology market - assess challenges and strengths for technology, their developers, producers and sellers, helping you compete and stay ahead.

To see a report overview please email Sara Peerun on sara.peerun@visiongainglobal.com

To request an exec summary of this report please email Sara Peerun at sara.peerun@visiongainglobal.com or call Tel: +44 (0) 20 7336 6100

Or click on https://www.visiongain.com/Report/1636/Pharmaceutical-Anti-Counterfeiting-Technologies-Market-Forecast-2016-2026

Companies and Organisations Mentioned in This Report

3M

Adhesives Research

Affymetrix

AhuraScientific

Alien Technology

AlpVision,

Amerisource,

AmerisourceBergen (Amgen)

AND Automation

Angstrom Technologies

Apoteket

Applied DNA Sciences,

ARmark Authentication Technologies

AstraZeneca

Authentix

Avery Dennison

Axway

Baxter

Bp Media

Cal Sierra

Camdata

Cardinal Health,

Cellular Bioengineering

CFC International

Colorcon

Cortegra

Covectra

DataDot Technology

DataTrace DNA

Digital China

Domino

DuPont

Everest Holovisions

Genentech

GIS

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)

Hart Systems

Hoffmann-La Roche

Hologram Industries

Holomex

Holovisions

Honeywell

Image Solutions

Impinj

Inabata

Ingenia Technology

Inksure Technologies

Intermec Technologies

International Ink Company

Johnson & Johnson (J&J)

Kodak

LaserLock

Life Technologies

McKesson

Menasha Corporation

MicroTagTemed

Microtrace Solutions

Millennium Pharmaceuticals

Motorola

Multi Packaging Solutions (formerly Chesapeake)

Nanotech Security Corp

Neri Labels

Novartis

Pera Innovation

Novavision

OEP Technologie BV

Pacific Holographics

Paulaur

Pfizer

Product Presentations

ROC IT Solutions

Roche

Sanofi,

SciClone,

Shanghai Ruizhang Investment,

SICPA,

Siemens,

Smartrac

Softmat,

Spectra Systems Corporation,

Sun Chemical,

Symbol Technologies,

Systech,

Tagsys RFID,

Texas Instruments,

The Carlyle Group,

ThermoFisherScientific,

Toya Aluminium,

TruTag Technologies,

UPM Raflatac,

UPM-Kymmene Corporation,

Voxtel,

Webscan

WuXi PharmaTech,

Zebra Technologies.

To see a report overview please email Sara Peerun on sara.peerun@visiongainglobal.com

SOURCE Visiongain Ltd
LEIDEN, The Netherlands, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Pharming Group N.V. ("Pharming" or "the Company") (EURONEXT: PHARM) today announced its support of the Fifth Annual International Hereditary Angioedema Day.

- hae day :-) -

hae day :-) takes place on 16 May 2016 and aims to raise awareness around Hereditary Angioedema (HAE).

hae day :-) is coordinated by the HAEi, the International Patient Organization for C1-Inhibitor Deficiency, along with direct support of its Member Organizations and encourages patient organizations from across the globe to organize awareness-raising activities around the theme "Many faces, one family". This specific day aims to raise awareness of HAE among the general public and medical community in order to create an environment with earlier and faster diagnosis, improved patient care, knowledge and therapy conditions that ensure HAE patients and their families can lead normal lives.

HAE is a rare, very disabling and potentially life-threatening genetic disorder. People living with this condition suffer from recurrent and disabling attacks of swelling that can affect abdomen, face, extremities, urogenital tract, and less-frequently obstruction in the upper airways.

As part of its global commitment to improving the lives of patients with HAE and their caregivers, Pharming participates in the HAEi Global Access Program initiative (http://haei.org/hae/global_access_program/) as well as in several multi-country studies and projects aimed at improving patients' quality of life.

"HAE is a complicated disease that can sometimes take many years to diagnose. As frequently indicated by experts, HAE has many different faces. For this reason, hae day :-) is an important event, which raises awareness of this serious condition and helps to ensure that patients are diagnosed earlier and treated safely", said Dr Sijmen de Vries, CEO of Pharming Group NV. "At Pharming, we have been collaborating with the HAE community since 2000. We are delighted to support this year's fifth anniversary of hae day :-). We are very proud of the difference in patients' and their families' lives that we can make together with HAEi and its local affiliates."

"HAEi is excited to celebrate the 5th anniversary of hae day :-)," said Henrik Balle Boysen, Executive Director of HAEi. "We are pleased that over the years hae day :-) events have fostered increased awareness about this debilitating and potentially fatal condition. We are confident that hae day :-) 2016, along with other supportive initiatives, will continue the momentum towards more timely diagnosis and improved access to life-saving therapies."

To learn more about the hae day :-) events happening in your regional area, please visit http://www.haeday.org.

About HAE Hereditary Angioedema (HAE) is a rare genetic disorder. It is characterized by spontaneous and recurrent episodes of swelling (edema attacks) of the skin in different parts of the body, as well as in the airways and internal organs. Edema of the skin usually affects the extremities, the face, and the genitals. Patients suffering from this kind of edema often withdraw from their social lives because of the disfiguration, discomfort and pain these symptoms may cause. Almost all HAE patients suffer from bouts of severe abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea caused by swelling of the intestinal wall. Edema of the throat, nose or tongue is particularly dangerous and potentially life-threatening and can lead to obstruction of the airway passages. Although there is currently no known cure for HAE, it is possible to treat the symptoms associated with edema attacks. HAE affects about 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 50,000 people worldwide. Experts believe that a lot of patients are still seeking the right diagnosis, because although HAE is (in principle) easy to diagnose, it is frequently identified very late or not discovered at all. HAE is often misdiagnosed because the symptoms are similar to those of many other common conditions such as allergies or appendicitis. By the time it is diagnosed correctly, the patient has often been through a long ordeal.

To learn more about HAE, please visit http://haei.org/.

Please see Prescribing Information for RUCONEST as applicable for various jurisdictions.

http://www.pharming.com/products/ruconest

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProducts/ApprovedProducts/LicensedProductsBLAs/FractionatedPlasmaProducts/UCM405634.pdf

About Pharming Group N.V.

Pharming is a specialty pharmaceutical company developing innovative products for the safe, effective treatment of rare diseases and unmet medical needs. Pharming's lead product, RUCONEST (conestat alfa) is a recombinant human C1 esterase inhibitor approved for the treatment of acute Hereditary Angioedema ("HAE") attacks in patients in the EU, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, the USA, Israel and South Korea.

In other territories where it has not yet obtained marketing authorization, RUCONEST is available through the international HAE patient organization's Global Access Programme (HAEi-GAP) on a named-patient basis.

RUCONEST is commercialized by Pharming in Austria, Germany and The Netherlands.

RUCONEST is distributed by Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (publ) (SS: SOBI) in the other EU countries, and in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Norway, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine.

RUCONEST is distributed in North America, Canada and Mexico by Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (NYSE: VRX/TSX: VRX), following Valeant's acquisition of Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd.

RUCONEST is distributed in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Venezuela, by Cytobioteck.

RUCONEST is distributed in South Korea by HyupJin Corporation and in Israel by Megapharm.

RUCONEST is being investigated in a Phase II randomized, double blind placebo-controlled clinical trial for prophylactic treatment of HAE and is being evaluated for other indications as well. The Phase II study was fully recruited shortly after the year-end 2015.

RUCONEST is also being investigated in a Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of HAE in young children (2-13 years of age) and evaluated for various additional follow-on indications.

Pharming's technology platform includes a unique, GMP-compliant, validated process for the production of pure recombinant human proteins that has proven capable of producing industrial quantities of high quality recombinant human proteins in a more economical and less immunogenetic way compared with current cell-line based methods. Leads for enzyme replacement therapy ("ERT") for Pompe and Fabry's diseases are being optimized at present, with additional programs not involving ERT also being explored at an early stage at present.

Pharming has a long term partnership with the Shanghai Institute of Pharmaceutical Industry ("SIPI"), a Sinopharm company, for joint global development of new products, starting with recombinant human Factor VIII for the treatment of Haemophilia A. Pre-clinical development and manufacturing will take place to global standards at SIPI and are funded by SIPI. Clinical development will be shared between the partners with each partner taking the costs for their territories under the partnership.

Pharming has declared that the Netherlands is its "Home Member State" pursuant to the amended article 5:25a paragraph 2 of the Dutch Financial Supervision Act.

Additional information is available on the Pharming website: http://www.pharming.com

Pharming Disclosure Notice

This press release contains forward looking statements that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward looking statements.

Contacts:

Pharming Group N.V.

Sijmen de Vries, CEO: T: +31-71-524-7400

FTI Consulting:

Julia Phillips/ Victoria Foster Mitchell, T: +44-203-727-1136



PRN NLD





SOURCE Pharming Group N.V.
LAS VEGAS, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Unity iQ is the One Groundbreaking Solution That Solves The Main Problem Enterprises Face Today: Increased Data & Legacy Tools That Are Used In Silos

Savision (http://www.savision.com) today announced the availability of its new multi-platform Business Service Intelligence Solution, Unity iQ at the Knowledge16 event in Las Vegas, NV. The world of IT is becoming increasingly complex, with IT professionals facing an assortment of challenges. Frequently, ITSM and monitoring systems are disconnected, with teams working in operational silos, not fully understanding the impact that each system has on the overall business. As a result, IT professionals spend significant time, effort and funds being reactive rather than proactive, putting out fires vs. innovating to drive business growth.

Now, Savision, the market leader in Business Service Intelligence solutions, is offering a groundbreaking solution, Unity iQ. Unity iQ connects the worlds between IT, the help desk and the business, transforming silos into unity. This new solution aggregates and analyzes dispersed data from existing ITSM and monitoring systems, delivering relevant and actionable information for IT and business stakeholders. It does not replace these existing domain tools, but rather it collects, correlates and prioritizes the data these systems produce and measures it against pre-defined business KPIs.

"Business service delivery is stuck in a world of silos. Unity iQ is a smart and easy-to-deploy solution that reduces complexity and brings these worlds together," said Diana Krieger, CEO of Savision. "Unity iQ allows you to aggregate, analyze and act upon dispersed data from different monitoring and ITSM systems. It provides a holistic view for your IT, help desk and business teams so they can solve problems faster and predict outages. With Unity iQ, you can spend less time on operations and more on innovation."

Unity iQ turns data into Business Service Intelligence. Alerts, and incidents are displayed in real-time, giving all stakeholders a holistic view of their complete IT environment. The benefits of Unity iQ include:

Enable s Business and IT a lignment (People) : Facilitates business optimization and motivates an entrepreneurial-focused culture. Helps organizations in maturity journey, and solves miscommunications between business and IT.

: Facilitates business optimization and motivates an entrepreneurial-focused culture. Helps organizations in maturity journey, and solves miscommunications between business and IT. Increase s innovation (Technology) and r evenue - Unity iQ helps to increase maturity level of the company by providing business contribution metrics. The more mature a company becomes, the more they can invest money from their operational budget to focus more in innovation, lowering risks and costs.

- Unity iQ helps to increase maturity level of the company by providing business contribution metrics. The more mature a company becomes, the more they can invest money from their operational budget to focus more in innovation, lowering risks and costs. Increases operating efficiency (Process) - The access to relevant information makes room for better decision making, as well as predicting and minimizing downtime.

With Unity iQ, IT will spend less time resolving problems and more time on planning for the future. Unity iQ:

Reduces downtime by up to 70%

Reduces the number of service outages by up to 60%

Results in cost savings of up to 82%

Is easy to install, configure, and maintain

"We developed Unity iQ in line with requests from our customers, and our customers also provided valuable feedback by using a beta version of Unity iQ," said Rob Doucette, CTO of Savision. "We're confident that this unique, innovative solution will solve enterprises' main problem of too much data across silos, by providing a more robust, holistic view."

About Unity iQ

Unity iQ is a smart solution that optimizes your IT service delivery. It provides your IT, help desk and business teams the service intelligence they need to solve problems faster and predict outages. Unity iQ allows you to aggregate, analyze and act upon dispersed data from different monitoring and ITSM systems. The unified data is presented in a holistic view so everyone understands the business context. Within seconds, you can determine the business impact of an outage or perform a root-cause analysis.

About Savision

Savision is the market leader in Business Service Intelligence solutions. We provide your IT, help desk and business teams the service intelligence they need allowing them to become business partners. With our solutions you can prevent problems and reduce downtime. Since our start in 2006 in the Netherlands, we have helped over 800 customers optimize their IT service delivery. This includes clients from the public sector to Fortune 500 companies worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.savision.com.

SOURCE Savision
DUBLIN, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "High And Extra High Voltage Transformers - The Most Critical U.S. Electrical Infrastructure Component-Risk And Impact of Solar Storms & Emp Attacks - U.S. Market, Installed Base And Suppliers: 2015-2020 Analysis and Forecasts" report to their offering.

The objective of this report is to examine the U.S. market for High and Extra High Voltage Transformers in terms of the risk and impact of Solar Storms and EMP Attacks.

The thesis of this report is that the U.S. is not prepared in the event of a major Solar Storm or EMP attack to quickly restore the electric grid, due to its inability to replace High and Extra High Voltage transformers. High and Extra High Voltage transformers are the most critical component of the U.S. electrical infrastructure. There are thousands of High Voltage transformers installed in the United States today, but only a small number of these are very large units rated 345 kV and above. The market for these transformers is very small and imports accounted for most of U.S. consumption of these products in 2015. Further increasing the risk, there are only a few Extra High Voltage transformers available as spares.



Finally, there are only a small number of U.S companies still producing High and Extra High Voltage transformers. The other suppliers are foreign companies operating U.S. plants. In other words, the U.S. can no longer supply most of its High and Extra High Voltage transformer needs, and if there was a major Solar Storm or EMP Attack, there are only enough spares to replace a small percent of the installed base. As a result, in the event of a major Geomagnetic Storm or EMP Attack, the U.S. will not be able to restore its electric grid for months to years.



Key information presented in this report includes analysis of:



- Critical Infrastructure Protection.

- U.S. Energy Sector.

- U.S. Electric Power System.

- High Voltage Transformers.

- High-Impact, Low-Frequency Events.

- Solar Storms.

- EMP Attacks.

- U.S. Extra High Voltage Transformer Installed Base.

- Investment Trends in U.S. Transmission Infrastructure.

- U.S. High and Extra High Voltage Transformer Market.

- Profiles of U.S. based producers of High and Extra High Voltage transformers.



Key Topics Covered:



1. Introduction



2. Critical Infrastructure Protection



3. U.S. Energy Sector



4. U.S. Electric Power System



5. High Voltage Transformers



6. High-Impact, Low-Frequency Events



7. Solar Storms



8. Electromagnetic Pulse Attacks



9. U.S. High and Extra High Voltage Transformers Installed Base



10. Investment Trends In U.S. Transmission Infrastructure



11. U.S. High and Extra High Voltage Transformer Market



12. Company Profiles

- ABB Ltd

- Delta Star, Inc.

- EFACEC Engenharia, S.A

- Hyundai Power Transformers USA.

- Mitsubishi Electric Power Products Inc.

- Pennsylvania Transformer Technology Inc.

- SPX Corporation

- Virginia Transformer Corp.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/xc7lt8/high_and_extra

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

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Related Links

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SOURCE Research and Markets
- First Motorcycle Assembly Plant in Nigeria Marks Second Foray into African Continent -

LAGOS, Nigeria and IWATA, Japan, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (Tokyo: 7272) announced today that CFAO Yamaha Motor Nigeria Ltd., a joint venture between Yamaha Motor and CFAO S.A., opened its first motorcycle assembly plant in Africa within the Amuwo Odofin Industrial Scheme area of Lagos, Nigeria on May 13. The facility includes a showroom that showcases Yamaha Motor's wide-ranging lineup for land and water-transport products.

(Photo & Video: http://bit.ly/244rGax)

(YouTube: https://youtu.be/_lUnnRwM4sk)

This marks Yamaha Motor's second foray into Nigeria, as well as the entire African continent, following the cessation of its motorcycle production in Nigeria in 2005.

The plant and showroom will help meet local needs for land and water transportation, including government initiatives to develop Nigeria's aquatic agriculture sector. Production is expected to reach 70,000 motorcycles by 2018.

Visitors to the showroom will be able to view and purchase diverse products from the Yamaha Motor lineup, such as outboard engines, personal watercraft, all-terrain vehicles, generators and Yamalube lubricants, all of which are distributed in Nigeria exclusively by CFAO Yamaha Motor Nigeria.

Yamaha Motor also announced two initiatives for the local motoring public: the Yamaha Technical Academy, which will provide technical training and support services, and the Yamaha Riding Academy, which will promote motorcycle riding safety.

Attendees in the opening ceremony included Lagos Governor Akinwumi Ambode, Yamaha Motor President, CEO and Representative Director Hiroyuki Yanagi, and CFAO Group Chairman Richard Bielle.

CFAO, a Paris-based member of Japan's Toyota Tsusho group, distributes products of major international brands in Africa. The company has been in business for more than 110 years, during which time it has built a vast distribution network in Nigeria.

About CFAO Yamaha Motor Nigeria Ltd.

CFAO Yamaha Motor Nigeria Ltd. is a registered subsidiary of the CFAO group and Yamaha Motor. It was incorporated on April 9, 2015. The company is the exclusive distributor of Yamaha Motor products in Nigeria.

SOURCE Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.
NEW YORK, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- 40 North Management ("40 North"), a privately-held, diversified investment platform and an affiliate of Standard Industries Inc. ("Standard"), announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire a 29.1% stake in Braas Monier Building Group S.A. ("Braas Monier"), subject to regulatory approval. Headquartered in Luxembourg, with over 7,700 employees, operations in 37 countries and 118 production sites, Braas Monier is a leading manufacturer and supplier of pitched roofing products, including both roof tiles and roofing components in Europe and parts of Asia and South Africa. Braas Monier's product portfolio includes many of the most recognized and trusted brands in its markets including Braas, Monier, Bramac, Redland, Wierer, Cobert, Klober, Schiedel and Coverland.

"We strongly believe that people are at the core of every company's successes, and Braas Monier is certainly no exception. We look forward to partnering with its outstanding management and employees to further support the company's growth," said David Winter, co-CEO of Standard and co-CIO of 40 North.

"With our expertise in the roofing and waterproofing business, Braas Monier represents a truly unique opportunity to continue our significant investment in the industry through Europe's leading residential franchise," added David Millstone, co-CEO of Standard and co-CIO of 40 North.

About 40 North

40 North is a fundamentally-based investment platform focused on both public equities and third-party managed alternative investments.

About Standard

Standard Industries is a privately-held, global, diversified holding company with interests in building materials and aggregates, and affiliated investment businesses in public equities and real estate. With over 7,500 employees and operations in more than 80 countries, Standard's businesses include: GAF, the largest roofing manufacturer in North America; Icopal, the European leader in high-end commercial roofing products and waterproofing solutions; Siplast, a leader in the development and manufacture of the world's most advanced roofing and waterproofing systems; and SGI, a leading North American aggregates and mining company.

SOURCE 40 North
KINGSTON, N.Y., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- "We want the opening weekend of Smorgasburg Upstate to be a fantastic experience for everyone, both the public and the vendors. Unfortunately, we now anticipate a 60-day delay due to the complexity of the project," stated Karl Slovin, The Hutton Brickyards owner and President of MWest Holdings. "Providing proper infrastructure and renovating the existing structures, some over 100 years old, to make them safe for the public is taking a bit more time than first anticipated. We hope everyone will bear with us for a few extra weeks."

"Bringing the movable feast to Upstate New York is the natural progression for a company that's been celebrating and promoting local food businesses for the past decade," said Smorgasburg's Jonathan Butler. Smorgasburg, led by CoFounders Jonathan Butler and Eric Demby, will use 18 of the 76 acres MWest owns along the Hudson River for a weekly open-air food and flea market.

The Hutton Brickyards turned out millions of bricks from 1865 to 1980 on the Hudson River in Kingston, New York. The Brickyards supplied building brick to the Hudson Valley and New York City, including to iconic structures such as Yankee Stadium and the Empire State Building.

The property, derelict for over 30 years, was neglected during this low period in its history. "The clean up from 100 years of industrial use and 30 years of neglect has been enormous. Our goal is to bring this unique riverfront property to life with partners like Butler and Demby, who admire and respect the history and context of Kingston and The Hutton Brickyards," explained Slovin. Working closely with Kingston officials, Slovin and Butler are making sure the market meets all the local and state requirements to ensure the public's safety prior to opening Smorgasburg Upstate. "We greatly appreciate all of the enthusiasm we have received from the public, particularly the Kingston city officials, who have been truly supportive and great to work with," adds Slovin.

MWest's Smorgasburgs plan calls for several of the existing buildings to be used for the project while others would be cordoned off until refurbishment at a later date.

The new Smorgasburg Upstate launch date of August 6th, 2016, will allow final touches to be completed and additional time for vendors to submit their applications.

For more information on The Hutton Brickyards visit huttonbrickyards.com or facebook.com/thehuttonbrickyards

CONTACT: Jessica Martin MWest Holdings, LLC [email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20080919/LAF521LOGO

SOURCE MWest Holdings, LLC
BASKING RIDGE, N.J., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Deck Towel, a leading e-commerce supplier of upscale luxury linen deck and bath towels announces the launch of its newly designed website. The company, recently purchased by Hank and Gail Patterson, offers the widest selection of patterns and colors in the luxury linen towel segment, of the beach and bath marketplace.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160513/367364LOGO

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160513/367363

"We are thrilled to be able to introduce our expanded collection of patterns and fabrics to our loyal customers and customers to be, via our freshly updated website," says owner and President of Deck Towel Hank Patterson. "Our customers have a passion for our products and the benefits that they afford, providing them with more options and a better buying experience was a priority for Gail and I when we purchased the company. It's all about providing the true luxury experience that we feel our clients deserve."

Deck Towel has been serving the luxury towel marketplace since 2010. The products are crafted from fine European linen here in the USA, using responsibly sourced materials and labor.

Gail Patterson, Creative Director of Deck Towel added, "We are excited to bring our customers our brand new website, where we showcase our delicious towels in on-trend colors and patterns. Whether it's the striped Alfons, reminiscent of yachting regalia, or the classic Nora in purest white, we are looking forward to showcasing our expanded offerings to our clientele."

To learn more about Deck Towel and the products we offer contact Hank Patterson through email or at 201-317-9277 or visit our website at www.decktowel.com

SOURCE Deck Towel

Related Links

http://www.decktowel.com


CHICAGO, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) has announced that Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) has joined the ABMS Multi-Specialty Portfolio Approval ProgramTM (Portfolio Program). JHM physicians who are Board Certified by one of 21 of the 24 ABMS Member Boards participating in the Portfolio Program, and are engaged in eligible activities approved by the JHM Office of Continuing Medical Education and the Armstrong Institute for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (Armstrong Institute), can now obtain maintenance of certification (MOC) credit.

The JHM Portfolio Program will be offered to the more than 3,000 physicians throughout the JHM system which is comprised of The Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Howard County General Hospital, Suburban Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Johns Hopkins Home Care Group and Johns Hopkins Community Physicians. The management of the Portfolio Program system wide will be shared by the JHM Office of Continuing Medical Education and the Armstrong Institute.

"The ABMS MOC program is designed to be relevant and meaningful," said Lois Margaret Nora, MD, JD, MBA, ABMS President and Chief Executive Officer. "The Improvement in Medical Practice (Part IV) element of the ABMS MOC program offers physicians the opportunity to ensure the profession's voice in Quality Improvement (QI), practice improvement (PI) and patient safety initiatives. JHM's commitment to QI, PI, and harm reduction is long standing. The addition of the Portfolio Program will complement their existing program and help engage even more of their physicians in these important efforts."

"The Portfolio Program was designed to both encourage participation and recognize meaningful physician engagement in QI, PI, and harm reduction initiatives with MOC credit," explained David W. Price, MD, FAAFP, FACEHP, Executive Director of the Portfolio Program. "The ability to offer credits through a continuum of 21 participating Member Boards, makes it possible for Board Certified physicians throughout the entire JMH system to receive MOC credit across specialty and sub-specialty practice areas."

To date, the Portfolio Program has helped engage more than 8,000 physicians in practice improvement initiatives at hospitals and health systems across the country, many showing improvement in care outcomes, and has recognized their participation with MOC-eligible credit. Since its inception, more than 1,300 QI efforts have been completed by Portfolio Program participants. For more information about participation in the Portfolio Program, visit the program website at http://mocportfolioprogram.org/become-a-portfolio-sponsor/.

About ABMS

Established in 1933, the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) continues to be the leading not-for-profit organization overseeing physician certification in the United States. ABMS establishes the standards its 24 Member Boards use to develop and implement educational and professional evaluation, assessment, and certification of physician specialists. More than 840,000 physicians are certified in one or more of the 150 specialties and subspecialties offered by the ABMS Member Boards. For more information about ABMS, visit www.abms.org or call (312) 436-2600.

SOURCE American Board of Medical Specialties

Related Links

http://www.abms.org


ATLANTA, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- AdCare Health Systems, Inc. (NYSE MKT: ADK) (NYSE MKT: ADK.PRA), a self-managed healthcare real estate investment company that invests primarily in real estate purposed for senior living and long-term healthcare, today announced Bill McBride, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will present at B. Riley & Co.'s 17th Annual Investor Conference on Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 8 a.m. PT. The conference will be held May 25-26, 2016 at Lowes Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, California.

Management will be available during the day on May 25 for one-on-one meetings. To schedule a one-on-one meeting, please contact Hayden IR at [email protected]. A live webcast of the group presentation will be available at http://wsw.com/webcast/brileyco17/adk. This webcast will be archived for 90 days following the live presentation.

About B. Riley & Co.

B. Riley & Co., LLC is a leading investment bank which provides corporate finance, research, and sales & trading to corporate, institutional and high net worth individual clients. Investment banking services include initial, secondary and follow-on offerings, institutional private placements, and merger and acquisitions advisory services. The firm is nationally recognized for its highly ranked proprietary equity research. B. Riley & Co., LLC is a member of FINRA and SIPC. For more information, please visit www.brileyco.com.

About AdCare Health Systems

AdCare Health Systems, Inc. (NYSE MKT: ADK) (NYSE MKT: ADK.PRA) is a self-managed healthcare real estate investment company that invests primarily in real estate purposed for senior living and long-term healthcare through facility lease and sub-lease transactions. The Company currently owns, leases or manages for third parties 38 facilities. For more information about AdCare, visit www.adcarehealth.com.

SOURCE AdCare Health Systems, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.adcarehealth.com


ARLINGTON, Va., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Arlington Asset Investment Corp. (NYSE: AI) (the "Company" or "Arlington") today announced that it has filed an investor presentation with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") in connection with the Company's 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders to be held on June 9, 2016. The presentation is available on the Company's website at www.arlingtonasset.com and on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov.

The Company's presentation highlights actions that Arlington's Board of Directors and management team have taken over the past several years to enhance shareholder value and warns shareholders of the potential value destruction that would occur if the Imation Corp. (NYSE: IMN) and Clinton Group, Inc. (collectively, the "Imation Group") nominees are elected to the Board of Directors. Specifically, the presentation outlines:

Arlington's consistently communicated investment strategy has driven robust dividends and value to shareholders. The Company's interest rate hedging strategy enables Arlington to generate consistent spread income from its investment portfolio to support its strong dividends to shareholders. Since beginning its current investment strategy, the Company has delivered 25 consecutive quarters of dividends, distributing a total of $19.40 per share .





Arlington's director nominees offer the right balance of experience, skills and diversity of perspectives to provide expert and independent oversight of Arlington's business and strategy. Highly Experienced Board. Each of Arlington's director nominees has relevant industry experience, including a deep understanding of the residential mortgage investment industry. The Company's Board includes proven professionals and leaders with integrity and backgrounds in real estate, specialty finance, asset and investment management, and investment banking. An Independent Board. Six of our eight Board members are independent. Proactive Practice of Adding New Board Members. The Company's Board provides a balance of experience and seeks fresh perspectives, with 50% of the independent directors new in the last five years, a new CEO appointed in 2014 and a new CFO appointed in 2015. A Board focused ONLY on Shareholders. None of our independent directors have any other business relationships or deals with Arlington . They are fiduciaries for all Arlington shareholders.





Based on Imation Group's track record of self-dealing transactions and value destruction, Arlington believes that the Imation Group has nominated this controlling slate to extract value from Arlington at the expense of all other shareholders. The Imation Group's hasty, less than 0.05% investment in Arlington and complete failure to approach Arlington prior to nominating its slate are evidence of its self-serving intent; Imation and Clinton held Arlington shares for only a few days before seeking control. Since it won its proxy contest on May 20, 2015 , the Clinton Group has only destroyed shareholder value at Imation; Imation's stock has lost approximately 65% of its value and Imation has delivered NO dividends. Meanwhile, since August 2015 , the Imation Board, comprised solely of Clinton nominees and directors chosen and elected by the Clinton nominees, has engaged in self-dealing transactions involving more than $50 million 1 . These deals include millions of dollars in consulting deals for directors and officers of Imation, and a $35 million investment deal for Clinton Group with a 25% quarterly performance fee. These deals represent more than 80% of the market capitalization of Imation today. Imation paid the consulting firm founded and led by one of the Clinton-nominated Imation directors $5.1 million in only eight months. And Imation wants to put this person on the Arlington Board! In its latest quarter, Imation disclosed $91 million in losses and a tangible book value of less than $2 million . Imation's independent auditor has declined to stand for re-election.





Imation has no relevant industry experience  it is an IT data storage business. Barely one week ago, Imation announced a completely new strategy alongside its technology business  "We have started our investment and activist initiatives outside of Imation's core business areas, and we are fully engaged in executing our long-term strategy: helping investors in struggling businesses improve their returns." We think Imation's shareholders would prefer Imation to deploy its capital to improve Imation's own struggling, loss-making business!





Barely one week ago, Imation announced a completely new strategy alongside its technology business  "We have started our investment and activist initiatives outside of Imation's core business areas, and we are fully engaged in executing our long-term strategy: helping investors in struggling businesses improve their returns." We think Imation's shareholders would prefer Imation to deploy its capital to improve Imation's own struggling, loss-making business! Clinton Group is a hedge fund with a history of value destruction at Imation and multiple other companies. Owning only 1,000 shares of Arlington stock, a less than $15,000 investment and less than 0.005% of Arlington's shares, the Clinton Group has no alignment with our shareholders yet along with Imation seeks control of Arlington's Board, and of Arlington management as well. Arlington's current directors and officers own more than 60 times the amount of Arlington stock owned collectively by Imation and Clinton .





Owning only 1,000 shares of Arlington stock, a less than investment and less than 0.005% of shares, the Clinton Group has no alignment with our shareholders yet along with Imation . The Imation Group has disclosed plans for Arlington that are frighteningly familiar to its self-serving and value destroying agenda at Imation and that we believe put Arlington's dividend and capital at significant risk, including: Taking control of Arlington's Board, management and capital; Terminating management; and Turning Arlington into an externally managed hedge fund business, probably by Imation itself and/or the Clinton Group.



The Arlington Board is committed to driving value at Arlington, including delivering a stable, robust dividend to ALL Arlington shareholders. The Company urges shareholders to protect the value of their investment and vote FOR ALL the Arlington Board's experienced and highly qualified director nominees on the WHITE proxy card.

Your Vote Is Important, No Matter How Many or How Few Shares You Own If you have any questions or need assistance voting, please contact the firm assisting Arlington in the solicitation of proxies: INNISFREE M&A INCORPORATED Shareholders may call toll free: 1-888-750-5834 Banks and Brokers may call collect: 212-750-5833 IMPORTANT We urge you NOT to sign any gold proxy card sent to you by the Imation Group. If you have already done so, you have every legal right to change your vote by using the enclosed WHITE proxy card to vote TODAYby telephone, via Internet, or by signing, dating and returning the WHITE proxy card in the postage paid envelope provided.

About Arlington Asset Investment Corp.

Arlington Asset Investment Corp. (NYSE: AI) is a principal investment firm that currently invests primarily in mortgage-related and other assets. The Company is headquartered in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. For more information, please visit www.arlingtonasset.com.

Important Additional Information

The Company, its directors and certain of its executive officers are participants in the solicitation of proxies in connection with the Company's 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. The Company has filed a definitive proxy statement and form of WHITE proxy card with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") in connection with such solicitation of proxies from the Company's shareholders. WE URGE INVESTORS TO READ THE DEFINITIVE PROXY STATEMENT (INCLUDING ANY AMENDMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTS THERETO) AND ACCOMPANYING WHITE PROXY CARD CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

Information regarding the names of the Company's directors and executive officers and their respective interests in the Company by security holdings or otherwise as of April 7, 2016, is set forth in the Company's definitive proxy statement for its 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, filed with the SEC on April 18, 2016. Additional information can be found in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, filed with the SEC on February 16, 2016. These documents are available free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Shareholders are able to obtain, free of charge, copies of these documents, including any proxy statement (and amendments or supplements thereto) and accompanying WHITE proxy card, and other documents filed with the SEC at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. In addition, copies are also available at no charge at the Investors section of the Company's website at http://www.arlingtonasset.com/.

SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT UNDER THE PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995

Certain statements in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve various important assumptions, risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those predicted by the forward-looking statements because of various factors and possible events. We discuss these factors and events, along with certain other risks, uncertainties and assumptions, under the heading "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, and in our other filings with the SEC. We note these factors for investors as contemplated by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Predicting or identifying all such risk factors is impossible. Consequently, investors should not consider any such list to be a complete set of all potential risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the date of the statement to reflect unanticipated events. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to us or any person acting on behalf of the Company are qualified by the cautionary statements in this section.

1 Imation SEC filings.

SOURCE Arlington Asset Investment Corp.

Related Links

http://www.arlingtonasset.com


SAN FRANCISCO, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- AtScale, Inc., the first company to provide business users with a fast and secure self-service BI platform for Hadoop, announced today that it has raised a Series B round of $11M, bringing its total funding to date to $20M. Led by Comcast Ventures, this round also saw the participation of UMC, AME Ventures as well as Storm Ventures and XSeed Capital. To find out more about AtScale, go to www.atscale.com/try

"With this new financing, the company is poised to accelerate growth and drive innovation enabling enterprises to derive insights on massive data sets in Hadoop as evidenced by partnerships in the industry, including Comcast," said Matt Carbonara, Principal at Comcast Ventures. "Comcast Ventures is excited to help AtScale by facilitating access to significant resources and expertise via our vast enterprise and service provider ecosystem."

Impressive Adoption and Growth

Launched publicly a year ago, AtScale recently announced five-fold revenue growth and welcomed as customers some of the world's most prestigious organizations, from Aetna to Home Depot, Bloomberg, Groupon and Yellow Pages.

AtScale comes to the industry forefront at a time when most enterprises are adopting Hadoop and looking for solutions to connect their business users to this next-generation data platform in a market that IDC valued at $122B.

AtScale's unique architecture allows it to provide people with rapid-fire and unlimited access to Big Data, using the tools they are familiar with, while adhering to enterprise security and governance standards. This explains AtScale's rapid ascension across a wide array of industries from healthcare, to telecommunications, to retail and financial services.

"While other companies have been spending their time raising large funding rounds, our focus has been on building a solution that solves problems for enterprise customers," explains Dave Mariani, Founder and CEO at AtScale. "Frankly, we weren't looking for capital. Investors came knocking on our door and this investment allows us to scale even faster."

Mariani, a serial-entrepreneur who launched and sold two of his own companies, is a Big Data veteran with intimate understanding of the challenges customers face with Hadoop. Prior to AtScale, he led Yahoo!'s foray into Business Intelligence on Hadoop. At Klout, his team managed a 200-node Hadoop cluster and powered the 1 Trillion-row data warehouse that scored half of Facebook's traffic.

"Our focus from day one has been crystal clear: provide an answer to business users' insatiable appetite for more data without moving data around, learning new Business Intelligence tools, or understanding the intricate details behind Hadoop or Spark. We've been extremely focused on delivering the industry's first Unified Analytics Interface for Big Data," says Dave Mariani, CEO and Founder.

Timing, Focus, Experience and Execution

The company's focus, great timing and superior architecture allowed it to quickly climb to the top of the enterprise buyer's list. AtScale is the only industry player that provides an open and Hadoop-native solution for BI on Hadoop. Additionally, the company has forged key partnerships with the leading big data infrastructure and visualization companies, including Tableau Software and Microsoft.

In its latest release, the company announced the addition of key governance and security functionality, making AtScale the industry's most secure, most flexible BI on Hadoop solution. AtScale requires no data movement, installs no new client driver on users' machines and provides a dimensional semantic layer between Hadoop and any Business Intelligence tools.

To find out more, simply go to www.atscale.com/try

About AtScale

AtScale makes BI work on Hadoop. With AtScale, business users get interactive and multi-dimensional analysis capabilities, directly on Hadoop, at maximum speed, using the tools they already know, own and love  from Microsoft Excel to Tableau Software to QlikView. Built by Big Data Veterans from Yahoo!, Google and Oracle, AtScale is already enabling the BI on Hadoop revolution at major corporations across healthcare, telecommunications, retail and online industries. To see how AtScale can help you, go to www.atscale.com/try

SOURCE AtScale, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.atscale.com


NAPA, Calif., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- A Californian, a Texan and an Australian walked into a wine bar; well, that's not quite how Azmera formed but it's not far from the truth either. Azmera's three owners met working on a wine production system implementation several years ago and have now formed a company providing technology and process services to the wine and agriculture industries.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160513/367315LOGO

Headquartered in Napa Valley, in the heart of California's wine country, Azmera has positioned itself as a boutique consulting firm staffed by industry veterans with IT and business backgrounds.

The group's primary focus is on Oracle's JD Edwards enterprise software and its application in the wine and agricultural industries, with the group specializing in the Grower and Blend applications. Ward Wilson, Azmera's Californian born owner notes that "JD Edwards is installed at six of the ten top wine producers in the US, several smaller wineries and numerous agricultural companies, but until now there hasn't been a JD Edwards consultancy focused on wine and agriculture and we plan to fill that gap."

Azmera is also offering general technology and business services such as project, process and change management to the industries. "We see a lot of wine companies of all sizes struggling with IT and business projects and lacking the internal resources to optimize their investments," adds another owner, Phil Bourke, an Australian who has lived in Napa for the last ten years. "We provide professional independent resources who can help companies understand how to best leverage their technologies and systems, run their projects effectively, and manage the changes they're facing. We know the industry and can speak the language, whether it's with the CFO or the winemaker."

With a business model built on functional, industry and technical knowledge Azmera will often partner with larger firms to deliver major projects. "When we were working out what we wanted to be, we kept coming back to staying true to what we love doing; working with the people who work in wine and farming and helping them succeed. We decided to leave the more technical side of projects, such as infrastructure, offshore development, and so on, to others and we'll concentrate doing what we do well," the third owner, Texan Matt Horak, concluded.

About Azmera: More information on Azmera, a California LLC, can be found at www.azmeraconsulting.com. The name Azmera is derived from the Amharic, or Ethiopian, word for "harvest" and reflects the group's intent to focus on agricultural industries, particularly wine.

Media contact:

Phil Bourke

707-225-1326

Email

SOURCE Azmera

Related Links

http://www.azmeraconsulting.com


FAIRFIELD, N.J., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ballantine, a New Jersey based print and digital marketing company, is working with New York based Affinity Health Plan to develop direct mail campaigns to educate the managed care organization's members about their health care options and the importance of primary care.

Focused on underserved and low-income communities for over 30 years, Affinity Health Plan, which has nearly 300,000 members in the New York City area, continually identifies opportunities to improve member engagement and encourage more proactive, educated choices as it relates to health care. One of the challenges that Affinity wanted to address concerns the overuse of emergency rooms, especially for non-life threatening health issues. A second relates to members not visiting their primary care physician (PCP) for the all-important annual check-up.

To help Affinity address these challenges, Ballantine developed engaging personalized direct mail communication tools to educate members on the availability of local, conveniently located urgent care centers. Another campaign involved targeted communications encouraging members to visit their PCPs, personalized with the PCPs name and number. On these projects, Ballantine provided direct mail production and partnered with Second Melody for creative development.

"Personalized mailers have been very successful with our clients because they provide relevant information to the recipient," notes Matt Cote, Director of Business Development for Ballantine. "In the case of Affinity's urgent care mailing, we included a refrigerator magnet with the name, address and phone number of the closest facility. The magnet serves as additional touch point that the member is very likely to use and keeps useful information readily available."

About Ballantine:

Family-owned since 1966, Ballantine offers a full suite of print and digital marketing services aimed at helping brands better understand and reach their target audiences. For more information, please visit http://www.ballantine.com.

About Affinity Health Plan:

Affinity Health Plan is an independent, not-for-profit organization driven by the mission to help its members, their families and their communities lead healthier lives. Through one of the area's largest physician networks, Affinity offers a variety of programs under Medicaid, Child Health Plus, Medicare, Essential Plan and Qualified Health Plans on the New York State of Health Marketplace for members in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, as well as Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland and Orange counties. For more information, visit AffinityPlan.org.

Contact Info:

Name: Ryan Cote

Organization: Ballantine

Phone: (973) 305-1504

SOURCE Ballantine

Related Links

http://www.ballantine.com


SHENZHEN, China, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- BGI, the world's largest omics organization, has signed a partnership agreement with Singapore-based oncology research and diagnostics company Clearbridge BioMedics (CBB). This aims to develop the CTC (circulating tumor cell) liquid biopsy market in China, including Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao. BGI will work together with CBB to solely distribute and market the ClearCell FX1 solution and related products in China, extend this technology into clinical and cutting-edge research applications, and develop clinical products. The ClearCell technology is a label-free, automated system that is able to isolate and enrich intact, viable rare cells from a patient's blood sample.

This joint collaboration aims to develop an integrated CTC liquid biopsy solution by leveraging BGI's strengths from genomics to trans-omics and CBB's expertise in rare cell separation, in order to provide more actionable clinical insights through a simple blood draw. BGI is establishing a dedicated team to ensure this trans-omics science and technology is successfully translated into precision medicine. This team will provide an innovative end-to-end solution for omics analysis or genetic profiling at the single cell level from extremely rare cells in clinical samples.

The collaborative research agreement focuses on major types of cancer in China, such as lung, breast, and liver. BGI and CBB will collaborate to drive clinical adoption by working with key opinion leaders in leading hospitals in order to expand the CTC technology and genomic applications. Possible applications include cancer-related targeted gene analysis, drug-related gene analysis, single cell analysis and cancer immunotherapy.

"We believe that liquid biopsy plays a key role in clinical diagnostics and personalized medicine and can potentially even aid in immunotherapy PD-L1 treatment management. BGI is a global leader in the genomics and precision medicine space, and this collaboration supports our efforts to bring our ClearCell FX1 System into the China research and clinical markets. We are convinced their strong network, track record and excellent capabilities complement our execution and align with our strategic vision for China," said Mr Johnson Chen, Chairman and Founder of Clearbridge BioMedics.

"BGI's goal is to make state-of-the-art genomics highly accessible to the global research community and clinical markets by integrating an array of leading technologies. This includes BGISEQ series sequencers for genomics, economies of scale for sample storage and bioinformatics for IT and computing resources. Liquid biopsy, a critical cancer sample format which enables access to extremely rare cells such as CTC, will enable us to study cancer genome and diseases at the single cell level. Having worked closely with Clearbridge BioMedics for the last few years, we are very confident that the combination of their rare cell enrichment technology with BGI's genomic and trans-omics technology, and our strong collaboration networks including joint labs in top hospitals and global alliances based on BGISEQ sequencers, will result in better cancer management. We hope to accelerate the adoption of precision medicine in China, to better serve the needs of patients," said Dr. Xun Xu, Executive Vice President of BGI and Director of BGI Research.

About Clearbridge BioMedics

Clearbridge BioMedics is a clinical stage oncology research and diagnostics company that enables real-time liquid biopsy using a label-free rare-cell CTC enrichment platform. It is a National University of Singapore (NUS) spin-off company that is committed to revolutionizing cancer diagnostics and patient care. The ClearCell FX1 System, using the CTChip, is based on novel microfluidics technology that effectively isolates intact and viable CTCs from patients' blood. The system uses Dean flow fractionation for label-free CTC enrichment, capturing heterogeneous and dynamic cancer cells that could be used for cancer screening, diagnosis, staging, personalized medicine and treatment monitoring. Utilizing the next generation non-invasive liquid biopsy to analyze blood samples for CTCs, the device allows for real time analysis of disease before, during, and after treatment, which has become increasingly critical in the new era of precision medicine.

Headquartered in Singapore, Clearbridge BioMedics currently has customers spanning Asia, Europe and North America. The company has won numerous awards and garnered global recognition for the ClearCell FX System. Clearbridge BioMedics attained ISO 13485 certification in 2011.

Company website: www.clearbridgebiomedics.com. Introductory video: http://youtu.be/aRBuOxLfX3g

About BGI

BGI was founded in 1999 with the vision of using genomics to benefit mankind and has since become the largest genomic organization in the world. With a focus on research and applications in the healthcare, agriculture, conservation, and environmental fields, BGI has a proven track record of innovative, high profile research, which has generated over 1,500 publications, many in top-tier journals such as Nature and Science.

BGI's distinguished achievements have made a significant contribution to the development of genomics throughout the world. BGI's goal is to make state-of-the-art genomics highly accessible to the global research community and clinical markets by integrating the industry's broadest array of leading technologies, including BGI's own BGISEQ sequencing platform, economies of scale, and expert bioinformatics resources.

BGI also offers a wide portfolio of transformative genetic testing products across major diseases, enabling medical providers and patients worldwide to realize the promise of genomics-based diagnostics and personalized healthcare. BGI's services and solutions are available in more than 50 countries around the world.

Company website: www.genomics.cn.

Contacts:

CBB:

Chan Yiu Lin (Ms)

Greener Grass Communications

Mobile: (+65) 9765 5897

Email: [email protected]

Gwendolene Yeo (Ms)

Business Development Director

Mobile: (+65) 8699 9291

Email: [email protected]

BGI:

Luting Song (Mr)

Mobile: (+86) 183 2074 7285

Email: [email protected]

Bicheng Yang, Ph.D.

Public Communication Officer

Mobile: (+86) 755 8263 9701

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Clearbridge BioMedics

Related Links

http://www.genomics.cn/


WASHINGTON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackboard Inc., the world's leading education technology company, today announced a partnership with FATV to deliver financial aid and financial literacy information via on-demand video to current and prospective students nationwide. The partnership will be powered through Blackboard Student Services and leveraged with Blackboard's industry-leading SmartView technology platform.

Through the partnership, Blackboard customers will have access to FATV's GetAnswers service, which provides students access to a broad, customizable library of online video content offering answers to frequently asked questions about financial aid. The GetAnswers service includes mobile responsive videos, tutorials, multi-language video content (including Spanish), video embedding, and metrics and reporting for customers.

"We are excited to partner with FATV to deliver the technological advances and conveniences students have come to expect from their institutions," said Craig Chanoff, VP of Education Services for Blackboard. "This partnership will allow institutions and their learners to leverage information that will drive increased levels of student engagement and successful educational goal achievement by meeting students on their terms and sharing information via their preferred channels and modes of learning."

Blackboard's Student Services division is innovatively changing the way institutions reach, engage and retain the students they serve  providing services and technology that support students throughout their entire educational journey. This includes strategic marketing, enrollment, admissions, student records, records/registration, financial aid, and IT and LMS help desks. Through this powerful partnership, Blackboard customers will have access to FATV's award-winning, easy-to-use technology that makes the large body of financial aid information accessible and understandable to students through online video.

"We are excited to work with Blackboard, a long-standing leader in higher education," said Damon Vangelis, CEO for FATV. "Integrating our library of financial aid and financial literacy online video content into Blackboard's Student Services will benefit campuses and the students they serve. This partnership furthers FATV's company mission, which is to improve student learning outcomes and support student service staff."

For more information about Blackboard Student Services, please visit http://www.blackboard.com/studentservices or follow @Blackboard on Twitter.

About Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard is the world's leading education technology company. We challenge conventional thinking and advance new models of learning to reimagine education and make it more accessible, engaging and relevant to the modern-day learner and the institutions that serve them. In partnership with our customers and partners in higher education and K-12 as well as corporations and government agencies around the world, our mission is to help every learner achieve his or her full potential by inspiring a passion for lifelong learning. For more information about Blackboard, follow us on Twitter @Blackboard.

About FATV

FATV is an award-winning, easy-to-use technology that makes the large body of financial aid information comprehensible and digestible to students through online video. FATV can be customized for schools to meet their institutional goals, improve customer service, and raise student learning outcomes. FATV has supported schools for over 11 years, and has been recognized by University Business as a Readers' Choice Top Product for the past two years (2015 and 2016). For more information, visit www.FinancialAidTV.com.

CONTACT:

D'Anthony White, Blackboard Inc.

202.303.9314 or

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160513/367654LOGO

SOURCE Blackboard Inc.

Related Links

http://www.blackboard.com


EVERETT, Wash., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing [NYSE:BA] and China Airlines today celebrated the delivery of the world's first co-branded 777 during a ceremony in Everett, marking the carrier's 10th 777-300ER (Extended Range).

"We are delighted to celebrate 100 years of Boeing by working together with Boeing to accomplish the first co-branded livery 777-300ER," said Steve Chang, Vice President of Corporate Planning, China Airlines. "This is our 10th 777 from Boeing and since our first 777 entered into service in 2014, we have been exceedingly satisfied with its outstanding performance which was further affirmed by our happy passengers."

In 2004, China Airlines became the first airline in the world to use Boeing's co-branded livery on its latest 747-400. That airplane was nicknamed the 'Blue Whale' by the airline and was the first co-branded twin-aisle airplane in the world.

"The Boeing Company is truly honored to celebrate yet another milestone delivery with China Airlines," said Ray Conner, President and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "It is fitting that the first co-branded 777 is delivered to China Airlines, especially as Boeing celebrates its centennial this year. The airplane is the perfect symbol our enduring 50+ years of partnership."

With this delivery, China Airlines now operates a fleet of 10 777-300ERs and continues to bolster its long-haul routes to the North American and European markets. Taiwan's flag carrier also introduced a new, state-of-the-art cabin interior onboard its 777-300ERs designed by award-winning Taiwanese architect Ray Chen.

Each of the airline's 10 777-300ERs are configured to seat 358 passengers in a three-class layout highlighted by the new 'Family Couch' seats in economy class. China Airlines is the only airline in North Asia to feature the Family Couch seats, where three economy seats convert into a flat surface to provide passengers with added rest and relaxation.

The Boeing 777 is the world's most successful twin-engine, long-haul airplane. The 777-300ER is equipped with the world's most powerful GE90-115B commercial jet engine, and can travel, with a standard three class configuration, a maximum range of 7,825 nautical miles (14,490 kilometers).

Headquartered in Taoyuan, China Airlines is the largest carrier in Taiwan with a Group fleet of nearly 90 airplanes. The airline currently serves more than 13 million passengers annually to over 118 destinations across the globe.

Contact:

Kevin Yoo

Boeing Commercial Airplanes Communications

+1 206-766-2906

[email protected]

SOURCE Boeing

Related Links

http://www.boeing.com


DALLAS, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Alerian announced today that BreitBurn Energy Partners (NASD: BBEP) will be removed from the Alerian Small Cap MLP Index (AMSI) in a special rebalancing after market close on Monday, May 16, 2016. Special rebalancings are triggered by corporate actions such as mergers, bankruptcies, and liquidations. BBEP filed voluntary petitions for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code on Monday, May 16, 2016.

The index will be rebalanced in accordance with its existing methodology. Constituent additions to and deletions from the index do not reflect an opinion by Alerian on the investment merits of the respective securities.

About Alerian

Alerian equips investors to make informed decisions about Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) and energy infrastructure. Its benchmarks, including the flagship Alerian MLP Index (AMZ), are widely used by industry executives, investment professionals, research analysts, and national media to analyze relative performance. As of March 31, 2016, nearly $13 billion is directly tied to the Alerian Index Series through exchange-traded funds and notes, separately managed accounts, and structured products. For more information, including index values and constituents, research content, and announcements regarding rebalancings, please visit alerian.com.

SOURCE Alerian

Related Links

http://www.alerian.com


"Today's announcement builds on Capsugel's track record of engineering excellence while demonstrating our ability to integrate new capabilities for the benefit of our customers," said Amit Patel, President, Capsugel Dosage Form Solutions. "By leveraging best practices pioneered by Xcelience, an array of Xcelodose technologies and our high-containment capability, we have further strengthened our speed-to-product toolkit, enabling us to deliver even greater value to our customers."

Capsugel's micro-dosing services play a valuable role in pharmaceutical product development by minimizing the cost and time requirements associated with early feasibility work. The company's Xcelodose technology facilitates rapid, automated and consistent PIC/PIB programs. These programs remove the need for excipient compatibility and stability studies for Phase I evaluations, allow for the rapid screening of API candidates, and reduce early-stage product development time by as much as 45 percent. With five Xcelodose units in the U.S. and two in Europe  including Capsugel's recently added isolator capability in Ploermel  the company can handle highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPIs) up to occupational exposure bands (OEB) 4-5 in both North America and Europe.

"This is exactly the type of exciting opportunity we envisioned when we joined forces with Capsugel," said Derek Hennecke, President, Xcelience, a division of Capsugel Dosage Form Solutions. "Over the past decade, Xcelience has developed an unrivaled proficiency in micro-dosing, producing more than 600 PIC/PIB batches. As part of Capsugel, we can now extend our expertise to a broader set of customers, while helping to bring Capsugel's early-phase design and development offerings to a whole new level."

By leveraging its engineering core in the development of proprietary processes and phase-appropriate equipment, Capsugel has positioned itself as a valuable partner in designing and advancing product concepts. The company's speed-to-product toolkit, which facilitates rapid feasibility assessments, includes Capsugel's Xcelodose-based micro-dosing capabilities, in-house micronization/nano-milling expertise for API optimization, additional proprietary bench-scale equipment designed and developed based on science-of-scale studies, and technology selection methodologies based on predictive models that minimize both development time and API requirements.

The company plans to continue innovating and expanding its micro-dosing technology and service offering.

ABOUT CAPSUGEL

Capsugel is a global leader in delivering high-quality, innovative dosage forms and solutions to its customers in the health care industry. The company's Hard Capsule business offers customers the broadest portfolio of gelatin, vegetarian, and other specialized capsule technologies. Capsugel's Dosage Form Solutions (DFS) business utilizes an array of proprietary technologies and specialized manufacturing capabilities to solve customers' most pressing product development challenges, including bioavailability enhancement, modified release, abuse deterrence, biotherapeutic processing, and inhalation formulation. The company's fast-to-clinic program streamlines product development from pre-formulation through clinical and commercial supply for finished dosage forms. Headquartered in Morristown, N.J., Capsugel serves more than 4,000 customers in more than 100 countries. For additional information, visit www.capsugel.com.

For media inquiries, please contact Carol Harrison at [email protected]

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SOURCE Capsugel

Related Links

http://www.capsugel.com


DANBURY, Conn., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Cartus Corporation was recently named the winner of a gold-level Stevie Award in the American Business Awards' Customer Service Team of the Year category. The American Business Awards, now in its 14th year, received more than 3,400 nominations from organizations of all sizes and industries for this year's competition. Only the top scoring qualifying entry in each category receives a Gold Stevie Award. Cartus was the only relocation company to receive an award in the customer service category.

The American Business Awards are the nation's premier business awards program. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations  public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small. Cartus was nominated for its collaborative work with a client going through a complex reorganization.

"One of our largest and longest-tenured clients  a Fortune 50 multinational conglomerate that relocates approximately 7,000 employees a year  was implementing a new management system that they wanted us to mirror so that both groups would be in sync throughout the transformation," said Matt Spinolo, executive vice president, Cartus. "The project involved a great deal of flexibility and innovation, building on the practices we had established over a 30-year relationship, including setting up many new policies and procedures, increasing productivity, and building internal expertise around the new system."

The project boosted measurable outcomes in several key client deliverable areas, including service ratings, temporary housing cycle times, household goods booking rates and billing accuracy.

More than 250 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process to select this year's Stevie Award winners.

One of the judges pointed to "the willingness of Cartus to mirror its key client's reorganization," as one of the most impressive aspects of the engagement detailed in the award submission.

Details about The American Business Awards and the list of 2016 Stevie winners are available at www.StevieAwards.com/ABA. Nicknamed the Stevies for the Greek word meaning "crowned," the awards will be presented to winners at a gala ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on Monday, June 20.

About Cartus

For more than 60 years, Cartus has provided trusted guidance to organizations of all types and sizes that require global relocation solutions. Providing the full spectrum of relocation services, including language and intercultural training, Cartus serves more than half of the Fortune 50 and has moved employees into and out of 185 countries. Cartus is part of Realogy Holdings Corp. (NYSE: RLGY), a global leader in real estate franchising and provider of real estate brokerage, relocation and settlement services. To find out how our greater experience, reach, and hands-on guidance can help your company, visit www.cartus.com; read our blog; or click www.realogy.com for more information.

For Immediate Release / Contact:





Alison Sedney at 203.205.3739 LisaMarie DeSanto at 203.205.8544 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Cartus Corporation

Related Links

http://www.cartus.com


CANNES, France and SINGAPORE, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Asian storytelling takes centre stage at the Singapore Media Festival (SMF), as Southeast Asia's leading international media event returns for its third edition this year, from 23 November through 9 December 2016. Hosted by the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA), SMF is a gathering of distinguished Asian media executives, and a platform for notable regional creative talent to showcase their content as well as to interact with their fans.

Mr Robert Gilby, Chairman of the Singapore Media Festival Advisory Board and Managing Director of The Walt Disney Company (SEA), said, "Asia's diverse cultures, heritage and communities have led to the creation of inspiring and innovative stories that have both relevance and resonance with an international audience. SMF was established as a platform to identify and nurture the next generation of storytellers in this region, with guidance and mentorship from industry veterans from across Asia."

This year's SMF constituent events include the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF), ScreenSingapore (SS), and Asian Television Awards (ATA).

"As the most diverse Asian film and TV media event, SMF presents unequaled opportunities to connect, partner and co-create with the best talent from across the region. We expect a bolder SMF 2016 that celebrates great storytelling from Asia and beyond. The festival will serve as an excellent springboard for global media players venturing into Asia, and for Asian media professionals seeking international exposure," added Gilby.

New Advisory Board members to help chart festival direction

This year, three new members will join the SMF Advisory Board, lending their expertise and insights towards charting the Festival's strategic direction. They are: Mr Albert Lee, Chief Executive Officer, Emperor Motion Pictures; Mr Jeff Cheong, President, Tribal Worldwide Asia and Mr Aseem Puri, Chief Marketing Officer, Unilever International.

Lee, a prominent veteran in the international film distribution sector who also sits on the board of Hong Kong's Chamber of Films and Motion Picture Industry Association, shared, "I am honoured to be part of this process to uncover the best stories and storytellers through the Singapore Media Festival. Such a festival is primed to bring global partners together for strategic collaborations that will elevate our stories and spotlight our talent."

Continued focus on developing great stories and talent at SMF 2016

This year's edition will see a sustained push to bring good stories to fruition, in particular, with a focus on developing film projects and supporting filmmaking talent.

Following a successful debut last year, ScreenSingapore 2016 will host its second edition of the Southeast Asian Film Financing (SAFF) Project Market in partnership with the Southeast Asian Audio-Visual Association (SAAVA) and Europe's Ties that Bind: Asia/Europe Producers Workshops (TTB). This initiative will create the opportunity for stories to come to life by connecting promising filmmakers and producers in the region with potential commissioners, financiers and co-production partners for their upcoming film projects. Up to 15 projects will be selected by an esteemed panel of international film industry experts, and featured at the SAFF Project Market in December 2016.

The 27th Singapore International Film Festival will continue to provide festival goers with the opportunity to learn the art of storytelling through film from the Asian directors-in-attendance and guest filmmakers, through programmes like the Southeast Asian Film Lab and SGIFF Masterclasses. Notable veterans such as Terence Chang, who produced highly acclaimed movies such as Mission Impossible 2 (2000) and the two-part Chinese language film The Crossing (2014-5); as well as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose works have won him widespread international recognition and numerous awards including the Cannes Palme d'Or in 2010, were among the respected mentors in previous years. This year's mentors include Anocha Suwichakornpong (Thailand), who was a recipient of a Hollywood Foreign Press Association Fellowship, and Bernard Chauly (Malaysia), who has created successful commercial films that capture Southeast Asian social trends.

This year will also see the introduction of another new initiative that seeks to nurture and showcase up-and-coming Singapore filmmakers. SGIFF will start commissioning a new short film by a Singapore filmmaker every year that will make its world premiere at the festival. Gladys Ng, winner of SGIFF 2015's Best Singapore Short Film, is the first filmmaker to be commissioned under this initiative.

Past SGIFF winners partner global talent to create compelling Asia-inspired stories

Two past SGIFF winners have also made waves internationally, with their films making World Premieres at this year's 69th Cannes Film Festival. Boo Junfeng's APPRENTICE is an Official Selection of the Un Certain Regard, while K. Rajagopal's A YELLOW BIRD is an Official Selection of the 55th La Semaine de la Critique (Critics' Week).

Boo's highly-anticipated psychological drama is a Singapore-Germany-France-Hong Kong-Qatar co-production that was shot in Singapore and Australia, while Rajagopal's first feature, which had been picked for Cannes' Cinefondation L'Atelier in 2014, is a co-production between Singapore and France. Both films have cast actors from not just Singapore but the region, including Malaysia, India and China, and have already been picked up by international sales agents.

Boo shared, "It is great to be able to work with partners from around the world to bring to life films like Apprentice. Such collaborations allow us to push boundaries, think out of existing paradigms, and create films that move audiences and inspire conversations."

Rajagopal said, "I have always believed that it is the responsibility of a filmmaker to give a voice to communities, and to give these voices an audience. To be able to present our stories at key nodes in the global media network such as Cannes and the Singapore Media Festival allow these voices to be amplified. I am thrilled to have this opportunity, and hope to be able to bring this back to the Singapore International Film Festival at the end of the year."

The Singapore Media Festival is hosted by the Media Development Authority, and comprises events organised by Reed Exhibitions, Contineo Media, and SGIFF Ltd. For more details of the Singapore Media Festival, visit www.sgmediafestival.com.

www.facebook.com/MDASingapore | #SGMediaFest | #TheSingaporeParty

About the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA)

The Media Development Authority of Singapore (www.mda.gov.sg) promotes the growth of globally competitive film, television, radio, publishing, games, animation and interactive digital media industries. It also regulates the media sector to safeguard the interests of consumers, and promotes a connected society. MDA is a statutory board under the Ministry of Communications and Information (www.mci.gov.sg).

About the Singapore Media Festival

The Singapore Media Festival, hosted by Media Development Authority is set to become one of Asia's leading international media events, where the industry meets to discover the latest trends, talents and content in Asia for Film, TV and digital media. It brings together established media events such as the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF) and ScreenSingapore (SS), Asian Television Awards (ATA) and will take place from 23 November to 9 December 2016. For more information about the Singapore Media Festival, please visit www.sgmediafestival.com.

SOURCE Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA)

Related Links

http://www.sgmediafestival.com


HACKETTSTOWN, N.J., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Centenary College's President Dr. Barbara-Jayne Lewthwaite and the Board of Trustees have announced that Centenary College has been granted university status by New Jersey's Secretary of Higher Education. This designation comes at a significant time in Centenary's history as the institution will celebrate its 150th anniversary this coming year.

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This approval comes approximately 45 days before she steps down as President of Centenary and hands over the reins to Dr. David Haney.

"I was very determined that this goal came to fruition before I completed my tenure as Centenary President," says Dr. Lewthwaite. "Centenary has been functioning as a university for many years. The State's approval has made this designation official. Being re-named Centenary University is reflective of Centenary's continued progress and excellence. I would like to recognize the leadership roles that our Provost, Dr. James G. Patterson, and Dr. Deirdre Letson, Dean for the School of Professional and Graduate Studies, played in this process. We could not have done this without them."

The decision to seek university status is based on a close examination of Centenary College's evolution from a tiny United Methodist college established in Hackettstown in 1867 into a bachelor and graduate degree-granting institution with approximately 2,200 students in four locations. The graduate programs are housed in four departments and the School of Professional Studies in the Parsippany, N.J. and Iselin, N.J. Moreover, the Education Department has added an EdD in Educational Leadership to its graduate curriculum and the Psychology and Counseling Department is exploring the feasibility of offering a PhD in Counseling.

"Centenary College has continued to reinvent itself, demonstrating remarkable resilience in the face of various challenges as it meets the higher education needs of the surrounding area and the State," says Wolfgang Gstattenbauer '84/13, Chair of the Board of Trustees. "As the only bachelor's and graduate degree-granting institution for three-and-a-half counties in northwestern New Jersey, our mission is indeed special."

Although Centenary will begin operations as Centenary University immediately, there will be a six month to a year transition period to launch Centenary's new brand and website.

Founded in 1867 by the Newark Conference of the United Methodist Church, Centenary College's academic program integrates a solid liberal arts foundation with a strong career orientation. This mix is designed to provide an educational experience that prepares students to succeed in the increasingly global and interdependent world.

Centenary College's main campus is located in Hackettstown, N.J., with its equestrian facility in Washington Township (Morris County). The Centenary College School of Professional Studies offers degree programs in the following locations: Parsippany, Edison, and at corporate sites throughout New Jersey. The School of International Programs recruits international students for study at Centenary and Centenary students for study abroad opportunities.

Contact: Annamaria Lalevee

(908) 852-1400, ext. 2238

Email

SOURCE Centenary College
CGI to help enable re-engineering of retailer's information technology infrastructure

TORONTO, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a 10-year agreement with Sears Canada (TSX: SCC; NASDAQ: SRSC) to support the retailer's strategy to re-engineer its technology platforms.

CGI will streamline and update Sears Canada's current technology infrastructure and mainframe applications with the goal of reducing costs and improving efficiency. The rationalization of these operations will also enable Sears Canada to decommission systems concurrent to standing up a modernized core technology stack. As part of a comprehensive suite of services, CGI will also protect Sears Canada's technology environments with advanced cybersecurity solutions, and partner with Sears Canada on elements of its new technology architecture.

CGI will leverage its global delivery model to deliver consulting and application and infrastructure management services from worldwide locations where it currently operates, including from its local Canadian offices in Montreal and Toronto.

"This agreement will help optimize our technology operations and support our goal to manage expenses in line with our business objectives," said Becky Penrice, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Sears Canada Inc. "CGI has also committed to a hands-on level of service that will help us deliver improved technology support to the retail operations," continued Ms. Penrice. "It is a significant vote of confidence that CGI has made a 10-year commitment to Sears Canada. With a value to CGI of approximately $200 million over this period, the agreement is structured with win-win incentives that could reduce this amount should the technology transformation be accelerated. CGI's long-term commitment, hands-on approach, and the alignment of the agreement with Sears Canada's goals made CGI an ideal partner to provide technology support and services for our current platform."

"We help our clients around the world focus on their core business and growth strategies" added Mark Boyajian, President, Canada Operations, CGI. "CGI's proven operational excellence, differentiated capabilities, and strategic investments will help accelerate Sears Canada's strategies to lead retail commerce in Canada across both digital and in-store channels."

About Sears Canada Inc.

Sears Canada is a multi-channel retailer with a network that includes 159 corporate stores, 125 Hometown stores, over 1,200 catalogue and online merchandise pick-up locations, 84 Sears Travel offices and a nationwide repair and service network. The Company also publishes Canada's most extensive general merchandise catalogue and offers shopping online at www.sears.ca.

About CGI

Founded in 1976, CGI Group Inc. is the fifth largest independent information technology and business process services firm in the world. Approximately 65,000 professionals serve thousands of global clients from offices and delivery centers across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific, leveraging a comprehensive portfolio of services including high-end business and IT consulting, systems integration, application development and maintenance, infrastructure management as well as 150 IP-based services and solutions. With annual revenue in excess of C$10 billion and an order backlog exceeding C$20 billion, CGI shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.A) and the NYSE (GIB). Website: www.cgi.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

All statements in this press release that do not directly and exclusively relate to historical facts constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of that term in Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and are "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. These statements and this information represent the intentions of CGI and Sears Canada, plans, expectations and beliefs, and are subject to important risks, uncertainties and other factors, of which many are beyond the control of the Company. These factors could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information. These factors include but are not restricted to: the timing and size of new contracts; acquisitions and other corporate developments; the ability to attract and retain qualified members; market competition in the rapidly evolving IT industry; general economic and business conditions; foreign exchange and other risks identified in the press release, in CGI's and Sears Canada's annual and quarterly Management's Discussion and Analysis ("MD&A") and in other public disclosure documents filed with the Canadian securities authorities (filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (filed on EDGAR at www.sec.gov), as well as assumptions regarding the foregoing. The words "believe", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "anticipate", "foresee", "plan", and similar expressions and variations thereof, identify certain of such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. In particular, statements relating to future performance are forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. CGI and Sears Canada disclaim any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements or on this forward-looking information.

SOURCE CGI Group Inc.

Related Links

http://www.sears.ca


PITTSBURGH, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Business law firm Cohen & Grigsby is proud to announce that 26 of the firm's Pittsburgh attorneys were selected for the 2016 list of Pennsylvania Super Lawyers and Pennsylvania Rising Stars.

Attorneys in the following practice areas are recognized as 2016 Pennsylvania Super Lawyers:

Business Litigation: Larry K. Elliott , Robert M. Linn

, Robert M. Linn Creditor Debtor Rights: William E. Kelleher Jr. , Thomas D. Maxson

, Employment & Labor: Ronald J. Andrykovitch , James B. Brown , Robert B. Cottington , John E. Lyncheski , Robert F. Prorok

, , , , Robert F. Prorok Environmental Litigation: Daniel M. Darragh

Daniel M. Darragh Estate & Probate: R. Michael Daniel , Christopher F. Farrell , Richard D. Rosen , Mario Santilli Jr. , Jonathan M. Schmerling

, , , , General Litigation: Clifford B. Levine

Immigration - Business: Lawrence M. Lebowitz

Insurance Coverage: Andrew M. Roman

International: V. Susanne Cook

V. Susanne Cook Land Use/Zoning: Alice B. Mitinger

Mergers & Acquisitions: Jack W. Elliott , Mark R. Stabile

, Mark R. Stabile Tax: Michael E. Silverman

Additionally, the following attorneys were recognized as 2016 Pennsylvania Rising Stars:

Bankruptcy - Business: Rebeca Linz

Business/Corporate: Amanda R. Gerstnecker

Estate & Probate: Melissa L. Dougherty

Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations. The Rising Stars list is developed using the same patented multiphase selection process used for the Super Lawyers list except a candidate must be either 40 years old or younger or in practice for 10 years or less.

The attorneys will be recognized in the June 2016 issues of Super Lawyers Magazine and Philadelphia Magazine. Selected attorneys will also appear in the June 2016 issue of Pittsburgh Magazine.

ABOUT COHEN & GRIGSBY

Since 1981, Cohen & Grigsby, P.C. and its attorneys have provided sound legal advice and solutions to clients that seek to maximize their potential in a constantly changing global marketplace. Comprised of more than 130 lawyers, Cohen & Grigsby maintains offices in Pittsburgh, PA and Naples, Fla. The firm's practice areas include Business Services, Labor & Employment, Immigration/International Business, Intellectual Property, Real Estate & Public Finance, Litigation, Employee Benefits and ERISA, Estates & Trusts, Bankruptcy & Creditors Rights, and Public Affairs. Cohen & Grigsby represents private and publicly held businesses, nonprofits, multinational corporations, individuals and emerging businesses across a full spectrum of industries. Our lawyers maintain an unwavering commitment to customer service that ensures a productive partnership. For more information, visit www.cohenlaw.com.

The hiring of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely upon advertisements. Before you decide, ask us to send you free written information about Cohen & Grigsby's qualifications and experience.

 Cohen & Grigsby, P.C., 2016

Contact: Christine Mazza

412.297.4900

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090305/NE79563LOGO

SOURCE Cohen & Grigsby

Related Links

http://www.cohenlaw.com


WASHINGTON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Congressman Chaka Fattah, lead Democrat on the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) Appropriations Subcommittee, thanks the White House for its recognition of Philadelphia's Sgt. Robert Wilson III. Officer Wilson will be the first person from Philadelphia to receive the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor award.

Officer Wilson was killed in line of duty on March 5, 2015. Last May, Congressman Chaka Fattah offered an amendment during the CJS Appropriations Subcommittee markup to rename the Preventing Violence Against Law Enforcement Officer Resilience and Survivability (VALOR) initiative in his honor. The amendment was passed unanimously, and codified by the House in June.

"It is our duty to honor those that protect the lives and wellbeing of America's citizens, "said Congressman Chaka Fattah. "I commend the White House for elevating the memory of Officer Wilson on a national stage. The loss of a person who embodies such bravery is incomprehensible, but also serves to remind us that we have a responsibility to ensure that assaults on the lives of law enforcement officers do not become common place. "

The VALOR program, part of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, is designed to prevent violence against law enforcement officers and ensure officer resilience and survivability following violent encounters while on duty. The national initiative, unveiled in 2010 by former Attorney General Eric Holder, offers onsite regional trainings, resources, technical assistance, and other support for officers around the country. Congressman Fattah, as champion for the program's renaming, highlighted the program's text and honored the Officer's memory on the House floor.

Officer Wilson has been posthumously heralded as a hero in Philadelphia as well; the city's Medal of Valor was named in his honor last year. At his funeral, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Ramsey said he had never witnessed an act of bravery like the one committed by Officer Wilson that day.

www.fattah.house.gov

SOURCE Office of Congressman Chaka Fattah

Related Links

http://www.fattah.house.gov


LONDON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

With Photo

The Pilsdon Community, a working farm and refuge in Dorset, before major CRASH charity renovation project. Homeless people come to this community from all walks of life, always at a time of crisis such as recovering from family breakdown, mental illness, addiction or coping with bereavement - issues that could touch us all at some point. (PRNewsFoto/CRASH) The much-improved Pilsdon Community, a working farm and refuge in Dorset, after CRASH charity's major renovation using donations of professional skills, materials, and technical and environmental advice sourced from their Patron companies. (PRNewsFoto/CRASH) Team from Dulux Trade, led by Regional Sales Manager Mike Cobb, brought together to paint the interior of move-on accommodation for a homelessness charity in South London. The team not only worked with the residents to decide the colour scheme, they also rolled their sleeves up and actually did the painting. (PRNewsFoto/CRASH)

CRASH, the construction industry's charity, works with its Patrons to create positive, caring environments for homelessness charities and hospices. These partnerships bring together extensive construction expertise to improve the mental wellbeing of vulnerable, homeless individuals, as well as patients, staff and volunteers.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160515/367701LOGO )

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160515/367702 )

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160515/367703 )

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160515/367704 )



1 in 4 people in the UK experience mental health problems. This figure doubles among people who are homeless and there is an increasing prevalence of terminal illness in those with mental health problems. Not only that, individuals working in frontline homelessness projects and hospices experience higher levels of stress than many of their counterparts in other professions. Taking all these factors into account makes it essential to look at the whole picture - considering the needs of clients, patients, staff and volunteers - when creating caring environments within the homelessness and hospice sectors.

These were among the reasons that led CRASH to expand its beneficiary base at the beginning of this year to support hospices as well as homelessness charities with their building projects. Like homelessness charities, hospices do crucial work to support people at their most vulnerable, and the environments in which they do this have a huge impact on the wellbeing of both residents and carers.

There are many parallels between patient/client and staff needs in both sectors, especially in terms of improving mental health and reducing stress. However, until CRASH extended its support at the beginning of this year, there had been no direct link between the two sectors to enable shared learnings to be put into practice.

Dulux Trade brings its interior design expertise to CRASH projects

The concept of creating places that care for people can be traced back to the Ancient Greeks, who designed temples around nature, music and art to help restore harmony and promote healing. But while the Greeks focused their design on those who were ailing, CRASH believes equal consideration must be given to the individuals who are caring for homeless, vulnerable or sick people.

With this in mind, CRASH has been working closely with Patron company Dulux Trade to create colour schemes conducive to improving the mental health of clients, patients, staff and volunteers at homelessness and hospice charities.

"A wealth of research has been conducted into the psychology of colour and whether it can have a tangible effect on people," says Dulux Trade's Jo McMullen. "While these claims are not set in stone, and evidence sometimes conflicts, academic studies can help provide ideas when creating the best possible environment for those suffering from mental health issues.



"We need to consider not just which but also how much of a particular colour is used. For example, it has been suggested that orange stimulates mental activity, which could be beneficial in environments where people might be spending a long period of time and require inspiration.

"However, there are not many people who would be comfortable long term in a room in which all the walls were painted bright orange; more often it is used in schemes to add interest and inspiration.

"On the other hand, using orange shades in a place where people are suffering from psychological conditions might be considered too emotionally stimulating and have a negative impact. In these environments we would tend to recommend softer, more soothing shades.

"Good design is all about considering the specific needs of the occupants."

CRASH and Patrons renovate The Pilsdon Community, Dorset

British Gypsum, a Patron of CRASH for over 20 years, recently launched Evidence Space a website dedicated to Evidence Based Design (EBD). EBD refers to the use of credible evidence to shape building design, and provides the link between academic research and real-life building user benefits. Although its roots are in healthcare, EBD's principles can be applied to create caring environments in other areas such as homelessness, which in turn can improve the mental health of their users.

Along with other Patrons, British Gypsum was involved in a major CRASH project to renovate and rebuild The Pilsdon Community, a working farm and refuge in Dorset. Homeless people come to this community from all walks of life, always at a time of crisis such as recovering from family breakdown, mental illness, addiction or coping with bereavement - issues that could touch us all at some point.

British Gypsum not only donated materials but also gave vital technical and environmental advice during the build, working with other suppliers and members of the community to complete the project.

BAM Construct UK was the main contractor on the project. "You meet people with difficult circumstances," says Regional Construction Director Nick Goff. "Some like to talk, and you hear all about their problems. Even if they don't want to talk at all, that doesn't matter. And it's a busy place - you don't realise how many people there are who need help, but who don't seem to fit into the formal social services framework."

CRASH works with Patrons to meet the needs of those experiencing mental health issues

"Discussing mental health problems openly remains incredibly difficult for many people," says CRASH's Emma Brophy. "Because we work collaboratively with homelessness and hospice charities on their building projects, CRASH gains a unique insight into the needs of clients, patients, staff and volunteers. Taking these insights and matching them to the expertise of our Patron companies ensures the best possible results are achieved for everyone involved.

"Also, enabling others to be directly involved with improving people's lives in this way helps us all to develop a better understanding of some of the issues others face. Understanding breeds tolerance which in turn creates a more open, positive and caring environment not just for vulnerable, homeless and terminally ill people and those who care for them, but society as a whole."

About CRASH

CRASH is the construction industry's charity. We are a unique, practical charity that assists homeless and hospice charities with construction related projects.

We do this by offering:

Free of charge professional expertise

Sourcing building materials and the technical knowledge to use them

And awarding cash grants

Well designed and expertly built environments have a positive effect on how we all feel and behave. This is especially true for homeless, vulnerable or sick people and those who care for them.

Note to Editors:

A picture/s accompanying this release is available through the PA Photowire. It can be downloaded from http://www.pa-mediapoint.press.net or viewed at http://www.mediapoint.press.net or http://www.prnewswire.co.uk .

Contact: Emma Brophy, Head of Communications, +44(0)20-8742-0717, [email protected]

SOURCE CRASH
Register for free at http://ismaelcala.com/meditacion

MIAMI, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Beginning May 16, the Chopra Center 21-Day Meditation Challenge in Spanish with Deepak Chopra and Ismael Cala makes learning to meditate easy, fun, and inspiring for people with busy schedules, and busy minds. Created to help hundreds of thousands of people enjoy the life-changing benefits of meditation for mind, body, and spirit, "Destino Extraordinario" is a free online, interactive experience that offers participants:

Daily audio meditations guided by Deepak Chopra and Ismael Cala

and Practical tips and wisdom for finding your purpose in life through meditation

A worldwide community of like-minded individuals exploring the gifts of meditation

Registration is currently open for the free, three-week course at http://ismaelcala.com/meditacion

Here are Deepak's top five reasons to meditate:

Meditation is the most effective way to manage stress, which is the number one epidemic of modern life.

Meditation improves your brain, including your focus, memory, and ability to learn.

Meditation increases creativity and problem solving skills.

Meditation helps you create more harmonious, loving relationships.

Meditation decreases depression, anxiety, and insomnia while producing a deep state of peace and wellbeing.

"I'm very excited about partnering with Cala for our new 21-Day Meditation Challenge in Spanish, which is a free online experience that makes it easy for anyone to learn how to meditate and enjoy its many benefits. The theme is 'Destino Extraordinario' and each day, participants will be guided in practices to turn their lifelong dreams into a reality, discover their true purpose, and create a life filled with passion, joy, and lasting fulfillment. Meditation is a foundational tool for mind-body wellbeing, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to share it with everyone who wants to learn", said Deepak.

"I am grateful to Deepak for his continued work with our Hispanic audiences. After wonderful experiences with 'Creando Abundancia,' 'Salud Perfecta,' and 'Relaciones Extraordinarias,' it is my pleasure to share with you our newest Meditation Challenge, 'Destino Extraordinario.' I recommend you participate to benefit from all the teachings Deepak has to offer. I'm excited to see how we can increase purpose and passion in all areas of our lives and achieve a state of true connection between mind, body, and spirit," Cala said.

About Deepak Chopra, M.D.

Deepak Chopra, M.D., F.A.C.P., Founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing and the Chopra Foundation, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and global and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. Chopra is the author of more than eighty books published in over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers in both the fiction and nonfiction categories.

About Ismael Cala

Ismael Cala is a journalist, motivational author, and speaker. He hosts the show 'Cala' on CNN en Espanol, a prime-time intimate conversation with the world's most powerful and relevant personalities. Cala is a regular contributor on Univision's 'Despierta America,' writes a syndicated column for more than 50 publications in Latin America and the U.S. and is one of the most sought-after motivational speakers throughout the continent.

SOURCE Cala Enterprises; The Chopra Center

Related Links

http://ismaelcala.com/meditacion


STAMFORD, Conn., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Voted "best hair" in high school? Now is your time to shine! LA Looks, the No. 1 hair gel brand in America*, has announced its fourth-annual search for a new brand model for the 2016/2017 year.

The LA Looks model search just launched on Facebook and is open to fans who would like to submit a photo showing off their best hair look. A male and female winner will be chosen for a professional photo shoot and a surprise VIP experience that includes airfare, L.A. car rental, hotel and a trip stipend. Whether you are sporting short hair or long locks, if you have great hair, LA Looks wants to hear from you!

"LA Looks has a full range of styling products designed to help men and women maintain their style all day long, whether they're channeling a tousled Malibu Beach-inspired look, West Hollywood punk rock or perfectly polished Beverly Hills," said High Ridge Brands Vice President of Marketing Jocelyn Yuan Riddle. "The LA Looks model search gives our fashion-forward fans the chance to star in a national advertising campaign and receive the ultimate celebrity treatment."

How it works:

After becoming a fan on the LA Looks  Facebook page, men and women 18 years or older can submit a great hair photo between May 15 to July 31, 2016 .

Facebook page, men and women 18 years or older can submit a great hair photo between . A judging panel will review the submissions and select 10 finalists based on originality, creativity, photo quality and overall appeal.

Throughout August, fans will select who they think the two grand-prize winners should be.

Winners will be announced on LA Looks  Facebook page on September 12, 2016 .

The model search is currently being promoted on all LA Looks social media channels, the LA Looks website, product packaging and promotional materials. Visit www.lalooks.com or Facebook.com/LALooks to learn more.

*Based on AC Nielsen Syndicated Data L52W Period Ending 4/9/16 of Total Hair Gel Ounces Sold.

About High Ridge Brands

High Ridge Brands (a Brynwood Partners company) is North America's fifth-largest nationally branded soap manufacturer and distributor of brands such as Zest, VO5 and White Rain. The company also acquired Newhall Laboratories, which holds iconic brands such as L.A. Looks, Thicker Fuller Hair and Zero Frizz. For more information, please visit www.highridgebrands.com.

SOURCE L.A. Looks

Related Links

http://www.lalooks.com


LONDON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

International Stem Cell (ISCO) is an early-stage cell therapy company currently in Phase I/IIa clinical trials to treat Parkinson's disease (PD). In addition, ISCO sells skincare and biomedical supplies to the market, generating $8m in sales and $1.7m in underlying operating profit in 2015. The commercial businesses provide a floor under ISCO's current valuation, creating an essentially free option on the PD candidate.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130417/608168 )



Using a risk-adjusted NPV model, we value the company at $27m or $9.60 per basic share, using a 12.5% discount rate and a 7.5% probability of success for the PD candidate and a 10% discount rate and 90% probability for the skincare and biomedical businesses. Under the current capital structure, there are c 19m additional shares from convertible preferred stock, options and warrants on top of 2.8m current common shares, potentially leading to significant dilution for minority investors. In addition, the company's convertible preferred shares are subject to anti-dilution protection, creating further dilution potential, and we predict an additional $76m in future financing needs.

Click here to view the full report.

All reports published by Edison are available to download free of charge from its website http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch.com.

About Edison: Edison is an international equity research firm with a team of over 110 analysts, investment and roadshow professionals and works with both large and smaller capitalised companies, blue chip institutional investors, wealth managers, private equity and corporate finance houses to support their capital markets activity. Edison provides services to more than 420 retained corporate and investor clients from offices in London, New York, Frankfurt, Sydney and Wellington. Edison is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Edison is not an adviser or broker-dealer and does not provide investment advice. Edison's reports are not solicitations to buy or sell any securities.



Contact details: Learn more at http://www.edisongroup.com and connect with Edison on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/edison-investment-research

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Edison_Inv_Res

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/edisonitv

Google+: https://plus.google.com/105425025202328783163/posts



For more information please contact:

Beth Senko, Edison Investment Research, +1-646-653-7026

Maxim Jacobs, Edison Investment Research, +1-646-653-7027, [email protected]

SOURCE Edison Investment Research
DALLAS, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ClearView Risk Holdings, LLC, the holding company of Southwest Risk, LP, announced today that Eric Johnson has joined its subsidiary Southwest Risk Agency Services, LLC to serve as Vice President, Binding. Mr. Johnson is the sixth underwriter to join Southwest Risk Agency Services within the last two years.

Eric comes to us from Swett & Crawford where he was Vice President of the binding unit in Dallas for the past 7 years. Eric has been recognized for excellent service and production by numerous organizations. He has 27 years professional experience in both standard and E&S Business and has a proven track record of growth and great service. Eric has proficiency in multiline and multi state accounts across a broad array of industries including but not limited to habitation, contractors, hospitality wholesalers/distributors and manufacturing. We are excited to have Eric join our growing team.

ClearView Risk Holding, LLC is the parent company of Southwest Risk, LP, Southwest Risk Agency Services, LLC, Strata Underwriting Managers and Strata Claims Management. Southwest Risk, LP is one of the nation's fastest growing and most specialized wholesale brokerage companies. Southwest Risk Agency Services, LLC serves as our Binding Authority facility for small to medium sized accounts. Strata Underwriting Managers is a managing general agent and program manager that creates comprehensive, specialized solutions for clients. In addition, Strata Claims Management is our third party administrator specializing in property habitational claims.

http://www.swrisk.com

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160513/367511LOGO

SOURCE ClearView Risk Holdings, LLC

Related Links

http://www.swrisk.com


SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- As the Plug and Play Fintech program enjoys another successful batch, a call for applications is now open for new startups to compete for a spot. The program empowers entrepreneurs to innovate and disrupt the financial domain while becoming a key player in the corporations' global innovation strategy.

"I can't recommend this program enough. We got two VC investments and a huge deal with one of the world's largest banks as a result of this program," says Steve Kirsch, CEO of Token. "They can provide introductions to partners that are far and away better than any VC has done for me in my entire history."

With partners including BNP Paribas, Capital One, Credit Suisse, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, Banco Original, Finstar Labs, Intuit, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Sumitomo, U.S. Bank, and more, the Plug and Play Fintech program has become the most prestigious financial innovation platform.

In addition, Plug and Play welcomes TD Bank, the first Canadian partner, as well as CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace. Furthermore, Plug and Play welcomes new data and channel partners: Morningstar, Plaid, and Lets Talk Payments' Medici Platform.

"Our partnership with Plug and Play has been invaluable. Based on their unrivaled knowledge of the Fintech ecosystem, they were able to match us with the leading startups in the space," commented Eiichi Kashiwagi, General Manager of Digital Innovation Division at MUFG. "We are very proud to be a part of Plug and Play Fintech."

Startups accepted into the 3-month program will receive office space in Plug and Play's headquarters, expert mentor curricula, business development, exposure to their extensive corporate partner network, and a chance to pitch in front of Silicon Valley's biggest investors at EXPO.

"Plug and Play offers startups a unique opportunity to accelerate learning, build connections, and work closely with experienced mentors and partners," said Lauren Connolley, Partner at Capital One Growth Ventures. "At Capital One, innovation and a collaborative test-and-learn environment have always been central to how we work to develop exceptional new digital experiences for our customers. We are excited to be part of the incredible network of corporate partners Plug and Play has assembled, and we welcome the opportunity to tackle pressing questions and big ideas alongside a diverse group of startups, financial institutions, and VCs."

"We constantly scan the market for new technologies for a variety of purposes - from teaming to build digital prototypes for our clients to generally optimizing the delivery of our consulting projects  and track all this with Bridge, our digital innovation management platform," says Joe Guastella, Global and U.S. Managing Director of Deloitte Consulting's Financial Services Industry Practice. "Plug and Play is a valuable part of our innovation ecosystem, and we look forward to reviewing applications and working with those selected for the next batch."

Additionally, Plug and Play recently added Morningstar, Inc. as its first data provider for Fintech startups. Morningstar is a leading provider of independent investment data and research with the mission of helping investors reach their financial goals. Financial platforms come to Morningstar for access to one of the largest and highest-quality global investment databases in the industry and now Plug and Play is able to make Morningstar's managed products, equity, market, and account aggregation data available to startups in their program during their product development cycle.

"Fintech startups introduce great technologies and innovative applications to the market but need data to power their tools. We are excited to support startup efforts to get to market quickly by eliminating barriers to their data needs," Joanna McGinley, head of global redistributor solutions for Morningstar, said.

Plug and Play has run three previous batches and accelerated a total of 72 startups. This includes the success of over 35 pilots, 27 additional rounds of funding, and two exits.

"By engaging with multiple units within each of our financial institution partners, we flatten our startups' go-to market strategy with vetted decision makers and avenues for expedited engagements," says Scott Robinson, Founder and VP of Plug and Play Fintech.

Applications are now open for startups of all sizes: http://bit.ly/applypnpfintech

Interested in meeting startups graduating from Batch 3? Come and see them live on stage along with a special keynote from Vinny Lingham, CEO of Civic, at EXPO on May 25th: http://bit.ly/MayEXPO2016

Limited Press Passes Available for Reporters, email: [email protected]

About Plug and Play

Plug and Play Tech Center is the world's largest global technology accelerator and venture fund. Since inception in 2006, our program has expanded worldwide to include entrepreneurs from 24 countries, providing necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley. With over 350 startups and 300 corporate partners, we have created the ultimate startup ecosystem. Plug and Play provides active investments with 180 leading Silicon Valley VCs, and more than 365 networking events per year. Companies in our community have raised over $3.5 billion in funding, with successful portfolio exits including Danger, Dropbox, Lending Club, PayPal, SoundHound, and Zoosk. For more information, visit: http://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com

SOURCE Plug and Play Tech Center

Related Links

http://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com


Ambassador Levin is a Distinguished Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs where she facilitates connections for the Council with the government and business leaders on a variety of political, economic, and environmental issues. She also serves as an advisor for the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago. Levin was the 65th Ambassador of the United States of America to the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 2009-2011. Her parents were Dutch Jews who fled from the Netherlands to Suriname in 1942 and emigrated to the US in 1948, shortly before she was born.

"This is a milestone day for the Weinberg Foundation," said Rachel Garbow Monroe, Foundation President and CEO. "We celebrate the quality of experience and leadership that Ambassador Levin brings to this organization. Her rich and diverse background will be invaluable as the Foundation advances its mission to serve low-income individuals and families. Ambassador Levin is also the first trustee chosen by the current board rather than being named in the Foundation's charter, which was authored by Harry Weinberg before his death in 1990."

Ambassador Levin will succeed Judge Ellen M. Heller who concludes her six-year term, including the past three years as Board Chair. Ambassador Levin joins board members Barry I. Schloss, who is the current Board Chair, Donn Weinberg, Alvin Awaya, and Robert T. Kelly, Jr.

"I am delighted to join the Weinberg Foundation and look forward to contributing to the Foundation's long-standing commitment prioritizing those in the greatest need in our communities," said Ambassador Fay Hartog-Levin. "It is especially gratifying to be part of an organization that places such emphasis on supporting the Jewish community and the poorest and frailest older adults." Ambassador Levin added, "Many of the Foundation's grant areas mirror my own passions and interests, including addressing hunger and better nutrition, promoting programs that help disadvantaged children to succeed in the classroom, and providing vocational training for teens and adults with disabilities."

"It is a bit of serendipity that our nationwide trustee search, spanning several months, eventually led us to Ambassador Levin who resides in Chicago," noted Barry Schloss, Weinberg Foundation Board Chair. "The Foundation has a long history of funding in the Illinois and greater Chicago area, distributing more than $6 million in grants over the past five years. We are confident that Ambassador Levin's new role with the Foundation will only strengthen our existing commitment to the wonderful nonprofits serving these communities."

Ambassador Levin's prior professional roles include serving as a senior consultant at Res Publica Group, Vice President for External Affairs at the Field Museum, and a legal advisor to the Illinois State Board of Education. Her professional career includes 20 years in private practice representing primarily school boards, private and public colleges, and social service agencies. Ambassador Levin holds, or has held, numerous board positions with organizations, including the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, WWCI (WTTW-WFMT), the East Bank Club, the Chicago Board of U.S. Bank, DePaul University, the Buck Institute for Research on Aging (Novato, CA), the Foundation for the National Archives (Washington, DC), and the Roosevelt Institute (New York, NY).

Ambassador Levin is a graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in Russian language and literature. She received her J.D. from Loyola University School of Law. She resides in Winnetka, Illinois with her husband, Daniel Levin, Chairman of The Habitat Company and CEO of East Bank Club.

About The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, one of the largest private charitable foundations in the United States, provides approximately $100 million in annual grants to nonprofits that provide direct services to low-income and vulnerable individuals and families, primarily in the US and Israel. Grants are focused on meeting basic needs and enhancing an individual's ability to meet those needs with emphasis on older adults, the Jewish community, and our hometown communities of Maryland, Northeastern Pennsylvania, and Hawaii. The trustees, some of whom also serve as executive officers of the Foundation, are Donn Weinberg, Alvin Awaya, Robert T. Kelly, Jr., Fay Hartog-Levin, and Chair Barry I. Schloss. Rachel Garbow Monroe serves as the Weinberg Foundation's President and Chief Executive Officer. For more information please visit www.hjweinbergfoundation.org.

Media Contact: Craig Demchak, 443-738-1159

[email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160513/367658

SOURCE Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation

Related Links

www.hjweinbergfoundation.org


HOUSTON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Fortuna Resources Holdings, LLC ("Fortuna") announced that certain affiliates of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC (NYSE: OZM) ("Och-Ziff") have committed $75 million to Fortuna, with an option to increase to $150 million. The investment is focused on expanding Fortuna's activities in the West Texas Permian Basin and related areas through acreage and asset acquisitions and subsequent development.

Fortuna has substantial experience working in the Permian Basin, with a demonstrated history of acquiring and exploiting multiple oil and gas assets in the Delaware Basin and Central Basin Platform. Aaron Davis, Fortuna's CEO, is a petroleum engineer most recently with Occidental Petroleum Corporation where he oversaw multiple Permian Basin drilling and leasing programs.

"Fortuna is positioned for growth with the backing of an outstanding financial partner like Och-Ziff," said Aaron Davis. "Och-Ziff has the financial insight and resources, investment experience and operational knowledge to help us leverage the tremendous opportunity set that exists in today's market."

"We believe there are compelling opportunities in select regions of the Permian Basin for middle market situations given the favorable competitive environment, existing infrastructure and strong well economics that will support future development," said Mark Bisso, Managing Director at Och-Ziff. "We are very pleased to partner with Fortuna, which has extensive regional experience, strong technical expertise, and proven capabilities."

Och-Ziff has been investing in private energy since 2005, and has invested more than $1.5 billion in North American private energy investments. Based in New York and Houston, Och-Ziff's dedicated 11-person energy team focuses on middle market investments in the oil & gas upstream, midstream and energy services sectors.

About Fortuna

Fortuna Resources LLC is an independent oil and natural gas producer headquartered in Houston. Fortuna is focused on acquiring producing assets and acreage in the Permian Basin. For more information, please visit Fortuna's website (www.fortunaresourcesllc.com).

About Och-Ziff

Och-Ziff is one of the largest institutional alternative asset managers in the world, with offices in New York, London, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Beijing, Dubai, Shanghai and Houston. Och-Ziff provides asset management services to investors globally through its multi-strategy funds, dedicated credit funds, including opportunistic credit funds and Institutional Credit Strategies products, real estate funds and other alternative investment vehicles. Och-Ziff seeks to generate consistent, positive, absolute returns across market cycles, with low volatility compared to the broader markets, and with an emphasis on preservation of capital. Och-Ziff's funds invest across multiple strategies and geographies, consistent with the investment objectives of each fund. The global investment strategies Och-Ziff employs include convertible and derivative arbitrage, corporate credit, long/short equity special situations, merger arbitrage, private investments, real estate and structured credit. As of May 1, 2016, Och-Ziff had approximately $42.0 billion in assets under management. For more information, please visit Och-Ziff's website (www.ozcap.com).

SOURCE Fortuna Resources Holdings, LLC

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NEW YORK, April 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The report analyzes and forecasts the furfural market on the global and regional level. The study provides historical data of 2014 along with the forecast from 2015 to 2023 based on volume (Tons) and revenue (US$ Thousand). The report provides a decisive view of the furfural market by segmenting it in terms of application and region.



This report provides detailed industry analysis of the furfural market. The industry analysis includes product information right from the invention of furfural to industrial development. We have included a detailed value chain analysis of the furfural market to provide a comprehensive view of the furfural market. The analysis of value chain includes information such as integration in the market, distribution channels, and end-user industries. The study also includes market drivers and restraints for the furfural market and their impact on the demand during the forecast period. The report also analyzes the opportunities in the furfural market on the global and regional level. Drivers, restraints, and opportunities mentioned in the report are justified through qualitative and quantitative information. These factors have been verified through primary and secondary resources.



The report includes Porter's Five Forces Analysis that describes the competitiveness in the furfural market. The study comprises of market attractiveness analysis benchmarked based on market size, compound annual growth rate (CAGR), general attractiveness, and company market share. We have also incorporated company market share analysis to provide detailed analysis of the market.



The study provides a decisive view of the furfural market by segmenting it on the basis of application. Application segments have been analyzed based on current and future trends, and the market has been estimated from 2015 to 2023 in terms of volume (Tons) and revenue (US$ Thousand). Regional segmentation includes current and forecast demand in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa.



It also includes demand for individual applications in major countries in the respective regions.



The report provides detailed competitive outlook that includes profiles of Arcoy Biorefinery Pvt. Ltd., Central Romana Corporation, Ltd., Hongye Holding Group Corporation Ltd., Illovo Sugar Ltd., KRBL Ltd., Lenzing AG, Linzi Organic Chemicals Inc. Ltd., Nutrafur S.A., Penn A Kem LLC, Silvateam S.p.A., Tanin Sevnica d.d., Tieling North Furfural (Group) Co., Ltd., and Xingtai Chunlei Furfuryl Alcohol Co., Ltd. Company profiles include attributes such as company overview, brand/product portfolio, financial overview, business strategy, and key/recent developments related to the market.



Constant currency rates have been considered while forecasting the market. Prices of furfural and application segments vary in each region. Hence, a similar volume-to-revenue ratio does not follow for each individual region. Regional average price has been considered while breaking down the market by product segment and application in each region. Models and estimates have been used to produce comprehensive datasets where hard data was not available. We have used the bottom-up approach by considering application segments and integrating them to arrive at the global market. Applications have been further divided using the top-down approach to derive the consumption of products in the regional market.



We conducted in-depth interviews and discussions with a wide range of key industry participants and opinion leaders to compile this research report. Primary research represented the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by an extensive secondary research. We reviewed key players' product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents for competitive analysis and market understanding. Secondary research includes a search of recent trade, technical writing, internet sources, and statistical data from government websites, trade associations, and agencies. This has proven to be the most reliable, effective, and successful approach for obtaining precise market data, capturing industry participants' insights, and recognizing business opportunities.



The furfural market has been segmented into:

Furfural Market - Application Analysis

Furfuryl Alcohol

Solvents

Pharmaceuticals

Chemical Intermediates

Others (flavors & fragrance, herbicides, pesticides, etc.)

Furfural Market - Regional Analysis

North America

U.S.

Rest of North America

Europe

U.K.

Germany

France

Spain

Italy

Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

China

Japan

ASEAN

Rest of Asia Pacific

Latin America

Brazil

Rest of Latin America

Middle East & Africa (MEA)

GCC

South Africa

Rest of Middle East & Africa

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p03564630-summary/view-report.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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Montalbo most recently served as Chief Operating Officer of HCA affiliated Conroe Regional Medical Center. Prior to joining Conroe Regional Medical Center, Tripp served as St. Joseph Medical Center's Chief Operating Officer and oversaw the operations of St. Joseph Medical Center's downtown Houston and Heights hospital locations. Montalbo also held senior management positions at Huntsville Memorial Hospital and HCA affiliated Bayshore Medical Center.

"I look forward to leading the medical center as its new CEO," said Montalbo. "With the outstanding staff and physicians, the medical center is a hallmark for compassionate care in the community."

Montalbo has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master's of Business Administration and a Master's of Healthcare Administration from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. He was inducted into the Upsilon Phi Delta Honor Society for academic excellence in Healthcare Management and Policy.

About Mainland Medical Center

Located on a 31-acre campus at the corner of Emmett F. Lowry Expressway and Highway 3, Mainland Medical Center, a campus of Clear Lake Regional Medical Center, has been an integral part of Galveston County for 60 years. The hospital is an acute care facility providing quality, compassionate care with state-of-the-art services. Mainland Medical Center offers services in emergency medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, surgery, physical therapy, radiology, hyperbaric medicine, diagnostic/imaging services and wound care facilities. Mainland Medical Center ensures residents receive the highest quality medical care right in their own community. For more information, call (409) 938-5000 or visit online at www.mainlandmedical.com.

About HCA Gulf Coast Division

HCA Gulf Coast Division is a comprehensive network of hospitals, outpatient surgery centers, emergency centers and diagnostic imaging facilities. It offers a complete continuum of specialized health programs and services that meet the needs of Greater Houston and South Texas' residents and businesses. HCA affiliated facilities in the Gulf Coast Division include: 13 hospitals, 8 ambulatory centers, 7 off-campus emergency centers, and a regional transfer center that provides one-phone-call access and support for patient transfers into and out of the HCA Gulf Coast Division Affiliated Hospitals, as well as access to ground and air transportation within a 150-mile radius. For more information, visit our website at www.HCAGulfCoast.com.

Debra Burbridge

Vice President of Marketing

713-852-1506 office

281-851-6275 cell

[email protected]

Kim Mathes

Marketing Director

713-852-1528 office

832-294-1064 cell

[email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160516/368169

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SOURCE HCA Gulf Coast Division

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SAN FRANCISCO, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The global industrial enzymes market is expected to reach USD 9.63 billion by 2024, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The market is expected to witness significant growth owing to increasing substitution of chemicals with industrial enzymes particularly in food & beverage and nutraceutical applications.

Grand View Research Logo (PRNewsFoto/Grand View Research_ Inc_)

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150105/723757 )

Growing applications of industrial enzymes for use in detergents and as ingredients in food processing industry is expected to fuel the demand. Proteases are extensively used in the detergent industry owing to its superior stain removal properties. However, the demand in the detergent application is expected to witness sluggish growth owing to market saturation.

Growing use of protease in bakery products is expected to drive market growth. Furthermore, increasing application scope of the product in nutraceutical industry as a digestive enzyme is expected to drive demand.

Technological advancements in the field of industrial enzymes have led to the use of the product as cleaning agents. The increasing use of enzymes or waste water treatment is also expected to drive the demand over the forecast period.

Neozymes, DSM, and Danisco dominated the global industrial enzymes market in 2015 with the industry being characterized by forward integration by manufacturers to distribution and end-use. Manufacturers such as DuPont and DSM manufacture industrial enzymes for specialized applications. The global industrial enzymes market is dominated by North America due to the presence of a large number of manufacturers in the U.S. and Canada.

Browse full research report with TOC on "Industrial Enzymes Market Analysis By Product (Carbohydrase, Lipases, Proteases, Polymerases & Nucleases and Others), By Application (Textile, Feed Additive and Food Processing), By End-Use (Food & Beverage, Detergents, Animal Feed, Textile, Paper & Pulp, Nutraceutical, Personal Care & Cosmetics, and Wastewater) And Segment Forecasts To 2024" at: http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/industrial-enzymes-market

Further key findings from the report suggest:

Industrial enzymes demand for lipases is expected to witness substantial growth, growing at over 8.0% from 2016 to 2024. Increasing demand for the product in food & beverage and textile industry is expected to augment growth over the forecast period.

The feed additive enzymes are expected to be the fastest growing product segment, growing at over CAGR 9.0% from 2016 to 2024. The increasing use of enzymes as a protein source in animal feed is to improve performance in livestock which in turn is anticipated to drive demand over the projected period.

Asia Pacific is expected to witness substantial growth, growing at a CAGR of over 10.0% from 2016 to 2024. Robust expansion in food processing industries particularly in Asia Pacific is expected to augment growth. Furthermore, the supportive regulations promoting the expansion of manufacturing industries is expected to have a positive impact on market growth.

is expected to witness substantial growth, growing at a CAGR of over 10.0% from 2016 to 2024. Robust expansion in food processing industries particularly in is expected to augment growth. Furthermore, the supportive regulations promoting the expansion of manufacturing industries is expected to have a positive impact on market growth. Europe accounted for over 29.0% of the market share in 2015 and is expected to witness significant growth owing to rising demand in pharmaceutical and textile industry. Stringent regulations prohibiting the use of toxic chemicals and catalysts in various applications is expected to positively impact market over the next eight years.

accounted for over 29.0% of the market share in 2015 and is expected to witness significant growth owing to rising demand in pharmaceutical and textile industry. Stringent regulations prohibiting the use of toxic chemicals and catalysts in various applications is expected to positively impact market over the next eight years. Key players in the industry include BASF SE, Koninklijke DSM N.V, Novozymes A/S., Associated British Foods PLC E. I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company Adisseo France SaS, Dyadic International Incorporated CHR, Codexis Incorporated. Hansen Holding A/S, and Amano Enzyme Incorporated.

Grand View Research has segmented the industrial enzymes market on the basis of product, application, end-use and region:

Industrial Enzymes Market Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Carbohydrase Proteases Lipases Polymerases & nucleases Others

Industrial Enzymes Market Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Technical Feed additive Food processing

Industrial Enzymes Market End-use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Food & beverage Detergents Animal feed Textile Paper & pulp Nutraceutical Personal care & cosmetics Wastewater

Industrial Enzymes Market Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) North America U.S. Canada Mexico Europe Germany UK France Asia Pacific China India Japan Latin America Brazil Middle East & Africa South Africa



Browse related reports by Grand View Research:

Protein Hydrolysis Enzymes Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/protein-hydrolysis-enzymes-market

Fuel Pumps Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/fuel-pumps-market

Flame Retardant Chemicals Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/flame-retardant-chemicals-market

Release Agents Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/release-agents-market

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare.

Read Our Blogs - ni2014.org, grandviewresearch.com/blogs/specialty-and-fine-chemicals

Contact:

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Grand View Research, Inc

Phone: 1-415-349-0058

Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519

Email: [email protected]



Web: http://www.grandviewresearch.com

SOURCE Grand View Research, Inc.
HORSHAM, Pa., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Janssen Biotech, Inc. announced today that 15 abstracts will be presented at the 2016 Digestive Disease Week (DDW) annual meeting, taking place May 21-24 in San Diego, California. Data from the Janssen Gastroenterology portfolio of injection and infusion biologic therapies will include a pivotal Phase 3 (IM-UNITI) STELARA (ustekinumab) maintenance therapy study for adult patients with moderate to severe Crohn's disease, an open label study investigating safety and efficacy outcomes for SIMPONI (golimumab) in pediatric patients with ulcerative colitis, and safety data from a cohort of elderly Crohn's Disease patients from the REMICADE TREAT registry.

"At Janssen, we are proud of our leadership position in Gastroenterology and are pleased to be presenting our breadth of new data at DDW," said Andrew Greenspan, M.D., Vice President, Janssen Scientific Affairs, LLC. "After more than 20 years focused on Inflammatory Bowel Disease, we understand that significant unmet medical need still exists and are hopeful that our research can potentially lead to novel therapeutics that can change lives for the better."

Janssen Abstracts to Be Presented During DDW 2016

Abstracts can be accessed on the DDW 2016 annual meeting website at https://ddw2016.abstractcentral.com/login.

STELARA (ustekinumab)

Molecular Response to Ustekinumab in Moderate-to-Severe Crohn's Disease by Serum Protein Analysis: Results from UNITI-1 Induction, UNITI-2 Induction, and IM-UNITI Maintenance Studies (Presentation Sa1837) Poster presentation: Saturday, May 21 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm

Pharmacokinetics and Exposure-Response Relationships of Ustekinumab During IV Induction and SC Maintenance Treatment of Patients With Crohn's Disease With Ustekinumab: Results From the UNITI-1, UNITI-2, and IM-UNITI Studies (Presentation Su1923) Poster presentation: Saturday, May 21 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm

A Phase 3 Randomized, Multicenter, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study of Ustekinumab Maintenance Therapy in Moderate-Severe Crohn's Disease Patients: Results From IM-UNITI (Presentation 768) Oral presentation: Monday, May 23 , 5:16 pm  5:30 pm

Assessment of Serum C-Reactive Protein, Fecal Lactoferrin, and Fecal Calprotectin in Patients With Moderate-Severely Active Crohns Disease: Results From the IM-UNITI Maintenance Study (Presentation Tu1934) Poster presentation: Tuesday, May 24 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm

Ustekinumab Improves General Health Status and Disease-Specific Health Related Quality of Life of Patients With Moderate to Severe Crohn's Disease: Results from the UNITI and IM-UNITI Phase 3 Clinical Trials (Presentation Tu2006) Poster presentation: Tuesday, May 24 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm



SIMPONI (golimumab)

Population Pharmacokinetic Modeling Analysis of Golimumab in Adult Patients With Moderately to Severely Active Ulcerative Colitis (Presentation Sa1935) Poster presentation: Saturday, May 21 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm

Pharmacokinetics and Exposure-Response Relationships of Golimumab in Pediatric Patients With Moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis: Results From a Multicenter Open Label Study (Presentation Su1923) Poster presentation: Sunday, May 22 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm

The Role of the Microbiome in Clinical Response to Golimumab in Ulcerative Colitis (Presentation Su1217) Poster presentation: Sunday, May 22 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm

Delayed Response to Golimumab Therapy: UC Patient Characteristics and Long-term Clinical Outcome: Post-Hoc Analyses From the PURSUIT Program (Presentation Mo1794) Poster presentation: Monday, May 23 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm

Safety, Efficacy, and Pharmacokinetics of Golimumab in Patients with Moderately to Severely Active Ulcerative Colitis: PURSUIT-SC Long Term Extension (Presentation Mo1790) Poster presentation: Monday, May 23 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm

A Multi-Center Open-Label Study Assessing Pharmacokinetics, Efficacy, and Safety of Subcutaneous Golimumab in Pediatric Patients With Moderately-Severely Active Ulcerative Colitis (Presentation #631) Oral presentation: Monday, May 23 , 10:30 am  10:45 am



REMICADE (infliximab)

Risk Factors for Serious Infections in Elderly Patients Receiving Infliximab and Other Crohn's Disease Therapies: TREAT Registry Data (Presentation Mo1800) Poster presentation: Monday, May 23 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm

Risk of Malignancy in Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Results From the DEVELOP Registry (Presentation #629) Oral presentation: Monday, May 23 , 10:00 am  10:15 am



INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE DATA

Evidence of Content Validity and Psychometric Properties of Sf-36 for Measuring Health-Related Quality of Life of Patients With Crohn's Disease (Presentation Su1014) Poster presentation: Sunday, May 22 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm

Prevalence of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Among Patients With Psoriasis and Incidence of Serious Infections in This Subset: Results From the PSOLAR Registry (Presentation Mo1884) Poster presentation: Monday, May 23 , 9:30 am  4:00 pm



About Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD)1

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) affect approximately 1.6 million Americans, or 1 in 200 people, with the incidence evenly split between ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. IBD affects men and women equally and can strike at any age. While both inflammatory bowel diseases have similar symptoms, including diarrhea, abdominal pain and weight loss, Crohn's disease can affect any part of the GI tract, whereas ulcerative colitis is limited to the colon. Although considerable progress has been made in IBD research, investigators do not yet know what causes IBD. There is currently no medical cure for ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease. 1

About STELARA (ustekinumab)

STELARA, a human interleukin (IL)-12 and IL-23 antagonist, is approved in the United States for the treatment of adult patients (18 years or older) with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for phototherapy or systemic therapy. STELARA is also approved for the treatment of adult patients (18 years or older) with active psoriatic arthritis and can be used alone or in combination with methotrexate (MTX).

The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson maintain exclusive worldwide marketing rights to STELARA, which is currently approved for the treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in 87 countries and psoriatic arthritis in 71 countries.

Important Safety Information (U.S.)

STELARA is a prescription medicine that affects your immune system. STELARA can increase your chance of having serious side effects including:

Serious Infections

STELARA may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections. While taking STELARA, some people have serious infections, which may require hospitalization, including tuberculosis (TB), and infections caused by bacteria, fungi, or viruses.

Your doctor should check you for TB before starting STELARA  and watch you closely for signs and symptoms of TB during treatment with STELARA  .

and watch you closely for signs and symptoms of TB during treatment with STELARA . If your doctor feels that you are at risk for TB, you may be treated for TB before and during treatment with STELARA.

You should not start taking STELARA if you have any kind of infection unless your doctor says it is okay.

Before starting STELARA, tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have symptoms of an infection such as:

fever, sweats, or chills

muscle aches

cough

shortness of breath

blood in your phlegm

weight loss

warm, red, or painful skin or sores on your body

diarrhea or stomach pain

burning when you urinate or urinate more often than normal

feel very tired

are being treated for an infection

get a lot of infections or have infections that keep coming back

have TB, or have been in close contact with someone who has TB

After starting STELARA, call your doctor right away if you have any symptoms of an infection (see above).

STELARA can make you more likely to get infections or make an infection that you have worse. People who have a genetic problem where the body does not make any of the proteins interleukin 12 (IL-12) and interleukin 23 (IL-23) are at a higher risk for certain serious infections that can spread throughout the body and cause death. It is not known if people who take STELARA will get any of these infections because of the effects of STELARA on these proteins.

Cancers

STELARA may decrease the activity of your immune system and increase your risk for certain types of cancer. Tell your doctor if you have ever had any type of cancer. Some people who had risk factors for skin cancer developed certain types of skin cancers while receiving STELARA. Tell your doctor if you have any new skin growths.

Reversible posterior leukoencephalopathy syndrome (RPLS)

RPLS is a rare condition that affects the brain and can cause death. The cause of RPLS is not known. If RPLS is found early and treated, most people recover. Tell your doctor right away if you have any new or worsening medical problems including: headache, seizures, confusion, and vision problems.

Serious Allergic Reactions

Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get medical help right away if you have any symptoms such as: feeling faint, swelling of your face, eyelids, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing, throat or chest tightness, or skin rash.

Before receiving STELARA, tell your doctor if you:

have any of the conditions or symptoms listed above for serious infections, cancers, or RPLS

ever had an allergic reaction to STELARA  or any of its ingredients. Ask your doctor if you are not sure.

or any of its ingredients. Ask your doctor if you are not sure. are allergic to latex. The needle cover on the prefilled syringe contains latex.

have recently received or are scheduled to receive an immunization (vaccine). People who take STELARA  should not receive live vaccines. Tell your doctor if anyone in your house needs a vaccine. The viruses used in some types of vaccines can spread to people with a weakened immune system, and can cause serious problems. You should not receive the BCG vaccine during the one year before taking STELARA  or one year after you stop taking STELARA  .

should not receive live vaccines. Tell your doctor if anyone in your house needs a vaccine. The viruses used in some types of vaccines can spread to people with a weakened immune system, and can cause serious problems. have any new or changing lesions within psoriasis areas or on normal skin

are receiving or have received allergy shots, especially for serious allergic reactions

receive or have received phototherapy for your psoriasis

have any other medical conditions

are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if STELARA  will harm your unborn baby. You and your doctor should decide if you will take STELARA 

will harm your unborn baby. You and your doctor should decide if you will take STELARA are breast-feeding or plan to breast-feed. It is thought that STELARA passes into your breast milk. You should not breast-feed while taking STELARA without first talking to your doctor.

Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. Know the medicines you take. Keep a list of them to show your doctor and pharmacist when you get a new medicine.

When prescribed STELARA:

Use STELARA  exactly as prescribed by your doctor

exactly as prescribed by your doctor If your doctor decides that you or a caregiver may give your injections of STELARA at home, you should receive training on the right way to prepare and inject STELARA. Do not try to inject STELARA yourself until you or your caregiver has been shown how to inject STELARA by your doctor or nurse.

Common side effects of STELARA include: upper respiratory infections, headache, tiredness, joint pain and nausea. These are not all of the possible side effects with STELARA. Tell your doctor about any side effect that you experience. Ask your doctor or pharmacist for more information.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Please read the Full Prescribing Information, including the Medication Guide for STELARA, and discuss any questions you have with your doctor.

About SIMPONI (golimumab)

SIMPONI is a human monoclonal antibody that targets and neutralizes excess TNF-alpha, a protein that when overproduced in the body due to chronic inflammatory diseases can cause inflammation and damage to bones, cartilage and tissue. SIMPONI is approved in 67 countries, including the United States where SIMPONI is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of adults with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with the medicine methotrexate, active psoriatic arthritis alone or with the medicine methotrexate, active ankylosing spondylitis and moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. SIMPONI is available either through the SmartJect autoinjector/prefilled pen or a prefilled syringe as a subcutaneously administered injection. For more information about SIMPONI visit www.SIMPONI.com.

Janssen Biotech, Inc. discovered and developed SIMPONI and markets the product in the United States. Janssen pharmaceutical companies market SIMPONI in Canada, Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.

In Japan, Indonesia and Taiwan, Janssen Biotech, Inc. licenses distribution rights to SIMPONI to Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation and has retained co-marketing rights in those countries. In Europe, Russia and Turkey, Janssen Biotech, Inc. licenses distribution rights to SIMPONI to Schering-Plough (Ireland) Company, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc.

The U.S. full prescribing information for SIMPONI can be accessed at the following link: http://www.simponi.com/sites/default/files/pdf/prescribing-information.pdf.

For further information about SIMPONI outside of the United States, please consult the relevant official product information applicable to that country location.

Important Safety Information (U.S.)

Serious Infections

SIMPONI (golimumab) is a prescription medicine. SIMPONI can lower your ability to fight infections. There are reports of serious infections caused by bacteria, fungi, or viruses that have spread throughout the body, including tuberculosis (TB) and histoplasmosis. Some of these infections have been fatal. Your doctor will test you for TB before starting SIMPONI and will monitor you for signs of TB during treatment. Tell your doctor if you have been in close contact with people with TB. Tell your doctor if you have been in a region (such as the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys and the Southwest) where certain fungal infections like histoplasmosis or coccidioidomycosis are common.

You should not start SIMPONI if you have any kind of infection. Tell your doctor if you are prone to or have a history of infections or have diabetes, HIV or a weak immune system. You should also tell your doctor if you are currently being treated for an infection or if you have or develop any signs of an infection such as:

 fever, sweat, or chills  weight loss  muscle aches  warm, red, or painful skin or sores on your body  cough  diarrhea or stomach pain  shortness of breath  burning when you urinate or urinate more than normal  blood in phlegm  feel very tired

Cancer

Unusual cancers have been reported in children and teenage patients taking TNF-blocker medicines. For children and adults taking TNF blockers, including SIMPONI, the chances for getting lymphoma or other cancers may increase. Hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma, a rare and fatal lymphoma, has occurred mostly in teenage or young adult males with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis who were taking other TNF blockers with azathioprine or 6-mercaptopurine. You should tell your doctor if you have had or develop lymphoma or other cancers.

Some people treated with SIMPONI have developed certain kinds of skin cancer. If any changes in the appearance of your skin or growths on your skin occur during or after your treatment with SIMPONI, tell your doctor.

Use with Other Drugs

Tell your doctor about all the medications you take including ORENCIA (abatacept), KINERET (anakinra), ACTEMRA (tocilizumab), RITUXAN (rituximab), or another TNF blocker, or if you are scheduled to or recently received a vaccine. People taking SIMPONIshould not receive live vaccines or treatment with a weakened bacteria (such as BCG for bladder cancer).

Hepatitis B Infection

Reactivation of hepatitis B virus has been reported in patients who are carriers of this virus and are taking TNF-blocker medicines, such as SIMPONI. Some of these cases have been fatal. Your doctor should do blood tests before and after you start treatment with SIMPONI. Tell your doctor if you know or think you may be a carrier of hepatitis B virus or if you experience signs of hepatitis B infection, such as:

 feel very tired  little or no appetite  clay-colored bowel movements  vomiting  dark urine  muscle aches  fevers  chills  skin or eyes look yellow  stomach discomfort

 skin rash

Heart Failure

Heart failure can occur or get worse in people who use TNF blockers, including SIMPONI. Your doctor will closely monitor you if you have heart failure. Tell your doctor right away if you get new or worsening symptoms of heart failure like shortness of breath or swelling of your lower legs or feet.

Nervous System Problems

Rarely, people using TNF blockers, including SIMPONI, can have nervous system problems such as multiple sclerosis or Guillain-Barre syndrome. Tell your doctor right away if you have symptoms like vision changes, weakness in your arms or legs, or numbness or tingling in any part of your body.

Liver Problems

Serious liver problems can happen in people using TNF blockers, including SIMPONI. Contact your doctor immediately if you develop symptoms such as feeling very tired, skin or eyes look yellow, poor appetite or vomiting, or pain on the right side of your stomach.

Blood Problems

Low blood counts have been seen with people using TNF blockers, including SIMPONI. If this occurs, your body may not make enough blood cells to help fight infections or help stop bleeding. Your doctor will check your blood counts before and during treatment. Tell your doctor if you have signs such as fever, bruising, bleeding easily, or paleness.

Other Considerations to Tell your Doctor

Tell your doctor if you are allergic to rubber or latex. The needle cover contains dry natural rubber.

Tell your doctor if you are pregnant, planning to become pregnant or are breastfeeding or have a baby and were using SIMPONI during pregnancy. Tell your baby's doctor before your baby receives any vaccine because of an increased risk of infection for up to 6 months after birth.

Allergic Reactions

Allergic reactions can happen in people who use TNF-blocker medicines, including SIMPONI. Tell your doctor if you have any symptoms of an allergic reaction while taking SIMPONI such as hives, swollen face, breathing trouble, or chest pain. Some reactions can be serious and life-threatening.

Common side effects of SIMPONI include: upper respiratory tract infection, reaction at site of injection, and viral infections.

Psoriasis

New or worse psoriasis symptoms may occur. Tell your doctor if you develop red scaly patches or raised bumps that are filled with pus.

Please read the Full Prescribing Information and Medication Guide for SIMPONI and discuss any questions you have with your doctor.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

About REMICADE (infliximab)

REMICADE has more than 22 years of clinical and real-world patient experience and was the first biologic approved for the treatment of Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel disease. REMICADE has received 16 U.S. FDA approvals and has been used to treat more than 2.4 million people worldwide since 1998.

In the U.S., REMICADE is approved for the following indications:

Reducing signs and symptoms, inhibiting the progression of structural damage and improving physical function in patients with moderately to severely active RA, when administered in combination with methotrexate.

Reducing signs and symptoms in patients with active ankylosing spondylitis.

Reducing signs and symptoms and inducing and maintaining clinical remission in adult and pediatric patients with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease who have had an inadequate response to conventional therapy.

Reducing the number of draining enterocutaneous and rectovaginal fistulas and maintaining fistula closure in adult patients with fistulizing Crohn's disease.

Reducing signs and symptoms, inducing and maintaining clinical remission and mucosal healing, and eliminating corticosteroid use in patients with moderately to severely active UC who have had an inadequate response to conventional therapy.

Reducing signs and symptoms of active arthritis, inhibiting the progression of structural damage and improving physical function in patients with psoriatic arthritis.

Treatment of adult patients with chronic severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for systemic therapy and when other systemic therapies are medically less appropriate.

REMICADE is unique among available anti-TNF-alpha biologic therapies. It is the only anti-TNF-alpha biologic administered directly by caregivers in the clinic or office setting. REMICADE is a two-hour infusion administered every 6 or 8 weeks (indication-dependent), following a standard induction regimen that requires treatment at weeks 0, 2 and 6. As a result, REMICADE patients may require as few as six treatments each year as maintenance therapy.

Janssen Biotech, Inc. discovered and developed REMICADE and markets the product in the United States. The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies market REMICADE in Canada, Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.

In Japan, Indonesia, and Taiwan, Janssen Biotech, Inc. licenses distribution rights to REMICADE to Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation. In Europe, Russia and Turkey, Janssen Biotech, Inc. licenses distribution rights to REMICADE to Schering-Plough (Ireland) Company, a subsidiary of Merck & Co, Inc.

Important Safety Information (U.S.)

Only your doctor can recommend a course of treatment after checking your health condition. REMICADE (infliximab) can cause serious side effects such as lowering your ability to fight infections. Some patients, especially those 65 years and older, have had serious infections caused by viruses, fungi or bacteria that have spread throughout the body, including tuberculosis (TB) and histoplasmosis. Some of these infections have been fatal. Your doctor should monitor you closely for signs and symptoms of TB during treatment with REMICADE.

Unusual cancers have been reported in children and teenage patients taking TNF-blocker medicines. Hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma, a rare form of fatal lymphoma, has occurred mostly in teenage or young adult males with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis who were taking REMICADE and azathioprine or 6-mercaptopurine. For children and adults taking TNF blockers, including REMICADE, the chances of getting lymphoma or other cancers may increase.

You should discuss any concerns about your health and medical care with your doctor.

What should I tell my doctor before I take REMICADE?

You should let your doctor know if you have or ever had any of the following:

Tuberculosis (TB) or have been near someone who has TB. Your doctor will check you for TB with a skin test. If you have latent (inactive) TB, you will begin TB treatment before you start REMICADE  .

. Lived in a region where certain fungal infections like histoplasmosis or coccidioidomycosis are common.

Infections that keep coming back, have diabetes or an immune system problem.

Any type of cancer or a risk factor for developing cancer, for example, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or had phototherapy for psoriasis.

Heart failure or any heart condition. Many people with heart failure should not take REMICADE  .

. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection or think you may be a carrier of HBV. Your doctor will test you for HBV.

Nervous system disorders (like multiple sclerosis or Guillain-Barre syndrome).

Also tell your doctor if you:

Use the medicines Kineret (anakinra), Orencia (abatacept) or Actemra (tocilizumab) or other medicines called biologics used to treat the same problems as REMICADE  .

. Are pregnant, plan to become pregnant, are breast-feeding, or have a baby and were using REMICADE  during your pregnancy. Tell your baby's doctor about your REMICADE  use before the baby receives any vaccine because of an increased risk of infection for up to 6 months after your last dose of REMICADE  you received during your pregnancy.

during your pregnancy. Tell your baby's doctor about your REMICADE use before the baby receives any vaccine because of an increased risk of infection for up to 6 months after your last dose of REMICADE you received during your pregnancy. Recently received or are scheduled to receive a vaccine. Adults and children taking REMICADE should not receive live vaccines or treatment with a weakened bacteria (such as BCG for bladder cancer) while taking REMICADE.

What should I watch for and talk to my doctor about before or while taking REMICADE?

The following serious (sometimes fatal) side effects have been reported in people taking REMICADE.

You should tell your doctor right away if you have any of the signs listed below:

Infections (like TB, blood infections, pneumonia)fever, tiredness, cough, flu, or warm, red or painful skin or any open sores. REMICADE  can make you more likely to get an infection or make any infection that you have worse.

can make you more likely to get an infection or make any infection that you have worse. Lymphoma, or any other cancers in adults and children.

Skin cancerany changes in or growths on your skin.

Heart failurenew or worsening symptoms, such as shortness of breath, swelling of your ankles or feet, or sudden weight gain.

Reactivation of HBVfeeling unwell, poor appetite, tiredness, fever, skin rash and/or joint pain.

Liver injuryjaundice (yellow skin and eyes), dark brown urine, right-sided abdominal pain, fever, or severe tiredness.

Blood disordersfever that doesn't go away, bruising, bleeding or severe paleness.

Nervous system disordersnumbness, weakness, tingling, changes in your vision or seizures.

Allergic reactions during or after the infusionhives, difficulty breathing, chest pain, high or low blood pressure, swelling of face and hands, and fever or chills.

Lupus-like syndromechest discomfort or pain that does not go away, shortness of breath, joint pain, rash on the cheeks or arms that gets worse in the sun.

Psoriasisnew or worsening psoriasis such as red scaly patches or raised bumps on the skin that are filled with pus.

The more common side effects with REMICADE are respiratory infections (that may include sinus infections and sore throat), headache, rash, coughing and stomach pain.

Please read the Medication Guide for REMICADE and discuss it with your doctor. (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. Click here to download.)

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

About Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies

At the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, we are working to create a world without disease. Transforming lives by finding new and better ways to prevent, intercept, treat and cure disease inspires us. We bring together the best minds and pursue the most promising science. We are Janssen. We collaborate with the world for the health of everyone in it. Learn more at www.janssen.com. Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JanssenUS.

References

1. Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America. What are Crohn's & Colitis? Available at http://www.ccfa.org/what-are-crohns-and-colitis/. Accessed April 6, 2016.

Media Contact Investor Contact Caroline Pavis Lesley Fishman Janssen Biotech, Inc. Johnson & Johnson Mobile: +1 610-357-3121 Office: +1 732-524-3922

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SOURCE Janssen Biotech, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.janssen.com


NEW YORK, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- KPS Capital Partners, LP ("KPS") announced today that its portfolio company Electrical Components International, Inc. ("ECI") has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Whitepath Fab Tech, Inc. ("Whitepath" or the "Company"). Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

ECI is the world's leading manufacturer of wire harnesses and value-added assembly services for consumer appliance and specialty-industrial applications. ECI has over 850 customers globally and its products can be found in a wide variety of electronic and electro-mechanical applications, including home appliances, agriculture and construction, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), specialty transportation, automotive, commercial appliance, and commercial electronics. ECI has 13 manufacturing facilities in seven countries with approximately 15,000 associates worldwide. KPS acquired ECI in May 2014.

Whitepath is a leading North American supplier of control boxes, wire harnesses, and value added assembly services to the HVAC industry. The Company has long standing relationships with the leading commercial HVAC OEMs. Whitepath manufactures the control box as well as the wire harnesses used within the control boxes it assembles. Whitepath has a unique system and process enabling it to manufacture over one million possible control box permutations with short lead times. The Company operates five manufacturing facilities, four located in Georgia and one located in Saltillo, Mexico and employs approximately 260 associates.

Raquel Palmer, a Partner of KPS, said, "We are very excited about the progress that ECI has made under KPS ownership, with the company generating record profits in 2015. The strategic and industrial logic of ECI acquiring Whitepath is compelling, as it allows ECI to continue to expand its presence in specialty-industrial end-markets while also leveraging its industry-leading quality, service and product development capabilities to enhance Whitepath's operations. We look forward to continuing to aggressively grow ECI both organically and through acquisitions in both North America and around the world."

David Webster, Chief Executive Officer of ECI, said, "The acquisition of Whitepath is an important step in ECI's continued expansion and diversification. We are very impressed by Whitepath's unique product capabilities and strong relationships with its customers. The acquisition of Whitepath allows ECI to expand relationships with key specialty-industrial customers, cross sell products into new geographies and product segments and expand into new markets. Furthermore, we believe that we can enhance Whitepath's manufacturing operations by leveraging ECI's culture of manufacturing excellence and continuous improvement. ECI intends to invest significant additional capital and resources into Whitepath to ensure total customer satisfaction."

Completion of the transaction is expected in May 2016.

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison LLP is serving as legal counsel to KPS and ECI and its affiliates. Financing for the transaction will be provided by a syndicate of banks and institutional investors with BofA Merrill Lynch acting as Lead Arranger.

About Electrical Components International

ECI was founded in the 1950s and is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri with 13 manufacturing facilities, 19 distribution centers and sales and engineering offices located in North America, South America, Asia, Europe and Africa. ECI is the leading global manufacturer and marketer of wire harnesses and provider of value-added assembly services for the home appliance industry and is a leading provider of wire harnesses to a diverse range of end markets. ECI has over 850 customers globally and its products can be found in a wide variety of electronic and electro-mechanical applications, including home appliances, agriculture and construction, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), specialty transportation, automotive, commercial appliance, and commercial electronics. ECI employs approximately 15,000 associates worldwide. For more information, please visit www.ecintl.com.

About Whitepath Fab Tech, Inc.

Headquartered in Ellijay, Georgia, Whitepath is a leading North American supplier of control boxes, wire harnesses, injection molding products, and value added assembly services to the HVAC industry. Whitepath operates five manufacturing facilities, four located in Georgia and one located in Saltillo, Mexico and employs approximately 260 associates.

About KPS Capital Partners, LP

KPS is the manager of the KPS Special Situations Funds, a family of investment funds with approximately $5.4 billion of assets under management. KPS seeks to realize significant capital appreciation by making controlling equity investments in companies across a diverse range of manufacturing industries experiencing a period of transition or challenged by the need to effect immediate and significant change. The KPS investment strategy is based primarily upon partnering with world-class management teams to effect material and sustainable improvements in the operations of its businesses. Thereafter, KPS focuses on growing its businesses, both organically and through strategic acquisitions. KPS portfolio companies have aggregate annual revenues of approximately $5.1 billion, operate 93 manufacturing facilities in 23 countries, and employ approximately 41,000 associates, directly and through joint ventures worldwide. The KPS investment strategy and portfolio companies are described in detail at www.kpsfund.com.

SOURCE KPS Capital Partners, LP

Related Links

http://www.kpsfund.com


OMAHA, Neb., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Kutak Rock announces that Atlanta, GA public finance partner David L. Amsden has been elected as the firm's new Vice Chair, effective April 1, 2016. Amsden succeeds Robert Irvin, who served in the position since 2008.

"I am greatly humbled and honored my partners have chosen me to succeed Bob after his many years of exemplary service to Kutak Rock," Amsden said. "Bob has been an incredible mentor to me, both in my practice and during our years of service together on the firm's Executive Committee. I've spent my entire career at Kutak Rock, and I look forward to the opportunity to work more closely with attorneys across the country to further Bob Kutak's legacy of excellence in legal service within our open and inclusive culture."

Irvin, who announced in 2014 that he intended to step down in May of 2016 as Vice Chair of the firm and Managing Partner of the Denver Office, after spending eight years in those posts, commented, "I've known Dave for many years. We both initially started with the firm in Omaha a couple of years apart from each other. Dave, like me, is a public finance lawyer, but more than that, he has extensive knowledge of the firm, its offices and its culture. And he also has been a very collaborative practitioner and manager. He will do a great job in the Vice Chair position going forward and, as I transition back into my full-time public finance practice, I look forward to and appreciate his leadership capabilities."

Kutak Rock Chairman David Jacobson remarks, "Dave Amsden is an excellent choice for our next Vice Chairman. Highly regarded by his colleagues in Atlanta and in other offices, Dave is committed to honoring Kutak Rock's roots and culture while reinforcing our reputation and evolving the business as we move into our second half-century." He continues, "Bob Irvin's contributions during his term were significant and helped shape the future of the firm. I enjoyed working alongside him during the eight years he served as Vice Chair." Jacobson, recently re-elected to serve another term as Chairman, has been in the position since 1996.

Amsden has served as managing partner of the firm's Atlanta office and as a member of the firm's Executive Committee since 1999. He has had a distinguished career as an Atlanta-based public finance attorney, with an emphasis on single-family housing, multifamily housing and tax allocation district finance. He currently serves as ongoing bond counsel to six state housing finance authorities and regularly represents regional and national investment banking firms in transactions for numerous state and local housing finance authorities throughout the country. Mr. Amsden has served as bond counsel and underwriter's counsel in connection with tax allocation bonds for the City of Atlanta, Georgia and regularly acts as disclosure counsel for general obligation bond issues of the State of Georgia.

Amsden joined Kutak Rock in 1982 after earning his J.D. with honors from University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law.

SOURCE Kutak Rock LLP

Related Links

http://www.KutakRock.com


BERWYN, Pa., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- NaBITA is pleased to announce Dan Roach, M.B.A., M.C.J. as the Opening Keynote Speaker at this year's Conference, presenting Lessons of the Northern Illinois University Shooting. Mr. Roach is currently the Deputy Chief of the Schaumburg Police Department where he oversees the Patrol Division, the Investigations Division, and the Special Operations Division. He is a retired Illinois State Police (ISP) Investigations Commander having served for over 26 years with the ISP; 22 years were in Criminal Investigations, of which 14 years were spent working in covert narcotics and gang investigations. Mr. Roach has had extensive involvement in many high-profile investigations, including the NIU Campus homicides. At the time of the NIU Campus shootings, Dan was the Chicago-Metro Investigations Commander of the Illinois State Police. He was an on-scene commander and member of the investigative leadership team for the NIU Campus Shootings incident.

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NaBITA is also honored to announce threat assessment specialist Stephen D. Hart, Ph.D., as the Closing Keynote Speaker at this year's Conference, presenting on Assessment and Management of Violence Risk. Dr. Hart is an internationally recognized expert in the field. He is also a professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University, Canada. Dr. Hart has authored or co-authored 150 scientific books, chapters and articles. He has also provided expert testimony before courts and tribunals at all judicial levels throughout North America.

Brian Van Brunt, Ed.D., Executive Director of NaBITA, adds, "We are thrilled to have such a wonderful mix of psychological, law enforcement and violence risk assessment expertise at the conference this year. These keynotes will offer attendees invaluable practical advice on how to better manage at-risk students on our campuses."

November 1317, 2016

Hyatt Regency San Antonio Riverwalk, San Antonio, TX

Learn more!

Conference Early Bird Registration (Register by September 2, 2016)

Non-members  $529 per person

per person Individual/Case Manager NaBITA Members  $469 per person

per person Standard NaBITA Members  1st Registrant $219 ; additional registrants  $469 per person

; additional registrants  per person Enhanced NaBITA Members  1st Registrant free; additional registrants  $409 per person

Conference Regular Registration (After September 2, 2016)

Non-members  $629 per person

per person Individual/Case Manager NaBITA Members  $569 per person

per person Standard NaBITA Members  1st Registrant $319 ; additional registrants  $569 per person

; additional registrants  per person Enhanced NaBITA Members  1st Registrant free; additional registrants  $509 per person

Click here to learn more about the Campus Threat Management Institute.

Scholarship Opportunity

In service to the field, NaBITA welcomes the submission of scholarship applications for the upcoming Annual NaBITA Conference. These scholarships aim to assist our colleagues in their professional development and commitment to their chosen profession.

Download an Application

Applications must be submitted electronically to [email protected] by Tuesday, August 2, 2016. Scholarship applicants will be notified of NaBITA's decision by August 12, 2016.

Call For Programs

NaBITA is currently accepting proposals for the 2016 NaBITA Conference. To submit your proposal, please complete and submit the application form. Please note that the program submission deadline is Friday, July 15, 2016.

Do you have questions? Please read the 2016 NaBITA Annual Conference Concurrent Session FAQs.

Conference Sponsors & Exhibitors

Please click here to view the 2016 Conference Sponsorship & Exhibiting Opportunities brochure and application! This document outlines everything you need to know, including: background information on NaBITA, information about the event and overview of who attends, as well as a full breakdown of all of the opportunities at this year's event.

If you are interested in Conference Sponsorship and/or Exhibiting, please contact Amanda Tarczynski, Assistant Executive Director, Email, 484-321-3651

SOURCE National Behavioral Intervention Team Association
TEL AVIV, Israel, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Netafim, the global leader in smart irrigation solutions for a sustainable future, recently inaugurated its first production plant in China. Israel's Ambassador to China Matan Vilnai, Ningxia Vice Governor Zeng Yichun, and Director of the Ningxia Water Bureau Wu Hongxiang were among those attending the inauguration ceremony.

Netafim CEO Ran Maidan. photographer David Garb

Located in Yinchuan, capital of the northwest Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (Ningxia), the facility will leverage Netafim's latest patented technology to produce the world's most advanced drip lines along with full irrigation solutions. Underscoring Netafim's greater commitment to China, the new plant will serve the country's fast-growing water-saving irrigation industry; more and more farmers are investing in high-quality systems that enhance crop yield and quality, while reducing water, fertilizer and labor costs. The Chinese market maintains huge potential given that government policies favor agricultural and water-saving irrigation technologies  which are at the core of Netafim's expertise  that aim to meet the population's increasing demand for high-quality food.

Incorporating Netafim's state-of-the-art technology, the ISO-certified Ningxia plant includes a training center for irrigation design and agronomy, as well as a quality laboratory to ensure that its products meet the highest international standards.

With low annual rainfall of 200mm on the one hand, and easy access to the Yellow River on the other, Ningxia is a key target for government investments in water-saving technologies. Reflecting this policy, Ningxia officials visited Netafim in 2014 to discuss its agricultural vision for the region. Based on these discussions and subsequent studies of the region, Netafim built the cutting-edge manufacturing plant in Ningxia, which will serve as the company's initial base for investments in the region and in North West China.

Ningxia is home to a promising wine industry that is rapidly gaining an international reputation, and has received massive investments in an effort to create a solid base for producing high-quality wines. Given the importance of first-rate and well-managed irrigation and fertigation technology in producing quality wines, together with Netafim's exceedingly high share of the global wine irrigation market, the company's decision to invest in Ningxia is a natural step. Netafim has already collaborated with the US winery Domaine Chandon in building a high-end vineyard in Ningxia, and is partnering with a regional wine producer that serves Chinese embassies worldwide.

"The opening of this top-of-the-line facility is testimony to Netafim's commitment to investing in China, one of our strategically important markets with significant growth potential," said Netafim CEO Ran Maidan. "We greatly appreciate the support given by the Ningxia government, and hope to contribute to its efforts in carrying out its ambitious agricultural development plans."

"Our new plant provides a solid foundation for Netafim's current and future activities in China," said Netafim Head of APAC Division and China Chairman Stephan Titze. "Now we can supply high-quality, industry-standard full irrigation solutions that deliver significant water savings to farmers and governmental customers throughout Ningxia and North West China."

"The launching of Netafim's plant provides us with superior technological support in dry farming, water-saving irrigation and related equipment," said Li Jianhua, Ningxia Party Secretary, at an official government meeting with Ambassador Vilnai. "We hope to enhance our cooperation with Netafim by importing new technology, offering education and training, and strengthening our skills as we continue to expand in this field."

"Israel and Ningxia have created a solid foundation for scientific and technical cooperation in agriculture," Ambassador Vilnai said. "Netafim's new plant is yet another milestone in this partnership. We look forward to continue supporting one another, and focusing on projects that will bring Israeli irrigation technology to other areas throughout China."

About Netafim

Netafim is the global leader in smart irrigation solutions for a sustainable future. With 28 subsidiaries, 17 manufacturing plants and 4,300 employees worldwide, Netafim delivers innovative solutions to growers of all sizes, from smallholders to large-scale agricultural producers, in over 110 countries. Founded in 1965, Netafim pioneered the drip revolution, creating a paradigm shift toward low-flow agricultural irrigation. Today, Netafim provides diverse solutions  from state-of-the-art drippers to advanced automated systems  for agriculture, greenhouses, landscaping and mining, accompanied by expert agronomic, technical and operational support. Specializing in end-to-end solutions from the water source to the root zone, Netafim delivers turnkey irrigation and greenhouse projects, supported by engineering, project management and financing services. Netafim's market-leading solutions are helping the world grow more with less. For more information, visit www.netafim.com.

Contact:

Rachel Shaul

Head of Corporate Marketing & External Affairs

Tel: +972-52-5014827

[email protected]

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SOURCE Netafim

Related Links

http://www.netafim.com


PHILADELPHIA, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- College campuses have always been epicenters of anti-establishment sentiment, but Tactical Rabbit has identified one group in particular that has crossed the line from healthy, democratic activism to being a clear and present national security threat. In a letter to the top administrator at one of the nation's most revered institutions, Everett Stern  U.S. Senate candidate, HSBC whistleblower and Tactical Rabbit intelligence director  reveals the results of a lengthy human intelligence operation involving this group. The open letter and complete intelligence report are available here.

"The U.S. and Canadian college system provides a huge market of a young upcoming generation to indoctrinate toward their goals, as well as the financial assistance to do so," says Stern. "Today's organizational member goes on to graduate and become a newspaper editor, a congressman, a principal, a teacher or even a professor, any one of whom wields influence in our society."

The report explores the leadership structure of this student group, which has more than 80 chapters in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand; many go by different names, but all are united by a common mission. Tactical Rabbit has discovered evidence of links between terror groups and high-level leaders within this student organization. Its activities, meanwhile, reveal an undercurrent or racism, extremism and the glorification of violence.

"This group should be disbanded immediately, and its leader  a well-known professor  should be dismissed," adds Stern. "There's precedence for that action with similar groups, so I urge this university to do the right thing and remove this rotten apple. Our intelligence report provides all the evidence and insights to support such a move."

Tactical Rabbit's analysis and forecast spells out the specific federal laws that the subjects of this investigation are violating. The report also includes in-depth profiles of each individual subject and how he or she is linked to terror financing, logistical support or propaganda efforts. Most alarmingly, Tactical Rabbit has determined that fundraising processes have evolved to be more difficult to discover and trace, frustrating the efforts of regulators and intelligence agents.

According to the report, current events in Palestine  namely the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza  is accelerating the efforts of pro-Palestinian groups around the world. The network of groups investigated by Tactical Rabbit have fundraising nets that extend well beyond the campus community, which is one more piece of evidence that these are much more than student activist organizations.

To develop this hard-hitting report, Tactical Rabbit leaned on all of its skills and expertise, including financial intelligence, open source intelligence, human intelligence and cyber intelligence. Stern and his team then applied proprietary analytical and collection methods to make sense of all that data.

About Tactical Rabbit

Tactical Rabbit is a leading-edge intelligence firm offering customized investigation services for US citizens, organizations, the government, and businesses ranging from small companies to Fortune 500 corporations. Tactical Rabbit has a proven track record of previous work with financial institutions, law firms, hedge funds, and governmental agencies.

Read the Intelligence Report at the following Link

https://tacticalrabbit.com/intellignece-report-students-for-justice-in-palestine/

Twitter https://twitter.com/Tactical_Rabbit

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TacticalRabbit/

Contact:

Everett A. Stern, M.B.A.

Intelligence Director and U.S. Senate Candidate

United States of America

703-229-1412

www.TacticalRabbit.com

SOURCE Tactical Rabbit

Related Links

https://tacticalrabbit.com


The Bornite Project is located in the highly prospective Ambler mining district of northwestern Alaska. Highlights of the technical report are as follows:

Highlights:

At a base case 0.50% copper cutoff grade, the Bornite Project is estimated to contain in-pit Indicated Resources of 40.5 million tonnes at 1.02% copper for 913 million pounds of contained copper (see Table 1 for details).

copper for (see for details). At a base case 0.50% copper cutoff grade, the Bornite Project is estimated to contain in-pit Inferred Resources of 84.1 million tonnes at 0.95% copper for 1.8 billion pounds of contained copper (see Table 1 for details).

copper for (see for details). At a base case 1.50% copper cutoff grade, the Bornite Project is estimated to contain below-pit Inferred Resources of 57.8 million tonnes at 2.89% copper for 3.7 billion pounds of contained copper (see Table 2 for details).

copper for (see for details). Contained copper in Indicated Resources has increased from 334 to 913 million pounds which constitutes a 173% increase in contained copper metal (see Figure 1 for details).

(see for details). Total contained copper in Inferred Resources has decreased from 5,696 to 5,450 million pounds (1,768Mlbs in-pit and 3,683Mlbs below-pit) which constitutes a 4% decrease in contained metal (see Figure 1 for details). The reduction in contained copper is due principally to moving in-pit Inferred resources to the Indicated category.

Table 1: Bornite Deposit  In-Pit Mineral Resource Estimate

Indicated Inferred

Cutoff

% Cu Tonnes

(millions) Grade %

Cu Contained Cu

(lbs, millions) Tonnes

(millions) Grade %

Cu Contained Cu

(lbs, millions) 0.35 48.2 0.93 987 100.4 0.87 1,918 0.40 46.4 0.95 972 95.6 0.89 1,880 0.45 43.8 0.98 947 89.9 0.92 1,828 0.50 40.5 1.02 913 84.1 0.95 1,768 0.55 37.3 1.07 877 77.9 0.99 1,696 0.60 34.1 1.11 837 71.8 1.02 1,618

Base Case cutoff grade of 0.50% Cu is highlighted in table.

Resources stated as contained within a pit shell developed using a metal price of US$3.00/lb Cu, mining costs of US$2.00/tonne, milling costs of US$11/tonne, G&A cost of US$5.00/tonne, 87% metallurgical recoveries and an average pit slope of 43 degrees.

Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the Mineral Resources will be converted into Mineral Reserves. See "Cautionary Note to United States Investors."

Inferred resources have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and whether they can be mined legally or economically. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the Inferred resources will ever be upgraded to a higher category.

Table 2: Bornite Deposit  Below-Pit Mineral Resource Estimate

Inferred Cutoff % Cu Tonnes (millions) Grade % Cu Contained Cu (lbs, millions) 0.5 238.1 1.35 7,081 1.0 107.0 2.11 4,990 1.5 57.8 2.89 3,683 2.0 39.4 3.45 2,993 2.5 29.1 3.88 2,448 3.0 22.6 4.21 2,094

Base Case cutoff grade of 1.5% Cu is highlighted in table.

Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the Mineral Resources will be converted into Mineral Reserves. See "Cautionary Note to United States Investors."

Inferred resources have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and whether they can be mined legally or economically. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the Inferred resources will ever be upgraded to a higher category.

The Company is not aware of any environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, social-political, marketing or other issue which may materially affect this estimate of mineral resources. The estimates presented in the Report constitute forward-looking statements and readers are urged not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statement. Additional cautionary and forward-looking statement information is detailed at the end of this press release.

Qualified Persons

Erin Workman, P.Geo., Director of Technical Services for NovaCopper Inc., is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. Ms. Workman has reviewed the technical information in this news release and approves the disclosure contained herein. Bruce Davis, FAusIMM, of BD Resource Consulting Inc., Robert Sim, P.Geo., of Sim Geological Inc., and Jeff Austin, P.Eng., of International Metallurgical and Environmental Inc., and each a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 have also reviewed the technical information in this news release and approve the disclosure contained herein.

Neither Bruce Davis of BD Resource Consulting Inc., Robert Sim of Sim Geological Inc., nor Jeff Austin of International Metallurgical & Environmental Inc., nor any associates employed in the preparation of the Bornite Project resource estimation have any beneficial interest in NovaCopper. These Consultants are not insiders, associates, or affiliates of NovaCopper. The information in this press release is not dependent upon any prior agreements concerning the conclusions to be reached, nor are there any undisclosed understandings concerning any future business dealings between NovaCopper and the Consultants. The Consultants were retained by NovaCopper to prepare the Bornite Project resource estimate and are to be paid a fee for their work in accordance with normal professional consulting practices.

About NovaCopper

NovaCopper Inc. is a metals exploration company focused on exploring and developing the Ambler mining district located in northwestern Alaska. It is one of the richest and most-prospective known copper-dominant districts located in one of the safest geopolitical jurisdictions in the world. It hosts world-class polymetallic VMS deposits that contain copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver, and carbonate replacement deposits which have been found to host high-grade copper mineralization. Exploration efforts have been focused on two deposits in the Ambler district  the Arctic VMS deposit and the Bornite carbonate replacement deposit. Both deposits are located within NovaCopper's land package that spans approximately 143,000 hectares. NovaCopper has an agreement with NANA Regional Corporation, Inc., a Regional Alaska Native Corporation that provides a framework for the exploration and potential development of the Ambler mining district in cooperation with local communities. Our vision is to develop the Ambler mining district into a premier North American copper producer. The Company also owns 100% of the Titiribi Project located approximately 70 kilometers southwest of the city of Medellin, Colombia, in Antioquia department, within historical Titiribi mining district.

More information on the Company, its properties and its management team is available on the Company's website at www.novacopper.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, without limitation, statements relating to the future operating or financial performance of NovaCopper, planned expenditures and the anticipated activity at the UKMP Projects, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding perceived merit of properties; exploration plans and budgets; mineral reserves and resource estimates; work programs; capital expenditures; timelines; strategic plans; market prices for precious and base metals; or other statements that are not statements of fact. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from NovaCopper's expectations include the uncertainties involving the need for additional financing to explore and develop properties and availability of financing in the debt and capital markets; uncertainties involved in the interpretation of drilling results and geological tests and the estimation of reserves and resources; the need for cooperation of government agencies and native groups in the development and operation of properties; the need to obtain permits and governmental approvals; risks of construction and mining projects such as accidents, equipment breakdowns, bad weather, non-compliance with environmental and permit requirements, unanticipated variation in geological structures, metal grades or recovery rates; unexpected cost increases, which could include significant increases in estimated capital and operating costs; fluctuations in metal prices and currency exchange rates; and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in NovaCopper's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended November 30, 2015 filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and in other NovaCopper reports and documents filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time. NovaCopper's forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made. NovaCopper assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements or beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law.

Cautionary Note to United States Investors

This press release has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the securities laws in effect in Canada, which differ from the requirements of U.S. securities laws. Unless otherwise indicated, all resource and reserve estimates included in this press release have been prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. NI 43-101 is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators which establishes standards for all public disclosure an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. Canadian standards, including NI 43-101, differ significantly from the requirements of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), and resource and reserve information contained herein may not be comparable to similar information disclosed by U.S. companies. In particular, and without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the term "resource" does not equate to the term "reserves". Under U.S. standards, mineralization may not be classified as a "reserve" unless the determination has been made that the mineralization could be economically and legally produced or extracted at the time the reserve determination is made. The SEC's disclosure standards normally do not permit the inclusion of information concerning "measured mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" or "inferred mineral resources" or other descriptions of the amount of mineralization in mineral deposits that do not constitute "reserves" by U.S. standards in documents filed with the SEC. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of mineral deposits in these categories will ever be converted into reserves. U.S. investors should also understand that "inferred mineral resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an "inferred mineral resource" will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian rules, estimated "inferred mineral resources" may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies except in rare cases. Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an "inferred mineral resource" exists or is economically or legally mineable. Disclosure of "contained ounces" in a resource is permitted disclosure under Canadian regulations; however, the SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute "reserves" by SEC standards as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit measures. The requirements of NI 43-101 for identification of "reserves" are also not the same as those of the SEC, and reserves reported by the Company in compliance with NI 43-101 may not qualify as "reserves" under SEC standards. Accordingly, information concerning mineral deposits set forth herein may not be comparable with information made public by companies that report in accordance with U.S. standards.

SOURCE NovaCopper Inc.

Related Links

www.novacopper.com


WASHINGTON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

A debate on the policy brief by ARCHumanKind, "The Pink Triangle Threat; Nuclear Proliferation: an assessment", was sponsored in the US Congress, Washington DC on May 11, 2016, by US Congressman Duncan Hunter Jr.

Internationally renowned American foreign affairs scholar, Walid Phares, and Director of ARCHumanKind, Paulo Casaca animated the debate. Congressman Trent Franks, representing Arizona since 2002, also attended. He has been especially active in the fight against nuclear proliferation, and is one of the most experienced politicians in this field. Several high-level experts and journalists also attended the debate.

During the conference, it was highlighted that Pakistan has the fastest growing nuclear weapons program in the world, and of particular concern was its recent announcement of the development and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons along its border with India. Whereas Pakistan has, in the past, been the primary source of international nuclear proliferation, and gives no guarantee of control on its nuclear weapons, a lighter, more diversified and widespread nuclear device capability, implied by its recent tactical nuclear weapons announcement, significantly increases the risks of a major nuclear catastrophe.

The contemporary nuclear proliferation wave centered in Pakistan was developed through a mix state, non-state and corporate multinational that allegedly traded clandestine nuclear weapons technology across the world, which may have allowed both Libya and North Korea to develop their nuclear weapons program.

Speakers present considered nuclear terror proliferation as the most important threat impacting upon humanity today, and argued that this threat has considerably increased following the acceptance, by the major world powers, of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, and the chilling message this has sent to the international community.

SOURCE ARC Press Service
IRVINE, Calif., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Numecent, a pioneer of cloud-based application delivery, today announced the company will be attending the leading independent End User Computing conference in the UK, BriForum London, running from May 19-20, 2016. Numecent will be exhibiting its innovative Cloudpaging for Enterprise offering at BriForum and will have staff on hand to answer questions. Numecent's Cloudpaging offering will be featured at the BriForum session titled "Best Kept Secret in Application Delivery" and will be presented by Daniel Bolton, End-User Computing Solutions Manager at Kingston University, and Jim Moyle, Lead Solutions Architect of Atlantis Computing.

Bolton and Moyle will use their session to demonstrate how Numecent's Cloudpaging offering takes traditional Application Virtualization to the next level, removing many delivery barriers and focusing on making application delivery faster and more efficient.

Bolton and Moyle will also highlight the benefits of Cloudpaging, using its deployment at Kingston University as an example. After deploying Cloudpaging in conjunction with Numecent education partner Software2, Kingston University achieved a high rate of application delivery success  much higher than other solutions delivered. Kingston's IT team reduced desktop delivery times from several hours to just under one hour. Improving the ability to distribute applications also enabled Kingston to reduce computer lab resources since students could now access applications from anywhere. Reducing computer lab size resulted in further cost reductions for Kingston.

"Numecent is thrilled to attend BriForum, and we are excited to be on hand to talk about our Cloudpaging solutions," says Tom Lagatta, President and CEO, Numecent. "We are proud that Numecent is part of an independent session that will help conference attendees understand the benefits of Cloudpaging."

Numecent's Cloudpaging for Enterprise offering includes the Cloudpaging Studio, Cloudpaging Server and Enterprise Portal. This offering provides a full solution to create Windows Application Containers, deliver them to user devices or VDI sessions and execute them natively. For more information about Numecent's Cloudpaging for Enterprise, visit: http://www.numecent.com/enterprise-customers/

Visit Numecent at BriForum 2016 London in the Exhibit Hall.

About Numecent

Numecent is a fast-growing software and cloud-services company pioneering application delivery. Numecent's Cloudpaging technology brings rapid, secure and friction-free provisioning of native applications from the cloud through virtualization and containerization.

Delivering solutions to Enterprise customers via the channel while also servicing Cloud providers and ISV's, Numecent has delivered cloudified applications worldwide reducing the pain points for application delivery while helping lower application deployment costs. Numecent was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Irvine, California. More information can be found at www.numecent.com.

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SOURCE Numecent

Related Links

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PUNE, India, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The report "Organic Pea Protein Market by Type (Isolates, Concentrates, Textured), Application (Nutritional supplements, Beverages, Meat extenders & analogs, Snacks & bakery products, and others), Form (Dry, Liquid), & by Region - Global Trends & Forecast to 2021", The market is projected to reach USD 18.5 Million by 2021, at a CAGR of 12.0% from 2016 to 2021.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )



Browse 64 market data Tables and 46 Figures spread through 126 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Organic Pea Protein Market"



http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/organic-pea-protein-market-82420155.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.

Growing consumption of organic food, the rising government support for organic farming in developed and developing countries due to its sustainability, rising demand for health management products, and the increasing vegan population have been contributing to the growth of the Organic Pea Protein Market.

"Isolates accounted for the largest market share in 2015"

Isolates captured the Organic Pea Protein Market among other types. It is a more refined form of protein compared to concentrates and it can be easily incorporated into a broad range of food products such as nutritional supplements, meat extenders & analogs, and snacks & bakery products. Due to this trait, it captured the major market share in 2015, in terms of value.

"Nutritional supplements segment led the market with the largest share in 2015"

On the basis of applications, as the Organic Pea Protein Market is segmented into nutritional supplements, beverages, meat extender & analogs, and snacks & bakery products. The Organic Pea Protein Market was led by the nutritional supplements segment in 2015. The key parameters of organic pea protein application in nutritional supplements are weight management products due to its high amino acid profile. The growing demand of weight management products led the nutritional supplements segment and is projected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2016 to 2021.

"Dry form segment dominated the Organic Pea Protein Market in 2015"

Based on form, the dry form segment accounted for the largest market share in the Organic Pea Protein Market in 2015 and is projected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2016 to 2021. It has higher functional value as compared to liquid form and is extensively used in various food & beverage products, which led the growth of this market.

Make an Inquiry: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=82420155

"The U.S. contributes the highest market share for the North America region"

The North America region has shown an increment in the consumption rate of organic food due to health awareness and the growing vegan population. Increasing awareness for healthy food ingredients and the consumer trend for weight management in the U.S. led the Organic Pea Protein Market in this region in 2015.

This report includes a study of marketing and development strategies, along with the product portfolio of leading companies. It includes the profiles of leading companies such Axiom Foods, Inc. (U.S.), The Scoular Company (U.S.), Farbest Brands (U.S.), AIDP, Inc. (U.S.), Shaanxi Fuheng Biotechnology Co., Ltd (China), World Food Processing, L.L.C. (U.S.), The Green Labs LLC (U.S.), Phyto-Therapy Pty. Ltd. (Australia), Bioway (Xian) Organic Ingredients Co., Ltd. (China), and Zelang Group (China).

In terms of insights, this research report has focused on various levels of analysis: industry analysis, market share analysis of top players, and company profiles, which together comprise and discuss the basic views on the competitive landscape, emerging & high-growth segments of the global Organic Pea Protein Market, high-growth regions, countries, and their respective regulatory policies, government initiatives, drivers, restraints, and opportunities.

Browse related reports:

Soy Protein Ingredients Market by Type (Soy Protein Isolates, Soy Protein Concentrates & Soy flours), Application (Bakery & Confectionery, Meat Alternatives, Functional Foods, Dairy Replacements & Infant Foods), & by Region - Global Trends & Forecast to 2020

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/soy-protein-ingredients-market-857.html

Protein Ingredients Market by Source (Animal (Dairy, Egg, Gelatin) & Plant (Soy, Wheat, Vegetable)), Application (Food & Beverage, Animal Feed, Cosmetics & Personal Care, Pharmaceuticals), & by Region - Global Trend & Forecast to 2020

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/protein-ingredients-market-114688236.html

About MarketsandMarkets

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M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers.

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SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
DALLAS, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Original Review, a customer insight solutions company, today announced the launch of its OR Customer Insight Platform, which addresses three key challenges facing restaurants of all types and sizes: real-time feedback on food and service, external reviews that are real and plentiful, and customer engagement. The OR Customer Insight Platform uses a short survey to gather real-time feedback from customers while they are in the restaurant, or "at the origin". Original Review will be demonstrating the OR Customer Insight Platform at the NRA Show 2016, hosted by the National Restaurant Association, in Chicago, May 21-24th.

The OR Customer Insight Platform consists of three key elements:

Tablet with Customer Survey  when the bill is presented at the end of the meal, diners are presented with a restaurant-branded Kindle tablet and asked to answer four short questions. At the end of the survey, diners can opt to share their contact information for future promotions and post their review to Original Review's external consumer site,

 when the bill is presented at the end of the meal, diners are presented with a restaurant-branded Kindle tablet and asked to answer four short questions. At the end of the survey, diners can opt to share their contact information for future promotions and post their review to Original Review's external consumer site, OriginalReview.com

All survey responses feed immediately into an internal operations dashboard for real-time restaurant management.





Internal Operations Dashboard  the heart of the OR solution, the internal operations dashboard provides restaurant management and staff immediate feedback on food, service, ambiance and a diner's overall restaurant experience. The dashboard includes alerts that can be preset by owners and managers so that flagged issues, i.e. a rating of less than 3 stars, can be addressed immediately, often while the diner is still in the restaurant. With this real-time feedback, managers have the opportunity to correct issues immediately and ensure the customer leaves satisfied.



The operations dashboard also includes a customer engagement module that enables owners to market to those patrons who have shared their contact information. The initial module will include automatic promotions for a customer's birthday.





Consumer Review Site  OriginalReview.com is a new type of review site where all reviews are posted from within the restaurant, so consumers can be confident that the reviews they see are real and "straight from the table". No reviews can be posted from outside the restaurant, eliminating concerns of fraud around review sites. In addition, since each diner is presented the opportunity to provide feedback, early indications show that the number of reviews for each restaurant is skyrocketing, overcoming issues around old or spotty reviews.

"Original Review will change the way the restaurant owners and managers view their business, and our solution provides them with an easy-to-use tool for increasing revenues and customer engagement almost immediately," said Frederick Lightbourn, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer. "Since I started piloting OR in my own restaurant, I am seeing upticks in service, positive customer engagement and number of reviews."

The OR Customer Insight Platform is already being used in 4 restaurants in the Bahamas, 2 in Dallas, 2 in Oklahoma City, and 5 in India, with plans to launch additional pilots in these cities within the coming weeks, including one in Michigan.

"Original Review is a 'hat trick' of actionable feedback, real and trusted consumer reviews, and customer engagement and loyalty," said Debra Lukacsko, Co-Founder and CEO. "Already, after just a few shorts months of Beta testing, restaurants are seeing clear, measurable benefits that are helping them optimize their operations."

Original Review provides data that is invaluable to restaurant owners and managers, as never before has diner feedback been so readily available, plentiful and actionable. Original Review customers are already putting this data to use in a variety of ways, including: adding more training for service staff, changing music levels after several complaints in a single day, testing new menu items and determining best practices before opening a second restaurant, among others.

"The insight and information that OR is providing me on a daily basis is truly unbelievable. I know what is working, what needs to be tweaked and how my servers are doing. As a result, I am able to be more proactive and on top of minor issues before they become big problems," said Ildefonso Jimenez, owner of Si Tapas restaurant located in Dallas, TX.

About Original Review

Original Review is a customer insight solutions company that enables restaurants to gather real-time customer feedback at "the origin", enabling better service, better marketing and greater transparency on a daily basis. With the OR Customer Insight Platform, restaurant owners and managers get a turnkey solution that transforms in-restaurant feedback into valuable operational and marketing data that helps drive revenues for any size restaurant or franchise. To learn more, visit www.originalreview.com.

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SOURCE Original Review

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ENOLA, Pa., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Post Acute Medical, LLC recently announced that PAM Specialty Hospital of Milwaukee, one of the company's long-term acute care hospitals, has earned The Joint Commission's Gold Seal of Approval for Respiratory Failure Certification. The Gold Seal of Approval is a symbol of quality that reflects an organization's commitment to providing safe and effective patient care.

PAM Specialty Hospital of Milwaukee underwent a rigorous on-site review this month in which Joint Commission experts evaluated compliance with national disease-specific care standards, as well as with respiratory failure-specific requirements. They also assessed clinical practice guidelines and performance measures.

"Success is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort," says Adam Burick, D.O., F.A.C.S, executive vice president and chief medical officer, Post Acute Medical. "I would like to congratulate the Milwaukee team on this certification."

Christine Peterson, CEO of PAM Specialty Hospital of Milwaukee, expressed her team's satisfaction with the certification.

"PAM Specialty Hospital of Milwaukee is pleased to receive Disease-Specific Care Certification from The Joint Commission, the premier health care quality improvement and accrediting body in the nation," she says. "The certification provides us with the framework to create a culture of excellence for those in our community."

Established in 2002 and awarded for a two-year period, The Joint Commission's Disease-Specific Care Certification evaluates clinical programs across the continuum of care and addresses three core areas:

Compliance with consensus-based national standards;

Effective use of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines to manage and optimize care; and

An organized approach to performance measurement and improvement activities.

"PAM Specialty Hospital of Milwaukee has thoroughly demonstrated a high level of care for patients with respiratory failure," says Wendi J. Roberts, RN, executive director, Certification Programs, The Joint Commission. "We commend PAM Specialty Hospital of Milwaukee for becoming a leader in respiratory failure care, potentially providing a higher standard of service for respiratory failure patients in its community."

About PAM Specialty Hospital of Milwaukee

PAM Specialty Hospital of Milwaukee, a Post Acute Medical facility, is a 62-bed, specialized acute care hospital that provides specialized medical care to acutely ill patients requiring extended recovery time after an acute care hospital stay. Patients are stable enough to transfer, but are medically and physically compromised with multi-system complications that require acute hospitalization. Although the length of stay is determined by each patient's diagnosis and treatment program, the average length of stay is more than 25 days.

About Post Acute Medical

Post Acute Medical, LLC, (PAM) based in Enola, PA, provides post acute healthcare services through 46 long-term acute care hospitals, medical rehabilitation hospitals, and outpatient physical therapy locations in eight states. PAM is committed to providing high-quality patient care and outstanding customer service, coupled with loyalty and dedication of highly trained staff, to be the most trusted source for post acute services in every community it serves. For more information, visit www.postacutemedical.com.

SOURCE Post Acute Medical, LLC

Related Links

http://www.postacutemedical.com


KRAKOW, Poland, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

This week Poland has been Guest of Honor at BookExpo America in Chicago. The fair highlighted Poland's dynamic publishing industry and ten of the country's most renowned authors. BookExpo attendees have been able to learn about Poland's innovative children's illustrators, play the hit "Witcher" computer game (based on the novels by Andrzej Sapkowski), and network with Polish publishing professionals at a series of informative talks.

Outside the fair, a wide-ranging program of events has been bringing Polish literature to Chicago audiences. Crime writer Zygmunt Mioszewski spoke to the master detective novelist Sarah Peretsky about his latest book, "Rage", published this year by Amazon Crossing. Journalist Artur Domosawski appeared with war correspondent Sebastian Junger to talk about the legacy and importance of Polish literary reportage. And the author-illustrator team behind the international smash hit "Maps" Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski, held events for children and adults, including a workshop at a local Chicago school.

Other participating authors include novelist Magdalena Tulli, memoirist Agata Tuszynska, poet Krystyna Dabrowska, and the illustrators and designers Joanna Ruszczyk and Magorzata Gurowska.

Poland as Guest of Honor in Chicago is the latest in a number of high-profile Polish programs at international book fairs. Poland was guest of honor at the New Delhi book fair in 2014 and will be Guest of Honor at the London Book Fair in 2017. This reflects the increasing importance of Polish literature and the Polish book market abroad, and in particular the large number of Polish books recently being published in English. Through events like BookExpo America, publishers and editors around the world can learn to know and love Polish books, and bring them to audiences in their home countries.

Szymon Kloska, [email protected], +48-666-839-290

SOURCE The Polish Book Institute
SAN DIEGO, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mast Therapeutics, Inc. (NYSE MKT: MSTX), a biopharmaceutical company developing novel clinical-stage therapies for sickle cell disease and heart failure today announced positive interim results from an ongoing Phase 2a study of AIR001 in patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH) associated with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The interim results were presented at the American Thoracic Society (ATS) International Conference by lead investigator Marc A. Simon, M.D., M.S., F.A.C.C. The ATS International Conference is being held May 13  18, 2016 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

In the 10 patients who had been studied to date, nebulized inhaled nitrite (AIR001) administration significantly lowered central pressures, specifically, right atrial, right ventricular systolic and diastolic, pulmonary artery (PA) systolic/diastolic/mean, and pulmonary artery occlusion (PAOP) pressures. Of note, pulmonary artery occlusion and mean pulmonary artery pressures were markedly decreased from baseline median values. In addition, there was an observed increase in pulmonary artery compliance. There was no significant decrease is systemic blood pressures or change in heart rate. Methemoglobin levels increased modestly, but remained less than 1.9% and did not meet stopping criteria of the study, which was 5%. AIR001 was generally well-tolerated.

"This is the first report of the acute hemodynamic effects of multiple inhaled nitrite doses in patients with pulmonary hypertension due to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction," stated Dr. Simon. "The interim results observed to date are important as they demonstrate that AIR001 can significantly lower right atrial pressures, pulmonary artery pressures, and pulmonary artery occlusion pressures, as well as improve pulmonary artery compliance."

"These data are consistent with results we saw in a separate Phase 2a study of AIR001 in HFpEF earlier this year and are a further step in validating our second asset and establishing the potential clinical utility of AIR001 in HFpEF," stated Brian M. Culley, Chief Executive Officer of Mast Therapeutics. "We look forward to advancing AIR001 in this area of high unmet medical need for which there is no FDA-approved therapy available."

Poster Information :

The poster entitled "Efficacy and safety of inhaled sodium nitrite in pulmonary hypertension associated with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction" will be presented by Dr. Simon at 11:00 a.m. PT on May 16, 2016, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California .

. A copy of the poster will be available after 11:00 a.m. PT on the Company's website at: http://www.masttherapeutics.com/technology/publications/.

About the Phase 2a Study

This is an institution-sponsored, single-center, open label Phase 2a study to evaluate the effect of AIR001 delivered in a dose escalation manner on the change in cardiovascular hemodynamics in subjects with pulmonary hypertension who undergo standard right heart catheterization. The study will enroll a total of approximately 50 subjects with pulmonary hypertension. Approximately 20 of the subjects will have a diagnosis of PH associated with HFpEF (WHO Group II PH). Subjects receive a first dose of 45 mg of AIR001 via nebulizer, with one subsequent escalation dosage to 90 mg approximately 60 minutes after the first dose, based on safety and tolerability. During the study, right heart/pulmonary artery hemodynamics are measured continuously, and cardiac output is measured at 15 minute intervals, as well as noninvasive systemic blood pressure and pulse oximetry monitoring. Changes in hemodynamics and calculated pulmonary systemic vascular resistances, as well as pulmonary artery compliance will be performed.

About AIR001

AIR001 is a sodium nitrite solution for intermittent inhalation via nebulization. Nitrite is a direct vasodilator and can be recycled in vivo to form nitric oxide (NO) independent of the classical NO synthase (NOS) pathway. Nitrite mediated NO formation has several beneficial effects, including dilation of blood vessels and reduction of inflammation and undesirable cell growth. Generation of NO from sodium nitrite is not dependent upon endothelial function and is enhanced in the setting of tissue hypoxia and acidosis, conditions in which NOS activity typically is depressed. In early clinical studies, AIR001 demonstrated positive hemodynamic effects with reductions observed in right atrial pressure and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure, as well as improvements in mean pulmonary artery pressures, cardiac output, and exercise tolerance as measured by six-minute walk distance. In a recently completed randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2a study of AIR001 in 30 patients with HFpEF conducted at Mayo Clinic, the AIR001 treatment group showed a statistically significant decrease in pulmonary capillary wedge pressure during exercise compared to the control group and was generally well-tolerated.

About Mast Therapeutics

Mast Therapeutics, Inc. is a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company headquartered in San Diego, California. The Company is developing two clinical-stage investigational new drugs for serious or life-threatening diseases and conditions. Vepoloxamer, the Company's lead product candidate, is in Phase 3 clinical development for the treatment of vaso-occlusive crisis in patients with sickle cell disease and in Phase 2 clinical development for the treatment of patients with heart failure. Enrollment in the Company's 388-patient Phase 3 study of vepoloxamer in patients with sickle cell disease, known as the EPIC study, was completed in February 2016. Enrollment in the Company's Phase 2 study of vepoloxamer in patients with chronic heart failure is ongoing. AIR001, the Company's second product candidate, is in Phase 2 clinical development for the treatment of patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). Enrollment in a Phase 2a study of AIR001 in patients with HFpEF is ongoing and AIR001 was recently selected by the Heart Failure Clinical Research Network for evaluation in a 100-patient, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, Phase 2 study in patients with HFpEF. More information can be found on the Company's web site at http://masttherapeutics.com/ (Twitter: @MastThera).

Mast Therapeutics and the corporate logo are trademarks of Mast Therapeutics, Inc.

Forward Looking Statements

Mast Therapeutics cautions you that statements included in this press release that are not a description of historical facts are forward-looking statements that are based on the Company's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements relating to prospects for successful development and commercialization of the Company's investigational drugs, including AIR001 for patients with HFpEF. Among the factors that could cause or contribute to material differences between the Company's actual results and the expectations indicated by the forward-looking statements are risks and uncertainties that include, but are not limited to: that interim clinical study results may not be indicative of final study results and complete study results may not be positive with regard to efficacy or safety of AIR001 for patients with HFpEF; that the Company is not the sponsor of the ongoing Phase 2a study of AIR001 in patients with PH associated with HFpEF and has no control over the protocol for or conduct of the study, including whether the study will be completed on anticipated timelines, or at all; the uncertainty of outcomes in ongoing and future studies of the Company's product candidates and that its product candidates, including AIR001, may not demonstrate adequate safety, efficacy, or tolerability in one or more such studies; the Company's potential inability to continue as a going concern if it does not raise additional capital as needed, and its potential inability to obtain additional funding on a timely basis or on acceptable terms, or at all; the risk that the Company may be required to repay its outstanding debt obligations on an accelerated basis and/or at a time that could be detrimental to its financial condition, operations, and/or business strategy, including the prepayment of $10 million of the principal balance of its debt facility if results from the Company's Phase 3 study of vepoloxamer in sickle cell disease are not positive; the potential for the Company to significantly delay, reduce or discontinue current and/or planned development activities or sell or license its assets at inopportune times if it is unable to raise sufficient additional capital as needed; the Company's ability to obtain and maintain effective patent coverage and other market exclusivity protections for its products without infringing on the proprietary rights of others; the Company's ability to complete development of and successfully commercialize its product candidates and achieve profitability; and other risks and uncertainties more fully described in the Company's press releases and periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission are available at www.sec.gov.

You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date when made. Mast Therapeutics does not intend to revise or update any forward-looking statement set forth in this press release to reflect events or circumstances arising after the date hereof, except as may be required by law.

Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120612/LA22456LOGO-a

SOURCE Mast Therapeutics, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.masttherapeutics.com


NEW YORK, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Penton's Design Engineering & Sourcing Group has announced the conclusion of its annual bracket competition. This year's bracket challenge paired 32 of the top collegiate electrical, mechanical, and computer engineering academic programs. Penton's engineering audience and engineering students from across the country voted each week for five weeks to select the bracket winner and open the door for the next generation of engineers to participate in a juried online design competition. Engineering students from the winning academic program are eligible to participate in an online design challenge where their designs will be reviewed by industry leaders.

Purdue was the ultimate bracket challenge winner, garnering the most votes. The final four consisted of Purdue, Cornell, Caltech and Georgia Tech. Purdue students are now eligible to enter a design challenge where they will use Digi-Key's Scheme-It tool to create IoT designs and compete for additional prizes. First place wins an Apple Macbook Pro, second place earns an Apple iPad Air, and third place finisher gets a GoPro HERO4 Session Camera.

Voting participants in the bracket challenge were eligible to win one of several prizes each week including Texas Instruments Launch Pads, a set of 3 TE Connectivity Sensors, and a Schneider Electric Motor. At the conclusion of the bracket voting, one Grand Prize winner, John K. of Indesign LLC, Indianapolis, IN received a bundle of all of the weekly prizes plus a GoPro camera.

The Academic Engineering Program was the third annual bracket contest held by the Design Engineering & Sourcing group and spearheaded by Electronic Design and Machine Design. This year's program is an excellent example of how current engineers and manufacturers are helping future engineers navigate the competitive world of engineering.

Last year's bracket contest pitted popular engineering kits, toys, models, and tools against one another to determine the ultimate STEM STARTER with Legos taking home the title. Movies where engineers and technology drive the plot battled it out the year before to become THE WORLD's GREATEST ENGINEERING MOVIE - Apollo 13!

About Penton

Penton is an innovative information services company that empowers nearly 20 million business decision makers in markets that drive more than 12 trillion dollars in purchases each year. Our products inform with rich industry insights and workflow tools; engage through dynamic events, education and networking; and advance business with powerful marketing services programs. Penton is the way smart businesses buy, sell and grow.

Headquartered in New York, Penton is privately owned by MidOcean Partners and Wasserstein & Co., LP. For more information, visit http://www.penton.com or follow us on Twitter @PentonNow.

MEDIA CONTACT

Jane Cooper

Director of Marketing

Penton Design Engineering & Sourcing

O: 216-931-9301

E: [email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151231/318607LOGO

SOURCE Penton

Related Links

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NEW YORK, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Award-winning ultra-premium vodka brand Purity Vodka, announced today that it has elevated Brian Citron from General Manager to President and Chief Executive Officer. Citron has been responsible for developing the brand's U.S. sales since 2013.

"The Board of Directors recognizes the strong sales growth that Purity Vodka has undergone over the last four years, within an increasingly competitive category, under Brian Citron's leadership," says Alf Tonnesson, Chairman. "We are confident that Brian's vision for the brand will continue to establish Purity Vodka as a leading player in the ultra-premium category."

Purity Vodka was created by Master Blender Thomas Kuuttanen and comes to life in small batches at the 13th century castle Ellinge, in southern Sweden. The brand has been recognized and awarded for its exceptional taste, with more than 125 gold medals in international blind taste competitions.

"It has been a privilege to be a part of building Purity Vodka, and I look forward to leading the team in our next phase of growth," says Brian Citron. "Purity Vodka's exceptional taste and heritage is well-positioned to meet consumers' growing desire for uniquely crafted and authentic brands."

Prior to Purity Vodka, Citron was Vice President of Business for Belvedere Vodka at Moet Hennessy USA and held sales and marketing positions at Heineken USA and Fiji Water.

ABOUT PURITY VODKA

Purity Vodka has been awarded more than 125 Gold Medals by experts in the top blind tasting competitions around the world. With its heritage based in the 13th century Ellinge Castle in southern Sweden, Purity Vodka began from Master Blender Thomas Kuuttanen's lifelong quest to redefine the vodka category. The heart of Purity Vodka is distilled 34 times using a specially designed still made of copper and gold, creating a spirit so refined that no filtration is necessary.

For more information about Purity Vodka, please visit PurityVodka.com.

PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY Purity Vodka. 40% Alc. by Vol. Distilled from Grain. Imported by Purity Vodka, Manhasset, N.Y. Product of Sweden. 2016 Purity Vodka, Inc.

CONTACT: Brigid McCabe, Purity Vodka, 412-478-4991

[email protected]

SOURCE Purity Vodka, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.purityvodka.com


PALO ALTO, Calif. and AMSTERDAM, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ReCor Medical ("ReCor") announced today the signing of a development and commercialization agreement, together with an additional investment, with Otsuka Holdings ("Otsuka Holdings"), a global healthcare group headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. As part of the agreement, Otsuka Holdings obtained exclusive rights to commercialization of the ReCor Paradise ultrasound-based renal denervation system for Japan, China, Korea and other Asian countries. Otsuka Holding's investment will be used to further ReCor's clinical studies in the US and Europe.

Under the commercialization agreement, Otsuka will have exclusive rights to conduct clinical trials, regulatory activities and sales and marketing functions for commercialization of the ReCor Paradise technology for renal denervation in Asia. Otsuka's initial focus will be to conduct a clinical trial of the Paradise System in Japan to demonstrate its potential benefit in patients with treatment-resistant hypertension.

ReCor plans to use the Otsuka funding to advance its IDE-approved RADIANCE-HTN study for evaluation of the Paradise System in patients with hypertension in the US and EU. The study recently began enrolling at sites in the United States, The Netherlands, and the UK, and additional sites are planned for France and Germany.

Tatsuo Higuchi, President and Representative Director of Otsuka Holdings, said, "We are excited to commercialize ReCor's unique ultrasound-based renal denervation technology in Asia. This collaboration demonstrates Otsuka's strategy of leveraging our expertise in select disease areas for the development of medical device-based solutions with the potential to address medical needs that cannot be met by pharmaceutical treatment alone."

Andrew M. Weiss, President & CEO of ReCor, commented: "We highly value Otsuka's development and marketing capabilities in Asia  one of the most important potential markets for our Paradise technology. Otsuka has been one of our most important investors since leading our Series D financing, joining Sofinnova Partners and RICA Universal in funding ReCor. This latest investment is designed to fund our RADIANCE-HTN study, which we hope will demonstrate the blood-pressure lowering effect of the Paradise System in patients with hypertension."

About ReCor Medical, Inc.

ReCor Medical is a private medical device company that designs and manufactures a proprietary ultrasound ablation system for renal denervation (RDN) called the Paradise System. RDN is a new potential therapeutic approach for the treatment of hypertension, one of the most prevalent medical conditions. The Paradise System is approved for sale in the EU and bears a CE mark, but is not approved for sale in the United States. The System's intravascular catheters denervate renal nerves by combining the protection of water-based cooling of the renal artery with high intensity ultrasound energy for circumferential renal nerve ablation. ReCor has initiated enrollment in its RADIANCE-HTN study, en IDE-approved, randomized, sham-controlled trial to demonstrate the efficacy of the Paradise System in patients with hypertension. RADIANCE-HTN is being conducted in approximately 35 centers in the United States, Netherlands, UK, France and Germany.

More information on RADIANCE-HTN can be found at:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02649426?term=radiance&rank=3

For more information about ReCor Medical, please visit www.recormedical.com or contact Andrew M. Weiss, President & CEO, ReCor Medical at [email protected] / +1-650-542-7700.

About Otsuka Holdings Co., Ltd.

Otsuka Holdings Co., Ltd. is the holding company of the Otsuka group, a global healthcare group headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. With operations in pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, medical devices and other health-related businesses, the group generated worldwide sales of approximately JPY1,445 billion in the fiscal year ended December 2015. Under its corporate philosophy, "Otsuka  people creating new products for better health worldwide", the Otsuka Group conducts research, development, manufacturing and marketing of innovative products that are uniquely positioned to provide advanced therapy, improve quality of life and support a healthy lifestyle.

Additional information can be found on http://www.otsuka.com/en/

SOURCE ReCor Medical, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.recormedical.com


BEAVERTON, Ore., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --Reser's Fine Foods, a sponsor of the Joe Gibbs Racing #20 and driver Erik Jones, invites fans across the country to enter for a chance to win a 2016 Toyota Highlander and a VIP race trip to meet racing star Erik Jones. The sweepstakes runs May 15, 2016 through September 3, 2016. Fans can enter online at www.ResersRacing.com. The grand prize winner will be announced on or around September 15, 2016.

"Once again, we are partnering with Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing to offer one lucky winner a once-in-a-lifetime grand prize package," says Trade Marketing Manager, Brenda Killingsworth for Reser's. "We love the racing community and all of our loyal fans, so we created this giveaway to give everyone a chance to win something big  a brand new 2016 Toyota Highlander and a VIP Trip to meet Erik Jones."

How to Enter

Participants can visit www.ResersRacing.com to be entered into the Reser's Toyota Highlander Giveaway for a chance to win.

Grand Prize includes:

2016 Model Year Toyota  Highlander  LE Plus, equipped with standard equipment and an estimated manufacturer's suggested retail price of $35,810 ;

Highlander LE Plus, equipped with standard equipment and an estimated manufacturer's suggested retail price of ; A four (4) day, three (3) night trip for winner and one (1) guest to Kansas City, KS scheduled for October 14-17, 2016 , roundtrip coach air transportation between a major metropolitan airport near winner's home and the Kansas City International Airport, Kansas City, MO , standard double occupancy hotel accommodations for winner and guest for three (3) nights at a hotel of Sponsor's choice, two (2) VIP passes to attend the October 15, 2016 race as guest of the Reser's race team, two (2) tickets to the Oct 16, 2016 race, one (1) rental car for four (4) days and more.

First Place Prize (5) includes:

In addition to the Grand Prize winner, Reser's will select (5) First Place prize winners who will receive a Reser's cooler full of food, official race gear, and a $250 Gift Card.

Instant Winner Prizes include:

Entries received at ResersRacing.com will be eligible to win an instant prize of a Reser's Racing Cap. The instant win prizes will be randomly assigned daily.

For more information, official rules, and to enter the giveaway, please visit www.resersracing.com.

About Reser's Fine Foods:

Family owned and operated, Reser's is the leading provider of fresh refrigerated deli salads, side dishes and prepared foods. For more than 65 years, Reser's has been making fun times easy and affordable for every family. Reser's famous deli salads are a family favorite at the race track, picnics, BBQs and tailgates. Founded in 1950, the company remains committed to providing delicious refrigerated foods for the supermarket and food service industries. Reser's operates 18 facilities in the United States and Mexico and employs more than 4,000 employees in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Visit www.resers.com.

SOURCE Resers Fine Foods

Related Links

http://www.resers.com


SARASOTA, Fla., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals, Inc., (OTCQB: RCPI), a clinical-stage drug development company focused on the application of its lead compound to treat acute and chronic inflammatory conditions, today filed its 2016 first quarter report on Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided clinical commentary and review on the Company's operations for its first quarter.

Topical Drug Product Development

The Company has developed a range of anatabine cream and ointment topical formulations to move forward in pre-clinical and clinical development. Preclinical testing to date has shown the ointment demonstrates good stability and performance in skin delivery and permeation testing. The ointment formulations will therefore be advanced into clinical development.

Pre-Clinical Models of Psoriasis

The Company has initiated a second pre-clinical study of psoriasis using the imiquimod (IMQ)-induced psoriasis mouse model. This model recapitulates many features of the pathology of human psoriasis such as erythema, scaling, keratinocyte proliferation, skin thickening and activation of IL23, IL17 and IL22 cytokines. Although data are still being evaluated, the Company's initial findings show reduction in the proliferation of skin cells (keratinocytes) which characterize human psoriatic plaques. The Company's recent Investor Presentation, filed on May 16, 2016, on Form 8-K, contains a brief discussion of the IMQ model, highlighting epidermal staining of representative skin sections. The pictorial representation is self-evident, showing anatabine's ability to reduce keratinocyte proliferation induced by IMQ. The Company is encouraged by anatabine's potential efficacy in dermatological disease, and is currently quantifying and evaluating the psoriasis model data for submission for peer review publication. Further, these data will be helpful in designing the Company's Phase IB human proof of concept study and may potentially enhance the Company's intellectual property position.

The May 16 Investor Presentation also highlights the results of the TPA-irritant psoriasis mouse model, where the proliferation of keratinocytes was also significantly reduced. Complementary results show significant reductions in activation of STAT3 and NF-kB, two critical regulators of inflammation (see below).

Clinical Activities

The Company's upcoming Phase IB psoriasis study is being designed to achieve several goals: First, although the Company has conducted successful oral Phase I systemic safety studies, it is required that the Company's new anatabine topical formulations are also formally evaluated for human safety. A primary goal of this study will therefore be the evaluation of safety and tolerability of different doses of the topical formulations. Second, the Phase IB is being designed to evaluate human clinical efficacy of anatabine citrate on psoriasis. The standard evaluation of efficacy is visual inspection and scoring of the psoriatic plaques by experts. These observations will be supplemented in our study with ultrasonography and pathological evaluation of skin biopsies. These will allow assessment of the impact of our drug on the depth of the psoriatic lesion and the degree of infiltration of inflammatory cells, among other parameters. Finally, the Company will be collecting biomarker data from the skin biopsies. In particular, we will measure the activity of NFK-B and STAT3, which have been previously identified as critical regulators of inflammation. A great deal of scientific and clinical work performed by the Company and others suggests that the Company's drug will suppress inflammation by inhibiting the activation of these regulators of gene activity. Verification of the relationship between reduced activation of these transcription factors and reduced psoriatic pathology will be regarded as further evidence of anatabine's mechanism of action. Further, if the overall results are positive, this study will provide the proof of concept that the mechanism of action of our compound can potentially be therapeutic, not only in dermatological disorders, but in other inflammation driven human diseases as well.

To support its clinical plan, the Company has undertaken a dermal toxicity program, which will allow the safe dosing of psoriasis patients in the dermal clinical studies. By careful species selection, this dermal toxicity testing program will confirm the range of anatabine citrate concentrations for dosing in the Phase IB study, but will also support multiple clinical study protocols for a follow on Phase IIa/II psoriasis trial in 2017.

Atopic Dermatitis Pre-Clinical Model

In addition to its work in psoriasis, the Company has expanded its dermatological focus to determine whether anatabine has applicability in atopic dermatitis (AD) or "eczema". Recent forecasts suggests that this market, within a number of major countries, will grow to in excess of $5B by the early part of the next decade, growing at a compound annual growth rate of close to 4%. Accordingly, the Company has been evaluating anatabine's attributes in a chronic mouse model of TMA-induced contact hypersensitivity, a pre-clinical model for AD, known simply as the TMA model. This well-studied model of chemical sensitization shows many of the features of AD, including swelling, inflammatory cell infiltration and inflammatory marker/cytokine increase. Initial observations and early results show that swelling associated with AT in this model is decreased with treatment by both anatabine citrate cream and anatabine citrate ointment. Importantly, the proliferation of the epidermal keratinocytes produced by TMA is also opposed by the anatabine derived topical therapeutics. Further detailed analyses are ongoing, however, pictorial representations of anatabine's effect through skin section epidermal staining, and graphical data measurements of reduced ear thickness in affected mice, are also included in the recent Investor Presentation. More detail on the Company's plans for atopic dermatitis will be conveyed later in the year.

Executive Commentary

Michael Mullan (MBBS, PhD), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals, commented, "As reflected in today's filing, apart from advancement of the Company's clinical program, the Company's past legal challenges are also beginning to ameliorate. We are pleased that we have recently resolved the consumer class action lawsuit and we have made favorable progress on other legal matters, the details of which are included in today's filing."

Dr Mullan added, "The Company continues to move forward with our focus on psoriasis and dermatological skin diseases, as a means to attaining proof of concept for our compound. Our drug has a novel anti-inflammatory mechanism of action, and contingent upon continued access to sufficient capital, we expect to test its therapeutic potential in our Phase IB Psoriasis study in Q4 of 2016."

2016 First Quarter Financial Results

The Company recorded a net loss of $2.7 million for the three months ended March 31, 2016, compared to a net loss of $338 thousand for the same period in 2015. The net loss for the three months ended March 31, 2015 included a one-time receipt of $3.5 million of insurance proceeds.

General and administrative expenses were $1.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2016, a 63% decrease of $2.1 million, from $3.3 million for the same period in 2015.

The Company invested $133 thousand in research and development efforts during the three months ended March 31, 2016, compared to $473 thousand for the comparable period in 2015. The research and development costs for the three months ended March 31, 2016 were directed principally toward the preparation and pre-clinical testing of anatabine citrate in preparation for advancing into the next phase of the Company's clinical development.

Additional financial information can be found in the Company's Form 10-Q filed on May 16, 2016. Additional scientific and corporate information can be found within the Company's updated Investor Presentation, posted on the Company's website within the "Investors" section, under "Presentations and Webinars" and in the Company's Form 8-K, filed May 16, 2016.

About Anatabine Citrate:

Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals' compound is a small molecule, cholinergic agonist that exhibits anti-inflammatory pharmacological characteristics, distinct from other anti-inflammatory drugs available such as biologics, steroids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatories. The Company's lead compound has been investigated extensively in pre-clinical (in vitro and in vivo) studies resulting in several peer reviewed and published scientific journal articles, covering models of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, and autoimmune thyroiditis. All these studies demonstrated the anti-inflammatory effects of the Company's compound. In addition, the Company's compilation of human exposure safety and tolerability data, has provided important insights for ongoing clinical and regulatory pharmaceutical development.

About Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals, Inc.:

Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is an emerging drug development company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of new drugs, formulations and compounds that provide therapies for chronic and acute inflammatory diseases.

For more information, visit: http://www.rockcreekpharmaceuticals.com

Forward Looking Statements:

Certain statements contained in this release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements include, but are not limited to statements identified by words such as "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "intends," "plans," "targets," "projects" and similar expressions. The statements in this release are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of our company's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Numerous factors could cause or contribute to such differences, including, but not limited to, failure to obtain sufficient capital resources to fund our development program and operations, results of clinical trials and/or other studies, the challenges inherent in new product development initiatives, including the continued development and approval of anti-inflammatory drug candidates, the effect of any competitive products, our ability to license and protect our intellectual property, our significant payables, our ability to raise additional capital in the future that is necessary to maintain our business, changes in government policy and/or regulation, potential litigation by or against us, any governmental review of our products or practices, pending litigation matters, as well as other risks discussed from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 filed on March 22, 2016. We undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statement or any information contained in this press release or in other public disclosures at any time.

CONTACT:

Investor Contact:

PCG Advisory Group

Stephanie Prince

646.762.4518

[email protected]

Media Contact:

PCG Advisory Group

Sean Leous

646 863 8998

[email protected]

Company Contact:

Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

2040 Whitfield Ave. Suite 300

Sarasota Florida, 34243

1-844-727-0727

[email protected]

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SOURCE Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.rockcreekpharmaceuticals.com


DENVER, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SecureSet, the nation's first cybersecurity academy and accelerator, worked with STEMsCO to win a $100,000 grant from Generation Cyber (GenCyber), a program spearheaded by the National Security Agency and National Science Foundation to address the growing shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals in the United States. SecureSet will bring cybersecurity 'bootcamps' to Colorado Springs this summer aimed at both high-school students, and middle-school and high-school teachers, particularly in the Peyton, Widefield and Falcon districts.

The summer camps, which are free of charge to attendees and will take place the weeks of July 11 for teachers and July 18 for students, will provide a new level of cybersecurity education, including hands-on training related to network security, systems security, detection and logs, and applied cryptography. Up to 25 students will be admitted into the camp based on an application process that reviews campers' interest and commitment to STEM and cybersecurity.

"Our camps will help provide cybersecurity education to students and teachers from all backgrounds so they can learn these important skills and have an opportunity to turn it into a career," said Bret Fund, co-founder of SecureSet and director of the company's academy. "Cybersecurity professionals are in high-demand in business and government and our goal is help educate a generation of people who can fill these critical jobs."

"The chance for our Peyton School District students to attend an NSA GenCyber Camp this summer, free of charge, is an amazing opportunity," said Tim Kistler, superintendent of Peyton School District. "Expanding that to our educators, so even more of students can benefit from this event, is outstanding. The advantage of rural students having access to reliable, free transportation to and from the camp is critical to getting the participation we desire. We deeply appreciate STEMsCO and SecureSet writing this grant with the Peyton School District in mind. We are aggressively pursuing such offerings, and are quite pleased that this is falling into our lap."

To apply for the SecureSet, STEMsCO summer camp please visit https://www.stemsco.org/stemsco/home/gencyber-camp/. To learn more about SecureSet, including the adult cybersecurity education the company offers, please visit www.secureset.com

About SecureSet

SecureSet is the nation's first cybersecurity accelerator and academy. Headquartered in Denver and supported by experienced and prestigious leaders in government, business, military and higher education, SecureSet is bringing an array of cybersecurity resources together to help innovate the next generation of cybersecurity technology, and educate thousands to fill the nation's cybersecurity job gap. Learn more at www.secureset.com

About STEMsCO

STEMsCO leverages community partnerships to equip educators and learners with the information, resources, tools and opportunities needed to propel pre-K through 12 students toward STEM excellence. STEMsCO fulfills its mission by establishing strong, mutually beneficial partnerships within and between pre-K through 20 education, Industry, the Nonprofit sector and the community at large.

SOURCE SecureSet

Related Links

http://www.secureset.com


NEW YORK, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of DeVry Education Group, Inc. ("DeVry" or the "Company") (NYSE: DV). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888-476-6529, ext. 9980.

[Click here to join a class action]

The investigation concerns whether DeVry and certain of its officers and/or directors have violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

On January 27, 2016, the Federal Trade Commission filed suit against DeVry and its subsidiary DeVry University, accusing them of deceptively advertising the benefits of obtaining a bachelor's degree at DeVry University. That same day, the U.S. Department of Education issued DeVry University a Notice of Intent to limit its access to certain federal funding after determining that unsubstantiated representations in DeVry's marketing and promotional materials constituted violations of federal law.

On these disclosures, DeVry stock fell $3.65 per share, or 15%, to close at $20.09 on January 27, 2016.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

[email protected]

SOURCE Pomerantz LLP

Related Links

http://www.pomerantzlaw.com


Employees of Sodexo , world leader in Quality of Life Services and dining services partner to Gonzaga University, support the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation , which has a mission to eradicate child hunger, especially among those most at-risk. These efforts are supported across the country by local Sodexo teams and their clients and customers.

Aligning with Gonzaga's Tradition of Service

"One of the values we at Gonzaga University try to instill in our students is the spirit of volunteerism and support for the local community," said Judith Biggs Garbuio, Ph.D., vice president, student development, Gonzaga University. "One of the reasons Sodexo has been a great partner on campus is that the management team and employees embrace the notion of volunteering and understand the importance of giving back and they are also committed to getting students involved in those efforts."

The partnership between the University and Sodexo to combat hunger in the Spokane area takes many forms. The Center for Community Action and Service Learning (CCASL ), the Gonzaga department responsible for volunteer and community engagement efforts, empowers students to take action through community involvement, education and public service by coordinating service-learning courses, community-based volunteer and outreach programs, and referrals to external volunteer opportunities. Through these programs, students find opportunities to serve their local and global communities, develop leadership skills, and engage in the Jesuit practice of reflection to learn and grow from these experiences. Involvement with Sodexo's commitment to combat hunger in our community is one way students can make a difference.

Community Hunger Relief Efforts Throughout the Year

2016 marks the 10th anniversary of the University's Campus Kitchens program. The Sodexo team works with CCASL, which provides and tracks student volunteers to coordinate excess food pickups twice a week for distribution. 16,040 pounds  the equivalent of 13,367 meals  were donated in 2015 alone. Gonzaga was Food Recovery certified in July 2015 for its efforts with Campus Kitchens.

The efforts go even further; Daniel Caris, Sodexo's sustainability and greenhouse coordinator, plants tomato seeds in the campus' greenhouse for use in Campus Kitchens program. 34,150 meals have been served to Spokane's children through Sodexo's Feeding Our Future program, now in its third year at Gonzaga. Meals are provided through Union Gospel Mission, providing 250-300 kids with lunch, dinner and some breakfasts every day for a nine-week summer camp. And, Peanut Butter and Jelly Drives held throughout 2015 produced nearly 2,200 sandwiches for the Mission's clients.

"Gonzaga's students and staff have long demonstrated a clear commitment to helping those in need in their community. The Sodexo on-site team is committed to the University and the community and we believe that, by partnering together, we increase the opportunities to improve quality of life for those in need. We're proud of our combined efforts that resulted in the donation of more than 51,000 meals throughout the year," said Pat Clelland, resident district manager, Sodexo at Gonzaga University.

Sodexo delivers more than 100 services across North America that enhance organizational performance, contribute to local communities and improve quality of life. The Fortune Global 500 Company is a leader in delivering sustainable, integrated facilities management and foodservice operations.

Learn more at the company's corporate blog, Sodexo Insights.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160516/367998

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160516/367997

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160330/349448LOGO

SOURCE Sodexo

Related Links

http://www.sodexoUSA.com


"Solange has served as key counsel to the three Presidents/CEOs that preceded her," said Reardon, "and she's done this all while effectively managing the agency through acquisition periods, leading client services and guiding operations across the entire organization. Most recently, she has taken the lead role in developing capabilities to support Moxie's expanded suite of modern marketing solutions  an effort centrally responsible for the agency's growth over the last nine months, the largest growth period in our history."

Claudio possesses a diverse marketing background, with more than 18 years of experience spanning multiple facets of digital marketing  from online media and CRM to social, mobile and technology platforms and solutions. A native New Yorker, Claudio relocated to Atlanta in 2011 to lead Client Management at Moxie, prior to serving as its Chief Operations Officer  a post she has redefined over the last two years.

Throughout her career at Moxie, Claudio has maintained momentum for the agency, providing industry-leading client solutions. In the last nine months, Moxie has won business from leading brands, including TGI Friday's and the American Cancer Society. It also solidified Chick-fil-A as America's favorite brand on social media in 2015, according to Engagement Labs. Further, the agency developed and deployed its Unit3C production studio and FutureX Lab under her leadership  both proprietary capabilities that allow Moxie to offer varied and dynamic solutions to clients' business challenges while driving innovation in the industry.

"These past five years with Moxie have been an incredible journey," said Claudio. "I'm excited to bring to life our modern marketing solutions proposition. Building on Sean's vision of where Moxie is going as an agency, my focus will be on pushing the boundaries of how marketing and technology come together to drive transformation for our clients."

About Moxie (www.moxieusa.com)

Moxie, part of Publicis Media, is a modern marketing solutions agency that expertly leverages the value of channel, data, content and technology to help our clients grow with unprecedented pace. Founded in 2000, Moxie has over 400 talented employees in Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York and Pittsburgh and is a transformational piece of the Publicis Media Network. Moxie's client roster includes Verizon, The Coca-Cola Company, Chick-fil-A, Nike, Ainsworth Pet Nutrition, Wells Fargo, TGI Friday's and the American Cancer Society.

Media Contact: Jessica Carruth, Senior Marketing & PR Manager, 470-225-3341, [email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160515/367709

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140312/CL81426LOGO

SOURCE Moxie

Related Links

http://moxieusa.com


BANGALORE, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Sonata Software, a global technology services and solutions company, announced today that it will be exhibiting its 'Future-ready' solutions at the SapphireNow event, to be held in Orlando, Florida, USA from 17th to 19th May this year.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130610/618887 )



Sonata has a strong offering in digital technologies for its focus includes verticals of retail, travel and distribution along with global footprints and delivery capabilities. With the theme of 'Discover Future-ready Solutions', Sonata would be showcasing its solution around digital technologies like hybris e-Commerce in the travel, retail and distribution domains. The solutions are based on the reusable assets that Sonata has, which would provide value to the digital initiatives of enterprises. With its large hybris consultant resource pool, Sonata is considered as one of the biggest hybris multi regional silver partner and SAP Gold Partner. In addition, Sonata has received the SAP APJ Partner Excellence Award 2016, SAP Pinnacle Award 2014 and hybris Most Innovative Partner 2012. Sonata's hybris solutions have reaped the following benefits for the customers:

Improved market share

Easy integration to third-party applications

Improved loyalty, customer retention through personalized treatment

Single view of customers and single view of business

Increased conversion and average value order; reduced shopping cart abandonment

Shorter time to market

As a development and integration partner of hybris, Sonata offers cutting-edge solutions to deliver technology transformation which enables customer satisfaction. Sonata's global implementation competence and its capability of setting up dedicated hybris Center of Excellence (CoE) make it a trusted alliance partner for hybris. Sonata's dedicated hybris CoE has assets like:

Travel e-Commerce Framework on hybris

hybris B2B & B2C accelerators

Connectors between hybris & SAP

Data migration frameworks for migrating from WCMS to hybris

"With 15+ years of experience in the digital commerce space across industry verticals and multiple technology platforms, we have built solutions that are 'future-proof' and readily deployable. We have worked with some of the Fortune 500 companies in implementing hybris solution, increasing the e-Commerce revenues and offering savings on spend. With dedicated hybris COE, Agile model-based implementation and testing methodologies, Sonata is partner of choice to implement and support hybris as an omni-channel commerce platform," commented Rajiv Puri, Head of Americas, Sonata Software.

SapphireNow is the largest global business technology event hosted by SAP. The event will be held at the Orange County Convention Center. Visit Sonata at booth # 1625.

Click here to know more about Sonata's hybris solutions and services.

About Sonata Software:

Sonata Software is a global IT services & solution firm focused on catalysing transformational IT initiatives of its clients through deep domain knowledge, technology expertise and customer commitment. The company delivers innovative new solutions for travel, retail & consumer goods and software product companies by integrating technologies such as omni-channel commerce, mobility, analytics, cloud and ERP, to drive enhanced customer engagement, operations efficiency and return on IT investments. A trusted long-term service provider to Fortune 500 companies across both the software product development and enterprise business segments, Sonata seeks to add differentiated value to leadership who want to make an impact on their businesses, with IT.

For further information, please contact:

Anuj Kumar Saxena

Sonata Software Limited

CIN- L72200MH1994PLC082110

A.P.S. Trust Building,

Bull Temple Road, N.R. Colony

Bangalore 560019, India

Tel: +91-80-67781999

[email protected]



SOURCE Sonata Software
PUNE, India, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

According to a new market research report "Special Mission Aircraft Market by Operation (Air Force, Naval, Army), by Application (ISR, Maritime Patrol, Anti-Surface Warfare & Anti-Submarine Warfare, Airborne Warning & Control, Search & Rescue, Refueling), and by Region - Global Forecast to 2020", published by MarketsandMarkets, The market size is estimated to grow from USD 10.49 Billion in 2015 to USD 12.49 Billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 3.5% from 2015 to 2020.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )



Browse 66 market data Tables and 65 Figures spread through 123 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Special Mission Aircraft Market"

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/special-mission-aircraft-market-23335921.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.

Increase in defense spending by the developing nations is the major factor owing to which the Special Mission Aircraft Market is expected to gain traction during the forecast period.

Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR) and Electronics/Signal Intelligence application are playing a key role in the Special Mission Aircraft Market

The ISR application is expected to contribute the largest market share whereas the electronics/signal intelligence application will play a key role in changing the special mission aircraft landscape during the forecast period. Middle East and North Africa region accounts for more than 50% of the world's oil reserves. ISR could be used to discover marine oil spills, assess the location, extent and severity of spills, and to monitor the spread and movement in these regions.

Air force operations segment holds the largest share of Special Mission Aircraft Market

The Air forces segment, especially the U.S. Air Force, is expected to contribute the largest market share to the Special Mission Aircraft Market. The U.S. Air Force is the most powerful air force of the world. It alone holds approximately 757 special mission aircraft, followed by Japan, China, Russia and India. Japan and China have 132 and 131 special mission aircraft respectively. Air force segment holds the largest share of this market as various specialized missions such as surgical strikes, disaster relief, transport of VVIPs, and others are carried out using these aircraft all around the world.

North America is expected to dominate the Special Mission Aircraft Market

Rising insurgencies is the key factor driving the Special Mission Aircraft Market, especially in the regions of APAC, Africa, and the Middle East. There are several opportunities for new entrants in the developing nations of China, India, UAE, and Israel. The Special Mission Aircraft Market exhibits a lucrative growth potential in the regions of APAC, Africa, and the Middle East. This is due to the ongoing conflicts and the territorial disputes in these regions. North America is estimated to be the largest market for special mission aircraft. The growth of this market in this region is propelled by the high dependence of the U.S. military forces on its airborne assets for a wide range of missions it is tasked to perform worldwide. No other military is expected to initiate and maintain ongoing attack, surveillance, and patrol missions over so wide a potential theatre of battle.

The key players in the Special Mission Aircraft Market include Lockheed Martin Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Textron Inc., Bombardier Inc., SAAB AB, Boeing, and Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd.

Ask for Sample Pages @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsample.asp?id=23335921

The scope of the report covers detailed information regarding the major factors such as drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities that influence the growth of the Special Mission Aircraft Market. A detailed analysis of the key industry players has been done to provide insights into their business overview, products and services, key strategies, new product launches, mergers & acquisitions, partnerships, agreements, collaborations and recent developments associated with the Special Mission Aircraft Market.



About MarketsandMarkets

MarketsandMarkets is the world's No. 2 firm in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors.

M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers.

We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository.

Contact:

Mr. Rohan

Markets and Markets

UNIT no 802, Tower no. 7, SEZ

Magarpatta city, Hadapsar

Pune, Maharashtra 411013, India

1-888-600-6441

Email: [email protected]

Visit MarketsandMarkets Blog @ http://www.marketsandmarketsblog.com/market-reports/telecom-it

Connect with us on LinkedIn @ http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets

Visit MarketsandMarkets Website @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com



SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
STAMFORD, Conn., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today S.Pellegrino Sparkling Natural Mineral Water announced its partnership with Feastly, innovators in the social dining arena, to produce a series of pop-up dining experiences in San Francisco throughout the month of June. This collaboration celebrates culinary ingenuity and exploration, presenting an innovative new model for Bay Area food enthusiasts.

The special program will consist of 12 dinners throughout June, each hosted by a different locally-based chef who will design a signature menu. The intimate dining experiences will be open to the public, accommodating only a select number of guests per night. The secret dinner venue, located within the Mission District, will only be shared with diners once reservations are confirmed.

"The partnership with Feastly underlines S.Pellegrino's mission to showcase how any meal, at any time, can be transformed into a delicious celebration of food," said Danit Eisdorfer Senior Marketing Manager, Italian Brands at Nestle Waters North America. "Feastly is truly an innovator within the social dining arena and shares our same passion for food and desire to bring unique and memorable dining experiences to local communities."

Feastly is an online marketplace empowering any chef to showcase and host pop-ups, supper clubs, dinners, and food experiences. Through the platform, diners can discover and book seats to these unique meals. The S.Pellegrino and Feastly pop-up dining series will feature a variety of established and emerging talented chefs. Some noted chefs hosts include Chef Jason Fox of Commonwealth and Oro, Geoffrey Reed founder of FishInKitchen and Executive Chef with Ichido, Executive Chef Tu David Phu of Gather, and Executive Chef Aaron Meneghelli of The Carneros Inn restaurants.

"At Feastly, our innovative model serves as a stage to empower any chef to showcase their culinary talent and serve their food outside the confines and barriers of the traditional dining establishment," said Noah Karesh, co-founder of Feastly. "We partnered with S.Pellegrino because they understand the importance of celebrating food and providing chefs the platform to do just that for enthusiastic eaters. We are excited to join forces to foster a growing community of eaters and chefs who want more from their dining experiences."

Ticket prices will range from $40/pp - $100/pp, varying based upon the chef host and menu. For a full list of chef partners and more information on the S.Pellegrino and Feastly pop-up dinner series, please visit: https://eatfeastly.com/sanpellegrino/

About S.Pellegrino Sparkling Natural Mineral Water

The signature taste of S.Pellegrino Sparkling Natural Mineral Water is created during a 30-year journey through the Italian Alps, where the water is naturally filtered. S.Pellegrino cleanses the palate and amplifies subtle flavors, making it the perfect complement to fine food and wines. This clean, refreshing taste helped S.Pellegrino become a preferred sparkling water in fine-dining restaurants in the USA, and pairs well with any occasion.

S.Pellegrino is proud to support a number of top culinary events, such as The James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef of the Year Award, S.Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef Competition, The World's 50 Best Restaurants list, Aspen Food and Wine Classic, Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation, and Identita Golose. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/SanPellegrinoUS or www.finedininglovers.com

About Feastly

Feastly is an online marketplace rethinking the dining industry by empowering any chef to showcase and host pop-ups, supper clubs, dinners, and food experiences. Through the platform, diners can discover and book seats to these unique meals all over the world. Feastly is operating in cities across the US. To find meals in your city visit: www.eatfeastly.com or visit us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/Feastly/

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160516/367977LOGO

SOURCE S.Pellegrino
BOULDER, Colorado, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Surna Inc. (OTCQB: SRNA), a technology company that engineers state-of-the art equipment for controlled environment agriculture (CEA) with special expertise in cannabis cultivation, reported its results for the quarter ended March 31, 2016.

CEO Stephen Keen said, "Throughout 2015 and 2016, we believe we have furthered our transformation to become one of the leading technology companies with cannabis expertise, energy-optimized products and turnkey cultivation solutions. First quarter 2016 results reflect our team's tremendous efforts as we nearly tripled revenue compared to the prior year's quarter and delivered operating income for the first time in the company's history.

"Surna systems' sales momentum continues to see strong growth. Also, we are nearing fulfillment of a purchase order for over 400 Reflectors for use in a commercial facility. We expect completing our first installation of this magnitude will provide Surna with significant data to optimize the Reflector and installation protocol in scale. As typical with cannabis licensing and facility construction, there were delays and, therefore, the Reflector delivery was postponed. In the meantime, we seized the opportunity to advance the Reflector and incorporate an interactive control system that will allow for facility temperature control using the cooling power of the Reflector itself. We believe we will begin shipments this quarter and remain quite confident this installation will provide important validation of our products and technologies.

"In 2016, we are focused on execution. Our strategic priorities are expanding sales of core products including our water chillers and dehumidifiers; commercializing our Reflector products; demonstrating our hybrid building concept in pilot form; capitalizing on the positive trends in the regulatory environment; and, ultimately, creating shareholder value."

Results for First Quarter: 2016 Compared to 2015

Revenue grew over 200% to $2.5 million , compared to $819,000 , reflecting sales momentum and greater demand as more states legalized cannabis.

, compared to , reflecting sales momentum and greater demand as more states legalized cannabis. Gross margin improved to 43.6% from 10.8%, reflecting favorable product mix and the benefit of a new pricing schedule.

Operating expenses were $724,000 , compared to $968,000 . While management continues to seek lower operating expense as a percentage of revenue, absolute expenses are expected to increase. Advertising and marketing expenses were $14,000 , down from $31,000 , reflecting the prioritization and management of costs. Advertising and marketing spend is expected to increase in the second half of the year when the company has more frequent large trade events. Product development costs decreased to $106,000 , compared to $181,000 as the Reflector moved from R&D to production. SG&A expenses were reduced to $601,000 , compared to $756,000 as management improved operating efficiencies, reduced personnel costs and focused on cost containment.

, compared to . While management continues to seek lower operating expense as a percentage of revenue, absolute expenses are expected to increase. Operating income improved to $365,000 , from an operating loss of $880,000 .

, from an operating loss of . Net loss was $746,000 , or $0.01 per share, compared to $1.4 million , or $0.01 per share. The non-cash derivative mark-to-market charge was $422,000 , compared to a gain of $48,000 in the first quarter of 2015.

As of March 31, 2016, cash was $1.1 million, compared to $331,000 at December 31, 2015. Deferred revenue was $1.4 million, up from $986,000. Deferred revenue represents contracts in progress, as the company recognizes revenue as products are shipped or services are performed.

First Quarter 2016 Highlights

Secured a contract for approximately $725,000 with Las Vegas cultivator Cloud 9 Wholesale for a facility that covers 30,000 square feet, which will require approximately 550 tons of cooling equipment for cultivation climate control.

with cultivator Cloud 9 Wholesale for a facility that covers 30,000 square feet, which will require approximately 550 tons of cooling equipment for cultivation climate control. Received four design patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for its Surna Reflector products that deliver more direct light to the canopy while providing unique thermodynamic characteristics that improve heat transfer from the cultivation area. Surna now has eight pending patent applications and four issued patents.

Appointed Ellen White as its Chief Financial Officer. Ms. White served as the director of finance since September 2015 and brings more than 20 years of financial and accounting experience including National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD), Healthgrades, Microsoft, EY and KPMG.

Conference Call

Management will review the results on a conference call today, May 16, 2016, at 9:00 a.m. MT/ 11:00 a.m. ET. To access the conference call, please dial 855-327-6837, if calling from the United States or Canada, or 631-891-4304, if calling internationally, and use passcode 10001215.

A replay of the call will be available until May 20, 2016, which can be accessed by dialing 877-870-5176, if calling from the United States or Canada, or 858-384-5517, if calling internationally. Please use passcode 10001215 to access the replay.

The call will be webcast and available at www.surna.com/investor-relations where a transcript of the call will also be provided shortly after it concludes.

About Surna

Surna Inc. (www.surna.com) develops innovative technologies and products that monitor, control and or address the energy and resource intensive nature of indoor cannabis cultivation. Currently, the company's revenue stream is based on its main product offerings  supplying industrial technology and products to commercial indoor cannabis grow facilities.

Headquartered in Boulder, CO, Surna's diverse engineering team is tasked with creating novel energy and resource efficient solutions, including the company's signature water-cooled climate control platform. The company's engineers continuously seek to create technology that solve the highly specific demands of the cannabis industry for temperature, humidity, light and process control.

Surna's goal is to provide intelligent solutions to improve the quality, the control and the overall yield and efficiency of CEA. Though its clients do, the company neither produces nor sells cannabis.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding the Company's future business expectations, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual results due to a variety of factors including Surna's ability to monetize service components, Surna's support of premium prices for existing products, commercialization of research and development efforts and continued expansion of legal cannabis markets. Other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services, and technologies, government regulation and taxation, and fraud. In addition, the current global economic climate amplifies many of these risks. More information about factors that potentially could affect Surna's financial results is included in Surna's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company disclaims any obligation subsequently to revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.

Statement About Cannabis Markets

The use, possession, cultivation, and distribution of cannabis is prohibited by federal law. This includes medical and recreational cannabis. Although certain states have legalized medical and recreational cannabis, companies and individuals involved in the sector are still at risk of being prosecuted by federal authorities. Further, the landscape in the cannabis industry changes rapidly. What was the law last week is not the law today and what is the law today may not be the law next week. This means that at any time the city, county, or state where cannabis is permitted can change the current laws and/or the federal government can supersede those laws and take prosecutorial action. Given the uncertain legal nature of the cannabis industry, it is imperative that investors understand that the cannabis industry is a high-risk investment. A change in the current laws or enforcement policy can negatively affect the status and operation of our business, require additional fees, stricter operational guidelines and unanticipated shut-downs.

Surna Inc. Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets



Mar. 31, 2016



Dec. 31, 2015





Unaudited







ASSETS















Current Assets















Cash

$ 1,140,823



$ 330,557

Accounts receivable (net of allowance for doubtful

accounts of $85,000 and $40,873, respectively)



299,351





299,194

Note receivable



157,218





207,218

Inventory



1,073,573





1,261,802

Prepaid expenses



80,269





193,969

Total Current Assets



2,751,234





2,292,740



















Noncurrent Assets















Property and equipment, net



129,339





162,530

Intangible assets, net



648,727





647,464

Total Noncurrent Assets



778,066





809,994



















TOTAL ASSETS

$ 3,529,300



$ 3,102,734



















LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS' DEFICIT

































Current Liabilities















Accounts payable and accrued liabilities

$ 1,752,025



$ 2,066,803

Deferred revenue



1,395,818





986,445

Current portion long term debt



-





1,551

Amounts due shareholders



211,388





216,995

Convertible promissory notes, net



1,876,155





1,227,761

Convertible accrued interest



345,387





201,257

Derivative liability on conversion feature



396,260





472,967

Derivative liability on warrants



206,357





139,192

Total Current Liabilities



6,183,390





5,312,971



















Noncurrent Liabilities















Convertible promissory notes, net



-





523,822

Convertible accrued interest



-





80,674

Vehicle loan



-





32,564

Total Noncurrent Liabilities



-





637,060



















TOTAL LIABILITIES



6,183,390





5,950,031



















Commitments and Contingencies



-





-



















SHAREHOLDERS' DEFICIT















Preferred stock, $0.00001 par value; 150,000,000 shares

authorized; 77,220,000 shares issued and outstanding



772





772

Common stock, $0.00001 par value; 350,000,000 shares

authorized; 138,414,163 and 125,839,862 shares issued

and outstanding, respectively



1,385





1,259

Paid in capital



9,153,566





8,214,271

Accumulated deficit



(11,809,813)





(11,063,599)

Total Shareholders' Deficit



(2,654,090)





(2,847,297)



















TOTAL LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS' DEFICIT

$ 3,529,300



$ 3,102,734



Surna Inc. Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss (Unaudited)



For the Three Months Ended





March 31,





2016



2015

Revenue

$ 2,498,604



$ 819,063



















Cost of revenue



1,409,944





730,764



















Gross margin



1,088,660





88,299



















Operating Expenses:















Advertising and marketing expenses



13,503





31,142

Product development costs



106,279





180,989

Selling, general and administrative expenses



603,899





755,714

Total operating expenses



723,681





967,845



















Operating income (loss)



364,979





(879,546)



















Other income (expense):















Interest and other income (expense), net



6,164





-

Interest expense



(272,972)





(160,260)

Amortization of debt discount on convertible promissory notes



(422,668)





(426,800)

Gain (loss) on change in derivative liabilities



(421,717)





48,163

Total other income (expense)



(1,111,193)





(538,897)



















Loss from continuing operations before provision for income taxes



(746,214)





(1,418,443)



















Provision for income taxes



-





-



















Net loss



(746,214)





(1,418,443)



















Comprehensive loss



-





-



















Comprehensive loss

$ (746,214)



$ (1,418,443)



















Loss per common share - basic

$ (0.01)



$ (0.01)



















Weighted average number of common shares outstanding, basic



130,268,814





115,852,402



At the Company Investor Relations Katie O'Block Kirsten Chapman/ Becky Herrick VP of Marketing LHA Investor Relations [email protected] [email protected] +1-303-993-5271 ext. 101 +1-415-433-3777











SOURCE Surna Inc.

Related Links

http://www.surna.com


NEW YORK, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Tapad has appointed seasoned executive Pierre Martensson as General Manager of its soon-to-be-launched APAC region. Martensson, who assumes his role on May 23, 2016, will establish Tapad's offices in Singapore in Q3 2016. He will report to Tapad COO Dave Fall.

APAC has been identified as an opportune region for Tapad's unified, cross-screen marketing solutions. According to eMarketer, digital ad spend in APAC is expected to exceed that of North America by 2017.

"Pierre was our first choice to forge our path into Asia," said Fall. "Are Traasdahl, Tapad Founder and CEO has known and worked with Pierre for many years, and was well aware of his exceptional track record at building high-performing teams in the region. We have full faith that he will quickly scale our business there, playing a vital role in our aggressive global expansion."

Martensson comes to Tapad with robust leadership experience, having transformed, developed and grown global organizations.

For nearly a decade, he ran operations throughout the APAC region, including in Sri Lanka and China (Oriflame) and in Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines (Lux). Most recently, he was CEO of Brandbassador, a Norway-based influencer platform. At the same time, he served as a member of the Board of Directors at Zinzino and WebOn Group. He is also the previous CEO of Eniro Norway, one of the leading digital search companies within the media industry.

Tapad will begin building its world-class APAC team in June. For updates and to see other open positions, visit tapad.com/careers.

About Tapad

Tapad Inc. is a marketing technology firm renowned for its breakthrough, unified, cross-device solutions. With 91.2% data accuracy confirmed by Nielsen, the company offers the largest in-market opportunity for marketers and technologies to address the ever-evolving reality of media consumption on smartphones, tablets, home computers and smart TVs. Deployed by agency trading desks, publishers and numerous Fortune 500 brands, Tapad provides an accurate, unified approach to connecting with consumers across screens. In 2015, Tapad began aggressively licensing its identity management solution, the Tapad Device Graph, and swiftly became the established gold-standard throughout the ad tech ecosystem. Tapad is based in New York and has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Toronto. Tapad's numerous awards include: EY Entrepreneur of The Year (East Coast) 2014, among Forbes' Most Promising Companies two year's running, Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, Crain's Fast 50, Entrepreneur 360, Digiday Signal Award, iMedia ASPY Award and a MarCom Gold Award.

Media Contact:

Tiffany Guarnaccia

Kite Hill PR for Tapad

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140115/NY45432LOGO

SOURCE Tapad Inc.

Related Links

http://www.tapad.com


VANCOUVER, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Taseko (TSX: TKO; NYSE MKT: TGB) ("Taseko" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Geoffrey Burns to its Board of Directors as an independent, non-executive director.

Mr. Burns brings over thirty years of senior management experience in the mining industry to Taseko. He is currently the Chairman of Maverix Metals Inc. and until December 2015 was the President, CEO and a Director at Pan American Silver Corp. During his 12 year tenure at Pan American Silver, the company increased its annual silver production from 7.5 million ounces to over 26 million ounces to become the second largest primary silver producer in the world. He has extensive experience throughout North and South America in mine operations and project development having participated in numerous mine construction projects from feasibility study into continuous operation. He has also led numerous capital market transactions including placements of equity, debt and convertible debt, and was instrumental in completing several cornerstone acquisitions for Pan American Silver.

Mr. Burns also served for a two year term as President of the Silver Institute, a nonprofit international association of producers, refiners, silversmiths and bullion suppliers dedicated to the development and uses of silver and silver products in the global marketplace.

"On behalf of the Board of Directors and management, I would like to welcome Geoff to the Taseko Board. Geoff's leadership and experience, along with a successful track record while CEO at Pan American Silver, makes him an ideal candidate for our Board. The addition of Geoff will further strengthen and broaden Taseko's leadership team," said Russell Hallbauer, President and CEO of Taseko.

Russell Hallbauer

President and CEO

No regulatory authority has approved or disapproved of the information contained in this news release.

SOURCE Taseko Mines Limited
Siegfried's New Hire Orientation program is centered on introducing new professionals to the Firm's extraordinary culture. It is a great opportunity to meet members of Leadership, the Operations team and other fellow Professional Resources, while enjoying an exciting venue. The four-day program includes sessions on the Firm's structure, Siegfried's Client Service Delivery Model, Professional Resource expectations, as well as interactive presentations from all of the departments throughout the company. The orientation kicked off with a welcome reception hosted at Three Dots and a Dash where everyone enjoyed their favorite tiki drinks. They also experienced lovely dinners at places like Gibson's Bar & Steakhouse, as well as Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab.

The Siegfried Group is excited about Alexis Luviner and Christina Shipe joining the Firm.

Alexis Luviner

Alexis Luviner joins Siegfried Operations as an Employee Development Associate. Prior to Siegfried, Alexis worked at Automotive Resources International as a Client Account Manager where she specialized in 'high-risk' accounts. She worked diligently to rebuild strong relationships with clients to remove them from the high-risk state. Alexis received her Bachelors of Science in Business Administration from Peirce College, and is currently working toward obtaining her Master's in Organizational Leadership and Management.

Her deep passion for helping others, detailed organizational skills and personable behavior, make her a great fit for the Employee Development team. She says, "Siegfried's culture immediately attracted me to this opportunity. Siegfried's model and values strongly parallel my interests and career goals, and I am grateful to be a part of such an amazing organization."

In her free time, Alexis enjoys focusing on personal development; whether it be through reading a new book, listening to podcasts or participating in webinars. She also enjoys helping others achieve health, fitness and personal goals. Alexis spends her Sundays working on creating healthy recipes that other's will enjoy, and sharing them on her recipe blog.

Christina Shipe

Christina joins Siegfried Operations as a Recruiting Associate in the Wilmington office. She comes from a boutique analytics consulting firm where she worked in both recruiting and marketing. She received her Bachelors of Art in Psychology from The College of New Jersey.

Christina is driven by helping people achieve their goals and looks forward to working with the National Recruiting Team to hire more great people! Christina says, "I love working with people and helping them achieve their goals and that usually starts with a great place to work. That is why I am so excited to join The Siegfried Group."

In her free time Christina loves to keep busy by doing yoga and decorating her house. Vacations by any body of water are her favorite and she enjoys entertaining friends with a home-cooked meal.

About The Siegfried Group, LLP

Established in 1988, The Siegfried Group is a leading, national CPA firm that helps financial executives to enhance both their Leadership and their Lives. The Firm drives Effective Leadership through Leadership Advisory Services and ensures Successful Execution through Talent Delivery Services. Siegfried's Professionals' powerful intangibles shine through as they work synergistically with America's best financial leaders, helping them with their most important work and better ensuring that our clients are "Doing the Right Things, Right."

For more information about a career at The Siegfried Group, please visit www.siegfriedcareers.com.

Contact: Karen Campbell, [email protected]  (408) 209-2545.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160516/368110

SOURCE The Siegfried Group, LLP

Related Links

http://www.siegfriedgroup.com


SUGAR LAND, Texas, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Trecora Resources (NYSE: TREC), a leading provider of high purity specialty hydrocarbons and waxes, is presenting at the B. Riley & Co. 17th Annual Investor Conference at the Loews Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 26, 2016.

Simon Upfill-Brown, Chief Executive Officer, is scheduled to present at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time and will be available for one-on-one meetings throughout the day. Mr. Upfill-Brown will review Trecora's first quarter financial results and discuss the Company's recent developments.

About Trecora Resources (TREC)

TREC owns and operates a facility located in southeast Texas, just north of Beaumont, which specializes in high purity hydrocarbons and other petrochemical manufacturing. TREC also owns and operates a leading manufacturer of specialty polyethylene waxes and provider of custom processing services located in the heart of the Petrochemical complex in Pasadena, Texas. In addition, the Company is the original developer and a 35% owner of Al Masane Al Kobra Mining Co., a Saudi Arabian joint stock company.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based upon our belief, as well as, assumptions made by and information currently available to us. Because such statements are based upon expectations as to future economic performance and are not statements of fact, actual results may differ from those projected. These risks, as well as others, are discussed in greater detail in Trecora Resources' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Trecora Resources' Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, and the Company's subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based upon information available to the Company as of the date of this press release.

Investor Relations Contact:

Don Markley

The Piacente Group

212-481-2050

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150106/167307LOGO

SOURCE Trecora Resources
CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Duke Energy today received regulatory approval from the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) to construct solar facilities in Davie and Union counties.

The 60-megawatt (MW) Monroe Solar Facility on 2272 S. Rocky River Road near Monroe in Union County will be located on a 400-acre site. Strata Solar in Chapel Hill will design and build the project.

in will be located on a 400-acre site. Strata Solar in will design and build the project. The 15.4-MW Mocksville Solar Facility in Davie County will use about 110 acres of land. The project will be located at 197 Crawford Road in Mocksville . Crowder Construction in Charlotte will serve as the project engineering, procurement and construction lead.

"These projects are part of our planned expansion of solar in North Carolina," said Rob Caldwell, senior vice president, Distributed Energy Resources. "With the state third in the nation for installed solar power, we are committed to growing renewable energy in a sustainable way that benefits all customers."

Both projects will be owned and operated by Duke Energy Carolinas and will help meet North Carolina's Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard.

Duke Energy utilities continue to invest heavily in solar energy in North Carolina as part of its effort to deliver increasingly clean energy to customers. The company recently completed construction of around 140 MWs of capacity at four major solar facilities in the North Carolina counties of Bladen, Duplin, Onslow and Wilson. A project in Rowan County is awaiting NCUC approval.

Over the past eight years, Duke Energy, through its regulated and commercial businesses, has invested more than $4 billion in wind and solar facilities in 13 states. The company plans to invest about $3 billion in renewable energy over the next five years.

In 2015 alone, Duke Energy added 300 MW of solar energy capacity in North Carolina. In total, Duke Energy companies, both regulated and commercial, have installed about 450 MW of solar energy in the state, enough to power 85,000 average homes at peak production. Duke Energy companies have more than 35 solar facilities in the state.

About Duke Energy

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is a S&P 100 Stock Index company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DUK. More information about the company is available at duke-energy.com.

The Duke Energy News Center serves as a multimedia resource for journalists and features news releases, helpful links, photos and videos. Hosted by Duke Energy, illumination is an online destination for stories about remarkable people, innovations, and community and environmental topics. It also offers glimpses into the past and insights into the future of energy.

Follow Duke Energy on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Contact: Dave Scanzoni

24-Hour: 800.559.3853

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SOURCE Duke Energy

Related Links

http://www.duke-energy.com


SAO PAULO, May 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S.J.  Acucar e Alcool S.A. (the " Company ") announced today that it has extended its previously announced private offer to exchange (the " Exchange Offer ") any and all of its outstanding 9.875% Senior Notes due 2019 (the " Existing Notes ") for its newly issued 9.875%/12.00% Senior Secured PIK Toggle Notes due 2021 (the " New Notes ") and its concurrent solicitation of consents (the " Consent Solicitation " and, together with the Exchange Offer, the "Offer") to certain proposed amendments (the " Proposed Amendments ") to the indenture dated as of November 9, 2012, by and among the Company, the guarantor party thereto and The Bank of New York Mellon (the " Existing Notes Trustee "), as trustee, and The Bank of New York Mellon (Ireland) Limited, as Irish paying agent, pursuant to which the Existing Notes were issued (the " Existing Notes Indenture ").

In order to allow sufficient time to conclude the process of registration and perfection of the collateral securing the New Notes, the Offer is being extended and will now expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on May 16, 2016, unless further extended by the Company (such time and date, as the same may be extended, the " Expiration Date "). The Offer was previously scheduled to expire at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on May 13, 2016. As of 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on May 13, 2016, Eligible Holders (as defined below) had validly tendered and delivered consents with respect to U.S.$245,696,000 in aggregate principal amount of the Existing Notes, representing 89.34% in aggregate principal amount of the outstanding Existing Notes.

The Company may, and currently intends to, waive the 90% minimum participation condition for consummation of the Offer. In addition, the Company has waived the condition to the Offer that Eligible Holders must deliver documentation consenting to an extrajudicial restructuring plan in order for their tender of Existing Notes to be valid. Eligible Holders are no longer required to deliver such documentation in order to validly tender their Existing Notes in the Offer.

In addition, on May 13, 2016, the Company, the guarantor party thereto and the Existing Notes Trustee entered into the first supplemental indenture to the Existing Notes Indenture with respect to the Proposed Amendments (the " Existing Notes Supplemental Indenture "). Tendered Existing Notes may no longer be withdrawn and consents to the Proposed Amendments may no longer be revoked. However, Eligible Holders who have not yet tendered Existing Notes or delivered consents may continue to do so through the Expiration Date.

The Offer is being made, and the New Notes are being offered and will be issued, only (a) in the United States to holders of Existing Notes who are "qualified institutional buyers" (as defined in Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the " Securities Act ")) and (b) outside the United States to holders of Existing Notes who are persons other than U.S. persons in reliance upon Regulation S under the Securities Act. The holders of Existing Notes who have certified to the Company that they are eligible to participate in the Offer pursuant to at least one of the foregoing conditions are referred to as " Eligible Holders ."

The Offer and the New Notes have not been, and will not be, registered with the Brazilian Comissao de Valores Mobiliarios. The Offer and the New Notes are not offered or sold in Brazil, except in circumstances that do not constitute a public offering or unauthorized distribution under Brazilian laws and regulations.

The New Notes have not been registered under the Securities Act or any state securities laws. Accordingly, the New Notes will be subject to restrictions on transferability and resale and may not be transferred or resold except as permitted under the Securities Act and other applicable securities laws, pursuant to registration or exemption therefrom.

The complete terms and conditions of the Company's offer to Eligible Holders are set forth in the Company's amended and restated exchange offer memorandum and consent solicitation statement, dated April 25, 2016 (as supplemented by the offering memorandum supplement dated May 2, 2016, the " Amended and Restated Exchange Offering Memorandum ").

This press release is neither an offer to sell nor the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. This press release is also not a solicitation of any consent to the Proposed Amendments. The Offer is being made solely pursuant to the Amended and Restated Exchange Offering Memorandum. No recommendation is made as to whether the holders of Existing Notes should participate in the Offer.

D.F. King & Co., Inc. has been appointed as the information agent and the exchange agent for the Offer. Holders may contact the information agent to request the Amended and Restated Exchange Offering Memorandum and any related documents at (212) 269-5550 or toll free at (877) 283-0318.

NOTICE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains statements that are forward-looking within the meaning of Section 27A of Securities Act and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements are only predictions and are not guarantees of future performance. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are and will be, as the case may be, subject to many risks, uncertainties and factors relating to the Company that may cause the actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable based on information currently available to the Company's management, the Company cannot guarantee future results or events. The Company expressly disclaims a duty to update any of the forward-looking statements.

SOURCE U.S.J. - Acucar e Alcool S.A.
LAVAL, Quebec, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (NYSE: VRX) (TSX: VRX) ("Valeant" or the "Company") today announced that, pursuant to a recommendation by its Patient Access and Pricing Committee, the company will make available to all hospitals in the United States an enhanced rebate program to reduce the price of Nitropress and Isuprel.

Under the enhanced program, all hospitals are eligible for a rebate of at least 10%, with rebates totaling 20%, 30% or 40% based on volume purchased during a calendar quarter for hospitals that purchase large volumes of the relevant drug. Hospitals will receive these discounts primarily through their group purchasing organization (GPO). Hospitals that don't buy drugs through a GPO can access the program by contacting Valeant customer service. The rebate program is effective immediately, with hospitals receiving rebates after the end of the quarter in which the purchases were made. The Patient Access and Pricing Committee also confirmed that there would be no further price increases for these products or reductions to the discount levels in the rebate program.

"Under this new program, the discounts we previously implemented for Nitropress and Isuprel will be simplified and more accessible," said Joseph Papa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Valeant. "I understand the concerns our partners in the health care community have had about the pricing of these drugs, and we want to ensure hospitals and patients can get the drugs they need.

"I also want to thank the Senate Committee on Aging and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for the attention they have brought to this issue, and specifically to gaps they identified in the previous program," Papa continued. "We are committed to getting this right."

More information regarding this program can be found on Valeant's website at http://www.valeant.com/about/us-assistance-programs.

About Valeant

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (NYSE/TSX:VRX) is a multinational specialty pharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and markets a broad range of pharmaceutical products primarily in the areas of dermatology, gastrointestinal disorders, eye health, neurology and branded generics. More information about Valeant can be found at www.valeant.com.

Forward-looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding Valeant's patient access programs, including its rebate program for Isuprel and Nitropress. Forward-looking statements may generally be identified by the use of the words "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "should," "could," "would," "may," "will," "believes," "estimates," "potential," "target," or "continue" and variations or similar expressions. These statements are based upon the current expectations and beliefs of management and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties discussed in the Company's most recent annual or quarterly report and detailed from time to time in Valeant's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Canadian Securities Administrators, which factors are incorporated herein by reference. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any of these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. Valeant undertakes no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect actual outcomes, unless required by law.

Contact Information:

Laurie W. Little

949-461-6002

[email protected]

Elif McDonald

905-695-7607

[email protected]

Media:

Renee Soto

or

Chris Kittredge/Jared Levy

Sard Verbinnen & Co.

212-687-8080

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SOURCE Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.valeant.com


PHOENIX, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- VEREIT, Inc. (NYSE: VER) ("VEREIT") announced today that its operating partnership, VEREIT Operating Partnership, L.P. (the "Operating Partnership" and, together with VEREIT, the "Company"), has commenced an offering to sell $500 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2026 (the "Notes") in a public offering. The Notes will be senior unsecured obligations of the Operating Partnership, guaranteed by VEREIT. The Operating Partnership intends to use the proceeds from this offering, together with borrowings under a new $300 million term loan A facility that it expects to enter into concurrently with the closing of the offering of Notes, and approximately $27 million of cash on hand or borrowings under its revolving credit facility, to fund the redemption of $800 million aggregate principal amount of its existing 2.00% Senior Notes due 2017, including accrued and unpaid interest thereon and the required make whole premium, and to pay related fees and expenses.

J.P. Morgan, Barclays, Citigroup, Capital One, Goldman, Sachs & Co., and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint book-running managers and BofA Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo Securities, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities, Regions Securities, Stifel Nicolaus and US Bancorp, are acting as co-managers for the offering of the Notes. The offering of the Notes will be made under an effective shelf registration statement of VEREIT and the Operating Partnership previously filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). When available, a copy of the preliminary prospectus supplement, final prospectus supplement and prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained from J.P. Morgan via Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717 or by calling 866-803-9204; or from Barclays via Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, by calling 1-888-603-5847, or by e-mail, at [email protected]; or by visiting the EDGAR database on the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities of VEREIT or the Operating Partnership, nor shall there be any sale of such securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. Any such offer or sale will be made only by means of the prospectus supplement and prospectus forming part of the effective registration statement relating to these securities.

About the Company

VEREIT owns and actively manages a diversified portfolio of retail, restaurant, office and industrial real estate assets located in 49 states, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Canada. Additionally, VEREIT manages $6.8 billion of gross real estate investments on behalf of the Cole Capital non-traded REITs.

Forward-Looking Statements

Information set forth herein contains "forward-looking statements" (within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended), which reflect the expectations of VEREIT and the Operating Partnership, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the proposed public offering and the new term loan facility. The forward-looking statements involve a number of assumptions, risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Generally, the words "expects," "anticipates," "targets," "goals," "projects," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," variations of such words and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, most of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the control of VEREIT and the Operating Partnership.

The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements: the Operating Partnership's ability to close the offering and enter into the new term loan facility on commercially reasonable terms; the actual use of proceeds therefrom; and the other factors described in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2016, and subsequent Quarterly Reports of the Company on Form 10-Q and Current Reports of the Company on Form 8-K, as filed with the SEC. The Company disclaims any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect changes in underlying assumptions or factors, new information, future events or other changes, except as required by law.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150727/246034LOGO

SOURCE VEREIT, Inc.
TORONTO, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - VerifEye Technologies Inc., a world leader in mobile security surveillance, announced today the expansion of its AMOVI advanced mobile video product line to include new models that will address the specific requirements of taxi fleets adapting to the seismic changes occurring in the on-demand transportation industry. The AMOVI Taxi product line combines VerifEye's reliable fleet solutions with mobile connectivity and cloud services, taking driver and passenger security and road risk management to new heights.

The decision to introduce AMOVI Taxi was taken following the widespread adoption of AMOVI by VerifEye's fleet telematics partners in the trucking industry, together with the successful conclusion of trials with key taxi customers conducted over the last 12 months in New York, Toronto and Portland.

"The AMOVI technology represents a quantum leap for in-vehicle security and fleet risk management. It is now ready to be deployed on a large scale throughout the taxi and for-hire vehicle industry." said John Ballantyne, Chief Technology Officer for VerifEye. "Our new designs build on the attributes that made us the world leader in taxi security; reliability, low power consumption, cost-effectiveness and excellent service and support. To these we have now added wireless cloud-connectivity and data management in an open platform that can be readily integrated into existing telematics systems." continued Ballantyne.

The AMOVI Taxi product line provides customers with a number of new features including but not limited to:

Immediate notification and review of road incidents (collisions, near misses, violations)

Immediate notification of emergency situations, including live viewing

Monitoring and scoring of risky driving behaviours

Statistical data collection and tools for risk reduction programs

Cloud-to-cloud integration with cloud-based dispatch systems and/or hailing apps

Every AMOVI product is ONVIF Profile S compliant meaning the cameras are compatible with many popular video management systems solutions. AMOVI Taxi is specifically designed to integrate with telematics and dispatch systems.

"We believe that AMOVI Taxi delivers a much needed economic benefit to all of our customers enabling them to improve safety and manage road risk. Our open-architecture strategy enables us to work with value added resellers, system integrators, dispatch system providers and our existing customers in new and exciting ways, advancing mobile security to unprecedented effectiveness and affordability" said Ballantyne.

About VerifEye Technologies Inc.

For over 20 years, VerifEye has been a technology pioneer and reliable integration partner in the mobile surveillance market with over 165,000 camera systems deployed. VerifEye has a complete team of electrical, mechanical and software engineers that design, develop, integrate and support all of the products that it sells. Support is provided from its offices in Canada and Australia and through its system integration, telematics and distribution partners the United States, United Kingdom and Europe.

SOURCE VerifEye Technologies Inc.
SAN FRANCISCO, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- VIDA Diagnostics, Inc. ("VIDA"), the leader in precision pulmonary imaging, announced an expanded collaboration with Olympus Respiratory America, a leading developer of devices for the treatment of acute and chronic conditions of the lung and a subsidiary of Olympus Corporation, at the 2016 American Thoracic Society Meeting. Under the agreement, VIDA and Olympus will incorporate precision informatics into current and future diagnostic and therapeutic procedural workflows to manage patients with pulmonary diseases.

"Olympus' goals are to develop more comprehensive technologies and tools to localize, diagnose and treat the small pulmonary nodule," said Katsuyuki Saito, Executive Officer, Olympus Corporation. "By unifying advanced procedural selection and planning techniques using VIDA, we aim to offer a high value, efficient solution for the physician and patient."

The collaboration covers North America and Europe and will include marketing and development programs in interventional pulmonology, tightly integrating imaging informatics software and services to drive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.

"Precision medicine requires precision information and we are delighted to expand our partnership with Olympus to advance interventional pulmonology," said Susan A. Wood, Ph.D., President and CEO of VIDA. "The partnership enables integrated and streamlined procedural workflows, essential for higher-value precision care and builds on the successes of our Olympus partnership to date."

About VIDA

VIDA is focused on changing the practice of pulmonary care by empowering the pulmonary clinician with precision informatics. VIDA's suite of software and associated analysis services aid early detection, evaluation, and treatment planning of lung diseases, including lung cancer, emphysema, airway obstruction diseases, and asthma. VIDA's software and services are cleared for clinical use in the United States, Canada, European Union, and Australia. VIDA is headquartered in Coralville, IA, with an additional office in Minneapolis, MN.

About Olympus Respiratory America and Olympus

Olympus Respiratory America, a subsidiary of Olympus Corporation, is committed to helping physicians improve the quality of life for patients with acute and chronic conditions of the lung. Olympus is a global medical device and optical technology leader focused on contributing to society by making people's lives healthier, safer and more fulfilling around the world. Olympus researches, develops, manufactures, markets and services innovative solutions in its core business areas of Medical and Surgical Products, Scientific Solutions, and Cameras and Audio Recorders. Olympus Corporation is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. For more information, visit Olympus at www.olympus-global.com.

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SOURCE VIDA Diagnostics, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.vidadiagnostics.com


WASHINGTON, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Wine Institute honored Congressmen Ken Calvert, R-California, and Jim Costa, D-California, with its Leadership Award during its 34th Washington, D.C. Meeting. Wine Institute President and CEO Robert P. (Bobby) Koch and Wine Institute Board Chairman Greg Coleman, Vice President of Grower Relations for E. & J. Gallo Winery, presented the awards in appreciation for the Congressmen's longstanding support for both California and the U.S. wine industry and many other interests important to California.

Congressman Ken Calvert is a resident of Corona, California, representing the 42nd District in western Riverside County and the area of Southern California that includes the wine region of Temecula. He has served on the House Agriculture Committee and currently serves on the House Appropriations Committee as Chairman of the Interior and Environment Subcommittee. He is the Chairman of the California Republican Delegation. He has been a long-time supporter for increased funding for specialty crops and the Market Access Program for exports, and he has worked to create long-term solutions to California's energy and water challenges.

In the 1990s, Congressman Calvert alerted Wine Institute of the potential threat of the Glassy-winged Sharpshooter and Pierce's Disease which went on to devastate vineyards and other crops in his district. He worked with the California Congressional Delegation to secure the first funding for Pierce's Disease and continues to work with federal and state representatives and growers to provide the necessary resources to fight invasive pests and diseases.

Congressman Jim Costa is a third-generation farmer who represents California's 16th District, which includes areas of Fresno, Madera and Merced counties. He serves on the House Agriculture Committee and is the ranking member on its Livestock and Foreign Agriculture subcommittee. He also serves on the Natural Resources Committee and is on its Water and Power Subcommittee as well as its Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee. Congressman Costa has used his farming background to strengthen California agriculture and the state's economy. He has worked to increase federal support for agriculture through the Farm Bill and other programs.

Recently, Congressman Costa was instrumental in leading the effort to repeal the U.S. Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) law on beef and pork because it was found to be non-compliant by the WTO multiple times. Failure to pass this legislation would have resulted in devastating high tariffs placed by Canada and Mexico on wine and other California agricultural exports.

"We are proud to honor both Congressman Calvert and Congressman Costa for their outstanding support of California wine and agriculture. They are true champions for the California wine community," said Koch.

"We appreciate Congressmen Calvert and Costa for their support for research, pest and disease control, and export promotionimportant programs for California's wineries and vineyards," added Coleman.

Established in 1934, Wine Institute is the public policy advocacy group of nearly 1,000 California wineries and affiliated businesses that initiate and advocate state, federal and international public policy to enhance the environment for the responsible consumption, production and enjoyment of wine. Wine Institute's membership represents 95 percent of California wine production and 80 percent of U.S. wine production.

SOURCE Wine Institute

Related Links

http://www.wineinstitute.org


New Delhi, May 11 : The government on Wednesday said it favoured holding a general common medical entrance test for admissions in MBBS and BDS courses but the test should be conducted from next year.

"The government, in principle, is in favour of a general common admission test. However, this is not the decision of the government. This is the directive of the court (to the government)," Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu told the Lok Sabha.

He was responding to concerns raised by some members in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour.

The National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) replacing all other private and state medical entrance tests across the country is scheduled to be held on July 24.

Naidu said if the NEET is conducted from next year, then the students can have adequate time to prepare for the exam.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader also assured the members that the government will again approach the apex court in this regard through the Attorney General.

"I will convey the concerns of the members to the union HRD minister and health minister. We will also try to convince the (apex) court," Naidu said.

Earlier, raising the matter, Trinamool Congress member Kakoli Ghosh demanded that a legislative initiative should be taken up by the government to address the concerns of students.

"How can students be asked to appear in the test within such short span of time. The government should take legislative initiative in this regard so that we can stand by students. We can't let them suffer," she said.

Shiromani Akali Dal member Prem Singh Chandumajra demanded that Punjabi be included in the list of regional languages in which candidates can take the NEET exam.

Congress member Rajiv Satav said that either the government should again approach the apex court or bring an ordinance to give relief to the students.
Patna, May 11 : A Gaya court on Wednesday remanded Rocky Yadav in two-day police custody in a teenager's murder case while an arrest warrant was issued against his mother and JD-U's suspended legislator Manorama Devi in an excise case, an official here said.

The case against Manorama Devi pertains to alleged seizure of liquor bottles from her house during a police raid.

"The state government has issued an arrest warrant against Manorama Devi and sealed her house where some liquor bottles were seized during a police raid on Monday night during a search for her then absconding son," a district police officer in Gaya said.

Bihar imposed total prohibition on April 1.

Gaya District Magistrate Ravi Kumar said if the Janata Dal-United's suspended legislator -- said to have gone underground following the arrest warrant against her -- failed to surrender by Thursday, her house will be confiscated.

After the sealing of Manorama Devi's house, authorities in Bihar's Gaya town had on Wednesday initiated the process to confiscate it, the official added.

Rocky allegedly shot dead Aditya Sachdeva, the teenaged son of a businessman, on Saturday night for overtaking his car on the Bodh Gaya-Gaya road. He was later sent to 14-day judicial custody by a Gaya court.

Kumar said the action against Manorama Devi was as per the new excise law.

"After confiscation, her house will be declared a government property. It may be auctioned or the state government may use it for other purpose," he said.

A day after the ruling JD-U suspended Manorama Devi, the Gaya district administration first issued an arrest warrant against her, followed by an FIR under the Child Labour Act against her and husband Bindi Yadav, currently in jail in connection with the killing of a teenager by his son.

"A minor child was found working in her house when police raided it on Monday night while searching for her absconding son," officials said.

Meanwhile, police said raids were being conducted to arrest her.

Registration, Excise and Prohibition Department Principal Secretary K.K. Pathak said she will be arrested soon.

"Legal action as per the new excise law was taken against her following the seizure of liquor bottles," he said.

According to excise official Vikash Singh, six bottles of liquor were seized from her house.

On Tuesday, Additional Director General of Police (Headquarters) Sunil Kumar said: "Police have been working to complete investigations in the murder case within three weeks. The charge sheet will be filed within a month to ensure speedy trial."
Agartala, May 12 : The customary law of tribal communities practised in some northeastern states violate provisions of the Indian Constitution, Tripura High Court's outgoing Chief Justice Deepak Kumar Gupta said.

Gupta, who will head the Chhattisgarh High Court, said: "Tribal leaders use the customary law sometimes to deal with murder, rape and heinous crimes. These traditional customary laws must be codified."

Speaking to reporters here on Wednesday evening, he added: "Serious disputes and crimes should not be settled by extra constitutional bodies."

In the northeast, tribals comprise 28 percent of the population. Among them, there are 138 tribes with separate lifestyles, foods, customs and traditional practices.

Backing Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, Justice Gupta said retired judges must be appointed in the judicial system to reduce the pendency of cases.

He said: "When a separate high court was established in Tripura in 2013, 6,615 cases were pending in the high court (till March 2013 Tripura was under the jurisdiction of Gauhati High Court). The pendency has come down to 2,804.

"We are the only high court in the country where the arrears have come down at such a fast pace," he added.

Justice Gupta said that Tripura High Court was the first in India to introduce the SMS service whereby every litigant and his lawyer get case related information.

"After we introduced this scheme, it was commenced in many other high courts and also in the Supreme Court," he added.

The SMS service was also introduced in the district and lower courts of Tripura.

Justice Gupta, who gave some significant judgments during his tenure in Tripura High Court, felt that Tripura had a low conviction rate.

"FIRs must be registered immediately after the occurrence of any incident. Police were earlier reluctant to register FIR, causing delays in probe," he added.

"The level of honesty is high in Tripura and schemes, specially the social sector schemes, are better administered," added Justice Gupta, who left here on Thursday for Chhattisgarh.
Paris, May 12 : Hollywood stars like Blake Lively, Naomi Watts and Julianne Moore glittered on the prestigious red carpet of the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival, with Kristen Stewart sporting a daring look in a see-through dress.

The stars landed on the red carpet at the Palais des Festivals et des CongrAs in the French Riviera-based town for the opening ceremony, a screening of Woody Allen's film Cafe Society, reports dailymail.co.uk.

Watts, Moore and Lively paved the way for the other stars who arrived on the crimson runway in their well-dressed ensembles.

Lively, who is expecting her second child with husband Ryan Reynolds, meanwhile stole the spotlight in a stunning gown.

The sparkling number in a nude hue skimmed over the actress' stunning figure, with her small bump on show.

The glittering dress swept along the red carpet with a slightly sheer chiffon skirt. Lively added some statement jewels, adorning her hands with diamond rings.

She kept her hair simple, tossing her blonde hair over one shoulder while she added a pop of colour with a bold pink lip.

Indian actress Mallika Sherawat also sported an interesting gown with a blue-coloured trail. She picked an off-shoulder Georges Hobeika gown which she paired with a diamond neckpiece from Maison Mellerio for the opening ceremony.

Meanwhile, Watts looked gorgeous in a pale lilac Giuseppe Zanotti number. The 47-year-old actress wore a strapless column dress that clung nearly to her slender curves, with the fabric covered in delicate mirror-like embellishments.

She completed her look with a heavily-adorned necklace.

"Still Alice" star Moore stunned in an intricate black gothic ensemble. The dress was covered with silver and gold shimmering whirls, going up to her chest into the shape of two cobras.

The red-haired actress wore her russet mane slicked back into a chic, straight hairdo.

Actresses Eva Longoria, Jessica Chastain and Kirsten Dunst among others also dazzled on the red carpet of the gala, which will conclude on May 22.
New Delhi, May 12 : In a key step towards securing the extradition of Vijay Mallya, the CBI on Thursday forwarded an Enforcement Directorate letter to Interpol seeking issuance of a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against the liquor baron after Britain declined India's request to deport the businessman.

"We have forwarded the ED's letter to Interpol for the publication of RCN against Vijay Mallya," CBI sources told IANS.

The CBI forwarded the request to Interpol when ED, through a letter, sought the agency's help, a day after the UK declined India's request to deport Mallya.

ED wrote the letter to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to obtain a RCN issued by Interpol against Mallya as the CBI acts as the nodal agency for the execution of Interpol warrants in India.

An RCN is issued "to seek the location and arrest of wanted persons with a view to extradition or similar lawful action" in a criminal case probe.

Once the notice is issued, the Interpol seeks to arrest the person concerned in any part of the world and notifies that country to take his or her custody for further action at their end.

The agency has been wanting to make Mallya join the investigations "in person" in the over Rs.900-crore IDBI loan fraud case in which it registered a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) early this year.

The probe agencies have taken help from legal options to bring back Mallya to join the investigation, including issuance of a non-bailable warrant against him from a Mumbai court. The agencies have also made the request for revocation of Mallya's passport and subsequent deportation bid to bring him back from the UK.

However, Britain has made it clear that Mallya cannot be deported and asked India to seek his extradition instead.

The British government said it acknowledges "the seriousness of allegations" against Mallya and was "keen to assist" the Indian government in this case.

ED is also mulling attaching the domestic assets and shares worth about Rs.9,000 crore owned by Mallya in connection with the case.
Patna, May 13 : Manorama Devi, a Janata Dal-United legislator and mother of murder accused Rocky Yadav, on Friday filed an anticipatory bail plea in Bihar's Gaya civil court, even as authorities prepared to confiscate her house.

An arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday against Manorama Devi for keeping liquor in her home in Gaya town against the prohibition law and for harbouring her fugitive son who has since been arrested, a police official said.

Her bail plea is scheduled to be heard on Monday, the official said.

The legislator, who was suspended from the ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) on Tuesday, has been evading arrest.

Her son Rocky Yadav was arrested on Tuesday from a house in Bodh Gaya for allegedly killing on May 7 Aditya Sachdeva, the teenaged son of a Gaya-based businessman, and has been remanded in police custody.

Manorma Devi's husband Bindi Yadav, a criminal turned politician, has also been arrested in connection with the killing of the teenager.

Aditya's family has demanded a CBI probe into the case and speedy trial to ensure justice for them.

With Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar asserting that no guilty will be spared, the police promised to file a charge sheet within a month.

Additional Director General of Police (Headquarters) Sunil Kumar said: "Police have been working to complete investigations in the case within three weeks. The charge sheet will be filed within a month to ensure speedy trial."
Los Angeles, May 14 : "X-Men" star James McAvoy is set to divorce Anne-Marie Duff after nine years of marriage.

The Hollywood actor and his wife announced the news via a joint statement on Friday, reports dailystar.co.uk.

McAvoy, who will star in "The X-Men: Apocalypse", to be released later this month, first met Anne-Marie on the set of the comedy "Shameless".

They got married in October 2006 and have claimed they would continue to have "friendship, love and respect for one another" despite the separation.

"It is with tremendous sadness that we have come to the decision to divorce. We enter this next phase with continued friendship, love and respect for one another and the shared focus of caring for our son. We ask that you respect our and, most importantly, our child's privacy during this time," the statement reads.

McAvoy, 37, and Duff, 45, welcomed a son, Brendan, into the world in 2010.
New Delhi, May 14 : A 61-year-old doctor was shot dead by an unidentified man at his clinic in southwest Delhi on Friday night, police said on Saturday.

The deceased, Balwan Singh Ramawat, was shot while he was sitting inside his clinic in Palam area around 10 p.m., a police officer told IANS on Saturday.

"After hearing a gun shot from the doctor's clinic, locals informed police," a senior officer related to the probe said.

Ramawat was taken to a nearby hospital where he was declared brought dead.

Police said a murder case has been registered at the Palam Village police station against an unknown person and two teams formed to investigate the case.

Police suspect that Ramawat could have been murdered over some personal enmity or monetary dispute.
Thiruvananthapuram, May 14 : Nearly three weeks of high-voltage election campaigning for the Kerala assembly polls ended on Saturday evening with the two rival fronts - the ruling Congress-led UDF and the Left opposition -- exuding confidence of garnering peoples' votes on polling day on Monday.

Incidentally, former defence minister A.K. Antony, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury, all said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will not open its account in the state.

"History will be created on May 19, when for the first time a ruling government will retain power. The BJP in Kerala will be able to watch the assembly proceedings from the visitor's gallery of the Kerala assembly only. The final surge for the UDF has come following the irresponsible statement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We all thought he would correct himself, which he did not," said Antony to reporters here.

Yechury while emphasising that the BJP will not open its account, however said that should that happen, then it will be clear that this is because of "match-fixing between the Congress and the BJP".

"We are going to have a landslide victory and will restore Kerala to a proper path of growth and one with a holistic development process; besides we will put up a corruption free governance," said Yechury to reporters here.

BJP chief Amit Shah, who has been camping in the state for the past many days and directing the campaign, challenged the rival fronts to come clear on what their policy would be if there is a hung Kerala assembly.

"We make our stand clear now itself, that we will not have any tie-up with either of the fronts," said Shah.

Chandy told reporters in Kottayam that Kerala will not give any space to the "divisive policy" of the BJP. "The people of Kerala will give a fitting reply to Modi for his Somalia remarks. We are going to retain power with an increased tally of seats," Chandy asserted.

Meanwhile, the state unit of the BJP on Saturday gave a complaint to Kerala Governor P. Sathasivam and the Chief Election Commissioner that Chandy has "twisted" the statement of Modi on Somalia to "belittle the post of prime minister" and suitable action should be taken.

"Modi never made any derogatory comparison, but all know that such a comparison was made by former chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan and CPI-M politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, and instead of registering a case against them, Chandy is attacking the PM," said the complaint by state BJP president Kummanem Rajasekheran.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan told reporters in Kannur that the Left Democratic Front will better its 2006 win by increasing from 98 seats to a three digit figure.

On the flip side, tempers rose when K.K. Rema, wife of former CPI-M leader T.P. Chandrasekheran who was brutally murdered in 2012 by CPI-M activists, was manhandled while she, a candidate from the Vatakara assembly constituency in Kozhikode district, was engaged in campaigning for votes in her constituency.

While the Congress leadership came down heavily on the attack, top CPI-M leader and former state minister Elamaram Karim said this was a "stage managed event" that Rema and the Congress had planned.
Patna, May 15 : Father of murdered journalist Rajdeo Ranjan on Sunday said people in Siwan district fully understand who conspired to kill his son and that only a CBI investigation of the case will have any credibility.

"In Siwan most of the people understand the motive behind this killing and know it fully who conspired to carry it out," Radhakrishna Choudhary said.

"We have no faith and confidence in local police and state administration. We want a CBI probe into the killing of my son," Choudhary, a marginal farmer, said.

Rajdeo Ranjan, the Siwan bureau chief of the Hindi newspaper, which is part of the HT Media, was shot dead on Friday at a busy market near the Station Road in the district.

Until Sunday morning, the police announced no breakthrough in the case even as the political opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) called the murder another proof of the "return of jungle raj" in Bihar.

Siwan Superintendent of Police Saurav Kumar Sah said that initially four suspects had been detained in connection with the killing, but later two were released after questioning.

Choudhary said only a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the case can provide justice to his family, including wife and two minor children of his son.

Earlier, senior BJP leader and former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi had also demanded a CBI probe into the killing of the journalist.

The Press Council of India (PCI) on Saturday set up a three-member fact finding committee to inquire into the murder of Rajdeo Ranjan.

Mediapersons in Bihar and elsewhere have been registering their protests against the killing.

The murder comes close on the heels of the killing of teenager Aditya Sachdeva allegedly by Rocky Yadav, the son of a ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) lawmaker in Gaya district.

The leaders and workers of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the NDA, have been staging demonstrations across the state on Sunday to highlight the deteriorating law and order situation.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad have condemned the killing and directed the police to take prompt action in nabbing the culprits.

The ruling alliance in Bihar consists of the JD-U, the RJD and the Congress.
Chennai, May 15 : PMK's chief ministerial candidate Anbumani Ramadoss on Sunday urged the Election Commission to postpone Monday's assembly polls temporarily due to large-scale bribing of voters.

In a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner, Ramadoss said: "Since there is huge money distribution across all the 234 constituencies in Tamil Nadu, we request you to temporarily postpone the elections in all the constituencies.

"The nomination of all the AIADMK and DMK candidates who have indulged in distribution of money should be nullified," he added.

Ramadoss also urged the poll body to depute officers from other states to conduct the election in a free and fair manner with the help of paramilitary forces.

According to Ramadoss, his party candidates have confiscated the money distributed by DMK and AIADMK candidates and handed them over to Election Commission officers.

"Instead of filing a complaint and taking necessary action against the offender (AIADMK and DMK candidates), a case has been filed against the PMK candidate who complained," Ramadoss said in his letter.

On Saturday, the Election Commission postponed balloting to May 23 in Aravakurichi constituency in Karur district as it was satisfied that the electoral process had been vitiated due to bribery by political parties.
Johannesburg, May 16 : The South African presidency on Sunday denied the imminent arrest of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

The presidency has noted the story in the Sunday Times alleging an imminent arrest of Gordhan, presidential spokesperson Bongani Ngqulunga said.

The newspaper claimed that Gordhan could soon be arrested after anti-crime unit, the Hawks, reportedly handed a docket over to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for his involvement in the SA Revenue Service's (SARS') "rogue unit" which was allegedly spying on taxpayers during his time as SARS' commissioner during 1999 and 2009, according to Xinhua.

"We have also noted the response of law enforcement agencies which have swiftly denied the rumour," Ngqulunga said.

It is clear therefore that the story is the work of dangerous information peddlers who wish to cause confusion and mayhem in the country, he said.

Zuma and the whole of government are focused on the goal of reigniting economic growth, preserving existing jobs and creating more jobs through working together with business and labour, Ngqulunga said.

Meanwhile, spokesperson for the NPA, Luvuyo Mfaku, also claimed that no decision has been made to prosecute Gordhan and that the matter remained under investigation.

Gordhan has said the so-called "rogue unit" was lawfully established to perform very important functions for and on behalf of SARS.

This was in line with tax laws which have always vested SARS with wide powers for the investigation of tax matters, including the investigation of crimes with tax implications, said Gordhan.

Gordhan was appointed by Zuma in early December last year to replace his predecessor Nhlanhla Nene.
Thiruvananthapuram, May 16 : Leaders expressed confidence after casting their ballots on Monday to elect 140 new legislators to the 14th Kerala Legislative Assembly.

Polling began at 7.00 a.m. across the state and will end at 6.00 p.m.

The electoral battle is principally between the traditional rival fronts -- the Congress-led UDF and the CPI-M-led LDF, while the BJP led NDA alliance is hoping a major victory.

A total of 1,203 contestants, including 109 women, are in the fray for the 140 assembly seats.

Minister of State for Excise K.Babu, who came under flak for his alleged role in the bar scam that rocked Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's government, told reporters at Ernakulam soon after casting his vote that there is no doubt the Congress-led UDF was going to win.

CPI-M politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, expressed absolute confidence that they were on course to form the next government.

"People will vote out the most corrupt government and there will be no space in Kerala for those who practice communal politics," said Vijayan after casting his vote in Kannur district.

Superstar Suresh Gopi, who recently was nominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Rajya Sabha, after casting his vote in the capital city said the hopes of the NDA alliance is sky high.

"Elections, today is similar to a circus ring, where strategies of various kinds are adopted. We have done our duty and placed our things before the people and now let the people decide," said Gopi, who actively campaigned for the NDA candidates across the state.

Former state minister of finance K.M.Mani who had to resign following an adverse court remark for his role in the bar scam, cast his vote along with his wife at his home town in Pala near Kottayam.

The actor son of superstar Mammootty, Dulqar Salman while waiting for his turn to vote at Ernakulam said that this is the first time that he is casting his vote in Kerala.

"In the previous elections, I used to vote in Chennai. I am happy, that this time I am voting here and the youth should come out in large numbers to vote as it's their responsibility and the right to do so," said Salman.

Meanwhile, 70-year-old Kunju Abdullah Haji who came to cast his vote at the CKG College at Perambara near Kozhikode collapsed while standing in the queue to vote and was declared dead when he was taken to a nearby hospital.

As per election officials, the state has 2,60,19,284 voters comprising 1,25,10,589 male, 1,35,08,693 female and two voters belonging to the third gender.

Overall, there are 21,498 regular polling booths and 148 auxiliary polling booths, of which there are 1,233 categorised as critical and including 119 booths that are in Maoist-influenced areas.
Chennai, May 16 : Superstar Rajinikanth, actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasan and Ajith Kumar cast their votes on Monday in the ongoing Tamil Nadu legislative assembly elections.

While Rajinikanth cast his vote at Stella Maris College, Ajith along with his wife Shalini exercised their franchise at government school on Kuppam Beach Road.

Kamal Haasan, who had earlier said he might miss voting due to the shoot of his upcoming trilingual film "Sabaash Naidu", stayed back to cast his vote at Corporation School in Teynampet.

Haasan was joined by his younger daughter Akshara.

Actor Suriya skipped voting as he could not return from the US, where he had gone with his family for a holiday.

In a statement, Suriya apologised for being not able to present to cast his vote.

Other actors who cast their vote include Jiiva and Vidharth.
Chennai, May 16 : Over 18 percent of the total voters cast their ballots on Monday in majorty of Tamil Nadu's 232-assembly constituencies where polling is underway on Monday.

At the end of two hours, the poll percentage is over 18 percent, said an election commission official.

DMK chief M.Karunanidhi, his son and party treasurer M.K.Stalin, the state leader of BJP Tamilisai Soundararajan, Congress leader P.Chidambaram and others cast their votes.

Speaking to reporters after casting his vote, Karunanidhi said the victory prospects for the DMK-Congress combine is bright.

The DMK-led alliance will win required number of seats to form the next government, Karunanidhi said.

Madurai, Tiruchirapalli and in some places in southern districts are experiencing rains which in turn has slowed down the voting.

There were also reports of malfunctioning of voting machines and power cuts in some places that has slowed down the process.

In Chennai, voting is progressing at a brisk pace.

Actors like Kamal Hassan, Rajinikanth, Ajith, Sundar.C, Kushboo and others also cast their ballots.

Polling in the 232 out of 234 assembly constituencies began in Tamil Nadu at 7.00 a.m. and will end at 6.00 p.m.

The Election Commission had campaigned hard to achieve 100 percent polling in the state.

Around 5.82 crore voters are set to elect the new 234-member assembly in the polls and on May 23 for Thanjavur and Aravakurichi constituencies.

The Election Commission has postponed the elections in Thanjavur and Aravakurichi after it received complaints about large scale distribution of money to the voters by political parties and their candidates vitiating the electoral process.

In the 232 constituencies, there are 3,728 candidates in the fray.

In 234 constituencies, a total of 3,776 candidates including 320 women are in the fray. There are 1,566 independent candidates are also trying their electoral fortunes.

The ruling AIADMK is going to the polls aligning with a couple of smaller parties fielding its candidates in 227 seats and the balance seven has been given to its allies.

The DMK has aligned with the Congress, two Muslim parties and some smaller outfits.

The third front led by the DMDK comprises the CPI-M, CPI, VCK, TMC and MDMK under its fold.

The PMK is contesting alone while the BJP has aligned with few smaller parties.
Chandigarh, May 16 : The Haryana government may claim the state is on the rapid road to progress but the ground reality, literally, is bumpy. Now officials want to check the mushrooming speed-breakers on highways.

With numerous complaints piling up regarding the unauthorized speed-breakers on highways, the Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar wants to remove them.

Over the years, hundreds of speed-breakers have come up on national and state highways as well as other roads in an unauthorized manner. Most have been built by residents and panchayats along the highways to slow down the speed of vehicles for fear of causing accidents.

Concerned over the illegal speed breakers which themselves are causing accidents and damaging vehicles, Transport Minister Krishan Lal Panwar has directed the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to remove all such speed-breakers.

"There has been no curbs on illegal speed-breakers over the years. Their number is in hundreds and they are a big nuisance for motorists," Hissar-based trader Suresh Gupta told IANS.

The under-belly of Gupta's Honda City car got damaged recently from one such speed-breaker.

"These not only cause accidents as speeding motorists are unaware of their existence but also damage vehicles as these are constructed without any technical parameters," Gupta said.

Motorists using highways in Haryana rue the fact that successive governments have chosen to ignore the nuisance.

"Highways are meant for hassle-free driving. In many parts of Haryana, you can get a number of speed-breakers even in a 10-km stretch. Motorists have a horrible time," college student Abhimanyu from Sirsa town said.

Officials say they cannot do much due to political reasons.

"The politicians turn a blind eye to this nuisance as the village Panchayats get annoyed if the speed-breakers are removed. Then political leaders put pressure on local officials not to remove them," an officer in the Rohtak district administration told IANS.

In July 2014, then PWD Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala told the Haryana assembly that "several unauthorized speed-breakers close to habitations, schools, have been erected on national and state highways.

"Most of these unauthorized speed breakers do not follow the specifications and are a traffic hazard because of the abrupt angles of construction."

As per central government policy, no speed-breakers can be constructed on national highways. The policy states that only rumble strips, of specific size, can be built where speed control is required.

According to the Indian Road Congress, a speed-breaker should be only four inches high, one metre broad and with a slope of 1.25 metres. Road signs and markings are mandatory to warn motorists about speed-breakers.

In the past, the government removed some speed-breakers but people re-constructed new ones within days.

The important national highways (NH) passing through Haryana include NH-1 (Delhi-Ambala-Amritsar), NH-2 (Delhi-Agra-Varanasi-Dankuni), NH-8 (Delhi-Jaipur-Ahmedabad-Mumbai), NH-10 (Delhi-Hisar-Fazilka-Indo-Pakistan border) and NH-73 (Panchkula-Roorkee).

The problem is not only with highways and roads in Haryana's interior areas. Even Gurgaon city, adjoining the national capital, has to deal with unauthorized speed-breakers.

The Haryana government recently identified 1,051 locations where speed-breakers were genuinely required. A total of 915 speed breakers have been installed and work was in progress on the rest, Panwar said.

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at jaideep.s@ians.in)
Cannes, May 16 : Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who has marked her 15th year at the Cannes Film Festival, stood out with a purple pout when she stepped out on the red carpet of the gala for the screening for her forthcoming film "Sarbjit".

The actress made heads turn with a pop lilac lip colour, paired with an embellished light pink Rami Kadi dress.

Aishwarya, who is representing cosmetic giant L'OrAal Paris at the gala, attended the screening of her film "Sarbjit" at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday. She was accompanied by the film's director Omung Kumar, actress Richa Chadha and producer Jackky Bhagnani.

Directed by Omung Kumar, "Sarbjit" is a biopic on Sarabjit Singh, an Indian farmer who was convicted of terrorism and spying in Pakistan. He was attacked and killed by inmates at a Lahore prison in April 2013. Randeep Hooda will be seen playing Sarabjit Singh in the film.

The film is narrated through the perspective of Sarabjit's sister Dalbir Kaur, played by Aishwarya.
New Delhi, May 16 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday reviewed the drought and water scarcity situation in parts of Gujarat at a high level meeting here.

The meeting was attended by Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel and senior officials from the central and state governments, a statement said.

Modi, after being informed about what all was being done to provide relief to the affected, appreciated the efforts of the state government. He called for further action to completely eliminate the need for tanker water supply.

Elaborating on Gujarat's efforts for water conservation, recharge and creation of water bodies, the chief minister said that 1.68 lakh check dams, 2.74 lakh farm ponds, 1.25 lakh 'Bori Bandhs' have been made with a storage capacity of 42.3 billion cubic feet water, benefiting 6.32 lakh hectares, it said.

Piped water supply was being provided to 77 per cent of the households in the state.

In spite of deficient rainfall for the second consecutive year, the work done for the state water grid has resulted in only 568 tankers being required for water distribution in some remote tail areas, the release added.

The state has made significant progress in micro-irrigation. One hundred per cent coverage of drip/sprinkler irrigation has been achieved in 3,789 villages, it said.

Measures to boost progress in fishery, bee-keeping, pearl culture and seaweed were also discussed.
Bangkok, May 16 : Thailand's capital Bangkok is famous the world over for its unique street food.

However, there is one place for food a new visitor may not be aware of that is worth checking out.

Like the "khao gallis" in various Indian cities, there is C-shaped path on the side of a sub-road in Sukhumvit area in the heart of Bangkok that teems with tourists all the time.

If one is to take the entrance on the left of the sub-road, the path goes down around 18 yards, takes a right double that length and then turns right and emerges on the sub-road.

And in that short space, one can find a wide variety of foods.

Apart from a restaurant that serves divine Thai food, there is Snapper New Zealand, Charlie Brown's Mexicana, Chez Pape French Bistro, a Chinese takeaway without a name, and two Indian restaurants, the Moghul Room and Shalimar Sharma's Indian Restaurant.

However, according to a worker in one of the Indian restaurants, what Western tourists come to the place is for a joint called Cheap Charlie's.

Opened around 40 years back, Cheap Charlie's sells only beer and alcohol and no food. The place is replete with collectibles gathered over the years and one hardly finds any place to sit there in the evening.

During the day, the food path remains completely empty. The shops open sharp at 5 p.m. and closes at 11.45 p.m., doing six-and-half hours of business daily.

Delhiites will call it a miniature Hauz Khas Village.

**For those planning to buy Buddha statues while on a trip to Thailand, be forewarned.

A notice at the immigration counter at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok serves a strong warning to all visitors.

"Welcome to Buddha Land," it states.

"IT'S WRONG to buy or use Buddha symbol as merchandise, decoration, tattoo, or to own Buddha head. Disrespect to Buddha is wrong by law," it adds.

**India is known for its colours. But for a first time visitor from India, the streets of Bangkok are striking for the brightly coloured and very well maintained taxis.

There are the green-and-yellow ones. These are owner-driven cars.

Then there are those in bright yellow, bright pink, bright red, bright orange, bright blue and what have you. These are vehicles belonging to various taxi cooperative societies, one learns.

**That there are similarities between the cultures of India's northeast and southeast Asia became apparent when this correspondent who hails from Assam smelled something which a woman coconut hawker in Bangkok was chewing that reminded him of home.

Yes, it was raw betel nut and leaf alright.

Chewing raw betel nut with a lime-coated leaf - unlike the supari or pan masala, the dried versions of betel nut, found in other parts of India - is a habit among the people of India's northeast.

Known as tamul or gua in Assam, kwai in Meghalaya, kwa in Manipur and khuva in Mizoram, the betel nut is also a major source of mouth and throat cancer.

Today's generation has mostly given up the habit, one of the reasons being that the red spit by the chewers dirties up a place.

The Thai government banned the practice in 1996, the first of the country's biannual tourism years. However, the habit apparently continues among the rural areas.

**Another similarity among northeast India and Thailand. The host in Bangkok gifted this correspondent two Thai sweet dishes. One is called Roti Mai Tai and the other some other Thai name. On unwrapping the gift, one found two very traditional Assamese dishes - pani pitha, a wet rice bread rolled around a sweet, and aamor murabba, a sweet made out of dried mango.

(Aroonim Bhuyan visited Thailand at the invitation of the Board of Investment, Thailand. He can be contacted at aroonim.b@ians.in)
London, May 16 : A British bookmaker has suspended betting on who will be the next James Bond after a large bet was placed on actor Tom Hiddleston.

A flurry of bets in recent days had tipped the "Thor" actor to replace Daniel Craig as the next 007, making him the 2-1 favourite.

After a big gamble, his odds plummeted to 1-2, and website Coral suspended betting, the BBC reported.

Earlier this week, the British actor was reportedly spotted meeting with Bond movie director Sam Mendes.

Nicola McGeady, a spokeswoman for Coral, said: "There is no smoke without fire, and following the big gamble on Tom Hiddleston in the last 24 hours, we've had no choice but to pull the plug on the market."

"Earlier in the year there was a gamble on Idris Elba and Damian Lewis, but nothing has come close to the recent gamble on Hiddleston," McGeady added.

Elba was priced at 9-1 and Lewis at 14-1 before betting was suspended.

"Poldark" star Aidan Turner had 3-1 odds and "Mad Max: Fury Road" actor Tom Hardy was at 4-1.

Earlier, Craig had dropped hints of bidding goodbye to James Bond prior to the release of the franchise's 24th instalment "Spectre" last year.
Kolkata, May 16 : A court in West Bengal's West Midnapore on Monday sentenced, to death, seven people including a woman for the 2012 lynching of three women branded as "witches".

Of the seven other convicts, six were sentenced to life imprisonment and the remaining one - a woman - got nine years rigorous imprisonment.

The death sentence is subject to confirmation by the Calcutta High Court.

The incident took place in October 2012 in Daspur area when Phulmani Singh (70), her daughter Sambari (40) and daughter-in-law also named Sambari (40) were lynched by villagers and buried in a river bed after a kangaroo court pronounced them as witches.

Following the discovery of the dead bodies, 14 people including two women were arrested and charged with killing the trio.
Washington, May 16 : The presumptive Republican candidate in the US presidential election, Donald Trump, has called on Muslims to work with police and "turn people in".

Trump on Sunday said he was not anti-Muslim, but "anti-terror", BBC reported.

Trump was reacting to remarks by British Prime Minister David Cameron that he was "stupid, divisive and wrong" in calling for Muslims to be banned from the US.

Trump made the call last year, when he was not the party's front-runner. The New York billionaire said when he called for an immediate temporary ban on Muslims being allowed into America, there had been criticism only from politicians.

Millions of people from all over the world had called in, he said, saying "Donald Trump is right".

Asked whether he would re-phrase those comments in the light of the controversy they caused, Trump said: "It got people thinking. Whether it's good for me or bad for me, I don't really care."

"Something very bad" was going on that people pretended did not exist, Trump said.

The world had a tremendous problem with radical Islamic terror, the Republican said.

"If you look at it world-wide, the world is blowing up. And it's not people from Sweden that's doing the damage, okay?"

It is up to Muslims to turn in people they suspected of extremism, he said.

"They have to work with the police. They're not turning them in. If they're not playing ball, it's not going to work out."

Referring to Cameron's criticism, Trump said it looked like he was not going to have a good relationship with the British prime minister.

He also criticised the new Mayor of London Sadiq Khan for calling him "ignorant".

The New Yorker is one of the least politically experienced nominees in the US history, having never held elected office.

Many senior Republicans have refused to back him. All other Republican rivals have dropped out of the campaign.

Protests have plagued his campaign, with particular focus on his plan to build a wall on the Mexican border and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton appears closer to the nomination, having secured more delegates than challenger Bernie Sanders.
Chennai/Thiruvananthapuram, May 16 : Millions voted on Monday in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, bringing down the curtains on staggered five-state elections -- the biggest popularity test since the Lok Sabha battle.

Some 40 million voted in Tamil Nadu, which saw multiple contests in all constituencies for the first time, and about 18 million in Kerala, where the BJP made determined efforts to make inroads in a state dominated by the Congress-led UDF and the LDF headed by the CPI-M.

The polling percentage in Kerala -- which elects a 140-seat assembly -- was 70.35 at 5 p.m. Election Commission officials said it could well cross the 75.12 per cent recorded in 2011 when the polling ends at 6 p.m.

Officials said over 65 percent of the 58 million electorate in Tamil Nadu had voted by 4 p.m.

In Tamil Nadu, the ruling AIADMK was pitted against the DMK-Congress alliance, a front led by the DMDK of actor-turned-politician Vijaykanth, the PMK and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Polling in two of the 234 constituencies has been postponed.

The main fight in Puducherry, which has a 30-member house, is between the Congress-DMK combine and the ruling All India NR Congress (AINRC).

In all three states, voting began on a brisk note at 7 a.m. and continued on that pace throughout the day. Long queues formed at all polling centres but the polling was largely peaceful.

In Kerala, both Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and CPI-M veteran V.S. Achuthanandan asserted that their coalitions were set to win the electoral battle.

Chandy, who heads the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), said at his hometown Puthupally near Kottayam: "We are certain the people will give us one more chance."

Added Congress leader and former chief minister A.K. Antony: "For the first time in the state a ruling party is going to retain power. While the Left will remain in the opposition, the BJP won't win any seat."

But Marxist leader Achuthanandan, whose Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) heads the Left Democratic Front (LDF), was equally confident.

"There is a huge wave in our favour. We are heading for a landslide victory. People are going to show the exit door to Chandy."

State BJP president Kummanem Rajasekheran, contesting in Vatiyoorkavu in the state capital, said: "There is a strong opposition to both the Left as well as the Congress. That's why we are hugely confident."

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalithaa did not predict the outcome: "In two days, the verdict will be known," she said after voting in Chennai.

DMK chief and former chief minister M. Karunanidhi, his son and party treasurer M.K. Stalin and state BJP leader Tamilisai Soundararajan voted in Chennai too.

Karunanidhi said the DMK-Congress combine was poised to win and form the next government.

In Chennai, actors Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth, Ajith, Sundar. C and Khushboo voted. In Kerala too, the Malayalam film industry turned out in strength to exercise their franchise.

The AIADMK is aligned with some smaller parties. The DMK's allies include the Congress, two Muslim parties and some smaller outfits. The third front has the DMDK, CPI-M, CPI, VCK, TMC and MDMK.

Staggered assembly elections began on April 4 in West Bengal and Assam.
Lucknow, May 16 : A Congress leader from the minority community in Uttar Pradesh on Monday accused the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) of "hobnobbing" with the BJP.

"By extended a red carpet welcome to yoga guru Ramdev, a known BJP supporter, to set up manufacturing plants in the state, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has exposed the unholy nexus between his party and the BJP," UP Congress minority cell chairman Haji Siraj Mehndi told reporters here.

"It is for all to see that Bharatiya Janata Party sympathisers are now being welcomed with open arms in UP. This is happening because the BJP and SP are two sides of the same coin," he said.

The Congress leader said the Samajwadi Party's agenda to support the BJP had now come out in the open.

On Sunday, Ramdev called on Yadav and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who extended support to his offer to set up his FMCG company Patanjali Ayurved Limited's new manufacturing units in the state.

The Congress leader also questioned cabinet minister Mohammad Azam Khan's silence on the matter.

"It is strange that Khan -- who does not otherwise miss an opportunity to promote himself as a minority leader -- is mum now."
Imphal : Imphal May 16 (IANS) : Several shops and houses along NH 37 were demolished on Monday at Tera as part of a road expansion project. However, the demolition drew a sharp reaction from Manipur Social Welfare Minister A. Mirabai who voiced her opposition to the drive.

Soon after the demolition drive began, the minister rushed to the spot and tried to stop the officials. She told them that the demolition should be stopped on humanitarian grounds and sought time on behalf of the shopkeepers and the dwellers.

Mirabai said she would talk to Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh on this issue. However, the officials did not relent and carried out the drive.

Later, Mirabai flagged the chief minister and expressed her disappointment.

The next phase of demolition will be carried out between Singjamei and Pallel along the Trans-Asian Highway 1.

The government is expanding both the state and national highways to deal with increasing traffic in Manipur.
New Delhi, May 16 : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said the banks have reached the peak of non-performing assets (NPAs) and now the "tapering process" is likely.

"Once the sectoral balance sheet of banks improves, this will start tapering down. The peaks of NPAs have been reached," Jaitley said in a media event at the Indian Women's Press Corps (IWPC) here.

"The consequential impact of sectors like sugar, steel, power on the balance sheets of banks in coming quarters ... these could be positive and could add to the growth," he said.

Talking about the rising NPAs, Jaitley said at least transparency has been achieved in the balance sheets of the banks and their actual position is out.

Emphasising that India was growing despite the global slowdown, Jaitley said the ability of the banks to lend was critical for growth.

"You get peak growth rate when global growth is behind you. On the contrary, there are hostile headwinds from the world, then to touch the peak rates of growth is extremely difficult," he said.

Jaitley said that along with a slowdown in world economy, oil prices have been plummeting and to add to it, two seasons of bad monsoon is a crisis.

"We are at the fag end of the stressed period. The predictions of the monsoon this year is good which has the capacity to push up the rural demand. So far indications are that it is possible," he said.

Meanwhile, commenting on the patchy relationship between Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan and the finance ministry, Jaitley said: "I don't think so far as this relationship is concerned, what appears in the media, you should give much credence to."

Jaitley stressed that his ministry and the RBI share a very "mature relationship".

"There is an institutional relationship between the two. We, the two institutions, have discussions and each other's view is considered between us," Jaitley said.

When asked if Rajan's term at RBI will be extended, Jaitley said: "These are not the issues that we discuss through the media."
Lucknow, May 16 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday accused the Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh of unleashing lumpen elements to target the Dalits.

BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak alleged that the Samajwadi Party government is blinded by greed for votes and has been terrorising the marginalised sections of the society.

Reacting to the communal violence at Khudadadpur village in Azamgarh over the last two days, the BJP leader said the Dalits were targeted selectively. The state government and the official machinery have failed to control the violence, he said.

BJP also slammed the state government for not allowing the party's fact-finding team that was on its way to Azamgarh on Monday. Several BJP leaders, including former UP DGP Brijlal, were arrested when they were heading to Azamgarh.

Another BJP leader alleged that the state government was trying to stifle democracy in Uttar Pradesh.

Communal violence had erupted at Khudadadpur village on Saturday night when two communities clashed. The violence continued till early hours on Sunday.

Several police personnel were rushed to the area to tackle the situation. Some of the police officials were injured in the violence.
New Delhi, May 16 : Environmentalist R.K. Pachauri, accused of sexual harassment by a former colleague, on Monday again denied the charge and said he had done nothing wrong and will prove his innocence in court.

"I have complete faith in the country's justice delivery system. I am sure the falsity of the charge against my will be proved in a court of law very soon. I have cooperated and will continue to cooperate in the judicial process," Pachauri said in a press statement here.

He said: "I reiterate that I have done no wrong and this fact will be proved in court."

On May 14, a local court issued summons to Pachauri after taking cognisance of the charge sheet and held there was enough material to proceed against him in view of charges dealing with stalking and words, gestures or acts intended to insult a woman's modesty.

"The court, in its wisdom and without any arguments from my counsel, has dropped Section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC (Indian Penal Code) from the charge sheet, which prima facie manifests the falsity of allegations," he said.

"A copy of the charge sheet will be supplied to me on July 11."

Pachauri said the court only took cognisance of the charges levelled in the charge sheet.

"The court nowhere stated there is 'sufficient evidence' against Pachauri. This is a routine practice in courts where allegations are filed against anyone."

He said: "I again reiterate that the contents of the charge sheet are allegations levelled by the complainant. Nothing has been substantiated after yearlong police investigation. It also stated that there are no witnesses whatsoever from TERI who have corroborated her allegations."

The court has fixed July 11 for hearing in the case and issued summons to Pachauri.

On April 21, Pachauri had 'stepped down' from The Energy and Resources Institute's governing council. He is a former executive chairman of TERI.
Kathmandu, May 16 : Nepal Police on Monday arrested a British national for participating in the anti-constitution agitation of the Madhesis and Janajatis here.

Identified as Martin Travers, 44, the British passport holder was arrested on Monday afternoon from the midst of the protesters after Nepali media was awash about the participation of foreigners in the ongoing anti-government protest.

Travers is a mural painter and paints people's portraits.

His friends denied he was part of the protest.

They maintained that he had got interested in the demonstrators and was planning to paint their pictures when somebody came up to him and tied the protest band on his forehead.

Kathmandu District Chief District Officer Ram Krishna Subedi confirmed the arrest of Travers who showed up with a protester's flag and had the red protest band on his forehead.

Travers told media that he was taking pictures of the protesters when somebody came and tied the bandanna on his forehead.

He told police that he is living in Lalitpur, an adjoining district of capital Kathmandu.

Recently, Nepal had sent back a Canadian national, Robert Penner, for supporting the ethnic movement on Twitter.

Social media and some mainstream media raised the issue of involvement of foreigners in the protest called by the Sanghiya Gathabandhan or Federal Alliance on Sunday.

"We have proceeded with action against the British national," said Home Ministry spokesperson Yadav Koirala adding that his participation in the protest was against the immigration rule of Nepal.

(Anil Giri can be reached at girianil@ians.in)
Thiruvananthapuram, May 16 : The Congress on Monday dismissed an exit polls showing the party-led United Democratic Front losing power in Kerala to its rival, the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front.

Senior Congress legislator Benny Behanan, who did not get a party ticket this time, told media persons that the results that have come out in the exit polls are not true.

"I represent a seat in Ernakulam and I know this district very well and this survey says the UDF will win just three seats... this is just not right. Something has gone wrong with those who did this," he said.

Veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader O.Rajagopal, who is a contestant from the Thiruvananthapuram district, said even though the exit polls predicts three seats for his party, they are expecting more.

"So let's wait for the result to come out on May 19," he said.

Communist Party of India-Marxist Lok Sabha member M.P.Rajesh however said he did not find the results as a surprise as this was what they expected.
Kolkata, May 16 : Actress Juhi Chawla met thalassemic children at a treatment centre here on Monday and did her bit to generate awareness about the inherited blood disorder.

The Kolkata Knight Riders' co-owner also donated around Rs. 1 lakh from her personal fund as a commitment to the cause.

"She has committed Rs.10,000 for every match that KKR wins. From 2011 she has been doing it. It is from her personal fund and this time she donated Rs. 1 lakh," a representative of the Thalassaemia Society of India treatment facility told IANS.

The "Darr" actress who was recently seen in educational drama "Chalk N Duster" interacted with the children undergoing treatment and showered affection at them, the official said.
Vienna, May 16 : Military training and arms, not military intervention are what the Libyan unity government wants and Italy and other countries are open to this request, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Monday.

"We will rapidly consider the request of the Libyan unity government concerning the training of troops and are prepared to meet these," Gentiloni told journalists in Vienna.

A military embargo put in place by the United Nations five years ago would not be abolished but would be subject to "limitations", he said after a meeting of diplomats from 20 countries including the US pledged to consider training and arming the Libyan government in the fight to stop the Islamic State jihadist group from expanding in the chaos-wracked country.

"Stabilising Libya is key to the fight against terrorism and to its development, " Gentiloni stated.

Speaking at a press conference after the Vienna meeting, which was co-chaired by Italy, US Secretary of State John Kerry said IS was a "new threat" to Libya and it was "imperative " it was stopped.

Besides countering IS, the government of national unity should take full control of Libyan ministries backed by the international community, he said.

But Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj warned major challenges lay ahead.

"The situation in Libya is extremely bad," he said, adding the international community would not be spared" if IS was not eradicated from the country.

IS controls the coastal oil hub of Sirte and has launched a series of suicide bombings and attacks on oil facilities in the country.

The UN-backed Serraj government earlier in May announced the formation of a military task force to fight IS but is does not have the support of the rival government in the east of the country, which is quarrelling over the allocation of the country's oil and financial resources.

Libya, a major transit point for migrants has been in turmoil since NATO-backed forces overthrew long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011.

Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler, has an extra stkte in the North African country due to the threat of uncontrolled migration across the southern Mediterranean.

Gentiloni invited ministers from several sub-Saharan African countries to the Vienna meeting as well as Malta.
Local authorities in England are continuing to ignore ways to deliver much needed affordable homes for local people in rural areas but could be more effective in helping to solve the housing crisis in the countryside, it is suggested.

New Government data shows that despite a 9% increase in affordable homes built in small rural communities across England, only 51 more than the previous year were built on rural exception sites, farmland not usually granted planning permission but used for affordable housing developments.

The Country Landowners Association (CLA), which represents landowners, farmers and rural businesses welcomed the overall increase but said local councils across England could use these sites more effectively to help solve the rural housing crisis.

Housing need is widespread throughout rural England. The increase in the total number of affordable homes being built is encouraging, however, large discrepancies between local authorities mean that certain councils are doing more than others. Cornwall Council leads the way yet again but others lag quite dramatically behind, said CLA housing adviser Matthew OConnell.

Rural exception sites are a key means of providing affordable homes in rural areas where a landowner provides land at below market value to build affordable homes for local people. It is clear that local authorities are missing a trick by not using these sites to their full potential, he pointed out.

OConnell explained that it is known that 27% of CLA members want to build affordable housing and many are keen to manage their own affordable properties. To harness this ambition, local councils and housing associations must engage with rural landowners to help bring more sites forward increasing the range of housing options for people in rural areas, he said.

Without challenging a few orthodoxies we are not going to solve the rural housing crisis. New build rented housing, affordable home ownership and affordable rented homes are all crucial to maintaining a living, working countryside. With the right support and incentives, rural landowners hold the key to easing the acute shortage of housing in the countryside, he added.

To help increase the supply of affordable homes across the countryside the CLA is calling on the Government to formalise the process for landowners to manage affordable homes. It says that when a plot of land has been found for a rural exception site, but there is no housing association or other organisation to manage the site, it will not progress.

Indeed, there are examples of landowners who have come to agreements with local authorities to manage the affordable homes themselves. We believe more sites would come forward if this process was formalised. Having a government approved boiler plate section 106 agreement would provide assurances to other landowners and local authorities that they could pursue this option, he said.

It also wants implementation of Housing White Paper proposals on rural exception sites. The White Paper, published almost a year ago now, proposed to give stronger support for rural exception sites and the role they can play in providing affordable housing for the community, even if this relies on an element of general market housing. The CLA supports the proposal and would emphasise that cross subsidy will result in more sites coming forward.

The CLA also calls for properties provided as affordable homes to be exempted from liability for Inheritance Tax as 52% of CLA members would be more willing to build and manage affordable homes for rent for local people if the value of the housing was conditionally exempt from Inheritance Tax until the housing was sold on the open market.

On top of this it suggests that the value of land sold for affordable homes should be exempted from Capital Gains Tax.
Having the V-MARQ will give Steelite's clients confidence that its products are manufactured not only in the UK but also in Stoke-on-Trent, the home of the Potteries

Lucideon, the independent sustainability assurance provider, is pleased to announce that it has awarded its first V-MARQ, the certification of manufacturing origin, to Steelite International.

The scheme, believed to be the first of its kind in the world, audits where a product is manufactured, whether that be a country, a region or a city/town. It was introduced by Lucideon in late 2015 to provide transparency to the numerous made in badges that exist and to support manufacturers product claims.

Lucideon audited 44 of Steelites patterns, comprising a total of 1820 products, and awarded the company the certification in April. All the products certified were manufactured in the UK, in Stoke-on-Trent.

Shaun Bainbridge, Director at Lucideon, said: We set up the V-MARQ certification scheme following a call from UK ceramics companies looking to signpost national and international customers to their products place of production, so it was fitting that the first company we audited was a UK tableware manufacturer.

Having the V-MARQ will help Steelite to distinguish its products from those of competitors, giving its clients confidence that its products are manufactured not only in the UK but also in Stoke-on-Trent, the home of the Potteries.

David Clarke, Technical Manager at Steelite, said: Steelite Internationals customers see a real value in the Made in England back-stamp. Its not just about the quality and design of our products, its about the integrity of the business as a whole  the service we offer and the fact that we stand by our products and our values. Obtaining the V-MARQ provides independent confirmation that our products are made, from start to finish, in England.

All successfully audited products are entered onto the V-MARQ online register of certifications, a facility which allows purchasers and consumers to search for products that are made in a certain country or region. The register can be found at http://www.v-marq.com.

The V-MARQ scheme is currently being rolled out across the ceramics industry, as well as a range of manufacturing sectors including leather, cosmetics, fragrance, clothing, homeware, carpets and flooring.
Allan Biddlecomb, PG, SCS Engineers Allan is a welcome addition to the SCS Environmental Services team, stated Carlo Lebron, an SCS Engineers Vice President. Allan has the integrity, education, and experience that our clients expect SCS teams to bring to every project.

SCS Engineers is pleased to announce that Allan H. Biddlecomb has joined SCS to lead the Environmental Services team in Tampa, Florida.

Biddlecomb brings a unique portfolio of experience complementary to SCS's in-house capabilities. He has expertise in several technical specialty areas, including waste management environmental projects. These particular projects and investigations include water supply and hydrogeology services, permitting and permit compliance, facility siting and environmental management, contamination assessment and remediation. Biddlecomb has extensive technical and management experience working on and managing numerous projects involving the full range of services in environmental engineering, geology-hydrogeology, ecology, and infrastructure for private, industrial, utility, and government clients.

Allan is a welcome addition to the SCS Environmental Services team, stated Carlo Lebron, an SCS Engineers Vice President. Allan has the integrity, education, and experience that our clients expect SCS teams to bring to every project.

Biddlecomb earned a Bachelor of Science in Geology from James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA and a Master of Science in Geology from the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is a registered Professional Geologist in Florida with certifications for Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response, plus Stormwater, Erosion and Sedimentation Control in Florida.

About SCS Engineers

SCS Engineers offers sustainable environmental solutions to businesses with environmental and economic challenges. SCS provides these services to private and public sector clients through a network of nationwide offices. For more information about SCS, please visit our website, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
The AcctTwo team's speed and response time went beyond our expectations. With Intacct, we now have a much more comprehensive view of our data.

AcctTwo, a leading consulting firm and provider of cloud-based ERP solutions, announced that the firm has implemented Intacct for Wave Church. Wave Church is based in Virginia Beach, NC, but has eight separate campuses: five in Virginia, two in North Carolina, and one in Los Angeles. Because of its impact and influence on the lives of people in the Hampton Roads, NC community, Wave Church has grown to become an example of discipleship, leadership, and relationship for the nation and the world. After a rigorous software evaluation, Wave Church chose Intacct over other on-premises and cloud solutions as the best fit to meet the needs of the organization.

Previous Business Challenges Faced by Wave Church:



Wave Church's legacy accounting software was slow and missing many core accounting features.

The system wasn't intuitive and its inability to integrate with other systems meant the finance team had to do a great deal of work in Excel.

With multiple locations and ministries, Wave Church struggled to get the kind of reporting and visibility they needed by location, ministry, and department.

Reasons for Selecting Intacct:

Intacct provides Wave Church's accounting staff with a faster, more intuitive system.

Intacct will give the church's leaders real-time access to the data they need in order to make informed decisions via automated reports and dashboards.

Intacct's dimensionality is a good fit for the church's ministries and departments.

Intacct Collaborate will be a valuable tool in Wave Church's purchasing workflows.

With Intacct, Wave Church has a sophisticated accounting system that will be supported for years to come.

Highlighted Comments from Wave Church's General Manager:

"The implementation went smoothly and we're very satisfied with the success of the project," said Josh Kicker, Senior Associate Pastor and General Manager at Wave Church. "The AcctTwo team's speed and response time went beyond our expectations. With Intacct, we now have a much more comprehensive view of our data."

Additional resources:

Visit the Wave Church on the web

Visit accttwo.com

Follow the AcctTwo Blog

About AcctTwo:

AcctTwo is a leading consulting firm and reseller of cloud-based accounting and ERP software. Our sophisticated systems solve the issues growing churches and non-profits face today. AcctTwo also provides Business-Process-as-a-Service solutions, allowing clients to focus on their mission. We provide the people, processes, technology, and office facilities to perform these functions, while allowing clients to collaborate interactively through an on-line portal.

AcctTwo is headquartered in Houston, Texas. For more information, please visit http://www.accttwo.com or call 713-744-8400.

Contacts:

Peter Wagner

Director of Marketing

Cell: 512.415.6846

Email:pwagner(at)accttwo.com

Chris Wailes

VP, National Media Relations

Pierpont Communications

Direct:713.627.2223

Email:cwailes(at)piercom.com
Shady Shores Communities, LLC announced today that Pam Govender has joined the group to further develop their compliance and human resource efforts throughout their growing long-term care operations in the state of Texas.

Pam Govender has more than 25 years of healthcare services experience having held a wide range of supervisory, upper management and ownership roles. Notably Pam was the Vice President and Co-Owner for Trinity Elite Healthcare, Inc. where she was in charge of delivering quality of care services in accordance with Medicare and Medicaid guidelines. She began her career working as a CMA/CNA for Senior Care Centers which gives her amazing insight of working directly with patients.

Michael G. Wallace, Chief Executive Officer of Shady Shores Communities comments, Compliance and quality care are at the center of our efforts at Shady Shores Communities. Ensuring that we are better able to find, hire and retain the right talent we feel will help us execute our goal of providing our patients with the highest level of care possible. Through Pams healthcare experience and strong organizational and communication skills we feel we will be able to provide not only better service to the patients in our homes but an amazing place for our employees to call home.

About Shady Shores Communities, LLC

Shady Shores Communities is a Texas-based, long-term care provider specializing in the operation of skilled nursing and memory care facilities. With its headquarters in Denton, Texas, Shady Shores Communities operates 10 skilled nursing facilities, with additional campuses under development.
With Post Cafe, small businesses stay relevant, look smarter and stay top-of-mind when customers are ready to buy  now or in the future.

Post Cafe, http://www.post.cafe, a groundbreaking new social media content publishing service launched this week. For the first time, automated social media combines with branded content. This innovative subscription service allows companies without social media or blogging resources to simply and affordably publish original content both on Facebook and on a credible, industry content hub.

Launched initially with a housing and real estate industry focus, Post Cafe enables realtors to establish themselves as housing industry experts and foster ongoing communication with past and potential clients.

Built using a never-before-seen publishing model, Post Cafe arms individual real estate agents and agencies with the tools they need to stay engaged with clients between sales. Post Cafe publishes housing industry-specific, curated articles to an agents Facebook page. Each post then links back to a personalized content hub, prominently displaying the realtors contact information and agency logo.

Post Cafe is so simple, yet so powerful, says Post Cafe creator Chris Mulvaney. We have been building social media accounts for clients since the birth of the channel, so we know how much thought and effort it takes to do properly. With Post Cafe, small businesses stay relevant, look smarter and stay top-of-mind when customers are ready to buy  now or in the future.

The most significant difference of Post Cafe is the ability for realtors to surround all content with their brand information. Using proprietary logic, Post Cafe frames each article with the agents name, logo, phone, website and email address. Whenever Facebook users click on an article link on the realtors page, or from a shared post, they will see that specific realtors branding surrounding the content. Branding information differs based on which realtor drove traffic to the content hub.

There is nothing out there like this, Says Chris Walsh, a leading New Jersey real estate broker. For less than $3 a post, I can stay active on social media, publish trending, insightful content that my clients appreciate and remember, and maintain on-going relationships long after the sale  all while being able to focus on selling homes, rather than spending the time to market myself.

Introduced at the low entry price of $29.99 per month, Post Cafe publishes 3 posts and branded articles per week via Facebook for realtors. For an additional $1 per month, Post Cafe will create personal messages for the Facebook posts, increasing social engagement among page followers.

Realtors can sign up for Post Cafe at http://www.post.cafe/realtors and start posting immediately. Subscribers have access to a dashboard of upcoming posts, with the ability to personalize messages, skip posts or cancel at any time. All articles will be hosted on real estate-focused website http://www.forsaleguides.com.

About Post Cafe

Post Cafe is a new social media and content service, spun off from CMDS, one of NJs leading branding agencies. Dedicated to providing simplified social media for busy people, Post Cafe helps business owners find the time and resources to amplify their social media presence, through relevant, branded content.
In a world where companies are struggling to acquire top tech talent due to the growing increase in demand for tech related skills, SkillGigs - the tech talent marketplace announces its new and improved company profile page for employers. This added feature supports hiring managers as well as in-house recruiting teams that are utilizing the SkillGigs platform by giving them a place where they can showcase their companys brand values and corporate culture.

With the unemployment rate in the technology sector at just three percent, and the demand for tech talent continuing to increase, recruiting talent with in-demand skills has become extremely competitive. This has left many companies struggling to find the talent they so desperately need to continue their growth. As a result, we have made improvements and added features to the SkillGigs platform that not only gives businesses access to top tech talent, but also helps them attract talent to their organization, said SkillGigs CEO and Co-Founder Kashif Aftab.

As competition rises company culture is becoming a huge factor in an organizations ability to attract top tech talent, and the SkillGigs company profile page allows employers to do the following:



Use culture as a selling point when attracting new talent by highlighting the fun aspects of an org like company events, brand values, and team members

Create a positive view of an organizations company culture, making it more appealing to in-demand talent

Highlight a companys unique personality, which helps to attract like-minded people who share the same interest and values as its employees, which will in-turn promote better synergy and eventual output

About SkillGigs: SkillGigs is an online job marketplace for tech talent and a sourcing and recruiting platform for hiring managers/recruiters. SkillGigs gives employers access to hard to find tech talent including Data Scientists, Full Stack Developers, DevOps Engineers, Java Developers, and UI/UX Designers. SkillGigss two-sided marketplace sets both talent and companies up for optimal success by matching the right talent with the right gigs.
Dixie L. Merrills new book, Pictures of Hope - Healing for Wounded Beloveds, ($21.99, paperback, 9781498471084; $9.99, e-book, 9781498471091) helps those who are grieving to move through loss into a new life. Dixie encourages readers who are suffering loss to seek the God of all comfort. Through God's Holy Word and stories of people who have moved through their loss with God's love and encouragement, this book will bring peace to wounded hearts. Practical and prayerful exercises aim to lift the reader out of despair into hope. This guided study was developed while Dixie served as a Grief Care facilitator at a religious retreat on Lake Erie, and later at Spring Hills Baptist Church in Granville, Ohio. Pictures of Hope was used successfully as a tool in Grief Recovery throughout her 10 years of leading groups and one-on-one encouragement in the Grief Share program.

I pray that the readers of this book will gain hope and new life in the midst of their suffering, states the author. I pray that the reader will be empowered by God to join the great company of overcomers in Gods love.

Life experiences walked out in God's love have brought Dixie L. Merrill a peace and joy of living that is beyond her comprehension. She has been a Grief Care Facilitator since 2004 as God called her to lead groups at Lakeside, a Chautauqua on Lake Erie and her church. From 1997- 2010, Dixie was the caregiver for her husband stricken with dementia. In the midst of this, she went to the Lord. Through Gods Holy Word, the help of a Christian Psychologist, her physician, and a faithful prayer partner, she came out of her very dark valley. She discovered that life is not about her but all about God and His unfailing love. During the 12 years of Jims debilitating disease, she received grace upon grace to move through it with love and joy.

Xulon Press, a division of Salem Media Group, is the worlds largest Christian self-publisher, with more than 15,000 titles published to date. Retailers may order Pictures of Hope - Healing for Wounded Beloveds through Ingram Book Company and/or Spring Arbor Book Distributors. The book is available online through xulonpress.com/bookstore, amazon.com, and barnesandnoble.com.

Media Contact: Dixie L. Merrill

Email: merrill155(at)roadrunner.com
Highland Ophthalmology Associates, LLC (http://www.highlandophthalmology.com), a leading specialty eye care center in New Windsor, New York, announced today that Dr. Michael J. Stagner, M.D. has joined their group of cataract eye surgeons, cornea and glaucoma specialists, and optometrists.

Dr. Stagner is a highly experienced anterior segment eye surgeon who has performed thousands of cataract surgeries and is proficient in glaucoma treatment and management, medical retina treatment, and all general aspects of medical ophthalmology. He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska, and performed his medical internship at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland, Oregon prior to completing his residency in ophthalmology at the Oregon Health Sciences University.

Dr. Stagners medical career in ophthalmology began at the San Luis Valley Medical Clinic in Alamosa, Colorado and continued through operating his private practice, Stagner Eye Center, in Kingman, AZ. Relocating to the Hudson Valley of New York, Dr. Stagner brings his 22 years of experience to Highland Ophthalmology, assisting as a diagnostician for the analysis and treatment of varied eye conditions and as a patient educator.

Dr. Stagner originally received his bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He subsequently did post-graduate studies in anthropology, biochemistry and education at The University of Wyoming. He initially worked as an engineer for Exxon and The Department of Energy before making the decision to attend Medical School.

We feel very fortunate to have a doctor, with the extensive experience and caliber of achievements that Dr. Stagner has, join our eye surgeons and staff here at Highland Ophthalmology. We operate in an 8,000 square foot, state-of-the-art specialty eye care center, with twelve exam lanes, eight diagnostic rooms equipped with the latest in ocular imaging and testing devices, and an expanded optical shop. Dr. Stagner will join myself, Dr. Tim Huynh and Dr. Sharon Powell to provide the highest level of specialty eye care to patients in our community, said Dr. Mary Davidian, Founder and Medical Director of Highland Ophthalmology Associates.

Dr. Mary Davidian has been residing in and serving the greater Hudson Valley community since 1997 when she founded Highland Ophthalmology Associates.

Dr. Stagner is Board Certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology and a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, to which he was elected a Fellow in 1995.

More information about Dr. Michael Stagner, M.D. and the services provided by Highland Ophthalmology is available at http://www.highlandophthalmology.com.

Media Contact:

Nancy Ingersoll

(845) 562-0138

nancy(at)highlandophthalmology(dot)com
Within the pages of Sue Casss new book, Grace Defined, ($16.99, paperback, 9781498471480) readers will be reminded that Christ's grace is offered to all and every individual has the choice of whom to follow; Jesus Christ or Satan. This fictional story takes place after World War 2. Many people were left struggling, some destitute and not knowing where to turn. The Carmichael family made it through the war but when the plants close they find themselves having to make difficult decisions. Bill Carmichael, his wife Joan, and three children decided to move to California but find themselves stranded during a heavy snowstorm in Colorado. Instead of turning to the Lord, Bill turns to alcohol. His atheist views clash with his Christian wife and are a harsh reality influencing his children and leaving the door open for the enemy of God.

The choices we make have ripple effects and directly influence those we love, be it good or evil, states the author. I hope my book will draw them to Christ.

Sue Cass resides in Georgia and by the grace of God has published six books  all inspired by the ultimate Author, Jesus Christ. She has experienced many challenges in her life. Her first husband was an alcoholic and she grew up in an abusive home. She was a non-believer for 49 years. She has faced many spiritual warfare battles and also experienced God's love and grace in so many ways that she believes could add up to writing another entire book. Sue Cass is the founder and CEO of Elah Ministries, Inc. a 501c3 non-profit ministry since 2003. All profits from her books support the ministry. For more information, visit http://www.elahministries.com or e-mail elah501c(at)bellsouth.net.

Xulon Press, a division of Salem Media Group, is the worlds largest Christian self-publisher, with more than 15,000 titles published to date. Retailers may order Grace Defined through Ingram Book Company and/or Spring Arbor Book Distributors. The book is available online through xulonpress.com/bookstore, amazon.com, and barnesandnoble.com.

Media Contact: Sue Cass

Email: elah501c(at)bellsouth.net

Website: http://www.elahministries.com
Past News Releases RSS

Salas OBrien, LLC., opens a new office in New Orleans, LA to better serve current and prospective clients in the Gulf Coast region. Salas OBrien is a national leading facilities engineering firm which concentrates on providing clients with the best Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Fire Protection and Technology Engineering possible.

We are excited about opening a New Orleans office which will enable us to better serve local clients in the Gulf Coast region. This move adds bench strength to our already strong team of engineering professionals throughout the South, said David Bonaventure, Principal in Charge. This office joins a network of Salas OBrien business locations nationwide including our other Gulf Coast offices consisting of Baton Rouge, Houston, Dallas and Atlanta.

The new office will be led by David Bonaventure, Principal in Charge and Tom Ward, Project Manager. Mr. Bonaventure is a professional engineer with experience in management, design, and specifications of both large and small projects. Mr. Ward has varied experience ranging from mechanical design build, to consulting and project management. Collectively, they have over 26 years of experience in the engineering industry.

About Salas OBrien Engineers, Inc.

Salas OBrien is an ENR top 300 Engineering Firm which primarily handles Mechanical, Electrical, Telecommunications, Clean Energy and Power Generation, Building Systems and Controls, Architecture, Interiors, Commissioning and Fire Protection. We integrate all disciplines to create the most reliable, sustainable, relevant, coordinated, and cost effective projects. Our team members combine intelligence and dedication with years of practical knowledge to ensure your project is successful and your experience is satisfying. More information on Salas OBrien and its services can be found at http://www.salasobrien.com.

Contact:

Amanda Quirk, Marketing Coordinator

Direct: (281) 664-0705

amanda.quirk(at)salasobrien(dot)com
North American Title Co. has added Kailey-Boyle to handle settlement support in Mountain Region Jan has a wealth of knowledge and experience, and her role is vital for the growth of our settlement teams.

Jan Kailey-Boyle has joined North American Title Co.s (NATC) mountain region to handle settlement support. With its headquarters in Phoenix, the NATC mountain region covers Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota and Utah.

Jan is a welcome addition to North American Title Co. She has a wealth of knowledge and experience that will be a wonderful asset to the mountain region, said Natalie Koonce, vice president, mountain region settlement services manager, NATC. We are truly excited for the future, as her role is vital for the growth of our settlement teams.

Kailey-Boyle has over 20 years in the title industry, with an emphasis on all aspects of escrow, from escrow administrator to escrow officer, in addition to various roles in operations and sales management. She most recently worked for the Scottsdale office of a large national title and real estate services company as an assistant vice president, after working in other divisions of the company in Denver and Phoenix.

A Colorado native, Kailey-Boyle earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from Regis University in Denver. Located at the NATC office at 3200 E. Camelback Road, Suite 200 and 210, Phoenix, AZ 85018, she may be reached at telephone number (602) 280-7500.

About North American Title

With well over 1,000 associates and a vast network of branches from coast to coast, North American Title (NAT) is among the largest real estate settlement service providers in the United States. Consisting of both agent and underwriter operations, NAT reported annual net revenues in fiscal 2015 of $229 million. The company also has the resources and stability of a wholly owned subsidiary of an S&P 500 company with over $14.4 billion in assets (fiscal year ending Nov. 30, 2015). North American Titles agency network operates nationally under the name North American Title Co. (NATC) in 19 of the fastest-growing states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia, in addition to the District of Columbia. Through our relationship with our expanding affiliate network, NATC provides real estate settlement services in all 50 states. NAT is headquartered in Miami, Florida. To learn more, visit http://www.nat.com
Avitus Group Sends 3 WWII Veterans on Rocky Mountain Honor Flight Look around you; we are the products of their [WWII Veterans] brave effort to make this world a better place to live in. Please come join us in welcoming home our veterans.

These veterans fought in the greatest World War and against communism, secured peace in the world, came home, got married and raised a family. Look around you; we are the products of their brave effort to make this world a better place to live in. Please come join us in welcoming home our veterans. When they initially came back from the war, many received little to no welcome or acknowledgement, so we want to make this really special to thank them for all of the sacrifices they made for our country and freedom,  says Rocky Mountain Honor Flight Vice President Cliff Fejfar.

"It's a humbling experience to shake a WWII veterans hand and thank them for their service and sacrifice. We hope to see the entire community at DIA to help us give our veterans the heroes' welcome home they deserve," says President of Avitus Payroll Services, Inc. and Avitus Business Services, Inc. and Navy veteran Ken Balster.

Avitus Group, a company with corporate headquarters in the Denver Metro area that helps simplify, strengthen and grow other businesses by taking responsibility for necessary, yet burdensome administrative tasks, like payroll, accounting and human resources, is meeting the Rocky Mountain Honor Flight team at DIA May 21st to welcome home the Rocky Mountain Honor Flight. The flight departs May 19th and returns on the 21st at 7:20 p.m. on SouthWest flight #3570 from Baltimore. Team Avitus Group is set to meet in the main concourse starting at 7:00 p.m. and will hand out American flags to wave to the first 50 people who join the welcome home team. Anyone from the community is invited. Avitus Group is also welcoming home Business Development Manager Chris Balster, who is volunteering as a guardian on the honor flight.

It is such an honor to have been asked to participate as a guardian on this trip. My grandfather is a 94-year-old Army Air Corps WWII veteran. He held the rank of 2nd lieutenant and was a navigator and bombardier on a B-29 Flying Super Fortress. My father is also a veteran and served in the Navy. I have a special place in my heart for the men and women who have done so much to help our country, and this is the least I can do to say thank you, says Avitus Group Business Development Manager Chris Balster.

Avitus Group employees and their families from offices across the United States are also sending hand-written letters to Colorados veterans who will open them during mail call on the flight home.

Mail call holds a very special meaning for these brave men and women. While they were at war, the only form of communication they had with friends and family was through written letters. In a lot of cases, the veterans are so moved after receiving these letters, that they have them laminated for safekeeping. Our entire staff has been so supportive of the Rocky Mountain Honor Flight, and we cant wait for the welcome home ceremony, says Avitus Group Rocky Mountain Honor Flight Committee Co-Chair and Payroll Specialist Macy Krzyznieski.

"Avitus Group makes it a priority to give back to the communities we live and work in, and what a better cause than supporting our veterans," says Avitus Group Public Relations Manager Dianne Parker.

Rocky Mountain Honor Flight is a Denver based non-profit (501c3) hub of the Honor Flight Network. The mission is to provide a free trip to all capable WWII and Korean Veterans to Washington D.C. to say thank you, and to show the veterans that the memorials were built in their honor.

Avitus Group is a worldwide company that simplifies, strengthens and grows businesses by providing 'back office' support (Payroll, accounting, taxes, recruiting, information technology, human resources and much more). When a business uses Avitus Group, all of the necessary yet burdensome functions of the business become Avitus Group's responsibility, so the business can focus on what it does best. Avitus Group serves clients nationwide through regional office locations from coast to coast. The company also serves international clients through partner locations in Europe, Canada, China, England, India, Japan and Singapore.
Level 1 Operator Training Our Level 1 Operator Training courses are open to all skill levels, and curriculum and schedules can be customized to meet your unique needs.

Hawthorne Cat, the exclusive Cat equipment dealer in San Diego, the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific Region, announces upcoming Level 1 Operator Training courses for entry-level equipment operators in San Diego. Ron Lyons, Hawthorne Cat Certified Dealer Instructor, will offer classes on Cat Wheel Loaders, Backhoe Loaders, Skid Steer Loaders, and Excavators.

The in-depth courses consist of classroom instruction, simulator training, hands-on practice, and stick time. Participants will learn safety, maintenance, equipment inspections, and basic operating procedures in a variety of applications. The one-day session is designed to help operators achieve a higher level of proficiency. Graduates from the course will receive a certificate of completion and a verification card that qualifies them to work on any government job or construction project.

According to Ron Lyons, The success of your business depends on the quality of your operators. Well help you improve productivity, increase safety, and reduce maintenance costs. Lyons concludes, Our Level 1 Operator Training courses are open to all skill levels, and curriculum and schedules can be customized to meet your unique needs.

Visit the Hawthorne Cat website to register for upcoming training courses in San Diego. Seating is limited to six participants per session. Advanced courses are available upon request. Contact Ron Lyons at 858.674.7047 or rlyons(at)hawthornecat(dot)com for more information.

About Hawthorne Cat

Hawthorne Cat is the authorized dealer for Cat construction and power equipment in San Diego, Hawaii, Guam, Saipan and American Samoa. Hawthorne sells, rents, provides parts and service, training and emission solutions to various industries including general building construction, landscaping, marine, paving and power generation. For more on Hawthorne Cat, visit http://www.hawthornecat.com.
The best first impression we can give a customer is the ability to understand their business problem and offer valuable technology advice that steers them in the direction...

In March of 2016, the Wizards welcomed the newest member of their consulting team, January Pfiester. As a former software engineer, January joins the team as a Senior Solution Consultant and will work to continue to expand the Bit-Wizards presence in the Austin, Texas.

A native Texan, January lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and two young children. She graduated from Baylor University with a major in Mathematics and minor in Computer Science.

January began her career as a consultant at Ernst & Young working on large software implementations. She spent subsequent years building web applications and working with software systems across a wide range of industries, from a start-up travel company to battle command systems for the US Army to mortgage banking. January has also helped companies re-engineer existing paper processes into paperless web solutions, reducing time and errors in daily business activities.

January is excited to be bringing her knowledge of software engineering to the consulting and relationship building side of the Bit-Wizards services line-up.

"The best first impression we can give a customer is the ability to understand their business problem and offer valuable technology advice that steers them in the direction of a viable solution to their need. January has an edge on this with her understanding of engineering on the back-end of a project. This development expertise helps her provide our clients with the very best advice when they need to make the decisions concerning the right approach to their business problem using technology as the solution." Vince Mayfield, CEO, Bit-Wizards

Januarys consulting efforts in Austin will center on all of the Bit-Wizards core service offerings. From application development, which includes mobile app development, line-of-business applications, and software integrations to digital marketing solutions focused on web development within the Kentico Content Management System (CMS) including all marketing features of the Kentico Integrated Marketing Solution. January will also consult with clients on the benefits of utilizing the Microsoft cloud for all of these project types.

In the three short months since joining the Bit-Wizards team, January has already integrated herself into the Microsoft partner ecosystem in the central region, and she has also been instrumental in bringing several projects to a successful close for new Bit-Wizards clients.

ABOUT BIT-WIZARDS

Bit-Wizards (http://www.BitWizards.com) is an innovative, award-winning, and leading technology agency in the Southeastern United States. With offices in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Georgia, Bit-Wizards fills the need of any business seeking to develop an application, build a brand, or move to the cloud.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
"Our collaboration with Google focuses on providing these cloud partners with an easy-to-use, turnkey marketing automation platform, enabling them to sell more with fewer resources"

Elastic Grid, a leading B2B channel marketing platform, announced two of its executive team, Cameron Avery, Founder and CEO and Kathryn Rose, Vice President of Business Strategy and Development, were invited to present at the Google Cloud Partner conferences in New York on April 14, 2016 and Dublin, Ireland on May 19.

In April, Avery discussed the common marketing challenges partners face in their day-to-day business. He then offered solutions delivered through Googles marketing program, powered by the Elastic Grid platform, enabling partners to generate more demand.

"We work with hundreds of channel partners around the world, said Avery, theyre often time poor and many have limited or no internal marketing resources, which makes marketing their businesses very challenging.

"Our collaboration with Google focuses on providing these cloud partners with an easy-to-use, turnkey marketing automation platform, enabling them to sell more with fewer resources, he said, adding, responsively designed nurture campaigns are available to encourage partners market the Google cloud products and services to their prospective customer base."

Avery also demonstrated the results of the program to the Google partner community. "In just a few short months, partners executing campaigns through the Google Portal on Elastic Grid have generated considerable pipeline and quantifiable revenue.

On May 19, Kathryn Rose takes the stage at the EMEA conference held at Googles Dublin Headquarters. Rose will discuss the buyer's journey and impress upon partners the need to perform a variety of different marketing activities to attract prospects at various stages of the buying cycle.

"Its widely accepted that over 80% of buyer decisions are made before the prospect even interacts with a salesperson," stated Rose. "Partners need to provide content along the entire journey, from awareness through decision, to stand out from their competition. This can be done through email and social posts, which Google provides to the partners through the Elastic Grid platform."

"The real secret sauce to the entire program is not simply the platform," says Rose. "Elastic Grid provides Grid Marketing Specialists (GMS) with extensive knowledge of the local market and language to support Google partners around the globe using the Elastic Grid platform."

Both Elastic Grid executives are encouraged by the success partners have had to the program. "Partners are excited and enthusiastic by the ease-of-use where they can see their campaigns, leads and pipeline in a single platform," says Avery.

Rose added, "The partners are enjoying the access to pre-written content and co-branded emails and microsite landing pages as well as real-time lead alerts. It allows them to focus on the business of doing business and letting our experts guide the marketing."

About Elastic Grid

Elastic Grid loves channels and is focused on delivering an enhanced partner experience through its scalable, easy-to-use channel marketing platform. Providing partners with 1:1 personal support, Elastic Grid helps B2B channel teams scale marketing programs globally, successfully grow partner adoption and drive more business for their channel partners and reseller networks.

Elastic Grid differentiates itself with a partner-first approach by combining a scalable marketing platform and real-time analytics with personal marketing support for every partner. Elastic Grid is revolutionizing the partner experience by creating a channel solution that partners love to use. Partners around the world depend on Elastic Grid to generate over 200,000 net new leads and more than $2.5 billion in pipeline.

For more information about Elastic Grid visit http://www.elasticgrid.com.
E-commerce and subscription management leader FastSpring (FastSpring.com) was recently named the winner of a prestigious Silver Stevie Award in the Customer Service Department of the Year category by The 14th Annual American Business Awards.

FastSpring provides a highly popular cloud-based digital commerce and subscription management platform for online vendors of desktop software, SaaS, and downloadable games. The latest honor from The American Business Awards once again shone the spotlight on FastSprings superb achievements in Customer Service when the American Business Awards announced its latest slate of winners on May 3, 2016.

Recognized as one of the nations premier business awards programs, the American Business Awards honor companies of all kinds for achievements across a variety of industries. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. were eligible to submit nominations in 2016  public and private, for-profit and non-profit, and large and small. More than 3,400 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted for 2016 consideration, with the FastSpring Customer Service Department nominated (and eventually achieving Silver) in the Customer Service Department of the Year category. The award marks the latest of several industry recognitions won by FastSprings acclaimed customer service team over the years.

"As a company that works hard to provide the very best customer service support to our thousands of customers worldwide, FastSpring is honored to be recognized once again with this latest Stevie Award, commented FastSpring CEO Chris Lueck. Customer-centricity is at the core of everything we do at FastSpring and we thank the American Business Awards for recognizing our efforts.

The judges were extremely impressed with the quality of entries we received this year. The competition was intense and every organization that has won should be proud, said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards.

Nicknamed the Stevies for the Greek word meaning crowned, the American Business Awards will be presented to winners at a gala ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City on Monday, June 20, 2016, and tickets for the event are on sale now. Meanwhile, details about The American Business Awards and the full list of 2016 Stevie winners are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/ABA.

About the Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in seven programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 10,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 60 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

About FastSpring

Headquartered in Santa Barbara, FastSpring provides thousands of customers worldwide with a proven, highly acclaimed, and all-in-one e-commerce, subscription management and billing platform.

Specifically designed to meet the needs of software, SaaS, and other online service companies, the FastSpring platform helps to maximize conversions, increase sales, and grow business  all while providing an award-winning client service experience 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

FastSprings awards and honors include multiple Stevie Awards, CODie Awards, and inclusion in the Inc. 500 and Software Magazine Top 500 lists, in addition to multiple appearances on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list through 2016. To find out more, please visit FastSpring.com.

For more information on FastSpring, please contact Christina OToole, at (805) 259-3557 or cotoole(at)FastSpring.com.

All companies referenced in this press release, including FastSpring and more are the trademarks of their respective owners.

# # #
SBS Groups President and Chief Executive Officer, James Bowman, will deliver the keynote at their 10th Annual Summit event. The keynote will address the actions companies need to take to stay relevant in business.

Bowman will speak on the evolution of business technology and its disruptive effect on the economy over the thirty years since the founding of SBS and the importance for all businesses to adapt and evolve to meet business trends. Additionally, the keynote will focus on SBS Groups own efforts to innovate to meet clients needs including the introduction of new business models, new services, and most recently the decision to embrace the Microsoft Intelligent Cloud as a major solution delivery and sales platform.

Summit 2016 is SBS Groups tenth annual Summit event, where SBS clients and friends gather to learn about the latest in Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Cloud and business intelligence technologies. Summit 2016 is being held in five cities (New York City, Chicago, Irvine, Dallas and Atlanta) at their respective Microsoft Technology Centers. The first event will take place on May 24th in New York City.

About SBS Group

SBS Group is a national Microsoft master VAR (Value Added Reseller) with Gold level competency in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). Over the past 25 years, they have been recognized as Microsoft Partner of the Year, Inner Circle Member and Microsoft President's Club member multiple times. The company is headquartered in Edison, New Jersey and operates offices across North America. For more information, please visit SBS Group's website at http://www.sbsgroupusa.com. Follow us on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/company/sbs-group or on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/sbsgroup.
US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker presents Tampa Hillsborough EDC CEO J.P. DuBuque and Director of International Business Lorrie Belovich with President's "E" Award for Export Service The Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation has demonstrated a sustained commitment to export expansion," said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today presented the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation (EDC) with the Presidents E Award for Export Service at a ceremony in Washington. The Presidents E Award is the highest recognition any U.S. entity can receive for making a significant contribution to the expansion of U.S. exports.

The Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation has demonstrated a sustained commitment to export expansion, said Secretary Pritzker in her congratulatory letter to the EDC, announcing its selection as an award recipient. The E Awards Committee was very impressed with the organizations work to help exporters understand the export process and enter new international markets. The Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporations dedication to promoting exports through management of trade mission programs was also particularly notable. Its achievements have undoubtedly contributed to national export expansion efforts that support the U.S. economy and create American jobs.

The Tampa Hillsborough EDC works to develop and sustain a thriving local economy in Hillsborough County and the cities of Tampa, Plant City, and Temple Terrace by focusing on the attraction, expansion, and retention of high-wage jobs and capital investment. The organizations International Business Development program, created and led by Lorrie Belovich, provides export services for local businesses, including export counseling, strategic planning, trade missions and more.

Export activity is an important contributor to the long-term economic prosperity of our region, said J.P. DuBuque, interim president and CEO of the Tampa Hillsborough EDC. Local companies that export help to raise Tampa and Hillsborough Countys profile as a center for global commerce and enhance our competitiveness.

In 1961, President Kennedy signed an executive order reviving the World War II E symbol of excellence to honor and provide recognition to America's exporters. Today, Secretary Pritzker honored 123 U.S. companies with the Presidents E Award for their outstanding work to reduce barriers to foreign markets and to open the door to more trade around the world.

In 2015, U.S. exports totaled $2.23 trillion, accounting for nearly 13 percent of U.S. GDP. Nationally, exports contributed to the U.S. economy, supporting an estimated 11.5 million jobs.

U.S. companies are nominated for the E Awards through the Department of Commerces U.S. Commercial Service office network, located within the Departments International Trade Administration, with offices in 108 U.S. cities and more than 70 countries. Criteria for the award is based on four years of successive export growth and case studies which demonstrate valuable support to exporters resulting in increased exports for the companys clients.

For more information about the E Awards and the benefits of exporting, visit http://www.export.gov.

The Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation works to develop and sustain a thriving local economy through the attraction, retention and expansion of high wage jobs and capital investment within targeted industry sectors. Working with C-level executives, site selection consultants, commercial real estate professionals, and other influential decision makers, the EDC provides customized, confidential relocation services to domestic and international companies interested in growing within Hillsborough County and the cities of Tampa, Temple Terrace and Plant City. Locally, the EDC helps existing businesses access the tools and resources they need to expand and succeed. Learn more at tampaedc.com.
"I am proud of these young student leaders receiving a Tesoro Youth Leadership Award to further their education," says Claes Nobel, founder of the NSHSS Foundation and senior member of the Nobel family.

The National Society of High School Scholars Foundation (NSHSS Foundation) in partnership with Tesoro Corporation today announced the winners of the Tesoro Youth Leadership Award. Tesoro launched the Tesoro Youth Leadership Award scholarship program in 2014 to recognize high school seniors who are leading by example in their schools and communities.

Of the 1,261 applicants, 20 winners were chosen to receive a $2,500 scholarship to be used for tuition, books, room and board or other college-related expenses. To be eligible for this award, students must reside in one of the 18 states where Tesoro operates and demonstrate financial need. As part of the scholarship requirements, applicants were asked to write an essay reflecting on how they apply Tesoros core values of integrity and respect through their leadership and community involvement. Since the program began in 2014, Tesoro Corporation has sponsored 30 scholarships.

I am extremely humbled by the longstanding partnership that the NSHSS Foundation has been afforded with Tesoro, and am proud of the young student leaders who are receiving a Tesoro Youth Leadership Award to further their education, said Claes Nobel, founder of the NSHSS Foundation and senior member of the family that established the Nobel Prize.

The 2016 Tesoro Youth Leadership Award Winners are:

Joseph Booth

Merced High School, Merced, California

John Choi

Albert Einstein Academy for Letters, Arts, and Sciences, Valencia, California

Lynn Dao

Franklin High School, Portland, Oregon

Gianfranco Filice

Christopher High School, Gilroy, California

Samuel Good

Weber High School, Huntsville, Utah

Aditya Kaushika

Appleton North High School, Appleton, Wisconsin

Kriti Kumar

West Valley High School, Hemet, California

Andrew Mitchell

St. Patrick - St. Vincent High School, Vallejo, California

Ananya Murali

Shorewood High School, Shorewood, Wisconsin

Elisa Nelson

Utah Connections Academy, Salt Lake City, Utah

Caitlyn Rich

Summerville Union High School, Tuolumne, California

Gabriella Sanders,

Vista Murrieta High School, Murrieta, California

Katherine Seibert

Deer Valley Home School, Medina, Texas

Morgan Stanfill

Otay Ranch High School, Chula Vista, California

Tanya Stockdale

Interlake High School, Bellevue, Washington

Joshua Teso

University Preparatory Academy, San Jose, California

Pao Thao

Harding Senior High School, Saint Paul, Minnesota

Kalpana Vaidya

Stephen F Austin High School, Sugar Land, Texas

Tiffany Wang

John H. Guyer High School, Denton, Texas

Micaela Wu

Arcadia High School, Temple City, California

Tesoro also is committed to exposing young people to careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields. On May 14, 2016 the Tesoro Los Angeles Refinery in Carson, California was joined by assembly member Mike A. Gibson and City of Carson Mayor Albert Robles in supporting a Career Awareness Day for high school and college students. The Career Awareness Day was a rare opportunity for students to actively interact with young professionals at Tesoro to learn about their academic and career path.

About the National Society of High School Scholars Foundation (NSHSS Foundation):

The NSHSS Foundation was founded in 2004 by Claes Nobel, senior member of the family that established the Nobel Prizes. The NSHSS Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity dedicated to supporting education in the form of scholarships for under-represented students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), business, economics, public policy, and environmental science and sustainability fields. Through special programs, the NSHSS Foundation connects young scholars with additional opportunities to advance their education, personal growth and career interests. The Foundation recognizes the need to produce more graduates in these fields in order to meet the demands of an ever-changing global economy and society to create a better future for all. For more information visit http://www.nshssfoundation.org.
With the help of their endowments, private colleges and universities continue to strive toward increasing affordability for their students, said Ken Redd, NACUBOs director of research and policy analysis.

The gap between the sticker price on a private college education and the amount most students actually pay continues to widen, according to new data from the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO).

In the 2015 NACUBO Tuition Discounting Study, 401 private, nonprofit colleges reported another year of record-breaking tuition discount rates for 2015-16, topping last years previous highs. For academic year 2015-16, the average institutional discount rateor the percentage of total gross tuition and fee revenue institutions give back to students as grant-based financial aidwas an estimated 48.6 percent for first-time, full-time freshmen and 42.5 percent for all undergraduates. In other words, these private colleges put about 42 cents on every dollar of tuition and fee revenue toward scholarships and grants.

For student recipients, those funds went further than ever before. About 88 percent of first-time, full-time freshmen and 77.6 percent of all undergraduates were awarded aid, which averaged roughly half the cost of tuition and fees for both cohorts.

Schools with the largest endowments tapped into those resources most frequently to fund scholarships, and were much more likely to put aid toward students demonstrated financial need. Institutions with endowments over $1 billion funded about one-third of their scholarships with endowment dollars, and used 85.5 percent of the grants to meet need. At schools with endowments under $25 million, 7 percent of scholarships came from endowment funds, and 76.7 percent of scholarships met need.

Even in a year of lower endowment investment returns, colleges and universities spent substantially more from their endowments. It is not surprising to see higher discount rates as many institutions are directing endowment spending to student financial aid, said NACUBO President and CEO John Walda.

While the discounting lessened students tuition burdens, many institutions are beginning to acutely feel effects of the strategy. Net revenue growth slowed to just 1.8 percentbelow the 2.2 percent rate of growth in 2013-14and 37.5 percent of institutions reported declining enrollments in both their first-year class and total student body.

With the help of their endowments, private colleges and universities continue to strive toward increasing affordability for their students, said Ken Redd, NACUBOs director of research and policy analysis. However, with net revenue growth slowing down and the nations student population evolving, many schools are testing strategies to ensure they can continue to deliver on their missions and remain financially sustainable in the years ahead.

The strategies CBOs and other higher education leaders employ to tackle these issues will have broad implications for many private institutions in the future, the report notes. To speak to a NACUBO spokesperson about the data and strategies schools are implementing, please contact Katy Hopkins at khopkins(at)nacubo(dot)org. The full report is available for purchase on the NACUBO website.

About NACUBO

NACUBO, founded in 1962, is a nonprofit professional organization representing chief administrative and financial officers at more than 2,100 colleges and universities across the country. NACUBO's mission is to advance the economic viability, business practices and support for higher education institutions in fulfillment of their missions. For more information, visit http://www.nacubo.org.

About the NACUBO Tuition Discounting Study

Since 1994, the annual NACUBO Tuition Discounting Study has measured tuition discount rates and other indicators of institutional grant aid awards provided by four-year private, nonprofit (independent) colleges and universities to undergraduate students. While many public colleges and universities may also award institutional grants, the study has focused on independent institutions because they typically award the largest proportion of such aid.
Belatrix Software, a leader in software development in Latin America, recently attended Nexus 2016, an event which brings together key figures from the world of nearshore services.

In its sixth year Nexus 2016, organized by Nearshore Americas, brought together over 150 attendees from throughout Latin America, including the former President of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla. For the first time the event was held in the tech-centric city of San Francisco.

Charles Green, Belatrixs Director of Thought Leadership, spoke at the event during a panel discussion on how startups from Silicon Valley can best make use of partners from Latin America. Start-ups, as they seek to innovate faster and more effectively on limited budgets, can benefit in particular from the skills, capabilities, and flexibility provided by nearshore partners. Charles Green highlighted some of the key successes Belatrix has had working with startups in the Valley, and commented: Ultimately it's about innovation and getting better products to market faster, and nearshore is ideally positioned to provide this. Nearshore can provide ease of collaboration and visibility, which makes applying real-time Agile development services much easier to implement.

Belatrix, which recently inaugurated new offices in Buenos Aires, continues to grow rapidly. Startups from Silicon Valley and other innovation hubs throughout the USA and Europe are helping to drive this growth.

About Belatrix Software

Belatrix Software helps clients achieve the full impact of their R&D capabilities developing high quality, innovative software, QA, testing and mobile solutions that enables clients to generate best-in-class software products, decrease time to market, and gain competitive edge.

Belatrix's clients include both established Fortune level and emerging, venture backed firms. Some of the firm's clients are Disney, Adobe, SiriusXM, mFoundry, and Chatham Financial. Belatrix is a South American company with offices in Naples, New York, Buenos Aires, Mendoza and Lima. For more information, please call +1 (855) 521-4533 or visit http://www.belatrixsf.com.
AIM Solder, a leading global manufacturer of solder assembly materials for the electronics industry, announces the appointment of Manuel Munguia to the position of Senior Technical Support Engineer, Mexico, Central and South America. Operating out of AIM Soldadura de Mexico, Mr. Munguia will be responsible for providing technical support to customers in Mexico along with increased responsibility supporting key corporate accounts in Brazil, Argentina, and other South American accounts.

Mr. Munguia has over fifteen years of experience in the solder assembly materials industry, four of which came from his former position with AIM as a Technical Applications Engineer. His knowledge and expertise align greatly with AIMs focus on providing customers with high quality technical support and information. Mr. Munguia is a Certified IPC Specialist which will help him provide corporate accounts in Central and South America with technical support and recommendations according to the IPC quality standard. Mr. Munguias proficiency in his previous role is sure to continue in his new role as a Senior Technical Support Engineer for Mexico, Central and South America.

We are pleased Manuel will take on his new role as Senior Technical Support Engineer for Mexico, Central and South America, said Carlos Tafoya, AIMs Technical Support Director. I am confident that Manuels expertise and skills will be a great fit in this role, as he will provide quality technical support to the Central and South American solder assembly markets.

Based in Mexico Manuel may be reached by phone at +5213316014215 or by email at mmunguia(at)aimsolder(dot)com.

About AIM

Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, AIM Solder is a leading global manufacturer of assembly materials for the electronics industry with manufacturing, distribution and support facilities located throughout the world. AIM produces advanced solder products such as solder paste, liquid flux, cored wire, bar solder, epoxies, lead-free and halogen-free solder products, preforms, and specialty alloys such as indium and gold for a broad range of industries. A recipient of many prestigious SMT industry awards, AIM is strongly committed to innovative research and development of product and process improvement as well as providing customers with superior technical support, service and training. For more information about AIM, visit http://www.aimsolder.com.

Upcoming Events:

May 19, 2016  TEC Warsaw  Warsaw, Poland

May 19, 2016  SMTA Michigan  Livonia, MI

June 9, 2016  SMTA Philadelphia  King of Prussia, PA
We developed the VCEP application with NTI specifically in mind.

Northeast Technical Institute (NTI), a nationally accredited career school with three campuses in Maine, recently launched an innovative, leading edge virtual admissions tool that helps prospective students to make more informed decisions about their education and career path.

NTIs Virtual Career and Education Planner (VCEP) is a sophisticated web-based application built for the school by Shane Sparks and his developers at Enrollment Resources, Inc., an admissions research firm based in BC, Canada. The application is used by NTI Advisors during the initial admissions interview with each prospective student. The VCEP takes the prospect through a series of targeted questions which help to more clearly identify education and career goals, personal strengths, motivation and social style. Identifying social styles helps prospective students understand how well their nature fits with certain career types. For example, Analytical people thrive in jobs that appeal to their logical nature, Expressives do well in careers that have interaction with customers and Amiables make great care givers.

At the conclusion of the interview, a detailed Education and Career Readiness score is generated for the candidate. The report's analytics help to determine if there's a school and program match for the potential student. This unique admissions process also helps NTI to maintain the highest possible completion rates and ensure graduates are highly employable in their field of study.

Shane Sparks of Enrollment Resources said, NTI was the ideal partner to pilot the VCEP application. Theyve been a trusted partner for over 10 years, and have an industry leading approach to admissions and retention with the utmost emphasis on student employ-ability and placement. In fact, we developed the VCEP application with NTI specifically in mind. We believe the future of student recruitment will be in tools that ensure qualification and fit, so schools meet placement and student outcome goals.

About Northeast Technical Institute

Northeast Technical Institute is Maines only locally owned and operated accredited career training school with campuses in Bangor, Scarborough and an extension campus in Lewiston. NTI is a VA approved school in Bangor and Scarborough and offers Federal Financial Aid, grants and scholarships for many of its programs and for those who qualify. With its short-term, hands-on approach to training, NTI graduates are job-ready, may earn national certification and are prepared to meet the industrys staffing needs for qualified professionals. The school offers in-demand training for a range of medical programs, including Medical Assistant, Medical Lab Assistant, Medical Coding and Billing and Phlebotomy. HVAC/R and CDL Truck Driving are offered at the schools Scarborough and Bangor campuses. The Scarborough and Lewiston campuses also offer Information Technology (PC Repair, Network Administration). Classes start each week or month for most programs.
Michael A. Raffaele, Esq.

Delaware County full-service law firm Raffaele Puppio is pleased to announce that partners Michael A. Raffaele and Gabrielle Sereni have been named 2016 Pennsylvania Super Lawyers. Raffaele was recognized in the practice area of family law, while Sereni was recognized for her work in school and education law.

Part of Thomson Reuters, Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers who, through a peer review and independent research process, have been identified as attaining a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Only the top 5 percent of Pennsylvanias 50,000 lawyers are named to the Super Lawyers list in any given year.

Candidates are evaluated on 12 indicators of peer recognition and professional achievement, including verdicts and settlements; honors and awards; special licenses and certifications; pro bono and community service efforts; and scholarly lectures and writings. The ultimate objective of Super Lawyers is to create a credible, comprehensive and diverse list of outstanding attorneys that can be used as a resource for other practitioners and consumers searching for legal counsel.

Raffaele is managing partner of Raffaele Puppio, one of the largest full-service law firms in Delaware County. He focuses his practice on family law, including divorce, equitable distribution, child custody and child support, alimony and spousal support, and more. A lifelong resident of Delaware County, he graduated from St. Josephs Preparatory School before going on to earn degrees from Lehigh University and the Temple University School of Law.

Chair of Raffaele Puppios special education department, Sereni focuses her practice on special ed law, representing school districts, intermediate units, and charter schools. A frequent lecturer, Sereni is sought-after across Pennsylvania as an authority on special education law. She received a bachelors degree from St. Josephs University before going on to earn a masters degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania and her law degree from Villanova Law School. She lives in Concord Township, Delaware County.

About Raffaele Puppio  Raffaele Puppio is one of the largest and most established full-service law firms in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Attorneys within the firm are known for their legal prowess among the bench and bar in Delaware County, having decades of experience representing school districts, municipalities, businesses and individual clients, helping to solve legal problems while avoiding future legal issues. The attorneys provide sound legal counsel in the areas of education law, government and municipal services, family law, general litigation, personal injury, commercial real estate and business transactions, elder law, estate administration and planning, and criminal law.
Exterior of 2860 Michelle, the new home of Healthcare Success.

Healthcare Success, LLC, one of the nations leading advertising agencies for hospitals and medical groups has moved to a new office space located at 2860 Michelle Drive, Suite 230, Irvine, CA, 92606. The new space was designed specifically for Healthcare Success with the goal of fostering greater team cohesiveness and further enhancing efficiencies within the agency.

Over the last year, weve expanded our team considerably and our old space didnt fit our needs anymore. The new office gives our team and our clients the room to collaborate and continue to produce marketing that grows each clients patient base and ultimately their revenue, said Stewart Gandolf, CEO and Co-Founder of Healthcare Success. The current Healthcare Success team totals 30 members in the office with an additional group of 25-30 supporting team members around the country.

The agency represents a range of clients from the medical space, including hospitals, medical practices, device manufacturers and corporations throughout the U.S. In 2015 they were ranked 24th of the top 50 Orange County Advertising Agencies in The Orange County Business Journals Annual Book of Lists.

Everything we do is focused around growing each clients business. From creating websites to online and traditional advertising campaigns, we needed a space that provided inspiration to our team to create impactful creative campaigns, said Gandolf. The new office space has an open floor plan with offices and two conference rooms surrounding the exterior of the suite.

For more information on Healthcare Success, LLC, go to healthcaresuccess.com or call (800) 656-0907.

About Healthcare Success, LLC: Healthcare Success, LLC is a leading medical advertising agency. Since 2007, the agency has created and implemented scientifically proven marketing methods to deliver patients for hospitals, medical practices, device manufacturers and corporations. Led by CEO Stewart Gandolf, MBA, the company delivers patients using proven direct marketing strategies, provides education on healthcare marketing through seminars across the country and has a weekly newsletter with more than 17,000 subscribers. For more information on Healthcare Success, LLC, go to healthcaresuccess.com or call (800) 656-0907.

# # #
I could not have achieved this without the support of everyone at Connecticut School of Broadcasting - Cherry Hill, NJ."

When Paola Nunez was a little girl, she used to watch the Spanish version of Good Morning America (Despierta America!) with her Mom, and daydream about being a part of a show like that. Well now she is! Nunez recently had this to say, "I am very overjoyed to announce that I recently landed a position as an Associate Producer at Disney's 6abc in Philadelphia, and I could not have achieved this without the support of everyone at Connecticut School of Broadcasting - Cherry Hill, NJ."

Tired of waitressing at a local restaurant chain, Nunez decided to finally follow her dream and attend a Connecticut School of Broadcasting Studio Tour where she was hooked! Shortly after graduating, she landed a position as the weekend Master Control Operator for WPPX - ION Networks Television, Channel 61 in Philadelphia. There, she had the opportunity to learn even more about broadcast television and FCC regulations. She also sought the guidance of Cherry Hill Campus Director, Tom DeFranco & Campus Coordinator, Brian Fish to help her find freelance video production work at Survey Magazine in Philadelphia. This quickly turned into a full time position as Media Director, and gave Paola the experience she needed to answer the call from 6abc just a year later. That, and a little help from Connecticut School of Broadcasting/Cherry Hill broadcast journalism instructor, Bob Salter, who helped her prepare a creative and well representing cover letter and resume that stood out. Nunez is elated, "Now, I get to help one of the highest ranked stations in my area create content that attracts audiences, both on television screens and digital platforms. I couldn't be happier!"
IQubz (http://iqubz.com) announced today that it has joined Microsoft Power BI Red Carpet Partner Program. Power BI is a Microsofts cloud-based self-service BI offering that lets users perform data analysis and data visualization, create insightful dashboards and reports, and share them with colleagues.

According to Microsoft Power BI web site (http://powerbi.com), "Power BI is a suite of business analytics tools to analyze data and share insights. It helps you monitor business and get answers quickly with rich dashboards available on every device. It transforms your companys data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you."

"Data doesnt tell the full story, until you connect the dots. Intelligence isnt as valuable, when it is in retrospect," said Ashu Shende, Managing Partner at IQubz. "Power BI empowers you to bring together the data scattered across your ERPs and CRMs to make it meaningful and deliver real-time, actionable intelligence."

(See an example of fully interactive Power BI report at Microsoft Power BI partner showcase here: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-showcase/IQubz-Manufacturing)

IQubz has delivered robust solutions in Microsoft BI and Scribe data integration to clients across a wide range of industries in USA, Canada, Mexico, UK, India and Australia for nearly a decade. To participate in the North America partner program, IQubz has demonstrated in-depth knowledge of Power BI capabilities and best practices, as well as its architecture and content packs.

"With our Power BI expertise, combined with our experience in custom BI development and data integration for ERP, CRM and eCommerce applications, IQubz is uniquely positioned to help clients embrace self-service BI in their organizations," said Stephan Setran, Managing Partner at IQubz.

About IQubz

IQubz LLC, based in Orange County, California, is a global software solutions and service provider specializing in Business Intelligence (BI), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Data Integration. IQubz is a Microsoft Certified Partner and Scribe Elite Partner. IQubz offers solutions and services based on Microsoft technology, Microsoft Dynamics business solutions and Scribe Software data integration tools. IQubz is owned and managed by professionals with solid backgrounds in a variety of industries including financial services, hospitality and travel, retail and wholesale distribution, manufacturing, field service and professional services. Additional information can be obtained at http://www.iqubz.com.

Trademarks

IQubz (pronounced "I-cubes") is a registered trademark of IQubz LLC in the United States and other countries. Other product and service names mentioned and logos displayed herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact

IQubz LLC

http://iqubz.com/contact

Stephan U. Setran

+1 949.273.8876
A big thank you to our sponsors and speakers for helping us put together a dynamic program for our attendees.

JAMIS Software Corporation, a leading provider of cloud ERP software for the government contracting industry and other project-focused organizations, hosted another successful annual JAMIS Summit. The Summit, JAMIS premier client event of the year was held at a new venue, the Mission Bay Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa April 24-27.

This years conference sponsors included ITB Consulting, SDL Consulting, Aronson, BDO, Dixon Hughes Goodman, Wells Fargo Capital Finance, Capital Edge Consulting, Federal Publications Seminars, MGO Mensch, and The Boon Group. The 2016 Summit sponsors were instrumental contributors to the event, which provided JAMIS customers, partners, and industry experts from across the U.S. the opportunity to share and exchange knowledge in an engaging atmosphere.

The Keynote Speaker this year was Major Dan Rooney, a three-time tour of duty F-16 pilot, PGA professional and the founder of the Folds of Honor Foundation. Major Rooney received the White House's Presidential Volunteer Service Award, the Air National Guard's Distinguished Service Medal, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and The PGA of America's Inaugural Patriot Award. His book A Patriots Calling: Living Life Between Fear and Faith was published in 2012. He was also recognized as one of People Magazine's Heroes of the Year and one of ABC World News Tonight's Persons of the Year.

We were honored to have Major Dan Rooney at the 2016 annual JAMIS Summit, said Jeff Noolas President of JAMIS Software. His inspiring stories delivered a powerful message about leadership that captivated each and every member of our audience.

JAMIS was proud to present GovCon expert speakers such as Chad Braley, CEO of Capital Edge Consulting who provided valuable insight on hot topics in accounting including the current DCAA audit environment; Ken Bricker, Partner at Cherry Bekaert who provided his expertise as a former auditor and discussed DCAA & SBA updates; Taylor Boon, Director at the Boon Group who educated attendees on planning ahead for the Affordable Care Act and the Service Contract Act requirements; Noah Leiden, Partner at Baker Tilly, covered Indirect rates and intermediary allocations; Jill Haynie, Director of MGO Mensch, who guided attendees in understanding beyond the basics of internal controls and documentation; and Steve Swales, Partner at Aronson LLC who educated attendees with strategies of surviving pre-award accounting system audits.

In addition to the highly anticipated speaking sessions, attendees participated in a variety of educational breakout sessions on JAMIS Prime and JAMIS Classic, explored product demos and received post-conference comprehensive Prime ERP product training straight from the experts.

To complement the learning sessions, Summit participants enjoyed their evenings at an Italian Riviera themed dinner, a murder mystery dinner, as well the option to join a beer tasting at Stone Brewery World Bistro in Liberty Station on the last day of the Summit.

We are pleased with the feedback received from Summit participants so far and are already looking forward to another successful and entertaining Summit in 2017, said JAMIS Vice President of Development and Support, Naomi May. A big thank you to our sponsors and speakers for helping us put together a dynamic program for our attendees.

The JAMIS Summit offers invaluable networking opportunities for JAMIS customers, as well as hands-on experience with government and accounting compliance products and services, all while enjoying the wonderful food and accommodations of the San Diego, Mission Bay Hilton Resort and Spa.

To read more about The JAMIS Summit 2016, the event agenda and speakers, please visit: http://www.JAMISSummit.com.
DNB Engineering's Custom Built 3.0MV Marx Generator for High Voltage Attachment Testing

DNB Engineering Inc., a full service test lab and world leader and recognized expert in certification testing, has built and opened a brand new, state-of-the-art Direct Effects Lightning Test Facility in Anaheim, California.

The new 8,000 square foot facility features all custom-built equipment designed and constructed by DNB Engineering. The unprecedented lab and equipment are able to generate all of the waveforms necessary to meet the stringent test standards for lightning threats to both aircraft and earth-bound equipment.

The indoor Lightning Test Facility features a large ground plane for high voltage attachment testing that measures 32 feet by 36 feet. The facility also includes a unique darkroom that is used for both photographic and ignitable mixture (flammable gas) test methods. Another notable feature of the facility is the dedicated Customer Viewing Area where DNB Engineerings clients can safely watch their tests being conducted.

DNB Engineering, which started out as an Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) test facility, has been family-owned and operated since 1979. They have been the industrys leading expert in Indirect Effects Lightning Testing for more than 30 years. The company used all of that expertise and developed their Direct Effects Lightning capabilities over a decade ago. With their new indoor Direct Effects Lightning facility in Anaheim, DNB Engineering will be able to accommodate even larger test objects for their customers.

This new facility is the latest groundbreaking investment for DNB Engineering. This is a significant milestone in the 37-year history of DNB Engineering, said Doug Broaddus, Executive Vice President. Our new dedicated Direct Effects Lightning Facility will enable us to meet the heavy demands of the industry more efficiently. We truly pride ourselves in meeting the needs of our customers and growing with their business.

DNB Engineering continues to lead the industry in Direct Effects Lightning Testing with their unrivaled capabilities, which include: High Voltage Attachment Testing (3.0MV Marx Generator), Swept Channel Attachment Testing, High Current Physical Damage Testing (Component A, B, C, D), Structural Testing, Component Testing and Fuel System Testing.

Additionally, the new test lab in Anaheim will be able to perform all Direct Effects Testing according to the following specifications or requirements:



RTCA DO-160, Section 23

SAE ARP5412, ARP5413, ARP5414, ARP5415, ARP5416

SAE AE4L

MIL-STD-1757 (T01, T02, T03, T04, T05)

MIL-STD-464

Meets FAA AC 20-136

EUROCAE ED-14D, ED-105

AC/AMJ20-53B, AS5830

Near Strike Lightning

High Voltage Waveforms

The new Anaheim facility is available and now open for commercial and government testing. To request a tour of the facility, please contact John Pilatos at (714) 870-7781. The Direct Effects Lightning Test Facility is located at 2311 W La Palma Ave, Anaheim, CA.

About DNB Engineering, Inc.

DNB Engineering, Inc. a full-service test lab that has been family-owned and operated since 1979. They provide Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC), Lightning, High Intensity Radiated Fields (HIRF), Environmental, Product Safety and Regulatory Test capabilities. With four locations in California, one in Utah and another in Arizona, DNB Engineering has the facilities, certifications and the experienced personnel to meet all testing, qualification, and regulatory compliance specifications. DNB Engineering provides an excellent facility, highly trained and experienced personnel at competitive prices. The companys goal is to provide a facility for companies where they will be able to obtain a qualified unbiased third party product evaluation.
Many former foster youth are working towards brighter futures..but getting to and from their destinations isn't easy.

For hundreds of San Antonio youth making the often difficult transition from foster care to life on their own, challenges await around every corner. Often removed from the care of their families due to neglect and abuse, many former foster youth are working towards brighter futures by working or going to school. But getting to and from their destinations isnt easy because most do not have the funds to secure a reliable means of transportation.

Thanks to a generous $10,000 donation from the Najim Family Foundation, however, dozens of foster youth in our community will receive monthly bus passes from THRU Project, an organization established to help youth overcome the challenges of growing up in the foster care system. THRU Project, a 501(c) 3 non-profit, provides guidance, support and advocacy in order to prepare them for life after foster care.

THRU Project is beyond grateful to the Najim Family Foundation for their $10,000 grant to support our Pass to Success program, said Elaine Hartle, Executive Director of THRU Project.. Pass to Success provides THRU Project youth with a monthly bus pass enabling them to find and maintain employment, attend school and to obtain the resources needed for housing and health.

For example, Aaron came to our program three months ago homeless and unable to see a way out of his situation. His bus pass has enabled him to work consistently for the last two months and his Advisor has helped him connect to resources that have provided temporary housing. The bus pass provided by THRU Project was the first step in supporting Aaron in his transition from homeless to hopeful.

There are many other youth with similar stories to Aarons. Hartle says THRU Project needs approximately $20,000 to furnish bus passes to former foster youth in our community who currently need them. In previous years, the bus passes were donated to the program. This year, THRU Project must work to secure funding to purchase them. The Najim Family Foundations generous grant gets the organization half way there.

Anyone wishing to donate directly to the Pass to Success program can make a contribution online at http://www.THRUProject.org.

In addition to important physical resources such as bus passes, cell phones and other daily needs, THRU Project also supports former foster youth through its Youth Advisor program.

To learn more, contact THRU Project at info(at)THRUProject(dot)org.

About THRU Project:

THRU Project, founded in 2011, is a non-profit organization that supports foster youth as they age out of the foster care system. Oftentimes, these kids are alone and have no one to guide them through this critical time. Many of them end up pregnant, homeless or incarcerated. THRU Project recruits and train advisors to provide them one-on-one guidance. THRU Project helps them get a job, apply for college and set up an apartment. THRU Projects mission is to provide them with the resources to achieve a successful life.
Rakesh Ramde

Structure Law Group, LLP is pleased to announce that attorneys Rakesh Ramde and Ethan Solove have joined the firm. Their additions will greatly enhance the firms transactional and litigation practices, respectively. We are very excited to have attorneys of their caliber join the firm and our clients will benefit greatly as a result, said Partner Mark Figueiredo.

Rakesh Ramde routinely handles a wide range of technology and commercial matters including corporate formation and governance, business financing, intellectual property, commercial transactions, real estate transactions and general business counseling. Mr. Ramde has an excellent and established reputation in capital formation and strategic investments and representing technology start-ups and established companies. Prior to joining Structure Law Group and since 1998, Mr. Ramde was a practicing attorney with corporate clients and at established Silicon Valley law firms, such as Cooley LLP and Pennie & Edmonds. He has provided services to technology clients, start-ups and technology investors for many years. Mr. Ramde routinely managed cross-functional teams in the acquisition, strategic partnering, sale and development of technology in wireless, software, cloud and semiconductor sectors. Recently, Mr. Ramde led the investment in Applied Protein Sciences, a biotech start-up company recently acquired by Pivot Pharmaceutics. Mr. Ramde received his dual law and MBA degrees from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Carnegie-Mellon University, Tepper School of Business. He previously was awarded both B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from UCLA and USC respectively. Prior to his legal career, Mr. Ramde was a consultant at the management consulting firm PRTM (now a part of PwC) in the telecommunications group. Mr. Ramde began his career as an engineer at Hughes Electronics. Prior to joining Structure Law Group I collaborated with the SLG team and was very impressed with the high quality of their services, said Mr. Ramde. The firm is well-situated to offer a broad range of legal services in the areas that are important to me and my clients. I am very much looking forward to building on the SLG tradition.

Ethan Solove helps clients with complex business and commercial litigation. Prior to joining Structure Law Group, Mr. Solove practiced in the Philadelphia office of Dechert LLP handling complex commercial and securities litigation. During his time there, he gained a significant amount of experience in business litigation working with major companies from a wide array of industrial sectors, including technology, pharmaceutical, and financial. Mr. Solove graduated as a Levy Scholar from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and is admitted to practice law in California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I am very excited to join Structure Law Group! said Ethan Solove. My passion lies within working in a truly collaborative environment to accomplish the highest quality legal work for top-notch clientsand SLG is the perfect place to do it. Here, we work as a close-knit team to develop and implement only the most cost-effective strategies for the success of our clients no matter their needs, and I am thrilled to be on board.

Mr. Ramde can be reached at:

rramde(at)structurelaw(dot)com or 408-441-7500

Mr. Solove can be reached at:

esolove(at)structurelaw(dot)com or 408-441-7500

About Structure Law Group, LLP

Structure Law Group, LLP is a San Jose business law firm that is comprised of a dedicated team of legal professionals with high levels of experience in the areas of business, corporations, limited liability companies, commercial real estate, intellectual property, employment, and business litigation. SLGs client base includes companies of all sizes as well as individual entrepreneurs.

For more information about the firm please go to http://www.structurelaw.com, visit our blog at http://www.sanjosebusinesslawyersblog.com.
Multiculturalism thrives in Belize Theres nothing like sharing a sense of discovery to bring people together.

As summer approaches, The Lodge at Chaa Creek is advising travelers to stay tuned for a June announcement of a new initiative that can turn a summer vacation into a unique learning adventure for people of all ages.

Lucy Fleming, Chaa Creek co-owner and co-founder of the Belize Natural History Centre, said that the Belizean eco resort will be kicking off a cultural extravaganza designed to introduce visitors to Belizes famously harmonious multicultural society while exploring the various ethnic groups that make up the tiny countrys richly diverse melting pot.

Over the years, weve realised that, in addition to the stunning scenery, lovely weather and wealth of things to do, our visitors are struck by the number of distinct cultures that make up Belizean society. Although English is the primary language, guests hear Mayan, Spanish, Garifuna, Creole, Asian dialects and even Mennonite German on a daily basis, and they become curious about how Belize attracted so many different ethnic groups.

We decided to make it easy and interesting for visitors to explore Belizes various cultures and to see how they blended together to create the foundation of present day Belize, Ms. Fleming said.

One aspect of Chaa Creeks cultural exposition will be the launch of a new initiative, the Belize Travel University, or BTU, a project designed to allow guests to include a cultural learning adventure as part of their holiday, Ms. Fleming said.

Were very excited about the BTU, and our educational committee is currently finalizing details, materials and everything else involved in offering an easy, comprehensive, educational experience that will be as enjoyable as it is educational, she said, adding that the BTU will be a hands-on, experiential learning adventure of interest to people of all ages and backgrounds.

Families, couples, groups and individuals will all be invited to take part, and the organizers are paying particular attention to activities that all participants can enjoy together.

Theres nothing like sharing a sense of discovery to bring people together. Were looking to involve families, couples and individuals interested in meeting new friends while learning about Belize's different cultures in fun, interactive ways, she said.

Education has always been an important component to the responsible travel philosophy Chaa Creek promotes, Ms. Fleming added.

Chaa Creeks Belize Travel University is one aspect of the Belize eco resorts summer cultural extravaganza, which will include a Maya Summer Solstice observation on June 20, 2016, and a range of other initiatives and activities.

Well be announcing more details soon, but our guests can rest assured that theyll have stimulating stories to tell when they return home, and school reports such as, 'How I spent my summer vacation' are about to become more interesting.

For right now, were encouraging people to stay tuned, Ms. Fleming said.

The Lodge at Chaa Creek is a multi-award winning eco resort set within a 400-acre private nature reserve along the banks of the Macal River in Belize.
With arrangements, firms have a single pane of glass for partners to understand the full lifecycle of the client relationship, understand how to improve it, and understand how to sustainably manage it, profitably.

Prosperoware, a leading enterprise software company delivering innovative technology transforming the business of legal and professional services, today announces the official release of Umbria 3.0, featuring Umbria Arrangements, a new contract management module that combines tracking of fee arrangements including AFAs, Outside Counsel Guidelines as well as renewals. The introduction of Umbria Arrangements makes the terms of each arrangement actionable and, in conjunction with Umbrias rich client and matter planning functions, empowers firms to understand their deals, easily model and price new matters, and sustain profitability.

Prosperowares Umbria is a data-first platform implemented by some of the industrys most innovative firms, and provides actionable business intelligence which enables lawyers and other professionals to understand their true cost of service delivery and to use that information to enable price discussions, competitiveness, and predictability in the delivery of their legal services.

Firms have been under increasing pressure to employ Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) for their clients. A recent study from BTI Consulting notes AFAs are on a significant rise, jumping to 35.6% of total spend of legal departments outside counsel spend in 2015--up from 21.7% in 2013-- citing improved client focus, predictability in budgets, a more streamlined approach to work, and double-digit savings. The growing use of Outside Counsel Guidelines (OCGs) compounds the problem, leading to delays in billing and payments.

Combined, AFAs and OCGs substantially impact profitability since lawyers may not fully understand the terms of each engagement they make with their clients, or have an easy way to track matter progress against those arrangements. In addition to AFAs, there are critical elements of deals such as the terms of OCGs trapped in billers notes that are simply not actionable and can be a key cause for write downs and bottom of the bill discounts, further impacting profitability.

To address this concern, Prosperoware has brought to market Umbria Arrangements in Umbria 3.0, a contract management module that tracks the combination of Outside Counsel Guidelines and client-level or matter-level terms on each fee arrangement. This functionality includes rich rate card function for hourly matters, the tracking of all AFAs as well as arrangement renewals so that critical notification dates are not missed for rate increases.

With Umbria Arrangements, the arrangement is now actionable. Partners management of their matters has been extended allowing them to understand any time entry or expenses that may be in violation of the clients OCGsand, therefore, not payable. The partner is empowered to take rapid action to avoid unnecessary write-down and write-offs and prevent leakage. Additional new features in Umbria 3.0 also include:



Enhanced UX through clean, easy to navigate user interface

Spend planning which allows lawyers to plan yearly, quarterly or monthly budgets for recurring or multi-year matters

Improved business intelligence with Practice Group Leader dashboards and a new profit allocation module that allows firms to provide multiple profitability models

New Experience module which includes firm directory, matter, client, vendor and external contacts profiling

Support for bottom of the bill discounts

Planned write-downs and write-offs

Revenue forecasting

Out-of-the-box integration with Rippe & Kingston time & billing system

Keith Lipman, President of Prosperoware, comments, As the complexity of the business relationship increases, firms need a single pane of glass for partners to understand the full lifecycle of the client relationship, understand how to improve it, and understand how to sustainably manage it, profitably. With arrangements, firms are empowered to understand the full scope and lifecycle of their deals. Umbria 3.0 shows the value of a core technology platform that cohesively addresses the challenges of law firms today.

About Prosperoware

Prosperoware is an enterprise software company focused on law firms, corporate legal departments, and professional services firms. Our customers include half of the G20 and AmLaw 100 firms as well as large global corporations and Big Four accounting firms. Our innovative software transforms how professionals work and enables firms to deliver more value to clients while protecting profitability. We empower firms to reduce costs, improve profitability, and better compete by:

Improving relationships with clients by delivering predictable fees and beneficial insight into work performed

Empowering professionals to price and budget while leveraging modern profitability metrics

Evolving to a need to know security model without impacting workflow

Simplifying iManage administration and improving user adoption of electronic files

Our teams work primarily from offices in London, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Our 270+ customers range in size from small firms with just a handful of users to those with more than 14,000. Prosperoware customers include: Akin Gump, Goodwin Procter, Baker Botts, Hill Dickinson, Berwin Leighton Paisner, DLA Piper, Duane Morris, Hughes Hubbard & Reed, Sheppard Mullin, Comcast, and NBCUniversal.
Smartware Group, Inc., producer of the cloud-based Bigfoot CMMS, announced today the recipient of its inaugural annual employee recognition award. Adam Buehne, an in-house consultant with Smartware Group, was selected to receive the Spirit of Bob Award for his dedication and contributions to the company.

The Spirit of Bob Award acknowledges a Smartware Group employee who embodies Bob Peelstroms spirit and the companys values. The award considers various traits including unrivaled dedication, a passion for learning, outside-the-box thinking and vocal contribution. Both clients and fellow co-workers submitted nominations for the award by providing detailed descriptions of how their nominee best embodies the criteria.

We established the Spirit of Bob Award to not only commemorate a beloved and valuable former member of the Smartware Group team, but also to celebrate the achievements and innovation of our employees, said Paul Lachance, president of Smartware Group. Adam was a natural choice to be the inaugural recipient of the award, and his nominations speak to the caliber of his contributions to our company.

The Spirit of Bob Award was established last year in memory of former Smartware Group employee Robert A. Peelstrom, Jr., who worked as a documentation coordinator with the company until his passing in May 2015. A graduate of the University of Connecticut, Peelstrom taught English and played the banjo for years in a slew of local bands in Meredith, N.H., before launching his computer career with Radio Shack. In 2005, Peelstrom joined Smartware Group, where he wrote most of the companys documentation and help files. Peelstrom was also an instrumental member of the design team, leaving his mark on inventory, purchasing and countless other areas of the companys Bigfoot CMMS solution.

I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Bob through my early days with Smartware Group, Buehne said. I still sense his mentorship and see that his legacy lives on in all that we do today. For that, Im truly grateful.

Buehne is a seasoned consultant leveraging more than 20 years in the manufacturing sector spanning roles in operations management, engineering and maintenance. A strategist and visionary when it comes to software processes, Buehne has focused his energies on empowering clients to reach operational excellence. After spending twelve years working abroad, he relocated to his native state of New Hampshire and joined Smartware Group in 2014.

I have worked with Adam over the last year to optimize Bigfoot CMMS for Bergstrom Inc., said maintenance supervisor Richard Tassoni, a Smartware Group client who nominated Buehne. Any time I have had a question, he has always taken my call or returned it promptly. Adam is a true asset to the Bigfoot team.

About Smartware Group, Inc.

Smartware Group, Inc., headquartered in Center Harbor, N.H., produces Bigfoot CMMS for manufacturing, distribution, data centers, hospitality, mining, and energy & utilities industries.

Since 2002, Bigfoot has helped more than 10,000 users worldwide improve facility and equipment maintenance operations with advanced capabilities that include preventive maintenance (PMs) and predictive maintenance, work order scheduling, maintenance requests, asset life cycle management, parts replacement inventory, and built-in reporting. Bigfoot CMMS native functionality paired with its intuitive design allows maintenance professionals to implement the solution and get results quickly, often in a matter of weeks.

The Bigfoot solution earned a 2015 Product of the Year Gold award by Plant Engineering magazine, and previously won a Bronze Stevie Award during the 11th Annual International Business Awards in the Best Interface Design category. Experience the Bigfoot difference by accessing a free trial at http://www.bigfootcmms.com/free-trial today.
Cielo application

Itellum, a Costa Rica-based, privately owned and operated international telecommunications, Internet and technology company with a focus on US and Central American markets, announces that its Cielo unified communications application has surpassed 12,000 registered users in Costa Rica, making it the leading and fastest growing application of its kind in that country.

Itellum, which is a locally-licensed internet and telephone operator that owns the Cielo application and infrastructure, has taken a unique approach by incorporating features not found in competing apps, such as secure voice capabilities, video calling, and a variety of international calling options. These attributes give Cielo the power and functionality of a true unified communications program. In addition, Itellum has launched the first and only unlimited calling options available to the Costa Rican community. Most impressive, Itellum is offering Cielo at significantly more competitive rates than those of alternative telecommunications providers in Costa Rica.

According to Tim Foss, CEO and co-founder of Itellum, Cielo is much more than a calling app. It is the first truly unified communications mobile social networking portal that connects users in Costa Rica to the rest of the world. Cielo is the only telecom application platform that seamlessly integrates web services, an encrypted chat function, group communications with file sharing capabilities and videoconferencing, as well as the first and only unlimited calling plans offered locally." Foss added, Whether users want to make local calls to Costa Rica landlines or cell phones, or to Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras or other international countries, Cielo is the only app theyll need in order to save money over other calling plans available on the market. The Cielo app can be downloaded at this link: http://www.cieloapp.net.

Cielo allows users to keep in touch and securely exchange information such as photographs, and make HD voice and video calls with a robust voice mail and messaging system for free with friends, family and other Cielo users on cellular networks while being connected to the Internet. The Cielo application allows users to leverage its innovative platform for international calls at the lowest price with the best call quality and clarityallowing users to make long distance calls to all countries and destinations with the best international rates available.

Market-Leading Offerings

Itellum is currently offering the following three market-leading Cielo unlimited plans:



Costa Rica Unlimited for 15,000 Costa Rican (CRC)/month or $29.99 MRC;

USA and Canada Unlimited for 5,000 Costa Rican (CRC)/month or $9.99 MRC;

Costa Rica, USA and Canada Everything Unlimited for 20,000 Costa Rican (CRC)/month or $39.99 MRC.

Preregister and Port NOWAnd Start Saving

To simplify calling, users can get their own local Cost Rica telephone number. Foss recommends that Users pre-register their existing telephone numbers with Itellum, so that they can immediately port as number portability begins. Once they become Cielo or Itellum customers, theyll never see overpriced telephone bills again.

Itellum Expansion Plans

Itellum is developing a best-of breed portfolio of products that have disrupted the Costa Rica market by earning high regard from users while developing strong local ties to public and private organizations. Itellums organic expansion plans include extending its footprint with a planned incumbent presence in other Central American countries and, in the medium term, expansion throughout South America and Baltic regions. Itellum is seeking and presently securing relationships with both operational and financial partners in order to more efficiently leverage and realize its opportunities. For information, contact info@itellum.com.

About Itellum, LLC

Itellum, LLC is a Costa Rica-based, privately owned and operated international wholesale and retail telecommunications company with a focus on US and Central American markets. Itellum is a portfolio company of MB Technology Holdings, LLC (MBTH), a technology holding and service company that leverages the considerable experience that its executive team has amassed in creating the financial structures and organizational frameworks necessary for success. MBTHs directors include: Rick Mooers and Roger Branton, whose backgrounds include substantial merchant banking, corporate finance, and start-up operational experience; George Schmitt, renowned wireless industry executive and member of the Wireless Industry Hall of Fame; Mats Wennberg, long-time IT industry executive and previous Managing Director at Microsoft, Nordic Region and Jack Grubman, a telecom and technology industry veteran.

Itellum is a fully licensed incumbent carrier in Costa Rica, where it has the ability to profitably offer market-leading prices for voice and internet services. Itellum is employing advanced smart radio technology to offer voice and data connectivity to underserved and hard-to-reach markets using free national and regional wireless spectrum. Part of Itellums local growth will be facilitated by an enhanced retail presence. An additional new business line involves the installation of fiber and wireless. Itellums suppliers and customers include TATA, IDT, Level 3, and many others. The Cielo app can be downloaded at http://www.cieloapp.net. For further information, please visit http://www.itellum.cr.
CK Mondavi Family Vineyards announced today that they have begun their fifth annual donation program for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF), a program that supports wounded military personnel. My father, the late Peter Mondavi Sr., was a World War II veteran who believed in supporting our troops, and more importantly he believed in supporting this special group of heroes, said Marc Mondavi, Proprietor of CK Mondavi Family Vineyards.

CK Mondavi Family Vineyards announced today that they have begun their fifth annual donation program for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF), a program that supports wounded military personnel. Over the past four years, CK Mondavi has generously donated more than $130,000 to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund and plans to donate a minimum of $35,000 and up to $50,000 this summer.

My father, the late Peter Mondavi Sr., was a World War II veteran who believed in supporting our troops, and more importantly he believed in supporting this special group of heroes, said Marc Mondavi, Proprietor of CK Mondavi Family Vineyards. We dedicate our 2016 donation program to my father and we hope that you will join us in supporting this fund that supports the injured men and women of the Armed Forces and their families.

In addition, CK Mondavi has partnered with several distributors who will donate to the IFHF in 2016. Last year, Southern Wine & Spirits of New York, Connecticut Distributors Inc. and Youngs Market Company of Washington brought in an additional $10,000 in donations to the IFHF.

CK Mondavi began their partnership with IFHF in 2012 and annually runs an in-store promotion to raise money and awareness for this organization. Consumers who support CK Mondavi are also supporting our efforts to assist critically injured American soldiers and their families through the remarkable IFHF organization. Look for CK Mondavi displays which pay tribute to our heroes and are merchandised with valuable offers. This summer, CK Mondavi will donate up to a maximum of $50,000, to IFHF. Consumers can visit CKMondavi.com for more information on the program or to learn more about CK Mondavi wines.

For half a decade, CK Mondavi has been a great supporter of Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund and we truly appreciate their generosity and commitment, said David Winters, President of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund.

About the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund

The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, a national leader in supporting the men and women of the United States Armed Forces and their families, has provided nearly $200 million in support for the families of military personnel lost in service to our nation, and for severely wounded military personnel and veterans. In 2010 the Fund opened the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) to support the research, diagnosis, and treatment of military personnel and veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and psychological health (PH) conditions. In 2013 the Fund launched a new $100 million campaign to build nine Intrepid Spirit centers at major military bases around the country. These centers will serve as satellites to the central NICoE facility and extend that care to more service members and veterans suffering TBI, PH conditions and related afflictions. Three Intrepid Spirit centers are already open and two more are under construction. http://www.fallenheroesfund.org

About CK Mondavi Family Vineyards

CK Mondavi wines are produced in the Napa Valley by the iconic C. Mondavi & Family. Established in the 1940s by Italian immigrants Cesare and Rosa Mondavi, C. Mondavi & Family remains a family-owned business that has thrived for generations to produce fine wines for a variety of occasions and consumers. The family is now proudly welcoming members of the fourth generation to the business, continuing a legacy started over 70 years ago. 100% American grown and bottled, the CK Mondavi portfolio consists of the most popular varieties of wines that are handcrafted under the close stewardship of the Peter Mondavi Sr. family. A large portion of the grapes are grown on the familys 1,850 acres of vineyards, or are sourced from vineyards that the family has had partnerships with for generations. CK Mondavi wines are consistent, vintage-to-vintage, providing consumers with a value and quality they can trust. They can be found online at CKMondavi.com, or on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram @CKMondaviWines.

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Manu Srivastava, NFI Director of Distribution IT Client Services, will be speaking at the Manhattans Momentum conference on Tuesday, May 17, 2016. In the session titled Fast & Furious Distribution Management Go Lives at NFI, Manu will outline how NFI accomplished expediting the implementation of Manhattans Distribution Management solution.

During the discussion, Manu will be joined by Manhattans Senior Director, Ed Tatman, sharing NFIs experience with Manhattans warehouse management system (WMS). The session will provide an overview of NFIs strategies and methodologies of integration and rapid deployment to satisfy customer needs with a tier one WMS. Manu will look at leveraging powerful base solutions with very limited modifications and managing a variety of solution footprints ranging from e-commerce to retail to wholesale, across a broad range of products such as large & bulky, appliances, furniture, electronics, hi-tech, and apparel.

NFIs partnership with Manhattan provided the opportunity to better service our customers, said Manu. As NFIs distribution offering continues to grow, technology plays a vital role in expanding our capabilities and further providing extensive customer solutions.

NFIs leading integrated supply chain solutions provide customers an opportunity to improve distribution networks and optimize warehouse capabilities through customized logistics solutions. With 27.5 million square feet of warehouse and distribution space, NFIs in-house IT management and integration team provides real-time data, giving customers full visibility and traceability of inventory.

NFI looks for opportunities in value added technology solutions that provide customers the data need to run their business more efficiently, said NFI CIO Scott Benton. Manhattan enables NFI to provide this cutting edge technology and we look forward to sharing the story of our partnership at Manhattan Momentum.

# # #

About NFI -- NFI is a fully integrated supply chain solutions provider headquartered in Cherry Hill, NJ. Privately held by the Brown family since its inception in 1932, NFI generates more than $1.2 billion in annual revenue and employs more than 8,000 associates. NFI owns facilities globally and operates 27.5 million square feet of warehouse and distribution space. Its company-owned fleet consists of over 2,300 tractors and 8,800 trailers, operated by more than 2,600 company drivers and 250 owner operators. Its business lines include dedicated transportation, warehousing, intermodal, brokerage, transportation management, global, and real estate services. For more information about NFI, visit http://www.nfiindustries.com or call 1-877-NFI-3777.
Rapid acess to data will fundamentally transform the way businesses and other organizations operate over the next several years

OSIsoft, a global leader enabling operational intelligence, has received the Presidents E Star Award for outstanding performance in increasing U.S. exports. The U.S. Department of Commerce awarded the organization on May 16, 2016 in Washington, D.C. at the annual Presidents E Awards ceremony.

The Presidents E Star Award and E Award are the highest recognition a U.S. company may receive for making a significant contribution to the expansion of U.S. exports. E Star recipients must exhibit continued growth in exports over a consecutive four-year period and demonstrate how their export activities are making a positive impact on economic growth in the U.S. OSIsoft also received the E Award in 2012.

Rapid access to data will fundamentally transform the way businesses and other organizations operate over the next several years, chief executive officer and founder of OSIsoft, J. Patrick Kennedy, said. We believe our technology will play an important part in helping many people save energy and improve their services. We want to thank the Department of Commerce for their recognition.

The PI System: Powering Operational Intelligence

Deployed at over 19,000 sites worldwide, OSIsofts PI System is one of the worlds most widely used software technologies for the Industrial Internet of Things and digital transformation initiatives.

For instance, OSIsoft collaborated with the U.S. Trade Development Agency (USTDA), the U.S. Consulate and utility associations in Brazil to develop a demonstration project for COPEL, one of the countrys largest utilities, to show how access to real time data can improve service.

In Turkey, OSIsoft and USTDA created a workshop in conjunction with local regulators and the Ministry of Energy to encourage using data systems to improve the efficiency of industrial plants and utilities.

How It Works

The PI System captures operational data regarding energy consumption, asset utilization or complex process flows from thousands of sensors and other sources across an organization and transforms it into rich information streams that can be accessed by plant engineers, executives, data researchers and partners or integrated into supply chain or productivity applications. With the PI system, individuals can obtain real-time and long-term insight into the vital signs of their organizations.

More than 1,000 leading utilities, 95 percent of the largest oil and gas companies, numerous government agencies and more than 65 percent of the Fortune 500 industrial companies rely on technology from OSIsoft and its partners. The PI System is part of the critical infrastructure of manufacturing sites, refineries, water treatment facilities, office complexes, transportation networks, wind farms, power plants, data centers and other environments. Worldwide, more than 1.5 billion sensor-based data streams are managed by the PI System.

Founded in 1980, OSIsoft has over 1,200 employees and generated approximately $330 million in revenue in 2015.

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About OSIsoft, LLC

OSIsoft, a global leader enabling operational intelligence, delivers an open enterprise infrastructure to connect sensor-based data, operations and people to enable real-time and actionable insights. As the maker of the PI System, OSIsoft empowers companies across a range of industries in activities such as exploration, extraction, production, generation, process and discrete manufacturing, distribution and services to leverage streaming data to optimize and enrich their businesses. For over thirty years, OSIsoft customers have embraced the PI System to deliver process, quality, energy, regulatory compliance, safety, security and asset health improvements across their operations. Founded in 1980, OSIsoft is a privately held company, headquartered in San Leandro, California, USA with offices around the world. For more information, visit http://www.osisoft.com.

Media Contact:

Hannah Hutchins

Sage Communications

hhutchins(at)sagecommunications(dot)com

(703) 584-5651
Cambridge International employees gathered to celebrate the company's most profitable year, the renovation and unification of its two plants in Cambridge, Maryland and a new innovation center. This improved environment facilitates teamwork and encourages continued development of products, practices and processes to better serve our customers and exceed their expectations. -- Tracy Tyler, President & CEO

More than a century after opening its doors on Marylands Eastern Shore, Cambridge International  the worlds largest manufacturer of metal conveyor belts and a leading producer of architectural mesh  held a recognition event on May 5 to celebrate the companys most profitable year and the recent renovation and unification of its two plants on Goodwill Road in Cambridge.

Completed over six months, the company moved all conveyor belt and wire mesh manufacturing into its 237,000-sq.-ft. headquarters. The move included 65 employees and 37 pieces of equipment and is expected to greatly improve operations, enhance productivity and increase capacity to meet growing product demand.

During the event, Tracy L. Tyler, the 24-year veteran who has overseen a strong period of global expansion since she was named President and CEO in 2010, announced that 2015 was the most successful year in company history. Speaking to more than 200 employees, she congratulated team members for their contributions and commitment to make Cambridge the worlds most dominant metal belt and mesh manufacturer.

Our success is the direct result of the role each of you play every day to design, fabricate, install and sell our world-class products, Tyler told them. Ive never been more proud to lead this company, and I know that our best years still lie ahead.

She announced that every employee will receive a 50 percent increase in discretionary profit-sharing as a result of the strong performance in 2015.

Tyler also declared completion of the One-Maryland plant unification. Following the 1998 merger of Cambridge Wire Cloth (Plant 1) and Maryland Wire Belts (Plant 2), Cambridge International operated two separate facilities near one another on Goodwill Road.

The company has now consolidated all Maryland employees and business units under one roof. Cambridge optimized the footprint of its main building to unite the workforce, leverage synergies and strengthen operations. Renovations included a new product development area, manufacturing and process improvements, and numerous facility upgrades. Recent interior and lobby improvements include exhibits that trace Cambridges 105-year history and highlight the companys mission, vision, values and people.

Our upgrades and new Innovation Center inspire collaboration, Tyler said. This improved environment facilitates teamwork and encourages continued development of products, practices and processes to better serve our customers and exceed their expectations.

Chief Operating Officer Tom Ross and Engineering Director Bob Maine oversaw the renovation. The outcomes will help to grow Cambridges workforce, strengthen productivity and problem-solving capabilities and create better processes to meet market demands.

Consolidating manufacturing, shipping and receiving operations allows us to further grow the business and invest those savings in technologies, training and tools that help our team compete in a global market, Ross said.

Cambridges new 7,000-sq.-ft. Innovation Center is a dedicated product development and testing lab that includes an engineering department and test conveyors to showcase innovation and improvements to visiting clients. Engraved plaques showcasing the companys 38 active patents and trademarks line the centers walls.

Cambridge plans to sell the Plant 2 facility located at 105 Goodwill Road.

Human Resource Director Heather Hillaert closed the recognition event by announcing the companys 2015 MVPs. Selected by their colleagues, employees are recognized in five categories. The 2015 recipients are: Thomas Busch, Excellent Engineering; Tessie Hernandez, MVP Employee Choice; Nat Keene, Magnificent Manufacturing; Melissa Lewis, Outstanding Office; Irma Santos, MVP Employee Choice; and Ivan Zorn, Rookie of the Year. Each 2015 MVP received a $1,000 check.

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The worlds largest manufacturer of metal conveyor belts, Cambridge International was founded in 1911 on Marylands Eastern Shore. With an international workforce of more than 400, the company designs, manufacturers and services innovative systems in custom metal mesh for manufacturing, food processing, filtration and architectural applications through its divisions: Cambridge Architectural, Cambridge Engineered Solutions and Cambridge En Tech.
Microgrids are rapidly shaping up to be the cornerstone of a flexible, fractal, and resilient grid, said Terry Mohn, Executive Consultant Microgrid & IOUs Business Development for OATI.

OATI is pleased to demonstrate its support of microgrid innovation that are reshaping the electric distribution system around the world by sponsoring and exhibiting at the one-day Microgrid Knowledge Conference, May 19, 2016, in New York, New York.

Microgrids are rapidly shaping up to be the cornerstone of a flexible, fractal, and resilient grid, said Terry Mohn, Executive Consultant Microgrid & IOUs Business Development for OATI. New York is taking an especially interesting approach to incentivizing microgrid development in the state with the $40 million New York Prize. As part of the re-imagining of the New York electric system, microgrids promise to bring additional stability, reliability, and resiliency to both microgrid owners and host utilities.

The conference will bring together industry leaders and participants in the $40 million New York Prize to share the financial, regulatory, and technical lessons learned from developing and implementing microgrids designed for application in communities, institutions, and businesses. The goal of the conference is to provide participants with actionable information that can drive microgrid development within their organizations.

About OATI

OATI provides innovative software solutions that simplify, streamline, and empower the operational tasks required in todays energy commerce and Smart Grid. With more than 1,600 customers in North America, OATI successfully deploys large, complicated, and diverse mission-critical applications committed to industry standards and stringent NERC CIP guidelines.

OATI (http://www.oati.com/SmartGrid) is a leading provider of Smart Grid, Energy Trading and Risk Management, Transmission Scheduling, Congestion Management, and Market Management products and services. OATI is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with an office in Redwood City, California. For more information, please contact sales(at)oati(dot)net.
Lorrie Belovich, Tampa Hillsborough EDC Director of International Business Development, and S. Fitzgerald Haney, US Ambassador for Costa Rica The trade mission to Costa Rica was one that allowed the Tampa Bay region to shine across sectors.

Leaders of the Tampa Bay Export Alliance(TBEA), a cooperative effort of the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation and Pinellas County Economic Development, are sharing the outcomes of last months joint trade mission to San Jose, Costa Rica, which took place from April 12-15.

The trade mission to Costa Rica was one that allowed the Tampa Bay region to shine across sectors, said Mike Meidel, Director of Pinellas County Economic Development. We were encouraged to see companies in industries from pharmaceuticals and manufacturing to fuel management and authentic craft brewing joining us for this mission and finding a receptive market for their products and services.

Fourteen companies participated in the U.S. Commercial Services Gold Key Matching Service. The program provides customized one-on-one meetings with companies in Costa Rica. The Gold Key companies, which conducted more than 70 meetings with potential customers, reported 116 sales leads and $12.1 million in actual and expected export sales.

SCI was able to meet with a number of strong prospects while in Costa Rica and we are optimistic that we will see a return on our efforts in the near future, said Tal Ezra, president and CEO of Scientific Control Instruments, a Clearwater-based provider of wireless fleet and fuel management solutions. The companies we connected with during this mission were a great fit for our business, and the two days of arranged meetings saved us a lot of time and effort. We would like to recommend this service to other businesses. The TBEA staff are highly professional and help Florida-based companies to expand.

The 44 trade mission attendees participated in several networking events, including a welcome dinner at Mirador Tiquicia, a commercial briefing by the U.S. Embassy, a luncheon hosted by Port Tampa Bay, a welcome reception hosted by the U.S. Ambassador S. Fitzgerald Haney, and a luncheon with the American Chamber of Commerce of Costa Rica.

This mission put us front and center with qualified businesses in Costa Rica that we never could have found on our own, said Jim Howell, President of Perkys Pizza, which provides pizza programs for hotels, resorts, theaters, and retail stores domestically and internationally. The format provided a terrific environment to conduct serious and substantial business conversations with prospects. Mix in some cultural stops, interaction with the U.S. Ambassador, in-country business group/chamber meetings and fine local cuisine, and you have a super productive trip.

There was also a tourism focus on the Costa Rica mission, with both Visit Tampa Bay and Visit St. Pete Clearwater traveling to San Jose with TBEA. The two convention and visitors bureaus conducted a series of meetings and events to promote tourism to Tampa Bay, speaking with more than 100 travel professionals during the three-day trip.

Every time we go abroad and represent Tampa Bay on a mission, or create a new travel route, we have an opportunity to plant a flag and elevate our status as a global center of commerce, said J.P. DuBuque, interim president and CEO of the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation. We already have successful trade agreements in place with our neighbors to the north and south, as well as the Caribbean and Latin America. There is so much opportunity for local businesses to build profitable channels in these markets, and TBEA can connect them with resources that can show them how.

Aprils mission to Costa Rica was the third joint mission between the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation and Pinellas County Economic Development as TBEA. Previously, TBEA hosted a trade mission to Chile in December 2014 and to Canada in December 2015 to build relationships and increase trade activity in Tampa Bay.

Tampa International Airport, Port Tampa Bay, Visit Tampa Bay, Visit St. Pete Clearwater, and 3 Daughters Brewing sponsored the mission.

For more information on TBEA, please visit tampabayexportalliance.com.

The Tampa Bay Export Alliance (TBEA) is a partnership between Pinellas County Economic Development and the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation, formed in 2014 to grow jobs and capital investment by increasing the international export of products and services within the bi-county area. The TBEA conducts joint export activities, such as seminars, trade events and trade missions, and supports the export-related growth initiatives of regional economic partners, including Tampa International Airport and Port Tampa Bay.

The Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation is the lead designated economic development agency for Hillsborough County and the cities of Tampa, Plant City, and Temple Terrace. Established in 2009 as a partnership between the public sector and private corporate investors, the EDC works to develop and sustain a thriving local economy through the attraction, retention, and expansion of high-wage jobs and capital investment within targeted industry sectors. Working with C-level executives, site selection consultants, commercial real estate professionals and other influential decision makers, the EDC provides customized, confidential relocation services to domestic and international companies interested in growing within Hillsborough County.

Pinellas County Economic Development (PCED) works with existing businesses to encourage expansion and seeks to attract new companies with high-wage careers to our community. Through investment tools, business classes, professional consulting services, trade missions to open new markets, and strategic partnerships, PCED fosters a pro-business environment and promotes the Ideal Business Climate of Pinellas County, Florida.
Businesses in the US are paying among the highest corporation taxes in the world at a rate well above the global average, reveals a new study by UHY, a leading international accounting and consultancy network.

According to UHY, the US corporation tax rate was 41.1 percent (combined federal and assumed state tax rate of 7.1 percent) on taxable profits of $1,000,000 for the financial year ending 2015*.

This is far higher than the global average corporation tax rate of 27 percent For European economies the average is 25.3 percent and the G7 average is even higher at 32.3 percent.

However, UHY points out that the US high corporate tax rate is in fact mitigated by a variety of tax planning opportunities and deductions which result in many businesses effective tax rate being far lower than 41 percent.

UHY explains that low corporation taxes can help countries create competitive advantage and fuel growth by freeing up more profits for re-investment, discouraging domestic companies from moving investment overseas and attracting foreign companies to locate there.

UHY tax professionals studied corporation tax data on taxable profits of $1,000,000 in 31 countries across its international network, including all members of the G7, as well as key emerging economies.

The USA is at the top of the table of economies with the highest corporation tax in the study, charging a stated rate of 41.1 percent. By comparison, its North American neighbor Canada (which charges 26.7 percent) has a much lower rate and fellow G7 member, the UK (which charged 21 percent in 2015) has almost half the corporate tax rate of the US.

Japan is next, despite reducing corporation tax by 2.5 percent in a year as part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abes Abenomics policy to stimulate growth in the Japanese economy following more than two decades of stagnation.

Comments Dennis Petri of UHY LLP, a member of UHY, who also sits on UHYs board of directors: There is a global competition amongst countries to offer a lower corporation tax rate, and there are enormous advantages for those countries that can put themselves ahead of the pack.

Enabling companies to retain more of their profits encourages them to re-invest more capital back into their business, helping to drive innovation.

The US could see significant benefits by simplifying and reducing the corporate tax burden across the board, in order to better support the domestic business base and attract more corporate investment from overseas.

UHY points out that businesses in the UK and Russia are enjoying the lowest corporation taxes of the major global economies, accounting for just 21 percent and 20 percent of their profits respectively.

UHY says that of the 31 countries in the study, most (74 percent) have kept corporation tax rates the same over the last two years. Six (19 percent) lowered rates last year, while just two countries (Israel and India) raised it (see table below).

Dennis Petri says, Clearly there is not much appetite for governments to raise corporation tax rates in the current climate but there is little interest to lower them either.

Tinkering around the edges with a variety of reliefs and exemptions can create far more complicated systems which are then far more open to abuse and error. Simply cutting the stated rate sends a very clear message that an economy is very much on the side of business growth, expansion and continued investment. 

UHY adds that the UAE has the lowest corporate taxes of any country in the study  charging no corporation tax at all - followed by Ireland (12.5 percent) and several eastern European countries including Romania, the Czech Republic and Croatia.

Global corporation tax rankings (by highest rate levied)

Rank Country 2014-15 Tax Year data % Change since 2013-14

Amount of corporation tax charged on $1,000,000 Rate

1 USA $411,000.00 41.1% 0.0%

2 Japan $385,793.00 38.6% -2.5%

3 France $377,748.00 37.8% 0.0%

4 Argentina $350,000.00 35.0% 0.0%

4= Malta $350,000.00 35.0% 0.0%

6 Belgium $339,900.00 34.0% 0.0%

7 Brazil $337,029.70 33.7% 0.0%

8 India $330,630.00 33.1% 0.6%

9 Pakistan $330,000.00 33.0% -1.0%



G7 Average $323,205.86 32.3% -0.8%

10 Italy $323,200.00 32.3% 0.0%

11 Nigeria $320,000.00 32.0% 0.0%

12 Australia $300,000.00 30.0% 0.0%

12= Mexico $300,000.00 30.0% 0.0%

12= Spain*** $300,000.00 30.0% 0.0%

15 Germany $287,700.00 28.8% 0.0%



BRIC Average $279,414.93 27.9% 0.2%

Global Average $261,534.73 27.0% -0.4%

16 Canada $267,000.00 26.7% 0.0%

17 Israel $265,000.00 26.5% 1.5%



Europe Average $233,294.57 25.3% -0.3%

18 China $250,000.00 25.0% 0.0%

18= Uruguay $250,000.00 25.0% 0.0%

20 Jamaica $250,000.00 25.0% -5.0%

21 Denmark $243,460.00 24.4% -1.6%

22 Netherlands $239,116.00 23.9% 0.0%

23 Egypt $225,000.00 22.5% -2.5%

24 UK $210,000.00 21.0% -3.0%

25 Croatia $200,000.00 20.0% 0.0%

25= Russia $200,000.00 20.0% 0.0%

27 Czech Republic $190,000.00 19.0% 0.0%

27= Poland $190,000.00 19.0% 0.0%

29 Romania $160,000.00 16.0% 0.0%

30 Republic of Ireland $125,000.00 12.5% 0.0%

31 UAE $0.00 0.0% 0.0%

*2014/15 **2013/14

***In recent tax years, Spain has reduced the corporate tax rate from 30% to 28% in 2015 and to 25% in 2016, with start-ups paying a reduced 15% in their first year of profits.

# # #

About UHY LLP

UHY LLP, a licensed CPA firm, provides audit and other attest services to publicly traded, privately owned and nonprofit organizations in a number of industry sectors. UHY Advisors provides tax and advisory services to entrepreneurial and other organizations, principally those enterprises in the dynamic middle market.

UHY LLP, operating in an alternative practice structure with UHY Advisors, forms one of the largest professional services firms in the US. While that scale might provide confidence for some clients, others tell us our greatest value is the way we bring these resources to bear to help address todays evolving business challenges. Its a philosophy we call The Next Level of Service. To learn more visit http://www.uhy-us.com.

All of the above entities are members of UHY International (UHYI), a worldwide network of independent professional services firms that provide audit, tax and advisory services around the globe. UHYI is ranked among the top international accountancy networks and a proud member in good standing of the Forum of Firms. Collectively, our US operating entities (UHY LLP and UHY Advisors) are the largest independent members of UHYI with significant participation, bringing the power of our international network to serve the individualized needs of our clients.

About UHY, the network

Established in 1986 and based in London, UK, UHY is a network of independent audit, accounting, tax and consulting firms with offices in over 296 major business centres across more than 89 countries. Our staff members, over 7,660 strong, are proud to be part of the 16th largest international accounting and consultancy network. Each member of UHY is a legally separate and independent firm. For further information on UHY please go to http://www.uhy.com.

UHY press contact: Dominique Maeremans on +44 20 7767 2621 Email: d.maeremans(at)uhy(dot)com

UHY is a full member of the Forum of Firms, an association of international networks of accounting firms. For additional information on the Forum of Firms, visit http://www.forumoffirms.org.

UHY is an international association of independent accounting and consultancy firms, whose organizing body is Urbach Hacker Young International Limited, a UK company. Each member of UHY is a separate and independent firm. Services to clients are provided by the UHY member firms and not by Urbach Hacker Young International Limited. Neither Urbach Hacker Young International Limited nor any member of UHY has any liability for services provided by other members.
As the nation's largest provider of Integrated Student Supports, Communities In Schools is uniquely positioned to bring this model to the estimated 11 million students who live in poverty"

While American students are graduating from high school at the highest rate in history, (82 percent), millions of non-white and low income students are not keeping up and graduating on time. A new report released today from Communities In Schools(CIS), the nations largest and most effective dropout prevention organization, contains new statistics on the effectiveness of Integrated Student Supports (wraparound services) in closing the graduation gap for at-risk students.

Under the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the federal government has strongly encouraged state and local education officials to consider Integrated Student Supports as one of the evidence-based programs that can keep low-income students in school and on the path to graduation. The law goes beyond previous education legislation by allowing the use of federal funding for Integrated Student Supports as a means of improving overall school performance.

With 161 local affiliates operating in 25 states and the District of Columbia, CIS works with 1.5 million students in grades K-12 who often face barriers brought on by poverty. The CIS model of Integrated Student Supports utilizes school-based site coordinators who assess each students unique needs and connect them to existing community resources so they can overcome those barriers and focus on learning.

The majority of students in our public schools today are low-income, said Gary Chapman, Executive Vice President of Network Impact and Operations at CIS. They face non-academic barriers to success like homelessness, hunger, poor health, and more. Whether a student needs a ride to school, mental health services or a much-needed meal, CIS connects them to the help they need to reach their full potential.

According to todays report, among the students served by CIS, 94% were eligible for free or reduced income lunch and 83% were racial minorities. Based on data from the 2014-2015 school year:



99% of CIS case-managed students stayed in school

93% of eligible seniors graduated

93% of K-11 students were promoted to the next grade

85% of K-11 students met their academic goals

Dan Domenech, Executive Director of the American Association of School Administrators and CIS National Board Member said it was clear that more school district leaders will be considering partnering with Communities In Schools now that the Department of Education has empowered districts to make more local decisions on the implementation of ESSA. Another reason: ESSA requires school districts using federal funds for school improvement to use only evidence-based programs such as CIS, which has had 13 independent research studies validate its approach and results.

CIS knows from nearly 40 years of experience that they effectively improve academic outcomes for school kids, said Domenech. Schools that are not meeting ESSA requirements  including high schools that enroll 100 or more students and are not graduating at least 67 percent of their students - are certain to be looking for proven solutions like Integrated Student Supports.

CIS Vice President of Government Relations Tiffany Miller said the organization was prepared to leverage its experience and expertise to help disadvantaged youth.

As the nations largest provider of Integrated Student Supports, Communities In Schools is uniquely positioned to bring this model to the estimated 11 million students who live in poverty and who face a greater risk of dropping out, said Miller.

A 2014 evaluation of Integrated Student Supports by Child Trends found there is emerging evidence that Integrated Student Support models contribute to improvements in several student outcomes.

Based on an encouraging emerging evidence base and its grounding in decades of child and youth development, Integrated Student Supports are a promising approach for helping more disadvantaged students succeed in school and have a brighter path in life, said Child Trends President Carol Emig.

Today CIS also announced an upcoming Week of Impact in education, May 16-20, to highlight more of the hard data and stakeholder stories that demonstrate the impact the organization is having on closing the graduation gap. Communities In Schools is encouraging its partners, supporters and others engaged in raising the nations graduation rate to participate.

Week of Impact in Education May 16-20: Ways to Participate

Mon. May 16: Make an Impact  Download the Impact Report and share

Tue. May 17: Remove the Barriers  Follow a site coordinators day on Facebook

Wed. May 18: Share Stories  Read about our successful students on Instagram

Thu. May 19: Join the Conversation - Chat with our alumni on Twitter

Fri. May 20: Take the Pledge - Help 11 million kids who live in poverty stay in school

# # #
Visitors can register for a chance to win this rifle, an exact copy of Janna Reeves' competition rifle nicknamed "Scarlett." For people into guns and who value freedom, there is nothing else quite like the NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits."

Brownells will make its 68th consecutive NRA Show appearance at the upcoming 145th NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits, held at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, KY, May 20  22, 2016. Brownells will welcome visitors at Booth #3401, located next to the NRAs booth, at the main entrance.

At the booth, attendees will have an opportunity to handle 10 of Brownells newest Dream Guns - highly-customized firearms designed to showcase Brownells product line and to inspire customers to personalize their firearms.

Additionally, booth visitors can register for a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip for two to Brownells in Grinnell, Iowa, for a range day with Brownells-sponsored professional 3-Gun shooter Janna Reeves on July 26. The winner will also receive an identical copy of Jannas famous red competition AR-15, nicknamed Scarlett. The entire prize package is valued at $3,000. Janna will be in the Brownells booth daily during the show, from 2:00 until 2:45 pm, greeting fans and signing autographs.

Eric and Chad from the Iraqveteran8888 YouTube channel will also appear in the Brownells booth on Saturday, May 21, from 10:00 until 10:45 am.

For people into guns and who value freedom, there is nothing else quite like the NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits, said Pete Brownell, Brownells CEO and 1st Vice President of the NRA. Louisville is a great city, and is putting out a fantastic welcome for both the NRA and all the attendees. You owe it to yourself to attend at least one NRA Show, and this is the year to do it. Its the one of the best chances to make personal contact with people in the firearms industry, as well as mix and mingle with thousands of other freedom-minded individuals. Its a wonderful experience in many ways. Be sure to come by the Brownells booth and meet some of our great people, and register for a chance to win an awesome rifle.

Brownells social media team will be posting constant updates from the Annual Meetings on the Brownells Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages.

Admission to the event is free, and open to all NRA members. NRA Memberships can be purchased at the door. For more information, visit the NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits Homepage

About Brownells

Serious About Firearms Since 1939, Brownells is the worlds leading source for gun parts and accessories, ammunition, gunsmithing tools and survival gear. With a large selection of both common and hard-to-find items, and an extensive collection of videos, articles, and gun schematics, Brownells is the expert for everything shooting-related. Committed to maintaining our great traditions, Brownells has more, does more and knows more  and guarantees it all, Forever. For more information or to place an order, call 800-741-0015 or visit Brownells.com. Stay up-to-date with Brownells on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Warm days, cool sea breezes, leisurely lunches with only the freshest, locally-grown ingredientswe could all take a page from the Mediterranean way of life. This May, California Tortilla is doing just that, bringing the flavors of the Mediterranean stateside with the Mediterranean Bowl, a refreshing new menu option thats available starting today, for a limited time only.

The Mediterranean Bowl features customers choice of grilled mesquite chicken or farm-fresh veggies, on a bed of romaine lettuce, pearl couscous, Israeli salad (tomato and cucumber) and hummus. Its topped off with tzatziki, fresh sliced avocado, feta cheese and California Tortillas signature California Screamin sauce and finished with a tortilla crisp.

Putting a fresh spin on traditional Mediterranean flavors, the fast casual restaurant adds a Mexican twist: the Israeli salad is made with lime juice and cilantro; and California Screamin is a spicy, smoky chipotle sauce available only at California Tortilla locations.

The cost will be $8.39 or $8.59 (depending on store location).

California Tortilla is always looking for ways to incorporate fresh, nutrient-packed ingredients into its reimagined Mexican menu, said Keith Goldman, Executive Chef, California Tortilla. Following the success of the Super Food Burrito, introduced in January, the Mediterranean Bowl seemed like the perfect addition to our Spring menu.

The Mediterranean Bowl will be available through the middle of August.

About California Tortilla

Fast Casual leader California Tortilla serves fresh, made-to-order, delicious, award-winning signature burritos, quesadillas, and salads all grounded in a foundation of Mexican cuisine yet combined with imaginative flavor combinations and customization opportunities. They are Mexican Re-Imagined. Based in Rockville, MD, the fast-casual chain has nearly 50 locations across the East Coast in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Florida and the District of Columbia. They are best known for their fresh food, unique recipes, innovative promotions, customer and community engagement via Twitter and Facebook.

For more information and to inquire about franchising opportunities, please visit http://www.californiatortilla.com or call 301-545-0035.
Ohio is one of the most progressive states when it comes to surrogacy, making it a great location for us to expand to

Family Source Consultants has opened a new office location in Columbus, Ohio in the Easton Town Center. The gestational surrogacy and egg donation agency, started in Illinois in 2007, has expanded to better serve their growing number of intended parents and surrogates. The office is located at 4200 Regent Street, Suite 200, Columbus, Ohio 43219.

Family Source Consultants matches and facilitates gestational surrogacy and egg donation arrangements for those wanting to start a family. The Columbus office is the agencys fifth location throughout four states.

We are excited to grow our presence in Columbus, said Family Source Consultants Co-Founder Staci Swiderski. Ohio is one of the most progressive states when it comes to surrogacy, making it a great location for us to expand to.

In 2007, the Ohio Supreme Court confirmed that gestational surrogacy agreements are enforceable, according the published case law J.F.v.D.B.,879N.E.2d740 (2007). The case confirmed that gestational surrogacy is not against public policy. Additionally, in Ohio, both intended parents can declared the legal parents in a pre-birth order, even if there is no genetic link to the child.

The Columbus office will be run by Aaron Kreais, who will serve as the agencys Director of Client Development. Mr. Kreais will help educate potential Intended Parents in regards to family building via gestational surrogacy and third-party reproduction options. Mr. Kreais is a former Intended Parent with Family Source Consultants. Mr. Kreais and his husband Joshua, a former army medic, have 4-year-old boy/girl twins, Hudson and Irene. They utilized a gestational surrogate through Family Source Consultants to help build their family. Mr. Kreais is also serves on the Family Pride Network's Board of Directors.

Family Source Consultants left such a positive lasting impression on me through my familys journey, said Aaron Kreais. This is a great opportunity and I could not think of any career more rewarding than to help others build or start their family.

About Family Source Consultants

Family Source Consultants is one of North Americas leading surrogacy and egg donation agencies, with offices located in Ohio (Columbus), Illinois (Chicago, Joliet), Texas (San Antonio) and Florida (Miami.) Family Source Consultants handles all aspects of assisted reproduction, whether it involves egg donation, gestational surrogacy or both. They work with traditional or gay couples and individuals of all races, religious and ethnic backgrounds. The agencys co-founders have both built their families through third-party reproduction and 75% of the agencys employees have been a surrogate, egg donor or intended parent. For more information, visit FamilySourceSurrogacy.com or call 614-944-5779.
American Process Inc. (Atlanta, GA), a leading biorefinery technology developer, announces launch of their patent-pending GreenBox++ technology that replaces chemical pulping for production of high-strength, lightweight paper-based packaging using a chemical-free, water-based process powered by nanocellulose.

GreenBox++ technology is a 2nd generation enhancement of APIs GreenBox+ technology. In June 2015, API announced commercial installation of the GreenBox+ technology at Cascades Norampac-Cabano paper-based packaging facility in Quebec, Canada where a sodium carbonate-based chemical process was replaced with APIs patented hot-water extraction process. With GreenBox+ technology, the facility reduces its environmental footprint and process energy costs.

According to Dr. Kim Nelson, APIs VP of Nanocellulose Technology, We have enhanced the performance and market potential of our GreenBox+ technology with addition of a bolt-on nanocellulose processing line. Utilizing nanocellulose produced on site from pulp made from our GreenBox+ process, the strength of paper-based materials used for packaging such as corrugated medium can be significantly increased. The strength-boost offered by nanocellulose makes GreenBox++ technology suitable for retrofitting both sodium carbonate and kraft pulping processes. This strength increase may also allow papermakers to lightweight packaging, or reduce the amount of material used.

According to Smithers Pira, a global market leader in packaging industry reports, reducing packaging material weights is an ongoing effort for suppliers, brand owners and retailers in support of cost reduction, reduction of environmental burden and progressing towards sustainability. Legislation is in place around the world to support this as well as significant pressure from consumers and retailers.

APIs CEO Dr. Theodora Retsina remarks, We are very excited about the sustainability profile of the GreenBox++ technology. By replacing traditional pulping chemicals with water and nanocellulose to produce high-strength paper-based packaging, existing mills can see improvements in energy use, efficiency, carbon footprint and competitiveness. Using conventional pulp and paper equipment, significant cost benefits can be realized by removing chemical costs and chemical recovery systems.

The GreenBox+ patent portfolio now includes U.S. Patent No. 9,347,176, to be issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on May 24, 2016; Canadian Patent No. 2,887,149, issued by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office on January 5, 2016; other patents pending globally; and proprietary know-how and trade secrets, according to Dr. Ryan OConnor, APIs CIPO. API has also filed several patent applications for onsite coproduction of pulp and nanocellulose for production of high-strength packaging.

The GreenBox++ technology with nanocellulose coproduction is currently being demonstrated at APIs Thomaston Biorefinery in Thomaston Georgia, just south of Atlanta.

Kyle Fletcher, Executive Director Thomaston-Upson County Industrial Development remarks We are thrilled that API continues to develop and demonstrate proprietary technology innovation in our city. With several distinct technologies being demonstrated at the biorefinery along with a world-class R&D center, API has established our city as a key player in the global biorefinery field.

About American Process, Inc.

http://www.americanprocess.com

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, American Process, Inc. focuses on pioneering renewable materials, fuels and chemicals from biomass and develops proprietary technologies and strategic alliances in the field to be scaled industrially throughout the world.

For more information about the GreenBox++ technology and nanocellulose, please contact:

Kim Nelson, Ph.D.

VP Nanocellulose Technology

American Process Inc.

750 Piedmont Ave. NE, Atlanta, GA 30308

Phone: 1-404-872-8807, x213

E-mail: knelson(at)americanprocess(dot)com
Dr. Amarik Singh Offers Complimentary Dental Implant Seminar in Oakbrook, IL

On Wednesday, May 18, 2016, Dr. Amarik Singh will host a complimentary seminar on dental implant procedures. Dr. Singh is a respected periodontist and has placed more than 14,000 dental implants in Oakbrook, IL, and is proud to share some of his knowledge with seminar attendees. All in attendance will be given a $250 gift card that can be used towards dental implant treatments with Dr. Singh.

Dr. Singh invites all individuals who are interested in learning more about dental implants in Oakbrook, IL from a trusted periodontist to sign up for his complimentary seminar that will be held on May 18, 2016. Dr. Singh is a leading provider of dental implants in the Oakbrook area and has years of experience placing implants. He urges patients who have lost teeth from accident, gum disease and injuries to find out more about the many benefits implants can offer as tooth replacements. Instead of being placed on top of the gums and relying on special pastes to stay in place, implants are extremely secure because they are inserted into the jaw and become integrated directly into the bone over time. When implants are placed by a knowledgeable professional and are carefully cared for by the patient, they are known to last a lifetime without needing replacement.

Individuals who have had teeth knocked out due to injury or who have lost teeth as a result of advanced gum disease are encouraged to discover how implants may benefit them. Dr. Singhs complimentary seminar will cover the basics of implant placement and will also educate attendees on the benefits dental implants offer. Implants are not only useful for restoring dental function, but they are also made to appear very natural in the mouth and are carefully color-matched to surrounding teeth.

Those who wish to hear a leading periodontist discuss the benefits of dental implants in Oakbrook, IL are encouraged to reserve seats early to Dr. Singhs seminar on May 18, 2016. More information can be obtained by calling 630-686-1538.

About the Doctor

Periodontal Implant Associates is a periodontal practice offering personalized dental care for patients in Chicago, IL. After graduating from Northwestern University Dental School, Dr. Amarik Singh went on to obtain his Specialty Certificate in Periodontics and earn his Masters from Northwestern University. Dr. Singh is deeply committed to continuing education and prides himself on remaining on the cutting-edge of the newest techniques and technology in dentistry. Dr. Singh is part of an elite group of dental professionals at the forefront of the Chao Pinhole Surgical Technique (PST), a revolutionary new approach to repairing gum recession. To learn more about the periodontal services available at Periodontal Implant Associates, please visit http://www.pidentists.com or call 630-424-9404.
Bosendorfer Grand Bohemian Piano Bosendorfer is the premier instrument being made today, known for creating unique, hand-crafted instruments. My hotels are also highly-designed products, with art and music being a significant part of the brand," said Richard Kessler.

To find inspiration for a new special edition piano, Bosendorfer collaborated with Richard Kessler, owner of the highly acclaimed Grand Bohemian boutique hotels and a passionate art collector, to create the Grand Bohemian piano, on display at the ICFF show of the best in contemporary design and high end home furnishings.

I was certainly surprised  and honored, Kessler says of the opportunity. Bosendorfer is the premier instrument being made today, known for creating unique, hand-crafted instruments. My hotels are also highly-designed products, with art and music being a significant part of the brand. As an art collector myself, I already own several Bosendorfer instruments. Designing a piano with the company, along with my friend and international artist Franco Castellucio, has long been my dream. This namesake piano is a reflection of Bosendorfers limitless possibilities and, at the same time, is truly a collectors piece of art.

Since the companys beginnings in 1828, Bosendorfer has remained unwaveringly committed to crafting the finest pianos in the world, but it also pays meticulous attention to the design of each individual instrument. This is clearly evident in past collaborations with traditional designers such as Anton Grosser and Theophil Hansen, as well as F.A Porsche and Audi, which have resulted in exciting new designs for such a majestic instrument.

The Grand Bohemian piano builds upon this legacy of deeply committed collaboration, and is as much a work of art as it is a musical instrument.

Keeping the acoustic integrity of the piano intact was a key consideration. It is essential for Bosendorfer to never compromise on the acoustic assembly of the instrument. This means that all core components  the soundboard, the heart of the piano, etc.  must never be modified, explains Simon Oss, premium piano marketing manager, Yamaha Corporation of America. The exterior, on the other hand, provides unlimited creative possibilities, and the Grand Bohemian piano is a prime example of how traditional piano building craftsmanship seamlessly combines with magnificent design.

The Grand Bohemian was inspired by a painting of a peacock and the collection of bronze sculpture Kessler owns. Im fascinated with the beauty and elegance of the peacock, and bronze was the perfect medium for the base of the piano, he says. I approached its design the way we do hotels, starting with the seed of an idea, then building the story around the idea. We eventually chose this design because it is opulent, classic, and contemporary.

The Kessler Design piano would look as at home in a mythical forest as an art museum or luxury penthouse, with a bronze-cast base evocative of tree branches and adorned with woodland creatures. A peacock, with feathers unfurled makes up the music stand, and the entire piano frame has been painstakingly covered by hand with gold leaf. LED lighting within the soundboard area and under lighting at the base give the piano an otherworldly glow  an appropriate finishing touch for such a grand instrument. Its classical, yet edgy, with a distinctive Baroque funk factor, perfectly in tune with the Kessler Collections unique brand. Designing this piano was one of the most enjoyable things Ive ever done, Kessler says proudly.

Pricing and Availability

The Bosendorfer Special Edition Kessler Design piano (MSRP: $420,000) is limited to only nine instruments, and is available now.

For more information, visit the Wien Products Booth #1632 at the 2016 ICFF Show at the Jacob K. Javits Center, May 14-17, 2016, or visit http://4wrd.it/BosendorferTour

-END-

About Bosendorfer

Bosendorfer was founded in 1828 and has been the instrument of choice for many of the worlds most famous artists and composers. This limited production, handcrafted instrument remains one of the most sought after instruments for musicians, institutions and piano enthusiasts worldwide.

About Richard Kessler

Richard Kessler, who co-founded Days Inn of America at age 23 (and was named Chairman at 29), started the Kessler Collection of hotels in 1995, inspired by the artsy Bohemian Club in San Francisco. Today his franchise includes the Grand Bohemian Hotel in Orlando, Florida; Casa Monica in St. Augustine, Florida; Bohemian Hotel in Savannah, Georgia; Grand Bohemian Hotel in Asheville, North Carolina; Grand Bohemian Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina; Grand Bohemian Hotel in Mountain Brook, Alabama and Mansion on Forsyth Park in Savannah, Georgia, to name a few. Kessler discovered Bosendorfer pianos while searching for a unique instrument to grace the lobby of the Orlando property and ended up purchasing a 97-key Imperial Bosendorfer grand limited edition model Hollein. He has eight or nine pianos in his personal collection, the greatest number of Bosendorfer pianos owned by an individual.
Salt Lake Community College's Global Business Center Director Stan Rees (left) and SLCC Miller Business Resource Center Executive Director Beth Colosimo. The E Award Committee was very impressed with the Global Business Centers dedication to helping first-time exporters understand the export process and enter new international markets.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today presented Salt Lake Community Colleges Global Business Center with the Presidents E Award for Export Service at a ceremony in Washington, DC. The Presidents E Award is the highest recognition any U.S. entity can receive for making a significant contribution to the expansion of U.S. exports.

The E Award Committee was very impressed with the Global Business Centers dedication to helping first-time exporters understand the export process and enter new international markets, said Secretary Pritzker in her congratulatory letter to the company announcing its selection as an award recipient. The Global Business Centers achievement has undoubtedly contributed to national export expansion efforts that support the U.S. economy and create American jobs.

SLCCs Miller Business Resource Center (MBRC) on its campus in Sandy, home to Global Business Center, is a provider of classes, seminars and conferences teaching export services for small and medium-sized U.S. businesses, including freight forwarding, export counseling, exporting financing, strategic planning, and more.

Exporting is crucial to the success of many of the businesses we work with, said Beth Colosimo, executive director for the MBRC. Every day we see the growth of our clients businesses, due in large part to exporting. This growth has enabled our clients to add jobs and support their local communities as they expand their bottom line.

In 1961, President Kennedy signed an executive order reviving the World War II E symbol of excellence to honor and provide recognition to America's exporters. Today, Secretary Pritzker honored 123 U.S. companies with the Presidents E Award for their outstanding work to reduce barriers to foreign markets and to open the door to more trade around the world. In 2015, U.S. exports totaled $2.23 trillion, accounting for nearly 13 percent of U.S. GDP. Nationally, exports contributed to the U.S. economy, supporting an estimated 11.5 million jobs.

U.S. companies are nominated for the E Awards through the Department of Commerces U.S. Commercial Service office network, located within the Departments International Trade Administration, with offices in 108 U.S. cities and more than 70 countries. Criteria for the award is based on four years of successive export growth and case studies which demonstrate valuable support to exporters resulting in increased exports for the companys clients. For more information about the E Awards and the benefits of exporting, visit http://www.export.gov.

Salt Lake Community College is an accredited, student-focused, comprehensive community college meeting the diverse needs of the Salt Lake community. Home to more than 60,000 students each year, the College is Utahs leading provider of workforce development programs. SLCC is also the largest supplier of transfer students to Utahs four-year institutions and a perennial Top 10 college nationally for total associate degrees awarded. The College is the sole provider of applied technology courses in the Salt Lake area, with multiple locations, an eCampus, and nearly 1,000 continuing education sites located throughout the Salt Lake Valley. Personal attention from an excellent faculty is paramount at the College, which maintains an average class size of 20.
Jack's track record for innovating technology that helps broadcasters is unparalleled. Through Syncbak, we look forward to continuing to help all broadcasters distribute their content to every device.

Syncbak today announced Morgan Murphy Media has made a strategic investment in their company, which replicates over-the-air broadcasts for delivery over-the-top (OTT) of the Internet  live and on-demand. Morgan Murphy Media joins strategic investors CBS, Gray Television, Northwest Broadcasting, the National Association of Broadcasters, and the Consumer Technology Association.

Morgan Murphy Media was the first broadcast group to meet with me when I started Syncbak back in 2009, said Jack Perry, founder of Syncbak. I started there because Morgan Murphy Media has a long history of leadership over-the-air and in digital. Weve worked closely with them ever since building a solution that works for networks and their affiliates, MVPDs and OVDs.

Syncbak aims to provide the industry standard for distributing over-the-air via OTT. Syncbaks technology, now called SimpleSync, is deployed in nearly 200 television stations across 150 markets, representing 51 broadcast groups, including CBS, ABC, FOX, NBC and The CW affiliates. The recent strategic investments enable the company to aggressively roll out SimpleSync to more and more local affiliates from New York, NY to Glendive, MT.

"Jack's track record for innovating technology that helps broadcasters is unparalleled. Through Syncbak, we look forward to continuing to help all broadcasters distribute their content to every device," said Elizabeth Murphy-Burns, President/CEO of Morgan Murphy Media.

SimpleSyncs install once, deliver-to-many approach means a station group can focus on getting OTT deals knowing there is a simple way to create custom streams for network apps, online video distributors (OVDs), MVPDs for TV Everywhere and even legacy streaming to websites and news apps  all with one powerful, yet affordable solution.

About Syncbak

Syncbak powers the broadcast industrys most successful OTT solutions. From CBS All Access to local TVE, broadcasters use Syncbaks end-to-end platform for live stream transcoding, content and MVPD/OVD management and rock-solid, geo-location services. Our universal hardware, cloud-based rights and content management tools, plus 24/7 monitoring and dynamic ad insertion, make it simple, and affordable for any station to go OTT. Syncbak is a privately held company founded in 2009 by media technology entrepreneur, Jack Perry.

About Morgan Murphy Media

Morgan Murphy media is a leading, family-owned multimedia company serving audiences and businesses. It operates television stations in Wisconsin (WISC-TV in Madison, and WKBT-TV in La Crosse) and Washington (KXLY-TV, Spokane; KAPP-TV, Yakima; KVEW-TV, Kennewick). Additionally, it owns and operates five radio stations in southwest Wisconsin and seven radio stations in and around Spokane, Wash. The company also runs Madison Magazine, a monthly lifestyle publication and a digital marketing agency, Phase 3 Digital, in four U.S. markets. For more information, visit http://morganmurphymedia.com/.
Mercy Ships provides specialized surgeries on board the world's largest private hospital ship. We are pleased to continue creating broad and global awareness of Mercy Ships throughout the fashion industry

For the second year in a row, Mercy Ships, a global organization committed to providing the worlds impoverished with free, basic healthcare and life-changing medical surgeries, will benefit as charity partner of the American Apparel & Footwear Association. A portion of the proceeds from the [American Image Awards event in New York on May 24 will help support the efforts of Mercy Ships to provide direct patient care and strengthen healthcare systems in Africa.

AAFA is a leader of positive change for the apparel and footwear industry and is a natural partner in our work to make a lasting, transformational difference in developing nations in Africa, said Don Stephens, President and Founder of Mercy Ships. We are grateful for the support of AAFA and look forward to a wonderful American Image Awards event this year.

The worlds largest private hospital ship, the Africa Mercy, has been docked in Toamasina, Madagascar, for most of the past two years. In addition to meeting immediate medical needs, Mercy Ships has focused on helping local medical professionals care for patients after the hospital ship departs. Volunteers onboard have provided more than 2800 free specialized surgeries, trained 1791 healthcare workers in capacity-building medical courses and mentored 137 medical professionals. Participants included Malagasy surgeons, nurses, nurse anesthetists and others.

For the second consecutive year, AAFA is honored to have Mercy Ships as its charity partner for the American Image Awards. We are pleased to continue creating broad and global awareness of Mercy Ships throughout the fashion industry, said Rick Helfenbein, AAFA President and CEO. We hope to make this our most memorable benefit and raise awareness of the importance of the mission of Mercy Ships.

For more information about the AAFA Image Awards, please go to: http://www.mercyships.org/americanimageaward.

###

ABOUT MERCY SHIPS:

Mercy Ships uses hospital ships to deliver free, world-class healthcare services, capacity building and sustainable development to those without access in the developing world. Founded in 1978 by Don and Deyon Stephens, Mercy Ships has worked in more than 70 countries providing services valued at more than $1.2 billion, treating more than 2.54 million direct beneficiaries. Each year Mercy Ships has more than 1,600 volunteers from 45 nations. Professionals including surgeons, dentists, nurses, healthcare trainers, teachers, cooks, seamen, engineers, and agriculturalists donate their time and skills to the effort. Mercy Ships seeks to transform individuals and serve nations one at a time. For more information click on http://www.mercyships.org

For More Information Contact:

For USA: Pauline Rick

US Public Relations Coordinator

Mercy Ships

Office Tel: (903) 939-7000

Mob: (972) 922-5442

Email: us.media(at)mercyships(dot)org

For Intl: Diane Rickard

International Media Manager

Mercy Ships

Diane.rickard(at)mercyships(dot)org

http://www.mercyships.org

About AAFA:

Representing more than 1,000 world famous name brands, the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) is the trusted public policy and political voice of the apparel and footwear industry, its management and shareholders, its four million U.S. workers, and its contribution of $361 billion in annual U.S. retail sales. AAFA stands at the forefront as a leader of positive change for the apparel and footwear industry and delivers a unified voice on key legislative and regulatory issues. AAFAs comprehensive work ensures the continued success and growth of the apparel and footwear industry, its suppliers, and its customers. Learn how AAFA wears our mission at http://www.wewear.org

Hi-res photos and general Mercy Ships B-Roll video footage are available upon request.
Technical Innovation continues to offer our clients the unique opportunity to see firsthand, in an interactive environment, new technologies designed for collaborative spaces.

The Nashville office of Technical Innovation, a Diversified Company, a leading systems integration firm, is slated to be the next stop of the 2016 Digital Workplace Tour. An annual event for the region, the show offers attendees interactive sessions with collaborative technologies, face-to-face access to industry experts and invaluable information on tools and services that will give them an edge in todays hyper-competitive workplace. David Berndt, Executive Regional Director states, Technical Innovation continues to offer our clients the unique opportunity to see firsthand, in an interactive environment, new technologies designed for collaborative spaces. We look forward to welcoming the Nashville business, government and education market to experience new technologies and have the opportunity to talk directly with leading manufacturers.

In addition to the hands-on exhibits, Chris Johnson, CTO will be presenting Digital Technology Intersections, Elements of Leading Integration Design in 2016-2017. In this seminar, Johnson discusses the importance of a well-defined Unified Communications strategy, from network infrastructure to the various departments, people and devices involved. Attendees are encouraged to bring their IT, HR, Finance, Operations and Sales organizations to this interactive session.

Manufacturers represented include Chief, Cisco, Crestron, Da-Lite, Fivestone Studios, Haivision, Middle Atlantic Products, Leyard, Mersive, Planar, Prysm, Shure, Sony and Spectrum Industries, along with representatives from TI and Diversifieds Media Systems, Cloud Solutions (TIs Virtual Meeting Room Solution TIVMRplus) and Structured Cabling groups. In addition, experts from leading vendors will be displaying real solutions in interactive touchscreens, video walls, screen technology, laser projection, PTZ Cameras, 4K Displays, content sharing and management, wired and wireless architectures, remote monitoring, mobile voice and video solutions, Digital Signage, Corporate Communications, IPTV and related managed services, custom office furniture, mounting solutions and structured cabling infrastructures.

Attendees are encouraged to register at http://bit.ly/1Sd60Af and bring their mobile devices. Event hours are 10-:00AM  3:00PM and include a light lunch and refreshments. Technical Innovation, a Diversified Company, is located at 1449 Donelson Pike, Nashville, TN 37217. For additional information contact Debbie Johnson at 615.515.3415, djohnson(at)technical-innovation(dot)com.

About Technical Innovation, a Diversified Company

Technical Innovation is a design/build systems integrator specializing in unified communication technologies, mission critical facilities, presentation and visualization environments and broadcast solutions. Serving corporations, state and federal government agencies, universities, professional organizations, and Houses of Worship, TI focuses on designing solutions specific to their clients needs and providing an exceptional customer experience. This includes best-of-class, video-centric collaboration solutions, design-build system integration, managed services and ongoing customer support. Companies such as MetLife, United Airlines, Turner, and The Home Depot have counted on them for their system integration needs. In February 2016, Technical Innovations expertise and geographic reach expanded as it merged with Diversified, a leading full service systems and media technology integration company based in New Jersey. Together, the new team continues to deliver the world class service customers have become accustomed to as they have join forces to become the industrys leading design and systems integration provider.

For more information about Technical Innovation, a Diversified Company, visit http://www.Technical-Innovation.com
WHO AM I, REALLY? is a poignant account of how, in the arduous process of finding her family, a woman discovers her true self.

In her debut publication, Gale Tobin Holz charts her harrowing search for identity. WHO AM I, REALLY? (published by AuthorHouse) is a deeply moving exploration of family, self and how these two are invariably entwined. A new marketing campaign is all set to promote Holz autobiography.

WHO AM I, REALLY? chronicles Holz story from her early life up to the pivotal moment she decided to look for her birth parents. The author writes with candor and grace, guiding readers on a journey from doubt to acceptance and from pain to true healing. She hopes that her story will help others who are fighting a similar struggle.

My book is the only book I ever wrote, mainly because it was such a major part of my life, the author says. I am hoping I can help other adoptees who are having difficulty finding their birth parents. Hopefully it can be used as a reference.

WHO AM I, REALLY? is a poignant account of how, in the arduous process of finding her family, a woman discovers her true self.

WHO AM I, REALLY?

By Gale Tobin Holz

Softcover | 6 x 9in | 86 pages | ISBN 9781477277966

E-Book | 86 pages | ISBN 9781477277973

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author

Gale Tobin Holz is a retired registered nurse. She has three grown children and more than five grandchildren.

AuthorHouse, an Author Solutions, Inc. self-publishing imprint, is a leading provider of book publishing, marketing, and bookselling services for authors around the globe and offers the industrys only suite of Hollywood book-to-film services. Committed to providing the highest level of customer service, AuthorHouse assigns each author personal publishing and marketing consultants who provide guidance throughout the process. Headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, AuthorHouse celebrated 15 years of service to authors in Sept. 2011.For more information or to publish a book visit authorhouse.com or call 1-888-519-5121. For the latest, follow @authorhouse on Twitter.
Erin's Campaign for Kids is named in honor of Erin Kay Flatley, an aspiring teacher, who died at the age of 23 of sepsis that developed following a routine surgery. Every 30 days, sepsis kills enough kids to fill a high school graduating class.

Sepsis Alliance announces the launch of The Erin Kay Flatley Pediatric Sepsis Nursing Award, a special honor designed to recognize the importance of nurses in the fight against sepsis in children.

The award is named in honor of Erin Kay Flatley, an aspiring 23-year-old teacher who died suddenly and unnecessarily from sepsis. The nursing award has been created to recognize and reward excellence in the area of pediatric sepsis prevention, care, and education. Erins spirit lives on in the creation of Erins Campaign for Kids, a campaign that will create awards and training programs for nurses and health professionals to help identify and treat sepsis. By conservative estimates, sepsis causes 4,400 child deaths every year, or enough to fill a kindergarten class every 48 hours.

Sepsis Alliance is proud to launch Erins Award to provide recognition to those who are working to solve this devastating problem, said Thomas Heymann, Executive Director of Sepsis Alliance. Every 30 days, sepsis kills enough kids to fill a high school graduating class. Considering the dramatic impact that sepsis has on our communities, it is alarming that fewer than half of American adults have even heard of it. This initiative is part of a national effort by Sepsis Alliance to promote improvements in awareness, prevention, care and outcomes.

The recognition will be given each year to two licensed nurses from the U.S. and Canada who demonstrate excellence in their work, and a commitment for improving outcomes among pediatric patients. Each honoree will receive a $2,500 award, and be personally invited to the 2016 Sepsis Heroes event in New York City on September 15.

Nurses represent the front line against sepsis, said Carl Flatley, Erins father and the founder of Sepsis Alliance. I am excited to be working to honor nurses who embody the spirit of my daughter, and who are committed to winning the fight against sepsis for their young patients. We know we can win this fight, and that many of these deaths can be prevented.

To learn more about this award and to submit an application through July 15, 2016, please visit sepsis.org/erin.

About Sepsis Alliance

Sepsis Alliance is the leading nonprofit patient advocacy organization in North America. Sepsis Alliance's mission is to save lives by raising awareness of sepsis as a medical emergency. The organization hosts national and community events, distributes educational information, and promotes training and education on sepsis prevention and early recognition and treatment. Sepsis Alliance also support sepsis survivors and family members with information about sepsis and Post Sepsis Syndrome, as well as a Faces of Sepsis community forum. The sepsis.org website receive 1 million visits each year. Sepsis Alliance, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, is a GuideStar Gold Rated Charity. For more information, please visit http://www.sepsis.org.
PristineHydro heads into Dallas, Texas for their next campaign move offering the Under Counter Water System (http://www.pristinewaterfilters.com/). This campaign effort is part of a coast to coast effort in bringing awareness to poor water quality what can be done about it.

Over two thirds of Earth's surface is covered by water; less than a third is taken up by land. As Earth's population continues to grow, people are putting ever-increasing pressure on the planet's water resources. In a sense, our oceans, rivers, and other inland waters are being "squeezed" by human activitiesnot so they take up less room, but so their quality is reduced. Poorer water quality means water pollution.

We know that pollution is a human problem because it is a relatively recent development in the planet's history: before the 19th century Industrial Revolution, people lived more in harmony with their immediate environment. As industrialization has spread around the globe, so the problem of pollution has spread with it.

When Earth's population was much smaller, no one believed pollution would ever present a serious problem. It was once popularly believed that the oceans were far too big to pollute. Today, with around 7 billion people on the planet, it has become apparent that there are limits. Pollution is one of the signs that humans have exceeded those limits.

There are many more contaminants found in the water that is being consumed. Learn more about PristineHydro's 10 Stage Process for their Under Counter Water System (http://shop.pristinewaterfilters.com/) and begin removing these harmful contaminants from your drinking water.



Stage One - 5 Micron Filter

Stage Two - KDF

Stage Three - Hydroxy Apatite

Stage Four - Coconut Based, Acid-Washed, Surface-Enhanced Activated Carbon

Stage Five - Reverse Osmosis

Stage Six and Seven - Dual Deionization Cartridges

Stage Eight - Re-Mineralization Cartridge

Stage Nine - Coconut Carbon Filter

Stage Ten - Vortex / Reprogramming / Recharging

Pristine Water Filters delivers to the following geographical areas:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee,Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington DC, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Canada, Europe, and virtually anywhere on the planet.

PristineHydro (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4j4uHquBPs) has also been featured on The Discovery Channel Via Newswatch Tv.

PristineHydro delivers water filters for the home and businesses making healthy water accessible to all at cost levels and form factors. The professionals at PristineHydro are highly informed regarding the history of water and how these products can enhance the consumers life.

It is no wonder so many professional athletes and health enthusiasts are turning to PristineHydro for their hydration needs.

For more information please visit http://www.pristinewaterfilters.com or by calling toll free (888) 240-1175
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The biggest complaint from attendees at this years BookCon literary fanfest was that it was too short. Held the day after BEA in Chicagos McCormick Place, on May 14, attendees were thrilled to be in Chicago, and very happy with the venue, the programming, and the shows logistics, but disappointed that this years event had been downsized to one day from last years two-day event. As for the participating publishers, many of whom had spent three days previously exhibiting at BEA, they were very satisfied with how the show went, but happy that for them it meant only one more day inside McCormick Place rather than two.

Based on pre-registration numbers, ReedPOPs BookCon show manager Brien McDonald estimated that 7,000 attendees were at this years event. As in the two previous years in New York City, attendees skewed towards significantly more females than males, but the demographic was slightly older than last year, when large numbers of teenage girls turned out for Khloe Kardashian. The crowd this year appeared to be even more racially and ethnically diverse than last years crowd. There also seemed to be many more people from the Midwest and Canada, but fewer international attendees. Many of the East Coast attendees PW spoke to had attended BookCon in New York City.

Elizabeth Henry, 26, a blogger from Atlanta, who had attended BEA for the first time earlier in the week, was first in line for her second BookCon. She arrived at McCormick at 3:30 a.m. She praised BookCon staff and McCormick security personnel for the smooth traffic flow this time, explaining that last years BookCon had been chaos, especially with the author lines, with people wanting books signed in the autographing area being required to first purchase them at a pop-up bookstore. This resulted in many attendees not getting their books signed, because autographing sessions would end before they could get up to the front of those lines. I lost three hours in Marissa Meyers line last year, Henry said, noting that a wristband with YA author Cassandra Clares name on it was the get of the show, as she doesnt tour very often.

This year, early arrivals stood in lines to receive wristbands as long as supplies lasted, each with an author name on it, guaranteeing the wearer entrance into that authors autographing area sessions. Some of the 50 authors were signing free galleys there, while others were signing finished books, which were sold at the autographing table itself. While some authors required a book being purchased there for signing, others did not.

Henry and everyone else PW spoke to enjoyed attending BookCon in a different city, but, at the same time, wished that BookCon would have been two days again this year. If you are from out of town, its hard to justify one day. We prefer the two days, although I love what we did this year, Teri Hamlin of Houston said. She and her teenage daughter spent a few days sightseeing in Chicago before arriving at McCormick at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday.

Its very stressful, having it on one day: a lot of the [panels] I want to go to overlap, said Marissa Rodriguez, a teen from Philadelphia. In contrast, publishers, such as Louisa Brody, Ingram senior manager of group marketing, said that BookCons compression into eight hours contributed to the busyness and the excitement.

The carnival-like atmosphere lasted throughout the day in the exhibit hall: aisles were jammed with people, and there were long lines everywhere, a constant barrage of noise from the stages, and occasional screams of joy. A number of publishers hosted spin the [roulette] wheel contests in their booths with ARCs and books given away as prizes. Others hosted in-booth author signings, with YA author Alexandra Brackens fans standing in line for hours before she appeared at Disney Publishing's booth. Simon & Schuster promoted just a few authors at BookCon. There was a Riveted (S&Ss YA readers community) photo booth and cloth bags, as well as a doughnut party with YA author Jenny Han and an ice cream social with YA author Morgan Matson. There were piles of Clares Mortal Instruments posters and other souvenirs that drew a constant stream of people by the booth, where some dropped off fan letters for Clare with Lucille Rettino, S&S v-p of marketing. Rettino reported more traffic into the booth this year than in 2015, and attributed it to the publishers strategy of scheduling in-booth events, as well as the giveaways. Its all about the swag, she said.

Quarto Publishing Group, whose booth was closest to the main entrance into the exhibit hall, reported that their blank journal giveaways were gone in 15 minutes after the show opened.

While some publishers sold books, such as Abrams, which sold them for 50% off retail, others gave away books and ARCs. Some sold books but gave away galleys. Scholastic gave away both books and galleys of its hottest spring 2016 releases and featured a Muggle Wall where attendees were invited to write down what the Harry Potter series meant to them. The wall became almost a shrine, with just as many people writing comments as reading them as the day progressed. Scholastic marketing manager Lindsey Johnson explained that for Scholastic, its BookCon presence is, all about forming relationships with readers. And as Hachette director of marketing and publicity Jodi Rosoff noted, Its good to talk to [consumers], and hear where theyre at, in terms of reading habits and preferences.

We're thrilled with BookCon 2016, McDonald told PW in an email. And [we] are happy we could show the fans in Chicago what ReedPOP does in the book space. The positive energy in the building was undeniable; this was an energetic and engaged crowd. I noticed an evolution of publishers booth activities and am pleased to see they're harnessing the fan and media attention BookCon brings.

BookCon will return to being a two-day event at the Javits Center in New York City, June 3-4, 2017.

Update: An earlier version of this story was incorrect re the first name of Louisa Brody, Ingram senior manager of group marketing and has been corrected.
For the granddaughter of legendary evangelical minister, V. Raymond Edman, Episcopalian minister Liz Edman, who regularly preaches at St. Andrew & Holy Communion Episcopal Church in South Orange, N.J., feels that faith is written on her DNA. She followed the calling despite the challenges of being an open lesbian. In her new book, Queer Virtue: What LGBTQ People Know About Life and Love and How It Can Revitalize Christianity (Beacon Press, May), Rev. Edman recounts her own experiences of being a queer priest and examines the queerness of Christianity itself.

Queer Virtue first refutes the assumption that Christianity is directly opposed to and hostile toward homosexuality. When you listen to the public airwaves and hear some of the things that come out of some Christian leaders, I totally understand why thats public consciousness, Rev. Edman told PW.

Nevertheless, the reverend doesnt agree with the notion that the Bible is notoriously anti-gay. On the contrary, she criticizes the verses often used to demonize homosexuality as an abomination, calling them quite marginal to the cannon and rather unclear. Instead, her focus is on what she sees as the overall message of Jesusor as she put it, the central thrust of scriptural heritage.

[I look at] the parts of scripture that I find central to our heritage and just vastly more important in understanding who we as Christians are called to be, she said. An example from her book addresses the message of unity in John 2:1-11, in which Jesus turns water meant to separate people through purification rituals into wine for all to share.

Edman also makes a case for how Christianity and its teachings share values with queer culture. She contends that both queerness and Christianity have at their center the impulse to rupture binary thinking.

For example, Queerness, historically, has ruptured male and female as definitive roles, Edman said. Christianity has ruptured all kinds of things, all over the place. Jesus himself ruptured the divide between human and divine, life and death, and sacred and profane. Paul in his letters to Galatians ruptures the divide between the biggest binaries of his day.

Queer Virtue speaks to two definitive audiences, the first being the LGBTQ community, which Edman acknowledges has been injured by queerphobic appeals to religion and to scripture. The second audience is progressive Christians, who long have been struggling to articulate what we believe with power.

Rev. Edman hopes to make clear in her book that she takes great joy in both her queer identity and her faith. This is my attempt to name both of those sources of joy and to articulate for me how they are deeply interrelated, she said.

Gayatri Patnaik, executive editor of Beacon Press, explained that the acquisition of the book was directly related to a changing era in Christianity. Were living in a time when queer Christians are looking for more than to be simply tolerated in the church They want to be seen as valuable and even celebrated because of what they bring to the faith, she said. And I think the sense of joy that Edman exudes as a queer Christian is powerful and healinga corrective to many years of denigration.

Five mini-sermon videos based on Queer Virtue will be used as part of a social media campaign surrounding the release. The book will also be marketed to national and regional radio stations, and with ads in the Gay and Lesbian Review, in addition academic promotion in gender studies and religious studies.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University's Black Cultural Center honored some of its outstanding student scholars recently at its 43rd Annual Awards Banquet. Major awards were presented to four students.

Alexandra Brown-Anderson, of Elkhart, Indiana, who majors in business administration in the Krannert School of Management, has been awarded the 2016 Helen Bass Williams Outstanding Freshman Award. The award is presented annually to an outstanding freshman to honor scholarship, leadership, background of service toward fellow students and community. The recipient receives a $1,000 monetary award, a plaque and her or his name inscribed on the perpetual plaque at the Black Cultural Center.

The Morgan Imani Guice Arts and Service Award is given to the student who exhibits outstanding levels of performance and dedication to artistic and academic programming at the Black Cultural Center. The 2016 recipient was Oswald Hall-Wiggan, of Northfield, Connecticut. Hall-Wiggan majored in aviation/airway management and operations in the School of Air and Transportation Technology. The award honors graduating students who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and greatness in character during their Purdue careers. The award winner receives a plaque, a $500 monetary award and his or her name inscribed on a perpetual plaque.

The Nettie L. Hubbard Meritorious Service award went to Latrice Young of Gary, Indiana, who majors in creative writing in the College of Liberal Arts. The award acknowledges contributions of Nettie L. Hubbard who, after 15 years of exemplary service to Purdue University, retired in1983. This award serves the dual purpose of honoring outstanding service achievements and the accomplishments of the Black Cultural Center through student support. The recipient receives a plaque, a $500 monetary award and has her or his name added to the plaque on permanent display at the Black Cultural Center.

Jessica Whitfield, of Lima, Ohio, who majors in engineering in the College of Engineering, received the Howard G. McCall Award. This award was established by the Black Cultural Center as a tribute to McCall's faith, ideals and love for those he referred to as his brothers and sisters. The award is granted to a student staff member who has demonstrated consistency in leadership, service and dedication to the Black Cultural Center. The recipient receives a plaque, a monetary award of $500, and his or her name on a perpetual plaque.

Source: Renee Thomas, 765-494-3091, rathomas@purdue.edu
In the current environment in Springfield, we shouldnt be surprised when bad legislation is defeated and then resurrected as even worse public policy.

Senate Bill 1229, a bill that would have stripped Gov. Bruce Rauner of the power to continue tough negotiations with the states largest public employee union, was terrible public policy when it was introduced and passed out of both houses. Fortunately the governors veto was not overridden. However House Bill 580, which is sponsored by state reps Pat Verschoore and Mike Smiddy among others, has since been passed out of both houses with even worse language than its ill-fated predecessor.

Proponents argue the measure is aimed at ensuring that there is no work stoppage. Opponents agree the result will mean that American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) negotiators will get a better deal, and one far more expensive to taxpayers than the tough terms offered by the governor and rejected by the union.

The bills passage followed a request by the governor to declare negotiations with AFSCME at an impasse. This came after both sides had signed an agreement saying that if there was disagreement on an impasse, the issue would be turned over to the Illinois Labor Relations Board to determine if there could be further negotiating. Both sides have sued, citing unfair labor practices, and are presenting their sides to an administrative law judge.

Gov. Rauner has until Tuesday to veto the new bill, which he is expected to do. It is expected that there will be immediate efforts for an override, fueled by pressure on legislators from AFSCME in this election year.

Not only does HB 580 contain the same language as SB 1229 which would allow an arbitrator  not the elected legislature or governor  to decide what could eventually be a $3 billion tax hike for Illinois taxpayers, it also contains additional language that could cost taxpayers another $400 million on top of that.

With negotiations stalled, and the previous contract having expired, the Rauner administration announced that it would not continue to pay automatic salary step increases that the state could not afford. SB 508 includes new language that would force the state to retroactively pay these step increases from the expired contract to the tune of another $400 million, according to administration sources.

SB 1229 was recognized as a flawed measure and defeated. HB 580 is even worse and we are disappointed that our local reps have sponsored it. Bad policy like this is what has gotten the state into the financial hole it is in. Its a bill voters should remember when they vote for state representatives in November.

We again encourage voters to speak out against this legislation. We encourage the governor to veto it before Tuesdays deadline and we encourage legislators in both chambers not to vote to override. The best move is to let the Illinois Labor Relations Board review -- which both sides previously agreed on -- play out without being sidetracked by the legislature.
Dracy "Clint" Pendleton of Bellflower, Illinois, was killed in a shootout early Sunday at an abandoned house in the Shawnee National Forest, police said at a news conference.

"Pendleton is no longer a threat to the communities of southern Illinois," Col. Tad Williams said.

Authorities had closed off a wilderness area in the national forest since May 9 when a stolen pickup truck that they believed Pendleton was using was found.

State police said Pendleton was seen just after midnight Saturday running into woods near a church cemetery, carrying a rifle and wearing a bandolier shoulder belt that holds bullet cartridges.

Williams said that Pendleton "opened fire" on the officers as they approached the home in Eddyville, which is 30 miles north of the Kentucky border.

He was found by a police robot inside the home about a half-mile away around 5 a.m., after a firefight with state police, FBI officers and local sheriff's deputies.

Authorities did not say whether Pendleton was killed by police or if he took his own life.

The name and condition of the wounded federal agent was not immediately disclosed. FBI spokesman Brad Ware said Monday that the injured agent was expected to survive.

Authorities had been searching for Pendleton since the May 7 shooting of a police officer in Mahomet, Illinois. The incident also sparked a fatal collision when a trooper pursuing Pendleton struck and killed a 26-year-old woman in Decatur, some 45 miles to the southwest.

Pendleton had been charged with attempted murder in the shooting of the officer, who was treated and released from a hospital the following morning.

A relative has said Pendleton, the father of two sons, both under 2, had recently separated from his wife and moved out of their home.
The agreement in a 2007 class-action lawsuit calls for the Illinois Department of Corrections to build four new treatment units at the Logan, Pontiac and Dixon prisons as well as in Joliet.

Those new units will cost $40 million. Hiring new staff members as part of the settlement is expected to cost another $40 million a year.

A tentative agreement in the case was reached in late December. U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm signed off on the settlement Friday, calling the state's plans "fair and reasonable."
Claudia and David Magill have made a career out of sitting quietly.

They teach people how to find inner peace and calmness by meditating for 20 minutes twice per day.

For the Magills, Transcendental Meditation isn't a job, but a calling, a passion.

"TM can raise life to a higher platform," said Mr. Magill, who grew up in northern Illinois and Massachusetts, and has a math degree from Dartmouth College.

Claudia Magill, who grew up in Detroit, has a math degree from the University of Michigan, where she became interested in TM in 1970 after seeing an ad for an introductory talk in the college newspaper.

She met her husband when she applied for a job at a computer company where he worked in Ann Arbor, Mich. Mr. Magill became interested in TM, and two years later, they decided to become full-time TM instructors.

They did months of training that included time in Spain and Switzerland, working with TM founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in groups, with a few one-on-one sessions with the Maharishi.

They've taught TM in Virginia, California, New York and other places, and their students have included probationers, parolees, the homeless and victims of domestic violence.

Referring to studies on prisoners who learned TM, Mr. Magill said a five-year follow-up study showed a 33 percent reduction in recidivism rates, and a 15-year follow-up study showed a 43.5 percent reduction.

The Magills now live in Fairfield, Iowa, where they plan their teaching activities and volunteer for local projects and community programs on and off the campus of Maharishi University of Management. Mr. Magill also works with an Internet company.

In 2010, the Magills began teaching TM in the Quad-Cities area, and now they also teach it in Dubuque, Iowa, and Princeton, Ill.

TM is very natural and has lifelong benefits, Ms. Magill said. "Man was meant to have a much better life."

She said that when she became interested in TM in 1970, there was no scientific research on it, other than one published doctoral dissertation just coming out.

She said she didn't mind the lack of research, although she's a skeptical person, because "I sensed from the beginning that there was a truth unfolding in me, the truth that life is not meant to be lived in suffering.

"The Maharishi predicted that if even 1 percent of the people meditated, there would be a decline in crime and violence, laying a solid foundation for world peace, Ms. Magill said.

"Personally, at age 72, I thank my TM practice and its powerful correlates that I still enjoy a life full of happiness, good health and the ability to see through it all and continue to nourish a rapidly rising global peace, prosperity and harmony that will prove deep, robust and lasting."
The list of graduates was not available to press time. It will be published in a future edition of The Dispatch and The Rock Island Argus.

MOLINE -- Sunday was not only a day to celebrate individual Western Illinois University graduates, but also a day to celebrate the growth and prosperity of the Quad-Cities campus.

It was a banner day, said WIU Vice President for Quad Cities and Planning Joe Rives, with 281 graduates marking the largest commencement group the Quad-Cities campus has ever seen.

Graduates and their loved ones gathered Sunday at the iWireless Center for the spring combined graduate and undergraduate ceremony. Mr. Rives said it was a beautiful day in more ways than one.

It is not a coincidence that there is not a cloud in the sky today, for your accomplishments shine bright, he said.

Mr. Rives said the graduates were a diverse group, with individuals hailing from 48 Illinois counties and 15 states, as well as China, France, Italy, Jordan, Mexico and South Korea.

Mr. Rives urged the new graduates to do two things -- first, to celebrate the day, but not to rest on past accomplishments for too long. Second, Mr. Rives said, it is hoped a new tradition will begin this year with graduates returning to the Moline campus to have their photos taken by the new statue of Rocky, the WIU mascot, that overlooks Riverfront Hall.

The formal commencement speech Sunday came from President Jack Thomas, who encouraged graduates to Be the One. Among other references, Mr. Thomas invoked William Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

To be or not to be is not the question I'm posing today, he said. I'm charging you to be the one.

Mr. Thomas said WIU has prepared graduates to be whatever they choose to be, and as they transition from students to alumni, it is time for them to represent themselves, their families and the university well in all their endeavors, he said.

Be bold, be brave and be your best, he said. To be or not to be? Be brave. In life, I have learned, opportunities are open to those who are bold enough to knock and bold enough to not give up.

Mr. Thomas reflected on a recent NBC news story on Victoria Lai, a lawyer who left her job in the Obama administration to pursue her passion for ice cream. He said Ms. Lai cashed in her savings to build her dream of a successful ice cream parlor and inspire others to pursue their own passions.

Mr. Thomas said he is not encouraging graduates to sell ice cream or abandon their earned degrees, but to boldly pursue their passions.

Boldness feeds your dreams. If you feed your dreams, your fears will starve to death, he said. WIU grads, the world is waiting for you to stretch it into shape. To be or not to be? Be brave.

In addition to recognizing the graduates, Sunday's ceremony also honored distinguished faculty lecturer Sandra L. McFadden. Ms. McFadden, who led the academic procession, is an auditory neuroscientist who has served as a professor in Western's department of psychology since 2005. In addition to her scholarly work, Ms. McFadden served in the U.S. Air Force and the Illinois Air National Guard as an electronics specialist.

Prior to Sunday's ceremony, Knoxville, Ill., resident Bethany Jackson was among the students waiting the walk across the commencement stage. Ms. Jackson said accepting her Bachelor of Science degree in psychology meant the culmination of a lot of hard work and a job promotion. Ms. Jackson said she works in Galesburg and graduates with four years of experience in her field.

Mother Missy Jackson, of Coralville, Iowa, said the day had a little more sentimental value to her.

It's just super exciting, she said, after posing for photos with her daughter. She's worked so hard, gone to school full time and worked full time. It's been a rough road.

Ms. Jackson added that even though her daughter stood before her in her Western gown, she couldn't help but picture her as a preschool graduate in a little blue dress not so many years ago.
Illinois State Police released a statement Sunday saying the shooting occurred around 4 a.m. in the northbound lanes of Interstate 90 on the northwest side.

Police say a silver Chevrolet Tahoe stopped in a lane and a male driver and a female passenger were found inside. They were found unresponsive and with gunshot wounds to the head.

They were identified as 43-year-old Eric Taylor and 36-year-old Camille Cooley, both of Waukegan.

Police say a black semi-automatic weapon was found on the driver's side floor.

All local lanes of I-90 were shut down for the investigation. Authorities did not immediately have other information.

WLS-TV reports it's the 18th Chicago area expressway shooting this year.
Several readers have asked of me, in effect, Why are you so tough on Rauner? The readers appear to think House Speaker Mike Madigan is solely to blame for our shameful budget impasse. I consolidate below several observations made in several of my columns during the past year.

Madigan has served in state government since he was elected to the Illinois State Constitutional Convention in 1969, almost half a century ago, most of that time as speaker. He deserves a big share of the blame, as no one matches his experience in knowing how to get things done in Springfield, or in how to block others from doing so.

Yet Madigan and Rauner could have reached a respectable budget compromise early last year, if both had been willing to sit down to talk things out, rather than lob ultimatums over the ramparts from a safe distance. Neither one was.

Rauners strategy has from the get-go been hopelessly flawed, and he surely realized this months ago. Yet he appears too proud to admit as much. I also sense that the governor doesnt listen to other people. A pity. The basic strategy has been to threaten to withhold support for a tax increase, in return for Madigans capitulation to a sometimes long, sometimes shorter, list of demands in his Turnaround Agenda.

I voted for the governor and have wanted him and Illinois to succeed. I also support his agenda of business-friendly changes, term limits and redistricting reform. Yet wishing and fulminating and making silly personal attacks on Madigan wont make it happen.

Rauners threat to be a hold-out on a tax increase is hollow. Along with every close observer, Madigan knows that an increase of some sort (after a tax reduction in 2014) is absolutely necessary to balance the state budget. And Rauner will ultimately have to sign off on such.

Second, Madigan doesnt need anything. And how do you negotiate with a person who doesnt need anything! His only need over the decades has been to maintain political control. He obviously doesnt feel sufficient pressure to help the little people who are suffering as a result of the budget impasse from the loss of mental health and other social services, most of whom are probably Democrats.

For Madigan, public policy is a means, not an end. A means to enhancing his power. Madigans power is totally negative. He can block literally any bill that originates in the General Assembly, through his control of his House Rules Committee, which determines if a bill  absolutely every bill from the House and Senate  will ever see the light of day.

But Madigan has been willing to negotiate and compromise with governors over the years. And Madigan is vulnerable, I believe, to the legacy thing.

Madigan is human. He cannot want to be viewed in Illinois history as a dark force who was in charge during the states long decline. How did we get here? There isnt enough space remaining, yet we know the huge pension payments needed to rebuild woefully depleted reserves are one factor  equal now to the revenue yield of almost two percentage points in the individual income tax rate of 3.75 percent. Few have clean hands here.

Democrats and public employee unions opted over the years to devote limited resources to current operating budgets, rather than to squirrel enough away each year to meet future pension obligations.

Republicans such as otherwise good governors Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar did the same, pushing pension investments to out years when they would be gone from office.

And people like me, on the periphery of policymaking over the decades, were vaguely aware of the biennial pension bill, which oh so quietly wended its way through the legislative process.

The bill was filled with sweeteners for this or that group, including for the outrageously generous judges pensions, among many other comfortable beneficiaries, pushing pension costs way up. But we did nothing.

So here we are. Too much spending and not enough money, and a governor and speaker unwilling to sort it all out until the other says uncle. Now is the time, belatedly, to act. The legislative session ends May 31. After that date, any bill requires a three-fifths majority in each chamber to become effective immediately, making action tougher by an order of magnitude.

Meanwhile, I weep for Illinois.
LINCOLN  Nebraska's Legislature could see a major shake-up next year if last week's primary results are any indication.

At least five incumbents appear to face a serious threat in the general election, having finished second in the primary to challengers. One lawmaker could be eliminated once provisional primary ballots are counted. Term limits will claim another 11 senators, leaving their seats open for newcomers. And 17 current lawmakers have only served since 2015.

Taken together, it's possible that 34 senators  more than two-thirds of the Legislature  will have two years of experience or less when next year's session begins in January.

The prospect of so many rookie senators at once concerns some lawmakers, who say it could lead to a more partisan and gridlocked Legislature.

"With an organization as complex as the Legislature, it's always a problem when you have people with very little experience," said Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha, who was appointed to his seat in 2009.

Krist pointed to this year's session, which saw a record-high 24 filibusters. Many of the senators who were elected in 2014 were emboldened because they had a year of experience under their belt, he said.

"In that second year, everybody's an extrovert," Krist said. "It can get unruly."

Large waves of new and inexperienced senators make the Legislature less predictable, said Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus, who will be among the most senior members next year. Even though Republicans gained seats in 2014, for instance, lawmakers ended up abolishing the death penalty and increasing the state's gas tax.

"It creates a great deal of volatility," Schumacher said. "You basically don't know which way the wind is going to blow."

Schumacher said a surge in new senators also increases the odds that the Legislature will pass a bill with unintended consequences, or be swayed by lobbyists with legislation that senators have rejected before. Senior senators provide guidance, but next year only seven will have six or more years of experience.

Longtime Capitol lobbyist Walt Radcliffe said term limits have forced the Legislature to rehash many of the same issues year after year, and each new crop of senators has to learn about issues that have been debated before. Lawmakers with time under their belt tend to propose more innovative ideas because they understand the intricacies of state government, he said.

"If you take a high school athlete, they're not going to perform as well in their freshman and sophomore year as they would in their junior and senior years," Radcliffe said. "New players are more reluctant because they don't have the knowledge base to do things."

The incumbent senators who finished second in the primary were Democrats Rick Kolowksi of Omaha and Sue Crawford of Bellevue and Republicans Les Seiler of Hastings, Al Davis of Hyannis and Jerry Johnson of Wahoo.

Newly appointed state Sen. Nicole Fox of Omaha appeared to come in third, which would eliminate her from the November ballot. But her race remained uncertain Friday because she trailed one of her opponents by just 10 votes, and provisional ballots had not yet been counted.

Nebraska's legislative races are officially nonpartisan. The top two vote-getters in each contest will advance to the November general election.

Sen. Bill Kintner of Papillion, a Republican, said he expects next year's Legislature will become more conservative given the primary results. Most of the endangered incumbents were challenged by conservative Republicans, including some publicly backed by GOP Gov. Pete Ricketts.

"People want senators who will govern the way they ran," Kintner said, arguing that some legislators campaign as conservatives but become more moderate once in office.

Some incumbents could still come back to win in November. Because the race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders was decided in Nebraska's March caucuses, Democratic voters didn't have as much incentive to cast a ballot. Registered nonpartisan voters also will likely have more of a voice.

In addition, incumbents just finished their legislative session last month and may not have had as much time to campaign as their challengers.

Kintner said he's not worried about an influx of new senators.

"We can deal with the people that come here," he said. "Let the voters send us who they want."
"I think it would be bad for us as a party, but I think it would be worse for the general public," UK Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake told Tova O'Brien

4 hours ago
Speaking to IRJ in Kuala Lumpur, Azharuddin said the 600km standard-gauge line will connect Kuala Lumpur with Bentong in Pahang province and run through Terengganu province to Tumpat in the north east province of Kelantan, on the border with Thailand. Trains will operate at up to 200km/h.

"At the moment all of the rail links are on the western side of the peninsula, we do have a rail link to the eastern side but it covers what I would say are rural areas. The new line will serve major towns in this area of the country," Azharuddin says. "A new railway is critical to develop the states in this area and bring them up to par with the western states."

Azharuddin says that in addition to boosting passenger connectivity, the new line is a major element of a strategy to increase freight traffic on the Malaysian rail network as it will serve established industrial areas. He added that the development process for the project will take seven to eight years to complete but at this stage there is no agreed completion date for the line. "We have to complete this RFI exercise and then we need to present it to the economic council," Azharuddin says. "We need to do the economic part of it to work out the benefits, and how to finance it. We are looking at models of support from the private sector but we think the case is strong."

High-speed progress

A project which is a little further ahead is the proposed high-speed line from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.

Azharuddin says he expects a MoU with Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA) for the project to be signed "in the next few months" and a tender for construction to be issued in 2017.

Prospective bidders from China, Japan, and Korea have all openly stated their intention to bid for the contract, with Japan and Korea setting up exhibitions at shopping malls in Kuala Lumpur to highlight their high-speed rail expertise. For example the Korean exhibit features a simulator of a HEMU 430X high-speed train which staff say will form part of the bid for the project. China held a similar exhibition in 2015.

Azharuddin says Spad is considering private sector participation in the high-speed project, including in the operation of the route. However, he said that no decision has been made yet on the structure of the project, except that it will be an open tender.

"From Malaysia's point of view we need to get the best value for money and safe system running high-speed rail," Azharuddin says. "We will go to an open tender process which enables all parties, the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Europeans to come and bid. We are waiting for the best deal to come to our table and we will look at it together with Singapore."
Since December 2012, the government has provided a 50m in financial aid to sustain single wagonload operations, under a derogation from the European Commission. However, with this arrangement due to expire at the end of 2017, Austria is looking to continue subsidies and increase the efficiency of the wagonload scheme.

A recent study found that costs for road and rail transport are similar over distances of 120-300km, and subsidies are therefore necessary to increase short-haul rail volumes. The new scheme recognises the fact that the last mile is the most costly element of single wagonload operation and subsidies will therefore support operations between loading/unloading points and the nearest marshalling yard, no longer taking into account the overall distance travelled.

This means the government will be able to fund more wagonload flows with the same level of subsidy, in line with the government's objective of boosting rail's share of the Austrian freight market from 33% to 40% by 2030.

However, the Ministry of Transport stated that international wagonload traffic also needs to be supported in other countries, and no amount of subsidy will help the sector to grow in Austria if operators in neighbouring states abandon wagonload services.
The 10,000m2 facility is the centrepiece of a 20m investment in the plant, which is being upgraded to expand capacity for future orders and the fleet of 66 class 345 Aventra EMUs for London's Elizabeth Line (Crossrail).

The testing and commissioning facility is equipped with 250m-long electrified tracks, which are long enough to accommodate a complete nine-car class 345 set. Production of the class 345s will peak next year, when Bombardier will deliver a train to Transport for London every 10 days. To meet this demanding schedule, additional testing facilities were needed at Derby and Balfour Beatty was awarded a contract in 2014 to build a new testing shed, which is known as 'V' Shop.

All four lines in the shed are electrified with full-length pits for underfloor access. Each test bay is multifunctional and can be used for type testing or final acceptance testing.

"This facility is one of the biggest investments in the history of our Derby site, and the test facility will be a fundamental part of both our current projects and future train builds, enhancing our ability to deliver all stages of a new train product from a single British site."

Bombardier UK head of technical services Mr Ken Wilson told IRJ that engineering testing of the first class 345 would begin at Derby at the end of this month, before the train moves to the Old Dalby test track near Nottingham for dynamic testing.

As part of the upgrading of its testing facilities, Bombardier is also extending electrification on the site's test track from 1km to 1.5km with a new 6MVa transformer to provide the necessary power for a nine-car class 345. As Crossrail production peaks, Wilson says it will be possible to operate the test track 24 hours a day to meet the delivery schedule for the fleet.

In addition to the class 345s, Bombardier says production will begin later this year on an order for 45 class 710 Aventra EMUs for London Overground. The first of these trains will enter service in May 2018.
Iraq is once again in political turmoil, and once again we are hearing calls to partition the country into three ethno-sectarian cantonments: Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurd. The partition trope resurfaces periodically, most often while Iraq looks too hard to fix. Advocates of partition suggest that Iraq is a false construct of the century-old Sykes-Picot treaty, and that Iraqis are incapable of sustaining a heterogeneous state. Putting aside the fact that the Sykes-Picot narrative is at best contested, it is time to put the partition trope to the test and then, hopefully, to rest. The mostly non-Iraqi voices who want to divide the country into thirds owe the Iraqi people and the rest of the world extensive, detailed clarification. Surely, any plan to drastically restructure Iraq must be more thoughtful and detailed than the widely condemned 2003 plan to invade Iraq. At the very least, advocates for partition should address some fundamental questions. If they cannot answer these satisfactorily then they should pause before reissuing what many Iraqis view as disheartening, and even inflammatory, positions about their state.

First, who wants to break the state into three parts, either under loose federalism or as separate states? There appears to be no evidence that the current Sunni revolt seeks sectarian partition. Other than the outlying Islamic State terrorists, Sunni Arab Iraqis want to be part of and, in some cases to control, the state. Most Sunni Arabs I have spoken with are terrified by the idea of partition. It does not appear that leaders from Iraq's powerful Da'wa party, or even Muqtada al-Sadr, seek partition. While the two major Kurdish partiesthe PUK and the KDPdo seek eventual partition or confederation for themselves, and while the head of the PUK has suggested three way partition, neither party has pushed hard for this solution and neither party can claim to represent Iraqi Arab interests. Arguments for partition cannot be predicated on the idea that this is what the Iraqis want. If Iraqis do eventually seek three-way partition, then there is no need to advocate the position, as they will get there of their own accord....

The remainder of this commentary is available on warontherocks.com.

Ben Connable is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation, a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, and a retired Marine Corps intelligence and Arabic-speaking Foreign Area officer.

This commentary originally appeared on War on the Rocks on May 16, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
In six months, California will join Maine, Nevada and probably a few other states in deciding whether or not to legalize the large-scale commercial production of marijuana. Residents will be inundated with wild claims about the promises and pitfalls of these initiatives.

You will hear debates about government revenue, criminal justice benefits, the environment, and the effect of legalization on Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. Public health conversations may prove especially contentious. Some will claim that legalization will constitute a net gain for health. Others will say the exact opposite.

Although you shouldn't believe either extreme, one fairly safe bet is that if we legalize and allow profit-maximizing firms to produce, sell, and advertise recreational marijuana, use will increase.

The data from Colorado and Washington, where voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, are still preliminary. We do know, however, that the number of Coloradans who reported using marijuana in the past month increased from about 10.5 percent in 2011-12 to nearly 15 percent in 2013-14. In Washington, reported use increased from just above 10 percent to almost 13 percent.

Given that both states' preexisting medical systems already provided quasi-legal availability, it is hard to imagine that commercial legalization did not account for at least some of these increases. (That said, other factors could influence marijuana use and it will be some time before researchers have enough data to conduct rigorous analyses. Some of the increase could also come from respondents being more honest now that marijuana is legal in their states).

But is an increase in marijuana consumption a bad thing from a public health standpoint? Not necessarily.

Much will depend on the types of users who account for the increase  adults or children? Heavy users or light users? No one wants kids to get stoned at school or to become regular users while their brains are still developing. And no one wants adults to be impaired at work or behind the wheel. Some heavy marijuana users, moreover, struggle to control their consumption and this can create challenges for them and their families. But there are real benefits associated with marijuana use, such as medical relief or simply pleasure.

Exactly how people consume marijuana will also help determine public health consequences. In addition to vaporizing marijuana plant material (which reduces inhalation of carcinogens and other substances), people can and do eat, drink, vape hash-oil, and dab waxes that are high in the intoxicating chemical THC. The negative effects of overconsuming edibles are well-documented, but much less is known about the pros and cons of these other forms.

Perhaps the most important consideration is how increased marijuana consumption may influence the use of other substances.

We do not know if marijuana legalization will lead to more or less drinking.

Although the social costs of heavy alcohol use are much larger than the social costs attributable to heavy marijuana use, we do not know if legalization will lead to more or less drinking. The research on the relationship between alcohol and marijuana use is split down the middle.

This connection is especially important in terms of traffic safety. The bulk of the research suggests that driving drunk is more dangerous than driving stoned, and driving stoned is worse than driving sober. Research also suggests that driving under the influence of both alcohol and marijuana is worse than either by itself.

It would be a real blow to public health if an increase in marijuana use led to increased tobacco use. Even though the bulk of the research suggests this is a possibility, one cannot assume that the relationship would remain the same under a different legal regime. Besides, most of the relevant studies were conducted before e-cigarettes and marijuana vape pens became popular, so researchers and voters alike have to be careful about making projections.

There is also a new and much smaller body of research suggesting that increasing the availability of marijuana reduces problems with opioid painkillers. Some of these studies, however, are working papers that have not yet been subject to rigorous peer review.

When you vote on whether to legalize marijuana, public health consequences may not be at the top of your list. If they are, I'm here to tell you the experts have more questions than answers. That won't change before November.

Beau Kilmer is codirector of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center and coauthor of the recently revised book Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know.

This commentary originally appeared in Los Angeles Times on May 16, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
YOU On Demand (YOD) and Huawei have expanded their distribution agreement to provide YOD-branded transactional and subscription video-on-demand (VOD) offerings in Mainland China.





Using Huaweis InTouch Service Delivery platform, the YOU On Demand branded zone will offer its licensed content through both a transactional VOD (TVOD) and subscription VOD (SVOD) option. The SVOD zone will provide 384 SVOD Hollywood and Chinese films, including up to 120 at any given time, with 24 titles added every month.The partnership provides telecommunications operators with an integrated broadcast control and content service platform along with video on-demand operations services.We are extremely proud to continue working with Huawei with this next step strategic partnership. Huaweis clout, state-of-the-art technology and global influence, make them an extremely desirable business partner. This partnership signifies the proliferation of YOU On Demands Pay Content Group, which includes subscription-based and single-use transactional services, and allows YOU On Demand to work with Huaweis telecom partners through Huaweis fully-realized value-added-service ecosystem, said Mingcheng Tao, CEO, YOU On Demand YOU On Demand expects to reach a contracted addressable user base of about 170 million by the end of 2016.
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LINCOLN  Gov. Pete Ricketts on Monday suggested that Nebraska schools should ignore an Obama administration directive urging public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity.

The policy pronouncement is "basically an opinion (that) does not have the authority of law," Ricketts said during his monthly statewide call-in radio broadcast.

Schools should "reject this bullying by the Obama administration," the governor said.

Ricketts' pronouncement followed on the heels of a resolution adopted by the Republican state convention on Saturday that encourages the Legislature to restrict the use of public restrooms based on biological gender at birth.

The administrative directive issued by the Department of Education and Justice Department proposes guidelines to ensure transgender students "enjoy a supportive and non-discriminatory school environment."

Ricketts said the Obama administration should concentrate more of its attention on "growing jobs and creating opportunities for American families."

On a separate issue, Ricketts told a caller he would be open to consideration of a "stand-your-ground law" in Nebraska. Such state laws generally remove the duty to retreat before using what could be deadly force in what may be viewed as self-defense.

"I agree with the principle (of) defending property and family," the governor said.

Asked about his meeting with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at an Omaha rally earlier this month, Ricketts said he endorsed Trump at the event because "we've got to have party unity."

Ricketts told the caller Trump was "very charming personally."
Prosecutor demands 2 years of custodial restraint for eccentric artist Pavlensky

MOSCOW, May 16 (RAPSI)  A prosecutor demanded to sentence Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky, accused of burning tyres on St. Petersburg's Maly Konyushenny Bridge, a historic bridge across the Moika River, to two years of custodial restraint, RAPSI learnt in the Preobrazhensky District Court of Moscow on Monday.

However, the prosecutor asked the court to release Pavlensky because the statute of limitation has expired.

Pavlensky is known for a number of controversial performances.

In July 2012, he sewed up his mouth and stood at the Kazan Cathedral with a poster in support of Pussy Riot.

In May 2013, Pavlensky lay down on the ground in front of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly naked with barbed wire around his body.

In November 2013, also naked, Pavlensky nailed his scrotum to the Red Square pavement near the Lenin Mausoleum.

In October 2014, he staged an eccentric stunt on the roof of the Serbsky Mental Institution in Moscow by cutting off one of his earlobes.

In February 2015, Pavlensky and his accomplices burned car tyres, waved Ukrainian flags and banged sheet metal with sticks in a show of solidarity with the anti-government protesters in Ukraine. The performance was held near the Church of the Savior on Blood in St. Petersburg.

In November 2015, Pavlensky was arrested on suspicion of setting fire to the Moscow headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB). Several other people who claim to be journalists that were invited to the artists performance were arrested along with the artist.
Khaama Press, May 14, 2016

A teenage girl was burnt alive allegedly by her brothers wife in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, local officials said Saturday.

The incident took place in the 2nd police district of Jalalabad city, the provincial capital of Nangarhar earlier today.

According to the police sources, the victim has been identified as Mursal who was around 15-year-old and was a student of 9th grade.

The sources further added that Mursal was thrown into the oven by her brothers wife who used the opportunity as there was no one present in the house.

The alleged perpetrator has been arrested and is in police custody for further investigation, police sources said, adding that the woman has not confessed to the horrific crime so far.

The horrific incident has sent shockwaves across the country which comes as violence against women has been rampant across the country.

Incidents involving violence against women are not new but such incidents involving a woman committing violence against another woman has rarely been reported.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in its report released late in November last year said statistic of violence against women, obtained from the registered cases of violence against women during the first six months in 1394 exceeds 2579 cases.

The report further added that figure was reported 2403 cases during the six months in 1393 which shows 7.32 percent increase in 1394, the last solar year.
As we see a surge in inflation globally, it is now critical that everyone is aware of the implications this will have along every step of the insurance and reinsurance value chain.
This piece was created in collaboration with Geopolitical Futures. George Friedman is the Founder and Chairman of Geopolitical Futures. The views expressed are the author's own.

The United States became the only global power in 1991. In the 45 years prior, it had been locked in a swirling global struggle for primacy with the Soviet Union, and at many moments it did not look like the United States was going to win. Before that, since about the turn of the 20th century, the United States was an emerging power, finding its place in a violent world.

In 1991, the United States had to come to terms with a new role. The collapse of the Soviet Union took the U.S. by surprise. Washingtons strategy during the Cold War was to create a complex alliance structure for both military and economic affairs. It embedded its forces in military alliances, and it focused on the development of trading structures designed to entice other countries away from the Soviet Union and into the U.S.-led trading system. The United States was prepared to trade economic advantage for an enhanced alliance. It was also prepared for asymmetric military alliances in which the United States provided the bulk of the resources, and its allies provided far less than they could have.

Since the United States saw itself as caught in a global struggle with strategic and moral dimensions, this imbalance made sense. What also made sense was the use of U.S. forces not only to guarantee the security of the alliance, but to act in direct military operations with minimal support from allies. From the Korean and Vietnam wars to the crises in Lebanon in 1958 and Grenada in 1983, as well as endless covert operations, the United States waged a global war of varying intensity against Communism.

The United States was driven both by national interest and by its historical reading of the Munich Agreement, which was meant to appease the Germans by allowing them to annex parts of Czechoslovakia. The failure of Munich to prevent World War II was understood by the United States as the result of appeasement and of the failure of the United States to join the Anglo-French alliance sooner. Therefore, during the Cold War, Americas strategy was to constantly refuse to reach accommodation, while attempting to increase the number of its allies. The lessons of World War II became the strategy of the Cold War. It worked in the end. A nuclear war did not erupt, and that is the measure of a successful national strategy.

The True Asymmetry

Since the Cold War, the United States has been at a loss to define its national strategy. It attempted to respond to 9/11 as it did to Pearl Harbor, with a multi-theater campaign built on conventional force. It tried to create an alliance structure to support its efforts. It retained the Munich lesson as the core element of its strategy. But this approach has not worked. Transferring the lessons of World War II and the Cold War to the war against Islamist radicalism cannot succeed. Using the U.S. strategy developed from Dec. 7, 1941 to Dec. 31, 1991 to respond to Sept. 11, 2001 was the true asymmetry of the past 15 years.

The world that created NATO, the International Monetary Fund, and other multilateral structures collapsed 25 years ago. The United States has tried to make the artifacts of the past serve its present purpose, both out of habit and out of a fear that, in moving beyond these institutions, it will lapse back into what it sees as the worst possible strategy: isolationism. But it is important to bear in mind that the United States was never isolationist. This was a term of opprobrium used against those who wanted to avoid involvement in a second European conflict.

During the time it was debating isolationism, the United States was deeply involved in Asia, supporting China against Japan. It was hardly isolationist. There was a general sense in the United States after World War I that American intervention did nothing to solve the European problem, and that being drawn into another protracted and brutal European war did not serve the American interest. It was assumed that the European balance of power would block Germany and, in the event of war, lead to a repeat of the First World War and Germanys defeat. Had France not collapsed in six weeks, but rather fought as it had in World War I, the American strategy would have been prudent. France's collapse created an outcome no one was prepared for. It also changed the strategic equation, and ultimately it changed American strategy.

The U.S. strategy had been to focus on Asia and allow the European balance to work itself out. This strategy has something to teach us today. The intrusion of a major American force is not the first step, but the final step, only to be taken when necessary. U.S. strategy in Asia and Europe during World War II depended on the interests of regional powers and their ability to limit each other. The United States provided aid, but it did not become the guarantor of Asia and Europe against Japan and Germany until this became necessary because the balance of power collapsed.

The United States is enormously powerful, but it is not omnipotent. It is not capable of leading the world through direct force. Neither the British nor the Romans used their own military force as the primary means of governing. Rather, they used the conflicts that raged within their future empires as the basis of their power. The British did not occupy India with a million troops. They used the conflicts among competing powers to increase British power by supporting certain factions against others. They used economic relations as incentives and raised native Indian armies, with British advisers and commanders, to achieve their ends. They did not use main force as their primary tool in pursuing their interests. Had they done so, they would have exhausted themselves far earlier than they did.

The question the United States has faced since 1991 is how to manage its power. The World War II/Cold War model has not worked in the Middle East, because the United States lacks sufficient force to pacify these countries after it destroys their conventional militaries. The alliances it developed during the Cold War also have no relevance in the new global model. These alliances lack the force and motivation to provide strategically significant strength in the new reality. The United States has proceeded as if the old strategy still serves its purposes. It does not.

Certainly, the United States has an interest in the Middle East, but it is not nearly as great as the interests of Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel -- countries distrustful of each other and unable to leave the region. Using this dynamic between the region's major powers to shape the Middle East is in keeping with traditional imperial strategy and is far more likely to work. Similarly, the Europeans have a growing interest in the region. The United States must make it clear that it will not be the prime force in the Middle East but that it might, at its discretion, support European efforts. And if the Europeans fail to build a force that can act, they will have to live with the consequences.

A Strategy for a Mature Power

Being the only global power means the United States is involved everywhere. But given the limits of power, it cannot be the primary actor everywhere. The breadth of interest requires an economy of force and attention. U.S. policy in the interwar period was appropriate for that period. The Cold War strategy was appropriate during the Cold War. But the interwar strategy could not be used during the Cold War, nor can the Cold War strategy be used now.

Therefore, Cold War institutions and concepts have to be re-examined. Chief among them is the assumption that a fixed alliance structure benefits the United States, and that commitment to complex multilateral trade and financial relations born of the Cold War benefits America. This isn't to say that alliances and trade and financial relations aren't necessary. But the necessity of such relationships, in general, does not mean that the arrangements that worked in the Cold War are the way those alliances and relationships should be structured.

The United States emerged from the Cold War in a state of surprise. It has never fully adapted to the post-Cold War world, and in particular to the need for a different strategy. The U.S. currently has a problem defining what issues matter to the country, and recognizing that many, if not most, don't matter. In this period, the core principle of U.S. strategy should be that the United States has few overriding interests, and when it shares these interests with others, those others must take the prime responsibility and risk in managing them.

The world's only global power cannot take responsibility for the stability of the world. To try is to fail. It can support and, in important matters, involve itself. But it does not have the power to manage the world, nor the interest. Thus, we need a new foreign policy based on the limits of American power and interest -- and a will to act when those interests are challenged. It is a strategy of subtlety and not of main force. It is a strategy for a mature power, which we are not yet, but which we must become.
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We try to balance this section of RECOIL by bringing you up to speed with places to visit in the USA, but also look beyond our own borders to places that are just a little off the beaten path. The rewards of doing so are many fold  we gain a perspective on history from different sides that allows a more complete understanding, particularly valuable when studying armed conflicts. We also get to see how weapons development is carried out in cultures that differ from our own, learning the good and bad points of both.

If we were to consider a chunk of real estate where recorded history stretches back to the 6th century B.C., then there's a good chance we might be able to learn more from its place in the chronicles of humanity than, say, Des Moines. With one foot in Asia and the other in Europe, the land now known as Turkey has, for millennia, stood at the crossroads of empires, civilizations, religions, and ethnicities. To say that not all of them have coexisted peaceably with each other is an understatement of epic proportions, so as you might expect, a thriving arms industry has been part of the fabric of society since Alexander the Great was a pup.

Makina ve Kimya Endustris, or MKE for short, was formed in 1950 in order to supply the Turkish military with arms and ammunition. Its history reaches way beyond that though, as the various elements that went to make up the new company had their roots in the Royal Arsenal formed in the latter part of the 15th century. While its lineage is not as clear-cut as that of Beretta, the two companies are of a similar age and have been making firearms since their inception. Because of their long pedigree, the collection at the MKE Industry and Technology Museum is both wide and deep, covering everything from medieval swords to the latest rifle to enter service with the Turkish infantry, the MPT 76.

Located in a building that started out as a cavalry barracks in the 19th century and was subsequently converted to a munitions factory, the museum's 48,000 square feet of indoor exhibition space is open, airy, and well laid out. Another 10,000 square feet of exterior exhibits are used to represent the machinery used in weapons production, as well as chunks of iron just too big and heavy to fit through the doors, such as a section of a WWI German battleship turret. Turkey's longstanding relationship with the German state is evident in the origins of many of the machine tools displayed in the museum's grounds, with Krupp, Werner, and Steyr being represented. Flying the flag for the USA is a General Electric-towed artillery piece, displayed next to a collection of explosive ordnance ranging from free-fall aerial bombs to anti-ship mines.

Inside, the visitor is greeted by another artillery display, this one of WWI to WWII vintage, and consisting of domestically produced copies of German designs, such as the early 37mm Rheinmetall Pak L/45 shown here. Other artifacts of First World War combat are given the floor space they deserve (Galipoli, after all, is just a couple of hours away up the coast), such as a Hotchkiss Portative machinegun, which saw service with the British, Australian, and New Zealand forces, as well as the U.S. during the Pancho Villa raid. German arms are also covered in detail, as are the Turkish versions of them such as the 1938 Mauser, millions of which were produced under license and many of which made their way to these shores after 1945. Edged weapons from various historical periods are not neglected, and there's an interesting collection of early cartridge handguns for the student of 19th century pistols.

Turkey joined NATO in 1952 and currently fields around 600,000 troops, second in numbers only to the United States amongst the Alliance. Arms from the Cold War era are showcased, such as the Type 3 AK-47 (right) and M14, along with the SVT 40 and MG3. HK designs such as the G3, MP5, and HK33 are represented, and it's interesting to see full-auto guns on display without so much as a velvet rope separating them from the visitor. Brief descriptions in English next to each exhibit mean that you won't be reaching for your phrase book every time you come across a new item.

Because MKE's products span the entire spectrum of ordnance, there are anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles standing next to gas masks and mortars, as well as high-explosive and illumination rounds jockeying for space with tungsten penetrators and typewriters. Yes, in addition to producing all manner of death-dealing weaponry, the company also made office equipment as well as mess kits and cutlery.

We found the Turkish people to be welcoming and friendly during our time in Ankara, and the staff of MKE, in particular, to be knowledgeable and passionate about their country and company. If you're in the area, the industry and technology museum is well worth visiting, and you should plan on spending at least three hours there in order to soak in not only the finished products, but also the industrial processes behind them.

MKE Industry and Technology Museum

Address

General Directorate of Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation, Tandogan, Ankara

Hours

Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., and 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Admission

Free

Telephone

0-312-296-16-57

URL

[email protected]
Those interested in EDC (Every Day Carry) include everyone from the pragmatic and practical to the gearcurious metrotacticals who know as much about hair products and sartorial mores as they do ballistics.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Whether its a legitimate interest in good gear, a morbid fascination with the overachievers who claim to be carrying three times as much as they actually do or a harmless expression of narcissism, EDC pictures and discussions are now a intrinsic part of the tactical/firearm community.

Once again this morning well look at 3 possible EDC Loadouts you might have on, or laid out to put on, while drinking your Monday morning cup of joe. Well see what you think about them. Soon well give you the opportunity to show off what youre carrying. Because of the unexpected response we've had to comments about the cups we've included in the article we'll try to include information on that as well.

Monday Morning EDC: Carry Loadout 1. Browning Hi-Power

Note: this says Hi-Power not Hi-Point, although when it comes to gun choice and exercising your constitutional right as guaranteed by the Second Amendment  to each his own.

This loadout includes a venerable but beloved Browning Hi-Power. It's one of the models made in Belgium and assembled in Portugal. We're not entirely sure which ammunition is in this image; best guest is Speer Gold Dot 115gr Hollow Point, but honestly it could be about anything.

There's no knife in the picture per se, but the CRKT Bivy multi-tool has a nice blade with locking liner on it and provides additional flexibility for workaday needs. Light (the mostly likely thing in this loadout to be used every day) is a powerful little SureFire G2 X equipped with a Thyrm Switchback. Two spare magazines are kept in a Blue Force Gear Ten Speed minimalist mag pouch and a Combat Gauze LE hemostatic dressing (left over from a Pocket D.A.R.K. Mini the damn dog chewed up) in a repurposed handcuff belt pouch of the same material. There's also a Suunto Ambit3 Peak (HR) from US Elite Gear and a harmonica. The dog probably chewed up the IFAK in protest over what it heard from the latter. The holster is an acceptable but not remarkable Kydex number of unknown manufacture.

The coffee cup was a gift from a KASOTC Special Operations Forcs (SOF) trainer in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The coffee in it hails from De Espresso Liber.

Monday Morning EDC: Carry Loadout 2. Bare Bones Glock 42

There isn't much to this pocket dump. The cup was a joke  it was picked up at a garage sale and given to a younger brother for his birthday. An unmodified Glock 42 rides in its wrong-handed owner's front left pocket in a simple Blackhawk! ITPH holster. A spare magazine rides loose in the opposite pocket. Both the flashlight and the folding knife are of unknown provenance. The former might have come from a hardware store. No idea on the latter  both do exactly what they're intended to, and neither will evoke tears if they're lost or broken. The watch is a basic Timex. Coffee is something nasty left over from the day before and microwaved to scalding. Ammunition is Winchester 95 gr .380 FMJ from Brownell's; this was taken immediately after a return from the range.

Monday Morning EDC: Carry Loadout 3. Glock 43 with WML

This EDC is a concealed carry loadout centered on a stock Glock 43 equipped with a Streamlight TLR-6 light/laser combo and carried in a Pitbull Tactical Bloodline Nocturnal AIWB holster. The primary mag uses a capacity expanding magazine extension base pad from Taran Tactical Innovations. The flashlight is a Fenix PD35 Tactical Edition, the little task knife a Spyderco of some unknown variety, the karambit is from Bone Tactical and the watch is a Smith & Bradley. Spare mag is carried in the center of the body IWB in a mag pouch from PHLster.

Now, while that cup may look insignificant, it's not. It was bartered for by a number of extremely intoxicated soldiers on New Year's Eve 2001 under some cammie netting on Masirah Island  at the time there was nary a good mug to be had, just these little styrofoam numbers about the size of a thimble. The cost was dear  a KSK Senior NCO walked away with an entire case of Gatorade powder, a Marmot thermal undershirt, a very nice multitool and an awesome pair of wool socks. The cup was worth it, however, and revenge was sweet. The socks, though clean, had been previously used in transit at al-Seeb Air Base in a very private way we shall leave to your imagination.

Ammunition for the person is Murdered Out from Black Rifle Coffee Company. Ammunition for the gun is BrassMAXX 115gr FMJ from TulAmmo.
Precision Syndicate, LLC stirred early last month by creating a custom build of the Nintendo Duck Hunt gun. Enter Glocktendo. The Odessa, TX based company released the information on their Facebook page and there were people ready to give their opinion almost immediately. Things seemed to go ugly early.

Image courtesy of Retro Armory

As a result, they issued the following statement, according to an article by the Texas Hill Country Staff posted on April 13, 2016.

In light of the Nintendo Glock drama, we feel that the media and our fans need to know that this firearm will not be mass produced nor will it ever be. This is a one off custom build for a friend of ours. Do to the thousands of emails and messages we have received in the past 2 days we have been unable to contact everyone in a timely manner, please be patient we will get to you as soon as possible. Thank you all for your support! Oh, and please keep your guns locked up and away from children, its common sense.

It appears this post has since been deleted and/or edited.

Then on April 25th, Precision Syndicate posted to their Facebook page the following message: Its back!! Sort of.. the Glocktendo level 1 slide from Retro Armory.

Precision Syndicate builds custom guns. You can connect with them on Facebook right here.

Image courtesy of Retro Armory.

A little bit about Retro Armory from their site.

Thank you for visiting RetroArmory.com the home of Future Weapons. Retro Armory is tearing apart the archives of American History to bring your favorite Heroes and Villains weapon to life. Have it be Real Life, Movies or Comics we have our eye out for the next Retro Build. We also like you are real guns guys and know that price is a huge factor. We will work hard to keep our overhead low to keep your cost low at all times. Thank you once again for visiting us and we hope to serve you soon.

You can visit Retro Armory right here.

Main image courtesy of Precision Syndicate, LLC.
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Man injured in fire at house

A man suffered second- and third-degree burns on his arms and head during a fire Sunday south of Anderson.

The fire was reported shortly before 7 p.m. at the Champagne Estates Mobile Home Park at 22235 Lone Tree Road off Balls Ferry Road in Anderson.

Firefighters told emergency dispatchers that the residence was engulfed in flames and a vehicle nearby burned. There was also an explosion heard at the residence.

A battalion chief at the fire asked for the Shasta County Sheriff's Office to come to the fire because there were 20 to 30 residents of the park interfering with firefighters.

Deputies were able to disperse the crowd, according to the chief at the scene. A helicopter that had been requested to transport the burn victim was canceled and the man was taken to Mercy Medical Center in Redding by ambulance.

Child exchange ends in dad's arrest

A child exchange turned violent Saturday afternoon in Castella, resulting in the arrest of the biological father on suspicion of attempted murder, domestic violence and child abuse, the Shasta County Sheriff's Office reported.

A woman called for help about 4:35 p.m. only after she regained consciousness from being strangled by the man, Shea Montgomery, 40, according to the sheriff's office.

The woman told deputies she was assaulted and her life was threatened by Montgomery in the child custody exchange of their 14-month-old child, deputies said.

Deputies said Montgomery choked the woman, telling her he would kill her, their child and himself.

The woman tried to break free by scratching Montgomery on his face and elsewhere, but she lost consciousness from being choked, deputies said.

On regaining consciousness, she said she saw Montgomery walking away with their child, deputies said.

While deputies were en route to Castella in northern Shasta County, the sheriff's office contacted the California Highway Patrol for assistance. A CHP unit found Montgomery along with the woman and child, who was found safe and unharmed, the sheriff's office said.

Deputies met up with the CHP unit and put Montgomery under arrest and then took him to jail.

Crews put out fire in off-road water truck

Firefighters were called to a fire in an off-road water truck Saturday afternoon at the old Roseburg mill property at Locust and Barney roads in Anderson.

The parked vehicle, used for logging operations, was on fire next to a large wooden commercial structure, said Capt. Steve Lowe of the Anderson Fire Protection District.

Firefighters from Anderson, Cottonwood and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection went to the blaze after getting the call at 4:02 p.m.

Firefighters were able to keep the fire from spreading to the building although it did receive minor heat damage. A logging truck near the flames also had minor heat damage.

The fire was most likely caused by an electrical issue, Lowe said. The fire caused about $7,000 in damage.
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California-based Indian tribes have every right to operate casinos on reservations, so long as the governor, the Legislature and, on occasion, the electorate can have their say.

Based on two recent federal court decisions, however, California's authority is in doubt. Judges essentially have told the state to acquiesce to tribes and their commercial partners. That's hardly what voters had in mind in 2000 when they granted tribes monopoly rights to operate slot machines in casinos on their land.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, has introduced legislation that would make clear that California decision makers are not potted plants. LaMalfa's HR 5079 is a California-specific bill that seeks to prohibit the U.S. interior secretary from authorizing casinos over objections of California officials and voters.

LaMalfa has four California co-sponsors: Republicans Jeff Denham of Turlock and Paul Cook of Apple Valley, and Democrats Jared Huffman of San Rafael and Raul Ruiz of Palm Desert. The other 47 members of California's congressional delegation should sign on.

The measure was inspired by proposals to build Indian-owned casinos off their reservations, one on Highway 99 near Madera, and the other at the Toyota Amphitheatre in Yuba County. Voters rejected the Madera compact in 2014. The Legislature didn't authorize the Yuba County casino. That should have been the end. But the tribes sued and are winning.

There are more than 100 tribes in California, far more than any other state, and 60 Indian-owned casinos. Most tribes build casinos only on existing reservations. But with capital from outside developers, some tribes seek to open new gambling palaces in more urban settings, with or without state approval.

Californians have made clear that tribes can operate casinos. But that right is not unfettered. Voters expect to have a say, as do California's elected leaders. Tribes and their partners should understand that one sure way to run afoul of the voters is to ignore their voice.

Meanwhile, another piece of congressional legislation, HR 511, would reverse a National Labor Relations Board decision that requires tribes to comply with the National Labor Relations Act at their casinos.

Most Republicans supported the measure, and most Democrats opposed it. One exception was Rep. Loretta Sanchez, the Orange County Democrat who is running for U.S. Senate. Sanchez's main opponent, Attorney General Kamala Harris, said in an interview she was not familiar with the measure.

Tribes are sovereign. But their casinos employ non-Indian workers. One argument used to sell casinos to the public is that they provide jobs. Those jobs should come with basic protections afforded by federal law.

The Sacramento Bee
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So now we are deluged by calls to raise Shasta Dam and build the Sites Reservoir. A previous writer explains how we simply have to build higher dams and the Sites Reservoir. An editorial reluctantly falls in line with the raise-the-dam argument. Momentum seems to be building.

This whole conversation boils down to climate deniers wanting more reservoirs and global warming adherents wanting none.

So, once again, we debate while we go thirsty.

Look, it is hotter, it just is. And water evaporates. Building higher dams and more dams will just hold more water so it can evaporate. Moreover, there is little doubt agribusiness is behind the drive for more dams.

Agribusiness wants profit, and walnuts and almonds are profitable. So, they are pushing hard for more reservoirs. Do not be fooled here. This has little to do with drinking water. It's all about business.

I have even tangled on Facebook with the recreation lobby, who incredibly puts recreation ahead of drinking water. A higher dam means more houseboats.

There are ways, much cheaper ways like diverting water into underground reservoirs. These are much less intrusive to the environment and avoid the evaporation that will occur as our summer runs six months or more and the temperature soars.

And why on earth would we talk about hydroelectric power when we have solar and wind? The difference in infrastructure cost is huge.

And nobody says a thing about the lack of a snow pack. The tragic impact of global warming in California is the destruction of the snow pack, our largest source of drinking water. We need to work on innovative ideas for conserving drinking water, not more ways for growing trees so we can all munch on almonds.

Drive less, invest in renewal energy and build underground water sinks that will cut evaporation. We need to divert our public infrastructure dollars to renewable energy and mass transit, including high-speed rail. More dams mean nothing, except saving water for a greedy agribusiness sector that will simply grow more water-hungry trees.

Greg Beale lives in Redding.
Hopothesis partners Jeff Bergau, left, and Murad Sabzali, center, have sold their beer brand to Finch's. The two check out the space of Finch's future brewpub with Jamie Lisac, right, managing partner of Finch's. The space is the former Breakroom Brewery at 2925 W. Montrose Ave. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)

Finch's Beer Co. is sorry, Chicago.

It's sorry for coming out of the gate with, shall we say, less than stellar beer. It's sorry for not being terribly engaged in the Chicago beer market. It's sorry for hyping a big beautiful new brewery along the Chicago River that never materialized.

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Can you be friends again? It hopes so. And it's quietly reinventing itself to win your affection (plus your taste buds and dollars).

The new approach for Finch's will slowly unfurl through June. It includes taking over the recently vacated Breakroom Brewery on Montrose Avenue, converting that to its new production brewery and opening a brewpub with chef Matthias Merges at the helm. It is acquiring small local competitor Hopothesis Brewing, and will take over and ramp up production of that brand. It is tweaking its logo and even changing its name; during the coming weeks, Finch's Beer Co. will become Finch Beer Co.

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The reimagined Finch's is rooted in the February sale of the brewery, from the founding Finch family to a team of its original investors who saw a need for change. Jamie Lisac, one of the original investors who manages the Finch's board of directors, said it had become clear that for the brewery to survive in an increasingly crowded beer industry, a new approach was needed in its home market.

"We definitely have some making up to do," Lisac said. "We do that through making better beer. We do that by focusing on the Chicago market and proving to drinkers that we are making great beers. We have to expose more people to the beer and I think the brewpub will go a long, long way in doing that. It's going to take time. We understand that."

Cans wait to be filled with Sungasm beer at Finch's production facility. The brewer will move its brewing to space in the recently vacated Breakroom Brewery. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)

Launched in 2011 in a former frame shop on Elston Avenue, Finch's has had something of a turbulent existence, and struggled to connect with Chicago drinkers and to find its identity. Its original core beers  Golden Wing blond ale, Cut Throat pale ale and Threadless IPA  did little to wow local drinkers, and none is still produced. Founder Ben Finch espoused a mission to get broad distribution, and got the beer in almost 25 states within three years. But it could be found in only a modest number of local accounts.

"Finch has not penetrated the Chicago market very well," Lisac said. "We went a mile wide and an inch deep. We're a Chicago beer, and this is where we should be. Right now, we're not."

Yet, Finch's did continue to grow, and produced about 10,000 barrels of beer in 2015. Lisac said his team of investors believed there was a potentially strong brand in Finch's, and that its vastly improved beer lineup could still resonate with Chicago drinkers. The current year-round lineup includes Chimera (an India pale ale), Hardcore Chimera (an imperial IPA and the brewery's flagship beer), Fascist Pig (an imperial red ale), Secret Stache Stout (a pitch-perfect, low-alcohol vanilla stout) and Sobek & Set (a black IPA).

"Ben did a great job of building the brewery to where it was, but it had reached a point where it was clear there was new leadership and vision needed," Lisac said. "That next step is when you acquire additional capital, which (Finch) was unwilling or unable to do so the new ownership group stepped up to do that."

In an interview, Finch said his personal priorities have changed since starting the company, and agreed it was time for a change in leadership. He maintains a seat on the Finch's board. Both he and Lisac declined to reveal the cost of the sale.

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"I'm proud of what we've accomplished, and it will be exciting to see what happens next for the company," Finch said.

The most visible move is the purchase of Breakroom, a brewpub launched last year on Montrose Avenue in front of an 8,000-square-foot woodworking shop that will become home to Finch's production brewery by the end of the year. (Finch had earlier said he was close to building a new brewery on the Chicago River, but that deal fell through, and later that he would move brewing operations to suburban Long Grove. Lisac said that, too, will not happen.)

Handling restaurant operations for what will be called The Finch Kitchen, which is expected to open in June, will be Merges, a former Charlie Trotter's chef whose operations include restaurants Yusho and A10, Logan Square cocktail bar Billy Sunday and the forthcoming Old Irving Brewing Co., which targets an August opening.

Merges said the menu will focus on encased meats with an international theme: sausages with Indian, Asian, American, South American and Spanish influences. There will also be "superinteresting, out-of-the-box bar snacks," such as pig ears with dried horseradish.

The brewpub is in the midst of renovation that is intended to lighten and tidy the space; wood columns have been removed from behind the heavy dark wood bar and a large chalkboard menu is to follow out the door.

As part of ramping up production at Finch's, the brewery is also acquiring Hopothesis, which was founded in 2013 by Jeff Bergau and Murad Sabzali, partners also in a science industry marketing group. Hopothesis never built a brewery of its own, opting instead to have its beer made primarily at Minhas Brewery in Monroe, Wis.

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Bergau said he and Sabzali began looking for the next move last year, and considered building their own brewery or putting in an offer on one of two existing Chicago breweries that were available for sale. (He wouldn't name them.) Instead, they decided to sell the brand to Finch's in exchange for equity in the company because it would create a stronger version of both Hopothesis and Finch's.

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"We are businesspeople who love beer and want to bring great beer to a lot of people, and the only way you can do that is with a sustainable business," Bergau said. "I believe there is a bubble that is going to burst sometime soon because there are just too many beer companies."

Taking on Hopothesis appealed to Finch's, Lisac said, because it would add an established brand to its roster, and allow it to make  and sell  more beer. Hopthesis sold about 1,200 barrels of beer in 2015, though that number figures to grow once it begins distribution in 12-ounce cans in June.

Lisac compared the Finch's acquisition of Hopothesis to Anheuser-Busch's purchase of eight craft breweries across the nation  albeit on a much, much smaller level. Though he said Finch's is not seeking to buy more small breweries, he also wouldn't rule it out. And he said he expects the industry to continue to contract in deals both large and small.

"In this incredibly competitive industry, it's essential for combinations like these for breweries to survive," he said.

Added up, Lisac hopes the new version of Finch's intrigues a city that has had a lukewarm-at-best relationship with the brand. Finch's has tightened its distribution to 16 states and will be shrinking the list even further to emphasis its home market. Lisac said he also briefly considered a full rebranding, but decided tweaking the logo to look more like a bird and dropping the apostrophe and the "s" from the name accomplishes his goal.

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"Finch's was about the family," he said. "Finch is about the bird."

jbnoel@tribpub.com

Twitter @joshbnoel






It was a Thursday night in mid-April, and Kathleen Dillon dragged tables around the Heartland Cafe, carefully arranging them to give a good view of a projector screen. It was less than an hour before the New York Democratic presidential debate between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, and Dillon frantically prepared the restaurant for a watch party for Sanders supporters.

"You know Bernie won Rogers Park," Dillon said, a smile crossing her face as she recalled the results of the Illinois primary. No, Sanders didn't win Cook County, she lamented. "But we really pulled him through in Rogers Park." That's home base for the Heartland.

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At 27, Dillon has her hands full. She's an academic counselor at Loyola University Chicago, a waitress at the Heartland when the need arises and, as of January, the restaurant's first-ever political coordinator.

At any other restaurant or cafe, employing an official political coordinator might seem odd. But at the Heartland, a vintage lefty locale at the intersection of North Glenwood and West Lunt avenues, it's expected.

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After nearly 40 years, the Heartland hub for progressive politics and community activism remains a place where the hippie movement of the 1960s and '70s is still very much alive. And in a presidential election year, particularly one when a progressive like Sanders has gained fervent traction, the Heartland demands to be heard.

Sanders' smoldering rhetoric on economic inequality, universal health care and tuition-less public colleges and universities strikes a chord with the Heartland's crowd of progressive 20-somethings and aging activists in their 50s and 60s. A not-so-careful look around the exposed brick walls and peeling paint of the Heartland reveals a pulsing liberalism: computer-printed flyers with stylized portraits of Sanders, stickers condemning hydraulic fracking and handwritten notes advertising a drink special called "The Bernie" (2 ounces of Buffalo Trace bourbon mixed with lemon juice and honey, and topped with club soda and a lemon wedge).

But the Heartland's politics mix more than platitudes and drink specials. They're ingrained in every aspect of the restaurant, from the largely local organic food churned out of the kitchen to the wall art and reading material interspersed throughout the bar. Dillon wants to shape those politics, and Sanders' campaign focused her mission this spring.

"I've always been politically involved; I guess I have a set of skills in that way," she said. "They've been, not stagnant, but buried for a while. But they've been there, and I think getting excited about Bernie brought it out."

That excitement quickly defined Dillon as the Heartland's political coordinator late last fall, when she was solely a waitress there. The son of owner Tom Rosenfeld had thrown a party at the restaurant to watch a Democratic presidential debate, and when it was over, Dillon began pressuring her boss to hold more "watch parties."

"I think I might have annoyed Tom a little bit because I was always asking what we were going to do next and when we were going to have another watch party," Dillon said. "Eventually, we started talking about me organizing political events and getting an actual title."

Taking that job, however, meant stepping into a long and tumultuous political legacy, and Dillon said she found the perfect mentor in Heartland co-founder Kathleen "Katy" Hogan.



The Heartland's history

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Hogan's memory is sharp. At 66, she can recall the exact day she and Heartland co-founder Michael James began work on the restaurant. "May Day 1976," she said.

Her memories at the Heartland are among some of her favorite, she says in her signature raspy voice, and after almost 40 years there as a founder, former owner and patron, she has a lot of them. From the time it opened in 1976, the restaurant became a hub for bohemian progressives. Countless artists, musicians, writers and activists found their way to the Morse stop on the Red Line and passed through the Heartland as a sort of pilgrimage.

"We paid so many musicians with free meals through the years," Hogan said, laughing.

But politics always took center stage. Out of the Heartland, Hogan and James organized to help elect David Orr, an independent running against the Democrat for 49th Ward alderman in 1979. Former Chicago mayor Harold Washington spoke in front of the restaurant during the 1983 campaign that made him the city's first African-American mayor. And a 2004 rally there helped galvanize the campaign of a young would-be U.S. senator named Barack Obama.

In the years following the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing recession, however, the Heartland began to struggle. A 2009 closure due to health-code violations further distressed the restaurant, and in 2010, Hogan and James began asking customers for donations to help keep the restaurant afloat. In 2011, Rosenfeld, the owner of an organic farm in Michigan and a longtime Rogers Park resident, approached Hogan and James about buying the Heartland. That deal was finalized in 2012.

"It was this neighborhood institution, really a Chicago institution, and Katy and Michael and I had been talking about me buying it for a while before we finally went ahead and did it," said Rosenfeld, 50. "This is, without a doubt, my most difficult business venture, but I love it."

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Like Hogan and James, Rosenfeld was politically progressiveit was a condition of him buying the Heartland, Hogan said. And that affinity for progressive politics was essential to Rosenfeld's decision to buy the restaurant.

"I liked that the Heartland was a political place, that it had opinions, because it only seems natural to me," he said, adding that he wanted to preserve the progressive reputation of the Heartland. That's why he made Dillon the political coordinator.

The Heartland today

Dillon didn't resurrect progressive politics at the Heartland. It never really left, she said. Hogan and James still host a Saturday radio show from the restaurant once a month, when the duo talk to politicians and activists. And even early last year, before Dillon began waitressing there, the Heartland rallied for Jesus "Chuy" Garcia's mayoral campaign.

What she has done, Dillon says, is add a degree of consistency and stability to the Heartland's politics.

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As the primary season comes to a close, Sanders' path to securing his party's nomination has become increasingly narrow. But the Heartland's activism doesn't end with his campaign, Dillon says. Moving forward, she wants to turn the restaurant's gaze on local issues.

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"We are active here, and, you know, yes, Bernie is going to have an interesting go from here on out," she said. "But what he's done, what we've done here, is start a movement. We're talking about what we can actually do now. We're not perfect, the establishment isn't perfect, but we like to practice what we preach."

It's not yet clear whether Clinton will win the Heartland's endorsement. But backing a candidate isn't the Heartland's first priority, Dillon says. Now, she's working through the restaurant to rally support for the "Fair Elections Ordinance" in Chicago, a law that would allow public city funds to be used to match small campaign contributions. The goal, Dillon said, is to combat the role of big money in political campaigns.

That initiative is a local push for an idea Sanders has espoused during his campaign. Then again, the Heartland's politics have always been largely local.

"My activism gives me peace because I know that I'm going to continue this work regardless of what happens," Dillon said. "My endeavors to get involved in local efforts and local activism gives me peace because I know that I can do things here.

"Bernie Sanders won Rogers Park. We can do things here."

Kristopher Greenwood is a RedEye contributor.
Columnist A K Bhattacharya wonders why is it that the value of investment proposals in 2015 declined by 23 per cent, but the number of jobs to be created through such investments actually went up by 12 per cent.

The week-long Make In India programme held in Mumbai in February 2016 had promised an investment of over Rs 15 lakh crore in the entire country. Of this, an estimated Rs 8 lakh crore was to be invested in Maharashtra alone.

Organisers of the programme, which was aimed at promoting investments to boost the manufacturing sector in particular, also announced that more than three million jobs would be created in Maharashtra through such investments. No figure was, however, given on the likely number of jobs to be created as a result of the Rs 15 lakh crore of investments in the entire country.



It is clear from these assertions that policymakers expect creation of jobs to be one of the main benefits of higher investments. This is not surprising. Questions are bound to be asked about the effectiveness and sustainability of such an investment promotion programme if it leads only to higher growth without creating jobs. This is particularly so in a developing economy like India where every year millions of new job seekers are entering the market.



So, how have investments done in the two years of the Narendra Modi government and how many jobs were expected to be created? The Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion maintains data on investments and jobs they are supposed to create on a calendar year basis. In 2013, investments proposed were estimated at Rs 5.3 lakh crore, which showed a seven per cent decline over investments in the previous year.



The investment trends in 2014 and 2015 were disastrous. In 2014, only seven months of which had seen the rule of the Modi government, investment proposals fell by over 23 per cent to Rs 4 lakh crore. And in 2015, they saw another drop of 23 per cent to Rs 3.11 lakh crore.



The first three months of 2016 have not brought much cheer either. Investment proposals were estimated at Rs 60,130 crore. If the trend in the first quarter of 2016 is maintained in the remaining three quarters, investments could well see a further fall in the whole of 2016. This is not a healthy sign.



A look at the major states and the investment proposals for them reveals a more disturbing trend. As many as five large states had seen an increase in the value of investment proposals in 2015 over that in 2014. These were Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. But in the first quarter of 2016, all of them are showing a trend suggesting a decline.

Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh saw a decline in investment proposals in 2015, compared to 2014 and the declining trend would continue in 2016 if the numbers for the first quarter of the year are an indication. Andhra Pradesh is the only large state that after a decline in investment proposals in 2015 looks set to bounce back with higher investment intentions in 2016.



What about jobs to be created through these investment proposals? These numbers spring a surprise. Jobs to be created through investments in 2013 were estimated at one million, recording a 48 per cent jump over the previous year.

However, in 2014, the new jobs estimate dropped by 57 per cent to just about 453,000. But in 2015, the numbers began to rise - by about 12 per cent to a little over half a million. And it seems that even though investment trends for the first quarter of 2016 are not very positive, the number of jobs to be created in this period is rising at a good pace.



These are important signals for those tracking investments in the Indian economy. Why is it that the value of investment proposals in 2015 declined by 23 per cent, but the number of jobs to be created through such investments actually went up by 12 per cent?

Some explanation would be available from the specific sectors in which investments were proposed to be made, since job requirements do vary from industry to industry. But there certainly is a need for closer examination to understand the real state of jobs creation that fresh investments are expected to bring about.



At the end of the week-long Make In India programme in Mumbai in February, it was pointed out by government officials that the three million new jobs through an investment of Rs 8 lakh crore in Maharashtra would be created over a period of 18 to 36 months. The feasibility of these numbers will be clearer if there is proper scrutiny of government data on new investment proposals and jobs these would create in the last few quarters.

Image: An installation of the 'Make in India' logo at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai. Photograph: PTI
New models launched by car manufacturers during 2015-16 contributed nearly 12 per cent to total sales, up significantly from 7.6 per cent in 2014-15.

The increase is even more in numbers, as sale of passenger vehicles -- cars, vans and utility vehicles -- rose 7.2 per cent in FY16 to 2.78 million units, the highest so far in any year. From industry data, the 10 new models in FY15 had sales of 197,260 units.

In FY16, the 17 new models together clocked sales of about 330,000 units.

The data does not include launches by luxury car makers, since not all of them reveal their sales data.

It is not that the growth in contribution is due to the 17 launches in FY16, against 10 in FY15.

The growth is because of some successful and big-ticket launches in FY16, such as of Hyundai's Creta, Maruti Suzuki's Baleno and Renault's Kwid.

Each of these and Honda's new Jazz sold a minimum of 41,000 units in the domestic market. In fact, the Creta's was about 64,000.

Against this, only one vehicle sold more than 41,000 in FY15 (Hyundai Elite i20, of 75,000 units).

Other big volume ones in FY16 were Mahindra & Mahindra's TUV300 and Maruti Suzuki's S Cross (both a little over 24,000 units).

Almost every company launched a new product in FY16.

Some happened towards the end (March 31) of the financial year (Brezza by Maruti, NuvoSport by M&M and Tiago by Tata Motors) and their impact will be seen in FY17.

"In India, new models are preferred due to rising aspirations among customers, most of whom are exposed to global trends.

"In their buying behaviour, they tend to be the early adopters of new products that are advanced in new technology and new features.

"We believe products like the Creta have met the rising aspirations with a high degree of success," said Rakesh Srivastava, senior vice-president (sales and marketing) at Hyundai.
The Delhi government's recent effort to allow vehicles to ply on alternate days, based on their registration numbers, has been a boon for Toyota Kirloskar Motor's sedan, the Camry.

Vehicles operating on CNG or hybrids or electrically run are exempt from the on/off ban in Delhi.

The Camry has a hybrid option and its sales in Delhi and elsewhere in the National Capital Region have shot up.

Takeshi Amakasu, senior vice-president, says Camry sales doubled during the January to April period this year as compared to last year.

The boost actually began with the Supreme Court's ban last December on vehicles with a diesel engine capacity of more than 2,000cc being sold in the NCR.

The Camry hybrid sold 466 units in January-April in the region.

The Camry hybrid has otherwise done well in the Indian market.

Toyota sold a total of 1,118 units during 2015-16, a rise over the earlier year of 46 per cent. As much as 90-95 per cent of Camry sales are of the hybrid.

A FAME (Faster adoption and manufacturing of hybrid and electric vehicles) India plan had been introduced by the government in April 2015, offering incentives for electric and hybrid vehicles up to Rs 138,000 each.

On if there were plans to bring more hybrid vehicles for the Indian market, as governments here are taking a strong position on vehicular emissions, Amakasu said the company was contemplating its strategy.

Toyota globally also has a hybrid version of its Corolla. Its rival, Honda Cars India, plans to re-introduce its Accord brand in India, with a hybrid Accord sedan likely to be launched in September-October.

On the other hand, the NCR diesel ban has hit Toyota hard, as a little more than 80 per cent of its overall sales in India are of diesel vehicles.

Amakasu said the ban had hit seven per cent of the company's overall sales.

In fact, its all-new multipurpose Innova Crysta, launched at Rs 14 lakh (Rs 1.4 million), has a 2.8 litre engine and hence cannot be sold in the NCR.

TKMPL leads the multipurpose vehicle segment as such in this country, with a 36 per cent share.

Image: Toyota Camry Hybrid. Photograph: Kind courtesy, Toyota
The finance minister is "reasonably confident" that when it comes to the crunch, "it would be extremely difficult even for the Congress party to take a contrarian view" on the GST Bill.

Rashme Sehgal reports for Rediff.com

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley expressed confidence that the Goods and Services Tax Bill would be passed in the Monsoon Session of Parliament given that the majority of regional parties, including United Progressive Alliance allies like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Nationalist Congress Party, have all come out in support of this legislation.

Stating that it would be extremely difficult for the Congress to take a contrarian view, he said if there is no consensus, the only alternative was to have a parliamentary vote.

"I am reasonably confident because... every political party, including the Congress, favours the GST. In fact, the Congress should have had the wisdom to support it more aggressively because they could claim the original authorship of the idea," Jaitley said during the course of an interaction with journalists in New Delhi on Monday, May 16.

"Every regional party, whether it is the Samajwadi Party or BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) in Uttar Pradesh, JD-U (Janata Dal-United) or RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) in Bihar, the Left in West Bengal and Kerala, the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, the Biju Janata Dal... each one of the UPA partners from the DMK to NCP is making strong noises in support."

Jaitley is "reasonably confident" that when it comes to the crunch, "it would be extremely difficult even for the Congress party to take a contrarian view".

The GST bill, which has been approved by the Lok Sabha, is pending in the Rajya Sabha because of stiff resistance by the Congress, the largest party in the House, over a few proposals.

"I hope the Congress party would revisit its position. I certainly would be keeping the discussions with them on. I always said my preference is a consensus must emerge because all state governments across political complexion has to implement it and therefore, consensus is the better way," Jaitley said.

""And I do hope it moves in that direction," Jaitley said. "If consensus does not emerge, then the only other alternative is the parliamentary process. We will ask the Rajya Sabha and take a view on it."



The minister said the number count of all those parties that are supporting the GST shows that barring the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which has some mixed voices, every other regional party has strong interest in passing the legislation because it helps these states.

Jaitley said he has spoken to the chief ministers of all states, including those ruled by the UPA and the Congress, and they are a "strong supporter" of the GST because the chief ministers have their own interests to protect of their state.

The Congress is opposing the bill in the current form, demanding that a cap on the GST rate be included in the Constitution Amendment Bill. The other two changes sought are removal of one per cent additional tax on inter-state transfer of goods and a Supreme Court judge-headed dispute resolution panel.

Except for the additional inter-state tax, Jaitley said the GST Bill is verbatim of what the UPA had earlier proposed though he emphasised that he was willing to consider the additional one per cent inter-state tax.

"The rest of the GST Bill was verbatim what the UPA had introduced. And therefore, one has to analyse these after-thoughts. Now, the Parliamentary Standing Committee has approved it, the Rajya Sabha Select Committee has approved it, minus that 1 per cent," he said.

The GST Bill, India's biggest indirect tax reform since Independence, would help simplify state and central levies thereby helping people do business.

On whether he had an adversarial relationship with Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan, the minister pointed out that both the RBI and the finance minister shared "an institutional relationship."

"The highest level in these two institutions have discussions and each others' views are considered between us. What appears in the media should not be given credence," but on the entire contentious issue of whether Dr Rajan would be given an extension, Jaitley said, "such an issue is not discussed before the media."

The minister emphasised that the holding one holding one medical examination throughout the country was an executive decision for which the "fairness and integrity of the examination process should be maintained at all cost."

However he stressed that there "must be a fair opportunity for all to compete in these examinations, some state government boards are unequal, the languages are dissimilar," which raised the question of whether they be asked to give the same exam. The matter was under discussion and political parties were meeting consequently to discuss this issue.

Flagging concerns over judicial 'overreach' yet again, the finance minister made it clear that the judiciary must draw its own "Lakshman Rekha" and not take decisions, which fall in the domain of the executive.

He pointed out that he had raised this issue even when he was in the Opposition. "Judicial review is the legitimate domain of the judiciary, but then the Lakshman Rekha has to be drawn by all the institutions themselves. The Lakshman Rekha is very vital," he said, asserting that "the executive decisions are to be taken by the executive and not the judiciary."

"Executive decisions must be taken by the executive alone. If the executive takes decisions, the people have three recourses. If they do not like the decisions, they can ask the executive to change it, ask the courts to strike it down, or else the people can vote the government out of power," Jaitley said.

"When courts take executive decisions, none of these choices are available to the people," he poimted out. "While the courts have the right to review executive decisions, the courts cannot substitute the role of the executive."

"Courts cannot substitute the executive and say I will exercise the executive power. If you do so, the three options will not be available, which are there when the executive takes executive decisions," he said.

Jaitley's response to the issue of drought was completely inadequate given its magnitude. He pointed out that not only had his government released funds through the national and state disaster relief funds but that in the drought affected states, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act had been extended from 100 to 150 days.

"Every rupee spent (on drought) has been sanctioned by Parliament and I would not like Parliament's authority to be diluted," he said adding that during his ministership more money had been allocated for drought relief than had been done in the past.

On the issue of whether the relationship between the Treasury benches and the Opposition had become more acrimonious, Jaitley replied that this was not a new phenomenon and has been there since 1971.

"Even if there are strong political differences, there is always a need for civility and discourse," he stressed.

Two points need to be born in mind the minister emphasised, "We must concentrate on issues and not persons and secondly, while giving arguments, we must do it in a language which raises the public discourse."

Wearing his hat as information and broadcasting minister, he pointed out that the issue of paid news had acquired unprecedented dimensions. "Gone are the days when censorship was possible. The media is too large and our democracy is large enough to live with this. Paid news cannot hope to get free press protection."

India, he further warned, would have to address this issue because excessive advertising was acquiring the perception of political bribery. "Excessive advertising can evolve into political bribery," he maintained.

On the issue of the extradition of former Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Mallya, he said that on the issue of deportation, the UK government has never been helpful. However, with the chargesheet having been filed, Indian agencies would make every effort under due process of law to extradite him.
At no stage is a student encouraged to develop further curiosity in a subject and those who do stumble upon their passion or interest do so more by chance than design.

Anjuli Bhargava examines why educators need to be educated.

The other day the academic head (a foreigner who has been in India for a larger part of his working life) of one of the new private universities in the country told me this: Most Indian schools -- be they government, private or elite schools in the metros -- fail to give their students real education. He said that they manage to make them literate, in some cases even articulate, but they fail to educate them.

On further prodding, he explained that in his view -- and in the view of a cross-section of students that he has met -- the school experience leaves students cold and they want to somehow get it over with.

At no stage is a student encouraged to develop further curiosity in a subject and those who do stumble upon their passion or interest do so more by chance than design.

The British, in his view, had left us with a system that suited them -- designed to train and produce 'peons, clerks, office boys and secretaries' followers (ji hazoor, as he put it) instead of leaders of any kind. That's why the system discouraged original thinking and encouraged blind acceptance of facts, beliefs, values and long-held notions.

The fact that many Indians rose above this was because they were inherently bright and driven; the system did them very little good but it didn't do them any harm either.

Bright kids in, bright kids out.

Further, he argued that even the way the English language was taught was moulding the students into low-level occupations where they used their knowledge of the subject to express their thoughts at a very basic, simple level.

He had students in his university who have scored 94 and 96 on 100 in English but could not put a paragraph together lucidly. He also has a student who had scored 70 on 100 who thought and wrote like a 'dream.'

When he asked the boy why he had performed so badly in the board examination when he was evidently at a higher literary plane in every other way, the boy said that he had made the mistake of writing in his own words.

Following this, I happened to spend three hours one day with the former vice-principal of Delhi Public School, a lady who is now retired after 28 years in service. She says that at the level of Class 11, the schools encourage students to write and compose essays -- and some of them write beautifully -- but the moment the student crosses over into Class 12, they are told to stop all this creative work.

We tell them, "That's great; fantastic work. A plus from me; C plus from the board." Students are asked to never choose questions where there are two sides to the coin (too risky; you will lose marks, they are told). They are repeatedly told to stick to questions that require facts and avoid anything that may have more than one interpretation.

A few years ago, she said, the CBSE board introduced something called HOTS (higher order thinking skills and 20 per cent of the total marks are allotted to this). But she says that a certain predictability has crept into this too and the students (backed by teachers) have found a way to crack this as well -- so whether the students actually have the HOTS is impossible to say.

Finally, two days ago, I met someone -- in connection with another piece I am working on -- who has been educated in India (Shri Ram College of Commerce, Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad) who runs a private firm in Gurgaon.

When I spoke of how sad it was -- and such a drain on the country's foreign exchange -- because so many students were leaving India to study overseas, he disagreed completely. He said that despite being at the best institutes, he never felt he got real education.

If as a country, we have to pay this price for our students -- even if a handful -- to get real education, he said it was worth it. It would open their minds and thoughts and expose them to stuff they have never been exposed to through the Indian schooling system.

The three examples I illustrate here are all people who are part of the system, have watched the Indian education space for years and are mostly in agreement with one another. Yet, despite this collective realisation, we are still where we were when the British exited this country.

What does this say for us? I leave you with this thought.

Image published only for representational purposes. Photograph: Kind Courtesy Avanti
'With this it is clear who stands with India in the international community and who doesn't and this enables India to take counter measures without being seen as overly pro-US,'says Rajeev Sharma.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets Chinese President Xi Jinping, September 2014.

Despite the apparent bonhomie between the two leaders, China has increasingly taken hardline positions against India. Photograph: Press Information Bureau

China coming out in the open in opposing India's entry into the super elite club like the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group is tactically good news from the Indian point of view.

There are multiple reasons for this. One, with this development it is as clear as daylight as to who stands with India in the international community and who doesn't and this enables India to take counter measures without being seen as overly pro-US.

Despite the Chinese 'no,' the United States has maintained that India is 'ready' for NSG membership.

Consider this on-the-record remark by US State Department Spokesman John Kirby on Friday, May 13: 'I'd point you back to what the president said during his visit to India in 2015, where he reaffirmed that the US view was that India meets missile technology control regime requirements and is ready for NSG membership.'

This won't be music for the Chinese ears as it confirms their worst fears about the India-US relationship -- that the US is now no longer fighting shy in its support for India at the high table of international diplomacy.

Obviously, with this frank admission the Americans have made it clear that they look upon India as a bulwark to counter balance China.

Two, India now knows very clearly that it can expect only zilch from China in any big international forum.

In any case, India has not been under any illusion about the Chinese stand when it comes to a major policy decision in an international forum.

At the same forum, China tried to torpedo India some eight years ago when the NSG had been approached for its waiver to facilitate smooth passage of the India-US civil nuclear agreement.

At that time, China had finally relented in view of immense pressure from the US-led international community. This time, it has struck back at India with vengeance.

Three, the Chinese move may facilitate just the opposite of what Beijing is trying to achieve. China has been blocking India at such international platforms thinking it will eventually frustrate the Indians and New Delhi will eventually appeal to Beijing for help.

But the Chinese action may well prove to be counter productive and may trigger more intense India-US strategic cooperation at China's expense!

After all, China has already squeezed the lemon too hard and too much!

China has openly taken such positions at international platforms which blatantly favour its all-weather friend Pakistan and hurts India.

This is what China has done repeatedly on the terror issue and blocked again and again Indian efforts at the United Nations to brand Pakistan terrorists Muhammed Saeed, Masood Azhar and Zaki-ur Rehman as outlaws.

The NSG move against India once again displays the Chinese mindset.

With such repeated diplomatic provocations, China is doing itself more harm than good. Such actions would only nudge India even closer to the US -- the opposite of what China actually wants.

Moreover, the Chinese move has come at a wrong time. It comes barely three weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertakes his fourth visit to the US in two years.

It is inevitable that during Modi's US visit (June 6-8), China will be the elephant in the room during Modi's talks with the Americans.

The Chinese opposition to India's entry into the NSG allows New Delhi to make up its mind on what kind of relationship it wants with the US.

Though India may not be a baby kangaroo to the US the way Pakistan has been to China, it would definitely help the Modi government in taking difficult strategic decisions more easily and quickly.

Rajeev Sharma, an independent journalist and strategic analyst, tweets @Kishkindha
In May 2016, Jayendra Saraswati, the shankaracharya of Kanchi, granted Rediff.com an exclusive interview.

'We will never see such a government (Modi sarkar) in place again,' the pontiff, who passed into the ages on February 28, told Saisuresh Sivaswamy and A Ganesh Nadar.



IMAGE: Jayendra Saraswati, the shankaracharya of Kanchi, who passed into the ages on February 28, 2018. Photograph: Saisuresh Sivaswamy/Rediff.com

There is something unchanging about the Sankara Matam in Kanchipuram, 75 kilometres from Chennai, abode of the shankaracharya of Kanchi, Jayendra Saraswati.

The same, however, cannot be said of the senior pontiff of the fifth and last of the Advaita (non-dualism) Saivite mutts in the country.

At 81 years, Jayendra Saraswati appears more frail than the last time Saisuresh Sivaswamy had interviewed him many moons ago in the inner chambers of the matam.

Perhaps it was age, perhaps it has to do with the travails he faced when two criminal cases were slapped against him, one of them a murder case, from which he has been acquitted.

Unlike his predecessors, the 69th shankaracharya has always involved himself in temporal matters, in politics, notably in finding a solution to the vexed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue.

His legal troubles, however, seem to have had no impact on the flow of believers to the matam, of whom there is a steady flow of those keeping the faith.

When we reached the complex on Sunday morning, things seemed to be just as they have always been, with puja and prayers going on and eager groups of Tamilians dressed in veshti-shirt and saris thronging the place.

There is a queue to take the senior pontiff's blessings, and we are ushered into his presence for a quick conversation.

"Thodadheengo (please don't touch)," an aide exhorts us as we settle down on the floor near his chair, for an interview conducted in Tamil laced with Brahminisms.

Jayendra Saraswati spoke to Rediff.com's Saisuresh Sivaswamy and A Ganesh Nadar in his first interview since being acquitted recently by a court.

How do you find Narendra Modi as prime minister? Are you happy at his becoming prime minister?

Narendra Modi is a good man, there is no one like him, such a fine person. He walked with me on the padyatra for a year, when I went on a yatra across Gujarat.

But there's a lot of anxiety over his government, that he has not done...

If they say such things, it is their ishtam (wish).

...That they don't have any hope in his government, etc.

That is all very wrong.

You don't agree with them? Is there anything this government should do, that it has not done, you think?

This government is on the right track. We will never see such a government in place again.

On one hand temples and other places of worship report increasing number of worshippers, while on the other hand crime figures are ever increasing. Why is that?

Has faith failed to make us better human beings?

It is not wrong that everyone wishes to go to temples to pray. But if you take an individual's life, he will get the desire to do wrong. That is wrong.

There is an agitation going on to secure the entry of women into temples, court cases are going on, courts have upheld their right. What is your opinion?

The court cases are all wrong, all the various cases in the matter are wrong.

Why do you say that?

That is subaavam (nature).

Is it your case that Hinduism doesn't permit it?

No one should enter the sannidhi (sanctum sanctorum). Everyone can have darshan from outside (the sannidhi).

Men folk don't enter it, women folk can also do the same thing.

There is no sampradayam (tradition) in Hinduism to keep women out.

There is disquiet among sections of Hindus that while their places of worship are controlled by the government, other religions are not subject to such control. What is your view?

Everything has its ilaka (limit). There is a department that controls everything, and everything is done with its permission. That is how men and women can both enter the temple.

It is very right to be done. Because it is the right thing to do, a law has been brought in to ensure that.

(Misunderstands the question and repeats his answer about men and womenfolk, and an aide intervenes to explain the question to him.)

That is not right, no.

What is your view on spiritual leaders running a business empire and marketing not only spirituality and yoga but also selling things from toothpaste to shampoo, noodles to biscuits?

Whatever they do, it is all right. That is nyayam (just).

Everyone has the right to practise their profession, and this is their profession (laughs).

From one side, it is right. From another side, it seems wrong, rendum irukku (both are there).

I have known you for years now, since I was young. You used to have views on everything, including politics, but now you seem very quiet. Why?

No, that is not the case, I am always the same.

Are you still interested in politics? Do you follow what is happening?

(Nods his head in affirmative).

Everyday crores of rupees are being seized in Tamil Nadu, illegal money to be distributed to influence voters. Isn't this an attempt to undermine democracy through money power?

No. This is the money that is going there to be used. It is only being given to the people who can use, apart from that it is not being given to everyone who is around.

What you say may seem right, that the needy are getting the money, but isn't it buying votes with money?

I don't know.

I had last interviewed you many years ago, when you were involved in finding a solution to the Ram Janmabhoomi issue.

I still believe that the Ram Janmabhoomi temples should come up there.

Are you still involved with the issue, the movement?

Of course.

So what is happening on that front?

Modi is a thangamaana manushar (wonderful person). He is working on it in the background. But we have not taken the lead, then we took the lead.

Now he is doing the needful in the background.

A solution will soon be found.

The Jayalalithaa government filed two grave cases against you, and you have now been acquitted by the courts in both of them. Do you feel bitter, angry about it, about her?

The cases were all wrong. They harassed me without realising it, not knowing it to be wrong.

It wasn't wrong (that they did it).

I don't feel angry or upset over it.

When the shankaracharya spoke to Sai earlier...
The Election Commission has done its best to stem the flow of money in Tamil Nadu's elections, but it is the politician who is having the last laugh, report Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar and Saisuresh Sivaswamywho travelled from Kanyakumari to Chennai.

They thought no one could change Tamil Nadu. The culture of notes for votes would be always there and that one just has to live with it. But this time round the Election Commission has gone all out to check the flow of money from the candidates/political parties to the voter.

Every day one hears about cash seizures across the state and round the clock. Not only are the officials working without sleep, they seem to have ensure that the party workers don't sleep out of fear too. Only the voter sleeps, but is sometimes woken up with the midnight knock.

Unlike War-time Europe when people were scared of the midnight knock on the door, here the midnight knock is a welcome one because Thamizh Thai (Mother Tamil) bestows an envelope filled with currency, no questions asked. Only one plea: enga katchikku vottu podunga (please vote for our party).

On Sunday morning I spoke to a party worker who wanted to know if I was taping the conversation. After I assured him that I was not, he admitted that the previous day they had distributed Rs 300 per voter. He added that the other party had given only Rs 250 per voter and so he stood a better chance.

His only grouse was that the panchayat president, who was in charge of distributing the cash, had pocketed a big amount himself.

The other party worker was very happy and confirmed what his rival had already told us, that they had paid out Rs 250 per voter. "Isn't that very less for Tamil Nadu standards?" I ask. "Anna, don't say that, only in bye-elections can we give in thousands, this is a state election, we have to distribute money in the entire state."

"In only our constituency we have to give 200,000 voters, just calculate how much it comes to for the entire state, it's a huge amount," he adds.

In another village, a young man tells us that while one party was distributing Rs 200 per voter, the other was paying Rs 300. Here, too, they were disappointed at the small amount, but some money is better than no money at all, they felt. An elderly man said that some homes got Rs 500, while another young boy said his friend got Rs 1,000.

The bigger amounts were for households, not per voter, depending on the number of voters each has.

Yes, the Election Commission has done a stupendous job trying to curb money power trumping popular choice, but sadly, the rot has set in too deep; what is required is surgery, not a band-aid. The Commission certainly won the battle, but the war has been won by the politician.

I then asked the actual money distributors if they were worried about being caught. "People have been caught only when someone complains. Here both parties know each other well. We let them distribute money and they left us alone," was the nonchalant reply.

The biggest amount being given out in the state, we discovered, was by a shop selling television sets. He was offering a discount of Rs 3,000 on every TV purchased by his constituents. Along with the discount, you also get a whisper in your ear as to who to vote for.

But how would the shopkeeper explain the discount to the government if asked? "Exchange offer," he grins, which is written on the bill, never mind that there has been no exchange of old TV for new.

One candidate hit the ground running a month ago. He arranged for a kolam (rangoli, loosely translated) competition and gave out prizes. Wonder how a prize can be a bribe? Well, some 4,500 girls participated in the contest and all 4,500 girls were given prizes. And not some cheap medal. Each girl took home a pressure cooker.

While the Election Commission has arrested many people, both for distributing and in a few cases for accepting money, the political parties come out with more and more innovative ways of beating the system.

You can get your phone recharged for the promised amount from particular shops.

You can get petrol for a certain amount.

You can even buy stainless steel vessels for the same amount.

Perhaps it all lies in what Tamilians learn early. After all, aren't they taught at a young age in school saint-poet Thiruvalluvar's immortal couplet: Nandri marappadhu nandralla (it is not good to forget a good turn)?
Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Jamnagar Poonam Madam was injured when she fell into an eight-feet deep drain while meeting slum dwellers during a demolition drive by civic authorities in a locality in Jamnagar, Gujarat on Monday.

The 41-year-old parliamentarian fell into the drain when a thin concrete crust covering it cracked under her feet while she was meeting people.

A doctor at a local private hospital where she was treated said her condition was out of danger, and she was taken to Mumbai for further treatment as a precautionary measure.

Madam suffered a four-inch deep gash on her head and also hurt her shoulder and foot. She received five stitches on her head. Her X-ray reports showed no signs of fracture, Dr Dinkar Savariya of GokulHospital said.

She received five stitches on her head where she had sustained the four-inch gash, but her condition is out of danger. We felt she required to be taken to a Mumbai hospital as a precautionary measure, he said.

She hurt her left shoulder, but has not sustained a fracture. All in all, her condition is stable, her vitals normal, and she is conscious and there is nothing to worry about, another doctor at the hospital, S Maheshwari, earlier said.

Madam had gone to meet the residents of Jalaram slum locality who were opposing the demolition drive and had entered into an altercation with the employees of the Jamnagar Municipal Corporation.

The residents were not letting the employees carry the demolition, following which Madam rushed to the spot to talk to them.

The drain joins the nearby Lakhoti lake and remains mostly dry during summer.
Asking the US to respect the efforts by China and India to resolve their boundary dispute peacefully, a top Chinese official on Monday said the two nations are wise enough to deal with it after the Pentagon accused Beijing of deploying more troops along the Sino-India borders.

"The Chinese side is committed to safeguarding peace and tranquility of the border areas between China and India and resolving the boundary question through negotiation with India," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in written response to the Press Trust of India in Beijing about a Pentagon report alleging that Beijing has increased defence capabilities and deployed more troops along the borders with India.

The US military report also warned of increasing Chinese military presence in various parts of the world, particularly in Pakistan.

"China and India are wise and capable enough to deal with this issue. It is hoped that other country would respect efforts made by China and India for the peaceful settlement of dispute, rather than the opposite," the foreign ministry said, apparently referring to the US.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia Abraham M Denmark had said that "we have noticed an increase in capability and force posture by the Chinese military in areas close to the border with India."

"It is difficult to conclude on the real intention behind this," Denmark said on Saturday after submitting Pentagon's annual 2016 report to the US Congress on 'Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China'.

"It is difficult to say how much of this is driven by internal considerations to maintain internal stability, and how much of it is an external consideration," he said in response to a question on China upgrading its military command in Tibet.

On Sunday, the Chinese defence ministry expressed "strong dissatisfaction" and "firm opposition" to the Pentagon report which also alleged that China is focusing on the militarisation of the artificial islands built by it in the disputed waters of the South China Sea in a bid to assert its control.

Skirting any references to allegations of increasing troops presence along the Sino-India border, the defence ministry accused the Pentagon's annual report as misrepresentation of China's military development.

The US, which has accused the Chinese military of lacking in transparency, deliberately distorted China's defence policies and unfairly depicted China's activities in the East China Sea and South China Sea, a statement issued by Chinese Defence Spokesman Col Yang Yujun said.

"China follows a national defence policy that is defensive in nature. Moves such as deepening military reforms and the military build-up are aimed at maintaining sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, and guaranteeing China's peaceful development," Yang said, adding that the US side has always been suspicious.

Yang stressed China's construction on the NanshaIslands in the South China Sea serves mostly civilian purposes and helps fulfil its international responsibilities and obligations by providing more public goods.

The South China Sea has become a major flash point for military tensions between China and the US in recent years as Beijing which claims sovereignty over all most all of the South China sea sought to assert its claim by building artificial islands with military facilities.

The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan contested China's claims.

Backing the small states, the US has so far sent three warships through the waters around the artificial islands to asset the right for freedom navigation.

In his statement, Yang said it is the United States which has been flexing military muscles by frequently sending military aircraft and warships to the region.
Bihar Director General of Police P K Thakur on Monday said that the ongoing investigation into the killing of a senior journalist in Siwan district had suggested that a 'supari' (contract) had been given to kill him.

Rajdeo Ranjan, 46, the Siwan bureau chief of the Hindi newspaper Hindustan, was shot dead on Friday night in a market near the Station Road in Siwan.

Thakur informed media persons that the shooters involved will be arrested soon

The top police official said that around 70 per cent of CCTV footage near the incident site was recovered by the police with the help of experts.

"It will help police to nab the shooters, he said.

State police has detained over a dozen suspected people in connection with Rajdeos killing and claimed to have made a major breakthrough in solving the case.

So far, two people have been arrested in the case including Upender Singh, the sharp shooter of jailed former Siwan MP Mohammed Shahabuddin, and have been remanded to a 14-day judicial custody on Sunday under the new Excise Act.

The Bihar DGP said, We are working to tie in evidence by way of recovering and matching weapons used in the crime."

But Thakur has made it clear that police have not been able to locate any eye witnesses in the incident. Police in Siwan said they are awaiting the forensic and ballistic test reports.

Meanwhile, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said he will ask for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the journalists murder and rejected as "baseless" the criticism on law and order situation in the state.

"I am saddened and worried... If there is an attack on a journalist, it's an attack on me and that's how I am looking at the case," Kumar told reporters here.

The journalist's family and opposition BJP have demanded a CBI inquiry into it.

"We have learnt that the victim's family wants a CBI inquiry. We are taking a decision to hand over the investigation to the CBI and it will be conveyed to the Centre," Kumar said.

Condemning the incident, he said, "We will request a speedy trial. No one will be spared."

Kumar said he had full faith in the state police which was conducting its probe in a free and fair manner but "circumstances have been created" where the family was in favour of a CBI inquiry.

Image: Rajdeo Ranjan, 46, the Siwan bureau chief of the Hindi newspaper Hindustan, was shot dead on Friday night in a market near the Station Road in Siwan.
A Delhi court on Monday sent an under secretary in the Union home ministry in connection with a case against him of allegedly dishonestly issuing Foreign Contribution Regulation Act notices to several NGOs for financial gains to five-day Central Bureau of Investigation custody.

Special CBI Judge Vinod Kumar allowed the probe agency to quiz Anand Joshi, who was arrested on Sunday from west Delhi, in its custody till May 20.

Seeking Joshis custody, CBI argued that files relating to several NGOs had gone missing from the home ministry and they were recovered from his house and he was not supposed to take them away.

It contended that he was neither cooperating in the probe nor disclosing relevant facts and his custodial interrogation was required to find out how those files came to his house.

CBI alleged in court that Joshi had been issuing notices dishonestly to a large number of NGOs/ societies registered under the FCRA 2010, which have been receiving significant amount of foreign contributions, in an arbitrary manner.

It said some of these organisations are Care India, Snehalya Charitable Trust, Indian HIV/AIDS Alliance and All India Primary Teachers Federation and alleged that the representatives of some of these organisations were called and Joshi demanded and obtained illegal gratification.

It further said when the CBI team had gone to his house, he was not present there and even his mobile phone was switched off from May 11 to May 15 and he had left his house leaving a false letter behind.

The custody plea, however, was opposed by Joshis counsel who said his mobile was not switched off and he had lost his phone in Ujjain and in his 24 years long career he was not even issued an office memo.

Joshi was arrested on Sunday after he allegedly gave unconvincing answers to the questions posed by a team of Special Crime division of the CBI, including those related to disappearance of files related to Sabrang Trust of activist Teesta Setalvad.

Joshi, who had disappeared on the morning of May 11 from his home in Indirapuram in Ghaziabad, was on Sunday picked up from Tilak Nagar area of West Delhi and taken to the CBI headquarters for questioning.

The case was slapped against Joshi and some other unnamed persons for allegedly indulging in corrupt practices and arbitrarily issuing notices to several NGOs, registered under FCRA, which were receiving foreign contributions, including activist Teesta Setalvads Sabrang Trust.

Joshi has rejected the charge and instead accused his seniors of pressuring him to give a clean chit to NGOs. In a note which he had left before leaving home, Joshi claimed he had been subjected to mental harassment in recent months.

CBI alleged in the court that Joshi laundered ill-gotten earnings in various immovable assets as well as certain private companies which were floated by him and his wife was one of the directors in them.

It alleged even after his transfer from FCRA division, he continued to indulge in corrupt activities on the basis of documents which were in his possession unauthorisedly.

The agency claimed that during the search conducted at Joshis house, one file pertaining to FCRA which pertains to private NGO Care India Solutions for Sustainable Development has been recovered and seized and his interrogation was needed to know as to how the official files made way in his house and what was his intention in bringing them.

The matter came to light after files pertaining to alleged FCRA violations by two NGOs run by Setalvad went missing from the home ministry. The files were traced and restored to the FCRA division but CBI was asked to investigate the matter.

It was noticed that the files had gone missing when the home ministry took a decision to cancel FCRA registration of one of Setalvads NGOs, Sabrang Trust, sources had said.

Sabrang Trusts licence was suspended on September 9, 2015 by MHA for alleged multiple violations of FCRA rules, including misuse of funds for personal benefit of trustees.

When home ministry officials found that the files had gone missing, they conducted an inquiry and identified Joshi as the official who had taken away the files. He was summoned and the files were restored.

An under secretary is not allowed to take away files, only officials of the rank of joint secretary and above are allowed to take the files home. It is a serious violation, the CBI had said.

Image: Home Ministry Under Secretary Anand Joshi being produced in Patiala House Court in New Delhi on Monday by the the CBI in connection with a corruption case. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI
Terming the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Maharashtra government a "total failure", Congress on Monday accused Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of giving clean chits to several tainted ministers.

"Chief Minister Fadnavis is running a single-window scheme of giving clean chits to his ministers. This has led to increase in corruption and decisions that are not good for the state," Leader of Opposition in state legislative assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil said in a press conference in Aurangabad.

"Now, the ministers have become confident that even if they do any wrong, or indulge in mismanagement and corruption, the CM is going to give them a clean chit," Patil alleged.

On the issue of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, the Congress leader said, "The policy of the state government on NEET was wrong. We had suggested that an all-party delegation should meet the Prime Minister to discuss the issue linked to career of lakhs of students."

"However, there was no response from the government," he said.

Over the NIA's decision to drop all charges against Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and five others accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, Patil alleged, "The government pressurised the NIA. It is an insult to say that the then ATS chief Hemant Karkare was wrong in indicting Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur."

He claimed that former special public prosecutor Rohini Salian and special public prosecutor Avinash had spoken the truth, though the government worked in a "different direction".

Casting doubt over the BJP-led coalition's performance, Patil said he was sure this government will never be able to catch assailants of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare.

"The BJP-led state government has failed on all fronts, especially in coping with the drought situation in the state, which is very grim. The government is not taking it seriously, due to which the number of the suicides in the region has gone up. It is not providing succour to the affected farmers," he said.

He demanded a financial assistance of Rs 25,000 per hectare for farmers for sowing from the next month.
Flagging concerns over judicial overreach yet again, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday made it clear that the judiciary must draw its own Lakshmanrekha and not take decisions, which fall in the domain of the executive.

He also underlined that activism has to be blended with restraint and there cannot be a compromise with other aspects of the basic structure in the name of independence of the judiciary.

"Judicial review is legitimate domain of judiciary but then the Lakshmanrekha has to be drawn by all the institutions themselves. Lakshmanrekha is very vital," the finance minister said, asserting that "the executive decisions are to be taken by the executive and not the judiciary".

Replying to questions during an interaction at Indian Women's Press Corps in New Delhi, Jaitley reasoned that there are different kinds of recourse and "layers of accountability" available when the executive takes decisions.

He said people have the options of seeking changes in the decision taken by the executive besides voting out the government.

The courts can also strike down a decision taken by the executive if it is found to be unconstitutional but all these options are not available when the court ends up taking executive decisions, Jatiley argued.

"Courts cannot substitute the executive and say I will exercise the executive power. If you do so the three options will not be available, which are there when the executive takes executive decisions," the finance minister said.

He was asked questions about his earlier remarks that the judiciary had been encroaching on legislative and executive authority.

Jaitley also referred to protests by many states over the Supreme Court decision on National Eligibility Entrance Test and asserted that what should be the manner of holding the examination across the country is essentially an executive matter as it is in policy domain.

"It is the case of some of the states that boards are unequal, their languages are dissimilar. Can those who are dissimilar in language and unequal be placed on the pedestal of quality and asked to give the same exam? I think this matter is essentially in the executive domain. We now have a Supreme Court judgement. We will have to see how we deal with that particular issue," he said.

He added that the judiciary and executive are "on the same page" over maintaining the fairness and integrity of exams at all costs.

At the same time, the finance minister noted that the independence of the judiciary is extremely important and that is rightly asserted by the judiciary.

"Just as independence of the judiciary is is part of basic structure, the primacy of the legislature in policy making is also part of basic structure.

"In the name of the independence of judiciary, we cannot compromise the other two basic structures," he said asserting that to protect one basic structure is not enough.

Replying to questions during an interaction at IWPC, the finance minister also stressed that he was not going into any specific issue but speaking on the issue of Constitutionality.

"Element of activism always has to be blended with element of restraint," the finance minister said adding that the correct course is when the two are balanced.

Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Jaitley had earlier urged the legislators to refrain from handing over budgetary and taxation powers to the judiciary.

Jaitley had made the remark while replying to opposition Congress' demand for a dispute redressal mechanism under which a judge would resolve any dispute between the Centre and states on Goods and Services Tax.

Again speaking in Hyderabad, Jaitley had yesterday said has said that while he respects the apex court, "one should not try to interfere in others' areas".
The Rs 570 crore cash seized from three containers in Tamil Nadu on Saturday belongs to the State Bank of India but it will not be handed over to the bank before a proper probe by the Income Tax Department, the Election Commission said on Monday.

Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha said in New Delhi that that it has now been established the amount belongs to SBI.

But EC will not hand it over to the bank. The money will be with the Income Tax department till the probe by the tax authorities is over.

The State Bank of India had claimed the money belongs to it and it was being transferred from Coimbatore to Andhra Pradesh to address cash shortage in that state and as per RBI instructions.

The vehicles were detained by election department officials after chasing the trucks, which were accompanied by three cars, after they did not stop at the check post at Chengapalli in Tirupur District in the wee hours of Saturday.

A high-level committee, headed by Expenditure Observer, carried out a detailed inquiry with the State Bank of India officials for more than 12 hours, with regard to dispatch of the money, without valid documents and proper security.

The bank had staked claim for the money, saying that it was transferred from Coimbatore main branch to its branches in Vishakhapatnam, where there was shortage of cash.

Moreover, this was done according to RBI guidelines, SBI had said.
Unidentified gunmen shot dead a civilian in Nawbal Batpora village of Kulgam district. Mukhtar Ahmad/Rediff.com reports from Srinagar.

According to reports, unidentified gunmen shot dead a civilian identified as Manzoor Ahmad Palla, son of Abdul Gani Palla, resident of Nawbal Batapora village of South Kashmirs Kulgam district.

Manzoor, 38, professionally a carpenter was outside the playfield, located nearer to his residential place when unidentified gunmen wearing masks shot him dead.

He was shifted to Yaripora hospital where from he was shifted to district hospital Kulgam where doctors declared him brought dead.

"Manzoor succumbed to injuries before he could be evacuated to hospital," the officer said.

An official told Rediff.com that search operation has been launched to nab the unidentified gunmen.
Halloween is nearly here. Find out when Trick-or-Treat is happening in Martinsville.

local
TUESDAY

Farewell open house

A farewell open house will be conducted from 4:30-6 p.m. at Bonham Elementary School, 4250 Potomac Ave. Tours of the building, which opened in 1953, will be available. The school will be moving to a new building in August.

Movie at the library

A showing of a PG-rated 2010 film based on a classic fantasy book will begin at 6 p.m. at the Abilene Public Library, 202 Cedar St. Admission is free.

Square dance workshop

TYE  The Wagon Wheel Squares will conduct a square dancing workshop at 6:30 p.m. at the Wagon Wheel.

Anniversary concert

The Abilene Community Band will celebrate its 40th anniversary with a free concert at 7:30 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 352 Cypress St. David Bacon will be the emcee. Donations will be accepted for the Christian Service Center.

Other ...

Mission on the Move Soup Kitchen, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Southwest Drive Community United Methodist Church, 3025 Southwest Dr.

Abilene Southwest Rotary Club, noon, Beehive Restaurant, 442 Cedar St.

High Noon Al-Anon, noon, Southern Hills Church of Christ, 3666 Buffalo Gap Road (south end; follow the yellow signs).

Blood drive, noon to 6 p.m., Knox County Hospital.

Blood drive, noon to 6 p.m., Munday Clinic.

Stroke/Aphasia Recovery Program support group, 1:30-2:30 p.m. West Texas Rehabilitation Center boardroom, 4601 Hartford St. 325-793-3535.

Dystonia Support Group, 5:15-6:15 p.m., Not Without Us, 3301 N. First St. Suite 117.

Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS), 5:30 p.m., Brook Hollow Christian Church, 2310 S. Willis St. 325-232-7444.

Legacies Al-Anon Family Group, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Open Door Building, 3157 Russell Ave. 325-280-7584.

Family (of Mental Health Consumers) Support Group, 6-7 p.m., Mental Health Association in Abilene, 333 Orange St. 325-673-2300.

MHAA Bipolar/Depression Peer Support Group, 6-8 p.m., Ministry of Counseling & Enrichment, 1502 N. First St. 325-673-2300.

Free certified nurturing parent class (pregnancy to toddler), 6-8 p.m., Mission Church, North Third and Mockingbird streets. 325-672-9398.

Abilene Star Chorus, 6:15 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1333 N. Third St. 325-829-1470.

Overeaters Anonymous, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Exodus Metropolitan Community Church, 1933 S. 27th St.

Family Support Group for parents with special needs children, 6:30-7:30 p.m., West Texas Rehabilitation Center boardroom, 4601 Hartford St. 325-793-3500.

Alzheimer's Association  North Central Texas Chapter, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Chisholm Place, 1450 E. N. 10th St. 325-672-2907.

Al-Anon Parents Group, 7 p.m., Hillcrest Church of Christ, 650 E. Ambler Ave. Use Church Street entrance.

Al-Anon, 7 p.m., Doug Meinzer Activity Center, Knox City. 940-658-3926.

Brigadier General John Sayles Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 366, 7 p.m., American Legion Building, 302 E.S. 11th St.

Abilene Society of Model Railroaders, 7-8:30 p.m., 2043 N. Second St.

Unity Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, 8 p.m., Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, 602 Meander St.

WEDNESDAY

Art film

A showing of the film 'Never Tell Anybody Anything: The Life and Art of Edward Burra' will begin at noon at the Center for Contemporary Arts, 220 Cypress St. A discussion will follow.

Ride of Silence

The Ride of Silence bicycle rally, conducted in honor of cyclists who have been killed or injured, will begin at 7 p.m. at McMurry University. Ceremonies will begin at 6:40 p.m. Helmets are required, and bright cloting and lights are encouraged. Admission is free.

Other ...

Overeaters Anonymous, 8 a.m., Hinds Square Building, Room 112, 100 Chestnut St.

Blood drive, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Comanche High School

Abilene Cactus Lions Club, 11:45 a.m., Cotton Patch Cafe, 3302 S. Clack St.

Abilene Wednesday Rotary Club, noon, Abilene Country Club, 4039 S. Treadaway. $12 for lunch. Jo Ann Wilson, 325-677-6815.

Kiwanis Club of Abilene, noon, Abilene Country Club, 4039 S. Treadaway Blvd.

Clearly Speaking Toastmaster Club, noon, Westgate Church of Christ, 402 S. Pioneer Drive. 325-795-5570.

Alzheimer's Association Caregiver Support Group, 2-3 p.m., Western Hills Healthcare Residence, Comanche.

Alzheimer's disease support group, 5:15 p.m., Cedar Crest Care Center, 1901 W. Elliott, Breckenridge. Assists those who have a family member with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. 1-800-272-3900 or 254-559-3302.

Free swim class for people with multiple sclerosis, 5:30 p.m., YMCA, 3250 State St.

Veterans Peer Support Group, 6 p.m., 765 Orange St. 325-670-4818.

Mid-week Al-Anon Family Group, 6-7 p.m., Open Door Building, 3157 Russell Ave. 325-698-4995.

Advanced Square Dancing, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Wagon Wheel.

Al-Anon, 7 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 1501 N. Broadway, Ballinger. 817-689-2810 or 325-977-1007.

DivorceCare support group, 7 p.m., Hillcrest Church of Christ, 650 E. Ambler Ave. 325-691-4200.

THURSDAY

Book reading

A reading of the children's book 'Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,' by Judith Viorst, will begin at 10 a.m. at The Grace Museum, 102 Cypress St. Registration is $5 per family, with a limited number of copies of the book available for an additional $5. To register, go to thegracemuseum.org.

Other ...

Blood drive, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Haskell High School.

Chronic Pain and Depression Group, 11 a.m. to noon, Mental Health Association of Abilene, 333 Orange St., 325-673-2300.

Abilene Founder Lions Club, 11:30 a.m., Al's Mesquite Grill, 4801 Buffalo Gap Road.

Kiwanis Club of Greater Abilene, noon, Beehive Restaurant, 442 Cedar St. 325-695-0092.

Retired Military Wives Club social meeting, 1 p.m., Rose Park Senior Activity Center, 2625 South Seventh St. 325-677-9656 or 325-793-1490.

Mental Illness Open Support Group, 1-2 p.m., Mental Health Association of Abilene, 333 Orange St. 325-673-2300.

Abilene 42 Club, 6 p.m., Rose Park Senior Center.

Teen Recovery Group, 6-7 p.m., Mission Abilene, 3001 N. Third St.

Free certified nurturing parent class (all ages), 6-8 p.m., Mission Church, North Third and Mockingbird streets. 325-672-9398.

Take Off Pounds Sensibly, 6:30 p.m. Brook Hollow Christian Church. Weigh-in begins at 5:30 p.m. 325-665-5052.

Free swim class for people with multiple sclerosis, 6:30 p.m., YMCA, 3250 State St.

Gambler's Anonymous, 6:30 p.m., Unity Spiritual Living Center, 2842 Barrow St. 325-338-2575.

Round Dancing, 7 p.m., Wagon Wheel. 325-829-1517.

South Pioneer Al-Anon Group, 8 p.m., 3157 Russell Ave.

Unity Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, 8 p.m., Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, 602 Meander St.

FRIDAY

Dog show

The Abilene Kennel Club will conduct its 52nd annual Dog Show at 9 a.m. at the Taylor County Expo Center, 1700 Highway 36. Admission is free to spectators.

Barn dance

TYE  A barn dance featuring Muddy Creek will be 7-10 p.m. at the Wagon Wheel. Admission is $5. Information: 325-829-1517.

Dance

OPLIN  A dance featuring Midnight Blue will be 7:30-10:30 p.m. at the Oplin Community Center. Admission is $5. Information: www.grandoleoplin.com.

Other ...

Blood drive, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Texas Oncology, 1957 Antilley Road.

Overeaters Anonymous, noon, Hinds Square Building, 100 Chestnut St., Room 112.

Abilene Chinese Corner, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Abilene Christian University library. lld09a@acu.edu.

Mid-City Al-Anon, 7 p.m., First Christian Church. 325-670-4304.
In 1992, social worker Jackie Warmsley asked God to introduce her to a rich person who shared her dream of a safe facility to house homeless adults and families.

God did her one better. He didn't send a wealthy person into her life. Instead, he introduced her to members of the Abilene Association of Congregations, which formed in 1986. The association itself didn't have the money to fulfill Warmsley's wish, but it had a network of willing workers who shared her vision. The result was Hope Haven, which opened in 1994.

'I looked around at all of you,' Warmsley said Sunday during a 30th anniversary observance by the association. 'I saw people who dream of helping people.'

Hope Haven is one of many ministries aided by the association since its inception. An original member of the association, Charles Fisher, gave a brief history of the organization at the celebration held at the Abilene Woman's Club. Fisher was pastor of Brook Hollow Christian Church when the association formed. He now is retired and lives in Amarillo.

Fisher recalled that the late Roy Zuefeldt, pastor of First Central Presbyterian Church, was the driving force behind formation of the association, which began with 10 churches.

Today, the association consists of 23 congregations representing seven denominations. Membership is open to laity and clergy of any church in Abilene.

Fisher said that from the beginning, the association was meant to be a 'networker,' a common meeting ground for Christians of different denominations to come together to promote and help with good works in the community.

The association began sponsoring a local CROP Walk, an annual international event to fight hunger, in 1986 and remains the sponsor today. That is just one example, Fisher said, of how the association serves as a 'networker' for good.

'I do believe God is working still,' Fisher said, 'and would commend us to do the same.'

Participants in Sunday's celebration represented many of the denominations in the association's membership. Don Wilson, pastor of First Christian Church, gave the opening prayer and Jim McDonald, the association's president and a member of Wylie United Methodist Church, was emcee. Cliff Stewart, pastor of First Central Presbyterian Church, offered brief remarks, and Phil Christopher, pastor of First Baptist Church, gave the closing prayer.

Stewart based his comments on words from the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians, 1:10-17, in which he appealed to the Christians of Corinth to put aside their divisions.

The apostle did not use the word 'command,' Stewart noted, but rather he appealed to the inner heart of the people and urged them to unite.

'There is an 'us-ness' in the Christian faith,' he said, and that characteristic is illustrated in the Abilene Association of Congregations.

ABOUT ABILENE ASSOCIATION OF CONGREGATIONS

Membership is open to clergy and laity from any church in Abilene. Current membership includes 23 congregations representing seven denominations. For information or to join the association, contact Jim McDonald, president, at 325-572-3738.
For Kendall Cox, both a client and employee of Abilene's Betty Hardwick Center, the ability to access a psychiatrist through telemedicine services via the local MHMR center is a boon.

The technology allows patients to have two-way, live communication with a physician at a remote location, while the doctor logs documentation of the appointment as electronic medical records.

The option gives Cox, a recovered schizophrenic, and others patients the chance to lower wait times for appointments and have more flexibility about when they see a physician.

'It greatly increases the availability of doctor time,' said Cox, who works as a peer counselor at Betty Hardwick. 'As an employee and as a consumer, I'm happy that more people are getting to see the doctor than would have been possible without it.'

The number of telemedicine patients has truly taken off in recent years, said Jenny Goode, the Betty Hardwick Center's director.

'In March 2011, we saw 410 clients and 100 percent of those contacts were face to face in our clinic,' she said.

In March 2016, the center saw 916 clients  and only 47 percent of those contacts were face-to-face, Goode said.

'The rest were all telemedicine,' she said.

A local, in-office nurse helps take vitals and assists with other patient needs, while prescriptions can be sent electronically to a pharmacy of the patient's choice.

Things weren't totally perfect with the technology in the beginning, Cox recalled.

'There used to be a kind of a lag, it used to be like watching a movie dubbed from another language,' Cox said with a laugh.

But with improvements in technology, the experience is now 'not that different from face-to-face,' he said.

Cox estimates he has been using telemedicine for his care roughly every other week for the past two or three years.

Filling a need

Taylor County has been designated a health provider shortage area for mental health for years, Goode said, patient need often outstripping available providers.

'We would love to have psychiatrists here in person, (people) who live in our community,' she said. 'But that simply is not the reality for us. Even with very competitive salaries, many physicians are not willing to relocate here to practice.'

Telemedicine technology allows the Center to access 'well-qualified' individuals to provide services to its patients and also allows it to work with multiple physicians, Goode said.

Betty Hardwick's use of telemedicine started as a convenience for area jails, which were in need of mental health services but faced complications in transporting prisoners.

But as demand for services increased, and the Center needed to recruit more providers, 'we began to build out the services for our other clients as well,' Goode said.

Texas' Medicaid began allowing providers to bill for some telemedicine services in 1998, Goode said. Over the years, the list of services and the way they can be provided has continued to expand.

The Center's medical director, Dr. Patrick Young, is a Board Certified Adult and Child Psychiatrist. Young has worked with the Hardwick Center for years and lives in Dallas but travels here every other week.

During his weeks away, he does telemedicine from his home.

There are certain situations in which one wouldn't use the technology, such as with ADHD and controlled substance patients, especially on their first visits, Young said.

But telemedicine does allow access to care that 'you wouldn't have otherwise,' he said.

'For example, I'm a child psychiatrist and there aren't many child psychiatrists anywhere,' he said. 'And there's really no one who does any outpatient work out in the west Texas area. So to me, that's where it can be useful.'

The Center works with three other psychiatrists  Dr. Preeti Sodhi, a child/adult psychologist, adult psychologist Dr. Mark Kundler, and adult psychologist Dr. Nadine Baptiste, all of whom offer telemedicine. Judy Creech, an advanced practice nurse, works full-time in the Abilene clinic.

Teresa McBride, the nurse manager who heads the Center's clinic, still has limitations as far as access to controlled substances.

'If anyone needed, for example, Adderall for ADHD, those kids still have to be seen face-to-face,' she said.

But McBride said that she felt like the Center was just 'dipping its toes in the water' as far as the potential for telemedicine services.

'We run a rural clinic in five counties, so there's the possibility of doing telemedicine in those counties,' she said. 'Right now, it's still driving, getting in the car the old-fashioned way, driving over with the nurse, a case manager and a prescriber. I can just see the future, with interfacing with (primary care providers) as far as consulting and other things. That's my dream.'
Jackie Cochran herself called these the 'dishwashing jobs of the Army.' '

SWEETWATER  It's been a difficult year for fans and former members of the U.S. Army's Women's Airforce Service Pilots.

The WASPs, if you are unfamiliar with local history, were female pilots trained in Sweetwater during World War II to fly military aircraft in the United States and Canada. The first women who applied for the civil service jobs were required to already have 500 hours of flight time (compared with 200 for men), received lower pay than any male counterpart, and could only fly the smallest trainers or liaison aircraft.

That changed over time, at least partially. Eventually, only 35 hours were required for entry. But more importantly, the 1,102 WASPs who served during the war ended up flying every type of aircraft in the nation's arsenal.

WASPS ferried aircraft across the country, or performed flight duties while training male pilots. Two WASPs flew the B-29 bomber, notorious then for catastrophic engine fires, and demonstrated to the reluctant male pilots that it could be done safely.

'Jackie Cochran herself called these the 'dishwashing jobs of the Army,'' said Sarah Byrn Rickman, referring to WASP founder Jacqueline Cochran. An author of seven books about the WASPs, Rickman spoke by phone from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

'They were the jobs the men really didn't want to do because they considered them boring or beneath them,' she continued. 'But the women wanted to, because they would do anything to fly.'

That included towing targets 50 yards behind an airplane for anti-aircraft gunners on the ground to practice on. Or taking a plane up into the air to see if the mechanics had really done as good of a job as they said they had on a reconditioned engine.

Thirty-eight WASPs lost their lives in the line of duty. Most of the casualties were due to mechanical failure; others were simply accidents, such as Cornelia Fort's.

Fort died March 21, 1943, during a mission to ferry BT-13s to Love Field in Dallas. One of the male pilots flying alongside clipped Fort's plane, causing it to crash near Merkel. She never had time to bail out, and Fort was the first female military pilot to die.

Another WASP death was more mysterious.

On the website Wings-AcrossAmerica.us, Susana J. Kelly writes how Betty Taylor, a California WASP, was ferrying a camp chaplain in September 1943 when their A-24 flipped during landing. The weight of the aircraft crushed the canopy, killing them both.

An investigation determined traces of sugar were found in the fuel tanks; just a small amount would seize up any engine. The saboteur never was caught.

Given the amount of flight hours earned by WASPs, the percentage of deaths within the program was low. Still, WASPs were denied government insurance and death benefits. The pilots' families had to pay for their funerals.

The WASP program ran from early 1942 until it was closed in December 1944.

'They went home, they got married, they had kids, they got jobs. They did all the things all the other women did,' Rickman said. 'They didn't forget about their WASP service, but they were basically told not to talk about it.'

WASP records were sealed and for 30 years forgotten. The women who tried to describe their service were met with disbelief  surely if there had been such a program, everyone would have known about it, right?

In the mid-1970s some newspapers began reporting on women entering military academies for the purpose of flying for the U.S. Navy and Air Force.

'First women pilots to fly military airplanes,' the headline read.

'The WASPs read that and said, 'Absolutely not! We were the first,'' Rickman said. Shortly after, WASP records were unsealed, and in 1977 the group was officially recognized as World War II military veterans. The benefits of that recognition included the option of placing their ashes inside aboveground structures at Arlington National Cemetery. The first WASP inurnment, as it is called, was at Arlington in 2002.

In March 2015, however, then-Secretary of the Army John McHugh declared the WASPs never should have been allowed to be inurned at Arlington. Army lawyers concluded that WWII veterans such as the WASPs and Merchant Marines could only be buried in cemeteries run by the Veterans Affairs Department, not at Arlington, which is run by the Army.

The WASPs, who already had endured a third of a century with the Army denying their service, were not happy.

'Any WASP that you talk to, they are all disgusted with the turn of events,' Rickman said. 'They feel like they fought for the country, and then they were told to go home.'

She called the WASPs a remarkable story, one that proved women could fly any plane they wanted.

'The aircraft does not know what sex is flying it; the aircraft responds to the body that is flying it, whoever it belongs to,' Rickman said. 'That's what they proved, but somehow the world in 1945 or '46 decided we didn't need to know about that.'

A movement began. A petition at www.change.org already had received 178,000 signatures by Sunday. That and thousands of letters and postcards sent to Washington, D.C., led to the passage of the WASP AIR Act by both chambers of Congress last week. On Thursday the bill was sent to President Barack Obama, who was expected to sign it into law.

Rickman will celebrate its passage with 13 of the WASPs when they meet for a reunion in Sweetwater at 11 a.m. on May 28 at the National WASP World War II Museum. Of the 1,102 original members, only 104 are still living.

'The WASPs deserve it. What they did, in the great scheme of things, it was a very small part,' Rickman said. 'But in the small scheme of things, they did something that women had not done before  fly for their country!'

Carole Caine, the Sweetwater museum's associate director, said the WASPs came from all social strata, all classes and a wide range of educational achievements.

'But they had two things in common,' she said. 'First of all, they loved to fly, and second, they loved their country.'
Travel association endorses King

The Texas Travel Industry Association is endorsing state Rep. Susan King in the May 24 runoff election for Senate District 24, the organization announced Monday.

'Residing in an area with a thriving travel and tourism industry, Chairwoman King understands the importance of this industry, not only to the Abilene, Brownwood, Lampasas, Fredericksburg and Boerne areas, but to the state as a whole,' said David Teel, TTIA president and CEO, in a written statement.

'Rep. King has an impressive history of strong, consistent leadership, a pro-business voting record and strong commitment to and support of the Texas travel industry,' Teel said. 'We are extremely proud to recognize Chairwoman King for her leadership and positive influence on policy and legislation critical to our industry.'

Parris endorses Robertson

In the race for Texas Congressional District 19, former candidate Don Parrish threw his support behind Lubbock Mayor Glen Robertson in the May 24 runoff election between Robertson and Jodey Arrington, former Texas Tech University administrator, the Robertson campaign announced Monday.

'Glen has guts. He tells it like it is won't be controlled by special interests  the special interests that have let the American voters down, time and time again,' Parrish said in a written statement. 'I sincerely believe Glen will not forget the farmer when he is elected. Two of Glen's small businesses are in the agriculture industry, and that fact is critical.'

Parrish joins former candidate Donald May and Jason Corley in endorsing Robertson in the runoff, according to the news release.
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Cambodian human rights activists and their supporters are continuing their Black Monday protests as they try to gain the release of fellow human rights workers and an election official who were jailed on what many believe are politically motivated charges.

Five women, land-rights activists from communities in the city that have been hit with forced evictions, were arrested on Monday as they gathered near Phnom Penhs Chenla Theater at about 8 a.m. by police in riot gear, ending their protest before it began.

At least one of the activists was injured while being detained by security forces, one of the women told RFAs Khmer Service.

They were taken to the Tuol Kouk district police station where three of them were released after they signed a pledged to stay out of future protests. Two more were held longer, but were released after agreeing to a pledge aimed at preventing them from wearing black and attending Black Monday protests.

Why wear black

They asked us who is the leader, and why we are wearing black, said Nim Chray from the Thmar Kaul village, located near the Phnom Penh International Airport. The village has been a symbol of Cambodian protests against forced evictions.

Thmar Kaul has been known as SOS village since residents painted SOS on their roofs in the hope that President Obama would see their distress signal when Air Force One flew into Phnom Penh in 2012 for the East-ASEAN Summit. The seizure of land for developmentoften without due process or fair compensation for displaced residentshas been a major cause of protest in Cambodia

We told them that there is no leader. It is all of us, our heart, she said. It is our Khmer gratitude. As the civil society helps us, we must help them.

She said that one of the five women was injured when the authorities forcedly pushed her onto the truck during the arrest.

Now she could not stand, could not eat, could not get up because the Tuol Kouk security threw her into the truck as if she was dog and cat, Nim Chray said. They hurt her ribs and her stomach is severely injured. She cried the whole morning.

Phnom Penh municipality spokesperson, Chin Bunthoeun, said they were arrested because they didnt get permission to demonstrate.

If they wish to rally and express their view, they should inform the district authorities, either verbally or in writing, he told RFA. We have Freedom Park, no one is going to ban them, and the wearing black or whatever is not important. It is a different issue.

'There is no arrest'

Hundreds of security forces were deployed around Prey Sar prison where the Black Monday subjects are detained.

Sar Kheng, deputy prime minister and minister of the interior, denied that the five women were arrested.

There is no arrest, he said. They were just asked to go for questioning. Do not be confused.

Secretary of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Coalition (CHRAC), Suon Bunsak, considered the Phnom Penh authorities action a human rights violation.

This totally violated the principles of the human rights treaties to which Cambodia is a signatory country, and especially Cambodias constitution, which states that Cambodian people have the right and freedom to meet peacefully to express their concerns as well as to send messages to the government to resolve those concerns, he said.

Mondays arrests follow eight arrests of human rights workers and activists last Monday for similar offenses. They were wearing black shirts and attempting to demonstrate for the release of four officers from human rights group Adhoc and a senior election official.

The four Adhoc officers and the election official, along with a U.N. employee, were charged with bribery over their alleged role in a sex scandal involving Kem Sokha, deputy leader of the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party. Human rights groups accuse the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party of attempting to silence its critics with the arrests.

A spokesman for the ruling party has cited similar claims in a lawsuit with a well-known political analyst who has criticized the government.

Prime Minister Hun Sen and other senior government officials have said they will not tolerate the Black Monday protests because they threaten social stability.

"Take the legal process. Finding a way out through a smart lawyer is the right way to resolve the problem legitimately," he said after a ceremony with students in Phnom Penh last week following the first Black Monday rally.

Khmer diaspora weighs in

The protests are gaining some supporters in the United States, as Cambodian-Americans are rallying to the cause.

Muon Bunthoeurn, a representative of the Cambodian-American group Green Village, told RFA before Mondays rally that Cambodian-Americans support the Black Monday campaign.

Today well stage a mass demonstration, and after that we will have a wearing of black attire voluntarily or publishing on our personal Facebook account, he said.

Rithy Kiri, a Cambodian-American living in a large Khmer community in Long Beach, California, said he wanted to show support for those arrested in Cambodia.

We are striving to support a change, especially to demand the release of the human rights and other activists whom have been unjustly arrested and jailed, he said. We decided that we will continue making our demands until our Khmer people and society have full freedom and rights and until our brothers and sisters are released from prison.

Reported by RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Yanny Hin. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.
People in a crowd on Beijing's Tiananmen Square cheer as late supreme leader Mao Zedong launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in May 1966 in this undated, uncredited photo.

On Monday China officially marked the 50th anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) with a resounding silence, as the ruling Chinese Communist Party appeared to express its ambivalence about the painful and horrific chapter of its history.

While Beijing is more than happy to encourage red nostalgia for Mao suits, revolutionary anthems and Little Red Books, it downplays the murder, torture, lynchings and kangaroo courts that turned the country upside down as the late supreme leader Mao Zedong used the "revolutionary masses" to stage his resounding political comeback.

The government recently allowed a private performance of Mao-era revolutionary songs at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, but it has stopped short of anointing official events to mark the date.

But 50 years ago it was different. The Chinese people woke up to a red, block headline in the Peoples Daily that screamed: Announcement.

On Monday, that newspaper carried a front-page report on President Xi Jinping's recent remarks on structural economic reforms.

Some Chinese intellectuals argue that the Cultural Revolution is the essential modus operandi of the Communist Party. Political violence of that decade merely intensified the earlier campaigns against landlords in the countryside and "rightist" intellectuals.

Red Xi

Rights activists also fear that the turmoil of the era, which Deng Xiaoping sought to avoid with a pledge to end political campaigns, has long simmered just below the surface in China. They site President Xi Jinping's selective anti-corruption campaign as a similar strategy in more moderate guise.

Xis anti-corruption campaign may not come with screaming headlines and a call for a new Red Guard, but some observers think Xi may have a similar goal in mind as he seeks to rid himself of political rivals today, just as Mao did five decades ago.

Sichuan-based author Tan Zuoren said there are disturbing signs that history may repeat itself.

"We should be criticizing the Cultural Revolution, but owing to all manner of connivance, we are launching it all over again," Tan said. "They are turning the clock backwards with Cultural Revolution-style news items and ideology.

While some of those who joined the political "struggle sessions" as Red Guards back in 1966 are now marginalized, there is a strong faction of "second generation revolutionaries" in the highest ranks of the Communist Party, Tan said.

Maoist faction

"There is a group of Maoists who are high ranking ... who have grown up in the atmosphere of the Cultural Revolution, and who have been educated in its ideology," Tan explained.

"They deliberately talk up the good points of the Cultural Revolution, and support the idea of a "core" party leader," Tan said said in a reference to a term state media have recently used to describe Xi, the first leader since Deng Xiaoping to adopt it.

Political commentator Wei Pu agreed.

"Xi has described the history of the People's Republic of China as two periods of 30 years ... which immediately begs the question, are they going to rehabilitate the Cultural Revolution itself?"

"Xi has expressed the view before he took office ... that the anti-rightist movements were essentially correct, and that the economy was actually developing during the Cultural Revolution," Wei wrote in a recent commentary for RFA's Cantonese Service.

"Xi Jinping has an intricate and mutually beneficial relationship with the party's left wing," he wrote. "Xi is using the left as a political force to fuel his own power."

U.S.-based rights activist Liu Qing said the absence of public debate shows just how sensitive China's leaders still are regarding any public acknowledgement of the actual, lived history of the Cultural Revolution.

"The Cultural Revolution is a very sensitive topic for the Chinese Communist Party," Liu said. "They daren't allow a public debate about this unprecedented calamity in our history."

"That's why it's hard to achieve public recognition of the huge psychological wound it inflicted on Chinese society."

He said the young performers who recently sang "red songs" in the Great Hall of the People likely had no idea of the realities of that era.

"You see this phenomenon not just in China, but in Japan, which doesn't want to face up to its wartime past, and seeks to cover up the truth," Liu said."The events of the past aren't recognized as wrongdoing, but simply as a failed venture."

While theres a fear that China that history will repeat itself, it will do so without the fanfare of past.

History lesson

Five decades ago the directive called on ordinary people to rid society of "members of the bourgeoisie threatening to seize political power from the proletariat," a reference to Mao's premier Liu Shaoqi and his "Soviet revisionist" supporters within the party.

The hardline political campaign caught the imagination of the nation's youth in particular, who were encouraged as "Red Guards" to inform on their own family members, and who replaced skilled professionals like teachers and doctors, who were locked up in "cow-pens," starved, tortured, beaten to death, or subjected to public humiliation.

The official death toll by 1976 numbered more than 1.7 million, with much of the country's cultural and artistic heritage destroyed in campaigns to eradicate traditional Chinese culture to make way for a new, revolutionary culture, arbitrated by the "proletariat."

Beijing may seek to paper over the Cultural Revolution, but there are signs the Chinese people know just what it means.

"The Cultural Revolution was a crime perpetrated on our entire nation and people, and all of that stuff is still with us today," an anonymous commentator told RFA on Monday. "The psychology of it is simple; the authorities are afraid to their very marrow that the Chinese people know all too well what the Cultural Revolution really was."

"So they even go as far as to praise it, to clean up its image, and to say that there were also heroes involved in it," the commentator added.

Reported by Xin Lin and Gao Shan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Two Lao nationals have been arrested upon returning home from Thailand where they were working, while a third has vanished, because they criticized the Lao government while abroad, their friends and relatives said.

Somphone Phimmasone, 29, his girlfriend Lod Thammavong, 30, and Soukane Chaithad, 32, returned to Laos in February to renew their passports, the sources said.

Police arrested Somphone and Lod at her home at Navatai village of Nongbok district in central Laos Khammouane province on March 5, said a relative of the couple, who declined to be named.

At first, the police told us they had been arrested for possession of drugs, but two weeks later the policeman in charge of the jail informed us that they had been arrested for political campaigning, he said. [He] told us not to get involved if we didnt want to get into trouble.

Somphone and Lod were being held in the provinces Khamkhikai jail as of April, but later the police told their families that they had transferred the pair to the capital Vientiane for detention, the relative said.

Their families are not certain whether police actually transferred the two to Vientiane or are continuing to hold them in Khammouane, he said.

While working in Thailand, the three strongly criticized the Lao government on social media for its human rights abuses and lack of democracy, sources said.

Somphone posted comments on his Facebook page under the name Phet-Akhome, the relative said.

They and some friends also protested outside the Lao embassy in the Thai capital Bangkok on Lao National Day on Dec. 2, calling on the Lao government to respect human rights and democracy.

They [Somphone and Lod] were arrested, and Soukane had disappeared for criticizing the Lao government on Facebook and protesting at the Lao embassy in Bangkok on Dec. 2, for sure, said one of their friends working in Thailand, who declined to be named. I have not seen other motives for this case.

Before Lao authorities arrested Somphone and Lod, the couple went to Vientiane so Somphone could renew his identity card ID card around Feb. 1-3, the friend said. Afterwards, they headed to Khammouane where they remained until their arrest on March 5.

Police in Khammouane have denied knowing anything about their detention.

We have not heard about the arrests, and we do not know about this incident, Lieutenant Colonel Khammai Chanthavongxai, deputy chief of Khammouanes police headquarters, told RFAs Lao Service. We will follow up on this.



He hasnt come back

Soukane Chaitad, who led the protest outside the Lao embassy in Thailand, disappeared on March 22 while he was renewing his passport at a police station in Savannakhet province, south of Khammouane, said his wife who is now working in Thailand.

So far, we have not heard about him since he returned to his hometown and disappeared on March 22 around 3 p.m., she said. He hasnt come back. Now his parents have informed the police about his disappearance, but the police said they have not seen him.

Soukanes family informed Savannakhet provincial police about his disappearance on May 6, she said.

But some bystanders said they saw some people taking Soukane away, she said.

We asked some vendors near the police station, and they told us they saw some unidentified men taking him into their van, the friend said.

When RFA contacted the Savannakhet provincial police, the person who answered the telephone said no one had informed the police about a missing person.

Forced disappearances of activists or critics of the Lao government are nothing new in the repressive one-party state.

Lao development specialist Sombath Somphone disappeared more than three years ago after police stopped him in his vehicle at a checkpoint in Vientiane. He was then transferred to another vehicle, according to police surveillance video, and has not been heard from since.

Rights groups suspect that Lao officials were involved in or are aware of the abduction of Sombath, and have called on the government to make progress in their investigation of the case. But officials have yet to state a reason for his disappearance or issue any updates.

Reported by RFAs Lao Service. Translated by Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Miners-for-hire ride on a truck near a jade mine in Hpakant township in northern Myanmar's Kachin state, Oct. 4, 2015.

Unknown assailants blew up the offices of two jade-mining companies in Hpakant township in northern Myanmars Kachin state on Sunday, destroying heavy vehicles, trucks and workers hostels, a local official said.

The first explosion occurred at Yadanar Moe Myay Mining Company Ltd. at 7:40 p.m. where about 10 men exploded handmade mines, said Win Htein, a local village administrator.

Then they asked workers to get out of the place and fired at the store garage and workers hostel, he told RFAs Myanmar Service.

The blast appeared to be a retaliatory act for the operators refusal to give in to demands for taxes by local extortionists, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reported, citing locals.

The men then went to Linn Htet Aung Company at about 8 p.m. and exploded handmade mines, Win Htein said.

This company lost some heavy vehicles, a truck, a car and workers hostel as well, he said.

The explosions Sunday did not appear to have caused any injuries or deaths.

Another explosion rocked the area on May 8, injuring a woman and three men and destroying buildings and heavy vehicles from three companies.

Altogether, there have been more than 30 explosions in Hpakant area since then, one of which injured one woman in the leg.

The blasts occurred soon after new clashes broke out between the Myanmar army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), an armed ethnic group, following the detention by the KIA of a regional government minister and three policemen, DVB reported.

Hpakant contains many lucrative jade mining operations that have come under fire for creating mountainous slag heaps, some of which have caused deadly landslides.

Rights groups routinely criticize the companies for the detrimental social and environmental impacts of their activities in the largely unregulated industry.

A deadly landslide last week killed 13 people who were thought to have been scavenging for the valuable mineral in the unstable waste cast off from mining operations, according to local officials and news reports.

Reported by Kyaw Myo Min for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi (2nd R), accompanied by former peace advisers Hla Maung Shwe (L) and Tin Maung Thann (2nd L), inspects the Myanmar Peace Center compound in Yangon, May 14, 2016.

Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday announced the formation of a new government peace organization called the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC) to fast-track preparations for a major peace conference slated for July, an official who attended the meeting said.

Kyaw Tint Swe, minister of the State Counselors Office, will oversee the new peace team, which replaces the Myanmar Peace Center (MPC) to get ready for a 21st-century Panglong Conference, said MPC senior advisor Hla Maung Shwe.

Aung San Suu Kyis father, General Aung San, held talks known as the Panglong Conference in February 1947 to grant autonomy to the Shan, Kachin and Chin ethnic minorities, when he was head of the interim government.

But Aung Sans assassination in July 1947 prevented the agreements made during the conference from reaching fruition, and many ethnic groups took up arms against the central government in wars that ground on for decades.

The NRPCs headquarters will be in Naypyidaw, and the Yangon-based MPC buildings will be used as an NRPC branch office, Hla Maung Shwe said.

The names of the staff members who will serve at NRPC will be announced soon, he said.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who is also foreign minister and minister of the Presidents Office, made the announcement during a meeting in Naypyidaw, where she also said two subcommittees would be formedone for the armed ethnic groups that signed a nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) last October and another for those who did not, Hla Maung Shwe said.

The current government has the advantage of working on peace, and we understand that it is going to get better, he said.

Government priority

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmars de facto leader, has made peace and national reconciliation between the national army and various armed rebel groups, and among the rebel groups themselves, a priority of the government under her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

Eight armed ethnic groups signed the NCA with the previous military-backed government, but others refused to join or were excluded because of ongoing hostilities with the Myanmar army.

The MPC, which provided technical support to the peacemaking process, received most of its funding from foreign donors.

In early May, the eight armed ethnic groups that signed the NCA met informally with the Myanmar governments new peace envoy Tin Myo Win to discuss their position on the peace process and the refashioning of the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee, a 48-member body formed last November to implement political dialogue between the government and ethnic armed groups.

Reported by Kyaw Thu and Tin Aung Khine for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
This photo taken on June 23, 2014 and released by Vietnam's maritime police allegedly shows a Chinese boat (L) ramming a Vietnamese vessel (R) in contested waters near a Chinese deep sea drilling rig in the South China Sea, June 24, 2014.

Beijing injected an extra irritant into its long-running dispute with its neighbors with the South China Sea as it announced its annual ban on fishing in the area and vowed to stop vessels that drop a line into the contested waters.

Chinas move brought a condemnation from Vietnamese fishermen on Monday, as their representative said the move is illegal and threatens their livelihood.

They can apply the ban in their water, not in our water because that would violate our law, said Nguyen Viet Thang, chairman of Vietnamese Fishery Association.

We have said before that the ban does not have any validity to Vietnamese fishermen, he told RFAs Vietnamese Service.

China's influence

While China has imposed similar bans each year since 1999, this years ban comes at a particularly sensitive time as Beijing has been building islands and asserting itself in the area in an attempt to control much of the critical seaway.

Beijings previous moves in the South China Sea have sparked anti-Chinese protests in Vietnam.

An oil rig China moves into the area in 2014 triggered anti-Chinese riots and the worst diplomatic crisis between the two neighbors in decades. Vietnam also accuses the Chinese of ramming and sinking Vietnamese fishing boats in disputed waters in 2014 and 2015.

The South China Sea is becoming flashpoint beyond the Vietnamese coast as China and other countries in the region seek control of trade routes, fishing grounds and mineral deposits that lie in the seaway.

China has hauled massive amounts of sand and other material to build up reefs and other features so that it can use the islands. The country has constructed landing strips that can handle military aircraft and added antiaircraft on some of the contested islands.

Taiwan and China both claim nearly the entire South China Sea. Vietnam and the Philippines also have large claims, while Brunei and Malaysia have smaller stakes to waters and features that lie much closer to those nations than they do to faraway China.

Protection Plea

On Monday Thang appealed to Hanoi to protect the countrys fishermen.

We asked the governments agencies to be present to protect our fishermen, he said. They have to be present all the time to protect our fishermen who work legally in our water.

Chinas unilateral fishing ban in the South China Sea runs from May 16 to Aug 1, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The ban covers a large swath of the water including the Paracel Islands, part of the Gulf of Tonkin and Scarborough Shoal.

Chinese officials said they plan to step up enforcement of their fishing regulations as Zhao Xingwu, head of the Bureau of Fisheries under the Ministry of Agriculture, told the China Daily that the coast guard and local fisheries bureaus will enforce the ban.

We will definitely step up law enforcement in the South China Sea to enhance regulation of our fishing vessels, he said. We will also step up the regulation of foreign ships.

One Vietnamese fisherman from Ly Son island of Quang Ngai province told RFA that he knew nothing about the ban, and was preparing to go to sea.

We cant do anything about the ban, he said. Fishing is our life. I have to go to make money to support my wife and children. The government cant give us food, and this is how we make our living.

Reported by Gia Minh for RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Writen in English by Brooks Boliek.
One of Russia's last remaining independent media voices, RBC (RBK in Russian) appears to be going down. And the State Duma debates a law that would restrict one of Russians' most cherished rights -- the right to travel abroad.

On this week's Power Vertical Briefing, we discuss the Kremlin's move away from the sophisticated soft authoritarianism of Putin's first two terms to a cruder and harsher form of rule.

Joining me is Senior RFE/RL Editor Steve Gutterman.

Enjoy...

NOTE: The Power Vertical Briefing is a short look ahead to the stories expected to make news in Russia in the coming week. It is hosted by Brian Whitmore, author of The Power Vertical blog, and appears every Monday.
TBILISI -- A Georgian court has sentenced five former Defense Ministry officials to seven years each on charges of financial mismanagement.

A Tbilisi city court on May 16 found the former officials guilty of misspending more than $1.8 million in an alleged sham tender in 2013 on the laying of fiber-optic cable and sentenced them the same day.

The Defense Ministry officials were arrested in October 2014, with four of them in office at the time of the arrests.

Defense Minister Irakli Alasania was fired shortly after the arrests and two of his allies resigned from their cabinet posts in protest.

Alasania's Free Democrats party left the ruling Georgian Dream coalition in November 2014.

Alasania said after the sentences were announced that he will organize mass street protests against the verdicts in the cases, which he denounced as being politically motivated.
A Kazakh lawyer has filed a lawsuit against the Russian-Kazakh television channel First Channel-Eurasia, accusing it of "insulting Kazakhs."

Nurkhan Zhumabekov told RFE/RL that he had officially filed the lawsuit with the Bostandyq district court in Almaty on May 16.

Zhumabekov said the state-controlled TV channel had "lied" in programs by claiming that recent mass protests across Kazakhstan against land privatization had been organized by unidentified individuals whom the channel's reporters called "the fifth column."

The TV station's reports also claimed that participants in the protests had received between $50 and $150 to take part.

Zhumabekov said the reports were "lies aimed at discrediting Kazakhs" and he is demanding 100,000 tenges ($305) from the television channel as a compensation for "the moral damage."

Activists in Kazakhstan plan to organize a mass protest against land privatization on May 21.


The United Nations' envoy for Kosovo said on May 16 that the election of a new Kosovo president and the return to power of Serbias government provided "an excellent opportunity" to end political infighting and to, instead, focus on challenges that face the Balkans  like unemployment and inequality.

Special Representative Zahir Tanin also told the UN Security Council on May 16 that he appreciated "the conciliatory messages and vision" presented by Kosovos President Hashim Thaci and Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic after their recent election victories.

Kosovo came under UN and NATO administration after the United States and its NATO allies carried out a bombing campaign in 1999 to end a crackdown by Serbs against the region's majority ethnic Albanian population.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but Belgrade still considers the region to be part of its territory.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters
Macedonia has officially launched the start of the campaign period for elections that are scheduled for June 5.

But only one party is participating -- the one heading the governing coalition of former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's conservative VMRO-DPMNE.

The opposition Social Democrats have announced a boycott of the elections, saying the conditions for a free and fair election do not exist.

The two main parties of the country's minority ethnic Albanians also have joined the boycott and are refusing to submit candidate lists.

The European Union and United States have urged Macedonia to postpone the election, for which campaigning was launched on May 16.

The U.S. Embassy said the fact that just one party submitted candidate lists "underscores and amplifies concerns that conditions are not conducive to credible elections."

Macedonia has been in political turmoil since February 2015 over a wiretapping scandal.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters


Tens of thousands of minority Shiite Hazara have marched in the Afghan capital to protest the path of a multimillion-dollar power-line project.

Police blocked main access roads into the center of Kabul to prevent the protesters from getting near the presidential palace.

Many of Kabul's stores were closed and there was an increased police presence in the capital in case the demonstration turned violent.

Despite the measures, the protest passed off largely peacefully with just a few reports of trouble during the march.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani thanked the protesters for not resorting to violence.

Hazara leaders are demanding that the planned 500-kilovolt transmission line linking Turkmenistan with Kabul be routed through the central province of Bamiyan, which has a large Hazara population.

The power line was originally set to pass through Bamiyan, but the government decided to reroute it through the Salang Pass north of Kabul, saying the shorter route would expedite the project and save millions of dollars in costs.

It was also announced that a commission reviewing the plan will present a report on the project by May 26.

The line, intended to provide secure power to 10 Afghan provinces, is part of the wider TUTAP project to link Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Only between 30 and 40 percent of Afghans are connected to the electric grid.

There are an estimated 2.8 million Hazara in Afghanistan, which has an estimated population of some 33 million.

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
Ukraine and its allies have adamantly rejected Russia's claims that Kyiv is developing a "dirty bomb" to use against Moscow's forces, and Ukraine's foreign minister says he has invited experts to visit Ukrainian facilities to see for themselves that Ukraine has nothing to hide.

Russia's claims that Kyiv is planning to deploy a so-called dirty bomb -- a conventional warhead laced with radioactive, biological, or chemical materials -- came in a series of calls between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his counterparts from several NATO countries.

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.

Britain, France, and the United States issued a joint statement on October 23 dismissing the claim after Shoigu's calls with their defense ministers in which the Russian minister presented no evidence for the claim.

"Our countries made clear that we all reject Russia's transparently false allegations that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory," according to the statement.

But Russia doubled down on its assertions, which come after weeks of military defeats for Russia in southern and eastern Ukraine.

"According to the information we have, two organizations in Ukraine have specific instructions to create a so-called dirty bomb. This work is in its final stage," Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said on October 24.

The chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, later on October 24 spoke by phone with British Chief of Defense Staff Tony Radakin, who rejected Russia's allegations that Ukraine is planning actions to escalate the conflict.

"The military leaders both agreed on the importance of maintaining open channels of communication between the U.K. and Russia to manage the risk of miscalculation and to facilitate deescalation," the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Gerasimov also held a phone call with his U.S. counterpart, General Mark Milley, to discuss the risks of the use of a dirty bomb in Ukraine, according to the Kremlin-controlled RIA Novosti news agency.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on October 24 weighed in on Moscow's repeated allegation, saying NATO also rejects it.

Stoltenberg said he had spoken with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace "about Russia's false claim that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory."

"NATO Allies reject this allegation. Russia must not use it as a pretext for escalation. We remain steadfast in our support for Ukraine," he said on Twitter.

Moscow's claims that Ukraine could employ a dirty bomb raised concern that Russia could use such a device and blame Kyiv.

A senior U.S. military official said the United States has seen no indication that Russia has decided to use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons in Ukraine, including a dirty bomb.

The official, who spoke to journalists on condition of anonymity, also said the Ukrainians are not building a dirty bomb.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price also said the United States has not seen any indication that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon but said there would be consequences for Russia whether it used a dirty bomb or any other nuclear weapon.



"It would certainly be another example of President Putin's brutality, if he were to use a so called 'dirty bomb.' There would be consequences for Russia whether it uses a 'dirty bomb' or a nuclear bomb. We've been very clear about that," Price told reporters.



He did not provide details about those consequences.

Ukraine earlier called the accusation that Ukraine was building a dirty bomb absurd, and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog accepted his request to send experts to Ukraine to refute Moscow's claim.

Kuleba said he invited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to "urgently send experts to peaceful facilities in Ukraine which Russia deceitfully claims to be developing a dirty bomb."

Kuleba said Ukraine has always been transparent and has "nothing to hide."

The IAEA said later on October 24 that it was preparing to send inspectors to two Ukrainian sites.



IAEA chief Rafael Grossi confirmed in a statement that both locations are under IAEA safeguards and have been visited regularly by IAEA inspectors.



The IAEA "is aware of statements made by the Russian Federation on [October 23] about alleged activities at two nuclear locations in Ukraine," Grossi said, adding that both were already subject to its inspections and one was inspected a month ago and no undeclared nuclear activities or material were found.



"The IAEA is preparing to visit the locations in the coming days," it added.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Kuleba in a phone call on October 23 that the world would "see through any attempt by Russia to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation [of the war]."

Blinken and Kuleba discussed the U.S. and international commitment to continue supporting Ukraine with "unprecedented security, economic and humanitarian assistance for as long as it takes, as we hold Russia accountable," the State Department's call readout said.

They further noted ongoing efforts to manage the broader implications of the Kremlins war in Ukraine, it added.

With reporting by AFP
Police in Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya have reportedly surrounded a village as part of a search for a resident who posted a video on the Internet calling for help from Russian President Vladimir Putin against corrupt local officials.

Russia's Kommersant Daily quoted residents of the village of Kenkhi on May 16 as saying that regional armed police forces have surrounded their village since May 14 and were interrogating all residents to track down a villager named Ramazan Dzhalaldinov.

The 56-year-old Dzhalaldinov, an ethnic Avar, uploaded his video to the Internet on April 14.

In it, he urges Putin to personally intervene in Kenkhi and stop local government officials from extorting bribes from residents.

Dzhalaldinov said in a video posted on the website of the Chernovik newspaper on May 13 that masked arsonists torched his house in Kenkhi after his plea to Putin.

Dzhalaidinov also said he fled to the neighboring Russian region of Daghestan after receiving anonymous death threats.

With reporting by Kommersant and Chernovik


Fewer Russians are booking vacations to Ukraine's Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula this year compared to 2015.

Kommersant quoted Russia's leading travel agencies on May 16 as saying the number of tickets booked to the Crimean capital, Simferopol, at some travel agencies had declined by 25 percent this year.

Meanwhile, some travel agencies have raised the average cost of vacation packages in Crimea by as much as 30 percent over 2015 prices.

Agencies reported that only 20 percent of the Russian tourists who travelled to Turkey and Egypt -- the most popular holiday destinations for Russians in 2014 but to which the Kremlin has since banned direct flights -- decided to instead vacation in Russia or in the Russia-occupied Crimean Peninsula.

Among those now opting for a vacation within Russia or Russian-occupied territory, the most popular destinations are resorts in Sochi, Anapa, and Gelendzhik. Holidaymakers say there is better infrastructure and quality of service in those locations than in Crimea.

Crimean resorts had been more popular than those Russian cities last summer.

Russia forcibly annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014.

Based on reporting by Kommersant
DUSHANBE -- Tajik lawmakers have expressed concern about deadly clashes between workers at a Moscow cemetery that left three Tajiks dead during the weekend.

The parliament speaker, Shukurjon Zuhurov, said at the parliament session on May 16 that he and a group of lawmakers will travel to Moscow on May 17 to discuss with Russian officials the deadly brawl at the Khovanskoye cemetery.

Some 30 individuals were injured in the clashes between migrants from Central Asia and Russian citizens from the North Caucasus region on May 14.

Many of the injured people sustained gunshot wounds.

Moscow officials said on May 16 that 13 injured persons remain in area hospitals, three of whom are in very serious condition.

Moscow police have detained dozens of people allegedly involved in the incident, including a police officer and the director of the cemetery, Yury Chabuyev, who has been dismissed.

With reporting by Interfax
ON MY MIND

So what will RBC's senior editors do now that they have been sacked and one of Russia's best news sources is being emasculated? Maybe they can move to Riga and form a news agency called Pegasus, as Sean Guillory of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies suggested on Facebook. (That is, after all, what their colleagues at Lenta.ru did following a similar Kremlin assault on that once fine news agency. They moved to Riga and formed Meduza.) Will the Baltics now become the hub of independent Russian journalism? How will the crackdown on RBC effect the few remaining independent media outlets? What will happen at Vedomosti? At Slon.ru? At Novaya Gazeta? In a remarkably brave move, The New Times today published an investigative piece (featured below) on Moscow properties linked to the FSB being registered offshore. They've clearly decided that if the last remaining free media is going down, it may as well go down swinging.

THE BRIEFING

Be sure to check out this week's Power Vertical Briefing in which Steve Gutterman and I discuss the attack on RBC and new legislation restricting some Russians' right to travel.

THE PODCAST

And in case you missed Friday's Podcast, Georgia's Fading NATO Dream, in which I discuss Georgia's efforts to join the alliance with James Nixey of Chatham House and Tbilisi-based political analyst Ghia Nodia.



IN THE NEWS

Russia's sports minister apologizes for doping scandal.

Ukraine's Jamala wins Eurovision as Russia cries foul.

The director of St. Petersburg's Symphony Orchestra has been found dead in his apartment.

The head of Chechnya's Supreme Court has resigned after being criticized by Ramzan Kadyrov.

A new report by the human rights group Agora claims that 6 percent of Russians have had their phones tapped from 2007-15.

Russia is reportedly planning to introduce a progressive income tax, replacing the current 13 percent flat tax, after the 2018 presidential elections.

Police officers have reportedly been killed in a shoot-out at a Moscow cemetery.

Remaining RBC editors will need to clear stories with the company's general director.

WHAT I'M READING

Offshore Paradise

The New Times has a new investigative report claiming that nearly one-fifth of the land and properties in the Moscow suburbs are registered offshore -- and many of them are former properties of the KGB and the FSB.

The Kleptocrats' Helpers

Anne Applebaum has a commentary in The Washington Post on how the United States and Great Britain help kleptocrats around the world -- and pay the price.

Here's the opening: "In the village of Bramley, Hampshire, an English country estate is undergoing a major renovation. A large crane can be seen from the road, along with wide lawns and the old trees of an elegant park. Beaurepaire Park was pointed out to me a few weeks ago by locals who told me the surprising name of their new neighbor: Yuri Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow.

Fascinated to learn that Luzhkov and his wife, Elena Baturina, Russias only female billionaire, had decided to experience English country life, I looked up the house in the British Land Registry. But although the purchase price was there  5.5 million ($7.9 million)  I found no Russian names. The owner is Skymist Holdings Limited, which is also responsible for the extensive renovation. Were it a British company, it might be possible to check whether Luzhkov is really the owner. Alas, Skymist is registered in the British Virgin Islands, where ownership can be concealed, and the trail ends there."

Read the rest here.

Remembering Lennart Meri

On the eve of this past weekend's Lennart Meri conference, Donald Jensen remembered Estonia's moral lodestone and first post-Soviet president -- and what he stood for.

"With Europe wracked by a variety of challenges -- Russian aggression in Ukraine, terrorism, waves of immigrants from the Middle East, sluggish economies, and populist movements questioning the very democratic foundations of their societies -- it is wise to recall the spirit of Lennart Meri, the Estonian president in whose memory a major international conference is being held this weekend in Tallinn," Jensen wrote.

Baltic Security: It's Complicated

BNEIntellinews has a piece on NATO's Baltic buildup and a recent Lithuanian intelligence report on Russia's intentions.

"A recent intelligence revelation out of Lithuania spoke of how a couple years ago Russian paratroopers, simulating a special task operation in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between the NATO states of Poland and Lithuania, might have crossed over the border into Juodkrante, a lush Lithuanian settlement on the Baltic Sea," according to BNEIntellinews.

The Day RBC Died

Meduza has a piece on the dismantling of RBC and "how Russia gained and lost a great source of news."

Conspiracy Of The Day

And in today's nutty conspiracy theory news, Kommersant has an an interview with Vladimir Vasilyev of the Russian Academy of Sciences U.S.A. and Canada Institute arguing that Barack Obama is planning a castling move: making Joe Biden president and continuing to rule the country as vice president.
These days we are marking the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which laid the ground for the borders of the new Middle East following the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Many historians, politicians, and even radical Islamist groups, such as Islamic State (IS), blame this colonial pact, which was agreed by Britain and France and accepted by Tsarist Russia, for being the main source of most of the failures of modern Arab countries.

Many analyses invariably end up speculating about developments and policies based on a world without the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

And, considering current politics and especially Islamic extremism, they argue that without the "artificial borders" for countries like today's Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc., there wouldn't be any (or there would be less) authoritarianism, religious extremism, scientific stagnation, backwardness, anti-Western bias, and terrorism in the Middle East today.

It's an attractive idea, but it's ultimately wrong.

Yes, fantasy is fun, even in science fiction, but all professional historians know how misguided it is to start speculating about "what ifs."

We all know that the Arabs of the Middle East had no solid statehood of their own after the fall of the second Islamic caliphate of the Abbasids in the 13th century.

For 750 years, most of today's Middle Eastern Arab world was ruled by Ottoman and, to a lesser extent, Iranian empires.

How could these "artificial borders" have been solely responsible for contemporary Arab states' failures when these nations had no independent statehood experience for at least 700 years?

It is also clear that the Sykes-Picot Agreement alone did not create these "artificial borders."

The agreement was the basis for a new map of the Middle East at a time when the region's leading power, the Ottoman Empire, had been in decline for 300 years and was ceasing to function as a collection of ethnic, religious and linguistic units.

This demise occurred in parallel with the rise of Europe's Western powers. It took some three centuries for the West's age of discovery, industry, and renaissance to overtake the last Islamic empire, which had been established on the basis of victories achieved on horseback and traditional land grabs.

Divvying Up The Cake

Ultimately, the Sykes-Picot Agreement was not just about the Arab world. It was primarily about how to dismember the Ottoman Empire, which ruled the Muslim world west of Iran as well as the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. It was a way of cutting and divvying up the cake.

Ultimately, today's modern Republic of Turkey was not created because of Sykes-Picot, but in spite of it.

There are two important reasons for why this is the case.

First, modern Turkey's war of national independence was led by an exceptional military commander and charismatic leader called Mustafa Kemal Pasha, or Ataturk.

Second, events were precipitated by Russia's October Revolution and its leader Vladimir Lenin, who decided to withdraw Russian troops from the former Ottoman lands and even supported Ataturk's pro-independence movement.

To understand this a bit better, let's take a look at the evolution of the Ottoman Empire, the former "overlord" of the biggest chunk of the Middle East, including today's Arab countries.

A year before Sykes-Picot, the British high commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, "promised" the Sharif of Mecca Hussain a vast Arab Kingdom if Arabs would help Britain and France defeat the Ottomans.

What actually happened was different, however.

A year later, on May 16, 1916, a Briton and a Frenchman, Sir Mark Sykes and Georges Picot, drew up a map to officially dismember the "qanimat," or the bounty that comprised the defeated Ottoman Empire.

WATCH: The Ottoman Empire 1300-1923

Did this pact consider nation states and the right of nations to self-determination?

No way.

Just like in previous centuries, it was purely about the strategic interests of victorious powers, i.e. British dominion over oil and sea routes, a French share of influence in the Mediterranean space, and some sops for the Russians to keep them happy.

"Mandates" or "spheres of influence" were constructed, borders were drawn up, and countries were created in lands that had dozens of ethnic, religious, cultural, and linguistic mixes.

'Broken Promises'

Today, you still hear complaints from some Arabs and others about "broken promises" concerning the creation of smaller and more mono-ethnic national states.

After 100 years, however, people forget, or still don't know, that any putative borders would have been "artificial"  since it was not about changing the ownership of clearly defined countries and territories but distributing a "war bounty" consisting of a defeated, once powerful overlord.

In Arab lands, the Sykes-Picot Agreement became a symbol of injustice and double-standards. It provided a reason to rebel against the West and to fight against one another.

The agreement is viewed in some quarters as the starting point for wars of liberation -- first against Western mandate-holders, and then against their local representatives, Israel and the United States.

More recently, these conflicts have taken on other forms -- with Sunnis fighting Shi'a, one Sunni group waging war against another faction it considers "non-believers," Kurds taking on Turks, Turks fighting among themselves, and IS fighting everybody else.

Now, the world is wary of the entire Middle East as a result of this upheaval.

Ultimately, perhaps the only "what if" we can permit ourselves to consider is the following:

Today, both Iraq and Syria can already be viewed as "failed states."

But what if Turkey (which is the biggest and most "significant" country in the region, but not without vulnerabilities) was also dismembered with or without a plan and map similar to Sykes-Picot 100 years ago?

Imagine three (or maybe even four or five) smaller states based on ethnicity, religion, language, and historical and cultural values (both real and perceived) who would all be hostile to each other.

Now, that's a scenario where the real tragedy of the Middle East would begin to play out.
One hundred years ago, on May 16, 1916, representatives from the United Kingdom and France (with the agreement of Russia) met in secret and signed what has come to be known as the SykesPicot Agreement. The pact, signed amid World War I, divided the Ottoman Empire into spheres of imperial control, and is often held responsible for establishing the current borders of the Middle East.

The agreement has been widely criticized in recent years, particularly after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, because to many its borders are not just a symbol of foreign imperialism but also reflect what they see as the lack of understanding of the Middle East -- then and now -- demonstrated by world leaders. Ethnic groups were split across borders and when sectarian violence erupted in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, many blamed Sykes-Picot for pitting ethnic groups against each other.

Understanding Sykes-Picot is also central to understanding the ideology (or at least the propaganda) of the Islamic State (IS) militant group. In the summer of 2014, the terrorist organization had seized large amounts of territory in both Iraq and Syria. The group had recently pronounced that it was changing its name from Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (Greater Syria) to just "Islamic State."

According to IS's well-crafted message, it was no longer an organization operating within two countries: It was its own state, and by establishing an Islamic caliphate in the region, it was actively destroying the vestiges of foreign imperialism. IS's English-language propaganda outlet, the Al-Hayat Media Center, released a video called The End Of Sykes-Picot, which showed the destruction of the border between Iraq and Syria. An IS fighter provided a video tour, in clear English, of the border crossing that Iraqi soldiers had abandoned. The "so-called border," according to the IS fighter, was established by Arab leaders and Western imperialists. There is no border, he said, the world belongs to Allah, "we are all one country," and IS-held territory should not be divided. He quoted IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as saying he was "the breaker of barriers."

In the propaganda video, IS was echoing and amplifying the sentiment that Sykes-Picot is a symbol of foreign meddling, but the militant group was also modifying this message for their own purposes, and crucially accusing Muslim leaders of complicity in these crimes, a key theme of IS propaganda.

The reality, however, is much more complicated. There's an argument to be made that the agreements made at the 1920 San Remo conference -- attended by leaders from Britain, France, Italy, and Japan -- rather than the Sykes-Picot deal, are ultimately responsible for the internal borders we know today. Regardless, those agreements didn't actually establish the internal borders -- only the larger imperial ones. As such, Sara Pursley, a historian who works on the modern Middle East, has pointed out that the map drawn by Sykes-Picot actually more closely resembles the map used by IS than the current geopolitical borders we're familiar with. The internal borders were established over a long period of time and the process had a great deal to do with local power struggles, rather than simply foreign imperial meddling.

There's another major flaw in IS's logic: Sykes-Picot actually placed Deir-ez-Zour -- the regional capital in eastern Syria and an IS stronghold -- outside of the territory that we now know as Syria. Pursley points out that it was actually an internal conflict that eventually landed Deir-ez-Zour in Syria. Pursley writes that the then-Ottoman province was placed on the French side of the border, but after a conflict with the Arab army in Syria local leaders appealed to the British to annex the region, which they did, but locals soon petitioned Damascus to reincorporate the region in Syria.

"Ironically, it was the Iraqi nationalist officers of al-Ahd al-Iraqi who were ultimately responsible for the inclusion of Dayr al-Zur within Syria. They hoped to use the region as a base for launching attacks from Syria on British occupation forces in Iraq -- and that is what they did, thereby helping to spark the 1920 revolt. In 1923, Baghdad-based Iraqi nationalist Muhammad Mahdi al-Basir explained the Dayr al-Zur decision: 'Iraqis [in Syria] were working for the liberation of Iraq, even if that required annexing much of its land for the Syrian government.' Leading British officials, including Acting Civil Commissioner in Iraq at the time, A.T. Wilson, later asserted that Britain's acquiescence at Dayr al-Zur -- i.e., the evacuation of its troops and relinquishing of the province to the Arab army in Syria -- helped precipitate the entire 1920 revolt, not only by providing the Iraqi nationalist officers in Syria a base for cross-border military operations but also by giving other opponents of the British Mandate within Iraq a sense of Britain's vulnerability."

In other words, discord between Muslims living in the heart of what is now IS territory led to the border being established where it is now. Western imperialism played a key role, but only in so much as they were reacting to political realities on the ground.

Crucially, however, IS's message is not working. If the militant group's goal is to inspire others to break down these borders and unify under a single Islamic state, there does not seem to be any sign IS is tapping into a wider collective desire.

Anthropology professor Jon W. Anderson of the Catholic University of America says that the borders established after World War I are widely accepted by those in the Middle East, and with each passing generation they become more firmly established.

In an interview with RFE/RL, Anderson said that, save for the wishes of Islamic State militants, "there doesn't seem to be much sentiment for revision" of the borders. He points out that "the longest-running internecine conflict, the Lebanese civil war, was over dominance within those boundaries and resulted in a settlement affirming them." Jordan and Israel are not going anywhere, either. Neither is Syria -- in fact, the Syrian opposition that opposes IS has also vocally opposed the breaking up of Syria, as has Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Despite IS's propaganda, and 100 years after Sykes-Picot, it seems there is little appetite to rewrite the map of the Middle East.
Trains move slowly through the landscape of Georgia, and that'sexactly how Vakho Khetaguri likes it. The photographer, who works in stark black and white, recently exhibited his ongoing project on a form of transport that was once considered the height of progress in Georgia -- but is now used mostly by low-income travelers.
23 A Syrian rebel fighter aims his weapon on the front line against regime forces in the rebel-controlled village of Bala on the outskirts of the capital Damascus. (AFP/Abdulmonam Eassa)
Gov. Terry McAuliffe gave nearly 1,000 graduates of J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College no reason to doubt themselves or their futures.

McAuliffe recalled starting his first business, McAuliffe Driveway Maintenance, when he was 14, coating driveways in his upstate New York neighborhood with tar. He moved up to parking lots the next year, driving his uncles dairy truck from the farm to haul barrels of tar.

I had no license, I had no license plates, he said, but folks, I was in business, I was an entrepreneur.

The 72nd governor of Virginia used his story of how he earned his way to college to drive home three pieces of advice to Reynolds graduates at their commencement ceremony Sunday at Virginia Commonwealth Universitys Siegel Center: Think big, take chances and never, ever be afraid to fail.

McAuliffe was speaking to a group of students who have worked to find their path to success and happiness. The audience included 25 students in Reynolds Middle College program  adults between 18 and 26 who are still working to complete high school education so they can attend college.

On the other end, 39 students in the second graduating class of Reynolds Advance College Academy received two-year associate degrees from the community college weeks before they will graduate from J.R. Tucker High School in Henrico County. Reynolds also has launched the program in one other Henrico high school, two in Hanover County, and one each in Goochland and Powhatan counties.

President Gary L. Rhodes began the ceremony by asking students to raise their hands if they were the first in their families to attend college, had served as a caretaker for someone while in school, or worked one or more jobs while attending classes at Reynolds, with three campuses in the Richmond area. Hands raised each time.

For most of our students, finishing college was not a solo effort, Rhodes said.

Sofia Duarte came to Reynolds out of high school. She worked as a tutor in the schools academic support center and as a student ambassador. She became vice president of the Alpha Iota Beta Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa honor society while earning an associates degree of science in engineering with magna cum laude.

Duarte plans to attend Virginia Commonwealth University to study electrical engineering, but she also has a clear idea of where I want to be today.

I want to be in a place where I could continue to learn, work, and serve, just as Ive had the opportunity to do here at Reynolds, she said.

The graduating class, including more than 70 military veterans, was a perfect audience for McAuliffe, who toured all 23 community colleges in Virginia during his 2013 gubernatorial campaign, with the final stop at Reynolds in Richmond.

He has pushed hard for investments in K-12 and higher education, as well as workforce development to expand opportunities for students to earn credentials in sought-after trades. This year, he signed a two-year state budget that includes $12.5 million to expand community college credentialing programs.

It is a stunning accomplishment, said Stephen E. Baril, a Richmond lawyer who is chairman of the college board.

McAuliffe urged the grads to continue their education so they wont fall behind in a fast-changing world and got their attention with the prospect of vacant cybersecurity jobs that start at $88,000 a year.

But the governor also told them not to lose sight of what makes them happiest.

This is your life, he said. When you walk out of that door, I want you smiling, I want you happy, I want you fired up!
Manyang Reath Kher, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who is now a Henrico County resident, has launched a campaign to help Sudanese refugees by selling African coffee in the Richmond area.

The project will provide financial support to Sudanese refugees and help them become more self-reliant, while also creating awareness about refugees needs, according to Kher.

Refugees are people who need help starting over lives that were uprooted, Kher said. Theyve lost everything.

734 Coffee will be sold in the Richmond area and online, and Kher hopes to also expand sales to businesses outside in the Richmond area in the foreseeable future.

The name relates to the geographical coordinates of Gambela, a region in Ethiopia where more than 200,000 South Sudanese citizens have taken refuge, Kher said.

Each 8-ounce bag of coffee sells for $10, of which $1 will go directly to the benefit of Sudanese refugees, he said.

Each bag provides funds to raise chickens, create fishing nets and grow crops, according to Kher.

The coffee beans will come from Sudan and Ethiopia, and virtually the entire operation is designed to benefit South Sudanese refugees, including by providing people in Gambella with jobs. The coffee packages also include educational information about refugees, which Kher hopes will hope to raise awareness and possibly lead to more people helping refugees.

Kher unveiled 734 Coffee to an audience gathered at the Virginia Home for Boys & Girls on Saturday night, where dozens of friends and business partners learned about the project and purchased coffee. Kher, 27, said he hopes to make this project a cornerstone of his life, much of which he has already dedicated to trying to help Sudanese refugees.

Kher is a recent graduate of the University of Richmond and spent nearly all of his childhood in a refugee camp in Ethiopia.

Having moved to the U.S. at the age of 17, Kher is the founder of the nonprofit Humanity Helping Sudan Project, designed to help Sudanese become more self-reliant, and hes been working on the coffee project for about two years, he said.

He also said hes confident that Richmonders will find the coffee to be better than the average cup of joe, considering his coffee is produced in a region that is well-known for its coffee. 734 Coffee promotes itself as having a rich flavor without the bitter taste of excess caffeine.
In a surprise to Liberty University graduates actors Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn and screenwriter Randall Wallace made an appearance at Saturdays commencement.

Gibson and Wallace spoke briefly to the crowd about their upcoming film Hacksaw Ridge, which depicts the true and heroic story of Pfc. Desmond T. Doss, the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor.

When I came here the first time to Lynchburg, I didnt know about Desmond Doss, Gibson, who directed the film, said during the ceremony. Ive lived with Desmonds story for about almost two years now, and Ive gained a tremendous admiration for this man. He was one of the most heroic figures in American history.

Gibson noted that while Medal of Honor recipients receive their decoration for a specific moment of valor, Doss had numerous moments of heroism as he continued to enter the line of fire to rescue his fellow soldiers. Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist who refused to carry a weapon in combat, is credited with saving as many as 75 men during the Battle of Okinawa.

In a brief press conference following the commencement, Wallace said when he first learned of the World War II veterans story it shocked him, especially having grown up in Lynchburg without ever hearing of his deeds.

While answering questions during a private question and answer session after graduation, Wallace expanded on his previous comment.

For him to have such courage based on convictions that werent about a belief that war was something Christians should avoid, but that he had made a promise to God he was determined to keep, that made this story different from any other Id ever heard, he said.

Wallace also said he had been tapped to direct the film, but instead wrote a draft for the script before directing the 2014 film, Heaven is for Real, at which point he suggested Gibson for the Desmond T. Doss story.

I  thought he would really relate to the material for a lot of the things he had been through, said Wallace. And Desmond Doss being misunderstood for a lot of his beliefs could speak well to what Mel could bring to the movie.

During his commencement remarks, Gibson said he had brought the film to Lynchburg to show some friends.
LYNCHBURG  After ongoing discussions between Liberty University and Ivy Lake property owners in Forest broke down, the two parties are headed to court.

Ivy Hill Recreation LLC, one of Libertys subsidiaries, filed a lawsuit against more than 400 property owners, businesses and others on April 27 over who should pay for repairs to the lakes dam. Ivy Hill Recreation is asking a judge to declare those landowners responsible for paying a total of $1 million toward that work.

In the suit, filed in Bedford County Circuit Court, Liberty argues that residents benefit from the lakes proximity and should bear a part of the burden of paying for state-mandated repairs to the dam. Homeowners say the price they have been asked to pay is too steep, and that Liberty should pay for the brunt of the repair work since it owns the lake.

Liberty received the 112-acre lake and its dam in 2008 as a gift from a developer.

In 2009, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation notified Liberty that the dams spillway must be repaired to handle a worst-case scenario storm, a price tag Liberty initially estimated at more than $2 million but later said could be done for about $1 million.

According to the department, the dams spillway capacity is not adequate to handle a large storm event, and hundreds of homes and residents would be in danger if it fails.

David Corry, general counsel for Liberty and its facilities such as Ivy Lake, said an appraiser has looked at the value of the properties, size of lots, and amount of view to determine how much to assess each homeowner.

On average, property owners on the shoreline would pay about $700 annually; other Ivy Hill property owners would pay $306 annually, Corry said, adding that if a property is both lakefront and on the road over the dam, the two figures would be combined.

If a judge rules in Libertys favor, a homeowners association would be formed and would be responsible for collecting the money, among other duties.

The lawsuit states if the state-required repairs are not made, Ivy Lake may be drained and the dam closed or removed in accordance with the Dam Safety Act.

Liberty has spent more than $100,000 to recertify the dam with the state and investigate possible solutions for repair, the lawsuit said.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe heads out today on a four-day marketing mission to Boston and Canada.

The delegation will visit the greater Boston area, Montreal and Toronto.

The McAuliffe administration said in a news release that the governor and his delegation will attend more than 20 meetings over the course of the mission. He will promote Virginia oysters, wine, craft beer, outdoor recreation and travel through interviews with Boston and Canadian media outlets.

From 2011 to 2015, Canadian companies invested more than $150 million and created 775 jobs in Virginia. More than 50 Canadian companies operate in Virginia, according to the McAuliffe administration.

Joining McAuliffe on the marketing trip are Secretary of Commerce and Trade Maurice A. Jones, Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Todd P. Haymore, and representatives of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the Virginia Tourism Corporation and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

In 2015, Canada was Virginias largest export destination, receiving more than $3.38 billion in manufactured goods. Top export products included vehicles (other than rail), industrial machinery, mineral fuels, paper and paperboard, and electrical machinery.
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RICHMOND  A 3 percent pay raise scheduled for state employees and college faculty could be delayed or lost if Virginias lagging revenues dont catch up to projections by the end of June.

Secretary of Finance Richard Ric Brown said Monday that revenue collections through April were trailing projections by 1.9 percent, or $347 million, after declining 6.7 percent from the previous April.

If collections finish the fiscal year behind $169 million, or 1 percent under the annual forecast, the state would be required to reforecast revenues for the two-year budget that takes effect July 1.

If we have to do a reforecast of revenues, the pay raises are put on hold, Brown told reporters after briefing the House Appropriations Committee.

However, the delay would not necessarily prevent employees from eventually getting the raises, currently scheduled to take effect Dec. 1, he said. Theyre just not guaranteed.

Brown remains hopeful that collection of income and sales taxes will recover enough this month and in June after a disappointing April to close the gap and avoid a mandatory revenue reforecast, which the state last performed in late 2014.

This year, in the first nine days of May, revenue collections jumped 23 percent over a year ago, and there is an additional deposit day for income taxes withheld from payroll.

You have some strength in May, Brown told the committee. The question is, how long does it last?

Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Steve Landes, R-Augusta, was not optimistic: It does look like were not going to meet our estimate by the end of the [current] biennium.

Brown responded that meeting the estimate remains possible, but he added, I tend to agree; its some heavy lifting to get there.

The potential shortfall puzzles Brown and other budget officials, because it is driven primarily by weak collections of income withholding taxes, the states most reliable source of revenue. Those taxes account for almost two-thirds of money required to support the general fund budget.

Virginias payroll employment increased almost 3 percent in March from the previous year as the state has made what Brown called solid improvements in job growth since the federal deal was announced last fall to put off further cuts in federal spending under budget sequestration for two years.

It just doesnt seem to match up with lagging withholding tax payments that are driven primarily by new jobs, Brown said. He added that wages may be lower for those new jobs or that the employment projections may be too rosy.

The potential revenue gap is not related to the big shortfall that emerged two years ago when tax collections ended $439 million below budget at the end of fiscal 2014 and resulted in a projected $2.4 billion shortfall through this biennium.

That shortfall was driven almost entirely by a huge drop in estimated payments of income taxes that are not withheld from payroll but paid on stock gains by investors. Revenues recovered last year and resulted in the states biggest surplus.

But last years performance in May and June will be hard to top, Brown conceded. Revenues would have to grow 10.3 percent this month and in June above last years increase of 10.1 percent during the same period.

Income tax collections, both for withholding and nonwithholding, trail projections by 1.5 percent, and the state is paying more in tax refunds than expected. Sales and recordation taxes also are lagging behind projections for the fiscal year.

Theres some general weakness in the numbers across the board, Brown said.

The budget included money for 3 percent pay raises for state employees and higher education faculty, as well as 2 percent increases for teachers and state-supported local employees.

My concern is we made a lot of commitments to a lot of folks, said Del. Scott Garrett, R-Lynchburg.

In remarks to reporters, Brown said he hasnt lost hope of meeting the projection or falling short by less than the 1 percent that would put raises on hold.

In this game, nothing is over until its over, he said.
TUPELO, Miss.  Four people died Monday when a small plane headed to Charlottesville, Virginia, crashed shortly after taking off from Tupelo Regional Airport in Mississippi.

The pilot and three passengers all died when the single-engine plane crashed in woods near a sewage pumping station and the Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo. No one on the ground was hurt.

We dont have any survivors, said Tupelo Fire Department public information officer Cathy Gault.

Tupelo city spokeswoman Leesha Faulkner said emergency officials were called to the site about a half-mile north of the airport about 8:30 a.m.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Arlene Salac said the pilot reported smoke in the cockpit of the Beechcraft Bonanza before the crash.

She said the FAA will investigate and the National Transportation Safety Board will seek the crashs cause.

Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre told reporters that officials were awaiting the arrival of federal investigators.

Officials did not immediately release the names of the dead. Lee County Coroner Carolyn Green said the bodies will be taken to the state crime lab in Pearl for autopsies and said DNA might be needed to identify them.

The plane was fueled just before takeoff and burned when it crashed, producing a plume of black smoke.

Theres quite a bit of wreckage. The debris is very broken up, Aguirre said. We did find some bodies on the scene.

FlightAware.com shows that a Beechcraft Bonanza, registered to a man in Kerrville, Texas, had flown from there to Tupelo on Sunday. It was scheduled to continue to Charlottesville on Monday. The weather was overcast with a light wind at the time the plane took off.

Laurie Carwile, who works in the gift shop at the Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo, said she heard the crash and later saw smoke.

We actually thought it was thunder, Carwile said. I was in the gift shop and this man came beating on the door, telling me to open the door. I thought we were being robbed. He was actually trying to tell me the plane had come down and to call 911.

Carwile said no animals were hurt at the park, where buffalo, zebras and camels live, but they all seem to be on edge a little bit.
Six hundred rainbow trout waited in a pond outside Christiansburg Sunday, roughly three for every pint-sized angler who attended the Izaak Walton League Fishing Rodeo.

As a siren blared to start the two-hour event, hundreds of youngsters slung fishing lines toward heaven and bobbers splashed in the green water.

Trophies were awarded for the heaviest string of fish in three age categories. Getting kids outside with fishing was the main objective, according to league officials who, with corporate sponsors, provided fishing gear, snacks, T-shirts, lunch and the stocked fishing hole.

More tackle boxes, less Xboxes, volunteer Larry Sowers said.

On a muddy shore, parents untangled criss-crossed lines, removed snags of pond grass, baited hooks, and unhooked fish. Escaped fish flipped and hopped until captured by slime-covered hands.

When Brayden Board of Christiansburg, 5, caught a trout, his dads girlfriend, Rachel Copeland, removed the hook. The boy carried the fish in a net to his father, Lucas, who picked it up for Brayden to hold.

Hold it, hold it tight, his father directed. Hes squishing out!

I cannot hold that, Brayden confessed.

Dad offered the boy the fish again.

I cannot, the boy said.

You can! the dad said.

And he did, as did his brother, Ethan, who held the fish he caught. Ethan needed to have fish blood mopped from his face at the end of the day.

Fishing rodeos are a southwest Virginia tradition. Boones Mill and Salem held theirs recently, said Rick Starkey of Elliston. I think kids are better off if theyre outside, he said. Thats the way I was brought up and raised.

His nephew, Brantley Combs, 5, received a full-immersion experience when the boy slipped off his camp chair and into the pond. The boys dad, Christopher Combs, immediately pulled Brantley ashore.

The Christiansburg/Montgomery chapter of the Izaak Walton league, a national conservation organization, has held its rodeo for many of the chapters 66 years in existence. Its property outside Christiansburg spans 118 partially wooded acres. In addition to two ponds, there are shooting and archery ranges. The club has about 330 members, president Pete Jobst said.

Peggy Rucker of Blacksburg, who with friend and co-worker Britney Lilly brought six kids, confessed: I have never fished a day in my life.

Nor had her son, Antwon Toliver, 11.

She brought him and the other youngsters in the spirit of trying to get them to know there is something else other than video games, Rucker said. Nature is good.
The United States Postal Service Monday reported that 6,549 employees nationwide were attacked by dogs last year, and 87 of those occurred in the Central Pennsylvania region.

The postal service reported that, in the region, Scranton had the highest number of reported attacks on employees with eight, and Lancaster and York followed that with five dog attacks each.

In the area, there were two attacks each on postal service employees in Camp Hill and Harrisburg, and one dog attack each in Carlisle, Dillsburg, Mechanicsburg, Newport, Shippensburg and Shermans Dale.

None of the towns in the Central Pennsylvania district made it to the top 30 national rankings, which was led by Houston, Texas, with 77 dog attacks last year. Philadelphia was placed at No. 7 on the list with 44 dog attacksan increase from 33 in 2014, according to the postal service.

The report comes out during National Dog Bite Prevention Week, which runs this week. About 4.5 million people in the United States are bitten by dogs annually, and half of those victims are children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which collects data on dog bites.

In terms of the safety of its own employees, the postal service asks customers to indicate if there is a dog at their address when they schedule a package pick-up.

The postal service asks dog owners to secure their dog in a separate room when answering the front door for packages or mail, and do not let children take mail directly from a carrier since a dog may view the carrier as a threat.

The postal service also noted that it can ask a dog owner to pick up mail at the post office instead of it being delivered if the letter carrier feels threatened or if the dog is roaming the neighborhood.
UR Rao becomes first Indian to be awarded IAFs 'Hall of Fame' Award

Published: May 16, 2016

Former ISRO Chairman and space scientist Prof Udupi Ramachandra Rao became the first Indian to be given Hall of Fame Award by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF).

Mr. Rao has been selected for the prestigious award for his outstanding contribution to the progress of astronautics within the framework of the IAF activities.

He will receive the award at the 67th International Astronautical Congress to be held in Guadalajara, Mexico in September 2016.

About UR Rao

He had served as Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from 1984 to 1994.

Under his leadership, India had initiated the development of the geostationary launch vehicle GSLV and the development of cryogenic technology in 1991.

He was also responsible for successful launch of INSAT satellites during his stint at ISRO.

He also had served as the first Chairman of Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of the ISRO.

Presently, he is the Chairman of Governing Council of the Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad.

Currently, he is also Chancellor of Indian Institute for Space Science and Technology (IIST) at Thiruvananthapuram.

Awards and Honours: Padma Bhushan (1976). He was inducted into the Satellite Hall of Fame, Washington in March 2013 at a ceremony organised by the Society of Satellite Professionals International.

IAF Hall of Fame: It consists of a permanent gallery of these personalities, including biographical information, citation and a picture in a special part of the IAF web presence.

Month: Current Affairs - May, 2016

Topics: Awards  ISRO  Persons in News  Science and Technology  UR Rao

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Consumers have changed a lot. The stereotype of men and women walking into shops willing to be guided by the retailer in their choice is outdated. Today customers know (or think that they know) exactly what kind of product they want, and what price they should be paying for it. That is because they have access to a large amount of information, which was precluded to them until not so long ago.

The Internet has disrupted long-established retailing rules, including for luxury products. Yet, every luxury sector was influenced in a different way. Travel agencies, as an example, have almost completely moved to the web, as people do not need to reach them in person in order to organise their holidays. Hi-Tech was also profoundly influenced. Today around 40% of electronic products are bought online, with a few clicks, and shipped directly at home. Customers do not feel the need to see the goods before they buy them, as they can count on thousands of customers reviews to help them in their choice.

Jewellery has been moving in a different direction. As of today, only around 4% of purchases are completed through e-trade channels. The reason for that is to be found in the peculiarity of jewellery products which, apart from some global brands, are unique, handmade pieces. In addition, diamonds themselves come in a wide array of cuts and quality, which makes each of them unique. People want to see and evaluate these products with their own eyes.

This though, does not mean that jewellery customers do not do their own research; on the contrary, due to the fact that diamonds are expensive products which require a substantial money investment, they feel the need to make their choice as informed as possible, mostly through web searches. The Internet contains a lot of good info and guides about diamonds, but also information that is completely misleading.

The traditional veil of mystery surrounding the diamond industry has, to some extent, backfired, allowing all sorts of misinformation to proliferate. Misinformation has a profound impact on the perception that customers have of diamond jewellery. In some cases, it can discourage them from considering a purchase, while in most other cases it will simply generate doubts and confusion about the opportunity to buy the product.

The burden of clarifying these doubts lies almost entirely on the shoulders of the retailers, who find themselves in a rather peculiar and difficult position. Why? Because diamonds usually pass through dozens of hands from when they are mined, sorted, auctioned, polished, graded, to when they are mounted onto a jewel and showcased, but there is only one point of contact between this complex process and the customer: retailers.

There are several examples of how misinformation on diamonds can shatter consumers confidence. The greatest source of confusion for customers revolves around the actual price and value of diamonds. The fact that diamonds possess a high individual value has produced the idea that diamond jewellery may be purchased as an investment for the future, and that a diamond ring can only retain or increase its value over time, which is not true. In turn, this ill-placed belief has given credit to the views of commentators who claim that the price policy of the entire industry is based on deception. The most notable example in this sense is the famous article Have you ever tried to sell a diamond? published on The Atlantic by Jay Epstein in 1982, but this sort of considerations still pop up in the media every now and then. Jewellery retailers should make everything possible to warn customers about this misconception. It is true that if you buy a diamond ring and try to sell it straight away, it will lose around 50% of its value, but the peculiar nature of diamonds comes into play over time. While as time progresses consumer goods such as electronic appliances or cars keep losing value, diamonds actually increase it. This means that customers are able to enjoy diamond jewellery and be reassured that, after the initial price drop, its value will only increase over time. If they want, customers can buy diamonds as an investment, but the best way to do it is relying on specialised diamond investment companies rather than venturing into this sort of business without sufficient knowledge.

Synthetics also represent a great source of confusion and misinformation. As fraudulent schemes are uncovered almost monthly in both specialised and generic press, consumer confidence decreases, prompting them to requests extra reassurances when buying diamond jewellery. At times, retailers can have a hard time providing those guarantees. While large stones should always be accompanied by a certificate, small (.2 to .4 points) and melee stones may present a challenge in that it is harder to trace their provenience. Retailers must therefore be able to explain their customers the actual proportions of the synthetic scandal, which is rather modest. In 2015 around 350,000 carats of synthetics diamonds were produced, against the 127 million carats of natural diamond extracted during the same period. Most of these 350,000 carats of synthetics are used for industrial purposes or sold as genuine hand-made diamonds for jewellery. Of the few diamonds that were mixed by fraudsters with naturals, most have been actually discovered, which explains why we know about them. The risk of synthetics actually making it to the end of the chain is therefore extremely low and limited to small stones, and it can be further reduced by relying on trusted suppliers.

Concerns regarding the presence of blood diamonds inside the pipeline have dwindled compared to the last decade, but today the public is extremely aware of the problem and wants precise reassurances. While the Kimberley Process provides sufficient guarantees, its intricate mechanisms can cause a lot of confusion. It is not rare for retailers to deal with customers who refuse to buy a diamond if that does not come with a conflict-free certificate. This is nonsense, but retailers must be able to explain with extreme clarity why. In particular, they should be able to explain that the KP is used to prevent parcels of rough diamonds from entering the pipeline before they are cut and polished and that therefore there is no need for guaranteeing every single polished stone. In addition, retailers should also be able to show customers the other face of the medal, explaining them that today diamonds provide means of sustenance to around 1.5 million people globally. Most mining companies have been developing serious CSR policies and today they are building houses, schools and facilities, as well as providing healthcare to the thousands of people they employ.

These are but few examples of concerns which are generated by simplistic or misleading information on diamonds. In ordered to address these concerns in an effective way, retailers are required to have a deeper, comprehensive knowledge of the diamond industry than ever before. This is a burden that they should not carry alone, and today there are several initiatives aimed at supporting them. It is worth remembering CIBJOs Blue Book on Diamonds, the 2015 ISO standard 18323 aimed at reinforcing consumer confidence in the diamond industry, and the efforts and resources made available by the World Diamond Mark for diamond jewellery retailers.

Matteo Butera, Rough&Polished




The World Diamond Congress is the most important forum of the global diamond industry, which, in the words of Ernie Blom, President of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB), gives its participants an opportunity to express their views on the problems facing the industry. We will be discussing how to create sustainable, long-term growth in the diamond supply pipeline, while bearing in mind the need for transparency, the highest levels of ethical behaviour and corporate social responsibility, he said in the run-up to the congress. We also want to advance across-the-board support for generic marketing of diamonds via the WFDB's World Diamond Mark initiative and to create stronger links with the Diamond Producers Association. Alex Popov, Chairman of the World Diamond Mark Foundation (WDM) while sitting for an interview with Rough & Polished told about the issues to be raised at the Congress and about the work done by the WDM and its plans for the future.

The 37th World Diamond Congress opening in Dubai announced transparency, responsibility and sustainability as the main themes to be discussed. Why are these issues highlighted by the diamond industry these days?

There are objective reasons for this. The first is that we have a banking crisis on our hands in the diamond supply pipeline. It is no secret that banks and other financial institutions have been reducing their credit extension to the diamond industry. Unfortunately, not all players involved in the industry, including diamond bourses, diamond manufacturers and diamond traders have been struggling to adjust to these fundamental changes. So the level of uncertainty is high, and on top of funding problems, we've also seen a number of bankruptcies and ensuing bad debts. I think it is the first time that the industry is facing across-the-board financial troubles in such a short period of time.

In addition, international law enforcement agencies also have been displaying an interest in the diamond industry and trade. The financial industry is taking note of this as for them transparency is now more important than ever before. It should be noted, however, that a recent OECD meeting, which was attended by Louise Prior, Executive Director of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, took place in an atmosphere of dialogue, not confrontation.

So today, these are probably the most sensitive issues. They are even more important than marketing - because without sustainable funding, there will be no industry, and marketing will be of no use to anyone.

Another reason for choosing 'transparency, responsibility and sustainability' as the theme of the 37th World Diamond Congress may stem from the voices that opposed to holding the event in Dubai, and from the opposition, in particular from NGOs, against electing the United Arab Emirates as the chair country of the Kimberley Process. These two things are interrelated.

Therefore, the emphasis on transparency, responsibility and sustainability, among other things, also constitutes a clear message from the Dubai Multi-Commodities Centre (DMCC) that they are ready to discuss these issues, and wish to demonstrate that they are like all the others and keep with the best in the industry. I think that it will be to the benefit of all stakeholders to discuss these issues and come to some conclusion, taking into account the positive efforts being made by the DMCC and the Dubai Diamond Exchange in this direction.

The World Diamond Congress will be attended by the representatives of all leading organizations of the diamond industry, including the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, International Diamond Manufacturers Association (IDMA), delegates of major mining companies and countries, as well as by the World Diamond Mark. What will be your contribution to this Congress?

I should say diamond mining countries and major diamond mining companies have always been welcome not only to this Congress, but at every diamond industry event. However, it is the first time for mining companies to attend a biennial World Diamond Congress as members of the Diamond Producers Association (DPA), as this body did not exist until recently. Of course, diamond miners must be part of the overall process of change we are experiencing, and with their proactive involvement there is finally a chance that the entire industry will and can speak with a single voice and speak the same language. This is a very positive development.

Now let's talk about what the World Diamond Mark takes to the Congress. Here it should be mentioned that the Diamond Producers Association has set itself a task to develop a plan for promoting diamonds in the market. This plan will be unveiled to all on June 3rd in Las Vegas. I think that there is a genuine desire on the part of the DPA to cooperate with the midstream and retailers. At the same time, it is unlikely that the budget they allocated for this purpose will be increased, and even if it will, it will rise by a small amount only and will afford a very limited campaign to promote diamond goods. Ultimately, the DPA will have to go for money to the constituents of the WDM, i.e. the diamond bourses, as well as midstream players and retailers, since they make up 85% of the entire industry. This is where the World Diamond Mark may play a role, since the financing scheme we proposed last year is attracting increasing interest.

Meanwhile, the WDM has begun to raise funds for its programs and since we have gained some experience and know-how in this area, some seed funding for generic diamond promotion has been raised.

Obviously, you cannot build a generic diamond promotion program without a budget. The WDM recognized early that it needed to put in place a sustainable funding system, if not a self-funding system, by which we can generate proper and continuous financing for diamond promotion in the world market.

Mining companies, sightholders and diamond bourses can only offer a limited amount of funds for this purpose because, firstly, their numbers are limited and, secondly, they can allocate limited funds. It is estimated that on a turnover of $29 billion, the industry can allocate about $14 million to this program. With retail jewelers positioned at the heart of the WDM programs, we believe that we can increase and expand our funding by means of participating retailers, who will be paying up to $1,400 annually to participate in our programs. That offers great potential for exponential growth of campaign and program funding.

Could you describe in more detail how this system works?

Our program is called the WDM Authorised Diamond Dealer and it is based on the following premises. A reputable store selling diamond jewelry and willing to join the program must subscribe to the principles of the Code of Conduct, developed by the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, except for one item, which is arbitration (applicable only to the members of diamond bourses). After signing up the stores - until now we have signed up retail jewelry chains and a number of high end stores - they pay a certain annual fee, which is again helping to support the WDM's work! This is how we, also today, have a regular, albeit still modest revenue stream. The pace of new Authorised Diamond Dealers joining is picking up week after week.

During the past year we have done a lot of work to tie down our organizational structure. Now we do not live from one event to another as in the first year. We have launched several projects and they go on in their due course. Currently, we are creating two websites for consumers - Passion.Diamonds and Trust.Diamonds. These domain names make their purpose clear. We should have this job finished by September. It will be a portal, which will be visited by everyone who wants to buy diamonds. Our main goal is to awaken the whole gamut of human emotions related to diamonds.

It must be noted that we do not give the status of Authorized Diamond Dealer to stores selling synthetic diamonds along with natural diamonds. That is our decision. We will not promote stores that sell synthetics.

What are the tangible benefits given to a store, which becomes an Authorised Diamond Dealer?

Such a store receives from us the so-called Blue Box, which contains all the attributes indicating that this store has turned into an Authorised Diamond Dealer. In addition, we teach its staff how to sell diamonds by means of a free-of-charge training course offered by HRD Antwerp. The Authorised Diamond Dealer stores are listed and encouraged to advertise themselves on the above mentioned websites. But the most important and remunerative thing about it for the store is that it is approved by the World Federation of Diamond Bourses as a retail business worthy for selling diamonds to the consumer. In essence, the certificate of Authorised Diamond Dealer is a certificate of trust.

Are you going to tell about this at the Congress in Dubai?

Firstly, I will tell that we have come of age and now stand on our own feet. Secondly, I will tell about the tremendous positive feedback that had been generated by activities on the social networks. We conducted several experiments in different countries launching four small ads on the Facebook  about the Authorised Diamond Dealer program, about trusts and so on. In a matter of ten days, these ads were seen by 774,000 people. I did not believe my eyes. But it is a fact. Traffic on our website went up six-fold.

What does this mean? This proves that people are interested in diamonds. Please note that these were not business visitors, these were ordinary people  consumers! This experiment cost us just $1,300. For this money we have received something for which people pay a lot more spending funds on advertising. We make all this available to our authorised diamond dealers. We also give them free images to advertise their goods, because not every store has enough money for this purpose. Further on, as soon as we will have a small but critical mass of stores within our program, we will provide them with special contracts from companies offering services to the diamond industry, including credit card businesses, banks, logistic companies, exhibitions, mass media and so on.

In addition, we are currently working on the creation of a diamond museum. This project will be launched during the 37th World Diamond Congress in Dubai. Our museum will be called The Facets of Mankind.

What is the objective of this project? There are about five hundred big-league diamonds currently known to the world that are of interest to people due to their fascinating history. At the same time, there are about two thousand pieces of diamond jewelry of the same cultural and historical or emotional level. We need to photograph and describe all these stones and jewelry pieces. This will be an audio-visual museum located in the cloud.

After all, a lot of information about diamonds is hidden from people. It often happens that we know very little either about a special diamond or about its owner. The photos will be high-quality and three-dimensional, so that one can look at the stone from all sides. The process of selecting exhibits for this museum is endless, and the museum will exist forever. But to expose all this on the Internet is not enough. In addition, we are creating a traveling exhibition, which will be moved from country to country and hosted by the world's major museums. The exhibition will display rough diamonds, polished diamonds and jewelry, which are of interest to a particular region. This program will appeal to everyone, no matter where they are, and will be an ongoing effort.

It is not the first time that financing of the diamond industry is discussed at the World Diamond Congress, but now these issues will be given special attention. Do you think the industry will be able to find common language with banks leaving it these days?

Banks are not leaving the industry out of fear. They have plenty of money to work with the industry. But today, the industry does not meet the requirements of banks. After the recent downturn, the banking system underwent great transformation in terms of transparency and reporting, taking into account the requirements adopted within the banking regulatory framework in Basel.

Banks are now demanding full accountability and transparency from their clients. And our industry is not entirely ready for it. Take, for instance, compliance with banking procedures, which many diamond market players do not yet know how to cope with. And the task of the WFDB is to ensure that diamantaires understand this and act transparently in relation to themselves and to banks. This is a very serious issue, and it will be widely discussed at the Congress.

Vladimir Malakhov, Rough&Polished




(Interfax)  The Finance Ministry of Russia will purchase diamonds worth 5 billion rubles in 2016, said Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev. He added that 7 billion rubles out of 12 billion rubles from Gokhran's 2016 budget will be used to buy precious metals, but right now they remain in the reserve.

"Right now the government plans (to purchase precious metals worth) 7 billion billion rubles to replenish the State Fund. The total amount of financing for that is 12 billion rubles. The decision was made to purchase diamonds, but not precious metals yet."

ALROSA previously expressed the possibility of diamond purchases by the Gokhran.

The latter hadn't bought any diamonds from ALROSA after 2008-2009. Meanwhile, when the diamond producer's sales were down 30 percent late last year due to sluggish demand, it expressed the possibility of rough diamonds sales to Gokhran in 2016. This possibility was confirmed by Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev, ALROSA's state supervisor and presidential envoy in the Far Eastern Federal District.

Gokhran purchases diamonds using funds budgeted for the replenishment of precious metals and precious stones in its stocks. It plans to spend 11.962 billion rubles for this purpose in 2016.




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Representatives of The Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) and the Bharat Diamond Bourse (BDB) met with a US delegation led by Andrew Keller, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counter Threat Finance & Sanctions at the US Department of State and including Ms. Jaime Moody, Foreign Service Officer, Office of Sanctions Policy & Implementation, US Department of State and Trisha Chilimbi, Economic Specialist from the US Consulate in Mumbai to discuss compliance issues, according to a report in gjepc.org.

Chairman GJEPC Praveenshankar Pandyas presentation traced Indias gems and jewellery industry from the time exports first began to the present day, when it has emerged as a pre-eminent player in the global industry.

Keller, in his response to the presentation, reportedly said he was very impressed with the development of the Indian gems and jewellery industry. He also spoke about the mindset of the US consumer. He went on to say that the millennial do not have the same attachment to jewellery as their parents and grandparents had. And the jewellery industry in the US is facing this challenge.

Keller touched upon another aspect of KP saying: KP has legitimacy because of its tripartite nature. We need the participation of Civil Society and we are working at getting it back.

Anoop Mehta, President of BDB, spoke on his experience with members of Civil Society and the need for dialogue. He told the delegation that at his invitation the RJC held one of its annual meetings in Mumbai and later were taken to Surat to have a look at the factories and interact with members of the industry there.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough&Polished




Botswana Diamonds said it is planning to raise 500,000 through the placing of 33,3 million new ordinary shares with new and existing investors at a price of 1.5p per placing share.

It said in a statement that the net proceeds of the placing would fund ongoing diamond exploration in Botswana, which was being operated by Alrosa, its joint venture partner.

Proceeds would also provide the company with additional working capital, it said.

We have a very active ongoing drilling, sampling and geophysics programme on our ground in Botswana. We expect this work to continue through the rest of 2016, said company chairperson John Teeling.

This placing ensures we are fully funded.

The placing shares, said Botswana Diamonds, would rank pari passu (at the same rate) with the company's existing ordinary shares of 0.25p each.

It said an application would be made for the placing shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and it was expected that such admission would become effective on or around 20 May 2016.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




Joyalukkas Jewellery received the Dubai Service Excellence Scheme (DSES) Award for Best Service Performance Brand from the Dubai Department of Economic Development at the Dubai World Trade Center.I embarked on my entrepreneurial journey in the UAE with a simple goal: to be the best and worlds favorite jeweller. Thanks to the visionary rulers of UAE and their dynamic nature, I was able to grow Joyalukkas brand to be, one of the biggest and best jewellery brands in the world. I sincerely thank H.H Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and the DSES for bestowing us with this honor and motivating us to keep at our path of excellence. I also thank our customers and my committed team of employees for their patronage and support in helping us make this happen, - said Joy Alukkas, Chairman & MD, Joyalukkas Group.The Dubai Service Excellence Scheme is an initiative of the Department of Economic Development to promote excellence in customer service standard in the private sector and recognize businesses that provide excellent service for their customers.
Union Pacific

The Federal Railroad Administration, Pima County Arizona, the Port of Tucson and Union Pacific joined in a ribbon cutting ceremony on May 12, celebrating the expansion of the port's rail infrastructure.

The Port of Tucsons existing intermodal container rail export facility is located in the city of Tucson, west of Kolb Road and adjacent to the Union Pacifics Sunset Corridor. Additionally, with its proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border, the facility stimulates trade and business relationships on both sides of the border. It also enables the regions businesses to access the Asian Pacific seaports through the Port of Los Angeles, Port of Long Beach as well as private facilities.

The $5-million project, funded by a Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 2013 grant, extended Union Pacifics Wilmot siding and installed high-speed powered switches to eliminate the need to slow and stop arriving trains. The Port of Tucson had already installed a double-loop track so it could simultaneously unload and reload trains to prepare commodities for international markets. Union Pacific has also added a new mainline switch to increase flexible operations at this site to further take advantage of the TIGER improvements at the port.

This expansion of the Port of Tucsons infrastructure east of Kolb Road will facilitate higher speed access between the Union Pacific mainline and the Port of Tucsons International Intermodal yard and provide the region with improved access to international trade via ocean containers.

The Port of Tucson is an impressive facility that is a full service inland port that services multiple steamship lines, warehousing services, transloading, cold storage, bulk and wind and energy components, said Wes Lujan, Union Pacific vice president  Public Affairs, Western Region. Most importantly, the port shares our commitment to safety, reducing traffic congestion and running environmentally responsible operations.
Japan will on Monday release April numbers for producer prices and machine tool orders, highlighting a modest day for Asia-Pacific economic activity.

Producer prices in March were down 0.1 percent on month and 3.8 percent on year. Tool orders tumbled an annual 21.2 percent in March.

New Zealand will see April results for its Performance of Services Index; in March, the index score was 54.8.

Indonesia will provide April numbers for imports, exports and trade balance. Imports are expected to fall 9.7 percent on year after sliding 10.41 percent in March. Exports are called lower by 12 percent after falling 13.51 percent in the previous month. The trade surplus is pegged at $100 million, down from $490 million a month earlier.

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Georgia has not been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, but the results of a new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll suggest the Peach State could be in play in a race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Forty-five percent of Georgia voters said they would support Trump in a potential general election matchup, while 41 percent favor Clinton.

Trump's four-point advantage is just within the poll's margin of error and compares to Republican nominee Mitt Romney's 7.5 percentage point win over Barack Obama in Georgia in 2012.

The results of the poll reflect concerns among the Republican establishment that Trump's controversial rhetoric could alienate some GOP voters in traditionally red states.

The poll showed Trump with a 48 percent to 44 percent lead among men, while Clinton has a slim 44 percent to 42 percent advantage among women.

Trump has a substantial 67 percent to 19 percent advantage among white voters, but Clinton leads 76 percent to 12 percent among non-white voters.

Independent voters, who could play a large role in the outcome in Georgia, are split 39 percent for Clinton and 38 percent for Trump. Another 13 percent said they would vote for neither candidate.

While Clinton seems likely to lock up the Democratic presidential nomination, the poll showed rival Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., performs better against Trump.

The poll found that 47 percent of Georgia voters support Sanders, while 42 percent said they would vote for Trump.

The lead for Sanders comes as 48 percent of Georgia voters have a favorable opinion of the Vermont Senator compared to just 36 percent for Trump and 35 percent for Clinton.

The AJC survey of 822 registered Georgia voters was conducted May 9th through 12th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.26 percentage points.

(Photo: Gage Skidmore)

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